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The Ridiculous History of Vending Machines · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man, the
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  Speaker 1: myth Legend, our super producer, mister Max Williams, the top.
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna, I'm gonna.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Remember how I started saying Zan's a bargain.
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  Speaker 2: We all just went with it. I think I stole
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  Speaker 2: hisah from Lauren Vogelbam Actual facts, Lauren Actual Facts, Vogel
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  Speaker 2: bumb love it.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I think we should bring Zan's bar back
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  Speaker 3: to be like Kahokia.
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  Speaker 2: I sometimes said via text, say hazoo exclamation.
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  Speaker 1: Uh, well, we're going to put a quarter in our
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  Speaker 1: local podcast vending machine and that's a that's ridiculous history,
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  Speaker 1: and hopefully our snack doesn't get stuck and we have
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  Speaker 1: to shake that thing because that's part of the history
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  Speaker 1: of vending machines and hopefully we're talking about today we're
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  Speaker 1: only touching a vending machine for snacks as we are
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  Speaker 1: going to learn. Uh, vending machines vend a lot of things,
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're Noel Brown. I'm I'm Ben Bolling. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: I think before we teamed up with our research associate
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Bartlett, Uh, we were all kind of curious about
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  Speaker 1: where vending machines come from because nowadays they're ubiquitous and noel.
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  Speaker 1: You know, if I'm in Japan, there there are ountless
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  Speaker 1: vending machines. If if you and I are walking through
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  Speaker 1: let's say, what's.
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  Speaker 2: That the airport. The airport, they have been the machines
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  Speaker 2: for everything at the airport, snacks like you know, sandwiches,
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  Speaker 2: high value, Yes, exactly, and good.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's a good thing that there are cottoms
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  Speaker 1: in vending machines, you know, in the.
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  Speaker 2: Airport, especially when you want to join the Mile High Club,
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  Speaker 2: which is actually be safe about it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, actually the Mile High Club has Uh it sounds
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  Speaker 1: cooler than it is. We are a PG thirteen show
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  Speaker 1: cool secrets.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, plane bathrooms are awful just to use, They're awful.
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  Speaker 2: They're so small, they flushed so aggressively, like it gives
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  Speaker 2: me a start every time, like oh, it's like I
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  Speaker 2: feel like I'm gonna get sucked out of the planes
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  Speaker 2: in that little hole.
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  Speaker 1: It's the pause too, because you hit the flush button
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  Speaker 1: and then there's like two or three seconds before it
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  Speaker 1: just evacuates.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it has to be that a cross stuff though,
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  Speaker 3: because shoots it shoots it out over over the over
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  Speaker 3: the out into the air instantly, you know it is.
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  Speaker 3: I didn't think so no longer true good, although I did.
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  Speaker 2: See a meme I guess notly meme with more of
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  Speaker 2: an Internet video of cruise ships just straight up mass
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  Speaker 2: dumping waste into the ocean and it's legal as long
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  Speaker 2: as there are a certain distance offshore.
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  Speaker 3: They have Matthews Surbus right.
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  Speaker 2: On the on the water taxi in Chicago. Oh, never forget,
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  Speaker 2: never forget, never forget.
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  Speaker 1: Also, U cruise ships are one of the few things
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  Speaker 1: that are currently not sold in a vending machine, and
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  Speaker 1: that's probably just due to the size of the cruise ship.
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  Speaker 2: This is very true, but I would argue or pose
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  Speaker 2: it that there are vending machines on many cruise ships.
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  Speaker 1: I know, and I want a vending machine that sells
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  Speaker 1: vending machines, you know what I mean, wake up car.
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  Speaker 2: But that is a pretty awesome art installation. Idea is
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  Speaker 2: a vending machine that sells tiny replicas of vending machines
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  Speaker 2: with different stuff in them, so you can get like
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  Speaker 2: the snack vending machine and then collect them all like Pokemon.
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  Speaker 2: I'll be honest.
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  Speaker 3: Sorry, I'm not meaning to take its even further off,
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  Speaker 3: but it reminds me of that season one Rick and
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  Speaker 3: Morty episode where they're jumping through universes.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's not that one's.
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  Speaker 3: The uh, it's actually the one where we first meet
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  Speaker 3: Evil Morri. Spoilers this first season though, But it's like
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  Speaker 3: it's a rotation of four things. It's humans, pizza, phone,
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  Speaker 3: and chairs. So in one universe is like a chair
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  Speaker 3: talking into a human ordering, uh, sitting out a pizza ordering.
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  Speaker 2: It's hard to redo them all.
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  Speaker 1: It's all it's all for iterations of those right, and
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  Speaker 1: we see there this What was I gonna say? Oh,
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  Speaker 1: I was gonna mention this. We have to at the
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  Speaker 1: top a few A little while back, I can't remember
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  Speaker 1: how long ago, Noel, you and our pal Matt, Frederick
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  Speaker 1: and a couple of other folks visited Miao Wolf. You know,
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  Speaker 1: we all went together and they had they had Mega
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  Speaker 1: mart yes, Mega mar oh Mega Bart and they had
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  Speaker 1: a very interesting spin on vending machines.
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  Speaker 2: Psycho telling waves. Yeah, yeah, and.
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  Speaker 1: What I think we're all surprised to learn is that
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  Speaker 1: vending machines are.
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  Speaker 2: Actually pretty old.
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  Speaker 1: Our story begins with a guy named Hero or Heroon
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  Speaker 1: or Heron of Alexandria uh in ancient Egypt. This guy
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  Speaker 1: purportedly invented the first vending machine and it was not
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  Speaker 1: It was not selling snacks, so it was not selling
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  Speaker 1: cruise ships or condoms. It was selling holy water, of course.
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  Speaker 2: Because you know, for when you need some in a pinch.
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  Speaker 2: This is a smart fellow. He's a mathematician, an engineer,
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  Speaker 2: and obviously an inventor. He, among many other incredible innovations
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  Speaker 2: that still kind of remain very very relevant today, invented
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  Speaker 2: the windwheel, which is, you know, obviously kind of a
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  Speaker 2: certainly something that's been developed to generate hydro electric power
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  Speaker 2: and wind power, et cetera. He published some very detailed
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  Speaker 2: schematics of a device called the a low pile also
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  Speaker 2: known as Heroes enginem.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was a that was like a steam
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  Speaker 1: powered mechanism. Some of his ideas clearly come from earlier
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  Speaker 1: Greek inventors and mathematicians. And when we whenever we talked
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  Speaker 1: about Hero of Alexandria, we have to acknowledge that a
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  Speaker 1: lot of his original stuff has been lost to time.
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  Speaker 1: It makes me wonder whether our pal Ben Thompson from
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  Speaker 1: Badass of the Week has covered hero like imagine being
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  Speaker 1: so cool that your name becomes a noun or a
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  Speaker 1: descriptor for other cool people.
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  Speaker 2: Is that is that true? Is this the hero that
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  Speaker 2: that is referencing?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: I always assume, Okay, Maybeeah. You certainly was scientifically and
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  Speaker 2: innovatively heroic. And if you want to dig in a
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  Speaker 2: little beyond the scope of what we're going to talk
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  Speaker 2: about today to his life, you can check out a
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  Speaker 2: great profile on the Famous people dot com Hero of Alexandria.
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  Speaker 2: You can just search for it. There. Really great site
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  Speaker 2: and great resource.
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  Speaker 1: I'm looking it up. A hero comes from a Greek
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  Speaker 1: word that means protector or defender, and it later gets
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  Speaker 1: adapted into Latin.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, you.
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  Speaker 1: Know what, would he have just been named hero as
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  Speaker 1: like like before or after hero became a byword for
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  Speaker 1: being awesome.
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  Speaker 2: It's a good question, Ben, But of his many innovations,
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  Speaker 2: he was very much responsible for the kind of proto
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  Speaker 2: vending machine and it certainly didn't involve all of the
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  Speaker 2: same electronics. And you know ability to use different types
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  Speaker 2: of payment, you know, the thing you can slide the
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  Speaker 2: dollar into and have it spit back out at you
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  Speaker 2: over and over and over again. But it did accept
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  Speaker 2: a coin. This thing very much was way ahead of
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  Speaker 2: its time.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's put on our house stuff works hats and
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  Speaker 1: get a little deeper here. The coin would be inserted
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  Speaker 1: into a slot. From there it would fall onto a pan.
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  Speaker 1: The pan is connected to a lever. The lever opens
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  Speaker 1: a valve through which holy water flows out, and the
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  Speaker 1: pan keeps moving under the weight of the coin until
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  Speaker 1: eventually the coin slides off. We know that there wasn't
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  Speaker 1: really any kind of like governmental oversight on ensuring this
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  Speaker 1: was holy water exactly.
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  Speaker 2: The quality control there.
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  Speaker 1: Right, they didn't really have QA at that level. But
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  Speaker 1: the the mechanics make sense, right, and these have to
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  Speaker 1: be coins of a certain weight to operate the mechanism.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I would imagine that coins back then
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  Speaker 2: would have been pretty beefy.
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  Speaker 1: I imagine so as well. You know, it's also a
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  Speaker 1: way a clever way of finding counterfeit coins, possibly the lever.
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  Speaker 1: After the coin slides off the pan, the lever raises
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  Speaker 1: back to its normal starting state. Which closes the valve
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  Speaker 1: which stops the flow of water. Now, hero or Heron
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  Speaker 1: or Heroon as he's sometimes called, did not describe this
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  Speaker 1: as a vending machine, and he didn't say, you know,
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  Speaker 1: this is going to be an awesome way to sell
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  Speaker 1: Nestley crunch bars in the future. He said, this is
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  Speaker 1: a sacrificial vessel. And the entire reason this first vending
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  Speaker 1: machine exists is not to make it easy for people
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  Speaker 1: to buy stuff. It is to limit the amount of
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  Speaker 1: holy water people can use at an ancient temple.
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  Speaker 2: Like they want to limit the supply, you reduce the
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  Speaker 2: circulations and ultimate control over holiness.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of like if you're in a if you're
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  Speaker 1: in a public restroom and there's you know, there's a
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  Speaker 1: specific timer on the hand dryer, right or the air dryer.
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  Speaker 2: Oh sure, Or in Europe, and I'm sure in Japan
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  Speaker 2: in any other countries, a lot of public restrooms are
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  Speaker 2: pay and that money is used, I would imagine to
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  Speaker 2: help the upkeep of the facility, and consequently those bathrooms
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  Speaker 2: are some of the cleanest I've ever encountered. I think
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  Speaker 2: when you have a little bit of a literal buy in,
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  Speaker 2: it might make you behave a little better.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Yes, there is definitely some there's definitely some
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  Speaker 1: psychology at play there. For the pay to I almost
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  Speaker 1: have pay to play public restrooms, pay to pay right, Yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: if we fast forward to I mean fast forward quite
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  Speaker 1: a long time, Max, give us a fast forward queue. Boom.
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  Speaker 1: We're in the eighteenth century. We're in England now, Hero
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  Speaker 1: of Alexandria is long gone, but the idea of vending
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  Speaker 1: machines is having a moment. They are these things called
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  Speaker 1: had you ever heard of this nole that were called
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  Speaker 1: honor boxes?
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  Speaker 2: No, no, tell me about honor boxes.
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  Speaker 1: I mean they're vending machines with a fancier name.
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  Speaker 2: Sounds like something you would pay your indulgences into for
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  Speaker 2: the church, you know, put your money in the honor
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  Speaker 2: box for absolution.
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  Speaker 1: Or like a weird Victorian euphemism. It does sound like
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  Speaker 1: a glory whole kind of situation.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sorry the quiet part out loud.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the otter box, No, I can't get out
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  Speaker 1: of it.
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  Speaker 2: That's a case the honor I thought you said otter box. Oh,
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  Speaker 2: the otter box is a different thing. But they're pretty good,
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  Speaker 2: solid cases. And we're not sponsored. Yeah, yeah, we just
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  Speaker 2: used them.
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  Speaker 1: So these things were early vending machines that were operated
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  Speaker 1: via coin, and they were used to sell tobacco and snow.
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  Speaker 1: Uh snuff for anybody not born in the in the
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  Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds. Uh snuff is a thing where like every
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  Speaker 1: time you see someone in a film take out a
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  Speaker 1: small container and then sniff it really quickly if it's.
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  Speaker 2: Either snuff cocaine there there. But yeah, right right in
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  Speaker 2: Victorian times, I mean people would literally dab dab dab
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  Speaker 2: the snuff onto their hand and like take a rip
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  Speaker 2: of it, you know. I mean it's wild. It's such
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  Speaker 2: finely ground tobacco that you would sniff. It seems so
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  Speaker 2: gross to me. I mean it's wild that people would
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  Speaker 2: seems like their nasal passages would get real funky, real quick.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we're not a judgmental group here. A
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous thing too, by the way, I think people really
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  Speaker 1: I would.
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  Speaker 2: Think, but we are curious it does exist. Yeah, snuff
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  Speaker 2: is still a thing. You can. It's it's sort of
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  Speaker 2: like old timey, but it's considered smokeless tobacco. Finely ground
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  Speaker 2: or pulverized leaves its snorted or sniffed into the nasal cavity,
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  Speaker 2: and that is still done today by a certain type
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  Speaker 2: I imagine. Okay, yes, fancy do they wear white gloves
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  Speaker 2: while they do it? It just seems like so victorian to me, right,
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  Speaker 2: you know, do they have to wear a peruke?
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  Speaker 1: Can you use snuff while you're not wearing you know,
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  Speaker 1: men's leggings or stockings. Look, we're not a judgmental group,
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  Speaker 1: but we are curious.
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  Speaker 2: So if you are, If you.
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  Speaker 1: Are, or if you know someone who engages with snuff,
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  Speaker 1: just tell us about it on our Facebook group Ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: Historians anyway. Look, so, yes, the first vending machine probably
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  Speaker 1: holy Water. The next boom of vending machines probably tobacco, and.
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  Speaker 2: Far a walk okay, walk us through it.
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  Speaker 1: I can't far so all right, these these things are
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  Speaker 1: these honor boxes are portable brass mechanisms, contraptions really, and
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  Speaker 1: they are a huge boon for the tobacco industry overall.
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  Speaker 1: They are our next big step in the commercialization and
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  Speaker 1: the emerging ubiquity of vending machines as a concept kind.
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  Speaker 2: Of makes sense if you think about it, because if
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  Speaker 2: you maybe it's an age thing. But in my mind,
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  Speaker 2: one of the classic styles of vending machines that you
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  Speaker 2: see less and less of these days is the cigarette
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  Speaker 2: machine with the big old clunky, you know, slot machine
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  Speaker 2: type pull things. You know, it makes a really good
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  Speaker 2: chunk sound. And you still will see them at bars
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  Speaker 2: and taverns. And there are more modern ones that I've seen,
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  Speaker 2: mainly in Europe, but in America, if you see them
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  Speaker 2: at all, it's going to be the super old timing style,
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  Speaker 2: one which which had to have evolved, you know, from
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  Speaker 2: these honor boxes some way.
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  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Yeah, and there, you know, now that
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  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it, those are so old school. I
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  Speaker 1: remember a lot of them were actually old because yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I remember one of my relatives told me years back
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  Speaker 1: now that that was the way to know you were
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  Speaker 1: in a bad place.
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  Speaker 2: Told me that's a little broad, but okay, glad they
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  Speaker 2: were looking out for you. If you see one.
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  Speaker 1: Of those machines, right, yeah, you're in a place you
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  Speaker 1: shouldn't be.
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  Speaker 2: You're in grave danger. Right.
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  Speaker 1: It was a little intense, but I'm sure the those
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  Speaker 1: intense intentions were noble. In the nineteenth century, the eighteen hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: we see the introduction of stamp and newspaper vending machines.
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  Speaker 1: And do you guys remember back when people.
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  Speaker 2: Were their old school thing? You don't see it. Well,
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  Speaker 2: you just sort of see those newspaper boxes every now
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  Speaker 2: and the end, not nearly as much as you used to.
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  Speaker 1: No, no, back, I was gonna say, do you remember
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  Speaker 1: when people read newspapers?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quaint almost these days. And as we know,
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  Speaker 2: a lot of those legacy newspapers are certainly struggling with
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  Speaker 2: that with the circulation of their physical print copies, and
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  Speaker 2: they really rely a lot on like spoke subscriptions for
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  Speaker 2: the people that actually want a real paper to hold,
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  Speaker 2: you know, and the Sunday Times and all of that
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  Speaker 2: good stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about Richard Carlyle.
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  Speaker 2: He was the one responsible for these newspaper boxes in
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  Speaker 2: eighteen twenty two. He actually came up with these in
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  Speaker 2: order to do a little, i don't know, work around
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  Speaker 2: to avoid censorship by distributing the papers through automated means. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and this is this is huge.
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  Speaker 1: We're seeing a resurgence of things like this through some
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  Speaker 1: local innition. Here in Atlanta, Georgia, where we record this podcast,
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  Speaker 1: there are these like everybody has a little free library now.
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  Speaker 2: Talking about the little little boxes, the.
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  Speaker 1: Little banded, little band book libraries.
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  Speaker 2: Oh well, yeah, there's certainly that. There's that's that's awesome.
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  Speaker 2: I love.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, those are repurposed old newspaper vending machines.
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  Speaker 2: Aha, So I don't think I've seen those, but I
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  Speaker 2: have certainly seen in lots of different cities those kind
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  Speaker 2: of little mailbox style like leave a book, take a
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  Speaker 2: book kind of boxes. Free libraries for sure. Yeah, exactly,
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  Speaker 2: that's exactly what you're talking about, Ben, But he is
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  Speaker 2: doing this because he's able to kind of sort of
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  Speaker 2: skirt the authorities by distributing banned materials through these boxes.
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  Speaker 2: Simon Denham was another innovator who's responsible for creating a
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  Speaker 2: stamp dispensing machine. In eighteen sixty seven, he patented it
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  Speaker 2: and that was kind of the next step of vending evolution.
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  Speaker 2: It represented the first fully automatic vending machine. Uh. And
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  Speaker 2: this it just kind of just you know, snowballed from there. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is cool because already we're learning so much
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  Speaker 1: more about vending machines. So just a recap, we've got
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  Speaker 1: holy water, the limiting of holy water, not selling it,
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  Speaker 1: just like keeping people from using all of it at once.
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  Speaker 1: Then we've got tobacco and snuff, which I still think
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  Speaker 1: mystifies both of us. And then but right, and then
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  Speaker 1: we have fighting against censorship, and then we have people
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  Speaker 1: selling stamps. So naturally, you know, it would make sense
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  Speaker 1: that the rest of the world looked around and said,
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  Speaker 1: what else can we put in these machines?
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  Speaker 2: Anything? Sky's the limit, and it truly was the limit.
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  Speaker 2: In eighteen eighty three, a guy named Perceval ever it
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  Speaker 2: was the first to truly innovate some of these previous
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  Speaker 2: kind of iteration the vending machine into a form much
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  Speaker 2: more resembling what we know today as modern vending machines
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  Speaker 2: and these dispense postcards. So this would be that kind
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  Speaker 2: of this the curly queue kind of design. Right, Okay,
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  Speaker 2: you have a thing and then a little curly cue,
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  Speaker 2: and then another thing, and then that's another thing with
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  Speaker 2: a quirkscrew, and the mechanism turns and causes the thing
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  Speaker 2: in the front to drop, you know, out of the
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  Speaker 2: front of the thing into a trough that you can
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  Speaker 2: then reach down and grab it.
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  Speaker 1: That's cool, yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is a kind
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  Speaker 1: of old school vending machine approach that I personally associate
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: with with auto repair shops weirdly enough, because you go
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: into the waiting room and then there you go.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Or oil change places.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, oil change places as well, and they'll have
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the vending machine, you know, with the elderly cheese its
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: and the vintage em and.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: M's aged if you please, aged very well.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Heaven for fends that we would ever we would ever
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: disparage the Noble Lines Company.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, jesuits.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: So all right, this this design you're describing their Percival's invention.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: These vending machines are able to sell all kinds of
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: stationary right, envelopes, but also notepaper postcards. And as this
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: stuff propagates throughout train stations and post offices, we see
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: that there's something crucial in the vending machine concept here.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Its location, right. A vending machine that sells envelopes just
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: on insert random street corner here, that's not going to
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: do as well as a machine that sells envelopes at
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the literal post office.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're at a railway station and you
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: want to send a postcard to friends or family, that's
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: where a vending machine comes in, right.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Or if you're at the train station waiting for
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: a train. It's a perfect place to have a little
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: snacky machine, which is what we start to see in
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: the UK with the establishment of I love the term.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: I mean to say, by the way, so the sweet
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Meat Automatic Delivery Company in eighteen eighty seven sweet meat
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: of course, or maybe you don't know, it refers to
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: like a treat. You know, a piece of candy is
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: a sweet meat. You hear him say, I Monty Python.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's funny you say that.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I was just watching some excellent money Python interviews last night.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's say they're the best some of my fa
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: I mean the Flying Circus. There's still sketches that I
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: come across that I haven't seen. And it's like the
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: British equivalent of kids in the Hall, kind of like
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: the Flying Circus is phenomenal if anyone hasn't Some people
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: don't even know it exists, Like they know the movies
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: and stuff, but they don't know there's a good the
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Parrot sketch, The Parrots Sketch. I guess maybe that's true. Yes,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I'm saying a lot of people don't maybe realize how
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: deep a catalog it is. Oh yeah, and what a
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: wealth of treasures there is to find. Yes, yeah, agreed.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I would love to see a muddy python sketch about
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: a vending machine.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Or there's one. The one I remember learning sweetmeats from
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: was there's a sketch about this company that's like debuting
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: this new box of chocolates, and each one of them
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: is more unpleasant than the next. And the yeah, it
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: is called crunchy frog, and it's crunchy because it's got
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: the bones in it still. And like there's another one
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: where like it's like you you take a bite of
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: it and it shoots steel bolts out into your cheeks, yes,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: and cheeks from the inside, and they call it a
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: sweet meat.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I remember this because you can tell that the pythons
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: got together and sometimes they just wrote a list of
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: phrases or a riff on an idea, and then they
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: built a sketch around it. What I was gonna say is,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: we could do a pretty cool sketch about vending machines.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: We just need accounting to pay for a vending machine,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: and we'll do it, you know, because we are people
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: in the United States, and American ingenuity really comes into
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the foreground in the late eighteen hundreds. Thanks to the
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Thomas Adams Gum Company. These guys make gum vending machines
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Eight, yep, and they were really popular in New York
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: City on you guessed it train platforms. And this truly
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: set off the I guess We've said this multiple times,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: like and this is the one that set off the
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: vending machine craze, but no, this really did it. The
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Pulver Manufacturing Company added a little fun twist to these
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: gum vending machines by including little toys and little figurines
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: like based, I don't know how much action you were
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: going to get. I'm picturing like those really sad wrestling
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: figures that like you're just tiny, and the way of
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: it all with.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: No points of articulation. Yeah, but this is still cool as.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: This is entertainment is what it became, you know, not
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: just crucial everyday items. Now it's like the sky's the
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: limit truly. Yeah.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what I was going to say is this is
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: straight seahorse teeth, you know, it's it's never one of
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: vending machine that sells seahorse teeth. Yeah, and hot cheese.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: So we we see this this idea again, like we've
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: been continually returning to this concept that one could indeed
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: sell anything, limited only by the size of the thing
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: being sold and the the finances of the potential customer.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: If we go to eighteen ninety three, just a few
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: years later, we'll see a German chocolate manufacturer with the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: name I absolutely adore stover Stoverk sold their chocolate in
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: vending machines. They also sold, of course, chewing gum, cigarettes, matches,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: and soap. I feel like someone in the executive room
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: or someone in the boardroom at Stolverk made this machine
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: up for them.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Sure you know, it's whatever it takes. I mean, if
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: you think about it, though, Ben, it totally makes sense
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: that this as a concept has been around for so long.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, to me, it's like the earliest idea of
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: this would be literally putting something on a table and
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: a little you know, dish to put your money in
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: and trusting people to pay for the items they take. Which,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: by the way, in I believe it's Switzerland, there are
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: like honor system vending machine for like cheese and stuff
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: and on these like hiking trails up in the up
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: in the Alps and Swiss Alps.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Jump in here real quick, it's not offending machine. But
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: one thing I find really cool in Seattle is it's
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: the public transit is on honor system. Basically like there
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: is you pay for the ticket and uh, you tap
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: it on. Somebody charged you for the ride, but there's
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: nothing stopping you. You can just walk on. And I
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: think the design behind it is like if somebody needs
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: to get somewhere, it doesn't have the money, you'd rather
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: than just walk onto the train.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, then getting shot for like fair jumping at the
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: New York like that or.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Like yeah, or like not be able to work to
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: make money for sure. Yeah, And so then it's just
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: like you know, it's for me. I'm like, I like
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: that and I pay for it every single time because.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: And and the proof is in the pudding as far
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: as like what funds are being generated and are they
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: able to sustain themselves. It's like a public service like
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: that shouldn't be operated like a profit, you know, making business.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Shout out to the post office. Post office got some problems.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna get on my post office box again. I
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: just and I when I say it's got some problems,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: it's because of funding. But and also like who buys
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: stamps anymore. Everyone ships things or or you know, Amazon,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: I'm sure has put an absolute dent.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Part of it's a cell phone. Well, but I'm not.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna get the stop box.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: What do you mean by cell phone? The post office
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: has been sabotaged.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a law those past almost two decades ago
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: now Ben that basically they have to backfund retirement funds
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: like a ridiculous amount. And what it does is just keeps.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: It turned a department that had been profitable forever to
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: this what it is now we should do. And people
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: believe that this was intentional to get rid of.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: The post I'm one of those people. Of those people
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: to maybe, Ben, this is more of stuff they don't
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: want you to know. But this is news to me
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: and I'd love to find out more. But as we
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: roll into the twentieth century, we're going to get to
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: answering some of this questions that I know you all
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: have out there, like how does the machine know your
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: money is real? We'll get into that in a bit.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: But the kind of more modern vending machine boom came
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: after the twenties, when up to that point in America,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: at least penny candies had kind of been really the
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: only game in town, which you know isn't going to
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: make you a pile of money. But when you're selling
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: full priced items like food products or cigarettes a packet
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: of cigarettes, that's when the money really starts to flow,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: and you'll see whole businesses selling their stock entirely through
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: networks of vending machines.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, before we move on, I've got to say it ridiculous.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Historians you may find this but fuddling as well as
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Noel Max. I think you guys will, I think you
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: guys will enjoy this. Do you know what these penny
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: candy or hard care indie products were called.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: In the UK? Sweetmeats, boiled sweets, boiled sweets. Yeah, another
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: very off putting, very British.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: It's like barley water or spotted dick. What are the
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: other ones? Oh man, it's so strange with oak brown sauce.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Treacle tarts. Yeah, what's going on with that? What's up?
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Sounds like poo When I hear treacle, I think of
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: and pepe.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know why, imagine, I'm just imagining the idea
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: of would you like a boiled sweet?
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: And so sounds like something the child catcher would say.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like someone should look into that anyhow. Anyhow,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: we have reached a pivotal point as you described there.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Vending machine manufacturers realize that they can up their profits
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: by selling more sophisticated products. Right, A pack of cigarettes
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: takes more work than you know, boiled sweets or hard candy.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: So weird, it's such a weird phrase.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Anyway, So you could easily, for a time, you could
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: easily go to a cigarette vending machine and buy cigarettes,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: even if you were too young to do so. This
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: is a health problem, this is also a social problem.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And the cigarette machines come before the soda machines. I
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: always imagine a Coca Cola machine or a Pepsi machine
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: when I think of vending machines. They didn't come around
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: until nineteen thirty seven.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Well, and especially since the coke vending machine. You know,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: those are proprietary owned, not always, but like they'll be,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: you know, owned and distributed by the Coca Cola company.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: And so they serve also as fantastic advertising. It's a
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: massive lit up you know thing, the logo like at
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the bus station or whatever. That's what they're designed to
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: do is to be like a beacon of the coke
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: company out in the world.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we obviously, as a three three Americans, three
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Georgia boys, we have a bit of a bias toward
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Coca Cola. We're gonna be honest about that, but we're not.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: It's better than pepsi. We're sorry. It just pepsi tastes weird,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: is off. Oh my gosh. I like products, but pepsi
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the cola is not good.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Man. I got to tell you, it's a real cultural
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: divide here in the US. You know, you go too
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: far in one direction and all of a sudden you're
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: in pepsi country.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: I don't trust any place that only has pepsi products.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: I'm drawing a line in this. Not even Pizza Hut
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: don't care for it. Wow, all right, well, choose your battles.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I got your back, Coca Cola, regardless of whether you
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: love them or hate them. Coca Cola was the first
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: company to sell their bottled dream in vending machines, and
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: that I love that point about advertising because it's probably
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: a big part of their success. And now we get
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: to the early twinklings of World War Two. The US
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: begins building up its defense industry.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: And now you can buy handguns in vending machines. We're
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: heading in that direction, y'all as a country. Sorry not
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: to be political, but I could, I could see it.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: It's like something that would be in idiocracy.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they'll probably put them in the coke or the
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: pepsi machines, like the pre existing machines. Do you want
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: a fanta or do you want.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: A firearm or a glock?
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Right, So, as the US enters into a wartime economy,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: they have this tremendous boom in factories, right in industrialization,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: in around the clock production of things that will be
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: useful in war.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: The people who are in.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Charge of these factories and these plants, they say, all right,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: we can't have employees working for twelve plus hours without
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: a refreshment break, and we're not going to pay for
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: a full time cafeteria staff.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: So what about vending machines? Exactly. I really really love
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: the term automat because it just makes me think of
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: like the old school I believe it was Greek automatons,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: you know, the automated man or whatever, And it's such
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: a nostalgic thing. I think it's maybe a cup opper
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: painting like Nighthawks at the Diner I think is one
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: where there's this classic, you know scene of like a
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: New York City automat, you know, where you have like
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: the little windows you put your money in and then
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: your pie is behind this little window with a metal handle.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: It's just so charming to me. And now we're starting
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: to see stuff like that kind of come back into
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: popularity with like some of these like Revolt Thing sushi
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: restaurants that are so popular and fun.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, or there are a lot of restaurants that
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: use these specific vending machines where you put in the money,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you put in your yen or whatever, and then you
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: select the thing you want to eat, and it doesn't
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: give you the thing. It gives you a ticket, and
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: you take the ticket to a counter or you you know,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: you walk up to the counter and someone hands you
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the food. It's a it's kind of a hybrid relationship
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: between vending machine and actual customer service. I love an automat.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: It's just a cool vibe. And during the nineteen forties
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and the nineteen fifties here in the US, vending machines
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: were largely concentrated in plants and in factories. This is
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: where you know, this is where you think of the
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: break room vending machine, right, if you've ever had one
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: of those, and they always they always had these lands
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: crackers of a certain age.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I always can judge, like whether a company is
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: going to be cool to work for by whether they
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: have like free snacks or a vending machine in the
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: break room. Having the vending machine just strikes me as
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: being so cheap, and that is not a company I
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: would wish to work for, sir.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, having a vending machine for the employees like that
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: always strikes me as saying we don't especially love you,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: but you know, no judgment.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: We have a little judgment, a little judgment. We're curious.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's be accountable, a little bit of judgment because
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: we have had vending machines in our operation in the past,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: and I think the statute has expired here so I
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: can tell you this. No, the whole reason we had
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: vending machines in the Buckhead office is because our office manager, Michael,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: owned a vending machine company.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: You're joking. I remember Michael.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was early days. He's doing well, he's doing well.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: I always liked him. I remember when I first met Mike,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: because I guess he went by. We installed like this
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: in one of the weird offices that we were converting
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: into a podcast studio in the earliest days of podcasting. Literally,
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: we just there was this open window and the traffic
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: noise outside. It was like a high rise, you know,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: upper floor building, and we just like took a bunch
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: of egg crape foam and like stapled it to plywood
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: and like shoved that in the window and like that
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: was Man, it was so punk rock back then poil
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: but still better than the glass. Oh yeah, it was
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: so so uh so old.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Praise due to our our colleague and our friends, Mike Campbell.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Moving into the vending machine industry is a naturally American
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: thing to do. America takes the idea of the vending
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: machine and for a while they run with it. We
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: could argue that now China and Japan have accelerated the
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: vending machine boom that the United States pursued. You know,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: by the end of the nineteen fifties, there are vending
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: machines throughout the US and they're selling not just prepackaged food,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: but they're selling freshly prepared stuff to your point about automats.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Now we see another innovation in the world of soft
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: drink vending machines, refrigeration. The refrigeration is a huge game
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: changer because I don't care know what people think about
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: pepsi or coke. I'm just not European enough to enjoy
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: it at room temperature.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: You know, I will house a d C at room
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: temperature with lemon time. No, no, no, d dyed coke.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: No, I mean with leon, because Europeans put lemon.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: That's a thing they drove O. I did not know that.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: But I am headed to Europe next month, so maybe
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: I'll give that a try. Yeah, only if I'm really thirsty.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: And for me, if it's bubbly, a bubbly drink, I
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: can drink at room temperature because in some weird way,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: the bubbles are like a stand in for it being cold.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: But drinking flat room temperature soda is akin to death.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: It is just absolutely miserable.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, no, no, it needs the effort vescence,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: It needs the carbonations.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Ben, we're talking about refrigeration.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, we are, we are.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: They keep us on task.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: There there's another curious thing that has been missing from
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: the vending machine race for a long time. It's not
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: until the nineteen forties that coffee vending machines are developed.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Cool. I mean all the moving parts in that, Like
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: someone had to figure out what how to automatically grind
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: the beans and then you know, you put the cup
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: in and then it makes you a perfect serving size.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: You know, when I think of that, I'll tell you
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: what I think I've been is hospitals. Oh yeah, the
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: coffee vending machines, you really only in my mind. I
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: think you always see it in hospitals and courthouses.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hospitals, courthouses, I would add again auto body shops.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Maybe usually auto body shops these days have like a
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: little free coffee like service kind.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Of see going back to our point about is the
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: stack free or do you have to pay for it?
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: This is where you're paying with your time, that's.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: For sure, the only real currency. This is where we
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: get to something that we foreshadowed. We we have a
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff we want to get to. We may
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: not get to all of it, but you you plan
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: it a nice seed there. Earlier in the Achilles heel
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: of all vending machines is their ability to figure out
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: whether the money being put in there is actual money
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: or actual fax money.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Shout out the lord. Well, call back to our buddy hero,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: our ancient innovator the beginning of this whole story, and
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: you'll recall his holy Water venue machine. You just put
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: a coin on a slot and it like fell, and
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: the weight of it was what triggered the mechanism that
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: opened the valve that then squirted out the holy water.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: That is a you know, to your point, ben about you,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: you mentioned that maybe there was a way so you
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: could determine if money was counterfeit, because in those days
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: it would have had to be down to the exact
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: weight probably or a very close exact way, because they
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: certainly didn't have any way of visually. The whole point
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: was to not have a person there, and so they
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: didn't have any kind of scanning technology, which is what
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: we're about to get into. So his machine had to
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: be like really sensitively tuned. I would think where if
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: he wanted to make sure people weren't just throwing a
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: rock in there, you know, a flat rock, that it
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: had to have enough weight to it, or had to
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: be an exact enough weight, and me, maybe I'm giving
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: them too much credit. But that is sort of a
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: rudimentary way of thinking about maybe pre technology that could
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: scan ways of determining whether money was real. It would
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: have to be like, it would be the exact right circumference,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: you know, and only then could it go down the slot,
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: you know, to get into the mechanism to trigger the
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: treat Think.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Of all the think of all all the comic strips
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and old cartoons of a little scampy deadnis the mints
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: type kids stringing putting, the putting a string around a
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: quarter and then dropping in the vending machine and getting
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: their thing and yoinking it out. That this is a
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: hidden history fact that you only get for listening through
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: uh the rest of the show. The reason that coins
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: in the United States have ridges on them, the quarter
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: and the dimes, it's because it's because they wanted to
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: prevent fraud in vending machines. An American quarter has one
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: hundred and nineteen ridges, dimes have one hundred and eighteen ridges.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: It's so cool the earliest forms of these they could
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: build a mechanism that could detect that because they certainly
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: didn't have any kind of you know, electronic scanning ability.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: You know, we get a little further into still very rudimentary,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: but a little more advanced technology when they started accepting dollars.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Dollar bills have I think they still are maybe it's
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: a QR code now or sorry, an RFID, but were
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: embedded with a piece of magnetic tape that had information
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: embedded on it. And these early machines that took a
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: buck could scan that to verify that it was in
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: fact an authentic dollar.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were using it was similar to eight track technology.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Early vending machines had this magnetic tape head mechanism that
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: determined whether a single one dollar bill had the correct
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: amount of iron content. But the issue, Oh, that's.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Say, I got it kind of wrong. I thought it
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: was it was detecting that that little strip that was
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: embedded inside. Maybe that was later. This is even cooler
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: and more rudimentary, So it was scanning for a certain
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: element in the dollar. That's insane.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this, Uh, there's this arm race between you know,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: the deadis medici or the deadis minicis UH and the
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: people who don't want to get ripped off with their
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: vending machines because later, uh, laser printers can use iron
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: laced ink to make counterfeit dollars in what we would
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: call an entirely unnecessary and ridiculous scam.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's true. Yeah, I got a wonder like the
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: are people actually profiting off of counterfeit money? It just
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: seems like that is a scam that is going to
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: catch up to you sooner than.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Later, especially in an increasingly cashless society.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Also true.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, true.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: So starting in the nineteen nineties, we start to see
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: digital scanning technology. I guess you could call it maybe
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: an early form of low resolution, low pixel count digital photography. Yeah, yeah,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: this is really cool, right.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: The device is looking for specific patterns, and if your
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: dollar doesn't have that pattern, it will not be accepted.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: This is the real reason why crumply dollar bills often
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: don't work in a vending machine. I always thought I
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: always thought it was just because I hadn't been neat
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: enough with my folded Sorry.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: No, I mean I think that probably has something to
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: do with it, too, but it Yeah, if the image
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: is distorted like that because of all the different crumples,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: then the scanner's not gonna be able to read it,
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: especially in an older machine.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: And of course we are coming to you live in
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five from the threshold of the future.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Of our live album. It's gonna be a double LP
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Ridiculous History Live in twenty twenty five.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be super relevant in twenty twenty eight.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: We'll probably still be doing this show.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Do you think so? I hope so. I'd like to
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: think so. I'd like to think so too. What do
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: you think, Max? Are you down?
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Do you want to hang out with us for a
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: few more years?
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: So, however, refer to this show as I'm like, yeah,
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: we do two episodes a week with a classic every
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: week until the sun absorbs the earth.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: There you go, Yeah, you go, that's a good deadline.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: I'm cool.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: I'm like, it's one of those things where it's like,
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: I don't know that. That's not means saying if I
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: want to or not. It's more just saying, oh wow, okay,
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: I am I'm your bound you are bound not to
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: be too pronancy.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: But I actually thought of you Max when I was
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: I was watching something earlier, and I am putting a
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: screenshot in the chat for later anyway, WHOA, I love you. No,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: you're on the chat too, Okay, I'm look forward to
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: the secret. So, uh, so we're not going to spend
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: too much time on the future of vending machines. Please
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: know your cultural mileage may vary.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean for sure in term, I guess when
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: we're talking about the future, we're talking about the way
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: payment forms have changed and will change, you know. I mean,
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you've seen these, but I guess
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: you could call these vending machines and a lot of
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: gas stations. You'll see these crypto machines, right, Yeah, who
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: uses those? It seems like somebody pulled pulled a fast
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: one with that. I don't think it really took off.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, explain this to me because I've seen them, You
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and I haven't talked about them.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: What are they really able to deposit and withdraw crypto
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: from the blockchain on them? Supposedly, but I've never seen
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: one in you literally ever, Like, why would you need that?
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: You do it all online. That's the whole point of crypto.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: But anyway, sketchy, it's weird. Like I said, I think
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: someone pulled a fast one, had a little fly by
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: night operation. But what we are going to start seeing
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: is for vending machines to have more and more flexible
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: payment options like I do love most vending machines that
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: you see. Now you can do the Apple pay, tap
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: to pay, and that's just becoming increasingly a thing that
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: you're going to start seeing on everything, not to mention
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: vending machines that use ultra violet scanners to authenticate cash,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: measuring the amount of glow that gets emitted. Genuine notes
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: contain fluorescent ink, so it's going to glow. It's almost
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: like the like a forensic way of looking for like
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: bodily fluids at a crime scene. But increasingly, as we
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: to your point, ben are becoming more and more and
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: more of a cashless society, even a cashless world, you're
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: going to start seeing machines like the way that cars
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: stopped having CD players or the way that laptops stopped
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: having disk drives.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: You know that's a good I don't know, those are
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: two really good comparisons for this. We are going to
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: see vending machines continue because they satisfy some basic human needs, right,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: the number one being the need for food and water,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: or something like food or something like water, or the
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: need for speed or the need for speed, and it's
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: all motivated by the vending machine. Manufacturer's need for greed.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: That's very good, Ben, that's very style. Well played, my friend. Well,
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: I think you mentioned this at the top or maybe
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: in a conversation we had off Mike, But you know,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: you you are a fan of Japan. The country and
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: the country of Japan is and has long been considered
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: like since it's kind of I don't know, reinvention of itself,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: you know, after it was sort of decimated by some
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: bombs that we drop, you know, just a hey beacon
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: of technology and innovation, and within that you're seeing some
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: really weird and innovative uses of vending machines, like think
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: claw machines as well a arcades. They've always been on
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: the cutting edge. Yeah, we didn't even talk about how
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: pinball machines kind of came into being around the same
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: time as the New York City kind of vending machine boom.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: But Ben, Japan is known for having really interesting and
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: weird stuff in its vending machines, which are absolutely everywhere.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: And I'm excited to go about a year, but you've
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: been a bunch of times. Can you set the scene,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: like how common are these things are? They literally everywhere?
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: Are what is in them? Yeah?
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: I cannot wait for you guys to go with me
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: on the next trip. We're going to have such a time,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: and as long as we have a couple of coins,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: we're never going to be thirsty.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: Or in need of socks. Right right.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: By far, the most common vending machines in urban areas
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: of Japan are beverage machines. They'll sell they'll sell coffee,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: they'll sell soda, they'll sell something I still don't quite
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: understand named pakari sweat.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: I've seen that in the in the Asian markets and Asia. Yeah,
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: it gets it's an energy drink. No, sorry, it's a
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: sports drink like electrolyte kind of replenishr or whatever.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: That's also know, it's a weird one, but you know, again,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: who are we to judge. I do have an interesting
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: conspiracy about vending machines in Japan. You don't see a
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: ton of machines selling prepackaged stacks, and that's because restaurants
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: are likewise ubiquitous, so you don't want to take money
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: from the restaurant.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: That's my idea.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: But I did earlier. I think it was, oh gosh,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: it must have been February. I ran into a pizza
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: vending machine.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: Like hot pizza discike, it's like an entire pie or
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: a slice. Yeah, yeah, it made a pizza, It makes
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: it for you. So this is taking the automation aspect
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: of it to a hole, just wild.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: But that's not even you know, what we're setting up
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: here is when you and Max and I and maybe
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: you as well, ridiculous historians head back to Japan. Those
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: are the bare like, those are the low threshold of
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: weird vending machines. We've heard tell of vending machines for bugs.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen that, but I believe it because there
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: are a lot of There are a lot of strange
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: vending machines.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: Have you heard of the Japanese used pante vending machine?
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: And bust? We had to mention it, right, tell us
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: a little well, you know, in Tokyo. I think, in particular,
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: there was a brief period of time and I don't know,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: I just remember when it was reported or when I
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: first read about it, maybe in the early two thousands
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: or maybe even late nineties, where you could buy women's
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: used under garments from a vending machine to feed some
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: kind of you know, a fetish.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've never personally seen those, and I think
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: you make a I think you make a good point
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: because because it was a story that was reported in
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: the West, it was very much a real thing. But
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they're around anymore.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: There's no article on tech nin tech tech in Asia.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: All right, I'm trying to read the r tech in
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: asia dot com the death and digital records resurrection of
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Japan's used pante vending machine. So yeah, it's definitely it
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: gets in the mix, but you know, let's get wholesome
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: with it. There's also like amazing venue machines that sell
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: kind of like the old coin op where you put
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: a stack of quarters in and turn a crank and
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: then you get a little toy inside a plastic bubble.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: Those are everywhere in Japan. Yeah, with all kinds of stuff.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: There are entire.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Almost like twenty four hour laundromat area. You know, if
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: you've ever been to a place where you've got washers
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: and dryers and they're all automated, there's no staff there.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: You just go in and you put your coins in,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: you do your laundry. There are places like that in
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Japan entirely.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: For gatchapon makes sense and say same as like claw
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: machine parlors, you.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Know, yeah, yeah, just so just so we also.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Sometimes there'll be a combination where they'll have like half
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: claw machines and half goatchapons. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, combination.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Right, And there are also ramen vending machines. We talk ramen,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: not just prepackaged ramen, right, yes, yeah, yeah, hot ready
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: to eat ramen. There are also food ticket machines. There
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: are weird not quite gambling things where you can put
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: in some money for a mystery prize and it could
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: be you know, it could be like a picture of
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: a musician, or it could be a Nintendo.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: Switch go yeah, like a like a blind box, you know. Yeah,
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: I've seen these vending machines or I guess they're kind
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: of considered a game where it's like this one giant glass,
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: you know, enclosure with a mass single massive stuffed animal
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: suspended by a little string and the game as you
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: put in, you know, it's going to be more of
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: a premium than the smaller item claw machines, and you
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: get the opportunity to like operate these scissors that like
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: will snip the string, and if you can sniff the string,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: you get this one giant prize. The whole question of
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: like the investment of actual funds and the comparison to
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: how much the thing that you've won is actually worth
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: is a discussion under itself. But it is fun to
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: find places though, where it doesn't feel like the machines
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: are rigged. But Ben, we talked about used pante machines
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: and the kind of mythology of that. You're also going
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: to see things like adult item vending machines, though not
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: typically would be in the in the in the courtyard
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: of the public square, because they they're pretty if I'm
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: not mistaken, Ben Japan has a bit of a modesty still,
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: even with its forward facing advertisement. It's it's a little
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: bit wholesome. Right.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: Well, again, I would say it goes back to location. Yeah,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: So back in the day, as we established earlier, there
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: was this realization that the best way to sell stamps
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: or to sell postcards is to put the machine at
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: a place where people need stamps and the postcards, and.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: The naughty machines are probably more likely to be in
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: like the naughty shops, yes, in the naughty districts, yes, right.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: Right right straight up Shinjuku. But we also know that
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: you can see. You can see the same struggle that
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: the US had with tobacco vending machines in Japan, you know,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: like alcohol vending.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: Machines, sake machines, right, yeah, there, we don't have those here.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: We don't. We don't all no alcohol venus. It's completely
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: illegal in the United States. Now.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: In Japan, there are still cigarette vending machines, but there's
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: a much more robust law about it. You have to
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: have an I D And a special card and also.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Have to be scanned and validated by the way, yep, right,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: big brother is watching you. Here's the thing. I think
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: we we have to wrap up.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: But I think the best idea we had so far
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: is a vending machine that sells vending machines.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: I'm writing that down, and within those are tinier vending machines.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: It's just vending machines all the way down. It's dolls, right,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: And I can't I can't wait. I can't wait to
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: explore new parts of the world with you guys, and
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: to find the weirdest vending machines we can. Uh, what
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: what would you what would you love in a vending machine?
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: Oh? I know I already, I know you too. Well.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: I know what vending machine you would love. You'd love
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: a synth vending machine.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's you know the thing about that is
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: like I've certainly been to shops that you can put
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: anything in a vending machine. And I've certainly seen in
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: some like boutiki type places, whether they be record stores
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: or music stores, they'll have a vending machine that they'll
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: have some fun little items inside, you know, where it's
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: like you can get like a little grab bag item
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: like of some weird local art or something like that,
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: And I just think that's so fun. But yeah, a
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: synth venning machine would be rad. Though I would hope
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: that it wouldn't just drop it, you know, into the
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: chasm for me to go. No, No, it needs to
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: build up before it drops the beat. How are you
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: handed to me by a little robot arm with fingerless
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: gloves on? Sure? Max?
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: What about your vending machine? What's your dream vending machine?
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: Oh? Man, dream vending machine?
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: That is a good question. I I like, for years
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: ago up in coffee, but I'm caffeine free now because yeah.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: It's okay, we're still we can still be friends. I
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: don't know, I maybe tea.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: I'm getting really into tea. I was also thinking about
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: games venning machine, but then also we used to have
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: those and they sucked, So go on PlayStation storing in
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: my video games. So I know I would like a
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: vending machine that I could buy more versions of myself,
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: because that's awesome.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: We had in this world the Betrishka maxis. I love it. Yeah,
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: I like it. I dig it.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Tell us what your dream vending machine would be. Visit
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: us on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians. Yes, we are
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: still working to get our social media platforms back.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: We've got a plan. We're gonna stick Max on. We've
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: been discussed Max. You weren't present at this meeting, but
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: we're sticking Max on the on the medic boys. I
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: get it straight. I handled back. I straight up told
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: this was weird.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: I know you got it and old, but I straight
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: up told our folks in marketing you have to burn
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: the village to save the village. And they let me
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: get away with saying that on a work call.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Oh you know, what are they gonna do? Well?
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Hopefully they will join us in future episodes, and we
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: hope you do as well. Thank you so much for
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: tuning in. Ridiculous historians. Thank you as always to our
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: super producer mister Max Williams, as well as his biological
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: brother Alex Williams, a mad composer who word on the
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: street has has it that he just recently drifted through town.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: I'm actually going to see him this very evening. He's
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: coming over to the studio to do some be booping.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: I'm excited. So he actually also composed and be booped
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: this very theme that you hear in your very ears.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: Huge thanks to Christopher Hasiotis and Eve Jeff Coates here
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: in spirit.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Big big thanks of course to aj Bahamas Jacobs and
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: you're right, You're right, Max. We we got to get
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: him back on the back together big things. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: we were all right. Big thanks to BADASSU, the Badass imperator,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: Ben Thompson, Rachel Big Spinach Lance and I think Donald.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: Strickland from earlier in a regular Dude from time to time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Well, Jonathan is still a little heated with us folks
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: behind the curtain because he wrote an entire quister.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: Segment and we just did not do it when we
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: were in the Middle East. Well, I think it's a
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: he's got it in his back pocket for next time.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: It means it went have to do as much prep.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: Geez Ben, Thanks to you, this was a really fine conversation.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: And thanks to our research associate Jeff.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: Thanks to for the good conversational fodder. Good Jeff, thank
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: you very.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Much, and thanks to everybody who has run into a
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: weird vending machine.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: Please post pictures. I want to see weird like the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: anthropomorphic vending machines with arms and legs, come alive at
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: night and have a whole like inner life, you know,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: like a toy story. But with any machines, we'll see
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: a nice tep folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: your favorite shows.