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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome the Too Much Information, the show that brings

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Speaker 1: you the secret history and little known facts behind your

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Speaker 1: favorite movies, music, TV shows and more. Or your misfits

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Speaker 1: of minutia, your bumbles of banality, your dental fetishizing elves

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Speaker 1: of entertainment trivia.

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Speaker 2: My name is Jordan ronzg isn't Bumble a dating app?

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Speaker 2: At this point it is? I know for fact it is.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but the but Yukon Cornelius calls the abominable Snowman

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Speaker 1: bumbles for some reason, bumbles bounce.

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Speaker 2: Maybe it's bumbles plural. Okay, And I'm Alex Heigel, a

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Speaker 2: condescending music major from our recent September review of this show,

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Speaker 2: and I would like to correct that listener respectfully. I

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Speaker 2: minored in jazz and majored in English, which is also

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Speaker 2: the reason that I am where I am, so, sir

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Speaker 2: or madam, thank you for the review.

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Speaker 1: Well, today we're talking about what I'm pretty calm and

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Speaker 1: calling the most beloved TV special in history.

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Speaker 2: When you say it's up there, yeah, for sure, I'm

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Speaker 2: hard pressed to think of another that. I mean, I

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Speaker 2: don't know. As you grew up with like your family

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Speaker 2: watching Wizard of Oz every year.

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Speaker 1: No sound in the music was more our jam for

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Speaker 1: lengthy cinematic feature that was put on network TV to

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Speaker 1: eat up the hour as well posts and stuff when yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: or or I should say it's this, or or you

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Speaker 1: know Christmas story, We've already done yes, So yes, this

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Speaker 1: is a holiday mainstay that's about the notch. It's fifty

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Speaker 1: ninth consecutive Christmas, making it the longest running Yuel Tide

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Speaker 1: TV spectacular of all time. From the folks at rank

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Speaker 1: In Bass, creators of some of the most distinctive yet

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Speaker 1: slightly unnerving stop motion animation, we're talking about Rudolph the

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Speaker 1: Red Nose Reindeer, Heigel. I got to say, given your

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Speaker 1: ambivalence towards my cherished Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, I'd assume

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Speaker 1: that you would be equally indifferent to this.

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Speaker 2: Televisual tradition, if you will.

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Speaker 1: But I was surprised when you were actually the one

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Speaker 1: who suggested we do it.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, tell me more. What's your what's your history

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Speaker 2: with Rudolph and the Rankin Bass Oovra. I just love

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Speaker 2: stop motion animation. I think it is such a fascinating

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Speaker 2: footnote in film history. I mean the fact that it

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Speaker 2: was kept alive longer than it sort of should have

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Speaker 2: been by like the same three people. It's like, you

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Speaker 2: know Ray Harryhausen and his Willis O'Brien, his mentors, and

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Speaker 2: then like.

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Speaker 1: What do those guys do? I don't I don't know

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Speaker 1: the names. I only know Tim Burton for a Nightmare

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Speaker 1: before Christmas.

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Speaker 2: Well, Harry Selnick was the director of that, and he

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Speaker 2: was he was the guy who just executed all of

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Speaker 2: Burton's stuff. But and he is actually like Coraline was

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Speaker 2: him as well, right, so he has actually kept that

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Speaker 2: flame alive for as I said, again, an unreasonably long

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Speaker 2: amount of time. Willis O'Brien was the guy who did

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Speaker 2: King Kong and Mighty Joe Young uh, and like the

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Speaker 2: early monster movies. And then his protege was Willis O'Brien,

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Speaker 2: who's like did a lot of that through the fifties

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Speaker 2: and sixties. Is probably most remembered today for doing Jason

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Speaker 2: of the Argonauts. He did that, oh yeah, not just

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Speaker 2: the crake in, but he did that insane fight scene

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Speaker 2: where they basically choreographed an entire fight scene with the actors.

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Speaker 2: I'm unsure of the order with the actors. And then

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Speaker 2: he animated the same fight scene with stop motion skeletons

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Speaker 2: and then they composited them and it is just like

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Speaker 2: an insane technical feat. Yeah, And that was just like

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Speaker 2: as a as a thing of me, just like reading

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Speaker 2: about how movies were made and getting into like the

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Speaker 2: effects world and kind of behind that. And it is

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Speaker 2: such a damn pain in the ass though, Like it's

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Speaker 2: so funny about it is that people like Harry Selnick

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Speaker 2: is God beloved him for keeping this flame alive, or

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Speaker 2: like the Walls and Gramt guys, where it's just like, uh, yeah,

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Speaker 2: that is an insane labor of love, and the returns

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Speaker 2: on it are really not that like they you know,

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Speaker 2: he obviously not out of the park with Night Before

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Speaker 2: Christmas and Coraline, but like, I don't think some of

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Speaker 2: his other projects have been as successful as either one

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Speaker 2: of those, and you know, Wallace and Grammage has just

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Speaker 2: done so. I think infrequently that I just admire people's

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Speaker 2: you know, it's just the same through lined all of

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Speaker 2: my art stuff. I admire people's dedication to things that

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Speaker 2: should not by any right continue to exist.

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Speaker 1: I hadn't really thought about situations where stop motion animation

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Speaker 1: was used in conjunction with humans in the movie. I

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Speaker 1: was thinking of just things like this where it was

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Speaker 1: just purely stop motion animation for you know, style's sake.

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Speaker 1: But I forgot about how a lot of those early

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Speaker 1: Monster movies, the scenes with the monsters were stop motion.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean he actually won the Willis O'Brien won

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Speaker 2: an oscar in nineteen fifty for Mighty Joe Young, which

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Speaker 2: is the giant ape movie that isn't King Kong. But

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Speaker 2: you know, he was working as far as the early

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Speaker 2: Edison films, not the even earliest, but like by in

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Speaker 2: like nineteen seventeen, was working on stop motion stuff for Wow,

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Speaker 2: Thomas Friggin Edison. So Willis O'Brien is like a very

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Speaker 2: formative figure, and even though his discipline has kind of

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Speaker 2: been phased out, you know, it lives on through through

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Speaker 2: not just his protege's immediate protege uh and Ray Harry Housen,

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Speaker 2: but now guys like Harry Solnick and everything. And you know,

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Speaker 2: there is something that's so fascinating about it to me

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Speaker 2: because it really does have a Yeah, it's there's something

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Speaker 2: so uncanny about them. That's still so and it gets

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Speaker 2: it like in the Freudian sense, which I think I've

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Speaker 2: also talked about on the show before. But like that,

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Speaker 2: they that that kind of unease that comes from you

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Speaker 2: looking at something and going that's alive and it shouldn't be. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and it's personified, so you know, all the tricks of

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Speaker 2: animation are kind of brought to the fore with it,

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Speaker 2: where you like, you imbue it with personality via these

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Speaker 2: exaggerated uh features, and that all plays into the design

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Speaker 2: of it and then it's moving, but you're still like, ah,

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Speaker 2: there's something a little bit off about that, And that's

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Speaker 2: what tuget the tug of it is for me. I'm

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Speaker 2: so glad you said that, because yeah, like I said

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Speaker 2: in the intro, they always seemed a little especially these

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Speaker 2: ranking bass ones, a little unnerving to me, especially like

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Speaker 2: in the Year Without a Santa Claus.

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Speaker 1: But the Heat Miser, like all the evil characters are.

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Speaker 2: Incredible and iconic, you know, and I think Pixar like

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Speaker 2: kind of stole a bunch of their whether or not

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Speaker 2: they didn't git to it or not, like for legal reasons. Yes,

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Speaker 2: that is a that is your say.

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Speaker 1: Well, Obviously, I love the Rudolph Special, and not just

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Speaker 1: because I'm deeply sentimental.

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Speaker 2: And cling to any and all traditions, but.

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Speaker 1: I especially love just how gloriously early sixties it looks,

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Speaker 1: so that style of it, Like like, I mean, you

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Speaker 1: know what, I think we both like this for the

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Speaker 1: same reason, but come at it from different angles. You

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Speaker 1: like it because the art form is antiquated and it

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Speaker 1: has no business existing anymore. I like it because just

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Speaker 1: the style of it. It's not like anything you see

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Speaker 1: on TV anymore, and I'm.

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Speaker 2: Shocked to see it. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's

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Speaker 2: one of those things where it's like I'm sure that

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Speaker 2: there's already like I don't even know where it's at,

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Speaker 2: where people are, because you know, like South Park was

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Speaker 2: made with like construction paper cutouts and is now using

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Speaker 2: extraordinarily sophisticated animation and rendering software to maintain it. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I'm sure that. I'm sure that people are doing similar

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Speaker 2: things with stop motion. But yeah, I mean, it is

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Speaker 2: such a specific way of working with things that's constantly

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Speaker 2: fascinating to me.

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Speaker 1: Like Robot Chickens the only show I can think of

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Speaker 1: right now, Oh yeah's still on, But yeah, I just

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Speaker 1: love how wildly goofy this Rudolph special is. And I

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Speaker 1: think we're just we're also used to it nearly, you know,

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Speaker 1: six decades after premiered, but I think we've forgotten just

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Speaker 1: how random it is. I mean, there's no explanation why

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Speaker 1: Rudolph has a red nose. There's no explanation in my

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Speaker 1: memory at least, why this elf wants to be a dentist.

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Speaker 1: You've got the misfit toys, You've got an abominable snowman,

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Speaker 1: You've got this snowman with the voice of burl Ives.

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Speaker 2: It's weird. It's really weird. Yeah, the dentist thing always

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Speaker 2: shook me. Yeah, I was like, surely there were other

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Speaker 2: avenues for you, because now you're kind of begging the question,

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Speaker 2: like do elves get cancer like elves? You know what

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Speaker 2: are they? There? STDs like dentists, presupposes an entire range

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Speaker 2: of medical issues. Does it not merry Christmas? Everyone?

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Speaker 1: From Hiko and me? I mean, yeah, what other career

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Speaker 1: do you think Hermie who is not Herbie? By the way,

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Speaker 1: a lot of websites got out of their way to

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Speaker 1: specify that it's Hermie for some reason, But yeah, what

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Speaker 1: do you think Hermie seems a meth lab.

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Speaker 2: I mean, everyone wants to say it's magic, but like

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Speaker 2: you know, they've got to be tweaking. And if you

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Speaker 2: bring that like Walter White level of like technical know

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Speaker 2: how to make in meth especially I mean, God in

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Speaker 2: the fifties would have been top. They would be out

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Speaker 2: of their minds on dexdren right in the elf version

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Speaker 2: of On the Road on a single unbroken ream of paper.

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Speaker 2: Can you imagine elf beat poetry? How much that would

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Speaker 2: have sucked? All kind of racist, like Jack car Rek

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Speaker 2: was like weird fetishizing black people kind of stuff. Writing

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Speaker 2: about jazz just gacked out of their little minds. That's

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Speaker 2: going into our pitch our pitch shows doesn't exist, and

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Speaker 2: that's how we get the Perry Coma Christmas alvel.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm not sure I'm an editor on that probably

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Speaker 1: will from the devastating in real life origin story of

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Speaker 1: the titular reindeer, which is so much sadder than all

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Speaker 1: of the other reindeer laughing and calling them names, but

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Speaker 1: controversy surrounding his red nose and the irl reason this

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Speaker 1: could occur in the first place, to the insane lengths

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Speaker 1: producers went to create these puppets and the insane amounts

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Speaker 1: that fans paid for them decades later.

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Speaker 2: Here is everything I didn't know about Rudolph the Red

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Speaker 2: Nose Reindeer. Wow. Yeah, we're just gonna do We're gonna

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Speaker 2: do the whole the whole history of Rudolph. Even before

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Speaker 2: the TV special Good Good. The people should know they should.

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Speaker 1: Rudolph's story began appropriately enough with the Jewish Man. I

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Speaker 1: have to say Jewish people were responsible for the best

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Speaker 1: Christmas stuff. You got Irving Berlin's White Christmas. You got

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Speaker 1: Rocking Around the Christmas Tree, which is written by Johnny Marx,

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Speaker 1: who also wrote Rudolph Redno's Reindeer of the song as

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Speaker 1: We'll talk About, And we got the Phil Spector Christmas

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Speaker 1: Album which say what you will bout Phil Spector Great

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Speaker 1: Christmas Album. Robert May is the man who created Rudolph

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Speaker 1: while working as a copywriter for Montgomery Ward. The department

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Speaker 1: store chain was in the habit of giving away pre

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Speaker 1: bought coloring books to kids around Christmas time, but for

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Speaker 1: Christmas nineteen thirty nine, they planned something special. A cheery,

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Speaker 1: soft cover story book for children.

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Speaker 2: Making something themselves was deemed cheaper than by pre existing

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Speaker 2: coloring books. Capitalism is the mother of invention in this case.

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Speaker 1: To write the original story, they tapped Robert May, who

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Speaker 1: chiefly worked as a copywriter from Montgomery Ward's mail order

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Speaker 1: catalog division. Imagine, I mean what must have that been? Like, Hey, yeah,

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Speaker 1: can you come here all right? Stop stop writing about

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Speaker 1: underwear for six seconds. We got a job for you.

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Speaker 1: Can you write like some limericks or something about some animals?

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Speaker 1: The company Brass specifically said that they wanted an animal,

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Speaker 1: and they wanted it to be like Ferdinand the Bull,

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Speaker 1: that children's book, because I think Disney had recently made

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Speaker 1: it into a short film. Uh huh, which I don't. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't really remember that.

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Speaker 2: But you know who does? Who? Leana donom just got

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Speaker 2: that big Ferdinand tattoo.

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Speaker 1: I shocked how how quickly you pulled that up? Is

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Speaker 1: it because people confuse you for Jack Antonov as you were, okay,

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Speaker 1: let's tape in an interview with somebody, and they said

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Speaker 1: that looked like Tim the Toolman, Taylor's co host.

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Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, which I don't.

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Speaker 1: I don't see I have a beard and sort of

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Speaker 1: that hair, but I don't.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's kind of hurtful.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, yeah, you Billy Bush.

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Speaker 2: That's what it was. That's who it was, folks. It

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Speaker 2: was Billy Bush. The second worst thing Billy Bush has done.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if I'll keep that, but have it

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Speaker 2: on tape though, Yeah, there you go.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, second thing he's got on tape EO golf swing?

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Speaker 3: Where are we?

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Speaker 4: Oh?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so the brass they wanted.

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Speaker 1: They wanted this copywriter, Robert May, to write a Christmas

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Speaker 1: story about an animal, and May chose a reindeer, which

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Speaker 1: is not only Christmas y, but it was a favorite

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Speaker 1: of his four year old daughter. He would often take

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Speaker 1: her to Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo on Saturday mornings and

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Speaker 1: they would look at the deer together, which is sweet.

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Speaker 1: Savor that sweet moment because things are about to get really,

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Speaker 1: really sad.

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Speaker 2: You see. Robert May was not in a good place.

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Speaker 1: When he first received the assignment to write what would

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Speaker 1: become Rudolph in early nineteen thirty nine. He would later

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Speaker 1: recall here, I was heavily in debt at nearly thirty five,

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Speaker 1: still grinding out catalog copy instead of writing the great

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Speaker 1: American novels I'd once hoped. I was describing men's white

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Speaker 1: shirts too real on the eve of my thirty sixth birthday.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's uh, that's pretty heavy, hey, But it worked

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Speaker 2: out for him.

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Speaker 1: It did work well, we'll get to that. It didn't

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Speaker 1: work out for him in the way that it should have.

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Speaker 1: As if these professional dissatisfactions weren't bad enough. He was

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Speaker 1: writing the descriptions of a weeping lonesome reindeer as his

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Speaker 1: wife was dying. In a nineteen seventy five article for

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Speaker 1: the Gettysburg Times, he described going to work on a

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Speaker 1: cold January day soon after receiving this assignment and feeling

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Speaker 1: quote relieved that holiday street decorations had been taken down,

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Speaker 1: saying my wife was suffering from a long illness, and

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Speaker 1: I didn't feel very festive. His wife, Evelyn, died on

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Speaker 1: July twenty eighth, nineteen thirty nine, leaving Robert May a widower.

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Speaker 2: With his four year old daughter.

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Speaker 1: Those boss tried to reassign the project, May insisted on

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Speaker 1: finishing it himself. He would say, I needed Rudolph more

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Speaker 1: than ever.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, tough, real tough stuff.

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Speaker 1: And now we're going to pull ourselves out of it

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Speaker 1: by getting pedantic at this phase.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it's entry. You should take this, Yeah, yeah, why not.

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Speaker 2: But at this phase the deer was not yet called Rudolph.

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Speaker 2: Santra's reindeer already had names Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner,

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Speaker 2: and Blitzen. Nixon was one of them, Henri, never mind,

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Speaker 2: I'm not not going there, just a reindeer being like,

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Speaker 2: you know, the real problem with the Jews is Henry,

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Speaker 2: Henry h Jesus. I paced, yeah, right, best in piss somebody.

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Speaker 1: There's somebody listening now, who's angry that we said something

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Speaker 1: not nice about it? M.

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Speaker 2: Kissinger, Yeah, of course there is. They were named in

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Speaker 2: the eighteen twenties poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas. But

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Speaker 2: May found himself stuck coming up with the name of

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Speaker 2: this new ninth reindeer that he was grafting onto the

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Speaker 2: pre existing legend for alliterative purposes, which are the best purposes.

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Speaker 2: He dreamed of a list of names that began with R,

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Speaker 2: which include Rollo, Rodney, Roland, Roderick, and Reggie. In a

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty three interview, he said that Rollo seemed too

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Speaker 2: happy for a reindeer with an unhappy problem. Reginald seemed

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Speaker 2: too sophisticated, but Rudolph rolled off the tongue nicely, does it.

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Speaker 2: I don't think it well. I mean, I guess they

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Speaker 2: would have been not that far out from like Rudy Valentino,

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Speaker 2: and like I associate that with like a sort of

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Speaker 2: silent Star era name. I also would take Reggie. I

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Speaker 2: love Reggie the Reindeer. That's great.

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Speaker 1: Reggie the Red Nose Reindeer. Yeah, well, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: hard to say Reggie the Red Nose.

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Speaker 2: Reindeer, Roddy Roddy the Red Nose Reindeer, Roddy the Red

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Speaker 2: Nose Reindeer, because then you have a Roddy McDowell kind

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Speaker 2: of kind of connection, which that was pre that though. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's true, rod Roddy rod Roddy the Red Nose Reindeer.

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Speaker 2: What you know, what are you saying at this point

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Speaker 2: to each other? Anyone listening to this would would be like,

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Speaker 2: those men are insane, they are not dealing well with

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Speaker 2: the realities of life. And I would say, you're correct, sir,

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Speaker 2: imaginary listener, Sir Maddon uh okay. With the name in place,

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Speaker 2: May kept working on the story, drawing on some elements

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Speaker 2: of his past. The character Rudolph was loosely inspired by

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Speaker 2: the story of the Ugly Duckling, which was a favorite

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Speaker 2: of Mays as a young boy, a time when he

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Speaker 2: was shy and small and knew what it was like

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Speaker 2: to be an underdog. Later, May majored in psychology at Dartmouth,

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Speaker 2: where he was exposed to the work of Alfred Adler.

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Speaker 2: Adler theorized that humans are motivated by a search for

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Speaker 2: perfection and self assertion, stemming from a desire to overcome

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Speaker 2: feelings of inferiority. How do you feel about that? The

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Speaker 2: tracks which was this kind of Nazi let's see later career. Oh,

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Speaker 2: he was pissed that he thought Freud plagiarized from him. Oh. Oh, no,

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Speaker 2: he was Jewish, He was not a Nazi. Oh, here

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Speaker 2: you go. Adler was concerned with the overcoming of the

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Speaker 2: superiority inferiority dynamic, and was one of the first psychotherapists

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Speaker 2: to discard the analytic couch in favor of two chairs,

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Speaker 2: allowing the clinician and patient to sit together more or

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Speaker 2: less as equals. So there you go. There's a tenuous connection.

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Speaker 2: That's the TMI promise. There's a tenuous connection. To the

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Speaker 2: guy who got rid of the therapy couch to root

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Speaker 2: Alf the red nose reindeer. We gotta come up with

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Speaker 2: a stinger like a sound like a Charlie Brown. But uh,

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Speaker 2: the more you.

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Speaker 1: Wrote in brackets further down insert, the more you know

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Speaker 1: the theme here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the t M. I guarantee. Several of

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Speaker 2: the stories that May wrote for children involved a hero

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Speaker 2: striving to overcome a physical handicap that had produced a

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Speaker 2: deep sense of inferiority. One of them had a real

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Speaker 2: small dick too. Tell you right now, how did you

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Speaker 2: say Christmas with that? Is that?

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Speaker 1: Where is that the design for where Christmas tree lights

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Speaker 1: came from?

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Speaker 2: Glad? That's good. That's good. Keep that in. I beg

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Speaker 2: of you. Yeah, that's good.

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Speaker 1: Your parents ever ever tell you the Ugly Duckling story

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Speaker 1: as a kid to try to cheer you up when

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Speaker 1: when something was going wrong and you're feeling weird.

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Speaker 2: No, no, all my childhood inferiority things came from just

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Speaker 2: people like making fun of my precociousness, which is justified

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Speaker 2: because precocious children are awful and turn into unbearable adults.

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Speaker 2: I can't imagine getting teased for that. Oh my mom,

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Speaker 2: my mom is will endlessly talk about the time when

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Speaker 2: I came home from school in tears because a child

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Speaker 2: had called me a dictionary. Oh as a he said,

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Speaker 2: Alex's mom didn't give birth to a child, she gave

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Speaker 2: birth to an eight nine pound dictionary, which was like

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Speaker 2: a relatively sophisticated burn for like a ten year old. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: a kid might be dead. Now I was.

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Speaker 1: I was famous for like the first time I went

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Speaker 1: to the dentist when I was like three, I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: open my mouth until he showed me is the plumb

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Speaker 1: on the wall? Which is a story that my dad

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Speaker 1: loves to tell. And whenever we would go to restaurants

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Speaker 1: that were named after somebody like Denny's or Michael's or

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Speaker 1: Wendy's or something thing, I would always when the server

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Speaker 1: would come by, I would insist on speaking to said

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Speaker 1: name of the place.

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Speaker 2: So I was the kind of kid I was. Okay, well,

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Speaker 2: did you ask to see did you ask to speak

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Speaker 2: to the chef afterwards? No? They would bring me. And

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Speaker 2: this this says so much.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if I'll keep this because it might

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Speaker 1: not be interesting to anyone other than you. But they

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Speaker 1: would bring me, and I don't know who's how this started.

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Speaker 1: A glass of Maraschino cherries and a calculator, and I

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Speaker 1: would just punch the calculator while scowling. I called it

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Speaker 1: my gubba gubba, and I just would punch the calculator

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Speaker 1: as if I was Scrooge, just like entering data into

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Speaker 1: this thing, and while popping Marachino cherries.

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Speaker 2: All right, just goes another thing that goes into my

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Speaker 2: rich tapestry of you as you meditate on that, We'll

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Speaker 2: be right back with more too much information after these messages.

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Speaker 1: And from Maraschino cherries to red noses kind of looks

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Speaker 1: like a Machino cherry right in my transitions.

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Speaker 2: I'm trying. I'm really trying.

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Speaker 1: So in this case, said physical handicap for this reindeer

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Speaker 1: was his red nose so shiny. In fact, you could

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Speaker 1: probably get away with saying that it glows.

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Speaker 2: One could. One could.

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Speaker 1: The idea supposedly came to writer Robert May when he

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Speaker 1: was staring out his office window in downtown Chicago. A

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Speaker 1: thick fog had swept in across Lake Michigan, blocking his

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Speaker 1: view but providing a flash of inspiration. He recalled suddenly

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Speaker 1: I had it a nose, a bright red nose that

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Speaker 1: would shine through the fog like a spotlight.

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Speaker 2: This was not his first idea.

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Speaker 1: May considered giving Rudolph large headlight like eyes. That was

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Speaker 1: like the way, which is both horrifying and so.

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Speaker 2: Metal it actually that's yeah, that's really frightening. Yeah, just

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Speaker 2: for in dear turning its enormous glowing orbs. Here. It's

397
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Speaker 2: funny because in the in the uh in the Mike

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Speaker 2: Flanagan series The Haunting of Lithe Manner, the main character

399
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Speaker 2: is haunted by a vision of her uh spoiler alert

400
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Speaker 2: deceased boyfriend who has like these enormous glowing eyes, and

401
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Speaker 2: what it is eventually revealed to be is that she

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Speaker 2: saw him get hit by a car and the last

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Speaker 2: thing she saw was the headlights illuminating his glasses.

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Speaker 1: That's really good, yeah, wow nice, yeah nice, But yeah,

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Speaker 1: he ended up changing it to noses because you figure

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Speaker 1: that kids would be much more apt to pick on

407
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Speaker 1: somebody's nose rather than their eyes, which is fair.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Hilariously, Robert May's bosses feared that the distinctive red nose

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Speaker 1: feature was a liability because red noses at that time

411
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Speaker 1: were generally associated with stereotypes of drunkards.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like W. C. Fields, right right, Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: May responded to these concerns by taking Denver Gillen, a

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Speaker 1: friend from Montgomery Ward's art department, to the Lincoln Park

415
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Speaker 1: Zoo to sketch some deer, and these preliminary sketches of

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Speaker 1: a red nose reindeer were enough to cal any fears

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Speaker 1: that the public would think that Rudolph struggled with alcoholism.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know that's where the band Jim Blossoms got

419
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Speaker 2: their name. That was like an archaic term for having

420
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Speaker 2: the burst capillaries in your cheek. They were called jin Blossoms. Hey, jealousy,

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00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:45,919
Speaker 2: great song. Didn't think we get there tonight? Yeah, you

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Speaker 2: know it's the team, I guarantee, Baby. My favorite Christmas song.

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Speaker 1: Kind of works Christmas Morning under a tree, your sister

424
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Speaker 1: gets something that's way better than what you got.

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00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,679
Speaker 2: I prefer to think of my nineties Grinch song of

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00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:06,480
Speaker 2: Christmas's Black Hole Sun. What's the best Christmas present you

427
00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 2: ever got? Heigel? The one that I was most excited

428
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 2: about probably would have been like a like a PlayStation

429
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 2: or something like a video game system, or like a

430
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 2: like a play set of some kind. Yeah, I'm gonna

431
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 2: say the PlayStation that was being into video games, what

432
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 2: about you. Yeah, probably something like that. I got a

433
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 2: Do you remember Virtual Boys? Was that like the like

434
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 2: the game Boy? Yeah.

435
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:36,719
Speaker 1: They were only made for like eighteen months, and then

436
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:39,639
Speaker 1: they were ticking off the market. I think because they

437
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: gave kids seizures. But my parents had no problem. I'm

438
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:47,120
Speaker 1: sure they I'm sure they got it cheap for that reason.

439
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was the weirdest thing.

440
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: It was like a virtual reality like Oculus thing that

441
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: was on a stands and you just would kind of

442
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 1: sit next to it and put your head in. Yeah,

443
00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:00,479
Speaker 1: and it was just all in red and and they

444
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 1: only had like a couple of games for it, but

445
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:03,120
Speaker 1: it was just the coolest thing.

446
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,159
Speaker 2: They had a bowling game, so I really love that.

447
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 2: Oh of course you did. Cute.

448
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, but in real life. Back to Rudolph, a red

449
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: nose on a reindeer is no laughing matter. According to

450
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:17,879
Speaker 1: Norwegian scientists, Rudolph's red nose is likely the result of

451
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:21,440
Speaker 1: a parasitic infection of the respiratory system. This is christ

452
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:29,239
Speaker 1: parasitic infection of the respiratory system. Insert. The more you

453
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 1: know themes Mary Christmas everyone.

454
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:38,680
Speaker 2: Parasitic infection.

455
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: Off the red nose reindeer parasitic infection, and if you

456
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: ever saw it, you'd probably say you should get that

457
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 1: looked at.

458
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 2: Rudolph loved a woman who wasn't clean, and men had

459
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:07,159
Speaker 2: to care the doctor for recurring shots of penicillin, and

460
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 2: as the syphilis eighta waite his brain, Rudolf used to say,

461
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:18,680
Speaker 2: they're coming to get me, I'll throw feces. And then

462
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 2: he died one day.

463
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: Not before crashing his sleigh into the White House.

464
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:30,880
Speaker 2: That this all goes into that book program to kill

465
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 2: that I'm reading where it's like, did you know Rudolph

466
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 2: was a deep State CI eight rogue agent gone awry?

467
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 2: It was actually programmed to drive that sleigh into the

468
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 2: White House. Wait, who wrote is that any Jacobs' book? No,

469
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 2: it's the it's David McGowan.

470
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: Oh right, Oh my gosh. Who fans of TMI will know.

471
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 1: He wrote the book Strange Scenes in the Canyon, which

472
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: is all about conspiracy theories involving the sixties early seventies

473
00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 1: Lowl Canyon music scene, which is very compelling, and some

474
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: very kind people suggested we should do a series on that,

475
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:07,119
Speaker 1: and you better believe I've been trying to make that

476
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: happen for years.

477
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm still trying. I watched the John Lennon

478
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,959
Speaker 2: assassination documentary last night. Oh yeah, pick up any good tips.

479
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:19,880
Speaker 2: I heard the Catcher in the Ries pretty good.

480
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:24,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's on Apple Plus.

481
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 2: Really, John Lennon Murder without a Trial. I remember them

482
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 2: hyping that they discovered his last words, And wasn't it

483
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:34,679
Speaker 2: just I got shot? No people knew that. Oh, okay,

484
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:36,399
Speaker 2: great then, yeah, there wasn't really.

485
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just there was interesting footage, interviews with

486
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: people would never talk before. But it was stuff like

487
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 1: a guy in a cab next to the shooting site

488
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: and stuff like that.

489
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 2: I wasn't like anything great. Yeah.

490
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: The thing that I found really interesting that they didn't

491
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:55,159
Speaker 1: talk about, and I was really sad, was because he

492
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 1: left the recording studio and the producer at the recording

493
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: studio was this guy, Jack Douglas, and he'd Double Fantasy,

494
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: which was John's last album, and he was shot within

495
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes to leave in the recording studio, and

496
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: Jack Douglas later said on the last night he was

497
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 1: alive when he was in the studio we had the

498
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: mics were open and we were recording, and he said something,

499
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: and he said that it was so upsetting.

500
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 2: Oh you've told me about this? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

501
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: That He ended up, following John's death, erasing the tape

502
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 1: and never speaking about it again. There are all these

503
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 1: theories about what John said, you know, in the hours

504
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 1: before his death, ranging from you know, just a joke

505
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,199
Speaker 1: about like, you know, what's my legacy going to be

506
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: after I'm gone? To him having a terminal illness, to

507
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: him saying that he was going to divorce Yoko, to

508
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 1: all sorts of theories about what was going on with

509
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: him in those last hours and we'll never know, and

510
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: they didn't probe him on that, and I'm sad that

511
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: was a missed opportunity in the documentary.

512
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 2: Where were we.

513
00:28:55,200 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 1: Uh writing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. So Robert May,

514
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 1: the copywriter from Montgomery Ward the Department story he's writing

515
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: his copy for this freebe softcover book for kids, which

516
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: will become Ruto off the Red Nose Reindeer. And he

517
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 1: wrote the text in about fifty hours, which is about

518
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 1: as much time as I spend on an episode of

519
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: TMI he would make a lot more for his fifty

520
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: hours free linguistic nerds out there. His story of Rootolf

521
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: the Red Nose Reindeer is written as a poem an

522
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: anapestic tetrameter.

523
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 2: What did you say to me? Watch your math? Yeah,

524
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 2: kiss your mother with that mouth.

525
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: It's it's the same meter as the twas the Night

526
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: before Christmas?

527
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, No, I mean the last thing I remember

528
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 2: about any kind of poetry was that guy that other

529
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 2: than my reading about the Last days of John Berryman,

530
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 2: which I do late at night, tell me about that,

531
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about that. Oh. I mean, he

532
00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 2: was just a classic miserable drunk. But my faavorite detail

533
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 2: is that he supposedly, uh someone saw him jumping off

534
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 2: the bridge in Minneapolis, and uh he waved on the

535
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,719
Speaker 2: way down and also failed to hit the water and

536
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:14,520
Speaker 2: hit the banks and like broke both of his legs

537
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 2: and died from exposure not hitting the water. So that's

538
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,239
Speaker 2: all very grim. But I remember when the when that

539
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 2: guy in the at the zoom meeting at the La

540
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 2: City Council or whatever that that was like, uh, he

541
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 2: got famous for saying telling the police chief to suck

542
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 2: my can choke on it. I yield my time few.

543
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 2: I remember that. No, no, do not know. I became

544
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 2: like a folk hero anyway. Uh, that's a niambic pentameter.

545
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 2: Can you beat it up for me? Yeah, suck, I

546
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 2: can choke on it. I yield my time few. Shakespeare

547
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 2: with Piso prout, He truly would. I mean, finally somebody

548
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 2: got something out of out of him. Took fucking hundreds

549
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 2: of years. Oh we got the Lion King too, So

550
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 2: it's Lion King and the guy telling the La County

551
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 2: Chief police to go himself. Two things out of Shakespeare,

552
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 2: worth it, worth it? Ten things I hate about you?

553
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:24,719
Speaker 2: Eh ooh, you're just too good too, too weird thing

554
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,719
Speaker 2: about twas the night before Christmas. The authorship is up

555
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 2: for debate. There's a whole whole theory about who actually

556
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 2: wrote it.

557
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: It's generally credited to Clement Moore, who wasn't federalist in

558
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: the early eighteen hundreds, sick and he wrote a whole

559
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 1: pamphlet which I guess was the preferred media back then,

560
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,560
Speaker 1: against Thomas Jefferson because he thought Thomas Jefferson didn't like

561
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 1: black people and correct, yes, yes, anyway, Robert May's story

562
00:31:56,240 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 1: original story. I should say Ruth read those reindeer very

563
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 1: fair him out from the one more Familiar song. For example,

564
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: in May's story told in his original book, Santa finds

565
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: Rudolph while delivering presence to the reindeer village. Santa he

566
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: had problems delivering gifts because no one remembered to leave

567
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: the lights on for him.

568
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 2: It's just really funny.

569
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: And in Rudolph's dark house, Santa quote tripped on a

570
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: rug and fell flat on his back, and he discovers

571
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: Rudolph and he's glowing nose, and he invites him to

572
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: help with the rest of the drop offs.

573
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:30,960
Speaker 2: So Rudolph jumps at the.

574
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 1: Honor, leaves a note for his parents and takes off.

575
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: Not as dramatic. It sounds like a dad problem. Damn

576
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: kids trying to turn the light off.

577
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 2: And then yeah, it does sound yeah it's a pratt fall.

578
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 2: You're describing a Pratt fall, right, Yeah, I mean Chevy

579
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 2: Chase as Santa, So yeah, that's honest.

580
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: Seems more like a first draft idea. But he finished

581
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 1: the text. Robert May did in August nineteen thirty nine,

582
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: and he would recall that he called his young daughter

583
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 1: Barbara in and her grandparents into the living room and

584
00:32:59,200 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: read the.

585
00:32:59,480 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 2: Story to it.

586
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 1: And in their eyes, he said, I could see that

587
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 1: the story accomplished what I had hoped misery. The result

588
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: was as much of a hit as you could possibly

589
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: have for a freebie holiday promotional item. Montgomery Ward distributed

590
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: two point four million copies of the Rudolph booklet in

591
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine alone, and although during the World War

592
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: Two there was a paper shortage, by nineteen forty six,

593
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: the year after the war, six million.

594
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 2: Copies had been distributed, which is pretty crazy, dadamn. Yeah.

595
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 1: And by the mid nineteen forties there were a serious

596
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 1: demand for Rudolph licensing opportunities. But because Robert May had

597
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 1: done the story as a work for hire project, Montgomery

598
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 1: Ward held the copyright and for many years May received

599
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 1: no royalties for his creation. That's such a twenty first

600
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 1: century move right there.

601
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

602
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 1: Let that be a lesson to all you employees who

603
00:33:57,640 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: do creative work for big corporations.

604
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 2: Try to get a piece of that early on, or

605
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 2: at least ad revenue.

606
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 1: This just really added insult to injury because Robert May

607
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 1: was still deeply in debt due to his late wife's

608
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 1: medical bills. But then in nineteen forty six, seven years

609
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 1: after Rudolph debuted, he got a Christmas miracle. I cannot

610
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:22,840
Speaker 1: believe this occurred. This would never, in a million years

611
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: happen today. Montgomery Ward, the department store company, voluntarily turned

612
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,720
Speaker 1: the rights to Rudolph over to Robert May, the creator.

613
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 2: What an insane thing. That would never happen today. Today,

614
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 2: they would be squeezing more out of him.

615
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: They did wait until January so that they could get

616
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: one more Christmas sea out of it.

617
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's hilarious. That's nice though, that has somewhat of

618
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 2: a happy ending. At least he got to retire off that. Yeah. No,

619
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 2: actually so.

620
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 1: At first, Robert May he tried to transform this freebie

621
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:59,239
Speaker 1: soft cover book into a bonafide hardcover release, but he

622
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: struggled to find a publisher because six million copies of

623
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 1: his book had already been given away for free, and

624
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 1: he later said, finally I found the publisher, a little

625
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: guy with a big nose who said that he knew

626
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 1: what it was like for Rudolph and was willing to

627
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: take a chance on printing. This little guy was Harry Elbaum,

628
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:21,720
Speaker 1: head of Maxton Publishers, and Maxton published the first commercial

629
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 1: edition of Rudolph just in time for the nineteen forty

630
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 1: seven Christmas season, printed on a hundred thousand copies of

631
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,360
Speaker 1: the hardcover book, and it quickly became a best seller.

632
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: But that's not all.

633
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:38,279
Speaker 2: Rudolph didn't take off until it was transformed into a

634
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 2: song by Johnny Marx, who just happened to be It

635
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 2: sounds like the first guy to get killed in a

636
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 2: gangster movie. They got Johnny Marx the other night old

637
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:49,279
Speaker 2: on Claxon Boulevard. Are we going to go to war

638
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 2: over Johnny Marx? Johnny Marx just happened to be Robert

639
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 2: May's brother in law. But this wasn't your average, you know,

640
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 2: run of the mill case of holiday related apotism. No,

641
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 2: Marx actually has several UTAI classics to his name, Rocking

642
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 2: Around the Christmas Tree and a Holly Jolly Christmas, as

643
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 2: well as other songs from the TV special and a

644
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 2: bunch of lesser known Christmas songs. Chuck Berry wrote a

645
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 2: run Rudolph Run song that he got credit for because

646
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 2: he created the Rudolf character. Oh the music industry capitalism.

647
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 2: Marx would eventually publish one hundred and seventy five pieces

648
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:30,399
Speaker 2: of original music, ranging from television scores to radio hits

649
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 2: and commercial jingles, and so he was already a professional

650
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:35,719
Speaker 2: songwriter when his brother in law, Robert May, approached him

651
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 2: to turn his creation into a song. Also, May is

652
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:43,920
Speaker 2: related to Stephen D Levitt, who some of your podcast

653
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 2: listening and or policy wonk friends will know from writing

654
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:52,800
Speaker 2: the enormously popular book Freakonomics. May's sister was the grandmother

655
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:55,279
Speaker 2: of the economists who wrote that, So do with that

656
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 2: what you will. Back to the song, Marx struggled with

657
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 2: the project at first. He would call his first attempt

658
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 2: easily one of the worst songs ever written. He was

659
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 2: eventually able to spruce it up and pitch to singers

660
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 2: like Bing Crosby, who was busy beating his children at

661
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 2: the time, Dinah Shore, and Perry Como, all of whom passed.

662
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 2: Perry Como wanted to tweak the lyrics, though, and Johnny

663
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 2: Mark's refused. Do we know what the nature of those

664
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 2: changes were? I don't know. I was gonna ask you.

665
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 2: Mark's also presented the song to Gene Autry, the so

666
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:29,759
Speaker 2: called singing cowboy, who turned him down at first. But

667
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:32,440
Speaker 2: Autrey's wife, Ina was touched by this underdog tail and

668
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:35,279
Speaker 2: persuaded her husband to record it. Released just in time

669
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:37,799
Speaker 2: for the nineteen forty nine holiday season, Rudolph the Red

670
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 2: Nosed Reindeer shot to the top of Billboard's Country, Western

671
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 2: and Pop charts, sold two million copies that year and

672
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 2: went on to become one of the best selling Christmas

673
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:48,760
Speaker 2: songs of all time, second only to White Christmas, which

674
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 2: if all I want for Christmas is you hasn't toppled

675
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 2: that record, nothing will right? Yeah, I don't think so.

676
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:00,319
Speaker 2: The success of the Christmas song made Autry try again

677
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 2: at Easter with here Comes Peter Cottontail. I hate that song.

678
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 2: Since Auchie recorded it, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer has

679
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:11,319
Speaker 2: sold more than one hundred and fifty million copies, thanks

680
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 2: to versions by the Jackson Five, the California Raisins, Alvin

681
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:18,320
Speaker 2: and the Chipmunks, the Simpsons, the Wiggles, and even old

682
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 2: Bing Crosby, who dusted off his knuckles and when the

683
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:27,319
Speaker 2: mic when do we hone and own onto? This is

684
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 2: images Bing Crosby is solely being known for beating his

685
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 2: children as part of our part of identity, though if

686
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 2: you beat your children. I kind of think this is

687
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 2: what's one of the main things you should maybe be

688
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 2: known for. That's also true, That's totally fair. That's the

689
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 2: TM I promise. Yeah. As we mentioned earlier, an honorable

690
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,240
Speaker 2: mention does go to Chuck Berry, who wrote Run Rudolph

691
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:53,359
Speaker 2: Run in nineteen fifty eight and then was sued by

692
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 2: Johnny Marks for copyright infringement and thus had to turn

693
00:38:56,040 --> 00:39:00,439
Speaker 2: over a songwriting credit to that song to him. Fun

694
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 2: note about the the Finnish version of the Rudolph song,

695
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 2: not that any of you ask or ever would uh,

696
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 2: It's called pit Terry Peterie. For some reason, the Finnish

697
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 2: legend of Santa Claus aka Juliu Puchy doesn't feature a

698
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 2: named reindeer, so the intro to the song doesn't include Dasher, Danner, Donner,

699
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 2: et cetera. Instead, the Finnish intro to the song translates

700
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 2: to you remember Cinderella, snow White and Sleeping Beauty, Little Red,

701
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:32,840
Speaker 2: riding Hood and the Gray Wolf. But this reindeer is

702
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 2: often forgotten. It's a much more cerebral intro. I feel like, yeah,

703
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 2: and it does the loads work of elevating Rudolph into

704
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 2: the pantheon. You know, yeah, we see. I wouldn't say

705
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 2: he's on par with Sleeping Beauty.

706
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:50,280
Speaker 1: I know more about Rudolph I do about Sleeping Beauty. Well,

707
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 1: as of now, she was sleeping and there was a

708
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 1: spinning wheel.

709
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 2: Involved snow White. Would you would you put snow White

710
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 2: on par with her? That's doing a grave disservice snow White.

711
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're both wintery. I'll put them on par I've

712
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: definitely seen Rudolph stuff more often than I have in

713
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:08,400
Speaker 1: snow White.

714
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:12,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that's fair. I also never knew. I

715
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 2: never knew Little Red Riding Hood had a specific wolf.

716
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 2: And then I mean I knew that there was a

717
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 2: specific wolf. But is that like a named character in

718
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 2: like the finished version, like the wolf gets yeah, like

719
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:26,800
Speaker 2: the wolf gets like second billing.

720
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: Is it the same big bad wolf that blows down

721
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: the three Little BIG's house?

722
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 2: No, No, different wolf, different wolf. Well, let's take a look.

723
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:36,320
Speaker 2: Let's go to the phones.

724
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 1: It all Ran Riding It's definitely the big bad wolf

725
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 1: in both because there's that song.

726
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 2: Hey, Little Red Riding Hood got that song? Wolf, Yeah,

727
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 2: it does. Color of the wolf is not specified, nor

728
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 2: is he referred to as big or bad, big or bad,

729
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:00,120
Speaker 2: at least in the Grim. Going back to the Grim Brothers.

730
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,400
Speaker 1: I could see the Norse version of this story elevating

731
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 1: the wolf to to marquee.

732
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 2: Uh where we?

733
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 1: Where were we?

734
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 2: Where were we? How do we talked about?

735
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 1: How Johnny Marx wrote Rocket around the Christmas Tree in

736
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: addition to writing uh, Ruth read those rein there.

737
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 2: Several times at this point, But would you like to

738
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 2: go deeper on it? Rogging and ron business Jane. You

739
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 2: said she she was thirteen, Yeah, she was thirteen, And

740
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 2: it's amazing how she already sounds like a twenty five

741
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:28,719
Speaker 2: year old drunk cocktail waitress and like you know, Bimigie

742
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 2: Wisconsin ragging. I get you some more coffee. Hun. She

743
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 2: has the number one song in the country today. Good

744
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 2: for her, which is great. Readily everyone, I'm merely remarking

745
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 2: she had a preternaturally wisened voice.

746
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 1: That is true, That is true. She is our number one.

747
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:55,320
Speaker 1: She took down Mariah Carrey. Mariah Carey's run of a

748
00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: run of tyranny for as the Queen of Christmas is

749
00:41:58,440 --> 00:41:58,839
Speaker 1: now over?

750
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:00,719
Speaker 2: Is that because it is? It? On TikTok now is

751
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 2: that why? And they made a YouTube video for it too,

752
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 2: Oh okay.

753
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 1: And because people like it and because she's a sweet

754
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 1: old lady. She just she has the record of being

755
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 1: the oldest person to ever have a number one uh

756
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: and the longest gap between number ones, which was like

757
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 1: sixty three years I think two years something.

758
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 2: Insane. Yeah, good for her. Was she cool? A little

759
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 2: bit racist? Yeah? Interviewed her today? Know she was cool.

760
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 2: I was. I was like, yeah, hey, did Mariah reach

761
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,960
Speaker 2: out and say anything, like, did she she seed the

762
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:34,239
Speaker 2: Christmas Queen crown to you? And She's like, no, no,

763
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 2: she has and I haven't heard from her yet. And

764
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 2: you know what, if I don't hear from her soon,

765
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:38,840
Speaker 2: I'm going to go to New York and I'm going

766
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 2: to go take it from her myself. I was like,

767
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 2: bless you. Yeah, I mean, Mariah's probably more likely to

768
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 2: send a subpoena or you know, a horsehead.

769
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:51,600
Speaker 1: She's had flowers after us, like as soon as the

770
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 1: interview was over, which I'm mad about because I was

771
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:56,080
Speaker 1: going to make the headline seventy eight year old friend

772
00:42:56,120 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 1: of Lee for Friends, Mariah Carey Ye beat the out

773
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 1: of Christmas out of Riah carey.

774
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:02,720
Speaker 2: That's awesome.

775
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be

776
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 1: right back with more too much information in just a moment.

777
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 2: Where the hell were we?

778
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: We were at Rudolph the red Hot media property. Ah, yes, well.

779
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 2: Robert May, the creator of Rudolph, quit his copywriting job

780
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:31,279
Speaker 2: at Montgomery Ward after they gave him the rights to

781
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 2: his creation, and he spent about a decade managing his

782
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:37,720
Speaker 2: newfound franchise. At the end of nineteen fifty the Chicago

783
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 2: Tribune wrote, there is no question but that Rudolph has

784
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 2: become a legend, the first new and accepted Christmas legend

785
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 2: since Charles Dickens a Christmas Carol and Clement Moore's a

786
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,759
Speaker 2: visit from Saint Nicholas. During the nineteen fifties, there were

787
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 2: over one hundred different Rudolph products produced, but by nineteen

788
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 2: fifty eight, rudolph sales had declined considerably, and by the

789
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 2: early sixties May found himself asking for his old copywriting

790
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 2: job back, later joking that he reminded his old bosses

791
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 2: of the company policy Montgomery Wards will take anything back Grim.

792
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,280
Speaker 2: He would remain with Wards until he retired in nineteen seventy,

793
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 2: at which point he began passing his time bowling, golfing,

794
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 2: and growing fifteen foot tall tomato plants that reached the

795
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 2: second story of his house. May's second wife died in

796
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,360
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one, and the following year he married her sister,

797
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 2: Claire Weird. Five years later. Fittingly, May himself died in

798
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:31,280
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, America's bi centennary.

799
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 1: Year, fitting in to this truly bizarre American story. But thankfully,

800
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,720
Speaker 1: Robert May did live to see the beloved TV special

801
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:42,879
Speaker 1: take shape. And yet another fetuitous connection, his brother in law,

802
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: Johnny Marx, who wrote the Rude Alpha Redlands Reindeer Song,

803
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: lived in New York City's East Village next to Arthur

804
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 1: Rankin junior. Now, in nineteen sixty, rank informed Rank and

805
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 1: Bass Productions with collaborator Jules Bass, and the two began

806
00:44:56,560 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 1: producing children's TV specials. Rankin's Wikipedia page is kind of nuts.

807
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 1: He's credited on over a thousand TV programs, and he's

808
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: also married to I don't know this person.

809
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 2: Do you know her?

810
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 1: Olga Carlados. She's a Greek actress known for performing in

811
00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:20,919
Speaker 1: Italian horror movies. So not very good ones, No something

812
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:21,759
Speaker 1: you'd be into No.

813
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:23,760
Speaker 2: I mean, all you need to know about the Italian

814
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:26,840
Speaker 2: film industry is that they didn't start shooting the synchronized

815
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 2: sound until like the nineties. So this is this is

816
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 2: the famous thing about why the dubbing is off in

817
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 2: all of those movies is because every actor was speaking

818
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 2: their own language and then they would do all of

819
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 2: the dialogue. ADR. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, that's

820
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 2: why it's always a mess in like those spaghetti westerns

821
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 2: and stuff.

822
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 1: Arthur Rankin reached out to Johnny Marx, who wrote the

823
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:53,440
Speaker 1: Rudolph Christmas Song, to broach the possibility of putting Rudolph

824
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 1: on television as part of the GE Fantasy Hour, a

825
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: branded series of TV specials sponsored by jenf Or Electric.

826
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:04,440
Speaker 1: Robert May's pass with Montgomery Ward was actually helpful with

827
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 1: this because an old executive from Wards now worked at

828
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 1: GE as the vice president of Housewares. A general electrician

829
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:16,360
Speaker 1: engineer named Nick Hollandyak developed the first LED light bulb

830
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 1: around this time, capable emitting visible red light, which was

831
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 1: the same bulb used for Rudolph's bioluminescent nose and the

832
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: TV special. So a little little product placement there do it.

833
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:32,800
Speaker 1: I completely didn't know that rankin Bass did that Hobbit.

834
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

835
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Hobbit animated special. We'll talk more about that later. Yeah,

836
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:38,839
Speaker 1: the one that kind of at memory hold.

837
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:42,920
Speaker 2: I feel like the Tolkien scholar Douglas A. Anderson called

838
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 2: the adaptation execrable. Yeah, people really hated that. I remember

839
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 2: I'd found memories of it as a kid.

840
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: The completest in me is compelled to mention that Rank

841
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:54,240
Speaker 1: and Bass were not the first to develop a Rudolph cartoon.

842
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:58,880
Speaker 1: That honor goes to Fleischer's Studios, which copyrighted a cartoon

843
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:02,960
Speaker 1: of Rudolph in nineteen forty eight as advertising for Montgomery Ward.

844
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. They also did the Superman cartoons in the thirties

845
00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:09,319
Speaker 2: that were a big influence on the art style of

846
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:12,439
Speaker 2: the Batman, the animated series that very kind of impressionist

847
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 2: Fritz Lang expressionist Fritz Lang Stark shadow Tropolis.

848
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:20,840
Speaker 1: For a writer for the Rudolph TV special, Rank and

849
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: Bass tapped the awesomely named Romeo Mueller, a ringer who'd

850
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 1: previously written for radio shows like The Jack Benny Show.

851
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:32,240
Speaker 1: In an amusing reminder of a pre Internet era, Mueller

852
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 1: later said that he wanted to use May's original poem

853
00:47:35,239 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 1: as the text for his script, but he couldn't find

854
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:40,359
Speaker 1: a copy of it, and instead he had to use

855
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:43,839
Speaker 1: the song as the source for his story. This would

856
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: kind of become a theme with him because he would

857
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: write the future Christmas Carol based TV specials for Rank

858
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:53,520
Speaker 1: and Bass, including nineteen sixty nine s Frosty the Snowman

859
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 1: and nineteen sixty eight So the Little Drummer Boy. And

860
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 1: he also wrote nineteen seventies Santa Claus is coming to

861
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:02,280
Speaker 1: town with Is that the one with the heat Miser?

862
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 2: And now I'm getting confused? Or is that a year

863
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:06,840
Speaker 2: without a Santa Claus? I don't remember. I need to

864
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 2: check this. Which is the one? Did you ever hear

865
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:12,360
Speaker 2: brother Theodore? No, it's a He's the guy who voiced

866
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 2: Galum in that seventy seven movie, and he was a

867
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:19,360
Speaker 2: comedia stand up comic, and his the log line on

868
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:24,600
Speaker 2: his wikipedias he was described as Boris Karloff, Salvador Dali Nijinski,

869
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:28,759
Speaker 2: and Red Skelton simultaneously, which now I'm like, I need

870
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 2: to know everything about this man immediately.

871
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:34,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh no, okay, so this is not the one

872
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:36,880
Speaker 1: with the heat Miser. That's the year without a Santa Claus.

873
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: Santa Claus has Coming to Town is the origin story

874
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:44,400
Speaker 1: of Santa where he starts off young with red Hair's

875
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 1: the one where he sings a song to children called

876
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:50,760
Speaker 1: be prepared to pay If you sit on my lap

877
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 1: today A kiss a toy is the price you'll pay,

878
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:55,920
Speaker 1: which always used to creep me up.

879
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:57,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't like that at all.

880
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:00,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but we have Romeo Mueller, the guy the

881
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:03,440
Speaker 1: Rudolph Christ's Special to thank for that as well. Hell

882
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: of a guy, Romeo Mueller, Like Robert May, Romeo Muller

883
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:09,279
Speaker 1: also borrowed elements from his own life when writing the

884
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:12,760
Speaker 1: script for the Rudolph TV special. Hermie the Elf, not Herbie.

885
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 1: Hermie is named after Mueller's childhood friend who is named Herbie.

886
00:49:18,680 --> 00:49:21,800
Speaker 1: I don't know why he just didn't name him Herbie. Ah,

887
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: Rudolph's girlfriend love interest was named Clarice in honor of

888
00:49:26,680 --> 00:49:28,520
Speaker 1: the bride to be of another close friend.

889
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:30,880
Speaker 2: So that's cute.

890
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:33,960
Speaker 1: Rudolph the Red Noose Randeer was officially in production in

891
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:37,720
Speaker 1: mid nineteen sixty three and continued for eighteen months, which

892
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:40,600
Speaker 1: was a truly overwhelming amount of time for a TV

893
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:44,359
Speaker 1: production in that period. GE spent the modern equivalent of

894
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 1: more than four point five million dollars on the project,

895
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 1: which required some twenty two room size sets. And of

896
00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:57,400
Speaker 1: course we cannot forget their innovative animation technique known as AnimagiC,

897
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: which gave every rank and bass productionist distinctive and somewhat

898
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 1: unnerving look, which we talked.

899
00:50:03,239 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 2: About at the top of the episode.

900
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: It was, as you alluded to earlier, a painstaking process

901
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 1: that involved moving jointed, wooden felt puppets ever so slightly

902
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 1: for each new frame twenty four frames per second of

903
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 1: screen time, So yeah, it's pretty tedious.

904
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:21,279
Speaker 2: The process was.

905
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:25,320
Speaker 1: Done by Japanese animators at the mom Studios in Tokyo,

906
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 1: where they were overseen by stop motion pioneer Tatahido Tad.

907
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:36,279
Speaker 1: To his friends Mochinaga, this guy is interesting and unexpectedly hardcore.

908
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 2: Do you know this guy? I was just reading about

909
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 2: him now.

910
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 1: During World War Two he left Japan for Manchuria, which

911
00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: was a Japanese occupied puppet state in China, where he

912
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 1: produced propaganda films with Chinese, Korean, and Japanese animators. In

913
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, Tad was instructed to create an animated

914
00:50:56,040 --> 00:51:01,840
Speaker 1: propaganda film mocking Chinese politician Shanghai Sha and to telegraph

915
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:04,160
Speaker 1: the message that Shanghai Scheck was controlled by the US

916
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:08,840
Speaker 1: Secretary of State on Chinaga created, Tad created literal puppets of.

917
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:09,759
Speaker 2: The two figures.

918
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's just like Doctor SEUs and Disney as

919
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:18,240
Speaker 1: a whole proud sort of history of legendary animators getting

920
00:51:18,239 --> 00:51:23,320
Speaker 1: their start or at least getting paid during war time

921
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:26,480
Speaker 1: making to make propaganda.

922
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 2: Yeah.

923
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 1: And this was China's first stop motion puppet animation feature ever.

924
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 1: And nineteen fifty five he returned to Japan and brought

925
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:37,320
Speaker 1: this technique with him, using it to produce a beer commercial,

926
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:40,239
Speaker 1: which became this first stop motion puppet animation ever done

927
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 1: in Japan as well, so he's got two records in

928
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 1: two separate countries.

929
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:47,319
Speaker 2: This commercial success inspired Tad to.

930
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 1: Form the puppet animation studio in Tokyo. And that's where

931
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 1: the rank and basque people came when I wanted to

932
00:51:52,760 --> 00:51:53,760
Speaker 1: make the Rudolph special.

933
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:58,040
Speaker 2: Yes, uh, did you know about Nara before this? No? Yeah,

934
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:01,319
Speaker 2: my Bodes the Haunted. That's the island of Deer, the

935
00:52:01,400 --> 00:52:04,399
Speaker 2: Sacred Deer. And that's the only reason I know about

936
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:06,520
Speaker 2: it is because John Mann, a friend of the pod,

937
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 2: John Mann, who is obsessed with, you know, fawns and deer.

938
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 2: It's like on his bucket list to go to the

939
00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 2: island of Sacred Deer in Nara, So prior to filming,

940
00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:23,359
Speaker 2: Tad traveled to Nara, Japan, a small city located east

941
00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 2: of Osaka, to visit the park there, the famous park there,

942
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:29,239
Speaker 2: which is a deer sanctuary established in eighteen eighty to

943
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:33,799
Speaker 2: protect the area's population of sacred deer. These deer, it's

944
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 2: an incredible part of like Japanese culture because they're so

945
00:52:36,719 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 2: acclimated to human like, non threatening humans that they approached

946
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:43,080
Speaker 2: as for food. And they've even learned to mimic the

947
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 2: act of bowing, which is pretty incredible. I think if

948
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 2: I had a like a young deer, like a fawn,

949
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:53,440
Speaker 2: bow to me, i'd be I could die happy, I

950
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 2: would I would. Tad and his assistant spent two days

951
00:52:57,160 --> 00:53:01,839
Speaker 2: observing the deer, and their attention to detail and the

952
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:04,720
Speaker 2: subsequent crafting of the deer puppets is apparent. It featured

953
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:08,320
Speaker 2: details such as delicate eyelids for the deer crafted from leather.

954
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:12,400
Speaker 2: More than two hundred puppets were carved for the production

955
00:53:12,480 --> 00:53:16,040
Speaker 2: of Rudolph. Ichiro Komoro, the puppet maker for the film,

956
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:19,320
Speaker 2: says that each character's puppet was re carved by hand

957
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 2: for various movements and expressions, rather than using plaster and

958
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 2: a mold, because it wouldn't have been exact, and he said,

959
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:29,560
Speaker 2: the plaster head is very heavy for animation, so they

960
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:32,960
Speaker 2: because I'm a nerd, the one of the things that

961
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:36,239
Speaker 2: they did for Nightmare on a Nightmare before Christmas to

962
00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:42,840
Speaker 2: streamline this process was basically create a master puppet, a

963
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 2: series of them that were jointed in different ways to

964
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 2: do different things. But they they have like dozens of

965
00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:53,760
Speaker 2: these little detachable masks for each character that it mimics

966
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:59,279
Speaker 2: the entire range of mouth, sounds and expressions. So for

967
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:03,000
Speaker 2: every main character, like particularly Jack Skellington, there were dozens

968
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 2: of these things. So they would to animate the speaking,

969
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 2: they would just swap out different faces that were incrementally

970
00:54:09,239 --> 00:54:12,040
Speaker 2: making different vowel sounds, and there were also like these

971
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:14,759
Speaker 2: different expressions for him. I mean, it's the depth for

972
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 2: that is really incredible. The dolls for Rudolph and Santa

973
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:22,160
Speaker 2: cost five grand each to make. What is that twenty

974
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:26,920
Speaker 2: twenty three money. I'm gonna suprise this right rules, I'm

975
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:30,279
Speaker 2: gonna say fifty thousand, Okay, I'll say sixty five. We

976
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:31,040
Speaker 2: both went over.

977
00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: It's forty eight thousand, five hundred and twenty two.

978
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 2: Damn that's crazy, dude, forty eight thousand dollars doll.

979
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:43,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't really how, And maybe it was for

980
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 1: the assortment of all the dolls for that character.

981
00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:50,319
Speaker 2: Oh sure, because that's like insane. Yeah, I mean, I well,

982
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 2: you know, they have different things, they have different terms

983
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 2: for them, Like there's like hero dolls are like in

984
00:54:56,239 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 2: miniature work. They have like the hero one or is

985
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 2: like the one that'll be used for most of the

986
00:55:01,640 --> 00:55:03,840
Speaker 2: close ups, so it's often the most detailed one, and

987
00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:06,880
Speaker 2: then there'll be like action ones that are jointed differently

988
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:11,399
Speaker 2: so that they can do complicated motions and such. So yeah,

989
00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 2: I don't know if they were only two of them

990
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:15,120
Speaker 2: and they each cost forty eight grand, or if there

991
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:17,240
Speaker 2: was a series of them that cost forty eight grand.

992
00:55:17,480 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 2: The ge cigar Smoking Executive is like forty eight grand,

993
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:23,919
Speaker 2: five grand for Santa doll.

994
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 1: Uh.

995
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:28,400
Speaker 2: They were also deceptively small, though the puppet used for

996
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:31,280
Speaker 2: Rudolph is only four inches tall. In future.

997
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:35,359
Speaker 3: So yeah, so wait a minute, if that's five grand, yeah,

998
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:38,400
Speaker 3: can you imagine d grand now getting a line a

999
00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 3: line budget for that and be like four inch deer

1000
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:44,680
Speaker 3: doll five grand give you a heart attack?

1001
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:48,719
Speaker 2: So like government spending? Is it just like ge right?

1002
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:53,200
Speaker 2: So yeah, so yeah the pupp The four inch puppet

1003
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:56,280
Speaker 2: for Rudolph featured a twelve volt light bulb painted red

1004
00:55:56,440 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 2: as his all important nose. Santa stood twice tall at

1005
00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:04,200
Speaker 2: eight inches, and the Abominable Snowman is the tallest puppet

1006
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:07,560
Speaker 2: of them, at a wopping fourteen inches tall. In order

1007
00:56:07,640 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 2: to keep the figures clean during production, only the animator

1008
00:56:10,640 --> 00:56:12,960
Speaker 2: and puppet maker were allowed to touch them in the studio,

1009
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:17,320
Speaker 2: and they had to wear gloves no touching. If only

1010
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:21,800
Speaker 2: Jeffrey tambour Head adhered to that rule in real life. Unfortunately,

1011
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:25,440
Speaker 2: the figures were sprayed with a magnetic flock. Flocking is

1012
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:28,640
Speaker 2: like it's like a you use it in Christmas decorations.

1013
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 2: It's like the spray on faux snow stuff to diffuse

1014
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 2: reflective light from the cameras, and the acid used in

1015
00:56:37,120 --> 00:56:41,640
Speaker 2: the flocking spray led to the puppets rapid deterioration over time. Yeah,

1016
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:43,319
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of that's why they have that

1017
00:56:43,360 --> 00:56:45,960
Speaker 2: sort of that goes into their uncanniness, the fact that

1018
00:56:45,960 --> 00:56:49,800
Speaker 2: their like surface changes with the different pressure from the

1019
00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:53,280
Speaker 2: different takes that were required of them. Anyway, rankin Basque

1020
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:55,720
Speaker 2: co founder Jules Bass kept one of the Rudolph puppets

1021
00:56:55,719 --> 00:56:57,800
Speaker 2: on his desk, even though wires were coming out of

1022
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:01,319
Speaker 2: its legs for the light bulb nose. Sadly, no one

1023
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 2: else in production seemed to be as sentimental about these figures.

1024
00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:06,720
Speaker 2: Most of them went missing soon after a production wrapped,

1025
00:57:06,880 --> 00:57:08,759
Speaker 2: and it was assumed that they were merely thrown out.

1026
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 2: Nine of them were rescued by Rank and Bass secretary,

1027
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,000
Speaker 2: who let her children use them as toys before relegating

1028
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 2: them to the attic. Some forty years later, they were

1029
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:18,760
Speaker 2: sold to a collector who took them onto the Your

1030
00:57:18,800 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 2: Beloved Antiques road Show in two thousand and six, where

1031
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:25,000
Speaker 2: they were praised for between eight and ten grand. It's

1032
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:27,840
Speaker 2: obviously worth saying that they were in extremely poor condition

1033
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 2: due to decades of poor storage and years of being

1034
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 2: thrown around by kids. Santa disgustingly had mold under his beard,

1035
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:38,120
Speaker 2: his eyebrows were missing, his legs were broken and half

1036
00:57:38,160 --> 00:57:41,320
Speaker 2: of his mustache was gone. He looked like a bowery bum,

1037
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:50,080
Speaker 2: like Lost Island, the Misfit Toys version. Rudolph's nose was

1038
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 2: also missing and replaced by a ball of red wax.

1039
00:57:53,400 --> 00:57:55,520
Speaker 2: This new owner showed out four grand to have them

1040
00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:59,320
Speaker 2: professionally restored an LA based puppet fabrication studio called Screen

1041
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:02,479
Speaker 2: Novelties and Good as New. The puppets made the trade

1042
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 2: show and convention circuit before being sold at auction in

1043
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:09,680
Speaker 2: November of twenty twenty, fetching three hundred and sixty eight

1044
00:58:10,040 --> 00:58:14,200
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, double the expected return. They are now in

1045
00:58:14,280 --> 00:58:18,120
Speaker 2: the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia. Didn't know

1046
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 2: that was a thing. Love it, you said, You've read

1047
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:25,280
Speaker 2: reports that someone listed puppets from the Rudolph Special on

1048
00:58:25,320 --> 00:58:31,160
Speaker 2: eBay for ten million dollars, which I if that was. Yeah.

1049
00:58:31,160 --> 00:58:34,240
Speaker 1: Even somebody who was associated with the production was like,

1050
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous, Not even the Smithsonian would pay that for these.

1051
00:58:38,360 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: I have no further news as to if they sold

1052
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:46,720
Speaker 1: and even who was selling them. I sort of get

1053
00:58:46,720 --> 00:58:49,080
Speaker 1: the sense that it was a scam.

1054
00:58:49,080 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 2: Well good, Speaking of mysteries, we have to talk about

1055
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 2: the mystery surrounding the scene set on the Island of

1056
00:58:56,720 --> 00:59:01,440
Speaker 2: Misfit Toys. We are speaking specif about questions surrounding the

1057
00:59:01,520 --> 00:59:03,960
Speaker 2: rag doll known as Dolly, as in a Dolly for

1058
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:10,840
Speaker 2: Sue just asked some questions. We're doing our own research.

1059
00:59:12,600 --> 00:59:14,880
Speaker 2: Dolly is surrounded by all sorts of odd looking toys,

1060
00:59:14,880 --> 00:59:16,920
Speaker 2: but there's nothing that appears to be overtly wrong with her,

1061
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:18,880
Speaker 2: leading fans to wonder why she was there in the

1062
00:59:18,880 --> 00:59:24,080
Speaker 2: first place. She actually belonged to Typhoid Mary Ah and

1063
00:59:24,200 --> 00:59:26,400
Speaker 2: was thus responsible for that. No, I'm kidding, that's the

1064
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:30,120
Speaker 2: velveteen rabbit. Other than lacking a nose, there was nothing

1065
00:59:30,160 --> 00:59:33,920
Speaker 2: wrong with the Dolly that telegraphed Misfit. Arthur Rankin Junior

1066
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:36,320
Speaker 2: shed some light on the subject during a two thousand

1067
00:59:36,320 --> 00:59:41,480
Speaker 2: and seven episode of NPR's Weight Wait Don't Tell Me.

1068
00:59:42,560 --> 00:59:45,240
Speaker 2: He claimed the doll a last minute edition, presumably for

1069
00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 2: diversity reasons, was cast off by her mistress and was

1070
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:56,240
Speaker 2: clinically depressed. His word is not my mistress, giving her

1071
00:59:56,280 --> 00:59:59,160
Speaker 2: an origin story similar to that of toy story, adding

1072
00:59:59,160 --> 01:00:02,360
Speaker 2: to the overall depressing nature of that scene. In the

1073
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:06,200
Speaker 2: original version of the special, Rudolph Hermie and Yukon Cornelius,

1074
01:00:06,560 --> 01:00:09,240
Speaker 2: the minor Gentleman of the pick Axe, promised to return

1075
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:11,800
Speaker 2: to the Island of Misfit Toys, and then they never do.

1076
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:14,600
Speaker 2: Fans were extremely upset by this, and angry letters poured

1077
01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:16,880
Speaker 2: into the Rank and Bass offices at such a rate

1078
01:00:17,280 --> 01:00:19,480
Speaker 2: that they eventually added a short scene for the second

1079
01:00:19,520 --> 01:00:22,840
Speaker 2: broadcast the following year in nineteen sixty five, where Santa

1080
01:00:22,880 --> 01:00:27,840
Speaker 2: can be seen delivering the misfits to new homes in

1081
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:29,800
Speaker 2: order to make room for that new ending, though something

1082
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:32,160
Speaker 2: else had to be cut. During that original airing, there

1083
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:35,240
Speaker 2: was a storyline about Yukon Cornelius finding a peppermint mine

1084
01:00:35,600 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 2: near Santa's workshop, sadly would go on to the chopping

1085
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:43,080
Speaker 2: block now creepily. In the special, you can still see

1086
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:46,600
Speaker 2: Cornelius licking his pick axe, but without mention of the

1087
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:50,840
Speaker 2: peppermint mine, leading to viewers to wonder why this puppet is.

1088
01:00:51,360 --> 01:00:52,920
Speaker 2: I don't know, let's call it a let's call it

1089
01:00:52,960 --> 01:00:55,480
Speaker 2: a buffalo bill kind of thing. That's weird behavior. That's

1090
01:00:55,480 --> 01:00:59,000
Speaker 2: a weird thing to do. Lick your pick axe. And

1091
01:00:59,040 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 2: while we're on the topic of alternate versions, two songs

1092
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:03,680
Speaker 2: have been swapped in and out of the special over

1093
01:01:03,680 --> 01:01:06,560
Speaker 2: the years. Both are sung by Rudolph and Hermie. In

1094
01:01:06,600 --> 01:01:09,000
Speaker 2: the original, the duo sings a song called We're a

1095
01:01:09,040 --> 01:01:12,920
Speaker 2: couple of Misfits Like Us. After the first airing, it

1096
01:01:12,960 --> 01:01:15,520
Speaker 2: was replaced with the song Fame in Fortune. So this

1097
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:18,000
Speaker 2: is all good, But enough about the puppets.

1098
01:01:18,480 --> 01:01:21,360
Speaker 1: It's time to talk about the real people, starting with

1099
01:01:21,400 --> 01:01:24,400
Speaker 1: the one, the only, the legendary.

1100
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:27,400
Speaker 2: Mister burrel Ives. Come on, the famous folky.

1101
01:01:27,120 --> 01:01:32,760
Speaker 1: Writ folky Yeah, folksy, folksy, folksy, thank you. The famous

1102
01:01:32,760 --> 01:01:36,200
Speaker 1: folksy singer lent his voice to Sam the Snowman, the

1103
01:01:36,320 --> 01:01:39,640
Speaker 1: narrator of the special, who was model, of course, resemble

1104
01:01:39,760 --> 01:01:44,800
Speaker 1: the rotund Ives. Before Ives was tapped to narrate. Larry Mann,

1105
01:01:44,880 --> 01:01:48,600
Speaker 1: the voice of Yukon Cornelius, performed the narration. His version

1106
01:01:48,600 --> 01:01:51,040
Speaker 1: has never been heard publicly, but those who've listened to

1107
01:01:51,080 --> 01:01:54,120
Speaker 1: the recordings say that man put on a Brooklyn like accent,

1108
01:01:54,320 --> 01:01:59,600
Speaker 1: which I find hilarious. Release the man tapes. Ives is

1109
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:03,320
Speaker 1: the only big name voice in the special, well not

1110
01:02:03,400 --> 01:02:05,440
Speaker 1: kind of he is. The rest of the parts were

1111
01:02:05,440 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 1: performed by Canadian voiceover actors in the time honored tradition

1112
01:02:09,960 --> 01:02:13,200
Speaker 1: of inexpensive TV production, Rank and Bass ventured to the

1113
01:02:13,200 --> 01:02:14,000
Speaker 1: Great White.

1114
01:02:13,760 --> 01:02:16,760
Speaker 2: North, Are You Afraid of the Dark? In many other.

1115
01:02:16,680 --> 01:02:20,240
Speaker 1: Shows also, Canada was one of the last countries still

1116
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:23,720
Speaker 1: producing scripted radio dramas at that time in the early sixties.

1117
01:02:24,400 --> 01:02:27,480
Speaker 1: In America, they'd been kind of phased out, so there

1118
01:02:27,480 --> 01:02:30,240
Speaker 1: were a lot of vocal pros on call in Canada.

1119
01:02:31,040 --> 01:02:35,200
Speaker 1: Billy May Richards provided the voice for Rudolph, and you know,

1120
01:02:35,240 --> 01:02:38,200
Speaker 1: these days, it's not uncommon in animation for female voiceover

1121
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:41,720
Speaker 1: artists to voice male characters, especially young male characters like

1122
01:02:42,000 --> 01:02:44,920
Speaker 1: Chucky and Tommy and the Rugrats. But for whatever reason,

1123
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:47,440
Speaker 1: Rank and Bass wanted to keep the fact that Rudolph

1124
01:02:47,520 --> 01:02:50,160
Speaker 1: was voiced by a woman a secret, and so they

1125
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:55,480
Speaker 1: credited Billy May Richards as just Billy Richards. Weird Burlives

1126
01:02:55,520 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 1: star power made him the only actor to receive residuals

1127
01:02:58,240 --> 01:03:00,760
Speaker 1: on the show over the years, and their main cast

1128
01:03:00,880 --> 01:03:04,680
Speaker 1: only received the thousand dollars over a three year period.

1129
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:05,480
Speaker 2: Here it Is.

1130
01:03:06,200 --> 01:03:09,520
Speaker 1: The special has since gone on to make roughly in

1131
01:03:09,560 --> 01:03:11,280
Speaker 1: the neighborhood of one hundred million.

1132
01:03:11,720 --> 01:03:12,200
Speaker 2: Here it Is.

1133
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:16,800
Speaker 1: This was admittedly a sore subject for Billy may Richards,

1134
01:03:16,840 --> 01:03:19,280
Speaker 1: the voice of Rudolph, but she admitted to feeling quote

1135
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:22,320
Speaker 1: so lucky to have something that has made such an

1136
01:03:22,400 --> 01:03:25,880
Speaker 1: impact on people, because it's all about the story first

1137
01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:30,920
Speaker 1: and foremost, she says, So that is a generous read

1138
01:03:31,480 --> 01:03:34,800
Speaker 1: of a not very generous situation. But thankfully there's a

1139
01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:38,760
Speaker 1: cute coda. Oh decades later, I know, thank you. It's Christmas.

1140
01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:39,880
Speaker 2: You know, we'll have to have it.

1141
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:43,320
Speaker 1: In the early two thousands, Billy may Richards ended up

1142
01:03:43,360 --> 01:03:47,400
Speaker 1: becoming neighbors with Paul Souls, another voiceover actor who was

1143
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:50,360
Speaker 1: the voice of Hermi the Elf. So the voices of

1144
01:03:50,440 --> 01:03:53,360
Speaker 1: Rudolph and the Elf were living next to each other

1145
01:03:53,520 --> 01:03:57,640
Speaker 1: at the Performing Arts Lodge in Toronto, a housing development

1146
01:03:57,680 --> 01:04:00,680
Speaker 1: for artists and actors. I get the sense that it's

1147
01:04:00,800 --> 01:04:03,760
Speaker 1: an old folks home for actors. Yeah, and she told

1148
01:04:03,760 --> 01:04:07,240
Speaker 1: the Chicago Tribune it's a great place to be the

1149
01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:09,280
Speaker 1: only place for misfits anyway.

1150
01:04:10,080 --> 01:04:12,320
Speaker 2: That is cute. That's cute. I like that a lot.

1151
01:04:13,120 --> 01:04:15,720
Speaker 1: Rudolph the Red Noose Reindeer. The TV special premiered at

1152
01:04:15,760 --> 01:04:19,560
Speaker 1: five thirty PM on December sixth, nineteen sixty four. So

1153
01:04:19,640 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 1: that was fifty nine years ago yesterday. Ego eye viewers

1154
01:04:24,080 --> 01:04:26,560
Speaker 1: will notice that there's actually an error in the end

1155
01:04:26,600 --> 01:04:30,160
Speaker 1: credits with the Roman numeral copyright date thanks to a

1156
01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:33,280
Speaker 1: dropped m. It says the special came out in eleven

1157
01:04:33,400 --> 01:04:37,920
Speaker 1: sixty four, and I'm not sure if this caused any

1158
01:04:37,920 --> 01:04:40,959
Speaker 1: copyright weirdness similar to the Night of the Living Dead

1159
01:04:41,360 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: and it's a wonderful life who had?

1160
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:45,960
Speaker 2: Well, what was the Night Living Dead situation?

1161
01:04:46,040 --> 01:04:48,160
Speaker 1: It's just they never filed copyright on the movie so

1162
01:04:48,200 --> 01:04:49,440
Speaker 1: it can be shown on TV.

1163
01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:52,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think it was something like a

1164
01:04:52,480 --> 01:04:56,120
Speaker 2: literally like a filing error. Yeah, but all of the

1165
01:04:56,240 --> 01:04:58,680
Speaker 2: Romera stuff is a mess, you know, I mean, he's

1166
01:04:58,720 --> 01:05:01,920
Speaker 2: it's basically down to this one of his producers that

1167
01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:04,600
Speaker 2: he worked with. Yeah, when you do stuff on the

1168
01:05:04,760 --> 01:05:06,480
Speaker 2: on like the by the skin of your teeth and

1169
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:09,480
Speaker 2: hair trigger, you're not really you don't have an eye

1170
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:14,200
Speaker 2: on the future. But yeah, man, oh no, it's even better.

1171
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:18,360
Speaker 2: You know what it was? Well, the original distributor failed

1172
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:21,600
Speaker 2: to replace the copy, so the title was originally called

1173
01:05:21,720 --> 01:05:24,400
Speaker 2: Night of the Flesh Eaters, and they renamed it for

1174
01:05:24,480 --> 01:05:29,080
Speaker 2: distribution and failed to replace the copyright notice when they

1175
01:05:29,240 --> 01:05:33,440
Speaker 2: retitled it and recut it. Wow, and several years after

1176
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:35,840
Speaker 2: the fact they realized when they were screening it that

1177
01:05:35,920 --> 01:05:39,960
Speaker 2: it had no copyright notice on it. You can't just

1178
01:05:40,080 --> 01:05:43,320
Speaker 2: add that. I mean, you could probably have sued the

1179
01:05:43,320 --> 01:05:48,280
Speaker 2: guy who distributed. But good lord, wow, great job guys.

1180
01:05:48,800 --> 01:05:51,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I would assume that this has been cleared

1181
01:05:51,760 --> 01:05:54,960
Speaker 1: up somehow because it has been broadcast every year since,

1182
01:05:55,800 --> 01:05:58,000
Speaker 1: making it the longest running Christmas.

1183
01:05:57,600 --> 01:06:02,360
Speaker 2: Special on American television. Bass made numerous children's holiday specials

1184
01:06:02,360 --> 01:06:06,400
Speaker 2: after this, including two that specifically followed the adventures of Rudolph,

1185
01:06:06,400 --> 01:06:10,040
Speaker 2: which you probably haven't heard of. First came Rudolph's Shiny

1186
01:06:10,080 --> 01:06:12,400
Speaker 2: New Year in nineteen seventy six, which was also written

1187
01:06:12,400 --> 01:06:15,280
Speaker 2: by Romeo Mueller and had music from Johnny Marks. Then,

1188
01:06:15,280 --> 01:06:18,120
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine came the feature length Rudolph and

1189
01:06:18,160 --> 01:06:22,880
Speaker 2: Frosty's Christmas in July. Wouldn't that just be like Frosty

1190
01:06:22,960 --> 01:06:28,560
Speaker 2: dies like a snuff film. I don't know. I don't

1191
01:06:28,560 --> 01:06:33,720
Speaker 2: think Reindeer is supposed to live in hot climates either, anyway.

1192
01:06:33,960 --> 01:06:36,880
Speaker 2: Even less memorable was ranking Bass's attempt at creating original

1193
01:06:36,880 --> 01:06:40,720
Speaker 2: ip with a knockoff Rudolph figure called Nestor. The Long

1194
01:06:40,840 --> 01:06:44,560
Speaker 2: Eared Christmas Donkey. That sounds like something that we would

1195
01:06:44,600 --> 01:06:47,840
Speaker 2: make up on our non existence. It does show, yeah,

1196
01:06:48,040 --> 01:06:50,560
Speaker 2: it does. I mean the donkey has like a tenuous

1197
01:06:50,600 --> 01:06:54,040
Speaker 2: connection to Christmas because he's always in the manger, right,

1198
01:06:54,080 --> 01:06:55,439
Speaker 2: He's a manger animal.

1199
01:06:55,120 --> 01:07:02,040
Speaker 1: With old Jesus, Young Jesus. Yeah, you're right, Yeah, per

1200
01:07:02,120 --> 01:07:03,080
Speaker 1: Dominic the Donkey.

1201
01:07:03,400 --> 01:07:06,800
Speaker 2: Who's that? You don't know? Dominic the Donkey probably do.

1202
01:07:06,920 --> 01:07:07,479
Speaker 2: I just don't.

1203
01:07:08,040 --> 01:07:08,120
Speaker 1: No.

1204
01:07:08,440 --> 01:07:10,720
Speaker 2: I want to get your live reaction to this right now.

1205
01:07:10,880 --> 01:07:14,160
Speaker 2: It's just gonna get playfully racist, isn't it kinda? I mean,

1206
01:07:14,280 --> 01:07:16,600
Speaker 2: as an Italian from Pennsylvania.

1207
01:07:22,120 --> 01:07:30,960
Speaker 4: Hey, it's Dominic the Donkey. Are you Italian Christmas Donkey?

1208
01:07:31,120 --> 01:07:34,280
Speaker 1: La la la la la la la la la.

1209
01:07:34,240 --> 01:07:39,520
Speaker 2: La la la la la. What do you think my

1210
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:47,360
Speaker 2: people have suffered so much? Uh? Nest To the Long

1211
01:07:47,400 --> 01:07:50,400
Speaker 2: Eared Christmas Donkey was released in nineteen seventy seven, based

1212
01:07:50,400 --> 01:07:54,040
Speaker 2: on Gene Autrey's unsuccessful Christmas follow up to Rudolph And

1213
01:07:54,080 --> 01:07:56,320
Speaker 2: as you might have gathered, Nestor is a long eared

1214
01:07:56,320 --> 01:07:59,080
Speaker 2: donkey who is ostracized by his peers for a physical

1215
01:07:59,120 --> 01:08:03,680
Speaker 2: abnormality that helps save Christmas. In Nestor's case, he as

1216
01:08:03,680 --> 01:08:06,760
Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier, it's a Nativity situation. He protects Mary

1217
01:08:06,840 --> 01:08:09,960
Speaker 2: during a sandstorm by wrapping her in his ears so

1218
01:08:10,040 --> 01:08:13,200
Speaker 2: that she and Joseph can safely get to bethlehemb Rank

1219
01:08:13,200 --> 01:08:15,440
Speaker 2: and Bass took a lot of l's in the in

1220
01:08:15,440 --> 01:08:19,240
Speaker 2: the late seventies, especially with their poorly received What's that?

1221
01:08:20,160 --> 01:08:29,599
Speaker 2: I just hear the song sands if you Great? If

1222
01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:32,439
Speaker 2: You're great? If they did like a slow horror like

1223
01:08:32,600 --> 01:08:36,320
Speaker 2: reverb back slow plus reverbsion of p Yeah. Yeah, for

1224
01:08:36,400 --> 01:08:38,560
Speaker 2: the for the reboot of Hey, they'll get around to

1225
01:08:38,640 --> 01:08:40,880
Speaker 2: rebooting Nester at some point. I'm kind of shocked we

1226
01:08:40,920 --> 01:08:45,680
Speaker 2: haven't had like a like a atrocious real life c G.

1227
01:08:45,760 --> 01:08:48,400
Speaker 2: I rude, all wait, wait the donkey.

1228
01:08:48,680 --> 01:08:50,599
Speaker 1: It's going to be related to the donkey from Shrek,

1229
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:52,840
Speaker 1: and they're gonna like somehow tie it in with the shop.

1230
01:08:52,960 --> 01:08:57,360
Speaker 2: Thank god. Yeah, Santa. Santa will be played by Who's

1231
01:08:57,400 --> 01:09:00,920
Speaker 2: a Who's an old guy? Who's hot right now? Bruce

1232
01:09:01,040 --> 01:09:06,720
Speaker 2: Dern okay, okay, trying to pick the weirdest oldest guy.

1233
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:10,120
Speaker 2: Probably Jeff Bridges is probably yeah, he's aged of that.

1234
01:09:10,800 --> 01:09:17,879
Speaker 2: Nestor will be voiced by Zendiah uh or possibly Jacob

1235
01:09:17,880 --> 01:09:22,000
Speaker 2: O Lordie of Euphoria, best known for currently playing Elvis

1236
01:09:22,040 --> 01:09:26,479
Speaker 2: in Sophia Coppola's Elfas movie, currently playing Probably maybe it's

1237
01:09:26,479 --> 01:09:30,519
Speaker 2: already out of theaters. Who knows. Joseph will be played

1238
01:09:30,520 --> 01:09:35,440
Speaker 2: by Matthew McConaughey. Mary will also be played by Zendiah.

1239
01:09:35,520 --> 01:09:39,280
Speaker 2: The Baby Jesus will be played by Jack Black and

1240
01:09:39,360 --> 01:09:44,680
Speaker 2: he will sing a song. But else, we got the

1241
01:09:44,680 --> 01:09:48,120
Speaker 2: Three the Three Kings, the Three Wise Men will be

1242
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:56,160
Speaker 2: played by Kevin Hart, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, and Megan Tryanner.

1243
01:09:58,600 --> 01:10:01,920
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. No, that's good because then she can sing too. Yeah,

1244
01:10:01,920 --> 01:10:03,880
Speaker 2: and it'll be a cross It'll be a cross gender.

1245
01:10:04,120 --> 01:10:08,200
Speaker 2: We'd be doing gender blind casting. That's perfect. And the

1246
01:10:08,240 --> 01:10:14,080
Speaker 2: rest uh yeah. Rankin Bass's poorly received adaptation of J. R.

1247
01:10:14,240 --> 01:10:16,840
Speaker 2: Tolkien's The Hobbit and the Return of the King. Yeah,

1248
01:10:16,880 --> 01:10:19,280
Speaker 2: I think everyone just wants to talk about the unused

1249
01:10:19,720 --> 01:10:23,599
Speaker 2: or unmade Roth Bakshi version. That was like really intense.

1250
01:10:24,200 --> 01:10:28,800
Speaker 2: But anyway, they shut down after Christmas two thousand, which

1251
01:10:28,840 --> 01:10:32,280
Speaker 2: is so funny, you know, it's an accurate date. Just

1252
01:10:32,320 --> 01:10:37,160
Speaker 2: sounded like Christmas two thousand, following the rece of Santa Baby.

1253
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:41,760
Speaker 2: It's Santa Baby, which is a course of nod to

1254
01:10:42,040 --> 01:10:46,839
Speaker 2: Eartha Kit. The movie featured vocal talents of legendary Black performers,

1255
01:10:46,920 --> 01:10:50,480
Speaker 2: including Patti LaBelle as the narrator once again the aforementioned

1256
01:10:50,479 --> 01:10:54,080
Speaker 2: Eartha Kit, Gregory Hines, Vanessa Williams, and Tom Joyner. And

1257
01:10:54,160 --> 01:10:56,639
Speaker 2: though the studio is gone, their plethora of TV specials

1258
01:10:56,680 --> 01:11:00,519
Speaker 2: continue to inspire modern filmmakers, including The aff Format, Henry

1259
01:11:00,560 --> 01:11:08,479
Speaker 2: Selnick and That's It, and the rest.

1260
01:11:09,560 --> 01:11:12,840
Speaker 1: Of the many specials created by Rankinbass. Rudolph is undoubtedly

1261
01:11:12,880 --> 01:11:17,040
Speaker 1: the most iconic and beloved. In twenty eighteen, The Hollywood

1262
01:11:17,080 --> 01:11:20,360
Speaker 1: Reporter conducted a poll about holiday movies and specials, and

1263
01:11:20,400 --> 01:11:23,559
Speaker 1: the winner was Rudolph the Red Nose rein Deer. A

1264
01:11:23,640 --> 01:11:26,720
Speaker 1: staggering eighty three percent of the people who took part

1265
01:11:26,800 --> 01:11:29,040
Speaker 1: in the poll how to favor opinion of the film.

1266
01:11:29,800 --> 01:11:32,839
Speaker 1: Rudolph's creator, Robert May, credits the success of his character

1267
01:11:32,880 --> 01:11:35,479
Speaker 1: with the message at the heart of the story. In

1268
01:11:35,520 --> 01:11:38,200
Speaker 1: addition to being a modern retelling of the ugly duckling,

1269
01:11:38,720 --> 01:11:41,840
Speaker 1: it provides a valuable lesson for all children as a

1270
01:11:41,920 --> 01:11:46,400
Speaker 1: quote story of acceptance with a beautiful moral. In May's words,

1271
01:11:46,640 --> 01:11:51,439
Speaker 1: tolerance and perseverance can overcome adversity. Allow me to quote

1272
01:11:51,439 --> 01:11:54,720
Speaker 1: from the writer Ronald Lankford from his cultural history of

1273
01:11:54,760 --> 01:11:58,519
Speaker 1: American Christmas songs, much like the modern Santa Claus song,

1274
01:11:58,880 --> 01:12:03,320
Speaker 1: Rudolph's stories for children. More specifically, it's a children's story

1275
01:12:03,320 --> 01:12:07,519
Speaker 1: about overcoming adversity and earning by personal effort respect in

1276
01:12:07,560 --> 01:12:10,720
Speaker 1: the adult world. As a young deer or child with

1277
01:12:10,760 --> 01:12:13,599
Speaker 1: a handicap that turns out to be an unrecognized asset,

1278
01:12:14,040 --> 01:12:16,439
Speaker 1: Rudolph comes to the rescue of an adult at the

1279
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Speaker 1: last minute on Christmas Eve. When Rudolph saves the day,

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Speaker 1: he gains respect from both his peers and the adult world.

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Speaker 1: The story of Rudolph, then, is the fantasy story made

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Speaker 1: to order for American children. Each child has the need

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Speaker 1: to express and receive approval for his or her individuality

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Speaker 1: and or special qualities. Rudolph's story embodies the American dream

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Speaker 1: for the child, written large because of the cultural significance

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Speaker 1: of Christmas.

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Speaker 2: That's all fine, Thanks for listening, folks. I'm Alex Hagel

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Speaker 2: and I'm Jordan run Togg. We'll catch you next time.

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Speaker 1: Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's executive.

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Speaker 2: Producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtog. The show's supervising

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Speaker 2: producer is Michael Alder. June. The show was researched, written,

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Speaker 2: and hosted by Jordan Runtalg and Alex Heigel.

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Speaker 1: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

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Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

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Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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Speaker 1: favorite shows