Podcast

The Muppets Win the Ratings Game While Wonder Man Sneaks Up on Disney+

Dis & Hers

February 9, 2026
36 min read

The Muppets Win the Ratings Game While Wonder Man Sneaks Up on Disney+

Disney’s having a moment — and this week, it’s coming from a few places nobody quite expected. Eric Hersey and Lauren Hersey break down why The Muppets suddenly became the ratings story of the week, how Marvel’s Wonder Man turned into a quiet Disney+ hit, what Bob Iger and Josh’s very public Disneyland stroll might signal, and why Disney California Adventure’s 25th anniversary crowd was really there (hint: it lights up and holds popcorn).

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In This Episode

The Muppets’ big night: what 3.1M viewers and a strong 18–49 demo could mean for Disney
Whether Sabrina Carpenter helped power the buzz — and why the show format matters
Wonder Man’s “sleeper hit” rise: strong critic scores, word-of-mouth, and a potential Season 2
Bob Iger + Josh’s Disneyland appearance — and what fans actually said online
DCA turns 25… and the popcorn bucket frenzy takes over the park (and eBay)

The Muppets Win the Ratings Game While Wonder Man Sneaks Up on Disney+ Transcript

Eric Hersey: Welcome to Dis and Hers, the show about what’s happening in the Disney community from his, hers, and your perspective.

Eric Hersey: I’m Eric.

Lauren Hersey: And I’m Lauren. This week on Dis and Hers, Disney is having a moment. The Muppets pull in a big demo rating, which we’re going to talk about. Wonder Man becomes a quiet hit and Bob and Josh made a pretty symbolic park appearance and DCA, it’s DCA’s birthday. Um, they turned 25. So, ratings, streaming, leadership, and the parks. So, I think let’s get into it.

Eric Hersey: Well, yeah, and it all starts with a show a lot of people didn’t expect to be kind of the rating story of this week, but that’s The Muppets. So, if you’ve seen that The Muppets, what it debuted in on February 4th with a uh special that was what Simo cast on ABC and on Disney Plus. Is is that sound right?

Lauren Hersey: Yeah, this was their 50th anniversary special. There was a lot of hype leading up to it. I don’t know if it was because of the Muppets or because Sabrina Carpenter was the special guest. And like if people aren’t familiar with the actual Muppets show, like what is it and like how long has it been since we’ve had one?

Eric Hersey: Geez, I think this is a good question for Jim Hill, but for I’ll do my best to see if we can do it. So, The Muppet Show came out uh in the 70s with Jim Henson. It was, I believe, started what on the Saturday Night Live uh little skit and branched its way into being its own uh half an hour, maybe an hour long format. It’s like a variety show. And since then, you’ve seen movies and all types of specials and Disney acquired them quite some time ago and have tried many times to reboot, but this is kind of the original that most of us kind of Disney adults and the general Muppet fans remember this like variety show, the official Muppet show, which had Kermit as like the host and different acts and musical guests and celebrities. So, this was a throwback that was put together and rumored for quite some time. And I believe Seth Rogan was the individual that kind of was um executive producing this.

Lauren Hersey: Yeah. I mean, he got he got Muppets out the door. So, maybe we’ll get Figment. Fingers crossed. Seth Rogan, if you’re listening. But anyways, but the real story wasn’t that the Muppets came back with the Muppet Show. What we’re talking about is the pretty significant rating success that the show had in a ideal demographic. So looking at this, this may not be it might not matter to you, but the show did 3.1 million viewers and posted a.52 in the 18 to 49 demographic.

Lauren Hersey: So, what you need to know is that was the highest show of the night.

Eric Hersey: Yeah. So, Lauren, this is kind of your expertise and specialty. I know about ratings enough, but I really don’t pay too much attention. So, a 3.1 million uh viewers. Now, this was on ABC. This doesn’t count any Disney Plus action. We don’t have anything available to us, but is that like is that good actually?

Lauren Hersey: Yeah. I mean, it’s average for a multi-part series. Um, but I I mean I think everybody was excited to see these numbers because if it did well enough, we’re anticipating there could be more. And I mean, they even cracked a joke during the show that like I guess we’re going to see how um how this goes.

Lauren Hersey: So 18 to 49 demographic is important if anybody’s trying to like from an advertiser perspective. They want to pull in um younger folks. Um and I think that’s probably why it was Simo Cast also on Disney Plus so that they could have the ratings information for advertisers because they’re not really getting a tremendous amount more money when they’re putting things exclusively on Disney Plus.

Lauren Hersey: But the in a nutshell, ratings are just the percentage of people in a demographic or of the viewers watching at a specific time. So we’re recording the show on the day of the Super Bowl and um so using that as context, when I worked, you know, at the TV station at times for all viewers, they were reaching about like 75% of the US population that had their TVs on. Um, and then if you break it down into the specifics, like we are looking at 18 to 49 for the Muppets, Super Bowl is doing significantly more still than the Muppets.

Lauren Hersey: But if we’re looking for things that are running now, like that night we had Abbott Elementary and they’re averaging 2.6 million. Even Grey’s Anatomy, um, it’s doing about 2.2 million. Like I said, it’s in the in the realm of normal, but it did do three times more viewership than the finale of The Golden Bachelor. So, I chalk it up as a huge success from a broadcast perspective.

Eric Hersey: Yeah. And I was looking online and I grabbed a tweet here from Tounhhive and it one of the things that says a special is also trending number one uh on Disney Plus in 59 different countries. So, like there’s a lot of stuff on Disney Plus. So, that’s not too bad.

Eric Hersey: But I one thing that I was interested in and a lot of people are asking is what’s the odds of them getting picked up? This is this was a one-off. It was a special. Is there a chance that they get picked up?

Eric Hersey: And I went searching online and I hope you can help kind of explain some of this. So I figured the best thing to to compare against would be falls uh premieres. So, I kind of pulled some of the information out and it and it shows that like for instance, Boston Blue, which was a new show or at least premiered, had 4.73 million views.

Eric Hersey: Do you think compared to like the fall lineup, do you think that they’re looking at and say, “Hey, maybe the Muppets could get picked up.”

Lauren Hersey: You know, it’s it really depends. Like, could this have been, you know, this was an anniversary special. They did have a headliner with um Sabrina Carpenter, but I mean if you’re looking at just the averages, it’s certainly possible to get more. And I will say I don’t know what it is right now if it is the Muppets are just top of mind for people. We’ve talked a lot about the Muppets recently, but this was the best performing Muppets special that has been released in years.

Eric Hersey: Yeah. Yeah, and there’s been many of those. I remember watching the Haunted Mansion when uh that came out on Disney Plus. And then there’s been uh I mean there was plenty of reboots over the years that uh I don’t remember what it was back in ABC when they did the like the office like version of the Muppets.

Eric Hersey: Uh but times have changed tremendously. So it’s really difficult to compare something 10 years ago, probably even 5 years ago to now. And we have so much I guess gray area with streaming. But we can go based off what fans were saying.

Eric Hersey: So, I don’t know about you, but my feed was lit up with the Muppets for the entire week. And and Wesley Bout on Twitter said it kind of perfectly. My entire feed on every app is just non-stop Muppet talk. The world hasn’t felt this beautiful in a long time. And for a Muppet fan, that’s truth, right?

Eric Hersey: Uh and then there was a gentleman named Jonathan Con, which I thought this was funny. He said, “I used who is your favorite Muppet as an icebreaker in two meetings today, and everyone always nods approving uh in of every answer. 10 out of 10 questions.”

Eric Hersey: So, you don’t get to do that too often, now, do you? I mean, Muppets aren’t on the daily uh conversation for most, but this week it has.

Lauren Hersey: I mean, which is totally fine. Like, for me, I wish more people would come to meetings and ask uh who who’s your favorite Muffet? Cuz I Who is your favorite muffet? Do you have one?

Lauren Hersey: Oh my gosh, it has to be Miss Piggy. Like, she’s just everything all wrapped into to one. I I love her.

Lauren Hersey: Yeah. Um, how about you?

Lauren Hersey: Well, I am You seem like a Kermy guy.

Eric Hersey: No, I I think I like Animal. He’s a drummer. Just that that goes well. Uh so there’s a little bit in me there.

Eric Hersey: But you’re speaking of Miss Piggy. Uh another nice tweet here from Ryan WME basically was asking for like they’re saying that Disney and ABC are leaving money on the table by not making the Muppet Show a weekly series and making each song available after air. The number of people on social who want to stream Manchild with the chicken backup vocals and islands in the stream cover speak volumes.

Eric Hersey: And that was uh Miss Piggy and Sabrina doing Islands in the Stream. Well, it was Kermit at first. Uh but that that’s the that’s the thing.

Eric Hersey: Do you think um do you think this was a Sabrina Carpenter lift or do you think there really were are that many? I mean, did do we see the younger crowd going over and watching? Do you think that’s maybe one reason why we have so much uh the ratings?

Lauren Hersey: Um, well, I mean, I think Sabrina Carpenter is, you know, clearly still very hot. You know, our daughter Laney went to see her in concert and the tickets I think were like $400 each. So, she’s a hot commodity right now. Um, I would not doubt that there was a significant Sabrina Carpenter um bump and I think that them choosing her um to lead with was strategic. Like I mean Disney covers all of their bases. Like they’re trying to set whatever whatever they’re doing up for um success. So it doesn’t surprise me.

Lauren Hersey: What do you think?

Eric Hersey: Yeah, I think I think that having a notable pop culture star is what they did back in the day.

Eric Hersey: Well, the funny thing is that the that Georgia uh said on Twitter as well, one thing that needs to happen, if they do a successful reboot, they cannot pre-record the whole season months out and then drop the episodes all at once. She uh feels it needs to feel like a fresh new act every week and tap into the current cultural pulse in a way that feels ongoing. So, I kind of can agree to that. It does kind of feel like Saturday Night Live like

Lauren Hersey: Yeah, I was going to say, can you imagine Saturday Night Live film making an entire season at one time?

Eric Hersey: Yeah, that would that would just be tough. So, I I think that’s what makes the Muppets work because they were small little skits. Sabrina is top of mind and all over the place. So, like it made sense. It was very relevant.

Eric Hersey: And I don’t think it was, as you said, I don’t think it was just like Sabrina Carpenter fans jumping out there. When you head over to Rotten Tomatoes, 98% score on the tomato meter, uh, which is the critics. There was 45 reviews, so the critics loved it. And then a 98 also on the popcorn uh, meter, which is 500 plus ratings.

Eric Hersey: So like everybody was all about this. You and I got to watch it. I thought it was entertaining. I don’t know. I think it would very well depend on who they bring each week if it’s going to be one of those things where you must watch TV. I think it could be good background television and I think it would do really well from a YouTube perspective where they have the skits kind of like how SNL is now where there are some skits that hit and they could certainly put it out that way as a show and then kind of splice it up.

Eric Hersey: But one thing as I as I always do I wanted to see you know once again we are in a Disney vacuum and bubble often so I don’t know if my timeline was just Muppets or if there were a whole bunch of people. So, I went over and looked at Google Trends, and indeed over the last uh 5 years, this is the highest that The Muppets and the Muppet Show has ever ranked. It is a 100 uh scale overall. And then I broke it down by states, and it looked like Maine and New Hampshire.

Eric Hersey: So, Jim is not alone. Is carrying the map. He’s carrying it.

Eric Hersey: those were the the highest like searched and uh those that were really going uh going allin muppets. But then I also threw Sabrina Carpenter in the mix just to see, you know, did she help out the Muppets? Obviously, I don’t think the Muppets necessarily helped her out. She probably got some street cred from the older individuals that like the Muppets and they’re like, “Who’s this Sabrina Carpenter? She’s cool in our books now.”

Eric Hersey: But from a Google standpoint, she is still very much more searched and relevant than the Muppets. So, like there definitely should have been a bump that people are probably introduced to the Muppets that wouldn’t have watched that decided to kind of see what Sabrina’s up to.

Eric Hersey: But you know, I have to ask like who who do you want to see as the next host to keep this positive momentum going?

Eric Hersey: Me? I mean, I’m I I have my favorite. I would love to see Weird Al, but I don’t know if he’s going to necessarily have that same bump. I think he’d be great with the Muppets, but you know, someone like uh you know, Paul Rudd, I think would be great. What about you, Lauren? Do you have any anyone suggested?

Lauren Hersey: Yeah. So, I have two that I think could be really good. One, I think Jack Black. Mhm. because he’s just a a good time and like talk about entertaining. But I don’t know if you’d get like the Sabrina bump with Jack Black, but someone who I think could deliver the Sabrina bump. And no, I’m not going to say Taylor Swift. Uh I feel like that’s cop out, but what about Lin Manuel Miranda? He’d be amazing.

Eric Hersey: So I mean that and and if that happens, then Weirdowl can definitely do a runin because I know that Lynn is a huge fan of Weird Al. So, he doesn’t have to have his own show, but I would love to see Jack Black and Paul Rudd together cuz they’re hilarious, too.

Eric Hersey: There you go. They just did had their movie. Yes. So, so we want to hear from you guys. Who do you think should uh be the host? If they get picked up or if they have another special, who would you like to see the host of the Muppet Show? Let us know in the comments and shoot us your messages. Uh, and we are very excited to hear and hopefully uh hopefully the numbers speak for themselves and Disney decides that the Muppet should be a thing.

Lauren Hersey: What about Josh Dearo? I mean, new CEO, do you think we’d get like a tomorrow bump?

Eric Hersey: I don’t know if we’d get a tomorrow bump, but I do think that he would. It’d be interesting. I think he’d be game for it because he was also game uh to actually show up in Disneyland this week. Did you see the news that Bob and Josh were hanging out at the park?

Lauren Hersey: Oh my gosh. Yeah. So, I’m on like Tik Tok and you know, like the Tik Tok crowd, they just know how to make a hit. And I don’t know, did you ever hear that song? It’s like, “Daddy’s home.” Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren Hersey: Like, and so every time that I hear about the story of the two of them being in the park, it’s like Bob Iger like quickly walks by and then it’s Josh like walking in slow motion. So, yes, that was also blowing up uh my Tik Tok feed.

Eric Hersey: Yeah, it was all over the place. So, they must have headed to uh the park just a couple days ago. I saw pictures everywhere. We all know that Josh is going to become the new CEO I think March 18th. So, this was a I guess walkound, a public showing of support. I think uh Bob even like was like, “Hey, there’s no better place to go to like congratulate Josh than at Disneyland.”

Lauren Hersey: Oh my gosh. I just have to say though, I told you we’re recording this on the day of the Super Bowl. Like when they announced that he was the CEO, do you think they said, “Josh, what are you going to do now that you’re CEO?” And he’s like, “I’m going to Disneyland.”

Lauren Hersey: That’s See, they should have done it that way. That would have been so much better and and creative.

Eric Hersey: I think it’s perfect. They could have bought a 30-cond commercial, spent $10 million and announced that way. I think we would all been pumped.

Eric Hersey: But, uh, not everybody is pumped, of course, because I go to Disneyland on Reddit to see what, uh, people were talking about the day that he was there. It’s a a little Reddit called Bob Iger and Josh tomorrow here today, and these are live discussions. So, I thought it was pretty funny, uh, and interesting to see what people were actually saying.

Eric Hersey: Uh, so there was 112 up votes, 50 comments on this, and this is just brand new. And uh the the penster says probably looking at what perks they can take away before raising prices again. Uh which is not ney.

Eric Hersey: Somebody comments admission to the park $200. The rides are extra. And then uh of course mean median uh says bring back the ticket booklets and leave admission at 200 bucks. Which uh you know early early birds remember that you had to pay to get in and then pay to do the rides. We do not want to see that happen again.

Eric Hersey: But Reddit wasn’t being so kind. Did you see any comments that you liked?

Lauren Hersey: I think that, you know, there’s some funny ones. Um, but these are all kind of like burns. Did you want see the one that was simple It was like, Simba, everything the light touches in your kingdom, it’s yours. Or something like that.

Eric Hersey: Yeah. And then the comment was except that dark land. That’s the shadow land now. You must never spend go there. The elders used to call it tomorrow land.

Eric Hersey: A And then somebody else commented Tomorrowland. Yeah. and say said they would watch walk right past Tomorrowland, especially the rotting people mover track pretending they didn’t see any of it.

Eric Hersey: So, I think they could just do a whole rebrand and it’s not Tomorrowland, it’s Tomorrowland. Let him do what he wants. Lots of puns this week with Tomorrow. I’ve saw lots of stories. Oh my gosh, I cannot help myself.

Eric Hersey: Yeah, there’s there’s all types of puns, but I do uh Guyelga, I believe he I think he’s affiliated with Touring Plans, had a nice tweet here. Well, I wouldn’t say nice. And I think it’s a realistic that I think we all would would would want uh this experience to happen because I doubt they walked in uh normal. I think they probably got shuttled in the back and so forth.

Eric Hersey: But guys basically said I wish these two would try experience parking and entering the parks in the morning like a normal guest. Would they think it’s a good first impression talking taking an hour to even get into the parking structure plus all the time it takes to park and get through security?

Eric Hersey: So yeah, I mean granted I pulled a decent amount of information here that’s a little critical. Let’s we we’ve given Josh a lot of love and a lot of people have given him love. But um at the end of the day, yeah, there’s still some uh elements that I think they probably should recognize how the general public feels about the parks. It’s not just walking around and getting on uh a ride, you know, without waiting or or having to fork out money from a lightning lane.

Eric Hersey: So, we will see. But Lauren, I have to ask you and I’m gonna ask everybody else. Um Josh is in the park hanging out with Bob and he’s going to take over soon and and basically be able to make all the calls and not have to pass it up the the ladder here. What do you think the first thing uh you would want him to do in Disneyland or Walt Disney World or any of the parks?

Lauren Hersey: Um well to me it’ be fixing the Lightning Lane. Like I think that it’s kind of silly at the price point and what you’re paying for it and that you’re still kind of waiting sometimes up to like 20 minutes to get on the rides. Um, and that like them like rever I like I don’t know. I still kind of feel like some of the lines are manufactured at times to just be like moving people around the park which like goes back to the experience that you’re having and you pay that amount of money.

Lauren Hersey: So, with the price going up, the value has to feel like it’s going up. Um, so I think that’s something that I would like Josh to look at.

Eric Hersey: There’s a lot of things that I think we could address, whether it be park reservations or pricing and so forth. But, uh, we want to hear from you. What do you guys think that Josh should, uh, tackle? What would make, uh, his first round of business a huge success? Uh, we we want to know from you.

Lauren Hersey: Yeah. So, I mean, it’s still too soon to tell. if Josh is going to be the wonder man for the parks and uh come and save the day. But after the break, we’re going to be discussing Disney’s sleeper hit Wonder Man that you may or may not have heard of. So stay with us and welcome back.

Eric Hersey: So far, February has been uh pretty hot on Disney Plus with the Muppet Show, but we also had the Sleeper hit um that Marvel came out with kind of out of nowhere, right, Lauren?

Lauren Hersey: Yes. So, Wonderman, the critics say that it’s a that it’s a hit. And I don’t know about you, Eric, I mean, did you hear anything about this at all before you saw it pop up on Disney Plus?

Eric Hersey: I knew of it months ago kind of like they talked about it. I had no idea what the premise of the show. I mean, I am a Marvel fan, but I’m not like a Marvel comic fan. Like, I can’t say that I know all of the stories. I have some books and and you know, when I was young, I read the comics, but that’s Spider-Man and Fantastic 4. So, Wonderman was not on my radar. No idea what it was.

Eric Hersey: And I felt like I wanted to watch it primarily because uh when you produce a Marvel show like Marvel Disney with Dan and Jim, you don’t want to be spoiled. So, I’m like, I have to watch this before they talk about it. And that’s happened a lot. And I’m like, all right, we’re going to reluctantly watch this show that they did not put any type of publicity into. And then we binge watched it all in one evening.

Lauren Hersey: Uh, yeah. I I mean, from like my perspective, like I am just now getting into the Marvel universe. Um, if you listen to any of our other shows, you may have heard, but I didn’t watch my first Marvel movie until last winter. And now we’re watching them like in the order that they’re kind of happening. And what what was the last one? We just watched um we just watched besides Loki. Yeah. Oh, we watched Thor Love and Thunder. We watched um then we watched um Loki.

Lauren Hersey: And so we finished Loki and we’re like, “Okay, what’s coming next?” And you’re like, “Oh, let’s watch this.” And I was just kind of like because I don’t know anything about the um comics. But we did. We binge watched it all in one um night and I mean I I was not alone in thinking that this was a great standalone alone show like my mom who hasn’t watched a bunch of Marvel shows like I think anybody could watch it and really enjoy it kind of like W division um but it debuted with 90% uh critic score on Rotten Tomatoes like is that like amazing

Eric Hersey: yeah I mean yeah I mean anytime you can get anything you know, really above 80 probably because, you know, there’s always your hot takes and so forth. But I think that the fact that that nobody was really talking about it and that Disney kind of just quietly threw this out there was interesting and it’s not a widely known character.

Eric Hersey: That’s the other thing is most of the characters that they put out, even like a thing like She-Hulk, I mean, we knew kind of who she was uh in a sense, but like Wonderman is just just a weird little niche character that we all kind of came out and and it didn’t have it didn’t have like crossover. The only, you know, Trevor Slatterie was, you know, the Mandarin was in this and he had a couple roles. So, like Ben Kingsley is obviously a big deal, so that’s great that he was in it, but it wasn’t enough to be like, “Oh, we’re going to give him his own show.”

Eric Hersey: Um, but truthfully, I think the acting in this show was amazing. And I think you brought up because you’ve been following at least the portion the the the spending is that this was seemed low low budget in a sense. And that’s maybe one of the reasons why I don’t know we didn’t hear about it or or this is slightly different than everything else we’ve watched.

Lauren Hersey: Yeah. And I mean like I’m always looking at the marketing push, you know, behind Disney’s products. I mean, because Disney is they’re, you know, master marketers with this stuff and but I do think that we’re at a time in history, especially with streaming and the profitability. It’s really important that they figured out that model. And I think on I want that too, we reported from the last earnings call that, you know, streaming is in the black. And I mean, Bob Iger was able to turn that business around.

Lauren Hersey: So, when you’re looking at the cost of production, um, you just have to be cognizant of that. And I know that some of the Marvel movies, I mean, were obviously astronomical. And as I was watching this, there are projects that the acting is so good that you don’t need a lot of the CGI. you don’t need a lot of like different locations and you know complex um shooting like this to me seemed I mean it was still like a wonderfully produced show but the acting carried it in my opinion.

Eric Hersey: Yeah. And they built on character development as opposed to lots of fighting. I mean we went multiple episodes it seemed like before there were any type of action scenes. And then the action scenes weren’t even that elaborate. And not to spoil, you know, anything, but like I was like tickled pink with the way it ended. I I just you went up and down and you kind of liked and disliked characters throughout.

Eric Hersey: And the fun thing was that the episodes are kind of they’re kind of short, right? We were like, they might be saying they’re 40 minutes, but there’s like seven minutes of credits, you know, and if you skip the intro, it’s like 25 minutes of actual uh action. And they moved really really quick. And there was a great story arc. There was like a I think episode three is when we really still questioning what the heck happened with Josh Gad. Uh I hope he’s okay.

Lauren Hersey: I was going to say friend of the network Josh Gad. I mean if you want to if you want to see the voice of Olaf, he’s definitely makes an appearance and he’s great in it.

Eric Hersey: But it goes up and down and and the thing is you go over to IMDb. It’s still and this is about maybe what two weeks out. It’s number three in popularity out of everything. It’s huge like right now. So people are catching. I don’t tweet too often. I tweet enough. But I was when I was done, I tweeted that uh this was a sleeper show and I really enjoyed it cuz I was like I need to do I want him to get a season 2.

Eric Hersey: And good news is I just checked on yahoo.com that they’re uh very close Marvel Studios reporting very close to greenlighting season 2 of Wonderman. So that is super amazing. Uh but we really don’t know.

Lauren Hersey: A total shocker. I mean, you asked me right when it was done if I thought there was going to be a season two, and I was like, I don’t know what the production cost was for that show, but if they could get those actors to come back, there’s no reason there wouldn’t be.

Eric Hersey: Yeah. And I would love to see him in Doomsday or so forth, but the one thing that we don’t know is we don’t we can’t like it’s not like the Muppets. We have no ratings. We don’t we can’t speculate.

Eric Hersey: So, you and I um since you’ve kind of jumped into the Marvel world, we found a YouTuber that uh tends to give us like the breakdowns and we like to watch the reviews and speculation. So, uh, Lauren, you’re very familiar with Screen Crush videos, but, um, over on YouTube has 1.86 million subscribers, and I’m like, we don’t have real data, but I did watch three Wonderman videos for from that network.

Eric Hersey: And I was like, all right, can we do some loosey- goosey math here to see maybe what people are p like the perspective of are more people watching Wonderman videos or are they watching other things on this network, Screen Crush, because you can kind of compare apples to apples.

Eric Hersey: So, uh, one thing that I did want to pull out is that I went through and reviewed probably about the last three weeks worth of videos, and there were a lot of videos on the channel about Fallout or Game of Thrones or Dragon Ball Z or Star Wars and even more Marvel. And so, higher like known entities and brands and IPs and our boy Wonderman uh, that or show is competing uh, for the most part. these videos that are out on Screen Crushes is averaging about 200 total 200,000 total views given the circumstance and they’re on pace with these other big notch brands.

Eric Hersey: So, it’s not just a niche community like the people out there are indeed watching Wonderman content which is a good sign, wouldn’t you say?

Lauren Hersey: Yeah, I think it’s a great sign. I also think that it was pretty a pretty strategic move from Disney’s perspective to have this kind of you know, not well-known character to continue to add on to the character. So, I’m wondering if people were watching the screen rant videos too for the context.

Eric Hersey: Yeah, maybe possibly. So, I mean, I I want to ask you guys, did you watch Wonderman? Did you like Wonderman? Would you like to see Wonderman 2 come out? You know, are we have we found Josh Gad yet? So, those are the questions that I have.

Eric Hersey: But one one place you might have found Josh is uh or if he might be hanging out there is at DCA because there seems to be a big crowd and there’s all types of people there. Lauren, did you uh did you see the crowds and some of the hooplaws uh for uh Disney California Adventure this week?

Lauren Hersey: Listen, it I mean they were not going crazy uh for because it’s the 25th anniversary of DCA. They were going crazy for that popcorn bucket. If you didn’t listen to I Want That Too, um it’s even kind of hard to like describe this popcorn bucket situation that they have going on there, but I think that’s what was bringing the crowds in, right?

Eric Hersey: Yeah. Well, there was a lot. I mean, so before So, today officially on the 8th is the actual 25th uh anniversary. So, there was lots of You’ll see lots of people posting. I don’t know if there was anything official. Well, I I found a nice little post from Disney Dave on Facebook that kind of gives you the whole rundown, but this park opened what in 2001, so it’s now 25 years.

Eric Hersey: And I mean, there are still some of the actual original items there like Sover California and the Grizzly River Run that are still there. Uh, but there’s still remnants. But yeah, you’re right. Everybody that was kind of in the park, I found some screenshots from Twitter yesterday and they were crowded. It was real.

Eric Hersey: The one that made me laugh is Jeff Gordon uh said 2001 California Adventure. Wouldn’t believe how crowded 2026 California Adventure is today, which you know, they had a little bit of a rocky start for anybody that’s paid attention, but there is a giant line. There was a giant line for the popcorn bucket. The virtual queue actually sold out.

Eric Hersey: And um yeah, the the popcorn bucket, if you don’t know what it is, definitely listen to this week’s I Want That Too. Jim talks about the ferris wheel pretty ex extensively how even the history of that um sky wheel.

Lauren Hersey: Uh but that the spoiler alert I mean that is what the popcorn bucket is based off of and there’s you know smart technology within it so the buckets move and it lights up and the um you get your popcorn out of the back because originally I was like how in the world is anybody eating um popcorn out of this?

Lauren Hersey: I mean, if you are looking for like a conversation starter or a really epic like Disney decoration even for your house, like this is just so much more than um a popcorn bucket, but it is priced in the same way that all of the other popcorn buckets were.

Lauren Hersey: So, we know that the pre-sale or the um the queue sold out. I mean, I’m looking at some of these pictures here. Eric, do you want to tell people what’s going on?

Eric Hersey: Well, the fun the fun thing is uh I I found several of them uh online where it says the merch pirate strikes again stocking up on popcorn buckets. So, if you haven’t paid any attention that when something like this comes out, there are people that go and they basically buy as many as they can and they head over to eBay, which all based on your opinion if that’s a good bad thing.

Eric Hersey: Uh Disney probably doesn’t care because they haven’t stopped it because they’re getting their money one way or the other. But uh yeah, there’s some viral pictures going around with giant tote bags just filled with these bad boys.

Eric Hersey: Uh Lauren, I know you guys have talked about this before, but like what’s your stance andor opinions or inside knowledge of like can they stop this? Will they stop this? Does it even matter? Are we just going to complain online?

Lauren Hersey: Um well, I definitely think we’re always going to complain online because that’s part of the fun part, right? Uh, but I do think that Disney is cracking down on um resellers, but they’re doing it um slowly and deliberately. Like we talked about the return policies happening at things like the character warehouse, property control um to try to um slow this down a bit.

Lauren Hersey: Uh, I know that in Disneyland specifically, they’ve put limits on certain items within the shops. I don’t know that those limits have been applied um to like the pop like the carts and things. Um, but do I think that it’s great a great practice to let people a select amount of people um come and stock up and then leave, you know, nothing for the regular park guests that maybe just want one to take home for them uh or their family.

Lauren Hersey: Uh we are had, you know, one of Eric’s co-workers just went to the Disney marathon and, you know, paid big bucks to participate and they couldn’t get any of the the merch. And so I know that this is a big area for Disney to try to strike the balance cuz I mean, at the end of the day, they’re paying the free, they’re buying the merch. That’s all Disney wants. like they don’t want to have to hold on to this stuff or take it to the character warehouse or outlets or whatever. So, I think that it’s they’re trying to strike the balance.

Eric Hersey: Yeah. Yeah. So, I headed over to eBay to see what we got. We’re a couple days in and the high one right now. Most of them are averaging about $120 on eBay. So, these are normally $55 unless you buy it at or $50 unless you buy in that weird spot that’s $55. And that’s because of a weird county line uh tax. I saw that online the other day. That was funny fun fact. But yeah, the highest I see right now is $179.99 online.

Eric Hersey: So it is uh all the same type of pictures. People uh took the they bought it, they put it in front of the uh Pixar Pier area, took their picture, and they were selling it on eBay.

Eric Hersey: So yeah, we would love to hear from you guys. How do you think we fix this problem? Is this the problem that Josh should fix right off the get-go? Is it would this be a big enough win? Um or is it even a problem? Do you even care? Do you think it’s better that hey, we can just go buy it on eBay uh as opposed to make our way all the way to the park and do that? But um we’d love to wait and see. And maybe it won’t happen today, but maybe tomorrow.

Lauren Hersey: There you go. Again, keep keep the puns coming.

Eric Hersey: All right. Well, I think that does it for this show’s week in this episode of Diz andhars. Of course, if um for more, you can always go to disenhers.com where you’ll find articles, episodes, and updates. And as Lauren loves to say, if Disney is your vibe, be sure to subscribe.

Lauren Hersey: No, if Disney is your vibe, hit subscribe like anyways, I’ll say I’ll say what I like to say.

Eric Hersey: And remember, watch what you post online. You might end up in next week’s episode. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.