Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and again it's just the
Speaker 1: two of us. Yep with you guys, empty student. Yes,
Speaker 1: just are I feel like we're You know that the
Speaker 1: coke commercial from the seventies that Madman I never saw
Speaker 1: the chow Oh really, yeah, that's a good one. I've
Speaker 1: heard heard good things. You're You're not the first person
Speaker 1: I've heard mentioned it. It's like we're holding hands with
Speaker 1: our our listeners all across the world, across the world.
Speaker 1: I'd like to buy the world a coke thing. I
Speaker 1: supposed to them. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. Okay,
Speaker 1: wow what happens at that? But like there's a plot
Speaker 1: that's a huge plot point. I'll just I'll tell you afterwards. Okay.
Speaker 1: If never gonna watch the show, yeah I probably won't.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I pick and choose what I'm going
Speaker 1: to get into, you know, like it's a commitment. Especially
Speaker 1: how many seasons did that thing goes six for? You're
Speaker 1: not like most people who just watch whatever is on
Speaker 1: in front of them until it's over a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Do most people do what you don't think. People pick
Speaker 1: and choose their their culture, they consume. I think that
Speaker 1: they do, but I think they're they're more ready to
Speaker 1: jump in than I am. Like the idea of like
Speaker 1: taking your tablet to the beach to watch TV. That's
Speaker 1: not like a great thing to me. That's that's like
Speaker 1: what happened to us. So what you're saying is you're
Speaker 1: more selective than your average Joe. I guess. But I
Speaker 1: don't mean to make myself seem all like Laude dot
Speaker 1: or anything like that. You know, I'm just saying I
Speaker 1: don't watch I don't watch TV shows like Narcos. Remember
Speaker 1: I told you to watch it the other day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and other folks have told me that, So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: watch it. So I saw the first episode amazing, amazing stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: and I started to watch the second one. I was like,
Speaker 1: I just I can't write now. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is about me. So you recommended that to me
Speaker 1: before you saw it. No, I saw the first US like,
Speaker 1: I could have seen the first couple of minutes and
Speaker 1: it would have been like, go watch this whole series.
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be great, and then you bailed
Speaker 1: on it. Yeah, but I haven't bailed entirely. But I
Speaker 1: guess that's my point. Is I like, like, it's not
Speaker 1: just something I can pick up like willy nilly, and
Speaker 1: I don't know why because it's TV. Well, here's what
Speaker 1: I used to do. Boy, we're already so sidetracked, but
Speaker 1: I don't care um because there's no one in here,
Speaker 1: no one here to stop us, right to pull the plug.
Speaker 1: Here's what I used to do is I would watch
Speaker 1: a show, let's say a few seasons, and then if
Speaker 1: it started getting bad, like True Blood or Dexter, I
Speaker 1: would be like, well, yeah, but I've got to finish it.
Speaker 1: And then I got to the point where I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't need to finish it. I can bail on
Speaker 1: a TV show that starts to suck. Yeah, the show
Speaker 1: runner bailed on you exactly, so why can't you bail on?
Speaker 1: And then I'll just read about the finale because that's
Speaker 1: all I care about is seeing how it ended. And
Speaker 1: in the case of Dexter's finale, it was amazingly all
Speaker 1: fully great. So but yeah, I think that's that's fair.
Speaker 1: Same with books. Too, I mean, like, why plow through
Speaker 1: a book that you're like, I cannot I cannot care
Speaker 1: about this any longer. I think it have I'm only
Speaker 1: forty four, but I do since my mortality a little bit, like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, do I need to watch this season
Speaker 1: of this thing that I don't like because I'm gonna die?
Speaker 1: And I haven't seen Casablanca yet? What I haven't seen Casablanca?
Speaker 1: Really you should, I know, because I'm gonna die. I
Speaker 1: mean you should, Like that's a any any night of
Speaker 1: the week kind of movie. You know, I plan to? Okay? Um, So,
Speaker 1: speaking of dying, Chuck, it turns out that in fairy Tales,
Speaker 1: these wonderful little things that Disney promoted and turned into well,
Speaker 1: wonderful little things, it started out with a lot more death,
Speaker 1: a lot more destruction, a lot more cannibalism, how about murder, rape, incest, torture, kidnapping,
Speaker 1: sex with the comatose, necrophilia, probably somewhere in one we
Speaker 1: haven't heard of yet. Um, but yeah, that's where fairy
Speaker 1: tales or that's the kind of um, that's the type
Speaker 1: of tales that fairy Tales started out as. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we are going to uh, I think we agreed we're
Speaker 1: gonna do a show on fairy tales, probably like the
Speaker 1: brothers Graham, Hans, Christian Anderson and Chairo, the Three the
Speaker 1: Three Biggies. Yeah, and fairy tales in general, because it's
Speaker 1: really interesting. Well, let's make this a two parter, so
Speaker 1: this will be part one and then part two will
Speaker 1: be a fuller explanation of everything we just talked about.
Speaker 1: So um, we don't have to go into it too much.
Speaker 1: But the point is is that many, many years ago,
Speaker 1: there were such things as oral traditions folk tales, and
Speaker 1: they were typically passed along by say, women who are
Speaker 1: working at looms or people who put the kids to bed.
Speaker 1: And we're passing the time before the fire because there
Speaker 1: weren't tablets you could take to the beach to watch
Speaker 1: Orange is the New Black anywhere, you know, so you
Speaker 1: had to entertain yourself somehow. So adults told each other
Speaker 1: tales and these form the basis of fairy tales, which
Speaker 1: seems weird to us now because fairy tales you tend
Speaker 1: to associate with kids, but that just wasn't the case before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and apparently the brothers Grim, Jakop and Wilhelm originally intended
Speaker 1: them for adults. Things weren't selling so well, so they said,
Speaker 1: maybe we should um sanitize these a little bit, lighten
Speaker 1: them up, and see if we can get kids, um
Speaker 1: to read these grizzly morality tales, right, you know, to
Speaker 1: scare them into being you know, straight shooters. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then Walt Disney came along and he said, you think
Speaker 1: you sanitize things, wait till I put my Disney stink
Speaker 1: on it, because my Disney stink smells like roses. It does.
Speaker 1: There's like glitter and like fairies and it's just all
Speaker 1: very nice. It smells like I was trying to think
Speaker 1: of the best smell I can think of, but um
Speaker 1: per plus smells pretty great. I had a friend who
Speaker 1: used to call the s U a v E shampoo,
Speaker 1: called it swave. It was pretty funny on purpose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like like that was legitimately what they thought it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he really thought that. He like, you know, stay at
Speaker 1: his house, Like, hey, if you need anything that's opened
Speaker 1: on some swave in there. You know, it's hilarious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you were talking about how Disney sanitized it. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: sanitized things, And um, so we're gonna I don't think
Speaker 1: we're gonna do all ten, because that's what we do.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna talk about some of the earlier versions
Speaker 1: of um now sanitized classics, because it's kind of fun
Speaker 1: because you see just how far we came by, you know,
Speaker 1: when things became disneyfied Chuck. Um. Should we talk about Binocchio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good one, which was as far as Disney
Speaker 1: films go, that was maybe the creepiest of all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because of the stranger danger that wound throughout it, and
Speaker 1: that was part of the original The original thing was like,
Speaker 1: you don't go off as strangers, you don't run away
Speaker 1: with from home. There's plenty of predatory adults who wanted
Speaker 1: to just do all sorts of horrible things with you.
Speaker 1: That's right. So Pinocchio was kidnapped by Stromboli and uh
Speaker 1: basically was threatened with you know, Pinocchio was made of
Speaker 1: wood and said I'm gonna burn you alive. You're gonna
Speaker 1: make a good fire one day if you get too old,
Speaker 1: if you don't stay young, which is also creepy, Yeah
Speaker 1: it is, And Pinocchio was like, oh no. But the
Speaker 1: source story was by Carlo Carlo Collodi in three and
Speaker 1: Carlo Collodi, and so Pinocchio was teased in that version
Speaker 1: by um about his wood head, by Jimny Cricket. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they called him Jimny Cricket in
Speaker 1: that version though, but it was a cricket, yeah, and
Speaker 1: he definitely didn't have a top hat. And seeing when
Speaker 1: you Wish upon a star, that was all Disney. So
Speaker 1: Pinocchio gets really upset and there's a hammer and kills
Speaker 1: the cricket with the hammer, and then Pinocchio is hanged
Speaker 1: and killed, tied up, hanged and killed by the fox
Speaker 1: and the cat. Oh I thought, like by the court
Speaker 1: for killing the cricket by his enemies. But he loses
Speaker 1: his temper and as a result, the one of the
Speaker 1: main characters in the story loses his life, and Pinocchio
Speaker 1: is left to be like, what have I done? And
Speaker 1: then he's killed. That's a great children's story, is but
Speaker 1: think about how bizarre that is that at one point
Speaker 1: there was a story that adults told one another about
Speaker 1: a wooden boy, yeah, who they really wanted to stay
Speaker 1: a boy or else they'd burn him alive. And we'll
Speaker 1: get into more like fairy tale analysis and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing in the other episodes just chew on that
Speaker 1: for a little while she won the weird psychosis that
Speaker 1: lies behind that. Alright, uh up, next we have The
Speaker 1: Little Mermaid, which I don't think of course, I'm just guessing,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know there was an original source story
Speaker 1: has Christian And yeah, I had no idea eighteen thirty seven. Um,
Speaker 1: was it actually called the Little Mermaid? I guess it was.
Speaker 1: I think it was. And there's actually a statue of
Speaker 1: the Little Mermaid um in uh Hans Christian Andersen's home
Speaker 1: country Utopia. Yes, in Denmark. Yes he was Danish, right,
Speaker 1: I think Copenhagen Harbor. There's a statue over, but not
Speaker 1: the Disney one. Right, So that is Ariel Obviously we
Speaker 1: all remember and love that movie. Actually I didn't because
Speaker 1: I was a senior in high school at the time,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't into that. I was too busy watching
Speaker 1: uh bat TV on the beach. Um. All right, okay,
Speaker 1: so in the movie we all remember the Ariel um
Speaker 1: makes a deal with Ursula, the sea wit, and she says,
Speaker 1: you know what, you can be human if you'd like,
Speaker 1: just give me that beautiful singing voice of yours. Uh
Speaker 1: And in the real version, that was the which offers
Speaker 1: her a potion in exchange for her tongue when she
Speaker 1: cuts out, yeah, and Ariel says sure first of all,
Speaker 1: which is weird, um, but she says, this will also
Speaker 1: make you feel like a sword has pierced your body forever,
Speaker 1: and you'll be able to dance, but it will feel
Speaker 1: like you're dancing on knives, and it'll feel like there's
Speaker 1: maggots eating at your man. So she takes a deal anyway. Uh,
Speaker 1: all for a dude. Yeah, all for a guy, So
Speaker 1: say what you will about that as well. Um. In
Speaker 1: the original version, eventually these uh I think the sea
Speaker 1: ladies come out of the ocean and say, if you
Speaker 1: kill the prince, they give her a dagger, so you
Speaker 1: can kill this guy and drip that blood on your
Speaker 1: feet and you'll get your mermaid tail back. And she says,
Speaker 1: I can't do it, so she flings herself into the
Speaker 1: ocean and becomes c foam, which is what happens, but
Speaker 1: then she goes the sisters take her into heaven and
Speaker 1: the dude ends up marrying another lady, which she watches
Speaker 1: as she's ascending into heaven. Right, So no blood on
Speaker 1: her feet. Nope, never never killed the Prince Cinderella, Yes,
Speaker 1: not cinder Fella. Nois movie with Dean Martin too, right one.
Speaker 1: I think he might have been fella. Was it the
Speaker 1: same thing? Was it the exact same story? But just
Speaker 1: Jerry Lewis is pretty much And that's a pretty old story.
Speaker 1: But the Disney version basically has like Cinderella is very
Speaker 1: sweet and beautiful and kind, but she's being basically human,
Speaker 1: trafficked by her own wicked stepmother who makes her do
Speaker 1: everything that her too lazy, ugly inside and out daughters
Speaker 1: don't do. Don't we shouldn't we don't want to do
Speaker 1: that's right, like clean out the senders from the fireplace.
Speaker 1: Hence her name. Is that where that came from? I
Speaker 1: believe so no idea. So the original story was from
Speaker 1: and Shao Um Cinderella or the Little Glass Slipper. And
Speaker 1: as you remember in the original um, she is allowed
Speaker 1: to go to the she's dressed up by the fairy godmother. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very godmother, very great character of a pretty You get
Speaker 1: the ride in this great horse drawn carriage which used
Speaker 1: to be a pumpkin, remember, and it will turn into
Speaker 1: a pumpkin at midnight, so you'll lose all those nice
Speaker 1: clothes in that glass slipper. If you want everyone to
Speaker 1: like you for being wealthy, make sure they don't see
Speaker 1: you after midnight. You have to like the messages these
Speaker 1: are sending. When you really dig into it, it's pretty hard.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk about it in the next episode.
Speaker 1: It's all just one big teaser for everybody. It is
Speaker 1: the fun teaser before the grim ending. So she takes
Speaker 1: off um before midnight. The Prince is like, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: come back, uh please, and she's like no, I gotta god,
Speaker 1: I can't let you see that I'm actually poor and pretty.
Speaker 1: And he's like what, I couldn't hear you. She's likeing
Speaker 1: and she takes off, but she leaves behind her glass slipper,
Speaker 1: And in this glass slipper that fits her perfectly is
Speaker 1: what the Prince decides to use to identify this mystery woman.
Speaker 1: So he starts looking throughout the kingdom. Correct and in
Speaker 1: the original version, which I said by p Oh, it's
Speaker 1: actually pretty much like that, but in eighteen twelve, And
Speaker 1: that's the thing with fairy tales, they're rewritten a lot
Speaker 1: throughout the ages by different folks with different versions, And
Speaker 1: in eighteen twelve the grand brothers had a version called Um,
Speaker 1: which I don't even know what that means. I don't
Speaker 1: either Osten. Maybe it's the same thing Cinder and Aston.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know the pootel what is that? I
Speaker 1: have no idea, Okay, but anyway, So the evil stepmother
Speaker 1: in this version Um says to her stepdaughters. To the
Speaker 1: oldest one, she's like, here's what you do. I know
Speaker 1: that shoe won't fit on the around your big hammer toe.
Speaker 1: So here's a knife. Cut that thing off and the
Speaker 1: shoe will fit. And she does it. She cuts off
Speaker 1: her toe, puts on the slipper, and the Prince was like,
Speaker 1: this is great until these pigeons, magic pigeons come along
Speaker 1: and say, hey, Prince, check that toe out. It's bleeding
Speaker 1: through the glass slipper. Like her shoe is filled with blood.
Speaker 1: She's like Rome and Michelle's high school reunion all of
Speaker 1: a sudden. So the Prince is like, you get away
Speaker 1: from me, impost and sends the eldest daughter, the eldest
Speaker 1: stepsister away. The youngest one tries the same thing, except
Speaker 1: she cuts off part of her heel which seems to
Speaker 1: me exponentially more painful than cutting off your own toe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: same bit. Apparently, Charles Parrault was like, I can't come
Speaker 1: up with anything else, We'll just go with the same thing.
Speaker 1: The two pigeons point out the bloody shoe and the
Speaker 1: the the younger sister goes away, and then finally, somehow
Speaker 1: Cinderella ends up in the in the with the shoe on, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and he says, I found you. We're gonna go get married,
Speaker 1: And in an act of good favor, she invites the
Speaker 1: step sisters to the wedding because she was such a
Speaker 1: nice person, probably to rub salt in the wounds. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: and also because um, she knew that her pigeon friends
Speaker 1: were going to pluck their eyes out, which they did, yep,
Speaker 1: one at a time. They pluck out one eye each,
Speaker 1: and then they come back and finish the job pluck
Speaker 1: out the other eyes. So here's the thing. We were
Speaker 1: raised with this kind of stuff, right, Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with the Disney version of all these things,
Speaker 1: but I also had like a fair idea that there
Speaker 1: was a weird, darker um foundation to these stories before. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: imagine not having ever been exposed to this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Think about how bizarre some of the twists and turns
Speaker 1: that take place in these stories. Are talking pigeons end
Speaker 1: up plucking out the sister's eyes after exposing them here,
Speaker 1: Like that's just a weird extra twist, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like if the aliens came down, right, they're like, this
Speaker 1: is what we read our children on earth? Why does wrong?
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's take a little break here. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we forgot to do this, and we'll come back and
Speaker 1: talk about a little someone with a red writing something.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I don't think I might know who you mean,
Speaker 1: all right, A little red riding Hood. That's who I
Speaker 1: was talking about. Everybody, it's not going to guess that.
Speaker 1: So let's recap the real story here, which is, uh,
Speaker 1: everyone knows this one as well. I'm assuming little Red
Speaker 1: riding Hood is traveling through the woods to deliver her
Speaker 1: food to her dying grandmother, and she meets the hungry wolf. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's bringing butter. A pot of butter? Is that what
Speaker 1: it was? According to Charles Parral delicious. So the wolf says,
Speaker 1: I like to think way in advance and make grand schemes.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to tell you, little girl who would
Speaker 1: like to eat, to stay here and pick some flowers.
Speaker 1: Grandma would love some flowers that she's dying. Yes, so, um,
Speaker 1: and by the way, where's grandma live? And riding Hood
Speaker 1: while she starts picking flowers, like, oh, down the way
Speaker 1: and take a left at the the old oak tree,
Speaker 1: and then, um, don't make eye contact with the talking pigeons.
Speaker 1: That's right, right, and you'll find grandma's house. So the
Speaker 1: wolf takes off while Little Red Riding Hood just picking
Speaker 1: her flowers. Unbeknownst to her, the wolf has gone and
Speaker 1: is now eating her grandmother to death. Yeah, and then,
Speaker 1: like Norman Bates style, dresses up in her clothing, sits
Speaker 1: with his back to her in a rock chair and
Speaker 1: lays and wait, which you would think that's dark enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty dark. Just eating grandmother is bad enough. Right.
Speaker 1: In the Grim version, it was called Little Red cap Um,
Speaker 1: which doesn't have the same ring. Now, Little Red riding
Speaker 1: Hood beautiful just rolls off the Little Red cap No,
Speaker 1: this kind of ends right there, you know. So a
Speaker 1: Little Red Riding Hood is is actually eaten by the
Speaker 1: wolf in their version. And then a because she comes
Speaker 1: in the world stressed as the grandmother and they have
Speaker 1: a little exchange and she ends up getting in exchange,
Speaker 1: and so he eats her dead, or we think she's dead.
Speaker 1: A woodsman comes along and it cuts the wolf open
Speaker 1: with uh, well, there's different versions. Shears are an axe
Speaker 1: and the woman, the grandmother and little Red Riding Hood
Speaker 1: come out and as if you think that's the end, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: let's fill the wolf with rocks. And the version and
Speaker 1: the grim version, the wolf gets up, tries to go away,
Speaker 1: but he has weighted down by the rocks inside of
Speaker 1: his body and collapses and dies. So it's a good ending,
Speaker 1: yeah it is. That's the grim version. In the Charles
Speaker 1: Parult version, he ended his with the moral of the
Speaker 1: story kind of thing um. In the moral his story
Speaker 1: was do not get in bed with a sexual predator.
Speaker 1: Because then his story, Little Red Riding hood Um comes
Speaker 1: to grandmother's house and she suspects that something is a
Speaker 1: miss um, but she still takes off her clothes and
Speaker 1: gets into bed with grandmother when she's invited to by
Speaker 1: this wolf dressed as grandmother, and she says, what big
Speaker 1: arms you have, what big legs you have? What big
Speaker 1: years you have, and the wolf has a smooth answer
Speaker 1: for everything. You know what I'm saying, uh, and then
Speaker 1: ends up eating her just she dies. She's eaten to
Speaker 1: death by a wolf, and that's the end of the story.
Speaker 1: And then the moral is his little girls should not um,
Speaker 1: should not expose themselves you predation by sexual predators. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's not exactly how Pearl put it, but essentially that's
Speaker 1: what you're saying. Well, here's a direct quote from parole
Speaker 1: or p oh, excuse me, um. From this story, one
Speaker 1: learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty courteous and well bred,
Speaker 1: do very wrong to listen to strangers, and it is
Speaker 1: not an unheard thing if the wolf is thereby provided
Speaker 1: with his dinner. I say wolf, For all wolves are
Speaker 1: not of the same sort. There is one kind with
Speaker 1: an amenable disposition, neither noisy nor hateful nor angry, but
Speaker 1: tam obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the
Speaker 1: streets even into their homes. Alas who does not know
Speaker 1: that these gentle wolves are all such creatures the most dangerous.
Speaker 1: So you're basically saying like they're all gross and dirty
Speaker 1: and preying on you. Yeah, which I mean, hats off
Speaker 1: to him for performing that public service. But where's the
Speaker 1: fairy tale that says sexual predators do not predict. I
Speaker 1: don't think they read uh stories, for they were once
Speaker 1: young children, young boys who could have been raised on
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. That's a good point, you know.
Speaker 1: I tip my little red cap to you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Uh oh, this is a good one. Hansel and Gretel, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I grew up next to um an older couple who
Speaker 1: had a dog named Gretel Schnauser. So cute, sweet dog.
Speaker 1: So this one starts out with an evil step mom
Speaker 1: married to a dad of the father of Hansel and Gretel,
Speaker 1: and she's like, you guys eat way too much food
Speaker 1: and your dad and iron uh, danger of going hungry.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna take a long walk in the woods
Speaker 1: and only two of us are coming back, so the kids.
Speaker 1: She does this twice because the kids are smart enough
Speaker 1: on the first go around to leave a trail of
Speaker 1: pebbles in the woods. So I thought it was breadcrumbs.
Speaker 1: That's part two. The first they leave the pebbles, they
Speaker 1: come back and she's like, son of all right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do this again, and you're not taking any pebbles.
Speaker 1: She walks about into the woods again. They leave breadcrumbs,
Speaker 1: which are famously eaten, and so they are now stranded
Speaker 1: in the woods. Find the pigeons, the talking pigeons, probably so,
Speaker 1: so the plan has worked. From the evil step monster. Uh,
Speaker 1: They then encounter the bloodthirsty witch, who basically is like,
Speaker 1: look at this sweet gingerbread house. Why don't you come
Speaker 1: on in here, because I know you little piglets like
Speaker 1: to eat. Yeah, and they do. They go in, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they go in, and I mean a house made of gingerbread,
Speaker 1: Like that's that's a great device right there, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, who wouldn't want to just come into that
Speaker 1: house and see what's inside? If the house is made
Speaker 1: of gingerbread, what the heck is the microwave made of
Speaker 1: There might be charcuterie inside. Sure, so um. Once inside,
Speaker 1: they're trapped because this is the house of an old
Speaker 1: witch who seems like a kindly old lady. As they're
Speaker 1: going in, then once the door shuts, there in trouble. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Gretel is basically enslaved. Hansel is locked in a cage
Speaker 1: and fattened up like a goose so she can eat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then At some point, the witch says, what the heck,
Speaker 1: I'll eat you both. Uh, And this gives Gretel the
Speaker 1: chance to get a drop on the witch. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is pretty funny to me. The witch is basically like, hey, Gretel,
Speaker 1: why don't you go and look in that oven, let
Speaker 1: me know if it's hot enough. And she's blind and
Speaker 1: the witches and Gretel's like, I don't know what you mean.
Speaker 1: Why don't you show me what you mean? Right? And
Speaker 1: the witch says, okay, you stupid girl, let me show
Speaker 1: you exactly. So she shuffles over and she's like, you
Speaker 1: stick your head in like this engage the right because
Speaker 1: Gretel went and pushed her in by the rump and
Speaker 1: the witches burned alive to death. Yes, And then Hansel
Speaker 1: and Gretel make their way back home and the stepmother
Speaker 1: is dead. But in the alternate version, uh, Gretel is like, wow, Hansel,
Speaker 1: you do look pretty good and eats him alive. Oh really.
Speaker 1: Well what gets me is they go back home, stepmother's dead.
Speaker 1: They don't explain how she died, and I wonder if
Speaker 1: the dad was just like, so, uh sorry about Mary
Speaker 1: and that lady who tried to kill you twice start
Speaker 1: diggingy holes in the backyard. Should we take a break?
Speaker 1: Oh yes, I think we should. All right, we'll take
Speaker 1: another quick break and we'll come back with some of
Speaker 1: my favorites. Welcome back to story time with Chuck and Josh. Yes,
Speaker 1: adult story time. Yeah, because if your kids are listening this,
Speaker 1: you're a monster yourself. Um rumpelstilt skin. This one really
Speaker 1: creeped me out when I was a kid because it
Speaker 1: featured a uh an imp, like a a creepy, beastly
Speaker 1: imp who not only that, had like um, a lack
Speaker 1: of control over his emotions. He was prone to emotional
Speaker 1: output and he was like unstable, which even even more scary.
Speaker 1: You know. So this one starts out there's a miller
Speaker 1: who tells the king that, um, you know, my daughter
Speaker 1: can spend straw into gold. You ought to see this
Speaker 1: girl go. He's totally full of it. Though, totally full
Speaker 1: of it. I don't know what. I'm sure he was
Speaker 1: expecting to get away with it. I don't know how.
Speaker 1: Who knows, because he's just gonna like hit the king
Speaker 1: over the head with something when he came to look
Speaker 1: and then marry him while he was unconscious. So the
Speaker 1: King says, great, she's cute. Let's trap her in the
Speaker 1: castle and lock her in a room with a bunch
Speaker 1: of straw spinning into gold, lady, and I'll marry you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And she's like. She gets in there and she's like,
Speaker 1: I have no idea how to spend anything into gold. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this little imp rumple stilt skin climbs up says
Speaker 1: I can actually do that, and if you give me
Speaker 1: some jewelry, I'll spend that junk into gold. Uh. He does.
Speaker 1: So the King is like, this is sweet. Let me
Speaker 1: lock you in a bigger room with more straw. Rumple
Speaker 1: still skin comes back, spends all that into gold for
Speaker 1: more jewelry, comes back a third time because now she's hooked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's hooked. And she's like, I don't have any more jewelry,
Speaker 1: Like what are we gonna do here? And what he says,
Speaker 1: I got an idea. I got an idea. I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to own a human child. So you go ahead
Speaker 1: and start spinning and I'll make sure this gets uh
Speaker 1: turned into gold, and then you can marry the king.
Speaker 1: And when you guys have a kid, you just give
Speaker 1: it to me. And she's like, what are you gonna
Speaker 1: do with the kid, and he's like, don't worry about
Speaker 1: don't worry about that at all. It'll be fine. Um.
Speaker 1: So she says that sounds like a good idea. I
Speaker 1: can get the gold now, but pay later, and he says, yes,
Speaker 1: if you want to look at it like that, that's fine,
Speaker 1: and she says, let's do it. So they they end
Speaker 1: up colluding this last time. The king marries her and
Speaker 1: years passed, and then the woman has a child and
Speaker 1: one day Rumpel still a child she came to love
Speaker 1: despite knowing that there was a bounty on the child's head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was conceived under duress. Let's just say, okay, um,
Speaker 1: but she loved the child and Rumpel stillt skin comes
Speaker 1: a calling, yeah, and he says, hey, remember me, and
Speaker 1: she's like, how could I forget? He said, I'm back
Speaker 1: to claim my bounty. Give me that kid. I've got
Speaker 1: lots of neat things planned and she says, I'd kind
Speaker 1: of like to keep my kid, actually, and he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay.
Speaker 1: I love funning games. So how about this. I have
Speaker 1: a really weird name that you've never heard before. I've
Speaker 1: never told you. If you can guess my super weird,
Speaker 1: one of a kind name, we'll just call the whole
Speaker 1: thing off. Yeah, I'll give you three days even and uh,
Speaker 1: she gets the name. She does. She overhears him, right,
Speaker 1: She sneaks around and overhears him in his own layer.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I think that's how it is. Okay,
Speaker 1: so she but she guesses his name correctly, and he
Speaker 1: does not like that at all. By the way, in
Speaker 1: the early eighties, Harve vachas Tattoo from Fantasy Island played
Speaker 1: Rumpo Stiltskin in a TV version of this. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this outburst must have been particularly upsetting because you love Tattoo,
Speaker 1: so you don't want to see Tattoo playing Rumpo Stiltskin
Speaker 1: having this outburst where he's just lost his human child
Speaker 1: that's been promised to him for years because this lady
Speaker 1: managed to guess his name. And he goes the devil
Speaker 1: told you that, and he stops his foot and he
Speaker 1: stops it so hard it goes right into the earth
Speaker 1: and gets stuck there like up to his waist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he gets really angry about that and says, let
Speaker 1: me get my leg out of here and he tears
Speaker 1: his body into two pieces and the ladies off the hook. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the eighteen twelve version, he just runs away, and
Speaker 1: they actually went back in eighteen fifty seven to allow
Speaker 1: him to tear his body in half. It's a weird
Speaker 1: way to die, I agreed. Who has that that kind
Speaker 1: of upper body strength? Well, I guess so. And there's
Speaker 1: a new TV show out too. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's still out that had a lot of these characters,
Speaker 1: like Once upon a Time or something. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so. Yeah, I didn't watch it, though, I think
Speaker 1: it's still around. What is it? I think? So? What's
Speaker 1: his face? Robert Carlyle's in it from Trainspotting. Love that guy? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's good. Uh, all right, let's skip that one because
Speaker 1: that one. Just what about snow White? You want to
Speaker 1: do that one? Yes, snow White. So snow White was
Speaker 1: the one that changed everything. That was Disney's first animated
Speaker 1: full length feature, and apparently everybody, including his wife, said,
Speaker 1: do not do this. This is not the way to
Speaker 1: try to make your name, and he said, no, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do it. He borrowed one and a half million
Speaker 1: dollars at the time to make this movie, and it
Speaker 1: turned out that everybody loved it. Obviously, it's apparently the
Speaker 1: tenth highest grossing film of all time adjusted for inflation. Wow, still,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Yeah. So snow White was the one that
Speaker 1: everybody thinks of when you think of a fairy tale
Speaker 1: becoming sanitized or disneyfied, you know. Yeah, because in the
Speaker 1: Grim version there was there was a heart in a
Speaker 1: box that the evil was the evil the evil witch,
Speaker 1: the evil witch, the the one who is jealous of
Speaker 1: snow White's beauty. She wanted her heart in a box. Yes,
Speaker 1: that actually made it into the Disney version. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a sanitized version right in the in the full
Speaker 1: Grim version, she wanted to eat the liver and lungs
Speaker 1: of snow White as a matter of fact, which is
Speaker 1: a little freaky. Um. So the the the sanitized Disney
Speaker 1: version wasn't quite fully sanitized compared to the other one,
Speaker 1: but a little. They cut out the cannibalism. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: in the Grim version, snow White at her wedding, the
Speaker 1: evil stepmother, um gets involved there and the guest heat
Speaker 1: a pair of iron shoes on burning coles four. Snow
Speaker 1: White into these shoes to dance until she dies yep,
Speaker 1: from wearing I guess. I guess her feet are burned
Speaker 1: off or something. She just danced herself to death. She's
Speaker 1: a dance dance, dance, dance, dancing machine. And got a
Speaker 1: couple of more here. Rapunzel. Yeah, overtly sexual, overtly sexual.
Speaker 1: And I just realized while researching this that the Beastie Boys, Uh,
Speaker 1: we're clearly literature fans from the what Comes Around song Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Speaker 1: let down your hair, or I will climb up and
Speaker 1: get into your underwear. That's the Beastie Boys line. And
Speaker 1: I remember it. When I heard that line, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's childish, but that's actually exactly what happens in the
Speaker 1: original version, add rock, that was pretty childish. Yeah, is
Speaker 1: that what you thought? I did not like your usual,
Speaker 1: you know, collegiate, high minded stuff. Uh. It's the Disney's
Speaker 1: movie Tangled, is the Rapunzel version that's been super sanitized. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's about a young girl whose hair has miraculous
Speaker 1: properties that make you not age. So obviously there's gonna
Speaker 1: be some evil lady that wants the hair who happens
Speaker 1: to be a which builds a tower to house Rapunzel. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: she doesn't think to make the tower taller than Rapunzel's
Speaker 1: hair is long. Error. Rapunzel has a suitor, a prince.
Speaker 1: I believe it's got to be a prince. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have to look down. Yes, it's I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: a prince. Always needed a prince to save the damsel, right,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in the next episode. Um. But
Speaker 1: she liked to let her hair down and let the
Speaker 1: guy climb up her hair every night after the Which
Speaker 1: went to sleep, and they would get it on in
Speaker 1: the tower where she was locked up. And they did
Speaker 1: this a lot. And apparently one day she was very
Speaker 1: young and nine eve otherwise UM, and she said to
Speaker 1: the Which, my clothes grow tight. And the witch is
Speaker 1: like what that means? Figured out what was going on.
Speaker 1: UM banished Rapunzel to the desert and said, be gone
Speaker 1: with you. And Uh. The prince comes back one day
Speaker 1: and tries to I guess he gets into the tower somehow.
Speaker 1: He climbs up in the tower and he is confronted
Speaker 1: not by Rapunzel, his lover, but by the witch. By
Speaker 1: the wicked witch who's like, I know what you did, Yes,
Speaker 1: and there are a couple of versions. He either leaps
Speaker 1: from the tower or she pushes him from the tower,
Speaker 1: and in both versions he his eyes are gouged out
Speaker 1: by the thorns below and he's blinded right, but he's
Speaker 1: still very much in love. He wanders the earth, blind
Speaker 1: and homeless from that point on until he, by chance
Speaker 1: encounters Rapunzel, who's living as a single mom raising their
Speaker 1: kids twins on her own, apparently in a desert like town,
Speaker 1: maybe somewhere in Nevada or Arizona. Barstow. Okay, so she Zimbarstow,
Speaker 1: raising their twins as a single mom, and he, a
Speaker 1: homeless blind man, encounters her, and apparently it's just like
Speaker 1: when Ralphie comes back home in a Christmas story. Um,
Speaker 1: she starts crying at the sight of him, uh, and
Speaker 1: her tears heal him. Heal his sight. Now that he
Speaker 1: has sight, apparently he's immediately got a home again. So
Speaker 1: they make their way back to his kingdom and get
Speaker 1: married and live happily ever after, which is very rare
Speaker 1: if you haven't caught on by this point in time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a really rare story. And it's sweet too,
Speaker 1: because you know, the love goes beyond there that immediate
Speaker 1: once once the sex drives up, it seems like another another.
Speaker 1: Yeah that that the dude is just like whatever, I'm fine.
Speaker 1: This guy in one version jumps out of the tower
Speaker 1: to kill himself and is blinded and wanders the earth.
Speaker 1: That's sweet. Once the sex drives up. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: let's finish it off with the worst of them all,
Speaker 1: because it's straight up is rape. Yeah, you know, there's
Speaker 1: no dancing around what happens in Sleeping Beauty. It's like
Speaker 1: killed Bill. What do you mean at the beginning of
Speaker 1: Kill Bill? Oh? Sure remember? Yeah? Uh so in the
Speaker 1: Disney version in nine, of course you remember, there was
Speaker 1: a young princess and a sorceress, uh dooms her and
Speaker 1: cast a spell on her and says you're gonna die
Speaker 1: at sixteen, which is uh even in our time, pretty young.
Speaker 1: Did you understand why? No, probably jealousy, Yeah, she's probably ugly.
Speaker 1: In Sleeping Beauty was a beauty. Uh So she says,
Speaker 1: you know what, You're gonna prick yourself on a spindle
Speaker 1: and you're gonna die. That is the spell. Uh. It
Speaker 1: can only be undone by a good fairy. Of course,
Speaker 1: the good fairy comes along says you can get out
Speaker 1: of the slumber if a prince your true love awakens
Speaker 1: you with a kiss. Pretty innocuous, right, sure, I mean
Speaker 1: why not? Why not just just let's make it interesting?
Speaker 1: Is what the what the which said? That's right? But
Speaker 1: there's an earlier version in the fourteenth century from France.
Speaker 1: I don't have no idea how to pronounce that paras forest, okay.
Speaker 1: And in this version, the prince returns, finds the woman, uh,
Speaker 1: laying in bed, naked and unconscious, and he rapes her. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He's like, I can't help myself, and I'm a prince,
Speaker 1: so no rules apply to me. Pretty much. So she
Speaker 1: becomes pregnant, um has a kid still while asleep, she
Speaker 1: doesn't wake up from this. She gets raped, she has
Speaker 1: gets pregnant, has a baby. Um her her little baby
Speaker 1: bites on her finger, thinking he's breastfeeding, and causes the spindle,
Speaker 1: the chip from the spindle to fall out of her hand.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, her finger where she picked it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and saves her. So all anybody had to do was
Speaker 1: remove the the what's it called him? The flax chip? Now?
Speaker 1: What is it call? When a piece of wood gets
Speaker 1: into your fingers. Splinter. She had a splinter. All anybody
Speaker 1: had to do was remove it, and she would have
Speaker 1: been fine pretty much. Luckily her kid was a dumb
Speaker 1: dumb and didn't know a breast from her finger. That's right.
Speaker 1: Then there's another version called The Sun, the Moon and
Speaker 1: Talia from the six thirty four by uh gim Batista Basil.
Speaker 1: And in this version, it's a king who actually rapes
Speaker 1: the maiden. She has twins, and the queen finds out
Speaker 1: and she says, you know what, come here, cook, take
Speaker 1: this lady, take her kids, cook him, kill him, cook
Speaker 1: him and feed him to the king. And he says
Speaker 1: all right, But then he goes off. He's like, I
Speaker 1: just can't do that. What am I some kind of sick? Oh?
Speaker 1: I'll just kill a baby lamb and stead and he
Speaker 1: feeds them lamb. So yeah, if you were a cook
Speaker 1: or a huntsman or a woodsman during this era, you
Speaker 1: like part of your job was murder, Like you were
Speaker 1: expected to murder innocence at the at the whim of
Speaker 1: the people in charge. I'm just cutting down some trees.
Speaker 1: Do you need me to kill someone? Right? I got
Speaker 1: an X you want me to put someone's heart in
Speaker 1: a box. All right, Well that was it. Um, be
Speaker 1: sure to listen to part two of this where we
Speaker 1: talk about all the weirdness that's behind all of this weirdness, right,
Speaker 1: and drugs. Sure, it's always behind the weirdness. Right. Don't
Speaker 1: you think the grand brothers were token on something? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Let's find out all right. Uh, if you
Speaker 1: want to know more about fairy tales that were way
Speaker 1: darker than you realize as a kid, just type something
Speaker 1: like that into the search bar at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com and it will bring up this wonderful article.
Speaker 1: And since I said wonderful, it's time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this we inspired someone to go back
Speaker 1: to college? How about that? Hey, guys, my name is Maria.
Speaker 1: I'm from LAKEWD, Ohio suburb of Cleveland. I've been listening
Speaker 1: for a few years, and oh I'm sorry for years.
Speaker 1: And as soon as I heard you were coming to Pittsburgh,
Speaker 1: I flipped out and called my mother immediately. She's also
Speaker 1: a huge fan. Her name is Joanne. Please give her
Speaker 1: a shout out. So they came to Pittsburgh and they
Speaker 1: were in the audience. So, however, the reason I'm writing
Speaker 1: is way more important than that. You guys were my
Speaker 1: inspiration to go back to college. After listening to how
Speaker 1: sign language works, I signed up for classes about a
Speaker 1: week later. By the first day, I was in love
Speaker 1: not just with the language, but also with school. I'd
Speaker 1: forgotten how much I love to learn and be challenged,
Speaker 1: And at the start of fall semester next year, I'll
Speaker 1: be returning to school full time and it could not
Speaker 1: be happier. Uh. In the words of my best friend's dad,
Speaker 1: you belong there. How about that? Also in your episode,
Speaker 1: you mentioned three sentence structures for sign language, um I employee,
Speaker 1: employee I, or I employee I, and you were curious
Speaker 1: about the last struck Sure, and the purpose is for clarification.
Speaker 1: With the different structures long sentences or sentences like I love,
Speaker 1: you can get super confusing, uh, she said, or sentences
Speaker 1: it's clearly not a long sentence. It's hard to tell
Speaker 1: who was giving and who was receiving the love. By
Speaker 1: adding the second eye, you're clarifying who is performing the verb.
Speaker 1: So thanks again for being my entertainment and my inspiration.
Speaker 1: Keep on doing what you do. You never know whose
Speaker 1: life you won't influence. Next, that is from Marie Rasmussen.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for that email. Marie. We appreciate
Speaker 1: you best of luck in college and continuing your education.
Speaker 1: And thank you to you and your mom Joe Anne
Speaker 1: for coming to our show. I'm glad you guys had
Speaker 1: a good time. Uh. If you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us because we inspired you to do something great,
Speaker 1: or um, because we make you angry whatever, Actually, you
Speaker 1: know what, we don't care to hear from you if
Speaker 1: we make you angry to yourself. Uh. You can get
Speaker 1: in touch with us for Twitter at s Y s
Speaker 1: K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an
Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com,
Speaker 1: and as always, join us at our home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
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