Episode 31: Food and fun in a box (Part 2)

Cambridge or Shawn is a weird way media podcast. Gets footing n in the bus. In the past this information has been suppressed, but now it can be told. Every man, woman in mutant on this planet shall know the truth about de evolutions. Oh damn, what's next on your list?

Well, this isn't a thing. This is one of the news items that I had. And since I just talked about Boogie Boy, I thought i'd mentioned the Devo documentary that I talked about. I believe on that episode when I discussed them, and I have kept my feelers out to see when or where this is going to be available and on their social media, and I believe on their website they announced that it was going to be available this month on Netflix on I think the eighteenth. We're recording on the eighth, so in a couple of weeks, and of course by the time you're listening to this, it will have already happened, if it happens, because I can't find any information about it on Netflix and they have stuff that's not coming out until the end of the year on their Coming Soon thing.

The announcement disappeared from all of their social media, so I don't know if that fell through. It was a deal where Netflix had gobbled up a bunch of stuff from festivals that did well at festivals, and the Devo Documentary was a part of that. It's possible that it won't be available on Netflix, but if it is, I will update that when next week talk or you'll have already seen it. If you're listening to this in September and want to check it out, Netflix might have it. The Devo Documentary did premiere August nineteenth on Netflix.

The other thing that's going on right now is that on their YouTube channel, they're doing this thing every Friday where they are discussing some of their early films and videos also releasing them in HD versions. So a bunch of their stuff has been upgraded to HD, including The Truth about de Evolution, which contains a Secret Agent Man and an early version of jocko Well, both early versions of Secret Agent Man and Jockohomo before they were released on albums. I think it's fifty anniversary related stuff, so they're doing all that on their YouTube channel as well, so you can check that stuff out now. I love that they're doing that. You know, there are a few bands that show up in my feed, and it's really cool when they repeatedly are posting things from the past.

This is just another example of that. I love that. I hope that documentary comes out on Netflix. People need I need to see it, and people need to see it. Coming up on fiftieth anniversary, that's massive.

I think they've been kind of rolling that out for like the last year, so I want to say that they started in seventy three, so we're actually past fifty years. I'm not sure what they're using as a marker. Maybe it was seventy five. I don't know. When I first mentioned that documentary in my initial excitement and then reading things about it, it's not a deep dive, like they didn't really talk to a lot of other people.

That has me a little disappointed, But I'm always willing to watch something about them, so I'll definitely be checking it out if and when it shows up on Netflix. What's up with you, dude? You and I are fans of the Simpsons. Those four ninety nine or five ninety nine figures, those little tiny Simpsons figures from Jack Specific are so great, and they're so tempting. They're so affordable.

Yeah, Jack Specific is one of those companies, you know, along with those Spinmasters Superman figures that are making affordable toys. When everything else is going up in price, these toys seem to be staying at a reasonable price. I found two of my favorite. Characters from The Simpsons at Target not too long ago. That's Nelson and Principal Skinner, otherwise known as Arman Taman.

So what's your story, Seimar? If that is your real name. Well, obviously it isn't. My real name is Armin Taanzarian. He's like my Simpsons Armenian brother, and I swear every time the family and I are watching The Simpsons and Principal Skinner comes on.

There's something about Skinner's way that all three ladies in my household, every time Skinner does something, they all look at me. They're like, that's you, dude. So no, I don't know if that's a good thing or not. There's a lot about me that's not that great. They understand, though.

But I think a Principal Skinner, I think of a not too bright guy. But I don't I'm a little slow Mark. Haven't you picked up. My hat over these years? I mean, okay, so I got those guys that absolutely made my day finding them.

The two that I'm still looking. For are Itchy and Scratchy from the of Really Small Ones. Found those two guys and that made me super happy to find them, and then recently came across some good deals on he Man Masters of the Universe Mastervers figures. These are the pricier ones, so finding them on sale is always special. So I found the faker in the Masterverse version of Sorceress Tila.

Sorceress Tila is one of those special characters. She's essentially green Tila, known as the Green Goddess by Masters of the Universe fans. She showed up in the early mini comics. She just was never released as an action figure. She was never green.

In the cartoon, she was called the Sorceress. It's all mixed up. For guys, think me that always wanted a green Tila. It's really cool to have that figure, you, Royal bub I've got some big things coming up here I want to talk about, but those are my last regular scores I wanted to. Share your kids, Beloved Kathy mail a bus.

This next one of mine, which actually isn't here yet, but I'm going to talk about. I don't like doing that but I break that rule every so often when it's something that we have already discussed. Yeah, and I think I talked about something from this line on episode twenty nine already, so I might as well talk about this one. And it's a segue into one of our big topics. So I ordered another changeable, another McDonald's happy meal toy changeable, the little Cheeseburger.

And it was very confusing because I kept putting in cheeseburger changeable because I just wanted that little one, and it was bringing well, there's not three different versions, but I was getting presented three different versions from eBay because people don't know what they have. So a cheeseburger from McDonald's has a plane bun. A quarter pounder from McDonald's has a sesame seed bun. For all you eBay ors out there that are trying to sell these, if it's got sesame seeds, it's a quarter pounder. All right, get it right, folks.

That kept popping up. I'm like, no, no, no, no, I just want the cheeseburger. So I found one cheap, looked in really good shape based on the pictures, didn't have a shipping fee, so it was a little you know, kind of split the difference a little bit higher than ones that did have a shipping fee, but in better shape than those, so added it to my watch list, got a ten percent off offer. I had snatched it up, so it's supposed to be here on Monday. And I'm pretty sure I talked about the Big Mac on episode twenty nine that I had just gotten.

That's great. We have our matching burger changeables now. Yeah, and I will probably get the quarter pounder eventually. I just wasn't looking for it at the time. And of course there was also the cheeseburger and or quarter pounder Dino transformer, which I am not interested in.

I am only interested in the robot ones. I'm right there with you, right there with you. Mark forgot to mention that there is also a quarter pounder styrofoam box transforming robot changeable. When you buy McDonald's Happy Meal if you can become the master Changer, because you'll get a food toy that changes into an amazing robot. And I have been looking at other McDonald's Happy milled toys stuff as well from the past.

These really hit it for me because closed up, it's just a little cute, perfect plastic burger. They're so cool. Not anthropomorphic, but I love just a little burger. Yeah, a little plastic burger. It does the thing to you as it does to me.

It's just something about it. It's like, and I'm pretty sure we probably discussed this when you talked about Popeye, but it's like seeing those damn burgers that Wimpy eats. What is it about that I want them so much. I see that I want to just gobble them up like you did. Yeah, I get it.

Man, the closest I've ever gotten to being wimpy or having that experience because he can just eat ten burgers. Not too long after I moved to the East Coast, I had to try white Castle. White Castle, for us over here, doesn't exist on the West Coast, so getting over there seeing white Castle, the novel of that was just extraordinary for me. The poll was very strong. You can buy like a dozen, you know, white Castle burgers in a little cardboard box.

I ate almost. All of those little I mean, they're small, but I felt like wimpy because they're small. They're simple little burgers and they're delicious. Just gobble them up, little, slide them up, and. Not feel so great later on.

According to Rumor. Well, I mean we've had that experience recently, like eating McDonald's food to try and get stuff. Yeah, you can take a little piece of McDonald's home with one A twenty one, A little McDonald's toys. Speaking of speaking of McDonald's Happy Meal toys, Ronny, what's next on your list? Well, you and I went through a very exciting, sometimes disappointing experience.

I endured more McDonald's than I normally do to help make this happen. You and I got pretty excited about these Happy Meal toys that became available. It's always fun sharing this experience with you, Is it though? You know, it's like a I asked. That every time you say that, is it though?

Is it fun? It is fun, But it's also like torture on our bodies and torture on our minds and our hearts, because it's like, it's the same dilemma as blind box toys. You don't know what you're gonna get. You never know what you're going to get, and. You and I always end up getting stuff off of eBay with this stuff anyways, because you don't know if you're going to get the thing you want, and you don't get the thing you want.

You do get the thing you want, but the other thing you want you and I had this experience with the mini restaurant Happy Meal toys Lil McDonald's. Lil McDonald's month of July. July first through August eleventh is the run of that, So it's still going on as we're recording. It will obviously be over when you're listening to this and something new will have started, which we can also talk about in a little bit. Yeah, we're going to talk about that too.

Started July first. We started right along with it, I think the second week of July or something like that. Right, well, yeah, I'll break in here to say when I saw these realized, oh they're just regular Happy Meal toys. That was a relief for one thing. There are twenty one items to get, so they have miniaturized.

For anyone who hasn't seen this, who doesn't give a shit about Happy Meal toys, they're miniaturized aspects of the store of the food. Yeah, there was a truck, you know, a delivery truck miniature, an actual store miniature, the drive through sign miniature, other signs. There was kind of crazy. Yeah, but regular Happy Meal toys so not expensive. I kind of thought when I first sawt oh, you might you might be able to buy them separately, which was not the case.

But anyway, Yeah, we're talking what is it five six dollars a meal? Essentially most of them are five if you get the six piece chicken nugget. I think it's closer to six. Yeah, we'll get to that, but I kind of want to talk about the Happy meal itself as well, which I'll talk about when I talk about my experience with these. But yeah, things have changed.

I mean I found buying three Happy Meals, I was hungry afterwards. Still I am the fries of this big you know, it's like, what is that three inches tall the fries and maybe two inches wide the little you know, it's like crazy small fries. The burgers I think were the normal sized burgers. But they have gotten smaller. They feel like they've gotten smaller.

They have the apple slices. Nice addition, you don't have to get the apple slices, just so you know, you can get double fries or something. Yeah. Yeah, talk about the first time you went. What did you get your first time?

So the first time I went, and I can't wait to talk to you about this too, because your experience was almost the same as when. I'll get into my experience. Don't you worry about that? I got three happy meals. I was going to go and I was going to get what did I say?

I texted you, I'm like going to get two, and you were like, you better get three. Well, I thought you were going with your daughters or something. I didn't realize it was just you. I probably wouldn't have suggested free. I'm glad I got three.

I'm glad I got three that actually made an almost complete meal. I got two chicken McNugget trays, so the meal tray with four piece chicken McNuggets. And then I got soda fountain. Right, the soda fountain was pretty cool. You told me that.

I didn't realize this is like an actual play feature. You push the thing on top and the little soda stream comes down into the cup. I thought that was pretty amazing. Yeah, water stream, But yes, water stream. They're not giving away soda for free.

You know, come on, No, they wanted to exactly. Some of the toys have a play feature again, for those that are. On where the meal trays. They look pretty good with like seven inch action figures. They're a little bit big for five in.

Oh yeah yeahh Now they are almost perfect for nine inch actually yeah yeah, eight and nine inch, so one eighth and one ninth scale because I matched them up with my migos and my big gyms. Yeah, they're just a little bit too big for migos, so I would say nine is probably best size. Whereas the soda fountain is perfect for my little teeny tiny two inch principal skinner. Right. The scale is all over the place on these things, because you're not going to have a truck that's the same scale as a burger or a soda dispenser or.

A store yep. The scale is just wildly inconsistent, which is part of the fun too. And the second time I went, I got two happy meals. I was like, oh, I'm just going to do two. I go ahead to two cash registers, right right, Mark got one chicken nugget tray for me and one cash res for me.

That was it for me yet. The last thing I decided to order on eBay, and I think you had a similar experience. The last thing I got was the tiny restaurant. Right of the scale. This is probably the smallest scale item, along with maybe the truck.

This is in scale with large ants. Maybe well, it can be a toy for your figures. Right, Yes, that's a good way of thinking about it. I could see my key Man action figures or my Migo action figures playing with this McDonald's restaurant. So the McDonald's restaurant, as soon as I saw it, I had a huge crush on it.

It's the eighties style restaurant, seventies eighties style restaurant, and then you can take the top off and inside you got little seats and a little cash register. It's beautiful. So I ordered that for myself on eBay. They're all very cool and I would have been happy with any number of them, but my first thought was definitely food trays, in particular the Hamburger food tray, because I got to think about hamburgers. I don't know what to tell you.

And I'm still thinking about ordering one of those for myself, because when you got yours and I saw. A picture of it, I was like, oh gosh, that's a good one. I decided the moment I saw that these were happening I am not going the first day. I'm not even going to go the first week. I'm not doing this again.

I already had planned out. I'm going to go through the drive through. I'm not going to do the touch thing. I mean, I rarely step inside of McDonald's as it is anyway, but I'm going to go through the drive through. I'm going to ask can you buy them separately?

And if they say no, I'm getting three. So that was my plan. Klio's off of school. I decided. I think it was the second Tuesday of the deal.

Thought, Hey, you want happy Meal, I'm gonna go get Happy Meals? Which one do you want? You want cheeseburger? Do you want chicken nuggets? So she said cheeseburger.

I was going to get cheeseburger. I've had experience with the small Happy meals. They changed it within the last ten years or so. Yeah, just in aside, here a little tangent before I get into my bit. A happy meal used to be a cheeseburger, a small fry, and a small soda.

I remember, your kids will love McDonald's kaffy meal. It's food, and but in a box it's a hamburger or cheeseburger, regular sized fries, regular sized SFCE drink, and a mcdonaldin cookie sampler. It all comes in a happy meal box. With games, puzzles, jokes, and a fries fries. It's a hamburger or cheeseburger, regular sized fries, regular sized soft drink, a mcdonaldend cookie sampler with games, puzzles, jokes, and a fries.

Buddy Canald skin. It was that way for a while, and then of course they expanded it to chicken nuggets, and then they even had the like Big Kids Meal for a while where you could get a double cheeseburger or a nine piece chicken nugget just a little bit larger. And I think the real push came from parent groups and things like there needs to be a healthy option you need to offer for sure fries and the basic drink is milk is regular milk. And it's sort of been that way for a while. So when I would go get Kleo stuff when she was a kid and I would be eating the meal, I would always get chocolate milk as my drink option and sometimes the Big Kid's Meal or whatever to satisfy me a little bit.

Yeah, those days are gone, but you can substitute the apple slices for an extra thing of fries, which I did for her and my actual order. And then I ordered an extra meal for us to split. So I just got the six piece chicken nugget. So we each got a burger. We each got three nuggets, We each got two tiny fries, and then split the fifth fry and she had apple.

I left that one as apple slices so she'd get out them later. She likes the apple slices and chocolate milks for the both of us. I've got my order, got the boxes. The boxes were made out to look like a store too. They're kind of cool.

Got them home, ignored them. Open her box, but I ignored the toys, put them to the side. We enjoyed our succulent meals a suculent China, oh, albeit very t I was not even close to satisfied. I was hungry. It actually made me hungrier after eating a tiny cheese.

And I ordered cheeseburgers, not just the plane hamburger. You can do that as well for people that don't know. So we had a cheeseburger each, three chicken nuggets, maybe a small fry maybe two, and a half of those equals a small fry. I don't even know if it's that much, probably not, so we ate our meals. I knew that there were codes for these, but I didn't look had Cleo filmy opening them.

First one I opened was the little tiny version of the Happy Meal Box, and that was one of the things that I was like, Okay, that's cool. That was one of the items I looked at. Opened the second one, tiny Happy Meal Box, not even the other version. There's a gold one too. Then at that point I was frustrated, and I didn't even opened the third one because I looked at the bottom so it was the same code, and I was like, well, there's Ronnie's Happy Meal Box.

Gave Kleio the one I kept one, and I'm like, I'm not doing this. I told myself, I'm not going back and going through these lines again, getting this unfilling food and getting another another one of these. Yeah, you know, I mentioned to you this happened, and they're like, I like that. You said, well, maybe they're only doing one item a day, and I'm like, it would be the stupidest thing I could think of possibly doing that would make people have to go twenty one times. Yeah, they're not going to do that.

And I knew from seeing videos, unboxing videos, people going through the drive through they're not doing that. It was totally random. They just picked three. Maybe they're in separate boxes there and they don't give a shit. I don't expect a McDonald's employee to care what they're handing out.

I told myself, if I do go, I am going to tell them do not give me a number three again. I'm going to do that. I never went back to get them. Came home and she saw it. She's like, oh, that's really cute.

And I said, yeah, here's the little paper that they give you that has all of them. And she's like, oh, I'm going to go tomorrow and get one. She kind of felt a little left out, so I'm like, cool, another chance to get a toy. Then. Yeah.

So she didn't go that day, she didn't go the next day, and she did finally go and she got the soda dispenser. That's nice. I like these two things. And I knew that I was going to be getting the McNugget tray from you, and I'm like, okay, well so I've got three things. But I did really want the burger tray.

This stuff was online on eBay before July first, I mean people were selling them already prior to that. By the time I was actually actively looking, you know, had been a week and the burger tray was nowhere to be found. Apparently it's a rare one. So I'm like, okay, whatever, I am not paying thirty dollars for a burger tray. No, hell no.

From time to time I did consider going back. I'm like, maybe I'll go to it. It doesn't matter if you go to a different MCD. You know, playing all these scenarios in my head, doesn't matter if you go to a different McDonald's probably worse because we probably get another happy meal box. You had gone again and gotten another double.

So I was like, well, that's another one. That's the cash register. So now I've already got what four, That's fine, I'm cool with that. I'll keep looking on eBay and see. At some point it kind of opened up and there were burger trays, and they were abundant and a much better price than the thirty dollars I had initially seen.

It was hard to scour through all those listings because people were posting multiple items in one listing, and so you'd have to open it up and see if the burger trade was available and blah blah blah blah blah. But by the time I ordered this one, they were just showing up as just that item and for like six bucks or nine bucks or something. I got one for what would have basically cost two meals, and I'm like, that's fine, because I'd rather do that than have gone twice or gone and ordered two meals and been burned out of it. Again, I'm cool with that. That's about what I paid for the Mikedalt's restaurant too.

That was fine. So that was the one I really kind of wanted. And you can't hear it in the video because when I posted it, I had it go at triple speed or whatever, because it was kind of long. When I opened that little box, I thought there was going to be a burger and fry in there, because somebody posted a video of that on Instagram and I didn't play it long enough or like look at the comments to realize that they were handmade things that they put into them. I'm like, why did you do that?

I'm here thinking I'm going to open this and there's going to be a tiny burger and fry in there, and it's just fucking stickers. Yeah. Yeah, what did I end up with? Five? I got the burger tray, the chicken nugget tray, the drink dispenser from you, no, from Curly to the cash register from you.

Oh yeah, and the chicken nuggets and the box, so I think I have five of them. I got the Happy Meal box from you, so I've got one, two, three, four, five, And I still want to get the burger eventually, but I haven't even looked online. After I saw what the prices were for a while there, I was like, I'm gonna give it like a couple of months and see where we are. I think that these are, unlike the adult are very abundant, and they're going to be going for five and less than ten dollars for most if you want something in particular, I may look again at some point and see like individual auctions. Yeah, some things.

There were a couple of other things on there that were kind of interesting. I think for me the trays, the food trays, Like I'm not interested in just the fry tray, right or the one that came with the milk. I think there was a. I mean they're all cute, Like there's a cute aspect to every single one of these. The drive through menu, that's super cute.

The cash register like, who the heck? The cash register, by the way, is like perfect to scale with key Man and the Masters of the Universe. Who would want this? Right? I have my little potati and burgie and chicken guys playing with them on my table.

There you go to the scale for them, get to drink and work in the cash register. Uys, forgot about the miniature pumpkin boo bucket, which was a lot of people's favorite. I sent you a thing. Some of the foreign toys, yeah, oh my, some of the miable toys. They're like Fisher Price toys.

Yeah, big old box of chicken nuggets so advisor. Yeah, and. Make the hamburger together like it's got different layers. I mean, yeah, that's amazing. Come on, America, get.

With the program. Crazy crazy Yeah. And I believe those are just happy meal toys. Those are not adult happy meal toys in foreign country. But I could be wrong.

But whatever, this is getting more and more interesting. I think with the newest reveal of what the next round of Happy Meal toys might be. It seems like they're really listening to what fans are age are interested in, and they just recently announced this new run of Happy Meal items. Maybe they're going to be adult Happy Meals or something lame like. But I don't even know if it's considered an adult Happy Meal.

I think it's just another promotional thing, kind of like the Grimacet birthday. Maybe that's what it is. It's intriguing because of one particular thing, but I'm with you, I'm not really interested in getting a little tin with some stickers and whatever is in there. But the fact that Mayor mccheese is back, which was one of the characters that were cut out of the whole team because of the hr Puffin Stuff ordeal, the fact that Mayor mccheese is back means a lot. What it opens up for me in my mind is maybe down the line will have more of the actual full McDonaldland team coming together showing up in the restaurants in some capacity.

If it's plastic, I'm on board. If it's a tin, I might want to try and get the Mayor mccheese tin, just to have a little place to put. Things on my desk. I'm more interested in what can come after this, And they actually use the McDonald land fawn and you know, the whole thing is happening again finally, and I've been dreaming about this for decades. I'm really excited to see where this will go.

I'm not super excited about this first batch. Of things, but you know, I have zero interest in going and buying a meal to get a tin and the shake that they're offering with it also holds no if I were to go, I would swap that out for just a soda or a coffee, depending on the time of day. Yeah, this is where I have to draw the line for myself. Yes, mayor mc cheese is cool to see. I have no interest in postcards or stickers and a little tin.

I might have to get the mayor mc cheese. If I can do it, I might have to do it. I just want to, you know, just to see what's inside. If it means that I have to buy a milkshake to get that, I don't know about. I haven't had a milkshake from McDonald's in a thousand years.

A surprise flavor milkshake. But yeah, I mean if it's like berry flavor milkshake. I don't know it will be a will be some anonymous fruit thing. Mick frazzleberry, some weird thing. I'm not that interested in that.

I do want to kind of see what they look like. I'll be watching for online reviews and things like that to see what items are inside there. I'm a sucker for Grimace in Hamburglar and Mayor mccheese. This is starting August twelfth, which is post us recording, but pre you hearing this, So I don't know how long this one is going to run. It may still be happening when this episode is out, that's true, might be I totally forgot.

I have one more thing. Let me talk about this, and then your next thing will actually be the same way to our last thing. And this apparently is going to be a very long episode people, So sorry. Actually not sorry, You're welcome. Yeah, we're just tossing off listeners left and right.

Hey, no, I length is the issue. Sorry. We're just going to do what we want to do. And I'm going to keep saying that to make myself feel better about our low numbers. It's going to be amazing.

And for nineteen seventy six, The Fantastic Four, The Torch, The Master, the Lospito, Bipon, the Thing, Ben Grim, Man of Granite, Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Girl both the powers of Invisibility. The Fantastic Four fighting for truth a daughter by Migo. I mentioned this when Jeff was on because Migos came up, and I excized that from that episode because I knew I would talk about it with you because we have talked about it in the past. The second wave of Marvel Migo Figures was released on July ninth. I looked at it out of curiosity, so it ended up being the original Fantastic Four that Migo did I believe in like nineteen seventy seven, and so I knew I wasn't going to beginning it because I have originals of the two figures from that group that I like.

I have of the Thing, and I have Human Torch. I blanked on his name. He's going to call him fire Starter, So I have those read Richards and Sue Storm have never appealed to me. The figures themselves have never appealed to me because they don't do what their characters do. Yeah, it didn't give Sue clear arms or legs, or I couldn't give her clear legs like a clear arm, and even this new version give her a clear arm at least right.

Or a stretch armstrong mister fantastic, you know, make his arms stretchy, Like how hard is that to do? It might be kind of hard, but yeah, I thought the same thing, and I think it was Retrogimmic Toys made a stretch armstrong. Mister Fantastic. He kit bashed a Pedro Pascal head onto an eight inch stretch armstrong body. I saw a picture of that.

That's pretty great. That came out July ninth. I hopped on the Disney Store online to see how it was going to work, because everybody was up in arms when the Spider Man figures released. What they're doing now is they have a waiting room, which is interesting. You don't have to hit the refresh button, which I'm sure just messes everything up anyway, with all these fucking nerds sitting on their computers hitting refresh every two seconds.

So there's a waiting room. It shows you where you are in line. When I got on and eight o'clock rolled around, it refreshed and said, I was number three seventy five in line, so you've got the waiting room and then you've got a line, and I thought, oh my goodness, how long is that going to take? And it literally took less than five minutes, I think, for me to actually get into the store. The numbers went down super fast.

So I don't know if that was people leaving or making their purchases just like lickety split or what, but it went quickly. I got into the store, I could add it to my cart, did that and then removed it so didn't mess anybody else up and left and didn't try to purchase it or anything. I think that same day, Plaid Stallions aka Toy Ventures Mego Museum guy Brian did an unboxing he had received a set of the figures. The thing I noticed from that is that he pointed out there was an addition number on it, so these were limited to four thousand pieces. I don't think that was on the Spider Man one, and I don't know if that's the same number as they did for that.

Now people knew how many were out there. Kind of a low number when you think about it, I guess reasonable for this kind of higher end item. And the only other thing that I thought was interesting about the figures was, and this was everybody's question, what are they going to do with the muscle body that the thing is on. So the Hulk and the Thing eight inch action figures came on a different kind of body than the other ones, with limited articulation. It had no waste joint.

They made a new body for these, and which is a good sign for Hulk people, because you know they're going to do a Hulk articulated at the waist. And I believe he came with inkle joints and his hands are like hands, So yeah, they will spin it and they're not going to go up and down, but you're going to to go remove them. Swivel ro Yeah, swivel thank you. And so I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. Again, as I've mentioned, the heads are now a hard plastic which is unappealing to me.

That's another reason I wouldn't buy this set. I love squashy vinyl heads. Yeah, that really plays a factor for me in regard to ego stuff. Now we'll see what they released next. This was obviously to coincide with the film, probably a smart move.

You will probably see them when you go to Disneyland next month. I believe they hung around in the Disneyland stores for quite a while that first set, the Spider Man set. I'm excited to keep an eye out. If it's reasonably priced, something to get without having to pay for shipping and all that stuff, then I might consider it. They're eighty nine to ninety nine for a set, so.

We'll see what it's like. I'll probably avoid it, but it'll be sure nice to see it in person. I'm always a fan of seeing something in person before buying it. That movie was really good, by the way good. I've been hearing good things about it.

I was pleasantly surprised Marvel's been hit and miss for me. I was very excited about the way the film made me feel and. What it did for me. I won't spoil it or anything. The dilemma that people like you and I have to face is do you buy the new version or do you scour eBay for the vintage versions?

If they're very, very similar. You know, the vintage version of the thing is absolutely delightful. Let me tell you this, because that's a dilemma for you, it's not so much a dilemma for me, because I'm going to go for the cheaper option if I don't already have it. This is a point for me. But an original thing right now you're not going to find for anything less than two hundred dollars.

Yeah, I have looked these figures up recently, the ones that really had me as a kid. Even though I have them, I'm just curious about the going rate. Iron Man thing, even human Torch, which is a very basic figure in decent shape, you're not going to find for less than two hundred dollars. The vintage mego market right now is pretty high, eighty nine to ninety nine for a set of four, even if you don't want all four is definitely the better option if you want a thing and or a human torch. Yeah, or you q song, It's just.

You have a little patience wait for shit to show up at a toy booth or use toy store and ten years down the line. That's that bigfoot condundrum we talked about on the last regular episode is you're going to have to find it at a place where they don't know what they have exactly. You're not going to find a deal on eBay for him or for these Mego figures. Yeah, even if you want to try and part something out and buy a body without a suit, you're looking at fifty dollars at least, and probably that much for the suit. Still, you're talking about one hundred bucks.

Yeah, if you can even mind them separately. For that cheap, I'm being kind of generous. They're on the cheapness of those things. You should probably take a gander at Mego figures and see how much the originals are going for. Right now, I'll go peruse.

It's exciting to see, and so much of the market, you know, it's predictable, and then it's unpredictable, and it's hard to know where things are going to go. Right now, it's the season of Fantastic four, and it might be the beginning of a long season for Fantastic four. So those figures, the vintage ones especially, are not going to go down in price anytime soon. Well, no, they're not going to go down in price because they're not going to be available anywhere else but the Disney stores and eBay. Now, Disney is not going to offer a deal on those.

No, I'm talking about the vintage ones. Oh, the vintage ones. Eh, good luck, that stuff's going to go down in price. That's why I'm saying though, that you might actually run into them, even though you're not going to Disneyland until next month. Because these aren't based on the movie Nope, actor and figures, So kids are going to look at this and go, this isn't Pedro Pascal, this isn't whoever that help are?

You know? What do these look like? Who are these? I mean, it's geared toward adult collectors, But I'm just saying that because they're not going to get snatched up just because there is a Fantastic four movie on Some kids going to go, hey, mom, I want this for ninety dollars. The kid's going to say, Mommy, what's wrong with the thing?

That's cool. I love that that happened, and I'm a big fan of when. Stuff like this is re released. I mean, the only way I could get Migo's style Kiss figures from my wallet was when they came out eight years ago. You know, because, like we talked about in the last episode, look at the price of those twelve inch Migo figures now on eBay.

It's insane. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit one quick thing. I just got to mention before we jump into the next thing. Not too long ago, Mattel for their eightieth anniversary of the Mattel Company, they posted a two pack of Ella Tour and he Man, and they're supposed to be exactly the vintage figures, with maybe some slightly different paint applications, even the rubber head and you know, the squishy head and the limited articulation. And I this is sort of what we were talking about pre ordering and then taking your name off the pre order.

I pre ordered that Tupac. And then I was like, wait a minute, why am I doing this? I have the vintage skeletor I just don't have a vintage he Man. I made that my recent goal, and actually today a video is going to launch on my channel, so people listening to this you've had a chance to see it. I went and found a very good deal on a vintage he Man based on this inspirational moment.

I got a much better deal on a vintage he Man in this case than I would have if I had bought this new two pack. You never know how it's going to play out. The rial bulb thrilled to the amazing strength of an out of this world movie monster. It comes Great Garloo, Bye Marx, Mike Yarlu, the untamed Garlou not terrible? Who can stop it?

Who can control this monstrous creature? You can, kids, because Great Garlou by Marx is yours to command own the most fantastic tie of all Great Garlou Bye Mark. That leads me to two gifts that I got you. I didn't tell you about the second one. I told you about the first one.

I was at Ross not too long ago, and I saw this one thing. We'll get into that in a moment. But right after Comic Con, I noticed that the company they sell I don't know if I'm pronouncing them correctly, but it's the dude who did the toys that made us. They're making toys. Now.

This thing that he is doing is very cool. His company has the rights for the Great Garlu. Remember what happened to your Great Garlu? Yeah, got eaten by my whe in the heck is it? It got eaten by your cat or your dog.

That was the reaction. Figure of the Great Garlu three point seven five inches. So Nacel is doing the Great Garlou in three point seven five inches. I think I've seen it. I've seen something fairly recently.

He slightly announced it Comic Con, and then recently he popped up on their Instagram page. I think I'm thinking of an earlier figure. Then there was something at Walmart like a while ago. There was there was like a little kind of cartoony version of Great La where it's like crouch down really. Cool, which looks like the actual figure, Yes, exact vantage figure.

Well, they are doing a reaction scale or vintage Kenner's scale, Great Garlu just like the one that got chomped on that you have five ninety nine as an fu to the industry and to these other companies that are charging an arm and a leg for three point seven five inch figures. Yeah, got the seven nine, nineteen seventy eight Superman figures hitting the Target stores and in this Great Garb, so I pre ordered us each a Great Garb. Oh thanks, five ninety nine each. I'll have to do an image search later to just date to see what it looks like in comparison to the reaction figure. It's very similar, very small if I remember.

That's interesting. That's yeah, it is, in fact the exact same figure in slightly different colors. And then as a nice transition to the next thing we're going to talk about. I was at ross. Three hours into our episode, I know, right, I was at ross and again and happened upon a Funko Pop of frank and Berry, but the giant kind.

This is like twelve inches tall. Yeah, for fifteen ninety nine. There were three of them, and I picked up two. I was like, what do you think, and You're like, man, I was like, once he sees it, he's gonna want it. So I picked that up for you too.

Well, let me defend myself here. Yeah, there was no way to tell that these were large figures by the picture you sent. Yeah, a Funko Pop three inch figure, right, Berry holds no interest to me. He is not my favorite Monster Cereal character. We've discussed this.

I like the Jada toys, Jata toys. Yeah, so I like that figure as a figure. I don't prefer Frankenberry over Count Chocolate. But anyway, Yeah, I could not tell from the picture you sent. So that's why I was like, I'm not interested in a Frankenberry Funko Pop.

I don't want a Funkel Pop figure. Yeah, you didn't like offer it to you. You're just like, oh, look at these, and I'm like, yea, yeah, that's for you. You're the Frankenberry guy. Then I showed you it right before we started recording.

Today. This thing is kind of beautiful and it's big, it's clumpy and cartoony, and it's so much pink. It's like the most pink anybody could ever want in their life is right here. And it's very basic though, which I like very basically doing anything. It's just him, right, just him going like this, you know what?

He almost looks like, Actually, are those Sesame Street coinbanks you just sent me? Yeah? He does kind of look like that for sure. At a one hundred and thirty five dollars. Yeah, never mind that, all right, seeing frank and Berry, you know, early August in a Ross tis the season.

It's getting there. We're getting there. Entering into that season early, it's getting earlier and earlier. Halloween stuff's already showing up in all the stores. Yeah, it's happening.

It's upon us. It's a little early. I think back to that cause promotion and I'm yeah, that was I believe September in August. It could have started in August. Yeah, look at you.

You look amazed. I've never seen you look better. Study you look handsome. I'm so glad they found a mirror that works for you, because I'm really enjoying the show. You are a pretty pretty monster.

Who's a pretty monster who's misunderstood you. Look at that chie Was it something I said that leads us to our closing item, which neither of us have. But I don't know about you. In my Explore page on Instagram, I had seen this come up, and I'm like, I thought it was fan art or ai art, which I hate people doing that, like, oh, let's make the Muppets as Monster Ceial characters. Yep, even though it looks kind of cool, it's like, just draw it, Just do it yourself.

If you're going to do that, if you don't know for whatever. Reason, yeah, if you're not on the internet at all, no, no, no, no, no. For whatever reason. Jim Henson, Oh yeah, doing the design for the Monster Cereal boxes this year. I don't know what the connection is.

I can't think of any connection except for they somehow knew everyone would. Love to see this. Yeah, even though this is like absolutely delightful, and of course I want to see this, and I'm super happy with what I've seen so far. I would have never thought of this. I would have never even imagined this.

It's a collaboration that surprised the heck out of me. I think you sent me images right before I actually saw them show up online. I didn't send you anything until it was from one of the companies, and right that post was from the Hinson Company. Yeah, I'm like, oh, okay, this is actually a real thing. Why why?

But I love it. The weird thing is that kept saying seventieth anniversary, and that's for Hinson, not for this serial. So that was a little bit confusing too. I'm like, why are you celebrating the Hinson Company or Hintson stuff seventieth anniversary via Monster Cereals, which I've only been around for like fifty three. That's a little bit.

It's weird, but it's very cool. They have basically designed the three remain characters, the only ones that really exist anymore, Booberry, Frankenberry and Count Schocula as muppets. Yeah, they're beautiful. They have a commercial. The commercial is hilarious.

I mean the commercial is like Muppet humor one hundred percent, which I thought was delightful. Right, but it pulls directly from the old YEP serial ads exactly. It is definitely a goof on that as well. Huh. And which is what we love about what I've always loved about the Muppets, the ability to take a farcical approach to something that is referencing either pop culture or something else, and then put their gentle little spin on it.

These are really beautiful puppets. There's no like fancifying or modernizing. Of these characters. It's really honoring every design aspect of Franken Berry, Count Shocula, and Booberry. It's going back to the including the voices.

Well, I have a thing with the voices that they use for the commercials. They're not quite right. Booberry is almost exactly. Booberry is closest Peter Lourie. He's the closest Again, if you don't know, on those, at least the very first original ads, it was very obvious who they were parodying or spoofing or imitating.

Count Jocula was Bella Lugosi, frank and Berry was Boris Karloff, and Booberry for whatever reason that I love is Peter Lourie. Yeah, love it. The only one I would have really recognized as a kid would have been Peter Loriie because he was also used in Looney Tunes cartoons a lot, and my dad also did his voice on a casion. So I knew who Peter Lourie was and sounded like as a little kid because of those things, not because I was seeing Peter Lorrie movies. Boris Karloff doesn't speak as Frankenstein's Monster in most of the films, and doesn't really use that voice either when he does speak as him, So that's yeah, but we get the reference.

Yeah, the Count Chacula and franken Berry are almost interchangeable in this ad. And that's true. That's true. They're not hitting it hard enough, I don't think. Yeah, whether it was a licensing thing these days, I don't know how did they get away with it back then.

Blah blah blah. I was a little disappointed in the voices. It'd be interesting to see where this goes. Even if it's just the boxes. Cereal is very affordable.

I'm excited to buy the boxes. One side, apparently for some of them, is going to be flocked like a flocked image. Those are Walmart exclusive exclusives. Okay, so well, don't go looking at Target for flocked boxes. That's not a phrase.

I flocked the boxes. And I've only seen the Frankenberry one shown in yes Instagram posts and stuff. I haven't seen anybody talk about the other two, although it would make sense that they would also since that is a part of the muppet puppet is that fuzzy felt that they use for them, whatever material it is. I was at Target yesterday, didn't see the regular ones there yet. I know that in other parts of the country they are showing up in stores, I believe in Target and Costco and things like that.

I doubt there'll be any kind of figures or anything like that. There might be high end reproductions of those available, maybe like the influencers, you know, the same people that got boxes of the little McDonald's things with an actual store board, like a monopoly board that you could put all of the items on. So cool. It ain't us, brother, not us. Not yet what I would really love to see, and I hope this happens.

You know, we've seen a lot of these little, small stuffed versions of characters Sesame Street and a few others that are shown up in targets ten dollars little stuffies. It would be really cool if they did that for these three serial monsters. We're not going to get action figure versions, We're not going to get puppet versions that would be cool, But it would be really great to just get some stuffed animal versions of these three characters in this Muppet style. That would be great. It's easy to do, it seems easy to do.

I'll tell you one thing. They're not going to be in the boxes. So no, they're not going to be in the boxes, that's for sure. Yeah, those days are gone. I'm going to keep an eye out for both of us next time I go to Walmart and see if.

There's those flocked boxes. What a great thing to see. It's another example of somehow these companies hearing what we want and giving it to us without us even knowing that we want it. It's our head scratching, yet very appealing collaboration that again, like I say, why, I mean, it's not like the Monster Cereals had a history of using puppets in their old No. Where the Hintson company comes.

I just don't I don't understand the connection at all. I'll take it befuddles me, but I love that they're doing it and that it ended up being a real thing, just someone's ai wet dream. Yeah, exactly. I'm happy it exists. I'm thankful it's adorable.

My sister always, generally every year, buys me a box when they run into him at target of Count Chocula, and I always end up buying myself a box. I'll have a box at least, and that's fine for me. That's I don't need all. I'm not buying the other two just to have the boxes because I'm not going to eat the cereal and that seems very wasteful to me. Yeah, I don't even know if Khalio would like those cereals to be ho.

We've bought her Franknberry before and I think I ended up throwing half of a box away. And yeah, it's a lot. I don't know that anybody here is interested in blueberry flavored cereals, So. It's a lot. I certainly am not.

It's a dream come true. Do I buy it or do I just take photos of it? How am I going to go about that? If they come out with stuffies, I'm on board. I'm gonna buy count chocolate just because I like eating it every year.

But and the boxes is interesting. I'm not going to buy the other two just for the boxes. Yeah, I can totally understand people doing that. I'm not knocking that for me. I know I'm not going to eat the cereal.

And the idea of buying something just to throw away the food seems kind of strange to me. You keep it sealed, you never take the food out, You let it sit on yourself forever. I don't. I don't have room for big boxes. They're almost always family size when they release.

Some cereal boxes are getting bigger, and happy meals are getting smaller. What's going on? Don't be scared. I'm the super sweep monster. You see your cow, here's the super Sweetness City.

Well, anything else on your list that you forgot about? No, that's it, No, that's it. After we're done today, I'm sure I'll think of something. But you know what, that's enough. That is enough.

It's enough to last me the rest of my life. Actually, but that won't stop me for other things in the future. I'm sure. Yeah, very true. I've been trying very hard to keep things at a minimum.

That was the other reason I wanted to you this now is I'm probably not going to have much else to talk about in the future. I keep telling myself that, Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't have a Masters of the Universe to hunt down. I don't have a line or an ip like that where I'm just going out and finding all these things that I need to get. Yeah, it's just the odd item on eBay, mostly for me these days.

Burgers loose category, anthropomorphic burgers. That's always going to be something that's going to appeal to you. When you run across it and the algorithm knows it, they're going to send you burger people for the rest of your life. I've seen other things since then since Yeah, this blind Box extravaganza. So it's cool, all right.

Well, as mentioned earlier on in the episode, in October, you'll be getting our second special guest episode, and then Ronnie and I will be back in November, that's right, with a regular episode in December, most likely do a Christmas related episode maybe, but the what we Got this Year episode will be on YouTube, which you know we've mentioned a couple of times. So we'll give you the scoop on all that later on as it gets closer, But you won't hear from just the two of us until November again. Who knows what we'll talk about. Then, Who knows. I've got to figure out what my next big item will be.

I've got some ideas I do too. O rye god, you ryal bull Oh my lord? No us out. All right, folks, remember until we meet again, have fun, stay weird and keep collecting. And go to McDonald's and buy their food.

We're chilling for McDonald's here. McDonald's sponsor us. Okay, send us boxes of your fucking happy mail toys. Hey r ex spells mark, world's largest toymaker. CambridgeMA Sean is a weirding Way media podcast