Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and it's Monday time for the listener mail. We just
Speaker 1: want to say, the listener mail you have sent us
Speaker 1: a sort of redundant, isn't it? The mail you have
Speaker 1: sent us. We're gonna read it to you. Are you ready?
Speaker 1: Let's get right into it. Yes, I mean listener mail
Speaker 1: is sent. It does not emerge spontaneously. I mean I
Speaker 1: guess it could, but that would we would get so
Speaker 1: much just completely nonsensical listener mail. It would only be
Speaker 1: on rare occasions that that coherent sentences would form if
Speaker 1: we were just pulling them out of the abyss. Rob,
Speaker 1: do you want to do this? First one from David? Sure?
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from David, and this is
Speaker 1: what David has to say. Hello there, Robert, Joe, and Seth.
Speaker 1: I am a sixth grade English teacher in North Texas
Speaker 1: and wanted to thank you guys for providing such great content.
Speaker 1: Our curriculum in my school district includes a section about
Speaker 1: science fiction, and we read the terrific short story Key
Speaker 1: Item by Isaac Asimov. Not to give anything away, but
Speaker 1: the story is about an all powerful computer the humans
Speaker 1: are dependent on, refusing to complete any work until a
Speaker 1: very humanlike key item is added to its programming. Prior
Speaker 1: to reading the story allowed to my students, I listened
Speaker 1: to your episode Punished the Machine, and I found that
Speaker 1: to be a terrific segue to have a discussion with
Speaker 1: my students about the future and legality of robots. I
Speaker 1: spoke about the interesting and thought provoking questions you guys
Speaker 1: discussed in these episodes and managed to tie it in
Speaker 1: with the unfortunate incident that involved a tesla and two
Speaker 1: people who sadly passed away after it drove into a tree.
Speaker 1: My students were really engaged in the conversation, and they
Speaker 1: themselves brought up some interesting questions and ideas about how
Speaker 1: the future involving robots may seem. Anyways, I just once
Speaker 1: again wanted to thank you all for the great content
Speaker 1: you have put out and hopefully I've turned some of
Speaker 1: my students onto your podcast. Keep up the great work, Sincerely,
Speaker 1: David Oh. Thanks David, Well, I'm curious now what questions
Speaker 1: your students brought up. I want to know, like where
Speaker 1: where the mind of a younger person goes with this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't remember key item. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I've read that one. I did recently pick
Speaker 1: up I Robot, and I was just gonna read some
Speaker 1: of it to my son. And we started just on
Speaker 1: the first one in there, and it starts with like
Speaker 1: a little girl playing with a robot, and uh, we
Speaker 1: read that part, but then it switched to like a
Speaker 1: like a stereotypical like nineteen fifties um dad reading the newspaper.
Speaker 1: It got kind of boring, quick saying. And then also
Speaker 1: I realized, oh, I don't know the story. Maybe I
Speaker 1: skipped read skipped this story when I read or I
Speaker 1: Robot back when I was a kid. So maybe I'll
Speaker 1: just come back and make sure I pick out a
Speaker 1: really good one to introduce him to as him off with.
Speaker 1: I think if that's the first one, I think that
Speaker 1: the little girl is the young Susan Calvin who grows
Speaker 1: up to become the Robot psychologist. That's right, That's right, yes,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I guess I'm just more familiar with the
Speaker 1: later Susan Calvin stories. Um uh so yeah, I I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that I read a really good
Speaker 1: one to him. Um, so I may skip around a bit,
Speaker 1: and I know super dark things don't usually happen in
Speaker 1: Isaac guys in that short stories. But I also I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure. It's like I'm just flying into this story
Speaker 1: with blinders on. I don't remember. H Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: I read those the I Robots stories when I was
Speaker 1: pretty young, and I remember getting into them, even though
Speaker 1: thinking back on them now, I mean they are all
Speaker 1: very interesting. Uh they're very I recall, uh, free of
Speaker 1: extraneous sort of literary detail. They're more they're sort of
Speaker 1: tight thought experiments, and they're kind of dry in that sense,
Speaker 1: like you're not going to get lots of descriptions of
Speaker 1: the feast and and things like that. But he he
Speaker 1: like the idea of the little girl playing with the robots.
Speaker 1: So yeah, all right, should do this next message about
Speaker 1: Dissolver of Worlds. This is from Brett, who's written in
Speaker 1: a bunch of times now, but chemistry related topics. Brett says, Hello, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: I hope this note finds you are well and enjoying life.
Speaker 1: Wanted to comment that that that almost sounds like a threat.
Speaker 1: I know you didn't mean it that way. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: wanted to comment briefly on your recent episode for Dissolver
Speaker 1: of Worlds, which was great. By the way, As a chemist,
Speaker 1: we use the phrase to dissolve as a way of
Speaker 1: using a solvent to break up a solid into its
Speaker 1: molecular entity. For instance, when you add sugar to coffee,
Speaker 1: yes I'm writing this in the morning, the sugar dissolves
Speaker 1: into the hot aqueous solution. So what does dissolving mean.
Speaker 1: It refers to the ability of the solvent to break
Speaker 1: the bonds that form a crystal. So each sugar molecule
Speaker 1: now is surrounded by the aqueous constituents. Now, when you
Speaker 1: mentioned acids like HF for hydrofluoric acid, this is a
Speaker 1: different form of dissolving because something like hydrofluoric acid actually
Speaker 1: reacts with glass because of the strength of the silicon
Speaker 1: fluorine bond, one of the strongest in chemistry. In essence,
Speaker 1: one is performing a chemical reaction or a chemical transformation,
Speaker 1: because comes out is different than what was put in.
Speaker 1: I've mentioned in the past that we use deuterated solvents
Speaker 1: in order to take an n m R that's nuclear
Speaker 1: magnetic resonance of compounds that we make in order to
Speaker 1: characterize them, and if the solvent reacted with our compound,
Speaker 1: then we have a problem. As for a metaphor, dissolver
Speaker 1: of worlds would be more of how one substance is
Speaker 1: transformed into another, be it by an idea or physical manipulation.
Speaker 1: But to simply dissolve would not change the substance at
Speaker 1: all at the atomic level. As a side note, if
Speaker 1: you take table salt and dissolve it in water and
Speaker 1: then let the water evaporate, sometimes you end up with
Speaker 1: these flat, square crystals that are really cool looking. Yes
Speaker 1: I've seen this before, bread as sometimes it can make
Speaker 1: um almost unsettling little pyramids that are you know, like
Speaker 1: what the Tartar grades have built as a monument to
Speaker 1: the soul of their dead king or something. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Brett finishes saying thank you again for such great fodder
Speaker 1: for the mind. Looking forward to hearing your voices again
Speaker 1: next week. Cheers Brett. All right, here's another one. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Amelia Hi, Robert Joan Seth.
Speaker 1: I've always really enjoyed the diversity of topics you cover
Speaker 1: in your show, and I really love, hitting play and
Speaker 1: being surprised by the topics I hear throughout the day.
Speaker 1: I've learned so much. This is a huge throwback, but
Speaker 1: it was so surprised to find out that not everyone
Speaker 1: feels pain in their dreams. I have vivid memories of
Speaker 1: being sick, hurt, and even unbelievably tired in my dreams,
Speaker 1: though I rarely feel that way when I wake up.
Speaker 1: I'm really enjoying weird how cinema. I love cheesy horror movies,
Speaker 1: and these have all been right up my alley. I've
Speaker 1: been a sporadic listener for about three years now. I
Speaker 1: started listening when I took a job in an animal
Speaker 1: research facility to keep my mind busy during the surprisingly
Speaker 1: monotonous process of animal husbandry in a research setting. I've
Speaker 1: been meaning to write, you know, to suggest you cover
Speaker 1: laboratory animal science as a topic on the show. You
Speaker 1: guys frequently reference papers which you use research animals. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you would find it really interesting to delve into
Speaker 1: the history of animal res church how much of our
Speaker 1: daily lives has been improved due to their sacrifice. For example,
Speaker 1: the primates and ferrets who sacrifice made the COVID vaccine
Speaker 1: available as fast as it was, and the alternative methods
Speaker 1: being research to replace animals in medical research. I also
Speaker 1: think you guys would find a very elegant way to
Speaker 1: discuss the controversy and ethics behind animal research. While I'm
Speaker 1: on the topic, I'm absolutely sure that you would be
Speaker 1: able to make a great episode about compassion fatigue. While
Speaker 1: I experience it as an animal technician, vets, nurses and
Speaker 1: various other professionals who care for people and animals which
Speaker 1: are sick and dying experience it as well. COVID has
Speaker 1: brought a little more attention to it, and I think
Speaker 1: you guys would really be able to make a good
Speaker 1: episode on the topic. I'm still trying to convince my
Speaker 1: fiance that he would absolutely love your show, and just
Speaker 1: saw that you did a two parter on Star Wars
Speaker 1: Alien Netcropsy. I think I may succeed tonight when I
Speaker 1: show him that. Thanks for all the info and laughs,
Speaker 1: Amelia sounds like a good bet, though, I think you've
Speaker 1: got to do more than show it to him. Look
Speaker 1: uh well, I mean, I as sump she needs play
Speaker 1: it for but but you know, uh, that's that's why
Speaker 1: we we try to do a variety of topics on
Speaker 1: the show. Is like, we know that not not every
Speaker 1: topic is gonna be for every listener, but you know
Speaker 1: they're gonna be someth They're gonna call to to two
Speaker 1: new listeners and and then know the listeners alike. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we got a few more dealing with the Star Wars episodes.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you should read these, rob because these
Speaker 1: referenced species from things that I have no idea about. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, well here's the first one. List one comes
Speaker 1: to us from Jeff Hi, guys love. The two part
Speaker 1: are on Star Wars alien biology. I have a couple
Speaker 1: of suggestions for alien species from the Star Trek universe
Speaker 1: whose biology might make a good discussion topic. Horta original
Speaker 1: series episode Devil in the Dark, a silicon based life
Speaker 1: form that secretes acid to dissolve solid rock, which it
Speaker 1: moves through every fifty thousand years, all here to die
Speaker 1: off except for a single mother Horta who watches over
Speaker 1: the next generation of x. Uh. Some obvious biological parallels there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I haven't seen a lot of Original truck I'm
Speaker 1: not really an Original Truck Um fan, but I did
Speaker 1: watch this episode when I was a kid. I think
Speaker 1: I was staying with my aunt and I got to
Speaker 1: I got to to like or maybe not, I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is one of the rare there. There are only
Speaker 1: a couple of episodes I've seen, and this is one
Speaker 1: of them. Um, But I probably watched it when I
Speaker 1: was too young. It was maybe a little too high
Speaker 1: minded for like a little little kid, but I do
Speaker 1: remember the creature being interesting. Luckily, the next specimen that
Speaker 1: Jeff brings up is from Next Generation, which I am
Speaker 1: very familiar with. Um, Jeff writes. Trill introduced on the
Speaker 1: Next Generation. This species was further fleshed out through the
Speaker 1: Deep Space nine character Jadzia Dacks. Trill are a joint
Speaker 1: species consisting of a long lived slug like symbian living
Speaker 1: inside of a humanoid host body. A symbion is transferred
Speaker 1: to a new host whenever the current one dies, preserving
Speaker 1: the memories of previous lifetimes which the host can draw upon.
Speaker 1: Hope you find this interesting. Keep up the great work, Jeff. Okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, you did watch Next Generation? What's the deal
Speaker 1: with Trill? You you into these? Yeah? Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: like I said this and like Jeff said that these
Speaker 1: were there. There was certainly more of them on Deep
Speaker 1: Space nine because because you had dacks um and so
Speaker 1: it's like a humanoid um and this sluglike organism and
Speaker 1: they form this symbiotic relationship and become one being and
Speaker 1: uh and so there. I don't remember all the details,
Speaker 1: but their whole episodes where they get into sort of
Speaker 1: the nature of this in their culture. The idea that
Speaker 1: that the you will eventually fuse with this slug like
Speaker 1: creature and become one sounds fun. Yeah, alright. This one
Speaker 1: deals with let's see Star Wars, Alien Netcropsy, and Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema. It's from Tontry. Tontry says, hey, guys, I've
Speaker 1: been catching up on the Weird House Cinema episodes and
Speaker 1: just watched Lash listen to the Silent Films double feature.
Speaker 1: I loved Cinderella, particularly. My dad is a Balinese shadow puppeteer,
Speaker 1: so I've definitely seen Prince Ahmed, but I was unaware
Speaker 1: of Cinderella. One note. I think the magic tree she
Speaker 1: keeps talking to is supposed to be a willow tree
Speaker 1: growing on the grave of her dead mother in the
Speaker 1: Grimm's version, which is why it's growing in a graveyard,
Speaker 1: and the birds are kind of extensions of the tree
Speaker 1: and the soul of the dead mother. There are other
Speaker 1: grim stories with trees serving as vehicles of communication for
Speaker 1: the murdered people buried beneath, like the Juniper Tree. For
Speaker 1: more a lot of Reineger style animation, check out some
Speaker 1: of the Decembrists videos, like their video for The Tane
Speaker 1: and the Bachelor and the Bride. I've actually seen the
Speaker 1: December of syn concerts, so sometimes they do very theatrical stuff,
Speaker 1: and I have not watched these videos yet, but I
Speaker 1: think I've seen bits of them before, and I think
Speaker 1: they used this similar style like silhouette animation like she did. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Tontry goes on to say, as for Star Wars, you
Speaker 1: may already have this book, but if not, Rob you
Speaker 1: and the Boy will love it particularly. It is called
Speaker 1: The Wildlife of Star Wars, a Field Guide, and it
Speaker 1: is purely illustrations and creature factoids by Terry Whitlock, a
Speaker 1: creature designer for Star Wars slash Lucasfilm. I think the
Speaker 1: book is out of print, but you can still find
Speaker 1: often expensive copies online. It's worth it to get the
Speaker 1: hardcover purely because it's embossed like lizard skin, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if they did that with the paperback. And
Speaker 1: then she attaches a link. Yeah, so I immediately went
Speaker 1: out in order to copy of this I I got.
Speaker 1: I didn't get the hard back. I went a little
Speaker 1: cheap and went got a used copy of the soft back.
Speaker 1: But I'm excited to get it in. I'm like, as
Speaker 1: I always game for a good Monster manual type book,
Speaker 1: Monster biology, and certainly anymore Star Wars Alien content. So
Speaker 1: may and maybe it'll aid us in a future return
Speaker 1: to this topic. All right, here is another Weird House
Speaker 1: Cinema response that that largely deals with something that we've
Speaker 1: been I don't even know if we started talking about
Speaker 1: this on Weird House Cinema or it is a just
Speaker 1: a conversation that keeps uh, we keep going on listener mail.
Speaker 1: But Jamie Ritson and says, Dear Robert and Joe, a
Speaker 1: quick piece of listener meta mail from Edinburgh here weighing
Speaker 1: in on the question of why Sean Connery's Egyptian comes
Speaker 1: Spanish character in Highlander speaks English with a Scottish accent.
Speaker 1: I think the answer is neither he Nor Connor McLeod
Speaker 1: are speaking English. As a sixteenth century inhabitant of the
Speaker 1: Scottish Highlands, McLeod would almost certainly have been a speaker
Speaker 1: of Gaelic and probably a monoglot one at that clan
Speaker 1: chiefs might have sent their sons south to learn English.
Speaker 1: But Connor, although a warrior, doesn't seem to be that
Speaker 1: far up the McLeod hierarchy, and in any case would
Speaker 1: not have spoke in English and normal conversation. I think
Speaker 1: this is just one of those actually in another language,
Speaker 1: but everyone speaks English moments in films. Perhaps Ramirez has
Speaker 1: been around so long that he has become proficient in
Speaker 1: many languages, including Scottish Gaelic. It is odd that the
Speaker 1: Scottish actor is not playing a Scottish character and the
Speaker 1: French actor with undisguised accent is, but there you go.
Speaker 1: In any case, the accent of Scottish Gaelic native speakers
Speaker 1: speaking English is quite distinctive and probably wouldn't be recognized
Speaker 1: as a Scottish accent by people outside of Scotland. Just
Speaker 1: a wee note on something that pricked my interest. Keep
Speaker 1: up the good work. It's a great podcast. Jamie and yes,
Speaker 1: Jamie brings up a fabulous point and one that I
Speaker 1: should have thought of. Why on earth did I watch
Speaker 1: all those seasons of Outlander if I wasn't gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: realize that that these characters would have been speaking Gailic. Now,
Speaker 1: what if Highlander went in a more Outlander direction? Um,
Speaker 1: it could, It could easily. I'm surprised, honestly, I'm surprised
Speaker 1: they had given the success of Outlander. Uh, they haven't
Speaker 1: done that. That's probably one of the the energy is
Speaker 1: fueling these efforts to bring it back. And you know,
Speaker 1: to some degree it's like romance it up a bit,
Speaker 1: you know, make it a little more you know, Scottish centric. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it could work. I'm for it. All right, let's see,
Speaker 1: maybe we should do together these next couple of messages
Speaker 1: about um, about the humanoid, the Star Wars rop off
Speaker 1: film that we covered. I guess it'll be a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. Now, um. So the first one is
Speaker 1: from a listener calling themselves Trebec. I doubt that's the
Speaker 1: real name, but Trebec says, hello guys. Oh, and this
Speaker 1: is in response to us saying that that Richard Keel
Speaker 1: and the Humanoid never did the like heads bonking together move.
Speaker 1: This is where you're generally a giant character or a
Speaker 1: largest character, a strong man character will come up behind
Speaker 1: two stormtroopers or red shirt guards, grabbed them by their
Speaker 1: heads and call them together like coconuts and knock them
Speaker 1: out right. Uh, And we said, uh. It says disappointing
Speaker 1: that that never happened in the movie. Well, Trebec says,
Speaker 1: we're wrong. Trebec says there is a blanc the heads
Speaker 1: together moment in the Humanoid. It is quick. It happens
Speaker 1: during the second attack of the Humanoid while the troopers
Speaker 1: are climbing out of the speeder. I'm sorry that that
Speaker 1: doesn't narrow down for me. So I don't know where
Speaker 1: in the movie this is um But there is a
Speaker 1: line you can queue up if you can find it.
Speaker 1: Trebek says. It's immediately after the He's rather irritated, isn't
Speaker 1: he line? Thank you for being awesome? Trebec? Oh, no,
Speaker 1: thank thank you for being awesome and pointing pointing this out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I must have missed it. I must have been
Speaker 1: looking down or making a note or you know, checking
Speaker 1: something on IMDb related to the film. But I'm glad
Speaker 1: it's in there. I feel like the universe makes sense again.
Speaker 1: What is wrong with our brains that we you and
Speaker 1: I are both watched the humanoid making notes. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's a select a select few people have done that.
Speaker 1: I imagine, at least making notes on the humanoid studying
Speaker 1: this work. Yes, we're we're operating in a very niche field.
Speaker 1: I would say, Okay, But from there, I'm gonna jump
Speaker 1: straight down to this message from Kenneth, which is also
Speaker 1: about the humanoid. So Kenneth says, Hi, Rob and Joe.
Speaker 1: As always, I'm a sucker for a Star Wars clone,
Speaker 1: and I always loved Jaws as a Bond character. So
Speaker 1: on your recommendation, I thought I would give the humanoid
Speaker 1: to go. You commented that the opening text crawl made
Speaker 1: the universe feel small, and I would say that was
Speaker 1: pretty accurate. I found it interesting that this followed through
Speaker 1: into all aspects of the movie, and then we get examples.
Speaker 1: When the budget Star Destroyer passes slowly over the camera,
Speaker 1: they were trying to convey the same epic scale as Lucas.
Speaker 1: But later when Grawls ship is landing on Planet Nixon,
Speaker 1: you can see that it's only meant to be about
Speaker 1: fifty meters long. Uh. The name of the movie made
Speaker 1: me pause for thought, as well as obviously Lady Agatha's
Speaker 1: incredible hair, and I remember that's uh, that's Barbara Box
Speaker 1: strange helmet slash hood slash hair do in the movie. Um,
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to tell which of the three
Speaker 1: it was. Now, regarding the name the humanoid, Kenneth says,
Speaker 1: it occurred to me that the term humanoid normally describes
Speaker 1: a creature that shares our general body form. It's normally
Speaker 1: used to find what's most familiar about an alien. However,
Speaker 1: if Golab was originally human, then his transformation left him
Speaker 1: as human inform only to become the humanoid, was actually
Speaker 1: to diminish him. I think that's right. My second thought
Speaker 1: was about that hair do. I think Barbara Box character
Speaker 1: was meant to look like a snake. If you imagine
Speaker 1: a hooded viper or cobra with its head down ready
Speaker 1: to strike, it looks very much like her coiffure. This
Speaker 1: perhaps tracks with the quote fangs in the life good
Speaker 1: draining plastic Maiden device. Remember she was like a space bathory.
Speaker 1: She was like sucking the life force out of the
Speaker 1: local space peasants. Yeah, and she needs to fix every
Speaker 1: day otherwise she'll age minutes or or you know, centuries
Speaker 1: at a time. Right. But Kenneth also points out that
Speaker 1: the lower half of her costume has a scale like
Speaker 1: pattern on the fabric. So I think you're onto something here, Kenneth.
Speaker 1: I think that went right over my head. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it totally makes sense. Now. Now after this, Kenneth attaches
Speaker 1: a recommendation that has already been suggested for Weird House
Speaker 1: Cinema and we've already talked about, so I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go into too much detail, but Kenneth is like, hey,
Speaker 1: do Layer of the White Worm. And I'm and I'm saying, Kenneth,
Speaker 1: we've already talked about We're going to do Layer of
Speaker 1: the White Worm. We love Layer of the White Worm. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's on the list. A lot of films on
Speaker 1: the list. And hey, we here heard from another listener
Speaker 1: who has a film to put on the list, and
Speaker 1: I don't think this one was currently on said from
Speaker 1: com Hey guys, greetings from Dublin, Ireland. First time contacting
Speaker 1: you after many years of listening to your excellent podcast.
Speaker 1: Just came across a film while browsing the web that
Speaker 1: you might consider for weird house cinema. It's called Slugs
Speaker 1: and was released in night according to IMDb. I've not
Speaker 1: seen it myself, but if you take one look at
Speaker 1: the poster attached, and I hope you will agree, it
Speaker 1: looks like a great candidate. On a separate note, I
Speaker 1: would love if you did an episode on lighthouses. I've
Speaker 1: always loved them, and I know it is a topic
Speaker 1: you both could easily do a few episodes on, as
Speaker 1: there would be so much to talk about. Anyway, keep
Speaker 1: up the great work. All the best from comb a
Speaker 1: k A. Synthetic Flesh. Synthetic flesh. Wait, we've had a
Speaker 1: listener adopted the moniker Synthetic flesh. Is Colm masking his
Speaker 1: friends and family to call him synthetic flesh. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I would go for it, and go for
Speaker 1: it anything that that that injects it into popular usage.
Speaker 1: Um So, Slugs. This is a film that I have
Speaker 1: seen parts of and you have perhaps seen the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I think so so. First major note, this is actually
Speaker 1: directed by Juan Picquer Simone or Simon with an accent
Speaker 1: over the second Oh, I guess the b Simone Um,
Speaker 1: the director of none other than Pod People, the immortal classic,
Speaker 1: the film that gave us here the Engines roll Now
Speaker 1: or flying over Idiot Control Now. All I want to
Speaker 1: feel is the wind in my eyes. Yeah, yeah, that's great,
Speaker 1: great movie. Yeah, but class I think I actually watched
Speaker 1: this movie way back when we used to do a
Speaker 1: thing where we would do we would we did some
Speaker 1: live video streaming when the company was trying to experiment
Speaker 1: with that that that didn't really go much of anywhere,
Speaker 1: but we tried to have fun with it by talking
Speaker 1: about trailers for It was sort of a precursor of
Speaker 1: weird House cinema, but not as fully formed, because we
Speaker 1: were trying to just sort of like live stream talk
Speaker 1: about trailers for movies that were related to episodes we
Speaker 1: had recently done. And so I think you and Christian
Speaker 1: had done an episode about gastropods. So we ended up
Speaker 1: talking about like slug and snail movies. And I watched Slugs,
Speaker 1: or at least watch part of Slugs. It's uh, it
Speaker 1: doesn't take much to imagine what it's about. It is
Speaker 1: about people getting attacked by slugs. One of the weirdest
Speaker 1: things about this is okay, that sounds like a standard
Speaker 1: creature B horror movie. This is actually based on the
Speaker 1: novel that's uh, I don't know. You wouldn't imagine a
Speaker 1: novel uh needed as a foundation for this kind of film.
Speaker 1: I used to be somewhat grossed out by slugs, and
Speaker 1: I think this was the reason that I definitely didn't
Speaker 1: watch it in full for For that also, we weren't
Speaker 1: in the habit of everyone watching every film because we
Speaker 1: were trying to like shoehorn three or four movie discussions
Speaker 1: into a single like twenty minute a video or something.
Speaker 1: It was, uh, you know, it was a bit much,
Speaker 1: but uh yeah. I remember seeing a trailer for this
Speaker 1: went on VHS when I was a kid, and yet
Speaker 1: frightened me because there's a scene where they're climbing on
Speaker 1: the toilet, and so I think, for for years, even
Speaker 1: even today, there's like a part of me that that
Speaker 1: insists that I checked for slugs on the toilet um
Speaker 1: before I make use of the toilet, because I feel
Speaker 1: like that movie taught me that there was always going
Speaker 1: to be a chance what would happen if the slugs
Speaker 1: got you? I mean, the slugs wouldn't get you the
Speaker 1: thing they I don't think they're really interested in you. Um.
Speaker 1: But and that's why it's so ludicrous, right, Like it's
Speaker 1: something that some of us are repulsed by. We can
Speaker 1: find slugs repulsive, which isn't completely fair. Slugs do good work,
Speaker 1: their decomposers, you know, they we need them. Um, But
Speaker 1: we take this idea of their kind of yucky and
Speaker 1: then we we we put that through the horror machine
Speaker 1: and comes out with they want to eat our flesh
Speaker 1: now in this poster for slugs by one PC Simone. Uh,
Speaker 1: I gotta point out one little problem, which is it
Speaker 1: looks like the slugs are coming out of the screaming
Speaker 1: man instead of going into him. And I don't recall
Speaker 1: the movie involving internal implantation of slugs that burst forth
Speaker 1: from the body. Though I could be I could be
Speaker 1: forgetting Yeah, well you know they you often see see
Speaker 1: that right either either they even if they didn't have
Speaker 1: it in the film, Like you gotta juice it up
Speaker 1: for the poster. But hey, you know it's uh, it's one.
Speaker 1: I have so many real things to be afraid of.
Speaker 1: Now I'm totally game to to return to slugs if
Speaker 1: we want to maybe I'll become afraid of slugs again.
Speaker 1: I actually I kind of like that sometimes. I I
Speaker 1: fantasize about becoming about about my anxieties. Uh, moving back
Speaker 1: to things that don't exist, like slugs and alien abductions
Speaker 1: and whatnot, I'm like, oh, man, what a time that
Speaker 1: way way that don't exist. Oh you mean they're not
Speaker 1: actually threatening, like right, I mean, yeah, well, slugs trying
Speaker 1: to eat your fleshly exists. Now. Granted, alien abduction phenomena.
Speaker 1: Alien abduction experiences hand be real, as I want to
Speaker 1: stress before they can be really they can be experiences
Speaker 1: that people have. I don't do not believe in the
Speaker 1: reality of of of alien abduction, So I don't think
Speaker 1: it's something that I should fear as part of my
Speaker 1: daily life. But I did go through a period of
Speaker 1: time when I was much younger, I guess when I
Speaker 1: was a kid where I've seen too many episodes of
Speaker 1: Unsolved Mysteries and became rather afraid of that happening to
Speaker 1: me because they really played up. They make it scary
Speaker 1: on Unsolved Mysteries. Yeah, they really play it up. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think back to the the Unsolved Mysteries
Speaker 1: era where they were really hitting you with I think
Speaker 1: they had some Sasquatch style stuff, but they also had
Speaker 1: the alien abduction. Between that and reruns of In Search
Speaker 1: of That. It it really, I feel like, kind of
Speaker 1: put out a harmful vibe because there wasn't I wasn't
Speaker 1: watching like skeptical counterpoints to any of this, you know, um,
Speaker 1: I didn't see and they played it alongside true crime
Speaker 1: stories yea, so it was like, this has really happened,
Speaker 1: this is something you should really be afraid of. And
Speaker 1: and I'm I mean, I guess there were programs like
Speaker 1: May I don't remember if contact went into this at all,
Speaker 1: and you had Sakean bringing his um, you know, sensible
Speaker 1: approach to the topic. But I do not remember anything
Speaker 1: on TV uh coming out and saying, actually, there's no
Speaker 1: evidence for this, there's some other explanations that can uh
Speaker 1: that that can explain it. There was none of that.
Speaker 1: It was just unsolved mysteries and creepy music making you
Speaker 1: fear the sky at night. I think I've said this
Speaker 1: on the show before, but whoever composed that unsolved mysteries
Speaker 1: theme should like get a get a Lifetime Achievement award
Speaker 1: for making ice water run through people's veins. Uh, let's
Speaker 1: get a little sting of that. Yeah, that's creepy too, creepy? Okay,
Speaker 1: you mind if I do this? One last message from
Speaker 1: Jane h oh. This is a result of we've had
Speaker 1: several back and forth with James. Now after having read
Speaker 1: his messages on previous episodes, James was the one with
Speaker 1: stuff about the turbographics, sixteen games and about geckos. Uh So,
Speaker 1: James says, good afternoon, gentlemen. You just made my day again.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's a great eye and equally great knowledge
Speaker 1: of the video games of yester year. That is indeed
Speaker 1: a poster of the very Pucci Gex adorning the back
Speaker 1: of my real geckos habitat. Oh so, you're right, Rob,
Speaker 1: that was not a fake gecko. That was a real gecko.
Speaker 1: But Gex is absolutely the Pucci of the reptile world.
Speaker 1: Uh so, James continues. The game featured the voice of
Speaker 1: comedian Dana Gould, who delivered pop culture one liners roughly
Speaker 1: on par with the one you add lib during the
Speaker 1: podcast about the funds jumping the shark. Uh. The quips
Speaker 1: did not become any more amusing after hearing them repeated
Speaker 1: hundreds of times over the course of the game, but
Speaker 1: I somehow still have rather fond memories of playing it. Man.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I think a lot of game designers
Speaker 1: did not get early on that. Like games that have
Speaker 1: dialogue that that occurs like once are you know, those
Speaker 1: can be fun, that adds a lot of texture to
Speaker 1: the game. But where I don't know, the bub Z
Speaker 1: style thing where the character just sort of like repeats
Speaker 1: a a cycle of of one liners over and over
Speaker 1: and it sounds like Gext did the same thing. God,
Speaker 1: that's got to really get under your skin after a
Speaker 1: certain period of time. Yeah, even on even on really
Speaker 1: well crafted games with fun quips, like the video game
Speaker 1: Control had some fun quips from the character you control,
Speaker 1: but if you hear it enough, it's you kind of
Speaker 1: get over it. It's It's one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: often find myself playing video games um on you with
Speaker 1: music playing over them. It's just after a while, I just, uh,
Speaker 1: I just do need my own sonic realm Oh. Finally,
Speaker 1: James asks if we have any podcast merch available. He says,
Speaker 1: I'd love to kick you guys a few bucks for
Speaker 1: a sticker or something to show my appreciation for all
Speaker 1: the content you've provided, uh and to be lovely addition
Speaker 1: to my Geckos terrarium. Thanks again and take care James.
Speaker 1: We we do have some merch. Yeah, I guess we
Speaker 1: haven't talked about it much recently. Yeah, if you go
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, that will
Speaker 1: send you to the I heart listing for this page
Speaker 1: and there's a store button there. We have a t
Speaker 1: public store. You can also go to I think it's
Speaker 1: t public dot com slash stores slash stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind And Yeah, we have a number of things
Speaker 1: we have. You know, you can get our our show
Speaker 1: logo on various bits of merge, including shirts and pillows
Speaker 1: and pins and stickers. We also have some sort of
Speaker 1: fun designs here. There's a really cool Pandora's box uh
Speaker 1: T shirt design that Red Buffalo Illustration did for us.
Speaker 1: There's a Medusa one that my son drew. Uh, there's uh.
Speaker 1: We we also have some that I think are legitimately
Speaker 1: nifty T shirts and hopefully in the very near future
Speaker 1: we're gonna be able to add some weird house cinema
Speaker 1: merch in there as well. Oh cool. Yeah, I actually
Speaker 1: wear our Sphere Catastrophe shirt a good bit. Oh cool.
Speaker 1: My my son has the skug King of the Rat
Speaker 1: shirt as well as the squirrels are not what they
Speaker 1: seem shirt, so he wears those a lot. Um. Uh,
Speaker 1: those are a lot of fun. Oh. The scug the
Speaker 1: Skull shirt is a good one too. That's like a
Speaker 1: squirrel death metal Yeah, death metal occult skull, death metal
Speaker 1: occult squirrel. Yeah. So yeah, check that out. If you're
Speaker 1: interested in picking up a little merch, you know, mostly
Speaker 1: do it really the merchant is mostly for fun. Uh,
Speaker 1: So we should mention it more often so that people
Speaker 1: who want to to do that can can do it.
Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna go ahead and have Carney the
Speaker 1: mail bot close it off there, but we have more
Speaker 1: listener mail to get to in the future. More listener
Speaker 1: mail is going to come in and certainly send it
Speaker 1: in if you have responses to anything we just we
Speaker 1: discussed here. Do you have further thoughts on Sean Connery's
Speaker 1: accent in Highlander? We would of course love to hear it.
Speaker 1: Uh new new episodes. You want to hear topic suggestions,
Speaker 1: corrections added, insight from your life, your research, your world,
Speaker 1: Send it on in uh and in the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you want to listen to other episodes of well, Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind listener mail that comes out on
Speaker 1: Monday's core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. On
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wednesdays we throw in the artifact, a
Speaker 1: nice little short form bit of information, and on Friday's
Speaker 1: That's Weird How Cinema, that's our time to just talk
Speaker 1: about a weird movie at length. Huge thanks, as always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, just to say hello, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact that's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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