April 3, 2020 • 23 mins
Gabe loves monster moves! And Will and Mango... tolerate them. But, it turns out, we all love facts about Godzilla. From how Godzilla changed paleontology, to the giant monster's (secret) signature move, to why flattened buildings aren't the worst part of a Godzilla attack, this episode we tip our hats to the King of the Monsters.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of I Heart Radio.
I guess what, Mango? What's that? Will? So? I know,
these days it feels like we can't start any conversation
without talking about the quarantine and without coronavirus unfortunately. But
one of the things I've noticed right now in terms
(00:24):
of how people cope with the quarantine, I find this
interesting is that they watch a bunch of virus based content,
like like this is this is a real thing. Like
tons of people have been watching that new pandemic documentary
series on Netflix, and Contagion is one of the most
watched streaming titles right now. Have you noticed this? Yeah,
I mean it is such a strange phenomena to me,
(00:44):
because that is not my idea of escapism. I turned
to things like the Muppets movie and times like this.
But and I know you're not lying about that that's
actually true. But you know, I guess the virus stuff
does make sense if you're looking for a way to
remind yourself that it could be worse. Yeah, And I
guess I get that feeling like it's good to keep
our discomfort in perspective. But if you're like me, viral
(01:06):
disaster movies probably hit a little too close to home.
But thankfully I have come up with a far less
upsetting option, and that's to just watch a giant monster
movie instead. Like, throw one of those on and you'll
be thinking, Sure, things are tough right now, but at
least there's no Godzilla, you know. So does that does
that really give you any peace of mind? Oh, it
(01:28):
totally does. I mean, it's probably the last genuine source
of comfort that we have left Mango. I mean, I
think you'll agree a Godzilla attack definitely would not improve
our situation. And that's not just because of the smashed
up buildings and rolling blackouts either, Like there would be
way worse things to consider if Godzilla came to town. Well,
I mean, smashed up buildings sound pretty awful, and so
(01:51):
to blackouts. But what else do you think about? All right,
we'll think about it this way. At the end of
the day. Godzilla is a giant animal, right Like. He
started out at around a hundred and sixty feet tall
during his first appearance. This was back in nineteen fifty four,
and over the years he's been scaled up in order
to keep pace with the increasing size of skyscrapers. So Nowaday,
(02:11):
the modern Godzilla is three times as tall as the original,
almost five hundred feet. So not to be gross, but
can you imagine how much waste an animal that large
would produce? Can you imagine this, Mango, stop and think
about it just for a second. So forget being crushed
like the city's would be flooded, and get this. I
looked this up. There's actually some science behind this. So,
(02:34):
according to a marine researcher named Dr Craig McClain, an
animal of Godzilla's height and weight would produce a truly
monstrous amount of eurine nearly thirteen million gallons per day.
That's like a quarter of an oil tanker raining down
for every day of Godzilla's rampage. So this, this is
what I now have to think about, Mango and my quarantine.
(02:55):
That is so gross, And you're right, things would be
way worse with Godzilla around, and it's true. I'm glad
you finally understand this. So it really puts things in perspective.
And that's just the first of nine godzill effects we've
got on tap today. So let's dive in. Or Hey there,
(03:31):
podcast listeners, welcome to part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson,
and as always, I'm joined by my good friend man
Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of our zoom
conference wiping his mouth and punching at the air for
some reason, that's our good friend and producer Lowell. So
I'm not sure what all the wiping and punching is about.
But luckily Gave Luizier is back with us today. He's
(03:52):
our resident Kaiju or strange creature fans, so hopefully he
can shed some light on this. And what is little
doing over there? Does it have anything to do with Godzilla? Yeah,
so that's actually a deep cut Godzilla reference, so nicely done, Lola. Uh.
There was a point in Godzilla's career. I think he
was about a leaf in movies deep at the time.
(04:14):
It's kind of hard to keep track. And anyway, at
some point the powers that be decided that Godzilla should
have his own signature move, and I guess the idea
was that, you know, he would taunt his opponents by
making this like insulting menacing gesture and for whatever reason,
wiping his mouth with his right hand and then jabbing
at the air. That's what they came up with. It's
(04:36):
great for video games. I feel like, but why do that, Like,
is there some cultural significance for it, not that I
know of. Like my guess is the actor in the
suit was just like pretty limited mobility wise, so like
a mouth wipe and a and a punch was the
best he could muster either way. I mean the move
they only like stuck with this for a couple of
movies and then they phased it out, So I mean
(04:57):
it did leave an impression though, obviously at least and
Lowell and Uh, there's some fans out there they refer
to the movies where Godzilla does this as the wipe
your mouth and punch the air trilogy. You know, it's
fun as we do these things, learning things about each
of us that I never knew you and Lowell were
such big Godzilla fans. That's that's pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah,
(05:18):
I mean this is kind of a new thing for me.
Like I had seen a few of the old ones,
you know, when I was a kid, and I thought
they were cheesy and you know, good time or whatever.
But I hadn't watched one in a really long time,
and and then last year, I guess it was actually
Godzilla is the sixty fifth anniversary of Godzilla, so he's
he's technically a senior citizen now. And a bunch of
(05:39):
movies were coming back to a little independent theaters around here,
so Aaron and I got a chance to watch a
few on the big screen, and we just kind of
fell in love with how silly and over the top
they were. I mean, it's weird to say, but Godzilla
is an oddly endearing character if you really watch some
of his movies, Like, I mean, he wipes his mouth,
he punches, yeah, he rect stuff, he dances, Like what
(06:03):
more do you want? You know? But I'm curious. Maybe
that's just me. What about you guys? Any fond memories
of the King of the Monsters. It's funny whenever like
monster movies would come on on like Saturday mornings, that
was our que to go outside, like like that's when
I take of them. Like, well, I I don't know
if you remember this, but we went to toy fair
(06:23):
like years and years ago, and the company that we
were doing a board game with was also doing King Kong.
And this was like in two thousand's and so they
had the King Kong board game behind this like curtain
and they were like guards there because they didn't want
to show anyone what the monster looked like. And I thought,
you know, I'm a part of this company. I can
like go back and sneak in, and they would not
(06:43):
let me in. And I remember I wasn't even that insulted.
I just remember thinking it was like so stupid, because
how different King King Kong look like you In the end,
you basically know what he looks like. Well, I don't know, Mega.
I think maybe in the end they knew like what
a blabber mouth you were, and they just needed to
keep you out of there. The rest of them they
(07:04):
would sort of whisper to us like do you want
to come see it? But then when you showed up,
they were like, guys, guys, we can't come back here. So,
as I mentioned, I do not love monster movies, but
I do have a fondness for facts about monster movies.
So this is my first one, and it's about the
guy who helped bring Godzilla to life in the early movies.
So obviously today's Godzilla's computer generated, but that wasn't always
(07:27):
the case. And while multiple actors have donned the scalely
suit over the years, the first to do so was
this Japanese actor named Ruo Nakajima, and he started the
original nine movie and then he reprised the role for
I think like eleven sequels. But when Nakajima first landed
the role, he didn't know what the character would look like.
All he knew was that would be some kind of
(07:48):
ancient sea creature that would be awakened by this underwater
test of the hydrogen bond. So, you know, with nothing
else to go on, he actually prepared by spending ten
days at the zoo, so he watched elephant, he watched gorillas,
but strangely, it was the bears that really captivated him.
And this is what he told a reporter at the
time quote, I used to take two lunches with me.
(08:09):
One was mine and the rest I'd throw to the bears.
When one of them snatched it up and shoveled it
into his mouth, I'd watch the way he did it.
But no amount of research could have prepared Nakajima for
the reality of being stuffed inside a lizard suit. Like
the original costume was notoriously difficult to move, kind of
like what Gabe said, because it was made from ready
mixed concrete and reportedly it weighed about two pounds at
(08:32):
the time, why would they use concrete instead of something
like rubber. So the later suits were rubber, but it
was hard to come by in the early post war
years in Japan, so they went concrete for the first one,
and that made the suit super super heavy, but it
also made it suffocating lee hot. In fact, Kajima said
he sweated so much in the suit that after a
day of filming, he would wring out the perspiration from
(08:54):
his undershirt and it would actually fill half a bucket.
Can't believe he did that. He kept that up for
twelve movies, Like that is some serious dedication. Yeah, I mean,
I guess he was a trooper and and he's actually
kind of a pioneer when you think about it. What
he did generated this whole new type of acting. All
these actors were where a giant monster costumes and Greek
(09:14):
havoc on model cities. You think, like, there are hundreds
of movies and TV shows all made using that process,
and Nakajima was actually at the forefront of all of that.
All right, Well, here's a bit of film history that
I like. You mentioned that Nakajima wasn't sure what kind
of creature Godzilla was going to be initially, but he
wasn't the only one. The producers of the film also
(09:35):
weren't sure what look they wanted for their ancient sea creature,
and originally he was just going to be a giant
mutant octopus, which you know, would have put Nakajima out
of a job since they could have just set a
real octopus loose on their miniature cities. Uh. But then
the creative team decided to take an even weirder approach,
and it was the second approach that actually gave us
(09:57):
the characters Japanese name. And you know, remember Godzilla, that's
just something the marketers came up with for the American release.
In Japan, he's actually known as Goujira, and that's because
at one point during development, the plan was for the
monster to be a cross between a gorilla and a whale.
And though that idea it sounds weird, right, but I mean,
(10:19):
even though that idea was eventually scrapped in favor of
a more dinosaur like design, they did keep the original name,
which is actually a portmanteau of the Japanese words for
gorilla and whale. I've always wondered what kind of creature
Godzilla is supposed to be. I mean, he's obviously some
kind of reptile or maybe amphibian, I guess, and and
(10:40):
not a guerrilla whale, that's for sure, But what kind
of reptile is he? Like? Is he an unknown species
of dinosaur that secretly survived underwater or is he just
a regular lizard that got you know, irradiated and grew
into a giant or something else? Like these are again
in addition to the things I was thinking about before
with like Godzilla a waste, I have to think about this.
(11:02):
Did you figure it out? Well? It turns out it
kind of depends on who you ask, which maybe isn't
a huge surprise. So the crew definitely looked at dinosaur
illustrations for inspiration when designing the costume. But according to
a scientist character in the original movie, Godzilla is kind
of this transitional creature. So the quote was somewhere between
(11:23):
the marine reptiles and the evolving terrestrial animals, so technically
not a dinosaur, but a close descendant of them. However,
the waters get a little bit muddier when you know,
you go a little bit deeper on this So, for instance,
Godzilla's creator, a producer named Tamayuki Tanaka, has gone on
record saying that his original intention for Godzilla to be
(11:45):
a quote dinosaurs sleeping in the Southern Hemisphere that had
been awakened and transformed into a giant by the atomic bomb.
So I bet you didn't see that one coming. And
that offscreen take on the origin was actually made explicit
it during the nineteen nineties run of Godzilla movies. So
in one of these characters travel back in time, they
(12:06):
go back to nineteen forty four, and there they encounter
this dinosaur living alone on an island. Now was the
same dinosaur that eventually mutates into Godzilla after being hit
with an h bomb. But do you actually figure out
what kind of dinosaur is supposed to be? No, I
have no idea. I guess I just got tired of
looking that much more so, the dinosaur in the movie
was completely fictional, and it kind of looked like this,
(12:29):
more like a dumpy tarannosaurus, I guess. But it was
referred to in the movie as a Godzillasaurus, and that
that makes sense. It's super creative. But all right, but
here's the thing. Five years later, this was. In nine seven,
a paleontologist named Ken Carpenter discovered a new genus of
bipedal dinosaur, and he lovingly dubbed it go Girasaurus. So weirdly,
(12:52):
Godzilla both is and isn't a real dinosaur. Oh that's
that's actually pretty great. Does it make so much sense
that like a paleontology us would be a Godzilla fanatic? Right?
Like that makes a lot of sense. Here's one I
definitely didn't know before this week. Did you know that
Godzilla is the longest running movie franchise of all time?
This year marks the sixty anniversary of his first appearance
(13:13):
and the release of his thirty six theatrical film. That
puts Godzilla eight years and eleven movies ahead of his
closest competition, which is the James Bond series. What's really interesting, though,
is how the series has managed to stay relevant for
that long. If you look at the different periods of
Godzilla movies, the tone of the series and even the
characters roll in it are always changing to kind of
better align with the mood and what the audience of
(13:35):
the times wanted. The first movie isn't actually something like
goofy camp be monster movie. It has action, it does
have cheesy effects, but it's actually the somber and really
bleak movie, and it treats the disaster super seriously, and
that isn't by accident. Like the director described Godzilla as
the embodiment of the quote invisible fear that the nuclear
(13:55):
bomb could be dropped at any moment, and that really
resonated with audiences at the time, and many Japanese movie
goers left the theater and tears after seeing the movie.
It wasn't until the nineteen sixties, when Japan's postwar economy
was rebounding, that Godzilla started to loosen up a little
and and for a while he was portrayed as kind
of a cranky public menace like this bully you had
(14:15):
to be chased off by the army or by one
of the more good natured monsters like Mathra, and then
he gradually became a more heroic figure who would fight
off other giant monsters on behalf of Tokyo, even if
he still did trash most of the city in the process.
You know, for the record, I feel like that counts
as a fact and a half there, because there was
really a lot in there. But it is wild how
much mileage they've gotten out of that concept that many movies.
(14:38):
It's incredible. Yeah, it kind of makes me wish they
would mix things up even more. Like Mego mentioned James Bond, like,
let's throw him in there. I I mean, I feel
like that fight would be over very very quickly. But
we've got four facts left to go, so let's take
a quick break and then we'll get back to it.
(15:12):
Welcome back to Part time Genius. Now we're talking about Godzilla,
who is the atomic fire breathing lizard with a heart
of gold. All right, Gabe, you're up again. You like
that I write that down. I was just ready to
ready to come with it. Alright, Gabe, So what's your
next fact? Mango clude us in on just how long
the Godzilla series has been around. So now I want
(15:33):
to talk about how ahead of its time it's been.
So take the Marvel movies for instance. They kicked off
this big universe building trend in Hollywood where you know,
the goal is to crank out as many interconnected movies
as possible, And the way that plays out for superhero
movies is you do a bunch of standalone movies, a
thor movie, an Iron Man movie, etcetera. And then you
(15:56):
bring all those characters together for a big team up
movie like The Avengers. It's incredibly lucrative formula and one
that some studios are falling over themselves to emulate. But
here's the thing. They may think they're copying from Marvel,
but they're really cribbing from Godzilla. And that's because way
back in the early nineteen sixties, the Toho Studio was
(16:16):
working off the same two stage strategy. Alongside Godzilla movies,
they were also creating other standalone Kaiju movies like Roodan,
who was basically a giant terodactyl that lived in a volcano,
and Mathra, who was kind of the benevolent protector of
this secret island in the Pacific. So, I I know
Matra and rood In eventually fought against Godzilla, but you're
(16:40):
saying they did an Avenger style team up movie too, Yeah, exactly.
Like after debuting in their own movies, the Trio Big
grudgingly joined forces into and of course, that was to
protect the Earth from the threat of King Godra, who
I guess you could call like the Thanos of the
Godzilla universe. I don't know, he's like a fly gold
(17:00):
three headed dragon from outer space. So there aren't a
ton of parallels. But he's definitely Godzilla's arch nemesis. That's
the point. And uh, the monsters, you know, they've had
the team up a few times over the years to
fight him off. That is a good fact. I feel
like you guys really stepped it up with the facts today.
I'm gonna to come up with some good ones. But
all right, well, I feel like I had a couple
(17:22):
here in mind. But I'm going to take us behind
the scenes again for my third fact, because I want
to talk about Godzilla's iconic roar and more specifically, how
the sound of that roar was made. And if you've
never heard the roar I'm talking about, we're gonna we're
gonna play a few of them here for you. Now,
little stop, stop putting your fist up in the air
and play I'm here. It's a strange sound, right, but
(17:58):
where did it come from? Them? So, in the nineteen
fifty four original, the sound effects team tried to create
Godzilla's roar using animal sounds, but none of them seemed
to be like the right match. They were all too
familiar and not otherworldly. Enough for the monster that people
were seeing on the screen. So then the film's composer,
Akira if Kube, had this great idea, why not use
(18:22):
a musical instrument to make the roar instead? So this
is what he did. He donned a pair of leather gloves,
coated them in pine tar resin, and then he dragged
the sticky gloves up and down the east ring of
a broken down double bass. Isn't this so weird when
they come up with these ideas to do stuff like this,
It's like, you know what I think I'm gonna do
(18:43):
with these gloves. But anyway, the sound he got from
that became the sound of Godzilla and it's been the
basis of his roar ever since. That is incredible. So
we've talked about how prolific Godzilla has been at the multiplex,
but he's also had his share of offs green successes.
For example, he's one of a handful of fictional characters
(19:04):
to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
And in Godzilla became the first radioactive lizard monster to
win the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award. So it was actually
presented to him by Sir Patrick Stewart, who offered this
touching tribute, saying, quote, we've all heard about his temper
and about the people he stepped on on his way
(19:25):
to the top, But in this world of stars and superstars,
it would be no exaggeration to say that he is
the biggest, which is I think very sweet and h
He is so big, in fact, that his fame is
even extended to TV roles, which have been equally strange. Um.
For instance, there was a time in where Godzilla appeared
in a string of commercials for Dr Pepper, of all things.
(19:47):
In the ads, he's just doing his thing, wrecking building,
stopping on cars, and then he comes across a giant
can of Dr Pepper, just sitting where a water tower
should be, and uh he takes a big sip and
the ad ends with him burping. All said spive Am,
I alone in thinking like that ad was beneath the
dignity of Godzilla. Yeah, I think you probably are gay, alright,
(20:10):
fair well, if you think that sounds bad, definitely don't
watch the Nike commercial where Godzilla faces off with Charles Barkley.
It ends with Barkley dunking on Godzilla and then consoling
him by offering him a spot on the Lakers team,
which the Lakers are having a very rough season. That ye,
all right, Well, to close this out, I thought I'd
(20:32):
cover what we all really want to know, which is
how the military would actually tackle the threat of Godzilla
in real life. This is important stuff, right, So to
figure this out. A few years ago, Air and Space
Magazine reached out to a US Air Force base in Okanhawa, Japan,
this is real and the response they got from the
personnel there was a little surprising. They basically said, yeah,
(20:57):
we could take him, no problem. When they were pressed about,
you know, how many aircraft they would need to mount
to cohesive defense, the master sergeant just said seven, which
seems optimistic at best. I love how you take that
as such a serious answer me. Do you think maybe
he wasn't taking the question very seriously, you know, with
Godzilla not being real and all. Yeah, that did occur
(21:19):
to me. To be fair, though, the sergeant did acknowledge
the Godzilla would likely be expecting an aerial attack, which
shows that he was at least putting some thought into
what kind of strategy, you know, might work in this situation.
But again, the answer he came up with was to
catch Godzilla off guard using quote four thousand segues and slingshots.
(21:42):
So yeah, he might not have been taking it too seriously.
I mean, you do hate to see that kind of hubers,
you know. I feel like he really should have taken
that more seriously. But anyway, well, yeah, but on the
bright side, it looks like Japan at least is taking
the threat seriously. Back in two thousand seven, the country's
defend minister told reporters that even though Japan has a
(22:03):
pacifist constitution, the military wouldn't have to wait for Godzilla
to attack first. According to him, quote, if Godzilla attacked,
that would be a natural disaster relief operation, making military
action legally permissible. Yeah. So so I'm I'm glad they
have that all worked out just in case. It seems
like they've really thought it through. And and uh, I
(22:25):
I feel like you really sued some nerves with that
last fact. Plus you explained what the heck Lowell was
doing at the top of the show. So I feel
like you should take today's trophy. I feel like we
even stomped it flat for you there, Gabe, So just
like Godzilla would, it feels appropriate all right. Well it
might be because I haven't left the house in four days,
but that means a lot, guys, so thank you. All right,
well that's gonna do it for today's Part Time Genius
(22:47):
for myself, Mango, Gabe, and Lowell. Thank you so much
for listening. Stay safe, wash your hands. We'll be back
soon with another episode. M Part Time Genius is a
(23:09):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of I Heart Radio.
I guess what, Mango? What's that? Will? So? I know,
these days it feels like we can't start any conversation
without talking about the quarantine and without coronavirus unfortunately. But
one of the things I've noticed right now in terms
(00:24):
of how people cope with the quarantine, I find this
interesting is that they watch a bunch of virus based content,
like like this is this is a real thing. Like
tons of people have been watching that new pandemic documentary
series on Netflix, and Contagion is one of the most
watched streaming titles right now. Have you noticed this? Yeah,
I mean it is such a strange phenomena to me,
(00:44):
because that is not my idea of escapism. I turned
to things like the Muppets movie and times like this.
But and I know you're not lying about that that's
actually true. But you know, I guess the virus stuff
does make sense if you're looking for a way to
remind yourself that it could be worse. Yeah, And I
guess I get that feeling like it's good to keep
our discomfort in perspective. But if you're like me, viral
(01:06):
disaster movies probably hit a little too close to home.
But thankfully I have come up with a far less
upsetting option, and that's to just watch a giant monster
movie instead. Like, throw one of those on and you'll
be thinking, Sure, things are tough right now, but at
least there's no Godzilla, you know. So does that does
that really give you any peace of mind? Oh, it
(01:28):
totally does. I mean, it's probably the last genuine source
of comfort that we have left Mango. I mean, I
think you'll agree a Godzilla attack definitely would not improve
our situation. And that's not just because of the smashed
up buildings and rolling blackouts either, Like there would be
way worse things to consider if Godzilla came to town. Well,
I mean, smashed up buildings sound pretty awful, and so
(01:51):
to blackouts. But what else do you think about? All right,
we'll think about it this way. At the end of
the day. Godzilla is a giant animal, right Like. He
started out at around a hundred and sixty feet tall
during his first appearance. This was back in nineteen fifty four,
and over the years he's been scaled up in order
to keep pace with the increasing size of skyscrapers. So Nowaday,
(02:11):
the modern Godzilla is three times as tall as the original,
almost five hundred feet. So not to be gross, but
can you imagine how much waste an animal that large
would produce? Can you imagine this, Mango, stop and think
about it just for a second. So forget being crushed
like the city's would be flooded, and get this. I
looked this up. There's actually some science behind this. So,
(02:34):
according to a marine researcher named Dr Craig McClain, an
animal of Godzilla's height and weight would produce a truly
monstrous amount of eurine nearly thirteen million gallons per day.
That's like a quarter of an oil tanker raining down
for every day of Godzilla's rampage. So this, this is
what I now have to think about, Mango and my quarantine.
(02:55):
That is so gross, And you're right, things would be
way worse with Godzilla around, and it's true. I'm glad
you finally understand this. So it really puts things in perspective.
And that's just the first of nine godzill effects we've
got on tap today. So let's dive in. Or Hey there,
(03:31):
podcast listeners, welcome to part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson,
and as always, I'm joined by my good friend man
Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of our zoom
conference wiping his mouth and punching at the air for
some reason, that's our good friend and producer Lowell. So
I'm not sure what all the wiping and punching is about.
But luckily Gave Luizier is back with us today. He's
(03:52):
our resident Kaiju or strange creature fans, so hopefully he
can shed some light on this. And what is little
doing over there? Does it have anything to do with Godzilla? Yeah,
so that's actually a deep cut Godzilla reference, so nicely done, Lola. Uh.
There was a point in Godzilla's career. I think he
was about a leaf in movies deep at the time.
(04:14):
It's kind of hard to keep track. And anyway, at
some point the powers that be decided that Godzilla should
have his own signature move, and I guess the idea
was that, you know, he would taunt his opponents by
making this like insulting menacing gesture and for whatever reason,
wiping his mouth with his right hand and then jabbing
at the air. That's what they came up with. It's
(04:36):
great for video games. I feel like, but why do that, Like,
is there some cultural significance for it, not that I
know of. Like my guess is the actor in the
suit was just like pretty limited mobility wise, so like
a mouth wipe and a and a punch was the
best he could muster either way. I mean the move
they only like stuck with this for a couple of
movies and then they phased it out, So I mean
(04:57):
it did leave an impression though, obviously at least and
Lowell and Uh, there's some fans out there they refer
to the movies where Godzilla does this as the wipe
your mouth and punch the air trilogy. You know, it's
fun as we do these things, learning things about each
of us that I never knew you and Lowell were
such big Godzilla fans. That's that's pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah,
(05:18):
I mean this is kind of a new thing for me.
Like I had seen a few of the old ones,
you know, when I was a kid, and I thought
they were cheesy and you know, good time or whatever.
But I hadn't watched one in a really long time,
and and then last year, I guess it was actually
Godzilla is the sixty fifth anniversary of Godzilla, so he's
he's technically a senior citizen now. And a bunch of
(05:39):
movies were coming back to a little independent theaters around here,
so Aaron and I got a chance to watch a
few on the big screen, and we just kind of
fell in love with how silly and over the top
they were. I mean, it's weird to say, but Godzilla
is an oddly endearing character if you really watch some
of his movies, Like, I mean, he wipes his mouth,
he punches, yeah, he rect stuff, he dances, Like what
(06:03):
more do you want? You know? But I'm curious. Maybe
that's just me. What about you guys? Any fond memories
of the King of the Monsters. It's funny whenever like
monster movies would come on on like Saturday mornings, that
was our que to go outside, like like that's when
I take of them. Like, well, I I don't know
if you remember this, but we went to toy fair
(06:23):
like years and years ago, and the company that we
were doing a board game with was also doing King Kong.
And this was like in two thousand's and so they
had the King Kong board game behind this like curtain
and they were like guards there because they didn't want
to show anyone what the monster looked like. And I thought,
you know, I'm a part of this company. I can
like go back and sneak in, and they would not
(06:43):
let me in. And I remember I wasn't even that insulted.
I just remember thinking it was like so stupid, because
how different King King Kong look like you In the end,
you basically know what he looks like. Well, I don't know, Mega.
I think maybe in the end they knew like what
a blabber mouth you were, and they just needed to
keep you out of there. The rest of them they
(07:04):
would sort of whisper to us like do you want
to come see it? But then when you showed up,
they were like, guys, guys, we can't come back here. So,
as I mentioned, I do not love monster movies, but
I do have a fondness for facts about monster movies.
So this is my first one, and it's about the
guy who helped bring Godzilla to life in the early movies.
So obviously today's Godzilla's computer generated, but that wasn't always
(07:27):
the case. And while multiple actors have donned the scalely
suit over the years, the first to do so was
this Japanese actor named Ruo Nakajima, and he started the
original nine movie and then he reprised the role for
I think like eleven sequels. But when Nakajima first landed
the role, he didn't know what the character would look like.
All he knew was that would be some kind of
(07:48):
ancient sea creature that would be awakened by this underwater
test of the hydrogen bond. So, you know, with nothing
else to go on, he actually prepared by spending ten
days at the zoo, so he watched elephant, he watched gorillas,
but strangely, it was the bears that really captivated him.
And this is what he told a reporter at the
time quote, I used to take two lunches with me.
(08:09):
One was mine and the rest I'd throw to the bears.
When one of them snatched it up and shoveled it
into his mouth, I'd watch the way he did it.
But no amount of research could have prepared Nakajima for
the reality of being stuffed inside a lizard suit. Like
the original costume was notoriously difficult to move, kind of
like what Gabe said, because it was made from ready
mixed concrete and reportedly it weighed about two pounds at
(08:32):
the time, why would they use concrete instead of something
like rubber. So the later suits were rubber, but it
was hard to come by in the early post war
years in Japan, so they went concrete for the first one,
and that made the suit super super heavy, but it
also made it suffocating lee hot. In fact, Kajima said
he sweated so much in the suit that after a
day of filming, he would wring out the perspiration from
(08:54):
his undershirt and it would actually fill half a bucket.
Can't believe he did that. He kept that up for
twelve movies, Like that is some serious dedication. Yeah, I mean,
I guess he was a trooper and and he's actually
kind of a pioneer when you think about it. What
he did generated this whole new type of acting. All
these actors were where a giant monster costumes and Greek
(09:14):
havoc on model cities. You think, like, there are hundreds
of movies and TV shows all made using that process,
and Nakajima was actually at the forefront of all of that.
All right, Well, here's a bit of film history that
I like. You mentioned that Nakajima wasn't sure what kind
of creature Godzilla was going to be initially, but he
wasn't the only one. The producers of the film also
(09:35):
weren't sure what look they wanted for their ancient sea creature,
and originally he was just going to be a giant
mutant octopus, which you know, would have put Nakajima out
of a job since they could have just set a
real octopus loose on their miniature cities. Uh. But then
the creative team decided to take an even weirder approach,
and it was the second approach that actually gave us
(09:57):
the characters Japanese name. And you know, remember Godzilla, that's
just something the marketers came up with for the American release.
In Japan, he's actually known as Goujira, and that's because
at one point during development, the plan was for the
monster to be a cross between a gorilla and a whale.
And though that idea it sounds weird, right, but I mean,
(10:19):
even though that idea was eventually scrapped in favor of
a more dinosaur like design, they did keep the original name,
which is actually a portmanteau of the Japanese words for
gorilla and whale. I've always wondered what kind of creature
Godzilla is supposed to be. I mean, he's obviously some
kind of reptile or maybe amphibian, I guess, and and
(10:40):
not a guerrilla whale, that's for sure, But what kind
of reptile is he? Like? Is he an unknown species
of dinosaur that secretly survived underwater or is he just
a regular lizard that got you know, irradiated and grew
into a giant or something else? Like these are again
in addition to the things I was thinking about before
with like Godzilla a waste, I have to think about this.
(11:02):
Did you figure it out? Well? It turns out it
kind of depends on who you ask, which maybe isn't
a huge surprise. So the crew definitely looked at dinosaur
illustrations for inspiration when designing the costume. But according to
a scientist character in the original movie, Godzilla is kind
of this transitional creature. So the quote was somewhere between
(11:23):
the marine reptiles and the evolving terrestrial animals, so technically
not a dinosaur, but a close descendant of them. However,
the waters get a little bit muddier when you know,
you go a little bit deeper on this So, for instance,
Godzilla's creator, a producer named Tamayuki Tanaka, has gone on
record saying that his original intention for Godzilla to be
(11:45):
a quote dinosaurs sleeping in the Southern Hemisphere that had
been awakened and transformed into a giant by the atomic bomb.
So I bet you didn't see that one coming. And
that offscreen take on the origin was actually made explicit
it during the nineteen nineties run of Godzilla movies. So
in one of these characters travel back in time, they
(12:06):
go back to nineteen forty four, and there they encounter
this dinosaur living alone on an island. Now was the
same dinosaur that eventually mutates into Godzilla after being hit
with an h bomb. But do you actually figure out
what kind of dinosaur is supposed to be? No, I
have no idea. I guess I just got tired of
looking that much more so, the dinosaur in the movie
was completely fictional, and it kind of looked like this,
(12:29):
more like a dumpy tarannosaurus, I guess. But it was
referred to in the movie as a Godzillasaurus, and that
that makes sense. It's super creative. But all right, but
here's the thing. Five years later, this was. In nine seven,
a paleontologist named Ken Carpenter discovered a new genus of
bipedal dinosaur, and he lovingly dubbed it go Girasaurus. So weirdly,
(12:52):
Godzilla both is and isn't a real dinosaur. Oh that's
that's actually pretty great. Does it make so much sense
that like a paleontology us would be a Godzilla fanatic? Right?
Like that makes a lot of sense. Here's one I
definitely didn't know before this week. Did you know that
Godzilla is the longest running movie franchise of all time?
This year marks the sixty anniversary of his first appearance
(13:13):
and the release of his thirty six theatrical film. That
puts Godzilla eight years and eleven movies ahead of his
closest competition, which is the James Bond series. What's really interesting, though,
is how the series has managed to stay relevant for
that long. If you look at the different periods of
Godzilla movies, the tone of the series and even the
characters roll in it are always changing to kind of
better align with the mood and what the audience of
(13:35):
the times wanted. The first movie isn't actually something like
goofy camp be monster movie. It has action, it does
have cheesy effects, but it's actually the somber and really
bleak movie, and it treats the disaster super seriously, and
that isn't by accident. Like the director described Godzilla as
the embodiment of the quote invisible fear that the nuclear
(13:55):
bomb could be dropped at any moment, and that really
resonated with audiences at the time, and many Japanese movie
goers left the theater and tears after seeing the movie.
It wasn't until the nineteen sixties, when Japan's postwar economy
was rebounding, that Godzilla started to loosen up a little
and and for a while he was portrayed as kind
of a cranky public menace like this bully you had
(14:15):
to be chased off by the army or by one
of the more good natured monsters like Mathra, and then
he gradually became a more heroic figure who would fight
off other giant monsters on behalf of Tokyo, even if
he still did trash most of the city in the process.
You know, for the record, I feel like that counts
as a fact and a half there, because there was
really a lot in there. But it is wild how
much mileage they've gotten out of that concept that many movies.
(14:38):
It's incredible. Yeah, it kind of makes me wish they
would mix things up even more. Like Mego mentioned James Bond, like,
let's throw him in there. I I mean, I feel
like that fight would be over very very quickly. But
we've got four facts left to go, so let's take
a quick break and then we'll get back to it.
(15:12):
Welcome back to Part time Genius. Now we're talking about Godzilla,
who is the atomic fire breathing lizard with a heart
of gold. All right, Gabe, you're up again. You like
that I write that down. I was just ready to
ready to come with it. Alright, Gabe, So what's your
next fact? Mango clude us in on just how long
the Godzilla series has been around. So now I want
(15:33):
to talk about how ahead of its time it's been.
So take the Marvel movies for instance. They kicked off
this big universe building trend in Hollywood where you know,
the goal is to crank out as many interconnected movies
as possible, And the way that plays out for superhero
movies is you do a bunch of standalone movies, a
thor movie, an Iron Man movie, etcetera. And then you
(15:56):
bring all those characters together for a big team up
movie like The Avengers. It's incredibly lucrative formula and one
that some studios are falling over themselves to emulate. But
here's the thing. They may think they're copying from Marvel,
but they're really cribbing from Godzilla. And that's because way
back in the early nineteen sixties, the Toho Studio was
(16:16):
working off the same two stage strategy. Alongside Godzilla movies,
they were also creating other standalone Kaiju movies like Roodan,
who was basically a giant terodactyl that lived in a volcano,
and Mathra, who was kind of the benevolent protector of
this secret island in the Pacific. So, I I know
Matra and rood In eventually fought against Godzilla, but you're
(16:40):
saying they did an Avenger style team up movie too, Yeah, exactly.
Like after debuting in their own movies, the Trio Big
grudgingly joined forces into and of course, that was to
protect the Earth from the threat of King Godra, who
I guess you could call like the Thanos of the
Godzilla universe. I don't know, he's like a fly gold
(17:00):
three headed dragon from outer space. So there aren't a
ton of parallels. But he's definitely Godzilla's arch nemesis. That's
the point. And uh, the monsters, you know, they've had
the team up a few times over the years to
fight him off. That is a good fact. I feel
like you guys really stepped it up with the facts today.
I'm gonna to come up with some good ones. But
all right, well, I feel like I had a couple
(17:22):
here in mind. But I'm going to take us behind
the scenes again for my third fact, because I want
to talk about Godzilla's iconic roar and more specifically, how
the sound of that roar was made. And if you've
never heard the roar I'm talking about, we're gonna we're
gonna play a few of them here for you. Now,
little stop, stop putting your fist up in the air
and play I'm here. It's a strange sound, right, but
(17:58):
where did it come from? Them? So, in the nineteen
fifty four original, the sound effects team tried to create
Godzilla's roar using animal sounds, but none of them seemed
to be like the right match. They were all too
familiar and not otherworldly. Enough for the monster that people
were seeing on the screen. So then the film's composer,
Akira if Kube, had this great idea, why not use
(18:22):
a musical instrument to make the roar instead? So this
is what he did. He donned a pair of leather gloves,
coated them in pine tar resin, and then he dragged
the sticky gloves up and down the east ring of
a broken down double bass. Isn't this so weird when
they come up with these ideas to do stuff like this,
It's like, you know what I think I'm gonna do
(18:43):
with these gloves. But anyway, the sound he got from
that became the sound of Godzilla and it's been the
basis of his roar ever since. That is incredible. So
we've talked about how prolific Godzilla has been at the multiplex,
but he's also had his share of offs green successes.
For example, he's one of a handful of fictional characters
(19:04):
to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
And in Godzilla became the first radioactive lizard monster to
win the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award. So it was actually
presented to him by Sir Patrick Stewart, who offered this
touching tribute, saying, quote, we've all heard about his temper
and about the people he stepped on on his way
(19:25):
to the top, But in this world of stars and superstars,
it would be no exaggeration to say that he is
the biggest, which is I think very sweet and h
He is so big, in fact, that his fame is
even extended to TV roles, which have been equally strange. Um.
For instance, there was a time in where Godzilla appeared
in a string of commercials for Dr Pepper, of all things.
(19:47):
In the ads, he's just doing his thing, wrecking building,
stopping on cars, and then he comes across a giant
can of Dr Pepper, just sitting where a water tower
should be, and uh he takes a big sip and
the ad ends with him burping. All said spive Am,
I alone in thinking like that ad was beneath the
dignity of Godzilla. Yeah, I think you probably are gay, alright,
(20:10):
fair well, if you think that sounds bad, definitely don't
watch the Nike commercial where Godzilla faces off with Charles Barkley.
It ends with Barkley dunking on Godzilla and then consoling
him by offering him a spot on the Lakers team,
which the Lakers are having a very rough season. That ye,
all right, Well, to close this out, I thought I'd
(20:32):
cover what we all really want to know, which is
how the military would actually tackle the threat of Godzilla
in real life. This is important stuff, right, So to
figure this out. A few years ago, Air and Space
Magazine reached out to a US Air Force base in Okanhawa, Japan,
this is real and the response they got from the
personnel there was a little surprising. They basically said, yeah,
(20:57):
we could take him, no problem. When they were pressed about,
you know, how many aircraft they would need to mount
to cohesive defense, the master sergeant just said seven, which
seems optimistic at best. I love how you take that
as such a serious answer me. Do you think maybe
he wasn't taking the question very seriously, you know, with
Godzilla not being real and all. Yeah, that did occur
(21:19):
to me. To be fair, though, the sergeant did acknowledge
the Godzilla would likely be expecting an aerial attack, which
shows that he was at least putting some thought into
what kind of strategy, you know, might work in this situation.
But again, the answer he came up with was to
catch Godzilla off guard using quote four thousand segues and slingshots.
(21:42):
So yeah, he might not have been taking it too seriously.
I mean, you do hate to see that kind of hubers,
you know. I feel like he really should have taken
that more seriously. But anyway, well, yeah, but on the
bright side, it looks like Japan at least is taking
the threat seriously. Back in two thousand seven, the country's
defend minister told reporters that even though Japan has a
(22:03):
pacifist constitution, the military wouldn't have to wait for Godzilla
to attack first. According to him, quote, if Godzilla attacked,
that would be a natural disaster relief operation, making military
action legally permissible. Yeah. So so I'm I'm glad they
have that all worked out just in case. It seems
like they've really thought it through. And and uh, I
(22:25):
I feel like you really sued some nerves with that
last fact. Plus you explained what the heck Lowell was
doing at the top of the show. So I feel
like you should take today's trophy. I feel like we
even stomped it flat for you there, Gabe, So just
like Godzilla would, it feels appropriate all right. Well it
might be because I haven't left the house in four days,
but that means a lot, guys, so thank you. All right,
well that's gonna do it for today's Part Time Genius
(22:47):
for myself, Mango, Gabe, and Lowell. Thank you so much
for listening. Stay safe, wash your hands. We'll be back
soon with another episode. M Part Time Genius is a
(23:09):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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