WEBVTT - The Monstrefact: The “Minnie the Moocher” Walrus Ghost

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hi, my name is Robert Lamman. This is the Monster Fact,

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<v Speaker 2>a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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<v Speaker 2>focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. Every

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<v Speaker 2>Halloween season, my family and I invariably pull up some

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<v Speaker 2>old favorite animated shorts. Some of these are clips like

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<v Speaker 2>the This is Halloween number from nineteen ninety three's The

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<v Speaker 2>Nightmare Before Christmas or the excellent Wizard Battle from Disney's

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<v Speaker 2>nineteen sixty nine film The Sword in the Stone. But

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<v Speaker 2>we also carefully dig a little deeper in the animation

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<v Speaker 2>graveyard to unearth, say the classic nineteen twenty nine Silly

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<v Speaker 2>Symphony Skeleton Dance, or the nineteen thirty two Fleisher Studios

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<v Speaker 2>Betty Boop short mini The Moocher. If you haven't seen

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<v Speaker 2>this string Jim, look it up. I'm gonna summarize the

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<v Speaker 2>plot briefly here, but it's gonna sound really weird, okay,

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<v Speaker 2>jazz Age Flappergal Betty Boop has an argument with her parents,

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<v Speaker 2>with whom she lives, and runs away with her boyfriend,

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<v Speaker 2>a dog human hybrid named Bimbo. After a brief encounter

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<v Speaker 2>with Coco of the Clown from an earlier short. They

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<v Speaker 2>encounter a number of strange and terrifying creatures in a cavern,

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<v Speaker 2>dancing skeletons, ghosts, devils, a witch, and what we might

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<v Speaker 2>loosely describe as a dancing, singing octopus armed ghost Walrus,

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<v Speaker 2>voiced by American jazz great Cab Calloway. Note I realized

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<v Speaker 2>those might be front flippers, but they sure do look

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<v Speaker 2>like octopus arms to me. Walrus front flippers have digits.

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<v Speaker 2>The ghost Walrus's front limbs in this cartoon do not.

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<v Speaker 2>Cab Calloway also provided the ghost Walrus' sweet dance moves

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<v Speaker 2>via rodoscoping. Boop and Bimbo eventually flee home in terror

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<v Speaker 2>from all of these sights and sounds in the cavern,

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<v Speaker 2>and true to the shorts title, the ghost Walrus performs

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<v Speaker 2>Callaway's big hit mini, The Moucher, a song that he

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<v Speaker 2>would go on to perform in the nineteen eighty film

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<v Speaker 2>The Blues Brothers. The nineteen thirty two short is low

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<v Speaker 2>on plot and message, high on spooky, animated weirdness, and,

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<v Speaker 2>of course, the stylings of Cab Callaway and his orchestra.

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<v Speaker 2>But why a ghost walrus. Why does it seem to

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<v Speaker 2>have octopus arms? I'm to understand it all comes down

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<v Speaker 2>to animator whimsy, but it got me thinking, is there

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<v Speaker 2>anything remotely similar to this creature in global myth and

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<v Speaker 2>folk traditions? Well as far as supernatural walruses go, there

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<v Speaker 2>are certainly examples to draw on from the various traditions

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<v Speaker 2>of different Arctic peoples who knew the creature and invoked

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<v Speaker 2>it in their belief systems. Likewise, medieval European folklore exaggerated

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<v Speaker 2>the walrus as a sea monster, but the only thing

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<v Speaker 2>even close to a walrus octopus hybrid I've come across

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<v Speaker 2>is the ursus or maritursus or eco turso of Finnish

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<v Speaker 2>folklore and literature. Creature is predominantly associated with the walrus

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<v Speaker 2>and often described as a kind of walrus human hybrid,

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<v Speaker 2>or even a walrus centaur of sorts, and it's thought

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<v Speaker 2>to have inspired the sea giant Rosemarine in Edmund Spencer's

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<v Speaker 2>fifteen ninety work The Fairy Queen. The Terusus also factors

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<v Speaker 2>into the Finnish national epic The Kalevala, which concerns the

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<v Speaker 2>mythical Sampo, but then the tersus also takes on many

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<v Speaker 2>octopus and even Cuthulhu sque qualities in modern visual interpretations,

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<v Speaker 2>in part due to the word meritsus referring to the

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<v Speaker 2>common octopus in contemporary finish. I realize it's a stretch

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<v Speaker 2>to connect the Finnish Sea Monster to a nineteen thirty

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<v Speaker 2>two Cabcalloway Betty Boot cartoon, but many the moucher certainly

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<v Speaker 2>invites speculation. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Factor,

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<v Speaker 2>The Artifact or Animalius Dupendium each week. As always, you

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<v Speaker 2>can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

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<v Speaker 2>Mind dot com.

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<v Speaker 1>Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.

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