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An Interview with Brian Volk-Weiss, Creator of The Toys That Made Us and A Toy Store Near You
424 Plays6 years ago
On this episode, the brothers Weinbrecht chat with Nacelle Company founder, Grammy award winner, and creator of The Toys That Made Us, The Movies That Made Us, and the upcoming A Toy Store Near You, Brian Volk-Weiss! Learn about his history with toys and stand-up comedy, rare prototypes, behind-the-scenes info from the Toys That Made Us, and his new shows – including his upcoming Disney+ show, "Behind the Attraction" with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson!
Follow Brian on Instagram @brianvolkweiss and be sure to check out A Toy Store Near You when it debuts on Amazon May 29th, 2020!
Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction and Toy News
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, Dave. Hi, Eric. Hey, Dave. Do we curse on this podcast? Yes, Eric. Yes, we do. Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast.
00:00:21
Speaker
I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting. Where we talk toy news, culture, and halls. Along with our journeys as collectors.
Brian Volkweis on Show Distribution
00:00:35
Speaker
Our guest today is the founder and CEO of The Nacelle Company, a notable toy historian, Grammy Award winner, and the man behind shows like The Toys That Made Us and The Movies That Made Us, and the upcoming toy store near you on Netflix. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, Brian Volkweis.
00:00:53
Speaker
Thank you for having me and not to correct you immediately But I just I always like to be anal about this stuff. It will not be on Netflix It won't okay. Okay. Yeah, it'll be on Amazon Prime YouTube and a lot of other places and listen it could be on Netflix a long time from now But it will not be premiering on Netflix. That's for sure. Gotcha. So that that May 29th Premier date will be on Amazon
00:01:21
Speaker
It'll be on Amazon Prime and YouTube and then basically what we're doing and this is, you know, everything about everything with COVID and whatnot is unusual. So we're just kind of going with the flow of embracing unusual.
00:01:38
Speaker
You know we rather than wait to have 10 episodes done which you know that that could be three or four months Um, we're basically and if anyone has done this before i'm not aware of it Um, but i'm not saying we're the first because I hate when people say that and you're like, yeah
00:01:55
Speaker
We're not the first, but we're just going to pop them out as they're done. We just locked the second episode today. We should be locking the third and fourth, and we're going to put them out on Amazon Prime and YouTube immediately, and then basically put them everywhere else that our distribution network is. That'll be Roku, probably 2B, Pluto, places like that.
00:02:25
Speaker
within ninety days to yeah within about ninety days of every premiere it should be in theory everywhere else that you would go to watch anything so from samsung tv to you name it.
00:02:41
Speaker
Very cool.
Toy Collecting Interests and Anecdotes
00:02:42
Speaker
Well, before we dive into the nitty gritty of the shows and everything, we always like to ask our guests what they're currently collecting and what toy line has you excited at the moment? Well, my newest thing, and this is like less than a week old, is Micro Machines. And that is because a new book came out
00:03:10
Speaker
I think it's called Mighty But Micro. The publishers sent me a copy of the book. People send us stuff all the time, and if I get excited about it, I'll post about it. I really was into micromachines when I was a kid, but I just kind of fell out of it and I was never really into it. Like right now, this very second, I don't have a single micromachine in my collection.
00:03:40
Speaker
But I can feel the attraction building inside me, and I guarantee you, within a month or two, I'm going to have a pretty nice—I'll probably have at least three to five, and within a year or two, probably a couple of dozen.
00:03:56
Speaker
Because that's that's how my collecting is, you know, I go from zero to a hundred Very quickly. So that's my newest thing And then my you know, I'm always collecting Star Wars. I'm always collecting GI Joe always collecting transformers always collecting Batman always collecting Robocop and
00:04:20
Speaker
I'm, you know, I'll tell you something that always surprises toy people. I was never ever ever into He-Man until we made the He-Man episode, the toys that made us. And now, you know, there's specific He-Mans I'm into. And, you know, I'm always, you know, pretty cautious with price. So, you know, if I
00:04:39
Speaker
If I see a figure using He-Man, well, sometimes I'm cautious. My wife would tell you I'm not cautious at all. But yeah, and then I'm always into Star Trek. I always forget about Star Trek. Star Trek might be my biggest collection, weirdly enough. And I'm into Legos as well.
00:05:00
Speaker
But I'm not really, I'm not into vintage Legos at all. So whenever a new set comes out, like I just built the 89 Batmobile. I just built MegaBlox's Constitution class enterprise. So yeah, that's, did that answer your question? Or was that too much or too little? No, that was perfect. Yeah, I just did the 89 Batmobile too. How wild was that thing? It was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.
00:05:29
Speaker
It was so cool.
00:05:31
Speaker
Well, with your micro-machines, there's quite a crossover with micro-machines and Star Wars. If you start getting into some of the stuff from the 90s, those were the only micro-machines I had were the Star Wars micro-machines sets. And they are a blast. They're great to display, too, because a lot of them, the sets fold up and look like miniature busts of characters. Once you start looking into that stuff, I think you're going to open up Pandora's Box. Well, you know what? I accidentally lied to you.
00:06:01
Speaker
because I forgot about Star Wars and Star Trek micro-machines. Now that you reminded me, I do have micro-machines in my collection. In fact, not only do I have them in my collection, they're some of the oldest parts of my collection. Yes, so I will reword what I said. If you remove Star Wars and Star Trek, and I think I have a couple Babylon 5s,
00:06:23
Speaker
I have no micro machines i was kinda referring to like cars but you're absolutely right i did go down that wormhole a long time ago. So i'm among the many stand up comedians you've worked with over the years do you talk toys with any of them. Very few.
00:06:43
Speaker
Moshe Kesher, yes. Moshe Kesher is a big Star Trek guy. Jeff Dunham, he's a huge geek. I've never been around Jeff Dunham and not talked about Batman. I saw that you had done some work with Patton Oswalt. I figured that would be a big toy conversation right there. You're absolutely right. When there used to be this thing that existed called Toys R Us,
00:07:11
Speaker
The toys are us near my office About three to four times a year. I would bump into patent there and we would always catch up on toys and Usually when I bump into him And by the way another one I forgot about but you're absolutely right is Brian Possain We always talk about Star Wars
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, because I just feel like it's it's one of those things where there is so much crossover with those guys, because they're like, especially with the comedian, right, because your your life kind of ends up becoming your material. And I can think vividly of a couple of patents, bits that involve his toys. So I was
00:07:52
Speaker
You know, when I was looking up your history and when Dave and I were looking up your history and we saw all of the work that you had done with stand-up comedy, we were like, oh man, I bet there are some good toy stories there. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, um, it's funny. I'm looking, I just went to IMDB to look at my credits to see who I'm forgetting about. Oh, I mean, obviously Kevin Smith. Oh my God. Uh, I mean, yeah, I mean, Kevin Smith, one of these people,
00:08:20
Speaker
Like I mean when we're together it it's it's like to say we go down a wormhole would be a Understatement and I will say this this doesn't really count but i'll tell it to you because it's funny. Uh bob saggett I hope he doesn't mind me saying this He is he's not a star wars fan at all, but he has like a random yoda in his office
00:08:42
Speaker
And he always, not always, but frequently when we're talking or texting, he'll send me a picture of his Yoda and make a joke about it. That definitely, that counts. That counts. By the way, a lot of the comedians make fun of me for being a geek. In fact, almost any time we work with Moshe, I give him something Star Trek related. So you've become part of the material yourself.
00:09:10
Speaker
I actually am in a few jokes, one of Ali Wong's jokes in her second special is about me, but it is not about my toy collector.
Prototype Collecting and Speculative Films
00:09:20
Speaker
You recently posted two pictures on your Instagram of two very strange and unique one-off figures, something that we have never seen before or heard of, but the Judge Dredd prototype and the Luke Skywalker prototype.
00:09:35
Speaker
um how did you come across those well i'm scared to answer the question because then if you if you don't know how or where i got them that means you're blissfully unaware of the prototyping community uh which means your wallets are fatter uh than they will uh after i tell you this but yeah man
00:10:01
Speaker
It's really funny. About four years ago, five years ago, a guy named Brian Stillman had made a movie about Star Wars toys called Plastic Galaxy. I had read an article about it in USA Today. I reached out to him
00:10:21
Speaker
We got lunch a couple months later. And Brian, by the way, would be the first person I called after Toys that Made Us got greenlit, and he and I text literally every single day, like seven days a week for years. Anyway, he got me into my first private Facebook. If you search for this, you won't find it. So maybe you're safe. But there are these private Facebook groups for prototypes.
00:10:48
Speaker
And he got me into one and then i got to another and i got to another. And all these groups are. Is what you saw on those posts it's some.
00:11:02
Speaker
They're just unbelievable pieces of history of either the beginnings of toy lines or as it relates to the Judge Dredd and that Luke Skywalker, you know, parts of history that didn't happen. You know, that Luke Skywalker, you know, was Playmates' attempt to get into the Star Wars business when Lucasfilm opened it up to everybody after Hasbro slash Kenner.
00:11:31
Speaker
Uh lost the exclusivity so To me first of all i'm a big judge dread fan second of all I love that again the history of what didn't happen Had the movie been a success that figure would have Come out and been in stores by the movie bombing a movie. I love by the way. This is the stalone version Uh, it never happened
00:11:57
Speaker
And the same thing is, with playmates losing the bake-off to Hasbro, that became a piece of history and never made it to store shelves. It's amazing this stuff survives too. That's the thing that I find the craziest about whenever you see prototypes of anything. Well, it's amazing it survived. And I agree with you, but what's even more amazing to me
00:12:22
Speaker
There's new stuff being discovered all the time. A couple weeks ago, another one of my big deep dive collections is Dune, David Lynch's Dune.
00:12:35
Speaker
LJN did a beautiful line that basically bankrupted the company, I might add. But LJN did a beautiful line of dune figures and they had the movie succeeded. There would have been a second and third and fourth series. And for the longest time, Queen Catherine, there was only two known heads of hers that were made, the wax sculpture heads. And they just like a couple of weeks ago found like another one.
00:13:05
Speaker
So, you know, for like 30 years, there was only known to be two. Now there's three.
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's crazy to think about stuff like that because maybe that one extra figure that came out or that extra wave would have done something to actually help the franchise. That Judge Dredd movie, there's so much toy edit in that film, regardless of what you think of it. Personally, I also enjoy it. Dave, I don't know if I'm speaking for you as well on that one. I like both. I like the new one and the original.
00:13:43
Speaker
I have to imagine that if some of those monster-looking toys came out, like the cannibals that lived in the desert, those characters would have made such good toys. Would it have given the film additional legs? Would it have given it a little bit more of a cult following that it already has? I honestly don't think so. And again, I say this as a fan of both movies.
00:14:10
Speaker
As somebody that greenlights things speculatively, not knowing if they're going to succeed or not, I have a real interest in past, present, and future greenlights that companies make. And I would argue
00:14:30
Speaker
Judge, you should not be investing 50 to $80 million in 1996 on a movie that's only gonna really appeal to dudes. And that's for Judge Dredd.
00:14:44
Speaker
Dune, I mean, and I say this about the new one. Listen, I'll be there opening night for the new one, but to spend money like that on a movie that is probably not going to be enjoyed by, you know, there's four quadrants. There's young men, there's young women, there's old men, there's old women. So to spend money like that,
00:15:10
Speaker
on a one or two quadrant film, I think is bonkers and no amount of toys, especially for Dune. I don't know how familiar you are with that, David Lynch is. Yes, yes. Insane. And I love it. I mean, I've seen it dozens and dozens of times. I have one of my favorite prototypes is from Dune. I have so much consumer products from Dune. I have an entire shelf dedicated to Dune, but
00:15:40
Speaker
You you can't you can't you know star wars worked because it appealed to all four quadrants Certainly three quadrants, but I arguably for That yeah, I don't think the toys would have saved either
00:15:59
Speaker
Well, maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic regarding it saving the movie, but it's just to me, it's interesting the amount of thought and artistry that goes into those things and the fact that they stay buried for as long as they do. Like Zombie Sailor Toys on Instagram recently posted a picture of a last action hero Arnold figure that was supposed to come out that he managed to find on Card. Yeah, with the black shirt.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wild. I love that movie. I'm looking, you know, I'm working out of my home, as you know, as we all are. And I'm looking at my. Yeah, I got I got three last action heroes on card right now that I'm looking at. Well, even think about like the Dick Tracy blank figure that, you know, they didn't put out originally because it was a spoiler. Yeah. And then like maybe kind of never did.
00:16:55
Speaker
like the Wonder Bread He-Man.
Selection Criteria for Featured Toys
00:16:58
Speaker
So speaking of He-Man and some of these more prominent toy lines that we've talked about, the toys that made us, right?
00:17:11
Speaker
You guys really nailed the nostalgia factor with that show. Even for the lines that a lot of people know and love, there was still so much new to be learned from the seasons of that. How do you go about selecting the lines that you want to feature on that show?
00:17:32
Speaker
Well, first of all, Netflix very nicely just let me pick. So let's start with that. No other network I've worked with in my life would have done that. And then the rule that I used, which I broke with Star Trek. I want to be honest about that. But I basically had a bunch of rules. And rules, by the way, is in quotes.
00:17:59
Speaker
I basically, there had to be a character that like, if there was a Mount Rushmore of toys, at least one of the characters could have been on the Mount Rushmore. And my example would be like, my wife doesn't give a shit about Transformers, but she can recognize Optimus Prime and Bumblebee on site.
00:18:21
Speaker
So it had to work with something like that. Then there had to be a good story. So there's some toys that are massive successes, but they don't really have a good story. So that was also a variable. And then the other thing that I really tried to do was I wanted all the toys that we did to be multi-generational because I really looked at it as constituents.
00:18:50
Speaker
So, like, you know, I'll give you an example of what we didn't do. Like, a lot of people are like, you got to do mask, you got to do mask. And I'm like, mask was up for three years. Arguably, the third year was a complete disaster to the point where season three of mask had very little to do with seasons one and two. It was like a very peculiar, like,
00:19:15
Speaker
reboot within the first generation. But even without that, it was a three-year toy line. So you're not going to get generations of fans. Whereas with Star Wars or Barbie or Hello Kitty or even a G.I. Joe, you're going to have at least two or three or even barely four generations of Netflix subscribers
00:19:41
Speaker
that are interested. By the way, one of the rules that I broke, one of the lines that I broke the rule on, believe it or not, was He-Man. Because He-Man really was a one-generation toy, and as popular as that episode is to some degree, it's, you know, Hello Kitty, believe it or not, if I had to guess, and I don't know the numbers, they don't tell us, I guarantee you Hello Kitty,
00:20:09
Speaker
perform better than he meant. Hello Kitty was definitely the most shocking episode for me. In terms of not knowing a thing about the toy line, but recognizing the iconography from that brand, the ins and outs of that toy line were absolutely insane. We can make a two hour move documentary about the making of that episode.
Challenges in Creating the Show
00:20:35
Speaker
I had a rule with making the show that it was going to be a positive show. I worked really hard to avoid dark, negative stuff because at the end of the day, it was a show about toys. We were interviewing Hasbro employees that had been fired 30 years earlier after Hasbro bought
00:20:58
Speaker
Kenner, and they were crying and angry. Any other show I've ever produced, that would have been at the front of the episode and in the trailer. But I just didn't include stuff like that. To that point, with the Hello Kitty, I mean
00:21:16
Speaker
It was bonkers. I mean, the company was bonkers. I mean, everything about it was bonkers. But I just didn't include it in the episode because that's just not the show I was making. But yeah, we could have made a very different episode. And out of respect to Sanrio and how open they were to us, and I would argue in some ways too open,
00:21:41
Speaker
Uh, we we did not show some of the warts Uh that we uh, we saw so what would you say would be the most challenging? Would that be the most challenging thing that you came across in putting together the the stories in the series? Or was there something else? No, I mean hello kitty was the hardest episode to make um second hardest to make was lego Because first of all, there were a lot of documentaries about lego So we had to work really hard to find something original about it
00:22:12
Speaker
But the other problem with Lego is they really don't have characters the way the other lines do. So it's very easy to push emotional buttons, you know, with showing Luke and Leia.
00:22:29
Speaker
He-Man and Skeletor, Cobra Commander, and Destro, whatever. But you really didn't have that with Lego. So we had to work really, really hard to find an original way into the story. And to be completely honest, I think we came close. That's one of the episodes I wish I could get a do-over.
00:22:52
Speaker
Really yeah yeah see like that was one where i mean granted to your point there's a lot of information out there about lego but like i just feel like. I feel like you guys did tackle that at a much different angle than anything else i had previously seen about it like i feel like it was it was more.
00:23:11
Speaker
I don't want to say gritty because the show's not really, to your point, it's meant to be a positive show, but I feel like it touched on things that I had not seen in other documentaries. Yeah, I feel like I learned a lot from it too. I appreciate you saying it. I'm probably being too hard on myself. Whatever. As an artist, that's how you're supposed to be. You always think you can do better.
00:23:32
Speaker
Uh, you know one of the openings, uh for the episodes drives me crazy. We didn't do something else. So Um, listen, i'm sure it's fine. I i've heard no criticism of the episode literally none. Um, but I I know a way to do it now That I like i'll give you an example
00:23:51
Speaker
The Transformers episode that whole thing with the tin cans with the opening and how it all came back to the tin cans That was literally like we had a completely different episode That was very in my opinion boring and we just hadn't cracked it and then I just was going through transcripts and transcripts trying to find a different way to tell the story when I saw the word
00:24:19
Speaker
tuna fish can or tin can and appeared three times and I was like why is tin can appear three times and that helped us crack the episode and I think we made a very original Transformers documentary Because we figured that out and then also the stuff would cat with Cullen and his brother So I but I just feel with Lego If I could do it all over again
00:24:46
Speaker
I really, more than we did, we only touched upon it, but more than we did, I would have, the company was traumatized from almost going out of business in 03. I mean, traumatized. Every interview we did in Billend, like literally, I'll never forget we were interview, she's in the episode, we interview her primarily about Lego Friends.
00:25:14
Speaker
Remember talking to her and she was probably 28 29 years old when we interviewed her and she was traumatized by the 2003 almost bankruptcy and she was probably in junior high school when that happened so the fact that there was an employee and
00:25:32
Speaker
who didn't work at Lego in 03 that was traumatized by it, that was really interesting. And I think it's a real testament to Lego and how respectful they are of the delicateness of staying in business and success that a brand new employee 20 years later, or 15 years later, whatever, was literally talking about the bankruptcy as though she had worked at the company when she had.
00:26:00
Speaker
I've never seen that before and I've interviewed people who have worked at dozens of companies. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely, you know, we, we've had the opportunity to talk to, um, both, both Amy Corbett and, uh, and Jamie Burrard from the, the Lego masters show on Fox. They were the two judges and, and we, it's very obvious speaking to both of them that there is this very like close knit family vibe for what's going on in Denmark at that company.
00:26:30
Speaker
Part of me is like, wow, that is shocking. But on the other hand, it's like, you know what? It kind of makes sense because I bet they ingrain that kind of like shared feeling culture throughout all of their employees. Yeah. I mean, every single room, except for bathrooms, conference rooms, offices, every single room in Billon,
00:26:54
Speaker
And this is probably true for other LEGO offices, too. It has a container in it filled with red LEGO bricks. And basically what they're doing is they're making sure nobody forgets. No matter what you do here, no matter how high infalutin, you might run the Star Wars account. You might run Ninjago. It's all about the bricks. Don't ever forget. It's all about the bricks.
00:27:23
Speaker
I'm sure you've gotten this question a million and a half times, but we can't have you on a toy podcast and not talk about season four of every toy collector's favorite series.
Future Projects and Concepts
00:27:33
Speaker
If there is a season four, and it has not been greenlit yet, but if there is a season four, I know what toys we're doing. I can't say what they are, but two of them are super obvious.
00:27:50
Speaker
One of them is medium obvious and one of them, if Netflix lets me do it.
00:27:58
Speaker
will be a personal bookend for myself. And I've said it in other interviews, so I can tell you what it is. It literally would be an episode called, and it would be the last episode of the show, The Toys That Should Have Not Been Made. And it'll focus on LJN's Dune line. And it'll be, I think, the perfect bookend to Star Wars because
00:28:26
Speaker
It'll really show how delicate success is, like how everything went perfect with Star Wars and Kenner. Everything went wrong and sideways with Dune and LJN. And there's a lot of toys like that. I mean, there's a lot of companies, you know, I forget the name of the company, but Trendmasters, I think, did the Independence Day line. Is that right?
00:28:55
Speaker
Oh yeah. I think so. I think that's right. Yeah. And largely went out of business because of Independence Day. And that's a really weird example because the movie succeeded.
00:29:07
Speaker
And if you remember the toys they made, they were fantastic. They had motion sensors in them. This was in, like, 1996. I mean, they were extremely complicated toys. They came with floppy disks with games on them. Oh, I'm looking at one right now, yeah. Yeah, I remember those. Yeah, that was a disaster. Absolute disaster. So you can, you know, what's it called? Monday morning quarterback it?
00:29:38
Speaker
But yeah, so that's really how I want to end the show because to me the toys are obviously very important to me and very personal to me. But to me, the show is really about the delicateness of success. And I think by showing an entire episode of even though the sounds depressing, we would find a fun way to do it.
00:30:01
Speaker
the failures, I think it'll really support the rest of the show. I could sit here all day and take guesses at what the obvious toys would be, but like, it's just, and I know that there are, I'm sure you get requests, like you mentioned Mask, like I'm sure the toy biz, you know, Marvel line, and you know, the Ken or Batman figures, like I'm sure you get requests out the wazoo for lines like that, but
00:30:31
Speaker
I really hope you get to do this season for it. I've made a lot of TV shows that nobody cares about. So the fact that every day people are reaching out wanting to talk to me about this stuff, I haven't taken it for granted for even a billionth of a second.
Conceptualizing 'A Toy Store Near You'
00:30:53
Speaker
Well, speaking of TV shows that we want to talk about, we started talking about at the top of the show, but tell us a little bit more about how a toy store near you came into be. Well, you may have heard of this thing called COVID. So basically, there are these two vintage toy stores near my office. One is called Black Cat Collectibles. The other is called Blast from the Past.
00:31:21
Speaker
So I was talking to the owners at those stores, I go into them usually three or four times a month, and they were talking about how the quarantine was going to crush them.
00:31:34
Speaker
So I had that on my mind and then my wife like that night or the next night whatever was watching a show About a chef and it was on YouTube. She was watching it on our TV But it was YouTube and it was literally about a chef cooking noodles and I suddenly was like Why don't we do that for the toy stores? we could
00:32:02
Speaker
Get exposure for the toy stores, so maybe their online sales will go up. And every time people watch the episode, we'll make money and we could send most of the money to them. So I called Billy Galaxy, who owns one of my favorite toy stores in the whole world, Billy Galaxy Toys in Portland, Oregon. And I said to him, I go, dude,
00:32:25
Speaker
If you filmed it, do you think if I told you what to shoot, you could film it and we could make an episode? And he was like, yeah. So we put out a press release and we got about 50 stores all over the world, two from Japan, one from Taiwan, England, Argentina, Netherlands, you name it. And basically they're all shooting their own footage.
00:32:52
Speaker
where we give them a list of things we need them to shoot and then we edit them in our own company and we you know color correct audio correct everything we created an opening sequence yada yada yada and the first episode which is billy galaxy comes out may twenty nine.
00:33:14
Speaker
Yeah, that was going to be something I was going to ask is how do you kind of tackle that and have it turn around, especially now? Because I'm a paranoid mofo, I started evacuating my company February 29th. So by the time we got quarantine, I had already had my entire staff move into their homes.
00:33:38
Speaker
and also shipped all the equipment to their homes. So we've been fully functional since the California quarantine started, which was one of the earliest in the country. So basically, the toy stores drop box us the footage.
00:33:53
Speaker
We edit them into a cut. I give notes with the editor, who's a full-time employee, and then we see what we don't have, and then we ask the toy store to shoot more. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And then we lock the episode, and then we deliver. And they're just doing this on their iPhones, or are you also shipping equipment? No. I'd say at least at minimum, 95% of it is on iPhones.
00:34:20
Speaker
I mean the trailer went out today so i don't know if you've seen the trailer or not but yes we did look to you like it was shot on iphones. Not at all yeah and again that's not me taking props for myself and my company i'm giving props to the apple corporation.
00:34:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's why like so we set up this call. So we're recording today is May 7th we set up this call about a week ago and you know since then a lot of more information has come out about the show and the trailer happened to drop today, which was a nice little Serendipitous moment because now we get to talk about it. But yeah, I I was shocked which is why as soon as we we both saw the trailer I was I was texting with Dave and I was saying like how the fuck
00:35:07
Speaker
Did they shoot this I bet they're sending a camera around than a shipping box that's literally done with people's phones And then you know, we have our color correcting systems that we use for Netflix and Disney Plus So I mean it is going through our very powerful machines and our very talented colorists and audio people but that being said None of those machines work
00:35:32
Speaker
if the data's not strong enough from the camera. And yeah, the iPhones are strong enough. The 10 and above. So how many episodes again are you planning for this series? We have deals with 50 stores. We have footage from 37.
00:35:53
Speaker
I hope, because like I said, we give notes and then we need more footage. That is proven to be a little tricky. So my hope is we get to make at least 30.
00:36:05
Speaker
And the reason we wouldn't do 50 is just because, and I completely understand this, so I'm not chastising a business owner, but as COVID hopefully starts to go away and the toy store is open again, they're not going to have as much time to shoot stuff for us. So if 50 stores get us what we need, there will be 50 episodes.
00:36:28
Speaker
You know, a term that is normally used in a negative sense, I have always found you can find positive applications for it if you embrace it. And I am definitely embracing a quote, unquote, loosey goosey methodology. So this is the labor of love for everybody. And it'll be what it'll be. There could be 20 episodes. There could be 52 episodes.
00:36:55
Speaker
It's whatever the stores want to do, we're happy to support. I know the toy community is really excited about this. The buzz already around the trailer and when the show was announced because a lot of us, yourself included, we all have our favorite local shops and the last thing that we want to happen is for them to go away because of all of this. We're always looking for a new place to go too.
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And because of my stand-up comedy business, I travel a lot. So I have favorite stores in almost every city. Like when I go to Chicago,
00:37:34
Speaker
Like I gotta like, it's Sophie's choice. Like I usually only have time to go to two stores. Minneapolis is just as bad. Like there's like four stores in Minneapolis that I love. So I am dialed in. And then when every now and then I get to go to a new city, cause I usually go to like the same 20, 30 cities over and over. By the way, Seattle, oh my God. Like 300 toy stores there.
00:38:02
Speaker
So yeah, whenever I go to a new city, I love finding the vintage toy store. Also the pawn shops, by the way. Pawn shops don't get enough credit. You can get some great stuff at pawn shops. But yeah, it's my favorite thing in the world to do. Because when you're shooting stand-up specials, I usually don't have to be on set till four or five o'clock. And then we don't start shooting until seven p.m.
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah, going to these toy stores during the day in the era of Uber is the greatest thing in the world. Well, once we're allowed to travel again safely, we'll definitely be hitting you up when we're going around and we're like, hey, Brian, we're here. What's good in this state? Please do.
00:38:53
Speaker
Definitely. Before we let you go and let you get back to producing more incredible content in all types of varieties, is there anything other than the new show
Upcoming Shows and Projects
00:39:07
Speaker
that you want to plug? Is there any cool stand-up stuff that you have that you're working on? Anything that you want our listeners to know about? It's funny. These questions, I'm always hamstrung answering them because I can only talk about what's been made public.
00:39:23
Speaker
So there's so much stuff I want to tell you, I can't tell you. But what I can tell you is we have, in my very un-humble and biased opinion, we have a wonderful show coming out.
00:39:37
Speaker
In the fourth quarter on Disney Plus called behind the attraction Which is all about the we're partnered up with Dwayne Johnson and his company seven bucks and that's all about individual attractions also known as rides and parks
00:39:57
Speaker
So that's coming out hopefully in November, December. And then we have another show coming out that has been announced, but it hasn't gotten too much press yet on BET Plus that's coming out next month called All The Way Black.
00:40:12
Speaker
And that show is a very very deep nostalgic dive into African American pop culture So we do a show for the CW called discontinued and This is it's not like the African American version of discontinued to be sure but it's a very similar deep dive into a very specific part of American culture and in this case African American culture
00:40:43
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, I can't wait for all of that. Literally, my ears perked up when you said that you were making a show about attractions with The Rock. Yeah. Because that's the other thing that Dave and I are very passionate about is Disney World and Disneyland. You will be blown away. The access. I hope they don't mind me saying this. I mean, we would be seeing things and doing things
00:41:13
Speaker
where I'm like, if they knew we'd be doing this, I don't think they would have green lit the show. Like. Awesome. Third shift tour. It started at 9 p.m. and went till 6 a.m.
00:41:29
Speaker
I mean, at Disney, at Anaheim, I mean, what we saw. This is the one thing I'll say, and again, I hope Disney doesn't get mad at me for saying this. Anybody who saw, you know how everybody gets mad at Disney for their ticket prices being so high? Yeah. If people saw what I saw, they would be shocked. They actually can make a profit.
00:41:49
Speaker
Yeah, you saw a lot of what they would refer to on the internet as not safe for magic, NSFM. Well, it's funny, and I know you're joking, but I will say this, what they do, what the Imagineers do is so mind-blowing that in a weird way, like,
00:42:12
Speaker
First of all, unless you're five years old, inherently, you know there's no magic. Correct. But arguably, when you see what they've done to make it appear to be magic, at least in my opinion, it's more impressive and more magical. Because there's an attraction I was behind the scenes on. I can't tell you what it was. But seeing how it worked,
00:42:40
Speaker
And knowing that there was a staff meeting at some point where somebody said, hey, if we do X, Y, and Z, we could make this happen. The fact that this employee was not laughed out of the room or fired, but this corporation went on to spend billions of dollars to do what I think in any other company would have been like, is this guy drunk?
00:43:09
Speaker
Like it was like just crazy. I mean, like I said, there was this one thing I saw and I saw many things like this, but this one thing in particular, I just remember like it was time to go on to the next thing. And I just stood there looking at this being like, this is a billion pounds of concrete. This is not one, not two, this is dozens of like the most powerful computers on earth. Like,
00:43:38
Speaker
put together in a room like, like, yeah. I mean, it was just stuff like that where it really felt magical.
00:43:46
Speaker
in a weird way. Once the show comes out, we're just going to have to have you come back on so that way we can give more context to the stuff that you're hinting at. That would be my pleasure. Awesome. We'll reconvene. Yeah, we'll reconvene, and we'll do a special episode once the show's out on Disney Plus, and we'll have you back on so that way we can revisit all this bullshit.
00:44:09
Speaker
For sure. I wish you had cursed sooner. I didn't know I could curse. I've been holding it on the curse. Oh, no, sorry. I usually give that green light at the beginning. Yeah, no. I mean, if you want to get a couple of hours. It just cracks me up. Whenever I curse the podcast, like, oh, hey, please, this is this is a family show. And then when I do curse, it's like, oh, I couldn't.
00:44:29
Speaker
It's it's a family show in the sense that my brother and I host it. There you go. The best Yeah, our up front is actually the first thing that you hear is is is us asking each other if we curse on the episode All right next time next time Will do all right Brian, thank you. Thank you so much for for being here with us. This is a great great chat. Thank you
00:44:53
Speaker
My pleasure, a lot of fun, and yeah, keep doing what you guys are doing. I appreciate it very, very much. Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
00:45:19
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
00:45:42
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer Frank Kablaui. This program and many others like it on the non-productive network is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives license. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information, visit non-productive.com.