All Things | Childhood Toys & Collectibles

You're about to listen to the first experimental season of our show, formerly called Nat One Presents the Podcast. For better audio quality and our current ongoing DD campaign, skip ahead to season two featuring the Daft Monks. On this episode of Nat One Presents. You told me about that. Yeah, and I cried there. It's all cool until you see like Dead babies. Yeah, and then it's not cool anymore.

Adventure.

Just kidding. This is Nat One Presents, a tabletop role-playing game podcast that takes your favorite nerdy games and pop culture icons and ruins them with improv.

Hello and welcome to Nat One Presents the Podcast. Hey Nate. Hey Nate. What's uh what do you got there on your arm there? Oh, maybe got my tattoo started. Exciting! For those Patreon fans. If you want to see the outline of Nate's new tattoo, join the Patreon. It's just a dollar.

So yeah, quick story here. Uh my original appointment was end of October. I had a vacation last week in Vegas. I want to tell you guys all about it. And I was supposed to leave on Thursday. Got a call. We have an opening on Friday. So I stayed one more night. Met the artist. I was real nervous. I've gone through three local artists that I just didn't hit it off with. They didn't really didn't get my drawing or I didn't like their drawing, whatever. Um, no hard feelings. Uh but you suck, man. But [expletive] you. Um, so met the artist, was really nervous. He took a few hours to draw it and uh love it.

We got the outline done, and now I still have my appointment in October, so that's when we'll go and we'll we'll shade it. So it uh I don't know, Nate. What do you think?

It looks really good. Yeah, the outline work is looks really good. And once it gets shaded, I think you're gonna love it. It looks really good.

Can't wait. We'll share some pictures. It is uh Nintendo Mind Calendar, and uh I really feel like there's nothing like it online. I've I really done like I there's there's anime tattoos, there are video games tattoos, there are trends that it looks like yarn, trends like it looks like stickers, and then there's like of course stonework, but there's no like video game stonework like combo, and especially like with like an Aztec feel. So I'm I'm feeling pretty excited. Uh my artist Louis said, like, not that this piece would go viral, but these are the type of pieces that like have a chance to like because they're just like different, you know.

And here and now one presents, we love to try to go viral.

We love to we almost did that one time with the Among Us clip that 17,000 views. I'm not I think it's pretty impressive. I think so too. Uh yeah, but back on vacation, refreshed, ready to make some good content. I had a good time in Vegas. Saw a really funny show called Absinthe.

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like whatever that green [expletive]. Thank you.

Yeah. Uh super raunchy. It's like if if Cirque didn't take itself seriously and like insulted people the whole time, like hardcore insulted people. Like they went from like people's haircuts to like old women, they were saying their vaginas were dried out. Like they were like going for it, but then it was a burlesque show, and then it was like then they had like stunts from people from all around the world. Crazy, crazy good show. I'd recommend that was my top show for Vegas if you if you ever go back. I mean, you used to live around that area, so you're probably like over it or used to be.

Well, I've actually only been to like a couple of those type of shows. Like, I went to like an exhibit when it was out there, the body's warm. You told me about it. Yeah, and I cried there. It's all cool until you see like dead babies, yeah. And then it's not cool anymore. And then what's the there's another one we went, so I went to the Excalibur thing and went huzzah and you know, drank the the red soup. And um, I think that might be about it for Vegas shows. I just never really wanted to go see any, I guess.

We did some drag shows, we we did like an obligatory Cirque show, but man, like those people sniff their own farts. Like it's just like so conceptual, and I it's cool. It I mean, obviously those people have more talent and they're like pinky than I am do in in the entirety of now one, but it's still like the concepts are just too like out there and like French. Like, I don't know, right? It's just not a French Canadian rather. So I I didn't feel it. Um I always love their billboards though. Like you see their billboards on the side, like, man, that looks cool. I should go see that show. Um I never knew. There was a really cool attraction. So for people, if anyone's in Nevada, um, sorry, no, New Mexico.

Have you ever heard of Meowwolf?

No.

Meowwolf is like Alice in Wonderland. So basically, the original one was in uh New Mexico, and then like basically these this people, these people bought a bowling alley, like gutted it, and then built like like passages, and it's like in an art exhibit, and like you'll like open a fridge door, and then there's a tunnel, and you go down and it has like LED lights, and yeah, and usually there's like a vibe, there's like a story with it too. There's always like a little bit like you can open drawers and there's like notes from people, and there's like usually like some like hardcore story you have to like spend hours to find. So, anyway, the there's a brand new one by the same people in Las Vegas, and so that one it's called Omega Mart.

And so it's like it's like if aliens were trying to imitate like a supermarket, and so like you go in and it's like, oh that is like the name of a cereal, and then it's or it's like corn stubs, like they just like it like doesn't make sense. And then you like they you have this like just card that you like go next to like these like TVs and you swipe it, and then it will show like training videos, and it's like you know, it's aliens trying to act like human.

And then you open like you open like one of the doors where like the sodas are, and then you walk back, and then there's like there's like the source, and there's like generators, and there's like offices, and then there's all like conspiracy theories and files, and so you scan the cards, and there's like a mystery kind of it's it's really fun. It's just my best comparison, it's like Alice in Wonderland where you like you think you're going into one thing and then you explore it more, and then it's like a lot of fun. It is, it's cool, and a lot of artists, like different artists collaborate on the exhibits in the rooms. So there's it's really cool stuff.

If you want, it's like if you're in either uh New Mexico, I think it's in Santa Fe, now there's one Las Vegas, and I think they're opening one in like Denver. It's just like very different, and it's fun. If you like the weird spooky [expletive] type stuff, um, it's all all about you. Like, I could see Corvin would have a blast there because there's a lot of interactive, especially the Las Vegas one. There's so much interactive stuff. Um, and it's just a good time. So I had a blast. Glad to be back, Nate. What about what about you? What do we got?

Um, really nothing going on. I work. My mom came out for that visit we saw, or you didn't see. Sorry, mom. I'm so sorry. What can you do? And then um, really, that's been it. I tried taking Corvin to a movie yesterday. Oh, what movie? Uh Jungle Cruise. Oh, how was that? I loved the ride. I that was one of my favorite rides, and I love that. And I was enjoying the movie, but after Corvin's fourth piss break and him yelling at the movie a couple times, I was just like, nah, I don't think it's today's the day. He's just killing it. He was just having one of his uh moods that he has, and I was okay, let's just go.

I get it, yeah. Yeah, that's really mature you and cool that you just like it's not meant to be that day, right? You know, like you could try to sit there and like make him watch the movie, not gonna end well for you, not gonna end well for him. Right, probably not gonna end well for the audience if there was anybody right there to do that. There was how was it? Were there people? Are people again?

We went to the one at the Dead uh Mall. Dead Mall Zombie Foothills?

Yeah, I love that place. It's so scary, and then it is they have those little children's rides that like you put a quarter and you ride, and so like all the shops are closed. Basically, like an outlet mall opened up and everything moved there, and that was the final, like, but anyway, they have those like things like little cars that you like put the quarter in, and they just like laugh now. They're still like turned on, so you'll be in an empty mall. Like after movie, you'll get out of like 11. Like, and you have to go through the mall to get back out. Like the theater's in the mall, so you can't just go out the mall door.

Uh, so you gotta like go through the halls a little bit, and it'll be like 11 at night, and you hear like and it's those machines. I don't know if you've ever heard it before, so it's so creepy. Just and then the fact that it's like a dead mall. Oh, yeah.

It gets spookier and spookier every time I go in that place. The only thing alive for people who don't know in this mall is the bookstore and the movie theater, and that's the only thing alive.

There's there's nothing now. There's nothing. I uh it reminds me of that Are You Afraid of the Dark episode kind of like when it's like trapped in the mall? It's yeah, I I dig it. I used to have so much fun. I used to live across the street from that mall when it had some stores. Oh, okay, and that was kind of cool because like it was never busy. Right. You could get some good deals because nobody was going there. Like there was a suit place where I got like some crazy good deals on suits. And I just like the bookstores, yeah.

Nice two-story bookstore, it's awesome, isn't it?

It's super nice, yeah. Um, well, maybe next time, I guess.

Next time, but on as a side note, uh Megan took Roscoe to watch his own movie. And so two-year-old Roscoe went to the movie theater and watched his first movie. It was Pop Patrol. And he loved it. Oh, nice. After we got out, he was told me all about it in his Roscoe talk. So I understood that the dog jumped super high. Okay. Uh-huh. This pup was on a roll. Things like that. He said all the this pup was on a roll. Yeah, he said all the key phrases that they say, and I was like, Well, I'm glad you loved it. And then he proceeded to not shut up about it the whole ride back home. So he really loved it.

It's just nice we can go to theaters, like we can be around, and especially for kids. Like, it's important that uh you can get them around people still, even if like I mean, I know schools, schools open back up. Yep. Did Corbin start school or not?

He's going to school, and then the only weird thing is he has like a half day in the middle of the week sometime. That's the only weird thing about his schedule.

Yeah, is that because of like COVID stuff, or that's just a little bit more?

Yeah, so they can so like everyone has a half day, and then after that half day, I guess they give everything like a deep cleaning or something like that, in order to keep up with whatever.

I'm cool. A little weird, but I'm cool with that. Definitely better than like a mask mandate, maybe, you know, something like that. Um, man, can you like school is such like a terror? Like, as a young child, like you know, there's like so much you can be bullied for breathing wrong or looking at someone the wrong way. So imagine how like masks and these types of politics play in.

Oh, so like being at school is like are you even interacting anymore at this point? Like, because they don't want you stopping and talking in the halls or playing with your friends, or like school, I don't think is the same right now as it was when we were growing up.

No, and I not for the better, unfortunately. Um, so but I'm right. I hope that I hope that gets better. Um there was one funny thing you told me that we were gonna talk about on the show. Not the way you whistle, party. Also, Nate can't whistle. No, I don't know how to whistle. That's kind of crazy.

It's not my fault. I try, it's these big, luscious lips.

Just give us give us like one try for the if you're listening, that wasn't a a drafty breeze in my house. That was Nate trying to whistle. Okay. Wow, that was that's after I've been practicing. There was something else, Nate. You were gonna tell me there were there was some some news you had or some some recent development that was good.

Um I don't know. We're I know we're still uh we're definitely locked in for the Phoenix Comic-Con that's coming up.

We got the verbal okay. Still waiting on some paperwork, but we will be there. We will have a booth and we will be presenting. Um, I can't wait until we have a time. We can tell you what day we'll be there. Right. Um, we're definitely gonna have some swag. I saw Nate's uh Nate Nate's Nate's wife is working on something pretty cool.

Megan won't listen to the podcast, but she'll do everything else to help out with it. She's amazing. It's nice of her. I'm I'm fine with that, right? That's fine. So what she's doing now is she's uh hand engraving. She bought a bunch of D20 blanks and she's hand engraving all of the ones on it. And she only needs to make the one, and then she's gonna make the cast out of that, and then we can just pour resin from there.

It's gonna be cool. So you could get an all nat one D20, basically, which is very on-brand for us. Like no matter what you do, it's gonna be [expletive].

So and then I was thinking about it like if somebody's selling or just giving away joke dice at a con, like, I'm gonna go check out that booth. Absolutely.

Yeah, we're gonna rope you in. Yeah, you and Megan killed that because I asked you guys, it was like, what's something that like if someone's like, oh look, I got this for free over at that booth, what would make you want to grab it and go into our booth? Because that's like you know, I'm the marketing guy, like Nate's just happy to be there. I'm just a guy. Uh, but yeah, you pitched that, and I'm like, that's that's brilliant. I'm an idea man, Nate.

He's an idea.

Ideas. Yep, and then I do all the heavy lifting. Yeah, that's the exhausting forth creating presentations for contracts, video editing, uh, posting on it's fine, it's fine. Yeah, okay. I'm here for smiles. Speaking of smiles, what is today's topic? I'm really excited about this.

Today we're going to be talking about toys. Now, not just the any toys, but the toys that either we grew up with or saw as kids that had an impact on us, and I think we can make that pretty fun today.

Yeah. Uh, probably they'll be a heavy 90s focus for us, but there might be some 80s toys in there. Um, are you I I think you've talked about this before. Netflix has a pretty [expletive] awesome special. Uh it's like three seasons called The Toys That Made Us. Yes, I love that one. It's so good. I watched all the episodes. I watched it right before Vegas because they had a new season. I didn't see season three. Oh, yeah. Check it out.

I've seen the first two.

Um the stories are really good. I love those. You should you should check it out. I'll try to, if we have some of the same toys, I can drop some of the like basic stories. But some of the some of the stories are fascinating.

Oh, like the Barbie one was like cutthroat.

Yep. That was intense. Um, I thought there was a fascinating one. So I think I'll give a quick one. Transformers, for instance, right? So World War II happened. Eh, things are kind of weird with Japan. For some reason, we started like licensing out or giving them G.I. Joe's that they would sell, but the body type was weird and they wanted to make them superheroes, but like their body, the G.I. Joe body type didn't like work with like a lot of times back then you took like other pieces from other toys, so it didn't work. So they ended up just making them like clear and sticking some metal in them, and they were like cyborgs. Anyway, basically that turned into Transformers.

Long story short, it turned in like two different things that got both combined into Transformers, and it's just kind of funny because we kind of like basically we like sold G.I. Joe to them, and then they sold Transformers back to us, right? And it like came from GI Joe. Like basic that that's like the real fast version of it. So these stories are fascinating. They got stuff on Legos, Hello Kitty, um, so uh He-Man, Star Wars, Star Trek. Uh, some of them are really good. There's there's a couple episodes that aren't as exciting, but that's but then some of the episodes are so bananas that it makes up for it.

Like uh Teeny's Mutant Ninja Turtles was one of them too.

That was a huge one, yep. Um, yeah, it's it's really cool. So check that, check that uh well, I I don't know if my toys don't really line up. Maybe yours will with some of those episodes, but check out that special if you really like just toys and vintage stuff. Like, it's pretty fascinating. And I I never really understood like how big the market for toys is, and then just like if you have a toy, like it needs to be attached like a cartoon, like at least back in the 90s, that's how that [expletive] worked, right? And so, like, I learned so much from those things, even just like from a business perspective, it's really fascinating.

Right, and you don't think about it, but like these people are like oil barren tycoons, you know, like how much money they're roping in. Yep.

Like, dang, there's so much money in toys. Who would have thought? Yeah, no, not me. All right, so uh we go what one one by one? What do you what do you what do you got? Um yeah, I think so.

We can go one by one for a little bit and then just talk about whatever we got going on.

Are you gonna go like chronological, like toys when you were young and then you got older, or we just plan on jumping around. Yeah, that's your style, really. No, no plan.

Just go ahead, let's just launch into it then. Okay, so the first one I want to talk about is it's called Gak. Now we we've all well, I've played with GAK a lot. I had it a bunch, but I think it goes back to the 90s, everything was gross, and that made it fun. Yes, we talked about it. So this had to have been the son of like silly putty, yeah, and some kind of night walker hooker lady. And if they had a baby, then you'd get gak.

God damn. Yeah, and I specifically can't. I think in the properties a little bit, like I remember silly putty. Well, how's gap? I remember the name Gak, but how is Gak different like in terms of feel and texture?

Right. So Silly Putty was an actual molding clay. You can mold it in your hand, it could tape shape. Gak could take no shape, it was constantly just oozing out, you know, and then you could pick it up and it wouldn't really stick to you or anything, it would stick to other things, yeah. And that's where I got in trouble one day, but it wouldn't really like hold its shape, you know, and it would dry out, and it had the most god-awful smell. I can still smell it right now, thinking about it. You open up that weird clear canister that it comes in, it looks like a splat and it's got all kinds of angles.

And if you hold it upside down, it'll just and just plop out of there, or you can try to stick your finger in there, you know what I'm saying. It gets really crazy. Wow. And the smell of it is so bad.

It's kind of like Nat One's like career in that like it just no shape, like it just slips through your fingers, doesn't it?

Yeah, but people are still buying it, but people are buying it, people are buying it. And I don't know why, but like that to me is like I don't really see stuff like that anymore. I see like you can make it at home yourself if you like try with a detergent and [expletive], but it's never the same. No, whatever chemical they had in that gap you could buy smelt terrible. It got real dirty too, right?

I remember like it, like the dirt would get inside of it and then it would just keep like nasty. I mean, there's just probably dead skin and all kinds of gross [expletive].

If they accidentally fell on the floor, you're picking up whatever's in your carpet or off the floor, it's now in there. It's like part of the DNA of the gap. Right? It's like you bought uh of the blob, you know, and it's just gonna eat up everything in your house.

Yep, I remember those. It was uh I the the the thing for me was that they would just get so gross so fast. So it was so cool in the beginning, right? But just like if you had pets and stuff real quickly, like you were out, you're like, this is disgusting, especially like if it did get to the point where it did get hard from like the stuff that got in it, that was always like a deal breaker for you.

You try picking it out, but you're never getting it all.

Yes, yes, I would totally try it. But it was cool because like Play-Doh kind of just deteriorates, it dries out and it deteriorates. And then, like you said, Silly Putty's cool, but like it's just like all right, you mold it, it doesn't really get dirty, doesn't like right, it's just whatever. You uh you get bored with it, but gak, you're like, until this [expletive] gets really disgusting, I'm just gonna keep throwing it on every surface possible. It was the dirty theme of the 90s was was legit.

And then uh later on after that came phloam. And phloam was smelt just as bad, but if you remember, it was just gak, but now it had a bunch of those styrofoam balls in it. Did you ever play with phloam? I don't remember. Oh, that might have been more of like my sister's thing, but I remember phloam because that could come out and you could actually shape it now, like play-doh, but then you could just break it off if you wanted to. Because it had it was just gak with styrofoam balls in it, basically. Okay, and like that was like the evolution of that. Like it's still dirty, it's still nasty, and I I still enjoy playing with it.

It wasn't like so much as a clear gel, it was very like front colors, yes, and like styrofoamy, but it was still the gap. Okay, I do remember, I do remember. I knew you were um, yeah, those that that [expletive] was fun. I for I I did not have those on my list, but I absolutely played with them. Right. Um, cool stuff, not worth anything because well, maybe maybe you have like an unopened one.

Oh, right. I wonder if I could find one right now.

It's probably selling for like 40 bucks. Do you think anyone's like selling like used gak or [expletive]?

Like yeast plume. I get it. I'm all so pissed off. It would be so gross.

Oh my gosh.

But man, I would like to try it because like that was the time, you know.

Like we said, everything was dirty and gross. I was kind of into play-doh. My dad was really artistic, so we liked we would use Play-Doh to like craft. Um, I was really big into, I'll talk more about it, but like action figures, and then I would build castles out of uh not so much Legos because you would need like a bajillion to build at the scale to fit action figures in. So my dad would get me mega blocks, which are just you know bigger, cheaper ones, but you could actually like build much bigger structures.

So I would do castles and I would put action figures, but I would also mold some Klay-doh people and I would put play and I would put those guys in there as like your uh NPCs, yes, they were never anybody important, but they were there, right?

That's exactly what the guy's like, yeah, yeah. The guy who's uh gonna get randomly ran over by a wagon or something was gonna be your play-doh guy.

And then like the way Play-Doh works, it just dries out, and like literally those guys would literally like fall apart very quickly. And it's just garbage after that. Yep. And when Play-Doh dries out and then it crumbles, like it's [expletive] crumbs everywhere. It's like it's it's that joke about like getting crumbs in the carpet. Like that [expletive], my family hated Play-Doh.

Because then for some reason it's still soft enough to stick to the [expletive] bristles of the carpet.

Yeah, so now it's not going anywhere. They were not a [expletive] fan. I think they figured out real quick, like, nah, Play-Doh's a no-go in this house. So um, I'll talk a little bit about I'm gonna jump around, but uh, I talked about action figures, was huge for me. Did you have action figures today?

I had a lot of action figures, but I never played with them how they were meant to be. Like, if it was a character from a show, I didn't give a [expletive]. Like I was still gonna play my story and they were gonna play out my show.

I had my own Marvel cinematic universe of like just my action figures, which we've we've talked about. So, like, well, what were like some of yours? What were your because I can like tell you a lot about it?

Because uh I remember I had a lot of like G.I. Joe-esque type dudes, and then the smaller X-Men dudes, and then some of the big I remember the big one was the Sabretooth that I had was like a collectible one that I totally took out and played with. And even like small toys from uh different movies and stuff like that. Like I remember my main bad guy all the time was from Aladdin, and it was that guy who tried to chop off Jasmine's hand for some reason. I had an action figure of that guy, and he was so rare. Yes, and he was a minor character, yes, to have an action figure, and he was my main bad guy and all this stuff. I don't know why, but I don't know.

I was just like, you'll never catch me because maybe because he's a big fat guy or something.

I don't know, but he was always the villain. Well, and in Disney movies back then, especially with Aladdin, like this is kind of messed up, but like they make the villains look more ethnic. Like Aladdin looks more quote hand quote. Terrible American, whitewashed. Yeah. And he's a good person. And like Jafar looks far more of like the stereotype. So I wonder if that was like the case with the Tories. I bet some of the Tories were super racist.

Yeah, he was. I know he's supposed to be like an Arab guy, but for some reason he looked like a straight fat Mexican guy, like on the corner selling tacos. As terrible as that sounds, that's exactly what this character is. Because they never got it right. No. He had like the mustache. If I could find a little sombrero and put it on him, you'd never have known what show he was from.

That's funny as [expletive], dude. I can't believe like I definitely don't have anything that minor as far as like random per se. So I told you I showed you the text like a couple hours ago where I like I asked my dad to remind me. I remembered most of them, but he he did remember some ones I didn't remember. But I was like right off the bat, I'm like, Dad, whoever my favorite action figures, and those [expletive] Warriors of Virtue Kangaroos, which I talked about in another episode. I was super into those guys. So they were always like the like the leaders, they were like knights in my my life universe, right? Like they were like the fighting guys. The good guys they did this stuff.

Then I had these 12-inch Mortal Kombat characters I totally forgot about. They were meant real, those were really meant to be like collectible. Because like, yeah, you can like move their limbs, but they they were a lot stiffer than other action figures, right? But they were like 12 inches. So for me, they were like, I think I had uh Jade, Scorpion, and Lu Kang. Because I don't think they did all the characters. It was like a limited edition thing. Um, and because they were taller than all my other action figures, because they were 12 inches, they were like the elder gods. Yeah, so they were always like in the castle, like top floor, they were like [expletive] Jedi Counts, whatever. Like they were always like just there watching. Watching, yeah.

So that was that that was their role. Um my go-to villain, I had an alien queen um with wings, and she was badass. And you would push like a button on her back, and the wings would flap, and then her tail, you could also like was strong enough to like hang her from [expletive]. So she was always like she was a top baddie. Yep. Um, she was always in charge. I can't remember a lot of the villains. I had Link, Zelda, and Opona, um whatever, they were just there. I also, when I was younger, I thought Link was called Zelda. Oh I like for a while. I was that guy.

One of those kids. Now look at it, I'm getting a Nintendo tattoo.

Now I have a Nintendo tattoo, no big deal. Um, what else? I have a few more I wrote down. Um, oh, one of my favorites, um, now I think they make toys a little bit more intelligently, but back then it was kind of weird because either they just did what the [expletive] ever they could for a gimmick, or they would actually make them super realistic, but not in a way that made sense. So one of my favorite for the bad guys, you have you played Crash Bandicoot? Yes. Do you know who tiny is?

Uh the bigger Yeah.

So he literally is like 400 pounds like jacked on top, but then his waist is tiny. Oh, yeah, and then his legs are tiny. So he snapped in half at the waist because he couldn't, like the toy could not handle the weight of him on top, but I loved it. It was such a detailed, like, he looked badass. So I love that one. My dad tried to like fix the middle too, and it it lasted a little bit and then it broke. My dad was really cool, he got me a lot. A lot of the toys I have, my mom too, but a lot of the toys came from my dad, right? And he would like play with me.

So uh, but tiny, tiny was one of my favorites, and he was such like I can just visually remember that toy like so well, like the dimensions, but it was so ridiculous because now you would not get a toy like that because they just know that's gonna break, right? Like, and that's not necessary. Toys are uh definitely more durable now to say, like, which is nice, right?

I remember like 90% of mine coming with some kind of launcher of some kind, like where you put the rocket into his arm and then shot it. Yeah, something on the arm, or I would lose all the [expletive] rockets. So now you just have a guy with a hole in his hand. Yes, so then I would try to make something happen with that in my imagination, be like, no, you shot me.

Yep, yep. I feel like every single 90s kid had one of these. You you had to. The Power Rangers, where you flip the head, yes, and it's like, here's me unmasked. Now here's me as a Power Ranger. I had I had one of those, I'm sure you did. Yep.

I don't I don't know if it was a Power Ranger, though. I remember having something else that was like that, that transformed with the spinning head into the torso kind of thing.

Yeah, I think Power Rangers started that and then other toys took it, but that that was a big one. And if you watch the special, Power Rangers does have a whole uh episode. Um, they're really fascinating. I'm so stupid. I knew the old ones, so the whole premise, right? If if you're not as familiar with Power Rangers, is they had these, I forgot the name. There's a special name for these types of shows in Japan. Oh, yeah, yeah. So what they did is they would always film when they're unmasked, they have American actors speaking English, but then literally they just always and to this day, they're just always using the Japanese footage for the actions of the of all the action shots and dubbing it, which I thought that was just the first few seasons.

To this day, they still use that formula. Um so uh, but yeah, that toy was a big one for Power Rangers. That that, like, yeah, the flipping the heads, that was that was a big, big seller for them.

Oh, yeah. I know I had a lot of Power Rangers toys. Yep. I had the Morpher and it came with the interchangeable coins, so you could pick whatever one. No, I had the the one that went on your knuckles. Oh. So it looks like a belt buckle and you could put your hand in the little loop behind it, and then you bring it around, be like, it's morphing time, and then it had a button on the side where it opened up and then the lights came.

At least once you probably punched somebody in the face of that. I probably did, I guarantee. Yeah, I had it.

I was a problem kit, I'm sure. But I had that, and then uh a lot of like the weapons and stuff. I remember like uh the white dragon or the green dragon uh flute sword thing, dagger. I had that.

Yeah, they discussed that in the beginning, too. That was an instance where they were just like, especially because it was like from a Japanese show, they just took weird things and were like, it's a thing now. Yep. Like uh, I can't think of any specific examples, but it random. Now, like later they started to make them to look like the show, but a lot of the toys, and that's similar with like Star Trek with like the Phaser thing guns, whatever things. Like a lot of the toys in the early like 80s, 90s, they just didn't really look, they just took things that look similar and slapped a logo on it, whatever. And called it a day. It worked, yeah. Um, so Power Rangers is a big one.

That's really kind of all I remember for action figures. I had tons, but they were all over the place from there. But uh what what else do you got? Because I I have so many different like phases of life we can talk through.

Oh, yeah. So uh I'm thinking about keeping it creepy and gross natural. So uh I had a thing called creepy crawlers, yes, and it was the easy bake oven for boys, but you made yes, yep, I remember. You would put like a gel in molds of like insects, yeah, and then superheat it and then it would harden. That's so easy, yeah. I had a bunch of those, and I just thought, man, it's so weird because there was a bunch of things like that where there was a girl version and the boy version. So easy bake oven. You can make delicious treats. I wanted to the boy version you made. I wanted an easy bake oven. You did? Did you end up getting the creepy crawly one instead?

I never got either. Either they're [expletive] dangerous. I think they were they might have been expensive. I don't know. Like, I'm not sure. Like, but yeah, I think those were both pricier toys. Oh, or maybe I wasn't into it. My only really only my parents know the answer to that. Of if they like if I was feeling it.

Right, because this light bulb inside this machine got super [expletive] hot, and that's how it baked the [expletive]. But the one they would never sell these today, like huge fire hazards. Absolutely not, because the the ones for the bugs, those came in metal [expletive] trays. So, like you had to put the gel in a metal tray and then put the metal trays to where it gets superheated. Oh, guaranteed all of them. I burnt myself on it, guaranteed all of them. It says wait 10 minutes. I bet I can pull it out now, like 30 seconds after light bulbs. I would still do that today.

Like, I would still do that.

And then uh another one that was like a boy version and a girl version. There was Polly Pocket. Yes. And then so I was the boy version, I don't remember. Mighty Max was the boy version. So I had those. I don't remember those. And again, it was an God, this is mom's fault. She bought me all this stuff. It was another creepy toy because a lot of them were creepy, so it's like a weird dragon head, like dead zombie dragon head thing that you opened up, and then he could move around and go to the little staircase and stuff. And I played with that, and that's pretty cool.

That's pretty badass. I your mom played it so sweet, but I really think she really liked literally everything was set up, like the way you came out. Like, these were choices.

She drove me to this point. Like definitive, yeah, deliberate choices. Yep. And then for the longest time, like I lived inside of my own closet growing up. Did we talk about this? I was closeted too. Oh, well, no, this is a different. Like, I was literally in a closet. You were uh what do you call it? Figuratively, figuratively spiritually in a closet. Spiritually. What do you mean you were in a closet? So I had my own bedroom, but then I was like, that's not good enough for me. So I moved myself into my own closet. Oh, okay. And we were only living in a double wide manufactured home at the time, so the closet was super small. So that banana chair we talked about, I somehow stuffed that into my closet to make a barrier.

And then I had a little old black and white TV that I had in there and put that in there, and then like made like a little fort, but just in my closet.

I mean, that's pretty cool. You could fit that. I mean, I'm sure it wasn't huge, but I don't like [expletive] think I could do that in my closet.

Right? So after all that, like I would crawl into like a tiny little hole in my closet and just hang out in there.

And that was a good time for me. That's cool. Yeah. That explains again, just contributing to the spooky [expletive] factor. Factor. Um, all right, so here's kind of gonna go all over. Uh first Game Boy.

Did you have a Game Boy color or a Game Boy like a uh my original one was oh no, I thought it was a Game Boy color, but I don't think it was.

I think it was Was it like a [expletive] brick? And no, it wasn't that yellow. No, it wasn't. But you probably had a Game Boy color, even if it like oh no, there was a smaller one because I want to say there was a smaller version. There's Game Boy, then there's I don't know what they called the not color, the one before color.

Right, because it's small. It had, yeah, it was a smaller version, and I remember the case being green, but I swear the games were still black and white at the time. But I remember it was a bright neon green shell that it was in.

Okay.

But I don't know if that was a Game Boy color, and I it might have been.

But alright, but you didn't have the original game. No, I didn't have it. Because you had a couple years on me, which could have made it possible, but yeah, okay. I I had a Game Boy, I think I had the Game Boy color. Okay. Um, there was a purple translucent one from my dad and a yellow one from my mom.

Ooh.

Nice thing about separated parents sometimes was you did get duplicates or different toys, so that worked out pretty well.

So you could trade Pokemon to yourself?

Uh no, because it I my parents, I don't know if all divorced parents did this, but like they were more like I I think this is uh true of most divorced parents, actually. Like they want you to keep your toys at your house. Gotcha. Right. Yeah. I'm sure kids like bring toys and they don't come back, and that's not even like a spiteful parent thing. It's more like kids leave toys where they go, like friends' house or whatever. So, no, like usually the stuff stayed at the house. I think, and but I do think there was a little bit of the whole, like, I don't want you to have nice things over at the other house. Like, that was kind of a vibe. There was some competition going on. Um, I gotcha.

But my yeah, my mom's cool. She worked out a place and she actually drilled, they had like a drill and she drilled my name in the back of my Game Boy. Um, I remember I was young enough that I knew nothing about like just one day on Christmas. I had a Game Boy. Like, I don't remember there being ads, I don't remember knowing about Game Boys. I just got one for Christmas one day, and then I think my mom got me one, and then my dad shortly after. I don't know who came first, it doesn't matter. It was very close to the same time. I'm sure they know. Um, yeah, sure they're keeping tabs, but uh yeah, I I had Game Boys, those were like our generation, I think, was very unique.

We're gonna talk a lot about we wanted to focus about physical toys on this episode, but a lot of our things start to get electronic, they start to get like animated, and then video games. It would be hard not to talk about like I'm definitely gonna talk about some video games today um because they were a big part, like that was toys for me too, was gaming, especially like the later into the 90s for sure. Um, so I'll talk more about the Game Boy stuff, but that was a game changer. Obviously, we can all 90s kids can relate to like having the Game Boy and then playing in the car, and you could only like see because it wasn't a backlit screen or anything.

So, like when you would go under a street light, that's you would like quickly do an action, yeah, and you have to wait till the next streetlight. So, like it was ridiculous. Then they had these like little like USB, they were like the pre like the pre-USB port, and it was like a little light you would plug into that would yeah, they would put the light on top. So that those were those were some of my fondest memories. So, like Pokemon is obviously one of the first games and some other stuff. Um so Game Boy, Game Boy's a big one for me. Did you have a Tamagotchi? I did have a Tamagotchi, I'm pretty sure it was a koala. Oh, I do not remember what mine was.

No, no, and there was Tamagotchi and then there was Gigapets. Oh, maybe I had a Gigapet. Um, I don't remember. I think Tamagotchi is the original like Came from Japan. That was the first Gigapets came a little and then shortly after the competitor or whatnot. Um I had a Tamagotchi, kind of classic, like it just died a lot. Oh, yeah. Um, but it was super cool, it was very trendy. Yep. Everyone had one. Yep, everyone had to do it.

Everyone had one hanging off their [expletive] backpack.

I wonder if they were pricey back in the day. I don't I don't even know. I want to oft ask my mom, like I feel like they were expensive for like now it would be like so easy to just get like a two dollar like small toys. Sometimes kids don't know the price. I was like, oh, this is really cool. Right. But I don't know if that was actually like right.

That would make sense why everybody just carry them around like a status symbol. Like, oh, look at that, but she's got six of them hanging off her bag. Like, I bet they're all dead.

She didn't even take care of them. I do remember I think I was able to get a Pikachu Tamagotchi later on. Down the line, they had like those. I bet that's worth money. Right. I don't have it anymore. I'm sure that [expletive]'s gone, lost, whatever. I lost, I think I lost a lot of my toys back when I was younger. But they're all the dump with the copies of ET from Atari, they're all in the same spot. Probably in that uh what do we say that like they're all buried in like uh that that's like the premise, the pet sedimentary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just a bunch of like bad games buried in the ground, bunch of Tamagotchis all piled up together. So my interests go all around.

Like there's some I I didn't play with Barbies or anything like that, but there are some small indications of like maybe there was I was gay when I was younger. So beanie babies. I was pretty big into beanie babies.

Okay, I was not okay.

Um, and I don't know, I think some boys were too, but yeah, I was really big into beanie babies. Um, and I remember even like a teacher brought like a whole bin of them one day, like it was like a big deal. My grandmother collected them. I think that's why. I think it started because my grandma collected them, and I love my grandmother. Right. All of my grandparents are awesome. Um, but one of my grandmothers did it, and I remember like it was so dumb. Like, one was praying and it was called Hope, and like they were just like they were so dumb, but I I did, I think I had names for some of them, and then like some of them to this day.

So that's if you look at like 90s things that are worth money, right? There are certain beanie babies, like I I knew this one even before I looked it up. Like there was a Princess Diana one, and that one's like super rare, and then there's a couple other ones, so there's some special editions. So beanie babies, if you have the right one, those are worth money.

Um, right, and it wasn't just you because I remember that big story that was coming up where those people got divorced, and in the courtroom they were having to split up their beanie baby collection. And it was a huge the picture they took was a huge pile of beanie babies, and they're like, Well, if you're getting that one, then I want this one.

Ridiculous. Like, that's pretty crazy. Uh, that was probably the first thing I started to collect, I would say. Was the bean? That was my that was that that was when I was actually like kind of cognizant that some were rarer than others, and like that like there was maybe value. I wasn't looking up costs or anything, and like internet was much less accessible back then, but like I was kind of like I knew that like, oh, I need to try to get like it introduced you to like the rarity concept, yeah. Whereas like action figures, I'm like, that looks cool, I want that, right? And like that's really as much thought as used to go into that. Or my parents would be like, We think you'd like this.

All my action figures were like fantasy, straight up fantasy, like dragons, yeah, alien. Like, I didn't have like GI Joe's, it wasn't like soldiers and stuff.

Oh, okay. See, I had some of that, and then I had that it was just like mine was just a big mix where I had a lot of like outdoor physical play with toys. Yep, like I had play guns and play swords and things like that, and then with the action figures and stuff.

I had some of those. I think my parents figured out like that [expletive]'s annoying. Like you hit kids with it, you hit other people, it's like not super cool. But my dad, I think my dad got me like the plastic swords. My mom was very anti-guns when I was younger, so I don't think I I didn't have as many Nerf guns or stuff like that as other kids probably did. Um did you Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards or none or magic or anything?

No magic. I did have uh Pokemon cards, and then later on I got into the Yu-Gi-Oh cards quite a bit, but I never gotten the magic. I always wanted to, but I was a little intimidated.

I still want to. I'm trying to get you to actually come do like magic if we could do that. The thing about I'll go back to Pokemon Yu-Gi-Oh! for a sec, but the thing about magic is when I was in high school, kids played magic, and I was like, uh, I never the money. Like, it was expensive. Magic was one of those two to this day. It's like you gotta buy the new packs or you gotta buy cards that fit complete your set. Right. So it was always it's always been expensive. And so when I was younger, I'm like, I don't have money for this [expletive]. Then in college, people were playing magic, and I'm like, man, maybe I should start playing. Like, but I'm like, now it's too late.

Now to college, now I'm in the National Guard. Still people playing. Still people playing magic. Guess what? My dad played magic back in the day, and I think he also used to own a comic book store for a brief period of time. So he actually he we went and we looked, and he had a bunch of magic cards that we had like uh evaluated or whatever, like for price, like worth. And basically his stuff was so old, it was not because the rules of the game changed, or like they they became like not they were so old they weren't really worth a lot. Right.

But the most valuable things I remember that he had, and I don't play much magic, but dual lands um I'm told are are were really valuable and then they were worth so. So we sold some of those back in the day. My dad was really sweet, he sold a bunch of his magic cards and bought me Yu-Gi-Oh cards with it, which is really nice. Right. And then for Yu-Gi-Oh! I I won't beat the bush. There is go watch Nate versus Nate, uh, who's the bigger nerd? I talk a big story about like cards I had and how a bunch of kids stole my cards and I just gave them away. But um, my rarest card I had a real, like from a booster pack, not a starter deck.

I had a real red-eyed holographic red-eyes black dragon. And that was from my dad trading his magic cards, and I got that back. He bought me like a box of like of like Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and I opened all the packs. That was that was amazing. That was like the best day of my life, right? So cool stuff there. Um, but yeah, I I played Yu-Gi-Oh! Um, didn't get into Pokemon. I did get some when I was younger, but I like I think I was still a little bit too young and was like, again, can't afford this. Right. And I didn't know how to play the game. Yu-Gi-Oh! I actually learned and I actually collected.

Yep. I didn't have to get a man. And how you have to get the energy cards in conjunction with your Pokemon, like, you really need to know how to build a deck. Okay. And me being a middle school kid had no [expletive] idea. Like, I just want to play my [expletive] Pikachu.

Yu-Gi-Oh! almost I think was a simpler game than Pokemon was. So Yu-Gi-Oh! Yu-Gi-Oh!'s hot. There was an after-school club for Yu-Gi-Oh! Ooh, dead. You had to pay, uh, it was kind of pricey too. You paid, but they gave you like a booster pack and then they told you how to play. Right. I remember correcting the guy on one of the rules about like, oh, whoa, if you like turn a card in defense, then it takes no damage.

And I was like, actually, um, but still the beats' defense number. Exactly, exactly.

So uh yeah, played Yu-Gi-Oh! So that was a big one for me. Uh Furbies. Furbies was really there was like a praise for Furbies. My sister was big into the Furbies. I think she had three of them at some point. Furbies are weird because they're not really they're not interesting as a toy, in my opinion. If you go back, it's kind of like you know how if you like went to Disney, there's these like animatronic animatronic machines. Yeah, Furby was like basically like almost like your first take-home little animatronic thing of like you would just [expletive] set it on a table, and like every 30 minutes it would like turn its head and then blink and be like and you'd be like, what the [expletive]? And like many, yeah, many people were like, that's honestly.

My family always joked about like uh it was kind of creepy, yeah. Um, but I think it was just interesting because it was it was the beginning of like animation and toys where like kind of like Tamagotchi too of like this isn't just a toy you pick up, put down. These like you gotta keep it alive, or they have to be involved, you know, they they stay awake. Um, so that that was Furbies. Furby's is another one. If you look online, there are certain Furbies worth a lot of money. Um when I looked up what like the top things were from the 90s some Pokemon cards, some Yu-Gi-Oh cards, some Beanie Babies, some Furbies, um, the original Game Boys, um some versions, there's a rare version of different cover art of Super Mario Bros. 3.

Ooh, okay.

Um, and then there's some other stuff, certain Power Ranger toys, um, and then and then a number of other things. Those are those are a lot of the top like 90s still worth money right now. Right. Some Star Wars toys. Um, yeah. Guaranteed nothing that I currently have. Oh, random little bit. We were talking about the mega blocks before. You probably won't be surprised, Nate. Uh, me being like a control freak that I am, that I could never do anything with Legos or Mega Mega Blocks if it wasn't symmetrical. Like I would not build stuff and have random colors. Right. It would like need to be even like the shape, like the type of blocks.

I think I made some exceptions of like, well, I have a three and a two, or I have a five, like fine. But generally, I would try to make everything I built was as symmetrical as possible. Um I can see that about you. Yeah.

I'm the exact opposite. Not like let's just build it willy-nilly. There's like holes in the walls and [expletive]. And then I'm like, it is what it is, man.

It sucks because it makes it more expensive because you need a lot more sets to have a lot of. So I'm sure it might be. I think that's how they get you. Uh my I had like older brothers and cousins who were real big in the Legos, and they would get like the big castles, they'd build them. And I remember they had some up on shelves, and I would try to like pick them up off the shelf, and I dropped them. I drop, yeah, I dropped some of those castles. So I think uh Uncle Chris, DJ, sorry.

Hours worth of work, almost probably days worth of work because some of those Legos are hard. They're hard to this day. Um I always just give up, and I'm like, I like to just make random things and just use my imagination. Be like, well, now this is obviously the speeder used in Empire Strikes back. It looks nothing like it's just like one of the long boards with like two little wings sticking out.

It's an X Wing. Uh the story of Lego is kind of interesting. It's not the most interesting episode on that Netflix special, but it's From I think Denmark. I think it's Denmark. Um, was the original creators, and their whole story is that like they had a really rocky time for many years. Basically, 90s came out, like, kids started playing video games. That started to really be like the time um where where stuff like got bad. So they had to kind of reinvent one is that they've done like the Lego kids, like basically the girls set they have now, where it's like still they still fit the system. They're in the special, they refer to the system a lot of like to this day. An interesting thing about Lego is the block design has not changed.

Like so they did originally build it though where it they stacked, but they didn't have the little circular nubs. Yeah, so they stacked but they didn't stick, so like they couldn't be knocked over. They loosely they just loosely stacked. Um so but once they added those like circular nubs in the way to like connect them on the bottom, that has been the same like system for a long time. They're still like engineered the same, they're still produced like almost the exact same way, which is very rare for most toys.

Oh, yeah. Um it's not broke, don't fix it.

Uh but they hit some hard times, they had periods where like you know, again, a lot of toys in the 90s like had to be attached to a TV show. Right. Or like Teenage Meet and Ninja Turtles, they made TV shows, they made movies for these so they could sell the toys. Lego is really reverse where they had to like a have they built sets corresponding with movies, but but it was tough. And like examples, this is now jumping a little bit to the Star Trek. Like, you know how the Star Trek movies, like I think the even movies are good and then the the odds are bad. So imagine for toys, it was very hard.

They'd be like, oh, Wrath the Khan was great, we're gonna do more toys next season, and then Star Trek III was bad, so now they're behind, so they do less toys for the next one, but Star Trek IV was great, right? Like they would have that, like they would have such a hard time like trying to like figure that out. Um, and Lego was kind of the same thing where like, oh, they had like a period where they didn't align with the right movies, they didn't sell enough. Um, but Bionicle was something that saved it a little bit.

Um, then there was in this is more in the 2000s, but the Ninjago [expletive], yeah, and that's like that became like a TV show that was really popular, so they've had to reinvent a little bit, but now they're they I think they've like they're doing well again.

Oh yeah, they gotta be because they have the Lego video games, and those are downright adorable when you play those, like the Lego Star Wars I played and Lego Indiana Jones, I think it was.

Yeah, now all of them. I've never played any of the Lego games. Are any of them good? They're fun, they're they're family games, but they're fun.

They're family platformer games, but they're still fun because it's still Legos, and the humor tends to be good.

Like the the [expletive] Lego movies are hilarious. I've not seen the the newer, I don't think I saw the Batman one. But the Batman one is so funny. I know, I want to see it. It's so funny. I can't wait to have kids. I have like a list of all things that like I haven't done.

You want to borrow mine? Just drop them off. You can watch a Lego movie with them. Roscoe will love it.

If you ever need a babysitter for exactly 2.3 hours, and that is that is and that's Zach's. Alright, so I wanted to talk a little bit about obviously the 90s, there was the emergence of video games. Well, yeah, aside from Game Boy Aside, because that was a portable. What was your first console?

No, my first interaction with a video game was a Sega Genesis. Well, wait, it was probably a regular Nintendo like Duck Hunt or something like that. But I remember when it first hit me hard, the gaming bug, it was a Sega Genesis at my babysitter's house, and the babysitter's husband was like, Hey, you wanna play? And I'm like, Yeah, I want to play. It was Mortal Kombat Deuce on the Sega Genesis, and after that point, I was like, I need to get me one of those. Nice. So then next birthday, I got the Sega Genesis. I remember mom and dad tried to hide it.

We were at my grandma and grandpa's house, they hid it in my Mighty Duck sweatshirt, and they tried to bring it in like that, and I was like, wait a second, that looks pretty square to be my sweater. So clever. Yeah, I I was a terrible kid at uh guessing my presence. And that was the my first console was the Sega Genesis, and then I got all the Mortal Kombats after that, and then just kept on rolling after the Sega Genesis. Uh, what was next? Sega Dreamcast and then GameCube PlayStation.

So you started on the Sega track, basically.

Yeah, like you were exposed to Nintendo, but yes, but I stuck with Sega until the bitter end, and it did not pan out.

Okay, yeah, no, it sure didn't. No, it did not, unfortunately. So I was on the uh I kind of equally was on the Nintendo PlayStation track, but very first console, Super Nintendo. Um, I think all I remember is my brother, I was younger, but my brother was my brother's like seven or eight years older than me, but he must have been in like middle school at the time or something. And he was like, My friend is selling a Super Nintendo, can we buy it, Mom? And I guess she pulled the funds together and we bought his Super Nintendo and and we got a bunch of his games with it. Oh, those other kids. So I played a [expletive] ton of that Super Nintendo and lots of couch co-op.

And interesting enough, the games I remember most, um, it was kind of like two that I I played, or we'll say three. So uh Super Mario World. Yep. Um, a lot of fun, really hard, never beat it, never ever at that age could be it. Like just never did. Um, and then Pirates of Darkwater. So there was a cartoon. So then there was a game. So for the game, you could play as the like the himbo guy, the girl, and then I think there was like a the old man or like a bigger burlier character. Yeah, I don't remember. So there's three different characters.

There's the blonde-haired guy, there was the girl, and then the bad guy was the big fat guy with the blue lips. Yes.

Or whatever. He was the bad guy.

And there was one more good guy. What did he have like black hair or something like that?

Yeah, he was like a ponytail, like yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. So uh pirates of dark water again, uh, small things, maybe indications um from an early age. I tended to pick female characters in video games. A lot of straight guys do that too, but uh, she had I also tend to do it based on like the special powers they have. So she had a just a really OP ability where you would like her basically the X, the top button was like the magic that you like could run out of, but then use it. And it was kind of like just like it was kind of a brawler, so it was like those like uh streets of whatever it it streets of rage. Yeah, it was like streets of rage kind of.

So it played like that. You couldn't save, right? So you would just go to island to island. Yes. So some games on Super Nintendo you could, but Dark Order you could not. So we always had to play it through. I did beat it once with a friend one time, but anyway, the girl had a cool ability where it hit like in front of her, behind her, and then isometrically like all around. Oh, okay. So I would that's like when there was like seven enemies on the stage.

Like I would just say, it was like your mob clear, basically. Kind of, yeah.

So I used her a lot, and then usually someone else was the guy. Uh played that a lot, only beat it once, as I think when I was like older with a friend or something, but just because you couldn't save. Right. And that that was one like when you're younger in those types of games, you have to learn that, like, well, I need the health because I'm lower and you have more health and more lives, that type of deal.

So I was always greedy. I'm not terrible. I don't know why my brother still plays video games with me, because I'm a jerk. You were older though, right? Than your brother, yeah. So oh yeah, and then you didn't even know. But he still plays games with me today, and I'm still a jerk. I'm like, where were you? Where were you at? He's like, I was over here doing this, and I'm like, why? Like what? Apex? Apex, we played because uh is he better than you now or who's better? Um, it's tough because they're just different, different skills. Yeah, it's tough because we're about the same. I think we're about the same level right now, but I'm better at certain things and he's better at different things.

Like, he knows how to rotate around the map better than I do and like go to different spots, and I'm the better shooter, basically. So it it sucks playing. But going back to the other thing, that was the biggest thing that I hated about Sega Genesis was not being able to save a game. The good ones gave you a passcode, but it only gave you a little window to write down that passcode in your notes section of your game manual book.

Oh [expletive].

Yep. So I remember uh which game was it? It had to have been like Spider-Man game or something like that. It was like, oh, you want to quit? Well, here's your passcode, and it's like you'd go like it's a stop and it'd be like Yeah, like where's the pen? And then like it would be gone already.

Like, you [expletive]. There is so much like one of the this isn't like when we think of all the technological advances, the biggest one for me, and it's so minor, is just that in those instances today when you run into that, like I always just take out my phone and I just screen, I just take a picture. I just take a picture of like I take a picture of IDs, I take a picture of probably stuff I shouldn't have, but like that's how like appointment cards. Yeah, I just take those pictures, and then when I lose, inevitably lose the card, lose the note, lose the code. At least you saw that.

I go and I find I scroll through my pictures, and that's so that has been like such a that would have been so helpful back then just be like boom, screenshot it.

Now on computer, there's a screenshot button, yeah. Like print screens boom, print screen. Exactly. That's how I sent you that thing. I sent that to my brother too.

Oh yeah, that's awesome. Um one other game. Uh so yeah, I I was more into like Super Mario was popular, but I was more into Pirates of Tark Order, and then another one that was a really great game, there was an Animaniacs game. Ooh, and that one was pretty bomb because basically you're going around Warner Brothers studio and they're trying to like catch the Animaniacs, and there's like different stages, and they're basically spoofs of movies. So one is like a spoof of never ending story, one and I didn't even know this as younger. Obviously, I didn't like pick all that up, but one is a spoof on aliens, and so you're going through the sets of the movie, right?

And like, and the alien is like alien monsters and stuff, and then or like, but there's also like lights, and then you you can rotate through the three um animaniacs, and I think that just means you have like three lives in a stage, so you need to keep at least three. Oh, okay. I loved Wacko, obviously. Um not Dot. Not Dot, no. I did I did like Wacko. Um what was the other guy's name? Jacko? Jacko it was Wacko, Yakko, and Dot or something, something like that. They brought that back on Hulu, but I haven't I haven't seen it. You know, some things are better, in my opinion, left for nostalgia.

Oh, yeah. Um version. But Corbin did like the uh every country song or whatever. Like I showed him that video. Oh, yeah. Yep, but he's doing all the countries. Corbin loves that.

He's such a nerd.

He is a nerd. Like today at the the whatchamacallit, we went to the vintage fair thing we went to, he disappeared. And of course, that's kind of scary. He's over there by the globes. He's like checking him out. I'm like, Corbin, come on, man. Let's just inaccurate. Do you know Iceland's that's like no? He comes up and he's like, That globe's from about 1992. No way, right? Yeah. And I'm like, how do you know? And he's like, because this country's there and it's not there anymore. And he's like, it was got it got rid of in 1992. I'm like, I pushed him down. I was like, You're such a nerd.

He he's gonna like you're definitely not gonna be like growing up, like his he's gonna have so much like cool information, right? Like, yes, so it has to be around the right people, right? Some people won't value that information, right? But like some people, like that's gonna be really that's neat. Like, I would that is pretty cool. Like, I'm sure your own kid like blows your mind.

Oh, every day, but then now it now he's 10 still, so now it's a lot of like D's nuts jokes have been flying around.

Um so yeah, I was on the Nintendo track pretty early, did do the GameCube stuff, but I also did I lucked out and got um I did get a PlayStation, I think it was late in the game, and then I got my first game was a bust a move. Do you remember that?

Ooh.

You shot like the you like it's like kind of like Tetris, you shoot a circle, and like when there's three circles of the same color, it like so it's like a reverse Tetris type. Yes, yep, yep, yes. I do remember that. Yeah, that was my first game. So I had the PlayStation like some rando games on there that I played. And then I remember I got really lucky because my grandmother worked at Sears. Ooh. And somebody, I don't remember, I maybe told you the story, but somebody tried to steal a PS2, but they basically moved it close to the exit of the Sears, and then like maybe they got cold feet or they forgot about it.

So towards like right before the end of Christmas, they like this the Sears found a PS2 like hidden in their store or whatever, and they're like, We can't, how do we if we they basically were this was so new, this was back then when people like trampled people for [expletive] like this. So they're like, We're not gonna announce that with a PS2 because then everybody's gonna freak the [expletive] out. Right. So they raffled it off to the staff that my grandma won. And so my grandma, I think, gave it to my mom, right? And I got a PS2, and I was like a very early adopter of a PS2.

Um win-win all the way around.

I think I my first game on PS2 was a game called Orphan. Um it wasn't very good, um, but like you could play through some kind of like adventure, and I think like the story changed. Right, it was kind of dark, but it wasn't great. But I remember I got it, I started playing, and I told my mom, like, I she didn't get me a memory card. She didn't know I needed a memory card. I'm like, Mom, I can't save the game. So she eventually got me a memory card, I'm sure shortly after.

Megabytes.

Uh yeah. Or I love how like the PlayStation 1 ones worked in the PlayStation 2 for a while. Yes, that was pretty cool. So then you could actually cared. Yep, yeah, yep.

And then uh, do you remember what the Dreamcast did for their memory cards? No, it was those big bricks that slid into the top of the controller and had a little screen on it, so you could download like a Tamagotchi onto the memory card of the Sega Dreamcast memory card, but then the whole thing slotted into the top of the controller, and then the screen would change based on what game you're playing. Because I play a lot of Skies of Arcadia on Dreamcast, so that was my go-to.

They did a lot of weird [expletive] like that. Um, I know like the GameCube and the Game Boy Advance, you could like plug the Game Boy Advance into the GameCube and it did weird things they did. So kind of like concepts like that. So there was a lot of like crazy hardware for that. Right, a lot of weird stuff. The GameCube had so many ports on the bottom of it for all kinds of random [expletive]. That's still to this day, like that's so Nintendo.

Um, I think that's that really covered all of the toys for me. Um again, I think it was about being dirty. Um, I think it was about still action figures, still really big. Um, but it was things connected to shows, the shows we were watching, reinforced the movies we watched, reinforce the shows. What about Hot Wheels? Were you did you have like those big spinny trackers?

No, Corbin's really into that, but I was never into that. I was more into a lot of like those WAMO toys. So, like the moon shoes, like I wanted those. So, moon shoes, I'll show you a picture later, but basically it's like two miniature trampolines that you strap to your feet, and then you could jump around like that. All that weird [expletive] that was on Nickelodeon, I wanted all of that. I never got moon shoes, but I wanted them. My friends got them, and I jumped on them one time, and I'm like, this is [expletive] stupid. Like, I don't need these. So it was a lot of those kind of toys that you wanted. Yeah, and then uh super soakers.

We because we lived in Nevada, it was always super hot, huge fan of super soakers. And the best one I got, I don't know how expensive it was, but it was my main Christmas present one year, and it was as tall as I am, super soaker, and it came with one huge long strap that you had to hold over your whole body like that. It's like a gatling super soaker. Yeah, the stroke on it was like like and then it would only do one blast, and that's it.

If you didn't at least shoot one of the neighbor kids with a super soaker, you weren't easy skid. Oh, yeah. I was shooting anybody that'll look at me. That and then the nerf guns with the darts, you would use the darts, and then you'd just have a lame nerf gun. And even though you would think like they darts, I think now they're maybe a little bit more universal, where like the darts, but like that. Each one uses back then back then, they were not the same darts every time.

So that was and now like the the nerf guns now are super cool, like all the Fortnite ones. No joke, we walked in Target the other day. I'm like, I kind of want that Fortnite sniper rifle. That is a great time. That looks super cool.

Yeah, the toys. I can't wait to buy toys for I might go around and go buy that right now, right?

And then just hide in the hall and wait for somebody to walk in the hall and just pick them off.

That's awesome. Uh, if you're listening, tell us about you know what toys did you play tonight? Did you play with something we didn't list? Did you have a different set of toys?

Are you upset that we missed something? Like, oh, how did could you forget about this? Be like, maybe because I didn't play with that, because it was a hunk of [expletive] junk. Tell me about it.

Or maybe your parents actually made money and could afford the more expensive toys that we couldn't. I don't know. Yeah, but whatever. I love my childhood. Anyway, listen, uh, let us know what you play with. Did you have a princess Diana beanie baby? What was your jam?

If so, send it to Nat 1%.

Yeah, yeah. No, and not a picture, like literally box it up, send it to us so we can have a chance at this [expletive] thing. Yep. So we're making it big. Making it big. Uh, and so we can make it big. Again, I'm just gonna probably plug this every show now, so get ready because it's months away. But yeah, in January, if you're in the like Southwest area, check out we know you miss cons. We do, yeah, we miss events. Uh, so go to Phoenix Fan Fusion. Back in the day, Phoenix ComCon was like one of the top five cons in the in the country, right? Um, I don't know if that's still the case, but come check it out. Come meet us.

We'd love if God, if you're actual like a real person that listens to our show and I'll be so excited. I'll be so excited. We will only slightly roast you. Uh, but no, it'll be great, great to meet you and come to our panel. Very excited. Um, and with that, we look forward to talking next week. Thanks, guys.