1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:04,720
Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

2
00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:09,119
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

3
00:00:09,240 --> 00:00:24,520
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,

4
00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:26,560
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. My

5
00:00:26,640 --> 00:00:29,000
Speaker 1: name isn't they call me Ben? You are you? And

6
00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:32,280
Speaker 1: that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today,

7
00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:34,479
Speaker 1: of course, when we joined as always with our super

8
00:00:34,479 --> 00:00:39,879
Speaker 1: producer Alex Williams, and for this episode, let's take an

9
00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:47,880
Speaker 1: imaginary road trip. Okay, well we going dad, Well let's

10
00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:50,599
Speaker 1: uh what about Disney World. Have you guys ever been

11
00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:55,400
Speaker 1: to Disney World? I went once when I was very

12
00:00:55,440 --> 00:00:58,680
Speaker 1: I guess I went several times I was very young, right, Uh,

13
00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:03,120
Speaker 1: Disney World is like this global legend. People around the

14
00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:06,640
Speaker 1: world are aware of Disney World. Right. It's a magical

15
00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:09,840
Speaker 1: place every day and estimated two d and fifty thousand

16
00:01:09,880 --> 00:01:12,800
Speaker 1: guests visit and in a lot of ways, it's a

17
00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:16,839
Speaker 1: city of its own, more ways than we knew prior

18
00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:20,520
Speaker 1: to researching this episode. And getting into the history of

19
00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:25,920
Speaker 1: Disney as a company is huge proposition, dude. And the

20
00:01:25,959 --> 00:01:28,440
Speaker 1: twists and turns you take and some of the legal

21
00:01:28,480 --> 00:01:32,000
Speaker 1: stuff we're gonna get into in this episode. UM very

22
00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:34,720
Speaker 1: surprising to me considering the way I view the company

23
00:01:34,720 --> 00:01:38,920
Speaker 1: and like the the image the word Disney. So we yeah,

24
00:01:38,959 --> 00:01:40,920
Speaker 1: so we have to be we have to pick our

25
00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:44,840
Speaker 1: battles and be pretty specific. So today we're going to

26
00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:47,840
Speaker 1: look at the story of Walt Disney World, located in

27
00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:51,120
Speaker 1: Bay Lake and Lake Buena, Viz, Stuff, Florida. This wasn't

28
00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:54,080
Speaker 1: the first part Disney built. There was another part called

29
00:01:54,160 --> 00:02:00,480
Speaker 1: Disneyland in Anaheim, California, that opened in nineteen and uh Nolan.

30
00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:03,120
Speaker 1: I actually stayed across the street from there recently, and

31
00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:04,840
Speaker 1: now I really kind of wanted to go, but I

32
00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:08,600
Speaker 1: just I couldn't justify spending more than a hundred dollars

33
00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:11,600
Speaker 1: to like wait in a series of lines all day,

34
00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:13,680
Speaker 1: which is kind of what it seems like a trip

35
00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:17,480
Speaker 1: to Disneyland involves. Yeah, and they have fireworks every night.

36
00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:19,359
Speaker 1: We saw those for free though from the street from

37
00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:21,560
Speaker 1: just like driving around. That was pretty cool. We went,

38
00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:24,760
Speaker 1: Tyler and Holly and I went when we went to

39
00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:29,639
Speaker 1: Star Wars celebration. Specifically, we I paid money to get

40
00:02:29,639 --> 00:02:32,200
Speaker 1: in there to be with Holly to watch the fireworks

41
00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:34,840
Speaker 1: because it was like a Star Wars themed thing. And

42
00:02:34,880 --> 00:02:37,919
Speaker 1: that's a Holly Fry friend of the shows and one

43
00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:40,519
Speaker 1: of the co host of stuff you missed in history class.

44
00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:43,600
Speaker 1: So was it was it worth it? Did you have

45
00:02:43,639 --> 00:02:47,959
Speaker 1: a good time? I mean for my money? No, But

46
00:02:48,760 --> 00:02:51,520
Speaker 1: the look on Holly's face, like with the tears coming

47
00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:54,760
Speaker 1: down after the Star Wars presentation, I mean it was

48
00:02:54,760 --> 00:02:58,600
Speaker 1: worth it. Oh that's beautiful man. Yeah. I I didn't

49
00:02:58,639 --> 00:03:01,320
Speaker 1: make it into Disneyland that time around, but who knows.

50
00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:04,960
Speaker 1: Life is life is long, right. Uh. The most well

51
00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:08,520
Speaker 1: known park the Disney owns is probably still the one

52
00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:11,560
Speaker 1: in Florida. It's Disney World. Uh, it was built in

53
00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:17,600
Speaker 1: one Currently it's over twenty seven thousand acres or forty

54
00:03:17,600 --> 00:03:21,000
Speaker 1: three square miles in size. And it's got a bunch

55
00:03:21,040 --> 00:03:22,920
Speaker 1: of stuff on there too. Oh yeah, You've got four

56
00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:25,799
Speaker 1: theme parks that are massive on their own right to

57
00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:31,120
Speaker 1: water parks which are also hefty. Twenty seven themed resort

58
00:03:31,160 --> 00:03:34,760
Speaker 1: hotels that blew my mind. I knew of maybe eight.

59
00:03:35,600 --> 00:03:37,320
Speaker 1: I did not know there were twenty seven. I wonder

60
00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:40,200
Speaker 1: if they start reaching after like number twenty, they've got

61
00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:43,200
Speaker 1: to know. Those last eight, I think is one of them,

62
00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:46,120
Speaker 1: just the themed on the Parrot and a lack. Well,

63
00:03:46,160 --> 00:03:48,920
Speaker 1: you see, that's the thing with every new property they

64
00:03:48,960 --> 00:03:51,880
Speaker 1: produce in their other ventures in their media companies. You

65
00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:54,280
Speaker 1: can just pop a resort up and now you've got

66
00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:58,280
Speaker 1: money just coming in. There's an Avatar one now, right,

67
00:03:58,320 --> 00:04:00,520
Speaker 1: And then there's also the Star Wars. There is one

68
00:04:00,960 --> 00:04:03,120
Speaker 1: where it like lets you like almost like be a

69
00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:06,000
Speaker 1: character in your own Star Wars adventure. And I think

70
00:04:06,040 --> 00:04:07,839
Speaker 1: it's kind of creepy to me a little bit, where

71
00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:12,400
Speaker 1: like you don't really leave at the park or the hotel.

72
00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:16,400
Speaker 1: It's all this like unified experience where everything follows you

73
00:04:16,720 --> 00:04:19,080
Speaker 1: from your hotel to like your time at the park

74
00:04:19,120 --> 00:04:21,600
Speaker 1: and a lot of stuff, and you like maintain this

75
00:04:22,360 --> 00:04:26,880
Speaker 1: reputation I guess based on choices you make. It's all encompassing,

76
00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:30,320
Speaker 1: self sustaining. It's a theme we're gonna continue to cover

77
00:04:30,400 --> 00:04:33,600
Speaker 1: in this episode. It's a bubble. It's almost alt reality.

78
00:04:33,800 --> 00:04:35,600
Speaker 1: I was talking to Holly from history class about it,

79
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:37,840
Speaker 1: and she's kind of a disney a ficionano, shall all

80
00:04:37,839 --> 00:04:39,400
Speaker 1: we say? And I was sort of saying, like, man,

81
00:04:39,440 --> 00:04:41,200
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's a little ways just like what

82
00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:43,719
Speaker 1: about that sounds weird? That sounds like the most amazing

83
00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:46,880
Speaker 1: thing ever in the history of anything. I'm like, cool,

84
00:04:46,880 --> 00:04:49,200
Speaker 1: well you can you can have that. People. Yeah, people

85
00:04:49,240 --> 00:04:52,800
Speaker 1: who are fans of Disney are often you know, die hard,

86
00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:57,040
Speaker 1: lifelong loyalist, you know, like traveling every year, have a

87
00:04:57,040 --> 00:05:01,720
Speaker 1: reserve place, maybe have a a home that they spend

88
00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:04,599
Speaker 1: part of the time, part of the year in near

89
00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:08,760
Speaker 1: the parks. They're also nine non Disney hotels if you

90
00:05:08,800 --> 00:05:11,360
Speaker 1: need a Disney break, Uh, they've got Call of course

91
00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:14,520
Speaker 1: is of course as a camping resort. Here's the craziest

92
00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:17,760
Speaker 1: thing we found. There's still more room for growth. Less

93
00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:21,479
Speaker 1: than thirty four per cent of this land has been developed.

94
00:05:21,640 --> 00:05:23,839
Speaker 1: A quarter of it is a wilderness preserve, which I

95
00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:27,440
Speaker 1: think is reflects nicely on them, doesn't it. And you know,

96
00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:31,240
Speaker 1: it's not exactly easy to develop land in that part

97
00:05:31,240 --> 00:05:34,240
Speaker 1: of Florida, just you gotta do a lot of work

98
00:05:34,279 --> 00:05:36,160
Speaker 1: to even prep it to put buildings on there. Oh,

99
00:05:36,279 --> 00:05:40,360
Speaker 1: just because it's swampy. Stay Walt. Disney World is the

100
00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:44,520
Speaker 1: most popular vacation resort on the planet. According to them,

101
00:05:44,560 --> 00:05:46,600
Speaker 1: I feel like I have to add that part. And

102
00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:50,719
Speaker 1: every year they have an estimated attendance of over fifty

103
00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:54,960
Speaker 1: two million people. That's not at Disneyland and Disney World combined.

104
00:05:55,160 --> 00:05:58,960
Speaker 1: That's a Disney World. So we mentioned the total square

105
00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:05,359
Speaker 1: mileage by way of comparison. This area, this complex, this bubble,

106
00:06:05,480 --> 00:06:07,599
Speaker 1: it's community of its own, is about the size of

107
00:06:07,640 --> 00:06:13,000
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Oh, it's actually going to Orlando for a

108
00:06:13,080 --> 00:06:15,840
Speaker 1: non Disney work related thing next week. And when I

109
00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:18,760
Speaker 1: went to rent a car, the stat popped up on

110
00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:22,159
Speaker 1: the car rental site that Orlando is like the car

111
00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:25,520
Speaker 1: rental capital of the world. You're going to be a

112
00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:30,960
Speaker 1: part of history. When you land on the plane or

113
00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:32,800
Speaker 1: when you sit next to someone on the plane, you

114
00:06:32,839 --> 00:06:35,440
Speaker 1: should just tell them that you're going because it's the

115
00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:38,800
Speaker 1: car rental capital. I've always dreamed of visiting the car

116
00:06:38,960 --> 00:06:41,560
Speaker 1: rental capital of the world. No, but seeing all these stats,

117
00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:44,680
Speaker 1: it makes sense. I guess I didn't realize how massive

118
00:06:44,760 --> 00:06:48,320
Speaker 1: this whole complex is with all this different stuff. Makes

119
00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:50,839
Speaker 1: sense if you're if you're not familiar with San Francisco,

120
00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:54,800
Speaker 1: imagine the entire island of Manhattan, New York, where New

121
00:06:54,880 --> 00:06:57,760
Speaker 1: York City is, and now double it and then put

122
00:06:57,800 --> 00:07:01,520
Speaker 1: it in Florida. And that's how large places. I get

123
00:07:01,560 --> 00:07:06,480
Speaker 1: some a cartoon mouse too, and just a kick ass castle.

124
00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:08,279
Speaker 1: Can I say that? Like, I know it's not a

125
00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:11,760
Speaker 1: real castle, but that thing looks cool. It really does.

126
00:07:13,240 --> 00:07:16,360
Speaker 1: Magic Kingdom opened up in nine one, right, and when

127
00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:19,880
Speaker 1: it did, it had about five thousand, five dred employees.

128
00:07:20,360 --> 00:07:23,800
Speaker 1: The term for park employees, by the way, is cast members.

129
00:07:24,400 --> 00:07:26,960
Speaker 1: And this is interesting because there's a there's a whole

130
00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:31,360
Speaker 1: terminology or language used by the company to describe guests,

131
00:07:31,760 --> 00:07:34,800
Speaker 1: to describe experiences or attractions. And it reminds me of

132
00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:40,600
Speaker 1: when we all learned through just weird conversations here at work.

133
00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:43,200
Speaker 1: We all learned about how the w w E and

134
00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:48,200
Speaker 1: the world of wrestling has its own weird language. Superstars

135
00:07:48,320 --> 00:07:51,160
Speaker 1: right right, Uh makes me want to put my hands

136
00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:55,480
Speaker 1: under my armpits and smell them. Wow. I wonder how

137
00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:57,280
Speaker 1: many people in our audience get that right, and they

138
00:07:57,320 --> 00:08:00,480
Speaker 1: all just they come up a freak that is an

139
00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:03,960
Speaker 1: Saturday night or anyone. I did not make that up.

140
00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:08,120
Speaker 1: That's a good one. No, no, please, I think we

141
00:08:08,160 --> 00:08:10,520
Speaker 1: should keep it. Somebody will write in with an email. No,

142
00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:13,200
Speaker 1: they'll get it, you know. So it's like a whole

143
00:08:13,240 --> 00:08:18,200
Speaker 1: branded like like like Disney speak. Yeah yeah yeah, so uh, No,

144
00:08:18,280 --> 00:08:22,440
Speaker 1: employees everybody's a cast member. They're always performing, and they're

145
00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:25,800
Speaker 1: always guest. Uh. And the secret stuff that happens, which

146
00:08:25,880 --> 00:08:29,960
Speaker 1: is fascinating Underworld of its Own, is just all referred

147
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:34,280
Speaker 1: to as backstage. Yeah, and then anytime you're around a guest,

148
00:08:34,320 --> 00:08:37,800
Speaker 1: you're on stage. That is so cool. I kind of

149
00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:40,240
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, you know, I guess they have

150
00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:44,640
Speaker 1: to have pretty easily understood and clearly defined rules because

151
00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:48,679
Speaker 1: today Walt Disney World employs more than seventy four thousand

152
00:08:48,920 --> 00:08:52,200
Speaker 1: cast members, and that means it's payroll is like one

153
00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:56,920
Speaker 1: point two billion dollars annually a year. Yeah, not not

154
00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:01,280
Speaker 1: every day, but that's really exciting. That means this company

155
00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:05,000
Speaker 1: must bring in just butt loads of cash, right, because

156
00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:08,400
Speaker 1: payroll is just going to be a percentage of profit. Right. Uh.

157
00:09:08,440 --> 00:09:12,360
Speaker 1: And before it gets too weird, right, we've got to

158
00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:15,000
Speaker 1: admit it's easy to fall into a Disney rabbit hole.

159
00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:17,800
Speaker 1: Over the years, the Magic Kingdom has been the subject

160
00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:21,160
Speaker 1: of all kinds of conspiracy theories and unfounded rumors, and

161
00:09:21,440 --> 00:09:23,920
Speaker 1: you've probably if you're listening to this show, you've probably

162
00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:27,600
Speaker 1: heard at least a few of these before. Oh yeah, dudes,

163
00:09:27,960 --> 00:09:32,040
Speaker 1: there's the idea that secret events. They're they're secret places

164
00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:35,920
Speaker 1: in the Disney theme parks, and there are these like

165
00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:39,040
Speaker 1: secret parties that occur at these things, and there's there

166
00:09:39,040 --> 00:09:42,200
Speaker 1: have been crazy accusations online about what goes on at

167
00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:44,079
Speaker 1: some of these. But we do know there's a grain

168
00:09:44,160 --> 00:09:46,600
Speaker 1: of truth here because there are a lot of exclusive

169
00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:50,360
Speaker 1: clubs that exist in the different resorts, in the different

170
00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:53,040
Speaker 1: parks that you have to be a specific type of

171
00:09:53,080 --> 00:09:55,000
Speaker 1: member to get in and you know, have a drink

172
00:09:55,040 --> 00:09:59,360
Speaker 1: there or whatever. Yeah. One the one that I think

173
00:09:59,480 --> 00:10:04,480
Speaker 1: started this sort of conspiracy or this rumor is a

174
00:10:04,480 --> 00:10:09,960
Speaker 1: place called Club thirty three, private exclusive five star restaurant

175
00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:14,199
Speaker 1: in and it's actually in Disneyland in California, so not

176
00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:17,040
Speaker 1: in Florida. But the idea, you know, like to prove

177
00:10:17,040 --> 00:10:19,360
Speaker 1: an existence of Club thirty three will make people some

178
00:10:19,400 --> 00:10:23,480
Speaker 1: people say, like, you know, there's a secret spot in Florida. Two. Yeah,

179
00:10:23,559 --> 00:10:25,600
Speaker 1: there's a you have to know the right you have

180
00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:28,360
Speaker 1: to shake the right mouse's hand. Plus let's talk about

181
00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:32,920
Speaker 1: the number thirty three. Oh, I feel like I'm good

182
00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:35,000
Speaker 1: on the number thirty three. Oh, that's right. This is

183
00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:37,720
Speaker 1: our first time recording since the world didn't end, right,

184
00:10:38,160 --> 00:10:41,880
Speaker 1: We're Okay, I wasn't even aware that that was a

185
00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:44,560
Speaker 1: potential thing that was gonna happen. You guys, you did

186
00:10:44,600 --> 00:10:47,080
Speaker 1: include me in and didn't send mimmo. We were banking

187
00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:49,320
Speaker 1: on it not happening. But if it did, that would

188
00:10:49,320 --> 00:10:51,840
Speaker 1: have been pretty terrible on our part. Then I'm sorry.

189
00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:54,200
Speaker 1: I would have felt I would have felt really bad.

190
00:10:54,280 --> 00:10:57,320
Speaker 1: If the world ends, I wanna, you know, I want

191
00:10:57,360 --> 00:11:01,319
Speaker 1: this show to go out. Uh, guns lazy. We should

192
00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:03,720
Speaker 1: get some guns in the studio and it wants to

193
00:11:03,720 --> 00:11:08,240
Speaker 1: be like the whole crew. Yes, you know, but for now,

194
00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:11,760
Speaker 1: of course, the world hasn't ended, and I'm very glad

195
00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:15,720
Speaker 1: it hasn't. That's right. Uh. And you can still get

196
00:11:15,720 --> 00:11:19,599
Speaker 1: into an exclusive club at Disneyland. And the question is

197
00:11:19,640 --> 00:11:22,800
Speaker 1: are there other secret places at Disney World. But that's

198
00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:25,960
Speaker 1: just one of the us. There's other stuff too. Speaking

199
00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:30,360
Speaker 1: of people dying, apparently that's not a thing at Disney.

200
00:11:30,400 --> 00:11:34,120
Speaker 1: In Disney, no one dies. Only that's not true. But

201
00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:36,640
Speaker 1: the theory is that no one dies at Disney is

202
00:11:36,679 --> 00:11:39,760
Speaker 1: the idea that both cast and guest deaths are covered

203
00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:44,920
Speaker 1: up to keep the park's image squeaky clean. Um. Part

204
00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:48,600
Speaker 1: of that focuses on the whole underground backstage system where

205
00:11:48,679 --> 00:11:51,360
Speaker 1: if anything kind of starts to go down, things get

206
00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:55,400
Speaker 1: swept away and down into the catacombs. Uh. You know,

207
00:11:55,480 --> 00:11:57,960
Speaker 1: it's an interesting idea for when I first read that

208
00:11:58,040 --> 00:11:59,520
Speaker 1: this one, I thought it was like some sort of

209
00:11:59,559 --> 00:12:03,800
Speaker 1: weird legal distinction that only Disney have, like the zone

210
00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:06,120
Speaker 1: of death. So we did where it's like, you know,

211
00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:09,160
Speaker 1: you it's not possible for you to die. Yes, you're Dad,

212
00:12:09,280 --> 00:12:13,439
Speaker 1: but you're not when you're at Disney. You just I

213
00:12:13,480 --> 00:12:16,160
Speaker 1: don't know what happens. So they just used a different word.

214
00:12:16,280 --> 00:12:20,120
Speaker 1: They're like, uh, you get promoted. They probably turn you

215
00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:22,400
Speaker 1: into like a costume and prop you up like a

216
00:12:22,440 --> 00:12:25,480
Speaker 1: puppet's school. See, I think you become a cast member

217
00:12:25,480 --> 00:12:29,360
Speaker 1: permanently at the Haunted Mansion. See it's got his Hotel

218
00:12:29,440 --> 00:12:36,400
Speaker 1: California vibe. So su you know, they know Disney listens

219
00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:38,640
Speaker 1: to this stuff. They have may monitor all frequencies for

220
00:12:38,679 --> 00:12:41,920
Speaker 1: any mention of the mouse. Well, you know it might

221
00:12:41,960 --> 00:12:44,600
Speaker 1: not be Disney monitoring. There might be somebody else just

222
00:12:44,679 --> 00:12:48,240
Speaker 1: given it to Disney. And again we're going to get

223
00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:51,920
Speaker 1: into it, man. Yeah, We're going to focus on a

224
00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:56,160
Speaker 1: single aspect of Walt Disney World just just one facet

225
00:12:56,400 --> 00:13:00,880
Speaker 1: of this gem, and that is the construction of the

226
00:13:01,400 --> 00:13:07,040
Speaker 1: of this ideal world. Because of course, buying over forty

227
00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:10,439
Speaker 1: square miles of land in Florida, even swamp land, it's

228
00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:11,960
Speaker 1: not something you just go out and do on a

229
00:13:12,040 --> 00:13:16,360
Speaker 1: lunch break, and it can also be quite expensive. If

230
00:13:16,559 --> 00:13:20,400
Speaker 1: that is you do it legally, you can do that illegally.

231
00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:24,800
Speaker 1: So in the fifties, when Disney began searching for property

232
00:13:24,800 --> 00:13:27,080
Speaker 1: in Florida, the company realized they were kind of at

233
00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:30,160
Speaker 1: this collective crossroads. Uh there were two ways to look

234
00:13:30,200 --> 00:13:34,760
Speaker 1: at their situation. So I'll present their perspective and then

235
00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:37,680
Speaker 1: the other way to look at it from the company's perspective.

236
00:13:37,880 --> 00:13:41,720
Speaker 1: How the land was purchased was crucial. If multiple private

237
00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:45,800
Speaker 1: landowners realized a single company was purchasing land in the area,

238
00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:49,040
Speaker 1: the owners would almost certainly jack up their prices, and

239
00:13:49,160 --> 00:13:53,120
Speaker 1: if they knew it was Disney, this would be compounded right. Uh,

240
00:13:53,160 --> 00:13:57,000
Speaker 1: So they would start speculating, maybe even becoming just holdouts,

241
00:13:57,720 --> 00:14:00,720
Speaker 1: just saying like I have my you know, level ranch

242
00:14:02,040 --> 00:14:04,760
Speaker 1: home in the middle of what of all the land

243
00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:06,360
Speaker 1: you want? So now it's going to be a million

244
00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:09,920
Speaker 1: dollars pay me or eminent domain. Son. There wasn't a

245
00:14:09,920 --> 00:14:12,480
Speaker 1: way to claim imminent domain or anything, because that's a

246
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:16,160
Speaker 1: power technically restricted to the government. And imminent domain is

247
00:14:16,240 --> 00:14:19,520
Speaker 1: the thing in action when you see roads in your

248
00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:22,239
Speaker 1: neighborhood get widened. We have a lot of that in Atlanta,

249
00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:26,880
Speaker 1: and that that happens because the city says, well, for

250
00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:30,560
Speaker 1: the good, the public good, we are taking possession of

251
00:14:30,640 --> 00:14:33,880
Speaker 1: you know, like this front four feet of someone's yard,

252
00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:37,200
Speaker 1: and generally will pay you right, you know what we

253
00:14:37,320 --> 00:14:39,800
Speaker 1: determined to be a fair market rate. There's another way

254
00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:41,960
Speaker 1: to look at this, and that is Disney realized that

255
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:46,360
Speaker 1: by obscuring, obstucating the company's identity, by making certain that

256
00:14:46,520 --> 00:14:50,400
Speaker 1: landowners did not really know who was buying what, the

257
00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:54,440
Speaker 1: company could conspire to get land at a price significantly

258
00:14:54,560 --> 00:14:57,320
Speaker 1: below market rate. And when we say below market rate,

259
00:14:57,400 --> 00:15:01,480
Speaker 1: we're talking around two hundred US do dollars for an acre,

260
00:15:01,760 --> 00:15:04,440
Speaker 1: an entire acre of land for two that's crazy, that's

261
00:15:04,440 --> 00:15:09,520
Speaker 1: a good deal. Yeah, that's clearly I'm not a land baron.

262
00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:14,800
Speaker 1: So there was a conspiracy going on. Is that conspires

263
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:18,400
Speaker 1: like the Yeah, that this is a textbook group of

264
00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:21,720
Speaker 1: people conspiring to buy land at a much lower price.

265
00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:23,800
Speaker 1: But the mouse would never do that. That that he's

266
00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:26,600
Speaker 1: he's in looking at him. He's got those big white

267
00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:29,840
Speaker 1: gloves and smiling, was facing that pie pitched voice. It

268
00:15:29,880 --> 00:15:32,880
Speaker 1: wasn't the mouse though, it was the mouse's boys. Yeah,

269
00:15:32,960 --> 00:15:35,400
Speaker 1: the mouse is. The mouse is like an idea guy.

270
00:15:35,560 --> 00:15:39,920
Speaker 1: He doesn't get those gloves dirty, but he does have friends.

271
00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:43,480
Speaker 1: And they posed another question to Walt Disney, and let's

272
00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:45,440
Speaker 1: just refer to Disney as the mouse. I like that

273
00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:49,880
Speaker 1: a little bit of autonomy, right, So they posed the question,

274
00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:53,400
Speaker 1: They said, well, once you own the land, how do

275
00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:57,200
Speaker 1: you control it? He who controls the spice controls the world.

276
00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:09,160
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. So Disney, as Matt has

277
00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:12,640
Speaker 1: as mad is sort of foreshadowed the mouse. The mouse, Yes,

278
00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:17,520
Speaker 1: the mouse. How soon I forgot the mouse had friends

279
00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:19,680
Speaker 1: and the mouse did not do all of its own

280
00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:23,920
Speaker 1: work and acquiring this land. Believe it or not, the

281
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:27,840
Speaker 1: mouse worked with the CIA, using the same tactics that

282
00:16:28,040 --> 00:16:33,640
Speaker 1: CIA agents had previously used to destabilize foreign regimes. The mouse,

283
00:16:33,720 --> 00:16:37,520
Speaker 1: in a small circle of close contact from the intelligence community,

284
00:16:37,560 --> 00:16:44,160
Speaker 1: created this enduring fiction. It involves puppet governments, shell companies,

285
00:16:44,720 --> 00:16:47,320
Speaker 1: all all the hits all the goods, and you may

286
00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:50,720
Speaker 1: be thinking to yourself, what again, You're gonna say that

287
00:16:50,760 --> 00:16:53,520
Speaker 1: a lot this episode. The truth is stranger than fiction

288
00:16:53,680 --> 00:16:57,600
Speaker 1: often so Disney the mouse had a contact with the

289
00:16:57,640 --> 00:17:01,760
Speaker 1: CIA there probably what's called their initial contact, and it

290
00:17:01,880 --> 00:17:04,920
Speaker 1: was a person you may have heard of previously, Good

291
00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:08,200
Speaker 1: Old William Donovan a k A. Wild Bill, a k

292
00:17:08,440 --> 00:17:12,040
Speaker 1: A Father of the CIA, a k A Hurdy Gurdy Man,

293
00:17:12,320 --> 00:17:16,919
Speaker 1: Sunshine Superman. That's not true, that's a different Donovan. I

294
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:19,560
Speaker 1: like the A K A game. Remember we we played

295
00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:21,600
Speaker 1: that back in the day. That you know, I think

296
00:17:21,640 --> 00:17:24,240
Speaker 1: you should keep it quiet, but I think you should

297
00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:27,240
Speaker 1: market that. That could be a boxed up game that

298
00:17:27,320 --> 00:17:31,160
Speaker 1: you can see, you think to the nerds, yes, we'd

299
00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:35,199
Speaker 1: see some like you know, clandestine, hard to follow rules.

300
00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:39,360
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, we uh un a tangible. We're off air.

301
00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:43,840
Speaker 1: We we have all sorts of schemes, plans and shenanigans.

302
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:46,679
Speaker 1: And one time we made up a game called a

303
00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:49,440
Speaker 1: k and it was great. Our version of it, though,

304
00:17:49,520 --> 00:17:51,840
Speaker 1: is just like a K A A thing is it

305
00:17:52,119 --> 00:17:53,240
Speaker 1: was there? Like, but what if you have to do

306
00:17:53,240 --> 00:17:55,480
Speaker 1: it in alphabetical order, like you know, like like like

307
00:17:55,520 --> 00:17:58,280
Speaker 1: going to a add a couple of things. You have

308
00:17:58,359 --> 00:18:00,159
Speaker 1: to be some some rules. We'll get back to you

309
00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:02,600
Speaker 1: guys on that will work on that. Don't steal our ideas,

310
00:18:02,640 --> 00:18:04,520
Speaker 1: but you know, you can send us suggestions. If there's

311
00:18:04,520 --> 00:18:07,800
Speaker 1: nothing to steal yet, be on the lookout for it

312
00:18:07,840 --> 00:18:11,000
Speaker 1: on our on our new merch shop that we're working on. Yeah,

313
00:18:11,320 --> 00:18:16,320
Speaker 1: all right, So who is this wild Bill? Well, they

314
00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:18,439
Speaker 1: call him the father of the CIA because he was

315
00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:22,600
Speaker 1: the founder of the Office of Strategic Services, the s

316
00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:25,280
Speaker 1: the OSS. You may have heard us speak of that before.

317
00:18:25,320 --> 00:18:27,840
Speaker 1: It was the agency that came before the CIA, what

318
00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:32,400
Speaker 1: the CIA would become. And he also co founded, interestingly enough,

319
00:18:32,520 --> 00:18:37,080
Speaker 1: a New York law firm called Donovan Leisure, Newton and Irvine.

320
00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:39,840
Speaker 1: It sounds really nice. They did lots of good work

321
00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:44,159
Speaker 1: and according to author T. D. Allman, he uh he

322
00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:46,639
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Finding Florida, The True History of

323
00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:52,480
Speaker 1: the Sunshine State. He says that attorneys from this firm

324
00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:56,600
Speaker 1: they provided very specific services for Disney and he calls

325
00:18:56,640 --> 00:19:00,600
Speaker 1: them agents who were attempting to acquire land in Florida.

326
00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:03,679
Speaker 1: What we were talking about, Well, they did things like

327
00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:07,680
Speaker 1: provide fake identification for agents working on behalf of Disney

328
00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:11,160
Speaker 1: set up a secret communications center so that they could

329
00:19:11,480 --> 00:19:16,680
Speaker 1: talk to each other clandestine lee. They also orchestrated disinformation

330
00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:20,560
Speaker 1: campaigns wherein they spread false rumors about the Ford Motor

331
00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:23,000
Speaker 1: Company being the behemoth that was coming through and buying

332
00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:25,800
Speaker 1: up all the land, so that Ford ended up getting

333
00:19:25,840 --> 00:19:28,879
Speaker 1: some flak in the press and they were kind of shielded.

334
00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:34,040
Speaker 1: Kind of crazy stuff, right, Yeah, I mean that's how

335
00:19:34,080 --> 00:19:37,520
Speaker 1: the that's how the apples get squished. It with Uber

336
00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:42,080
Speaker 1: ordered all those uh, fraudulent pizzas from lift drivers. No way,

337
00:19:42,119 --> 00:19:45,639
Speaker 1: that's not true. It's the other way around. It's the

338
00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:48,040
Speaker 1: other around. Uber does like apparently like ordered a bunch

339
00:19:48,080 --> 00:19:50,439
Speaker 1: of lifts that weren't going to any actual people just

340
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:52,840
Speaker 1: to like get them off the off the grid. Whoa

341
00:19:53,880 --> 00:19:57,680
Speaker 1: and completely legal. Yeah, but yeah, this guy wild Bill

342
00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:01,600
Speaker 1: was not the only CIA contact. There was another fellow

343
00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:05,640
Speaker 1: named Paul Hello. Well. He was hired as the Mouse's

344
00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:11,679
Speaker 1: chief legal strategist. This was an extremely extremely shady character

345
00:20:12,119 --> 00:20:14,159
Speaker 1: he was. He was what I would call part of

346
00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:18,240
Speaker 1: the deep sketch and uh he had helped launch the

347
00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:23,359
Speaker 1: secret CIA wars or conflicts in Indo, China, and he

348
00:20:23,400 --> 00:20:27,560
Speaker 1: had returned to Florida, Miami specifically to help orchestrate various

349
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:32,720
Speaker 1: agency attempts at overthrowing Castro. And yes we're talking about

350
00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:38,160
Speaker 1: the bizarre assassination attempts as well, really cartoonish stuff from

351
00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:43,080
Speaker 1: a different cartoon dynasty. Dynasty. Uh, they tried to give

352
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:48,920
Speaker 1: Fidel Castro exploding cigars his beard fall off. It made

353
00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:52,600
Speaker 1: me think a wildly coyote. The level of scams. And

354
00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:56,040
Speaker 1: you know the various different acme products in the big

355
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:58,400
Speaker 1: box that the word on it, and acmee was such

356
00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:02,000
Speaker 1: a successful company, but there's never seemed to work, you

357
00:21:02,040 --> 00:21:06,760
Speaker 1: know anyway this Uh, he was part of this fighting Castro,

358
00:21:09,119 --> 00:21:11,680
Speaker 1: making c I a wars and said I'll help you

359
00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:17,280
Speaker 1: out Walter. And his first big task with the mouse

360
00:21:17,480 --> 00:21:19,920
Speaker 1: was to buy up land for Disney without letting any

361
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:22,360
Speaker 1: of the property owners know that Disney was the one

362
00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:25,359
Speaker 1: buying them out. And so that works in concert with

363
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:29,040
Speaker 1: the stuff that wild Bill is doing where he's spreading

364
00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:32,119
Speaker 1: rumors and somebody says, you know, are you from the

365
00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:35,720
Speaker 1: Ford Motor Company? No, no, no, but we hear they're around,

366
00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:39,600
Speaker 1: you know exactly. He started out buying land as low

367
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:42,800
Speaker 1: as eighty bucks an acre, which again not being land barrens.

368
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:45,880
Speaker 1: Still that sounds pretty good, right, eighty bucks an acre,

369
00:21:46,600 --> 00:21:48,840
Speaker 1: I'll take it. I will build so many houses. That's

370
00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:51,600
Speaker 1: like what three acres for a video game system? Yeah.

371
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 1: Uh So he started buying this stuff like eighty bucks

372
00:21:56,520 --> 00:22:00,879
Speaker 1: an acre through various Shell companies while Donovan Bill Donovan's

373
00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:08,679
Speaker 1: firm ran that disinformation campaign. And today A neat note

374
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:12,440
Speaker 1: about the palampsest of history is that today you can

375
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:15,760
Speaker 1: walk down Main Street, USA at Walt Disney World and

376
00:22:15,840 --> 00:22:18,639
Speaker 1: you can find the names of those Shell companies because

377
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:22,120
Speaker 1: they are listed on the upper story windows of the buildings. Yeah,

378
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:24,760
Speaker 1: that's where they run. Man, that's where those Shell companies operate.

379
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:29,199
Speaker 1: Is that true? I mean why not? Why not? I

380
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:32,160
Speaker 1: would hope. So that would be kind of cool if

381
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:35,679
Speaker 1: like you had a you had a Shell company job

382
00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:38,280
Speaker 1: that was not amusement park related, but your office was

383
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:40,879
Speaker 1: in Disney World. It's just a single desk in a

384
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:43,240
Speaker 1: room and it looks out over Main Street. Parking is

385
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 1: probably really tough, though, so this doesn't work forever. Eventually,

386
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:50,080
Speaker 1: you know, word gets around as it as it is

387
00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:54,160
Speaker 1: want to do, and people finally find out that the

388
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:56,920
Speaker 1: there's only one big buyer in the area. And it's

389
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:00,640
Speaker 1: all Disney. And then the price shoots up to eight

390
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:04,000
Speaker 1: dollars an acre, at about what it probably should be

391
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 1: for a massive corporation buying a plant. But here's the deal. Yeah,

392
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: at that point, they bought so much land for such

393
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:15,159
Speaker 1: a cheaper price that the average overall is what we

394
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 1: stated before, two hundred dollars an acre. Wow. They got

395
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,280
Speaker 1: away with it so hard, and it seems like kind

396
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 1: of an exciting project to be involved in. I don't

397
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 1: want to sound to a moral or something, but it's

398
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 1: not like they were buying it to build a nuclear

399
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 1: waste site. Then that sounds just a moral enough to

400
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 1: be true. I feel like I would be okay at it.

401
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 1: You know, I've seen you wringing your hands in private.

402
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 1: Oh the thing is you just do one hand when

403
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: you're talking to the people. Yeah, it looks like you're

404
00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:56,920
Speaker 1: always about to do something. Yeah. But but here's the deal. Guys.

405
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 1: So they've acquired all this land, right, you've off the land.

406
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: But what are your next steps? Because you're you just

407
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,840
Speaker 1: own the land. What can I now do with this

408
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: land legally? Right? Right? So he also started pitching the

409
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: mouse on this other idea. He said Okay, we've we've

410
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 1: bought the land. How can we ensure the highest level

411
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 1: of sustained control over it? In very real sense? Hello

412
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 1: Well becomes the conceptual architect of this domain and gives

413
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 1: instructions on how to get close to something like severenity,

414
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:42,360
Speaker 1: uh self governance for the mouse's layer. Yeah, they're at

415
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:45,879
Speaker 1: a secretive. Walt Disney sets up a secretive meeting in

416
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 1: May of nineteen and he calls it a seminar, and

417
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 1: at the seminar, Hello Well pitches this approach that would

418
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 1: allow Disney to avoid a lot of taxation and environmental

419
00:24:57,359 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: regulation and main haying immunity from the U. S. Constitution. Wow,

420
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,640
Speaker 1: that does not sound sinister at all. That really escalates, right,

421
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 1: It's like the first one, the second one of the

422
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:13,359
Speaker 1: third one is yeah, the taxation things, you know, every

423
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,639
Speaker 1: church that's ever existed. The problem here is the guy's

424
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:19,439
Speaker 1: name is Hello l. So I can't like fault him

425
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:21,160
Speaker 1: because every time I hear his name, I just think,

426
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 1: Hello Well, He's just a good guy, or is it? Hell?

427
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 1: It depends on, you know, if you're a friend or

428
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: a foe. But I could definitely see it being the

429
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 1: name of like a character in a children's book. Definitely

430
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,879
Speaker 1: like an animal that talks. No, he's a he's like

431
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: an emoji. He's a Hello hel hellol never mind it. No, No,

432
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: I see where you're going. I think this has legs.

433
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 1: I'm going nowhere fast, but this story is going somewhere fast. So,

434
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:56,400
Speaker 1: just like in the earlier operations, Hello Well advised Disney

435
00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: to set up a puppet government that doesn't sounds sketchy

436
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: at all. He's part of the deep sketch and have

437
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 1: the entity dude Disney's bidding basic um. And then Hello

438
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:14,960
Speaker 1: l told Disney to establish at least two phantom cities.

439
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,639
Speaker 1: So you've got puppet governments and phantom cities. It's just

440
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:21,440
Speaker 1: to keep keeping stuff straight here. Then he said that

441
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: they should use these fake governments to control land use

442
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: and make sure the public money the theme park generated,

443
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: like taxes, for example, stayed in Disney's uh private you know,

444
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: white glove clad hands. Yeah, so you're paying yourself taxes.

445
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 1: M m m yeah, totally legit, totally legit. It's it's

446
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:46,640
Speaker 1: what they call soup's legit, right yep. So on pay

447
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: for Disney World cities would be just these you know,

448
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: regular role American hometowns. Just you you want to go

449
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 1: and visit the Disney hometown, you can. It's great, the

450
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 1: great values. Here. Here's the deal. First, you have to

451
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: bend the knee and swear field seeds of the mouth. Yes,

452
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:10,959
Speaker 1: well sure, because oh God, at the start of a

453
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 1: combination of goofy and and and make you yeah, I

454
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:18,199
Speaker 1: feel like I would do a better movie character. So

455
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:20,720
Speaker 1: here's the deal. Like we're saying, the ben the knee

456
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 1: thing kind of was there because the only official residents

457
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 1: who lived in these two cities would be hand picked.

458
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: They would be um, I guess, loyalists if you want

459
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: to call them that, people who just get tears if

460
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: you will. They worked for Disney, and they are the

461
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: ones who would periodically elect officials for these two cities,

462
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: who in turn would seed complete control over to Disney executives.

463
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,440
Speaker 1: So ultimately, it's just we're gonna put you in here,

464
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 1: you're gonna vote for us, We're gonna make the decisions,

465
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: and we're the guy's way up there are going to

466
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: be the ones who tell you what to do. It's weird, right.

467
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 1: In early nightteen sixty seven, Florida's legislature got into action

468
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: with this, they signed over municipal jurisdiction for the land

469
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: owned by the mouse. Uh and Walt himself named named

470
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:19,919
Speaker 1: this jurisdiction entity the Ready Creek Improvement District, and it

471
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 1: was named after a waterway that went through the land called,

472
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 1: in a burst of creativity, Ready Creek. So Disney officially

473
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: isn't really doing stuff. The Ready Creek Improvement District is.

474
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 1: And this means that Disney the Mouse can do whatever

475
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 1: it wants on that land without government interference, including if

476
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: they wanted building a nuclear waste site. And you know,

477
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 1: there there were rumors online that Disney had or was

478
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: about to build a nuclear power plant. As recently as

479
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: we have not been able to confirm any of those stories.

480
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: It's called Space Mountain. Yeah man, they woke. Okay, why

481
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: do you think so much as Space Mountain is dark

482
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 1: and so that you don't see the huge concrete shell

483
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: over the core. I never thought about that. It's cool.

484
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 1: You only get mildly irradiated by going on that ride,

485
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: which I'm into. I'm into like a good mild dose

486
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: of radiation. It's like going to the SPA. Yeah, So

487
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: I love how we co sign that. Please don't poison

488
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 1: yourself with the radiation chasing a mild spa high. This

489
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: essentially means, you know, now that they can have this

490
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 1: agency to build build structures that a government went usually build.

491
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 1: It means that they're in charge of things like fire

492
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: departments now right, waste disposal. They can build airports and

493
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: industrial parks, all that stuff, and they can this gets

494
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: a little dry, but they can issue tax free bonds

495
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: that are for internal improvements, right. And then they are

496
00:29:55,160 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: also exempt from laws regarding zoning or land use. So

497
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 1: the floor the Florida legislature creates these two phantom cities,

498
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: and they're both named for artificial reservoirs that Disney engineers made.

499
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: Since nobody actually lives in these phantom cities, Disney just needs,

500
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 1: Asthmat said a couple of hand picked employees to to

501
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: tow the line. On a side note, I am starting

502
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: to think the phrase handpicked is really weird. You don't

503
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: ever hear like footed hand hand pick anyway? Uh? Elbow robed,

504
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: elbow right? Yes, nipple pinched. Sorry, I had to keep it.

505
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: I had to. I had to have the last pinch.

506
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so many possibilities. Okay, okay, I will I'll

507
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: stay on the rails here. So we've got these handpicked employees. Yes,

508
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: and this whole Shenanigan is definitely sketchy, probably illegal, arguably unconstitutional,

509
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 1: but with the aid of the compliance state legislature, the

510
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: cities were incorporated. These would be Bay Lake and Lake

511
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: Buena Vista. They sound like beautiful places and they still

512
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 1: exist today with a combined population of around fifty seven people.

513
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: Most people have living in Bay Lake. All of them

514
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 1: are Disney employees or retired employees, or the children of employees.

515
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 1: And when you visit Disney's Magic Kingdom, you are visiting

516
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:27,239
Speaker 1: the city of Bay Lake, Florida. As we record this,

517
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: Bay Lake has a population of forty seven yep. And

518
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: then there are ten people hanging out in Lake Buena Vista,

519
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:36,239
Speaker 1: although they might not be hanging out there because they

520
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: probably have houses other places to All they have to

521
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: do is own the land. Yeah. In both cities. The

522
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: Disney engineered legislation established a qualification for holding executive office,

523
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: requiring that each candidate for office must be the owner

524
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: either directly or as a trustee, of real property situated

525
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 1: in the city. In order to be able to hold

526
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 1: the office of a council person. And that's important because

527
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: with like five exceptions, Disney owns all the land, all

528
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 1: of them with these five exceptions. And we'll explore this because,

529
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: as we said, through this r c I D. Red

530
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: Creek Improvement District, Disney is able to supply municipal services

531
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 1: like fire department, street cleaning, all that stuff. But despite

532
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: the pretty cozy arrangement, Disney and the State of Florida

533
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 1: still butt heads on different issues. Obviously, there's a lot

534
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 1: of money in play, and one of the big ones

535
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: would be property assessments. As you can imagine, the Magic

536
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 1: Kingdom is not it's not cheap. And Uncle Samson I

537
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: the that's the state Uncle Sam of Florida, the state

538
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 1: Uncle I like Uncle Sampson, and I needs that cash,

539
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: you know, to put in his Sampsonnite cash briefcases. Yeah,

540
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: it's a lot of probably a lot of cases for that.

541
00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: Those Disney Bucks puts bend Bucks to shame. Know what.

542
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 1: It's one step at a time. I'd I'd rather be

543
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: fighting for something I believe in than joining big Disney dollars,

544
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: you know. So where does that leave us today? We'll

545
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 1: examine the contents of that mouse trap when we return

546
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: from a quick break. Currently, Disney remains in control of

547
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: the area. The phantom cities we mentioned earlier are still around,

548
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 1: as is the town of Celebration, Florida, a Disney Plans

549
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: community where Disney remains the largest land owner. Yeah it was.

550
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: This thing was built, and it was built as an

551
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: homage to the Walt Disney EPCOT plan. This this real

552
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 1: utopian future of what a city could look like. Yeah.

553
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: EPCOT is an acronym. It stands for Experimental Prototype Community

554
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 1: of Tomorrow, and it could be the subject of its

555
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: own episode. It was one of Walt Disney's long running

556
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: dreams to build this perfect town or that obeyed his

557
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: ideals of a perfect town. And the plans are pretty interesting.

558
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and if you are interested in moving to Celebration,

559
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: you can get a one bed, one bath for I

560
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: think it's a condo for a hundred and thirty five

561
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: thousand dollars right now, that seems reasonable. Yeah, No, for

562
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: a condo nuts a little high right again, not clearly,

563
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: not in anything, baron or property or otherwise. I just

564
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 1: don't know how much anything costs. I'm like a child.

565
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 1: If you did just win the lottery, though, if you're

566
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:31,919
Speaker 1: listening to this, you can move there and be as

567
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 1: close as you want to the mouse for four million

568
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: dollars three million dollars. There are some mansions in celebration

569
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 1: for your mouse proximity, your mouse maximity. One of the

570
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: unexpectedly fascinating things we found we were looking at the

571
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: weird beginning of Disney was that all is not well

572
00:34:52,560 --> 00:35:00,760
Speaker 1: in celebration. It is a deceptively normal town, but it's

573
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: been it's been home to some murders. People say that

574
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:08,359
Speaker 1: they've gotten a Stepford vibe if they're not fans of

575
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 1: the town it has. When you move in there, you

576
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: get a handbook with pretty exacting rules over what you

577
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 1: can and can't do. You know, I'm assuming what is

578
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:22,879
Speaker 1: it the what are the homeowners? Yeah, I'm assuming those

579
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 1: are pretty intense there. And uh, speaking of lotteries, more

580
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: than four thousand people entered a lottery to pay over

581
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: the market price for the first homes. People were all

582
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: about it. There have been murders and there was a

583
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: guy bludged to death by traveling homeless man who said

584
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: that he bludged the guy for trying to sleep with him.

585
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: Less than a week later, an armed man barricaded himself

586
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 1: in his home. Yeah, burying the lead a little bit,

587
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 1: and it gets weirder. There's there's a group of British

588
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: expatriots who moved there when like retire and stuff, and

589
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:06,279
Speaker 1: there's a phenomenon that they refer to a celebration separation.

590
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 1: This describes the tendency only some members of the community

591
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: see it for living and celebration, for people to move

592
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: to celebration being happily married and then to pretty much

593
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: get divorced because of the living in that town. So

594
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:26,919
Speaker 1: it's there's something sinister when you hear people talk about

595
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: it that way. Um. One guy also said, you know,

596
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:33,439
Speaker 1: they're out here just swapping wives out of boredom. It's

597
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:35,799
Speaker 1: like I've never met so many swingers, which was not

598
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 1: what I was expecting. Not to like profile anybody, but

599
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:40,280
Speaker 1: that's not what I was expecting when I was reading

600
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: about celebration the disneytown. You know, yeah, but somebody, You know,

601
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:47,880
Speaker 1: there are a group of people, larger of people that

602
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 1: are loving it. And also if it bleeds, it leads.

603
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:57,959
Speaker 1: So I'm conveying information about like the bad things I've heard,

604
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: but I'm sure that there are people who have been

605
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: to celebration listening in the audience. Who can tell us

606
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: a little more about it? Right, and that's probably exaggerated.

607
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 1: God help you. If Holly's listening to this episode, God

608
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: help you. She is. She is a celebration fan. No,

609
00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: she's just you know, I think us she's a she's

610
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: a she's a Disney uh life firm. It's true, it's true,

611
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: and stuff you missed in the history class has some

612
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 1: excellent episodes on Disney. Don't just say God help me.

613
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:26,840
Speaker 1: Remember you're in this. I'm trying to I'm doing my

614
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 1: best to keep my mouse gloved hands clean. Here. You

615
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 1: came up with the mouse, dude, I didn't come up

616
00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: with the mouse. People call it the mouse. People were

617
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 1: fer to Disney as the mouse. It's the thing. I

618
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:39,919
Speaker 1: wish I could claim credit for that, but at last

619
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: I cannot. The overall area is still controlled by the

620
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 1: Reedy Creek Improvement District. It's governed by a five person

621
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 1: board of supervisors, all of whom are senior Disney employees.

622
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:55,400
Speaker 1: Remember when I mentioned those five exemptions or five exceptions,

623
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: So each of these five senior employees on the board

624
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 1: own a five acre undeveloped a lot of land within

625
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 1: the district. It is the only land not technically controlled

626
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: by the mouse or used for public slash road purposes.

627
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 1: And this means that they can vote. The residents of

628
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 1: the so called phantom cities can elect city officials, but

629
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:23,319
Speaker 1: because they are not landowners, because of that qualification, they

630
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,359
Speaker 1: have no power to elect the board of supervisors. In

631
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:31,240
Speaker 1: many ways, this remains an autonomous area with relatively little

632
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: government influence. It's a world in many ways all of

633
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 1: its own. Disney World, Man, Disney World a magical place.

634
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 1: And you know, they haven't been challenged in court on

635
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 1: the way this was set up right, and they're not

636
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:51,279
Speaker 1: doing villainous things. They're actually having a nature preserve is

637
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: an admirable thing, and I'm sure it's it's a massive

638
00:38:54,160 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 1: economic force area and an experience for countless children that

639
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:02,760
Speaker 1: they will remember for the rest of their lives. I mean, honestly,

640
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:06,320
Speaker 1: can you can you guys have like really fond memories

641
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: of going to a Disney place right anywhere? Forget's Disney.

642
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 1: I went to Disney World when I was a kid,

643
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: and what I remember more than Disney World itself was

644
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: like driving to Florida and eating like gator nuggets at

645
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: some hole in the wall place, the taxidermy stuff everywhere.

646
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: That's what I remember. I remember precious little about actual

647
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 1: Disney World. Really yeah, yeah, I think a lot of

648
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 1: people have fond memories of Disney World. Um. I remember

649
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: Space Mountain, which was just the krem And Dale like

650
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 1: krem uh. And I remember being super impressed with Epcot

651
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: and thinking, man, we should all live in the City

652
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,800
Speaker 1: of the Future. I drank the kool aid on Epcot

653
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 1: real quick. It was the first time I had been

654
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 1: introduced to other cultures in a tangible way like that,

655
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:00,399
Speaker 1: even though you know it's in Epcot, it's theme park

656
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 1: or whatever. But they had real things that I could

657
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: touch and interact with that I'd never seen before. I

658
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,400
Speaker 1: do remember one ride that was like a Norway round

659
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:13,399
Speaker 1: do you mind, like a creepy like monster troll thing,

660
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: And I remember that. I actually was talking to Jonathan

661
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: Strickland friend uh, a friend of me of the show,

662
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 1: and he said that that ride has now been replaced

663
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 1: by a frozen ride. But that's actually the first time

664
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: I thought about that in years, And I said, don't

665
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 1: remember anything from disney World, but I do remember that

666
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 1: it feels like you're going to go off. You're writing

667
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 1: and almost like a flume loggy looking thing and you

668
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: get to the edge and the troll like, whoa Norway. Yeah.

669
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:41,720
Speaker 1: I remember it specifically because when he was a kid,

670
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 1: my I wanted to buy like a snack, right, and

671
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: there was something this chocolate ball covered with chocolate sprinkles

672
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:52,880
Speaker 1: and was called like a rum ball and I had

673
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:56,320
Speaker 1: no idea what that was. And the guy behind the counter,

674
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:58,359
Speaker 1: who I thought was an adult, was probably like, you know,

675
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:03,799
Speaker 1: nineteen he um he seventy or nineteen. He said, I

676
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: can't sell this to you, and uh, it's like you

677
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 1: have to get your mom or your parents or your

678
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 1: dad or something. So I had to go to negotiate

679
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: a rumball and then I got an imaginary fight with trolls. Yeah, dude. Also,

680
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 1: it really uh, it really hyped up Norway for us.

681
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:24,319
Speaker 1: I think for you to know big time when we

682
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:26,880
Speaker 1: go to Norway, is it going to be this is

683
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 1: gonna live up to the expectations set by Epcott. I

684
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: don't think that. I think the trolls kind of keep

685
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 1: to their own in the in the tundra. I don't

686
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 1: think they're just like flopping around, Willy n you know

687
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 1: they're flopping around. Sit through a completely dry example in here,

688
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: just for everybody. I think it's Japan this bit here,

689
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 1: and I think it's Japan the section about Japan. And

690
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: maybe it's not Japan, maybe it's South Koreana. I don't

691
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 1: remember which country it was. But when I was a kid,

692
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:58,720
Speaker 1: seeing the architecture of some of the parts of Asia

693
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 1: over there that I had never seen before blew my

694
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 1: mind and I wanted to live in a house that

695
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 1: looked like this is like the International Pavilion thing, this stuff.

696
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: I don't remember any of that, but that does sound

697
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: like that'd be pretty mind blowing for a kid to

698
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: see all that, because that has some cool weird stuff.

699
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: Does you never see it ever in like, at least

700
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:20,439
Speaker 1: in my life from where I was from. And there's

701
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:22,239
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff still exists today. It's going

702
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 1: to change with the time. Like Nol said regarding Jonathan's

703
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 1: report about the troll right being replaced, uh, this seems

704
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:36,800
Speaker 1: set to continue. The mouse is going to continue ruling

705
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: over this part of Florida for the foreseeable future for sure.

706
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,239
Speaker 1: And although it's a weird situation, legally, speaking, One of

707
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:46,919
Speaker 1: the big questions is it's a weird situation. It does

708
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 1: clearly involve conspiracy of sorts, But the big question is

709
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: is it a bad thing? I mean, they're not running

710
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: a criminal empire, right that we know of What do

711
00:42:57,560 --> 00:42:59,839
Speaker 1: you what do you think? Do you feel like there's

712
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: some thing going on that's more than meets the eye,

713
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 1: something a little more sinister, or do you think it's

714
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: just how how it's been and how it's gonna keep

715
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:10,400
Speaker 1: going and Disney is amazing and who cares how they

716
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 1: got the land? Who cares how they set up and

717
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:16,880
Speaker 1: run the puppet governments. I mean, you can have a

718
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 1: lot of valid feelings about this. We love to get

719
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 1: your thoughts, especially if you've lived in the area. Maybe

720
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 1: you're one of those people who's a landowner and you

721
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 1: want to get us some information from the inside, huh,

722
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 1: from from one of these phantom cities. Send it to us.

723
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: We won't tell anybody except for everybody listening, except except

724
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 1: and then also, what are some of your favorite strange

725
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:44,240
Speaker 1: Disney rumors? And do you think said rumor is true

726
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: or unsubstantiated, because we've fund a lot of stuff that

727
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 1: was you know, pretty easily dismissed, but that reminds us

728
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 1: it's time for Conner. First shout out of the day

729
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 1: comes from Bruce. I got I was say, yeah, I

730
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: wasn't on this episode, but like I love this and

731
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 1: I love this sema um in the Wood, the World

732
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 1: and Tomorrow episode. You meant this is a gay Bruce talking.

733
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 1: By the way, you mentioned Gary Oldman's unfortunate fashion choice

734
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 1: in the Fifth Element. You guys remind me so Gary

735
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:18,800
Speaker 1: Oldman in the Fifth Element and Gary Oldman amazing actor

736
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 1: uh in the fifth Element. It's kind of a funny

737
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 1: voice in that foghorn leghorn. He's yeah, he's going for

738
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: what we call big old sing. Just chew that ax

739
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: like a nice slow last lemonade. You gotta chew you. Yeah,

740
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 1: that's what the alphil like. So he he has this

741
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: U sort of a high higher collared shirt. But the

742
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: thing that really stuck out that we're talking about is,

743
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 1: for some reason that has never explained or addressed in

744
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 1: the film at all, he has a plastic uh four

745
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:02,920
Speaker 1: transparent forehead covering on one side of his head and

746
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 1: his hair is combed around it. No one mentioned in

747
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: this coming back to me now I just pulled it up,

748
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 1: but it never really clocked that particular piece. But that

749
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 1: is super strange. His name was Zorg, by the way,

750
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:20,359
Speaker 1: that was his last name. At least Jean Baptiste. Well,

751
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 1: his his name sounds very similar to the person that

752
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 1: our friend Bruce blames for this monstrosity. He says, I

753
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: can assert with some confidence that this choice is not

754
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: to be blamed on Mr Oldman. Instead, I childishly blame

755
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 1: French fashion designer Jean Paul Gautier, who is culpable for

756
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 1: designing the costumes for the film. He only just manages

757
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:45,919
Speaker 1: to redeem himself through the costume from Mia Djobovic's character,

758
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: which is, you know, iconic. It's like she's wearing like

759
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:52,799
Speaker 1: a strap be kind of like overalls kind of thing.

760
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: It's it's super cool, um, he says. Jean Paul Gautier

761
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:58,839
Speaker 1: may be best known to US Americans as the one

762
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: who designed the costumes for Madonna's Blonde Ambition tour, including

763
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 1: her infamous cone bra. I'm familiar with that. I think

764
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:12,040
Speaker 1: any red blooded American would be. When you put the

765
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:15,840
Speaker 1: cone bra in play, the weird plastic headshield loses some

766
00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:20,760
Speaker 1: of its mystery. That's just JP being JP. He's somewhere

767
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 1: on a set today now going I gotta be me

768
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:26,879
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, he says. It's getting late in the morning

769
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: on the last day of our collective lives, so I

770
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:32,240
Speaker 1: need to get this sent out and get the yard mode.

771
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 1: I like this guy's sense of humor, right, like the

772
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 1: cut of his chip. Yeah, thanks for writing, Bruce. We

773
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:40,520
Speaker 1: get like the whole, like the whole, the whole, not

774
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Good and thank you for I answered

775
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 1: that question. I didn't know Jean Paul Gautier was a

776
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:52,919
Speaker 1: madman in the world of fashion. But I do feel

777
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: like much more at peace with the world by having

778
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: an explanation, because sometimes you get those little things that

779
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 1: stick under the skin of your mind and they can

780
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:03,800
Speaker 1: haunt you. Man, That's what this show is all about.

781
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:06,719
Speaker 1: It's all about haunting your mind skin. And this concludes

782
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:14,720
Speaker 1: our gosh, but not our show, assuming that the mouse

783
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:19,479
Speaker 1: doesn't find us and strangle us in our sleep. And also,

784
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 1: like the original Giallo, you know, I'm talking about like

785
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 1: those movies where like you see the perspective of the

786
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: killer and it's from the gloves. Wouldn't it be cool

787
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 1: to have one that was like Mickey and you can

788
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:33,040
Speaker 1: just see his creepy gloved hand in and then he

789
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 1: slices up, you know, like a beauty queen. Oh man,

790
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 1: well there's a darkness inside me. Yes, so right in,

791
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 1: let us know what your opinion is of Disney. If

792
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:52,360
Speaker 1: you have any strange encounters or anecdotes from Disney, we'd

793
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: love to hear them. And we'd love to hear whether

794
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:59,160
Speaker 1: or not you think these rumors are plausible, you know,

795
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 1: like does no one only die at Disney? Is that

796
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: a myth um? You know? Are these like smear campaigns?

797
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:07,360
Speaker 1: Or is there some sand to them? You give a

798
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:11,680
Speaker 1: cast member backstage listening to this when you listen to

799
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 1: podcast backstage, I don't know, maybe around break Oh perhaps

800
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 1: what's back there? Just a bunch of water coolers and

801
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 1: snacks probably and and that um. And there's there's a

802
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 1: poster of a night of Night Rider, but with a kitten,

803
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:32,880
Speaker 1: as like the David the hassle Off characters, always picturing

804
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: the like hanging there kitten, you know, hanging off the

805
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:38,360
Speaker 1: tree branch. I like yours way better. No, it's the

806
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 1: same thing. Let's just have it's like the cats hanging

807
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:43,839
Speaker 1: off a tree branch, but also the car from Night

808
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: Riders there and kid kids going, Michael, is that an

809
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:53,319
Speaker 1: even dude. Yeah. You can find Matt, Noel and I

810
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 1: on Twitter. You can find us on Facebook. You can

811
00:48:55,960 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram. We are Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy

812
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:03,040
Speaker 1: Stuff Show, depending on which one you try. And you

813
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:05,400
Speaker 1: can find every episode that we have ever done on

814
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:08,360
Speaker 1: our website, Stuff they Don't Want You to Know dot com.

815
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 1: If you want to write to us directly, you can

816
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 1: always find us at our good old fashioned email address.

817
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy at our stuff words dot com