WEBVTT - SYSK’s 2021 Glad Tidings Bonanza Holiday Special 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to stuff you should know a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:25.560 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the Holiday Cast. I'm Josh, 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.880 and there's Chuck and Jerry's with us in spirit, and 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:33.080 everything is merry and bright, and the tidings are glad 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:37.240 in the halls are decked, and uh, Santa's on his way. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.400 That's right. Are Christmas episode that we look forward to 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:45.320 every year. This, along with the Halloween episodes or episodes, 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.839 are two of our favorites. And they are both ad 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.559 free because we insist upon it, because Christmas has been 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.880 commercialized enough for doing our bit to reverse that trend 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.000 just ever so slightly. And I think it's it's been 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.480 having a measurable effe, don't you, Chuck? I think so. 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.120 People's fingers are spared that fast forward button for the 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:20.600 next forty five minutes, and let's do this. So what 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:22.720 are we going to do first? Maybe the mystery behind 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.800 the world's most famous Christmas poem? Yeah, did you dig 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:28.319 this one up? Or no? I believe this was a 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:31.600 listener suggestion. It was so. This is based on an 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.120 article by Stacy Conrad in Mental Floss, but it was 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.640 suggested to us by one of our listeners named Adam Stevenson, 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:41.600 and thank you very much to Adam for sending this 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.559 idea in And the whole thing, Chuck, that we're talking 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.600 about is probably the world's most famous Christmas poem. It's 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.279 called a Visit from St. Nicholas, and we've read it before, 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.080 but it's actually, in most people's mind called Toys the 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.600 Night before Christmas. That's what I was confused a couple 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.920 of times I read through this. So that poem has 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:05.400 the authorship of it is disputed and has been disputed 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:07.960 for some time now. And it's not one of those 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:10.840 questions where somebody says, no, no, it was my great 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:15.280 great great great great grandfather who wrote it. Instead, there's 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.960 actually like evidence that kind of backs this up. So 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.880 right now here in one and maybe for the rest 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.960 of all time, we're not a certain who wrote a 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.880 Visit from St. Nick also known as Towards the Night 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:32.400 before Christmas. That's right. We know. It first popped up 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:40.600 in Troy, New York's Troy Sentinel on December appropriately three, 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.799 with no authorship attributed, and then thirteen years after that, 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:49.760 a professor and a poet named Clement Clark Moore was 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:54.160 named as the author. Because of the story that his housekeeper, 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.040 without him knowing it, sent the piece in. It was 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.840 a poem he wrote for his kids, supposedly, and sent 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.280 into the newspaper. And then in eighteen forty four, which 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:08.840 is twenty one years later, right, it was officially included 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:13.400 in one of his poet poetry anthologies. That's right, So 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:18.639 it officially became credited to Clement Clark Moore. And then 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.520 at some point, in a not entirely certain win, another family, um, 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.800 the family of Henry Livingston Jr. And again by family 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:32.679 we mean um, five generations grandchildren step forward and said, hey, um, 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.320 I don't think this is quite right, because it turns 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:39.960 out that great great great great great grandfather Henry had 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:44.080 been reading this poem to our to his kids, my 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:50.160 great great great great grandmother for like fifteen years before 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.400 it was first published in the Troy, New York Sentinel. Right, 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.200 So if that was three, they're claiming it goes back 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.640 to eighteen seven. Yeah, that's what I saw, all right. 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.960 So let's duke this out on the livingstone side. And 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:05.960 we're not taking sides because neither one of us know 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:09.720 or care, but uh, on the livings, they certainly do. 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.000 On the Livings in side. They say, you know what, 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.440 we have Dutch heritage in our family and ancestry. Um 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.479 great great great great great great grand Peppie Henry's mom 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.640 was Dutch and there's a lot of Dutch references in 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.840 the poem, so it's his. Yeah, apparently this is where 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.840 we get the names for Santa's eight Reindeer, And originally 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.320 Donner and Blitzen's names were Dunder and blicks them. If 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.960 you read that, I know it's great. What makes it 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:40.599 like a cheap T shirt you would buy or something? 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.840 What a dunder brand T shirt? Well just know, like 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.000 you know, you're off brand toys. That seems like the 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.680 Christmas shirt. Yeah, so don't but it Dunder and blicks 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.520 them mean thunder and lightning and Dutch, so hence the 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.560 Dutch references. And the thing is that Clement Clark Moore 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.159 wasn't Dutch and he didn't have Dutch heritage, so it 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.960 does make it a little more sensible that Livingston, who 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.560 did have Dutch heritage, would have used those Dutch names initially. 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.320 That's right. And for all of you thinking I'd just 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.840 stepped by a Dunder and Mifflin joke, I just want 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:13.920 to acknowledge it, so you know that I did think 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:17.040 of it and I chose not to same here, all right, 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.600 it's a Christmas miracle for growing up. Yeah, we really are. 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:25.960 Uh So blix Um changed to blix in first, I 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.040 think to rhyme with vixen, and I believe in the 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.000 etour More stepped up because you know, he was like, hey, 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.159 this is my poem after all, right, uh and changed 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:40.360 it to the Germanic Blitzen, and then Dunder eventually became Donder, 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:42.839 and then in the early twentieth century it was went 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.280 to Donner because it's also Germanic. Yeah, so there's the 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.000 whole thing. Originally Dunder and blicks Him were two of 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.360 the names, and those are clearly Dutch words, which has 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:54.880 nothing to do with Clement Clark Moore. Um. There's another 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.800 thing to remember. We said that Henry's children said, and 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.560 apparently a neighbor at times said that they remember him 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.160 reading this to them back in eighteen oh seven, uh sixteen, 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.480 years before it was published, and they there's also family 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.520 legend among the Livingston's that there used to be a 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.560 handwritten draft copy that had markouts and scratches and revisions 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.880 to it. That would Yeah, I would basically suggest this 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.640 is the original version of the poem, and the case 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:23.719 would be closed had that not burned up in a 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:26.840 house fire at some point in family history. I don't see. 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:28.839 I was when I was reading this stuff, I was like, 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.360 all right, here we go, it's over, case reopened. Yeah, 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.800 the mysterious house fire. Now I'm like, I don't know 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:39.080 about you. Livingstone's right, okay, very fishy. Well, then the 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:43.000 literary professors got involved, and then things got really taken 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.080 off the rails, right, Yeah, they've there have been plenty 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.000 of well know about plenty, but at least a few 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.640 literary professors who have gotten in the archives and the 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:55.479 anthologies and said, you know what, this more guy never 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:59.880 wrote anything like this thing. Uh, it's in this anapestic 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.760 scheme where you have the two syllables followed by a 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.960 more stressed third syllable, and you never wrote anything like that, buddy, 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.720 So I think you're a fraud. Yeah. And I had 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.160 no idea about that scheme until I kind of spelled 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.480 it out myself and got it wrong. Though. Did you 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.640 notice that? No? I didn't. You got the first half right, 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:20.560 but then you lose it at you lost it after 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.600 and all through the house, Oh I did. Yeah, that 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:25.840 was pretty much like oh yeah, I see now okay, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.320 can read it like yeah, please do, please do. Itwas 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:33.080 the night before Christmas and all through the house not 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:38.040 a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Oh man, 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.000 this is like my math. You got tripped up. Yeah 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.760 that's all right, good stuff, But that's anapestic scheme. They said, 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.800 you didn't write anything like that, buddy, But Livingston wrote 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.920 plenty of stuff like that. Yeah, so again case closed. Right, 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:55.400 if you want to put a nail in that coffin. 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.040 Another professor from New Zealand, a guy named McDonald Jackson, 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.240 stepped up and said, get this, everybody, I could. I've 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.960 devised a statistical analysis machine, and I said it loose 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:09.760 on Clement Clark Moore's manuscript notebook and it says all 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.360 of those poems are Clement Clark Moore's. But when I 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:15.160 feed that same machine towys the night before Christmas, you know, 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:17.920 a visit from St. Nicholas, everybody goes, oh yeah that 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:22.200 one he goes. It just starts coughing and smoking and sputtering, 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.360 and it broke. Yeah. Basically, uh, if you talk to 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:27.960 them more as they're like, yeah, but you know what 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.080 you're you're just constructing us in a way that makes 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.240 it look like you never anything like this, because I 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:35.520 know for sure he wrote the Pig and the Rooster 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.120 and that's antipestic. He wrote one like this, and that's 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.000 that I should I should spell out some of the 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:46.520 Pig and the Rooster and antipestic scheme and see what happens. 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.200 So on the more side this, I mean, I sort 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.600 of get this, but more was buddies with Rip van Winkle, 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:57.080 who was very much into the Dutch culture up there 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.840 in New York State. And I guess the argument is, 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:04.400 but because he was good friends with Irving that, uh, 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:06.840 it just he picked up on that Dutch stuff. Is 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.640 that the argument? That's the argument. But the argument that 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:13.720 I saw that basically is like, no, that's it's Clement 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.760 Clark Moore. Is that Clement Clark Moore, who has otherwise 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.000 never been accused of doing anything nefarious in his life, 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:26.240 um stepped up and claimed credit and an authorship of this, 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:28.680 and that just doesn't seem to be something that he 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.480 would have done had he not done that. And the 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.000 Livingston's Henry specifically, who was alive after the thing was 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.800 published for five more years, never stepped forward to take 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.520 credit for it, and that to a lot of people, 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:43.640 they are like, well that, I mean, that's that, Like, yes, 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:47.080 you can create statistical analysis machines to say whatever. But 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:48.680 as it stands out, if you go on to the 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.840 Poetry Websites Foundation, they say that there's a lot of 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:56.400 scholars that credit Henry Livingston with authorship, but they still 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.439 if you search Clement Clark Moore, the poem that they 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.120 have on their website for him is a visit from St. Nicholas. Still, 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.200 so everybody's like, who knows, but ultimately who cares? Just 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.199 read the poem. It's so great it doesn't matter who 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.920 wrote it anymore. I agree. So I think, Chuck, that 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.079 we've done our first little segment, which means it's time 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.280 for some of Jerry's delicious Christmas interstitial music. Huh all right, 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:30.240 let's hear it. Oh boy, that didn't that so much 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.839 better than an ad? Yeah? That is so nice. Jerry 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.400 really knows what she's doing. She's gotten really good at 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.760 this stuff. All right, where are we headed next? Oh jeez, 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.360 I'm driving? Huh Okay, I guess he said you want 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:43.800 to skip around, So yeah, let's do one of yours. 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.600 How about red and green? It's Christmas colors. Yeah, we 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:52.760 need to thank u Wanderopolis Reader's digests and our old 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:59.000 buddy Robert Paulson, Mr RP funding himself, longtime listener, he said, us, 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:01.440 I think he's done this past few years since it's 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.040 a bunch of Christmas ideas because you know, it gets 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.240 hard you guys to think of new things and to 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.400 find new stories, and Paulson's always sent this good stuff. 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.360 So this was inspired by Robert. And this is the 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:17.119 idea that where did green and red come from? For Christmas? 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:19.760 And there's quite a few theories and no one knows 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.200 for sure. No um, which is fun because that means 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:24.880 you get to toss out a lot of theories that 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:27.880 might be right or wrong, who knows. But um, if 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:30.120 you go talk to a Christian, say hey, that whole 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:32.760 red and green thing for Christmas? You're a Christian, where 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.080 did it come from? And they'll say, well, sit down, friend, 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.720 I'll tell you. It turns out that the green represents 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:43.280 an evergreen tree, which in turn represents Jesus. And you say, 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.000 I didn't see Jesus coming in this But here we go. Yeah, 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:50.360 it's only Christmas. And the reason that the evergreen represents 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:54.160 Jesus is because Jesus has eternal life or offers eternal life, 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.440 and the evergreen was representative of eternal life and living 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.000 through the winter time even the bleakest part of the winter, 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.679 and evergreen is still green. Hence the green part. And 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.800 you say, well, what about the the red. Don't say blood, 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.520 don't say blood. What do they say blood? Yeah, blood 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.480 of Christ. It's always the blood of Christ. So supposedly 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:15.199 that's where the red and green came from, as far 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:20.640 as Christian scholars are concerned. That's right. Other people say, well, 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.440 i'll tell you what. In the churches would put on 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.720 these miracle plays, is what they were called, And on 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.920 Christmas they would perform one called the Paradise Play, which 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.640 retells the story in Genesis of the creation of Adam 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.280 and even the garden of Eden when Adam was instructed 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.120 not to eat from the tree of good and evil 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.160 did so. Anyway, they were banished from Paradise. And when 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.200 they put on these miracle plays, apple trees weren't in season, 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.000 so they couldn't drag a dead apple tree in there, 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:48.960 so they would bring in a nice, lovely green evergreen 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.599 pine and then fastened apples to them, and that is 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.120 where the green and the red comes from. And every 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:59.160 single year there was always one townsfolk, one annoying towns folk. 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.160 It would stand up in point and say, that's not 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:06.720 an apple tree, that's right, Cleidas a slack gelgyokel. But 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.280 then now we get into probably the true origins of it, 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.280 because we're going back beyond the origin of Christianity and 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.600 starting to get into pagan and Roman culture. And as 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.520 we've seen time and time and time again with a 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:24.360 lot of the holidays that we celebrate these days, they're 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.080 ultimately based on Pagan and Roman rituals and this is 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:32.440 no no different. Um. They think that Saturnalia actually used 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.120 to claim as it's holiday colors red and green again 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.800 because of evergreens and the berries they bear. And and 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.040 then we talked about Saturnalia before in a Christmas episode, right, 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.800 we had to have. Surely at some point that's the 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.960 only way I would know about it. Uh. The Celtic people, also, 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.800 the ancient Celts, they loved their holly plants because they 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:56.520 were evergreen, and holly is very much associated with Christmas, 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:58.560 and they were saying, well, that's where the red and 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:02.200 green comes from. Then a little bit later on they were, uh, 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:07.080 these religious screens called rudes medieval churches were dyed red 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.640 and green. But other people say, well, that's because those 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.080 were the pigments that were available at the time. So 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.400 no one really knows for sure, no, but it does 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:20.320 like present like a connection between Christianity and red and green. 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.920 Those medieval church screens definitely do. So. The Victorians came 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.120 along and they had a bunch of different color schemes. 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.960 Blue and white, blue and red, red and green all 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.440 were pretty much equally associated with Christmas with the Victorians. 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:38.359 And uh, it wasn't until one when Coca Cola commissioned 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.320 Um had in Sunbloom to do his famous illustration of 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.880 Santa Claus, where Santa Claus became fat and fully clothed 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.440 in red for the first time and for the rest 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:51.920 of all time before that he was naked as a 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.720 j bird. That's right. It was a gross Christmas tradition, 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.560 all right, Jerry, how about some more of that music? 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:24.960 Take it away, Jerr. Okay, Chuck, So now I think 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.360 it's your turn to pick which one we're gonna do next. 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.040 It's a it's like opening Christmas presents. We're gonna just 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.880 switch off. You know where I'm headed. I'm headed to, Uh, 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:38.080 I'm headed to the nineteen eighties. I'm headed to December seven, 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:41.880 and I'm watching the TV show ALF, and I'm shocked 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.640 at what I'm seeing on my screen. It's right, mainly 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.600 because I never saw an episode of ALF. Oh you know, yeah, 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:49.800 you were a little old for it. I definitely did. 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:53.560 It was a cute show eighty six, so I was fifteen, 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:57.320 maybe just on the cusp, but yeah, I didn't see 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.120 way too old for what was ALF. Like an eightyear 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.120 old exactly the right age to hate ALF more than 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.040 any other age group on the planet, I think. Yeah, 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.120 I was like I started listening to Pink Floyd when 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:10.920 I was fifteen, So right, okay, yeah, you wouldn't have 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.160 like alfin people who have never seen ALF, like you. Um, 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:16.160 I was thinking our younger viewers, but I guess anybody 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:19.880 who has never seen ALF. It's a eighties sitcom about 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:23.040 an alien who crashed lands on Earth takes up a 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.760 residence with a family, who he in short order starts 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:29.760 to drive crazy with his wise cracking, his troublemaking. He's 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.520 good hearted, but he's just a lot. He's a handful. 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:34.240 And then on top of that, they have to keep 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.800 him a secret from nosy neighbors, from the government. Um. 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.920 And it's a it's a cute little show that that 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.000 like a six year old can follow the plotline of. 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:47.960 Uh you want to hear something more shocking. Yes, I 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.840 didn't know until yesterday that Alf was an alien. What 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.680 do you think he was? I don't know. I never 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.480 thought about it. I just I knew it was a puppet. 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.000 It looked like a little fuzzy beast of some kind. 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.000 I never really thought about I had no idea what 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:04.560 Alf was. But now that you know, I see this, 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.520 and I see the year clearly capitalizing on a post 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.360 et kind of thing. Let's do a sitcom. I'm sure 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:13.080 that was brought up in the room, you know. Yeah. Yeah, 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.720 and Alf actually stood for alien life for him. It 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.120 was the name that the dad Willie gave to him. 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.600 His real name was Gordon schum Way, and he was 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.720 from the planet mill Mack. Was it really Gordon Shumway? Yeah, 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:31.120 it's Have you ever seen that movie Permanent Midnight? Uh? Yeah, Oh, sure. Yeah, Yeah, 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:33.200 that guy that was based on the Ben Stiller place. 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.919 He was a writer for Alfred. Yeah, that's that's all 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.320 I knew of alf was that movie. Okay, gotcha? That 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.080 was one of my favorite lines from any movie is 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:45.080 when Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller have lost their percocets. 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:49.040 Owen Wilson and his voice goes, if I were a percoset, 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:55.400 where would I be? That? I can totally envision that. Wow. 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:57.880 That was a dead on Owen Wilson. By the way, 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:03.119 Wow there was again. So with alf Um, what you 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:05.640 see was what you got. It was very straightforward as 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.600 far as episodes were concerned. Sure, it was kind of jarring, 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.480 like you were saying when you tuned in on December, Oh, 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.760 I don't remember, but in and you found out that 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.280 there was a not just a one part as a standard, 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:21.800 but a two part episode shot on film of alf 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:26.600 And it was a very special Christmas special of alf Yeah. 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.720 It was, uh, to say the least, not very funny there. 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.760 You know, I watched some of it today. They didn't 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.760 forego the jokes entirely. They used them, tried to use 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.879 them effectively to sort of you know, punch up some 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.000 moments here and there, but it was definitely different. It 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.920 was Alf gets outside the house, get hitches a ride 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:51.679 with Cleveland Little from Blazing Saddle's fame as Santa Claus, 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.480 and they go to a hospital where Alf is mistaken 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.240 for a Christmas toy and given to a little girl 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:04.159 who is dying. Yes, which is basically the main plot 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.160 line of this episode. Alf hanging out with this dying 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.800 girl in her hospital room. And this is not like 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.439 the kind of thing where the dying girl doesn't know 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:16.480 she's dying. She actually talks openly and frequently about dying 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:18.320 and how she's being scared of it. Yeah, it's being 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.400 scared to die. Yeah. Not exactly like the typical Christmas 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:25.680 themes you would you would expect. There's also a part 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:30.040 in the second part where Alf talks um uh talks 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:34.000 Cleveland Little's character out of taking his life by jumping 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.320 off a bridge, not another I Actually I was about 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.040 to say that's not like a very Christmasy thing, but 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.440 thanks to a wonderful life, jumping off of a bridge 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.600 actually is kind of Christmas now that I think about it. Yeah, 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.040 But you know, being Alf and being a TV sit 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:48.720 come from the eighties, you would think at the end, 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.000 of course, the doctors come in and they say we're 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.359 going to save this girl, or or Alf, your heart 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:59.080 was big enough to heal this girl. But no, it 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.320 ends with Alf leaving and waving from the back seat 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:04.919 of the car, and she waves from her hospital window, 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:08.600 and the assumption is that she dies. Yeah. I mean, 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.359 there's a part early on in part one where Alf 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.679 over here is a doctor talking to Cleveland Little and 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.520 saying like, yeah, she's she's a goner, like there's nothing 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:17.879 we can do from her. This is going to be 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:20.919 her last Christmas. And the show makes no efforts to 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:24.680 change that whatsoever. And so like today, if you um 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:26.800 read about it on the internet, people like to tee 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.320 off on it um and in some pretty annoying like 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:32.560 think pieces. It's an easy target if you look at 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:34.639 it from a really cynical point of view, but if 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.320 you actually stop and watch it, it's an extremely touching episode. 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.760 Apparently viewers in seven were very touched by it, and 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:43.639 Alf went on to become a big hit in part 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:47.200 because of this kind of daring limb that they went 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:49.960 out on. But there's a guy who writes for Yahoo 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.840 News named Ethan Atler, and he noticed that at the 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:55.680 end of part two there's a little title card that 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.160 said that that episode was a memory of another girl 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:00.080 named Tiffany. So he was like, well, what is this. 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:02.640 That's the name of the dying girl in the episode. 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.000 Who's this Tiffany? And he started to dig into it 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:06.840 and he found out there actually was a real life 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:10.040 Tiffany who was dying who was a fan of Alf. 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.119 That's right, uh, And apparently this was something that happened 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.720 a lot, is that kids who were, you know, battling 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.760 cancer or something terrible like that, would get involved in 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:23.119 either with Make a Wish or just had a wish 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.120 to see Alf and to meet Alf because kids loved Alf. 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:29.320 And that's what happened. Tiffany went through Make a Wish 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:31.960 wanted to meet Alf, so they set up a video 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:37.159 conference in seven no small feat between Alf and the 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.919 puppeteer Paul Fusco obviously, and then Tiffany was in her 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.919 hospital room and the mom says, you know what, if 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.680 it hadn't been for this, like this gave Tiffany an 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:49.879 extra month of life. It like picked her spirits up 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.520 so much. Brandon Tartakov, who was running NBC at the 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:56.840 time heard about this and of course, you know, you 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:59.600 can imagine what happens from there. That's how this story 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:02.959 was born. He was like, this is gold, Christmas gold, everybody, 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.280 that's right. So they actually did make this two part 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:09.480 episode again, shot on film, um and they dedicated it 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.159 at the end title card to Tiffany Lee Smith in 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:16.160 her memory, which is pretty sweet. Um. But I mean 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.160 that that that video conference, that meeting between those two 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:22.520 was significant enough that like they did they did that, 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:24.640 you know, and if you go back and watch it. 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:29.119 I've only seen part one because I accidentally stumbled onto 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:33.400 an internet mystery Chuck. Part two is not on the internet. 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.080 Part one you can get anywhere and you watch it 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:38.359 and you want to see part two, and you can't 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:42.040 see part two anymore interesting there there. I watched this. 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:44.400 Uh you probably saw this too. There's like a ten 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:46.320 minute video where this guy kind of breaks it down 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.080 and goes over the story and shows clips from it. 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.600 Apparently out delivers a baby at some point too. That's 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:56.240 where some of the laughs come from. Uh. But yeah, 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:58.600 it's interesting. And the guy in the video too said 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:02.919