Speaker 1: Hello, Seattle and surrounding Greater Seattle area. We love you.
Speaker 1: That's why we come to see you every January, and
Speaker 1: we're doing that again this year coming up yep, Thursday,
Speaker 1: January six, We're going to be at the More Theater
Speaker 1: and you can get tickets and info by going to
Speaker 1: s y s K live dot com and follow all
Speaker 1: the links there. You can also go in person to
Speaker 1: the box office of the Paramount Theater, who is apparently
Speaker 1: selling tickets to our show at the More Theater to
Speaker 1: get around a lot of those online fees. That's right.
Speaker 1: So we'd love to see you there. We have rubbed
Speaker 1: our stank all over that theater and we want your
Speaker 1: stank on that theater as well. Yep, we'll see you
Speaker 1: guys in January. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles
Speaker 1: if you choke, Brian over there there, Jerry over there,
Speaker 1: and this is Stuff you Should Know. Early Christmas a dish. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're kicking it off early like the rest of the
Speaker 1: retail world, do you, uh yeah? Man. This year you
Speaker 1: could find Halloween Thanksgiving and Christmas stuff in stores at
Speaker 1: the same time, like it was just the most normal
Speaker 1: thing in the world. But, um, you don't follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and you should. I'm not on Twitter. Well
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. You should get on Twitter to
Speaker 1: follow me. But at seven thirty in the morning on
Speaker 1: November one, the day after Halloween, I tweeted Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of hate back for it. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: you people like that, Yeah, pretty much just troll I got. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that was my plug for Twitter. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: here we go. So, uh, let's see back, Chuck. You
Speaker 1: were twelve, okay, I was seven. Um, you didn't have
Speaker 1: a cabbage patch kid, did you. Well, there's just right
Speaker 1: there if you really want to know. I think you've
Speaker 1: told it before, but let's have it. Well, we bought
Speaker 1: my sister one of the very first little people is
Speaker 1: what they were called before they were cabbage patch kids
Speaker 1: and Helen Georgia when they were handmade by Xavier Roberts,
Speaker 1: who I recently learned stole that idea from a woman
Speaker 1: and uh it took it as his own and made
Speaker 1: millions of dollars off of her idea. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I wanted to maybe we'll do a short stuff about that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do a full length episode. But we
Speaker 1: I mean, we definitely talked about that because I think
Speaker 1: we have talked about like must have toys of the past,
Speaker 1: and and maybe last year's or the year before Christmas edition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we had she got this doll. Its name was
Speaker 1: Chuck Um, which was kind of funny because that's my name.
Speaker 1: And uh, it was a big deal. I think it
Speaker 1: was like the number seventy something or eighty something made
Speaker 1: and now it's worth a lot of money. Does she
Speaker 1: still have it? Oh? That's great, Um. And we'll fish
Speaker 1: with Cabbage Patch Kids and then I'll take issue with you.
Speaker 1: So go ahead, Okay, I know what you're gonna take
Speaker 1: issue with. Oh I don't know if you do know,
Speaker 1: let me so, let me, let me. Let me start.
Speaker 1: So back in Cabbage Patch Kids were like the must
Speaker 1: have toy of the Christmas season, and from what I
Speaker 1: can tell, they were the first must have Christmas toy. Ever.
Speaker 1: Now that's not to say there weren't extraordinarily popular toys
Speaker 1: at around Christmas time before Star Wars very famously offered
Speaker 1: their Early Birds Certificate package, which was basically an empty
Speaker 1: box that said, at some point in the future you
Speaker 1: will get Star Wars figures instead of this empty box.
Speaker 1: One of the great great marketing gems of all time.
Speaker 1: So that was a thing all the way back in two.
Speaker 1: Mr potato Head was a hot toy that year. Robert
Speaker 1: the Robe was a hot toy in And when you
Speaker 1: say hot toys, it's tough to to overstate that like
Speaker 1: Robert the Robot had T shirts in the fifties. Didn't
Speaker 1: even know people wore T shirts in the fifties. He
Speaker 1: was in a movie. Um like that, there was there was,
Speaker 1: These were big deal toys. But my premise is this,
Speaker 1: this is my thesis. Okay, this is my own so
Speaker 1: I'll take the hit if it's wrong. But that in
Speaker 1: just the same way that there were hit movies like
Speaker 1: The Godfather or like ben Her before Jaws came along,
Speaker 1: there wasn't such a thing as the summer blockbuster until
Speaker 1: Jaws came along and made the summer blockbuster a thing.
Speaker 1: There wasn't such a thing as the must have toy
Speaker 1: of Christmas until the Cabbage Patch Kid came along and
Speaker 1: made that a thing. Okay, so what issue are you
Speaker 1: going to take I can't take it any longer. You're
Speaker 1: driving me crazy. Well, I don't think it was. I
Speaker 1: don't think it was Cabbage Patch. It's that was the
Speaker 1: must have toy, the first must have toy. That's what
Speaker 1: I take kiss you with the first Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just speaking from my own life, Van,
Speaker 1: and I definitely think Star Wars counts because if you
Speaker 1: can sell an empty box to a kid for Christmas,
Speaker 1: then that that's pretty strong position as it must have thing.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you're listening, the reason they
Speaker 1: sold empty boxes is because they didn't know Star Wars
Speaker 1: was gonna be a big thing. So Kenner didn't have
Speaker 1: as many of these made in the run up to
Speaker 1: the film release pre Christmas. Uh so they got caught
Speaker 1: with their pants down and they realized that there was
Speaker 1: a big demand, a huge demand. They sold like million,
Speaker 1: no million boxes, I'm trying to yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know forty million Star Wars toys at that
Speaker 1: inside of a year, so okay, yeah, I'm not surprised
Speaker 1: to hear that. And did you know that you can
Speaker 1: even buy these empty box kits on eBay? Now? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's all enlisted for Bucks. I'm not at
Speaker 1: all surprised. Uh. And then, just very quickly, I also
Speaker 1: want to point out that the biggest, most in demand
Speaker 1: toy of my young life was the Atari pac Man cartridge. Boy,
Speaker 1: that's sold seven million cartridges. Okay, great, Great, the numbers
Speaker 1: don't lie. That's a big, big number, seven million, forty million.
Speaker 1: You can toss big numbers out all day long. But
Speaker 1: let me ask you this. For that empty box of
Speaker 1: Star Wars for the Atari pac Man cartridge, did a
Speaker 1: woman have her leg broken because the crowd trying to
Speaker 1: get their hands on those things turned violent? Or before
Speaker 1: you answer, in addition to that, did a department store
Speaker 1: manager in Charleston, West Virginia have to arm himself with
Speaker 1: the baseball bat to defend himself from his very customers
Speaker 1: who are trying to get to the Star Wars empty
Speaker 1: box or the Atari cartridge? I would guess that the
Speaker 1: answers no, Well, I think human behaviors have changed over
Speaker 1: the years. I don't know. Three well, I guarantee I
Speaker 1: could find one violent incident about the Atari cartridge. I'll
Speaker 1: bet you couldn't. Well, you know there wasn't then, because
Speaker 1: there was they met the demand. Okay, so that's a
Speaker 1: big part of it too, right, So there have been
Speaker 1: well let's just move on from this the cabbage Patch
Speaker 1: cabbage Patch kids if not worthy first, which they were?
Speaker 1: Did you have Yeah? Yeah, Webberdno, you had a cabbage
Speaker 1: Patch kid. Yeah. I ended up taking his head off
Speaker 1: and giving him a mohawk as I grew older. But
Speaker 1: because not to be too like gender binary here, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know a lot of boys that wanted the
Speaker 1: cabbage Patch kid. What I've I've always broken the mold chuck. Well, sure, no,
Speaker 1: I mean there's nothing wrong with it. I grew up
Speaker 1: with William wants a doll on free to bu and me,
Speaker 1: so I get it. But that's why I just don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it must have Christmas toy would be one
Speaker 1: that everybody wants. Yeah, as far as I knew, everybody
Speaker 1: wanted a cabbage Patch kid. We'll just put this one
Speaker 1: to bed, like a cabbage Patch kid with a mohawk. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: um right, well that was a big thing. Like there
Speaker 1: was there was some hallmarks to the idea of a
Speaker 1: must have toy that were surrounding Cabbage Patch Kids. Violence
Speaker 1: is one, Um, there was a lot of buzz that
Speaker 1: was picked up by the media, and one of the
Speaker 1: ways that that was generated was by UM, I think Coliko,
Speaker 1: who owned cabbage Patch Kids at the time, sent these
Speaker 1: dolls directly to reporters. That was a big one. UM
Speaker 1: and the fact that there was not enough supply to
Speaker 1: meet the demand. These things kind of came together to
Speaker 1: make Cabbage Patch Kids and must have Christmas toy and
Speaker 1: this has been carried on as a tradition ever since then,
Speaker 1: ever since that very very first time with Cabbage Patch Kids. Uh.
Speaker 1: There were Nintendos that dominated back in eight uh and
Speaker 1: three years in a row, Nintendo had three different products
Speaker 1: that were like the must have Christmas toy, UM, that
Speaker 1: first game console huge, the Game Boy Huger it felt
Speaker 1: like uh, and then of course possibly the best game
Speaker 1: gaming system of all time if you look at just
Speaker 1: relative to the time, the Super Nintendo Console. I don't know,
Speaker 1: man in sixty four was pretty great with Golden Eye.
Speaker 1: Oh God in sixty four was great. Yeah with gold
Speaker 1: and I I mean like it would have been, you know,
Speaker 1: fine on its own, but the fact that Golden Eye
Speaker 1: existed was the thing that made in sixty four to
Speaker 1: me that game blew my mind. Um. Yeah it was great,
Speaker 1: especially the Battle Royal where you could play your friends.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that was finn. Yeah, we called it Hunt
Speaker 1: and Chase. Yeah. I used to get so mad in
Speaker 1: those like that's the only time I ever got mad
Speaker 1: playing video games because I don't do that thing where
Speaker 1: you play online and you can you know, you can
Speaker 1: exact revenge on people. So I did not take it
Speaker 1: well when my friends stock behind me and shot me
Speaker 1: in the head. Right, Yeah, that was always a bummer.
Speaker 1: What about Tickle Myoma? That was a big one, thanks
Speaker 1: to Rosie O'Donnell. That was a little old for that.
Speaker 1: Oh really, that was in my mid twenties. I had one.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well you were high school, not really, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was this is post high school even. But this
Speaker 1: was such a craze that there was that um characteristic
Speaker 1: violence where a Walmart employee was trampled while he was
Speaker 1: trying to restock the display um late at night, I believe.
Speaker 1: But he had a pulled hamstring, injuries to his back,
Speaker 1: his jaws, knee broken, rib, a concussion, um. And it
Speaker 1: continues on like I haven't read about any violence from
Speaker 1: hatch a Moles, but from two thousand and sixteen to
Speaker 1: two eighteen. They were the if not one of the
Speaker 1: top um must have Toys of the year, and so
Speaker 1: hatcher molesw come because you have to put it in
Speaker 1: a dish or a bowl that you eat out of,
Speaker 1: and you have to leave it there and leave it
Speaker 1: there and leave it there, and then it hatches into
Speaker 1: a garbage toy. Oh. So my experience is that it's
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty, They're good. Oh yeah, yeah, so you
Speaker 1: you like your hatch the mole? Yeah? Are you talking?
Speaker 1: Is it like animatronic? Huh? Is it animatronic? I'm talking
Speaker 1: about hatch the moles. Yeah, it's it's so okay. So
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about the dish. I just my
Speaker 1: experiences from my niece, and I don't remember any dish.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, this isn't the Are we talking about two
Speaker 1: different things. This is the thing you put in water. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: electrocute yourself when you touch it. Okay, maybe I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about some melts. This is like an animatronic thing that
Speaker 1: hatches from an egg, but like you have to like
Speaker 1: teach it and train it and raise it and give
Speaker 1: it attention everything. It's a bit like the tamagochi but
Speaker 1: like an animatronic pet. Oh, I got you now, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of the thing that you It's an egg that
Speaker 1: you put in water and after a few days it
Speaker 1: hatches into a garbage toy. Yeah, no, that's that's not
Speaker 1: the hatch moles are much different. So so there's this
Speaker 1: tradition of them must have Christmas toy um and you
Speaker 1: can find all you want about them every year because
Speaker 1: they're everywhere all the time, and the media reports on
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, and they're on TV, and there's ads,
Speaker 1: and there's like social media stuff. Now, but there's like
Speaker 1: a really big question that doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: press associated with it, and certainly no studies or anything
Speaker 1: that I could find. But there's a question, Chuck, like,
Speaker 1: how does a toy become a must have Christmas toy? Well,
Speaker 1: let's take a break and look get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of it. Right after this, that was quite a set up,
Speaker 1: I think. So. So back in the day when you
Speaker 1: were shopping for Christmas, if you were a kid or
Speaker 1: a parent, it didn't matter do you knew exactly what
Speaker 1: to do, you knew exactly how to do it. There
Speaker 1: was no no frills, no nothing. It was all just
Speaker 1: holiday joy and the goodness of the Christmas holiday season.
Speaker 1: That's right, That is correct. And you learned what you
Speaker 1: wanted if you were a kid from two things. Saturday
Speaker 1: Morning cartoon commercials and uh, whatever your catalog was. The
Speaker 1: Seer's wish Book is certainly one service. Merchandise catalog was
Speaker 1: another big one for us. Yeah, there's a Montgomery Awards catalog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. And um you put this together and you
Speaker 1: introduced me to a website called wish book Web that
Speaker 1: might as well be called um time suck dot com.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's pretty great, isn't that because someone has gone
Speaker 1: through and scan end Uh is it just year's wish books? No, No,
Speaker 1: it's Sears J. C. Penny and Montgomery Ward. And then
Speaker 1: I think there's the occasional what store is that here there? Right?
Speaker 1: They have scanned these entire wish books up to nine, which,
Speaker 1: from everyone knows, is the cutoff date for nostalgia. That's right,
Speaker 1: from the earliest days of nineteen thirty three. And boy,
Speaker 1: let me tell you, dude, and I know you know
Speaker 1: this because you've done it. If you go through and
Speaker 1: spend a few minutes clicking through these things, in the
Speaker 1: years where you were like six to twelve waves of nostalgia,
Speaker 1: nostalgia wash over you, like like John Hodgeman would succumb
Speaker 1: to these waves. Yeah, I know, it's amazing. I remember
Speaker 1: some specific pictures. I remembered the I mean the NFL
Speaker 1: section alone brought tears to my eyes and I forgot
Speaker 1: how much they hyped football back then. You just can't
Speaker 1: stop crying. It was crazy that the clothes, the alarm clocks,
Speaker 1: the clock radios, the the tech section. Um, it was
Speaker 1: just it was off the charts for me looking through this.
Speaker 1: I almost did nothing else today. Yeah, I know it is.
Speaker 1: Wish book Web is pretty awesome. Like somebody went through
Speaker 1: and scanned every single page of these several hundred pages
Speaker 1: each catalog's for decades worth of catalogs. It is. It
Speaker 1: is God's work. And just to get laughs by like
Speaker 1: seeing the the two four year olds posing in bathrobes,
Speaker 1: like it's really really funny, right, well, it's got like
Speaker 1: a pipe that blows up. God. This is just amazing.
Speaker 1: What a great website. So so wish book Web is
Speaker 1: kind of preserved how you used to figure out what
Speaker 1: you wanted for Christmas, which was you go through these
Speaker 1: wish books or these catalogs or whatever, and then you
Speaker 1: tell your parents you dog ear them, maybe drop some hints.
Speaker 1: It was the correct way. Century has a kind of
Speaker 1: an updated version of that, but it's still kind of
Speaker 1: follows this same general contours right where there are lists
Speaker 1: still and like catalogs, but now it's not just department
Speaker 1: stores that have like the market cornered on them. Like
Speaker 1: that's actually kind of gone away. It's very tough to
Speaker 1: find a department store catalog. I believe Myers still does that.
Speaker 1: I think they're kind of like a Midwestern Target. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they have a toy catalog that they put out still,
Speaker 1: I believe to this year. Well now if you get
Speaker 1: the Restoration Hardware right or Ikea, but the But there's
Speaker 1: lists everywhere, and it seems like every retailer has one
Speaker 1: or all the major retailers have one, and depending on
Speaker 1: where it's coming from, it's some are more trustworthy or
Speaker 1: above the boards or or objective than others when saying
Speaker 1: like these are the must have toys, Like, I'm on
Speaker 1: one end of the spectrum. You have um like third
Speaker 1: party websites and publications and organizations like the Spruce or
Speaker 1: Toy Insider or Toys Tots, Pets and more, and they
Speaker 1: actually evaluate the toys when they make their lists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean these it's just different now. And I don't
Speaker 1: think it's nostalgia like thinking things were better back then,
Speaker 1: but it was. It seemed easier and better to let
Speaker 1: a kid sift through a catalog and pick out stuff
Speaker 1: than I guess what are you supposed to do today,
Speaker 1: like sit down with your kid at one of these
Speaker 1: websites and at look at the top twenty hot toys
Speaker 1: and say what do you want? Like, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know how it works these days. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe instead of like dog earing the pages, you send
Speaker 1: your parents links. I'm sure you do, actually you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: But I mean if your kids are too young to
Speaker 1: be on the internet, I'm not sure how to do it.
Speaker 1: Because I could hand my four year old catalog and
Speaker 1: say pick out some stuff would be great, But I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say, hey, just log onto the spruce and
Speaker 1: go uh scroll down and see you find something you like?
Speaker 1: Stay out of their parents section. What do I mean?
Speaker 1: What do you do? You have? You literally have a kid, chuck,
Speaker 1: what do you do? I don't know, I mean we buy,
Speaker 1: we just buy things that we think she might like. Um,
Speaker 1: so there's like a whole world out there of like
Speaker 1: lists and websites that showed toys and stuff that she's
Speaker 1: unaware of. Oh wow, she's got a big surprise ahead
Speaker 1: of her. So that's great. I'm excited for her. Actually yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean you definitely feel like you're sort of
Speaker 1: stabbing in the dark. Let's do like I mean, a
Speaker 1: parent can go through and look at those lists, but
Speaker 1: you know, kill me. Well, a lot of people are
Speaker 1: excited about that kind of thing. They're like, good, this
Speaker 1: is Yeah. I don't have to like go to the
Speaker 1: store and stand there and be like what are we
Speaker 1: getting here? You could go to some website or USA
Speaker 1: Today or the Today Show or whoever is partnering with
Speaker 1: some of these trusted sites like Toys, Tots, Pets and
Speaker 1: More or Toy Insider, and like they kind of take
Speaker 1: a lot to the guesswork out of you. They're basically saying,
Speaker 1: these are what experts are saying your kid is going
Speaker 1: to want. If you go by this, you will score
Speaker 1: a home run with your kid. Yeah. I think my
Speaker 1: problem is I don't know what has bought and what
Speaker 1: is real reviews because as you have dug up and
Speaker 1: I didn't even know this, of course they do this. Um,
Speaker 1: if you go on Amazon, they you know, you can
Speaker 1: spend two million bucks as a retailer to be on there,
Speaker 1: you know, on their top list or whatever. So okay, yes,
Speaker 1: And what I saw though, was that they you spend
Speaker 1: that money to nominate them to nominate your toy for
Speaker 1: their consideration to include on the West for a nomination.
Speaker 1: I don't know how the process works, but yeah, I saw.
Speaker 1: I saw like the headline say you pay two million
Speaker 1: for a slot, but if you read the finer print
Speaker 1: and saying you pay two million for them to even
Speaker 1: consider it, and then I guess I don't know how
Speaker 1: they curated. They actually kind of keep a close lid
Speaker 1: on it. But it generated like a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: million dollars in revenue for Amazon just to be on
Speaker 1: their list of hot toys for the year. Walmart they
Speaker 1: charged ten grand a month per toy to be on
Speaker 1: their Buyer's Picks toy list. And uh, like you point
Speaker 1: out here, they Walmart starts their list in August, and
Speaker 1: you've got to wonder, is that because they're making tin
Speaker 1: grand of pop right off of all of the stuff
Speaker 1: per month. Yeah. Yeah, they released There's in late August,
Speaker 1: before Labor Day even and like this isn't like, hey,
Speaker 1: we think these toys are going to be hot this year.
Speaker 1: It's here's the hot list of holiday toys, and Target
Speaker 1: released There's at the beginning of September. Um. I think
Speaker 1: Bull's Eye is the name of their mascot dog mascot
Speaker 1: spuzz Mackenzie basically, And I couldn't see if they charge
Speaker 1: for placement or how they compile it or anything like that,
Speaker 1: which actually makes me suspect that they don't, because there's
Speaker 1: plenty of ink about Amazon and Walmart's lists and how
Speaker 1: they charge for him, and the fact that there's not
Speaker 1: one for Target makes me think either they're really keeping
Speaker 1: a lid on it or um, they actually don't charge
Speaker 1: for that. But so there's there's kind of two lists
Speaker 1: where if you're a parent you need to ask, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you need to ask dogs and dog people and cat people.
Speaker 1: You need to ask, where is this list coming from?
Speaker 1: And if it's coming from a third party site, go
Speaker 1: look up the third party site and they will tell you.
Speaker 1: And they're like about us section, how they determine what
Speaker 1: toys or what and if you really want to get
Speaker 1: that information, that's fine. But even if Amazon or Walmart
Speaker 1: or even if Target charges for placement on their lists,
Speaker 1: just the very fact that those things are on their
Speaker 1: list is going to make them among the hot toys
Speaker 1: of the season. So it's like a self fulfilling or
Speaker 1: self paying prophecy. Yeah, I mean, I guess anytime you
Speaker 1: look up something on a major retailer website, those first
Speaker 1: few things are sponsored and they say sponsored in little letters. Oh,
Speaker 1: sometimes they don't really, Yeah, I mean sometimes it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to discern, uh, whether or not you're looking
Speaker 1: at the real top thing or the sponsored thing, right,
Speaker 1: And I think, like with the Giftless in particular, I
Speaker 1: don't believe that they say that these are sponsored. I
Speaker 1: think it's just like here's the hot lists according to Amazon. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk a bit about marketing in general around the holidays.
Speaker 1: Um that you know, it's a it's a science in
Speaker 1: a way, and they have found out through science that um,
Speaker 1: happy people buy more. Uh you are not everyone's happy
Speaker 1: around the holidays, but they definitely as marketers, play on
Speaker 1: the idea that you are happier around the holidays, and
Speaker 1: so you should be in the buying spirit. Uh, definitely
Speaker 1: when you're talking about kids, that is the case. They
Speaker 1: pummel children with ads. There was one study here the
Speaker 1: University of Hertfordshire counted one hundred ads and a three
Speaker 1: hour Saturday morning kids uh slot Christmas hundred in a
Speaker 1: three hour slot. That's a lot of ads, it is um.
Speaker 1: And then of course, you know children are on more
Speaker 1: than one screen these days, so they're also getting ads
Speaker 1: on you know, when they're watching YouTube or whatever, um,
Speaker 1: or just on kids websites. There's ads everywhere. I can't
Speaker 1: remember what episode we really kind of dove into that
Speaker 1: advertising man, I think it was about advertising for children,
Speaker 1: like that was the sole goal. So so the idea
Speaker 1: is that just just the holiday season itself puts most
Speaker 1: of us in a pretty good mood, and advertisers say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if we release ads that are holiday themed, will be
Speaker 1: able to kind of tap into that good will and
Speaker 1: good mood and um, make you nostalgic or or feel
Speaker 1: good about things and so um by doing that, we'll
Speaker 1: be able to kind of tie our our brand or
Speaker 1: our product to that holiday. Um, that holiday sensation and
Speaker 1: you'll say, oh, I do want to go by that
Speaker 1: because it makes me think of being a kid at
Speaker 1: Christmas time. That's really a six stuff. Um, I mean
Speaker 1: like that's everywhere. You can't get away from that in
Speaker 1: the holiday season. And there's not even necessarily anything wrong
Speaker 1: with it. It's just that's just basic marketing and advertising
Speaker 1: one on one when it comes to holiday advertising. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the other thing we mentioned earlier in terms of marketing,
Speaker 1: and this is also marketing one on one, is about scarcity. Right.
Speaker 1: If you have a toy that there's a limited amount of,
Speaker 1: that is when you're gonna find people trampling each other
Speaker 1: to get there, because people are motivated by fear. And
Speaker 1: if you know that a toy is a must have
Speaker 1: and there aren't many of them and they're going on
Speaker 1: sale at a certain time, it is frightening what a parent,
Speaker 1: some parents might do to secure that toy. Yes, so
Speaker 1: this is finally we've reached the key ingredient. Right, You've
Speaker 1: got lists of toys that are promoted and advertising and
Speaker 1: maybe even show up with their own articles in the media.
Speaker 1: Then you have the fact that we're already kind of
Speaker 1: primed to to buy because it's the Aliday season. We're
Speaker 1: in a good mood. But when you add that scarcity marketing,
Speaker 1: it ramps it up to a totally different level. And
Speaker 1: when you have a must have toy that is hard
Speaker 1: to find, like you said, people will do very crazy, violent,
Speaker 1: mean stuff to get it. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons why even if you're not willing to like throw
Speaker 1: an elbow to get a toy, you might still be
Speaker 1: willing to camp out at four am waiting for you know,
Speaker 1: a twenty four hour retailer to restock UM their their
Speaker 1: supply of this so you can buy it. That's unusual
Speaker 1: behavior and the reason why it all comes down to
Speaker 1: scarcity marketing and the idea that we have a fear
Speaker 1: of missing out, a fear of social embarrassment, of fear
Speaker 1: of our kids not loving us as much as they
Speaker 1: could had we gotten them this toy, and that all
Speaker 1: of these things, the scarcity marketing is the real driver
Speaker 1: that kind of hyper charges must have toy frenzy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's not you know, just toys. You've seen everything
Speaker 1: from UM. You make a great point about Peppi Van
Speaker 1: Winkle whiskey. Oh, I should say that's from marketing Land.
Speaker 1: A guy named Jacob bods Gud wrote an article on
Speaker 1: marketing Land where he cited that and the Disney Vault
Speaker 1: is really good examples. Yeah, Disney Vault, it's another great one. Um.
Speaker 1: They were very famous for not just saying like here's
Speaker 1: all the movies we've ever made that you can buy
Speaker 1: on VHS, all on one big package. They would release
Speaker 1: them every every now and then, and you know, you
Speaker 1: had a limited time to get them. And I wasn't
Speaker 1: really hipped all this, but my dad and his wife
Speaker 1: were way into the Disney stuff, and you know, they
Speaker 1: were adamant about making sure they filled out the entire
Speaker 1: collection and really kept up with when they were going
Speaker 1: to be released. And what a big deal that was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a big one. And um Bod's Guard makes
Speaker 1: the point like by making them limited and available also
Speaker 1: only for a limited time, with years sometimes a decade
Speaker 1: in between times when you can buy these things, it
Speaker 1: creates this like frenzy to go buy them, and it
Speaker 1: also makes them like a treasured part of that person's home,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, And you can also
Speaker 1: fake out the public a little bit and mislead them
Speaker 1: on the scarcity like you might have a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff and just kind of lead the public to
Speaker 1: believe like now you better go get one right now
Speaker 1: because they may not be around next week. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: people who made Hatch a Moles spin Master, Um, Hatch
Speaker 1: the Moles were really hard to find and I think
Speaker 1: two thousands, sixteen, seventeen and eighteen UM, and spin Master
Speaker 1: was basically accused of purposefully using scarcity marketing. And for
Speaker 1: their part, they said, hey, we were totally caught off
Speaker 1: guard three years in a row by the um you
Speaker 1: know the popularity of Hatch the Moles, and other people
Speaker 1: were like, that's that's b s. You can totally ramp
Speaker 1: up production pretty fast. Um. Another must have toy was
Speaker 1: finger links. Remember them from like last year or the
Speaker 1: year before. They were like little monkeys or slaw or
Speaker 1: dragons or whatever that would hang on to your finger.
Speaker 1: And they were little finger sized robots that would like
Speaker 1: blink and blow kisses and do all sorts of cute stuff.
Speaker 1: They weren't they were cute instead of uncanny because they
Speaker 1: weren't the words finger sized robots together so right, they
Speaker 1: would cut your throat while you slept. Um, But they
Speaker 1: they were they were caught unaware. Even though they really
Speaker 1: tried it hard to make them hit through social media,
Speaker 1: they were still surprised when it actually happened. But they
Speaker 1: ramped up production. They brought a third factory in China online.
Speaker 1: They went from shipping via cargo boat to air transport
Speaker 1: to get supplies here faster, and they were able to
Speaker 1: ramp up and and meet demand pretty quickly. So the
Speaker 1: idea that Hatch themill just couldn't possibly do that really
Speaker 1: smelled to a lot of people like they were purposefully
Speaker 1: using scarcity marketing. Yeah. Scarcity, I mean, it's an interesting
Speaker 1: concept because you see it everywhere. You know, they have
Speaker 1: restaurants that, you know, here in Atlanta, Home and Finch
Speaker 1: had the Holm and Burger that like one day a week,
Speaker 1: like we'll sell a hundred of them starting at ten
Speaker 1: pm on this night, and then everyone's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what is in that burger? People would line up the block. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or this is a nice little tidbit here that you
Speaker 1: dug up about supermarket experiments. Yeah, that's from an article
Speaker 1: from market Watch by Mark Elwood on that one. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Even putting up a sign for soup that says limit
Speaker 1: twelve per person will make people be like, oh, I
Speaker 1: should I should probably buy twelve of these for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: Campbells might they might stop making their chicken noodle soup
Speaker 1: right or in this case, it was soup that was
Speaker 1: on sale, so who knows what the price is going
Speaker 1: to go back to? You know, well, that's true. So um.
Speaker 1: One of the other things that scarcity produces is this
Speaker 1: idea that there haves and have nots. Right, So if
Speaker 1: the idea that you're fearful of missing out or fearful
Speaker 1: of your kid not loving you isn't enough, there's a
Speaker 1: whole other, um cognitive bias of of being a have not,
Speaker 1: of being left on the cold, which I guess is
Speaker 1: a fear of missing out. But there's also the benefit
Speaker 1: of being a have where if you're talking about like
Speaker 1: a finger link, which is a fifteen dollar toy, but
Speaker 1: people were crazy for those things that either last year
Speaker 1: or the year before, and like just about anybody can
Speaker 1: afford this fifteen dollar toy. So even if you're like
Speaker 1: I have not throughout the year, you're down on your luck,
Speaker 1: maybe you're unemployed or you're unemployed, Um, things just aren't
Speaker 1: going your way. You could still camp out and wait
Speaker 1: for that late night restocking of finger links and get
Speaker 1: your kid that toy, and for that time you are
Speaker 1: a have and maybe even somebody with a much higher
Speaker 1: social status than you couldn't get that finger link, which
Speaker 1: makes it all the more sweet. And then let's also
Speaker 1: not forget. Like we said, this is during the holiday season,
Speaker 1: so emotions like count extra So to be a have
Speaker 1: when you're normally not during the holiday season because you
Speaker 1: gotta must have toy is exponentially increased. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: big deal, um, because it's it. Even if it's just
Speaker 1: emotionally equal for a brief period of time, it's it
Speaker 1: can be a big deal for somebody. Um, I'd say
Speaker 1: we take our final break here here, and then we
Speaker 1: come back and talk about the worst people toy flippers
Speaker 1: right after this. All right, so I set up the
Speaker 1: worst people are toy flippers. Obviously there's a lot of really,
Speaker 1: really bad people in the world. And I'm being what hyperbolic,
Speaker 1: but I do think somewhat the idea of buying targeting
Speaker 1: and buying a lot of must have toys to sell
Speaker 1: later for profit on eBay makes you a pretty rotten person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead and lay that judgment down some
Speaker 1: people do. I reserve judgment for the ones who do
Speaker 1: it professionally. I think if you are a person who
Speaker 1: is just trying to augment your um, your own like
Speaker 1: holiday expenses and uh you are foreseeing a lack of
Speaker 1: supply ahead of time, I say more power to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not into it. I feel the same way about
Speaker 1: ticket scalpers. Yeah, it's exactly. I mean it's the same
Speaker 1: thing basically. Yeah, it's it's buying up a bunch of things. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes and this is completely gross and awful. Using bots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the pits to especially for concert tickets, like when
Speaker 1: bots buy up all the best concert tickets, especially our tickets. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: I think anybody uses bots on ours? Well probably not,
Speaker 1: but um, actually, stuff you should know is is we've
Speaker 1: seen very few bad examples of people trying to overcharge
Speaker 1: for a sold out show. More times than not, it's
Speaker 1: a fellow listener that's like, hey, just come along, you
Speaker 1: can sit next to me for face value, or I
Speaker 1: don't even give it to you. Yeah, that happens quite
Speaker 1: a bit. And yeah, I mean there's only been a
Speaker 1: couple where somebody's like, you know, a million dollars and
Speaker 1: of course they didn't sell it now. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: we haven't run into that. Mostly the problem is from
Speaker 1: um ticket outlets just charging ridiculous fees on top of
Speaker 1: our ticket price. Well that makes us mad, and you
Speaker 1: all should know we don't have control over that. Um.
Speaker 1: We're the Eddie Vetter of podcasting, right. But if you
Speaker 1: ever find yourself in a situation where you got shut
Speaker 1: out of the stuff, you should know show and your
Speaker 1: option is to not go or to pay like a
Speaker 1: ridiculous amount, just send us an email. Will put you
Speaker 1: on the list. Oh god, Chuck, Wow, you just opened
Speaker 1: some floodgates. I mean, there's a very few list spots,
Speaker 1: so it's not like you know right now you just
Speaker 1: started a must have toy frenzy for the list. Look
Speaker 1: what you've done. Oh let's get back to bots. Um.
Speaker 1: These bots are so savvy that they can they can
Speaker 1: buy out, they can have hundreds of credit card numbers
Speaker 1: on file because sometimes they'll have like a limit to
Speaker 1: how many things you can buy. They are all these
Speaker 1: shortcuts in ways to bypass all of these safeguards put
Speaker 1: into effect, including captures. They will hire foreign workers to
Speaker 1: sit around and type in the captions to get through security.
Speaker 1: Which I mean, if there is anything that says holiday
Speaker 1: spirit more than that, I can't think of it. But
Speaker 1: these bots can, uh can sometimes buy out something in
Speaker 1: the second that it goes up online for regular human
Speaker 1: to say, oh, like, all right, they've released the tickets
Speaker 1: or the doll m right, because they they'll see. What
Speaker 1: they'll do is they'll go on to like retail websites
Speaker 1: and figure out what the unique idea is for the
Speaker 1: product that they're looking for. It'll start right, it'll start
Speaker 1: monitoring that page because people who build these pages will
Speaker 1: put them out and just won't you know, kind of
Speaker 1: really open the curtain for hours ahead of time, so
Speaker 1: the body will have the page targeted and just keep
Speaker 1: refreshing it hundreds of times a second until that sale
Speaker 1: goes live, and they will have ordered scores of these
Speaker 1: things or dozens or hundreds whatever however many it can
Speaker 1: before you can even if you're sitting there refreshing your browser,
Speaker 1: between the time it takes to refresh your page, they
Speaker 1: will have wiped the place out using these bots. And
Speaker 1: then if you're truly sophisticated, you probably have another set
Speaker 1: of bots who take your inventory and then put it
Speaker 1: up for sale at some exorbitant price on Amazon or
Speaker 1: eBay or craig List or something like that. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: worst people. So like, you don't even have to do anything,
Speaker 1: you just stick your bots on it. Yeah. I stand
Speaker 1: by it, even for the enterprising person who I just
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't have a have a big
Speaker 1: problem with someone making money off of someone else's misfortune
Speaker 1: to not have been able to get that themselves. I
Speaker 1: don't think it makes someone scrappy or enterprising at all.
Speaker 1: Hey man, that's that's fine. Yeah, I'll die on this hill. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's fine. So if you are one of those people
Speaker 1: that Chuck hates and you want to be enterprising, there
Speaker 1: is a article written by Lisa Smith. It's on Investipedia
Speaker 1: and it's called the Guide to reselling toys at Christmas
Speaker 1: for extra money, which is very innocuous. Um. Then there's
Speaker 1: some tips actually that make a lot of sense. If
Speaker 1: you want to do this, do you want to go
Speaker 1: over them or you're gonna remain mute? You can go
Speaker 1: over so you could talk to parents if you wanted
Speaker 1: to write Chuck, that's right, Josh good idea. Um there,
Speaker 1: because they know what kids want. You can talk to
Speaker 1: kids themselves, which makes sense. I mean, just go right
Speaker 1: to the horse's mouth. I've already said the same thing, Joshua. Um,
Speaker 1: you can talk to Santa. I thought this was pretty enterprising.
Speaker 1: Like imagine if you are trying So what you're trying
Speaker 1: to do here is to identify what toy you want
Speaker 1: to buy as early ahead of time as possible, so that, um,
Speaker 1: you can have identified the hot season, the hot toy
Speaker 1: of the season, and bought them before the demand really struck.
Speaker 1: So you talked to mall, Santa's hang out in stores,
Speaker 1: you can talk to cashier's stock people, all that stuff,
Speaker 1: because not only will they know what toy you need
Speaker 1: to look out for, they'll know when these new supplies
Speaker 1: are coming in. Maybe slip on a Starbucks card or
Speaker 1: something like that with ten Bucks on it as a
Speaker 1: thank you, but be sure to deduct that from your
Speaker 1: bottom line. Deduct that bribery, right, and then um, you
Speaker 1: can actually hang out in chat rooms. There's entire websites
Speaker 1: that are dedicated to this kind of stuff that are
Speaker 1: um you know that that say like, here's the toys
Speaker 1: we're looking for or I spotted some at this you know,
Speaker 1: Walmart or whatever. This this stock guy said that Walmart
Speaker 1: replenish his own on Thursdays at ten. Um. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff you can do if you really wanted
Speaker 1: to put the leg work in great or you could
Speaker 1: put all that energy into doing something worthwhile. Right, I
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. This is the like the
Speaker 1: Michael Larson approach to the holidays, the man who got
Speaker 1: no whammy's on pressure. Luck. Oh, I had no problem
Speaker 1: with him. Okay, this is virtually the same thing. It's
Speaker 1: somebody Michael Larson wasn't. Uh, there wasn't some father who
Speaker 1: didn't have much money that you know, overpaid for a
Speaker 1: doll to make his little girl happy at Christmas time.
Speaker 1: Michael Larson didn't do that, right, Uh, he would have, though,
Speaker 1: I'm sure of it. Oh goodness. So that's what you
Speaker 1: can do if you want to flip toys and ruin
Speaker 1: the holidays. As far as Chuck's concerns, um and that
Speaker 1: is that is a big part of the competition of
Speaker 1: people who will go buy out stocks like you're not
Speaker 1: really facing them nationwide unless you're talking about people who
Speaker 1: release bots onto websites or whatever. But they are out
Speaker 1: there and they do. They do actually create competition and
Speaker 1: help drive that frenzy even further, because remember what's behind
Speaker 1: must have toys a scarcity marketing, and if there are
Speaker 1: people out there actively contributing to the scarcity, that's a
Speaker 1: big deal. Here's what I want to hear from. I
Speaker 1: want to hear from, uh some women listeners who let's
Speaker 1: say you go on a on a on a date
Speaker 1: from a dating app and you sit down across from
Speaker 1: your date and you're like, what do you do? And
Speaker 1: he goes, I'm a toy flipper, and she like, what's that?
Speaker 1: Because you know, around Christmas time, I go out and
Speaker 1: buy like tons of toys that I know little kids
Speaker 1: really really want, and then I'll mark them up so
Speaker 1: I can make a lot of money off their parents
Speaker 1: who may not be able to afford it. Right, and
Speaker 1: just tell me how that date goes from there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Can it? Does it have to be a man and
Speaker 1: a woman? Can it just be anybody? It can be anybody?
Speaker 1: But you know, I think the guy that does this
Speaker 1: is the guy that I just did that voice for,
Speaker 1: who's apparently from Jersey. They're all from New Jersey. Okay, So, um,
Speaker 1: I feel like we've learned a lot here. We've talked about,
Speaker 1: you know, how a toy becomes a must have toy
Speaker 1: of a season usually has to do with some sort
Speaker 1: of some combination of of advertising and buzz marketing as
Speaker 1: long or as well as um scarcity the flippers get involved. Um,
Speaker 1: I think, and I want to back this up, Chuck,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of stuff out there on this.
Speaker 1: This all had to be brought together. This is kind
Speaker 1: of one of those rare stuff you should know THESS
Speaker 1: about what makes must have toy must have toy. But
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it holds up. Should we
Speaker 1: talk about some of the big toys of this year? Yes,
Speaker 1: So those lists that are out there, this helps me.
Speaker 1: Actually we put a bunch of well that's the point.
Speaker 1: That's we're trying to help you and all of the
Speaker 1: toy flippers out there. So actually this is for all
Speaker 1: the parents. This will help you get a drop on
Speaker 1: the toy flippers, because I guarantee there are very few
Speaker 1: toy flippers listening to stuff you should know now because
Speaker 1: we have good people in our audience, so that all
Speaker 1: those lists that are out there now we kind of
Speaker 1: compiled and cross referenced them. A number of them lists
Speaker 1: from Target, Toys, toughts, pets, and more. That's just one Amazon,
Speaker 1: the Today's Show, Toy Insider, the Spruce Crazy Coupon Lady
Speaker 1: who had a post about toy flipping, Walmart, and New
Speaker 1: York Magazine. All those lists we looked at and we
Speaker 1: found ones that appeared on at least a couple, if
Speaker 1: not more, And one of them, the first one, appeared
Speaker 1: on basically every single list that we saw. Yeah, this one,
Speaker 1: the balloom doll b l U m E. Nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the rest of development, but it is this
Speaker 1: is something and that that my daughter might like. Apparently
Speaker 1: this is another another thing you add water to uh
Speaker 1: and it blooms. But this is I don't think it
Speaker 1: hatches from an egg. I think this doll just like
Speaker 1: grows like a chia pet mite kind of, and like
Speaker 1: the hair that grows is I can't tell. It looks
Speaker 1: like some sort of foam or styrofoam or something, but
Speaker 1: it takes different shapes like pineapples or cakes or something
Speaker 1: like that. And there's I think twenty two different versions. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're also yeah, they're super affordable too, so they're
Speaker 1: they're probably going to be the hot must have Christmas
Speaker 1: toy of the Year's bloom Dolls Hatch the Moles are
Speaker 1: still around. Yeah, and there's one that's um from How
Speaker 1: to Train Your Dragon Toothless Dragon, the Baby Dragon. They
Speaker 1: have a Hatch the Mole version of him. What else
Speaker 1: really Barbies on the list? Yeah, Barbie has a dream Plane,
Speaker 1: which I saw in a couple of lists where um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a for Barbie. There's like a snack cart and
Speaker 1: everything comes with a dog that I guess lives on
Speaker 1: the plane. There's also l O L Surprise? Have you
Speaker 1: heard of that? I hadn't heard of it either until
Speaker 1: we started researching this, But they're like a whole brand
Speaker 1: um and a lot of these, including bloom Dolls in
Speaker 1: l O L Surprise, they tap into like this whole
Speaker 1: trend of unboxing. Do you remember when we talked about
Speaker 1: unboxing on YouTube where like people open toys because our
Speaker 1: good friend, uh Joe Randazzo did his Lego Man unboxing
Speaker 1: videos that were still to me one of the funniest
Speaker 1: things I've ever seen. Yes, great plug by the way,
Speaker 1: but they still do that, like they're still unboxing is
Speaker 1: a huge trend and that's worked its way into toys,
Speaker 1: so L O L Surprise is kind of based on that,
Speaker 1: and there's like a whole line of dolls but they're
Speaker 1: like into like DJ stuff and fashion and all that,
Speaker 1: but they also have Surprise. And there's also a kid
Speaker 1: named Ryan's World. I don't think that's his last name,
Speaker 1: but that's his his YouTube channel and guarantee we talked
Speaker 1: about Ryan's World in that Unboxing Toys episode. But um,
Speaker 1: he's got all sorts of toys that are um out
Speaker 1: where you like, you just don't know what you're getting
Speaker 1: when you open the thing. It's just surprise unboxing the
Speaker 1: weird sub genre on YouTube of unboxing or I remember
Speaker 1: we talked about the one where the lady's hands would
Speaker 1: just play with things. Yeah, it was the Yeah remember
Speaker 1: she was like pepper Peg. Yeah, it's so interesting. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the one on the list though that
Speaker 1: I like that. Um, I usually look at the toys
Speaker 1: that I'm like, what, I like to play this with
Speaker 1: my daughter, because that's important. I can't be bored out
Speaker 1: of my mind, you know. Oh yeah, good point. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this lego make your own movie kit looks pretty
Speaker 1: cool to me. Yeah. I was kind of hartened to
Speaker 1: see that on on a couple of lists, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's like, this is about motion movies you can make. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's thoughtful, it's inventive. Yeah, where it's it's yeah, there's
Speaker 1: They have a bunch of different stages and backgrounds and props,
Speaker 1: including a banana. It's great. So you learn how to make.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna get get her? That? I think you
Speaker 1: should anytime? Buddy? Can we make a flaming hoop out
Speaker 1: of a coat hanger and do things with that too? Okay? Um?
Speaker 1: And then the other one was the Fisher Price link
Speaker 1: A moles, which are super cute, including the smooth move sloth.
Speaker 1: Hey I'm down with Fisher Price yea, so huge, huge
Speaker 1: right now? Yeah? Do you remember Playmobile? Play Mobile? Remember
Speaker 1: that they were like the vaguely European kind of um
Speaker 1: action people, but there was nothing like violent or military
Speaker 1: about them. They would explore or um. I probably recognize them.
Speaker 1: I definitely know that name. You You've seen it a
Speaker 1: million times. Right when you see it, you I'll I'll
Speaker 1: look it up and show it to you later. But
Speaker 1: it's you'll see it and be like, yeah, of course, wait,
Speaker 1: I see him right there. Sure, yeah, there you go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was kind of a Fisher Price kid. But you know,
Speaker 1: we still have some of that stuff that our daughter
Speaker 1: plays with that we had when we were kids, like
Speaker 1: the barn and the boat, and you know, it holds up,
Speaker 1: definitely does hold up. You got anything else, nothing else?
Speaker 1: You're gonna go buy a bunch of toys and flip them.
Speaker 1: I got nothing else except for twenty tho hatch homles
Speaker 1: in my garage. Man. Here's the other thing, though, Chuck, like,
Speaker 1: you're taking a risk because you've got to predict what
Speaker 1: they must have toys. And if you if you guess wrong,
Speaker 1: you've got twenty thousand hatch moles that nobody wants. But
Speaker 1: I'd love to see that happen in real life. I
Speaker 1: guarantee it happened. So just keep an ear out, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about the must have toys.
Speaker 1: There's basically nothing you can't know that we haven't already
Speaker 1: told you. So just I guess, go get your your
Speaker 1: kids some Christmas toys. That's right? Is that a good
Speaker 1: way to sign off? That's great? Okay? Since I said, uh,
Speaker 1: is this a good way to sign off. It's time
Speaker 1: for listener mail. I'm gonna call this from a teacher.
Speaker 1: We always like to shout out our teachers and their
Speaker 1: their students. Hey, guys, just sending one of what I'm
Speaker 1: sure is among infinite thank you so that you receive
Speaker 1: as a teacher who regularly references knowledge I gained from
Speaker 1: listening to your show in my class. My students, unwittingly, Uh,
Speaker 1: and I are eternally grateful for your work. They give
Speaker 1: a hearty laugh whenever I steal your characters. Took Took
Speaker 1: the wise proto Homo sapien and erg the folly prone
Speaker 1: genetic defect to elucidate points about the evolution of early humans.
Speaker 1: I knew you wouldn't mind my poaching that you think, John,
Speaker 1: you'll be hearing from our lawyers. John, you're the toy
Speaker 1: flipper of teachers. Just kidding, Uh. The reason I'm writing
Speaker 1: is to say I think you should not be discouraged
Speaker 1: by any listener mail you received telling you to keep
Speaker 1: your opinions to yourself. My favorite episodes are the ones
Speaker 1: where either or both of you have so strong feelings
Speaker 1: about the subject that you can't help but go on
Speaker 1: a rant Maybe it's just because I agree with every rant,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it is important to take a
Speaker 1: stand on issues that matter to you and admit that
Speaker 1: you're human beings with a real stake in the game.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, I'll keep listening as long as you keep podcasting.
Speaker 1: That is from John L. Bushkin. So thank you, Mr. Lebushkin,
Speaker 1: and hello to uh your students. Mr Lebushkin's class. Yeah, hi, guys,
Speaker 1: you's got a cool teacher. Yeah, he does sound pretty cool.
Speaker 1: He's doing God's work, teaching the next generation. That's right.
Speaker 1: I hope he doesn't work in a public school because
Speaker 1: he's gonna be like, can't say God's work. If you
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us like Mr Lebushkin did,
Speaker 1: or if you're a toy flipper who has an argument
Speaker 1: against Chuck's argument, we want to hear from you. Bring
Speaker 1: You can go on to stuff you Should Know dot
Speaker 1: com and check out our social links, and you can
Speaker 1: also send us an email to stuff podcast at iHeart
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows h