The Nostalgia Plug: with Jason Liebig

26:27None of it was simple. And the other thing, too, is I would always say this. If I could have gotten those three pieces, maybe I would have stopped. Probably not because I know me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if there was an encyclopedia with great images of all this stuff, or if there was a website, like a website that had it all, I don't think I would have done what I did. Wow. So it's a calling. It's a calling to kind of capture this time while also the hunt mixed with your love of collecting, mixed with just this, yeah, this interesting space. It's the perfect storm. Yeah, it's the perfect storm.

27:00No, it was. I mean, yeah. So I would say the nugget, the seed was like this just desire to connect with a moment of personal nostalgia. And then the journey was informed by saying, wow, none of this stuff is out there. This is a completely untrodden ground. And I was being a nerd. Again, in the 80s, I literally paid and mailed away for a Twilight Zone episode guide that some other guy had typed up at one point. that then a science fiction collector dealer out of the back of Starlog magazine, they sold this stuff. And so everything took all this effort. And what the internet showed us was that now this is a collective effort of all of humanity.

27:44And I was fascinated by that part of the ability to see anything, listen to anything, anything you wanted to see. And yet, in spite of that, 23 years ago, this area of our collective experience, It's branding, packaging. It was almost entirely undocumented. And that's the thing that I think our listeners and young people in general will never understand, which is a world before the internet. A world before things are documented and you could just type them in and they appear for you. And this is the early 2000s. This isn't that long ago. And that's the thing that's crazy. And I think you, like many people, were like, I can fill this void of things that aren't being documented.

28:28True. No, and it's wild. You know, it's also an age before digital cameras, right? Because you wouldn't take photos inside of a McDonald's. Why would you? Yeah, yeah. And so if you want to see what a McDonald's. To document the interiors. And now, if you can find a photo inside of a Toys R Us taken in 1985, it's a big deal. It's exciting. um so i realized that it would be fun to document the undocumented and i had and so i started sharing a high resolution scans of things because no one was doing that where where you could see there were a few hundred images of old food and snack and candy packaging online fully yes um i started sharing everything in high resolution scans are i called it archival level scans which they were But I would get a piece.

29:11I would scan it. I would spend all this time scanning it. And I would share it on a website called Flickr. I was going to say, it's got to be Flickr. It's got to be Flickr. It was an image sharing website. And that was sort of fun for me. It was a hobby. Yeah. And at a certain point. Did you get the domain at this point? Did you get a website? Oh, sorry. It's just Flickr. This was just Flickr at this point. And so at a certain point, I noticed that people, like bloggers I knew, I would get a little bit of attention on Flickr. But then like one blogger would like share three of my things on their blog and they would get like 10 ,000 views and likes.

29:44I was like, wait a second. Why don't those people come back and pay attention to me? But there was also a point where I decided to really focus on candy because candy was remarkably undocumented. And so this is another point where my story turns a little bit. And I do really focus in on candy branding, confectionery branding in the United States. is I bought a cereal box from a guy on eBay. It was a Quaker Quangaroos box, which is like Quisp. Everything was Q because it was Quaker. And I reached out to the guy, the seller. And I said, why are you selling this? Why do you have it? I was always curious about the story behind the piece.

30:24And he goes, well, I'm a sculptor and I'm moving to Japan. I didn't think I'd ever sell it, but I can't take all this stuff with me and I'm just raising some money. And I was like, great. well that's that's very cool you know and so listen if you ever miss it i will be scanning at high resolution come visit my flicker you'll be able to visit anytime you want and so he visited my flicker and he looked at it and he was as a guy who was a sculptor and artist guy he was like oh yeah this is really i love what you've done and he said you know you've got a lot of candy wrappers here and all candy boxes and things he goes my father um is is a tiki sculptor and his father is like monk tiki is the name of their company but he's like the nation's like foremost tiki sculptor in america but his father saved a suitcase full of packaging when he was a kid late 60s and early 70s and so he's like listen would you be interested in this would you be interested in buying it and uh and acquiring it i was like well yeah and he started sending me pictures and i was like i was already seeing so many things that in the however many years i've been doing what i've been doing seven years eight years at that point i had never seen any of this stuff yeah and i was like oh my god at that point i had developed a a pretty good friendship with dan goodsell the author of crazy kids food i am now sharing these photos with him yeah and this guy's been into it for years before i'm he's like get it do whatever if you need to borrow money from me buy it you know so do what you need because he knew how rare the stuff was sure and so i bought that collection it was principally candy and then i i went hog wild and documented like all 800 pieces on it Wow.

32:03How long would it take you to scan something, I guess, at the time? I mean, at the time, like, scanners were pretty slow. And so I was doing 600 DPI scans, an 8.5 by 11, 600 DPI scan. Then it was taking me about 90 seconds. Okay. And then, you know, but then color correcting, you know, shaping everything up. Sure. It was a drag, man. It was a lot of work. A lot of work. Yeah. It's all work. And did you ever notice that, like, graphic designers were taking an interest to this kind of stuff? Because I know us design nerds, we love vintage packaging certainly more today than ever before potentially.

32:38But even back then? No, yes. I would say that social media was not at the level where it is now. That may have even, when I started, it was probably pre-Facebook. So I can't remember when Facebook quite emerged. But it was definitely before smartphones and the kind of fervent image sharing that we have now. I did not predict any of that. I didn't predict Pinterest, which was one of the first ones. certainly not Instagram like I didn't for the first 7 ,000 images I don't think I watermarked a thing and my rule was and this was like I literally had this rule I said if I get a piece I will only publish it online if you can't already see it right I mean that's a pretty that was that was a guiding principle yeah yeah good principle to have and so that was my rule and so if I'd published something in those first six or seven years there were no images of it You were the first.

33:29Before, yeah. But I didn't watermark anything because I was like, I came from sort of a semi-journalistic background. I was like, oh, someone's going to use it. Of course, they're going to attribute you, right? Little did I. I did not foresee BuzzFeed coming in and just eating the shit out of me. Top 10 packages of the 70s. They probably ransacked you. Oh, they did. I had a number of conversations with BuzzFeed early on in the years. And when they did ultimately attribute me early enough, right, when I would catch it, it's wild how many eyes they could move. Yeah. Because all of a sudden, I would have like 10 ,000 likes on a picture.

34:07I was like, oh my God, this is insane. One of the first big things for me with a designer was a designer who used to go by the name Kate Morose, is now Aries Morose. If you know Morose Studios out of the UK, they have done incredible work. and someone sent me a YouTube video of then Kate, now Aries, presenting at some big design conference in like somewhere in Europe, Germany or something. Sure. And they bring up slides and their first four slides and they go, Aries is up there saying, listen, people ask me what inspires me and I can't really tell you what inspires me. All I know is I love these bubblicious packs.

34:49600 DPI. And they start showing all of my scans at this conference. That's crazy. And I'm like, oh, my God. My stuff is being shown by incredibly successful designers on screens to rooms full of other designers. And then I would see stuff. People would sometimes with attribution, sometimes it would get on the dye line. Of course, I found the dye line. Shout out to the dye line. Big fan of the dye line. I couldn't be a bigger fan. And I told you this when we first met, but I remember Andrew's story was very similar to when he started the Dye Line, which was he was working on a packaging project.

35:24And there was no place to search deodorants or skincare or anything of current packaging. Yes. And it wasn't looking for old through school stuff. It was just looking for pictures of the competitive packaging. Yeah. And it was like, maybe I should create a blog about packaging. There was no blog about packaging. Absolutely. And so obviously the Dye Line is this massive, incredible thing. And it's like, it's just hard to remember a time not that long ago where things weren't available. And so people like Andrew and yourselves, like we're putting these images out there for other people just to look at and to see and to enjoy.

35:56No, it's, yeah, it's true. And the flicker is still up, by the way. No, the flicker, no, I mean, my flicker, yeah, I leave it up. People have said, oh, you should take that down. I was like, no, no, no, man. It's still like, it's, I love what it is. I was also, I put a lot of diverse stuff up there. I've got like, literally, like, I would think, what can't you see? and I would find like an old furniture salesman catalog from like 1969. And I'm like, I'm going to scan all 120 pages of that. I'm going to publish that to my Flickr. Because where else can you see in like these perfectly idealized photos of a design of a chair, right?

36:27On office furniture, no less, right? And so you go to my Flickr and there is literally like an 80 page catalog of office furniture. There are, like I published the first images of these McDonaldland set makers catalogs, which I'm telling you have been shared around the internet 10 billion times. And, you know, if only I would have gotten just one iota of attribution for that, it would have been, it would have been fun. I'm looking at a McPizza right now. That looks great. And I'm like, what's going on? Such wild stuff. Yeah. You have such great stuff. At what point does this become? Obviously, you know, it's, it's, it's a passion.

37:02Yes. And then it becomes your job, right? It becomes your whole, you know, sort of it. You've turned this into an industry. Yes. No, I mean, I think there was a point, you know, look, I always wanted to do other things before. Early on as I was getting into this, just a few years after I left Marvel Comics, I was up to host a show on Spike TV. Wow. Which was, I think, under the, I think it was being developed under the name Geek Ray Vision. And this was before, like, The Nerdist. This was before The Nerdist and Chris Hardwick. Yes. And it was really before nerd culture really became what it became.

37:38Yeah. Which is just broad, right? everybody's and popular and popular yes it's cool to be a nerd it's cool to be a nerd and you know we could talk about the reasons for that but like i remember when i was in college in 1993 or whatever wearing my marvel comics x-men t-shirts and i promise you on a campus of what of 25 000 people i was one of one yeah you know and now yeah if i was to go back if i was to step foot on the campus i guarantee it would be like a thousand people wearing deadpool and captain america shirts yeah You could form a group of people to talk about this very quickly. Absolutely.

38:10And so, but no, so nerdiness was a thing. And I feel like I'm getting off the track here. What were we talking about? We're talking about turning this from a collector to like a profession. So, you know, I always wanted to tell stories around things, you know, around anything interesting and fun. I love pop culture. I certainly love comic books and nerdy stuff. but I started to realize at a point that this material, the talk around, I, this is how I used to describe it 15 years ago. I said, look, the talk around comic books and movies and cartoons and video games, man, I go, that's this, like, that's this nerd love that was really formulated in this pre adolescent stew, right?

38:52Of our brains and our bodies. We develop a love for all this stuff. And I firmly believed when I was sharing things on Flickr, I said, I firmly believe that our love of candy and snacks and brands forms around the same time. And I said, but the reason why people aren't talking about it online the way they talk about cartoons or music or anything else is because you can't anchor into it. You can't touch it. It's like as if it's the catalog of the Beatles, the musical catalog of the Beatles. Imagine if it had all been played on the radio. People had the albums. They brought them home. But 40 years, 50 years later, no one had a copy of any of those recordings.

39:34They did not exist. How would our relationship to that music be? How would we talk about it? It would almost be shrouded in myth a little bit. We would try to remember the songs. And I said, for a long time, that is what people's relationship to nostalgia around brands was like. You couldn't directly tap into it. And so along with YouTube and people sharing all these great old television commercials and that came up, I believe I did a lot of work to help create a foundation of nostalgic anchors and touch points for people to say, oh God, remember that flavor of nerds we used to love? Or remember that cool Doritos bag with the sombrero on it?

40:21You know, it's like, man, that was really neat, right? And I believe that has all turned around and started to whip around, and now brands are tapping back into it. Like McDonald's. McDonald's spent a number of years doing meals with hip-hop stars and rap stars and music stars or whatever, and they finally figured out, even though I had been fucking rattling the chain about it for years, they finally figured out that they have all this value right underneath them, Yeah. Right in their own archive. And so the last three years or so of McDonald's has been like just a masterclass and like tapping into your own nostalgia.

40:55Jason Liebig:The return of the hamburger. Oh, the hamburger. But before the hamburger, like the Grimace, right? Grimace, the Grimace shake became like its own viral thing. That was like the biggest thing in the world. Oh, yeah. I'm a Mets fan. And so they have like Grimace throughout the first pitch. Yes. He's still around. He's still. We have purple jerseys. Grimace. When I saw Grimace in a Metzat on the side of a subway car, I was like, okay. And I'd been literally telling McDonald's for 10 years, Grimace is awesome. Why don't you use all this great stuff? But this month right now, they've revived McChangeables.

41:28And so they've way caught up with what I was trying to convince them with something they should do 10, 15 years ago. And they don't pay me any mind. although they were there i was i was given a nice tour of the of the corporate offices and their archivist is a man who i i love a lot and so well just such an awesome hit of joy would

41:48Jason Liebig:you like i mean even like earlier we were talking about uh sour cherry big week chew i'm like i'm fired up about that yes that's like something that i've i've lost that anchor to no it's you know look i i my wife would hate me for saying this because she hates this term but i i will often say I traffic in nostalgia at times. Don't say you traffic in any way. There's got to be a better way to say that. But yeah, no, we as a culture, there's something that nostalgia gives us that is comforting and sort of reminds us of simpler times, but also our youth. And I think brands, a lot like entertainment, sort of Marvel and DC, they have discovered that they have all this history that they can uncover and dust off and bring to a new audience now and reimagine.

42:38And so it's not just McDonald's. It's every brand. It is everyone. And we talk about it on the show all the time. It's constant of the old Diet Coke cans coming back and the old everything is back. And obviously this is a drum you've been banging for a long time, but is at one point do you like how big is the archives over the years the archive just continued to grow and a lot of you know a lot of like i am 40 collector i suppose but i always like to say i'm 60 historian and archivist um because i collect things i i still have those things that i find reflected in other collectors like oh i need to have that that's something i'm missing but I'm always on a course to try to put stories together to try to fill in gaps of knowledge things that I don't understand do you have a holy grail item is there something that you're like trying to track that I've had many over the years I have also opted to not share what my holy grails are publicly no I did that once is there a holy grail item that you got that you wanted maybe that's something that you can describe that of course What's the biggest like, what's the biggest hit you've ever got?

43:49All right. Well, I'll say one of the coolest ones because it was so weird and so me, like no one else cared about this item. And this was one I, in my research, I saw an article in an old candy trade magazine from 1971. And it was, the article was about the size of my hand. The photo, a little black and white photo was about, you know, like the size of like, I don't know, a half dollar or something, right? It was like one inch tall. and it was of a display of a product from Nabisco at the time. And at the time in 1971, Nabisco was making a lot of candy products. They were also making chuckles, if you remember chuckles.

44:24I do not. Okay. Chuckles might still be being made. They were owned by Ferrer at one point, but there's sort of like a jupe jelly with sugar coating on it. Oh, I'm familiar. Multiple colors, like five colors. So they were making chuckles, but Nabisco also made Barnum's Animal Crackers. Classic. And in 1971, yes. Oh, yeah. They made a Barnum's Animal Chuckles. Oh, crossover. So it was, instead of a red box, it was a bigger box, but it had that sort of Barnum's Animal design. And it had essentially animal-shaped gummies or jujubes, really. Interesting. Yeah, and so, but at the time, I could only see, I couldn't even really make out what the box looked like.

45:05I could tell it looked kind of like what it looked like, you know, like a Barnum's Animal Cracker box. and I was like oh I'm obsessed but I will never find this because it was probably out for a year no one you know it no collector even I had never spoken to it ever heard of it I spoke to Dan Goodsell of Crazy Kids Food now I've never heard of it years later I would find a friend who would get a Nabisco employee magazine where it was featured on the cover and the cover showed a pretty clear black and white image of the box so you didn't make it up I didn't make it up right And so three years ago, I was in touch with a woman who was cleaning out a house in Utah.

45:43And this house, I would call it a hoarder house, but I would call it an organized hoarder house. And out of this hoarder house - Is hoarder like a term you guys in the community of collectors don't like to - I mean, no, I mean, look, there are hoarders and hoarding is a psychological disease, right? I mean, it's an expression of depression and loss and a lot of other things. It's complicated. it. No, look, and nostalgia too can occasionally find its way into some fairly unhealthy aspects of psychology. But that's not the part that I certainly focus on. Sorry, I derailed you. No, no, no. Throughout about two years of dealing with that person in that house, I acquired a number of holy grails, not the least of which, because I knew she was finding things in this house, in these boxes from around this period.

46:32I said, well, listen, you're not going going to find this, but I'm looking for this Barnum's animal chuckles thing. And I'm also looking for this other thing and this other thing. Three days later, she sends me a picture of all three. Oh my God. She had them all. She had all three of these Holy Grails. One of them was a flavor of milk duds. I was obsessed with fruit flavored milk duds. And I had never seen an actual example of a banana duds. And she showed me the Barnum's animal chuckles and the banana duds in the same photo and i literally thought i was just asleep and dreaming because it didn't seem possible so that was that was probably one of the most unexpected and delightful grail finds along with the banana duds believe it or not i'm looking them up and uh yeah it's uh attributed to you club and candy.com of course on your website yeah i mean milk duds were a big inspiration for us for this packaging right here for this mayo brand because the use of type and color all this kind of stuff is just, yeah, it's so fascinating.

47:28Fruit flavored milk duds are such a twist, man. Fruit flavored ones are really weird. Is there a Honus Wagner of collecting candy? Is that, is there any piece that's like very, very valuable or something? Cause like collecting is blown up in the last 10 years, I would say it's become this huge, huge thing. And it goes from sports cards, of course, which is the, you know, again, the most popular version of collecting I would imagine. But now it's pop culture. Yes. So I imagine that starts to bleed into candy and confectionery and snacks. And I know Pez is a part of this world because... Pez is...

48:03I would really categorize Pez as more of a toy collector thing. Okay, okay. Because Pez were always collected. That's fair. And in my work as a documenter of categories, and I have spent an inordinate amount of time on candy. I always say my... By the way, I do have... I don't think I mentioned it. I do have over 100 ,000 pieces of consumer packaging. We had to get that down. Thank you. Over 100 ,000 pieces of packaging. I would say 70 % to 80 % of it is probably candy or confectionery related. The rest of it, 25 % to 30 % is snacks, other foods, and sometimes things like medicine and things like that.

48:37Anything you might find in a grocery store shelf or a convenience store shelf. 100 ,000. No, it's madness. Where do you keep it? Everywhere I can. I mean, I brought some absolutely wild things. But you talk about the Honus Wagner of it all. So it's interesting. I've never, ever, ever talked about value because it's not what I'm thinking about. It's about the story. Yeah. I have been nicknamed by a very generous person, the Indiana Jones of snacks. Wow. And I like to now say because I try to broaden my appeal, the Indiana Jones of brandy. But they called me the Indiana Jones of snacks. And it's a fun moniker.

49:14I've been smiling this whole time. This is so fun. I have so many questions. But I will say that I try to not concern myself with value. To me, the value is in documenting it, in making it available to be seen and understood. There's a great Harrison Ford line, it belongs in a museum. That's beautiful, though. And to a degree, I believe that. One of my ultimate goals, if I can work it out in the next 20 years, if I continue to work and do the work I'm doing, I would love to see at least the confectionary part of my archives get accepted into the Smithsonian as a collection. It should be. Yeah, there should be.

49:57Yeah, I know we talked a little bit about this. There's a Museum of Brands in the UK. Beautiful, yeah. That I haven't been to that I'm dying to go check it out. Fantastic. And then you said there's now one in Chicago that's opening. They're in the process of unfolding. Yeah, the Chicago Museum of Brands. Wow. So this is really cool. But I do think, again, this collection, I think it would drive a lot of people to see it. How could it not? It's so colorful and fun. You know, it's like, and so, but so to your point, I have had over the years, and I will not name their names out of respect for them, but I have had some notable people from baseball card hobbies, hobbyists, people who are big into the investment side of collecting.

50:38And they've asked me, it's like, so, they slide into my DMs. So what about, what is this about collecting candy? What is this about? in the wake of Nintendo cartridges selling for a million dollars, and graded Nintendo cartridges. Graded, yeah. And I will say to you now, I will admit something I've never admitted publicly. Oh, exclusive. I have used every psychological trick in my handbook to try to dissuade these motherfuckers from getting into my shit. I mean, listen, they're like, hey, do you have a 1971 Mary Jane? No, but I mean, but my thing is, um i i don't and look i've i've published so much stuff 20 years ago before i started doing the amount of coverage of this material that i've put out onto the internet i've probably published across different mediums 20 000 25 000 of pieces that i own yeah um and i've done a lot of storytelling around them i know that other people have gotten interested in it they've because they've come to understand it's like oh wait you can collect old packaging i didn't even think you could do that and i will say i had that experience in 1990 as a comic book fan there was a book that was published called tomart's action figure digest when i opened that up i never thought about collecting action figures before and suddenly i was like this is cool as hell i want to i want to go out and start buying action figures now which i did yeah for years yeah um so i understand that i have created unfortunate competition for myself sure there are now other people out there there There are now people that will, when I see something I love on eBay, they'll be like, oh, but I love it more and I have all this money.

52:15So I have been deprived of pieces by competition that I myself have created. But you have built something incredible. And I want to get to the consulting because I feel like, again, you're a collector, you're a fan. And I love that you're about the stories behind these things. You're not just like posting like, look at this. Sure. You're like, oh, McDonald's introduced pizza. It's called pizza. And you're like giving people not just like visual representation of these things, but also the backstory as much as you can get. Context as much as possible. Yeah, yeah. So at what point do you start getting sort of hit up by TV shows, movies?

52:47Because Stranger Things and Mad Men, I would say, are two of the most important pieces of period piece television of the last two decades or so. Yeah. And Kevin's rewatching Mad Men right now. I'm in the stick of it. Yeah. Nice. So he's in it. I watched it many years ago. And these are TV shows where they want to get accurate representation of the time. And obviously that is in everything that they do, in the science, in the dress, and everything. But now they need someone to talk to about the accurate drinks and beverages and snacks and candies, and they go to you. Yeah. So it's funny. I would say Mad Men was the – again, I definitely won't get into names.

53:30there was a filmmaker, a well-respected filmmaker. They were making a film and they were doing a little bit for it. And someone, they had reached out to me. Somebody had reached out to me and said, hey, can we use this Milk Duds piece for this bit? And I was like, hey, man, that's cool. Were you guys shooting, whatever, Long Island or something? I was like, listen, that's fine. You can use it. Can I visit set and take some photos? Oh, no, no, we can't have you do that. I was like, well, then listen, then I'll just charge you money for it, you know, for the usage. And it's like, because I asked him, could you take photos for me?

53:59No, no, no, we can't do that. And I was like, okay, well, because I would figure that that'll be a fun thing to write about. Yeah, of course. And so they're like, no, no, no, no. And I was like, well, then I'll charge you this money. Well, we're not going to pay that. I was like, okay, well, then you can't use it. And then they used it anyway. And at that point. Did they just take one of the 600 DPI images and cut it out? Yeah, they did. And they just downloaded it. Now, at that point, I blocked access to my high resolution files. I across the board I changed my Flickr and restricted access to the lowest that it would allow me which was 1024 pixels right so if you go to my Flickr now the highest resolution you can download is 1024 pixels oh yeah that button you could click you can set it for like high resolution and I think I've actually I think I've turned off downloads but of course you can still download the screenshot but the biggest you'll get off of there is 1024 that's still big enough right that's pretty big but yeah it makes it a little bit harder but my apologies to everyone else who know No, because that person is to blame.

54:57The one that just took it and sold it and cut it out and did it in the prop department. They took what I would refer to as my archival work product. They used it without permission after we'd had a conversation, after I was very reasonable. And I wasn't asking for too much. And I kept trying. I was like, well, listen, okay, well, if I can't do any of that, I'll just charge you a small fee, right? But then they just used it anyway. I was like, you've got, like, what? Why are you such a jerk? So when I did that, almost the month, once I reduced access, all of a sudden I started getting emails from people.

55:34Hey, we'd like to use this. And what I realized then, oh, people have been using my stuff for years because they could. They treated it like it was free, like it was public domain, which it never was. I had always marked my stuff. What is it? Not Creative Commons. I always marked it all rights reserved because there's a whole rights thing on Flickr. But it didn't matter. You put stuff out there, people can use it. I saw a placemat that I had published in a Burger King commercial. I was like, oh. And I knew I had the only one, right? I was like, no, you motherfucker. They used it. There was a movie, what was it called?

56:09Super 8, I think. Vaguely remember. Yes, yes. And there was a 7-Eleven they walked through in there. This was back way early. And it was all my stuff. Oh, wow. And I'm watching the movie. I'm literally in the movie theater. And I was like, that's all mine. Wow. so so once i reduced access to it okay um i started getting these calls yeah hey i'm a producer or whatever and i was like okay yeah i can i can work with you on that and so my relationship just started um with with mad men it started it started really good and took a funny left turn which ultimately just made us bond further like i had done some work with them then i got a then i got an email from someone and this is and this is true they said hey um we want to use this graphic from this thing for a birthday party we're throwing i'm like oh could we could we get the high resolution file for that and i'm like and i just google their name and they're in like the art department of mad men and i'm like are you in the art department of mad men and they're like oh yeah and i literally write back to the person i dealt with before i was like listen i just got an email from someone that says i i don't want to go negative on this i don't want to talk about this stuff but ultimately they said oh my god yes apologies they're not supposed to tell anybody what they work on because it's all under india and i was like that's fine i said but listen i'm i'm trying to comport myself as a professional here you know this is my work yeah and so that then but that brought us closer together amazing and so like i got this great quote um from the head of the department at madman she said at one point because they were they were looking for different stuff they were looking for i was gonna say what pieces did you get onto uh oh geez there There was an early Bugles box.

57:48Classic. There was some, I want to say like some, oh, there was a super sugar crisp box. At one point, one of my favorite stories with the art department of Mad Men was this. We had a very good relationship at this point and we were having a lot of fun. So they reached out to me and they said, listen, we got another one for you. I was like, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it? When did sugar crisp become super sugar crisp? You're like, I'm the guy. And I was like, and I think it's, and again, I knew it off the top of it. I think it's 68 or 69. but i said that's 1969 and they're like okay what month oh my god and i was like what month and i was like listen man i don't think the people at post serial could tell you what month yeah yeah and i was like i don't know that i don't know that that's answerable yeah that say she goes well listen could you tell if it's before or after april 1969 yeah and i remember i was on speakerphone on their end right so the whole department is on could hear me talking at this point and i'm going through my stuff i'm going through my stuff and i found a store coupon that says expired april 30th or march 30th 1969 and has super sugar crisp has the super on the graphic nice and i'm telling them this and i hear like these hushed tones like they just heard a secret there's oh store coupon sir gubernator well can you send that over yeah i sent that over i sent scans of the box over and did the whole thing but that was this really funny moment where I had cracked the code for them.

59:14And that's a lot of fun. I've worked with the - God forbid that the golden crisp on the table of Don's apartment for his kids had come out later that year and not historically accurate. They were, for a while, they were so specific. I feel like filmmakers often are. I just saw an interview with Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme, and he was talking about how so important it was to get all these kind of details right of the year. And yeah, they just, they take it very seriously. And so it doesn't, to us, you know, again, most layman's would never in a million years know, but they're trying to really get it as accurate as possible.

59:53I've worked with almost every season of Young Sheldon and now the spinoff, George and Mandy's First Marriage. Amazing. And, you know, they've said, it's been so nice because a lot of times, you know, I'm just, I'm a contractor, right? I come in, I help them out. I do my thing. And then that's it. But these guys, man, the guys, I love the guys at Young Sheldon and the spinoff so much. They've said, man, you saved our ass this season. They've been so kind. So cool. And it's fun. Look, I get paid for that work. It's nice. It's freelance work. I know coming out of COVID, I was like, I was dying for cash.

1:00:25And this Apple TV show starring Tom Holland. Okay. Of Bureau fame. Yes. Spider-Man fame. They were doing a series set in the late 70s. And at one point they wanted to recreate an A &P grocery store from the late 70s. Oh my God. And that was easily the most hands-on, most involved, and biggest project I've ever worked on. They put me in charge of like, I got veto power over anything else their art department had found. And we worked together and we curated an entire late 70s grocery store aisle. Amazing. That's incredible. That's incredible. It was all your scans and all your sort of fines? Not all, but like probably 95 % was mine.

1:01:05Oh wow, amazing. And the stuff they had found in other places, you know, it's like for like bottles of soda. Sometimes there's a lot of that stuff online. You can get that on eBay. And so like what I helped make sure they were getting the right stuff. I have all these old grocery store trade magazines. So I would send them scans of like what a typical like fruit display looked like or even like the grocery store checkout. Because again, how do you, what does a checkout aisle look like in 1978? You couldn't find a photo of it. Wow. And I was sending them like pictures of the little price tags that would be used where you would change up the little plastic numbers on the shelf.

1:01:39I sent them all this great reference for all that stuff. That's so cool. And when they, but I'll tell you what, they executed. I don't know how much money they spent on that five minute scene. I know how much they paid me. Wow. It was a significant amount of money. That's unreal. That was crazy. It was so cool. Yeah. And I think about, you know, again, now as just, you know, so much of it, we take it for granted. But you think about Stranger Things, right? These shows were like, obviously a huge budget, but they like run through a supermarket in the 80s. And you're like, holy shit, that every single bottle and can and box had to be accurate.

1:02:11All those fireworks from the end of season three. Okay, yeah. All built off scans of wrappers that I had in a scrapbook. Yeah, yeah. And that's not even candy. That's the stock. No, that was, yeah. And so, yeah, like the first three seasons. I worked, my stuff is throughout the first three seasons of Stranger Things. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. And I have, I actually brought the Ego Waffle Box. Oh my God. We got to see stuff. Should we start doing? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah. Okay. Because if you start showing some stuff, we'd love to see it. And then we can also talk a little bit about your new life as a television star yourself.

1:02:43Because not just consulting and sort of behind the scenes, now you're in front of the camera. Yes. And you've had multiple shows, hit shows. And The Food That Built America is the one that you just referenced before. Yep. And that's still going. These are stories about - Season seven. coming out soon. Season seven and brand nerds and brand people that want to know the stories of the past. That's the whole show. It's so much fun. Then you have a show called Food Flashback. That's on the cooking channel. That was my own pilot. That was 2017. That only got one episode. Okay, sorry. We'll talk about the foods that built America.

1:03:25Cut that. Talk to us about foods that built America. Just generally concept like how does that come to be yeah so there was a uh i mean so i had done look my pilot back in 2017 was one of the greatest experiences of my life um i had done And in 2016, I had done like six or seven YouTube videos, right? I was like, oh, I should probably do stuff for YouTube. I was like, okay, so I'll go into YouTube. I did like nine videos. And I probably had like 100 subscribers. And this is a great lesson. It's like you just never know. Sure. You don't need 10 million followers. An intern of a production company saw my YouTube and said, hey, what do you think about this?

1:04:04She was talking to her boss. What do you think about this guy who calls himself a snack historian? You think there's a show there? Yeah. and so I was brought in. I met with this television consultant, a development consultant. She took me out to lunch in Manhattan, and we talked. She got to know me like we're talking now. She got really into my world and the moving parts of that world, and one of the first things that every producer had always gone with, it's like, oh, you think there could be a show about going out and looking for this stuff, this old food package? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got to go to the antique shops.

1:04:40Yes. The estate sales. The estate sales. And we're going to find all this great stuff. And I said, no, you're not. And this is the story I would always use. I was like, look, the problem is you would have to go to like a thousand estate sales to find one thing. And I go, that would be like building a show around trying to find lost Andy Warhol sketches. Yeah. You know, they exist. They will be in someone's basement, right? But it's going to be a long hunt. But yeah, but you will have to shoot 10 million hours of footage to find it. so we found another way storytelling way to tell stories which is really about telling the stories of brands and nostalgic brands and junk food brands and these things I found out we could never use the term junk food though on the air so that was oh because the brands didn't want to be a part of it the brands were never going to be a part of it but they would we could at least be counted on being left alone if we didn't call their products junk that seems like a fair deal yes so anyway that show came out was developed one of the greatest years of my life and in the process, I was told by all these people who are not my friends, the show we had come out with was awesome.

1:05:40It was definitely going to go to series. My life was about to change. And then one guy at Scripps Network was like, eh, I don't get it. Let's do something else. And that was it. And that was showbiz, baby. So shopped around to a lot of different people. A lot of people loved it. Everybody came up with a reason why they didn't go for it. So in 2019, I guess, maybe late 2018 um you know food flashback was still very fresh in my craw um i get an email from a producer at history channel saying hey we're doing the show about the history of brands and we want to use this candy wrapper from your website collecting candy.com okay and can we use that and i was like sure what's the show this is my email sure what's the show do you have a host can i be on it right watch my pilot wow because the thing was my pilot my pilot like i had never done a television pilot before i'd been on air a couple shows yeah offering my my comments but when i when i did it i was like oh yeah i can do this they made me look i i very much felt out of body i said i remember watching the first cut of the pilot with my wife and i said oh my god they've made me look and sound like i should be on tv like this doesn't make any like i've never looked or sounded better or smarter um magic isn't no like like it was and i was like i will never do YouTube again.

1:07:02I always want a professional crew around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The lighting. No, I mean, it was, it was incredible. Yeah. And you have this though, you had proof that you could do it and you were like, okay, yes, this is a good lesson in there for everyone listening. Again, it's just like, you know, someone reaches out, they obviously, they, they're not thinking of you as the host of the show. They're looking for consulting or help and behind the scenes. And you're like, I'm a, I'm a camera guy. Here's some proof here. No. And I was like, I mean, that was the great thing. I mean, look, I could tell you a whole other story back like eight years earlier.

1:07:30I had developed a TV movie pitch for Disney television. Wow. And that was a year of my life. And it went through the development process at Disney television. And literally I thought, Oh my God, our lives are about to change. We're the next high school musical baby. We're going places. Yeah. Yeah. Or Zac Efron. Yeah. No, I was, I remember, I remember literally being at target with my wife and saying, see all these fucking t-shirts here. Yeah. They're all next year. Not that I was going to start, but it was going to be our project that I co-owned. Yeah, of course. And then they passed, you know, in the last minute.

1:08:03That's showbiz. No, it was showbiz. And also, how did you get connected to Adam Richman, obviously? Man vs. Food legend, Kevin and I, obviously. We grew up on his show. Yes. And he is, Kevin has the hand signal, I guess, for Adam. Man vs. Food, man wins. Oh, my God. I mean, one of the great shows of all time. One of the great shows. And part of it was because of the stories. Part of it was not just him eating and just like, you know, going against these competitions. was him as a storyteller. No, him as a, look, him as a storyteller. I mean, that's it. You know, when I was developing my cooking channel pilot, there were a lot of things about this category of television that I was learning about because it was all really new to me.

1:08:41Everything from the money you didn't make to what really sold the show. One of the wildest things they told me was, you know, it's not about what the show is about, just so you know. I'm like, yeah. And they say, it's about you. basically we like you or you know that's it if we like you and the sure viewers like you they'll watch whatever and i was like so when they cancel you or they don't pick you up it's very personal it's because they know like they hate me no um no so um so but i'll get to adam in a moment um sorry no because they say so i say we're getting back to my thing do you have a host this is my pilot i literally sent them a link to the pilot it's like it's on my dropbox here you know check Yeah, for sure.

1:09:22I get a very kind email back. Well, it's kind of a host list format. And so, but can we use the rapper? I said, yes, you can use the rapper. Great. That was it. I don't hear from them again. The first season of the Food That Built America goes off. Adam is kind of the default host, but it's really a collection of all these Food Network stars and commentators they brought over. They brought in all these heavy hitters. Talking heads kind of thing. All these talking heads in the first season of Food That Built America. And if you aren't familiar with the show, the show, what it does, and what it definitely did early on was it would take these big brands we know, Kellogg's, General Mills, you know, Postereo, and they would tell the entrepreneurial stories.

1:10:01They would really tell these very human stories of these inventors, these creators, these businessmen, and the brands they created. And so, and oftentimes, and certainly the first few seasons, they had great examples of it. They would do Coke, Pepsi. So they'd take these huge, big companies that would go up and they would pit them against each other. and the various interpersonal disagreements and things. And the show has broadened since then a little bit. So we've sort of not always had to have these giants of industry coming at each other. Sometimes they were related. Sometimes they were in the same category.

1:10:33Cool. Yes. And pulling away on these threads. So the show becomes this thing where you talk about this stuff. So anyway, so I don't hear from Food That Built America for a year. And then I get an email out of the blue because I didn't reach out to them again. Okay. I don't even know if I caught that it was on because I was not a regular History Channel viewer. And so, hey, we're coming back for a second season. Would you be interested in coming on talking about the history of chewing gum in America, principally Wrigley and Adams gum? Got it. And I remember I said, yeah, that would be awesome. I said, look, my expertise is really not turn of the century stuff.

1:11:06It's really post-war, but I know a lot about it and I'm happy to dig into my research and familiarize myself with whatever stories you want to tell. and so they brought me in this was january of 2020 nice good timing so yeah and so we shot the episode and it was a lot of fun and they said you were great and then covet hit and then somewhere i think they at that point they said oh you were really good we'd like to have you back so we're going to bring you in for this reese's episode we're going to have you help help us tell the story of reese's great i think it took instead of like a month or two later it was nine months later all the covet protocols i go back in i shoot the reese's episode they said wow you were that wasn't a fluke you really good it's the gotta kid yeah we're gonna shoot these now the network has ordered these little mini episodes these fast histories so we're gonna have you come in and pepper us up with some of the across the board stuff for there great and so this is a fascinating story because this is talk about just how things how fortune favors the right timing and everything else um i get called for season three and at this point they really like me they said this.

1:12:11We're going to bring you in for season three. We're locking you in to be lead expert on three of our episodes. Cool. And then we're going to have you shoot some stuff for the other episodes. We really like you. We're going to have you, you know, add some color commentary for the rest. And so I come in, I do that. I think over across two different days, I come in and I shoot for three episodes and I pepper in some other things. And my season three work is done. About six weeks later, I get a call from a producer on a Friday night at 5 PM who says, And I should say, I am at this point doing candies and snacks.

1:12:42Sure. That's what I'm known for. That's what I'm contributing for on the Food That Built America. And on a Friday night at 5 p.m., I get a call. It's like, hey, what's going on? He goes, hey, well, we're doing our last day of interviews tomorrow. We're doing Subway and Blimpy. And our Blimpy expert dropped out today. Oh, no. What do you know about sandwiches? What do you know about sandwiches? And this is literally what he said. Can you be a Blimpy expert by tomorrow morning? And you're like, yeah. And I'm like, yes, I can. Yes, I can. Yeah. Wow. He goes, I think he said, we know, this is what he said.

1:13:16We know you're quick on your feet. You've proven that time and again. Wow. Can you be a blimpy expert by tomorrow morning? I said, yes. He goes, okay, well, here's the deal. We had an original blimpy expert from way back that we didn't go with, but we've reached out to him. And also, and this is the wild thing that I would not have ever guessed. The network has you categorized as a candy and snack guy. so in order to use you in a different way the network has to approve it so I was like history channel has to approve it I was like okay whatever and so he goes so be prepared just hold we'll figure this out in the next couple hours we'll let you know yes or no so I call into my wife I was like cancel dinner plans order pizza you know I'm studying so I start researching everything I can about the Blimpy founder about the history of Blimpy because I was a little familiar with him but not nearly enough and so two hours later they call me back it's like you're the guy wow congrats um you're on they sent me an email with all their research notes i now have all their research notes i am cramming have some pizza with the wife i cram cram cram cram cram at 2 a.m i realize i i need to go to bed and i can't my brain is not going to absorb any more sure blimpy there's only so much blimpy you know right like there's only so many fucking italian cheeses i can put into this brain that i've never heard of so i go in i think the car service picks me up like 7 45 a.m so i've had less than six hours of sleep they take me to new jersey where we shoot and we shot for like six or seven maybe six hours and they said i saved the episode i brought it in for a safe land does it again and this is the fascinating thing all of a sudden now they're calling me back in for more season three episodes and then I got the wildest thing I'd ever heard of.

1:15:01So season three, I am now shot for every episode of season three retroactively. And yeah. And so there's one person that's in every episode of show and that's Adam Richmond. That's why I've always called it Adam show. And, and it is, um, even though it's, it's, it's a balance, but for season four, like they said, the network has asked me to be in every episode of the show. Hell yeah. And I've been in every episode of the show since. Hell yeah. And sometimes it's more in depth. Sometimes it's lighter fare. But I am in every episode of the show. It's a great point of pride because I love the show.

1:15:38Yeah. I love being a part of it. I love contributing to it. I love when I can help them understand things they don't understand or they can't find available research from the books or the publishing things that are out there when I have done primary research on those topics. Yeah. So cool. And it's allowed me to join. they've brought me over to mega brands at built America where I get to talk about things like firestone tires and the history of Apple and the history of blockbuster and Netflix. And so, um, like this season, I'm talking about the history of Hanes and fruit of the loom underwear, which is a very funny thing to talk about for a long time.

1:16:12Well, this is, it's so interesting. And that, and that led to me, um, doing hazardous history with Henry Winkler, the Fonz. Yes. The Fonz. My work on hazardous history, um, Led me to working on a new show hosted by Mike Wolfe, the guy from American Pickers, which is coming out this year. Oh, man. So this year for History, I am on four different shows. Wow. And I might be on just about every episode of those four shows. Holy shit. Which is bonkers. What a journey. Yeah. Going from this store, this bookstore. You know, in 2002, on a day off. It's just like, oh, I like this book about packaging and vintage candy to a flicker, to consulting, to now being a television star.

1:16:54Not just talking about candy or packaging, just talking about the world and history and all these stories that people need to know about because it is so fascinating, all these things. And literally history, because it's streaming on, I imagine, history streaming. Yes. Is history plus? What are their – They can get on Hulu now. Yeah. In history, if you have a cable subscription, it's complicated.

1:17:15Jason Liebig:You catch a lot of them on YouTube as well. Oh, some of this stuff is on YouTube. That's a surprise to me. Yeah. So you're now a television star. I'm a basic cable star. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? We're so thrilled that you're here. And I share the screen with Adam Richmond, who I hadn't met until last year. Oh, no way. You were just doing it sort of like - Yeah, because we never were in the same room at the same time. Wow. And I almost worked on a show he did, and then I didn't. and then I was like maybe he doesn't like me because of that you know I had no idea oh you're stealing his his job no but then I met him like we had this little party for the season uh six premiere last year and he showed up and he like comes over to me and he was so kind and generous and like and of course you know like Adam is easily lovable yes um he's very charismatic you know he's very good at what he does and i have great respect and admiration for him and the fact that i now can text him and we are pals you know is is pretty cool i speak for kevin and i we haven't even talked about him that much i know how much we're both fans of it because yeah he's a big guy fietti guy i'm not as big but adam richmond that show man versus food was i i you know again i watched every episode growing up it was just like he was the guy on tv and like again it's so it's just so interesting to me and in stories and that's just restaurants this stuff is about brands and the things that i'm truly been working in for 20 years and i love that it exists and that there are people out there that want this kind of content we got to look at packages yeah because yeah before we uh sort of uh wrap this up we got to look at what you brought us all right so take us through what we got let's see um all right let's start with some of the big stuff oh my god I will, but I did bring, I did bring my Eggo waffle box.

1:19:06This is the Eggo waffle box scans of which were used in stranger. Fuck. Yeah. And this little square right here, I've told the story many times, but this little square is where the woman who was saving it. She wanted to mail away the UPC code for this offer, I think, but she didn't cut all the way through the box. She just sliced it and then peeled it away. And the art department of stranger things, the prop department, they did not fix that. Wow. So if you go back and watch, you can actually see. So you know exactly. Can I touch it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know exactly that it's yours.

1:19:37You should put a watermark on all of your stuff. You should just, you know. Going back, and that's a new box, but it just shows you how it's come back to like now become part of the brand itself. So the nostalgia has now come back and fed the brand. That's so cool. I did bring a Super Sugarcrisp box, one of the earliest ones. Oh, my God. That packaging is incredible. Yeah, this is one thing. Oh, my God. Those colors are popping. I actually own the original comp art for this sugar bear right here. Oh my God. It has like the color of the fourth color, the fluorescent, you know. For the listeners at home, switch to YouTube.

1:20:10And for this part of the show, you have to watch this kind of stuff to see the packaging here. How cool is it that it goes from your collection to the show, then to a collection? Yeah, then it feeds back to like an actual product. And then the back of it kind of looks old and designed to mimic. Yes, that's what they did. It's so cool. So let's see So I brought you more than I've ever brought anyone Because I know you guys are brand people I did bring one of my That was a holy grail for many years A Doritos Wow Potato chip bag Is that the one that makes you just like poop immediately? Yes! This is Wait, if I read the back, hold on What an innovation Olestra, which is created by Procter & Gamble Hell yeah This product, this is the warning from the back it says this product contains elestron elestron may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools yeah you should pay extra for the start of functional food right there yes elestron inhibits the absorption of some vitamins and other nutrients vitamins a d e and k have been added um and it's a registered trademark of the product or gamble company hell yeah um but this is i had had a couple of like i had the ruffles for many many years and the lays wow chip bag but the only one I actually experienced when it was real was the Doritos Wow.

1:21:32My roommate and I in Brooklyn were like, oh man, this is like, if you're a Star Trek fan, this is synthahol snacks, man. It's not going to get, you're never going to get fat if you eat these. You can use unlimited Doritos. They should bring them back. It sounds like the precursor to EPG. Yeah, they should. They should bring it back. And that wasn't true. Obviously, you're still going to get fat. But for a hot second in the 90s, you felt like no there's snack well cookies yeah yeah you can just eat a whole box of them oh yeah well cookies yeah those were healthy yes right no it was yeah that was when low fat was like the thing and nobody realized no your body can turn carbs into fat like like that and sugar into fat everything oh lester um made with oh lean yeah so let's see what a time to okay i know we we only have so much time so there's half the calories make sense to show you less thing all right well So this is another holy grail.

1:22:23And this speaks to a point that for me, and something that you will find surprising, like we said with comic books and baseball cards, if you want a comic book from the 90s, well, there are a billion of them. But I have a piece of product packaging from the 90s because stuff from the 90s might as well be 100 years old. I have, in my 20 plus years of experience doing this, the only known example of the very first Cookie Dough Bites box. Now, Cookie Dough Bites are notable for being launched in the movie distribution system. Yeah, movies. And so that made them kind of special. And then they were first distributed outside of that in Blockbuster before they ever made it into standard retail stores.

1:23:07This is the very first Cookie Dough Bites box that you could only get in movie theaters and later Blockbuster. Yeah. That's beautiful. But that thing is probably from 1994, I think. Yeah. And I've never seen another example of that box. Amazing. Which is nuts. And this came out before at least one employee behind the wall was born because she was born in 2001. So, yeah, that's. But so it speaks to the ephemeral nature of this category. And, you know, and aside from, again, even though that was from 1994, when I started, not a single image of that was online. So you can find that. So you do a great job of opening these things and then flattening them.

1:23:47Yeah. I mean, that's a big part of the process. I spend so much time like carefully. I was curious what your sort of archival system was. Cause you know, not like, um, obviously they grade these baseball cards and they put in these plastic things. Yes. The, the, you need to have a way to keep these things, uh, sort of unscathed. This is the earliest known, earliest known Doritos bag. Fuck yeah. This packaging, again, I've seen it online. This is pretty well-documented, but I love the typography. And it's like you forget that Doritos were like a Mexican tortilla sort of brand. That's it. In 1964, when this bag was made, Doritos came out.

1:24:27The first flavor of Dorito was not nacho cheese. They had not yet come up with the technology to dust their chips. This was just a simple - A regular tortilla? It was a corn tortilla chip. For the first four years of its life, the first flavor of Dorito, which I always would have thought was, oh, nacho cheese, of course, right? Yeah, of course, of course. That's the default flavor of Dorito. No. Guess what the first flavor of Dorito was? I'm not gonna, it can't be Cooler Ranch. No, that one came significantly later. But that's important. Yeah, yeah. It's important. Barbecue, what was it? It was taco flavor.

1:25:00Okay. Which kind of makes sense, right? It does make sense. And I do believe that they have brought a taco flavor back to the market recently. The taco flavor remains on the market. It's been sort of, you know, Some of these flavors remain on the market, but they're hard to find. You can still find the toasted corn Dorito around this original flavor, ostensibly original flavor. And that packaging now, because all brands are doing this, they've brought it back as a limited edition. The taco-flavored Dorito has sort of like, when they revived taco Doritos around 2012. Okay. And they had had them in the 90s, different versions of them.

1:25:31But when they brought them back, for a limited time, we're putting them in the retro pack. Yeah, that. And then they did that. Yep. but then like later that year they did come out with the regular the contemporary design and I think the sales were bad so then like you know what we're just gonna keep the throwback package out indefinitely I think that's what happens with a lot of these brands which is what they've done yeah because I know like Miller Lite there's a lot of brands that have done this where they run a limited edition I think even Pepsi did this Miller Genuine Draft Coca-Cola

1:26:00Jason Liebig:Pepsi-Cola Mountain Dew yeah and they run them back and they're like you know what people like these better yeah no they're like this design still works yeah Like it's still appeased to consumers. Yeah. So that happens. So there's that. Let's see what else. So good. Oh, this is fun. This is related to Ego. A lot of people don't realize this. Ego was once a snack brand. Wow. And this is, and this features the Ego mascot, which is a little egg. And this is Ego, it's kind of sort of connected to Doritos. This is Ego tortilla chips. Holy shit. Yeah. Look at this typography and the colors. Yeah. I can't get over how bright the colors are.

1:26:33Oh yeah. Fantastic. It's all so neon and so punchy. Yeah, it's fun. And yeah, this old Eggo logo really is incredible. It's wild. And then you got these mascots that we love. Of course, as designers, you get this, what looks like an egg with a tortilla, with a sombrero. Oh, yeah. But what's in this? Who is that? Oh, my God. That's a little Eggo guy, man. And that's, what is it? Taco barbecue flavor, I think. What a strange flavor. Yeah, barbecue, tortilla, corn chips. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Taco barbecue. Yeah, so Eggo, I guess this didn't go well. 10 cents, too. No, I mean, I think, look, I think when Kellogg's bought them, I think they ultimately decided.

1:27:14I brought some things in. Oh, my God, McDonald's. I brought, like, some McDonald's stuff, super-sized fry box. Fuck, yeah. And a double fries, which was the same size, I think, as a super-sized. So your collection really goes pretty wide at this point. Yeah, a lot of collectors, you know, they'll narrow down their focus. Yeah. But I've only brought 10. Yeah, you've opened up the aperture. That's how you have 100 ,000 pieces. Yeah, because you're like, candy's great. But also, I mean, this type I love too. I love chunky, bold, just like simple. Ah, so good. And I think this was, you know, obviously the movie Supersize Me.

1:27:46That was a big sort of moment for, I believe, this typography as well, because I think they used a double fries. Wow, so cool. All right. So now that's connected too. I like to loop things and dovetail things together. I believe Supersize exists because of the success of the Big Gulp. The Big Gulp was the first embiggening of American drinks and food and things, at least to my eye. And there's a story that I have told that I've helped tell on television, I've told on social media. There's an aspect of that story that I'm going to share here for the very first time. The Big Gulp story is this. The Big Gulp, of course, came out from 7-Eleven.

1:28:26And the story is Southern California 7-Eleven, retail manager. They're having some trouble. They're looking for something new. There's the Coke guy who says, listen, we've got these cups that we've been using for different events and things. And why don't you put them in retail? And they've been kind of using them for like picnics or like family size things. And they take this cup and they love it. And they get like, I don't know, they get a shipment of them and they sell out of them, right? And they are 32 ounce cups. And at a 7-Eleven and most any kind of convenience, no one's ever sold a soda bigger than like 16 ounces or even 20 ounces or whatever it was.

1:28:59And so this 32-ounce cup gets sold. And they go back to them and say, listen, this is a success. We're going to roll this out. They go back to the company. And the company that's making the cup is Continental Can Company, a fairly famous packaging company from that era. They actually worked on stuff that went up in space during the Apollo space program, which is another story I'm going to tell later. but at that point the story goes the Continental can is shifting their production from America to Canada that is the mythology and I do have evidence to support that but then they can't get that cup and no one has really people have talked about what it looked like maybe what it is the shape of it ultimately when they came out with the double gulp in 1989 they used the same shape of cup again I have what every piece of evidence I can point to is the cup that was sold in those Southern California 7-Elevens, that 32-ounce cup, which no one's ever shown a picture of.

1:29:57Although you can find it if you realize this is what the proto Big Gulp cup was. Oh, my God. And this is it. And this is the cup. It's a wax cup. It kind of is shaped like a bit of a milk carton up top, but then it's got a circular base. But this is what the original Big Gulp cup, and we're Continental Can, not moving base of operations. and they hadn't stopped their production, this might be what Big Gulps ultimately looked like. Whoa. As it was, this format of canister was used. I've never seen that in my entire life. That format of canister did get used. Wow. People like Pizza Hut would use it.

1:30:35When you get a family thing, it's like, oh, I have a family soda. It's 64 ounces or 32 ounces. Oh, my God. They would sell it with their branding on it like that. But that - Holy shit. That is the early 70s. It was introduced a few years before, but it was being used at drive-ins. This is for the family. you know this isn't meant to be drunk by a single person like no one said at that point people were like 32 ounces for a single person no no that's that's enough soda for a family god yeah yeah now this you would just have it like this wouldn't be enough or uh no no i mean no that was the that was the beginning of the end for america but it's like you know what a 32 ounce big gulp is good you know what would be better a 48 ounce super big gulp it's like oh my god and i as a person who I had a 7-Eleven three blocks from his house.

1:31:17I was like, yes, super big gulp is where it's at. Fill it with Mountain Dew, full sugar. This is amazing. And then that was not good enough because then they came out with a double gulp where they revived this shape of canister, admittedly in twice the size. The double gulp then became insane. It was 64 ounces or so. Holy shit. And it's amazing because it's both like a traditional cup on the bottom and then like a milk carton. Yes. Some innovation happened here. Someone really sort of put their head together. There's real packaging engineering. There is. Yes. Someone took two things and signed them together.

1:31:50Yes. This is. It's a great mashup. Where did you get this? I got it on eBay. Believe it or not, it's been sitting there forever. And when I finally put it together what it was, yeah, I bought it. So I think you might still be able to find these. Okay.

1:32:01Jason Liebig:I would love to just go through your purchases on eBay. I would love to just scroll through that. No, it's disheartening if you're worried about my bank account. Yeah, that's right. All right. So are we still okay for time? We got time for maybe two more. And I've never said this to any guest before. We got to have you back. You got to come back and we'll go through more stuff. I'm going to show you. This is a very recent acquisition. Oh, Newman's Zone. This is Newman's Zone. And I bring this because I personally have been talking a lot about influencer brands. Okay. Celebrity brands. You have some on the shelf.

1:32:34Yeah, of course. You have Bureau from Tom Holland. Yep. And the idea of what makes an influencer. I plan to talk about this a lot more on my own, whatever, on my own published stuff. But this was an example of Paul Newman. Literally, he did not want to get into the grocery business. He was making stuff out of his own garden for friends. Wow. And this author he was friends with, I think it was A.C. Hotchner, A.H. Hotchner, was an author. They worked on this together. And at some point, people were getting it as a gift from him around the holidays. People were like, man, can I get some more of that dressing?

1:33:11people and it's like hey man i'm like like you were really cool if you lived in connecticut and you knew paul newman and you got some of his salad dressing it's like that was pretty cool and so ultimately that he got talked into well let's try to roll it out as a product and this is the very first edition of the first product that newman's own made wow the following year they would come up with a spaghetti sauce yeah which he labeled as fascinating from a branding perspective he called it industrial strength which that's i should i shouldn't have said that online because that's on my ebay list now and now now someone else will be like oh he wants that i'm gonna get it first you know i can bleep it for you yeah yeah we'll bleep that out for you good but yeah no they recently did a rebrand and they kind of have he's he's still on the packaging but he's an illustration he's an illustration now and they've changed the brand a little bit i have a few different but i'm not going to show those because i want to show you one wild thing which is just something you've never seen okay i there was a moment in newman's own history that i kind I think is really potentially not welcome.

1:34:09It's problematic to this day because he was dressed as every type of religion and a different type of background for each of the flavors of each of the - That wasn't that long ago. Yeah, no. I have photos of that where he's dressed as like a Frenchman, an Italian guy. He's got like a fun mustache and everything. Yeah, you know, that's like - Yeah. You know, it's like - A different time. It's like he didn't, like he wasn't doing like a Super Mario impersonation. No. Hey, come and get him a dressing, you know, whatever like that. They did decide to sort of move away from that. But I do think if you look that up Newman's own packaging.

1:34:42Well, you know. What's funny is they did that really only on the dressing. That's fair. And then the rest of the products, I think at the time they were doing that, they were still doing like when Joanne Woodward was, when they were both still alive, it was he and Joanne Woodward were like old farmers. That's right. And then when she passed away, it went back to him. And then when he passed away, it went to the illustration, which I think is all respectful to what the brand is. And, you know, I don't know. It was fun, though. It was weird and quirky at times. And you're right. First celebrity brand, right?

1:35:11Not the first, but the first to really blow up the way it did. I mean, I can't think of... I mean, because celebrities were endorsers oftentimes for brands, but not necessarily launching their own companies. Let me drop some knowledge on you from my archives. I know. Go to my Flickr and look up Buddy Hackett, and you will find Hacks Snacks, which was a real brand. And if you don't know who Buddy Hackett was, he was a comedian. He was in a lot of Disney. He was in the Herbie the Love Bug movies. He was the voice of, I think, the bird in Little Mermaid. But that was one of his last roles. Okay. So he was - He had his own snack brand.

1:35:51Wow. Hack Snacks. Hack it, yeah. And I want to say I have a soup can or something from Mahalia Jackson. So I can't give Newman the credit. You know, on the show, we don't really do any research. It's very different than your process. We just make it up and we just kind of go with it. But, you know, that's why it's good that you're here. You know, and it, because it did, I'm not saying none of those other came organically, but really Newman's own was such an organic process. You know, he was making this for himself, making it for friends and it expanded. And we have, I'm not saying that people aren't still doing that.

1:36:29People aren't curious, but, and look, I was just on a call. I was just on a call with a guy who works for the, for the feastables brand and innovation. And you know, look, I don't think Mr. Beast was fascinated with candy before. What? You know, I think, but, but I do think he's come around to try to make something that's real, you know? Cause, because I also look without getting into that. I do think the first two years of feastables, chocolate bars were kind of mid, just middling stuff that were way overpriced. And I do think they brought in real candy people to really reformulate it and turn it into a decent product.

1:37:03Yes. It's actually, I think it's a premium product now at a premium price. Okay. Last thing I'm going to show you is something that is from General Mills history. General Mills cereal, of course, everyone knows Cheerios, all those great brands. I have pieces that came that aren't even known in the General Mills archive because I've talked to the archivist about it. And the General Mills has one of the greatest brand archives that exists. They've got everything. these they might not have because they never made it out of test market and i got these from the son of the designer who worked on them whoa he had two sets of these i have one of the two known sets to exist and they are something that general mills toyed with shortly after they purchased parker brothers parker brothers makers of games like monopoly sorry boggle all these games they decided to make a box product that you would play with the pieces.

1:37:59So they would take snack pieces, and then the box itself would be the game board. What? And so you would open it up, and then the back would be you would play with your food. Brilliant. Brilliant. And this is tic-tac-toe, and you would have these little candy pieces, and all this stuff was stuff that was reused from other snack brands they'd already had. But you've got the great 1960s Parker Brothers logo there. Yeah, Game You Can Eat. Yeah, Game You Can Eat. That's amazing. And so they were really trying stuff and snacking games. What an interesting crossover of gaming and snacks. How long did these sort of products exist for?

1:38:40Because I've never even heard of them. This one was only tested. Okay, so it never went to nationwide market. Can I see that? Yeah, no. That is amazing.

1:38:49Jason Liebig:All four of these have just brilliant late 60s. you can tell incredible design no incredible design they hired geography yeah they were for the era the design was way ahead of its time holy what was the name of the designer i don't know well the the designer the son fred hawk his father um which fred's father's name uh oh geez george i'm sorry unfortunately it fell out of my mind he did not design the graphics he designed more like the layout he may have designed the logos but it looks to me like if you look at these looks like they brought in like four guys from like Saul Bass's studio or something to like have like go wild.

1:39:24Yeah. They're brilliant. Because it's that great sort of very sixties design where people were pushing, you know?

1:39:30Jason Liebig:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so who's the guy who did the love, uh, what's his name? Uh, but Mel and Glazer. Yeah. Like Glazer, Saul Bass, all that kind of design I feel like is evident on those boxes. Those are four of my favorite pieces because they are just a lost bit of American brand history. It's awesome. And we are so grateful that you came here, Jason. Like genuinely, this is some of the coolest stuff that I have seen. And ironically, I'm going to an event tonight from a designer who loves archiving things. She's a casual archivist. She has, you know, again, she is just collecting things for designers.

1:40:08And we just got like the masterclass masterclass in collecting and snacks and games and all this stuff that just thank you for keeping all this stuff alive because I think that's the thing that, of course, the reason why you got involved in all this is just making sure that it doesn't get lost, right? And I think there's something so beautiful about that. And putting on the internet so the people appreciate and admire it, seeing it in person is a whole other level because no JPEG, nothing could ever compare to the colors. Some of those colors can't be reproduced. I know. And just the way these things look in your hand and seeing it in person.

1:40:46So I'm just so grateful. We will get you back here. This will not be the last time you see us. But thank you so much for doing this show. Again, we've been excited about having you and you delivered again. You did it again. I'm glad. Thank you. No, seriously, we're such fans and thank you so much for being here. Awesome. It's my pleasure. Yeah. Peace.