Interview with Zombie Sailor Toys!

<v Speaker 1>From the.
<v Speaker 2>Podcast Sunday March.
<v Speaker 3>Job.
<v Speaker 4>Welcome everyone to a very special major wrestling figure podcast.
<v Speaker 4>I am your host the Complete the Internet Champion Always
<v Speaker 4>Ready Matt Cardona, and.
<v Speaker 1>I'm your host the most professional wrestler Brian Myers.
<v Speaker 3>We also here produces the show Smart Mark Sterling. We
<v Speaker 3>have a special guest here today. We have brought in
<v Speaker 3>and put them right on the hot seat, Hot siea
<v Speaker 3>zombie sailor toys.
<v Speaker 1>What's up, buddy?
<v Speaker 3>Thanks for coming on.
<v Speaker 1>Can we call you Josh for the sake of this interview?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, just call me Gosh man. That's all the name is, Okay.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like no one knows that.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, just whatever, okay, And you're a zombie and my
<v Speaker 4>thhone Yeah yeah, Josh, Hello, Josh.
<v Speaker 5>Hello, guys, thank you for having me. It's my pleasure
<v Speaker 5>and honor as.
<v Speaker 1>Always, Josh. How many years has this been? Operation and
<v Speaker 1>up and running? Now ready for you?
<v Speaker 3>So?
<v Speaker 5>I first announced Heels and Faces back on my birthday,
<v Speaker 5>which was January fourth of twenty twenty one. Wow, and
<v Speaker 5>series one pre order was officially like it was middle
<v Speaker 5>of June also twenty twenty one, So about four years
<v Speaker 5>since it's been known publicly and about three and a
<v Speaker 5>half years or so since they've officially had the option
<v Speaker 5>to be for sale.
<v Speaker 1>So right, wow, cool, congrats, Thank you. Feel like it's
<v Speaker 1>gone very quickly. And I have a giant shelf dedicated
<v Speaker 1>to your products that I'm looking at right here in
<v Speaker 1>my room.
<v Speaker 5>Oh, I appreciate it.
<v Speaker 1>Probably won too many Macardonas, but that's not slicks. One
<v Speaker 1>too many Slicks, and one too many mat Cardonas. But
<v Speaker 1>there's only four mat Cardona's not a very happy fan.
<v Speaker 5>Was a good number, was a good number.
<v Speaker 4>But man, I remember you know, I found you originally
<v Speaker 4>back in the day because you were selling uh case
<v Speaker 4>fresh Hasbro Series one Hasbro's and I couldn't believe it,
<v Speaker 4>and that's how we started started our relationship. Eventually you
<v Speaker 4>started making the pins for the major restling for your podcast.
<v Speaker 4>But I remember you telling me, yeah, I'm gonna do
<v Speaker 4>this toy line. I'm thinking, this guy's fucking crazy, there's
<v Speaker 4>no way. And then you were telling me like the
<v Speaker 4>level you wanted to take this company and the quality
<v Speaker 4>you wanted to make these figures. And I'm thinking, okay, zombie, sure,
<v Speaker 4>good luck, bal but you did.
<v Speaker 1>I agree, right, especially at that time, it wasn't as
<v Speaker 1>many people doing that, so have those aspirations was a
<v Speaker 1>little loony, right, Well, he.
<v Speaker 4>Would have been the first independent company making wrestling figures
<v Speaker 4>for sure too.
<v Speaker 5>Oh absolutely, man, listen, it's just you know, I'm a
<v Speaker 5>big action figure fan, obviously, big wrestling figure, just wrestling
<v Speaker 5>fan in general from like the past at least, and
<v Speaker 5>I just saw like this huge gap in the market.
<v Speaker 5>It was an amazing opportunity that no one was capitalizing on. Like,
<v Speaker 5>you know, there were so many names like One Man
<v Speaker 5>Gang and Saboo that were just laying their dormant that
<v Speaker 5>I didn't foresee any company stepping up to make figures
<v Speaker 5>of So there's all of these it's already you have
<v Speaker 5>this built in audience and no one was capitalizing on
<v Speaker 5>them on and it made no sense to me. So
<v Speaker 5>I was like, Okay, if someone's gonna do it, might
<v Speaker 5>as well be me because no one's stepping up and
<v Speaker 5>the rest is history. Now there's like, fucking excuse my language,
<v Speaker 5>there's like eighteen companies doing this stuff, and it's just
<v Speaker 5>it's crazy, man. They say, what is it?
<v Speaker 2>Uh?
<v Speaker 5>Imitations the most in serious form of flattery. So I
<v Speaker 5>am flattered I mean there is.
<v Speaker 1>Honestly, I didn't even really think about that. So matt
<v Speaker 1>said it, like there really was no one doing anything
<v Speaker 1>outside like a major company, you know, until you kind
<v Speaker 1>of were the first to kind of break through the wall.
<v Speaker 4>But now there's almost maybe dare I say too many. Well,
<v Speaker 4>let's just also say this. Mattel had even stopped with
<v Speaker 4>their retros. They put their retros on ice. We even
<v Speaker 4>had a segment on our show every week we want retros.
<v Speaker 4>We started a hashtag, and I believe that, you know,
<v Speaker 4>I don't have any proof of this, but Mattel saw
<v Speaker 4>what you were doing and then what other companies were doing,
<v Speaker 4>and said, well, if these guys are making money on
<v Speaker 4>these retros, we want back in, right, So I think
<v Speaker 4>you're to blame for Mittel getting back in the game.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I actually agree with that. By the way, I
<v Speaker 3>think I think you did say that that phrase.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah correctly there, Yeah, I think it was correct.
<v Speaker 3>You know, I was just looking at on our YouTube.
<v Speaker 3>I know we've done interviews in the past, but we've
<v Speaker 3>never done like a full like its own standalone episode.
<v Speaker 3>We did a bonus episode with you a couple of
<v Speaker 3>times on Patreon, on major Marx dot Com.
<v Speaker 1>I think a multiple time guest of Boozing with the Toys.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, and also of a guest on the podcast in
<v Speaker 3>its own set. This is like kind of like the
<v Speaker 3>first standalone thing. So you know we've said it before,
<v Speaker 3>but maybe I think it's worth just saying, like, how
<v Speaker 3>do you sort of got into the toy thing, you
<v Speaker 3>know with the finding of the has Bros And all
<v Speaker 3>that stuff. Maybe if you could be a little brief
<v Speaker 3>with that.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, of course, So long story short, Like I hated
<v Speaker 5>my old job. It was just so fucking miserable. Like
<v Speaker 5>I used to sell mattresses on the Northeast. You guys
<v Speaker 5>would probably remember Sleepies.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, sure, dude.
<v Speaker 5>It was so miserable. I was working eleven hours a
<v Speaker 5>day by myself, from ten am to nine pm at night.
<v Speaker 5>It was horrible. I was always on my phone. There
<v Speaker 5>was so much downtime. So I'm always on eBay looking
<v Speaker 5>for stuff. But even before that, I'm like a lifelong
<v Speaker 5>Action figure fan collector. I didn't just jump on the
<v Speaker 5>bandwagon in COVID like so many others. I've always been
<v Speaker 5>here since day one, And like I used to buy
<v Speaker 5>like doubles or even triples of figures, one to open,
<v Speaker 5>one to keep stored away for like a rainy day,
<v Speaker 5>or potentially a second one to store away.
<v Speaker 1>They sell them true true toy psycho. I feel like
<v Speaker 1>because that was anything, I like, truly love it's a three,
<v Speaker 1>which is sadly was psychotic if we're really.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, if the finance is permitted, of course, I never
<v Speaker 5>you know, I didn't grow up with like a silver
<v Speaker 5>spoon in my mouth anything like that, So yeah, like
<v Speaker 5>you know, again, I had a lot of downtime at
<v Speaker 5>this mattress selling job, so miserable, and I got Instagram.
<v Speaker 5>This was back in like twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, and
<v Speaker 5>I'm seeing people were selling figures on Instagram and like
<v Speaker 5>people are going crazy for some of the stuff that
<v Speaker 5>they were posting. And I'm like, oh my god, you
<v Speaker 5>could sell stuff on Instagram.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 5>They showed what they had for sale, they wrote the price,
<v Speaker 5>and people were writing like claim in the comments and
<v Speaker 5>they were getting dms they were selling it. I was like,
<v Speaker 5>holy crap. And I'm not going to name names. I'm
<v Speaker 5>throwing anyone under the bus, but there was pages that
<v Speaker 5>were very popular that had like thousands of followers and
<v Speaker 5>I'm like, holy crap, I have so much stuff in
<v Speaker 5>storage that's just sitting there going nowhere. That's better than
<v Speaker 5>what these guys are selling. What if I make a
<v Speaker 5>page and post all of my stuff and see what happens.
<v Speaker 5>And I did that and then just snow to the
<v Speaker 5>point where I was. You know, I'm fast forwarding now months,
<v Speaker 5>but I was calling out of work to stay home
<v Speaker 5>to box of borders from my previous night claim sales.
<v Speaker 5>So I'm like, I might have something here. Then I
<v Speaker 5>started doing conventions and I did a convention called Retrocon
<v Speaker 5>in Pennsylvania. Matt, you were there before doing your thing,
<v Speaker 5>and this guy came up to me because I was
<v Speaker 5>selling a couple of Hasbros from my own collection, like
<v Speaker 5>carded ones, and he's like, hey, man, you know do
<v Speaker 5>you buy in bulk? I have a lot of these,
<v Speaker 5>and you know, you hear that a lot. And he's like, oh,
<v Speaker 5>I used to be my friend used to be a
<v Speaker 5>distributor or wholesale or whatever he said, and he's like,
<v Speaker 5>you know, we got hundreds of them carded and I'm like, yo,
<v Speaker 5>okay whatever, And of course it wasn't him, it was
<v Speaker 5>his friend. So I didn't put much merit to it,
<v Speaker 5>and certainly, you know, I gave him my email and
<v Speaker 5>then the guy that had this it was actually a fact,
<v Speaker 5>it was real. It wasn't bs and he was showing
<v Speaker 5>me all the stuff that he had and I couldn't
<v Speaker 5>believe my eyes.
<v Speaker 1>And that was it.
<v Speaker 5>I just bought that he had a lot of other stuff,
<v Speaker 5>and he led me to his friends that were in
<v Speaker 5>the same industry, and I just started buying warehouses full
<v Speaker 5>of untapped eighties and ninety stock and it literally just
<v Speaker 5>changed my life. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.
<v Speaker 5>And what's crazy is that hasbro fine. It was in
<v Speaker 5>the summer of twenty fifteen, so we're going on ten
<v Speaker 5>years now, which is insane.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but yeah, it.
<v Speaker 5>Was cool man just to have like you know, like
<v Speaker 5>fifty or sixty series one macho Man's that I'm opening
<v Speaker 5>the case that are like pristine.
<v Speaker 1>It was crazy. And it's like, trust me, I've been
<v Speaker 1>looking for them, like I wasn't in the men on
<v Speaker 1>card game when you were doing this. Yeah, like you
<v Speaker 1>can't just they're not like plentiful to think that you
<v Speaker 1>had that many a one time. And he sold them
<v Speaker 1>all off like the people. A lot of these people
<v Speaker 1>that got those are like holding on to them tight.
<v Speaker 1>You know, it's crazy.
<v Speaker 3>I would love to open a case fresh Hazbro, just
<v Speaker 3>just to hold them in my hand.
<v Speaker 1>And you bought those, right, I bought him.
<v Speaker 4>I wasn't a min I'm still not a min On
<v Speaker 4>card collective, but I do now have the whole set
<v Speaker 4>min On card. But when I'm like, how can I
<v Speaker 4>turn this down?
<v Speaker 1>Case fresh? All right here? Right?
<v Speaker 4>And the prices weren't that astronomical, yeah, because he wasn't
<v Speaker 4>trying to he didn't just have one matchum and he
<v Speaker 4>yet you know, he was pretty affordable all is considered.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, and plus back then, like the the market wasn't
<v Speaker 5>as hot as it was now, so like Bloth, Yeah,
<v Speaker 5>I think like the average price for like a you know,
<v Speaker 5>a cardage Jake the Snake back then was probably like
<v Speaker 5>maybe fifteen twenty dollars, you know, So I remember, I
<v Speaker 5>think I was charging like thirty two dollars for mine
<v Speaker 5>or thirty four bucks. Remember it was an odd price.
<v Speaker 1>And now I would have, but everyone I know you
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't because you saw the posts that you did in
<v Speaker 1>mark so like.
<v Speaker 3>Oh well, yes, I should have butt everyone.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah it was fun, man, And then yeah, that's pretty
<v Speaker 5>much that's hit in a nutshell. And then like you
<v Speaker 5>know what I had, U the w has bros freaking
<v Speaker 5>a ton of beetlejuice figures, eighteen hundred beetle juice figures.
<v Speaker 1>Like, no, it's gone on. Water World changed your life though.
<v Speaker 5>That's that's what it That's what it really started sailing.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I will be honest, I never really understood your
<v Speaker 4>your fascination with Kevin Costner. I was like, this guy's
<v Speaker 4>fucking weird, Like you're weird for loving Kevin Costs so much.
<v Speaker 4>But then I got at the Yellowstone and I get it. Man,
<v Speaker 4>I love him too.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, yeah, we haven't talked about this at a
<v Speaker 3>long time.
<v Speaker 1>A man, I don't like how he left the show.
<v Speaker 1>I don't like that.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, are you caught up to that point?
<v Speaker 1>Caught up? I'm caught up? Holy shit?
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 1>So watch watch all Kevin Costler's baseball movies. Bro, He's
<v Speaker 1>the legend. He's the best.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, he's in like eighty five baseball movies for whatever.
<v Speaker 5>But you know what, it's just you know, Costner, like
<v Speaker 5>I've said before, you just like personifize like the nineties,
<v Speaker 5>which is obviously my favorite decade. I'm sure we'll agree,
<v Speaker 5>like for the most part, and just like you know,
<v Speaker 5>he was like the man in the nineties, so I
<v Speaker 5>feel like he's this living vessel from a time from
<v Speaker 5>the past. That's how I look at it.
<v Speaker 3>That's very, very true.
<v Speaker 1>So let's let's say it a little bit.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, you start working for the Major pod, you start
<v Speaker 4>making our pins.
<v Speaker 1>And this is like before we forgot about that, Like
<v Speaker 1>this is before we had figures.
<v Speaker 4>We didn't really have any merch so we started in
<v Speaker 4>twenty eighteen and shortly thereafter, I remember you pitched me
<v Speaker 4>or I pitched you. I don't know how we figured
<v Speaker 4>this out to do an enamel pin and we did
<v Speaker 4>like this midnight drop and I was petrified and it
<v Speaker 4>like sold out instantly, Like oh my god.
<v Speaker 1>Already kind of doing very well with pins, right, and
<v Speaker 1>like they were like reimagined hasro people, right, Yeah.
<v Speaker 5>The pins were cool. So, like you know, I spent unfortunately,
<v Speaker 5>or I spent a lot of my life and time
<v Speaker 5>on Instagram and I saw at that time, this was
<v Speaker 5>like twenty twenty eighteen, I want to say, there was
<v Speaker 5>like a big enamel pin boom, like a lot of
<v Speaker 5>people were getting everything. So I'm like, you guys got
<v Speaker 5>to do some pins, and yeah, it was I mean
<v Speaker 5>the hazard. I don't know if I did like the
<v Speaker 5>Hasbro inspired ones back then, if I did those first
<v Speaker 5>or after. I probably did those first and it did
<v Speaker 5>really well, like you know, selling like one hundred hundred
<v Speaker 5>and fifty pins at twelve dollars each, making like six
<v Speaker 5>grand a night selling just little pins. It was I'm like,
<v Speaker 5>what the hell's going on? So I'm like, hey, guys,
<v Speaker 5>you gotta do some pins. And I'll never forget that.
<v Speaker 5>We did a midnight launch. I think there was one
<v Speaker 5>hundred of them, and like my website crashed because I
<v Speaker 5>know shop I could do now, and I was like panicking, like,
<v Speaker 5>holy crap, what do I do. I couldn't get it up.
<v Speaker 5>I'm calling the website hosting and everything. And eventually I
<v Speaker 5>did like a clean sale. I'm like, all right, everyone
<v Speaker 5>dmy first come, first serve and that's how we did it.
<v Speaker 5>But yeah, that was the start of a crazy journey.
<v Speaker 5>As far as the enamel pins.
<v Speaker 1>Go, Yeah, we were.
<v Speaker 4>The pins were such a big thing for our community
<v Speaker 4>for a while because, like I said, we didn't have
<v Speaker 4>figures yet, so those are pretty much our figures where
<v Speaker 4>people were collecting our pins. I still would I think
<v Speaker 4>we should bring back a zombie saalor Midnight Drop for
<v Speaker 4>the seven year anniversary.
<v Speaker 1>Nobody's really talking about pins.
<v Speaker 4>It just became so easy to make it so overpopulated that,
<v Speaker 4>like you, I will say, my pins at my merch table,
<v Speaker 4>they fly. I'm always oudering new style pins. It's just
<v Speaker 4>it's not as hot, Like you can't do like a
<v Speaker 4>midnight Drop. I don't think anymore. No and at a time, No, Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>what makes you think, Okay, I'm doing pins, I'm selling
<v Speaker 4>vintage toys. I want to get into the game. What
<v Speaker 4>what what's that decision look like? And how do you
<v Speaker 4>even start that process?
<v Speaker 1>Well, you know, being a.
<v Speaker 5>Fan, and I'm always looking at figures and I'm trying
<v Speaker 5>my best not to critique too much. But like, let's
<v Speaker 5>say I would go to you know, a target, or
<v Speaker 5>buy something in my local comic book shop and I'm like, oh,
<v Speaker 5>this figure's cool, but it would have been cooler if
<v Speaker 5>this was changed or this was different. So I always
<v Speaker 5>had like that creative aspect in me, and I kind
<v Speaker 5>of like always just wanted to just not sell other
<v Speaker 5>people stuff. I wanted to sell like my own stuff
<v Speaker 5>and you know, selling figures for like about you know,
<v Speaker 5>sevent eight years. At that point, I had a lot
<v Speaker 5>of friends, thankfully in the industry that like you know,
<v Speaker 5>work in toy companies or whatever, and I had that
<v Speaker 5>benefit working for me. So once I really had like
<v Speaker 5>the funds together to like actually do this, I started
<v Speaker 5>picking my friend's brains. I'm like, okay, can you make
<v Speaker 5>a figure for this amount? What's the minimum? What's the
<v Speaker 5>price to get something sculpted like this on average, just
<v Speaker 5>asking as many questions as I possibly could. And when
<v Speaker 5>I had all of those answers, and when I had
<v Speaker 5>the funding set up and all of the pieces in place,
<v Speaker 5>the talent, whether it was the actual wrestlers or the
<v Speaker 5>sculptor's there's once ahead all of that set up and
<v Speaker 5>the factory secured, and I know it was a reputable place,
<v Speaker 5>I'm like, okay, let's do this, and I pulled the trigger,
<v Speaker 5>simple as that.
<v Speaker 1>And now you're at the point where you're selling thousands
<v Speaker 1>and thousands of figures of a year. But is it
<v Speaker 1>still just you and like people part time or like,
<v Speaker 1>have you finally like expanded like where it's too much.
<v Speaker 5>Well, I mean, for you know, I'm first and foremost,
<v Speaker 5>I'm like at the front line, so like I don't
<v Speaker 5>necessarily need like full time employees because I don't always
<v Speaker 5>have something in stock that's always selling. So like I
<v Speaker 5>almost have like seasonal workers. So like whenever like a
<v Speaker 5>new like pre order comes in that we have to fulfill,
<v Speaker 5>like I'll call my designated guys like, hey, you know,
<v Speaker 5>we have a big shipment coming in. I need you
<v Speaker 5>guys for like two weeks or whatever.
<v Speaker 1>And that's that.
<v Speaker 5>But as far as like full time employees go, everyone
<v Speaker 5>is for the most part freelance, like the sculptors, the
<v Speaker 5>painters and everyone from there. So it's not like I
<v Speaker 5>have like a like you know, a spot somewhere in Manhattan.
<v Speaker 1>Day to day is all you like, every email, every Yeah.
<v Speaker 5>I don't do that my emil anymore. Thank god. I
<v Speaker 5>can't handle that ship that's going to give me a stroke,
<v Speaker 5>the ship that I get asked or their request or.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, who does that?
<v Speaker 5>Just a friend of mine, you know what I mean,
<v Speaker 5>So he makes it. You know, listen, a thousand bucks
<v Speaker 5>a month just answer emails. I'll take it, you know, yeah,
<v Speaker 5>maybe that's his wife.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, what what is like the day to day?
<v Speaker 3>Like, what are some of the I know, it's it's
<v Speaker 3>obviously different every single day, and it's like a fluid
<v Speaker 3>situation depending on what stage you're you're working in. Uh,
<v Speaker 3>you know, how many hours are you putting in a day?
<v Speaker 3>And like you know, you know what, what's it sort
<v Speaker 3>of you wake up, you start right away or what's
<v Speaker 3>going on?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, Like I'm not even exaggerate. I'm not trying to
<v Speaker 5>make myself sound like fucking Superman or anything. But every
<v Speaker 5>waking minute of every day, I'm not even kidding, Like
<v Speaker 5>I'm working, Like, yeah, I'm not in front of like
<v Speaker 5>my laptop or on my phone because there's always naturally
<v Speaker 5>going to be like downtime. But I mean we'll keep
<v Speaker 5>in mind on my mean graphic designer. He lives in Australia.
<v Speaker 5>I'm in New York, so there's like a sixteen hour
<v Speaker 5>I believed different. So right there when he's up, I
<v Speaker 5>should be sleeping and vice versa. So I can't sleep
<v Speaker 5>because I have to be in constant communication with them
<v Speaker 5>my factory they're in China. Same thing. There's like a
<v Speaker 5>twelve hour delay, I believe. So if I want something
<v Speaker 5>to happen as fast as possible, as instantly as possible,
<v Speaker 5>I have to be up texting them in real time.
<v Speaker 5>So I can't go to sleep and send them emails
<v Speaker 5>because by the time you have that back and forth
<v Speaker 5>correspondence days might pass. So long story short, I'm probably
<v Speaker 5>not going to sleep until maybe two three o'clock in
<v Speaker 5>the morning, and then I'm waking up at like seven
<v Speaker 5>am taking my kids to school. You got five kids, right, yeah,
<v Speaker 5>like going on second three. But yeah, it's crazy, man.
<v Speaker 5>So yeah, I'm always working. I'm just from the moment
<v Speaker 5>I wake up. I'm just getting caught up with emails
<v Speaker 5>as far as like the creative aspects go. Always always
<v Speaker 5>talking to sculptors. I have five different people, legit right now,
<v Speaker 5>all working on five different characters at this exact moment,
<v Speaker 5>and then there's like, oh my god, there's got to
<v Speaker 5>be at least forty, maybe even fifty different guys in
<v Speaker 5>development right now, like figures. So obviously I get emails
<v Speaker 5>for every single one of those, so I have to
<v Speaker 5>get caught up on that, and just it just doesn't stop. Man, Listen,
<v Speaker 5>I'm not complaining. I'm freaking happy, you know it's.
<v Speaker 1>You talked to Ron Rudat.
<v Speaker 5>I talked to him. I mean usually through like email only,
<v Speaker 5>but like not often. Whenever I need a new guy done,
<v Speaker 5>I'll just be like, hey, Ron, you know, we got
<v Speaker 5>some money for you, and give him reference and he
<v Speaker 5>does this thing.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, you just send a bunch of reference picks
<v Speaker 1>to the person and he sketches it up.
<v Speaker 5>Reference picks, you know what I mean. So I'm like,
<v Speaker 5>you know, hey, maybe you can give him a pose
<v Speaker 5>like this or a pose like that thoughts, and then
<v Speaker 5>he just does his own thing. Of course, ask hi
<v Speaker 5>if there's any corrections that I could suggest, And that's
<v Speaker 5>pretty much it is.
<v Speaker 1>He going to Ron.
<v Speaker 4>So Ron, for those who don't know, drew the original
<v Speaker 4>wwfas Bros. And then you had the idea to get
<v Speaker 4>him to draw yours. And then, like you said, you
<v Speaker 4>have all these sculptors, there's one step. Now. I don't
<v Speaker 4>know if you hide it from the public or if
<v Speaker 4>you're different from every other company, including ourselves. I never
<v Speaker 4>see three D renders of a sculpt Are those not
<v Speaker 4>done or is this all hand sculpted based off the
<v Speaker 4>Ron root At design do you even get to a
<v Speaker 4>three D like computerized sculpt first?
<v Speaker 5>Oh yeah, well everything gets three DS. So here's the thing.
<v Speaker 5>My original sculptor, Alex Henke, who's amazing there for me
<v Speaker 5>from the start, he does everything in wax, like the
<v Speaker 5>old traditional way, and I was that was the main
<v Speaker 5>thing I was looking for when I first started, because
<v Speaker 5>I wanted to have this feel as like authentic as possible,
<v Speaker 5>and that's like the oldest form of making an action
<v Speaker 5>figure snake by hand.
<v Speaker 1>So he did that.
<v Speaker 5>The only drawback with that is it does take longer.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not not gonna say say, you're you're kind of
<v Speaker 1>shot for time with that compared to every Yeah.
<v Speaker 5>Exactly, So, yeah, that takes a thing. But even when
<v Speaker 5>they do get hand sculpted, what we do is then
<v Speaker 5>we scan them in. So then that's like you make
<v Speaker 5>your digital file and then you send that over to China. Now,
<v Speaker 5>the other four guys that I've working on these figures,
<v Speaker 5>they're all digital, so like their stuff is on a
<v Speaker 5>lot faster. So like let's say the nose is off
<v Speaker 5>and I'm like, hey, can we tweak this? You could
<v Speaker 5>do that damn near instantly, whereas someone that sculpt it
<v Speaker 5>by hand. Hey the noses off, like, oh, chef to
<v Speaker 5>scrape the piece of clay off and get that shit,
<v Speaker 5>you know. But yeah, everything at the end of the
<v Speaker 5>day is digital.
<v Speaker 1>And I guess you just you just don't share that
<v Speaker 1>with the public.
<v Speaker 5>No, it doesn't, don't have to you know, just like, yeah,
<v Speaker 5>just listen, there are.
<v Speaker 4>People out there we're not gonna names who like fucking
<v Speaker 4>they sneeze and they share it with the public, you
<v Speaker 4>know what I'm saying. So I do appreciate that you
<v Speaker 4>don't share everything. I was just curious because I don't
<v Speaker 4>think I've ever seen even of like my own figure,
<v Speaker 4>you know, unofficially. I don't think you've ever set me
<v Speaker 4>like a three D that's true guilt.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I've never seen it for any here. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>the six inch stuff you've shown render stuff, yeah, the
<v Speaker 1>six stuff.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, But like you know, for example, like the four
<v Speaker 5>and a half inch figures, like they'll send me like
<v Speaker 5>digital files and they're like, you know, hey, how told
<v Speaker 5>do you want this guy? And like I'm like, you know,
<v Speaker 5>four this is a taller guy, so make him like
<v Speaker 5>four point six five inches and then they'll send me
<v Speaker 5>a digital file of him. Next to like a digital
<v Speaker 5>you know whoever, guys that are taller, guys that are
<v Speaker 5>shorter to see like where their eye level would sync
<v Speaker 5>up and everything. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff
<v Speaker 5>going on back there, and if it looks too big
<v Speaker 5>or too small, you can have them adjusted whatever.
<v Speaker 1>So should we come with the hard hitting questions now? Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>I kind of got one right now, all right, So
<v Speaker 3>the other day we actually talked about this on the
<v Speaker 3>podcast where somebody accused us of being.
<v Speaker 1>Too light on you not not or always you think
<v Speaker 1>we're invested in your company? Yeah, I wish you could
<v Speaker 1>post our legitimate orders that all three of us place
<v Speaker 1>in your website with no discount code nothing.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but but here here's the thing right now, you know,
<v Speaker 3>multiple years, three or four years into this thing, you know,
<v Speaker 3>you still take some heat about how long things take.
<v Speaker 3>You know, you announce this some of these figures years
<v Speaker 3>ago and not how yet or whatever. People love to
<v Speaker 3>talk about that. Where are you now, Like, are you
<v Speaker 3>happy with the speed in which you're making these things?
<v Speaker 3>Are you happy with the way that you are delivering
<v Speaker 3>this information? Do you feel like you found kind of
<v Speaker 3>a groove because there is less there's less kind of
<v Speaker 3>people out there about your toys. But I don't know,
<v Speaker 3>do you feel like there's room to improve or you
<v Speaker 3>feel like you're in a groove now.
<v Speaker 5>No, I mean there's no room to improve because everything
<v Speaker 5>I'm doing is as fast and as efficiently as possible.
<v Speaker 5>If I were to speed things up, something would have
<v Speaker 5>to get sacrificed, which would be the quality of the figures.
<v Speaker 5>And I refuse to do that under any circumstance. And
<v Speaker 5>at this point, again, Luke, you mentioned earlier, we're going
<v Speaker 5>on four about four years now of this company being
<v Speaker 5>in business and having these figures out, and people have
<v Speaker 5>had these figures in hand now for about three years.
<v Speaker 5>And I was just discussing yesterday with a couple of
<v Speaker 5>buddies of mine. We have thirty one figures out in
<v Speaker 5>hand right now with like at least I think it's
<v Speaker 5>like nine guys that are coming on five different containers
<v Speaker 5>within the next two weeks. So people complain, but at
<v Speaker 5>this point, you know what to expect, you know what
<v Speaker 5>you're getting. You know, it's like, you know, unfortunately we're
<v Speaker 5>not in Target, we're not in Walmart, and you know
<v Speaker 5>we're not going to cut corners, so you know this
<v Speaker 5>is how long it takes, even if I were NECA,
<v Speaker 5>even if I was MESCO, from the absolute start to
<v Speaker 5>the absolute finish, from the time I have a sculptor
<v Speaker 5>start to the time that product gets to me in
<v Speaker 5>hand from a vote from China. If you rush it
<v Speaker 5>and crunch numbers and nothing goes wrong, it takes one year.
<v Speaker 5>If someone's getting stuff out before a year, they're doing
<v Speaker 5>something to take a shortcut. I'm not going to name names,
<v Speaker 5>so one year is usually the absolute minimum. We tried
<v Speaker 5>to get the cmpunk figure here a little sooner, but
<v Speaker 5>we did start also back in November, and you know,
<v Speaker 5>it just it takes time. And again, like I said,
<v Speaker 5>I put my name on this, I have everything of
<v Speaker 5>my life invested in this company, and I will not
<v Speaker 5>take shortcuts for a couple of vocal people in the
<v Speaker 5>community wanting to get their dollars quicker. Simple as that
<v Speaker 5>if they don't like it, I don't need your business.
<v Speaker 5>I welcome it, but I don't need it, and you
<v Speaker 5>can go elsewhere, because, like I had mentioned, there's eighteen
<v Speaker 5>other people doing this right now.
<v Speaker 4>I will say, you know you are your own worst critic.
<v Speaker 4>I think I think you you overanalyze your stuff, which
<v Speaker 4>is good and bad. Right, Like, I'm not gonna name
<v Speaker 4>what figure was, but you called it like midnight a
<v Speaker 4>couple of weeks ago. Oh okay, you said, And like
<v Speaker 4>you're like, which one do you like better? I'm like,
<v Speaker 4>they're the same thing.
<v Speaker 3>That's saying a lot to mac Cardonae.
<v Speaker 1>Has a shine. This one doesn't like in your own head.
<v Speaker 4>But I love that about you because the attention to
<v Speaker 4>detailing these figures. Now people listen, it's up for debate
<v Speaker 4>whether you like a style or not. You know, some
<v Speaker 4>people say these are too detailed for Hasbro's me personally,
<v Speaker 4>I like it. I think it's like a continuation of
<v Speaker 4>the Hasbros or a modern version. Do they fit paint
<v Speaker 4>app watch to the Hasbro No, because these are way better.
<v Speaker 4>But that if you were to strip down a Hasbro
<v Speaker 4>and strip down a Zombie Selle, I think the sculpting
<v Speaker 4>is damn near identical, because people like they have this
<v Speaker 4>weird memory that Hasbro were like Cartoony. Maybe the paint
<v Speaker 4>app was dumbed down, but the sculpting was incredible.
<v Speaker 1>I think a lot of that has to do with
<v Speaker 1>the repaint thing and reusing of molds that Hasbro did rights,
<v Speaker 1>it could be that as they were for the original
<v Speaker 1>guy that was used for that body.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, I think a lot of it.
<v Speaker 1>But Josh, to me, having Ron Rudat, you're always no
<v Speaker 1>matter whoever makes retro style figures, you're because you have Ron.
<v Speaker 1>To me, that's always your like link to the password,
<v Speaker 1>Like you'll be superior to me no matter what.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, and here's some as far as also time goes,
<v Speaker 5>like sometime, you know, he runs an older guy. Now
<v Speaker 5>he's like, you know, in his like late sixties, I
<v Speaker 5>believe at this point, and you know, I'm not going
<v Speaker 5>to have a figure go into like the sculpting phase
<v Speaker 5>until we actually have his blueprint, you know what I mean.
<v Speaker 5>So like sometimes I might send him Okay, we need
<v Speaker 5>three guys, let's just say, and he might get the
<v Speaker 5>first guy back to me in like a month, you
<v Speaker 5>know what I mean, depending on how he's you know,
<v Speaker 5>his schedule, is how he's feeling, whatever the case may be.
<v Speaker 5>And that's gonna obviously cause a delay in the production,
<v Speaker 5>you know what I mean. So there's all these little things,
<v Speaker 5>But yeah, man, I mean I wanted to be as
<v Speaker 5>close to the original as possible in terms of like
<v Speaker 5>the spirit of it. So how do you connect it?
<v Speaker 5>You need something to bridge the past with the president,
<v Speaker 5>and I felt like he was a perfect guy. Plus
<v Speaker 5>I had a good relationship with mister Rudat for a
<v Speaker 5>number of years.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 5>Back in twenty nineteen, I went to his house and
<v Speaker 5>I picked his attic and the stuff that I found
<v Speaker 5>in there was just amazing. And I told him about
<v Speaker 5>the idea that I had and he was like, yeah,
<v Speaker 5>it sounds in neat, it sounds cool. He's like, just
<v Speaker 5>let me know when you're ready. And about a year later,
<v Speaker 5>I was ready, and now he's making the figures and
<v Speaker 5>it's really cool to see, you know, new figures of
<v Speaker 5>him after three decades.
<v Speaker 3>So you kind of hit on it when you were
<v Speaker 3>given this answer a little bit with with your response.
<v Speaker 3>But some people can call your customer service style brash
<v Speaker 3>or perhaps a little crash.
<v Speaker 1>This is this a strategy of your or or he's
<v Speaker 1>not answering the emails anymore. That's a step in the
<v Speaker 1>right direction. Yes, that is a step.
<v Speaker 5>I haven't answered emails. Well, well, I personally haven't responded
<v Speaker 5>to emails in like, I'm not saying the company people
<v Speaker 5>are gonna twist my words. I person haven't done with
<v Speaker 5>email stuff in three years, you know what I mean?
<v Speaker 5>But like I don't.
<v Speaker 3>Somebody might see a little comment in the Facebook group
<v Speaker 3>or on Instagram page, you know, and and and they
<v Speaker 3>love to screenshot and be like, look at this guy.
<v Speaker 3>I can't believe.
<v Speaker 5>You know what's crazy? Everyone does that? Everyone, right, I'm saying,
<v Speaker 5>like people from other toy companies or whatever, and that's fine,
<v Speaker 5>But for whatever me, I'm pigeonholed to this degree. It's
<v Speaker 5>so stupid. You know, someone calls me a you know,
<v Speaker 5>an a hole or whatever, says your product suck. So
<v Speaker 5>I'm black, you know, Hey, buddy, you suck. Oh my god,
<v Speaker 5>you're you're you're the you know, you're the worst. You're
<v Speaker 5>the anti Christ Christ, you know.
<v Speaker 3>I guess I think that the strategy here, the thing
<v Speaker 3>that you say where like the idea of well then
<v Speaker 3>don't buy it, right h People hate that for some reason.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's the same thing and not a sufficient answer
<v Speaker 1>for people.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's like, well then don't watch it.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 3>It's like aw, people who whatever the hell it's like
<v Speaker 3>when you say, well, then don't watch they're like a.
<v Speaker 1>Problem.
<v Speaker 3>How dare you.
<v Speaker 5>It's it's crazy. I feel like at the end of
<v Speaker 5>the day, a lot of these people just need a
<v Speaker 5>nice big hug and to be told everything is going
<v Speaker 5>to be okay, and they want like you certainly do
<v Speaker 5>not do that though, Yeah, they just want like a
<v Speaker 5>combative back and forth. And you know the solution is,
<v Speaker 5>you know, if there's something that's not to your liking,
<v Speaker 5>that you're not getting the answer that you want, then
<v Speaker 5>just simply stop giving that person or that place business.
<v Speaker 5>You know, if you keep going to a restaurant and
<v Speaker 5>the hamburger is not good, why do you keep going back?
<v Speaker 5>You know what I mean? Simple as that. There's nothing
<v Speaker 5>brass about that.
<v Speaker 3>It's just or you just don't prefer that burger or
<v Speaker 3>the time it takes to make that burger.
<v Speaker 5>Just simple. You know what, life would be so much
<v Speaker 5>better if you just moved on with whatever didn't suit you.
<v Speaker 1>Yea, your you know your business, like I love to
<v Speaker 1>collect it? Do I love the wait times? No? But
<v Speaker 1>like you said, you've produced thirty something figures and I
<v Speaker 1>know it's gonna be like you have a track record
<v Speaker 1>that like when it comes, it's gonna be. There's no mystery,
<v Speaker 1>Like I know it's gonna be a quality item. So
<v Speaker 1>I don't know like how that trade off doesn't work
<v Speaker 1>for most people, Like I'd rather wait and get something
<v Speaker 1>that's awesome then get something immediately that's garbage.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, you know, of course I will say the world.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, But to Bryan's point, there's never been like, yes,
<v Speaker 4>sometimes there is a way, and it's longer than we want,
<v Speaker 4>but when it comes, it's never like it's never a
<v Speaker 4>bait and switch situation. It's always incredible. It's always well
<v Speaker 4>worth the wait, you know. And we've talked probably sometimes
<v Speaker 4>when I'm like, yeah, I think you need to work
<v Speaker 4>on your bedside matter a little bit. But I also
<v Speaker 4>respect the fact like you're not Target or Walmart or
<v Speaker 4>this publicly traded company. You're one guy who started his
<v Speaker 4>own toy company. And like, if someone's gonna be and listen,
<v Speaker 4>I have guilty of this myself. A lot of someone's
<v Speaker 4>gonna be a dick to you, I feel it's they'll
<v Speaker 4>probably be a dick back. This isn't like, you know,
<v Speaker 4>this isn't Mattel. You know, you're not corporate, You're not
<v Speaker 4>corporate zombie. You're one guy who's doing this by himself. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>you have some people helping you out, but at the
<v Speaker 4>end of the day, it's your company, your name, you're you.
<v Speaker 1>Are trying to acquire customers, so.
<v Speaker 5>Right, yeah, sure, yeah, it's just just a crazy world, man.
<v Speaker 5>And also another thing as far as pre orders go,
<v Speaker 5>and like way times, my god, like you know, like
<v Speaker 5>I mentioned this before, like Hot Toys, Like I love
<v Speaker 5>how Toys. Granted, you know, they're you know, twelve inch
<v Speaker 5>figures and they're so detail it's unbelievable. But if you
<v Speaker 5>see like a new release, they might have like an
<v Speaker 5>eighteen month minimum weight, and that's like, you know, for
<v Speaker 5>a license like Marvel, like you know, a multi you know,
<v Speaker 5>billion dollar property like Marvel. It takes a year and
<v Speaker 5>a half for Hot Toys to produce, and they ask
<v Speaker 5>for pre order, so people like, oh, pre pre orders
<v Speaker 5>are part of the game. There have been so many
<v Speaker 5>companies out there. Someone I want to tell this is
<v Speaker 5>very important for people to see and hear. Whatever. Pre
<v Speaker 5>orders are very important. Sure there might be other people
<v Speaker 5>out there that use the pre order money to fund
<v Speaker 5>the entire operation. I can tell you right now, and
<v Speaker 5>I'm this is not me gloating or bragging. I have
<v Speaker 5>enough finances to cover god knows how many years with
<v Speaker 5>so many figures. So this has nothing to do with
<v Speaker 5>funding and operation. This has to do with how many
<v Speaker 5>to get pre sold, so we know how many to
<v Speaker 5>put into production.
<v Speaker 1>There have been especially we have Like that's really all
<v Speaker 1>we're trying to gauge, you know, the interest you have
<v Speaker 1>to man.
<v Speaker 5>Like Super seven. You know, there's been figures in the past,
<v Speaker 5>like you know, like Star Trek figures. Oh I'm not
<v Speaker 5>a Star Trek fan. I'm just using something that happened,
<v Speaker 5>Like they had like this whole wave of figures and
<v Speaker 5>the entire wave got canceled because of low pre order turnout.
<v Speaker 5>Now what if they put Oh my god, this guy
<v Speaker 5>looks like a cool figure. This is one of the
<v Speaker 5>top characters. We're gonna make five thousand of these and
<v Speaker 5>eight hundred sell. Guess what, that one failed wave might
<v Speaker 5>put them into bankruptcy. So you have to gauge your customers.
<v Speaker 1>You have to know.
<v Speaker 5>And I'll always see this the Dan Housen figure. I
<v Speaker 5>was going to order a thousand Dan Housing figures. The
<v Speaker 5>very very absolute in my factory allows one thousand figures.
<v Speaker 5>We did an open pre order. He sold just under
<v Speaker 5>five thousand. You's much money we would have left on
<v Speaker 5>the team for thousand and how's it would have made less?
<v Speaker 5>I would have made less four thousand fans wouldn't have
<v Speaker 5>had a figure. So you have to know how many
<v Speaker 5>to order. And the only way you could do that
<v Speaker 5>is by having a pre order to see what the
<v Speaker 5>interest is.
<v Speaker 4>And you talk about Dan hasn't making money. I will
<v Speaker 4>say this, the most I've ever gotten paid for an
<v Speaker 4>individual figure is not from Jack's, not from Mattel. It's
<v Speaker 4>through Zombie salor Toy. So you take care of your talent,
<v Speaker 4>you know, then that's something that is uh and you're
<v Speaker 4>not mate. You just said Dan has in five thousand. Okay,
<v Speaker 4>how many jazz warus Dan has to make.
<v Speaker 1>We'll never know.
<v Speaker 4>But it's you can't even compare the numbers. But yet
<v Speaker 4>the royalty check from you is double, if not triple.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, I like to take care of the talent. Man Like, yeah,
<v Speaker 5>I'm not selling as many, I'm not making as much money.
<v Speaker 5>But at the end of the day, it's you know,
<v Speaker 5>it's the talent, it's their name, it's their image, it's
<v Speaker 5>their career, it's their you know. It sounds cliche, but
<v Speaker 5>like their body and their sacrifice to be able to
<v Speaker 5>get to this degree in life for them to merit
<v Speaker 5>an action figure. So why would I not take care
<v Speaker 5>of the talent, you know what I mean? And a
<v Speaker 5>lot of the older guys too, they're like, you know,
<v Speaker 5>maybe they're on social Security, they don't have much money
<v Speaker 5>and they're not millionaires, so shit, why not have someone
<v Speaker 5>take care of them if you have the means to.
<v Speaker 5>I'm making money on them. Why can't they get a
<v Speaker 5>good portion of that from me?
<v Speaker 4>So, so you mentioned some guys are on the water
<v Speaker 4>right now? Can you can you name drop? Are there
<v Speaker 4>any surprises? Are they all pre order figures?
<v Speaker 1>What are we coming? Well?
<v Speaker 5>A couple surprise, I really, you know, I don't want
<v Speaker 5>to I'd rather not say, but like you know, all
<v Speaker 5>of the series five I'm serious five, Series four with Flair,
<v Speaker 5>Michael Austin, Bad News, Allen t Jury and who's the
<v Speaker 5>fifth guy I can remember? Abdullah? So those are all
<v Speaker 5>like legit on the water. I actually just emailed them
<v Speaker 5>two days ago to say, hey, you know, I get
<v Speaker 5>a boat update whatever, And as of right now, I'm
<v Speaker 5>not going to say the date because then people are like,
<v Speaker 5>oh my god, whatever, it's not here, you bastard. No,
<v Speaker 5>it's going to be here between like as of right now,
<v Speaker 5>between mid to late February. So that's why three weeks
<v Speaker 5>from now. And those were on sale late September to
<v Speaker 5>mid or early October. And I said, you know, estimated date.
<v Speaker 5>I think it was like January February. So we're right
<v Speaker 5>on target, seeing punk. He's coming. Also, there's two brand
<v Speaker 5>new Bruce Lee figures coming also that are on the
<v Speaker 5>back of the box that look awesome in hand. That's
<v Speaker 5>really cool. He was a good seller. Who else Public Enemy,
<v Speaker 5>which are going to be insane, and a couple of
<v Speaker 5>different variants here there. But it's literally five cargo five
<v Speaker 5>twenty foot cargo containers that are coming. So it's going
<v Speaker 5>to be a busy time for us.
<v Speaker 3>All right, you have something next to you right?
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, I mean yeah, if you got him, if
<v Speaker 1>you got it, flaunt it. Yeah.
<v Speaker 5>So check this out the good old Public Enemy.
<v Speaker 1>Nice, wow, crazy, never had actual figure ever?
<v Speaker 5>What is he's on the cool?
<v Speaker 1>You ready for this? Yep?
<v Speaker 5>What do we got back here?
<v Speaker 1>What's do Hakushi transitions? Oh to Blair in the Blue
<v Speaker 1>the Wedgie pal Oh.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, that's the next series Man, that's gonna be uh
<v Speaker 5>up for sale once the series four get fulfilled. I
<v Speaker 5>will absolutely put that up for pre sale with hopefully
<v Speaker 5>an in hand ship date of maybe like July August.
<v Speaker 1>Give us an update on the six inch line. Where
<v Speaker 1>in the hell is that? And in your heart at Hearts?
<v Speaker 1>Do you think you'll beat Mattel to market with a
<v Speaker 1>loose cannon Brian Pillman.
<v Speaker 5>I don't. Honestly, probably not, And again I'm not trying
<v Speaker 5>to like beat them to market, you know what I mean.
<v Speaker 1>I just you don't think that's important if you're doing
<v Speaker 1>a similar style.
<v Speaker 5>No, because they're two totally different figures, like the loose
<v Speaker 5>cannon figure. You know, they's just like Twofer.
<v Speaker 1>I'm saying, do you think I mean, they haven't even
<v Speaker 1>announced the loose cannon, but you think you could beat them?
<v Speaker 1>That's a yeah, So I guess yeah.
<v Speaker 5>I don't think they're going to do like the version
<v Speaker 5>that I'm doing, but I mean if they do, I mean,
<v Speaker 5>so be it. But you also have to keep in
<v Speaker 5>mind they have tooling that have existed for years upon years.
<v Speaker 5>It's not hard to have a new guy digitally sculpt
<v Speaker 5>ahead and just pop it on a pre existing body,
<v Speaker 5>and that's different when you have existing tooling that yeah,
<v Speaker 5>well not really because with the head there's really not
<v Speaker 5>much that can go wrong if you're like testing out
<v Speaker 5>joints and movement. It's just a head that you pop
<v Speaker 5>on a body. And like you know, there's guys that
<v Speaker 5>I've made that have been using like you know, pre
<v Speaker 5>existing bodies. You can get that done in like four
<v Speaker 5>or five months, like really fast. So let's just say
<v Speaker 5>even for Mattel, it takes them six months, So six months,
<v Speaker 5>whereas I'm all new tooling, all new growing pains from
<v Speaker 5>the ground up, making sure everything is you know, articulated
<v Speaker 5>well not breaking, all these different types of tests and
<v Speaker 5>all this stuff. So yeah, it's taken like you know
<v Speaker 5>about you know, two years in development. But this is
<v Speaker 5>something I'm actively going on. As far as when they're
<v Speaker 5>going to be up, it's going to be a pre order,
<v Speaker 5>and it's going to be definitely before because I have
<v Speaker 5>like a whole timetable that we have internally. It's definitely
<v Speaker 5>gonna be before March thirty first.
<v Speaker 1>And then what is there packaging designed?
<v Speaker 5>Oh yeah, the packaging is done. Man, it looks awesome.
<v Speaker 5>I'll show you guys later.
<v Speaker 1>But it looks really coolocks style, like a like a nice.
<v Speaker 5>Big like clamshell like think of like Neca figures like
<v Speaker 5>something like that.
<v Speaker 1>I just envisioning.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, that's just what I really like. And if you're
<v Speaker 5>a Mint in car Minton card or Mint in box collector,
<v Speaker 5>it'll look awesome. You could have it standing up on
<v Speaker 5>its own. You can't, you know, topple over or whatever.
<v Speaker 5>It looks awesome on display. And more importantly, the people
<v Speaker 5>that are you know, anal about the packaging being creased,
<v Speaker 5>and you got to see the emails that you know,
<v Speaker 5>we ever received. You can't crease this sort of plastic.
<v Speaker 5>So there's one bullet that's getting dodged right there.
<v Speaker 1>Wow.
<v Speaker 5>So yeah, I'm trying to take wrestling figures in a
<v Speaker 5>completely different direction. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work,
<v Speaker 5>and then we could always change the packaging for the
<v Speaker 5>next series. But as of right now, this is what
<v Speaker 5>I had always envisioned. I remember being like a teenager,
<v Speaker 5>you know, being in all of like Neca horror figures,
<v Speaker 5>seeing them in toys r Us or f YA, and
<v Speaker 5>I'm like, god, you know, I wish they made wrestling
<v Speaker 5>figures and this is the closest thing we're getting to
<v Speaker 5>Necca making wrestling figures. I can humbly say that. So
<v Speaker 5>I hope a lot of people share that same love
<v Speaker 5>and same value that I do, and when it comes
<v Speaker 5>time to place those orders, they do it.
<v Speaker 1>So that's a series two like in development, dude.
<v Speaker 5>Series way beyond series two. And then like I had mentioned,
<v Speaker 5>so you just pop different heads on the pre existing bodies.
<v Speaker 5>So now we have my God on either six or
<v Speaker 5>seven different six inch figure bodies in development right now
<v Speaker 5>or have been developed. I guess I could say, and
<v Speaker 5>a million different heads that we're going to like you know,
<v Speaker 5>mix and match or whatever. So I mean, again, don't
<v Speaker 5>quote me, but as of right now, I'm looking to
<v Speaker 5>have at least a first and second series out before
<v Speaker 5>the end of the year.
<v Speaker 1>So I'm hook you up with Dreamer. You can sign
<v Speaker 1>him and then he could reuse the Abdullah body.
<v Speaker 3>Oh I was wondering where you were going with this.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my god.
<v Speaker 3>I will say I've always been interested. I find it
<v Speaker 3>interesting your thought process on like the competition, where like
<v Speaker 3>where when we found out that Mitch announces that he's
<v Speaker 3>doing an Ahmed and then you announce your Ahmed like
<v Speaker 3>three days later just whatever the hell, and your attitude
<v Speaker 3>was like, well whatever, you know, it's like you got
<v Speaker 3>two people, multiple people in the same space, doing the
<v Speaker 3>same guy of the same whatever the hell, and your
<v Speaker 3>attitude had always been like ehn.
<v Speaker 1>Or whatever about you don't worry about You got enough
<v Speaker 1>shit to focus on about your company. For you to
<v Speaker 1>be worrying about someone else's company a waste of time.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, And the best part is and this is like
<v Speaker 5>you know, this goes on like you know, on Tony
<v Speaker 5>Norris Ahmed, Like so I had to deal with him
<v Speaker 5>in place from like my god, like twenty twenty two whatever,
<v Speaker 5>long story show. I had signed them before Mitch, but
<v Speaker 5>like I don't want to say, he was being like,
<v Speaker 5>you know, a car, I'm gonna throwing amid on the bus.
<v Speaker 5>He's really cool at times I've you know, interacted with him.
<v Speaker 5>I just think like maybe genuinely, like he just didn't
<v Speaker 5>realize like that he had a contract that's according to him,
<v Speaker 5>regardless of whatever the situation is. I could have easily
<v Speaker 5>been like, dude, I can get legal involved. I can
<v Speaker 5>call up good old Mike Dawkins and send some shit.
<v Speaker 5>I said, fuck it. Let this guy make some more money.
<v Speaker 5>Let let him make an extra three hundred bucks with
<v Speaker 5>Mitch and and let me put myself out and let
<v Speaker 5>the cream rise to the top. And then at the
<v Speaker 5>end of the day you could see which is superior.
<v Speaker 5>And that's that, you know. I'm out here to knock
<v Speaker 5>the competition. I'm just saying, at the end of the day,
<v Speaker 5>if you have a good product, you have a good brand,
<v Speaker 5>people gravitate towards what looks better.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I've said a couple of times the show,
<v Speaker 1>like who would not want to act for your mail themselves?
<v Speaker 1>If you just asked them, Hey, do you want to
<v Speaker 1>ask for yourself? And I'll pay you? What human on
<v Speaker 1>earth goes on? No, I don't want to act for myself,
<v Speaker 1>you know, like much less carnial old wrestlers. I mean, shit, dude,
<v Speaker 1>it's like kind of a recipe for disaster, you know.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, that's another thing, man, Like so many people when
<v Speaker 5>you reach out to like these guys and whatever, they're like,
<v Speaker 5>you know, like what you know, you want to make
<v Speaker 5>a figure of me. It's cool, it's humbling. You could
<v Speaker 5>hear it in their voice and stuff. But a lot
<v Speaker 5>of people just get like a little too excited, and
<v Speaker 5>then they're like they'll release shit on social media that
<v Speaker 5>they probably shouldn't have them, like a god damn, you
<v Speaker 5>know what I mean. But it is what it is, man,
<v Speaker 5>it's I understand it.
<v Speaker 1>So I gotta ask, what's going on with this macho
<v Speaker 1>man collection?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, yeah, that's just another thing. So it's just the articulate.
<v Speaker 5>The articulation, the sculpting on them is just unreal. They
<v Speaker 5>look amazing in hand and the other two. So we're
<v Speaker 5>working on three of them right now. The two have
<v Speaker 5>been done for months, but I'm not going to release
<v Speaker 5>them until all they're all available at the same exact time.
<v Speaker 5>So the gear that has the tassels, that has been
<v Speaker 5>over a year, just to make sure we get those right. Like,
<v Speaker 5>you know, first we were using glue. Then the glue
<v Speaker 5>was coming off and they were trying to put like
<v Speaker 5>a little groove in the hand. They had to resculpt
<v Speaker 5>the arms to fit it. I can't even explain like
<v Speaker 5>a groove like picture like like blinds for like a
<v Speaker 5>window whatever, yea. So yeah, back and forth, trial and
<v Speaker 5>error to make sure those look good. You know, they're
<v Speaker 5>not sculpted in like little wings you know what I mean.
<v Speaker 5>They are like beautiful pieces of cloth, And then we
<v Speaker 5>did cloth tests. This was too stiff, this was too
<v Speaker 5>loose until we got the right exit. I know it
<v Speaker 5>sounds crazy, and at the end of the day, maybe
<v Speaker 5>the same amount of figures would sell. But again, I
<v Speaker 5>have OCD and I want to make sure the best
<v Speaker 5>figure to my liking, which again I feel hopefully a
<v Speaker 5>lot of people share that same sentiment. No, it's the
<v Speaker 5>best it could possibly be. You know what I mean. Again,
<v Speaker 5>it's not about money, It's about putting the best quality
<v Speaker 5>figure out there. And with a name like Randy Savage,
<v Speaker 5>I want to do his legacy proud. This is not
<v Speaker 5>just a quick, cheap cash to use a name to
<v Speaker 5>sell figures. Yes, that's a big plus out of it,
<v Speaker 5>but it's beyond that. And these figures are so beautiful
<v Speaker 5>and so like meticulous that when you see them, you're
<v Speaker 5>gonna be like god damn. Like, you know, my wife,
<v Speaker 5>she knows shit about toys. She doesn't know the difference
<v Speaker 5>between fucking Macho Man and Spider Man. But like, like
<v Speaker 5>when I showed this figure to her in hand, the
<v Speaker 5>actual final you know, tasseled figure, She's like you know,
<v Speaker 5>this is beautiful. It looks like she wanted to cry
<v Speaker 5>because she knows how much like I poured into it,
<v Speaker 5>you know what I mean, And just there's no way
<v Speaker 5>you could deny the quality and the craftsmanship of that.
<v Speaker 5>So right now they're closed there being our factory in
<v Speaker 5>China or Chinese New Year, they close down for like,
<v Speaker 5>you know, almost five weeks. So once they're zoom, we
<v Speaker 5>have the blisters done, we have the cards done, all
<v Speaker 5>that shit. So like once it's actually finally back up
<v Speaker 5>in the resume services, I hope to have those on
<v Speaker 5>a boat by like the middle of April, to hopefully
<v Speaker 5>be here two months from them, so like June. But
<v Speaker 5>that's another thing. I want to have him up for
<v Speaker 5>sale before the end of March, before April, and then boom,
<v Speaker 5>we just get him in and people are like, wow,
<v Speaker 5>this talk about worth the wait. This is These are
<v Speaker 5>the best Randy Savage figures we've ever seen in our
<v Speaker 5>life period.
<v Speaker 1>So oh damn, yeah, that's awesome.
<v Speaker 5>It's cool. I enjoy it. A little ride back, huh
<v Speaker 5>right back figures coming out.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>You love the variety of wrestlers, you know, you have
<v Speaker 4>old school guys, current guys.
<v Speaker 1>See, we have a lot of current guys. So for
<v Speaker 1>ride back to sneak in there, so like kind of
<v Speaker 1>Elak company. Actually yeah, he's really us three Dan House
<v Speaker 1>at a ne Gage and Johnny Gargana.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, just you know, like you know right back, you know,
<v Speaker 5>he has name value and you know he was popular
<v Speaker 5>when he was around, and you know, like you know,
<v Speaker 5>it was uh, I feel like it was worth it
<v Speaker 5>to do because with his figure, like there was reuse,
<v Speaker 5>Like that's the reuse of the hercules body believe it
<v Speaker 5>or not. So like the single lead is actually painted on,
<v Speaker 5>but it's so good and it's so well done, like
<v Speaker 5>you can't even notice that, and so like, yeah, so
<v Speaker 5>it was fast to make his figure, but I did
<v Speaker 5>have him signed for like about two years or whatever
<v Speaker 5>it was. But yeah, so his figure will probably be
<v Speaker 5>out sooner than later because it was pretty easy to do.
<v Speaker 5>Once again, you have those bodies ready.
<v Speaker 4>So just in New Head, I think it looks great.
<v Speaker 4>And you know, right back, he has his fan base
<v Speaker 4>and he has people who don't like him. But I
<v Speaker 4>think the like you said, the positive outways the negative.
<v Speaker 4>You know, like yeah, maybe his haters won't buy it,
<v Speaker 4>but his fans will, So it's not these figures aren't
<v Speaker 4>for you know, his haters or anybody who. You know,
<v Speaker 4>the figures you make on for people who don't like you,
<v Speaker 4>the people who like the figures.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, exactly, man, exactly. And it's such a cool like
<v Speaker 5>I'm not just blowing smoke. It's a really like cool
<v Speaker 5>looking figure. Like you know, there's no way you can
<v Speaker 5>look at and be like, damn, this is awesome, regardless
<v Speaker 5>if you know who Ryeback is or you like him
<v Speaker 5>or you don't like him, and like, the whole thing
<v Speaker 5>is whether the figure is really cool and like has
<v Speaker 5>a cool design, like a ride back figure or a
<v Speaker 5>guy that's just wearing just basic tights. I wanted to
<v Speaker 5>make every figure look cool where it's like you almost
<v Speaker 5>have to have him, regardless if you like the guy
<v Speaker 5>or not, you know what I mean. Like, I wanted
<v Speaker 5>to make him just look look awesome, Like it could
<v Speaker 5>be the most basic guy. I'm not going to mention
<v Speaker 5>any wrestlers, but the most basic figure I want to
<v Speaker 5>turn into a must have, you know, so honestly.
<v Speaker 1>So, someone posted on our Patreon and I didn't know
<v Speaker 1>it was yours. I was like, Wow, that's really nice.
<v Speaker 1>Who made that?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, I was yeah, yeah, I was gonna post it
<v Speaker 5>until like it was in hand because again, like I'm
<v Speaker 5>doing so much stuff behind the scenes, Like you know
<v Speaker 5>how people are, like i'll post something today like oh you're.
<v Speaker 1>Co do you know what I mean? Like I want
<v Speaker 1>to comment, so like.
<v Speaker 5>The idea I had in mind, I wanted to post
<v Speaker 5>that be like you know right back, you know, coming
<v Speaker 5>you know, twenty twenty five, and you know, see all
<v Speaker 5>the comments and then boom the next day in hand
<v Speaker 5>shock shell shock drop.
<v Speaker 3>And like you have it in hands.
<v Speaker 4>So whatever, So I will say, you're you're you're hyping
<v Speaker 4>and you're you're you know, you've gone above beyond, like
<v Speaker 4>with the commercials we seem punked. You know, you in
<v Speaker 4>the Abdul the Butcher commercial. You know, you invest in yourself.
<v Speaker 4>You understand what it's. You know, it's not just an
<v Speaker 4>Instagram post. You know, sometimes you go the extra mile,
<v Speaker 4>and like for even your your hater's got to respect that.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, you're putting your your time, your money into this.
<v Speaker 4>You're you're investing so much into these figures, and it
<v Speaker 4>shows I really feel like your figures. You know, I've
<v Speaker 4>said it publicly before like to me, this is my opinion.
<v Speaker 4>I love your retros better than anybody else I do.
<v Speaker 4>I collect Epic. I think Epic has been doing better
<v Speaker 4>and better, even Mitch who went from like you know,
<v Speaker 4>glorified custom that I made in eighth grade, so now.
<v Speaker 1>His figures are are way better.
<v Speaker 4>But I think like your I could picture your figures
<v Speaker 4>like in the adult section of like Walmart Target. You
<v Speaker 4>know what I'm saying, Like just the packaging, the detail,
<v Speaker 4>someone would hold it up, you know it just everything
<v Speaker 4>looks super super professional, you know, not.
<v Speaker 1>Not any of the goal of the sixth inch to
<v Speaker 1>get into like that section or.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, definitely, yeah, definitely into like a big box retailer,
<v Speaker 5>because right now, without giving too much away, I'm trying
<v Speaker 5>to put those at a very aggressive price, Like you
<v Speaker 5>know a lot of people are thinking, you know, one
<v Speaker 5>hundred bucks, eighty bucks. No, I can assure you we're
<v Speaker 5>gonna do our best to get them like in line
<v Speaker 5>to the point you see that you're gonna be like,
<v Speaker 5>what now I have to get them all I was
<v Speaker 5>thinking about getting that, but now we get the whole set,
<v Speaker 5>Like that's where I want to be. And again at
<v Speaker 5>the end, of the day, it's gonna possibly cost us
<v Speaker 5>less money to get these guys out there because of
<v Speaker 5>all the reuse, where as he's four and a half
<v Speaker 5>inch guys, for the most part, they're all like built
<v Speaker 5>from the ground up specifically for that guy. Very few
<v Speaker 5>reuse you know, Yes, I just mentioned rya back and hercules,
<v Speaker 5>but other than that, there's very little reuse for these figures.
<v Speaker 5>So at the end of the day, I'm hoping to
<v Speaker 5>have a lower cost for me, which in turn I
<v Speaker 5>pass on to consumers, and then also a faster turnaround time.
<v Speaker 5>So we're trying to get those at a really competitive price.
<v Speaker 5>With that being said, with this good price, I hope
<v Speaker 5>to shop that around two major retailers and have those
<v Speaker 5>being able to be on shelves, whether it be a
<v Speaker 5>Target or Walmart. Fye hot topic, So be it like,
<v Speaker 5>this isn't a niche like, you know, a nineties inspired figure.
<v Speaker 5>This is now modern scale figures at a good competitive
<v Speaker 5>price along with other figures in that market. So I
<v Speaker 5>hope that once we get out there, once these are
<v Speaker 5>in hand that purchases, we'll see that and we could
<v Speaker 5>actually have some shelf space at major stores, So we'll
<v Speaker 5>see what happens.
<v Speaker 4>Damn well, Zombie, I mean, we just supposed to be
<v Speaker 4>twenty minutes, but we went over over forty five.
<v Speaker 1>You you know, we can talk to you all day.
<v Speaker 4>I'm super fascinated by your story, your journey, and you
<v Speaker 4>know I'm a fan, I'm a collector.
<v Speaker 1>You know I'm in the line four times very much.
<v Speaker 1>But hey, I'm working on my second time.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, it's coming. I have the I showed you pictures
<v Speaker 5>of it, right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I get they lose track. You've showed me a
<v Speaker 1>lot of updates.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, and see how crazy like, oh the lip colors
<v Speaker 5>to this color? We need to take off the lips again,
<v Speaker 5>back and forth. I could have been like, hey, here's
<v Speaker 5>your figure. We're done. It's in hand right now. Can't
<v Speaker 5>do that?
<v Speaker 1>So cool?
<v Speaker 4>Well, Zombie, is there anything else you want to plug
<v Speaker 4>or tea's before we get out of here?
<v Speaker 1>Not really?
<v Speaker 5>Oh, I mean, well this is cool. Is a good
<v Speaker 5>buddy of mine. I mean, y'all show it in hand.
<v Speaker 5>This he's going to definitely be in a series six,
<v Speaker 5>or maybe we could do a standalone release, but he's
<v Speaker 5>tentatively slated to be in Heels of vas Ery six.
<v Speaker 5>But we have our good buddy roadkill.
<v Speaker 1>Wow Welvw's own first time ever.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, he's a collector.
<v Speaker 1>Really, I feel like I maybe broke that deal I
<v Speaker 1>think you did.
<v Speaker 5>This was like back in like nineteen eighty two.
<v Speaker 1>But uh, you really have to get into store so
<v Speaker 1>Roco can go and buy and scalp his own figure
<v Speaker 1>and sell it for more money. Hey you need any
<v Speaker 1>door now? Oh yeah, Oh.
<v Speaker 5>I'm looking down with you like a little shell full
<v Speaker 5>of like upcoming guys. Do you you want to see
<v Speaker 5>some more.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, of course we do. Do you want to see
<v Speaker 1>some more figure? Yes, of course we do. I want
<v Speaker 1>to say that BUCKYO hair man on.
<v Speaker 5>Car behind the Oh yeah, dude, that that's a that's
<v Speaker 5>an unreleased BUCKYO hair figure. It was five than one
<v Speaker 5>hundred dollars. I said, I kid you not.
<v Speaker 1>That's wow insane hair figures when I was a kids.
<v Speaker 5>See, well, I don't have much stuff here. I usually
<v Speaker 5>have like you know a lot of shit in my
<v Speaker 5>office at the warehouse. But like this is unpainted. But
<v Speaker 5>believe me, we have the figure done like I mentioned.
<v Speaker 5>But uh, this is like you know, like a a
<v Speaker 5>first shot they call of like macho man, Macho King.
<v Speaker 5>Oh yeah, yes, sir, I had a nice little vein
<v Speaker 5>on the forearm.
<v Speaker 1>Man. I like that. I might need to add a
<v Speaker 1>van in the form on my next thing.
<v Speaker 3>If Macho has a vein in the forearm, yeah.
<v Speaker 5>One of we can. We can make it happen. That's
<v Speaker 5>really it, man. I mean as far as figure, well, yeah,
<v Speaker 5>I was gonna show another one, but I just realized
<v Speaker 5>it was for a movie property that I have yet
<v Speaker 5>to fucking show. Yeah, I have right yet, but I
<v Speaker 5>can't do Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a different breed, you
<v Speaker 5>know what I mean, like with licensing for like you know,
<v Speaker 5>of course, but uh yeah, man, that's a that's pretty
<v Speaker 5>much it. But yeah, that's my that's my pride. Enjoy
<v Speaker 5>that BUCKYO Hair figure. I love that line. It popped
<v Speaker 5>up on eBay a couple of months ago and I
<v Speaker 5>got I paid way more than I should have and
<v Speaker 5>I could have. But that's a figure I wanted since
<v Speaker 5>nineteen ninety seven. There was like a toe Mart's Action
<v Speaker 5>Figure magazine and they showed this whole series of unreleased figures.
<v Speaker 5>It to mart It's one of those fucking magazines whatever.
<v Speaker 5>I was like, Oh my god, I wish I could
<v Speaker 5>have one. They've eluded me my entire adult collecting life,
<v Speaker 5>and one popped up, so I had to do it.
<v Speaker 5>And that's like, pal, yeah, I appreciate it.
<v Speaker 3>Guys, Well thanks for doing this, buddy.
<v Speaker 1>Sit in the hot seat with the Major Rest Figure podcast.
<v Speaker 3>I don't think we're going to get any people are
<v Speaker 3>still going to say.
<v Speaker 1>That we.
<v Speaker 4>About the long arms. They're gonna ask all those questions.
<v Speaker 5>Oh my god, dude, it's insane.
<v Speaker 1>Man.
<v Speaker 5>If you want to ask me about it now, I'll
<v Speaker 5>tell you they're not that long. They're just normal, you
<v Speaker 5>know what I mean. And that's I'm fucking I'm looking
<v Speaker 5>at a whole Cogan Hasbro figure right behind me. It's
<v Speaker 5>it's no different than we literally measured that in King
<v Speaker 5>Kong Bundy arms and they're they're literal same exact length.
<v Speaker 3>All right, Well, hey, a little behind the scenes before
<v Speaker 3>we go zombie, if you could stand in the middle
<v Speaker 3>of the frame please and look like really scared and
<v Speaker 3>now I look down on them like like that, Broski,
<v Speaker 3>look up like that, like what like look up that way? Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>and and like you're asking them a serious question. All right, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 3>all right, right, there's the thumb.
<v Speaker 1>Well, we got you.
<v Speaker 3>We'll set that up.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, all right, thanks Zobie, Thanks zom.
<v Speaker 5>You guys, I appreciate it.
<v Speaker 4>Join the community at major marks dot com and get
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