Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Listener mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and today we're bringing you
Speaker 3: some responses to recent episodes of the show. You all
Speaker 3: have been writing in about squirrels. You've been writing in
Speaker 3: about pretend play, you've been writing in about Christmas, trees
Speaker 3: in the ocean, all kinds of things to get into.
Speaker 3: So Rob, unless you have any business to address right
Speaker 3: here at the top, I say, let's jump right into
Speaker 3: the messages.
Speaker 2: No business here, let's do it, Okay.
Speaker 3: I think I'm going to start with this message from
Speaker 3: Hugh in response to our sort of revival of the
Speaker 3: squirrel topic. So refresher here if you don't recall. Many
Speaker 3: years ago, we did a series of episodes on the brutal,
Speaker 3: largely unknown side of squirrels, including scientific observations of squirrels
Speaker 3: eating the flesh of other animals scavenger, sometimes even killing
Speaker 3: live prey, as well as legends of squirrel on squirrel castration,
Speaker 3: anecdotes of squirrel attacks on humans with varying levels of
Speaker 3: evidence behind them, in plausibility etc. Then, just earlier this month,
Speaker 3: we returned to the topic of squirrels because of a
Speaker 3: newly published paper from December twenty twenty four. A lot
Speaker 3: of you got in touch with us to let us
Speaker 3: know about this, a paper that extensively documented a population
Speaker 3: of California ground squirrels roughly northeast of the San Francisco area,
Speaker 3: systematically hunting and eating live adult voles, which seemed to
Speaker 3: be related to a concurrent explosion in.
Speaker 2: The vole population. Vole meat got.
Speaker 3: Cheap, essentially, so squirrels were like, why not, let's eat
Speaker 3: them anyway. After covering this, we heard from many listeners
Speaker 3: with thoughts about squirrels, sometimes about their surprising ferocity or
Speaker 3: their lesser known tendency to eat meat. So, first of all,
Speaker 3: this message from Hugh reads, Dear Robert and Joe and JJ,
Speaker 3: happiest of New Year's toe you all. I have to
Speaker 3: agree with Rob's view of squirrel kind. Rob, maybe you
Speaker 3: can remind us what this view was after you hear
Speaker 3: Hugh's thoughts. Hugh says, I once saw a big, furry
Speaker 3: orange tomcat get hold of a gray squirrel in an open,
Speaker 3: sunny patch of lawn. I lost track of what was
Speaker 3: happening for a few seconds due to the Looney Tunes
Speaker 3: esque mailstrom obscuring the action. But when the dust and
Speaker 3: fur had settled and a mostly orange rocket had disappeared
Speaker 3: over the horizon, I could tell that the paradigm had
Speaker 3: shifted for that cat. Squirrels are expletive metal. You're all
Speaker 3: still doing a great job. I love your work, Hugh. Well,
Speaker 3: thanks for the message, Hugh.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I've ever seen this particular thing happen,
Speaker 3: like the squirrel sends the larger predator running, but I
Speaker 3: can believe it. Rob, do you do you know which
Speaker 3: of you of yours this is conforming to?
Speaker 2: We had just that they're for a grappling hooks. They're fierce,
Speaker 2: their tree lions and matches up. We have the story
Speaker 2: that I told about one chasing off a hawk in
Speaker 2: my backyard, a girl doing squirrel business. A hawk moved
Speaker 2: in to interfere with that business in some manner or fashion,
Speaker 2: and the squirrel was having none of it, and the
Speaker 2: hawk was like, okay, fair enough, I'll go pest or
Speaker 2: something else.
Speaker 3: That makes sense. Now you referred to them as grappling hooks. This,
Speaker 3: of course is giving me the image of an expanded
Speaker 3: movie Ninja tool Kit where the ninja from their belt
Speaker 3: draws a squirrel on a line and makes you know,
Speaker 3: unthinkable use of it.
Speaker 2: There is a Marvel superhero named squirrel Girl. My kid
Speaker 2: has several comic books of squirrel Girl. Very fun character,
Speaker 2: but it's usually played up for cuteness I believe. I mean,
Speaker 2: she's fearce and strong in her own right. But I
Speaker 2: don't know if they completely embrace the unholy ferocity of
Speaker 2: the squirrel, because squirrel Girl could be very metal, and
Speaker 2: maybe she is very metal in some installments. If not,
Speaker 2: I hope comic book artists out there embrace the beastly
Speaker 2: nature of the squirrel at some point.
Speaker 3: All right, Rob, you want to do one of these
Speaker 3: following messages?
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's one from Carl titled Squirrel's Return Dear Robin Joe.
Speaker 2: Without intent, I've apparently created a squirrel paradise in my backyard,
Speaker 2: which is great. Their acrobatics entertain and fascinate me and
Speaker 2: my retriever Australian sheep dog Roxy. They are minimally destructive
Speaker 2: while they go about their lives making families, building their nests, harvesting,
Speaker 2: hickory nuts and covorting in the woods outside my kitchen
Speaker 2: window and off the deck. Of all the creatures there,
Speaker 2: the squirrels and birds are the least destructive, paired with
Speaker 2: the chipmunks and rabbits that destroy plants and gardens. So
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed this episode. I haven't seen my squirrels
Speaker 2: dining on other animals or insects, but they might. There
Speaker 2: are plenty of them out there too. It would be
Speaker 2: interesting and very useful if my squirrels would develop an
Speaker 2: appetite for rabbit. Here's do a great new year, Carl.
Speaker 2: Best of luck to you, Carl. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: think there's a way to engineer that. Maybe we wouldn't try,
Speaker 2: just leave it, let nature take its course there, because
Speaker 2: that sounds like the beginning of a horror story. You
Speaker 2: remember old Carl there. Oh yeah, he tried to teach
Speaker 2: his squirrels to eat rabbit meat. Now they only eat
Speaker 2: manfold meat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the backstory to Night of the Squirrels. Okay, on
Speaker 3: to the next squirrel message. Two comments before reading this one.
Speaker 3: One of them is context for the message Rob when
Speaker 3: we were I think, both in the original series and
Speaker 3: in the follow up episode we talked about your story
Speaker 3: of encountering aggressive squirrels at Grand Canyon National Park and
Speaker 3: how this related to the people feeding the animals at
Speaker 3: places where human and humans and wildlife interface. Do you
Speaker 3: want to what were the deats on that?
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean it just gets into the basics of,
Speaker 2: you know, a fat animals, a dead animal. If you
Speaker 2: feed any wild animals of you know, varying wildness and
Speaker 2: overt danger to humans, if they associate humans with food,
Speaker 2: then they'll just get closer, and the closer they are,
Speaker 2: the more likely it is to end and bites, scratches
Speaker 2: and so forth. We want them to remain wild, wild
Speaker 2: and away from us. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: And your direct experience was that what did a squirrel
Speaker 3: basically climb you or your wife trying to get food
Speaker 3: out of your hands?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it's all a snack bar and made a
Speaker 2: play for it and we had to essentially like swatt
Speaker 2: it away with a hat. Wow. Okay, all right.
Speaker 3: And then the second comment before reading this is I
Speaker 3: want to make absolutely clear that we are not advocating
Speaker 3: the behavior the list is about to describe in this message,
Speaker 3: but I did think it was worth sharing to discuss
Speaker 3: and maybe get some feedback from people who work professionally
Speaker 3: in parks and wildlife or other places where there's a
Speaker 3: lot of interface between humans and wild animals. So this
Speaker 3: is from Ben, subject line trolling wildlife. Hello, gentlemen, your
Speaker 3: recent episode on squirrels was fascinating and entertaining, as is
Speaker 3: all your excellent content.
Speaker 2: Thank you Ben.
Speaker 3: The discussion at the end of the episode around feeding
Speaker 3: wildlife brought to mind the fun game I play with
Speaker 3: excessively bold wildlife. When I encounter small animals that seem
Speaker 3: to be accustomed to getting food from humans, I approach
Speaker 3: them and mimic the action of giving them food. For
Speaker 3: ducks at the local park, I toss pretend bread to them.
Speaker 3: For the finches at the Trailhead parking lot at a
Speaker 3: nearby provincial park, I hold up a handful of imaginary
Speaker 3: bird seed. For the squirrels that live in my town
Speaker 3: home complex, I hold out a theoretical peanut. Then, when
Speaker 3: the animal approaches to a closer distance than they reasonably
Speaker 3: should get to a human, I jump and shout and
Speaker 3: startle them. I like to believe I'm doing my part
Speaker 3: to ruin the trust they have developed for humans. Thanks
Speaker 3: for the Great show. Ben Okay, Ben, Well, thank you
Speaker 3: for the message, and maybe you can see why I
Speaker 3: wanted to read this but also wanted.
Speaker 2: To caveat it.
Speaker 3: I see the reasoning here, like, of course, it's not
Speaker 3: usually good for wild animals to be desensitized to the
Speaker 3: presence of humans. We want them to avoid us, we
Speaker 3: should avoid them. But part of me also does kind
Speaker 3: of recoil at the idea of intentionally scaring wild animals.
Speaker 3: So I want to be clear again that I'm not
Speaker 3: recommending this as a good idea without knowing more. However,
Speaker 3: I know we have a lot of listeners who do
Speaker 3: work in parks and wildlife for an animal conservation. I
Speaker 3: would love to hear your thoughts those listeners about this
Speaker 3: kind of thing. Is this actually a good thing to do,
Speaker 3: or is there a better strategy that accomplishes the same
Speaker 3: goal without needlessly scaring wildlife. Is it best to just
Speaker 3: avoid interacting with wildlife as much as possible, even if
Speaker 3: the animals are brazenly approaching you for food.
Speaker 2: Should you just run away? What should you do?
Speaker 3: I don't really know, but I would love to hear
Speaker 3: from people who have professional expertise contact that stuff to
Speaker 3: blow your mind dot com.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know that when it comes to things
Speaker 2: like bears and parks, there will often be you know,
Speaker 2: people in official capacity rangers doing things like you know,
Speaker 2: firing off a gun, creating a loud noise to scare
Speaker 2: them away and try and you know, drive home the
Speaker 2: idea that humans are scary and you shouldn't get too
Speaker 2: close to them. So, like I said, I see both
Speaker 2: sides of this. Yeah, what I'm cautious about would be
Speaker 2: the idea of engaging in both behaviors at the same time,
Speaker 2: of like mimicking bringing an animal in close only to
Speaker 2: scare them away. I suspect, and I am no expert.
Speaker 2: Of course, you're better off just going with the scare,
Speaker 2: like you're better off like leaving your home and just
Speaker 2: scaring all wildlife that comes close to you. So like
Speaker 2: when I go outside, if there's a squirrel too close
Speaker 2: to me, I'll clap my hands, I will make a noise,
Speaker 2: and not because they're approaching me, but because like maybe
Speaker 2: they're just a little they're lingering a little too long
Speaker 2: on the fence, and I'm like, I don't want you
Speaker 2: any closer to me, you know, you furry shackle just
Speaker 2: go ahead and get on out of here. I don't
Speaker 2: know that the mimicking the feeding is actually going to
Speaker 2: be helpful in this scenario, but I could be wrong. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So once again, people whose job it is to study
Speaker 3: how to protect wildlife and try to try to sever this,
Speaker 3: this link or this desensitization, please write in let us
Speaker 3: know your.
Speaker 2: Thoughts, all right. We also received more feedback about Hearts
Speaker 2: and Fireplaces. That was a multi serious episode. We did
Speaker 2: what in December holiday themed, But you can listen to
Speaker 2: him any time of the year. I mean, it's hearts,
Speaker 2: it's fireplace, It's good winter listening for sure. This one
Speaker 2: comes to us from Megan. Megan says, Hi, guys, your
Speaker 2: episode on Hearts was intriguing and it made me think
Speaker 2: of a couple of personal experiences. You mentioned that some
Speaker 2: animals used chimneys as habitat. My family moved houses a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago in July, and the chimneys had
Speaker 2: been left unused and clothes for a while. I noticed
Speaker 2: a tuneless squeaking in the living room ever so often,
Speaker 2: which I assumed was air moving through a pipe. Well,
Speaker 2: did you ever see dark bat like birds swooping around
Speaker 2: on a summer evening in an urban neighborhood and catching insects.
Speaker 2: Those are chimney swifts, which are dependent on chimneys for
Speaker 2: roosting and raising their young. They used cliff faces and
Speaker 2: old trees before the arrival of Europeans. For about a month,
Speaker 2: I listened to the chimney swift babies chirping loudly every
Speaker 2: time their parents returned with food, and abruptly one day
Speaker 2: I realized that the chimney was silent the nestlings fledged.
Speaker 2: I never saw the nestlings, just the adult population darting
Speaker 2: around the neighborhood, and then the adults and fledged juveniles migrated.
Speaker 2: They returned last July. By the way, I'm afraid of
Speaker 2: opening up the chimney and discovering the old nests glued
Speaker 2: with saliva to the brick walls and many years of
Speaker 2: bird waste. But that's for a future professional cleaning. Maybe
Speaker 2: you guys want to cover that topic in the show
Speaker 2: Animals and plants that have accidentally come to depend on
Speaker 2: human settlements. Also, the description of hunter gatherers around a fire,
Speaker 2: telling stories and entering a different mental space resonated with me.
Speaker 2: I realize it's not the same thing as sitting around
Speaker 2: a fireplace, But it seems that bars and restaurants replicate
Speaker 2: something of that social experience by turning the lights down
Speaker 2: and setting out candles or, in the case of a
Speaker 2: sports bar, operating lots of glowing TVs. And indeed, it
Speaker 2: may sound funny, but if you didn't listen to the
Speaker 2: episodes we did talk about how the TV is essentially
Speaker 2: the modern hearth. So, yeah, I mean as personally annoying
Speaker 2: as I find a whole bunch of glowing TVs in
Speaker 2: a restaurant or bar. Yeah, it could be what they're
Speaker 2: doing anyway, Megan continues, if I'm not getting tipsy and
Speaker 2: experiencing lowered social inhibitions from drinking, I find that the
Speaker 2: ambiance has a similar effect. Thank you as always for
Speaker 2: keeping us engaged and entertained.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Megan. Yeah, interesting thoughts as to the last
Speaker 3: thing about the lowered inhibitions and the different sort of
Speaker 3: mental space you get in with different light regimes. That
Speaker 3: is something we talked about, springboarding off of thoughts in
Speaker 3: an anthropology paper we were looking at. Yeah, that did track,
Speaker 3: like how conversation was different in environments that were ruled
Speaker 3: by firelight versus daylight versus electric light, and the firelight
Speaker 3: conversations were noticeably different, at least within this example of
Speaker 3: these one people. And so, yeah, I can definitely see
Speaker 3: how the different light conditions can lead us to not
Speaker 3: only think differently, but relate to other people differently. And
Speaker 3: one thing we hypothesized was like, wonder if lower light
Speaker 3: conditions make you less aware of being observed and also
Speaker 3: make you less minutely observant of the kind of micro
Speaker 3: expressions of other people, and there is something possibly disinhibiting
Speaker 3: about that, But that was just kind of a.
Speaker 2: Gas Yeah, and I'll had one more thought about multiple
Speaker 2: bars and intelligence, multiple multiple TVs in a bar rather,
Speaker 2: is that one of the things we talked about is
Speaker 2: like the hearth as this centerpiece, this this focal point
Speaker 2: that draws in the attention of multiple individuals. And granted,
Speaker 2: especially in a restaurant or bar, you could have multiple
Speaker 2: focal points because you ultimately may have multiple different sort
Speaker 2: of social groups. But I wonder sometimes and with some
Speaker 2: seating positions in a bar restaurant, there isn't there's that
Speaker 2: it can be a struggle to find a focal point
Speaker 2: because everywhere you look there is a tele vision you know,
Speaker 2: everywhere you look it's a different or it's the same
Speaker 2: football game or pharmaceutical commercial, and then you and it's
Speaker 2: also maybe drawing each person at a given table off
Speaker 2: in a different direction. There's no like central thing that
Speaker 2: they're both vibing on.
Speaker 3: So I'm also not a huge fan of a lot
Speaker 3: of TVs in a restaurant or bar. But one thing
Speaker 3: I'll say is, even though I don't follow sports, I
Speaker 3: prefer sports to the other option, which is when people
Speaker 3: have the news on in a restaurant.
Speaker 2: What are you doing?
Speaker 3: We're sitting here like trying to have tacos, and then
Speaker 3: up on the screen there's like a body outline or
Speaker 3: just like pictures of police cars with the lights on,
Speaker 3: Like what, I don't understand that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not a fan of that. I'm also not
Speaker 2: a fan of it just being like a net like
Speaker 2: open Netflix, like not playing anything but just the Netflix menu.
Speaker 2: It's like, fine, okay, if you're gonna play a movie
Speaker 2: on Netflix, play a movie on Netflix, or they're you know,
Speaker 2: there are four good choices on there these days, so
Speaker 2: put one of those on. But yeah, oh well.
Speaker 3: The other option though, is playing old movies, which I
Speaker 3: I mean, there are places in Atlanta that are own
Speaker 3: for they will project like Santo movies on the wall
Speaker 3: or that's yeah, thumbs up, thumbs out to that.
Speaker 2: That's my preference. And I think Netflix has three or
Speaker 2: four old movies. Maybe it's not to two. I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: but you know, there's still some good stuff they could
Speaker 2: be playing. And I do realize that, you know, from
Speaker 2: a business standpoint, most of these places do have to
Speaker 2: have some televisions. Like it's enough, customers are going to
Speaker 2: want that, you're going to need to have the sports.
Speaker 2: On that being said, you can overdo it.
Speaker 3: Seems like a reason to revive the old like smoking
Speaker 3: non smoking division, except you just have a TV non
Speaker 3: TV section of the restaurant.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I would be all up for it or
Speaker 2: the other way Santo non santo.
Speaker 3: Right, anyway, thanks again, Megan, great email. Okay, this next
Speaker 3: message is the first one for today that's going to
Speaker 3: get into our episodes on Pretend Play and Imaginary Friends. Now,
Speaker 3: we got a bunch of response to that. We're not
Speaker 3: going to be able to cover them all today. I'm
Speaker 3: sure that will extend into our next listener Mail episode
Speaker 3: whenever that is. But this first message is from Liz.
Speaker 3: Liz says, Dear Robert and Joe. I've been enjoying the
Speaker 3: recent series on Play, especially this last episode about imaginary friends,
Speaker 3: which as a child I called clear people.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, oh, I love that.
Speaker 3: I guess I equated imaginary with invisible and invisible with
Speaker 3: seathrough several years ago now, I read a short story
Speaker 3: called A Day with Cyrus Mayer by Alex Pugsley, where
Speaker 3: the child narrator describes, quote the imaginary kid, a character
Speaker 3: in my own private mythology who ran along the side
Speaker 3: of the highway keeping pace with my family's car on
Speaker 3: road trips, and I had this moment of recognition. I
Speaker 3: used to imagine my clear people doing that, or sometimes
Speaker 3: zipping along power lines on tiptoes to keep up looking
Speaker 3: forward to the next episode. Liz, that's amazing, and I
Speaker 3: want to come back to that. But Liz has a PS.
Speaker 3: Also PS. I've been meaning to write with this weird
Speaker 3: house cinema suggestion for years, ever since my mom, now
Speaker 3: in her sixties, told me about this bizarre movie she
Speaker 3: watched at a sleepover in high school. It seems to
Speaker 3: have gone by two different titles. That's I don't know
Speaker 3: I'm looking at this, is that seven S's in a
Speaker 3: row amazing title or four s's at the beginning snake.
Speaker 3: I have no idea how difficult it would be to
Speaker 3: stream or get your hands on a copy, but it
Speaker 3: sounds nice and weird. Well, thank you so much, Liz, Yeah, great,
Speaker 3: great comments throughout. First of all, this is funny because
Speaker 3: it's like this is making me question my own memories
Speaker 3: of childhood. I don't recall ever really having an imaginary friend,
Speaker 3: as I said in the episode. But when you talked
Speaker 3: about the imaginary friend running outside along the highway to
Speaker 3: keep up with the car or zipping along through the
Speaker 3: air to keep up with the car, that that was
Speaker 3: like a lightning bolt in my brain. It was like,
Speaker 3: I remember that, and yet I don't remember having an
Speaker 3: imaginary friends. So I don't know what this is. Maybe
Speaker 3: this is just spurring a false memory because of the
Speaker 3: vividness of it. But this, yeah, I felt this rumbling
Speaker 3: in my in my heart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, vaguely stirs something in my recollection as well. Maybe
Speaker 2: something going on early as we adjust to the weirdness
Speaker 2: of writing and high speed vehicles and then we lose
Speaker 2: the novelty of it. As as we grow older. Now,
Speaker 2: as for yes, this is a this is a pretty
Speaker 2: fun movie. There was a MSG three K treatment of
Speaker 2: this many years back, and that's the only way I've
Speaker 2: ever seen it, but I remember it within that context
Speaker 2: is being pretty fun and it's got I think Red
Speaker 2: Brown's in it in a supporting role, so it's got
Speaker 2: that going for it. Perfect that snake man.
Speaker 3: I've been thinking that at some point we need to
Speaker 3: do like a month of Reb Brown, because you know,
Speaker 3: we've done themes before. We've done like tiny People movies
Speaker 3: back to back, and I think we could do a
Speaker 3: Reb Brown theme. I've definitely been wanting to do one
Speaker 3: of the non MCU Captain America movies, and one of
Speaker 3: them stars Reb Brown.
Speaker 2: There's another.
Speaker 3: Then there's the other one directed by Albert Payune in
Speaker 3: like nineteen ninety or whatever. I've seen the latter, not
Speaker 3: the former, but I want to talk about them both.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're a number of Reb I don't we haven't
Speaker 2: done a Reb Brown film, have we. I don't recall.
Speaker 2: I think he's just come up in Connections. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean so many strong, strong film choices there, including
Speaker 2: of course Space Mutiny, You're the Hunter, from the Future.
Speaker 3: That's right, We've never covered it on the show, but
Speaker 3: I know I've talked about Your Hunter from the Future
Speaker 3: many times. I think it is my favorite leather diaper
Speaker 3: barbarian movie. So it's got all the barbarian tropes. It's
Speaker 3: got him in the in the you know, speed out
Speaker 3: in the leather speedo killing dinosaurs with a sword. But
Speaker 3: it also is Star Wars. The villain of Your Hunter
Speaker 3: from the Future is Darth Vader.
Speaker 2: Well, you know is actually Red Brown's cinematic debut. Yeah,
Speaker 2: seventy three amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I have to Okay, we're gonna watch it.
Speaker 2: Then.
Speaker 3: I've never seen the MST so I'll be coming and clean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I vague clear, ma, I just remember the creature mostly.
Speaker 3: All right, Rob, you want to read one of these
Speaker 3: next messages on Pretend to Play. I think we got
Speaker 3: a couple more here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's one from David. David rides in and says,
Speaker 2: dear Robin, Joe, I was listening with interest to your
Speaker 2: episodes on Pretend Play. I am currently through part two.
Speaker 2: My kids are now young adults at college or working,
Speaker 2: but my recollection of their Pretend Play. My older son
Speaker 2: had a plushy that he would often have dance around.
Speaker 2: My younger son usually didn't engage in the type of
Speaker 2: play that involved imaginary characters. During yourcussion of object substitution
Speaker 2: play and fully pretend play, I remember it as type
Speaker 2: of play storytelling we would do. That sort of fell
Speaker 2: between the two. Since the two of you have kids,
Speaker 2: I suspect you were aware of the Richard scary books.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, yeah, we have a number of those. We
Speaker 3: have one that's very popular. I think it's called Look
Speaker 3: What's Coming down the Road in Busy Town, and it's
Speaker 3: an alphabet book about different types of cars coming down
Speaker 3: the road. So there's an apple mobile and a banana mobile.
Speaker 3: Most of them are not real types of cars, but
Speaker 3: some are. I think at this firetruck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the apple mobile's driven by worm, I believe. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And there's like a xylophone mobile.
Speaker 2: Preposterous. Well, they continue For those who don't know, these
Speaker 2: are mostly picture books filled with complex scenes, usually of
Speaker 2: everyday life, such as shopping at a grocery store, workers
Speaker 2: at a construction site, or driving on the freeway, but
Speaker 2: with anthromorphized animals rabbits, bears, dogs instead of people. There
Speaker 2: would be a sentence or two of story for ea scene,
Speaker 2: but also most of the things in a scene would
Speaker 2: be labeled the common noun in courier font below the
Speaker 2: object in the picture. A favorite bedtime activity was, instead
Speaker 2: of simply my reading them the story in the book,
Speaker 2: to make up a story about the various characters in
Speaker 2: the book, but using the scenes or objects shown in
Speaker 2: the book. For example, I might ask where the animals
Speaker 2: are going to go today, and one would say the
Speaker 2: grocery store. So I would start by turning to a
Speaker 2: page showing the cross section of a house, point to
Speaker 2: an animal, say a dog shown sweeping in a bed,
Speaker 2: and tell a story about dog getting out of bed,
Speaker 2: taking a shower, going downstairs to have breakfast. Then I
Speaker 2: turned to another page that had a picture of another animal,
Speaker 2: say a rabbit driving a car, and I'd say something like,
Speaker 2: here's dog's friend, rabbit. He's a teenager, so he can
Speaker 2: drive a car, and then describe rabbit driving the car
Speaker 2: up to dog's house and dog getting in the car.
Speaker 2: Then I might ask a question for them to help
Speaker 2: form the story, like do they need to take the
Speaker 2: freeway to get to the grocery store? And if yes,
Speaker 2: I turned to the picture of the freeway and talk
Speaker 2: about them driving and some of the crazy things they'd see.
Speaker 2: I am interested in your reaction and thoughts here. It
Speaker 2: is sort of like your toy lightsaber example, and that
Speaker 2: there is a particular image of a thing, say the dog,
Speaker 2: that is part of the story, but then the activities
Speaker 2: in the story need to be imagined more like the
Speaker 2: fully pretend play. And as an even broader issue, did
Speaker 2: you come across any discussion in your research about the
Speaker 2: relationship of storytelling to theory of mine. I suspect that
Speaker 2: listening to stories, hearing descriptions of other characters making decisions
Speaker 2: based on their own emotions and own mental states would
Speaker 2: help children develop a theory of mine. Thanks for the
Speaker 2: great podcast and infotainment, David.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks for the message, David. In response to your
Speaker 3: later question about whether there's a link between storytelling and
Speaker 3: theory of mind, we did talk about that sum in
Speaker 3: at least one of the episodes in the series. I
Speaker 3: don't know if it was one of the ones you
Speaker 3: hadn't heard yet, but my memory of this issue is
Speaker 3: that essentially, yes, it does look based on so results
Speaker 3: like there could be a link there, but the evidence
Speaker 3: is sort of weak. So it's one of those things that, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's quite possible there's a link, but we shouldn't have
Speaker 3: super high confidence about that. I recall one of the
Speaker 3: things was just like a study actually not in children,
Speaker 3: but in adults that tried to see if there was
Speaker 3: any link between reading fiction and then better theory of
Speaker 3: mind skills and adults. And this study found that they
Speaker 3: at least thought that there was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but at any rate, I love this creative
Speaker 2: storytelling exercise of you using the Richard Scary books or
Speaker 2: anything like them to sort of come up with these
Speaker 2: little stories and decide what's happening. I recently granted this
Speaker 2: is my child is twelve going on thirteen now, But
Speaker 2: during the recent snow we busted out another one of
Speaker 2: these puzzles by the Magic Puzzle Company. You can look
Speaker 2: them up in the Magic Puzzle Company, and they have
Speaker 2: these one wonderful puzzles that are just so it's custom
Speaker 2: art work for the puzzle. It's not like some other
Speaker 2: piece of work that's been adapted to the puzzle. So
Speaker 2: they put a lot of effort into making sure that
Speaker 2: almost every piece has something interesting going on to it.
Speaker 2: Little pieces have cute little characters or mysterious little characters. Overall,
Speaker 2: very cute, very imaginative vibe, think like adventure time, that
Speaker 2: sort of thing, And they're a real joy to put
Speaker 2: together because everything seems to have a story, there's a
Speaker 2: big reveal that happens, and so you spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time with your family, friends, or fellow puzzlers whoever
Speaker 2: they happen to be not only piecing together the physical
Speaker 2: jigsaw puzzle, but also piecing together whatever kind of magical
Speaker 2: narrative seems to be happening. Who what are the factions here,
Speaker 2: what are they trying to do? Who is this guy?
Speaker 2: Who is this other guy? And so forth. So that
Speaker 2: experience reminds me a little bit about what you're talking
Speaker 2: about here. Well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also, David, I can say that we do
Speaker 3: a similar thing in our household. I don't think we
Speaker 3: get quite as elaborate with the you know, the the
Speaker 3: jumping off storytelling as you're describing here, at least not yet.
Speaker 3: But we do a lot of embellishing as we read books.
Speaker 3: So when I read a book to my daughter, I
Speaker 3: will ask her questions about things that are not contained
Speaker 3: in the story of the book. Is just like, oh,
Speaker 3: are these two characters friends? What do they do together?
Speaker 3: You know that kind of thing, And she does like
Speaker 3: to embellish on that sort of thing usually, you know,
Speaker 3: what do they do together?
Speaker 2: They play? What do they play? Dinosaurs? All right, what
Speaker 2: do we have next here? Oh, let's see.
Speaker 3: We got a message about pretend to play from frequent
Speaker 3: correspondent Renata. Renata says, Hi, guys, the topic of play,
Speaker 3: and particularly imaginative play, is near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 3: I could listen to ten stuff to blow your mind
Speaker 3: episodes on this topic and write you ten letters, but
Speaker 3: I'll try to keep it brief for now. First of all,
Speaker 3: I had a bee friend. Oh yeah, Rob, we talked
Speaker 3: about be friends. Ranada's befriend, She says. His name was Buzz. Basically,
Speaker 3: any rotund, bumblebee I found hanging on the side of
Speaker 3: the house was Buzz. I don't remember having in depth
Speaker 3: conversations with Buzz, but I acted as though he was
Speaker 3: a single bee who remembered me and was my friend.
Speaker 3: I also had a friend who was a ghost named Boo.
Speaker 3: I was not very creative with naming my imaginary friends.
Speaker 2: Apparently.
Speaker 3: I am the youngest of four and fairly sure. I'm
Speaker 3: the only one who had any imaginary friends. Incidentally, my father,
Speaker 3: in his sixties befriended a mouse he named Kluegie. My
Speaker 3: dad insists he was friends with this mouse for seven
Speaker 3: years and that he knew it was the same mouse
Speaker 3: because of a kink in its tail for a period
Speaker 3: of a couple of years. During this time, Kloogie did
Speaker 3: live in a cage but got loose often. I think
Speaker 3: that this gets at the blurriness you touched on concerning
Speaker 3: the subtle difference between a pet and an imaginary friend.
Speaker 3: In college, I spent a semester working with Pascal Boyer,
Speaker 3: who is well known for his work in the anthropology
Speaker 3: of religion, but at the time he was exploring children's
Speaker 3: beliefs about what objects can have sentients and how that
Speaker 3: relates to theory of mind. For example, why is the
Speaker 3: idea of a sentient helicopter perfectly acceptable to children? What
Speaker 3: can the sentient helicopter know and do that regular helicopters can't, And,
Speaker 3: as you bring up in the episode, how close do
Speaker 3: these pretend sentient objects come to being gods or spiritual beings?
Speaker 3: A related topic I like to ponder is why do
Speaker 3: children today love dinosaurs and vehicles like trucks and helicopters?
Speaker 3: Are they somehow easier to personify than other objects and animals?
Speaker 3: Before it was dinosaurs and trucks, What were kids obsessed with. Finally,
Speaker 3: I'm wondering, if you're going to touch on pro wrestle,
Speaker 3: maybe you still will. Ben has gotten me into wrestling,
Speaker 3: which we see in Milwaukee a couple of times a year,
Speaker 3: and we saw in Japan last summer. I find that
Speaker 3: being at a wrestling event is one of the few
Speaker 3: times as an adult that comes close to that feeling
Speaker 3: of pretend play from childhood. You brought up other types
Speaker 3: of adult play like theater and sports, and wrestling is
Speaker 3: definitely those things, but it's also an invitation to the
Speaker 3: audience to play and participate in the pretend That feels unique.
Speaker 3: My new favorite wrestler is Dan the Dad. His persona
Speaker 3: is he is your dad. Yes, it gets weird, but
Speaker 3: he probably got the most enthusiasm from the crowd at
Speaker 3: the last event we went to because he's a relatable character.
Speaker 3: You know, he's the good guy. No one wants to
Speaker 3: see their dad get punched anyway. Excited for the remainder
Speaker 3: of the pretend play episodes, and I couldn't wait to
Speaker 3: write in all the best renata m Rob, you're the
Speaker 3: one with the wrestling knowledge.
Speaker 2: I don't know Dan the dad, but I'm vaguely aware. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've never seen them perform, but yeah, there are a
Speaker 2: lot of kookie characters like this, especially in the ndie scene.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean you deal with something like wrestling,
Speaker 2: you're dealing with that, you know, that willing suspension of disbelief,
Speaker 2: which you know is obviously there in other mediums as well.
Speaker 2: It's certainly there in film, for example. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess there is something about like the live wrestling
Speaker 2: experience where the crowd is participating to a certain degree,
Speaker 2: they are engaged in the k fabe reality. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's probably worth thinking about. It does have its own
Speaker 2: sort of unique flavor that doesn't compare one to one
Speaker 2: with anything else out there. I mean, that's why it's
Speaker 2: so popular and it remains popular, and I think that's
Speaker 2: also why you do find plenty of examples of it
Speaker 2: sucking new people in. Like it's it's not just this
Speaker 2: niche thing that you have to have grown up up
Speaker 2: on it and be primed you know, I have no
Speaker 2: numerous people who take in a show when they go
Speaker 2: to say Mexico City, or they go to Tokyo or
Speaker 2: somewhere else in Japan, and you know, they have the
Speaker 2: opportunity to go to a live show and it's a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. So yeah, live pro wrestling is can
Speaker 2: be pretty neat, so you know, shop around, but try
Speaker 2: one out if you're interested.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people who are not into
Speaker 3: it and then first sort of discover it as adults
Speaker 3: are surprised to find how much drama there is in it,
Speaker 3: like comedy and drama. Like they think of it primarily
Speaker 3: just as the wrestling, the physical activity, you know, the
Speaker 3: moves and the flips and all that, and don't realize
Speaker 3: how much talking there is, and you know.
Speaker 2: That it's like a soap opera.
Speaker 3: There are these relationships and sort of hyping and talking
Speaker 3: up matches and establishing conflicts and that a lot of
Speaker 3: it is very funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, honestly some of the I haven't done tons
Speaker 2: of live but of the shows I've been to, the
Speaker 2: most fun I've found. The matches have all been like
Speaker 2: lower card matches, so not you know, it's not some
Speaker 2: sort of like a main storyline, not a not any
Speaker 2: kind of like a championship match, not even like you know,
Speaker 2: the top performers in a given promotion. But they're just
Speaker 2: putting on a fun match. They're engaging with the crowd
Speaker 2: to a certain degree. They're throwing in some humor and
Speaker 2: some stupid slapstick. And really those are the matches that
Speaker 2: I've enjoyed the most, far more than any of the
Speaker 2: main events.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the lower card matches. Again, I don't have as
Speaker 3: much wrestling experience as you, but they seem to me
Speaker 3: often more like this is when you bring out the
Speaker 3: zany characters, like the you know, the equivalent the wrestling
Speaker 3: equivalent of the character in a Coen Brothers movie who
Speaker 3: has six lines, but as hilarious and you remember them exactly.
Speaker 2: All right, here's another and this one is in response
Speaker 2: to our episodes on Sacred Trees. This was another one
Speaker 2: of our series in the latter half of the previous year.
Speaker 2: This one comes to us from Rodri. Rodri writes in
Speaker 2: and says, Hi, Robert, Joe, and JJ I've been a
Speaker 2: listener since the stuff from the Science Lab days. That
Speaker 2: was the original title of this podcast. This podcast feed
Speaker 2: back in the very early days, back when you really
Speaker 2: had to describe and explain what a podcast was to
Speaker 2: everyone you knew they continue, but I've never had a
Speaker 2: good enough reason to contribute to listener mail. That all
Speaker 2: changed when I heard the episodes on Sacred Trees and
Speaker 2: especially in light of Robert Trees and exploits in Wales.
Speaker 2: I live in Swansea in South Wales and grew up here.
Speaker 2: When we were kids, our dad often took my brother
Speaker 2: and I to visit all kinds of natural and historical
Speaker 2: places in South and West Wales. One of these places
Speaker 2: of interest was a small eleventh century church in the
Speaker 2: village of Nevern. Never In is situated in the west
Speaker 2: of Whales, in an area rich in historical and natural wonders.
Speaker 2: Apart from the castles and dramatic landscapes, it is near
Speaker 2: to the site where the famous bluestones of Stonehenge were quarried.
Speaker 2: It is still something of a mystery how the two
Speaker 2: to five ton stone pillars were transported five thousand years
Speaker 2: ago the one hundred and eighty miles from the Priscilli
Speaker 2: Hills to Stonehenge. The reason he took us there was
Speaker 2: to see the bleeding yew tree in Saint Brannock's Church.
Speaker 2: The tree is one of four gnarled and ancient ewes
Speaker 2: lining the path to the church, each said to be
Speaker 2: seven hundred years old. The blood oozes from the sight
Speaker 2: of an amputated limb a dark red sap that leaves
Speaker 2: vivid streaks down the trunk. You wood is red, but
Speaker 2: the sap is usually white. So there has been no
Speaker 2: satisfactory explanation for the phenomenon. It has of corresponded many legends.
Speaker 2: The most popular reason is that the tree started bleeding
Speaker 2: in sympathy for Jesus as he was crucified. Sounds likely.
Speaker 2: I think that's probably it. Continue. The church itself has
Speaker 2: many other historic features, several inscriptions written within the church
Speaker 2: written in Augham, the ancient Celtic writing system, and a
Speaker 2: large stone cross decorated with intricate Celtic not designs. But
Speaker 2: as the Never and Castle website laments quote, the church
Speaker 2: has become a favorite on the tourist trail in West Wales.
Speaker 2: The numbers signing the visitor's book would suggest about fifteen
Speaker 2: thousand a year. Unfortunately, their interest is drawn to the
Speaker 2: so called bleeding you more than the Christian heritage and
Speaker 2: relevance of the place. They're mad. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 2: accept any blame that may be appropriate for being a
Speaker 2: tourist in Wales, though I don't think I know we
Speaker 2: did not get to see the bleeding YOUW tree. I
Speaker 2: would have probably gone for it. Sorry. You trees are
Speaker 2: commonly found in graveyards throughout the UK, Ireland and parts
Speaker 2: of Europe, and the folklore surrounding the species is fascinating,
Speaker 2: worthy of another episode in the Sacred Tree series. If
Speaker 2: I may be so bold, you was doxically symbolic of
Speaker 2: good and bad luck, of death or eternal life. The
Speaker 2: U is one of Ireland's five magical trees, and there
Speaker 2: are many suggestions why they are so often found in cemeteries.
Speaker 2: Norman churches were often located near the sites of older
Speaker 2: sacred temples, and the U was imported to Druids, who
Speaker 2: viewed it as an emblem of the soul's immortality. It
Speaker 2: has been proposed that because you would was used to
Speaker 2: make long bows, planting them could provide a supply to
Speaker 2: protect the church and surrounding areas. Another idea is that
Speaker 2: they were grown to discourage local farmers grazing their livestock
Speaker 2: in the church grounds. According to Britain's Best Guides dot
Speaker 2: Org quote, there have been many practical reasons for planting
Speaker 2: ewes near to dead bodies. U seeds, needles, and bark
Speaker 2: carry an alkaloid poison called taxine that would kill cattle
Speaker 2: that graze on them. According to one study, a dose
Speaker 2: of one hundred grams of chopped leaves could kill an adult.
Speaker 2: That's a fine reason to keep cattle out of graveyards,
Speaker 2: helping to preserve the ground and the bodies beneath. Some
Speaker 2: people even believe that the ues produced these poisons from
Speaker 2: the vapors escaping from the graves. The toxicity was well known.
Speaker 2: The witches in Shakespeare's Metbeth concoct a poisonous brew, including
Speaker 2: slips of U silvered in the moon's eclipse. Really, rodri
Speaker 2: here has done our research for us here. There's some
Speaker 2: more material there sighting here. In her book The Folklore
Speaker 2: of Plants, Margaret Baker says, quote, Finnman believed that witches
Speaker 2: sheltered under ues, and sensible people should avoid them. In Brittany,
Speaker 2: a churchyard, U spread a root to the mouth of
Speaker 2: every corpse buried there sprigs of you hang from Spanish
Speaker 2: balconies against lightning and hebridine thatch against fire over the
Speaker 2: kneading trough Easter gathered you prevents heavy bread. Hmm, hey,
Speaker 2: don't want that heavy bread. How Marie Trevelyan wrote in
Speaker 2: Folklore and Folk Stories of Whales in nineteen oh nine, quote,
Speaker 2: the U was regarded as the gentle guardian of the
Speaker 2: dead and was formally revered so much in Wales that
Speaker 2: to cut it down was considered an act of desecration,
Speaker 2: while to burn any part of it was looked upon
Speaker 2: as sacrilege. I could go on, but I'm in danger
Speaker 2: of getting lost down this rabbit hole forever, so I'll
Speaker 2: leave it there. Cheers Rodri.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much, Rodri. Amazing message and full
Speaker 3: of interesting folklore there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually I remember looking a bit at the U tree
Speaker 3: when we were doing the Sacred Trees episode, but didn't
Speaker 3: end up selecting that as my main research focus.
Speaker 2: But we could absolutely come back to that, absolutely. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I too glanced at some of the sources on the you.
Speaker 2: Some of the sources I was looking at regarding the
Speaker 2: trees we did cover like they also discussed the U.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, all right, this next message comes to
Speaker 3: us from Jeff. This is in response to a few
Speaker 3: different things. One is our Christmas is an episode on
Speaker 3: Christmas Trees in the Deep in which we talked about
Speaker 3: the biology of various undersea organisms like certain tube worms
Speaker 3: and seaweed which resemble or are named after Christmas decorations.
Speaker 3: This one also touches on rock and roll, wolf and
Speaker 3: other subjects. Jeff says subject line Easter eggs and Troubled Kids.
Speaker 3: Hey guys, just catching up on the holiday episodes. Your
Speaker 3: episode on Sunken Christmas Trees reminded me of something I
Speaker 3: saw regarding the harvesting of herring eggs in Sitka Sound
Speaker 3: in Alaska, although this is done closer to Easter than Christmas.
Speaker 3: When the herring spawn in the springtime, the locals will
Speaker 3: submerge stuff such as kelp tree branches and sometimes entire
Speaker 3: trees in the sound. The herring eggs will stick to
Speaker 3: anything in the water, and when they're pulled up, they
Speaker 3: look like they've been tinseled or maybe timpurud. With glistening
Speaker 3: fish eggs. They look absolutely delicious and are considered quite
Speaker 3: the treat. Although I suppose it's also possible that it's
Speaker 3: a super fishy acquired taste situation.
Speaker 2: I hope to find out someday.
Speaker 3: And then Rabbi looked up an image of this and
Speaker 3: included it here in the outline. So this is somebody
Speaker 3: who has submerged some tree branches, look like some spruce branches,
Speaker 3: into the water and pulled them up. I perfectly described
Speaker 3: to Jeff. They looked tempora battered and fried.
Speaker 2: They really did look delicious.
Speaker 3: Making me hungry right now, crunchy. Then Jeff goes on
Speaker 3: even more tangentially. In the Weird House episode on Rock
Speaker 3: and Roll Wolf, you discussed the fairy tale of the
Speaker 3: Wolf and the Seven Kids. This is the fairy tale
Speaker 3: that that movie was loosely based on. Jeff says, I
Speaker 3: don't think this one is very popular in America, and
Speaker 3: I certainly never heard of it when I was a kid.
Speaker 3: It's interesting how some oji Esop's fables and grim tails
Speaker 3: resonate in some cultures but not others. Now, Jeff has
Speaker 3: some other great stuff in this message, but I'm gonna
Speaker 3: skip over it because it contained some spoilers for a
Speaker 3: Japanese novel. The novel is called The Lonely Castle in
Speaker 3: the Mirror by an author named Mizuki Sujimura, and apparently
Speaker 3: there's also an anime film adaptation of this novel. I'm
Speaker 3: not familiar at all, but it sounds very interesting based
Speaker 3: on Jeff's description, and apparently the fairy tale The Wolf
Speaker 3: and Seven Goats plays a role in.
Speaker 2: The plot of this story.
Speaker 3: But Jeff wraps up by saying, anyway, that was quite
Speaker 3: the digression. But what I really meant to say was
Speaker 3: thanks for all the mental stimulation you gift us with
Speaker 3: every week looking forward to a new year of stuff. Jeff,
Speaker 3: thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Jeff. Yeah, awesome. I had to look up this manga
Speaker 2: and film adaptation. I'm not familiar with these, but I'll
Speaker 2: have to put it on the list. There's so many,
Speaker 2: so much great Japanese media that I still need to
Speaker 2: get to. I'm constantly adding new things. I just watched
Speaker 2: Cats on Park Avenue, though, so I'm one ahead on
Speaker 2: all the great Japanese classics, especially in terms of cat
Speaker 2: based musicals. I'm gonna have to check that one out.
Speaker 2: It's very sweet. If you want a what an eighties
Speaker 2: musical that's all about street cats, It's it's really the
Speaker 2: only film for you. Perfect all right, Let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and skip on to some Weird House cinema listener mail.
Speaker 2: This one comes to us from Stephen. Steven says, Hey,
Speaker 2: Joe and Robert, I have to say your episode's on
Speaker 2: Weird House are so in depth, colorful, thorough and engaging
Speaker 2: that I often don't feel a need to go watch
Speaker 2: the movies you discuss. Well, I don't know. It feels
Speaker 2: like it's kind of a failure on our part. Then wait,
Speaker 2: is it? You can watch them if you want to,
Speaker 2: not if you don't, But I don't want to make it.
Speaker 2: You know, the situation where people like I don't need
Speaker 2: to watch that now because they watched it for me.
Speaker 2: I guess it's fine, But anyway, Stephen says, this is
Speaker 2: because your journey through the movies is an artful form
Speaker 2: of entertainment all on its own. I sometimes think watching
Speaker 2: the film would be a disappointment after the movie that's
Speaker 2: played in my head listening to you guys discussing it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Steven, You're very kind. I guess I can imagine.
Speaker 2: It does remind me, for instance, of the example of
Speaker 2: growing up hearing other kids talk about horror movies that
Speaker 2: I hadn't seen. And you know what I ended up
Speaker 2: in my building, up in my head was far more
Speaker 2: frightening than anything that was actually in most of these films.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's true. I think we've discussed that before.
Speaker 3: You know, one thing I will say, playing off of
Speaker 3: Stephen's comment here, is that I think that how good
Speaker 3: our weird house cinema episodes are is not necessarily related
Speaker 3: to how good the movie is. You know, Like I
Speaker 3: feel like some of my favorite episodes that we've done
Speaker 3: have been about some of the Duller movies that we've covered.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they just are fun to talk about.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean, in a great movie, it might
Speaker 2: make for a really fun episode and that we really
Speaker 2: get to gush about it, or maybe it has really
Speaker 2: interesting connections, or there's some sort of social commentary going on.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of fun to discuss. But I don't know,
Speaker 2: there are plenty of films and great weird films that
Speaker 2: we haven't covered in part because it's like, well it's great,
Speaker 2: we talk about how great it is. But I don't know,
Speaker 2: you have to find the right balance.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't mean to suggest the inverse either.
Speaker 3: I don't think the worse a movie is the better
Speaker 3: an episode.
Speaker 2: It makes.
Speaker 3: It just feels like is kind of unrelated to the
Speaker 3: quality of the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree, all right, Steven continues says, Anyway,
Speaker 2: I have to recommend a movie for you. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure it's up to snuff for an episode, but I
Speaker 2: do think it's so outlandish, derivative and not quite brilliant
Speaker 2: that I have to at least tell you about it.
Speaker 2: It's called Revenge of the Radioactive Reporter nineteen ninety. I
Speaker 2: watched it almost the whole way through, and every couple
Speaker 2: of minutes some action or line of dialogue was so
Speaker 2: stupid that I was surprised constantly and even laughed a
Speaker 2: fair amount, probably an uncomfortable laugh, but laughter. Nonetheless, I'd
Speaker 2: caught it for free last year in English on YouTube,
Speaker 2: but I think it's been removed. I hope you can
Speaker 2: find a decent copy of it, queue it up for someone,
Speaker 2: and enjoy the odd rid it offers. Thanks for so
Speaker 2: many years of high quality edutainment on your show. Whenever
Speaker 2: someone asked me what podcast I listened to, Yours is
Speaker 2: the first I mentioned, Stephen, Are you not edutained? Well,
Speaker 2: I have never heard of this film. I'm looking at
Speaker 2: it now, and I recognize no one involved in it,
Speaker 2: so I am intrigued on that alone. Yeah, from the
Speaker 2: director of nothing else that I've seen.
Speaker 3: Thank you for the recommendation, Stephen. We'll have to give
Speaker 3: it a look. Oh, here's a very brief message from
Speaker 3: a different Stephen.
Speaker 2: Stephen All.
Speaker 3: The message says is I recently watched Dracula's Dog aka
Speaker 3: Zoltan colon hound of Dracula and feel it would be
Speaker 3: right up your guys, Ali, your guys Ali. And then
Speaker 3: Stephen this difference even just attaches a poster where we
Speaker 3: get Dracula's dog and kind of the oh, is that
Speaker 3: a calligraphy font or is that in frocture perhaps you know,
Speaker 3: it's something that looks like pen strokes. And then we
Speaker 3: get Dracula standing in a big ball of fire and
Speaker 3: he's got his arms outstretched and a head of a
Speaker 3: Doberman or something like that in the foreground, with pure
Speaker 3: white eyes and fangs.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The the tagline is there's more to the legend than
Speaker 3: meets the throat.
Speaker 2: Very clever.
Speaker 3: This has come up on the show several times. We
Speaker 3: keep getting connections to Dracula's Dog.
Speaker 2: How do we get there? I don't remember the exact connections,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's come up a number of times. I
Speaker 2: think I falsely referred to it as Zoltan Colon Dracula's
Speaker 2: actual dog once, so that that alternative titles stuck in
Speaker 2: my head. It's just such a ridiculous concept, and I
Speaker 2: am intrigued. I love I love the Dracula adaptation, but
Speaker 2: I really love of Dracula adaptations that are multiple steps
Speaker 2: removed from the source material.
Speaker 3: It's absurd, but it's also a logical progression because you
Speaker 3: get right of Frankenstein, then you get son of Frankenstein,
Speaker 3: daughter of Dracula. You kind of exhaust all of the
Speaker 3: immediate family relations there, and so what's next. Are you
Speaker 3: gonna go uncle of Dracula, No, you go Dracula's dog.
Speaker 2: Plus, it also seems like it's maybe a crossover situation
Speaker 2: here with this film, because it is definitely a vampire film,
Speaker 2: but it's also like a nineteen seventies doberman'sploitation picture, you know,
Speaker 2: I feel like there were a lot of scary Doberman's
Speaker 2: going on in nineteen seventies motion pictures. I guess I'm
Speaker 2: thinking mostly like the Boys from Brazil, but there are
Speaker 2: multiple other examples that I feel like some chase James
Speaker 2: Bond a little later in the nineteen eighties, but.
Speaker 3: In Moonrakers Drags You'd played by Michael Lonsdale.
Speaker 2: He's got a couple of killer dogs that in that.
Speaker 3: I watched a lot of James Bond movies when I
Speaker 3: was a kid. I don't know if that was a
Speaker 3: good influencer not probably not. But one thing I really
Speaker 3: remember being scary was that there's like a lady in
Speaker 3: moon Breaker who the villain just like sicks his dogs
Speaker 3: on to kill her.
Speaker 2: It was horrifying. Yeah, Like growing up watching that and
Speaker 2: various other seventies pictures prepared me for the idea that
Speaker 2: Doberman's were scary monsters. And then when I think it
Speaker 2: was when I first started seeing my future wife, her
Speaker 2: parents had I just completely terrifying Doberman to be clear,
Speaker 2: Like I think, you know a Doberman that had been
Speaker 2: through a lot before it was adopted, you know, but
Speaker 2: more afraid of people than I was of it. But
Speaker 2: I was pretty afraid of it because I found this
Speaker 2: Doberman rather terrifying, and it seemed to back up everything
Speaker 2: that these films taught me. To believe about them. That
Speaker 2: doberman eventually died and they got a new Doberman who
Speaker 2: was very sweet, So that changed. That helped soothe my
Speaker 2: understanding of the breed. Dracula's dog. However, Zultan does look
Speaker 2: like a complete nightmare. This is a bad dog. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Does it not matter if you hold out your hand
Speaker 3: to let him sniff you first, all the etiquette fails.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't invite him in. Oh here's another one, another
Speaker 2: weird house when this one comes from Dick subject, didn't
Speaker 2: everyone's ancestors come over on the sandwich? There? Am I
Speaker 2: missing something? Kudos on your excellent episode on Innerspace. I
Speaker 2: never thought of it as a weird house type film,
Speaker 2: but there it was. Ride in plain sight this whole
Speaker 2: time special thanks to David Streepy. Great job. Yeah, this
Speaker 2: was a weird house episode where David Streepy friend and
Speaker 2: fellow podcasts who joined me on the show to discuss
Speaker 2: let him pick out a film. He picked Innerspace and yeah, Interspace,
Speaker 2: whatever your memories of it are, it's a pretty weird film.
Speaker 2: It's pretty bonkers and has a one of the stranger
Speaker 2: love trying I think ever committed to cinema.
Speaker 3: Is that the shrink and go inside a body movie
Speaker 3: that's intentionally funny, or the one that's not intentionally fun.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's it's intentionally funny. It's Joe Dante, so it
Speaker 2: does you know, it certainly doesn't reach Grimlins two heights
Speaker 2: of hilarity, but it goes for it. It's it's pretty
Speaker 2: bonkers and just keeps laying, adding layer upon layer of bonkers.
Speaker 2: And the reference didn't Everyone's ancestors come over on the
Speaker 2: sandwich that's from Futurama. We were talking about how we
Speaker 2: haven't really had a shrink movie in a while with
Speaker 2: miniaturization and then insert into the human body, but over
Speaker 2: in previous decades, and I guess this is several decades
Speaker 2: back now. With a Futurama example, you did have that
Speaker 2: episode where Fry gets intestinal worms from eating a sandwich
Speaker 2: that he buys out of a I believe a bathroom
Speaker 2: condom machine, and he gets the worms. The worms make
Speaker 2: him super intelligent, and his friends have to go in
Speaker 2: and like take out the warm colony.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I was just trying to think of the name
Speaker 3: of this other movie. The other shrink can go inside
Speaker 3: a body in a submarine movie. Is it Fantastic Voyage that's.
Speaker 2: Got rockel welch. Yes, Yeah, Fantastic Voyage is the big one,
Speaker 2: and that's the granddaddy of all miniaturization films. I was
Speaker 2: a huge fan of that one growing up. I read
Speaker 2: Isaac Asimov's novelization. Yeah, I mean that without Fantastic Voyage
Speaker 2: you wouldn't have things like Innerspace obviously, but I haven't
Speaker 2: seen nineteen sixty six. Is Fantastic Voyage in quite a while?
Speaker 2: Probably merits a revision. Donald Pleasance is in it. That's right,
Speaker 2: all right. Well, on that note, we're gonna ahead wrap
Speaker 2: up this episode of Stuff to Will Your Mind. Listener mail,
Speaker 2: We'll be back with a new core episode this Thursday.
Speaker 2: I think it'll I think you'll find it to be
Speaker 2: a sweet selection. In the meantime, feel free to write
Speaker 2: in with other thoughts on any of the episodes we
Speaker 2: talked about here, any of the topics we talked about
Speaker 2: here past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Weird House, Artifact,
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, It's all fair game, as well as recommendations
Speaker 2: or suggestions for future episodes films for Weird House. All
Speaker 2: of it is fair game. Let's see a few links
Speaker 2: to throw out. We're on Instagram, STBYM Podcasts. You can
Speaker 2: find us there. You can find us on multiple social
Speaker 2: media accounts. We haven't added any new ones. I know
Speaker 2: there's a lot of energy out there to sign up
Speaker 2: for new things. I don't know that I have that
Speaker 2: energy to sign up for new things, but the accounts
Speaker 2: that exist are being updated. For Weird House Cinema, we
Speaker 2: are on letterboxed. You can find us there. Our username
Speaker 2: is weird House and that's a cool way to keep
Speaker 2: up with what we're doing on the Weird House Cinema episodes.
Speaker 2: We have an ongoing list of all the movies we've
Speaker 2: covered over the years, as well as sometimes a peek
Speaker 2: ahead at what's coming up next.
Speaker 3: Oh hey, and can we add While we're talking about
Speaker 3: following accounts, it's a great thing to just subscribe to
Speaker 3: our feed and get all the episodes right in your
Speaker 3: podcast app if obviously, if you don't want to, you
Speaker 3: don't have to. But if you're an a la cart
Speaker 3: listener and you like the show you want to help
Speaker 3: us out, A good thing you could do would just
Speaker 3: be subscribe. Make sure you're always getting new episodes when
Speaker 3: they when they publish.
Speaker 2: That's right. That's ultimately more important than all the social
Speaker 2: media nonsense.
Speaker 3: Yes, huge, Thanks as always to our excellent audio producer
Speaker 3: JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 3: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com.
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