What is a Mold-A-Rama?

So come see us and you can get tickets and information at s y s K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there, and this is stuff you should know. A rama. You know, it's kind of funny that you did that little do to do, because I'm gonna go ahead and plug this

right off the top. We're doing this show in Molder Rama, which spoiler is a machine that makes that made and still makes these little plastic things but has maybe one of the worst trade names ever, moldor rama. Yeah, so I'm gonna go ahead and plug this. There's a YouTube video from this young lady um where she shows off her molder rama um little plastic toys that she's collected carpet bagger dot org molder Rama. Just look up that YouTube.

She is adorable and she's the best. And when she um shows her suitcase full of moldar Rama plastic toys, she does a little song and it's just adorable and great. I gotta check that out. I saw her use one of the Disney Disneyland toy factory molder ramas. I saw that, so I know who you're talking about. She's great. So um, that was nice of you, Chuck. Well, let's wait for everybody to come back from watching her YouTube video show. Let's wait for I think five or six minutes and done. Yes,

time passes faster here. Stuff you should know, doesn't it? It does. I'm eighty years old, so so with you. Like you said, mold Rama, it is a I've seen it described as a factory in a case. I thought that was a pretty apt description. But for those of you who don't know, it is UM basically an on demand UM injection blow molded plastic toy dispenser. That is that that's a technical definition for And while that might not make sense yet, it all will make sense in

about thirty or so minutes. All right, how about this picture this? All right? Let's start over? Should we wait? Should we edit my part out? Don't know, Let's leave this all in? Alright, picture this. You walk into a room. Let's say it's the Sears Tower. Now Willis Tower? Is it Willis? Oh? Yeah, that was Willis Tower, Sears Tower? Who keeps calling it Willis Tower? Stop that Sears Tower? Or a or a a world's fair or something. Um. And there is a machine that looks sort of like

a jukebox from fifty ft away. Oh yeah, that's a good, good way. And then you walk up closer to it and you're like, oh wait, what is this weird mechanical thing? Let me put in fifty cents, and right before your very eyes, it will mechanically create a little plastic toy of an alien or a building, or a lion at a zoo, and it will spit it out, and you will say that was just melted from plastic and molded and shaped and given to me right in front of

my eyes. What a fun neat thing. And you'll say all this after you recover from fainting from the fumes of melted plastic, and then get up and get your toy out, which is good because they say that you should wait a half a minute for your toy to cool before you grab it from the mold. Rama, right. I think that was a pretty good job. You just

did it describing it. And I think this is super neat because this reminds me of a bygone era, like where I went to Nashville recently and went to Jack White's Third Man Records, and he has one of those booths where you can go in and record a record. Would you record? Well, I didn't do it. I chickened out. What I wanted to do was go in and sing a little song for my daughter and give it to her as a record. And I was thinking, like, what could I do? What do I know in my brain

by heart? Because I have a little guitar you can take in there, and it was such a small room and it was in the room with everything else, and I just got weirdly shy, like I don't want you to hear me, you got shy. Jack White made you shy? Huh. Yeah. I didn't want to do it in front of people. Like if there was literally no one in there, I would have cut ten records. Oh I got you. You should have stuck your head on been like, can you all just leave for a little while? Just trust me.

But anyway, this reminds me of those days gone by where you could cut your own record, or you know, they had these really cool machines at fairs and things that they just I mean, now, I guess you can still get your picture taken and printed digitally. Or the Penny smasher that's still around two. I see that compared to this a lot. Yeah, those are cool, not really, but still there's it's an app comparison. I will just say, I'm surprised that my brother doesn't have a molder Rama

in his basement. So I am too, because there's a guy who collects these things called Moldville, and I saw videos of his collection. Did you see this. It's like a warehouse full of mint condition mold a Rama machines. This guy must be richer than an astronaut. He's got so many of these machines. Um, and you're right about this. It evoking the memories of a bygone era. But what's crazy, Chuck,

is that these things are still in use today. You confined them all over the country and they're still working and there. This is what's amazing to me. They are the original machines that were made for about a seven year period during the nineteen sixties. Every mold Aama machine that you might encounter, including ten at the Toledo Zoo by the way, Um, we're built in the sixties and

have been operational ever since. Do we talk about the history, Well, first let me ask you this, do you have did you did you ever use a Moldorama when you were a kid? No? Oh, you didn't know. And I'm dying now to go do one as an adult. So they're still around, they're still around. Okay, I actually I got one that there's this thing in Toledo called well actually it's in Mamma, which is a suburb of Toledo, but it's called the Children's Wonderland and it's like this amazing

three D Christmas walk through diorama. Basically that just nothing can put you in the Christmas spirit as a kid better than Children's Wonderland. And at the end of this there was a mold Arama machine and it made a gold, smelly plastic e angel. It was kind of boring, boring Christmas angel, but it was mine and I was so glad to have it. And I have no idea what happened to it. I'm sure it broke pretty quickly, but I was like, holy cow, I've had one of these before.

I had no idea what it was called, that it was molder Rama, but I looked it up and actually found the angel. Well, I think that's the cool thing about these as a kid is it's not putting your your quarter in a gumball machine and seeing all those things and one of them falls out. This is made just for you, right in front of your face. Pretty cool. All right, So now can we go back in time? Yeah, yeah, I'm done. I'm done nostalgizing. Alright, Wait, what is it reminiscing? Okay,

nostalgizing I think it's a word, right it is? Now all right, we're going back to seven in the winter when one J. H. Miller Tyke is his nickname. I don't of what that comes from. Was he little? I don't know, not that I saw because it's spelled differently. T I k E. Yeah, I don't know what it means anyway, of Quincy, Illinois, Um, he was he made figurines. He and his wife made figurines, and they needed a replacement for his Nativity scene. I guess his little baby

Jesus was decapitated by his dog. He needed a new one and he couldn't find a place to sell him just one little piece. Yeah, you gotta buy the whole Nativity scene. And he was like, what am I gonna do with that? Yeah, he said, I just needed one. And you couldn't understand the department stores position, Like if they sell you just one piece, there's a whole set that they can't sell because he wants that set without the one piece, right, unless it's like maybe a donkey

maybe I remember the donkey. That was a good one though. That was one of my favorites as a kid. But anyway, he and his wife said, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take these lemons and make them into lemonade in the form of making our own little plaster replacement figure.

And apparently they were pretty good at it, because they ended up doing this for a living and founding a company doing this because the Germans evidently had the market cornered on nativity pieces, and when World War two came around, they said nine for you, right, and we had a shortage. Yeah.

We all we wanted was liberty figures is what they called them during World War two, not in nativity because the Germans had supplied us with nativity figures, so American may once you could call liberty figures that like freedom price right. I think they actually called sauer Kraut liberty cabbage. I'm not kidding. So so the the tyke and his wife established this company and UM in World War two. That really kind of grew because they cornered the market

and they just kept going from there. And then about ten years after World War two they decided to move from plaster and by the way, he started selling UM nativity figures individual ones to those same department stores who would only sell them sets before, which I think is

kind of sweet revenge. UM. But they moved from plaster figures to plastic and got into UM a type of injection molding where uh air is blown into it, which saves on plastic and creates a lightweight plastic figurine and really, honestly, nothing says nineteen fifties Midwest more than plastic nativity figures, you know, probably made by a man named Tyke. Uh Yeah, And I mean they did pretty well for a little while.

I guess. I'm not sure exactly when the company was founded, but if the seven he came up with this idea and they went bankrupt in nineteen fifty nine, they sounds like they added some good years in there. Yeah they did. But I and I did not see why they went bankrupt. I saw they were nothing but successful. I don't know. I don't know if maybe they sunk a bunch of money into these machines and it just didn't quite make

it or what. But he was very six festival. He had a line of um plastic toys that kids would buy by the fistful at like the local five and dime or novelty store or something like that. And he had lines of like dinosaurs, um, I think toy soldiers.

But the one that really put his company on the map as far as kids were concerned, we're called Earth invaders, also known as Miller Aliens, and there was a line of of um tons of them but the one that is still today the most prized of all was the Purple People Eater and it actually inspired that that song from the fifties, which I didn't realize that song was quite that old. But the song about the one eyed, one eared flying Purple People Leader, that was based on

Tyke Miller's creation from the fifties. I think it was the other way around. I don't think so. I think the song was based on the figure this says hear. The Purple People Eater was inspired by the hit song Oh I saw. I read that as the opposite thinks a good catch. I think that's the case because that song was a big hit and they were all manner of Purple People Eater souvenirs and things. It was. It was a big business back then. Thank you for that one.

No problem. We would have gotten some email from like three people on that. Tyke's great grandson, little Tyke um So in Fife or sixty they went bankrupt and it was right around this time where he said, all right, I've got this idea for an actual vending machine that couldn't make these things on demand. And he was successful. He licensed this thing actually to what would eventually become a Merra Mark, which everyone knows that's that company is

still around. At the time, they were called the Automatic Retailers of America. And he developed these machines with them, and in in nineteen sixty two at the Seattle World's Fair they premiered. They're doing little space needles and monorails and Buddhists and Buddhists for like fifty cents, which is about four bucks today. So it was not a little cheap thing. It's not like sticking a diamond a machine today right now. They were definitely expensive, um, but they

were a huge hit at that Seattle World's Fair. That was what nineteen sixty two. So in nineteen sixty four at the New York World's Fair they blew up. They went from a couple of machines in Seattle, I guess three machines in Seattle too, as many as a hundred and fifty at the New York World's Fair from nineteen sixty four in nineteen sixty five. And even more than than just having that many more machines, they also had

Brandon machines. Right. So like if you were a company like Sinclair Oil or Disney and you wanted to just kind of give people an extra little amazing experience. You could license in brand your own um mold a rama and they had plenty of those at the World's Fair, some some pretty cool ones too. Yeah. So, like you said, anywhere from Disneyland to Montreal's World Expo. And that's the cool thing, is that disney World or Disneyland that could be I think they were some of the characters that

were actually acting like they were working the machine. It's

kind of clever. Or if you know, and you're in Montreal, it's going to be Canadian mounties or maybe an Eiffel Tower, right, if you could um contact the company, get them to make you your own um like uh signage I guess, to put on the machine, and then most importantly, they would sculpt and then manufacture a mold from that sculpture whatever you wanted, say your logo or your brand or something like that, some sort of statuette that had that you could set it up and and people would take

home your little branded chot sky. It was. It was pretty cool. It was a big hit in the sixties and to air marker a r A at the time, they were like, well, this is great, but Apparently they were just looking at the whole thing as a proof of concept because they had their sights on not just like on demand novelties, but on demand everything like on demand dishware on demand, jewelry on demand, combs on demand,

ash trays. That they felt like this was the future because at the time, you know, the early sixties, plastics was the future. It was every pretty soon everything was going to be made in plastic and no one was ever going to have cancer from it a day in their life. You know, there's a plastically optimistic time, that's right. And in the end, they manufactured about two hundred of these machines over seven year period. But by nine they said, you know what, A r A said, We're we're getting

out of this moldor rama biz. Take a break. Uh yeah, We're gonna go pressed together our own little mouldy dinosaur and be right back alright, chuck. So are A gets out of the biz, and it's kind of understandable. So why there was There's a couple of big problems with Molderama machines. One, they're expensive to manufacture. They were like apparently thirty six d bucks per at the time. That was back in two, so just under thirty thou dollars today. And then also once you set these things up, they

required almost constant attention. UM. You had to go refill them with plastic, you had to top off their fluids, you had to fix any parts, you had to keep them clean, you had to get gum off of them, because again these are interfacing with little kids. UM. So there was a lot of maintenance and upkeep to them as well. So Air Air remarks said we're done. In the seventies, they sold off their machine to UM a

couple of different groups. Yeah, I mean, this is a mechanical like hydraulic machine that required like oil and anti freeze. It was it was no uh, I mean if it sounds like and I mean, I guess we can go into the process a little bit. It gets a little wonky for my taste. But um, I guess we should talk a little bit about how these actually work. Right, Yeah, we kind of have to and it'll be fine, I

promise you. Ready, Well, I will say this. First of all, there are hydraulics and there are these these two molds, and you can go on YouTube and look at how these things work. It's pretty neat um. They these two molds, it's basically one half of the little toy on each side three like a three dimensional sculptured statue at Yeah. So they move toward each other with these hydraulics and they're pressed together, forms a big seal um and it ends up it ends up being hollow on the inside.

That kind of a big point to make. It's like it's a negative of the sculpture. Yeah. So then there's a couple of holes in the bottom that lead into that sculpture cavity, and into that you inject hot plastic. Because one thing that a lot of people don't realize about the mold thematic is just beneath this the work surface that is the floor of what you can see below that is a vat of two hundred and twenty to two hundred and fifty degree fahrenh height molten plastic

just sitting there, bubbling hot. Yeah. Little pellets. They feed it in little colored pellets. Although for a little while they actually had uh, just kind of neutral pellets that they use colored powder. But they at least wised up there and said, why don't we just color the pellets and just stick with the one color yep. And then so the system has a closed um steam system that runs hot theme through coils that runs through these plastic pellet that this plastic pellet vat and it melts the

pellets and then keeps them molten. So then when that when the the the mold seals up above come together and form that seal, hot plastic is injected into the mold and fills it up right, hot plastic injection. Great band name. Uh. And then these things obviously have to be cooled pretty quick like in order for them to I mean, what solidify Is that the right word? Um? But when they do come out, like you said, they

are warm, and um, I'm surprised. I mean, this seems like something that you could not create today without there being so much liability on your hands. Well, again, they still are in use. They you can still go to the Toledo Zoo, to zoos all over the Midwest in Florida and tourist attractions and rest stops and you will

find these things still in use. It's just so funny to me that, like it literally says on the little door that you open, hold upside down while it cools, don't let the the molten plastic drip on little little Jimmy's hand. It's exactly right. So so we got the injection molding part done. But there's one step that we missed, and that's the blow part that makes an injection blow molding. And this is how these companies manage to actually make money. And one of the reasons why the mold of rama

chatskeys are so fragile is that they're hollow inside. So the the the the mold is filled with hot plastic and then compressed air is blown into it. And the

compressed air does two things. One, it pushes the plastic against the mold so it completely covers it, and it takes on this the shape of the mold, right, and then it also blows the excess plastic out the bottom, so it's hollow, and then the excess plastic goes back into the vat reused exactly so it might use enough plastic at first to make ten of these things or

five or something. I'm just totally guessing here, But then it reuses it by blowing it out the bottom and making it a hollow object rather than a solid one, right, okay, And then it comes out hot They say, wait, thirty seconds or half a minute, I think is how they put it and the reason why they say hold it upside downs because there's still that hole at the bottom that that little hot plastic can like you said, burned Timmy's hands. That's right. The smell, chuck. You've never smelled

anything like it. Do you remember the smell? Yes, I can't remember the smell it was. It's it's at the same time pleasing and totally noxious. Interesting, Like as a kid, you're like, it smells weird and cool, but as an adult, I'm sure you'd be like, this is gonna kill my whole family and it's gonna kill my great grandchildren somehow. Well, back then, no one cared. No, they didn't, you know. Uh.

And like we said, tons of upkeep. You know, you've got steam, you've got hydraulic fluid, you have anti freeze, sometimes cold water, but I would suspect anti freeze in most cases. Uh. And until the nineteen seventies, like I said, you had um powdered coloring. I mean, this whole thing is Uh. I'm surprising they didn't explode at any point. Yeah.

One of the other things that I really admire about this is that again, the machines that are still in use today that still work just as well as ever today. We're built exclusively from nineteen sixty two to nineteen sixty nine when air Mark was making them, and then these things also because they put off these terrible fumes, they

keep they're they're kept outside. So they've been sitting in the elements for fifty plus years and they still work, and they're they're pretty pretty well built machines, for sure. I think they've they've got some now that they have been able to move indoors. Yeah, if I'm using a different type of plastic, I think, yeah, that's crazy that these things had to be outside. Yeah, and they still are. Most of them are a lot of them have like kind of built in and little canopies over them or

something like that. But if you look at the canopies you can tell they're kind of new. They've been outside basically for fifty years. I am so going to be on the lookout for these now. So there is a website Chuck called uh Way Marking w A Y M A r k I n G dot com. They have a comprehensive list of every single moldar rama in use today in the United States, and they have like actual like longitude and latitude coordinates if you wanted to, I

guess geo cash your way to them. Well, what I want is an app that will text me when I'm within of one. Oh, that's a that's a good idea. There's a ten dollar app. Dollar app. I mean you would make ten dollars. Yeah, although people are crazy for these things, still is We'll see they're none in Atlanta, right, not that I saw no, But again there's a bunch of Toledo. I found the machine that I almost certainly

got my angel from. They keep it in storage at Tama Shanner, which is an ice skating rink in um I guess a Scottish ice skating rink. I don't know, in in mam Meat, which is where they have Children's Wonderland. But I saw a picture of it and now it looks like the most recent thing it makes is polar bears. And your DNA is on that machine, still somewhere in the form of a wad of gum. All right, Well,

let's take another break. We'll come back and talk a little bit about some of these fun figures and the people that are still trying to keep this tradition alive. All right, So here's the thing that I wanted to know, and that our article didn't get to till three quarters the way through. I was like, can do they have different things for each machine? The answer, sadly is no. If it spits out a dinosaur, it can only spit

out a dinosaur unless you change up that mold. Yes, but you can change the color and you'll have a different color dinosaur. Well until they started using the single color pellets, right, Well, no, then they just put in a different color when they refill the thing, and all of a sudden it went from a purple dinosaur to a green dinosaur. Right, But could you say purple and hit a purple button or it's whatever the kid who worked there decided to put in that morning. That's exactly right.

The thing is, though, is is and again it's not even just the toy that comes out. The toy is, especially as a kid, invariably disappointing, sure, but it's the process is watching this thing happen, and the mold mold Arama machines will have like little little different lights that light up like now we're cooling, Now we're about to launch the toy to you. You know, it's it tells you what's going on, so you're following the process, which is at least is probably of the the appeal of

the whole thing. Stand back right now, because if I were to explode, it would be during this next eight seconds. Right. Um, all right, so your mom is standing there, missing her one arm from saving you in a car wreck. It's like he probably should stand back exactly. Um. No one knows exactly how many of these molds were made, but they're, like we said, our enthusiasts who collect these, and uh, this one dude, Bill Bollman, who owns one and runs

moldville dot com. Bad bad. You are all there, right, Yeah, it is bad. I gotta say. I looked it up and it's a dead domain. But he's got a Facebook thing that he does. Now that's where he's moved to. Yeah, that's where he went my Space and then he went Facebook. But there will never be another site better than Facebook. So I'm sure it's all over right, probably so he Um, his estimate is about three hundred designs. I bet it's more than that. I don't know. This guy knows what

he's talking about. He he counted a hundred and nineties six original ones, and then he said after the sixties more people started to make them. They weren't just commissioned by Aero Mark who was keeping track of these things. And and I would I would say this guy is probably the person on earth who could estimate how many there are the closest and not just me guessing randomly.

And what's cool though also is again like if you were you could be anybody, if you wanted a mold Arama thing at your event, you could it could happen. Like I found there was a Circleville, Ohio Pumpkin Festival mold Arama. So one of the three hundred molds is a pumpkin from Circleville, Ohio's pumpkin Fest in the seventies. Another one, So apparently Toledo was crazy about these things, because again there's ten at the Toledo Zoo. There's the one tam O Shannon that I got a mind from.

There was one in the eighties at the Toledo Mudhans Stadium, and there's a Mudhan's figure which is pretty cool actually, And I looked and there's like zero for sale anywhere. But now I'm kind of on the lookout for that thing. But all you had to do was just make a bold get your hands on one of these, and bam, Circleville, Ohio's pumpkin Fest went from zero to hero right, and you two could have a snowman, or a Grammin's Chinese theater, or a space lab or a Lawrence Welk. Yeah, yeah,

NASA had a a lot of these things. Actually, I'm sure what else was there? Um, well, the Lawrence Welk. None of those were jokes. Those are real. Oh yeah, for sure. There was a Titan three C missile and a Lawrence Welk, says other famous people. I'm kind of curious. I didn't see anybody besides presidents and Lawrence Welk. There's one of the Georgia State Capital building. Oh really? Yeah? Um there were some cool ones actually, the St. Louis

Arches surprisingly cool. You wouldn't think it'd be that cool. The Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile mm hmm uh. This one was kind of random. It was it's a high alli player. And then at the basis, says Hi Ali in Miami. Okay, um, the water skier from Cypress. I think Cypress Gardens Florida and the Mermaids from Wiki Wachee Springs, Florida. We talked about them. Um oh, here's one. Universal Studios had one that made a Frankenstein coin banks. That's kind of cool.

It is very cool. Like a lot of these are actually super cool, especially the original retro ones you can actually see like, um, I can't remember the woman's name, but there was a woman who was hired by one of the companies that still operate these things, uh to start making molds, and she's been making them for the last twenty five years and compared to some of the ones from the sixties, like she's just head and shoulders

above the people who are sculpting them. Then, like these are really really well made sculptures, not only in like the actual sculpture that she's making, but the decisions she's making produces just a better mole orama toy because again, you're you're dealing with melted plastic in a mold that

is two halves pressed together. There's a lot of like details that can go wrong, and this, uh, this great sculptor is is um taking all of them into account, making some really boss ones like the wan Or mobile. It's it's art to behold this. The detail in it is really really nice. Should we talk about a couple of these companies that are still still going strong? Yeah, for sure, or at least going now. They're going strong?

Man good. Um. There are a couple of them, one called Replication Devices, one called mold a Rama Incorporated um Replication Devices, founded by Elden Irwin, who bought a bunch of these, it says dozens in the early sixties, eventually passed down through his family, and right now his grandson and his wife, the Strigg owls Um in Florida, are operating sixty or seventy of these. Yeah, and let's think about this for a second. So Elden Irwin, but dozens.

Now they're up to sixty maybe seventy. And those mold Arama machines have supported three generations of this family. Fully from what I understand, Yes, I saw an interview with Tim strigg Owen. He said he was surprised that the business was still going when his parents took it over, and now he the grandson and his wife operated and yes,

from what I understand it fully supports it. The San Antonio Zoo estimated that they make a hundred and thirty thousand figurines a year from their one mold a rama two bucks of up. That's two hundred and sixty thousand grows times sixty or seventy. So yeah, they're doing just fine.

This other one molder rama inc Like, we're not asking anyone to open their books for us, No, for sure, and I certainly don't want to shine a light on these people's finances, but but I'm just saying, like, it's it's astounding to me that these machines built in the sixties, left out in the elements for fifty years, are managing to support three generations of the families who have been operating them. I just think that's super cool. Yeah, I mean it sounds like, uh, it's kind of like people

are on car washes. Isn't it like a front always too to launder money from drug sales? I would guess. I think it's low hanging, easy to buy. I'm just kidding everyone out there that owns car washes. I've watched too much Breaking Bad. Oh, that's right, that's right. But I think that is like a legitimate thing, like like, yeah, cash businesses are are right for the picking. I forgot they bought that car wash. So um mouldar Rama Inc. Like I said, William A. Jones Company. Uh changed her

name in two thousand eleven. But they got into this in nine when William A. Jones bought some of these from one of the guys who worked for the original moldar Rama. Then they expanded, um bought more machines and it is still a family business. Again. They got about sixty of them, yep, and they they were the William A.

Jones Company. And then I guess they got their hands on the molda Rama trademark in two thousand eleven and they changed the name of the company to moldar Rama Inc. Again because that's originally what it was called back when Aramark was running it. Yeah, and they're mainly in the Midwest, Minnesota, Michigan, bunch of them in Illinois and one in Texas that looks like right, not bad. And then every once in a a while you have just some independent operators like Knoxville

Zoo owns their own. They apparently got there from Dollywood, which man, mold a Rama's at Dollywood that make your wigs spin. Uh, there's this one cool thing I wanted to shout out this toy store in Chicago Roto Fugi or Rhoda Fuji, that's sure you pronounce it um. They repurposed their own moldor rama. They bought one and repurposed it that was originally the l A Zoo and they call it the Rhodo a Matic. And they have something called a helper Dragon you can get for six bucks.

And if you look up the Helper Dragon in these dudes, it is clear that they are Simpsons fans. Did you see this thing? Yeah? I did. I saw a video of it, but it was kind of out of focus. Yeah, Like just Google image the Helper Dragon, Rhodo Amatic and it is to me at least clearly the Cyclops alien from The Simpsons with it with its head stuck on the body of a winged lion. That's my take on it. Very nice. And then there is this one other guy. He is a Disney World imagineer named James Durand, and

he has built his own moldar rama called the Mini Molder. Uh. And you just look at this guy, you know, he's an imagineer. You look at this machine and you're like, I would hire that guy to build and do anything because he's clearly a brilliant genius, really cool looking thing and a bit of a show off. Frankly, you think, so,

I've got two more things. The mold of Rama used to be fifty cents in its original incarnation in nWo, which, again thanks to our friends at West Egg inflation calculator tells us is about four dollars and twelve cents in two thousand and seventeen money. Today you can get a moldar rama for two bucks, which means that the price has gone down by half over the last fifty years.

Pretty cool. And then lastly, so after Tyke Miller got out of the plastics injection molding business, he had another invention that he called the Golden Goat, and it was this big machine that apparently he invented to put out in parking lots at like grocery stores, and it would take up about two parking spaces, and customers would come in and put in their used aluminum cans, and then the Golden Goat would weigh it and then give him some money in return, and then it would compact those

cans and then later on that is that aluminum would be sold as scrap for recycling. The thing is, this was years before the green movement was ever even thought of this. That's how ahead of his time this guy was. And I don't think the Golden Goat ever made him a lot of money, but it's a pretty cool invention that this guy had. He had he was like one of those great Midwestern tinker inventor guys. Hats off to him.

So there you go, Nativity figures plastic. If you want to know more about Molder Rama man, you can fall down a rabbit hole just looking at pictures of him on the internet. So why don't you go do that? Take some time for yourself, you know, why do you always have to work? Work? Work? Since I said that, it's time for a listener mail. We call this just kind of a quick shout out. We don't do these a lot um because we get a lot of shout out request but this one was adorable because this a

little kid. So this is from Jenny, she's the mom. She says, how about a shout out for my son Jake. He listens to every episode more than once. He's got me and many others into the show and we love it. So young Jake is out there spreading the word and we appreciate that, Jake. Uh, and you love the show so much? Um you named well, not quite yet, but Jake says he wants to get a puppy and call

it Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And he says this. Most of the time he will be called Chuck, but when he does something wrong, I'll be like, Charles W. Chuck Bryant, why did you do that? Well, Jake, we have a really big surprise for you if you will go to your back door. I think you're gonna find something pretty special out there. I'm just kidding. No, we're just kidding, Jake. There's not a puppy at your back door unless your mom. Jenny heard this beforehand and is the best moment in

the world. Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty cool of her to write in and let us know. So way to go, Jake for listening to us. Thank you, Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you, Jake, Thank you, Jenny. We count literally count on people like you to spread the word, so we appreciate it. Good luck with your eventual puppy too named Charles W. Chuck Bryant. When he's bad. If you want to tell us about well, you're a cute kid, we want to hear about him or her. You can tweet to us at joshum Clark or at s Y s

K podcast. You can post it on Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email the Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com. M