Thriller NYC! -With Zombie Papas: Jorge and Todd

0:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to the New Yorker's podcast, a podcast by New York City Cop. I am your host, Kelly Copp, published photographer, NYC tour business owner, real estate content creator, podcaster, and above all else, a New Yorker. Ladies and gentlemen, the next Brooklyn Bound, Trace is now high. Stand clear of the closing doors, please.

0:35This is the Times Square.

0:53With me today, everybody, I have zombie papas, Jorge and Todd right here. They are the coordinators for the NYC Halloween Thriller Dance Group in the West Village Halloween Parade. Jorge is also a graphic designer, enjoys dance and learning new languages. And Todd is a psychotherapist, artist, and enjoys playing beach volleyball. But above all else, they are New Yorkers. Hey, Jorge and Todd, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? Doing good, Kelly. Nice to have you. Nice to have you. Nice to be here. Yeah, yeah, thank you. I like how we started. This is perfect. You know, thanks you guys.

1:33Jay and I are super excited that you're here because, you know, you guys are the Thriller guys. Hence the t-shirts. You know, and Yeah, close enough. Yeah. And you know, you're the Thriller dance and the West Village Halloween Parade is one of the most iconic, now one of the most iconic events in New York City every year. So we'll get to all this in a second, but we want to hear about you two first. You know, where were each of you born? Where did you grow up? Were you born in New York City? And then if you're not, tell us how you got here. Sure, I can start. Who wants to start? Yeah, I'll start.

2:12This is Jorge. So yeah, Jorge Escobar. I'm originally from El Salvador, but I've been living in New York for 38 years. Wow. Yeah, it's a long time. I came to the city. I wasn't too crazy about New York, but then somehow I fell in love with it. Yep. understandable. And I was born in Brooklyn. Oh, nice. I am a third generation Brooklyn. Very cool. Well, Jorge, how did you end up in New York city then? You just went straight from, you were born, you said in El Salvador. Yeah. What city? I was born in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. And how'd you end up here then? Well, my mom was living here.

2:49Oh, very cool. And then, uh, I came here and, um, I went to school and then, um, Then I just got a job and got into graphic design. And then I'm here. Nice. And so you two are both living your lives here in New York City. And then you meet. How does that happen? Well, we met down. You want to talk about it? No, we can't talk about it. We met down in Asbury Park on the beach. We both love the beach and had a friendship and then decided to start dating about 10 years ago. Nice. Yeah. And we've been married for seven years. That's so awesome. But Asbury Park's in New Jersey? Asbury Park in New Jersey, yeah.

3:30Very cool. Still like to go down there. And where'd you get married? And what was that like? Where was the venue? A little bit of details. I'd love to eat. Actually, we had a costume party wedding. Wait, that's so cool. Really? Yeah, at a place called Little Fields. It's a theater that they also rent out the space. So we hired a DJ to play 80s music. Very cool. taco bar and had a costumes required wedding and of course we had a thriller moment in our wedding did you yeah so which is really interesting so i'm assuming then that you know this this monster slash thriller theme is a commonality you both had you realized i guess right or something because you had a costume-themed wedding and everything, right?

4:25Well, I started in Thriller when we started dating 10 years ago. So we got married a couple of years later. So by that time, Thriller was a part of our life, and we were already running it by that time. Right. Yeah, we were running it. Oh, really, really? I guess a little bit like in history, I've been dancing with Thriller since 2010. Right. And then when Todd and I met, he offered to make a costume for me. Nice. And that's how we connected. And then I told him, I said, hey, you know, I do this really cool thing called Thriller. Would you be interested in being part of it? And to my surprise, my pleasant surprise, he said, yeah.

5:08Well, the offer really was, how do you feel about being security? I was like, I want to dance. Security? I want to dance. That's hilarious. I love it. So I assume we're talking about the Thriller Parade, correct? Yeah, and the Thriller Parade. It's the Village Halloween Parade. Right, that's what I mean, I'm sorry. With the Thriller, yeah. Or Thriller NYC is one of the true. You know, so it's one of the most iconic, well-known events in New York City. and now it's one of the most iconic, well-known events during Halloween in New York City around the world. Yes. So let's talk about how this all came to be.

5:53Like from the first idea, how did it come to be what it is today? Well, I can start with how it started. It started in 2004 with just a regular group of New Yorkers that wanted to be part of the parade. one of their requirements and still is that the uh you dress up to be part of the parade so they had an idea of getting together in someone's apartment and they practiced there were probably like a dozen of them and uh at the time they only carry a wagon with a speaker well it's like a boombox right right over the time it evolved and uh they rented a u-haul With the speaker. With the speaker. But 2009, that's when Michael Jackson passed away.

6:39And that's when the popularity of Thriller really exploded. I joined in 2010. And then, however, in 2000, we took over operations in 2019. Right. So that's seven years now. Do you know how many years prior to you taking over, they did the Thriller Dance and the Parade? yeah from 2004 we had our 20th anniversary in 2024 and a couple of people from the original group joined in with us that's pretty cool was it always thriller the song yeah yeah oh wow but uh funny i mentioned that because in 2009 because uh when he passed away there was another thriller group that was created and there was another group that it was called the beta group that did the choreography to beat it and I joined that group because I couldn't join thriller in 2009 2010 that's when it took over but I was gonna say I think because of social media tickle was introduced in 2018 but it really took a global appeal in 2020 and Kelly thanks to you I think that year you took a video yes and that video went global and that was our first super viral oh Really?

7:58The video that I did? Yes. I didn't realize it was mine. That's when we realized that how... That's pretty cool. Well, I loved it. I was just blown away how amazing it was, thanks to you guys. But go ahead, what were you going to say? Yeah, that's when we realized how popular this group had become. And we had no idea that it had become the New York tradition at that point. Yeah. Until then, when we saw it on social media everywhere. yeah now it's it's it's become this amazing huge you know well anticipated event but you know now as the creator on that side for me it's become a challenge you know to even you know i surprised you and i saw each other in the parade this year which is awesome you know i couldn't believe you know thousands of people were like hey what's up you know and you were in your costume and everything that was really cool scary clown yeah but you know it's just you know it's very challenging to record it now from my perspective you know it's just just a lot but um i love it you know it's one it is the highlight of the of the show so how how do people you know get into the to being in the parade in the thriller dance how does that work so we have an open sign up every October 1st at noon tickets go on sale and we sell the tickets until we're sold out and because we've become so popular it sells out in 60 seconds that's insane crash the system last year so it took a couple of minutes to click on and once it was on everyone who happened to be online got a ticket and it was done and how many people are allowed to participate in the dance we had 160 this year wow yeah that's kind of the limit because we have one float with really loud speakers right but the people in the back can barely hear the song there's only so many columns of people that we can have yeah um and so there we're kind of maxed at the limit yeah i don't think we can go any bigger and because bigger is not necessarily better right right and then it's how it just replays over and over correct you know the song yeah yeah yeah there's just um which i love and i mean that in a very positive way just to be clear you know that i mean like over and over yeah i'm like is this over yet i've heard this song before no i mean it's gonna get stuck in your head yeah repeat it is i love it you know i mean the crowd goes crazy you know every single time they really do it's yeah there's a couple of moments in the song each time we do it moving up uh sixth avenue like the claws up or the initial yeah yeah people go crazy with that yeah they really do and uh we do it somewhere around 20 or 30 times during the parade yeah we do it back to back now it all depends on how fast the parade is right because sometimes we are at a standstill and just doing it in place and making our movements forward and other times we have to haul forward and really keep up with the flute otherwise then the people in the back really are not going to hear the music some good cardio isn't it yeah I mean it's really amazing I uh you know I hear the sound coming up and then you know I'm infer I think for us the creators We're waiting for it.

11:32And we want to get that posted. We want to get out there. It's competition because, you know, they go viral, like you said. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I get my video and I'm like, we're trying to get service running, you know, running six, seven blocks away. Yeah. We see the wall of photographers and creators right in front of us when we start. Jay, have you been to the West Village Parade to see the thriller? I've been to the parade. I haven't specifically been to see the dance. Yeah. it's it's it's really incredible i don't have to go down this year check it out do you have um a lot of the same people in the thriller parade every year we do have uh vets who come back yeah after year and not just from new york from all over people flying from france argentina really to do the dance with us again my friend viviana's in it yes yeah argentina yeah we had uh people from um coming from japan we had japan who's coming to uh film us this time around that's pretty amazing yeah and you know we are uh kind of like victims of our own success because everybody that does it they want to come back and we're like we love you guys but we can have a thousand people right with us understand unlimited but that's pretty amazing did you guys ever imagine uh it would become such a massive tradition like when you were doing it were you thinking it would be you know it would be this massive massive thing that we have right now no in fact when we tried to come back after covid like it was really hard to fill even 50 spots and we were scared that we weren't going to uh make budget and basically when i can segue into that we're selling tickets but we're we're not selling tickets we're just splitting the cost for everything and i thought that year we weren't going to make a really limited cost right we really pared it down knowing that there was not going to be that much interest and no one wanted to go rehearse together indoors it was like 2021 right 2021 and it was canceled in 2020 oh yeah the halloween parade was the first big parade in york city after covid shutdown i remember that after that we were like uh-oh maybe we're on the way out and the next year boom yeah oh i had no doubt you guys would be back you know so when you're in when you're i know you were in the parade are you in the parade too every year too yeah yeah this year we're we decided to lead from the back we have some of our vets up front leading the way and we really rely on like a core team to help put things together so uh both of us just decided to enjoy the parade from the back and help uh run things make sure everything's going smooth and really support the community of it oh nice nice nicely said and do you um do you enjoy seeing the reactions do you do you have any memorable reactions i've seen people in the in the parade as you're you know as thrillers coming by and are people like just going bonkers?

14:39Because that's what I see, people going bonkers in a good way. That's been one of the reactions that always cracks me up when we come down the parade that you see all the policemen along the side of the parade and there's always like one or two that takes out his camera and is like, you know, filming us. Yeah. That's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. There's a lot of people dancing too. You see people dancing on the sides or they're just, you know. Oh yeah, people, and that's why we have the security people because we really need to keep the lines in order and everyone's safe, no trip hazards, because people want to jump in.

15:12Oh, yeah. People know this dance. It's so iconic. And also, you know, the people in the parade that are kind of like the stars, you know, that are Michael Jackson, and usually the female lead, too, I see there. How do they get that part? Yeah, we're a little loose with that kind of thing. We do ask if people are interested to come forward, but it's not actually that in demand from our ranks. So we have the people that are interested and we support them to hang on to it and try to mix up who's in the front for sure. Yeah. It is really a community group. It is about being together. It's not about there being a star.

15:57Yeah. And like why we're in the back this year because we're not. We don't need to be the stars. You know, we open it up to the group and ask if anyone would like to take that leading role because it's a very demanding role. And people step up. And it's just part of being in the community. Although we did try to have an Olare character, the girlfriend from the video. Right. And people just didn't know who she was. So we did away with that this year. Or last year. People didn't know who she was, Michael Jackson's girlfriend. From the video, Olare. Yeah, so we just have two support zombies right behind her.

16:37Yeah, I know. You know? I mean, isn't she the one who's screaming in the video? Yeah, she is. What was that, 1993 that came out? Do you guys know? I can't remember the video premiere. It was 1983. 1983, that's right. I meant 1983. Gosh, that was such a big deal. Jay sadly doesn't know this moment in life. We do. And I think it's one of the biggest premieres on MTV ever, or the biggest, right? It's such a part of history and culture for music for the country and the world. It is. And it's funny you mention that because I think that's part of the appeal of Thriller because it's intergenerational.

17:18Right. We have zombies that are like a parent and a child. Oh, I love that. This would be like last year we were really touched with this mother and daughter that were part of the group that was part of their wish list. That they were not going to be part, because their mom was moving to another country. So it's really touching to see that. I think it's going to last for a long time because grandparents, parents, children know about it. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, that's really cool. That's very moving. You know, I do want to be in the parade one year myself too, but it's just so awesome recording it.

18:00You know, I love it. I can record for you. That's true. But, you know, I'll tell you something. I'm going to tell Snoop Dogg this. He shared my video, too, last year. And he never gave me credit. And I was, you know, I was. What a dog. What did you say? What a dog. Yeah. Yeah, Snoop Dogg. I mean, I was messaging him and I said, this is my video. And other people were hopping on saying, you need to credit him. So. To this day, I'm a little heartbroken that Snoop Dogg did that to me. But we give you full credit. Absolutely. You have supported us and boosted our popularity for sure. Well, you guys have just become, you know, good friends to me, you know, over the years.

18:47And, you know, what I want to hear about, too, is the rehearsal process. You know, when does that start? So just how that works and how people, I guess, the signing up stuff and everything. Sure. so after people sign up and we have our 160 zombies we start sending out emails to organize everybody make sure everyone understands uh where to go and where to meet us but we do an indoor rehearsal where we teach all the new people how to do the dance in like a three-hour session we have a dance captain who does that for us and wow uh that's where we're all first showing up and coming together and that's usually two weekends for halloween correct then the weekend before halloween we go outside so that we can learn to move forward as a group together right and that's outside in a big space so that we can really have that experience of having to stop having to rush forward having to continue if the music goes out and that's a lot of fun and that's with everybody and we, I think of 160, we had 150 there last year.

19:57Wow. There were very few people who couldn't make it. I was going to add that for that first rehearsal, we asked of all the people that have done it for the first time to do it because just for them to get an idea and what we're about and the choreography as well. Yeah, it is required for new people to come to both rehearsals. Right. So do they get like, not a kit, so to speak, But, you know, information and obviously that they probably would get a video, I think, to study. Well, I guess they could study Michael Jackson's video, too. But you guys send them like a special video for them to practice.

20:32We do. We have our website, ThrillerNYC, where we have a tutorial of, you know, how they can start studying that before they come to rehearsal. So they're prepared. Nice. Have you ever noticed someone in the parade like, hmm, they didn't study that video? Hopefully they came to the rehearsal. Stop the parade. they're like this person did not do their homework they're like they're not doing this you know inevitably like when you are exposed to social media you see some of the comments that you know people say but yeah you've seen that i'm sure uh but yeah we don't we take it overall i don't think anyone noticed yeah and we certainly don't judge people for not knowing a few of the moves everyone's there to support one another correct to be a big group and we're not going to put you up front if you haven't learned the dance we have our veterans that really haven't nailed down up front right um and so we are surprised how people jump in and are giving each other a hand to get the choreography down pretty quickly yeah go ahead i'm sorry oh no i was gonna say and we encourage that in the group and people we're we're here to support one another we're here to be part of a family it's just so awesome makes me want to even jump in even more um because i'd be the person at the back just doing this and but you know you would think that after how many times like you know does it cycle through like you know 20 30 times yeah 20 or 30 even if you didn't practice it no i think by like the 10th time you would just get it you know right at least you at like the iconic moments like what's going like that or the key points on the song.

22:18Full disclosure, my first year, I'm not much of a dancer. My first year, I was not confident with the footwork and so I just wore a long gown that went to my feet and concentrated on the hand movement. Oh, that's pretty interesting. And it's a tip that I offered to newbies. do you do the full song because it's a long song no it's a two and a half minute version that we do a real abbreviated version it really only has the thriller uh vocal part okay um no vincent no extra lyric and also i was going to mention the choreography that we do it's pretty similar to the actual choreography we tweaked it a little bit so we uh keep the flow of the parade yeah that makes sense it's simplified I was just thinking about it like the music video is long like even longer oh yeah the whole song is like really long like 20 to 30 times is like a lot that's a lot we would make it up past Central Park if we were doing it if you're doing the full thing it's true but you know what's crazy after doing like 20 or 30 times we have the after party and they want to do it three or four or five more times we totally do wow where's the after party it moves around yeah invite only Yeah, we're pretty loose with the invites, but it's not public.

23:38Yeah. I want to go this year. I'll let you know. I'll send you the invite. No, I want to say thank you, too, for inviting me to the rehearsal. Yeah. I loved it. That meant a lot to me, so thanks, you guys. You're welcome. Thank you. It was great to have you there. It was great just to watch everybody and the lead. I was watching the guy who was playing Michael Jackson, and I was like, gosh, he's good. He's very good. He was really good, and he was really into it, and everybody else, though, was really good, too. You know, so I was like, man, they really, people really practice and know what they're doing.

24:10And I don't think if you noticed, but like last year we had the Mr. and Mrs. Metz. I did see that at the practice. Yeah. They were in costume at the practice. They weren't zombified yet. They got into zombie at the parade. Were they the official mascots? They are the official mascots. They gave us the call and wanted to join us for the year. That's how we also realized this is getting bigger. Right. than we anticipated. Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool to see them in the parade. Did you see it, Jay? No, I saw them. Yeah. That's funny. They were just in the middle of the group. Yeah. That was our agreement.

24:44They would just be another two people in the group. Because that's the funniest way to do it. I was going to say, because we really couldn't put them on the front because we had those two big bubble heads. Right, exactly. They're huge baseball heads. Yeah. But I thought it was smart because they're just New Yorkers. You know, they're just blending in the crowd, sort of and you can see them clearly but I think the crowd that saw them too was probably like that's really cool to see you know the Mets you know what are they called? Mr. and Mrs. Mets Mr. and Mrs. Mets yeah that's pretty awesome and we had a we were laughing we had a discussion about them being part of it because you know how they're gonna see you know and then we realized they're professionals they do this in the stadium right and saying that that's the kind of like celebrity that we want to be part of our group.

25:33I was going to ask you, has any celebrities, you know, requested to be in the group? Mr. and Mrs. Matt? Aside, yes, aside from those two famous celebrities. Not that we've known, but hey, if someone wants to come incognito, we will help them with that. Well, has anybody from, that's connected to Michael Jackson reached out to you or talked to you all? Funny you mentioned that. Well, we haven't reached out to us directly, but we did get a shout out last year from the Jackson family. They posted a video of ours on their social media account. Well, it was like a compilation kind of recognizing how Halloween is thriller time.

26:17And I think the first one was an image of our group in the montage with a bunch of other ways. There are other people that do thriller. Of course, it's in pop culture everywhere in all these different ways. So, uh, but we kind of led the pack there. It was extremely flattering. I bet. Apparently we were also in some exhibit in LA that was a thriller or Michael Jackson exhibit. Cause we saw some videos come through. Was that two years ago? I forget. In a museum. Yeah. And, uh, again, it was a big video screen with, uh, that's cool. That's awesome. That is really cool. And I think I mentioned this to you, and it's happened to both of us that, you know, sometimes when we are outside, people think that the people that produce this group is like a Hollywood director or is a Broadway director.

27:10And we're just two regular guys that sit in Brooklyn having coffee in the morning, discussing how we're going to do this. That's amazing. Do you guys ever sit around and think, wow, this is a really amazing thing that we've done? I mean, this really happened. Yes. That's really happening. We shake our heads. It seems unreal. We're like so excited that we get to be a part of this community and to be able to put it together that feels so rich and rewarding. It is. I'm so proud of it for the two of us. And so we're working it together also as this creative effort that then brings people together.

27:50I love it. Because it aligns with both of our values of creating community and creating a place. I love you guys. How you guys have your, I didn't mean to interrupt. Go ahead. Creating a place that is safe for people to come and have a good time. I love it. You both have the same philosophy, you know, and you guys ever get in a fight about the thriller? Oh, yeah. Not about thriller anymore, really. Yeah. It's a good test of our relationship. Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah. Maybe I don't notice the place. Oh, this is awesome. I thought we were just talking.

28:26This has become a therapy session now, my friends. That's awesome. That's really funny. So how much are tickets again, and what experience do they get from that? Yes, well, tickets, and I'll put that in quotes, they cost$50. And what that is really is the person's share of our entire cost. And anything that's left over at the end, we donate to the parade. that is a nonprofit that always needs donations, that is our home and our platform to perform. And so when people are joining us, they're paying their share of the cost. And we like to let them know that it's a volunteer community group. We are not making any money from this.

29:13No one makes any money from this. This is purely for the love of bringing people together. and at this point the commitment to New York because we think it's so special for New York to have this so people come in sort of thinking oh what did I buy for$50 right and then in the first rehearsal as we're talking about who we are and what we would do with the money and we were completely uh transparent with all of the budget and speaking about how people are bringing their own creativity and how we're supporting one another and moving our bodies together to create community they realize oh i didn't like buy something i don't like buy a service i joined something and i'm here i'm gonna create something with these people and i just see people's expression it changes and i love that that's what keeps me going i love that and i wanted to add to that that it's really easy to find things that divide us it really takes a lot of work to find things that connect us and thriller is special that way they really help bring people together and we know how we know how important that is as part of moving in space together in a group is because I play beach volleyball and he dances and so we're both really aware in other communities that we have in New York City, how moving in space together is an incredible way to just be with other human beings.

30:47Yeah, absolutely. Well said, you two. I love that. I love how you guys think about that. That's really nice. So what makes the thriller dance part of the West Village Halloween Parade so New York? We get asked that a lot. And I think what makes it so New York is there's no other place in the world that you can bring a group of strangers to come together and move their bodies and just be part of this big community different people from people from all over the world and it's such a diverse group of random people it's really incredible that just selling to the first 150 people what a diverse group you get and I love that we get here we get people from all walks of life different ethnicities different socioeconomic backgrounds different ages different body shapes it really doesn't matter yeah what's interesting is when you were both talking a moment ago you know about the community you know being together and and I was thinking that you are describing new york right there this is that's how we are you know that's what i love about i think that's why we all live in general living in new york city too yeah for sure we're all a big thriller parade every day we are especially on the subway oh my god that's your slogan we're all a big thriller parade every day do you have to accommodate for different languages or you we're pretty good at spanish meaning jorge is he also speaks french which is helpful Yeah, I speak French too.

32:29Okay. So that's helpful as well. But we do our best to welcome everyone, and that would be a little challenging, but it's about moving their bodies. Right. Yeah, sometimes because it's about dancing, so there's a body language. That's true. So people can just follow the video or follow the instructor. Reminds me of the La Bamba back in the 80s. You guys remember that boobie, whatever? Oh, yeah, for sure. I think we're around the same age. Yeah, we are. Why do you think Thriller still connects with people after all these years, 40 years?

33:07I think it's going back that we were saying about the time when Thriller came out and Thriller came out in like 1983 and you can remember, I can remember it, but then we have other people that have their parents remember it, have their grandparents remember it. And at the time that it came out, I think it broke a lot of barriers. It broke a lot of, it was helped with integration. Like they were, it didn't matter what color you were, you really enjoyed the music. And then the videos like broke barriers of video cinema. And I just, it's like has had a lasting effect and it's made it intergenerational.

33:46Yeah, that barrier breaking really is such a important answer to your question. I think how it broke the barriers for what a video could be, how we're right color barrier on about michael jackson did on uh mtv how uh across different music genres and then through generations through cultures and um you know it segues into a story that we also travel quite a bit and we were i know we were in africa yeah um on a family trip and in Mozambique. And when we were talking to people who work there who live in the neighboring community, what kind of American music they like, the answer was Michael Jackson Thriller.

34:31Wow. And we were like, well, we happen to know the dance. Yeah. And so we did it in the back area near the kitchen with the people that work there. Would you turn on the music and dance the Thriller? We did. Yeah, we were all over Mozambique TikTok. that's incredible Mozambique TikTok we probably were that's pretty that's a joke I don't know that we were but they were filming us I was gonna go home tonight and look up Mozambique TikTok and look for it that's so funny but it kind of showed us the power of music too how you're able to connect with people in general and we're still friends through WhatsApp with these people that's amazing that's so cool it's amazing you know you know Michael Jackson to talk about him you know how he's broken barriers like you guys have said and you know little side note here you know have you ever seen the warriors you know i think that the thriller video is kind of the theme of the not the thriller i'm sorry beat the beat it video song i think that's kind of warriors oh yeah yeah that's what it is it's you know it's i came out a little bit after the warriors and i think it's really cool how michael jackson also took that theme into his video did you ever catch that mercedes rule is in that movie i did you know what's so funny i just re-watched it a couple weeks ago again i love that movie have you ever seen it you know i haven't seen you've got to watch it i mean watch it it's just have you seen it jay the warriors yeah as a new yorker you have to watch it um it's a little it's a cult classic that type of movie and it's really good i really i really really It's a little dated at this point, but I love it.

36:14Yeah, it's cool. But it makes me, when I watch the Michael Jackson video, I think of that. So he's such a trendsetter in general. What does it feel like, you guys, knowing something you created has become part of New York City culture even and world culture? Wow. You know? It really is unbelievable to us. It's humbling. It's super humbling. and we also delight in it and feel super proud of what we can create together with these people that we now consider our zombie family. The zombie family. I love it. The zombie family. We are the zombie papas. Yeah. Did you, you know what you call yourself as the zombie papas?

36:59Yeah. Yes. We're the zombie papas. Yeah. And there is a zombie mama, you know, she doesn't come to rehearsals. she did this year but she uh does do a lot of background stuff like book all the floats and get the decorations and stuff like that that's pretty interesting but yeah to uh circle back to what you were saying about this being like a world phenomenon yeah that that was it's really humbling like we just never realize how big this is becoming and um you know part of our vision is that we are we hope that we can inspire other cities and other communities like in new york city or around the country or around the world to create something like this i think you are aren't you though we are so where what other cities are doing this that you know of well and do they ask you questions and what to do and how to do it and all that yeah today we met with toronto a couple people in toronto trying to put something together and one of our uh leadership zombies is trying to put something together in new orleans which would be great um and we had our zombie this year that is from japan that she's thinking about maybe doing something in japan and tokyo wow that's so cool that's so cool we would love to see it in other cities for sure that is pretty amazing random question no segue what's your overhead um so we have the rehearsal studio really nice one to make sure that everyone can see themselves in the mirror and see our dance captain we have the rental of the float and all the decorations the The sound system has to be rented as well as a DJ.

38:36There's a permit and some insurance. And our website costs. And then there's some things that I'm sure I'm forgetting. And again, anything left over, we give to the Village Halloween Parade because they are always trying to raise money to make it happen. And so we're thrilled for them to get money from us. You know, I do have my press pass, but I also get the, I always get the Halloween parade press pass just to support them. That's great. Because I think it's important too. Right, it's such an iconic part of New York. Yes, I agree. Do you use the same vendors every year, so to speak? You know, like the same person does the floats and the DJs.