Special Guest 01: The Bigger the Better

Cambridge. I'm Shawn is a weirding Way media podcast. And that was something completely different. All right, presso you are the best and you got the best, the greatest bad today. Hello and welcome to Cambridge and with Sean, a podcast by two weird guys about the weird things that they like.

I'm Ronnie, otherwise known as ekelevator over on the YouTube's and I'm here of my pal Mark. Hi'm Mark Bigley. I host a couple other shows that I don't feel like mentioning right now. We have a very special episode today. Yes, we do a surprise for everybody.

Tell us what's happening, Ronnie. Let's see what we're going to talk about. Just kidding. We got our friend Jeff, who we mentioned many many times. Fuck you, what are you doing?

We've got our friend Jeff Martin here, who's been with us as a mention many many times in Cambridge And with Sean episodes. I'm really excited to have him here to talk about the weird things that resonate for him. He's also known as HP Brown sauce craft Over in the Skelevader universe as one of the patrons and someone who shows up in some of my toy Hunt videos. When we get together, Jeff, We're really excited to have you here. Excited to be here.

I feel like it's been a long time coming. Yeah, well, thanks for letting me on the show. Longtime listener. I always find myself listening to you guys and wanting to emphatically respond. I can't.

There's no way to talk back to it, but yeah, thanks for having me. I do that. Yeah, I talked back to podcasts, so I totally get that. When I listened back to these episodes, I often talk back to them, and I'm often talking back to Mark because I can never come up within a good quip when he gets me. I can never come up with it on the spot, And so when I'm listening to it again, I get to have that moment that nobody gets to enjoy besides me.

You've got me a couple of times. I was thinking about this the other day. I don't know if I should give away the other surprise, but we will have another special guest on in the future. I think it works because both the guys that are going to be on are connected to Cambridge and with Sean, the actual place, at least in my mind. Yeah, that period of time is when we were all hanging out.

Yeah. I visited your guys' place many times. Yeah, many times. There was that in between phase where Mark was over at the Flaming June House. Remember that.

But everything returned back to the Cambridge and was Sean spot. Jeff, I've known you since around the same time that I met Mark, actually, like ninety three or ninety four is. I would say it's probably around that time. It's been over thirty years at least. Yeah, the guests we're going to have in the following episode we've all known for about the same amount of time too.

Yeah. I knew of him earlier because he's related to one of my high school friends, so I knew of his family, and his dad was the youth pastor at their church, which I would go to the youth group for, so I saw him as a little kid. We're talking about it like it's a secret. We're not going to divulge his name just yet. Mid nineties is pretty much Cambridge and with Sean era, Flaming June House era.

Oh yeah, I can't wait to see who it is. It's the epoch exactly very formative years. I think It's important to note that Jeff and I have had a creative relationship for a long period of time. Long time. Yeah, we used to get together.

I was going to high school up in Oakhurst, and i'd come down on the weekends and my second job was down in Clovis, and i'd hang out with Jeff and Dan and we'd record songs and well, I don't know if i'd call them songs. We'd record stuff that was a lot. Weren't you working at a movie theater? Yeah, I was. I was working at I was working at what was the Gosh, we haven't brought it up on this show yet.

The first multiplex in the Central Valley. It was the Shaw and Villa Theater. Movie theater closed. It's closed now, it just closed. Oh damn, it's just closed.

I thought that place closed probably like twenty I. Thought it had too. And I just saw it on I don't know where. I saw it somewhere on the internet and I was like, oh, it was still around. Wow, that's crazy.

My daughters and my wife and I went to one showing of a movie there about nine years ago, and it was a discount theater at that time. I seem to remember that being a thing. Yeah, probably like fifteen years ago. Gosh, I haven't been in over twenty five years, I'm sure. I mean, there was the comic book store right next to there.

I remember that I went there a few times. I think I even went there with you a few times. Yeah. What was the name of that comic book store? It was the guy from Checkmate, from Checkmate, I remember that.

I don't remember. Was it Heroes. Maybe I don't think it was Heroes, because Heroes was if I'm remembering correctly, Heroes was the other one. Okay, Yeah, I think Heroes was always right next to the freeway maybe so it wasn't a different building, but it was always over in that area. I think it was across from Circuit City by the freeway, in that little shopping center, that little that's right row of storefronts, and then it moved just on the other side of those storefronts, closer to Shaw, getting right into local locales.

Yeah. I mean, it's good for listeners to know that the three of us have a long history of hanging out together. I hung out with Mark for a period of time separate from Jeff, but then we all kind of came together and started hanging out together at a certain point, and it's all good memories. And you and I have both related stories on here of Jeff taking us around town to try and find certain things go back in those late nineties. Those are the times when I'm listening to the podcast and I'm yelling at her like, yes, yes, it was here, it was there.

Jeff and I were doing our monthly hangout last month. We were walking over by a book barn, and he pointed across the street diagonally to the Mexican restaurant that you were talking about in the previous episode, to the area where that Mexican restaurant used to go. Yeah, yep, I used to go there a lot as a kid. Oh cool, Hey there you go. Yeah.

I grew up in Clovis, so I didn't, but that's where we went for whatever reason. Loved it. Ronnie might have an inklean of what you're talking about, but I'm in the dark on this. So this is going to be interesting for me, and I hope to God at least one of the things is something I have some experience or history with, or something to even say about. We know it is.

There is one of them that might connect my three things that I thought about. One connects to you, and one connects to Ronald and one there you go, kind of connects to both of you. I guess, or you would, you would definitely have memories of it. So cool. Well I'm curious, So Ronnie, let's get into it, my man.

Yes, I'm excited. Let's let's make it happen. Super rock stars Kiss in their first bullid movie, Kiss Meets the Pedom. I will destroy you from mad scientist, seeks revenge but being fired. Still Kiss will be my instrument.

But Kiss strikes back. Yikes. See Kiss kidnapped by a hobby of robots and then meet their doubles. You've got to get out of here. Anthony's Zerby is the pedom I don't believe it.

Kiss Meets the Bedom next Saturday. All right, So what we decided was approximately three things, three weird things that Jeff is interested in that we would showcase today. So, Jeff, what's the first weird thing that you are or were obsessed with? Okay, so this is the one that I was saying that connects to you, but it also connects to Mark. So as a kid, I was obsessed with Kiss.

Yeah, my mom took me to see them in nineteen seventy nine here in Fresno. I saw them at Celind Arena. It was like the big highlight of my life at that point in time. But my whole room was just plastered in like Kiss posters and lunch boxes and things like that. But I was obsessed.

I had the twelve inch mego dolls of Kiss. Well, I didn't have all of them, so I had. This is how it connects to Mark because of Migo, and I know that he's mentioned in the past that he did not favor the larger scale figures, but I always did favor the larger scale things. The bigger the better. When I was a kid, the Kiss dolls were for the listeners if they've never seen them, they were mego but they were about twelve inches tall, like a Barbie.

I guess. I had Gene Simmons and I had Paul Stanley, but I was never able to find Ace Frehley. I was obsessed with finding Ace Freeley, Peter Chris, I take it or leave it, but Ace Freeley was the one I wanted the most and I never never never got him. I did have Gene and I did have Paul. They were deluxe Mego like the clothes that they had, the boots and all the stuff because I had all the Migo figures as a kid too.

I had Robin and Batman and Superman and Spider Man and all the guys that you guys talk about and the ones that Mark had. I had all of those. I never had any of like the accessories that went with them, but I did have the figures, which leads me into I had the entire Star Trek Enterprise set. Damn, the cardboards. Finyl thing with the transporter thing that you spun on the top.

So good I had that. It was incredible. Star Trek Uss Enterprise gift set. Star Trek Action figures also sold separately by Mego. The Kiss dolls were like Mego on steroids because they were giant, and the clothes and the detail that they had just really cool, like shiny stuff, real chain like across I think Gene had like chain across his chest, YEP, and these cool monster boots and the hair was just awesome and I was obsessed with this.

The hair was real, I mean not real, but the hair was like doll hair hair, and it was like a Barbie doll, but it was black. It's funny that you were mentioning that Ace was hard to find. Ace has always been hard to find, even when Migo came out with their recent versions. That's what I've heard. Yeah, the Kiss dolls, Ace was impossible for me to find.

I got the other three, and then I had to order Ace set double the price from eBay just because I couldn't find him anywhere. You got to pay that premium for Ace. What's the deal with that? I don't know, man. I know Migo did them back then and they've done them recently.

But there was also Kiss figures from Figures Toy Company. They did the different albums. Oh yeah, well they're all wearing suits and yep. Right god just to kill Yeah. That's been a while, might be worth checking out.

They're not going to be twelve inch, although they might have done some twelve inch Kiss figures as well. But Figures Toy Company definitely produced I want to say at least three or four waves of Kiss Mego figures. I'll have to go try to find those. Yeah, check it out and see it's been years, you know, a lot of that stuff they just keep cranking out, So they might still be producing them. I don't know.

One of my big regrets was about eight years ago at Target, I ran across some three point seventy five inch Kiss figures. They're all four of them were on the shelf, just sitting there on one of the end caps at Target, super random. It was not Super seven, so they were not reaction figures, and they had more articulation elbows and knee articulation along with next swivel and shoulders. I wonder who that was. Yeah, interesting, I don't know who the company is.

They were all in I believe they're in their destroyer outfits. Oh was that Neka? I'm just kicking myself for not getting them. It was weird. They were like three point seven to five inches.

It's kind of a weird scale for Kiss you never see figures, and. The kind of a strange scale for Neka too. So I don't think it was Meca. Fifth Bang Pal made the Kiss three and three quarter inch figures. I'm surprised Super seven as in tried to get on the Kiss bandwagon and get the licensing.

They want big books for their licenseeinge. I think right from the very beginning, Yeah, I mean right from the very beginning. Yes, right, that's. Where Divo took a lot of their inspiration as far as promotion. And franchising themselves.

Enfranchising, Yeah, not so much licensing, but franchising, yeah, the better term for that. I love that. I think it's brilliant. I don't think Kiss did it this way, but Divo did it basically all on their own. I mean they were getting that stuff done.

It wasn't Warner Brothers pushing their gear. It was Devo, Right, we want to do this, you know. Well, Kiss started off that way. Then because of their accumulative success, they were able to get bigger companies to help with all that stuff, putting out the lunch boxes and things like that. I love that Devo has always sort of been doing it themselves and it's very punk rock of them to take this thing that Kiss did as can we even call it heavy metal glam rockers and promoting themselves and such a promotion on steroids.

It's like a corporation. Yeah. They were kind of like that from the very beginning. It's crazy, yeah, and they certainly are like that now. Hey, more power to them.

I love it. Get what you're worth, yeah, and if nobody wants to pay it, then they don't get the product. Yeah, I think they scored like the Bally's pinball machine was like one of the big things right at the very beginning. It's so good. They were the first to score, like a Marvel contract, I think.

Yeah. You know in the seventies, comic books printed in blood, right, their blood was ring with the ink, and that's right. Come on, that's brilliant market. Great marketing, great marketing, whether. It's true or not.

Have you since your childhood picked up an ace freely? You know? No, I have it. I need to go back and look and see what they're going for now. I would be interested in collecting at least those four figures, the original Migo run, get my my Ace in my gene back.

One of the knees eventually broke on one of them, and you know, you grow up and you just put it in a box and your parents throw it away and whatever, and you kick yourself and you kick your parents. There's that hate, that burning rage that lives inside your chest for the rest of your life when you think about all the things you lost. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm reminded of that constantly. Being the collector that I am too. There are those few lucky people who for whatever reason held onto everything and they still have it.

Yeah. I unfortunately was never one of those people. I wasn't either. I knew somebody in high school, in high school of all things, and he still had all the original Star Wars run on cars on cards like he had ones that he played with and then he had a separate one that was saved away, like he bought two at the same time when he was growing up, and he had the foresight. Yeah, the foresight.

That's insane. I wouldn't even consider doing anything like that as a kid. They were strictly for play. I mean, my Star Wars figures are the one thing that did survive childhood. They're not carded, that's for sure.

No. Yeah, I don't think I have anything definitely not carted, and I don't even think I really have anything left that was played with. Our mind messes with us, the relevancy of things and how that it's like an ebb and flow comes and goes. When I was living in Los Angeles, I was walking from one location to another in Echo Park. On the sidewalk on its side was a discarded at Wow, just on the fucking sidewalk.

Wow, And what did I do? This is at the beginning years of Instagram. What did I do? I took a picture of it because I'm like, oh, that's ironic. Well, I didn't steal it.

I didn't take it for myself. And I'm just like, like those Kiss figures on the shelf, those three points I love three point seventy five inch just like that. I think about that, and I just kicked myself because the a at is a treasure. Yeah, what are you gonna do? Where are you gonna put it in your pocket?

Yes? I would have carried I should have carried it. Yeah. That actually falls into my theme of my three things that I picked, because my three things are all large scale toys. Uh oh okay.

My ultimate obsession as a kid with toys was large scale. Yeah, things that are interesting, big and over the top, immersive, immersive. Yeah yeah, I loved all the little stuff. But did you have any of the other twelve inch Migo action figures? No?

I didn't. I didn't. I was mostly just interested in Kiss. Oh you know what, Actually I did have the I had the Incredible Hulk, the large one half. Oh, that's so cool with the purple shirts.

I did have that. Yeah, he was really great. I played a lot with. Him and that Actually I didn't do this, or maybe I did as a kid, But as I think about it now, and I'm like, I had the twelve inch Spider Man and the twelve inch Hulk, and that was it as far as twelve inch figures. The twelve inch.

Hulk would have worked really well with all the other eight inch figures. I didn't really see it that way, or I feel like I didn't see it that way because I don't think as a kid in the comics he was. That huge right in the movies. Now where especially like the first and the second movies, not the mcu ones, or he's like ginormous, right. I remember noting this as a kid.

His size fluctuated in Oh yeah, yeah, it did quite a bit, and his powers did too. It should fluctuate. I kind of thought that that was the only thing that was right on the money in the ang Lee or On Lee version of the Hulk that movie that came out in what two thousand or something like that, was that he fluctuated in size depending on the circumstance. Yeah, And I thought that that made a lot of sense. It's kind of funny now when you go back recently, I've seen old episodes of the Luf Forigno the seventies one, and you're kind of like, wow, I love it.

I love that show. Oh I watched it religiously too. But now you look at it and you're like, he didn't he wasn't he wasn't that big. Really. Yeah, you know, Luf Forigno was in town not too long ago ago, right, you sent me that link?

Yeah? Yeah. What was he doing here? Just signing autographs at a sierravist the mall? Oh wow?

You know how the Sierravista mall has these like comic yeahs every once in a while, the next one I don't know when it is, but I'm trying to go to the next one. I always bypassed them. You know. That kind of would have been neat to meet lu for Igno. I met David Prowse at one of those Oh that's cool, and I sat right in front of him, did a whole slideshow of all of his behind the scenes you already took on the Star Wars and Empire set.

Got to talk to him for a few minutes. It was really cool. He's a really nice He was a really nice I don't think he's alive anymore. But no, did you ask him? Oh?

Yeah I did. I did. I think I know where you're going with this. I did ask him about a clockwork corn. I was gonna say, did you ask him to carry you like a baby like Alickcorn?

Yeah. He said that that was kind of a strange experience because he was just expected to carry something in and he had to do it so many freaking times. Yeah, takes yeah, someone in. Yeah. He said that Kubrick was a very peculiar person, So I can imagine.

Yep. Okay, I'm gonna need help as sourcing clips for the Kiss stuff because I have no history with Kiss. Oh, I have no problem with that. In fact, I just recently found I don't know if you found this, Jeff, but there's some celland arena kiss concerts on YouTube. I have one back, and I've seen them.

I've I've listened to them and watched them. Yeah, I either look that up and I'll look up to see if there are any Kiss Migo commercials. I want to say it was right around Thanksgiving, maybe right after Thanksgiving nineteen seventy nine, so maybe number twenty seven, twenty eight somewhere in there, and I think just two three months later is when Peter Chris quit the band. So it was kind of a kind of. A cool that's great.

You got to see that. In their original incarnation, you know, before anyone had ever left the band or anything. It's kind of cool. Just go kiss, just go kiss, Yes, go kiss Eraah, yeah, that's one of. The best Gene Simmons outfits.

Actually, yeah, it was. Yeah, And I had the program. I lost the program. Have since gone back on eBay and have located some They're running in decent condition, about eighty five ninety yeap, I might say up and get one of those again. It might be worth it to put something in a frame on the wall.

Yeah, because I looked at that thing over and over again. I took the program to school the next day and did like a show and tell and everyone was disgusted. It was great, It was great. I love it. The first time I got to see Kiss finally was ninety seven when they did their famous reunion right to So getting to see them, all four of them together on the stage was cool to finally had that opportunity.

And then the very first concert that we took our daughters to was Kiss when they played at the Savemart Center not too long ago. You know, I was only with Paul and Jean and then those other two guys that they hired to play those other parts. But the other parts were franchised out. Yeah, exactly. And the fact that they had, you know, they finally abandoned other people that they added to the band being their own characters.

I think that one drummer was the Fox and then they yeah, they just decided, you know what, We're just gonna hire dudes to play A's and to play Peter. My feelings are definitely mixed. They're like licensed characters now that they own. That's crazy to me. A friend of mine who's in the synth community synthesizers and things, Dan Davis, knows him as well as name's Jay.

He lives down in San Diego. He just showed me this guitar pedal and this guitar and he's like, I freaked out about it. This guitar pedal. I'm like, holy crab, where did you get that? It was like a vox tone dinner, but like an original one from like nineteen sixty five sixty six.

Something like that, and he's like, oh, you'll never believe me if I told you, And I said, no, tell me. He's like, well, I know As Freyley, I do work for him. Whoa. And so he goes over and does like housework for like the odd jobs around the house for Ace Frehley. He lives out in like the desert area above or at the time he did this is probably ten years ago now, but Temecula maybe, like oh yeah, north of San Diego.

He lives kind of like out there somewhere apparently, and he goes and does work for Ace Frehley, and Ace Frehley pays him in vintage gear and gear all that is so cool. He's like, yeah, I don't know, I don't have any cash on me. Just go over that box and pick something out. And so that's how he gets his that vintage gear. It's crazy.

That rules. Yeah. One of the things that in the future I'd like to talk about on Cambridge and with Sean is Kiss meets The Phantom of the Park. Oh Man, Yeah, A good. Clip mark might be the trailer for that too, because the trailer's amazing.

Gloriously awful, but so bad and fun to watch. Yeah, it is one of the best bad movies ever made. It's fantastic. Didn't like hen of Barbara produce that, Yeah, yeah, I think so. It was like their foray into more like live action type stuff.

Uh huh. And as a fan of like amusement parks, that's footage from early Magic Mountain. That's right, that's right. Getting to see Magic Mountain pre Warner Brothers is kind of great. Yeap.

The only way other way you could really see it as in the Roller Coaster the movie. Yeah, yeah, that was Yeah, that's true. And Vacation right, it's got some cultural significance that movie, even though it's not very good. No, you get to hear Ace laughs anytime, Ace lass. It's the best.

That's another good clip. You get to see them attempt acting. It's so good, really bad, it's awful. You'll five signs worried too much. And it's funny that like Geene Simmons continued to try to act too, that's right.

Being the bad actor that he is, he is in some decent movies. So as long as he keeps his mouth shut, he's opening exactly exactly. He was in the one with Tom Selleck. I can't remember the name of it, like little Rot Spiders or something like that. And yes, yeah, yeah.

When we drove to Disneyland, you and I went on that trip to Disneyland, we stopped at a gas station. The gas stations back then would have cheap cassettes available in there, like shopping goes. I grabbed the Gene Simmons solo album cassette tape and I made us all listen to it, and I remember you were you were not happy. I have no memory of that, but it sounds right. It sounds about right.

He's blocked out. Yeah. In fact, this is gonna be even funnier. The gas station we stopped at was near Valencia, right near Magic Mountain. Makes sense.

There you go. This is kiss each sold separately and you can put them at any crazy posts you want. Kiss each twelve and a half inch figures sold separately by Meg. What is next on your list? Jeff?

Okay? So the next thing that I was obsessed with and I never had them, I never had them all. This is like Marks Shogun Warriors, the full size giant plastic colored rocket shooting fists. Amazing, amazing. The box was like almost as big as me.

You imagine you entered the world of the Showgun Warriors. I remember the boxes. I remember seeing them in Arthur's Toys. Always wanted them, never had them Christmases. I think I got the They made the die cast ones that were maybe maybe five inches tall or maybe smaller, I can't remember.

I think they were probably closer to it like a Star Wars figure. Right, Yeah, there were two lines. There was a three inch, three in three quarter inch and a five inch, so you could have had either one. I think I had the smaller ones, if I remember correctly, because they were more around the size of the Star Wars figure. I had the die cast ones.

I had all of those, but I never ever had the giant plastic ones with the rollerskate feet feet. My friends had a couple of them, and I would always borrow them and just not want to give them back. Yeah, we all know that feeling. They were just the coolest things ever. Man.

I had the comic books. Even my dad was like really into them. He just thought they were just the coolest things ever. Yeah, man, God, one of those. Did you have those, didn't you?

Mark? I have five of the Jumbo Shogun Warriors now as an adult, and also the LJN Vultron that is in the same scale and made of the same material the uh shampoo bottle material shampoo bottle, Yeah, exactly. Low mold plastic. Right. I won't get too deep into this since it's your deal and I'll be talking about this future episode.

But yeah, I never had them as a kid either, and I think it was a price point issue because they weren't cheap. No, yeah, they weren't relatively. Speaking, they weren't at the time that cheap. Upwards of fifteen dollars probably. That's about what I was thinking, Yeah, which makes sense.

I mean, they're two feet tall and they do stuff, and they're super fucking cool. I had a couple of the three and three quarter inch figures as well, and then I think, to placate me, my mom got me a model kit of Dragoon and that was as close as I got to the jumbos. I feel you on that man, and I had some friends that had him too, and. I was just like, oh my god, they're so amazing. My cross the street neighbor had Godzilla, which was really cool, not as cool as I know.

He was in the same line, but he just wasn't cool as the giant Mecca robots. You know, the Godzilla with a tongue that could come out. Yeah, it was like kite plastic or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Imagine his breath is a blast of fire.

The closest I ever got to Shogun Warriors was Vultron. I had Vultron. I had Vultron. I had both of them, the one that with the vehicles, and then I had the lions, And those were pretty large scale too. By the time that those came around, we had a little bit more money for Christmas and things like that.

Is we're talking to eighties, early eighties. Those were really cool. But man, those original Shogun Warriors were yeah, you're right, two feet tall, shampoo plastic. It was just magical. I always sort of ended anyone that had them too.

I had a couple of friends that had them. They never played with them. This is the thing, Like the places where I witnessed them, they were just sitting there and I was always too intimidated to go touch them. They felt like museum items to me as a kid. Yeah, like sculpture.

I totally understand that. A few years back, well it's probably more than a few years back, maybe ten years now, fifteen years I was just going through a box and I found I don't even know how I had it, because I never owned one, but I had borrowed my friends at times I had. I found one of the little red rockets with the white you know. I was instantly like taken back. I didn't even have to question, like.

What it was. You know, it's just iconic, right, the little rockets that they shoot. It was really cool. I don't know what happened to it. I thought about it real quick at the time and thought, oh, that's a good memory, and then I just kind of like it back in the box or lost it.

I haven't seen it since. But again, the anomalous interest that comes and goes, Yeah, if only we could have the foresight to be able to control or predict, Oh, this is going to be something significant to me in a year from now. I think some people have that ability, but I certainly don't. Like that kid that had the carded Star Wars figures. How did that kid know?

I think his parents had the foreknowledge, are like these are going to put you through college, you know? Interesting? Yeah, it's crazy. He had, like all of them. They were all I was like, wow, like why you know what I mean, why because you know it's the late eighties, right, you know you're thinking, why would you keep these on the cards?

You didn't play with any of these? Oh no, I had them all. I played with them. I just kept ones. You know.

My parents were like, oh, save these away for college or whatever. Okay, good because I was immediately going to the subplot of the parents buying him toys and not letting him play. Well, oh you no, no, no, you definitely had all of that. It's the parents, man. They had the foresight back in the seventies and eighties.

You know, they're like, hey, these are going to be worth something, let's put them away. My second one is Shogun Warriors, and that again large format toys, large scale toys, bigger than life, almost too big to play with. Really, that's my third thing. When we're ready to talk about the third thing is even bigger than that, it seems, mm hmm. But yeah, I always liked the big format toys.

The six million dollar man. I know you guys have talked about that a lot. I know Mark's got a big thing for that, and I really loved those as a kid, and Stretch Armstrong and all the just larger things. I played mostly with the smaller stuff, you know, Star Wars toys and things, because that was the default of everything. Just started going to that by the time, you know, I was really getting toys on the regular with my own money.

But yeah, I always had such a soft spot for the bigger format, bigger scale stuff. It was just huge. Mark. You mentioned that you had zero interest in the twelve inch Star Wars figures. Yeah, I don't ever really remember seeing them.

Actually, that's interesting to me because I was like, for some reason for me, I was really drawn to them. I was too, and I still am. One of the last times that we were hanging out, Ronald, I told you this story, but the twelve inch figures had come out. I think it was probably nineteen seventy eight. I think they came out a little bit after those smaller ones were out.

Yeah, and we went some mervins. I think that sounds about right. It was like in November, right, My mom put I think it was Obi Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker on layaway for Christmas for me, and I was like, oh, that's great, Christmas is on lock. Good to go. Christmas came around, they weren't under the tree.

I don't know what happened to him. I mean there was other cool stuff under the tree. I got Amillenmeian Falcon right, yeah, interesting. I was kind of sad I didn't get Yeah, you know, you're kind of like, oh, wait, I saw you put them on lay away. Yeah too, scared to mention, yo, lady, Yeah right, those figures go, right, because I mean they were, you know, five times bigger than the one I had, right, never got them.

I always wanted them. I have the little Jawa that you and I found, yeah, at that scale back here behind me. Now, Yeah, I know I would have been interested in a Jawa as a kid, So I just don't ever really remember seeing them. They just weren't popular. They just didn't I mean, obviously, it's a lot of doll to play with for a one boy.

Yeahs action figure after fifteen inches ready for action. You're kind of looking at it like, oh, this is kind of like my sister's Barbie dolls. I don't really want to play with these, but I loved them. I thought they were awesome. I didn't really know anybody that had them though.

None of my friends really had them either, so I think they were. It was more like you're saying they weren't really on the shelves a lot when you went places. My Darth went with me practically everywhere. That was the other thing. You can't carry around a Shogun Warrior in your punt di cast ones.

You can, but you're not taking a twenty four inch tall thing anywhere other than maybe your backyard. Ronald, I'd like. To see you take a Shogun Warrior on a trip to Hawaii on the beach. You have to buy a piece of luggage just to put it in there. Run exactly.

There are people who do that. I'm sure they. Are one of the greatest toys ever made. I have to agree with you on that they might not be super practical, but man, oh man get lost on YouTube watching the commercial the original Japanese commercials for these toys. They create such an amazing world for them in those commercials, just like they did with the micro nots.

Do you just have that smell still? I cleaned them all up pretty recently before I got hurt. I was working on getting stuff moved into this room, and I think they were kind of musty smelling at this point. When they were relatively new when I was a kid. They had such a really toxic smell too strong.

Yeah strong. You love strong plastic smells, man, Yeah, me too. I don't think most of them do definitely. Memory on that. Maybe if I popped them open or popped a head off, you might get a whiff down on which I did pop one of the heads off.

No, maybe I didn't, but. I tried to clean them up really well and was sitting there with them for a good period of time. I don't remember the smell plastic off gassing. It's such a delightful trigger. What's interesting about smell is I can imagine it right now, the smell of the sise noodles three figure set from Return of the Jedi, The Band Job as Palace.

It had a different smell than any of the other action figures. I can smell it right now, which is such an intense thing. I don't know. It's kind of amazing, crazy. The way that smells work.

Like all I have to say is Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh god, I know you guys talk about that all the time, that the bromine and all that stuff. Oh, it's I'm just instant. It's instant. It's the best.

It's the best, and if you want that, folks, I don't know why it's taking you to set a candle. I don't know why it's taking me so long to figure this out. Yes, you can order Pirates of the Caribbean candles. I think I need to do that. There are different kinds of toilet pellets that you can buy.

The go in the back, the tank, the tank. Yeah, the simplest ones are basically just pure bromine. That's how you can have the smell of Pirates of the Caribbean in your bathroom. That's incredible. That'd be an instant win for the weekend.

So while you're sitting on the pot, you can dream about writing Pirates of the Caribbean. That's great, that's what I want to do. I've got the four hour loop of the Sounds of the Pirate's Ride. You just put that on and sit down and to your business, go on your journey, not for four hours. I hope hey to reach their own Okay.

I never got into showgun warriors, but I certainly have an appreciation for them, especially later on in life, and I think my first experience seeing them in someone's house I was intimidated by them and then didn't see them in person until I saw Mark's collection and I was like, dude, those are fucking amazing. I think I need to come see those at some point. Yeah, for sure. I have Shogun Warriors number one laying around somewhere, but it's worth bupkiss. It's sport than nothing.

It's like, last time I checked, it was like forty five cents or something. What is it that you have. I'm joking Warriors number one the Marvel comic. Oh oh, that's good, but it's cool. To look through.

Got a couple at Heroes. Speaking of heroes a while back, when I was going there pretty frequently and just buying whatever cheap back issues I could find, and I think at that time I was searching for the Shogun Warriors on eBay. I think I bought a couple of Marvel They're not number ones or anything. I doubt I even read them, but they're sitting on my shelf somewhere. That's cool.

If I can find it, I'll give it to you. I can't remember where I put it, but I ATE's somewhere out in the garage if I if I come across. It, it's yours, And I was lucky at the time because they were not ridiculously priced when I was looking. Now, I've looked a couple of times just out of curiosity because this is on my list to talk about, and I'm like, oh, my goodness, not getting any more. That's for sure.

Hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Yeah, Now, didn't Super seven get the Showgun Warriors license and put out a few things a few years back. They've put out reaction figures of the Showgun Warriors, that's what it was. They've released jumbo figures of other properties, right Star Wars and Masters of the Universe. They have not released actual reproductions of Showgun Warriors.

I'm remembering now. There was like a Showgun Warriors style skeletor that they did. Yeah, there was a Skeletor. There was a Stormtrooper. There was Boba Fett and maybe one.

Other gentle giant. Is that a company? Yeah, they do the large scale points like that. Yeah, they would, since. They're already working with that big of a format.

You know, Bandai is actually releasing reproduction Shogun Warriors there right now, there you go, they're not ridiculously priced. There are a couple hundred dollars, which at this day and age makes sense for a two foot figure that can fire rockets. Hm. I'll have to go check that out. Yeah.

Imagine you enter the world of the Shogun Warriors. They're on number There's Raydean with double wing missiles, Dragoon with a star shooter, and Mazingo with a rocket launcher the showgun. Imagine you command them to defend freedom, to protect justice and challenge Edo the showguns. They're ready to strike like you are. Shogun Warriors, Mazinga, Dragoon, Raydein equid with their own gear, each sold separately from a tel.

What's your item, Jeff? Okay, So my third item was my holy grail that I never ever got. A friend of mine had it, and all I ever wanted to do when I went to his house was play with his Sugun Warriors and this particular item, and that was the dath Star playset. Oh yeah, here's the new Star Wars Death Star space station rip. You put together not the Canadian British cardboard palotoy one, but like the full on Kinner two feet tall giant dust Star playset with the little gun at the top and the elevator and the trash compactor at the bottom man hours just hours.

I could play with that thing. I could still play with that thing for hours. It's crazy. One of the greatest accomplishments in toy history, along with the dynamic massive object that you could play with, it came with the little trash compactor creature. And it's the only way you could actually see what that thing looked like underneath the water of the trash compactor.

Like those big secret reveals are so cool. Oh kay, it was cool to me as it good too. I never got to even play with it. And talk about sensory smells. I can still smell the foam that was in that Yeah, there was like a bunch of little foam bits that came with it.

I could still smell that. It's crazy. Yeah, but yeah, that thing was just ours man. And who knows if that's actually what that creature looked like. True, Yeah, right, I don't think they ever really designed it for the movie.

You know, there was no actual body for that thing in the movie. It was just big. Eyeball on a stick. Yeah. What's great is that that toy defined how that creature looks like From that point forward right.

For example, just the other day, our youngest goes down the nostalgic path with Phineas and Ferb every once in a while, and she'll just indulge, like episode after episode after episode of Phineas and Ferb. I didn't know this. They did two back to back Star Wars inspired episodes, and the Garbage Compactor creature that shows up in that looks just like a giant version of the toy, which I thought was a lovely nod to all of us geeks. Yeah, so the minds at Kennada got to actually decide what things look like offscreen. Yep, you know, like Snaggletooth's boots disco boots.

That's right, the big silver disco boots. You don't show his feet in the movie. What are we supposed to do, George, exactly. That's much much taller, Yeah, much taller. It doesn't have a name Dianaga or something like that, or oh yeah it does.

The trash Compact monster. Yeah, I don't remember ever seen you mentioned the Star Trek Migo playset. Which was just amazing, was that I had a chance to play with at some kid's house. Was it over in sunny side by any chance. Uh, that's where I got it.

I got it at a yard sale in Sonny's. Oh what if it was the same placet. Very well might happen. I think it was a teacher buddy of my dad's. And I don't think they lived by us.

I want to say they were North Fresno people. Okay, So I live in Sunnyside right now, Oh yeah, I live. You know where the palm trees are Miniwhillah Butler area, And I'm going around trying to find where that neighborhood was that I got that out of yard sale. It was about nineteen eighty eighty one. I got it out of yards now.

My grandmother took me like seven in the morning because she was like a yard sale hound, and she always wanted to go to the neighborhoods that had money right right, you know, Sunny Side's upscale, right, they had all the good stuff. And she was looking for like people that didn't want their chanel anymore and things like that. And I found that whole place set with like four figures. She bought it for me. I was just like, wow, this is the and they still had like all the weapons, like all their like shoulder bags, all their clothes, all their boots, all the stuff usual.

The placet was there, all the you know, the chairs, all of it was there. It was fully complete. I keep wondering where it is. It's around here, It's got to be within walking distance. The Star Trek Uss Enterprise gift set with command chair, console, three tonscreen cards, and five Star Trek action figures.

How funny. Parents were like, our kid never plays with this thing. That's why it's got all it's accoutreman. So they're like, let's sell it. And then the kid gets home, was like, where the fuck is my playset?

Right? My enterprise? The story of our lives? No, it was incredible. Where did all that stuff go?

Oh? I gave it to my student? Hey, you know what, it could have been my buddy's house man, who I always mention on here that I would just go over and lust over all his toys. He had Maskatron, and he had Stretch Armstrong, and he had this, and he had that. And he was basically the kid from the movie Toy with Richard Pryor.

Oh yeah, great, missed amazing house over there on Sunnyside. I don't ever remember seeing anybody with. Star Wars playsets, though it was always just figures. I don't remember going over to any friend's house, even this kid, and playing with play sets. I had the land Speeder, and that was as close to a playset as I got.

That land Speeder's badass. Every once in a while, I'll see one and I'm so tempted. I love it. I remember going to a friend's house and he had had the canteena playset. I remember looking through his figures and he had this figure that was missing its head, and I was like, wait, what is this?

Looks like Snaggletooth, but it's tall and it's blue. What's going on with it? Was a blue snaggletooth. The head was gone, right, but I was like, with the belt buckle, that Snaggletooth's bell buckle, Like, what is this figure? I didn't know what it was because I didn't know, you know, it never saw it in the package by itself, because it didn't come by itself.

Yeah, and I never had the placet playset right, never had it. So I was really just baffled by that for a few years, and then I figured it out. I was like, Oh, it was just like one exclusive thing that came with this playset that got revised when it came out as a standalone. If only we could just harness those exact moments in time where we ran into something super rare and not knowing what it is. Right, But yeah, that playset again, large scale, it's just bigger than life.

Your imagination can just run wild in something that big. You didn't have to like make it yourself, you know. And I did a lot of that too. I kind of made things like not to the extent that you do, Ronnie with your gray skull and stuff like that, but I would build large scale things out of foam and complexes and compounds for bases and things for figures, like again over at the crafting extent that you do it. But that was kind of already like pre it just it was ready to go, you know.

You didn't have to build it. Well, you had to build it unce it was built. It was just there. Right. It's a play set and it's a display unit.

Right. That's the best thing that a place that can offer us ideally is that you can not only does it work for play, but you can just put it on the shelf and then display figures in it right. I don't know how many times I've watched. I think it's either. Toy POLOI or some other guys.

Oh yeah, who's like refurbished, Yeah, and added little lights and child lighting and things into it. LEDs and man, that's the stuff you dream of when you were a kid, having that sort of capability to do stuff like that, and only now are we able to do it so cheaply. I was going to mention him, yeah, because he's done both sets. He's done the Kinner, Yes, he's refurbished a Kinner death Star, and he has cleaned up the Palatoi one that you mentioned that is just cardboard but still pretty fun. I mean, yeah, oh yeah, I would still have played with that as a kid.

Something's better than nothing, right, mm hmm. The canteena Place set that you mentioned is basically just cardboard except for the bass the vacuu form base, and they did that a number of times. They did the hoth Place set the same kind of way, where I had just a vacuu form bass and slap a piece of cardboard on the back and there you go. Those were a lot of like Sears exclusives or when he could only get him at like Sears and things like that, or never getting one of those. And that is probably also why I never really saw them, because was not my toy destination.

It wasn't mine either. No, I got most of my toys probably at like Mervyn's or Wards Montgomery Wards. And then when toys Arrests came around, I mean I was already kind of older by that point. You had mentioned before that the toys arrest used to be in Fashion Fair. See I don't remember that.

Yeah, there was one in Fashion Fair and I went there a lot. I don't know when it changed to KB toys. That would have been quite a bit later. I only remember the one on Blackstone, that one that they built where the office depot took over it later on. It was a little tiny mall sized toys.

R Us and I would go in there and stare at the migos. I would stare at the plastic baseball helmets. Those are really the only things that I have distinct memories of looking at there. But I'm sure that six million dollar Man and I probably searched for longing leaf, for stretch armstrong there and things like that. I have the same affinity as you guys do for Arthur's Toys.

Arthur's Toys, Yeah place that was everything that you could ever want at any given time. Yeah, it wasn't just a toy aisle. It was the entire store, was the toys. Yeah, and yeah, the Toys r Us on the mall was fraction of the size of an Arthur's. It was a small space.

And Arthur's was cool because later on, as I kind of outgrew toys, I bought my skateboards there. They had like a full skateboard counter and all that. In the late eighties, mid eighties, you know, when I was getting into skateboarding. You could go there and see all the latest pal Peralta Dex and things like that. Arthur's was a little different from Toys r US because it had a section for toys that I always thought of as just rich kid toys.

These beautiful dolls and those horses and really like stuff that for some reason I never really saw in Toys r Us. No, Yeah, Ventriloquist dolls, Like, right, that's such a I love that they had the Ventriloquist dolls because I was obsessed with them, But even as a kid, I knew that's a little odd that there's this whole like doll section. Well, they had bikes, they had pool toys, they had. They had an entire like model train section. Yeah yeah, exactly, yeah, huge model train section.

The one in Sunnyside had a huge train and that's the. One that I remember the most, going to that one, and then later on the one over on Blackstone by the Kmart, But that one I don't really remember. The original there on Blackstone, that's the apartment building now called the Arthur. I don't remember it ever being there. I only remember a music store ever being there.

I went there as a kid with my dad once. But the Arthur's that I went to the most as a child was the one on Tillarry. Now Arthur's on Blackstone is now Whitey's Pets. That's right, that's right. Whenever we're in the area and we just want to look at animals, we go in there and it just takes me right back.

It's the same layout. I can put myself in that place again. Another place that we go to that I go to more often than we do as a family is the Target on Shields Jimco, which used to be Gemco Ko. Oh yeah, I hate that Target. That's my favorite target because of its history with me as Gemco, and that's where I would go and drool over Masters of the Universe and Galaxy Warriors and Star Wars toys in the toy aisle, which is, if I remember correctly, in the same exact place that the toy aisle was when it was Gemco a thousand years ago.

See, I don't remember. I remember bits and pieces of Gemco, like where things were laid out, but I don't remember where the toys were in that particular place. I don't remember ever going to a gym. CO missed out, Buddy. Jimco was kind of like one of those It was like Costco.

You had to have like a membership to go there. Oh really, I don't remember. Yeah, you had to have a card to get in. I remember my parents had the Gemco card. It wasn't like a credit card.

It was just a membership card and they would card you at the door. It was one of those weird places like ard ns or like Consumers, where you don't see anything when you walk in. It's literally just a counter and then they order it from a back room and it comes down some kind of like shoot, you know, Those were some strange places too. We used to know there are a lots Everything was by catalog. You had to look in the catalog okay, give me K five okay, and then they would send a slip back and then they would bring it out to you.

That's interesting. I don't remember that at all. For some reason, I remember walking around the store. Well, jim Co wasn't like that. Jim Co was definitely a store you could it was very much like a Target.

They had like a produce section and you could buy my you know. I used to get like strawberry milk there, and you can give your toys and then yeah, we would go to the music section and look at like albums and eight tracks and things like that. For sure. There was also Zodi's. H Yeah, Zode's I remember.

Yeah, you didn't have to have a card for that. You just walked into Zode's like a Target or a Walmart. Or something like that. Zodi's I remember if for the name alone, right, and I think it always reminded me of Zori's, which is what we called flip flops. When flip flops exactly, they were like the thinner flip flops.

Oh what else can we conjure up from our ancient brains. Everything's clicking right now, So that's good. Cups of coffee. Oh see, I haven't had enough. I need to get something a little bit, one thing that I can say with competence, and I know the Death Star playset.

It's a grail piece for a lot of collectors. You always assume you're never going to run into something like this when you're out looking at yard sales or antique stores or thrift stores or things like that. I can just say, in the last seven or eight years where I've been more seriously collecting stuff, I'm always surprised that the things I run into out there keep your eyes peeled. You never know when you're going to run into a partially incomplete Death Star playset just sitting in someone's yard sale. Maybe one of these days, yeah, one of these days.

Or I'll find a clash of the Titans cracking fuck for twelve dollars or something. Well, yeah, yeah, that's how much the Perseus was. You know that antique store that we found. You never know, you never know. I would love to find a cracking Jesus.

Here's the new Star Wars Death Star space station, right you put together. Actually figures each sold sept. That's Vader's firing a laser can it's been up? Is it the loop? Get the elevator, Harry ye across the light bridge.

You want escape by jump? Looke? Oh, loot the trash conductor. There's a trash monster. The walls closing.

Save Kenner's new Star Wars. That Star Space Station action figures each sold separately. Yeah. I don't even know what my grandma paid for that Star Trek Enterprise set, but I'm sure it wasn't a lot because she was kind of cheap. So and imagine getting that for like five dollars.

Yeah, so forty years ago, forty five years ago, I mean five dollars was probably a lot for that at the time for a used set fully complete. I mean she probably spent between five and ten dollars. Could you imagine getting that now for five or ten dollars? Now? Yeah, there is a reproduction that was produced a number fours ago.

Yeah, Oh who did it? It might have been e MC Toys because they produced before Migo came back. The reproductions of Star Trek and Planet of the Apes figures for a little while. There might have been him in conjunction with an actual like fIF bang power or something like that. But they recreated the playset.

So when they recreated it, did it have so The original one that I had had blue chairs and blue computer systems and things like that. But I've seen back on eBay that there's some that came with yellow. They may have changed them. I don't know. I don't I'm like vaguely remembering any of this right now.

I just know that one was done and they may have changed the color on purpose to keep it from getting passed off as an original. But it is also possible that, just like with Star Wars figures and other things, that different factories used different materials or something. I don't know, or they changed the design at some point. And you had mentioned just a minute ago Planet of the Apes, like you guys, I've just obsessed with Planet of the Apes as a kid, and I never had the migos. I briefly remember maybe one getting left at my house by a neighborhood kid playing with it, and then it was gone.

He came back and got it or something. I don't remember what happened. I just loved it. I watched the TV show as a kid as well. All ten episodes or whatever they made of it.

It wasn't very there was a lot of episodes, was there. Yeah. I was surprised. Every episode was like the same episode, right nineteen ninety nine ish. I got them on DVD and I watched it all.

It felt like watching MASH. It just felt like each episode bled into the next, like just this long, dry movie. And when I say dry, like it just felt like it was filmed in the foothills right above Fresno. So basically it's like kung Fu. Yeah, basically kung Fu.

Yeah, probably more like kung Fu than MASH. I don't recall MASH being the same thing every episode. I'm going to kung Fu always felt call you off. On that because Mash is one of the best shows ever. For some reason, as a kid, Mash always bored me.

I know it's going to anger a lot of people listening to this. But yeah, you're too young. It was above your head. It's a very air udite show. And that's definitely I've never been aerodyte.

I watched that, we watched Mash. We watched Mash religious. I would watch kung Fu, but I would always be kind. Of bored by it. Yeah, kung Fu was boring as hell.

Yeah, if I go back to it now, I might get something out of it. But at the time I was like, this is not kung Fu theater at all. Yeah, it's just an old guy wandering around, wandering around. That's kind of the issue with Planet of the Apes too. And he didn't even turn into the pulk, which shows about you know, you would think something good would happen, and nothing ever happened.

He might be allowed some kung Fu moves every now and then, but Bruce Banner was much better than that. Yeah, for sure. I have a lot of strong memories of the Planet of the Apes television show and the cartoon to the short lived cartoon, I have distinct memories of too, But I never you know, we've talked about this before ready, But I never got to handle any Planet of the Apes toys, Migo toys. I never got to see them, aside from running into them occasionally on some shelf somewhere. Never at a friend's house or anything like that.

I encountered them on the shelves at like Arthur's. Yeah, as a pretty young kid, I you know, five six, and even by then they were pretty old. They had already been out for four or five years by that point, I think. But yeah, I never had them. Friends never had them.

There was just like, like I said, that one vague memory of having one at my house for a couple days and then it was gone. I'm pretty sure that my mom's friend brought our kid over and then they ended up taking it back or something, so are you. I know it was cool though I talked about this on that episode, But other than seeing them at a long strugs, none of. My friends had them. I never experienced them until I bought them on eBay, yeah, fifteen or whatever years ago.

Never held them in my hand until then. I know, Ronnie and elected the taller ones that came out in the late nineties, the bigger oh yeah, the bigger scale ones. Side show is that? Who did Maybe? I think it was Sideshow or Twins one of the sideshows, And they were pretty cool.

I mean, I liked those a lot, but they were still not the same as the ones I grew up with. Are the ones I grew up seeing. Never had them, Migo, right then, the Planet of the Apes action. Figure, the Planet of the Apes toys that I saw recently in the antique store somewhere that I almost got tempted to collect because they're just not very good. They're super wonky looking.

They look like bootleg toys. There's really strange. Are the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes toys. I've learned to appreciate them for being super weird, slightly disturbing in the proportions and everything. Like the Dick Tracy figures actually.

Like, yes, it's like the big Tracy Playmates figures. There's something really off about them. And I know you guys talked about this, I think on the last episode when you talked about Dune. I don't know if you guys talked about the figures. I think he did.

We did, Yeah, yeah, the figures those were the same to me. They were kind of like those really off not quite the Star Wars scale and not quite the Mego scale, and weird proportions and strange faces and always a little lucky to me too. The beast Ravan has a big smile right on his face. It's like such a weird design decision. Were those playmates too?

LJLJ ljn okay? And since that episode, I've been sort of monitoring eBay for some of them, but they're all pretty pricey, you know, forty five bucks a figure in not great shape. For some reason, they have become highly collectible, and that's too bad. Yeah, while back, I think I saw and I don't. Again, this is one of those stories where I don't know why I didn't get it, the fade Sting figure with the cat in the box, and it was it wasn't very much, and I was like, nahm.

Just four years ago at the Old Town CLOBs open market, somebody was selling a sandworm for forty I was like, that's expensive. I'm not going to get this sandroom for forty dollars now. It's at least five hundred bucks two hundred and five hundred dollars everywhere else now for some reason. But if you can't afford it at the time, I mean, what are you supposed to do? You know, look ahead and go, oh, well in five years this is going to be two hundred dollars, so I should spend everything in my wallet right now.

Yeah, I don't operate that way. Regret is pointless, right, Regret is pointless. Sometimes I look back and I'm like, oh man, darn it, I do that all the time now at theaters and drive ends everywhere. Check your local newspaper for listing. So that's it, unless unless Jeff, we haven't even talked about this as an option.

Usually on Cambridge and with Seawan we talk about local locales. Maybe you have a local locale you'd like to talk about. Man, we covered so many of them already. We covered Arthur's, we covered Zodi's, we covered gen coo oh, that's true. Zodi's is new to the conversations.

I know if you remember Zodie's. Was that around when you were little? I don't remember Zodie's now okay? Yeah. It was like Barstone and Blackstone where the Food Max is now okay, And right next to it was the Festival Theater, which is like oh, which was like car Lot.

It's like Carlot now. I have so many good memories of Festival cinemas. Festival Cinema is my local locale. That's where I saw the original Star Wars as a kid twice. That's where I saw Empire when it came out.

Yeah, the shandeliers and the carpet and I can still see it all in my head. That's my local local. The last movie I saw at Festival Cinemas was ed Wood. Oh wow. Before that, the last movie that I had seen at Festival Cinemas was I regret it.

It was Godfather three. What a whole experience that was. I can't remember the last movie I saw there. That was a long time ago. I saw a Laddin there.

Interesting when it came out, and that was what ninety ninety one, ninety two something like that. Edwood must have been about that time period too, ninety two ninety three maybe maybe, And then early two thousand maybe two thousand and two thousand and one, they gutted it, they sold it off, it closed its doors, and my friend Quinn got one of the chandeliers. Oh that's awesome. That's awesome. I hope he still has it, Quinn, if you're listening, I hope you still have that Festival Cinema's chandelier.

For a while, we had an art studio downtown that we shared and it was there in that space, just hanging out. That's so cool. Those chandeliers were epic, right, Oh yeah, they were like medieval chandeliers, totally brutal chandeliers. Yeah, Spanish Gothic revival. That's a good local locale.

I missed that theater immensely. Yeah, I do too. Out of all the theaters I probably ended up there the most. Would either be at that or the drive in theater, either the sunny side or the woodward or we would go to that UA that was over by, right next to Arthur's, and so we would go look at toys waiting for our movie to start, go watch the movie afterwards, wait for our parents to pick us up. We would go back into Arthur's, look around some more, or catch a bus or whatever.

I think we went to Speedy Esapatas, the Mexican place that's still there. Yeah, you're still there. Get some tacos there or something, and hang out and wait for the parents to come pick us up. Yeah. I was over in that area a lot as a kid.

I have such good memories of the movie theaters right there. There were three little triangle of two UA's and the that's right festival. There was that other one that became like the motorcycle place for a while, and I think it's like a furniture store now. Yeah, it was hobby lobby, not hobby Lobby, but it was HobbyTown or whatever, right, Yeah, for a good while. I would take Cleo there.

Right that very spot was the little tiny ua that I saw Angel Hart and our. Fly aut oh yeah, oh yeah. And across the street was Chuck E Cheese. I believe it became oh yeah. Chuck E Cheese was right where Trader Trader Joe's.

Yeah, Chuck Cheese. Chuck E Cheese was where warehouse and Trader Joe's have been. That's right, that's right. Yeah. Later on in then I worked at that warehouse for a while.

I was trying to remember when I was working there, it was this Chuck E Cheese or was it next door? And I think you're right. I think it was like Trader Joe's area Tuesday morning, Trader Joe's Auto Ze Auto Auto. That's right, yeah yeah. That Chuck E Cheese was epic to me as a kid.

Never went and you never got to go, Mark, Nope, never went. It was so cool. Chuck E Cheese used to be this dank, dark, weird, exciting place until they revamped it as this bright, big open thing. I remember you go into a little room and then there would be this band playing. You go into this other room and then you had the characters in their little frames that would pop out of the wall and stuff.

Mechanical rat casino. Yeah, exactly, Like there's a meme about that mechanical rat casino or something like totally totally, but we dug it. I mean it was cool like Vegas for kids. When I was in IG eighty eight, Matt and I were planning this reunion show. I think you performed reunion show, Jeff as Lord Drachias maybe so.

Yeah, we were planning this reunion show. We had to find a place to practice. We borrowed the practice space of Circus Bogus. Oh yeah, and they were basically retired by this point too. But when we went in there to practice, oh my god, that they had so many cool things in there.

It was a disgusting place. Yeah, talk about a rat palace. Oh yeah, but they did have the purple pizza eater and e tronic in the corner of that spot from the gutted Chuck E Cheese. I just love being in the room with that thing. That was crazy.

I think you guys have talked about pizza and pipes before as well. Yeah, that was my Chuck E cheese. We went to Pizza and Pipes probably more than we went to Chuck E Cheese because Chuck E Cheese was pretty expensive because you had to pay for all of it. Right, Pizza and pipes was more like round table or something. But you did get the cool spinning wheel.

It was just like a color wheel, I want to say. It had like astrological signs on it and like space and stuff. Do you recall any of that? Do you remember anything that strikes the chord for me? I remember something like that.

Yeah. It was really like crude basic special effects on the wall and then they would show like old movies and stuff too. Yep, that was a good experience. Right across the street from Jemco, right. Across the street from Jencoby.

Right, Well, that's great. We like threw in ten local locales right there at the end. I've been saving it up for like two years. I love it. I love it.

Jeff, Thank you so much for joining us. It's been so much fun. My pleasure. Thanks for having me man, Thanks for having me you guys. Good to see you guys.

It makes me excited for the next HP Brown Sauce hangout trip that will take soon. So it needs to happen soon. And it was good seeing you Mark, I haven't seen you in a while. Yeah, it's been good years. Yeah, years.

And if I find that Shogun comic book, I will get it to you. Hey, cool, cool, Thanks for coming, and thank you. Thanks for listening to the show. Being a loyal listener. Jeff's always the first person to listen to an episode, I think.

I think, so as soon as I know it drops, I put it on. I'm at work. I just put it on into my work and listen to it. And there you go yell at it and respond to it. And you guys can't hear me, like, I know that place, No, it was this place, It was this way.

I don't remember a toys r us in the mall. Yeah we're talking about you're lying. You guys both be like, what was the name of that? What was that place? And I mean, it's this, it's this.

But yeah, thanks for having me on our pleasure and this is a fun conversation. Remember folks, until we meet again, have fun, stay weird, and keep collecting. Right now, Well, I m no good. Cambridge. M Shawn is a weirding Way media podcast.

Bye me go, sh