WEBVTT - Selects: What Is A Mold-A-Rama? 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:02.840 Hey, everybody, Chuck here on a Saturday. I hope you're 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:06.400 enjoying some breakfast cereal and maybe watching cartoons on the Telly, 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:09.760 but maybe take a pause and listen to this curated 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:14.840 episode from February twenty eighteen. What is mold Rama. I'm 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:16.480 not even gonna tell you what moldarrama is if you 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:20.400 don't know. It's not gross. It's not something that lives 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.600 on your walls when it's too humid. It's actually a 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:25.560 pretty cool, fun machine from. 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.520 Days gone by. So I hope you enjoyed this episode 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:29.080 all over again. 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:36.559 Right now, welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:40.480 of iHeartRadio. 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:47.000 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.360 there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there, 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:56.560 and this is Stuff you Should Know a rama. 0:00:57.920 --> 0:00:59.400 You know, it's kind of funny that you did that 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.880 little Do Do to Do, because I'm gonna go ahead 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.160 and plug this right off the top. Okay, we're doing 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:12.720 this show on Moldorama, which spoiler is a machine that 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:18.200 makes that made and still makes these little plastic things, but. 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:20.840 Has maybe one of the worst trade names. 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:22.040 Ever, Moldorama. 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:23.000 Yeah. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:24.640 So I'm gonna go ahead and plug this. There's a 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:29.560 YouTube video from this young lady where she shows off 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:36.120 her Moldorama little plastic toys that she's collected. Carpetbagger dot Org. 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:39.760 Oh yeah, Moldorama. Just look up that YouTube. She is 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.000 adorable and she's the best. And when she shows her 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.360 suitcase full of Moldorama plastic toys, she does a little 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:48.480 song and it's just adorable and great. 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.360 I gotta check that out. I saw her use one 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:57.320 of the Disney Disneyland toy factory Moldoramas. Yeah, I saw that, 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:58.440 so I know who you're talking about. 0:01:58.600 --> 0:01:59.560 She's great. 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.320 So that was nice of you, Chuck. Well, let's wait 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:06.280 for everybody to come back from watching her YouTube video show. 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.040 Okay, let's wait for I think five or six minutes 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:10.440 and done. 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.480 Yes, time passes faster here at stuff you should know, 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:14.160 doesn't it. 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:15.880 It does. I'm eighty years old. 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:20.760 So so with you. Like you said, mold Rama, it 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.640 is a I've seen it described as a factory in 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.760 a case. Okay, I thought that was a pretty apt description. 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:29.720 But for those of you who don't know, it is 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:37.600 basically an odd demand injection blow molded plastic toy dispenser. 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.240 That is the that's a technical definition for it. And 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.160 while that might not make sense yet, it all will 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:46.360 make sense in about thirty or so minutes. 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:48.440 All right, how about this picture? 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:48.680 This? 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.160 All right, let's start over. Should we wait? Should we 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:52.239 edit my part out? 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:54.440 Oh no, let's leave this all in. All right, good 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:58.200 picture this. You walk into a room. 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:04.200 Let's say it's the tower now Willis Tower? Is it Willis? Oh? 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.760 Yeah, that was Willis Tower, Sears Tower? Who keeps calling 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:13.200 it Willis Tower? Stop that Sears Tower? Or a world's 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.920 fair or something. And there is a machine that looks 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.440 sort of like a jukebox from fifty feet away. Oh yeah, 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:21.440 that's a good, good way. 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:23.160 And then you walk up closer to it and you're like, 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.000 oh wait, what is this weird mechanical thing? Let me 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.799 put in fifty cents, and right before your very eyes, 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:34.920 it will mechanically create a little plastic toy of an 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:38.960 alien or a building or a lion at a zoo, 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:42.200 and it will spit it out. And you'll say, that 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:46.520 was just melted from plastic and molded and shaped and 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:48.320 given to me right in front of my eyes. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:49.640 What a fun neat thing. 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.320 Right, and you'll say all this after you recover from 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.640 fainting from the fumes of melted plastic, and then get 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.160 up and get your toy out, which is good because 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.680 they say that you should wait half a minute for 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:05.480 your toy to cool before you grab it from the Molderama, right. 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:07.480 I think that was a pretty good job. You just 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:08.560 did it describing it. 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.400 And I think this is super neat because this reminds 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.640 me of a bygone era, like where I went to 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:19.120 Nashville recently and went to Jack White's Third Man Records, 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:21.760 and he has one of those booths where you can 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:22.480 go in and. 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:23.640 Record a record. 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:25.320 Would you record? 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.039 Well, I didn't do it. I chickened out. 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:28.599 Okay. 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:30.440 What I wanted to do was go in and sing 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.480 a little song for my daughter and give it to 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.039 her as a record. And I was thinking, like, what 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:36.679 could I do? What do I know in my brain 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:38.520 by heart? Because they have a little guitar you can 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.080 take in there, and it was such a small room 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.800 and it was in the room with everything else, and 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.120 I just got weirdly shy, like I don't want to 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:48.359 you to hear me. 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.680 You got shy? Jack White made you shy? Huh? Yeah? 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:54.120 I didn't want to do it in front of people. Like, 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:55.479 if there was literally no one in there, I would 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:56.760 have cut ten records. 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.040 Oh I got it. You should have stuck your head 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:00.560 on and been like, can you als leave for a 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:01.039 little while? 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:01.680 Just trust me? 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:02.880 Wow. 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:05.440 But anyway, this reminds me of those days gone by 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.680 where you could cut your own record or you know, 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:12.400 they had these really cool machines at fairs and things 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:15.240 that they just I mean, now, I guess you can 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:17.880 still get your picture taken and printed digitally. 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.000 Or the Penny smasher that's still around two. I see 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:22.960 that compared to this, A get a lot. Yeah those 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.960 are cool, not really, but still it's an app comparison. 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.039 I will just say, I'm surprised that my brother doesn't 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:30.440 have a Molderama in his basement. 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.200 So I am too, because there's a guy who collects 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.880 these things called Moldville, and I saw videos of his collection. 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:42.279 Did you see this, Yeah, it's like a warehouse full 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:46.559 of mint conditioned Molderama machines. This guy must be richer 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.279 than an astronaut. He's got so many of these machines. 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.200 And you're right about this. It evoking the memories of 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.599 a bygone era. But what's crazy, Chuck, is that these 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:59.720 things are still in use today. You can find them 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.440 all over the country. Yeah, and they're still working. And 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.040 this is what's amazing to me. There are the original 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.279 machines that were made for about a seven year period 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:14.640 during the nineteen sixties. Every Moldorama machine that you might encounter, 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:20.159 including ten at the Toledo Zoo. By the way, we're 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.200 built in the sixties and have been operational ever since. 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.359 Should we talk about the history, Well, first. 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.360 Let me ask you this do you have Did you 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:30.919 ever use a Moldorama when you were a kid? No? 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:32.159 Oh you didn't. 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:34.880 No, And I'm dying now to go do one as 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:35.400 an adult. 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.279 So they're still around. Yeah, they're still around. Okay, I 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.680 actually I got one that there's this thing in Toledo 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.240 called well actually it's in mallme which is a suburb 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.200 of Toledo, but it's called Children's Wonderland and it's like 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:55.039 this amazing three D Christmas walk through diorama. Basically that 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.479 just nothing can put you in the Christmas spirit as 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.680 a kid better than Children's Wonderland. And at the end 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.559 of this there was a Moldorama machine and it made 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:09.120 a gold, smelly, plasticy angel. It was kind of boring, 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.040 boring Christmas angel, but it was mine and I was 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.200 so glad to have it. And I have no idea 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.120 what happened to it. I'm sure it broke pretty quickly, 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:18.560 but I was like, holy cow, I've had one of 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.520 these before. I had no idea what it was called. 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:22.640 That it was moldorama, but I looked it up and 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:23.840 actually found the angel. 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:24.520 Well. 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.760 I think that's the cool thing about these as a 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.520 kid is it's not putting your quarter in a gumball 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.440 machine and seeing all those things and one of them 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.400 falls out right. This is made just for you, right 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:37.160 in front of your face. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.239 Yep. Pretty cool. 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:41.160 All right? So now can we go back in time? 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:45.120 Yeah? Yeah, I'm I'm done nostalgizing? All right? Wait, what 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:46.160 is it reminiscing? 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.120 Sure, Okay, nostalgizing. I think it's a word, right it is? 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.280 Now all right, we're going back to nineteen thirty seven 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:57.200 in the winter when one J. H. Miller Tyke is 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.960 his nickname. I don't know what that comes from. 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:01.520 Was he little? 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:03.440 I don't know, not that I saw. 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.720 Well, because it's spelled differently. T ik. Yeah, I don't 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:08.280 know what it means anyway, of. 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:13.200 Quincy, Illinois, he was he made figurines. He and his 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.360 wife made figurines, and they needed a replacement for his 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.520 Nativity scene. I guess his little baby Jesus was decapitated 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:25.080 by his dog. He needed a new one, and he 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:29.120 couldn't find a place to sell him just one little piece. Yeah, 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.520 you gotta buy the whole Nativity scene. And he was like, well, 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:33.320 what am I going to do with that? 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.040 Yeah, he said, I just needed one. And you could 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.959 understand the department stores position, like if they sell you 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.480 just one piece, there's a whole set that they can't 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:44.239 sell because who wants that set without the one piece. 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.280 Right, unless it's like maybe a. 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.400 Donkey maybe I remember the donkey. That was a good 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.560 one though. That was one of my favorites as a kid. 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.199 But anyway, he and his wife said, here's what we're 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.320 gonna do. We're gonna take these lemons and make them 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.280 into lemonade in the form of making our own little 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:03.320 plaster replacement figure. And apparently they were pretty good at it, 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.240 because they ended up doing this for a living and 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:09.520 founding a company doing this. Because the Germans evidently had 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.400 the market cornered on nativity pieces, and when World War 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.720 two came around, they said nine for you, right, and 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:18.640 we had a shortage. 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:23.880 Yeah. All we wanted was liberty figures is what they 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.400 called them during World War two, not nativity because the 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.880 Germans had supplied us with nativity figures, so American main 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:31.880 ones you could call liberty figures. 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:33.079 That like freedom fries, right. 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.960 I think they actually called sauerkraut liberty cabbage. I'm not kidding. 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:44.600 So the tyke and his wife established this company and 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.559 in World War Two that really kind of grew because 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:50.440 they cornered the market and they just kept going from there. 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.319 And then about ten years after World War Two they 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.120 decided to move from plaster and by the way, he 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:01.240 started selling nativity figures into visual ones to those same 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.440 department stores who would only sell them sets before, which 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.640 I think is kind of sweet revenge. But they moved 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:13.280 from plaster figures to plastic and got into a type 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:17.800 of injection molding where air is blown into it, which 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:22.960 saves on plastic and creates a lightweight plastic figurine. And really, honestly, 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:30.160 nothing says nineteen fifties Midwest more than plastic nativity figures 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.440 you know, probably so yeah, made by a man named Tyke. 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:36.000 Yeah, and I mean they did pretty well for a 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:36.720 little while. I guess. 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.360 I'm not sure exactly when the company was founded, but 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:41.240 if in nineteen thirty seven he came up with this 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.760 idea and they went bankrupt in nineteen fifty nine, they 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:46.720 sounds like they added some good years in there. 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:49.760 Yeah they did. But I and I did not see 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.679 why they went bankrupt. I saw they were nothing but successful. 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:54.280 I don't know. I don't know if maybe they sunk 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.320 a bunch of money into these machines and it just 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.520 didn't quite make it or what. But he was very successful. 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:03.320 And he had a line of plastic toys that kids 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:05.840 would buy by the fistfol at like the local five 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.560 and dime or novelty store or something like that. And 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:13.080 he had lines of like dinosaurs, I think, toy soldiers. 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:15.400 But the one that really put his company on the 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.800 map as far as kids were concerned, were called Earth Invaders, yeah, 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:23.440 also known as Miller Aliens, and there was a line 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:27.880 of tons of them, but the one that is still 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.160 today the most prized of all was the Purple people Eater, 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.840 and it actually inspired that that song from the fifties, 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.000 which I didn't realize that song was quite that old. 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:39.920 But the song about the one eyed, one eared flying 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:44.120 purple Peepleater that was based on Tyke Miller's creation from 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:45.240 the fifties. 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.440 I think it was the other way around. 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:50.520 I don't think so. I think the song was based 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:51.160 on the figure. 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:54.640 It says here the Purple people Eater was inspired by 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:55.080 the hit. 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:59.160 Song Oh I saw. I read that as the opposite. 0:11:59.200 --> 0:11:59.920 Thanks good cat. 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:02.400 I think that's the case because that song was a 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:06.040 big hit and they were all manner of Purple people 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:07.760 Eater souvenirs and things. 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:08.480 Gotcha. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:10.640 It was a big business back then. 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:12.120 Thank you for that one. 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:12.760 No problem. 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:14.960 We would have gotten some email from like three people 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:15.240 on that. 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.600 Tyke's great grandson, little Tyke. 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:21.920 So in fifty nine or sixty they went bankrupt, and 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:23.480 it was right around this time where he said, all right, 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.080 I've got this idea for an actual vending machine that 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:28.920 could make these things on demand. 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.080 And he was successful. 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.959 He licensed this thing actually to what would eventually become 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:39.280 a Merra Mark, which everyone knows that that company is still. 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.800 Around the time, they were called the Automatic Retailers of America, 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.400 and he developed these machines with them, and in nineteen 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:50.920 sixty two at the Seattle World's Fair, they premiered there 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.959 doing little space needles and monorails and buddhas and buddhas 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.120 for like fifty cents, which is about four bucks today. 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.320 So it was not a little cheap thing. It's not 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.240 like sticking a dime in a machine today. 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:07.480 Right, No, they were definitely expensive, but they were a 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.720 huge hit at that Seattle World's Fair. That was what 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:11.640 nineteen sixty two. 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:12.080 Yep. 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:16.040 So in nineteen sixty four at the New York World's Fair, 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:20.040 they blew up. They went from a couple of machines 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:24.000 in Seattle, I guess three machines in Seattle to as 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.840 many as one hundred and fifty at the New York 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.800 World's Fair from nineteen sixty four in nineteen sixty five. 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.880 And even more than just having that many more machines, 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.440 they also had branded machines. Right, So, like if you 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.880 were a company like Sinclair Oil or Disney and you 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.360 wanted to just kind of give people an extra little 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:49.800 amazing experience, you could license and brand your own Molderama, 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.640 And they had plenty of those at the World's Fair 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:55.720 some pretty cool ones too. 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:00.240 Yeah, So, like you said, anywhere from Disneyland to Montreal's 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.200 World Expo. And that's the cool thing, is that disney 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.520 World or a Disneyland there could be. I think they 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.920 were some of the characters that were actually acting like 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:12.440 they were working the machine, right, it's kind of clever. 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.360 Or if you know in you're in Montreal, it's going 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:22.360 to be Canadian mounties or maybe an Eiffel Tower, right. 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:27.400 If you could contact the company, get them to make 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:31.560 you your own like signage I guess, to put on 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:35.360 the machine, and then most importantly, they would sculpt and 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.120 then manufacture a mold from that sculpture whatever you wanted, 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:41.760 say your logo or your brand or something like that, 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.640 some sort of statuette that had that you could set 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.320 it up and people would take home your little branded chotchkey. 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:50.800 It was pretty cool. It was a big hit in 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.840 the sixties and to air Marker AAR at the time, 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.520 they were like, well, this is great, but apparently they 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.160 were just looking at the whole thing as a proof 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.400 of concept because they had their sights on not just 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.920 like on demand novelties, but on demand everything, like on 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.720 demand dishware on demand, jewelry on demand, combs on demand, 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.840 ash trays that they felt like this was the future 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.000 because at the time, you know, the early sixties, plastics 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.800 was the future. It was pretty soon everything was going 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.000 to be made in plastic and no one was ever 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.400 going to have cancer from it a day in their life, right, 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:28.680 you know. It was a plastically optimistic time. 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:29.160 That's right. 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.280 And in the end they manufactured about two hundred of 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:35.280 these machines over a seven year period. But by nineteen 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.880 seventy one they said, you know what Aar said, we're 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:39.400 getting out. 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.640 Of this moldoramabizeh. Should we take a breaking. 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.800 Yeah, we're going to go press together our own little 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:49.720 mouldi dinosaur and be right back. 0:15:53.960 --> 0:16:12.960 Shop, all right, chuck. 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.040 So Aar gets out of the biz, and it's kind 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:19.480 of understandable. So why there's a couple of big problems 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:23.640 with Molderama machines. One, they're expensive to manufacture. They were 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.640 like apparently thirty six hundred bucks per at the time. 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.160 That was back in nineteen sixty two, so just under 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:34.440 thirty thousand dollars today your machine h machine. And then 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.480 also once you set these things up, they required almost 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.400 constant attention. You had to go refill them with plastic, 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:44.080 You had to top off their fluids, you had to 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:46.560 fix any parts, you had to keep them clean, you 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:48.840 had to get gum off of them, because again these 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:53.040 are interfacing with little kids, so there was a lot 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.160 of maintenance in upkeep to them as well. So aer 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.760 remarks said we're done. In the seventies, they sold off 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:02.240 their machines to a couple of different groups. 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:03.200 Yeah. 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.320 I mean, this is a mechanical like hydraulic machine that 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.840 required like oil and anti freeze. 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:12.720 There was it was no uh. 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.000 I mean if it sounds like and I mean, I 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:16.920 guess we can go into the process a little bit. 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.719 It gets a little wonky for my taste, Okay, but 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:22.679 I guess we should talk a little bit about how 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:23.760 these actually work, right. 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:26.640 Yeah, we kind of have to and it'll be fun, 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:27.280 I promise you. 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:31.119 Ready, Well, I will say this. First of all, there 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:31.960 are hydraulics. 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:34.760 Yeah, and there are these these two molds, and you 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:36.119 can go to on YouTube and look at how these 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:36.480 things work. 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:40.000 It's pretty neat. They these two molds. 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:44.000 It's basically one half of the little toy on each side. 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.720 Oh yeah, there like a three dimensional sculptured statuette. 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.200 Yeah, So they move toward each other with these hydraulics 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:54.879 and they're pressed together forms a big seal and it 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:59.000 ends up it ends up being hollow on the inside. 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:01.440 That's kind of a big point to make. 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:04.600 It's a negative of the sculpture. 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:05.960 Yeah. 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:10.120 So then there's a couple of holes in the bottom 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:16.000 that lead into that sculpture cavity, and into that you 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.200 inject hot plastic. Because one thing that a lot of 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.520 people don't realize about the mold thematic is just beneath 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:27.480 this the work surface that is the floor of what 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.400 you can see below that is a vat of two 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:33.840 hundred and twenty five to two hundred and fifty degree 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:38.200 Farrent height molten plastic just sitting there, bubbling hot. 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:39.360 Yeah, little pellets. 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.359 They feed it in little colored pellets, right, although for 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.320 a little while they actually had just kind of neutral 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.679 pellets that they use colored powder. Right, But they at 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:50.600 least wised up there and said, why don't we just 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.840 color the pellets and just stick with the one color yep. 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:58.280 And then so the system has a closed steam system 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:02.360 that runs hot steam through crazy that runs through these 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:07.600 plastic pellet vat, this plastic pellet vat and it melts 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.320 the pellets and then keeps a molten So then when 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:15.040 that when the the the mold seals up above come 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.880 together and form that seal, hot plastic is injected into 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.640 the mold and fills it up. 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.400 That's right, hot plastic injection. Great band name. 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:26.880 Yeah. 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:29.639 And then these things obviously have to be cooled pretty 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.280 quick like in order for them to I mean, what 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:37.280 solidify is that the right word? But when they do 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.359 come out, like you said, they are warm, and I'm surprised. 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:42.919 I mean, this seems like something that you could not 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:47.040 create today without there being so much liability on your hands. 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.400 Well, again, they still are in use. You can still 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:52.600 go to the Toledo Zoo, to zoos all over the 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:56.280 Midwest and Florida and tourist attractions and rest stops and 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:58.120 you will find these things still in use. 0:19:58.200 --> 0:19:59.960 It's just so funny to me that, like it literally 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.040 says on the little door that you open, hold upside 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:07.400 down while it cools, don't let the molten plastic drip 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:09.120 on little Timmy's hand. 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:13.240 That's exactly right. So we got the injection molding part done, 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.280 but there's one step that we missed, and that's the 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.520 blow part that makes it injection blow molding. And this 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.600 is how these companies manage to actually make money. And 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:25.919 one of the reasons why the molderama chatchkeys are so 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:32.480