Josh’s Christmas 1990 Home Video Breakdown

Let's go before I start getting more distracted.

Yep, yep, yep. This is Scott Toy Guru Nightlake

and you're listening to the Geekcast Radio Network.

Unleash the geek in you this is geek cast radio

episode 311 that's right folks 311 wouldn't you

believe or you wouldn't believe or amber or or

creation We are definitely creatures for a while

around here at the geek cast radio network I'm

in force tf2 and Mike and joining me for the

first time here on the flagship show is Josh

the floor burger. Hello, sir Hello I know this

is a loaded question as of the time of this recording,

but how are you? It's just part of my intro.

I ask if it doesn't, yeah, go ahead. I legitimately

can't deny that I don't have a good answer for

that question. You're either gonna get brutal

honesty or you are going to get a complete lie.

So we'll leave it at that. All right, well. It

is Christmas time, everyone. We here at the GCR

and hope everyone is having a merry and bright

holidays of a season. Today, tonight, whenever

you're listening to this, during December of

2022, we're going through Josh's Christmas pass.

That's right, folks. We are winding the clock

all the way back to 1990 because Josh either

found or uploaded or did something with an old,

old, old, old Christmas video that he has. So.

Where do you want to begin with the history of

this? Is there anything you want to say? What

like what are you? How do you want to introduce

yourself to this side of our audience? So I'm

obviously on the toy cast side of things I You

know, hi, I'm floor burger. Maybe you've seen

my podcast. Maybe you've listened to them So

I I have a very deep collection of a lot of the

toys I've had since I was a little kid and part

of my mission as a collector between getting

the modern goodies that exist out there has been

reclaiming or replacing or completing a lot of

the stuff I had from when I was a kid. And a

lot of that was Ninja Turtles being born in 84.

I was there right at the peak of Ninja Turtles

at the perfect age to enjoy them and experience

them way back when, especially the original playmates

line. So this video, as far as I know, like you

said was from 1990 and my brother had uploaded

it digitally a couple years ago looking at the

date of upload if I can even see that it's from

several years ago it's very low quality it struggles

in a couple different points where the the video

slows down but the audio continues so it has

a kind of a cool little effect there but unfortunately

it's It's hard to really make out a lot of the

stuff in the video, but it's one of the only

family Christmas Christmases I can think of where

my grandmother was there, not because she passed.

She passed away 10 years after this, but she

stopped coming for. Christmas Eve, Christmas

night, I don't really remember what the setup

was. But. It was, I think, our first official

Christmas in the house. It was either our first

or second official Christmas in the house. So

if you actually see the video, you'll see it's

like a log house. The interior is a log house.

And it was my mom's dream house. She designed

it. She went to the library, learned how to do

architecture. She did all the research. My mom

took a large hand in drawing the blueprints for

this house, basically. Very cool. So it's pretty

impressive. It was a piece of property I think

we had bought maybe as a family, I'm saying we,

I obviously had no say in it, had bought a couple

of years earlier and developed the property.

And it was very, very nice rural property in

an area that was not fully developed. You could

actually drive around and still see goats next

door. You know, they're towards the end of the

video. And I think you said you saw it. You can

actually see the goat farm that was right next

to our house that we grew up, you know. trying

to not get attacked by goats and even eventually

showing goats. But I digress. So this was actually

a really cool Christmas. This is one of the few

Christmases that I remember because there's a

video that exists, but it was an awesome Christmas.

We were a very fortunate family in that toys

were a really big part of our gifts typically,

but also we were fortunate enough that my family

could give several toys. I know that varies from

family to family, so I don't ever want to sound

insensitive. And I know that were maybe an exception

rather than a rule in terms of the amount of

gifts that we got. But, you know, growing up,

that's what you if that's what you get, that's

what you think everybody has. So. One thing for

us in the 80s with toys is that we were kids,

you know. our parents as long as we were good

11 months out of the 12 months out of the year

or whatever or even all 12 months as long you

know we would get like you know my mom used to

ask me like in july seriously in july christmas

grows there you know she would say okay start

getting your wish list ready for whatever and

as long as i was good you know i would get whatever

most of the time and whenever i didn't get I'm

not trying to, this is your episode, I'm just

trying to have a conversation here. I'm not trying

to take it over. But like, you know, Christmas,

whatever I didn't get for Christmas, I knew two

months down the line in February for my birthday,

I would get whatever it was that was leftover

that didn't come, you know, at Christmas. And

the thing is, in the eighties, money was plentiful.

I mean, not for everybody, but I mean, Our families,

man, they were between, and you can correct me

on your family because I don't know, but my family,

it wasn't until I think 90 or 91 where they wanted

to institute the whole thing of the gift hat,

where you throw all the names of the family in

the hat. And whoever picks out that person's

name, that's the one gift you buy. Before then,

it was a free for all. You were getting gifts

from everybody, no matter what it was and blah,

blah, blah. And even though my mom was buying

all the gifts that would go out to the rest of

the family members, it's like, Oh, this is from

Mike or this is from whatever this is from. And

it would be like for my cousins or my aunts or

my uncles or whatever. So like the eighties is,

and I don't know if it's still that way today.

I have no idea, but it. It was a, it was a magical

freaking time. And I'm sure there were plenty

of families that struggled. You know, our family

struggled every now and then, but for the most

part, Christmas was the time where it was like,

okay, everything except the kitchen sink. I think

a big part of Christmas gifts, especially in

the eighties and early nineties, toys were A

lot more of a common gift than they are now obviously

the toy aisles have shrunk the amount of available

toy stores have Pretty much disappeared outside

of secondhand toy shops and those toy shops that

sell the more educational and less I would say

like licensed toys That you see in little boutique

towns like your your Lake Geneva's or whatever

Yeah, you don't really see those anymore. We're

back then We had toys or us we had KB toys we

had I remember we did a An episode of toy cast

where we all talked about a place called like

kid city or whatever there were there were just

more options yeah, and I think it was a little

bit more affordable and there was a wider variety

and Buying toys was relatively easier than it

is now. Yeah, but I'm also speaking from a non

-parent perspective. I still know parents today

who are like, I'm looking for the unicorn princess

from Frozen and I can't find her and blah, blah,

blah. I know it changes. To speak to your mom

asking you in July what you would want for Christmas

is I also think back then there was a little

bit of a strategy to watching for sales because

sometimes they're really good sales throughout

the entire year. when stores were pushing out

clearance or they were liquidating stuff, it

was useful. And I know that my family, if I remember

correctly, and unfortunately, so let me throw

this out there. Let me go to a side tangent,

then I'll come back to this. So just to sort

of fill in some context, a little over a month

ago, my mom passed away suddenly. And so part

of this is meant to be a little cathartic for

me to talk about. uh, this Christmas and this

is a memorable Christmas for me, but also that,

you know, there's a lot of these questions I

could have asked her. And unfortunately, you

and I just never got a chance to podcast with

her. And I think we had talked about it a couple

of times when we weren't recording and that it

was a goal of mine to be able to interview her

and to sit down and just have a ton of questions

for her. one time when we visited and I only

really got to visit with her in the calendar

year of 2022 only twice. And unfortunately, we

just didn't have or maybe we did. And I just

didn't think about it. We just didn't have time

to sit down and for me to ask her a lot of questions

about her life, raising three boys, a lot of

the questions that unfortunately I have to go

on. Dealing with never getting answered, getting

a little emotional. I'm so sorry for your loss,

dude. I know what you're going through because

I lost my mom seven years ago. You want to talk

about something that was never answered until

2019, actually. I've always known that I was

born disabled. I've always known that I've had

cerebral palsy. Well, Key term in that disability's

name is cerebral. It's brain. I was essentially

born with brain damage and I had to go through

brain surgery in 2019 to remove excess fluid

off of my brain. And I've mentioned this before

on this podcast and on other shows. My brain

was the doctor said, if you don't come in and

have surgery on Monday, you'll be dead by Wednesday.

He said, my brain was two and a half inches away

from popping out of my skull. Because of the

excess spinal fluid that built up on my brain

over the last from 2019 let's say the last 15

16 years before that so We go in we have the

MRIs. We have the CAT scans. We have all these

other things and everything else Turns out I

was never boy never formed when I was in Inside

my mom when I was you know cooking in the oven

and all that good stuff. It never formed I do

not have what they call. It's the corpus column

This is the thing in the back of your head that

divides the left and the right brain hemispheres

into two small Jacuzzis to take all the fluid

and it's basically like ventricles in your heart

and things like that and all that. So instead

of having two mini Jacuzzis, I have one giant

Lake Michigan in my head. So I never had this

thing. So basically I was born, so my mom had

passed away in 2015. Four years later. I'm going

in for brain surgery and I have all these damn

questions that I cannot get answered because

even if she did have answers She couldn't tell

me because she's not here anymore. So I know

basically I'm saying all of this is to give you

a chance to You know what you know to let you

know that I I know it's raw right now And I know

maybe people listening will say well why the

hell you haven't in podcast if it's so raw Like

he said a moment ago I'm hoping this will be

cathartic for him. I'm hoping this will be therapeutic

for him. I'm hoping this will help him look back

on the time, a specific time in his life with

his family, with his mom that was really, really

good. Yeah. And I appreciate that. And to an

extent, that's what it's going to be. Obviously,

some of the questions I have are of a medical

level of urgency like you have. I'm sorry you

have to go through that. But yeah, no. But some

of it on my end is more questions that they're

not going to have a crucial urgent. Need in my

day to day life, but it's questions about me,

my family, and I teach history and part of. I'm

not the greatest history teacher in the world

by a long stretch. Well, like how I can totally

say that, but part of looking at history is asking

a lot of questions to really understand how you

got to where you are. But maybe it's my own,

just the way my brain works. I always have a

lot of questions about things and where they

came from. So I did want to ask my mom, what

was her strategy to shopping for us? Because

as we go through this podcast from this video,

they're I can't even list everything that we

got for Christmas that year part of that is because

I can't see it in the video or Or it's obscured

or there's just nothing to identify it by but

also another challenge with it is not everything

is Visible in the video not that it's blurred,

but it just the camera never caught it, but I

know we got it that year So there's good. There's

a couple of Ninja Turtle toys that you can't

you never see in this video, but I know that

we got them that year. Yeah. So I always wanted

to ask her in terms of because I'm a collector

and because I still have a lot of the toys that

she had gotten me as gifts or just just throughout

time. I always wanted to ask her what was your

strategy? How did you do this? How did you shop

for us? How did you know? Because I don't remember.

I know I made lists. I know I made Christmas

lists and birthday lists and all that. But I

don't. I don't know how she went out and did

it. I have tiny little pieces, but I don't have

anybody else to ask about that. So again, it

might just be one of those questions I have to

just say, okay, it's not as urgent as maybe say

like brain surgery, but it might be just one

of those mysteries that I have to let go unsolved.

Like where did she hide her Christmas presents

in the house? That is one thing I have not figured

out yet. Where did she hide them and how did...

how did they get out under the tree without us

ever knowing? Because we stayed up late, and

there is a small section in this video where

my dad, who's recording us, is asking us about,

hey, did you see Santa or whatever? And I know

that my brother and I did stay up pretty late

a couple times trying to see Santa, and we actually

make up a story that we saw someone walking on

the roof. Obviously, like I said, there's some

funny moments in this video, but let's go ahead

and jump into the first chunk that you wanted

to talk about, that you can see in the video.

Yes. I'm putting these here at the beginning

because they're more novelty things. They're

not action figures. They're the snuggle buddies,

Christmas, Santa and... Moussel toe. Moussel

toe. So what can I tell you about these? Did

you put them out every year after this? So I

can explain quite a bit about these if you would

like. Yeah, sure. Go ahead. So let's start with

the Moussel toe. My mom, I do remember, did appreciate

reindeer and moose, mooses, moose -eye. And I

don't remember when she got these. I want to

say they're probably from 1986, so I was maybe

two or three when we had them in the house. And

I actually have a picture or two of me, very,

very little tiny me, with these. And they were

just sort of your standard Christmas plush. And

if you look up Moose O'Toole on eBay, If you

look up that term on eBay and you look at all

the different varieties that pop up, there's

not only the ones that I see in the video, which

is just the standard moose with a scarf and a

hat, but there's a couple other variations, including

a female variation. And my brothers and I, I

know as a fact, love these because they're really

easy to wrestle with. They're kind of floppy.

They actually do have a little bit of weight

to them. They are a lot of fun and they're they're

they're hefty and when we were smaller they were

pretty close to us in size. And there is something

about the antlers are kind of a corduroy material

so it was as far as a tactile experience with

a plush toy i know that sounds weird to say.

It's it's kinda unique and kids are very much

about tactile textures so the the fur on the

moose is very velvety and soft. and then you

get the soft corduroy of antlers. So those have

always been put out every year, every Christmas,

since whenever they were first purchased. I got

them from my mom when she recently moved a couple

years ago. And so I've put out at least one of

them. They do take up a lot of space. I've put

out at least one of them at some point, somewhere.

They've come out and hung out. So they're still

they're still hanging out with us now. So they're

wow, 1986. We're looking at we're getting close

to shy of 40 years here with those things. And

yeah, we're pretty much at 40. I mean, we're

not at 40 years, but it's close enough. Yeah,

it might. It might as well be so. And the other

thing, especially with the Santa, if you think

about it, because they only came out in December

and then they got put away in January, they've

only really been out. A couple. Just really very

Let me rephrase this they've all their their

actual time of exposure to being played with

and being out and Exposed to the world is actually

a lot less than your standard stuffed animal

because they only came out of Christmas If you

add up the month and a half that they probably

were out that's 40 months whatever, you know

We're talking about less than four years where

some stuffed animals get beaten up over the entire

span of a year. Yeah And so they're still in

very good shape. One went missing because my

mom would often buy these things in triplicate.

One went missing. I was able to replace it off

eBay because they're still very cheap despite

being almost 40 years old. And it was brand new.

It looked like it came right out of the bag.

Well, the muscle toe is very cheap. It's about

30 bucks. That Santa, though, like the listing

you sent me was like seventy one dollars. And

I'm like, there ain't no way in hell. I don't

care what kind of memories I have attached to

that damn thing. And I still have all three of

those again, my mom bought things in triplicate.

Those are just a ton of fun. They are comfortable.

You could hold onto them and use them as a pillow

while you're watching a Christmas movie. And

they just work. They're just very kitschy. They're

very iconic. And I think because they're Santa,

the shape works. There's some other really creepy

versions of that. If you do look up pillow people,

Santa, like there's some less desirable looking

ones, but The it was as much as a Christmas toy

as they were a decoration and that's what they're

still used to Use for to this very day Yeah,

absolutely At first I thought that the the mussel

towed from like Alf is that Alf you're like,

nope damn it No, and you can catch them in the

video a little bit here and there I need actually

mute the video while we're talking But you can

catch them in the video here and there on the

couch. And I found recently a photograph probably

from either 99 or 2000, so almost 10 years after

this video. And they're still hanging out on

the couch in almost the same exact spot. So we

kept them around for a long time. They're still

kicking. That is awesome. Alright folks, we're

gonna get into the action figure segment for

this episode of the Christmas 2022 with Josh

the floor burger. And up next is those heroes

and a half shell. Cowabunga. I feel like you're

leaving me an opening and I totally just botched

it. But yes, so we're talking about the Ninja

Turtle section on this. And this was For me,

sort of the peak of Ninja Turtles fandom, I was

old enough. We had gotten our first Ninja Turtles

before we moved to this house. We got the four

original ones. I can't remember which other ones

we had originally, but we loved Ninja Turtles.

That was a major aspect of our, basically our

brotherhood. I think the fact that it was a team

and we all could associate with different turtles

in our own ways as brothers. Right. I know that

typically my brother John would get a Leonardo's

cause he was the oldest and kind of the leader.

So that was his sort of given role. Surprise

to you. I was typically Michelangelo. No, that's

not a surprise. Yeah. Uh, but I think, I think

Donatello and Raphael, if I remember correctly,

usually kind of swapped between my brother, Jair

and I. And so there is something on about a wrapped

up action figure, especially a vintage figure,

those old vintage Ninja Turtles. If you wrap

it, there isn't that iconic shape to it. Do you

know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. So it's

got this sort of angle across the top of it from

the bubble to the back card and it comes down.

And in this video, you see that we actually have

that my mom put them back to back and wrap them.

And we could not have been any more excited to

get And I think my count and my memory of what

we got is pretty accurate. You can't see it all

in the video. I know as a fact that I got the

Sewer Surfer Michelangelo. I also either got

the Undercover Donatello or the Space Cadet Wrath.

I don't know which one I got. It's hard to see

in the video. You can't really make it out. My

brother Jare got the Donatello with storage shell

and either the Don or the Rath. And then my brother

got the Leo, the sewer samurai. And if you got

to have these toys as a kid, this was, I think,

the first variation of the turtles that came

out that were not included with action features.

So there was another version where they had that

wind up like, you know, Donatello could swim

and Raphael would It's been his arm or something.

Well, the disguise turtles were like the samurai

and the sewer surfer and the undercover and whatever

Raph was. Those were the features. Like the fact

that Raph is a space cadet and he's in basically

he's in a space suit. You don't see the only

turtle part of him you see on him besides his

shell is His head the rest of it is just a regular

old buzz buzz. I was gonna say light year buzz

Aldrin Spacesuit sort of thing but the unique

part about these is that to a point they were

not only a little bit believable in the outfits

that they wore so Could I see the turtles going

to space in the cartoon? Yeah easily and Yeah,

and could I see Michelangelo want to dress up

like a surfer at the time totally? The Ninja

Turtles had a long history of wearing trench

coats and going out in public, so that fit really

well with both the cartoon and the movie. And

while Leo as a samurai was a little bit of a

stretch, it wouldn't be a stretch by the time

the third movie came out. But they were all so

very functional and believable. Later iterations

of the turtles, less so. I'm looking at my wall.

I only have... eight carted turtles on my wall.

And five of those are not the same figures, but

I actually spent probably about four or five

years trying to reclaim the five turtles we got

this Christmas morning. So it's one of my proudest

pieces of my collection is the carted turtles

we got. So I actually have the undercover Don,

the sewer surfer, Michelangelo, the Donatello,

the stored shell Donatello in the Space Cadet

RAF. It took me years and it was a very fun search

because that started with me getting the sewer

surfer mic for $5 years ago. Now that's a 70,

80, $90 figure. But later iterations of the turtles

would be so ridiculous that we never really got

them. Go ahead. Well, the thing of it is, is

the later iterations past these, past these disguised

turtles and the, and the shell turtles is that

they went crazy. They went nuts. After 1990,

it's basically when the show ended in 96, those

last few years before they went and did the 2003

stuff. Playmates went great like this is the

90s. We have to be so 90s and don't get me wrong

Super Surfin Mike is very like he's he's not

neon but he has neon colors and he has pink and

purple and not purple but pink and orange and

blah blah blah blah blah and Raph the saint like

honestly the Donatello and Leonardo are the two

sane ones as far as the look of them Like undercover

Don is like, yeah, kids, see, we're going to

go solve some crimes. Yeah. So I do. I do have

to say something cool about the undercover Don

is that if you can get a look at his accessories,

I'm going to we actually have a wonderful collection

of links. Yes, I have. Yep. Let me pull that

site up. If you look at his accessories, he had

a functional briefcase. You could open up and

put stuff into it like the weird. black piece

of pizza that he came with because all the accessories

were always unpainted on these for whatever reason.

Yeah. He had a mask that is ridiculous, but it

worked and it stayed in place, which is incredible.

And I think if I'm looking a little closer, there

were a couple of stickers in there that you could

apply to the inside of the briefcase. And it's

just. The toys are really really well thought

out Michelangelo has a surfboard he can stand

on Raphael has He has a space suit. I'm sorry.

It's just it's a cool figure way most people

lose his bubble his his helmet and But I know

as a kid that Raphael also was my underwater

Raphael because I Obviously there are scientific

differences between a scuba suit or a deep sea

suit and an astronaut suit. But hey, as a kid,

with an imagination, it's a million different

things. So those were some really, really cool

figures. But I do have to point out, on top of

those, there's a very clear moment. And I'll

have to send you the picture. There's a very

clear moment where I unwrap the probably one

of the greatest vehicles that I don't think was

in the cartoon, but one of the greatest vehicles

that was made early on this line. And that was

the turtle copter. This thing, folks, is whack.

And I say that in a good way because I forgot

about this because by the time these were coming

out, I was out of Turtles. Like I had moved on

to Batman the Animated Series and X -Men and

like I moved into superhero territory, not saying

the Turtles are not superheroes, but the gooey

green gunship. I do not remember this thing at

all. So this, this very column, I'm downloading

the picture I was telling you about this copter

chopper, whatever you want to call it. The only

complaint I had about it. And I'm going to start

with my critique and then I'll move into my,

my little mini review is that the propeller blade

didn't have a mechanism to make it spin. Right.

If it had that, it would probably be an amazing

vehicle. But if you look back at some of the

early turtle vehicles, unless you got the bad

guy vehicles, which I don't think we ever did,

there wasn't a lot to them. The original turtle

van, I know it's iconic. As far as the toy goes,

it's not great. It's not very detailed. It's

not the most fun item outside of, hey, we're

just going to jam a bunch of our Turtles into

this and roll it down. It doesn't even have a

steering wheel No seat belts like the biggest

feature has a legit rubber band that just flips

one of the doors out and hits somebody There's

really not a whole lot to it. I'm not trying

to bash it It's just a simple well -made toy

that was pushed out. But the turtlecopter has

so many features Yeah, it does and the link I

have doesn't even begin to describe those but

it's got Trash can bombs that you can fill with

ooze that you can drop It's got a handle on it

that you can use and some people make sometimes

make fun of handles being built in a toy so you

can Fly them around but as a kid if you can make

a flying vehicle more functional because it has

a handle I just think it's more fun because you

don't see your hand covering the vehicle as you're

flying it around So I mean because really seriously

looking at this at this turtle copter like if

they're the handle wasn't there You would have

to hold it from the bottom or you would have

to basically fist the tail section of it or something.

You would have to find a way somehow to hold

this thing up and fly it around the room. But

since it has a handle on it, it's like, oh, this

is cool. Every vehicle that is... I'll rephrase

this. Every flying vehicle deserved to have a

handle so we could have a place. to show that

we were actually quote unquote flying the vehicle.

Yeah. And with this, with the handle, it also

had a squeezable trigger that would make the

rails of the helicopter, which were punching

bags, basically go back and forth like one of

those Rockham Sockham robots. And you can literally

punch things with it. And it was so cool. But.

playmates was also smart enough to put wheels

on the bottom of the helicopter so in the the

Christmas video you can actually see me sliding

it around like it's really cool on the ground

but there's so many details put into this there

were so many different attachments that look

like little bugs or you can't I can't really

determine exactly what the attachments are these

little blue things that are hanging off the side

but you can fit you could comfortably fit two

turtles into this in a functional manner they're

not just like laying in there they're holding

one of the guns or they're piloting and it's

just it's filled with features it's filled with

really cool pieces and the fact i i don't know

if it ever made it into the cartoon because even

though i was a huge turtle fan i didn't get to

watch the cartoon a lot i don't know if it did

i don't think it did don't okay so As of this

recording I am still on disc six of the original

animated series which is like somewhere in season

three so I don't know uh because when you when

you first showed this to me I was like oh the

front of it kind of looks like the a little bit

even though it's a helicopter at first glance

I was like oh That's the broken, that's the bottom

part of the turtle blimp. And then I look at

it again, I'm like, oh no, that's the turtle

copter. Okay, got it, got it, got it. I honestly

don't remember if they did. Eventually, once

I get back to watching the series, I'll let you

know. I don't, I'm going to lean towards it not

ever making it in the cartoon. The turtle blimp

did. You know it did, yeah. Yeah, and it was

honestly a more iconic. vehicle in just so many

ways it was unique it was cool it made it into

cartoons it was a toy it was fun but this for

my money was better than the turtle blimp this

was really my iconic toy now I'm gonna jump ahead

really quick and then we'll jump back to the

turtles because I think we have one more thing

to talk about but that year I think we each of

the brothers got one larger size toy that was

unique to us that either we chose or something.

I don't know if we chose it. I really don't remember.

I do remember at least one Christmas where my

dad took us up to an outlet mall in Kenosha just

north of the border here and took us to a toy

liquidator and said, you guys get to pick one

larger than usual toy to get. And I feel like

it might've been this year and it might've been

this. I'm not sure. There was a year. Yeah, see

this is this is where I wish I had My mom to

talk to you about this because these are the

things that get a little lost in time and I don't

think my dad remembers but He wasn't as involved

in in the gifts as my mom was but the other vehicle

to talk about was the turtle cycle and this I

think was the 1989 toy and You don't see it I

think there's one quick Blip in the video where

you can see that. Maybe I'm opening it and I'm

Not a hundred percent sure we got it then but

it is Visible later in the video when my brothers

and I are all playing with our Christmas morning

loop, which was All right by you one of the most

fun things about Christmas growing up was the

couple of hours before You know, we either went

by a family members house or families came by

our house Yeah, but those couple hours where

we just got to go play with all of our new loop

was probably the best play time ever. Yeah, absolutely.

And for me, because I come from a family where

I'm an only child, I essentially am playing by

myself. I was not going to say it the other way

around, but it's just one of those things where,

yeah, we're going to keep this PG. Well, I mean,

the show is always explicit, but it is what it

is. It's one of those things where yeah, you're

right, you know, we would spend anywhere my mom

and I and at the time her boyfriend You know,

we would spend from like breakfast time to noon

time opening stuff and then from like noon to

two I would be playing with the toys and usually

anywhere from one to two to three we would eat

like you said go to a family member's house or

go to this or go to that and usually I was allowed

to bring one toy with us, like my favorite one

that I got from whatever that Christmas was out

of all the toys that I'd gotten, so. Yeah, I

mean, I have some of my favorite memories growing

up, especially for Christmas, were that in -between

time of playing with toys. I remember this one

matchbox car wash that I think every kid at one

point had. If you... Yeah, and it had like the

spin dry and I remember my brothers and I Wanting

to really see does this really work as a car

wash? So we put hand soap or dish soap into the

water reservoir That was fun And I think we played

with it on top of a bed versus a Yeah, but but

there was something very cool about that one

of the things about our house growing up that

I have a very vivid memory of. Now, is it accurate?

I don't know. It's just from childhood. And I

have this image that I've refreshed millions

of times in my head. But our house was OK. So

it was a north like the front of the house was

north facing and we had a lot of skylights and

we had a lot of windows in the house. And as

the day progressed, the north facing bedrooms

and the The rest of the house was always lit

up really, really well throughout the day just

because of the way the house was designed, the

skylights and everything. And I just, I just

remember being in a room playing with that matchbox

car wash and the whole room. I just, I have this

vision in my head of it just being lit up like

sunlight golden. Just, it's a very like idyllic

memory of making a mess on a bed, but You know,

I think that's one of those those pieces of growing

up and being a kid on Christmas is that it's

not just like how much stuff you can get it's

the memories that you get from it and how do

you how do you create that and Part of the video

later on you can clearly see my brothers and

I on the floor Racing around with the turtle

cycle which was a very simple motorcycle with

a sidecar that the sidecar was made out of. It

looks like it was made out of a trash can, which

just speaks to some of the really clever and

creative design work of playmates back in the

day. Yeah. And we, I think, as brothers really

loved a lot of vehicles that you could fit multiple

characters on. The the turtle copter I had mentioned

before, you could fit up to five onto it easily.

The turtle cycle, you could fit two. So There

was always joint play in that. That's very important.

If you have siblings or friends who are coming

over to plays that you have the ability to have

these team ups and do things. So the turtle cycle

is a really fun vehicle and motorcycles are great

toys, but they're better if they don't fall over

when you're not holding them. And the fact that

this had a sidecar made from a trash can that

would keep it standing made it even better. And

I do have one. I have all but I have a big box

of turtle stuff that needs to go out and be displayed

eventually but this is one of my favorite vehicles

even though there's really cool ones and better

ones that came out later this is still one of

the best ones and you can clearly see that while

my mom is stressing out over you know there's

so much context to this video that I'll never

know but yeah there's you can clearly see my

mom is Trying to get food and everything ready

for later in the day starting to get the turkey

cooked doing all all of the The nitty -gritty

work and my dad's walking around with the video

camera, which I appreciate the video now as an

adult but mom is probably sitting there like

Help me do something stop video recording me

go away or you know either either go away or

help me So we can get this done And, you know,

but we're on the floor and we're playing and

it's just very, it's a very iconic, it's, I can't

remember the name of the artist, but it was the

guy who would always do like the Christmas scenes

on postcards and paintings. It's gonna take me

a little bit to come up with it and it's embarrassing

now, but anyways. Well, it's not Bob Ross, but

yeah. No, it's a well -known American artist

who would do a lot of. Right, yeah. It'll come

back to me, but yeah, so this was a very turtle

Christmas 100 % clear. It was a very turtle Christmas

So let's move on to the next section before we

really you know start to bore the shell out of

everybody I Swear playmates. You got to be careful

when you're doing trash cans as side cars because

Oscar the Grouch is gonna come after you Hey,

maybe maybe he was the innovator in that maybe

he went on shark tank and sold that to the turrets

Yeah, thankfully shark tank was not something

that was around back in the 80s all right Moving

into the GI Joe territory. We have a helicopter

and tank So this was an interesting addition

to the overall ski theme of the day And this

is why I think this is one of the Christmases.

There might have been more than one where we

went to one of the toy liquidator stores because

the Mamba was from 87 and the equalizer was from

89. So that's why I think these are liquidator

toys. Right. So I think we went to the outlet

store and there was a toy liquidator there. And

it was the only major mall near us when we lived

in. It was a town called Long Grove in 1990.

So we would go up to Kenosha, which if you are

familiar at all with that geography, Kenosha

is one of the first major towns just north of

the Wisconsin border, if you had north of Chicago.

And for years, there was an outlet mall there.

Side funny story. Throughout college, I don't

think I went north of the border more than once

throughout college. So from 2002 to 2006, I think

I went to Milwaukee once, and that was in 2002

or 2003. I want to say it was probably 2002.

So for four years, I don't go north of the border.

2006 to 2008, I don't really go north of the

border anyways, because I was still driving down

to school and hanging out with friends who still

live down there. my wife, who I was then dating,

I said, we really got to go up and check out

the outlet mall in Kenosha. And she's like, there's

no outlet mall in Kenosha. I'm like, no, there

is. I've been there. I love it. We need to go.

She's like, no, it's not there. And she went

to school really close to where this outlet mall

was. It was right off the interstate 94, right

past, if you've ever been through Kenosha, it's

right over by the, it was right over by the broad

stop and all these other things out there. And

I'm like, no, I swear it was still out there.

I hadn't really been up there in a long time,

but the sign for the outlet mall had been there

for a while. I just thought, because I had only

driven up there two, three times in about eight

years, that I swore that it was just further

back from the interstate and you just couldn't

see it. It was behind these car dealerships.

And she's like, no, it's gone. I swear. I'm like,

no, no, no. I've seen the signs. She humors me.

We drive up there and lo and behold. She's right.

It is gone. They are knocked that whole thing

down and my family went up there a lot in the

early 90s We went up there all the time when

like hyper color shirts remember those yep When

those were huge there was a hyper color outlet

store that we got our hyper color shirts from

and we got all these toys from up there and My

mom I think I want to say this maybe 95 96 or

97 she knew I was kind of having some struggles

here and there in life and from like 96 through

like 98, maybe 99. Every so often she would just

take me out on an adventure. And I don't remember

all of them. I remember some of them, but she'd

just be like, let's get in the car and let's

go. And I do remember one of the trips was out

to the outlet mall. And it might've been even

earlier than that. I'd have to look and see if

I can find any information, but I know one of

those trips, And this is unrelated to the current

podcast, but, you know, I'm throwing memories

out there about my mom. So there was a cartoon,

short lived cartoon and toy line called Bots

Master. And again, this was not anything about

this Christmas morning, this video we're talking

about. No, it's OK. Keep going. But the I actually

have a soft spot for this for this show in this

toy line, because it's really not a bad toy line.

It has some really unique things. for the time,

but there was a gift pack called Jungle Fiverr,

which on the show was basically a transformer

combiner. It totally ripped off transformer combiners.

Blatant, blatant ripoff. Literally five vehicles

transformed into individual robots, and then

they came together to form one giant robot. There

there are some toys that I've had since I was

a kid and that I still display some I don't display

and I just I just preserve them in a box but

this jungle fiber I know came out of one of those

trips she took me on is just like she and I going

out together on one of these adventures and It's

missing all of his accessories like all the little

it has tons of little missiles that can launch

off of it It's missing all that but I still have

the five robots together and it's up. It's on

my shelf behind me, but These are things that

are just coming back to memory as we're talking.

Very cool. To jump back into it, the two G .I.

Joe vehicles, the Mamba and the Equalizer. If

you want to talk about badass, super cool G .I.

Joe vehicles to get on Christmas morning to enjoy,

looking at the Equalizer, we'll start with the

Equalizer because I'm just going to go alphabetically.

Not that that really matters overall, but it's

good Yep, but the equalizer was part of the slaughter

Marauder division I guess of GI Joe and It fits

one two three GI Joe's which again was cool because

we we liked a lot of toys where you could fit

multiple figures on Yep, it had at least six

different missile launchers these giant guns

it was just a ton of fun and it has armor plates

that you could lift and move, anything that had

functional parts. If you look at the front of

it, it's got two functional like, I don't know

what you would call them, but you know, you would

put your GI Joe down into the seat and then you

put the hatch over him and they could peek out.

And it was that type of stuff that was so unique

to us and stuff that we enjoyed that it wasn't

just, oh, you just put your figure into this,

essentially a case, close the door and it doesn't

do anything. It was They were sitting in it.

You can look in and I can see my GI Joe peering

back out at me. And this, my brother Jare got

this one. Yeah. This equalizer, this slaughter

marauders tank. Um, and yeah, I was also available

in 1990 discontinued 91, according to this website.

So it is very possible. It was still in stores.

I feel like it may have been one of the liquidator,

uh, opportunities, but in the video, you can

actually see us trying to put it together because

back then Even back then you'd actually have

to assemble most of the parts like if you if

you look at the link Yeah, and you and you look

under the images section. There's a bat. There's

a photo of the bagged parts. Yep You have to

have some sort of mechanical engineering degree

to put this thing together. It's so many separate

pieces. It's crazy Well, that was the thing about

certain vehicles back then is that some assembly

was required and That's actually something my

brother John was so good at, that because he

was a little older than us, he grew up with He

-Man and early G .I. Joe, that is a memory I

will never lose, is that when it came to a lot

of these toys that needed assembly, he just knew

what to do. And that would take us to a section

in a little bit, because the other vehicle that

we got was the Cobra Mamba, which, very cool

looking helicopter. Yeah, probably physically

impossible to ever make something like this that

could ever fly. Yeah. But. Just. So it was one

of those vehicles, and this was kind of popular

in the late 90 or late 80s, early 90s, were vehicles

that had sub vehicles that could pop off of it.

Hasbro did it a lot with G .I. Joe. I think there

was something called. metal machines or something.

There was like almost a micro machine military

line that had a lot of little tiny vehicles that

would pop off of larger ones. Right. So this

is a large purple helicopter put out by it's

called the Cobra Mamba. And it had one large

helicopter with these giant propeller blades,

giant missiles and a cockpit for one pilot. And

it came with a pilot and he's a really cool figure.

And then it came with two smaller jets, essentially,

that could be attached to the helicopter, but

could pop off and you can do other things with

them. It's just it's so excessive in its design,

but literally just an amazing Christmas present

to get. If you think about really cool Christmas

presents, something you're to wait for just Christmas

is this like. I would put this at the end of

a video game. as a boss vehicle that you would

have to fight and defeat at some point back in

the 80s and 90s on a NES game. And actually that

they actually do that. OK, I'm it's funny that

I'm saying that I'm scrolling down and it's featured

in the Nintendo game, the G .I. Joe Nintendo

game. You had to defeat the Mamba. How about

that? Yeah, absolutely. Yep. So. These two vehicles

would last us a while my brothers and I played

hard we'd lose pieces pieces would break and

eventually it would start looking like Mad Max

where you would have incomplete vehicles that

were still racing into battle and By the time

my brothers were out of toys, but I still was

I was it I was taking in these like broken down

vehicles over time and I'd have like the skeletons

of so many different things And so coming up

in a head cannon for myself. Why does the Cobra

Mamba lack so many parts? Well, Cobra is losing

money and they're fighting G .I. Joe too hard.

I just try to be creative with these broke down

vehicles that I adopted or inherited. G .I. Joe

was still a huge part of our lives at that time.

We still loved G .I. Joe and I would continue

to play with G .I. Joe for years beyond that.

So let's move on to I think Are we done with

the action? Yes, pretty much. We're done with

the action figures now We're gonna move on to

the racetrack. So the last part of the action

figure sort of thing is racetrack So when you

first showed this to me, I'm like is that micro

machines because I wanted to throw John John

Oh God, what's his name? crap He was blurring

the transfer. John Machida Jr. I wanted to throw

John Machida in here, but it's not Micro Machines.

It's something else. Super fast machines, ultimate

challenge racing system with hyper speed. So

I know that when my brothers and I were kids,

we were always interested in those racetracks

and remote control cars. Yep. And Some of those

original racetracks had the limitation. They

were the ones that had the little car that you

kind of plugged into the racetrack and then you

had this wired in remote that you would hold

down and it would go around. I don't remember

what those were called, but I remember feeling

that those were always limited because you could

only play with those cars on that track. And

if you lost parts of the track, which we did,

or if you or if they broke you you have essentially

a giant useless toy right yeah you you needed

all those parts to work together in order for

it to function and if you lost any of them didn't

work so matchbox comes out with this set and

i remember that we had parts of this set for

a very long time i don't know how long we played

with it but this was one of my first exposures

actually to a stopwatch So this set comes with

two cars to race, precision stopwatch, the ability

to also customize the cars, and it comes with

maintenance accessories. I haven't really done

a ton of research on it yet, but you get grease

to lubricate the parts. You get a fine tuning

brush to maximize performance. So it really is

more of not so much a racer, but it gives you

a lot of these different skills built into the

play. So you're building a customizing your racer,

you're maintaining them, you're timing them.

It takes it to a much higher level. And I think

for my brother at the time, so 1990, he would

have been 10. I think this was a good step up

from him from just playing with like Hot Wheels

or even the racers where you would just hold

down the trigger and the racers would go around

the track that they were attached to. This did

a lot more. My brother was very much into models,

so model cars and putting them together. The

cool part about this set was that the track you

didn't need to have the track attached to any

sort of wires or batteries like the old racetrack

sets did so you needed batteries for the racers

in this but they just went around this plastic

track on their own independent you didn't need

a remote control or anything and it was really

really cool and The only thing I remember about

this is that eventually the cars just disappeared,

but we had pieces of the track all over the place.

So we could still locate pieces of the track

because they're stacked and we just never threw

them out. And I do know as a fact, one of the

reasons why my mom never really threw out our

toys unless they were visibly broken was that

she said, I gave them to you. They were not mine

to throw out. OK. And I think that's something

I really respect for my mom is that when she

gave us something, it was ours. It was something

that was up to us what to do with. But this was

a really cool racetrack that to see it in the

video and then to know that it is a very technical

toy to play with. That might also be why it didn't

last very long in the toy stores was because

it might have been too much work for kids at

the time, but it was perfect for my brother developmentally.

Yeah, I think that I don't know. We were. So

how old is your brother? So he is 42. Oh, so

he's the same age as me. He was born 1980. Yeah,

90 and 10. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this, I don't

know, I was moving past, I was still into action

figures and stuff, but my racetrack days kind

of like stopped, began and ended with the Knight

Rider kit versus car racetrack thing from whatever

company it was from. but yeah i mean this this

does look cool and the fact that you didn't need

you needed like you said you need batteries but

you didn't need to have to have it plugged in

or you didn't need to like it just went it just

did it it was really cool it was very cool very

awesome all right folks i think we are going

to go to a quick ad break you're going to hear

some stuff and other things and probably a couple

of old game video game trailers because Video

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to the Marku42's universe podcast from the universe

and beyond. Aren't folks we are back here on

geek cast radio episode 311 as Josh goes through

his 1990 Christmas memories we're switching over

to video games more specifically handheld video

games from tiger electronics So these There's

a fantastic angry video game nerd video about

tiger electronics and These were basically your

simple LCD, I think it was, or LED, or whatever

it was. Video games that had the little animations,

the pre -made animations, are very simple video

games. They were so simplistic, they were handheld,

and every license had a Tiger Electronics game

at the time. If you look up Tiger Electronics,

you can find almost anything from Afterburner,

which is what my brother got to Ninja Turtles

that everybody had one and the one thing they

all had in common is That they were terrible

No, come on now, they weren't all I'm sure there

were terrible ones, but they weren't all terrible

No, no, no. No, I appreciate you being usually

I'm the optimist in these situations, but These

are all terrible and that's okay because I loved

them They didn't make sense to me. They were

awful. I was awful at them, but Really? It was

really really easy of hey, what's new and popular

Ninja Turtles Power Rangers Simpsons You get

this little thing about the size of your hand

you throw it in a bag You have it for a car ride

the noises are absolutely annoying The sound

effects are terrible. The game play is rudimentary

at best and By today's standards if I were to

give these to kids today They look at it as if

you said here play with these rocks and sticks

My wife and I were just at a thrift store and

Really really nice thrift store They really do

a great job. They raise a lot of money for women

shelters and everything and We went there because

it's very Christmassy They do a really good job

making the whole sort of Christmassy and there

was this grandmother and her grandson and this

kid is just crying out give me my game I want

my game and he was playing on a phone or something

and just so cranky about it and I could just

barely see what game he was playing as he cried

past me and it was Something so much more sophisticated

than the most sophisticated But there's a big

above the block nailed it the most sophisticated

game That's what I was trying to say and I got

tongue -tied the most sophisticated game I has

as a child this kid had something that was probably

50 times better So if I gave this kid this tiger

electronics game and said sit down be quiet he

might as well have held the dialogue between

his shoelaces and These le the LED LCD whatever

they're called these Yeah, yeah, it's so simplistic

But my brothers and I each got one for Christmas

and we were so excited because the license That

was the best part about them if it was just Airplane

game wouldn't have cared but that it was after

burner which was a popular Nintendo game at the

time and popular arcade game. Yeah It was on

Nintendo to I think says Sega 1987 for the copyright

so I say Nintendo game as though it you know

it's a video game you know it could have been

made by Sega and put on its head I don't know

it was it was a weird world at the time but there

was the fact that it was a Simpsons licensed

game and if you actually look at that handheld

piece it they actually called it a tabletop game

versus a handheld and it was just slightly bigger

than your standard Tiger game, but I think the

screen was a little smaller, but the sound effects

were better and I might still have this somewhere.

This thing is durable is all get out I would

probably say make airplanes out of this Simpsons

tiger electronics game Oh LCD not LED. Okay,

I can see that on it This game is so durable.

It has probably been kicked dropped thrown stored

in boxes knocked over a million times this thing

the Whatever Barry was in it lasted until who

knows when And I also got a pro wrestling game

and I'm pretty sure it's the year I got this

pro wrestling game and it's so bad It's barely

worth mentioning, but I loved it because at the

time it was the only wrestling game I owned in

1990 I had no other wrestling games in my possession

and this was it so I loved it and I loved the

designs of all the characters, but The coolest

part about these games. Did you have any as a

kid? Oh, yeah, so I Had a three I had the three

I remember so it was Gameboy came out what 90

or 91 I didn't get a Nintendo Game Boy until

my 13th birthday in 1993 Okay, so I would always

play with my aunt's Nintendo Game Boy, but for

my own video games. I had the tiger electronics.

I had the original play playboy. Wow. Ooh, the

original. Easy there, buddy. The original paperboy

game, not paperboy to the original paperboy game.

I had Jordan versus Bird because I was born and

raised in Massachusetts and Larry Bird is far

superior. And bus go celtics and all that stuff

and the other one i remember having in the reason

i remember having is because i was bad at one

point or another my dad to get away from me and

it made me so mad i had. The canami it's the

it's the more table top version of it of the

turtles game it's. Like a turtle green and it's

it's it's kinda like your simpson's game it's

not the standard square. Version of the tiger

electronic it's the konami version of it and

i remember playing and these lcd games folks

he is right the lcd is on these are solid just

suck but. They were so cool because we essentially

had video games in our pockets. For those of

us who didn't have the Nintendo Entertainment

System, or for those of us who were stupid enough

to pick the Sega Master System for Christmas

over the Nintendo Entertainment System, like

me, Alex Kidd and the Lost Stars, kiss my ass.

You know? But yeah, so yeah, I remember having

these and I remember loving these. So... For

me, I think one of the coolest parts though was

that there was a button you could hit to like

reset it and you could see every cell on the

game at the same time and that that that was

so cool and so unique for me because There are

so many times I'd be playing these games. I was

so bad at them and they were so bad I never got

far enough to see some of the later characters

that would show up in the game so Remember having

some of these Like I had the Mario watch and

play or game and play or watch and game. Oh I'm

looking at some other ones. I had swamp thing

and Wow, and the cool thing was it wasn't even

the game it was just they were really Uniquely

Designed and licensed like the swamp thing game

is just cool Like I would put that up as a display

piece because the artwork is really nice The

Ninja Turtle Tiger Electronics games are actually

based off the Archie comics. And those are just

a cool display piece and just unique that it's

not the key art from the original cartoon. Yeah,

yeah, the game, the LCD games as kids. Yes, we

played them, but they were never really. It was

more of. At least for me in the circle that I

ran in, it was more of, look, what game do you

have? What game do you have? Oh, I have that.

I have turtles. I have this. And we all just

kind of traded them all around each other and

we all played the games and whatever else. And

that, that ACL button. Oh man. Heaven forbid

any of us got a high score on any one of those

games. And then somebody in the group had to

be the jerk to hit the. acl button because they

wanted to see all the things light up at once

you know what the acl button really is though

folks right it's the all clear button oh yeah

so basically that acl button isn't to show you

every pixel of the game it's to clear the score

of the game so you can start over it's basically

a reset button That's why they inputted it to

the point where you had to use a pen to press

the damn thing Well, and you you sit there you're

playing these games with your friends and there's

Johnny over there with a goddamn Paperclip or

a pen who's sitting there like I want to show

you something cool. It's like no go away. Go

away. I've got the high score but the games were

Fun enough to hold our attention and really quick

and easy gifts It's like, oh, Blanchard, you

like Nickelback. I'm going to get you the Tiger

Electronics Nickelback game. Because it was cheap.

It was easy. It was really more marketed towards

parents of kids. So the kids that weren't buying

the nintendos that couldn't afford the nintendos

or the segas or the whatever's at the time It

was a way for us. They could it was just an easy

Supplemental supplemental gift, you know, it

was just yeah. Oh you you like pro wrestling

here I saw this it was five dollars a KB toys.

It's a It's a wrestling game and I'm not complaining

about getting that wrestling game. I remember

like I said, I didn't have any other wrestling

games. Yeah It was cool. I guess you could call

it kind of like when you go to Costco and you

get the sample of the food they're serving. You're

not getting the whole meal. You know what you're

getting. You're getting a tiny little morsel

in a very flimsy, non -practical serving cup

or paper. And you say, okay, cool, I'll take

this for what it is. It was practical at the

time. And even though I will say it like, oh,

wow, those games are terrible by today's standards.

When I was a kid, I loved those things. And I

remember loving that wrestling game and that

Simpsons game. I don't remember the afterburner

game that my brother got a lot, but the Simpsons

game. I think if I go dig for it, I think I can

find it and. Like that game was actually better

than some of the Nintendo games that came out.

Let's just be real. Well, the funny thing is,

you're right, but I don't ever remember having

the Simpsons game. What I remember for the Simpsons

and this will kind of transition us back to video.

The traditional video games is. I remember when

Bart's Nightmare came out for the Super Nintendo

and I was like, oh yeah. That was my Simpsons

game at the time. That was so cool. We had Bart

versus the Space Bewns, which is... Yep. That

one was good too. Yep. Does not make any sense.

No, it doesn't. But let's face it, it's the Simpsons.

It really doesn't have to make sense at least.

Back then when they were basically raking in

the Michael Jackson money. They didn't have to

make sense for video games To this day. I still

understand why they never ported the arcade game

over to a Console at least in my in my head.

I don't think they ever have Maybe they didn't

have to do some research on that. I don't know

Which again that game doesn't make any sense

at all of The Simpsons characters basically being

becoming street fighters and leading a crusade

against mr. Burns forces, but To kind of go back

to the tiger electronics and just a close on

that Yes, I will criticize the games now but

like I said before Christmas morning getting

the wrestling game the Simpsons game it was exciting

and it was memorable and it was fun and I think

that's one of those really fun aspects of being

a kid back then is that very simple things could

last you a lifetime in memories. Yeah, absolutely.

Oh, that's right. Part versus the space mutants

was on the game gear. I remember that now. I

remembered on this on the NES too, but wow. Oh,

escape from camp deadly. One of the worst Gameboy

games ever good lord Bart versus the world and

like I said Bart's nightmare was was the first

Super Nintendo Slash Sega Genesis game so I'm

looking at the Simpsons arcade game arcade only

and then Commodore 64 MS -DOS And then Xbox Live

Arcade in 2012 and PlayStation Network in 2012.

It never hit Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega,

anything like that. But I mean, at least now,

if you have Xbox or if PSN is still around, you

can do it on there. Or if, you know, anyone has

an IBM PC, you know, or, you know, if and then

kind of just to talk about this a little bit

before we get to the console stuff is It's like

I'm looking at the the arcade version of the

game and I'm like, oh that kind of looks like

the when they kind of Reminiaturize the turtles

in time video game and put it in Walmart like

that turtles arcade game There were many cabinet

versions of that in Walmart a few years ago So

I don't see why you couldn't do that today with

this Simpsons arcade game. Just sell a smaller

version of it Well, my problem with those one

up games that I think you're talking about, and

I just saw two of them at the thrift store we're

at today, my problem is that the emulator that

you would need or the ROM you would need for

that Simpsons arcade game, by today's standards,

in terms of processing space or storage space

on a device, is minimal. I probably have pictures

that are larger data size than the Simpsons game.

You're obviously paying for the hardware the

hardware is not that expensive so Every time

I've seen that Simpsons game um if it was a hundred

bucks I'd maybe be like oh man could I could

I get this is this something I could set up?

but even at a hundred bucks to get an arcade

set up for one game I Just I don't know man.

I don't know yeah Yeah, no, it's not. Like, if

I was going to, and this was, and this is so

silly, but I remember doing this at the movie

theater, because it was there at the time. I

think it was right, it was right around when

Phantom Menace came out in 99, or it might've

been when Attack of the Clones came out. In the,

in the movie theater that I used to go to, they

had, I'm sure it was in other theaters too, but

they had obviously arcade games there and wherever

else, but they had the big. Like you had to go

and sit. It was the big Star Wars enclosed cabinet

where you would sit and you would play either

a new hope empire or Jedi. But it was this big

surround sound cabinet thing that you would have

to sit in. And oh my God, like between that and

crazy taxi, those would probably be the two arcade

things I would want. In my living space if I

could even have them in my living space kind

of thing so the Simpsons arcade cabinet and the

turtles and the X -Men games Obviously almost

the same exact game sides rolling beat -em -ups

If I could have an arcade cabinet that had just

those three because those were my three I played

a lot of arcade games But those are the ones

that sucked my quarters up the most and I would

stand there sweating the longest playing Yep.

That's, for me those are, you know, if anybody's

out there who's like, oh hey, I can build you

a cabinet for 200 bucks. Let me know, cause I'm

not gonna drop, you know, 200 bucks on a cabinet

that only gives me one game, but those three

games, you know, if it's custom, if it's something

I can put other games on, so Deval, you know

Deval. Yes, yes. He actually has a custom -made

arcade cabinet that has 500 games on it or something.

And it's amazing. I can't remember if he bought

it off someone or if he built it or whatever.

But I remember seeing that and just being beyond

jealous and just beyond inspired of, man, I need

something like that. And, you know, I have my

basement bar now that I think it doesn't need

it. But man, would my basement bar be better

if I had an arcade cabinet in the corner? Just

saying. Just saying. Maybe not till we pay off

our vet bills and we figure out a bunch of other

stuff. Yeah, bills have to come first. One day.

You're still young. It's okay. See, we're totally

off on a tangent. I do have a projector, just

a very simple projector. It's an older projector,

but it works just fine. If I could even just

get a tiny device and get controllers to put

those games on, Don't even need the cabinet.

I just want something I can that has controllers

that it can play like a Raspberry Pi or something

like that Yeah, and from someone that isn't going

to send me Junk and a bunch of untranslated Japanese

games that don't work because I've had a couple

friends who've done that and you know they get

I don't know if they feel like they got screwed

over but you know, anyways, let's jump back into

it. So tiger electronics games don't hold up

today, but Really some great memories from those.

Let's move on. All right. It was always so damn

frustrating to find that idiot in the red and

white hat. I guess we should go into the educational

stuff now, folks. Find Waldo now. Are we wanting

to stay in video games? There's one more video

game. Oh, skate or die. Yeah, I'm dead. I'm relatively

sure, based on how many times I've seen the video

and listened, this is the game that my brother

Jer got Christmas morning. He got really excited.

I remember in the video you hear him say Nintendo

Power. I think he had said that by just seeing

the shape and the size of one of the wrapped

gifts. Picks it up and he says, I know what this

is, Nintendo Power. And he was really excited

about it. And I'm relatively sure it was Skate

or Die, which... Was a pretty popular game skateboarding

surfing was very popular late 80s early 90s and

This was a pretty interesting game I was terrible

at it for the most part because a lot of I Couldn't

really figure out how to get it to work if did

you ever play it? I? Played it maybe once or

twice I was more of an excite bite ain't an excite

bike kid Than anything else because at least

that was easy to crash on But yeah, skate or

die was never really my thing. And so. I don't

remember a whole lot about it outside of the

multiple game modes and just being terrible,

but. When you actually see in the video, my brother's

excitement to getting this, he is just this is

the essence of what I think. Christmas is for

so many children is just this little piece of

excitement of I finally got this thing I wanted

for so long and I get to unwrap it and have that

moment of excitement and and just surprise and

just I I don't know I don't know you watch the

video he puts his arms up he's so excited he's

happy and I feel like in my adult life those

are those are some of the things that I think

we all need a little bit more of just it's okay

to be excited about something as silly as a video

game or something as as simple as a new toy or

something just let us be just excited about something

and it doesn't always have to be you know a Christmas

gift of I got you socks like yeah I'm sorry I'm

not excited about the socks that's okay but You

know, it's that excitement of Wantings like Christmas

was yes. We obviously want like again. We were

kids. We were playing with the stuff. We were

not Where we are now X number of decades later

where we're like I want to collect this I want

to put it behind glass I want to this I want

you we were out there. We were messing it up.

We Every kid that blew into a Nintendo cartridge

knows exactly that feeling of getting that new

game. Like, I don't know when, it was somewhere

2006 or 2007, but I just found it unpacking the

other day. Of course, I've been in this apartment

since June of this year here in 2022, but there

are certain things that I haven't unpacked or

I haven't gone through or whatever else. I found

that I - I haven't had a Nintendo Entertainment

System in years. I never had the Nintendo Entertainment

System. I had the Super Nintendo, but I always

loved the original game packaging and cartridge

of Super Mario Bros. 3. I have a copy of Super

Mario Bros. 3 for the Nintendo Entertainment

System that I've never played. Like, maybe I...

No, it was 2006 when I got... No, so I was...

Like, I've never played it on... that specific

cartridge. I've played the game before, obviously,

but it's like, that's the thing. When we were

kids and it was Christmas or our birthday, that

euphoric thing of, oh my God, somebody got this

for me. I wonder what it is. And then you rip

it open and you see what it is. And you're so

excited and you're like, okay, I'm going to go

play with this thing. And then three days later,

you're like, okay, what's the next thing I can

play with? Because that's the way we were. That's

the way I was. That's the way I... There's a

famous picture of me going around as a kid somewhere.

I think it's on Facebook. I don't know where

the hell it is. It might be in a photo album

somewhere. Where I have a box of my toys sitting

in front of the fireplace. I have Castle Grayskull,

the original 1982 Castle Grayskull, sitting there.

I have, no joke, Dick Tracy, James Bond Jr.,

three different mass cars. four different Transformers,

one Skeletor, and an orca in a pear tree. I didn't

know if you were going there. It was one of those

things where I had all of these toys, all of

these variety of toys that were, their base was

Castle Grayskull. And it just wasn't... It just

wasn't any, like it was a collection of things.

It wasn't collection of like we collect today.

It was just a, a massive toy, you know, battle

thing where I had a whole bunch of, I got new

toys and different toys every year by, okay.

So from Christmas of 89 to Christmas of 90, I

think when did the Batmobile come out? Was it,

that was, I know the movie came out in 89, but

the toy, yeah, the toy was out in Christmas of

89. Yeah. Cause that's when I got it when I was

nine years old. Cause I remember I threw a fit

in the mall about it. Yeah. So by, between Christmas

of 89 and Christmas of 1990, by Christmas of

90, I w I wasn't done playing with the Batmobile,

but I was like, okay, what's, what's this? Oh,

the Simpsons. Oh, this, oh, that. Like I forget

which Christmas it is, but there's a picture,

again, I'm going through old photo albums and

I'm finding pictures I haven't seen in 30 plus

years, but there's a picture of me at some point.

I don't think it was Christmas because why would

I be wearing this specific sweatshirt at Christmas?

But at the time in 1990, the Gulf War was going

on. And Gulf War merchandise was everywhere.

I had a Ram Bart sweatshirt. I have a picture

of myself wearing a Bart Simpson Ram Bart sweatshirt.

You know, and it just, you're right. We, we need

that euphoria of opening something or figuring

something out or playing with something, but

it doesn't, not everyone, you know. We live in

a time now where it's like, oh, here's the Pixel

6 Pro or here's the iPhone 14 Pro Max Ultra slim,

fast, whatever. Like, you know, but then the

next year, oh, here's the next model. Here's

the this, here's the that. You know, and I think

that kind of started out with us moving on from

thing to thing is when we were kids. I say this

in every podcast I've done in the last year and

a half, maybe two years from. 1982 to 1996 -97.

Those years, cartoons on television were a cycle.

They were a timeline of evolution. 82 you had

g .i. or not j in 82 you had whatever you had

he man and stuff in 83 and transformers and voltage

for 85 you had g .i. Joe and mask and all that

in 86 and silverhawks and all that 87 to 96 was

turtles but it was this thing where cartoons

weren't state like transformers only had. Technically

three full seasons and three parts for a for

a fourth season because I canceled but like you

have like, okay What's the next thing? What's

the same thing with toys same thing with Christmases?

Not every mmm. This should never like Christmases

should not repeat themselves Christmases are

not Made for Phil. Okay, maybe they are but they're

not made for the pucks a tiny one. Anyway, it

shouldn't repeat itself you know and And it's

just one of those things where it's meant to

be special and it's meant to have different things

every time. And that was the greatest thing about

Christmas. Still the greatest thing about Christmas

is, you know, even though it came out in 94,

it still holds up today almost 30 years later.

Christmas is like a box of chocolates. You never

know what you're going to get. I think it's also,

you know, cognitively being a kid and going through

Christmas, There's a lot of firsts the first

time you get to open this or the first time you

do this there and when you get older. You have

a lot less firsts in life you still can have

a ton of firsts if you go out and seek them and

a lot of people still do. But because you're

looking at it from an adult frame of mind versus

a child's frame of mind you. Sometimes knowing

stuff ruins the experience right. When you go

on a roller coaster at Disney World, for instance,

for the first time, you go on the roller coaster

at Disney World for the first time and you're

like, oh wow, this is cool. Well, okay, I know

how they do that and I know what this is and

that's one of the things about Disney World is

that a lot of the rides there and a lot of the

things there, they're very basic in their execution.

Let me rephrase that. They're very basic in concept,

but advanced in the execution. That's what I

wanna say. For me, when you go to Disney, when

you're a kid and you see a Disney ride, you're

like, wow, this is amazing. I'm gonna remember

this forever. And when you're an adult and you're

on a Disney ride, sometimes I still get impressed

and amazed. I'm like, wow, this is tremendous.

And then there's other times where I'm looking

at it through an adult's eyes and I'm like, this

is kind of boring. And that's my own problem.

However, When I think back to a lot of these

experiences as a kid and looking at this video

and looking at the extent and the effort that

my mom had put into providing us this great experience

on Christmas morning and supporting us and making

us happy and everything she did, even, and there's

a little bit of context to the story that I'll

tell you. when we're not recording, but there's

a whole nother layer to this video that the fact

that my mom is still working her butt off to

do this despite this other issue going on at

the time is just outstanding. And it just speaks

to her character, the type of person she was,

the type of mom she was. And even though we joked

before about how there was that sort of boomer

mentality of you put some dirt on it and you

go forward and you don't show emotion, And I

was never really trying to joke about that. I

was just pointing it out and asking what it was.

I'm not saying anything about that. It's just

that for my mom, it was, you know, she had this

weight on her shoulders that she planted her

feet. She rolled her shoulders back. She carried

it and she moved on to take care of us. And that's

something that's, I think, a little bit lost

in, you know, with some people in our current

generation or our current human population, I

guess, of, you know, a lot of people now when

they get that weight, maybe they just don't have

the strength to carry it, whatever it is. I'm

not trying to criticize people who have different

struggles, but watching this video, you can see

there's a weight on her shoulders and she's carrying

it with poise and grace. And she's carrying it

with the strength of only something that a mom

can have and um you know to go back to the video

game thing just for a second we're gonna bring

it back because i i feel like i'm i'm going into

ramble zone um okay i also think that one of

the things about video games at that point in

time especially on nintendo is that video games

were a brand new adventure they always were and

They when you when you get this new piece, whether

it's your Super Mario Brothers 3 that you mentioned

before or whatever. All these games were new

experiences, brand new. Hours upon hours of time

you could spend playing these games, replaying

them or what's it going to be like and how are

you going to experience it? And it's probably

one of the reasons why even to this day earlier

today, I had a little bit of time and I was playing

Skyrim. Have you ever played that? No. I know

what it is, I know what the game is, and I know

what it's about. I know you really like Grand

Theft Auto IV, and you like the open world experience.

And I love Grand Theft Auto IV, and we'll talk

off recording about playing it together at some

point, because I still have it on. But one of

the things about Skyrim that I like is that it's

10 years old, but being a 10 year old game, it's

not... the hyper realistic games that you see

now, but just like as a kid, there's a lot of

stuff that you have to fill in with your imagination.

So Skate or Die, the game that we mentioned now

20 minutes ago at this point, Skate or Die and

a lot of those early Nintendo games, the beauty

part about simplistic games and the tiger electronic

games is that we use our imaginations to fill

in the gaps when things weren't as realistic

as they could be, right? And that's one of the

beauty parts of a lot of these early games is

that they were rudimentary by today's standards.

But the power of our imagination to live in that

world or to fill in the blanks and fill in the

gaps, they're some of those games that I think

for us were as real as they possibly could be

because we took on that extra role. So. That's

why I like a lot of older games sometimes, like

Skyrim or some of the Grand Theft Autos. Three,

Vice City, four. San Andreas, yes, thank you.

And what was another one I was thinking of? Four.

Yeah, Grand Theft Auto 4. And even now, to where

we're getting with Fallout 4, which is another

fantastic game I think you'll like, is... Those

video games we would get, even if we were six,

10, and eight years old. I don't know why I did

that. Six, eight and 10 years old is that we

would get that game and our imaginations prior

to even playing the game were already going.

And. Right. So here's my thing to kind of I agree

with you. Absolutely. The thing is. That was

what we had back then, and it was made in the

time that it was made, and that's the way, that's

the lens we need to look at those. Like yes,

there's no holding Tiger Electronics up to today's

standards. There just isn't. But those games,

for us, as kids in the 80s, were so fun because

that's what we had. Like I mentioned earlier,

I didn't get a Game Boy until I was 13 years

old in 1993. even though I was able to borrow

my aunt's Game Boy every time I was over at my

grandmother's house and I still got to play Super

Mario Land and Tetris and whatever other thing.

But for me, the Tiger Electronics games and slightly

to a lesser extent the Sega Master System, which

I chose poorly, but it's one of those things

where I'm a huge baseball nut. I'm from Boston.

Go Red Sox. Just because Bo Jackson was not on

the Red Sox didn't mean I didn't enjoy playing

Bo Jackson's RBI baseball in the Sega master

system. And the thing of it is with video games

is it was the breakthrough at the time. It was

getting our imaginations. Like, that's the thing

that I think. And I don't, I don't have kids.

You don't have kids. So we can't see my parents,

but your cats aren't. Holding your PS five controllers

are they peeing on my PS five. Let's be real.

That's probably why it doesn't count. You don't

have human children. I don't have human children.

Point is, is that just because we don't have

human children these days, what I've noticed

is as a, as a, in society as a, as a whole. Imagination,

it seems, and I'm saying it seems, I'm not saying

it as a definitive, but it seems like it's gone

out the window. You're a history teacher, you

can let me know, but the kids that you teach,

do you see imagination in them the way we had

it 40 years ago? So I'm going to be careful in

my response. Because this is a whole nother podcast

that we could talk about one day as long as I

can be You know, right? Yeah, no, absolutely.

I obviously teach middle school. So in middle

school you start seeing a lot less of kids maybe

expressing Imagination because sometimes a lot

of aspects of being imaginative and creative

Sometimes that is less Appropriate at this age

level And so you don't see kids really sort of

express that more childlike imagination as much,

but I do. I do see a lot of kiddos and a lot

of those parents I think that are really supporting

that I think are a little closer to the mentality

of kids that we kind of grew up with where it's,

you know, maybe stay. little bit more off the

phones and say a little bit more off the the

crazy video games and focus a little bit more

on on reading and imagination and drawing and

art you see it you see a spectrum of it but yeah

yeah yeah and i'm not yeah but i'm just saying

like and Parents, if you're listening, please

write in feedback at geekcastvideo .com. You

can send all your hate mail to me for even bringing

this up during Josh's Christmas episode. But

it's just one of those things where all we had

was our imaginations. And all we had was the

JCPenney catalog and the Sears. Can I throw my

interpretation of that? we had to use our imaginations

to fill in gaps. We had to supplement our realities,

our toys, all the stuff with our imaginations,

because the toys gave us that room to do it.

The video games of the time gave us that room

to put in our own stories. One of my favorite

articles I ever read was someone talking about

their childhood experiences with... star wars

toys but they were never allowed to see the movies

but they had a ton of the toys so can you imagine

what that's like to have the toys and be an imaginative

kid but not ever see the movies and not to have

the background information you needed from them

to apply to these objects and so the author and

i wish i could find this article i think would

be fascinating to read now but the the author

was talking about how he would the sand people,

the Tusken Raider figure. He made that his lead

bad guy. That was the number one bad guy. That

was the Darth Vader. And I think the Darth Vader

was the good guy. And it was just this crazy

universe that he created because that's, I'm

very much an advocate of unstructured play and

just be creative play it. And giving kids toys

so they can just put their own personality into

it, their own identity onto it. I think, I would

rather give a kid a, I don't know, name a action

figure you really liked as a kid. Just give me

one, just off the top of your head. Oh God, I

have to cut that snort out, but oh my God. Okay,

let's go with He -Man. For my, no. No, no, no,

hold on. I got it. I got a bird now. So for me,

it's an OK. So pick one, pick one, pick one wheeler

from the Captain Planet series. So imagine being

a figure, but not knowing anything about it,

the background or anything. You just get this

figure and he's got an emblem on his chest, a

tiny little ring. And if it's the one I'm thinking

of that you can spark on the back, it's got the

Flint feature in it. So what do you do with that?

And think about what that would be like for a

child who knows nothing about it. But hey, here's

this cool looking teenager figure in this hip

outfit. And when I go and I pull this trigger

on his back, he's got sparks that come out of

his chest. That's a really cool aspect of play

that the Tiger electronics games, the early Nintendo

games that I think we all appreciated was that

we had a sense of ownership over it because we

had to think to make it ours. And that's one

of the reasons why I love games like Skyrim and

Fallout 4 is that there's a lot of customizing

that you do in those games that make the game

yours. And you can go away from the main storyline

as much as you want. And I think that's one of

the nice things about Grand Theft Auto. And I

think that's one of the reasons why you like

Grand Theft Auto 4 is that you can take it in

different directions. But I digress. Let's move

back to Christmas morning because we're all over

the place. And there's a few more things we should

talk about. The way we are, folks, if you listen

to if you listen to Toycast episode one hundred

one fifty something, you'll you'll know Josh

and I are all about the tangents. But yes, some

of our shows are tangents or so. Yes, well, you

know, I it's so funny you say that because And

I think I can't use this because I think I've

done my research on titles and Apple and podcast

services, whatever else. I wanted to create a

segment of this very show called Tangentially

Yours. No intro, no, maybe an outro to let people

know where they can find us, but no intro, no,

hi and welcome to, no, we just start talking.

once we figure out a stopping point, that's when

we stop kind of thing, but it would just be nothing

but tangents. And I think other podcasts have

already done that and that's fine. It is what

it is. All right. Where, uh, this is gonna be

really quick. So there are two books that are

noticeable in the video. The first of which is

find Waldo now and This as far as I know is one

of the very first look and see look and find

books of the era I don't know much about what

brought them into prominence what made them popular

at the time but I know for us As kids growing

up it wasn't so much of let's go find Waldo.

It wasn't about that. It was more Look at how

much you can see on these two pages. I don't

know if you can find them online. I'm sure they're

available out there. But the Where's Waldo pages,

the artist put so much work into creating this

universe and this detail that was so in line

with what my brothers and I really enjoy doing

as kids, where we would draw these crazy pictures

of stick figures fighting and these massive...

worlds and drawing in all these crazy details

of everything that was going on and You know,

even my collection now all my shelf setup now

are basically a where's Waldo sort of style you've

seen some pictures and you know the last couple

months the room has been in shambles but it is

very much like where's Waldo and if you look

through they're so detailed and interesting and

There's so much Within them that tells a story

and there's some historical Some of them there's

some there's a small amount of historical insensitivity

at certain points where like the fall of the

Aztec Empire looks kind of fun with the conquistadors

coming in and It's it's it's pretty brutal but

There there is a scene where you can you can

hear my brother open up. Where's Waldo now rips

it up? not the book but the wrapping paper holds

it up and you know here's here's him being excited

because I don't think anybody expected my brother

to open the book and start looking right there

at that point but again just like the video game

this book this is an adventure for later and

the nice part is is that unlike a video game

The Where's Waldo books for us and maybe just

me looking back was that this was an adventure

whenever I wanted it. I didn't have to power

down. I could look at it. And even if we could

memorize where Waldo was on every single page,

you couldn't memorize every single detail on

every single page. And then there were some pages

where Waldo was everywhere and you had to find

the right one. Oh, I remember those. And those

were amazing like I just I just pulled up a page

is I looked up where's Waldo PDF wallpapers and

holy cats man oh these actually look like they

maybe were starting to get printed in 1987 so

by 1990 this might be the second book yeah and

the artist the author whatever he was really

did such a tremendous job And some of these are

just unique pieces of art. And the style was

copied a lot over the next decade. So I had a

Spider -Man one that was like this, where it

was like, where's Spider -Man? Or find Spider

-Man. And a lot of the popular characters and

trends at the time all had their own where's

Waldo I Spy book. But the thing I liked about

this, and maybe this is why I kind of enjoy being

a history teacher now, was that a lot of these

books had the the historical aspect to it. So

you get a little bit of a history lesson and

you look back like here's one that looks like

it might be Middle Ages or Vikings. And you get

some early exposure to history just by playing

this fun game. And I think that sometimes some

of the best teaching and the best learning is

where you realize you're learning something without

learning it is sort of that weird piece. But

beyond that, so we had the Where's Waldo, which

has the historical scenes in it. But my brother

also got a copy of the cartoon history of the

universe of volume one. And. I forgot about this

entirely, and I know that this floated around

my house for a little while. I don't know what

ever happened to this specific copy. But when

I first got hired as a world history teacher

in 2010, 2011, I wanna say maybe 2010, when I

finally became a teacher and this was one of

the very first books I bought because if you've

never seen one of these before, despite being

a cartoon history, Some of these are actually

more detailed and go far deeper into aspects

of history than even some textbooks. I've taught

out of mm -hmm I bet that's a little hard to

believe Yeah, no no it isn't and you know and

that was an it was an awesome awesome book in

the It's just so great that we have something

like that that we, you know, you were talking

about just briefly to go back to the, the, the

Wears, Wears Waldo thing. Uh, the guy's name

was Mark is he's still, still around. He's 66

years old, I think. Uh, Martin Hanford, uh, from

Britain. Originally this was Wears Wally over

in the UK. And then it was Wears Waldo here in

North America, but. I mean, that's the thing.

That's the other part of our childhood. We had

choose your own adventure books. Those were a

thing. And that was, again, what drove imagination.

So, you know, it's just so interesting and fun.

And I love that you guys were able to have the

like. You didn't just have action figures that

Christmas you had a whole yeah, there's just

there's obviously some really cool shirts and

some clothes and you know, you have your Christmas

story the movie moment where I think we got some

clothes and we're like yay clothes and we just

kind of pushed them to the side because we wanted

to move on to the toys and stuff, but You know,

I I would say if there was a moment that I wish

I could relive in life at least once more, it

would be one of these Christmas mornings from

probably 89 to 94, 95, 96, somewhere around there

as we were still very much kids and we had so

much excitement for Christmas morning. And I

remember how hard my mom even worked till later

in life to still make Christmas morning amazing

for all of us. Even when we got old enough and

the Santa I don't want to create any sort of

scandal with the podcast talking about Santa,

but when the question of Santa became a thing,

we still sort of lived in that world where we

were okay not going into it and just saying,

Santa's still putting our toys out and it's still

okay. And, you know, for those of us who had

different paths in life, like by, by 90, by the

time I was 14 or so, I would say, I'm like, okay,

Santa. Whatever. Like it is what it is. You grow

out of the, you know, believing is seeing or

seeing is believing thing. And maybe it's because

as we're recording this folks, it's just about

a, this will go up. Couple days before Christmas

this year in 2022, but I have muddled my way

through the first four episodes of the Santa

Claus is on Disney plus episode five and six

are the best two episodes of the entire series.

And you know, it is, it is what it is, but I

mean, you know, I'm not, we're not going to sit

here and try to ruin it for kids saying that,

you know, Santa is or isn't or whatever. The

point is, is again, we come from a generation

where we didn't have all this technology. We

didn't have all this. And as much as I love the,

the, the instantaneous gratification now. I was

fine. Like if I didn't get, I know this is going

to sound silly, but let's just say. Samurai Leo,

Space Raph, Sewer Mikey, or Sewer Surfer Mikey,

and Undercover Don. If I didn't get Samurai Leo

and Spaceman Raph for Christmas, I got two months.

Maybe I'll get them for my birthday. So like

we were fine waiting for the gifts that we got

if we didn't get them. And especially like, you

know, you look at these times and you look at

the cool shit we did get. All the toys that we've

talked about tonight that you guys got, all the

tiger electronic video games, say what you will

about them. As kids, we loved them, no matter

how good or bad the LCD on them was. As someone

who can't physically do, like I can't because

of cerebral palsy I've had all my life, I've,

my god, the last time I rode a bike was probably

1994. I just, I just cannot physically do it.

So I'll you know use my imagination. I live my

life vicariously through other people doing things

and Being able to sit there and press buttons

to get the paperwork to deliver the papers the

right way Hey, I'm riding a bike. I'm I have

my own paper route. It's a video game, but at

least I'm doing it And I don't want to become

one of those guys That says oh we had it so much

better when we were kids or times were better

when we were kids. We're obviously able to look

through that through the lens of being adults

and looking back at times where we had less obligations,

less pressure, less responsibilities, and we

could just enjoy the innocence and the magic

of being a kid. And there's obviously some, and

I'm going to speak gently and carefully, there's

some, because apparently some of these individuals

I might be discussing do track you down and they

do come after you and do want to respond to you

when you mention them publicly. Do you not want

to do this? You want to just skip? No, no, no,

because I actually have a point I'm trying to

make with this. So there are some people who

create content out there. I'm not going to say

what media, whatever. I am trying to get to the

point. So that make it really seem like the only

good time in in in toys and being a child who

was in the 80s or 90s and I can't speak for what

it's like to be a kid obviously or right now

I there's just no way I can do that however I

can speak for the fact that we all have to make

the best with what we have right now and Or not

even right now, but with the time that we have

that we're given and The time that we were given

when we were kids that you and I kind of had

that similar overlap of time periods It was it

was just awesome and it was great and it was

there was a lot of firsts even back then not

only as kids but even as a society of This was

the first time that kids were getting Nintendo

games and in experiencing video games in a different

context and this was the first time that There

was this style of toys or this style of action

figure that was being given out And it was just

an incredible moment in history, and I'm glad

I have this video to appreciate it Absolutely

that is that is awesome I know that my mom filmed

a bunch of stuff, but that's long gone so it's

nice that you actually have that video and are

able to you know go back and look at that and

and just relive those memories. And I'm so sorry

for your loss. It absolutely sucks. And especially

when it hits right at the time where you want

to spend the most time with that person or that

parent or whatever, you know what I mean? I'm

not trying to take away from the fact that she

was your mom. I'm just saying like, timing always

sucks. And I'm just, man, I hope this helped

you because that was my goal was for us to do

this episode and for us to let our listeners

know who Josh is and what he's about and where

that comes from. And that came from your mom's

lessons and how she was and her putting on that

face and carrying whatever weight it was. And

I know I rambled a bit. I'm obviously speaking

from my perspective, so, you know, if any of

my family members ever hear that, hear this,

and they know that there's other sides to the

story, this is why I'm a little heartbroken,

not a little, saying a little heartbroken doesn't

even begin to describe it. I'm massively heartbroken

that these are questions and topics and things

I'll never really be able to talk to my mom about,

about how she felt at that time, where she was.

because there's a lot of times where I'd have

these questions about growing up and I could

text her or I could call her or I'd remember

to ask her and we would talk about it. And then

that was it. And that's why I think maybe for

her and both me, and this is a huge presumption

on my part, that I think she was dealing with

her health and stuff like that. I think she was

really hoping to get past that so she could start

enjoying a lot more aspects of her life especially

once she got retired and I was also like okay

she's not feeling well we can wait a little bit

until she's ready and then we can have those

conversations and I wanted her to be healthy

and ready to go when we did it and if there's

anybody out there listening if there's anybody

who still has a parent or a loved one all I can

tell you is There's never going to be a perfect

time. Don't wait. If you want to start asking

questions, if you want to start exploring your

past, your history, the past of your loved one,

your family member, don't wait. Do not wait.

You can say that all you want, like we're always

going to have time, but you don't. And that's

a big piece of my life right now a model right

now is that i have to live by is that there might

not be a tomorrow so take the time find out ask

your questions but appreciate what you've had

absolutely couldn't have said it better myself

so all right folks i think we are going to go

to one more quick ad break and Come back to close

the show after this. Hello Geeks and Geekettes!

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the Geekcast Radio Network. One of the primary

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We are back here on GeekCast Radio and we have

spent... Two hours with Josh and his Christmas

memories of 1990s with turtles and skating and

dying and all that stuff and tiger electronics.

They were cool at the time. Not so much anymore.

Any final thoughts, anything you want to say

before I run through the thing? What I kind of

was talking about before in terms of. If there's

things you want to know about your history, your

past, don't wait. And even if you are sitting

here saying, eh, eh, nothing really I care about.

We are who we are because of our past. We can't

really move forward unless we recognize where

we've been. So there's nothing wrong with taking

even a moment to just try to appreciate where

you've come from, to understand where you are,

because it's a great way to plan how to move

forward. And I know I'm kind of sounding a little

like Tony Robbins right now or whatever, but...

At the end of the day when and and I think you

can with your losses in the last ten years I

think you're someone who can really attest to

the fact that it's very important to Understand

that all of a sudden your reality is going to

shift and You don't have a choice in it And you

don't have to act like there's no tomorrow all

the time. But I think appreciating the fact that

when somebody comes in your mind, call them,

text them, message them. When you have five minutes

to make a quick phone call, do that. There's

no harm in doing it. you're never gonna bother

anybody by just saying, hey, I reached out because

I was thinking about you. Even if you don't have

time, I just want you to know that. Because when

the time comes, you're gonna wish you did if

you didn't. And when the time comes, you're gonna

appreciate that you did if you did. And you know,

I know for me, I have to move forward with the

weight on my shoulders of all of the unanswered

questions I have to deal with for the rest of

my life. Mm -hmm. So... Yeah, absolutely. And

like I said earlier, I'm so sorry for your loss,

dude. God. This sucks. So folks, that's going

to do it for our Christmas episode this year.

Not exactly the Christmas episode that I didn't

really have anything planned. And then, you know,

you were, you had mentioned to me about this,

this video and I'm like, Oh, let it make cool

podcast. Cool. We'll do that. So hope everyone

has enjoyed the show. Thank you for listening

to us here on Geocast Radio. If you'd like to

get in contact with us, we'll give you feedback

for the show. There are several ways to do so.

Visit the website geocastradio .com where you

can listen to and comment on all of our content.

Here all the ways you can listen to us nowadays,

Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify, plus any other

podcasting client you choose to use. Follow us

on Twitter at GeekCast Radio for the network.

I am at TF2 and Mike, he is at FloorBurger 553.

Sorry, I got to throw this in there. As long

as Twitter keeps being a place that I want to

hang out. You know what? Twitter's been a cesspool

since 2013. It's not getting any better or any

worse. And I sure I've said this on every episode

that I've recorded recently. I curate my I use

tweet deck. So I curate my Twitter to where I

don't see any of the bullshit. Oh, I don't I

don't see the nonsense. It's just it is what

it is. Anyways, let's go ahead and close. You

go close. Become a fan of Facebook, go to facebook

.com slash GeekCast Radio Network. We hope you

enjoyed this episode of GeekCast Radio and wish

you'll join us next time when I will be talking

to a long time friend, very seldom. Actually,

this will be the first time we have collaborated

together because he has a new book, a new memoir

coming out. His name is Tony Wolf. I used to

listen to him back in the day when he had his

own podcast called The Action Room. He is an

actor and voice actor and all that kind of good

stuff. So Tony will be stopping by to talk about

His new memoir that's coming out soon called

Tales from the Wolf. For now, I am TFG1 Mike

with Josh Flood the Floorburger. That's me. That's

him. Thank you for listening. Until next time.