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SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Hot Wheels Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: A everybody chuck Here for another one of our Christmas
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: centric episodes with our twelve Days of Christmas Toys playlist,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and today I'm very pleased to introduce to you an
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: episode that I liked quite a bit because when I
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: was a kid, I love me some hot wheels, and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: so this is that episode, How Hot Wheels Work. Pretty
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: interesting story. Hope you guys enjoy it.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you should know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: You know that just sounded like, what like, that's what
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: happens like, You're having a nightmare and you MEI wakes
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: you up in the middle of the night and he
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: just goes, hey, welcome to the podcast, and then she
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: slaps you across the face.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Repart. That's true. Yeah, that is what that sounded like.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: That's what it sounded.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: It's pretty accurate. I don't know what got into me.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: You were just supercharged about this topic.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Oh that's terrible. What supercharged?
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I don't get it.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: It's like a supercharged engine.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Oh I didn't even think about that.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Oh good, that makes me feel a little better.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know Jerry by the way before when I
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: told her what we were doing, so, oh my gosh,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: that was my favorite toy when I was a kid.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Nice hot wheels are pretty great.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had quite a collection, and I don't know
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: where they are today.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Oh really they're missing? Huh.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if they were thrown out, or
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: if if my brother has them, or they're my mom's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: attic or what. Because I'm kind of curious that I
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: have any value.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: You need to find them. Yeah, they could be apparently,
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: as far as hot wheels collectors go, it could be
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: in mint condition all the way down to beat condition.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Oh is that how they rank them? Yeah, mine would
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: be beaters because I played with them like crazy.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: That's good. I mean, that's what they're for sure, you know.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: And there's value for a beater too, like some people
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: apparently harvest them for parts to rebuild like a you know,
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: a new Frankenstein model.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Oh really, Yeah, that's pretty neat.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of stuff you can do with them.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we should thank the fifth grader who wrote
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: this article too.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Sad face.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I complained about that out loud to Holly. I was like,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: this article actually says sad face like as a sentence.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know had issues. I'm glad you said something.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah what if it was a fifth grader? Your feelings
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: are all hurt.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: I think your feelings are hurt either way. Now, sad face.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: So we're talking about hot wheels today. I had a couple.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: My favorite toy was g I Joe, but I appreciated
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: hot wheels.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had GI Joe too.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: We do Gi Joe episode sometime. I had the older
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: ones though you probably had huge ones. Yeah yeah, now
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: I had the real ones.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, I don't that's fighting words.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Man. The ones that I had were so awesome. They
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: were like there was a huge, fast collection of all
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: of them. Yeah, there was like cobra. Cobra didn't exist
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: when you were collecting g I Joe's.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: No, but how could you say, like, oh, that one
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: that's ten inches tall and has real clothes and fuzzy
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: hair and the kung fu grip is inferior to this
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: little plastic thing.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: I think you just said it. All the fuzzy hair
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: says it right there. I don't really mean that, Chuck.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: I don't have a dog in that fight. Like if
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: you like the big Gi Joe's. That's cool. I got
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: some problems.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a quick side note. I have to tell
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: this story, okay, when you know how he used to
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: do book reports and you would have to have a
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: visual aid. Yeah. I might have told this before. If
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I do, I apologize.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: I don't recognize it.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I did a report on Franco Harris when in elementary
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: school because he.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Was a football player.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know why I did on Franco Harris. Yeah,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: but I got my mom to make me a little
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Pittsburgh Steelers uniform for my Gi joe because he looked
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: like Franco Harris.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was my visual aid.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Do you still have it?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: No, of course not. We have the Gi Joe's, but
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I think the Steelers uniform is gone. Bye bye.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: That's said. Yeah, you know, I'm sure your mom put
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: a lot of work into that. Now I feel guilty, So, Chuck,
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: I have a question for you. Yes, did you know
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: that the number one vehicle manufacturer on the planet is,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: in fact Hot Wheels. I did it. Kind of It's
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: astounding until you stop and think about it. Sure, like
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: apparently since nineteen sixty eight, when Hot wheels were first introduced.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: More than four billion hot wheels have been produced. That's
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: more than the big four Detroit automakers combined. You're like wow,
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: and then you think, oh, yeah, it costs a minute
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: fraction of the costure to build the hot wheels and
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: it does a normal car.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Plus, Also, it's not like you're gonna go, I want
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: this Buick Cutlass Supreme in every color, right, you know, Well,
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: the hot wheels you can do that.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What's the Lego stat is? They're the biggest manufacturer
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: of tires?
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder though, do these not count as tires
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: because they're plastic they counts wheels?
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: I don't know, man, because.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Four billion times four that's sixteen billion tires.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: That's a really great question.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I might have to challenge Lego or maybe just look
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: up how many tires they manufacture.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Old Kirk Christensen is not going to be happy about this.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Who was that the founder of Lego? Oh remember Old?
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Oh that's right, I thought you were saying Old no over.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about the history of this stuff.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Huh okay.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: So hot wheels, like I said, have been around since
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: nineteen sixty eight and Anybody who's heard the Barbie Trademark
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: podcast will recognize the name Elliott Handler. That's Ruth Handler,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: the inventor of Barbie Trademark's husband. Sure, and Elliott apparently
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: saw a real chance to muscle in on an already
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: extant market by a company called Tycho that had a
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: line of miniature metal cars die cast cars is what
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: they're called, called Matchbox cars.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: By the time hot wheels came around, match Box was
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: already there and had established a market, and Mattel said,
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: let's get in on that.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the rumor is that he saw his grandchildren
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: playing with them and said, they kind of stink. I
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: could make these better, yeah, cooler, And he had a
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: as the story goes, had a designer, which we'll talk
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: about in the second called Harry Bradley Sure, and he
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: had a hot rod. And Elliott was in the parking
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: lot one day and said, man, those are some hot
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: wheels you got there.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: And apparently if you go look look at the old
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: original commercials.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: For hot wheels, did they say that.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: That's how well, that's how they pronounced it hot wheels.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, instead of hot wheels.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, The emphasis is on the hot awkward. They're like,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: race your hot wheels.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: You can make some of them, you can race them.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Just go buy some hot wheels. That's what they That's
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: how they say it, collect all your hot wheels.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that makes more sense in the context of
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: a sentence.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: It does having been raised right right, you know post
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: the in fact hot wheels is wrong. Yeah, hot wheels
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: because wheels.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Now I'm trying to picture the guy in the parking
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: lot saying those are some hot wheels you got on
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: your there? You'd say hot wheels, you got there? You know, Yeah,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: oh boy, we can sure waste some time.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: We sure can.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: But the first nineteen sixty eight is, like you said,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: when the first line came out of sixteen hot wheels,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: they were sold initially for fifty nine cent apiece.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And like you said, the guy whose car originally
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: inspired the name hot Wheels was Harry Bradley, and he
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: was the designer of that first sixteen cars. They were
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: also called California Customs Miniatures. Was that first original sixteen
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: group of hot Wheels that were released in nineteen sixty eight. So,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: and Harry Bradley designed them all, including apparently he got
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: his hands on The first one, by the way, that
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: came out was a Chevy Camaro, of course. The second
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: one that came out was the Chevy Corvette, of course,
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: And apparently the Chevy Corvette came out before the actual
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Corvette came out.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the sixty nine Corvette.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: That is so. Harry Bradley was an old hand in
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: not just miniature car design, but car design in general.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: He was an old GM designer, and I guess he
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: had connections still at GM, and probably under the table
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: in a possibly illegal way, got his hands on the
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: blueprints for the Corvette that hadn't been released yet, and
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Hot Wheels beat GM to the punch in releasing the
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: nineteen sixty eight Corvette.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sixty nine, thank you, that's all right. The Yeah,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: as the lore goes, he supposedly knew that the cafeteria
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: door was unlocked, so he snuck in through the cafeteria door.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: But that's called industrial espionage.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds like a story like just lore, okay,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: but maybe so maybe he committed industrial espian che. Yeah. So,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: like you said, those were the two of the first
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: sixteen in that original lineup, that original collection, which if
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: you have any of those, Yeah, Okay, yeah, you got
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: some money that you're sitting on.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Because I mean, like they went all out on those
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: that original line oh yeah, Like there were bushings to
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: the suspension. Yeah, and the I mean the chassis it
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: had suspension like shocks, like you could press them down
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: and it would bounce back.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I had some of those. I don't think they were
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: from sixty eight. But when did they quit making those?
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: It set up until seventy seven was when they stopped making.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: The seventy is when the suspension got an overhaul.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: Okay, so for the first couple of years, like they
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: were really putting a lot into these things. The tires
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: were red line racing slicks, yeah, and the things. The
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: whole reason they went to so much trouble is because
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: they really wanted to destroy their competitor, match box. And
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: one of the ways they did that was by making
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: these things far more functional than the match boxes were.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: The matchbox cars were, so they really could race. Yeah,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: and if you put a matchbox car up against the
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: comparable hot wheels, say the same model car, the hot
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Wheels will destroy it every time. And the head to
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: head race.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: As we saw on the internet, a guy did that.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Of course, he took two Volkswagens and two OUTI eight's
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I think, and one match box and one hot wheel,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and he said they won by at least a car
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: length every time he tried. And this was no loop
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: de loop bring things, was just the straight race. They
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: painted them originally in Spectra Flame, which was very shiny
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: and sparkly and expensive. And I don't think we said
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: that all hot wheels are built at one sixty fourth scale.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a big point.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: But not necessarily all matchbox cars. They kind of vary
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: here and there, right, But like you said that Spectra
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Flame and the red line tires didn't only last until
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: seventy seven, and the suspension only lasted untill nineteen seventy
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: and they sadly a lot of that had to do
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: with the fact that they moved them from Hawthorne, California
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: to Hong Kong. Yeah, And like any product, you're like, hey,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you can make it for half as much if you
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: make it in China, so let's move. Let's ship the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: operations overseas well.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Not only that, it's this Spectra flame pain is pretty expensive.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: It's awesome, it looks great, yeah, but it's pretty expensive.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: So with any collector's item. As they started to downgrade
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: the components in the parts and the manufacturing and ultimately
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: the final product, all that did was make the original
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: stuff all the more valuable today, Yeah, because there was
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: fewer and fewer of those as the years go on,
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: proportionately speaking.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they had actual axles, like you know, it was
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: like a real They were designed by car designers and
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: they were made apparently to reach two hundred scale miles
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: per hour.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: That's way cool.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Remember, like in the Cockroach episode, we talked about
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: how they're the fastest animal on the planet relatively speaking.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: Pretty neat stuff. Yeah, so chuck right out of the gate,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Mattel had a hit on its hands. Oh yes, they
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: released them in nineteen sixty eight. By nineteen seventy, Hot
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: Wheels was a Saturday Morning cartoon in the vein of
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: like Dune Buggy and Scooby Doo and all those guys.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Hanna barbera dune buggy or speed Buggy, Speed Buggy. Yeah
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: remember speed Buggy. Yeah, it was like a dune buggy
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: that could talk, and it was basically wonder bug No,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: it's speed Buggy. Okay, because there was under if you
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: took Shaggy and put some like racing goggles on him. Yeah,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: and then turned Scooby Doo into a speed a doom Buggy. Yeah,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: that's speed Buggy.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Oh was that a cartoon?
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, went around solving mysteries and stuff like that.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wonderbug was I think that was live action?
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, this was a cartoon, said Marty Croft. This is
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: exactly like Scooby Doo by the people who did Scooby Doo,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: using the same people who did the voices for Scooby Doo.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: It just vaguely changed the characters. Hot Wheels was virtually
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: the same thing, except it was about racing clubs. There
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: were the bad guys and good guys and.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Do you know what this prus? What is the nineteen seventies,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the doom Buggy was a very popular thing. You remember
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: seeing those on the road, Like I used to see
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: them all the time. Not all the time, but in
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the seventies it was a common thing. Yeah, you don't
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: see him anymore, very rarely. Nope, No gremlins, no yukos, no,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: no wonder bugs.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: You know I like gremlins. Do you okay for me? Though?
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: The Kudi gras of car design is the AMC Pacer. Yeah,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: it's like the for Micah Kitchen of cars. Yeah, it's
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: beautiful in all the weirdest ways.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: So much window.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: That would be my sought after hot wheels if I
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: had a hot wheels that if I just could have
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: one hot wheel, Yeah, it would. I don't know if
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: that would be it. I'd be happy with that one.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Now do they have that it's a hot wheel? Oh?
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, And if you look up AMC Gremlin hot wheels, yeah,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: they went to town on those. They had some with
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: like the intakes like sticking out of the hood and yeah,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: just all sorts of just awesome different variations like indie
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: car Gremlins and stuff like that.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Because and that raises a pretty good point. Hot wheels
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: has always been about the racing design, Like they've designed
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: them to look like racing cars, but they've also manufactured
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: them to actually be able to win a race, like
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: we talked about with Matchbox.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of the differences that is one of
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the main differences between the match box and the hot
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: wheel is they were just much more interested in being sportier,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: like you could get you could get a match box
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: like a delivery truck, right, you know they had that,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: but the match Boxes looked more real. They all were
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: about looking realistic and not necessarily performance. And hey, if
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: you want a bread truck, you can get a bread truck,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: right exactly, But you can't get a bread truck hot Wheel.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: You know, we'll talk more about all of this jam
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: right after this.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: You want to go ahead and talk about some of
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the other differences between Matchbox and hot Wheel, Yes, sure,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: since we're at it. Match Box or I'm sorry, hot
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Wheel is the one that is more likely to have
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: branded versions, oh man.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: And do they ever like.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: The Ghostbusters ectomobile.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Right or even more than that, Like they have a
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: deal with eminem Mars for twenty fifteen, so they have
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: like a TwixT trucks and a Skittles van and like
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: all this stuff. They have licensing with DC and Marvel this.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Year, Fast and the Furious. I know they had a
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: line yep.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: So they're really big time into branded and a lot
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: of times they'll have like a store will just have exclusives,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: access to an exclusive line of Skittles cars or something
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: like that that you can only get it KB toys.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they have a NASCAR deal too. If
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, I would not be surprised. And the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: hot wheels usually have a little bit wider, a longer axle,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and wider wheels because it's just cooler that wheel sticks
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: out from the body a little bit, you know.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Well, plus also supposedly, and we'll talk about this a
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: little more, when you shrink a car down to scale,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: it looks a little weird.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you might as well ahead and bring that up. Okay,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: it looks weird. You can't just shrink it and have
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: it in the same proportion and have it look normal.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: Right Like, it'll be as far as like shrinking a
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: car down by scale, it will be in the exact
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: same proportion. But it's just awful little bit like. So
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: what they do to make a hot wheels raceable is
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: they expand the wheel well a little more. Yeah, they
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: break it out a little bit. Yeah, which is why
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: the wheel stick out some on a hot wheels, but
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: not on a match box. That's right, because match boxes
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: are all about realism. To heck with how it looks,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: as long as it's real.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: The one of my favorite ones, and I had one
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: of these that they mentioned this article was the red barren.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: The person who wrote this said it was an inexplicable
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: and inexplicably cool helmet over the cockpit. I don't know
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: about inexplicable. It was just the roof of the car
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: was a helmet, right. But I looked it up again, Tod,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, yeah, I had that thing,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: but it was It wasn't a Nazi helmet per se,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: but it was that shape of the helmet like the
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: US oldiers had that shape now, you know, where it's
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: cut lower around the ears instead of just a straight
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: you know, like the World War two helmet. But the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Nazis used those first, you know, because it's a better
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: design for war. And it also had a black iron
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: cross on the side of it.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Well hence the red baron, right.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was It's easy now as an adulta
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: look and say that looks like a little Nazi hot rod.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but the red baron was World War One. He
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: was pre Nazi Germany.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it was also I think at the time
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: just like looked like the biker gang would wear like
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: those helmet with the iron cross.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and all of it was Southern California hot rod culture. Yeah,
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: what gave rise to Hot Wheels, so it makes sense.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think there was any like sartitious intent.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So, like I said, right out of the gate,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: hot Wheels was a hit. They had a cartoon within
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: a year or so of the first sixteen being released. Sure,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: the second release they had I think twenty.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Two new cars, yeah, thirty three total.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: And then the third year they had another. They released
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: thirty three after that, right.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, I'm sorry, thirty three by nineteen seventy.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: So they did sixteen, twenty four and then thirty three
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: and all of them came in like different colors, right, So,
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: like I said, if you had one, that didn't mean
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: you had them all. You wanted to collect them all.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: So kids were going crazy for it. And another way
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: that Mattel very wisely targeted children was to get in
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: with fast food. In nineteen seventy, the first Hot Wheels
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: came out as a toy at Jack in the Boxes.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Oh really Yeah.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: The big one though, the one that put them over
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: the top, was in nineteen eighty three when kids who
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: were lucky enough to be taken to McDonald's for dinner.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: The happy meal exactly hot Wheel.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: Which is what they called of at the time, Uh,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: or could get one of fourteen hot wheels. Yeah, in
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: nineteen eighty three, and they had some cool once. They
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: had a Chevy citation.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Did they really?
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they had one that was one of my favorite. Actually.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: It was a Toyota Mini Trek, which is like a
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: station wagon camper and it even said painted on the side,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: good time Camper that you could get in your happy meal,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: which if I could have one hot wheel, it would
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: probably be that.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: You know what they were doing now that I look
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: back through my adult.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Eyes, like snorting pot.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: No, they were giving you a bunch of crappy ones
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: because you wanted to keep coming back to get the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: cool one.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Probably you're like, ah, I got a citation, like, can
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I go back because I want to get the hot rod? Right,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: That's exactly what they were doing. Sure, man, I feel
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: so like manipulated.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: What did you think they were doing with happy Meals?
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I know it was all manipulation to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: get you to try and own all of them, right,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: but they should have been all cool ones. But you
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: can't do that because the regular kid might be like, no,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I got the cool one. I'm fine. But if you
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: get the citation, you feel jipped off and you really
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: want to go back and get one of the hot rods. Yeah,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: it's my eyes are wide open, my friends.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: Well, that's why our friends down under in Australia have
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: like outlawed marketing directly to children, which I think is
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: a fantastic mode. Really, yeah, that's so unfair to market
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: directly to children. It's just almost literally is like taking
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: candy from a baby. Like kids aren't sophisticated enough to
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: psychologically defend themselves from being like bombarded with by adults
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: to say, go tell your parents to buy you this.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: You can't function correctly without this trapper keeper, so go
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: get it.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: The traffic keeper.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: What do they make a law?
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Really yeah, it's a big one, very progressive law.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Big all countries should adopt.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Well. In nineteen eighty three, I agree wholeheartedly. By the way,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty three is when that happy meal thing happened.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And also the same year they moved from Hong Kong
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to Malaysia, and it said that's when they added their
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: economy cars, so that must have coincided with the citation.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the citation man one of the most disappointing Happy
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Meal toys you could possibly.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Get, Yeah, because it reminded you of your dad, who
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: drove a citation.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Right, who was always mad.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, dear so Chuckers.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Yes, After nineteen eighty three, not a lot happened. Hot
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Oils just kept going on, expanding more and more and more.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: I think they had another Happy Meals joint in ninety
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: one or something like that. And in nineteen ninety five
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: they said, we need, we need to do something big,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: and they did. They were at least something called Treasure
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Hunt series, which was a purposefully limited release car series
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: of cars. Yeah. I think they did twelve models at
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: ten thousand each originally, and hence the name Treasure Hunt.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: They are hard to find.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And one of the cooler ones for me was
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the Oldsmobile for forty two.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. The thing is neat.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: A dude at my church had a four forty two
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and it was just awesome, man. He was he had
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: like the only muscle car in the youth group. And years,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: like two years ago, my brother I was talking about
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: this dude, Jason Singleton. I was like, whatever happened to him?
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: He's like, oh, he still lives in the so and so,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and he went and you know what, dude, I went,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: no went, He still got it.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, why would you get rid of it?
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: He still has the car. Went to his Facebook page
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and it is like the center of his life. I'm
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: sure it's his baby. I mean, he's had that thing
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: since like nineteen eighty six and just it's juiced up
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and he's just gre the daylights out of me and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: that thing. But it was also exhilarating, you know, to
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: be riding with him and he you know, like two
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: hundred feet of drag. He would lay like power breaking
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: and he would get like four sets of tires a year.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: He'd be in the passenger seat going saved me Jesus.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was very scared because I was you know,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: I didn't flirt with the wild side back then.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: No, so Oldsmobile four forty two is as close as
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: you got.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Yep. It was exhilarating.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: And then so that was nineteen ninety five. This treasure
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Hunt thing kind of went. It didn't go exactly as plan.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Mattel was like, oh, we could make even more money
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: if we put these into a wider release. Yeah, So
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: the original ten thousand releases were redoing again and again
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: and again. So treasure hunt kind of became commonplace, sure,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: but it was a good idea and it tapped into
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: this whole idea of collecting. Like Mattel was like, we
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: know you're out there, and we're going to design these
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: just for you. Yeah, and we'll talk more about collectors,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: but just to kind of button up the history of
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Hot Wheels, it all came full circle in nineteen ninety
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: six when Mattel bought Tycho and hence Hot Wheels bought Matchbox.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: So they're all owned by Mattel at this point. Yes,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: all right, we'll get to the design and collecting it
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: right after this. So back then, if you wanted to
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: do a smaller version of a larger car and scale
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: it down, you didn't have computer aided design and stuff.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you might have had a blueprint, which helped, but
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: sometimes you just had to get out there in the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: parking lot with the tape measure yeah, and just take
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: some measurements and then you know, be good at math,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: right basically.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: And like like we said, Harry Bradley, who's the daddy
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: of the Hot Wheels designs, who's the guy who did
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: the first sixteen He was a GM designer. Originally in
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: his footsteps followed Howard Reese and then after that Larry
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: would and they those are some of like the legendary
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Hot Wheels designers.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: That's the Mount Rushmore of hot wheels pretty much.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah and yeah. They would just literally go out and
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: measure these things. And that was one way that hot
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: wheels were born. Another way was that And this definitely
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: differentiates Hot Wheels from match Box is that there are
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: hot Wheels that only exist in the Hot Wheels world.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: They they are called the fantasy cars, like they're just
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: the designer's imagination come to life.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Right Whereas match Box only I believe, has bread trucks exactly, Well,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: they only have cars that are based on real cars,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: right right.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: Hot Wheels has a whole fantasy line.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that they're owned byes of the same company
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: still and they just have kept that distinction. Yeah, you know,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I guess some people are Matchbox kids and some kids
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: are Hot Wheels kids. I had both. I think I
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: had a bread truck.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: Is that why you keep going to the bread truck?
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Well, no, I didn't have a bread truck, but I
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: do remember having a couple of like weird utility type vehicles.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Huh huh. That I don't remember. There were probably gifts
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: or stocking stuffers or something.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Huh.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think I like sought it out.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: I was always into Tonka trucks. I thought Tonko was great.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: They were obviously much bigger, but those were like construction vehicles,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: like dump trucks and stuff like that. And still today
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: that Volvo dump truck, the giant one, yeah, with the
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: huge wheels, I think is one of the coolest vehicles
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: ever created. Yeah, I think I had one of those.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: When I was a kid.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't have a lot of Tonka stuff. One of
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: my favorite hot wheels though, was the little red Express truck.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: I don't remember that if.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: You saw it, you might it might a bell that
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: was basically uh, I can't remember what kind of truck
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: it was. I think it was a Dodge, but it
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: was just a cool red step side pickup truck and
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: it had the two vertical mufflers on each side that
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: went up above the truck.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I think I know what you're talking about.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's really cool. And if you go to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the the Peterson Automotive Museum in La oh, yeah, They
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: have a really cool exhibit there that I haven't been
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: to in person, but I was looking at it, a
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: line permanent exhibit where they have the real life versions
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of the hot wheel cars and they have a little
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: red express truck, a full size one. Yeah, and I
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: saw it and I was like.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Whoa, did you just die from nostalgia?
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Look might have teered up a little bit at the desk,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: but they have, you know, the the gussied up corvettes
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: with the big chrome engines coming out of the hood.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: And do they have the four to four to two.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they have the four forty two.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: But I'm very well, when your friend dies, but it's
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: in his will.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I'll go straight to the muse. Yeah, I'm gonna go
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: to this thing though at some point I don't know,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: on this next LA trip or not. But it's right
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: there near the labri of tarpets. I think, oh yeah,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: so I want to go check it out.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: I've been there. Yeah, it's neat.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: It is neat. But back to the design. These days,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna need a tape measure and stuff like that.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You're gonna photoshop designs and you're gonna even get a
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: three D printer to your prototype.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: That had to have helped them tremendously. Yeah, because you know,
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: with if you're designing real life cars and you have
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: a three D printer, that's pretty handy, but with Hot Wheels, like,
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: you can print out pretty much exactly what it's gonna
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: look like. Sure, and once they have the the prototype done,
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: they'll make them. They'll make a mold out of it
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: and then inject it with molten metal under tremendous pressure. Yeah,
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: and that's why it's called die cast. You create a
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: dye that you cast all of the ensuing ones from.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think they're made with less metal than
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: they used to be, but they they still have metal components, right.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I haven't seen a new one in a while.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: I haven't either, but I'm almost positive they do. And
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: apparently they're still about like a dollar. Oh really Yeah.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: I was on the Hot Wheels collector site today and
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: like they kept making reference to about a dollar. So
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: just what's called the mainline? Yeah, the ones that they
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: make on mass.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: The citation exactly.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: I'll bet if you've got your hands on that nineteen
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: eighty three citation it'd be worth a few books. You're right,
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: but they kept referring to the mainline stuff about a dollar.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Well, they've just kept making their manufacturing cheaper and cheaper,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: so they've maintained that cost. I guess. Yeah. So as
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: far as collecting goes, the most valuable and that is
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: not this crazy one made out of diamonds for the
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: fortieth anniversary, which we'll talk about in a minute, But
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the most valuable regular hot wheel is the sixty eight
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: beach Bomb, which was a VW bus and hot pink
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: that had real surfboard stick it out of the back.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Originally they only released I think twenty five of
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: them like that. There were a couple of problems. It
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: was difficult to manufacture them with the surfboard sticking on
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: the back, even though it was more realistic sure, and
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: it also was terrible on like a loopy loop track, yeah,
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: because I guess the surfboards would either way them down
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: or it would get stuck. So they only made just
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: a few of these things. The beach Bomb that was
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: the highest selling the hogh Wheels ever, was a pink one.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: They made even fewer of those because apparently a lot
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: of boys were like, oh, I'm not playing with some
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: pink van, even if it does have cool surfboards sticking
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: out of the back. So the thing sold for like,
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: I think seventy something seventy five thousand dollars in two thousand,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: and it has since sold again in twenty eleven. I
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: saw in like LA magazine for like one hundred and
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: twenty five thousand.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot of money for a tiny little car.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah it is. And that's the highest one ever apparently
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: by a long shot too.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean I've seen others that were worth like
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: ten grand and stuff, Like I think one of those
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: four to forty two originals is like ten grand.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess like nineteen seventy mongoose or cobra are
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: worth about ten grand these days, and a lot of them,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: just like with any collector's item, you'll see if there
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: was just a few of them made, obviously they're gonna
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: be worth a lot more if there was something that
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: where they adjusted the design, like for example, the python
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: was originally called the Cheetah. Yeah, and then they found
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: out that a real life executive with real life lawyers
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: at GM owned the name Cheetah, because apparently GM executives
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: just owned names for cars that could potentially be.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Used like every anifast animal name.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: Right, exactly. Yeah, so they changed it to the python,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: but that was after they'd started manufacturing the cheetah. So
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: there's some out there that say Cheetah stamped on the bottom,
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: and if you have one of those, it's for ten.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny to think about. It's the same with
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Star Wars, like sometimes the mistake ones are the ones
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: that are super valuable because like there was some recall,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: but they're like, oh, but you want that one because
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: the Boba FET's rocket really shot out before kids started
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: joking on them, right or catching on fire. Yeah, and
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: that's the one you want. Yeah, But like you said,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: it's all about scarcity and supplying to man.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: Dude. This whole thing is reminded me of a really
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: great gallery I put together about hilarious knockoff toys.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Oh that's a good one.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, go to stuff youshould know dot com and look
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: that up. It's pretty awesome. There's some really strange interpretations
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: of beloved toys, including Star Wars toys, that people who
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: make counterfeit toys come up with to try to skirt
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: trademark law. Maybe or something or else. They just fully
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: don't understand the toy and what it's a lure is,
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: so they just make it in this weird interpretation. It's
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: pretty hilarious stuff.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good one. We'll post that again, okay.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: And then I did mention the diamond studded one. I
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: always think these things are just ridiculous. But like to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: take any like of the diamond studded bras it was worth,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: you know, oh yeah, for million bucks. I just always
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: think it's kind of dumb. But they did make a
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: fortieth anniversary in edition in nineteen I'm sorry, in two
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: thousand and eight with twenty seven hundred little diamonds and
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: rubies for tail lights and black diamonds for the tires
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Eighteen care at white cold body.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: But it's where the one hundred and forty or it costs
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: one hundred and forty thousand dollars to put together.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: I'm sure it's gaudy. It's a gaudy hot wheels. Yeah,
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: so the car's cool. It looks like Mad Max's car.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Oh you get is that a picture of it?
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I don't think I saw that.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Can you identify that car? Uh?
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: What is that looks familiar? It does look familiar to
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: its sort of like a Dolorean, but I don't think
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: I don't think so either.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: No, man, that new Mad Max looks good though.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: Are you making Mad Max?
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Well, there's a new reboot I guess is what they
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: call it these days?
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: Cool? Who's in it?
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: What's his face that played Bain So? Yeah, Tom, Tom?
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: What's no? But uh, it looks it's the same director,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Tom Hardy. Yeah, Tom Hardy. But it's the same director
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: from all the Mad Max series. So it's oh really yeah, yeah,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: yeah wow, And it just looks it's the whole it's
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: supposed to be just like one long intense chase battle.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sounds a lot like a Mad Max movie.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Yep, what you want?
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Have you ever seen Vanishing Point?
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: I think so? What is that?
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: It was? Like, Man, I can't remember the car, but
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: the car was basically the Star. It was on long
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: car chase from like I think Colorado to California.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: It's a good one from the seventies.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, two lane Blacktops Challenger.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: It's another the car. Yeah, I haven't seen that one.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good. When that one weirdly had James Taylor
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: in it when he was young and like on drugs
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: and cool.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Were they apologizing to France?
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they deal was.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: Did you hear about that? No, so that whole Charlie
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: Hebdoh Solidarity March the US sent like, yeah, I think
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: the assistant that could be in charge of the USDA
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: or something like that. Yeah, So to apologize, John Carey
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: had James Taylor go to France to perform. You've got
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: a French shut up for the French government.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just talk about beer. I know, isn't it send
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: guns n' roses or something at least well not guns n'
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: roses from nineteen eighty eight.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: Any guns n' roses? Man. One more thing about collecting.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: If you wanted to be the coolest collector of hot
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: wheels on the planet, you would have to build a
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: time machine and go back to nineteen eighty seven to
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: my hometown of Toledo, Ohio, which is where the first
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: ever hot Wheels Convention Collector's Convention was held. I really
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: wish I would have gone to that because I was
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: there at the time. What year was it, eighty seven?
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, yeah, I can't believe we sent James Tayler
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: still just like, yeah, I can't focus on anything.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: Well, if you want to know more about James Taylor,
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: hot wheels, or just about anything there is in the universe,
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: you can type it into the search bar at HowStuffWorks
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: dot com. And since I said search, bart's time for
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: listener mail.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this minimum wage argument not argument proposal.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Listened to How Homelessness Works from quite a few years ago,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and you guys commented that part of the problem was
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: a low minimum wage. In comparison the cost of renting
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: a two bedroom apartment, you'd have to work something like
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: eighty seven per hours eighty seven hours per week to
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: afford it, the implication we need to raise minimum wage.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: After hearing this, a clear solution occurred to me. I
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: think disagreements on raising minimum wage as a result with
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: simple misunderstanding. On the raise side, people believe this wage
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: should be set at a level that would allow someone
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: to raise a few children and live a modest but
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: reasonably comfortable level, or at least a safe level. On
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: the don't raise it side, people believe minimum wage is
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: just a starting point for working, like for teenagers, at
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: their summer job or after school. This ide believes workers
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: should were never intended to and should not expect to
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: be able to support a family that pays minimum wage.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: So here's my solution. Since we're a democracy here, let's
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: just decide what it is supposed to accomplish and then
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: set it at the appropriate level to do that. If
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: we decide it's a nation that someone should be able
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: to raise a family rent a two bedroom apartment while
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: earning a wage minimum wage, let's just figure out what
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: that would cost and set the wage there. Figure in rent, clothing, food, utilities, transportation, etc.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Let's say it's twenty seven grand per year, then set
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: it at that rate. On the other hand, if we
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: as a nation decide that minimum wage is just a
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: starting point, not meant to support a family. It's intended
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: for people with no work history or experience and low
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: to no marketable skills, and we need to set minimum
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: wage at a relatively low level and let the market.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: The free market will ultimately determine the wage for entry
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: level workers, and workers historically have been able to increase
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: compensation by gaining skills and good work history. With a settle,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: any argument about setting minimum wage at a living wage
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: would be mistaken because we all just decided that people
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: are not meant to live on minimum wage and certainly
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: not meant to support a family. That is from Joe
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Prohaska in Reno, Nevada, and its interesting. I look forward
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: to seeing the rebuttal emails.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's a
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: great proposal. I mean, I think that is what it's
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: based on.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Sure, but as far.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: As I know, the cost of living calculations are really
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: date Yeah, and take a lot of stuff into account
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: that doesn't really apply any longer.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Plus, regardless of what you think it should or should
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: not be, the fact is, adults with two kids are
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: still going to be working these jobs. It's not just
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: going to be teenagers looking to advance.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: But it would be nice to put that issue to bed,
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: to say, like, this is what we're trying to achieve,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: or this is not what we're trying to achieve. At
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: the very least you get everybody talking.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because should some teenager at his first job make
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: like fourteen bucks an hour?
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's sending the right message either.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know we'll leave it up
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: to you guys, our dear listeners.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: When I started working, it was like three bucks an
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: hour or something. It was ridiculously low.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: That is ridiculously low. Yeah, if you want to let
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: us know how you feel about Joe's proposal, was it Joe?
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I believe it was Joe Reno, Joe Reno Joe.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: You can tweet to us at sysk podcast. You can
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: post it on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: You can put it in an email. It's stuff podcast
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: at HowStuffWorks dot com, and just for kicks, you can
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: hang around our home on the web Stuff you Should
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: Know dot com.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Hey, friends, just want to let you know our friends
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  Speaker 1: at Squarespace have partnered with the dude Jeff Bridges and
• 41:30
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• 41:34
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• 41:46
  Speaker 1: It's really neat. And he's also the Face of No
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  Speaker 1: going on.