Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w. Spirit of Christmas Bryant,
Speaker 1: Josh Kringle, and there's Jerry Crampus rolling over there. And
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is stuff you should know. That's right,
Speaker 1: the geez, we should know how many this is? Seven? No? Yes,
Speaker 1: our Christmas Special Edition second try, Holiday Spectacular, Spectacular, Spooktacular. No,
Speaker 1: that's Halloween all right? All right, yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: how many of this is, but we've been podcasting for
Speaker 1: almost twelve years now. It'll be twelve this next year, right, yes,
Speaker 1: like summer Rich, did we release a Christmas this episode
Speaker 1: the first year? I don't know. I'll have to go
Speaker 1: back and do our homework ourselves. I'm sure someone knows
Speaker 1: this stuff, but as usual, not that we're tooting our
Speaker 1: own horn, but we just want to remind everyone that
Speaker 1: we release this ad free every year. So our Christmas
Speaker 1: episode is without taint. That's pretty great. Uh, it's untainted too, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it always just felt weird to slap an
Speaker 1: at in the middle of the Christmas themed show. Who
Speaker 1: advertises around Christmas. Yeah, exactly, so anyway, this is uh,
Speaker 1: we're all pleased with that. We are pra Please just
Speaker 1: punch Jerry's especially please look at her. So, Jerry, do
Speaker 1: you know it's Christmas? Yeah? Jerry so grumpy, So Chuck, Yes,
Speaker 1: I feel like we should start this one off in
Speaker 1: our usual tradition, um by a little bit of music
Speaker 1: to play us into the next The first segment fantastic.
Speaker 1: That's nice, it really is. Jerry is good at this
Speaker 1: sets the mood. Um. I think that was true Siberian Orchestra.
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, wasn't We'll find out before we
Speaker 1: get started with this episode, Chuck. We should we have
Speaker 1: in the future concluded that here in the past we
Speaker 1: should issue a c o A. I know who would
Speaker 1: have thought our Christmas episode might not be appropriate for kids,
Speaker 1: but we're us. So this first story has to deal
Speaker 1: with magic mushrooms in Santa Claus and it's all legit.
Speaker 1: But if you don't want your kids listen to that,
Speaker 1: then don't listen to it. Okay, well, let's get on
Speaker 1: with it. Let's do so. Um. I dug something up
Speaker 1: years back, and we've talked about it before. At least
Speaker 1: in passing. But the more I jumped into it, the
Speaker 1: more I was like, this is nuts. I don't even
Speaker 1: know which order we're going in. You see, I have
Speaker 1: my papers all over, So I'm excited. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: along for the ride, just like the listener. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: direct to hear the first Yeah you're directing, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm this is This is really a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: all of a sudden places everyone that's what you gotta
Speaker 1: doesn't expect this. Let me put my shoulder or back
Speaker 1: the one. Let me put my sweater over my shoulders
Speaker 1: and get out your old school megaphone. Uh okay, Chuck,
Speaker 1: please stand right there. Ry keep doing what you're doing, Chuck.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about Santa Claus as a possible psychedelic mushroom. Alright.
Speaker 1: I was hoping we'd start with that one. Okay. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, we've talked about this before. I don't
Speaker 1: remember what episode. I know we have, Yeah, we have,
Speaker 1: but never this in depth. No, And I also want
Speaker 1: to point out that the uh i'm annita Muscaria is
Speaker 1: that the full name this mushroom? The very famous red
Speaker 1: and White Christmas see looking mushroom, the one that anytime
Speaker 1: you think of a gnome that's like the toadstool they
Speaker 1: live around. That's right. I saw some of these just
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago in the woods. Wow. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you come down yet. Well, the person I was with said,
Speaker 1: I think those are magic mushrooms. I said, no, those
Speaker 1: only grow and cow poop. And they were nick, No,
Speaker 1: I think those are two. There's different kinds. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: uh we went back to little research and it turns
Speaker 1: out they are. We did not touch them or pick them.
Speaker 1: We left them to grow. Well. Yeah, they apparently they're
Speaker 1: also very toxic. Sure, I imagine, um, but there's ways,
Speaker 1: there's things you can do to them to remove the toxicity,
Speaker 1: especially if you live around rain deer. That's right. But
Speaker 1: that plays a part in this story because this great
Speaker 1: article you sent Santa Claus and the Santa Claus, the
Speaker 1: Magic Mushroom and the Psychedelic Origins of Christmas by Melanie Zulu.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm going with. X x U l U.
Speaker 1: That's a great name. Uh. And what publication was this move?
Speaker 1: What a great rag. Yeah, So Melanie Zulu basically UM
Speaker 1: did some research on this idea. UM that Santa Claus
Speaker 1: was inspired by those psychedelic mushrooms, the fly a Garrick mushroom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I gotta say, when all of this stuff is
Speaker 1: read together, there's a lot of pretty heavy coincidence. It
Speaker 1: really is. You know else, whenever you whenever you read
Speaker 1: about something like this where something might have been based
Speaker 1: on their speculation or whatever, you're like, that's a couple
Speaker 1: of those are kind of convincing from start to finish.
Speaker 1: This is so absolutely convincing them, Like this is this
Speaker 1: is the answer everybody. That's right. Magic mushrooms maybe so. Um.
Speaker 1: On the very far end of the spectrum of the
Speaker 1: speculation that Santa Claus is based on a psychedelic mushroom,
Speaker 1: you'll find Jack Harror, who's a very famous pot activists,
Speaker 1: um so so famous in fact, I believe he has
Speaker 1: his own strain of pot, if not like brand like
Speaker 1: Willie We'd basically or whatever Snoop Doggs brands are right. Um,
Speaker 1: And Jack Harris said, not only was Santa Claus based
Speaker 1: on a mushroom, Santa Claus was the mushroom. That's where
Speaker 1: they got it from. It was like this is they
Speaker 1: used to basically eat these mushrooms and call them Santa Claus. Okay,
Speaker 1: most people, most people don't don't agree with that. Instead
Speaker 1: they say, no, we think that there is something to
Speaker 1: the idea that Santa Claus was inspired by the rituals
Speaker 1: around this, this mushroom in particular, though. That's right. Uh. Notably,
Speaker 1: there's a professor, professor named John Rush at Sierra College
Speaker 1: in California, and it's pretty neat. There are like legit
Speaker 1: Christmas scholars out there that you can get expert, you know,
Speaker 1: takes on and he's one of those guys. And he said,
Speaker 1: his quota is up until a few hundred years ago. Uh,
Speaker 1: these practicing shaman and we're talking about shaman in uh
Speaker 1: the lapland, yeah, in northern Finland, Northern Finland. He said,
Speaker 1: are these priests they connected to older traditions. They would
Speaker 1: collect these mushrooms, dry them up and give them as
Speaker 1: as gifts and the winter solstice, so the stage is set.
Speaker 1: We know this for sure. They would collect these mushrooms
Speaker 1: and they would give them out for people to eat
Speaker 1: and get high. Right, But exactly what they were doing
Speaker 1: when they did that really kind of drives the Santa
Speaker 1: idea home a lot. Yeah, notably what they wore. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's first start with that fly, a garrick mushroom. When
Speaker 1: you saw it, you were out in the woods. I'll
Speaker 1: bet you they were growing at the foot of a
Speaker 1: fir tree. They were a pine tree, some sort of
Speaker 1: evergreen right, correct. Okay, that's almost exclusively where they grow.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm on the witness stand, right, would
Speaker 1: you recall um? And then the other thing about it is, um,
Speaker 1: they grow at least up in the northern climbs around
Speaker 1: the winter solstice. So you've got the winter solstice, which
Speaker 1: happens to inside pretty nicely with Christmas, and you have
Speaker 1: the emergence of these mushrooms around fur trees, evergreen trees
Speaker 1: around that time. Right. Then you have the Siberian shaman
Speaker 1: or shaman's seems like it should be shaman plural even,
Speaker 1: but it's not. Uh. They would dress up to look
Speaker 1: like those mushrooms. So you think, all right, those red
Speaker 1: and white mushrooms. Interesting. Um, So all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you've got a shaman with black boots, a red felt hat,
Speaker 1: white fur red coat. Does that sound like anyone? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty surprising. And if that were the long and
Speaker 1: short of it, I'd be like, that's a bit of
Speaker 1: a stretch, but let's continue, shall we. Yes, Okay, those
Speaker 1: same shaman they would give these flying garrick toadstools out
Speaker 1: as gifts around Christmas. But they would because by the
Speaker 1: time we winter Solstice rolled around, there would be snow everywhere. Um,
Speaker 1: they couldn't get through the door of their friends and
Speaker 1: loved ones, you're so they would enter through the smoke hole,
Speaker 1: the chimney you might call it, to deliver these gifts,
Speaker 1: like smoke hole better. Yeah, I'm gonna start calling my chimney. Actually,
Speaker 1: I don't have a chimney anymore. No, you could, though,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to have a chimney. Now we got
Speaker 1: rid of our Chimney's punch a hole in the roof,
Speaker 1: a smoke hole. Yeah. So they would climb down wearing
Speaker 1: the red coat, the white fur, the black boots, climb
Speaker 1: down a chimney and deliver uh, these magic mushrooms as gifts,
Speaker 1: as gifts, and then they would hang them in front
Speaker 1: of the fire the people who received the gifts. Yes,
Speaker 1: they would hang them to dry in front of a fire,
Speaker 1: sometimes in hanging them in a stocking, perhaps in front
Speaker 1: of a fire. This is all true stuff. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this really went on and it just up until
Speaker 1: a couple of hundred years ago in Siberia among the
Speaker 1: Sami people in northern Finland, and just as an aside
Speaker 1: northern Finland, the Lapland happens to be where the geographical
Speaker 1: location where Santa lives is. Yes, and we should add
Speaker 1: one final little note to this. They would when they're
Speaker 1: picking these mushrooms, they want to dry them out, so
Speaker 1: they would put them on the tree boughs, these fur trees,
Speaker 1: hang them to dry in the sun. So now they're
Speaker 1: hanging I don't know, ornaments, yeah maybe yeah, on trees
Speaker 1: that's right, under which presents tend to grow. These presents
Speaker 1: that are these mushrooms that are given as presents. So
Speaker 1: if you step back and take all this stuff and
Speaker 1: put it together, you have based on this, these rituals
Speaker 1: among the shaman of the Sami and in Siberia um
Speaker 1: the idea of harvesting mushrooms that grow under fir trees.
Speaker 1: Fur trees that people bring into their homes and put
Speaker 1: gifts under and hang ornaments on in order to celebrate
Speaker 1: Santa Claus coming down the chimney wearing Santa suit with
Speaker 1: a bag of gifts, sometimes filling up stockings with those gifts.
Speaker 1: That's right. When you add all this stuff up, it's
Speaker 1: really really convincing. Yeah, and then there's a little cherry
Speaker 1: on top, which is apparently reindeer really love to eat
Speaker 1: these mushrooms. Yeah. Remember how I said that they're toxic,
Speaker 1: but there's things you can do to detoxify them. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can drink the urine of a reindeer who has
Speaker 1: eaten this, and that is a way to detoxify it.
Speaker 1: It is the reindeer metabolized the the toxic parts, but
Speaker 1: they they don't metabolize all of the hallucinogenic parts, so
Speaker 1: you can boil their urine and drink the urine and
Speaker 1: not be um uh sick. Yes, but still, twig, Should
Speaker 1: we have had a c o A at the top
Speaker 1: of this Maybe, probably, so we'll have to go back
Speaker 1: and record it one. Okay, Well that's it for that one. Huh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So should we throw our bag of magic mushrooms in
Speaker 1: the sleigh? Yeah, and take off for the next house.
Speaker 1: Quite a gift, okay, Chuck. So uh, behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: I've done a little directing. That's right, and we have
Speaker 1: determined I should say I've determined that we're going to
Speaker 1: do uh this one about It's a Wonderful Life a
Speaker 1: movie I still have not seen? What for real? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of the old Christmas classics I haven't seen.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen Santa Claus is coming to Town, Miracle
Speaker 1: into Street. I haven't seen this. Wow, you haven't seen
Speaker 1: the the stop motion Santa Claus Is coming to town. No,
Speaker 1: I've seen that. What are you talking about? Man? And
Speaker 1: I think I just made up a movie that doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: That's a song and it's a stop motion movie. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard and seen both those things. You could have
Speaker 1: just stopped with, um, it's a wonderful life. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: should see a Miracle on thirty four three. That's just wonderful.
Speaker 1: I don't know. To me, there are three Christmas movies
Speaker 1: and that's all I see. Oh, there's a lot more
Speaker 1: than that. There's Elf, there's wait a minute, there's Christmas
Speaker 1: Vacation and there's a Christmas story. Okay, you're putting Elf
Speaker 1: above Miracle on thirty four Street. Your brain is broke.
Speaker 1: I am putting it light years ahead of it. And
Speaker 1: I haven't even seen it. Everyone I know to see
Speaker 1: it says It's a Wonderful Life is boring. No, no,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that, but it sounds boring. It's great.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful movie, and it beats elf just terribly.
Speaker 1: I will watch that just so I can come back
Speaker 1: and argue, please do I'll wait. I would argue that
Speaker 1: they're so different, like why compare them? Well, you can
Speaker 1: compare them because Miracle on thirty four Stree is so better?
Speaker 1: Do you laugh? Four times? Probably four and fifty? Oh
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was a comedy. Well I'm just
Speaker 1: lying right now. But you don't know that. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about this Mental Floss writer J. Saraphine, great name who
Speaker 1: put out and we still love Mental Flaws as much
Speaker 1: as we always did. Yeah, it's one of our favorite
Speaker 1: favorite publications. We even know the guys who founded it.
Speaker 1: I know their colleagues, so we can do this right.
Speaker 1: But you don't know if he wrote a great article
Speaker 1: called how It's a Wonderful Life went from box office
Speaker 1: to accidental Christmas tradition. Yeah, I should say this kicks
Speaker 1: off what really? This is the Intellectual Property Um Law
Speaker 1: edition of our Christmas episodes. Yeah, good point. It's a
Speaker 1: weird thread. It just keeps popping up. So this movie
Speaker 1: from directed by Frank Capra, tells the story of George Bailey.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you haven't seen this movie. And it's
Speaker 1: I've just heard it so boring. It's not no desire,
Speaker 1: it's not It's a classic wonderful movie. Like it's not
Speaker 1: one of those things where it's like, oh, you have
Speaker 1: to see it's just like life changing movie. It's just
Speaker 1: it's a good, sweet movie with great themes, well acted,
Speaker 1: well directed. Everything about it is It's just a good movie.
Speaker 1: You should really see it. You have to see it.
Speaker 1: I demand that you see it. I'll watch Elf again.
Speaker 1: Do you not like Elf? Or is fine? It's a
Speaker 1: good movie. I'll watch it just a couple of times
Speaker 1: over the Christmas season. I got problems with Elf. But
Speaker 1: don't not see It's a Wonderful Life because you like Elf? Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to see it despite you. So
Speaker 1: in when it was released, the critics and the audiences
Speaker 1: didn't like it. Imagine that, uh, And it was a
Speaker 1: big box office flop for Frank Capra's brand new production
Speaker 1: company Liberty Films. Yeah, it was so. Um Capra was
Speaker 1: a pretty famous director in the thirties and he went
Speaker 1: off to um head up the propaganda film division for
Speaker 1: the US government during World War Two, and then after
Speaker 1: that he and some other director friends of his got
Speaker 1: together and said, let's start our own production company, and
Speaker 1: they did. They started Liberty Films, and the first project
Speaker 1: from Liberty Films was It's a Wonderful Life, and it
Speaker 1: was a mess. It was a mess. It actually as
Speaker 1: much as It's a just a holiday classic for every
Speaker 1: single person on earth except for you. Um. It was
Speaker 1: a huge dud, like you were saying, uh, early on
Speaker 1: in its life, so much so that it actually it
Speaker 1: wiped their company out because it turned out to be
Speaker 1: a really big bet. It had a two million dollar
Speaker 1: budget initially, which is something like twenty six million dollars today,
Speaker 1: still pretty modest, but back then, if you were a
Speaker 1: new fledgling production company, that was a big first feature,
Speaker 1: and it actually ended up being like a three point
Speaker 1: seven million dollar film. It went that far over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it almost doubled its budget because it had a what
Speaker 1: the they referred to as a bloated shooting schedule. Uh.
Speaker 1: They were rewriting the script over and over and over.
Speaker 1: It was it sounded like just a nightmare production, which
Speaker 1: is pretty funny when you think about it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they kept rewriting the script despite the fact that it
Speaker 1: was based on a short story. It wasn't just an
Speaker 1: original story. That might have been the problem. But maybe
Speaker 1: sometimes a short story is difficult. Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 1: So regardless, this over budgeted. Uh, I think they turned
Speaker 1: it in late. Even um movie was released, the public
Speaker 1: didn't like it, the critics didn't like it. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it was basically headed for the dustbin of history if
Speaker 1: not for the fact that in ninety four the movie
Speaker 1: entered the public domain because the copyright holder forgot to
Speaker 1: file for renewal. I saw forgot to. I also saw
Speaker 1: that they just didn't bother. Okay, they imagine that that,
Speaker 1: like they knew the copyright was it was coming up,
Speaker 1: and they just said, forget it. It's this literally isn't
Speaker 1: worth our time and effort. But yes, either way, In
Speaker 1: nine entered the public domain, and it went from this
Speaker 1: schlocky flop because that was one of the other things too,
Speaker 1: this is an audience. In ninth, they thought that this
Speaker 1: was just too corny um, and they rejected it the wholesale.
Speaker 1: But by the time the seventies came around, people were
Speaker 1: a lot more jaded um, and they kind of wanted
Speaker 1: that that corny home spun kind of nostalgia from the forties.
Speaker 1: That wasn't George Bailey, you haven't even seen the movie,
Speaker 1: and that was you know who Jimmy Stewart is. So um.
Speaker 1: They they like every TV station that wanted it, got
Speaker 1: its hands on its free for the free. They could
Speaker 1: show this movie over and over and over again, and
Speaker 1: they did the idea of running a Christmas movie marathon
Speaker 1: the same movie, like they do with a Christmas Story today.
Speaker 1: That was apparently founded in the mid seventies by It's
Speaker 1: a Wonderful Life entering the public domain, and that was
Speaker 1: a tradition up until when the Supreme Court of the
Speaker 1: United States ruled and Stuart v. Abend And that's Jimmy Stewart,
Speaker 1: by the way. But it's another movie, Rear Window, right,
Speaker 1: which is a certified great movie and a classic, and
Speaker 1: critics love that one and so did the public. That
Speaker 1: was a movie, uh that established a precedent that allowed
Speaker 1: republic pictures. Republic pictures who originally owned the film's copyright,
Speaker 1: to regain ownership because they own the copyright on that
Speaker 1: short story that you mentioned and the score of the movie.
Speaker 1: So there, like you on the score, you on that
Speaker 1: short story, you basically on the movie. Yeah. Their argument
Speaker 1: was you cannot show this movie without the story or
Speaker 1: without the score, so like, that's this is our movie.
Speaker 1: And and the Supreme Court or the the whatever court
Speaker 1: ruled on it said, yeah, you're right, that's right. So
Speaker 1: NBC stepped in and said, well, we've got a bunch
Speaker 1: of cash here, we're flushed from friends making us a
Speaker 1: trillion dollars. We're going to spend some of this on
Speaker 1: the rights to U A Wonderful Life. And they locked
Speaker 1: it down. And that's why you don't see twenty four
Speaker 1: hour marathon. So it's a wonderful life anymore. And that's
Speaker 1: why you don't see it on f x X anymore. Right,
Speaker 1: But if you happen to be listening to this in
Speaker 1: the United States on Christmas Eve, the day that this
Speaker 1: comes out, it's on tonight on NBC, I will not
Speaker 1: be watching Do Do Do Okay, Chuck. So we're going
Speaker 1: to spend the rest of the episode with me convincing
Speaker 1: you to watch It's a wonderful life. I can't. I'm
Speaker 1: so agitated right now, I can barely sit. It's my
Speaker 1: gift to you. Um, where do you want to go next? Mr? Director? Well,
Speaker 1: let's keep the intellectual property law thread going, okay, And
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about a song, a little ditty and
Speaker 1: it is called Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. That's
Speaker 1: it's a fake movie that you made up that you've
Speaker 1: never seen, that no one's ever seen. But it's also
Speaker 1: that classic animated film Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.
Speaker 1: I think it's ranking bass, isn't it. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: also a song that goes a little something like this
Speaker 1: one handed to song redacted. That was good, Chuck, You
Speaker 1: like that? Oh? That was better than Bruce Springsteen and
Speaker 1: the Jackson Five put together. Because we can't afford to
Speaker 1: pay for that. No, they say that it's one of
Speaker 1: the richest songs ever written because seven number seven, richest
Speaker 1: song of all time written by a man. And I
Speaker 1: got this original article in k y Man wrote Santa
Speaker 1: Claus Is Coming to Town by Jeff Seuss. I think
Speaker 1: they mean northern Kentucky. Yeah, sure, for those of you
Speaker 1: who live outside the n K Y region. Well, it's
Speaker 1: interesting when you see it. Do you think, is that
Speaker 1: say New York City. Nope, that does not Northern Kentucky.
Speaker 1: That's what they wanted to think. A couple of years
Speaker 1: ago from Cincinnata dot Com and Jeff Suice, and they
Speaker 1: were championing one of their own lyricist. Haven Gillespie is
Speaker 1: a Kentuckian and he actually worked for one day at
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati Enchoirer, which is the paper that owns Cincinnati
Speaker 1: dot Com. That's right, so he was really one of
Speaker 1: their own. He was born in born in February. Uh,
Speaker 1: worked as a type setter in Cincinnata and Chicago and
Speaker 1: became a really famous lyricist. But this is kind of
Speaker 1: a neat little side note. Even though he got very
Speaker 1: famous as a songwriter, whenever he was in Cincinnati, apparently
Speaker 1: he would do some shifts at a newspaper print shop
Speaker 1: just to keep up his union status. Healthcare pretty interesting. Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: he wrote a few songs. Actually, he wrote one of
Speaker 1: what I think is one of the best songs ever written.
Speaker 1: You go to My Head. Do you know that song? Uh?
Speaker 1: I don't know. You'll have to listen to because like
Speaker 1: this song redacted, but there's a Marlene Dietrich version of it.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It's a great song as it is, but
Speaker 1: Marlene Dietrich singing it just does something to it that's
Speaker 1: really something. I think it's Marlena, right or is this
Speaker 1: her sister Marlene? Is it Marlena? I think so, didn't it?
Speaker 1: I don't care anyway? Um Ms Dietrich does a really
Speaker 1: great rendition of it. Did I say her last name correctly?
Speaker 1: I think it's Frau Dietrich yet so um. Haven Gillespie
Speaker 1: wrote this song, and he had a couple of like songs,
Speaker 1: and then he finally wrote a hit, and this is
Speaker 1: in the Tim pan Alley era, right, Um. He finally
Speaker 1: wrote a hit called Breezing along with the Breeze, which
Speaker 1: is the dumbest name anyone's ever given to a song.
Speaker 1: But people liked it, and he moved to New York
Speaker 1: and he really started writing for Tim pan Alley and Earnest.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't until Santa claus Is coming to town
Speaker 1: that he was on a easy street. That's right. A
Speaker 1: publisher at Leo Piss named Edgar Bittner came forward and said,
Speaker 1: here's a composer, Mr J. Fred Coots, don't you get
Speaker 1: together and right a children's Christmas song? Coots and Gillespie.
Speaker 1: That's right and heat. This was I don't know whether
Speaker 1: he took this as an insult or not, but he
Speaker 1: said he wrote it as a favor for a friendly
Speaker 1: publisher who said, I had a vocabulary children could understand.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a sweet sentiment, who knows. But he basically said, hey,
Speaker 1: dumb dumb write a dumb dumb Christmas song. Do it?
Speaker 1: And he did it very quickly, something like fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: He said, on the back of an envelope. Isn't it
Speaker 1: like of all classic songs, minutes on the back of
Speaker 1: an envelope? Yeah, that's fishy. Including the police is do
Speaker 1: do do no Die Die die. Uh. Publishers thought the
Speaker 1: song was corny. Um. The very first person to sing it, Uh,
Speaker 1: Eddie Cantor originally rejected it. But his wife was like,
Speaker 1: come on, honey, is there any day that a wife
Speaker 1: hasn't saved like she saved this song from obscurity because
Speaker 1: any Cannery. He was huge at the time. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: had a radio show and on Thanksgiving Day she said,
Speaker 1: sing it for the love of God, and he did
Speaker 1: and it blew up. And if you listen to Tin
Speaker 1: pan Alley, you know that what happens when a song
Speaker 1: blows up means sheet music is selling because it's not
Speaker 1: recorded music yet. And I don't normally go use Wikipedia
Speaker 1: for work. I'll use it in my personal life. But
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but come across an article on this
Speaker 1: They said that it's sold half a million UM sheet music. Yes,
Speaker 1: in a day. Wow, that's how big it blew up. Man,
Speaker 1: that's incredible. It really is incredible. And by the way,
Speaker 1: Wikipedia is hitting everybody up right now, and I contributed
Speaker 1: twenty dollars. I'm just saying, yeah, yeah, because I think
Speaker 1: it's good that it exists in the world and I
Speaker 1: think we need it. So no, I love it. Read Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: give him a few bucks. Yeah, we've never used it
Speaker 1: as source material. Um. Half of our Internet review think
Speaker 1: we do, right, But that's why we don't do. It's
Speaker 1: because we want to prove them wrong every day of
Speaker 1: the week. That's right. But uh, this song skyrocketed. I
Speaker 1: guess would you say a half million? Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: Wikipedia said. That's pretty amazing. I can't believe I just
Speaker 1: said that, Um the first time it was recorded, and
Speaker 1: I said they didn't have recorded music. Of course they did.
Speaker 1: October twenty four four was when Harry Reusser's orchestra recorded it. Um.
Speaker 1: Gillespie died in nineteen seventy five, having written more than
Speaker 1: a thousand songs and as a Songwriting Hall of Fame member. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like you said, it's one of the seven richest
Speaker 1: songs ever, it really is. So Um. There's some really
Speaker 1: interesting stuff about that that pertains to copyright law, because
Speaker 1: if it's one of the richest songs ever, if you
Speaker 1: own the rights to that song, you want to hang
Speaker 1: on to those rights big time. You know, you want
Speaker 1: that birthday, happy birthday to you money? Right, So um,
Speaker 1: which doesn't exist any longer, right, Um. But the the
Speaker 1: airs of Coots, the guy who wrote the music, UM,
Speaker 1: they entered into a contract with E. M. I, which
Speaker 1: is the huge giant music publisher UM back in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty one, and then again in nineteen eighty one and
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six. Get this, I didn't know this
Speaker 1: these I think this is the Supreme Court ruled that
Speaker 1: if you had a publishing agreement with somebody after thirty
Speaker 1: five years, you could say it's enough, it's done. I
Speaker 1: want the rights back no matter what. As long as
Speaker 1: this this agreement was entered into after nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: So the Coots family again had in nineteen fifty one
Speaker 1: agreement and in nineteen eighty one agreement. Well e m
Speaker 1: I said, no Coots tried to file a termination order
Speaker 1: on this um and for this nine one agreement. And
Speaker 1: even though this is the contract we have with them,
Speaker 1: is the agreement we're really going to say it's the
Speaker 1: nineteen agreement, So the family can't issue this termination. A
Speaker 1: circuit court judge said, am I, you're wrong. Your agreement
Speaker 1: with the Coots family, UH is based on this agreement
Speaker 1: which came after which means it wasn't grandfather, which means
Speaker 1: that thirty five years after one, the rights to Santa
Speaker 1: Claus Is coming to town reverted to the Coots family
Speaker 1: for an extended UH copyright protection period going to that's right.
Speaker 1: Isn't that fascinating? That is? And UH, if you wondered
Speaker 1: why I wasn't talking much during that segment everyone, because
Speaker 1: on the way in the room, I said, you know,
Speaker 1: all that stuff I sent about dense copyright law. Who's
Speaker 1: just so boring, let's not do it. But Josh is
Speaker 1: directing this episode, so you got it in there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I love it. It was. I think it's really interesting,
Speaker 1: especially considering this is like the family this guy's errors
Speaker 1: got it back in two thousand and sixteen. They got
Speaker 1: the rights back to one of the richest songs ever.
Speaker 1: That's right, and they're rolling in it now. Yeah. Do
Speaker 1: you know what they're called as a unit, the Little
Speaker 1: It's that's that's the court ruled in favor of the
Speaker 1: Little Coots. Isn't that the name of the Chucky Cheese
Speaker 1: animatronic band? I think so, Chuck E Cheese and the
Speaker 1: Little Coots. What was Showbiz Pizza's band name? M man,
Speaker 1: did you ever see that documentary? No? Oh, dude, there's
Speaker 1: a documentary on show biz about the animatronic band from
Speaker 1: show Biziness, the guy who invented it, the people who
Speaker 1: collect them and keep them in their house. I'd like
Speaker 1: to see that. It's one of the better ones ever.
Speaker 1: I didn't go to show Biz a lot because there
Speaker 1: was two near us. There was a Chuck E Cheese
Speaker 1: and there was a local I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was a chain called Sergeant Singers Pizza Circus. Did Sergeant
Speaker 1: Singer work there? Because if so, that was local? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he asked me to call him Serge and then he
Speaker 1: later appeared on six ft under Sergey. Nice nice ref
Speaker 1: But I want to see that documentary. All right? So
Speaker 1: shall we load up the sleigh though? Are we done
Speaker 1: talking about Santa claus is coming to town? I think
Speaker 1: so unless you have some more copy right long you
Speaker 1: want to go first, Let's leave the courtroom behind for
Speaker 1: the rest of the episode. All right, we've got what
Speaker 1: do we got? Two more segments here? We do? Well,
Speaker 1: let's have a little music plays into the next mention?
Speaker 1: All right, all right, chuck? And then there were two
Speaker 1: giddy with anticipation. Are you about which one we're gonna do? Ohh,
Speaker 1: I haven't told you yet. Well, we're gonna go back
Speaker 1: to our friends Mental Floss again. We're gonna go in
Speaker 1: particular to uh an article for Mental Floss by a
Speaker 1: guy named Tate Williams, and it's about Christmas tree flocking. Yes,
Speaker 1: And my only criticism here, Mr Tate Williams, because he
Speaker 1: did not title this what the flock is flocking? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you really missed an opportunity there, well, so staring you
Speaker 1: in the face. With most pub occasions, usually it's the
Speaker 1: editor that comes up with headlines. So Tape probably suggested
Speaker 1: that the editor was like, no, I'm in a bad
Speaker 1: mood today and and shot that down. So now it's
Speaker 1: titled what exactly as Christmas Tree flocking, very straight ahead, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. But what is flocking? Well, flock well, flocking
Speaker 1: In particular, Chuck is adding texture, fiber texture, Well, what's
Speaker 1: flocking something In this particular instance, flock is fake snow, right,
Speaker 1: And there's a whole like there's a whole movement. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the right word, but there's
Speaker 1: a subculture of people who like to make it look
Speaker 1: like it's snowed in very particular parts of their house,
Speaker 1: inside their house. Yeah. And the only I've never been
Speaker 1: into this stuff because it just looks like a nightmare
Speaker 1: to clean, and especially with animals, like my tree is
Speaker 1: already being destroyed on day one by my my terrible cats.
Speaker 1: But uh, I worked in the movie industry, as you know,
Speaker 1: and I worked in TV commercials as you know, and
Speaker 1: so I know both of this. Every like September or October,
Speaker 1: I would work on these you know those car commercials
Speaker 1: where it's a very happy couple and there's a big
Speaker 1: bow on a car. They're wearing sweaters. They're wearing sweaters
Speaker 1: and they're throwing snow. That's all on the back lot
Speaker 1: in l A. And it's a ton of fake snow
Speaker 1: and it's awful to work with that. Flocking is terrible. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if you're working with it under those circumstances, yes,
Speaker 1: I could see it being terrible. But there are people
Speaker 1: out there that are like, no, we don't get snow here.
Speaker 1: And I like the idea of it looking like there's
Speaker 1: snow on my tree, but it's hot outside. I live
Speaker 1: in Arizona or New Mexico or um Nevada or um
Speaker 1: you know the southern part or Texas where some parts
Speaker 1: of it are very hot, although it snows in Texas
Speaker 1: as well. Have you ever been where at Christmas time
Speaker 1: somewhere where it's really hot, It's not it's weird. I
Speaker 1: used to think it was weird. Now I've gotten used
Speaker 1: to it. I like it, really, Yeah, l A was,
Speaker 1: I mean part of what happens. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is true for wherever you were but um,
Speaker 1: in l A, people would really go over the top,
Speaker 1: I think to combat the fact that it's just l A.
Speaker 1: So you would get some really nice decorations and people
Speaker 1: really went the extra mile. But uh, I just always
Speaker 1: had a hard time getting in the Christmas spirit there.
Speaker 1: I know what you mean, and that's what I thought too.
Speaker 1: But I've I've been in Florida for a couple of
Speaker 1: Christmas is and yeah, it's actually kind of pleasant. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, because I've you seen the movie Bad Sand.
Speaker 1: It's set in Arizona, I think was it, I don't remember,
Speaker 1: and it really kind of plays up that thing where
Speaker 1: it's just like weird desert and Christmas juxtaposition. It's not
Speaker 1: a good fit. Yeah, but I find Florida Christmas time
Speaker 1: is very nice. Okay, fair enough, I know what you mean.
Speaker 1: That is what I'm trying to say in the spirit
Speaker 1: of the season. Well, people for a long time, they
Speaker 1: have been trying to get that look, um all the
Speaker 1: way back to the eighteen hundreds, using things like cotton
Speaker 1: or flower. Apparently in the popular mechanics in that was
Speaker 1: a recipe with cornstarch, uh, silicate mineral mica and varnish.
Speaker 1: I don't want to use like silica and varnish. I mean,
Speaker 1: all of this sounds like if you add one more thing,
Speaker 1: it's a bomb, right, you know, but silica you can
Speaker 1: inhale and get silicosis. Did you know that? Like people
Speaker 1: who work with granite countertops are susceptible to It's really
Speaker 1: bad news. Yeah. And there's there's been long been kits
Speaker 1: that you can buy make your own. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: one that General Mills put out called snow Flock s
Speaker 1: n O hyphen fl Okay. They're like, let's take out
Speaker 1: any sensibleness to this name, and that's what we'll call it.
Speaker 1: There's an ad for it, it's so cute. There's like
Speaker 1: a General Mills blog or there used to be, and
Speaker 1: there's like a newspaper ad for the snow flock thing
Speaker 1: where it was like a canister filled flock that you
Speaker 1: would hook up to your vacuum cleaner and I guess
Speaker 1: somehow reverse the polarity and use it to blow the flow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you reverse the plarity on the flux capacitor. Well, very nice.
Speaker 1: It uh. It seems like there's one big shot company
Speaker 1: now called Peak Seasons in Riverside, California, at least they're
Speaker 1: the only one that Mr Tate Williams recognizes. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they seem like they're the heavyweight player here. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they make and sell a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And they start with um, something that they like into
Speaker 1: toilet paper, just a big role that you feed into
Speaker 1: a machine and it comes out the other side. They
Speaker 1: liken it to baby powder. Yeah, it's like a very
Speaker 1: white powdery substance. Yeah. And some of them are um.
Speaker 1: Some of the flock comes in uh, like colors. And
Speaker 1: if you have a colored flock like royal blue or
Speaker 1: purple or gold or something that you have to add
Speaker 1: cotton to like hold the die. But for the most
Speaker 1: part they produced this stuff um with some corn starts,
Speaker 1: I believe, the paper and then borre on um all
Speaker 1: together makes this flock that they say all in bags.
Speaker 1: And they ship these bags out to like Christmas tree farms,
Speaker 1: where you can go to a Christmas tree farm and say,
Speaker 1: I want that tree, but I want it flocked. Make it,
Speaker 1: so take that tree and flock it. And what they're doing, right,
Speaker 1: what they're doing is they're adding some peak seasons flock
Speaker 1: bag of flock to their flock gun and they shoot
Speaker 1: it out. They shoot this mixture that Peak season sells them,
Speaker 1: and at the end of this gun it mixes with
Speaker 1: a mist of water and it turns into this kind
Speaker 1: of slurry that sprays onto the tree and she's like
Speaker 1: stop stop, and um, that's when you know it's done.
Speaker 1: That's right. But here's the deal with this flocking process. Um,
Speaker 1: it's got to look good or else you're kind of
Speaker 1: screwed because you can't reflock. You can't spray it again.
Speaker 1: That tree can't get wet a second time because it
Speaker 1: won't dry once it's been flocked. You can never go
Speaker 1: buck right, nicely done, terrible And we are on fire
Speaker 1: in this episode with the dad Buns. Yeah, anything else
Speaker 1: on fly. Yes. You can also not contribute to Big Flock.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to. You can make it yourself. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a video by a person called Mama Flock, you
Speaker 1: know in the Flock Tones something Mama Yeah really, Mama
Speaker 1: from Scratch. I think they got into your head subconsciously.
Speaker 1: Mama from Scratch had a recipe that consisted of barber salt,
Speaker 1: corn starch, and white glue. Whip it into a froth
Speaker 1: and then you painted on and apparently when it dries,
Speaker 1: it puffs up and you've got some nice flocking, so
Speaker 1: you can make it yourself at home too. Here's my
Speaker 1: Christmas tree tip for the year. Don't allow them to
Speaker 1: stuff it into netting. Why because it's harder to get
Speaker 1: it back to Christmas tree shaped. Really Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you want that tree for those bowels to fall, and
Speaker 1: that's a struggle anyway. When they wrap it up tight
Speaker 1: and a net and strap it to your car, it's just, uh,
Speaker 1: it's harder to unfurl. Maybe you need heavier ornaments. No,
Speaker 1: I don't need anything. I need to not have that net. See,
Speaker 1: I have a pickup truck, so I just throw it
Speaker 1: in the back. No one's strapping anything to my car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but doesn't it doesn't get wind burned on the way back?
Speaker 1: Where am I Alaska? Well? No, I mean at high speeds,
Speaker 1: driving on a high speed really really fast. Now that
Speaker 1: I get my trees locally, okay, right, yeah, thought in
Speaker 1: the back of the truck, it's all great. What if
Speaker 1: you don't have a truck, what do you recommend, Well,
Speaker 1: you can strap it to the top, But I don't
Speaker 1: see the need for that netting. I don't I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they do that. I think it's
Speaker 1: to prevent windburn. I'm not kidding. Well, it's not a sock,
Speaker 1: it's you're still getting wind blown on it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean some, but I think it's so compressed that it's
Speaker 1: I don't know what's the most part. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: all right, all right. Now that we settled that the
Speaker 1: last I don't know if it was actually settled. Well,
Speaker 1: I just want to finish so I can go watch.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful life. I'm so happy. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: it today. It's the miracle of the season that just happened,
Speaker 1: miracle on at Pond City Market. So um check. I
Speaker 1: think we should finish then on this sweet little thing
Speaker 1: that they do over in Finland, in particular in Turku, Finland,
Speaker 1: which is the oldest city in the whole country. It
Speaker 1: was founded in the twelfth century, the thirteenth century, and
Speaker 1: since the hundreds, about a century after it was founded,
Speaker 1: they've been reading this Declaration of Christmas Peace every year,
Speaker 1: almost every single year since, that's right, And it sounds
Speaker 1: like a really sweet thing, and it is with the
Speaker 1: tinge of menace because what they do every year is
Speaker 1: the bells of the Turku Cathedral real toll in the
Speaker 1: midday on Christmas Eve, the chief of administration goes out
Speaker 1: to a balcony. Uh there in the old square in town.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of fanfare and reads this declaration and
Speaker 1: really brings out the people. Even in the worst of weather.
Speaker 1: They said there could be like ten thousand people out there, yeah,
Speaker 1: the square, tons of people. Uh. The exact wording over
Speaker 1: the years from the original declaration have been lost to time.
Speaker 1: But the long and short of it is this is, hey,
Speaker 1: everyone be cool, everyone be harmonious, Everyone be peaceful and
Speaker 1: love your neighbor or else, or else you're going to
Speaker 1: be punished. That's pretty much it. And not with coal
Speaker 1: with monetary fines. Yeah, and I would look this up.
Speaker 1: So basically, the local administrator of like a town during
Speaker 1: the medieval era um was beholden to the local representative
Speaker 1: of the church to keep everything nice and orderly around Christmas,
Speaker 1: this holiest season for the church. And they were basically saying,
Speaker 1: if you make me look bad to the church, I'm
Speaker 1: going to really bring down the hammer on you. So
Speaker 1: they've lost the wording, like you said, on some of
Speaker 1: the older versions, but they've been reading the same one
Speaker 1: since nineteen o three and apparently back in the old days. Uh,
Speaker 1: and still the gist of it today is that any war,
Speaker 1: any violence, it ceases on Christmas. You got a bone
Speaker 1: to pick with your neighbor. If you're a Hatfield or McCoy,
Speaker 1: cut it out. Stop for Christmas season and Christmas season.
Speaker 1: By the way, this starts at noon on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1: Did you say that, Yeah, I was at midday, Okay. Um,
Speaker 1: So from that point on until the end of Christmas,
Speaker 1: you're expected to just live peacefully at least avoid one
Speaker 1: another if you're in a feud like you're that's part.
Speaker 1: That's the first part. Well, yeah, the next part is
Speaker 1: you you can't work, which is that's great. You can
Speaker 1: feed your cows and things. Yeah, why should the cows
Speaker 1: suffer because you're hanging out on Christmas? Right, but don't work?
Speaker 1: And uh, you can't even have guests apparently unless you
Speaker 1: have permission from the authorities. Right, and then that's great.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, if you were punished, if you
Speaker 1: were found in violation of this, you could be fined
Speaker 1: so severely that it says that you could be in
Speaker 1: debt for the rest of your life. So they took
Speaker 1: it very seriously, and it wasn't until the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: that they actually removed punishment from the law books in Finland. Amazing.
Speaker 1: So now seventies right, so now there's no real punishment
Speaker 1: to this, but they still read this proclamation every year. Um,
Speaker 1: there's other towns that do it, but but as far
Speaker 1: as anyone knows, Turkus is the oldest and the longest continuous,
Speaker 1: one great tradition. I'd like to close this episode with this,
Speaker 1: if you're okay with that, So before we split, I
Speaker 1: want to say Mary, Mary Christmas to everybody. Happy Holidays, um,
Speaker 1: happy Hanukah. I hope it was a good one, um
Speaker 1: happy everything. Yeah, however you choose to celebrate this year,
Speaker 1: or even if you don't at all, we h we
Speaker 1: hope you're having a good time with your friends and family.
Speaker 1: And as we always say every year, this season could
Speaker 1: be very tough for other people, and so just keep
Speaker 1: that in mind and show some kindness, show some compassion
Speaker 1: and reach out to someone if you think they may
Speaker 1: be uh, they need that hand. Be kind everybody. That's great,
Speaker 1: l You'll be fined, right, So everyone, to end this Uh,
Speaker 1: this Christmas spectacular, We're going to finish with the declaration
Speaker 1: of Christmas Peace. Tomorrow, God willing is the graceful celebration
Speaker 1: of the birth of our Lord and Savior, and thus
Speaker 1: is declared a peaceful Christmas time to all by advising
Speaker 1: devotion and to behave otherwise quietly and peacefully. Because he
Speaker 1: who breaks this peace and violates the peace of Christmas
Speaker 1: by any illegal or improper behavior, shall, under aggravating circumstances,
Speaker 1: be guilty and punished according to what the law and
Speaker 1: statutes prescribe for each and every offense separately. Finally, a
Speaker 1: joy's Christmas Feast is wish to all inhabitants of the city,
Speaker 1: and by city we mean world. Happy Holidays everyone. Stuff
Speaker 1: You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
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