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Scott and Jon discuss the state of big box retailers around the holidays focusing on the vast array of children's books, toys, and games. I mean, “discuss” isn’t really the right term. This episode is mostly just Scott rambling on, old-man style, about the good old days of children’s books, games, and toys while Jon, in true co-host fashion, just leaves Scott hanging out to dry. Classy.
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Scott and Jon discuss the state of big box retailers around the holidays focusing on the vast array of children's books, toys, and games. I mean, “discuss” isn’t really the right term. This episode is mostly just Scott rambling on, old-man style, about the good old days of children’s books, games, and toys while Jon, in true co-host fashion, just leaves Scott hanging out to dry. Classy.
Listen to 003 - Black Friday Special by Unpopular Opinions MP3 song. 003 - Black Friday Special song from Unpopular Opinions is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 24:11. This high-quality MP3 track has 651.565 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 27 Nov 2023. Stream and download 003 - Black Friday Special by Unpopular Opinions for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
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The speaker is ready for the holidays and discusses their observations at a store during Black Friday. They mention the presence of children's books with butt-themed titles and express confusion and concern about the need for such books. They also comment on the trend of celebrities writing children's books and question its validity. Additionally, they mention a game called Pop It Pro and express frustration about its existence. Okay, John, how you doing today, man? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I am. I'm ready for the holidays. It's, uh, it is that it's that time of year. And that's, that's exactly what I want to talk about today. We've got kind of a special, uh, a special episode, Black Friday episode. Today is that day where we're all full of turkey. I mean, we're shopping. Yeah. I got to tell you, I was, uh, I was, as you can imagine, we're recording this actually before Black Friday, but it's like stores are, are prepped. I mean, they know what's coming, right? I don't know. This, this Black Friday might be different, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, after all the years we've been through Black Friday, I think it's going to be tame. It's going to be well thought out, um, and it's, and it's displays and it, it, it, it sails. Um, I don't know. I'm looking forward to this Black Friday. Never. Yeah. Yeah. It starts earlier, earlier every year. I mean, this is, this is low hanging fruit, frankly, uh, to rant about like, oh, I didn't have Christmas trees in Walmart in August. Uh, but you know, that, that happens, but I tell you what I take what I was, uh, so I'm in the store, I'm in a, I'm in a large box store, it's not Walmart, a different large box store. Sorry, Walmart. Again, we've established I am a Walmart shopper. I'm not ripping on Walmart or Walmart people because, you know, I hate it, but I love it. Like, like everybody, nobody will admit it, but yeah, anyway, so I'm in a different box store in my town, uh, with my kid, he wanted to run down there and look at some stuff, not really shopping for anything, but he's dragging me around the toy section. And so I'm, I'm walking through the toys and games and, and whatnot there in that section. And I just started looking around, John, and I think like, I got, I got so much to say about this. I mean, I don't even, I don't even know hardly where to start, but I think first of all, I'm in the, I'm in the book section, right? The kids book section they've got up there. I started looking at some of these books, some of them, of course I recognized, you know, some, some classics, some shell Silverstein and whatnot from when you're a kid, which I think, yeah, makes a lot of sense. But, um, there were a lot of, um, there were a lot of butt themed books for kids books. I came across a book called, uh, I took some photos when I was in there. I'm sure I was caught on security camera came across a book called butt or face. Come on over to me. Let me see. Okay. Yeah. Uh huh. Okay. And it's, uh, I guess the idea is that you turn to a page and you, you choose, uh, whether it's a butt you're looking at or a face you're looking at. And I just, that's interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's interactive. It's, it's colorful. It's imaginative. The cover appears to be, and I'm no butt face expert, but it appears to be, uh, the butt of a zebra with, uh, with googly eyes on it. But, but anyway, not far from that one, there's a book called, I need a new butt. Hmm. That's an interesting cover. Yeah. And got a young child with his, uh, his, his pants down, his butt is facing the cover. Um, it's an, it's an, uh, uh, an illustration, it's not a real child. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and the child seems somewhat bashful, embarrassed. Um, I guess, and he's, he's sort of looking back at his, his derriere, um, or the crack. So he seems somehow, you know, maybe an issue that a lot of children deal with is, is anxiety around, uh, their butts and, and having a need for, for what kids are having anxiety around their butt. And, and I guess more so, why are we, why are we entertaining this anxiety? Why don't you just say like, well, you get the butt you, God gave you or whatever, you know, your genes gave you or whatever you want to go about it. Um, I don't know. I think you're taking your kid to get a Brazilian butt lift, uh, at four or what's the, what's the deal here? I think it's butt shaming. It's butt shaming in today's elementary schools and kindergarten and kindergartens, you know, where kids just feel unsatisfied, you know, with, with the, the, the, the, the butt that they have. And, and like, like you said, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's appalling that we're not, not addressing this as, as a community, I guess, I mean, I don't, uh, did you, did you open this book by chance? Do you know, like, cause obviously we're judging a book by its cover and no one should ever do that. I had, this is the, uh, this is the epitome of judging a book by its cover. I literally only saw the cover and I immediately judged the book. I did not pick it up. I didn't want to be caught. I didn't want there to be video evidence of me summoned through a book with a half naked child on the front of it saying, I need a new butt and just flipping through it. I think your kids would have gone off looking at other toys, just you as an adult looking at these children books. Um, and I guess this book, this book seems to be, I mean, the author, Don McMillan, I don't know, I don't know, Don, presumably she's just a children's book author, which is fine. I mean, you know, do your, do your thing, you know, whatever you gotta do. But um, there were a number of books in there that were written by like children's books that are written by celebrities, people known for other things, right? Which I don't know. I don't understand this, right? Like why, how is that all of a, all of a sudden the thing, get a podcast or something, right? So right next to I Need a New Butt is Busy Betty and the Circus Surprise written by none other than, uh, our own Reese Witherspoon, who I believe is a famous actor. Well, she's, she's, she's an entrepreneur, uh, uh, and, and obviously became famous through her, through her, uh, her acting talents. She's married the handsome, uh, Ryan Phillippe, was it? No. Oh, you're way past my celebrity knowledge. I just know, I recognize the name. Yeah. Uh, and a couple books over from that was, uh, were two books, one called Nana Loves You More and one called, uh, Cone Pollo, which made me hungry for tacos, uh, both by, uh, Jimmy Fallon. Oh wait, no, I'm sorry. Nana Loves You More is by Jimmy Fallon, who was like a talk show personality, a comedian. And then, uh, Cone Pollo is by Jimmy Fallon, uh, with special guest, uh, Jennifer Lopez. I mean, because I think it's a bilingual book. So he wants to, he wants to be appropriate, I guess. I guess so. She's, he didn't want to be, uh, culturally appropriating. So he brought in, uh, Jennifer Lopez to, to help out with that. Anyway, that's, that's, that's something, that's, that's fascinating. So what's, what's your, what's your angst, where's, where's your opinions there? Like, are you, are you against books at Black Friday? Are you against, you know, the celebrities behind, uh, children's work? What is it? But I just need someone to listen to me talk, John. I need to speak and I need to know that someone is listening to me. Well, I hate to break it to you, but this is, this, this podcast is unpopular position. It's hard. God damn it. You have single-handedly destroyed the brand that we have worked so hard to build. Every day you just, you just take it outside and you kick it in the face. Yeah. I'm going to stare at the mirror. I'm going to say it over and over and over again. You know, you've been served unpopular opinions, but we should do a, yeah, that's a different one. This is a, this is a, uh, a how to sex podcast called unpopular positions. Yeah. Don't ever hit thrust to the left. Don't try the filthy Sanchez. She'll hate it. You know, like whatever it is that you're going to say unpopular. She doesn't email me. So like what it was, what is, uh, what is, what has been, what is your, your, your, your angst? What are you, what are you, what are you upset about with this book display? What caused you to take this picture? Now I'm on the spot. I mean, I, well, one, I thought it was funny that like, like why are celebrities writing kids books? I mean, I feel like if you're a celebrity, I don't know, it's not fair because you're a celebrity. You can, you can walk into a publisher. If you're Jimmy Fallon, presumably and say, I'm going to write a book about elephants and they're going to be like, all right, well you're Jimmy Fallon, I guess, write a book about whatever you want. I'm not really going to write it. I'm going to have one of your editors do something and I'm going to put my name on it. Yeah. It's cause it probably, you're right. It probably is the other way around. The editor probably went to 17 talk show personalities and was like, can we write a book called butt face with Jennifer Lopez and put your name on it? And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. And Jimmy Fallon was like, I got nothing to do. And uh, and they went for it. Jimmy, great idea. Yeah. Butt face. Butt face. That's, that's not Jimmy's book. I don't know where I came up with butt face. Again, I think I'm missing my book, my genres. And my other complaint is about the, like, why are we, why do we have kids books about butts? I don't know. I don't, I, I, it's just, just confused. You're all over the place. I know. You're all over the place today. Well, to bring it together, I'm going to move to a completely different topic, which is the game, the game section, which was not far away from the book section. Um, there are a few things in there that made me angry. One is, you're just listening to the things that I can't do. Hear me out. Hear me out. One is, uh, there are the standard games, Operation, Guess Who, Sorry, I love it. The classics. Those are games from like my childhood. Yeah. Uh, they, they're exist. I think all three of those exist in my house right now. Um, but, but then there's this game, Pop It Pro, which sounds like a, I don't know, it sounds like the, the thing we had in the eighties, the, the, well, the Bop It is what it was called. That's a different thing. This is something different. This is a game where it's a silicone or rubber sheet with like bubbles on it and you pop them kind of like you pop a bubble wrap, but you can just pop them back and forth. Those are popular for a while. Yeah. My son. Yeah. It's like trash that they just sort of like, Ooh, it's garbage. Uh, my kids too. And it's just, come on now. That's true. This is not a game. So it's here in the game section. I couldn't. But it is a game. At all. It is a game. Somehow it's a game. Yeah. So are you. Yeah. Well, I'm just wondering, are you, are you, are you angry that, that it's not the classics? It's not good old fashioned games. And there's, there's, there's this. New stuff can be okay. But, but you gotta have a game. I mean, it's not a game. You can't be like, I got a game. It's just a piece of paper and a pencil. Like I'll draw something. Like, no, there's gotta be, there's gotta be a game. You can't be like, I got a game. It's just a piece of paper and a pencil. Like I'll draw something. Like, no, there's gotta be a game. You can't be like, I got a game. It's just a piece of paper and a pencil. And, and the whole idea behind this thing is some kids are going to buy it because they're like, oh, I can push that thing and it goes, and then I push the thing again and it goes, and then I just keep pushing it back and forth. It's like, no, don't, don't entertain. Don't entertain your children for that. I mean. The vendor's laughing all the way to the bank. 18 month old, right? Who's learning manual dexterity and who picks up a block and puts it in the square hole. Like, that's fine. Right. But that's not what this is for. This is for five, you know, five or 10 year old kids or whatever. And that's just ridiculous. There's no way that needs to happen. But the classics are there. That's fine. New games I'm not opposed to. But then I kind of move over to the card is proliferation of card type games. I think in the, in the, in the vein of cards against humanity, you familiar with that game? Yeah. Which is great for some laughs in an adult drinking setting. So, of course, there's all sorts of, all sorts of cards against humanity packs and whatnot, which is fine. I don't mind about that. But now there's all these around it, right, that, that are other things. There's a, I've not played any of these. And I was kind of curious for a bit of them. There's one called self-love. One called hella, hella awk, which I think it's like supposed to mean it's really awkward. Which is, this conversation is really awkward. We should, we should, we should get a sponsor like with Were There Originals. Were There Originals. A classic candy that never fails you in getting it right. Were There Originals. There's a card game called New Phone Who Dis? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And then, which I feel like that's, that's a little bit of, that's a little bit of cultural appropriation. Because there were a lot of like African-American focused games. I live in a town that is not very, not very, not very, not very heavy on its African-American population. Yeah. I mean, it's not by any choice of our own. It just, geographically, it's not a place where. It's not appealing. They've ended up, yeah. It was growing up black memes was a game. And then. Were they sold out of any of these games that were. No, fully stocked. Because I don't know what else, who else would buy it. It was a black card revoked was one of them. I'm trying to find some of these other ones. What is it? I assume this is a big box store. Yeah. Lyrically correct hip hop edition. It seems like the box stores have figured out like, ah, we probably should ship more of those to Detroit. Yeah. And less to this other state, you know, where it doesn't seem to be quite as. There's one boy out there who's already started questioning his butt, who may have questions, you know. And these books are there to provide answers to those questions. I mean. Yeah. But my thing with this, I mean, as you as you go through the list here, like, I think most of these most of these card games, most of these books are just the same message repackaged in a more or different creative way or obscure way. You know, probably a lot of those card games like, you know, it is basically here's a pencil. Here's paper and draw. Yeah. And then someone guesses. Yeah. And then the game name is who that this. Yeah. Yeah. Drawing in the inner city. Oh, who knows? Like, you know, it's it could be. Fair enough. And I mean, even even games that are that I would say are like all of a sudden, hey, you've come up with a unique idea. I was a big fan and am a big fan of exploding kittens. Have you heard of that game? I. That's another card game. Yeah. About inappropriate sort of humor. It's not it's not nearly not like not like cards against humanity. I mean, I play with my kids. It's fine. Yeah. That's a part jokes and stuff. And other than that, you know, it's not inappropriate at all. I'd say. But it's it's quite funny. But, yes, then they make other ones exploding minions. It's like, well, it's the same game. It's just different characters on the card. I guess it's like all the proliferation proliferations of monopoly. Right. Got monopoly. And then you got. Let's get that tech taxopoly. It's a monopoly, but it's Texas themed or whatever. You know, it's a more something you just have in your office or whatever. Well, then I've got two more. I've got two more. I don't know if they're problems. I think they're just questions. I don't really know what the problem is. You're just you're just talking and I'm just listening. Go on. Keep going, Scott. That's what I'm here for. Point of this. This thing, man. You know, it's the two the two questions I have. We'll do it this way. One is professional wrestling, not like actual wrestling, fake wrestling, WWE kind of stuff. That's still a thing. Apparently, I found a lot of action figures. The Rock, John Cena, all that kind of stuff. This is still a thing that's going on. We're still doing this. I mean, the Rock and John Cena are long are long gone. I mean, they they they've signed their their their their checks or whatever. They're with Hollywood now. Yeah. But there's still there's still a, you know, following to the soap opera, which is called wrestling. That's very interesting. Well, I had no idea that was still a thing. And the other thing, this is a question. Your kid is in the give age ranges. Your kids in like the five to seven range by the eight year old range. Yeah. We'll put that there. You know, I've got a kid in that range and is just obsessed with he plays some video games and whatnot and other games. But the proliferation of the the horror game genre. Are you familiar with this? No. Is that Five Nights at Freddy's is a franchise. You've heard. Oh, it's like a movie. It's like a movie. Yeah. No, but it was a was a game. He talked about time. Yeah, I think I saw I thought I saw a clip of that game. And when I saw the movie trailer, it reminded me of that clip of the game. And now I'm putting two and two together that that it's it's the same thing. It's a franchise. But it's like, yeah, it's creepy. The videos. Right. So there were games and things and dolls and whatnot based on these games. My son was showing me a game called Puppy Playtime, apparently, which sounds like innocuous enough. But the whole idea is like, oh, look at these cute creatures. And then they eat you or something. I don't I don't know. But they jump out and scare you or something like that. And the kid just loves. He doesn't seem to like have nightmares or anything, but he just seems to love that stuff. There's this. I think they all maybe are on the. Oh, what's that gaming platform? Get a terrible word. There's originals. So get off my list. What's that gaming platform like? What? PlayStation? No. That kind of thing. Fortnight. Yeah. Like like Fortnite. Oh, Roblox. That's what I'm trying to come up with. Oh, I. Yeah, I know. But the idea behind it is like, it's a thing. It's a place and then people make all these different games. So there's games within the game. Roblox. Anyway, I think one of the popular genres there is this horror, shocking, frightening, not like gruesome stuff. I don't think it's more just like somebody jumps out and scares you. I don't know. I don't get it. Well. Merry Thanksgiving. Happy Black Friday. Go buy your kids some crappy stuff. Yeah. Buy it for yourself. Buy it for yourself. If you want. For our listeners, if you do happen to pick up I Want a New Butt, please do provide us with a short synopsis or essay about your take on that book. A book review, if you will. A book report. Book report. That's what it's called. That's what you do. That's a great idea. We need a gimmick. Every episode we just choose like a photo of a book and then we just give a book review of what we think the book's about and that's going to be the book review. I think it's a good book based on the cover. We're going to end it on you doing a book report on I Need a New Butt. Okay. All right. By Don McMillan. I Need a New Butt. Oh, it's I Need a New Butt. There's an exclamation point. There is. There is. I'm seriously concerned about the casing of this. So it's I, capital I, need all lowercase a. So far so good. New butt. That's all caps and then with the exclamation mark. So I need a new butt. But overall, we always say here at Unpopular Opinions that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. However, in the case of I Need a New Butt, we throw that opinion out of the window and encourage our readers to judge the book by its cover. And I will go ahead and do that. I think it's – there's a lesson in I Need a New Butt. This young boy who is looking back at his crack with a concerned look on his face obviously is dealing with a dilemma, and he believes that he needs a new butt. Throughout the story, you will encounter several funny characters with all different shaped butts to realize that every butt is unique, and in our uniqueness, we are all the same. No butts about it, John. Oh! I've been working on that one the entire time you were talking. It's in bookstores now. Two thumbs up and to your review. I would – I wouldn't go by it because now I feel like I know what it's about. Well, I mean it's a classic. It teaches children to be their own self. Yeah, yeah. Endor. Endor. Butt. Butt. Illustrated by Ross Kinard. Kinard. Kinaird. Kinaird. I don't know how you pronounce it. Yeah. I recognize some of those. What is it? I recognize some of those names, like author's names and illustrators from other – you know, I have kids. I still have kids. You just stop, please stop, stop. Yeah, yeah. I read some of these books. I'm not going to get into it. Oh, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. I did that. That was a good book. Okay. I Need a New Butt, now on sale for $19.99 at a retail store. Not Walmart. I didn't even notice that it was $20. $20, which seems to be a quite hefty price. I guess they're all in that range, it looks like. It looks kind of thin. But, again, it's not about the cover. It's about the message inside. That's right. Absolutely. Well, John, that was phenomenal. Not – perhaps not our best work, but, you know, speak for yourself. A lot of turkey on board, so, you know, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Yeah. Well, head out to the stores, go buy some stuff, give us a book report, and we'll talk to you next week, I guess. We will talk to you next week. Yeah. Stay tuned. And you've been served in a popular position. Oh! I'm not doing it on purpose. I'm really not doing it on purpose. It's funny. Well, but now it's become a thing. It's just you've reinforced those neural pathways, John, so that that's all you can think of. But I never forget to say – And bit, but, yeah. Keep your opinion to yourself, John. Yeah. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. Our outro music is better than that. All right, man. Have a good one. I'll talk to you next week. Yeah. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
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