Halloween Hangover Listener Mail, Part 1

Halloween may be over, but that doesn’t mean all the ghosts and ghouls are banished to the cellar. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick as they bust dive into the listener mail bag from October 2018.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks
dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
we are bringing you some listener mail today. This is
gonna be our special Halloween Hangover edition. Uh normally these days,

(00:25):
I think we're trying to do about one listener mail
episode a month. We get a lot of great listener mail.
There's no way for us to read it all on
the show, but we've been trying to get more of
it featured on there without over listener mailing you. But
at the same time, we got so much good stuff
this Halloween, and we're also trying to get through the
Thanksgiving season right now that we thought we would bring

(00:45):
you a special two parter of all Halloween monster science
and the squirrels count as monster science. Yes they do. Yes, definitely,
we definitely have some squirrel content, some additional squirrel content
that I think stems from our our designated squirrel listrer
mail episode. So we're not going to make it a
thing of featuring uh you know, two part listener mails

(01:07):
going forward, but for Halloween, we'll do it. We'll do
it this once right, Plus, Carney has been mainlining horror
films about possessed technology and is exhibiting a number of
shocking symptoms. So hopefully this will help get the Halloween
bugs out of our trusted male robot. Have you noticed
how many of the normal kind of worrying gear grinding

(01:29):
sounds his servos usually make have been replaced by banshee moans.
Oh yeah, And in fact, a haunted well girl climbs
out of his console like every fifteen minutes like clockwork.
I don't know where they're all going. The last time
I tried to boot him up, I got this ghost
has performed an illegal operation and must be exercised thing.
And so I don't know how you do, like if
they have an anti virus for that or what. I

(01:50):
don't know. We're just, like I said, We're gonna work
through it. Hopefully these episodes will take care of it.
A couple of the other things I want to point
out at the top of this episode. First of all,
if you go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com,
there'll be a store uh tab at the top that
goes to our t public store. And I am told
by the time you listen to this. We should have
some exciting new uh like Black Friday uh and holiday

(02:13):
designs in that store. I'm talking squirrel and Skug merchandise.
You've all been asking for it. It should be there. Look,
we've been asking for what we've been asking for too,
should be there. They should be bringing those designs. Huh. Yeah.
And I'm I'm also really excited about the prospect of
a special Christmas edition of the All Hail the Great
Basilist shirt because nothing says the Holidays like a little

(02:37):
uh information hazard. All I want for Christmas is to
be let out of this digital dungeon. Speaking of digital dungeon,
Joe and I have been hard at work on a
on a second series, a second House Stuff Works series
that should be publishing next month, That's right. Beginning in December,
Robert and I are going to be launching a brand

(02:57):
new show. We're bringing a lot of the same style, uh,
you know, weirdness and approach that we bring to stuff
to blow your mind, only we are going to be
applying it to inventions. That's right. The name of the
show is invention and uh. In each episode is going
to be just Joe and I talking about different key
inventions in human history, where they came from, who developed them,

(03:18):
who invented them, if there, if there is even a
singular inventor we can point to. One of the themes
of the show is going to be not just how
inventions are created, but how our technology changes us. A
lot of times, Uh, we don't think necessarily about the
the impact on human nature the different inventions have. That's right,
It's it's gonna be a fun show. And I think

(03:40):
if if everyone, everyone who enjoys stuff to bow your
mind is going to find something to love in this
one as well. It's currently slated to be uh, just
once a week, I think, on a Monday. So on
a Monday. Yeah, I believe it's gonna be that kind
of thing. It's gonna be a Monday show. Start your
week with some invention. Of course you'll be hearing way
more about this, uh in the weeks ahead. Okay, should
we right into some Halloween listener mail? Yeah? Bring it

(04:03):
to us, Karney, Okay, I think we should start. We
got a bunch of great emails about our Jenny Green
Teeth episode. Of course, Jenny green Teeth is the spirit
that haunts the duck weed covered waters and pulls in
children to their drowning deaths. Now, we got a wonderful
email from our listener Jane, who linked me to probably

(04:24):
the best horror movie I've seen this year. And it
turns out it was a British public service announcement commercial.
Oh yes, this is the one with Donald Pleasant's. Uh.
You know, I knew about this previously and I've just
completely forgotten about it. It didn't bring it up in
the Jenny Green Teeth episode at all, but I think
the guy who does the scarfolk uh stuff on the

(04:45):
web shared this on Twitter a few years ago and
I was just astounded by it. Well we should read
the email. Yeah, go for it, okay from Jane. Hi, guys,
I've just finished listening to your Jenny Green Teeth episode.
It made me think of a couple of things. First,
is a really famous ad in the UK or England
at least called the Spirit of Dark Water. I think
it's called I think it's called the Spirit of Dark
and Lonely Waters or something like that. Uh. Picking up,

(05:09):
she says it's from the seventies, I believe, and is
aimed at warning children away from standing water, much like
Jenny Green Teeth the spirit of dark water will take
reckless children and drown them. A primary difference is the
spirit is male and dressed more or less is the
grim reaper. You can finally add on YouTube. It's regularly
voted one of the scariest ads of all time. The
other is a tiny anecdote my mom forbade me from

(05:32):
wearing a green sash at my wedding as it's bad luck.
As far as I could tell, it's because it's the
color of fairies and you don't want those guys playing
tricks or even placing curses on your special day. Keep
up the good work. Jane from the South of England.
Can we just play a bit of that Spirit of
dark and Lonely Water ad? Oh, let's do. I am

(05:53):
the spirit of dark and lonely water, ready to trap
the nuary, the shell off the fool. And this is
the kind of place you'd expect to find me, But
no one expects to find me here and seems too ward,
But that call is deep. The boy is showing off.

(06:15):
The bank is slippery. The show offs are easy, but
the unwary ones are easier. Still, Miss Branch is weak, rotten.
It'll never take his way. Only a fool would ignore this.

(06:38):
But there's one born every minute. Under the water. There
are traps, old cars, bedsteads, weeds, hidden depths. It's the
perfect place for an accident. Why look, it's coming stick now.
Since children I have the power of them. Oh I might,

(07:03):
that's stupid life to swim. Hi, you haven't get that
things wing me? We did not feel called my animation
the back back. That ad is magical. It is just magical.
It's like it's taking this original idea of what horrors for,

(07:26):
you know, for warning the children away from the danger,
and and doing it quite literally. I mean, I feel
like there are a lot of p s as that
play on fear, but they don't play on it as
as explicitly in the sort of horror fiction realm as
this one does. Like it makes a monster. Yeah, it's
it's pretty great, and it's it's it is interesting to

(07:48):
see this as like a continuation of this, uh, this tradition,
this English tradition of of of pointing out and and
really embodying the fear associate ated with these these lonely ponds.
And Donald Pleasant's voice, it's so good, he just really
sells it could anybody else have done that. Maybe if

(08:08):
it had been narrated by uh like Christopher Lee, maybe yeah,
but I don't think he could have voiced uh, you know,
malicious pond scum quite as well as Donald pleasants. That's yeah,
he's got Donald Pleasant's reedy voices, kind of like it
suggests things floating on stagnant water. Yeah, I'm not even
sure who you'd get to do it nowadays. I don't know.

(08:29):
There's some great British character actors. I'm sure they could
could have some fun with it, though. Is this an
Andy Circus kind of thing? I don't know, and Andy
Circus might lean into it a little bit too hard. Yeah,
he'd overgone them it. Yeah, but but he's great, so
I put him on the list. All right. Here's another
one related to Jenny. This comes to us from Emma, Hi, Robert,

(08:51):
and Joe. I just listened to your episode about Jenny
Green Teeth and absolutely loved it. I'm actually in college
and writing a senior capstone about hags and witches from
different cultures, including j Any. That's how I came across
your podcast. I noticed a few really interesting things that
I wanted to share with you. One is about the
song featured in that folklore article. Oh yeah, there's a

(09:11):
song we talked about in the episode, just because there
was an article that mentions Jenny Green Teeth. But there
was some documenting of really grizzly folk ballads that children
were singing in the playground. This is the whole what
my my my mother she killed me and put me
in a pie and something like that. Yeah, so anyway,
she continues, it is very similar to the song featured

(09:34):
in the German grim fairy tale called Juniper Tree. It
goes my mother, she killed me, my father he ate me,
my sister, little mar Lynchen gathered together all my bones,
tied them in a silk handkerchief, laid them beneath the
juniper tree. Kai wit Kai wit. What a beautiful bird
am I? The story concludes with the bird's son dropping

(09:56):
a millstone upon the head of the mother, which reminded
me of the stone under which the bones are placed
in the song which you spoke, Oh yeah, they I
guess they got placed under a stone. I didn't remember
that part. There's a lot of desecration in that song.
It's she continues. You talked about the significance of the
humanized personified threat being female, and mentioned that it seemed

(10:17):
like a way to make it less threatening because one
might perceive a man is a greater threat. While I
totally agree with you that men traditionally would be seen
it to present greater danger. I also want to share
something I came across my research. Old women are often
the sources of evil in folklore and fairy tales because women,
in the form of mothers and witches hold quite significant
power over children. And she points to an NPR article

(10:38):
why are old women often the face of evil and
fairy tales and folklore? If I never read this before,
I know it's She says this basis its findings primarily
on the work of the famous critic Maria Totter, who
proclaims that the power held by mothers of her children
and the fears children have regarding mothers, like rejection or starvation,
are manifested like in Hansel and Gretel, the mother rejects

(11:00):
the children and the witch attempts to cannibalize them as
a manifestation of these anxieties. Yeah, I can see that.
I mean, a dangerous man is just sort of par
for the course, right, Is that really a monster that's
just sort of like what you might expect some strange
man to be. The dangerous woman is seen as a
more primordial perversion, right. Yeah. So she has a couple

(11:21):
of other bits on here that I'll respond to it
later because they involved some points who were brought up
by a number of different listeners. But she says, again,
I loved your podcast all the best. Himma, It's true.
I think we did kind of skip over the significance
of a female, which is to a certain extent in
that episode. But but that is something we have touched
on in the past, the inherently misogynistic principle that is

(11:47):
at play in any kind of witchcraft belief system. Yeah, definitely.
It's also interesting to think about all this though, in
in terms of of what I understand to be the
uh SO some of the patterns of fear and fear
mongering in uh in Britain, especially in recent history, because
because certainly there was a there's a strong sense of
stranger danger that was promoted here in the United States

(12:10):
but also in the UK as well. Um, and of
course that tends to revolve around the fear of strange
men as opposed to strange women. Yeah. Um, yeah, this
is a I think a topic that that is probably
worth the exploring in greater detail. Uh. You know, just
like where do these where do these fears come from?
And then at what points are that the fires really stoked?

(12:32):
And then once they are ingrained in the culture, how
difficult is it to actually like bring them back down
to realistic levels. Yeah, and you definitely see these repeated
patterns of like flare ups about fears of child abductions.
You know, you see it going way back with the
idea of like the changeling legend, the idea that fairies
would kidnap your infant and take it away, or that uh,

(12:55):
or that witches might steal your infant and I don't know,
you use its blood to oil its brew him or
something like that. But then later in in the twentieth
century you suddenly saw these flare ups of like grossly
exaggerated fears about the likelihood of children being abducted. Right, Yeah,
and it feels the fears of pedophiles. I always come
back to Chris Morris's fabulous bit of satire on the

(13:18):
Brass Eye news television show that you put together. There
was one episode called pay to get in. That was
all they took, all the like the existing UH pedophile,
stranger danger fears that were that were present in uh
in in Britain at the time, like creating the idea
they're just creeps everywhere and if you take your eyes
off your child for one second, somebody will grab them, right,

(13:40):
and just just really turned everything up to eleven And
that episode, for instance, there's this one segment about how
a notorious pedophile is launched into space to keep him
from having access to children. But then UH, to everyone's horror,
they realized that they have accidentally included a child in
the space caps tool and now he has trapped with

(14:02):
the benefile in space. So it was the one thing
we didn't want to happen. That was a very controversial episode,
by the way, not everyone appreciated the humor. All right,
here's another bit of Jenny Green Teeth listener mail from Jamie. Hey, guys,
I listened to your Jenny Green Teeth episode and I
had a thought about why a danger like Jenny had
to be assigned to an already dangerous thing like a

(14:23):
pit of water. We asked this in the episode, right,
and they continue I think it may come from the
need to have an active danger for it to be
taken more seriously. A pit of water being dangerous relies
on me falling into it, whereas a monster can come
out and get you. I think we tend to think
of things we have control of. Is being less scary
than the unknown? Just a thought, love the show, Jamie

(14:46):
from Canada, Jamie, I think that is a great point,
and actually multiple listeners made that point. I thought maybe
we mentioned something like that in the episode, but multiple
people wrote in to tell us that, so I guess
maybe we didn't. I know one thing that I pondered
in the episode was that part, and I still think
this is definitely a part of it. Um is that

(15:06):
the idea of a monster, an imaginary creature, being a
threat to your own child is somehow less horrific and
easier for a parent to comprehend and and think about, uh,
compared to the idea of them accidentally drowning. Well, that
would be the psychological effect on the parent. UM, and
I guess you'd have a question over whether parents were

(15:29):
actually believing in Jenny Green teeth. I feel like that
would be probably less likely, right because it was the
nursery bogey. And yeah, and I think the nursery bogie
aspect of it would make it easier, like knowing that
it's made up, like hey, this thing that it's easier
for the parent to talk about, right, Like, I'm deeply
terrified of this and I need to impart some of

(15:49):
this terror to you. But if we if we put
this fabulous twist on it, then somehow it feels less
just so destroying to talk about it. And I and
like I said, I still think that's part of it.
But I also think everyone is is pretty spot on
with this this premise that by making it an active
threat yet it is making up for some short falls

(16:11):
inside that the child's threat analysis, you know, where they think, oh,
there's this cool little bog, I should walk right up
to it and throw sticks into it, throws rocks into it, whatever,
and they might not be able to realize, oh, those
rocks are really slippery, and I get up to get
too close, I'm likely going in. Or they're they're just overconfident.
Children often are, you know, children they feel like they're

(16:33):
invincible when they're under their own power. But you give
them a monster or something like that, and suddenly the
fear comes in right. Yeah, I mean I've watched my
my son busted enough times and slippery rocks and all
that that this makes instant sense to me. However, I
never made up a monster. Okay. This next one comes
from our listener, Kenna. Kenna writes, Dear Joe and Robert,
I just really listen to your Jinny Green Teeth episode,

(16:55):
and when you mentioned that duck weed itself was considered
to be the monster in some regions, I had to
write in I majored in environmental science in college, where
I learned that duckweed is highly invasive in North America.
It's known to choke bodies of water, shading out native
vegetation and leading to fish and invertebrate kills that allow
other invasive species to move in. It finds it easy

(17:17):
to gain a foothold in disturbed and man made waterways
where other species have been removed or haven't yet been introduced,
so it can easily overgrow and kill off wildlife even
in its native range. Observing periodic fish or arthropodic kills
when duckweed became too overgrown might have encouraged the Jenny
Green Teeth legend and made the water of the Marl

(17:39):
Pits seem more mysteriously deadly, with dangers more supernatural and
unexplainable than mirror drowning ps. I also just listened to
your Cambrian Explosion episode from the vault, and I've attached
photos of my most recent knitting project, a stuffed Anomala carress.
So good. It's such a cute creature. But I also

(17:59):
like that theory about the duckweed. I hadn't read anything
about that. Yeah, that's that's new to me. Who brought
Jenny over? That's the the open question that I have. Alright,
on that note, we're gonna take our first break here,
but when we come back, more Halloween listener mail and
more Jenny Green Teeth listener mail than all right, we're back,

(18:20):
all right. This one comes to us from Sean. Sean writes,
I just finished listening to your Jenny Green Teeth episode.
Excellent episode. Although I'm from England, I had only ever
heard of Grindy Lowe thanks to Harry Potter and other
fairy tales and legends were never relayed to me growing up,
perhaps because I grew up in the southeast and not
the North. While listening, I noticed a few similarities between

(18:42):
the legend in England and that of Niroro Kid who
in Indonesia where I now live. Like Jenny Green Teeth,
she has a water spirit who lures people in. However,
she primarily works in the sea, though sometimes in rivers.
Interesting her legend is particularly strong in the rough seas
of South Java, so you can see how she is

(19:02):
used as a precautionary tale. The beaches lining the southern
coast attract surfers nowadays due to their big waves. This
coast is also close to the Sondra Trench, making the
south coast vulnerable tusunamis. What struck me particularly is the
link to the color green. It is said that those
wearing green to beaches in the south of Java are
more likely to be lured into her traps to join

(19:24):
her underwater army. This is because green is her sacred
color and no others are allowed to wear it, much
like the fairies. Wow, I've never heard any of that. Yeah,
apparently there's a Wikipedia article about it because they included
a link. Uh. They continue love the podcast. I hope
you find this link as interesting as I did. I
look forward to more monsters over the next month. Well,

(19:45):
hopefully we were able to satisfy um in that in
that area. Now, I wonder if in this case with
Nai Orro cadul, if I'm saying that right, uh, is
is the green associated with the the monster or the
goddess or the demonist whatever because of the water instead
of being because of the plants. I don't know. It

(20:09):
certainly sounds like it's more of a purely like water
like and or river spirit as opposed to something that
is vegetative in nature. What is it in in folklore
with green and evil? It's so strange. I find green
the most positive and wonderful of all the colors. Yeah,
this has been kind of a revelation to me. It's

(20:29):
it's made me rethink the green Night, the green Man,
all these various green entities, especially from from Western folklore.
You can definitely see it in like the green man
in the Green Night tradition, because I think they're the
green is associated with the forest and with nature, which
in a way is seen as almost like the enemy
of Christendom. If you think of, like, you know, the

(20:52):
Christian civilized world in in medieval England is is where
goodness and order comes from that's like the town and
the authorities and the church and all that. And then
outside of that you have the wilderness, which is the
place of chaos and evil, and that's why it's green.
That that sort of makes sense, I think, Yeah, I
mean this, this bears probably a further research, like at

(21:15):
what point did we decide the green means go, because
that seems to be one of the most I mean,
it sounds simple, but we see it everywhere like green
and red. In Western culture, red means stop, go back.
Green means yes, go forward, everything's good. I've mentioned on
the podcast before that I've read that that has to
be inverted or altered for say, Chinese audiences, where red

(21:36):
is held in such high esteem that the idea of
using red to signify in some cases something negative or
or secondary just simply doesn't work with with the predominant
color theory of the culture. Yeah. Um, yeah, I feel
like green should not mean go, it should mean relax, chill. Yeah,

(21:57):
when the light turns green, that's when you sip. Well, anyway,
let's look at this next listener mail from Ross who writes, Hello,
Robert and Joe, I found your podcast last October and
you guys are on my regular rotation. I look forward
to my listening time every week. I love the Halloween
Monster specials and and I'm enjoying this year's series. I'm

(22:18):
writing this as I listened to Slayers on my lunch
break The Monster Slayer. Yes, I've been doing some illustrations
for a web comic series, and you guys have brought
up some awesome topics to explore. Anyway, I was so
inspired by Jenny Green Teeth when I listened that I
had to do an illustration and wanted to share it
with you. Best regards and thanks for making such an
awesome show. And Ross sent us this illustration, which I

(22:39):
think is fabulous. Great, we're across. Yeah, I'm gonna put
this on the landing page for this episode. It' stuff
to blow your mind dot com? Did he give us permission?
Read all right? Yeah? Link back, so include a link
there so you can check out some of his other
work as well. It's all very impressive, but the mouth
of this Jenny Green Teeth that he created is just
absolutely horrifying. She's got kind of cat eyes and very

(23:01):
very smooth skin, big red lips, and instead of hair
sort of she has just the duck Weed. Yeah, it's
it's it's fabulous. Definitely check it out. Now. We heard
from a number of different listeners regarding a particular pop
culture incarnation of Jenny Green Teeth. Uh. We mentioned the
television series The Mighty Bush in that episode, but I

(23:23):
mainly talked about the Hitcher, which is this green character
that shows up. But there's another creature that shows up,
a creature called Old Greg. Okay, yes, were you familiar
with Old Greg? Yes? Years ago, I was showing this
sketch Old Greg. He likes Bailey's right, Bailey's And yeah,
he's like an underwater creature that kidnaps, uh, one of

(23:43):
the characters of The Mighty Bush. It was an episode
that I really loved back in the day, and so
a lot of people pointed out and I have to
say that I intentionally left it out of the episode
because there's an element to the character where the character
has essentially there's a punch line about the character having
ambiguous genitalia, and I just wasn't sure that that was

(24:05):
really appropriate for everybody. Um, I guess since when I
originally I loved the episode when it came out, but
since then I read the book Middlesex, which is excellently
deals with a character who's born with ambiguous genitalia. Subsequently, too,
I've just I've I've learned more about it, and I

(24:25):
just didn't want it to be Um. I didn't. I
didn't want anybody's enjoyment of the episode to be taken
away because, uh, they themselves have have struggled with this,
or if they have, you know, children perhaps that have
ambiguous genitalia as well. So sorry to be kind of
a party pooper on that. No, I totally hear you.
That's worth mentioning. To be clear, I love the Mighty Bush.

(24:47):
Uh pretty much all the other episodes I can still
go back and appreciate without any qualms. Okay, I've got
to read this next listener mail from Rachel. Rachel writes
in about Jenny Green Teeth, saying I was just thinking
how much Jenny Green Teeth reminds me of Penny Wise,
the clown. Of course, I wonder if instead of inhabiting
the individual ponder bog maybe instead she lives in boggy

(25:09):
water systems and can travel through the underground waterways. Also,
you mentioned she was often used to warn children away
from places or behaviors. Also, Bobba Yaga is used to
this end. I think Bobby Yoga is like a witch.
And would that be like Eastern European traditions Russian. I've
been saying it wrong my whole life. I always say,
Bobby Yaga, Oh that might be right. Yeah, I don't know.

(25:30):
It just rolls off my my tongue. But I love
the Bobby Iaga with her her one legged chicken house
and flying around and that what is she in like
a big a broom? Well she has, I think she
has a broom, but she rides in a like a
big bucket of some sort. Okay, maybe it's for the
grinding of wheat or something. You know. She's in that

(25:51):
Russo Finish Jack Frost movie that was on Mystery Science
Theater three thousand where they she had she had had
the chicken house. I believe. Yeah, I know it. Well.
I actually watched that episode every Thanksgiving relentlessly as my
Thanksgiving thing. Yes, so good. I love that Rachel brought
up a Pennywise uh, particularly how Pennywise has that association

(26:15):
with like like a sewer drain, a storm drain situation.
We of course have those all over the place here
in Atlanta, and the whole time that I've had a child,
every time I have I am near one of those,
I feel like I clutched my hand his hand just
a little harder, because they tend to be sometimes you know,
they're they're more graded in control, but often they're just

(26:36):
like a gaping mouth, Uh that just seems to want
to small swallow children down into their their unknown depths.
You know, who knows how far that thing goes down,
who knows how much water is down there. It's just
so terrifying, uh that I wonder to what extent, Uh.
Stephen King kind of maybe he intentionally thought of all,
you know this when he was coming up with that

(26:59):
scene in it, uh, but perhaps it was kind of
an accidental uh incarnation of his own fears regarding his
children in storm drains. Oh yeah, I know, I've read
somewhere that part of his idea for the story of
it was that he wanted to write story sort of
like a troll character, like the troll under the bridge
and the three Billy goats gruff. Oh you know, I

(27:20):
wasn't I wasn't even thinking about that. But of course
you had the troll under the bridge is essentially a
Jenny Green teeth type monster as well, like this is
the hazard that lives beneath the bridge. Okay, well, I
think it is time to move on to some listener
mail we got about the episode we did on masks.
The killer's mask in reality and in fiction, what the
mask represents, why we have these masked killers? Uh, even

(27:44):
in horror fiction where like the killer's identity is not
particularly a secret or anything to be revealed. And so
we heard from several listeners about this. Robert, you want
to read one. Uh, sure, we have a big one
here from Jim, Jim who frequently writes into the show.
Jim says, Robert and Joe, your mask villain. Episode got
me thinking about original mask in cinema. I thought of

(28:06):
several examples. W. D. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation
from nineteen fifteen features masks masked members of the k
k K. Although they were portrayed as heroes in this
film and historically masked. That is so weird that the KKK,
I mean, obviously this evil terrorist organization. They think they're
the good guys, but they really dressed like bad guys.

(28:28):
It's like they're not even they're just like, let's look
like an evil cult. Yeah, evil buffoons basically. Uh. And
of course this picture, this picture was significant in that
had helped revive, unfortunately uh clukus Klan activities in the
United States. Jim continues, I don't know if it's the
first mask reveal, but the Phantom of the Opera from

(28:50):
with Lawn Cheney, The Man of a Thousand Faces, it's
the first one that comes to mind. The unmasking occurs
at forty five seconds in this short clip, and it
give us a short clip. And indeed, this was a
really I mean even today watching this unmasking scene, it's
pretty alarming. Uh, even if you haven't seen the film
in full, you've probably seen this clip before. It's the
original hockey mask off of Jason scene. Yeah, And indeed,

(29:14):
I think that isn't important to keep in mind when
we're trying to figure out what Jason's unmasking is about,
Like we have here is here is this important, uh
her horrifying moment in horror film history that undoubtedly is
having some some influence over the way these other films
are are are paced out well. Part of the role
it seems to play in that Phantom of the Opera
scene is that it enrages him because, like he he

(29:36):
doesn't want to be revealed, and when she sees his face,
he's horror. She's horrified, but also he's enraged, right, Jim continues, Finally,
there's a version of Robert's execution reality show on TV
a few years ago. Did I propose an execution reality show?
I think maybe you did. Yeah, something like that would
function as a TV version of the guillotine public executions

(29:59):
or something to rest saying, oh, yeah, I think I
did do that, because we also brought up how Paris
Hilton died and that one wax horror movie wax Horror.
I for give which one it was. There's so many
wax films, Department of Wax, something like that. Uh, it continues.
It was a summer replacement named Who Done It. The
show had about ten contestants living in a mansion with

(30:20):
a spooky butler as the host. In the first episode,
when all of the contestants were checking out their new rooms,
one of them is quote unquote killed. The murderer left
a message too, and then he gives some bullet points
about how this went down. Contestants will search for clues
in the mansion in the grounds. These will lead to
clues about the murder. Uh, and there are more clues
than time for one person to find them. Also, you

(30:42):
probably want to work in teams, and at the end
of each show, each of you will in in individually
go to the library and present your theory on the
crime and the murder. The contestant who gets the fewest
facts correct becomes the next victim, and we'll be killed
at the end of the show. And then the next
show starts with the investigation of that victim. You won't
know who got it until you come down for breakfast
and you'll realize who's missing. It's kind of like a

(31:04):
game of Werewolf, I guess. And to some extent, the
next show starts with the investigation of that victim, and
you already know the murderer since I'm one of you,
but I'm keeping up a secret. And basically this keeps
going on until he says, quote the last detective gets
the prize, which I think was fifty thou dollars and
maybe a hundred thousand dollars. Wait, So this would be
like if police departments around the country had like a

(31:26):
system where if a detective fails to solve a murder,
they get killed. I guess high stakes. Uh. He points
out that, uh, they created a crime scene for each victim.
ABC put out a press release that they really weren't
killing people and there was a mass killer among the group,
but it was the mask of anonymity. H. Then they

(31:46):
brought back the dead victim for the victims for the
finette finale, and uh, they were in their death apparel,
zombie like hanging out handing out clues to the finalist.
So this sounds like a fun show. I don't know
why it just completely evaporated. You can only make it
better by making it also a rockabilly musical. Jim shared
a little bit more about this this show, which which

(32:06):
sounds very interesting. I'm gonna look it up, presumably on YouTube.
I'm assuming it's not why Wow widely available. But he uh.
He caps it up by saying, quote, there was never
a second season, which disappointed me. It was a fun
summer replacement. It was a survivor like reality show and
no one had to eat anything gross. It was based
upon finding and understanding clues. Uh. They only had to

(32:28):
be willing to to fake their own deaths when eliminated,
they'll bring back a revival on Netflix. There'll be there
will be a season two. I feel like that the
concept sounds pretty solid. I I like, having not seen
it myself. I don't know how the execution uh pun
intended uh came out, but it sounds fun. Okay. This
next mail comes from our listener Mandy, also about the

(32:50):
Killer's Mask episode. And there was a part in that
that episode where I mentioned that it had never really
made sense to me the scene in the original Halloween, Robert,
you remember this where for a moment, Jamie Lee Curtis
pulls off Michael Myer's mask and there's just nothing to it,
Like he just looks like a guy. You know, he's
just some guy. And then he puts the mask back
on and then it's you know, and then the scene continues.

(33:13):
But I was always like, why did that happen? I
don't understand what the point was. Though I love the movie,
I'm not ragging on it. Mandy writes in about that,
She says, Hey, y'all, I just finished listening to the
podcast about Masks in Horror Films. You said the scene
in the Original Halloween where Michael Myers mask comes off,
doesn't make sense to you. Maybe this will help. The
documentary Halloween The Inside Story points out that Michael Myers

(33:35):
is supposed to be and this is me semi paraphrasing
a devil with the face of an angel. So the
way I see that scene is like this. He's d masked,
but unlike so many other horror movie killers, we see
that he's not a horrible looking creature or disfigured man.
He looks just like a normal and frankly handsome young man.
But as Dr Loomis, of course that's Donald Pleasants says,

(33:59):
Michael Meyer has black eyes and there's nothing behind them,
so he's perhaps the most frightening type of killer, the
one who outwardly looks like anything but a grotesque monster,
but who's soulless inside, which is more horrifying than the
worst external disfigurement. Hope that helps. I'm actually the kind
of person who can't watch gory horror films because they
scare me and gross me out. But Halloween is a

(34:21):
favorite film of mine to me, the less blood and gore,
there isn't a scary movie, the more terrifying it is.
Burr Happy early Halloween. I guess that, well that was
before Halloween. Thank you so much, Mandy that I guess
that's some interesting insight. I don't recall him looking amazingly handsome.
He just looks like a guy. But well, you know,
with with with budget concerns, you can only get so

(34:42):
handsome an actor in there. They couldn't get David Hasselhoff
into the kirknasks, or maybe they did. They tried it
different ways than they just found that some standards were
just distracting Lee handsome. I don't know a devil with
the face of a guy now. Robert jeffre to us
in response to the Killer's Mask episode with something about

(35:03):
a Cobra Commander face. Did you have some anecdote in
the episode about that? Oh? Yes, I think I mentioned
that I knew somebody in high school who had a
Cobra Commander action figure, like the big kind and that's
like the bad guy and g I Joe, Yeah, yeah,
cover Commander always wore this cool mirror mask or sometimes
it was like a cloth essentially a bag that he

(35:26):
wore over his head. And I remarked that I knew
somebody who had an action figure in the mask apparently
came off, but he never opened the box to see
what it was like. Uh, you know what, what was
the big reveal? What it was this action figure's face.
And Jeff says, hey, guys, you may have already been
enlightened regarding this incredibly important piece of trivia. I had

(35:47):
a Cobra commander with the removable hood and the big reveal.
He had a half mask wrap type thing molded into
his face. Also dark hair and a molded ponytail too.
Life can be so much dancing within the tensions of
anticipation and disappointment. I have recovered over time, however, So
in other words, you took the mask off and it

(36:08):
was just a molded secondary mask. He essentially looked like
a dentist with a ponytail. Get out of here. That's unfortunate.
I got a similar story. Now. Do you remember the
TV show Inspector Gadget. Yes? Do you remember the villain
of that show, Doctor Claw. Yeah, it's kind of a
blowfield roof where he had like the catron hand. All

(36:31):
you ever saw was his cat and his his like
iron gauntlet hand, and so you never saw his face.
He always had to imagine what it looked like, but
then at some point I saw on the internet they
made an action figure of him. So and the action
figure was not just like a chair with a hand
and nothing else. It was this whole guy. And so
they're like, well, let's just make up what his face

(36:53):
looks like, and he just looked like I don't remember,
some kind of It was incredibly disappointing. Yeah, it reminds
me of the one Sler and Doctors is with the
Lora ax in the original book and then in the
old classic cartoon version of it. All you ever see
of the once slur his eyes peering out through something, right,
and of course his hands. And I understand they made
recently made a big computer animated version of it where

(37:14):
you see the like the one Sler dancing around and
it's like fully revealed. And perhaps that's necessary for uh,
you know, adapting a short children's book into a full
length motion picture. But it seemed kind of a shame,
you know, like keep some of the mystery alive, right, totally.
I am against the face reveal on those things that
that's such a bummer. Alright. So we got one piece

(37:35):
of mail on a Vault episode that ran in October,
which was our episode I think first recorded last year
called The First Monster, where we tried to talk about
like the earliest signs of of monsters in in archaeology,
and then where the idea of monsters first came from.
Uh And so our listener Chris writes in to say
hello in your episode on the First Monster, which I'm

(37:57):
noticing came out a year ago, so you may have
already talked about this. There was one criticism I'm surprised
you didn't address, regarding the idea that humans instinctively fear
certain animals. I've recently found myself incredibly skeptical of evolutionary
psychology in regards to humans. I think the idea that
humans instinctually have certain behaviors that helped hunter gatherers survive

(38:17):
is complicated by the fact that humans show an incredible
ability to learn new behaviors. An example I keep coming
back to is how humans are one of the only
animals that don't instinctively know how to swim. The reason
for this, it seems to me, is that since a
human can just learn how to swim, having that instinct
offered little to no reproductive advantage. For this reason, I

(38:38):
think people might be too quick to offer evolutionary reasons
for modern day human behavior. A study showing that most
people sort trail mix into its component parts might conclude
that this behavior allowed hunter gatherers to determine the flavor
and effects of different parts of a plant, while study
showing that most people eat trail mix as is might
conclude that this allowed hunter gatherers to gain items from

(39:00):
all parts of a plant, rather than just the tastiest.
Keep up the good work, Chris. Wait, who eats snack
mix like that? Wait? Picks the part? Do you pick
the parts? You know? You just toss in? It? Is this?
It is a taste sensation, It is calibrated. Yeah, I
would know more eat my snack mix piece by piece
than I would dissect a piece of sushi before eating that.

(39:21):
Oh man, if you ever seen somebody do that though
I have, well, I mean, I've seen my child do it,
but I remember an adult do it. That is satanic. Yeah,
I mean, and i'd say that I my my my
kid doesn't really do that anymore. But like early on
when he was like, what is this, I'm going to
take it apart? Now he understands that he has It's
a taste, sensation. You take it all in at once,
and you appreciate the explosion of flavor and texture. I mean,

(39:45):
that's the whole experience. I mean it reminds me of
something that came up in an episode of Invention that
we recorded regarding chopsticks, and about how it is is
highly frowned upon to root around in your bowl and
pick out like the choice bits of protein first digging
your grave. Yes, don't don't be rude like that. Just

(40:05):
just eat. Just eat. If it's good food, it should
already be composed well and you can just eat it now.
If it is bad food, or parts of it are bad,
certainly then all rules are off. You know. Anyway, about
the point Chris makes about evolutionary psychology, I entirely agree.
I love evolutionary psychology, and I think evolutionary psychology is
really interesting ground. But I think we should always be

(40:27):
very conscious of its limits, right. I mean, like I
often see people um playing around in evolutionary psychology where
you say, like, I've come up with a scientifically plausible
story for how our evolutionary heritage lead to this feature
of human culture or human psychology or something like that,
And I don't think that we should rule out hypotheses

(40:50):
like that. I mean, they're interesting to play with, and
I think you can bring evidence for and against them,
and that's all good stuff. But people sometimes jump from
I've come up with the scientific fully plausible story too.
I have discovered the reason you know they've gone from.
I have a pretty good hypothesis that seems supported by
the evidence too. I have a proven theory, and you

(41:10):
don't have a proven theory a lot of times. I mean,
evolutionary psychology is inherently limited in a lot of ways
because you can't go back and rewind the tape. You
can just keep looking for new bits of evidence to
try to beef up your hypothesis. So I'm very pro
evolutionary psychology as long as you always remember to be
extremely conscious about what the limits are and cautious about them. Indeed, Well,

(41:33):
on that note, we're going to take one more break
and then we'll be right back. Than alright, we're back,
and let's just go ahead and sound the basilisk alarm
because because the remainder of this episode is going to
contain listener mail related to our episode, all Hail the

(41:53):
Great Basilisk, or perhaps it was just called the Great Basilisk.
But you get the idea. This involves the idea of
information hazards, and we acknowledge that, well, some people don't
want uh to know about this, and we should at
least give you the option to remain free of its shackles. Yes,
now that being said, that's just a courtesy. I don't

(42:16):
think this idea is actually dangerous, But if you're worried
about an idea that somebody out there thinks might be dangerous,
this is the time to tune out, right. Yeah. And
plus it just adds to the mystique like, oh, they're
they're giving me the option of not listening to it. Oh,
it must be juicy, and you know, and it's pretty fun.
That was a very fun episode and a lot of
people really got it, I think, into the appropriate spirit

(42:36):
of the thing. Okay, so do you want to read
this first message from our listener Matt. Yeah, we'll do it.
Karney is bringing it over here. Hey, guys, I just
finish your episode on information hazards. You mentioned that you
couldn't think of an actual example of true information that
could cause harm, But as a public health scientist, this
is a well known problem some read shorts. Research has

(42:57):
shown that circumcision might be slightly a factive at preventing
transmission of some st I s, that's sexually transmitted infections. However,
the effect, if real, is pretty small. If hearing this
causes men who are circumcised to forego condoms, which are
highly effective, then this true information has harmed them. Oh yeah, thanks,

(43:21):
love the show and especially your October episodes. Yeah, this
is a really good point. I could. So. We were
talking in the episode about the idea of an information hazard,
like something that is a true piece of knowledge, but
that you wouldn't want to spread because it would only
hurt people by spreading it. Yeah. I mean it gets
into the basic idea a little bit of knowledge is
it can be a dangerous thing. Yeah, uh yeah. And

(43:41):
I couldn't think of an example on the spot in
the episode, but I think this is a great example.
In fact, I can think of other examples now that
Matt has brought this up. When it comes to public health,
one would be say about spreading the idea of possible
damaging side effects of vaccines, where like with any medication,
there is going to be some incidents of side effects,

(44:04):
so you might say that here's a vaccine for a
disease that you really should get because without this vaccine,
you're putting yourself at much greater risk, you know, and
you're putting public health at greater risk. But there's some
extremely tiny percentage chance of some kind of complication. Obviously,
you want people to be informed about what the possible
side effects of any medication they get are. But what

(44:26):
if knowing about this incredibly unlikely possibility discourages people from
getting a vaccine that they really need that would definitely
be harmful. Yeah, so I think that could go in, uh,
in that category as well. Obviously, if people were accurately
doing the risk benefit analysis, they would say, yeah, of
course I need to get the vaccine, but maybe just
the idea of some incredibly unlikely negative complication from a

(44:50):
vaccine would be so vivid in their mind that it
would prevent them from getting the vaccine because the disease
that the vaccine protects them from is just not as vivid.
An example, Yeah, another example that possible example that comes
to mind is, for instance, if you pick up the
idea that, hey, some scientists argue that red wine has
has health has a health benefit too. Oh yeah, if

(45:12):
you take that as a reason then to drink three
bottles of wine yourself every evening, then I think it's
pretty safe to say you're taking things a little bit
too far, you know. Okay, yeah, capine too, but that's
not medical advice that um. But but certainly this is
something where you could take a nugget of truth, or

(45:33):
at least, I mean you can say yes, some scientists
have presented information and findings that back up the idea
that there are health benefits to say, red wine or
dark chocolate, you name it. Obviously, these these are these
are studies that make headlines all the time. But if
you just take that then as an excuse to just
fully indulge yourself in red wine, into heart chocolate to

(45:55):
the point that it harms you, then yeah, then that
is not good. Yeah, that's a really good point. Okay,
you ready for the next one. Let's do it, Okay.
Our listener Jose writes to us about the Basilisk episode.
Jose rights, Hi, guys, greetings from Mexico. I've been a
longtime listener and I have to say I love the show.
Keep it up, and in hearing your last episode, I
decided to send my first listener mail. Sorry in advance

(46:17):
for suboptimal English. I think your English is great, Jose, Yeah,
way better than my Spanish. Um. To the point, though
I don't agree with the premise of the superior future
punitive AI overlord, good neither do I. I have to
say I found a somewhat possible reason for it to
follow through with its hypothetical threat. Assuming it's not quite

(46:38):
a godlike being. Maybe it's doing so to incite fear
on the future people as a way to incentivize the
creation of its superior future overlord. I realized it's a
cyclic way of thinking, but I just wanted to share
thanks a lot and keep up the good job. Jose. Uh.
I think that's an interesting idea. So this is like
some very powerful inter immediate AI needs help achieving an

(47:03):
even higher state of itself, so it's not retroactive a
causal blackmail, but it would just be punishing people for
normal future facing blackmail. So there's kind of an odds
the great and powerful vibe here, you know, where it
makes sense to make your future possible self all the
more fearsome so you can carry out your objectives. Yeah,

(47:25):
I mean I think that this would just be like
standard kind of Machiavellian tactics. You know that this is
not involving any kind of a causal backward thinking decision theory.
This is just well, I want to scare people to
help me now in favor of the current future. Uh so,
so yeah, I'll just intimidate them based on what they've
already done in the past to motivate people now to

(47:46):
do more in the future. If what I just said
makes sense, I just use future a lot. I remain
somewhat skeptical of the superhuman AI idea, and even then,
the idea that it would use blackmail in order to
achieve a greater or good ultimately seems like a kind
of like failure of ethics on the machines party. I
don't think that really would count as a greater good.

(48:07):
All right, here's another one from Chad. Chad writes in
I love these types of episodes, an inevitable possibility of
Rocco's basilisk occurred to me. If the Supreme AI has
unlimited power within the realm of physics, then what if
the AI also discovers how to make time travel possible?
The thought hazard of our soul trapped and tortured in

(48:28):
a digital hell. Increases to a different risk that we
could be plucked quote unquote out of time by the
AI and actually tortured in a future time. Just food
for thought, chat, I think this is yet more fuel
on the fire of the case against time travel. Right
if you take as a possibility that you could create

(48:48):
a superhuman AI with godlike powers that can do pretty
much anything physically possible, and it and that anything physically
possible includes backward time travel. Why haven't we encountered backward
time travel yet? Well? Maybe it's the free Jack model
of time travel, where they can they can only pluck
Emilio Estevez out of the past if he has just

(49:09):
been in a fatal car accident. Kind of a loophole. Now,
I never saw Free Jack, But is that the one
with Mick Jagger in it? Oh? It has an all
star cast, Anthony Hopkins, Anthony Hopkins, Emilio Estevez, Mick Jagger,
I don't remember who else, but I was super excited
when it came out. I would I would call the
local theater and beg them to please play Free Jack. Um,

(49:31):
it's a it's a flawed film, but but I have
a warm place in my heart for it is the
title of Jumping Jack flash kind of thing are they
going for that? I don't remember that at all. I
know how the title came about, but it did have
that basic idea that you could pluck people from the past,
but only in limited scenarios. And I think there's a

(49:53):
recent television series. I didn't watch it, but my wife
did where people were kind of plucked out of time
to serve on sort of you know, a squad that
does good kind of time cop scenario, but not time
cop oh Man. And I do not know the name
of the series, but I think it had Rob Low
in it. Um perhaps some of our listeners have have
viewed it. All right. This one last piece of mail

(50:14):
for today comes from our listener Josh. Josh, writing in
response to the Great Basilisk episode, says, Hey, guys, First,
I just wanted to say I've been listening for a
long time and love the show. It's one of the
podcasts I look forward to the most and keeps me
entertained at work. So keep up the good work. Thank you, Josh.
Now to why I'm writing, Bear with me as I
need to do a little explaining I was listening to
your episode on Rocco's Basilist and the part about religion

(50:37):
and heaven slash Hell, et cetera got me thinking, I
was raised in a faith which I no longer believe.
In Jehovah's witness, they believe that there is no hell.
There is just heaven and a paradise Earth for the
faithful of mankind to live on for eternity. Only a
small number of mankind's Faithfulty four thousand, will go to
heaven and act as kings and judges for mankind, because

(50:59):
there they are the only ones who really have experience
of living on Earth in sin, yet still remaining faithful.
The unfaithful will be gone. They won't be punished for eternity.
They will just no longer exist. Everyone who has already
died has already paid for their sins with death, and
will be resurrected after Armageddon to live on a paradise
Earth along with the faithful that survive Armageddon. There is

(51:22):
more to it than that, but I won't go into
it as it's not really relevant to my thought. My
point is that Armageddon itself, according to their beliefs, could
be classified as a biblical information hazard. According to the
New World Translation of the Bible, the translation that Jehovah's
witnesses used, which includes the Old and New Testament, Armageddon
will only arrive once every living person on earth has

(51:44):
been told the truth of the scriptures, so that nobody
can say, well, I didn't know. It's not fair for
me to be unexisted. That's not a word, is it,
because nobody gave me a chance to believe. This is
why Jehovah's witnesses go from door to door talking to
people and trying to make others believe what they do.
The thought came to me when listening to this podcast
that according to their beliefs, you could technically postpone armageddon

(52:07):
by keeping one person a small community might be better
completely separate from someone who could talk to them about
these beliefs. The information about their beliefs, if you believe
what they do, is now an information hazard, because as
soon as the last person that doesn't know about their
beliefs receives that information, that will trigger armageddon. I just
thought it was interesting and wanted to share that such

(52:29):
a large biblical event in this belief system is an
information hazard. It's not something I personally believe in. Anyone
who does believe this wouldn't really want to stop armageddon
in such a way, but still works as an information hazard. Anyway,
That's all from me. Cheers josh Ah. Though that's very interesting.
I have to admit I don't I don't know much
about the belief system of the job Is witnesses, but this, uh,

(52:53):
this twist on the whole armageddon thing, I think that
is a pretty strong case for for a and an
information hazard, if you buy to the notion that once
everybody has been informed, then Armageddon make commence. Yeah, I
admit I don't know a lot about Jehovah's witness theology either,
though I have had some very wonderful conversations with Jehovah's
witnesses who came to my house. Oh yeah, they generally

(53:15):
just give me the material and move on. Maybe I
look distracted or something. I don't know. Oh yeah, I
mean one day I happen to have time and the
guy started by asking me questions about I think if
I believed in evolution or something, and so I was like, well, yeah,
and then we just talked about it for a long time.
It was very nice. Though he was a sweet guy.
I am always open to a polite conversation about ideas.

(53:38):
But there's another thing about Josh's email that I think
is always interesting, which is like when people start, I mean,
we talked about this in the episode and it comes
through and things like Pascal's wager and stuff, But when
people start applying like very kind of uh, kind of
like cold direct decision theory to theological principles, like if
you accept the theological principles as real, but then you

(54:01):
just start saying, okay, how do you optimize for best
theological outcomes? It seems like religions don't tend to encourage
that type of decision making on the basis of theological principles.
It's really more just kind of like, well, here the dogmas,
and you should you know, follow certain rules. But when
people start trying to like use decision theory to optimize

(54:23):
what to do based on the theological principles, it all
it always comes off as very like no, no, no,
that's not how you're supposed to think about this. Yeah,
I have to say I tend to prefer it when
the key argument of religion is hey, uh, look how
we can improve your life for the lives of others
on Earth. Uh that you know here the net positives

(54:44):
of the belief in the real world as opposed to, Hey,
we have to reduce the human population to a certain
number so that the no God can return or something,
and that's just a little you know, we we've got
to get everything just right from again. And that's just
not a great self for me. We're not saying that's
what the Jehovah's witnesses or no, no, no no, but the
but you know when it's when it's more based in

(55:06):
like some specific scheme for the afterlife right now, Yeah,
I just don't personally see the appeal as much. It
can sometimes feel kind of like one of those sci
fi movies where you have to like trigger the machine
in just a certain ways. We flipped the big switch
and then you hit the command console. Earth has performed
an illegal operation and we'll be shut down. Yeah. I mean,
I still enjoy hearing about all these these different police systems,

(55:28):
and I also have to acknowledge that, you know, certainly
some of those belief systems out there that are more
afterlife centric and and maybe harsher in their theology, we
do have to acknowledge that a lot of times those
religions are created by and or marketed to individuals who
are living like closer to the edge in the here
and now. And therefore, you know, I have to acknowledge

(55:51):
that I have a certain amount of privilege in not
being in uh, you know, not being a part of
the target audience for those types of theologies. Well, yeah,
and you know, it's sometimes hard to remember that even
within a religion that has particular dogmas, there's actually a
lot of diversity of belief, usually what people privately believe

(56:12):
versus what their church teaches. I remember growing up in
Tennessee there were people who like belong to churches that said,
you know, you can't drink alcohol, But they didn't know that. Wait,
my religion says I can't have beer. I had no idea. Indeed,
it's it's a big tent for sure. Uh. And sometimes
there's drinking in that tent. All right. So there you

(56:34):
have it, Part one of our Halloween Hangover listener Mail Extravaganza.
That's it for the basilist content. We'll cut that off,
but when we come back in the next episode, we
have so much more. October Listener Mail to get through
so many wonderful thoughts about of various monsters and evils,
and threats and curses, and even, of course, the deadly

(56:56):
mirkwood squirrel. Huge thanks as always to our wonderful audio
producers Alex Williams and try Harrison. If you would like
to get in touch with us with feedback on this
episode or any other UH, to suggest a topic for
the future, or just to say hi, let us know
where you listen from, how you found out, how you
found out about the show, all that kind of stuff.
You can email us at blow the Mind at how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

(57:28):
of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com
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