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Wireless. at mintmobile.com. Forever. Dog.

1:05

Warning, the following podcast may contain

1:08

accidental testosterone checks, bad

1:11

food that scarred an entire city,

1:13

podcast host blood feuds, and

1:16

spoiler alerts for a restaurant.

1:19

Ah, but not just any restaurant. It's

1:21

Casa Bonita, the greatest restaurant in

1:23

the world. And today's

1:26

podcast, The Ride. Welcome

1:48

to Podcast The Ride, a podcast about theme

1:50

parks that might be heading for its most

1:52

sincere episode. Wow.

1:55

That's my take, at least on my part.

1:57

I am Scott Gardner, who I think is...

1:59

I'm going to find it very hard

2:02

to be snarky today, given what

2:04

we're talking about and what I

2:06

got to experience. Any jokes or

2:08

jabs or cynicism are going to

2:10

have to come from Mike Carlson.

2:12

OK, I'm here. Will I cry

2:14

on this episode? From

2:16

hearing a tale? Well, see, I

2:18

don't know. Sincerity, I think, comes in a few.

2:20

It doesn't mean there's I

2:23

don't think I'm. I came close

2:25

to tearing up in one part of

2:27

this experience. I actually did. I don't think it's

2:29

going to cause tears for

2:31

anyone else, such as Jason Sheridan.

2:34

More sincere than the ocean city

2:36

board wall. That was pretty sincere.

2:38

Pretty sincere. Yeah, we're a sincere

2:41

area. Tearing up, naming dots, pastries,

2:43

you know? You

2:46

were lit up in a way. I was

2:49

lit up. That was like a next tier

2:51

of Jason. You were on fire. I didn't

2:53

even get talking about so many Thelasaka subs,

2:55

you know, all these wonderful places, wonderful memories.

2:57

I was sitting around for the last week

2:59

going like, I'm going to find a reason

3:01

to say seven more of these restaurant names.

3:04

I will insert them somewhere, come hell or

3:06

high water. You

3:09

were more jacked up than like Tune Lagoon, or

3:11

like talking about Tune Lagoon or Marvel

3:13

Superhero Island. You were

3:15

so revved up. Yeah. Did

3:17

you just go home and start punching

3:20

walls and stuff? I did start punching

3:22

walls. I'm Superman. Yeah. I was jacked

3:24

up enough. I took

3:26

care of a lot of outstanding medical

3:29

bills at work that I hadn't gotten

3:31

around to paying. Wow, just a flurry.

3:33

They're flying around the house. You were

3:35

right. A tornado. And then they're all

3:37

done writing personal checks. Just

3:40

five or six personal checks, putting them in the envelope.

3:42

I don't know if Blue Shield should have been paying

3:44

more of this, but I'm going to take care of it

3:47

so they stop bothering me. Well,

3:49

this is great. I mean, like, yeah, that

3:51

was if you didn't hear last week's episode

3:53

about the Ocean City Boardwalk with Alan McCloud.

3:55

Alan talked about how that's an area that

3:57

the. You

4:00

grew up with Jason and have a lot

4:02

of nostalgia for. And Alan was talking about

4:04

how it's new nostalgia for him. It feels

4:07

so classic that it made him feel like

4:09

he grew up with this place. And

4:11

that's sort of how I feel coming

4:14

out of this experience with Casa Benita,

4:16

where it's as if it implanted memories.

4:18

That was some of the teariness that

4:20

I'll talk about is

4:23

the emotion I felt experiencing, like,

4:25

wow, I'm going to do this

4:27

thing finally. But I've never, like,

4:30

I'm getting this entirely from a

4:32

TV show, which is just a

4:34

credit to what these guys have

4:36

done. On the note

4:38

of that TV show, I was thinking how, given

4:41

that South Park is a big part

4:43

of what we're talking about, that I

4:46

should perhaps rip off another podcast and

4:48

say, hi to Clifford

4:50

Nation. Sure, yeah. Because

4:54

we are today talking about Casa

4:56

Benita per their own copy.

4:58

But this would also be my review, the

5:00

greatest restaurant in the world. A

5:03

staple of the Denver area since 1974, tributed

5:06

in a 2003 episode of South Park, and

5:10

today owned and recently rescued and

5:13

renovated by South Park creators, Trey

5:15

Parker and Matt Stone. So

5:19

here's a question at the top. Is

5:22

this a me thing? Am I the

5:24

only one of the three of us

5:26

who's had a lingering obsession with

5:28

this place? Or

5:30

have you guys also dreamed of it

5:32

if you followed some of this story

5:35

of Trey and Matt's purchase and

5:37

renovation of this restaurant? Oh,

5:40

I followed it for sure. And

5:42

I do remember in 2003 this

5:44

episode coming out. Yes.

5:48

That's a big one for me. And we'll

5:50

kind of, like, I think the story can

5:52

kind of emanate from that episode, because it's

5:54

certainly where my awareness of it began.

5:57

It's kind of like right when I started watching South

5:59

Park. I kind of wasn't into it in

6:02

the early days. I found it

6:04

really abrasive. And I was kind of late

6:06

getting the memo that like, oh no, it's

6:08

actually like really smart and clever and great

6:10

stories and just like how sharp it had

6:12

become. And it was season seven that they

6:14

did this episode. And there had been like

6:16

a wave of episodes that were

6:18

getting a lot of press for like being

6:21

so current and satirical. And it was

6:23

where they were in that, they'd

6:26

begun that production process of like doing

6:28

it with only six days before air.

6:31

And so it can be

6:34

relevant in a way like only SNL

6:36

can otherwise. And that

6:38

was like the hype of South Park

6:41

at the time. Then they do this

6:43

Casa Benita episode, which has nothing to

6:45

do with anything. This is not topical.

6:47

This was not about George Bush or

6:49

the Iraq War or anything. This was

6:51

just pure silliness with

6:53

the kids that heightens to this

6:56

crazy degree. I was always so,

6:58

this was like, this was

7:00

my episode of the show, regardless of it

7:02

being about a themed experience, although I'm sure

7:04

that helped. Yeah, I watched it

7:06

too at the time and

7:08

I thought it was fake. I

7:10

didn't know it was real. I was just made up a

7:12

place. And I liked all the specifics of

7:15

it, but I didn't know. And I don't think at the time I

7:17

looked into it. So it was

7:19

years later when I realized it actually

7:21

existed. That's yeah, that's kind of my

7:24

journey with it as well, because

7:26

it's so hyper specific what they

7:29

go into. And you just

7:31

are wondering, did they just invent the

7:33

craziest, most specific thing that a

7:35

kid would be obsessed with and a horrible kid

7:37

like Hartman would be, this place

7:40

that would drive him to commit fraud and

7:44

endanger and entrap his friend. Like cliff divers.

7:46

I was like, oh, that didn't seem like

7:48

a place. That didn't seem real. Yeah, that's

7:50

the only, it's so specific that you think

7:52

maybe it has to be real, but like,

7:55

how can that be real? What do

7:57

you mean there's a rev Mexican restaurant

7:59

with cliff divers? Right. And here, I'll start

8:01

getting into that. But let me just say at

8:04

the very top, and

8:06

if I haven't done this already, sometimes

8:09

we like to build suspense with

8:11

our reviews of an experience. And

8:14

full disclosure, if you missed this, I got

8:16

to go to Casa Benita in

8:18

Denver a couple weeks ago. And

8:21

sometimes we like to kind of like, well, did

8:23

we like it? And actually, oh, and then, I

8:25

don't know, then it made me sick and it

8:28

was a terrible experience. I cannot

8:30

do any building of suspense in this

8:32

episode. This place fucking rules. It was

8:34

so great. I kind of already spoiled

8:36

it on Twitter. I was so high

8:38

off of this place. I just can't

8:40

pretend. And part of the reason I

8:42

want to get that out right at

8:44

the top is it's very complicated to

8:46

get into Casa Benita, as I discovered.

8:48

And our episodes go a little while.

8:50

If this is 90 minutes, if it's

8:53

two hours, I don't want you to

8:55

wait that long. And, listener, if you

8:57

have any thought that you want to

8:59

go to Casa Benita, get it going

9:01

right now. Don't wait till the end. Don't

9:03

wait till the plugs. Go

9:05

to Casa Benita, Denver right now

9:07

and sign up for the mailing

9:09

list. And eventually, maybe in like

9:12

nine months to a year, it's

9:14

going to be a while. But

9:16

I don't want you to add two hours on top

9:18

of that. That's an extra. You might miss an entire

9:20

night with that. So go there. You guys, too. If

9:23

you have any thought, I'll forgive. If you guys want

9:25

to stop talking for a couple of minutes, go

9:27

sign up for that waiting list. I

9:31

would encourage it. It's

9:33

complicated. It's weird. Then you have to reverse

9:36

time it and then buy plane tickets after

9:38

the fact if you don't live there. If

9:40

you're anywhere close, if you're drivable, get

9:42

on it right now. I just want

9:44

to hype this place up as much as possible

9:47

right at the top here. Yeah. That's why. I

9:49

mean, I wonder how long that'll last, how aggressive

9:51

it'll be for maybe for at least a

9:53

decade. I don't know. I don't know. It

9:55

could be. I don't know. As we record,

9:57

I just saw now I'm getting algorithms. to

10:00

local Denver news stories about what's the deal

10:02

and how do we get in. And I

10:04

think maybe they're even maybe considering

10:07

right now still previews technically. Oh really?

10:09

Yeah, I think possibly. And I think

10:11

they might change this process and make

10:13

it a little easier to get into

10:15

sort of soon. But

10:18

either way, I think you want to play

10:20

it safe. Wherever

10:22

you're listening to this episode, you're going

10:24

to need to travel to Denver. If

10:27

you don't do anything else, if you stay there one

10:29

night and turn around or do it all in one

10:31

day, the way I did San Jose a while back,

10:35

however it's got to work for you. Get it done. Get

10:37

to Denver. This thing is exemplary.

10:39

It sounds great. I would love to go. Yeah,

10:43

I think, honestly, if you start looking

10:46

for family vacations, that's

10:48

kind of where it came from a little

10:50

bit, was like, well, we

10:52

want to get him used to planes because we don't have

10:54

to travel anywhere to go visit family. He thinks planes are

10:56

neat. So we want to give him a fun little plane

10:59

ride. That's why we went to San Jose

11:01

last year. We thought, well,

11:03

Denver's a little bit further, and then we

11:05

can go to Casa Benita. But then a

11:07

bunch of other complications happened, highly,

11:10

highly encouraged. And also,

11:13

listeners, to

11:15

motivate you to go to that website and sign up right

11:17

now, there are 600,000 people ahead of you. Wow.

11:20

Jesus Christ. And you add, yeah,

11:22

that's the stats. Are

11:24

they only open on weekends right now?

11:27

No, I don't know if it's every

11:30

night. I was there on a Thursday.

11:33

It might not be every day of the week. I'm

11:36

honestly not sure about that. But yeah,

11:38

that might limit it a little bit.

11:40

And no walk-ins, I'm assuming. I can't

11:42

imagine. I can't imagine. I mean, unless

11:44

it is like a, you know,

11:47

what happened when we went to Blue

11:50

Bayou, and there

11:53

was a lot of stress about, wait, you've got

11:56

to book that six months in advance. And then

11:58

Magic Mitch just pulled it right. then and there.

12:01

Well, didn't he just say, hey, can I get in? No,

12:03

there was like a, I think it was like checking a, it

12:06

might've been Kyle, I'm not sure. Somebody

12:09

pulled it, like Mitch just saying like,

12:11

come on, let's just try, let's try.

12:13

And it did work. He does have

12:15

a, he has a magic in that

12:17

regard. Sure. So

12:19

anyways, as kind

12:21

of we were saying, the South Park

12:24

episode, November 12th, 2003, season

12:27

seven, episode 11, kind

12:29

of where this place was

12:31

popularized, was where a lot of listeners might know

12:34

it. It's probably where all three of us know

12:36

it from. Let me play a

12:39

quiet low quality version of

12:41

the scene that maybe

12:43

made a lot of people first aware of

12:46

this place, apologies for the quality. This

12:49

guy is for my birthday. My mom says she's

12:51

taking me to Casa Bonita in Denver and I

12:53

can invite three friends. Wow, Casa Bonita. What's

12:57

Casa Bonita? Dude, haven't you ever been there? It's a

12:59

big Mexican restaurant, but they have like, there's jardins and

13:01

black bars, cans and all kinds of stuff. It's

13:04

like a Disneyland, a Mexican restaurant. It's

13:06

Saturday, awesome. Casa Bonita, Casa Bonita,

13:08

food is better than things you've had

13:10

with me and Casa Bonita. That's

13:13

that pretty much. Yeah,

13:16

I mean, before you even like

13:18

gotten into the story, just that

13:20

like hyper description from Cartman

13:23

is very like, what are

13:25

we talking about? The Disneyland of Mexican restaurants.

13:27

The Disneyland of Mexican restaurants, get like cliff

13:29

jumpers and black bars cave. It's like such

13:31

a perfect thing for him to be, I

13:34

know it all about. I also wanna

13:36

say as I play that clip that

13:38

I'm gonna try my best to say

13:41

Casa Bonita throughout this episode, but please

13:43

understand that for 20 years, this

13:45

has been in my head in Cartman's voice.

13:48

Casa Bonita, Casa Bonita.

13:52

So it's hard to unscramble that.

13:54

I also noticed in an interview

13:57

with NBC News about the opening

13:59

of this. place that Trey Parker

14:01

also calls it Casa Bonita. Well,

14:04

that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

14:07

He does the voice. It is white-afied

14:09

in his head. So I'll

14:11

try my best. But that clip has been

14:13

in my head for so long, and that

14:15

song, wanting to feel as excited as he

14:17

is by this place.

14:22

So the story becomes that he's

14:24

not, Cartman doesn't get to

14:26

go because Butters has

14:29

been invited instead, the long-suffering

14:31

Butters. And this is one

14:33

of the great Butters torture episodes, where

14:36

in order to get

14:38

to go to Casa Bonita, Cartman

14:42

convinces Butters that there is a meteor

14:44

on the way to Earth, and

14:46

he has to stay down in a bomb shelter, and

14:49

later in a refrigerator with a

14:52

broken off handle in order to

14:54

survive the apocalypse. He has to

14:56

stay there, at least till the end of

14:58

the week, once this Casa Bonita

15:00

event has passed. Later,

15:03

at the end of the episode, they arrive. It's

15:05

finally time for Casa Bonita, and

15:07

the police show up there after Cartman

15:11

before trapping Butters and

15:13

frauding the city. And

15:16

Cartman then has to do a speed

15:18

run through everything in the restaurant. And

15:20

this is one of these just delightful,

15:25

getting to watch him as

15:27

quickly as possible while on the lamb

15:29

do all of the many fun attractions

15:31

that this restaurant apparently has. Again, we're

15:33

all watching this. We don't know if

15:35

it's real yet or not. But

15:38

it's so like, wait a minute. So they've

15:40

got like a whole indoor city, and there's

15:42

like a little bridge when you come in.

15:44

And then there's a puppet show,

15:46

and there's cliff divers, and

15:49

there's Black Lives Cave, ooh, scary, and

15:52

soap appears. Whatever soap appears are. I didn't

15:54

know about soap appears before this. Jason, did

15:56

you know before this? I didn't know about

15:58

soap appears, no. Okay, because that sounds like

16:00

something you would pull out in an episode

16:02

and we go what are you talking about?

16:04

And you go well, you never had soap

16:06

appears before we had them on the show

16:08

I've ever had soap appears period sure This

16:13

is not something I have seen at

16:15

a restaurant personally Yeah, um and in

16:17

the in the episode you can't really

16:19

tell what they are because it's Kredi

16:22

South Park animation So they're just like

16:24

little white things. I don't know what

16:26

I've wondered for decades what soap appears

16:28

are That's probably my favorite part of

16:31

it where Cartman's in a mad

16:33

dash and the police are after him and

16:35

he sits down and he raises a flag

16:37

Manically up and down and says

16:39

so this is something business and

16:42

I'm just like what is what could

16:45

have possibly inspired this level

16:47

of mania From

16:49

from the guys like I mean well I mean

16:52

and and just the question of is this place

16:54

real or not that that's really the big thing

16:56

is you were saying Mike Yeah that you wondered

16:58

at the time so

17:01

I feel like I remember some moment of

17:03

discovering yes, it is real and there were

17:06

YouTube videos you could watch of the pre

17:09

covid pre trey man, right

17:11

and Trey takeover

17:15

So real stuff about the place founded

17:17

by a guy named bill wah Who

17:21

is just like I forget if he's from

17:23

Colorado or not but

17:25

he did he had just traveled to Mexico and

17:27

fallen in love with the culture and the food

17:29

and And all the specific like

17:31

subcultures played a part of I arta and

17:34

a copo Co and he wanted to bring

17:36

all of these cult these cultures and his

17:38

travels to America in a bigger way than

17:41

just a Regular Mexican restaurant. So

17:43

he starts this chain and what and it was

17:45

a chain. There were a ton of these Wow

17:49

It's Oklahoma City Little Rock Tulsa

17:54

Then this one in Lakewood, Colorado Fort

17:56

Worth kind of briefly There

17:59

were a ton of of these. I don't think

18:01

all of them had all of the bullshit. Yeah.

18:05

But at the base, it was just

18:07

like a fun, especially well themed place.

18:10

I think 73 is

18:12

the first one and then Denver's

18:14

74. I

18:17

was talking to Josh Fatum

18:19

about this who grew up in Oklahoma. And

18:21

he had fond memories of it. He raved

18:23

it. He didn't know any of the other

18:26

stuff. Didn't know that it was on South

18:28

Park. Oh, wow. Didn't know about the takeover.

18:30

But his memories were so fond, regardless.

18:33

And he just voluntarily like, so papillas,

18:35

the soapapillas are so great. So okay,

18:37

well, this holds. All right. So and

18:39

I think it was a big big

18:41

birthday party place for him. He also

18:43

mentioned a place called Crystal's Pizza, which

18:46

I guess was also in Tulsa or maybe

18:49

Oklahoma City. This place,

18:51

do a Google image on this. This looks

18:53

incredible. This is like a weird like Victorian

18:55

turn of the century. It looks like a

18:58

casino for kids. It looks nuts. It

19:00

had a it's a pizza place, but

19:02

like arcade and a Make Your Own

19:04

Sunday bar and a cartoon theater where

19:06

they would just be playing Pinocchio or

19:09

whatever. And it's great for

19:11

kids. But apparently it's like became like

19:13

the middle school make out spot. Wow.

19:15

In the later receipt here, here's some

19:17

place. This that's what Josh mentioned that

19:19

independently. It was just like similar place

19:22

started by the same guy, Bill Waugh.

19:26

So he was just this entrepreneur

19:28

of like a special name passed

19:30

away. Yeah, like maybe five

19:33

years ago, or so. So

19:35

this guy like

19:37

clearly brightened Oklahoma

19:40

and Colorado for tons of

19:42

kids. But especially with

19:44

this and especially with this location, which is

19:46

built out of a former department store. 52,000

19:48

square feet. Wow. The best and

19:52

biggest of any of them. The main crazy feature

19:55

being a 30 foot

19:57

tall waterfall and lagoon.

20:00

for cliff divers with cliff diver

20:02

shows every 20 minutes to the

20:04

half an hour. You're

20:07

seeing cliff diving anywhere. I like only know

20:09

this from themed bullshit like this or the

20:11

Mexico bow red. I mean, I've seen like

20:13

Instagram, like I'll, you know, when you're surfing

20:16

through Instagram, they show you random things and

20:18

I'll see some sort of like extreme

20:21

sports. I'll see like bike guys that

20:23

have like the POV of like a

20:25

little camera on their bikes. Like around

20:27

a mountain. Sure, sure.

20:29

I see stuff like this, but I don't

20:31

see cliff. I don't seek out cliff diving.

20:33

I just see it on accident. Never done

20:35

it. Never attended it. Algorithm wants me to

20:38

see it and I'll say, okay, I'll take

20:40

a look at this. Sure. That's

20:42

about it though. I've seen footage of

20:44

like people on vacation doing it.

20:48

I feel like, like maybe

20:50

smaller scale, but there's one

20:52

video I feel like I always come

20:54

across on the internet with a

20:56

dog who can cliff dive like a

20:58

little dog who like his

21:00

owner like hauls him from the water

21:03

or so and it run the long

21:05

and like jumps out

21:07

and into the water. Wow. Wow.

21:10

Okay. That's good.

21:12

It's too bad. That's just like a dog that's out

21:14

there and not something they can charge tickets for. Yeah.

21:17

Jason, is that a cliff? Would you want to cause you're

21:19

a height miser? Oh, that's right. Would you want to cliff

21:21

dive or is the water part of it too much? I

21:23

think the water part of it is too much. You'd

21:26

rather have a bungee cord attached to your leg. Yeah.

21:29

Before you hit the water, you would spring back

21:31

up. Cause I guess

21:33

if I had little floaties on

21:35

or something or an inner tube,

21:37

it would, the impact would probably

21:39

deflated. Oh yeah. I don't

21:41

think little floaties would hold up when they

21:44

smacked against water. They would not hold whatsoever.

21:47

Yeah. Also I

21:49

never particularly liked diving into

21:52

even like pools. I

21:54

liked jumping into pools, but like diving, I

21:57

was never terribly good at. I can't do

21:59

it for sure. I've always been

22:01

awful at that. Yeah, I always smack

22:03

something. Yeah. Yeah, just a big

22:05

flap. Belly, leg,

22:07

yeah, it's just, yeah,

22:10

just nailin' my penis on that dive.

22:13

Yeah, nothing like when you're, yeah, a big old

22:15

dick flap right on top of it. Yeah. Big,

22:18

hard, flappy bottle body of water. I

22:20

wasn't able to dive until I started backyard wrestling

22:23

in high school, and then I was able to

22:25

dive off of the low diving board. I

22:27

don't know if I, I might have reverted, I might be too scared to

22:30

do it now, I don't know. Can you go off

22:32

the top rope, or did you? Well, we didn't have

22:34

a real ring. Oh, okay.

22:36

So, it was like, we'd go off the top rope with like what,

22:39

with an elbow? No,

22:41

no, like a frog

22:43

splash. A swan, swan, tom, bomb. Yeah, swan,

22:45

tom, bomb. At this point, well,

22:47

I have been in a ring in

22:49

the last 10 years, and I think

22:51

I did do a swan, tom, bomb off the top rope,

22:55

but it was, there was a mat also

22:57

on the ring. Oh, okay. So, I didn't

22:59

do it on the canvas. Well, I'm forgiving

23:01

that canvas. It sure is. You're telling me.

23:04

I took a shoulder block from a guy, from

23:06

a real professional wrestler, and I fell on my back,

23:08

and I went, holy shit. Did you do this in

23:10

front of people? I did it in

23:13

front of a real life pro wrestler, who's a friend of

23:15

mine. But you did, there was, this wasn't a show. This

23:17

wasn't. This was not a show, thank God, because

23:19

I would have been embarrassed. It would

23:21

have been embarrassing to see how much I was

23:23

like, wheezing after I took one back bump on

23:25

the mat. Yeah.

23:28

I mean, you say that, but I imagine any

23:30

of us would be wheezing. Oh my God, yes.

23:34

Instantly. There would be no way. Yeah, you'd really,

23:36

I guess you build up the tolerance for it,

23:38

but jeez. So, we're saying we're

23:40

not proposing any sort

23:42

of PTR wrestling event in the near

23:44

future. Well, I wouldn't go that far. I

23:46

wouldn't say we're not proposing that. Oh,

23:49

I'm just saying, even though this hurts, and

23:53

it's not good for your body, especially this advanced

23:55

age, I'm not ruling it out, is all I'm

23:58

saying. I'm not saying I have an idea. I'm

24:00

just saying you said that phrase and I went, what? You

24:03

just didn't like the feeling of officially boxing

24:05

out the notion of a podcast, the right

24:07

wrestling. Exactly, yeah. I don't want

24:09

to put it off the table. Yeah. Who

24:13

are we evenly matched against? That's a very

24:15

good question. I mean, I know for- Because

24:17

you think trio podcasters, but like, let's

24:19

be honest, the sloppy boys are in better shape than

24:21

we are. Hmm, probably, that's true. And

24:24

they do like aggressive rock and

24:26

roll shows, so they must be,

24:28

maybe they have high- These are some real, these are some rock

24:30

and rollers. We wouldn't stand and shoot at them and make mix-

24:32

They're rock and rollers. out of us with their rock and roll

24:34

energy. And they have high T, I bet, too, for, we're

24:37

all the similar ages, but they, we're probably more aggressive

24:39

than us, too. You just had your T checked and

24:41

it was funny. It was accidentally checked, but like, cause

24:43

somebody wasn't, the doctor wasn't sure why this nurse

24:45

ordered the full T, but I got my T

24:47

checked and I was just normal and I was

24:50

disappointed about it. Well, you,

24:52

because you thought it'd be high? I don't

24:54

know what I wanted. You thought the nurse

24:56

put in the test, cause she's like, oh

24:59

man, this guy must have high T. I

25:01

gotta know what his T is. I

25:03

gotta know just for my own. She was on

25:05

the phone, she was on the phone, so I'm

25:08

not gonna hit on him yet, but- If I

25:10

get that, if I get this, if the T

25:12

level- Is that what I suspect? Let

25:14

me see those stats and then, well, maybe

25:16

I'm gonna have to like get his phone

25:18

number from the files. This interaction with the

25:20

nurse was on the phone. I wanna be

25:22

very clear about that. There

25:24

was no- Well, that's- Just from

25:26

the sound of this guy's voice, his T must

25:28

be through the roof. Wait, I misinterpreted that. You

25:31

mean you were talking on the phone to them?

25:33

No, I'm saying the nurse who ordered all the

25:35

blood work was on the phone, it was not

25:37

somebody I was in person with. So she didn't

25:40

get to see- Oh, I thought you meant she

25:42

was distracted like she was on the phone

25:44

while putting in the test, but then that

25:46

might be even better if she's talking to

25:48

you on the phone and she's like, yeah,

25:50

I gotta know the T's coming through the

25:52

phone. I gotta test this. I could just

25:54

swab the air around the receiver right now.

25:56

I think she checked the wrong box on

25:58

a computer. I think that- That's really what

26:00

happened. But my tea is normal.

26:02

That was not the point of any of it, but

26:04

my tea is normal. But I bet

26:06

those sloppy boys have high tea. That's

26:09

what I'm guessing. So that being said, now

26:12

we're the underdogs in the match. Yeah, that's

26:14

true. So we're obviously- You're gonna need to

26:16

defy expectations. We're gonna be the good guys

26:18

in that. We're gonna come from under. We're

26:20

gonna work from underneath. No, they're gonna, they're barely

26:23

gonna boo the shit out of them. Of course,

26:25

yeah. Look at these three weaklings fighting

26:28

these aggressive aggro guys. That's

26:30

what's gonna sort of be the narrative of

26:32

the match. Yeah, this is our, we've now,

26:35

we've suddenly painted them as the roughest. The

26:37

roughest. The roughest three dudes. Yeah. We

26:39

know, yeah, of course. These guys are wild. You have

26:41

no idea. We've been around them and these

26:43

guys, they are loose cannons. They

26:45

might just like yell or something. These

26:47

guys. One of them drives a car.

26:49

They're not even a roof on the

26:51

car. Yeah.

26:55

I mean, it's a good look. It's a good matchup. We

26:57

should think about doing it. That's all

26:59

I'll say. Jason, you wanna weigh in on that? How

27:01

anxious are you to get into the ring right now?

27:03

Oh. Um, it is the sort

27:05

of thing where it's like, oh, it'd be

27:07

fun to hit someone with a cane, but

27:09

I'm like, oh shit, I need that back.

27:11

We'll get you a breakaway cane. I guess

27:14

I do have a back, I do have

27:16

a backup at home, so. Well,

27:18

we should get a cane that will, like it's a

27:20

breakaway cane. Yes. We should get you like a stunt

27:22

cane and then yeah, you can smack it over

27:24

someone's head and break it. You

27:27

brought me down to a hedge to me. Oh

27:30

yeah, we're gonna, like we're gonna disavow any. We're

27:33

using props and we're playing dirty. Oh, okay. Yeah.

27:36

Well, but it's a stunt cane too. I guess it's a breakaway, yeah.

27:38

Breakaway cane will be all right. It should

27:40

be fine. All right, get hyped for

27:42

this. This is, well, we

27:44

said it here. It's a one-sided. Podcast Armenia.

27:47

One-sided podcast Armenia. One-sided for now. We just

27:49

started, Scott started the feud. He brought up

27:51

the sloppy boys. Tried

27:53

to think of another trio. Oh, and he's

27:55

right. That's the match. Well,

27:58

smart list is not. You're not gonna, you know. Well

28:02

maybe we should take a couple shots and see if

28:04

the stream could start. Yeah, they'd be the big dogs

28:06

to take. You're gonna have to hit Bateman with a

28:08

cane. I mean, I feel

28:10

like Bateman would be down for it. Oh, okay.

28:13

You sure you don't say that? He's pro, I

28:15

get pro, you know? Cause your answer was pro.

28:17

I asked why he'd be down for it and

28:19

you said pro. No, I said he's a pro.

28:21

He's a pro, totally different. He's a pro is

28:23

a great answer of why he'd be down for

28:26

it. Why does that make him

28:28

down for wrestling? I'm a little nervous that

28:30

of the three, he has probably had some

28:33

training and fighting, like stage

28:35

fighting, so. Hmm, but stage

28:37

fighting. I mean, you get a little

28:39

bit of real fighting. It's a stage production of

28:42

Zorro. I don't like how Jason's dropping the kayfabe here

28:44

and acting like he would be into the act of

28:46

fake fighting. We're trying to get sort of real feud

28:48

here. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. You

28:50

gotta say, yeah, I'll bean that motherfucker with

28:52

my cane. I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna pimp,

28:54

I'm gonna dry down to Ozarks. Right, and

28:56

you're gonna be like, I

28:58

saw his movie Bad Words or whatever and it sucked.

29:00

Like you have to start like a real feud here.

29:03

You can't be like, well, I think you'd be down

29:05

to have some fake fighting. That's not how you do

29:07

a wrestling angle. Yeah, okay. Smartless,

29:09

you're gonna be legless when we're done

29:11

with you. There you go, that's what

29:13

you do. Ooh, that's good. That's a

29:15

good guess. Yeah, okay. Why is it

29:17

so blue in here, Ozark, huh? There

29:19

you go, perfect. So blue, what is

29:21

this, the sky? Great, now that's good.

29:23

Now the feud has begun. Bateman, you're

29:25

no pro. Right. Okay,

29:28

you're gonna be down to get in

29:30

the ring with us. Exactly, right now.

29:32

Okay, I got a good disc coming

29:34

up ahead in the notes here because

29:36

so, all right,

29:38

so obviously early cause, like

29:41

70s cause of Benita must have

29:43

been just like the dreamiest,

29:46

funnest place. And I think by their

29:48

own admission, this is what Trey

29:50

and Matt grew up with. I think this place was

29:52

like without precedent and immaculate

29:54

and if you're in the Denver

29:57

area, you're not close to Disneyland

29:59

or whatever. whatever, like this

30:01

is the best thing you got. And I

30:03

think it's far beyond a Chuck E. Cheese

30:05

or whatever too. This

30:07

place clearly next level. Restaurant where you get

30:09

a cliff diver show, unbelievable. But

30:12

I think 90s into 2000s are not

30:14

kind to this place. By

30:17

like 2000 it's falling on hard

30:19

times. In the current restaurant there's like

30:21

a little history of the place that

30:23

you can read. And the

30:26

fact that they were willing to be

30:29

up front about and put this

30:31

on a sign in the restaurant and own

30:33

up to, I honestly, speaking

30:35

of feuds, I feel like Trey Emmett are

30:37

like kind of like

30:40

picking a fight with the previous owners a little

30:42

bit. Because this is how they summarize

30:44

the 2000s for this place. Diners

30:47

express their disappointment, sharing tales

30:50

of bland sauces, soggy tortillas,

30:52

reheated dishes and expensive hospital

30:54

visits. People,

30:56

it is definitive that the food

30:59

got so bad that

31:01

people went to the hospital. It

31:03

became apparent that the primary focus

31:05

lay on creating a memorable experience

31:08

rather than culinary delight or even

31:10

tolerable food. The restaurant suffered numerous

31:12

rumors of serving subpar food and

31:14

one persistent rumor about dog food

31:17

quickly earning the nickname Casa No

31:19

Eda. Whoa, wow. He's elite. Yeah,

31:22

this is real like, in a way that

31:24

I feel like a Disney thing is not

31:26

gonna, like they, I think

31:28

we shy away from the dark moments in

31:30

history of our themed experiences, but they

31:32

put it right there because they want

31:34

to show off how far it came.

31:36

Wow. Yeah, so this

31:39

place, you know, it is a, basically,

31:42

it was a heavily themed restaurant where the

31:44

food was at best terrible

31:46

and at worst could give you food

31:49

poisoning. And at this point, I feel

31:51

like you guys might

31:53

be disappointed that it's no longer that way. Well,

31:56

I feel like I'm describing the ideal

31:58

Mike and Jason restaurant. Well, it's

32:00

less exciting the way where it's consistently good

32:02

food. You don't have, yeah, you don't have

32:04

the risk. You're not like, you're not, you're

32:06

not playing the slots. But then you know,

32:08

right, you know the first time, oh, it's

32:10

fine. It's good. Okay. Well, you're not rolling

32:12

the dice next time. You know what you're

32:14

getting. I know what you mean. I guess

32:16

they have kind of lost the sense of

32:18

adventure. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. The

32:20

great blandening of the Casa noita experience. I said

32:22

this, I said this a couple of months ago.

32:25

I think we were talking about this on the

32:27

show, is that they didn't

32:29

have ovens. Uh-huh. Everything

32:31

was steamed. Yes. All the

32:33

food was steamed. Not really

32:35

discovered by Trey and Matt

32:37

until they owned it and

32:40

went in the kitchen to start figuring out what they

32:42

had to do. Right. And it was just so much

32:44

more than they thought. Like it was in such bad

32:46

shape. It was so strange the way everything was laid

32:48

out. And by the way, the menu has not radically

32:51

changed. I mean, they just serve basics.

32:53

It's tacos and enchiladas. How do you

32:55

make those entirely with steam? I don't

32:57

know. It's confusing. But yes, it sounded

32:59

like a real strange thing. It was

33:01

very dangerous, too. I'm sure you'll probably

33:03

get to that. Yeah, yeah. But everything

33:05

was very dangerous, set up in a

33:07

way where people could easily get set

33:10

on fire. The cliff divers,

33:12

very dangerous the way they were doing

33:14

it. Yes. Yeah. Constant

33:16

endangerment to employees at minimum,

33:20

just like guests

33:23

possibly breathing toxic fumes.

33:26

And as I said, the tantalizing to

33:28

you guys, but not to everybody, risk

33:31

of getting food poisoning. Yeah. Here

33:34

are some quotes about the

33:36

previous food situation. Wait,

33:39

let me find. OK. This

33:41

is from, I think it was

33:43

in a Denver Post article, Victoria Ganyon,

33:45

who was 57. There's

33:48

got to be a place in hell for

33:50

people who serve food like that. Oh, wow.

33:52

She said after she

33:54

and her family got food poisoning after a visit to

33:56

Casa Benita in 2013. The

34:00

diners are condemning the food

34:02

preparers to hell. Matt

34:05

Stone said, the previous owners

34:08

deferred maintenance in an almost

34:10

superhuman way. They just

34:12

didn't take care of anything and they ran

34:14

it completely into the ground. The

34:17

previous owners are named on the

34:20

sign, Summit Family Restaurants. I

34:22

do feel like the, and

34:24

I understand too, I feel

34:27

like Trey and Matt

34:29

were genuinely angry about the arc

34:31

of this place. They

34:33

say in an interview how what

34:36

they are doing now, their ownership of this

34:38

place is not a joke. It's

34:41

very sincere to them because they are

34:43

upset that the place had become a

34:45

joke. Because it wasn't

34:47

when they grew up with it. And I kinda

34:49

like that they're just like calling

34:51

out, yeah, Summit fucked

34:53

up. They ran it

34:56

into the ground. It was already in a lot of trouble.

34:58

Obviously COVID was the final slam

35:01

on this place, but I think they were

35:04

in plenty of trouble even before that. Yeah,

35:06

it sounds like it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and

35:08

this also goes back to how Matt and

35:10

Trey are sincere theme park guys, these type

35:13

of guys. And you've

35:15

noted that before. We've talked about

35:17

the imagination episode, which clearly nods

35:19

to the journey into imagination. Yeah,

35:21

yeah. And the song,

35:24

imagination, obviously an odd

35:26

to Epcot. And

35:29

that's what I was

35:32

so excited about once I discovered the

35:34

full deal with this place, what you're

35:37

describing, their sincerity, them being theme park

35:39

people has never been more evident than

35:41

when you're in this place. That

35:44

is what is so exciting about

35:46

what they did here. So anyways, the

35:48

place is not doing great through

35:51

the 2000s. And I think it's

35:53

propped up almost entirely by their association with

35:55

South Park. So this episode airs in 2003.

36:00

YouTube video filmed a while back,

36:03

the people then at the restaurant say how

36:05

they could count on a 10% boost

36:08

in business

36:11

any time the episode re-aired. So

36:14

they would track, oh, that one's back up

36:16

and reruns, which is all the time.

36:18

I mean, Comedy Central now

36:20

almost entire, kind of only shows South

36:23

Park. So that thing's probably

36:25

airing once a week or so and like

36:27

the next night like clockwork. So they would

36:29

have to staff differently. They would

36:32

bring more people on knowing

36:34

that that episode had just

36:36

aired. Yeah. So the

36:39

association becomes like very

36:42

deep. South

36:44

Park's offices where they make the show has been

36:47

called Casa Benita for a long time. And

36:50

then pandemic,

36:52

this thing closes August 2021. They

36:54

announced that they are

36:56

purchasing the restaurant and saving it, which almost

36:58

certainly would have just gone under completely. So

37:01

they have paid $3 million

37:04

to own this thing outright.

37:06

They start getting into what

37:09

it's going to take to renovate

37:11

it and make

37:13

it everything, plus set up,

37:15

but also just like make it basically functional

37:18

for guys to get it

37:21

up to modern health code standards. The

37:23

initial estimate is $10 million. They are going to have

37:25

to put into it to get it to be the

37:27

way they want it. That expands

37:29

and expands. It ends up being $40

37:31

million. They put $40

37:34

million of their own money into

37:36

this place. The cost of emotion

37:38

picture. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

37:40

They could have self-financed a

37:43

new Team America easily with

37:46

that money. But

37:49

they've done some very canny

37:51

moves with licensing

37:54

their back catalog. Didn't they do

37:58

something where a lot of the new stuff, like, they're like, oh, I'm going to do

38:00

this. South Park are made

38:02

for TV movies essentially. And

38:04

they sold those to one streaming service and

38:07

they chop it up into episodes and sold

38:09

it to another streaming service. Well, it's all

38:11

on both. I mean, South Park's moved a

38:13

couple of times. It was all on Hulu.

38:16

It was all on their own site, South

38:18

Park Studios. And now the new movies come

38:20

out on Paramount Plus, but the archive lives

38:23

on Macs. Macs. And any time

38:25

that that is resold, I don't know the numbers,

38:27

but it's like they own half of it. It's

38:31

the greatest margins of

38:33

ownership, I think, in modern

38:35

television history. They will, hey,

38:39

I try to sell animated shows. I

38:41

watch the process. Everybody tries to make

38:43

sure that no one will, all lawyers

38:45

work together to make sure nobody ever

38:47

gets a deal remotely close to what

38:49

these guys have ever again. Yeah,

38:52

so they've every, and it's gonna keep

38:54

happening. It'll keep moving from venue to

38:56

venue and they will make half a

38:58

billion dollars every time it happens. It's

39:01

crazy. These guys

39:03

are so loaded, and so

39:05

much of what excites me about this is using

39:08

their loadedness just

39:10

to make a fun thing happen for

39:13

us, for the world, and for the town

39:15

they grew up in. Trey

39:17

Parker said somewhere, it would have been, they

39:20

would have spent much less money and had a lot more

39:22

fun if they had used this money

39:24

to go hang gliding over volcanoes.

39:28

But instead, they pumped it into a restaurant where

39:30

apparently the stats are they would

39:32

need to get like a million guests

39:34

every night in order to turn a

39:37

profit on this place. I don't

39:39

think they could fit that many. I think we're dealing

39:41

with a thousand a night. I

39:43

mean, it's doing gangbusters, but still, how

39:46

do you make back 40 million? It

39:48

seems hard, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's

39:51

the kind of margins that we usually

39:54

are talking about when

39:56

we're mourning a restaurant that has gone

39:58

away. We're talking about. a place

40:00

that was so crazy it was never going

40:02

to work. And yet, just

40:05

because of their finances, we're able to

40:07

tell, like, this is a brand new

40:09

thing that, I mean, I'm sure

40:11

they want to make their money back, but I

40:14

don't think they have to immediately. No. Like,

40:17

it is not, we're not remotely in the

40:19

territory we're usually talking about, but like, yeah,

40:21

how in the world was NBA City ever

40:24

going to get out of the red? It's

40:27

great. It's magical. There's no,

40:29

like, awful bullshit companies involved, and

40:31

it's just these two crazy guys.

40:33

It's the only time when mega

40:35

rich people, like, they do a

40:37

cool flick, we've talked to Quentin

40:39

Tarantino effect, like, he's preventing these

40:41

theaters from being turned into, like,

40:43

apartment buildings or condos in LA.

40:46

It's like, that's when, if that's the only

40:48

time I like it when somebody has a

40:50

ton of money like this. Yes, yeah. It's

40:52

like, if you're going to do something fun,

40:54

okay, great. Yeah. I

40:56

think the only thing comparable, absolutely, is

40:58

Tarantino. Yeah, I know.

41:01

And like, they're putting their money where their

41:03

mouths are, and like,

41:05

doing things that reflect their

41:07

sensibility, you know? Tarantino giving

41:09

back to film, and these

41:11

guys giving back to crazy

41:13

Colorado bullshit. It's wonderful. So,

41:17

all right, what other details in there? A

41:20

lot of this money went to unsexy stuff. It

41:22

went to like HVAC system,

41:24

plumbing, electrical, gas, Matt Stone

41:27

said, I think they were

41:29

talking about Book of Mormon

41:31

and how during, or kind of anything that they do,

41:33

like, if they're going to spend

41:35

a lot of money, they want it to

41:37

show up on screen. They don't want it

41:39

to go to boring between the lines kind

41:42

of stuff. But in this case, it had

41:44

to. Like, it was never, they just had

41:46

to, like, replace the tabletops because they were

41:48

filthy and like, just old meals are caked

41:50

between the tiles after decades and decades. So

41:53

all this boring stuff, but again, you're in there and you really feel

41:55

it, and I'll get into that. But yeah,

41:57

Matt Stone said, we're talking about just health and safety

41:59

stuff. like so someone won't die.

42:02

Um. Yeah, I imagine there

42:04

was a lot to be redone for

42:06

the cliff diving portion. Like I'm sure

42:08

that pool and

42:11

stuff needed a redo. That's

42:13

definitely a huge area. Uh,

42:16

okay. Apparently if you went

42:18

there, uh, you know,

42:20

circa 2019, maybe for decades and

42:22

decades, decades, uh,

42:25

horrible chlorine stink right

42:27

around there, but especially, uh, but probably through

42:29

the entire restaurant and you just like took

42:31

that as a given like, all right, I'm

42:33

going to have fun, but it does smell

42:35

in Casa Benita. I can attest it does

42:37

not smell today. Uh, it was

42:40

ice cold water. Those guys

42:42

had to do that show and then just,

42:44

and then drive straight into, uh,

42:47

so they've, they finally put in heaters for the

42:49

first time in history. So the divers are comfortable.

42:52

Uh, and then, uh, here's

42:54

also from Denver post, uh, other features like the

42:56

old cliff diving pool, uh, were actual physical hazards.

42:59

It turned out that divers, once they leaped into

43:01

the pool, could only exit through a 30 inch

43:04

wide underwater tunnel, brimming with

43:06

pipes. Then they emerged from

43:08

the water into an electrical room. Oh

43:11

God. Yeah, I read that. That's,

43:13

that's pretty wild. Said somebody,

43:15

I don't have the first name, somebody named Shumaker

43:17

who was helping with this process. There were 200

43:19

amps of power directly to the left. When

43:22

I saw it, I called Matt and told

43:24

him, this is the most dangerous room I've

43:26

ever seen. Of

43:29

any type of room. He has never

43:31

been in a room with as

43:34

much capacity to murder people. A room

43:36

full of spikes is less dangerous. Yeah.

43:39

This is like, this is a Batman villain trap. Right.

43:42

This was their day to day was something. Yeah. Yes.

43:46

If it wasn't people, if you were pushing the

43:48

people off instead of them diving on purpose, that's

43:50

the only shift you'd have to make to make

43:52

this a literal torture device. That's crazy.

43:55

Yeah. That's insane. Hey,

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44:27

they did all of these and imagine like

44:30

their feet like I'm sure they

44:32

thought this was a risky dumb thing when

44:34

they got into it. They're probably like I

44:37

don't know a lot of money will we ever see it

44:39

back I don't know and now I got to put in

44:41

money for innovations then that number

44:43

quadruples and in the

44:45

middle of this they are probably like

44:47

what the fuck are we doing why

44:49

yeah how was this really that important

44:52

to us and they made an episode

44:54

recently that depicts there

44:58

that kind of like is a stand-in

45:00

for this process I'd seen this episode and

45:02

didn't realize that's what it was where

45:05

Cartman buys a

45:08

hot dog restaurant he's living in a

45:10

hot dog already in recent

45:12

seasons he and his mom fell on a hard

45:14

times and they had to move into a hot

45:16

dog restaurant and then he flips it into

45:19

like a fancy restaurant with water slides and

45:21

zip lines and stuff and I didn't realize

45:23

while watching it that it is all an

45:25

allegory right for the annoyance of having

45:27

to having to do this just

45:30

the relatable story of when you

45:32

buy a restaurant and then the cost

45:34

overruns are enormous so

45:38

anyways that brings us to today there's articles

45:40

for a long time about like you

45:42

know when is this gonna open and

45:44

is it gonna open is it gonna be more complicated

45:47

than we but also

45:49

rumors are flying that they fixed

45:51

the food finally Dana

45:53

Rodriguez the the lead chef

45:55

is like a like lauded

45:58

Denver chef So maybe

46:00

that's finally been fixed. They've plussed it up thematically

46:02

in a huge way. As all of this is

46:04

forming, I'm like, I want to figure this out.

46:06

I want to understand Cartman's excitement. I want to

46:08

see if they fixed it today. I got to

46:10

get here. So as

46:13

I was saying, I wanted to take my son on a

46:16

reasonably short plane trip. So we bought

46:18

plane tickets to Denver now to figure out

46:20

Casa Bonita. Went to the website. Huh? There

46:23

is nowhere to get tickets to reservations. Wait,

46:25

you just sign up for the mailing list?

46:27

And that's all you can do? And you

46:29

don't know when they're going to email you back?

46:31

And I reached out to some other people who

46:33

I know went, like our friend Doug Jones, my

46:35

friend Joe Carnegie. And they're like, oh, yeah. Oh,

46:37

I booked mine as soon as the website was

46:40

up and running. God, crap, shit. How did they

46:42

know about this? And I didn't know about it.

46:44

So now I'm trying, and I complained about it

46:46

on an episode of the show. Is there any

46:48

way I could figure out? And I have the

46:50

plane tickets already. There's no way this will

46:52

line up. I guess

46:54

600,000 people are in line ahead of me. Do

46:57

I have to cancel this trip? What do I do? Friend

47:00

of the show, Landon Zakheim,

47:02

heard my plea from immersive

47:05

studies. He's

47:08

a film festival. He was there with

47:10

the Minotaur incident? Oh, he was one

47:12

of the participants. Yes.

47:14

And despite that, he did not turn

47:17

his back on the podcast the right

47:19

boys. I would have understood. He didn't

47:21

chalk us all up as Minotaur-fearing cowards.

47:24

He wanted to help out. He worked a

47:27

few angles with his connections in the Denver

47:29

area. He was trying to figure out a

47:31

way so helpful. Like, I really want to

47:33

figure this out for you. I said, why?

47:35

Why are this so nice of you? Why?

47:37

And he said, I just want to hear

47:39

that episode of Podcast the Ride. Bless you,

47:41

Landon. Here we are now. Very

47:44

nice man. Really tried his best and

47:46

emailed a ton of people for me. None

47:48

of it ended up working out. This was

47:50

just like an unscalable wall. I thank Landon

47:53

for trying everything. But in

47:55

all that time, I never canceled the

47:57

trip. And then suddenly, Joe Carnegie, one

47:59

of the people who told me the

48:01

deal with the mailing list said, guess what?

48:03

My date is up. I can't

48:05

do it anymore. Do these

48:07

dates happen to work for you for

48:10

a table for three for cliffside dining?

48:12

Wow. And I said that is exactly

48:14

when I am booked to be in

48:16

Denver. And I got to do it.

48:18

Thank you, Joe. You rescued this experience.

48:20

And you get that it was a

48:22

table of three so it could be

48:24

a family thing. I could take my

48:26

four year old son to experience cliffside

48:28

dining a miracle. So

48:30

great. So we we

48:33

go to Denver. We spend a few days

48:35

there find a lot of fun kids stuff to do. But

48:38

we build up to this. This is the last night.

48:40

This is the main attraction. And

48:42

we head over to Lakewood kind

48:44

of west of downtown Denver. In

48:48

the episode of the

48:50

show, when Cartman and everybody

48:52

Kyle's mom when they arrive at Casa

48:54

Benita, you can see in the background,

48:57

like it's a subtle thing that everything

48:59

in the background is all like pawn

49:01

shops and strip clubs and stuff. It's

49:03

just a subtle thing that's not referred

49:05

to. And I was like, is that

49:07

going to be consistent with the deal

49:10

with this place? And sure enough, the

49:12

entire drive in through Lakewood is just

49:14

like seedy motels and vape stores. It

49:16

is like it is nothing like it

49:18

is not like some charming drive up

49:21

to this this charming place. And then

49:23

you you get there and it's just

49:25

in a strip mall that's just like

49:27

a Ross and a Dollar Tree and

49:30

a Planet Fitness could not be less.

49:32

It's just right next to like a

49:34

big dentist's office. But shining above all

49:37

of that, this beautiful pink tower. What

49:40

a pink. Oh, it's a perfect. Yeah,

49:42

such a 70s pink. They apparently had

49:44

to try 27 shades of

49:46

it. Wow. Get the right kind of

49:48

pink. It's it's like

49:50

it's I mean, it's like the Carte Circle

49:52

Tower. It is a theme park weenie, right?

49:56

A shining beacon over Lakewood.

49:58

It's so beautiful, right? I

50:00

feel like Cartman and I'm not even in there yet. Spectacular

50:03

fountain outside, which was also completely

50:06

redone. All of these thankless things

50:08

they did. This fountain was gonna

50:10

crumble entirely, but they

50:12

had to restore a fountain. And

50:14

the mood outside is just amped up.

50:17

Everybody is buzzing. It's families that just

50:19

came out of there, families who can't

50:21

wait to get in there. Like, boy,

50:23

the spirits in this place. Which

50:26

is what I've just, I just tried to retain

50:28

and keep it here in this episode. Get

50:31

inside, we gotta go straight to the bathroom.

50:33

Just the bathrooms are great. The tiles, just

50:35

the choice of tiles and the colors. And

50:38

I'm like, if I like the bathrooms this

50:40

much, this is gonna be unbelievable. Then

50:43

get a bigger, better sense of the lobby. It's

50:45

like this little, it's like this indoor village and

50:47

there's, you know, there's little flags and these strings

50:50

of flags and fruit carts. It is immediately

50:52

so Epcot, Mexico

50:55

pavilion, and like rendered in

50:57

that. It is

50:59

like clearly, instantly theme park quality. If

51:02

this place was ever kind of

51:04

like funny, cruddy, like

51:06

a miniature golf course or something, not

51:08

today. This is like true. I don't

51:10

know who they got to work on

51:12

this production design wise, but it

51:14

is so high caliber. It's incredible.

51:18

It's also got, I feel like the coziness

51:20

and the intimacy of like one of my

51:23

favorite little parts in theme park, and I'm

51:25

so sad this place is gone. The little

51:27

town in the Norway ride, when

51:29

the ride is over, little

51:31

town that you have to rush through to

51:33

go see the boring movie. Right,

51:36

right. You know what,

51:38

I shouldn't call such a shot. I'm fond of the boring

51:40

movie, but we have to admit it's a boring movie. When

51:43

I was younger, I thought you had

51:45

to watch it to get out. Yeah,

51:47

yeah, yeah. And I think in later

51:49

years, they had the doors a little

51:51

more propped open. But

51:54

as a kid, I mean, we always- A little

51:56

crack a light so you know I could leave.

51:58

Yeah, well, I didn't know. I thought- Well,

52:00

the doors must be locked. We had to

52:02

be respectful and watch this movie. I think

52:05

I thought that about all theme park doors.

52:07

There's no way I can leave it. I

52:09

assume it's just steel, clunk, it's prison doors.

52:11

And then I understood how fire

52:14

safety in public places work. Yeah,

52:16

sure, yes. And that people

52:19

with little kids need to be able to

52:21

exit due to a freak out and go

52:23

to the bathroom whenever they want. But I

52:25

know what you mean. The little town the

52:27

boat would pull up in. That is what

52:30

it is about that. It's so

52:32

cozy. It's an unload area, so

52:34

you don't get to spend any time there. No. But

52:36

I would just say, sometimes we talk

52:38

about where would you want to get a drink in

52:41

a theme park. I just want to pull

52:43

up a chair in that little town and

52:45

just sit there for a while, just watch

52:47

boats come in and out. That

52:50

was not an option, nor do I know

52:52

what a Norwegian cocktail would be. Do

52:56

they drink schnapps? I feel like a lot

52:58

of countries in Europe. Let's say schnapps.

53:00

It just defaults to a schnapps or

53:02

some sort of liqueur. It's

53:06

got to be a beer culture, right? I

53:09

would think so, but I don't know that.

53:11

It's something I learned about in the Norway.

53:14

Yeah. That one's really looming. Norway, Maelstrom, that's

53:16

a big sneaker that

53:19

we've ever gotten to. Yeah, that's a

53:21

family favorite of the Sherrodins. The

53:25

neighboring country of Finland, I

53:27

learned about and then never

53:30

bought or tried the

53:32

Finnish Longdrink, which

53:35

is a can. They sell in

53:38

America. They sell cans of it

53:40

now. And an

53:42

early investor was Miles Teller.

53:45

So when we were on our celebrity liquor

53:47

trick, I was going to show up one

53:49

day with Finnish Longdrink. And when

53:51

I went to buy it at Rallst, it

53:53

was out. They didn't have it. Rallst? Finnish?

53:56

Yeah, go ahead. Finnish Longdrink is the name

53:58

of it? Finnish Longdrink. goes

54:00

back to there

54:03

was an Olympics after World War

54:05

II in Finland,

54:07

but like alcohol was still kind of

54:09

hard to come by. So

54:11

they figured out a way to

54:14

mix a liqueur with like grapefruit

54:16

soda to make it stretch a

54:18

little more. So I

54:20

think it's like a grapefruit

54:22

soda, like liquor drink. And

54:24

is Miles Teller Finnish? Why

54:26

is Miles involved in... Was

54:29

that an event? Where they were giving

54:31

out samples and he really liked it.

54:33

So he bought in. Okay.

54:35

Well, I would love to see him reprise his

54:38

type of role as maybe he could

54:40

play himself in a mini series like

54:42

the offer that is about him putting

54:44

together the deal to make the Finnish

54:46

long drink. Okay. Yeah, that's great. Yeah,

54:48

that would be good. The offer is

54:50

on Paramount Plus. Uh, I

54:53

can only hope. I hope that

54:55

some monstrous degree... All

54:57

about the offer, but I do newly have

54:59

Paramount Plus. Well, yeah, give it a look.

55:01

Yeah, yeah. You got to go see that.

55:03

Watch Ninja Turtles and launch the offer. Which

55:06

Ninja Turtles are you going to watch? The newer one. Oh,

55:08

the new movie. The new movie from like last year.

55:11

Yeah. Yeah. You got to go straight to the offer

55:13

though. It'll see that out of the off route. Yeah.

55:16

I think I could play this part. I

55:18

think I could do what you have to put

55:20

that down. That sounds good. So, but not a

55:22

bad impression of that impression of Al Pacino. Yeah.

55:24

I think I did it okay. Anyways, we got

55:27

end of Norway ride vibes right

55:30

in the lobby. It's cozy. I

55:32

look in a window and there's a

55:35

little retro TV and what is on

55:37

the retro TV? It is

55:39

an ad from the seventies for

55:41

Casa Benita starring Ricardo

55:44

Maltebon. Maltebon? Yes. Wow. He did...

55:46

Is that it? I was missing

55:48

the L. Yeah.

55:51

I was like, Maltebon? I

55:53

just want to make sure we were talking about the same guy. No,

55:56

Mike, I'm talking about Ricardo Maltebon without

55:58

an L. It's

56:00

like a different off

56:03

brand Ricardo Montalban. Yeah, he's

56:05

a white guy. Ricardo Montalban.

56:07

I'm sorry, I meant

56:10

Richard O. Maltalban. Less

56:12

exciting, but still good. Denver's

56:14

hottest henchman. He was big

56:17

in Denver's theater. The

56:19

man, of course, that starred in Fantasy Island

56:21

and was con on Star Trek. Yep.

56:24

Villain of Naked Gun. Yeah,

56:26

I didn't know he did ads for

56:28

this. It was unbelievable. Yeah. And

56:31

then you have to look through kind of like

56:33

a frosted window and then the TV's kind of

56:35

fuzzy. And that's where I'm like, oh, I see

56:37

what they've done here. They have just

56:40

kept the 70s-ness of it and

56:42

probably amped it up. I imagine

56:44

this place felt kind of eternally

56:46

70s already, but just probably

56:49

due to not replacing

56:51

anything. I don't think it was like

56:53

a choice. But in that

56:55

way that we kind of just want

56:57

Disney to say Tomorrowland

57:00

equals 70s or 80s or

57:02

whatever. Right. That's just

57:04

what it is. Don't run from it. I

57:07

feel like what they've done here, they just decided it

57:10

is perma-70s. Let's not

57:12

fight it. And it's this dreamy

57:15

70s. It's like a storybook 70s. It's

57:18

the 70s, the most pleasant sun-hued

57:20

70s mixed with vibes of Tony

57:23

Baxter's New Fantasyland. It is so

57:25

charming storybook. And with some of

57:27

the atrocities we've seen of recent

57:30

flipping, you know what was in

57:32

my head was like, boy,

57:35

we really got to update Ralph Brennan's

57:37

jazz kitchen for modern... They

57:40

don't understand all these railings and this

57:42

New Orleans vibe. What do modern people

57:44

want? Well, they want like plain white

57:46

walls and the word

57:48

jazz written on the wall in

57:52

sterile pink font. I don't

57:54

think we... Have we talked about this on the

57:56

show? I don't know. That is so brutal what

57:58

they did to Ralph Brennan's jazz kitchen. I

58:00

haven't walked around there, but I was just there

58:02

the other day. And it

58:04

does, it does, the personality's gone. Yeah,

58:06

yes. With some, like,

58:09

the odd agenda of, like,

58:12

modernizing and that being, I guess,

58:14

that a restaurant has to look like

58:17

a property brothers flipped house. I

58:19

don't get it, and I think we're gonna

58:21

look back and go, like, the atrocities that

58:23

we have committed to

58:26

ripping out all the personality of play. When

58:28

you should just, like, enhance what it is.

58:30

Like, start with its core and then,

58:32

like, make the core shine, you know?

58:34

And maybe I'm wrong. I think they

58:36

think they're making it more fall in

58:38

line with the future aesthetic of that

58:40

Downtown Disney, which is very, like... And

58:43

that's okay. I like that some of that Downtown Disney stuff

58:45

is kind of retro. From the 60s. Right,

58:47

that's what they're doing. That's close to what I'm describing. Because

58:50

that'll sort of stay timeless and feel modern, but

58:52

future, but retro all at once. So I feel

58:54

like they're like, well, if we make it like

58:56

this, at least, like, it's white, it falls into,

58:59

like, the color scheme of what the

59:01

art shows. I don't know. To

59:03

me, it just looks like a, you know, it looks like

59:05

a frozen yogurt shop from 2009. Yes,

59:08

I disagree. It's like, it's out of date

59:10

in the wrong way. I

59:13

don't disagree. There's a new, like, entry

59:15

sign I just saw went up for

59:18

Downtown Disney, and I saw it

59:20

described as... That's okay. Yeah, mid-century

59:22

modern, but I was like, that's

59:24

just the, isn't that just the

59:27

Dodger Stadium sign? Oh, maybe

59:29

a little. Oh, huh, huh. Did you see

59:31

what the, the Din Tai Fung is really

59:33

coming along. Where is it? It's right

59:35

where the movie theater used to be. So you come

59:37

in there and there's a big, and they have a,

59:40

it's a big building, it's really well themed. Okay. And

59:42

I was like very, you know, we walked in there like

59:45

a couple weeks ago, I was like very impressed. Nice. So

59:47

that's something to look forward to. It seems like a

59:50

mixed bag. Some of these redos at Downtown Disney are

59:52

all right. Because look, Downtown Disney, not

59:54

all of the aesthetics were... I'd

59:57

say we questioned a lot of

59:59

the aesthetics. It's all over Downtown Disney.

1:00:01

And the replacement, and I forget the

1:00:03

name of it, for the bar, for

1:00:05

your beloved, and I can't think of

1:00:07

the name of the old bar. Oh

1:00:09

yeah, Centrico. Centrico. Fuck Centrico. Yeah, it

1:00:11

kinda looks nice. It's probably fine. It

1:00:13

looks nice. Wait, wait, kayfabe. No, fuck

1:00:16

Centrico. I'm gonna get a

1:00:18

lot of equipment ready to burn it to the

1:00:20

ground on opening day. I feel like there were,

1:00:22

and maybe there's not like a little fire pit,

1:00:24

but there were people just kinda chilling out. There's

1:00:26

more room sorta to hang out out there. And

1:00:29

it felt like when you see people having

1:00:31

a good time at a place, and it feels like

1:00:33

a fake commercial, where they're all just laughing and like,

1:00:35

you're looking at the concept art. But

1:00:38

that's what was happening when we were

1:00:40

walking by there. I was like, everyone's

1:00:42

having such a fun time here. It's

1:00:44

almost hard to reconcile the places at

1:00:46

Downtown Disney being actual places where people

1:00:48

gather and have fun. But

1:00:50

that's what was happening. So I mainly

1:00:52

associate a lot of them with families

1:00:54

of eight being like, we need to

1:00:56

be fed. This is,

1:00:58

we are absolutely mowed down

1:01:00

by this day. Yeah. But

1:01:03

no, that's not always, yeah. I saw people and

1:01:05

they were not, maybe they were in their 30s,

1:01:07

their early 30s, and they were having a blast.

1:01:10

And then there was a chime, and they all

1:01:12

stopped what they were doing and turned and looked

1:01:14

at you. Oh, everyone in

1:01:16

Downtown Disney did that? Yeah, it was

1:01:18

just the horror movie. It

1:01:21

became like an A24 horror movie where

1:01:23

it's just like unnerving, but not super

1:01:25

scary. That was a tell. That was

1:01:27

a tell that maybe it's still not

1:01:30

a normal place. Right, until that time

1:01:32

ring. Until that time ring. Yeah. Anyways,

1:01:35

I just love that they embraced

1:01:38

the 70s. It is the 70s.

1:01:40

And then we are ushered up to

1:01:42

our cliffside dining location, which

1:01:44

by the way, I have to, if

1:01:47

listeners, if you would tend to go to this place,

1:01:49

it's a little bit extra, I think, just spring for

1:01:51

it. I think you gotta do the cliffside dining. Because

1:01:55

if you're, they went in Rome, I think you gotta

1:01:57

do it. And so now we get this incredible entry.

1:02:00

where we're going upstairs and there's tears

1:02:03

and you start to get a sense

1:02:05

of the space and how many little

1:02:07

areas and rooms there are in this

1:02:10

restaurant. And

1:02:12

then we arrive in the main

1:02:14

atrium where you can really see everything.

1:02:17

And we're two steps in and we

1:02:19

go, holy shit, they did

1:02:21

it. It's perfect. You could tell it

1:02:24

is, there was no question. I think

1:02:26

we were like, there's still a possibility

1:02:28

that we get in and it's kind

1:02:30

of cheesy or that maybe they actually

1:02:33

did cheap out a little bit on

1:02:35

the renovation. Not at all. The vibes

1:02:37

are incredible. We heard our jaws are

1:02:39

both dropped from second one. We walked

1:02:42

past a Mariachi band, and which is

1:02:44

I remember from Cartman's speed

1:02:46

run that he stops and dances for two

1:02:48

seconds and then keeps going. And I stop

1:02:50

and dance for two seconds and then keep going.

1:02:53

And we get to our cliffside dining table. I

1:02:55

think as soon as we land, there is a

1:02:57

cliff diving show in progress.

1:03:00

It's insane. It's so great. I

1:03:02

think you can watch it from down on the

1:03:04

bottom and there's like, and they call it a

1:03:06

splash zone. It's a splash zone. You will get,

1:03:08

you can get wet and you do get wet,

1:03:10

but you can also watch it from up on

1:03:13

the top. This

1:03:15

moment especially, and I'll post a video of

1:03:17

this. There is a moment where I grabbed

1:03:19

my son to take him all the way

1:03:22

to the edge as close as we can

1:03:24

get to get a full vantage point of

1:03:26

the cliff diving. And the

1:03:28

diver walks, he climbs just onto

1:03:30

rocks. It's not even like SeaWorld

1:03:32

style. You can see the little

1:03:34

platforms. They just walk on like

1:03:36

jagged looking rocks bare feet. They

1:03:38

just explore wherever they want. And

1:03:43

one of them comes up two feet

1:03:45

away from us. And Aaron's

1:03:48

not trying to like be

1:03:50

a cinematographer here. But the

1:03:53

built in lighting is

1:03:55

so immaculate on camera.

1:03:57

It's just this, this like cascade.

1:04:00

of glowing and amazing theatrical light,

1:04:02

and then like, twinkling

1:04:04

stars all over the ceiling, which

1:04:06

I know they didn't have before.

1:04:08

They didn't have any of this

1:04:10

before. Lighting, incredible, sound incredible. They

1:04:12

like pumped Broadway stage money into

1:04:14

this place. It is so Disney

1:04:16

level. It's insane. And then watching

1:04:18

the cliff dive, my son's been

1:04:20

talking about it ever since. He's

1:04:22

never seen anything like cliff diving.

1:04:24

He's never thought, and let alone

1:04:26

how close you get. It's

1:04:29

just, again, look, we're heading into half

1:04:31

an hour of me going, and then this

1:04:33

was great. And then this was really great.

1:04:36

I feel, if you're sensing,

1:04:38

I feel insecure about just how sincere that

1:04:40

I have to. I know I'm really thrown

1:04:43

off guard here, but what else can I

1:04:45

do? It's just like, I think

1:04:48

I knew it would be cool, but

1:04:51

I still thought maybe it'd be like

1:04:53

cheesy cool. And the fact that it

1:04:55

feels absolutely Disney caliber, that was the

1:04:57

shocker to me. And then the cliffside

1:05:00

dining seats are next to rock walls.

1:05:02

So you're next, you're in a fake

1:05:04

rock. It's like it is somewhere between

1:05:08

Mexico Pavilion and Pirates of the

1:05:10

Caribbean. I will say it. There's

1:05:12

absolutely quarters of this that feel

1:05:14

like the caves in the beginning

1:05:16

Pirates of the Caribbean. And I

1:05:18

can't believe they pulled that off. It

1:05:21

sounds like nonsense when they say it in

1:05:23

South Park. It's the Disneyland Mexican restaurants. I

1:05:25

bet at the time that was said kind

1:05:27

of in jest, but now it just is.

1:05:30

It fully is that. It's

1:05:32

incredible. That's wild. Yeah, I would be

1:05:35

so interested to know, because there's not

1:05:37

a ton of great footage of it

1:05:39

inside from 30, 40, 50 years ago. No,

1:05:43

not really. Yeah. So I do wonder, obviously

1:05:45

it looks, I'm sure it looks 10 times

1:05:47

better now. I do wonder what it

1:05:49

looked like opening day. Yeah, I

1:05:51

don't know. And yeah, I don't have the

1:05:53

best sense of the vibes previously. I mean,

1:05:55

I think this place, I think some of

1:05:57

the magic of it is it's like modern.

1:06:00

money supporting really good

1:06:02

bones. And the photos I

1:06:04

saw made it clear, those photos I

1:06:06

could find made it clear that like,

1:06:09

all these features were there. You know,

1:06:11

they're like, here's the little like, here's

1:06:13

the town square and a

1:06:15

fountain and a dedicated Sopa Pia's

1:06:18

stand. And then like the every

1:06:20

beat of Black Bart's cave, which

1:06:22

I will get into was all

1:06:24

there. They may have fully ripped

1:06:26

it out and started over, but

1:06:28

I don't think they reinvented the

1:06:30

space or, I mean, I

1:06:32

think they, they like pretty perfectly

1:06:34

recreated what they had been ripping

1:06:36

out, you know? Right. So

1:06:38

I'm sure it was awesome when it

1:06:40

opened. I mean, just like it's what

1:06:42

you want out of, it's

1:06:44

in the league of, I'm trying to think of

1:06:46

like the best Disney example of this. It might

1:06:48

not be this, but like that Snow White redo

1:06:51

I think is wonderful. Yeah, for sure. I think,

1:06:53

you know, it doesn't stray far from the ride

1:06:55

that was probably there in 1955, but they subtly use modern

1:07:00

technology. They don't like make it

1:07:02

fully screen ride, but they just

1:07:04

like support and amend. And

1:07:07

I think it's insane that I'm

1:07:09

putting this in league with like

1:07:11

some of Disney's best ride redos,

1:07:13

but I absolutely do. Well,

1:07:15

and also I think it would

1:07:17

be harder to make something that would

1:07:19

continually impress, like,

1:07:21

I guess what I mean is like you have

1:07:24

to sit there and eat. So you're watching everything

1:07:26

and you're existing by it for an hour or

1:07:28

whatever. Yeah. You got time to stare. Right. And

1:07:30

so like see all the seams. Yes. Right. Because

1:07:32

like a rock, I'm sure there's fake rocks that

1:07:35

we love that you would sit and eat a

1:07:37

meal by them. And by the end you would

1:07:39

be like, well, the, some of, some of the

1:07:41

magic might be gone. Cause I can see that

1:07:43

it's actually a little cheaper or the paint isn't

1:07:46

so good. Oh, absolutely. Yes. And it requires like

1:07:48

a, like a blue bayou, which completely

1:07:50

does hold up. Like it's gotta be, but it's

1:07:52

dark in there. What's that dark in

1:07:55

that blue bayou? That's true. That's true. Well, you

1:07:57

know, it's, it's dark in here too. Yeah. But

1:07:59

like, I'm saying as dim. They

1:08:01

definitely aren't hiding anything.

1:08:04

Now, one

1:08:06

thing I will say about, you just

1:08:08

said, because

1:08:11

you sit there for a while, you

1:08:14

sit there for an hour. This is

1:08:16

not necessarily true. I feel like

1:08:18

what they encourage, essentially, is fairly

1:08:21

quick turnover, because there's so much

1:08:23

interest in this place. But

1:08:26

also, all right, the

1:08:28

food. This is a big question

1:08:30

people might have. Well,

1:08:32

here, I'll get into it. But just vaguely let me

1:08:35

say, the food's not

1:08:37

great. They didn't get it to

1:08:39

great. Now, we're not in

1:08:41

dog food territory. We're not in Casa

1:08:44

Noita territory. But it was pretty quickly broadcasted,

1:08:46

I would say, that the food might not

1:08:48

be great. Because here's how this played out.

1:08:52

The reservation was at 6 PM, and we got

1:08:54

there a little earlier. So we were seated at

1:08:56

6 PM. We

1:08:58

ordered. The food arrived at 6.08. Wow.

1:09:02

They jammed this out. And

1:09:04

I feel like that communicated, this

1:09:07

place is not about the food.

1:09:09

You will eat up and enjoy.

1:09:11

It'll be fine. But the

1:09:14

fact that it was out that quickly and

1:09:16

that there are constant PA announcements for all

1:09:18

the other things there are to do, kind

1:09:20

of let us know, oh, I see. Food

1:09:23

is like a technicality here. It's

1:09:26

like at a wedding or something. But

1:09:28

it's more about the other stuff. Gotcha.

1:09:32

So yes, food-wise,

1:09:36

I mean, this is something. I

1:09:38

talked to Doug about this. Because he

1:09:40

got to go a couple months prior. I think

1:09:42

I asked him about food. And he said, I

1:09:44

think he said, fine. But

1:09:46

boy, if you ask around Denver, if

1:09:48

you're in Denver, and you

1:09:50

talk to locals, and you just bring

1:09:53

up, I'm here partially for Casa Benita,

1:09:55

they will all say, oh, that food.

1:09:57

Oh, Jesus, that food. And we

1:09:59

experience that. We went to a Trader

1:10:01

Joe's and we got exactly that. And somebody said

1:10:03

at that Trader Joe's, you

1:10:06

know what, I don't think they fixed

1:10:08

it. I still don't think it's any

1:10:10

good. So Denver is definitely like a

1:10:12

Denver thing. They are so, they have

1:10:14

not forgotten how terrible that food and

1:10:16

so much of the mystery of

1:10:18

this place is did they get the food

1:10:20

better. And kinda, Erin's

1:10:23

was worse than mine. She

1:10:25

got something vegetarian and she

1:10:27

said it was like a serviceable

1:10:30

microwave meal. Wow. And

1:10:32

it's not Taco Bell quality even? Well

1:10:35

look, we're on different, I don't know what to

1:10:37

say to you to that because you put Taco

1:10:39

Bell in the highest caliber of food. Well, it's

1:10:41

my favorite thing. Did you eat the big Cheez-It

1:10:43

yet, Mike? I have not had the big Cheez-It

1:10:45

Taco Bell thing, yeah. There's a big Cheez-It at

1:10:47

Taco Bell. There's a big Cheez-It. You get a

1:10:49

Crunchwrap with a big Cheez-It. Can we put an

1:10:51

inch amount on that? I think like.

1:10:54

Well a Crunchwrap, if you've ever had a

1:10:56

Crunchwrap at Taco Bell, it's kind of like,

1:10:59

I would say it's like this big right

1:11:01

here. And I think the Cheez-It's sort

1:11:03

of a similar, like this, you

1:11:05

know when Steven Spielberg's making the lens

1:11:07

when he's sort of imagining a shot

1:11:09

in a movie. Okay, uh-huh. With his

1:11:11

fingers. Sure, sure. Imagine an onset of

1:11:13

less crusade finger frame forming. With Steven

1:11:15

Spielberg, if you wanna Google the image

1:11:17

search that, that's about how big the

1:11:19

Cheez-It is. I mean, you were making

1:11:21

me whisper. A

1:11:24

Cheez-It in Steven's hand like

1:11:26

that too. If somebody wants to make that, I

1:11:28

would appreciate it. You were making me wistful for

1:11:30

the magic of cinema just doing those, the hands.

1:11:32

Well of course you could do that. I guess

1:11:34

you could do two, you could do these, you

1:11:36

could do this. There's a big Cheez-It, so you

1:11:39

can get the big Cheez-It in a Crunchwrap or

1:11:41

you can get it as a tostada. Or

1:11:43

you can just buy the big Cheez-It. Oh

1:11:45

really, okay. What's your, have you done it?

1:11:48

I haven't yet, no. You made a disgusted

1:11:51

face, but I don't think you meant to

1:11:53

convey that. No, I was just burping, yeah.

1:11:55

So you were burping, that was the discussion.

1:11:57

He's having pre-indigestion just thinking about it. Just

1:16:00

make sure you're seeing a sauce

1:16:02

in that listing because I think

1:16:05

we're dealing with pretty basic, I

1:16:07

think inherent flavor and juice of

1:16:09

meats is not necessarily incredible. What

1:16:12

do you mean Christmas style? Is

1:16:14

that like a wet burrito, green

1:16:17

sauce, red sauce? I think so. Now I have

1:16:19

to remember, because I didn't

1:16:21

have something Christmas style. I know I've had that somewhere.

1:16:23

I thought it means that it has a little piece

1:16:25

of reindeer in it. Aaron

1:16:30

famously vegetarian, but she makes an exception. Yeah,

1:16:34

she makes an exception for reindeer. She makes

1:16:36

an exception for Christmas spirit. Her

1:16:38

game, yeah. What is

1:16:40

it? Now I think your description was

1:16:44

fairly accurate. Yeah, red and green sauce,

1:16:46

totally. So

1:16:48

anyways, but it's not bad

1:16:52

and I didn't feel bad after the

1:16:54

fact. I've seen reviews and I've seen

1:16:57

vloggers go to this place and

1:17:00

get it out of the way. As I got stuff

1:17:02

out of the way at the top of this, they

1:17:04

started by saying, and I'll tell you all about the

1:17:06

food, spoiler, didn't make me sick. I

1:17:08

think the possibility was so high

1:17:11

before that Denver locals, like

1:17:13

that's the first thing you have to address is I'm

1:17:15

like, because I understand, I'm like probably

1:17:17

everybody wanted to be here. It's so fun.

1:17:19

I'm sure it was fun even pre-tray and

1:17:21

met. But if that possibility is

1:17:23

so high, again, other than for you guys

1:17:26

who I feel like would have been at

1:17:28

the prior version on a monthly basis. That's

1:17:30

true, yeah. Sure. Extra

1:17:32

steam please, I would say. When I want

1:17:35

my. I'm trying

1:17:37

to figure out how to steam carnitas.

1:17:39

Scott, good move. I think carnitas are

1:17:42

usually pretty safe. I

1:17:44

think the worst thing you can do to it is

1:17:46

just draw it out. Yeah, well I

1:17:48

think that's how it was, but then they put like

1:17:50

a decent. That's what you see. Yeah,

1:17:52

that's what the steam is. Well, that's easy. He's

1:17:55

at moist. Yeah, maybe I might've liked it more

1:17:57

if they'd, I hope they didn't take out all

1:17:59

of the steamers. Should've in tribute to

1:18:01

the original process. Should've kept a

1:18:03

few steamers. But anyway,

1:18:05

it is also shockingly, neither of us

1:18:07

really cared for the drinks. We found

1:18:09

the drinks pretty sugary. And like, oh,

1:18:11

OK, that's too big. So we're a

1:18:14

little like, uh-oh. But are we in

1:18:16

the territory of theming is good, but

1:18:18

the food's not great. And it's improved,

1:18:20

but there was nowhere to go but

1:18:22

up from like, you might go to

1:18:24

the hospital. The drinks

1:18:26

were redeemed a little bit later by, again,

1:18:28

this is from the same review said

1:18:30

to avoid the margaritas and get something

1:18:33

called El Diablo, which is a mezcal

1:18:35

drink. And that, I thought,

1:18:37

was actually spectacular. I thought it was a really good

1:18:39

drink. So being

1:18:41

that mine are stolen from another food

1:18:44

review, they're fairly vetted.

1:18:46

I don't think I could speak to, don't

1:18:48

take my food recommendations, but I took mine

1:18:50

from another one. So listeners, if you're going,

1:18:53

El Diablo and Carnitas Tacos. And

1:18:55

what strain of sticky Colorado

1:18:58

kush did you enjoy before

1:19:00

hand? Yeah,

1:19:05

yeah, no, I got the Grateful Dead-specific

1:19:07

varietal. Nice. Yeah, they've been working up

1:19:09

something. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Meddic company.

1:19:12

Personally approved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what

1:19:14

the guy, did you see the new

1:19:16

store I met, send the guy

1:19:19

who snuck a bong into the sphere?

1:19:22

And got- He's been banned. Oh,

1:19:24

right. And from all Madison Square

1:19:26

and this G- Oh, no. Mike's

1:19:29

greatest fear. He's on Dolan's

1:19:31

No List. Yeah, and I

1:19:33

haven't been put on there, thank God. But

1:19:35

I won't try the bong. Now I know.

1:19:37

Dolan's No List is really something, given that

1:19:39

his yes list contains some of the worst

1:19:41

human beings who ever walked the earth. Very

1:19:43

good point. Yeah. Anyways,

1:19:50

you also, you don't have to get all your drinks at

1:19:52

the table, because there are four bars all over this place,

1:19:54

which I don't think there were before. On

1:19:56

the way out the door, a local said

1:19:58

that there are activations. that when you

1:20:01

order a drink, ask about the activation. And I

1:20:03

was running out of time and I didn't get

1:20:05

to do it, so I don't know what it

1:20:07

is. So listeners, when you order a drink, ask

1:20:10

about the activation. I really wanna know what that,

1:20:12

something with lighting or something pops up, some

1:20:14

little secret, I don't know, I wish I

1:20:17

knew. Now we're starting to

1:20:19

review this thing, not in the best terms, food

1:20:21

wise, but we're being kind of forgiving because we're

1:20:23

in the best mood ever. And

1:20:27

then the Sopa

1:20:29

Pia's stage comes. The Sopa

1:20:31

Pia's are free with the meal, as are

1:20:33

sodas, I thought that was funny, you get

1:20:35

sodas free with the meal. But

1:20:39

so, Sopa

1:20:41

Pia's change everything. These are, this

1:20:43

is everything that Cartman made

1:20:46

them out to be. It was

1:20:48

like the definition of great taste in your mouth

1:20:50

on the way out the door. I don't care

1:20:52

that we were disappointed by the first step. These

1:20:54

are incredible, I don't even know how to, they're

1:20:56

like Mexican pastry bites and

1:20:59

they're so soft and tender, they're

1:21:01

hollow inside so they just crumble

1:21:04

as soon as your mouth touches them. Oh

1:21:08

my God, just so, so delicious.

1:21:11

And covered in, they're all just fried

1:21:13

up, they

1:21:15

all just do a little fryer bath and

1:21:17

then somebody's squirting honey on it as it

1:21:19

goes. Just really

1:21:21

simple. I think this is like a three

1:21:24

ingredient item. I don't know how

1:21:26

they do it, but these are,

1:21:28

they're unbelievable. And this was the

1:21:30

most satisfying in terms of what

1:21:33

South Park promised. Sopa Pia's, Sopa

1:21:35

Pia's please, watching his drunkenness on

1:21:37

them. And the flag, and

1:21:39

you get to do the flag. I don't

1:21:41

know if this place invented the flag. I

1:21:44

don't know if they, I mean obviously they

1:21:46

predate Bubba Gump. I don't know the history

1:21:48

of the thing that waves the server down,

1:21:51

but it's great. And they put

1:21:53

new flags at every table with

1:21:55

the beautiful, that are like really well

1:21:57

chosen fabric, a beautiful. pattern the logo

1:21:59

I love the Casa Benita logo so

1:22:01

much I found the flag so charming

1:22:03

I wanted to take one home with

1:22:05

me and I did they sell the

1:22:08

flag Wow smart I have a flag

1:22:10

at home and my son plays with

1:22:12

it and we play like let's play

1:22:14

dinnertime and he raises the flag and

1:22:16

we it really stuck with him and

1:22:18

that's all you want is you know

1:22:20

my you just want experiences that they

1:22:22

are still talking about weeks later yeah

1:22:24

talking about so many aspects of this

1:22:26

as in life that's what happens when

1:22:28

my daughter wants to watch the

1:22:30

Chuck E. Cheese me and my friends video again

1:22:32

if she comes up to me and she goes

1:22:34

she just starts flapping her wings like Helen Henny

1:22:36

and then points at the TV that's

1:22:39

the signal he just flaps she'll flaps she

1:22:42

gets this like little smile on her face

1:22:44

and she starts flapping and then she points

1:22:46

the TV and I go you want to

1:22:48

watch me and my friends with Chuck E.

1:22:50

and she's like nads Wow yeah Wow jeez

1:22:52

well and she's a Tiki Room fan now

1:22:55

as well cuz she went there so

1:22:57

then she like Tiki Tiki Tiki like she'll say it

1:22:59

a little bit but then she'll like if you

1:23:01

just play the song on the like boom box then

1:23:04

she will be like mmm-hmm and

1:23:06

she'll point to the TV she wants to

1:23:08

watch the video of the Tiki Room Wow

1:23:10

Wow so she'll give there there's yeah she

1:23:12

will do the thing where she's like remembers

1:23:15

this I don't know that she really remembers

1:23:17

being there in person but she should she

1:23:19

should yeah both of those things obviously are

1:23:21

memorable to her I think the

1:23:25

this morning because I was refreshing my memory on

1:23:27

some of this stuff and of the South Park

1:23:29

episode and I was like filming

1:23:31

that scene off the TV and then my son

1:23:33

said can we

1:23:36

watch the one with the guy running from

1:23:38

the police yes we can

1:23:40

yes he remembered watching the clip of

1:23:42

Cartman doing doing the speedrunning associate he

1:23:44

knows that he was there so

1:23:48

anyways soap P is highly

1:23:50

recommended I don't know where else in the world serves

1:23:52

soap P is I'm sure there are places I've just

1:23:54

never been to one before yeah but like so

1:23:57

so much better than the little white

1:23:59

triangle that were depicted on South

1:24:01

Park. Like truly trans, really,

1:24:04

really great dessert. Did you guys eat a

1:24:06

plate of them and then call for more

1:24:08

Sopa Pia's? I

1:24:11

wanted to really badly just to do it.

1:24:13

I think they aren't endless. I think it's

1:24:16

like a dollar more, which is still the

1:24:18

price is right on that. And you could

1:24:20

go up to the dedicated Sopa Pia stand

1:24:22

at any point and just like purchase the

1:24:25

piecemeal, even once you've left your table. Because

1:24:27

by the way, when you leave your table,

1:24:30

the table is done. Don't leave a jacket

1:24:32

there. As a blogger said, it's not

1:24:35

your home base for the night. If

1:24:38

they see nobody there, they're turning that table over.

1:24:41

There's 600,000 people to get through. You can

1:24:43

hang out inside. You can go to the

1:24:45

little areas. Yeah, that's what's

1:24:47

coming. And that is what you do. You

1:24:49

can stay in it as long as you

1:24:51

want. And that, I guess, is the area

1:24:53

that I'm getting into. I'm gonna back up

1:24:56

a little bit to the Cliff Diver presentation

1:24:58

because there's something important that I forgot about.

1:25:00

First of all, these divers are so great,

1:25:02

not just with the dives, which are obviously

1:25:04

very impressive, and that they're on these precarious

1:25:06

rocks and right next to us, so cool.

1:25:08

Also part of it that

1:25:10

they're wearing these very 70s

1:25:14

burnt orange shorts that

1:25:17

are specifically what Trey and Matt remember.

1:25:19

And they requested these to be made,

1:25:22

again, to just keep it firmly in

1:25:24

that 70s zone. So

1:25:27

the shorts are custom. And they're

1:25:29

so, besides the dives themselves, it's wrestling.

1:25:31

They've got the audience in the palm

1:25:33

of it. They hype everybody up. They

1:25:36

almost do it, and then they

1:25:38

don't. They just, everybody

1:25:41

is enthralled with their

1:25:43

every move. These guys are

1:25:45

so great. They interplay the way they

1:25:47

work everybody up. And

1:25:49

then there's an aspect of this, and this

1:25:51

is what, and here's maybe a little bit

1:25:54

of spoiler. I'm gonna issue a few spoilers

1:25:56

because I think the audience deserves to have

1:25:58

some things that I... I don't ruin for

1:26:00

them. We're in Tokyo

1:26:03

Disney territory. There's things that I don't want

1:26:05

to say, because

1:26:07

I think it's fun to just discover this. So

1:26:09

I'll issue one of those right now. It's a

1:26:11

small thing, but pretty cool. There are, as I

1:26:13

said, PA announcements

1:26:15

throughout this kind of encouraging

1:26:18

the flow to

1:26:20

go check out the other things, to check out the

1:26:23

puppet show. And then also hyping people up for the

1:26:25

cliff diving. And these PA announcements

1:26:28

are done by Trey Parker himself. Oh,

1:26:30

that's funny. He put his own voice

1:26:33

into it. And I'm such a

1:26:35

fan of him vocally. And I'm such a

1:26:37

fan of that thing he does where it's

1:26:39

like aware and cruddy

1:26:42

on purpose and being just like this full of

1:26:44

shit announcer guy. And

1:26:46

he gets to do that thing that

1:26:48

he's so good at. And it plays

1:26:50

all night, every night in this restaurant.

1:26:52

The part of me that so badly

1:26:55

wanted to be in the Fry's Electronics,

1:26:57

I'm like, god damn it, this

1:26:59

guy did it. He did exactly

1:27:01

my dream, creating a

1:27:03

place where his voice is the

1:27:05

voice of everything in the place.

1:27:08

Yeah, that's awesome. And it adds

1:27:10

to the comedy of it, because

1:27:12

it's sure he's

1:27:14

got that tongue in cheek thing about the

1:27:16

way he pronounces. But also, it

1:27:19

feels really sincere, too. It's

1:27:22

like the awareness that it needs to communicate

1:27:24

that, yes, the place is a little hokey,

1:27:26

but we're all going to just have fun

1:27:28

with the hokey-ness. And there's

1:27:30

stuff like there's a big buildup.

1:27:33

Sometimes the divers just do a fun show

1:27:35

with music. And then there's one where there's

1:27:37

suspense, and the music is a little bit

1:27:39

scary. And he builds it up and like,

1:27:41

all right, ladies and gentlemen, your attention to

1:27:43

the Cliff Lagoon. Our

1:27:46

divers are about to attempt the

1:27:48

never before, the most dangerous stunt in

1:27:50

all the world, the Ballade Canyon. And

1:27:53

the silence, we need silence,

1:27:55

please. Focus, everyone. And then

1:27:57

the diver gets to like, you know, he like crayons.

1:27:59

cracks his knuckles and gets ready and like,

1:28:02

you know, brings everything down for a second. Everybody's

1:28:04

silent. Get her a pin drop

1:28:06

and then cannonball. And then he

1:28:08

just does a cannonball. That's funny.

1:28:10

It is like, and that's a

1:28:12

thing that I think is funny,

1:28:14

but kids get, that is a

1:28:16

for everybody. That is them writing

1:28:18

just good theme parky stuff. So

1:28:22

great. And then also he's guiding traffic to

1:28:24

the other stuff. Are you on your way

1:28:26

to the puppet show? You should be. It

1:28:28

starts in three minutes. My

1:28:31

son's hearing that and now he's starting to tug our

1:28:33

sleeves and like, are we gonna miss the puppet show?

1:28:35

I don't want to miss the puppet show. Yes, all

1:28:37

right. He's becoming like Cartman. I don't want him to

1:28:39

be like Cartman in any other capacity, but you know

1:28:41

what I mean. Only in that one.

1:28:43

I wanted to be like Cartman in that one

1:28:45

moment, but without the crimes. So

1:28:47

anyways, now we're starting to explore the other stuff. Oh

1:28:50

wait, shit, I forgot that also while you're, even though

1:28:52

we were only at the table for like 20 minutes,

1:28:54

you get so much stuff happening. There's the cliff diver

1:28:56

shows, and your rays in the flag, but

1:28:58

then also like a monkey walks up.

1:29:00

A monkey comes up to your

1:29:03

table, and he's wearing the diver

1:29:05

shorts like the divers. It's

1:29:07

like communicating that he wants to be a

1:29:09

diver too. And he asks their

1:29:12

name, and then he spells your kid's name

1:29:14

in sign language, and then he spells his

1:29:16

own name, which is Moko. So we got

1:29:18

original characters. Wait, is this a real monkey?

1:29:20

No, no, no, it's a kind of suit.

1:29:22

You know what? It was

1:29:24

important to clarify because with everything I've

1:29:26

described, certainly possible. That's what I thought.

1:29:28

I was like, it's possible they just

1:29:31

have a loose monkey in there. I'm glad

1:29:33

you asked that. No, it's a guided suit,

1:29:35

and the suit is like, it's a get

1:29:37

like, you know that they can

1:29:39

pull things off really well and not hokey. So

1:29:41

you know it's a choice that you can just

1:29:43

see the break from the

1:29:45

head to the body. And

1:29:48

this clearly was a tradition of the whole thing.

1:29:50

I think the monkey would like go get in

1:29:53

fights next to the waterfall and like punch the

1:29:55

cliff divers off of the cliff and stuff like

1:29:57

that. And Trey has said he wants to go.

1:30:00

there sometimes and do shifts as

1:30:02

MOCO. It could have been him,

1:30:04

I don't know. Maybe that was the MOCO. I

1:30:08

think there were balloon animals. There was like

1:30:10

a, I didn't even understand this story. There's

1:30:12

like a, a female pirate was going around

1:30:14

like recruiting pirates and that was just too

1:30:17

confusing to us and food was coming and

1:30:19

like, we'll talk to you later

1:30:21

pirate. So I don't know, you can follow the

1:30:23

pirate plot line. Now we're getting, it's like, now

1:30:26

it's we're in immersive territory. Yeah, really? So

1:30:29

then we start walking around. Let's

1:30:31

go see what else there is to do.

1:30:33

You go into a little town square. There

1:30:35

is a wishing well. I just walked past

1:30:37

it. Listener, don't walk past the wishing well.

1:30:39

I found it in a video later. There's

1:30:42

a face down at the bottom. There's a

1:30:44

guy talking to you at the bottom of

1:30:46

the wishing well. There's so many, I missed

1:30:48

a lot of things and I was there

1:30:50

for a while. Then

1:30:53

we get into kind of like the

1:30:55

main entertainment zone, which is home to

1:30:57

the puppet show and

1:30:59

Black Bart's cave. The

1:31:02

puppet show, I will also

1:31:04

issue a spoiler alert because

1:31:06

they don't allow you to

1:31:08

film it. Wow. They

1:31:11

are really strict about not filming this puppet

1:31:13

show. I'm not exactly sure why

1:31:15

that is, but I don't, I want

1:31:17

to respect their rules and

1:31:20

like, I guess they just really want people to

1:31:22

come experience it for themselves. Yeah. The

1:31:24

puppet show, one of the things in Cartman's speed run,

1:31:27

I think he doesn't have time to do it. I think the

1:31:29

cops block his way. So I got

1:31:31

to see it and he didn't. The

1:31:34

puppet show is so much fun. It

1:31:37

is a little like Muppet

1:31:39

show, variety show, hosted

1:31:41

by Mexican food. Again,

1:31:43

the narrator is Trey Parker and

1:31:45

he does a big buildup of, ladies

1:31:48

and gentlemen, your host, A Taco. And

1:31:51

then it's a mix of prerecorded stuff

1:31:53

that they do and then live

1:31:56

performers who are there, operating

1:31:58

puppets in this weird way where it's like, They're pulling

1:32:00

the trigger of a gun. Like you just

1:32:02

see, like, they just have like a black

1:32:04

glove over some kind of black mechanism, and

1:32:06

they're just pulling it back and forth. So

1:32:08

they're like, they're operating a puppet gun. And

1:32:11

then you get like little

1:32:13

variety show acts with, like

1:32:16

there's a chip that does a

1:32:18

cliff dive into a really

1:32:21

teeny bowl of salsa and

1:32:23

a big buildup to that. And then

1:32:26

when he hits, it goes black and

1:32:28

they're screaming and ambulance sounds like

1:32:30

he didn't make it. And then whatever Trey Parker

1:32:33

narration, like, oh no, so sorry, so sorry, I

1:32:35

had to see that. Not

1:32:37

only is his voice in it, there's

1:32:39

like a living rock and a

1:32:42

tree and it's their two voices.

1:32:44

And we are now in country bear,

1:32:47

jamboree territory. This is where I started

1:32:49

to get like really emotional. I

1:32:52

knew that they made this restaurant look nicer.

1:32:54

I knew that they fixed the paint and

1:32:56

made the food better. I

1:32:58

didn't know that this is Trey Parker's

1:33:01

opportunity to do his own country bear

1:33:03

jamboree. So cool.

1:33:05

Again, rich celebrities

1:33:08

spend money, they spend their money

1:33:10

on the most inane shit and like

1:33:12

brand expansions. Who is

1:33:14

doing anything as cool as setting up

1:33:17

their own personal country

1:33:20

bear jamboree? That's the dream. That's

1:33:22

the dream. They really did it. They did it.

1:33:24

And it's what, whenever Cartman comes into a lot

1:33:27

of money, he does stuff like this. He bought

1:33:29

an amusement park at one point so that he

1:33:31

didn't have to ever wait in line. He

1:33:34

returned his hot dog place into a

1:33:36

fun restaurant. They like, they did what

1:33:38

Cartman did. It's crazy. So

1:33:41

that, anyway, the show's just so fun. My

1:33:43

son and I are both laughing like Walt

1:33:46

Disney's dream. It works for both of us.

1:33:48

It's bringing us all together. Then

1:33:51

they encourage all the audience to

1:33:54

say, more soap a Pia's please

1:33:56

together. And then from the ceiling

1:33:58

of the puppet theater, a

1:34:00

soap-a-pea swinging on a

1:34:03

swing, like swinging teddy bear. Wow, really?

1:34:05

Yeah. Yes, they fully do real country

1:34:07

bear jiggly stuff. I was gonna say,

1:34:10

up until that point, you

1:34:14

could maybe have plausible deniability that that was

1:34:16

country bears. Yes, or that they're in like

1:34:18

a- There's other versions of shows like that.

1:34:20

Yeah, they're in Chuck E. Cheese territory or

1:34:22

something. I still have yet to find some

1:34:24

sort of an interview with them where they

1:34:26

just talk about like Disneyland and stuff. Yeah,

1:34:29

yeah. I don't know that they're,

1:34:31

I'm not gonna guess that

1:34:34

they are nerds to the degree that we are, but I

1:34:36

think that they took trips that had

1:34:38

a big impact on them. Could they name

1:34:40

all of the Bear Rugs? Probably not. Sure.

1:34:43

Did they know the full history of Figment?

1:34:45

But clearly they locked into that song.

1:34:48

I think they had like really formative

1:34:50

Disneyland or Disney World trips that

1:34:54

added for all of the first, for South

1:34:56

Park being like super cynical

1:34:59

and super dirty and profane and whatever, there

1:35:02

is like just sincerity at times to the

1:35:04

entertainment and to the storytelling. And I feel

1:35:06

like, I don't know, I think they have

1:35:08

that theme park gene in them that probably

1:35:10

helps out a lot. I'm just curious about

1:35:13

how far it goes. It's clearly

1:35:15

pretty far. Yeah, I mean, you'd be, yes.

1:35:17

I was thinking about you as soon as

1:35:19

I saw this and you having identified that

1:35:21

like, all right, it felt like a sequel

1:35:23

to them doing a clear tribute to Journey

1:35:26

into Imagination. Yeah. They

1:35:28

have put money into a swing and

1:35:30

teddy bara tribute. Yeah, the

1:35:32

Journey into Imagination specifically, because like,

1:35:34

you know, we've seen Country Bear

1:35:36

parodies here and there. There's

1:35:38

a Country Bear parody in The Critic that I really

1:35:40

like. And when Duke has his

1:35:42

own Country Bear, like Jamboree

1:35:45

in his office. I don't remember this. I

1:35:47

forget, I think he's talking to Jay's, I

1:35:49

forget the name of some of the characters,

1:35:51

Jay's girlfriend, what's her name? I

1:35:54

don't remember. I'm talking about how, you know,

1:35:56

us Southern people, people all think that we're a certain way or

1:35:58

whatever, and then he hits a button and then like. throttle

1:42:00

Trey Parker voice as things pop up and

1:42:02

like, there's no treasure in here, turn back.

1:42:06

And then you

1:42:08

get to the treasure, and

1:42:10

it is like, it's very pirates,

1:42:12

and there's this wonderful shimmery light,

1:42:14

and it's gold and glowy everywhere.

1:42:17

So it's like coins and gold

1:42:19

bars, but then also a 70s

1:42:21

evil, can evil lunchbox. So

1:42:23

it's like a 70s child's idea of

1:42:26

what the ultimate treasure would be. It's

1:42:28

funny. But then it starts sailing, say

1:42:30

your prayers of armament, you're done for, and then

1:42:32

you go into a very Mr. Toad, hell,

1:42:35

dragon's mouth. Again,

1:42:38

they've already done their pirates in their

1:42:40

Mexico pavilion, and now there's like a

1:42:42

tiny walkthrough that's like a fantasy land

1:42:44

ride. Wow. I am just so lit

1:42:47

up. And

1:42:49

then like, all right, well, I guess we're wrapping up,

1:42:51

and it's almost bedtime, so

1:42:54

we better get out of here. Wait, what's

1:42:56

up those stairs? Giant arcade. Still

1:42:58

an arcade to go. And we

1:43:00

walk up the stairs, okay, here's arcade,

1:43:02

and a shooting gallery, and a root

1:43:05

beer bar. Whoa, Jason. There's root beer

1:43:07

on tap. Well, now I'm

1:43:09

interested. No, he's crying, he's crying, he's tearing

1:43:11

up. I'm just sobbing. Root

1:43:14

beer on tap, what a good idea for

1:43:16

kids. That's awesome. And they don't get to

1:43:18

go to bar, but I always love that.

1:43:22

I feel like I don't ever

1:43:24

drink root beer, but I romanticize the idea of

1:43:26

it. I wish it was more like I imagine

1:43:29

where it's big and frosty and

1:43:31

cold mugs. Yeah. Do

1:43:33

either of you get, I mean, I don't know,

1:43:35

you get root beer at restaurants, I guess. He

1:43:38

pours root beer in a cereal every morning. I

1:43:40

love it on tap, yeah, I love real

1:43:42

tapped root beer. Where else are you

1:43:45

getting tapped root beer? I

1:43:47

don't know, you see it so regularly. I feel

1:43:49

like maybe nonce, or places.

1:43:52

Maybe somewhere, yeah. That do

1:43:54

root beer float, do like a lot of

1:43:56

root beer, floats

1:43:58

in a frosty mug. A&W

1:44:00

in Woodfield and

1:44:03

I feel like maybe actually I

1:44:05

don't I'm trying to remember in my

1:44:07

mind they had that but maybe it

1:44:09

wasn't maybe it was shitty. I think

1:44:11

I was driving from Ithaca to Pennsylvania

1:44:13

once and I pulled into an A&W

1:44:15

I went inside and it was

1:44:17

just like unlimited. It was bad. No,

1:44:20

well the food was nothing. Yeah. But

1:44:22

they had a keg of root beer and they gave

1:44:24

you a frosty mug. Can you get

1:44:26

a keg stand on it? Do

1:44:28

we get a keg stand on the sugar

1:44:31

root beer? Yeah. I

1:44:33

think it like well you know what like the

1:44:35

video the old video game tapper

1:44:38

that factors into Wreck-It Ralph. Oh yeah. You

1:44:40

know what I'm talking about. Is that

1:44:42

is that beer or is it root beer? Do they make it

1:44:44

root beer because it's for kids? Probably

1:44:46

right. I don't know the answer. I'm not entirely

1:44:48

I'm not entirely sure but I always like I

1:44:50

guess I've never thought about this before that like

1:44:53

you know you can't drink but I didn't

1:44:55

want to drink beer when I was a

1:44:58

kid but I love the idea of like

1:45:00

kegs, wood, going up to a bar, saloon

1:45:02

style. Like I wanted like a 1910s idea

1:45:04

and that a guy with a twirling mustache

1:45:07

and a bowler hat would serve it to me.

1:45:09

Like root beer as the in between of like

1:45:12

it's like a I don't know I don't know like

1:45:14

a bar that a child is

1:45:16

allowed to be at that also feels like

1:45:18

the old west. Yeah maybe Huckleberry Hound is

1:45:20

around. He's on the bar still on that

1:45:23

scale. That absolutely works. Yes the Cowboys of

1:45:25

Moomasa did not drink alcohol but they certainly

1:45:28

sidled up to a bar or two in

1:45:30

their day. Did they make a point of being straight

1:45:33

at were they specifically sober and talked about it?

1:45:36

I don't know if there was any beer in the world. Moomasa was

1:45:39

a dry Mesa. The X's on their hands

1:45:41

if you're wondering. This is a question I

1:45:43

guess in a lot of cinematic

1:45:46

universes do they have alcohol which is

1:45:48

ants it's very satisfying when it's answered

1:45:50

like Star Wars and then when you

1:45:52

maybe get to go experience it to

1:45:54

some extent for yourself. I mean everyone

1:45:56

has a different answer. I

1:46:00

don't know, we could go through them

1:46:02

quickly, but the MCU does, but it's,

1:46:05

you know, Tony Stark was drunk in one scene in

1:46:07

Iron Man 2. Okay. That

1:46:09

was as close as they were getting to his demon in

1:46:11

a bottle of alcoholic art. Is there a

1:46:14

prominent, and I'm not talking about getting a

1:46:16

beard on Earth in the MCU, which is

1:46:18

like one of the planets have a drink.

1:46:21

Is there a prominent MCU, like weird space drink?

1:46:23

Oh, that's a good question. I don't know that

1:46:25

off the top of my head. And if not,

1:46:27

would you like to invent one? Yeah, I mean,

1:46:30

is like Zandar, is there some sort of Zandarian

1:46:32

drink? Maybe, trying to remember.

1:46:34

I mean, in Star Trek, there's Romulan

1:46:37

Ale, that's the big one. It's

1:46:39

an illegal drink. Now, I don't know

1:46:41

if it's been made legal in other

1:46:43

future Star Treks, or I should say,

1:46:46

recent Star Trek. Picard has a winery?

1:46:48

I'm not sure if it was a winery, but yeah, wine is

1:46:50

legal. But Romulan Ale's like

1:46:52

absent or something. Oh, I

1:46:54

see. Oh, that's kind of exciting. Sometimes somebody will pull

1:46:57

it out behind, but I feel like I've got a

1:46:59

little of this. Has there ever been a physical place,

1:47:01

like the Vegas Star Trek experience, where you could get

1:47:03

Romulan Ale? Do we know? I think you could get

1:47:05

it at the Star Trek experience. Wow, wow. But I

1:47:07

don't know if there's a current place. Geez, what happens

1:47:09

in Vegas, stays in Vegas. I want

1:47:12

hands on some Romulan Ale. I really, really

1:47:14

want to go on a Star Trek cruise,

1:47:16

or finally go to start the big Star

1:47:18

Trek con in Vegas in August. I don't

1:47:20

know that I'll do it this year, but. It's never occurred to me

1:47:22

that you would go on a Star Trek cruise. I mean,

1:47:24

I remember your enthusiasm, similar to

1:47:26

mine in this episode, when

1:47:28

we talked about the Star Trek cruise, but I don't think I thought

1:47:30

through that you kind of want to do it. I do want to

1:47:32

do it, yeah. All the

1:47:35

oldest character actors are there. Mike's

1:47:38

recipe for good party, as we

1:47:40

know. Yeah. Free alcohol and

1:47:42

possible presence of Armin Schimmer. Armin Schimmer. I

1:47:45

think he'll be at both. I think he's

1:47:47

doing the rounds. So yeah, yeah,

1:47:49

for sure. Well, they have to serve some

1:47:51

equivalent of Romulan Ale, you would have to

1:47:53

imagine. Yeah, so right. Maybe it's not like

1:47:56

paramount approved necessarily, but someone is

1:47:59

doing it. Someone is. making Romulan ale. I

1:48:01

think. Thank god. When Paramount's away, the

1:48:03

cats will play. Paramount, though, I do

1:48:05

think licensed an official Picard winery wine

1:48:08

at some point. Oh. Well, that'd be worth

1:48:10

it. I should try that. This is hilarious.

1:48:13

I guess the Star Trek beverages. We

1:48:15

should see if we could get our hands on them, do

1:48:17

some taste tests. Sure. That sounds like an episode to me. Anyway,

1:48:20

at this point, I thought I was wrapping it

1:48:22

up. And when I just saw that there was

1:48:24

a root beer bar, I was like, get another

1:48:26

drink. Here we go. And I went and got

1:48:28

that old Diablo. And

1:48:31