Episode 28: Sandblastin' and whip crackin'

Cambridge. Y Shawn is a weirding Way media podcast. Hello and Welcome to Cambridge and with Sean, a podcast by two not weird guys talking about not weird things. That we like exactly, not weird at all, not weird at all, normal to us, normal for a fifty six year old man to be talking about. That's for sure.

By the time you're fifty six or forty nine. In my case, the things that are weird should just be normal. By now, because talking about little toys is normal for a fifty six year old man. Can you imagine a fifty six year old man in nineteen forty two. Yeah, a fifty six year old man in nineteen forty two drinking from a Donald Duck coffee.

Mug and collecting little lead filled toy soldiers. That's the thing, Like, there's always been stuff that people can have. I'm sure there were actually people like that that had collections of things. In fact, I was just watching a Mister Rogers episode, one of the few full episodes that are on YouTube, where he goes to visit the music shop. We're in the back room, an older gentleman from Mister Rogers era was showing off his bank collections, little cast iron bank collection.

People do this. People collect things. People collect things. It's prime motorcycles banks. Cave Man used to collect chestnuts or whatever.

Yeah, exactly line them up along the grant. Made a little shelf. Look at this chestnut was from. Yeah, I don't know. I can't even make it up.

Well, I'm Skelevator and I'm on YouTube and Instagram. But here in this context, I'm Ronnie and I'm here with my friend Mark. I'm Mark Bigley. I do some other stuff. I'm just too tired to talk about today.

That's right. Today's one of those days. It's like we've had a bunch of warm days that come with it the excitement and energy of good weather, and now that it's cloudy today, I was not feeling motivated. I'm the opposite. I was not happy about warm I'm never happy about warm weather.

I know what's coming. Yeah, warm in the Central Valley means that in a couple of weeks it's going to be one hundred degrees. I'm fine with it staying as cool as it is until however late it goes. This year, when it's overcast, I immediately feel like I wake up and I want to lay back down again. Yeah.

See, I can get up and get going. I like overcast. Yeah that's good. I just think I'm at the coast. That's how I look at it.

Yeah. And actually that feeling of getting up and laying down again never comes with it like a feeling of burden for me. It's always like, oh, this is nice. I can just sort of chill like I'm intended to chill. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about what we're going to talk about today, and we're doing something a little bit different today because I have zero idea of what you're going to be talking about.

Same, there are some things we're going to talk about that we already know based on our back and forth throughout the month or a few weeks between us recording episodes. We always share a little chunks of information with each other about stuff we found on eBay or whatever, or in today's episode, a brief mention of Super seven, which happens almost every episode. Yeah, we need to get off that kick. Yeah, it's bound to happen. As long as they keep doing this stuff, it's gonna pop up for me.

Yeah. Speaking of which, Mark, have you picked up anything exciting or interesting over the last couple of weeks. Yes I have, but before I talk about that stuff, I make some corrections and some additions to the last episode. So in my discussion of Migo, I completely forgot and it was in my notes. So that's why I'm going back to it to mention that they were one of the top five top four toy companies during this time that I was referring to.

Unlike Hasbro and Mattel, who are still around and still very huge, people tend to forget about them a little more easily than say, Kinner, who's not tech clear around anymore but still has a pretty big presence. Who would be the other in the top four that I referenced. They're more of a boutique company now. Even though they're back, they're nowhere near the size and scale of Hazromtel and I don't think that's their goal either. But yeah, they were huge, mainly because of the superhero figures.

The Planet of the Apes figures did really well for them. Micro Nots was a massive success, and a lot of their other They had tons of different toy lines, or I shouldn't say toy lines, but lines in the eight inch figure series, Wizard of Oz did really well for them, et cetera, et cetera. So they were big and then just plummeted in the early eighties. It is pronounced mego. I even catch myself mispronouncing it because for the longest time, I think like a lot of people assumed it was mego, like Lego me too.

I rediscovered or found that out that it's Mego. I thought, did I know that as a kid, because I've been saying it in my head as Mego for years. You know, this was before I joined the Mego Museum. And they even got in trouble for that name with Lego because it's so it's one letter different. Yeah, they had to prove their point.

It's you know, no, it's the owner's kids saying mego too, you know, whenever the dad was taking their brothers somewhere. Yeah, the pronunciation kind of saying they've always been in legal trouble. Apparently they've struggled, they have their issues. And I also said that they came back in twenty thirteen, and that is not the case. It was twenty eighteen.

I was five years off. I don't know why I said twenty thirteen. Sometimes it feels like twenty thirteen was just yesterday. Yeah, well twenty eighteen is seven years ago anyway. I mean that's long ago enough, and that feels like, gosh, yesterday too.

And then the only other thing I wanted to mention was I noticed your new intros on your videos. It looks like you maybe took my suggestion of doing mister Rogers style intros. Oh did you notice that? Yeah, yeah, I totally thought that was a great idea. One of the reasons why I would say there are several reasons why I have the channel, but one of the stipulations that I've always kept to with my channel is to try and be positive and avoid falling into the complaining toy talk the other channels do so well and often and often.

So then it made sense, you know, when we were talking about mister Rogers and you suggested that, I was like, I want to give this a try, because the intro to each video should be a welcome, a kind of welcome to it and talk to the audience a little bit. And I mentioned in that video, I mean in our conversation that when I do those video intros, I would have to do it my way. I don't know if people watching those intros have noticed yet, But there are a couple of things that align with my sense of humor that I'm doing quietly in those intros. No one's reached out to say, oh my gosh, I see what you're doing there. Yet I've gotten people saying it's a nod to mister Rogers.

There are some embedded jokes in there that I have been doing. I really appreciated that suggestion, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Mark Well, I did notice the double change of a certain item, So I'm not sure what that is a reference to, but we spoil it here for people. Yeah, there's a double change and there's also a non change of a certain item too. Both of the little secret jokes to myself pertain to a justments that mister Rogers would normally make.

I'm having fun with it. I'm going to try and continue it and it'll evolve because eventually the format of the channel adjusts and changes with my interests, and it'll Yeah, I'm stoked to be doing it. Thank you for noticing. Yeah, I mean, only an idiot wouldn't. Before I start talking about what I did get I just wanted to mention and I had texted you about this.

I drove out to the Cool Target one day after dropping Cleo off from school. I had to pick up some stuff, and I figure, oh, I might as well drive all the way the heck out there and see if they have They had nothing that day, and I was so bummed. What I was looking for. And I didn't tell you then because I knew i'd be talking about her now. Is the new ben Cooper Neca figures?

One in particular the Planet of the Apes. Yes, one, and I don't think they're technically really out yet. I realized that when I got there they had because I had seen them at the Bullard and Blackstone Target, which doesn't have a very good pop culture section, that it was just packed with those Neca ben Cooper Halloween costume figures, which they have just totally gone full boron. I love how deep they're going with this, and I'm not collecting them. I'm not collecting them at all because there's too many.

There's too many. I mean, if you want to create an authentic Halloween of the Ben Cooper era, you would want to collect them all. But the two that I'm interested in are Planet of the Apes and also Creature from the Black Lagoon, neither of which I have seen out there in the world, and I visited a ton of targets since they started showing up in the collector spot, I have not spotted Creature, and I've not spotted the Planet of the Apes. I know the Planet of the Apes is a newer wave, the new eighth Wave. I don't think it'll be out for a while in in stores like Target at least.

I don't know if I've seen a Creature, but I know i've seen some of the other Yeah, I've seen Universal Monster ones. Dracula, Frankenstein knows fraw too, a bunch of them, but I haven't have yet to see Creature from the Black Page. Yeah, they're really exploiting that line. I kind of feel like it was a novelty a couple of years back, and it's like, oh, those are really cool, and then all of a sudden, it's like funko with stuff. Just like every other week, there's a new set of those.

I ain't getting into it now. I'll find one I like, and that Planet of the Apes is the only one that I'm interested in. I feel exactly the same way. It's exciting that they're doing it, and it's fun to see them on the shelves. I mean, it's always fun to see a bunch of I'm doing air quotes weird shit out on the shelf that appeals only to people of our era, and such an abundance of it is crazy.

But yeah, you know, Neca's doing a lot of cool things right now. I still have yet to see the ultimates Pee Wee Herman out there. I still have yet to see the Jaws realistic Jaws game based on the Jaws game from the late seventies. There are some things that I'm excited to see pop up. Just the fact that you can walk into a target and see Grimlins and old Monster movie characters and Ben Cooper costumes, and sitting right next to what seems to never end is the Funko pop thing.

It's kind of a cool thing. I always think, what of these items should I invest in or do I want to invest in? And that's why one character out of a bunch of those, or two characters out of a bunch of those makes sense to me. And then the other thing I was looking for at that target was I thought, well, maybe if I see a Super seven micro not reaction plus figure, I'll check it out. But they didn't have They hardly had any reaction figures.

They had the devo Jerry Cassale, which has been there for. Months, yeah, for probably probably a year. It was summarily wiped out. And when I have to. Wait long, if you ate one whopper with no pickle and no lettuce, no sir.

Call the pickle the lettuce special. It is done. Upset us. So we asked you that you let us servant your. Bat to all the Patty special sauceletus cheese pickles on means on assess me seed.

But as you mentioned on the last episode, my birthday happened shortly before that episode was released. For my birthday, I got since I mentioned it as my childhood treat on that episode. I got another bag of butter toffee peanuts from my wife from Sierrat House. And my sister also got me that bag of quote unquote trail mix from the Walmart that has them as well. Good stuff.

I can't imagine eating that stuff on a trail but anyway, and I got an eBay gift card and an Amazon gift card. But the eBay gift card was a little more important because I've been doing more shopping there lately, and my wife asked me, well, what should I get? I said, you know, what's perfect gift? eBay gift card. She did that, so that'll come up and some of the stuff that I got. But before I bought anything from eBay, you and I met up to explore the new Minecraft Happy Meal figures, and we incorrectly reported, or I incorrectly reported that it was just regular happy Meal figures.

Yeah, kid happy Meal figures. And I should have known because I kept seeing when I would see stuff about it. They were showing two separate sets of figures. So there were the film figures that are from the movie or maybe even from the game, and then the McDonald land character figures, and I was like, oh, we need to make sure we asked for the right ones, blah blah blah. And then I kept seeing that and then I'm like, is that right.

A lot of the things that were seeing on Instagram were in foreign languages, and I thought, oh, well, maybe one of these is for foreign markets. The weird little actual Minecraft figures from the movie, those might be for foreign markets, and that the McDonald had figures are for the US or something I couldn't quite figure it out. And then I finally saw a video where a guy was like, there is a new adult happy meal, because you know, those influencers were getting boxes of them with Grimace shirts and everything else and promoting them on Instagram and blah blah blah. I was less interested at that point because I thought it was going to be a clusterfuck like that cactus fart plant fartscit flea biscuit thing.

I almost renigged on us going there, just because I thought I just don't want to get stressed out. But we went and they had the figures and we did the little fancy space age order for yourself crap that they do now in McDonald's. I'm not a fan of that. It feels so impersonal touching the touch screen, and first of all, I don't like touching public touch screens. I just don't.

Right before I eat a meal. Yeah, that's not sanitary. That does not appeal to me. I much prefer I just totally understand the person and they type it into the computer whatever. Yeah.

I already knew that the meal was going to be on me because it was your birthday. I thought we better try so I'm glad we did. We got two interesting items. We did that, and of course there's no way to pick what you get or whatever. I hate that and or order them alone, so fine with that.

Like you said, we both got something interesting that first time, and I got to say, man, that was a Eating it there of course helps because everything's super fresh. But that was a solid Big Mac. Oh, it was good. I was done for for the rest of the day. Yeah, but it was suhret tasty and it was nice.

We were talking while we were eating. We were talking about how so many of the flavors of these items just haven't changed and how that's good. Like you and I both ordered a cup of coffee with our adult happy meals. And my deal with McDonald's has always been that their regular coffee as a nice flavor, and sure enough, it's the same exact coffee flavor. How they maintained this regularity is beyond me.

Fries tastes exactly the same, and as you mentioned, they've had to change the type of oil that they use, and the Big Mac is exactly the same. This is a phenomenal achievement in my opinion, and the place smells the same when you go in, the food tastes the same, the aesthetic of the interiors sucks, and the touch screens sucks. They're giving us adult happy meals. I'm going to go off on a little tangent here. They're giving us adult happy meals because they know that our generation wants that, So give us a few McDonald's that are a genuine throwback to the late seventies early eighties.

Why not they can afford it. You know, these space age McDonald's locations. They don't appeal to children, make it fun for people of all ages. The play places are shutting down, and rightly so. They're super boring and cold and not interesting.

And try that out McDonald's. If you're listening, yeah, you know that they're listening to this. Yeah. Before we get to the toys, Yeah, because it was my birthday, you brought some treats for me as Oh yeah, you usually do. From Ronnie.

I got a I think you're leftover Homer Bart and Lisa Jack specific mini figures a Grimace glass and I couldn't tell if it was plastic or glass. Oh it's glass, okay, because I clinking, I'm like, is that plastic? It's hard to tell I'm not going to drink out of it because it's probably got lead in it. That's on my shelf. I've drunk out of mine many times.

Well, there you go. I'm not transis slow and. A little PBC skiing Garfield. Yeah, I'll get back to that in a minute, because it got my wheels turned in in my head. So we did get the Minecraft adult quote unquote adult happy Meal.

I got the Big Mac Cube, which I was happy about. For the non figure figures, that was the one that I was hoping for because I do love me a big Mac and I always have. And you got the French Fries French Fries space helmet, I believe. Yeah. So as soon as Faith saw it, you know she's a fan of Minecraft, she was super excited and so that belongs to her now.

For an afternoon, I had it sitting next to my little funk o Op French Fries. Yeah. They look really nice together. There's something cool about But I don't understand the helmet thing, and I didn't even try to do research on it or anything. It fits on the other figures, the kid happy Meal figures.

So probably would fit on Grimace if you've got him. Probably and it fits on. I think the game pieces. The whole the kids thing came with a bunch of different options figures and then little boxes that fold it out and you can put the stuff on the spaces in the boxes. That fold out.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Of course, this stuff makes me think about Happy Meal toys and my favorite character and my favorite item is the Big Mac. So I had been looking at those little pullback cars, the fast Max Yes for a while and had a couple saved, and that's sold, and then you know, I'd go back and try and find some other one. So I had one two saved and they were both carded versions. One was four dollars and one was I think double that price, and I'm like, well, why am I even looking at the double It might have been that it was no, I think it was zero shipping, but it was like just a little bit more.

And I'm like, well, which one should I get? Right right right? Waiting for offers for one or the other. And I finally got an offer for the four dollars one. Since I had now had my eBay gift card, I said, oh, yeah, got that.

I texted you. I'm like, oh, you know, I'm going to bust this thing off the card and tempting, and I'm like, tempting nothing, I'm going to I have no connection to carded stuff. I'm like, I don't give a fuck of this as carded. I get excited about the card art when it triggers something in me that's a happy feeling, like it feels good to see it. The card art for those pullback toys, I don't have any nostalgic connection to the card art.

Have to pull back Ronald McDonald and it has a different card art than the one that you got. Yeah, that's particularly interesting to me. I still haven't taken Ronald off of the card, just like I have Sugar Frosted aka Dustin Crops, Boys mayor mccheese still on the card too. For some reason, some items just to me say leave me on the card. Did you get him open?

Yeah, well that's why I was just getting ready to say. The corner of one side was already lifted up, just from age, and so I went around one edge and it came up just because it's old glue. Yeah, he just fell right out. Oh man, Yeah he looks great. The card is still fine.

I mean the bubbles on the card. It didn't come all the way off. Best of both world. Not to get into all this right now, but do whatever the fuck you want with your toys. Absolutely, this will come up later when I talk about my current obsession.

Don't worry about trying to maintain some kind of value to this stuff. They're cheap pieces of plaid sick. Don't fucking worry about it. I talk about that on my channel too, like, do what you want with the toys. Do what you want.

So I know that you went back and you can talk about the stuff that you got. You went back to McDonald's to get a second adult happy meal. And I wasn't planning to at all, and I just happened to be up by my office and doing some other stuff. I had some other errands to run at where my mom lives, which is close to where my office is, and it was approaching ten thirty, and I thought, oh, crap, I'm going to do this, aren't I. So I went through.

I'm like, well, if there's a long line, I'm not doing it. There was no line. So I kept putting up all these obstacles for myself and they all disappeared. So I went ordered I asked them if they still had them. They said yes, and I was kind of thinking of things.

So I opened the box when they gave it to me, and I checked the bottom because I know that there are codes on the bottom and I just didn't want to get the same one again, so I noticed that it was a different code. I'm ticked at myself for doing this. Started driving off, and then I started thinking, wait a minute, the codes mean something. Yes, I noticed that the code on this one started with a P, and I'm like, one of these is a potion and it is absolutely not the one I want. I was already heading out, but like I could drive around the block, turn around, come back in and say, no, I've already gotten this one.

Can you give me a different one and go through, you know, And I'm like, just just go home, go home, eat a second McDonald's Big Mac in less than two weeks, and was again destroyed for the rest of the day, you know, thinking when I finished my succulent meal, here, I'm going to open this and I'm going to be summarily disappointed. And I was because it was the soda potion, which was the least interesting one to me, orange drink of I guess a soda. Are they famous for selling orange soda? I don't know. I don't know why it's not brown, but anyway, I guess more colorful, and it's like, damn it, I knew this was going to happen.

Done. Not going back. I'm not trying. I'm not going to go up there and go can you give me one with an h urgy? Not doing any of that.

I just can't. I'm not buying another fourteen dollars meal get this stupid piece of plastic and understandably so boom. Me watch, shame on, shame on you. It boomed me. We can't get fooled again.

I me. It's still trying to convince myself that it's cool. I think they're a little bit more rare because they seem to be going for hire on eBay, But I could be cute. I don't understand the reference to anything old school McDonald's, but it's I don't think that's necessarily a case. Yeah, I don't think that's necessarily the case.

With the fries and the drink thing, I think they're just strictly minecraft based. The little Garfield skier that you got me, I thought, was this a happy meal toy because I know that they had Garfield toys and happy meals a number of times and it's not. But so I was looking at that stuff and then I was like, you know what, I need to find that damn pencil topper I had as a kid, which I feel like I still have and is lost somewhere in my daughter's room. But I've looked for it a million times before in the past and just never bit the bullet because they're always kind of janky in bad shape. So again, I found a couple, put them on my watch list, waited for offers, and got an offer on the one that to me looked the best or the closest to what I feel like my personal one would look like.

Now, So I got that little, tiny, barely an inch tall. Oh yeah, and there's a variety of pencil toppers for Garfield, but this is the one I had as a kid. His alarms or his hands are clasped sitting up and adorable. Yeah, he looks particularly snarky in that. Yes, he's got a very big smirk on his face.

And then I got something else that I stumbled on because of all this stuff on Instagram from a rival fast food chain. But I'm not going to talk about today because they haven't shown up, so I'm gonna have to wait until next time. I'm a little bit of a trader to McDonald's on this, but they are freaking adorable. I'll let you know when I get them and tell you what they are, but I'll have to wait until next time talking about it because they're not here yet. It's hard when it comes to McDonald's Happy Meals or burger King Kids Meals and stuff like that, because sometimes they would get the license for particular IP.

I might normally be dedicated to McDonald's, but if burger King gets an IP for something that I'm interested in, it's you know, I'm gonna be interested in that. Speaking of that, I kept seeing Wendy's had these little rubber DC superhero interesting. I always want to say a happy meal about kid's meal. For other places, I don't know what they call them, in particular, little KESHI, you know, little rubber guys, just solid plastic, no paint or anything, a bunch of DC. If I cared about DC, I would have gone or if I liked Wendy's, which I do not, I would have gone to get some Yeah.

I kept seeing that pop up all over the place. Just I think they had like twelve or more different. Figures out recently. Yeah, it's a good thing. I got this eBay gift card because our tax situation was pretty horrendous this year.

Oh, I guess we went up a tax bracket, So I'm not going to be buying a whole lot of stuff once this gift card runs out. Government do take a bote. Don't you. Well, in a way, that's probably a good thing, especially regarding new stuff, because with the tariffs around the corner, new toy prices are going to really skyrocket. That creates an interesting dilemma that I've been sort of juggling.

Does that mean if you're going to invest in toys some of these toy companies, these companies like Entertainment Earth or Big Bad Toy Store that make an effort to make stuff available to people who don't go out shopping for toys. Are they going to suffer from this? And do you want to support them? Or do you want to save money and buy used stuff through eBay which won't be affected by tariffs. I have a question for you, what do you mean by investing in toys.

Are you actually talking about like buying something in the hopes that the value will increase. No, an investment in pleasure. For instance, a twenty dollars toy will potentially soon be twenty five to thirty dollars, and that's an investment. I'm investing in my joy of that thing. Recently, I bought Voltec from MATEL Creations, and that's an investment in that character.

That's how I view investments, investing in the joy not and again this back to what we were just talking about. If you're collecting to make money off of something, that's not the way that I do things, and that I don't really see a lot of joy in that. So I'm investing in joy to clarify. I want a clarification because that's exactly what a lot of people see these things as, or why they buy them, and why, for one thing, you can't find an adult happy meal around town because scalpers go out and snatch them all up. And I've seen people, not the people that are getting them from McDonald's, but people with multiple sets of these.

That means they've gone to all of these McDonald's bought happy meals to get them in hopes to sell them on eBay, or why Target gets cleaned out of certain things because people are going to sell them on eBay. That term investment kind of bugs me. Well, the reason I use the term investment is because every dollar for people who are collectors that don't make a lot of money, like you and me, every dollar is a choice spend. It's an investment. I am investing in my joy.

I'm going to stand by that. All right, So what did you invest in this past month? Yeah, I let me reconfigure my brain here. Inspired by your purchase last month of the Big Mac helicopter, which was a Happy Meal toy, Well, those toys are dated nineteen eighty two, and then looking online, some sellers claim that they were Happy Meal toys from nineteen eighty six. Maybe they were made in eighty two, Maybe they came out in eighty six, or maybe there were two different runs of the.

I think there were two different runs because it doesn't make sense if they would have held on to them for four years. The commercial I found that I played on the last episode was from nineteen eighty six, so they came out twice. I did the math, and I'm like, okay, Well, I was six in eighty two. I was ten or eleven in eighty six, and either way I would have been interested at both of those age brackets. Whatever year it was that we went on that trip finding those and this is a throwback to last episode.

Getting those Happy Meal toys was exciting. I found a pretty good deal, and you actually helped me find it on eBay to buy. I guess it's almost all of the characters. I got it for like seven bucks, this handful of aircraft characters, and it's so I'm tempted to try and get a couple of different colors of the Hamburger the Big Mac helicopter, because I think that's my favorite one. It's really cool to have those as part of the collection now, and I do see that as an investment in my joy because they do give me visceral joy.

And yeah, so got those. I also ordered the Mattel Creations Masters of the Universe Voltac, and that's a character that's from a couple of different Shira Princess of Power episodes. He was like this evil zoo keeper, sort of an obscure character. So I got excited about that right around this time. The Count is supposed to be hitting stores for Mecca Halathon.

I found the Count. Now I've got the three released Neca Ultimate Sesame Street characters, and I mean, honestly, the Count is just a spectacular accomplishment in toymaking. He is beautiful. Right around this time, you know, Super seven announces there mister snuffle Upagus and Big Bird two pack. This is a lot.

I'm like, I got to put my stopper up on what I'm going to go buy for myself. And a friend of the channel, Aaron Davies, he was like, it says here online that they're going to be sold out, so he was like, I'm going to just I'm going to send you one. That was really cool of him. Got that and I did a review. This really kind of pisses me off about Super seven.

You start looking at something and they send you an email to follow up and say, oh, I see you're looking at this thing. It's not going to be around very very much longer. It's selling out so far that tuopac is still online and available, so that's kind of crappy. Rather than focusing on that, I just want to say, like, folks, if you're interested in these Super seven reaction figures, of Sesame Street characters. That snuffle Upagus is an amazing figure, very cool, very happy to have that.

Yesterday they announced the new wave and I sent you the information too, as soon as I saw that they were announcing it. And I was able to get Roosevelt Franklin because that's you and I both discussed this. That's the one character from that wave that I'm interested in. I don't have an attachment to King Alligator or Alligator King. I don't remember those cartoon shorts from Sesame Street as a kid.

I must have missed them. Then there's an Elmo. I'm not a no nostalgic connection to Elmo. He emerged when I was already not watching Sesame Street. And then also Cookie Monster in a chef outfit.

I mean that's pretty cute. Yeah, So I jumped on Roosevelt Franklin using my affiliate link, so I get a little bit of back, Yeah, paying myself for that a little bit? Why not? Yeah? Hey, they up my percentage to ten percent.

Cool. Don't know why they did that, but I'm cool with it. So, folks, if you're going to be buying stuff from Super seven, use the Skelevator affiliate link. You can find it at the bottom of each one of my videos. I'll try and repost it on this I know I did back when you first mentioned it, but I'll post it on this video as well.

Are this episode as well? Nice? That means every six months or so, I'll get a little check of twenty five dollars. Then you can invest in more stuff. I invest in eBay.

I think that covers the stuff that I got since we talked last. Oh, I wanted to mention about the airplane figures. I've only seen color variations on Officer Big Mac and the Fry guys in their planes. I have not seen Ronald, Birdie or Grimace have variations, and probably because they are their character colors, right, you could do whatever for Officer Big Mac, I guess other than brown, i've seen different maybe just the two the Grain and the blue Officer Big Mac helicopters. And then there's a couple different blues for and maybe a grain as well for the Frog.

And that also suggests to me that they were released at different times and just use different colors for those. Yeah, there's a blue one out there that is just beautiful. That's the one I have. The blue Officer, Big Mac. It's gorgeous, it.

Is, and I mean they're so cheap. Well, i'll tell you this, you've got your four or half the price of what I got my officer. But before. Yeah, I mean, I guess it takes the looking and the not you know, patience and stuff like that. I wasn't going to buy a set, and I wasn't really I was specifically looking for that.

But now I have a set of three that I don't have that's like four dollars or something, So yeah, I might get that with my eBay gift card, but I don't know. I'm still looking at other stuff. Yeah, there you go. We haven't even gotten into our main thing here and we've already been blathering on for an hour. Oh that's good, it's fun.

Yeah. Is that why people aren't listening to our show anymore? Could be, Oh, well, that's why people listen to podcasts in the first place. That they're not listening who is because of that? That would be counterintuitive.

I love listening to podcasts because I like to listen to people blather on. If our numbers continue to tank, I don't really care, because at least for me, I'm doing this for my pleasure. It's an investment in joy. It is I'm investing in my own joy here by spending zero money on this, saying. That's right, that's right.

I look forward to these, so that's what matters to me. It's all selfish people. If you're here along for the ride, thank you, But just to realize that we're not really doing it. For you, we're doing it for us. We would be doing this anyways, Mark, what is your first subject matter for today?

Well, I only have one subject matter for today, and I'm not talking about local locales. That is a whole different category. So don't confused, mister Ronald. I once again hmmed in hot and I thought I was going to hit the comic book arena for the first time. We haven't really done comic books yet.

You've talked about some comic book characters, but we have not talked about comic books, right. And I had been looking at something that I had as a kid. It would have taken up the rest of my gift card, and I'm like, do I really want to do that right now? If I had done that, I probably would be talking about that now, but I'm not. My other option was a modern obsession that I have hinted at numerous times on the show, and I have mentioned one of the people or yeah say people a bunch of times on different episodes.

So I'm going to be talking about toy restoration videos. This has consumed a considerable amount of my quote unquote free time over the last year and a half when I stumbled on this stuff. I don't really watch toy review shows or anything like that for reasons that you mentioned earlier. It's usually complaints and toy ventures or plaid stallions or whatever he goes by on YouTube is maybe the exception. That's generally about the same kind of stuff that I'm into.

But even him, I don't really watch a ton of his stuff. Anyway. Back in October of twenty twenty three, as I was prepping for our episode which I did Microns on, I was looking up clips. I was looking up Micronat commercials, Microman the Japanese original version commercials. The algorithm picked up on that and fed me some videos of micront restoration clips from toy Ploi Gotta love Toy POLOI, and so I was like, hmmm, this is interesting, and I started watching those.

So there was one night that October, Carlita and Cleo went to go see the Taylor Swift movie when it came out. So they went to dinner with a friend of Carlita's and then they were going to go see that movie. So they were gone, and that was a long movie. It was like over three hours long. And I think they were going to the like nine o'clock showing.

So they went to dinner, went and saw that they were gone for at least six hours or more. What did I do? I watched twenty toy POLOI videos. I've been there. I just kept going through his channel, watched a bunch of the Micronauts one and then realized, oh, this guy has fixed a bunch of different kinds of toys, so he has I'll get into that a minute.

I think I kind of was sticking to stuff that I liked personally, so I saw that there were some six million dollar Man repairs. I saw a Bullet Man, which is a Gi Joe and or Action Man figure from back in the seventies. So I was kind of cherry picking and realized, oh, I find this very relaxing to watch, and I got sucked in, so ASMR whatever you want to call it. Although although he does narrate his videos, not so much ASMR, but a lot of it is done, like many of these videos with time lapse photography, so it's not like laborious and you're watching some guy clean I mean, you are watching some guy clean toys, but it sped up and then he uses these particular music clips and the ones I was watching it was like almost always the same music.

So every time he was cleaning the toys off, he would play this music. When I was doing the dishes, I started hearing that fucking music in my head because it's like the same scenario going on. Yep, you know. So it's I'm sure royalty free music that he uses in all his clips. He's got different ones he uses, but they come up so often it's like, oh, here's that song again.

But anyway, so that's part of it that's relaxing to me. And I think he's a graphic designer by trade, and so he will create sticker sheets for toys that are missing stickers, and he shows that process usually involves some kind of drilling and reforming of figures. He's done Migo, He's done tons of Masters of the Universe, tons of Star Wars, he's done real Ghostbusters figures, Micronotsuck I've already mentioned, and then Action Man, which is their version of g I. Joe. He's done a bunch of those, the six Million Dollar Man stuff, and then you know, oddities throughout, and so it says on YouTube that he has one point one k videos.

I have probably watched ninety eight percent of those videos, some of them. More than I've watched, but I've watched a lot of them too. Yeah, some of them multiple times. I have gone back and watched the series of six Million Dollar Man videos multiple times, the Bullet Man videos multiple times. I will go back if I'm bored and start going through the Star Wars series.

And there's hundreds of those toy lines that I have zero interest in. Masters of the Universe, don't care about it, but I watch. It's fascinating. He creates things with styrene and plastic weld and he's doing dioramas for his figures. He's done Raiders of the Lost Arc figures when they were done by Kinner, when they were done by LGN, Dungeons and dragons, all kinds of stuff fascinating to me, and it's something that I really have no personal like I can't do that.

I mean, I'm sure I could. I've fixed a few toys in my life, but nothing like the required customization or actually creating something out of milliput or epoxy skull. Yeah, all kinds, you know whatever, other kinds of tools and things. He uses repainting figures. So he's popular, but he's also very unpopular with a certain group of people who think that toys should be left the way they are.

So this is where that whole thing comes back in play of carded figures, graded figures. I guess it was really the Star Wars toy community that were like, you know, why are you They should be left the way that you found them. They've lived this life, et cetera. It's saying, you know, that's great. It's a fucking inanimate object that doesn't have any feelings.

Who gives a crap what somebody does with it. You could buy, and I know that there are people that do this. You could buy a graded figure AFA graded nine point three, buy that. Open that fucker up, take it out of the box, peel it off the card. I couldn't care less what you do with something like that.

People get all up in arms about this stuff. I mean, I think grating is a scam anyway. But if you want to spend two thousand dollars to buy an AFA, is it AFA? I think it's AFA graded figure and bust it out of that plexiglass case and tear it off the card, destroy the card in the process. Whatever.

If you want to do that, knock yourself. Out, More power to you. I don't care. You couldn't care less with it. If you find a toy at a garage sale or an antique store or a thrift store that has a broken leg and you want to fix it and you're not going to use material from that era, go ahead.

If you're going to paint it, you want to repaint it, go ahead, do whatever you want with this stupid stuff. Who cares? And why do you care what other people are doing? Is my point. Some of the stuff he repairs, it is kind of miraculous to see how good it looks at the end.

They look brand new. Yeah. Some of it's like yeah, I caning on whatever. Some of it I'm really amazed at by the end, like, oh my god. If you're willing to invest invest time in making something out of the stuff, that you found.

Like he's shown, you can buy pieces of the atat Walker from the Empire strikes Back Kenner line and piece those together to make a whole atat Walker. To me, that's exciting because it's showing like, okay, if you purchase these parts at an affordable price, rather than you having to drop four hundred plus dollars on a good condition atat Walker, which is like for people who collect that stuff, it's a grail for a lot of people. You can make your own just by following his tutorial and buying pieces through e Day and putting it all together. That's exciting. That's the type of creativity that I think is employed by some toy collectors, and I admire that.

If you're the type of person that is willing or can afford to spend top dollar on a mint condition atat Walker in the box and choose to leave it that way, fine, more power to you. But I am not that person. Even if I could afford to be that person, I'm not sure if I would spend that much money on that. I'm with you. I love toy Poloy and I love what he's doing, and I could watch those videos too.

It's very satisfying. That's where I've lost a lot of my time and why I don't watch very many movies anymore. And it's just brainless, mindless, but also soothing, and I need that soothing thing. So the next one that came up, and I'm not really sure how this happened, just I guess being on the now Toy Restoration loop in YouTube, was a channel called PB's Retro Restorations and this guy does die cast cars cool, which I have. And I say this knowing my history, I have zero interest in As a kid, I did not collect hot wheels or matchbox I think I had a couple of motorcycles.

I was sort of fascinated by miniature motorcycles, but it only had a few of them. I did have a friend in elementary school who collected hot wheels, and so when i'd go over to his house, that's what he wanted to play with. And I was like, man, this is boring as hell. I felt the same way. Other than a brief period not too long ago, I have never collected hot wheels or any other die cast cars, and for whatever reason, I don't know why.

I think it may have been a batmobile, you know, the Corgi famous batmobile that had all these functioning parts on it. Oh yeah, which I remember some friends having when I was a kid. There was also the Korgi seven Aston Martin that had the same kind of gimmicks. For whatever reason, I started watching this guy stuff. He's Australian, so this plays a big part in it because I could listen to Australian's talk all day long.

Aim into that, and he's got a sense of humor, pokes funded himself and messes up a lot. It's just fun to watch. It was fascinating to me though, to see what goes into restoring these little two to I think Corgi and original matchbox figures were a little bit bigger, like four inch cars. It was fascinating to me to see the process of stripping the paint, the different means of stripping paint. You can use a couple of different things to do that.

These toy cars have to be riveted together so that kids can't easily take them apart and choke on them, and so I was fascinated by Oh, they have to remove the rivets, how do they do that? He doesn't replace them with rivets, he replaces them with screws. That was interesting. You've got to thread the holes now, so he's got a threader. He uses an airbrush to repaint the cars, which is again one of those soothing things to me.

Yeah, I think, very yeah, very early on he may have spray painted a few of them, quickly changed to airbrushing, and he creates decals for them. To take the tires off, you have to grind out the little stubby part that keeps them in, and then you've got to recreate that stub at the end, and you get replacement parts from these places all across the globe of tires things like that, And it's like fascinating to see the process from this junked up little car the end to something that's really pretty. Of them have plastic for the glass, and how the materials they use to clean that, polishing it, and then they use linoleum floor cleaner to like shine up the glass at the end. It's just that's so cool. I would see all this stuff out of context where he's not explaining the things.

I'm like, what is he dipping that in? What do you dip this plexiglass into to make it shine up again? And so then at some point. You know, as I'm going through the videos out of sequence it was explained, I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I would who thinks of this stuff?

Yeah? Right? Using break oil to strip paint off of plastic toys is what toy ploy employees. And I've seen on another show that I watch, like break oil, Why does break oil strip paint? It's fascinating stuff to learn these things.

So he's only got about two hundred and fifty videos, but again I've watched probably about eighty five percent and of his. Things, Yeah, I gotta get on that too. Thank you for introducing that to me because I got to watch his channel. That sounds exciting. I love that.

It's pretty fun and he's a big part of it because he's enjoyable to watch, And like you know, other ones pop up and I'm like, this isn't a thing that I'm like venturing into. It's like, I link this guy's stuff I don't need to see. I'm sure I probably watched a couple, but they didn't have the charm of his channel. Today, viewers, and welcome to this week's Paybay's Retro Restorations. And on that note, let's get cracklekin as I say, everywhere from London to Sydney and everywhere in between.

Probably directly because of that. Somehow on Instagram, somebody popped up in my explore page doing not die cast cars, but Tonka signed vehicles. And that's a little more involved because now you're getting into sand blasting, which is fascinating to me very much ASMR. And these are the restorers who do that size. I don't know anything about the scale of car things like I don't know what scale hot wheels are.

It's like one sixty fourth or something, and I don't know what scale tonk is one thirty second, who knows, I don't know anything about that. The larger scale stuff, you know, involves a little bit more heavy duty tools. So the guy that popped up on my Instagram is called Joe and I think it's Joe Underscore DIY And so they were little, maybe one to two minute clips of the process so sand blasting taking them apart for one thing, and they all are connected usually with rivets and tabs, tabs that get bent that steel that they use for those cars and trucks. Sand blasting, powder coating and then cleaning stuff up. You know, some metalwork reshaping axles that are bent.

You know, you also have to get replacement parts for a lot of the pieces because they're fifty something years old and things rust and rot. And I was like, oh, he must have a YouTube channel, So I looked up Joe Diy and I didn't find anything, so I just put in like Tonka restoration or something. One of the channels that popped up was called chip Channel Restorations, so I started watching those got hooked and they're longer. The stuff on Instagram is designed for that short format. This was basically exactly the same thing, taking the vehicle apart, sand blasting it, fixing all the stuff that's wrong with it, and then powder coating it, which.

I just love. I've always been fascinated by powder coating what it even is? And I had a metal stool and my mom kept saying, you know, you need to go get that powder coated, and I'm like, what does that even mean? Yeah, so the powder coating has always fascinated me. And there is there or there was a local place, so my mom kept telling me to go to to get Yes, I've been there stool to get powder coat.

I don't even have the stool. I don't think she ever gave it to me. I think she gave it to my sister. I used to work for a sign company and we use them for powder coating metal signs, and the whole process is so fascinating to me. It's very simple too.

I mean it's really just this powder that you spray on things. It sticks to it, and then you heat it up to like four hundred degrees and cure it, basically. And I don't think that's how Taka or some of the other there's other lines of vehicles that he does as well. Pretty sure that's just paint on the old stuff. And for a lot of the old old vehicles, he has to do a lead test on them, and a few of them have come up, and when they come up positive for lead, the paint has to be stripped as opposed to sand blasted.

So a while back, I remember I sent you that michelin Man Oh cast iron thing that it's the same basic process that that guy used for that, because I know he sand blasted that stuff off and then powder coated him to get the rust off. And with the sand blasting it takes everything off and then a lot of times the metals so pitted they have to fix it with basically Bondo. It's something else, it's another product, but it's you know, just filling in the holes and then sanding things wet sanding. He has created his own tires for some of the things, like with rubber. It's just interesting to see the progression of like the tools that these people invest in.

And I'm like, this guy must have a tool and die shop because he has got all this metal working equipment, all of these steel rods that he used to make the axe. It's just like, this can't be the only thing that's funding. I'm assuming you've got a side business or a real business that warrants having all this huge equipment in your warehouse, behind your house or whatever. It's amazing, though, the stuff that they employ to get these things done. And I'm like, and then what do you do with them?

Because they're always all lined up At the end of the videos, it's got like hundreds of Tonka and other brand trucks and some of them are huge, like fire engines and things like that, and again utilizing replacement parts for a lot of the stuff that you can't recreate. But it's sort of amazing the stuff that he has fashioned himself out of rubber and plastic and metal to make these things. And I have zero, talk about zero. I've never owned a Tonka truck in my life. Yeah, never had any desire.

I would see them at Arthur's or whatever. They do not appeal to me in any way, shape or form. But the especially the older ones, are beautiful little objects. And that powder coating when it is done curing is just so smooth and creamy and glossy looking. It's just it's amazing.

Watching processes like that can be so satisfying, and you don't have to have any interest in the item that's being made. I am not interested in becoming a model train guy, but I will watch people build model train sets. I just can't get enough. I can't get enough of the diorama making. And I mean that appeals to me in a very real way, because I'll do that, but when it involves trains and building little buildings and stuff like that, I can't even But watching it is so much fun.

And I'm like you, I've never had an interest in Tnka. I've never collected hot wheels. There are some things that are of high interest to me as far in small vehicle form like army tanks. For some reason, I don't know why. They appeal to me in a very very real way.

I can totally get on board with this. This is this is exactly what I love about watching makers make things. Yeah, it just does something to me. These restoration are very much ASMR because there is zero narration. And I have watched a number of other of these channels, and I did eventually find Joe Diy on YouTube as well.

I don't know why it didn't come up in the search that I did, so I've been watching some of his They're all the same, no talking. Sometimes there'll be some descriptive text on the screen to explain what's happening, but again, a lot of it's out of context, especially if you start out of order on things like I don't know what he's using to make this, I don't know what he's using to clean that. It eventually gets explained or he sort of sus it out after a while. But there is zero talking, usually no background music. It's all just the sounds of the tools.

It's the sounds of the exterior of the person's shop or wherever they're working. And they all have shops, so It's like these guys have got to be working either at auto places or I don't know what. They've just got tons and tons of tools to utilize, and so I have hopped around I don't know in the names of any of the other channels. The Chip Channel Restoration has about ninety videos, and I'm pretty sure I've watched all but the hour plus long video that's all sand blasting, because sand blasting's very calming. But I'm not going to sit there and watch an hour of him just sand blasting one hundred different pieces.

So that's the only one I've really skipped. Some of these other channels, they restore old tools. Guy saw somebody restore old car lift. Yeah. A couple of them have redone the same brand of parking meter, so there's all this internal working in them.

Somebody did like a little home version of a ski ball set. I'm storing old posters. Yeah, Fourth Cone. If you want to watch somebody restore all posters, check out Fourth Cone Restorations. To me, I love that channel.

Yeah, although that has gotten very repetitive because they just do the same thing for every poster, but it is pretty interesting as well. Yeah. I have now finished Chip channel's whole set, So I'm going back and rewatching them. That's awesome. A lot of times I'm doing this while I'm on the computer with work stuff too, so I miss things and it Yeah, they're all the same anyway, So watching it, I don't go, oh, yeah, I remember this.

It's like, oh yeah, I missed that last time. Or it's just a way to soothe myself throughout the day. Yeah, folks that listen to Wake Up Heavy, now you know why they are long breaks. Yeah, I've mentioned that on the show already. It's not the specific channels that I've been watching.

But yeah, no, I love this. You've given me homework. I will rewatch toy play that I've already watched. I watched one of the guys does Star Wars toy restorations as well, and he did a Millennium Falcon restoration that was very enlightening to me. So I want to talk to you off episode about that.

Yeah, send me that link. I'm interested. Yeah, I need to go back. I'll have to go back through my history because I've meant to do it, and then I've watched so much repeated stuff. I'm gonna have to go way back.

In my history to find that one, but it clarified something for me that interesting. We'll talk about after we get out of here. Because I got mine sitting here, and I know that there's some things I want to do to it or for it, but I'm waiting for the right information. I have an idea. That's it for me.

Toy restoration videos is a pretty current within the last couple of years obsession that I don't know how long it'll last. Might be short lived. We'll see, We'll see. It's something that I jump into and then jump out of and jump back into. Everyone a lot.

Something new will pop up too through the algorithm, and I'll go down that road and you know, watch somebody like I said, restore a poster or yeah. Like you toy ploy and PBS retro restorations. They generally have a at least one video release during the week, so there's always something new, and then I can go back. I'll watch the bullet Man toy ploy stuff again, eventually, I know. And then when I get stuck and I'm just bored, I'm like, well, maybe I'll watch him redo that one Masters of the Universe figure again.

Why not? Why not? It's relaxing. Let's get crack alekin. As I say, now the creators.

Of jug just bring you. I'm totally modern hero trust and a new age of the adventure, from the jungles of Crow to the streets of Cairo, from the greed of the Pharaohs to the wrath of God and the readers of the Lost Arker Wig. Bg Well, Ronald Pezeriggian, what's on in your agenda today? What did you invest in this month? I invested in memories this month.

Recently, I was thinking about when we start to talk about what we're going to talk about, I start to sort of scan my brain and my memories and my current interests and stuff that I could see myself talking about and even with talking about done. I had some of the Dune toys when that movie came out, and a lot of the times we fall back into the toy arena because that's a lot of our interest exists. There. Can't really talk about Batman without talking about some toys, can't really talk about Masters of Universe without talking about toys, Star Wars, et cetera, et cetera. One toy line that I've always avoided and had zero interest in even though I have very fond memories of a high level of interest in this particular ip is Indiana Jones.

Give me the Web, Throw me the idol? Are you throw me the idol? I throw you the week, Give me the Web. I never collected the three point seventy five inch Kenner figures. I've never had an interest in collecting the more recent Black series style has grow seven inch six to seven inch figures.

I don't have any interest in Indiana Jones as a toy. I bought an Indiana Jones action figure recently off of eBay because I'm going to customize him into something else. That's the only time I've ever bought an Indiana Joints figure and kept it. With that being said, when I was thinking about Indiana Jones recently, I was thinking about costumes. As a kid, I would dress up.

I would dress up as Superman, I would dress up as Batman. I would spend a lot of time doing that. I couldn't possibly fathom doing that today. Not that type of a person, not that type of a geek. You mean cosplay, Yeah, cosplay, I couldn't.

I can't. Come on, yeah, not there, not there yet. Maybe when I lose my mind a little bit. I want to see you as Prince Adam. Prince Adam, maybe I'll do that.

Never but as a child, I my aunt took me to It was just a trip the two of us took. This didn't happen very often, but I just hung out with my aunt. One day we did a day trip to Magic Mountain. And this is before Magic Mountain was six Flags and you know Looney Tunes, DC whatever entity. Yeah, it was.

Back when they still had trolls walking around. By the way, we should talk about it. At some point when we were there, she was like, pick a souvenir, and I picked a real leather bull whip. It was mainly because of Indiana Jones. You didn't pick a top hat, no.

And when I got back, I was like, well, now I need the fedora piggybacking. We're going to just move from getting the bullwhip to me often going out and playing by myself out on the property where our Christmas tree farm was, and you know, I could actually practice cracking the whip and trying to get it to loop around a branch and swinging from it. I broke it twice doing that. I was a small kid, but those things were cheap. Every once while, my mom's stepdad and little brother and sometimes my stepbrothers at the time would go to Army surplus supply stores.

I remember going one time and finding a pouch like the Indiana Jones purse and the Indiana Jones leather jacket, and the Indiana Jones khakis and the fedora and the leather just like simple things leather belt, leather shoes. I mean these are not hiking boots. He was just wearing normal like Oxford style leather shoes that a sloppy professor would wear. The whip, the holster. I was thinking back recently about my affinity for certain types of man wear.

Leather holsters, handbags that look like they're old, the regular off white collared shirt, khaki pants, leather jackets worn in clothes, old timey hats. All that stuff appeal to me and in a lot of ways because of the Indiana Jones films. As a kid, I used to play dress up as Indiana Jones a lot. I didn't have a hat, but I would certainly wear a shirt over a shirt to make it look like it was wearing a leather jacket. I would employ that three dollars Ammo pouch to look like the Indiana Jones satchel that he would carry around.

And I carried that whip around, and I would put my little plastic gun in a little plastic holster and spend a lot of time and invest creativity in creating that kind of an outfit for myself. And it's fascinating. The outfits, the World War two era outfits is the extent of the esthetic appeal as far as costuming goes. But each adventure of the three main movies that came out when I was younger, First One, Second One, and Third One, there was always an environment that was fascinating to me as well. And that actually is going to lead into my talk about local locale adventures in interesting strange places, going outside on that property, finding creeks and rocks and creating adventures after having read an Indiana Jones comic book or having watched a clip of the movie somehow, whether it be on laser disc or rented VHS, or eventually owning the vhs listening to I used to record clips from movies so James Bond, Indiana Jones, Gremlins.

I would record them on a little Fisher Price tape cassette player that actually had the record option. I would play it back and I'd go out and engage in a pretty dedicated way. Re cract yourself with the whip on accident. Yeah, I did. When I eventually learned how to make it crack, to create the cracking sound, that was amazing.

I hit myself quite a bit trying to figure that out. This is just something I know that I would do, Like, yeah. Shp, yeah, I think I, you know, probably came out of that with a lot of little welts and bruises. But no scar on your chin though, right, no scar on my chin, even though I wanted one so bad. I wanted that so bout now you got the scar on your forehead.

About that eyebrow' just so cool. Yeah, when it comes to like certain things in my life that are recurring waterways that I noticed while on road trips, constructed environments at Disneyland, Like I'm always the one person in our four person crew when we go to Disneyland that wants to go in the Jungle Cruise ride. I'm the only one interested in that. I don't like that, right, it's just a visceral experience. There's no real adventure to it.

It's not a roller coaster. It's just you sitting on a boat. I can't get enough of that, and I'm pretty relaxing. It's relaxing, but it also feels like you're in a different place. Yeah, I mean Pirates of the Caribbean.

Caribbean, that r Caribbean. I mean, I know we have you know, we can pronounce that, but I've never heard the actual right at Disneyland pronounced that way. That threw me off. Isn't that weird how it's always pronounced incorrectly pirates of the Caribbean rather than Pirates of the Caribbean. I've been thinking about that.

Yeah. I never collected the toys, but I definitely would grab an indie comic book every once in a while if I saw one on the rack and my mom would let me get one. I read those backwards and forwards so they were tattered. I would take them out on my adventures. I would make treasure maps because I wanted to go searching.

I wanted to go on archaeological digs on the property. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and X never ever works this spot. I would take my toys with me in my little satchel. It was always the concept of adventure for me as a kid was exciting. I owe a lot of that to Indiana Jones in those movies.

One of my favorites is Temple of Doom, but I know that comes with it a lot of negative connotations of people, but I still get that visceral feeling. All those interiors and the caves and the mines and the caverns and the jungles and all that stuff just makes me feel all the feelings. Again. I almost went with James Bond this month, because that's bound to happen eventually. You got to warn me about that.

You can't just go into that because I got to watch those Roger Moore movies. That's the part of it. I wanted to talk about it, but I can't really talk about it until I find a streaming service that actually offers all of those movies. They hop around, they go to all the different services. But Indian Jones movies, on the other hand, I could talk about that because I feel like for a long time as a kid, I just breathed Indiana Jones.

I like lived in those adventures and the outfit really does something for me. Now this is also interesting because I'm not a cosplayer, and I'm not going to be getting in into. A fedora and. A fake leather jacket that I bought from Disneyland just to look like Indiana Jones. No way am I going to do that.

But I had so much fun making my own costumes or putting together my own Indie costumes as a kid and playing that role. Now, water, as I kind of hinted at earlier, plays a very strong role in my relationship to those adventures as a kid. Like I said, going to the creeks burying thing. When we lived briefly at Hume Lake, when my stepfather at the time was working as a facilities manager there, I would go to the lake, and the lake was small enough that reminded me of that lake where the airplane lands and picks India up in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Art, burying things there and going and digging them up and having all those experiences trudging through shallow creeks. On this adventure, when I discuss the local locale, it's going to come up in a very substantial way.

I think fondly of those films and the environments that were recreated in those films, and how something as simple as an outfit like Indiana Jones's outfit can be so appealing to a kid is fascinating to me. It's just clothes, shirt, pants, belt, jacket, hat. It's not Superman's outfit. That's a very particular kind of thing. It's just regular clothes.

It's very cool. I still like khakis to this day. I still wear kakies, and it's probably because of Indiana Jones. I've told this story a couple of times on Wake Up Heavy, but I chickened out of seeing the first film because I had heard about the face melting scene. Yeah.

Yeah, I had a notoriously weak stomach and I didn't want to risk puking in a movie theater. We were in Lake Tahoe at the time, and my sister had taken a friend of hers on the trip. We all three had walked to the movie theater. That was what nineteen eighty When did the first one come out? Eighty one?

Eighty one sounds right to me, so I was twelve. We bought tickets, went and then I left. I'm like, I don't know what I used as an excuse, but I walked by myself. I don't know why this wasn't scarier, walked by myself back. Don't even know how I found the place from the movie theater to the Times Share of condo we were staying at at the time, and didn't see it until it came out on video.

Yeah, and I had gotten over my weak stomach thing by then because I was watching the thing and everything else on video. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Conversely, I loved that scene as a kid. As a little kid, I thought, you know, I don't know how old I was, but I was very little. Loved that loved it like I had something about it is so amazing to me.

That says a lot about me. I guess I could see in watching it that artistry there, and that was very exciting to me. In that melting face, those melting faces so cool. Yeah, Indiana Jones, And I'm about to speak briefly about a local locale that I visited recently that made me feel all those feelings again in a different way. And that's what got me to think about Indy and those kind of adventures.

Well, toy Ploy has some videos where he repairs not only the Kinner Indiana Jones figures. But the LGN Yeah, yeah, I gotta go watch those. I think is weird. That pretty close succession. There were two different companies that had that license.

Yeah, and I think he's reviewed some of the modern Kinner retro figures as well. I have no interest in those figures. The Kinner figures are kind of weird. Oh but you know what, Sorry, I'm just remembering now. I did buy one of the reissues of the Kenner figures.

That says a lot about me. I bought the Nazi. Yeah, what's his name, the guy with the emblem burned into his palm? Yeah? Yeah, didn't you want the other Nazi to the bald guy.

Oh, that's right, the fighting Nazi. I was tempted. Yeah. I don't even know if I may have traded him in actually for one of these big trades that I did. Yeah.

I don't think I still have that little Nazi in the clothes anymore, with his little glasses. Yeah. I still get the feeling of excitement when I see a vintage Holster or something like that in an antique store. I don't know why, and it's not because I like It's because I liked Indiana Jones. That makes more sense to me actually.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I don't have a very deep connection to Indiana Jones at all. I don't even think I've watched all of the movies. I remember not really caring for Temple of Doom. When I saw that one I saw in the theater, I was like, this is really mean spirited.

That's all I took from that movie. Back then, I didn't recognize the negative stereotyping so much as I do now. I just was like, this is kind of a nasty movie compared to the first one. Just seems like everybody's mean. I don't know.

I definitely didn't pick up on any of that until later on in life, and then when I did, I was like, oh my god, I don't like to see this. Yeah. I think most people that's what they picked up on back then, but as kids, you know, Yeah, for sure, I wasn't woke back then, like I am. Now, yeah what what. Water water water water.

Water water? Five? Do you have a local locale? Yeah, that is what I'm doing this time. I don't think I've done a local locale in a while.

Was stuck on what to do or what to pick what category to pick from, and I thought, let's I need to do a local locale. I haven't done one a while. What am I going to pick for my list? For whatever reason, this one stuck out to me, so I'm going to talk about the I believe this is the first Mexican restaurant that I ever went to as a kid that I ate at excuse my horrible grammar as a kid, and that would go on for a while. This was sort of our family restaurant, Mexican restaurant for a good number of years growing up.

And that is and it's probably not what you're thinking because of my connection with Sunnyside as a kid. It's not that. It was a place in Clovis called Francos or probably more correctly Franco's, but we didn't pronounce it that way. It was always Francos for us. It was located at eight thirty six Pulaski Avenue.

Even though Clovis Avenue is the main thoroughfare, Pulaski is actually the main street of Clovis, I would say, or at least of downtown Clovis. And so this is just a little south of downtown Clovis where there were more residential buildings and structures, which actually plays a part in this story because I didn't really think about it as a kid, but I am pretty sure when I try to remember it now, the building was butted up against a house, so someone had basically put the restaurant to their house and kind of expanded along the years and eventually took over the house. I believe probably totally wrong on that cool. I don't know where my parents found out about the place, if they had been taken there by friends or what inspired them, because this was not close to our house.

Really, it didn't take super long to get to but downtown Clovis from where we lived on Peach and Belmont, especially since there wasn't a freeway going that way at the time. It wasn't really nearby. Javiers would have been. It seems the natural choice since we were very familiar with that area, But we did not really eat at Javiers much when I was a kid, so Franco's I believe we started going there when I was pretty little, and I didn't really eat the dinners provided at the restaurant. I probably wasn't eating full meals, and I believe when I was eating there.

At first, I was probably ordering like a hamburger or something, but once I got old enough to be like, oh, this stuff looks pretty good. My meal there. I think probably ninety nine point nine percent of the time I would order off the a la carte menu a bean and cheese burrito and two toaqitos every time. I don't know if I ever varied from that, but if I did, it wasn't very often. To this day, one of my favorite things in life is a good bean and cheese burrito.

Yeah, what do I order from Robert Tito's ninety five percent of the time bean and cheese burrito? Interesting? Yeah, love them to this day because of that. And the taquitos came with guacamole, and theirs was not the chunky moke Hite made style that you get today in so many Mexican restaurants. It was like a salsa.

It was a perade guacamole. It was probably just avocado seasonings and lime or lemon juice, and so it was basically poured over the taketos. Okay, And I loved that. I loved that combination making me hungry. Yeah.

And I know that there are people out there that don't like avocados, that don't like guacamole, I feel sorry for you, yes, because they are one of the most wonderful things in this world. I always loved avocado, and I always loved guacamole. I would just eat an avocado with a spoon. It's so good. I love Carlida, and I did that all the time.

And I mean I did it as a kid too, But cut an avocado in half, put some salt on it, and that's it. Scoop it out of the natural bowl that it came in. Yeah, exactly, I love it. This is where we would go for Mexican food, and I ordered the same thing every time, and they were Even as a teenager, I had friends that lived in Clovis and we got our haircut, and oh, which corner is that I can't remember if it was fifth in Pulaski or fourth or fifth or maybe six, maybe even further south. And every time i'd go get my haircut there, I'd peek down the street and think, oh, yeah, Francos is down there.

And even when we go to day it's right across or the spot is I used to think it was across from the DMV that was down there, but it was a little south of that as well, and that DMV was famous in Fresno because that was the place to go for your driver's test because it was easier to pass in Clovis. And the DMV is not not in that location anymore either, at somewhere else in Clovis. Yeah, so went there whenever we had Mexican food, and very rarely ever went to Hobbers until much later as a teenager. When I think of where I started my love of Mexican food, it starts with Franco's. And I wasn't really gonna, I like, I'm not going to be able to find anything about Francos online probably, but I did find a little bit and it's sort of interesting.

The gal that started the business was born in nineteen sixteen, wow, and she lived until twenty eighteen, so she lived for one hundred and two years. She opened the business, and this was not a popular thing. For one thing, for women to own businesses in nineteen fifty eight, but for Hispanic women to work outside of the house was not a common thing. They opened it in nineteen fifty eight, and I think it was basically just like a taco stand, no seating or anything, when Pulaski was still a dirt road. The restaurant survived until two thousand and eight, so it lasted for fifty years, and of course expanded, like I said, and expanded into their own home at some point.

It was one of those, you know, wood paneled, black velvet painting type Mexican restaurants. When you went in there, that always smelled amazing. Oh yeah. And so this Sefa Arena. Franco, who opened it, lived on A hundred and two, and in nineteen ninety four, she was the first Hispanic woman to ever be inducted into the Clovis Hall of Fame, which I thought was pretty cool.

That's awesome. I didn't know anything about that stuff growing up. I just knew it was where I got my beloved bean and cheese burrito and takeitos. Actually that's the other thing I've been ordering from wherever Tito's lately are takeitos and they just come drowned in guacamole, and that kind of reminds me of Franco's. So so Franco's.

We can't experience that today now because it's not there any lone, no, it. Does not exist anymore. There is a restaurant in that spot. It used to be that light brown brick. I always want to say Adobe, but it's not actually Adobe.

Yeah. Yeah, it had. Half circle windows that I remember, and it's totally different now. It's called the Third Place or something now. And I'm sure that there was something in there prior to I know there was something in there prior to that.

And I don't think there's any houses on that corner anymore either. Nope, it doesn't exist anymore. In fact, as many as eighteen thousand people a day take this boat trip, and when they return to civilization safe and sound, they long remember the beauty and excitement they found in the teeming tropical jungles of adventure. You have places that are obsolete, or have changed, or have disappeared. I'm going to talk about three locations that still exist, but I'm going to talk briefly about each one of them to get to the main point, which is Fresno does not have a lot of recreational activities.

You know, they've got the zoo storyland that you've talked about, which hardly anybody goes to playland, which is hardly utilized either but they definitely have water parks and water park or water features or water based rides or areas where humans have constructed water basins or lakes or rivers. Is always fascinating to me, and I touched on that a little bit talking about Indiana Jones and the Jungle Cruise. When we were younger, there were two places where could go on water slides. There was Clovis Lakes and Blackbeards, and Blackbeards had like a cement water slide. I believe they still have it, so it's like not the same type of advanced water slides that Clovis Lakes eventually built on their property out there.

And I never actually went on the Blackbeard's water slides. I'd heard about them, but my family and I went to Clovis Lakes several times when I was younger, which is now called wild Water Adventures. I haven't been there since the eighties, so I don't know how much it's changed since it became wild Water Adventures, or if it's still fascinating as it was to me back then. But I'm not much of a public pool person anymore either, so I'm not too attracted by the idea of going to a water Park. But this week a friend of my YouTube channel who has his own YouTube channel.

His name's Alan and he has this YouTube channel called Stiltby Studios and he makes haunts. He contacted me and said he was in town. I can talk a little bit about this. I'm going to hold off on some important information because they're not announcing this until the end of May. I can talk a little bit about this here because this is going to post early May.

He is currently working on a project at the third water Park, the newest water park here in town that you can see off a Highway ninety nine called the Island Water Park. I had never been there. I never had the interest to go there. When you drive by on Highway ninety nine, it looks like a dead zone or doesn't look like there's a lot of tree. It looks like you just go.

It's I must just be like concrete and water slide. That's what appears to me. And that's why I've had zero interest, because, yeah, if there is no where to find some shade in one hundred and ten degree weather, I'm not interested. Yeah, And Clovis Lakes or wild Water Adventures always had a lot of old growth trees and park areas where you could relax at a picnic bench and be completely in the shade. I don't know if it's still like that, but that's the way it was when I was younger.

I know our oldest had been to Island Water Park and talked sort of like, eh, it's not that great. So I was invited recently by Alan to go and have a look at this place and look at what he's working on there. I was kind of fascinated by what they've done with this particular park. A lot of it is in disrepair. I don't mean this in any disrespectful way to the way that the park is run.

I visited it this week, so that's pre summer water slide season. Yes, there are not a lot of trees, like there's not a lot of old growth trees, but there are like shaded areas. But there's some really interesting architectural moves happening at this place. Number One, they have a mini golf course there that has a lot of water features. When I was there, all the grass is dead.

They just mowed it or weedi did it, and there's no water in the water basins. It looks like it hasn't been touched in a decade, but I guess they're building it into something that is exciting to me. They have like a slow river chlorinated river raft drifting thing that goes around this concrete island that has some interesting features there too, like kitty wading pool and things like that. They have the usual water slides. They have a giant fiberglass hamburger, which WAY be really happy to see.

They have a bunch of artificial fiberglass teeky decorations just piled up in corners. It was kind of an amazing visit. I'm really anxious to see what Alan does to it, because I'm always interested to see places in disrepair or places that need a little love in the valley that provide folks with something else to do, be improved upon, or be changed in an interesting way. Fresno has its water parks, or Fresno Clovis has its water parks, and they are varying degrees of quality. I got a kick out of visiting that spot and seeing it for the first time, feeling like I guess it's been around for quite a while now, but feeling like it's a new place and seeing it as being an old place.

Was a bit of a surprise to me. He's doing something interesting to it. It'll add a kind of edge to that place that it probably needs, and I'm excited. I'm gonna do a little video on it mid May and show what Alan has been working on, and it'll be a cool option for people during the summer months. I think I've gone to Clovis Lakes twice, and one was a school thing in I think I was eighth grade, and then I believe I went once in the early nineties with some friends and yeah, it's not really my thing either, but they did have trees.

Yeah. I don't know if they still do as well, but I'm betting that they would because otherwise, like I said, it's going to be miserable. Yeah, even at a water park. If you don't have shade to relax in after you get out of the water, you're going to be miserable in Fresno or Clovis with one hundred and something degree heat bearing down on you. Sure Clovis Lakes had that river raft thing as well.

I remember going around on even back then. My friend Steven, who I've known for years, they lived right next to Clovis Lakes. Oh yeah, for quite a few years. Even then, though I'd go over there, drive up the same driveway that you used to get into Clovis Lakes and take a left instead of a right and right. We never went.

We watched their fireworks on the fourth of July. Yeah, I mean we were literally right across the street from them. Otherwise had no interest. He lived right by it. I went to his house daily for weeks during the summer.

Never went in. Yeah. I've never been to any water parks beyond the ones in President and Clovis, or beyond Clovis Lakes actually, And I've always been curious about some of the major water parks that coincide with theme parks and stuff like that. I'm not much for like taking off my shirt and go and hang out with a bunch of people. I do like the idea of creative water I always thought the Island Water Park was just a bunch of those adrenaline slides, which they have a lot of.

But I didn't know that they had this cool slow river raft thing. And it's really interesting to hear what Allen has planned for that. That's kind of neat to me, and that takes me back to you know, artificial waterways like the Jungle Cruise and things constructed for movies that involve water. That's fascinating to me. I don't know why I like that so much.

Probably goes back to just pirates as a Caribbean and loving that, loving the smell of the chlorine and bromine. Anyways, love that stuff. Had to mention those places. And then also there'll be stuff coming up on my channel pertaining to the island. Come up here pretty soon, cope mark anything else any last words, No, remember folks until we meet again.

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