WEBVTT - What is a Mold-A-Rama? 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:04.439 Hey, everybody, if you live in Boston, d C. St. Louis, Cleveland, 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.600 and Denver, we are coming to see you. That's right, 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.680 Stuff you should know live, brand new topic. So if 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:12.959 you're traveling from a nearby state where you've seen us before, 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.079 this will be new and exciting and awesome. Yep. On 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:18.439 March fourth and fifth, we're going to be in Boston 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.440 and d C. On May twenty two and twenty three, 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.560 we're gonna be in St. Louis and Cleveland, and then 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:28.440 on June we're going to be in Englewood, meaning Denver, Colorado. 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:30.639 So come see us and you can get tickets and 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:35.080 information at s y s K live dot com. Welcome 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:45.000 to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:48.000 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.279 Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there, and 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:58.800 this is stuff you should know. A rama. You know, 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:00.640 it's kind of funny that you did that little do 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:05.200 to do, because I'm gonna go ahead and plug this 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:09.119 right off the top. We're doing this show in Molder Rama, 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:15.240 which spoiler is a machine that makes that made and 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:20.119 still makes these little plastic things but has maybe one 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:23.920 of the worst trade names ever, moldor rama. Yeah, so 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:25.840 I'm gonna go ahead and plug this. There's a YouTube 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:30.280 video from this young lady um where she shows off 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.760 her molder rama um little plastic toys that she's collected 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.560 carpet bagger dot org molder Rama. Just look up that YouTube. 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:42.360 She is adorable and she's the best. And when she 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.400 um shows her suitcase full of moldar Rama plastic toys, 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.240 she does a little song and it's just adorable and great. 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.120 I gotta check that out. I saw her use one 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:58.040 of the Disney Disneyland toy factory molder ramas. I saw that, 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:01.680 so I know who you're talking about. She's great. So um, 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.160 that was nice of you, Chuck. Well, let's wait for 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.040 everybody to come back from watching her YouTube video show. 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.680 Let's wait for I think five or six minutes and done. Yes, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.920 time passes faster here. Stuff you should know, doesn't it? 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:19.600 It does. I'm eighty years old, so so with you. 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.880 Like you said, mold Rama, it is a I've seen 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.280 it described as a factory in a case. I thought 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.680 that was a pretty apt description. But for those of 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.120 you who don't know, it is UM basically an on 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:39.680 demand UM injection blow molded plastic toy dispenser. That is 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.639 that that's a technical definition for And while that might 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.560 not make sense yet, it all will make sense in 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.600 about thirty or so minutes. All right, how about this 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.560 picture this? All right? Let's start over? Should we wait? 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.080 Should we edit my part out? Don't know, Let's leave 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:59.359 this all in? Alright, picture this. You walk into a room. 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.640 Let's say it's the Sears Tower. Now Willis Tower? Is 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.560 it Willis? Oh? Yeah, that was Willis Tower, Sears Tower? 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.680 Who keeps calling it Willis Tower? Stop that Sears Tower? 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:16.079 Or a or a a world's fair or something. Um. 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.040 And there is a machine that looks sort of like 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.720 a jukebox from fifty ft away. Oh yeah, that's a good, 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:23.520 good way. And then you walk up closer to it 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.000 and you're like, oh wait, what is this weird mechanical thing? 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:28.919 Let me put in fifty cents, and right before your 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:34.960 very eyes, it will mechanically create a little plastic toy 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.240 of an alien or a building, or a lion at 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.400 a zoo, and it will spit it out, and you 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.280 will say that was just melted from plastic and molded 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.600 and shaped and given to me right in front of 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.480 my eyes. What a fun neat thing. And you'll say 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.320 all this after you recover from fainting from the fumes 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.160 of melted plastic, and then get up and get your 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.480 toy out, which is good because they say that you 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.160 should wait a half a minute for your toy to 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.240 cool before you grab it from the mold. Rama, right. 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:08.240 I think that was a pretty good job. You just 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.280 did it describing it. And I think this is super 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:15.400 neat because this reminds me of a bygone era, like 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.600 where I went to Nashville recently and went to Jack 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.520 White's Third Man Records, and he has one of those 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.360 booths where you can go in and record a record. 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.800 Would you record? Well, I didn't do it. I chickened out. 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.200 What I wanted to do was go in and sing 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.240 a little song for my daughter and give it to 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:35.800 her as a record. And I was thinking, like, what 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:37.440 could I do? What do I know in my brain 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:39.280 by heart? Because I have a little guitar you can 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.839 take in there, and it was such a small room 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.640 and it was in the room with everything else, and 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:48.280 I just got weirdly shy, like I don't want you 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:53.440 to hear me, you got shy. Jack White made you shy? Huh. Yeah. 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:54.800 I didn't want to do it in front of people. 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:56.000 Like if there was literally no one in there, I 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.960 would have cut ten records. Oh I got you. You 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:00.520 should have stuck your head on been like, can you 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:02.440 all just leave for a little while? Just trust me. 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.160 But anyway, this reminds me of those days gone by 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.440 where you could cut your own record, or you know, 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.760 they had these really cool machines at fairs and things 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.000 that they just I mean, now, I guess you can 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.479 still get your picture taken and printed digitally. Or the 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.280 Penny smasher that's still around two. I see that compared 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.479 to this a lot. Yeah, those are cool, not really, 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.360 but still there's it's an app comparison. I will just say, 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:30.599 I'm surprised that my brother doesn't have a molder Rama 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.400 in his basement. So I am too, because there's a 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.839 guy who collects these things called Moldville, and I saw 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.960 videos of his collection. Did you see this. It's like 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.599 a warehouse full of mint condition mold a Rama machines. 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.560 This guy must be richer than an astronaut. He's got 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.200 so many of these machines. Um, and you're right about this. 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:57.320 It evoking the memories of a bygone era. But what's crazy, Chuck, 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.880 is that these things are still in use today. You 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.080 confined them all over the country and they're still working 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.960 and there. This is what's amazing to me. They are 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.680 the original machines that were made for about a seven 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:14.360 year period during the nineteen sixties. Every mold Aama machine 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:18.080 that you might encounter, including ten at the Toledo Zoo 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:22.080 by the way, Um, we're built in the sixties and 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.720 have been operational ever since. Do we talk about the history, Well, 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:28.599 first let me ask you this, do you have did 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:30.520 you did you ever use a Moldorama when you were 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:34.400 a kid? No? Oh, you didn't know. And I'm dying 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.240 now to go do one as an adult. So they're 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.960 still around, they're still around. Okay, I actually I got 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.520 one that there's this thing in Toledo called well actually 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.919 it's in Mamma, which is a suburb of Toledo, but 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.719 it's called the Children's Wonderland and it's like this amazing 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:56.799 three D Christmas walk through diorama. Basically that just nothing 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:58.520 can put you in the Christmas spirit as a kid 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:00.840 better than Children's Wonderland. And at the end of this 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.440 there was a mold Arama machine and it made a gold, 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.560 smelly plastic e angel. It was kind of boring, boring 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:12.960 Christmas angel, but it was mine and I was so 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.080 glad to have it. And I have no idea what 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.240 happened to it. I'm sure it broke pretty quickly, but 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:19.800 I was like, holy cow, I've had one of these before. 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:21.480 I had no idea what it was called, that it 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.800 was molder Rama, but I looked it up and actually 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.480 found the angel. Well, I think that's the cool thing 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.840 about these as a kid is it's not putting your 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.400 your quarter in a gumball machine and seeing all those 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.000 things and one of them falls out. This is made 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:40.000 just for you, right in front of your face. Pretty cool. 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.600 All right, So now can we go back in time? Yeah, yeah, 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:48.360 I'm done. I'm done nostalgizing. Alright, Wait, what is it reminiscing? Okay, 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.120 nostalgizing I think it's a word, right it is? Now 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.640 all right, we're going back to seven in the winter 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.680 when one J. H. Miller Tyke is his nickname. I 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.800 don't of what that comes from. Was he little? I 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.560 don't know, not that I saw because it's spelled differently. 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:07.800 T I k E. Yeah, I don't know what it 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:13.640 means anyway, of Quincy, Illinois, Um, he was he made figurines. 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.160 He and his wife made figurines, and they needed a 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:21.000 replacement for his Nativity scene. I guess his little baby 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.800 Jesus was decapitated by his dog. He needed a new 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.920 one and he couldn't find a place to sell him 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.000 just one little piece. Yeah, you gotta buy the whole 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.760 Nativity scene. And he was like, what am I gonna 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.160 do with that? Yeah, he said, I just needed one. 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.120 And you couldn't understand the department stores position, Like if 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.640 they sell you just one piece, there's a whole set 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.120 that they can't sell because he wants that set without 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.679 the one piece, right, unless it's like maybe a donkey 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.600 maybe I remember the donkey. That was a good one though. 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.520 That was one of my favorites as a kid. But anyway, 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:55.199 he and his wife said, here's what we're gonna do. 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:57.840 We're gonna take these lemons and make them into lemonade 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.800 in the form of making our own little plaster replacement figure. 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:04.360 And apparently they were pretty good at it, because they 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:06.480 ended up doing this for a living and founding a 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:10.720 company doing this because the Germans evidently had the market 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.839 cornered on nativity pieces, and when World War two came around, 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:20.480 they said nine for you, right, and we had a shortage. Yeah. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.679 We all we wanted was liberty figures is what they 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.079 called them during World War two, not in nativity because 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.400 the Germans had supplied us with nativity figures, so American 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.000 may once you could call liberty figures that like freedom 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:37.120 price right. I think they actually called sauer Kraut liberty cabbage. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:42.200 I'm not kidding. So so the the tyke and his 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.880 wife established this company and UM in World War two. 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.400 That really kind of grew because they cornered the market 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.760 and they just kept going from there. And then about 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.920 ten years after World War two they decided to move 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.320 from plaster and by the way, he started selling UM 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.000 nativity figures individual ones to those same department stores who 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.599 would only sell them sets before, which I think is 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.120 kind of sweet revenge. UM. But they moved from plaster 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:14.160 figures to plastic and got into UM a type of 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:18.560 injection molding where uh air is blown into it, which 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:23.720 saves on plastic and creates a lightweight plastic figurine and really, honestly, 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:30.680 nothing says nineteen fifties Midwest more than plastic nativity figures, 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.480 you know, probably made by a man named Tyke. Uh Yeah, 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:37.160 And I mean they did pretty well for a little while. 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.480 I guess. I'm not sure exactly when the company was founded, 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.000 but if the seven he came up with this idea 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.079 and they went bankrupt in nineteen fifty nine, they sounds 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.880 like they added some good years in there. Yeah they did. 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.600 But I and I did not see why they went bankrupt. 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:53.880 I saw they were nothing but successful. I don't know. 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:55.440 I don't know if maybe they sunk a bunch of 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:57.840 money into these machines and it just didn't quite make 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.480 it or what. But he was very six festival. He 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.360 had a line of um plastic toys that kids would 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:06.720 buy by the fistful at like the local five and 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.440 dime or novelty store or something like that. And he 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:14.120 had lines of like dinosaurs, um, I think toy soldiers. 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:16.160 But the one that really put his company on the 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.880 map as far as kids were concerned, we're called Earth invaders, 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.160 also known as Miller Aliens, and there was a line 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:27.960 of of um tons of them but the one that 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.000 is still today the most prized of all was the 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.920 Purple People Eater and it actually inspired that that song 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.000 from the fifties, which I didn't realize that song was 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:39.959 quite that old. But the song about the one eyed, 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.640 one eared flying Purple People Leader, that was based on 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.160 Tyke Miller's creation from the fifties. I think it was 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:50.400 the other way around. I don't think so. I think 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.000 the song was based on the figure this says hear. 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:55.960 The Purple People Eater was inspired by the hit song 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.280 Oh I saw. I read that as the opposite thinks 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.600 a good catch. I think that's the case because that 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.800 song was a big hit and they were all manner 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:10.320 of Purple People Eater souvenirs and things. It was. It 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:12.760 was a big business back then. Thank you for that one. 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.120 No problem. We would have gotten some email from like 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:20.319 three people on that. Tyke's great grandson, little Tyke um 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.760 So in Fife or sixty they went bankrupt and it 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:24.280 was right around this time where he said, all right, 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.800 I've got this idea for an actual vending machine that 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:32.800 couldn't make these things on demand. And he was successful. 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.720 He licensed this thing actually to what would eventually become 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.800 a Merra Mark, which everyone knows that's that company is 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.480 still around. At the time, they were called the Automatic 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:46.160 Retailers of America. And he developed these machines with them, 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.280 and in in nineteen sixty two at the Seattle World's 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:53.960 Fair they premiered. They're doing little space needles and monorails 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.760 and Buddhists and Buddhists for like fifty cents, which is 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.959 about four bucks today. So it was not a little 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.200 cheap thing. It's not like sticking a diamond a machine 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.839 today right now. They were definitely expensive, um, but they 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.160 were a huge hit at that Seattle World's Fair. That 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:14.680 was what nineteen sixty two. So in nineteen sixty four 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:19.080 at the New York World's Fair they blew up. They 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:21.760 went from a couple of machines in Seattle, I guess 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.760 three machines in Seattle too, as many as a hundred 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.840 and fifty at the New York World's Fair from nineteen 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.880 sixty four in nineteen sixty five. And even more than 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.679 than just having that many more machines, they also had 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.880 Brandon machines. Right. So like if you were a company 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.320 like Sinclair Oil or Disney and you wanted to just 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:46.240 kind of give people an extra little amazing experience. You 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:50.720 could license in brand your own um mold a rama 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.400 and they had plenty of those at the World's Fair, 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.080 some some pretty cool ones too. Yeah. So, like you said, 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:02.760 anywhere from Disneyland to Montreal's World Expo. And that's the 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.160 cool thing, is that disney World or Disneyland that could 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.960 be I think they were some of the characters that 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.520 were actually acting like they were working the machine. It's 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:16.760 kind of clever. Or if you know, and you're in Montreal, 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:22.920 it's going to be Canadian mounties or maybe an Eiffel Tower, right, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:27.600 if you could um contact the company, get them to 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.840 make you your own um like uh signage I guess, 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:35.000 to put on the machine, and then most importantly, they 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.520 would sculpt and then manufacture a mold from that sculpture 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.880 whatever you wanted, say your logo or your brand or 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.280 something like that, some sort of statuette that had that 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:46.960 you could set it up and and people would take 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.040 home your little branded chot sky. It was. It was 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.280 pretty cool. It was a big hit in the sixties 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.640 and to air marker a r A at the time, 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.280 they were like, well, this is great, but Apparently they 0:14:58.280 --> 0:14:59.880 were just looking at the whole thing as a proof 0:14:59.880 --> 0:15:03.080 of concept because they had their sights on not just 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:06.600 like on demand novelties, but on demand everything like on 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.480 demand dishware on demand, jewelry on demand, combs on demand, 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.560 ash trays. That they felt like this was the future 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.760 because at the time, you know, the early sixties, plastics 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.360 was the future. It was every pretty soon everything was 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:22.560 going to be made in plastic and no one was 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:24.240 ever going to have cancer from it a day in 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:29.920 their life. You know, there's a plastically optimistic time, that's right. 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.040 And in the end, they manufactured about two hundred of 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:37.640 these machines over seven year period. But by nine they said, 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:39.880 you know what, A r A said, We're we're getting 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:45.080 out of this moldor rama biz. Take a break. Uh yeah, 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.640 We're gonna go pressed together our own little mouldy dinosaur 0:15:49.640 --> 0:16:14.920 and be right back alright, chuck. So are A gets 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.840 out of the biz, and it's kind of understandable. So 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.280 why there was There's a couple of big problems with 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:24.560 Molderama machines. One, they're expensive to manufacture. They were like 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.560 apparently thirty six d bucks per at the time. That 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:34.600 was back in two, so just under thirty thou dollars today. 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.080 And then also once you set these things up, they 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:41.280 required almost constant attention. UM. You had to go refill 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.120 them with plastic, you had to top off their fluids, 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.240 you had to fix any parts, you had to keep 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:48.600 them clean, you had to get gum off of them, 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:53.000 because again these are interfacing with little kids. UM. So 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.560 there was a lot of maintenance and upkeep to them 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.160 as well. So Air Air remarks said we're done. In 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.480 the seventies, they sold off their machine to UM a 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.760 couple of different groups. Yeah, I mean, this is a 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:11.560 mechanical like hydraulic machine that required like oil and anti freeze. 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.280 It was it was no uh, I mean if it 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:16.359 sounds like and I mean, I guess we can go 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:18.520 into the process a little bit. It gets a little 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.560 wonky for my taste. But um, I guess we should 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.040 talk a little bit about how these actually work. Right, Yeah, 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.480 we kind of have to and it'll be fine, I 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.679 promise you. Ready, Well, I will say this. First of all, 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.359 there are hydraulics and there are these these two molds, 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:36.760 and you can go on YouTube and look at how 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:40.720 these things work. It's pretty neat um. They these two molds, 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:44.440 it's basically one half of the little toy on each 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:48.840 side three like a three dimensional sculptured statue at Yeah. 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.000 So they move toward each other with these hydraulics and 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:55.639 they're pressed together, forms a big seal um and it 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.720 ends up it ends up being hollow on the inside. 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.840 That kind of a big point to make. It's like 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:08.480 it's a negative of the sculpture. Yeah. So then there's 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.480 a couple of holes in the bottom that lead into 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:19.160 that sculpture cavity, and into that you inject hot plastic. 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:21.840 Because one thing that a lot of people don't realize 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.639 about the mold thematic is just beneath this the work 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.920 surface that is the floor of what you can see 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.040 below that is a vat of two hundred and twenty 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.840 to two hundred and fifty degree fahrenh height molten plastic 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.520 just sitting there, bubbling hot. Yeah. Little pellets. They feed 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.600 it in little colored pellets. Although for a little while 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.520 they actually had uh, just kind of neutral pellets that 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:50.240 they use colored powder. But they at least wised up 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.600 there and said, why don't we just color the pellets 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.120 and just stick with the one color yep. And then 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:59.199 so the system has a closed um steam system that 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.640 runs hot theme through coils that runs through these plastic 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:08.439 pellet that this plastic pellet vat and it melts the 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.280 pellets and then keeps them molten. So then when that 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:16.159 when the the the mold seals up above come together 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:22.040 and form that seal, hot plastic is injected into the 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:26.600 mold and fills it up right, hot plastic injection. Great 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.600 band name. Uh. And then these things obviously have to 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:32.760 be cooled pretty quick like in order for them to 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:37.440 I mean, what solidify Is that the right word? Um? 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:39.080 But when they do come out, like you said, they 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.760 are warm, and um, I'm surprised. I mean, this seems 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.000 like something that you could not create today without there 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:49.000 being so much liability on your hands. Well, again, they 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.480 still are in use. They you can still go to 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:53.960 the Toledo Zoo, to zoos all over the Midwest in 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:57.360 Florida and tourist attractions and rest stops and you will 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:59.679 find these things still in use. It's just so funny 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:01.520 to me that, like it literally says on the little 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.000 door that you open, hold upside down while it cools, 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.200 don't let the the molten plastic drip on little little 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.359 Jimmy's hand. It's exactly right. So so we got the 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.479 injection molding part done. But there's one step that we missed, 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.680 and that's the blow part that makes an injection blow molding. 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:22.919 And this is how these companies manage to actually make money. 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:25.639 And one of the reasons why the mold of rama 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:30.280 chatskeys are so fragile is that they're hollow inside. So 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.480 the the the the mold is filled with hot plastic 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:37.200 and then compressed air is blown into it. And the 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.840 compressed air does two things. One, it pushes the plastic 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.200 against the mold so it completely covers it, and it 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:48.000 takes on this the shape of the mold, right, and 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.679 then it also blows the excess plastic out the bottom, 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:54.760 so it's hollow, and then the excess plastic goes back 0:20:54.760 --> 0:21:00.200 into the vat reused exactly so it might use enough 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.520 plastic at first to make ten of these things or 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.560 five or something. I'm just totally guessing here, But then 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:08.960 it reuses it by blowing it out the bottom and 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:14.120 making it a hollow object rather than a solid one, right, okay, 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:16.480 And then it comes out hot They say, wait, thirty 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.360 seconds or half a minute, I think is how they 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:20.080 put it and the reason why they say hold it 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:22.440 upside downs because there's still that hole at the bottom 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.880 that that little hot plastic can like you said, burned 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:30.199 Timmy's hands. That's right. The smell, chuck. You've never smelled 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:32.439 anything like it. Do you remember the smell? Yes, I 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.119 can't remember the smell it was. It's it's at the 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:40.840 same time pleasing and totally noxious. Interesting, Like as a kid, 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.560 you're like, it smells weird and cool, but as an adult, 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:45.600 I'm sure you'd be like, this is gonna kill my 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:50.280 whole family and it's gonna kill my great grandchildren somehow. Well, 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.720 back then, no one cared. No, they didn't, you know. Uh. 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.400 And like we said, tons of upkeep. You know, you've 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:00.399 got steam, you've got hydraulic fluid, you have anti freeze, 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:03.480 sometimes cold water, but I would suspect anti freeze in 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:08.160 most cases. Uh. And until the nineteen seventies, like I said, 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:13.640 you had um powdered coloring. I mean, this whole thing 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:18.120 is Uh. I'm surprising they didn't explode at any point. Yeah. 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:20.359 One of the other things that I really admire about 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.320 this is that again, the machines that are still in 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.240 use today that still work just as well as ever today. 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.040 We're built exclusively from nineteen sixty two to nineteen sixty 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.600 nine when air Mark was making them, and then these 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.120 things also because they put off these terrible fumes, they 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:40.040 keep they're they're kept outside. So they've been sitting in 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:43.680 the elements for fifty plus years and they still work, 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:47.080 and they're they're pretty pretty well built machines, for sure. 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:49.480 I think they've they've got some now that they have 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.240 been able to move indoors. Yeah, if I'm using a 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.040 different type of plastic, I think, yeah, that's crazy that 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:57.399 these things had to be outside. Yeah, and they still are. 0:22:57.520 --> 0:22:59.119 Most of them are a lot of them have like 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.000 kind of built in and little canopies over them or 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:04.600 something like that. But if you look at the canopies 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:06.840