Episode 36: Ketchup

Cambridge A Shawan is a weirding Way media podcast. Do you want to hear my Fox Furs five joke? Hello, and welcome to Cambridge And with Shan, a podcast by two weird guys where we talk about the weird things that we like. My name is Ronnie aka Skelevator. If I sound a little congested, that's because I just am just getting over a sinus infection which has been a bit of a roller coaster the last few weeks.

And I'm here with my pal Mark and it's garbage days. You can hear oh insert silent night, deadly night I clip now. Yes, yeah, well, we don't have a whole lot set up. This would normally I don't know if you realized Ronnie would be our David Lynch recording. Oh yeah, that's right.

July is when we release our David Lynch episode, and that's going to just have to hold off. And I believe we have different plans for that anyway this year, and we've got to talk to the other person and yeah, yeah, hopefully we'll have a David Lynch episode this season. I mean it's only June right now, so it's definitely not out of the realm of possibility. I realize that because I was looking through when. Did we launch our last episode.

April, which means we recorded it in March? And I think we recorded it fairly early in March. Yeah, we did. It's been a really long time. Yeah, so this is going to be a fun episode, folks, where we just talk about all the crap that's been going on for the past three months.

We got a lot to catch up on. I mean, speaking of David Lynch. I literally just, let's say, early early this week, finished listening to your latest episode with Cleo on Wake Up Heavy. You guys are jumping into twin Peaks talk. Yeah, folks, go listen to that.

It's really great and it's sort of like it must be tis the season type of thing, because I just something about right now, the Lynchian wave is rising. It's I'm feeling it. My algorithms showing it too, like I don't know. It interesting. So I found this other podcast it's called Meanwhile, a Twin Peaks podcast, and it's very cool because there it's a little bit different than the way you and Cleo are approaching your talk about Twin Peaks.

They're taking a slightly different approach. Now I've itching a rewatch twin Peaks, and I'm thinking about doing it in the order of the prequel Firewalk with me, then jumping into season one, season two, and then season three thinking about it, thinking about it, I knew you would have thoughts. Well, I'm always order of release and Cleveland. I talked about this because I have my old set of Chronicles of Narnia books when I read as a kid, and they have switched up how they order them by that logic. This actually happened before the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe blah blah blah, And I'm like, no, you read them in the order of release.

Wasn't the prequel book was not written last. It was way later. It was way later. Yeah, I don't know if it was last, but it was not the first book, and they order it that way. Now I think it's Prince Caspian might be the one.

I don't know. I hate that. I hate it. Read it and watch things in the order of release, not in the timeline. But do whatever we want people, and you too, Runny.

It just I can't do stuff that way. Won't do it if you watch things in the order that they were created. It provides a different understanding of the storyline and the evolution of characters. I imagine for some kids out there, if they watched Star Wars in order of the timeline, you know, because we obviously didn't have that opportunity, they understand it, or they feel a connection to the story of Anakin Skywalker in a certain way. But I feel like we, because we grew up with the original trilogy, have a different level of appreciation for the characters and maybe a more critical stance on the prequels because of that.

Ari Ella and I were just listening to we were audiobooking the Chronicles of Narnia books as well, starting with that prequel book. That doesn't really work as well. It doesn't. Yeah, I just know it's one of my weird things, Josh. I'm gonna have to tell them about my weirdness.

I'm sorry, Josh. It's not for everybody, but for me, it doesn't make sense to do certain things that way. The Starmor thing, I can almost understand. If you've never seen any of them, you might as well start with the first one, I guess, because they're going to get better as you go, so you need to get to part four. Which is different than Twin Peaks because it's all good maybe except for season two, it's all good.

Yeah, I've never done it that way. I've always watched season one, season two fire Walk with me. Well not always so the last time we did it was in preparation for season three. Yeah, this will be a new experience for me. I did the whole watch the Star Wars movies in order a couple of years ago, and I ended up speeding through the prequels.

Anyways, we end up watching the original trilogy at the end of the year, and then I always turned to Cleo and say, are you gonna make us watch the prequels. She's like, yep, yep. So yeah. I think last year was the first time I'd ever made it through Revenge of the Sith. I've never watched it before.

Oh yeah, A lot of folks think that's the best one of those, the prequel trilogy. I kind of align with that, but it's still not great. Yeah. Sure, I think I'm still too petrified to laugh. No, you won't laugh because it's not funny.

But if you still want to hear it, I'll tell it. I can't wait. Okay, Well, let's catch up yeah, you you. Part of the reason we didn't record is because of the massive bills you were doing. So you finished those on time, Yes, talk about where you took them and all that.

Yeah, there's been a lot that's happened with that since we talk black and even since you came and helped me load them into the truck. Those builds really took a lot out of me. There was a lot of work. I took one or two sick days from my regular job as a way to sneak in some extra time. But I've got a full time job.

I would work on the evenings and on the weekends on these builds. I think that what you're hearing right now with the congestion, that's my body getting back at me. I shouldn't really complain about having a cold now because I went through that whole period of time without catching a cold, which was miraculous. And in influctuating weather too, because we've had you know, over the last four months, it's been surprisingly cold, surprisingly hot, jumping back and forth. It's been super weird here in the Central Valley.

These massive builds. If you're not familiar, you can watch the whole process of me building those things. There's a thirteen part series on my YouTube channel where you can watch the process of me building them. They are commission for. It's called Mass of All Toys Toy Museum out in Arcola, Illinois, which is part of a Wildlife Adventure park that's out there.

It's my understanding that there was a delay in shipping them at this point. If we're listening to this at the beginning of or at some point in July, they well may have arrived by then, but apparently they're still in transit. I'm still sort of on edge as far as like whether or not they're actually going to make it there. I have sort of let go, like if they don't survive, it's it's out of my time. My job's done.

When you spend four months intensively working on something as massive as this, you do become attached. Sure I finished working on these things. I got them all done. Mark Jewels, my friend in Aibra, Frank, the three of you guys came over or helped me load them into the twenty foot U haul that I rented to take them down to Redondo Beach to the Torrents Marriott there for a Motuniverse convention. Which is a Masters of the Universe convention, the first mo Universe convention.

So it's not the first California Masters of the Universe convention because that was Power Con which is now in primarily been in Ohio. It's nice to have a Masters of the Universe convention back in California. So I got them down there safely. The drive down was absolutely one of the most stressful experiences. I've had many stressful experiences in my life, but I'm pretty sure I lost a couple of years driving those down.

And they made them there in great shape. There was no movement. I braced them in. Well. I was nervous about the way I braced them in because a lot of if you've ever moved delicate things, you always hit some snags or there's hurdles to jump over as far as keeping them secure in a big vehicle like that.

Jules accompanied me down there. We stopped off at In and Out Burger and I opened up the back and all was okay. That was in Bakersfield, and then driving over the Grapevine it was like, frankly, quite terrifying. The slow lane. I feel for those trucks that drive in the slow lane.

The semis because I think that they've spent a lot of time fixing up the faster lanes but never fixing up the slow lanes. It was bumpy, it was slow going, and it was it was crazy. And then we hit traffic. Of course, when we got to the Los Angeles, that's where I was able to actually decompress a little bit. It's nice to hit traffic and not have to worry about anything.

But got them to the convention, got them loaded out, had some folks there that were excited to help out, so they came and carried them into the space. We filmed some of that and posted it on Instagram, and boy, like, I don't know if I could condem these things as going viral because I don't know what the number threshold is for going viral. But that Instagram post and it was shared by many others, got a lot of viewers. The final video that I posted to Part seventeen. Checked on it yesterday and I think it was around forty six thousand view final video absolutely crazy.

With the movie having come out and the accompanying hype for the convention and all kinds of stuff really helped contribute to that. It was kind of amazing to see. I think that's the main reason why I'm a little a little worried about them getting to Arcola, Illinois safely, is that I think a lot of people responded positively to them, and it would be great if people could continue to see them, like, it would be really great. They could live an extended life. The other convention over there, and I think it's Cincinnati MO two Fest.

Apparently there will be showing up there as well, which would be cool if they survived the trip. It had been an intense period of time. I usually don't stay up till midnight, Like midnight is super late for me, but I was doing like staying up till midnight every night working on this out in the garage, and it's intense. I kind of can maybe can equate it to what it must be like to work on a movie, because people must have fifteen hour days starting early, ending late and just going straight through for months. It must be like that.

I gotta say one thing bugged me. Yeah, the placement against the wall. Oh yeah, at the convention. Are they going to pull those tables out? You're missing one full side of the build.

And I was like, oh man, what a Bummer Jay and Mikey agreed after doing the whole layout plan, it was just like it just was a minor oversight. They would do it differently if they could. They had placed me next to Tweeterhead, which was really cool because Tweeterhead sculpts are really amazing. The artistry there was cool to see because those are like resin statues and they're really beautiful. But the guy next to me, this is where the planning really kind of got screwy.

The morning of the convention, we adjusted them so they could be things you could walk around, but then the guys showed up that we're going to be in that corner and they're this company that has like a three and sixty degree camera that revolves and takes pictures of people and so that they can create three D printed action figures of themselves, and they just took up a lot more space than they needed to or that it was unexpected. The big disappointment for me was that people couldn't see all the way around them, and the inside of Snake Mountain is these multi levels and it would have been cool for people to be able to see inside there. Well, that's what I was thinking. This is something you need to walk around, not exactly, you know, so whatever.

Yeah, if they survive and they make it to the Masters of All Toys Museum, the way they're going to be set up there, they'll be on pedestals, they'll be under glass, they'll be better lighting, and people can walk around them. I'm really looking forward to seeing how that will how that will look, and if they do make them there, I'm imagining that if there's any mending that has to be done over a period of time, once they're all set up, I'm definitely going to be posting videos on my channel to show what they look like over there. I'm really excited to see what it looks like there. Cool, but yeah, that was intense. I think what was really cool about that period of time too, where we weren't regularly meeting to talk, was being able to follow your progression on your channel, not new but your reinvigorated YouTube channel where you've been making stuff too.

Yeah. I think that was one of the reasons I looked to see when we had last release something, and that was early April, so I think Mister Grape was out or going to be out shortly after that. So then I did the Apple and then I did the little video essay on the munch Bunch stuff. Oh yeah, I did pretty good, actually, oh good. So yeah, So if I'm going to push anything, i'd push that one.

I talked about it on episode five of the show here, and it's almost all the same information. But there was a new discovery of those designs being used for something else, so maybe go check that out. So yeah, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight videos. I guess since then, I'm working on something right now. It's not taking up But like I talked to you before we started recording, it doesn't take a lot of time or how do I phrase this?

Each little step is not for me for these things, is not a whole lot of time, Like I'm not I think he told me at one time, you know, eight hours of work ends up being thirty seconds of time last thing, you know, for me, that's not really the case. It's like, yeah, ten minutes maybe if that. Like I did something right before we started recording, and it was probably all of two minutes, you know, But now I have to stop because it's got it dry. The dap has to dry, and then throughout the day I'll sit here do my work and then go, okay, well I have a little break in my work. I'll pop behind me here and see if there's something I can work on.

And then I pretty much edit as I go. So I send stuff to the computer, throw it into iMovie, fiddle with it a little bit, put some titles on whatever, and then move on to the next thing. And this is how my channel works. All but two videos have double digit views. If I look at the analytics, though, it's like most people they watch twenty percent of the video.

That's fairly normally. I'm like, I'm not going to look at that stuff much. But I again, I don't care. I'm doing this stuff. I have all the tools to make the videos.

So it's like, well just do that part two? Why not? Yeah, no one's asking you to watch them. Well exactly, I mean. Go watch them if you want.

You don't have to pay anything to watch them. Right, Everything is free as far as the video stuff goes for me, and the cost of whatever for doing this is nominal. And I'm still going through that five pound tub of clay. I think I still have three and a half pounds of it's just doing all these little things with the clay right now, I'm not doing any bigger you know, foam constructed builds or anything like that. What little time I do have, it's a little time waster.

And part of it too, I know that I mentioned that it's a distraction, But part of it too is like keeping my brain active. Yeah, for sure, doing something other and work, because for me, what has taken up the vast majority of my time since mid March has been my job. It's been a tough year. We've had some major issues where I work the issues themselves, and then when they get cleared up, just adds exponentially to the stuff that I do at my job. I know that too.

I know, like, oh, when this final, when Blue Shield finally starts paying us for all these claims that they've screwed up since January. First, jeez, I'm going to have a ton of work. And that is starting to happen, and had started to happen a couple weeks ago. Another reason why we didn't record in April is that we had not an unplanned because we knew it was going to happen, but we didn't know exactly when it was going to happen. My wife had sinus surgery, oh, third sinus surgery, and we had to travel to Stanford to Palo Alto.

So for that we weren't sure what day it. Was going to be. And then when we found that out, We're like, well, how are we going to do this because that's a three and a half hour drive. Yep, you don't want. I don't want to get up at four thirty and have to leave at like five or six to get somewhere by nine, nine thirty or ten and then have a five hour surgery or whatever and then come home.

So we long day. When we found out when it was, we decided to go the day before to stay in a hotel in Palo Alto. Then that morning you can just wake up and do your stuff and go. So we lost two days there. I knew, like, I am not going to be able to edit anything after that because I'm going to be catching up on two days of missed work, so on and so on.

And then the next week we had to go her and I had to go back a day trip for a follow up appointment, and I had to drive because she still wasn't able to drive. That was cutting into time. And then yeah, just basically work stuff, I mean It was kind of a nice little trip because Cleio went with us too since she was out of school. She and I spent the day of the surgery mostly in San Jose. There's a pretty big mall there.

Oh yeah, yeah, we've been there. Very nice mall there. Actually, that's nice. And you know, not all mall food, yeah, not all malls are dead because that thing was hopping, you know. And it was Wednesday, Wednesday, fairly early in the day after they opened, obviously, but we spent you know, three or four hours having to kill time until her surgery was done and could go, and then we had to drive home after that.

That's an exhausting day, I know how that is for sure. So hopefully this clears up because she suffers from sinus infections pretty regularly and this is hopefully the. Solution to that. Yeah, fingers crossed for her. It sucks, and I had sinus s septum surge.

You remember that I had found out that I had had a sinus infection most of my life apparently, and just had lived with it. That's how she is. It sucks. It's an amazing feeling once that issue is fixed and you can actually breathe through your nose, and if you've lived with something like that for so long, you just get used to it. I remember that feeling of after having had it fixed and being able to breathe through my nose.

Well and not having constant headaches, Yeah because of pressure, constant bloody noses, infections, live that and so yeah, seems to be doing a lot better. And on the second follow up, which she and Cleo did last week or the week before, they're like, oh, you're healing just fine, quicker than expected, and they cleaned out the gunk that was in there. And yeah, like I say, this is her third one though, so hopefully it's the last one, because she has had stuff kind of done before already, maybe not as intensely. But three tomatoes are walking down the street, pop a Tomato on the tomato, Baby Tomato, Baby Tomato starts lagging behind, and Pop Tomato gets really angry, goes back and squishes in says ketchup.

Our main goal to go to the mall in San Jose was because they have a pop Mart there. Oh yeah, that's true, I've been there. Cleo has quite a few series that she follows via pop Mart. Carlita had kind of gotten on the bandwagon as well. I hadn't yet, but I was very curious.

I mean they're toys, you know, so yeah, toy ish. Let's say there are more statues and or accessories. Yeah. Really. I had gotten something a little while ago off of Amazon.

I was looking at the series and the characters, and I'm like, oh, this cry Again character is kind of intriguing to me, So I want a little blind box three inch figure or whatever. The character is called cry Baby. Actually the series was called cry Again. So I was like, well, I'll look at those and then see what else. Like l boovu doesn't interest me.

And I remember those little creatures before PopMart was even a thing. The guy that made them, you know, be final toys of those characters and stuff. But I was very curious to see what they had. And there was all kinds of cool stuff in that mall by the way, so Mini So that shop is kind of like PopMart, but also like a grocery store and a department store, so they have one of those, they have got all this other stuff. I found a figure that I really became intrigued by, and I started buying, and I think I accidentally sent you that display.

Somebody had like all of the figures and you responded, I'm like, why are you what I looked. I'm like, oh, that was supposed to go to Clio. That's funny, but I have one of them. The reason I got this is the one I got in. Yeah.

I love that it's on an ice creams so cute. So this is. Twinkle Twinkle and I can't remember the artist's name. They don't really promote the artists other than maybe the Labooboo guy, but you can find out who they are. And it's magnetic.

So the bottom is hard, No, it's not hard plastic. Actually, it's kind of squishy, so I guess it's vinyl. And then a little plush head pops off the ice cream part. Folks will post a picture of that on our Instagram. Yeah, so I've kind of become attached, and I bought a couple off of Amazon.

Amazon has a pretty good supply of pop I mean, pop Mart has a store on Amazon, and they're the normal price that you would pay in the store. Yeah, if you don't have one near you, what might as well. There's one now in Fresno. I don't know if it's a pop Mart but it's similar. It's where Kirkland or whatever that housewares place, not housewares but like furniture and things.

Story used to be. Over there in the Barnes and Noble parking lot there's a store and maybe it is a pop Mark. It might be Mini so oh maybe it's Mini so yeah. Yeah. The thing that has really caught my attention.

I haven't ventured into this territory and I may have missed the boat. The Disney characters that are La Booboo style just so dang cute and anything reminiscent of Manchi Chi or m or the older style vinyl faced plushies. They have those, the Disney ones they had a display of at the pop Mark. Oh cool, it's sold out because I was like, oh, I really like that Goofy. The Goofy is the one, right, the Goofy is the one.

And I'm like, you got any of these? Because I'm like, yeah, murder of the boxes and they're like, no, sold out of course. Yeah, but this one's facial features kind of have that yeah, same old school cartoony looks. Energy, Yeah, attracted. Me to them.

But there's a place in the Tower district by where Club Fred used to be called Sour Milk. That yeah driven that Yeah, actually has quite a bit of Pop Mart stuff and then and tons of other stuff like Japanese vinyl. They've got tons of man chi chi and all this other fun stuff. So I got a couple of things there for Mother's Day. And they have car you know, letter press cards there and their Pop Market stuff is marked up.

It's about five dollars more than normal. But you know they're buying stuff wholesale, but you can find some of it here in town. If you're a local. Hit Sour Milk. Support local businesses, folks.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. That is cool. Yeah. So, like I said, I got a couple more off Amazon, and then when they went back, they got me another one at the same pop mark. Think I have four now.

I'm excited to see them, So send me a photo of all four and post that on their Instagram. Yeah, I'm not hanging them off my bag and going to college. So that's the thing. They don't stand up. Yeah, they don't stand up.

They're little fluffy guys. And that's unusual for me. Fluffy things that don't stand up or not something I normally would collect. Almost every series has a blind box vinyl version. Yeah.

Static figures, Yeah, a lot of them are though, Like that what I've complained about before with Happy Meal toys. They're doing something. Yeah, So I just try to find stuff that's like, I mean, if it's just a character standing there, I'm fine with that. They don't need to have a fishing pole in their hand. Yeah, Like, I don't care if this little Twinkle Twinkle character goes fishing.

Like, just give me like a static figure and I'm cool. You know, maybe dressed up in different costumes or whatever, but they don't need to be doing stuff in a car or whatever. That's the cuteness aspect that like people want to see them engaging in some way because then that adds to the cuteness. It's like leveling the cuteness up, you know whatever. I'm like you in that regard to I much prefer just a static figure that I can For me, I can't take a little guy that's in a static pose fishing out to the yard and take a toy photo because the lack of imagination there as far as like what that character will be doing is limited because he's got to be fishing out there.

You got to put him by a puddle or something. To put him by a puddle. Now suddenly that's very a very limited version of Yeah, very narrow series of options as far as what to do. I think that's what bugs me about it is the narrowness, the limitation, like, yeah, that's all this guy ever does is go fishing. Yeah, that's all he does, because if he's static, can have him to do whatever.

Yeah yeah, yeah. So that was sort of my safe way into what's been taking in my time and also what I've purchased because that has been it. I have not. Gotten any vintage stuff. I haven't hit eBay, yeah since we last spoke, and I don't think either of us had really been doing that.

You went to Motuniverse where there was going to be tons of vintage and new stuff, So what did you pick up there? I didn't really get a lot from the convention that I had to spend or that I chose to spend money on. I did get a two thousand and two Masters of the Universe Too Bad action figure, which is one of those characters that in the two thousand and two cartoon Mike Young Productions cartoon version of that character. Such a cool toy. But I got a bunch of free stuff, Like I got Masters of the Universe poster for the movie, which I can talk about briefly too because I've seen the movie.

Got a plastic sword which is promoting the film as well, and a bunch of stuff from friends, Like I don't know if you saw me post this, but a really cool action figure from this guy, Total Madness Customs. It's TM Customs with a K underscore and it's bootleg Zombie King. So this guy makes these Gi Joe three point seventy five inch custom action figures and has been making these flocked moss Man action figures that are in Gi Joe's style, and so he gave me this guy and he's amazing. It comes with a rifle, which is hilarious there, but the fact that he's flocked and his head is I think it's three D printed and then custom painted based on the vintage action figure moss Man. That was a really cool thing and definitely apprized possession that I was able to bring home from the convention.

Leading up to the convention, a little something that I thought was fun. I don't think i've talked about it here yet. Is that there was a or maybe we did talk about it. Did I talk about my makestuff stickers on here? No, they hadn't happened to you.

There was a recent commercial for the MacBook Neo. The promotions of the MacBook Neo showed the typical thing that's trending right now, which is the top part or the back of the screen with a bunch of stickers on it. A lot of youngsters are doing that these days. And one of the stickers on there was a thicker that said make stuff and it was in the style of the Masters of the Universe logo. I saw that.

In fact, all of us we were watching the commercial, all of us said, oh, you see that here at home? It was very cool and I saw so I looked it up. I thought, for sure, that's got to exist out there. Still as of this moment, no one has made a sticker like this. So I took advantage of our contemporary technology and used AI.

So I took a picture, a screen shot of the computer. Of course, it was very low resolution because I had to zoom in to the screen shot in order to get it centered on my screen, and then put that into AI and just typed in the instructions make this high resolution. It created exactly the image in high resolution. And so I ordered one hundred of these make stuff stickers and took them to the convention. I didn't take all one hundred, thank goodness, because by the end of the convention all my stickers were gone.

I got a lot of visits while I was there at the convention with those builds. A lot of people took those stickers home. You're telling me you stole a design from Apple, that's right, and then used AI. So that's right, killed rainforest to make this. This is what you're telling me.

Yeah, well, I'm super against AI. But listen, part of the issue is that, like Apple didn't make this sticker available. It's this incredible sticker. Where do they get the idea from who made it? And it's completely unavailable to people, and it was just an incredible design.

So yes, I had to do that for this, I know, as a desperate, desperate move on my part, but I'm normally anti AI and all that stuff. I'm not going to make it anymore and I'm not selling them obviously. Apple. If you're listening, they're scribbing our podcast today, Yeah right, find this stuff out. They've got a whole team of chimpanzees looking this stuff up, typing in hashtag make stuff.

They never ding me for the music I use. It's only ever Spotify that does that, so I'm not worried about it. I'm not worried either. I'm super excited I made. Those people took my skelevator stickers, they took the make stuff stickers and it was just a lot of fun.

But yeah, I got to meet a lot of cool people there. I didn't talk about this yet. I got to meet the two people that really were incredible to meet. The two artists were Rebecca Taylor, who's the wife of Mark Taylor, who did a lot of the design work alongside her husband in the original toy designs. She did the cardboard illustrations that came with the original Castle Gray Skull play set.

Got to meet her and actually, you know, didn't go up and get an autograph. I actually got a chance to talk to these people, which was really cool. Same thing with Rudyo Brero, who did a lot of the box art of the original toy line. The general esthetic that many of us who were fans of the original toy line just exploded our brains, really incredible stuff. Rudyobrero got to to him a few times actually, and that was very cool too.

But yeah, you know, meeting makers and people who were excited about Masters of the Universe and leaping from that foundation and creating their own stuff was just very very cool. I did get a little bit. The thing I took away from that was from the convention really was getting the bug to get toys for myself. So when I went to see the movie, they had a popcorn bucket there that I absolutely couldn't resist. It was It's very cool.

He man walking up the stairs in Snake Mountain and skeletors on his bone thrown. Bone thrown. That name will never not make me laugh. I know, it's hilarious. Got led lights for the flames as the popcorn go, I'll show you, and this tiny little thing in the back.

It's not about the popcorn anymore. That's no, it's not. Yeah, it is not at all. But who would have thought that something like this would, To be honest with you, I would have never, even as a kid, I would have never imagined anything like this existing. Yeah, that's pretty darn cool.

The whole popcorn bucket thing is just hysterical to me. It's hilarious. I've got three things that are just absolutely absurd now, like that, these two Disney beverage containers behind me here, and this popcorn bucket that is of an ip that. First of all, none of us ever thought that a Master's of the Universe movie would ever come out. It struggled to become real for many many years.

We were in a weird time. And I will say briefly that the movie was not bad. Actually that's what I've been hearing. It was a lot of fun. It's not, you know, a masterpiece, no pun intended, Yeah no, yeah, but there's a lot of Thor Ragnarok type of human you know, taiko wakiki style humor in there, which is also sort of reminiscent of the cheesiness of the filmation cartoon.

Anyway, it was pretty fun. I still haven't. I've been meaning to go see it again, but of course I got pretty sick right after that. The Red Letter media guys actually did an episode on it. I had no idea how what it was going to be like or why they were even doing it.

Apparently, Mike, the older, more acerbic one was a Masters of the Universe kid, so he has got a bucket of toys. Nice, he's got his original toys. I love that when I hear that from people, that's so cool. A lot of them make an appearance on that episode. He pulls a bunch of them out and stuff.

They both seem to like it pretty much, so. It's worth seeing when it starts to stream on Amazon. I recommend watching it for anybody that's not a Master's of the Universe fan. Don't go into it expecting much. If you're not a Master's of the Universe fan, I can see how it could be appealing, but it's really made for the kids who know these characters.

And there's a lot of Easter eggs in there that are deep cuts. I mean, there's a character in there that only appeared in one I think it was Golden Book Kid's book that was just made up out of the blue. That's that demon looking guy, goat Man. And then there are some characters and nods to the eighty seven movie. It's got a lot in it.

It was a lot of fun. I made a video review on my YouTube channel and the statement that I while I was talking about the movie that I thought that I keep going back to is now what It's sort of a bittersweet thing for Masters of the Universe fans. I've all been hungry for content, hungry for toys, you know, the newer versions of the toys, hungry for it to garner attention from a larger audience. And now that we're kind of in that space and the movies kind of failing a little bit at the box office. Apparently Amazon is fine with that.

I guess they keep saying it's okay. Now that we've gotten a different cartoon version of it, a new movie, tons of different toys. It kind of feels like it's reached another apex of interest. And usually when that happens with Masters, it starts to die off and become quiet again. So we'll see how that goes.

I'm hoping that they make sequels, because they teased a lot of stuff at the end that would be very cool to see. But if there's a lull, I'm at a stage where I would be okay with that, because that would mean that there would be another resurgence of interest down the line perhaps, or that it might just take a break for a while. It's been a really, really cool time for Masters of the Universe, and I hope it extends, and I hope that kids get interested. I just saw the first episode today, have a new cartoon that their Mattel is putting on YouTube, which was really fun, sort of inspired by contemporary cartoon shorts for kids. It seems like it's going to be fun.

They're going to continue to be making toys. So I could be wrong, but it does feel like we're in another what's next type of scenario, and maybe there's not going to be a next thing. Not everything has to be Star Wars, which they're milked to death. Star Wars and teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the the ips that seem to never go away. I do feel, and you might agree, that ips need breathing room sometimes in order to gain traction again, Like, I don't think that Star Wars is in the healthiest place right now because they keep putting content out and not allowing us to catch a breath, catch a breath and get excited or start contemplating new things on our own as fans.

We'll see how it goes. It's been an exciting time. There's something about this that's so black, So how much more black could this be. The answer is none, none. Good.

Another thing too. We talk about this stuff often, so I might as well bring it up. I was at ross I saw that the Super seven reaction figures of Spinal Tap were there for five ninety nine. They had Nigel Toughnel and David Saint Hubbins and Derek Small's and I couldn't resist. There's a version of them on the black album card back the Smell of the Glove era of the Black Album of Spinal Tap, and absolutely could not resist that.

And I'm stoked. And plus anything Rob Reiner right now is just still pull at my heart strings. So there's that too. The only one I would get is if they made an Ed Bigley junior. Hell, yeah, absolutely right.

I mean we've got hopefully Super seven. If you're listening, we know they listened to do all the drummers. Yeah, do all the drummers, do every drummer, And I would love an Ed Begley junior drummer. But yeah, that was a really cool fine too. That's the ketchup of all the things I think I feel like and you probably feel the same way because we talked when the recording was off about work and you talked about it here, but I really feel like I've been through the gauntlet here and I was just texting with Jules yesterday about this, like, I don't even know what to do next.

That's where I'm my brain is right now. I don't know what to do next on the channel. I don't I'm exhausted. I'm excited because I was able to take some of the money that I got from the builds and get myself a new camera to use for the channel, which is super excited about, and I've messed around with a little bit. I feel like I'm right now, at this very moment, just starting to feel like my feet are finally sort of landing back on the ground or I'm coming out of a fog, if that makes sense.

The builds being done, there's a little postpartum depression that happened to me and probably exacerbated by this illness that didn't leave me general letharg. I'll think of some suggestions for you to work on. Hmmm. I like, here's a little tease for you. Oh, I think I know where you're going with this.

Does that shape look familiar to you? Yep, it sure does. Okay, it sure does. Oh, I'm excited. Speaking of buying stuff, let me interject here real quick.

I did buy some stuff. I bought a jewel file set because sandpaper doesn't get into all the creases and stuff, so you know, it's got all those little round shapes and triangular shapes and flesh. Nice. So I bought a little cheap thing Amazon. And then I bought a cheap set of clay sculpting tools nice, which I haven't used very much of.

I think I saw you break them out a little bit. Yeah, And last I mean I just used one on this to help push some DAP into a scene. But they're more I think, directed towards actual clay you know that you throw. Yeah, But I mean it's the same concept, soft, squishy, malleable earth you can use that stuff on. So I'm trying to find uses for again.

I think it was five or six or seven bucks or something for twenty three pieces, and some of them will probably never use. But there's some stuff in there that I know will help with shaping and cutting. I think is more what I was going for. But yeah, that kind of stuff I've bought, But I haven't really bought any toys or anything other than the Twinkle Twinkle pop mark stuff. Yeah, that's pretty adorable.

Buying tools for making stuff so always a wise investment. Even if it sits there for a while and isn't used, at least you'll always have it so when you do get back into it, or you do swing back around and needing it, it's there. I'm excited for you. I am excited about the next time we record because I did identify a thing. This goes back quite a while for me.

It's another one of those what the hell is that that I can't quite remember that I know, I remember, I can't quite identify. I do a bunch of research online and then I figured it out. Finally, a little teaser for the next episode. There's this thing that had been bugging me most of my life, in fact, since nineteen eighty three. That's been really nagging at me, and I finally figured out what it was.

I had to ask my dad. He kinda knew something, and then that led me down another path, opened up a door to research that I hadn't explored yet. Sure enough, I found it and I'm not going to reveal that now, but I'm really excited to talk about it. Cope with that being said, I think we can call it. Thank you everybody for your patience because it's been a while.

Jules, I'm talking to you and maybe the two other people that listen. Hopefully there won't be any more breaks between episodes for a while, but you know, life happens, shit happens. What are you gonna do? See? No promises, no promises.

Any final thoughts before I close this out mark all right? Remember folks, until we meet again, have fun, stay weird, and keep collecting. Josh, I'm going to have to tell them about my weirdness. I'm sorry, Josh Cambridge. Nier Seawan is a weird Way media podcast