Podcast: The Ride - Woodfield Mall LIVE

Episode Date: October 25, 2019

Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus The Good Boys talk Chicago's many theme park connections. Including the themed experiences that have called Woodfield Mall home! With an exciting cameo! Recorded live at Chicago Theater Works, 10/19/19 One more Hauntcast: The Fright-The Cemetery Gate next week: https://www.Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

FOREVER! DOG! aliens colluding with U.S. presidents, themed cucumbers, and a house where Walt Disney certainly pooped his pants. This show will definitely include both Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi. Live from the former home of the Rock and Roll McDonald's, it's Podcast The Ride. Chicago!

Hello, Chicago! I barely made it up. Oh, my God. So good to see everybody. Oh my God, Jason from Mayor's Shirt in the front row. Thank you. Lots of shirts in the front row. You have made one before we have gotten around to making one.

Yeah, I know. It's on the list. We could have done this a long time ago. What's going on, everybody? I'm Scott Gairdner. Hello. I'm Jason Sheridan. It is great to be here in Improv City, ROM Country, Charniville, all the great heroes of Chicago.

Oh my God, yes indeed. Yes, welcome everybody to Podcast the Ride, a podcast about theme parks hosted by two huge theme park dorks in their 30s and one returning champion, hometown hero. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our third host from Schaumburg, Illinois, Michael Carlson! I'm coming home. Tell the world I'm coming home. I'm coming home. Tell the world I'm coming home. Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday.

Hey, we're jumping in here. At this point, we lost a little bit of audio because the Homecoming song kept playing. Basically, what you're missing at home is that Mike is walking through the aisles in a letterman jacket. He catches a football thrown by a member of the audience. It was very, very cool. He then turned around to reveal that his high school letterman jacket was for band and tennis. It was a great joke and everyone liked it. I also explained that I am staying in Mike's childhood home, specifically sleeping in his childhood bed. And now back to the show. And we saw the sights.

We drove by the old high school. You took me through the Portillo's drive-thru for a chocolate cake shake at 11 p.m. And I made a few discoveries at the homestead. So this is my favorite. It's an exciting new character joining the cast of the show. This is called Puppet Mike. Oh, sorry.

I assume that's fragile. It is a paper mache puppet for the listeners at home. Paper mache and burlap that is a puppet Mike made presumably of himself. Do you want to say anything, Puppet Mike? Oh, he's shy. Puppet Mike is shy. Oh, he's really shy. Okay.

Are you nursing him? He's just bashful. I see, I see. What's the story here, Mike? I think, I'm sure I made that when I was young. Yeah. Are you? I mean, well, the proof is you don't have puppetry on your Letterman jacket.

No. I wish. There's got to be people here who personally know Mike Carlson from his past, correct? Oh, yeah. All right. There's a couple. That's nice. Yeah.

Just getting engaged. And also, here's one more question. Is anyone here for the Chicago Podcast Festival and has never heard our podcast? Oh, thank God. Is it puppets of somebody you never met? He's catching a football. All right, we're among friends. Perfect, perfect.

Yeah, we also went to get a coffee at the cafe next door, and we walked in, and the person behind the counter went, Mike Carlson! Like, it was Cheers, and it was someone you went to college with that you hadn't seen in 10 years. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. She was busy, though.

She couldn't come to the show. She didn't make a point of saying that, yes. Yeah. My apologies. Yeah. The other thing I found, almost like on top of a pile of stuff in your room like waiting for me to arrive was a copy of the sasagula sentinel the fake newspaper you get when you check in at uh disney's port orleans french quarter uh and it was a 1997 edition and uh

some things have changed since then uh thank you for choosing disney's port orleans riverside or port orleans as your vacation destination in the gracious tradition of the old south we'll make every effort to ensure your stay is comfortable and relaxing uh and some of these establishments uh i don't the cotton co-op is not called that anymore and uh this bar is no longer called colonel's cotton mill that's also curious planning that they had two bars with cotton in the name. Also, this isn't 1910. No. This is 1997 or something. The 90s, yes.

I am happy to say this, well, down the road at what is now called Port Orleans Riverside, at the time was called Dixie Landings, the pool is still called Old Man Island. And that's just good, wholesome fun. Okay, that's good. And nothing attracts you more than a pool named Old Man Island. Which is where you're hoping to retire

in five years. Retire and die. A fun-filled swimming pool, a brim with all sorts of water delights. You know, water delights, the phrase we all know and love. Wow. So it's been an eventful trip.

Yeah. We're seeing all the sights of Chicago. This one old racist newsletter. Yeah. And a puppet. And today, Jason ate Lou Malnati's pizza. Oh, Lou Malnati's.

Yeah. So, that's good. Eli, do you have it with you? It's backstage. I was going to walk out eating it, but we were trying to get the Bluetooth to work. And you have it figured out now. No, I don't. You don't. Do you also

have my phone? No. Does somebody have Jason's phone? Does someone have my phone? Oh, Aaron's got it. Hey! Aaron, you're there, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Hey, it's Aaron. We've designed so many of the shirts a lot of you are wearing.

Much appreciated. I see that tiny puppets. I see that tiny puppets right there. Vamp for two seconds. I got it. I got it to work. It's working. You're the adult.

You handle the technology. You're Mr. Bluetooth. Jason, you're Mr. Pizza. You shouldn't have tried to merge the two things. I know. What do you think of that pizza? Delicious. Bluetooth. Jason, you're Mr. Pizza. You shouldn't have tried to merge the two things. I know. What do you think of that pizza? Delicious. Wonderful.

Still have to get a hot dog. Still have to get a hot dog before we leave town bright and early. We're flying out very early tomorrow to go to Orlando, which means you're going to have to eat a hot dog at the airport at 7 a.m. Would it be the first time? No. I'm not sure. I don't think so.

Jason, you had a little history you wanted to quickly talk about. Oh, yeah. Yes, indeed. So, you know, we found a lot of Chicago theme park connections. We can sit, by the way. Nobody's making us stand. Oh, that's true. Yeah, I guess. Let's sit. Hey, that's true. Yeah, I guess.

Let's sit. Let's settle in, y'all. Chicago Theme Park Connections. You might not think there's a ton. Walt Disney was born here. Walt Disney was born. I have the stat. I think six miles west

of this very theater is where a young babe named Walt developed his love for storytelling and exploiting labor. In a little house, he was born in 1901 in a little house that roadside America called, quote, unmemorable. Got him.

Walt's father, of course, was a construction worker at an early precursor to theme parks, the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair. Yeah, World's Fair. Where such things were introduced as

The Midway That was the first ever Amusement Midway Shredded wheat And cream of wheat Thanks Chicago Yeah And the first

Ferris wheel Mike can you bring up That visual Of course there it is The Ferris wheel The Ferris wheel Is from Chicago What

Clap more Yeah Ferris wheel Ferris wheel Ferris wheel is from Chicago. What? Clap more. Yeah, Ferris Wheel. Ferris Wheel. Ferris Wheel. The scariest ride. And then we should make you all chant the name of the person who invented the Ferris Wheel. Sure. That man, his name is George Washington Gale Ferris.

Junior. Junior. Junior? Yeah. All right, so everybody, George Washington Gale Ferris Junior. George Washington Gale Ferris. Junior. Junior. Junior? Yeah, let's see. All right, so everybody, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. Yes. Two's fine.

Two's a chant. Oh, you were gung-ho for three. I should have let you finish it out. Thanks for the enthusiasm, and thank you, George Washington Gale Jr. Ferris Jr. for the Ferris wheel. Ferris Jr. It's pictured here looking like a damn snack.

Am I right, folks? Yeah. Who knew Elias Disney could have helped build the Ferris wheel? That, of course, was, you know, construction was his job. His favorite pastime was being distant to his children. Now, Ferris's original plan for the Ferris wheel called for each car to hold 60 people and have a lunch counter. Oh, my God.

One rotation took nine minutes, and it sounds like my ideal form of transit. It's a thing that doesn't go anywhere and feeds you. Yes. Of course, the Ferris wheel opened two months late. It did not make opening day, making it the Star Wars Rise of the Resistance of its time. And like so many other things I first introduced at the fair, the World's Fair, like the Disney parks, has a castle.

Of course, I'm talking about H.H. Holmes' famous murder castle. A bigger initial pop for the murder castle than for the Ferris wheel. Yeah. The castle burned down, presumably for the insurance money at 1895. Who knows who got the money? Because H.H. Holmes had a lot of aliases. So, yeah. So that's got the money because H.H. Holmes had a lot of aliases. So, yeah. So that's the history lesson from Jason. That's it. And I am tapped out. I am done.

Take a risk. Go get that Lou Malnati's. But now it's time for Mike's History Corner. Yeah. So basically, I was thinking like, OK, what is the greatest moment at a Disney park involving a Chicagoan? Okay. And there are a lot to choose from and I've knocked it down to like, I think six or seven. So the first thing, yeah, I was very, very tasteful with my selection selections. Uh, so the first one I think is, uh, 2002 Jim Belushi plays with his band, the Sacred Hearts at Disney's California Adventure. This is counting down also. So this is still good, but it's the lesser of all of them. 2015, Billy Corgan rides Big Thunder Mountain.

If you've never seen this picture, and listeners to this podcast probably have, the poutiest pout. How emo could this... He's really... He's like an old baby. That's what he looks like. He is a grumpy baby. Fussy old baby.

All right, next on the list, we have 2003. Jim Belushi again plays with his band, The Sacred Hearts, at Disney's California Adventure. And then, yeah, next on the list here, this is just very cute, 1974, America's Favorite, Bob Newhart.

Oh, isn't that nice? He's with Mickey Mouse. And then next on the list, 2004. Again, Jim Belushi plays. Disney's California Adventure. And I made sure that I wasn't wrong about this because he's wearing different clothes in each photo. Yeah. These were three separate times jim belushi played now they got better as they went seemingly the quality increased uh it was something called like prime time week for abc uh yeah exactly uh so we have two more on this list uh does anyone remember this gentleman uh governor rod Blagojevich, former governor, obviously he is in prison. Tried to sell a Senate seat essentially, but anyway, that's, you can look it up.

So I Googled about five days ago. I said, Hmm, let me Google Rod Blagojevich Disney world. As you do. And this came up. Blagojevich indicted while on trip to disney world can you imagine they they harshed his buzz on a trip to the greatest place on earth the article specifically says like another a reporter tried to corner blagojevich and another guest was like hey come on man not here he hasn't been convicted yet uh my dad is a newspaper man give it up for my dad. Hey! Yeah! Yeah! He works for the Chicago Tribune and last night after I told him this, he brought home

like a couple printouts from, he looked it up and he found out which resort Rod was at. And just for your information, Saratoga Springs. 2009,

still pretty new in 2009. Yeah, so he was shelling out the big bucks, I guess, at the time. I wonder where he got the money from. There's no way to know. Yeah. All right, so we have one more, and I mentioned my father.

Let me quickly bring up my mother to the stage, who is also here oh boy so my mother may i've talked about my mother on the show a lot uh she this is her meeting hello hi oh yeah scott that's sc, you can shake Scott's hand Hi, hi So my mom is the reason I have this weird Disney illness Where, because we only, basically we vacationed In Disney World almost exclusively Except for one year when we went to Dubuque, Iowa

I guess we went to the Wisconsin Dells once as well Yeah Don't say it in travel I guess we went to the Wisconsin Dells once as well. Yeah. Don't say it in travel. Which are fun, but also I think both times when my mom was like, we're never going back here. So you were at Disney, obviously, as a child. You went a lot as a child. Not a lot, but I loved Disney.

Yeah. Unimportant clarification. lot as a child maybe uh not a lot but i love disney yeah yeah an important clarification so i got you know my my mother loves to perform uh she was in charlie brown in high school and you're a good man charlie brown she played lucy um so she was a performer. So when we were Disney Hollywood Studios, then MGM Studios, there was a thing you could do on like the main drag, which was you could make, you could set it up here. Music video. So I wanted to bring my children in, and our 18-month-old daughter was just crying and crying. So she stayed with her dad and Mike

and I went in and it was a very memorable experience, very exciting for us. And Mike is a bit of a ham if you don't know that. So he went with it right away. Well, you're going to see that maybe I wasn't that big of a ham yet. Well, surely that video was lost to time. The video was not lost to time. So it's been a thing my mom will pull out if a friend comes over for many years. And what's specific, I don't want to be too vulgar here. I have friends and family. But what happens when you're nervous and it's involuntary?

Something happens when you're nervous and it's involuntary. And you're a young boy. Yes. Did someone guess what it is? Some of you are very right. I'm extremely uncomfortable with this being said. With your mom here, it's okay. I mean, she knows this part.

She doesn't like this. She lived it, yes. So pay attention here. Even though it's being projected on brick in the room that we're recording this. We're going to step off the stage. And listeners at home, imagine. Ladies and gentlemen, my mother. Hey, Mrs. Carlson.

Yay. And listeners at home, imagine the most beautiful backdrop you could ever... You guys will see her in the room. Eyes on the lower left. The lower left. When I look into your eyes So much passion burns inside If you need some coaching I will do it

Step by step There's nothing to worry about Back to it on Golden Emergency Space Come on baby say you love me Five, six, seven, nine I am squeezing I'm just gonna keep on counting I am squeezing. Right for speed tunnel.

I mean, yeah. All right. I mean, that's the best of it. How about a hand? Young Mike white knuckling his penis out of fear. And like the way they edited the video, they like cut to the wide shot right as you realize what song it is. Like right as you're like one two three four it's miami sound machine right gloria stefan that's correct yeah sound machine yeah yeah um

how's that feel and now you're now you're back in your hometown showing this fine performance uh you know what you know you get older and you mature and i you know look i stay humble so that's just the thing about me so i feel good you know it's out there we're also gonna probably post it on youtube sure sure yeah it'll be out there because we gotta get those clicks baby and i gotta say you've come a long way because we've been out on stage for nearly half an hour, and I haven't seen one nervous crotch grab yet. I don't know. When we talk about what the official topic is for the show, perhaps I will get very nervous. Oh!

Yes. What a segue. It is nerve-wracking. What are we really here to talk about besides Mike's crotch? And here's what I'll say. Most people here seem to listen to the show. If you do, then you know that we are a podcast about theme parks.

But like, I don't know, like 35% of the time we are a podcast about vaguely themed shopping malls. And with that in mind, I'm really happy to reveal that what we will be talking about tonight is the true greatest themed entertainment

destination in the Chicago area. And that is the Woodfield Mall. What a pup. All right, let's... It's like... Made me nervous talking about it. The three of us walking around, it's like that video with Bill Gates

dancing to Start Me Up. Yeah, what were we... We couldn't decide if it was something or not, so we just sort of staggered around. I hope that was exciting. Electric stage presences. We really, yes, very secure, very self-assured. The Woodfield Mall, and you know what's crazy

is that we threw out that we were coming here to Chicago and people demanded it. It's got to be the Woodfield Mall. For anyone listening who doesn't know why, it has come up so many times on the podcast that when we talk about a store that we love, especially a themed restaurant that we love, Mike always says they had that at the Schomburg Mall.

We are really lucky here, you know? You think about it? Any locals here? Who's been to the Schomburg mall how about that what's the percentage yeah the woodfield mall i gotta correct myself but in my heart it's the schomburg mall yeah that's how i learned of this magical place for the first time uh you know how a lot of uh people uh sitting at home learned about this place for the first time is through a commercial that i love very much we might end up wanting to move our bodies a little more

when this commercial play. Everybody in the audience should. This is a hell of a song. It's a treat. Get ready for it. Just over product shots. No shots of the place. Could be anywhere. Men. We have it all. At Woodfield. Yeah.

Amazing. That is more a commercial for objects than anything else. No signs or stores or restaurants, like just little objects. Yeah. Do you know what ties are? You humans love your objects. Here's a lot of them. I'm a particular, if you can imagine that i'm if

i'm a fan of sports shuffles i'm also a fan of local mall songs and i would i have to unfortunately i have to say that's number two because number one is the yorkdale mall wherever that is real catchy yorkdale incredible but i'll we gotta look that one up on your own time but i was thinking i would love to do this just as a little call and response uh it just is here to teach you the song i'll sing the first part you sing the second it's we have it all at wood fields will be your part this may come up throughout the show so here we go oh we have it all's nice. Now we're cooking with gas. That's like a fun live show, and it's also like a cult, a weird cult thing.

Especially when we're in this ballroom where we came up from the back and like, hey, everybody, we excited. Yeah, yeah. It's like we're trying to get people to invest in Woodfield Mall. Yeah. But that's not, you know, that's not the case because Woodfield Mall is, you know, it's constantly being updated. It's, you it's it's a very modern place however there have been some recent troubles yes as you locals well know like a month and a half ago somebody tried to

drive their damn car into the place yeah no more than try they did it they drove their car and luckily uh nothing happened nobody even got injured thankfully yes uh because obviously that would be bad but then also we wouldn't be able to do it as the topic of the show yeah that would have been we couldn't touch we'd have to wait like years to do it yeah yeah yeah but being that uh thank god crisis averted but i do feel like the morale of the Woodfield Mall has been hurt a little bit. And we got to build it up. We got to get excited with things like that song. We got to remind them that we got it all. At Woodfield.

Nice. So let's go back. Let's learn what made this place, why we were so excited to come here and talk about this place uh uh what do you got slidewise well i mean slidewise uh we went there yesterday oh my god that's the main headline what am i saying uh sorry yeah so i don't know this is not the yeah that's good uh so yeah we'll start with uh we'll start with our personal journeys when it comes to Woodfield. Yeah, so, yeah, last night Jason, Mike, and I and my wife Erin all went to the Woodfield Mall. We all had a night at the

Woodfield Mall. Jason, as you learned, stayed in Schaumburg in Mike's childhood bed. Erin and I spent the night in Schaumburg at a hotel with a Nordstrom View room. Which is probably like getting like a lagoon view at Disney world. Yes. Yes. The optimal situation. Uh, uh, and you know, just to be, I mean, the main thing is to be, to be, to be in Schaumburg at all and to walk in your

footsteps, my, uh, delightful, uh, uh, you know, weful. You know, we get you pointed in the vague direction of the container store where you used to work. Who's been to that container store? Does anyone have a closet planned by the container store? Oh! Nice. We've got one. They went and

didn't buy. Maybe if a better salesman had been there to... Well, this was a long time ago, so, you know, I'm sure it's slipped since I've been there. I'm sure they've... Yeah, it's slipping. How could it deal with me leaving? We also, this is, you know, near the Woodfield Mall, but not really. But you took us and we had a one.

I'm just happy to say that I was able to go to the bahama breeze restaurant in schaumburg on golf road uh where i i celebrated the very solemn solemn holiday of rum tober um i had an amazing rum tober and there's a couple more weeks left so make sure you do too. So, yeah. So we went to Woodfield last night, and Jason and I got out of my mom's car that I was borrowing. Because that's what you do. And the trip ended, or excuse me, ended, it started with tragedy.

Fallen brother. Panda Express, two items and noodles For listeners and people who are blocking with our chairs what's on the ground? It is what appears to be the remains of a Panda Express two chicken entrees and noodles

And when we went back at the end of the night It remained Not even an animal Died with its boots on buried where it fell jason uh jason uh got his bible out in a shovel and he read the meal it's it's last rites and then we buried it in a pet cemetery yeah um so then we went into Sears and it's confusing because Sears doesn't have a logo.

Sears, I don't know if you've heard, hasn't been the best store for a while. They were running a promotion where if you spent $100, you got $50 in credit. And that is not really how stores are supposed to work. That is like a late, late stage capitalism

where like logic just is gone. It's a big if if Sears will even be there at all. And it's funny because I learned Woodfield is a combination of the names of Robert E. Wood who ran Sears and Field of Marshall Fields. And Mrs. Carlson told me that.

She was right. Robert E. Wood also started Allstate Insurance which Mike was in commercials for and I am a customer of. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Wow, it all ties together. Yeah.

Simulation. So, in case you were wondering where the Sears actual sign might be on the level that we parked at, which is the second level, it's behind some shrubs. I mean, maybe, I'm sure from some angle you can see it, but they should probably cut those. And then we walked around. I hadn't been in about a year or so. There's a new, a place caught Jason's eye immediately,

Stan's Donuts. A lot of fans. We did not eat there. But someday. And then we wandered around a little bit. We will get back to our trip sort of towards the end of where we ended up. I'll let you guess. Where do you think in Woodfield Mall today some childless men in their 30s would end up at?

I literally couldn't understand. I think I heard FYE. Oh yeah, sure. Which we did not step foot in. Yeah. Nor have any customers for a while. Yeah. FYE also looks like they're in the process of closing every time i've ever been in there but you know they've got funko pops um

well we'll get to we'll get to we'll get to the big reveal at the end um let's let's do some like vintage uh vintage would oh yeah let's see what this place used to look like back in the days of that commercial. Oh, so beautiful. There was a bunch of ramps and cool stuff, and then there was these giant crescent moon sculptures, which everyone was cooing about it. It's a little more boring now, and what replaces these crescent moons is like a big screen

with a tweet about where angelina jolie says she's been sad lately that's literally what i saw in the courtyard not progress go back to the moons yeah we also saw like the one massive like center of the mall was there's a lot of different vertical and horizontal lines and they were all covered in black and red Batwoman logos. And it was very unnerving. Apparently a cast member of Batwoman was making an appearance there today. Today. Did anyone go meet Camrus Johnson?

You could have done both him and us what a day um so yeah it's like a lot less fun like i do i mean everything everything mall-wise seems like it used to be a little more fun like these days very everything seems more practical yeah but they got those ramps those ramps and those sky bridges and there's the upper level and the lower level but then weird sporadic intermediate levels what what are you talking about it's like hidden levels in a video game incredible so if you don't know what we're talking about that would feel mall you know like most it has two levels there's two floors except on one part when they split into three floors but it doesn't go all the way around they just decided

to make the part with the mcdonald's a secret middle floor hard to like hard to find mcdonald's that's very short with a play place in it which is new i i'll be honest with you i was upset with it was upset to see that because i longed for a play place in that McDonald's as a child. It was only a place. The cool thing about it was you could get like sometimes they would test out pizza and hot dogs there. Yes, you know what I'm talking about? Yes. I want to say some of these facts, a section of the audience has been responding to with, yeah.

Like we had just said, like, you know, Christ is King. Amen, brother. Like, like it's a call on response. I mean, I assume most of the things we say on the podcast, people go,

yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Amen. Listening to a mildly interesting conversation. Yeah.

Munch, munches make believe band is really good. Yep. Yeah. Sure. Uh, but I think if we go a little bit forward, we start getting into the insanity

and the pop culture clashes that make this place so vibrant and exciting. Because the opening, opening day was a big deal in the 70s, 71 maybe. I could be wrong about the year. So yeah, so like when you open something, you want some of the biggest names of the day to open

them all like this and of course they got Vincent Price and Robert Goulet's wife and don't forget not one but two marching bands yes I can't remember the other one but the Conant marching band.

Hey! Hey! The mayor of Conant is here tonight. I went to Schaumburg High School, Conant Arrival High School, so nothing boils my blood like hearing the marching band

of Conant got to play the opening of this. That football flew right over his head he should have tackled you yeah that's true um so yeah they opened they opened woodfield uh uh is this a good time maybe to talk about some of the other celebrity presence oh yeah let's get in the history okay so many stars all your favorite stars have been to the woodfield mall not uh in october 1976 soon to be former president gerald ford visited the woodfield mall uh in 19 in 1976 also john travolta then in the height of his powers on welcome back i have found a lot of accounts of just mobs of screaming girls

following john travolta around uh Just like today. Just like today. Nothing has changed. In 1982, Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared in the Woodfield Mall to promote Conan the Barbarian, but it was very poorly promoted, so less than 10 people showed up. And Arnold casually walked away. Here, quick hits. Gabe Kaplan. Yeah, welcome also so much cotter wow so much of cotter uh richard dean anderson appeared uh my and then my favorite thing in 1974 also uh eventful time the the great kiss off was held has anyone anyone heard of this? Uh, there was an event where they tried to,

uh, top the Guinness book of world record for, uh, longest continuous kiss. And this was overseen by the band kiss. Yeah. Uh, I could find no record of them actually doing anything.

And it very well may have been their doubles. Uh, but two people kissed for over 114 hours. them actually doing anything and it very well may have been their doubles. But two people kissed for over 114 hours. 114 hours? What? Kissing? I think a lot of people in the room like kissing.

Who likes kissing? That's a level we the good boys are comfortable with. Yes. But that's it. we the good boys are comfortable with yes but that's it yes we know more but 114 hours that's a long i would say uh more than uh 90 seconds on a kiss uh you're probably getting tired of it anyway um i could be wrong um so we learned Scott's limit for kissing. I hate kissing. You got to breathe, too.

Scott sets a 90-second timer. And he hits it, and then he goes kissing. And we are done. Thank you for kissing me. This has been Scott's Great Kiss-Off. Oh, my God. A real quick concerts. Okay.

Some really good ones. Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Tiffany. We have mall rock, Tiffany sticks, Chicago native sticks performed at the house

of Louis clothing store. Why? And also I'm stepping into it with this but in 2013 to uh open the microsoft store weezer performed yeah scott's band arch enemy is weezer well it was a set that included no covers so i'm fine yes nothing uh which is the cover oh oh it's i don't want to get off you off on a tangent i know that's not it's it's when weezer covers uh africa because and i correct me if i'm wrong it's that they went for the cheap midi style synths and didn't use the real synths synths that toto used when recording the synths sound terrible and it's just really an affront to the legacy of

David Page and Steve Porcaro and the incredible sounds they pioneered. Am I right? You're right. Glad to have support even if you didn't actually know what I was talking about. They opened with the song Greatest Man Who Ever Lived which is one of my favorite Bad Weezer songs. Does anyone know that song? They played, they opened with the song Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, which is one of my favorite Bad Weezer songs.

Oh. Does anyone know that song? Yeah, okay. Really? Four people? I would have assumed 15 at least. Mike, why don't you get up and perform it and put your hands wherever you feel. I will say that song,

there's a spoken word section of that song where he says, like, if you don't like it, you can shove it, but you don't like it, you love it. And he does it, like, dead serious. Very cool. So, yeah, anyway. That's a word that I,

when I think of Rivers Cuomo now, the first word that comes to mind is cool. So that was 2013. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's next in the slideshow? Well, I have a little bit. First, I found a picture of a scary cop looking at the mall.

It looks... If you've ever seen the photos from when Stanley Kubrick was like a news photographer before he directed movies and they're all like strangely evocative, that is what this photo of a mall security guard looking down on a center plaza looks like. Yeah, so I don't know.

I just thought it was scary, so I put it in. Yeah. My goodness. Here my probably my favorite other than as a child going to kb toys uh my favorite part of the mall is not there anymore there was a waterfall and like fish tanks and it was like a little secret i know it's hard to see this it was a little like kind of secret entrance you would walk downstairs there was a waterfall and then fish tanks. And it was such a cool little weird imagineered kind of a thing. There's no reason practically to have it in a mall other than just ambiance.

And like, this is the stuff that malls are getting rid of. Uh, is, is the, there was a waterfall at what Stratford square. My room helped me out. Yeah.

There was a movie theater under the waterfall which is amazing and it's gone stripped away all the heart and soul taken out of these malls uh could not make out the movies because they were projected through the waterfalls so like um so, so yeah. So anyway, that, that has gone, that has been replaced by, uh, a Comcast booth, I believe. And there's like, there's maybe like locker storage there as well. Uh, yeah, I know. It's very sad. Um, but I was yelling, I was like, tell, I was like, I think that's where the waterfall was yesterday. Uh, it's probably also wrong. Uh, so that's,

that's another picture of the waterfall i think that one of the things that struck me is like schomburg just has so much like shop like this mall is so big and i looked up the size of the city schomburg is about 74 000 people and from what i could find looking online cities cities of that size, like Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, do not have malls of this size. They have like a few malls, but not like something this massive. Well, that's because we got it all. At one wheel. Yeah.

Nice. That explains that. Yeah, so, yeah, it's... I was going to say, like, the amount of chain restaurants in that area is truly mind-boggling. It's like the Dubai of mid-level chain restaurants. Like, just excess everywhere, but the excess isn't, like, so much money.

It's, you know, know like as many different kinds of mozzarella stick appetizers as you and your parents and grandparents could eat because you're celebrating someone graduating like it's just anything you can imagine any type of mozzarella stick well should we talk about what might be the most valiant attempt at a chain restaurant? Probably the craziest thing that they tried to do. Yeah. This is one of the things that definitely piqued my interest. Because we're talking about a place that only had two locations and one of them in Schaumburg.

Yes. And I hear some murmuring. People know what it is. It was out of this world. It was Mars 2112. Yeah. People know it. It lasted, Jason, how long again?

So it opened in like October of one year, and then it closed in November the following year, and never reopened. And we can, we will, we will vow to you there will be a full two and a half hour episode

about Mars 2112. Eventually. Who do you think we are? And also we'll vow to you there will be a two and a half hour episode about that waterfall I talked about.

Yeah. All of it will get done. But yes, Mars 2112. Which was built in the former Plit movie theater, which was also the former ice rink. Incredible zone in this place. Yes. I saw movies at

that movie theater. It was the first place I saw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie poster. As a youth, I was looking at the posters and I saw the Ninja Turtles and I flipped out. So maybe you stopped and kissed it. For 90 seconds. Very good. Just enough.

Just enough time. But so, all right. Mars 2112, obviously a Mars-themed restaurant. There was another one in Times Square that made it way longer, but it was also a restaurant that had a, well, let me read it from this little list. Lava pools, a shuttle ride for 32 guests. There was actually a 747 flight simulator used to train pilots, and it rocked and swayed as if the passengers were on a trip to Mars.

So before you could go eat a meal, you had to sit in the simulator ride for three and a half minutes where you went through what they called a translunar wormhole. So fuck up your stomach and then eat deep-fried whatever you'd like. From the reviews, garbage food.

Very good. What? Oh, what? Not what I read. Maybe the reviews, garbage. Very good. What? Oh, what? Now what I read. Maybe Times Square is different. Okay. New York City, you know? Yeah, they are much more comfortable in a lunar simulator.

Yeah. Well, and there were some differences between the locations, and this might have been key to why Times Square lasted so much longer. Times Square, they've been going for a little bit. And one of the big keys to the success of it was an arcade area called Cyber Street. So if we're going to do a second Mars 2112, we got to do another Cyber Street, right? For some reason, the Schomburg Zoning Board of Appeals voted 4-2 to deny a permit to Cyber Street. The city chased Cyber Street away,

and thus there was no arcade. Yeah, why would they allow the simulator and the lava pools and the restaurant, but no arcade? Well, in the ruling, it was a mixed-use issue. But it seems to me a ride is another use. Yeah. Fire the Schomburg Board of Appeals.

Impeach them all. Yeah, we'll do, and we'll find whoever made that decision and interview them on the episode. Yes. I'm sure they remember it. Why do you hate democracy so, sir? I feel like you guys have some information

about the man responsible for... Oh, I just saw a snippet that it was an Irish businessman and the newspaper article about the Times Square location suddenly closing very quickly described it as like, a man who fraud seems to follow.

Which, I mean, 20 years ago, that was an insult. Now you can become president of the United States if Rod follows you. I don't want to jump into anything. What's around the corner here? Well, there's just some photos of Mars 2112.

See if you can make out that. It looks really good. Yeah, what you're seeing is something that looks really good we we tried to find the names of the aliens and did not come up successful so on a future episode hopefully someone will have sent us the handbook like the employee handbook but we are not seeing the aliens yet you need to y'all need to meet the aliens yeah uh that Hard to describe this for the podcast because I'm right next to it and it's being projected on brick.

So I can't fill it in. Extremely cool aliens. Would that suffice? Yeah, here's one. This is... Like, what's the opposite of imagination? So the opposite of imagineer, is that like dreaded near that?

Like nightmare near nightmare. Uh, this, this looks like if I assume a female, uh, just because of its pink and purple, uh, there's three eyes.

It has like a, I assume that's a space bow in its hair uh and then yeah uh the i will say this i thought the costumes would look worse and they look bad yeah yeah so they could be worse um so, yes, the next one, the one. Yeah, the next one. So this is something I just happened upon. You know, famous people have to eat. They got to go into Translunar wormholes, too. Yeah, they have to do that. So obviously, like a famous person, you know, we mentioned former President Gerald Ford made an appearance at Woodfield.

I'm not sure if this picture was taken in Times Square. I'm assuming it was. It would make sense. But here's a photo of one of the aliens with Bill Clinton. And I mean, as you can guess, that alien is on the flight logs. That alien is on the Epstein logs. Yeah. The spaceship flight logs.

It was just X's and Z's and nines. That's his name. Yeah, X's and Z's and nines. This is Space Epstein on the left. Where is Space Epstein on the left. Where is Space Epstein? I know he's with Ghislaine. Okay. Space Ghislaine.

Space Ghislaine. Excuse me. He teleported out of the cell. Yeah. So. Oh, that would explain it. That's why. That would explain the camera's not working.

That explained the guard. The guard who wasn't would explain the camera's not working. That would explain the guard. The guard who wasn't a guard was obviously the alien morphed into something. Yeah, that's how Jeffrey disappeared. Yes. It's a teleporting thing.

Yeah. The menu items. I don't know if you guys have any of those already. Do you have those? Oh, yeah, you have those. Well, I mean, we always love,

because you don't have time to read these whole menus as much as we'd love to, but I like when they group them into different areas. Here's appetizers. Here's a main course, blah, blah, blah. You got first contact. You got primary orbit.

And then dessert, sweet planets. They gave up. With all of those, like we did the episode about marvel mania which was the marvel themed restaurant it does seem like they people run out of steam when they're coming up with them because it'll be like you know uh the ant adamantium artichoke or whatever and then you're like oh that's pretty good and then it'll just be like hero sauce you're like well that was you just got people in a room just got like, oh, whatever. They're heroes, right?

Hero sauce, who cares? Hulk bread. Sure, why not? Space drink. So, Mars 2112, one of a litany of things that closed within two years.

We don't have a slide for this one, so I'll just name check it real fast. But there was an attempt at, you know, a cousin of the competitor to the Disney store, the Nickelodeon Superstore. It was only it was open for less than two years in the Woodfield Mall. And the only real tangible information I could find out about it is that all the benches in the store were whoopee cushions. And all the employees in the store must have then been suicidal. There are a lot... What we found is, like, in Woodfield, there are a lot of ideas and concepts that were

tried out. And, like, almost across the board, they tried them out and they went no way we will not roll this out nationwide this is not going to make us any money well is this a good time then to talk about disney's version of that sure yeah uh let me just zoom over here yes sure uh i'll just i'll just put the first picture up. Mickey's Kitchen. Did anyone go to Mickey's Kitchen? Hey, all right.

A couple. You know more than us because there's not a lot of photos. There's not a lot to learn about it. Again, there were only two of these. Second one in Schaumburg. They tried it in Montclair, California, and they tried it in Schaumburg, Illinois. Opened for less than a year.

It was next to the Disney store. I guess people did not want to eat soupity doodah. And people didn't really understand the tagline of everybody's got a lunching place. That's not real, is it? That's not right, no.

No, no, no. The other, a similarly tortured one, supercalifragic chicken salad. You talk about giving up towards the end of the menu that's they bailed in the name it they didn't get to it should be listed they turned listic into chicken doesn't scan at all make any sense disney's uh kitchen fell under the regional entertainment umbrella that also had uh the espn zone and disney quest two famously successful well-reviewed uh businesses uh disney quest of course opened two locations yeah in orlando and one right here in chicago and the one in my hometown of Philadelphia, as we've talked about before,

they just stopped construction on and it's remained a parking lot to this day. How many people did go to Disney quest here and got sick on something? Oh, all right. Is there a way to, can with one word convey what made you sick no it's more of a story three words three were quick yeah aladdin's magic carpet yeah that's

probably it i just don't want to make people shout shout a story sure yeah wait mike did you ever go to the chicago disney quest no we did not go. I don't remember why. I'm not going to blame my parents. I don't know if it's their fault or not. It might be. But I'm not, I can't say with certainty that it was. So I won't say it. We did go in Florida though.

They didn't want to go be in a weird windowless weird box. And you did get sick in Florida. I got very, yeah. I got sick on the aladdin's vr thing which is something i in my mind was like this is going to be the coolest thing i've ever done virtual reality is amazing i got on there this blocky like sub nintendo 64 level graphics like trying to maneuver a magic carpet and then then 30 seconds in, I had a horrible headache and felt like I wanted to throw up. And then we had to get on a plane two hours later. Sure. And I remember like, I ate a sandwich and I felt a little better,

but like... You didn't jam in the full family style dinner before. We are going to Orlando and someone threw out in case you don't know last time I was in Orlando I yeah applause for this I feel like we should be doing more applause callbacks

last time I was in Orlando I half accidentally ordered an all you can eat meal for a family of four callbacks. Last time I was in Orlando, I half accidentally ordered an all-you-can-eat meal for a family of four. Because when you go to Liberty Tree Tavern at Magic Kingdom, generally it's a family that's eating and they don't adjust the portions

for a single man in his 30s. So the first thing they brought out was four large pieces of bread. And I think I ate two and then they just brought me the same portions that a family would eat. And I had a flight to catch within two and a half hours.

Flights are cursed. You said you might do it again. For the content. Mike Carlson can go home again. He can go, he can come to Chicago. He can return

to Liberty Tree. I am going to play the Diddy song that I played when I came out. I'm going to wear this Letterman jacket and enter

Liberty Tree Tavern. And you're going to make the employees go like, where is that music coming from? What is that in your hand? That glass. They have to play along. But hey, thankfully in 2019, you don't have to worry about getting sick from VR Aladdin

because we all got to experience VR Aladdin thanks to visionary director Guy Ritchie at our local Cineplex. Yeah, that's true. We all went on a magic carpet ride. We all got to see it. A very memorable one. It's like Nassim Pedrad is in the room with you.

There was this other weird Disney, I'll keep this quick because it's very dry. there was this other weird Disney, I'll keep this quick cause it's very dry. There was this other weird Disney thing that they attempted in the Woodfield mall that again was not open for very long. Uh, and it is, uh, you will see how dry this is. It's called Disney's doorway to dreams. Um, oh yeah, this was a, I'll give you a sec. Here you go. The majesty of Disney's doorway Whoa You have a gasp

Oh Like a sense memory came into your head It was real again You got to experience the wonder of this Which was a timeshare presentation Permanently in the mall Where you could walk around fake hotel rooms With like a fake window that shows the contemporary and fireworks.

It is Chicago like we kept talking about as we were looking up Chicago. So it's like it is a testing ground because it's like a major metropolitan area, but it's smack dab in the middle of the country. So you can get like honest feedback from regular people. And I feel like you people in Chicago like to tell it as it is, right? Yeah. Did you say tell it as it is? Tell it as it is. Isn't it tell it like it is?

Well, both work. It's fine. Yeah, that's true. They do. Yeah. I just, I don't want to side note too much. We have a limited amount of time. But I did just do a presentation at the Disneyland resort in order to get

four free fast passes. So I toured a fake hotel room in the parking lot of the Disneyland hotel, uh, and was given on, it took about an hour and a half. And I am thinking about doing it in Orlando cause they offered me 50 bucks. And again, we can milk two hours out of that.

Yeah, sure. On an episode. So yeah, I do remember this. I don't think I ever went in here. I don't think we ever went in this. I think we should. How could you not have to not only miss

timeshare presentations, but also miss a performance from a character we i think we may have found the most obscure least liked disney character of all time this is a character called dvc a female character she's got red hair uh she uh the dv d-e-e-v-V-Y-C-S-E-E, and DVC, if you don't know, stands for Disney Vacation Club. So they turned it into the very,

like, you know, typical human name, DVC. And they would do this in the, like, they would take you away from the little time strip place and then fill up the improv at the Woodfield Mug. Because there's an improv comedy theater where, guess who's playing soon? Jim Belushi. Next week, Jim Belushi and the Board of Comedy,

which obviously we all know what that phrase means, again. I hope they have a lot of thoughts about the PC police. Yeah, this... And this weekend, you can see Godfrey. And you could probably catch the late show tonight if you get a move on. Oh, yeah, yeah. Go check it out.

If you want to leave early to catch Godfrey, go now. Go. We understand. We're really screwing the Action Boys by saying that. Action Boys coming up after us. Oh, yeah, sure. Everybody staying around for Action Boys? Hey, all right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Good, good up after us. Oh yeah, sure. Anybody staying around for action boys? Hey, alright. Yeah.

Good, good. Folks should be a good time. But so, DVC. Yeah, okay. DVC is the worst Disney character. But that being said, if they sold a DVC toy, I will buy it. I did not know DVC existed until

12 hours ago, 24 hours ago. I would pay up to $50, $50, $75 for DVC. A timeshare worth amount. The more obscure character, the better. We are still waiting for them to make at least $100 Michael Eisner doll. Yeah. Hell yeah. We would all purchase that.

They have not written back to our certified letters to Michael Eisner doll. Yeah. Hell yeah. We would all purchase that. They have not written back to our certified letters to Michael Eisner's home saying, can we make a doll of you, sir? That didn't go over well. I don't know why. I know.

I won't say how. I know where his office is, though. In Beverly Hills. That is not a threat. It's not. I'm just saying I know the exact location where he works.

Also, you could figure that out with like three websites. Like, you can find it. You can find it. That might be proud of his sleuthing. Yeah, I was trying to be impressive. You were there. It's better. You were there. I'm sad now.

But think of cradling an Eisner doll. Oh, I was trying to be impressive. I mean, you were there. You were there. It's better. You were there. I'm sorry. I'm sad now. All right. But think of cradling an Eisner doll. Oh, I'm happy again. Yeah, it would make you. Feeding him a little bottle. Yeah. Wait a minute. Is he going to have ties for him? Is it like those Disney dolls where it's like baby poo?

Yeah. It's like baby Eisner? Yeah. That's another toy I would buy buy i would spend more money for baby eisner with like a weird like like uh feed him like bottle and he would like poop in a diaper dear sir we would love to make a doll baby version of you. I know where he works. I'll hand deliver the letter. And 70

drawings of what this would look like. And the pooping doll prototype. Throw it through his window. Wrapped up with a rock. Alright, I think we should start getting to the place that we spent most of our time. Currently vibrant themed entertainment experience. Let me really All right. I think we should start getting to the place that we spent most of our time currently.

Vibrant themed entertainment experience. Let me really quickly name check a couple of things that they used to have. Guys through Phil three to throw in others. Before there was Cinnabon Woodfield Mall at a place called TJ Cinnamon's. Also another character I would want to doll of. Yeah. I don't know what he looks like, but I love him. He poops cinnamon poops. Yeah. That place was said to be a favorite of Senator Bob Dole. There was a restaurant called Tiffany's

Bakery where you could get something called the Cookie Credit Card Club. You could, I guess, enroll in the Cookie Credit Card Club. That caused the financial crash in 2008 they're buying houses with cookies what's going on um and uh with my last they have a place called hot sam's where you could get a giant pretzel covered with ham and cheese what's the verdict on that, Jason?

Yeah, Jason, what do you think of a pretzel covered in hot ham and cheese? I'd have to really see. I'd have to see the quality of the ham. I bet if it's from Chicago, it's good! Yeah! I love these cheap... I don't know why I'm reaching for these cheap pops.

Authentic Chicago ham. Yeah. The thing that struck me, I found out about Woodfield that I thought was very interesting, and you guys were like, what? Who cares? Let's let the audience decide. At one point, Woodfield was sold to CalPERS, which is the California Public Employees Retirement Savings. So they manage the pension and healthcare plans

for 1.6 million public employees in California. And they just owned a giant mall in Illinois. So that probably went well. That's weird. What is the name Calpers Calpers How do you spell that? C-A-L-P-E-R-S

I I thought he was He said Calpers Which is the name of a gland In the male reproductive system Oh yeah The Calpers clan We know it

Sure Anyway Your mom is here That's not as dirty of a gland It's a more functional gland Sure. Anyway, your mom is here. That's not as dirty of a gland. It's a more functional gland. Yeah. But I think, I think with all that, oh, they also used to have a little girl makeover place

called Club Libby Lou. Yes. And for our thoughts on that, get ready for the downtown Disney ordeal coming as soon as we're done with our little tour. Lots of Club Libby Lou. That's right. Get your asses ready for little girl makeover places.

We spend a lot of time on Club Libby Lou and then a much more religious competitor of it, which I can't think of the name of off the top of my head, but they were mad. They thought Club Libby Lou was like sinful. So anyway, that's just a tease. Tease, get ready. But let's take you to the main place.

We've left a couple out, including one that people guessed, but I don't think the place that we spent most of our time is the one that a lot of people guessed, at least not the people I heard. Should we reveal this logo? This picture is of the old logo, so I apologize. Oh, right, right, right.

We don't have the right thing. Back when it had a different confusing name. Here is what it looks like. It used to say 257. Doesn't really tell you what it is, but look real close at that five. It's angled weird, but it's not an ordinary five. That's a Pac-Man. Because now they have a thing

called Pac-Man Entertainment. It's like a Dave and Buster's in a restaurant, but called Pac-Man Entertainment. As simply as possible. It is massive. Who has been to Pac-Man Entertainment? That's a smattering.

It's working great. So it's working great. There is a fancy-ish looking bowling alley. There is a full restaurant that has walls to prevent you from accessing it. They're almost like shields from the gaming like it's like you're eating in a little box and it's got a much more like drab color scheme and then like naked mannequin women who welcome you into it even though it's a pac-man place yes uh people seem like more horrified by this place so far yeah um it ended up being fun i can tell you there's a connect four thing where you

shoot basketballs and that's part of the connect four that's pretty cool yeah and then a restaurant right in the middle that looks like the bar from the shining wow oh yeah it does look like there's a lot of game yeah part of it's dave and buster's part of its bowling alley part of its shining uh and like it's it's the dave and Buster's has a lot of different games and it's all you can win tickets. And it is we played games. There was one game where you have to like throw ping pong balls to change like squares, colors all within 30 seconds,

which I did and it's the greatest moment of my life. You won it. You won the game. And I think I squealed. Yeah, I walked over and you were like, I really like this. Put it on the Letterman jacket. We were very excited.

Ping pong game. Before we wrap that up, you gotta hear about our meal, right? Yes. Because as alluded to at the top of the show, okay, so we sat down before we wrap that up you you gotta hear about our meal right yes you got because sure alluded to at the top of the show okay so they we had we sat down and we asked what is your uh pac-man themed stuff because i thought they had a lot of pac-man themed stuff and they did drinks wise uh they had a drink for every ghost uh but all of those drinks had like eight ingredients. So those were not for me. Uh, Mike, I don't think you even partook.

I had a headache last night. All right. And I hadn't eaten very much. So I instead waited till we got to Bahama breeze and ordered a, uh, what is it called? Mark? What is it? It was not a margarita. It was, uh, it was like a Margalita or something.

It was very fun and it was a frozen drink. So I waited till then so even i did not have my usual multi-colored drink there i'm sorry i have let everyone down as a journalist yeah a reason to come back get every ghost drink all at once get every ghost drink and then we'll be downstairs we also stopped in briefly at the rainforest we walked around the rainforest cafe we did we didn't leave it we saw like uh that the owner of the rainforest cafe of course part of the landry family uh is a scary looking man uh he owns the houston rockets as well and do you have a picture of this i forgot to put it i have to i'll hear i i have the. The book is called like shut up and listen.

Oh, it is called shut up and listen. Yeah. And he looks like he is going to kick your ass. And we spent a few minutes imagining scenarios of like a guy who works at FYE, like just kind of rudder lists and like, they're not closing down, but they're not doing well. So he's just drinking at the rainforest cafe because he gets a discount and then he buys that book to turn his life around

and and he's like trying to sketch other ideas for i gotta have another idea for a restaurant okay what about arctic animals oh yeah the arctic cafe honey honey what do you think about a polar bear while you eat? Tundra Cafe. I just want Tillman Fertitta, head of Landry's Tillman Fertitta, to respect me. And another tease, we will be dealing fully with Rainforest Cafe in the downtown world. In the downtown Disney. Yeah.

But that Rainforest Cafe in Schaumburg had a clearance nook that had a dragonfly skeleton facing away from you that appeared to be walking up a set of stairs to go die. Like you just saw the tail pointed at you and he was at the foot of a set of stairs. So I don't know what sort of riddle that was. Yeah, and also in the clearance section, there were a line of toys that were like finger puppets, and the name of the toys are Fingerlings. And that's

the noise we all made. When we first looked at it, we missed a letter. What does that say? It's like squints. Weird, but you'll get our full Rainforest Cafe thought soon. But we got to talk about this food really fast. We asked the waitress,

is there a food that is themed to Pac-Man? She said, uh, she's not a lot. She went, like she was so good. Could not have been more caught off guard by that question. Yes.

Has rarely come up, especially with a bunch of adults. Um, luckily there was one item that had just within it a single Pac-Man themed ingredient. That is that the hummus plate included Pac-Cumbers. Pac-Cumbers. And what that basically means is that you're getting cucumbers with like a sixth taken out of it. So it looks like a Pac-Man face. You're getting less cucumber.

So it's not a good deal. No. Not at all. So we were disappointed by all of this. But I had seen it on Yelp or something. I thought there was a little more waiting for us. And I asked, I asked the waitress about it and she said,

I mean, yeah, I mean, it's, it's on the kid's menu, but sure. And, uh,

and when, and she brought this out and we all squealed with delight. Yeah. So she told us what it was. And then she, we asked her about like having it cause it was a dessert. And she said, sure, I'll bring you some out. And she placed on our table eight Pac-Man cookies.

And we, the collective four of us, all went, whoa! Yeah! And I believe this was her reaction. She placed it down. She heard that noise and went, oh. She was like taken aback and confused and then like amused. We were all like our barbecue pork nachos and buffalo chicken wrap and hummus platter. We were all like, well, fine, serviceable.

But then we were like, oh, the cookies. Yes. We changed everything. And they were good cookies too. They were good. That's basic sugar cookie. Everybody's got to go. Go get these sugar cookies.

Use that 75 cents. You use that 75 cents. You'll have a great time. Don't order anything on the main menu because it's fine. Go in and order the cookies off the kids menu. See if you can get your waiter or waitress to recoil from surprise.

It's such a ruckus. But, you know, we had some complaints about Pac-man entertainment but with that we we did that truly had us thinking we got it all that's right and with that we're getting to the end but there's one more little thing there's a lot of people uh you you listen to the podcast you know the deal and you you've uh you know that we've also in addition to theme parks spent a lot of time talking about parking garages either next to theme parks or just you know uh or or you know next to uh slightly themed malls

uh and and that's the thing that we would like to do and we'd love to talk about the woodfield mall parking garage uh the issue is we sort of to do and we'd love to talk about the Woodfield Mall parking garage. The issue is we sort of have a running theme where there's really only one person who we've deputized to do that, to talk, who we feel has the authority to talk about parking garages next to slightly themed things.

And we are happy to say, because we flew him out on our own dime at great expense to us happened he came out just for this do i heard a holy shit holy somebody said holy shit ladies and gentlemen from doughboys nick weiger thank you for doing this. Wow. Jeez.

Wow. Thanks, guys. That's very nice. You know, you guys know this. I'm not sure if everyone out there knows this. This is my favorite podcast. I'm very excited to be a part of this. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Honestly, being up here with you guys, I'm a little nervous. So I'm just going to.

Okay. We should hold for photos. Anyway, thank you for flying me out of here. Thank you for the middle seat on Spirit Airlines. And we're at the parking garage, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just, we wanted you to, and we didn't even invite you into the rest of the mall with us. Yeah, no. Yeah, I went on my own to the parking garage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just solo trip. So that being said,

oh my god, Nick Weiger, what did you think of the Woodfield Mall parking garage? It's good. Great. Thanks, God, Nick Weiger, what did you think of the Woodfield mall parking garage? It's good. Great. Thanks guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. And with that, you survive. Chicago. Thank you, Chicago.

Thank you to the, thanks to the Chicago Podcast Festival for having us. Oh my God, really appreciate you getting us out here. Thanks to Chicago Theater Works for having us. What a great venue, this has been wonderful. And thank you for coming to the show. It means a lot to us.

From so far away. Thank you. And thank you for coming to the show. It means a lot to us. From so far away. Thank you. And listening. Much appreciated. We'll stick around a little bit. We can say that as a voice, but thank you so much for coming. It's been a blast. Hey, we're going to Disney World. Good night, everybody.

Good night. Forever Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. Engineered and mastered by Alex Arche. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcast.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on

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