January 29, 2024 • 18 mins
Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener mail.
My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
And my name is Joe McCormick. And it's Monday, the
day of tweak that we read back messages from the
Stuff to Blow your Mind mail bag. I almost said
it was Saturday, It's not. Today is a listener mail.
If you have never gotten in touch with us before,
why not give it a try. You can reach us
at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
(00:36):
Whatever you want to send is fine. We always appreciate
feedback to recent episodes or series on the show, especially
if you have something interesting you would like to add
to a topic we've talked about, and we have some
messages of exactly that sort today. Let's see, Rob, Do
you mind if I kick things off with this message
from a meal?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Oh? By all means that is a good one.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
So this is in response to our series on diamond
specifically the episode about whether diamonds or diamond powder are
poisonous if ingested. Emial says, Hi, greetings from Emial from
in Norway, former victim of beaver Shout Now, Rob, does
(01:20):
this mean that this same listener got in touch before
to tell us about drinking a beaver based liquor.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I believe that might be the case. I can do
a quick search and see, Yes, I can confirm we
have a We've We've heard from a few different meals
over the over the the years. Here, I'm sure, but yes,
this would be the same individual who wrote in about
beaver shout.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
This is a liquor infused I believe with glands from
a beaver. Yes, okay, Emil says, regarding your episodes on diamonds,
I would like to add a thought on the subject
of their purported dangers to the human intestines. In my
work as a dentist, I use diamond coated burrs and
(02:05):
drills for most routine procedures. It's well known that these
instruments will dull greatly over time due to the abrasive
diamonds dislodging from the instrument's surface. Of course, we try
to minimize any swallowing of the contaminated to coolant water spray,
but it is inevitable that a few of these diamonds
are inadvertently ingested by the patient. Also worth mentioning is
(02:28):
that these micro diamonds are specifically designed with sharpness in mind.
This is probably of no consequence due to the minuscule amounts,
but I think that this is something that was probably
considered at some point in the manufacturing process, since medical
instruments go through some of the most rigorous safety trials
before entering the market. Fingers crossed, I have not caused
(02:49):
too many gastrointestinally derived deaths in my career. As always,
thank you for your fantastic work. Best regards a meal. Well,
thanks Emil for the message. This is a great point
about diamond powder and diamond coatings being used in dental equipment.
In fact, this is something I had read mentioned in
I think at least one of the sources we talked about,
(03:11):
but it never came up in the episode. But yeah,
it does seem diamonds are used for coating on drill
bits and stuff and also in polishing pastes that could
end up in people's mouths and be swallowed, and I
would assume that there's some kind of research to determine
that they could be used safely in the dentistry context,
where you know it is likely that patients will end
(03:33):
up swallowing them, so I did a quick search for
materials on this subject, and I found a handful of
industrial chemical safety data sheets put out by companies that
sell diamond powder products, especially in the dentistry context. There
is some variation, but most of the hazard indications say
(03:54):
that diamond powders are considered an abrasive, that they may
cause irritation to scan or eyes or if inhaled, but
that they are not considered acutely toxic. One of them
listed diamond powder as non hazardous to health, but still
recommended contact contacting a doctor or poison control center immediately
(04:15):
if swallowed, which seemed contradictory. So I don't know. Maybe
it's just like out of an abundance of caution. Some
of these sheets will say that about anything that you swallow.
But unfortunately, after reading a bunch of these, like industrial
product safety sheets, the impression I'm left with is the
same as the impression I had before reading them, which
(04:37):
is that modern sources, even those with skin in the game,
on the whole, suggests there's really not much to worry
about from ingesting diamond powder. But I still don't know
what the direct evidence is to support the belief that
they're safe, and you know, I couldn't find anything saying, like,
you know, here's the study that shows, you know, you
feed rats diamond powder and they're fine, right, But.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I guess the future proof things in case some sort
of a weird pseudoscientific fag comes along. Don't consume diamond
does just don't do it right like we've been saying,
there's just let's just let you can avoid this problem entirely.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It certainly wouldn't consume it on purpose. But at the
same time, based on everything I've read there, I can't
detect that there's likely anything to worry about from the
occasional piece of a dental drill, you know, coming off
microscopically and you end up swallowing it by accident.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Exactly all right. We also heard from Steve on this subject.
Steve writes in and says, Hello, Robert and Joe. In
your recent series about diamonds, you examined a very old question,
is diamond poisonous? Though there is no evidence the material
is chemically toxic, you wisely recommend against ingesting it. I
(05:50):
know many people who work with all kinds of fiberglass
filler like bondo, the dust from which can become airborne
and get stuck in the lungs. It's not good when
that happens. Even though pure diamond powder is not chemically toxic,
it is quite sharp and unlikely to disintegrate if one
were to inhale this product in the process of handling
it repeatedly, assuming it was not mixed into a paste
(06:12):
or other medium to prevent inhilation, which of course reminds
us of stuff we talked about with cracking diamonds using
some sort of a paste or even goat's blood potentially,
but he continues. The mechanical damage it would reap upon
lung tissue is not pleasant to ponder. In all probability,
inhaled diamond dust would lacerate lung tissue, causing internal bleeding,
(06:33):
basically diamond silicosis. There is no cure for silicosis, only
symptom slash pain mitigation measures. I found one study that
explored the use of diamond dust in conjunction with cobalt,
which is chemically toxic, and it seems to focus on
the chemical dangers posed by cobalt. It does not provide
decisive information on the danger or dangers of having diamond
(06:55):
dust in one's lungs by itself that said no one
sho should give should try to give themselves a case
of diamond lung No buyo. Thank you for your commitment
to placing contemporary science in a variety of historic, esoteric
macob context The podcast is wonderful, Steve.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Thank you, Steve. Yeah, I'd say the same thing. Even
if diamond powder is not known to be toxic in
a particular context. Probably you just you know, prima fasse
does not seem like it would be a good idea
to breathe a lot of dust airborne diamond particles, especially
since you just don't want to be breathing a lot
of you know, tiny pulverized rock particles of any kind
(07:34):
as far as I'm aware. Okay, On the subject of
rat kings, Chris got in touch to say good day.
I wanted to add one more rat king to the collection.
The Incredible D and D show Dimension twenty has a
season taking place in New York City, and one of
(07:55):
the boss enemies was a hive minded rat king living
in the sewers. Dimension twenty Ratking should have its artwork
as the first result. Best wishes, Chris. I don't know
this show, but I did look it up, and I
like the artwork. It is rats all bunched together in
the shape of sort of a big dinosaur wearing a crown,
(08:15):
so it comes up. Search results also produced other strange
looking things, apparently from the same show, including pizza rat
and something called sexy Rat.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Hmm, okay, well, I'm not going to search for that
third one, but this does look cool. I'm not familiar
with the show either, but I'll have to ask some
of my fellow Dungeons and Dragons players and my Dungeons
and Dragons group, because I think a few of them
follow some of these shows and I hear great things
about them. All right, This next one comes to us
from Megan. This is a response to one of our
(08:47):
October episodes about shadows. Megan writes, Hey, guys, I'm a
few months behind in the podcast and recently listened to
your Where the Shadows Lie episodes. I wanted to drop
you a note about the children's fantasy book series Seventh
Tower by Garth Nix that prominently features some magical shadows.
(09:09):
The premise is that the only known population of humanity
lives in a vast castle under a permanently darkened Sky,
and the Chosen. Among them are magic users that are
ranked by the colors of the rainbow. When they're of age,
the Chosen travel to a parallel world of strange and
dangerous creatures, and each captures a creature that replaces their
(09:30):
natural shadow. Back in their home world, these spirit shadows
become magical servants made of a sort of solid, mutable
shadow substance that can protect or attack humans and other
spirit shadows. Later in the series, we meet another population
of humans who scorn and fear those who have changed shadows.
The story reminds me of your discussion of mythical wizards
(09:51):
who are said to lose their natural shadows to the
devil in exchange for great powers, and who could be
identified by the uncanniness of their shadows. Anyway, my son
and I are finding this series a great read, and
I won't go into more details that spoil the mystery
of the plot. Thanks for all you do, Megan. You know,
I don't think I am familiar with this particular author
and work, but I'm gonna have to look into this
(10:13):
one because my son consumes a lot of books of
this nature and this one looks like it could be
It could be really fun.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Okay, I think we should do a couple of messages
about Weird House cinema. I'm gonna start with this message
from Lee, who has written in a bunch of times before.
Li says, Hello, Rob, Joe, and JJ, just listen to
the Apple Weird House episode. I waited until after watching.
All I can say is wow, definitely weird anyway, wanted
(10:50):
to know your thoughts regarding the BIM acronym.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Now.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
We talked about this a lot in the episode. How
the movie just starts assaulting you with the term BIM.
The very first song is all about the subject of BIM.
How BIM is on the way and maybe it's the
only way, but there's no previous explanation for what BIM is.
Lee is giving the answer here. Lee says it is
(11:15):
an acronym for Boogalow International Music. The head of this
company is named mister Boogalow.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, yeah, this one was. This was hard for me
to reflect on because having seen the movie before, I
don't remember how my what kind of confusion I had initially,
But at some point I picked up on this and
went into rewatching it knowing this already. But to your point,
like they don't really do anything to establish.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
This, no, and certainly not in I think they do
maybe say it later in the movie, but like, I
didn't realize what BIM meant until I went to the
Wikipedia page for the movie and it specified that BIM
was the acronym. Lee's message goes on, while it's pretty
easy to get from viewing the film from and center
(12:00):
on the building exterior prior to the atrium scenes, if
you happened to not view the film, maybe not Google
O music was referenced late in the episode, but otherwise
no mention of it. Just curious if this was an
oversight or intentional omission. Hmly, I don't quite know how
to answer that, but I think, as we discussed a
bit in the episode, I did want to help the
(12:22):
listener occupy that state of confusion that I felt while
watching the movie and not knowing what BIM meant, which
I was a pleasing state of confusion to be in,
you know, like it kind of took the magic away
when I saw what it stood for.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the great things about
so many of these films, is like when there is
accidental mystery in the film, it creates room for the
imagination to fill in the blanks, and I often enjoy that.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Now.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Another thing that happens in The Apple is that later
in the film we get a couple of totally out
of nowhere characters, both played by the actor Joss Ackland.
In one sense, he plays a sort of wizard like
hippie cult leader. I don't know about cold. He he's
the hippie, the leader of the hippie group, the Hippies
who live in the cave underneath the bridge. And then
(13:14):
he also plays God who shows up at the end
to to rescue everyone aka mister Big Mister Tops. Mister Tops, right,
not mister big Mister, not bird Eye Gordons.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
So we just recorded our episode, our our latest weird
House episode. So I've got I've got bird Eye Gordon
on the brain.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Sorry, okay, anyway, with this in mind, Lee's message goes
on also throwing back many episodes. Would Joss Ackland be
a candidate for Tom Bombadill.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Absolutely he would have. He would have made a good
Tom Bombadill, now that you.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Mention it, a wonderful suggestion. Yeah, great singing voice, so yeah, yeah,
I can just hear it in his voice now Hey,
don't Mary doll. Let's see you know he's blue as
jacket is and his boots are yellow. He's a he's
a merry fellow, some kind of verse about Fatty Lumpkin
the pony. Yeah, this is a great suggestion. Lee Lee says,
(14:09):
Ackland was cast as perone in a vita, So he's
a baritone.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Just a thought. Love the podcast in the weekly Weird
House dos sincerely, Lee, Thank you Lee, excellent piece of
listener mail.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
All right, This next one comes to us from another Rob.
Rob says, Hi, Robert and Joe. While listening to this
Weird House Cinema episode, I could not stop thinking about
Devo and the energy dome. Hats is bim a stand
in for whip it? Perhaps the apple is a cautionary
(14:43):
tale to Mark Mothersbaugh and the rest of Devo about
the risk of making a deal with Satan. For me,
this added another layer of craziness to what was already
a pretty wild movie. Have a great day, guys, Rob.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Now, I like the frequency Rob is on here, but
I'm not quite quite sure. I understand you know more
about Devo than I do. I think, Rob, can you
decode for me?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Well? I mean I'm not a you know, a super
Devo fan. I appreciate Devo. I did own an Energy
Don't hat for a spell, but an official one, mind you.
But I mean yeah, I mean Devo's energy is weird
and wonderful, and you know it's not unrelated to the Apple.
You know, those energy don't hats would have fit well
(15:28):
in the costuming that we see in the Apple.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I agree. You can just imagine people in mister Bougalow's apartment,
like the hanging out with the lawyers and stuff, wearing
those hats.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Absolutely, I will say real quick, I don't think we've
watched a film that was scored by Mark mothersbaw on
Weird House Cinema. But he is frequently someone whose work
I admire in more recent contemporary films because he works
a lot, and he can contributes compositions to all sorts
of TV and film product projects and on more than
(15:59):
one o K and I've been like, oh, this is
this sounds pretty good? Who did this? And then I'll
pull out my phone go to IMDb and of course
it's Mark mark Motherspot, so not surprising at all he did.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I'm just looking at his filmography on his wiki apparently
he did the theme to the nineteen ninety one Super
Mario World TV show.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah. I mean they're not all winners in this filmography.
He works a lot. But like one that comes up
is Thor Ragnarok, and I remember that was one specifically.
I was watching thora Ragnall Rock, which I greatly enjoyed
about halfway through rewatching it with my son right now,
he had not seen it before. Great all around, but yeah,
there are moments in that where initially I was like, yeah,
(16:40):
this music's pretty great, and I've got to look up
who's behind it, and yeah, it's Mark.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Ooh though I just saw he apparently did music for
I forgot this existed. The like year roughly year two
thousand live action Rocky and Bullwinkle movies starring Renee Russo
as Natasha and Jason Alexander is Boris. Looks like it
also had Robert de Niro and Randy Quaid.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
All Right, I had kind of forgotten that this existed.
I might have dismissed it as a dream, But now I.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Know Ebert gave it three out of four stars.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
All right, all right, maybe there's something there. All right. Well,
on that note, we're gonna go ahead and call this episode,
but we'd love to hear from you if you have
thoughts on past president and future episodes of Stuff to
Blow Your Mind or Weird House Cinema or anything and
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind feed right in. We'd
love to hear from you. If you have general feedback,
you know what sort of episode you'd like to hear,
If you have feedbacks on anything from like advertising to
(17:37):
I don't know what this is the best way to
get in touch with us is to email us with
your thoughts, your comments, your feedback, your criticism, whatever happens
to me. We're happy to hear from you. Just a
reminder that listener mail Arizon Mondays Core episodes on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, short Form on Wednesday and on Fridays. We
said us I most serious concerns to just talk about
a weird movie on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Huge things. As always, you are excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener mail.
My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
And my name is Joe McCormick. And it's Monday, the
day of tweak that we read back messages from the
Stuff to Blow your Mind mail bag. I almost said
it was Saturday, It's not. Today is a listener mail.
If you have never gotten in touch with us before,
why not give it a try. You can reach us
at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
(00:36):
Whatever you want to send is fine. We always appreciate
feedback to recent episodes or series on the show, especially
if you have something interesting you would like to add
to a topic we've talked about, and we have some
messages of exactly that sort today. Let's see, Rob, Do
you mind if I kick things off with this message
from a meal?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Oh? By all means that is a good one.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
So this is in response to our series on diamond
specifically the episode about whether diamonds or diamond powder are
poisonous if ingested. Emial says, Hi, greetings from Emial from
in Norway, former victim of beaver Shout Now, Rob, does
(01:20):
this mean that this same listener got in touch before
to tell us about drinking a beaver based liquor.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I believe that might be the case. I can do
a quick search and see, Yes, I can confirm we
have a We've We've heard from a few different meals
over the over the the years. Here, I'm sure, but yes,
this would be the same individual who wrote in about
beaver shout.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
This is a liquor infused I believe with glands from
a beaver. Yes, okay, Emil says, regarding your episodes on diamonds,
I would like to add a thought on the subject
of their purported dangers to the human intestines. In my
work as a dentist, I use diamond coated burrs and
(02:05):
drills for most routine procedures. It's well known that these
instruments will dull greatly over time due to the abrasive
diamonds dislodging from the instrument's surface. Of course, we try
to minimize any swallowing of the contaminated to coolant water spray,
but it is inevitable that a few of these diamonds
are inadvertently ingested by the patient. Also worth mentioning is
(02:28):
that these micro diamonds are specifically designed with sharpness in mind.
This is probably of no consequence due to the minuscule amounts,
but I think that this is something that was probably
considered at some point in the manufacturing process, since medical
instruments go through some of the most rigorous safety trials
before entering the market. Fingers crossed, I have not caused
(02:49):
too many gastrointestinally derived deaths in my career. As always,
thank you for your fantastic work. Best regards a meal. Well,
thanks Emil for the message. This is a great point
about diamond powder and diamond coatings being used in dental equipment.
In fact, this is something I had read mentioned in
I think at least one of the sources we talked about,
(03:11):
but it never came up in the episode. But yeah,
it does seem diamonds are used for coating on drill
bits and stuff and also in polishing pastes that could
end up in people's mouths and be swallowed, and I
would assume that there's some kind of research to determine
that they could be used safely in the dentistry context,
where you know it is likely that patients will end
(03:33):
up swallowing them, so I did a quick search for
materials on this subject, and I found a handful of
industrial chemical safety data sheets put out by companies that
sell diamond powder products, especially in the dentistry context. There
is some variation, but most of the hazard indications say
(03:54):
that diamond powders are considered an abrasive, that they may
cause irritation to scan or eyes or if inhaled, but
that they are not considered acutely toxic. One of them
listed diamond powder as non hazardous to health, but still
recommended contact contacting a doctor or poison control center immediately
(04:15):
if swallowed, which seemed contradictory. So I don't know. Maybe
it's just like out of an abundance of caution. Some
of these sheets will say that about anything that you swallow.
But unfortunately, after reading a bunch of these, like industrial
product safety sheets, the impression I'm left with is the
same as the impression I had before reading them, which
(04:37):
is that modern sources, even those with skin in the game,
on the whole, suggests there's really not much to worry
about from ingesting diamond powder. But I still don't know
what the direct evidence is to support the belief that
they're safe, and you know, I couldn't find anything saying, like,
you know, here's the study that shows, you know, you
feed rats diamond powder and they're fine, right, But.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I guess the future proof things in case some sort
of a weird pseudoscientific fag comes along. Don't consume diamond
does just don't do it right like we've been saying,
there's just let's just let you can avoid this problem entirely.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It certainly wouldn't consume it on purpose. But at the
same time, based on everything I've read there, I can't
detect that there's likely anything to worry about from the
occasional piece of a dental drill, you know, coming off
microscopically and you end up swallowing it by accident.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Exactly all right. We also heard from Steve on this subject.
Steve writes in and says, Hello, Robert and Joe. In
your recent series about diamonds, you examined a very old question,
is diamond poisonous? Though there is no evidence the material
is chemically toxic, you wisely recommend against ingesting it. I
(05:50):
know many people who work with all kinds of fiberglass
filler like bondo, the dust from which can become airborne
and get stuck in the lungs. It's not good when
that happens. Even though pure diamond powder is not chemically toxic,
it is quite sharp and unlikely to disintegrate if one
were to inhale this product in the process of handling
it repeatedly, assuming it was not mixed into a paste
(06:12):
or other medium to prevent inhilation, which of course reminds
us of stuff we talked about with cracking diamonds using
some sort of a paste or even goat's blood potentially,
but he continues. The mechanical damage it would reap upon
lung tissue is not pleasant to ponder. In all probability,
inhaled diamond dust would lacerate lung tissue, causing internal bleeding,
(06:33):
basically diamond silicosis. There is no cure for silicosis, only
symptom slash pain mitigation measures. I found one study that
explored the use of diamond dust in conjunction with cobalt,
which is chemically toxic, and it seems to focus on
the chemical dangers posed by cobalt. It does not provide
decisive information on the danger or dangers of having diamond
(06:55):
dust in one's lungs by itself that said no one
sho should give should try to give themselves a case
of diamond lung No buyo. Thank you for your commitment
to placing contemporary science in a variety of historic, esoteric
macob context The podcast is wonderful, Steve.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Thank you, Steve. Yeah, I'd say the same thing. Even
if diamond powder is not known to be toxic in
a particular context. Probably you just you know, prima fasse
does not seem like it would be a good idea
to breathe a lot of dust airborne diamond particles, especially
since you just don't want to be breathing a lot
of you know, tiny pulverized rock particles of any kind
(07:34):
as far as I'm aware. Okay, On the subject of
rat kings, Chris got in touch to say good day.
I wanted to add one more rat king to the collection.
The Incredible D and D show Dimension twenty has a
season taking place in New York City, and one of
(07:55):
the boss enemies was a hive minded rat king living
in the sewers. Dimension twenty Ratking should have its artwork
as the first result. Best wishes, Chris. I don't know
this show, but I did look it up, and I
like the artwork. It is rats all bunched together in
the shape of sort of a big dinosaur wearing a crown,
(08:15):
so it comes up. Search results also produced other strange
looking things, apparently from the same show, including pizza rat
and something called sexy Rat.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Hmm, okay, well, I'm not going to search for that
third one, but this does look cool. I'm not familiar
with the show either, but I'll have to ask some
of my fellow Dungeons and Dragons players and my Dungeons
and Dragons group, because I think a few of them
follow some of these shows and I hear great things
about them. All right, This next one comes to us
from Megan. This is a response to one of our
(08:47):
October episodes about shadows. Megan writes, Hey, guys, I'm a
few months behind in the podcast and recently listened to
your Where the Shadows Lie episodes. I wanted to drop
you a note about the children's fantasy book series Seventh
Tower by Garth Nix that prominently features some magical shadows.
(09:09):
The premise is that the only known population of humanity
lives in a vast castle under a permanently darkened Sky,
and the Chosen. Among them are magic users that are
ranked by the colors of the rainbow. When they're of age,
the Chosen travel to a parallel world of strange and
dangerous creatures, and each captures a creature that replaces their
(09:30):
natural shadow. Back in their home world, these spirit shadows
become magical servants made of a sort of solid, mutable
shadow substance that can protect or attack humans and other
spirit shadows. Later in the series, we meet another population
of humans who scorn and fear those who have changed shadows.
The story reminds me of your discussion of mythical wizards
(09:51):
who are said to lose their natural shadows to the
devil in exchange for great powers, and who could be
identified by the uncanniness of their shadows. Anyway, my son
and I are finding this series a great read, and
I won't go into more details that spoil the mystery
of the plot. Thanks for all you do, Megan. You know,
I don't think I am familiar with this particular author
and work, but I'm gonna have to look into this
(10:13):
one because my son consumes a lot of books of
this nature and this one looks like it could be
It could be really fun.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Okay, I think we should do a couple of messages
about Weird House cinema. I'm gonna start with this message
from Lee, who has written in a bunch of times before.
Li says, Hello, Rob, Joe, and JJ, just listen to
the Apple Weird House episode. I waited until after watching.
All I can say is wow, definitely weird anyway, wanted
(10:50):
to know your thoughts regarding the BIM acronym.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Now.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
We talked about this a lot in the episode. How
the movie just starts assaulting you with the term BIM.
The very first song is all about the subject of BIM.
How BIM is on the way and maybe it's the
only way, but there's no previous explanation for what BIM is.
Lee is giving the answer here. Lee says it is
(11:15):
an acronym for Boogalow International Music. The head of this
company is named mister Boogalow.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, yeah, this one was. This was hard for me
to reflect on because having seen the movie before, I
don't remember how my what kind of confusion I had initially,
But at some point I picked up on this and
went into rewatching it knowing this already. But to your point,
like they don't really do anything to establish.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
This, no, and certainly not in I think they do
maybe say it later in the movie, but like, I
didn't realize what BIM meant until I went to the
Wikipedia page for the movie and it specified that BIM
was the acronym. Lee's message goes on, while it's pretty
easy to get from viewing the film from and center
(12:00):
on the building exterior prior to the atrium scenes, if
you happened to not view the film, maybe not Google
O music was referenced late in the episode, but otherwise
no mention of it. Just curious if this was an
oversight or intentional omission. Hmly, I don't quite know how
to answer that, but I think, as we discussed a
bit in the episode, I did want to help the
(12:22):
listener occupy that state of confusion that I felt while
watching the movie and not knowing what BIM meant, which
I was a pleasing state of confusion to be in,
you know, like it kind of took the magic away
when I saw what it stood for.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the great things about
so many of these films, is like when there is
accidental mystery in the film, it creates room for the
imagination to fill in the blanks, and I often enjoy that.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Now.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Another thing that happens in The Apple is that later
in the film we get a couple of totally out
of nowhere characters, both played by the actor Joss Ackland.
In one sense, he plays a sort of wizard like
hippie cult leader. I don't know about cold. He he's
the hippie, the leader of the hippie group, the Hippies
who live in the cave underneath the bridge. And then
(13:14):
he also plays God who shows up at the end
to to rescue everyone aka mister Big Mister Tops. Mister Tops, right,
not mister big Mister, not bird Eye Gordons.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
So we just recorded our episode, our our latest weird
House episode. So I've got I've got bird Eye Gordon
on the brain.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Sorry, okay, anyway, with this in mind, Lee's message goes
on also throwing back many episodes. Would Joss Ackland be
a candidate for Tom Bombadill.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Absolutely he would have. He would have made a good
Tom Bombadill, now that you.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Mention it, a wonderful suggestion. Yeah, great singing voice, so yeah, yeah,
I can just hear it in his voice now Hey,
don't Mary doll. Let's see you know he's blue as
jacket is and his boots are yellow. He's a he's
a merry fellow, some kind of verse about Fatty Lumpkin
the pony. Yeah, this is a great suggestion. Lee Lee says,
(14:09):
Ackland was cast as perone in a vita, So he's
a baritone.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Just a thought. Love the podcast in the weekly Weird
House dos sincerely, Lee, Thank you Lee, excellent piece of
listener mail.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
All right, This next one comes to us from another Rob.
Rob says, Hi, Robert and Joe. While listening to this
Weird House Cinema episode, I could not stop thinking about
Devo and the energy dome. Hats is bim a stand
in for whip it? Perhaps the apple is a cautionary
(14:43):
tale to Mark Mothersbaugh and the rest of Devo about
the risk of making a deal with Satan. For me,
this added another layer of craziness to what was already
a pretty wild movie. Have a great day, guys, Rob.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Now, I like the frequency Rob is on here, but
I'm not quite quite sure. I understand you know more
about Devo than I do. I think, Rob, can you
decode for me?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Well? I mean I'm not a you know, a super
Devo fan. I appreciate Devo. I did own an Energy
Don't hat for a spell, but an official one, mind you.
But I mean yeah, I mean Devo's energy is weird
and wonderful, and you know it's not unrelated to the Apple.
You know, those energy don't hats would have fit well
(15:28):
in the costuming that we see in the Apple.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I agree. You can just imagine people in mister Bougalow's apartment,
like the hanging out with the lawyers and stuff, wearing
those hats.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Absolutely, I will say real quick, I don't think we've
watched a film that was scored by Mark mothersbaw on
Weird House Cinema. But he is frequently someone whose work
I admire in more recent contemporary films because he works
a lot, and he can contributes compositions to all sorts
of TV and film product projects and on more than
(15:59):
one o K and I've been like, oh, this is
this sounds pretty good? Who did this? And then I'll
pull out my phone go to IMDb and of course
it's Mark mark Motherspot, so not surprising at all he did.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I'm just looking at his filmography on his wiki apparently
he did the theme to the nineteen ninety one Super
Mario World TV show.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah. I mean they're not all winners in this filmography.
He works a lot. But like one that comes up
is Thor Ragnarok, and I remember that was one specifically.
I was watching thora Ragnall Rock, which I greatly enjoyed
about halfway through rewatching it with my son right now,
he had not seen it before. Great all around, but yeah,
there are moments in that where initially I was like, yeah,
(16:40):
this music's pretty great, and I've got to look up
who's behind it, and yeah, it's Mark.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Ooh though I just saw he apparently did music for
I forgot this existed. The like year roughly year two
thousand live action Rocky and Bullwinkle movies starring Renee Russo
as Natasha and Jason Alexander is Boris. Looks like it
also had Robert de Niro and Randy Quaid.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
All Right, I had kind of forgotten that this existed.
I might have dismissed it as a dream, But now I.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Know Ebert gave it three out of four stars.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
All right, all right, maybe there's something there. All right. Well,
on that note, we're gonna go ahead and call this episode,
but we'd love to hear from you if you have
thoughts on past president and future episodes of Stuff to
Blow Your Mind or Weird House Cinema or anything and
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind feed right in. We'd
love to hear from you. If you have general feedback,
you know what sort of episode you'd like to hear,
If you have feedbacks on anything from like advertising to
(17:37):
I don't know what this is the best way to
get in touch with us is to email us with
your thoughts, your comments, your feedback, your criticism, whatever happens
to me. We're happy to hear from you. Just a
reminder that listener mail Arizon Mondays Core episodes on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, short Form on Wednesday and on Fridays. We
said us I most serious concerns to just talk about
a weird movie on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Huge things. As always, you are excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
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