Episode 26: The heck do ya mean?

Cambridge. I'm Rashwan is a weird Way Media podcast. The heck do you mean? Hello? And Welcome to Cambridge and Wasshan a podcast by two weird guys about the weird things they like.

I'm co host Ronnie otherwise known as Sclevator on YouTube and Instagram. I'm here with my pal Mark. I am co host Mark Begley. I also host Wake Up Heavy and co host the Chasing Chevy Chase and Chevy podcast. Both of those shows can be found on weirdingwaymedia dot com.

Just like this. One, weirding Way is awesome. All right, Well, we got a lot to talk about today, a lot of stuff to catch up on. Ups and downs, peaks and valleys, literal ups and downs. Yeah, exactly, literally and figuratively.

We're going off book here and it's all my faults, so just blame me, people, But you are not You are not getting what you were promised last episode. I'm not doing a major topic here, not doing Migo, not doing Showgun Warriors because, as Roddy said, something came up and we'll get into all that. We'll be I'm shooting the shit today. Yes, absolutely, It's gonna be fun. Most of what we're gonna be doing today is catching up and then talking to about a few odds and ends.

I think it'll be fun and necessary. Yeah, there's some changes that you and I discussed in person that we can get into, changes to the show, to how we do a couple things. And I have a whole crapload of things to talk about toys, mostly because of you, So we'll do that as well. I hope you have some stuff to talk about. Yeah, I have some stuff to talk about because of you.

So oh, here we go. Not as much though, that's for damn sure. So I don't know where where do you want to start, Ronnie. Well, I think we should catch folks up on what happened last month? Will alrighty happened to happen on a very important day in American history.

Yeah, and so that day ended up being a big day for the country, but also a big day for Cambridge and with Sean. So you want to tell us what happened. Yeah, And this was a big day, I guess in a couple different ways. January twentieth, which we celebrated in Olk Day this year on that date, and I believe it was also the inauguration day wasn't really following that. It was a holidays and we were all off here at my house.

And over that weekend I had been limbing my tree in the front yard. Not really my tree, it's the city's tree, but it's on our park strip and I have to maintain it. I guess as much as possible. Did some of that work last year. I probably talked about it.

I know I talked about it on Wake Up Heavy. I may have talked about it here as well, and with the help of my daughter. That weekend was nice because on that Saturday, Kurlita had wanted to do the downtown close routine, so we did that. On Saturday. We went and got breakfast at Le Parisian right on Close Avenue there, got some pastries and coffee, hit the bookstore, hit a book barn yep, and then hit the antique stores.

So that was nice. Got a couple of my sci fi books at the bookstore. Yeah. Then the next day Cleo and I worked on the tree for quite a bit, got a lot of it done, and that Monday MLKDA I was going to finish it off. Cleo was gone, was working on it.

By myself, which folks, we should never do right, exactly right to say that the reason I would have her with me is in case something happened. She wasn't really doing anything in the tree or with the chainsaw or anything like that. She's watching me. She's watching the street to make sure cars aren't coming when I'm knocking these limbs off that are going to land in the road, et cetera, et cetera. And the joke was always if something happens, run and tell mom.

So she wasn't there. I was utilizing my neighbors twenty foot ladder. It's a really fucking tall LA managed to knock myself off of it, drop about fifteen feet, really fucked myself up, ended up in the emergency room, had a five or so day hospital stay requiring pretty significant surgery, and then a little over a week in rehab after that. So, due to that fall, I broke my femur, I broke some ribs, I had I think spiral fractures, and a few lumbar punctured my lung because of the broken ribs, so I had a chest tube inserted when I was in the emergency room, which remained in there until I left the hospital. Smashed up my face pretty good.

I'm gonna have a nice little scar over my right eyebrow. What else did I manage to do? Oh? And I broke my scapula, which there's nothing they can do about except put your arm on a sling. So I was in a sling for all three weeks.

Luckily it was my left arm, not dominant arm right. It made rehab much harder. Got back home just after two weeks, No, just less than two weeks after all this, got home, doing rehab here and getting back on the horse. I guess, not literally, because I ain't going up on that fucking ladder ever again. But sometimes it's worth it to invest in a professional to get up there and do that.

Yeah, I'm such a tight ass though, man, I just can't. And actually, the city, not that anybody cares about this, but the city had come around just a few weeks before and done quite a bit of it. But they don't really like top trees. They don't go full. They just trim it back from the electrical wires and leave it at that.

In the front yard, it's mainly branches either hanging over the sidewalk or over the street. That could you know, impede trucks or pedestrians. It's not a full on tree service. But anyway, and because of that. Being out for two weeks and having some brain issues, I mean, I got knocked out, had subdural hematoma.

That was another part of my thing. Told Ronnie, Yeah, we're probably not going to be. Able to do a regular episode because doing research right now is beyond my capabilities. I have gotten most of my adult brain back, so I feel much better now, but at the time, thinking about researching one of these two items that I was going to talk about just was not going to happen. Yeah.

Man, got to know your capacity. I'm glad you put that on pause. Yeah, so we'll get to that stuff next time. Yeah, down the line unless something else happened. Well, fingers crossed.

Nothing else happens, yeah to either of us, to either of us, Yeah exactly. Yeah, I'm just glad you're still around because that fall and hitting the sidewalk or dirt or whatever it might be, that fall is a serious fall. I used to work at the Resno Art Museum and I'd get up on the twenty foot ladder and to install lights on the twenty five foot ceiling and there's you know, it's always this fear. One time I was shocked by the electrical track and lost function of my muscles and slumped over the top of the ladder for a brief moment there. I just think about that type of stuff all the time.

When people are doing this type of thing, we got to be so careful. I don't recommend it. I and I think about it. I'm like, because I was planning on working on that Saturday. Man, if we hadn't gone to Clovis and I had done it all on that Saturday and be done with it, this wouldn't you know?

All these things? It's like, well, what are you gonna do? Not something that I will be doing anytime soon. That's the only tree really that requires any maintenance. I'm not going to bother anymore.

It's cut back so much now that except for the one branch that I didn't get to, I was almost done. But I'm leaving that thing. I got to see it. It's like the one branch just saying, hey, fucker is look at me. I'm still here and I'm leaving it because of that.

I'm leaving it as a reminder. And I'm sure my neighbor at some point is going to get pissed off because it's going to hang over his driveway and he's already cut branches off, big branches off my tree so he can have at it. Well, I'm not doing it. I'm sure something will happen down the line, but I'm just glad you're all right. I mean, I don't want to get over dramatic, but there is the distinct possibility that I could have killed myself.

And you know, my wife was absolutely traumatized and horrified, and yeah, I was out of it, so I didn't really witness any of that, but we've talked about it, and yeah, can you imagine And if it was the other way around the tables returned and I was in that position, I would have been traumatized as well. So yeah, AnyWho, that's why we're just shooting the shit today. Blame it all on me. People. Alan and I had a talk that we would try to work and make the can Film Festival with Eraser Hind and Al said, I'll do it.

I'll go, you know, twenty four hours, but if you will not take your Bob's break in the afternoon, which almost killed me. But I said, okay, I'll do that, but it's killing me. Well, it's good we're shooting the shit today because there's a lot of things to talk about. Remarkably, so that happened. We're dealing with the new presidency.

David Lynch passed away a bunch of stuff that just for me has been emotionally draining. Yes, but thank goodness for our weird interests, because sometimes, you know, it's our daughters and my wife and they're exciting and interesting lives, and then my weird interests and these things just keep us afloat knowing that you were okay, and I got to hang out with you a couple of times while you were. Yeah, I want to talk about that story. Yeah, yeah, so that was fun too. You know, sometimes things like this, you know, even though we don't live too far away from each other in our lives, it's difficult to just partition off time to hang out, and things like this happen all the more reason to just set aside time to reconnect in the physical space.

There's kind of some fun things happening right now for some things that are beloved to me and also some things that are beloved to both of us, that we can definitely be talking about today too. Let's talk about your visit. This is a hysterical story to me because I don't remember. I remember you coming, I remember you bearing gifts. As I mentioned on the last episode of Wake Up Heavy, where I talked about this incident, you are the only non family member that visited me, and it makes sense because most of my friends don't live here anymore, and I certainly didn't expect anybody from work to come visit me, and I'm glad they didn't.

I did get a very nice care package from my office, though. Oh that's cool. Two of the people from my office who know me better than most. Obviously, my wife and daughter came. My sister and brother in law came and visited me.

I'm now blanking on whether my mom came, but I'm sure she did, maybe with my sister. So I know that you came. I remember sitting there talking with you and you bringing me some treats. I have absolutely zero recollection of our conversation, and you reminded me of a little bit of it when you came and visited me at home a couple of weeks ago. And I just think this is hysterical.

Yeah, you had said something it was so funny because you were like everything from you that afternoon was a delayed response, like walked in, you saw me, and you're. Like, oh, oh, it's that guy. Oh, that guy. And then there was another time where you had said something and I can't remember what you said, and then I was like, you mean blah blah blah, and you're like, I never said that, like quite literally within a minute of you having said it. I was just happy that you were being taken care of and that you were being protected from the pain that you could have potentially been feeling at that moment.

Seeing somebody groggy in the hospital, for me, always makes me happy because it means that they're in a state of mending. From what I remember you telling me last time, it was like one of us said what do you mean? Yeah, and then it was like what do you mean? What do I mean? Or something to that, something like that that made me think of far Agos.

Yeah, totally, totally line. Do you mean, heck do you mean? Yeah? I was getting oxy cotton and fitting all and all that crap in the hospital. That pretty much stopped after I got out of there, and it was just Gabbath Pinton, I haven't taken any pain meds and well over a week probably, Oh that's good have I don't need them.

So again, lucky got some lucky breaks. And I feel like I'm progressing as far as my mobility, probably much more rapidly than anyone expected. So I did get lucky on the pain thing. Though I know I was pumped full of drugs at the hospital, but I never had a moment where I was writing in pain. Yeah, that's good that I'm conscious of, probably after the fall, but don't remember any of that.

The kind of pain medications that they're using in the hospitals now are kind of miraculous, Like I don't know exactly what I was on right now at this point. I'm sure that back right after I got out of the hospital, when I was in the hospital, I would have been able to tell you what I was on. But all I remember is that when they were treating my foot and having to dig around on it and get it cleaned up and stuff, they had me on paid medication and asked me it does it hurt, and I was like, no, it's remarkable, like I don't feel a thing. And I didn't feel too inebriated either. I felt like my head was straight, which was really an interesting phenomenon.

Whether you actually were or not is probably up for debate, because I felt like I was pretty with it in the hospital as well. But exactly I don't remember any of the conversations I had with anybody. I just know people showed up, yeah, and that I was extremely gregarious, which I is unusual for me, and that continued in rehab too, And I think it was a matter of I'm just happy someone else is here because this is boring and lonely as hell. I love the story of you in rehab trapesing around the facility and your wheelchair, Yeah, exploring, and they you were known as the wheelchair guy or the now I was. The roamer or the wanderer, and I had to man, I couldn't sit in that room all day long.

There's no way, no way. So drag boring as hell. Yeah, yeah, So you mentioned the David Lynch situation, and that was what, like, oh gosh, the week prior that week before I had my accident. I believe really took me aback. Yeah.

Same. It's funny. You know, we've talked about him getting up there in age and his emphysema and stuff like that. It's funny as some people when they're gone, for me, it still feels unexpected. I think that's the way it is for family members, especially even if you expect it, it's unexpected when it happens.

You don't really want to accept, perhaps at times that it'll happen that rarely happens for me and celebrities. I remember the feeling being similar for me when lou Read passed away, and then similarly when David Bowie passed away. More recently with David Lynch passing away, where it's like, oh my god, I knew it was going to happen, but I don't think I'm ready, Like I'm not ready for this person to not be around. I'm still kind of navigating that a little bit. Didn't thinking a lot about David Lynch.

And I just got done reading or audiobooking a book called In the Dream Room or something like that, and it's like a biography. Biographer wrote chapters about his life, which is sort of straightforward biographical information. Then each chapter was followed by a chapter of him responding to that information or recalling personal memories of those situations that and you know, watching him talk about his craft, and somebody posted, probably illegally, his full two hour not Ted talk. What are those things? Masterclass, masterclass on creativity and stuff?

Watching that and these types of activities aren't unusual for me or for you. I'm sure, like David Lynch's I was looking through my watch later list on YouTube and like interviews with him or like every five videos and so. But doing that recently has been kind of nice, like reconciling those feelings and just being reminded of the kind of genuine creativity and aspects of his personality that were appealing to me. Elaborate on that. I've just been doing that.

No, I missed the joke. Come on, man, you're supposed to say no. Yeah, I know, believe it or not. Eraserhead is my most spiritual film. Elaborate or not.

No, I was expecting you to go, well, let's do our David Lynch thing next month, and I was gonna say no because it's too soon. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, Okay, he just died. We mentioned him on the last episode. Getting back to that, in June or July, I can't remember which month.

Now. I fully expected you to go, well, let's do it now. And I was going to say, sorry, no, it's too soon. I'm not going to be able to do it properly. It wouldn't have happened anyway because of this, But Yeah, it hit me pretty hard.

I got emotional. And I think the only quote unquote celebrity I can come pair of that to as far as heft of influence would be Bikowski. Totally different kind of people though. I mean, Bikowski is problematic and all that, but the influence that he had on me was pretty significant. David Lynch is the same as far as influence and leading me down other paths, and just his singular influence and vision has affected so much of what I gravitate toward.

Yeah, I was like, oh, this really really sucks, and I had an inkling of it hearing about his infisima back in August, I think it was and going oh that's not good. I mean, if he's saying like I can't walk around and stuff, this is pretty severe. Then the fires in LA and hearing that he had to be evacuated, and I thought, oh no, and that is probably what contributed to him going at this time. My thoughts exactly. Another one of those wonderful, unnecessary things going on in the world.

Yeah, we will definitely get to him when we were planning on doing it, and it really sucks not having him around and the finalization that yeah, there is nothing more coming. Yeah, that's a hard pill to swallow, you know, because he's always making stuff, and so even if he wasn't making movies, he's always working on artwork and stuff like that. I was always interested to see what he had been working on. I just rewatched or finally, this is embarrassing, but I finally completed watching that short film he did with the monkey, What is It? What's Wrong with Jack?

Or something like that on Netflix. The Netflix short film is called What Did Jack Do? It's so good and almost like a goodbye. Rewatching it after his death and finishing watching it. This is kind of a goodbye.

And probably wasn't smart that I just rewatched The Straight Story right before watching that, Like, I'm just watching both of these sort of artworks that are about coming to grips with the truth, and also especially with the Straight Story, reconciliation, admittance. There's something final about that thinking. There's a finality to that kind of thinking. It just reminded me of how amazing The Straight Story is. Yeah, I need to watch that again.

It's been a long time. When this happened, I'm like, well, we've got a whole bunch of David Lynch to watch Cleo. Yeah, we've really only done Doune and Eraserhead. We're working our way through Twin Peaks still on the second season, so we got to get through that, and then I think she's old enough for the third season. And I told her Elephant Man is really hard to watch, but it's beautiful.

We'll do Blue Velvet. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff, all kinds of stuff. Yeah, The Straight Story is streaming on Disney Plus. I know it's a Disney movie with a big Disney emblem at the top right above the title, and there are a lot of Disney movies that are not on Disney Plus. So I didn't think it would be there, but it was really cool to see that it was.

I knew it was on there. I think soon after we got Disney Plus, I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah, his Disney movie. Yep, his Disney movie. Or Touchstone it's so good.

Well, I mean, you got Richard Farnsworth in there as the lead what could go wrong? And Sissy's spasic Yeah, as the daughter is so awesome, too. Very interesting. It's hard to play characters with the disability, I imagine, but she does it so great. She does such a very interesting performance.

Yeah. Anyway, I fell in love with the emotion of that, and you know, consequently met I already knew Sissy spasic, but meeting and working with Richard Farnsworth, it was he was just perfect. I wanted to kind of hesitate to do this, get back to the super seven microns. Oh yeah for a brief. Minute, just because I know that we were kind of live streaming that whole thing where I brought it up and then you had more information and oh at their reaction figures.

But then after getting off the recording, I looked into it further and I guess they're part of the reaction plus line, which I wasn't really aware of because I don't follow their Gi Joe stuff at all. It's not the five points of articulation Kinner esque toys. It's more Gi Joe multiple points of articulation O ring construction idea. I'm like you a little bit in this regard I haven't been following their Gi Joe line. There are a couple of characters that I was interested in getting if I could, but it's not a big deal to me.

When they just when they announced that they were going to do O Rings, and after we talked about it, found out that those Micronots figures are going to be O Ring style. That kind of got me excited a little bit more about these, and I have finally seen I don't know if his name is pronounced Raymar or Ramar. And then another character, Fatal Fluffy. These are Gi Joe characters that were apparently in the cartoon. These are not familiar to me.

One looks like a barbarian and one looks like a giant gray mogwa. They're both kind of amazing designs. But I finally saw them in the package on a shelf at Target. I can confirm like that the O Ring figures made by Super seven look kind of amazing. They're really staying true to that design.

So it'll be really cool to see what the Micronauts figures look like in person of the mindset that I might be hesitant to get them until I see what they look like in person. Of the two that I have been announced so far, I'm only curious about one. There's one that I have no interest in. The biotron figure is interesting to me. It's so far removed from the original figures scale that it's like kind of eh.

So it's twelve points of articulation plus the O ring design and the O ring design I'm not really sold on because O rings perish. They all know this, the old Gi Joe figures and LGN figures, the dungeons and dragon figures that remained with O rings and all these other things that rubber. I mean, I'm looking at my micronot here though that's fifty something years old. That's still fine. And I think it depends, like I have, some Masters of the Universe have these.

They're not O rings, but they are like a rubber band that attaches from one leg to the other through the crotch area. A lot of those disintegrate over time, but some remarkablyage Masters figures that I've gotten over the years, the leg band is perfectly fine. So I think it just depends. Did this thing sit out in the sun for a while. Is this thing soaking in water all the time?

Like what were the environmental conditions. So I imagine for the adult collectors that are getting these, because that's who are getting them, right, they'll be keeping them on display, or keeping them in the card back, or if they take them out and do toy photography like I like to do on occasion, just doing it for that briefly and then putting it right back on the shelf. But it's really cool that they're doing that. There's some of us that are fans and masters of the universe that wish that the figures that are coming out now were just exactly the vintage style, which they're not. Yeah, I'm curious knowing that they're using the O ring design and more articulation.

If they will do something like the Time Traveler here, a simpler figure m hm, with the clear plastic. I mean it's the right scale. They could very easily do figures that are very, very very similar to the originals. Yeah. If they're using O ring construction and rivets and things like that to keep the arms and legs and things together, which I believe is how they're doing the Gijo figures.

Yeah, they got the little rivets and everything. It's kind of cool. I don't know why they couldn't actually do some of these that are very similar to because the Time Traveler or like the Feroid, those I would be interested in because they would be much more similar to the original figures. So we'll see. I mean, I'm sure they're going to exploit the hell out of a license.

So yeah, they are. And then, as we've said before, or you can just get the vintage ones, which are automatically going to push that nostalgia buttony. Yeah, it ain't that easy anymore. Yeah, they're expensive if you can. Find them, and even the incomplete ones and broken ones are expensive.

And this is true for almost everything I look at these days, almost everything. For example, if Super seven were to get the Clash of the Titan's license, or they do have the Gremlins license because they've done a recreation of the twelve inch or thirteen inch xenomorph from Kenner, if they were to do a recreation of the twelve inch stripe that LJN put out in the eighties, and if they were to do a recreation of the Clash of the Titans kracking, I would most certainly go for those versions instead of trying to buy them for two hundred dollars or more on eBay the vintage versions, even if there were some slight improvements and some slightly revised design aspects, and then I would probably be happy with just those items as opposed to to rooling over expensive vintage stuff.

I ain't paying two hundred dollars for stuff me neither me neither. Another thing too, regarding Super seven is that they've got a new blind box set coming out for Sesame Street. Yeah, you showed me one picture. And then this is confusing because they announced Wave two, yeah, and now they're announcing Wave three and there's no side of Wave two on their waves, right, it's going to Target. Because I asked on the post their Instagram post about Wave three, I'm like, what happened to Wave two?

Yeah? Because they've got the Chase figures in that, and I'm like, I haven't even seen anybody have any of these. They haven't even shown images of what the Chase figures look like, not for Wave two or Wave three that I have seen, and I was looking. I'm interested. I'm not sure what they would Wave three has a Chase oscar.

And not another colorway, another colorway? What color would they do? Other one made sense because well Okay, so let me just ask you this. Did you look at the images of the Oscar that are in the photographs for the Wave three, the one just the regular Oscar. No, he's just bright green.

He has more of a paint scheme like Bert, Ernie and Cookie Monster. There's no like, there's no wash over. It looks like so it might be there might we could potentially have four different Super seven Oscar the grouches is what I'm saying. One it looks like he's just bright green, one that looks realistic like the one we got, the one that is the first version of Oscar, the orange Oscar, and then this other mystery version of Oscar. Well, that's my complaint about these in general.

Wave three is Bert and Ernie with slightly different colored pants, that's it. And the Chase Oscar, and then that geis Smiley or whatever with a slightly different colored jacket. Yeah he's got a blue jacket this time a lighter blue jacket. And yeah, the Waved two. Again it's color ways and Chase figures and differently the yip Yap creatures in a different color way.

I don't even want to speculate with the color I don't even care because it's like you are simply rehashing the same characters with slightly different pant colors or a slightly different jacket color. I have no interest in getting anything like that. And what we really want Super seven is just a wave four of the Sesame Street reaction figures, the one Let's see what other characters you can throw at us. It would be really cool to see that whatever. I don't know what they're doing.

They've got so much going on that they're putting out these blind box alternate colorways to sort of keep the Sesame Street fans interested because they're probably too busy with so many other things to just focus on Sesame Street, which it's a money grab and it's an attention grab, and I would just rather see them spend time with Sesame Street by giving us new figures that we haven't seen before. Sesame Street is on everybody's brain right now, necas doing them. I just picked up the Twoey TV versions of Burton Ernie and from Target and they are great. The colors are subdued, which is kind of cool. We've talked about the Ultimates ones that are kind of more inspired by the Palisades toys that I got those coming finally, I had pre ordered those.

Yeah, Sesame Street's on the brain, the collective brain, or on your brain at least that comes back to conversation we continuously have, like it must be on other people's brains too, if they keep announcing stuff like it's crazy or we're just living in a simulation. You're living in a bubble stuff. No, I mean, as a collector, people are living in where you're going to keep finding the same things. I mean, yes, but we've gone for decades without any Sesame Street stuff that's focused on it's not for children, you know what I mean. Now, it's like we've got Palisades back at in the early like what was it, nineteen ninety nine or two thousand, Palisades is coming out with those Muppets figures, and they closed up shop or they shut down like right around the time that they were going to put out a bunch of Sesame Street figures.

And since then, there haven't been Sesame Street figures for adult collectors that I know about made by bigger companies. I know there's been some smaller independent stuff, artsy things that have come out, but nothing nothing like this. And so when this type of thing happens. It's like that zeitgeist thing again. It feels like there must be other people or we're just, like you said, we're just what came first, the chicken or the egg?

Was it that Super seven announced these figures and then I start getting interested in Sesame Street again? Or did I start getting interested in Sesame Street again before Super seven release these things? You know, it's hard to know. It's because you're now looking for Sesame Street stuff as well. So, yeah, it's a bubble.

It's busting in this bubble, all collected in the bust in a bubble when you're going to keep searching for it, so your phone is going to keep throwing stuff at you that relates to that. Yeah, yeah, that's true. It's kind of amazing. It's an amazing era we're living in. It's just a little nice little girl.

I want you to meet her to thank him. She's not really eight feet tall. No, I'm very nervous. Bird boy, I nearly laid an egg right. Here, on says.

What's next? Guy, I got a couple of things I wanted to share with you. You already know about the big bird and the Oscar the Grouch Fisher price figures that I got. I wanted to also share that and you'll let you'll appreciate this. I found this for very, very cheap, embarrassingly cheap on eBay.

I got the big Mac transforming Happy Role robot. You know, these are a hot commodity and always seem to be, and people could easily charge ten to fifteen bucks for this little chunk of cheap plastic. I got it for practically three dollars. I just paid for shipping, essentially for this guy to send me this big Mac. So I thought i'd share that with you because I know how much you appreciate this st Yeah, are.

We getting into stuff that we got? Is that what we're doing now? I think we can, mister host, I think we can do that. Yeah, let's do that. So you've got a big Mac.

What were they called changeables? I think changeables. Say I got a big Mac changeables. Yeah, those things are actually pretty cool. And I have no connection with transformers at all, me neither.

But I think it's a great grab by McDonald's to try and get in on them. Stuff that was happening at the time, and it probably was way past it was. I think it was because I was the kid that was into gobots. All my friends were into transformers, and I was the kid that was into gobots. And I was always a little embarrassed because gobots are like a simpler toy.

When these came out in Happy Meals back then, it was the tail end of the transforming robot toy craze. I'm not sure usually I can remember these things. I'm not sure if I had these as of the last five years were I've become a little bit more interested in these types of things every time I talked to toy shops or antique store people or look them up on eBay. It seems like the changeables are consistently a hot commodity. In fact, I was asking I forget if it was one of the toys.

I think it was the one in Santase time Tunnel Toys sold some things to them or did a little trade, got my twelve inch Stormtrooper. I asked them if they had any of these, and they said, not right now, but if you have some, bring them. There's always a high demand for these changeables, and that's just like so interesting to me. I had no awareness of them until ent years. I mean, just looking at McDonald's happy Meal stuff.

And I didn't know about them as a kid, or I would have been in my late teens, I'm sure when they originally came out, or maybe in my twenties. I don't know, but I didn't have any clue that they existed until recently. Yeah. So now I have the Hamburger like the regular Hamburger, and I have the big Mac and cool. Those are the ones to get pretty content with those.

Yeah, how about you? What did you pick up? Well? Prior to almost killing myself, I had made a couple of eBay purchases which showed up while I was in the hospital. Mentioned the here we Go people run, the fact that there was somebody selling a number of flintstone post pebbles, cereal plastic rock balls on eBay, numerous auctions that when I had missed out on, and a bunch that I hadn't even seen that had already closed.

So there was a new one up and it was for a blue one, but I just kept it on my watch list, kept the time in my head so I didn't actually miss it this time, made a very low bid on it and got it, won it for less than ten dollars amazing less than ten dollars. People. The struggle is real in this regard. Like go back to our original episode where we talked about this, these were virtually impossible to find. Mark was struggling and struggling and struggling.

Well, this part that this is part of the weird thing Mark. It's almost like by talking about these things, we're conjuring a trigger in the universe. It's really technically just search terms. I guess, so, yeah, it's. Search terms because I know that I talked about Oh, you know, I've been looking at I didn't look every day with different phrases on EVA to try to find these things and could never find them, and like they never existed.

And there's just been too many since this all happened that I have seen, I mean from just two different people. One gal that I talked about had like fourteen and she sold all fourteen of them, okay. And I keep finding ended listings of things. Just found one recently that used Boulder instead of rock Ball. And I'm not using Boulder as a search term, no, but it populated this time, and it has to do with phrasing and timing and the times that I did look for it.

God knows what I searched for. After I got this and got back home, I ended up messaging the guy that had sold, you know, four or five of them. I'm like, do you have a brown one because that's the one for my childhood that I'm actually searching for, and he said no, he said, I just have the one that's currently on there. He had a flawed one that had like a molding flaw on it, so he had that up as a buy it now for eight bucks and I was like, eh, again, very cheap, but I didn't know, didn't care for the flaw part of it, and I think it eventually sold. He said no, I just have the one that's currently up, and then a bagged one that I'll be putting up after that.

Yeah, that bagged one is. Currently up if anybody wants to go look for it. I did put it on my watch list just out of curiosity. And then the other thing that I got myself before my accident that came while I was in the hospital was the little freaky Cereal Hamhose speedboat. So this was another one of their premiums.

They of course did the figures that I've talked about. They did the cars. I believe that I've mentioned I have a whole set of those. I got those years ago for cheap. I think I got the box for seven fifty wow plus shipping.

I could be completely making that up, but I know it was superuper cheap. Try finding those boxes for that a box of them for that price now, people. So I've had mentioned getting the Snorkel Dork Magnet either last episode or the episode before, and so I've kind of been poking around and looking at stuff, and I did a Google search and found this flicker page for this guy who I eventually ended up following on Instagram, who has a really big Freaky's collection, and he even has some image is from Hasbro's production department for items that never got made. So there was like a different version of the boat that was a paddle boat. There were production designs for the cars and for the figure, all kinds of stuff and a bunch of it never made.

It's all from Hasbro. And I was like, oh, yeah, I kind of vaguely remember that. So I went and looked on my cars. You can see the Hasbro trademark on there and a little boat. When I finally got around to picking it up, when I got home.

Yep, it's got Hasbro on it. So they had a premium department and they made cereal premiums for a lot of the different companies. And I know that my little swimming Fred flintstone that I got has a Hasbro trademark inside of it. The little figures don't have any marks on them, but I'm assuming that Hasbro most likely made these as well. So I had to get a ham hose.

I am on a ham hose kick right now after I got home. I was it a bit or was it? I think it was just a buy it now? I think I got an offer had. The other thing that they did were little patches.

I was actually fooled by the pictures of these on eBay because I thought they were actually embroidered patches that you could sew on a jacket. But they're just little iron on decals. Love it. But the artwork was was so good on them that it fooled me. And I got it and I was like, oh, it's just an iron on thing.

There's no stitching on this, it's all it's all fake. I got a ham hose iron on decal. It's kind of perfect because it says I want to be alone. Is ham Hose is the introvert of the group. I love it and it fits me to a t.

So you are a ham Hose, I am a ham Hose. I love ham Hose. We got to keep talking about Freaky's because, you know, I was talking to Jeff Martin's wife, Leslie at my place of employment because she works so too. She brought up Freaky's and I was like, yes, I mean Mark, and I've been talking about him. And then I was talking to another friend and they brought up Freakys.

You know, everybody is a certain age group that are interested in these, and I think we got to keep talking about it Mark, because the other day I thought, how great would it be if there was a Freaky's movie. Have you watched any of the ads on YouTube? Yes, they're crazy. They're amazing. That animation that he use is so detailed, it's so good.

It's layered. Yeah, I've read a little bit about it on this guy's Instagram and or flicker page where there's multiple layers. So the characters themselves have this very interesting three dimensional look to them. I'm like, how did they achieve that? Back then?

I watch them pretty you know, find different ones and watch them or to get the quotes for the show or whatever. And I'm like, man, I mean they really went all The quality is amazing and I feel like it's like layers of cells. Yes it is, which is an elaborate animation approach for a fucking commercial. Yeah, And the way that they're lying, the way that it's like pencil on ink on watercolor on this, on that, and they are amazingly they look like what you would get with CGI three D rendering these days. It's weird.

It's crazy. They spent so much on promotion and premiums and all of that stuff back then. I mean there's all this again, all these things detailing like what you're going to spend, what you're going to do monthly, and the cost of this and how many commercials per market and all this stuff, and it's like, man, oh man, crazy stuff. Even something that just utilized that animation style, which of course they wouldn't do they would three D render it now in the computers. But if they could replicate that look of the original commercials, I'd watch it.

I'd watch that and the documentary about it, you know. I see film companies and directors leaning toward practical effects a lot these days, going back to that, which is how I would envision a project like this. I could see this working as like a modern day Gremlins where the Freakis themselves are big puppets and have it actually work. You had it on our list to talk about today. This is a good transition.

We thought the Toxic Avenger remake from Macon Blair that has Peter Dinklage and Kevin Bacon and Elijah Wood, we thought that was just gone and it's coming back because of probably fans frustrated that they're not going to get this movie. There's a demand probably for weird movies with oddball creatures, with practical effects and strange, overly surreal plot points. And if there's a demand for that, then a Freaky's movie could be amazing. Directed by some of these younger dudes that have a little bit more of a stylistic approach, that would be really cool. Well, I'm going to tell you why the Toxic Avenger hadn't come out until now.

They couldn't find distribution for it, And it's as simple as that. They finally found distribution. I found out it's the same company that's distributing the Terrifier movies, and that brings up a whole other thing. There's definitely an audience for weird, fucked up, over the top movies right now. That would be the time to do a Freaky's movie.

I'm excited the Toxic Avenger finally got the distribution because I was really sad that I would have to look up a down the line, a pirated version of it or whatever to just get a glimpse of it. I'm glad it's going to be a theatrical release and streaming. I'm surprised it had such a tough road to the distribution because everything that I had heard from its festival showings was positive. Everything. Yeah, you know, companies, the money companies are just scared they're going.

To buy some and lose money, so it's going to be unrated. I think they're trying to cash in on the violence. Probably is over exaggerated and extreme and crazy and weird, and I imagine most distribution companies would be like a little worried about that, Oh for sure. But you have these movies that are I feel like body horror is coming back in the substantial way. I watched The Wolfman with my dad and I did not expect to like it.

I had heard bad things, but it was kind of amazing. The practical effects were kind of amazing. It's not the best movie, but it had heart. The intent was really really solid, and the storytelling was good. And then No Sratu was like kind of an amazing film to watch too.

I had issues with that one too, but like again, watching the practical effects. So there is an audience for this stuff. I'm glad that it Cineverse that's distributing it. Probably saw that there's some monetary value here. I'm always sad if a legacy project like this dissipates, it just gets sad.

I love the continuation of things like Planet of the Apes, even though I dislike most of the New or Star Wars stuff. I love that it continues. That last Indiana Jones movie was not good. I'm just happy that it happened, though, Like I'm just happy that something is keeping this stuff alive. The Fantastic Four movie trailer.

Thank god that they didn't give up on this completely after those last two movies completely flop, not even touching on the Roger Corman film, the first version of that to be Fantastic Four to be put on the film, which is did you ever watch that the Roger Corman version. I haven't watched it, but I mean, that's a whole other that's not even really a movie. That was a rights grab, that was rights it is, you like, we got to keep we got to keep the rights. So let's make this. It is a journey.

I'm telling you, watching that Roger Corman version, I like to see these things continue on, Like it would be really cool if the Howling got attention, if Gremlin's got another sequel. It is getting another sequel, that's what I heard, but like it is getting another sea. Is it happening, dude? Can you trust me for once? I do?

I trust you with everything? Mark. No, I don't know if it's really happening, but I have heard that they're finally getting started on it. Yeah, now's the time, I think, especially for okay with using puppets again in movies. Finally, I don't know, I don't really care another Fantastic Four movie whatever.

I I don't know. The trailer looked kind of amazing, Mark, I know, but to me, it's just like how many times though? Can you keep going back to the same mine, expecting to find a new vein that's gonna make you rich. How many times have they tried the Fantastic Four? How many times have they tried this and that?

Yeah, there are other comic book superheroes, yeah, that had never gotten a movie do something with them. Guardians of the Galaxy is a perfect example of how they James Gunn identified these characters that have never been represented on the screen before we can finally give them the film, and those those films were successful. I'm happy that they're going to continue to try with Fantastic Four because you and I are both in agreement with this, that those four characters are great and they deserve a good movie. If this movie fails, that's gonna suck. But I'm still I'm still gonna hope that eventually they'll get it right, even if it is just a money grab.

You get the right people on board and it could be done right. But I don't know. I have a good feeling about this one, and I could be completely wrong. I'm not saying I have a bad feeling about it. I just look at these things and go, there's other stuff out there to be done.

Yeah, that's true too, Like the Burton Ernie movie and the Burton Ernie documentary and the Burton Ernie documentary which is probably already out there on YouTube. I just haven't found it yet. Documenty. I'm not arguing here, I'm cooperating and there's no We're doing all we can. Sir, Can I talk to mister Gusterson.

Well, heck, if you want to, if you want to play games here, I'm working with you on this thing here. But okay, I'll. Do a damn luck count sir, right now, yeah, right. Now, you're darned touton so damned important to you. I'm sorry, sir about that crazy.

Hello. This is Mark Bigley, the host of Wake Up Heavy, and I'd like to invite you to listen to my show over on Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Wake Up Heavy is a show about my horror movie obsessions from childhood, as well as new to me discoveries from the past and present. My guests have included fellow weirding Way Media hosts Mike White from the Projection Booth podcast, Chris Tashu from the Culture Cast, Heather Drained from Noise Junkies, as well as Sam Degan, Sam Panico, and Simon FitzJohn. Every once in a while, my daughter Cleo even joins.

Me, Hey, that's me. Find Wake Up Heavy and my other show Cambridge and with Shawn on Weirdinwaymedia dot com or wherever you listen to podcasts and don't. Forget anything can happen when you wake Up Heavy. When you kind of sidetracked us. What else do you have to talk about stuff that you've gotten.

I mentioned Jeff. I met up with Jeff Martin at the antique stores in Clovis a couple of weeks ago. And I have been kind of on this PVC figure kick, and I know you have two a little bit with smurfs inching their way into your life a little bit. There's something about the little PVC figures. And I ran into this little goofy that's playing a banjo and he's got a little straw boater and you know I'm a fan of straw boaters at WC Field style hat and he's wearing a cute little suit.

I've just fell in love with that little guy. I also got the one of the three little pigs, the one with the sailor hat when the one in the Donald Duck outfit essentially playing the flute. I can't see these things. Oh sorry, well you're holding them to yourself. They see this goofy Now I think I had this goofy as a kid, the pig.

Look at how cute this guy. Yeah, anyways, I got really excited about finding those. You know that antique store that has the little corner where the dude has all the toys. That one antique store that corner is spectacular. And these little PBC figures are always around three bucks.

I think that was the price. Even for the Fisher price little people too that we found that day, those were two dollars, and so picking those up was delightful. And also when I brought the stuff over to your house, you. Gave me something, Yeah I did. I want to talk about that a little bit, because they're still right here.

I've got the lady Popin Fresh. Poppy is your name, Poppy Fresh? Say your name Poppy Fresh? Love it love having that Poppy Fresh as part of the collection. Now, thank you to you.

And then also another little cookie monster figure to go with my Cookie monsters and this other thing that I was not expecting and you weren't expecting that I would get excited about it. I don't think. But while I was at your house, I spotted this and you're like, here and take it. It's a Honda advertisement from twenty fourteen. They were utilizing things from the eighties and the late seventies that they knew would grab people's attention.

And so I had this little standy. Now it's like ten inches tall by about fourteen inches wide, and it's a triangle cardboard standy and it says you'd be foolish not to test drive a Honda silly mortal and it's skeletor. That is so awesome. I brought it home and my wife is like, oh, where are you going to put it? And I've had it on this little chair next to my desk the whole time.

Yeah. Better taking up space at your place than mine. I love it. It's so cool. I talked about that when I talked about Stretch Armstrong, because that was one of their big and that was right before they ended up re releasing those figures, was very shortly before that, and they did six million dollar man as well on those ads.

Really smart marketing to gen X people like oh remember this, and it's like, oh, yeah, I do. I'm going to go get one of your cars now because of it, I'm so weak minded and weak willed and Kim Trails make me bow to your exactly demands. It's great. That type of move by an advertising agency is always exciting to me. It's not the first time Masters of the Universe appeared in the last ten years in companies commercials, and so it's nice to have evidence of that back in twenty fourteen.

Whoever is on the advertising team, I commend you. And it's interesting though too. And this is a little bit strange. I was looking at the image of Skeletor again recently that's on this little standee and he has his mouth open as if he's laughing or talking. He's obviously saying what's in the word bubble, but the vintage toy his mouth is closed.

And then what would that be five six almost six years later, not quite five years, not quite six years later, they would have the first wave of Origins figures that came out, and that Skeletor has the open mouth as if he's talking or laughing, as opposed to the traditional vintage closed mouth skull. I thought, I wonder if one of the designers saw this and thought Oh, that's what we'll do. Don't know. We'll never know, probably, but we will when the documentary comes out. Yes, I was just gonna say that that was cool, Mark, and I appreciated You've giving me a few things and I came over to visit you.

That was awesome, Okay, Well was the least I could do, because when you visited me in the hospital, you brought a gift bag that contained what you had talked about, I believe on the previous episode, the two pack of Zukisen forlom Yeah, with the swapped names. That was a retro collection special release of some sort. I had those, and then also the Jessica Fletcher slash Angela Lansbury. What are they toney Town? Is that what it's called?

The horror ones of Tony Terrorism? These are Tony TV. Tony TV, which is I'm gonna admit right now. I have already regifted that because I was going to get Carlita one for Christmas and couldn't find it. I had given her a Jessica Fletcher pop figure a few years back.

We'll probably get her the cloth, the Neca cloth eight inch version of her as well, because it's pretty amazing. Yeah, it's i think still up on pre order in most places, so I'll be keeping my eye out at Target and on Amazon to get it for cheaper. That's so cool. Who would have funk it that we'd get figures of Jessica Fletcher's cool Crazy Matt Locke is next or Diagnosis Murder on Yeah, Dick Van Dyke. And then when you came, and I already knew about a couple of these because texting.

While I was in rehab you mentioned this. But when you came and visited me at my house shortly after I got back, you got another bag of treats, even more stuff. Yeah, that included the two well oh shoot, now I forgot Jada toys. Yeah, yeah, two of the Jada toys Cerial Monster or Monster Cereal figures, Count Schocula and Frankenberry that have gone on Clarance at Ross, which is awesome. Makes them a.

Very nice deal. I know you know, and I know I mentioned it on the show that I have definitely had my eye on that Count Shocula and just never hit the bullet and so it's very nice to have him. And as I'm texted to you, even though Count Chocula is my preferred Serial Monster figure, the Frankenberry figure itself. The actual figure is pretty freakin' amazing. It's amazing.

The details are I think, beyond what is probably called for in this situation. You know what I mean. With Jada Toys, those figures are approximately twenty five ninety nine. I guess if you buy them new retail. You and I talked about this, but i'll say it here again.

Like a figure like that, they could easily Jada, don't do this, Please don't do this. They could easily charge double the amount and probably sell them with the same amount of frequency based on the quality alone, because the quality is phenomenal. Now finding them on clearance, that ross goes to show that they weren't able to sell right at the twenty five ninety nine price, which is sad to me but also makes sense. I guess we're kind of in a niche. It's a very niche, niche thing in here, a very niche.

Jada Toys makes amazing figures. They are just well constructed. They look like the animation is just popped right off the cereal box, and the illustration isn't is a plastic figure you know you put on your shelf. Now it's like it's amazing. Well, the strawberry fingernails, Yeah, all of the contraptions on his head, like the all the train stuff for whatever, the train whistle and the clock or whatever, they're all made very very well.

Yeah. Again, it could have been cheaped out on very easily. They didn't do that, and so you know, unfortunately Count Chocolate doesn't have as many interesting details as that. So I think that's why the figure itself is a little more appealing as far as Frankenberry goes. But the head sculpts for both are great and matchup with the vintage Cereal boxes and all that.

They're pretty amazing and they'll most likely stay. Although I am anti packaging at the moment trying to declutter my life, those will actually probably stay in their packaging when I get to being able to finish up my display in my room here. Yeah, when I'm all healed up. Don't be scared. I'm the super sweep monster.

You see your Count. Super Sweet news City. The other thing are things you brought were a bunch of Fisher Price figures and accessories, including a bunch of the Sesame Street items that I believe were duplicates for you and the Sanitation department truck or car or whatever it is, a Bert and Ernie, a cookie monster, a big bird with his nest, and then two of the very old wooden little kid Fisher Price little People figures. It's interesting because I remember when you told me you were getting that and sent me the picture of the box waiting on the porch or whatever, and then you put your video up and I was like, oh, it came with figures, and I was like, oh, he's going to have duplicates of these. And then I was like, it's smart of you to keep you know, like say anything.

But yeah, it's like, I don't know he's keeping him that smart. That's a good you know, because who knows equality is on some of them. Yeah, but yeah, I did end up getting your doubles, So thank you for that. You're very welcome. It was kind of a fortunate couple of months right around the holidays for me in regard to Sesame Street and I do have an amendment from our last episode.

I referred to Aaron Davies, who helped me find the Fisher Price play set as Alan Davies. So apologies, Aaron. I actually he messaged me. He's like, it's okay, it's hilarious, and I let him know sorry about that. He was the one who found all that for me, and in fact, he was the first person to reach out to me and was like, hey, I found the four Lawmen Zuckis.

And so when I ran into four Lawman Zuckez in the store, which I never thought would happen because I'd only heard rumors that they were showing up in Ross's, immediately grabbed that for you, Aaron. Sorry about that calling you Alan. I did have duplicates, and I just thought, you know, I could hold onto these, but why it makes more sense for Mark to have them, So that's why you ended up with them. Big Bird did not come with the Fisher price playset. He was missing.

So when I found him on eBay, I went back and forth with the guy who was selling him, and I was like, he had two different versions. You know. I was asking to send photos, and I got both photos of both versions, and I thought I would much rather see what they look like in person. They both are very very similar, with very similar damages. And then I talked him into a real reasonable price and he sent them both to me.

And it made sense to add him to that for you. So now my Fisher Price playset is complete. Well, actually, the only thing that's missing is a box of chalk. That's it. I've got all the other little do dads that came with that playset.

Now, good, good, good, glad to hear it. Yeah, it's interesting the Big Bird. And I don't know if this is a different version or if this is how they all are, but he doesn't fit in his nest very well. His I don't know, what do you call him? The stump that they all have so that they can fit in chairs and vehicles, and like that is taller, so mind Yeah, but like if you put Cookie Monster and he fits perfectly, and I'm like.

Yeah, it's I don't know if it's just the size, and they're like, well, the stump has to be taller so that he's not top heavy or something. I don't know why they did that, but it seems kind of odd to me. Yeah, it would make more sense to have him fit flush into there. Yeah, right, because it's his nest. I think they were trying to just make him taller than the other characters, right, which they could have done by extending his neck or something, right.

Or make the nest deeper. I don't know, make the nest deeper. Just there's lots of options for. Them, Like why he's the only figure that's not going to fit in. Any of this stuff, right, yeah?

Yeah, And the one that you have, the nest is actually it's kind of like there's a rock ball scenario happening here. I guess. No, maybe not a rock ball scenario, but the mold is slightly different and the color is slightly different. Yeah, not a rock ball thing, because the mold is the same. It's the colors that change on though, That's right.

Yeah, Like the new one that I just got is darker than the other two blue ones I have. Yeah, interesting part of that could be age. And they're even different from each other, because when I got the second blue rock ball, I'm like, oh, it's darker than the first one I got, and this one is darker than either of them. So anyway, it's interesting to discover these variants, Like I had no idea that the Oscar or the Grouch that came with the playset had the handle on the top of the garbage can lid, and that there was another release of Oscar without the handle on the garbage can lid. So discovering these variants, I almost bought.

The wrong one. I'm glad I found the right one. I just saw someone was selling a set of the figures. So they came in a plastic like interior container. What do you call that material that people use that like ben Cooper masks were made of.

It's used for packaging. Oh, plastic, but it's vax sealed, you know, got a shape in it and particular to each of the figures. See there's a term. You can insert it here with the robot voice, right if I. Think about it, because you know, my brain is pretty fucked up still for my accident.

But anyway, it was I don't know, five or so of the figures and the oscar that they had in that have no handle, so maybe that was it. It was inserted in the form the back formed plastic. Fascinating, fascinating stuff. I loved just making these little discoveries, and it's like just little pieces of information, little new discoveries here and there. It just makes for lovely forays into happiness.

You got there. I got there eventually. My brain's always been like this. It's nice to have somebody else on the tea. It should be a lot of fun for folks telling you ten years from now, each episode would normally be about two hours long, hour and a half, two hours long, it's going to be about four five hours.

Just a lot of space between words. What was that thing that we liked twenty years ago? What was that called? What's that plastic stuff called? Oh god, I told you ever, I'll have to change the name to dementia and Alzheimer's.

I'm okay with that. Hey, As Conan O'Brien says, lows are highs if you look at them up so down. Yeah, Well, what does guy look like anyways? Oh, he's a little guy, kind of funny looking. Uh huh in what way?

Oh, just in a general kind of way. Well, since we've talked about our gifts or purchases, that was one of the things that we discussed when you came over on how we were going to approach that, And I pitched to you that we talk about stuff as we get it. Yeah, from month to month. So in between this recording and the next one, whatever we get we'll talk about on the next show. If we don't get anything, we don't talk about it.

If only one of us gets something, you talk about it, that's great, all right, I like it. And then at the end of the year and Lou of doing as Cambridge and was sean episode about our purchases over the year, the holiday special as we've been calling it, and Lou of doing that, We're going to utilize your YouTube channel to talk about maybe not all of the stuff, but maybe some of the big stuff, so that you can actually see it and we can hold it up to the camera or we can have pictures of it that Ronnie can show. So we'll do that and we'll just have a regular December episode from now on. Yeah. I had talked to Ronnie.

He immediately agreed. I was thinking, you know, well, we could leave it to a vote, but you know, you guys probably wouldn't respond any our five listeners. I think it's exciting to do a little show and tell and bringing people into this conversation in a visual way. It'll be fun. Yeah, and to utilize your YouTube channel as well.

Yeah. I kind of like talking about stuff when I get it, so I don't have to sit there and try and remember at the end of the year all the crap I got. Amen, to that and to sit there and know that you haven't made a list and talk about everything you got. Oh man, never trust your own memory, folks. So let's cut all that crap out and we'll do it differently from now on.

I like it. Yeah, kind of makes sense to me. One of the things that I pondered over while I was rehabilitating. Yeah, good decision, and I'm excited about it. Yeah.

So we'll see what next month brings us, if anything. Oh and the other change, and this isn't this maybe more for your audience, but for those folks that listen to Cameron Joe Mashan because of e Skelevator and you haven't gotten one in a while. But you know, Ronnie's got his Patreon. Since we started this, we both put the show on our Patreon. I no longer have a Patreon page, but I would still try and get the show early to Ronnie as part of that feature for him.

And going forward, it's just going to be a sneak preview of the show. So you'll get like about fifteen minutes of the show early. Still if I'm able to edit it and all that stuff that's always been contingent on being able to get it done a week ahead, so you'll get a little sneak preview as opposed to the full episode because now he's got other stuff going on over there to fill in the gaps, and that I don't think you've probably gotten the last three or four episodes in the post anyway, And that's okay. They'll get interesting little things here and there, like I've just recently stinke that you said. I've just recently started doing a little extra stuff over there for my patreons.

So they get vlogs about two vlogs a month. This month they're going to get one vlog, it looks like, and that's coming out fairly soon. By now, of course they will have already found it on the Patreon. There's that along with those these new little fifteen minute or so snippets of the forthcoming episodes of Cambridge and with Sean. It's always fun, folks.

If you're interested, just head on over there to the Skelevator Patreon. Well, it looks like that's everything on my notes. Did you have anything else we needed to talk about? Well, I have something to talk about today, which is a treat that I was obsessed with as a kid. It's not Charleston Chew.

Hey, America, how many chews in it? Charleston Chew. Well, I'll get to that eventually. This one. Actually I love Charleston Chew as a kid.

But there's a particular treat that Charleston Chew's still availed. This particular treat is no longer available, and I did a little digging and I found out more about it. I actually discovered some interesting things that might indicate that this treat is for the most part, in the form that we're going to be talking about it. It may not have existed elsewhere. I found out that this stuff, these brick shaped popcorn treats called pink popcorn, were made by a company called Rights Popcorn and Nut Company.

I knew it was Rights because it's right there on the plastic packaging for these things. As a kid, I was really obsessed with the pink popcorn bricks that you could buy. And at the time when I was a kid, when i'd go to the zoo with my grandfather, very fond memories of going to the zoo with him, he would buy me a brick of pink popcorn. You could eat it like a big candy bar out of the plastic wrapping, and I just loved it. It's not the most spectacular treat.

It's not overly sweet, it doesn't really taste like anything. It just tastes like sugar. And it's a really red dye. It's not even pink. It's just called pink, I mean because the dye and the white of the popcorn made it pink.

But this company writes popcorn and that company are actually San Francisco based, and the original factory was in the dog Patch neighborhood of San Francisco. They also had either distribution centers or smaller factories where they made the stuff in Fresno and Sacra. I did not know about that until I found an article from Vice magazine, of all magazines. I also found out through that article that there was a pink popcorn company in Canada that sold it in like a little box loose pieces, so more like kettle corn or caramel corn. But the company that came up with this idea of bonding all the popcorn pieces together into one brick shape was Rights Popcorn and Nuts Company, and looking through their product list, I recognized their little bags of regular popcorn like buttered popcorn that has clear plastic bags, and that brought me back to a lot of memories of those who could get them at the zoo as well.

So I have a feeling whenever I mentioned a pink popcorn to people, some people look at me perplexed if they're not from California, and so I'm beginning to believe that it might be a regional thing. I'm sure they were distributed elsewhere, but they were very present in zoos and playlands and places like that where kids would go in the late seventies and early eighties, and they went right up until the company went out of business in twenty fifteen, and I think that they had already stopped selling pink popcorn before that point. I think they stopped selling probably around twenty twelve, at least in this area. I remember, as an artist really wanting to when I found out about the company going under, I wanted to buy them out.

Of course, I didn't have the money to do that, but I wanted to buy them out, not to eat all of it, but like to use it for a project. Because these are very similar in shape to a traditional brick. They're not as thick as a brick would be, but they're essentially the same shape, and I just thought, man, it would be great to do like a instruction of some sort using this pink popcorn bricks. But of course they probably wouldn't have had the inventory for me to do something like that. Anyways, it had already gone down in popularity.

Then. I don't think popularity even applies to this at all, And I'm sure that they went out of business because nobody in their right mind would want to eat a brick of popcorn. It just doesn't really make sense, and that the fact that it wasn't extremely delicious doesn't help either. I just love this thing, being able to eat it like a sandwich essentially, or a big candy bar. I don't know if my grandfather bought it for me or if I asked him to buy it for me.

I don't know how it started. I can't remember, but every time i'd go with him, it was Ronnie, do you want a pink popcorn? And I'd be like, all over it. Probably the reason why I love pink so much. Pink is one of my favorite colors.

I couldn't even share that with my friend communities until I was an adult because I would have been made fun of in the eighties and nineties at school for liking pink. That's not the era we're living in now. Thank God for that. I love the color pink, probably because of that, and I do miss it the last few times I've taken our daughters to the zoo or wandering around roading park with them or with other family members. I just think the only thing missing from this scenario is right's pink popcorn?

Figure out how to make it. It's so funny, you should say that. I found recipes online. Forming it into a brick, though, is a whole other project. I haven't found any tutorials on how to form it into a brick, but I'm sure I could figure it out.

Put it in a pan, yeah, yeah, No, use a pan, one of those brick shaped pans. Yeah, a hotel pan. Like making race Krispy treees. You just chop it up. Yeah, cake pan.

This is why these conversations are good. You put it in a cake pan and then you cut it before it's hard. That's all it takes. I think it's a matter of time before I start making pink popcorn and distributing it. Oh, come on, that's gonna be a retirement plan.

I think, there you go, Zuriggian's pink popcorn. I don't know I had the name Zurigian on there, but it'd be awesome. They're like, what the fuck? What do you say this? Oh?

Man? But it's really was really cool because I had never known this before. Just this week found out that it was a California company that was making that stuff. The weird things that we attach ourselves to. Well, I have to admit that when you first said that last episode, I only thought of loose pink popcorn because I recall that I don't recall these brick things.

I recall colored popcorn being sold in bag places, yeah, and it being absolutely flavorless. Yeah, and this is flavorless too. The shape of it was really most of the novelty I think is like, there's a brick of pink popcorn. So, folks, if you're listening to this and you're not following us on Instagram, there is most definitely a picture on our Instagram post announcing this episode that is featuring pink popcorn. Oh, I'm assuming you have already sourced that image.

I have. It's ready to go. Awesome, it's in the shoot. Yeah, it's in the shoot. I want you to tell me what these fellows look like.

Well, the little guy, he was kind of funny looking in what way, I don't know, just funny liking. Can you be any more specific? I couldn't really say he wasn't circumcised? Was he funny looking? Apart from that?

Yeah, what do you have? You know? I hadn't really I had like three different things I could do, and I, as of starting this recording, hadn't nailed it down yet because I didn't know which way I wanted to go, and I'm almost reconsidering what I was going to do, so I don't know, let me think for a second, because just to have to decide, I thought I was leaning towards something that sort of went along with my accident and this strange idea that I had as a kid. And I did have a childhood treat in mind as well, because I just recently got some of these in part because of my accident. This was included in the care package I got from the gals at work that I was already on my list, pre existing list of childhood treats, and I thought, oh, well, I have some right now that would make sense yeah.

And then my accident also made me think about some personal lore on my list that again was already on there or relating to accidents. So I am like, I'm torn now. I'm trying to decide in my brain which one to do, or to go totally out of left field and steal your thunder and talk about Charleston choose. Well, I'd say, you know, people have been waiting and waiting and waiting for Charleston choose. That is not on my list of things.

I'll stick with what I believe I was going with when we started recording, and that was this weird idea I had as a kid where I had sort of an uneventful childhood. I didn't have a lot of issues as a kid. I didn't have a lot of problems. I was a very safe, not prone to risky adventures as a kid, or at least that's how I thought of myself. I mean, I'm sure I did stupid stuff.

I know. I climbed trees when I was a kid at my best friend's house. He had these huge pine trees in his backyard that we climbed. Probably could have fallen out of one of those and done some damage to myself, but nothing really happened. I never broke my arm or had accidents like that, and I always kind of wanted to.

I wanted something a little bit bad to happen to me, like a broken arm or a broken leg, so that I could, for. One thing, stay at home. Yeah, was not a fan of going to school. Also so that I could garner attention from people. Yeah, kids that showed up to school with casts on their arms or legs got attention.

They got people to sign them, so, you know, it was an interesting story you could carry through your life. Oh, I broke my arm when I did this, like something interesting, not not like getting shot or whatever, although I may have had those thoughts, but something I wanted something to happen that could give me some interest. Yeah, people could talk about and come and visit me and feel bad for me and blah blah blah. You know, all this stuff that kind of happened recently, very much like. The Christmas story.

His imaginings of having something happen to him and being blinded, and that's so real. Mark. You know, I don't know a kid that didn't have those sort of fantasies. Well, I can tell you it was stupid to think that way, because this has not been very fun. This is most definitely the biggest thing that has ever happened.

I've never been under anesthesia before this happened. I'd never been in the hospital overnight before this happened, other than when our daughter was born. So having a big event like this happened. Although it may have gotten me all those things as a kid, I probably wouldn't have liked it as much as I imagined I would have. Yeah.

Yeah, just one of those weird things. Even glasses. Yeah, I wanted to have to wear glasses, but my eyesight was so good until it finally wasn't, you know, like eight years ago, but I had really good eyesight, and I was like, I'd kind of like to have glasses. Seems kind of fun to be able to put this thing on your face, and you know, now it's just an annoyance. I used to have that too, and now it's so like I would love to have my eyesight back again.

Yeah. I like wearing glasses because I feel like, I don't know, for some reason, it helps my face. I don't know why I feel that way, but taking them off and not being able to see just kind of sucks. Yeah again, it adds interest to your face. There's something on there, and you know it's not just your plain old face.

And yeah, same, I would much prefer to have my old eyesight, which was really really good until it wasn't. Yeah, so yeah, that was my weird I mean, I thought about it pretty regularly, so I would consider that an obsession. Part of my allure though that why can't something interesting happen to me, even if it means that I get hurt for a brief moment, And of course you know I wouldn't hurt too bad. No, you want to be able to survive it. Which again sort of bore true in my thing.

I didn't feel any of the pain. When I fell out of that fell off that ladder. I guess that's what I was hoping would happen. Like, Oh, I'd fall out of the tree and break my bones and destroy my femur and just have all my friends coming by and bringing me presents and I don't have a cast to sign, but I've got a pretty gnarly scar on my leg. Now.

Yeah, I'm not going to sign your scar. Now, no one's signing that. But I'm glad that I could contribute to making that experience a reality for you. Kind of did he kind of did. Yeah.

What you just Sai explain makes a lot of sense to me, And I kind of feel like I've had those feelings too to a certain extent, wanting that non devastating tragedy to occur so that people could come by and say, are you okay? Yeah. I had never been in the hospital until I had my foot issue, and it was like, I'd never really want to do that again, but it was. It was kind of an interesting experience though, Like I definitely learned a lot about how that whole system works by being a patient there, and that was very interesting to me. Yeah.

Yeah, it was definitely an interesting experience. M H. Glad it's over. Yeah, I'm glad you're okay. Don't want that experience again anytime soon, And I don't blame you, alrighty, that's my goofy story.

I like it. Shall we wrap up? Yeah? All right, folks, Remember until we meet again, have fun, stay weird, Stay off ladders unless somebody is there to help you, yes, and keep collecting. Even if someone is there to help you.

Stay off ladders. Stay off twenty foot ladders. Yeah, just stay off ladders, folks. The heck do you mean? Heck you mean Cambridge or Seawan is a weirding Way media podcast