Gen X, Gen Z, and the Infamous Red Lion’s Head Heist

Episode 74 is the one where Nice Pull! accidentally becomes a three-generation support group for nostalgia, back pain, and bad life choices involving comic books. Jeff and Chris start in the smoldering ruins of Halloween, ranting about neutered “trunk-or-treat” events that feel like tailgates with training wheels, and reminiscing about when kids had to walk dark streets, risk urban legends, and deal with angry old men who now.

Then the “mystery guest” steps out of the liquor cabinet: Jeff’s 26-year-old son, Jarod, a self-proclaimed outlier who has listened to 73 episodes and absorbed enough Gen X trivia to function as a walking Nice Pull! wiki. He rants about trying to play Halo with friends and discovering you now need multiple accounts, a laptop, and probably a blood sacrifice just to do what four controller ports used to handle. The trio mourns the death of malls, third spaces, and random bounce-house block parties, compare notes on being so deep in thought people assume they’re having medical events, and trade injury stories (“I picked something up wrong and now I can’t move for two days”).

At one point, Chris casually admits he financed his entire childhood comic habit by embezzling quarters from his dad’s red lion’s-head bank like a tiny, nerdy mob accountant. It all ends with a glorious comic-book rabbit hole: shiny ‘90s Venom that isn’t paying anyone’s mortgage, a 1968 “dirty hippie” JimmyOlsen issue, and a full Green Lantern theology session about willpower, and alien space cops.