The Fifth Hour: Mickey Mouse Maller

Kutbooms.

If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the rich pill poppers.

In the penthouse.

Wow to clearing house of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.

In the air everywhere.

The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Maller and Danny g Radio, who is out doing his thing. He'll pop in at some point this weekend as we are hanging out together. The weekend begins today right now at this mall mead.

As it is the twenty seventh day of June.

We celebrate National Bingo Day today and we learned.

When I saw it was National Bingo Dances.

Well, I occasionally played bingo, and I said, where did this originate? And it actually is from Italy bingo in the fifteen hundreds, although it was a little different than the modern version, but it was an Italian lottery game. So they actually started as a lottery in Italy, and then a couple hundred years later there was a French game that took what they had in Italy, the bingo game, and turned it into the modern era which is still

So that was a couple hundred years later.

I don't have the exact details on the lottery in Italy from the fifteen hundreds. And then there was a opportunistic toymaker in the early nineteen hundreds, about one hundred years ago, nineteen twenties, who discovered people playing a card game called bino, not Bingo Bino at a carnival in Atlanta, and that was in they estimate around nineteen twenty nine. So then they in nineteen thirty like, wait a minute,

I think it was a year ago. I think I talked about it on the show.

So one of my wife's friends they played bingo on a semi regular basis, and so I went down there to the church. There was a church Friday night bingo and I sh had a good time, which I believe means I'm getting old. I thought it was fun. They had like an app you could futs around on your phone or you could do the card thing with the highlighters and all that. But I had a good time, and I'll probably play bingo again, but not too often. So on this podcast we have it's a Mickey Mouse

I came up in conversation. I'm not exactly sure how it came up.

Might have been because our friend, the FSR Tech Queen has a Disney pass and she goes all the time and she posts photos and all that stuff, and I got on my soapbox and started ranting and raving about how expensive it is at the Magical Kingdom. Despite living relatively close, relatively close to to Disneyland, rarely go. It's just too expensive and it's not worth the money and

You know, Ken has been a long.

Time supporter of the Overnight Show and has been with the show for many, many years.

I didn't realize this at the time, but I met Ken.

Came to the infamous Baker's Field Malar meet and greet, which was next level. That was the one that was thrown by Rod, the ambassador of Bakersfield, and it was a rip roaring good time. I had a great meal, went to the Bakersfield Blaze game and it was blazing. We closed down this minor league team in Bakersfield. We had a good time. It was fun, I very hot, a lot of crazy things. Air Force Andrew got kicked out in the second inning and then tried to sneak

I didn't realize that he had reached out to me.

It's been a long time p won of the show, and he said, hey, listen, you know I I can invite you. I would like to invite you to come to Disneyland as my guest can may or may not work there, and so I think he does, but in fact I know he does.

Anyway, so at first now I did not respond right away. I did not.

I did not recognize the random account. I get a lot of very interesting messages that pop up on my direct messages, and some I want to scream at. Some I just delete immediately. They come in all shapes and sizes. I don't even know who most of these people are. Sometimes I see some names that I recognize. So anyway, he sends me a message on Facebook, and I'm a little slow on that, so I didn't respond right away. I get a lot of messages every day. Many of

You know, the scam artists. So it's all all kinds, as I said.

So I did not respond right away, and I thought originally I was getting punked. It turns out it was legit. So we then played a game of tag trying to work out the logistics, which is always the hardest part, right, I don't want to inconvenience Ken. Ken's like, hey, I want you to come to Disneyland, but I want to work with his schedule and I have some things playing, and so, long story longer, the planets all lined up up this past weekend and it was on like Disney Kong.

It was me and the wife flashed back to our childhood.

We met Ken over there at Disneyland and had a wonderful time.

It was a really fun day.

It was a long day, but it was a fun day at the happiest place on Earth, the Magical Kingdom, and it.

Was packed wall to wall with humanity.

Although may I point out it is interesting to note that since Disney now tracks exactly who can go and who's allowed in and who's not allowed in, you had to have a reservation and all that stuff. It is not nearly as busy as I remember it when I was a kid, because I used to have a pass because it was really cheap when I was growing up to get a pass to Disneyland if you lived in Socoal So I would go on a regular basis.

And during the summer in June, July and August, oh my god, it was.

Bumper to bumper. You couldn't no elbow room. Now it was busy. I don't want to make it seem like it wasn't busy, but it was manageable. It was manageable humanity, unlike back in the olden days where they would have overflow crowds and they need people to leave and all that stuff. So we took out the machete, if you will, the imaginary machete, and navigated our way through the mass of people.

Now, the key to Disney we've learned over the years, is the locker.

Whether you go to Disneyland or Disney World, you've got to have the locker in the right place, the right part of the park. And in Disneyland, there's California Adventure, there's Disneyland, and so you have to figure out you want the locker and which part do you want the locker, and we chose Disneyland because that's our rog favorite. You got the snacks, you got the water, you got the

Oftentimes it's fine.

There's a lot of people that don't do any prep and you can tell who they are because it sounds like it, but you know there are people that can pull it off. But generally speaking, my philosophy.

Has always been I'm gonna be overprepared.

I want to be ready to go so I don't need to depend on any crutches. The people I work with who sometimes show up and sometimes don't. Sometimes they're engaged, sometimes they're not engaged.

The phones.

I don't want to be dependent on the phones, which which actually worked out because we went about ten days with the phones not working. So we went about almost two weeks with no phones.

But it was fun.

They show didn't miss a beat because we had plenty, plenty of content ready to go right.

So again, always overprepair. Hopefully you don't need it.

But you do it. And so I'm like, that's what I did with Disney. So we started out actually at California Adventure and.

Packed in.

The cool thing that you know, even though it was was packed and there was a lot of people there. The cool thing that I like is going to Disneyland during the summer is like going to a zoo. It's the Disney zoo. You're not going to see an elephant, not a real one. You're not going to see a draft, not a real one. You won't see any rhinos. It's a human zoo.

It's like a Whitman's sampler.

And the great thing about us people is become in all shapes and sizes, right the fat people, skinny people, young people, old people, people from here there, everywhere, all different backgrounds right, the Rainbow Coalition.

It doesn't matter.

Everyone's all just hanging out and happily emptying their wallets for.

Disney merch that's overpriced and food and all that.

Now, as far as the rides are concerned, the first ride we started out og this is a classic Pirates of the Caribbean.

I love it.

It's calm, it's dark, the line moves pretty fast. It's a classic Disney experience, and it flashes back to it, and it was a timeless classic. I flashed back to when I was eight years old and I'd run around with my brother and we'd run through all the rides and we'd try to go on Pirates of the carib Mean as many times as we can, because there was never any line in those days. As far as snacks are concerned, since Ken hooked us up, we're like, we're

I had that.

Some of the other rides we went on, I didn't take notes on everything. One of the Jungle Book crews because why not, Indiana Jones. Those rides are side by side the Haunted Mansion, Ooh spooky.

We went on Monsters Inc. In California Adventure.

The reason we did that is because the wife's friends came and they have Disney passes. And then one of my wife's friends brought her her daughter who's like seven years old, and so we were like, we got to do some kids stuff. So we did Monsters Inc. Astro Blasters and it's a small world for the kid, it's a sacrifice.

Now, the coolest ride is the newest.

Ride that we had not been on, so went to last time, went to Disneyland. Star Wars Land had just opened. Fact, we went with Wrecket Ralph Ralph Irvin, who you might remember if you're a fan of Fox Sports Radio. Ralph a friend of mine and he lives in Vegas now. But Ralph had a hook up and so we went and hung out and told stories about.

The Mighty six ninety and all that stuff, and Ralph.

Was great, very kind, And so we went to Star Wars Land went on the Millennial Falcon ride. But this time we went on the Rise of the Resistance, right, which I'm assuming was not open. Was not open the last time we were at at Disneyland, and it was It was great fully immersive ride, and man was it.

It was just perfect. I don't know where that was hiding.

I had not heard about that, but man, alive, that was outstanding. They nailed it. They who made it, But whoever made it, they absolutely dominated. It is really really good, and I have a feeling that all future rides are going to be almost exactly like that in one way or another. I turned the page on that time. Now for the word of the week. The word of the week now, the word of the week this week is a term that is often used in military jargon.

It's it's used for punctuality.

Ship shape refers to something being clean, tidy, well organized, and it means listen, you're neat your orderly right, your appearance. If you're in the military. Mentioned my son in the military now joining the marines and you got to have that ready.

To go and all that stuff.

So the word of the week is ship shape, which again means neat, tidy, in excellent order and all that stuff. It actually it's birthplace was in Britain. It is a British term ship shape, and it stems from the British maritime industry and it has continued. It goes back to the historical domination of the British Navy and the merchant fleets from Britain, and so it has obviously evolved over

Insane amount of time.

So in the sixteen forties they had that it was directly combined the noun ship with shapen.

Meaning obviously shaped and all that stuff.

And the implication was it was formed or arranged in the manner of a ship where the you know, back in those days in the sixteen hundreds, this was the way to get around the world, right if you go out in the ship and you didn't know how long you were going to be on the ship. You didn't know what the weather was going to be like, but space was limited. That's obvious. You don't need me to

Proper stowage were essential, right.

And over time, the term shipshapen got shaved away and it was shortened to shape because you know that end at the end is a problem.

And so even to this day. That was the mid eighteenth.

Century, it went from ship shapen to ship shape, and still to this day.

I mean word that started.

The first evidence of that term in written form was in sixteen forty four, so I mean think about sixteen forty four.

It was in a dictionary.

And here we are all these years later, and still we end up using the word.

Not not all the time, obviously.

But there it is the word of the week. The word of the week is ship shape.

So turning a.

Page on that, there's something that that kind of I don't know.

If it got my attention, got my dander up? Is that a phrase? I got my dander up? I've used that phrase before.

So the shopping going around I went to I saw some of this at Disney California Adventure, some of the stores in Downtown Disney, I think it was Downtown Disney. And then every time I've gone out to restaurants or different shopping things, I've seen Dubai chocolates.

So I got to bug up. Mike took us. I was like, why, all of a sudden, in the last year we have seen these do Bai chocolates being marketed all over America? Like, what is behind that?

So I fell down a rabbit hole and we can blame tick talk. That's right, we can blame TikTok for the overwhelming saturate of Dubai chocolate. Literally, the craze started in the US because of social media, and it is a masterclass in viral marketing. First of all, And you gotta have a story, right, You gotta have a story.

So anyway, here here's the origin story, if you will.

It started on TikTok and there was a handcrafted bar from a chocolate tier in Dubai, and the chocolate in Dubai was layered with pistachio cream and it had it was it was a pastry and had different things mixed in, but the flavor was inspired by this Middle Eastern dessert which was mostly only consumed in the Middle East. So

When you bite into it. But it had the Ui Gui center.

And that video got one hundred and twenty million views, and that began. That was the seed that began the global obsession. Now keep in mind the numbers are doctored on social media, in my opinion, so one hundred and twenty million, there's a lot of people I'm gonna go out and a limit say it was not actually one hundred and twenty million people. Nonetheless, the original Dubai Chocolateeer Dubai bar was only sold in Dubai.

And it was only made in these limited batches and all that.

So that made it unique, that made it exclusive, that gave it this mystique.

Remember the story, right, It's all about the story in marketing.

And then some opportunistic business people realized, hey, we can capitalize on this. We can sell Dubai chocolate to major American businesses and they'll buy it because we've got a nice backstory, we've got a uniqueness, the mystique that it's only available in the Middle East, and this exclusive do buy chocolate tear and everyone in the world's gonna want this.

Is it a fat? These things come along as everyone's selling chicken.

Fingers for a while and then right now it's Dubai chocolates, and so some marketing people were able to capitalize on that TikTok video.

They put up a presentation, a webinar if you will.

Next thing, you know, you've got major American companies like Trader Joe's, Crumble Cookies, Costco, Shake Shack, I can go on on that have either used Dubai chocolate or reimagined Dubai chocolate. Right, it's essentially just milk, chocolate, pistachio.

And crunch.

Those are the three building blocks of the Dubai chocolate and that became synonymous for luxury.

And you know, obviously it's a trend in all that stuff.

But it started with the TikTok and then some marketing people sold it to these businesses and now it is standard in the United States that people have Dubai chige.

And I didn't copy it.

They've added to it. They've mixed in rice crispies, and it's a culinary blank canvas. Where as long as you use the term Dubai, as long as you get the term Dubai.

In there, oh you're good. And it is so popular that there were some stories. I don't know if this is true or not. It might be just urban legend. However, there were.

Stories that said that the demand for Dubai chocolate, which is based on chocolate and pistachio, that the global pistachio market was disrupted because of this, and the prices swored, and the supply chain was a supply chain shortage.

And even read.

Some stories when I fell down this rabbit hole, that there were some imitation imitation pistachios. There were ripoff fake pistachio sellers do buy chocolate sellers. There was like a black market for pistachios. You can't make it up. You cannot make it up. You imagine how'd you make your money? Well, I sold pistachios, but not real pistachios, fake ripoff pistachios.

I don't even know what that means.

All right, moving on time now for some food he fun. Hooray for food he fun. It's all about the food he fun. All right, So first up on foody fund. These are some random food stories not related to Dubai chocolate. Well, McDonald's for our Canadian brothers and sisters, for Nico and all the other fine listeners in Vancouver and all over Canada. McDonald's has added mcpizza bytes. The bisc off mcflurry and more items inspired to the Canadian Canadian.

Menu, so.

You better run out to to Mickey D's all across Canada. They have a Teriaki chicken sandwich inspired from Japan. They have a big Rosty I believe I'm mispronouncing that it's a beefy burger featuring hickory smoke, bacon, processed cheese, cheese sauce, and a hash brown.

All right, so they just put the hash brown on it.

And from Italy it's the Mick Pizza bytes, which look like they're just a little mozzarella, tomato sauce, pizza dough a tossed together.

What are those? I forget the name.

There's a there's a brand. They look very similar to the brand the bisc off mcflurry. They say it's from Belgium. I thought it was from Delta Airlines, but you can get that at McDonald's. They've got biscp cookie crumbs, saft serve swirl together, a Belgium favorite.

They say, the biscop that actually looks really good, that is solid.

They have garlic Mayo style sauce representing the UK and sweet tangy chili dip from Australia.

So those are some of the items.

On the McDonald's internationally inspired food items that they've added. Red Lobster has introduced a seafood boil. They're having their Crabfest events, so knock yourself out with that. Applebee's has added all you can eat boneless wings, chicken tenders and riblets for a limited time, so hit up your Apple Bee's and Buffalo Wild Wings has added bottomless apps for a limited time only.

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.

Yeah, they have decided to keep up with the crave.

Of the food nation there. The company has.

Reclassified bottomless apps starting at nine. This actually began began yesterday and you can have endless rounds of two appetizers at a time, including mazzarella sticks, onion rings, fried pickles, quaso and chips and salsa.

So knock yourself out.

So for twenty dollars, you can go in there get mazzarella sticks and chips and salsa.

Or onion rings and just go for it.

Just absolutely knock yourself out. Now, I'm assuming the position that Buffalo Wild Wings will use the same trick that Olive Garden and the others use when they have the all you can eat thing that when you want a new plate of food, they're very slow, very.

Slow to bring you the food.

And they suddenly stopped coming around all that much.

You know.

They're like, we'll get to you when we get to you, you know, so it's harder.

To get the refills, if you know what I'm saying.

Arby's has introduced a new Angus cheese steak and they say they're taking their beef game to the next level.

I like the extended winner.

How dare you Angus cheese steak available? Participating in location? It looks pretty good. That's one of those things.

I can make a.

Wonderful cheese steak at home. Don't need to go to Arby's for the cheese steak. Taco Bell has partnered up with Tony Hawk, which I think he's my age. Good for him and Taco Bell and skating legend Tony Hawk introducing his personal take on build your your own lux Cravings Box. Okay, wonderful, So you can partner up there, Tony Hawk, knock yourself out, all.

Right, we'll get out on that.

Have a wonderful rest of your Friday if you're listening early. If not, I hope you had a great Friday, because people listen whatever, and maybe you're listening on Saturday or on Sunday. We'll have new podcasts those days. But we thank you for being part of the show, supporting the Overnight Show, and we'll catch you next time. Later, skater Asta pasta

Gotta murder, I gotta go.