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How do dogs perceive time? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles Chuck Bryant Chuck. Yes,
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Speaker 1: nice Chuck. We'll get to that in a second. Again,
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Speaker 1: that's awesome. Chuck's barking because this is stuff you should know.
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Speaker 1: And this particular stuff you should know is entitled how
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Speaker 1: do dogs perceive time? And I said in dog language
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Speaker 1: just then, I don't perceive time. That is up for debate,
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Speaker 1: my friend, up for vigorous debate. All right, So chuck um,
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Speaker 1: let me let me do a little intro here, a
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Speaker 1: little lead in segway whatever spoiled your parade? There? What
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Speaker 1: do we call him these days? What are we what segways?
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Speaker 1: Lead ins intros intro schmickls um Chuck. About a year ago,
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Speaker 1: well a year ago this month, Paris, well, France, Paris,
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Speaker 1: France made history, legal history. Uh, they actually used a
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Speaker 1: dog as a witness in a criminal case. Did they
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Speaker 1: get the dog to bark at someone? Wow? I kid you,
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Speaker 1: not like an intruder at the very least, and I
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Speaker 1: hope I'm not in Bangladeshi newspaper here, um, because I
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Speaker 1: found it, uh in the Daily Mail, which is not
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Speaker 1: known for satire, but it's all. It can be known
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Speaker 1: for poor reporting from time to time. So you may
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Speaker 1: have egg on your face soon we'll find out. Um.
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Speaker 1: But there was a dog named Scooby that was brought
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Speaker 1: into a doesn't I should afford to this article? Um?
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Speaker 1: There was a dog named Scooby that was brought into
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Speaker 1: a murder case or a hearing to see if there
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Speaker 1: was enough evidence to try a man for murder for
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Speaker 1: something that was ruled a suicide. And the dog barked
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Speaker 1: furiously at the alleged perpetrator and they gave him a
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Speaker 1: Scooby snack. Yeah, so that was the last I heard.
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Speaker 1: It was from a year ago, but there was some
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Speaker 1: concern over whether the dog's memory would serve it or
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Speaker 1: not because it had been two and a half years
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Speaker 1: since the incident. Okay, that makes sense, and that's kind
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Speaker 1: of key to how dogs may or may not perceive time.
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Speaker 1: The best I could come up with that great? Thanks?
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Speaker 1: So um what that what that betrays is a sense
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Speaker 1: by at least the reporter and the courts in Paris
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Speaker 1: that dogs have a memory, that they they if they
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Speaker 1: have a memory, then they should be able to perceive time. Right, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: let's talk about this. What is time? Well, you know
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Speaker 1: my whole deal with time, I've said it before. What
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Speaker 1: a little time is just abstract numbers on a calendar
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Speaker 1: and and hands on a watch, aren't time? Well, yeah, no,
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Speaker 1: what you're talking about is the human constructive time. Yes,
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Speaker 1: based on twenty four hours, which all kind of arbitrary
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Speaker 1: seven days in a week. There, well, not necessarily. Here's why. Uh,
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Speaker 1: it was actually kind of ingenious that we should come
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Speaker 1: up with the twenty four hour day. Because we have
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Speaker 1: these things called circadian oscillators, which are the well they're
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Speaker 1: the fluctuators in our circadian rhythm, which is what makes
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Speaker 1: us fall asleep at night, wake up in the morning,
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Speaker 1: get hungry at certain times. Neural activity, right, the neural
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Speaker 1: activity and the hormones um our reactions to things like
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Speaker 1: changes in temperature that are on a daily basis. Um
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Speaker 1: things like um the changes in natural light. Right, So
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Speaker 1: our our reactions to these are circadian oscillators. And if
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Speaker 1: you put them all together, like sleeping at night and
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Speaker 1: and um waking up in the morning, that's our circadian rhythm.
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Speaker 1: But the circadian clocks actually exist on about a twenty
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Speaker 1: four hour period since then. So but like you said,
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Speaker 1: days on the calendar and all that, that's that is
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Speaker 1: a human construct. Yeah, So what we're trying to get
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Speaker 1: to the bottom of is whether or not dogs can
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Speaker 1: perceive this not necessarily the human construct of time, but
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Speaker 1: of time in and of itself, which is essentially a
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Speaker 1: past present in future exactly. And I know that one
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Speaker 1: thing that we will talk about, and maybe we'll talk
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Speaker 1: about right now is you have three dogs? Do you
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Speaker 1: have any dogs? I have two dogs? What shut up?
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Speaker 1: I have two dogs, and I'm actually fostering two feral
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Speaker 1: puppy rescues. What you know, So right now, if you
4:35
Speaker 1: want to get rid of those two dogs, because we
4:36
Speaker 1: could get rid of them like that if we plug
4:38
Speaker 1: this on this UM, on this podcast, we're kind of
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Speaker 1: picky about who we give them to. Okay, well, how
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Speaker 1: about this if you're not a creep and you love
4:44
Speaker 1: dogs and you live in the East Lake area, yeah, Atlanta,
4:48
Speaker 1: to send us an email if you want one of
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Speaker 1: Chuck's puppies. Very cute. Yeah, So anyway, if your dogs
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Speaker 1: or anything like my dogs, they and actually my cats too,
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Speaker 1: they know when the food bell is going to ring. Sure,
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Speaker 1: actually they start. Emily calls it food abuse. They start
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Speaker 1: the food abuse typically about an hour and a half
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Speaker 1: before they typically get fed every afternoon and in the morning.
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Speaker 1: We feed them pretty much straight away in the morning,
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Speaker 1: so they know. They know then. But my dog Lucy
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Speaker 1: dude comes in the room and looks at you with
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Speaker 1: her head cocked, stamps on the floor with her feet
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Speaker 1: and goes m And I'm waiting her for her literally
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Speaker 1: to one day say feed me one day. I told
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Speaker 1: Emily if she did that one day, I would be
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Speaker 1: surprised for about a second. So, chuck, here is where
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Speaker 1: we reached the bone of contention. Sorry for that pun.
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Speaker 1: I'm not Jonathan's strickling your dog to do the same
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Speaker 1: thing though soon right. Well, no, my my dogs are
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Speaker 1: fed constantly. They always have food. They for some reason
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Speaker 1: I'd lucked out, and they just eat it, eat whenever
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Speaker 1: they want, whenever. I can't imagine that. It's pretty cool
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Speaker 1: dogs eat their food like it's the first time they've
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Speaker 1: ever been fed before. My dogs, they're pretty laid back
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Speaker 1: when it comes to stuff like that. Are they fat? No? Really, no,
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Speaker 1: they're they're healthier than I am. Well, they're healthier than
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Speaker 1: a lot of people I know. No, they're very They
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Speaker 1: regulate their food and take on their own It's weird,
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Speaker 1: but but I know what you're talking about. So the
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Speaker 1: question is this, do your dogs no, based on past
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Speaker 1: experience that food is coming at a certain time of day,
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Speaker 1: not necessarily like five thirty pm, but say as far
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Speaker 1: as the dog's concerned, when sun is low and sky
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Speaker 1: over there, they're They're like Italians playing Native Americans. What
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Speaker 1: do you think, I'm so um or? Is it a
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Speaker 1: circadian oscillator? Well, that's the circadian oscillator. It could be, yeah,
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Speaker 1: it could be. What what that is is you're they're
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Speaker 1: using their memories of past experiences to predict the future,
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Speaker 1: which is episodic memory, which is our construction of time.
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Speaker 1: Or is this semantic memory, which is totally different but related.
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Speaker 1: Do you want me to go into this because this
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Speaker 1: is outside research, I have no choice. Then semantic memory
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Speaker 1: is all right, Chuck. Let's say that you have brain
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Speaker 1: damage to your frontal lobe, which is where your episodic
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Speaker 1: memory is uh is located. That's the region that controls
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Speaker 1: episodic memory, which is learning from experience. Right. Um, you
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Speaker 1: could conceivably learn how to play chess right, right, but
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Speaker 1: you won't remember where you learn how to play chess. Right.
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Speaker 1: Much like, uh, they say a baby learned how to
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Speaker 1: walk and talk, but they don't remember that day you
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Speaker 1: taught me how to walk, right. They don't have to
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Speaker 1: relearn crawling or walking or talk on a day to
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Speaker 1: day basis, right, because they learned it. And that's semantic memory.
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Speaker 1: That's like facts and rules and and and possibly motor
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Speaker 1: movements or whatever. Or you know, if I run into
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Speaker 1: this wall, it's going to hurt my face because I'm crawling,
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Speaker 1: But they don't remember, you know, somebody teaching them like,
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Speaker 1: come crawl to me that kind of thing, right, So yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's semantic memory. Episodic memory would be like, um, what
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Speaker 1: did you have for breakfast this morning? Had a fruit smoothie?
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Speaker 1: You had a fruit smoothie? Remember what the light looked like?
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Speaker 1: I remember what what smelled like. That is precisely episodic memory.
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Speaker 1: And uh, I should probably give a shout out at
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Speaker 1: t RS and Tall, who I'm like just blatantly ripping
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Speaker 1: off right now. Um. The the chess example was one
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Speaker 1: of Zental's uh examples of semantic memory, and what you've
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Speaker 1: just said, um is almost word for word, uh, an
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Speaker 1: example of episodic memory. You said, you know you remember
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Speaker 1: these other details, whereas had you said, um, I had
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Speaker 1: I had a smoothie this morning, I must have because
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Speaker 1: I had a smoothie, Right, that would be well, not
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Speaker 1: the burping part, but if you always had it, then
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Speaker 1: that'd be were like semantic memories. So we reached the
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Speaker 1: question do dogs perceived time or are these reactions that
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Speaker 1: appear like they're there keeping track of time some way,
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Speaker 1: maybe through a circadian oscillator based on semantic memories. And
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Speaker 1: there's been a lot of studies that, not necessarily on dogs,
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Speaker 1: but on other animals. Right, Yeah, what's uh, what's this
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Speaker 1: crackpot's name? Roberts? No, what's this guy's name? Dr Roberts. Yeah,
9:27
Speaker 1: I have to say I'm gonna take issue with Dr Roberts.
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Speaker 1: William Roberts. He's an animal cognition researcher. Right off the bat,
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Speaker 1: you're taking issue with that, it's that. Yeah, he did
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Speaker 1: some studies on pigeons and primates, to name a couple
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Speaker 1: and long term in short term memory as far as
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Speaker 1: remembering a sequence that they would I guess the pigeons
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Speaker 1: would peck it out and the primates would tap it
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Speaker 1: out and uh to get a reward. And they found
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Speaker 1: that they have pretty good short term memory for this
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Speaker 1: kind of thing, right, which is what that's working memory, right, yes,
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Speaker 1: but long term as reference memory, Yeah, but as far
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Speaker 1: as the reference goes, they couldn't remember it that well
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Speaker 1: if there was if there was a big break in between. Um.
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Speaker 1: Roberts actually wrote a very famous paper as far as
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Speaker 1: animal cognition goes, where he basically said that he concluded
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Speaker 1: animals are stuck in time. And I just made air
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Speaker 1: quotes for those of you out there listening in podcast land. Um,
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Speaker 1: and by stuck in timing means that they are they
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Speaker 1: live exclusively in the present that they don't have the
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Speaker 1: capacity for forming uh, long term episodic memory. Episodic is
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Speaker 1: the key word. It is very much. Because I know
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Speaker 1: at home you're saying, no, I taught my dog to
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Speaker 1: sit when she was one. That's not the same thing.
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Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about with the baby and learning
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Speaker 1: how to walk. Um. But that's that's not. There's a
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Speaker 1: lot of examples out there in nature that would kind
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Speaker 1: of um the lie Dr roberts idea that the animals
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Speaker 1: their dogs are stuck in time. Well, a good one
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Speaker 1: is squirrels foraging food store for the winner and doing
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Speaker 1: it year after year after year. Um. I believe Roberts
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Speaker 1: actually addressed that and says, but they continue hoarding even
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Speaker 1: when their stores inexplicably disappear, which I assume some researchers
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Speaker 1: went and stole squirrels nuts and then uh studied them
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Speaker 1: to see what they would do. I don't understand that
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Speaker 1: at all. I don't either. Seems like they would that
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Speaker 1: would make them want to hoard. Yeah, so I kind
11:31
Speaker 1: of have an issue with that one a little bit,
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Speaker 1: but it's possible. I'm not entirely seeing that point all
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Speaker 1: the way. I don't see the point. I'm not quite
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Speaker 1: sure what what he meant there. But um, there's also
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Speaker 1: one about the bananas, right, Chuck. There's there were some
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Speaker 1: primates that were given choices between more or less bananas,
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Speaker 1: and predictably, at first, if you offered an ape one
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Speaker 1: banana or two bananas, they're gonna take the two bananas.
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Speaker 1: But they found that when they started increasing the number
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Speaker 1: of bananas, like ten compare to twenty, they would just
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Speaker 1: go for the tin bananas, they wouldn't he and he
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Speaker 1: thought this meant they can't, Uh, they have no concept
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Speaker 1: of the future, Like maybe I should take these bananas
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Speaker 1: because I might be hungry tomorrow right now. That's um
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Speaker 1: that I think Roberts fails to take into account social structure. Right. Uh.
12:18
Speaker 1: We we know that we could use tim bananas for tomorrow,
12:22
Speaker 1: but we also have things like um preservation techniques or
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Speaker 1: refrigeration available. That's what I thought. And if you go
12:28
Speaker 1: back in time just a few thousand years ago, UM
12:32
Speaker 1: to hunter gatherer societies or even hunter gatherer societies that
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Speaker 1: are around now, they don't store food at all. They
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Speaker 1: forage for what they need right then, and that's what
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Speaker 1: they eat. I would imagine that that would actually explain
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Speaker 1: a lot of the primate decisions. There's no real reason
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Speaker 1: to their society isn't set up on this idea that
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Speaker 1: I need more and more to protect myself in the
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Speaker 1: future exactly. I don't know that that necessarily means that
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Speaker 1: they don't have any concept of the future. I think
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Speaker 1: that there's all these other explanations out there, right, and
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Speaker 1: they made like one I was. When I read that,
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Speaker 1: the first thing I thought was, maybe they're not they've
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Speaker 1: never taken more than tin bananas in their life because
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Speaker 1: they've never needed to, so it doesn't even dawn on
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Speaker 1: them that that should be something they would do exactly.
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Speaker 1: I guess what we're saying, both of us around the
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Speaker 1: same page here. There are other explanations, and I think
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Speaker 1: one of the things I took from this article was that, uh,
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Speaker 1: Roberts found it conclusive that animals are stuck in time
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Speaker 1: by cherry picking some uh some studies here, and we
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Speaker 1: we kind of disagree with them. There's a lot of
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Speaker 1: other factors. I know that my dog Lucy is stuck
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Speaker 1: in time at five thirty pm every day because she's
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Speaker 1: always asking for the food. So I guess another problem.
13:43
Speaker 1: It's entirely possible check that we're Our brains just aren't
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Speaker 1: big enough to uh they're not as big as Robert's brain. Maybe, Um,
13:51
Speaker 1: did you ever hear that like goldfish have an eight
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Speaker 1: second memory span. I've never heard that, so I have
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Speaker 1: a right you have a goldfish and you have a
14:00
Speaker 1: old fish here. Yeah, Molly, she's very cute his name, Molly.
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Speaker 1: I didn't know that interesting. UM, But having an episodic
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Speaker 1: memory makes it almost impossible to think about UM not
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Speaker 1: having one. So like, if a goldfish does have a
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Speaker 1: memory of eight seconds, does that mean that every eight
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Speaker 1: seconds all of its memories are purged, like getting rid
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Speaker 1: of the browser history in your computer? Um? Or as
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Speaker 1: new experiences come into the present, are older ones pushed
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Speaker 1: out after they hit this eight second maturity level? And
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Speaker 1: how how do they test that on a goldfish? Anyway?
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Speaker 1: Perfect chuck, perfect segue. Here's the biggest problem. Robert's position
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Speaker 1: is almost inherently species ist. You're familiar with this term, Ye,
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Speaker 1: this is a legitimate term. I'm not making this up. Animals.
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Speaker 1: Animals don't have souls. It's impossible for an like a
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Speaker 1: dog to be happy because that's the secondary emotions aren't
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Speaker 1: self aware enough. There's a competing explo nation for all
15:00
Speaker 1: this UM. Species is tend to rely very strictly or
15:06
Speaker 1: remain very strictly within the structure UM provided by the
15:09
Speaker 1: scientific method and all his studies here, he probably came
15:12
Speaker 1: out from that frame of mind. Sure right, UM, But
15:15
Speaker 1: there's another way of looking at it, and that is
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Speaker 1: that humans simply haven't come up with tests that are
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Speaker 1: clever enough to get definitive proof that an animal can
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Speaker 1: experience happiness, or can or is aware of time, the future,
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Speaker 1: of the past, that kind of thing. You can take
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Speaker 1: that way too far, like after you know, test after
15:35
Speaker 1: test after test that proves the opposite, you could still
15:38
Speaker 1: conceivably say, well, there's a test out there that that
15:41
Speaker 1: we haven't come up with yet that proves that they can. Um.
15:44
Speaker 1: But I think that the testing that has been done
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Speaker 1: is very much below that threshold so far. I don't
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Speaker 1: think we have a clue, um what what animals are
15:55
Speaker 1: capable of as far as consciousness, because because we have
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Speaker 1: such a loose grasp on our own consciousness, sure, and
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Speaker 1: we can't uh certainly can't delve into an animal's brain
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Speaker 1: and see what they think and they can't tell us anything.
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Speaker 1: I guarantee you one thing. I bet you. Dr Roberts
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Speaker 1: is not a dog owner, agreed, Agreed, because you have dogs, dude,
16:13
Speaker 1: And I guarantee you we're going to get tons of
16:15
Speaker 1: mail from people saying, are you kidding? My dog displays
16:19
Speaker 1: emotion every day? And you know, I guess Caesar that
16:22
Speaker 1: the dog whisperer might say, you know, that's you're putting
16:24
Speaker 1: your human construct on the dogs. From my mind, yeah,
16:28
Speaker 1: anthrow anthropomorphizing. Yeah, I don't know, man, my dog is
16:32
Speaker 1: that they're both pretty emotional. Well yeah, anthropomorphizing is the
16:36
Speaker 1: go to ammunition for species ists, and I don't want,
16:40
Speaker 1: I don't mean to say that anybody who's saying like, no,
16:43
Speaker 1: animals can't be happy because it's secondary emotion and they
16:46
Speaker 1: lack that sense of self awareness that is required to
16:48
Speaker 1: experience this, uh, secondary emotion is a species ist, But
16:53
Speaker 1: the too often go hand in hand. And it's really
16:55
Speaker 1: interesting that there's a line drawn right now between people
16:59
Speaker 1: who think animals don't have a soul and people who
17:03
Speaker 1: think animals can be happy and all the implications that
17:07
Speaker 1: come with that. Jerry, I bet you think your dog
17:10
Speaker 1: is a soul? Right, Jerry saying yeah, just gave the
17:12
Speaker 1: sweetest face and nodded yes, yes, So, um, I feel
17:16
Speaker 1: like chuck and I just opened a big old canned worms.
17:19
Speaker 1: So we'll see how this plays out in the emails. Right,
17:22
Speaker 1: If you want to read more about dogs perceiving, time
17:25
Speaker 1: to answer the question. According to Roberts, no, dogs don't
17:29
Speaker 1: perceive time times a human construct consisting of a past
17:32
Speaker 1: president in future and dogs pretty much living the present.
17:35
Speaker 1: Chuck and I don't necessarily agree with that one. Uh.
17:38
Speaker 1: You can go on in type in dogs perceived time
17:41
Speaker 1: in the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com.
17:45
Speaker 1: Since I just said that, it means it's time for
17:47
Speaker 1: a whole mess of listener mail. You're right, Josh, this
17:54
Speaker 1: is uh We're just gonna call this muppet mail, and
17:57
Speaker 1: we are gonna go on a little longer than usual
18:00
Speaker 1: with our mail because the Muppet podcast, I think we
18:03
Speaker 1: will all agree, um was sort of a ce change episode.
18:08
Speaker 1: And plus we just want to see how how long
18:10
Speaker 1: this background music actually goes for it, I know, I
18:12
Speaker 1: mean we we literally got better response from the Muppet
18:16
Speaker 1: Show episode than uh, anything we've ever done, I would say,
18:19
Speaker 1: wouldn't you. Yeah, the Henson company twittered about it. Yeah,
18:23
Speaker 1: Heather Henson, we should say. Our colleague and friend, Jonathan
18:26
Speaker 1: Strickland of tech Stuff came his uh sister sister friends
18:32
Speaker 1: who with Heather Henson, and it went viral thanks to him. Yeah,
18:35
Speaker 1: that's awesome. So we got great response. It's clear that
18:39
Speaker 1: everyone loves the Muppets and uh so I wanted to
18:42
Speaker 1: go just through a few of these because I didn't
18:43
Speaker 1: want to just do one um quickly before we start,
18:47
Speaker 1: and we never do this, but a guy sent me
18:49
Speaker 1: an email and I kind of touched a chord with me.
18:52
Speaker 1: So I want to quickly give a shout out for
18:56
Speaker 1: for Joe to Beth in Ellwood, Indiana and just wants
19:00
Speaker 1: to say that he thinks that you are a pretty
19:02
Speaker 1: cool chick. Beth, Chuck, are you playing matchmaker? Is that
19:06
Speaker 1: why you're wearing nothing but a diaper and you have
19:08
Speaker 1: those wings? And not saying but Beth and Elwood, Joe,
19:12
Speaker 1: Joe thinks your cool chicken. So the week because she
19:14
Speaker 1: actually sent us a alien han syndrome video which rocked cool.
19:18
Speaker 1: That's good, I'll show it to you quick. A couple
19:21
Speaker 1: of things that we didn't mention in corrections. First of all, Um,
19:24
Speaker 1: I mistakenly refer to the Children's Television Workshop as the
19:28
Speaker 1: Children's Television Network, so I goove that one you're thinking
19:31
Speaker 1: of home shopping that kids. We did not mention every
19:36
Speaker 1: Muppet movie. We did not mention every Muppet venture because
19:39
Speaker 1: no want I want to halicitate on this. We did
19:42
Speaker 1: that on purpose. First of all, we mentioned the three
19:45
Speaker 1: that were in theatrical Elite release directed by Jim Henson. Yes,
19:49
Speaker 1: and by first of all, I mean that's it right right.
19:53
Speaker 1: So a lot of people said, how could you not
19:55
Speaker 1: mention Muppets Christmas Carol? And we wanted to mention everything,
19:58
Speaker 1: but we were just been sitting here reading things all
20:01
Speaker 1: day long about the Dark Crystal and other Muppet ventures.
20:05
Speaker 1: So we chose to only do the Hinson ones. Would
20:08
Speaker 1: Crystal creeps out and that was Hinton too, because I
20:11
Speaker 1: know people are gonna write and say that was Hinson,
20:13
Speaker 1: but get over. Uh. We had a gun in. Peter
20:16
Speaker 1: wrote in and he told us about the Muppet Whatnot Workshop. Yeah,
20:20
Speaker 1: and um and uh, and you can go to New
20:26
Speaker 1: York City and you could do it online. But I
20:27
Speaker 1: looked and it's down right now. But it's just around
20:30
Speaker 1: Christmas time or the holidays. No, they got bought out
20:32
Speaker 1: by Toys r Us. I think, so that's down right now.
20:34
Speaker 1: But you can still go to New York. You can
20:36
Speaker 1: go to the Muppet Workshop and you can build your
20:38
Speaker 1: own whatnot at Goldman says it costs about a hundred bucks.
20:42
Speaker 1: And he sent me a picture of he and his
20:44
Speaker 1: little cute daughter with her Muppet whatnot. So you want
20:47
Speaker 1: to thank Peter for that? And actually I'm going on
20:50
Speaker 1: and on, but Peter had one of the big food
20:53
Speaker 1: and chow mustaches like me, Yeah, I'll tell you about this,
20:56
Speaker 1: And I said, uh, very cool, Peter, thanks for sending this.
20:59
Speaker 1: I said, it looks like you picked up a mustache
21:00
Speaker 1: while you were there. And he wrote back and said, no,
21:03
Speaker 1: I got that at the Sam Elliott. Uh Sam Elliott
21:06
Speaker 1: Supply Center down the street or something like that, Peter. Um,
21:12
Speaker 1: So that is all for the corrections. Now we have
21:15
Speaker 1: a few emails. Um, Josh and Chuck had just listen
21:18
Speaker 1: to how Muppets worked. I was excited to hear you
21:20
Speaker 1: talk about it because you mentioned the costume designer from
21:22
Speaker 1: Miss Piggie, who happens to be my aunt Callista. Oh
21:26
Speaker 1: she uh. If you look up the Muppet movie you
21:29
Speaker 1: can see her in the costume and war Dube department
21:31
Speaker 1: on IMDb. She worked closely with Henson and I've actually
21:34
Speaker 1: seen a picture of her with Jim Henson setting up
21:37
Speaker 1: some Muppets and Emmett Hotter's jug band Christmas. She left
21:41
Speaker 1: the Muppets, I think when Jim Henson died, but we
21:43
Speaker 1: still see her once a year. That's from Sam and
21:46
Speaker 1: Josh is in fact eating a Reese's cup. Uh onto
21:50
Speaker 1: the next one. Hi, guys, I love your recent podcast.
21:53
Speaker 1: I was listening and thought I would mention that Jim
21:55
Speaker 1: Henson studied mumpetology at University of Maryland. I know this
21:59
Speaker 1: because I went there, and there is a Jim Hinton
22:02
Speaker 1: studies program, and it is our claim to fame. Um,
22:06
Speaker 1: I didn't know he went to my school until I
22:08
Speaker 1: went there. And there's actually a little a bitch statue.
22:13
Speaker 1: It's a bench with Hinton sitting on it and Kermit
22:15
Speaker 1: sitting on the back of the bench and they're kind
22:17
Speaker 1: of holding hands. That is beyond It is very cute.
22:20
Speaker 1: So and and she also says that, um, this is
22:22
Speaker 1: from Lesia that they have the rights to. It ain't
22:26
Speaker 1: easy being Green and Rainbow Connection. So their marching band
22:29
Speaker 1: actually plays that the University of Maryland. Yeah, go turps,
22:35
Speaker 1: moving on, man, listen to this background music, Chuck, I know,
22:40
Speaker 1: I know, I know. We compared him up and showed
22:42
Speaker 1: a thirty rock and Phil of Lyndon Washington has this
22:46
Speaker 1: to say, Um, I was trying to imagine Sesame Street
22:49
Speaker 1: would look like in real life. Two little boys getting
22:51
Speaker 1: their own apartment, A giant bird that sleeps behind garbage cans,
22:55
Speaker 1: a few scattered, seemingly sensible adults who really have no
22:58
Speaker 1: jobs and nothing else to do. No Mr Hooper at
23:00
Speaker 1: a story. Finally, it hit me while working my job
23:04
Speaker 1: as a special led classroom assistant. It is one big,
23:07
Speaker 1: government operated group home facility for special needs children. Adults
23:11
Speaker 1: think about it. Bert displays classic Asperger syndrome. They share
23:15
Speaker 1: a bedroom, uh, and obviously have some adults taking care
23:17
Speaker 1: of the rest of their house. Oscar is schizophrenic with
23:21
Speaker 1: his mood swings, and a worm is a best friend
23:23
Speaker 1: as his big bird with his imaginary friend. Uh is
23:26
Speaker 1: it snepe lupocus? And uh tell me Grover's not dealing
23:30
Speaker 1: with severe a d h D and cookie monster from
23:33
Speaker 1: manic bipolar tendencies. And the jobless adults Gordon, Susan and
23:37
Speaker 1: Bob so that's from Phil are the jobless adults the caregivers?
23:43
Speaker 1: He says her jobless adults. I've got two more. Uh.
23:48
Speaker 1: Jerry's laughing at how long this is going, but I
23:50
Speaker 1: warned her I was listening to your fantastic podcast and
23:53
Speaker 1: I had to write in I am getting married at
23:55
Speaker 1: the Hinton sound stage next year. That's so cool. Uh.
23:59
Speaker 1: He and his wife to be toward the sound stage.
24:01
Speaker 1: It was like being behind the scenes of the Muppet Show.
24:04
Speaker 1: We're honored as the first wedding ever to be hosted there.
24:06
Speaker 1: And I asked him a running backs, like, dude, what's
24:08
Speaker 1: the hook up? You know? He had none. He just asked, Huh.
24:11
Speaker 1: They rented out to people apparently for things, and no
24:13
Speaker 1: one's ever thought to have a wedding the round. And
24:16
Speaker 1: that is from he gave us some facts, but we
24:18
Speaker 1: have time for that. That is from Dan and of
24:22
Speaker 1: t d f Illustration dot Com because he's a cool artist.
24:26
Speaker 1: I wanted to plug that from Dan and finally Josh
24:31
Speaker 1: from Jake in Newport Richie, Florida says, I was an
24:34
Speaker 1: accident of the eighties and I missed them up at
24:37
Speaker 1: hey Day, but I was lucky enough to have three
24:38
Speaker 1: older sisters and parents who had the foresight to ensure
24:42
Speaker 1: that they taped several seasons of the Muppet Show. So
24:45
Speaker 1: Jake is a big fan of the Muppets now and
24:47
Speaker 1: he told us this fact, which I did not know
24:49
Speaker 1: since Jim Henson's death, Ralph the Dog has not spoken
24:53
Speaker 1: and is seldom used. And it's my understanding that they
24:56
Speaker 1: do this out of reverence to Mr Henson because Ralph
24:58
Speaker 1: was his favorite Muppet. Oh yeah, yeah, check this wiped
25:02
Speaker 1: away here, you sweet old softie. So that's muppet mail.
25:06
Speaker 1: We got hundreds of pieces of mail and good blog
25:09
Speaker 1: response and you thanks for sending them. And it was
25:11
Speaker 1: a good show. Yeah, and we'll try to keep you
25:14
Speaker 1: supplied with more good shows in the future. If you
25:17
Speaker 1: want to send an email and try to make Chuck cry,
25:20
Speaker 1: it's not that hard. You can send it to Stuff
25:24
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
25:31
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff
25:34
Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
25:38
Speaker 1: our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
25:41
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