Podcast: The Ride - Videopolis with Doug Jones

Episode Date: February 16, 2018

In the 80s, Disneyland had a teen dance club called Videopolis. Join the gang as they fantasize about going there, dancing to Bananarama and being young again. With special guest Doug Jones! Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/ FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Calling all teens! Today, a musical kaleidoscope of sight and sound. Neon, light sticks, fast dancing, surplus 1984 Olympics equipment, and bodacious sets from Swedish Eagle and DJ White Rabbit. We're going to the top! It's Videopolis on Podcast The Ride, a show hosted by three guys who believe people should not be judged by the color of their skin, but by their high score on Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. I'm galactic hero Scott Gairdner. I'm joined by space scout Mike Carlson. Greetings. And cosmic commando Jason Sheridan. Hi. Where does that rank on the chart?

You know, I gave myself the highest one, which is really selfish of me. You came up with that joke? None of them are the last. Yeah, that's my reward for thinking of the joke. And none of them are the lowest. The lowest is sort of if you just don't shoot at all. And you guys, you shot and you did well. Although those names probably don't reflect our actual scores.

I'm terrible at Astro Blasters. I always get the same thing. It's always in the 200,000 range or 300,000 range. My brother is amazing at it. You have to know the secrets. You've got to know the colors. Do we know the secrets, Scott? I think I just found one.

I got 100,000 in one shot. I feel great about it. I think it's the blue ones, right? No, Jason. Or the purple ones? Jason, no. There are unpainted, unlit targets on Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster

that you have to know where to look. And then you shoot, like when you go in that dark tunnel, there's a secret one against the wall. So hopefully the car gets, the best case scenario is the car gets stuck right there and you shoot it for like five minutes. But that thing will give you so many extra points.

Yeah. I'm very good at Men in Black Alien Attack getting the hundred thousand bonus by pressing the the self-destruct button. Oh, yeah. I've heard of this. Do you know also about the Midway Mania secret? No. No. What is that?

There's tons of them. I can't even I should have said secrets plural. There's tons of them. And we cannot waste our audience. No, we is that? There's tons of them. I can't even, I should have said secrets, plural. There's tons of them, and we cannot waste our audience's time anymore. No, we can't. We've got a lot. But there are tons of them, and you have to look for little things, and it shoots out, and it changes the whole complexion of the characters on the ride. It's crazy.

Really? Yes. Wow. Look it up. Toy Story Midway Mania Secrets. They're not even in the ride. You have to have an app. You have to start firing on the app before you even get on site. You stay up all night until you land at DCA. You're an actor and a writer and a DJ and a drunk history narrator and a video remixer.

But most of all, you're a big theme park nerd like us. And we're happy to welcome Doug Jones to the show. Hi. Hi, Doug. Hi, Doug. Welcome. At last. Thank you for that introduction.

Absolutely. You guys wrote an introduction for yourselves. So can I write one for myself right now? Absolutely It's only fair I am a 38 year old who likes to live life to the max Several X's in max I would assume Thank you

Doug you said that so loud we have to recalibrate our recorder Your booming voice Should I put the microphone Far away from you? Yeah, we're going to put it on a boom pole and then into a C stand. I'm so excited to be here. It's going to be really hard for me not to just be projecting loudly into the mic for the next five hours, which hopefully will be edited down to two.

If we can, if we manage to do it. In all seriousness, move it back closer. You're making me nervous now. Might not be picked up at all. All right. Well, yeah, and we're here. There's so much that we could talk about with you, Doug, but we're here specifically to talk about a topic I've been looking forward to for a while,

which is Videopolis. And Videopolis, if you don't know, was an 80s teen dance club that was open in the late 80s at Disneyland up near It's a Small World. And there's a ton of issues that this thing brings up, especially the fact that Disneyland, to Disneyland's dismay, Videopolis really opened up a Pandora's box of rowdy youth culture entering the park for the first time. And some of these negative elements remain to this day.

And there's a story that people have asked us on Twitter to talk about a little bit. I forget how much on the show we've talked about the Disneyland gangs. But there are, well, you wouldn't necessarily call them gangs. Social clubs, Scott. Please, social clubs. Yeah, well, you wouldn't necessarily call them gangs. Social clubs, Scott. Please, social clubs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there is a thought recently and a lawsuit alleging that some of the social clubs have engaged in more gang-like activity.

There was a story in the L.A. Times, or I'll just read their synopsis of it, that the head of one of these clubs oh well by the way if you're at Disneyland keep an eye out for big you know roving groups of social club members who wear vests with patches all over them in sort of a Sons of Anarchy fashion that's how you describe it right? Yeah many of them look like their favorite

songs probably have the phrase a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bamboo in them. A lot of rockabilly looks. Like the patches though instead of having maybe like a skull or a motorcycle it'll have Jack Skellington

on it or Captain Hook or you know like Tinkerbell with tattoos or something. Darby O'Gill and the Little People. And they got cut but they're cuts. They got leather or denim vests. Yeah, yeah.

The motorcycle gang calls them cuts. Oh, okay. I thought you were saying the word cucks. Oh, no, no. The recently relevant term cucks, and I was like, that's a bold statement. Oh, no. I wouldn't mess with these guys and call them that. Yeah, I wouldn't at all do that. I think just the hippest, coolest guy on the podcast has just shown us up as far as slang goes once again.

He's thirsty for slang. Yeah, I love slang and Sons of Anarchy lingo and all that stuff. So anyway, what is occurring is that, okay the head of one according to the la times the head of one of these clubs has accused another of using gangster-like tactics to collect protection money for a charity fundraiser at the park so there's a lawsuit now and i forgive me i forget the sides i forget who's who in this story but the lawsuit is between the main street Fire Station 55 social club, and the White Rabbits social club. And the flames of this feud have been lit by podcasts like this one, apparently. And I don't seek to add fuel to this fire.

In fact, all I want to happen is for all of these social clubs to just get along and make peace. And that's relevant to us as well, because all three of us, the hosts of the show, are all in Disneyland social clubs. Isn't that right? Different clubs. Yeah. We are in different clubs, and yet we put our differences aside

to come together to do this podcast. And that's why we want to just encourage peace between everybody. If you guys want to talk about your groups. Well, I'll go first. I'm not the head of the group, but I would say I'm sort of the vice mayor kind of a thing. We kind of have a whole hierarchy to it, but I can't get into that. Or I couldn't. I could, but it would take too much time.

But anyway, as a very prominent member of the Disneyland Social Club, Eeyore's Reason to Live, I want to say that these social clubs are not about anger or violence. They're about getting together with some good buddies, wearing some thick denim, some of the thickest denim that you can find, and growing a big beard as bushy and as black as it possibly can be. And just loving the park, having an adult libation or two, and just enjoying the time without having kids and enjoying it with your other adult friends. We can all agree.

Sorry, I was getting a little emotional here. At the end. I, of course, I started my social club. I founded my club. And being a subject of controversy in the community, of course, I founded a group called the Uncle Urvilles. Controversial from the start. Because in lieu of leather or denim vests uh we all wore terry cloth bathrobes with the sleeves cut off uh also controversial because carousel of progress has not been an attraction at disneyland in quite some time uh i was then exiled from the group in a coup

orchestrated by mike carlson uh much like he tried to snake me on our animatronic of the month poll. This is before he found it, held found Eeyore's Reason to Live. My current group that I started is known as the Jake Sully's. Again, controversial as Avatar is not a Disney property.

It is merely licensed for the World of Avatar section of Animal Kingdom, a land that does not even feature Jake Sully, but I like to think I was future-looking, future-forecasting, some might say, because that 20th Century Fox merger goes through. It's going to be big for the group. It's going to be big, big for the group.

Yeah, well, look, you guys have personal beef, and yet you've been able to put it aside. And why can't the White Rabbits, the Main Street Fire Station? I, you know, probably the listeners already know if you've explored certain corners of the park that I run the gang that hangs out at the very top of Tarzan's Treehouse. We're a Tarzan-themed gang, and we call ourselves the Edgar Rice Brozers. And, you know, look, I'm not saying we don't resort to some shady stuff to maintain our territory. You know, yes, we've we know people are messing with us. We have had to threaten to use baseball bats to play Phil Collins drum fills on people's kneecaps. But, you know, it doesn't mean we're actually we're just trying to maintain

the territory. It doesn't mean we're actually going to commit any violent acts. And overall, we're interested in working in a spirit of harmony. You know, and we're keeping up the motto of two worlds, one family. Yeah, and you guys also do public service, too. You stand at the treehouse and tell people whether they want to know it or not, that, like, look over there, that little teacup and teapot look like Chip and Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast. Yeah, exactly. Like, all day long, you'll tell them that little bit of trivia.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, we're happy to help. I think this is, I think we're all headed for, like, a really great, really great breakthrough here as far as, like, talking peace and stuff. I do want to just remind everyone, stay the fuck out of Critter Country, okay? Whoa. Stay the fuck out of Critter Country if stay the fuck out of critter country if you're gonna you know bring the whole gang there you can come in singles and maybe pairs but as far as the whole gang stay the fuck out of critter country why because it's your territory yeah your

reason to live critter country that's where our brother hey your is 100 acre where you're not wanting to lose any acreage in the hundred we always have a person or two in line to meet Eeyore at all times. So if any of our brothers or sisters want to get in line to take a photo with Eeyore. The council has talked to you about this. You can't go around making this proclamation. You know that. I respect the wishes and territory. I don't want to rile anything up.

I'd encourage you to let's all try to avoid profanity if we can. I'm sorry. They are family parks, even if none of us have families. My parents listen to this podcast, so they're... Is that right? They don't want to hear words like that. Oh, boy. Okay, okay.

Oh, boy. I'm so sorry. So there's one rule we all need to adhere to in these social clubs which is uh keep the profanity light i i uh i i find myself having to censor myself when i'm at disneyland because of the amount of children that are around uh do you guys also uh watch the lip when you're because i i i'm one of those people that like i forget where i am and lip when you're, cause I, I, I, I'm one of those people that like, I forget where I am and I'm, you're excited to be there.

I'm excited. Like, uh, when I, when you started recording the podcast, I was talking way too loud. I would do the same thing if I'm in line and I, uh,

you know, dropping F bombs and maybe S bombs. And, and then I, I, I quickly realized, Oh, I'm at Disneyland.

I've got to... It's easy to forget. It's so easy to forget. Yeah, I try to keep it clean. Yeah. I never have a problem. Because you're a good boy. Because I'm a very good boy. I will say I scold my girlfriend all the time about that. She's got the pirate mouth.

She'll throw the F-word around. And I'll say, shh, there's like a child behind us. And also, you're not in these walls, not between these walls. You shouldn't be saying those words. I also, anytime I'm at any park, I assume that there's microphones everywhere

and that everything I say is being recorded. Yeah, there have to be. That's fair. So besides the swearing, I don't want to talk anything about my personal life that might get somehow entered into their system i know it's a silly thing to yeah like it's been like recorded and used as walla in a film or something i mean you guys have talked about there's like plainclothes security guards everywhere like yeah saying like oh let's go back to the car and and get the drugs well that was a very they will follow you to your car a very funny back in story a few years ago uh that two people were in line for

going through security and were like talking about the edibles they had on them and a plainclothes security was around them and the picture published with the story was like you could see the plainclothes guy talking to like the uniform security guys once they had taken the missile and they just said like hey you can't let you in today you're not banned or anything but like take it off property today but the plainclothes guy was wearing the goofiest Star Wars dad shirt. Do you remember this? Yeah, they give him XL stuff from the gift shop to be like, oh, I'm just a normal tourist.

Cargo shorts. Look at me. And a Tim Burton Mad Hatter frizzy red hair. Yeah. So it's just him writing up a report on the little filled out notepad. A porg backpack, which I just saw for the first filled out notepad. A porg backpack which I just saw for the first time at the park yesterday and they

look ridiculous. The Yoda I was explaining to the person I was with that the Yoda the Wookiee backpacks are like a shrunken down Wookiee so it looks weird but the porg backpacks are like oversized like way bigger than a porg should be and that it looks weird, but the Porg backpacks are like oversized,

like way bigger than a Porg should be, and that also looks weird. I don't like either of them. It should be like a clutch. It should be a Porg clutch for like ladies, like a tiny little bag. And when you open it, it screams like the Porg. Yeah, that's a good idea.

Yeah, they're a little shrill. I think I was expecting the porgs to be cuter, and they kind of just scream and make a fuss. I love them. I understand why they have them wearing them, because a person with a porg backpack is the last person I expect to tackle me as soon as I exit the park. Yeah, that's a good point.

But anybody could have weapons and, like, fold out batons in their ported backpacks. Oh, boy. So you've got to be careful. Oh, boy. As always, we're talking about a place that we love that uses, like, North Korean-esque tactics to spy on people and prevent illicit substances from entering.

But you know what? It's safe. They're running a private business. Hey, it's private property. And they, look, the parks are great. Doug, you're a huge parks fan. I think we met for that reason. Yes, our very first conversation, I believe.

Yeah, yeah. I think there were some tells in some of my videos that let you know that I was a theme park guy. And then you told me about your, your excellent videos. The, I don't want to get the names wrong, but the, is it the Mouseketeers escape from Splash Mountain and the Golden Girls return to Space Mountain.

I could be mixing up, which is going. That's about right. Okay. Some, something like that, but you make these wonderful, like many movies that are remixed out of Disneyland specials, some of our favorite things.

These things you've done have delighted me over the years. Oh, thank you. Highly recommended to our listeners. Dante Fontana is your name as a remixer and DJ, correct? Yes, for EverythingIsTerrible.com. Right, right, right. Okay, yeah. And you've done, yeah,

you've put so much like wonderful Disney madness out into the world. Oh, thanks. And there's so much out there that's not on YouTube. Like you guys have no idea. Like there's so many reasons why your YouTube channel can get shut down, especially if you're a person

who likes to upload Disney clips. So the reason for the DVDs is to not have to worry about that. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You send people these DVDs in the middle of the year. And they're sourced from mostly video cassettes that either I taped off television or a soccer mom on the internet that I traded with

taped off television. And yeah, I amassed over 200 live Disney TV specials from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Oh my God. That there are that many. To make these things. There are. And there's so many more. Jeez.

Yeah. Truly insane. And you're getting VHSs's that have like commercial breaks and everything you're getting it as it aired oh yeah yeah oh all kinds of kasimi saint cloud commercials right for sure yeah for real my my childhood favorite uh the the target the target uh uh with arrows being shot at it of like, here's Universal Studios, here's Disney World, and here's Kissimmee State Cloud, right? The heart of the action.

Perfectly illustrated the proximity, why you need to get into the heart of the action down there in Kissimmee. Yeah, okay. But so you're, yeah, you're a big Disney archivist, a big Disney fan. You also, if we could pimp you out for a specific tale, you're also a fan of something we haven't talked about a lot on the show but the world of the chucky cheese animatronics slash the the rockafire explosion the showbiz pizza yes i think also something we talked about the first

time that we spoke and you've got you've got kind of a history at this point with the with the with the rockafire explosion yeah i i grew up going to chucky cheese and i had no idea about the rockafire explosion i don't know if there was a showbiz pizza in in southern california maybe not because if you don't know the full the the story of it yeah chucky cheese all the chucky cheeses were kind of there was a merger of two franchises. What's that creepy term? Like concept solidification? Yeah. It's something that still goes on today where they just do a cheap redressing. So the Chuck E. Cheese Munch's Band was cheaply, quickly, and thoughtlessly redressed.

I mean, sorry. The Rockafire Explosion was quickly and cheaply redressed as Munch's band. The current Chuck E. Cheese band. Current? Yeah, well, I guess the current band is becoming no band at all. I hear that there's only like one left in Northern California. Is that right? Have they all been?

Well, the band's been gone for a while. If you ever stepped inside of Chuck E. Cheese, which I don't recommend, it's awful. We are half a mile from one right now. We should all go. There's no doubt that all four of us have gone into Chuck E. Cheese alone without children. Am I correct? Can I assume this? I don't know that I've been in alone.

I went the day after uh senior prom with all my friends and and dates and stuff because we were not like getting a beach house or something afterwards and was for sure like all the signs said like must be over 18 or have kids to get in and we just walked right in no one gave a shit you know we were we had money to spend like we were we were hanging out for a while yeah we didn't cause mischief we were all uh good boys and girls so not as weird as a mid-30s gentleman i feel like for the last 10 years it's just they got rid of the band and it's just been one animatronic chucky cheese doing a radio show yes kids every kid's dream is to watch

someone do a radio show. The Eric Boghossian version of Chuck E. Cheese. Let me get really confusing here. I know that the radio station version of Chuck E. Cheese's is called Studio C. And we later probably soon will be talking about something

called Studio K. Let me just get the studios straight in your head. C is the Chuck E. Cheese version. But anyway, the original band, which is a lot more loved and fondly remembered, is the Rockafire Explosion, which was at Showbiz Pizza, not in California, mostly, where we both grew up. But so you've actually gotten to interact with the actual Rock of Fire explosion. There's a movie that talks

about there's only a few of these robot shows left. People have preserved them. There's three full shows in this country. And I was so moved by the documentary. I'd never heard of the rocket fire explosion before but as a disney nerd as a theme park animatronic uh obsessed uh guy my whole life it really

spoke to me and i had to i had to see the show it's very country bears-esque like in the look of it at least that's what when I saw the documentary the first time. Totally. Washboards, jugs, that kind of thing. Big bears. I did grow up with the Country Bear Jamboree. Or somebody at the park yesterday, actually one of the Country Bear walk-around characters

was at California Adventure in front of the Grizzly Bear Rapids. And I heard a mom shaking my head. Excuse me. I heard a mom tell her daughter, oh, look, it's one of the grizzly bears. And I just sank my head in disgust. I was like, yes, there is one of the grizzly bears from the attraction, the Grizzly bear jamboree

excuse me i have to go in the men's room and throw up i'll be back it's like someone who needs to listen to this podcast and learn a thing or two yeah um yeah no i grew up with the country bear jamboree and it's it's so much similar which i believe is also three stages three three like one main stage and then two side stages yeah uh so i i i uh i i had a trip planned to uh new orleans and i i rented a car and basically skipped uh Orleans and went on this trip to Mississippi, to a rural Sandy Hook, Mississippi, which is in the middle of nowhere, and found one of the guys who was the subject of Damon Breland. And I reached out to him via email, and he was very nice to let me drop by and watch about three hours worth of shows with him. I offered him money because I thought, I don't want to waste this guy's time.

He probably spends a lot of money maintaining this. Right. And he has the full show. He has the full show. Some people have pieces of the show that they bought on eBay. There's only three full shows that are running. The other guy, the guy in the documentary who drinks Mountain Dew, that guy. Who only drinks Mountain Dew.

Yeah, who has it in a shack in his backyard. Oh, you did not meet that guy. No, I did not meet that guy. Yeah. I met the guy who has the tattoos on his arm. Oh, right did not meet that guy. No, I did not meet that guy. Yeah. I met the guy who has the tattoos on his arm. Oh, right. Okay. And then the third guy who has the show is Aaron Fechter,

who I reached out to and almost went to with my most recent trip to Orlando three months ago. He really, really wanted to host me, but unfortunately, he said he had a timeline. He's like, email me in the morning, and I'll see if I can squeeze you in. And he couldn't. So, yeah. Is he hosting people constantly?

Is that what he does? Yeah, he has begun opening tours to the public for the first time. He is the creator, right? He is the creator yeah yeah of the rock of fire explosion so look up if you're listening to this podcast look up this documentary this documentary it's phenomenal it's fascinating it's it's it's it's it's as good as a king i associate with the king of kong it's not the same filmmaker but it came out around the same time and both of those documentaries just like blew my mind.

So yeah, I, I, I, I, all he, all, all he wanted in return,

I offered him money and all he wanted in return is, was for me to bring him a, a pizza, a cheese pizza. That was all, that's all he wanted. Like that's because it was amazing. Is that it's so,

I think you were saying that it was the pizza, like the nearest pizza place was like 30 minutes plus or more. An hour away. Much to my surprise. I did not know that. And I felt so bad. I showed up like two hours late. And people who know me know that I'm never late for anything.

I went on this wild goose chase. What was the pizza place? Do you remember? Was it a local place? Yeah, it was like a Domino's. But the closest Domino's was an hour hour this was in the middle of nowhere and he had taken like a gas station and converted it into a showbiz i mean it wasn't just the rocket fire explosion he had like original showbiz tables he had a original showbiz like likedie rides. Like he had decked it out.

This guy, unlike us, has children. But I have a feeling that it's like mostly for him. He probably hosts one or two birthday parties a year. He confides. I don't want to make fun of the guy because he's he's just like us very nice to make fun of him would be to make fun of me or any of you guys yeah well he he he confided in me that he has on a couple occasions slept on the stage which i would do like that's when i got my the day i got my reebok pumps like when that was just came out

i slept in them like how is how is that any different that's really funny i mean but the show is seeing it for the i mean seeing the documentary is one thing to see it in person was just i i i wept it was so it was so now i it. Now I get why people are so obsessed with it. The music's good. The jokes are funny. Like, it just, it's so effective, and it's so much better than Chuck E. Cheese. And now I really understand.

The first show that he programmed, and by the way, this is all, like, now I know it's all running off of Windows 95. Like, he took me into the back room and it's running off like an old pc which weird hydraulic pumps and it's so these guys teach themselves how to like like you know these this show takes maintenance so he's constantly having to like fix the hydraulic pumps and hydraulic fluid you have to acquire industrial fluids like and and there's so many little details that all like there's like a frog like on a lily pad on the stage and that

bops its head up and down so like if one thing's broken i think he i saw him like in as we were watching the shows as the shows were running and they were singing and chatting, he was going and making little adjustments. Wow. Yeah. Geez, really? And is he one of the people who's – because there's been a few music videos where artists have, like, worked with the owners of the Rock of Fire Exposure

to make them sing their song. Is he one of those that has customized it? No, that's Aaron. That's Aaron Fechter. Oh, it's always him. That's like the factory that once housed 200 employees. It's now just him. He's the sole employee.

They talk about this in the documentary. They had the only reason why he's still there is just these little freelance projects where people... There's a big band that did it. I can't remember if it was like MGMT or something. I feel like maybe narles barkley is yeah there and then i'm probably mixing i believe the rocket fire explosion makes a cameo in the key and peel movie which i've not seen but i hear that there's they like they get they yeah keanu like they they they they wake up and they're like being held hostage in a room that has the Rock of Fire Explosion. So that would have been terrifying. Not the one you went to, but made by the owner.

Yeah, I think he's the one who actually represents when the characters do cameos. They do publicity. He's their manager now. It's worth mentioning that Rock of Fire Explosion was the inspiration for the horror video game. Five Nights at Freddy's, right? Five Nights at Freddy's.

Yeah. Okay, okay. More so than Chuck E. Cheese. Yeah. Are you so into it that you know the names of the characters? I do now, yeah. Because I actually do. This is a thing I should know because I know Chuck E. Cheese characters.

But can you list just for my enjoyment? Fats Domino is the terrifying gorilla that is at the front and center playing the keyboard. And clearly when you see the purple monster munch, Chuck E. Cheese, he's clearly a remodeled version of Fats Domino. Crudely remodeled, much like the Tower of Terror is crudely remodeled to be Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Indeed.

Shots fired. Ah, sorry. I had to. I've been wanting to get that out for a week since. On record. If it's not clear 30 minutes in, Doug is, all our guests on past shows have been wonderful. Doug is definitely the one who has the same disease we do.

He's the same strain of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Slight variances, but ultimately the same overall virus. So Fats Domino is one. Yeah, back to the robots. Sorry, Mike. Beach Bear is on the stage right uh and he's got he's got like a bird uh uh uh that he holds and what i did not know until i actually saw the saw the show in person is that the the

the bird his pet bird also sings and and interacts and Uh, so it's like a bonus character that I did, that I did not know about. I see. So it requires his own separate maintenance. Yeah. And, uh, yeah,

the, the first show we watched, uh, uh, which, uh, gosh, I can't remember.

I believe the, the word magic was an entitled at every song. It was like, like the songs were so well themed. Like there was a Beatles, an all Beatles set. The shows are 15 minutes long. So there's an all Beatles show. The first show we watched was all songs

with the word magic in the title. Wow. Wow. Pilots magic, yellow strange magic. Yeah. And the bird that beach bear holds took the lead verse on the first song and i was like what i was like no way i was like like like that bird sings and then he then the damon looked at me he's like yeah the bird sings

like like i thought i thought you knew there was like i thought you were one of me i'm like like he didn't realize that i'd never seen the show before like is the sky blue right reaching under the counter i felt real yeah um uh there's a roll rolf do Rolf DeWolf. Rolf DeWolf? Rolf DeWolf, yeah. Earl Schmerl. There's Looney Bird, who I was just speaking of. That's the little bird. The little bird, yeah. Good singer. Duke LaRue, who's the drummer.

I know Duke. Yes, I knew that one. I knew Duke. Yeah. Mitzi Mozzarella is the female cheerleader character. Who became redressed as the bird.

As Helen? Or as Pasquale? No. The female character. Helen is the bird. Helen is the weirdest, most common name. Everyone else has a fun name, and then it's just Helen. Very plain.

Jasper T. Gels, Pasquale, and Helen. Boy, the- That's a Chuck E. Cheese character. We are certainly- This is a little preview of the ultimate, the seven hour- Chuck E. Cheese. Yeah, our Lawrence of Arabia will be about the Rockefeller explosion and the Munch's Make-A-Believe band.

Well, hey, look, you know what? We're talking tunes. We're talking music. Perfect. We're talking great retro music, and boy, if you want to hear some great stuff, you want to time travel back to

Videopolis at Disneyland. It opened in 1985 and finally a place where teens can hang out and get rad at Disneyland. Doug, in many cases, we are pulling our, we conversationally present information

that is ripped out of articles that we quickly read before recording the podcast. In this case, you literally did write the article about Videopolis for dangerous minds. Yes, and I have to, just like Rockafire Explosion, this is not something I grew up with.

This is something that I happened upon a year or two ago. I had found, I guess it first came under my radar when I found a Disneyland special called Disneyland Summer Vacation Party from 1986. A two-hour special hosted by Mindy Cohen from Facts of Life, Kim Fields, also from Facts of Life, Scott Valentine, who you guys might know from the Splash Mountain Rap. Oh, hey.

Oh, yeah. I performed the rap on an episode that's coming at some point. Really? I sure did. I look forward to that's coming at some point. Really? I sure did. I look forward to that. It was a blast. He was also Nick Moore, Justin Bateman's boyfriend from Family Ties. Wow.

And Malcolm Jamal Warner. So they're at Videopolis, and they kind of split up, like Minnie Cohen and Ken Field go off looking for cute guys, and then Scott Valentine and Malcolm Jamal Warner go out looking for cute guys and then and then scott valentine and malcolm jimora water go on looking for for girls to talk to and then meanwhile like while we while we go looking for girls here's a live performance from culture club or like miami sound machine you know uh and this uh this is the special that was uh used for one of the Everything is Terrible videos, right? Yes, yes, yes. So I cut... It's a super serious dance party.

It's 1986, and the characters are out dancing with the club goers. And so I cut out... I took the two-hour special and just only edited together the characters dancing with the guests. And the stars are from the original special? No, I added the special effects.

I love the stars. So it turns out to be 15 minutes of nothing but characters. Characters dancing. Like the Queen of Hearts dancing with a bunch of guys. There's a scene where a Miami Sand Machine is playing the song Bad Boys, and the big bad wolf gets pushed in the middle of a circle and starts breakdancing. It's just like, if you're ever sad or you want to cheer up, just watch this video.

It's truly something. I took some screen grabs from it because I watched it. It was fascinating. Two of the country bears are dancing at one point. And then both Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. There is a long sequence. Yeah. Br'er Fox really shaking his bottom.

This is what I call serious sweaty dancing, which is something that I miss. You don't see as much in the the if you go to a hollywood nightclub you're not your chances are you're probably not going to see dancing like this anymore it's going to be more like you know casual casual uh uh type of music sure uh uh you're not seeing like serious pop lockers no you're You're looking for skill and technique. It's becoming a lost art, unfortunately. Yeah, so I was showing this montage at the Ace Hotel

where I do a monthly projecting and DJing, and my friend Daniel Paul, who's a Los Angeles architectural historian. Oh, boy. I have to talk to this gentleman. Oh, my God. I've met him recently, and he's one of the most fascinating people I've ever met in my life. Wow.

His knowledge is incredible. So he looked at it. He's like, oh, wow, Videopolis. And I said, what? And he said, oh, the dance club at Disneyland in the 80s. I used to go when I was in high school. And my jaw dropped. the dance club at Disneyland in the 80s, I used to go when I was in high school. And that's, my jaw dropped and I was like,

whoa, but God, what the? And this, I kind of, there wasn't that much, there's not enough information on the internet. So I just started, and that's how me writing the article came about. No kidding. I have to tell that there's a story here.

I have to tell it. Now, if you, if your appetite is not already wet by the general notion of the 80s teen dance club in Disneyland, I think it's crucial to set the tone that we hear a little bit of the Videopolis theme song. If you're not in already, this song, I think, tells you everything you need to know. And here we go going to the top Minneapolis gonna make it rock

Minneapolis Minneapolis I'm going to the top Minneapolis gonna make it rock Minneapolis oh boy so

I gotta say I'm sure there's more iconic 80s songs but this song which has been stuck in my head for days since like starting to research this episode is like the perfect disney distillation of 1980s pop music yeah i know that this isn't true but it seems like that song influenced everything scott gairdner has made in the entertainment scott all of this is so much in your wheelhouse.

You know, I didn't know Videopolis. Like you, I was a latecomer, but I remember it existing. I remember probably the first time I went to Disneyland in 1988, I probably passed by the dance party in progress, but I'm three, so I can't go in there. But I know that we talked with Anthony Gio about baby brain. I know my baby brain locked into the distant neon so hard and the logo. Just like, if you're listening to this, please pull up some logos. Right now I'm looking at the 45 of that song,

which is like that sort of 80s squiggle writing with a big leg slash under it and a big purple triangle. And if you are familiar with Moon Moonbeam City the show that I Did like for sure that is me Just like well I gotta clear out the attic Of the old all this baby Brain stuff yeah I know that video

Had a lot to do with my like locking into Neon and Triangles and And you know Janet Jackson-y music here's the thing i like about that song is that it's it's very much the perfect kind of pop music single nonsense like the words kind of mean nothing like they may as well be singing to do ron ron uh yeah going to the top going to the top videopolis i've just been singing to myself for days gonna see what I mean

in that same Ellie Greenwich Phil Spector Brill Building fashion there's a lot of American bandstand comparisons to Videopolis because there was a TV show broadcast from there but I also want to say about the song

I'm a big liner notes junkie. I want to know every musician who played on everything, wrote everything. And I was, this song is on Discogs.com, which kind of compiles liner notes. And all you get on it is unknown, generic male singer. There is no one bothered to write down who sang the Videopolis song,

which is so disappointing. If anyone out there knows, if for some reason anybody, like it's your dad or something, please let us know. Let's give him credit. It was probably the guy who wrote it. And it sounds like he,

like this is a demo. This is the song that I wrote. And you could, when you find a big name singer to sing it, let me know. I can't wait to send you the track. Like, no, we'll just use what you sent us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is fine. We don't want to pay Bolton or whatever to do it. And we don't know the writer either. No, none of it's us. But thank you for gifting that song to us. That song, I think, really sets the tone and set the tone for my life. I also, the thing that I didn't know until recently, really sets the tone and set the tone for my life.

I also, the thing that I didn't know until recently, there is a wonderful video on YouTube that shows you 50 minutes of what it was like to be at Videopolis. Somebody just showing one of their nights out with their friends. A raw, unedited, one-hour home video of Videopolis from start to finish. It's just wonderful.

You couldn't fake. If you set out with art decorators to create a perfect snippet of 80s culture, it's so perfect. But I didn't know that they played the song at the beginning of every night, apparently. Yes, yes. That's when you knew Videopolis was up and running. It was when they played the themes. It's a club with a theme song. It's wonderful.

If you were to look at all the people wearing the 80s clothes and the music and everything going on and the hairstyle, if they were to show the art director of the Goldbergs, they would be like, this is too much. This looks too much. This is too fake 80s. This isn't really how the 80s were, but it's there. This isn't even a promotional video on YouTube. It's just like someone's home movie. Yeah. And it's crazy. It's unbelievable how much everyone was the 80s. The dance floor accommodated 3,000

guests. That's wild. We should say this is where the place now if you've been at Disneyland, it's where they do the show Mickey and the Magical Map. That's right. Which is a family-friendly little show. Fantasyland Theater. Right. Which was strategically placed.

They wanted to put it at a place that wouldn't interfere with the families. It was in the corner of the park. This is before Toontown, so there's no real reason to be all the way up in that corner, which is probably why I missed it because I was going to the park during this time. I would have been between the ages of like 6 and 11, I think. But it was kept separate for a reason. It was the back room of Disneyland. Yeah, yeah.

And the Fantasyland train station for four years became the Videopolis train station. So the party could actually start, I guess, when you enter the park and get on the train. Really? Yeah, I have a picture here, and it is very cool looking. Oh, yeah. They full on changed the station, and it looks very,

I don't know what the style, but it is crazy. They changed the train station. I can't even, I'm not know what the style, but it is crazy to change the train station. I can't even, I'm not sure I can look at all of this imagery and function. I'm like, I might go into an epileptic fit the more of these things we see. Scott has a little bottle of smelling salts and a mint julep close by. Should he get the vapors? Just keep an eye on me, guys. Much like when we talk about couches with Jason When we talk about neon and 80s stuff

With Scott They're both prone to too much excitement And for Mike it's Chicago style Italian beef sandwiches I gotta have my beef I should also say If you're listening to this and have never been to Disneyland, but something in your head goes like, this sounds familiar.

I have been to Disney World a lot. Videopolis East was an opening day club at Pleasure Island. No kidding. I didn't know that. Even less documentation on that. You can find virtually nothing on that. Pretty much, no. that you can find virtually nothing on that pretty much no I and there's in in the past are the much liked among us the funk land series I was watching

there two parts on Pleasure Island and they mentioned it opened as the Disneyland was closing yep in 1989 and should be mentioned that both of these were Michael Eisner projects. Old Mikey Eisner. The Videopolis at Disneyland was the very first attraction to be completed under Michael Eisner. His first order of business

was TTT. Wow, the thing he rushed out like Trump's immigration ban. Eisner ordered a cool teen dance club and he needed it done in his first well not his first hundred day but like a presidential order it was done in a hundred days they rushed this thing out they call it the hundred day miracle did it cost like three million dollars a lot of it repurposed media equipment projectors and screens and stuff from the 84 los angeles olympics that they got on cheap like at surplus prices yeah i've also seen it

reported although i i this does maybe isn't correct this might be a wikipedia fact that is wrong but i've also seen a reported that some of it came from the us festival steve wozniak's uh san bernardino oh wow concerts in the early 80s, which I recommend any videos of those. Legit, amazing, incredible bands, incredible performances. I think after the current Olympics, maybe we should look around and see if we can get our own Videopolis going. Get some cheap, discounted TVs.

You mean from Seoul? Yeah, yeah, we'll go to Seoul. Oh, okay. Yeah, we'll go to Seoul and buy all the leftover TVs. Hey, you want to go to Tokyo soon. Yeah, stop over in Seoul. Stop by Seoul. I think I don't have any concerns about stealing things from Korea.

I think that's a totally fine thing to do. When they find out what we're doing with it, they'll be happy. I think it's time to start talking about Michael Eisner's cool complex. He, I think, was very concerned with getting cool stuff into the parks. He was influenced by his son, Breck, who thought Disneyland was lame, and he wanted to jam some cool stuff in there. And let me say... Jam cool stuff he did. He really did. Well, and think about this. What a recipe for disaster it is to try to get rock music and MTV culture into your theme park. Think about any time today, there's a corporate impression of what the teens like.

It's usually a disaster. But if you think about it, look at this list. Alien Encounter, which we all agree we really like. Splash Mountain. Yachting Beach Club Resort. The beach. Yeah, yeah, hey. The Swan and the Dolphin. Hey, the swan and the dolphin.

Nothing cooler than those places. No, but as you look into Videopolis, I think Videopolis was legit. I don't think it was even like a lame corporate impression of a teen dance club. I think it was pretty cool. They did not mess around. They had lasers shooting everywhere. They had video crews taping people dancing and projecting them

on screen. So you would be, there would be music videos playing on hundreds and hundreds of TV screens and then you yourself would be projected on the biggest screen of all with 80s effects superimposed over you while you're dancing.

Man, you're the star. That long video, the whole movie basically, it shows how it starts. So there's an appearance on the video screen by K-Rock DJ Swedish Eagle. That's right, yeah. Which that was news to me as far as that gentleman. I was not. He's still on XM Radio Channel 33, first wave. Yeah.

That's great. Yeah. And he announces a bunch of 80s specific prizes, like Tower Record gift certificate and tickets to Oingo Boingo. And a GM car. A limousine that will take you to the concert. Yeah, you get prizes at this place. I mean, no one gets prizes at Disneyland.

No, not since the 35th anniversary in the prize machine. Oh, let's not forget the Year of a Million Dreams. Okay, okay. Let's not forget the Gift Giver 5000. Oh, that's what I'm thinking of. Every park wins, excuse me, every guest wins a prize upon entering the park. Wow. I did, I should retract my statement

because in 2014, Lindsay and I went to this special 59th anniversary celebration. We got a bunch of prizes. We got a paperweight, a little diamond paperweight, and we got fast passes to every ride. Nice. I got free mouse ears once

during the Year of a Million Dreams. I have Year of a Million Dreams mouse ears. All right, so I take it back. Disney gives free stuff all the time, so that wasn't a cool thing. Not in a while, though. Maybe more to APs, annual pass holders. Mike, when we went to watch the Oscars at the venue where the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln show happens, they put the Oscars on in the Lincoln Theater.

The Jimmy Kimmel hosted Oscars last year. I don't know. This might have been new. I don't know. But we watched Justin Timberlake's opening and Jimmy Kimmel's monologue. You should go to that. And I won the raffle.

My seat was called after lots of empty seats were called because there were lots of empty seats. What did you win? I won the Guardians 2 mixtape no you won the guardians tv show the soundtrack the cartoon soundtrack wow that's a very specific prize um people were i felt bad because i like you know people were excited yeah people like were very jealous and like like shot me dirty looks i think. There was some tension with the weirdos watching the Oscars.

Speaking of soundtracks, Doug, from your Dangerous Minds article, this was a highlight for me. Every night, Videopolis would play Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood during the fireworks show, which took place right above the dance floor, which that is great. That that's awesome isn't it it's awesome that's such an 80s sentence uh and spectacular view of the fire because there was so

little information on the internet when i was writing this article i believe i i picked up that tidbit from a youtube comment which i don't want to give away all my secrets but youtube you guys troll message boards i i troll youtube comments yeah because if you keep scrolling you'll you'll find some really really uh helpful uh little tidbits like that uh my trend of being the slang boy uh lurk we lurk okay we troll them okay we're not going like, you idiot. We're quietly lurking and observing. Firing shots is trolling. My deepest apologies.

I found a blog where somebody was describing that, okay, well, first of all, because Videopolis is at the top end of the park, which is where the fireworks still are shot off from, so you're essentially right under the fireworks as they're going off. And I saw a blog that described it as sort of a little scary in a way that like everything's trembling around you and ashes are falling on you it was very

intense to be right they closed toontown because they don't want people to be right under the fireworks but back in Videopolis days kids are breathing ash I've still gotten some ash like at parks if I'm too close to the fireworks. Going to a kid at Disneyland in the 80s, I don't remember them shutting off all of Fantasyland while the fireworks... I feel like that's a newer thing. Because now you can't even walk through certain areas of the park while the fireworks are going on.

If you're not interested in seeing the fireworks, it's such a, a nuisance. It's like you get trapped and you can't go anywhere. Oh yeah. They got to split parts of street up and whatever. Yeah. It does get a little annoying around that time. Yeah. I guess,

well, I guess also in like sort of the, uh, super legal world that we're in now, probably they have to block off areas. Uh, not then. Yeah.

Kids are high on firework fumes. Also, here's the other thing I want to say is the two uh frankie goes to hollywood two tribes i've never heard of that song i didn't know that song and what i think is really cool i didn't actually do you guys i i did so i i was gonna say a lot of this music uh i was born in 1985 so shortly after videopolis so a lot of this music my context for it and I do like a lot of the new wave 80s stuff was either like commercials for compilations

on TV in high school and then a big thing and I'm sure a lot of our millennial listeners will agree the Grand Theft Auto Vice City soundtrack the like multi-disc soundtrack of like 80s that's how i learned about like 80s pop music just got some good go west on there yeah yeah and two tribes is in there

so oh god yeah okay but yeah what i what i think is cool is that uh you might expect the disney opening and 80s nightclub that you'd get sort of like the biggest top 40 kind of songs. But like they played deep cuts from what I could tell. They played really cool, legit, like, yeah, it was not all hits. Like I feel like if today they said we're doing 80s night at Disneyland, you would hear girls just want to have fun. You'd hear like the relax. You'd hear like the top, top set.

But like this place had taste, I think. It's interesting because they've done... There's a thing, and this is another episode, but they did a show called the Mad Tea Party at Dizzy's California Adventure. I was hoping we could get into that. We certainly... You knew we would get there. Once we're done talking about Videopolis.

I'm sure we all have... This is something that we've all been to and probably have a lot to say about. I certainly do. And they had right before the mad tea party actually they had a different show that was called glow i believe all right well let's start if you want oh sorry sorry i have the chronological order you do you do the chronological yeah if you get it started this this this all came about it's just it's similar to the the disneyland story in 1985 where eisner's like we need to get team, you know, in the late two thousands,

they realized that California adventure was like a bus. Like, right. No one likes this park. We need to do something drastic. And some, some genius realized like, Oh yeah,

we sell alcohol. Let's, let's do something there. And, and, uh, uh, glow fest was the glow fest.

Their first experiment in doing something like this. This was in 2010. And Glowfest coincided with the debut of World of Color. Well, wait. Wasn't it Tron Legacy themed? That came later. That came later. Excuse me.

That was 2011. No, that came out by the end of the year because Glowfest was... People didn't like it. Okay. They hired a third party to make it, and people were like, this isn't very Disney. This is too adult-oriented. It was not successful. By the end of the year, Electronica was up and running.

There we go. Which was, you know, the word TRON, all caps, to promote the movie Tron Legacy. Which I thought looked cool. It was awesome. I remember being at the park. It was awesome. There's a lot of like clockwork orange style furniture outside everywhere. A lot of that blue.

Honestly, I think the visual look of Tron Legacy still looks great. The whole Hollywoodland section of the park was like projection mapping to make it look like the Tron grid. They had Tron characters throwing Frisbees at you. They had a stage show called Laser Man. There was an arcade. There was a replica of Flynn's arcade. They even recreated the facade of the building perfectly with the neon sign that said Flynn's.

It looked really good. With the Tron game right in the back, sort of with a glow on it, like, calling out to you, like, as in the first film. Yeah, it was the perfect time for people like us to have an annual pass, because I went to that thing, like, every other weekend. It was so cool. Yeah, and it was not

overwhelmingly crowded, usually, like an ante party. No. But it was, like, I think a pretty low-key underappreciated thing, because such a big change to California Adventure came right after it. I did think Electronica was a pretty neat idea. It was. Every time I'd go to Electronica,

it was when the whole first section of the park was completely under construction. So you were walking down like a tunnel of construction to get to Electronica, and alcohol was flowing. They had the Glowhedo. Oh, I remember the Glowhedo. They had the Digitini. For those who didn't drink alcohol, they had the Laser Light Lemonade. And then the Muppet Vision 3D Theater was showing a sneak preview of Tron Legacy.

With lasers in the theater and like the glow of the ships or whatever would be reflected with lights and there'd be smoke machines. It was like a 40X experience of Tron Legacy, which made you think Tron Legacy would be great. And it looked great. Everything was so well done from top to bottom. And then, you know, you wonder how you have all these kids and young adults and teenagers, and there's alcohol.

How are you going to monitor this? And they had so much security. To drink, you had to have a wristband. And if one of your friends took a sip from your drink, they would just swoop in swoop in like a hawk yeah and uh it was very very well monitored to make sure that you didn't have any underage drinking uh and i loved it i miss it well yeah it was cool like i remember it and it was cool um but then the next thing is the mad tea party right and the mad tea party i will say i do love it in a very similar Jimmy Buffett style way. I'd always want to go there.

But it is what you think of Disney doing something, trying to do something cool. It is a Disney attempt at being cool and hip. And of course, it's kind of lame. It's pretty lame. That is what you think Disney when they think cool. Mike and I were at the Mad Tea Party once. We were there many times. We went there many times because any time we were there, Mike's like, well, we gotta swing by the Mayette Tea Party. I would say we gotta get mad. That's what I would say.

We gotta get mad. And he would say it like we were running an errand. It's like, oh, I gotta stop by Target. Oh, we should swing by Lowe's. He'd go like, yeah, well, we gotta stop by the Mayette Tea Party. And I remember the one time it was a Friday night. We went down. He's like, oh, yeah, let's get some uh mad mad hitos or whatever the drinks were and that's correct i have that here in my notes and we mostly did get the cool glowing ice cubes which i'm still finding plastic glowing

ice cubes among my junk drawer stuff um and i just remember i could could see through the back of the stand, and I'm like, they're pouring these out of milk jugs. Like a gallon, if you imagine a plastic gallon of milk. They had pre-mixed mojitos in those that they were just pouring over ice. Mad-hitos. Mad-hitos. The other drinks were croquettinis and a mad Long Island iced tea. Those croquettinis would have a delicious chicken croquette floating right in them. I think there was probably croquetinis.

Good point. The queen, the evil queen. I see. There was not a pronunciation guy. People loved that. People loved the mad tea party. I remember getting my haircut at a... What is it called?

What's the rock and roll barbershop chain? Is it... Floyd's? Floyd's, yeah. Oh, so rock and roll, man. That's the coolest barbershop in town. I had a hairdresser there once and she had a tiny Mad Hatter hat on

and I asked, oh, is that from Disneyland? Have you been to the Mantee party? And she went, I bought an annual pass to go to the Mantee party. I go every weekend. Whoa. That's how serious, like how seriously the, the, uh, Mad Hatter hat became the new, uh, cat in the hat.

People were wearing them to, to nightclubs outside of Disneyland. It was a rare case of Disneyland fashion sticking outside. Oh, my goodness. And became too popular for its own good. They eventually had to shut it down because it became too rowdy. Really? Yes. That's why?

Yeah. Much like Videopolis. It's very, an oddly similar arc. Yeah. So you guys might not... The final piece of information to that story is that in 2015, as you may or may not remember,

Mad Tea Party closed and became very briefly and very unsuccessfully Freeze the Night a family dance party inspired by the Disney animated film Frozen. I don't remember that, I remember that. I remember that.

And it was, yeah, a big letdown. Now they kind of play music over there in that section, but it's just, it's not the same. It's not fun. No. Why do you want to freeze the night? That's not exciting. That's not a mission statement, like going to the top.

Have you seen kids dance? They don't really know what they're doing. It's embarrassing. For a five-year-old, the definition of dancing is usually just jumping up and down. Come on. Doing something you wouldn't usually do. Right. Yeah.

The only way you can screw up is by just walking casually. Right. What a joke. Don't even try kids when they announced that summer so disneyland last year had a promotion called the summer of heroes to uh talk to introduce the guardians of the galaxy and they were like in a guardians dance party and i got kind of excited because whether you think the movies are good or bad or whatever the music is pretty good in it so you get you could get some fun uh songs and i was like oh they're gonna a cool 70s, 80s dance party over there.

It's not what happened. They just put some 22-year-old that's dressed as a Chris Pratt character with a boombox, and they play like 30 seconds of ELO. And I was like, what? That's a waste. Put it over by the spot where you used to do cool parties. I'm hoping that, because they did, after Freeze the Night was a disaster, they brought Mad Tea Party back for like one hot minute

before it went away. I'm hoping that there's a sequel to Tron Legacy that they bring back Electronica. That would be great. That's my hope and my dream. Here's some blue skying for you. If they do turn that corner of the park into some Marvel stuff as speculated

and they get the X-Men back, Dazzler Dance Party. Dazzler-themed dance party would be something. Dazzler's Videopolis. Sure, you can combine. Dazzler wore roller skates, and she was like a singer, and like a disco singer.

Yeah, she was a pop singer who was a mutant who had like light powers. I think that's only gonna happen if we get the Dazzler trilogy of films. So if that happens then, but we have yet to see Dazzler in the movies. Man, these are all movies I don't see or like, but I want them all to happen just so I can get some. We're talking about a Tron with Jared Leto.

That sounds apocalyptically bad. A movie grown in a lab. Like a movie. To make Scott Gardner the angriest. But please, if we get that and then we get the Tron coaster in California or we get the electronica back, I'm all for Jared. Do whatever you want. Just don't play any of his music.

Is it safe to say that the Tron dance party and Videopolis are the two coolest things Disney's ever done? Disneyland, specifically. Disneyland, yeah, I would say so. That's a pretty good bet to say, I would think. Because Disney as a whole is, I think the nice thing about Disney is that it's not trying to be cool. So when it actually has hit two things that four of us think are very cool. A Tron dance party. They've actually sort of done something impressive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. The fact that people found this club to be legit is pretty impressive to me. I miss, for my childhood at Disneyland, the two-story Starcade when it had all the games you could ever want. Kind of gone, finally. Yeah, it's sad.

It got reduced to eight to ten games, and then the rest of the area merchandise only on the first. That second story has been vacant for 25 years. It is crazy how these corners of this,

the happiest place on earth, this hugely popular theme park, no matter how much money or how well the parks are doing, there's always going to be corners that just kind of like... Or big empty spaces that are just storing boxes of Stitch T-shirts. How is that possible? It's like the most valuable real estate in the world, and how do you end up with just an attic?

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I hope you've heard that we've been just being so upset about what's happened at Tomorrowland at Disneyland. That's another part of that, is just Starcade being empty. Yeah, it's pathetic. I don't like the the hd wells jules verne makeover which no i'll barely happen it's barely there yeah it's like they had something that they're trying to do and then they even abandoned that and now it's oh you know the

the the the uh the tomorrowland in in tokyo oh boy is is Tokyo is perfect. It's the time capsule. It's the Tomorrowland we remember from like 1983, that version. And nothing will ever be cooler than that. Honestly, like what I've seen of the building that the Tron coaster is in in Shanghai and will be coming to Orlando in a few years. Again, the look of Tron Legacy, I think, still looks really good. So, yeah, just cover the Anaheim, Tomorrowland, and glowing neon colors.

Yes, that will always be the future. It will always look good. It will always be the future. The future ever. Well, it's not really a current future. The future is always lasers. When will you learn it, Disney? It doesn't change.

Even at the opening Olympics, the opening Olympic ceremonies in Korea just happened a day or so ago. And there was visualization of what a future, uh, uh, Korea, Korean cities could look like. And a lot of that was glowing blue. It looked amazing. It looked so cool.

We were at the, uh, soft opening of Splitsville and downtown Disney watching the opening ceremonies of the, uh, the winter Olympics on the TV with the sound off. Wait, did it just soft? Oh,

is it soft open? It is. Yeah. I didn't even realize it was that far along. The bowling alley at Downtown Disney. For anyone who doesn't know. How is it? What did you think? It was fun. Great. Well, it's another

place to get beer at Disneyland, so I'm happy as long as it satisfies that. Full ball. They'll make any drink you want. Nice. Wonderful. While we're jumping around to Marlans, I'd like to say that the name Videopolis, in addition to Pleasure Island, also made it to Disneyland Paris. Good point. Which has the Discoveryland, the Jules Verne overlay.

And I got to go to Videopolis Paris, and I was curious if it felt anything like the 90s Disneyland Videopolis. But in fact, it's kind of a cafeteria, and all of the seats and the risers, people go and take food over there. So I ate my lunch at Disneyland Paris at Videopolis, and there was a stage. It had a bunch of big thunder kind of rock work, like big jutting out rock pieces. And I was like, oh, I wonder what show we're getting today and the show we got was the stage being empty and all four monitors quietly playing clips of star wars rebels which is kind of a nice little synopsis of disneyland paris in general and our disneyland paris experience as i i sat and watched quiet clips of a cartoon while eating the worst burger I've had in my life.

Very strange. There was a time, I think they did want Videopolis Paris to be a teen club a la Disneyland, but it was apparently canceled, quote, due to lack of interest from the public. So they never played music there. But they did do a show, which you can look up on youtube a show called rock shock um and i would describe this was they they did this in 1995 and i would describe the show aesthetically as being done by people who thought that the in-sync pop era was too tasteful uh uh it's a real it's a real, it's a real, uh, real nightmare. Uh, uh, and I, the, the description of RockShox on Wikipedia, uh, it featured a gang of teenagers journeying in the footsteps of Jules Verne to the beat of rock music.

It was a relative success, uh, which is maybe, uh, uh, I'm not sure I agree with even that praise. The, the, the opening, it's a 20 minute show you can watch on YouTube. I'm, I'll happily watch any weird Disney live show. with even that praise the the opening it's a 20 minute show you can watch on youtube i'm i'll happily watch any weird disney live show this thing it starts with mickey being brought out in like a little space rover and then uh trying to plant a flag in the ground and then failing and he eventually gives up and takes the flag back with him on the space rover and then a bunch of just teens flop around for 15 minutes and there

are no characters doesn't feel remotely like disney in any way uh so mixed reviews from me on videopolis paris well speaking of teens uh flopping around with no direction watch this transition ken let's talk about uh some of the clips clips we have seen of the Videopolis TV shows. Absolutely. Sure. They made a syndicated television show a la American Bandstand or Soul Train using the name

Videopolis. I also thought it was funny. They did not just use the name Videopolis, but they took another part of the live experience of Videopolis, the Snack Bar Yums with a Z, which was right next to Videopolis, but they took another part of the live experience of Videopolis, the snack bar Yums with a Z, which was right next to Videopolis, which offered pizza, ice cream, and nachos. Oh, man, the best foods.

I'm sorry you can't go to Yums today. But there was a part in the middle of when it got to the interview section of the Videopolis show, a big sign that says, Yums came down, and a bunch of teens all sat at tables and talked to that day's guest, which would have included, I believe guests on the Videopolis show

included Debbie Gibson, New Kids on the Block, and in the one that's the most on YouTube, Pebbles. Pebbles! 80s singer Pebbles. What are the Pebbles hits? Mercedes Boy. Mercedes Boy. Girlfriend. Girlfriend, 80s singer Pebbles. What are the Pebbles hits? Mercedes Boy. Mercedes Boy. Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Which is a wonderful jam. And the

interviews are so awkward and stilted. First of all, the host of the show, this guy Randy Hamilton, who's like a local actor. The squarest square I've ever seen. Square. Like late 30s. Yeah, he's too old. Why is he hosting the show? Yeah, way too old to be hosting that show.

And there's a strange thing with him where he comes out and introduces the show and hosts it. But then when you go to Yum's, he's on a TV monitor, even though you've established that he's on the main set of the show. Video conferencing was amazing back then. It was the idea that you could talk to a television was incredible visage through time and space this was that was so funny the the opening credits of the episode that like yeah there's a lot of clips of online just hearing the announcer go with special guest pebbles and your host randy hamilton and out comes a guy in the palest khakis I've ever seen wearing like a quilt like the bougie-ish

sweater yeah Martha's vineyard attire yeah he was just yachting yeah he was yachting another Michael Eisner obsession Michael Eisner wanted cool stuff and he loved his childhood summers in New England so he wanted to reflect that in the host of Videopolis

yeah so it's an odd show Pebbles is real dour she's kind of in New England. So he wanted to reflect that in the host of Videopolis. Yeah. Yeah, so it's an odd show. Pebbles is real dour. She's kind of, she does not want to be interviewed. She's very like Prince in her answers, I felt. Like when Prince was in an interview he didn't want to be in and he would just be like, I guess so. Yeah, whatever.

I did like in the interview when Randy Hamilton asked her, who are your guys? in sort of a proto mark maron hey who are your guys pep hey pebbles who are you are we good pebbles said bill hicks yeah there's a randy hamill i wrote down a quote that randy says to just this like unknown young dancer and he says this and i don't know if you guys saw this. I'm sure you did. He goes, ever since show business started, audiences love to see new unknown talent

get a chance at stardom. He mispronounces the word, or he's like being funny. I don't know. So he says, yeah. And then he goes, now being the swell guy that I am, he's like, I'm going to send this kid up,

and then he's going to become a big star or whatever. And then like a kid dances. It's bizarre. And it's like he either makes him i mean he makes a mistake he calls he says stardom stardom and then he like quickly corrects himself i don't know why they didn't do another take of it or he was being funny and like saying stardom and like thinking like oh this is a bad i don't know speaking of cumbersome transitions uh they they try to set up a song at one point in in in one of these episodes and he and his his line was uh after two people have been together for a while people start to take each other for granted and everyone is clearly distressed and confused and i believe it

was to set up a janet jackson song like. Like there's like 30 seconds of weird banter. And he was trying to get them to setting up this Janet Jackson song. They were all going to dance to it. Why didn't they get Scott Valentine, the Splash Mountain Rap guy? Or better yet, Mark Price, a.k.a. the guy who did all the Splash Mountain promotional, you know, like. Which stuff? Well, he was Skippy from, you know, like. Which stuff? Well, he was Skippy from, I believe, Growing Pains. Oh.

Ah! Oh, yes. One of your best clips. How do you like it? Ah! The guy who's going to ride Splash Mountain for the first time. Right, right, right. Before it opens.

Yeah, yeah, that guy. There were a lot of talented youngsters in the Disney fold. And they picked none of them. I did like, it's, Hamilton does a good job introducing the start of the clip I watched. Boy, there's an interstellar phenomenon known as a sonic boom, and that's exactly what this song is doing on the charts. This is Westworld with Sonic Boom Boy, a song I'd never heard of, but I enjoyed.

I'm glad we all highlighted different odd Randy Hamilton lines. Randy Hamilton is creepy, too. He's like, there's that clip where he's trying to get one of the kids on the show to dance with Pebbles. Yeah. And he's like, Pebbles, this guy's got a question for you. And then she's like, what? And then the kid doesn't ask the question. He goes, weren't you saying you wanted to dance with pebbles and then and then he's like yeah would

you dance he goes uh pebbles uh he's asking if you guys can go to the dance floor together and then she's like yeah that'd be fine yeah that sounds that'd be okay okay we'll do that when a disembodied man on a tv tells you what to do, I guess you got to do it. It's weird. He's very weird. He comes off so poorly. He makes you feel so uncomfortable, much like your dad would. Like, if you were at a cool place and your dad was there. Dad, please.

I don't understand what the issue is. Just ask the girl out, Tommy. Randy Hamilton should not have introduced himself as the host. He should have said, I'm the chaperone for tonight. I'll be keeping an eye on you guys. If my dad hosted a dance night at Videopolis and declared at the top, well, we're going to have a lot of fun. Won't be playing any of that damn rap, though.

I'll tell you that much. Who's the girl you like, son? I'll ask her for you. Where is she? Oh, yeah. Hey, Tiffany, get over here. My son's got a question for you. My wiener son's being a wiener did you do a little pity make out with him come on come on yeah be nice make him into a man uh what the creepiest host that we've

talked about maybe since the jurassic park guy who was the first man accused of gerbling uh who hosted the uh jurassic park opening special uh there's one to look up go back to our jurassic park episode of gerbil creepy hosts and gerbil back to that okay yeah now i remember okay yeah um anyway so we well there's a whole uh big before there was a tv show there had to be the dance party. But before there was the Disneyland dance party, there's a whole other wrinkle in this saga, is that Eisner, in addition to wanting to make the park cool, he also wanted to siphon business away from Knott's Berry Farm.

Because Videopolis opens in a rush job in the summer of 1985, partially because in the summer of 1984, Knott's is doing gangbusters business with two dance clubs, one called Cloud Nine and one called Studio K. So we're huge, like the first all-ages dance clubs anywhere.

Really? Yeah, they had huge DJs like Richard Blade from K-Rock. They're attracting 2,000 teenagers and young adults a night. Oh, my God. So, of course, Michael is like, we need to get on this ASAP. We got to cut into this.

And Nuts also kind of pioneered a different kind of ticketing specifically to appeal to youngsters. I think there was a special pass you could get. If you paid $8, you'd go in after 6 o'clock. You don't get the full day at the park, but to encourage people to go to. And Disney did the same thing. But with a much pricier deal. A summer pass.

Summer's night's pass. Summer's night's pass. And you got a Videopolis membership card for it. How cool is that? You could go every night for the summer after 5 p.m this cost would cost you 40 wait a minute the entire wait here i am talking about this past being pricey no oh my god oh it wasn't every night it was you could no no it was for you paid 40 and then for the rest of the summer you could come after 5 p.m. to all of Disneyland, not just to Videopolis.

If you told me for a summer now, this is going to be a pass, you get into Disneyland past 5 o'clock, and maybe you don't get to do all the rides, but you get to dance to Janet Jackson, nobody would ever see me again. I'd have to get an apartment in Brea just to be nearby. The summer's blown. I'm gone.

This was common practice in Florida, too, where you could buy half-day passes for the parks to get in because they wanted to get people in the parks. Now they want people out of the parks. They want people out of the parks. This is how they started attracting the wrong element, which ultimately led to Videopolis' demise. It was gone by

the late 80s because of gang wars in the parking lot well wasn't there also like a stage in tomorrowland where like local bands would play yeah that's still a thing still have that it's now the the star wars star wars jedi academy and for a brief time in the 2000s it was called club buzz meaning buzz light year but i think in the in the 80s, people would buy this pass and hang out there. Or maybe it was the 90s. They had a similar teen pass. I definitely remember cool stuff happening at that Tomorrowland stage. It's so cool the way it rises out of the ground.

And I believe that was maybe the 90s. Someone who grew up here was telling me about that and and like that uh also had uh some violence and then they shut it down but like kids were just hanging out there in lieu of the mall it's like well we could go to the mall or we could just go hang out at disney tomorrowland i wasted my youth my... My friend's ska band in the mid-90s opened up for No Doubt at the Tomorrowland stage on grad night. Whoa, wow.

Even back in the old days, they would have cool bands. They would have up-and-coming bands. Which they probably stole from Magic Mountain. Magic Mountain in the 70s had huge, huge bands, and Disneyland probably wanted to get on that. Disneyland stole everything from other people. had huge huge bands and and disneyland probably wanted to get on that that disneyland stole everything from other people and they kind of wait for other people to test the waters and then once

they get at work and they uh they have an example and they take it i learned from uh again the defunct land series uh on on video the episode on videopolis uh the the local attitude was that uh the rich kids went to Videopolis and everyone else went to Studio K. Studio K. A little wilder, a little more fun, it seems like. That is what it sounds like. And Disney did have to be a little more...

They had to censor the music. There's certain songs, certain videos they aren't playing. But it sounds like it was a little more all bets are off at Studio K. Studio K does sound a little more legit to me. And also, to go back to No Doubt, there is a quote. When Gwen Stefani was promoting her 2004, her first solo album,

she said, the goal was to make a record that had that feeling I got when I'd go dancing at Studio K at Knott's Berry Farm. You don't feel that anymore. Which is the album with, I like some of that album. That's got Hollaback You don't feel that anymore, which is the album with, I like some of that album. That's got Hollaback Girl. That's got Cool, which is a good song. There's like other, Bubble Pop Electric is a good song.

So mission accomplished, Gwen, I think. If you were making a period piece of that era, you open up on a shot with Hollaback Girl playing, you're immediately taken back to that time. When there is a 2000s coming of age film or show, yes, the trailer will have Hollaback Girl playing, you're immediately taken back to that time. When there is a 2000s coming of age film or show, yes, the trailer will have Hollaback Girl. The Videopolis, it seems kind of

odd that they would do something like this, or even they would do it at Knott's, but Disneyland has had a history of having people come at night and dance. That actually is a date night at Disneyland. It's a song that was made, and it was attracting couples to come and dance a song called that yeah it's on this uh disney compilation and it's like hey everybody it's a something something or just uh get ready to dance

and it's like date night at disneyland like it's an old-timey song and it's very fun but it's like this is a tradition and they've actually just been doing the new version of it every every i guess they haven't really done it in a while but they still have people go and do a weird swing dance. Yeah. Over in front of the castle once in a while. That's always that's always it. This wasn't the first time they did dancing and bit at Disneyland. My mother grew up in Southern California and she'd go as a teenager every weekend. I think there is a cover band that they would go specifically to see perform at disneyland and dance and then try to hang out with them after the gig and go on rides with them i mean uh this

was that disneyland and knots has always been a a cool way to date i i would i would go to magic mountain when i was in high school and we would try to meet girls that was like before you know tinder and dating apps it was like this is how you did it right and i still prefer this way it's like it's it's i still go to disneyland looking for for hookups not true but this is i mean uh it's it's they spell it all out in the uh in the special Disneyland summer vacation party. The whole, that two hour special, the whole storyline is about trying to meet cute girls and guys.

Right. Yeah. And that's, I guess that is just a, on the opening day, Walt said, this is a place for all to come and also to, for hot young singles to meet and hook up.

And where the, like where, you know, families can have fun together and where the ages of consent get fuzzy. Scott, you were surprised by the date night at Disneyland single, but that is now, nowadays,

you just make a Twitter account or an Instagram account to promote something. Back in the day, someone would just cut a single as advertising. That's when they would just be like, all right, we got a, I'm opening a hamburger restaurant. Hire those kids down the street to call it Hamburger Mary. Sorry, I was right.

It's Let's Dance at Disneyland. Let's Dance at Disneyland. I'll play a second of it for you. Ladies and gentlemen, it's date night at Disneyland with the Elliott Brothers and the Disneyland Date Nighters. Let's dance. Let's dance at Disneyland. Date nights are late nights at Disneyland. We're over to the clock rocks.

1 a.m. Friday and Saturday nights. That's your original Videobolus. Wow. Really? Recorded on Friday. Always been cool. Press it on Saturday. Sell it at Woolworths on Monday. Watch Tickets Skyrocket next Friday.

Rowdy, horny teens have been coming since the 50s. Amorous young people. Yeah, like, it does seem like Disneyland has always had, or, you know, I think maybe less so now. I feel like if you see a Disney band now, they're more likely to be kind of a hand-picked, they feel like it's sort of a more corporate entertainment, but it does feel like in the first 40 years

of Disneyland's existence. And I think, correct, somebody fact-checked me on any of this, but I feel like I've picked up from various sources, like, bands that played at Disneyland before they were famous include, like, the Beach Boys, the Jackson 5, the Osmonds,

all the coolest bands, the Carpenters, that kind of, like, bands, I think, that went on to be big, legit bands, it was a legit place to start and get their name out there yeah um yeah i also jackson fye's first gig in southern california golden horseshoe what not true sorry i wanted it to be true sorry just wally bow doing the teeth spitting gag for a young Michael. Also, I didn't realize they would have legit bands play at grad night at Disneyland in the 80s.

Yeah. Where they would deploy. This is like the high school graduation event at Disneyland. And now that's like a month-long event. So it would be impossible to book incredible bands for every night of that. But it was more limited in the 80s. And I was seeing people shout out on a message. I was lurking, and I found people saying, like, who played at your grad night?

Like, Expose and Zap. Like, crazy legit. And my favorite one was that Cheap Trick performed on Tom Sawyer Island where Fantasmic now takes place. Cheap Trick playing over the river. How cool is that? That is awesome. This is not quite as cool, but I think for New Year's two years ago, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy played in New Orleans Square.

And that's not a joke. Whoa. So they still have hot young bands. That sounds too crazy to be true. No, no, believe it. Now they've kind of shifted. I mean, Epcot every year has free bands play during one of the festivals. The Food and Wine Festival.

I believe it's called Eat to the Beat. Eat to the Beat, yeah. And then... The lineups are crazy amazing. I was there three months ago, and they have this schedule, and it's like the Pointer Sisters. Like huge names. Barenaked Ladies. Rick Springfield, maybe. three months ago and they have this schedule and it's like the Pointer Sisters like huge

Naked Ladies Rick Springfield maybe and then Universal always in Orlando does a big Mardi Gras thing and they always have free bands and theirs tend to be pretty good too like Jason Derulo is doing it this year and it's just included in your park admission. Yeah. Our

list of who we have considered cool bands at this point is so all over the map. Spectrum. Like, yeah, Robin Thicke and Jefferson Starship. All the coolest bands. Two of the four boys to men. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Wally Bogue's daughter.

Anyway, what if, oh, I want to shout out specifically the band that you were most likely to see at Videopolis on a Disneyland summer that played a half hour of cover tunes every night. Of course, everybody at home, say it with me, Donna McDaniel and Network. We all know Donna McDaniel riding high from the success of her film, Hollywood hot tubs. Do you, have you seen Hollywood attention? It seems like something you would have run into. Yes.

I've a video in somewhere in my garage as well as the sequel, Hollywood hot tubs to teaching. It's a name like teaching Donna or something. Anyway. Yeah. she would play. And I found an article that was, like, a little complaining in the L.A. Times about, like, you know, I don't know about this unsavory lyrics and this element, you know. You know, they're singing songs, and they clearly quote the lyrics of Jungle Love. That's presented as, like, the trashiest song. Funny enough, in that video, Pebble says she's going on tour with Morris Day.

Oh, hey. Morris Day ever hit the Disneyland circuit? Oh, that's an interesting question. He still could. I think that's possible. New Year's Eve with Morris Day in New Orleans Square. Sounds like a blast. I'd like to see DeBarge perform at the Tomorrowland Terrace.

That would be amazing. If they're still around. They are. They were making those rounds this past summer. Oh, no kidding. Because I feel like the scoop on DeBarge is always like, well, one of them was passed out under the freeway. They've had some serious.

Yeah. If you want to get the full scoop, I recommend the DeBarge episode of Unsung, which an amazing tv show i'll throw out there uh kind of like the the bbc produced uh version of behind the music i gotcha yeah but but focusing on uh the type of r&b and 80s one hit wonders that we uh that were never popular enough to get their own episode of Behind the Music. They'll cover it. Shouldn't be overlooked. Like The Whispers.

Wonderful band. The Whispers. Yeah. Zap, which is an amazing heartbreaking story. Oh, okay. Yeah. Did the vocoder tube get caught down his throat? Oh boy, it did it. Unfortunately. He was murdered. I found that out today yeah yeah Jesus sorry I just ruined your

podcast I didn't have a spot to bring this up earlier in researching for this episode I found a video videopolis I don't have a spot to bring this up earlier. In researching for this episode, I found a Videopolis. I don't know if this is authentic merchandise from the time or if it's a throwback pin, but it's a Disney lapel pin featuring one of my favorite versions of Mickey, 80s Mickey. This is casual 80s Mickey, not businessman Mickey. And he's looking real sleazy, this 80s Mickey.

He's ready for a night out at Videopolis. Pumpt collar, half-down eyelids, sly looking to the side. Yeah, I know. Hands in pockets. There's a lot of tells about this guy. Maybe if he's in the corner of Videopolis, don't go up to him. Looks like the villains in the wet hot American summer TV series. The rival rich kid camp.

Yeah. That's another interesting thing because a couple summers ago they introduced a version of Mickey at the parks called Hipster Mickey. Oh, God. I've seen this. Yeah. And he's got like glasses on and he's like very like nonplussed and he's looking at a phone and he's got like a backpack on. And every time. Wait, this is at the parks

you've never seen hipster Mickey no no no yeah he's like on merchandise it's at like the wonderland gallery he's not yet a walk around character thank god I'd smack that phone out of his hands look me in the eye Mickey I wanna get a picture with the Mickey who won't stop fucking with his iPhone

and reading a Tao Lin novel shout out to Brooklyn literary iPhone and reading a Tao Lin novel. Shout out to Brooklyn literary scene piece of shit, Tao Lin. I don't know. Current Mickey's fun and nice and all, but I don't know where he stands on Pod Save America. Is he a

fan or not? Mr. Mickey's much more of a Chapo Trap house listener, I think. Does he like come town? I think you're just putting your socialist beliefs on this hipster Mickey. You're projecting the socialist Mickey you want. There is no way that hipster Mickey did not pledge to the Sanders campaign. Hipster Mickey definitely donated to the Sanders campaign.

I don't know about that. He feels more like a hashtag resistance kind of guy to me. I'll be honest. All right. He was more of a hashtag resistance kind of guy to me. I'll be honest. He was more of a centrist. A mainstream Democrat. He was a mainstream Democrat. Anyway, so Hipster Mickey, when we all saw it on shirts and stuff, we all went, oh, this sucks.

And it felt like a new thing. Like, oh, look what they're doing with Mickey now. But obviously with this Videopolis thing, I think if you were walking around then and you were a grumpy person in their 30s, you'd go, oh, gross. Look what they're doing to Mickey now. And now it feels, again, I guess now we're learning that this is all just cyclical. Everything happens over and over and over again, and it feels like a new thing.

So, you know. Good point. Thank you. I'm trying to make a point about life. Like the stories of the Skywalker family. These same things repeat. Yeah, except that they cut off the Skywalker family in these new movies,

and it's not about the Skywalker family anymore, but that's a different story. We have to mention the Totally Mickey, sorry, Totally Minnie, which was a huge thing. Yes, that's true. It was the new, cool Minnie that they were selling around that same time.

There was a TV special called Totally Mini starring Suzanne Somers, which I highly recommend. I watched that together. Maybe not Jason. I don't think you were there. I think we had a wild weekend with a trucking viewing.

Just the boys. Watching Totally Mini. This podcast has just entered evidence in a court trial. Here's Minnie. Here's what Minnie looked like. Welcome back to Haunted. Yeah, Minnie was also susceptible to the 80s fashions, of course. But I think that 80s Minnie is cooler than 80s Mickey.

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. For sure. And 80s Minnie kind of, like, I feel like current hipsters still look like 80s Mickey. Yeah, for sure. And 80s Minnie kind of, I feel like current hipsters still look like 80s Minnie. We'll tweet out this photo, see if you agree. But I feel like it reminds me

of the recent Cardi B performance of Finesse on the Grammys. I might not know Cardi B's style other than when she was retro with Bruno Mars. 80s women's fashions are a lot more fun and and uh we'll come back around i feel like a lot more than 80s men's like wall street or like ralph loren uh uh polo wear uh which is exhausting well and men's wear is exhausting haiti like like the

hard hard slicked back hair which you only see make a comeback with the Trump children yeah they're such like it never went away for them yeah they're still living there they're living their father's youth the 80s never stopped yeah they're uh yuppies from birth um what have we not what have we uh missed well the uh I mean I guess we're getting towards the end so the sad demise of Padiopolis yeah well you know one thing guess we're getting towards the end. So the sad demise of Videopolis. Well, you know, one thing before we get to the end. So there was kind of the step one of controversy, which is the same-sex dancing. Before Videopolis opened, there was that Tomorrowland rise-up stage, as we talked about.

And in the early 80s, two young gentlemen were dancing with each other there and were asked to stop by a security guard. They ignored him, started again, then they were asked to leave the park. They sued Disneyland. Sorry, according to the Defunctland video, they described it as homosexual fast dancing. Jesus.

This is a long way. Again, we praise this place. We love that they spy on people. They use phrases like homosexual fast dancing. They are now a very gay-friendly park. This is a long time before gay days. And it switches in the course of this controversy

because they ban homosexual dancing. But then it goes sort of back and forth. It's in court. And then Disney's trying to pretend that that's not really why we're banning it we're banning it because like confusing then they said like according to according to i can't say the word defunct land apparently um they didn't want two women to dance because it would have excited the men too much so they're trying to do like some weird like work around to say no that's not why we're not anti-gay or anything oh my god whereas as all this is happening then uh studio k and club cloud nine opened to nuts which according to my research very gay friendly from the beginning like

legitimately a place where uh where like gay teenagers in orange county could feel comfortable and not get hassled and a lot of the djs were gay uh so like actually it seems seemingly like yeah knots was uh way ahead of it and cooler way before disney was um yeah so and then eventually and i in the defunct land thing it says there shows a newspaper article it says gays can dance at disneyland that wasn't their ad campaign no with. Tweety and Tweety Dumb. Randy Hamilton announced it on the show. Gays can dance in Disneyland. Okay.

That's what you kids are into. Look, I'll look the other way. I won't be there. It's not my thing, but whatever. That other DJ we mentioned being on the screen at Videopolis. Swedish Eagle. Yes. Swedish Eagle. Yes, Swedish Eagle. Also dressed very similar to Randy Hamilton. E-G-I-L, by the way.

Oh, weird. Yeah, I know. It's weird. Very confusing. Yeah. But anyway, so by the time Videopolis opened in summer of 85, they were cool about it. They had switched their

policy which is great um but then but they but uh different issues uh arose at the play at at videopolis um i'm not i'm actually not as familiar with this there were there was an incident in the parking lot uh like like they like there were uh gang affiliates several supposedly several high profile gang related incidents in the old disneyland parking lot which you did mickey and friends you have to do a whole episode about the old yeah yeah we'll get to that don't worry but uh yeah one involved uh like a 15 year old kid being stabbed to death it's horrible so that quickly uh went away. It is.

It is interesting, as you mentioned, Jason, that, that this is around the same time that, uh, uh, pleasure Island opened.

So I kind of feel like maybe Eisner took what the lessons that he had learned from video and, and, and, and, and brought it to Orlando. Well, pleasure Island.

I remember, uh, being at pleasure Island, uh, a lot as a kid. Like every trip we would go at least once or twice. And it was, I,

I, again, I never saw Videopolis, but like Pleasure Island was like secure, pretty secure and like pretty tame walking around outside the clubs. It was not all ages like Videopolis was. No, everything. Well, tame walking around outside the clubs it was not all ages like videopolis was no everything well just videopolis east was uh all ages well most of the venues were 21 and over correct uh at certain

times like i remember going to the comedy warehouse like in middle school and also too i talked a lot on the show about going to the adventurers club i could not go alone obviously i had to have an adult with me but But then there were certain ones, like I think, was Mannequins the one? There were some of them where it's like, no kids. Like, this is an actual nightclub. But I never felt weird walking around Pleasure Island. It was always pretty

safe and sanitized. If the Adventurers Club were still open, you could and would go there alone. Yes. I would just not be in Hollywood. I would just work there. I would go there alone. Yes, I would just not be in Hollywood. I would just work there. You would be a performer. I would live there in the building

and also work there. Is there a character that you could have played? I'm not familiar with the Adventurers Club, but if you had to pick a role to play... There was definitely an old man and there was definitely a jolly scientist that I probably could have played in my chubbier phases. So if you were auditioning, you could say, I also have a take on the jolly scientist. Or if I believe the general was an animatronic or a puppet of some kind.

Not open to casting. Probably not. But that would be ideal if you promise to stay there all the time and stand real still yeah they would have hired you and replace the robot for sure just to not just to lose those hydraulic oil fees yes i cost much less than hydraulic oil your normal oil is cheaper than hydraulic oil. Yeah, yeah. I'm a canola boy myself. Okay, so with gang activity and issues concerning Disney, they shut the place down, but obviously they kept the infrastructure of it,

and still that initial base of Idiopolis they built is the Fantasyland Theater. It was a Beauty and the Beast show for many years in the spirit of Pocahontas with a talking grandmother willow, a very impressive puppet. One of my favorite things as a young child, the Plane Crazy show as part of the Disneyland Afternoon Avenue promotion. I put on last night, a killer song between Fat Cat and Don Carnage. It was great to pair up a couple of the great villains. But anyway, I said that weird, but I meant it.

I am like, yeah, it's really good. It was cool to see them. But so that, yeah, that place is still there, and they've done a good job of folding it into fantasy land. But, you know, you can't help but miss what once was, and Disney's legit entry into cool youth culture. Yeah. I think they did a good job. I don't know.

I think it does sound like some people either you get a spectrum. Some people say not as cool as the Knott's Cl clubs, not as permissive as the knots clubs, but other people, it seems like had a, had a lot of great summers hanging out at Videopolis. We, we need to find some older us's that were there. Um,

so let's maybe in the audience at this point, there are a few older us's and they could tell us what it was like. Like, what was the cool, like, what was the scene? Like what, what,

uh, would you go to both? Did you get much out of your what was the cool, like, what was the scene like? Would you go to both? Did you get much out of your friend? Were there any weird details that he told you about the place? No. Unfortunately, I didn't impress him at the time. I had no idea what I was about to stumble onto. It was just something that was casually mentioned.

I've enjoyed watching the photo montages on youtube that people have made like some people have saved like 100 photos from the videopolis years and have uploaded them to youtube in the form of a slideshow with like 80s music and i find that quite delightful to watch it that and the one hour unedited uh take it to the top video that's on youtube duke yeah make you feel like you were there yeah and as much as possible and you posted as part of your article from that that long unedited video you posted like a set list of some of what was played a sample playlist yeah which as we said had some great stuff you're hearing pleasure principle and the dav David Bowie Time Will Crawl and Depeche Mode

it's a cool list yeah I don't know legit stuff I feel like they were actually letting these DJs play what they wanted as opposed to a DJ White Rabbit who probably had to have anything he wanted to play had to probably be approved

approved by five different people that's a real clear channel situation who probably had to have anything you wanted to play had to probably be approved in their gold boxes. Approved by five different people. Yeah, yeah. That's a real clear channel situation. I feel like this is probably one of the best examples of a thing we've talked about before where we do think about these parks as like an escape from the real world,

but they definitely exist in the context of their times. Just like the parks now exist in our current craft cocktail brew pub hell that we live in. I don't know why I said it like that. I like this. I like it. It is a little exhausting.

It is a little exhausting. As long as the thing I want to keep out of the parks is politics. As long as there aren't town halls being held at the fake town hall. Like Mr. Knott's used to have. Yeah, yeah. I don't want any pamphlets bring back the freedom center that's what i say uh but i i would like to say also i i would not only so you you were uh very cool to put that playlist of what you'd hear at a to transcribe what you'd hear at a night of videopolis and i looked at a bunch of other comments and message board posts to see the kind of thing that they played at Videopolis.

And I made a playlist on Spotify. Oh, wow. It's almost two hours long. That is what you might hear. Like, hopefully two hours to take you into the world of Videopolis. And we'll tweet that out when this episode comes out. That's a little gift from me to you, the podcast The Ride fan. Go disappear mentally into Videopolis for a little

while as I would like to forever. A lot of good stuff that we will have to combine our notes and tweet out for this one. The pictures and the marketing material is really cool. If we can't be described by words. Yeah, cannot. Not really.

We can't explain just how creepy Mickey looks in this pin. Yeah, and the wonderful Everything is Terrible videos that you are responsible for. Thank you. Absolutely, yeah. We'll definitely tweet that out. And hey, well, I don't know. With all

that being said, I think, Doug Jones, you survived Podcast The Ride. Thanks so much for being here. Any closing thoughts or anything you'd like to promote or make people aware of? Oh, everything is terrible on tour now. The Great

Satan Tour coming to a city to you. You're the first guest with a tour to promote. That's so exciting. Drunk History Season 5 is back and better than ever. Oh yeah, you were in Episode 2 and you told a tale that Bob Odenkirk

acts out. The tale of who? W.C. Miner, the murderer who wrote the Oxford English Dictionary. Oh, right. No, but he was actually a good guy. You'll see when you watch it. It's a great tale.

Very well and drunkenly told by you. Thank you. And yeah, please check out, look up Dante Fontana and everything you've done in the Disneyland remix world. You've made me aware of so much of the crazy, weird pop culture collisions that have happened at the parks. You've made me aware of a lot of cool stuff. That Pablo Cruz thing that I talked about for a while. The Pablo Cruz playing Worlds Away. I was in Reno, Nevada like two years ago and just wandering through the casinos.

And it was like, tomorrow night, 10 p.m., Pablo Cruz. They are still doing their thing. And Reno looks like Videopolis. That's a locked-in-time kind of place. Thanks for not changing. Thanks for maybe not having the option to change, Reno. Much appreciated. Well, fellas, closing thoughts.

We didn't rank the thing. Videopolis sounds... The only thought I had is if you work in Disney, I don't know if it would be Imagineering or events or something, that Hollywood lot is open. Why is there not just a bunch of Videopolis retro nights at this point? I mean, it's just where all you're doing is you want to suck money out of people like us, and you've been doing it so well. Let's suck even more money out of us.

Let's do the Videopolis. How much would you pay to go to Videopolis? 50? Because they do these ticketed events now, which are crazy, and you go, well, why would I do that with the annual pass? But if it was Videopolis, how much? Yeah, I want to say, I mean, my actual answer is like $70. It's not an incredible, I should say all the money in the world.

I could tell you I just invested $150 in a reservation for the Saved by the Bell. Oh, the Max. Saved by the Max, which won't happen until the end of 2018. That's the restaurant, the

recreated restaurant. Is that also going in next to Mendocino Farms, right? I feel like I walked by the build. Is it in West Hollywood? It is in West Hollywood, like Santa Monica and La Brea. Yeah, it's next to the Target. So then you're

right. Yeah. I think it's in between a BevMo and a Mendocino farm sandwiches maybe the rent was cheap there that was the best they could do noted cheap rent spot West Hollywood so yeah if Disney's listening we will spend

our hard earned money on something like that and looking down the line I'm telling you Dazzler's Videopolis if we get those X-Men sorted out it's right there in front of you. It's really good. I don't, look, I can't start thinking too far ahead,

but the idea of like somehow off of the podcast, you, Jason, being brought in to consult on Dazzler's Videopolis. I mean, if you go back to her first appearance and the Hellfire Club is trying to interrupt it and then the X-Men and Dazzler stop them and now let's get back to the tunes. I mean, it writes itself. Wait, so there's, like, stories unfolding

between the songs in your vision? Like, maybe instead of some DJ who's wearing... This might get cut, you know, as we start to look at budgets. Like, the Hellfire Club and their goons invading. You mean, like, Sebastian Shaw will interrupt the dance party? Because Dazzler's first appearance was in the Hellfire Club Phoenix stories.

Yes, of course. So, yeah. But she was a cosmic singing superstar. Eventually, yeah. Well, no, that's Lila Chaney. What? Lila Chaney was the interlocking superstar. Dazzler wasn't a singer?

No, Dazzler was a singer, but on Earth. This is too complicated. You guys, you're speaking Japanese to me. I don't know what's being said, but I like the sound of it. And whatever it all means, get it all into the park is what I say. If you want to hear all about us arguing about Dazzler, tune into the after show. Yeah, tune into the after show. We're going to end up with a dense network at some point.

On Podcast Network the Ride. Podcast Network the Ride. I've been seeing more and more Powerline World Tour t-shirts at Disneyland lately. I did just see one two days ago. So why not do that? He could come back. That's good, too. He would fit right in.

Sure. Boy, you start with the Videopolis song. You close with Powerline. Eye to eye. Eye to eye. Oh, man. You start with the Videopolis song. You close with Powerline. Eye to eye. Eye to eye. That's a, oh, man. That really works. They play that at some club at Disneyland.

Everybody loses their minds. Yeah. Is there anything else? Are there any other cool Disney songs? If those are considered cool. Eye to eye is a cool song. Like if you get an EDM guy to remix like some Anel Funicello. But there is that.

There's a techno version of I Can't Do the Sum from Babes in Toyland. Yeah, I want to hear that. Where's that remixed? Where's that plussed up Monkey's Uncle with the Beach Boys and Annette Funicello? What's this? DJ Khaled has remixed Monkey's Uncle? Feat featuring Mike Love oh yeah he's still around

he's there and his voice his vocals are heavily auto-tuned as it is they would never do that they would have to cut him in on the hat sales well look we're throwing a lot of great ideas out there and they're there for the taking we will not get upset if you use our ideas.

We will just be delighted. As long as we get to participate in them and enjoy them and waste our money experiencing them. So, yes, all that. And if you can help us achieve these dreams, then tweet at us at PodcastTheRide. Hit us up on Instagram at PodcastTheRide. Email us at PodcastTheRide at gmail.com. Yeah, if you're like an Imagineer and you want to go off the record, just DM or email and be like, here's what's going on,

and here's what I'm going to try to get Videopolis back. And we'll work some sort of shadow campaign with you to get this thing back. DMs are open, folks. DMs are open on the show account. For Jason and for the show account. And for me and all my personal account. For dating purposes. Well, we have a chance here to create the place to take dates,

and then you get to go there. Sure. Thinking of several steps ahead. That's great. Well, hey, everybody. This was a blast. Thanks for going to the top with us. I think we made it rock here on Podcastopolis.

Thanks, everybody. See you next time. Bye.