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The Stuff You Should Know 2015 Jolly Christmas Extravaganza · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know from house stuff works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Heane, welcome to the podcast. Merry Christmas, Happy holidays,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. Right, it's like, this isn't
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the Halloween episode. You sounds sad? Do I? Well, you
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: sounded sad? How do I sound now? Awake? Yeah? But
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: happy too? Yeah. Man, this is one of our two
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: favorite shows of the year, and we are celebrating. We're
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: drinking a little wine a little bit, how about that. Yeah,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you never know what's going to happen in here. No, actually,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: you usually know what happens in here, which is no wine. Yeah,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and gaminess. It gets gamy in here. Although they fixed
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the a C, Yeah, and I fixed the a C,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: we realized that they turned it on for the first
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: time in here. They're like your flaps clothes. Oh, dead raccoon,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: there's your problem. Yeah, it's usually a dead raccoon, that's right.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: You know. Uh, Well, since we said dead raccoon, they
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: can mean nothing else than the fact that this is
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: our two thousand fifteen holiday extravaganza. I don't remember what
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: we called it. I think we've called it something different
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: every year. Yeah, but I'm saying, like I don't know
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: what we called this one yet. Yeah, yeah, but that's
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: not bad. Yeah, but here we are in November. But
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: we have that Christmas spirit. It's well within us. It
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: is alive in our bones and uh, we cobbled together
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: were it's I thought I was starting to get thin really,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: but um, when you start digging around you you can
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: find plenty of good holiday content. Yeah you know. Oh,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I see what you mean. As far as like finding
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: something to fill an hour. Yeah, and um, we didn't know.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: We couldn't remember because we've done. This is like I
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: think the fifth one that we've done. Okay, we couldn't
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: remember which ones we've done. Documents helped went back and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: listen to all of them, and it's like, okay, we
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: covered this, we did we cover that. There were several
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: things that I was surprised to find that we had covered.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Surprised and dismayed because we can't do them again. Nope,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: they're done. But um, we have put together a blog
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: post on Stuff you should Know dot Com called the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Christmas Sweet and it has all of our Christmas specials
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: so you can go listen to them all in one place. Yes,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and as we do every year, we would like to
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: encourage you to gather the family. Sure, build a fire
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: if you have a fireplace, not not just on your
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: hardwood floor or not out of your hardwood floor unless
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: you're into that. There's a free country even still think
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you probably don't want to do that, you know, So
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: gather the family around a light the you'll log. Pour
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: up some hot buttered rum or whatever you're boozy eggnog
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: or you're non alcoholic drink of choice, sure, sparkling cider.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Everybody loves that cold duck. And then listen, cold duck.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Don't you remember cold duck? What's that? It's like a
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: non alcoholic sparkling wine called cold duck. Yeah, I grew
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: up on it. Weird. I guess it is a little
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: weird now you think about it, Cold duck, and it
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: just doesn't sound like something you'd want to drink. Yeah,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: if you don't have a choice, that's what you drink.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: All right, support some cold duck and uh settle in
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and let us take you on a Christmas journey through
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the ages. And thanks to Jerry by the way as always,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and uh our friend John begin did the jingles for
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: this one. Yeah, so uh yeah, thanks for always gussing
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: this thing up and putting us in the Christmas mood. Yeah,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: way to go to Jerry. All right, let's get do it, Chuck. Yes,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you were raised in the United States of America. That
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: is true. I was too. Did you know that? Uh yeah,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Toledo is in the U S. Toledo is in the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: US for now. Um, And so we were kind of raised.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Even though you were in the South, I was in
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the north, the Midwest. Our Christmas customs were fairly similar.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Sure we're children in the seventies essentially, Yes, for sure.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: So um we were raised with macromay Christmas, oh man.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: So um. If you go around the world, though, Christmas
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: is celebrated all throughout the world among Christians, non Christian,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: secular humanists, everybody, not everybody. A lot of people celebrate Christmas.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: But since it's in different parts of the world, Um,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: there's different traditions. I bet even Anton LaVey has given
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and gotten a Christmas kick. Yeah. He was like, Chris
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: didn't mean anything. All right, it's a studied leather color.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I'll take it, right, He's like, you have to open
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: it upside down. That's right. It is celebrated all over
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the world. And here in segment one are a few
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: uh customs around the world that I had never heard of,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and most of them are pretty interesting. Most of them
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I thought, well, you know, actually they were all pretty good.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I thought they were great. Yeah, agreed. All right, let's
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: start out. Maybe let's get not in the way back
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: machine but just our space travel pod and let's go
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to India. Isn't it nice? It is? It's balmy, it is,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: but it's lovely that people are great. There's a lot
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: of them. And the food is amazing. I doesn't agree
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: with much stomach, but I'll still eat it. Really, you
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: have trouble with Indian food, I lament that for you.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Indian food is it's tied for first with Japanese food.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it's good stuff. So you'll notice, chuck
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: that there are twenty five million Christians here celebrating um
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Christmas in Andya. I can tell significant amount of people.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: And the thing is, they don't have any customary type
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: of tree that you would decorate, so they use mango
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and orange trees. That's right, you know. So if you
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: look around, you're gonna see decorated trees on the streets.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: You're gonna see if you go into a house, you're
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: gonna even see the leaves of these trees used as decoration. Yeah. Yeah,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: it's like Garland basically. And buy orange. I meant banana,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: of course. Oh did you say orange. Yeah, that was
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: my customary holiday slip up. That's right. Uh. So India
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: is great everyone. I love the decorations they're getting in
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the spirit, even though they don't have the because you know,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and I'll remember we covered it Christmas tree start out
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: in Germany. Oh yeah, the ten In bomb. Yeah, they're
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: lousy with fir trees and leave in the Tenon Bomb.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: But h so we're gonna leave India for now and
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: let's travel over in our space pod. Okay, one of
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: your favorite places. Japan wonderful, but they have a very
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: unusual to me Christmas tradition. Oh, it's unusual across the board.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Eating Kentucky fried chicken. Kentucky fried chicken is the traditional
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Christmas Eve dinner for Japan, and it has been since
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: about nineteen seventy four. So apparently there are some American
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: travelers who are stranded or visiting Japan. That's the stranded.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: They weren't stranded, it was they were visiting Japan and
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: around Christmas, and they went to try to find a
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: turkey dinner. They don't turkey in Japan. You gotta be
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: beyond rich to find turkey in Japan. Basically, so it
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: just so happened. KFC had been there for a couple
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: of years that had just broken through. Starting about nineteen
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: seventy there was a big expo. Wasn't called KFC back then,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: it was Kentucky Fright Chicken, right right? Um, And they
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: they these I guess, these travelers alerted KFC that they
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: had decided to go with Kentucky Fried Chicken instead of
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: a turkey dinner. And Colonel Sanders sounds say, it sounds
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: like a good idea. Yeah, was that your Norm McDonald
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: or your Daryl Hammond? Was Norm McDonald? That's not bad.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Um if it was Daryl Hammond, terrible. But so Kentucky
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Fried Chicken decided to capitalize on this, and starting in
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, they created the Kentucky for Christmas campaign
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and basically established a tradition among Japanese people that you
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: go line up on Christmas Eve Day and wait in
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: line around the block for your turn to buy your
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: pre ordered bucket of KFC, your cake, and your bottle
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: of champagne. Yeah, and uh, I think of champagne now,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: but back then it was wine. And then they got classy,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: that's right. And today, uh, more than two hundred forty
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: buckets or barrels two what I say two? Yeah, you
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: stopped at two fourth. Now that was just that the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: main location. Two d forty thousand barrels or buckets of
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: chicken or sold, which is apparently five to ten times
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the normal monthly sales. And um, it's a big deal.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And these Christmas cakes are a big deal there too. Yeah.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: And they dress Colonel Sanders up as Santa Claus out front,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: and it's a huge deal. It's wonderful. It is Kentucky
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: for Christmas, Kentucky for Christmas. All right, let's get back
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: in the spacepod. Let's jet on up to Finland. But
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the people are nice, and the taxes are heavy. But
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the health care that's so bad. Yeah, they pay like
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: half your money in taxes. But it's the best place
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: in the world to live. And it's one of the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: few places on Earth where people live that you can
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: just see a reindeer walking around. Yeah, exactly, how's that
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: for Christmas spirit? And also, Chuck, you have ever seen
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Rare Exports? No, you haven't seen Rare Exports Christmas horror movie.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Oh man, go see. It's set in Finland. It's awesome. Really,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: it's actually a finished movie with subtitles, and it's it's
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: a Christmas classic? Is it? What year two thousand and
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: twelve already a classic? Yes? So in Finland. Um, despite
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: their pinchon for enjoying the holidays, they have a little
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: darker side, you might say, to Christmas because they visit
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the graves of their ancestors and uh, and they put
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: candles on the graves. It's very nice, I guess, not
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: exactly dark if they like dug them up and put
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: their heads off or something after their first Christmas underground.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying, yeah, it's not dark necessarily because it
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: is a tribute to their cease loved ones. But it
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: is unusual to me on Christmas to visit the cemetery,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. But but apparently cemeteries because when
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: they visit, they light candles for their deceased loved ones,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and even people who don't aren't near their deceased loved
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: ones will still like light a candle. So like by
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the time midnight rolls around on Christmas Eve, it's also
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: they're burning down all over the country, right exactly, apparently
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: quite a sight to behold, it is. And not only that,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: but at home, uh and this is kind of sweet.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: They don't they sleep on the floor to to leave
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: their beds. You know how we leave cookies out for Santa.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: They leave their beds open for the ghostly spirits of
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: their ancestors to sleep and to sleep. And tonight here
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you take the bed, I'll take the floor. And apparently
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: it's the same with saunas too, So most families have
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: their own sauna in Finland sauna sauna and after sunset
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: that becomes they leave that alone for their dead ancestors
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to enjoy as well. Yeah, but before sunset it's naked
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: family party time in the sound, which is not gross
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: or pready, it's just how it is in Finland. All right,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: what are you gonna saw it? And like a bathing suit,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: that's weird. Well that's what I do. But I'm at
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the y m c A. I'd get arrested, you know,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you would. Venezuela. Let's hop in our little space spot
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: and travel a little bit of Caracas, Venezuela. So we're
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: in Caracas, and on Christmas Eve, the children do a
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: kind of an odd thing. They tie a piece of
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: string to their big toe and then they run the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: string out of their window and hang it down the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: side of their home. So far, so weird, Yeah, which
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: is a little strange. Then the following morning they go
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: to early morning Mass. They they don't grown ups too,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: and they close off the streets until eight am so
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: people can roller skate to maths. And if they see
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: any of these strings still hanging, they tug on the string,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: which supposedly our guess logically would talk on the big
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: toe of the child and wakes the kid up for
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Christmas morning. Pretty neat a passing by roller skater tugs
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: on the string to wake you up for Christmas morning.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: That's pretty cool tradition. And finally, yeah, we will travel
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: from Caracas, Venezuela over to Sweden. Really we should have
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: ordered this differently. We could have really saved some space gas. Yeah,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: but sky miles, Oh yeah, you know, we are racking
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: up totally. So we're in Sweden now, and this is
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: my favorite one. I think in nine st tall goat
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: of straw was erected in the town square of Gavel. Yeah,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: it's called the gavel Baching gavel Bachen. At the stroke
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of midnight that first year, Uh, some kid thought it
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: would be funny if he burned it down. And now
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: it's a tradition, Yeah it is. And so it's not
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: a tradition like wicker Man where the town gathers to
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: set the man on fire or the goat on The
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: town does not want the goat to be set on fire. Instead, Um,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the town hires security guards. Apparently one year it was
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: particularly cold and all the guards went in to get
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: warm at once, and when they did, vandals struck burned
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: it down. Um. They fireproof the stuff with a subs
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: or the goat with the with the substance that they
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: used to fireproof airplanes. And people still manage to burn
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: this down apparently between nineteen sixties, six and two thousand
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: and eleven, according to our friends honk yat where we
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: got this article. By the way, Um it's been burned
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: down twenty five times, that's what about or so not
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: a bad rate. Not a bad burn rate if you're
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: a vandal if you're a town elder, that's terrible rate.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: So uh, that's segment one and thanks to who our
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: friends at honky Cat hon Kiyot hon Kiyot for that
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: not honky Cat. Okay, that's Elton John's subsite. So Chuck
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: does a nice little interlude. Um, have you ever been
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: in New York? I knew you've been in New York.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: No at Christmas? Do you remember the time we were
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the guests of Like Discovery for a Christmas party? Yes,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: at the Campbell apartment at Grand Central Station. One of
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the great, uh corporate parties I've ever been to. There
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: was a pit bull there, Parole who owned the pit bull.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: We drank martinis, Yes, we did lots of them. Are
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I did? I don't know what would you have whiskey Martini?
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I think I have martiniz And it was good. We
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: were hot shots back then. We were we were up
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and coming. Um so at this at the during that
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: that stay, I walked around and visited like shop windows, sacks. Yeah,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: I think I hit Barnes and I at the time,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm so clever, what a cool thing to do.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: What I didn't realize is I was engaging in like
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: about a hundred and fifty year old tradition of traveling
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: to New York to see these storefront windows, the Christmas
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: window displays. It's actually really old ritual, that's right. And
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: this story is called not really old but kind of old.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: The story is called The History of Department Store Holiday
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Window Displays by Victoria Lewis, and I am not ashamed
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: to admit that I had never considered the term department
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: store and what that meant until I read this. I
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, what is the their's departments
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: is in? Yeah, the boys department, the ladies department, the
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: sports department. I had just never dawned on me what
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that means. Just took it as like, that's what it is.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know, you know how it's one of those
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: understand you know, we're in an old department store right now. Yeah,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: here's Yeah, absolutely had terrible window displaces. It did. So
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: here's the fascinating history of department store window displays, which
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this article. Yeah, what was it from? Well,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: initially it goes back to the Industrial Revolution, the late
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, um. And like anything, it's usually some weird
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: innovation that leads to something else. In this case, it
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: was the innovation was glass windows. Yeah. Up to that point,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: up to the Industrial Revolution, um shopkeepers just kept their
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: wares behind piewood and no one could see it, you know.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: So once they figured out play glass windows, they were like,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: this is much better. And so the passers by on
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: the street thought it was much better as well. Yeah,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: because that's literally where the turn window shopping comes from.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And they said, we can have these great window displays
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: where people on the street, uh could walk by and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: and fantasize if they don't have money about buying the stuff.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Thiks to our enormous sea through class um the best
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: kind of glass, And apparently it was Mr Macy. Mr
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Macy had a great name, Roland Hussey Macy, who did
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: not live up to his name, was quite approved frankly
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and Roland Hussey Macy. UM opened Macy's tried four times.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: So I opened, yeah, and tried and failed, I should
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: say the the fifth time, I think on sixth Avenue
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: between thirteenth and fourteenth Street in eighteen fifty eight, Roland
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Macy opened his store with opening day sales totaling eleven
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: dollars and six cents, which you're like, oh, well it's
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight. Sure, that's a three million dollars today bucks.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Not good for a department store. So back in the day,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: these stores were what are called dry goods stores, where
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: you can find everything that wasn't wet, um, you know,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: chaps alasso, uh, stuff that wasn't wet, like that, wheat flour,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: wheat flower, all this stuff. And and these were the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the progenitors of dry of department stores. And a lot
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: of them grew out of dry goods stores into department stores.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And over time, um, they got savvier and savvier. And
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: again R. H. Macy was one of the first to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: get super duper savvy. And he was apparently the first
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to put up these elaborate displays around Christmas time. Not
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: only that, my friend, he was the first in eighteen
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: sixty two to feature an in store Santa that children
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and could come in annoy yes, and if you want
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: to know more about the life of an in store
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: saying that you should listen to last year's because they
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: went into that in depth. Absolutely so in eighteen seventy
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: four he says, I'm gonna step it up a notch.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: We got this plate class. So I'm going to create
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: a window display porcelain dolls from around the world and uh,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: sort of weirdly scenes from Harriet Beecher Stowe's great book
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Uncle Tom's Cabin. It's all the rage. Yeah, it just
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: seemed an odd choice for the holidays. All the rage,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna second guess it because it worked.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: It would be like making a Star Wars special holiday
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: special at the time, you know what I mean. Yeah,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I think all the rage. So it really caught on
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: By the early nineteen hundreds. Um, all the big retailers
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: were doing it in New York, Chicago, all the bit
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: major cities, and um, window shopping was a legitimate, legitimate
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: thing at this point. Yeah, thanks to things like, um, again,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the plate glass window people actually putting up displays worth seeing,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: and then later on electrical lighting so that you see
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: these things long after the store had closed, and that
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: attracted people to the displays just for the displays stake themselves.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: It made him a destination, so that a hundred and
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: fifty years later, yokels like you and me could be
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: walking around New York saying, I'm gonna go check out
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the sex fifth Avenue window. It looks like real snow.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Ye Lord and Taylor with the first to um, actually
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: not even worry about showing merchandise in the window and
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: just say, you know what, this is something cool looking
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: that will attract people to our window. Well what the
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: cool looking thing? They did too? At the time it
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: must have been mind blowing. You have to put yourself
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: in their shoes. But it was automated bells that moved
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: in time to a recording of the sound of bells playing,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: which sounds about as primitive as a monkey turning a crank.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: But it actually, I mean that must have been pretty
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: mind blowing at the time. We're talking ninety eight, and
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: even before that, I think it was um, I think
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: it Nieman Marcus in Dallas used free on in air
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: conditioned copper tubings to basically create frosted trees in their
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: window display that that's what they call for people who
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: read books on airplanes. A game changer and not to
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: be outdone in nineteen In the nineteen fifties, Washington d
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: c s Woodward and Lowthrope, which I've not heard of,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: have you, no? Never? But it totally sounds like either
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: a law firm or a department. Uh, and they put
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: live penguins in the display. This is clearly before animal
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: rights activists had to say in things They're like, how
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: can we make our window display cruel? And over the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: years many famous artists have even been involved, including Andy Warhol, Uh,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Murray Sindac, Salvador Dali, and Jasper John's. Imagine it pays
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: pretty good if you hire one of those artists, or
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: maybe they were up and coming at the time they
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: were up and coming. Actually, I think they also hire
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: famous people to come in. Oh, they definitely do sometimes
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, you're right. Um. So apparently today it's
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: spread around. It's not just New York, and it's in
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: London too. It started in London in nine thanks to
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: an American the guy who started or who worked at
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: marshall Fields and then came and started self Ridges. Right. Um.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: But today, if you ask Lord and Taylor, about two
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand people past their holiday window display
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: every day. That's crazy, and between Thanksgiving and Christmas they'll
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: attract eight million shoppers to their store. New York is great,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: and it's awesome during the holiday season because you can
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: go broke, but you can also not spend a dime
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: and just walk around and look at all the cool junk. Yes,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: New York. I love you and you're giving me chills.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: All right, Uh, moving on to the next segment. All right, Josh,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Now we're moving on to uh something. Believe it or not.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I have never even tasted in my life, really never
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: tasted fruitcake. I would be even more incredulous if I
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: hadn't either, right, have you? That's what I'm saying. I haven't. Okay,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I was trying to make sense of all that. Sorry,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: So neither on Jerry, You ever had fruit cake? Wow?
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Jerry says, No, Nol's like in the window with a
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: fruitcake in his mouth. I got a fruit cake in
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: my pocket. Alright. So fruitcake is uh. It's famous for
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: one thing, which is yeah, which is being a maligned,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: uh food product that is generally made fun of as
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: like a brick or a concrete block or a doorstop.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: So much so that there's a town called Manitoo Springs,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Colorado that in the at the beginning of January holds
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: the Great Fruitcake Toss every year, and you throw a
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: fruitcake as far as you can. It's kind of like
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: punkin chunking. But with fruitcakes, basically you know they should
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: have though is on the landing side, they should have
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: plate glass. Just see how much the fruitcake like maybe
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: layers of plate glass and see how many layers it
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: can smash. Yeah, like that one ice breaking scene and
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: karate Kid too. So, um, the fruitcake. It's not much loved.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of people like it. The people who
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: do like it are just trying to be ironic, by
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the way, or elderly and being genuine Maybe yeah, I
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: can't tell elderly people. It's tough to pin down whether
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: they're really secretly being ironic. And it's just a big
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: it's a big performance piece. But um, it's it's it
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: is in and of it'sself ironic that fruitcake would be
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: so maligned because it started out as a distinct luxury
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: item for sure, because the stuff you find a fruit
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: cake today then you're like, oh, what is this terrible stuff?
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Is actually an assemblage of If you go a thousand
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: years back in history, you will find like these are
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the most sought after items on the planet. Spices, nuts, um,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: fruit cake, ginger, all this stuff coming together to create
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: some very rich delicacies. Wow. Thank you. Uh. It did
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: not begin as a cake though supposedly in ancient Rome
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: they use pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins and then
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: they fold it in in some barley mash. This is
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: before ovens. They didn't really bake it into a cake
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: at this point. Was it before ovens though? I took
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: issue with that? Oh yeah, yeah, I think they had.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: They had bread back then. People have been making bread,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: remember to like use as a starter for beer, sure
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: for thousands of years by then. Alright, so official issue
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: taken ovens. Alright, we'll look that up. Uh. And then
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: they started adding other spices. Is in the Middle East, um, honey.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Ginger was a big deal in the Middle East before
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: it spread to Europe. One of my favorite things in
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the world. Ginger, fresh ginger. Oh yeah, sure, love it.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Get your hands on some good fresh ginger. You're like,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: this is good? Shots of it? Oh yeah, hot stuff, health, yeah,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: health and wellness. Do you drink it hot or cool?
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And it's like hot spicy? Yeah? I mean, have you
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: ever done a gender shot. It's super hot. Yeah, it'll
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: burn your throat. So fair warning to all your juicers
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: out there. But if you're a juicer your way on
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the ginger tip. There's nothing new to you. This is
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the hippest Christmas special we've ever recorded anyway. I love
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: ginger and they loved it in the Middle East and
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: eventually spread to Europe in the fifteenth century. Then they added, uh,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: some butter, some sugar, and they said, we have a lumpy,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: dense cake on our hands. We definitely have ovens, so
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: we're going to bake them, bake it. Yeah. And now
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: there's apparently a couple of bakeries in the United States.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: One here right here in Blaxton, Georgia. You knew that, right,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Oh yeah, Claxton fruitcakes are huge,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: one of the big two, right yeah. The other one
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: is in Corsicana, Texas. Um, that's Colin Street Bakery. And
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: if you have a fruitcake look at the label. I
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: guarantee you it's one of those two. I'm gonna start
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: giving them for gifts ironically or sincerely both nice because
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: it's all in how you take it. Sure it is.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Someone might say that's pretty funny, Chuck, and someone might
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: say this delicious, my friend, Yeah, and then you go
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: you are on my nice list. That's right, moving on,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: what is another Christmas food? This one was kind of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: surprising to me. So sugar plums have nothing to do
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: with plums, it turns out. And there's a lot of confusion,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I guess, and the fact that it uses the word plums,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: so you would think, well, a sugar plum is a
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: sweet plump, and food historians say there may actually have
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: been some sort of fruit producing shrub that produced something
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: that you would call a sugar plum, a plum like
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: fruit that was very sweet. We don't have any evidence
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: of it. It's all conjecture apparently. But sugar plums themselves
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: were candies. They were sugar balls surrounded with nuts or
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: spices or seeds or some combination of that, and they
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: had nothing to do with plums. Plums never made an
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: appearance in the actual sugar plum. Yeah. And apparently a
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: lot of dried fruit is called plum, which I didn't know,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and that's where the confusion comes from. Yeah, And plum
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: pudding in England apparently doesn't even have plums in it. No,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: it can have like raisins, curans, all that kind of stuff,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: doesn't have any plums whatsoever, plum like, it's just from
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I think about the seventeenth century on, plum became a
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: widely used term to describe certain kinds of candies, certain
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: kinds of sweet desserts that dance in your head, and bribes.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I read, yes. So if somebody gives you a bribe,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: you're like, that's quite a plum, right, I can put
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: it in my fruitcake, right, Or that's a plumb job.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: It's something like super sweet, something great like you, or
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: a bribe. I'm asking for a bribe right now. I
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: wasn't picking up on that. I'll slide this five dollar bill.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you across the tables. Gingerbread. It's one of my
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: favorite things. Are you like gingerbread? Love it? I meant
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: to tell you this. In the one of the Fairy
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Tales episodes, Hansel and Gretel is based partly in fact,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: there's a woman named Katerina Schrederin who in sixteen eighteen,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: she was a renowned gingerbread baker. She was so good
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: that a local rival tried to marry her to get
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: her to quit baking and undermining him. She refuses advances,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: he accused her of witchcraft. The town came and burned
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: her alive. Holy cow. That's true. Yes, it is true.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: And they think that she became the basis of the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: witch in the Hansel and Gretel story. Yeah, how about that.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: But she was really good at creating gingerbread, and she
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: was in Germany, which is the whole point of what
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I was just saying. That's right because it started in Germany,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: like so many Christmas things, Uh, sweet spicy cookies, cakes, breads,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: ginger flavored, which you know is one of my favorite things.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Like you said, I don't pick up on it a
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: ton in gingerbread, not as much. You know, the molasses
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: definitely dominates, absolutely, But try eating gingerbread without any kind
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of ginger in it. You'll spit it out, really spit
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: it out on the ground. Uh. It involved into the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Christmas treat we know and love because Um early on
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: it started to be um known to be something you
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: would serve at a special event, and I guess that
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: dwindled down to the holidays and then some people got
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: smart and started cutting it out to fund shapes. Yeah.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Pretty early on, the medieval bakers, including probably miss Katerina
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the Witch, um would cut him into like if you
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: were having a coronation, you could probably in Germany you
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: could find gingerbread cookies in the shape of a king. Yeah,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing, right, And that evolved
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: into Christmas e things, and it became associated with the
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: holidays ginger bread. Thankfully, I really want some gingerbread right now.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: And then lastly, Chuck, have you ever did you get
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: oranges as a kid and you're stocking we wouldn't you
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: beat your hand in and be like, oh, this is great,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I like this candies And then your hand would hit
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: that familiar, cold, wrinkled skin and you draw it out
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: and hold it up accusingly to everyone and be like,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: who did this? And your parents would be like, Santa, Santa,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: it was Santa, and you just glare at them that
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: kind of thing, and I'd say, I think I saw
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: these in the kitchen yesterday. Right. It turns out that
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: oranges are actually a long standing tradition and they used
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: to be an amazing thing to get in your stocking,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: because until the eighteen eighties, if you lived outside of
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Florida or California, you were s o l as far
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: as oranges went. Yeah, so it was a special treat um,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: which I guess caught on. I don't buy this other
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: theory at all. Um. Apparently they said it may reference
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: in a Christmas tale when St. Nicholas left bags of
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: gold in stockings. Uh, and in place of bags of gold,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: they put an orange. And you think, Yeah, I don't
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: buy that. Everybody wants to suck on a lemon on
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Christmas morning. Yeah, I'm not so sure about that. I
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: might be wrong. I could see it, but either way,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: it became a special Christmas treat that um somehow endors
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: to this day. Josh, if you know me, then you
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: know I love the movie Elf. I suspect that that's
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: why you selected this. Do you like it? Yeah, it's good.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: It's not my favorite. It's a good new classic. Yeah, agreed,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: it's no Christmas story, but it's good. It'll hold up
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: over the decades. I guess. This is a great article
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that I found called ten things you Didn't know about Elf,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and Uh, we're gonna go over those right now because
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite things Wild Ferrell, uh in the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: classic movie about an Elf that is really a human
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: that realizes he's a human and ghost in New York
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: City to find his real papa James Cohn. But he's
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: not insane. He actually is an Elf insane his workshop,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: which he has to leave to go find himself. But
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: he's not really enough because he's super tall and goofy
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: and everyone that's the joke, right, and everyone else's Elf size. So, uh,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: if you haven't seen Elf, pause this episode, go watch
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Elf and then come back and tell me what the
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: sunlight looks like outside your home because he's been living
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: under a rock. So initially, apparently, Chuck, the script for
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Elf is pretty old. I think it was originally made
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: in the like two two seven somewhere around there, Okay,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and um, it was actually written in and back. Will
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Farrell was basically in diapers, even though he was a
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: grown man by this time. But the script was initially
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: written for Jim Carrey or with Jim Carrey mind, and
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: it was offered to him and he turned it down. Yeah. Uh,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: no good, I say, with Jim Carey being I can't
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: see anybody but Will Ferrell doing it. Yeah, I mean,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: I think it's one of those things where anytime someone
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: is ultimately cast, he can't picture anyone else, like except
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: for Tom Selleck, you could still probably picture as Indiana Jones, sure, yeah,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: or Christopher Columbus Huh he played Columbus, did he? Or
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: did he played King Ferdinand in the uh, the movie
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: adaptation of your favorite book? No, it was okay, So
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Jim Carrey out Will Ferrell and uh classic now because
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: of that great move sentence fragments Ralphie in a Christmas story, Um,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Peter Billingsley appears as an elf. He's buddies with Favrow
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: has produced a lot of his movies, and there he
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: is a little Ralphie all grown up. Makes a cameo,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: so does Ray Harry House and he makes a voice
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: cameo and he if his name sound familiar, he was
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the guy who basically pioneered stop motion animation and film
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and motion pictures. So like, if you love Clash of
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the Titans, you loved Ray Harry Housing's work, that's right.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And Jon Favreau very smartly said, you know what, there's
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of people out there who love those ranking
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: bass Christmas specials, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and others.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And he said, let's have that same look so we
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: can echo that beloved style. Uh. And it really paid off.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I think it's one of the reasons it's such a
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: classic today. Yeah, so he instead of doing it c
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: g I, which you totally could have. You can make
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: it look stop motioning using computers, and he's like, no,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I want to shoot it that way. And just as
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: an additional nod, he grabbed Ray Harry Housing and said,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: why don't you do one of the stop motion Polar
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Bear cubs and he voiced it, which is pretty cool,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: very cool. And an additional nod was the costumes that
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the elves were were the exact costume replicas from the
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: original Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer stop motion film. Yeah,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: so I a nice little nod to the past. So
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: if you find yourself just like overwhelmed with nostalgia and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: weeping when you watch ELF, these are probably the reasons.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Why what else? Oh the famous scene one of my
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: favorites with the Jack in the Box when Will Ferrell
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: is testing the Jack in the Box. I had to
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: go look it up and watch it. It's pretty great
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: And those were genuine reactions apparently, Yeah, he wanted Will
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Ferrell to not know, so he had even though I
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: think he had the last one rigged to not even
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: be attached to the Jack in the box. He had
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the control off screen and he wanted it to seem
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: like it wasn't gonna open at all. So yeah, in
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the movie, Will Ferrell's elf what's his name, Buddy, Buddy
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: is he's he's been relegated to having to test Jack
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: in the Boxes for um, the little clown and comers
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: at Jackson the Box, Jacks in the Box, Yes, you're right,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Jacks in the Boxes, Um, and he's he's he's the tester,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: the quality control guy. And while when they were filming it, yeah,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: John of Rowe had of remote control, so he had
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: no idea when they were actually going to pop out.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: And you can tell when you watch it, like his
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: reactions are delightful, Yeah, they really are. Uh. The huge
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: burp that he has after drinking the two Leader of
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Coke was done by Um, a voice from a very
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: popular voice actor named Maurice La March who voiced everything
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: from Egon on The Real Ghostbusters to Brain on Animaniacs
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: and apparently was really good at burping. He's a belching champions,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: a belching champ like Booger from Better Off Dead? And uh,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: was it Better Off Dead or Revenge of the Nerds
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: that he burp did? Well, it was Revenge of the nerds,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: but he was he was better and better off. Dend
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: agreed this entire mountains All right, let's go with one
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: more here. Um. Will Ferrell actually worked as a department
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: store Santa at the point years not not to train
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: for it. Wasn't a method actor like this was years
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: before when he was with the Groundlings in Los Angeles, US.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: That's like second City kind of sure or ucb um.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: And he and a fellow Groundling named Chris Ktan actually
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: got the same gig. Will Farrell was Santa and Chris
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Catan played an Elf, and they both ended up on
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: SARTA Night Live together. Can you imagine being in Los
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Angeles and Will Farrell is your Santa and Chris Catan
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: is an Elf and you have no idea, right yeah?
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Or watching sorta Night Live five years later and being like,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: wait right a minute's wait a second. And Farrell was
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: even offered a boatload of money to do a sequel
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: to Elf, like almost thirty million dollars yeah, and he
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: said no, which I think is great, a great move
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: because then you have the untainted classic. Uh and like
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the Christmas Story Part two, you never have to suffer
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: through something like that or Anchorman two. Oh you know,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: although a dude who is in our TV show was
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: in that his speaking part Matt. I don't remember his
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: last name, but he played the paramedic in the episode
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: where you get stung by It. Yeah, I know Matt.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: He's in. He's in Anchorman too, and he has like
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: a little speaking role. Oh no, because they shot there
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: here in Atlanta. Yeah, it's great. He does good. I
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: haven't seen Anchor Man too. I avoided it because I
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: didn't want to taint the original. I heard it was
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: so bad. I take issue with that. I don't think
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: a sequel contained the original. The original stands on its own,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. M I disagree with it, Okay,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: and I could be wrong. Well, now what's your opinion?
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you? So you can't be wrong that Chuck? Pretty Christmas,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't It's the Christmas here? You want to end this thing, Yeah,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: let's do it with our traditional reading. Yes, So, everybody,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: if you didn't have the law going yet, or you
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: didn't have a family gather around, if you didn't take
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Chuck's advice at the beginning, you probably should now because
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: it unto you. Yes, whoa whoa, Everybody it's time for
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: our Christmas reading, and we read all sorts of stuff.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: We found the most obscure Christmas story of all time,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: written by the guy who wrote Wizard of Oz. For
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: last year. Um, we've done twice. The night before Christmas,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: we did some story about naked elves a few years back.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: You remember that we do a Gift of the Magi
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: may Yeah, we read the entire Gift of the Magis
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: the night before Christmas. Yeah, so this time we're finally
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: we cannot put it off any longer. We are going
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: going to read a selection from the movie Boogie Nights,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: all right, where the word Christmas is used but out
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: of context. That's good, chuckings. We're going to read a
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: very classic letter, a real life letter that was written
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: to the New York Sun on September by a little
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: girl named Virginia O'Hanlon. And this really happened. Yeah, how
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: about this? I'll read the little girls and then you
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: can read the response. Oh wow, really yeah? Are you
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: sure we have to take our roles here? Okay? All right,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: New York Sun, September eighteen seven. People, Dear editor, I
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: am eight years old. Some of my little friends say,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: there is no, Santa Claus, Papa says, if you see
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: it in the sun, it's so. What he means is
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: the Sun newspaper. Not look directly into the sun because
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: you'll go blind. Please tell me the truth. Is there
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: a Santa Claus, signed Virginia O'Hanlon of Well should we
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: read her address? I think she's long gone one fifteen
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: West Street. Man, if you live at one set today,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: you should know that that's a very legendary abode. Yeah,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: all right. Now here was the reply, which was pretty great.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: This is from the editors of the New York Sun,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: who wrote, we take pleasure in answering thus prominently the
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: that it's faithful author is numbered among the friends of
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the Sun. This was their apply, Virginia, your little friends
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Man is a mere insect, and aunt in his intellect
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: is compared with the boundless world about him, as measured
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause. He
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: and you know that they abound and give your life
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: its greatest beauty and joy. Alas how dreary would be
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the world if there were no Santa Clause. It would
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: be as dreary as if there were no Virginia's. There
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: would be no childlike faith, then no poetry, no romance
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: except in sense and sight, the external light with which
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: child old hood fills the world would be extinguished. Not
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: believe in Santa Claus, you might as well not believe
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: in fairies. You might get your Papa to hire men
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: catch Santa Claus. But even if you did not see
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Santa coming down, what would that proof. Nobody sees Santa Claus.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: But that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: The most real things in the world are those that
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: fairies dancing on the lawn, of course not, but that's
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: in the world. You tear apart the baby's rattle and
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: see what makes the noise inside. But there is a
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: veil covering the unseen world, which not the strongest man,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: nor even the united strength of all the strongest men
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real, Virginia,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: In all this world, there's nothing else real and abiding. No,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Santa Claus, Thank God, he lives and lives forever a
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: thousand years from now, Virginia, nay ten times ten thousand
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: years from now. He will continue to make glad the
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: heart of childhood. How about that? Pretty great response? Yeah,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: slightly scathing at times. Yeah take that, you little nonbelieving kids.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: All in the good name of the Christmas Spirit. Yep So,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: in the good name of the Christmas Spirit, from us
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Josh and Jerry and No and Noel and
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: h little sack from Casey to uh, Emily and Umi
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: and Anna Sure nice uh Ruby Rose and yeah we
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: have family. Wow, I know it's been a great two
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: thousand fifteens. Pretty sweet. Who else? Anybody? I think that's everybody.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: That's the whole stuff. You should know family, my mistress Natasha,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: all right, forget you. We want to wish you guys
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: a happy holiday season. Merry Christmas. Yeah, be safe out
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: there and enjoy each other. And hey, we'll see you
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: again in well, we'll see them before them. Merry Christmas, everybody.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com