250: As if we were Darwin

Due to the fact that our previous employer, the mall-based video store, was replaced by an overpriced clothing store, this series of episodes is dedicated to the memory of the fallen video store. Specifically the one in our cheesy mall and all the weirdos that used to shop there. And the fact that the store sort of dug its own grave along the way. Anyway, rest in peace, Suncoast. It's showtime.

The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I am Brian.

And once again we have the trio of terror here. We're back for more movie store flashbacks. We have Patrick once again. Hello, world. And Dave.

You really like that Fat Albert movie? Is that what you're saying? I kind of enjoyed the Fat Albert movie that I didn't see. You know, Kenan, I like Kenan. I'm not going to pretend.

I don't know about in that specific movie, but in general, Kenan's pretty funny. Greetings, carnival robes. Step right up and meet the freaks. that hasn't been said all right so we're getting back into the uh the final three the yeah we've we've hit a lot of different characters uh as time's gone on but i guess we've narrowed it down to the big three i mean i don't know some of them may not be up to speed i don't know about this first one but When we get to the top, we're going to... I'd say, do we want to go with Captain Obvious as number three? Captain Obvious can be number three.

It seems fitting. Two's just so memorable. It's almost like they're a tie. It's not even that he's that much better. It's just such a better story.

I think at first, before we really solidified names, I think I used to get them kind of mixed up. Because they were both a little clueless. But this guy... What sealed it to me, like the memory for me that made this guy definitely Captain Obvious is he literally walked up to me. He had a DVD in his hand, and it was like Scooby-Doo and the Adventures of the Mummy or something.

A classic, sure. It is in his hand. Like he's holding it, and he comes up to me and is like, do you have Scooby-Doo? And the adventures with the mummy. I literally reached over, took it out of his hand.

Plucked. Plucked from his grip. Put it back in his hand and said, there you go. And he's like, awesome. Man, you're the best, man.

Customer service is an A +. He walked away so happy. And I was like, dude. I'm like looking for the camera. I'm like, did that just happen?

Okay, also, he was old. I mean, not old, old. I mean, he was young, but he was old enough. Yeah, he was 12. This was not a kid.

I mean, he is a grown-up. He drove himself there, probably. He probably put his own clothes on. He put them on better than that one guy. Than Mike.

From weeks ago. If he wore a hat, I think it would have been straight. Maybe. Maybe. Hello, everybody.

Kevin Obvious. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, he. Yeah. Did he have a cape?

He should have. No, he was busy wearing his Dragon Ball Z shirt. No, is it him or number two that their voice sounded like they were yelling but from really far away? I think it's number two. Okay, number two.

As I remember. The hype. Squeaky thing yes yes i want to get i want to get everybody to try to impersonate how they heard it what do we have any more stories about number three because you you guys remember more than i do i remembered him by name but i don't think i even had any run-ins specifically it was just amazingly inbred and that's about the end of the book he. Just always came up and just just told you I mean, it's just your cliche captain and obvious guy just always came in and just told you stuff. It's like, yeah, thanks.

I knew that. Or, you know, yeah, you're right. You know, I guess it's one of those things where like. He stands out just because working at a place like that, you dealt with him so much. You're like, oh, my God, here he is again.

You know, if it was anybody else, we'd be like, all right, random idiot, whatever. Yanking on the gate before we open. Yeah, but when you're doing 40 hours a week and you get him once or twice a week, you're like, oh, my gosh. You're killing me. Here we go again.

Yes, I know, Tomb Raider is based on a video game. Yes, thank you. They didn't get her boobs exactly right, but would you like a disc doctor? Well, that's the other thing that they don't realize is we're pitching all this stupid stuff to people. We're like, hey, you want Entertainment Weekly?

Hey, you want Netflix? And I'm like, we also deal with the same people over and over again. There's only so many times you can ask this same person if they want to subscribe and be scammed by Entertainment Weekly. Because it was kind of a scam. I kind of forgot that until you brought it up.

Not only were we pushing this free trial nonsense, which is whatever, but Like they were billing people's cards and they didn't know about it. And I'm like, that's a scam. Like, I don't know. I mean, it's like some super fine print somewhere that says it's okay that we keep adding this to your credit card. The shift in sort of pitch happened where like at first they were like, you know, yeah, whatever.

You tell them everything. You tell them everything before you sign it. And then it switched to, well, tell them that they get the three months free. get them to fill it out and as you're giving them their like confirmation and be like now you know after three months you're gonna get you know you're gonna have to if you don't like it you're gonna have to go on there and essentially like refuse. It and and fight with them sometimes like some people came back with stories like i was on the phone with them for an hour just trying to get this thing to not happen anymore like they were still charging me so i'm just like after that i was like i don't want to push them on anybody anymore so it was it. Was very shifty very shady.

But i do remember that was like semi legit with the company like they really did say okay sell it to them first and then later give them the details of how they're about to get scammed save the hook yeah i was just like well i don't feel comfortable with that but minis a time. You know and it was so hard to get those that was one of those ones that like It was as bad as Dish Network. Oh, gosh. If we got any of those. I sold one once, and the dude walked in.

It shot me through the roof for the store. He walked in specifically for that? He walked in. I had that happen, too. No, what was weird is I think I did.

It was just random. He said something about it or something. I was like, oh, yeah, that. He was like, yeah? Tell me about it.

I walked over there, and I went, well, and I'm reading the stuff off the display because I don't know anything about it. I don't have Dish Network. So I'm just like, yeah, and you get this and this. And, like, he's like, okay. Didn't fight me.

Didn't want more details. Just, like, signed up. Yeah, like, do you want to think about it? Didn't buy it? Yeah, I kind of felt like I need to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not rush into anything.

I'm going to get some EWs, too. Do you have any batteries? What are you, crazy? So, yeah, I think that's the only one I ever sold, and I didn't really do anything. So that was kind of fun.

I remember there was one Christmas seasonal. that we had that training slipped through the cracks. Because at the end of the day, you know, I'm whatever, getting everyone's info together, their cards and whatever, to like write down everyone's points. And this guy has 45 entertainment weeklies. 45. And I'm like, dude, what are you saying?

What are you doing? And he's like, well, I told him it's three free months in a magazine. And. And what? Oh, my God.

We're in the lot. I remember telling Deanne, I was like, in three months, we're about to get. bombed with phone calls because there's gonna be a lot of people pissed that their card is about to get charged like that dude was just giving them out three free months three. Months well and it wasn't that's the thing it wasn't like it was cheap either like a monthly magazine it's like 12 bucks a year remember it was retroactive yeah it came back and then charged you for those three free months so you weren't actually getting anything free It came back and charged you for those three months. Weekly is expensive, too. Those things were not cheap, but when it was weekly, it became a fortune.

I'm just, oh, man. What a bad idea. This episode not sponsored by Entertainment Weekly. Go to joeblo.com. That's J-O-B-L-O dot com.

As soon as he sends the check, I'll throw that right through. Do we want to move on to number two? Number two. Drum roll, please. Patrick's favorite person ever, and I specifically remember him because I remember your version of him more than him.

I remember him coming in, but he became legend because of your take on him. Ivanhoe. The legend of Ivanhoe. Ladies and gentlemen, Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe.

What stories do we have about Ivanhoe? I guess we should explain why he's called Ivanhoe. It looked like he was yelling from the back of a distant mountain, but he was three inches away from your face. Hi, everybody. The hardest thing to me about...

Him was not smiling. Because he tucked his dress shirt into his blue jeans or not? What, you're not supposed to do that? His voice. Hold on, let me pull my shirt out.

Because it wasn't even the way he spoke because he had a very unique way of articulating himself. It wasn't even the tone. It was.... He. It was very like Controlled and monotone, and yet metered in a weird way, too?

David is facepalmed right now. And that might even be a double facepalm. You know, he earned facepalm. Like I said, we've established that he had this really high-pitched, weird way of speaking, which was obviously the way his voice sounded. His demeanor was so.

Flat. Flat, yeah, just plain. Like a wall. Like a wall. Nothing.

It was almost a little comatose. Like he was a Korean businessman. It was like he was very serious. He was almost mature in a way. Like, you know, yeah.

He carried his shirt. Very proper. Dressed kind of like a golfer. Yeah. You know, you didn't expect it.

And then the voice. You spoke, you know, oh. You just want to laugh. You know, it was like backlash. You're like, oh my gosh, dude.

Is this for real? You really sound like that? Is this real life? I don't think so. But on top of all of that, The way he spoke was just, it was so hard not to smile.

The combination of his voice and the words. He came up to me once wanting He-Man. Like you do. Well, that's the other thing. That's why he was Ivano.

Everything he wanted, every movie he wanted, had to do with someone with a big sword. It was Conan. It was Excalibur. It was He-Man. So was this the Masters of the Universe movie?

Yeah. Okay, not the animated series. But the way he asked for it, he was one of those people that would speak in a way almost as if he was reading the box. He did, actually. Is this where he described it and didn't have a name?

This is the one where he goes... I'm looking for a movie about a man who wields a sword like no other. I had to turn around and die. I turned around and died. I don't know how you kept eye contact.

I'm just biting down, trying not to smile. I'm like, can you be more specific? He's the master of the universe. Oh, my God. It was like, and I can hear you like chuckling behind me.

Dying. On the other side of a metal rack that doesn't control the sound anymore. She's giggling. Oh, my God, that voice. Just the combination.

He's wearing muscularity. He's wearing leg next to nothing, and he has the sword. And he would, you know, you would answer the question and be like, you know, sorry, man, we don't got that one. And he would go on to tell you about that. More about the movie.

More about the movie we don't have. In this voice and in this way that is just like... Because I've always been in love with Dolph Lundgren. Yeah. I thought London was coming back though and then Patrick would pop out and take a picture of him and this is the best out of focus shot we have.

He's so lightly looking you can almost see him in plate mail you can almost see him. In plate mail I bet on the weekends right now he probably is wearing it he's so large he's the king when you get in the end would you say he's mightier than any other why do you have to take it there because that's how we. Roll just so many times where like you know he'd come in there'd be two or three of us around and it's almost like throwing someone to the wolves someone would go and deal with them and other people would be eavesdropping because you want to hear it but you don't want to have to try to keep a straight face so you're like hiding behind a fixture like cackling into your shoulder or whatever watching someone else like try to keep a straight face talking to him.

Well was there a specific time that got him the name Ivanhoe? I mean, I assume he had to be looking for that, too, at some point. I want to say Patrick coined it. Well, that sounds like something jerky Patrick would say. Like I said, at every different point, it was always some kind of knightly sword building kind of movie.

So I just assume he had asked Patrick for Ivanhoe at some point or something. It is how many people get their name in our little Seinfeldian world where we've given them all ridiculous names. Oh, man. That voice. How's that going?

Man, Patrick's the one that can nail it. Patrick needs to do the impressions. He needs to get back here. Patrick's wandered off. Yeah, that Masters of the Universe.

Man, that was rough. You know, I've been through a lot of awkward situations in customer service, but it's easily that kid. And you know, the thing is, honestly, laughing at him, it wouldn't have been awkward. I don't think he would have complained. I don't know that he would have gotten it, really.

He wouldn't have known. But I would have felt bad. I remember getting yelled at because I would aggie him on so he would talk more. Oh, no, I know you did. You did that with everybody.

I was brutal to him. Star Wars, I've never seen it. Tell me about it. Can you tell me the whole story? How did you remember?

Like, how does a long, long time ago. It's his father the whole time? Spoiler alert. A long, long time ago... The red is all around.

It's my father's family. Oh, no! I can't believe that he's his father because it's a contrast between good and evil. You know, you did. Have that kind of book smart way of speaking.

Yeah! It was almost like he was a Stephen Hawking. I think he might have been. He might have been a savant. Like, really, really intelligent on the inside.

Completely retarded on the outside. Just completely retarded. Like another one of those, Mommy's going to drop you off at the mall. I'll be back in eight hours. I'll go over and say chi-chi.

You and me both, Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe! That was what I was just asking. Is there a specific time that he asked for that that got him that title? Because we thought you came up with Ivanhoe.

You know, that's a good question. I think that that was probably just a random... I needed a difficult name. It was either Gilgamesh or Ivanhoe. And Ivanhoe fit real well.

Gilgamesh was like... I think Gilgamesh was a person that came in once or twice, and they were about to get upgraded to fanboy status, and they never came in again. And so it's like you can't have a legend if it doesn't happen. Yeah, we can't tell your story now if you wander off. How can we make fun of you years and years later?

How sad is it that we're doing this, maybe? Wasn't there more than one? Wasn't there like three of them or something? And he was always asking if there was more. Or no, yeah, that was the thing he did.

That was his common rant. And it was... kind of like what you said with the coffee guy, where he would tell you the same story over and over. He would tell me why they should do more. Like he would always be, you know, just would go on and, you know, how great they are and how amazing it is, you know, and. there's people out there that would watch it again and they should really do it and they could totally do it. Maybe if he can convince you that you with your magic.

You're what's holding it back. Speaking of that, tree branching on that, do you remember the guy that thought we made the DVDs in the back room and wanted us to make one without special features or something? Do you think we fucking produced these? He thought that we made them in the back room and wanted it and got mad about it. This is the guy who thinks that there's actually a stork.

Wait, there isn't? That's how I was told. And dammit, the internet has not proven me wrong with all those videos. It's taken. Us all the way to number one.

Story after story. I think number one's such a big thing, we better take a break and come back for number one. I got back up and knocked my daughter to the floor. Suddenly, I told my daughter to get his simple ass up. I told him to get the hell out of my face before I bust his head.

I rubbed my daughter's ass. I rubbed my daughter's ass. I rubbed my daughter's ass. I rubbed my daughter's ass. Rock over London, rock over Chicago.

Quill, the center of the best. Now it's time for ice cream. Or maybe some nuts. A cool glass of orange. Why not try a hot dog?

Or the real thing, a cool, refreshing Coca-Cola. From the sales staff and in the foyer, now. At the far end of the universe, there is a planet ruled by a being of utter evil. And there is only one man who dares challenge him. They are locked in a battle to the death.

A battle that will take them across the heavens. Stop him! A battle that will finally be fought. I want them locked down and brought to me! Across the face.

Police! Nobody move! Of Earth. No! Julie!

From a distant galaxy, they have come to Earth. Dolph Lundgren as He-Man. Frank Langella as Skeletor. Only they have the powers to be Masters of the Universe. Live the adventure.

Hey guys, look what I've got. Check out these awesome earbuds I'm using right now. Look at that. That's wood right there. That's actual wood.

Why would you use wood to make technology? Because it's like they're steampunk. Is steampunk really wood? I thought it was more of a brass thing. Well, you got to work the wood in to hold the brass together.

These are the fancy high-end steampunk versions with a mic built in, mind you. But yeah, where would I get these you under? Tweaked audio. Way to pitch. You want to hear more, you say?

Tweakedaudio.com. Hey, they are available in three styles and seven colors, and they sound pretty damn good. I kind of forgot because I hadn't had my old pair in a while, and I was using the knockoff crappy ones I bought at the store. And I got these and put them in. I was like, oh, shit, that's right.

These are actually really good. So they are professional. Quality earbuds, mind you. And, you know, noise reducing, compatible with your iPods and Most phones, unless you have a dumb phone. You should really get a smart phone, not a dumb phone.

So anyway, the basic rundown here. If you need yourself some earbuds, tweakedaudio.com. And if you go there, there's a deal. There's a Meltdown deal. If you go, there's a discount code, and you put in Meltdown, you get 33% off and free shipping.

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U8it is going wild on the internet. It's blowing up. It's the squared circle of knowledge. U8itpodcast. Com makes it easy to stream.

You can start an argument. In the comments. I'd rather send a nasty email to U8it at gmail.com. I'm going to tweet at U8it and yell. You can even subscribe on iTunes and Stitcher.

Make sure to like the Facebook page. Leave a good review or we'll hurt you. Tell a friend about the show. Yeah. Awesome.

Yeah. That's Y-O-U-E-I-G-H-T-I-G. You ain't it. Education has never been so wild. Shit the bed.

Howdy, folks. Come on in. From the looks of them fancy britches and sassy little hairdos, y'all ain't from around here, are ya? This is Sid Hagan, you're fucking around with Movie Meltdown. Why don't you just take your mama home some chicken, and then I won't have to stuff my boot all up.

In your ass. What's part of your problem, you know? You haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are. Answered in the movies.

Now, on with the show. Birdman caught me on his property. He saw me trespassing his real estate. He reached in his pocket for a pistol. He came after me and pistol whipped my behind.

Birdman kicked my ass. Birdman kicked my ass. Birdman kicked my ass. Birdman kicked my ass. Birdman beat me to a pulp.

He gave me a yell-down warhead right. He told me that he was going to kill me if I don't get off his real estate. He gave me five minutes to get in my Bronco and hit the rookie road. Birdman kicked my ass. Birdman kicked my ass.

Birdman kicked my ass. Birdman kicked my ass. Too bad we didn't have cell phones back then. Man, I would have definitely, like, stole some audio. Put the record on.

Got Ivanhoe all over. My cell phone. That's the thing. Now there's just so much potential. Right.

I mean, we could just have, like, a whole, like, YouTube channel going of these people, really. I mean, think about it. There wasn't even really cell phones then, was there? I mean. Wasn't the perfume girl on the cordless?

Yeah, she was on a cordless. She wasn't walking around on a cell phone or anything. No, do you remember? I think Patrick was there. Actually, I think it was me, you, and John.

I think we were sitting around, whatever, BSing. And I think we were griping about cell phones. Now that I think about it. Probably. Because at the time, anyone that had one was constantly like.

Oh, give me my cell phone all the time. And I think there was a time it was me, you, and John standing there just whatever, just kind of talking shit about everybody in the store like we do. And this kid walked in, you know, talking on his cell phone. You know, one of us made some snotty comment, you know, look at this juice bag. And as he's walking around talking on his cell phone, the cell phone rings.

Nice. To where, like, it busts him out for knowing he wasn't actually on it. He was trying to look like he was on it. And we all start cackling. It's obvious we just watched this go down.

And he, like, speedwalks out of the store. What a douchebag. And we were like, oh, my gosh. We totally just saw that dude faking conversation on his cell phone. That's awesome.

I want to say it was even his mom, too. It was like, yes, mom, yeah, uh-huh, okay. I'm sure. It's weird how things happen almost on cue. Like, I remember another time I want to say that we were making fun of, because, again, you know, cell phone technology was new.

And when cell phone rings were starting to happen, it wasn't even like the music yet. You just kind of get it to ring like something. I remember we were kind of like, you know, talking smack about that too. It's like, oh, you know, whatever. My phone rings like whatever.

And almost on cue, this guy is in the store and his cell phone goes off and it's so fresh and so clean. And we just start cackling because we're just like, here we are like you know joking about cell phone rings and this guy just busts out some so fresh and so clean on his cell phone. Not near as cool when i had check your tail feathers and it was like the digitized version and it was funny like i originally got it wrong because they sent the wrong like it was like you had to put in whatever code and like this and i'm like what the And then I was like, oh, I'm leaving that. I was like, that is awesomely bad. And it was...

Just like, that is so terrible. That is Stan Mustang Tom. So, shake your tail, Feathers. Nice. See ya, number one.

I think you called it with the Wesley Willis. So you've heard the intro there. I think we decided that's sort of the key to this... the character of this so. I mean number one is probably like my culmination of all of my fun we ever yeah probably like I would get out of school because I was in high school at the time I get out of school and it's like I get out at three or whatever and it's like gotta be at the mall at 445 and I'm like god fuck shit cock I really don't want to go to the mall my job sucks I don't get paid anything. And the security is on my ass.

But what if what if number one walks in and I'm not there So it's worth it. The only thing that I can do to really help people in TV land or radio land or internet land, to help them understand what he looked like, what he sounded like, everything about him, I would ask you to open your browser and Google Wesley Willis. And maybe even one of his hit singles, Birdman Kicked My Ass. Because it pretty much sums up number one. If it was not him, I would be surprised.

He has a song about McDonald's, too, though, right? He has a song about McDonald's. Wasn't that the ironic part? He has a song about McDonald's, also. So the best part about this guy is he worked at McDonald's across the street.

Well, he would be entitled because of that. McDonald's Man is how we, in our very creative titling of people, number one, McDonald's Man. I always voted for Big Mac, but we had Big Mama. That's true. You did, yeah.

Occasionally he went with Big Mac. But McDonald's Man became sort of the shorthand. So I guess he kind of started off, and you all interject with your own stories at any time, but I guess he kind of started off as you would come in and you'd be like, you wouldn't notice him, but you'd notice this guy comes in often. dressed in McDonald's gear. He probably comes, probably gets off the bus on this side of the street, has a few minutes to kill, loves movies. Who doesn't?

Then he started being a little strange. Such as, you know, sitting like the Klingons. On the floor. On the floor. In the middle of the aisle.

And then laying. And then laying. And reading the backstories. On his back. On his back.

Like, completely laid out. On our nasty carpet. That we only occasionally vacuumed like we were supposed to. I never. I mean, I acted like I vacuumed it.

I never. And even then, I mean, you can vacuum all you want. But think about that carpet that has had a million people from the mall walking on and out of it. And he's laying on it. Sparrows grease.

Well, that too. Then we noticed that he was laying there. He had trinkets. He had toys. Mostly little mirrors that looked like he pulled them off the sides of cars and golf carts.

And he would just hold them up in the air. We started getting more interested and we would stay on one side of the A-frame while he was laying on the other. We noticed he was mumbling to himself. Like you do. Often talking to his hands or to imaginary people.

I told you at the time I'm walking down the street, right? Yeah. Not to interrupt. Yeah, no. I was coming into work.

Like I'm driving down, you know, whatever, Shelbyville Road. And I see him from a distance walking down the road, like on the side of the road. And I'm like, oh, my God, it's McDonald's, man. And he's swinging his arms real enthusiastically. And then I realized that one hand on the upswing, he would like– turn his hand to face himself and it's almost like imagine if he had a sock puppet on like he would like almost like make his hand like you know do like the talking motion if there was a sock puppet on it and so i realized his mouth is moving as he's walking down the road and at this hyper swing is him bringing his hand up to like talk to him he is talking to his hand walking down the street OMG.

Oh, and he did this in the store. And he would talk to the covers of movies, the backs of movies, the floor. Then we began to... I often think of us as if we were Darwin, you know, just at a different place at a different time, exploring new species and documenting the things that they did, the ways that they lived. Yeah, that's actually pretty accurate.

I feel that way in my time at the movie store. Oh, yeah, we started talking to him. We started, how you doing? You start at a distance with the binoculars, and then eventually you try to see if you can integrate into their society. It's kind of like putting the.

Reese's Pieces on the floor and stuff, too. You know, it's like, Reese's Pieces? Because, I mean, we got to know him. You got to know him pretty well. He felt very comfortable sharing a lot of what I would consider to be intimate information with us.

With you. It was kind of like there were three really good times, and they kind of escalated. Here's the visual for you two. Oh, wow. There he is captured in front of the...

Glasses off. Glasses off. What's the movie in the background, actually? Ali. Ali.

That's our time period. The Will Smith Ali is in the poster in the background here. And I'm also noticing... That three pack of blank tape right up front. I bet you suggest that one.

And the other thing I noticed is look at this giant freaking monitor on our POS system. The POS DOS prompt. That thing is huge. It was so outdated even at the time, which makes it like a piece of caveman artifact. Now I know that I have at least one of these stories on video.

And I know that, I think I know which one it is. So I'm going to start with the one. You're talking about. The Oaks, wasn't it? Yeah.

Did you talk about the Oaks with them? So the one before that was just like kind of to get to knowing. And I commented on his reflective friend, the toy mirror that he carried around. His crushed sand. I don't remember the exact way that he put it, but it somehow protected him from the evil or he could see magical things.

You know, he was a special character. And that's what kind of that instance right there made me fall in love with him. So one day, he's laying on the ground, and he seems to be in a pretty good mood. So, and it was around Derby, you know, it's spring in Kentucky, a beautiful time period. Does this one involve the mirror?

I can't even. Before we leave the mirror, then that would explain, because I saw this earlier today, and I was like, what the hell? I guess I forgot the mirror story because he's holding the mirror in his photo. If he held it right there, it had a magical power, and I can't remember what it was, but I want to say it protected him from the evil spirit. He is striking a pose, if you will, and holding this little mirror.

So once again, I'll protect his identity and post some version of that on the Facebook page. You better join us up on the old Facebook. You got it on Facebook. So it was early spring in lovely Kentucky, the bluegrass state. When I.

When I ventured up to say hello to him and strike up conversation, and he was in rare form. So I asked him, you know. Well, he noticed that I was recording him on video, which I thought he was too dumb to do. You're stealing his soul. Yeah, well, this is why you don't take your enemy for granted.

Because he knew. And he's like, hey, man, what's that little red light? I'm like, oh, it just has a red light. I'm not recording you. And he bought it.

So I continued. And I don't remember exactly how I brought it up, but I think I was going to Oaks at this point. I asked him, you know, are you going to Oaks? And he's like, nah, man, why are you going? I'm like, well, you know, you get to see a lot of breasts in the infield.

It's a classy event. Tickle bitties. Tickle bitties. Which struck up a great conversation with him. He asked me directions to a motel in town, a motel down in PRP, and that's Pleasure Ridge Park for anybody living in that sad, sad part of town.

We're sorry. So I asked him, you know, why do you want to go down there? And he said that he knew a girl from work. who was going to let him copulate with her, perform fellatio, analinguist, you know, all the good stuff. Sure. And he asked me what I knew about and how to protect himself against AIDS, which.

I thought was a good question. I would ask somebody if I didn't know, but this is the kind of people that we're working with here. He was obviously filthy, and somebody was going to let him defile her. Supposedly. Supposedly.

And she even had AIDS to begin with, but he loved her breasts. And, you know, this is. Wait, wait, wait. He knew that she had AIDS? Yeah, he knew.

He knew straight up. So he's going into this, knowing that she has AIDS and wants to know how to. You can hear it in the audio while I'm talking to him. Nice. Nice.

But this is literally, like, towards the end, this is what kept me coming to Suncoast. This is what kept me hiding movies in the TV cabinet. Shh, don't give away your secrets. Can't let them know how I got. I wonder if I can still hide stuff there at the house.

It's gone. I'm actually really sorry. I'm really sad about that piece being missing. I'd throw some jeans in there. But I think, okay, so the culmination for him, and the last time that I ever had a sighting, you know, it's a lot like UFOs.

I was driving. Bigfoot, actually, more accurately. My car died. Time stopped. And I saw a McDonald's man.

The last time I saw him, he came in to tell us goodbye, basically, because he knew he wasn't coming back. And he let us know that he had been let go from McDonald's. And we asked why. And he said that he was mopping the floor, as he was told, when he began to have a flashback of being in the military, which I do not think that he was. I would hope not.

And he was in a special branch of the military, and I don't know what it's called, but it's the guard where they have the guns and they perform cute little tricks with them. They flip them around. Color guard? Color guard. There we go.

He was mopping the floor when he had this flashback, so I can only imagine that he was holding a wet mop and flipping it around, getting dirty fucking McDonald's floor water on patrons of McDonald's. If there's something more gross than our carpet, it's McDonald's floor. And I'm sure he was probably yelling out the Kegels, and I can see him on into it, stomping around. probably goose stepping i know what he's doing goose stepping. I love i love mcdonald's man and that makes me happy because this is why i don't go to mcdonald's i would expect to have this done to me and for anybody that was dumb enough to go there they deserve to have it done thank you mcdonald's man if you're out there if you can hear this i want you to know that you made my childhood.

Do you remember that he would um Usually, it seemed like it was fairly common that one of the first things he would do is ask for a paper towel. Because it almost felt like he was taking his breaks at our store. Because usually, he would clean his glasses. And by clean his glasses, I mean he would lick the bejesus. Out of his glasses.

He was making out to them. There was... yeah there was um there was juices and then he would use the paper towel you know that we give him to kind of clean it and um oh yeah oh yeah oh no shame about noises no whatever big mac whatever he inhaled you know minutes before putting that special sauce all over the glasses. I got some of that lettuce all over my limb. Do you remember him stretching? Do you remember sometimes he would.

Come in and stretch? I forgot it was. At least he was being healthy. It would be like jazzercise. I don't mean like, you know.

White people don't exercise. At least he was. Sometimes he'd lean on a wall and do your kind of like runner kind of stuff. But other times, didn't he do it in front of the store once? In front of the glass where he's like doing jumping jacks.

He is in the front of our store window in the McDonald's gear. Doing jumping jacks. Full on jumping jacks. You know, like squat thrusts. And I just, oh my gosh.

I saw him laying on the floor once. Again, like straight as a board on his back on the floor. Holding his mirror up, you know, so he could look at himself. Picking his hair. Oh, the hair picking.

He was like straightening his hair. The hair picking. In the mirror, like laying on the floor. On that note, something similar to that. And there he is.

Laying out on the floor. Arms crossed on his chest. Glasses to the side. Just like napping. He would always line up the movies as if they were the audience and he was the film.

He's certainly more entertaining than most of the movies we carried. So how about his Tourette's Syndrome? What crazy stuff did you guys hear come out of his mouth? He would yell some crazy shit. Do I have the best one then?

You probably have. The best one. I don't remember specifics. There was this one time I was ringing him up. Oh God, let me get this straight in my head.

It's so random. I don't... He's laid out on the floor in this shot, too. How did it go? Just out of nowhere.

I didn't ask him a question. Just out of nowhere, he goes, I didn't mean to call it a president, but it's just that I thought Miss Piggy was going to nuke Russia. Something just completely random like that. And I was like, hey, man, you know, I mean, sometimes you got to let someone know. You know.

If you see something, say something. You know. Don't ask, don't tell him. If he sees something, say something. I mean, just the stuff that would come out of his mouth, you're just like, oh my God, I don't know what to say back.

Like, I really don't know what to say back right now. Well, I mean, the best thing about him is this was that era of new technology when you just got your cyber shot. 3.2 megapixel. And you got, at least we have these photos. At least.

But of all these special characters, we've been talking about these many episodes now. This is the only one we have actual moving footage of. And thankfully, the thing is, by the way, that camera, the video quality doesn't quite hold up. It looks really bad. Good.

But the audio is just fine. This is like whenever somebody gets a video of a UFO on TV, it's like, quick, let's get the worst camera possible. The Hubble Space Telescope used the shittiest camera on it. So I believe there's two, and I think this is the first one. Do I even try to spin it around?

I mean, you can't tell what's going on almost, but let's see. I'm basically holding it in my pocket. At least we have some sort of audio captured of this special character. Here we go with McDonald's Man. Damn hands-on.

Hey, man, remember the other day when you asked me about trick things? Is that a ball you're more than. No, there's no volume. You sure? Yeah.

Where's the Trixie at? It doesn't, it takes, you have to go print them out at Walgreens. This kid went to Trixie's with me, man. Oh, you went there? Yeah.

Okay, what happened? Nothing big, man. What happened when you went? Um, there's punks in there, man. I told punks they can't come in there.

Did God bother? Yeah. Bad business for a whore town, man. Bad business for a whore town. Have you ever seen Pity's thing yet?

People got the AIDS and stuff. Is that a bag of McDonald's? What hotel is that? Best one down the street. Holiday Inn.

Oh, you're talking about Hershborn? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, give her. Do you ever whore yourself out? No, I'm going to get a chick's phone number.

We're going to. Go to a hotel or something. Remember what I was telling you. Yeah, you're a player, man. Yeah, you're a player.

Yeah. Oh, shit. Oh, God. I think I'm sweating. I think the giant button pinned on his sleeve.

Not even, like, facing forward. Off to the side. I think it's a big metal button. Like, that's... You want to know what that button's bad for?

It's bad business for Hotan. Bad business for Hotan. All right, so... Is that a bag of McDonald's? I, you know.

It's like he has a bag of something. I don't know if that's just, like, keep his stuff in. Is that his bag of mirrors? Might have been. See, now this one, this next one, you get to see a little more of his special... because I think this is the one where he's laying on the floor when you approach him at least this one he was upright that we just listened to but this next one he's laying on the floor when you approach him and as you start talking to him he starts gathering up and I look and he had change all over the floor so this is the as you mentioned this is the post-Oaks one if I'm correct and you get to talk about the lovely women you saw there we'll put it I was a very bad child.

Hey, man, can I talk to you for a minute? Hey, man, I went to Oaks yesterday. I got some news, man. What's the news? I got a lawsuit, man, for a Ford Motor Company in budget.

I was wondering if you were in there. Yeah. And they're going to help me get some money back for my right-of-way car. They're overcharging me right now. Wow, look at all that money.

Yeah, I'm in the change. For real? Yeah. I called a Ford Motor Company on their telephone. A Ford Motor Company?

Uh-huh. Yeah, I told him to send me a brochure. I asked him to help me get some of my money back. That's awesome, dude. What did you win?

I went to Oaks last night. Where was that at? Oaks, the derby. Oh, oh. Oh, man.

What happened? Oh, man. Bad, man. What do you think happened? I went to the track track.

Did you really? I bet everybody did. That's awesome. So did you win? Uh, it's not over.

Oh, yeah, that's right. That's so good, dude. That's so good. That's so good. And with that, he was gone.

I wasn't going to give you the moves for free I just gave you a little preview. You know I think equally as entertaining is like the much younger version of you carrying on with it. Being awful egging him on is equally as entertaining. Thank god Deanna never saw it yeah really and even more impressive is if there's one thing that our classy Kentucky Derby is known for it's it's pizza Nice choice, by the way. I probably just had two pieces of Sparrow.

I was like, yeah, every day. You left the mall with your Sparrow and took it to the Oaks. Guarantees? Yeah, that's what you're doing. Sparrow's a little jealous.

That double-stuffed flip-over pizza. That shit was crazy, yo. Didn't Big Mama meet once? Wasn't there a time that I think they were both at the counter at the same time and we both kind of sat back and watched them kind of converse? That's like a turco company kind of thing.

They should get that together for that new one. I mean. That's what they need. I'm telling you, it looks pretty awesome. I don't know.

Can you follow that? I think he says everything he needs to say about himself at this point. I don't think, yeah. That's why I wanted to put this together. I think we need to capture this ridiculous thing that we were involved in.

We need to document it. We need to catalog these weirdos so we can keep track of them. It's so surreal. People won't understand unless they do work customer service in one of these, like I said, it's like these niche things that have... If you just work at a fashion clothing store, yeah, there's people that really like fashion, but I don't see anyone in fashion being... particularly weird.

Maybe again like you're like little ladies that come in and want some weird thing but like yeah i don't see the weird like weird levels that you get when you get into the little like you touch. Things like movies and video games yeah. It's special to have the people that boil to the top. Well that's what i remember we talked about that like that's what dave uh the other dave dave c dave c that's what he'd said like he's just like they they exist in a different mind space and that's why they're almost always drawn to the movie places even worse than anything else because he'd worked like rental before and he'd like it's like it's the same type of people it wasn't the same people but it was like he would see the same kind of behavior and it's like they have such a weird disconnect with reality anyway that they're almost drawn to these other worlds and these other...

The suspension of disbelief is so intense that it. Never turns back on. So it's like they're drawn to it. They're in the movie still. So thank you, Misty Monday, for bringing these people out.

If you're out there in internet land... I hope she is. I want you to sign my copy of Mummy Raider. I'm sticking with Playmate of the Age. There was nothing like carding 16-year-olds to want to buy Girls Gone Wild.

It's like you can get such better pornography somewhere else. Well, especially now. You don't have to leave your house. I mean, why would you? This was, again, a little different era.

We worked in a magical time. You know, a time period before YouTube, before Google. Before cell phones. Before cell phones, yeah. Obviously, they were around, but they were just starting to be commonplace.

Only the rich could have them. Nobody bought from us. No. Except Coffee Fucker. Wow.

I hate that guy. Still has my home theater system. Oh i'm sure he's upgraded now i'm a motherfucker something new that would put you to 10 years. I got the sweet BenQ DLP home cinema. I got a 30 foot projection screen.

Just reduce you to tears. Shoot it on the back of the garage. He could have done construction or something. Like I want to, he just had, didn't he have like the yellow dirt? The air, the air of the construction work.

He was like, you know, a contractor or something for construction. I didn't even see him being that. No, he just seems like. I swear he invented the disc doctor. That might be it.

Cause yeah, he didn't seem like he was even like handy. He didn't seem, like I don't see him doing anything like real world like he just seemed like he loitered around all day like i don't i'm thinking yeah lawsuit i think he just got a big settlement never had to work again military i don't see him no i don't see him military either he didn't seem disciplined enough oh man So, I don't know. What have we learned from all this? Don't work retail. Or don't respect people that haven't worked retail.

That's a good one. Yeah, both of those, actually. Don't work retail. And if you've ever had to deal with somebody like this, it sort of puts your whole life in perspective. And you do have a little more respect for people who do that on a daily basis.

Don't go postal. It makes me look. At comedy different. Like, kind of like when I was kind of alluding earlier, like, You know, I feel like maybe when I was still in high school and stuff like that. Earlier, you mean weeks ago.

A long time ago. You know, if you watch, I don't know, like a Saturday Night Live skit or a movie, you know, something Jim Carrey-esque, something where someone's just being ridiculous and you're just like, oh, this is so over the top. And then you meet one in real life. Like, you really, that's what these people are. You meet one in real life where you're just like, this isn't real.

This isn't real life. People don't actually behave like this. And it's like, but they do. They do. Those people are actually out there.

And they probably like something really dorky like movies or video. Games or music. Sold the shells of a lost humanity, repeating the only thing their body knows how to do. Thank you, Dawn of the Dead. And somehow we get lost in the middle of a John Waters movie.

I love John Waters. That's what I'm saying. But some, like his crazy characters, sometimes you look at people like these we've been running through and it's like, that's not, that's not a joke. Like, it's slightly tweaked at best. Yeah, I mean, there's just, there's a lot of amazing people out there, most of which I don't know that I want to hang out with.

But when you view them, you know, much like a Bigfoot sighting, you're just like, oh my God, I can't believe that happened. Hopefully you got a witness. But before we wrap up, If anybody out there in internet land needs an Entertainment Weekly subscription. I've got actually at home I have a blank tape. I found it in my moving of stuff which I'm constantly doing.

I found it still sealed mind you. So if anybody needs a blank VHS tape I can hook you up. You need to put that in a time capsule. I get some points I think at work if I push it on somebody. Do you have anything that plays it?

Actually I think The one I have at home still functions. I still have my LaserDisc player. Oh, I still have my LaserDisc. It doesn't have an HDMI cable hookup, though, which is a shame. Did they even have S-Video?

No. I forget. That's what's so ironic. We have digital technology, but it's. Still on RF, wasn't it?

I had the Monster RF cable. Yeah. Wow. I've still got my LaserDisc hooked up. And the last time I tried that VHS, it actually worked.

Because I watched a movie on it. Old school. Good times. It's pretty sad. Alright, have we rounded this thing out?

For now, until we have some sort of new repressed memory surface, we think we've knocked out all of our at least collective freaks. We'll go in the back room and put that on the special features. There's still some other ones out there. I've got at least one more grouping from the other store that I need to get the appropriate people together to be able to recreate these stories, but think we've in these this series we've knocked out most of our it took weeks yeah it's it's a great undertaking to try to you know go through these characters it's it's a lot to deal with thank you for sharing that journey don't you feel like i've been ho now start talking the mightiest listener that ever was. We need to find a way to, like, auto-tune one of us to sound like Ivan Ho for the whole podcast.

I listen to your podcast, and if Chi-Chi's out there, I just. Want her to know I love her. Chi-Chi, give me a call. That's all I'm saying. He should just, he should do, like, film commentary.

Like, you don't even need Mystery Science Theater. Just, like, sit him down and be like, tell us about this. Like, play the movie with the volume down. Be like, tell us about what you see. I mean, just let him do like, oh, audiobooks.

He should do audiobooks. How great would that be? Audible, you need to get a hold of this guy. He could drive your stock through the roof. Oh, wow.

Alright, well, again, I think that rounds out this collection of freaks, but I'm sure we'll return with more somewhere down the line. If not, with other dorky movie talk. So with that, I believe that wraps it up. Otherwise, we will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed.

Thanks for listening. You poor bastards. McDonald's is a place to rock. It is a restaurant where they buy food to eat. It is a good place to listen to the music.

People flock here to get down to the rock music. Rock and roll McDonald's, rock and roll McDonald's, rock and roll McDonald's, rock and roll McDonald's. McDonald's will make you fat, they serve Big Macs, they serve Quarter Pounders, they will put pounds on. You Rock and roll McDonald's. Rock and roll McDonald's.

Rock and roll McDonald's. Rock and roll McDonald's. Thank you. Thank you. McDonald's hamburgers are the worst.

They are worse than Burger King. A Big Mac has 26 grams of fat. A Quarter Pounder has 28 grams of fat. Rock and roll McDonald's. Rock and roll McDonald's.

Rock and roll McDonald's. Rock and roll McDonald's. Rock over London. Rock on Chicago. I'm hot, too.

Why is it so hot in here? I think we started... I got warm as soon as we started talking about McDonald's. I think that's what it is. It just got y'all excited.

Again, you know, we were just snippy, snide people. I remember... Thank you, ma'am. Again, griping both cell phones. It might have been the same day.

And a family of four... Mom, dad, daughter, and son. Yes. I guess it was with you. All four of them were on their own cell phones.

Walking around the mall together, but all four of them were on their own cell phones. Meatloaf! Okay. Mom Meatloaf. Mom Meatloaf!

This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown. Produced and edited by The Oddity Studios. with opening music performed by the Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard!