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Speaker 1: Hello again, guys. Up next on our playlist is our

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Speaker 1: episode on beanie Babies. They may have actually upstaged Cabbage

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Speaker 1: Patch Kids because of the craze for beanie babies stretched

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Speaker 1: way beyond Christmas. There was a divorce case that saw

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Speaker 1: the couple having to divide up their beanie babies on

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Speaker 1: the floor of the courtroom. We talk about that. Don't

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Speaker 1: worry anyway, Enjoy this episode on beanie Babies.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're feeling fairly festive.

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Speaker 1: And this is stuff you should know. That's right the

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Speaker 1: episode before the Christmas episode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which is become a I guess tradition to do

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Speaker 2: a classic toy.

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Speaker 1: When do we start that, I'd say more custom than tradition.

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Speaker 1: All right, I'm sorry, Christmas, I'm feeling contrary. It is

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Speaker 1: definitely a tradition.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's because you're about to shut it down for

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Speaker 2: a month, so you don't care you're burning bridges exactly.

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Speaker 1: I won't see you until like twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like chuckle, forget anything that happens today.

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Speaker 1: By then, I'm trying to think of what our first

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Speaker 1: toy one was. It was a handful of years ago.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember, but it was slinky maybe no, No,

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Speaker 1: I mean we've done toy ones, just not around Christmas.

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of the first toy Christmas E one.

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Speaker 1: I can't. I'm drawing a blank right now. So this

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Speaker 1: is like high quality podcasting we're doing right now.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, good pick this year.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks. I don't know what made me think of

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Speaker 1: beanie babies, but I did, and I think it turned

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Speaker 1: out to be a good one too, because it had

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with Christmas. Really, yeah, Christmas pops up

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Speaker 1: at one part. But it's a toy and it's a

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Speaker 1: really interesting toy because beanie babies, for those of you

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Speaker 1: who don't know if you were born after the nineties,

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Speaker 1: were probably well, i'll just say The Financial Times called

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Speaker 1: it potentially the greatest market bubble of all times. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean that's really saying something, because there's been some

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Speaker 1: market bubbles, but the beanie baby craze of the mid

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Speaker 1: to late nineties probably topped them all. It was just

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Speaker 1: that crazy. I mean, we've talked about some crazy stuff

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Speaker 1: that people have done for toys before, people elbowing one

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Speaker 1: another for a cabbage Patch kid. That's peanuts compared to

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Speaker 1: what people did for beanie babies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't know anything about this either, because that

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Speaker 2: was sort of the end of college and then my

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Speaker 2: New York New Jersey years, and I just I knew

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Speaker 2: that beanie babies were a thing, but I was not

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Speaker 2: participating in the economy in that way at that point.

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Speaker 1: So you didn't You didn't known a single one, Oh,

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Speaker 1: of course not. I didn't, No, I totally didn't. But

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Speaker 1: the thing is is we were in the minority in America,

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Speaker 1: something like sixty two or sixty three percent owned at

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Speaker 1: least one beanie baby at the height of this bubble.

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Speaker 2: Think about that. That honestly was one of the most

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Speaker 2: shocking stats in this whole thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like six point three people out of every

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Speaker 1: ten people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing when you're talking about a little kid's toy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, that was the thing. It wasn't kids that

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Speaker 1: fueled this craze. It was almost exclusively adults. Because the

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Speaker 1: reason the market bubble grew was because there became this

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Speaker 1: idea that beanie babies were valuable, that they had an

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Speaker 1: inherent value greater than the face value that you would

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Speaker 1: pay for them at the retail store.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which was true for a while.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was. We'll get into all that,

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Speaker 1: but let's start from the beginning, shall we.

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Speaker 2: All Right, Well, you can't talk beanie babies without talking

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Speaker 2: about the gentleman who starts R. Did it all? I

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Speaker 2: do remember seeing the letters t Y on beanie baby packaging,

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Speaker 2: so I wasn't completely head in the sand, sure, but

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Speaker 2: I did not know that t Y was the guy's name.

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Speaker 2: It was Ty Warner, who was born in the mid

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Speaker 2: nineteen forties in Lagrange, Chicago suburb Lagrange, Illinois. And he

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Speaker 2: had a pretty not great childhood, it seems like, is

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Speaker 2: that fair to say?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? From everything I've heard, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Had a mother who suffered from mental illness which was

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Speaker 2: not treated, which is even worse. Didn't have a great

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Speaker 2: relationship with his dad. His parents got divorced when he

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Speaker 2: was in his thirties, but he went to college at

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Speaker 2: Kalamazoo College in Michigan, where he learned his love of

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Speaker 2: treading the boards.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, kalum theater, right exactly. But he did he

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Speaker 1: got into acting, and it kind of either he was

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Speaker 1: already like a theater kid at heart, or at turn

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Speaker 1: him into a theater kid, because he ended up taking

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Speaker 1: that way of living or that way of looking at

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Speaker 1: the world or being in the world with him essentially

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Speaker 1: for the rest of his life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he seemed fairly flamboyant.

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Speaker 1: He was flamboyant. There's a really off sighted story about

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Speaker 1: him showing up when he became a salesman for the

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Speaker 1: toy company that his father worked for. He would show

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Speaker 1: up to these sales calls in a Rolls Royce wearing

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Speaker 1: a floorlink fur coat and a cane and a hat. Amazing,

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Speaker 1: essentially like Kramer when he accidentally's wearing the Technicolor dream

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Speaker 1: coat and ends up with that big Jamir Kuai hat.

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Speaker 2: And a cane.

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Speaker 1: That's essentially what Ty Warner showed up to these sales

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Speaker 1: meetings looking like in the early sixties, and apparently it

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Speaker 1: worked because he said that his premise was if he

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Speaker 1: showed up to a sales meeting looking like that, people

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Speaker 1: would say, I want to see what's in that guy's

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Speaker 1: brief case?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Or do you Yeah? It depends on the kind of

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Speaker 1: party you're in.

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Speaker 2: For Yeah, he was a really good salesperson. Apparently he

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Speaker 2: thought a lot of himself though, And in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 2: he worked for this company, I guess what, for like

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Speaker 2: eighteen years, because he got the job in nineteen sixty two.

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Speaker 2: So that's a nice long run. But at least the

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Speaker 2: way his former boss told it, guy named Harold Nazamian,

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Speaker 2: who was the CEO, basically accused him of moonlighting on

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Speaker 2: the company and using their you know, sales list in

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Speaker 2: his personal personal relationships with people as a salesperson to

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Speaker 2: sell his own stuff while he was working as a

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Speaker 2: sales manager for this company, and so he got fired.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, on those sales calls he would be like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've got these great daycin products, but also I want

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Speaker 1: to show you these too, So he was not only

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Speaker 1: using company contexts, he was using company time too. It's

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Speaker 1: about as bad a thing you can do as a salesman, essentially.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And it wasn't long after that that the Beanie

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Speaker 2: baby came along.

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Speaker 1: No, that was so it was nineteen eighty when he

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Speaker 1: lost the job. He apparently moved to Rome. He went

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Speaker 1: to go visit some friends and ended up living there

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Speaker 1: for a few years and when he came back, he

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Speaker 1: was inspired to keep going in the toy industry. I

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Speaker 1: guess it kind of got under his skin. And he'd

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Speaker 1: seen some toy cats there in Rome, he said, and

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Speaker 1: he was inspired to create not beanie babies at first,

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Speaker 1: but his first plush toys, which was a line of

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Speaker 1: cats laying down, pretty fluffy. They looked they were fully stuffed,

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Speaker 1: which is a big difference between them and beanie babies.

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Speaker 1: And then for every cat, there was a Himalayan version

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Speaker 1: of it. And they were pretty cute little cats. But

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Speaker 1: the thing that he did that I think really kind

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Speaker 1: of helped sell these things because they were like a

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Speaker 1: modest successive scene it described as that he gave them

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Speaker 1: names they were in They weren't just some stuffed cat.

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Speaker 1: This was Smoky, this was Peaches. Like these these cats

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Speaker 1: were individuals. They had an identity and that made them

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Speaker 1: that much more lovable.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they were larger. They were about seventeen inches.

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Speaker 2: They larger than beanie babies would be. They would cost

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Speaker 2: more than beanie babies at twenty bucks. And like you said,

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Speaker 2: they were stuffed, but not stuffed with the you know,

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Speaker 2: kind of genius of the I don't know about genius.

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Speaker 2: That's probably stretching that word. Sure, let's just say the

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Speaker 2: fairly smart thing that he did with beanie babies was

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Speaker 2: he stuffed them with beads like a like a what's

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Speaker 2: it called the bean bag chair, Yeah, pretty much, and

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Speaker 2: didn't overstuff it so you could move them around and

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Speaker 2: pose them and they could, you know, droop over your

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Speaker 2: shoulder and stuff like that, not like a regular sort

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Speaker 2: of fully stuffed whatever. They stuffed those things with whatever

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Speaker 2: weird chemical stuffing.

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Speaker 1: Oh, like the little styri foam pellets or the event

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Speaker 1: tyrofoam fiber that's kind of like a yeah, fibers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean those are the cheapest ones that you

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Speaker 2: would get as like a prize at an amusement bark. Yes,

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Speaker 2: that literal styrophoam balls.

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Speaker 1: Right, And that was a big That was a big

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Speaker 1: deal about his beanie babies because they were high quality.

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Speaker 1: They were very well made from the outset. He was

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Speaker 1: all up the bottom of the South Korean manufacturers he

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Speaker 1: had partnered with to make these things. He was really

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Speaker 1: involved in the design and manufacturing process, so these were

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Speaker 1: really high quality dolls. But he made a very conscious

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Speaker 1: decision to sell beanie babies at five bucks a pop,

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Speaker 1: which he said that that was the kids could typically

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Speaker 1: buy that with their allowance money, because, as we'll forget

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Speaker 1: multiple times throughout this episode, these were originally meant for

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Speaker 1: kids to buy the Beanie Babies were. So that was

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Speaker 1: a really big deal because he came out he was

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Speaker 1: one of the first people to come out with a

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Speaker 1: high quality toy at a price point of something you

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Speaker 1: would get at like the County Fair something as a prize,

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Speaker 1: but instead it was a good, good quality plush toy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And so this was nineteen ninety three for

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Speaker 2: the actual launch of the Beanie Baby, which launched with

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Speaker 2: Brownie the bear yep and Pinchers the Lobster, and like

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Speaker 2: a Cabbage Patch kid, it came with a date of birth.

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Speaker 2: He used the name like he you know, originally did

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Speaker 2: with those fully stuffed cats or kiddies. I guess fully

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Speaker 2: stuffed cat sounds gross. It's like ad t reduction including

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Speaker 2: the date of birth. And then also another key was

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Speaker 2: this little short poem and their little heart shaped tag

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Speaker 2: turned out to be a bit of marketing genius. It

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Speaker 2: was just just an extra little something to make it

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Speaker 2: different to appeal to a kid because you gotta. Even

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Speaker 2: if it ended up being a thing that adults tried

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Speaker 2: to collect because you know, they thought it was valuable,

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Speaker 2: it never would have gotten there if he hadn't have

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Speaker 2: made a toy that kids really love to begin with.

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Speaker 1: Right Also, I mean, he wasn't the first to do that.

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Speaker 1: This was a good ten years after the Cabbage Patch

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Speaker 1: kids and their adoption papers and all that stuff, But

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Speaker 1: it's still it is a good marketing technique, for sure,

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Speaker 1: and it did work. But the thing that made beanie

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Speaker 1: babies really kind of take off was multifold. Part of

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Speaker 1: it was his marketing scheme. He had a really brilliant idea,

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Speaker 1: which was only certain kinds of stores could carry beanie babies,

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Speaker 1: and you actually had to be a licensed beanie baby

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Speaker 1: retailer to sell beanie babies legally or legitimately. And those

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Speaker 1: stores were like Hallmark stores, locally owned gift stores, hospital

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Speaker 1: gift shops, like small stores. So that right off the

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Speaker 1: bat canceled any chance of anyone I saw it described

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Speaker 1: it going into like a big box store like a

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Speaker 1: Walmart or something and seeing a bargain bin of beanie

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Speaker 1: babies lumped together for fifty percent off. So the fact

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Speaker 1: that that didn't that possibility didn't exist. Someone couldn't see

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Speaker 1: that automatically made it. They were just higher status than

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Speaker 1: they otherwise would have been because he made enough to

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Speaker 1: sell to huge retailers like that. He decided deliberately not

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Speaker 1: to do that for that reason.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, super smart. I mean, if you can create a

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Speaker 2: scarcity and the illusion that what you're peddling is like

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Speaker 2: limited and collectible, yeah, then you're going to do pretty well.

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Speaker 2: And that's what he did. But not only by limiting

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Speaker 2: the amount of stores that could be sold in, but

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Speaker 2: he also limited the number of toys that these stores

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Speaker 2: could even buy, Like that Hallmark store once they you know,

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Speaker 2: really talk took off, couldn't be like, hey, we're going

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Speaker 2: to dedicate half our store to these things now because

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Speaker 2: they're selling like hotcakes. So he would dole them out

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Speaker 2: and limited numbers to the stores, and each of those

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Speaker 2: stores only had certain products, like you know, you might

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Speaker 2: have Spot the Dog and Squealer the Pig at one store,

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Speaker 2: or Chocolate the Moose and Flash the Dolphin at another.

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Speaker 2: And that creates a situation then where kids are like,

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Speaker 2: well I got a you know, like completing the collection

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Speaker 2: as a classic kids toy scam.

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Speaker 1: For sure, Yeah, collect exactly. And so you would have

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Speaker 1: to go around town to multiple stores in your town

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Speaker 1: to get the ones that were available, and because they

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Speaker 1: were allowed only by limited amounts, frequently those things were

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Speaker 1: sold out. So the idea that these things were scarce

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Speaker 1: collector's items was manufactured out of the gate by Ty

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Speaker 1: Warner and his marketing skit. I almost said scam, but scheme,

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Speaker 1: I think is a better way to put Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The other big thing is that this coincided with the

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Speaker 2: rise of the Internet. There's a great scene in the movie.

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Speaker 2: There's a movie that's out now, I think an Apple

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Speaker 2: original called The Beanie Bubble.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't seen it, right, did you watch it now?

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Speaker 2: The reviews aren't kind. I may watch it because I

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Speaker 2: love Zach Galifanakis, who plays Ty Warner and Elizabeth Banks

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Speaker 2: is in the movie is a sort of a thinly

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Speaker 2: veiled version of his former business partner and romantic partner,

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Speaker 2: I think, Patricia Roach. But in the movie, in the

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Speaker 2: trailer I saw today, Zach said, because you know, they

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Speaker 2: started a website and they were, you know, an early

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Speaker 2: website in those years. Yeah, Zach galifant Or I guess

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Speaker 2: Tyme Warner says, we broke the Internet thing. I thought

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Speaker 2: it was a pretty good line because the Internet was

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Speaker 2: so new. It him just like, I guess you know

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Speaker 2: there's a thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently. So he had an employee named Lena Trevetti,

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Speaker 1: and she was a coder and this is like nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety three ninety four, and she convinced ty Warner to

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Speaker 1: create a beanie baby's website because they were getting calls

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Speaker 1: and letters and stuff like that from people saying like,

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Speaker 1: this is my checklist? Is this accurate? Am I missing

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Speaker 1: any And they thought, well, let's just put like a

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Speaker 1: central place where all of the beanie babies can be listed,

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Speaker 1: and it can be a place where everybody who likes

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Speaker 1: beanie babies can come and learn and get excited about

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Speaker 1: beanie babies and buy beanie babies. Because starting in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety five, they started selling beanie babies on this website

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Speaker 1: and that was the same year that Amazon and eBay launched,

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Speaker 1: so they were one of the first e commerce sites

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Speaker 1: on the Internet too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which is amazing. The movie has a character named Maya,

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Speaker 2: who is again a thinly veiled version of Lena Trevetti,

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Speaker 2: which I'm curious why they didn't just use their real names.

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Speaker 1: They touted this as loosely based on Zach Bisonette's book,

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Speaker 1: and that some of it was fictitious, I think to

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Speaker 1: keep from getting sued. I get the impression that Ky

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Speaker 1: Warner is not shy about suing people well.

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Speaker 2: Which is interesting because he played Ty Warner in the movie. Like,

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Speaker 2: that's the only name that wasn't changed.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know why they did it, but they

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Speaker 1: definitely did it well.

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Speaker 2: Judging from the trailer, it seems that both the Bank's

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Speaker 2: character and the Maya character are kind of One of

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Speaker 2: the threads of the movies, as it was seemingly in

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Speaker 2: real life, was that there were at least a couple

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Speaker 2: of women in the organization that had a lot to

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Speaker 2: do with their growth in the sort of story is

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Speaker 2: that he never gave them enough credit, and that seems

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Speaker 2: to play out in the movie.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he Like if you read any corporate write ups,

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Speaker 1: like press releases or the very rare interviews he's given,

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Speaker 1: like it sounds like the whole thing was just him,

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Speaker 1: just him. Yeah, And in part it was largely him

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Speaker 1: because he owned the company from the outset, always has

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Speaker 1: he's never sold one share. He didn't take it public.

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Speaker 1: It's been a privately owned company by him one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent as far as I know from the outset. So

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Speaker 1: he definitely, you know, really was the driving force in this,

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Speaker 1: but he had help that is largely unacknowledged publicly. That. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a good thing that Zach Bisonette came along, and

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Speaker 1: also the people who made that the movie based on

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Speaker 1: Zach Bisonette's book to kind of shine a spotlight on

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Speaker 1: the other people of this, particularly women who helped him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Zach and Zach, that's right.

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Speaker 1: The two Zach's on the Zach attack against Ty Warrens.

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Speaker 2: The other thing that he did to sort of you know,

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Speaker 2: drive this, I mean, I guess we can call it

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Speaker 2: a fall scarcity is he had He was very secret

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Speaker 2: about the company. He didn't want people outside the company knowing,

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Speaker 2: like when they were going to launch a new kind

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Speaker 2: of toy, how many they were making. Right in nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety five, he started retiring models that was huge and

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Speaker 2: then adding other ones. And he would just all of

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Speaker 2: a sudden drop like you know, this Marty Moose what

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Speaker 2: I call him something, the Moose, Chocolate Moose, chocolate moose

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Speaker 2: is gone, say, and if they're being baby people out

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Speaker 2: there like, no, chocolate moose never left. I'm just using

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Speaker 2: that as an example.

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Speaker 1: That's a good idea.

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Speaker 2: But they would just announce that on the website, and

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Speaker 2: all of a sudden, people are like, oh my god,

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Speaker 2: they've retired the moose, and you know, people are driving

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Speaker 2: around and trying to find them in those stores before

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Speaker 2: they're all gone.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a deliberate thing to do as well

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Speaker 1: to create the further scarcity, like legitimate scarcity. But apparently

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Speaker 1: he fell into that backwards or he stumbled into it,

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Speaker 1: because we said that he was really involved in the design.

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Speaker 1: After these things would launch, he would like see one

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Speaker 1: and be like, that's too orange. I want it more red,

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Speaker 1: And all of a sudden I saw a pinchy. The

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Speaker 1: lobster would be a much deeper red. Well, they'd stop

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Speaker 1: producing the orangish red one, and these beanie baby collectors

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Speaker 1: would go bonkers trying to find the other one. He

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Speaker 1: started to notice that, and so he created real scarcity

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Speaker 1: by deliberately retiring some just out of the blue. People

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Speaker 1: would go scramble to find them, and then retailers, most

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Speaker 1: importantly would start stockpiling everything that he had that they

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Speaker 1: could sell, say the orange Pinchy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. He was also smart enough to to realize that

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Speaker 2: the Cabbage Patch kids, like when they when that bubble burst,

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Speaker 2: it just kind of all went away, and so he

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Speaker 2: would do things like, hey, Hallmark, if you want to

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Speaker 2: order these beanie babies, you gotta also order some of

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Speaker 2: this other stuff that I'm selling. It's not as nearly

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Speaker 2: as popular, but he tried to increase revenue sort of

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Speaker 2: across the company, So he wasn't all in on the beanie.

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Speaker 1: Baby, right. I say we take a break and come

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Speaker 1: back and talk about how McDonald's factors into this.

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Speaker 2: What do you think, Mick?

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Speaker 1: What?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, lately I've been learning some stuff.

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Speaker 3: About in Samnia or Alumnia. How about the one on

362
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Speaker 3: border like disorder that order order that one be born.

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Speaker 3: But it was so nice eldest who shot shot.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck. So we said McDonald's factors into this. Like

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Speaker 1: any great American economic bubble story, McDonald's is going to

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Speaker 1: play some role in it whatsoever, somehow, some way. And

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Speaker 1: McDonald's is the one that basically said if you are

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Speaker 1: just kind of out there on the margins, and don't

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Speaker 1: really know what's going on in this beanie baby collector

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Speaker 1: world growing under your very nose. This McDonald's happy Meal

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Speaker 1: promotion is going to just blow the doors off of

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Speaker 1: any illusions that beanie babies are not a cultural force

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Speaker 1: to be reckoned with.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Over a couple of years, I think they had

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Speaker 2: two versions in ninety seven and ninety eight where they

376
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Speaker 2: there were hundreds of millions of teeny babies. These even

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Speaker 2: smaller obviously because it was, you know, to fit into

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Speaker 2: a happy meal.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, teeny beanies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, what I say, teeny babies.

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Speaker 1: It works too.

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Speaker 2: I like teeny babies. I like teeny babies too, teeny beanies.

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Speaker 2: H And you know, even if your thing is already popular,

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Speaker 2: all of a sudden, if hundreds of millions of these

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Speaker 2: things are going out in Happy meals and you know,

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Speaker 2: the most popular, you know, fast food restaurant chain in

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Speaker 2: the world, then it's gonna just skyrocket this thing even further.

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Speaker 2: And that's exactly what it did.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the nineteen ninety eight one, the second one that

390
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Speaker 1: they did where you could get teeny beanies in a

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Speaker 1: happy meal. The first weekend of that promotion, McDonald saw

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Speaker 1: the highest increase in sales in its corporate history. It

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Speaker 1: had never sold more in any weekend in the history

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Speaker 1: of McDonald's than it did at the beginning of that

395
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:07,120
Speaker 1: second Beanie Baby's promotion, and people were ordering as many

396
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Speaker 1: Happy Meals as they were allowed to order and telling

397
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:11,520
Speaker 1: the McDonald's workers just keep the food, I just want

398
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:14,679
Speaker 1: the Beanie babies. McDonald's had to set up rules like

399
00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:17,680
Speaker 1: individual franchises had their own rules. It was really patchwork

400
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:21,880
Speaker 1: where you could say, get five Happy Meals per order

401
00:22:22,760 --> 00:22:25,160
Speaker 1: or per visit, and you had to have a two

402
00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:28,600
Speaker 1: hour waiting period in between visits. So people would like

403
00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:30,560
Speaker 1: just go for McDonald's and McDonald's and then just go

404
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:32,760
Speaker 1: on like a circuit to get as many of the

405
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Speaker 1: Beanie Babies as they possibly could. People were tackling like

406
00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:39,080
Speaker 1: delivery people showing up with the boxes of the new

407
00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:43,439
Speaker 1: Beanie Babies. It was nuts what people did just for

408
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Speaker 1: the McDonald's version of the Beanie Babies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that McDonald's record. That even counts passing the Great

410
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Speaker 2: McRib Feast of ninety two, the previous record holder.

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Speaker 1: The mcrib's back Right now, I saw I've been meaning

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Speaker 1: to go get one.

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Speaker 2: Talk about false scarcity.

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00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:03,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, same thing for sure.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I mean they could put that on their

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Speaker 2: menu at any time, right.

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00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:08,479
Speaker 1: Totally for sure. You know that the fat cats at

418
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:11,520
Speaker 1: McDonald's Corporate are eating mcribs every day of the year.

419
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:16,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the employee lounge is just stocked with them. Right.

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Speaker 1: But all this that's going on, Chuck is underscores a

421
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:25,959
Speaker 1: larger cultural thing, and that is that people are buying

422
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 1: these beanie babies not just because they think they're the

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00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:31,400
Speaker 1: cutest thing on two legs, but because it has become

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Speaker 1: largely widely accepted that they are a sound investment if

425
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:41,639
Speaker 1: you want to diversify your portfolio, or more often was

426
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:44,879
Speaker 1: the case, make your entire portfolio just beanie babies.

427
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know this was by the like you said,

428
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 2: the cabbage Patch kids had already come and gone. Everyone

429
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 2: has already known at this point about the you know,

430
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 2: Star Wars collectibles and baseball cards and trading cards. So

431
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:01,480
Speaker 2: the idea, I think there are certain people out there,

432
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,359
Speaker 2: after all those things happened, that are always sort of

433
00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:07,640
Speaker 2: looking for that next thing as a you know, sort

434
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:11,719
Speaker 2: of alternative investment. If I can, you know, buy fifty

435
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 2: beanie babies and put them in a box and just

436
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 2: sit on them and that'll put my kids through college

437
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:19,359
Speaker 2: one day. Yeah, and that's you know a lot of

438
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:22,000
Speaker 2: people did stuff like that. I think you mentioned eBay

439
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 2: had launched very soon afterward. They launched ninety five, and

440
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety seven, this is the other most staggering

441
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 2: set of the show to me, six percent of all

442
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 2: of eBay was beanie baby sales.

443
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that nuts. So the secondary market really did

444
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:45,240
Speaker 1: grow up, and there really was like a huge market

445
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 1: for beanie babies that say had been retired, and one

446
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:50,679
Speaker 1: that you had bought for five dollars and kept in

447
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 1: the package, you could sell for hundreds of dollars on

448
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,120
Speaker 1: eBay legitimately in the in the mid to late nineties.

449
00:24:57,880 --> 00:24:59,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this really.

450
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:03,879
Speaker 1: Was like it wasn't like everybody was just hoping beyond

451
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: hope that their beanie babies were going to increase in value.

452
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:11,160
Speaker 1: They were increasing value before their very eyes. So people

453
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: who weren't sucked into it were like, this is the

454
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 1: dumbest thing I've ever seen. And if there's ever been

455
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:20,440
Speaker 1: an economic bubble, this is it. And yet people were

456
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:23,159
Speaker 1: buying these things for like long term investing. They were

457
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 1: buying them hanging on to them for twenty years or

458
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: thirty years from now. The people who were actually trading

459
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: in the moment are the ones who might have made

460
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:35,880
Speaker 1: money off of it. But that's pretty much the only

461
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: people who did.

462
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. It also created a sort of an

463
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:44,199
Speaker 2: industry around it. You found some examples of people that

464
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 2: made a lot of money just in the ancillary beanie

465
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 2: baby market by doing things like writing books about stuff.

466
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:54,120
Speaker 2: This woman, Peggy Gallagher, she was a paralegal. She made

467
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:57,200
Speaker 2: two hundred grand on a book that she self published

468
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 2: called the Beanie Baby Phenomenon, and then started I imagine,

469
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:03,640
Speaker 2: a pretty good deal of money as an official, well

470
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 2: not official, but as just an experienced beanie authenticator. Another

471
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 2: woman named Mary Beth Sobaluski, she was an IBM systems engineer,

472
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 2: and she just made sort of the go to list,

473
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 2: like the Bible basically of beanie baby pricing and made

474
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 2: a lot of money off that, and also started putting

475
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 2: out a magazine. Yeah, was it a monthly?

476
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:31,840
Speaker 1: Yes, it was based around the price list, Like did

477
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 1: you ever collect or read Beckett's Monthly for baseball cards?

478
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: It's just a big price.

479
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 2: But I knew about it.

480
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: Okay, it's basically that, but for beanie babies it's called

481
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: Mary Bethy Beanbag World. They sold six hundred and fifty

482
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 1: thousand copies a month at its peak for six bucks

483
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 1: a pop. So it's almost three million dollars a run

484
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: per issue. Yeah, for beanie Baby's price guides. Right, But

485
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:56,719
Speaker 1: she really went to town with it. It wasn't you know,

486
00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:01,920
Speaker 1: just based on nothing. She and her asistance like called dealers,

487
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: beanie baby dealers to find out what their prices were,

488
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: what was selling really fast? They were right, right, They

489
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 1: were following eBay prices like they were. It was a

490
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: legitimate Olivia putt. It was the gold standard price list

491
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 1: for a reason, you know. So and Mary Mary Beth

492
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 1: Sobuleuski is another woman who was often overlooked for the

493
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: contributions she made to the beanie baby mania, because, in

494
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: addition to creating the gold standard price list, she was

495
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 1: one of the original self described Chicago suburban soccer moms

496
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: who started trading beanie babies in the first place, and

497
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:46,680
Speaker 1: apparently their fervor in trading beanie babies in suburban Chicago

498
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,119
Speaker 1: actually kicked off the national trend of collecting and trading

499
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 1: beanie babies and and they essentially created the secondary market.

500
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 1: There's an HBO documentary a couple of years ago, I

501
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: think called Beanie beating Mania that really does a good

502
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 1: job was shining a light on them and their role

503
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:04,200
Speaker 1: and contribution to the whole thing too.

504
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 2: So we've had a documentary now, a feature film.

505
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: Yes, and Broadway Broadways next and then James Missioner is

506
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: coming back to life to write an epic novel about it.

507
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 2: That'd be pretty amazing. Speaking of amazing, there are also

508
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:26,959
Speaker 2: some amazing stories about just how kind of crazy thing

509
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 2: scott in many different ways, one of which is a

510
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine divorce case in Las Vegas where this

511
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 2: couple was divorcing and they had a lot of combined

512
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 2: assets in the form of beanie babies that they thought,

513
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 2: you know, we're worth a lot and they may have

514
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 2: been worth a lot of money their collection, and they

515
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 2: there's a very great picture if you look it up

516
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 2: on the internet, just type in you know, like Vegas

517
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 2: beanie baby divorced couple and they brought all these beanie

518
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 2: babies in on the floor and the judge said, like

519
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 2: choosing a team recess, you just go one at a time,

520
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:04,200
Speaker 2: and each of you pick out a beanie baby that

521
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 2: you're going to keep for yourself, and it's just a

522
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 2: very kind of funny looking photo.

523
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: It is until you read, like some of the quotes

524
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 1: from the woman involved in the divorce case, the wife

525
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 1: who was like this, it was really, you know, demoralizing

526
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: and degrading to have to be forced to do that.

527
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: She was really upset that the judge made her and

528
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: her ex husband do that, but it really, yes, she was.

529
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: She was not happy about it at all. But it

530
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: was like the whole thing was worth five grand, I

531
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: think they said. But that was five grand at the time,

532
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: and people were speculating on beanie babies, so I think

533
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: could have been worth a million dollars that pile of

534
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 1: beanie babies, which is why they went to the trouble

535
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: of selecting them like that, one at a time.

536
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:49,600
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I guess everyone's entitled to

537
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 2: their own opinion. It's her life, but degrading.

538
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 1: I don't think she used the word degrading, but it

539
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: was it was along those lines I'm paraphrasing.

540
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 2: Okay, I would have felt more silly unless he like

541
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 2: tied them both up and made them do it with

542
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 2: their mouth or something that's degrading. Yeah.

543
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: No, when they picked a beanie baby, they had to

544
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: pick it up with their chin and hand it to

545
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: their ex to say whether it was okay, if they

546
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: kept or nothing, then they had to hand it back

547
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: all without using their hands.

548
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 2: Right or that? What was the thing you do? Or

549
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 2: you would pass something with your neck?

550
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about. Oh okay, they did that,

551
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 1: but with the beanie babies they selected Okay, what did

552
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: people used to pass that one? Like the orange? I

553
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: think is what it was?

554
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yah, that's right. I can't remember when

555
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 2: you're a kid, it's I think the whole point of

556
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 2: that game was like, oh look how close we are?

557
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 2: Exactly right.

558
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: It was like spin the bottle, but with an orange

559
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: and necks and chance and no bottle.

560
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 2: There was a guy in California named Chris Robinson Senior.

561
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 2: I don't think any relation to the other Chris Robinson,

562
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 2: and he bought twenty thousand beanie babies, not twenty thousand

563
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 2: dollars worth, actual beanie babies, spending one hundred grand or so.

564
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 2: And he was one of those guys. It was like,

565
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 2: this is going to put my five kids through college.

566
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 2: One day, and one of his kids, Chris Junior of

567
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 2: the Black Crows, I guess, made a documentary called Bankrupted

568
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 2: by Beanies about, like, I guess, how dumb he thought

569
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 2: his dad was for spending that much money, like emptying

570
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 2: their bank account because he thought it was a good investment.

571
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like it's a very short documentary. It's like

572
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: eight to twelve minutes. I can't remember which one, and

573
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: it's mostly it's just him interviewing his family members about

574
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 1: this period in their family's history and dumb. Yeah, it

575
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: was like the dad is definitely like, you know, it

576
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: was not a good idea, but he's still holding out

577
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: hope that you know, at some point sometime down the road.

578
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they still have them, like they're the background

579
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: in all of the the shots, like the interviews. It's

580
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 1: pretty it's cute. It's not like, you know, condemnation or

581
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: anything like that, but it's just it's worth the eight

582
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: to twelve minutes that you'll spend watching it.

583
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 2: I think, all right, well to go check that out.

584
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: The Dad's like, this documentary is very degrading, right, I'm paraphrasing.

585
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 2: There were a lot of cases. You know, there were

586
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 2: people indicted in court for counterfeiting these things, you know,

587
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 2: pos that were never delivered and distributors kept the money.

588
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 2: The craze was so bad there was actual crime, like

589
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 2: people breaking in and stealing beanie babies. This one case

590
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 2: of a seventy seven year old guy in Chicago named

591
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 2: Ben Perry was charged with stealing close to thirteen hundred

592
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 2: beanie babies. There was a PI that found him, a

593
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 2: TIE incorporated private eye. In fact, they found him moving

594
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 2: stuff out of a storage locker, moving these toys in

595
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 2: and out, and I'm not sure, like he said that

596
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 2: they weren't stolen, yet he gave them up and donated

597
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 2: them to a charity Like that seems very fishy to me.

598
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: He apparently bought them for dirt cheap at a produce market,

599
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 1: like a farmer's market, and he swore he didn't know

600
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: that they were stolen, even though they were in boxes

601
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: labeled TIE like they were shipping boxes stolen out of

602
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: the warehouse. But he got off finally, but it became

603
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: clear to him that he didn't steal them, but that

604
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: they were stolen. So he just you know, donated.

605
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 2: Him so he didn't get in trouble.

606
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: No, but apparently he loved all the limelight that was

607
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: cast on him by the press during this the time

608
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: that he was in court as the beanie baby bandit.

609
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: He apparently ate it up so he got something.

610
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 2: He's like, I'm going out in style exactly.

611
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: There was another one. A murder is frequently linked to

612
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 1: beanie babies, even though it's kind of a stretch if

613
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: you start to stretch beneath the surface. But a man

614
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: named Jeffrey White murdered another man, Harry Simmons, in West Virginia,

615
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: supposedly over a dispute over who owned some beanie babies,

616
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: although really what happened was Harry Simmons and Jeffrey White

617
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: used to work together, and I think Jeffrey White was

618
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: stealing or loafing or something like that, and Harry Simmons

619
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 1: got him fired. So Jeffrey White, who had borrowed beanie

620
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: babies from him hadn't given him back, killed Harry Simmons.

621
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 2: We understand you've been loafing, exactly.

622
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 1: Is that true? Uh?

623
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 2: Yeah? Is that a crime?

624
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: If you got time to lean, you got time to

625
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: clean son.

626
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 2: Oh man, should we take a break on that note? Yeah, sure,

627
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 2: all right, We'll be right back and wrap up the

628
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 2: story of the beanie Baby.

629
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 3: Lately, I've been learning some stuff about insoa Alumnia.

630
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 2: How about the one on border like disorder?

631
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 1: Yer Warner heard that one.

632
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 3: Be warm, but it was so nice. Odes why.

633
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:56,400
Speaker 2: Body listen?

634
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:18,239
Speaker 1: Fine shot shot.

635
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 2: All right. We called this a bubble, like any sort

636
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,760
Speaker 2: of collectible or real estate bubble or financial bubble, because

637
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 2: they eventually burst, and the beanie baby really followed the

638
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 2: I was about to say, rise and follow the Internet.

639
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 2: The Internet clearly never fell, but the big dot com

640
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:44,560
Speaker 2: boom was what helped the beanie baby along and also

641
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 2: helped kill it a little bit. Although you know, beanie

642
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 2: babies were bound to I think they were bound to

643
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:54,160
Speaker 2: go away one way or another. Anytime it's something, it's

644
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:59,240
Speaker 2: something like this. August nineteen ninety nine, the website said,

645
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 2: or we're stopping the operation. We're not going to make

646
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 2: any more of these. At this point, three hundred and

647
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:07,919
Speaker 2: twenty five different beanie babies. At the end of the year,

648
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:11,319
Speaker 2: some people thought, no, this is we know that tie

649
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 2: guy by now, this is just a stunt to get

650
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 2: people to buy more of his stuff. But it you

651
00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 2: know it kind of worked as enthusiast and collectors were like,

652
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 2: all right, this is our last chance to go and

653
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 2: get what's out there to complete, to complete our collections.

654
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 1: Right. I didn't read the books ech Bisonette's book, but

655
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 1: I bred a review of it that they mentioned. The

656
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 1: way that he puts it, this was, this was, in fact,

657
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:37,279
Speaker 1: one hundred percent a stunt to kind of juice the

658
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 1: beanie baby the beanie baby market. Again. Yeah, and it

659
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:46,840
Speaker 1: did work, but in the short term, and he basically

660
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 1: says ty Warner killed his creation by carrying out this

661
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 1: stunt because on Christmas Eve, here's where Christmas pops up,

662
00:36:57,200 --> 00:36:59,879
Speaker 1: as we said at the beginning Christmas Eve nineteen ninety

663
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: right before the turn of the millennium, or no, I

664
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:06,760
Speaker 1: guess that was a year later, he said, Ty Warner

665
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: a ounced on the website. I changed my mind. I'll

666
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 1: leave it up to you guys to vote whether we

667
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 1: should keep making beanie babies or not. And in his credit,

668
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 1: you had to pay fifty cents to vote, but each

669
00:37:18,719 --> 00:37:25,280
Speaker 1: fifty vote went to the Elizabeth Klazer Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation,

670
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 1: So that was something. But ninety one percent of people

671
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 1: said yes, we want to keep Beanie Babies going.

672
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:32,399
Speaker 2: Of course he did.

673
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the company said, oh, well that's great. We

674
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: just so happened to have a whole new line of

675
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: them ready to go. So here you go, everybody, Beanie

676
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: Babies for all. And it was met with some craziness,

677
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 1: but nothing like it used to be. And very shortly

678
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 1: after that, the whole thing started to fizzle out rather quickly.

679
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seemed like this sort of the last hurrah.

680
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 2: I don't know if Ty Warner saw the writing on

681
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 2: the wall and wanted one more sort of big sales crunch.

682
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 2: I mean, if that's how we planned it, and then

683
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 2: that was pretty smart, because that's, you know, that's what happened.

684
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 2: They had a huge sales jump, even though brief they

685
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 2: sold about eight hundred million dollars in two thousand. I mean,

686
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:19,840
Speaker 2: that's seven years later. I think Beanie Babies lasted a

687
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 2: lot longer than I would have expected them to. It

688
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 2: seems to me like it would have been like a

689
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 2: two year flash in the pan. But they were around

690
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 2: for a while. Yeah.

691
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:31,319
Speaker 1: I saw that they were still going until about two

692
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:33,919
Speaker 1: thousand and two, so that's yeah, that's a good long

693
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: almost a decade of a craze, of a bubble. But

694
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: at the end of it all, people started to realize, like,

695
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: oh wait a minute, everybody has these things. This clubby

696
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 1: Bear that I had to pay for the privilege of

697
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,799
Speaker 1: buying to be part of the club, everybody has that,

698
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 1: or everyone has the Princess Die beanie baby bear, the

699
00:38:56,320 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 1: special limited edition beanie baby they released in all her

700
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 1: Princess Die after she died. They made it sound like

701
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 1: this was like the scarcest beanie baby, yet there were

702
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:08,240
Speaker 1: there was like a hundred million of them out there,

703
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:11,240
Speaker 1: So people started to realize, like, these things aren't aren't

704
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: scarce at all. There's a glut of them, and these

705
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of dollars worth of the beanie babies

706
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 1: that I have set aside are are worthless and and

707
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 1: that was a huge blow to a lot of people.

708
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 1: At the same time, I think it was also freeing

709
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 1: because it's you'll just come across stories of people who

710
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 1: basically spent all of their free time tracking down beanie babies.

711
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,560
Speaker 1: It was an obsession that they couldn't quit, and so

712
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:40,200
Speaker 1: they were. They were out a bunch of money and

713
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:44,359
Speaker 1: time and wasted years, but they were free finally when

714
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 1: the market finally crashed.

715
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like bitcoin.

716
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: I've seen it. I've seen it very closely compared to

717
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 1: bitcoin in at least one article.

718
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I know people who are sort of

719
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 2: obsessively hours hours a day trading cryptocurrency, and it's it

720
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 2: seems exhausting to me.

721
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing. If you ever see a

722
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 1: bubble coming along, that's not a long term thing. If

723
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: something suddenly just jumps in value and it's shocking and

724
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 1: people are writing like crazy articles about it, buy it

725
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:22,400
Speaker 1: and then sell it during that. Don't hang on to

726
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:25,359
Speaker 1: it long term. Same thing with bitcoin. Like a lot

727
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: of people made a lot of money by buying bitcoin

728
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: cheap and then selling it at its peak. It's people

729
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 1: who hung on to it as a long term investment

730
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 1: that are now like I lost my shirt, you know. Yeah,

731
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 1: So it's the same thing with Beanie. But it's the

732
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: same thing with any economic bubble. You have to know

733
00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 1: when to get out at just the right time, or

734
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: you can sit on the sidelines and be like, you

735
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:44,239
Speaker 1: guys are chumps.

736
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 2: Right. Well, who certainly wasn't a jump was Tie because

737
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 2: he and I feel like I can just call him

738
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,800
Speaker 2: tie because that was so his brandy.

739
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:55,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.

740
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,919
Speaker 2: No one knows exactly what kind of dough he made

741
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:02,359
Speaker 2: on these because, like you said earlier, he never you know,

742
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 2: became a he never launched an ipo and didn't have

743
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 2: to disclose stuff publicly. But he is and was a

744
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:13,279
Speaker 2: man with some ego because in nineteen ninety eight there

745
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 2: were some questions about, you know, beanie babies, did they

746
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:18,880
Speaker 2: really sell as much? Was it the top toy seller

747
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:21,479
Speaker 2: in the world, And he himself took out a full

748
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 2: page Wall Street Journal ad saying that he made seven

749
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:29,440
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars in profits and nineteen ninety seven alone,

750
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 2: which is I don't know if that numbers true, but

751
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 2: if it's seven hundred million just in profits in one year,

752
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 2: then that's remarkable.

753
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 1: That would have made tie ink more profitable than Hasbro

754
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: and Mattel together that year.

755
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 2: This is just from everything they sold, exactly. Yeah, just in.

756
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 1: Profits, right, that's what that taking out that ad in

757
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:53,760
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal is what you'd call today a flex flex.

758
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I mean he's still a legit billionaire. It's

759
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 2: sort of gone up and down. According to Forbes as

760
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 2: far as his net worth goes two thousand and two,

761
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 2: supposedly at six billion two thousand and nine down to

762
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,359
Speaker 2: three point two twenty twenty three. Forbes says he's worth

763
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 2: about five point seven but it's you know, he still

764
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 2: has that company, but he also diversified. He got into

765
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 2: real estate, notably as a hotelier, and he owns the

766
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 2: I think still closed Four Seasons Hotel, New York still closed.

767
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 1: What's it closed for?

768
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 2: It depends on who you ask. I think he claimed

769
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 2: it was renovations, but other people said it was a

770
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 2: dispute with the Four Seasons brand. But I think it's

771
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:42,759
Speaker 2: supposed to reopen and sometime next year.

772
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw he had a dispute with the Four

773
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:48,360
Speaker 1: Seasons brand over upkeep fees, like what he basically needed

774
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 1: to spend to keep the thing up to four season standards.

775
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

776
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: I also saw that that was the first hotel to

777
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: open to first responders and doctors and nurses who were

778
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:01,920
Speaker 1: working on the front lines of the COVID pandemic, so

779
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:04,040
Speaker 1: that they had a place to stay you wouldn't have

780
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 1: to go home and infect their families, which I thought

781
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:06,799
Speaker 1: was pretty cool.

782
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:09,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess we can talk about that

783
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 2: a little bit in a broader sense, because Warner is

784
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 2: someone who like has has been notably charitable as far

785
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 2: as like front facing sort of putting stuff out there,

786
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:28,360
Speaker 2: kind of stuff like the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation

787
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 2: when he donated you know, the fifty cents for those

788
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 2: votes and stuff like that. Because he got in trouble

789
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 2: at one point for tax well not tax fraud, but

790
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 2: what do you call it? Tax evasion? And as part

791
00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 2: of his sentence, one of which was a couple years probation,

792
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 2: five hundred hours of community service, and one hundred thousand

793
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:52,720
Speaker 2: dollars fine. On the criminal side, he paid over fifty

794
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 2: three million dollars in civil penalties. But part of the

795
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 2: argument was like, hey, you know, as far as this

796
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 2: defense goes, like this is really charitable. He's donated millions

797
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:05,720
Speaker 2: of dollars to the Children's Hunger Fund and the Andre

798
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 2: Agassy Foundation, and like I said, a lot of really

799
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 2: public facing, like large donations. But prosecutors are like, that's

800
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 2: a pittance of what this guy's worth, right, And just

801
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 2: because he gives a little bit of money and makes

802
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 2: a big deal about it doesn't mean he didn't break

803
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:19,919
Speaker 2: the law.

804
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:23,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, the judge in the case though, was like, yeah

805
00:44:23,520 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: he did, but again I'm pretty impressed with his charitable work.

806
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: So he got off easy. He could have gone to

807
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 1: prison for four years. Instead he got off with one

808
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,240
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars fine, five hundred hours of community service,

809
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: and two years probation. And it was for just the

810
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 1: dumbest thing. He had a Swiss bank account that no

811
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: one knew about but him that had like one hundred

812
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: million dollars in it. This guy was a billionaire three

813
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 1: times over at his poorest point. There's just no reason

814
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:52,439
Speaker 1: to have done that, and he did, and he got

815
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:56,439
Speaker 1: caught doing it, and so he called it the greatest mistake.

816
00:44:56,120 --> 00:45:02,320
Speaker 2: Of his life. Besides besides that pumping dump scheme.

817
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: At the turn of the millennium.

818
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 2: So they kept making stuff stuff ease. In fact, as

819
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 2: a company in two thousand and four, they started licensing

820
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 2: deals or getting involved with you know, licensing other people's

821
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 2: stuff like Garfield and some Disney stuff. There was something

822
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:22,839
Speaker 2: called Beanie Booze that came out in two thousand and nine.

823
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 2: Those were kind of that were yeah, they did okay,

824
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:28,719
Speaker 2: I mean nothing obviously went like the Beanie Baby, but

825
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 2: nothing ever has probably sure, But he still is out

826
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 2: there making money selling stuff, and he doesn't seem to

827
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 2: be slowing down. I think, how is he now seventy

828
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:43,319
Speaker 2: what three? I think seventy nine years old?

829
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:45,759
Speaker 1: Seventy nine I was pretty close, give or take six years.

830
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's still trying to market himself and his

831
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 2: toy company. I think it was a little dismissive of

832
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 2: the movie. Like everybody who's ever had a movie made

833
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:58,839
Speaker 2: about themselves, they always say like, yeah, ten percent of

834
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 2: that thing is true, But I think they also secretly

835
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 2: kind of liked that they've made a movie about them. Sure,

836
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:04,800
Speaker 2: that kind of thing.

837
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 1: Right for sure. There's also that secondary market. Chuck is

838
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 1: still around and people are trading on that that myth

839
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 1: that some people still have that beanie babies are really valuable.

840
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:20,400
Speaker 1: And so if you go onto eBay and start searching

841
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 1: beanie babies, you'll find some for like a dollar, some

842
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:25,319
Speaker 1: I think for less than a dollar, and then you

843
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:27,319
Speaker 1: can turn around and find the exact same ones for

844
00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 1: sale for twenty five thousand dollars or sixty thousand dollars

845
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:34,840
Speaker 1: or something like that. And I was reading a I

846
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 1: think tie collector dot com article where they were basically

847
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:42,240
Speaker 1: saying like, we're pretty sure this is either money laundering

848
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 1: that's going on, or it's some sort of scam where

849
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:48,439
Speaker 1: these people are trying to beef up like the the

850
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 1: market value of these things or the secondary market artificially,

851
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 1: or it's just a straight up scam where like you

852
00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 1: pay them or they buy from you and say, oh

853
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:01,000
Speaker 1: I overpaid, pay me back in a gift card, which

854
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 1: is another thing in addition to selling at the height

855
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:07,720
Speaker 1: of a bubble. Never do business with somebody who demands

856
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: to be paid in gift cards. Something fishy is going

857
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: on right there. That's my other word of advice around

858
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:14,959
Speaker 1: this Christmas time.

859
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, is it not like a babysitter or something?

860
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, even still, I'd be like, what's your angle, babysitter.

861
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:26,359
Speaker 2: The one thing that cracked me up, though, was that

862
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 2: when the movie came out and he kind of which

863
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 2: was just recently I think this summer or last summer

864
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 2: or whatever, he said, you know, I really wanted I

865
00:47:35,239 --> 00:47:37,840
Speaker 2: would have preferred somebody like Warren Batty or Daniel s

866
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 2: Lewis to have played me. Yeah, I'm like when this

867
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 2: was going on, he was in his forties. Warren Batty

868
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 2: is eighty nine years old.

869
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:46,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's aged.

870
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:48,879
Speaker 2: Daniel Lee Lewis is sixty six. They're not even close

871
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:52,279
Speaker 2: in age. He's twenty six, twenty three years younger than

872
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 2: Warren Batty. Like, this guy's all over the blaze.

873
00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 1: Well, his thing with Daniel day Lewis is that he

874
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,479
Speaker 1: really did beat somebody to death with a bowling pin once.

875
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: So he thought Daniel day Lewis could really bring that

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00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: to life on screen like he did, and there will

877
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:07,280
Speaker 1: be blood. Oh boy, you got anything else?

878
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 2: I got nothing else?

879
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: Have you forgotten all the mean things I've said to

880
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 1: you of this episode?

881
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:14,240
Speaker 2: I don't even know what you're talking about.

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00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:17,160
Speaker 1: Great, Well, since Chuck doesn't know what I'm talking about everybody,

883
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: that means that it's time for listener mail.

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00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,479
Speaker 2: You know, we're going to forego listener mail this week.

885
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 2: It's late in the air, and we would just like

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00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:28,720
Speaker 2: to remind everybody we're going to say our official Christmas

887
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 2: s greetings on our Christmas episode. But we've got some

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00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 2: great live shows coming up next year. We're doing our

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00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest Swing and as we do every year in

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00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 2: see almost every year in Seattle, Portland and San Francisco

891
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:45,800
Speaker 2: at Sketch Fest, and we went to some bigger theaters

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00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 2: this time in Seattle especially, so we would love to

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00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 2: see everybody and for you to fill those places up

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00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 2: Start twenty twenty four off right, just go to our website,

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00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 2: stuff Youshould Do dot com and click on the tour

896
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 2: page and buy tickets from legitimate sources. Please do not

897
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:05,800
Speaker 2: go to scalper sites. You might think it's the real site,

898
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,200
Speaker 2: but if the tickets are more than like forty bucks

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00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 2: or something, then it's not a real site.

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00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: Or if they want to be paid in gift cards,

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00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:14,160
Speaker 1: not a real ticket seller.

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00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 2: That's right. But we hope to see everybody in January late.

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00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 1: J Absolutely and in the meantime, everybody. If you want

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00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, you can send us

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00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: an email. Send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio

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00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

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00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:36,800
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.