WEBVTT - Selects: How Hot Wheels Work 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:04.400 Hello, everyone, it's your homeboy Josh. And I was feeling 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:08.119 nostalgic this week, So for this edition of s Y 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:12.520 s K Selects, I've chosen our classic episode, How Hot 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:17.119 Wheels Works. It's from two thousand fifteen and it is banging. 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:19.319 I hope you enjoy it. I hope it takes you 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.720 back to some great memories and um who knows. At 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:30.920 the very least, I hope it melos you out. Welcome 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:40.280 to stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.200 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.239 w Chuck Bryant, Jerry. You know. That just sounded like, 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.159 what like, that's what happens. Like you're having a nightmare 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:50.320 and you me wakes you up in the middle of 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:52.440 the night, and he just goes, hey, welcome to the podcast, 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.960 and then she slaps you across the face. Real part m. 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:01.320 It's true. That is with its own bod. It sounded 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.000 that's pretty accurate. I don't know what got into me. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:10.440 You were just super charged about this topic. That's terrible. 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.280 Super charged. I'll get it. It's like a super charged engine. 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.240 I didn't even think about that. Oh good, that makes 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:20.919 me feel a little better. Yeah. Um, you know Jerry 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:22.600 by the way before when I told her what we 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:24.880 were doing, so, oh my gosh, that was my favorite 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.000 toy when I was a kid. Nice hot wheels are 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:29.480 pretty great. Yeah. I had a quite a collection, and 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:33.800 I don't know where they are today. They're missing, huh. Yeah, 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.080 I don't know if they were thrown out or if 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.280 if my brother has them, or they're my mom's attic 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:43.119 or what, because I'm kind of curious about have any 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.400 valuable you need to find them? Yeah, they could be apparently, 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:48.920 as far as hot wheels collectors go, it could be 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.120 in mint condition all the way down to beater condition. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:54.760 I was high they rank them. Yeah, mine would be 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.080 beaters because I played with them like crazy. That's good. 0:01:57.200 --> 0:01:59.840 I mean, that's what they're for, you know. And there's 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.880 value for a beater too, like some people apparently harvest 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.960 them for parts to rebuild like a you know, a 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:11.960 new Frankenstein model. Yeah, that's pretty neat. There's a lot 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:13.520 of stuff you can do with them. Yeah, and we 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:15.800 should thank the fifth grader who wrote this article too. 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.600 Sad face. I complained about that out loud to Holly. 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.200 I was like, this article actually says sad face, like 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:29.360 as a sentence, Yeah, I know that issues. I'm glad 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.920 you said something. Yeah what if it was a fifth grader? 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:36.640 Your feelings are all hurt. I think your feelings are 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:41.800 hurt either way. Now, sad face. So we're talking about 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:46.240 hot wheels today. I had a couple. Um, my favorite 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.000 toy was g I Joe, but I appreciated Hot Wheels 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.360 Joe too. Do g I Joe episode? Sometimes I had 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.200 the older ones, though you probably had huge ones. Yeah yeah, 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.000 now I had the real ones. Ye oh yeah, I 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.959 don't that's fight words. Man. The ones that I had 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.959 were so awesome. They were like there was a huge, 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.360 fast collection of all of them. There was like cobra. 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.440 Cobra didn't exist when you were collecting g I Joes. No, 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:13.680 but how could you say, like, oh, that one that's 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.960 ten inches tall and has real clothes and fuzzy hair 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.480 and the kung fu grip is inferior to this little 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:25.560 plastic thing. I think you just said it. All fuzzy 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:30.000 hair says it right there. I don't really mean that, Chuck. 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:31.840 I I don't have a dog in that fight. Like, 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.640 if you like the big g I Joes that's cool. 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.480 I got a problem. Yeah, it's a quick side note. 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.520 I have to tell this story when you know how 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:42.240 I used to do book reports and you would have 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.160 to have a visual aid. Yeah. Um, I might have 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.480 told this before. If I do, I apologize, I don't 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.320 recognize it. Um. I did a report on Franco Harris 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.760 went in a lunchary school because he was the football player. Yeah. 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.480 I don't know why I did Frankul Harris, But um, 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:00.640 I got my mom to make me a little Pittsburgh 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:02.960 Steelers uniform for my g I Joe because he looked 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.640 like Franco Harris. Nice. Yeah, that was my visual lady, 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.440 you still have it, No, of course not. We have 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:11.080 the G I Joe's. But I think the Steelers uniform 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.240 is gone. Bye bye. That's said. Yeah, you know, I'm 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:15.880 sure your mom put a lot of work into that. 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:20.240 Now it feels guilty. Uh So, Chuck, I have a 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.200 question for you. Did you know that the number one 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.800 vehicle manufacturer on the planet is, in fact hot wheels? 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:32.400 I did it. Kind of It's astounding until you stop 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:36.520 and think about it. Sure like, apparently, since when hot 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.320 wheels were first introduced, more than four billion hot wheels 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.080 have been produced. That's more than the big four Detroit 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:48.839 automakers combined. You're like wow, and then you think, oh yeah, 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:53.239 it costs a minute fraction of the cost to build 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.440 a hot wheels and it does a normal car. Plus. Also, 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.080 it's not like you're gonna go, I want this uh 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:06.039 bewick cutless supreme in every color it comes in, right, 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.080 you know what the hot wheels you can do that? Yeah? 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.240 What's the Lego stat is? They're the biggest manufacturer of tires? 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.560 Yeah there? Yeah. I wonder though, do these not count 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.480 as tires because they're plastic? The count as wheels? I 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.040 don't know, man, because four billion times four that's sixteen 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.680 billion tires. That's a really great question. I might have 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.200 to challenge Lego or maybe just look up how many 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.040 tires they manufacture. Old Kirk Christiansen is not going to 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:36.560 be happy about this. Who was that the founder of Lego? Remember? 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:44.320 Oh oh yeah, that's right. I thought you were saying old. Yeah. So, um, 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.479 let's talk about the history of this stuff. Huh. So 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:49.320 hot wheels, like I said, have been around since nine 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:55.440 and anybody who's heard the Barbie Trademark podcast will recognize 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.839 the name Elliott Handler. That's Ruth Handler, the inventor of 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:06.560 Barbie trade marks. Husband Um and Elliott apparently saw a 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:11.440 real chance to muscle in on an already extant market 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.279 by a company called Tycho that had a line of 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:19.000 miniature metal cars die cast cars is what they're called, 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.159 called Matchbox cars. That's right. By the time hot wheels 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:26.360 came around, Matchbox was already there and had established a market. 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.520 And Mattel said, let's get in on that. Yeah. And 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.760 the rumor is that he saw his grandchildren playing with 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.560 them and said, uh, they kind of stink. I could 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.240 make these better, cooler, And he had a um, as 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:42.719 the story goes, had a designer which we'll talk about 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.160 in the second called Harry Bradley, and he had a 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.840 hot rod and Elliott was in the parking lot when 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.720 Dan said, man, those are some hot wheels you got there. 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:55.320 And and apparently if you go look look at the 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.240 old original commercials for hot wheels, did they say that 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:02.480 that's how well, that's how they pronounce it wheels hot wheels. Yeah, 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:07.080 the emphasis is on the hot. It sounds awkward. They're like, 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.520 race your hot wheels. You can make you can race them. 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.960 Just go buy some hot wheels. That's what they That's 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:19.000 how they say it, collect all your hot wheels. Yeah, 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.120 but that makes more sense in the context of a sentence. 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.960 It does having been raised right, you know, post the 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:30.880 fast wheels, hot wheels, because wheels. Now I'm trying to 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:32.600 picture the guy in the parking lot saying, those are 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.200 some hot wheels you got on your there? You'd say 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.960 hot wheels you got there? You know? Yeah, Oh boy, 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.880 we can sure waste some time, we sure can. But 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.280 the first is, like you said, when the first line 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:54.560 came out of sixteen Hot Wheels, they were sold initially 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.200 for fifty nine cent apiece. Yeah, And like you said, 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.920 the guy whose car originally inspired the name Hot Wheels 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.080 UM was Harry Bradley, and he was the designer of 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:10.640 that first sixteen cars. They were also called UM. California 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.600 Customs Miniatures. Was that first original sixteen group of Hot 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:19.160 Wheels UM that were released in nine so and Harry 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:23.520 Bradley designed them all, including apparently he got his hands 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:25.840 on the first one, by the way that came out 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.560 was a Chevy Camarose. The second one that came out 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:33.120 was the Chevy Corvette, and apparently the Chevy Corvette came 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.880 out before the actual Corvette came out. Yeah, the sixty 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.520 nine Corvette. That is so Harry Bradley was an old 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.480 hand and not just miniature car design, but car design 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.160 in general. He was an old GM designer and I 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:50.640 guess he had connections still at GM and probably under 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.400 the table in a possibly illegal way, got his hands 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.000 on the blueprints for the Corvette that hadn't been released yet, 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.040 and hot Wheels beat GM to the punch and re 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:05.839 leasing the corvette. Yeah, sixty nine, Um, thank you, that's 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.040 all right. The yeah, as the lord goes, he supposedly 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.640 knew that the cafeteria door was unlocked, so he snuck 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:16.680 in through the cafeteria door. But that's called industrial espionage. Yeah, 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.360 that sounds like a story like just lore. Okay, but 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:26.199 maybe so maybe he'd committed industrial espionage. Um. So, like 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.240 you said, the those were the two of the first 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:34.880 sixteen in that original lineup, that original collection, which if 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.079 you have any of those, yeah, yeah, you got some 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:39.839 money that you're sitting on, because I mean like they 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:44.319 went all out on those that original line Like there 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.520 are bushings to the suspension, Yeah, and the I mean 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:52.839 the chassis. UM. It had suspension like shocks, like you 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:54.880 could press them down and it would bounce back. I 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.440 had some of those. I don't think they were from 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.439 sixty eight. But when did they quit making as set 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:04.240 up until seventies seven was when they stopped making the UM. 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.439 Oh no, seventy is when the suspension got an overhaul. Okay, 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.080 so for the first couple of years, like, they were 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.400 really putting a lot into these things. UM. The tires 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:18.559 were red line racing slicks, UM and the things. The 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.440 whole reason they went to so much trouble is because 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:25.720 they really wanted to destroy their competitor, matchbox. And one 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.600 of the ways they did that was by making these 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:32.480 things far more functional, um than the match boxes were. 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:37.320 The matchbox cars were, so they really could race. And 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.040 if you put a matchbox car up against the comparable 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.480 hot wheels, say the same model car, um, the hot 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.360 wheels will destroy it every time in the head to 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.920 head race. As we saw on the internet. A guy 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.719 did that of course. Uh. He took a two volkswagons 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.959 and two OUTI eights I think in one matchbox and 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.600 one hot wheel and he said they won by at 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.079 least a car link every time he tried. And this 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.160 was no loop de loop rain things was just the 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:08.640 straight race. Um. They painted them originally in Spectra Flame, 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:13.280 which was very shiny and sparkly and expensive. Um. And 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.040 I don't think we said that all hot wheels are 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.440 built at one sixty scale. Yeah, that's a big point, 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:20.880 but not necessarily all match butt cars. They kind of 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.920 vary here and there, right. Um. But like you said 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.360 that Spectra Flame and the red line tires didn't only 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.079 last until seventy seven, and the suspension only lasted till 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.560 nineteen seventy and they sadly a lot of that had 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:38.760 to do with the fact that they moved them from Hawthorne, 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:44.400 California to Hong Kong. And like any product, you're like, hey, 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:46.599 you can make it for half as much if you 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.280 make it in China, so let's move, let's ship the 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.600 operations overseas well. Not only that, it's the Spectra flame 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.000 pain is pretty expensive. It's awesome, it looks great, but 0:11:56.080 --> 0:12:00.840 it's pretty expensive. So um, with with any collector's item. 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.480 As they started to downgrade the components, in the parts 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.960 and the manufacturing and ultimately the final product, all that 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.760 did was make the original stuff all the more valuable 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.800 today because as much fewer and fewer of them as 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.720 the years go on, proportionately speaking. Yeah, they had actual axles, 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:20.719 like you know, it was like a real They were 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.160 designed by car designers. Uh. And they were made apparently 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.880 to reach two hundred scale miles per hour. Yeah, that's 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.920 pretty cool. That's way cool. You remember, like in the 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.920 cockroach episode we talked about how they're the fastest animal 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:38.280 on the planet relatively speaking. Pretty neat stuff. Um, so 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.480 chuck right out of the gate. Mattel had a hit 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.120 on his hands. Um. They released him in nineteen sixty eight. 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:49.760 By nineteen seventy, Hot Wheels was a Saturday morning cartoon 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.680 in the vein of like Dune Buggy and Scooby Doo 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.680 and all those guys. Hannah, Barbara dug you're speed Buggy, 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.520 Speed Buggy. Yeah, remember speed Buggy. It was like a 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:05.559 dune buggy that could talk, and it was basically wonder 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.920 bug No, it's speed Buggy, um, because there was like 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.120 if you took Shaggy and put some like racing goggles 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:15.360 on him and then turned Scooby Doo into a speed 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.440 a doom buggy, that's speed Buggy. Was that a cartoon? Yeah, 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.959 wing around solving mysteries and stuff like that. Yeah, Wonderbug 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.319 was I think that was live action. This was a cartoon, 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:30.160 said Marty Croft. This is exactly like Scooby Doo by 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.240 the people who did Scooby Doo, using the same people 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.000 who did the voices for Scooby Doos. It just vaguely 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:40.040 changed the characters. Hot Wheels was virtually the same thing, 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.120 except it was about racing clubs. There were the bad 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.640 guys and good guys and do you know this prus 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.360 what is the nineteen seventies that the doom Buggie was 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.160 a very popular thing, remember seeing those on the road, 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:52.200 Like I used to see him all the time. Not 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.600 all the time, but in the seventies it was a 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.200 common thing. Yeah, you don't see him anymore, very rarely. No. 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.800 No Gremlins, no u goos, No, no wonder bugs. You 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.920 know I like gremlins, do you uh? They're okay for 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.760 me though. The koded Gras of car design is the 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:14.600 AMC Pacer. Yeah, it's like the four Mica Kitchen of cars. 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:20.120 It's beautiful in all the weirdest ways. That would be 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:22.720 my soft after Hot Wheels if I had a hot 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.480 Wheels that if I just could have one hot wheel, 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.120 it would I don't know if that would be it, 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.520 but I'd be happy with that one. Now do they 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.200 have that that's a hot wheel? Oh yeah. And if 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.400 you look up a mc gremlin hot wheels, they went 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:39.960 to town on those. They had some with like the 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.440 the intakes, like sticking out of the hood and um, 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:47.280 just all sorts of just awesome different variations like indiecr 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.760 Gremlins and stuff like that. Because and that raises a 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.840 pretty good point. Hot wheels has always been about the 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.760 racing design, Like they've designed them to look like racing cars, 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.560 but they've also manufactured to actually be able to win 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.120 a race, like we talked about with matchbox. Yeah, and 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.440 one of the differences that is one of the main 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.240 differences between the matchbox and the hot wheel is they 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.040 were just much more interested in being sportier, like you 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.840 could get you could get a matchbox like a delivery truck, right, 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:19.960 you know, they had that, and but the match boxes 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.960 looked more real. They all were about looking realistic and 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:27.360 not necessarily performance. Um, and hey, if you want a 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:29.920 bread truck, you can get a bread truck, right exactly, 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.960 but you can't get a bread truck hot wheel. You know. Uh, 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.000 we'll talk more about all of this jam right after this. 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:57.080 You want to go ahead and talk about some of 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.680 the other differences between Matchbox and hot Wheel. Yes, since 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.320 we're at it, um, Matchbox or I'm sorry, hot Wheel 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.720 is the one that is more likely to have branded versions. 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.480 Oh man. And do they ever like the Ghostbusters ectomobile 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:15.240 right um? Or even more than that, Like they have 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.520 a deal with eminem Mars for two thousand fifteen, so 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.320 they have like a TwixT trucks and a Skittles van 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.760 and like all this stuff. They have licensing with d 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.960 C and Marvel this year, Fast and the Furious. I 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.640 know they had a line. So they're they're really big 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.240 time into branded and a lot of times they'll have 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:39.320 like a store will just have exclusives, access to an 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:43.160 exclusive line of Skittles cars or something like that that 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.800 you can only get at KB Toys. Yeah. I think 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.160 they have a NASCAR deal too, If I'm not mistaken, 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.320 I would not be surprised. Uh. And the hot wheels 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.400 usually have a little bit um wider, longer axle and 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.480 wider wheels. Um, because it's just cooler if that wheel 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:00.320 sticks up from the body a little bit, you know. Well, 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:02.920 plus also supposedly, and we'll talk about this a little more. 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.800 When you shrink a car down to scale, it looks 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:07.800 a little weird. Yeah, you might as well go ahead 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.480 and bring that up. Okay, it looks weird. You can't 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.280 just shrink it and have it's in the same proportion 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.159 and have it look normal, right Like, it will be 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:21.000 as far as like shrinking a car down by scale, 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.080 it will be in the exact same proportion. But it's 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.920 just awful a little bit. Like So what they do 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.960 to make hot wheels race able is they expand the 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.160 wheel well a little more. Yea, they break it out 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:36.560 a little bit, which is why the wheel stick out 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:38.960 some on a on a hot wheels, but not on 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.400 a matchbox. That's right, because match boxes are all about realism. 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.320 To heck with how it looks, as long as it's real. Uh. 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.359 The um one of the my favorite ones, and I 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:49.760 had one of these that they mentioned this article was 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.399 the red baron. The person who wrote this that it 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:58.760 was an inexplicable and inexplicably cool helmet over the cockpit. UM. 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:00.639 I don't know, but a explic couple. It was just 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:03.840 the roof of the car was a helmet. Um. But 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:05.880 I looked it up again today and I was like, oh, yeah, 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:10.600 I had that thing, but it was it wasn't a 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.720 Nazi helmet per se, but it was that shape of 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.320 the helmet. Uh, Like the U. S. Soldiers had that 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:19.840 shape now, you know where it's cut lower around the 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.800 ears instead of just a straight you know, like the 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.159 World War two helmet. But the Nazis used those first, 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.320 you know, because it's a better design for war. And 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.920 it also had a black iron cross on the side 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.399 of it, well hence the red baron, right, Yeah, but 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.240 it was It's easy now as an adulta look and 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.560 say that looks like a little Nazi hot rod. Yeah, 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:41.600 but the red baron was World War One. He was 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.800 pre Nazi Germany. Yeah. And it was also I think 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.320 at the time just like look like the biker gang 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.280 would wear like those helmet with the iron cross. Yeah. 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:54.160 And all of it was Southern California hot rod culture. Yeah, 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:56.760 what gave rise to hot wheels. So it makes sense. Yeah, 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:03.160 I don't I don't think there was any like sartitious intent. Yeah. Um, so, 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:05.359 like I said right out, of the gate. Hot Wheels 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:07.560 was a hit. They had a cartoon within a year 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:12.159 or so of the first sixteen being released. Um, the 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.280 second release they had I think twenty two new cars 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:20.240 thirty three total, and then um, the third year they 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:23.840 they had another. They released thirty three after that, right 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.399 oh no, yeah, I'm sorry, thirty three by nine seventy. 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:28.840 So they did sixteen, twenty four and then thirty three 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.199 and all of them came in like different colors, right, So, 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.560 like I said, if you had one, that didn't mean 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:35.440 you had them all. You wanted to collect them all. 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.520 So kids were going crazy for it. And another way 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:43.359 that Mattel very wisely targeted children was to get in 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.040 with fast food. Uh. In nineteen seventy the first hot 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:52.160 Whales came out as a toy at Jack in the Boxes. Yeah. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.080 The big one though, the one that like put them 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:59.200 over the top, was in nineteen eighty three when kids 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.760 who were lucky enough to be taken to McDonald's for 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:07.159 dinner the happy Meal and to get a wheels what 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.600 they called them at the time, uh or could get 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:14.560 one of fourteen hot wheels in three and they had 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:18.840 some cool ones. They had a Chevy citation, did they really? Yeah, 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:21.280 they had one that was one of my favorites. Actually 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.560 it was a Toyota Mini Trek, which is a like 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:28.520 a station wagon camper, and it even said painted on 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.119 the side good time camper that you could get and 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:36.520 you're happy meal, which if I could have one hot wheel, 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:38.560 it would probably be that. You know what they were 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:40.800 doing now that I look back through my adult eyes, 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:45.160 like snorting pot. No, they were giving you a bunch 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.320 of crappy ones because you wanted to keep coming back 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.040 to get the cool one. Yeah. Probably you're like, I 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:53.320 got a citation, Like, can I go back because I 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.080 want to get the hot rod. That's exactly what they 0:20:56.119 --> 0:21:00.399 were doing. Sure, man, I feel so like manipulated. What 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.280 did you think they were doing with happy meals? Well, 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:05.280 I mean, I know it's all manipulation to get you 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.960 to try and own all of them, but they should 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.160 have been all cool ones. But you can't do that 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:13.480 because the regular kid might be like, no, I got 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:15.080 I got the cool one. I'm fine. But if you 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:18.080 get this the citation, you feel jipped off and you 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:19.639 really want to go back and get one of the 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:24.560 hot rods. It's my eyes are wide open. My friends. 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.679 Well that's why our friends down Under in Australia have 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:31.000 like outlawed marketing directly to children, which I think is 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:35.840 a fantastic Really. Yeah, that's so unfair to market directly 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:40.119 to children. It's just almost literally is like taking candy 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:45.879 from a baby. Like kids aren't sophisticated enough to psychologically 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:50.400 defend themselves from being like bombarded with by adults to say, 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.200 go tell your parents to buy you this. You can't 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.879 function correctly without this trapper keeper, so go get it 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.359 the trappic keeper. Yeah, what did make a law? Yeah? 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:04.879 Really yeah, it's a big, very progressive law which I 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.439 think all countries should have adopt. Um. Well, in nineteen 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.200 eighty three, I agree wholeheartedly. By the way, in is 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.400 when that happy Meal thing happened. And also the same 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:20.040 year they moved from Hong Kong to Malaysia, um and 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:22.240 it and it said that's when they added their economy cars, 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.720 So that must have coincided with the citation. Yeah, the 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.840 citation man one of the most disappointing Happy Meal toys 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.720 you could possibly get. Yeah, because it reminded you of 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:40.760 your dad who drove a citation right, who was always mad. Oh, 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:48.880 dear so u Chuckers. Yes, after not a lot happened, 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:51.359 Hot Wills just kept going on, expanding more and more 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:54.359 and more. Um. I think they had another Happy Meals 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:58.560 joint in ninety one or something like that. Um and 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:02.080 uh five, they said we need to we need to 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:05.120 do something big and they did. They were at leased 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:10.920 something called Treasure Hunt series, which was a purposefully limited 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:15.440 release car series of cars. Um. I think they did 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:21.160 uh twelve models at ten thousand each originally and and 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:23.760 hence the name Treasure Hunt. They were hard to find. Yeah, 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:26.199 and one of the cooler ones for me, uh was 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:29.040 the Oldsmobile for forty two. Yeah. The thing is, dude 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:33.600