EarzUp! | A Tribute to Dick Nunis

[00:00:00] Hi, I'm your inner dream monologue, and you're fast asleep, so I'll be quick.

[00:00:08] Great job using the Colgate Optic White Overnight Teeth Whitening Pen before bed.

[00:00:13] When used as directed, it gives you a visibly whiter smile in just seven days.

[00:00:17] So while I fly and talk to animals, you're removing teeth stains with ease.

[00:00:22] Sweet dreams.

[00:00:23] And when you wake up, keep on living life to the brightest.

[00:00:27] Colgate Optic White. It sounds great to me. No, I do appreciate your level of not obsession, but knowledge, I suppose, excitement of the people that we don't really hear about in the parks too often, except when they pass or they retire, because I don't, I just don't have that, you know? I'm not like a, I don't get into it like that, like you do.

[00:01:41] So I really appreciate the fact that you want to do this

[00:01:44] and you're going to educate us a little bit,

[00:01:45] and I think that's great.

[00:01:46] All right, well, I just I really just want to sleep in your room. Mommy daddy, and I'm like bye

[00:03:00] I can't you know our bed is large enough, but our daughter moves a lot

[00:04:05] miserable, man. But she slept a lot and she feels better now. So I don't know what to do. But like, that's a freaky as a parent. Like, nothing really prepares you for your child being

[00:04:10] sick and you don't really know what to do or how to like help them feel better. It's very weird.

[00:04:15] And then it goes away. And then it comes back suddenly. Like, what's going on?

[00:04:20] No, weird. Yeah. But hopefully she'll closest hotels possible, they will book the best hotels possible within your budget. They will check and make sure that you're getting the best deal right before your trip start. So you can hopefully potentially save some money

[00:05:42] and they will just rebook stuff for you.

[00:05:44] They will handle your reservations for dinner,

[00:05:46] they will guide you through Jeannie Plus and Lightning Lane you just don't worry about the timing plate or yes, please absolutely do the dining plan, you know, and we'll help you. This is, this is one thing that, that I'm glad you guys are doing because listening to Jeremy, he's the one who keeps me up to date with what's happening in Disney World, where it's, yeah, there's no reservations unless you're going for

[00:07:00] a certain amount of time and then you need a parker's vision.

[00:07:02] It's like, I just, I wouldn't go.

[00:07:04] It's too convoluted.

[00:07:05] It's too complicated right now.

[00:07:06] And I wonder when it's going to go away.

[00:08:02] Yeah, just wait, that'd be so cool. I don't think he could.

[00:08:03] I think like, I don't know, the Kardashians,

[00:08:07] which I hate, I either rinse my mouth out every time

[00:08:09] I say their last name.

[00:08:11] They go to Disneyland and they're fine,

[00:08:13] but I don't think Bob Iger could go to Disneyland.

[00:08:16] I think he would just be inundated with people

[00:08:18] of either complaining or throwing rose petals in front of him.

[00:08:22] Well, and I mean, at least we have Josh tomorrow showing up.

[00:08:27] Does he just hang out at the age of 91, it was in December. Good life, man. Good life. And Dick is one of these heroes that I've always,

[00:09:40] he's somebody that I've always wanted to hear more about,

[00:09:44] but he's such a secretive guy.

[00:09:46] He didn't release a memo. friggin' Wikipedia page. How dare they? How dare they? He was rarely seen at events after he retired from Disney. His appearance in the Imagineering story was actually a surprise to a lot of people. Like people like me going, who? Right, right. You're like, who's this guy sitting in front of the gates

[00:11:00] and talking, who's this guy?

[00:11:02] But thank goodness he got a memoir out.

[00:11:05] That's the word I was trying to say earlier,

[00:11:07] not Nemo, memoir. stories. Right. Yeah. And Dick, Dick had this way of doing things where he's so pragmatic. He's an operations guy. He wasn't an Imagineer. He was operations and he was constantly fighting with Imagineers because they, they said, here's the creative thing we're doing and he'd go,

[00:12:20] you need another garbage can there.

[00:12:22] See, that would be me. I'm telling you. That least not on the clock. Yes, not on the clock. I tend to put pills and bottles later on in the day, just for the old times. Right, right. But yeah, the idea is how do we be more efficient? How can we increase capacity? How can we do things better?

[00:13:40] That fascinates me.

[00:13:41] And that's why I love this guy,

[00:13:43] because that was his career.

[00:13:45] So here we go.

[00:13:48] Let's do it. are, there's a reason, you know? Yeah, I don't think you can get away with Joyce these days. Especially like, you know, when I was going to school in like the 90s, like middle school, it was like, doi, you know, like, this kid would be taunted mercilessly. Yeah.

[00:15:00] Well, Joyce did all right.

[00:15:03] And Joyce Sr. also presumably did all right. of Southern California. I think that's what that's what we call call that the USC Trojans. Recruited him. He was a footballer. So he had a major in education and he was recruited on a four year scholarship to be part of the football program. He was very proud to be a non-smoker

[00:16:21] and a very light drinker. Proud. I guess back then, so he was born in 33. So what is that?

[00:17:27] mouth. This ain't going to go well for you, kid. And that's that's dick. Noonas. So while he was in school, he worked as an extra in multiple movies, because a lot of,

[00:17:35] like football themed movies were filmed at USC. Dick had shattered his first cervical vertebra.

[00:19:00] Geez.

[00:19:01] What was that high up on the neck?

[00:19:03] That's the top one.

[00:19:04] The top.

[00:19:05] Oh, god. He considered it a major tragedy that he could not play during the Rose Bowl. He had to watch it as a spectator. He was given as winners of the Rose Bowl. They were all given watches and he got one of the watches. Sure. And he was able to stay on for two more years at USC with his scholarship.

[00:20:24] They continued to honor his scholarship, so he continued to go to school.

[00:20:27] They should.

[00:20:28] Yeah. Nice. And treasured for his entire life, one of the original Hobie surfboard, Balsa surfboards, that he held on to for his entire life, even though he didn't surf his entire life, he held on to that for a long time. That's cool. So once he graduated from school, he was majoring in education,

[00:21:41] so he tried to get into the LA school system as a teacher. And the recruiter was rude to him.

[00:22:43] city school system, you couldn't pay me enough to be a part of it.

[00:22:44] Wow. He left.

[00:22:45] Damn.

[00:22:47] I feel like him and Rollie were like cut from the same cloth in that regard.

[00:22:50] I mean, not as aggressive, but just in like the, I'm not, I know what I, I know

[00:22:55] what I want.

[00:22:55] I know what I don't want.

[00:22:56] And this is exactly what I don't want.

[00:22:58] Right.

[00:22:58] Exactly.

[00:22:59] Yeah.

[00:23:00] And there's, there's a rolly story coming up later.

[00:23:02] Good.

[00:23:03] So, um, during, during school, one Disneyland. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. We've talked about, we've talked about that guy. Yep. And yeah, so van was an old friend of CV woods. And when he met Ron, no, when he met Dick Nunes, he said he was impressed that, he was into Disneyland. He created the first training program. His main theme was, you will create happiness for others. Their basic tenets were deliver quality.

[00:25:40] Keep the park clean and be friendly.

[00:25:42] And that was the Disney way.

[00:25:44] They used first names only.

[00:25:46] They called people guests. had become the apprentice, that sort of thing. But Van was a little bit of a sloppy guy. He didn't dress the best all the time. And he showed up for work a few days in a row, wearing a shirt with a frayed collar. Oh, that's a big no-no, brother.

[00:27:00] Yeah, and Dick addressed it with Van directly

[00:27:03] and told Van, you need all of these great things. So that particular day, Dick estimates that he worked about he did leadership seminars, not like the, hey, I'm going to go to these places and talk about how great it was to work at Disney, he talked about his life lessons as a manager.

[00:29:42] So his life lesson from this portion neck. I don't know. Whatever, you know, only the week vertebrae shattered. There you go. Yeah. Well, a few months after he was running the mailroom and he improved its efficiency, he made one dollar and 80 cents an hour. Yeah, and van France, his boss at the time said, no, you made two dollars an hour when I hired you. And apparently they are good about this for years. So this any moving to the mail room was a and switchboard was a was a promotion.

[00:32:24] We're going to reward you.

[00:33:22] There's no reason why people are struggling and have two jobs. They just need to work harder.

[00:33:23] All right.

[00:33:24] There you go.

[00:33:25] Well, as he went through this stuff, he befriended Walt.

[00:33:30] Smart move.

[00:33:30] Walt really appreciated what he was doing.

[00:33:34] So he developed this close working relationship with Walt Disney himself.

[00:33:38] So close that Dick was the, the, the only person to tell Walt, Hey, um, so,

[00:33:46] you know how cast members aren't allowed to smoke while they're on the job.

[00:34:42] I think that's how he was really relatable. Right, so that's cool.

[00:34:43] I mean, that's sort of expected, I like that.

[00:34:45] Yeah, if he's saying it's all about the show,

[00:34:48] then you need to be part of the show too.

[00:34:50] Yeah, yeah, if you're gonna be in front of house,

[00:34:52] you better be following front of house rules.

[00:34:55] Yeah, and Dick learned from Walt that,

[00:34:59] we've all heard these stories about

[00:35:00] how Walt would go on the rides, he'd walk around the park,

[00:35:03] he'd kind of disguise himself a little bit

[00:35:05] by wearing a hat and maybe slightly larger mustache. of the Squaw Valley Olympics in 1960. He helped with all four of the attractions at the 1964 World's Fair. He was tasked with bringing the Disneyland level of quality and customer satisfaction basically to a non-Disneyland location.. And he was involved with that discussion. And he gave a fact that I've never, in this book, he wrote about something I've never heard before. Apparently, Walt always planned on doing both Walt Disney World in Florida and Disney St.

[00:37:40] Louis Riverfront Square at the same time. So are smack dab in the middle of the life of Dick Nunes former USC football player and bully of Walt Disney Yeah, which is how I interpret that Yes, I've got I've got a few nicknames that Dick actually listed for himself

[00:39:04] Okay, okay in his memoirs

[00:40:02] favorite. That'd be mine too. One of his assistants would actually, he'd catch her when he'd walk through the room.

[00:40:07] She would sing under her breath.

[00:40:09] M-I-C-K-E-Y-O-U-S-O-P.

[00:40:16] Who was S-O-B number two?

[00:40:17] I don't know.

[00:40:18] That's what I want to know.

[00:40:21] The nickname that he disliked was Tiny Pants.

[00:40:26] Oh, what? All the movers and shakers went and he was wearing his shirt, tie, blazer and khaki shorts. What do you do with the socks? Was he hiding his sock guarders? Oh gosh, I think a sock guarder guy. They must have been all the way up to his damn knees. Oh my God. But he had the balls to tear the shirt off of some man's back because his collar was framed.

[00:41:43] But your knees are showing.

[00:41:45] What do you do?

[00:41:46] It's the dress code. like early punk rock, you know, kind of like, let's buck the establishment, but also get the job to be the establishment. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, joining back where we were before we were rudely name was this could go Schneider. Of continental canning. He stayed at the same hotel every every visit. Continental canning was a real company.

[00:44:22] And the hotel got of his pants. Right. Yeah. So, so he was instrumental in in a lot of things that went on during the the the preparation for Walt Disney World. During this time, he was still going back and forth between the East Coast and the West Coast because he was still in charge of Disneyland.

[00:45:42] August 6th, 1970 was the yippy invasion.

[00:45:46] Have we talked about the yippy invasion?

[00:45:48] Yes. swing at Nunes, Dick subdued him and had him arrested and showed up at this dude's trial. Oh my God. I love that. I love the showing up at the trial. Like that's just a period on the sentence. Right, right. So yeah, his preparation was attributed as one of the main reasons why this entire night. Green side up. Everybody's chanting green side up. He bought everybody t-shirts that read green side up the week afterward because these people laid out sod before the opening

[00:48:21] of Walt Disney World. Right. It's just a weird shift, man, in what, 50 years or whatever it is? Well, yeah. And in the early 70s in central Florida, there were no jobs. There were no people. Like they had to, from what I've heard, they had to recruit like, drunks and whoever they could find to work at this place.

[00:49:42] Sounds like not much has changed.

[00:49:44] You know what I mean?

[00:49:45] Oh, yeah. earlier and earlier. And then finally, one day, all of the executives showed up wearing pajamas. And he finally got the message. And he said he set the meetings a little bit later. It seems like a really cool work environment. Right. Like, I mean, that's amazing to have that kind of camaraderie.

[00:51:00] Yeah. Dick is responsible for doing the groundwork, testing, let's maybe have fewer people show up early, and then we can find where all the problems are and then fix them. So he took the data from Disneyland, assumed it would translate over to Disney World with the low traffic and it sort of did. Yeah. Yeah. And he used it as a way to do kind of a soft opening and, and fixed all the problems before

[00:52:22] everybody showed up. environment that they had built for it. It still did what it would actually is like what it does. That's weird. Absolutely. Yes. But he swears that the mechanism worked well, but it was was the next one. And that was a fresh water park where it wasn't, it wasn't like chlorinated water.

[00:55:00] It was real like water. Oh, good.

[00:55:02] That's such a good idea.

[00:55:04] Yes. It lasted for a long, a long-ass time. like, these are the parts of Disney. This is why we started the whole show, right? The whole network, the whole thing in the first place was Disneyland Park specific history. But the deeper you go into the corporate history, it's such a, it's such a different animal than like the history of Google or whatever, right? Because they're, they're, they're redefining or they're

[00:56:21] even not even redefining. They're defining, right. But yeah, so like this guy was there for so long doing all of these things. And despite being so involved in operations and so involved in process improvement and efficiencies at his core, everything was, this is the Disney way.

[00:58:42] Right. And somebody found it immediately.

[00:58:46] That's that's the kind of work ethic that he instilled in his people.

[00:58:49] I love the I love the I don't know, man. Maybe it's because it's Disney brand and maybe it's because of the park.

[00:58:53] Maybe because it's a rolly, but I feel like any other industry.

[00:58:59] You take that story, put it within the context of whatever it is.

[00:59:02] Right. If you have Elon Musk telling that story,

[01:00:04] all of it. So they required a lot of visas. These visas were not going through. It weird. So Dick, through talking about football with President Reagan went, oh, by the way,

[01:00:13] we need these visas to go through so that we can do EPCOT. Yeah. Two weeks later,

[01:00:21] all of the visas were approved. Okay. All right. I love it.

[01:01:28] He had a son of his own and his second wife had children and he continued on from there. But yeah, after a long life with Disney Land, with Disney in general, he was given on his

[01:01:41] in the year of his retirement a window in Miller, Massure O'Farrante. So he's sharing a window with his pals from USC. And then he also has a hidden, as he says, it's a hidden Nunez in Cinderella's Royal

[01:03:02] Table at the restaurant that's inside up to president of Walt Disney attractions. He was on the board of directors for many years. He finally wrote his memoir fairly recently, like last year. And, you know, this guy, like just, he's the definition of legend.

[01:04:24] Yes, absolutely.

[01:04:25] Yeah. But this guy created this partially as a memoir and partially as like a leadership book, all of his lessons learned are like, don't over estimate the importance of

[01:05:44] setting expectations, establishing the main Nixon at Disneyland. Yeah, it was a little handsy, but otherwise it was fine. good beer. Right now, their popular seasonal beer is hell or high pomegranate, which is a classic American wheat beer. So it's a little tiny bit cloudy, but not really. It's not like a German half of eights in which it's like kind of banana or clove or whatever. This is more of a clean,

[01:08:20] producing, clean, presenting beer, biked with p Tomorrow night. Yeah, I can't stop doing that. And also get 21st Amendment beer because.

[01:09:40] There you go.

[01:09:41] That's the only place I've ever seen it

[01:09:42] and around here and it's fantastic.

[01:09:45] Well, you live in Colorado,

[01:09:46] which is a big craft beer area. facility Kellogg's plant where they made pop tarts and cornflakes and whatever. And they had to, they cut hole in the roof to drop the tanks in speaking of processes and pro, you know, and project management and stuff. And they had to get a permit with the FAA to have cranes because they, you know, they had these big tank tanks, these 50 hectoleter German tanks

[01:11:02] craned in. And so they had to wait for the ceiling. That's right. That's over everybody. No, I think what we're going to be doing, not I think what we are going to be doing this year is sort of moving how we record the secret show. Normally what we do on the second show of that month, we just stay on and do a

[01:12:21] secret show and, you know, and we tough it out.

[01:12:24] And, you know, we are a little bit.

[01:12:25] Eric earlier.

[01:13:26] with you have ever cough on people. Yeah. That's right. American way. I did feel bad. Really? You know what, brother? It is, unfortunately. I did feel bad sending her to school like Tuesday

[01:13:33] and Wednesday, but she wears a mask. So I did it. I don't know if that's good. And she was feeling

[01:13:38] better and her fever was gone. So I'm like, I don't know where this new sickness came in, but.

[01:13:42] Hey, fever gone is a good sign. I think so too. Yeah. And she's wearing a mask. Everything's fine.

[01:14:41] So good. The beer was fantastic.

[01:14:43] It was almost 30 years,

[01:14:45] three, nearly three decade run,

[01:14:47] permanently closed as of January 22nd.

[01:14:50] And if you walked into that brewery,

[01:14:52] the day that they closed, you'd say,

[01:14:54] wow, it certainly feels like this brewery

[01:14:56] has been here for 30 years.

[01:14:58] See, the art thing was so 90s.

[01:15:01] I, you know, for those of you who don't know,

[01:15:04] that's my background, you know what I mean?

[01:15:06] I'm a big beer guy, come from a Brink podcast, To afford to remodel and i feel like that's kind of good you know it's like okay i know i know what to expect now because of because of what's going on here. There's a flow and you know what maybe we don't need to. Yeah i don't need to refresh right they just don't like they just doesn't even keep coming by the beer it's like it's like you know when you're home right you like i should really sweet brush really clean the base or i don't know whatever you will do right.

[01:17:25] infrastructure that needs to be, that needs to be in place to move that grain. You know what I mean?

[01:17:26] See, if you have a five barrel or seven barrel brew house, it's a couple thousand pounds

[01:17:32] of wet, stinky malt that you have to extract.

[01:17:37] And there's a whole sewer thing.

[01:17:38] There's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff, especially in California that you need to

[01:17:41] like be represented.

[01:17:43] Disneyland DCA does not have the infrastructure for that.

[01:17:46] But I saw them like surprised that this place did. the hot bell and yeah, we talked beer stuff. Yeah. And yeah, it was a good place and I'm sorry it's gone and I doubt Disney is going to buy that five-barre brew system. Oh, dude. Yeah, for sure. Especially now. They're going to put in some other whatever. But the big thing I want to talk about is the Disneyland Forward

[01:19:04] program, the development that was sort of me, is very, very important. Disney does not ever want to be locked into any one decision. So they're going to keep that nebulous as much as possible. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's just vague book it. It's fine. Yeah. But for sure, some of this stuff will happen.

[01:20:23] Yes.

[01:20:23] I think some of it will happen.

[01:20:25] Yeah.

[01:21:28] I hope so. My family is notoriously long-lived, but I, you know, I, I drink too much. So it's true. Well, this is the main reason I'm trying not to want to be around to see the conclusion of Disneyland Ford.

[01:21:35] It's estimated that Disney would wind up spending $2.5 billion at the end of 2064.

[01:21:40] God. And so city councils voting saying this is what we could do if you give us space will give you all this kind of stuff that everyone loves although I don't think that using DCA is necessarily selling point. Yeah, I mean I've heard from well I heard from a a plaid on my last trip that the Toy Story parking lot is going away and we're going to put some stuff there nice.

[01:24:02] got these light cycle rides, which is fine. And it's cool.

[01:24:03] I see if it could cool technology, but I just don't,

[01:24:06] I don't know.

[01:24:06] I don't really think the Tron brand

[01:24:09] necessarily elicits such excitement.

[01:24:12] Maybe the Toy Story parking lot will become

[01:24:16] the Waltz apartment experience.

[01:24:19] They'll just...

[01:24:20] If Walt could have built the mansion of his dreams,

[01:24:22] this is what it would look like.

[01:24:24] And you could stay here.

[01:24:26] How much do you want to bet? Anyway, we'll make some friends. That's it. There's, oh, yeah, Tortilla Joe's is closing in March in downtown Disney. I wasn't going to leave, but let's talk about Tortilla Joe's real fast. Hey, yeah. Any, any, any of our listeners who are big Club 33 folks, anybody who who does

[01:25:40] make six or seven or 12 figures, please get back to us and help us reopen.

[01:25:47] Tortilla Joe's.

[01:26:42] Let me tell you, the food is not that cool. Yeah, the food is not that good to be enticed by Valentine's Day promotions to come raise

[01:26:49] a final toast.

[01:26:50] It's not, it's not, that's like Applebee's closing down.

[01:26:53] Nobody cares that much.

[01:26:55] Raise, raise a michelada at home.

[01:26:57] Right.

[01:26:58] Yeah.

[01:26:59] Yeah.

[01:27:00] Yeah.

[01:27:01] So to tortilla Joe reservations can be made through March 25th with walk ins available final

[01:27:04] week of service. To Disneyland recently you would have seen a large chunk of it would have reminded you of Jeremy Zepkott with the amount of board Real is around that chunk of downtown Disney look I wish we could have gotten me just you know like I said No, I got it. Yeah, I mean I like to have a bar, but one thing that bothered me with bar it was

[01:28:24] Highly overpriced you can get some really cool beer that I had never seen they get some really cool authentic German like Dintai Fung soup dumpling. Have you had a soup dumpling before Eric? You know, soup dumpling is yes I have had a soup dumpling they are in the past amazing Here's my thing dumpling houses are going to be the next fob restaurant I'm in for it. I'm not I'm not all that on board with fun. F is fine

[01:29:41] Yeah, soup dumplings are far superior than fun. Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely

[01:30:45] Ford proposal teased jock Lindsey's hanger bar as the kind of Indiana Jones theme bar that Anaheim is missing out on under all the great development. Yeah.

[01:30:49] Tara and I went there when it was shortly opened and they were it was so. Excuse me.

[01:30:53] So new that we got the drink that you get like the monkey head mug.

[01:30:59] And four, but they didn't have any mug yet. Oh no.

[01:31:02] But our friend Aaron went and he shipped it to me.

[01:31:04] It's like, OK, perfect.

[01:31:07] Anyway, there's a lot of kind of. And it was even though they sent a note, even though it's out of warranty, we did it as a one-time complimentary service. They replaced the screen, they reset it for me. And I kind of feel bad because then I returned my roadcaster duo.