The Chaser Report - What's Really In Your Stanley Cups?

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

For The Chaser Report 2024, Dom and Charles want to bring you news on the hippest trends (their words, not mine). For that reason, we spend today's episode talking about Stanley Cups and Crocs. Apologies for the judgements we are about to make about your mum's birthday wish-list. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Hello, Charles. Grab a big cup and let's settle in for a great episode about trends. I'd never heard of a Stanley Cup, Charles, until a couple of days ago. You're always out of the picture, aren't you? You're always one day behind. I heard about them like two weeks ago.

That's amazing. I'm telling you get to the groove. You're so oafay. If you don't know what a Stanley Cup is, what are you even doing with yourself? We're going to make you wait till after this. So they're also called Tumblr's, Charles, I believe, which is not the way, I thought tumblers were like a regular cup.

But you've lived in America, and in America, everything is huge. Yes, that's right. Everything's absurdly huge, and so too the Stanley Cup. Yeah. So hang on, I've just realized I don't quite know what a Stanley Cup. is, I thought a Stanley Cup was just a bottle, like it's a water bottle, like a sort of metal water bottle, is that not what it is? You said Tumblr. They call them tumblers. They call them tumblers. So what they are, they're a sort of tumbler with a lid. Yeah, they're quite

funny. So basically, the main characteristic is that they're stupidly enormous. And so if you imagine the bottom is the size of a normal cup. So it fits into a cup holder in your SUV that you drive everywhere to live in America. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then, then it sort of expands out. It has this absolutely massive, like, probably more than a litre capacity in a handle and a metal lid with a straw coming off it. And then the important point is Charles, a Stanley Cup, and the risk is why it went viral.

It's very good at keeping cold things cold and hot things hot. Now, you might think it's a thermos. Yes. It's a thermos. Yes, right. But it's one that you can drink from. And the key thing that I discovered when we talked about this over the day... You can drink from a thermos.

You can't. You put it to your lips. Yeah. And when you go to Japan, like, there's a million, you know, little kind of thermosy things that they have for tea. So there's nothing new about this, but they're absolutely massive, the scale of them. Like, it's American size. Right. It's got enough, it's, you could fit enough Coke in there to give you diabetes in one cup, basically.

They're huge. Right. So, and is there some sort of kidney problem epidemic? in America that has led to this trend? Is this based on some medical need? Is this? Look, it's, I mean, there's some sort of mental health thing going on with American. There's certainly a nutrition problem with the American diet.

Because it does remind me, remember a couple of years ago, Nina O'Yama did the Chaser report, and she was on a very strange challenge to, what were there, how many litres of water did you? I think she had to drink like four litres of water. water a day. Oh, a huge amount of water. And it got to the point, because back then the Chase report was slightly longer, wasn't it?

It was sort of half an hour, 40 minutes. We did them once a week and no much longer, yeah. And she kept on having to duck out to the toilet. That's what happened. She couldn't, Stanley Cup. Yeah, right. But maybe they should make a sort of Stanley, you know, for the other end. Like, you know.

Oh, yes. Yeah. To pee into it. Perfect. Yeah, Stanley urinary bag. And then you sort of sorted. You don't need to get out of your car What a great idea

So Charles, the thing about The thing that's interesting about these Is that they They kind of reflect the title fickleness of fashion So these things have been around For many, many years, these Stanley Cups But then they didn't have a huge one Until about 2019, they had a 40 ounce one

How much is 40 ounces in real measurements? It's impossible to convert It's too big It would be 40 ounces would be about three 500 meals so it'd be about 1.5 litres I think I've just got it so it's at one point it's nearly 1.2 litres so it's about

it's about like it's one of those standard bottles of Coke that you buy for in the supermarket or whatever right yeah so that used to be a bottle that in theory contained multiple drinks yeah there's now one that just contains one whole bottle so a standard fridge size bottle my understanding is they're not cheap either like a Stanley

bottle which is basically just a shitty thermos that you're going to lose after three seconds Um, cost, like, starting prices, like 70 bucks, is that right? Yes. So, they're absolutely, extremely, extraordinarily, for a portable bottle, right. So, and this is the thing that's happened is that this guy called Terrence Riley took

over as the CEO. And these things were always kind of like basically camping equipment, they were boring, just sort of thermos cups. Because when I say to you, like, thermos, you don't get excited. You don't want to queue and buy one, do you? Well, what if I told you that the thermos could come in pink? Ooh, okay. Yeah.

That's what happened. They made them pink. Yeah, right. So they... And everyone were crazy? No, bizarrely enough, there's no Bluetooth. So this thing has become absolutely massive, purely on the basis that they ended in pink. Okay, that's amazing.

Yeah, because it got incredibly profitable. They made $750 million in 2023. That's up from $73 million in revenue in 2019. So 10-fold the sales in three years. Do you know one of the main reasons? why it went so popular, why it went viral. Because on TikTok,

a woman showed how after her car crashed and turned into a massive fireball, basically, she managed to get back to it and found the Stanley Cup the ice cubes hadn't melted inside the Stanley Cup. Yes, that's product placement you want. We should do that with our podcast.

We should get somebody to crash their car and send it into a burning inferno. That would be great. And then crawl back into their car, and still find our jokes funny. Yes, possibly because of the brain injury. Now, Bill, talking of which... This is basically what it is.

Talking of which, we've actually, just in the last few days, they've discovered why Stanley Cups are so successful amongst Americans. Oh, really? Okay, so this product is going well. It's selling 10 times more than it did a few years ago. And there has to be some sort of terrible sting in the tail, doesn't there, Dom?

But no American rise from grace cannot be sullied by some sort of grasp for terrible, like some sort of terrible disaster. Okay, let me try and pick it. Let me try and pick it. So I'm imagining what happens is that they've become disposable. So Americans are so rich and so decadent that these have become like Roo Castle would be absolutely up in arms. They've turned into basically single-use cups. They're the O bikes.

They're the O bikes. Yeah, they're the O bikes. Because you buy one and then, you know, it's in the wrong shade of pink, so you've got to buy another one and a different colour. And basically you end up with a shelf full of these things. Apparently, someone just got arrested, like, with 200 of them that she stole. This is how big these things are. Oh, yeah.

Is that what it is, is it that they're just sort of so disposable and everyone always forgets them and so keeps buying more of them? No, but I can tell you, if they were disposed of, they'd have to be disposed of in a very careful manner, perhaps in a hazardous waste tip. Has it a waste tip? Yes, because it's turned out that the why they keep your ice cubes so cool inside a burning inferno of a car is because they've got lead in them. They've got lead in them, Dom.

In a thing that you drink? Yes. Who thought that was a good idea? Well, I don't know, Mr. Stanley, probably back in, what, 1820 when, you know, you'd put lead in ice pop to make them sweeter. You'd add lead just from a bit of flavour back then, wouldn't you? It was a nice hot day. Put in some ice cubes and a pinch of lead. Yes, with a springling of asbestos, just to round it off.

Yes. Okay. So she was lucky that basically there wasn't lead as a result of that fire in the car. There probably, like lead poisoning everywhere. There probably was because this TikTok's gone viral in the last few days of this person testing out all their water bottles that they've got. Of course they're American, so they've got like 15 water bottles.

All the ones that aren't Stanle's come back with no lead in them, right? And all the ones that are Stanle's immediately test positive for lead. Now, somebody then pulled apart a Stanley Cup and realized that the inside, like the lining, like not where you're supposed to put your mouth, but inside of it, where you're sort of in the vacuum part of it. The insulating bit. To seal it, they're using lead. Because lead, obviously, is in solder, and solder is a really cheap way to create a metal seal, right?

So instead of, you know, coming up with a substance that maybe, say, is food safe, they've just gone, you know what, a really cheap way to do this is to use the same stuff that we use in our industrial processes. Can't see any harm in that, right? And the funniest thing is, the funniest detail is, that everyone's going, but surely that's illegal. That's illegal. And it is.

It's totally illegal in America, right? Stanley Cups, are they made in America? No, they're not made in America. Oh, fantastic. To manufacture it is completely illegal in the country that it's not manufactured. They just sell them there. So, you know, it doesn't matter. Presumably there's a huge number of workers, whether they're made China or Cambodia or wherever it might be.

A huge amount of workers who have died as a result of making this stuff. I don't know whether the poisoning kills you. Doesn't it just make you really dumb? Just give your brain damage. I'm not sure. I'm not willing to experiment. But, I mean, if this is fatal, if this turns out to be fatal, if you're drinking lead, what a fantastic sarcophagus, a Stanley Cup would be for your ashes. Nothing's going to get in there.

You set it on fire again. It's still going to be all right. Oh, that's true. No, they'll have trouble cremating the bodies because they'll stay ice cold. Isn't that the problem that it'll be? They'll be sort of lead-lined bodies. Oh, they'll put them in the... I'm saying, after you put them in the commentary,

you put them in before, there's no chance of doing it. No, yeah. But the thing is, by the way, you're right. I've just checked here. It does cause intellectual disability. For instance, you might think that it's sensible to put. Oh, really? Yeah, there's a whole book called Freakonomics.

And one of the chapters is about how actually they think that the rise of sort of stupid, violent crime in the 1970s and 80s is almost definitely, what's definitely correlated, but may even be caused by the fact that we had lead in our petrol, lead in our paint, lead in everything. And it just made everyone a little bit angrier and dumber. But thank goodness it's been brought back. But I think the thing is that this is actually, if you look at it from purely economic terms, which nowadays is really the only metric that we should value anything. Oh, sure.

Certainly not public health, is that this is the perfect product. Because if you think about it, you have to be sort of mildly. Like, I can sort of understand getting in on the Stanley Cup craze. You go, oh, pink cup. Everyone's doing it. Might as well try it out, right? But no one's going to stay on that craze, right, unless they're incredibly dumb, right? But...

Oh, I see. The Stanley Cup makes you dumb, so you keep buying a Stanley Cup. This is perfect. That is absolute genius. I must say, Charles, I was in Kmart the other day, and I noticed something that looked a lot like this for 15 bucks. And I'm just worried. Someone needs to go and check whether the ones in Kame up. that are $15, have they got leading them?

Because if they don't, they're not the real thing. You should send them back. Are you trying to, are you trying to, you know, set off an Anko cup craze? Is that what you were doing? But the other thing is, apparently, Charles, and there's some sort of reason for this that I don't understand, to do with fluid dynamics. They have a hole in the top, by the way, Stanley Cups. So they're not actually waterproof.

So all these American kids have been putting them in their bags. And they'd leak, because they have a hole in the top. There's nothing to do with in order to actually drink out of them. You have to have some sort of hole coming in, just like how coffee cups have a little hole in them. So they're not even, yes, they'll keep your drink cool if your car goes on fire. But don't turn them upside down, Charles. They can't cut with that.

That doesn't sound very useful for camping. Like, you know, you sort of set out on a trek with your Stanley Cup. You know, you pull it out of your backpack. Your backpack's all wet. And then you dive of dehydration. Well, because you've been having lead poisoning. So you bought the cup that's not waterproof. But Charles, just so you know, I mean, there's a darker and story going on.

I am. Darker than even the lead. And this is disposable fashion, I mean, as I mentioned. But the good side of things is that when Stanley Cups are no longer popular in about, I don't know, two weeks time. And there are millions upon millions of these things in the United States sitting around full of lead. What an amazing solution to nuclear waste. Yes. Can you imagine?

Don't worry about, you know, wherever they're doing. now, just get all the Stanley Cups, put all the plutonium rods in them. They've got lead. It's ready to go. If only they hadn't put those holes in the top, they'd be pervy. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. But Charles, there is a broader story here to do with fashion

and the way that things coming into and out of fashion. Because the guy who bought this company, who certainly runs the company now, is a guy called Terrence Riley. And this guy, Terrence Riley, who's made, the Stanley Cup so popular just by making it pink. He previously did this with another product, which came in and was very fashionable, and then everyone thought they were the worst things in the world,

but now somehow they're fashionable again. And that is the crock. You remember how crocs came in and everyone was like, oh, wow, these are really practical. I can wear them to the beach, and then wear them wherever. Apparently chefs like wearing them and so on. And then people decided they were the ugliest thing in the world. Yes.

Then this guy, Terrence Riley, somehow made them popular again. Yes. And he did it through gibbets. Are you across the gibbet economy? This is absolutely massive. I can't believe the chase that hasn't gone into gibbets. What's gibbets?

Okay, so you know the classic crock kind of clog design that looks ridiculous, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know how they've got holes on them? Yes, the ventilation. I don't know why there are holes on there. It's the same as a Stanley Cup.

It's upside down. What someone, probably Terence Riley, I think, realized was that you could sell collectible things that you poke into those holes. And so now, I first saw my niece having it, now my daughter's got it. So you get crocs and you kind of

festoon them with little plastic pieces of crap to personalise them and Crocs sells you like hundred different kinds of these things so it's not actually personalised in any way I mean they've just designed them but this is why kids love them because you can stick so the chaser needs to work out a product with holes

in it that people can stick collectible items in it somehow like we're saying the chaser annual but I can't stick like a little picture of a pineapple on it or a musical note or a vampire or whatever or a mermaid but we're going to stick to our brand it should be like an Australian

politician or something. It should be like an elbow. Yes. Actually, that's what we could do. We could make gibbets in the shape of elbow and Dutton's heads. Yes. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing to put down there? You can probably get a potato one, actually.

Yep, yep. And the important thing is that, I mean, Crocs are actually, they last forever. Yes. The great thing about the gibbets is that they don't. They don't. You know, the ones you bought last week, can't cool anymore. So you've got to throw them away, absolutely. Yeah, right.

So they've made a very long-lasting product disposable. The mistake he made, but the mistake he made, with the crox, though, was not putting lead in them. Well, they may, I can't rule out whether there's lead in them. Maybe that's why they're so good at being what. I thought they're just rubber or something. No. But maybe there's lead in them. Yes, that would be it.

Or asbestos, actually. Asbestos seems more likely. Yeah, yeah. For insulation. Yeah, that's good. Well, look, I think we've solved that problem. I think we've ended fashion, Charles. I think fashion is now over. We've mocked it. Yeah. The disposability of items that cost far too much.

No, and I'll be doing that anymore. No, exactly. Exactly. I think everyone will just be sensible from now on and do what we do, which is we're really, really just sort of like sensible clothes that are comfortable. Yeah, that's why I've dressed in a hyper-collar t-shirt right now. Don't know the got out of style. Our gear is from Road. We are part of the Iconiclass Network. Catch you next week.