Speaker 1: Welcome to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM paranormal
Speaker 1: podcast network. Now get ready for us Strange Things with
Speaker 1: Joshua P. Warren.
Speaker 2: Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
Speaker 2: opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
Speaker 2: only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
Speaker 2: to Coast AM, employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
Speaker 2: and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
Speaker 2: your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 1: Yet ready to be amazed by the wizard of Weird.
Speaker 3: This is Range Warren.
Speaker 1: I am Joshua with Warren, and each week on this show,
Speaker 1: I'll be bringing you brand new mind blowing content, news, exercises,
Speaker 1: and weird experiments you can do at home, and a
Speaker 1: lot more. On this edition of the show, I visited
Speaker 1: the Zoltar Factory. Yeah, who out there envies me the
Speaker 1: Zoltar Factory. I am one of the world's biggest Zoltar fans,
Speaker 1: and Zoltar fortune telling machines are all over the world,
Speaker 1: and I feel almost certain every single one of you
Speaker 1: have seen some version of this machine. But there are
Speaker 1: people who listen to this podcast all over the world.
Speaker 1: So just in case you're not sure what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: Zoltar is the fortune telling automaton. Basically, it's a wooden
Speaker 1: cabinet with a glass top, and sitting in there is
Speaker 1: this automaton, a dummy if you will, but one that
Speaker 1: can move, wearing a gold turban and he has a goatee,
Speaker 1: and he wears usually a gold shirt with a vest.
Speaker 1: And you put some money in this machine and he
Speaker 1: starts moving around and he will talk to you, and
Speaker 1: then in most cases he will spit out a little
Speaker 1: yellow ticket that has your fortune as well as some
Speaker 1: lucky numbers. And by the way, in researching this, I
Speaker 1: wasn't quite sure there actually is a difference between an
Speaker 1: automaton and an animatronic. An automaton is basically programmed, if
Speaker 1: I understand this correctly, just sort of move the same
Speaker 1: way every time, whereas an animatronic has more options where
Speaker 1: you can go in and make it, switch it up
Speaker 1: and make it a little more unpredictable. So that's the difference. Also,
Speaker 1: I mentioned he has a go tea. Do you know
Speaker 1: that a go tea is be called the go tea?
Speaker 1: Because it looks like you have hair on your chin
Speaker 1: like a goat. So Zoltar machines are you know, there
Speaker 1: are thousands of them all over the world. And of
Speaker 1: course I am such a fan of these Zoltar machines
Speaker 1: that I mean, I can't tell you how many Zultar
Speaker 1: products that I have in my house and my studio,
Speaker 1: in my office. I mean, I have all kinds of
Speaker 1: little miniature Zoltar toys. As a matter of fact, earlier
Speaker 1: this year, I did a giveaway where I bought one
Speaker 1: of the more advanced Zoltar that works with the tickets.
Speaker 1: I bought one for myself, and then I bought one
Speaker 1: and did a giveaway and sent it to one of
Speaker 1: my listeners for free. As a prize, I've got, you know,
Speaker 1: a life size cutout of Zoltar. I've got bottles that
Speaker 1: have like soda bottles that have had Zoltar labels. I
Speaker 1: can't even remember all the Zoltar merch that I've got.
Speaker 1: And in fact, if you go to the casinos here
Speaker 1: in Vegas, you'll even find Zoltar slot machines. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's just here in Vegas or if it's
Speaker 1: in other places. As well. Zoltar is all over the place.
Speaker 1: And here here's what really surprised me. Of course, I
Speaker 1: moved here to Las Vegas about seven years ago, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't until after I moved here that I ended
Speaker 1: up finally going one day to this quaint little town
Speaker 1: about thirty minutes outside of Vegas called Boulder City, Nevada.
Speaker 1: Instantly I fell in love with the place. And that's
Speaker 1: because that well, right off the bat, when you start
Speaker 1: sort of pulling into town, there is a place called
Speaker 1: Tom Devlin's Monster Museum. And Tom Devlin is this movie
Speaker 1: special effects artist who has created all of these elaborate
Speaker 1: statues of movie monsters, and you get to walk through
Speaker 1: and see all of his artwork and exhibits. And then
Speaker 1: also when I got into the historic downtown area, they
Speaker 1: had a whole shop devoted to nothing but UFOs and
Speaker 1: the whole flying saucer phenomenon. I found out that the
Speaker 1: famous space pins that NASA developed for astronauts to use
Speaker 1: an outer space back in I guess the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: the Fisher space pins, they are made in this little
Speaker 1: town a Boulder City. I actually went to very factory
Speaker 1: one time, and I was able to buy one of
Speaker 1: their latest space pins. What blew my mind most of
Speaker 1: all about going to little old Boulder City was that
Speaker 1: there is a workshop there called Characters Unlimited, and that
Speaker 1: is where every single Zoltar machine and similar machines, every
Speaker 1: single Zoltar machine in the world is made right there
Speaker 1: in that shop by hand. It's basically a family owned business.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what, couldn't believe it? And I
Speaker 1: thought I'd give anything to go in there and have
Speaker 1: a look around. Well, of course, eventually I created a
Speaker 1: walking tour in Boulder City called the Haunted Boulder City
Speaker 1: Ghost and UFO Tour. Everybody loves it. We have rave reviews.
Speaker 1: If you're ever in the Vegas area, you have to
Speaker 1: go to Boulder City. Go to a Haunted Bouldercity dot
Speaker 1: com and take the tour. Well, one of my tour
Speaker 1: guides is a beloved man in town named Alan Goya.
Speaker 1: Alan knows everybody. He's lived in Boulder City for decades,
Speaker 1: and at one point Alan decided to spice up his
Speaker 1: presentation sometimes when he was guiding a tour, so he
Speaker 1: went over to the Zoltar factory Characters Unlimited, and he
Speaker 1: talked to the owner there. The owner is a man
Speaker 1: named Oloff Stanton, and Oloff gave Alan permission to dress
Speaker 1: up as Zoltar when Alan was hosting the tour and
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, play up the whole Zoltar motif.
Speaker 1: What a really nice, cool thing for him to do.
Speaker 1: So basically, Alan, you know, I don't know if he
Speaker 1: how long he's been friends with Oloff, the president and
Speaker 1: founder of Characters Unlimited, but I kept telling Alan, you
Speaker 1: got to introduce me to this guy. You know, one
Speaker 1: day I got to go over there. And you know
Speaker 1: how it is, I just kept getting behind on projects
Speaker 1: and I never was able to do it. And finally
Speaker 1: the other day I needed to go to Boulder City
Speaker 1: to get some work done, and I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: here it is it's Christmas time. What a fun like
Speaker 1: idea to go to some kind of a workshop. And
Speaker 1: so I contacted Alan, and Alan blessed to be you.
Speaker 1: Alan Allen arranged for me and Lauren to go over
Speaker 1: and meet Alla Oloff and take a tour of the
Speaker 1: Character's Unlimited workshop where they produce again not just Zoltar,
Speaker 1: but similar things like you may have seen. There is
Speaker 1: the Old Pappy. Pappy, the old hillbilly. In some places,
Speaker 1: there's also a man in an outhouse, farmer, and a chicken.
Speaker 1: They also have things that don't even have the automaton.
Speaker 1: They're like the love tester. They've just knocked this out
Speaker 1: of the ballpark. And one of the things that I
Speaker 1: learned early on was that, Okay, a lot of people
Speaker 1: first heard of Zoltar by watching the nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 1: movie called Big starring Tom Hanks. And in that movie,
Speaker 1: the main character, who is a little boy at that
Speaker 1: time named Josh, he wants to be big. He doesn't
Speaker 1: like being a kid, and so he ends up going
Speaker 1: to some kind of affair or carnival, and at one
Speaker 1: point he looks off to the side and he sees
Speaker 1: one of these mysterious fortune tellers there, and he walks
Speaker 1: up to it and it says Zoltar speaks, and it
Speaker 1: looks very similar to the Zoltar that you've seen, not
Speaker 1: quite exactly the same, but anyway, he puts he drops
Speaker 1: a quarter in the machine, and then the machine says,
Speaker 1: you know, what is your wish and he says, I
Speaker 1: want to be I wish I were big, And then
Speaker 1: a card comes out that says your wish is granted,
Speaker 1: and then after that the kid the machine wasn't even
Speaker 1: plugged in, and then the movie kicks off when he
Speaker 1: wakes up the next morning and now this kid overnight
Speaker 1: has transformed into a grown man played by Tom Hanks.
Speaker 1: And so I always kind of figured that there was
Speaker 1: a company out there that made that made Zoltar machines,
Speaker 1: and that when the when the movie Big came out,
Speaker 1: they had provided a machine and this is like the
Speaker 1: best publicity in the world, and it must have been
Speaker 1: like a huge boon for their business. And then Zoltar
Speaker 1: took off. It didn't happen that way. Turns out there
Speaker 1: have been similar kind of fortune telling machines and automatons
Speaker 1: kind of like this, going all the way back to
Speaker 1: at least the early nineteen hundreds, different kinds of characters.
Speaker 1: There was one, I think maybe the nineteen sixties called Zoltan,
Speaker 1: And what happened was when they decided to make the
Speaker 1: movie Big, that machine was just a unique one off
Speaker 1: prop made for that movie. And I'm assuming that they
Speaker 1: came up with the name Zoltar because they were basing
Speaker 1: it off of the word zol ten. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, in a minute You're gonna hear me interview
Speaker 1: Oloff as I walk around the workshop, and I think
Speaker 1: he will clarify that. So some of the stuff that
Speaker 1: I'm telling you may be a little bit redundant. But basically,
Speaker 1: the movie Big had been around for quite a while,
Speaker 1: and Characters Unlimited had been making these types of attractions
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty seven, and they got gradually more and
Speaker 1: more into these automaton type figures, and then they finally
Speaker 1: got the rights to Zoltar in two thousand and six
Speaker 1: and they started making them. And that is where the
Speaker 1: Zoltar you know and love comes from. Today, when we
Speaker 1: come back, I'll tell you a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the history of this. And then I actually brought a
Speaker 1: recorder with me. You're going to hear me excited as
Speaker 1: a kid on Christmas morning walking through the Zoltar factory
Speaker 1: and given a personal VIP tour by the owner. Huh,
Speaker 1: what a day.
Speaker 4: You know what.
Speaker 1: I love small workshops and things that are family owned businesses.
Speaker 1: I have my own workshop where I make some of
Speaker 1: my own unique goodies from time to time, and if
Speaker 1: you want to know when they're available, go to Joshua P.
Speaker 4: Warren dot com.
Speaker 1: You'll find some of them right now in the Curiosity Shop,
Speaker 1: but also be sure to sign up for my free
Speaker 1: and spam free e newsletter right there on the homepage.
Speaker 1: Put your email address in there. Hit subnip. Takes you
Speaker 1: two seconds. Trust me, you'll be glad that you did.
Speaker 1: I am Joshua pe Warren, and you are listening to
Speaker 1: Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Speaker 1: Paranormal Podcast Network. And I will be right back. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Speaker 1: Coast a M Paranormal Podcast Network. I am your host,
Speaker 1: the Wizard of Weird, Joshua P. Warren, beaming into your
Speaker 1: worm whole brain from my studio in Sin City, Las Vegas, Nevada,
Speaker 1: where every day is golden and every night is silver.
Speaker 1: Giatato zoom mate. And if you go to their website,
Speaker 1: Characters Unlimited dot com, it says, since nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: Characters Unlimited, Incorporated has specialized in making your place and
Speaker 1: attraction by designing and building affordable, life sized, mechanically animated
Speaker 1: and talking characters. We have hundreds of characters available for
Speaker 1: you to choose from, including animatronic people, birds, animals, dinosaurs,
Speaker 1: fortune telling machines, sign waivers, and much more. We own
Speaker 1: the trademark for Zoltar Speaks and are the only manufacturer
Speaker 1: of the fortune teller Zoltar Speaks since two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: Our story says Oloff Stanton, the president and founder of
Speaker 1: Characters Unlimited, Incorporated, grew up and worked during his adolescent
Speaker 1: life in the booming tourist town of Wisconsin Dell's, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: He learned how to build non animated dummies or characters
Speaker 1: from his stepfather back in the nineteen seventies. Surrounded by
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs his entire life, Oloff knew that he wanted to
Speaker 1: start a venture of his own, so after graduating college,
Speaker 1: he packed up and headed west to a small town
Speaker 1: outside of Las Vegas called Boulder City, Nevada, where he
Speaker 1: founded Characters Unlimited, Incorporated. And like I was saying, this
Speaker 1: is basically like a you know, family business now and everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, they mold all their parts right there and
Speaker 1: paint them. There's a guy at the town right down
Speaker 1: the road, Henderson, who builds the wooden cabinets. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like they're sitting around waiting for some factory
Speaker 1: and China to build this and ship it to them.
Speaker 1: I mean they're making it right there, homegrown. I love that,
Speaker 1: and I mean talk about quality. You can get one
Speaker 1: of these Zultars starting at seven three hundred dollars, and
Speaker 1: then from there they can go up in complexity, going
Speaker 1: up to you know, ten to twelve, depending on various
Speaker 1: things you want. Even Zach Began zach Began's at his
Speaker 1: haunted mansion here in Vegas commissioned the custom version of
Speaker 1: zach Began Zoltar. So if you go into his Haunted mansion,
Speaker 1: one of the first things you'll see is a Zoltar
Speaker 1: type machine with Zach Began's inside wearing a top hat. Yes,
Speaker 1: also looking over some of their literature, just to clarify
Speaker 1: it says our characters are electro mechanically animated and have
Speaker 1: a plug and play design. No pricey air compressors or
Speaker 1: computers needed. By the way, that prop that was used
Speaker 1: for the movie Big that inspired Oloff to start making
Speaker 1: these has well, it seemed to sort of vanish for
Speaker 1: a while and nobody was sure where it was. And
Speaker 1: I started looking into it, and I'm not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent sure, but here's what I think. The movie Big
Speaker 1: was directed by Penny Marshall and her Let's see, I
Speaker 1: guess I think Gary Marshall was her sibling. And there
Speaker 1: is a theater in Burbank, California called the Gary Marshall Theater,
Speaker 1: and the last I heard that original prop was on
Speaker 1: display in the Gary Marshall Theater in Burbank. I have
Speaker 1: not been able to confirm that. I tried getting in
Speaker 1: touch with him and have her back, but that's where
Speaker 1: that prop might be. How cool would it be to
Speaker 1: get a hold of that and put it somewhere in
Speaker 1: the Zoltar factory in Boulder City. One last thing I
Speaker 1: want to tell you before I start playing this audio
Speaker 1: is interestingly, right before we were going to go visit
Speaker 1: the workshop, I found out that there had recently been
Speaker 1: a fire in the workshop, and I believe it was
Speaker 1: an electrical fire that started. And so because of that,
Speaker 1: they are temporarily working out of a different building that's
Speaker 1: down the street. So and that will come into play
Speaker 1: also a little bit later in the podcast, I'll explain.
Speaker 1: So I wasn't actually able to go into the main
Speaker 1: workshop where they usually work, but I was able to
Speaker 1: go to their temporary workshop and they should be back
Speaker 1: into the main one maybe in a little over a
Speaker 1: month or so. But anyway, having said that, here we go.
Speaker 1: This is me walking through and talking with ole off
Speaker 1: Stanton as he's showing me all of these just fascinating
Speaker 1: and wondrous things that characters unlimited.
Speaker 3: And then the fortunate towers. I mean, I started in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty six where we drove around in a van
Speaker 3: selling still figures out of the van. Well, my wife
Speaker 3: and I we'd make them in the backyard the garage.
Speaker 3: We'd get a load of twenty static figures together, and
Speaker 3: we hit we hit the road with a Dodge MAXI
Speaker 3: van and be gone for two weeks. Meet me and
Speaker 3: her two cats and twenty two dummies, you know, And
Speaker 3: we didn't come back until we sold them.
Speaker 1: So now I read that your your father was a
Speaker 1: sculptor of some kind, right, and you learned from him.
Speaker 3: My stepfather was a was an artist and okay and
Speaker 3: uh in the and so he dabbled in Indian jewelry
Speaker 3: and Indian artifacts and things like that, and he would
Speaker 3: make replica tomahawks and spears, and and he developed this
Speaker 3: this a sitting Indian character that people like to put
Speaker 3: out front of their trading posts and antique shops and
Speaker 3: gift shops, and and they got two of them sitting
Speaker 3: in front of the Western and Western Mexican Center here
Speaker 3: at Boulder City. Those are the original static Indians characters
Speaker 3: that we used to sell. And then I got into
Speaker 3: making you know, cowboys and sea captains and pirates and
Speaker 3: things like that. And my mom married my stepfather when
Speaker 3: I was fifteen years old, and I started helping him
Speaker 3: make make these, and through school and a little bit
Speaker 3: in college and then college I started making some characters
Speaker 3: and selling them for extra money. And I would do
Speaker 3: trade and stuff like that, and then get finished in
Speaker 3: college in nineteen eighty six, the business and marketing degree.
Speaker 3: I could have took a job like everybody else was doing,
Speaker 3: but I wanted to try something on my own, and
Speaker 3: so we uh, I came out here. My brother happened
Speaker 3: to be out here at the time. He had learned
Speaker 3: to do this as well, and we started the business together,
Speaker 3: and we were in business for ten years, and I
Speaker 3: bought him out, and then we started getting in tomorrow
Speaker 3: of the animated talking and moving and then putting him
Speaker 3: in a box and charging money to hear him talk
Speaker 3: and and then eventually we were making cowboys and pirates
Speaker 3: and sea captains and old miners, and then we developed
Speaker 3: what called Artiswami, and I didn't want to call him
Speaker 3: Ultar because Zultar was in the movie and I didn't
Speaker 3: want to get in trouble. Well, anyway, in two thousand
Speaker 3: and six, I finally looked into the trademark status of
Speaker 3: Altar and we'll behold, nobody ever Trademark'sultar. So we so
Speaker 3: we got the trademark for Zultar too thousand and six, gosh.
Speaker 3: And then then we started developing our own version of Zultar,
Speaker 3: which she most people are familiar with today. You know,
Speaker 3: this is one to say.
Speaker 4: So with the Zultar in the movie then was just
Speaker 4: a one off prop for that movie, isn't it right?
Speaker 3: Does anybody to know what happened to that? That was
Speaker 3: the movie? Big? Yeah, It was a prop that was
Speaker 3: in the movie, and it was really not designed to
Speaker 3: be an arcade game. You remember, he fed the quarter.
Speaker 3: He was like cranking feed the quarter into the mouth
Speaker 3: and the mouth had to open at the right time
Speaker 3: to drop in right and then and then he simply
Speaker 3: he had a breathing sound, and his chest went up
Speaker 3: and down, and he his eyes lit up and gave
Speaker 3: the car. Well, that wasn't it wasn't talking the movie
Speaker 3: like cars. He he didn't even have arms in the movie,
Speaker 3: you know. So we made a move his arm, move
Speaker 3: his head, move his eyes and talk and and give
Speaker 3: him a voice, you know, his ultar wish we have today.
Speaker 3: I wonder who came up with the names Altar any
Speaker 3: idea there Ultar was a cartoon back in the forties,
Speaker 3: and before it was a fortune power. And then there
Speaker 3: was a Zoltan machine. There was on a pedestal and
Speaker 3: the head was on a pedestal and you put it
Speaker 3: in a quarter and you held the telephone receiver to
Speaker 3: your ear and you could hear your fortune by by
Speaker 3: way of this talking head. And I don't think they
Speaker 3: had to actually talk, but that that was called zold Tan.
Speaker 3: And then this movie came out, and I don't know
Speaker 3: if they changed it from Zoltan to Zultar because they
Speaker 3: didn't want to the old people who made the game.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure what they call it the old Tar,
Speaker 3: but uh, yeah, it does have the name does have roots,
Speaker 3: and I think uh Greek origin.
Speaker 4: So did you have to learn robotics yourself to start
Speaker 4: making these or did that?
Speaker 3: Well, we just we started dabbling in and when people
Speaker 3: would buy a character that from me, you would have
Speaker 3: plaster had plaster hands, ploppy jointed arms and legs which
Speaker 3: can sit up straight and beat this is in the
Speaker 3: front of the store. And they would say, well, it
Speaker 3: would be really cool if that could move its arm,
Speaker 3: or it could move its head, have some movement. So
Speaker 3: we started dabbling with made a torsol that would accommodate movements,
Speaker 3: and I found local guys that were that were handy
Speaker 3: with uh welding and stuff and motors, and they developed
Speaker 3: a mechanism that would turn the hat or make the
Speaker 3: arm move. So we started making the move for us
Speaker 3: while and then and then we were Then somebody saw
Speaker 3: me at one of the gift shows that we were
Speaker 3: doing and said, hey, I can make this same move
Speaker 3: as mouth. And I said, well that that that'd be cool.
Speaker 3: You know, you make me a head that's hollow and
Speaker 3: I could take it with it out I can make.
Speaker 3: I show you what I can do. And and he
Speaker 3: came back with this I had had and he put
Speaker 3: a draw back in it and every time a sound
Speaker 3: came out, you have the jaw move. And it was
Speaker 3: basically what's called the colored organ circuit and the disco days,
Speaker 3: you'd have a sound and then the sound would make
Speaker 3: the light go on. Well instead of the lights go on,
Speaker 3: the sound. Every time he had a sound, it would
Speaker 3: make the jaw pop open, right and uh so that
Speaker 3: the time we got the sound actively had a job.
Speaker 3: So once we have that, we could make it, make it, uh,
Speaker 3: make it talk with a microphone or any any recording.
Speaker 3: Back then we were using endless loop cassette tapes and
Speaker 3: then we started, you know using uh uh you could
Speaker 3: use any any audio for us. Then we started with
Speaker 3: flash cards and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: You know, all right, time for a break. And of
Speaker 1: course you can hear his workers in the background working away,
Speaker 1: just like busy little lelves and Sands's workshop making those
Speaker 1: zultars and similar figures. And of course you're listening to
Speaker 1: me and my wife Lauren and my buddy Alan Goya.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should call him Alan Zoltar Goya. Getting a
Speaker 1: personal tour from ohl Off, the owner, founder and owner
Speaker 1: of the Zoltar Factory. Characters unlimited, More to come. I'm
Speaker 1: Joshua pe Warren. You're listening to Strange Things on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and
Speaker 1: I'll be back after these important messages. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Speaker 1: Paranormal Podcast Network. I'm your host, Joshua Pee Warren, and
Speaker 1: this is the show where the unusual becomes usual. Now
Speaker 1: back to the audio from my personal tour with Oloff
Speaker 1: of the Siltar Factory in Boulder City, Nevada. Character is
Speaker 1: unlimited me you handmaking each.
Speaker 4: One of these here in your factory.
Speaker 3: Well, we have our cabinet makers in Henderson and Okay.
Speaker 3: He works out of his two carbohage and that's all
Speaker 3: he does is pop up portugalo machine spars. Why did
Speaker 3: you choose Boulder City When I graduated from college, I
Speaker 3: came from what little town in Wisconsin called Wisconsin Dell's.
Speaker 3: It's a world tourist town and had boat rides and
Speaker 3: water parks and tractions like that, and and my family
Speaker 3: was involved in the business and it was a seasonal,
Speaker 3: seasonal deal. I was making good money with my summer job.
Speaker 3: And then when I graduated, I had to go somewhere.
Speaker 3: But the people that worked in Wisconsin Dell's that drove
Speaker 3: the boat, they had to have coastcard licenses to do it. Well.
Speaker 3: Some of the guys that we knew from Wisconsin Dell's
Speaker 3: heard that they needed boat drivers on Lake Meat and
Speaker 3: to buy drive a boat on Lake Meat for the
Speaker 3: tours down that you needed a coastcard license. So after
Speaker 3: labor Day they would come out here and drive boat
Speaker 3: to Lake be So they happened to be out here.
Speaker 3: And my brother was just traveling around selling characters, and
Speaker 3: he stopped and stayed with his buddies for a whole
Speaker 3: and me and he just was here for a couple
Speaker 3: of years. When I got here, he had never left. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: they were leaving and he stayed. And when I graduated college,
Speaker 3: he happened to be here. So I came out with
Speaker 3: the car and trailer and whatever I had to add
Speaker 3: to the business, and we started it together. And my
Speaker 3: wife at the time, Kanta say at the time, came
Speaker 3: out after she graduated semester later. And honestly, we don't
Speaker 3: know how we stayed. We didn't have nothing for working
Speaker 3: out of the backyard. We used to We used to
Speaker 3: pad the bodies with Bible class instillation. We're back there
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty degrees in the dirt, in the
Speaker 3: garage with no air condition or anything, spray and lacquers
Speaker 3: all over the place, you know, and neighbors were really tolerant.
Speaker 3: And he'd sort of tried to get together a load
Speaker 3: of characters to hit through over to make, you know,
Speaker 3: seventy eight thousand bucks and then come back and do
Speaker 3: it again.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: But and we first came out being from Wisconsin, what
Speaker 3: do we we aren't staying in this desert. We're not
Speaker 3: staying in the desert. Sucks. It's hot, it's there, no trees,
Speaker 3: you know, it's terrible here. Well, after a few years
Speaker 3: it ended up being a great location to be to
Speaker 3: go to the ocean and go to the mountains, go
Speaker 3: go any anywhere you want, and a major tourist start
Speaker 3: and sell our stuff. And then we started doing convention
Speaker 3: as well. Any kind of convention you'd want to try
Speaker 3: would be in Vegas, so it's right over the hill.
Speaker 3: And traveling in Boulder City was away from the rat race.
Speaker 3: And when we start having kids, it was a nice
Speaker 3: place to raise kids. So we stayed and I told myself,
Speaker 3: I can make an money to get out of there
Speaker 3: when I want to, I can.
Speaker 4: So I guess you just hired a voice after at
Speaker 4: some point to do the voice of sults are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the guys said, we do our voices. A lot
Speaker 3: of them. Started off. We got an order for ten
Speaker 3: different nautical themed characters for a boat sales place in Michigan,
Speaker 3: big indoor boat sales place. And this guy had an idea,
Speaker 3: I'm going to put a different character on the back
Speaker 3: of each boat in my showroom and be a pirate
Speaker 3: and a sea captain, an oldssault and the fresh washer
Speaker 3: water fishermen, and I want these guys talking to people
Speaker 3: as they're walking through the show room talking about the boats. Well,
Speaker 3: he was using this voice talent company out of Tennessee
Speaker 3: called Premiere Companies, and he had them do the voices
Speaker 3: for the characters. But prior to that, we would just
Speaker 3: kind of do the best we could. Well, they're a
Speaker 3: professional voice talent and they were an answering machine on
Speaker 3: whole message on machine company. So he hired him to
Speaker 3: do voices for the characters. We heard the voices like, well,
Speaker 3: this is great, you know coming to get our numbers,
Speaker 3: so we started using them and we have one guy
Speaker 3: in his company named Josh Harrison. He's the one who
Speaker 3: did the first Soultar voice and we've stuck with him
Speaker 3: two since two thousand and six. Whenever somebody wants to
Speaker 3: do a Zoltar voice like the slot machine. Every gaming
Speaker 3: in Vegas has seven hundred and fifty slot machines around
Speaker 3: the coffee right now, and whenever they need to do
Speaker 3: new audio, we insist that they use his voice.
Speaker 4: Becaus think that he goes to the bar and says,
Speaker 4: guess who I am. I'm those voice of Zoltar, and
Speaker 4: everybody's like, yeah, have another.
Speaker 3: Shots behind the scenes, Yeah, is this one ready to go? Here?
Speaker 4: Yeah, let me turn the volume up.
Speaker 3: That's true. Before I tell you it is true. The
Speaker 3: smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention. Take
Speaker 3: it from me, the great Zultar. Intending shall get you nowhere,
Speaker 3: but doing yes that will bring you much much reward.
Speaker 3: Provide Zultar as your and I will provide you with
Speaker 3: the depth of wisdom. Your fortune is mind for the
Speaker 3: tally and yours for the healing. So that was the
Speaker 3: attract message that went off. This is a motion sensor
Speaker 3: down here and that goes off like every three minutes,
Speaker 3: and then we put your money and that drops out and.
Speaker 1: I know what I'm going at the roulette wheel today, Yeah,
Speaker 1: roulette or lottery.
Speaker 3: The different we saw. We watched them videos with the
Speaker 3: guy who said.
Speaker 4: That you set number.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we put yeah, we put on Donald Kingman
Speaker 3: and on the way to cam In in the in
Speaker 3: the in the place we sell, we put get your
Speaker 3: lucky numbers from Zoltar. Yeah, and we have stories with
Speaker 3: people that have won tens of thousands of dollars. If
Speaker 3: you go to wikiup on the way ninety three on
Speaker 3: the way to Phoenix, yeah, if you if you put
Speaker 3: the thing that's the main form of entertainment, that truck,
Speaker 3: that restaurant over there, because when people play those, I
Speaker 3: played the Zoltar over there. Like the kitchen staff came
Speaker 3: out to look at what Zoltar had to say.
Speaker 5: It's like this kind of board, a couple of molds
Speaker 5: that we just got done running today that these are
Speaker 5: these are plaster plaster pairis two part moles and those
Speaker 5: are filled up with this.
Speaker 3: This stuff called liquid latex and that that's filled solid
Speaker 3: with that it sits there for two hours, and the
Speaker 3: log you keep it in, the more thickness it builds up.
Speaker 3: So and then when it's done, when it's finally the
Speaker 3: next day, it's fry enough to take.
Speaker 4: And so who sculpts the face?
Speaker 3: I've used many different artists.
Speaker 4: Yeah, cool.
Speaker 3: Now what do you do if, like say, one of
Speaker 3: your machines in Michigan malfunctions or something that needs work?
Speaker 3: You have people get on the phone and and then
Speaker 3: we figured it out the phone.
Speaker 4: They need to us directly, I mean, do you travel
Speaker 4: there in service?
Speaker 3: No, it's not necessary. It's not necessary. I mean if
Speaker 3: they want to pay for us to fly in and usually,
Speaker 3: just like Dispenser, we would glad to do that, but
Speaker 3: it's not. Everything can be serviced over the phone by
Speaker 3: somebody who's basibly mechanically inclined, and we could fastime them.
Speaker 3: You'll give up till we fix.
Speaker 4: Them, you know. And so where do the tickets come from?
Speaker 4: Who writes those? And how are those produced?
Speaker 3: A lot of them we've collected over the years from
Speaker 3: various antique machines and tarot cards that we have found,
Speaker 3: but lately we added probably sixty new fortunes like we
Speaker 3: have about a connect ones right now, and and we
Speaker 3: just keep creating. We have a call artist named Brod
Speaker 3: Beasley who who makes vintage looking artwork that goes along
Speaker 3: with each one. But it all started with this vintage
Speaker 3: looking at artwork we like to.
Speaker 4: Stick with, you know, yeah, I think yeah.
Speaker 3: And he is really good at at duplicating that, so
Speaker 3: whenever we come up with a new fortune, he captures.
Speaker 4: It in a so in the face is just latex?
Speaker 4: Is that? Is this a finished face?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, it's late not that not the latex you
Speaker 3: would normally think of this as flexible. It's this is
Speaker 3: called rigid latex. It's got more solids in it, so
Speaker 3: it dries hard.
Speaker 4: Okay to touch that, that's so huh Okay, I'll see
Speaker 4: what you mean. So it has that you can tell.
Speaker 4: It feels a little rubbery, but it's also very stiff
Speaker 4: and durable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1: How many zultars do you think you've made, or how
Speaker 1: many of these types of machines in general?
Speaker 3: How many have we sold? Yeah, over the years, I
Speaker 3: would say a couple of thousands old tars, uh huh, yeah,
Speaker 3: and fifteen and fifty old miners, pirates, captains, medicine. Then
Speaker 3: we get more and more people that want themselves made
Speaker 3: or celebrity made. We did Dan Campbell the Culture of
Speaker 3: the Lions for the NFL Draft. We did Andre three
Speaker 3: thousand for a Super Bowl commercial last year. And yeah,
Speaker 3: speaking yeah, I mean people want there's a there's a
Speaker 3: robot forty collar in there.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I love playing the Zultar slot machine.
Speaker 1: Now what is the process like when somebody contacts you
Speaker 1: and says I want to turn your product into a
Speaker 1: slot machine.
Speaker 3: Well, that's a good question. I was I had to
Speaker 3: trademark since two thousand and six, as you know, when
Speaker 3: I was selling Zultars and I was doing trade shows,
Speaker 3: and we were starting to think, you know, with Zultar's
Speaker 3: household name, we should have products. We should do, you know,
Speaker 3: coffee gups, we should do T shirts, we should do hats,
Speaker 3: and and I happened to be playing in New Orleans
Speaker 3: for the for the Halloween and Costume Show. And the
Speaker 3: Halloween Costume show used to be in Rosemont every year
Speaker 3: in Illinois, and then they split up the costumes from
Speaker 3: the Halloween Haunts stuff, so I had to go to
Speaker 3: New Orleans to do it. And and because they split
Speaker 3: it up. It was really dead that year, and it
Speaker 3: wasn't very many people and I wasn't ha at really
Speaker 3: good show. But this lady comes up to the booth
Speaker 3: and she starts looking at at my off and it's like, Zultar.
Speaker 3: Do you how can you call that? Zultar? Wasn't that
Speaker 3: in the movement? I said, well, yeah, but I got
Speaker 3: the trademark And he said, She said, we ever thought
Speaker 3: of doing products and stuff like that? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: We're to do some t shirts and hats and things.
Speaker 3: He says, no, I'm just I'm talking about taking a
Speaker 3: nationwide and doing you know, the stuff that would be
Speaker 3: sold in Walmart all over the place. And I said, well,
Speaker 3: we got to be open for that. He said, well,
Speaker 3: let me talk for my partner. I'll get back to you.
Speaker 3: So she she got back to me a week later
Speaker 3: and says, we'd love to take you on a contingency.
Speaker 3: And we're we're licensing agents, and we're brand managers, Firefly
Speaker 3: Brand Management and uh and and they had the connections
Speaker 3: in place to go to people that that make toys
Speaker 3: and say, hey, would you like to do an the
Speaker 3: Ultar toy or would you like to do a Zultar
Speaker 3: coffee or his Ultar soda or his Ultar slot machine,
Speaker 3: you know, and they get a deal with them and
Speaker 3: they get a little They get a little bit and
Speaker 3: need a little bit. So the wine is, the wine
Speaker 3: is coming out. The love of them. The uh, the
Speaker 3: slot machines was was a good thing. The uh the
Speaker 3: running press, uh, little mini Zoltar that's been, that's been
Speaker 3: a real hit.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: A lot of our friends have that little key chains
Speaker 3: playing cards.
Speaker 1: All right. Time for a break when we come back.
Speaker 1: Is the Zoltar factory haunted? And also I got my
Speaker 1: own Zoltar fortune directly from Oloff's hand. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what it says when we come back. I'm Joshua P.
Speaker 4: Warren.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast
Speaker 1: to Coast DAM Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be
Speaker 1: right back. Welcome back to the final segment of this
Speaker 1: edition of Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Speaker 1: Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. I am your host, Joshua P. A. Warren.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned, Zoltar has been licensed all over
Speaker 1: the place all kinds of different interesting merchandise. I have
Speaker 1: most of it. And you may have heard Oloff even
Speaker 1: say there is a Zultar wine coming out soon. He
Speaker 1: actually showed me that this wine is going to have
Speaker 1: a really special feature, but I'm not sure if he's
Speaker 1: ready to reveal that yet or if it's still a surprise.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to say what that feature is.
Speaker 1: But so I was asking him, well, you know, what
Speaker 1: is it like? What is the process like to have
Speaker 1: this this famous trademark that you're you're licensing all over
Speaker 1: the place, so all you do is sign.
Speaker 4: A piece of paper and then click checks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good. Running around and over thirty
Speaker 3: stressing out as used to make a lot of money
Speaker 3: while you sleep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, So do you consider yourself an artist or
Speaker 4: and or business man?
Speaker 3: Was a little bit of both. I still make all
Speaker 3: the molds, you know, and I haven't a knack for that,
Speaker 3: and I always I've always hired hired painters. I have
Speaker 3: a hard time with the painting of kind of cuddled
Speaker 3: line with different colors, mixing and stuff. So I just
Speaker 3: find people to do what I need to get done,
Speaker 3: you know. And now we got uh, my my daughter
Speaker 3: Krena and my son Gunnar are working with us and
Speaker 3: and they're helping take this to the next level, especially
Speaker 3: with the ols old Tar brand popping and doing things.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, it's excited. Why did your parents thend
Speaker 3: you o Off? We came from Central Wisconsin, really heavy
Speaker 3: Scandinavian heritage back there. My mother's maiden name was Eric Simon.
Speaker 3: My dad's mother's made name was Gregorson Stanton. But my
Speaker 3: dad dad loved the Norwegian heritage. I was named Oloff,
Speaker 3: had a brother named Bjorn, Eric and Grieg and tour
Speaker 3: Norwegian names, so that's why I named Gunner. Everybody calls
Speaker 3: him GONNERD, but it really would be Gunar to you.
Speaker 3: G and Nar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, that's going to do it for now. I'll
Speaker 1: explain what I mean in a second. But first off,
Speaker 1: once again, I just really want to thank Alan Goya
Speaker 1: for arranging this special tour for us, because the Characters
Speaker 1: Unlimited is not ordinarily open for people to come in
Speaker 1: and take a tour that has to be specially arranged.
Speaker 1: And Olof, well, I want to thank you and your staff.
Speaker 1: Everybody was so warm and welcoming, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: amazing to see a homegrown business like this with such creativity,
Speaker 1: with such care, with such love, and it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: I admire that they're able to take such an unusual
Speaker 1: product and make it to such a success. But now,
Speaker 1: of course this show is called Strange Things. You know,
Speaker 1: I investigate a lot of paranormal phenomena, so I did
Speaker 1: inquire as to whether or not there are any ghostly
Speaker 1: stories connected to the business, because of course, well we
Speaker 1: all know, we hear about halted dolls, haunted statues, the
Speaker 1: haunted figures at the wax Museum. When you're making these
Speaker 1: lifelike figures and you want them to appear as if
Speaker 1: they are interacting, well, are you creating some kind of
Speaker 1: a tulpa, a spirit that is inside them. It's a
Speaker 1: good question. It wouldn't surprise me a bit. And what
Speaker 1: I was told was that indeed there is a ghostly
Speaker 1: history at the Character's Unlimited Workshop, but I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to wait until I go there, because the one that
Speaker 1: I went to was the temporary one because, as I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, the main one, the original one, had a fire,
Speaker 1: so they are temporarily displaced. But I have been invited
Speaker 1: to go back, maybe in the next month or two too.
Speaker 1: Into the original building where they've been for years and
Speaker 1: years and years, and that's where there is supposedly some
Speaker 1: some paranormal activity attached. And so I guess it'll almost
Speaker 1: be like a part too, because I want to go
Speaker 1: back there and maybe bring some equipment and just do
Speaker 1: a piece about anything that I may pick up, or
Speaker 1: any stories or any any kind of research I can
Speaker 1: dig up about paranormal phenomena related to Zoltar. Now, at
Speaker 1: one point while I was there, uh, one of the
Speaker 1: Zoltar machines that was sitting right there next to us
Speaker 1: was sort of it had its cabinet open, some of
Speaker 1: the electronics were exposed, and at one point Oloff reached down,
Speaker 1: punched a button and a fortune popped out. Oloff took
Speaker 1: it from the machine and handed it to me, and
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, this will be a prize possession, because
Speaker 1: there's no telling how many of these Zultar tickets I've
Speaker 1: gotten in my life. But to have one handed to
Speaker 1: me from a machine at the factory by the man
Speaker 1: who creates them, I mean, that's pretty special. This is
Speaker 1: going to be framed. Here is what it says.
Speaker 3: Are you ready?
Speaker 1: Onyx was made especially for you? Wear it and good
Speaker 1: luck will follow you. So let me pause here. Well,
Speaker 1: I've already bought an Onyx necklace after reading this, so
Speaker 1: I'll let you know what happens when I get it.
Speaker 1: Then it continues. Don't let opportunity knock at your door
Speaker 1: in vain. Grasp it, and the course of your life
Speaker 1: will be different. You will be very happy with the
Speaker 1: one you have chosen for your life's companion. Be patient.
Speaker 1: Those who have tried to interfere with your happiness will
Speaker 1: soon find they have no influence on your loved one.
Speaker 1: You seem to be very impetuous and outspoken. This has
Speaker 1: caused your dear ones some moments of unhappiness. Curb your temper,
Speaker 1: and not only will you be happier, but healthier too.
Speaker 1: And I was like, that doesn't sound very positive, I thought,
Speaker 1: Lauren read that goes No, that doesn't sound like you impetuous.
Speaker 1: That means careless, thoughtless. You know this kind of I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not am I am I that way. I guess
Speaker 1: I'll hear about it now everybody will contact me. But well, actually, Joshua,
Speaker 1: but fortunately, I don't think that this is a particularly
Speaker 1: accurate fortune because it has here my lucky numbers, and
Speaker 1: I said, play again, lucky numbers fourteen, two, three, nineteen,
Speaker 1: twenty two and twenty three. So guess what I did.
Speaker 1: I went right to the casino. I played a number
Speaker 1: of Keno machines where you pick numbers and the balls
Speaker 1: fall and you can win a lot of money. At kino,
Speaker 1: I usually do very well, but I didn't win on
Speaker 1: any of those numbers. So finally I even went to
Speaker 1: a live roulette table where you have the live dealer there.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what they call the person who spends
Speaker 1: the wheel at a roulette table, and I put money
Speaker 1: on each one of these numbers, and nope, I didn't
Speaker 1: win any So I have not one on these numbers.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to say that I cannot vouch for
Speaker 1: the fact that a fortune that comes out of a
Speaker 1: Zultar machine is going to be the God's honest truth.
Speaker 1: So it's for fun, it's for entertainment purposes only. I
Speaker 1: don't think I would take this very much to heart,
Speaker 1: but it's a great it's a wonderful souvenir, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's something to make you think, and you know what,
Speaker 1: I will be continuing to get my fortunes and I
Speaker 1: will keep playing whatever numbers come out until till I
Speaker 1: find the combo all right again. Their website is Characters
Speaker 1: Unlimited dot com and I will be following up with
Speaker 1: you soon on my next visit there. Real quick, I
Speaker 1: have an email I want to share with you. I
Speaker 1: was talking on a recent show about some people who
Speaker 1: believe in the conspiracy that we may not have landed
Speaker 1: on the Moon and say that Stanley Kubrick may have
Speaker 1: faked some of that footage. Got an email from a
Speaker 1: man named Tom. He said, many have said there is
Speaker 1: something fake about the Moon landing. Let me clear this up.
Speaker 1: As I recall, the amount of battery life on the Moon.
Speaker 1: On the Moon mission craft was very limited. That is
Speaker 1: why most of the quote live footage that was seen
Speaker 1: during the mission was in fact live footage live from
Speaker 1: the studio set. This was to conserve battery life. Later
Speaker 1: there were recordings of footage that came back with the astronauts.
Speaker 1: This confused many people and now they say it was
Speaker 1: all a studio set. Others say it was all real.
Speaker 1: I remember the why and that makes sense. Hope this
Speaker 1: clears it up. The Moon landing was real and due
Speaker 1: to nineteen sixty nine battery technology acted out simultaneously on
Speaker 1: a set so that our televisions could show the public
Speaker 1: views of what was happening up on the moon without
Speaker 1: broadcasting from the moon, saving much needed battery life. And
Speaker 1: then he wrote a second email just to clarify the
Speaker 1: point further. He said, due to the nineteen sixty nine batteries,
Speaker 1: it was impractical to send footage from the moon, but
Speaker 1: we the public needed to see what was going on
Speaker 1: up there, so it was done on a set. Later,
Speaker 1: the actual tapes that came back made all of this
Speaker 1: more confusing. So yes, it was live footage, and yes
Speaker 1: it was a movie set. Thanks Tom. Well what do
Speaker 1: you think about that? That might explain it? Huh? All right,
Speaker 1: my friends, take a deep breath, if you can close
Speaker 1: your eyes. Let's end with the good Fortune tone. That's
Speaker 1: it for this edition of the show. Follow me at
Speaker 1: Joshua P. Warren Plus, visit joshuapwarren dot com to sign
Speaker 1: up for my free e newsletter to receive a free
Speaker 1: instant gift, and check out the cool stuff in the
Speaker 1: Curiosity Shop. All at Joshuapwarren dot com. I have a
Speaker 1: fun one lined up for you next time, I promise,
Speaker 1: So please tell all your friends to subscribe to this
Speaker 1: show and to always remember the Golden Rule. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening, thank you for your interest and support. Thank
Speaker 1: you for staying curious, and I will talk to you
Speaker 1: again soon. You've been listening to Strange Things on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Well, if you like this episode of Strange Things, wait
Speaker 2: till you hear the next one. Thank you for listening
Speaker 2: to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.