Speaker 1: Stories. We're happy holidays, everybody from thinking sideways as always.
Speaker 1: I am Steve, joined by my lovely ho co host
Speaker 1: and Devin. I don't know you were just pointing to him.
Speaker 1: I thought I wasn't lovely any No, no, you're You're
Speaker 1: lovely and married. Your little elf had because it's the holiday.
Speaker 1: Since since it's that happy time of year, we decided that,
Speaker 1: in our tradition of investigating stories about the holidays, that
Speaker 1: we look into the story of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.
Speaker 1: That's that's a big mystery. This, by the way, was
Speaker 1: a listener suggestion was suggested by now just kidding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you somehow aren't familiar with the story of Rudolph,
Speaker 1: here is the story of Rudolph. You know Dasher and
Speaker 1: Dancer and Francer and pix Comic and Cupid and Donner
Speaker 1: and Blitz. But do you recall the most famous reindeer
Speaker 1: of all, Rudolph the red Nosed Reindeer had a very
Speaker 1: shining nose, and if you ever saw it, you would
Speaker 1: even say it close. All of the other reindeers used
Speaker 1: to lat them call him names. They never let or
Speaker 1: Rudolf joining in. They reindeer games. Then one foggy christ
Speaker 1: Mussy Saven came to say, Rudolf with your nose, So, Brian,
Speaker 1: want you guide my slage in nine? Then how the
Speaker 1: reindeer loved him? As they shot it out with glee,
Speaker 1: Rudolf the red nosed reindeer, you go down in his story. Now,
Speaker 1: I think you know the story Rudolf, though. The question
Speaker 1: is how did he come to be and why does
Speaker 1: his nose glow? And each of us has done a
Speaker 1: little research. We've kind of gone out and got our
Speaker 1: own theories as to where where where all this comes
Speaker 1: from their widely diversion, they kind of are. I personally
Speaker 1: believe that I've gotten to the bottom of the story.
Speaker 1: He helped okay, okay, And I think the whole thing
Speaker 1: starts with Santa. Yeah, okay. So we all think that
Speaker 1: Santa is We all know that Santa is the good
Speaker 1: guy who takes toys to the good girls and boys.
Speaker 1: But I also I personally believe that Santa is a
Speaker 1: bit of a mad scientist, and I think that's how
Speaker 1: this happened. In my extremely cursory investigation into genetic manipulation,
Speaker 1: I think I figured out how this happened. Yeah, Santa. Santa. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know, um was pretty pretty busy one day of
Speaker 1: the year, but after that he had a lot of
Speaker 1: time in his hands, exactly to kill time old laboratory.
Speaker 1: So I personally think that Santa made Rudolf, and I think, well,
Speaker 1: Santa is a master of genetic manipulation, and he luded
Speaker 1: some unsuspect acting reindeer into his lab, probably with a
Speaker 1: handful of grass cart or something, and then once he
Speaker 1: got the little guy in there, he started the process
Speaker 1: of creating his own glowing reindeer. So now you're saying
Speaker 1: that Rudolph's snows glowed, that Rudolph glowed overall. Let me
Speaker 1: let me go, let me, let me finish this, and
Speaker 1: then you'll get an idea. The first step was in this,
Speaker 1: you know, this bioengineering of a reindeer, was to introduce
Speaker 1: traits of a creature that is known as a new
Speaker 1: to break. I'm sorry, what a new to break? New
Speaker 1: to branks. This is a big science e word. New
Speaker 1: braanks are a member of the family of new to Bronchia,
Speaker 1: which their soft bodied moss basically slugs. They have this awesome,
Speaker 1: awesome ability to incorporate certain bits of biology from creatures
Speaker 1: that they consume into their bodies. Why didn't we develop
Speaker 1: that That would be kind of cool. I know that'll
Speaker 1: be eating lions all the time and stuff. Here's well,
Speaker 1: here's what they do is, there's there's a certain new
Speaker 1: to break which is called the sea swallow, and it
Speaker 1: feeds on the Portuguese man war, which you know, is
Speaker 1: a jellyfish with nasty, nasty stingers. It eats them. It
Speaker 1: incorporates the stinger and the toxin into itself, so it
Speaker 1: is dangerous to other creatures that try to eat it.
Speaker 1: So it's Kirby got it. Yeah, Yeah, that's exactly Okay.
Speaker 1: From there, Santa, again, being the super scientist that he is,
Speaker 1: figured out how to introduce angels glow into the animal system.
Speaker 1: And Angels glow is I'm gonna destroy this, but it
Speaker 1: is a photo hob dress luminescent creature. I believe that
Speaker 1: might be how you say it, that could be correct
Speaker 1: as well. Angels glow back is a bacteria that is bioluminescent.
Speaker 1: So this is where I'm getting the glowing part in.
Speaker 1: There's actually accounts of soldiers in the Civil War getting
Speaker 1: this bacteria into their wounds and the wounds would glow
Speaker 1: at night, and oddly enough, it had kind of an
Speaker 1: anti bacterial effect on the wounds, so it helps sterilize him,
Speaker 1: which is an awesome side effect. How could bacteriaioaziness to
Speaker 1: other bacteria? Again, this is Santa who figured this out,
Speaker 1: and not on you. I don't know how, but what
Speaker 1: he's doing is that he's introducing this into their food.
Speaker 1: And because they've gone to this this trade of the
Speaker 1: what was that little guy All the angels glow? No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: the sea swallow. Sorry, not the angels glows. The bacteria.
Speaker 1: The sea swallow is the critter that was incorporated into
Speaker 1: said reindeer, The poor little guy you lured in and
Speaker 1: from there created a glowing reindeer. Now, the great thing
Speaker 1: is the reindeer don't globe all the time because he
Speaker 1: only needs him to glow it a little bit of
Speaker 1: the year at a time, one day. Yes, so we
Speaker 1: didn't feed it this thing the whole time. But that's
Speaker 1: how he gets a reindeer that glows. So I'm saying
Speaker 1: the whole reindeer is glowing, not just the nose. Rudolph.
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't think it's a single reindeer,
Speaker 1: because unless we're gonna say he's a magical reindeer, reindeer
Speaker 1: lived like ten or twenty years, so I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: because he's a master manipulation, he's also cloning said reindeer,
Speaker 1: so he's probably either that he's just created this master
Speaker 1: race of glowing reindeer. But yeah, essentially, yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: what is the head shade? No? No, I mean okay, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Rudolph's nose glows by bio woman at that's that's that
Speaker 1: much is clear. Okay that I am in line with
Speaker 1: you that the nose is biouminescent, but not the rest
Speaker 1: of the reindeer. No, he's obviously an alien. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's listen. Okay, obviously like, no, he wasn't engineered. He
Speaker 1: It makes a lot of sense because he can fly right,
Speaker 1: and his nose is bioluminescent, and we don't have mammals
Speaker 1: that have evolved to have bioluminescent parts on Earth, but
Speaker 1: on other planets there would be the necessity for that potentially. Listen,
Speaker 1: you don't know, have you been to another planet? Do
Speaker 1: you know? Yeah? I actually haven't. Unfortunately, there you go,
Speaker 1: so you just have to do the math. I mean really,
Speaker 1: like really, there are a lot of alien sightings around
Speaker 1: their UFO sightings around the North Pole, just like do
Speaker 1: the math people. Aliens are among us in the form
Speaker 1: of Rudolph. I'm sorry you laughing at my like very
Speaker 1: well done research right now? Are you sure because you
Speaker 1: look like your laugh I'm laughing at the idea about
Speaker 1: the research. Oh okay, so wait, but I can prove it.
Speaker 1: Do you remember last year we talked about Santa and
Speaker 1: we talked about how it became clear through lots of
Speaker 1: analysis that we didn't do that we stole from other people,
Speaker 1: that uh, really he's just using quantum mechanics to like
Speaker 1: make it to all the different houses. I think I
Speaker 1: feel like we kind of agreed that that was what
Speaker 1: was happening, right Well, no, actually I said it was magic. Okay,
Speaker 1: well you were wrong. Where do you think Santa found
Speaker 1: all of the quantum mechanics science? Like really, where do
Speaker 1: you think, like do you think he just like I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, suddenly I know how to use quantum mechanics. No,
Speaker 1: Rudolph gave it to him, obviously. The talking reindeer with
Speaker 1: the bioluminescent knows. That's why Santa was like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: I can't figure out how to do any of this.
Speaker 1: It's foggy. I can't do anything. And then Rudolph was like, oh, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, actually, remember how I'm I'm an alien. Cool,
Speaker 1: let's do this, and he helped him. But wouldn't it
Speaker 1: would actually make more sense for Rudolph to help him
Speaker 1: just engineer like a heads up display, like a fluor display,
Speaker 1: like forward looking for red. Despite the fact that Rudolph
Speaker 1: is an alien, he's still a reindeer. Do you know
Speaker 1: he flies, He doesn't need to like do a heads
Speaker 1: up display. He can just be like, oh hey yeah,
Speaker 1: no attach it, like, we'll just fly. That's cool. I'll
Speaker 1: use my bioluminescent knows to like see through the fog,
Speaker 1: no problem, and then you use your quantum mechanics to
Speaker 1: get us there even faster. I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: win win. It's obviously, are you I'm sorry? Is that
Speaker 1: that's a look of disapproval? Yeah, Joe, you're the one
Speaker 1: given the funny look. Oh I don't know, I that
Speaker 1: bioluminescent knows. Obviously it is true though, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: Steve and I Steve and I we agree on that.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, if he was an alien, most
Speaker 1: of the planets that, like any alien would come from,
Speaker 1: would probably be darker than ours. There are hundreds, if
Speaker 1: not thous if not millions, of habitable, life supporting planets
Speaker 1: in this universe right obviously that are in the Goldilock zone.
Speaker 1: Obviously he knows how to fly, or he can fly,
Speaker 1: or he has whatever quantum mechanics himself to fly. He
Speaker 1: can help Santa fly much faster, so they could travel
Speaker 1: from the far reaches of the universe. As he's an alien,
Speaker 1: he doesn't age. He doesn't have the natural age restrictions
Speaker 1: of the normal reindeer, which he said was ten twenty years. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously he's outlived that. So he's nearly immortal then, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much. Yeah, that's making a lot of advances in
Speaker 1: human aging too. I mean, it might be some of
Speaker 1: our descenters will have to be two three years old. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm just saying, obviously he's an alien. Case in
Speaker 1: point I like case closed. Really, well, have you consider
Speaker 1: the possibility that perhaps he's his origins were actually terrestrial,
Speaker 1: but that he was abducted by aliens and modified No,
Speaker 1: I didn't because no, No, there's a lot of there's
Speaker 1: a lot of a big, huge body of research on
Speaker 1: that particular theory. Yeah, exactly. I actually didn't find any
Speaker 1: of that, which is interesting. I just I was really
Speaker 1: just two and two together to kind of have to
Speaker 1: find that, ye kind of have to look in the
Speaker 1: dark corners of my mind. Oh, there's lots of research
Speaker 1: on the Internet of Joe's mind. Yeah, got it. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well this is why both of your theories suck. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you all right to answer the question of
Speaker 1: why why did his nose glow? All? The answer is
Speaker 1: it didn't glow. It's a myth. Yeah, yeah, let me explain.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Are you saying that Rudolph Is is a myth? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: Rudolf was real, Rudoff. Rudolf actually did exist. He might
Speaker 1: still be alive for all I know. Yeah, So let's
Speaker 1: go back to the beginning. Um. He was born into
Speaker 1: a respectable Northpole reindeer family. Dating the year of birth unknown.
Speaker 1: Rudolph was a sickly child. As he grew older, he
Speaker 1: became somewhat book is, being a bit of a weakling
Speaker 1: and also being good at school. Didn't really earn him
Speaker 1: any friends or allies. So you're saying he was a
Speaker 1: rangeer equivalent of a nerd. I kind of like that.
Speaker 1: Did you wear glasses? That's unknown? Yeah, he might have
Speaker 1: worn context, well anyway, spent context. Yeah, speaking of allies,
Speaker 1: it would be so hard to put in your eye
Speaker 1: getting getting him back out of so I wanted to
Speaker 1: put a couple of this to rest, So I talked
Speaker 1: about friends. There. There was a nineteen sixty four document
Speaker 1: around Rudolf's life which first introduced this claim that Rudolf
Speaker 1: eight friends with a young elf named Hermie. Yeah. Have
Speaker 1: you seen that film? Yeah? A million times. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a hard hitting documentary, it is. It is, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: a lot of journalistic malpractice here though. Frankly, that so
Speaker 1: Hermie that the alf dreamed of becoming a dentist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. I mean now els eat Elvin food, which
Speaker 1: does not cost two. You'd don't need dentists up at
Speaker 1: the North Pole. The candy, Yeah, no, they don't need candy.
Speaker 1: That's for kids. It's because they secretly hate him humans
Speaker 1: and they want to rock their teeth out. But you know,
Speaker 1: if if he had to exceed it in getting into
Speaker 1: dental school and good luck with that, losers, since they're
Speaker 1: aren'ty dal schools at the North Pole. He would have
Speaker 1: had a pretty lonely professional life, and he would have
Speaker 1: had to have shut it his business after the first
Speaker 1: month or so and go to work in the night
Speaker 1: shift at the plaid pantry. They have plaid pantries up there.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a local change. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think they called something else up there, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: similar things. But yeah, Hermie, if he had ever existed,
Speaker 1: would have been toiling away in Santa's sweatshops. And it's
Speaker 1: really unlikely he and Rudolph would ever even have met.
Speaker 1: And also because Reindeer carried the tix of cause lime
Speaker 1: disease els generally gave them a wide berth So yeah,
Speaker 1: so no Hermie. But and the Hermie thing is not
Speaker 1: the only bit of bs Thatt the so called documentary
Speaker 1: introduced into the whole Rudolph story. The film itself was
Speaker 1: an ready boy, a girl, a guy named Burl Ives
Speaker 1: now Burl Eyes was a singer. He was not a
Speaker 1: reporter or a journalist in any way, shape or form,
Speaker 1: And tell you, tell you, to tell you the three guys.
Speaker 1: It's hard to take anything that calls itself a documentary. Seriously,
Speaker 1: what it's not hosted by someone like Heroldo Rivera. I mean, really, guys,
Speaker 1: take better take better care in your personnel choices next time.
Speaker 1: But you think okay, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: Another big lie that these jokers put out in this
Speaker 1: film is that the Yetti also knows the abominable Snowman.
Speaker 1: Remember that. Yeah, he he was just yeah, he was
Speaker 1: just misunderstood that he was actually really pretty cool once
Speaker 1: he guys aching tooth fixed by that fictitious self named
Speaker 1: hermi Uh. In reality, Leaghetti is a vicious eight hundred
Speaker 1: pound monster that'll tear your head off and make the
Speaker 1: rest of you into jerky ash Yeah, and he'll just,
Speaker 1: like you know, suddenly appear in the middle of a
Speaker 1: platinum pyramid. Was a platorm pyramid? Yeah exactly? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guy you want to run into But thanks of
Speaker 1: these jokers that made this what's the word I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of execrable execrable film, The myth of the Benevolent Yetti
Speaker 1: lives on, and every year, without fail, at least a
Speaker 1: couple of tourists wind up getting their faces torn off
Speaker 1: when they get out of their cars to feed the
Speaker 1: nice yetti. So, folks, take my word for it. This
Speaker 1: no such thing as a nice yetti. Al right, okay,
Speaker 1: and one last thing and then I'll then I'll get
Speaker 1: off my high horse here. They also claimed that there's
Speaker 1: a place called the Island of Misfit Toys and that
Speaker 1: Rudolphin heard me, went to this island. And this is
Speaker 1: also again pure bs. Uh. You can't find this island
Speaker 1: on Google Maps, right, you can't walk around street view. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now I looked, I checked out. Yeah I did, you know,
Speaker 1: and and no it's not there. And that's my second
Speaker 1: big thing. It's like, seriously, who exactly transports these misfit
Speaker 1: toys to this island? And doesn't that strike you as
Speaker 1: an amazing waste of time and energy? Yeah? I mean
Speaker 1: I guess the dump is a pretty good alternate, would
Speaker 1: be a lot closer. Yeah, so childhood they're just But anyway,
Speaker 1: there really actually is already a place for misfit toys
Speaker 1: to go to, and it's called the Goodwill and they'll
Speaker 1: pick up probably heard of it, then pick up they
Speaker 1: pick up even better. Yeah, you don't even have to
Speaker 1: go there. They'll pick up for you yeah, episode sponsored
Speaker 1: why I'm kidding, Yeah, sponsored by Goodwill. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe this Island of Misfit Toys was a metaphor for
Speaker 1: the dump for the good Will of the basement. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think it should go with that's saying
Speaker 1: that metaphors don't belong in documentaries, right, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm the savaging this week sees of a film.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to Rudolph and let's talk about his
Speaker 1: real story. Okay, yeah, please, ye, So I got off
Speaker 1: of the weeds that I apologize. Uh So, anyway, I
Speaker 1: owe a good deal of my analysis here to Professor
Speaker 1: Haunts Morgan thou of the University of Munich at Doosel Door,
Speaker 1: who is one of the world's most famous Christmas Ologists
Speaker 1: and the leading authority on Rudolph's I think I've read
Speaker 1: a couple of his books, Yeah, and very interesting. They're quick,
Speaker 1: they're quick, but really weighty read. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff about a story is kind of true that
Speaker 1: we know about. Rudolph was indeed pretty much low man
Speaker 1: on the totem pool at school, but not because of
Speaker 1: his nose, which didn't glow and which wasn't read except
Speaker 1: when he was having one of his outbreaks of cystic acting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now, but he was a little man because he
Speaker 1: was scrawling and nerdy, and he got good grades. It's
Speaker 1: true that the other reindeer laughed at him and called
Speaker 1: him names, and it's also true that they excluded him
Speaker 1: from the reindeer games, but one a lot. It was
Speaker 1: beyond that. They regularly vandalized this locker with dear Yarine.
Speaker 1: They were constantly giving him wedges, and at least once
Speaker 1: a month, if not more, there was at least one
Speaker 1: humiliating pantsing out the schoolyard. Doesn't matter, Yeah, it kind of,
Speaker 1: does it. Yeah, Then when foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came
Speaker 1: to say, Rudolph with your nose so bright, Well, you
Speaker 1: know that's not what happened, Not what happened at all. Rudolph,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, was a little bit bitter and
Speaker 1: and so he decided he was going to spoil some
Speaker 1: people's Christmas. So he he cultured himself some e coli,
Speaker 1: and he went down to the Beacon brew on the
Speaker 1: east side of Christmas Town, where reindeer families tended to congregate,
Speaker 1: especially around the holidays. And so for the two days
Speaker 1: before Christmas Eve, he dusted the salad bowl with e coli.
Speaker 1: And he wanted to spoil this fellow reindeers and classmates
Speaker 1: Christmas by making sure they were sick as dogs and
Speaker 1: and yeah, sick as sick as reindeer, I guess so,
Speaker 1: so it succeeded. It wanted what a little beyond is
Speaker 1: his hopes, and he actually sickened about the reindeer population
Speaker 1: of Christmas Town, which left Santa short of labor on
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, so that the weather that day was not foggy,
Speaker 1: it was clear and cold, but Santa was short one deer,
Speaker 1: and so he didn't come to Rudolphin's and say, with
Speaker 1: your nose so bright, will you guide my slay a night.
Speaker 1: He just basically said, Rudolph, with my team all sick, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so sue rude. He didn't get to He did
Speaker 1: not guide the slag He was actually he was actually
Speaker 1: were were and on the right, and he didn't get that.
Speaker 1: He didn't get the really choice position at the front. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And unfortunately for Rudolph, it it did. Actually the it
Speaker 1: earned him a little grudging admiration from the other reindeer,
Speaker 1: but it was only short lived and pretty soon they
Speaker 1: were back to their sick reindeer games and tormenting poor
Speaker 1: Rudolph again. So after after that his foray into into
Speaker 1: guiding and not guiding helping to pull santas slagh, a
Speaker 1: little time went by it eventually some forensic work was done.
Speaker 1: It was and they managed to figure out that Rudolph
Speaker 1: was actually the guy behind the poisoning. And I don't
Speaker 1: think I mentioned that besides a lot of people getting sick,
Speaker 1: several reindeer died from leally kills people and he kills reindeer. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah it does. And yeah, after all this came out,
Speaker 1: Santa Santa scratched his head and decided it would be
Speaker 1: a good idea to put Rudolf and trap for murder
Speaker 1: since he killed several reindeer. And he took it to
Speaker 1: the eleven d a's office and they pointed out that
Speaker 1: since he's people who died or the reindeer died were
Speaker 1: not humans or else, the most Rudolf could be charged,
Speaker 1: which was poaching. Yeah, Rudolf lawyer up his his attorney
Speaker 1: worked to deal with prosecutor's office and he wind up
Speaker 1: pleading guilty to two counts of first degree poaching and
Speaker 1: one kind of hunting without a license. He served a
Speaker 1: little over a year in the PAN and when he
Speaker 1: got out he changed his name when he moved to
Speaker 1: present Burg, which is a seedy suburb of Christmas Town. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a little ribbon town. Uh. And he was
Speaker 1: never asked the guy at Santa Slay again for obvious
Speaker 1: since he actually did all right, he want up owning
Speaker 1: and operating a small chain of liquor stores, and after
Speaker 1: that his fate is unknown. Oh and and last of all,
Speaker 1: his nickname was not Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer. It
Speaker 1: was Rudolph the Red for the blood on his hands.
Speaker 1: So so, kids, I hope you yeah blood I suppose. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So another heartwarming Christmas tale. Any questions, No, I don't
Speaker 1: think I don't think there's any questions in that obviously
Speaker 1: fantastical idea that you got there, Joe, it was pretty dumb,
Speaker 1: questioning professor. I'm not going to say that I am.
Speaker 1: What I am going to say is that for all
Speaker 1: of our listeners, if you want to, if you're listening
Speaker 1: to this episode on our website, which by the way,
Speaker 1: is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com, you can always find
Speaker 1: the shows there and all of our research links. You
Speaker 1: can also go ahead and find us on iTunes. If
Speaker 1: you're there, take the time to leave a comment at
Speaker 1: a rating. We're also on Stitcher. We're on a lot
Speaker 1: of other apps and and other sites, so there's a
Speaker 1: whole host of places that you can find us and
Speaker 1: stream us and download us. You can always go ahead
Speaker 1: and send us an email. That email address is Thinking
Speaker 1: Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. We of course got
Speaker 1: the Twitter account, so find us Thinking Sideways. So we
Speaker 1: are there, and of course Facebook. We all love Facebook,
Speaker 1: and we're on Facebook. We've got the Facebook page, we
Speaker 1: got the Facebook group. Tons of people on their great conversations,
Speaker 1: so find us, friend us, like us. All that good
Speaker 1: Christmas jazz and uh that's that's all of that good
Speaker 1: stuff now before well, I just gotta say, right now, Joe,
Speaker 1: you're wrong. He was to he an alien in the
Speaker 1: natural occurrence. They had tried the case like a Christmas chestnut.
Speaker 1: They went down and done like this into the night.
Speaker 1: Really it never seemed to stop. Happy Holidays to you
Speaker 1: and yours from the Thinking side Ways team.