Wonderful! - Wonderful! 369: Theme Parks with a Machiavellian Twist

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Griffin's favorite thrilling luxury! Rachel's carefully curated patience-testing experience!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaNational Immigration Project: https://nipnlg.org/

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. This is a podcast where we talk about things we like that's good, that we're into. What does that mean? Let's assume. I always assumed that you knew. I don't.

It's just a bunch of words that sound like the description of a podcast when you say them together in a certain intonation. You know, we could say arts, culture. We could say that, yeah. We could just say that. Weather. Instead of what is essentially a grammatically,

syntactically incorrect thing. I thought this was like your modern era, kind of like your little McElroy Spinoff. I know, and I don't know why I'm taking this moment to be sort of self-aware, but it doesn't mean anything. And there's a lot of that kind of stuff in all of our shows. Just like stuff we say,

like shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? What's that mean, dog? No, I mean, that's how most slogans go, right? I don't think so. I think most slogans have a sense to them. What is the happy tastes good? Happy tastes good.

It does have big happy tastes good energy. Anyway, now that I've sent myself into a bit of an existential panty, I would love to start off this program by asking you if you have any small wonders. Okay. Ooh, it's been kinda. It's, it has not gang.

It hasn't been the most wonderful month, let's say. I'm pretty sure our kids are wrestling the flu for about the third time in maybe six weeks. Yeah, unless it's COVID. I did the thing that probably people all over the world have done, which is like, what's the difference between COVID and flu?

And when you get down to it, not a lot. Yeah. So it's one of them, probably. But let's see, a good thing. I mean, obviously we are dealing with the sting of last night's defeat at the hand of the Winnipeg Jets, but before that, the St. Louis Blues beat their all-time franchise record of 12 wins in a row.

When they won the Stanley Cup in that glorious 2019 season, they managed to rack up 11 wins. That was the franchise record then. And then just out of fucking nowhere, this season, which has been middling at best, they went absolutely fucking ham on it. Turned it on, man. Brought a bunch of young kids up and they all just like.

Snuggerooed is one of them. Immediately Dvorsky is back, I guess. Dvorsky Snuggerooed is one of them. Immediately Dvorsky is back, I guess. Dvorsky Snuggerooed. A lot of fun names on those. Yeah, those are fun names. Those St. Louis Blues. Okay, I am going to say, I mean, spring break, I don't know.

Sure, ma'am. When break's coming. Sure, ma'am. Like, I'm excited about that. I'm so excited about that. I think both of our children, fortunately have the same kind of school calendar. And so they are both on break. I'm so excited about that. I think both of our children fortunately have the same kind of school calendar.

And so they are both on break, so we will be on break. Yes. Which is exciting. I mean, we'll probably have an episode out because we do record those in advance. True. But yeah, I'm very much looking forward to the break and spending time with my family.

I can't imagine a world in which I do not kind of build my life around a school calendar. Yeah. Because I feel like that has been true for me, like, I don't know, 35 years. And I can't imagine when our children are of an age where they are not in school, not still thinking about my year in that term.

I'm going to say- I thought yours was the 12 winds. Oh, yeah, I guess it could be. I mean, you can say another thing if you want. No, that's a good point. I shouldn't do, I was gonna talk about this Blueprints game that I've been absolutely obsessed with. Save it.

But it is going to be Besties this Friday. So like people can hear it. People can hear it then. Yeah, what a teaser. Are we cross promoting now? I don't know, man. It's my favorite game I've played in forever. Is this the puzzle one?

It's the one that's like seventh guest, missed kind of exploring a big mansion that's randomized. I know you said that Justin's playing it. Are Russ and Chris enjoying it too? Funnily enough, a lot of it has to do with color. It's a game that, and Russ is colorblind, and I believe the developer is working actively on how to remedy that, but it gets,

I have to, obviously, accessibility is paramount, but it does get a little complicated when there's things like how do you make that more accessible when it is kind of a hint that maybe you are supposed to connect the dots. How do you, yeah. Anyway, Blueprints, it's my favorite mystery game I've maybe ever played and you should play it too

if you are listening to this and you like that kind of stuff. My big wonder is automatic car washes. And as you can imagine. Have you done it lately? It's been a long time. It has been a long time. I was realizing.

So what kind of spring this on is we love to cherry blossoms. We love these pink beauties. Yeah, lovely. Lovely tourism. Yeah. Congestion, both of the traffic and bronchial varieties. We love it. What we don't love is when spring sprongs

and then all of that pollen, which we love objectively. I guess so. I mean, I- Necessary. For the survival of our ecosystem, like great. I don't, maybe we've overblown the whole like, For the survival of our ecosystem, like great. Maybe we've overblown the whole like, be a colony collapse situation,

because it does seem like pollen is not having a particularly difficult time getting around here. When we lived in Austin, Texas, the cedar was devastating. We were living in a constant state. Fall, if I felt like fall, it would just fuck us up. Just get around, honestly, because it never got super cold either. So everything was constant.

And we moved to DC and we hit just the bloomiest bloom season. It's so vibrant and virile. Crazy bloomy right now. So bloomy. And so there is just a sheen, a neon chartreuse sheen across every car in the land.

We did get a bit of rain yesterday, which does help out a little bit, but I've been thinking about, you know, damn, I gotta get this bad boy through an automatic car wash, which is harder to do because living in a city like DC, like it is, they aren't attached to gas stations. Like it is a thing you have to go to specifically to do.

We could probably pretty easily drive to West, or not West Virginia, but Virginia or Maryland. Well, yeah, of course. I mean, yeah, but that is- Spaces, it's the wide West out there, you know? It is the wide West. The wide West, you know? For me, car washes are, one, a thrilling luxury,

because I grew up, like me and Justin and Travis would be hauled off by dad to go to like the manual, hands car wash, where you used your manual hands. Would you guys hell have to do it? Yeah, and so it would be, it was cute, I guess. Like we would have to use the sprayer. As a parent now, I really appreciate that as an activity. The sense of like, I'm going to do something with my children

that will be useful and a thing that keeps them busy. And it was like, it's fun to blast the car with a big powerful nozzle. It's fun to sop up the car with a sort of big brush that is constantly kind of gooshing out foam, that makes a great noise, we love that. Drying the car off sucks shit. It sucks shit every time.

Why do you have to do it? Does it really get that streaky? I think the idea is that the car gets dirtier if it's just kind of wet, I don't know. I have never dried off a car in my life. Vacuuming was also like not great, but that was sort of necessary to do because we were a bunch of boys and it was dirty all the time.

So like I didn't experience an automatic car wash until I paid for one myself as a driver, probably in my 20s. Is that true? Yeah, no, I definitely have no core memories of going through one of these powerful tunnels. Oh, very strong memories of sitting in the back seat, going through a car wash.

Well, I mean, if you wanna talk about the class struggles and the divide between your extraordinary wealthy teacher parents and my radio disc jockey and church secretary parents. The real upper crust, upstairs, downstairs shit. No, I just didn't use it. So like, it's always exciting for me whenever I go through a car wash. And so when we lived in Austin,

it would be like, I would pump gas and then it would hit me after I finished with that, do you wanna fucking car wash? And it's hard to say no to that. And it's like, yeah, I'll go through a little magic tunnel. The automated message that pops up. You're like, oh, I can't disappoint this message. Well, not that, it's not the end of American Psycho

where I have to obey this machine's commands. It's just like, yeah, the car washes come to me effectively, but I'm not gonna hop in my car and drive to Maryland just to clean my car? That's wild, no way. Anyway, that's my current relationship with car washes is I don't do them that ever. I don't do them that ever.

I have thought, I mean, part of me feels like our boys would be a little bit freaked out. I know a lot of kids really them that ever. I have thought, I mean, part of me feels like our boys would be a little bit freaked out. I know a lot of kids really like that experience. I feel like we would have to spend a lot of time kind of setting expectations. Like it's going to feel like the car is moving a lot. It's going to be loud and you're going to maybe worry the windows are gonna break in.

And that's normal. That is normal. I looked up before I started researching this, like automatic car wash tragedies, just to make sure that like automatic car washes hadn't been canceled while I wasn't like paying attention. And they are as far as I can tell extraordinarily safe. You don't get a lot of reports of, you know,

the jets getting too powerful or like the wax melting a person's skin or something like that. Did you type in automatic car wash problematic? No, I typed in automatic car wash fatalities and there was none that came up. So that's exciting, that's great. Great for automatic car washes. I don't know how you don't accidentally kill someone at some point on that car washes.

There's a lot of moving parts in there. So the first steps that humans had towards having an automated car wash experience. Was that a spot in Hollywood? Couldn't find the name of it, but it was in Hollywood, open in 1940. And it was just a big conveyor belt going through a tunnel and you would pull your car up on the conveyor belt

and then it would go through the tunnel, but people were doing all the washing. So that must have been a kind of wild experience of getting on this conveyor belt and then just getting a sort of like slow motion kind of hands-on car wash from the employees of the thing. Just people running forward and then running back. Yeah, or maybe it was just people holding out a brush

in front of them and as the conveyor belt went forward, it would do the brushing for them. And then at the end to blow it off, it was just everyone just going. Yeah, that was really gratefully that we just did into these microphones. In 1946, an inventor named Thomas Simpson added like a powerful overhead sprinkler

and dryer to the conveyor belt system, but still nobody had cracked the whole scrubbing thing until three brothers came up with the format that we know today as the fully automated touch-free car wash. Their names were Dean Archie and Eldon Anderson. E-L-D-O-N, I don't know if I've ever seen that name before, but I'm obsessed with it.

Eldon Anderson from Seattle, Washington. 1951, Eldon Anderson and his wife, Virginia, opened up the five minute car wash, which pulled a car along a tunnel, which was kind of like a known thing at that point. But it did it with a pulley that you would hook onto the bumper and then it would blast it with water and soap

from a series of sprinklers and then it would get in there with a series of like spinning mechanical brushes and a 50 horsepower dryer. I don't know how to convert that. I don't know what kind of unit of measurement horsepower is when it comes to a hot air dryer, but it sounds like it should do the job.

Eldon Anderson was a steam shovel operator and foreman during the Great Depression and had all of this like engineering know-how and the patents on all of this stuff. Dean, from what I could tell, sort of the business brother, sort of the business guy, but Archie, Archie was the marketing one, and he came up with a name for what would become

a chain of car washes across Seattle, Washington, which was Elephant Car Wash. Elephant, because of the anatomical qualities of an elephant, they have a hose. They have a hose that they spray water with. And a trunk. And a... Rachel.

It's like an innocent, like good thing. The picture is like a big pink elephant spraying himself with his trunk. But there's no like, kick-staff or anything like that. And the Elephant Car Wash was an enormous success, mostly because of how novel the hands-free automated car wash invention was, but also because of the elephant car washes

bright pink sign. It was a huge pink elephant gleefully spraying itself with water from its trunk. It was trimmed with bright neon and set on this rotating pole. And it was a landmark in Seattle. There's like, it is a place that people would go to take pictures with the big pink elephant sign

from Elephant Car Wash. It was like a big known quantity. And so I think there's something like 16 locations of the Elephant Car Wash still open in Seattle, but their flagship location with the big sign shut down in 2020. And luckily the sign was preserved and donated to the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.

So I guess you can still go see the big pink elephant if you live in Seattle, but that is, that was the first automated car wash slash kind of like, I don't know, industrial cultural icon in the Pacific Northwest, invented by three brothers, and you know I love that. Which is wild, cause that's the place where it rains all the time.

You would think they wouldn't need so much scrubbing. It's not like they would have a real dusty car. And maybe it's dirty rain. Oh yeah. I haven't spent enough time, I've spent a lot of time in Seattle, but not enough to know how dirty the rain is. But it comes up from the Puget Sound,

it probably has like clam gunk and shit and like sediment like mixed in with it. Disgusting. There's not a ton of fun facts about automatic car washes. I did learn a new word, which is miter, M-I-T-T-E-R, miter or miter curtain, which is the name of the big thing with all the big heavy cloth ribbons

that whip against your car to clean it. That's called a mitter curtain. So now you all also know that. So I think I've checked all the boxes for what goes into a wonderful segment. We got some history, some personal connections to the thing itself, and now you learned something. I feel like fucking hankering right now.

Case closed. And that's, it does solves another one of life's great riddles. I love automatic car washes. It is a simple, fairly inexpensive luxury that makes you feel like you're living in the future every time you do it, even though it was invented 74 years ago.

And that's my segment, and I'm sticking to it. Can I steal you away? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Okay. Yes. My wonderful topic this week is a thematic line experience. A thematic line experience. I'm talking about specifically when you are waiting for a ride at a theme park. There has to be a name for this that is more, that has a little bit more Disney magic on it, right? I mean, I've, I saw some like kind of different terms, but it doesn't seem like there's

some kind of different terms, but it doesn't seem like there's some kind of industry standard. I feel like at Disney, it is akin to pre-show, or while you are in the queue, you are also, that's just as much a part of the ride as the thing itself. This is something, I mean, you can see it at a Universal.

Most, I think, theme parks that are owned by some kind of like film television company try to build in some kind of drama into the ride experience because usually they're celebrating like a particular property that has like a lot of lore attached to it. Right, I mean, they're also trying to hide the fact that you're in a line.

Oh, 100%. No, and that's like, I have a real appreciation for it. Sure. It feels kind of like how we've talked about, oh, you know, like an experience, like a shoot, like a Meow Wolf, what is that called? Immersive art experience, yeah.

Yeah, there's this kind of like immersive art quality to it where they're like really kind of trying to get you into the space and yes, it is distracting you from having to wait, but I appreciate the effort, I guess. Yes, for sure. I mean, that's not a thing at like every park. Like waiting in line for a ride at Kings Island is just kind of being hot outside.

No, same with like Six Flags. Yeah. No, I mean, this is definitely like a higher end investment, but I love it. Yeah. So there is some terminology that I learned while I was researching it. One of the things is the switchback cue,

which is the concept of snaking. Right. I know that from Rollercoaster Tycoon. Yeah. Yeah, you'll see that too at a fast food restaurant. This idea of seeing a super long line stretch out in front of you is one thing, but like having to snake around, like keeps you from ever seeing the full line.

Yeah. So you don't really kind of know what you're getting into and you don't feel as like daunted. That's a double edged sword though, because when I am in one of those, I remember when we went to Hollywood studios right after the Mickey Mouse Runaway Railway, Mickey and Minnie Runaway Railway opened

and we had to ride that with the kids because they were like obsessed with those cartoons. And we were as well, is you start to mark time by like, okay, I see that hairpin turn, it's the next one in front of me. How long is it gonna take me to get to that one? And the answer is like 45 fucking minutes, it's right there.

Yeah, and you get kind of irrationally upset with people who are just kind of standing there not moving, even though they could really only move four feet. Right, yeah. Also, like within this like switchback queue design is just the idea of like people watching. Like instead of seeing the person like in front of you, you're seeing like-

A lot of people around you. 20 people, yeah, and you're just kind of staring at all of them. And then there's the kind of thematic element. So this started at Disney in the 60s, and one of the first examples is the Haunted Mansion Ride. Oh, okay. Which was in 1969.

Wow, so I guess I haven't thought of all that stuff as being kind of like a prototypical pre-show entertainment, the like stretching room and the spooky graveyard stuff outside. God, I love the Haunted Mansion. I know. So there are apparently four principles of creating an ideal queue.

One is- Is this like Disney, like, you know, philosophical stuff, or is this like- I think so. I mean, I don't know if it started with Disney. I know that Disney subscribes to this. I know they're not the only ones who do this thing, but it definitely would not surprise me to learn

that there was like some sort of handbook that you receive your first day as a cast member. So a fair weight, which is like a first come first serve rule, a comfortable weight, so you have like bathrooms available to you, an understood weight, which is why like waiting makes sense for like the ride that you're about to get on, you know? Yeah.

The weight is unreasonable for something that's not really. I thought that was more like, you know how long it's going to take you to get through the line. No, the next one is a known wait. Okay. That's what you're talking about with estimated wait times. Okay, that all makes sense.

Yeah, I will say about wait times, one thing you mentioned. So one thing that Disney does do is they give you like a sense of the wait time. Right. And it will always be posted as longer than it actually is. Oh really? Which they call a Machiavellian twist, which makes you feel as if you've won back minutes. When the journey is quicker.

So you get up to Frozen Ever After and it says 80 minute wait, and you're like, fuck. And then you waited like 60 minutes. And then you wait for an hour and you're like, oh baby, we're zooming. Fuck you Olaf, that's 20 minutes of my life I got back. Frozen is a particularly rough one because unlike pirates or like one of those rides where they have

a lot of real estate, Frozen is tiny. Frozen is tiny, you are not. You walk in there and it's like not even as big as a restaurant and you are snaking and snaking and snaking. It's like you're at Comic-Con, like you're on the show for, in a crush, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

The other, kind of speaking to the immersive experience, so this article I read from Popular Science talked to Richard Larson, who is a cueing expert at MIT. Okay, I love that. And he talked about the dual task paradigm, which is when you are waiting, your wait time feels less important when your brain is surrounded by exciting things.

So like you're kind of distracted basically. Like your brain is working on kind of the environment you're in more than like how much you hate being in line. Is there, I wonder an inverse ratio of like, you know, there's like never a line for the Little Mermaid ride at Magic Kingdom because it's been around for, I guess, a while. But I have to imagine if you catch Scuttle's little comedy,

his type five that he does, if you catch it 20 fucking times, it's probably then it has a negative sort of overall effect. True, or like Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story mania ride. Yeah, man, yeah. When he's doing his bits. We need a long loop on Mr. Potato Head.

We cannot keep cycling through his material. The other thing I found out is the Savannah College of Art and Design has a themed entertainment design program. Fuck yes, that's amazing. Which is a graduate level program that prepares students for crafting attractions and lands at theme parks. One of the courses focuses on the art of creating cues. That's amazing, God.

Sometimes I wish I could just go to one class out of school for a thing and not have to pay $45,000 in order to do so, because I bet that's so fascinating. I know, just like audit that class, just like hang out and learn about it. I bet there's a book I could read, huh? Probably, I will say like my internet research, it was difficult to find like a source,

but there have been a lot of like academic papers written about this. Well, it's such a com, like a relatable thing, right? If you've been to a theme park, you know exactly what this experience is like, and yet there's probably only 20 people on the planet who are actually tasked with generating that. Yeah, so I looked at this ranker list of like

the best theme park line tricks or line examples. And one of the ones that came up, which we experienced not long ago, was the amazing adventures of Spider-Man, where you walk through the offices of the Daily Bugle. Yeah, fucking rules. I remember thinking like what kid is like a hype about a newsroom?

I mean, when you have like, I think it's like, you get like shadows of Spider-Man like swinging around. Like I think I remember some of that stuff. I guess so. I mean, I enjoyed it personally, but I did have the thought of like, you know, Universal's got like all of these crazy, like immersive experiences now.

And then you walk into the Spider-Man and you're like, whoa, a newsroom. The Spider-Man ride slaps ass. I'll go to bat for that. Oh, there's a desk with papers on it. I'll go to bat for that one all day. That's a good ride. It is a good ride.

I'm just saying the line is not. It's not the most exciting. Not really thrilling. I mean, for me, probably, and obviously partially recency bias and also because it's so new, the tech is like insane. All of the pre-Guardians of the Galaxy stuff is. I was thinking of that one too.

And also Star Power, you get like the actual actors from the thing doing new stuff. They make you feel like you're on like a spaceship. Like it's a very, I don't know. The Avatar flight of passage stuff is also very, very cool. Cause that's like a multi-stage process where you go through like decontamination and standing.

Talk about real estate too, man. That line situation is enormous. And of course all the like new Star Wars stuff too. Yeah, of course, sure. Yeah, another one on here that I almost forgot to mention is the Dumbo ride has that play area. Big ups to Dumbo, although it was closed, I believe, last time we went. It was closed last time.

I don't know what makes it closed, but it is like, basically like an indoor. It's a huge indoor playground. Yeah, and they give you like a little pager or something, so you know, or they call out when your ride is ready. The line for Dumbo is never particularly long. No. And really the playground being indoors makes it

one of the most attractive spots in the whole of the Magic Kingdom for me. I know, yeah. Our kids are not particularly interested in the Dumbo ride but that little playground area is pretty great. Yeah, so those are playground area is pretty great. Yeah, so those are just some of the examples. I don't know, I always like, it gets me excited, man. You know?

I mean, it is, man, I try not to go full Disney dad sicko mode because I realize it probably turns off quite a large portion of our audience who does not care for that shit at all. Yeah. I get that. For me, what we are discussing is kind of part and parcel what I enjoy about Disney, especially, but also other other

theme parks I've been to also, which is like feeling the invisible hand of a person who has designed an experience with like the utmost thoughtfulness. Yeah, I mean, it's similar to an escape room, right? Yes, exactly. Like you are in an environment that is created around this like story and you are getting to kind of experience it

and get kind of excited about like being totally surprised by what you've done. When you look for the like intention behind everything and recognize it as like also another small attempt to like entertain or delight you, regardless of how well it accomplishes that, I fucking love seeing that stuff. I love seeing that stuff.

I also just get very stressed when we have to wait anywhere with children. Yes, of course. Because our kids are pretty good. Like they hang for a surprisingly long time. But I just always start to get nervous of like we have waited in this line for 30 minutes. If our kids lose their minds now. Now, yeah.

Like we will have waited this long for nothing. Yeah. So the like outside entertainment is very appreciated and it makes it a little easier. Yeah. Hey, got some stuff from our listeners. You wanna hear it? Okay.

Max says, my small wonder is finding an abandoned snack in a vending machine. Just got some free peanut M&Ms. Fuck yeah. Oh, that is good. I don't know that it's ever happened for me. Oh really? I've gotten a freebie like you get a thing

and then like two fall out and that's cool. I've never found an abandoned snack. I don't know what the use case is there where someone is like C8, I'm out of here. No way, that fell too far. Those M&Ms are gonna be crumbly, I'm gone. Skyler says my small wonder is the art museum cafe. I love the sensory experience of partaking

in these fancy rest areas of sorts and treating myself to a little espresso and often sometimes a warm cookie in the afternoon to get some more pep in my step. But after exploring galleries for hours beforehand, the espresso pit stop is also the perfect time to reflect on what I've seen that day by going through the notes I've taken on the artwork.

I do like that, I do like that. I do like that. They had one of those when I went to Chicago recently to visit friends, I went to the Art Institute and they have a little coffee shop in there now. Beastro, I do like that. I just like a coffee shop. Period?

Period, yeah. Oh, you gotta have your- I gotta have my beans. Your Java. I gotta have my big beans. Don't even talk to him before. Don't talk to me- I gotta have my beans. Your Java. I gotta have my big beans. Don't even talk to him before. Don't talk to me until I've had my beans. Hey, thanks for listening.

Thanks to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Huge thanks to everyone who supported us in the Max Fun Drive. You all- We probably already thanked them.

But I mean, I guess we could thank them. Maybe time has fucking collapsed in on me like a demolished building. We can thank them again. I mean thanks, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you and the life you allow us to live and the career you've allowed us to have

because of your support and thank you. Got some live shows coming up. We just announced a few more. Like some of them are in Michigan. I don't know. I'm pretty tired. And we're recording this quite late. So coming in pretty hot,

bringing in the plane for a spicy landing here. Yeah, go to McElroyMerch.com, check out all the merch we got, bit.ly slash McElroy Tours. If you wanna come see a Taz or Mbim Bam live, got some shows coming up later this year. And thanks again for listening to our program. Join us again next time for Wonderful because shouldn't the world's best friends

pick the world's best games? What? No. No. Shouldn't the world's best lovers? Yeah. I gotta be careful because I can't say this one on there. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, well, are you worried you're gonna get mixed up?

Maybe, baby. Shouldn't the world's best lovers Pick the world's best stuff? I mean, that doesn't drip off the tongue. What if it's just shouldn't the world's best lovers? Question mark. I mean, that's the kind of nonsensical heat that I think people expect from us. Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.