Toymaker Step2 Co. LLC will be featured on "The Bachelor." We'll be live blogging the event tonight. A preview post is below:
7:55 p.m.: Alright, Bachelor headquarters is just about set up. I have a beverage, a full charge on the laptop and my TV is tuned to ABC. This might surprise you, but I've never seen an episode of the show before. So this might be ... educational.
8:00 p.m.: Step2 Co. LLC CEO Chris Quinn makes his first appearance in the teaser of the episode, grilling the bachelor, saying he takes marriage seriously. It looks like he might be playing tough dad.
8:03 p.m.: It looks like it will be a little bit before they head to Ohio. Caila isn't the first date. Apparently Amanda (unknown if she has a plastics background) left her kids to find love on TV.
8:14 p.m.: Unknown to me before today, "The Bachelor" is two hours long. With four women left, I'm guessing we'll get somewhere about 20-25 minutes on each during these hometown dates. What we know is Ben and Caila will spend some time at Step2, and there's a dinner with Chris Quinn, the CEO of the rotational molder.
Chris Quinn is fairly new to the company. Here is our profile feature on him from mid-2015.
8:38 p.m.: Still no Caila. By the previews, it looks like she might be the last one on tonight. Filming in Ohio (Streetsboro and Hudson) took place in the Fall, so don't expect to see snow out there.
8:43 p.m.: Chris Quinn: "I'm a protective father." Teaser to Caila's segment brings out the super serious CEO. I don't think he's cracked a smile yet.
8:47 p.m.: Here we go. They are starting off in Hudson, Ohio.
8:50 p.m.: "This is where kids' dreams come true," Caila says about Step2 Co. LLC.
8:52 p.m.: Caila and Ben pour the resin, lock the mold, and rotomold their own pieces to a toy house. Also, they were clearly still on the factory floor before they took off their safety googles. #safetyviolation
8:55 p.m.: Not much on the factory floor that wasn't in the preview clip (below), but I'm sure we'll get a heavy dose of Chris Quinn after the break.
8:59 p.m.: CEO dad starts with the questions. "What's it like microwave dating?"
9:03 p.m.: "There's no rule book in love," Dad's advice to his daughter.
"It frightens me that she's going to be in for a huge let down," he says just to the camera.
9:07 p.m.: The segment with Chris Quinn, and Caila, is over. Chris was analytical, asking tough questions of both Caila and Ben. The previews made him look tougher on them both, but in reality, he was just being a dad, looking out for his daughter.
9:23 p.m.: Alright, let's rank the hometown dates. Beach day with the kids; walking around downtown Portland, Ore.; rotational molding a play structure; crying over an ex-boyfriend. Pretty easy right? #RotationalMolding4Life
9:33 p.m.: A lot of good (and some funny that I won't post here) Tweets about Caila, and Chris Quinn out there. A few really liked Chris and his wife Rosanna:
Forget Ben and Caila. I want her adorable parents to have their own show. #TheBachelor
— Judi Scarmuzzi (@JFrench951) February 23, 2016
Caila's family is the sweetest family ever! @TheBachelorTV
— angie woodyard (@aNgIewoodYard) February 23, 2016
THIS IS THE BEST DATE EVER! #Caila @BachelorABC #toyfactory #TheBachelor
— Anna Huffstutler (@A_Huffstutler) February 23, 2016
And the infamous blogger Reality Steve weighs in on Chris Quinn:
Caila's dad's orange/yellow pants game is strong.
— RealitySteve (@RealitySteve) February 23, 2016
9:53 p.m.: Did the smell of resin melting help Caila? Maybe. She got a rose, and moves on to the final three.
And that's a wrap from Plastics News' "Bachelor" headquarters.
Preview:
Brace yourselves. I present to you the very first documented case (probably) of people making out on the factory floor of a rotational molder.
Step2 Co. LLC, the maker of toy structures and the largest rotational molder in the country, will be featured in an episode of “The Bachelor” on ABC on Feb. 22. Caila Quinn, daughter of the company's CEO Chris Quinn, is one of four remaining women attempting to win the heart of bachelor Ben Higgins (or so the Internet tells me).
How much Chris Quinn will be featured on the show is still unknown.
But, in a preview of the episode, Caila Quinn and Higgins are at the Step2 factory in Streetsboro, Ohio, and she suggests the two build a Step2 house. And they actually build it, from resin all the way to finished product. We see real, live rotational molding on the show.
Then comes the awkward making out along with several safety violations. Senior reporter Bill Bregar told me it was "one of the greatest things he's ever seen." I'm pretty certain he was talking about the rotational molding on national TV, not the other stuff.
Viewer discretion is advised.
