Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's trying to come, but she's had car trouble.
Speaker 2: I guess either way, she's here in spirit, the Christmas spirit,
Speaker 2: and this is the stuff you should know.
Speaker 3: That's right, the Holiday spectacular and a couple of traditions
Speaker 3: here is that this episode has brought to you ad
Speaker 3: free and also no one exactly by us. And then
Speaker 3: also we have managed to work it out. I don't
Speaker 3: know about every year, but it seems like every year
Speaker 3: where this is the last episode that we record of
Speaker 3: our recording year, and it's so great and so fun
Speaker 3: wind it down this way.
Speaker 2: It's such a special tradition. And Chuck, I'm really excited
Speaker 2: about this particular one because this is a good a
Speaker 2: good combination, a good assemblage of stuff. I guess you
Speaker 2: could say, but like add some hally to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I also realize when you sent your stuff over,
Speaker 3: I was like, hey, we kind of have a theme
Speaker 3: for one of yours and one of mine, yeah, which
Speaker 3: is you know, like sugary confections from different parts of
Speaker 3: the world, right, so those are kind of fun. Maybe
Speaker 3: we should do those back to back.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I think that's a good idea. And then
Speaker 2: also we have another theme movies, oh yeah, or Christmas specials.
Speaker 2: I don't know however you want to put it.
Speaker 3: That's right. Where should we start this year?
Speaker 2: Do you want to start with the cocktail so you
Speaker 2: can get cracked while we do this?
Speaker 3: Uh? Sure?
Speaker 2: Okay, well I think you should announce what's going on
Speaker 2: to everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what's happening is we usually try and source
Speaker 3: some sort of a holiday cocktail and tell you how
Speaker 3: to make it. Sometimes we make it and have it
Speaker 3: on our own. And this year we had someone send
Speaker 3: in a holiday cocktail. A few months ago, we got
Speaker 3: an email from somebody named Holly Iten Miller.
Speaker 2: I think you nailed it.
Speaker 3: And this is a drink that Holly invented called hang
Speaker 3: on your hats here Grandma's Christmas Breath.
Speaker 2: That's so great. One thing I've noticed when you look
Speaker 2: around and read Christmas stuff and try to find Christmas stuff,
Speaker 2: Grandma is almost invariably portrayed as a drunk.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't really, I wasn't sure what the breath
Speaker 3: would be, but I guess boozy breath. That makes sense.
Speaker 2: Boozy breath. Yeah, Like I found a recipe for something
Speaker 2: or other. It's like Grandma's version has like whiskey and
Speaker 2: roam in it. Yeah, everybody's grandma gets drunk. Apparently on Christmas.
Speaker 3: Well, our deer departed Grandma Mary, Emily's grandmother who was
Speaker 3: the senior general in the this stuff you shoot an
Speaker 3: army who passed away at the ripled age of one
Speaker 3: hundred and one when she was in her nineties, Like
Speaker 3: around Christmas, she would have a little Bailey's in her coffee.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, just a little touch every now and then,
Speaker 2: a little Christmas I ree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I guess Christmas time, I don't know equals
Speaker 3: drug grandparents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how I'm taking I mean, Holly ititen Miller's
Speaker 2: the name of her recipe just says it all I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I asked Holly if there was a story
Speaker 3: behind it, but I did not hear back by recording time, so.
Speaker 2: She doesn't want to talk about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know what I'll do, I'll through the magic
Speaker 3: of editing. I'll pause and go get some ice. Oh okay,
Speaker 3: and then I'll be right back. But to your ears.
Speaker 3: I'll be back in like one second.
Speaker 2: Okay, hold on, do.
Speaker 3: You okay, I'm back everybody. I have my shaker with ice. Josh,
Speaker 3: why don't you read out the ingredients and I'll pour
Speaker 3: them up.
Speaker 2: Okay you ready? Yeah, prepare chuck. One shot of Captain
Speaker 2: Morgan gingerbread rum.
Speaker 3: Okay, So the story here is this stuff is really
Speaker 3: hard to find and I had to, oh yeah, get
Speaker 3: like a delivery service because I literally couldn't find it anywhere.
Speaker 2: Do you remember I tried to get liquor delivered to
Speaker 2: you as a condolence like a year ago, and it
Speaker 2: just did not work out. I tried like five different
Speaker 2: services and none of it worked.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that, but yeah, you know what I
Speaker 3: gave up. That's the thought that counts.
Speaker 2: I kept texting you like, are you gonna be home
Speaker 2: at six pm? Are you gonna be home at three
Speaker 2: am tomorrow? Are you gonna be home at noon today?
Speaker 3: Oh? No? Yeah? All right, So the gingerbread rum just
Speaker 3: went in. I took a little sniff and it smells
Speaker 3: cloyingly sweet.
Speaker 2: Oh it sounds delicious, but I could I could see that,
Speaker 2: all right?
Speaker 3: What's next?
Speaker 2: I also, I just want to make a little note here,
Speaker 2: A shot is very ambiguous. You could make a court
Speaker 2: size shot. You could make a little tiny shot like
Speaker 2: A shot is another way of putting one part.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I mean I I just use a standard
Speaker 3: bar jigger. So whatever the big side.
Speaker 2: Is, the big side is usually two ounce. Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: all right, this is gonna be quite a Christmas episode.
Speaker 2: The second ingredient, chuck, is one shot of Grand Marnier.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you just heard the cork pop, the infamous.
Speaker 2: Well hear it? Well, yeah, there's definitely two ounces.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying I'm gonna drink all of this, all right,
Speaker 3: what's next?
Speaker 2: As much orange juice as you wish. I would strongly
Speaker 2: recommend fresh squeezed. Anytime you're using citrus in a cocktail.
Speaker 2: Just do yourself a favor and squeeze at yourself. It's
Speaker 2: not that hard.
Speaker 3: All right. Well, can we pause so I can go
Speaker 3: to the grocery store. Yes, now, I'm gonna open up
Speaker 3: the old tropic anna that I just bought. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: I bought it a convenience store, or I would have
Speaker 3: gotten an orange. I'm just gonna do one shot of that. Okay,
Speaker 3: just go one one one. Okay, I think that's a
Speaker 3: great idea. And then do you have any ice on
Speaker 3: hand or do we need to wait around.
Speaker 2: For that too?
Speaker 3: That's what I got in the shaker.
Speaker 2: Okay, that Chuck's doing the next thing. Everybody shaking Grandma's
Speaker 2: Christmas press together.
Speaker 3: Should have this upper on the rocks. Probably on the rocks,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you got enough ice in there and
Speaker 2: this is boozy enough to go up.
Speaker 3: All right, I'll go up.
Speaker 2: Then we'll see and then we're going to all wait
Speaker 2: around here to see what Chuck thinks of this. And
Speaker 2: also I want to say I'm not drinking booze right now,
Speaker 2: but I'm putting away a most of a quart of
Speaker 2: eggnog as we speak.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's uh. I mean, the only reason I'm doing
Speaker 3: this is because I just felt like somebody should try
Speaker 3: this out on the air. And so here we go.
Speaker 3: Everybody a post production drum.
Speaker 2: Roll, didn't.
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: Ope, poor Hollie. She her Christmas dreams have just been dashed.
Speaker 3: No, it's not bad. I mean it is orange because
Speaker 3: the Gramona and the orange juice obviously, and it's not bad,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean, it's it's definitely like a festive
Speaker 3: holiday drink. I don't I would not recommend more than
Speaker 3: one of them.
Speaker 2: Oh is it pretty boozy?
Speaker 3: I mean it's pretty pretty, just sort of sweet. I
Speaker 3: got on your tolerance for sweet drinks.
Speaker 2: Is that room really coming through or is it getting
Speaker 2: missed in the orange?
Speaker 3: It could probably come through a little bit more so.
Speaker 3: I could probably add a little less orange juice if
Speaker 3: there were to be a next time.
Speaker 2: Or you could add more room.
Speaker 3: Well, let's let's not get carried away here.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well I say we move on. Speaking of carried away,
Speaker 2: let's carry ourselves away to the next segment. And as
Speaker 2: per Christmas tradition holiday show tradition, Jerry's going to add
Speaker 2: some really nice Christmas y intersticial music. So take it away, Jerry.
Speaker 2: All right, Chuck, how are you feeling good?
Speaker 3: And big thanks to Holly again for this for this drink.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we're gonna teach everybody how to play dirty
Speaker 2: Santa next. We're doing that with an assist from Nella
Speaker 2: Bailey McGoff. I'm pretty sure I'll tell you say her
Speaker 2: last name from Southern Living, who wrote a pretty top
Speaker 2: notch article on how to play this why to play it,
Speaker 2: And they even turned up what the origin of the name,
Speaker 2: because it's got a bunch of different names. White Elephant,
Speaker 2: apparently in the South were the ones who typically call
Speaker 2: it dirty Santa.
Speaker 3: Never heard of that.
Speaker 2: You've never heard of dirty Santa, That's all I've ever
Speaker 2: heard it. Well, aside from white.
Speaker 3: Elephant, I've only heard white elephant in what.
Speaker 2: About Yankee swap? That one's new to me.
Speaker 3: No, I've never heard that. One only heard white elephant
Speaker 3: when it comes to this kind of game.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I've heard Dirty Sanna and white elephant, but regardless,
Speaker 2: the white Elephant name seems to be the traditional name
Speaker 2: for this, which is it's kind of like it's a
Speaker 2: party game. You would play it like your holiday party,
Speaker 2: and in the spirit basically of Secret Sanna, where everybody
Speaker 2: gives somebody else a gift anonymously and then the person
Speaker 2: tries to guess who gave it to him. It's very
Speaker 2: nice and sweet. This is not well, it's not supposed
Speaker 2: to be mean or anything like that, but there's a
Speaker 2: lot there's some twists to it that make it dirty.
Speaker 3: That's right, because it involves the trading of gifts, which
Speaker 3: we'll get to the rules in a second, it can well,
Speaker 3: I'll mention that when we get to the trading part.
Speaker 3: But okay, yeah, the origins is interesting because I never
Speaker 3: knew this. As far as the white elephant name, supposedly
Speaker 3: it came from what is now Thailand, what was Siam
Speaker 3: back in the day, and the king of Siam was
Speaker 3: if he was annoyed, he might give someone an albino
Speaker 3: elephant if he didn't like them very much.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, But the key here was to the cordier
Speaker 2: who received this gift. I mean, this is a lavish gift,
Speaker 2: but it was a lavish gift that cost a lot
Speaker 2: and took a lot of effort to keep healthy and happy.
Speaker 2: So although it seemed like you would really gain the
Speaker 2: king's favor, the king was giving you a real problem
Speaker 2: to deal with for the rest of the elephant's life.
Speaker 2: So it's a pretty sharp little idea that Jil Brenner
Speaker 2: came up with. And that's where the name came from,
Speaker 2: White Elephant, right, yeah, okay, So getting onto the modern
Speaker 2: incarnation of it, I did not see who invented this.
Speaker 2: I guess the King of Siam did, but the modern
Speaker 2: incarnation I don't know where that came from. But there
Speaker 2: are basically wherever you look up rules for the white
Speaker 2: Elephant game, there's some that are just tried and true.
Speaker 2: They're just you're going to find them in any set
Speaker 2: of rules. One of the big ones is set a
Speaker 2: dollar limit. Yeah, you don't want some person just showing
Speaker 2: off their Christmas bonus by you know, they show up
Speaker 2: with a bunch of bang on olafs and speakers or
Speaker 2: something like that. You know, by setting a limit at
Speaker 2: like twenty bucks, you're making the people get kind of creative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the whole idea here is to have fun.
Speaker 3: So yeah, twenty bucks, I feel like is I mean,
Speaker 3: you can set it according to whatever you know, financial
Speaker 3: pool you're swimming in, but I feel like twenty dollars
Speaker 3: is a pretty good round number.
Speaker 2: Great. But yes, the cheaper, the lower the price limit,
Speaker 2: the more creative the people have to be to come
Speaker 2: up with something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. They give some tips here in this article
Speaker 3: which is kind of fun, which is to try and
Speaker 3: fool the unwrapper by wrapping it wrapping perhaps a small
Speaker 3: thing and some big elaborate package, or by if you
Speaker 3: get really creative, if you can even reshape something as
Speaker 3: far as the wrapping goes to where it looks like
Speaker 3: something else, like maybe a bottle of wine, when it
Speaker 3: in fact is just like a folded up whoopy cushion.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh that's a good one. Yeah, that's a great,
Speaker 2: great white elephant kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are probably only like five dollars.
Speaker 2: Right, so you well not in twenty twenty four, pal, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you want to in your invitation specify, yes, wrap it,
Speaker 2: get creative when you're wrapping, but do not put it
Speaker 2: to or from thing. This is all anonymous. And then
Speaker 2: everybody comes on the day of the party and they
Speaker 2: bring their gift wrapped and they put it in a
Speaker 2: pile the pool as some people call it. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: Nella Bailey McGoff specifies, do not put this area near
Speaker 2: your own family's real presence, because you don't want to
Speaker 2: mix up like that. And then once the everybody's assembled,
Speaker 2: and you're usually sitting around in a circle or something
Speaker 2: so everybody can see everybody else, you draw numbers from
Speaker 2: a hat, and the numbers in the hat number from
Speaker 2: one to the number of people playing, and everybody draws.
Speaker 3: A number that's right. So once you've drawn your number
Speaker 3: and are thus ordered in opening order number one. It's
Speaker 3: gonna grab a gift. They're gonna open it, they're gonna
Speaker 3: show everybody what it is. Oh my god, it's for
Speaker 3: whoopy cushions because they're well probably three these days, to
Speaker 3: hit that twenty dollars mark, right, and that's it. They
Speaker 3: got their gift. Everyone gets a good laugh. Next up
Speaker 3: is person number two, and this is when it gets
Speaker 3: interesting because person number two has a choice. They can
Speaker 3: pick a new gift from the pile, or they can
Speaker 3: go ahead and just steal that first gift if that
Speaker 3: is something that they actually want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's also an alternate set of rules that say
Speaker 2: everyone picks a gift first and then the stealing starts.
Speaker 2: But most of the time you can steal on that
Speaker 2: second turn. There's this is where it gets a little hazy.
Speaker 2: So let's say that you're five people into this, right,
Speaker 2: So person number five, it's their turn. If they go
Speaker 2: and steal person number four's gift. Now it's time for
Speaker 2: person number four to go steal somebody else's gifts, say
Speaker 2: person number two. Now person number two has to steal
Speaker 2: a gift, and this can just keep going on ad infinitum.
Speaker 2: So usually it's the third the third time a gift
Speaker 2: is stolen, the last person has to just go take
Speaker 2: a new gift from the pile. They don't get to
Speaker 2: stealer else and just keep going on and on and on. Right,
Speaker 2: And then there's some other restrictions on how many times
Speaker 2: a gift can be stolen or a person can be
Speaker 2: stolen from too, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean you can do house rules, of course or regional rules,
Speaker 3: but generally a gift can not be can be stolen
Speaker 3: no more than three times. If a gift is pronounced dead,
Speaker 3: that means you can't steal it anymore, and that that's
Speaker 3: after it's been stolen right three times? Oh oh after right, duh,
Speaker 3: after the three times it can no longer be stolen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And usually a person can only be stolen from
Speaker 2: three times as well. And then whatever gift they're holding
Speaker 2: on the last time that gets whatever gift they go
Speaker 2: steal from somebody else or pick, that's their gift to keep.
Speaker 2: So you can play strategically here. There's actually a gift
Speaker 2: there that you want, Like you really want that whoopee cushion.
Speaker 2: You can choose it as your last gift after you're dead, essentially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if your gift is stolen, you can't steal it
Speaker 3: right back. You have to steal another gift or choose
Speaker 3: from the pile. And is there are there any other variations?
Speaker 2: Yeah, essentially, once all of this continues on, Once this
Speaker 2: goes around and everybody say, you have fifteen people playing.
Speaker 2: After person fifteen's turn, you're back to person one because
Speaker 2: they had no choice. They had to choose a gift
Speaker 2: from the pile. Now it's their turn to decide to steal.
Speaker 2: And if they decide to keep their gift, and the
Speaker 2: game's over if they steal. It keeps going on until
Speaker 2: you finally reach somebody who goes, I'm good, I really
Speaker 2: love my whoope cushion. I'm keeping my gift. They the
Speaker 2: party's essentially over at that point because the excitement has
Speaker 2: been so charged that there's nothing you could possibly do
Speaker 2: to top it. After that.
Speaker 3: I don't know, you got those whoope cushions. I say,
Speaker 3: the party is just getting started.
Speaker 2: That's true, that's true. I mean I was thinking you
Speaker 2: could drink like gallons of Grandma's Christmas breath in it
Speaker 2: still wouldn't bring about the thrill that the White Elephant
Speaker 2: game can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, two quick things one thing I wanted to
Speaker 3: mention earlier on is I have seen this game go badly,
Speaker 3: Like if somebody really wants to keep something and it
Speaker 3: gets stolen, they get their feelings hurt. Boy, try and
Speaker 3: park that attitude at the door. Yeah, this is supposed
Speaker 3: to be fun. And if all of a sudden you're
Speaker 3: really getting mad because you didn't get that Whoopee cushion,
Speaker 3: then you know, do some self reflection on what you're
Speaker 3: bringing to the table.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I mean you can go buy a
Speaker 2: Whoopee cushion if you really need it.
Speaker 3: That's right. And the second thing I want to say,
Speaker 3: since you said gallons of this drink as I was
Speaker 3: drinking it, I think this would be really good as
Speaker 3: a punch. Like throw it in the punch bowl with
Speaker 3: some like cinnamon sticks and sliced oranges and some other
Speaker 3: like a bunch of ice, a bunch of ice and
Speaker 3: stuff like that, and I think it would make like
Speaker 3: a pretty pretty decent party punch.
Speaker 2: Actually, would you add soda water to it?
Speaker 3: I don't know. How does that hold up in a
Speaker 3: punch bowl?
Speaker 2: Well? Very well. I mean there's like a whole sprite
Speaker 2: high Sea punch camp that is like crazy for that stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's carbonated.
Speaker 3: All right, then I say, for four leaders of Topuchico
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, that sounds good. All right, Actually that
Speaker 2: sounds terrible. That'd be mineral water mixed with it. You
Speaker 2: just want plain club soda.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and what's like a red tinting like a high
Speaker 3: sea I guess so? But what's something that's not super
Speaker 3: sweet like campari? Would that change the taste a lot?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, definitely would. I have no idea what that
Speaker 2: would taste like after that.
Speaker 3: Point it would. It would be a little more festive
Speaker 3: as a punch. I think if it was red or.
Speaker 2: Green, yes, for sure. I get what you're saying. I
Speaker 2: guess it's kind of brown right now.
Speaker 3: I mean it's more orange.
Speaker 2: Oh it is actually orange.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, it looks like orange juice.
Speaker 2: Okay, well that's it for a white elephant. There is
Speaker 2: one one quote I wanted to read from Nella Bailey McGoff, boy,
Speaker 2: you know the do you know the one?
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure? Go ahead.
Speaker 2: They say that the mixture of gag gifts and gifts
Speaker 2: people actually want combined to make the nitro that fuels
Speaker 2: this amazing game. And I guess that Nella Bailey McGoff
Speaker 2: would be a really fun person to play White Elephant.
Speaker 3: Totally. I love it.
Speaker 2: Hey, let's hit the interstitial Christmas music again as we
Speaker 2: mosey on over to the next segment.
Speaker 3: All right, I'd say we move on to let's go
Speaker 3: ahead knock out our our two confections.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, which one do you want to do first?
Speaker 3: You know what, Let's start with Italy because this is
Speaker 3: also the thing that a listener sent in, which is
Speaker 3: really great. People are starting to help program the show
Speaker 3: because it gets really really hard to find new short
Speaker 3: Christmas stuff after all these years. But Carl with a
Speaker 3: K Hardin sent in a suggestion to do a short
Speaker 3: stuff on Pizzel pizze or pizzelle Pizzelle.
Speaker 2: I thought pizzello, Yeah, you just say it like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an Italian cookie that is enjoyed, you know,
Speaker 3: at different times of the air weddings and things, but
Speaker 3: really known as a Christmas or Easter cookie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know them as Christmas. I didn't realize they
Speaker 2: were Easter, but yeah, they're super Italian and they're so
Speaker 2: Italian that it shares a word with pizza. Yeah, PiZZ
Speaker 2: which means round and flat, which is pretty impressive that
Speaker 2: they fit round and flat into just one word.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: The L in pizzel means small and the ah in
Speaker 2: pizza means personal pan Right.
Speaker 3: Oh man, well done. That was pre thought of, I know,
Speaker 3: but it was still great, great delivery. Nothing wrong with
Speaker 3: writing a joke, my friend? All right, so such a fraud, No,
Speaker 3: not at all. Traditionally, black licorice or anise is the
Speaker 3: traditional flavor, but that's sort of the old world stuff.
Speaker 3: These days, you can flavor it with whatever you want.
Speaker 3: A lot of chocolate one's vanilla lemon's a very popular flavor.
Speaker 2: Gingerbread.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, I could dip it in this punch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds good. I also saw a savory one lemon dill.
Speaker 2: I'm not crazy about that, but that was the most
Speaker 2: exotic one I found.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw an Elk one, but that feels a
Speaker 3: little gamey for real.
Speaker 2: An Elk one? No, okay, because I was gonna say
Speaker 2: maybe it was a recipe from the Elks.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, sure, I get you. So.
Speaker 2: It's also really simple to make too. It's just like sugar, eggs, flour,
Speaker 2: maybe butter, maybe olive oil. If you really want to
Speaker 2: get Italian and then, like you said, some of those
Speaker 2: flavorings and then you make it essentially like an old
Speaker 2: timey waffle where you have a like two irons that
Speaker 2: usually have some sort of like like what is it
Speaker 2: boss relief emblem or symbol or shape or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that the dough cooks into, so it transfers as the
Speaker 2: shape to the dough as you're cooking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like the old world way. And I imagine a
Speaker 3: lot of just sort of traditional Italian family still do
Speaker 3: it this way. I mean they make machines like a
Speaker 3: waffle iron that you could do this in. But is
Speaker 3: the old school two cast iron plates like you said,
Speaker 3: that have those decorative designs and a lot of times
Speaker 3: it's a snowflake. For Christmas. Back in the old days,
Speaker 3: you could get like a family like a family plate
Speaker 3: made with your whatever about you, like your family cress
Speaker 3: maybe or a special date in your family or anything
Speaker 3: meaningful to your family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, picture of your grandma drunk at Christmas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, and then you can eat that drunk face.
Speaker 3: And then you cook those over an open flame, you know,
Speaker 3: like turning it over, you know, each side, each side.
Speaker 3: Let that thing cool off, and then you can do
Speaker 3: a lot of things with it. You can roll it
Speaker 3: up like a cone and put stuff in it. You
Speaker 3: can just sprinkle it with a little powdered sugar. You
Speaker 3: can saw one where you can use it as a
Speaker 3: like ice cream sandwich layer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the I don't know where you got this, but
Speaker 2: there's a nutella ice cream pizzel sandwich. I don't even
Speaker 2: know if this is a recipe, but you just alternate
Speaker 2: layers of pizzel, natella and whatever flavor ice cream you want.
Speaker 2: To stack it as high as you can get your
Speaker 2: mouth around, and there you go.
Speaker 3: It sounds delicious.
Speaker 2: Plus also, I mean, like a fresh pizzelle out of
Speaker 2: some hot iron sounds really really good. I mean even
Speaker 2: a stale pizzel is still kind of good.
Speaker 3: I don't think i've ever had one.
Speaker 2: Oh really, you should order some. They're everywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I figure this time of year.
Speaker 2: Huh, yeah, I would. I would treat yourself and do
Speaker 2: you in a nice one, the traditional kind. It's actually
Speaker 2: surprisingly good. I'm not crazy about a nie, but it's
Speaker 2: it's good in this context. Okay, and then gets something
Speaker 2: else that you know you're gonna like, like lemon or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna see if there's a good Italian bakery
Speaker 3: in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you go. But I mean even if there's not,
Speaker 2: I guarantee you can find these that like TJ Max
Speaker 2: if you want to.
Speaker 3: Like they're everywhere, right behind the blouse aisle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes mixed in with the blouses.
Speaker 3: Oh all right, so that's the pizzel. Should we move
Speaker 3: on to your le bouch de noel?
Speaker 2: Yes, I did not expect you to say it like that,
Speaker 2: but nicely done.
Speaker 3: How would you say it? What's the correct way? In
Speaker 3: other words?
Speaker 2: I mean you basically had it.
Speaker 3: I think it's bouche.
Speaker 2: I think so, But I know that bousch also is
Speaker 2: is a mouth?
Speaker 3: No? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure. So I could be miss miss saying it.
Speaker 2: It could be butchy.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, butchy noel.
Speaker 2: Right, and it's a yule log, but it's an edible
Speaker 2: yule log, and it's a really closely identified with France.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, uh, and it was not something you
Speaker 3: would eat in the old school tradition in France. What happened.
Speaker 3: It dates back to medieval times and you would get
Speaker 3: a real log of wood, usually a fruit tree or
Speaker 3: many times a fruit tree, and you would do that
Speaker 3: to let's say you wanted like a good apple harvest
Speaker 3: for the year to come, so you would use like
Speaker 3: an apple branch or log. You bring it home, you
Speaker 3: put that thing in the hearth, and the hearth is
Speaker 3: sort of where the family hung out, so it's just
Speaker 3: sort of the centerpiece there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then there were I think this actually is
Speaker 2: like a pagan right even that they would they would
Speaker 2: light this and it was supposed to last from Christmas
Speaker 2: through the New Year, so at least three days. If
Speaker 2: it didn't burn for three days, you did it wrong
Speaker 2: and your next year is going to suck. But if
Speaker 2: you could at least make it three days, yeah, you
Speaker 2: were probably going to choke to death on an apple
Speaker 2: the following year if it didn't make it three days.
Speaker 2: But if it makes it three days or longer, great,
Speaker 2: And so to kind of game the system. Usually your
Speaker 2: mule log would be like damp, like very green and
Speaker 2: very large, because that wouldn't be the only thing you
Speaker 2: were burning, like, you needed to cook, you needed to
Speaker 2: keep warm, so you had fires going this whole time.
Speaker 2: So you keep this log going for at least three
Speaker 2: days it had to be of a certain type.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm not sure if we mentioned you lighted
Speaker 3: on Christmas Eve, if you've really done your job well
Speaker 3: and you picked out the perfect log, maybe soaked it
Speaker 3: a little bit and gain the system. Like you said,
Speaker 3: that thing might burn to the new year, and I
Speaker 3: would guess the whole family just celebrates that that happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the ashes even are were thought to prevent
Speaker 2: lightning strikes, so you'd want to cover yourself in it
Speaker 2: anytime you went out in a rainstorm. I'm guessing they
Speaker 2: would use the coal and like medicinal preparations, all sorts
Speaker 2: of stuff. Right, it was a big deal. The problem
Speaker 2: is and our friend, well, I guess our online friend,
Speaker 2: this person that whose article we came across, Lucy Rose
Speaker 2: beyond brosche Brioche on frenchly dot com wrote a great
Speaker 2: article about this, and Lucy Rose said that eventually, over time,
Speaker 2: hearths just kind of started to disappear, Like so the
Speaker 2: center of the house where the mule log used to
Speaker 2: kind of do its thing at the end of the year,
Speaker 2: lost its setting. So people still kind of followed this tradition,
Speaker 2: but they would just set a log on the dinner
Speaker 2: table and and just look at it. They didn't set
Speaker 2: it on fire, so it lost a little something. And
Speaker 2: then eventually somebody was like, hey, why don't we eat
Speaker 2: that thing. Let's make an edible version of this and
Speaker 2: eat it. And that's where the bouche de noel came from.
Speaker 3: That's right. That happened sometime in the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3: Apparently a gentleman named Pierre la Com published the first
Speaker 3: recipe for that in eighteen ninety, and it started spreading
Speaker 3: around to other cultures, other cultures that either spoke French
Speaker 3: or just dug what the French were into. And you know,
Speaker 3: you make it like a jelly roll cake, but you've
Speaker 3: got butter cream instead of the jelly, and you roll
Speaker 3: it up and you frost it with a ganache of
Speaker 3: some kind, and then you try to make it look
Speaker 3: like bark, like use a fork and kind of scrape
Speaker 3: along the outside to make it look a little more
Speaker 3: like a log.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And sometimes, like the more modern ones, they'll come
Speaker 2: in all sorts of colors or whatever, and they look
Speaker 2: very sleek, like a Swiss cake roll essentially. But the
Speaker 2: traditional bouche de noel is like you can really kind
Speaker 2: of go to town with it, not just making that
Speaker 2: bark effect, but you could make additional smaller jelly roll
Speaker 2: cakes that you roll up and make us like branches
Speaker 2: coming off of it. Some people go to the trouble
Speaker 2: of making meringue or marzipan mushrooms like little toadstools growing
Speaker 2: out of it.
Speaker 3: Cute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is super cute, Like a really well done
Speaker 2: bouch to noel is adorable, so much so that you
Speaker 2: don't really want to eat it, but from the description
Speaker 2: of the ingredients, I would eat it anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: And there's actually it's not that hard to make. And
Speaker 2: there's some recipes that Lucy Rose recommends. There's one from
Speaker 2: a leg grun Wheel, which is a legendary French restaurant
Speaker 2: in New York. They had one published in the New
Speaker 2: York Times in nineteen eighty two. Then the other one
Speaker 2: she recommended came from Jacques Pepin. His classic bouche to.
Speaker 3: Noel doesn't get any better than jacqu papin.
Speaker 2: No And while you're out at those bakeries looking for pizzelle,
Speaker 2: try a French bakery and see if they have a
Speaker 2: bouche to noel. And if they don't, but you really
Speaker 2: want to try it. They saw them online too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, boy, I'm looking at some of these online. These
Speaker 3: are really lovely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they really are. Don't they look cool? Like do
Speaker 2: you see any with the toadstools?
Speaker 3: I see the toadstools, I see the little forked bark.
Speaker 3: Those look nice. But I see someone who somehow managed
Speaker 3: to make it look like real pine bark. That looks
Speaker 3: really great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, somebody with the right kind of fork
Speaker 2: could really go to So let's move on. Huh.
Speaker 3: All right? So those, yeah, those are the two confections.
Speaker 3: And so we're gonna hop in our slate we're gonna
Speaker 3: ride around up in the stratosphere atmosphere. Where are we
Speaker 3: up there?
Speaker 2: I think the stratosphere right along the edge of space.
Speaker 3: Okay, perfect, And we will be right back after a
Speaker 3: little Christmas.
Speaker 2: Chuir, okay, Chuck, So we're talking. I think now we're
Speaker 2: gonna move on to a segment on Christmas trees in
Speaker 2: the White House. That's right, those of you who don't
Speaker 2: live in the United States, the White House is where
Speaker 2: the president lives.
Speaker 3: That's right, And generally the president's family lives there, depending
Speaker 3: on like how all the kids are and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: for sure, But there are a lot of traditions over
Speaker 3: the years. We're not you know, you can go to
Speaker 3: White House dot gov under the Christmas stuff if you
Speaker 3: want to look at all these. But I feel like
Speaker 3: we should maybe concentrate on a few of the more
Speaker 3: fun ones.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: The first Christmas tree in the White House that anyone
Speaker 3: knows about was in the second floor Oval Room, which
Speaker 3: was a family parlor and library in eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 3: which was the Benjamin Harrison administration, and they used real
Speaker 3: candles to delight the grandchildren.
Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently, so that was eighteen eighty nine. And I
Speaker 2: think electricity was brought to the lighthouse two years later.
Speaker 2: The lighthouse yet, Yeah, I said the White House, didn't.
Speaker 3: I you said lighthouse. But I love that it made
Speaker 3: it light.
Speaker 2: Well, white is a light like Keler. It's the absence
Speaker 2: of color, actually so. But electricity was brought to the
Speaker 2: White House in eighteen ninety one, and yeah, thirty plus
Speaker 2: forty something years later, Fdr Franklin Delano Roosevelt still celebrated
Speaker 2: with a Christmas tree lit with candles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, despite the danger, I think, like you said, eighteen
Speaker 3: ninety one, was electricity, and three years later Grover Cleveland
Speaker 3: had the first electrically lit tree. But you know, Teddy Roosevelt,
Speaker 3: that guy was old school. If he was nothing.
Speaker 2: Else, well that was Franklin Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt has his
Speaker 2: own interesting story.
Speaker 3: Oh Franklin, of course he's an older school Yeah. But yeah,
Speaker 3: Teddy supposedly banned Christmas trees. That is a bit of
Speaker 3: a I think it's just been twisted a bit over
Speaker 3: the years. I don't think he banned them. He just
Speaker 3: it was not a part of their family tradition to
Speaker 3: have a tree, so he did not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was I mean, that's it. There's apparently a
Speaker 2: huge misunderstanding over the years that he was such a conservationist.
Speaker 2: I guess historians retroactively reasoned that the reason there wasn't
Speaker 2: Christmas trees during his administration was because he didn't want
Speaker 2: them cut down. But the answer is they just didn't
Speaker 2: celebrate with the Christmas tree. That wasn't their jam, which
Speaker 2: is pretty typical at the time. I mean, people having
Speaker 2: a Christmas tree in your house, you know, when you
Speaker 2: celebrate Christmases. Fairly modern, certainly way more modern than the
Speaker 2: turn of the last century.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it wasn't like everybody was doing it. Although
Speaker 3: in nineteen oh two Archie Roosevelt did sneak a little
Speaker 3: small tree, hid it in the closet upstairs, even decorated
Speaker 3: it and showed his family and Teddy Roosevelt did not
Speaker 3: say get that infernal thing out of here. Apparently he
Speaker 3: liked it and said, all right, well the tree can stay.
Speaker 2: Yes, which is sweet, you know.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: And then there was also a record that was set
Speaker 2: by Dwight D. Eisenhower in the fifties, I think in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine for the greatest number of Christmas trees
Speaker 2: in the White House at one time, and he really
Speaker 2: macked it out with twenty six Christmas trees in the
Speaker 2: White House. And for years and years and years, no
Speaker 2: one even tried to beat Eisenhower's record until I think,
Speaker 2: what was it nineteen ninety when the George W. Bush
Speaker 2: administration blew it out of the water.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was like, I'm going to take down that record,
Speaker 3: read my lips hey, great impression, it was so.
Speaker 2: So, But how many trees did he have?
Speaker 3: He brought in forty seven, just bleue Eisenhower out of
Speaker 3: the water. The Clintons had thirty two, also beating Eisenhower
Speaker 3: in ninety five, and the younger Bush said, I'm going
Speaker 3: to beat Daddy.
Speaker 2: He did.
Speaker 3: He brought in two more trees than Dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Obama said, nice, try watch us beer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: sixty two trees in twenty fifteen. And if you look
Speaker 2: at all of these different, different competing numbers of trees,
Speaker 2: these records just being broken and beaten and tossed and
Speaker 2: dashed over the rocks. They all had themes. I think
Speaker 2: Clinton's had. It was the night before Christmas. The first
Speaker 2: Bush had a nutcracker ballet theme. The Obamas had timeless tradition,
Speaker 2: the second Bush head home for the holidays. They all
Speaker 2: had themes, and they were actually following in a tradition
Speaker 2: set by Jackie Kennedy back in nineteen sixty one, who
Speaker 2: created the first theme Christmas that the Christmas trees were
Speaker 2: decorated with, again, nutcracker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fine, but it was the first one, so
Speaker 3: technically I guess she started the nutcracker theme. Sure, as
Speaker 3: all themes, but that wasn't the first tree in the
Speaker 3: Blue Room, that is traditionally where the official tree is
Speaker 3: now in the Blue Room. That started in nineteen twelve
Speaker 3: when Robert Helen and Charlie Taft, the children of William Howard,
Speaker 3: put that very first tree in the Blue Room, and
Speaker 3: they have a competition now internationally, you have to win
Speaker 3: the state competition first to qualify to see if your
Speaker 3: tree can be the tree in the Blue Room. And
Speaker 3: we're just going to go over a few of these
Speaker 3: leading states now because far and away, well not that
Speaker 3: far and away, but North Carolina has had the most
Speaker 3: trees since nineteen sixty one in the Blue Room with thirteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know how recent this stat is, but
Speaker 2: I know that North Carolina was chosen again kind of
Speaker 2: as a nod to the battering by Hurricane Helene. This year,
Speaker 2: President Biden, I think chose one from western North Carolina
Speaker 2: Cartner's Tree Farm in Newland, North Carolina was the one
Speaker 2: who is sending the White House Christmas tree this year.
Speaker 3: That's right, and surely not a sympathy pick, because like
Speaker 3: I said, North Carolina pumps out some great trees as
Speaker 3: they are in the lead. Pennsylvania's in second with eleven.
Speaker 3: Then you have with Wisconsin with eight, to Washington State
Speaker 3: with seven, West Virginia with four, and then basically other
Speaker 3: states with two or one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was one that was anonymously donated from New England.
Speaker 2: It sounds suspicious.
Speaker 3: And if you're wondering what kinds of trees, far and
Speaker 3: away fur trees lead with fifty two, there have been
Speaker 3: seven spruces and one pine.
Speaker 2: That's the one that's coming out of Cartner's this year too,
Speaker 2: a Fraser fur.
Speaker 3: Oh first, so it'll be I guess that'll be the
Speaker 3: fifty third.
Speaker 2: Yeah, white House dot gov needs to get on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, update your side already.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's it for White House Christmas trees. Huh.
Speaker 2: I think that that was a pleasant little journey, thank you,
Speaker 2: through a political minefield. That's right, Okay, Chuck, it's next,
Speaker 2: next up. I'm pretty psyched we're gonna do another two
Speaker 2: first segment, aren't we.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, we're gonna hit these Christmas movies.
Speaker 2: Yes, but first, how about some more jolly music from
Speaker 2: our friend Jerry.
Speaker 3: All right, everyone, we're back and we're gonna finish up
Speaker 3: with a couple of Christmas movies. Well, one a TV
Speaker 3: special on one not just a Christmas movie, but the
Speaker 3: er Christmas movie. Yeah, you are right, I don't know
Speaker 3: how you spell it?
Speaker 2: You do? You are? It's like a reference to a
Speaker 2: city in Sumeri or Mesopotamia or something like that, like
Speaker 2: one of the first cities.
Speaker 3: Oh look at you, mister smarty pants er. Yeah, we're
Speaker 3: talking about the first Christmas movies. Shocking stat here, Over
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty new holiday movies are produced annually.
Speaker 2: Yet ninety eight percent of them from Hallmark.
Speaker 3: Probably so or that may be a real stat. Actually
Speaker 3: knows it is.
Speaker 2: They shoot two a days, is what they call them.
Speaker 2: They complete two films from scratch in a day.
Speaker 3: They should just re dress people and recast them and
Speaker 3: just be like, all right, your Bill the local sheriff
Speaker 3: in this one, and you're Johnny the local diner owner
Speaker 3: in this one.
Speaker 2: Right Wait, I thought I was Johnny in this one. No,
Speaker 2: just shut up, wear this.
Speaker 3: But if you're thinking like, oh, it's a wonderful life,
Speaker 3: no no, no, that's the forties. If you're thinking, all right,
Speaker 3: March of the Wooden Soldiers, no no, that's nineteen thirty four.
Speaker 3: Sure you have to go all the way back to
Speaker 3: the very earliest days of putting anything on film to
Speaker 3: find the inspiration that would lead to the first Christmas movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it turns out that we're going all the way
Speaker 2: back to the eighteen nineties, but we should go back
Speaker 2: a little before then in France. France, apparently, I didn't
Speaker 2: know this was like the er center of filmmaking. Did
Speaker 2: you know that that that's where it originally kind of
Speaker 2: came out of.
Speaker 3: Sure, the Lumire Brothers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so them. There was a guy named Louis Le
Speaker 2: Prince who is considered as having filmed the first serve
Speaker 2: for the oldest surviving motion picture, which you've probably seen before.
Speaker 2: I know you have. I'm saying you the listener. It's
Speaker 2: a horse running and it almost looks like a flip book.
Speaker 2: It's that primitive. Yeah, and it's referenced. Actually, have you
Speaker 2: seen that movie? Nope?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sure, remember.
Speaker 2: When they when they show up on the set, they
Speaker 2: kind of give that spiel about their family and the horses,
Speaker 2: and they say that that was their an sister. That's
Speaker 2: what they're talking about, is that it's just a two
Speaker 2: second long shot of a horse running a person with
Speaker 2: a jockey on it.
Speaker 3: I'd like to see that again.
Speaker 2: Nope, or that two second long shot?
Speaker 3: No, wait, all right, I just watched the horse thing again, No,
Speaker 3: I'd like to see Nope again. I saw that in
Speaker 3: the theater, but I haven't seen it since, and I
Speaker 3: quite enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was pretty good, all right.
Speaker 3: So that two and two point one second horse running
Speaker 3: first thing. A lot of films that followed didn't have
Speaker 3: a narrative yet. They were just literally people were amazed
Speaker 3: that they could just see something moving on film. Hm.
Speaker 3: The Lamaher Brothers very famously, and they ten ninety six
Speaker 3: had a fifty second clip of a train coming right
Speaker 3: toward the screen, probably the first and last time a
Speaker 3: train didn't go through a tunnel to indicate intercourse.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, they hadn't figured that out quite yet. That
Speaker 2: was the next year probably.
Speaker 3: That's right. But then the first Christmas movie came just
Speaker 3: a few years later, right, just.
Speaker 2: Two years later after that fifty second clip was called
Speaker 2: the Arrival of a Train. It really gets across what
Speaker 2: you're watching. But it's just two years after that a
Speaker 2: guy named George Albert Smith became the creator of the
Speaker 2: very first Christmas movie uncontested, No when it ever made
Speaker 2: a Christmas movie before until George Albert Smith came along
Speaker 2: and put seventy six seconds of goodness on film.
Speaker 3: That's right, it's called Santa Claus. It's a pretty groundbreaking
Speaker 3: film at the time. I guess almost anything you did
Speaker 3: would be groundbreaking at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this he was showing off almost.
Speaker 3: No, I agree, had some pretty decent special effects. It's
Speaker 3: the story of Santa, a very simple story, obviously seventy
Speaker 3: six seconds, but it's Santa visiting the home of two
Speaker 3: kids on Christmas Eve. You can watch it on YouTube.
Speaker 3: It only takes seventy six seconds plus some dumb ad
Speaker 3: but you see two kids checking the chimney for Santa
Speaker 3: before the either mom or the nanny or somebody puts
Speaker 3: them to bed. They turn off the lights and then
Speaker 3: the room is dark, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 3: pops up. The first little special effect is on the
Speaker 3: right side of the screen, a little circular image of
Speaker 3: the rooftop, like an insert almost within the film frame itself,
Speaker 3: where you see Santa climbing down a chimney but really
Speaker 3: just walking down some stairs disguised as a chimney.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, And then like once he gets into the
Speaker 2: chimney or out of that additional shot that's showing him
Speaker 2: on the rooftop, all of a sudden he's in the
Speaker 2: kid's room, and it's like an editing cut, but also
Speaker 2: it was edited just a little early, are a little late,
Speaker 2: so that you can see him coming through the black curtain. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that he's suddenly appearing from. But again, we're talking eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety eight, and people were just amazed by this kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. And then Santa while the kids are sleeping,
Speaker 2: he puts little little goodies in their stocking and he
Speaker 2: waves goodbye, and then all of a sudden, poof, he's
Speaker 2: gone again. And I mean, like, even watching it now,
Speaker 2: I'm like, that was pretty cool. I can't imagine being
Speaker 2: alive in eighteen ninety eight and seeing that and just
Speaker 2: being like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't wait.
Speaker 2: Till Polar Express comes out.
Speaker 3: Movie I still haven't seen.
Speaker 2: I haven't either.
Speaker 3: Oh, let's let's keep it that way. Let's promise, let's
Speaker 3: do a blood oath. Let's see that.
Speaker 2: I think we also we talked about that in the
Speaker 2: Uncanny Valley episode.
Speaker 3: Oh sure we had to have.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I will say this about Santa Claus the seventy six
Speaker 3: second film, given that most movies from this era look
Speaker 3: pretty creepy, and given that every Santa from this era
Speaker 3: looks really creepy. Yeah, this Santa creeping through the room
Speaker 3: over these children. I was ready for this thing to
Speaker 3: just make my hair stand on end. And it wasn't
Speaker 3: that bad. A little bit of creep but it was
Speaker 3: actually had a little sweetness to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a little slim for a Santa. I
Speaker 2: think that that added to the creepiness. But yeah, no,
Speaker 2: he was nowhere near the creepiest Santa of his time.
Speaker 2: But we don't know who this guy is, right, No,
Speaker 2: he was uncredited. So the first Santa Claus on screen,
Speaker 2: the first person to play Santa Claus on screen, No
Speaker 2: one knows. We probably never know.
Speaker 3: It's not Tim Allen. I know that.
Speaker 2: No, and shout out to Justin Childress on edgelnd today
Speaker 2: who helped us with this, did some great research and
Speaker 2: made a nice little article.
Speaker 3: All right, how are we going to wrap it up?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Wait, we need to get in our sleigh first.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, all right, here we go up.
Speaker 3: In the old sled and let's go.
Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, did do do do do do do do?
Speaker 3: Do?
Speaker 2: Did it work?
Speaker 3: Josh has been giving me the earworm for sixteen years
Speaker 3: on the rag.
Speaker 2: It just it works really well.
Speaker 3: All right, So now I'm annoyed. So let's talk about
Speaker 3: the sweetest Christmas special of all time.
Speaker 2: It is sweetest and it did you watch it?
Speaker 3: Of course?
Speaker 2: Okay, So in nineteen eighty two, Christmas Time nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 2: it was a there was a cavalcade of familiar characters
Speaker 2: who made their debut in Christmas specials. Right. You had
Speaker 2: pac Man with the classic Christmas Comes to pack Land. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I think, good, this Murf Christmas special, which actually
Speaker 2: is quite good, I.
Speaker 3: Was too ultra Smurf.
Speaker 2: So I went back and watched it like last week
Speaker 2: or a couple of days ago, and I was like,
Speaker 2: this is pretty good.
Speaker 3: Pretty good, all right?
Speaker 2: And then far and away the best of the bunch
Speaker 2: that came out in nineteen eighty two, and among the
Speaker 2: top ever Christmas TV specials, if you ask me, was
Speaker 2: Ziggy's Gift, which is, like you said, incredibly sweet.
Speaker 3: That's right. Ziggy is the comic strip character Ziggy, the
Speaker 3: little short bald. How old is Ziggy?
Speaker 2: That was one of my question timeless ageless?
Speaker 3: I mean, is it supposed to be a grown up? Though?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's not a kid.
Speaker 3: Okay. I couldn't tell because I wasn't into Ziggy, But
Speaker 3: did you know some Ziggy research and looked back at
Speaker 3: some of the comics, and you know, Ziggy was beloved
Speaker 3: because Ziggy was great, and Ziggy was sweet, and Ziggy
Speaker 3: was joyful, and Ziggy was not cynical. Uh, Ziggy lived
Speaker 3: with a dog and a parrot. And you might find
Speaker 3: a Ziggy comic strip that was just a little rye joke,
Speaker 3: or you might find a Ziggy comic that is literally
Speaker 3: just Ziggy smiling and looking at you and say hello.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so he was like indefatigable even though basically
Speaker 2: his entire life went wrong at every turn. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: he like he could be affected by that. He was
Speaker 2: put off, he was mad. He wasn't like he was
Speaker 2: some sort of smiling automaton. But he returned back to
Speaker 2: his like upbeat outlook on life very quickly, like that
Speaker 2: was his default setting. And just reading Ziggy cartoons, it's
Speaker 2: like it does it to you, you know, it really
Speaker 2: brings it out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so Ziggy had been around since I think in
Speaker 2: the paper since nineteen seventy and it built up like
Speaker 2: a pretty good audience by nineteen eighty two, so it's
Speaker 2: a big deal. When Ziggy was coming to TV, Tom Wilson,
Speaker 2: the creator of Ziggy, did a bunch of interviews with
Speaker 2: different newspapers and everybody was quite excited that Ziggy was
Speaker 2: having his own Christmas special.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, and he really pulled out all the
Speaker 3: stops because not only is it a Christmas Special and
Speaker 3: animated Christmas special, but it was one that really took
Speaker 3: the time with the artistry to just knock it out
Speaker 3: of the park. A typical half hour animated special at
Speaker 3: the time I had about thirty five thousand drawings. Ziggy's
Speaker 3: Gift had close to one hundred and forty thousand drawings.
Speaker 3: They usually have about fifty rough sketches to sort of
Speaker 3: map out the story. There were twelve hundred per Ziggy's Gift.
Speaker 3: And for all of this effort, a you got an
Speaker 3: animated special that for the time again when you look
Speaker 3: back now, really good, smooth, outstanding animation. And it won
Speaker 3: the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program that year.
Speaker 2: Yeah beat Garfield beat.
Speaker 3: The Smurfs, Take that Smurfs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it beat Charlie Brown twice, two different Charlie Brown specials.
Speaker 3: Good grief, there was just no.
Speaker 2: Chance that anybody was going to beat Ziggy's gift that year. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And also not just the animation, I mean, like people
Speaker 2: like animation busts are like this is a classic masterpiece
Speaker 2: of animation. But the plot too was really good. Like
Speaker 2: the thing seems longer than twenty two minutes, not like
Speaker 2: it drags. They just packed a lot into this twenty
Speaker 2: two minutes, even though it just kind of takes its
Speaker 2: own time. That's great. It's pretty funny in a lot
Speaker 2: of places, it's sweet throughout, and all this kind of
Speaker 2: came together and formed this perfect, sweet, little twenty two
Speaker 2: minute Christmas special.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. When it came time to make the special,
Speaker 3: they were like, what do we do with Ziggy's voice? Like,
Speaker 3: how do we cast this iconic silent character, because you
Speaker 3: can really ruin, like a comic strip character come to
Speaker 3: life if you don't get the voice right. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: so they decided not to use a voice at all,
Speaker 3: which was brilliant. And apparently that came from Wilson's daughter Hugh,
Speaker 3: who a few years before said that the reason it's
Speaker 3: hard to find a voice for Ziggy is because when
Speaker 3: you read Ziggy, you hear your own voice.
Speaker 2: Out of the mouths of babes, you know.
Speaker 3: Amazing. She was thirty two at the time.
Speaker 2: But that's great. So yeah, the whole thing came together
Speaker 2: to make this really great Christmas special. But what's puzzling
Speaker 2: about it is it didn't become an enduring classic, Like
Speaker 2: the latest I could see on good old newspapers dot
Speaker 2: Com was nineteen eighty six. That's when the TV listings
Speaker 2: for Ziggy's Gift around December just dried up. But the
Speaker 2: great thing about it, and the reason why we're doing
Speaker 2: this we're covering Ziggy's Gift is there's like a couple
Speaker 2: of generations out there who don't even know this exists, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and are going to be so happy to find this
Speaker 2: sweet little Christmas special that I hope everybody who's listening
Speaker 2: who's never seen it really enjoys. And if you have
Speaker 2: seen it, it's been a little while, if it's been
Speaker 2: a day, doesn't matter, go watch it again because it
Speaker 2: just gets you every time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and get your what would Ziggy Do? T? Shirt
Speaker 3: printed up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's another thing too. You could really get into
Speaker 2: Ziggy after watching that. And there's a lot of great
Speaker 2: like vintage Ziggy stuff like stickers of Ziggy catching a
Speaker 2: rainbow in a butterfly, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you could, you know, get ziggy with it.
Speaker 2: Very nice. There's no way to end this better than
Speaker 2: that choke.
Speaker 3: It's my last bad joke of the year.
Speaker 2: So let's get a little more Christmas music in and
Speaker 2: then we'll wish everybody Merry Christmas and happy holidays. How
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 3: Let's do it all right? Well, that is it for
Speaker 3: the Christmas Special this year. We want to wish everyone
Speaker 3: a very merry Christmas or marry and happy holiday of
Speaker 3: your choice, however you choose to celebrate. Yeah, we're Christmas guys,
Speaker 3: so that's what we do around here, and I'm wishing
Speaker 3: you and Umi and Momo a very merry Christmas, and
Speaker 3: Jerry and Dave and Libya and Dave and Kyle and
Speaker 3: who else Ben.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the whole crew, and back at you too. Merry
Speaker 2: Christmas to you and Ruby and Emily for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks man, and of course with Jerry her lovely
Speaker 3: wife and daughter as well.
Speaker 2: Yep, So merry Christmas to all of you, Happy Holidays
Speaker 2: to all of you from everybody here. It's stuff you
Speaker 2: should know. We hope. It's a great one for you
Speaker 2: and go watch Siggy's gift and feel love. Merry Christmas, Everybody.
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