Episode 05: Meet the Munch Bunch

Cambridge. Mm sean is a weirding Way media podcast. Hello and welcome to Cambridge. On was Shan episode five, currently untitled. I like to pull titles from the topics that we discuss, and so I won't know that until I'm done and we're editing Cambridge.

M was Shan is a podcast about two guys. Actually, it's a podcast about two weird guys and the weird things that they like. Let's put it that way this time. That's good. That's a good catchphrase.

I am Mark Bigley, the host of wikipeavy Recollections of Horror. Along with me as usual is Ronnie Zurigan or Ronald Zuragan or Skelevator on YouTube. Yeah. I'm excited to talk about today's stuff and hopefully we've both gotten our sound issues. We solved your issue that was a connection issue, and I've been really annoyed with how I sound on these, So I'm going back to my blue snowball set up here and hopefully that helps with my high end crackling and obnoxious sounds that I hear as I'm editing these and at a dozen I don't know what to do about that narrator.

He did not in fact fix it. We've both got a couple of items to talk about this time, as well as some follow ups from the last episode, because we've both been gifted and have bought things. In reference to one of those items, Oh yeah, that we talked about, and you mentioned before we hit record that you have a correction to make, so let's hear that. Yes, absolutely. In the last episode I talked about Popeye's village in I actually called the town Marfa, which is in Texas, and it's really the island of Malta.

And I don't know. Every single time I say Marfa, I say Malta, and every single time I say Malta, I say Marfa. So it's a natural mistake to make. And when I was re listening to the episode, I was like, I better not say Marfa, and sure enough I said, Marfa, folks, it's the island of Malta where Popeye's village is. It's not in Marfa, Texas, though that would be really cool since Marfa is such an interesting place, so and it would be closer.

Yeah, yeah, if not catch that at all. I've been catching my corrections and trying to correct them in episode now when I catch them and as far as being incorrect about some of the information on this stuff, that's just how it's going to be. Yeah, I think until we get into things that I feel like I have expert information on something that I've been into for forty or fifty years or whatever. A lot of this stuff it's like you've loved it as a kid, and then there is a long time where it was gone and then you get back to it. And actually the two that I'm doing today are sort of perfect examples of that.

I don't have a lot of information about either of these and a lot of the information is confusing. Hey, and the older we get, the more our synapses pop slowly, so and when you can't track anything down about something, you really have to just rely on what you do find and your memories of things. For me, for these two today, if you know this stuff, great, maybe let me know. Yeah. I don't think either of us are purposefully being misinformational about things.

Yeah, misrepresenting. I mean. Also, the internet is just rife with false information as well as solid information. So you know, I do a little research before each episode, you know, just a little bit though, because I feel like so much of what we talk about is based on our own experiences in our perspectives. So I'm cool with making a mistake now and then that's just the way it goes.

I can catch my own mistakes. But like the Malta thing is a perfect example of me not even thinking about the island of mine. Know there's a island of Malta. I've never heard of Marpa, but it made sense when you said it, and I didn't catch it during editing or anything. And if you do think of something, let me know, yeah, and I'll make my AI correction on the episode.

Will do all right well. At the end of this EPI episode, I think I already mentioned, we'll talk about some stuff that the last episode persuaded us both to get and or give each other. But for now, Ronnie, what is your first childhood obsession? For episode five, my first childhood obsession is Freddie Krueger, and I want to be specific, and this is pretty If you listen to the Cambridge In with Shawn podcast or if you watch the Skelevator channel, you know that my interest usually stems from a foundation of craft. When I was a kid in you know, watching horror movies at far too young of an age and reading Fangoria magazine like a maniac.

Freddie Krueger and the Nightmare in Elm Street franchise was a huge joy for me. It's diff gult to say that a character like Freddy Krueger provides joy for us, especially in thinking as an adult and having kids, about what Freddy Krueger represents. But it was more about this character's kind of the Mickey Mouse of horror films, or maybe better yet, like the Daffy Duck of horror films, and that he's like snarky and funny. That was something that got me, helped me understand and appreciate this character because I love even as a young kid, I love snarky sense of humor. But what really excited me about him was the craft aspect of his character, and that was the artistry of his makeup.

I'm gonna jump ahead a little bit. I even went so far as to dress up as Freddy Krueger and create my rendition of the makeup when I was in fourth grade, which is totally It was totally gruesome and insane to do. But back then you could do that. Right now, I don't think anybody would want a kid showing up to school with blades on their fingers and a melty face. But I'm sure it happens, Oh yeah, for sure.

And the makeup that I did was for myself looked more like the first makeup or the first movies makeup, so it was more gruesome. That makeup artist was David Miller, and he was known for doing the makeup for The Terminator and he also did the makeup for Michael Jackson and Thriller. Oh and he also did the makeup effects for Wild at Heart and if you know about Willem Dafoe's teeth and all the cool shit, and that David Miller was actually he's a name that I have to look up because he wasn't the person I was obsessed with. The person who I was obsessed with was Kevin Jaeger, and he did the second one, the third one, in the fourth one, and the third film, Dream Warriors is my favorite of the franchise.

It's spectacular. The makeup wasn't as gruesome. It was almost more like, I hate to say this, it's more like cheese on a pizza, so less bloody and less peely, and more like the burns had settled in on his face, and he even had specific burns that you could see in each film that we're in the same place. And so as a perfectionist as a kid, that appealed to me. It was like, Oh, this makeup artist is actually paying attention and making sure that there's consistency in the makeup.

That's so weird that I'm saying that now, and that I was like thinking about that. As a person that likes continuity, I can understand that absolutely in film, especially right, you've got to have the continuity there. If it's not there, really get really pissed off. It might actually make me dislike a movie that's pretty good. Kevin Yeager.

It's funny. I was doing some research last night and Kevin Yeager actually did them makeup effect for weird Al Yankovic's Fat video. So there's a Michael Jackson connection between David Miller and Kevin Yeager. Yeah, Kevin Yeager for me was like Rick Baker or he was like a superstar to me as a kid. Though nobody really talks about Kevin Yeager today.

People mostly talk about Tom Savini and Rick Baker and what's the guy I'm blinking out, what's the guy who did Walking Dead, who's a makeup artist Greg Nikotero, Like, so we're talking about those folks quite often, but Kevin Yeager flies under the radar. But his work and the Nightmare and I'm Street movies is what really made me interested in Freddy Krueger as a fictional construct as this icon. His makeup in two, three and four and also in the Freddie's Nightmares television series is what really solidified Freddie as a pop icon in our culture. And that's kind of the image that we see most often is him in that makeup. I remember, when this is gonna go, I'm going to talk a little bit too much about my personal life here, but I remember meeting my second stepfather and his son.

They came to visit. You know, my mom was dating this guy, and they came to visit, and I was deep in my obsession with Nightmare and Elm Street. In looking back, I can only imagine. So I'm there wearing my plastic Freddy Krueger glove, welcoming them to the house, wanting to talk about Freddy Krueger, and I'm just surprised that that guy and his son didn't just like walk out, like what the Heck's kid about. I was deeply obsessed with the Nightmare and on the Street films, and especially the artistry of the makeup design.

Of course, that connects closely to what we've talked about earlier in these episodes, which is, and it always seems to be a thread line our interest in makeup design, horror makeup design, and special effects. And that's something that you're talking about a little bit too. Yeah, yes, I am. Do you have the Migo Freddy Krueger? I do not the only Freddie that I have.

I have two Freddie's. I have the Reaction Freddie back when Funko was still doing them with Super seven, and I have the Neca Freddie from the first film. I did not have the Mego Freddie, although he is. Whenever I see a Freddie in the stores, I'm always tempted. I want to get the part three Freddie when it comes with a television set, the television set from that scene where he is part of the TV and his arms sprinking out of it, and so that's the one that's on my list.

But the Mego Freddie is pretty beautiful. What does he say? Get ready? Ready? Are you ready for primetime?

Bitch or something. Yeah, I'll get the real put in. Yes, right, the mego one is pretty great. Do you have them? Yeah?

I think I got. I don't think this is when I found a target. I think I actually ordered it from Amazon fifteen eighteen dollars or something, saying okay, it's basically a Super seven stuff three and three quarter inch scale. A reaction figure today is about twenty bucks, man, and yeah, that's steep. They are pretty much the same price as migoes, which is kind of crazy.

Something that we're going to talk about in the future that I'd really love to get deep in on Sesame Street. And I just got an advertisement that Super seven is going to be doing a bunch of Sesame Street stuff. They got the license for that. It's still I'm like, do I really want to pay twenty dollars for a character? And I know that I can't just get Burt or Ernie and you need to get both, And I know I need to get Grover, and you know, I need to get Oscar to Graub because I love all those guys.

To twenty bucks of pop, man, that's rough, and when you think about it in this scale, they're going to be even smaller than three and three quarters most of them, because yeah, for sure, going by actual scale, that's right, that's right. Like the Chucky one that I have, it's like two inches, that's right. So all those muppets are going to be tiny. Kevin Yeager is responsible for Chucky, I believe too. Yeah.

Yeah. I saw The First nightmar in elm Street on video, probably when it first came out on video. So for anyone that's not old like us, you used to have to wait about a year, oh your movie to go from the theater to VHS. So that would have been eighty five, so I was sixteen. I remember distinctly watching it with five or so friends at my house, which was unusual anytime we did this at my house.

I remember it because it was usually at somebody else's house where we would get together and watch movies. In that first movie, being really struck by the dream quality of it, the surrealism, long arms in the Alleyway really got me. And I've never been a fan of the wise cracking Freddie so as the series progressed, I got less and less interested. I did see three in the theater, though, because I was old enough by the time that came out in eighty seven. I was eighteen.

That was I'm assuming it probably came out when I was still in high school, but maybe I was already a freshman in college. But I remember going and enjoying that one quite a bit, and then sort of lost interest after that. I actually might have seen four in the theater too, because a lot of the people from three came back. It was sort of an extension of that again, at least in the opening of that film. The Red Letter Media guys do a couple of videos on this series for their review so you might want to check that out.

Yeah, I will, for sure. It's not a franchise that I'm super knowledgeable about it all. I have seen the remake though. Yeah, you do have an aversion to comedy and horror, and I get it. Freddie is a hard pill to swallow.

Most of those movies kind of fall into the army of darkness territory where it's like you can't really take it seriously because of all the quips and stuff. There are moments where there are levels of brilliance in those films that make it okay. And Part three is really smart and it's such a creative Nightmare and on the Street Film, and then also my other favorite is Wes Craven's New Nightmare. It's self referential and it breaks the fourth wall and it's just really cool. What did you think of the new version?

I didn't really like it, so I want to know your Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's it's kind of ugly too, I remember. It just really dark work, like just the look of it, not the subject matter or anything. As much as I like Jackie Earle Haley, yeah, I think he's the right choice for that. He's got a face.

You know, he could play a character like Freddie in a realistic film and be believable like a person with the character traits of Freddie or the things that Freddie does that are devastating and horrible too children. Jackie Haley has that kind of face as an actor that you could believe him being that, and that's almost too much. It almost feels like, oh, yuck, I can't I can't hang with this. Robert England is a cartoon character. It's easier to be like, oh, Okay, this guy's super gross and he's doing these horrible things, but he's also kind of a goof.

It's weird. How that how those dynamics work? What's first on your list? This is quite a departure from Freddy Krueger, I'll say that much. I think I mentioned this on maybe the second episode when we brought in you know, have you purchased anything from your childhood or whatever?

And I had mentioned that I had gotten this little pencil topper and I didn't get specific about it because I knew I would talk about these at some point. So I got a little pencil topper from eBay. And when I was in elementary school, pencils and pencil toppers and pins and things were a big deal. Yeah, absolutely, I remember ordering I think it was the NFL. You could probably do it for Baseball two, like you could get a set of pencils that had And the NFL makes more sense because at the time it probably only had twelve teams, maybe ten, I don't know how many it was in the seven and these you could order that and the pencils would come with their name and of course their colors and little logos and stuff.

So I have those. And you know, you used pencils every day in school, and as kids you want everything you used to be interesting and throwing a little pencil topper on your pencil could entertain you, probably while you're fidgeting and stuff. And so these were little anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables. The one that I have is a little red apple, and this was always my favorite. I remember my sister and I having a bunch of these.

The apple, I remember a banana pear, and what I always thought was a BlackBerry, but it might be a bunch of grapes, I'm not really sure. Yeah, and they usually have a little stem on top if the fruit that they're mimicking have that. And they just got this that you know, those half ellips eyes very almost Betty boot Yeah, I was gonna say Betty Boob or early early Fleischer cartoon cartoons. Yeah, for sure, silly symphonies. Yeah, so those eyes and then this guy's got it is little tongue sticking out, which is painted white for some reason because he's in the interior of an apple is white.

Yeah. I would actually play with them beyond just having them as a pencil topper. I remember having a distinct memory of playing in this weird area of our side yard at my childhood home. I think it must have been a car port at some point or I don't know what it was, but it was recessed. I remember playing in the sun with these, with either my sister or a friend, and just with these little pencil topper.

I don't know why. I remember that, as we do when we get older and this thing called eBay comes around, Yeah, and you have this random thought about, oh, yeah, I remember those pencil toppers you used to love and be obsessed with and play with. What the heck were those called? So I can look on this thing that can deliver all this stuff to me. I had no idea what they were called, if they had a name.

I think I probably just put in fruit and vegetable pencil toppers. I don't think I found much early on, because with that I was probably getting more modern things. I'm sure there are still some sort of pencil toppers that have anthropomorphic or just regular fruits and vegetables. I believe it took a while for me to stumble on a listing that had them as munch Bunch pencil toppers, so I kind of had a name to go on now, so I would use that search term and a lot like you mentioned last episode with those little monster finger puppets. Yes, the things that would come up were similar but not quite right, Like I could not find this little red apple.

They were fruits and vegetables, similar size and shape, but a lot of times they were translucent or transparent rubber, and they would have little almost hats on their heads. Yeah, these are close, you know, close enough. So at some point, just using that search term munch Bunch, I discovered it. There was a series of books in the UK called The munch Bunch and they were all anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables, and I was like, oh, okay, And so I looked at them, looked at the images, and very much the same kind of cartoon design for the faces, and they would all be wearing little hats and stuff. I'm like, oh, well, maybe that explains the ones that I've seen with hats.

Right. It's kind of like that series Mister Man and Little Miss where it's like a little white book and it just has the name of the character and then a picture of them. So the one that I saw that made me think of this little guy was called Tom Tomato, and I'm like, oh, was he a tomato? This whole thing I was just assumed he was an apple, Well, he looks like an apple. Again.

Every once in a while would do that search munch bunch pencil topper, see this array of designs and things that just didn't look quite right, and you would see an apple like this, where it's this shape and everything, but it's a different color. And I'm thinking, well, these were probably knocked off by every company in China that had access to materials. So anyway, this goes on for however many years, and I never bite the bullet and buy any of these. I found a little green one. I must have gotten a capsule toy at some point at Toys r Us or something.

It's like a knockoff version of these transparent green, really shoddy rubber. Just recently, I was doing my Instagram scrolling in the discovery section, and as often happens, toys pop up in my feed and I see this image of a wind up toy. You wind it up and it walks. I've got those little weird yep metal legs, and it is a much more detailed version of this apple face. I mean, there's no mistaking that it's the same apple face.

So I clicked on it obviously and discovered that it's TikTok Toys two the number two, and that is the collection site of Dan good Sell, who is the creator of Mister Toast. I actually produced some letter pressed that's doing that stuff, the cards and prints. I want to say I did two different cards and her prints with him. I know I did at least one, and he sent me, I think when I did the first one a bunch of the plushies of his characters like mister Toast and there's a little egg and a banana and all this stuff. So he collects all this old toy and or advertising material and he had the information about this wind up toy.

So I took that immediately to eBay. And it's like Franconia slash Tomi, which is a Japanese toy company, Franconia Tomy mister Apple wind up walking figure. And so I was looking through these the apple popped up. But it even has the one arm up, one arm down thing, right, But like molded onto the toy o, his tongue is sticking out exactly the same way. It's the same eyes.

And so these things are called Cuti fruities, and they were made in the late sixties, but they're expensive, so I ain't getting one right, and so now I'm thinking, oh wait, maybe that munch Bunch stuff was incorrect. So for this episode, I looked on like, well, which one are these cutie Fruities or are they Munchbunch? And I looked at the Wikipedia entry for Munchbunch and that series of books didn't even start until nineteen seventy nine, and I'm like, oh, well, these aren't based on those then, because I remember having these when I was much younger. I was not ten years old when I was playing with these. I was more like kindergarten through third grade or something.

You know. That's the thing. It's like every listing on eBay they all put much bunch go okay, I mean, I don't know whatever. They're similar enough, I guess, or maybe they're just using that name because one other person did so now they're munch Bunch exactly. And what's crazy is that that's probably only happening because the people who have them and who want to sell them aren't willing to do that little extra step of research that someone like you or I would do, which you did, and sometimes that research, that revelatory moment while you're doing research just sort of happens and you get lucky.

I can see why something like this might, by most people's standards, be not important enough to actually find out what they're genuinely called, and just go by what other people say online, spreading that false information. I think it's obvious that they're based either on those walking toys or some other childhood thing. They're called CUTI Fruity. There are still toys made. I don't know if they're still made.

But when I would put in CUTEI Fruities in eBay, I was getting a lot of more current stuff, these packages of small, little not necessarily anthropomorphic, or though they might have been. And then I also found little munch Bunch toys based on the book characters from the late eighties, and I'm like, okay, these are two separate things. They're very similar. Look, it's like the McDonaldland versus HR Puff and stuff thing. I don't know the complete etymology of these little anth and it doesn't really matter.

It is kind of interesting when you can find that one little source like, oh, I think it was just a generic thing that everybody did. And I always assumed that these were capsule toys that I would get another thing I found were these packs of party favors from Carousel, and it's Carousel with two rs, which made it a bitch to look up on. Yeah, everybody wanted to correct me to the correct spine of Carousel. The packaging looked to me more late sixties early seventies, and it came with six of these. Never had the apple in the pack, but I would see the banana and the corn on the cob and the carrot, and a lot of them had a little thing on top, which I believe is so you could attach it to a keychain or something.

Right, So they weren't actually hats. They were little dealings that had a loop in it and you can attack charms or whatever. So I started thinking, well, maybe I got these as party favors at people's houses. Maybe these were your rewards. And then that made me think of GW school supply.

Oh yeah, for sure. We went to a lot when I was a kid. Oh us too, Yeah, my mom's a teacher like yours, and we were always there. They probably had a who knows where they They might still have versions of these that they could Yeah, and so yeah, we would go to that one on Bellmontain Clovis, all the time because that was actually pretty close, one of the few things that was actually close to our house, and that's where you could also get those fancy pencils and stuff. So that's the one we used to go too, and my wife's a teacher, so we still go to that one.

Yeah, that would be close for you. Still, I for some reason thought it closed. When the one over here on Blackstone and open. I realized as I'd been doing my Google map search of that whole area from my childhood, I'm like, oh, still there, it's showing up on the things, so it must still be open. Such a weird spot for it, also in a weird concrete building, And what I remember well when I was a kid, it was interesting because my first stepfather was interested in hunting, and right next to that GW there was like a sportsman store, so you could buy ammunition and bows and arrows and stuff like that.

We would hit up both spots. It was always kind of a joy for me because GW had all the cool stuff, and then in that sportsman's store, the only thing that was interesting to me was they had a giant buffalo taxidermied head, which I would just sort of stare at you know what I was thinking. I was exploring Dustin crops boys YouTube channel not too long ago. Well, since we spoke last, I've been watching his videos over and over. Huge fan now.

Yeah, well we'll talk about that at the end as well, because I want to Oh yeah too, Oh for sure. Yeah, that ties in perfectly with last week's episode. He has an obsession with the Apple Timer from the sixties or seventies, and that Apple Timer looks it's very similar in style to that pencil topper, almost the same eyes. So I'm wondering if there's some link there. Yeah, I saw that video of him, Yeah, taking it apart or whatever to see how the chime worked or whatnot in the inside of it.

Not timer, I guess it's a it's a musical thing. It's like for a baby, So if you would move it, it would Zach Kings right, that's right. I don't remember it having a face, though, I'll have to go back, and I feel like it has eyes. I mean, I could just be blending my memory of your pencil topper and that Apple toy. I'll go look at that again.

Yeah. I watched a lot of his videos as well. Yeah, yeah, so that CUTEI fruity Walker wind up toy. One of the box images shows six different ones. The pear, the facial design is exactly the same as the little pencil topper.

Either they use that as a reference or they're connected somehow. And there was a BlackBerry and or bunch of grapes. I still don't know what it is. I think I had the bunch of grapes. I remember that feeling that it was.

I couldn't tell if it was a berry or grapes. As a kid, neighbors behind us had a wild BlackBerry bush in their yard, so it would get into our yard and we would go out and collect blackberries or they might have been poison berries. I don't know. That was always in my head when I had that little guy, Yea, and these would kind of go, I mean, the legs rip off and the arms would get destroyed and to go get a new one, and he always lose the little stems out of them and stuff. But BlackBerry and the apple were my favorite.

And I'm trying to track down a BlackBerry and or a bunch of grapes. They had a pineapple, BlackBerry, pear, banana, and I think the other one was a lemon. Was referring to the QD Fruity wind up toys right there. Those were all pencil topper figures as well, plus just tons of others, carrots, all kinds of fruits and vegetables, limes, lemons, oranges probably, I mean, any citrus fruit. All you had to do was change the color.

Yeah, call it whatever, but yeah, one of the things that I just had to search out later on in life and be frustrated by for the most part, like where is the answer? The answer has to be there. But I got my little apple least with his boots and just a funny little He's great, and it triggers something. I mean, there's something about those designs that makes the appeal last, and it's hard to articulate what that is. He will not fit on any pencils I have, though, so I don't know, pencils got bigger.

Maybe he's shrunk over time. I just think that his little butthole isn't whiter. That doesn't sound right. We were talking. There are those look them up, there are some has seen them, the McDonald one, the McDonald's ones.

Their borderline inappropriate, not well designed at all. Ronald is actually inappropriate. That's an inappropriate design, completely bad, in bad taste, almost like on purpose. How do we do this? Yeah, he could have just been standing and have and have like big feet or something exactly.

I don't know, but look those at people McDonald land pencil toppers. You'll get a surprise. Yeah, you'll never be the same after. So what is your second item? For episode five of Cambridge and Sean.

My second item is something that is a recurrent and constant obsession, similar to Masters of Universe and Star Wars and something like Freddy Krueger. He comes and goes. I could go multiple years without watching a Freddy movie and feel totally fine. But there are certain things that are constantly present. And this next one I chose specifically because it is something that in fact, our whole family is kind of feeling the return of interest in this thing too.

I'm lucky that our daughters and my wife liked this as well. But Disneyland, so not Disney per se, but Disneyland, and for me at least, there are a variety of things, or a variety of reasons why Disneyland is such an important I can I say object, Yeah, I'm gonna say object because that's what it is. It's an important object in my life. It's a place to go, It's a place where you can be immersed and part of the reason why I enjoyed Storyland. When we previously talked about that, Disneyland, for me, I could pretty much categorize my constant interest into these elements or compress them down to these elements.

If you're familiar with Disneyland, and I'm sure I have never been to Disney World, so I'm sure it's the same there. I'll begin with Pirates of the Caribbean. There's also adventure to be found in the Pirates of the Caribbean. There are two elements of that ride, three elements of that ride in particular that almost embody everything that I like about the park completely, which is first the Uncanny Valley, which is the animatronics and the way that those Pirate characters look close to being real but not and it's almost nightmarish. And as a kid, I was totally drawn into that, knowing that they were fake, but also knowing like that they look like dirty plastic.

We're going to talk about the dirty plastic stuff in a little bit here at the end of the episode. But I think I just found the title for the episode dirty Plastic that you write that down the Uncanny Valley aspect. Our daughters and my wife still don't understand why I enjoy the Abraham Lincoln exhibit at Disneyland. I mean talk about Nightmare. I mean those the Abraham Lincoln.

Yeah, I mean, it's like it's super weird. I genuinely. First of all, it's nice to go in there. There's air conditioning to sit down, and but I genuinely love the sound of his voice and the look of that weird animatronic. It's definitely the Uncanny Valley and that you know.

Of course it begins with Pirates, because I always think about I mean, last time we were there, we went on Pirates five times, so all of us like it. But that's one of the reasons why I like it. And the animatronics all throughout the park just fantastic. I love animatronics. One of these days we're going to talk about Chuck E Cheese and we'll get into that stuff of Nightmares.

Okay, So the other thing is the music and the first part of the ride where you're floating through the swamp and you're about to enter the caverns of the Pirates Ride, So the floating fireflies. I've looked up ways to recreate those. When I was developing this band that never really made it off the ground, I recorded an album and that's about it is Slow System Revival. Recorded that with Dan Davis and Jeff Martin and friends of ours, and I wanted to do a live show where I incorporated the fake fireflies, So I was looking into all that and it ended up just being totally unrealistic. So the other category, and this is throughout the park as well, and it lines up with the fireflies, the smell of bromine.

It's that chlorine smell that you get when you walk past water feature in the park, and especially concentrated inside that main area where you get onto the log ride, a Splash Mountain. The small world, Yeah, the small world exactly, little boats there, the little boats of Pirates. It's bromine, which is a chemical that's similar to chlorine but maybe not as harsh. Oh Okay, that very specific smell paired with a kind of mildewy smell you get from the interior space of that part of that ride. Those three elements of the Pirates Ride that can be found throughout the park, the Uncanny Valley, animatronics, the constructed artificiality of plants, of animals, of things, and the smell throughout the entire part of Bromine.

My family split up when I was one, so my dad's side of the family and my mom's side of the family. I was lucky enough to go to Disneyland a couple of times with both of those sides of the family. As a kid, it was almost like they were in competition with one another. Thinking about it, now, you know you benefit from that as a kid, I guess there's something positive to come from that kind of a situation, so when I went. My most wonderful memories of going to the park are in the eighties when they still had the oh what's it called now, the above the Skyway, the Skyway before they dismantled that, the monorail, not the monorail, but there were these little pods you could get in and you, oh, yes, yes, you take a wire across the park, especially super dangerous, but I have very fond memories of being able to look down on this construct, this large object that Walt Disney wanted to create, so for me as a person who's instinctively drawn to the making of things.

Even as a kid, the idea of building a park, of building all of these elements into a place where when you're in it, you're totally immersed, really became a fascination for me, and inconsistently is as an artist creating installations with art, building diorama pieces or homemade play sets for action figures and displays that are immersive, sculpture, sculptural work, all of that is influenced, I feel by Disneyland, and the older I get, the more I realize that my color choices as an artist, my materials that I'm using plaster and wire and foam and all that stuff. Set making materials probably stems, not probably definitely stems from my investigation of the way those things were made as a kid, the way the animatronics are made, the way the sets are made, the way the facades are made, and so the idea of us having the ability to create and a situation that is completely illusory or a space where a human being can enter and be immersed in this illusion has been an obsession throughout my life.

Probably the reason why as a kid, when I visit my grandparents I would obsessively lead through architectural digest and become later on interested in like interior design and all kinds of things. In fact, the reason why I was why I feel like McDonald Bland is of such interest is probably because of that too. I'm going to make sense. Yep, Disneyland. So Disney movies, sure, that's another thing.

Disney as a cultural phenomenon, okay, but Disneyland in particular is something that really fascinates me. So bromine. You can buy candles with the bromine scent I found. Well, there you go. You can have Disneyland all the time.

Now, just find your house and like those candles. My dream is to build the little studio out in the backyard or something there I can have my bromine candles for sure. Just turn your backyard into a mini Disneyland. I've been wanting to do that since the moment we moved into the house. But I don't think that's gonna fly just yet.

I've been thinking about my old house, oh yeah, near Sunnyside, and just how massive. I need to look up the listing for the house. It's gone up for sale, actually, it was up for sale one of the times when Curlet and I were looking in, I'm like, there's no way I'm living here in this area anymore. It's gone way downhill. Oh yeah, wouldn't that be a trip?

And apparently they've filled in our pool because now we look on Google Maps and look at the satellite picture, there is no pool in our backyard anymore. Oh no, that's awful. Yeah, I kind of understand that. We I don't think we swam in that when my sister and I were in high school or college. Probably don't use it, but anyway, Yeah, the yard was so huge you could have a mini Disneyland in there.

It's a huge backyard. Our yard has a little area that you don't see. Like if you look out to our backyard from the kitchen window, from the other side windows, there's a little alcove you can't see. You know, maybe my life will let me build a little then you can charge the neighborhood kids to walk through it. That's right, that's not creepy.

But yeah, if I really think about it, I would have to say Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah, was at least my childhood favorite ride. That slow yeah, wandering down the river and you'd go over a little ramp every once in a while and you get splashed. And then all the funny stuff that was going on, pirates chasing winches and which I think they've gotten rid of. They switched it.

She chased him now, Yeah, she's just it's cool. Hey, I don't think i've been since I went with you. Yeah, that's that was a long time ago, like ninety seven, I think, yeah, ninety six seven, definitely before I met Carlita's has a long time ago. Yeah, that's probably. And we have not taken Cleo.

We're awful parents. It's something to do. I mean, it's it's really expensive now, which is right. That's one thing. It's really sad how expensive it is, but there are ways to make it affordable.

But the other thing with her is we would go when she started school, we would go to the carnivals at her school and she would and I totally understand this because I have a story in my head where I did the exact same thing at Disneyland with a bunch of family. She would just shut down too much, it's too much, not want to do anything. Carlita and I were looking at each other, like, why would we spend hundreds of dollars to go to Disneyland, where she would be miserable all day. Yes, I hate crowds that cost all this other stuff. And I think it was our first trip there.

We had relatives that lived in the Newport Beach area, so pretty close to Anaheim, Okay. And on a trip to visit them, we all went. And I think it was like my dad's whole family, that part of his family, because like his parents divorced when he was pretty young, so his half siblings from that second marriage we all went, I believe, and I was just a miserable little prick the whole time. So I don't know what my problem was. I just remember, like the crows cranky, and I think my only real interest this was when I was obsessed with top hats is they used to have all those little vendors.

Vendors people would get the ears and I'm like, oh, they've got to sell top hats here, They've got two and couldn't find one, And so I think I just decided to make everybody miserable. But I did enjoy the Pirates of the Caribbean, and I also think I was scared of the rides because I had never been on roller coasters before, even though Disneyland has the tamest roller coasters in the world. And I was also afraid of the Haunted House. So all these sing and I'm like, I can't tell anybody these things. I just have to act miserable.

That's funny you mentioned the aggressive rides and the Haunted Mansion. Pirates sort of took over the conversation here. I should probably spend I could probably spend another episode talking about those two, the Matterhorn and the Haunted Mansion, because those are whole periods of my life. I've spent obsessed with those two different rides separately from Disneyland. But I understand why you would be miserable because I know, being around that many people, it's rough.

And for all of us too, It's like sometime during the day, almost every time we go, was it worth it for this? You know, you're waiting in line for these things, and then you get onto a ride and you're immersed and you ideally you forget about that stuff. But it's rough. Yeah, there are times where it can definitely be not fun. We would go, our school would go every year, and I think until the last couple of years they switched it to six Flags, and I was still kind of afraid of roller coasters, so I didn't go on those trips because those are actual roller I mean, these are like.

Yeah. I did eventually go at one point when I was in my twenties and loved it. But I think we went every year from like when I was in seventh grade to like tenth grade. There, get up the crack of dawn, that's over to the school, take all these buses. I mean, the trip was great.

The bus trip was fun. Ye with your buddies, listening to your walkman the whole time, check out rolls, get there and just look at girls the whole time we were there. Yeah, but I think the only time that I've got I want to say, I went with my sister and brother in law once, but I don't even know if that was when they had kids or if we were just down there for something else. And it was the only time I can remember where we didn't have to wait or ever in line like Space Mountain used to be the line, Yeah, that would just go on forever. And if I remember correctly, that line was like right next to the Big Disney store or one of the stores, but like the really big one that would have all of the plush stuff and the clothes and everything, and you would just wind all the way back along the stretch of that store.

Yep. But this one time we went and they didn't even have the chains up and stuff. You could just pretty much go right up to the front of the line and maybe have a fifteen minute wait for each ride. I was like, this is the only way I want to do this. You have those moments and then you feel like every time it's almost like a gambling problem every time we go, because we've had those experiences too where it's like, oh, the lines are not a problem here at all, and then next time you go, it's like, oh, it's a nightmare.

It's a nightmare. Or the other thing is to do like two days, Like last time I went with you that stretched over two days, and you don't feel like you have to hit everything. That's right, that's the only way to do it, and unfortunately it's so pricey, but right, But then you're talking about two days worth of passes. When they announced that it was it's hundred the Disneylands hundredth anniversary this year, I was still have a hard time believing that. That's crazy.

Hundred one hundred. No, Disneyland, No, Disney Disneyland, Disneyland. Disneyland wasn't made until the fifties. So Disneyland's one hundredth anniversary this year. But that's insane.

Yeah, all right, now you got me questioning myself. I'm gonna look it up. Why don't you research that. We'll we take a quick break and here's some ads from our sponsors. That's right, we have those Space Mountain It could only happen at Disneyland.

Experience it. No, yeah, Disneyland. Oh it's disney one hundred. Yeah, Disney's one hundredth anniversary at Disneyland. Yeah, that's what it is.

I'm like, there's no way that it was around in the twenties. Yeah, but that's crazy. Twenty twenty three, Yeah, nineteen twenty three. Yeah, that's cool. That is crazy.

Alrighty, well, now that we cleared up that gaff M, nothing like a gaff. My second item does relate back to things you were talking about earlier, and also relates back to something you brought to the table on the first episode, something that I've talked about yep on Wake up Heavy, the Alan Ormsby Movie Monster Makeup Book, Yes, and so related to that in my head at least. And I think this makes sense because I probably had both or was obsessed with both around the same time. So sometime in the mid to late seventies, Dick Smith and I don't know how involved he was in these, if it was just adding his name to it or what, but there were makeup kits that you could buy, and there were I guess there were three.

I only remember these two for my childhood. There was the Dick Smith Movie Slash TV Horror Makeup Kit, Yes, and the Dick Smith Movie Slash TV Monster Makeup Kit. And I had the Horror Makeup Kit. I remember that because seeing the pictures online. I remember those kids' faces on the box.

And I'm sure that there was a lot of crossover with what was included in them. It was this kit you could buy that had these trays and it came with this material that you would mix up and they called it flex flesh. Oh yeah, I'm sure it was some sort of latex rubber mixture that was possibly toxic. I don't know. I would hope by the mid seventies they had that kind of stuff figured out, but you never know, and so you could make your own special effects makeup and apply them to your face.

I love that stuff so much, and I did that, and I think this was a pretty quick This wasn't like an all consuming I did this stuff for years type of obsession. But there are two stories that I remember distinctly, and I had picture proof of one of them, which I'll use in the promotional material for this episode, where I think a lot of the time I just made the appliances and I wouldn't necessarily do anything with them. I think I just had fun mixing and stuff, putting it in the trays them all olds, and then releasing the molds and having this latex rubbery black eye or scar yep or bullet hole. So there is though at one point I didn't apply the black eye and a couple of the large scars. It's hard to make out in the picture since it's so old and was taken with the crappy you know instematic camera back in the mid seventies.

But I think the stuff was actually really well done, but you had to know how to apply it, and of course you know, mix it to match your flesh. And stuff. When I when I send you the picture, you'll see like the black eyes practically falling off. I've always had big, bushy eyebrows, even as a kid, and so it's like not sticking up here because of my eyebrows. And of course you don't want to get that stuff on your eyebrows anyways, because it's a bitch to pull off.

Oh absolutely, And it would come with the adhesive obviously, and then I think the stuff to get it off was called spirit gum or maybe the spirit gum was the adhesive. Gum was the adhesive, yeah, okay, because I always remember that name and then smells like pine tar. Getting that stuff off was I think probably why it didn't last super long. But there was another makeup kit that I think was part of the same line. It was the King Kong Makeup Kit, which I'm sure came with fuzz that's so cool.

I don't know anything about that one, but the other two were pretty popular. I could not find for the life of me, and I thought I had found one before. I couldn't find an ad on YouTube, like an old commercial forward or anything. All I could really find was blog entries from people who had it or have it now and use their own material to make the molds, because you could use whatever. There's all kinds of resin and things out there, or fable material that you could put in the molds.

You could do it with jello if you wanted to, and then eat them. I guess for sure. What's that you're eating? A smorrow old? A bullet hole mold.

The other little story I have. And I don't know what my mom was thinking, but I applied the bullet hole mold directly to my forehead. Probably did it on a weekend or something, and the glue that you used was pretty sticky stuff, so it stayed. I think I slept with it and whatever and convinced my mom to let me go to school with it on my head. Oh no, oh no.

I don't know if she was thinking, like, you know, let him get in trouble or whatever. Yeah, but I got self conscious, so after my mom dropped me off my walk from being dropped off to getting to the classroom, I pulled it off with my fingers. Didn't have the stuff to use to release it or whatever. I'm like, Oh, everybody's gonna make fun of me, or I'm in trouble. Whatever, probably thinking both things like why do your own bullet hole in your head?

Yeah, so I ripped it off of my forehead before I got to class or got to line for class, and probably had a just massive wealth and a red spot that was probably just as bad as having a fake bullet hole in your head. Yeah yeah, I don't know if the kit came with fake blood, but there were those. You could get that little pack of Dracula blood, which we always had, so I probably had put that in the middle of it, and who knows what, but mmmm, it was just called vampire blood and it was made by Imagineering Incorporated in Phoenix, Arizona. So every time I watched Taxi Driver and those amazing bullet hole shots and the finale of that, I think of I mean, Dick Smith did the makeup for that, and I think of that story of me applying probably a similar mold to my forehead.

And I want to say, from the look of the picture, this was like third maybe fourth grade. I doubt I was any older than that. And you mentioned doing that makeup in fourth grade of Free Krueger, I'm like, what is it about fourth grade boys makes them want to disfigure? Themselves with makeup. It's the idea of changing our look to be something more drastic.

I mean, that's why I've always loved Halloween, the holiday, because it's an opportunity for you to do something like that without being made fun of. Right, the self consciousness of you pulling that bullet hole off. I remember having those feelings so many times too, where it's like I want to do this and I want to show it off. I want to share this with the world, and then you get to school, or you get to the event, or you get to your play date with your friends and you're like, I don't think this is going to fly yeah, or like me just go with it, and then realize it too late that it's not an interesting to anybody else. It's funny.

I could picture you taking that thing off before showing up to class and just being like, I don't know, I'm doubting this decision now. I'd be curious to know what would have happened, like the teacher work on what is what is that? And then calling CPS and then exactly my parents in trouble. One of these times we got to talk about Lon Cheney because he was sort of the even as a kid. You know, we've talked about on occasion people from popular culture that you just sort of are aware of as a kid, and he was one of those figures that I was.

I don't know how I was just aware of. I'd maybe seen him in a book or something. Scholastic books. Those Scholastic books are actually that's one thing. You actually found the name of those Orange books.

Yeah I didn't write it down, but it's not Scholastic. It's a different company. But those books you know that you get at the book fair. That's probably how I discovered him, Man with a thousand Faces. I remember there was a book or something that's absolutely right.

So on Instagram the other day, I'll have to find it again and send it to you. Popped onto my feed and it was someone's recreating his makeup box from photograph. I think you can buy it from this person who's recreating a little diorama of the lawn Chainey makeup box. You go to the grocery store right before Halloween and you see all those different cool makeup kits, and I always wanted to try all of them. I get it, man, Well, on those little things, like I said, the little packet of blood.

Dracula's good. And then there was one what was the other one? It was like what was it again? I know I see these on Instagram all the time on these accounts. There was a little tube of blood which I constantly had.

I'm sure there's people who have tattoos of that Dracula, and I think there was something you could make scars with. There was like yeah, it was like a little yeah. It's looked like the thing that people use to wet their finger to apply stamps or whatever at the post office. I don't this probably doesn't making any sense. It's putty.

You could make the scars and then apply the blood. That's what I used for my ill the I don't know if I have a picture of it. That's what I used for It's it's I forget what it's called, like flesh putty or something like that. That's what I used for my Freddy Cougar makeup. This was called scar stuff, also made by Imagineering Incorporated.

Well, you probably had to buy quite a few of those. I did, and it's really just like goop with chunks of cotton in it to create ridges and shapes. It almost looked like vasoline. Yes, exactly, exactly, waxy and wax. Wax, yeah, like wax, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's wax, just wax before we get into the gifts and purchases.

What's your place for this episode? Well, the timing is perfect on this. You asked me what's the location you've chosen from the Presno area, and last weekend my wife surprised me with a sandwich from Pomani's and then coincidentally on NPR or something, our local NPR station, I guess they're featuring advertisements from sandwich shops. Maybe it was a different radio station and they just happened to be like, go visit pomani is a Fresno staple. Blah blah blah.

I grew up in the mountains with my mom, but every other weekend I would be in Fresno with my dad and my stepmother. They live in the Tower District area closer to Fresno City College, which is right near this area in Fresno called the Tower District. When I was in I guess eighth, seventh, eighth grade, freshman in high school right through to my senior year of high school, on those weekends I would go when I would walk around to there used to be in the Tower District. Now it's they've been replaced with bars. I think, I think I know where you're going with this.

Yeah, there used to be there used to be a used bookstore. To use bookstores, well, there were five actually, so there were five used bookstores within a nearly a five block radius in the Tower District. And on top of that, there were like two or three cafes. It was awesome. I would go.

This was my routine on the weekends. My dad and my stepmom would let me just wander down to the Tower District and like early teens and I would go to the used bookstores. By then I had, you know, I got my first job was at McDonald's when I was fifteen, So I was like fifteen and a half or something like that. I had a little money. I would go to the used bookstores.

I'd get myself a coffee somewhere and sit down and read, or if I was feeling hungry, I would go to Pimoni's and right next to Prmont was my favorite of the used bookstores, super teeny tiny use bookstore. That's where I discovered Charles Lukowski. I come from sam Pedro to put Redondo Beach on the map, and some local authors like Philip Levine and Larry Levice that particular use bookstores right next to panis. I would get my PMI sandwich. Every single time I've gone Tom, I've had the same sandwich, and it's the pepperoni sandwich, you know, with the banana peppers or whatever they're called.

Yea, and it's uh for many many years, it never changed. It was always the same. You go in, you have the olive oils and the Italian treats and some of the best sandwiches in the San Joaquin Valley. But what really needs to I need to emphasize here is I'm not even a picky bread person, but their bread is phenomenal. It's soft.

Again, I've never tried any other sandwich from there. I've always only had the pepperoni, so I can only vouch for that. But I know my wife always gets like a special and you and I have eaten there a couple of times. Number of times. Yeah, it's great, And I'm so glad that she just had the urgency to bring that home the other day because it reminded me it's a place that we need to frequent more often now, But it's a different The Tower District is a different place now.

Yeah, it is. And I don't I'm not talking down about bars or the new generation and people who hang out there, not talking down about that, but there is a different There are a lot of bars down there now, it's a different energy. There's always been an element of drug use and stuff like that in the Tower District. There's always been a little bit of that, but now it's even more frequently. We lived there briefly right at the beginning of my wife in our relationship, and we were noticing syringes on the street.

And I don't want to talk down about the townership too much. I mean, it happens. Like I said, I wouldn't live where I lived as a kid anymore. Yeah, it's yeah, neighborhood's change. I liked that I could get a sandwich, get a used book, sit out.

They'd have tables out on the sidewalk, sit out there. It felt like I was in another city, like San Francisco or something. There was a really lovely energy down there, and Kimani's was the place to go, man, And it's still delicious. Yeah. I mentioned to you that that was a later discovery for me.

Yeah. Yeah, I would venture to the Tower District in my late teens, but mostly for the theater itself when they still showed movies like I saw Sitting Nancy there. The hell was that movie with Tom Selleck and Paulina Poriskova? Saw that there? The movie storing Tom Selleck and Paulina pores Cova was called your alibi.

Every once in a while, take a field trip there, I think to see a play or something. Yep. Yeah, the Tower Theaters a beautiful theater. Yeah. The bookstores later discovered, the one by Pimanis, but the Valley Book Center that used like used trade paperback yep.

I would get a lot of stuff. And then my dad would go there constantly to get Louis Lamore books. Yeah, he would go and get a bunch and then go back and sell them later on and buy more and more and than I eventually would go. Think I got some Kurt Vonne get there, and well other stuff that I could track down. Then later discovered the other ones that had a little more literature.

Pimans, I would say, was more not high falutin, but just not trade paperbacks. They had they had some a little bit more of an interesting or like back then we would call it underground or yeah, out of the ordinary collection that stuff. Yeah, so that was later in life for me, late eighties, definitely early nineties when I was of age to go to a few bars that we're doing. Everything is a bar, like we've mentioned, and everything's a bar now it's really sad. It was the arts and cultural center of Fresno.

Yeah, and you're the one that turned me onto pepperoni sandwiches because I never even considered that as a sandwich. I always just thought of pepperoni is what you put on pizza. I would get the capecola or something like that, some other mode maybe yeah, Italian meat. But now, like you, all I get is pepperoni, and all I get is pepperoni. Anywhere else I go if they have it on their man oh yeah yeah.

But since that was late and I actually had this in my head already for this episode again, we're kind of connecting here. Yeah, there was a Delhi out by where I Sunny Side Deelly, because I already talked about that one. But there was another place called the Packing Shed and it was on Tillarry and Peach near Air Elementary which is where I went just for sixth grade, but we knew about it well before then, sort of like McDonald's that was the treat m but nicer because it was a local place, locally owned, locally run, and it was cold cuts. Again we're talking, we're going back to cold cuts like sunny side good stuff at that time. For me, I think my go to was just a roast beef sandwich, and like Hamantes, they used a soft roll, which I prefer subs.

Yes, I don't want a hard, crusty roll to destroy my mouth. I'm with you on that packing shed. I think it just recently closed. I'm not sure how recently recently enough to where there are still reviews on Yelp for it. It no longer exists, but it existed in the time of yelp and apparently had gone way downhill.

All the reviews on Yelp are negative reviews and talk about how dirty the place was, how poorly made the sandwiches were. Back when I was a kid, and I think even by the time I was driving, I would just go there if I wanted a sub and a couple of miles away from our house, just drive straight down Peach from our house and stop in there get a roast beef sandwich. But it was definitely a dad and me type thing, right, you want to sub, Yes, let's go a pack and shit pick one up. And I believe when my brother in law was teaching at air and so I would sub out there with him. I think a lot of the teachers would go there.

And I remember him because he didn't live in that area, you know, going, Oh yeah, we still go there, and I would drive by it every once in a while when I would sub there and leave them. Should I Should I go get one for lunch? I never did, but yeah, sub subs rule, subs rule, if you go to the right place, Like I can't really walk into a subway and find that enjoyable. There's something about the smell. It's not quite the sandwiches don't quite there.

You know. You can get something nice to nash On, I guess, but it's not great subways. Last resort, last resort, for sure. There's something about the smell in there. But these places are local places and we'll talk.

Maybe I'll talk about Sam's Delhi later on too. That's another good place to get an Italian sandwich. What's funny about the pepperoni sandwich is I only discovered the joy of a pepperoni sandwich because I was young and dumb. When I ordered my first sandwich there, I wasn't sure what to get, so I just picked the most familiar thing on the sandwich. I was like fourteen or fifteen years old, going there by myself.

I don't know what to order, and I got a few bucks, and I just picked the thing that looked most I know about pepperoni on pizza, so that's probably gonna be good. It is good, man, It is a great sandwich meat. Who knew that pepperoni would be so delicious cold like that in a sandwich My favorite. It's the best because of you. I started buying it at the store, like I'll make my own er home.

Yeah, for sure, pepperoni sandwiches at home. It's a strange thing. We associated so closely to pizza that it has to be something you put on a thing and put in the oven. But it's really good pepperoni. It's not just for pizzas anymore, that's right.

It never really was. But we didn't know that, right. We didn't know that. Well, So let's get into our since the last episode, yes, where Ronnie brought up his McDonald land obsession, we have both spun down the rabbit hole of tracking these buggers down, really spinning out, like, yeah, spinning out of control. It's been it's been like we've been going back and forth back and forth every few days, sharing our eBay fines, and it's been a lot of fun.

You can catch some of this actually on an episode of Ronnie's Weekly Weirdo on Exclevator channel where I pop in unexpectedly, and because we had purchased things for each other. My birthday was in late March, so Ronnie got me something for that. I felt a twinge of guilt during the last episode in regard to the cactus plant flea market figures that Ronnie tracked down. So I bought a two pac Grimace and Hamburgler. That fulfilled both of our sets because we're not interested in the other ones of that.

And Ronnie got me a little, oh god like three inch tall yeah Rubber Officer Big Mac. And then we have both been following Rimco McDonaldland figures pretty closely on eBay. So what have you gotten since then? So since then, I was already planning to do this, and this was just sort of like an incentive. So what I did is I went through you and I are toy collectors.

We've got quite a few things. I'd go through and I try and let go of certain parts of my collection based on as a mature as a collector, on like I'm thinking, oh, I just got that because I wanted it or at the moment, and it wasn't something specific that I know I will treasure for the rest of my life. So I went through some of that stuff, and I was planning already to sell something, So I started putting stuff on eBay to sell a few items low and behold, a couple of things sold. Immediately, I thought, I need to get some Remco nineteen seventy six Remco figures. So the first two that I found at a very reasonable price.

I can't emphasize it enough how much of a joy it is to make an offer to someone who's selling something. When they give you that option and for them to say, Okay, I'll take it, It's like it's great. And I've even gone back and forth with people a few times. So I got these two guys from very reasonable price. The nineteen seventy six Grimmace loose but in really good shape, and the nineteen seventy six Ronald McDonald loose but in fairly good shape.

I mean, these costumes, these cloth costumes that they come with, are they dirty easily? And it's hard to find them yellow, especially yellow and white. Yeah. And I've also been looking online at the Remco play set that came out the train, and so the only thing I can do there is maybe find a piece here and there that piece it together. Yeah, and maybe eventually piece it together, or at least just have a few items, like I really want the apple pie tree.

Yeah. So I also found the McDonald's restaurant roof which I was nervous that it would come broken, but it came intact, thank god, I know. And I got another Ronald, mainly because it came with a well, it was a really good price. It came with a pretty good condition, Mayor mccheese. I was going to give Mark the Ronald, but I don't want him to have such a dirty and bad condition Ronald, so I'm gonna try and get a better Ronald.

Dirty Ronald. Well, that could be the title of the episode two Dirty Dirty, both of those are both. Yeah, both of those are good. So speaking of dirty plastic, the Mayor mccheese that I got, he had some scuffs on his face and but it's the same, like it reminds me so much much of what the dirty pirates look like at Pirates of the Caribbean. But I cleaned him off and he's in really good shape.

So those are the items that I got. How about you? Well, other than the which one did I get? Oh? I got myself a grimace, so the Grimace, the cactus plant, flea Market, McDonald adult happy Meal grimace, and got you the Hamburglar.

Yes, they got the tiny Officer Big Mac, and I pretty much am just looking for Officer Big Mac and Mayor with cheese. Yeah, the Officer Big Mac was not redone by Huckleberry. I believe it was planned for the second series, which they never got to. You're looking at strictly Rimco original figures, and so I had a bunch. I was watching a few of them.

They're all, I mean fifty something dollars or more, and that's a little much for me, but I'm I was watching a complete one that was in the fifties somewhere, and like I mentioned you get those offers from the sellers, now, yeah, yeah, and so they I think for that one it went down like five bucks, but the shipping just still made it too much, so I just ignored that offer. I had a couple other ones that I had on my watch list, probably got offers for as well. I think there was an Officer Big Mac on Ronald Pack that was like sixty and I'm like, oh, that's pretty decent, and I just kind of look and see most of them come without the belt. Most of them don't have the whistle, which I'm not as concerned with, but the belt.

If you don't have the belt, the suit looks funky, it looks super weird. Yeah. And then there's these little they almost look like pinhead buttons. So if you look at old Officer big mac art, he's got three or four jacket buttons, the star, his belt, and a whistle. So I found one that was well under fifty dollars, not very high shipping, had the belt, had the star, had two of the buttons, no whistle, looked to be pretty clean, so I added it to my watch list and just waited, say, if it's meant to happen, I'll get an offer, and I did, like usual, went over and check my Patreon had a few bucks in there.

Yes, immediately transferred that to PayPal and ended up getting it with the offer shipped for what I was willing to pay, which was less than forty dollars. There you go, and he showed up in pretty darn good shape. Has a little bit of dust I think on the head and on the shoes, but other than that, the suit is very clean and I'm not going to mess with it much more. I might clean off his face a little more, but even then I'm like scared to rub. Oh yeah, fifty year old almost fifty forty five year old paint off of that's right.

I was nervous about cleaning my Mayor mc cheese's head. I just used a sponge and a little bit doll up of dish soap was able to get him looking pretty good. You and I were talking about this earlier, but it's a good time to bring it up to clothing on. These characters are real easy to get damaged because there's no stitching. There is stitching on like piecing the front to the back essentially right, the sleeves, the edges, none of that, it's all unfinished frey easily.

Certain vintage toys have that kind of wonkiness that I love, original Star Wars figures, original Masters of the Universe, and so that's really what's got me excited about these things is they look so they are so weird. I'm really excited because I do have some big pieces of styrofoam, and I think I'm gonna try and make one of the burger guys a smaller, small one, but maybe like about three feet tall as soon as I'm done with this Snake Mountain commission. That's something I think I'm gonna want to play around with because they're just so cool looking. I really have you to think on this in helping me realize that I too have an attachment, a nostalgic attachment to that burger, that basic burger shape, and then when they have big googly eyes on there, it's so impossible to resist.

That would be an interesting project. I think I'm gonna do it lit Lamburger dudes. I've got the itch. I also have some chunks of wood too, I was thinking about carving some my wife or minding me, don't you have like some whittling tools? I was like, Yeah, maybe I'll make some wooden grimaces too, that would be amazing.

Yeah, that I've said it, I have to I have to stick to my guns, I suppose. Yeah, So we'll see how long this McDonald land thing. If we're still talking about it on episode six, you know, working deep very well, could be the case could be, and wouldn't surprise me about us at all. The good thing is is there is a kind of a limit, right because there isn't a lot of stuff out there. Although I did hear the rumor, and this could have just been I just was watching a YouTube video and they mentioned that it's a possibility, a very distinct possibility, that there could be a series two of the Cactus Plant Flea Market adult happy Meals.

So that's something to look forward to. Fingers crossed. Yeah, it wouldn't make sense because there are a lot more characters too, so many get out Officer Big Mac for one, mayor mc cheese. I mean those two forget it. We will hopefully contract them down this time.

Yeah, exactly. For those things, eBay is a pretty good option because they're not ridiculous. Yeah, you had posted something on Facebook like there's one on eBay, right now for eight bucks, and the person was like eight bucks. I'm like, dude, the meals ten. You're getting it for the toy.

I mean, I know you're not getting the meal as well, but to have it just shipped to you, that's reasonable to me. It's a reasonable price. And you know, and there are people charging two hundred bucks for the same thing you can get on eBay for eight bucks. So you just got to be very careful about where you look and make sure you follow the research scaffolding that Mark and I talk about in every one of these episodes, which is to god, look until you find the right thing and be patient. Yeah, the ones I got for us with an offer from the seller with money from Patreon.

Yeah, it ended up being eight bucks a piece, and for a four inch piece of plastic, that's actually reasonable. Yeah, for sure. I keep forgetting to mention. This goes back to the Saturday Night five episode that I had purchased a bending mister Bill. Oh, every time I'm like, oh, don't forget.

You didn't mention that the next time, or you didn't mention it on that episode you talked about the books you got, and when he showed up, I was surprised at how big he was because I was like, oh wow, he's like a thuge three inch scale, but it's like five inch. That's cool too, That's what she said. There's not much out there for mister Bill. Does he have the same hands as Hamburger? Were there?

They're just more they're in the right place. Okay, Yeah, they're just not very well defined because play was never very well defined. Don't get that. And you can get plushes like for your dog. Yeah, that's about all you can get from mister Bill these days.

I get a mister Bill plush for otis. Yeah. Any random memories you want to spill out? This is another thing that kind of like thinking about I did what did I do last time? I did one last time?

I'm trying to Jesus Christ superstar stuff. Oh yeah, that's right. Well, okay, here's my I've already told you this before outside of the show, but I'll talk about it random memory. I guess this is the sort of counts. It is toy influenced.

We were at Target yesterday because of the new Indiana Jones movie that's coming out. They are re releasing Kenner style Indiana Jones. Figures from Raiders of the Lost Art. I was looking at them, and I thought, not really interested in Indie, not really interested in Marion, I'm not really interested in Belloc. But I am interested in the two German villains.

The German mechanic that Indie fights with and tote the like terrifying Nazi whose face melts off at the end. And I was like, what, so my only memory is like, why do I like batties? So that's a random thing I can't quite figure out, and I'm okay with it. I also questioned myself, why is the Nazi the only one that I'm buying. My acceptance of this is that he's a super interesting villain.

I just love the energy he brings to that film. Does that count as a random memory? Mine is pretty morbid? But hey, there you go, so this is morbid too, So they align. Yeah, this is one of those, and I have a few of these, and I'll bring up some other ones in later episodes where I'm not sure if this is an actual memory or if it's a dream I had that has turned into a memory that I remember driving down my street, Madison Avenue, and I don't know where I was going, but I was headed east and probably driving to a friend's house, because normally I wouldn't take Madison anywhere.

It ends at a certain point. I just have this memory of driving by this house where these two dudes are standing out and there y are talking and one of them was holding a dead cat by its tail and it was straight out, it had gone into rigor. He was holding it by his tail and like talking and it was just stiff as a board and he was holding it by the tail. Wow. It's something that pops up every once in a while, like when I see road kill.

Oh my god, I'll tell you about this off episode, but I have a road kill story that traumatized me recently. I'm like, is it that's something I actually saw or did I have a dream and at some point turned it into a memory. So I don't know, but it was kind of humorous and disgusting at the same time. That's like, you know, I was. I just when I was sick.

A couple of weeks ago, I rewatched the art life documentary David Lynch, and that totally reminds me of, you know, memories he had of his childhood. That's such a Lynch in memory. You have whether it's a dream or not, doesn't really matter, right, It's just it happened in your life, whether it was real or not. It is a memory that you have. And what a strange image, very Lynch in.

Every time I watch Eraserhead on my oh DVD that I bought from him from his signing, that opening is Henry kicking that dead cat that he top seed that ended up in the film but cut from the film, and that little snippet is one of the only things that exists from the stuff that got cut. And every time I see that, and every time I listened or watched the eraser Head Stories part of that disc when he talks about that whole thing with the cat and it going into Rigor yep, I'm like, yeah, that's exactly what I think of, is that memory slash dream. It's so odd and so cool. And then I went upstairs and had lunch and came back down and I went to get the cat out of the jar and it had gotten rigor mortis. Alrighty, well, let's wind this guy down.

Yeah, and let people know where they can find you and your stuff online. You can find me on the Sclevator YouTube channel or the sclevator Instagram page. I'm also Skelevator on Facebook. You can also find Ronald Zrygian Underscore projects on Instagram for some of my art projects and writing projects. We're excited that you're listening to Cambridge and was Shan.

But you can also find my weekly Weirdo episodes on my channel. Those are usually on a Sunday if I'm able to carve out the time, Sunday afternoons at three on Thursday evenings at six thirty, so both of those times are Pacific standard times. I host a show called Toy Frenzy, talk to some other folks about mainly about Masters of a Universe, but sometimes we talk about other toy But yeah, that's what's uh, that's where you could find me. How about you? Mark?

Oh? And that just reminded me to discuss dustin Crops Boy, because that's how I found out about it was watching the Mark in right Yes interview because he is the one that mentioned him, and I had to watch it three times to figure out what the hell he was saying. I'm like, season dustin crops Boy, dust Cropsy? What is he saying? And of course there's no subtitles, so anyway, I figured it out and it's all one word Dustin crops Boy.

Yes on Instagram, and he refurbishes restores McDonald land play at items, McDonald statues and the three D or two D two and a half D plaques that were on the walls in the stores. He upscale little people figures and turns him into banks. He downscales some of those mcdonaldland's statues into Amigos scale figures. And he has the Instagram and YouTube page, and Ronnie and I both have gone through. Oh yeah, a ton of those videos.

Very interesting, very detailed and artistic refurbishing of those pieces on a lot of those little Hamburger guys. Yeah, he's making Little Officer Big Max. It's really exciting. Dustin crops Boy and mortar Heads. Mortar Heads is mark Enright's company.

Mark Enright makes latex masks based on pop culture things. He's most known for recreating action figure heads as rubber masks that normal sized human beings can wear, like Kenner as Star Wars. We talked about that on the last episode. Yeah, and so I feel like those two guys, Dustin crops Boy mortar Heads, I feel like they are very similar to us in their their interests, so it's cool to watch what they're doing. Good stuff.

Yeah, I'm glad you boughs. No way I could do any of that stuff though, you say that, but there's ways to learn way. Yeah, and you can find me at wake Up Heavy on Instagram, Twitter, letterboxed, Patreon dot com, slash wake Up Heavy, Facebook at wake Up Heavy, and that show on Wardingwaymedia dot com, which is where this show is hosted as well. And hopefully I'll get something cooked up for wake Up Heavy here. I haven't done anything in a while.

Yeah, I can't wait for the next episode, sort of taking a break from it, an unexpected break, but I'm going with it. Who knows what will be up next or when it will be up next. You'll just have to wait and see. Yeah, those breaks are necessaria sometimes, but I always look every weekday morning I check to see if Mark has a new wake Up Heavy episode out. I don't have anything planned for the near future, so you can stop looking for a while.

I'll let you know. Tell me, I'll let you know. I do want to say a big thank you to Weirdingwaymedia dot com for hosting this show, and thank you to you Mark for coming up with the idea for this. There's a ton of good stuff out there on weirdingwaymedia dot com. So you're looking for stuff to listen to, go to that website and look at all they have to offer.

New shows added pretty much weekly. Yeah. I think they're over thirty now, so m alrighty well, until the next episode, everybody, stay safe, be kind and stay obsessed. Stay obsessed. Yes that should be our that's amata lead out all right, until next time.

Hunch as I must CambridgeMA Sean is a weirding Way Media podcast