WEBVTT - Anthology of Horror, Volume 1 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:10.480 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:16.080 Dr Anton Jess, Professor of Monster Studies, and I am 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:21.439 Professor Griffith Wells Warden of the Howling Pit. Robert and 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:25.720 Joe have a delightfully ghoulish installment of the podcast for 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:31.000 you today, one guaranteed to curdle your blood and expand 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:36.080 your mind in the most cranium popping ways imaginable. It's 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:40.159 a science based stroll through the world of horror, anthology, 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:46.639 television and cinema, The Twilight Zone, the Night Gallery, Tales 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:51.159 from the Crypt Tree, House of Horror, and more So, 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:56.160 stake around bloodsuckers and find out which episodes they picked 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.920 and what sorts of scientific subjects they were able to 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:15.559 suck from their Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:23.880 from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey you, welcome to 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:25.720 Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:27.880 and I'm Joe McCormick. And as you can tell from 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.759 our delightful intro there by a couple of colleagues of ours, 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.960 we'll just assume it was delightful. It was. They sounded delighted. 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.040 They sounded delighted there, but they always even the most 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:40.920 even in the most inopportune of times. Well, it comes 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.520 down to the things they delight in, I suppose. But 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.520 but what they told you is correct. We're gonna be 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:51.000 talking about horror anthologies today and then we're gonna we're 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:55.720 gonna ring some science from their their desiccated corpses. That 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.440 sounds like great fun to me. But Robert, So, by 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.760 horror anthology, you mean like TV shows where say it's 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.240 it's horror themed and it's not the same characters every episode. 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.880 We're we're not so much talking about like Monster of 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.560 the Week episode on the episodes on the X Files 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.679 are buffy, right, And we're also not talking about them 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.320 from modern version of this that you see with American 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:20.200 horror story where each season it's a different story. No, 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:24.240 we're talking about the likes of the Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.840 Tales from the Crypt, uh, the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.600 personal favorite of mine. Yeah, shows of shows of this 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.079 nature where each episode is a self contained story or 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.320 sometimes a pair of stories, or a short story and 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.600 a like a sliver of a little extra on there. 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:43.960 But they're they're self contained. They're they're essentially horror short 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.880 horror fiction that has been translated generally for television. But 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.760 then of course you also see uh, cinematic installments of 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.080 these shows as well, where you'll have a feature league 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.560 length film that consists of say three, four, maybe five 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.440 different short horror segments. Oh yeah, maybe we can do 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.360 Maybe we can include movies like that in the future. 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.840 I think we just did TV shows this time. Yeah, 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.160 there are a few, a few kind of branch out 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:12.720 into film a little bit um And of course, of 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:14.600 course we'd be remiss we don't end up talking about 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:16.720 any of these episodes. But Black Mirror, I think is 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.639 one of the finer examples of horror at times more 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.280 sci fi, but really most of those episodes are pretty terrifying. 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.680 I think you could make an argument that Black Mirror 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:29.800 is a horror anthology television series. Now, Robert, I'm a 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.600 little at a disadvantage in this episode because you have 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.560 seen far more of these types of shows than I have. 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.560 I'm I'm big on Simpson's tree House of Horror, but 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.280 I've actually seen pretty I've seen no Tales from the 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.440 Dark Side, I think, no Night Gallery. I've actually not 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.840 seen all that much Twilight Zone. A few episodes you know, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.040 here and there, and The only full Tales from the 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.600 crypt episode I've actually seen that I remember is deeply 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.480 inappropriate one with Tim Curry, who is the most wonderful 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.920 actor ever in in all of acting his three but 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.840 it's just too grotesque to even talk about. Well, as 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.040 we'll get into, that description can go for just about 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:10.400 every Tales from the Cryptos like great actors and sometimes 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:15.520 great filmmakers, but kind of a deplorable story. Um. Yeah, 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.360 if if I've seen a lot of her anthology TV 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.840 sit shows, it's because I watched a lot of Sci 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.840 Fi Channel and syndicated cable back in the nineties. I 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.800 guess you could say it was my my teacher mother 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:35.039 secret lover U to reference the Triosa far Um, But yeah, 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:39.719 I watched like stuff like Ni Gallery, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.279 both new and old. I think on the original Sci 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.280 Fi Channel watch Tales from the Dark Side in like 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.720 Syndication on Sunday afternoons. It always felt like a particularly 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.400 unholy place for it to be. Well, you know what 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.120 I do expect to find if we get into If 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.480 I go back and start watching shows like this is 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.400 I bet I will recognize things from when I was kid, 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:02.720 and we would go on a trip and like stay 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.000 in a motel or something like that. And of course 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.760 they always had all the channels we didn't get at home, 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:09.760 so they had the sci Fi channel and I just 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:14.279 tuned into whatever in the hotel. And so occasionally I'll 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.840 see some crazy movie now and realize I saw a 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.600 piece of it as a child on vacation with my 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.560 family in a hotel. Well, I didn't have ready access 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.840 to Tales from the Crypt. I would what would happen 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.200 is occasionally that on HBO was on HBO. It was 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:32.560 really one of the original original HBO programs. But to 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.760 watch it, since we were not HBO subscribers, I had 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:39.120 to either hit it and just mainline it during HBO 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:43.920 preview weekends, or more often watched them half scrambled because 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.120 I could. It would be like it would be kind 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:50.240 of like pizza colored scrambled versions of it, or sometimes 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.080 you know, it would just become black and white. So 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.320 there are some episodes of Tales in the Crypt when 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:57.400 I go back and watch them now and I'm like, oh, 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.600 I had no idea. For instance, I had no idea 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.679 that would Tim Curry playing a female character, because clearly 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.120 the first time I watched it. It was too scrambled 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.120 for me to tell well in that episode. That's kind 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:15.120 of a mercy, I think. But wow, it's amazing the 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.240 things people will will put up with in the search 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.919 for for a story that they're into, you know, like 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.200 like the idea. I always think it's funny that, you know, 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:28.120 people watch like theater bootlegged videos that, like somebody will 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.000 record a movie with the camcorder inside a theater and 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.839 people will watch that. That's kind of look terrible, but 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.359 I don't. I mean people you're they're hungry for it. 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:38.880 They want that movie. And I guess you were like 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.800 that too, watching through through all the static and weird 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.280 color variations. Yeah, that was how you got to watch it. Um. Yeah, 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.800 So to today's episode for any long time listeners to 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:51.800 stuff to plow your mind. This is essentially the same 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.680 concept as the three Creepy Pasta episodes that I did 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.480 with Christian where we would pick a creepy pasta stories 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:01.960 and sort of squeeze the science out of them. And 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.200 I have to say, we we squeezed all the science 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.960 out of Creepy Pasta. I don't think there's there's much left. 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.880 So this feels like the next logical place to uh, 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.560 to start squeezing horror anthologies. Well, I say, let's get 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:19.560 right into our first selection of the day. All right. Uh, 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.760 my selection here for our first one is a Question 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.520 of Fear. And this is this is one of my 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.880 favorite episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, his horror anthology 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.960 series that ran from nineteen ninety three. Uh, and then 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.920 of course just eternally on the Sci Fi Channel during 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.160 the during the nineties. Is this a picture of Leslie 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.200 Nielsen with an eye patch and a mustache? I'm looking 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:49.880 at Yes. This episode starred um Leslie Nielsen as Colonel 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.920 Dennis Malloy and it also starred actor Fritz Weaver as 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.720 Dr Mazzi. Weaver is terrific and this as well, I mean, 0:07:57.800 --> 0:07:59.960 Nielsen is great. And this this is the pre name 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.360 could gun Nielsen. This is the serious actor Nielsen. Oh, 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.440 he was that way for a long time. What movie 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.440 did I just watch recently where he plays a straight character? 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:12.720 I can't remember right now, But of course he was 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.600 in Forbidden Planet, was he? Yeah, you don't remember. He 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.480 was like the main he was the commander astronaut and 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:22.480 Forbidden Planets, I mean Forbidden planets. Great, it's not great 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.480 for the astronaut characters who as usual or just like 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:30.040 some stiff white dudes. Well you could say that Leslie 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.720 Neilson was also one of those those stiff yeah white 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.520 dudes for sure. Um, he's kind of like put him 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.240 in the same category as Peter Graves, you know. Uh 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.560 and and like Peter Graves and was later used to 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.320 terrific effect in comedy as such as in the Airplane 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.320 movies and the Naked Gun movies. Uh. And in this 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:51.119 he's he's pretty great because he plays just a very um, 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.200 just a very hard cold character. This colone only plays 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:59.120 he's a fearless mercenary. Uh that has you know, just 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.200 been in multiple wars and even after World War two 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:02.760 is over, you know, he couldn't get enough. So it 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.200 just continually works as a mercenary and kind of Lee 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.520 Marvin type. Yeah, very much, very much a Lee Marvin 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:11.959 type character here also reminds me a lot of the 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.200 kind of character that, say, um, Lee van Cliff would 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.599 have played. Oh yeah, okay, so in this episode, it 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:23.880 starts off with a gentleman's club and here is Colonel Malloy, uh, 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.360 you know, talking it up with the other gentleman there, 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.840 and one of the gentleman there, Dr Mazzi, played by 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:34.520 Fritz Weaver, starts talking about an episode at a haunted house, 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:36.880 some sort of an encounter with a haunted house where 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.800 it was just too terrifying for anyone to survive, and 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.040 of course the fearless colonel here. He starts talking about 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.319 just how fearless he is and how fear is a disease. 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.720 He says, I'm careful, but I am incapable of fear. Okay, 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.839 So this leads to a bet, as of apparently tends 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.560 to happen in stuffy gentleman's clubs. Momzy says that he 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:02.679 bets he cannot survive one night in this haunted mansion 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.760 without being scared to death. And uh, and he puts 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:10.800 ten dollars on the line. Yeah, that's a load of cash, 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.600 and so of course our mercenaries up for it to 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.440 prove how fearless he is and to uh and to 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:18.560 to get a nice pay day. He says, of course 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.079 I'll do it, so uh. And that's one of the 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.760 fabulous things about this episode. It's basically a two person show. 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.280 It's just just Weaver and Nielsen so, and you don't 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.600 even see Weaver again physically. He only appears on a 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:36.319 television set. So what happens is that Malloy braves the 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.680 ghost effects in the house, you know, all these smoke 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:40.960 and mirror effects that seem intended to scare him out 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.920 of his pay day. He definitely fires a few rounds 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.800 and does some obvious special effects. Uh. And just the 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.280 audience is clear that they're special effects, or it's obvious 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.160 within the story that they're special effects. I think a 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:58.079 little of both, especially the modern viewers. Uh. The effects 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:02.200 aren't like outright tear double, but anything they're lacking I 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.560 think actually enhances this aspect of the episode. So it's 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.800 like supposed to be visible to Malloyd that it's fake, right, 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.319 or certainly after he's through, you know, emptying his gun 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:13.720 into it, he's like, oh, you're this is in real. Um. 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:15.400 I dealt with the problem the way I deal with 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.320 all my problems. I attempted to murder it, uh, and 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.520 then I saw that it wasn't anything to be afraid of. 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.000 So uh. He eventually, though, he settles into bed, he 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.000 has a little coffee for some reason, and then he says, 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:28.760 all right, I'm just gonna go to bed, and when 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:30.959 I wake up, I'm gonna be ten thousand dollars Richard 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:34.680 dreaming of mounting ghost heads on this wall. Right. But 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.520 then the second he settles in, iron bar snap into 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.160 place over him, and a pendulum starts descending from the ceiling, 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.600 and he still refuses to give into the fear. He's like, yells, 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:45.720 all right, Mamsy, you can do this, you can kill me, 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:47.880 but you're not gonna win because look at me, still 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.720 not afraid, not afraid to die. And uh. And so 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.679 he ends up going to sleep, and when he wakes up, 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.640 he makes himself breakfast and Mazy communicates with him via 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:02.240 a live TV train ends mission and he reveals the following. 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:06.880 First of all, Malloy apparently encountered Mazzi's pianist father in 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:09.840 Italy during the Second World War, where he tortured him 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.160 for information, pouring gasoline over his hands and setting them 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:17.079 on fire. WHOA, So, as you can imagine Mazzi's for 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.240 to find Malloy and to break him. You burn my 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.880 daddy's hands, I'll get you for this, right Yeah, So 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.679 now we know it's a revenge piece. So Mazzi reveals 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:29.680 at this point that he is a biochemist, one of 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.480 the greatest biochemists in the field, and is highly respected 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.080 UH in the realm of biochemical warfare. And he says 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:39.400 that he and his colleague recently discovered a way to 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.960 convert a complex enzyme in the human body into that 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.040 of an earthworm. And by injecting this, he says, quote, 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:49.600 the bones of the body disintegrate without affecting the nervous 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.679 system or the vital organs, until the victim is as 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.760 near as can be an earthworm able to move on 0:12:55.800 --> 0:13:00.800 its belly, but without vertebrae, unable to stand, able to feed, 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.240 able to pass waste matter, but unable to use its 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:08.200 arms and legs except to assist with a slithering motion 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.560 in the manner of an earthworm. I can't help but 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.640 notice this sounds like a better and more interesting version 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.600 of a movie I don't like to talk about. Yes, 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.679 I have long thought about this. We've had a couple 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.199 of movies that have come out over the past ten 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.640 years in which a deranged scientist wants to turn somebody 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.040 into a creature of some sort, generally a lesser invertebrate. 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.120 And and I find that all of those men like that. 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.360 The concept is initially revolting and appealing, but then you 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.200 realize it's not really dealt with in any depth. It's 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:44.520 only rolled out to to revolt the audience, whereas in 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.199 this episode, I feel like it is it is leveled 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.240 in a in a very intelligent way. Uh so, so yeah, 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.319 to continue going. Malloy initially doubts this. He's like, you're 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:57.520 you're full of it, but Mazi tells him, oh, well, 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.120 why don't you look in the cellar and see what 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.440 became of my colleague and says that he was a 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.840 large man, but now he's reduced to something like a slug. 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.280 And indeed, earlier in the episode, when when Leslie Nilsen's 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.720 character is looking around the mansion, one of the things 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:16.080 he encounters is this unexplained trail of slime through the cellar. Uh, 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:19.400 and there's this it's it's it's it's a legitimately creepy 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.400 moment and certainly seems a little different from the uh 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.240 the ghost effects that are thrown at him. So then 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.680 he tells Molloy. Massy tells Mooy that the transformation is 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:30.600 going to take time, but that he's going to go 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.240 down in medical history, and there's no stopping it. He said, 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:35.280 you can after you leave here, you can tell the police, 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:37.640 you can go to a specialist. But first of all, 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.280 the specialists probably won't believe you, and even if they do, 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:42.480 they're not going to be able to help you because 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.440 this cannot be reversed. Wait, so at this point he's 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.800 done something to Malloy. He's like injected him or something. 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.680 That's what he claims. Yes, em Malloyd calls his bluff, 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:53.800 but but he's already beginning to give in the fear. 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.720 Massy tells him, Uh, look, you should just wanted to 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.760 check your inside forearm. I believe that is you'll find 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.680 an injection point. We drugged your coffee, and I snuck 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.560 in and injected you while you were asleep. And and 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.440 if you still don't believe me, then go into the seller. 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:13.440 Go into the seller and see what my colleague became. 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.360 And at this point he's like really working Malloy up. 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.120 And Molloy begins to move towards the seller and he 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.800 sees the trail of slime this time, uh, you know, 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.800 working through the hallways and descending into the cellar. And 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.840 then he turns around and he tells Mazzi that he 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.440 still isn't that there's no way mass is gonna win, 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:33.560 that that that that he Malloy is going to win, 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.640 and then he shoots himself with his own gun. And 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:41.600 at this point, um Mazzi uh admits he says, actually 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.920 I win because there's nothing in the seller that's pretty good. Yeah, 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.160 I mean I this is just my retelling of it. 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.840 So certainly the episode itself is a is a finer 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.000 version of the tail than my synopsis here. I love 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.760 the Uh. It's a common thing, apparently in horror to 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.160 just talk to people through TVs. I'm thinking about those 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:05.680 saw movies And isn't there a segment in Creep Show 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.600 where somebody talks to somebody through a TV? Yes, I 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.360 believe it is actually Leslie Nielsen. I think so, in 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.880 the bit where Ted Danson and I can't remember the 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:16.760 other actor's name, where they're buried up to their necks 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.800 in the surf in the sandy, and Leslie Nielsen's like, moaha, ha, 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.320 I'll talk to you through a TV. Yeah, that's a 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.720 that's a nice connection between this episode and Creep Show 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:30.240 horror anthology film, which, incidentally enough Fritz Weaver is also 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.640 in in the crate segment. He plays the professor. Uh. 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:38.560 That works with how Hobrook's character. Oh okay, and he's 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.720 fabulous in that as well, like he's he really should 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.680 go down as more of a horror anthology legend. Well, 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.040 I I got to see this episode. This is pretty 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.840 creepy just hearing you describe it. Yeah, it creeped me out. 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:51.760 Then it still creeps me out now even though there's 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.880 no actual transformation, it's described so well. It's a it's 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:57.960 set up so well that you don't even care like 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:02.080 it it It doesn't deflate the horror of it when 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.520 when you have this final twist at the end. But this, 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.800 uh yeah, particularly this concept of transformation into an earthworm, 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.200 I feel like there is a lot of dread here 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.640 and it and uh and I'd like to know discuss 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.560 a little bit why uh we feel that sense of 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.440 dread when we imagine being turned into what is essentially 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.800 a noble organism, uh, the earthwork. Now, I can think 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:31.520 of quite a few culturally common body transformation or deterioration phobias. 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.720 People have phobias about loss of teeth. That's a common 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:38.240 when people have nightmares about losing their teeth. Uh, there's 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.280 like the penis retraction phobia. You know, people have genital 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:47.399 deterioration fears, but I've never heard of bone disappearance phobia before. 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.200 That's a new one. Uh, it's it's a great one. Though. 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.000 There's actually an episode of The Ray Bradberry Theater from 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.480 the eighties which has a similar plot line, in which 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.280 I believe Eugene Levy plays an individual who goes to 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:01.240 a doctor for some sort of skeletal issue and he 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.399 like removes his skeleton and reduces him to a like 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.760 essentially an invertebrate. Oh so he like becomes a human 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:11.800 jellyfish basically. So perhaps it's not explored enough the the 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:17.760 bone removal or disintegration um sub genre body horror. Well, Robert, 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:19.359 I assume you're going to tell me something about the 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.920 science of earthworms, right, Yeah, this gave me a good 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.760 excuse to look into the science of earthworms. And I 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.040 have to apologize to earthworms and humans who have been 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.520 transformed into them, because you know, we could do a 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.359 whole episode just on the importance of earthworms and the 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.199 evolution of earthworms. That's probably true of any of the 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.159 subjects we discuss in this episode that we could probably 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:42.720 expand them into a whole episode of their own. Yeah, 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:44.200 if we were. If I was a little more of 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.480 a grown up about it and was and didn't want 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:49.600 to just use these things as an excuse to talk 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:54.160 about night gallery. Um the so yeah, the uh, we're 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:58.720 talking about the annelids here from the analytic phylum, which 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:03.800 includes all the segmented worms such as earthworms, leeches, and 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.760 a whole host of polychete marine worms such as the 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.359 bristle worm, which I recently got to see on a 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.520 vacation in Costa Rica in the tide pools. Yeah. Um, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:16.679 what do they look like? Are they bristly? They are 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.199 bristly And if you touch them, especially with a five 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:23.439 year old touches them, uh, they will they will sting you. 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.159 But the child was fine. It was a friend of 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.600 my son's. Okay, yeah, he was fine. He got that. 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:31.440 But he did get to have a very up close 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.960 and personal experience with with the bristleworm. Um. So, the 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:39.439 this particular phylum contains more than nine thousand species and 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:43.399 six thousand species of earthworm. They live everywhere except Antarctica, 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.720 and there are even bioluminescent earthworms. Oh I don't think 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.040 I knew that. Uh yeah, I found a couple of 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:53.240 great sources on them, in particular Dr Frank Anderson and 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:57.760 Dr Samuel James. They did a blog post at Biomedical 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:01.880 Central titled the Evolution of Earthworms. So earthworms are fabulous, 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:06.679 their their ecosystem engineers working, draining, aerating the soil. I 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.600 feel like nowadays most people realize that, hey, have you've 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:12.480 got worms living in your garden? Earthworms, they're they're doing 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:15.000 the Lord's work. That's good. But what did we not 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.960 always realize that worms were good for the soil? Well, 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:20.520 it seems like we didn't. I mean, you can look 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.000 back to the writings of say Aristotle, who referred to 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.480 them as the intestines of the earth, which is in 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.800 many ways true. It seems like a good thing, right, 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.440 you don't want to not have intestines. But but apparently 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:38.440 before Charles Darwin came along with his interest in earthworms, 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.080 there was this idea, at least in the Western world, 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.879 at least in in Europe, in Britain specifically, that earthworms 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:46.840 were kind of a pest in your garden, that they 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:50.000 weren't really doing anything get them out of there. By 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:53.160 the way, Dr Anderson and James. One of the things 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:56.080 they discussed in their their article is that roughly one 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.520 third of the earthworms species in North America were introduced 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:03.440 for Europe or Asia, and some were introduced into northern 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.399 forests which had been free of earthworms since the end 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.680 of the Last Ice Age roughly eleven thousand years ago. 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.320 Oh wow, I've never thought about that, the way um 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.200 like the soil fauna has to recover after areas have 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:20.080 been covered by glaciers. I guess yeah. I believe we've 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:22.160 touched on this in the past on the show. Maybe 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:25.080 it was a very old episode about the idea of 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:29.760 of earthworms being brought in by by colonial forces from 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.920 the from the Old World into the New World. Anyway, 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:37.160 But earthworms, there are a lot of them out there. 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:41.080 The largest is the giant African earthworm. Uh. It's typically 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.040 typically reaches fifty four inches or one point thirty six 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:48.080 ms in length, but its record length is twenty two 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.320 ft or six point seven ms. What. Yeah, Now, even 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.480 this species before anyone pictures like a full Leslie Nielsen 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.360 transformed earthworm, Uh, this species was still the giant here 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:01.159 was still less than an inch in diameter. Uh so 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.040 nothing that could scare a man to deathness seller that 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:08.160 makes me wonder what are the upper limits of Like 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:12.600 how how filament like an organism can be. Like at 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.040 some point you would think that the strains of moving 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.720 something that long and that thin would want to rip 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:21.760 it apart or something. I guess that's why, because you 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:23.720