SakeTami
Podcast: The Ride
Podcast: The Ride

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Park Starz (Second Gate)

For a few short years, Disney produced vinyl toys depicting beloved and obscure in-park characters. In 2017, it all came to an end.

Hear a toy-obsessed madman(Mike) celebrate the figures we got and mourn the toys that never were.

Park Starz (Second Gate) Park Starz (Second Gate) Park Starz (Second Gate)

Comments

Best wishes to Mike as he battles the Legacy Virus. Pulling for you, bud.

Trace Carter

I’d love to hear your thoughts on “Lacers,” the new Disney mystery vinyls that are shoes with different Disney prints on them?!

Breanna

What about scale scoundrel ??

Six Fogs Great Adventure

Kind of embarrassed now that my first morning in LA started at the Silverlake Intelligensia which I thought was super cool.

Ben

Parkstar by Nickleback… this is my formal audition for the Podcast

Jake Carey

Feel like there is a natural episode springing from this .. the McDonald's happy meal toys with park characters. Or have Scott just talk about Mac Tonight, the pleasure Island Funmeister, and other moon head guys.

Jeff Bale

18 part saga?

Jeff Bale

Episode idea: Mike talks to his Mom and a licensed therapist.

Jack O

“Good boys” my ass. They just got me to subscribe to the patron by withholding on main.

Haley

Mike goes "A tackle box for my doll parts" and I'm like "It's ok to call it a Kaboodle"

Kate Shoop

The Taurus Winnie the Pooh is possibly the first plush I ever owned as I got it when I was born

Rob Fitzgerald

Shouting out support for an Orange Bird ep, pretty please!!

Ethan Dickinson

I saw Devine in May, I’ll keep my eye out for them next week as well!

Ryan

Not me yelling, “Bob Gurr!” on my run this morning listening to this before he was named. 😂

Kate Malo

I literally did a spit take and almost choked on my iced coffee laughing so hard at the Scale queen/how many inches of Figment bit.

Oliver Anderson

Both Tsum Tsums and Nuimos became Asian exclusive(The former years ago and the latter recently). Like, they were hits in the states, but not enough to keep selling them here.

Agustin Macias

Jenny Nicholson would be an awesome guest for the Plush Pile episode! I just recently listened to the episode where you had her on and she was an awesome guest, and also I’m assuming she knows a lot about the topic (based purely on the amount of plushies she has in the background of her videos). Plus, you could talk to her about the Galactic Starcruiser video she released earlier this year (which I would genuinely recommend watching if you haven’t yet).

Kat K

Was there also a run of Pooh dressed as other Disney characters? I feel like I remember an Aladdin Pooh.

Ted Krapf

On the subject of bizarre Disney plush, the Disney Store had a habit in the late 90s/early 2000s of releasing beanbag plushies of Winnie The Pooh dressed as anything you can possibly imagine. Hair metal guitarist? Check. An entire set based on the signs of the Zodiac, one of which features Pooh as a centaur? Check. Another set featuring him dressed as different Santa Clauses from around the world? Check. This reached its peak when they released a set of Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore dressed as The Beatles. Why? It seems like the better question during this era was “Why not?”

Lauryn

I am so deep in the plush pile for Disney and have been for the last 10 years, since my first kid was born. I have so many fucking Tsums Tsums. Would be happy to lend the bin to y’all for the record.

Matthew Burnett

12 Inches of Figment are going on tour next year with Mr. Taffy.

Christian Swanson

For the Orange Bird ep, ContraPoints has a video with a section touching on his history as an ad character, and the controversial human, Anita Bryant, he partnered with in ads. I believe its the first couple of chapters of the vid: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EmT0i0xG6zg Also something I'm still so salty about was the rudeness of moving Orangebird's home at Magic Kingdom from the large counter when you exit Tiki Room, to the small stand right as you enter Adventure Land from Main Steet because of how popular Dole Whips became. And also the citrus swirl, his speciality lil ice cream treat, pales in comparison to what it used to be. It was half vanilla soft serve and frozen orange concentrate, the contrast of tart and sweet was so good! Now I believe it orange flavored soft serve. Okay, Orange Bird rant over. He's just my favorite lil guy.

Lindy B

I saw Divine in Feb 2023!

Fiona

I ate the big cricket sucker in class in middle school and I was very popular

Beefer Sutherland

You could make a great game out of munchlings where you are shown a picture and have to guess the character and the food… some of them are not easy. Would probably work best as a video episode though!

Fiona

I hope the plush pile includes the Disney beanie plushies you could buy from the Disney store in the mall. My sister had tubs and tubs of them!

David G

Normal things. Hip things. That’s what’s being said.

Daniel Salas

Into the Plush Pile is genuinely a dream episode, tsum tsums can be all sizes and also vinyl figures, but I remember the tiny ones were first marketed as phone screen wipers/cleaners as one of their “uses”

Hayley Penso

Truly wild how Mike repeatedly refers to 'A Christmas Carol' as 'The Night Before Christmas' and no one thinks to correct him. I thought this would get resolved much like the "All for Love" / "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" mix-up got resolved! I was on pins and needles!

Jonathon Pernisek

Tomorrow War Lore: my dad is named Rob Cowan and he produced the Tomorrow War. They were trying to come up with a name for Mike Mitchell’s character and the director looked at my dad and went “call him Rob Cowan”. So Mike Mitchell’s character is named after my dad!

Roxy Cowan

I loathe the “blind box” concept. Create little sets displayed in a window box and sell them to the nerds who want them. Imagine if Skippy came in an X-S set with SIR, Spinlok and the Alien. Take my money!

Excitemike 64

I was once at a candy store where the staff was clearly sick of people asking about the bug lollipops, because they put up a handwritten sign that said “YES these are real, YES people actually buy them”

torgo1985

When I did the WDW College Program I was obsessed with collecting these. So much so that I knew all of the ins-and-outs of how to buy them to reduce risks of duplicates. One time I pulled a Vinylmation that I especially loved the design of so I looked up the artist who did it (the signatures were on the bottom) and it turned out to be someone who worked at Disney as well, in fact he was the Art Director of Design Design Studios. I was pretty stoked to find this out, I was enrolled in art school at the time and was studying graphic design & illustration. I decided to send him an email telling him I was in the CP and also an art school student and in return he offered to give me a tour of the Disney Design Studio which was in an unmarked building on the WDW property. It was hands down the best experience I had when I was down there. Getting to tour that studio really made me excited to be pursuing design as a career. On the tour one of interns came up to us and showed the art director the illustrations of some phone cases he was working on and I remember the art director saying "change the eyes. Minnie looks stoned."

Weston Notestine

I collect (and make) designer toys and Bearbricks and it was extremely funny to hear the boys talk about it

Avri Rosen-Zvi

Our visit last year happened to coincide with Animal Kingdom’s anniversary, so it might’ve been for that occasion, but I can confirm seeing DiVine emerge out of the greenery to stalk toddlers.

Daniel Felts


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