#4431 Well I’ll Be Spranged

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live Episode: #4431 Well I’ll Be Spranged
Release Date: March 26, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh

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1. Opening Banter and Host Interactions

The episode kicks off with Andrew Walsh delivering a humorous and intricate variation of the classic "Fool me once" proverb, showcasing his playful banter with Luke Burbank.

Andrew Walsh (00:00): "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, twice as much shame on me..."

Luke responds succinctly, reinforcing the show's casual and friendly dynamic.

Luke Burbank (01:08): "TBTL."

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2. Adventures and Anecdotes

Andrew's Recent Travels: Andrew shares his recent trip to New Haven, Connecticut, where he visited the PEZ factory and visitor center. He recounts the challenges of traveling, including unusual Lyft rides and interactions with a particularly cranky Lyft driver who exhibited signs of mental distress.

Andrew Walsh (00:00 - 00:00): "I took the train, which involved... two weirdest Lyft rides I've had in a long time."

Luke's PEZ Factory Insights: Luke delves into his passion for collecting VHS tapes, particularly those capturing unique programming from the early 1990s. He discusses his efforts to digitize and upload PEZ commercials to their YouTube channel, highlighting the nostalgic appeal of these vintage ads.

Luke Burbank (04:21): "I was going through old VHS tapes... I upload all the commercials to our after these messages YouTube channel."

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3. Deep Dive into PEZ Candies

History and Evolution of PEZ: The hosts explore the origins of PEZ candies, tracing back to their inception in Austria by Edward Haas III. They discuss the company's transition from anti-smoking mints to a beloved children's confectionery by introducing character-themed dispensers.

Andrew Walsh (46:04): "The name PEZ comes from the German word for peppermint..."

PEZ Factory Tour: Andrew provides a detailed description of the PEZ manufacturing process in Orange, Connecticut. He marvels at the machinery used to produce the candies and the meticulous process of packaging them into dispensers.

Andrew Walsh (54:57): "It's like a pharmaceutical pill press machine that they've modified to make PEZ candies."

Collector’s Perspective: The conversation highlights the enthusiasm of PEZ collectors, mentioning large-scale conventions and the existence of rare and unique dispensers, such as those themed after the "Stand By Me" movie.

Andrew Walsh (70:17): "I worshiped it like an Easter Island head."

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4. Listener Contributions and Stories

Tribute to Sarah Settlemeyer: The hosts pay heartfelt tribute to Sarah Settlemeyer from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who recently lost her husband, Tim. They express their condolences and acknowledge how their show has provided comfort during her difficult year.

Danny (36:45): "Sarah says Tim and I. Tim was her husband... We love you both."

Anthony Krunk's Contribution: Anthony from Newark, Delaware, shares his humorous yet touching appreciation for the show, blending it with a playful reference to their show dynamics and listener engagement.

Danny (38:39): "We need TBTL and have John on a little more frequently..."

Barry Bonds Cycling Anecdote: Listener James from Oakland recounts his encounters with Barry Bonds while cycling in Marin County. He describes recognizing Bonds by his distinctive, high-end bike and witnessing him being pulled over for speeding.

James (73:20 - 73:12): "I knew that was Barry Bonds... then I saw him being pulled over for that speed trap."

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5. Pop Culture References and Humorous Exchanges

PEZ in Media: Andrew and Luke discuss the appearance of PEZ dispensers in movies, notably Daniel Craig's Queer and their integration into various pop culture scenarios, blending nostalgia with contemporary references.

Andrew Walsh (66:06): "They had a PEZ toy gun that was rented by the production company..."

Humorous Host Interactions: The episode is peppered with witty exchanges between Luke and Andrew, including playful teasing about PEZ conventions and the challenges of maintaining professionalism while indulging in their shared interests.

Luke Burbank (72:01): "I allow my half of the show from the PEZ convention?"

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6. Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement

The hosts encourage listeners to engage with the show by submitting voice memos and emails, fostering a sense of community and interaction. They wrap up the episode with well-wishes and a reminder to stay positive.

Andrew Walsh (79:24): "If you utilize that. Exactly. If you..."

Luke Burbank (79:37): "And good luck to all. Power out."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Andrew Walsh (00:00): "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me..."
• Danny (36:45): "Sarah says Tim and I. Tim was her husband... We love you both."
• James (Listener) (73:20): "I knew that was Barry Bonds... then I saw him being pulled over for that speed trap."
• Andrew Walsh (46:04): "The name PEZ comes from the German word for peppermint..."
• Luke Burbank (72:37): "I want to hear more about that."

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Conclusion

In this episode of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live, Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh blend humor, nostalgia, and personal anecdotes to explore their adventures, particularly focusing on the whimsical world of PEZ candies. Through engaging storytelling and heartfelt listener tributes, the hosts create a rich and entertaining narrative that resonates with both longtime fans and new listeners alike.

Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, twice as much shame on me. I cannot believe I allowed you to fool me again. Definitely learned from the first time not to be fooled. Fool me four times, shame back on you. Actually, you are picking on a vulnerable man. Something has obviously gone wrong with me. Fool me five times, shame on me again. I mean, there's. I'm vulnerable, but at some point, you have to take some personal responsibility. For crying out loud. Fool me six times. And I have lured you into my trap, pretending to be a fool six consecutive times to give you a false sense of security, only to flip it. And now you are the fool and you have the shame. Fool me seven times. You saw through my trick, but there's no shame. Cause I'm getting fooled by the best.

[Luke Burbank]

TBTL.

[Danny]

Hey, Johnny.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, hi, Danny. What's wrong with Mark?

[Danny]

He's cranky today. All right, let's toss the ball around.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm a man of few words, but.

[Danny]

Those words will count, and so will my actions. Sooner or later, gentlemen, you will eat your words.

[Luke Burbank]

You can't be that overly confident.

[Danny]

Never, baby. Never.

[Luke Burbank]

You might eat that, mice. Shh. I get it. I know who you are. It's been explained to me. I'm into it. Let's talk. All right.

[Danny]

Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Here we go again. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host, Burbank.

[Luke Burbank]

Who is he?

[Danny]

Coming to you once again from Hell's Kitchen on the west side of Manhattan.

[Luke Burbank]

Cup of coffee in the big time.

[Danny]

Been having some adventure filled days here in New York City that I'm excited to tell you about here on episode 4431 in a collector series, let the fun begin. Speaking of adventures, I. I went up to New Haven, Connecticut yesterday and I took the train, which involved. Well, you know, when Burbank is on the move, I'm trying a new thing where I refer to myself as Burbank. You know, when I'm traveling anywhere, I'm going to have incidents with people and I'm going to want to tell you about them. Oh, and the adventure begins again. This is no different, including the two weirdest Lyft rides I've had in a long time. And also a very rude person on the Amtrak Acela trainer, but that doesn't stop a foamer. Also, I was going up there to deep dive on the subject of the Pez candies, and I Have now just enough knowledge around the PEZ candy empire to be very, very annoying and I'd like to share it with all of you. Smarty pants, dance, smarty pants, dance if you'll have me. If you'll allow me. I think this guy will. He has to allow me to download my PEZ knowledge to him because he is the longest running cobra of the show. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. I'd like to grow a pair sometime. He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Luke Burbank]

Good morning, Luke. I'm sorry somebody made you a little cranky on the train, but before we get to trains.

[Danny]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's talk about another kind of conveyance. Something that I think will put you. I think it's going to sweeten that mood of yours. Are you ready for your mood to be sweetened?

[Danny]

Because I do kind of need my mood to be sweetened because along with my run in on the train yesterday, we've been having some technical times today, A lot going on and I do think I'm coming in a bit of a grumpus, grumpy pardon the term. And by the way, there is a Johnny Depp PEZ dispenser, Andrew. Although they're very, very insistent that it's not a Johnny Depp PEZ dispenser, it's a Captain Jack Sparrow. Anyway, I am a bit of a grumpy, pardon the phrase. So yes, I want to hear something that's going to perk me up.

[Luke Burbank]

So true story, I was, I spent a. I spent more time than usual thinking of you yesterday while I was.

[Danny]

I'm already feeling better involved in a.

[Luke Burbank]

Project in which I was deleting all of my enemies phone numbers from my phone. No, I was going through old VHS tapes as you know, I'm want to do. I don't know if we talked about this recently but I kind of fell out of my habit or you know, I have various low level hobbies churning at various times and I'll kind of go through a period of intensity with one of them and then I'll put it down for a while and you know, I like to collect VHS tapes like things you know, recorded off of the television at garage sales or whatever. I'll say here I'll give you primarily.

[Danny]

For the commercials and promos if I have it right, most of the stuff in between the stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, except I've been fascinated, you know, for a couple of years now by these early tapes of the FX network when they're all when Jeff Probst was hosting a talk show out of a living anyway. So I like to. I like to grab some of the programming when it seems unique, but often it's just like movies taped off of television. I'll go through and I'll grab the commercials like you say, and I upload all. I digitize them and upload all the commercials to our after these messages YouTube channel. You can check them out there. What I downloaded last night or up, well, I guess digitized last night off of a VHS tape, didn't have commercials in it. Whoever was recording this actually paused the their machine so as to edit out the commercials on the fly, which seemed like a smart move back in 1993, but is a bummer move for me now in 2025 when I want to see those sweet, sweet commercials. But the actual programming itself, Luke, and I know that this is from 1993 is so good because I got myself here a copy in full of the Point Magoo air show, live KCAL coverage, KCAL TV, L.A. coverage. Have you ever heard of the Point Magoo air show before?

[Danny]

Have not. I've heard of Point Magoo. Have not heard of the air show. Have heard of KCAL9.

[Luke Burbank]

Have heard of KCAL9. This is definitely the 1993 air show in Luke. The local TV station, KCAL, which, you know, it's a. When you talk about local tv, it's a little bit different in LA because LA is such a TV town. But this was like, it's like they're covering this thing sort of like it's a Seahawks game. They're doing like play by play sort of of what the pilots are doing here. I'm gonna play for you a little bit here. I think you're gonna love this. I'm gonna play for you maybe about a minute of this. You know, they're covering. There's like a table out there with two people from the television, you know, from the television station. And then they have guests coming on, like former Blue Angels pilots, and people who had just performed are coming down and giving interviews. And so it's got a sort of like local, you know, like we're broadcasting from the car dealership vibe, but also live sports coverage. I want you to take a listen to this.

[Johnny]

This is what they call the burner loop on takeoff. As soon as they clear, they'll go smoke off and then we'll start rolling the solos. The first one, as you said, Blue angel number five is Captain Ken Switzer, and he's going to accelerate his aircraft, climb to an altitude of 50ft and roll at 360 degrees with the landing gear extended. That's called the dirty roll on takeoff.

[Danny]

Now again, Steve Tracy. Earlier we saw the Snowbirds with their mature air, you know, 170 knots. But this airplane has got a quadruple digital flight control system in it. So Kenny Spitzer is very safe even roll in this 40,000 pound airplane right now.

[Johnny]

Now, as he clears, if you look back to the right, we have Blue angel number six, Lieutenant Commander Dave Stewart. And he's going to accelerate to 300 knots and execute a very low precise transition. Just pulling up right off the Runway. As it gets to the end of the Runway, the gear will come up in the jet and he'll pull back and execute a high performance climb. He'll get about six GS in this climb on the pole.

[Luke Burbank]

Feels like it's coming right through your living room. Yeah.

[Danny]

Watch now here the airplane doesn't really look like it lifts, gets off the ground at all. It just kind of sucks the wheels up underneath. And if there was any dirt on that Runway, it's gone now.

[Luke Burbank]

I had so many at sometimes conflicting emotions watching this, Luke. I've recorded an hour of it so far and I thought it was going to end after an hour. It still is going. I eventually decided to turn off the machine last night and say I'll come back to this tomorrow. But first of all, I love the sound. It reminds me of watching the Blue Angels with you up on your roof.

[Danny]

Well, I was going to say I don't think it has anything on the recognized masterclass in broadcasting that was you and me on my roof as the Blue Angels strafed us.

[Luke Burbank]

But they have a few moments that are sort of similar to that where they don't realize that one of the planes is like. The whole point of one of these planes near the end is to sort of sneak around. Your eyes are on like four Blue Angels over there. And then another one sort of sneaks by and strafes everybody and everybody screams, including the people who are on the dais and they're in. It also goes from that sort of like jargony play by play to, you.

[Danny]

Know, that guy is in sunglasses, that flyboy.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Danny]

Like brought into. And he's just like. We call this one the Greasy Bagel.

[Luke Burbank]

He works for the. He works for the Blue Angels. He's like the Blue Angels event coordinator. So I believe he flies Blue Angels himself. Or at least he's like the main PR guy in charge of these events. So you have him. Then you have another guy who's with the station but is just like a total airplane nerd. Like the kind of guys I used to work with sometimes at Cairo. You could identify these guys who are just like, you just mentioned, you know, an airplane, and the next thing you know, you have to, like, sit down and be prepared to listen to, like, 45 minutes of Boeing talk. You got one of them, you have the woman there who's like, more of a color commentator, but then they go from that sort of nerd talk to, like, just these, like, really dorky interviews with this other pilot who had just gotten done with her performance. And here's the deal about it. Like, I love that sound. I love the sound of the. Of the plane screeching by and how it drowns out their microphones. I love that so much. And then, of course, so much of it is jingoism and. And, you know, just pro military talk. Like, I didn't play any of the parts where they're just kind of talking about, like, the more military aspects of these planes. It's like, ugh, it's so. It's so kind of gross in a certain way. The way I'm. I'm falling for the propaganda here. I hate that. But then I had a new feeling with this Luke. And they're showing these formations, the Blue Angels. And I've always. I've been, you know, with you, I get really excited about the airplanes and the sound and like, I know it's, you know, again, I know it's jingoistic. I know it's not good for the environment. It's like. It's like fireworks. Like, you know, I can't defend enjoying it, but I'm not gonna pretend I don't enjoy it. To, like, virtue signal in some way that isn't true. Like, this stuff makes, like, my heartbeat faster. Like, I love this stuff, but for the first time ever, I'm watching them do. And they had some really good, like, shots, close up shots of these planes from the ground.

[Danny]

By the way, love the Canadian Snowbirds reference. Yes, I used to. I was into the Canadian.

[Luke Burbank]

I did not know 11.

[Danny]

Yeah, they were like. They were the Canadian, but they don't look like the Blue Angels exactly, but they were the. They were sort of the. I consider them to be the Washington generals of aeronautics performance to the Globetrotters Blue Angels.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the one thing I was going to say, though, is the new feeling I was having while watching this was a sort of sense of anger at the daring do. Like sometimes we've talked about this before. Like when 10 years ago when there were a couple of documentaries out about people, you know, climbing those really tall sheer faced mountains or whatever.

[Danny]

Like, yeah, like free solo and stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Free solo. Like that stuff I realized at that time was starting to make me angry. I was like, there's no need for you to put your life on the line. There's no need to worry your family like that just for your thrills. And you know, people can make their own decisions. I'm not signing any bills to outlaw it. But it was just like this weird instinct I had. I was watching these incredibly.

[Danny]

Somebody tell Trump that it's woke to climb without ropes and get it taken care of immediately.

[Luke Burbank]

I was like, in these incredibly tight formations. I mean incredibly, incredibly tight. And that is the whole thing of the Blue Angels that they can just fly so close together. I was watching it last night being like, stop it, stop it, stop it. Like I was so mad at them. I'm just like, give yourself a little bit more space. Like what is the point of doing it so close? I'm like, well the point is I'm on the edge of my seat. But I was also sort of angry. It was a whole slurry of emotions last night. Like, but you were, you were on my mind.

[Danny]

It was like a 33. Thank you again. It's just nice to be thought of. But you're on like a 33 year time delay of being like, this seems dangerous.

[Luke Burbank]

This seems dangerous. Anyway, I'm excited to see what else is on this. I'm going to hopefully I might even upload the whole thing depending on how long it is. I mean there is a music video in the middle that is so. Here, let me see if I can get you some of this song about the clear blue skies that they're singing. This is real cringe. Get ready.

[Danny]

And this, this is playing while the jets are flying around in the sky.

[Luke Burbank]

I think they had, I think what they did was they had some like pre made packages ready to go for lulz in the action. So I think maybe one event ended. They go to a commercial break and then here I think they're going to introduce this video. I hope this isn't. Yeah, it doesn't look like this is going to be too long of a setup. Let's see here.

[Danny]

I knew this is what this song was going to sound like so bad.

[Luke Burbank]

They're just showing a bunch of shots of like, you know, airplanes doing things. It's a pre produced Package. But now we're. Somebody is like lip syncing this. People are like dancing in the. You should see the culottes on these women. It is amazing.

[Danny]

Hey ho, here we go. I just can't wait to see at the air show.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey ho me, I feel the spirit.

[Danny]

Of the great bright blue Feel the spirit of the great bright blue.

[Luke Burbank]

I just.

[Danny]

This sounds like about 40 different lousy songs all kind of mixed like every three seconds. I think. Oh, it's like that song and it's like, oh, no, it's actually like that song. I thought it was going to turn the carnation Instant Breakfast theme. You're going to love it in an instant. It's. It's all over the place.

[Luke Burbank]

That is Bomber there. It's like shots of airplanes, but then a bunch of dorky people like kind of like dancing. Like the four women in culottes for some reason on the Runway, dancing. Then just like a bunch of 90s looking people. You got some pilots who are like dancing and singing along to this video.

[Danny]

The great.

[Luke Burbank]

Luke. This is, I don't know. I don't know. This is my new personality. I don't know what it is, but this videotape is my new personality.

[Danny]

Something has shifted inside you and you're never going back to the old Andrew. Now what this makes me wistful for is just the sort of the media aspect of this. And by that I mean the fact that KCAL9 sent its folks out to cover this and that they were doing this as a live local television event because it makes me think of the coverage of the hydroplane races in Seattle. Now I'm guessing that that still happens. Maybe. So that might, you know, sort of, I don't know, argue against what I'm saying. But I just feel like the idea that local television used to, you know, direct resources towards local events and then people would turn on their TV and watch it. And that was like, that was a system that worked. I just feel like that's just less and less the case. Like I remember growing up and the hydroplanes were covered not just on TV but on the radio. On the day of the hydro races, if you turned on Como AM1000, you would hear, you know, I think it was, I think Dick Curtis, that was maybe his gig or something. You'd. You'd hear like all this breathless hydro coverage. And if you turn on any of the tv, local TV channels they were also covering. And I just don't feel like that kind of stuff happens anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I don't know what the deal is with local hydro coverage these days, but my guess is it is a shadow of what it used to be. And I'll say, while I was watching this last night, I kind of keep reminding myself that this wasn't Seattle because, I mean, I've never heard of Point Magoo before this. But is it like a military base there or something? Or is it just a. Yeah, I.

[Danny]

Yeah, I think it's. I, well, that's the thing. I. Yeah, Point Magoo is somewhere, I want to say a bit south of LA because it's kcal9, but it's not as far south as San Diego because that's. That's a different point. Point Loma or Loma Point. So anyway, yeah, it's down there in Southern Cal.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And so. And there's a naval base either there or nearby or something. Right. So it just sort of seemed baked into the culture, I guess I was starting to say, like, I kept forgetting that this wasn't seafare coverage because it just. I wasn't here for seafare. I don't have those personal memories of it, but it felt like so relatable in a certain way. And the, the, the. You describe this as covering a local event, which they are, but I just swear that like, this probably cost them. What would today be like a year's budget of news coverage? I mean, I'm probably wrong, but like, this is a whole long live. I mean, is it gonna be two hours long, 90 minutes? I don't know. But like live there. And again, some of the funding might come from the interests involved, like the air show itself or maybe even the Navy, I don't know, like, kinda who covers various aspects of this, who. Some of the footage is so good that I find it hard to believe that it was just the KKL camera people doing it. But I could be wrong about it.

[Danny]

You might have a video feed for like everyone to take or something.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe. But it's like a huge event and this is a. This is a tough thing to cover. They're in the sky. I don't know if you know that about airplanes, but, like, they're way.

[Danny]

Ideally they are in the sky.

[Luke Burbank]

Ideally they are in the sky in the great white blue. What does he say? Great wide blue. But anyway, yeah, I was just like the amount of money and resources into this one day of coverage for this particular location.

[Danny]

On a Sunday.

[Luke Burbank]

On a Sunday, most likely, which is.

[Danny]

A real kind of ratings dead zone. Anyway, generally speaking, by the way, I want to save people the email. I'm Looking at Point Magoo is slightly. It's up kind of towards Oxnard. So it would be north of LA along the coastline there. I said it was south of L. A, so that was incorrect. I apologize.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, you know what I just found? I. Because I knew that this was 1993. Oops, I don't have a subscription to the Los Angeles Times. So now it has covered up the results. But I see there is a headline from this actual event. October 1993 crowd turns out for final maneuvers of Air Show 93. And you are right. The closing day crowd at Point Magoo on Sunday had swelled to more than 125,000 people. Time the Blue Angels took to the skies.

[Danny]

Yeah, I like that. I like going through something.

[Luke Burbank]

I hear you. I am. I'm actually starting to get legit worried about you. Not that you're not delighted by my story. I understand this is maybe somewhat of a personal journey, but I hear you. Luke, you're feeling. You've had a day, haven't you?

[Danny]

Well, no, you know what it is? I'm a. I'm. I'm a little tuckered out because I've been running around and we're recording this after I got back from another shoot. So I think I'm probably just in that. I'm in that part of the day where you just start to feel a little low key. Also, I'll be honest with you, my internal clock has like not adjusted to being on the East Coast. This is very weird because I. I'm back here kind of a lot and it's only three hours. But I told you that like the day I got here, I got here on Sunday, I basically like just kind of went to sleep for a bunch of hours and then got up and then ate a little bit of dinner and then went back to sleep. I feel like I flew to the other side of the world for some reason. And like yesterday, after I got done with my shoots and a whole bunch of different stuff, I. Same thing. I came back to the hotel, I got into my running clothes. Cause I was gonna go try to run Central park. And then I just sat on the bed and then I just fell asleep in my running clothes. So I don't know what I am a little logie and I apologize. But I did go up to New Haven, Connecticut yesterday, which is. I don't think I've ever been to New Haven before. And I took the train up there super early. Like, I got to Penn Station before it opened. I didn't even know that Penn Station had an opening time and it turns out it's 5am and if you were there before 5am you're just standing outside by Madison Square Garden waiting for them to open the train station. But anyway, I took the train up and then there was, as you like to call it, Andrew, the last mile problem. The train station in New Haven was still about, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes from where we were filming, which was at the PEZ factory, the PEZ visitor center. So I had to take a lift. And the lift out there, the guy pulls up and I have a sense that it's him because, you know, I'm watching it on the little tracker thing, but he is just blasting hip hop. He's blasting G Unit. And it's not like, you know, you can find me in the club. It's like the most graphic, like, G Unit song of all time, involving female anatomy and a lot of the N word.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you gotta learn about it sometime, Luke.

[Danny]

And don't, you know what, don't make it so your kids have to find it out taking a lift when they're 48 years old in New Haven, Connecticut. So I open the door and it's.

[Luke Burbank]

Just like thumping out, I'm sorry, go ahead. Sorry.

[Danny]

And I go, I go for Luke, right? Which was kind of a little bit unnecessary because I. I checked the, you know, the license plate number, it matched. But I just do that as a habit. I was like, you're here for Luke. And the guy just looks straight ahead and he just like, he might have mumbled the quietest yes. I couldn't even tell. He did not turn his head around to look at me. He did not acknowledge me. He just said again, if he said anything, it was so quiet I couldn't hear it. So I just get in the back of the lift and shut the door and then put my seatbelt on them. We proceeded to just like drive together, not in silence, but in 50 cents. Theories on women. And guess what, Andrew? Some of them questionable. Really questionable theories.

[Luke Burbank]

Things we might not say on this show.

[Danny]

Things we would. Things we would hopefully not even think on this show. And so I looked down, first of all, I looked down at this driver. I'm kind of like, what is this guy's deal exactly? And I looked down, he has a five star rating. I'm like, this is really interesting because I would feel like if anybody less tolerant than me was in the car when this was happening, I feel like it would be a less than five star experience.

[Luke Burbank]

This is interesting. Do you know that it's never occurred to me to do that before. Do you do that often when you're having a questionable experience? I'm wondering if they're all five stars because they just always encourage you because, like, they. All these companies want five stars so they can brag about their five star rating. So if you're like, well, it was fine, it was good. I'll give it four out of five. That's still pretty good. That's still pretty spicy at a Thai place, you know. But they're like, you're only giving it four. What went wrong? Please tell us what went wrong. And you're like, I guess I'll just give you five if you're going to freak out about it. So I don't know how much I trust the driver app rating.

[Danny]

I have never rated a driver in my life. I remember an Uber.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I always just give it. I usually just hit the stars in the tip.

[Danny]

Oh, no, no, no, you're right. Sorry. It's automatic. You're absolutely right. I always hit five stars. It's so. Yeah, it's such muscle memory. I forgot that that's what that is. Yes. When I. What. What always happens is I'm going to take my next Lyft ride and it's reminding me of the previous Lyft ride. How was your time with so and so? I always hit 5 stars. I usually try to throw them a tip. Anyway, I look down and I see that this guy has a five star rating. I think, wow, that's pretty surprising. And then we get to where he's dropping me off and he turns the music down and he just turns around and he says to me with the nicest look on his face, you have an amazing day. And I went, okay, thanks. And I was like, that's how he's got the five star. He makes sure to close it out with, you have an amazing day with a smile and direct eye contact. I was like, where was that guy for most of the journey? But. So that was the ride out. Whatever. Not a big deal. The ride back was a little more. I don't know, a little more weird. I get done with the filming and the guy comes to pick me up, the Lyft driver. And I get in the car and he's actually very nice. When I get in the car, he's like, how's your day going? I go, it's going really well. How about you? He goes, I'm having a blessed day. I was like, cool. I look down and in the sort of center console, like, so you know, between the driver's and passenger seat is like what looks like a ring camera or some kind of a security camera for the home. Right. Like not something that's designed to be in a car. And he's just like taped it down to the console with packaging tape. And then up on the dashboard he's done the same thing with a similar kind of camera that he's taped down onto the dashboard. And I'm presuming it's facing towards the street or something, and I'm kind of thinking that's a little interesting or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

So we're driving all the cars before where they have the cameras that's become quite common, but usually they're the ones designed for cars.

[Danny]

Yes, this is like a computer camera for like a home Dell tower. Like it's totally out of place in the automotive environment. And so we're driving and I realize he's driving semi aggressively. Like there's this one point where he's trying to go around a car, but there's a cyclist. We're like right by the Yale campus at this point. So there's a lot of like cycling cyclists and stuff. And he's like, he's going around this car, but I don't know what his plan is because he's getting very close to the cyclist. It's kind of a little nerve wracking or whatever. But so we end up getting to like a stoplight. It's like left turn. And I guess the person in front of us who is, I'm first, I'm not even clocking the car. But he starts beeping really loud. He's really mad because the car in front of us is not taking advantage of I guess what like a left turn arrow or something. And, and he, he goes, ah. He goes, that's a fed. I can tell from the license plate. And I look at the car and it's like, it's like a Toyota Tercel. It's like a 2007 Toyota Tercel with like a 70 year old woman driving it. Who's in front of us.

[Luke Burbank]

That's smart man. Clever like a fox.

[Danny]

That's how they get you.

[Luke Burbank]

That's how they get you.

[Danny]

He goes, I already know that's a fed. I can tell by the license plate. And I look at the license plathing about the license plate, said Fed to me. And he goes, yeah, they're out here, the feds. He goes, there's all kinds of gang stalking out here too. Are you familiar with the concept of gang stalking, Andrew? No, this is a very unfortunate delusion that some people are under, which is that everybody is stalking them, that they are being followed constantly by. By. By secret agents. You'll see TikTok feeds where people are, you know, walking around with their phone on at all times, are coming up and confronting people in, like, the grocery store because they think that person's part of a government plot following them.

[Luke Burbank]

I've had. I've had interactions with people who believe that kind of stuff before. It's really sad.

[Danny]

Yeah, it is really sad. And the term. One of the terms that the people that are unfortunately in this world or under this delusion will use is gang stalking. That's their. That's the terminology that sprung up around it. And he's like, oh, yeah, there's all this gang stalking out here. Everybody's being gangstalked. And that's why I have these cameras. That's why that's these cameras. I said. And I'm like. I realized, oh, okay, I'm dealing with a person who's mentally unwell.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And also, like, I don't want to enter. I don't want to become part of their delusion.

[Luke Burbank]

You're like, can you just please turn on some 50 cent as loud as possible? Seriously.

[Danny]

The smell of P Word. Put it on. It was one of the songs that.

[Luke Burbank]

The other guy was blasted.

[Danny]

Yeah. Like, I, I. And I mean, you had a more intense experience with this, unfortunately, where you ran into somebody that you helped at Pop up and they did unfortunately think you were part of something going on, which you weren't. Obviously, this didn't quite get to that level, but I definitely had this thought which was like, I don't. I don't want to say anything. I didn't even get into the gang. I mean, I actually know exactly what he thinks he's talking about when he says gang stalking, actually. But I did not even. I did not want to get into the topic with him because I did not want to say anything that in his mind made him think that I was part of, of the.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Of the people watching him. Because, of course, if that's going on in his mind, there would be no reason that that guy who, you know, is semi well dressed and got into his car isn't a gang stalker. Like, that would be exactly what they would do. Right. Is they put somebody in there and. And he goes, that's why I got these cameras. And he's like, pointing at the cameras. And then I. I go, I go, where's the information go from the Cameras. And he goes. It just goes all over. And I was like, okay, it just goes all over. I realized he's not getting anything from these cameras. Like, I don't think the cameras. I don't. Like, I don't think the cameras can feed to anything unless he has, like, a mobile WI fi kit. Because I know the way, like, my blink cameras are on the WI fi at my house, and I could look at them on my phone and stuff, and they're being saved in the cloud, but that's because they're on my WI fi. Like, I don't think these cameras were even hooked up to anything.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like it was pretty cruel of you to say we got one, boys. Into your collar.

[Danny]

Into my. Into. Into the. Like, the. The end of my coat. What do you call that? My. My coat sleeve.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Yeah. So he just goes all over. And you're like, oh, these are just like. These are pro. Not props to him, but, like, just, like, you know, he thinks they're doing something, but he just taped them. Almost like a child, just.

[Danny]

Yes, it was very childlike. And then I was like, yeah. And like, I've already said the one thing was I didn't want to say anything that would give him the idea that I was part of the plot against him, because you don't know where that's going to go. And then also, I was like. I was like, this is probably the most unsafe I felt riding in a lift, just because he also was driving really erratically, and he's, you know, he's detached from reality on some level. And so then we just shifted gears into talking about the Luka Doncic trade. And that actually really seemed to calm things down. And, you know, so then I get to the train. I'm going back home now. I'm going back to New York City. And I. I. I sprung. Well, let's be honest. CBS sprung or sprang? What's the past tense?

[Luke Burbank]

Sprung, I think. Although I like the word spraying.

[Danny]

CBS Sprung. Really?

[Luke Burbank]

Sprang.

[Danny]

Yes. Sprung. Sprang.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait, he was in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I believe.

[Danny]

Oh, by the way, just so you know and I know you were wondering. Yes, they are bringing back some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as dispensers in this next season. It's already that. Actually, the wheels are already turning.

[Luke Burbank]

That's good. But what about Master Rat Face or whatever, Shredder?

[Danny]

Oh, you mean. You mean the bad guy, or you mean splinter?

[Luke Burbank]

What, is Mr. Splinter gonna get his day in the Pez?

[Danny]

You know, I don't think. Miss. I don't think, Matt. I don't think Master Splinter has a pez. I'm not sure. Today I was at a guy's house in New Jersey who has the largest private collection of PEZ dispensers in the world. And a lot of them were Mutant Ninja Turtles, But I didn't. I did not notice a Master Splinter, but I bet they put one in there just for funsies. So I get on the train, and CBS sprang for business class, which it turned out was totally unnecessary. I mean, the difference between the business class seats and the coach seats, the difference is, I guess, the business class seat, you can reserve it. You can just know what your seat is, and then you just go sit in it, as opposed to, like, walking and trying to find a seat. But otherwise, the coach actually seemed perfectly fine once I got on there. I get into this business class area, and there's, like, it's. It's not super duper full. And as I'm getting. Let's say my. My row is row five. I'm seat five F. And as I'm getting there, I look and in. In. In row four. So the row just before mine, there are these. There are two women who are sitting on the other side of the aisle from where I'm going to be, and they're, like, very, very kind of seductively dressed, and they're Have a lot of, like, a lot of spray tan, it would appear, and kind of like tattoos, and they're doing a lot of, like, that kind of. When you watch somebody just selfieing themselves so hard for so long that you just think. And I don't want to sound like a crank or whatever, but it's like, it's. It's a person who seems to be living. Living in a very limited basis in the. Not unlike the guy that drove me to the train station, but for different reasons. They seem to be, like, barely living in this actual world we're in and mostly living in a version of their phone that they're trying to portray, if that makes any sense. Like, this woman did not. Neither of them stopped making these little selfie videos. You know, as I'm walking in and as I'm sitting there and whatever, that's fine. That's their life. I don't have a problem with this. What I had a problem with was when the train started moving, one of them got up and left her seat, her assigned seat, and walked to the row that was directly now in front of me. So she walked across the aisle and then went to the window seat which was the seat directly in front of me, and then full reclined it into my knees. Not her seat. Not her seat. And I know this because when the conductor came, by the way, this is what. I love Amtrak so much. Despite this moment, I love Amtrak so much. It is such a throwback. It's from a simpler time when we used to cover the point Magoo Air show. Andrew, like, they have the hat still. They've got the little puncher thing. They say things like, all aboard.

[Luke Burbank]

I just love. I freaking do. You freak out. You're like. You actually say that. You actually say all aboard. That's so cute.

[Danny]

I mean, I just. I. If. If I lived somewhere where taking an Amtrak on the regular as part of my commute was possible, I would absolutely do it. I just. It's such a great way to get around. I really hope that it, you know, doesn't go the way of the dodo bird. But I know that this woman was not, like, in her real seat because when the guy came, he, like, looked at the, you know, that ticket thing that's, like, tucked up above your seat that kind of, like, tells them that you've paid or whatever. And he, like, moved it over. He was like, oh, you're over there. And she was like, yeah, I'm sitting here now. And he's like. And then he. So he moved her seat over to there, which I didn't know was an option. And of course I. Then I'm thinking, well, I'll just move to another seat in this area. But then there's like three more stops between New Haven and Penn Station, and I don't want to be in someone else's seat. These are reserved seats. So if I'm sitting in a seat that's not mine, I'm going to be nervous the whole time that somebody's going to get on at, you know, Stanford, Connecticut, and, And. And. And then I'm going to be in their seat. So I had to stay in my seat. There's, like, four people in the entire section of the train, this entire car, and one of them is sitting, not in her assigned seat, leaning into my legs. I was like, you got to be. Oh, and by the way, watching videos with no headphones.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, geez Louise.

[Danny]

Yeah, it was a real triple threat, this lady. And then I had to help her get out of the train when we got to Penn Station because she was unfamiliar with the workings of the doors. So you have to, like, you press this kind of weird button, and it opens the door. And she was having Some trouble. And then I opened it for her. Then she was very nice to me. Then whatever, I guess. I guess beef squashed. But it was.

[Luke Burbank]

How long was the. How long was this trip where you had your knees crushed and you're listening to somebody else's goddamn phone? These are two of my least favorite things in.

[Danny]

This was probably an hour and 45 minutes to two hours. It was also weird going through. Did I say that right? Is it Stanford, Connecticut? That's a place, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Danny]

We went through the part of Connecticut that has the WWE World headquarters.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that's right. Whenever I hear that, that's in Connecticut.

[Danny]

Isn't that a weird place?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. It's such a strange place. Seems like it's such a genteel place.

[Danny]

Like, I dozed off at some point. Despite my discomfort, I dozed off. And then I open my eyes and I look over and I'm just looking at WWE Central. And that's very triggering for me because Vince McMahon, obviously terrible human being, and his wife, also terrible human being, is the Secretary of Education.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, exactly. How's that going?

[Danny]

So messed up. Good. Not great. At last check.

[Luke Burbank]

Mm.

[Danny]

We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle. On your mark.

[Luke Burbank]

On your mark.

[Danny]

Get set, get set now. Ready, ready, Go, everybody. Razzle dazzle. All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These folks are donating a dazzling amount of dough. It's making TBTL possible. People like Sarah Settlemeyer out there in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

[Luke Burbank]

Sarah. Thank you, Sarah.

[Danny]

What up, Sarah? I usually go on some. I feel like I go on some long Jim Thorpe related Carlisle thing. Whenever we read Sarah's donation each year, Sarah says, hi, Luke and Andrew. Last year, when I wrote to you, my husband was recovering from open heart surgery. I'm very sorry to say he passed away in the middle of March. It's been a sad and difficult year without him. Oh, Sarah, so sorry to hear that. You know, we don't even really have the words to express how awful that is, and we're thinking about you and we love you.

[Luke Burbank]

I remember your note from last year, Sarah and I know that your husband had just recovered from some pretty scary surgeries, and this is terrible news. Hope you're hanging in there. I know I literally can't associate, but I hope you're hanging in there.

[Danny]

Sarah says Tim and I. Tim was her husband. Both loved listening to TBTL while going to sleep or going places in the car together. He went to the 3,000th episode show in Brooklyn with me. We had such a great time that night. The show has really helped me and I'm glad to keep supporting it. Love the show and love you both. Sarah. Sarah. Well, we love you and we love the memory of Tim, and I'm so sorry for your loss and glad to hear that. You know, somehow having us drone on in the background maybe takes the tiniest bit of the edge off for you, you know. Glad to do that. Maestro, on your mark. On your mark. Get set, get set now. Ready, ready, go. Everybody rattle dazzle. It's Anthony Krunk in Newark, Delaware.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait a second. I didn't look ahead. Don't we have a drop for this donor? Am I wrong about this? Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?

[Danny]

Is there a drop that's requested or does Anthony have a drop?

[Luke Burbank]

I think. Well, it's hard for me, and maybe this is just me freelancing a little bit too much here, but it's hard for me not to want to play this.

[Johnny]

In this brochure, it says this tour is Krunk.

[Danny]

What does that mean?

[Luke Burbank]

What video is that from? Oh, welcome to Atlanta, it says. Would that be oh.

[Danny]

Oh, welcome to Atlanta, where the players play? Yeah. Who is that? Is that a ludicrous song?

[Luke Burbank]

Is it? Is it. Well, is it? Or is it the duo? Oh, it's Jermaine Dupree, apparently.

[Danny]

Oh, Jermaine Dupree.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah. I'm looking at the video now. Okay.

[Danny]

Yeah, I mean, he's. I mean, he's your guy if you're talking Atlanta. Although Atlanta, rich music scene. You've got Ursher, you've got, I think, the Yin Yang twins. I mean, they always come to mind when you think about Atlanta, that you always think of the Ying Yang.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the first thing I usually think of. I am. Why am I blanking on? Andre 3000 duo, what is the name of. Good Lord, big boy and Andre 3000? Oh, I can't. I can think of their names, but I can't think of their duo.

[Danny]

Their duo is called Outcast.

[Luke Burbank]

Outcast. Good. Goodness gracious. That's who I thought that was. Anyway, Cronk.

[Danny]

So here's the thing. Newark, Delaware, that's interesting because I would have called it Newark, like New Jersey, where I flew in recently, but I guess it's pronounced Newark, Delaware. Hey there, Luke and Andrew and John. So glad I was able to step up to the dazzling status this year for the first time. Well, we appreciate it, Anthony. Thank you. I've been thinking ever since the Last tbtl a thon that I would pre write my witty, clever killer message and truly dazzle the tens. But dazzle has become frazzled as I kept pushing back my top story message for other things. And now the clock has run out. By the way, really great. That's a great sort of sly reference to the fact that we often talk about top stories and never get to them. I'm picking up what you're putting down there, Anthony. Yeah, let's see. I suppose that I really only have one thing to say. What you do is so important. Seriously. I suspect that many listeners like I do find solace. I know a strong but apt word in TBTL in these increasingly difficult times. I've been actively trying to avoid the actual news. And you guys deliver. Wait a minute.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm putting that in my resume.

[Danny]

You don't think gang stalking my Lyft driver is. You don't think that's the big news of the day, Anthony?

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, what are you. What are some of your qualifications? Well, I don't know shit about the news.

[Danny]

I love that we've monetized that. It's a feature, not a bug. Oh, yeah. No. These guys have literally no idea what's happening in the world. And that's why we like them. A haven to run to when the world is falling apart. I mean this completely unironically. Keep doing what you do. We need TBTL and. And have John on a little more frequently to a disclaimer. John did not request or encourage that final comment. That's a good point, Anthony. We do need to get TBTL employee numero unoff back on the show.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Over. Over on whatever topic comes to mind. Maybe just, I don't know, baseball. Although he's going to take it to the Yankees. And then I'm going to say something hurtful. And I have a. Yeah, I have a really hard time with the fact that he's a Yankees fan.

[Luke Burbank]

I know it's tough. We were going to maybe not hire him because of that, but then it turns out there some laws against that.

[Danny]

Yeah, that's actually discrimination. I don't think. I think that. Honestly that's, that's. That's where all this woke DEI stuff goes too far. Is that being a Yankees fan is some sort of, I guess, special protected class.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Danny]

That's what he told us at the meeting. And since we don't have hr, we had no choice.

[Luke Burbank]

But we can't afford any lawyers where it's like, well, we could hire lawyers or hire John and So we hired John.

[Danny]

So we used all the lawyer money on John.

[Luke Burbank]

Here we are. But yeah, no, it has been a minute. We need an update on the billboard, probably. Oh, yeah. So that's something that's going on. And so it's been a minute since John's been on. Now I will say this, and not to sound too much like your Lyft driver, but it says here, have John on a little bit more frequently too. Disclaimer. John did not request or encourage that final comment. But the thing is, you know that we see this after John inputs this stuff into the spreadsheet. Right.

[Danny]

It's a real chain of custody issue with these things.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. I'm just going to say that the data may not be as clean as we want. I'm not accusing him directly of writing this, but I'm just saying the data is not clean.

[Danny]

Yeah, exactly. He could have, it's. He's the last set of eyes and the last, you know, the last. It's not even a pen. Right. Because this is all typed. But he's, he's the last person to see these before we see them. So he might have inserted that. But it's still a good point. Even if that was John pretending to be Anthony telling us that we need to have John on the show more. It's true. We do need to have John on the show.

[Luke Burbank]

He wrote it with an auto pen. I think that's kind of the problem.

[Danny]

That's right. Thank you, Anthony, and thank you, Sarah, so much for supporting tbtl. We appreciate you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. Look, I don't know how long this segment is going to be or how long it needs to be.

[Luke Burbank]

Sorry.

[Danny]

Because I don't know how many segment.

[Luke Burbank]

With a look just seemed.

[Danny]

Okay, Andrew.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, Barack.

[Danny]

Because you really only, you've only a'd one question. You've only asked me one thing about pez, which is why was there not a specific like PEZ design in the, in the mid or the early 1980s? Like you were looking at the website that was talking about PEZ dispensers year by year. And then there was like, I think it was like maybe 83, 84 and 85.

[Luke Burbank]

83, 85 and 89, I want to say. Or 88.

[Danny]

Okay. Those were just years where there was no. Well, I, I asked my new friend Sean at the PEZ factory visitor center what was up with that? And he said it's probably just a year. They didn't make any new PEZ dispensers.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's Kind of those tautology there. Why didn't they make any? Because it was a year that they didn't make any.

[Danny]

Well, right, but they didn't, they didn't name one because it was a year where they did not go out and like launch a new like, you know, Black Panther PEZ dispenser or some special release. And this goes to the larger story about pez. So anyway, that's the answer to your question is they just didn't make any new PEZ dispensers that year. They were making PEZ dispensers. You could buy them, but they were all based on existing things. They were like Donald Duck or Casper the Friendly Ghost or what have you. But they on those years didn't probably make a new one.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, no, I mean, I knew that. I wanted to know why? Because like the site I'm looking at lists all of the new releases for each year. That's what I was saying. And so that literally says on these three years in the 80s, 1983, no new releases, 88, no new releases.

[Danny]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

I wasn't sure if there was like a great fire at the PEZ factory that year or it was just like a low. It was a low time because they went like three decades before that, never missing a year. And then in the 80s, the go, go 80s. I would also. Would you.

[Danny]

I mean that Gordon Gekko, pez.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh my God, a giant phone. That would be pretty cool. I actually do have some more follow up questions for you based on some photos you sent me yesterday. But yeah, I wasn't sure if maybe there was something going on in the culture. Now I to say it seems to me like the 80s were the biggest time for PEZ dispensers. I'm like, oh wait, no, that's probably just because I was a child in the 80s and so that was when I was in Prime Pez, you know, usage years. But I don't know what, what was the big time for Pez's.

[Danny]

Well, Andrew, let's start in a different 80s. The 1880s in Austria.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, geez.

[Danny]

Where a doctor who was prone to experimenting on himself, injected himself with something and died unexpectedly. And therefore his son who was in medical school, had to come home. It wasn't the 1880s, it was like the 1900s or something. I was just trying to be consistent with the 80s motif. Theme? No, basically the, the PEZ thing was it started in Austria and it started by this guy whose last name was Haas and he was the Edward Haas the third, I believe. And his great grand. Or his granddad had been a doctor. And then his dad had gone into the grocery business or the food business because he had to leave medical school because his, because his dad had accidentally died by injecting himself with something as an experiment.

[Luke Burbank]

I literally thought you were building up to a joke that he like, like to experiment on himself. So he tried a new surgery where he could have candy.

[Danny]

He could pull things out of his neck.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Yes. And so the, the, the Eddie III realized that there was in, in Europe and in Austria, a market for peppermints. He kind of came up with this new way to make these little peppermints. And they were pitched as a, like a smoking alternative. Like instead of reaching for that cigarette, reach for one of these little peppermints. And by the way, the name Pez comes from the German word for peppermint, which is fefemint. And P, E, Z are just, it's the first letter, the middle letter and the last letter. Feffer, Mintz, Minz.

[Luke Burbank]

With a Z, right, with a Z.

[Danny]

So PEZ is P, E, Z. It's letters that are taken from the German for peppermint. And that was really smart because first of all, that's not language dependent. That just PEZ is just like this weird made up thing that is, it makes the same amount of sense in German as it does in English. So it was a good international marketing thing also. So nobody else had the trademark on the name pez. Nobody else was naming anything pez. So it was like a pretty good idea. But he's making these peppermint little peppermint drops and you would get them in a tin kind of like Altoids. And the problem was, and they were very popular, but at some point they realized, oh, these are kind of like, if you want to share these with your friend, they have to reach into your tin of PEZ mints and like get their greasy fingers on them and then pull one out and it's kind of rattling around in there. And so the idea was to create a little delivery device, some kind of a packaging for this so that you could just pull out one mint at a time. And they realized that it would work better both in the making of these, like, these little mints and in the, in the mechanics of this little sleeve they were going to be in if they made them kind of rectangular. So they started making them in the shape that we think of a PEZ candy as being. And. And they started selling the PEZ along with this little kind of distributor, whatever you'd call it this little thing that you could put your 12 PEZ mints in, and these were very much mints at the time. And then you could just, you know, pop them out one at a time. And that was very popular. And so they came over to America with this and they were like, we have arrived with our anti smoking mints. And America collectively shrugged and said, we want to keep smoking. We don't have any time for your anti smoking mints, so go back to Austria with that. But they didn't go back to Austria. They. They had a really good idea, which was, what if we try to make this a kids thing? What if we put something kind of, you know, childlike on the top of this little thing we're already making? And, and what if we change the flavor? So instead of peppermint, we do like some kind of fruit flavor. And they did that. They started putting like fruit flavors in there. And the first thing that they did like that really worked was a witch. They put a witch head on there around Halloween time and it was like a huge hit. Couldn't keep it in stores. And so then later they reached out to the Popeye people and they licensed Popeye's head and they made a Popeye one and it was also a huge hit. And pretty soon that was all they were doing. Basically it went from being a thing for like Austrian smokers to Hof down while they're taking the train to like a fruit flavored thing for kids with like a spongebob squarepants on top of it.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm clicking through year by year now, and the earliest examples of the actual dispenser you're talking about are really cool because they're not far off, at least in these pictures from what a modern Pez dispenser looks like. With the exception that the cap is not frivolous in any way. It's just a cap. It doesn't have a Batman or a witch.

[Danny]

Actually, I like those more.

[Luke Burbank]

They're kind of. They're very cool looking. Now, I don't want to sharpshoot you. This is your story, but according to the website, the first toys things that they. That witch came out in 1956. Seven it looks like. But it looks like back in 50 55, they started playing around with a robots. There were some Santos full body Pezes, if you'll notice. Oh, yes they are.

[Danny]

The first thing that worked was the witch. Oh, that way. So they can't. Yeah, they came out with the, with the robot and I think a Santa Claus. Santa Claus. But Those were both called full body Pezes. So they did not utilize this like pre existing little whole. Because the whole thing with these pezzas and why they're so, why they can make so many of them, why it's a good design is because the bot. The stem doesn't change. And in those ones they were. And they were too expensive. Those ones were bad sellers because they cost five times what like just regular candy would cost. And so they had. So yeah, they did. They did try something before the witch, but the witch was like considered to be the first thing that like where they kind of clicked. They kind of figured out what the, like, you know, how to do this and, and how to do it at a, at a, you know, cost efficient. In a cost efficient way and in a way that people, you know, were going to respond to. Now the holy grail of pez's, the holy trio of pez's. As far as rarities, Andrew, of course, because it always does. It relates back to jfk. When JFK visited the town in Austria, he just so happened to be visiting the town in Austria where PEZ is made. I think it's called Lintz maybe. And so the, the Pez people, being very smart, made this like special gift for the president. And it was like this like very fancy like cigar box. It was like a leather box actually. And it had three Pez dispensers in had a donkey, like I guess because he's a Democrat. It had a Bozo the Clown which was meant for his daughter. Like it was just like, oh, a kid will like this. And then one that's called a golden glow, I think, which is actually for Jacqueline Kennedy. But it doesn't have that one doesn't have anything on it. It's just like one of the regular ones, but it's kind of nice and gold and they thought maybe nice for a woman or something.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm looking at it now. It also had its own little stand. So you can put the Golden Globe in the stand. Yes.

[Danny]

And so no one's been able to figure out what happened to these three Pezes. They are unaccounted.

[Luke Burbank]

Library, huh? Because I've been to that JFK library. I don't know if you have ever been. I'm not trying to brag about it.

[Danny]

No. Is that in Dallas or is that.

[Luke Burbank]

Up in it somewhere in Massachusetts? Massachusetts. It's outside of Boston, but I don't.

[Danny]

A weird place for it, considering that was the end of his life.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, exactly.

[Danny]

Although ironically, I think wasn't It. The book depository. Wasn't that where Lee Harvey Oswald was?

[Luke Burbank]

I think so, yeah. But, yeah, I'm looking. I'm looking at all these. I have a question for you. Are you. Did you. Well, well, two questions or maybe a part A and point part B are. Did you eat a lot of Pez during your coverage? And are you thinking about eating a lot of Pez? Because I got to be honest with you, we said on the show earlier this week, like, I don't find myself craving Pez all that often, but just looking at these things, I really want some Pez right now. And I'm not joking, buddy.

[Danny]

I drank right out of the fricking stream. I got down on my hands and knees and just, like, sidled up to the fire hydrant that was spitting out.

[Luke Burbank]

Pez Willy Wonka style.

[Danny]

Exactly. That's when they kicked me out. Then I turned into a giant grape and rolled me out of there.

[Luke Burbank]

Boop, Lucas. Boop.

[Danny]

Okay, I did get to. In Orange, Connecticut, which, by the way, they. So they were selling Pez in America, but they were just bringing it all in from Austria, where they were making it. And then they decided, well, we want to. We should start producing this in America to sell to Americans. It'll just be easier. And the guy who was in charge of the operation in America had just built some beautiful house in Larchmont, New York. So he was like, wherever the headquarters is, it has to be driving distance from my new house I just built in Larchmont, New York. So Connecticut, Orange, Connecticut was picked, and it was. They. They make the candy there, and I got to go and. And kind of watch it being made from the. Like, it literally comes in as raw sugar, and then they mill it, and then they basically turn it into a powder, and then they add the flavoring, and then they sift through it. They do this whole thing, and then it gets, you know, cooked into these little pellets. And then they're all like. It was serious Mr. Rogers territory back there. Like, you know those Mr. Rogers when they would show how something gets made?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I love that.

[Danny]

Like a crayon or like. Like, I loved the one that was a saxophone. I don't remember if that was sesame street or Mr. Rogers, but do you remember that footage of a saxophone being made?

[Luke Burbank]

I do, but I think. Because it must have been you. Somebody directed me to that recently, because I feel like, yeah, it must have been on the show. You must have mentioned that. And then I looked it up and maybe was watching it in the background. While we chatted.

[Danny]

I just love watching stuff get made. And also just the. The process, the machinery is crazy for these. These little Pez candies, like, they come, you know, once they're made into. First of all, they use a. A pharmaceutical pill press machine that they've modified to make Pez candies. Because, I mean, that's probably, you know, that's the only other sort of commercial similarity or application for this kind of thing is you're either making pills or you're making Pez candies or something. And so this thing is just like, can do, like, I don't know, like a half a million of them in, like an hour or something. Crazy. It's like, insane scene. And then they all come down this chute, and then they're separated out and kind of like they're. They're like, jostled. So they all kind of get in line, and then they come down in these, like, little different channels, and then they get put into the wrapped and everything. And then there's all these ladies sitting there where they're taking the PEZ dispenser, and then they get two things of Pez candy, and then they put it in this other thing, and then it gets shrink wrapped. And it was, like, so fun to watch. And I did eat. Eat some freshly made. I ate a handful of freshly made orange Pez orange.

[Luke Burbank]

I was gonna ask, like, because I was trying to think, like, what flavor? Luke, I'm not joking when I. I don't even know where to go to get a Pez, But I'm sitting here on the Pez. I've switched from the dispenser over to, like, the flavors site, and they seem pretty modern. I'm not gonna lie to you. Like, I. I was thinking grape was probably my go to when I was a kid. Grape and orange. Now they have, like, dragon fruit and sour green apple and sour pineapple. I don't know about these.

[Danny]

Yeah, they got some sour stuff going, which, you know, I. I'm not a real sour guy. And not. I mean, I'm a sour person.

[Luke Burbank]

I know.

[Danny]

Especially personally and interpersonally, but even I.

[Luke Burbank]

Don'T really go in for the noise.

[Danny]

I don't go in for the super, like, super sour warheads. Ification of everything.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, but they have the classics here. I'm seeing cherry, strawberry, grape, orange, lemon. I might. Well, a little bit of lemon might go a long way. But where would I go? Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you. So this is fun. And, like, I. I'm not Joking. When I say, like, I want to go buy myself a PEZ toy and just, like, pound some pez.

[Danny]

Oh, dude.

[Luke Burbank]

Did they. Or as a journalist, could you not accept any gifts? Did they offer to, like, give you some PEZ stuff to take home?

[Danny]

Yes, they did.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you accept it?

[Danny]

I did, because it's a gift, and I can't get more specific than that because I don't want it to get out. But let's just say, oh, it's a.

[Luke Burbank]

Gift for someone else.

[Danny]

It's a gift for someone else. And they, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

Do they host a podcast with you?

[Danny]

They do. It's called Spotless. It's for him. Brooks Olson.

[Luke Burbank]

Dang it.

[Danny]

No, it's. They. I generally don't. I generally don't accept stuff when it's offered just because I do feel like that's a little maybe over the line. It wouldn't. It would never sway me in one direction or the other. And also, this is not a hit piece about. About pez, but there was. I was admiring something, and I was. I was mentioning, oh, there's somebody that I can think of who would really like this. And the guy was super nice. The guy running the things. Like, you know what? I have, like, hundreds of those in the back room. And he went and he got them and brought me. Brought them to me. But I have to be a little. A little coy and a little vague because there is a chance that the people in the orbit of this gift would actually hear about this with a grapevine. So I'm trying to be kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, I won't push the issue, but if it was a Waxahachie one. I know.

[Danny]

Oh, my God.

[Luke Burbank]

I would've gone right to your dog daughter. I know that. Right there.

[Danny]

Or me first. And then if they give me two.

[Luke Burbank]

The Kevin Morby is for you, the Waxahachie is for Adelaide.

[Danny]

I. I actually. I think about. Here's. Here's kind of my big takeaway from this whole. This whole PEZ thing is like, I actually think there's an. There's a sort of life lesson there, which is you come over to the US and you're selling your. You know, you're selling this mint thing, and it's like. Like a total failure. No one's buying it. And you would think, well, this was a terrible idea, and we've, you know, made this huge mistake, but instead it ended up saving the company, because I just don't. They would have never made as much money as they ended up making when they Got into this, like, let's put some funny stuff on top of these dispensers. And they only did that because their plan A wasn't working. So it's just kind of interesting how something can seem like it's really a negative. And you might. You know, it's that perhaps principle that I talk about a lot. But, like, it's interesting to me that the. Basically the survival of this company is because something didn't work when they brought.

[Luke Burbank]

It to the U.S. well, you know that I am unironically sort of obsessed with this. And I continue to click through the various years I love on the official PEZ website how they break it down. Like, you click on a year and you see whatever new release they released that year. And this. It's not like, overwhelming. Each year might have between. Between one and maybe four, you know, maybe like an early Popeye. Like you said, Casper was early Bozo was early Popeye.

[Danny]

Oh, by the way, the guy who was running PEZ in America just happened to live in the same New York apartment building as the guy who drew Casper.

[James]

Oh.

[Danny]

And he just like. And then one day they were like, in the elevator and he was like, hey, you do that, like, ghost thing, right? And he was like, yeah. He goes, we should probably team up.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice. I love that. That reminds me of Cavalier and Clay a little bit. Just like some small, little apartment walk up where a bunch of turns out, like, brilliant comic book minds are inventing Superman. But I was going to say, as I'm clicking through the years, they're pretty straightforward. They're all like, you know, toys based on characters or just sort of a generic clown or something. Although I take that back. I don't see a generic clown. I only see Bozo. But what I find interesting is 1968, and I'm interested in knowing if you saw any of these. Only two things were released, but they really leaned into the 1968 of it all that. The flower power of it. And there are. It looks like a set of flower power ones or like flowers on the top, almost like tulips or something. But then like the, The. The. The bodies of the thing say, like love and that really like kind of like 60s psychedelic kind of writing. But then the other ones they release in 68, I don't get. They're called psychedelic hands. Did you see these? They are the only ones that are.

[Danny]

Legit with the eyeballs in them.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Speak, my boy. What is up with these?

[Danny]

I don't know, but I thought they were so cool.

[Luke Burbank]

They're so scary looking.

[Danny]

They were my favorite. They were like my favorite. Maybe my favorite ones that I saw. I was also kind of a sucker for the old school Santa Claus ones.

[Luke Burbank]

The full body thing you were talking about. Yeah.

[Danny]

Oh, maybe not quite that old, but like, back a little bit. A little bit past that. Yeah. I don't know what the. I didn't. I didn't. I should have asked more questions about the eyeball hands. 1. The thing is, it's kind of overwhelming. There are so many. And then today when I was at this guy's house in New Jersey, he's got 6,000 of them in his.

[Luke Burbank]

His.

[Danny]

In this very nicely put together basement office of his. And like, it's almost just like you could ask about each and every one of them and you'd be there for three weeks. So it was like. It was almost overwhelming, but kind of in a good way. Yeah. I was into. I sent you a picture yesterday of some PEZ guns.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah.

[Danny]

That's been a thing over the years. I think that. That probably that era has ended as far as the company making guns. Oh. Another thing that I found out was for the longest time, the official rule at PEZ was we are not going to make a dispenser that depicted a real person. Like a person who's alive out in the world.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. Yeah.

[Danny]

And I was like, why? Well, first of all, you know who they finally broke that for?

[Luke Burbank]

Huh?

[Danny]

The guys from the TV show Orange County Choppers. It's like they're. They're kind of out.

[Luke Burbank]

That's obviously an exception. How can you not make it for.

[Danny]

Or the county choppers if you're not going to put the title Family of Orange County Choppers. It's like title or something. I think their last name is like title.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I love it.

[Danny]

Something. It's something thing. Unique. But. But like, so basically those people, they wanted to make a PEZ chopper, like a Pez, you know, motorcycle, but like, with a bunch of PEZ stuff on it. And I guess the Orange county chopper guys offered to do it, but their one condition was you have to make PEZ dispensers of us. So they did. But I find that hilarious because the reasoning for not depicting real people on the Pezes is because. Because the real people might go apeshit or they might. They might get canceled. And then you've got a bunch of Pezes, you know, you got a bunch of Bill Cosby Pezes or something or whatever. And then they decide to break this for the dudes from Orange county choppers who seem to have a high probability of doing something cancelable, if you ask me.

[Luke Burbank]

Nope, that's the safest bet. I don't know any. This may be the first I'm hearing of Orange county choppers, but you probably.

[Danny]

You definitely. It was in an airport, on a tv, at one of the bars that you were walking through. There was a period of time where you couldn't get away from the Orange county choppers guys. And. And I just find it so funny that they decided the only other person who was a real person at that time was Betsy Ross, who, again, RIP and like, so, you know, that's a pretty safe bet. Betsy Ross isn't going to do anything. But they, they. They do have Pezes of the Orange county choppers guys. So those guys better keep their noses clean.

[Luke Burbank]

There's also apparently a Stand By Me movie premium. I was going to mention. I'm just clicking through every year as we talk.

[Danny]

I saw that. That, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah. I want to hear more about that. I was going to say the one thing earlier. I said, it seems like the 80s were the big year for Pez. But then I was like, oh, that's probably my perspective because I would have been the target age for it. But it is interesting that I mentioned that a lot of the years there's maybe between one or at tops, maybe four releases. 1980 itself had 22 releases spanning from Wile E. Coyote to somebody called Mr. Ugly. I think I saw in here. I don't know who that is. That might have been another year. Anyway, they had tons in 1980, which might be why they took a few years off later on in that decade. And then. Yeah, tell me about this 1984 stand by me thing, because it looks like it's a boy's head, but I don't know if I isn't. Stand By Me. Isn't that sort of a dark movie, or am I wrong about that?

[Danny]

It is. They find a dead body.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I believe.

[Danny]

And I think. Here's. Here's all I know about it at this collector's house today. He had something that was packaged up that was like a Stand By Me. Stand By Me pez. And it had this, like, the. The background had a quote from the movie. I think one of the kids in the movie must say, like, I have.

[Luke Burbank]

It here if you want. It says, if I could only have one food to eat the rest of my life. That's easy. Pez. Cherry flavor. Pez. No question about it. Attributed to a character named Vern.

[Danny]

There you go. And so that put it on the PEZ folks radar. And so. So they made. I didn't even actually clock what the PEZ dispenser looked like. I just noted that it had that quote on it, this kind of packaging. Also, the guy that I was talking to today had an old PEZ gun from the 50s that was signed by Daniel Craig. Because apparently the movie. What's that movie that he was just in where he's. William S. Burroughs. Is it called Queer?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, Queer. Did you see that?

[Danny]

I didn't. Did you?

[Luke Burbank]

I did, yeah. It really started.

[Danny]

Do you remember Daniel Craig's character pointing a PEZ gun at someone?

[Luke Burbank]

I. Well. GUN PLAYS It's a very surreal movie, as you'd expect. It's based on a William S. Burroughs book. And it's, you know, kind of like it's. It's his. I can't remember what William S. Burroughs is sort of like character name is in a lot of his works, but it's kind of like, you know, it's basically him and guns play. And gun play plays a real role in it. Because William S. Burroughs in real life shot and killed his wife at a party. And there was question about whether it's done on purpose or just parlor game gone wrong. Either way, you know, something that followed him around the rest of his life. Maybe one of the reasons he did leave the country. Although I'm not sure about it. I'm not a big Burroughs head. I didn't know much about this before I saw this movie that I kind of ended up being obsessed with for a few weeks. All of that is to say because of the real gun violence. There's also, like, sort of dreamlike recreations with toy guns as well. But I did not realize that it was a PEZ toy gun.

[Danny]

One of them is a PEZ toy gun that was rented by the production company from the guy that I went and interviewed today. And now he has the gun. They sent it back to him, and they had Daniel Craig sign the bottom of it, which I thought was kind of cool.

[Luke Burbank]

There is a really great article, I want to say in the New York Times. I don't even know why I'm suggesting this, because you haven't seen the movie. And I don't know if you would like the movie. It's very surreal. You really do have to take some leaps with it. Drug stuff. You know, there are some sort of, like, pretty intense.

[Danny]

Because he was famous. Heroin dude too, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. So it's interest. Some really tough depictions of Withdrawal. But also a big part of it is him, I believe, going out into the jungle looking for ayahuasca or something that would be similar to that. I can't remember. I think ayahuasca. But is that a jungle drug or is that. Anyway, I don't know.

[Danny]

Oh, yeah, it is. Definitely.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Then that's what he's looking for.

[Danny]

Anyway.

[Luke Burbank]

It's incredibly so I don't know if you would like it or not. I think there would be parts of it that you would like, and I think aesthetically you would like it. But there's a really interesting article about how the person who is the costume designer, like, went for a kind of a reality vibe. And so, like, everything in the movie. And I read about this later because, again, I think I didn't know what I was going in for when I saw the movie. It was literally like a Saturday. I'm like, I don't know. Instagram keeps telling me to see this movie Queer. I'll watch it. I didn't even know I was sitting down for a Burroughs experience. And then I watched this movie. I'm like, oh. As soon as I sat down, I'm like, oh, this is Burroughs. And like, oh, okay. And then. Then I had so many questions afterwards because it is kind of surreal and weird and time jumps. I started reading more and more about him and his life and how this story sort of fits into it. And then I found this article, I believe in the Times, all about the costume. And I think you'd really appreciate this aspect of it. Like, it was all true, vintage stuff, and they were not precious about it. One thing that stands out in the movie is, like, when things are dirty, they're dirty. Like, it legitimately feels dirty. It does not look like somebody rub some dirt on something to make it look a little dirty. There is a verisimilitude of, like, the costume that really stands out. And I'm pretty sure if you do some Googling, it was probably forming Daniel.

[Danny]

Craig into a very grimy William Burroughs.

[Luke Burbank]

There it is. Yeah, I think that was it. Yeah, I think you'd be interested in.

[Danny]

That's the movie where he says, I'm grimy, I'm slimy, and I need shower.

[Luke Burbank]

That's exactly right.

[Danny]

I will read that. You know, I have to say, like, the. I knew that that movie was about William S. Burroughs, and I knew it was a little bit surreal and so surreal. Surreality is not usually my thing I go for in movies. But I have to say, aesthetically, I loved everything I saw from that movie because. Are they in, like. Are they in, like, Cuba or something?

[Luke Burbank]

I feel. I think Mexico. I should.

[Danny]

Mexico.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm pretty sure it starts in Mexico. Yeah.

[Danny]

The outfits and the. And the look of the whole thing I actually thought looked really interesting to me. Yeah, so that's pretty much it. Just, you know, it was a. It was a German or. Sorry, it was an Austrian breath mint. And then they brought it over here and. And then they made it into this whole other situation now. And they probably regret the Johnny Depp one. They did.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you see any giant pezes?

[Danny]

I saw the world's largest PEZ dispenser as. As verified by Guinness, the Guinness Book of World Records, Andrew. I stood at its. At its feet and I worshiped it like an Easter island head.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm seeing some giant. It looks. See, I think I'm seeing something different here. I'm seeing giant recreations of packages of PEZ candy being hoisted by a crane on the website. And it looks like you can actually walk into it. But actually, a PEZ dispenser would be more fun. How big was it and what was it made of? Or like, what was it.

[Danny]

It was made out of wood, and it was really. It was probably 20ft tall, and it was like a kid with a baseball cap. And it's. You know, you press a button when you walk into the visitor center there, and then the head tips back and like a fake PEZ comes out. The other thing, Andrew, if you decide to get serious about this lifestyle, they have a lot of PEZ conventions, and apparently they're wild. They all get on the same floor of, like, a Holiday Inn, and then they all bring out their PEZ dispenser collections. And then they just open all of the doors to the rooms and prop them open and just put out signs in the hallway about what kind of PEZ dispensers they have in their room. And then everyone just walks around and apparently they. The hotels are just littered with PEZ candy on. In the carpets by the end of them because people are shooting each other with PEZ guns the whole time.

[Luke Burbank]

Put it in my veins. I am looking at. There's only one upcoming event on the website right now, but it's May 17th. That's not too far. Woodlawn, Maryland.

[Danny]

No, that one, I've heard is a smaller one. The one you want to go to, Andrew. Get this. It's in the Cleave. Cleveland has the Biggie each year, and so you could maybe, you know, visit with family. Go. Go Wander around a Holiday Inn with the bunch of PEZ heads.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm looking it up now. Yeah, I'll book my flight. I hope it doesn't. If it does.

[Danny]

How about. How about you do your half of the show from the PEZ convention?

[Luke Burbank]

Y. That would be so amazing. If it interferes with the tbt, I may just have to bail on tbt you priorities. You understand. Let's see here. It looks like July 16th through the 19th, 2025, the magical world of PEZ begins. Oh, they have a countdown in 111 days. Wait a second. Second. Is it really 111 days until July 16th? Yeah, I guess so. Holiday Inn in Independence, Ohio. All right, forward my mail there.

[Danny]

Here I go once again with the email.

[Luke Burbank]

Every week, I hope that it's from a female.

[Danny]

Oh, man, it's not from a female. All right. Emails or V mails? Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you remember last week, I think on the show or sometime recently, you were talking about Barry Bonds and how he now has a reputation for, like, speed biking, speed bicycling around the Bay Area. Do I have that right?

[Danny]

Yeah, like Marin county. And his, like, Strava. His Strava thing page is kind of legendary because he's actually set a bunch of these records for, like, weird little sections of highway that he's, you know, cycled them faster than anyone else. He's apparently an avid cyclist.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, we have this tale from listener James about actually putting eyes on Barry Bonds in various cycling situations.

[James]

Hey, friendos James here in Oakland. Just a quick anecdote about Mr. Barry Bond's cycling career. I grew up in Marin county, where he's been setting all his recent records that you're talking about on the show the other day. And after college a few years ago, I moved back to the area and started working at a bike shop, which is in Sausalito, which is very close to all the. The Strava segments that. That you're talking about Barry Bonds setting all his records on. And when I worked there, he would actually come into the shop pretty consistently. You know, it seemed there on weekends as he was kind of out on his rides. He was always trying to get free stuff, which seemed kind of silly. But anyways, and one kind of funny thing was that he had, as you might imagine, a very nice, very expensive road bike. And it was actually a unique road bike. Like, this was like a special collaboration between McLaren, the car company, and Specialized, which is a big bike company. And so his bike was not only recognizable for being very large, since he's such a big guy, but also just was a very distinctive color and all the components and everything were very recognizable. So I always knew that if I saw that bike around, Barry Bonds was right there. And so this went on for a couple months, whatever. No real incidents with him in the shop. But then one day I was driving from my house up north a little bit towards Sonoma county, and there's a kind of famous speed trap going down a hill from Marin over into a town called Nevado. And of course, being a local, I knew about it, slowed down on that section a little bit. But then, you know, in my rear view mirror, I just see this big black Range Rover zooming up behind me, going super, super fast. And, you know, I kind of get out of the way a little bit for it. And then, you know, to kind of look on the back of the car as it passes me. And what do you know, there's Barry bonds, you know, $25,000 McLaren tarmac from Specialized. And so I immediately knew, oh, that's like one of two guys in the area that I know with that exact same bike. Bike. So I knew that was Barry Bonds. And you know, then a couple minutes later, as I go down the road, you know, of course see the. The kind of blue lights on the back of a squad car pulling him over for that speed trap. So that's my. That's my anecdote about Barry bonds and the McLaren tarmac. All right, talk to you later. Bye.

[Luke Burbank]

I wonder if he got a ticket. Does Barry Bond.

[Danny]

Yeah, that's a great question. You know. Well, that's a really good question. I guess it would depend on how much the state patrol officer cared about the role that steroids played in Barry Bonds career, particularly in the last, like, say five to eight seasons. Also, putting aside the Barry Bonds ness of it, is there anything more gratifying than somebody speeding around you and then getting their comeuppance? I can only think of maybe one. One time in my life where that's happened, where someone's been driving on in what I feel like is an unnecessary, unsafe way on the road. And then, you know, some miles later, I saw them pulled over. And I'm telling you, I'm still high off of that experience. It was the greatest feeling. It never happens. It's like I drive kind of like a turtle, but still, it's like people will sometimes speed past me or be weaving in a traffic. I'm talking. Talking about on the free freeway. They're going 100 miles an hour. And just like I saw somebody driving on the shoulder the other day to pass someone. They literally went on the shoulder of the freeway to go around someone for no good reason. There wasn't like an accident. And it's like those people never seem to get caught. It's like they never, they're never driving through a speed trap. So the idea that Barry Bonds did that, that's so awesome.

[Luke Burbank]

I can't imagine having a $25,000 bike on the back of my car.

[Danny]

Also. Yeah, what's with the trying to get free stuff?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right.

[Danny]

You know, like, I mean, Barry Bonds. My sense of Barry Bonds, you know, for the last 10 years of his career was that he was just absolutely just like a miserable cuss. Like he hated the media, the media hated him. He was just, he was supposedly just one of the most unpleasant pro athletes of all time. Now the question is, was that because every time a reporter asked him a question it was about was he cheating?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right.

[Danny]

You know, it could have kind of hardened him. It seems. The evidence seems overwhelming. And if you believe Victor Conte and the cream and the clip, like also if you just look at, look at what Barry Bonds look like at the beginning of his career, what he looked like at the end of his career and what he looks like now, it's amazing.

[Luke Burbank]

What does he look now? And can we make looks like he.

[Danny]

Did at the beginning of his career? He's like a super svelte. He's a super svelte, normal looking dude again, which is what he was when he started out. And then at some point he had a head like a Jack o'lantern from all the roids. And, and now he's back to not looking like that because he's not doing all the roids. So. But yeah, the idea that he's trying to get free stuff at the bike shop kind of doesn't, it doesn't make me think he is a cool dude or like he was misunderstood by the media. It makes me think he's kind of a. Kind of a handful.

[Luke Burbank]

The only real life people depicted in PEZ were Barry bonds and Mark McGuire for some reason.

[Danny]

And they both giant, problematic giant heads.

[Luke Burbank]

For some reason on top of the, on top of the PEZ dispensers. So.

[Danny]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, well, thanks, Mark. I appreciate that. By the way, I want to mention to folks. So you could probably tell that that was a kind of a voice memo that. Did I say Mark? I don't know why I said Mark. I was thinking about Mark McGuire. That was James who sent in that voice memo. And James, you can email in voice memos. Weirdly, I think iPhones can't text me voice memos. So you can text me. Huh? 2064-1482-8520-6414 tbtl. You can leave us voicemails that there. Or you can record a voice memo and then email me. Andrewbtl.net those are ways to get your voice heard.

[Danny]

Yes. You could hear your voice on this very show.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. If you.

[Danny]

If you utilize that. All right, thanks for listening everybody. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please, if you can join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Luke Burbank]

And good luck to all. Power out.