Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton Zaren Damn. Glad to see you.
Speaker 3: I am so glad to see you.
Speaker 2: I got a question for you, Yes, sir? Do you
Speaker 2: know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: I do share chocolate. It's ridiculously good.
Speaker 2: I'm with you. You love chocolate, I mean in a
Speaker 2: ridiculous announce You know.
Speaker 3: Do you like truffles?
Speaker 2: Oh? Like the chocolate cover Yeah?
Speaker 4: Not the ones that yeah, I like the ones that
Speaker 4: pigs don't find right.
Speaker 3: So the chocolate e ones you're into that.
Speaker 2: Whatever, Let's pretend I am have.
Speaker 3: I got the truffles for you.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Did you know that May second is National Truffle Day?
Speaker 2: I did not. I did not.
Speaker 3: We're recording this in May, yes, uh, mid mid late May,
Speaker 3: so to celebrate National Truffle Day. May second. Put that
Speaker 3: in your calendar. Let me get my pen Uller High Life,
Speaker 3: The Champagne Appears is partnering with award winning tier and
Speaker 3: entrepreneur Philip to create Miller High Life. Barshnacks Truffles, a
Speaker 3: collection of great tasting chocolate confections that toast to iconic
Speaker 3: flavors and memories made in bars everywhere. So they have
Speaker 3: what is this six flavors?
Speaker 2: You're gonna tell me what they are?
Speaker 3: Of course I am.
Speaker 2: What are they? Elizabeth grilled cheese, god.
Speaker 3: So decadent, triple cream cheese, white chocolate ganash, and a
Speaker 3: blonde chocolate shell. Lemon pepper chicken wing, an innovative fried
Speaker 3: chicken ganash infused with lemon pepper seasoning.
Speaker 2: There's four more.
Speaker 3: Pretzel pretzel prayleein that doesn't sound too crazy. Beer nut
Speaker 3: freshly roasted peanuts soaked in the Champagne of beers, then
Speaker 3: ground into our fragrant beer nut butter and robed in
Speaker 3: a milk chocolate shell. Buttery popcorn.
Speaker 2: They're not even trying anymore.
Speaker 3: No sweet potato fry.
Speaker 4: Okay, you know that there's a company or I guess
Speaker 4: like the whole champagne industry, and Rant is currently trying
Speaker 4: to sue Miller for calling themselves the Champagne of beer.
Speaker 4: But you think about it, Champagne is kind of the
Speaker 4: Miller of wines.
Speaker 3: One let me tell you one more thing. There is
Speaker 3: a final Boss of truffles.
Speaker 2: I was trying to.
Speaker 3: So both of these, both the Miller and the one
Speaker 3: I'm about to tell you about. We've been getting a lot,
Speaker 3: like a lot, a lot, a lot of this compartise
Speaker 3: is a chocolate tear and they teamed up with Velvetda
Speaker 3: to create truff Vels, the first ever chocolate cheese truffle.
Speaker 3: Now they may have a bone to pick with the
Speaker 3: Miller High Life. They got some cheese up in there, Yeah,
Speaker 3: they did. Truff Vels brings the deliciously creamy and iconic
Speaker 3: Velveta drip to the world of compartise or like one
Speaker 3: has the accent over the at the end campartise or
Speaker 3: compart whatever. This place the chocolate company. They're gourmet luxury
Speaker 3: chocolate for whatever reason, they're slumming with Velveta. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: chocolate and Velveta. Okay, you done? No, I'm not done.
Speaker 3: Oh they're made to look like those don't look like
Speaker 3: normal truffles like shells. They look like pasta shells.
Speaker 2: Wait, they quick pasta shells like their little like macaroni
Speaker 2: and cheese.
Speaker 3: Did I stutter like, like you know this shell you
Speaker 3: put fancy mac fancy?
Speaker 2: Okay, you know if.
Speaker 3: You're fancy and you use Velveda in your macaroni and cheese. Okay,
Speaker 3: there it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that qualifies hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 4: That was thank you if you got a second, I
Speaker 4: got something for you always Okay. Do you know there
Speaker 4: was a once a two week long hostage crisis, complete
Speaker 4: with proof of life videos, Fax communicates release demands, a
Speaker 4: Patty her style kidnap victim, siding with the kidnappers in
Speaker 4: the wildest part Elizabeth. In the end, the kidnapping victim
Speaker 4: was put into a wood chipper. But it's okay, that's okay.
Speaker 4: The victim was a college mascot, the Stanford Tree.
Speaker 5: Oh, I just went through such a roller coaster of emotions.
Speaker 4: This is ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Speaker 4: Heist in cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free
Speaker 4: and one ridiculous. Oh Saren, Yeah, look at that, Jenks. Okay,
Speaker 4: you are a Bay Area native.
Speaker 3: Yes I am.
Speaker 2: You are from Oakland, Yes I am. You have family
Speaker 2: who attended col.
Speaker 3: Yes, I am the family shame because I didn't go
Speaker 3: to cow like everybody else.
Speaker 2: Oh, it runs that deep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I went to UC Davis multiple what they call
Speaker 3: the farm school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually, yeah, the the farm to caw or.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a superior cal Davis say that out of insecurity.
Speaker 4: Well, I like to imagine that you have a few
Speaker 4: thoughts and opinions about the Big Game. Oh yes, yeah, okay, Now,
Speaker 4: of course around these parts of the Bay Area, that's
Speaker 4: the annual football game between long standing rivals Cal Berkeley
Speaker 4: and Stanford. Now, what do you remember the Big Game
Speaker 4: when you were a.
Speaker 3: Kid, Well, we always went, did you, Yeah, you witnessed.
Speaker 3: We'd walk over to the to the game growing up
Speaker 3: and then or my grandparents were Stanford fans and lived
Speaker 3: in Paloelto.
Speaker 2: N family division, so I would go over.
Speaker 3: A lot of times to see them on that weekend.
Speaker 3: And oh the game against your calams, like come totally
Speaker 3: like decked out in in calgear and sit there with
Speaker 3: all the fine swells for Stanford.
Speaker 4: You did it even crazier. I thought you were going
Speaker 4: to go basically side against your cal family. You guys
Speaker 4: sit with the Stanford people. You would take your colgear.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I would, I like a kid.
Speaker 2: No, No, I don't know.
Speaker 4: You don't know that. Yeah, you cow kids are crazy. Well,
Speaker 4: there was in the Big Game. I did a bunch
Speaker 4: of research on the Big Game because, uh, like at
Speaker 4: one time there used to be like a really big
Speaker 4: event in the Bay Area, and I was reading about
Speaker 4: how quote there was a time when the Boosters took
Speaker 4: over San Francisco on the Friday night before the game,
Speaker 4: with reports of pet bands playing from the roofs of
Speaker 4: street cars. Oh yeah, I was like, wait, what, like,
Speaker 4: how wild is that depicture going down like Market Street?
Speaker 4: Just the street cars and people are all these drunks
Speaker 4: are shouting and screaming about cal Berkeley.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess or Stanford likely.
Speaker 3: I think there was less to do then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. That is very true.
Speaker 4: When I first moved to nor Call my family, the
Speaker 4: Big Game was still a big deal. Like the dads
Speaker 4: and moms of all my friends, the really pretentious ones,
Speaker 4: the ones they wanted you to know they went to
Speaker 4: Stanford and cow They would go crazy big game weekend,
Speaker 4: maybe driving around Davis with their cardinal red or they're
Speaker 4: blue and gold.
Speaker 2: Is it blue and gold?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Not blue and gold.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm like nine years old, right, So I'm like, sorry,
Speaker 4: I've never heard of either of your schools. I'm from
Speaker 4: sec Land, none that we don't talk about any of this,
Speaker 4: But I love your Big Game.
Speaker 2: That's it's cute.
Speaker 4: But anyways, so to be fair, though, Cal had a
Speaker 4: good football team at one time, Like Aaron Rodgers went there,
Speaker 4: he was a quarterback Tony Gonzalez. Like and Stanford, they
Speaker 4: were also pretty good at times.
Speaker 3: People have heard of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, like they had good goal they have
Speaker 4: good coaching, they have had good players. But these days
Speaker 4: both teams are pretty bad. So the big game, it's
Speaker 4: not so easy to get excited when they're one and five.
Speaker 3: I will tell you everyone I know who went to Cal,
Speaker 3: when their team is criticized, will say to a supporter
Speaker 3: of whatever other team, well, how many Nobel Laureates do
Speaker 3: you have at your college? That's how Cal rolls.
Speaker 2: That's so Cal.
Speaker 3: Oh man, Okay, well you know what, like, is there
Speaker 3: an element on the periodic table of elements named after.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no Stanford and so yeah, good point. You
Speaker 2: got us on that.
Speaker 4: And I got to say, growing up in Davis, they
Speaker 4: like they kind of like bass in the like radiant
Speaker 4: glow that they were once attached to Berkeley because they
Speaker 4: literally were the farm, the experimental farm for Berkeley, and then
Speaker 4: they became their own university. They're always like, yeah, we're
Speaker 4: like Cal Davis, you know, like that's so huge anyway,
Speaker 4: So it turns out that the Big Game, it used
Speaker 4: to be a big deal, and it's no longer such
Speaker 4: a big deal, like you don't even these days. You
Speaker 4: can drive around the Bay that weekend and not even
Speaker 4: tell right. But I thought it was because the teams
Speaker 4: got bad, and that's not the case, it turns out,
Speaker 4: and when I looked into it, it was actually intentionally squelched.
Speaker 2: The Big Game and all the antics.
Speaker 4: And everything we used to occur when we were kids,
Speaker 4: that's all been downplayed. And the reason why is because
Speaker 4: of the story I'm going to tell you about the
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety eight Stanford Tree kidnapping.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was the moment when the schools decided, you know,
Speaker 4: we need to put an end all this fun. This
Speaker 4: is not going somewhere. Well now, the thing about the
Speaker 4: Stanford Cow rivalry is it's really old, right, It goes back.
Speaker 4: But also so do their mascots. There's mascots have great
Speaker 4: stories to them. Question, do you know how the cow
Speaker 4: mascot is a bear?
Speaker 2: Right? Did you know that the first cow bear mascots
Speaker 2: were real bears?
Speaker 3: I did not know that.
Speaker 4: Yes, like in nineteen thirty, the cow football team decided,
Speaker 4: you know, what the hell, and they brought out a
Speaker 4: real bear as their school's mascot for games. Up til then,
Speaker 4: they really hadn't had a mascot. They're like, let's go
Speaker 4: hard full bear. So they bring out a real life bear.
Speaker 4: The kids love it, right, So for five years they
Speaker 4: got a real bear on the sidelines. But there's a problem,
Speaker 4: you know with a real live bear, which is it's
Speaker 4: a real live bear. So they had what they called
Speaker 4: control problems because there's a notoriously bad football fans. They
Speaker 4: find the game boring or they're mundane, and they're like, look,
Speaker 4: let me just to scratch somebody.
Speaker 3: You know, I have a right to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I support that.
Speaker 4: No, I'm a hardcore football fans, so I have to
Speaker 4: disagree with the Bears on this. But regardless, six years later,
Speaker 4: right nineteen forty one, the school trots out a man
Speaker 4: in a bear suit as the new mascot because of
Speaker 4: all the control problems with the live bears. Right now,
Speaker 4: when I say a bear suit, I'm being really generous. Yeah,
Speaker 4: this was the new mascot was a dude wearing an
Speaker 4: oversized sweater.
Speaker 3: And added to this, he was just a big hairy
Speaker 3: fella real.
Speaker 4: Well kind of but a picture a pair of gold
Speaker 4: shoes specifically sized thirteen and a half, snazzy atop his head.
Speaker 4: He wore a bear head. Ok but the bear head
Speaker 4: was just a football helmet with some first stretched over
Speaker 4: it and some ears stitched on.
Speaker 2: Right. But the kids, they loved it. They see this
Speaker 2: guy running around.
Speaker 3: Like they said, they didn't have a lot to do
Speaker 3: that exactly.
Speaker 4: They're like, oh man, the guy in the sweater and
Speaker 4: the bear had this is amazing. Kids are cheering him on.
Speaker 4: So he decided, you know what, I'm gonna give this
Speaker 4: guy a name. He starts calling himself Oski.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's what they're still called.
Speaker 4: Yes, So Oscar the Bear is born that day in
Speaker 4: nineteen whatever, thirty forty one, right September, September forty one. Okay,
Speaker 4: so legend is born Osky the Bear. Now this bear,
Speaker 4: this man in the bear suit, nobody knew who it
Speaker 4: was for fifty eight years, really kept a secret for
Speaker 4: fifty eight years. There was a whole deal, like was
Speaker 4: the pride of being Oscy was like.
Speaker 3: The anonymity of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So in nineteen ninety nine, a dude named William
Speaker 4: c Rockwell. He comes forward and he confesses that he
Speaker 4: is Oski. But he'd only done it for a few
Speaker 4: years because eventually put down the Bearhead and he went
Speaker 4: to war in World War Two. You over seas right
Speaker 4: for him, But he created such a legend that somebody
Speaker 4: else picked up the bear Head.
Speaker 3: And they stayed anonymous.
Speaker 4: Yes, and then they've just continued doing the tradition, I guess.
Speaker 4: And so there's even a secret society to this day
Speaker 4: that's dedicated to protecting the secret identity whoever is the
Speaker 4: current Oscar.
Speaker 3: Wow. I did not know that.
Speaker 2: They also safeguard the mascot itself.
Speaker 3: Did you have a mascot in high school, like a
Speaker 3: costume that people wore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Blue Devils, Yeah, but it was very small.
Speaker 4: It was just like a trident and like a hat
Speaker 4: like a lot.
Speaker 3: We were in high school. We were the monarchs, not butterflies.
Speaker 2: Like the Kings and queens. Lion, yeah, oh, the king yet.
Speaker 3: And there was a really busted up old lion costume
Speaker 3: like that. It looked like it was made out of
Speaker 3: old carpet and it was just just tattered and tattered
Speaker 3: and just smelled, patches are missing, and it was short
Speaker 3: and so like you had to get a short girl
Speaker 3: at the high school. Yeah, and so one one time
Speaker 3: someone was a little tall for it. And look comfortables
Speaker 3: are showing wells. The torso she had over all.
Speaker 2: The time, you don't rip the stand up straight.
Speaker 3: Then had this really bootsy hood.
Speaker 2: And my friend had a pink bunny costume he used
Speaker 2: to wear down to.
Speaker 3: Bar sometimes because he was his own mascot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's basically it a full pink bunny costume with
Speaker 4: the head and everything.
Speaker 2: Take it off just to drink, they put it back on.
Speaker 2: It was awesome.
Speaker 4: So anyway, anyway, yeah, back to Stanford, they also have
Speaker 4: a mascot.
Speaker 2: Obviously it's the Stanford Tree.
Speaker 4: So forty five miles south is Palazzo, California, home of Stanford,
Speaker 4: and the Stanford Tree now Stanford Tree came along a
Speaker 4: little bit later. It wasn't in nineteen thirty back when
Speaker 4: cal had its bear live mascot. Stanford had also a
Speaker 4: live mascot, but it was a person. It was a
Speaker 4: Native American man named Chief.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, that's right, I remember hearing about the they
Speaker 3: used to have it as what was there.
Speaker 2: The Stanford Indians Indian. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The only good thing I can say about Chief Lightfoot
Speaker 4: is it was at least a real native American. It
Speaker 4: wasn't like some rich kid in red face. That's about
Speaker 4: the only good thing we can say about this. But
Speaker 4: starting in nineteen thirty Sam Year's Cows with the Bears,
Speaker 4: they had Chief Lightfoot out there whooping and stomping and
Speaker 4: rally and the football team and this this heat street
Speaker 4: created a tradition, also very successful, went on for decades.
Speaker 2: Finally in the seventies of school was like.
Speaker 4: Hey, you know what, this is kind of mad racist,
Speaker 4: Maybe we shouldn't do this. And so they're like, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe we shouldn't have like a living breathing American as
Speaker 4: like our mascot.
Speaker 2: And you know it's not like a bear.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Anyway, so they're like, okay, that's the end of the
Speaker 4: Stanford Indians. So nineteen seventy two, Stanford changed its name
Speaker 4: of its school mascot to the Cardinals.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Now this is not because you know, California is
Speaker 4: known for our red birds. We have no Cardinals, like
Speaker 4: West of the Mississippi's car to find them, right, But
Speaker 4: the Cardinal was the school's distinctive color on their logo.
Speaker 4: They're like, yeah, that's us, We're the color.
Speaker 2: Right, So this.
Speaker 4: Maybe like if they were the Stanford Millennial Pinks, you know,
Speaker 4: like the cal Shar Truce. Anyway, so Cardinals it was
Speaker 4: meant to be a temporary name, right, So all through
Speaker 4: the seventies they keep trying different names, the student bodies voting.
Speaker 4: Someone suggests they would be called the Sequoias, right, and
Speaker 4: someone's like yeah, yeah, you know, for the super tall trees. Now,
Speaker 4: someone else like, what about the Griffins, And then they're like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's the you know, the mythical lion with their wings creature, right,
Speaker 4: And someone's eventually like, yeah, Stanford Griffins.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: So my favorite suggestion of this era was the Robber Barons,
Speaker 4: because Stanford was founded by Leland Stanford, the old railroad
Speaker 4: king Robert Baron. How great would it be of a
Speaker 4: school of rich kids and out they're rooting for the
Speaker 4: Robber Barons like maybe anyway, whatever. Eventually some kids like
Speaker 4: what about the Indians And they're like, yeah, we love that,
Speaker 4: Like they'd forgotten or us. Maybe the mood changed, I
Speaker 4: don't know. They were like yeah, let's do that again.
Speaker 4: So eventually the eighties come around, still no mascot, and
Speaker 4: they're like, okay, well let's go with how about the Cardinals.
Speaker 4: So they go back to the original temporary name. But
Speaker 4: they decided, you know what, we can't have that, so
Speaker 4: it's unofficial. Stanford Technical has no mascot. Oh really yeah,
Speaker 4: But anyway, there's the Stanford Tree. So the Stanford Tree
Speaker 4: is not the school's mascot. He is a member of
Speaker 4: the school's band, and as such, he travels with the
Speaker 4: band and he shows up at all of these schools
Speaker 4: athletic events, but especially the big ones like the Big Game.
Speaker 4: So to recap, we have a mystery human in a
Speaker 4: bear suit that's husky, and then we have a musical tree.
Speaker 4: These are our massot And.
Speaker 3: Isn't their band, Like we're irreverent?
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, the bands are reverend Also so is the
Speaker 4: musical Yeah, they're like very tongue in cheek, Elizabeth. If
Speaker 4: they do the silly looking tree, he wears sunglasses, he's
Speaker 4: got this big goofy some mile. Basically, the Stanford Tree
Speaker 4: looks like someone's uncle managed to get a Christmas tree
Speaker 4: drunk exactly Okay, so now that we know our players,
Speaker 4: let's take a little break and I will tell you
Speaker 4: how this turns into all sorts of violence.
Speaker 6: Oh okay, Elizabeth, Okay.
Speaker 2: We have our bear and our musical tree.
Speaker 4: Yes, all right, they are the avatars of this rivalry. Okay, Now,
Speaker 4: as you would imagined, these the bear and the Tree
Speaker 4: have gone at it in the past. In fact, also
Speaker 4: the fans have gone at it. But specifically here, I'll
Speaker 4: just go with a report from the Daily Cow that's
Speaker 4: the newspaper of the cal Berkeley right. So the student
Speaker 4: paper recorded quote on February fifteenth, nineteen ninety five, during
Speaker 4: a basketball game between the Bears and the Cardinals, the
Speaker 4: two mascots wrestled each other to the Maples Pavilion floor.
Speaker 4: The fight got so vicious that Oski's head came off
Speaker 4: for a brief moment. However, the head was promptly restored
Speaker 4: and his identity remained concealed. There was a fight to
Speaker 4: keep from being known. So anyway, no one got to
Speaker 4: see the human inside the bear skin. See, society would
Speaker 4: be happy. But meanwhile, the Stanford Tree, the human that's
Speaker 4: inside the Stanford Tree, he's well known on campus it's
Speaker 4: the exact opposite approach and is considered a position of
Speaker 4: honor to be the Stanford Tree. And this is probably
Speaker 4: because it's extremely dangerous for the person inside. Like, there
Speaker 4: was a time in the mid nineties when Cow fans
Speaker 4: chased the tree off of the field at the end
Speaker 4: of the Big Game and they like narrowly escaped getting
Speaker 4: like you know, I don't know, treed and feathered or whatever.
Speaker 3: Well I was always told about in the early eighties,
Speaker 3: there was a thing called the play.
Speaker 2: Oh Yeah, the band went on the next.
Speaker 3: Yeah that the band, the Stanford band, thought the game was.
Speaker 4: Over and they go on the field and they get
Speaker 4: and the players ran and through the band to score.
Speaker 4: There's like just getting a tube of the tuba knocking
Speaker 4: down a guy with a trombone. It's an amazing benefootage.
Speaker 4: I highly recommend it.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: There was also another time in the eighties when the
Speaker 4: tree wasn't so lucky or sorry the nineties, when the
Speaker 4: tree wasn't so lucky. He didn't he didn't manage to
Speaker 4: get off the field before the fans got to Yeah.
Speaker 2: Once again, I.
Speaker 4: Returned to the daily Cow quote. At the nineteen ninety
Speaker 4: six Big Game angry cow fans once again storm Memorial
Speaker 4: Stadium field and targeted the Stanford Tree. The tree was
Speaker 4: not so lucky this time, as portions of the suit
Speaker 4: were dismantled, so they got their hands on the tree.
Speaker 3: Was he torn limb from limb?
Speaker 2: Wowow pretty much?
Speaker 4: But this time, now that they've gotten a taste of
Speaker 4: the tree, it's like a predator from the zoo.
Speaker 2: He gets a taste of blood.
Speaker 3: The bloods.
Speaker 2: We want more trees, pretty much.
Speaker 4: I swear to got nineteen ninety seven Big game quote
Speaker 4: a riot which saw twenty three injuries and six arrests.
Speaker 4: Since these massacres, the Stanford Tree has not been seen
Speaker 4: on the field for the fourth quarter of any big game.
Speaker 3: I do not remember any of this. This is crazy.
Speaker 4: Now we get to the nineteen ninety eight Stanford Tree
Speaker 4: when he gets kidnapped. So, as you see, it's been
Speaker 4: building and building. Yeah right, Well, enter the Phoenix five. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's what the boys called themselves. That's their group name,
Speaker 4: the Phoenix five. Now, mind you, these are not all
Speaker 4: students from Phoenix are Arizona. These are Berkeley students. And
Speaker 4: it's likely because you probably don't know this, it's from
Speaker 4: Marvel comic books. There's something called the Phoenix Five. You see, Elizabeth, Uh,
Speaker 4: there was this group, the X Men, and five of
Speaker 4: them one time created their own subgroup called the Phoenix Five.
Speaker 4: And you know what, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: So what you're saying is that these guys are dorks.
Speaker 4: Yes, so they're dorks. Yeah, So the Tree Nabbing Group
Speaker 4: named for this subgroup of the X Men. Their individual
Speaker 4: members also had code names. So, just like in Tarantino's
Speaker 4: film Reservoir Dogs, they use color coded nicknames. So there were,
Speaker 4: but they didn't use the same ones of the film.
Speaker 4: So they had mister White, mister Black, mister Green, mister Yellow,
Speaker 4: and mister Orange. They wisely avoided the whole mister Brown
Speaker 4: and mister pink debates. Sure so, anyway, it all makes
Speaker 4: more sense when you realize the Phoenix five were all
Speaker 4: fraternity brothers. Oh of course, yes, the end the frat
Speaker 4: Theta Kai. So one day, the fraB brothers they had
Speaker 4: opted to drive down to Stanford for as they claimed,
Speaker 4: a brotherhood activity.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that means.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that means they were meeting other
Speaker 4: brothers from the Stanford campus at Theta Kai, or if
Speaker 4: they were doing like, oh, it's rush week, let's do
Speaker 4: a prank. I really don't know, but in quotes Brotherhood
Speaker 4: of Activities. So what I can tell you is that
Speaker 4: the day was October seventeenth, nineteen ninety eight, the day
Speaker 4: the tree got seventeenth.
Speaker 3: So that nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: So we're trying to remember where you were.
Speaker 3: No, I'm thinking we're what.
Speaker 2: Nine years after the earthquake, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: I just hear October seventeen. You're like, go right to here,
Speaker 3: and then like it's just the light comes through the
Speaker 3: blinds and I huddle over, and I hear a helicopter.
Speaker 2: Yes, a Frenchman smoking a cigarette.
Speaker 3: I have a thousand yards stare.
Speaker 4: On the nine year anniversary the Loma Prieta quake, the
Speaker 4: Stanford students were doing what they call Cardinal Chaos. Now
Speaker 4: Cardinal Chaos it's a big silly name for the first
Speaker 4: practice of the season for the men's and women's basketball teams.
Speaker 2: That's literally what it is.
Speaker 4: Anyways, So the Phoenix five they ride for Cardinal Chaos,
Speaker 4: and they mingle in with the Stanford students who don't.
Speaker 4: I guess they may have their own secret names whatever.
Speaker 4: So everyone's in there in the Maples Pavilion gym where
Speaker 4: the fight had happened two years earlier, and the Frat
Speaker 4: Bros are now officially undercover on the Stanford campus and
Speaker 4: they're like trying to cause mayhem, and they're looking at
Speaker 4: each other and they're kiki in and stands and trying
Speaker 4: to go, we should do a prank. But they haven't
Speaker 4: disgusted at all. They haven't decided what type of prank
Speaker 4: they can do. They're imagining all the pranks they can do.
Speaker 4: They're inside of Stanford, but no opportunities present themselves, so
Speaker 4: they're like, let's leave, So Cardinal Chaos ends. They're like
Speaker 4: they walk out of the stadium or the auditory or
Speaker 4: whatever the gym.
Speaker 3: Cardinal Chaos sounds like someone who would just like be
Speaker 3: an absolute terror in Vatican City.
Speaker 2: Coming in with the mad Red.
Speaker 4: So the Bros they all head back to their car
Speaker 4: in the parking lot Cardinal Chaos, and all a sudden
Speaker 4: serendipity plays a hand because the Phoenix five spot the
Speaker 4: Stanford Tree. Yes, the man inside the tree, Chris Henderson,
Speaker 4: was busy loading the Stanford Tree into the hid of
Speaker 4: his car. All right, plan is quickly hatched. Follow that tree.
Speaker 4: So the bros all hop in their car and they
Speaker 4: follow Chris Anderson. So we're in Palo Alto, California, Stanford campus.
Speaker 4: The Phoenix five are on the prow. They follow Chris
Speaker 4: Anderson and he's the you know, the man in the tree.
Speaker 4: And they get all the way back to the Stanford
Speaker 4: band shack, now the Phoenix five park, and they sneak
Speaker 4: up close. Henderson gets out and he goes, it'side the
Speaker 4: band shack. They get up close, and what should they do?
Speaker 4: Elizabeth just rush in, knock him out, take the tree.
Speaker 4: What's the plan?
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
Speaker 4: Well, they realized burn it down the shack with him.
Speaker 4: It turns out they can hear music as they get closer.
Speaker 4: There's a party going on. The band shack is a
Speaker 4: rocking so don't come and knock in, right, So they
Speaker 4: decide let's hide out. Right, they can't blend in. It's
Speaker 4: too small. The band probably all knows each other. It's
Speaker 4: not be like, hey, I'm with Scott Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's cool.
Speaker 4: So are these four guys? You'd be worring. So they're like,
Speaker 4: I go, it's hide out. Let's wait. So I did
Speaker 4: a bunch of research on this, as I told you.
Speaker 4: Back in two thousand and eight, on the tenth anniversary
Speaker 4: of the kidnapping of the Stanford Tree, the Daily Cow
Speaker 4: interviewed one of the members of the Phoenix Five, and
Speaker 4: he gave us valuable insights as to how they did
Speaker 4: everything right the school paper. He's speaking of mister Orange, right,
Speaker 4: mister Orange, he was a freshman at the time, youngest
Speaker 4: member of the prank crew. He recalled that fateful night.
Speaker 4: He remembered sneaking into the Stanford band shack. He said,
Speaker 4: the group waited to the small hours of the morning, Elizabeth,
Speaker 4: the purple hours. Right, here's mister Orange quote. Of course,
Speaker 4: there could still be passed out drunk Stanford band members
Speaker 4: inside after the party ended. I remembered lots of nerves
Speaker 4: during that time when we really couldn't be one hundred
Speaker 4: percent sure that there were no people left inside the building.
Speaker 4: So they're just like five nerds sweating it outside.
Speaker 3: Right there did dork on dork Vine.
Speaker 4: Exactly four am rolls around the coast. Is finally clear.
Speaker 4: Two of the Phoenix five break into the band shack.
Speaker 4: The other three wait outside keeping watch. Back to mister
Speaker 4: howd quote it was pretty dark inside save a few
Speaker 4: neon signs, et cetera. I remember there being discussion about
Speaker 4: whether we're abandoned the whole thing.
Speaker 2: That's how tenuous it was.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I don't think I really thought too much
Speaker 4: about the craziness of the whole situation at the time.
Speaker 4: We were just focused on getting the job done without
Speaker 4: getting caught.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So these two dudes inside, they scramble through an old
Speaker 4: medical library. Then they find a hole in a wall.
Speaker 4: They go through a hole in the wall and they
Speaker 4: squeeze into the bandshack. They don't use like a door.
Speaker 4: They find make their own weird way. Boom, they're inside
Speaker 4: the banshack. There's nobody passed out drunk on the ground.
Speaker 4: They see the tree, they grab the tree. It's four
Speaker 4: in the morning, so they just walk out the front door.
Speaker 4: Now they don't go back out to the medical library.
Speaker 3: I know, a hole in the wall.
Speaker 2: They got lucky. They just purely get lucky.
Speaker 4: So now the Phoenix five disappear with the Stanford Tree
Speaker 4: into the purple hours of dawn.
Speaker 2: Huh gone, all right.
Speaker 4: So now they've successfully walked out with Stanford's mascot, what
Speaker 4: do they do, Elizabeth, they go racing safely back to
Speaker 4: tow down, always with the fire. Well, luckily, mister Orenty
Speaker 4: tells us what he did.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 4: Even though we managed to get our hands on the
Speaker 4: tree in the very early hours of the morning, this
Speaker 4: didn't mean that there couldn't be random students walking by,
Speaker 4: cops passing by on the street, et cetera. In fact,
Speaker 4: we actually did see a cop car pass as we
Speaker 4: were planning things out behind the banshack. Oh danger, danger,
Speaker 4: Will Robinson. And anyway, their plan to get away is
Speaker 4: let's stuff the Stanford Tree into the back seat of
Speaker 4: the car and just tear us out of here. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but they can't get five people and the Stanford tree
Speaker 4: into like whatever little car they have.
Speaker 2: So, as mister recalled.
Speaker 4: Quote, remember it was a nine to ten foot tall
Speaker 4: costume with a ton of material, even though it was
Speaker 4: a somewhat collapsible. I don't know about the other guys,
Speaker 4: but I more or less felt like it was a
Speaker 4: mission that we had to accomplish in the stealthiest way possible.
Speaker 2: We were very aware that we were in hostile territory.
Speaker 4: Oh God, take a little serious, right, So the frat
Speaker 4: Bros's side, they'd have a plan to make it right, right,
Speaker 4: So they shoved the tree in the back of the car.
Speaker 4: Two bros hop in, they drive off. Apparently I think
Speaker 4: one of their family members lives in Palo Alto, because
Speaker 4: they went to a quote safe house and then they
Speaker 4: tucked the tree right, and then they looked just be cool, right,
Speaker 4: and then they drive back and they get back to
Speaker 4: the three camp the three kids at the left on campus.
Speaker 4: They load them in the car boom. They leave Palo
Speaker 4: Alto back to Berkeley to get another car, and then
Speaker 4: they come back, get the tree and go back to Berkeley.
Speaker 4: And then they finally managed to sneak it into the
Speaker 4: frat house and they just go into I believe mister
Speaker 4: Black's room and just shove it in the back right.
Speaker 4: Lots of shoven of this poor tree. So now they've
Speaker 4: successfully stolen the Stanford Tree.
Speaker 2: So what do they do now?
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
Speaker 4: Well, based on all the prank wars and the fights
Speaker 4: and the riots has been leading up to it, they
Speaker 4: wait for the chaos to erupt, so all hell they
Speaker 4: know will break loose. First up, they decide, okay, let's
Speaker 4: let's just not tell anybody anything. They don't even tell
Speaker 4: their other frat brothers what they've done. They keep it secret.
Speaker 4: The Phoenix five hush hush, right, So they wait a
Speaker 4: week passes, right, and turns out the police decide to
Speaker 4: investigate this as a break in and robbery and they
Speaker 4: label it as a felony. This means years in prison
Speaker 4: are going to being discussed by the police.
Speaker 3: What's the value of the tree? Did they?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they get into that. I'll tell you about that
Speaker 4: in a second. So the Phoenix five they're laying low superheroes,
Speaker 4: hiding out in their secret layer or whatever. And as
Speaker 4: I told you, they told no one, right, And eventually
Speaker 4: Stanford Daily newspaper a week after the crime, they publish
Speaker 4: a feature story Stanford tree stolen, you know, And there,
Speaker 4: of course they immediately assume it's cow students who are
Speaker 4: behind the tree hate crime.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Chris Henderson, the guy inside the tree, He tells the
Speaker 4: student paper that he'd seen three or four people following
Speaker 4: him around outside the Maples Pavilion parking lot. Why is
Speaker 4: it always three to four people? Do human beings have
Speaker 4: a hard time counting past three? When it's word stress?
Speaker 2: Were like three? I'm going everything's belonging possibly four.
Speaker 4: I can't say, honestly, every time we hear this, it's
Speaker 4: amazing that number. It's never five to six, never two
Speaker 4: to three, it's always three to four. Anyway, guy in
Speaker 4: the tree, Chris Anderson, he tells the press he'd notice
Speaker 4: these three to four guys who'd followed him to the
Speaker 4: Stanford banchack, probably college students. And now the finger of
Speaker 4: blame is squarely pointed a cow. So the story is
Speaker 4: out there. The Phoenix five de side, let's reveal ourselves.
Speaker 4: So they step into the limelight. Three days after the
Speaker 4: Stanford paper breaks loose, the Daily Californian prints there front
Speaker 4: page story a feature interview with the Phoenix five. The
Speaker 4: pranksters lord their people powered success over the private students
Speaker 4: of Stanford. They claimed that they liberated the tree. They
Speaker 4: said the tree had been unhappy at Stanford, and that
Speaker 4: can now that it's been at cal it's learned the
Speaker 4: value of hard work and diversity and the true spirit
Speaker 4: of a campus. Meanwhile, the tree also has by the
Speaker 4: way pend and open letter, so there's a letter from
Speaker 4: the tree. Also in the paper. The Stanford Tree reportedly writes, quote,
Speaker 4: I'm sick of the farm. The Phoenix five have introduced
Speaker 4: me to the outside world. Now once he'd seen the
Speaker 4: outside world and col and he had opinions on the
Speaker 4: two schools, and the Trees then declared, quote cal a
Speaker 4: superior university, a Stanford an inferior one. So they're using
Speaker 4: the tree for their propaganda. At this point, the tree
Speaker 4: also claimed that it was thankful to be free of
Speaker 4: Stanford and its snotty rich kid private school students. However,
Speaker 4: briefly and the Tree also promised that it would be
Speaker 4: back onto the Stanford sideline before the big game quote
Speaker 4: even though he knows that Stanford is full of a
Speaker 4: bunch of weenies. So for the ten year anniversary look
Speaker 4: back the Daily Cow. They asked mister Orange why the
Speaker 4: Phoenix five decided to go down the hostage taken route
Speaker 4: as their communication with the world right.
Speaker 2: Mister Orange said, quote.
Speaker 4: As far as the hostage taker deal is concerned, I
Speaker 4: think there was an initial meeting where we planned all
Speaker 4: these things out, i e. The name of the group
Speaker 4: sending in the initial letter and the picture to the
Speaker 4: Daily Cow. Remember, everything happened extremely fast, and we took
Speaker 4: the tree. Nothing happened for almost an entire week until
Speaker 4: the story broke in the Stanford Daily. Then we had
Speaker 4: that quickly to demonstrate that the tree was on the
Speaker 4: Cow campus and to dissuade others from claiming responsibility. Of course,
Speaker 4: as smart data kuys, we had to come up with
Speaker 4: the wittiest approach. We had lots of fun writ in
Speaker 4: that first letter in the persona of the tree, trying
Speaker 4: to trash Stanford in the best way possible. So now
Speaker 4: that we have this story in the student paper from
Speaker 4: Stanford and now one from Cow, the other people decided
Speaker 4: to take this very seriously. The people that I'm talking
Speaker 4: about are the police and the school administrations.
Speaker 2: Oh so u C.
Speaker 4: Berkeley, Channe, Robert Birdall. He comes in hot and heavy.
Speaker 4: He had obvious motives because you know, as the head
Speaker 4: of the university, he'd overseen now a few years of
Speaker 4: fights and pranks. They've grown more intense. Now he's got
Speaker 4: a riot and then this year he's got a kidnapping. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and he's like, I'm starting to look bad, right. So
Speaker 4: he also imagined that come the big game, Stanford fans
Speaker 4: would be walking past, as you know, all the Cow
Speaker 4: fraternity roads to get to up to the stadium and
Speaker 4: that they would probably be eager to fight the bros.
Speaker 4: The bros would probably be eager to fight, and then
Speaker 4: he'd have once again an even bigger ride. Maybe somebody
Speaker 4: would get hurt or you know whatever. So he comes
Speaker 4: out with a tersely worded statement. He called the prank
Speaker 4: quote outright theft, and the chancellor announced that the police
Speaker 4: would be brought in. He also issued an ultimatum. He
Speaker 4: told the tree nappers had until the big game to
Speaker 4: return the stolen tree or else right else, Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: That the or else.
Speaker 4: The Phoenix five were like, well, what would happen? So
Speaker 4: the chancellor he had an answer for that. He said
Speaker 4: that the cow mascot Osci the Bear, would be barred
Speaker 4: from the next Cow game against Oregon State. Treenappers had
Speaker 4: three days or else.
Speaker 2: He was prepared to kidnap a mascot of his own. Darts. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: the mascot theft.
Speaker 4: This becomes news far beyond the universities, the student populations,
Speaker 4: The Bay area newspapers start reporting on it, the TV
Speaker 4: stations start reporting on it. The story gets bigger and bigger,
Speaker 4: and then it becomes national news. Eventually, Sports illustrated his
Speaker 4: writing about it. Days are passing, the deadline approaches, would
Speaker 4: the tree resurface?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: So the Bay Area news teams they send cameras out
Speaker 4: to report live from the University of cow on the
Speaker 4: day of the midnight deadline.
Speaker 2: They wait with the police department, and they waited, and
Speaker 2: they waited some more. No tree.
Speaker 4: So instead there was a news conference broadcast live from
Speaker 4: an elementary school parking lot. Okay, and after this break,
Speaker 4: I'll tell you all about that news conference. All right, Elizabeth,
Speaker 4: I promised you a news conference.
Speaker 3: Yes you did.
Speaker 2: You've been waiting on baited breath an.
Speaker 3: Elementary school parking lot. I am here for it.
Speaker 2: You know what, rather than just discuss it, look, just
Speaker 2: close your up my picture. It it's nighttime in the
Speaker 2: Bay Area. The autumn breeze is brisk.
Speaker 4: You are growing cold standing in an empty parking lot
Speaker 4: of an elementary school in the Oakland Hills. Elizabeth, you
Speaker 4: are a camera woman from the local Fox affiliate KTVU
Speaker 4: Channel two. You've been sent out on assignment to record
Speaker 4: a press conference with the Phoenix five. You have rigged
Speaker 4: a two camera setup for the live feed. One camera
Speaker 4: is on sticks. That's industry talk for a tripod. The
Speaker 4: second camera is a should mounted job that you plan
Speaker 4: to use for close ups and some wild coverage of
Speaker 4: the late night press conference. There are no other media outlets.
Speaker 2: There, just you.
Speaker 4: The KTVU Channel two reporter five college dates guys wearing
Speaker 4: halloween masks and balaklava ski masks, and they are holding
Speaker 4: captive a ten foot tall tree costume, the Stanford Tree.
Speaker 4: That's the reason you're in this elementary school parking lot.
Speaker 4: You rack the focus and you set a clean image
Speaker 4: of mister Green, spokesman for the Phoenix five. The KTVU
Speaker 4: reporter steps into the shot. Okay, let's do one. She
Speaker 4: raises the mic into the shot and ask mister.
Speaker 2: Green, how is the tree.
Speaker 4: The Stanford Tree is still unharmed, and he tells the
Speaker 4: reporter how it's fine. And you can see for yourself
Speaker 4: this Phoenix five drag the Stanford Tree into the shot.
Speaker 4: The mask men promise that the tree has been treated
Speaker 4: well as you can see, and further, it would be
Speaker 4: returned to the weenies at Stanford before the big game.
Speaker 4: You try to squelch a little laugh at their jokes,
Speaker 4: but they go on as they say, truth be told,
Speaker 4: The tree may never want to return to Stanford. Now
Speaker 4: the decene life outside the private school. The frat rose
Speaker 4: tawk a little more smack, then they laugh and they
Speaker 4: start to dance around with the Stanford Tree. You now
Speaker 4: have to swivel around to keep their shot. As the
Speaker 4: Stanford Tree and the frat roser dancing around in the
Speaker 4: parking lot, now you really can't help but smile. It's
Speaker 4: become just ridiculous. You're also getting colder by the minute.
Speaker 4: The news reporter is still trying to do a straight
Speaker 4: interview with the tree case, but it's pretty much impossible
Speaker 4: now that the frat rows have broken into dance. It's
Speaker 4: like a real live crime musical. The reporter asked when
Speaker 4: the Phoenix five planned to return the tree to the
Speaker 4: students of Stanford. But the Phoenix five just laugh and
Speaker 4: keep dancing around with the Stanford Tree. You wonder how
Speaker 4: much of this you have to shoot before you can
Speaker 4: just load up the cameras and go because you want
Speaker 4: to go home, crawl back in bed and watch reruns
Speaker 4: in your favorite Barry a show restaurant review check please Yes.
Speaker 2: As the cold evening.
Speaker 4: Air chills your cheeks, you long for your pillow. The
Speaker 4: reporter gives you the signal this interview is done. You
Speaker 4: pack up as a frat Rose continue to dance around
Speaker 4: the parking lot with the tree in there stolen glee
Speaker 4: the mascot dancing with them and their wicked revelry. They're
Speaker 4: busy making memories.
Speaker 3: They are.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, that proof of life video gets broadcast by
Speaker 4: k TVU around the bay. It's another outsized reaction to follow.
Speaker 4: Enter the Stanford Police. They don't see the humor in this.
Speaker 4: A man by the name of Captain Raould and Memeier
Speaker 4: steps forward, the Stanford Police Captain. He makes public comments
Speaker 4: of his own, he says, he goes to the news meeting.
Speaker 2: He says, the Stanford tre tree is practically priceless. Remember
Speaker 2: you asked me how much. He puts a dollar amount
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 3: Practically pricelessly priceless.
Speaker 4: But if a monetary value were to be assigned to
Speaker 4: the tree, it would be worth well over one thousand.
Speaker 3: Dollars practically price.
Speaker 2: I know a price for most people.
Speaker 4: One thousand dollars would not sound like very much, but
Speaker 4: it does qualify the theft as grand larceny, which makes
Speaker 4: it a felony. So the Phoenix fiver looking at real
Speaker 4: prison time. If Captain Neemeyer has anything.
Speaker 3: To say about it is jurisdiction.
Speaker 4: Well, the humorless cop went on to say, if you
Speaker 4: do the crime, you do the time.
Speaker 3: You kidding.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, the Barrier, newspapers, the TV stations, they continue to
Speaker 4: cover the story because now they got one with real
Speaker 4: legs and it's running. So in fact, they become a
Speaker 4: part of the story. Ransoms get raised, one by a
Speaker 4: local newspaper, another by a sporting good company. They promise
Speaker 4: if the tree is returned unharmed, they will donate fifty
Speaker 4: thousand dollars to a local Christmas tree charity.
Speaker 3: A Christmas tree charity. Yeah, later down the air, I
Speaker 3: feel like calmless Christmas tree to get trees home.
Speaker 2: So Lizabeth get these trees a home, if.
Speaker 3: Only for three weeks.
Speaker 2: Now, I think he's to give him out people who
Speaker 2: can't afford.
Speaker 3: Christmas tree awareness.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really it's a holy Kito tie and
Speaker 4: like a little ribbon you put on the tree. Anyway,
Speaker 4: guy inside the tree, remember him, Chris Anderson. Yeah, he
Speaker 4: jumps forward again. He speaks out.
Speaker 3: He kind of wish he was in the tree the
Speaker 3: whole time.
Speaker 4: He's had He does too, he has had enough. He
Speaker 4: becomes really aggressive for a man who's best known as
Speaker 4: the bone structure of a tree Henderson. He releases his
Speaker 4: own statement to the press as the guy inside the tree.
Speaker 4: He mocks the tree n appers, and he tells that
Speaker 4: the phoenix five quote stop talking to a pile of
Speaker 4: fabric can show a little back bone.
Speaker 2: So he didn't fight over the tree.
Speaker 4: Now, the students from both campuses, you may be wondering,
Speaker 4: what did you think about this prank? Well, most of
Speaker 4: them thought it. His harm was fun. Some just wanted
Speaker 4: to it all go away. Others were like, who knows
Speaker 4: who cares? Right, They took your approach. But there was
Speaker 4: one cow student. I found a freshman on the rugby team,
Speaker 4: Teddy Miller. He admitted that he was no big fan
Speaker 4: of Oscary calam mascot. He said, quote, I'm pretty lukewarm
Speaker 4: about him, right, But my favorite part is that he
Speaker 4: went on and he wanted to make sure that he
Speaker 4: could kind of run down the handshake of Oscy.
Speaker 2: He said back to Teddy Miller, and he got wet hands.
Speaker 4: I shook hands with him two or three times in
Speaker 4: my life, and every time I've had to wipe my
Speaker 4: hands on my pants.
Speaker 3: He's shaking his hand more than once.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'll give him another chance, so win me over.
Speaker 4: Staring it, Osky, this is your third chance? Is the
Speaker 4: last one? Three strikes?
Speaker 2: You're out?
Speaker 6: Bear?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean the guy is in like a fur suit. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's allowed to have sweaty hands.
Speaker 2: Who doesn't like a moist bear? Really?
Speaker 4: You know, I mean come on, but anyway, back to
Speaker 4: the grill again, the grill again, Elizabeth? Where were we?
Speaker 4: That's right, stolen tree. Yes, a chancellor was threatening to
Speaker 4: abduct our mascot product his own mascot to get back
Speaker 4: at school. All right, And the students, what did you
Speaker 4: think about that part of the whole mascot?
Speaker 2: Kerfuffled? Like? Were they like?
Speaker 4: I think the administration's being a little silly, like of
Speaker 4: anybody there being the ridiculous ones. Well, I'll tell you
Speaker 4: this much. Some of the students pointed out that this
Speaker 4: was a fifty seven year old, sweaty, clammy handed bear
Speaker 4: mascot who really gives a darn right? Right, So, like
Speaker 4: you know, Teddy Miller would be proud of these students.
Speaker 4: But anyway, setting aside all the empty threats to Oski.
Speaker 4: What about the more real threats of felonies that the
Speaker 4: knee Myers throwing around for the students. Well that apply pressure?
Speaker 4: Would the other students come to them like, hey man,
Speaker 4: you can't making Theta Kai look bad or whatever?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Well, back to mister Orange from the Phoenix five, because
Speaker 4: he says that basically the dudes in the frat house
Speaker 4: were trying to be you know, cooler than Canna Reeves
Speaker 4: and a pretend gunfight. So, as mister Orange said, quote,
Speaker 4: in all honesty, we knew that no one had a
Speaker 4: clue who we were at the outset. We got the
Speaker 4: tree without anyone seeing us. So the whole police investigation
Speaker 4: was a big sham. They claimed that they had stopped
Speaker 4: a car with five cow students on campus that night,
Speaker 4: but to this day, I don't know whether that actually
Speaker 4: happened or if it was just some attempt to.
Speaker 2: Get us out into the open.
Speaker 4: Right, because me comes forward, he's like, we're gonna check
Speaker 4: the DMV because we pulled over these students, and they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: I'll go for it.
Speaker 2: Whatn't us?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Anyway, So other than the police tricks, So what did
Speaker 4: the boys parents think because you know, if they're gonna
Speaker 4: get kicked out of school or go to prison over
Speaker 4: a stolen bear. I mean, I think my parents would
Speaker 4: be mad, pissed. And I'm just saying well, mister Orange
Speaker 4: once again said quote, cooler heads prevailed now. He also
Speaker 4: said quote, I think out of the five, I was
Speaker 4: the one who felt the least amount of pressure. I
Speaker 4: was a seventeen year old freshman, not living at the house.
Speaker 4: I was a minor in the legal sense, and not
Speaker 4: around the actual tree on a regular basis since it
Speaker 4: was being kept at the house for a while. The
Speaker 4: older guys in the group obviously felt more pressure as
Speaker 4: time went on, as more people were finding out about
Speaker 4: our involvement. So yeah, now that they got like the
Speaker 4: circle of swelling to snitch on them. So our youngest
Speaker 4: of the crew, mister Orange, he's not feeling the same
Speaker 4: pressure as the older guys, right. He wants to keep
Speaker 4: the tree. He's like, let's run this table man. And
Speaker 4: I quote once again from him, quote, there were major
Speaker 4: discussions concerning whether to return the tree.
Speaker 2: I was lobbing to.
Speaker 4: Hold onto it until the big gang take it on
Speaker 4: a road trip. But the older guys in the group
Speaker 4: probably had better information on exactly how close we were
Speaker 4: to being discovered. So yeah, we never did get close
Speaker 4: to being caught, and I'm pretty sure we could have
Speaker 4: held out a little longer and done more fun things
Speaker 4: with the tree. But again, as the youngest, I wasn't
Speaker 4: in the best position to make the important decisions.
Speaker 2: Oh Man Horn's storytelling kills me.
Speaker 4: So at this point in the kidnapping ordeal, right, some
Speaker 4: of the tree nappers facing serious life changing penalties.
Speaker 2: Mister Orange is like, he.
Speaker 4: Tells, like, oh, well, I'll just leave it to him
Speaker 4: because I don't want to he tells the story, so, well, yeah,
Speaker 4: here I go. One was up for a big scholarship.
Speaker 4: Mister Yellow could have been deported, at least that was
Speaker 4: the claim. So even though I was really disappointed that
Speaker 4: the tree was returned after such a short period of time,
Speaker 4: I can understand they were coming from. So now apparently
Speaker 4: there's threats of deportation for various members of the Phoenix five.
Speaker 4: So that's a bit of a rough one, getting kicked
Speaker 4: out of Cow because of a stolen tree. Anyway, the
Speaker 4: big game comes, So Elizabeth, is there going to be
Speaker 4: a tree?
Speaker 6: Hmmm?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: On the day before Halloween, two weeks after the theft
Speaker 4: of the Stanford Tree and after the original missed ultimatum
Speaker 4: in deadline, a call comes into the UC Berkeley Chancellor's office.
Speaker 4: On the line is a representative for the Phoenix five.
Speaker 2: He claims that he knows.
Speaker 4: Where the Stanford Tree is, and he reports that it
Speaker 4: is fine, unharmed, and better yet, he would return it
Speaker 4: to the Chancellor's office, but on one condition. Amnesty for
Speaker 4: the thieves.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, total.
Speaker 4: So the Chancellor agrees to the terms yes, and the
Speaker 4: Stanford DNAs students also agrees to the terms. Four PM,
Speaker 4: an older man described as quote older than a normal
Speaker 4: student who identified himself only as Rishard, walks into the
Speaker 4: Chancellor's office. In his hand was a plastic bag. In
Speaker 4: that plastic bag was the ten foot tall Stanford Tree.
Speaker 4: He handed over the kidnapping victim to the Chancellor's assistant.
Speaker 4: The bag gets open, the Tamford Tree is inspected. There's
Speaker 4: indeed no damage. Oh well except for well, there was
Speaker 4: no real damage, right, it's just like, oh, it's a
Speaker 4: little bit wet, you know. They're like it's kind of
Speaker 4: smelled moldy or whatever. Right, So the it's confirmed. Richard
Speaker 4: walks off, never has to talk to anybody. UC Berkeley
Speaker 4: police sees the tree. Officers escort it back down to
Speaker 4: Stanford in a blue Ford Taurus.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: The police reported that during the trip, the Stanford tree
Speaker 4: was quote very well behaved and very cordial and polite. O.
Speaker 3: Everyone's a cop humor exactly.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: Once it's back at Stanford, the administration performed a second
Speaker 4: examination because I want to make sure they got the
Speaker 4: right tree. Can't be trying to like push no fake
Speaker 4: trees on us here. We ain't no punk over Stanford anyway.
Speaker 4: Former guy inside the tree, not the one currently, but
Speaker 4: a former one, Chris Carry. He is apparently on hand
Speaker 4: for the examination, so he later would tell the press quote,
Speaker 4: he looks okay. He looks a little skinny, but we'll
Speaker 4: put him back on a diet of steroids and wheat
Speaker 4: grass and he should be okay for the big game.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
Speaker 4: So now for a publicity stuck Carrie tries on the
Speaker 4: tree in the office, decides it's fine, it's fits, there's
Speaker 4: no problems with it. Then another Stanford student who shows
Speaker 4: up in a quote Tree Protective Services shirt, handcuffs the
Speaker 4: Stanford tree and declares that the tree is now under
Speaker 4: his protection and walks away. The police chief Neemuyer, he
Speaker 4: also had his two cents the original joker. He says,
Speaker 4: quote that the tree was going to be secured in
Speaker 4: our evidence room, which is alarmed, and we do have
Speaker 4: armed deputies there. So I got to say, threatening to
Speaker 4: shoot someone in order to protect a trash bag filled
Speaker 4: with the tree costumes so very American. Once the school
Speaker 4: had its tree back, Stanford administration agrees, what dropping all charges,
Speaker 4: you know, the criminal content all it's out the window.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, Chancellor bird All from Berkeley, he gives an interview
Speaker 4: and he says to the Daily Cow that he found
Speaker 4: the prank to be quote pretty funny in a sense,
Speaker 4: and that the Phoenix five had operated quote with a degree.
Speaker 2: Of wit and charm end quote.
Speaker 4: But again he reiterated that his imagined fears of riots
Speaker 4: and murders happening because of the stolen tree, and he said,
Speaker 4: you know, a prank like that could lead to real violence. Now, finally,
Speaker 4: the Phoenix five they got to have the last say.
Speaker 4: Just before they handed over the hostage tree, they faxed
Speaker 4: in a communicate that blamed quote a hostile climate for
Speaker 4: their choice to return the tree. They added, quote, gone
Speaker 4: are the days of healthy rivalry in which students of
Speaker 4: opposing schools could pull pranks on each other in the.
Speaker 2: Name of school spirit.
Speaker 4: Now, later on, for the Big Game edition of The
Speaker 4: Daily Cow, the Phoenix Five were again given a platform.
Speaker 4: They said, quote, we wanted to pump up the rivalry,
Speaker 4: make it a cow spirit thing and poke fun at Stanford.
Speaker 4: With a rivalry like this, you gotta live in it.
Speaker 4: You've got to do something with it. Otherwise, why bother
Speaker 4: having it? That's a point, right, so to have the
Speaker 4: last laugh. The next year, the nineteen ninety nine edition
Speaker 4: of The Big Game, The Daily Cow ran the story
Speaker 4: that featured a photo of the Phoenix Five.
Speaker 2: Revealing their identities for all the world to see. And
Speaker 2: why not.
Speaker 4: They gotten away with it and they got amnesty. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: there was Stanford's response to this whole tree kidnapping kerfuffle.
Speaker 4: A little while after the Stanford Tree was returned, the
Speaker 4: Stanford band brought it out for the Stanford USC Game.
Speaker 3: That's a big one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, private school on private school, rich kids on rich kids, right,
Speaker 4: and they go out there to pump up the crowd.
Speaker 4: The band at halftime, the band wheels out a wood
Speaker 4: chipper and the Stanford Band They claimed that their fellow
Speaker 4: band member, the Stanford Tree, had been quote contaminated by
Speaker 4: its time with the public school students of UC Berkeley,
Speaker 4: and in order to purify the now soiled Stanford Tree,
Speaker 4: they shoved this tree headfirst into the wood chipper. Boom,
Speaker 4: Stanford Tree is no more just a pile of Stanford toothpicks.
Speaker 4: But boom, all of a sudden, there's a surprise out
Speaker 4: comes a new Stanford Tree, revealed to be better and
Speaker 4: pure clean. Now, when he was asked about Stanford's choice
Speaker 4: to you know, destroy their own tree and a wood chipper,
Speaker 4: Old mister Orange had this to say, really took a
Speaker 4: liking to us after spending some time in Berkeley, and
Speaker 4: we kind of got attached to it as well, So
Speaker 4: a slow, painful death wouldn't have been appropriate. But even
Speaker 4: though the Ferdies felt it necessary to put it through
Speaker 4: a wood chipper, I'm sure the process was a quick
Speaker 4: one and the suffering was minimal. I still don't understand
Speaker 4: why they do that to their own mascot. But nothing
Speaker 4: really surprised me as about Stanford or its students versus
Speaker 4: kids the war. That's what you missed in the late
Speaker 4: nineties while you were away. So what's our ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: I think that again, dork on dork, violence is always entertaining.
Speaker 2: It's no Texas versus eight Mores say.
Speaker 3: They're worried about riots. It's like, honey, take a look
Speaker 3: at what could.
Speaker 2: Happen, Like, go down to look at Texas. What they
Speaker 2: did they called in the military.
Speaker 3: Texas means business.
Speaker 2: They had hunters shooting at people.
Speaker 3: But I mean, I mean, as much as I roll
Speaker 3: my eyes at all their like dorky humor about it,
Speaker 3: I do appreciate this kind of stuff. I think it's
Speaker 3: you know, we need these kind of dramatics to keep
Speaker 3: things interesting, better that than serious problems.
Speaker 4: And it creates a sense of community. And you know,
Speaker 4: obviously as long as no one really gets hurt, you know,
Speaker 4: I think these things are fun. And it's always once
Speaker 4: again the imagined fears that we we lose things because
Speaker 4: of what someone imagines, not because of what occurred.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you said that, now they squash it down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they play you all that, they do not.
Speaker 4: Ever since then, they've always said because it's there have
Speaker 4: been other pranks since then, and then they've always threatened
Speaker 4: police action and legal consequences. They've they followed the hard
Speaker 4: line ever since then. So ever since bird All, Chancellor
Speaker 4: bird All put down. There's a serious stuff for bringing
Speaker 4: in the cops. It's always been that. Before that, that
Speaker 4: was not the case. It's always like you, guys.
Speaker 3: Well, let's go over and encourage them to do it again,
Speaker 3: bring it back.
Speaker 4: I say, we go steal it all right, there's Ridiculous
Speaker 4: Crime steals Osky, both Osky and.
Speaker 2: The tree, and then we make them kiss.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, that's it.
Speaker 2: That's all I got for it.
Speaker 3: That's excellent.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for listening.
Speaker 4: You can find us online always at ridiculous Crime on
Speaker 4: Twitter and on Instagram and on the internet at ridiculous
Speaker 4: crime dot com. You know, we got all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 4: We've got stories on the Instagram, we got posts and
Speaker 4: stuff on Twitter, and we got the talkback app on iHeart,
Speaker 4: so download that and you can send us messages. You
Speaker 4: can talk at us, yes, so yeah, there you go.
Speaker 4: Also if you want to email us ridiculous Crime at
Speaker 4: gmail dot com. We always like hearing from you. Thanks
Speaker 4: for listening. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and
Speaker 4: Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by our Man with the Chipper,
Speaker 4: Dave Kustin. Research is by Marissa the Tree, Doctor Brown
Speaker 4: and Andrea the Lawyer. Song Sharpened Tear Our theme song
Speaker 4: is by Thomas I Prefer to Smoke.
Speaker 2: Them Trees, Lee and Travis Go Bears. Dutton.
Speaker 4: Executive producers are Ben They should have been the Robber Barons,
Speaker 4: Bowlin and Null.
Speaker 2: My Lawyer went to Stanford Brown, Red Cui Say It
Speaker 2: one More Times Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four More Podcasts.
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