Talking with Scott Gairdner, Mike Carlson and Jason Sheridan of Podcast: The Ride

Recently, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts when I heard a pre-show advertisement for a new podcast called Podcast: The Ride. Like many theme park enthusiasts, I find myself constantly in search of as much theme park related media as I can get my eyes and ears on, so I gave it a listen, and loved it.

Billed as “A Theme Park Podcast by Three Childless Men in their 30’s,” Podcast: The Ride is the brainchild of three members of the Los Angeles comedy community; Scott Gairdner (Funny or Die, Conan), Mike Carlson (Upright Citizens Brigade, Screen Junkies) and Jason Sheridan (UCB, Fulanthropy), who initially all met each other through their comedy backgrounds, but realized they all had been bitten by the theme park bug.

(Author’s Note: Though the following interview is mostly G-rated, Podcast: The Ride’s episodes all feature an explicit tag. I know there are some families and younger readers who read our articles, so just providing you all a heads up before reading.)

“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.” – Walt Disney

 “We all were vaguely in the same scene, had met each other, and heard that the others were theme park fans as well,” Gairdner said. “We all kind of felt each other out like ‘Hey, he’s one of my tribe.’ It was good to know that there were other theme park nerds within the LA Comedy Scene.”

Sheridan echoed these sentiments.

“I think it kind of makes sense, with LA being a city of transplants, there are a lot of people who grew up on the East Coast who would do family trips to the parks in Orlando, but there’s also a contingent of us, who are still very into it now.” He said. “It makes sense because it’s a very theatrical experience, so I guess that tracks for people who like to be creative.”

“It’s been kind of a fun process for us to embrace this side of ourselves.” Gairdner added. “You get out to LA, and you feel like you’ve got to be ‘cool.’ You’ve got to be into cool bands and cool movies. It’s been nice to have the support of the other guys when I ‘come clean’ about my ‘dorkier’ interests. I’m not the only guy who goes to MiceAge and Mouseplanet and read the information guides growing up.”

“I remember very specifically the first time that Mike and I hung out, we were part of a group trip to Knott’s Berry Farm.” He continued. “We both referenced Screamscape.com, and I was shocked. Another person who visits Screamscape? That was bizarre to me at the time.”

This wasn’t the only theme park interaction early on between Carlson and Gairdner.

“When I did the first sketch with Scott at Conan, I think he came up to me and said ‘Do you have a twitter account that’s from the point of view of the Genie at the Aladdin show of Disney’s California Adventure?’” Carlson told us. “Which was true, I did – I went back and looked at it, it needs touching up, but that is the calling card of a lunatic! But that’s the type of thing where I thought ‘Wow, this guy is in deep like I am with theme park stuff.’”

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”- Walt Disney

When asked about the decision to start a podcast, Sheridan had a bit of a tongue-in-cheek response.

“Mike and I were talking about starting a podcast but felt a lot of people were starting podcasts at the time and the market was saturated.” He said. “We were active theme park podcast listeners, but we thought there was a comedic angle to come from when approaching the topic.”

All three hosts credit Jim Hill and Len Testa’s podcast; The Unofficial Guide Disney Dish, The Season Pass Podcast, Defunctland, and the YouTube Series “Martin’s Vids” as some of their podcasting inspirations.

Gairdner noted that the trio wanted to create a podcast that appealed to the general population, but also hardcore theme park enthusiasts.

“We wanted to do a theme park podcast that was a little more conversational, and could be understood by those without a ton of theme park knowledge,” he said. “There are a lot of theme park podcasts out there, but I think a lot of them assume the level of knowledge, that we all (as theme park enthusiasts) have. Which makes them great for us to listen to, but we wanted to make one that translates the deep extreme theme park nerd-dom to people who kind of like Disney and Universal but aren’t on the message boards every day like we are.

Coming from a background in comedy, it was also important to the hosts that Podcast: The Ride wouldn’t take itself too seriously.

“We want to be funny over everything,” Carlson said. “We want to ‘deep dive,’ but even if you have just a basic knowledge of what we’re talking about, hopefully you’re laughing most of the time. There will be some times when we’re getting into the specifics of an Imagineer and the animatronic they created, and our brains will think, oh we need to say something funny or make fun of ourselves to earn that.”

“While we do some research, this is by no means a scholarly endeavor, so please no one try to cite our podcast if you’re working on school projects!” Sheridan added with a laugh.

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” – Walt Disney

As mentioned by Carlson, Podcast: The Ride takes “deep dives” and in-depth looks into their topic each episode. While the 17 episodes (to date) of the podcast skew more towards parks in Southern California and Central Florida with topics including the E.T. Adventure, Universe of Energy, Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls and Knott’s Berry Farm, there have been episodes devoted to more regional attractions like Schlitterbahn Water Park in Texas and Kennywood in Pennsylvania.

The goals of the hosts to create a more conversational podcast are evident, and according to Gairdner, a majority of what is said during their recording sessions makes it to air.

“We try not to cut anything down if we can help it,” he said. “We don’t have a very intense post-production process.”

“95% of what we record, we use. It’s some combination of ‘we’re really good at this,’ or ‘we’re just really lazy.’ It’s probably the second one.” Carlson added.

There are definitely a lot of Disney and Universal topics coming in future episodes, but Podcast: The Ride also plans to include more regional parks in the rotation in the future.

“We’re trying to find guests who can talk about a park they grew up with,” Carlson said. “We’re lucky to know a lot of funny people who came from all over the country, so we’re trying to line up guests who have places they’re fond of from their childhood.”

“I grew up outside of Philadelphia so I spent a lot of time in Hersheypark and Dorney Park, and even visited Knoebels a few times,” Sheridan said. “The line between theme park and amusement park is a thing interesting to me. But I do like hearing people’s connections to regional parks, which is how a majority of people in the country experience amusement parks.”

When asked about their dream guests on Podcast: The Ride, the three hosts all had one name in common; Disney Imagineer Tony Baxter.

“We’re all big Tony Baxter fans,” Carlson said. “All three of us were at Disneyland together and crossing between the two parks, and saw Tony Baxter passing the other way. For people to just recognize Tony Baxter on sight just demonstrates the level of nerds we are. We shook his hand really fast and then all freaked out like we met Paul McCartney.”

In addition to Baxter, Gairdner mentioned John Stamos, owner of the original Disneyland sign, Carlson mentioned Kurt Russell, because of his Disney knowledge and relationship with Walt Disney, and Sheridan chose a second Disney Imagineer, Joe Rohde.

“But how does this relate to roller coasters?” – The Coaster101.com audience, probably.

Carlson, Gairdner and Sheridan are all fans of the theme park industry, but aren’t necessarily major thrill seekers when it comes to roller coasters. All three mentioned that some of their first theme park memories involved elements of being afraid of the dark.

“It’s a reoccurring theme on the podcast, that we’re all not thrill seekers. We all have these terrifying wimpy memories that we all go back to,” Gairdner said. “When I was a kid, I remember riding the People Mover, which goes inside Space Mountain, and I started screaming. ‘Wait does this become Space Mountain?!’ My parents had to calm me down, telling me that they were two rides and that the People Mover just went into the building, and I didn’t understand that. I probably thought that Space Mountain was some sort of insanely intense roller coaster as a kid.”

Like I do with most of my interviews, I concluded our chat by asking the three hosts their favorite roller coasters.

Sheridan and Carlson have the same favorite coaster, and it’s a coaster that no longer exists in the version that both men enjoyed.

“It’s Incredible Hulk at Islands of Adventure before they redid it,” Sheridan said. “I loved the late 90’s Marvel Cartoon queue, and I rode that ride so much over the years. I don’t know if it’s the new track or me being in my 30’s, but it gave me a headache when I rode the new version recently. I was also mad they changed the audio during the launch and removed Bruce Banner’s scream.”

Gairdner’s favorite roller coaster is a classic in the enthusiast community, The Beast.

“I don’t go on a lot of roller coasters, but my girlfriend at the time forced me to go on The Beast at Kings Island,” he said. (Author’s Note: I did confirm that his ride was not a night ride on the Beast, because I know you’re all wondering.) I was taken with how massive and sprawling it is. You’re exploring an Ohio wilderness. It was the inspiration for a video I did with Funny or Die called “Roller Coaster Safety with Patrick Wharburton” (included below: Semi-NSFW)

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney.

Though still early in the lifespan of the podcast, the hosts of Podcast: The Ride are excited for the future of the show.

Probably 10 years ago I wasn’t so hardcore about all of this stuff, it kind of goes dormant for a while,” Gairdner said. “After a while people start unlocking the part of your brain, and it gets stronger. Now the disease has spread because we’ve all emboldened each other. Basically the podcast is an organism that has grown out of these people’s weird nerd-dom, and now we want to continue to share it with people.”


Thanks to the hosts of Podcast: The Ride for their time. You can follow them on Twitter and Instagram, or email them at [email protected], and look for Podcast: The Ride however you get your podcasts!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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