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We entered a nearby conference room with a boardroom table, where I used handheld controllers to pick up 3D objects like a toy ray gun and a bottle of Champagne.

“We’ve always joked, If Iowa doesn’t have the caucuses, are we Nebraska?” said Mike Draper, the owner of Ray Gun, a quirky T-shirt store in Des Moines frequently visited by candidates and their staffs.

I waited on the couch with the moms, encouraging her through the mirror to stay strong as the stylist annihilated her curls with what looked like a ray gun.

It isn’t necessary to illustrate the lyric “Put your ray gun to my head,” from the song that lends the film its title, with a clip of a 1950s sci-fi monster getting its head blown off.

He renamed his studio The Ray Gun Theater in 1962 and held performances there on weekends.