Latest / Stuff You Should Know / What is a Mold-A-Rama?

Transcript

What is a Mold-A-Rama? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, if you live in Boston, d C. St. Louis, Cleveland,
0:04
Speaker 1: and Denver, we are coming to see you. That's right,
0:07
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know live, brand new topic. So if
0:10
Speaker 1: you're traveling from a nearby state where you've seen us before,
0:13
Speaker 1: this will be new and exciting and awesome. Yep. On
0:16
Speaker 1: March fourth and fifth, we're going to be in Boston
0:18
Speaker 1: and d C. On May twenty two and twenty three,
0:21
Speaker 1: we're gonna be in St. Louis and Cleveland, and then
0:23
Speaker 1: on June we're going to be in Englewood, meaning Denver, Colorado.
0:28
Speaker 1: So come see us and you can get tickets and
0:30
Speaker 1: information at s y s K live dot com. Welcome
0:35
Speaker 1: to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
0:45
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
0:48
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there, and
0:51
Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know. A rama. You know,
0:58
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny that you did that little do
1:01
Speaker 1: to do, because I'm gonna go ahead and plug this
1:05
Speaker 1: right off the top. We're doing this show in Molder Rama,
1:10
Speaker 1: which spoiler is a machine that makes that made and
1:15
Speaker 1: still makes these little plastic things but has maybe one
1:20
Speaker 1: of the worst trade names ever, moldor rama. Yeah, so
1:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead and plug this. There's a YouTube
1:25
Speaker 1: video from this young lady um where she shows off
1:30
Speaker 1: her molder rama um little plastic toys that she's collected
1:35
Speaker 1: carpet bagger dot org molder Rama. Just look up that YouTube.
1:40
Speaker 1: She is adorable and she's the best. And when she
1:43
Speaker 1: um shows her suitcase full of moldar Rama plastic toys,
1:46
Speaker 1: she does a little song and it's just adorable and great.
1:49
Speaker 1: I gotta check that out. I saw her use one
1:52
Speaker 1: of the Disney Disneyland toy factory molder ramas. I saw that,
1:58
Speaker 1: so I know who you're talking about. She's great. So um,
2:01
Speaker 1: that was nice of you, Chuck. Well, let's wait for
2:04
Speaker 1: everybody to come back from watching her YouTube video show.
2:07
Speaker 1: Let's wait for I think five or six minutes and done. Yes,
2:12
Speaker 1: time passes faster here. Stuff you should know, doesn't it?
2:14
Speaker 1: It does. I'm eighty years old, so so with you.
2:19
Speaker 1: Like you said, mold Rama, it is a I've seen
2:22
Speaker 1: it described as a factory in a case. I thought
2:26
Speaker 1: that was a pretty apt description. But for those of
2:28
Speaker 1: you who don't know, it is UM basically an on
2:32
Speaker 1: demand UM injection blow molded plastic toy dispenser. That is
2:39
Speaker 1: that that's a technical definition for And while that might
2:42
Speaker 1: not make sense yet, it all will make sense in
2:45
Speaker 1: about thirty or so minutes. All right, how about this
2:48
Speaker 1: picture this? All right? Let's start over? Should we wait?
2:51
Speaker 1: Should we edit my part out? Don't know, Let's leave
2:54
Speaker 1: this all in? Alright, picture this. You walk into a room.
2:59
Speaker 1: Let's say it's the Sears Tower. Now Willis Tower? Is
3:03
Speaker 1: it Willis? Oh? Yeah, that was Willis Tower, Sears Tower?
3:07
Speaker 1: Who keeps calling it Willis Tower? Stop that Sears Tower?
3:11
Speaker 1: Or a or a a world's fair or something. Um.
3:16
Speaker 1: And there is a machine that looks sort of like
3:18
Speaker 1: a jukebox from fifty ft away. Oh yeah, that's a good,
3:21
Speaker 1: good way. And then you walk up closer to it
3:23
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh wait, what is this weird mechanical thing?
3:26
Speaker 1: Let me put in fifty cents, and right before your
3:29
Speaker 1: very eyes, it will mechanically create a little plastic toy
3:35
Speaker 1: of an alien or a building, or a lion at
3:39
Speaker 1: a zoo, and it will spit it out, and you
3:42
Speaker 1: will say that was just melted from plastic and molded
3:46
Speaker 1: and shaped and given to me right in front of
3:48
Speaker 1: my eyes. What a fun neat thing. And you'll say
3:51
Speaker 1: all this after you recover from fainting from the fumes
3:54
Speaker 1: of melted plastic, and then get up and get your
3:57
Speaker 1: toy out, which is good because they say that you
3:59
Speaker 1: should wait a half a minute for your toy to
4:02
Speaker 1: cool before you grab it from the mold. Rama, right.
4:06
Speaker 1: I think that was a pretty good job. You just
4:08
Speaker 1: did it describing it. And I think this is super
4:11
Speaker 1: neat because this reminds me of a bygone era, like
4:15
Speaker 1: where I went to Nashville recently and went to Jack
4:18
Speaker 1: White's Third Man Records, and he has one of those
4:21
Speaker 1: booths where you can go in and record a record.
4:25
Speaker 1: Would you record? Well, I didn't do it. I chickened out.
4:29
Speaker 1: What I wanted to do was go in and sing
4:31
Speaker 1: a little song for my daughter and give it to
4:33
Speaker 1: her as a record. And I was thinking, like, what
4:35
Speaker 1: could I do? What do I know in my brain
4:37
Speaker 1: by heart? Because I have a little guitar you can
4:39
Speaker 1: take in there, and it was such a small room
4:41
Speaker 1: and it was in the room with everything else, and
4:44
Speaker 1: I just got weirdly shy, like I don't want you
4:48
Speaker 1: to hear me, you got shy. Jack White made you shy? Huh. Yeah.
4:53
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do it in front of people.
4:54
Speaker 1: Like if there was literally no one in there, I
4:56
Speaker 1: would have cut ten records. Oh I got you. You
4:58
Speaker 1: should have stuck your head on been like, can you
5:00
Speaker 1: all just leave for a little while? Just trust me.
5:03
Speaker 1: But anyway, this reminds me of those days gone by
5:06
Speaker 1: where you could cut your own record, or you know,
5:09
Speaker 1: they had these really cool machines at fairs and things
5:13
Speaker 1: that they just I mean, now, I guess you can
5:16
Speaker 1: still get your picture taken and printed digitally. Or the
5:19
Speaker 1: Penny smasher that's still around two. I see that compared
5:22
Speaker 1: to this a lot. Yeah, those are cool, not really,
5:25
Speaker 1: but still there's it's an app comparison. I will just say,
5:28
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that my brother doesn't have a molder Rama
5:30
Speaker 1: in his basement. So I am too, because there's a
5:33
Speaker 1: guy who collects these things called Moldville, and I saw
5:37
Speaker 1: videos of his collection. Did you see this. It's like
5:41
Speaker 1: a warehouse full of mint condition mold a Rama machines.
5:45
Speaker 1: This guy must be richer than an astronaut. He's got
5:49
Speaker 1: so many of these machines. Um, and you're right about this.
5:53
Speaker 1: It evoking the memories of a bygone era. But what's crazy, Chuck,
5:57
Speaker 1: is that these things are still in use today. You
6:00
Speaker 1: confined them all over the country and they're still working
6:03
Speaker 1: and there. This is what's amazing to me. They are
6:06
Speaker 1: the original machines that were made for about a seven
6:10
Speaker 1: year period during the nineteen sixties. Every mold Aama machine
6:14
Speaker 1: that you might encounter, including ten at the Toledo Zoo
6:18
Speaker 1: by the way, Um, we're built in the sixties and
6:22
Speaker 1: have been operational ever since. Do we talk about the history, Well,
6:26
Speaker 1: first let me ask you this, do you have did
6:28
Speaker 1: you did you ever use a Moldorama when you were
6:30
Speaker 1: a kid? No? Oh, you didn't know. And I'm dying
6:34
Speaker 1: now to go do one as an adult. So they're
6:37
Speaker 1: still around, they're still around. Okay, I actually I got
6:41
Speaker 1: one that there's this thing in Toledo called well actually
6:44
Speaker 1: it's in Mamma, which is a suburb of Toledo, but
6:47
Speaker 1: it's called the Children's Wonderland and it's like this amazing
6:51
Speaker 1: three D Christmas walk through diorama. Basically that just nothing
6:56
Speaker 1: can put you in the Christmas spirit as a kid
6:58
Speaker 1: better than Children's Wonderland. And at the end of this
7:01
Speaker 1: there was a mold Arama machine and it made a gold,
7:06
Speaker 1: smelly plastic e angel. It was kind of boring, boring
7:10
Speaker 1: Christmas angel, but it was mine and I was so
7:13
Speaker 1: glad to have it. And I have no idea what
7:15
Speaker 1: happened to it. I'm sure it broke pretty quickly, but
7:17
Speaker 1: I was like, holy cow, I've had one of these before.
7:19
Speaker 1: I had no idea what it was called, that it
7:21
Speaker 1: was molder Rama, but I looked it up and actually
7:23
Speaker 1: found the angel. Well, I think that's the cool thing
7:26
Speaker 1: about these as a kid is it's not putting your
7:31
Speaker 1: your quarter in a gumball machine and seeing all those
7:33
Speaker 1: things and one of them falls out. This is made
7:36
Speaker 1: just for you, right in front of your face. Pretty cool.
7:40
Speaker 1: All right, So now can we go back in time? Yeah, yeah,
7:42
Speaker 1: I'm done. I'm done nostalgizing. Alright, Wait, what is it reminiscing? Okay,
7:48
Speaker 1: nostalgizing I think it's a word, right it is? Now
7:51
Speaker 1: all right, we're going back to seven in the winter
7:55
Speaker 1: when one J. H. Miller Tyke is his nickname. I
7:59
Speaker 1: don't of what that comes from. Was he little? I
8:02
Speaker 1: don't know, not that I saw because it's spelled differently.
8:05
Speaker 1: T I k E. Yeah, I don't know what it
8:07
Speaker 1: means anyway, of Quincy, Illinois, Um, he was he made figurines.
8:13
Speaker 1: He and his wife made figurines, and they needed a
8:16
Speaker 1: replacement for his Nativity scene. I guess his little baby
8:21
Speaker 1: Jesus was decapitated by his dog. He needed a new
8:24
Speaker 1: one and he couldn't find a place to sell him
8:27
Speaker 1: just one little piece. Yeah, you gotta buy the whole
8:31
Speaker 1: Nativity scene. And he was like, what am I gonna
8:33
Speaker 1: do with that? Yeah, he said, I just needed one.
8:36
Speaker 1: And you couldn't understand the department stores position, Like if
8:39
Speaker 1: they sell you just one piece, there's a whole set
8:41
Speaker 1: that they can't sell because he wants that set without
8:44
Speaker 1: the one piece, right, unless it's like maybe a donkey
8:47
Speaker 1: maybe I remember the donkey. That was a good one though.
8:50
Speaker 1: That was one of my favorites as a kid. But anyway,
8:53
Speaker 1: he and his wife said, here's what we're gonna do.
8:55
Speaker 1: We're gonna take these lemons and make them into lemonade
8:57
Speaker 1: in the form of making our own little plaster replacement figure.
9:02
Speaker 1: And apparently they were pretty good at it, because they
9:04
Speaker 1: ended up doing this for a living and founding a
9:06
Speaker 1: company doing this because the Germans evidently had the market
9:10
Speaker 1: cornered on nativity pieces, and when World War two came around,
9:14
Speaker 1: they said nine for you, right, and we had a shortage. Yeah.
9:20
Speaker 1: We all we wanted was liberty figures is what they
9:24
Speaker 1: called them during World War two, not in nativity because
9:27
Speaker 1: the Germans had supplied us with nativity figures, so American
9:30
Speaker 1: may once you could call liberty figures that like freedom
9:33
Speaker 1: price right. I think they actually called sauer Kraut liberty cabbage.
9:37
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. So so the the tyke and his
9:42
Speaker 1: wife established this company and UM in World War two.
9:46
Speaker 1: That really kind of grew because they cornered the market
9:49
Speaker 1: and they just kept going from there. And then about
9:52
Speaker 1: ten years after World War two they decided to move
9:56
Speaker 1: from plaster and by the way, he started selling UM
9:59
Speaker 1: nativity figures individual ones to those same department stores who
10:03
Speaker 1: would only sell them sets before, which I think is
10:05
Speaker 1: kind of sweet revenge. UM. But they moved from plaster
10:09
Speaker 1: figures to plastic and got into UM a type of
10:14
Speaker 1: injection molding where uh air is blown into it, which
10:18
Speaker 1: saves on plastic and creates a lightweight plastic figurine and really, honestly,
10:24
Speaker 1: nothing says nineteen fifties Midwest more than plastic nativity figures,
10:31
Speaker 1: you know, probably made by a man named Tyke. Uh Yeah,
10:35
Speaker 1: And I mean they did pretty well for a little while.
10:37
Speaker 1: I guess. I'm not sure exactly when the company was founded,
10:40
Speaker 1: but if the seven he came up with this idea
10:43
Speaker 1: and they went bankrupt in nineteen fifty nine, they sounds
10:46
Speaker 1: like they added some good years in there. Yeah they did.
10:48
Speaker 1: But I and I did not see why they went bankrupt.
10:51
Speaker 1: I saw they were nothing but successful. I don't know.
10:53
Speaker 1: I don't know if maybe they sunk a bunch of
10:55
Speaker 1: money into these machines and it just didn't quite make
10:57
Speaker 1: it or what. But he was very six festival. He
11:00
Speaker 1: had a line of um plastic toys that kids would
11:04
Speaker 1: buy by the fistful at like the local five and
11:06
Speaker 1: dime or novelty store or something like that. And he
11:09
Speaker 1: had lines of like dinosaurs, um, I think toy soldiers.
11:14
Speaker 1: But the one that really put his company on the
11:16
Speaker 1: map as far as kids were concerned, we're called Earth invaders,
11:20
Speaker 1: also known as Miller Aliens, and there was a line
11:24
Speaker 1: of of um tons of them but the one that
11:28
Speaker 1: is still today the most prized of all was the
11:31
Speaker 1: Purple People Eater and it actually inspired that that song
11:35
Speaker 1: from the fifties, which I didn't realize that song was
11:37
Speaker 1: quite that old. But the song about the one eyed,
11:40
Speaker 1: one eared flying Purple People Leader, that was based on
11:43
Speaker 1: Tyke Miller's creation from the fifties. I think it was
11:46
Speaker 1: the other way around. I don't think so. I think
11:50
Speaker 1: the song was based on the figure this says hear.
11:53
Speaker 1: The Purple People Eater was inspired by the hit song
11:57
Speaker 1: Oh I saw. I read that as the opposite thinks
12:00
Speaker 1: a good catch. I think that's the case because that
12:02
Speaker 1: song was a big hit and they were all manner
12:05
Speaker 1: of Purple People Eater souvenirs and things. It was. It
12:10
Speaker 1: was a big business back then. Thank you for that one.
12:13
Speaker 1: No problem. We would have gotten some email from like
12:15
Speaker 1: three people on that. Tyke's great grandson, little Tyke um
12:20
Speaker 1: So in Fife or sixty they went bankrupt and it
12:22
Speaker 1: was right around this time where he said, all right,
12:24
Speaker 1: I've got this idea for an actual vending machine that
12:27
Speaker 1: couldn't make these things on demand. And he was successful.
12:32
Speaker 1: He licensed this thing actually to what would eventually become
12:36
Speaker 1: a Merra Mark, which everyone knows that's that company is
12:39
Speaker 1: still around. At the time, they were called the Automatic
12:42
Speaker 1: Retailers of America. And he developed these machines with them,
12:46
Speaker 1: and in in nineteen sixty two at the Seattle World's
12:49
Speaker 1: Fair they premiered. They're doing little space needles and monorails
12:54
Speaker 1: and Buddhists and Buddhists for like fifty cents, which is
12:56
Speaker 1: about four bucks today. So it was not a little
13:00
Speaker 1: cheap thing. It's not like sticking a diamond a machine
13:03
Speaker 1: today right now. They were definitely expensive, um, but they
13:07
Speaker 1: were a huge hit at that Seattle World's Fair. That
13:11
Speaker 1: was what nineteen sixty two. So in nineteen sixty four
13:15
Speaker 1: at the New York World's Fair they blew up. They
13:19
Speaker 1: went from a couple of machines in Seattle, I guess
13:21
Speaker 1: three machines in Seattle too, as many as a hundred
13:25
Speaker 1: and fifty at the New York World's Fair from nineteen
13:28
Speaker 1: sixty four in nineteen sixty five. And even more than
13:32
Speaker 1: than just having that many more machines, they also had
13:35
Speaker 1: Brandon machines. Right. So like if you were a company
13:38
Speaker 1: like Sinclair Oil or Disney and you wanted to just
13:42
Speaker 1: kind of give people an extra little amazing experience. You
13:46
Speaker 1: could license in brand your own um mold a rama
13:51
Speaker 1: and they had plenty of those at the World's Fair,
13:54
Speaker 1: some some pretty cool ones too. Yeah. So, like you said,
13:58
Speaker 1: anywhere from Disneyland to Montreal's World Expo. And that's the
14:02
Speaker 1: cool thing, is that disney World or Disneyland that could
14:06
Speaker 1: be I think they were some of the characters that
14:09
Speaker 1: were actually acting like they were working the machine. It's
14:12
Speaker 1: kind of clever. Or if you know, and you're in Montreal,
14:16
Speaker 1: it's going to be Canadian mounties or maybe an Eiffel Tower, right,
14:22
Speaker 1: if you could um contact the company, get them to
14:27
Speaker 1: make you your own um like uh signage I guess,
14:31
Speaker 1: to put on the machine, and then most importantly, they
14:35
Speaker 1: would sculpt and then manufacture a mold from that sculpture
14:38
Speaker 1: whatever you wanted, say your logo or your brand or
14:41
Speaker 1: something like that, some sort of statuette that had that
14:44
Speaker 1: you could set it up and and people would take
14:47
Speaker 1: home your little branded chot sky. It was. It was
14:50
Speaker 1: pretty cool. It was a big hit in the sixties
14:52
Speaker 1: and to air marker a r A at the time,
14:56
Speaker 1: they were like, well, this is great, but Apparently they
14:58
Speaker 1: were just looking at the whole thing as a proof
14:59
Speaker 1: of concept because they had their sights on not just
15:03
Speaker 1: like on demand novelties, but on demand everything like on
15:06
Speaker 1: demand dishware on demand, jewelry on demand, combs on demand,
15:10
Speaker 1: ash trays. That they felt like this was the future
15:13
Speaker 1: because at the time, you know, the early sixties, plastics
15:16
Speaker 1: was the future. It was every pretty soon everything was
15:20
Speaker 1: going to be made in plastic and no one was
15:22
Speaker 1: ever going to have cancer from it a day in
15:24
Speaker 1: their life. You know, there's a plastically optimistic time, that's right.
15:29
Speaker 1: And in the end, they manufactured about two hundred of
15:32
Speaker 1: these machines over seven year period. But by nine they said,
15:37
Speaker 1: you know what, A r A said, We're we're getting
15:39
Speaker 1: out of this moldor rama biz. Take a break. Uh yeah,
15:45
Speaker 1: We're gonna go pressed together our own little mouldy dinosaur
15:49
Speaker 1: and be right back alright, chuck. So are A gets
16:14
Speaker 1: out of the biz, and it's kind of understandable. So
16:17
Speaker 1: why there was There's a couple of big problems with
16:20
Speaker 1: Molderama machines. One, they're expensive to manufacture. They were like
16:24
Speaker 1: apparently thirty six d bucks per at the time. That
16:28
Speaker 1: was back in two, so just under thirty thou dollars today.
16:34
Speaker 1: And then also once you set these things up, they
16:37
Speaker 1: required almost constant attention. UM. You had to go refill
16:41
Speaker 1: them with plastic, you had to top off their fluids,
16:44
Speaker 1: you had to fix any parts, you had to keep
16:46
Speaker 1: them clean, you had to get gum off of them,
16:48
Speaker 1: because again these are interfacing with little kids. UM. So
16:53
Speaker 1: there was a lot of maintenance and upkeep to them
16:55
Speaker 1: as well. So Air Air remarks said we're done. In
16:58
Speaker 1: the seventies, they sold off their machine to UM a
17:01
Speaker 1: couple of different groups. Yeah, I mean, this is a
17:04
Speaker 1: mechanical like hydraulic machine that required like oil and anti freeze.
17:11
Speaker 1: It was it was no uh, I mean if it
17:14
Speaker 1: sounds like and I mean, I guess we can go
17:16
Speaker 1: into the process a little bit. It gets a little
17:19
Speaker 1: wonky for my taste. But um, I guess we should
17:22
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about how these actually work. Right, Yeah,
17:25
Speaker 1: we kind of have to and it'll be fine, I
17:27
Speaker 1: promise you. Ready, Well, I will say this. First of all,
17:31
Speaker 1: there are hydraulics and there are these these two molds,
17:35
Speaker 1: and you can go on YouTube and look at how
17:36
Speaker 1: these things work. It's pretty neat um. They these two molds,
17:40
Speaker 1: it's basically one half of the little toy on each
17:44
Speaker 1: side three like a three dimensional sculptured statue at Yeah.
17:48
Speaker 1: So they move toward each other with these hydraulics and
17:51
Speaker 1: they're pressed together, forms a big seal um and it
17:55
Speaker 1: ends up it ends up being hollow on the inside.
17:59
Speaker 1: That kind of a big point to make. It's like
18:02
Speaker 1: it's a negative of the sculpture. Yeah. So then there's
18:08
Speaker 1: a couple of holes in the bottom that lead into
18:12
Speaker 1: that sculpture cavity, and into that you inject hot plastic.
18:19
Speaker 1: Because one thing that a lot of people don't realize
18:21
Speaker 1: about the mold thematic is just beneath this the work
18:25
Speaker 1: surface that is the floor of what you can see
18:29
Speaker 1: below that is a vat of two hundred and twenty
18:33
Speaker 1: to two hundred and fifty degree fahrenh height molten plastic
18:37
Speaker 1: just sitting there, bubbling hot. Yeah. Little pellets. They feed
18:40
Speaker 1: it in little colored pellets. Although for a little while
18:43
Speaker 1: they actually had uh, just kind of neutral pellets that
18:46
Speaker 1: they use colored powder. But they at least wised up
18:50
Speaker 1: there and said, why don't we just color the pellets
18:52
Speaker 1: and just stick with the one color yep. And then
18:55
Speaker 1: so the system has a closed um steam system that
18:59
Speaker 1: runs hot theme through coils that runs through these plastic
19:03
Speaker 1: pellet that this plastic pellet vat and it melts the
19:08
Speaker 1: pellets and then keeps them molten. So then when that
19:11
Speaker 1: when the the the mold seals up above come together
19:16
Speaker 1: and form that seal, hot plastic is injected into the
19:22
Speaker 1: mold and fills it up right, hot plastic injection. Great
19:26
Speaker 1: band name. Uh. And then these things obviously have to
19:29
Speaker 1: be cooled pretty quick like in order for them to
19:33
Speaker 1: I mean, what solidify Is that the right word? Um?
19:37
Speaker 1: But when they do come out, like you said, they
19:39
Speaker 1: are warm, and um, I'm surprised. I mean, this seems
19:42
Speaker 1: like something that you could not create today without there
19:46
Speaker 1: being so much liability on your hands. Well, again, they
19:49
Speaker 1: still are in use. They you can still go to
19:51
Speaker 1: the Toledo Zoo, to zoos all over the Midwest in
19:54
Speaker 1: Florida and tourist attractions and rest stops and you will
19:57
Speaker 1: find these things still in use. It's just so funny
19:59
Speaker 1: to me that, like it literally says on the little
20:01
Speaker 1: door that you open, hold upside down while it cools,
20:05
Speaker 1: don't let the the molten plastic drip on little little
20:09
Speaker 1: Jimmy's hand. It's exactly right. So so we got the
20:12
Speaker 1: injection molding part done. But there's one step that we missed,
20:15
Speaker 1: and that's the blow part that makes an injection blow molding.
20:18
Speaker 1: And this is how these companies manage to actually make money.
20:23
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why the mold of rama
20:25
Speaker 1: chatskeys are so fragile is that they're hollow inside. So
20:30
Speaker 1: the the the the mold is filled with hot plastic
20:34
Speaker 1: and then compressed air is blown into it. And the
20:37
Speaker 1: compressed air does two things. One, it pushes the plastic
20:41
Speaker 1: against the mold so it completely covers it, and it
20:44
Speaker 1: takes on this the shape of the mold, right, and
20:48
Speaker 1: then it also blows the excess plastic out the bottom,
20:51
Speaker 1: so it's hollow, and then the excess plastic goes back
20:54
Speaker 1: into the vat reused exactly so it might use enough
21:00
Speaker 1: plastic at first to make ten of these things or
21:03
Speaker 1: five or something. I'm just totally guessing here, But then
21:06
Speaker 1: it reuses it by blowing it out the bottom and
21:09
Speaker 1: making it a hollow object rather than a solid one, right, okay,
21:14
Speaker 1: And then it comes out hot They say, wait, thirty
21:16
Speaker 1: seconds or half a minute, I think is how they
21:18
Speaker 1: put it and the reason why they say hold it
21:20
Speaker 1: upside downs because there's still that hole at the bottom
21:22
Speaker 1: that that little hot plastic can like you said, burned
21:25
Speaker 1: Timmy's hands. That's right. The smell, chuck. You've never smelled
21:30
Speaker 1: anything like it. Do you remember the smell? Yes, I
21:32
Speaker 1: can't remember the smell it was. It's it's at the
21:36
Speaker 1: same time pleasing and totally noxious. Interesting, Like as a kid,
21:40
Speaker 1: you're like, it smells weird and cool, but as an adult,
21:43
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'd be like, this is gonna kill my
21:45
Speaker 1: whole family and it's gonna kill my great grandchildren somehow. Well,
21:50
Speaker 1: back then, no one cared. No, they didn't, you know. Uh.
21:53
Speaker 1: And like we said, tons of upkeep. You know, you've
21:56
Speaker 1: got steam, you've got hydraulic fluid, you have anti freeze,
22:00
Speaker 1: sometimes cold water, but I would suspect anti freeze in
22:03
Speaker 1: most cases. Uh. And until the nineteen seventies, like I said,
22:08
Speaker 1: you had um powdered coloring. I mean, this whole thing
22:13
Speaker 1: is Uh. I'm surprising they didn't explode at any point. Yeah.
22:18
Speaker 1: One of the other things that I really admire about
22:20
Speaker 1: this is that again, the machines that are still in
22:23
Speaker 1: use today that still work just as well as ever today.
22:26
Speaker 1: We're built exclusively from nineteen sixty two to nineteen sixty
22:30
Speaker 1: nine when air Mark was making them, and then these
22:33
Speaker 1: things also because they put off these terrible fumes, they
22:37
Speaker 1: keep they're they're kept outside. So they've been sitting in
22:40
Speaker 1: the elements for fifty plus years and they still work,
22:44
Speaker 1: and they're they're pretty pretty well built machines, for sure.
22:47
Speaker 1: I think they've they've got some now that they have
22:49
Speaker 1: been able to move indoors. Yeah, if I'm using a
22:52
Speaker 1: different type of plastic, I think, yeah, that's crazy that
22:55
Speaker 1: these things had to be outside. Yeah, and they still are.
22:57
Speaker 1: Most of them are a lot of them have like
22:59
Speaker 1: kind of built in and little canopies over them or
23:02
Speaker 1: something like that. But if you look at the canopies
23:04
Speaker 1: you can tell they're kind of new. They've been outside
23:06
Speaker 1: basically for fifty years. I am so going to be
23:09
Speaker 1: on the lookout for these now. So there is a
23:12
Speaker 1: website Chuck called uh Way Marking w A Y M
23:17
Speaker 1: A r k I n G dot com. They have
23:20
Speaker 1: a comprehensive list of every single moldar rama in use
23:25
Speaker 1: today in the United States, and they have like actual
23:29
Speaker 1: like longitude and latitude coordinates if you wanted to, I
23:33
Speaker 1: guess geo cash your way to them. Well, what I
23:35
Speaker 1: want is an app that will text me when I'm
23:38
Speaker 1: within of one. Oh, that's a that's a good idea.
23:42
Speaker 1: There's a ten dollar app. Dollar app. I mean you
23:46
Speaker 1: would make ten dollars. Yeah, although people are crazy for
23:49
Speaker 1: these things, still is We'll see they're none in Atlanta, right,
23:53
Speaker 1: not that I saw no, But again there's a bunch
23:56
Speaker 1: of Toledo. I found the machine that I almost certainly
23:59
Speaker 1: got my angel from. They keep it in storage at
24:03
Speaker 1: Tama Shanner, which is an ice skating rink in um
24:07
Speaker 1: I guess a Scottish ice skating rink. I don't know,
24:09
Speaker 1: in in mam Meat, which is where they have Children's Wonderland.
24:13
Speaker 1: But I saw a picture of it and now it
24:14
Speaker 1: looks like the most recent thing it makes is polar bears.
24:17
Speaker 1: And your DNA is on that machine, still somewhere in
24:21
Speaker 1: the form of a wad of gum. All right, Well,
24:24
Speaker 1: let's take another break. We'll come back and talk a
24:26
Speaker 1: little bit about some of these fun figures and the
24:29
Speaker 1: people that are still trying to keep this tradition alive.
24:54
Speaker 1: All right, So here's the thing that I wanted to know,
24:58
Speaker 1: and that our article didn't get to till three quarters
25:00
Speaker 1: the way through. I was like, can do they have
25:03
Speaker 1: different things for each machine? The answer, sadly is no.
25:06
Speaker 1: If it spits out a dinosaur, it can only spit
25:09
Speaker 1: out a dinosaur unless you change up that mold. Yes,
25:12
Speaker 1: but you can change the color and you'll have a
25:15
Speaker 1: different color dinosaur. Well until they started using the single
25:18
Speaker 1: color pellets, right, Well, no, then they just put in
25:22
Speaker 1: a different color when they refill the thing, and all
25:24
Speaker 1: of a sudden it went from a purple dinosaur to
25:26
Speaker 1: a green dinosaur. Right, But could you say purple and
25:29
Speaker 1: hit a purple button or it's whatever the kid who
25:32
Speaker 1: worked there decided to put in that morning. That's exactly right.
25:34
Speaker 1: The thing is, though, is is and again it's not
25:37
Speaker 1: even just the toy that comes out. The toy is,
25:40
Speaker 1: especially as a kid, invariably disappointing, sure, but it's the
25:44
Speaker 1: process is watching this thing happen, and the mold mold
25:48
Speaker 1: Arama machines will have like little little different lights that
25:52
Speaker 1: light up like now we're cooling, Now we're about to
25:55
Speaker 1: launch the toy to you. You know, it's it tells
25:58
Speaker 1: you what's going on, so you're following the process, which
26:01
Speaker 1: is at least is probably of the the appeal of
26:05
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Stand back right now, because if I
26:08
Speaker 1: were to explode, it would be during this next eight seconds. Right. Um,
26:13
Speaker 1: all right, so your mom is standing there, missing her
26:16
Speaker 1: one arm from saving you in a car wreck. It's
26:18
Speaker 1: like he probably should stand back exactly. Um. No one
26:23
Speaker 1: knows exactly how many of these molds were made, but they're,
26:27
Speaker 1: like we said, our enthusiasts who collect these, and uh,
26:30
Speaker 1: this one dude, Bill Bollman, who owns one and runs
26:34
Speaker 1: moldville dot com. Bad bad. You are all there, right, Yeah,
26:39
Speaker 1: it is bad. I gotta say. I looked it up
26:41
Speaker 1: and it's a dead domain. But he's got a Facebook
26:44
Speaker 1: thing that he does. Now that's where he's moved to. Yeah,
26:47
Speaker 1: that's where he went my Space and then he went Facebook.
26:51
Speaker 1: But there will never be another site better than Facebook.
26:53
Speaker 1: So I'm sure it's all over right, probably so he Um,
26:57
Speaker 1: his estimate is about three hundred designs. I bet it's
27:01
Speaker 1: more than that. I don't know. This guy knows what
27:04
Speaker 1: he's talking about. He he counted a hundred and nineties
27:07
Speaker 1: six original ones, and then he said after the sixties
27:11
Speaker 1: more people started to make them. They weren't just commissioned
27:14
Speaker 1: by Aero Mark who was keeping track of these things.
27:17
Speaker 1: And and I would I would say this guy is
27:20
Speaker 1: probably the person on earth who could estimate how many
27:23
Speaker 1: there are the closest and not just me guessing randomly.
27:29
Speaker 1: And what's cool though also is again like if you
27:32
Speaker 1: were you could be anybody, if you wanted a mold
27:37
Speaker 1: Arama thing at your event, you could it could happen.
27:41
Speaker 1: Like I found there was a Circleville, Ohio Pumpkin Festival
27:45
Speaker 1: mold Arama. So one of the three hundred molds is
27:49
Speaker 1: a pumpkin from Circleville, Ohio's pumpkin Fest in the seventies.
27:53
Speaker 1: Another one, So apparently Toledo was crazy about these things,
27:57
Speaker 1: because again there's ten at the Toledo Zoo. There's the
27:59
Speaker 1: one tam O Shannon that I got a mind from.
28:03
Speaker 1: There was one in the eighties at the Toledo Mudhans Stadium,
28:08
Speaker 1: and there's a Mudhan's figure which is pretty cool actually,
28:11
Speaker 1: And I looked and there's like zero for sale anywhere.
28:14
Speaker 1: But now I'm kind of on the lookout for that thing.
28:17
Speaker 1: But all you had to do was just make a
28:19
Speaker 1: bold get your hands on one of these, and bam, Circleville,
28:22
Speaker 1: Ohio's pumpkin Fest went from zero to hero right, and
28:28
Speaker 1: you two could have a snowman, or a Grammin's Chinese theater,
28:32
Speaker 1: or a space lab or a Lawrence Welk. Yeah, yeah,
28:37
Speaker 1: NASA had a a lot of these things. Actually, I'm
28:40
Speaker 1: sure what else was there? Um, well, the Lawrence Welk.
28:45
Speaker 1: None of those were jokes. Those are real. Oh yeah,
28:47
Speaker 1: for sure. There was a Titan three C missile and
28:50
Speaker 1: a Lawrence Welk, says other famous people. I'm kind of curious.
28:53
Speaker 1: I didn't see anybody besides presidents and Lawrence Welk. There's
28:58
Speaker 1: one of the Georgia State Capital building. Oh really? Yeah?
29:03
Speaker 1: Um there were some cool ones actually, the St. Louis
29:07
Speaker 1: Arches surprisingly cool. You wouldn't think it'd be that cool.
29:11
Speaker 1: The Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile mm hmm uh. This one
29:17
Speaker 1: was kind of random. It was it's a high alli player.
29:21
Speaker 1: And then at the basis, says Hi Ali in Miami. Okay, um,
29:26
Speaker 1: the water skier from Cypress. I think Cypress Gardens Florida
29:31
Speaker 1: and the Mermaids from Wiki Wachee Springs, Florida. We talked
29:34
Speaker 1: about them. Um oh, here's one. Universal Studios had one
29:38
Speaker 1: that made a Frankenstein coin banks. That's kind of cool.
29:41
Speaker 1: It is very cool. Like a lot of these are
29:43
Speaker 1: actually super cool, especially the original retro ones you can
29:46
Speaker 1: actually see like, um, I can't remember the woman's name,
29:51
Speaker 1: but there was a woman who was hired by one
29:53
Speaker 1: of the companies that still operate these things, uh to
29:56
Speaker 1: start making molds, and she's been making them for the
29:58
Speaker 1: last twenty five years and compared to some of the
30:01
Speaker 1: ones from the sixties, like she's just head and shoulders
30:04
Speaker 1: above the people who are sculpting them. Then, like these
30:07
Speaker 1: are really really well made sculptures, not only in like
30:11
Speaker 1: the actual sculpture that she's making, but the decisions she's
30:15
Speaker 1: making produces just a better mole orama toy because again,
30:21
Speaker 1: you're you're dealing with melted plastic in a mold that
30:23
Speaker 1: is two halves pressed together. There's a lot of like
30:27
Speaker 1: details that can go wrong, and this, uh, this great
30:30
Speaker 1: sculptor is is um taking all of them into account,
30:33
Speaker 1: making some really boss ones like the wan Or mobile.
30:36
Speaker 1: It's it's art to behold this. The detail in it
30:39
Speaker 1: is really really nice. Should we talk about a couple
30:41
Speaker 1: of these companies that are still still going strong? Yeah,
30:45
Speaker 1: for sure, or at least going now. They're going strong?
30:48
Speaker 1: Man good. Um. There are a couple of them, one
30:53
Speaker 1: called Replication Devices, one called mold a Rama Incorporated um
30:57
Speaker 1: Replication Devices, founded by Elden Irwin, who bought a bunch
31:03
Speaker 1: of these, it says dozens in the early sixties, eventually
31:07
Speaker 1: passed down through his family, and right now his grandson
31:12
Speaker 1: and his wife, the Strigg owls Um in Florida, are
31:17
Speaker 1: operating sixty or seventy of these. Yeah, and let's think
31:20
Speaker 1: about this for a second. So Elden Irwin, but dozens.
31:24
Speaker 1: Now they're up to sixty maybe seventy. And those mold
31:28
Speaker 1: Arama machines have supported three generations of this family. Fully
31:34
Speaker 1: from what I understand, Yes, I saw an interview with
31:38
Speaker 1: Tim strigg Owen. He said he was surprised that the
31:42
Speaker 1: business was still going when his parents took it over,
31:45
Speaker 1: and now he the grandson and his wife operated and yes,
31:50
Speaker 1: from what I understand it fully supports it. The San
31:52
Speaker 1: Antonio Zoo estimated that they make a hundred and thirty
31:56
Speaker 1: thousand figurines a year from their one mold a rama
31:59
Speaker 1: two bucks of up. That's two hundred and sixty thousand
32:01
Speaker 1: grows times sixty or seventy. So yeah, they're doing just fine.
32:08
Speaker 1: This other one molder rama inc Like, we're not asking
32:11
Speaker 1: anyone to open their books for us, No, for sure,
32:13
Speaker 1: and I certainly don't want to shine a light on
32:16
Speaker 1: these people's finances, but but I'm just saying, like, it's
32:19
Speaker 1: it's astounding to me that these machines built in the sixties,
32:21
Speaker 1: left out in the elements for fifty years, are managing
32:24
Speaker 1: to support three generations of the families who have been
32:27
Speaker 1: operating them. I just think that's super cool. Yeah, I
32:29
Speaker 1: mean it sounds like, uh, it's kind of like people
32:32
Speaker 1: are on car washes. Isn't it like a front always
32:36
Speaker 1: too to launder money from drug sales? I would guess.
32:40
Speaker 1: I think it's low hanging, easy to buy. I'm just
32:44
Speaker 1: kidding everyone out there that owns car washes. I've watched
32:48
Speaker 1: too much Breaking Bad. Oh, that's right, that's right. But
32:52
Speaker 1: I think that is like a legitimate thing, like like, yeah,
32:55
Speaker 1: cash businesses are are right for the picking. I forgot
32:59
Speaker 1: they bought that car wash. So um mouldar Rama Inc.
33:02
Speaker 1: Like I said, William A. Jones Company. Uh changed her
33:06
Speaker 1: name in two thousand eleven. But they got into this
33:09
Speaker 1: in nine when William A. Jones bought some of these
33:12
Speaker 1: from one of the guys who worked for the original
33:15
Speaker 1: moldar Rama. Then they expanded, um bought more machines and
33:21
Speaker 1: it is still a family business. Again. They got about
33:23
Speaker 1: sixty of them, yep, and they they were the William A.
33:28
Speaker 1: Jones Company. And then I guess they got their hands
33:30
Speaker 1: on the molda Rama trademark in two thousand eleven and
33:33
Speaker 1: they changed the name of the company to moldar Rama Inc.
33:35
Speaker 1: Again because that's originally what it was called back when
33:38
Speaker 1: Aramark was running it. Yeah, and they're mainly in the Midwest, Minnesota, Michigan,
33:43
Speaker 1: bunch of them in Illinois and one in Texas that
33:45
Speaker 1: looks like right, not bad. And then every once in a
33:48
Speaker 1: a while you have just some independent operators like Knoxville
33:51
Speaker 1: Zoo owns their own. They apparently got there from Dollywood,
33:55
Speaker 1: which man, mold a Rama's at Dollywood that make your
33:59
Speaker 1: wigs spin. Uh, there's this one cool thing I wanted
34:03
Speaker 1: to shout out this toy store in Chicago Roto Fugi
34:07
Speaker 1: or Rhoda Fuji, that's sure you pronounce it um. They
34:12
Speaker 1: repurposed their own moldor rama. They bought one and repurposed
34:16
Speaker 1: it that was originally the l A Zoo and they
34:18
Speaker 1: call it the Rhodo a Matic. And they have something
34:21
Speaker 1: called a helper Dragon you can get for six bucks.
34:26
Speaker 1: And if you look up the Helper Dragon in these dudes,
34:29
Speaker 1: it is clear that they are Simpsons fans. Did you
34:31
Speaker 1: see this thing? Yeah? I did. I saw a video
34:34
Speaker 1: of it, but it was kind of out of focus. Yeah,
34:37
Speaker 1: Like just Google image the Helper Dragon, Rhodo Amatic and
34:41
Speaker 1: it is to me at least clearly the Cyclops alien
34:45
Speaker 1: from The Simpsons with it with its head stuck on
34:51
Speaker 1: the body of a winged lion. That's my take on it.
34:56
Speaker 1: Very nice. And then there is this one other guy.
35:01
Speaker 1: He is a Disney World imagineer named James Durand, and
35:05
Speaker 1: he has built his own moldar rama called the Mini Molder. Uh.
35:10
Speaker 1: And you just look at this guy, you know, he's
35:12
Speaker 1: an imagineer. You look at this machine and you're like,
35:15
Speaker 1: I would hire that guy to build and do anything
35:17
Speaker 1: because he's clearly a brilliant genius, really cool looking thing
35:22
Speaker 1: and a bit of a show off. Frankly, you think, so,
35:28
Speaker 1: I've got two more things. The mold of Rama used
35:32
Speaker 1: to be fifty cents in its original incarnation in nWo, which,
35:38
Speaker 1: again thanks to our friends at West Egg inflation calculator
35:41
Speaker 1: tells us is about four dollars and twelve cents in
35:43
Speaker 1: two thousand and seventeen money. Today you can get a
35:47
Speaker 1: moldar rama for two bucks, which means that the price
35:50
Speaker 1: has gone down by half over the last fifty years.
35:54
Speaker 1: Pretty cool. And then lastly, so after Tyke Miller got
35:58
Speaker 1: out of the plastics injection molding business, he had another
36:02
Speaker 1: invention that he called the Golden Goat, and it was
36:06
Speaker 1: this big machine that apparently he invented to put out
36:10
Speaker 1: in parking lots at like grocery stores, and it would
36:13
Speaker 1: take up about two parking spaces, and customers would come
36:17
Speaker 1: in and put in their used aluminum cans, and then
36:21
Speaker 1: the Golden Goat would weigh it and then give him
36:24
Speaker 1: some money in return, and then it would compact those
36:26
Speaker 1: cans and then later on that is that aluminum would
36:29
Speaker 1: be sold as scrap for recycling. The thing is, this
36:33
Speaker 1: was years before the green movement was ever even thought
36:37
Speaker 1: of this. That's how ahead of his time this guy was.
36:41
Speaker 1: And I don't think the Golden Goat ever made him
36:43
Speaker 1: a lot of money, but it's a pretty cool invention
36:45
Speaker 1: that this guy had. He had he was like one
36:48
Speaker 1: of those great Midwestern tinker inventor guys. Hats off to him.
36:56
Speaker 1: So there you go, Nativity figures plastic. If you want
37:01
Speaker 1: to know more about Molder Rama man, you can fall
37:04
Speaker 1: down a rabbit hole just looking at pictures of him
37:06
Speaker 1: on the internet. So why don't you go do that?
37:08
Speaker 1: Take some time for yourself, you know, why do you
37:10
Speaker 1: always have to work? Work? Work? Since I said that,
37:12
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail. We call this just
37:17
Speaker 1: kind of a quick shout out. We don't do these
37:18
Speaker 1: a lot um because we get a lot of shout
37:21
Speaker 1: out request but this one was adorable because this a
37:23
Speaker 1: little kid. So this is from Jenny, she's the mom.
37:27
Speaker 1: She says, how about a shout out for my son Jake.
37:30
Speaker 1: He listens to every episode more than once. He's got
37:33
Speaker 1: me and many others into the show and we love it.
37:36
Speaker 1: So young Jake is out there spreading the word and
37:38
Speaker 1: we appreciate that, Jake. Uh, and you love the show
37:41
Speaker 1: so much? Um you named well, not quite yet, but
37:45
Speaker 1: Jake says he wants to get a puppy and call
37:47
Speaker 1: it Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And he says this. Most
37:51
Speaker 1: of the time he will be called Chuck, but when
37:53
Speaker 1: he does something wrong, I'll be like, Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
37:57
Speaker 1: why did you do that? Well, Jake, we have a
38:01
Speaker 1: really big surprise for you if you will go to
38:03
Speaker 1: your back door. I think you're gonna find something pretty
38:06
Speaker 1: special out there. I'm just kidding. No, we're just kidding, Jake.
38:11
Speaker 1: There's not a puppy at your back door unless your mom.
38:13
Speaker 1: Jenny heard this beforehand and is the best moment in
38:16
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty cool of her
38:20
Speaker 1: to write in and let us know. So way to go,
38:22
Speaker 1: Jake for listening to us. Thank you, Thank you very much. Yeah,
38:25
Speaker 1: thank you, Jake, Thank you, Jenny. We count literally count
38:27
Speaker 1: on people like you to spread the word, so we
38:29
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Good luck with your eventual puppy too named
38:32
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant. When he's bad. If you want
38:36
Speaker 1: to tell us about well, you're a cute kid, we
38:39
Speaker 1: want to hear about him or her. You can tweet
38:42
Speaker 1: to us at joshum Clark or at s Y s
38:44
Speaker 1: K podcast. You can post it on Facebook dot com,
38:47
Speaker 1: slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or slash stuff you Should Know.
38:51
Speaker 1: You can send us an email the Stuff podcast at
38:53
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
38:55
Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
38:58
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
39:05
Speaker 1: visit how stuff Works dot com. M