Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck
Speaker 1: and this is Stuff you should Know. Another toy edition.
Speaker 1: We haven't done one in a while.
Speaker 2: Classic Toy Edition.
Speaker 1: Yep, I love these NERF that's right.
Speaker 2: I was just got back from spring break, so I
Speaker 2: wanted to do a couple of things, and this is
Speaker 2: NERF relevant, But I got to see a bunch of
Speaker 2: LA pals and I wanted to give a special shout out,
Speaker 2: which I'm sure you will agree with even though you
Speaker 2: didn't see them to the Randazzo clan. Our old buddy
Speaker 2: Joe Randazzo, who we met many years ago, is still
Speaker 2: a faithful listener, as are his kids. Oh yeah, they
Speaker 2: listened to the show. They've called me and yelled and
Speaker 2: left messages yelling all us about the show before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: But we finally got to hang out and Ruby got
Speaker 2: to hang out with their three kids, Cormac, Gus and Hazel,
Speaker 2: and they even spent the night at our rental house.
Speaker 3: A couple of nights.
Speaker 2: By themselves, no with Joe and the whole family did
Speaker 2: oh okay, And we just had so much fun and
Speaker 2: those kids are so much fun and so big hellos
Speaker 2: to all of them.
Speaker 1: Very nice.
Speaker 2: But the reason I mentioned NERF was I was we
Speaker 2: went down to Venice Beach did a lot of touristy stuff,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to show Ruby the skate park there
Speaker 2: because she's used to seeing the kids at the local
Speaker 2: skate parks who are like, like literally can't even ali
Speaker 2: basically yeah. And it was like, Ruby, it's like your
Speaker 2: mind's going to be blown when you go to this
Speaker 2: skate park at Venice Beach because these like this is
Speaker 2: where it was born, and they really know what they're doing.
Speaker 2: And it did not disappoint. There were some these three
Speaker 2: dudes that were just crushing it, these two kind of
Speaker 2: young teenagers and this one guy that looked like he
Speaker 2: was probably in his late twenties, and they were trying
Speaker 2: to outdo one another and goofing around with one another,
Speaker 2: and it was just a big fun show, Like I
Speaker 2: could watch that for hours. And one of the guys,
Speaker 2: the older guy, kept making fun of the kids, saying,
Speaker 2: you're doing these nerve tricks. You're doing these nerve tricks.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And I couldn't figure it out if that
Speaker 2: just meant like, it's like a kiddie version of a
Speaker 2: real trick.
Speaker 3: Is kind of what I figured.
Speaker 2: He meant, Like a nerf ball is like a kiddie
Speaker 2: version of a real ball.
Speaker 1: Very nice segue, Chuck.
Speaker 2: I think that's probably what he meant. But it was
Speaker 2: just so funny. Look at you with those nerve tricks.
Speaker 1: Could you tell what he was criticizing specifically, like what
Speaker 1: they were doing that was making him say that.
Speaker 2: It looked like just sort of little more basic stuff,
Speaker 2: like they were coming out of the bowl and doing
Speaker 2: different things and then like landing on the flat surface,
Speaker 2: And anytime they just did sort of a basic thing,
Speaker 2: he'd say, get out of here with your nerve tricks.
Speaker 1: Were they landing on their feet or on their skateboard.
Speaker 2: On their skateboard? Oh okay, but they would like kick
Speaker 2: a leg out and then land on the skateboard.
Speaker 3: Or something like that and call it a nerve trick.
Speaker 2: I mean, trust me, dude, I would I couldn't even
Speaker 2: run around this thing, much less do it on a skateboard.
Speaker 2: But this guy was so good man, and everyone was
Speaker 2: so good and it's just amazing to see them.
Speaker 3: Do that stuff.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 2: Very highly recommended. If you go to Venice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine. I've never gone to see.
Speaker 3: That, but I'm going to now it's amazing.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to your segue.
Speaker 2: Nerf nerf.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of questions about nerf chuck in particular
Speaker 1: what nerf means and not just in skating terms, in
Speaker 1: the original form even. Okay, so for example, some people
Speaker 1: say it was French for nerve. Obviously it makes total sense.
Speaker 1: It's not true at all. There's other people who say
Speaker 1: it stands for a non expanding recreational foam. That's not
Speaker 1: true at all, but you will see that all over
Speaker 1: the internet as fact not correct. Instead, it's got one
Speaker 1: of the cooler origin stories. They are most interesting origin
Speaker 1: stories for a word that no one really knows where
Speaker 1: it came from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you're in some part of the world
Speaker 2: that's right now saying what is nerf, we should just
Speaker 2: quickly say that it's a toy brand made of soft
Speaker 2: foamy products, and we'll kind of go through the history.
Speaker 2: But you know, they started with balls and then now
Speaker 2: they make all kinds of stuff, but it's you know, spongy,
Speaker 2: soft foamy things that you can throw and not hurt
Speaker 2: somebody with.
Speaker 1: Wow, that was some professional podcasting just now.
Speaker 2: But the origin and this is something I remember when
Speaker 2: I was a kid because we had nerf bars on
Speaker 2: our jeep. It started out as a racing thing, like
Speaker 2: if you bumped up against another car in a race
Speaker 2: that could they might call that a nerf And they
Speaker 2: eventually started putting this metalwork on the outside of the
Speaker 2: cars to prevent damage if you hit a car like that,
Speaker 2: and those were called nerf bars, and today they're still called.
Speaker 2: Like if you have a like I have a pickup
Speaker 2: truck that has nerf bars, And instead of having a
Speaker 2: little tiny step, you know sometimes big trucks and jeeps
Speaker 2: and things, you'll have a step to step into the car. Sure,
Speaker 2: instead of just being a little step, it's a big
Speaker 2: round bar that extends sort of the length of at
Speaker 2: least the door two doors if you have a two
Speaker 2: door or a four door I guess mm hm. And
Speaker 2: they still call those nerve bars.
Speaker 1: Does it say yeehaw every time you step on it
Speaker 1: to get in the truck?
Speaker 3: It really does.
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with nerf bars is like those anti roll
Speaker 1: bars like you were talking about on your dad's jeep
Speaker 1: or something like that. Those can especially if you have
Speaker 1: like a soft top or a no top like jeep
Speaker 1: and you have a roll bar over your head to
Speaker 1: keep you from dying or the jeep from crushing you.
Speaker 1: If it rolls over, it can still hurt pretty bad
Speaker 1: because that's a metal bar, even if it is hollow,
Speaker 1: and if you go over some bumps and you hit
Speaker 1: your head on it, that's a problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So people started figuring out very quickly in the advent
Speaker 1: of off roading that you could put foam padding on
Speaker 1: those bars, and that's where nerf bars came from, this
Speaker 1: idea that foam path could prevent some sort of injury.
Speaker 1: It became like kind of wetted to that idea of nerf,
Speaker 1: which was originally just a little bump. And that's apparently
Speaker 1: where the actual the name comes from. That's the origin story.
Speaker 1: It was a marketing person who was familiar with that
Speaker 1: term and just brilliantly thought to apply it to these
Speaker 1: little foam balls that can't hurt anybody because they're too light.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they are.
Speaker 2: Generally there's all kinds of nerve products, but generally we're
Speaker 2: talking about polyurethane foam.
Speaker 3: It's got a.
Speaker 2: Little thin plastic coating that kind of keeps the foam
Speaker 2: from breaking down as much and gives like a NERF
Speaker 2: arrow like better flight characteristics. But it's basically all it is.
Speaker 2: It's a very low tech thing. The Grabster helped us
Speaker 2: with this, and I think, very astutely kind of argues
Speaker 2: that that's part of the appeal of NERF is that
Speaker 2: it's a very low tech product and sort of like
Speaker 2: a frisbee times, it doesn't have to be something fancy
Speaker 2: to really endure in the toy market.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that that's one reason why NERF has
Speaker 1: just hung in there for so long, because they're just
Speaker 1: they're very prolific, but the stuff they make is it's just,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it becomes like iconic here in the
Speaker 1: United States like it definitely did from the beginning of
Speaker 1: the seventies till the mid nineties. Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of gotten less like a huge cultural thing over time,
Speaker 1: but it's become more niche and I think just as widespread,
Speaker 1: but just not quite as like pop culturally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 1: So one other thing about the word nerve, it's kind
Speaker 1: of experienced a rebirth among gaming communities apparently back in
Speaker 1: I found the actual origin for this, chuck.
Speaker 3: You're ready sure.
Speaker 1: In the late nineties early two thousands, there was a
Speaker 1: massive multiplayer online role playing game called Ultima Online and
Speaker 1: when they they launched it, for some reason, the swords
Speaker 1: that you used were way more devastating than any other weapons,
Speaker 1: and so the developers were like, this is a problem.
Speaker 1: Everybody's just using swords and it's not really fair. So
Speaker 1: they went in, they fixed it. They put a patch
Speaker 1: in there, and swords suddenly became less devastating, and players
Speaker 1: complained that it was like hitting one another with nerf
Speaker 1: swords now, And so nerf became a word for anything,
Speaker 1: especially in games where the developers go in and like
Speaker 1: downgrade its effectiveness essentially.
Speaker 2: So like they should have nerved Bo Jackson and Techmobile.
Speaker 3: Because he was unstoppable?
Speaker 1: Was he?
Speaker 3: Oh man?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of a legendary thing. Is that in
Speaker 2: the original Techmobil or I don't know if his original, but
Speaker 2: bo Jackson was you couldn't stop them, and like if
Speaker 2: he played the Raiders, you know, you would have to
Speaker 2: instill rules like bo Jackson can only carry the ball
Speaker 2: like once every five plays or something. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 2: because he was just built faster and better and you
Speaker 2: could like score almost every time he touched the ball.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's an appropriate person to make like that, for.
Speaker 2: Sure, But it was so gamed. It was just like,
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't even fair.
Speaker 1: But yes, to circle back to your original point, that
Speaker 1: is an excellent use of the term nerve.
Speaker 2: The nerf that we know in love was invented by
Speaker 2: a guy named Rin geier r e y n Geyer
Speaker 2: for Reynolds. Yeah, that makes sense. And he invented Twister,
Speaker 2: so he's got a couple of big time pop culture
Speaker 2: games under his belt. Yeah, and he was forming a
Speaker 2: company and he wanted to design a game where kids
Speaker 2: could throw rocks at each other. And so they made
Speaker 2: them obviously at a foam, and they had this packing
Speaker 2: foam and this technique that they used cutting that foam
Speaker 2: with heated wire. That worked out pretty well, and he
Speaker 2: wanted to sort of gamify it, like I said, and
Speaker 2: not just you know, make it a light ball that
Speaker 2: you could just throw at each other. But that was
Speaker 2: kind of the hit from the from the get, which
Speaker 2: was you could throw something at your little brother and
Speaker 2: not get in trouble because it wouldn't hurt, it wouldn't
Speaker 2: break a window, and they took it to basically everybody.
Speaker 2: I think Milton Bradley passed on it, Parker Brothers bit,
Speaker 2: but they said, let's just do the ball, like, we
Speaker 2: don't need some dumb game around it. And that was
Speaker 2: the very first thing. It was a ball in a
Speaker 2: box and it was a Nerf ball, and off to
Speaker 2: the races.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The first ad copy said throw it indoors. You
Speaker 1: can't damage lamps or break windows, you can't hurt babies
Speaker 1: or old people.
Speaker 3: Eeah, okay, that's very It got weird.
Speaker 1: And then on the package itself they called it the
Speaker 1: world's first indoor ball, and it took off like a rocket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like a Nerf rocket. This is nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: big success. Hard to get good numbers, like with a
Speaker 2: lot of products, it's really hard to get like great
Speaker 2: numbers sometimes. But I've seen anywhere from like three to
Speaker 2: four million of those sold in that first year.
Speaker 1: It's astounding. Yeah, it's just a round Paula eurothane foam ball.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's all to They just put it in
Speaker 1: a box with and made it pretty colors out of
Speaker 1: it and ragged on old people, right and babies. It
Speaker 1: was a hit, So that's right. That was nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: I think when the first NERF ball came out, So
Speaker 1: they didn't actually start innovating themselves, I should say they
Speaker 1: they knew a good idea where they saw it, and
Speaker 1: they saw it from a pair of guys, Fred Cox,
Speaker 1: who was a place kicker for the Vikings, and a
Speaker 1: businessman named John Maddox, and they had a very good
Speaker 1: idea that took nerf into the next dimension.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is pretty funny story actually, because John Maddox
Speaker 2: wanted to build a game, like a field goal kicking
Speaker 2: game where they had these little portable goalposts and you
Speaker 2: could go in the art and kick field goals just
Speaker 2: like the pros do. And he went to Fred Cox, who,
Speaker 2: like you said, was a professional kicker for the Vikings,
Speaker 2: and he was like, here's what I want to do.
Speaker 2: But here's the deal. Is like, this ball can't go
Speaker 2: too far because yards aren't huge, and so we should
Speaker 2: make it like a medicine ball or something, but shaped
Speaker 2: like a football so they can't kick it very far.
Speaker 2: And fred Cox was like, that is not a good
Speaker 2: idea kicking a big, heavy ball is really stupid and
Speaker 2: you could get injured very easily. He said, why don't
Speaker 2: you do something super super light and very low density
Speaker 2: and soft, so it doesn't matter if you can kick
Speaker 2: it far, it's not gonna hurt anything.
Speaker 1: Well, plus it won't go very far because it's foam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it would. I mean you can kick
Speaker 2: it in her football pretty well.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, calm down.
Speaker 2: I love it, he said, calm down when no one's
Speaker 2: not calm. It's a good bit. Uh so, I don't
Speaker 2: even know where it was. Oh yeah, So he's like,
Speaker 2: let's do that. And so they created a mold injection
Speaker 2: mold in the shape of a football, filled it with foam,
Speaker 2: and they took it around and Parker Brothers again said,
Speaker 2: we don't need this dumb game. No one wants to
Speaker 2: kick field goals. It's like no one wants to be
Speaker 2: a kicker. That's really boring. Let's just sell the ball,
Speaker 2: and they licensed it from them because they were trying
Speaker 2: to work on a football, but that heated wire cutting
Speaker 2: thing couldn't make a good football. They had never thought
Speaker 2: of injection molding, so they said, great, we'll use your idea.
Speaker 2: And then in seventy two, the NERF football and NERF basketball.
Speaker 2: I had both of these.
Speaker 3: Very early in my life.
Speaker 2: I probably had the maybe fourth generation of these, or
Speaker 2: maybe first generation, but I got one in by the
Speaker 2: time I was probably four years old, and that was
Speaker 2: it for about two decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could say that there was also some pretty
Speaker 1: iconic stuff. It just wasn't as big as the NERF
Speaker 1: football or NERF ball. Like NERF tabletop pool remember that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I had like a ping pong I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There was also the NERF boomerang. The three from
Speaker 1: that was NERF. Those things came out in the meantime,
Speaker 1: but Ed puts it like that, and I think some
Speaker 1: people would probably agree, like, yeah, they didn't have any
Speaker 1: massive mega hits, And even if they did, the point
Speaker 1: is that in the nineties NERF got essentially completely reimagined
Speaker 1: as a as a totally different toy company. And I think, Chuck,
Speaker 1: if you ask me if I can toot my own
Speaker 1: horn a little bit here, that was a quality cliffhanger.
Speaker 3: I just set us up for beepp.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's take a break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Jogging job, all right, So you set the stage that
Speaker 2: NERF was about to rebrand, and they rebranded indeed in
Speaker 2: a big way, from a company that makes fun balls
Speaker 2: to a weapons manufacturer. Basically true, but there's a story
Speaker 2: behind this. In nineteen eighty seven and NERF has bounced around,
Speaker 2: they're sort of the stuff you should know of toys.
Speaker 1: And I thought the same thing.
Speaker 2: They have been owned by virtually everyone, I think except
Speaker 2: for Parker Brothers or no, no, no, wait, they were owned
Speaker 2: by Parker Brothers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they weren't owned by Milton Bradley.
Speaker 2: Milton Bradley, right, so they in eighty seven they were
Speaker 2: part of Kenner, part of General Milton Mills, the same
Speaker 2: as Parker Brothers. And I think then Kenner was purchased
Speaker 2: by Tonka. In ninety one, has Bro bought Tonka. So
Speaker 2: NERF kind of endured through all those changes as we
Speaker 2: as NERF as Yeah, stayed NERF, just like we stayed
Speaker 2: stuff you should know. And you know, at any point
Speaker 2: someone could have come along, one of our company owners
Speaker 2: and said, let's change the name.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, yep, I know for the host dangerous,
Speaker 1: it's a dangerous time for sure.
Speaker 2: But there's another toy company that plays in called Laramie
Speaker 2: and a gentleman that my daughter met recently. What I've
Speaker 2: wanted to do it a full episode on Lonnie Johnson.
Speaker 2: But they did their first little you know how you
Speaker 2: you do a little oral report. They did their first
Speaker 2: ones in second grade during Black History Month and one
Speaker 2: of the kids' profile Lonnie Johnson. And he is still
Speaker 2: alive and is local. And they took Atlanta. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: took a field trip and met with Lonnie Johnson.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. So yeah, this guy is he's a bona
Speaker 1: fide inventories in the Inventors Hall of Fame for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons. But his his whole thing that he's
Speaker 1: been trying to do all these decades is to come
Speaker 1: up with green energy solutions, long before anybody ever used
Speaker 1: the word green to describe things like energy solutions. And
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two he was actually coming up with
Speaker 1: a cooling device. I'm sure Ruby knows all about this, probably,
Speaker 1: and the cooling device that he was going to use
Speaker 1: would replace the free on cooling device for a refrigerator,
Speaker 1: so get rid of free on. And there's something happened.
Speaker 1: There was a malfunction somehow and a really pressurized blast
Speaker 1: of water shot out of one of the tubes he
Speaker 1: was using, and rather than like kick over his equipment
Speaker 1: and like start shouting in the air, which is what
Speaker 1: most people do, he saw a new opportunity. He was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I just figured out a way to pressurize water really
Speaker 1: easily and simply, and I'll bet you could make a
Speaker 1: really cool squirt gun out of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you know what's funny is no one before Lonnie
Speaker 2: Johnson that ever saw a pressurized stream of water shoot anywhere.
Speaker 2: Thought kids love this, right, like it had happened before
Speaker 2: He's he didn't see the first stream of water being shot,
Speaker 2: but he was like, hey, man, that's like the coolest
Speaker 2: squirt gun ever.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, I mean I think that's why, you know, someone
Speaker 2: like Lonnie Johnson is a sort of genius and has
Speaker 2: like such an inventor's brain, right, they see the world
Speaker 2: differently exactly.
Speaker 1: And he he was like, I want to test my idea.
Speaker 1: I'm going to build a prototype for my daughter and
Speaker 1: give it to her, set her loose on the neighborhood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think she was. She just probably very quickly
Speaker 1: became the boss of the neighborhood right with her new
Speaker 1: what eventually we come to be called a super Soaker,
Speaker 1: but was originally a power Drencher.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Laramie, this toy company I mentioned, they weren't
Speaker 2: very big. They licensed his idea as the Power Drencher,
Speaker 2: like you said, was rebranded in ninety one as the
Speaker 2: super Soaker. And in the meantime we'll jump back to
Speaker 2: Nerf here. Between eighty seven and when the super Soaker
Speaker 2: comes along, they had started making weapons, things like, you know,
Speaker 2: a bow and arrow, like a NERF bow and arrow.
Speaker 2: The very first thing they ever used and you can
Speaker 2: still buy these on eBay, was called the NERF blast
Speaker 2: a ball in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: It was like a pop gun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's just a tube with a handle and you
Speaker 2: could just pump a ball out, a little Nerf ball.
Speaker 2: And so they were getting into sort of the NERF
Speaker 2: gun business. But it was really when Super Soaker was
Speaker 2: purchased by Laramie, rather who owned the super Soaker was
Speaker 2: purchased by Hasbro, when those two worlds kind of all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, we're under the same roof. They said,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, this whole idea of using pressure to
Speaker 2: increase force and range and accuracy with water, we can
Speaker 2: use with NERF as well, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the NERF gun they don't call them guns as a company,
Speaker 2: they call them blast. The NERF blaster became the new
Speaker 2: thing in a big way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what NERF went all in on. The first
Speaker 1: thing they came out with was the Nerve sharpshooter, and
Speaker 1: that was actually powered by a spring, but it's still
Speaker 1: considered the first Nerve blaster. They also came up with
Speaker 1: a bunch of other ways of shooting a foam missile
Speaker 1: or projectile out of a NERF gun, including Lonnie Johnson's
Speaker 1: way of compressing air and then releasing air forcefully. And
Speaker 1: that's it. Like the whole company just completely changed and
Speaker 1: became that because they got so popular so quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it kind of, you know, ed makes a
Speaker 2: good point. It kind of aligned with a bunch of things.
Speaker 2: It aligned with the nineties, which was you know, remember
Speaker 2: everything was just extreme back then. That was the big
Speaker 2: buzzword in toys and sports and everything else. And it also,
Speaker 2: very sadly, also met with the rise in gun violence
Speaker 2: in this country.
Speaker 1: Well, not just that there was a big problem with
Speaker 1: people who were playing with toy guns getting killed by
Speaker 1: the cops. There were actually three kids aged thirteen, sixteen,
Speaker 1: and nineteen who were killed in a six month period
Speaker 1: between nineteen eighty seven and nineteen eighty eight because police
Speaker 1: had mistaken their toy guns as real guns and killed them.
Speaker 1: And so NERF was like, Okay, these are not guns,
Speaker 1: and the ones we're designing aren't going to look anything
Speaker 1: like guns. They're going to look like a cartoon toy
Speaker 1: conception of what a gun would look like in the
Speaker 1: hands of Roger.
Speaker 2: Rabbit right in space. Because a lot of these looked
Speaker 2: more like sort of laser space guns than you know,
Speaker 2: gun guns, or at least they did for a while.
Speaker 2: And this, you know, NERF gun culture sort of rose
Speaker 2: in lockstep with gun violence in this country post nine
Speaker 2: to eleven all of a sudden, and adn't heard this
Speaker 2: expression before.
Speaker 3: I use it tact to.
Speaker 2: Cool military cosplay gear and that whole esthetic of like, hey,
Speaker 2: let me sort of dress up like I'm in the
Speaker 2: army or I'm in the Special Forces or something. They
Speaker 2: started putting sniper scopes and ammo clips and all this
Speaker 2: pseudo military gear alongside these nerve or as part of
Speaker 2: the NERF line, Like if you look up some of
Speaker 2: these guns, the Centurion Blaster. It looks like a sniper
Speaker 2: rifle or an assault rifle with a you know, a
Speaker 2: bipod stand, but it's got these big, bright colors. You
Speaker 2: started be able to mod these guns yourself. So NERF
Speaker 2: started saying, well, hey, wait a minute, what if we
Speaker 2: started our own modding, which they did starting in two
Speaker 2: thousand and three, when they had these like tactical rails
Speaker 2: built in where you could attach other things to it
Speaker 2: to make it look more like a weapon, or you
Speaker 2: could attach guns to other guns to make like this
Speaker 2: super gun or a super blaster and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So all of this stuff was sort of I don't
Speaker 2: want to say taking over the brand because they were
Speaker 2: they were also pushing it at the same time, but
Speaker 2: that became the big thing in nerve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I have the impression that the NERF moding
Speaker 1: community they're modern guns because that's what NERF makes. But
Speaker 1: they're also modern guns because they play like in NERF
Speaker 1: battles in NERF Wars, and you use guns for that.
Speaker 1: So they're making it their own. So I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: a hardcore, over zealous, like like gun culture subculture to it,
Speaker 1: but the impression I have more is it's more tinkerers engineers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: almost like reformed steampunk people. Yeah, yeah, it's not. It's
Speaker 1: not to say like there's this like dangerous, ominous subculture
Speaker 1: that's just waiting to rise up. Those are the people
Speaker 1: who modify real guns. These are these are people are
Speaker 1: playing with NERF guns.
Speaker 3: Essentially, right exactly.
Speaker 1: Just wanted to point that out. There's a distinction there is.
Speaker 2: Uh, you go look up the NERF Titan, which I did.
Speaker 2: It's essentially like a gatling gun. It is super cool
Speaker 2: and fun and it you know, Adam Savage has a
Speaker 2: fun video where he modded one in his little shop
Speaker 2: to I think he modded the uh I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if it was the Titan or not. It was which
Speaker 2: was the one that has like one hundred rounds that
Speaker 2: could hold of these little nerve.
Speaker 1: That's the rival Nemesis.
Speaker 2: Okay, so he modded I guess a rival Nemesis to
Speaker 2: have like a one thousand pellet clip and then shot
Speaker 2: at a guy in a dinosaur costume in his shop.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of a fun video on YouTube if
Speaker 2: you want to go check that out. The great Atam Savage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the yeah, that one is amazing looking. It looks
Speaker 1: kind of like the remember the gatling gun in.
Speaker 2: A editor oh Predator Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: That sound it's like that. Basically, it's the NERF version
Speaker 1: of the Predator gatling gun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is what they do.
Speaker 2: They look at whatever cool space gun or real gun
Speaker 2: they're using in the movies, NERF will come along and
Speaker 2: make one basically, and they've also extended that to stuff
Speaker 2: like licensing deals with gaming companies where they like, you
Speaker 2: can get like a real NERF Fortnite gun or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which are pretty cool looking. On also that whole
Speaker 1: NERF mod community, they of course have lots of like
Speaker 1: explainers and step by step and how to videos to
Speaker 1: mod your own. There are people who made a livelihood
Speaker 1: out of that. There's a guy named out of Darts.
Speaker 1: His name's Luke Goodman. He's kind of a guru in
Speaker 1: that whole sense. There's a company called Spitfire Products that's
Speaker 1: on Etsy and they make entirely from scratch NERF sniper
Speaker 1: rifles that are three D printed and it looks exactly
Speaker 1: like something NERF would produce, Yeah, but they came up
Speaker 1: with the designed themselves. So there's like a like the
Speaker 1: people who are into it. Like I was saying, when
Speaker 1: NERF releases a new product, it's not like all of
Speaker 1: America knows about it, but the people who are in
Speaker 1: the NERF like are really, really in the NERF now
Speaker 1: more than people were before. It's like they took all
Speaker 1: of that widespread but relatively shallow enthusiasm it concentrated it
Speaker 1: much more deeply, but in a more narrow band.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you want to take a break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take another break and we'll talk about some
Speaker 2: of these NERF games right after.
Speaker 3: This and jugging job.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you talking doubly fast on behalf of me
Speaker 1: trying to make up for my halftime speak.
Speaker 3: What do you talk slow?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I do. I feel like I feel like I've
Speaker 1: been talking slower than normal lately.
Speaker 2: How about you, I feel like you're talking in normal speed.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, I feel like you're talking faster too.
Speaker 3: I don't feel like I'm talking faster.
Speaker 1: I could just be losing it. I do want to
Speaker 1: say chuck before we get into it. I feel like
Speaker 1: it'd be silly if we didn't mention that Hasbro is
Speaker 1: the company that made our stuff. You should know trivial
Speaker 1: pursuit game. Oh yeah, even oh wait, we'll disguise it
Speaker 1: as like a humble breck, just full disclosure. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't want it to seem like we don't want anybody.
Speaker 1: We don't want to come out and seem like we're
Speaker 1: playing secret favorites.
Speaker 2: We're part of the NERF family.
Speaker 3: I guess too. Huh, totally. I love that.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of games that people play with
Speaker 1: nerves specifically, but also in general. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that people love to play with NERF guns are
Speaker 1: these huge battles that can last hours, sometimes days, sometimes longer,
Speaker 1: and can evolve many hundreds of people in some cases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like one of the more fun because
Speaker 2: it's worked its way into the cosplay community. Of course,
Speaker 2: as they mod these and steampunk these things up, you
Speaker 2: know that's going to happen, and you know you're if
Speaker 2: you're looking for a cool like cosplay outfit, a NERF
Speaker 2: you know that's like paramilitary or something. NERF is a
Speaker 2: pretty obvious place to start because like you're already halfway there.
Speaker 2: Just get out some cool mods and some paint.
Speaker 1: But what if you're into like zombie and post apocalyptic stuff.
Speaker 2: What do you do then, well, friend, then you play
Speaker 2: Human v. Zombies. It is a It sounds like a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. Sometimes they can incorporate like other elements
Speaker 2: like capture the flag and some things like that into it.
Speaker 2: But HVZ is when you have one zombie initially a
Speaker 2: bunch of humans. They are wearing two different colored bandanas
Speaker 2: to distinguish one from the other. And I want to
Speaker 2: play this humans can it'd be like it would be
Speaker 2: in real life. You can shoot a zombie with you know,
Speaker 2: from a distance with the NERF gun, but a zombie
Speaker 2: has to actually touch you, you know, mocking the bite.
Speaker 2: You know that you would have to get in person
Speaker 2: up close from a zombie in order to turn you
Speaker 2: into a zombie. Whereas and you know, of course it's
Speaker 2: eventually gonna flip. The more zombies there are, the fewer humans,
Speaker 2: you know, imagine that it starts growing exponentially, just like
Speaker 2: in zombie movies. But if you're a zombie and you
Speaker 2: get hit with a NERF bullet or arrow or whatever,
Speaker 2: then you just have to sit out for fifteen minutes
Speaker 2: and you're back in the game. And these games can
Speaker 2: be huge. It can be hundreds of people and they
Speaker 2: can last like a weekend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like you're tracked online by moderators and the
Speaker 1: college campuses if you haven't guessed by now or yeah,
Speaker 1: frequent sites of human versus zombies. Sure, battles, right, god bless,
Speaker 1: I think just battles in general. But because there's so
Speaker 1: many people and everybody's all up on everybody else. In
Speaker 1: addition to the NERF guns, they'll often have NERF melee weapons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why not, like battle axes and swords and maces. And
Speaker 1: NERF made a lot of these, and now you know,
Speaker 1: anytime that starts to get discontinued, they become like more
Speaker 1: expensive collector's items.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: But I was looking, Chuck, if you if you look
Speaker 1: up like new NERF stuff that you could buy, like Target,
Speaker 1: a huge consumer of the stuff. You should know book
Speaker 1: that we put out. They're pretty affordable. Actually, I mean
Speaker 1: they're not nearly as much as I thought they'd be.
Speaker 1: I thought I would have thought like these, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would have thought, like a NERF like machine gun, it
Speaker 1: would have been easily one hundred dollars and twenty dollars. No,
Speaker 1: they're like forty fifty bucks for like a big full
Speaker 1: size one. Yeah, I think they get you with the
Speaker 1: AMMO maybe.
Speaker 3: Ah, yeah, sure, the.
Speaker 1: Amma's a little expensive, but you can also buy off
Speaker 1: brand stuff online for much cheap. Two.
Speaker 2: I hear, yeah, Whammo, what about them? Well, it's just joking,
Speaker 2: like the off rand Ammo would be called Wamo.
Speaker 1: But oh yeah, it's like, why did you bring Wammo
Speaker 1: into this? They're a totally different toymets.
Speaker 3: What if frisbees have to do with it?
Speaker 1: Do you remember that movie Gotcha with Anthony Edwards?
Speaker 3: Oh? Do?
Speaker 1: I that's kind of what this reminds me of. But yeah,
Speaker 1: back then, the kids pull up a chair and listen
Speaker 1: to a yarn spun by some old old guys. There.
Speaker 1: Rather than nerf guns, there used to be low powered
Speaker 1: paintball guns that were all the thing in the mid eighties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and laser tag remember that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, laser tag Man. I got cornered by somebody wants
Speaker 1: in laser tag and he just kept killing me over
Speaker 1: and over again. I shouted at him stop.
Speaker 3: Did he stop?
Speaker 1: I don't think he did, or maybe, but he still
Speaker 1: shot me a few more times before he did, just
Speaker 1: to show me he wasn't listening to me.
Speaker 2: And that person went on to be the BTK Killer.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: There was also that movie tag the Assassination Game. Do
Speaker 2: you remember that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I don't remember that.
Speaker 2: Gotcha was more popular, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was the same premise, right, like Anthony
Speaker 1: Edwards thinks he's playing like a paintball game, but he's
Speaker 1: actually caught up in international intrigue.
Speaker 3: I think. So.
Speaker 1: It was no Cloak and Dagger. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2: Mmm, the great Dabney Coleman.
Speaker 1: He was an amazing actor. I'm sorry to get off
Speaker 1: track here. I know we don't do this very often,
Speaker 1: but I saw Cloak and Dagger recently, saw nine to
Speaker 1: five not too long ago. Some other A couple other
Speaker 1: movies I can't even remember because he just pops up
Speaker 1: in the most random places.
Speaker 2: But modern problems, Ah.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that. One out of time I think
Speaker 1: was one where he's a cop who finds out he's
Speaker 1: dying erroneously and he tries to get himself killed so
Speaker 1: that his wife can get his police pension for dying
Speaker 1: in the line of duty. I don't know, he just
Speaker 1: can't do it. It was a good one. It's cute,
Speaker 1: cute considering he was a cop who was trying to
Speaker 1: get to get someone to kill him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he was.
Speaker 1: He's just an amazing actor. Like just so underrated by
Speaker 1: me as a kid. Now that I'm an adult, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this guy was good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, loved Abney Coleman.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: So the future of NERF. Their main slogan since the
Speaker 2: nineties has been it's a NERF or nothing. And they still,
Speaker 2: like you said, are coming out with new stuff here
Speaker 2: and there. They are now coming up with their ammunition
Speaker 2: is a little firmer than before. They're starting to come
Speaker 2: out come out with things that aren't quite foam. It's
Speaker 2: a little more like rubber. I imagine that hurts a little
Speaker 2: bit more. I think even one of these guns is
Speaker 2: banned in some of these games because you know, it's
Speaker 2: sort of like not quite as bad as a paintball,
Speaker 2: but you can, you know, it can get a real
Speaker 2: sting with the range of some of these. I think
Speaker 2: they advertise a range of like ninety feet for some
Speaker 2: of these, whereas in our day, well in our day,
Speaker 2: it was just it was just footballs and basketballs. Or
Speaker 2: when they started coming out with the little the little
Speaker 2: you know, sucker darts, you know, those things they shot
Speaker 2: in an arc, you know, not much velocity.
Speaker 1: They went wide, real wide.
Speaker 3: Yehude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely increased tremendously. And then that whole moding community.
Speaker 1: One of the things they're into is increasing accuracy, power distance,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And one of the things I think
Speaker 1: that NERF has really been smart about is that they
Speaker 1: know what their customers are doing with their stuff, and
Speaker 1: so they respond in kind. Like they found out people
Speaker 1: were modding their guns, so they put up tactical rails
Speaker 1: to make it easier to mod They found out people
Speaker 1: were playing humans versus zombies, so they came out with
Speaker 1: a whole line of like post apocalyptic zombie guns and
Speaker 1: chainsaws and baseball bats and stuff like that, all branded
Speaker 1: like NERF Zombie. And I feel like I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that that was going on, but now that I see it,
Speaker 1: I just think it's really smart, and you don't see
Speaker 1: that very often among a company in a way that's
Speaker 1: not like exploitive or going for a quick buck or
Speaker 1: something like that. They seem like they're really genuinely responding
Speaker 1: because they put like real thought into all their products.
Speaker 1: I did not find a single person online complaining about
Speaker 1: NERF and its products, not a single one, And I
Speaker 1: think that that's so rare that I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Like NERF now, yeah, I mean they're a smart company.
Speaker 2: They've got partnerships with the NFL with games, like there
Speaker 2: have been NERF first person shooter games. They now have these.
Speaker 2: I don't think there are many of them yet. The
Speaker 2: NERF Action Experience Centers, which is like a big you know,
Speaker 2: the big indoor playgrounds are such a huge thing now
Speaker 2: for kids, like trampoline zones and stuff like that. But
Speaker 2: NERF has their own. I think there's one in oh
Speaker 2: where was it a saw somewhere in Asia, but there's
Speaker 2: now one I think being built in the UK, one
Speaker 2: in New Jersey. Like this is sort of the next
Speaker 2: way for them.
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, London, New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Was it Hong Kong? But yeah, you got the right point.
Speaker 2: But yeah, these action Experience centers seem like kind of
Speaker 2: the next big thing for them is you know, not
Speaker 2: only do you have their products in there, but you're
Speaker 2: charging a kid whatever nineteen bucks to come in and
Speaker 2: play for a few hours.
Speaker 1: Sure, kind of like a Lego land or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, although that has rides and things, doesn't it?
Speaker 1: Uh? Yes, it does. It does sticky rides.
Speaker 3: Okay, I've never been little kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everything's very sticky. Well, you got anything else about.
Speaker 3: Nerve No, let's let's wrap this one up.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well we just wrapped it up because Chuck said so,
Speaker 1: which means, of course it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know what, We're gonna forego listener mail. I
Speaker 2: believe this is coming out right before our tour, so
Speaker 2: this is a last ditch effort in real time to
Speaker 2: get people to buy tickets. We May fourth, we're gonna
Speaker 2: be at the Warner Theater in d C. The very
Speaker 2: next night, May fifth at the Chevalier and Medford, mass
Speaker 2: right outside of Boston, and then May six at gorgeous,
Speaker 2: legendary Massy holl in Toronto. I believe we've moved a
Speaker 2: lot of tickets in Boston, but DC and Toronto are
Speaker 2: kind of lagging, so plenty of great seats. We'd love
Speaker 2: to see everybody on this spring tour. We're going to
Speaker 2: be coming out again in the fall. But this is
Speaker 2: if you're in the Northeast, this is your chance.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you can get tickets by going to Linktree
Speaker 1: slash s y s k L I n K t
Speaker 1: R dot E E slash s y s K. It'll
Speaker 1: take you to all the tickets site you need to
Speaker 1: go to to come see us. So come see us, everybody.
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: Sounds good to me. Can't wait to get out there,
Speaker 2: and we look forward to seeing everyone in DC, Boston
Speaker 2: and Toronto.
Speaker 1: Agreed. And if you want to get in touch with
Speaker 1: us in the meantime to tell us how much you
Speaker 1: can't wait to see us in the Northeast, we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear that. You can send it as an email
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast atiheartradio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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