Speed, Teeth, and Two Lanes

NARRATOR (GEORGE):
The Toy Museum has currents, like an ocean.
Soft shelves, hard shelves, loud shelves, quiet ones.

Last night, the Night Watchman nearly fell asleep
leaning against a Squishmallow—
no-questions-asked softness in pastel colors.

Tonight, the current drags him somewhere else.
Somewhere harder.
Sharper.
Louder.

Footsteps

NARRATOR:
He’s entered the vehicles area.
Rows of tiny cars.
Trucks.
Motorcycles.
Helicopters frozen mid-rescue,
race cars mid-victory lap.
And at the end of the aisle—
taking up an entire platform—
something stranger.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
Well.
That’s… a lot.

NARRATOR:
Picture a semi truck
designed by a child who had equal access
to car magazines and dragon drawings.
A massive hauler with a dragon’s head at the front,
a dragon’s tail at the back,
and another dragon—smaller, meaner—
perched on top like a hungry backpack.
Orange track coils from its sides
like captured lightning.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
Let me guess.
Hot Wheels?

NARRATOR:
He’s not new to the brand.
He remembers having a few tiny metal cars as a boy,
a single strip of orange track
propped on a stack of books.
One or two loops,
if you were lucky.

But this…
This looks like someone asked,
“What if the car carrier was a fire-breathing monster
that eats the traffic jam and turns into a racetrack?”

Transcript

Welcome to Celebrate Creativity. This series is Conversations with Toys, and this episode is about HOT WHEELS ULTIMATE DUAL DRAGON TRANSPORTER and he called “Speed, Teeth, and Two Lanes”

And as usual, let me get the disclaimer out-of-the-way.

This podcast is a dramatization that blends historical research with fiction, satire, and imagined conversations between people, toys, and other objects. It is not a documentary and not professional advice of any kind. No character, toy, product, or brand depicted in this podcast is authorized by, endorsed by, or officially affiliated with any company, manufacturer, museum, or organization; references to specific names are for storytelling only and do not imply sponsorship or approval.

I’m George Bartley… now let’s have some fun.

Aquarium [MUSIC: Fade out.]

[SFX: Nighttime hum. A faint echo of distant traffic, almost like memory. Footsteps on a harder floor again.]

NARRATOR (GEORGE):
The Toy Museum has currents, like an ocean.
Soft shelves, hard shelves, loud shelves, quiet ones.

Last night, the Night Watchman nearly fell asleep
leaning against a Squishmallow—
no-questions-asked softness in pastel colors.

Tonight, the current drags him somewhere else.
Somewhere harder.
Sharper.
Louder.

Footsteps

NARRATOR:
He’s entered the vehicles area.
Rows of tiny cars.
Trucks.
Motorcycles.
Helicopters frozen mid-rescue,
race cars mid-victory lap.
And at the end of the aisle—
taking up an entire platform—
something stranger.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
Well.
That’s… a lot.

NARRATOR:
Picture a semi truck
designed by a child who had equal access
to car magazines and dragon drawings.
A massive hauler with a dragon’s head at the front,
a dragon’s tail at the back,
and another dragon—smaller, meaner—
perched on top like a hungry backpack.
Orange track coils from its sides
like captured lightning.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
Let me guess.
Hot Wheels?

NARRATOR:
He’s not new to the brand.
He remembers having a few tiny metal cars as a boy,
a single strip of orange track
propped on a stack of books.
One or two loops,
if you were lucky.

But this…
This looks like someone asked,
“What if the car carrier was a fire-breathing monster
that eats the traffic jam and turns into a racetrack?”

[A tiny clatter of cars shifting inside. A low, playful growl.]

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
…Oh no.
Not again.

DRAGON HAULER (voice big, theatrical, delighted):
I have the dragon hauler.
Oh, yes again.

NARRATOR:
The front dragon’s mouth opens just a fraction,
revealing a hint of orange plastic and what looks suspiciously
like the bumper of a 1:64 scale car.
The eyes—molded, unblinking—
seem suddenly very sure of themselves.

DRAGON HAULER:
You’ve talked to bears 
About time you met something with a little…
velocity.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
Okay, let me get this straight.
You’re a truck.
You’re a dragon.
You’re… a closet for tiny cars?

DRAGON HAULER:
Transporter, my friend.
“Closet for tiny cars” is a gross undersell.
I am the Hot Wheels Ultimate Dual Dragon Transporter.
I eat cars, store cars, launch cars and turn into a two-lane raceway
all before breakfast.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
Of course you do.

NARRATOR:
The Night Watchman walks slowly around the platform.
On one side, ramps and track pieces;
on the other, slots and grooves
where miniature cars can be parked
along the dragon’s spine and in its belly.
Two Hot Wheels cars sit poised at the back,
lined up nose-to-nose like runners in the starting blocks.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
All right, talk me through this.
And remember, some of us listening
are old enough to think “fancy track”
means a single orange strip and a cardboard box.

DRAGON HAULER:
You’ll like this, then.
I’m what happens when that orange strip
goes through a growth spurt.
Kids roll cars up to my mouth here—
[SFX suggestion: small “click-clack” as if a car is pushed into a chute.]
—and I chomp them.
I can “knock out” other cars with this fire-breathing feature,
then swallow the brave ones.
Car goes in, car disappears.
Delightful squeals ensue.
Later, my keeper presses a button—

[Tiny “click,” followed by an imagined roar.]

—and my friend up top—
the smaller dragon—
detaches, flaps his wings, and goes hunting for more cars.

He gobbles them up,
then we bring them back here,
load them into the tail end,
and suddenly—

NARRATOR:
A section of the hauler’s back seems to hinge open, unfolding into two lanes of track,
starting side-by-side at launchers.

DRAGON HAULER:
—I’m a racetrack.
Two cars.
Two lanes.
I store more than twenty cars when I’m in “hauler mode.”
I release two rockets at a time when I’m in “let’s settle this scores” mode.
I am chaos
with built-in parking.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
I get the race.
I get the storage.
I even get the childlike satisfaction
of feeding a toy car to a dragon.
What I’m curious about is this:
Why dragons?
Why not just a regular car hauler?

DRAGON HAULER:
Because kids don’t just want speed.
They want story.
A plain hauler says, “We’re going on a trip.”

A dragon hauler says,
“The highways rose up and turned into a monster
and now you have to outdrive it.”

Dragons are ancient.
Myth.
Fire, treasure, danger.

Hot Wheels cars are about motion.
Noise.
Skill.

Put them together,
and you get a rolling legend
that fits on a playroom floor.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
So you’re…
epic traffic.

DRAGON HAULER (delighted):
Exactly.
Crash, Reset, Repeat

NARRATOR:
The Watchman pictures it:
Cars lining up at the launchers,
two at a time.
Tiny hands hovering over the buttons.
Three… two… one—
thwack—
the cars shoot down the track,
into curves, jumps,
maybe right into the dragon’s jaws.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
You don’t exactly seem… safe.

DRAGON HAULER:
Oh, but that’s the point.
Safe danger.

Kids get a little dose of risk—
Will the car crash?
Will the dragon win?
Will the bridge hold?—
in a world where nobody actually gets hurt.

The car flips off the track—
somebody laughs.
Somebody yells, “Again!”
We reset.
We race again.

It’s the same instinct
that makes kids jump off the couch into a pile of pillows.
Testing the edges.
Learning what happens when things go wrong—
without real-world bruises.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
Controlled chaos.

DRAGON HAULER:
The best kind.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
When I was a kid,
my Hot Wheels world was pretty simple.
Little metal cars.
One orange track.
Gravity did the rest.

We propped one end on a stack of encyclopedias.
You started at the top,
let go,
and saw how far you could go
before you hit the shag carpet. a
This thing…
You’re… what,
that idea on a sugar high?

DRAGON HAULER:
I’m that idea after fifty years of escalation.

Every generation wants a little more spectacle.

People who grew up with your strip of track
had kids who got loops and stunt sets.
They had kids who got volcanoes and shark attacks.

Now we’ve got dual dragon haulers
that turn into raceways on the living room rug.

Same basic physics.
Fancier costume.

NARRATOR:
He has to admit:
beneath the dragon heads and wings,
it’s the same old gravity game.
Cars plus height plus slope equals speed.
What’s changed is the theatre.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
I notice you come with two launchers.
Two lanes.
That seems…
strategic.

DRAGON HAULER:
Oh, absolutely.
One child racing alone is fun.
Two children racing each other
is legendary.
With two lanes side-by-side,
every launch is a contest.

“Best of three.”
“No, best of five.”
“You started early.”
“You nudged the button.”
I am a plastic machine
designed to generate
sibling rivalry and negotiation skills.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
And noise.

DRAGON HAULER:
Loud noise.
But in the middle of all the shouting,
kids are learning:

Timing.
Fairness.
Accepting that sometimes your favorite car loses
and you have to deal with it.

They’re also getting a taste
of one of the oldest human joys:
the shared gasp
when two tiny racers shoot off the line
neck-and-neck.

NARRATOR:
The Watchman glances at the cars parked along the dragon’s sides—
sleek, exaggerated,
half real, half fantasy.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
There’s something funny about this.
On the outside world,
cars are serious business.
Traffic.
Gas.
Insurance.
Too much speed in the wrong place and…
Well.
You know.

But in here,
they’re pocket-sized.
Candy-colored.
You’re turning something dangerous
into a toy.

DRAGON HAULER:
We’re turning it into a conversation.
Kids grow up surrounded by cars.
They ride in the back seat.
They watch highways from the window.
They hear about wrecks on the news.
Here, they get to be in control.
They launch.
They crash.
They see consequences in miniature.
And they get to add dragons,
because if you’re going to deal with danger,
you might as well give it wings.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
Do you ever feel like you’re competing
with screens?

All those racing games,
hyper-realistic crashes,
online leaderboards…
Why would a kid stay on the floor with you
when they could be driving a digital car
through a virtual city?

DRAGON HAULER:
Oh, I know the competition.
But I’ve got a couple of advantages.
Screens show you speed.
I make you feel it.

You can hear the wheels on plastic,
watch the car wobble on a curve,
see the exact moment it loses grip.
You launch the car with your own hand.
Your body learns what “too hard” and “too soft” feel like.

You can’t patch real gravity.
You can only learn to work with it.
And then there’s the social bit—
the way kids pile around me,
arguing about whose car is whose,
whose lane is faster,
who gets to reload the dragon’s mouth.

Video games are great.
But they’re different.
I’m the crash course
in physics you can pick up.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
A lab class
that roars.

DRAGON HAULER:
Precisely.

NARRATOR:
The Watchman leans on the railing,
looking at the transporter from above.
It’s ridiculous.
It’s magnificent.

A storage unit and a monster,
a racetrack and a toy box,
all fused into one bright, unapologetic sculpture of motion.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
Teddy smelled like home.
You?
You smell like—

DRAGON HAULER:
Burnt rubber
and sibling drama.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
Exactly. Let me ask you what I’ve asked the others.
Teddy implied he holds our fears.
What do you hold?

DRAGON HAULER:
I hold the urge to go faster
than you’re supposed to.
The instinct that makes kids
race down hallways,
scoot down banisters,
push every swing to its highest arc.
I’m the safe place
to experiment with that feeling.
The thrill of risk
without the emergency room.
I’m also a container
for kid engineering.
Every time someone adjusts my track,
props me at a new angle,
tries a different car,
they’re silently asking,
“What happens if…?”

I hold the moment
when curiosity and adrenaline
shake hands.

NARRATOR:
For a plastic dragon truck,
that’s surprisingly poetic.

NIGHT WATCHMAN:
You know…
I started several days ago listening to a teddy bear
talk about immigration,
and now I’m getting a lecture on physics
from a dragon who eats cars.
This museum is doing something strange to me.

DRAGON HAULER:
That’s our job.
We take what you thought you understood—
toys, childhood, noise—
and hit the launch button.

NARRATOR:
The Watchman takes one last loop around the platform,
listening in his mind
for the roar of imaginary engines
and the shrieks of kids yelling “Best two out of three!”

Then he moves on,
back into the winding aisles.

Ahead, he can see a quieter shelf:
a few boxes with pictures of animals made of bricks,
pandas and bamboo
waiting to be built one stud at a time.
Tomorrow night, he will probably be talking to some other toy.
But for now,
the dragon hauler rests,
cars tucked into its sides,
as the museum settles back into silence
and waits for morning.

[SFX: Footsteps fade. Optional faint “vroom” and dragon growl, then your outro music.]

I’m George Bartley, and this is Conversations with Toys. Join us in the following episode about the Bluey supermarket playset, called aisle three: imagination.

Thank you for joining me for this night at the toy museum.

[MUSIC: Swell, then gently fade out.]

Aquarium from Carnival of the Animals by composed by Camille Sans-Saen, Performed by the Seattle Youth Orchestra. Source: https://musopen.org/music/1454-the-carnival-of-the-animals/. License: Public Domain (composition) / Creative Commons (recording).