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Speaker 1: Hello, people. If you want to come see us live

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Speaker 1: next year, your very first chance to do it is

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Speaker 1: going to be Seattle, Washington on January twenty fourth at

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Speaker 1: the Paramount Theater, isn't that right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? And then the following day, the very next day,

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Speaker 2: we're going all the way down to Portland, Oregon for

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Speaker 2: another show on the twenty fifth at Revolution Hall. And

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Speaker 2: then after that, the very next day we're doing another show, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: That's right, our annual trip to f Sketch Fest on

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Speaker 1: January twenty sixth. You can get tickets now. Just go

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Speaker 1: to stuff youshould know dot com, click on the tour link,

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Speaker 1: and please please buy from official sellers from the venues.

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Speaker 1: Do not buy scalts tickets.

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Speaker 2: All right, and everybody, we will see you in January.

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Speaker 2: With bells on jingle bells.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're feeling fairly festive

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Speaker 2: and this is Stuff you should Know. That's right, the

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Speaker 2: episode before the Christmas episode.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which is become a I guess tradition to do

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Speaker 1: a classic toy. When did we start that?

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Speaker 2: I'd say more custom than tradition. All right, I'm sorry, Christmas,

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Speaker 2: I'm feeling contrary. It is definitely a tradition.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's because you're about to shut it down for

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Speaker 1: a month, so you don't care you're burning bridges exactly.

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Speaker 2: I won't see you until like twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like chuckle, forget anything that happens today.

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Speaker 2: By then, I'm trying to think of what our first

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Speaker 2: toy one was. It was a handful of years ago.

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Speaker 2: I don't remember, but it was slinky maybe no, No,

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Speaker 2: I mean we've done toy ones, just not around Christmas.

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Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of the first toy Christmas ey one.

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Speaker 2: I can't. I'm drawing a blank right now. So this

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Speaker 2: is like high quality podcasting doing right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, good pick this year.

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Speaker 2: Yeah thanks. I don't know what made me think of

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Speaker 2: beanie Babies, but I did, and I think it turned

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Speaker 2: out to be a good one too, because it had

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Speaker 2: nothing to do with Christmas. Really, yeah, Christmas pops up

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Speaker 2: at one part. But it's a toy, and it's a

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Speaker 2: really interesting toy because Beanie Babies. For those of you

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Speaker 2: who don't know, if you were born after the nineties

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Speaker 2: were probably well, i'll just say The Financial Times called

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Speaker 2: it potentially the greatest market bubble of all times. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean that's really saying something, because there's been some

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Speaker 2: market bubbles, but the beanie baby craze of the mid

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Speaker 2: to late nineties probably topped them all. It was just

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Speaker 2: that crazy. I mean, we've talked about some crazy stuff

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Speaker 2: that people have done for toys before, people elbowing one

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Speaker 2: another for a cabbage Patch kid. That's peanuts compared to

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Speaker 2: what people did for beanie babies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't know anything about this either, because that

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Speaker 1: was sort of the end of college and then my

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Speaker 1: New York New Jersey years, and I just I knew

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Speaker 1: that beanie babies were a thing, but I was not

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Speaker 1: participating in the economy in that way at that point.

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Speaker 2: So you didn't known a single one. Oh, of course

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Speaker 2: not I didn't either, No, I totally didn't. But the

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Speaker 2: thing is is we were in the minority in America,

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Speaker 2: something like sixty two or sixty three percent owned at

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Speaker 2: least one beanie baby at the height of this bubble.

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Speaker 1: Think about that. That honestly was one of the most

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Speaker 1: shocking stats in this whole thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like six point three people out of every

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Speaker 2: ten people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing when you're talking about a little kid's toy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well that was the thing. It wasn't kids that

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Speaker 2: fueled this craze. It was almost exclusively adults because the

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Speaker 2: reason the market bubble grew was because there became this

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Speaker 2: idea that beanie babies were valuable, that they had an

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Speaker 2: inherent value greater than the face value that you would

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Speaker 2: pay for them at the retail store.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which was true for a while.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was. We'll get into all that,

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Speaker 2: but let's start from the beginning, shall we.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, you can't talk beanie babies without talking

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Speaker 1: about the gentleman who started it all. I do remember

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Speaker 1: seeing the letters t Y on beanie baby packaging, so

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Speaker 1: I wasn't completely head in the sand, sure, but I

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Speaker 1: did not know that t Y was the guy's name.

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Speaker 1: It was Ty Warner, who was born in the mid

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Speaker 1: nineteen forties in Lagrange, Chicago suburb Lagrange, Illinois, and he

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Speaker 1: had a pretty not great childhood. It seems like, is

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Speaker 1: that fair to say?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? From everything I've heard.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I had a mother who suffered from mental illness

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Speaker 1: which was not treated, which is even worse, didn't have

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Speaker 1: a great relationship with his dad. His parents got divorced

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Speaker 1: when he was in his thirties, but he went to

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Speaker 1: college at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, where he learned his

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Speaker 1: love of treading the boards.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, kalam theater, right exactly. But he did. He

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Speaker 2: got into acting, and it kind of either he was

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Speaker 2: already like a theater kid at heart, or it turned

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Speaker 2: him into a theater kid because he ended up taking

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Speaker 2: that that way of living or that way of looking

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Speaker 2: at the world or being in the world with him

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Speaker 2: essentially for the rest of his life.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he seemed fairly flamboyant.

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Speaker 2: He was flamboyant. There's a really oft sighted story about

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Speaker 2: him showing up when he became a salesman for the

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Speaker 2: toy company that his father worked for. He would show

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Speaker 2: up to these sales calls in a Rolls Royce wearing

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Speaker 2: a floor length fur coat and a cane and a hat. Amazing,

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Speaker 2: essentially like Kramer when he accidentally's wearing the Technicolor dream

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Speaker 2: coat and ends up with that big Jamir Kui hat Niccain. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's essentially what Ty Warner showed up to these sales

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Speaker 2: meetings looking like in the early sixties, and apparently it

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Speaker 2: worked because he said that his premise was if he

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Speaker 2: showed up to a sales meeting looking like that, people

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Speaker 2: would say, I want to see what's in that guy's briefcase?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, or do.

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Speaker 2: You Yeah, it depends on the kind of party you're

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Speaker 2: in for.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a really good salesperson. Apparently he thought

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Speaker 1: a lot of himself though, and in nineteen eighty he

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Speaker 1: worked for this company, I guess what, for like eighteen years,

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Speaker 1: because he got the job in nineteen sixty two, So

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Speaker 1: that's a nice long run. But at least the way

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Speaker 1: his former boss told it, guy named Harold Nazamian, who

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Speaker 1: was the CEO, basically accused him of moonlighting on the

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Speaker 1: company and using their you know, sales list in his

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Speaker 1: personal personal relationships with people as a salesperson to sell

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Speaker 1: his own stuff while he was working right as a

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Speaker 1: sales manager for this company, and so he got fired.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, on those sales calls he would be like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I've got these great dacin products, but also I want

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Speaker 2: to show you these too, So he was not only

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Speaker 2: using company contexts. He was using company time too. It's

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Speaker 2: about as bad a thing you can do as a salesman, essentially.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And it wasn't long after that that the beanie

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Speaker 1: baby came along.

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Speaker 2: No, that was so it was nineteen eighty when he

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Speaker 2: lost the job. He apparently moved to Rome. He went

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Speaker 2: to go visit some friends and ended up living there

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Speaker 2: for a few years. And when he came back, he

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Speaker 2: was inspired to keep going in the toy industry. I

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Speaker 2: guess it kind of got under his skin and he'd

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Speaker 2: seen some toy cats there in Rome, he said, and

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Speaker 2: he was inspired to create not beanie babies at first,

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Speaker 2: but his first plush toys, which was a line of

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Speaker 2: cats laying down, pretty fluffy. They looked they were fully stuffed,

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Speaker 2: which is a big difference between them and beanie babies.

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Speaker 2: And then for every cat there was a Himalayan version

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Speaker 2: of it. And they were pretty cute little cats. But

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Speaker 2: the thing that he did that I think really kind

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Speaker 2: of helped sell these things because they were like a

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Speaker 2: modest successive scene. It described as that he gave them

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Speaker 2: names they were in They weren't just some stuffed cat.

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Speaker 2: This was Smoky, this was Peaches. Like these cats were individuals.

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Speaker 2: They had an identity, and that made them that much

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Speaker 2: more lovable.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And they were larger, they were about seventeen inches.

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Speaker 1: They larger than beanie babies would be. They would cost

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Speaker 1: more than beanie babies at twenty bucks. And like you said,

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Speaker 1: they were stuffed, but not stuffed with the you know

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Speaker 1: kind of the genius of the I don't know about genius.

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Speaker 1: That's probably stretching that word. Sure, let's just say the

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Speaker 1: fairly smart thing that he did with beanie babies was

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Speaker 1: he stuffed them with beads like like a what's it called, yeah,

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Speaker 1: pretty much, and didn't overstuff it so you could move

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Speaker 1: them around and pose them and they could, you know,

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Speaker 1: droop over your shoulder and stuff like that, not like

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Speaker 1: a regular sort of fully stuffed whatever. They stuffed those

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Speaker 1: things with whatever weird chemical stuffing.

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Speaker 2: Oh, like the little styrofoam pellets or the syrofoam fiber

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Speaker 2: that's kind of like a yeah, fibers.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean those are those are the cheapest ones

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Speaker 1: that you would get as like a prize at an

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Speaker 1: amusement park. Yes, that literal styrofoam balls.

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Speaker 2: Right, And that was a big that was a big

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Speaker 2: deal about his Beanie Babies because they were high quality.

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Speaker 2: They were very well made from the outset. He was

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Speaker 2: all up the bottom of the South Korean manufacturers he

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Speaker 2: had partnered with to make these things. He was really

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Speaker 2: involved in the design and manufacturing process. So these were

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Speaker 2: really high quality dolls. But he made a very conscious

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Speaker 2: to decision to sell Beanie Babies at five bucks a pop,

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Speaker 2: which he said that mark that was the kids could

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Speaker 2: typically buy that with their allowance money, because as we'll

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Speaker 2: forget multiple times throughout this episode, these were originally meant

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Speaker 2: for kids to buy the Beanie Babies were. So that

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Speaker 2: was a really big deal because he came out he

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Speaker 2: was one of the first people to come out with

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Speaker 2: a high quality toy at a price point of something

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Speaker 2: you would get at like the County Fair something as

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Speaker 2: a prize, but instead it was a good quality plush toy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so this was nineteen ninety three for

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Speaker 1: the actual launch of the Beanie Baby, which launched with

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Speaker 1: Brownie the bear yep and Pinchers the Lobster, and like

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Speaker 1: a Cabbage Patch kid, it came with a date of birth.

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Speaker 1: He used the name like he you know, originally did

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Speaker 1: with those fully stuffed cats or kiddies. I guess fully

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Speaker 1: stuffed cat sounds gross.

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Speaker 2: It's like a traduction.

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Speaker 1: Including the date of birth. And then also another key

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Speaker 1: was this little short poem and their little heart shaped

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Speaker 1: tag turned out to be a bit of marketing genius.

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Speaker 1: It was just just an extra little something to make

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Speaker 1: it different to appeal to a kid, because you gotta

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Speaker 1: even if it ended up being a thing that adults

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Speaker 1: try to collect because you know, they thought it was valuable,

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Speaker 1: it never would have gotten there if he hadn't have

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Speaker 1: made a toay that kids really loved to begin with.

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Speaker 2: Right Also, I mean he wasn't the first to do that.

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Speaker 2: This was a good ten years after the Cabbage Patch

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Speaker 2: kids and their adoption papers and all that stuff. But

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Speaker 2: it's still it is a good marketing technique for sure,

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Speaker 2: and it did work. But the thing that made beanie

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Speaker 2: babies really kind of take off was multifold. Part of

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Speaker 2: it was his marketing scheme. He had a really brilliant

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Speaker 2: idea which was only certain kinds of stores could carry

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Speaker 2: beanie babies, and you actually had to be a licensed

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Speaker 2: beanie baby retailer to sell beanie babies legally or legitimately

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Speaker 2: and those stores were like Hallmark stores, locally owned gift stores,

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Speaker 2: hospital gift shops, like small stores. So that right off

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Speaker 2: the bat canceled any chance of anyone I saw it

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Speaker 2: described it going into like a big box store, like

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Speaker 2: a wal Mart or something and seeing a bargain bin

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Speaker 2: of beanie babies just lumped together for fifty percent off.

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Speaker 2: So the fact that that didn't that possibility didn't exist,

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Speaker 2: someone couldn't see that automatically made it. They were just

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Speaker 2: higher status than they otherwise would have been. Because he

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Speaker 2: made enough to sell to huge retailers like that, he

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Speaker 2: decided deliberately not to do that for that reason.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, super smart. I mean, if you can create a

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Speaker 1: scarcity and the illusion that what you're peddling is like

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Speaker 1: limited and collectible, yeah, then you're going to do pretty well.

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Speaker 1: And that's what he did. But not only by limiting

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Speaker 1: the amount of stores that could be sold in, but

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Speaker 1: he also limited the number of toys that these stores

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Speaker 1: could even buy. Like that Hallmark store once they you know,

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Speaker 1: really talk took off, couldn't be like, hey, we're going

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Speaker 1: to dedicate half our store to these things now because

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Speaker 1: they're selling like hotcakes. So he would dole them out

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Speaker 1: in limited numbers to the stores, and each of those

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Speaker 1: stores only had certain products, like you know, you might

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Speaker 1: have Spot the Dog and Squealer the Pig at one store,

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Speaker 1: or Chocolate the Moose and Flash the Dolphin at another.

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Speaker 1: And that creates a situation then where kids are like,

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Speaker 1: I got a you know, like completing the collection as

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Speaker 1: a classic kid's toy scam.

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Speaker 2: For sure, Yeah, by all the exactly. And so you

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Speaker 2: would have to go around town to multiple stores in

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Speaker 2: your town to get the ones that were available, and

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Speaker 2: because they were allowed to only buy limited amounts, frequently

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Speaker 2: those things were sold out. So the idea that these

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Speaker 2: things were scarce collector's items was manufactured out of the

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Speaker 2: gate by Ty Warner in his marketing skit. I almost

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Speaker 2: said scam, but scheme, I think is a better way

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Speaker 2: to put.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. The other big thing is that this coincided with

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Speaker 1: the rise of the Internet. There's a great scene in

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Speaker 1: the movie. There's a movie that's out now, I think

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Speaker 1: an Apple original called The Beanie Bubble.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't seen it. Did you watch it now?

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Speaker 1: The reviews aren't kind. I may watch it because I

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Speaker 1: love Zach Galifanakis, who plays Ty Warner and Elizabeth banks

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Speaker 1: Is in the movie is a sort of a thinly

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Speaker 1: veiled version of his former business partner and and romantic partner,

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Speaker 1: I think Patricia Roach. But in the movie, in the

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Speaker 1: trailer I saw today, Zach said, because you know, they

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Speaker 1: started a website and there were you know, an early

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Speaker 1: website in those years, Yeah, Zach Galifant or I guess

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Speaker 1: ty Warner says we broke the Internet things about it

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Speaker 1: was a pretty good line because the Internet was so

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Speaker 1: new over him, just like I guess you know there's

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Speaker 1: a thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently. So he had an employee named Lena Trevetti,

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Speaker 2: and she was a coder, and this is like nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety three ninety four, and she convinced Ty Warner to

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Speaker 2: create a beanie Baby's website because they were getting calls

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Speaker 2: and letters and stuff like that from people saying like

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Speaker 2: this is my checklist? Is this accurate? Am I missing

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Speaker 2: any And they thought, well, let's just put like a

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Speaker 2: central place where all of the beanie babies can be listed,

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Speaker 2: and it can be a place where everybody who likes

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Speaker 2: beanie babies can come and like learn and get excited

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Speaker 2: about beanie babies and buy beanie babies because starting in

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, they started selling beanie babies on this website,

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Speaker 2: and that was the same year that Amazon and eBay launched,

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Speaker 2: so they were one of the first e commerce sites

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Speaker 2: on the internet.

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Speaker 1: Too, Yeah, which is amazing. The movie has a character

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Speaker 1: named Maya, who was again a thinly veiled version of

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Speaker 1: Lena Trevetti, which I'm curious why they didn't just use

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Speaker 1: their real names.

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Speaker 2: They touted this as loosely based on Zach Bissonette's book

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Speaker 2: and that some of it was fictitious, I think to

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Speaker 2: keep from getting sued. I get the impression that Ky

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Speaker 2: Warner is not shy about suing people well.

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Speaker 1: Which is interesting because he played Ty Warner in the movie. Like,

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Speaker 1: that's the only name that wasn't changed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know why they did it, but they

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Speaker 2: definitely did it well.

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Speaker 1: Judging from the trailer, it seems that both the Bank's

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Speaker 1: character and the Maya character are kind of One of

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Speaker 1: the threads of the movies, as it was seemingly in

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Speaker 1: real life, was that there were at least a couple

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Speaker 1: of women in the organization that had a lot to

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Speaker 1: do with their growth in the sort of story is

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Speaker 1: that he never gave them enough credit, and that seems

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Speaker 1: to play out in the movie.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he like if you read any like corporate

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Speaker 2: write ups, like press releases or the very rare interviews

307
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Speaker 2: he's given, like it sounds like the whole thing was

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Speaker 2: just him, just him, And in part it was largely

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Speaker 2: him because he owned the company from the outset, always has.

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Speaker 2: He's never sold one share, he didn't take it public.

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Speaker 2: It's been a privately owned company by him one hundred

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Speaker 2: percent as far as I know from the outset. So

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Speaker 2: he definitely, you know, really was the driving force in this,

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Speaker 2: but he had help that is largely unacknowledged publicly. That

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Speaker 2: it's a good thing that Zach Bisonette came along, and

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Speaker 2: also the people who made that the movie based on

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Speaker 2: Zach Bisonett's book to kind of shine a spotlight on

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Speaker 2: the other people of this, particularly women who helped him. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Zach and Zach, that's right, the two Zach's on the

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Speaker 2: Zach attack against Ty Warren's.

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Speaker 1: The other thing that he did to sort of, you know,

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Speaker 1: drive this, I mean, I guess we can call it

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Speaker 1: a fall scarcity, is he had he was very secret

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Speaker 1: about the company. He didn't want people outside the company knowing,

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Speaker 1: like when they were going to launch a new kind

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Speaker 1: of toy, how many they were making. Right in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety five, he started retiring models that was huge and

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Speaker 1: then adding other ones. And he would just all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden drop like, you know this Marty Moose, what

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Speaker 1: did I call him something?

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Speaker 2: The moose, chocolate moose.

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Speaker 1: Chocolate Moose is gone, let's say. And if they're being

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Speaker 1: baby people out there, like, no, chocolate moose never left.

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Speaker 1: I'm just using that as an example.

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Speaker 2: That's a good idea.

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Speaker 1: But they would just announce that on the website and

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, people are like, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: they've retired the moose, and you know, people are driving

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Speaker 1: around and trying to find them in those stores before

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Speaker 1: they're all gone.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a deliberate thing to do as well,

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Speaker 2: to create the further scarcity, like legitimate scarcity. But apparently

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Speaker 2: he fell into that backwards or he stumbled into it,

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Speaker 2: because we said that he was really involved in the design.

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Speaker 2: After these things would launch, he would like, see one,

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Speaker 2: be like that's too orange, I want it more red,

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Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, I saw a pinchy the

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00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:04,080
Speaker 2: the lobster would be a much deeper red. Well, they'd

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Speaker 2: stop producing the orangish red one, and these beanie baby

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00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:09,800
Speaker 2: collectors would go bonkers trying to find the other one.

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Speaker 2: He started to notice that, and so he created real

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Speaker 2: scarcity by deliberately retiring some just out of the blue.

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Speaker 2: People would go scramble to find them, and then retailers,

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Speaker 2: most importantly, would start stockpiling everything that he had that

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Speaker 2: they could sell, say the orange pinchy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. He was also smart enough to realize that the

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Speaker 1: cabbage Patch kids, like when that bubble burst, it just

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Speaker 1: kind of all went away, and so he would do

359
00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:42,640
Speaker 1: things like, hey, Hallmark, if you want to order these

360
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Speaker 1: beanie babies, you got to also order some of this

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Speaker 1: other stuff that I'm selling. It's not as nearly as popular,

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Speaker 1: but he tried to increase revenue sort of across the company.

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Speaker 1: So he wasn't all in on the beanie baby, right.

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Speaker 2: I say we take a break and come back and

365
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Speaker 2: talk about how McDonald's factors into this. What do you think.

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Speaker 3: Mcwe lately I've been learning some stop about insomnia or aluminia.

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Speaker 3: How about the one on border like disorder that are

368
00:20:14,359 --> 00:20:20,520
Speaker 3: under order? That one be warm, but it was so nice, Olearnest,

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Speaker 3: why everybody listen.

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Speaker 4: Up, stop stop stop Star Josh and shock.

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Speaker 3: So shot.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck. So we said, McDonald's factors into this, Like

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Speaker 2: any great American economic bubble story, McDonald's going to play

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Speaker 2: some role in it whatsoever, somehow, some way. And McDonald

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00:21:00,320 --> 00:21:03,520
Speaker 2: is the one that basically said, if you are just

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Speaker 2: kind of out there on the margins and don't really

377
00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:08,520
Speaker 2: know what's going on in this beanie baby collector world

378
00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:12,880
Speaker 2: growing under your very nose, this McDonald's happy Meal promotion

379
00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:16,280
Speaker 2: is going to just blow the doors off of any

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Speaker 2: illusions that beanie babies are not a cultural force to

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Speaker 2: be reckoned with.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, over a couple of years, I think they had

383
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Speaker 1: two versions in ninety seven and ninety eight where they

384
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Speaker 1: there were hundreds of millions of teeny babies. These were

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Speaker 1: even smaller, obviously because it was, you know, to fit

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Speaker 1: into a happy meal.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, teeny beanies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah what I say, teeny babies?

389
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Speaker 2: It works too.

390
00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:40,960
Speaker 1: I like teeny babies.

391
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:42,200
Speaker 2: I like teeny babies.

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Speaker 1: Too, teeny beanies. And you know, even if your thing

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00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:49,000
Speaker 1: is already popular, all of a sudden, if hundreds of

394
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Speaker 1: millions of these things are going out and happy meals

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Speaker 1: and you know the most popular, you know, fast food

396
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Speaker 1: restaurant chain in the world, then it's gonna just skyrocket

397
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:00,520
Speaker 1: this thing even further. And that's exactly what it did.

398
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the nineteen ninety eight one, the second one that

399
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:06,040
Speaker 2: they did where you could get teeny beanies in a

400
00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:12,160
Speaker 2: happy meal. The first weekend of that promotion, McDonald saw

401
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:16,399
Speaker 2: the highest increase in sales in its corporate history. It

402
00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:18,560
Speaker 2: had never sold more in any weekend in the history

403
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Speaker 2: of McDonald's than it did at the beginning of that

404
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 2: second Beanie Babies promotion, and people were ordering as many

405
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:28,800
Speaker 2: happy meals as they were allowed to order and telling

406
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 2: the McDonald's workers just keep the food, I just want

407
00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:34,199
Speaker 2: the beanie babies. McDonald's had to set up rules like

408
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:37,200
Speaker 2: individual franchises had their own rules. It was really patchwork

409
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:41,399
Speaker 2: where you could say, get five happy meals per order

410
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:44,720
Speaker 2: or per visit, and you had to have a two

411
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:48,119
Speaker 2: hour waiting period in between visits. So people would like

412
00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 2: just go for McDonald's and McDonald's and then just go

413
00:22:50,119 --> 00:22:52,240
Speaker 2: on like a circuit to get as many of the

414
00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 2: beanie babies as they possibly could. People were tackling like

415
00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:58,600
Speaker 2: delivery people showing up with the boxes of the new

416
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:02,960
Speaker 2: beanie babies. That was nuts what people did just for

417
00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 2: the McDonald's version of the beanie babies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that McDonald's record. That even counts passing the Great

419
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Speaker 1: McRib Feast of ninety two, the previous record holder.

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Speaker 2: The mcribs back right now, I saw, I've been meaning

421
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:19,400
Speaker 2: to go get one.

422
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:23,200
Speaker 1: Talk about false scarcity, Yeah, same thing, for sure. I mean,

423
00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:24,679
Speaker 1: I mean they could put that on their menu at

424
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:26,440
Speaker 1: any time, right, totally for sure.

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00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:29,119
Speaker 2: You know that the fat cats at McDonald's Corporate are

426
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 2: eating mcribs every day of the year.

427
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the employee lounge is just stocked with them. Right.

428
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Speaker 2: But all this that's going on, Chuck is underscores a

429
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:45,480
Speaker 2: larger cultural thing, and that is that people are buying

430
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 2: these beanie babies not just because they think they're the

431
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 2: cutest thing on two legs, but because it has become

432
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:57,680
Speaker 2: largely widely accepted that they are a sound investment if

433
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:01,119
Speaker 2: you want to diversify your portfolio, or more often was

434
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:04,400
Speaker 2: the case, make your entire portfolio just beanie babies.

435
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know this was by the like you said,

436
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 1: the cabbage Patch kids had already come and gone. Everyone

437
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 1: has already known at this point about the you know,

438
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 1: Star Wars collectibles and baseball cards and trading cards. So

439
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 1: the idea, I think there are certain people out there

440
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: after all those things happened that are always sort of

441
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:27,200
Speaker 1: looking for that next thing as a you know, sort

442
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:31,200
Speaker 1: of alternative investment. If I can you know, buy fifty

443
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 1: beanie babies and put them in a box and just

444
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 1: sit on them and that'll put my kids through college

445
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 1: one day. Yeah, and that's you know a lot of

446
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,479
Speaker 1: people did stuff like that. I think you mentioned eBay

447
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:46,240
Speaker 1: had launched very soon afterward. They launched ninety five, and

448
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:49,200
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven, this is the other most staggering

449
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 1: set of the show to me, six percent of all

450
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: of eBay was beanie baby sales.

451
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that nuts. So the secondary market really did

452
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 2: grow up, and there really was like a huge market

453
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 2: for beanie babies that, say had been retired, and one

454
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:10,199
Speaker 2: that you had bought for five dollars and kept in

455
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 2: the package you could sell for hundreds of dollars on

456
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,680
Speaker 2: eBay legitimately in the mid to late nineties.

457
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:19,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this really.

458
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:22,959
Speaker 2: Was happening, like it wasn't like everybody was just hoping

459
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 2: beyond hope that their beanie babies were going to increase

460
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:29,199
Speaker 2: in value. They were increasing value before their very eyes.

461
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:32,440
Speaker 2: So people who weren't sucked into it were like, this

462
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 2: is the dumbest thing I've ever seen, And if there's

463
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 2: ever been an economic bubble, this is it. And yet

464
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,360
Speaker 2: people were buying these things for like long term investing.

465
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 2: They were buying them hanging on to them for twenty

466
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,199
Speaker 2: years or thirty years from now. The people who were

467
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:52,160
Speaker 2: actually trading in the moment are the ones who might

468
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 2: have made money off of it. But that's pretty much

469
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 2: the only people who.

470
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: Did, yeah, for sure. It also created a sort of

471
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 1: an in this industry around it. You found some examples

472
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:04,879
Speaker 1: of people that made a lot of money just in

473
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,439
Speaker 1: the ancillary beanie baby market by doing things like writing

474
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 1: books about stuff. This woman, Peggy Gallagher, she was a paralegal.

475
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 1: She made two hundred grand on a book that she

476
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:19,479
Speaker 1: self published called the Beanie Baby Phenomenon, and then started

477
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:21,919
Speaker 1: making I imagine a pretty good deal of money as

478
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 1: an official, well not official, but as just an experienced

479
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: beanie authenticator. Another woman named Mary Beth Sobaluski. She was

480
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 1: an IBM systems engineer, and she just made sort of

481
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 1: the go to list, like the bible basically of beanie

482
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 1: baby pricing and made a lot of money off that

483
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 1: and also started putting out a magazine. Yeah, was it

484
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:48,639
Speaker 1: a monthly.

485
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 2: Yes, it was based around the price list, Like did

486
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:54,879
Speaker 2: you ever collect or read Beckett's monthly for baseball cards.

487
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 2: It's just a big.

488
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: Price I knew about it.

489
00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:59,400
Speaker 2: Okay, it's basically that, but for Beanie Babies it's called

490
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:03,360
Speaker 2: Mary Bethyebag World. They sold six hundred and fifty thousand

491
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 2: copies a month at its peak for six bucks a pop.

492
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:09,880
Speaker 2: So it's almost three million dollars a run per issue

493
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,640
Speaker 2: for Beanie Babi's price guides. Right, but she really went

494
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,239
Speaker 2: to town with it. It wasn't It wasn't you know,

495
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 2: just based on nothing. They she and her her assistance

496
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:22,919
Speaker 2: like called dealers, beanie baby dealers to find out what

497
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 2: their prices were, what was selling really fast? They were right, right,

498
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,440
Speaker 2: they were following eBay prices like they were. It was

499
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 2: a legitimate Olivia Putt. It was the gold standard price

500
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 2: list for a reason. Yeah, you know, so and Mary

501
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 2: Mary Beth Sobuleuski is another woman who was often overlooked

502
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,400
Speaker 2: for the contributions she made to the beanie baby mania, because,

503
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:51,199
Speaker 2: in addition to creating the gold standard price list, she

504
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 2: was one of the original self described Chicago suburban soccer

505
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 2: moms who started trading beanie babies in first place, and

506
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:06,160
Speaker 2: apparently their fervor in trading beanie babies in suburban Chicago

507
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 2: actually kicked off the national trend of collecting and trading

508
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 2: beanie babies, and they essentially created the secondary market. There's

509
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 2: an HBO documentary a couple of years ago, I think,

510
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 2: called Beating Mania that really does a good job of

511
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 2: shining a light on them and their role and contribution

512
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 2: to the whole thing too.

513
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: So we've had a documentary now, a feature.

514
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:34,360
Speaker 5: Film, yes, and Broadway Broadways next, and then James Mischer

515
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 5: is coming back to life to write an epic novel

516
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 5: about it.

517
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: That'd be pretty amazing. Speaking of amazing, there are also

518
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: some amazing stories about just how kind of crazy things

519
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: got in many different ways, one of which is a

520
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine divorce case in Las Vegas where this

521
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: couple was divorcing and they had a lot of combined

522
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: assets in the of beanie babies that they thought, you know,

523
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 1: we're worth a lot, and they may have been worth

524
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: a lot of money their collection, and they there's a

525
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: very great picture if you look it up on the internet,

526
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: just type in, you know, like Vegas beanie baby divorced

527
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 1: couple and they brought all these beanie babies in on

528
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: the floor and the judge said, like like choosing a

529
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 1: team at recess, you just go one at a time

530
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: and each of you pick out a beanie baby that

531
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 1: you're going to keep for yourself. And it's just a

532
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 1: very kind of funny looking photo.

533
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 2: It is until you read like some of the quotes

534
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 2: from the woman involved in the divorce case, the wife

535
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 2: who was like this, it was really you know, demoralizing

536
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 2: and degrading to have to be forced to do that.

537
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 2: She was really upset that the judge made her and

538
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 2: her ex husband do that, but it really, yes, she

539
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 2: was she was not happy about it at all. But

540
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 2: it was like the whole thing was worth five grand,

541
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 2: I think they said, But that was five grand at

542
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 2: the time, and people were speculating on beanie babies, so

543
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 2: I think could have been worth a million dollars. That

544
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 2: pile of beanie babies, which is why they went to

545
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 2: the trouble of selecting them like that one at a time.

546
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I guess everyone's entitled to

547
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 1: their own opinion. It's her life. But degrading.

548
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 2: I don't think she used the word degrading, but it was.

549
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 2: It was along those lines I'm paraphrasing.

550
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 1: Okay, I would have felt more silly unless you like

551
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: tied them both up and made them do it with

552
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 1: their mouth or something that's degrading. Yeah.

553
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 2: No, when they picked a beanie baby, they had to

554
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 2: pick it up with their chin and hand it to

555
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 2: their ex to say whether it was okay, if they

556
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 2: kept or nothing, and then they had to hand it back

557
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 2: all without using their hands.

558
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: Right or that? What was the thing you do? Or

559
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 1: you would pass something with your neck?

560
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 2: That's what I'm talking about. Oh okay, they did that,

561
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 2: but with the beanie babies they selected.

562
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: Okay, what did people used to pass that?

563
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 2: Like the orange? I think is what it was?

564
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yea, yeah, that's right.

565
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 2: I can't remember.

566
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 1: When you're a kid, it's I think the whole point

567
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: of that game was like, oh, look how close we

568
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: are exactly right.

569
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 2: It was like Spin the Box, but with an orange

570
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 2: and necks and chance.

571
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: In no bottle. There was a guy in California named

572
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: Chris Robinson Senior. I don't think any relation to the

573
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: other Chris Robinson, and he bought twenty thousand Beanie babies,

574
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: not twenty thousand dollars worth, twenty thousand actual Beanie babies,

575
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: spending one hundred grand or so. And he was one

576
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: of those guys that was like, this is going to

577
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 1: put my five kids through college one day, and one

578
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: of his kids, Chris Junior of the Black Crows, I guess,

579
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: made a documentary called Bankrupt by Beanies about, like, I

580
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: guess how dumb he thought his dad was for spending

581
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 1: that much money, like emptying their bank account because he

582
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: thought it was a good investment.

583
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's a very short documentary. It's like

584
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 2: eight to twelve minutes. I can't remember which one, and

585
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 2: it's mostly it's just him interviewing his family members about

586
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 2: this period in their family's history and dumb. Yeah, it

587
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 2: was like the dad is definitely like, you know, it

588
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 2: was not a good idea, but he's still holding out

589
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 2: hope that you know, at some point sometime down the road.

590
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they still have them, Like they're the background

591
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 2: in all of the the the shots, like the interviews.

592
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 2: It's pretty it's cute. It's not like, you know, condemnation

593
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 2: or anything like that, but it's just it's it's worth

594
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 2: the eight to twelve minutes that you'll spend watching it.

595
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 1: I think, all right, well let's go check that out.

596
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 2: The Dad's like this, this documentary is very degrading, right,

597
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 2: I'm paraphrasing.

598
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 1: There were a lot of cases. You know, there were

599
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: people indicted in court for counterfeiting these things, you know,

600
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: pos that were never delivered and distributors kept the money.

601
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: The craze was so bad there was actual crime, like

602
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 1: people breaking in and stealing beanie babies. This one case

603
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: of a seventy seven year old guy in Chicago named

604
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 1: Ben Perry was charged with stealing close to thirteen hundred

605
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: beanie babies. There was a PI that found him, a

606
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: Tie incorporated private eye. In fact, they found him moving

607
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 1: stuff out of a storage locker, moving these toys in

608
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: and out and I'm not sure like he said that

609
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: they weren't stolen yet he gave them up and donated

610
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: them to a charity like that seems very fishy to me.

611
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 2: He apparently bought them for dirt cheap at a produce market,

612
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 2: like a farmer's market, and he swore he didn't know

613
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 2: that they were stolen, even though they were in boxes

614
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:31,720
Speaker 2: labeled tie like they were shipping boxes stolen out of

615
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 2: the warehouse. But he got off finally, but it became

616
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 2: clear to him that he didn't steal them, but that

617
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 2: they were stolen. So he just you know, donated him

618
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 2: so he didn't get in trouble. No, But apparently he

619
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 2: loved all of the limelight that was cast on him

620
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 2: by the press during this the time that he was

621
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 2: in court as the beanie baby bandit. He apparently ate

622
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 2: it up so he got something.

623
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm going out in style exactly.

624
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 2: There was another one is frequently linked to beanie babies,

625
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 2: even though it's kind of a stretch if you start

626
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:08,520
Speaker 2: to sketch beneath the surface. But a man named Jeffrey

627
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 2: White murdered another man, Harry Simmons, in West Virginia, supposedly

628
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 2: over a dispute over who owned some beanie babies, although

629
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 2: really what happened was Harry Simmons and Jeffrey White used

630
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 2: to work together, and I think Jeffrey White was stealing

631
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 2: or loafing or something like that, and Harry Simmons got

632
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 2: him fired. So Jeffrey White, who had borrowed beanie babies

633
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,320
Speaker 2: from him, hadn't given him back, killed Harry Simmons.

634
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 1: We understand you've been loafing exactly?

635
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 2: Is that true?

636
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 4: Yeah?

637
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:41,720
Speaker 1: Is that a crime?

638
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,479
Speaker 2: If you got timed? Lean, you got time to clean son?

639
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: Oh man. Should we take a break on that note? Yeah? Sure,

640
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: all right, We'll be right back and wrap up the

641
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: story of the beanie Baby.

642
00:34:54,640 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 3: Lately, I've been learning some stock about in say you Minia,

643
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 3: how about the one on borderline disorder that or chunder

644
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 3: order that one before?

645
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:11,800
Speaker 2: But it was so nice.

646
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 4: I learned this why everybody listen up, shut joy stop

647
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 4: stop stop cocks final Josh and shock.

648
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 2: So shot.

649
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:45,040
Speaker 1: All right. We called this a bubble, like any sort

650
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:48,280
Speaker 1: of collectible or real estate bubble or financial bubble, because

651
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 1: they eventually burst. And the Beanie Baby really followed the

652
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 1: the I was about to say, rise and follow the Internet.

653
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: The Internet clearly clearly never felt but the big dot

654
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 1: com boom was what helped the beanie baby along and

655
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 1: also helped kill it a little bit. Although you know,

656
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:11,319
Speaker 1: beanie babies were bound to I think they were bound

657
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:13,359
Speaker 1: to go away one way or another anytime it's something

658
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 1: that's something like this.

659
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 2: Uh huh.

660
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 1: August nineteen ninety nine, the website said, or stop, we're

661
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: stopping the operation. We're not going to make any more

662
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 1: of these at this point three hundred and twenty five

663
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 1: different beanie babies. At the end of the year. Some

664
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: people thought, no, this is we know that tie guy

665
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 1: by now, this is just a stunt to get people

666
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 1: to buy more of his stuff. But it, you know,

667
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 1: it kind of worked because enthusiast and collectors were like,

668
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 1: all right, this is our last chance to go and

669
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: get what's out there to complete, to complete our collections.

670
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 2: Right. I didn't read the books ech Bisonette's book, but

671
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 2: I bread a review of it that they mentioned. The

672
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 2: way that he puts it this was this was, in fact,

673
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 2: one hundred percent a stunt to kind of juice the

674
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 2: beanie the Beaby, the Beanie baby market again. And it

675
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 2: did work, but in the short term, and he basically

676
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 2: says ty Warner killed his creation by carrying out this

677
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 2: stunt because on Christmas Eve. Here's where Christmas pops up,

678
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 2: as we said at the beginning Christmas Eve nineteen ninety nine,

679
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 2: right before the turn of the millennium, or no, I

680
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,879
Speaker 2: guess that was a year later, he said. Ty Ty

681
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 2: Warner announced on the website, I changed my mind. I'll

682
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 2: leave it up to you guys to vote whether we

683
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 2: should keep making Beanie babies or not. And in his credit,

684
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 2: you had to pay fifty cents to vote, but each

685
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 2: fifty cent vote went to the Elizabeth Klaser Glazer Pediatric

686
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 2: AIDS Foundation, So that was something. But ninety one percent

687
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 2: of people said, yes, we want to keep Beanie Babies going.

688
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 2: Of course he did, yeah, and the company said, oh,

689
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 2: well that's great. We just so happened to have a

690
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 2: whole new line of them ready to go. So here

691
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 2: you go, everybody, Beanie Babies for all. And it was

692
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 2: met with some craziness, but nothing like it used to be.

693
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 2: And very shortly after that, the whole thing started to

694
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:10,600
Speaker 2: fizzle out rather quickly.

695
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seemed like the sort of the last hurrah.

696
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 1: I don't know if Ty Warner saw the riding on

697
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: the wall and wanted one more sort of big sales crunch.

698
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: I mean, if that's how we planned it, and then

699
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 1: that was pretty smart because that's you know, that's what happened.

700
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 1: They had a huge sales jump, even though brief they

701
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: sold about eight hundred million dollars in two thousand. I

702
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: mean that's seven years later. I think Beanie Babies lasted

703
00:38:39,239 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: a lot longer than I would have expected them to.

704
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 1: It seems to me like it would have been like

705
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 1: a two year flash in the pan, but they were

706
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 1: around for a while.

707
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 5: Yeah.

708
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,759
Speaker 2: I saw that they were still going until about two

709
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:53,399
Speaker 2: thousand and two, so that's yeah, that's a good long

710
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 2: almost a decade of a craze, of a bubble. But

711
00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 2: at the end of it all, people started to realize, like,

712
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 2: oh wait a minute, everybody has these things. This clubby

713
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 2: Bear that I had to pay for the privilege of

714
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:11,319
Speaker 2: buying to be part of the club, everybody has that,

715
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:15,799
Speaker 2: or everyone has the Princess Die Beanie Baby bear, the

716
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 2: special limited edition Beanie Baby they released in honor Princess

717
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:23,600
Speaker 2: Die after she died. They made it sound like this

718
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 2: was like the scarcest Beanie Baby yet there were there

719
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 2: was like a hundred million of them out there. So

720
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 2: people started to realize, like, these things aren't aren't scarce

721
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 2: at all. There's a glut of them, and these thousands

722
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 2: and thousands of dollars worth of beanie babies that I

723
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 2: have set aside are are worthless, and and that was

724
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 2: a huge blow to a lot of people. At the

725
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:47,239
Speaker 2: same time, I think it was also freeing, because it's

726
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 2: you'll just come across stories of people who basically spent

727
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 2: all of their free time tracking down beanie babies. It

728
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 2: was an obsession that they couldn't quit, and so they were.

729
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 2: They were out a bunch of money and time and

730
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 2: wasted years, but they were free finally when the market

731
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 2: finally crashed.

732
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like bitcoin.

733
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 2: I've seen it very closely compared to bitcoin in at

734
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 2: least one article.

735
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,719
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I know people who are sort of

736
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: obsessively hours and hours a day trading cryptocurrency, and it's

737
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 1: it seems exhausting to me.

738
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 2: And it's the same thing. If you ever see a

739
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 2: bubble coming along, that's not a long term thing. If

740
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 2: something suddenly just jumps in value and it's shocking and

741
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 2: people are writing like crazy articles about it, buy it

742
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 2: and then sell it during that. Don't hang on to

743
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:44,839
Speaker 2: it long term. Same thing with bitcoin, Like a lot

744
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 2: of people made a lot of money by buying bitcoin

745
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 2: cheap and then selling it at its peak. It's people

746
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 2: who hung on to it as a long term investment

747
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 2: that are now like I lost my shirt, you know. Yeah,

748
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 2: So it's the same thing with Beanie. But it's the

749
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 2: same thing with any economic bubble. You have to know

750
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 2: when to get out of just the right time, or

751
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 2: you can sit on the sidelines to be like, you

752
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 2: guys are.

753
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:08,400
Speaker 1: Chumps, right, Well, who certainly wasn't a chump was was

754
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: Tie because he and I feel like I can just

755
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:13,840
Speaker 1: call him Tie because that was so his brand and

756
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: t y. Yeah, for sure, no one knows exactly what

757
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,320
Speaker 1: kind of dough he made on these because, like you

758
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: said earlier, he never you know, became a he never

759
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:26,880
Speaker 1: launched an ipo and didn't have to disclose stuff publicly.

760
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:30,320
Speaker 1: But he is and was a man with some ego

761
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:34,359
Speaker 1: because in nineteen ninety eight there were some questions about,

762
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 1: you know, Beanie babies, did they really sell as much?

763
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: Was it the top toy seller in the world, And

764
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 1: he himself took out a full page Wall Street Journal

765
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: ad saying that he made seven hundred million dollars in

766
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 1: profits in nineteen ninety seven alone, which is I don't

767
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:52,439
Speaker 1: know if that number is true, but if it's seven

768
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 1: hundred million justin profits in one year, then that's remarkable.

769
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:00,720
Speaker 2: That would have made tie ink more profitable. Then hasbro

770
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,720
Speaker 2: and Mattel together that year? This is just from everything

771
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,880
Speaker 2: they sold exactly. Yeah, just in profits, right, that's what

772
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 2: that taking out that ad in Wall Street Journal is

773
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 2: what you'd call today a flex flex.

774
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I mean he is still a legit billionaire.

775
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 1: It's sort of gone up and down according to Forbes

776
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 1: as far as his net worth goes two thousand and two,

777
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 1: supposedly at six billion two thousand and nine down to

778
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,879
Speaker 1: three point two twenty twenty three. Forbes says he's worth

779
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 1: about five point seven. But it's you know, he still

780
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:37,840
Speaker 1: has that company, but he also diversified, got into real estate,

781
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 1: notably as a hotelier, and he owns the I think

782
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:46,319
Speaker 1: still closed Four Seasons hotel, New York.

783
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 2: Still closed. What's it closed for?

784
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 1: It depends on who you ask. I think he claimed

785
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 1: it was renovations, but other people said it was a

786
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: dispute with the Four Seasons brand. But I think it's

787
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 1: supposed to reopen and sometime next year.

788
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw he had a dispute with the Four

789
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 2: Seasons brand over upkeep fees, like what he basically needed

790
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,760
Speaker 2: to spend to keep the thing up to four season standards.

791
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 1: Yeah.

792
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 2: I also saw that that was the first hotel to

793
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:19,480
Speaker 2: open to first responders and doctors and nurses who were

794
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 2: working on the front lines of the COVID pandemic, so

795
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 2: that they had a place to stay they wouldn't have

796
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 2: to go home and infect their families, which I thought

797
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 2: was pretty cool.

798
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess we can talk about that

799
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 1: a little bit in a broader sense because Warner is

800
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 1: someone who, like has has been notably charitable as far

801
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:44,720
Speaker 1: as like front facing sort of putting stuff out there,

802
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 1: kind of stuff like the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation

803
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:50,719
Speaker 1: when he donated, you know, the fifty cents for those

804
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 1: votes and stuff like that. Because he got in trouble

805
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 1: at one point for tax well not tax fraud, but

806
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: what do you call it? Tax evasion And as part

807
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: of his sentence, one of which was a couple of

808
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:07,880
Speaker 1: years probation, five hundred hours of community service, and one

809
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars fine. On the criminal side, he paid

810
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: over fifty three million dollars in civil penalties. But part

811
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 1: of the argument was like, hey, you know, as far

812
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 1: as this defense goes, like, this guy's really charitable. He's

813
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 1: donated millions of dollars to the Children's Hunger Fund and

814
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: the Andre Agassy Foundation, and, like I said, a lot

815
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 1: of really public facing, like large donations. But prosecutors are like,

816
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,359
Speaker 1: that's a pittance of what this guy's worth, right, And

817
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: just because he gives a little bit of money and

818
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 1: makes a big deal about it, doesn't mean he didn't

819
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:39,439
Speaker 1: break the law.

820
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. The judge in the case though, was like, yeah,

821
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 2: he did, but again, I'm pretty impressed with his charitable work.

822
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 2: So he got off easy. He could have gone to

823
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 2: prison for four years. Instead he got off with one

824
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,760
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars fine, five hundred hours of community service,

825
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 2: and two years probation. And it was for just the

826
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 2: dumbest thing. He had a Swiss bank account that no

827
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:03,160
Speaker 2: one knew about but him that had like one hundred

828
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 2: million dollars in it. This guy was a billionaire three

829
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 2: times over at his poorest point. There's just no reason

830
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:11,959
Speaker 2: to have done that. And he did, and he got

831
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 2: caught doing it, and so he called it the greatest

832
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:21,840
Speaker 2: mistake of his life. Besides besides that pumping dump scheme.

833
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:23,600
Speaker 2: At the turn of the millennium.

834
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:29,080
Speaker 1: So they kept making stuff stuff ease in fact as

835
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: a company. In two thousand and four, they started licensing

836
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:35,760
Speaker 1: deals or getting involved with, you know, licensing other people's stuff,

837
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:39,839
Speaker 1: like Garfield and some Disney stuff. There was something called

838
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:42,359
Speaker 1: Beanie Booze that came out in two thousand and nine.

839
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: Those were kind of big that were Yeah, they did okay.

840
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: I mean, nothing obviously went like the Beanie Baby, but

841
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 1: nothing ever has probably sure, but he still is out

842
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: there making money selling stuff, and he doesn't seem to

843
00:45:56,040 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: be slowing down. I think, how is he now seventy three?

844
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:02,879
Speaker 1: I think seventy nine years old?

845
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:05,799
Speaker 2: Seventy nine I was pretty close, give or take six years.

846
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:10,280
Speaker 1: But he's still trying to market himself and his toy company.

847
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 1: I think it was a little dismissive of the movie.

848
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: Like everybody who's ever had a movie made about themselves,

849
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: they always say like, yeah, ten percent of that thing

850
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 1: is true. But I think they also secretly kind of

851
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: liked that they've made a movie about them. Sah, sure

852
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 1: that kind of.

853
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 2: Thing, right, for sure. There's that also, that secondary market

854
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 2: chuck is still around and people are trading on that,

855
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:35,880
Speaker 2: that myth that some people still have that beanie babies

856
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 2: are really valuable. And so if you go onto eBay

857
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:41,360
Speaker 2: and start searching beanie babies, you'll find some for like

858
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,080
Speaker 2: a dollar, some I think for less than a dollar,

859
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 2: and then you can turn around and find the exact

860
00:46:46,120 --> 00:46:49,840
Speaker 2: same ones for sale for twenty five thousand dollars or

861
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 2: sixty thousand dollars or something like that. And I was

862
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 2: reading a I think tie collector dot com article where

863
00:46:57,560 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 2: they were basically saying, like, we're pretty sure this is

864
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 2: either money laundering that's going on, or it's some sort

865
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 2: of scam where these people are trying to beef up

866
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 2: like the the market value of these things or the

867
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 2: secondary market artificially, or it's just a straight up scam

868
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:16,839
Speaker 2: where like you you pay them where they buy from

869
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 2: you and say, oh, I overpaid, pay me back in

870
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:21,799
Speaker 2: a gift card, which is another thing in addition to

871
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 2: selling at the height of a bubble. Never do business

872
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 2: with somebody who demands to be paid in gift cards.

873
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 2: Something fishy is going on right there. That's my other

874
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 2: word of advice around this Christmas time?

875
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, is it not like a babysitter or something?

876
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:41,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, even still, I'd be like, what's your angle, babysitter.

877
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:45,839
Speaker 1: The one thing that cracked me up, though, was that

878
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: when the movie came out and he kind of which

879
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 1: was just recently I think this summer or last summer

880
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:54,719
Speaker 1: or whatever, he said. You know, I really wanted I

881
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 1: would have preferred somebody like Warren Batty or Daniel Slewis

882
00:47:57,920 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: to have played me.

883
00:47:58,719 --> 00:47:59,239
Speaker 2: Yeah.

884
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: I'm like, when this this was going on, he was

885
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: in his forties. Warren Batty is eighty nine years old.

886
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's aged.

887
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: Daniel le Lewis is sixty six. They're not even close

888
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: in age. He's twenty six, twenty three years younger than

889
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: Warren Batty. Like, this guy's all over the place.

890
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 2: Well, his thing with Daniel day Lewis is that he

891
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,000
Speaker 2: really did beat somebody to death with a bowling pin once.

892
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 2: So he thought Daniel day Lewis could really bring that

893
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 2: to life on screen like he did and there will

894
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:26,759
Speaker 2: be blood. Oh boy, you got anything else?

895
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 1: I got nothing else?

896
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 2: Have you forgotten all the mean things I've said to

897
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:32,480
Speaker 2: you of this episode.

898
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:33,760
Speaker 1: I don't even know what you're talking about.

899
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 2: Great, well, since Chuck doesn't know what I'm talking about everybody,

900
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 2: that means that it's time for listener mail.

901
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 1: You know, we're going to forego listener mail this week.

902
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 1: It's late in the air, and we would just like

903
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:48,240
Speaker 1: to remind everybody we're going to say our official Christmas

904
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 1: greetings on our Christmas episode. But we've got some great

905
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 1: live shows coming up next year. We're doing our Pacific

906
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:58,480
Speaker 1: Northwest Swing and as we do every year in Sea

907
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,040
Speaker 1: almost every year in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco at

908
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:05,360
Speaker 1: sketch Fest, and we went to some bigger theaters this

909
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:08,799
Speaker 1: time in Seattle especially, so we would love to see

910
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 1: everybody and for you to fill those places up. Start

911
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four off right, just go to our website

912
00:49:15,120 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 1: stuff youshould Know dot com and click on the tour

913
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:22,400
Speaker 1: page and buy tickets from legitimate sources. Please do not

914
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:25,280
Speaker 1: go to scalper sites. You might think it's the real site,

915
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:27,719
Speaker 1: but if the tickets are more than like forty bucks

916
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 1: or something, then it's not a real site.

917
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 2: Or if they want to be paid in gift cards,

918
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 2: not a real ticket seller.

919
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:37,280
Speaker 1: That's right. But we hope to see everybody in January

920
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:37,839
Speaker 1: late Jane.

921
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:40,840
Speaker 2: Absolutely and in the meantime, everybody. If you want to

922
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 2: get in touch with us, you can send us an email,

923
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 2: send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

924
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

925
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,280
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

926
00:49:56,480 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.