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The 2017 SYSK Christmas Extravaganza! · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey Hey, hey, hey, ho ho ho, and
0:23
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
0:28
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. You know, we have a special uh ELF
0:32
Speaker 1: with us this this time this year for our Christmas
0:35
Speaker 1: special Noel Elf on the shelf, Noel Hark, you're the bells?
0:40
Speaker 1: There go the bells? Where are the bells? I am
0:42
Speaker 1: the bells. It's pretty good. Thanks? Was that tubular bells?
0:49
Speaker 1: No but one of my that just reminded me of
0:51
Speaker 1: one of my favorite SNL skits of all time where
0:53
Speaker 1: the Sweeney Sisters? Um was it? Jan Hooks? Geez, the
0:59
Speaker 1: late Jan Hooks. Man very sad about that. And I
1:02
Speaker 1: think Norah Dunne, if I remember correctly remember them the
1:06
Speaker 1: Sweeney Sisters, of course, I do so great, And I
1:10
Speaker 1: think they did that for their their Christmas episode. They
1:13
Speaker 1: did a great medley of Christmas tunes and that one
1:17
Speaker 1: sort of went like that, nice, it's so good. Well
1:20
Speaker 1: you just nailed it, man. How are you feeling pretty good?
1:24
Speaker 1: I'm feeling great because this uh is one of my
1:27
Speaker 1: favorite episodes of the year. Me too. And we'd like
1:30
Speaker 1: to point out not to tuot our horn. But one
1:33
Speaker 1: of the things we always fight for every year is
1:35
Speaker 1: that the Christmas episode, along with the Halloween episode, remains
1:38
Speaker 1: add free. We fight for it to the death. There's
1:42
Speaker 1: so many dead ad sales. People are awake, but you
1:45
Speaker 1: know what, they deserved it. They shouldn't have crossed. The
1:50
Speaker 1: ship has just led us, you know. Yeah, so this
1:54
Speaker 1: is an ever free episode, like you said, and I'm
1:57
Speaker 1: pretty proud of that too. I think it's nice of us. Yeah, uh,
2:03
Speaker 1: this is this is just one of my favorite episodes
2:05
Speaker 1: of the year. It's fun. So as we do every year, Josh,
2:07
Speaker 1: I think we want to encourage everyone to light a fire,
2:12
Speaker 1: maybe pour up a hot buttered rum Oh yeah, that's
2:15
Speaker 1: a good one. Although we do have a good recipe
2:17
Speaker 1: for this year. Yeah, I guess they could listen to
2:19
Speaker 1: that and then come back to the beginning or a
2:22
Speaker 1: rummy eggnog. We're just your favorite non alcoholic Christmas drink
2:26
Speaker 1: of choice. Get the family together, like the Yule log
2:31
Speaker 1: hangs the hang that missiletoe, right, and let's get this underway.
2:35
Speaker 1: So it's been a pretty pretty uh, it's been an
2:38
Speaker 1: interesting year so far, right, Yeah, but um, I always
2:42
Speaker 1: like these ones because they make me reflect on the
2:44
Speaker 1: year and it seems like it was just a month
2:46
Speaker 1: ago that the year started. Uh, it has gonna by fast.
2:51
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm speeding toward death. But when I
2:56
Speaker 1: think about being forty six years old and speeding towards death,
3:01
Speaker 1: I think, wow, when I was a kid, that was
3:06
Speaker 1: a long time ago. So if I'm you know, around
3:09
Speaker 1: middle age ish, like, I got a long way to go.
3:12
Speaker 1: And it just seems like it's that trick that your
3:15
Speaker 1: mind plays on you, right where it seems like time
3:18
Speaker 1: is gaining speed as you get older. Right. I think
3:21
Speaker 1: there's some science behind that too. I think there's two.
3:23
Speaker 1: I think it's because you have less time to compare
3:26
Speaker 1: it to when you're a kid, whereas the older you
3:28
Speaker 1: get you have more time to compare it to. Probably so,
3:31
Speaker 1: But the the I've had that same exact thought, chuck,
3:34
Speaker 1: within the last probably two weeks, towards death. No, no, no,
3:38
Speaker 1: the other one where it's like, wait a minute, I've
3:41
Speaker 1: I've lived for a very long time and I'm right
3:43
Speaker 1: at middle age, so I've got a long time left,
3:46
Speaker 1: and baby, I'm gonna make the most out of it.
3:48
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna start with the two thousand and seventeen
3:51
Speaker 1: stuff you should know Christmas extravagance. I'll tell you what
3:55
Speaker 1: you shouldn't do. Then if you if you've got a
3:57
Speaker 1: good feeling about the future and you're a long way
3:59
Speaker 1: toward death, don't then go down the road of Yeah,
4:03
Speaker 1: but I only got about fifteen or twenty more good
4:05
Speaker 1: years right now, it gets really sad. I assume that
4:10
Speaker 1: medical science is going to advance by such leaps and bounds. Yeah,
4:13
Speaker 1: we're going to be living healthy to like one fifty. Yeah,
4:17
Speaker 1: we're gonna be playing tennis at when I finally just
4:20
Speaker 1: go over and unplugged and drop dead right there on
4:23
Speaker 1: the tennis court. Yeah, after you beat me in our
4:25
Speaker 1: final game. Yeah, and a simulation of Andre Agassi. All right,
4:31
Speaker 1: so let's do this. Should we take an ad break?
4:36
Speaker 1: Pretty good, Chuck. Let's take a little jingle break? How
4:38
Speaker 1: about that? Then we'll get into it, all right, Happy holidays, Chuck,
4:43
Speaker 1: Thank you, all right, buddy, we're back. Oh and speaking
5:04
Speaker 1: of jingles, big thanks to our pal John begin who
5:08
Speaker 1: composed us for us. He's composed a number of stuff
5:11
Speaker 1: you should know ad break jingles, and we went to
5:14
Speaker 1: and said Hey, will you compose for us this Christmas season?
5:18
Speaker 1: He said yes, and it was a Christmas miracle. Agreed?
5:22
Speaker 1: And what should we start with? Oh man, I think
5:25
Speaker 1: we have to start with die Hard is dieharded Christmas movie? This? This,
5:30
Speaker 1: you you found this, you put together most of this.
5:32
Speaker 1: This is a world class episode. By the way, I
5:34
Speaker 1: want to commend you for it. Thanks. And it's not
5:37
Speaker 1: like I dug this up this and almost got annoyed
5:39
Speaker 1: by this one because it's become a very trendy thing
5:43
Speaker 1: over the past few years to argue about whether or
5:45
Speaker 1: not die Hard as a Christmas movie. Yeah, it's basically
5:48
Speaker 1: the clear symbol that civilization is sliding into irreversible decline.
5:54
Speaker 1: Argument over this, so let's talk about it. Yeah, because
5:57
Speaker 1: I think the reason why I got jazzed about it,
5:59
Speaker 1: I feel very similar to you. It's kind of like, guys,
6:01
Speaker 1: this could not matter less, stop arguing about this. That
6:05
Speaker 1: was my William Shatner impression. Um, this article you sent
6:10
Speaker 1: by art Ta Vanna from l A Weekly. I just
6:12
Speaker 1: think it really gets the point across so well. That
6:15
Speaker 1: jazz me. Yeah, you know what, do I even have
6:18
Speaker 1: that one? Why don't you lead this one? Then? Okay, well,
6:21
Speaker 1: Jimminy Crickets, I think I might have sent it to
6:23
Speaker 1: you and then not even use that one. Oh it's great, man,
6:26
Speaker 1: This one is like the best. I'm actually putting it
6:28
Speaker 1: on my UM website. Are you serious, Clark, It's going
6:31
Speaker 1: on the reading list. What's the name of it. It's
6:33
Speaker 1: called Yes, die Hard is a Christmas movie? Stop debating it. Okay,
6:37
Speaker 1: I don't think I have that one, so but I'm
6:39
Speaker 1: I can I know die Hard inside and out so
6:42
Speaker 1: I can get in there. Okay, So Art Art says
6:44
Speaker 1: that he starts with a quote. Art says, this is
6:48
Speaker 1: a quote from a BuzzFeed article, but from way back
6:50
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen. This has been going on a while,
6:53
Speaker 1: but the BuzzFeed wrote, quote most prized among people of
6:57
Speaker 1: this opinion that die Hard is a Christmas movie is
6:59
Speaker 1: the transgressive act of selecting a violent action movie over
7:04
Speaker 1: home alone or more classic fair. We get it, You're
7:07
Speaker 1: too cool for regular Christmas movies, right, So they laid
7:10
Speaker 1: down the gauntlet. I think they did a good bit
7:13
Speaker 1: of calling out and they probably got it right for
7:15
Speaker 1: some people. But Art says, wait a minute, Wait a minute,
7:17
Speaker 1: who's to say what classic Christmas fare is if you're saying,
7:20
Speaker 1: if you're talking about It's a Wonderful Life, you're being
7:23
Speaker 1: brainwashed like Frank Capra followed in the tradition of Norman Rockwell,
7:28
Speaker 1: and all of this is like some weirdo small town
7:31
Speaker 1: communalism utopianism that doesn't have even really exist. And the
7:36
Speaker 1: whole reason that you're crazy for It's a Wonderful Life
7:39
Speaker 1: is because it lost its copy right back in the
7:42
Speaker 1: seventies and the television networks around the country started showing
7:46
Speaker 1: it for free, so it almost was force fit into
7:50
Speaker 1: a Christmas tradition. And it's a Wonderful Life, I mean,
7:55
Speaker 1: if we gotta, if we're really gonna take this down
7:57
Speaker 1: that path. Is not a Chris Smiths movie. It's not
8:01
Speaker 1: even set at Christmas. There is a scene set on
8:05
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, one scene in that movie. And something I
8:09
Speaker 1: read because I was looking up whether or not It's
8:11
Speaker 1: a Wonderful Life as a Christmas movie or it's just
8:13
Speaker 1: got that by association, and they said, if if It's
8:16
Speaker 1: a Wonderful Life is a Christmas movie, then e t
8:19
Speaker 1: is a Halloween movie. I don't know, man, I don't know,
8:22
Speaker 1: because here's the thing, and this is, this is we'll
8:24
Speaker 1: just reveal the end here. Then the one thing that
8:28
Speaker 1: die Hard and It's a Wonderful Life have in common
8:32
Speaker 1: is getting your family back before Christmas morning. Like the
8:40
Speaker 1: the whole thing that's driving the plot is a race
8:42
Speaker 1: against time to get everything the way that it should
8:46
Speaker 1: be before Christmas morning happens. Sure, And also, is a
8:51
Speaker 1: Christmas movie one that is is set at Christmas or
8:53
Speaker 1: one that is just got filled with the spirit of Christmas?
8:58
Speaker 1: I think if are you asking what my opinion is.
9:02
Speaker 1: My opinion is that if somebody feels like Christmas Eve
9:05
Speaker 1: when they watch a movie and it becomes like a
9:07
Speaker 1: tradition for them to watch it, or they have a
9:10
Speaker 1: good Christmas feeling from it, then leave that person alone. Well,
9:14
Speaker 1: but like, is the Godfather Thanksgiving movie because they showed
9:17
Speaker 1: Everythanksgiving on TV? And The Sound of Music is an
9:21
Speaker 1: Easter movie because they show it around Easter. If it
9:24
Speaker 1: is that to some people, then then that's fine. It
9:26
Speaker 1: makes it that for those people. Okay, so you're saying
9:30
Speaker 1: the setting of the movie and the contents they're in
9:34
Speaker 1: have no bearing on whether or not, Like it doesn't
9:36
Speaker 1: even have to take place at Christmas or be Christmas Eve. No,
9:39
Speaker 1: I'm I'm saying that, yes, it does not have to
9:42
Speaker 1: take place at Christmas, but I'm not saying that the
9:45
Speaker 1: settings had no bearing because I do think that if
9:47
Speaker 1: if die Hard wasn't set at Christmas, no one would
9:51
Speaker 1: be talking about whether it was a Christmas movie or not.
9:54
Speaker 1: So that the the time that it takes place definitely
9:57
Speaker 1: does have an impact on it. That's not the only thing.
10:01
Speaker 1: And if it doesn't take place around Christmas, that doesn't
10:03
Speaker 1: automatically disqualify it from being a Christmas movie. It just
10:07
Speaker 1: makes make it a Christmas movie. Right, So so that's
10:10
Speaker 1: our Those are our opinions. But let's get into what
10:13
Speaker 1: Art ta Vana says all the reasons why I die
10:15
Speaker 1: Hard is a Christmas movie? Huh? All right, what's he got?
10:18
Speaker 1: So he says not only is it a Christmas movie,
10:21
Speaker 1: but he said that it is one of the This
10:23
Speaker 1: is a quote one of the most carefully sculpted Christmas
10:27
Speaker 1: allegories in history. So either Art ta Vanna is totally
10:31
Speaker 1: mad or this guy's got something figured out that everybody
10:35
Speaker 1: else is missing. Yeah, I mean he does make some
10:37
Speaker 1: pretty good points. Um. One of the things, well, I mean,
10:41
Speaker 1: we can just tick through a bunch of these. One
10:43
Speaker 1: of the things is, uh is the name John from
10:47
Speaker 1: John McLean, he said, could be an illusion to John
10:49
Speaker 1: the Baptist or John the Apostle. And also Holly Gennaro
10:53
Speaker 1: the wife, her name is Holly. Doesn't get much more
10:56
Speaker 1: Christmas E than Holly, that's right, and so John. The
10:59
Speaker 1: premise of this is John has lost his wife. Ers.
11:02
Speaker 1: In the process of losing his wife, she's moved from
11:05
Speaker 1: New York, their home, to l A to pursue her career,
11:10
Speaker 1: and in the process she's dropped her married name in
11:14
Speaker 1: favor of Gennaro, her her maiden name. That's what That's
11:19
Speaker 1: what she goes by professionally, right, John is out there.
11:23
Speaker 1: The premise of this is what has brought John out
11:26
Speaker 1: to l A for Christmas is to to basically reclaim
11:30
Speaker 1: his wife, as art Ta Vana puts it. Okay, So
11:34
Speaker 1: that's the that's the premise in John's name can be
11:38
Speaker 1: an allegory for John the Baptist, John the Apostle, something
11:41
Speaker 1: religious and Christmas E christianny I should say. And then
11:46
Speaker 1: Holly's name is that pagan plant Holly. And then he
11:49
Speaker 1: also says that there's thirteen terrorists, which doesn't it first
11:53
Speaker 1: seem very Christmas e right, yeah, but he says that
11:58
Speaker 1: very Uh. Specifically, Han Scruber says that he is not
12:02
Speaker 1: a terrorist. Uh. And so then you have twelve to
12:07
Speaker 1: see this is where it Paul's apart fer me. He says,
12:08
Speaker 1: twelve card carrying terrorists, like the twelve Apostle christ or
12:12
Speaker 1: the twelve Days of Christmas. But like, none of them
12:15
Speaker 1: are terrorists. They're all robbers. Uh. Yeah, but only one
12:20
Speaker 1: of them said that they're not a terrorist. Right. I
12:25
Speaker 1: thought that was a weak two. But then Art wins
12:27
Speaker 1: me back with the very next point. He says that, um,
12:31
Speaker 1: like Santa Claus John McClean, it keeps a list, but
12:35
Speaker 1: he writes its sharply on his arm. And rather than
12:37
Speaker 1: it's boys and girls who have been good or bad,
12:40
Speaker 1: naughty or nice, these are terrorists he's either killed or
12:43
Speaker 1: plans to kill. Uh. And of course, in one of
12:47
Speaker 1: the great scenes, uh when and by the way, spoiler alerts, oh, man,
12:53
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess so people like man I was
12:55
Speaker 1: just gonna watch die Hard this year for the first
12:57
Speaker 1: time ever. Uh. He sends one dead terrorist down in
13:00
Speaker 1: one of my favorite scenes from the thirty second floor
13:04
Speaker 1: down the lobby, the door opens. He is dead and
13:08
Speaker 1: has a on his chest. Okay, say it in a
13:12
Speaker 1: German accent, please, and not only that, I'll say it
13:15
Speaker 1: with my best Alan Rickman r I p now a
13:19
Speaker 1: half a machine gun. Ho ho ho oh goodness. So
13:28
Speaker 1: he says this proves that McClean is a sociopathic Santa
13:31
Speaker 1: Clause yeah, and that the elevator was his chimney. Yeah.
13:35
Speaker 1: M hmm. So it's getting a little weird here. John
13:38
Speaker 1: McClean has Christmas dinner. That's the twinkie that he eats
13:41
Speaker 1: during a period of respite week. It's weak um, but
13:47
Speaker 1: he says, Art says, there is a miracle in this,
13:50
Speaker 1: and they even call it out there's a Christmas miracle
13:53
Speaker 1: because remember THEO, the guy who's kind of like the
13:55
Speaker 1: hacker of the group. He's trying to crack the safe
13:58
Speaker 1: with the drill and Hans comes down to see how
14:01
Speaker 1: the progress is going, and THEO tells them it's going
14:04
Speaker 1: to take a miracle to get past this electromagnetic lock.
14:09
Speaker 1: Very in very short order, the FBI turns off the power.
14:14
Speaker 1: But before this, Hans Gruber says, THEO, you asked for
14:18
Speaker 1: a miracle, I give you the f B. I. So
14:23
Speaker 1: they specifically say there's a miracle in this, in this ship,
14:27
Speaker 1: in this movie. Yeah, that's another one, that's right. What
14:32
Speaker 1: else John McClean makes it. He makes it back to
14:38
Speaker 1: his family. He and his wife are reunited. At the end,
14:41
Speaker 1: she gives him her Christmas gifts. She identifies herself as
14:44
Speaker 1: Holly McClean. Right, and then ostensibly by extension, I guess
14:50
Speaker 1: they're going to go home to their six year old
14:52
Speaker 1: daughter for Christmas morning. The sun has not risen yet,
14:56
Speaker 1: so it's still Christmas Eve, and there are Barra bonds
15:00
Speaker 1: floating down like snow around them, and they even play
15:03
Speaker 1: the song let it Snow. So Art points some stuff out.
15:07
Speaker 1: He says he went back and looked at reviews that
15:10
Speaker 1: he could find because he works for l A Weekly,
15:12
Speaker 1: he's a he's a movie critic. I think he sold
15:15
Speaker 1: water to me. At this point, he said, I could
15:18
Speaker 1: not find any reviews that cited this thing as a
15:21
Speaker 1: Christmas movie. It came out in July. Yeah, this this
15:25
Speaker 1: is definitely something that has been retrofitted for sure, Right,
15:29
Speaker 1: No one called it a Christmas movie back then. Only
15:32
Speaker 1: the clever generations of today. So yeah, so he points
15:36
Speaker 1: out that, um that no one at the time said
15:39
Speaker 1: this is a great Christmas movie as a buddy picture.
15:41
Speaker 1: It's how they put it right, um or just an
15:44
Speaker 1: action like shoot him up fast, and it was. It
15:46
Speaker 1: was a great movie still is right. But the he
15:51
Speaker 1: he says that, um, at the same time, there was
15:54
Speaker 1: a weird kind of foreshadowing that same year because Scrooge
15:58
Speaker 1: came out, which is another a great Christmas movie, and
16:01
Speaker 1: that is a bona fide Christmas movie because it's an
16:03
Speaker 1: adaptation of a Christmas Carol, there's no question about that.
16:07
Speaker 1: But in it, Bill Murray plays a TV executive who
16:10
Speaker 1: has green lit a picture called The Night the Reindeer
16:13
Speaker 1: Died and it's about a terrorist attack on the North
16:17
Speaker 1: Pole in Santa's workshop, and he says, the implication of
16:21
Speaker 1: this is that you would have to be some soulless
16:24
Speaker 1: TV executive to watch an action movie for Christmas. Yeah.
16:31
Speaker 1: I don't buy it. Oh, I think it just ties
16:33
Speaker 1: the whole thing up. It just brings it right back
16:35
Speaker 1: to the beginning. Man. No, no no, no, I don't buy
16:36
Speaker 1: that you would have to be a soulless uh. Oh yeah, yeah,
16:40
Speaker 1: I'm on board. I think it's a Christmas movie. Art
16:42
Speaker 1: Tavanna is the oracle of our time. Uh, so I
16:46
Speaker 1: have Are you done with Art Tavanna? Yeah? All right,
16:48
Speaker 1: because I've got a very special Christmas gift for you, sir. Okay,
16:52
Speaker 1: And I kept this a surprise, thank you. I was
16:54
Speaker 1: wondering what this was. You see, I'm holding a piece
16:56
Speaker 1: of paper in my hand, and when I have in
16:58
Speaker 1: my hand is an email exchange with the writer of
17:03
Speaker 1: die Hard. What Jeb Stewart, What this is insider information?
17:11
Speaker 1: What I know? Right? Wow? All right? So man, look
17:15
Speaker 1: at that smile. I can't believe I'm dizzy. All right.
17:20
Speaker 1: So I was able to get this email and he
17:24
Speaker 1: was happy to oblige. Uh. He's sort of been making
17:27
Speaker 1: the rounds on this, I think interviewed him on it,
17:29
Speaker 1: and um, and he's just a great dude. So um.
17:33
Speaker 1: I knew that there was a book that die Hard
17:35
Speaker 1: was based on called Nothing Last Forever by Roger Thorpe,
17:39
Speaker 1: and so I thought, well, when he wrote that, you know,
17:42
Speaker 1: was that said at Christmas? Was Christmas a big deal?
17:44
Speaker 1: Or did you run with it? So these are this
17:46
Speaker 1: is his reply and all this amazing chuck. Uh and
17:51
Speaker 1: this is it's not super long, but I'm just I'm
17:53
Speaker 1: gonna read the whole thing because that conserves it. So
17:55
Speaker 1: he said that, uh uh nothing. Last Forever is a
17:58
Speaker 1: dark Nora novel about a sixty us year old man
18:01
Speaker 1: who comes to bits forty year visit his forty year
18:03
Speaker 1: old daughter in l A. So obviously he changed that stuff.
18:07
Speaker 1: Uh and then he and then he, you know, talks
18:09
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the writing process, and then
18:10
Speaker 1: he says, so back to your question, Yes, Christmas was
18:14
Speaker 1: always part of the theme. Thorpe said it on December
18:18
Speaker 1: the novel for a very practical reason. We need the
18:20
Speaker 1: building as empty as possible. Yeah, so that makes sense.
18:24
Speaker 1: That's where that comes from. However, once he established this,
18:27
Speaker 1: he sort of abandoned the theme. Since I had a
18:30
Speaker 1: lot of dramatic leeway, I took the approach let's go
18:33
Speaker 1: for it first. So this all came from Jeb Stewart,
18:36
Speaker 1: all the Christmas e stuff. First. I changed the main
18:39
Speaker 1: characters ages set up the story about a thirty year
18:41
Speaker 1: old guy with old school ideas about marriage coming from
18:44
Speaker 1: New York to visit as a strange wife, but everything
18:46
Speaker 1: right again with his family. L A represents and conflicts
18:50
Speaker 1: with his views of normal Christmas. Music is different, the
18:53
Speaker 1: office party and gifts are over the top. His wife
18:55
Speaker 1: keeps her maiden name, and the temperature is warm and
18:58
Speaker 1: not snowy. It drives him crazy. But once Hans Gruber
19:01
Speaker 1: takes over Nakami Plaza, all that melts away, all the action,
19:05
Speaker 1: all the struggle become John McLean's long journey to discover
19:08
Speaker 1: what really matters his family. You don't appreciate what you
19:11
Speaker 1: have until you risk losing it. Since family is at
19:14
Speaker 1: the core of the idea of this work, what better
19:17
Speaker 1: than what better holiday than Christmas? Uh, there's no question
19:21
Speaker 1: in my mind that die Hard is a Christmas movie.
19:24
Speaker 1: You have you have it. A Christmas movie has more
19:28
Speaker 1: to do with just being said at the holiday. It
19:30
Speaker 1: has to include the holiday in the themes of the film.
19:32
Speaker 1: Christmas also needs to be reflected in the characters, their
19:35
Speaker 1: stories and dialogue. I tried to do this as much
19:38
Speaker 1: as possible, even when it means sending a body down
19:40
Speaker 1: the elevator with a Santa cap and a message written
19:43
Speaker 1: on a shirt saying ho ho ho Now I have
19:46
Speaker 1: a machine gun. Anyway, that is my argument that Die
19:49
Speaker 1: Hards a Christmas film. I'm happy some people agree. As
19:52
Speaker 1: someone once told me, it's not Christmas at our house
19:55
Speaker 1: until Hans Gruber falls off nakatmi plaza. Amen to that,
20:00
Speaker 1: Jeb Stewart. Wow, that is definitive, Chuck, nicely done. Yeah,
20:05
Speaker 1: that's funny. I had no idea that it was originally
20:07
Speaker 1: ho ho ho. Now I have a machine gun. I'm
20:09
Speaker 1: sure some exects workshopped it and focus grouped it and
20:12
Speaker 1: then they switched it around. Well I'm not sure if
20:16
Speaker 1: he's saying that's how he wrote it, but that's wonderful, Chuck.
20:19
Speaker 1: Kudos to you. That's a great Christmas present. And kudos
20:22
Speaker 1: to Jeb Stewart. He says he's a big stuff. You
20:23
Speaker 1: should know fans to take that for what it's worth. Well,
20:26
Speaker 1: I just got you some socks. Oh wow, Sorry, I
20:32
Speaker 1: got you a personalized letter from Jeb Stewart and some socks.
20:36
Speaker 1: All right? Is that the end of our segment? Yeah?
20:40
Speaker 1: All right, Okay, which one you want to do next?
21:14
Speaker 1: I'm happy to rock around the Rockefeller Christmas Tree. Okay, Rockefeller,
21:20
Speaker 1: it's the The r is silent and invisible. So most
21:26
Speaker 1: of this information comes from an article this year from
21:29
Speaker 1: Dana Schultz The history of Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree a
21:33
Speaker 1: New York holiday tradition. Dude. So the Rockefeller Center Tree.
21:39
Speaker 1: Everybody knows this thing, right, They probably know more than
21:42
Speaker 1: they realized that that statue is Prometheus, the big Golden Statue,
21:46
Speaker 1: which and I only say that because I didn't realize
21:48
Speaker 1: that until researching this article. But it's an extremely famous
21:51
Speaker 1: thing because it's a giant tree, it's in the middle
21:54
Speaker 1: of New York and everybody watches it. But it has
21:56
Speaker 1: some really sweet, humble origins that I weren't what wasn't
22:00
Speaker 1: aware of at all. Yeah, and I gotta say, if
22:04
Speaker 1: you've never been to New York at Christmas, do yourself
22:07
Speaker 1: a favor and go, because the word magical is thrown
22:10
Speaker 1: around a lot, but it is truly magical. It is.
22:13
Speaker 1: It's just it's great Rockefeller Center. Uh, it's just it's
22:17
Speaker 1: wonderful to go down there. You know, even if you're
22:19
Speaker 1: a Scrooge McDuck, I think your heart might melt a bit. Sure.
22:24
Speaker 1: Can you just see like Scrooge McDuck duck weeping quietly
22:28
Speaker 1: and in public off to the side of the ice
22:31
Speaker 1: skating rink, and it would be kind of neat like
22:35
Speaker 1: there's a cartoon in real life. So back to the origins,
22:38
Speaker 1: where are we? Yeah, and the Great Depression was in
22:42
Speaker 1: full swing. This is another thing I didn't realize. Did
22:45
Speaker 1: you know the Great Depression is also called the clutch plague?
22:48
Speaker 1: Is that what that is? Yeah? I did not know that.
22:50
Speaker 1: The only explanation I saw was that the clutch plague
22:53
Speaker 1: more refers to the global depression, whereas the Great Depression
22:57
Speaker 1: is the American Great Depression. Gotcha, That's all I saw.
23:01
Speaker 1: But so the clutch Plague slash Great Depression is going
23:04
Speaker 1: on and a group of workers, construction workers are building
23:08
Speaker 1: Rockefeller Center at the time, and Christmas comes around and
23:12
Speaker 1: the workers decide, hey, we need to Christmas up this
23:14
Speaker 1: place a little bit. So they pull their money together
23:17
Speaker 1: and they buy a twenty foot tree and they install
23:20
Speaker 1: it right there on the construction site. And if that's
23:23
Speaker 1: not heartwarming enough, uh, their families made garland to decorate
23:28
Speaker 1: the tree with. So it's truly like this great little
23:32
Speaker 1: you know, the thing that these people did in the
23:35
Speaker 1: in the peak of the depression, the deepest trough of
23:38
Speaker 1: the depression, to to increase their spirits as the holidays
23:44
Speaker 1: Christmas sweaters always had embroidered up increase. Oh that's good.
23:53
Speaker 1: He really stubble that with man Um. So the men
23:57
Speaker 1: lined up apparently to get their paychecks at the tree.
23:59
Speaker 1: And a couple of years later, uh n three, Rockefeller
24:02
Speaker 1: Center said it. You know what, let's make this a thing. Uh.
24:05
Speaker 1: We're gonna actually erect a tree and have a lighting ceremony.
24:09
Speaker 1: It's gonna be fifty tall. And this is now, uh,
24:12
Speaker 1: just a great new tradition here in New York City. Yeah.
24:15
Speaker 1: So yeah, in nineteen what was that three? They've been
24:19
Speaker 1: doing it ever since. And they actually were smart enough
24:21
Speaker 1: to broadcast it on the radio. Uh. And then twenty
24:25
Speaker 1: years later they started broadcasting it on television. And apparently
24:28
Speaker 1: today like tens and tens, if not hundreds of millions
24:33
Speaker 1: of people watch the tree lighting Except me. I wasn't
24:36
Speaker 1: one of them. I forgot to watch it. I have
24:38
Speaker 1: never watched it. I haven't either, but I always go.
24:41
Speaker 1: I mean, if I'm in New York City in the wintertime,
24:45
Speaker 1: I always go by Rockefeller Center. Sure. So, there's actually
24:49
Speaker 1: some pretty cool facts about the tree that um, I
24:52
Speaker 1: wasn't aware of. They tend to be a typical species
24:57
Speaker 1: the white spruce. Yeah, and apparently that's because they are
25:02
Speaker 1: generally very straight and very strong, uh, and grow about
25:08
Speaker 1: the height that they want, which is, you know, between
25:11
Speaker 1: generally between eighty feet right. Um. And they find him
25:15
Speaker 1: by scouting by helicopter, like Pennsylvania, Connecticut, upstate New York.
25:21
Speaker 1: Apparently they got one from Ohio once that had to
25:26
Speaker 1: be flown in the world's largest cargo plane. Yeah, how
25:28
Speaker 1: about that pretty cool? So they they I mean, they
25:31
Speaker 1: put a lot of thought and this is not like, oh,
25:33
Speaker 1: there's a big tree, and they want him to be upright.
25:36
Speaker 1: And the head gardener who his job in part is
25:40
Speaker 1: to go scout throughout the year to find a tree. Um,
25:43
Speaker 1: his name is Eric Pose. He says that you want
25:47
Speaker 1: to not be able to see the sky through it.
25:50
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you wanted to be dense enough that you
25:52
Speaker 1: can't just see the sky through it. Yeah, So they
25:54
Speaker 1: erect that thing. Um. It usually does not derive by
25:58
Speaker 1: world's largest cargo plane, as he really in a truck. Uh.
26:01
Speaker 1: And then they have these guy wires. Of course, is
26:03
Speaker 1: so large they have guy wires supporting it. Right there
26:06
Speaker 1: at the midpoint, they have a steel spike in the
26:09
Speaker 1: base and for many, many years. They've had scaffolding installed
26:13
Speaker 1: around it so they can obviously get up there to
26:15
Speaker 1: decorate it. And they've been using LED lights for how long?
26:21
Speaker 1: I thought I saw a year here, two thousand seven, alright,
26:24
Speaker 1: so about ten years they've been using the L E.
26:26
Speaker 1: D s about fifty thousand. So these trees are usually donated,
26:31
Speaker 1: and I get the feeling that's a great honor. Sure.
26:33
Speaker 1: I think some guy from New York City lands helicopter
26:37
Speaker 1: in your field and says, can I have that tree
26:40
Speaker 1: for free? Well, we'll mention your name in the press release.
26:44
Speaker 1: And the city slicker just takes advantage of the poor
26:46
Speaker 1: country folk and gets a tree out of them in
26:48
Speaker 1: the true spirit of the season. So the one of
26:51
Speaker 1: the things that grabbed me was those LED lights. They
26:55
Speaker 1: save twelve hundred kill a lots of electricity a day,
26:59
Speaker 1: which is enough to power a two thousand square foot
27:02
Speaker 1: home for a month, Which means that about four years
27:06
Speaker 1: worth of energy for a two thousand square foot home
27:10
Speaker 1: is saved every year from the like month and a
27:14
Speaker 1: half that the tree is lit. That's what gets you.
27:17
Speaker 1: That's nuts. That's so much energy, and that's not how
27:20
Speaker 1: much it uses that's how much they saved by transferring
27:22
Speaker 1: to l e ed s. You know, it gets me.
27:25
Speaker 1: What So, starting many years ago, they started to recycle
27:28
Speaker 1: the trees, um. And for a while what they would
27:31
Speaker 1: do was uh mulch it up and then spread it
27:34
Speaker 1: around the walking paths of Central Park, which is pretty great.
27:38
Speaker 1: You know, it's a good way to do it. Um.
27:40
Speaker 1: But for the past eleven years, I think, including this year,
27:45
Speaker 1: what they do is they donate the tree to Habitat
27:47
Speaker 1: for Humanity, so it comes down on January seven, and
27:50
Speaker 1: then they mill the wood, make that into lumber and
27:54
Speaker 1: they build homes. So there are Habitat for Humanity homes
27:57
Speaker 1: that people are living in, built from the rocket fellow
28:00
Speaker 1: Christmas trees, and you can sell them for a million bucks.
28:03
Speaker 1: That's so great. It is pretty great. I mean, just
28:06
Speaker 1: the Habitat for Humanity parts great enough. You know. I
28:10
Speaker 1: think when they were moltenate, they got about thirty thirty
28:15
Speaker 1: three bushel bags of mulch and everyone involved in the
28:19
Speaker 1: spreading of the molts was mugged. Yeah that's Central Park.
28:23
Speaker 1: It's nineteen well I guess back then maybe, yeah. So, Um.
28:27
Speaker 1: One of the other things that that grabbed me was
28:30
Speaker 1: the star that's now become pretty famous too. It's I
28:33
Speaker 1: think it was introduced in two thousand four. It says
28:37
Speaker 1: it's made of twenty five thousand crystals, right, and the
28:40
Speaker 1: thing is like ten ft tall and weighs five pounds. Yeah,
28:45
Speaker 1: it's crazy. It's nine a half feet wide. It was
28:46
Speaker 1: designed by an artist, a Geman artist, Michael Hamas And uh, yeah,
28:53
Speaker 1: that's they've been using that thing since two thousand four. Yeah,
28:56
Speaker 1: I've had fifty pounds of star. Can you imagine if
28:58
Speaker 1: that thing just came off the top up? It would
29:01
Speaker 1: it would kill somebody Because there's actually a pretty good
29:05
Speaker 1: chance that it could kill somebody. Chuck, because three quarters
29:09
Speaker 1: of a million people come see that tree every day,
29:14
Speaker 1: so the chance of it following on somebody or pretty high.
29:17
Speaker 1: I've never been by when it's just desolate. I'll say that. No,
29:20
Speaker 1: I can't imagine three quarters of a million in a day.
29:23
Speaker 1: That's crazy. So that's it for the tree. Huh, that's
29:26
Speaker 1: all I got. One of these days, we're gonna watch
29:28
Speaker 1: the lighting. Will make some popcorn, Get our coziest socks on,
29:33
Speaker 1: get our eggnog on. Oh yeah, I think that that
29:36
Speaker 1: just went without saying, so, Chuck, this is one of
30:12
Speaker 1: my favorites of all time, which one I had no
30:15
Speaker 1: idea that well, like finding out about a little weird
30:18
Speaker 1: pop culture things that happened before I was born, I
30:22
Speaker 1: had no idea about It's one of my favorite things
30:25
Speaker 1: in the world. And you've delighted me by sending this
30:28
Speaker 1: thing to me about Christmas in space in Did you
30:31
Speaker 1: know about this already? No? But I was just thinking,
30:34
Speaker 1: like you, you have been diligent about keeping a list
30:37
Speaker 1: of what we've done every year so we don't repeat ourselves. Um,
30:40
Speaker 1: and it's getting tough. I gotta say, there's only so
30:44
Speaker 1: much Christmas that's happened. I literally looked up like I
30:47
Speaker 1: think two or three different things. I was like, we've
30:49
Speaker 1: never done this, and then I saw your list. I
30:51
Speaker 1: was like, ah, we've done that. So um, I thought,
30:55
Speaker 1: wait a minute, like astronauts spending Christmas in space, that's
30:58
Speaker 1: that's gotta have happened. Oh, you had an independent thought
31:01
Speaker 1: about it, like it wasn't You didn't just come across it.
31:05
Speaker 1: I don't know. I had an independent That is magnificent,
31:08
Speaker 1: a Christmas miracle. It must have increased your holiday spirit
31:12
Speaker 1: tremendously by at least thirty eight percent. So Christmas in
31:18
Speaker 1: space happened for the first time in nine There was
31:22
Speaker 1: actually like a holiday transmission basically, um the Apollo eight
31:28
Speaker 1: crew starring Frank Boorman who was the commander, Tom Hanks
31:32
Speaker 1: slash Jim Level was the pilot, and William Anders was
31:37
Speaker 1: the Lunar module pilot, and they orbited the Moon on
31:41
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, and they knew they were going to be
31:45
Speaker 1: orbiting the Moon, so they planned to transmission from space
31:48
Speaker 1: to basically they launched on December twenty one, like, oh,
31:52
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I didn't Oh oh man, Yeah, did
31:56
Speaker 1: you pack a Bible for them to read from? I
31:59
Speaker 1: thought you did. Well, somebody thought about it because they
32:02
Speaker 1: had a Bible up there or else they have like
32:03
Speaker 1: a bunch of scripture rehearsed and memorized because they decided
32:08
Speaker 1: to go with Christianity that year for Christmas, which is appropriate,
32:12
Speaker 1: and they from space they read some scripture and uh
32:16
Speaker 1: and bestowed blessings on the Earth below them. And apparently
32:20
Speaker 1: a billion people watched this transmission of their live pictures
32:24
Speaker 1: in their audio over the like from the lunar module. Yeah,
32:29
Speaker 1: so they sent out this transmission. Uh. They closed with
32:33
Speaker 1: the message good night, good luck, a merry Christmas, and
32:37
Speaker 1: God bless all of you, all of you on the
32:40
Speaker 1: good Earth. That was a great Frank Bourman, you know, Burman,
32:46
Speaker 1: very stiff. I thought that was nice. It was kind
32:50
Speaker 1: of velvety. Oh well, I appreciate that. Right. So the
32:57
Speaker 1: the Christmas and space thing, it was kind of sporadic
32:59
Speaker 1: for a while. Sky Lab U five years later where
33:03
Speaker 1: the next group to UM spend Christmas in space. They
33:06
Speaker 1: made a little Christmas tree out of food cans. There
33:11
Speaker 1: was a Space Shuttle launch or a Space Shuttle mission
33:14
Speaker 1: in ninety four or nineties. I'm sorry, UM they spent
33:21
Speaker 1: Christmas in space and they fixed the Hubble telescope on
33:25
Speaker 1: that mission, which was huge, huge, it changed everything. Yeah,
33:30
Speaker 1: that was a big deal. Um. The first time there
33:32
Speaker 1: was Christmas in space on the Russian mirror, American astronaut
33:36
Speaker 1: John Blaha I went up there and said, yeah, I'm
33:40
Speaker 1: appear with cosmonauts, but I guess I'll celebrate Christmas anyway.
33:45
Speaker 1: And I believe, uh, I believe that was his second
33:49
Speaker 1: Christmas in space. Yeah. That guy was just showing off
33:53
Speaker 1: by then. Yeah, He's like, I don't have a family
33:55
Speaker 1: I care about, Just go ahead and send me up.
33:58
Speaker 1: This was just a single guy. I got some plants
34:01
Speaker 1: I don't take very good care of. And you know what,
34:03
Speaker 1: my parents are gone to some mothers and Father's Day.
34:05
Speaker 1: Go ahead and send me right, They always said him,
34:08
Speaker 1: whether he wanted to go or not, if it wasn't,
34:11
Speaker 1: if it wasn't in space, he was eating by himself
34:13
Speaker 1: and kind of weeping quietly at Cracker Barrel. So which
34:16
Speaker 1: one is it gonna be? You choose? Buddy? Is cracker
34:20
Speaker 1: Barrel on Christmas? Is it? Yeah? I knew waffle House was? Yeah?
34:25
Speaker 1: You mean I ate there for Thanksgiving this year at
34:27
Speaker 1: waffle House? No? I think Cracker Barrel. Okay, it was
34:30
Speaker 1: actually really good. I ate waffle House Thanksgiving one year
34:33
Speaker 1: by myself outside. Is that? Did you really? Yeah? I
34:36
Speaker 1: can't remember the deal, but it was one year where
34:38
Speaker 1: like my family wasn't around, or maybe I was away
34:41
Speaker 1: from them and everyone was gone, and so I was like,
34:45
Speaker 1: all right, scattered some mother and cupboard. Well that sounds
34:48
Speaker 1: pretty good. It was great actually that Thanksgiving. Ever, So
34:51
Speaker 1: that's I was gonna say, like, what was it? Actually? Like?
34:53
Speaker 1: Way more amusing than you thought like, that's how it
34:56
Speaker 1: was for us. I was like, is this gonna be
34:57
Speaker 1: like sad or great? And it was great. They serve
35:00
Speaker 1: traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, and again it was really good.
35:04
Speaker 1: I mean, just as salty and tasty and fatty as
35:07
Speaker 1: you would imagine Thanksgiving a cracker barrel to be. Yeah,
35:10
Speaker 1: we do. Uh, Thanksgiving is my mom's jam. So we
35:13
Speaker 1: always go to Diane's place and I cook up my cornbread,
35:17
Speaker 1: dressing and mashed potatoes is what I bring. Very nice.
35:20
Speaker 1: But this is not about Thanksgiving, No, it's about Christmas
35:23
Speaker 1: and space, that's right. So now it's become kind of routine.
35:27
Speaker 1: Charles um Ever since they launched the International Space Station.
35:31
Speaker 1: It's been continuously occupied since November of two thousand, so
35:35
Speaker 1: every year there's astronauts and space from all different countries
35:39
Speaker 1: aboard the I S S. And one of the cool
35:41
Speaker 1: things I saw about that was that they at any
35:46
Speaker 1: time you're on the I S S, you you go
35:48
Speaker 1: around the Earth about every ninety two minutes, So in
35:51
Speaker 1: any given day you see about fifteen sunrises. But on
35:55
Speaker 1: Christmas Day that means that the astronauts get fifteen Christmas
35:58
Speaker 1: mornings throughout the whole day. I thought it was pretty cool.
36:01
Speaker 1: That is pretty cool, and every year that you know,
36:02
Speaker 1: they make a big deal about it. Now, um, I
36:06
Speaker 1: think it's a bit of an honor to to go
36:08
Speaker 1: up and be at the I S S on Christmas
36:10
Speaker 1: now and imagine they have you know, it stinks to
36:12
Speaker 1: be away from your family, but imagine they have a
36:15
Speaker 1: great familial experience together up there taking care of business
36:20
Speaker 1: they do for the future of humanity. You got anything else, space, No?
36:27
Speaker 1: All right, well we'll move along right after this jingle
36:30
Speaker 1: to some great great Christmas toys of the twentieth century.
36:49
Speaker 1: M Okay, Chuck. I don't know if you remember this
36:55
Speaker 1: or not, but the twentieth century was just seventeen eighteen,
36:58
Speaker 1: nineteen years ago. Yeah, I remember it. Okay, I remember
37:02
Speaker 1: it too. It formed a substantial portion of my life.
37:04
Speaker 1: Those were our best days. Yeah. And one of the
37:07
Speaker 1: reasons why they were some of our best days is
37:09
Speaker 1: because there were some of the greatest toys ever invented
37:13
Speaker 1: came out of the twentieth century. Yes, dangerous, dangerous toys
37:18
Speaker 1: that you had to have the first time in in
37:21
Speaker 1: world history that anyone ever had to have a toy
37:25
Speaker 1: on Christmas happened in the twentieth century. All right, before
37:28
Speaker 1: we get to these, I'm gonna ask you, do you
37:31
Speaker 1: have a standout memory of one Christmas where that was
37:34
Speaker 1: something you had to have? I can't. I think that Nintendo,
37:43
Speaker 1: the original Nintendo was probably it. UM and I don't remember.
37:48
Speaker 1: I don't remember if I got it for Christmas or
37:51
Speaker 1: some other time or whatever. But UM, for me, I
37:56
Speaker 1: remember opening a robot arm, which I hadn't asked or
38:00
Speaker 1: but turned out to be like one of the coolest
38:01
Speaker 1: things I've ever had, opening a robot arm. Yeah, it
38:04
Speaker 1: was a robot arm. And then there was another UM
38:07
Speaker 1: like zip Racer, Remember the cord that that would like
38:11
Speaker 1: make a motorcycle go really fast, which we talked about
38:14
Speaker 1: in the Evil Kinevil episode. I remember that. I remember
38:16
Speaker 1: opening that on Christmas morning too. Is the robot arm
38:19
Speaker 1: something that you could wear? No? No, it was like
38:22
Speaker 1: on a tabletop robot arm you could pick stuff up with. Okay, Yeah,
38:26
Speaker 1: So do you have a must have toy that you remember? Well?
38:29
Speaker 1: I do. I have a couple. One was the year
38:32
Speaker 1: that the pac Man Atari cartridge came out. That was
38:35
Speaker 1: a big one. UM And little did we all know
38:40
Speaker 1: that that game sucked really bad pac Man did. Yeah,
38:44
Speaker 1: it was okay actually, but you you wanted it to
38:47
Speaker 1: be like the Arcade game. Oh it wasn't high. I
38:50
Speaker 1: don't remember playing pac Man on Atari. Yeah it was
38:54
Speaker 1: instead of waka waka waka, it went dot don't don't, don't,
38:57
Speaker 1: don't don't. Oh yeah, yeah, when it ate one of
39:01
Speaker 1: the things like it was, it was pretty bad. Uh.
39:04
Speaker 1: And the other big one before that was when I
39:06
Speaker 1: was younger, I wanted more than anything. One year, I
39:09
Speaker 1: wanted a stretch armstrong and did you get it? Well
39:13
Speaker 1: that they my parents actually did the old trick a
39:16
Speaker 1: ruski on me, like, oh, is there one more thing
39:19
Speaker 1: over there? Because I was disappointing because I didn't get
39:21
Speaker 1: stretch arms song, so they actually pulled one over on
39:24
Speaker 1: me and I got stretch Uh. It would have been
39:27
Speaker 1: funny if they were like, oh no, there isn't anything.
39:31
Speaker 1: Is there one more thing under the tree? Oh no,
39:33
Speaker 1: that's just dog poop, right, which we wrapped up for
39:37
Speaker 1: some reason. All right, but getting to these iconic twenty
39:42
Speaker 1: century toys. First on your list is uh, the iconic
39:48
Speaker 1: iconic cabbage patch kid. I had one of these. Maybe
39:51
Speaker 1: I got it at Christmas. I don't remember well at
39:55
Speaker 1: our house, and I may have told this story before
39:58
Speaker 1: we had the original um dolls, the ones that these
40:03
Speaker 1: were later ripped off from. Yeah, the original all cloth
40:07
Speaker 1: dolls handmade by Xavier Roberts I think was his name,
40:11
Speaker 1: because they were made right here in Georgia and Cleveland,
40:13
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, not made born in Cleveland, Georgia where baby
40:17
Speaker 1: Land General still is. But my sister got I think
40:23
Speaker 1: the seventy five or one ever made that was signed
40:28
Speaker 1: by him, and it's worth some dode today. Do you
40:31
Speaker 1: still have it? Oh? Yes, Michelle's got it, so she has.
40:35
Speaker 1: It was one of the top hundred ones made and
40:37
Speaker 1: it became pretty valuable. And then I have My mom
40:39
Speaker 1: ended up getting my brother and I to each which
40:42
Speaker 1: I literally have never touched. But I'm just waiting for
40:45
Speaker 1: those to gain enough in value and I'm gonna sell those.
40:47
Speaker 1: Is this still like in the box? No? No, no not.
40:49
Speaker 1: They didn't come in boxes. They were they were just
40:52
Speaker 1: like on a shelf. Oh oh wow, those were early ones.
40:56
Speaker 1: The ones I got came in a box. Yeah, that's
40:58
Speaker 1: when they I think. I can't remember who took it over.
41:01
Speaker 1: Kalico y Colico took it over. They got plastic heads
41:04
Speaker 1: and those were sort of the mass market version, and
41:06
Speaker 1: I guess Xavier Roberts probably got rich. Oh yeah, I'm
41:10
Speaker 1: not that deal. I would think so. So the Cabbage
41:13
Speaker 1: Patch Kid three was when Kalico took over and it
41:17
Speaker 1: became like just a breakout hit. It was one of
41:21
Speaker 1: the first times, if not the first time, when there
41:24
Speaker 1: were reports of people like shoving and punching each other
41:27
Speaker 1: in the face and paying like way more than the
41:31
Speaker 1: actual value of the doll Like apparently people were selling
41:33
Speaker 1: it for like ten times what the dollar went for,
41:36
Speaker 1: which was twenty five bucks, which back in bucks is
41:40
Speaker 1: not cheap. I have no idea how much it would
41:43
Speaker 1: be now, but I'll bet it's a lot. And the
41:47
Speaker 1: Cabbage Patch Kid craze was so significant it's spilled over
41:51
Speaker 1: to the next year and there if so, Christmas of
41:55
Speaker 1: Night was just as crazy as Christmas of nineteen eighty three.
41:59
Speaker 1: And apparently they made two and a half billion dollars
42:04
Speaker 1: off of Cabbage Patch Kids between nine eight three and nine. Yeah,
42:09
Speaker 1: that is uh. I think nine eight four was just
42:12
Speaker 1: two point five billion, wasn't it. Oh my goodness? Is
42:16
Speaker 1: that right? Yeah, that's that's just one year, dude, that's
42:19
Speaker 1: so many. That's like a hundred million cabbage patch kids. Yeah,
42:23
Speaker 1: and they, like you said, it went all the way
42:25
Speaker 1: through nineteen eight. This is not a one year craze. Um,
42:29
Speaker 1: and it's just nuts. You can, like I said, you
42:31
Speaker 1: can still go to Babyland General. And the whole deal
42:33
Speaker 1: with those was they were born and not made, and
42:37
Speaker 1: they were I mean, that was like the little cute
42:41
Speaker 1: ce selling point. But the dolls came named. Yeah, do
42:46
Speaker 1: you remember your name? Well? I remember. I don't remember
42:49
Speaker 1: my two original dolls they were they were like the
42:53
Speaker 1: little TV stars or something that was on their T shirt. Um,
42:56
Speaker 1: but my sisters I remember because her doll and it
43:00
Speaker 1: is even kind of misshaping. Those early ones were kind
43:02
Speaker 1: of funny looking, like his hairline was crooked and stuff
43:06
Speaker 1: because it was like folksy and handmade, and it was
43:08
Speaker 1: routinely drunk while he was making. But her doll's name,
43:13
Speaker 1: the one that's so valuable is Chuck. No. Yes, that's
43:17
Speaker 1: a sign from God. YEA. Mine was Webber din No
43:22
Speaker 1: white is that first and last name. No, that was
43:25
Speaker 1: his first and middle name. His last name was Clark.
43:27
Speaker 1: Obviously Webber Dino d I n oh, yep, Webber Dino Clark.
43:33
Speaker 1: Pretty weird. Huh, I didn't I didn't name him. That's great. Yeah,
43:41
Speaker 1: you U still have it. Oh no, no, imagine those
43:44
Speaker 1: probably are worth much money. No, probably not in the
43:48
Speaker 1: shape he was in by the time I aged out
43:50
Speaker 1: of him too, did a mohawk and stuff. I don't
43:55
Speaker 1: think his head was attached any longer. Yeah, eventually he
43:58
Speaker 1: blew up that doll. Right, so there's more chuck and
44:02
Speaker 1: we gotta go backward in time. That's right, this next one,
44:06
Speaker 1: because it turns out and we talked about this in
44:07
Speaker 1: the Action Figure episode a little bit, but so Star Wars.
44:12
Speaker 1: When Star Wars came out, it was such a total
44:15
Speaker 1: surprise to everybody that um Kenner, who had the rights
44:20
Speaker 1: to make the action figures, hadn't even started production by
44:23
Speaker 1: the time Christmas came around. Yeah, I mean no one.
44:27
Speaker 1: No one thought the movie was going to be big,
44:28
Speaker 1: much less the ancillary products associated with that movie. So
44:34
Speaker 1: little kids got vouchers, remember that. Did you have a voucher?
44:39
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think I got the toys
44:40
Speaker 1: a little bit later. Okay, because this is Christmas, of
44:44
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, God, we got caught with our pants down.
44:47
Speaker 1: Get some vouchers out quick. So little kids got vouchers
44:50
Speaker 1: wrapped up his presence that they were finally able I
44:53
Speaker 1: guess in eight sometime, um to to trade their voucher
44:59
Speaker 1: and or the actual action figure. Yeah, and they were
45:02
Speaker 1: a hot ticket for a solid seven years. Uh. And
45:06
Speaker 1: I certainly had a ton of them. Um. I did.
45:09
Speaker 1: Had no idea that there was a thing that people
45:12
Speaker 1: did where they left them in boxes and didn't play
45:15
Speaker 1: with them. I didn't know that was the thing. So
45:17
Speaker 1: I've played with mine and they were all very well worn,
45:21
Speaker 1: which I think is the way to do it. Same here,
45:23
Speaker 1: I've still I think I still have like a box
45:25
Speaker 1: of like busted up g I Joes that are in
45:29
Speaker 1: no way shape or form sellable. Yeah, my brother and
45:31
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of these. But yeah, unless you
45:33
Speaker 1: have some super rare java. Uh. And I'm not on
45:38
Speaker 1: gonna get it wrong, but it's either the cloth cape
45:40
Speaker 1: or the plastic cape. Cloth one. Is that the valuable one?
45:44
Speaker 1: I don't remember. There are nerds out there that are
45:46
Speaker 1: freaking out right now, I'm so sorry, or loose skywalkers,
45:50
Speaker 1: take your eye out, lightsaber right the double telescoping. Yeah,
45:55
Speaker 1: I think that was that was worth a lot of dough. Yeah.
45:58
Speaker 1: But back in Christmas, the nineteenth of any seven, no
46:00
Speaker 1: one had any idea and little children were unwrapping presents
46:04
Speaker 1: and going I had no idea what a voucher was
46:07
Speaker 1: until just now, thanks Mom and Dad. And they said,
46:10
Speaker 1: well that's good, because here, Mom and Dad, I have
46:12
Speaker 1: what I got you as vouchers for a backscratch in
46:15
Speaker 1: breakfast in bed free hugs so cute. And then lastly,
46:20
Speaker 1: Chuck is tickle Me Elmo, and I have to say
46:22
Speaker 1: shout out to history dot com. They came up with
46:26
Speaker 1: this article. I think there was a lot more to it,
46:28
Speaker 1: but these are the ones that held the most water.
46:30
Speaker 1: But Tickle Me Elmo. If you thought the cabbage Patch
46:32
Speaker 1: doll craze was nuts, tickle Me Elmo. Was it just
46:37
Speaker 1: off the chain? Yeah, Elmo. I think we've even talked
46:40
Speaker 1: about this before for some weird reason, but it became
46:44
Speaker 1: way after me, probably in the Muppets episode. Uh So,
46:47
Speaker 1: I was never an Elmo aficionado because this was by
46:52
Speaker 1: that point I was fifteen years old. I didn't care
46:55
Speaker 1: about things like that. But my daughter loves Elmo and
46:58
Speaker 1: it has transcended, uh since then for sure, because almost
47:03
Speaker 1: still super popular. You were twenty five, by the way,
47:08
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was thinking eight six. Oh yeah, I
47:10
Speaker 1: was way too old for real, right, he'd been more
47:13
Speaker 1: so than being fifteen would have been. Yeah, I was
47:16
Speaker 1: still drunk in Athens, Georgia. But I think that's cute
47:18
Speaker 1: that that, um she's still into that or that almost
47:21
Speaker 1: still around for kids to be into today because almost
47:24
Speaker 1: just too cute and great a character just just go
47:27
Speaker 1: away because of some stupid craze. You know. I agree,
47:31
Speaker 1: And I had the I have the curse of doing
47:33
Speaker 1: too good of an Elmo impression. So now almost every
47:36
Speaker 1: morning still I have to start out by doing Elmo
47:39
Speaker 1: voices with the Elmo doll. Oh that's sweet, it is sweet,
47:42
Speaker 1: so um on. In October, I guess there was a
47:49
Speaker 1: big surprise on the Rosie O'donnald Show when she debuted
47:52
Speaker 1: the Tickle Me Elmo doll, which most people hadn't heard
47:56
Speaker 1: of by this time. And if you remember, do you
47:58
Speaker 1: remember the doll? Right? I think you like Pressett's belly
48:01
Speaker 1: or maybe even tickle it. And I'd be like stop
48:03
Speaker 1: stop right, yeah, I think he gave it a squeeze
48:05
Speaker 1: and he giggled right, and it was super cute and
48:09
Speaker 1: it just captured America's heart. And Rosie O'donnald's show was
48:13
Speaker 1: huge at the time, like Oprah level huge. So it
48:16
Speaker 1: was a huge plug for the tickle miomo makers and
48:19
Speaker 1: they were totally caught off guard. They had no idea
48:22
Speaker 1: that this was coming. And since it was October, there
48:25
Speaker 1: was a huge shortage of this suddenly very much in
48:28
Speaker 1: demand doll by the time Christmas rolled around. Yeah, and
48:32
Speaker 1: they did not do vultures, right, didn't they. Um, they
48:35
Speaker 1: just did raffles or something. I think they did raffles
48:38
Speaker 1: and um stampedes. Those are the big ones, the classic stampede. Yeah,
48:43
Speaker 1: there was a report of a Walmart employee in Fredericton,
48:48
Speaker 1: New Brunswick who was trampled and had to go to
48:50
Speaker 1: the hospital because yeah, they did this the smartest thing
48:54
Speaker 1: possible line up. But then when we opened the doors,
48:57
Speaker 1: it's every person for themselfs for themselves. Yeah, and this
49:00
Speaker 1: is the final thing from history dot com. It says
49:02
Speaker 1: in New York, the son of jailed mob boss John Gotti,
49:05
Speaker 1: along with his friends, dropped eight thousand dollars at a
49:08
Speaker 1: toy store and report will be made off with a
49:10
Speaker 1: case of Tickle me Elma. Pretty smart. I hope it
49:15
Speaker 1: is too. That would be so great. So what's the
49:17
Speaker 1: must have toy this year? Do you know? I have
49:20
Speaker 1: no idea? Do you have no idea? Nope? All right,
49:22
Speaker 1: we'll find out one way or another by hanging out
49:26
Speaker 1: at toy stores. I guess I get the feeling there
49:28
Speaker 1: isn't a Well maybe that still happens sometimes, like a
49:31
Speaker 1: single must have. Oh yeah, it definitely happens sometimes. I
49:36
Speaker 1: don't know what it is, though, I guarantee it's not
49:38
Speaker 1: going away like the Ferbi remember that that silly thing.
49:43
Speaker 1: Now it's hatchamles. Oh well that might be the thing.
49:47
Speaker 1: Actually that was last year, right now, Yeah, because I
49:50
Speaker 1: remember Noel had trouble finding one for his daughter. Oh yeah,
49:53
Speaker 1: but you came through it, and you know he did.
49:56
Speaker 1: It was a Christmas miracle, It was all right. So
50:00
Speaker 1: we're gonna have another little jingle and come back with
50:02
Speaker 1: our traditional Christmas boozy recipe. Yeah, okay, So I have
50:20
Speaker 1: a little background here because we're talking about Wasstle. Did
50:24
Speaker 1: you see the background thinking? Did I send it to you?
50:28
Speaker 1: So the etomology not the entomology the etymology of wostle.
50:33
Speaker 1: The word w A s s a I l. Yeah,
50:36
Speaker 1: apparently it comes from the Old Norse vest hile, and
50:40
Speaker 1: then the old English, because most English words come from
50:42
Speaker 1: the Norse or Germanic words, right, wass hall, and the
50:47
Speaker 1: whole thing was basically like a greeting or a toast,
50:50
Speaker 1: which was being good health. Eventually it was turned into
50:54
Speaker 1: wass hale and then wostle, and wostle is so old
50:58
Speaker 1: that it actually appears in Bao Wolf as a greeting,
51:01
Speaker 1: right again being good health. So there was this tradition
51:06
Speaker 1: of going on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, I can't
51:10
Speaker 1: remember which one um or you would basically just go
51:13
Speaker 1: to people's houses around town, like during a whole day
51:17
Speaker 1: and hang out and maybe bring them a little present
51:19
Speaker 1: or eat some food. And it was like kind of
51:22
Speaker 1: a roving Christmas party, and that was called wostl ng.
51:26
Speaker 1: And then eventually this warm punch that you would serve
51:30
Speaker 1: your guests came to be called wostle. And because it
51:33
Speaker 1: kind of came out of this tradition, there's no one
51:36
Speaker 1: watle recipe, but it's usually a very strong, drinky, boozy,
51:43
Speaker 1: warm punch is basically the only the only requisite for it.
51:47
Speaker 1: That usually has something like nutmeg or something in it.
51:51
Speaker 1: That's right, And uh, you're the cocktail man, so you
51:54
Speaker 1: want to go over the recipe here. Well, there's two.
51:57
Speaker 1: Did you see both? I only saw the one that
52:00
Speaker 1: was super rummy? Okay, well will this go with that
52:03
Speaker 1: one then? Because the other one is pretty traditional. This
52:06
Speaker 1: one is not just rummy, but it's beery. Oh so
52:11
Speaker 1: sounded funny. I gotta admit, I'm I'm ready to try
52:14
Speaker 1: this one. Chuck two quarts of lager beer. And you
52:18
Speaker 1: don't have to just use beer that comes in a
52:21
Speaker 1: court size. As a matter of fact, you might want
52:23
Speaker 1: to just steer clear those all together for this one.
52:26
Speaker 1: A court of rum they just get giddy. Five ounces
52:31
Speaker 1: of simple syrup, three ounces of lemon juice, a teaspoon
52:35
Speaker 1: of grated nutmeg. You want that freshly grated, teaspoon of
52:38
Speaker 1: grated ginger, you want that fresh too, and then fruit
52:41
Speaker 1: slices for garnish. Pretty simple stuff that you can really
52:44
Speaker 1: kind of put together, uh, from from just about any store.
52:48
Speaker 1: Yeah that sells such things. So you take the beer,
52:52
Speaker 1: the simple syrup, the lemon juice, the nutmeg and the ginger,
52:55
Speaker 1: and you put it together in a sauce pan and
52:58
Speaker 1: you warm it on low heat for about ten minutes.
53:01
Speaker 1: You want to get a nice steam off of it,
53:03
Speaker 1: but do not let it boil. If you boil it,
53:06
Speaker 1: all the alcohol will cook off, so don't do that.
53:09
Speaker 1: You add the rum and you stir it, and then
53:12
Speaker 1: you place some that fruit in a heat resistant bowl
53:15
Speaker 1: or some sort of serving vessel, and you pour the
53:18
Speaker 1: watle in there um and then you have wastle. You
53:22
Speaker 1: drink it. So you haven't had this, No, I haven't.
53:25
Speaker 1: I just found it the other day, all right, it's
53:28
Speaker 1: for this recipe was from the spruce. And there's another
53:30
Speaker 1: one they have which has brandy and sherry in it,
53:33
Speaker 1: but beer and lagger. Two quarts of beer in one
53:35
Speaker 1: quart of rum. That's a party. It's a party in
53:38
Speaker 1: your mouth, it is uh. And of course, always drink
53:41
Speaker 1: wastle responsibly. And if you're over twenty one in these
53:45
Speaker 1: United States, yes, And if you're watling and someone's home
53:49
Speaker 1: and they ask you to leave, do the Christmas e
53:51
Speaker 1: thing and leave, that's right. Interpretor in the UK you
53:55
Speaker 1: can be like twelve years old and drink probably is
53:57
Speaker 1: that true. No, I don't know. I think it's probably eighteen.
54:00
Speaker 1: Is that a Christmas legend? Yeah? I think so so, Charles.
54:05
Speaker 1: We've reached the end here, that's right. This has been
54:09
Speaker 1: maybe our best one yet. I like to think each
54:12
Speaker 1: year they get a little bit better. The guests appearance
54:14
Speaker 1: from the writer of Die Hard, Are you kidding me?
54:17
Speaker 1: That was pretty pretty great. The socks that I got
54:20
Speaker 1: to those are amazing. Yeah, rate, that was very surprised.
54:26
Speaker 1: They're magic fingers toe socks. Uh. Well, Happy Happy Christmas,
54:32
Speaker 1: Merry New Year, and all that stuff. To all of
54:35
Speaker 1: you people out there, we hope you have just a
54:38
Speaker 1: wonderful holiday season, no matter how you celebrate it, no
54:40
Speaker 1: matter what your religion, no matter whether you have no
54:43
Speaker 1: religion at all, no matter where you are in the world,
54:46
Speaker 1: we hope you have a very very warm and glad
54:49
Speaker 1: holiday tidings, right agreed, Thanks for joining us, and uh
54:54
Speaker 1: we'll see you next year in two