Inaction Figure

[0] Conan O 'Brien needs a fan.

[1] Want to talk to Conan?

[2] Visit team cocoa .com slash call Conan.

[3] Okay, let's get started.

[4] Hi there, Ben.

[5] It's Conan and the chill chums.

[6] Hey, guys.

[7] How's everybody doing?

[8] How are you doing?

[9] I'm a little bit excited.

[10] Wow.

[11] A long dream to meet you guys.

[12] Well, you're very good at modulating your excitement.

[13] You're about as excited as I am when I find the electrical strip adapter that I've been looking for.

[14] Oh, there it is.

[15] Oh, good.

[16] There's the power strip I've been looking for.

[17] It's right where I thought it was.

[18] Anyway, Ben, where are you?

[19] Where are you coming from?

[20] I currently live in northwest Arkansas.

[21] Oh, cool.

[22] Home of Walmart, if you know, if you know where headquarters Walmart are, they're right down the street from us.

[23] Oh.

[24] Oh, is that where Sam Walton opened his first store?

[25] That's right.

[26] Is it still there?

[27] It is.

[28] First store is still there.

[29] They have a little museum and his old truck and a lot of his family still lives here and they spend a lot of money to make there really, really nice.

[30] There's a Walmart museum.

[31] Yes.

[32] Everything eventually has a museum.

[33] Oh, okay.

[34] I couldn't tell if your delivery there was curiosity or like, I got to get to that.

[35] Yeah.

[36] No, it's not the second one.

[37] No offense to Arkansas, that I'm not going to go to the Walmart Museum.

[38] Well, I am.

[39] I've been to the Costco Museum.

[40] I go to the Costco Museum.

[41] You know what you can do?

[42] You can buy the Walmart museum at the Costco Museum.

[43] Yeah, but you have to buy 42 of them.

[44] Yes, 42 of them in a giant.

[45] They're all, it's like toilet paper.

[46] They're all stacked together.

[47] Ben, I'd like to think we got off on the right foot, and I think we did.

[48] I'm noticing that there's a lot of, like, toys behind you.

[49] What's going on with that?

[50] Yeah, so I am a toy developer, and I work in the toy industry, making toys and selling toys to retailers like that.

[51] Walmart that we just talked about.

[52] So basically like a modern day Tom Hanks and the movie big.

[53] Oh, cool.

[54] Okay, all right.

[55] Well, I mean, I know what a toy maker is, so I didn't need a movie reference to tell me. You know what?

[56] I kind of did.

[57] Okay.

[58] Yeah.

[59] I mean, not because when you hear it, you don't know what a toy maker is.

[60] I do, but I don't know like you say, hey, how about a, you know, an earth that like unfolds to a tree?

[61] What?

[62] It would obviously be bad but like, that's what they do.

[63] All right.

[64] Ben, I'm going to try and keep this on track, clearly.

[65] My task is not an easy one today.

[66] So you design toys and manufacture them.

[67] You make prototypes, and then your job is to try and do you work with someone who manufactures them or how does it work?

[68] Yeah, so we have a sister company that's a factory overseas that once we develop the toys, we send it over to them.

[69] They manufacture it for us and ship it all to us on containers.

[70] Tell me, because I know there were toys from my youth, which was a long time ago.

[71] Some sticks and a rock.

[72] Yeah, yeah.

[73] We were very, we didn't have much, but we were happy with what we had.

[74] I'm just curious, what are the toys that some of your favorites?

[75] Like, for example, I always thought rock 'em -sockom robots were absolutely amazing.

[76] I thought that was a fantastic toy, although it often malfunctioned, meaning a lot of times I'd be fighting my opponent and my robot's head would go and just pop up.

[77] Even if I hadn't been struck, like he just had a cerebral event.

[78] What are some of the toys that you really love from when you were a kid?

[79] Oh, Ninja Turtles, by far, were my favorite.

[80] The whole set, all the different Ninja Turtles, all the different Power Rangers.

[81] That was really popular when I was a kid.

[82] So you liked little figures.

[83] Those were your, so board games, not your thing so much.

[84] Some of them, like Hungry, Hungry, Hippo was pretty cool.

[85] Hungry, Hungry Hempos was an amazing game.

[86] I used to call it gluttonous hippos Yeah I mean just because they just were so insane Yeah I mean what were those cocaine pellets they were after What hippo They just they seemed like they had such a mania for those pellets And it didn't seem healthy to me What about other toys that you really like Or no tell me this Which toys do you despise Are there toys out there that you really think are just bullshit Oh multiple but My biggest step -be is slime because we'll take like a year or two years of making this really cool toy that spent you know we spend a million dollars to develop it I'll engineer it and we launch it it goes into stores and kids are like hey and then you know someone will put slime out there and kids are like I want that yeah slime kind of slime is always popular so it's so it kind of bothers me a little bit and why why do you think slime is popular I mean really you can find it in any manhole or cave I mean why do kids Why do kids want this crap?

[87] I don't understand it either.

[88] Why?

[89] They secretly hate their parents and they just want to make a mess and they know it'll bother their parents.

[90] No, also, isn't it like toxic and shouldn't we start that rumor so that slime will become less popular?

[91] That's what I hear.

[92] I hear it makes you grow like a third arm.

[93] Let's get that started right here.

[94] So slime is, and you can't eat slime, right?

[95] That's, it's deadly.

[96] I mean, it's like eating glue.

[97] It's basically made out of glue these days.

[98] Oh, I've eaten glue.

[99] I eat a lot of glue.

[100] Glue is fine.

[101] Blue's good.

[102] Is that what's in your migraine?

[103] Just I'm telling you, it's not bad.

[104] It really binds.

[105] So you have those of the, huh?

[106] I'm sorry, you said it really binds.

[107] It's binding.

[108] Yeah, I know that, but you're saying that's good for eating?

[109] Yeah.

[110] Great.

[111] So you really helped out there.

[112] I'm sorry.

[113] Terrific.

[114] It's just an odd.

[115] It's like an odd thing to praise food for.

[116] because it's binding.

[117] I don't think so.

[118] Some foods are...

[119] Are you with me on this one, Gorley?

[120] I'd rather not even be involved in this conversation.

[121] No, whenever I'm on a role and things are going pretty well, it's always nice to have someone...

[122] My conversational bike is just zipping along.

[123] Yeah.

[124] And then you take a big stick and jam into the spokes.

[125] Sorry, I just needed some clarification on the binding.

[126] Okay, I'm sorry.

[127] I'm going to get back to you, Ben, because you're the person that counts here.

[128] And that old goofball Jones off to the side.

[129] Hey, I see that you have some pop dolls behind you.

[130] Is that right?

[131] Yes.

[132] I've never made a pop.

[133] I've never worked for them, but I can appreciate what they do.

[134] I know that you have done some cool toys with them.

[135] Oh, that's not why I brought it up.

[136] But if you're a collector, you might want to try and find one of the, I think there's almost like 46 Conan pop dolls, different iterations from different times that we went to Comic Con. So they're out there.

[137] Is there a sona?

[138] No. No. You got to make a sauna.

[139] No. No, we don't make them.

[140] Oh.

[141] The company.

[142] The pop dolls company finds out what people really want.

[143] Oh.

[144] And then they make that.

[145] Okay, people, let's look at your voice out there.

[146] Make a Funko Pop Sona doll.

[147] A chill chums.

[148] I think a duo.

[149] A girls and a sauna.

[150] Oh, okay.

[151] But I think that'll be fun.

[152] Yeah.

[153] Yeah.

[154] I'll put the word out.

[155] I'll put the word out.

[156] So, so anyway.

[157] What a huge seller.

[158] The Mac Gourley, fuck.

[159] No, get to Matt Gourley.

[160] I'm sure they already have that mold for something else.

[161] It's like a little Harry Potter.

[162] All they have to do is take the little Ron Weasley or Harry Potter and just say, hey, look, it's the Matt Gourley.

[163] I'm just thinking of the warehouse, like the end of Raiders and Lost Dark, just full of unpurchased Matt Gourley Funko Potho.

[164] You know what they'll do?

[165] They'll end up dumping them in the Pacific Ocean.

[166] And it'll be a giant circle like 600 miles long of trashed Matt Gourley Funco dolls.

[167] We'll be finding them.

[168] Our grandchildren will be finding them 200 down.

[169] Yeah, it'll be the end of the next Planet of the Apes movie.

[170] Whoever plays the Charlton Heston role will be walking along the beach and he'll look up and there'll just be 10 ,000 Matt goarly dolls washed up on the beach and he'll go, they blew it up!

[171] They did it!

[172] Ben, you know, tell me about a toy that you've made recently that you're really proud of.

[173] Have you made a toy that you really like?

[174] Yeah.

[175] a few.

[176] So in the past, they did drones.

[177] So we did some kind of drones.

[178] Recently, we did a telescope with a phone that you can attach it.

[179] So the biggest problem with telescopes is that you can't find anything in the sky.

[180] I don't know if you've ever tried to look them.

[181] Yeah, whenever I look into a telescope, I can never see the thing they want me to see.

[182] So what does this telescope do?

[183] So this one, you put your phone on it, and the phone tells you where to point it.

[184] So you can actually see what you're trying to see.

[185] That's a great idea.

[186] That's a terrific idea.

[187] All right.

[188] Well, good for Ew, that's, I mean, that's really ingenious.

[189] Did you make that Yoda behind you?

[190] I didn't make the Yoda.

[191] I wish I did.

[192] I made the Iron Man and the Reddh, those are 3D printed that I made.

[193] Whoa.

[194] Oh, you printed that?

[195] You 3D printed that?

[196] Yep, painted it and everything.

[197] Wow.

[198] Put it on.

[199] A lot of development.

[200] We use 3D for a lot of our new toy development.

[201] Do you mind putting on one of the masks, please?

[202] Now take it off.

[203] Okay.

[204] Oh, look at that.

[205] Whoa.

[206] Those are nice.

[207] Hey, now can you put the 3D glasses over that?

[208] They're right there, yeah.

[209] Do you mind?

[210] There you go.

[211] Now could you look through the telescope?

[212] Okay, sorry.

[213] No, we're good.

[214] Take off your shirt.

[215] What are we doing?

[216] If you could shave your chest, I'd really appreciate it.

[217] Wow.

[218] You're very talented.

[219] He's a very talented fellow.

[220] Yeah, I would say that.

[221] What's the guy to the far right in the red?

[222] Is that some kind of weird cobra commander?

[223] This is that Deadpool?

[224] Oh, it's Deadpool.

[225] It's Deadpool.

[226] Deadpool.

[227] It's blurry.

[228] Old school Deadpool.

[229] Okay.

[230] Yeah.

[231] I'll bring them over.

[232] So is that something that you commercially made or you make these things just for yourself?

[233] No. Some of these, some of these we just, I've made for myself.

[234] Some of them are just kind of good ideas on other toys.

[235] So I've made toys for Deadpool.

[236] I've made other toys that we have like heli balls, action figures, all sorts of things like this.

[237] We've made.

[238] It's kind of blurry.

[239] That's cool.

[240] What about?

[241] What about the manufacture and sale of a really good.

[242] but high -quality Conan action figure.

[243] Do you think there's a market for that?

[244] Oh, like that Deadpool when you just held up.

[245] Yeah, but also something that has like movable wrists and like Kung Fu grip and all that articulate.

[246] Well, I mean, Ben, you're the expert here, but I'm talking about a Conan O 'Brien action figure.

[247] It sits, it talks, it self -deprecates.

[248] What do not expose to Sun for more than 30 seconds.

[249] What would something, is there a market for something like that?

[250] And I want you to be honest.

[251] I would buy it Well there's one He doesn't even want to break the storm You got one That's all you need You need one You gotta start somewhere Okay Well Feel free Remember the GIO Figures Zartan And how if you put it in the sun Its skin color would change They should do that with Conan Where you put it in the sun And it just goes red No it should start to smolder And then explode And turn into slime Wow Hold on Let me write these ideas now.

[252] Well, I think you're not giving this idea much credit.

[253] I think if you and I had spitballed a little more, you might have seen that there is a market for such a doll, you know, and I shouldn't call it doll.

[254] It's an action figure, really.

[255] And then it could come with all kinds of cool stuff.

[256] Comes with its own podcast studio.

[257] Comes with its own cholesterol, measuring.

[258] Yeah, nothing says action figure more.

[259] a little lipitor that he's holding.

[260] It sits, it talks, it worries.

[261] It's an inaction figure.

[262] Ben, do you have a question for Conan at all?

[263] I do.

[264] My question for you, Conan, is if you were stranded on an island that you could pick a toy or take a toy with you, try to keep it clean.

[265] It's a children's toy to keep you busy while you're playing on this island.

[266] There goes my vibrating butt plug.

[267] You know, if you did choose slime, it's a two for one.

[268] I've tried it, and I do not recommend it.

[269] Oh, God.

[270] Going in is fine, getting out is not fun.

[271] What did you?

[272] Okay, well, anyway, so no, you can just drop out.

[273] If you can't handle it, you can drop out.

[274] What am I drawing?

[275] I, what are you talking about?

[276] We're just talking about inserting slime in our body.

[277] Oh, I thought he was talking about using it as loop.

[278] I think you started putting it in your body.

[279] Wasn't that what you were talking about?

[280] I'm talking about something I did four years ago.

[281] And it's still there?

[282] No one was with you on the sticking it in your body thing.

[283] Every time I have a colonoscopy, they freak out.

[284] They're like, what is going on up here?

[285] It's so binding.

[286] It's so binding and brilliantly colored.

[287] It's got sparkles.

[288] Anyway, hey, I'm going to tell you exactly what toy I would bring with me. I don't even know the name of this toy, but this is a true story.

[289] When I was about 11 or 12, somewhere around there, I came down Christmas morning and Santa had left me this big box and what it was was a styrofoam aircraft carrier that must have been I want to say about four and a half feet long and it had a little catapult on it and what you did is you put a little plastic jet on it and it had a wire system like a nylon's wire that ran up to that you could attach to some part of a room that was far away from you and it would shoot it and this thing would ride up on the wire and then it would turn around and it would come back down and then you would using a stick you would guide it in for a tailhook landing and I swear to God yes!

[290] Let me see if that's it.

[291] Is that it?

[292] Oh man this thing was fun.

[293] I don't know.

[294] I think it was flying aces.

[295] Mine was a jet fighter and I think it was I think you did find it, Gourley.

[296] I think this is it.

[297] And maybe there are variations all around.

[298] Yes.

[299] I think there are different, but you would shoot it up, you would shoot it, it would go up to the top of the wire, and then it had this little simple mechanism that turned it around and it would come back in for a landing and you would use the stick and you would need to guide it in to catch the tail hook.

[300] Oh, wow.

[301] And it was really fun.

[302] And I remembered, I used it so much.

[303] I played with it so much that it all started to fall apart and I just kept taping.

[304] it up to keep it going, but it was an incredibly fun toy.

[305] And be on the lookout for that.

[306] That might have been it, Gorley, that you found.

[307] I'll look into it.

[308] But it was, I'd love to set up one here in the podcast studio here at our little command center.

[309] Adam and I were just texting about that.

[310] Yeah, it'd be fun to do that.

[311] Look into this toy, Ben.

[312] It was really fun.

[313] Very low tech, about as low tech as a toy could get but as you probably know sometimes that's the joy you know this is before they were putting computer chips into toys and it was just very low -fi but really fun sounds like it had a lot of play value and you got a lot of play out of it versus a lot of toys today it's like kids play with it once and then it's thrown away yeah this I used it and used it and used it it's well into my late 20s maybe it's this one Oh, I think that's, that looks a little more like it.

[314] Let me see here.

[315] Yeah, that, yes, that's it.

[316] That is it.

[317] And you just got a text from Ryan Obert.

[318] I'm wondering, have you ever covered this movie?

[319] I love this one.

[320] No idea what that's all about.

[321] That's the singer from the Silver Sun pickups.

[322] Yeah, okay.

[323] All right.

[324] Well, anyway, oh my God, it's just, your phone's blowing up, but you hand it to me. It's Amanda going, is Conan being nice to you today?

[325] Here's one from Roxette.

[326] Does your wife know?

[327] The band rock set.

[328] Yeah, this is the toy.

[329] Aircraft Carrier set.

[330] It doesn't say who made it or anything, but it's aircraft carrier set.

[331] The most challenging you fly it ever.

[332] You got to find this toy.

[333] It's by Shaper, S -C -H -A -P -E -R, by the same company that brought you great toys such as cooties and ants in your pants.

[334] I remember cooties.

[335] Yeah.

[336] I remember.

[337] Anyway, it was a really fun toy.

[338] And these kids these days, they don't know what they're missing.

[339] They got the computer chips and they don't know what they're missing.

[340] Anyway, that's my answer, Ben.

[341] I appreciate that.

[342] And the best part about that is if it's made out of phone, you could use it as a flotation device afterwards.

[343] Yes, exactly.

[344] Definitely use it as a flotation device.

[345] Any toy should be able to float for that very reason.

[346] Yes.

[347] That's a prerequisite for any toy.

[348] Ben, it's been very nice talking to you.

[349] You're clearly a very talented man. And I know that you poo -pooed it, but there's a huge hunger out there for anything, Conan.

[350] I don't get out much, and I have heard nothing to that effect from anybody else.

[351] But that's just something I'm assuming because I live in a celebrity bubble.

[352] But, yeah, look into it.

[353] Conan action figure, and I would happily, happily work with you on this.

[354] And you would, yeah, Yeah, and you would share in all the profits.

[355] You would have to be 3D scanned.

[356] Have you been 3D scanned?

[357] I have been 3D scanned.

[358] So that data is already out there.

[359] Yeah, we did it for a Comic -Con segments.

[360] I've been completely 3D scanned, although I'd like, I did take exception to some of their data.

[361] Anywho, I thought it was misrepresented.

[362] Probably a flaw in circuitry.

[363] Anyway, Ben, very nice talking to you.

[364] You're a fine man, onward and upward, and I'll see you on the other side.

[365] Meaning you'll be the first person after I die, you'll be the first person that I see in the afterlife.

[366] Don't ask me why, but you're going right to the head of the line.

[367] Okay, you take care.

[368] Bye, Ben.

[369] Thank you, everyone.

[370] Conan O 'Brien needs a fan with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam Obsessian, and Matt Gourley.

[371] Produced by me, Matt Gourley.

[372] Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Solitaireoff, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Earwolf.

[373] Music by Jimmy Vivino.

[374] producer Aaron Blaird, Associate Talent Producer Jennifer Samples, Associate producers Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm, engineered by Will Bechton.

[375] Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O 'Brien needs a friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

[376] This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.