December 21, 2021 • 42 mins
The details may vary but building snowmen is pretty much universal where there’s snow. Humans have probably been making them for tens of thousands of years. But it wasn’t until the last century or two that they have become the winter icon they are today.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
My friend Charles W. Chuck Bryan is here too, and
it's just the two of us rolling and and having
some fun outdoors, making snow angels and most importantly making
(00:25):
snow people, which means this is stuff you should know,
the snow people addition, that's right. Uh, And I just
want to mention if you feel a presence among us
because Emily, Emily's in the room with me. Oh hi, Emily.
Now she can't hear you. I told her she had to.
She had to sit there and be quiet. She's, you know,
we got a sauna finally because of her lime and uh,
(00:49):
well not the line part, but the sauna part. Yeah, yeah,
which she's she's feeling better for now, by the way,
which is great news. But if you want to learn
about the health benefits of the sauna, go back and
listen to episode on the auna. But she was going
to this membership place and driving like, you know, forty
minutes each way, like four times a week, and so we, uh,
(01:10):
we've broke down and got one. So she is quietly
sitting back there sweating. Isn't it? Like? Have you used
it yet? Yeah? I love it. It's really nice. Um,
I do it's and it's also the solitude and just
thirty minutes of quiet time because you shouldn't take your
phone in there and bake it out. No, but um,
does yours have bluetooth? It does. So I downloaded like
(01:34):
a couple of bird song albums and nature song albums
and I'll just like turn that on and attach to
the bluetooth and just turn it real low. But it
adds a little extra something to a sauna. Do you
know what I do is I put on so Far
music for airports from Brian Eno and try to not
fall asleep. I could. I'm gonna give that one to try.
(01:54):
I'll trade you one of my bird song albums for
that Brian Eno album. Yeah, we'll meet in the middle
and literally exchange records. No, we'll just swap phones for
a few weeks, that's right. So anyway, and I have
a hot, sweaty wife behind me. Okay, gotcha. So speaking
of hot and sweaty, we're obviously talking about snow people today.
Snow man. But you know what you don't want to
(02:16):
do is put a snowperson in a sauna. No you don't,
but that is a recurring theme of the legends and
tales of snow people chuck, which we'll get too later.
They all melt, they do. They're ephemeral, they're fleeting and um.
There's this guy who wrote a book. He's a humorist
and a cartoonist. His name is Bob Eckstein, and he
(02:37):
wrote like the book on snowman and snow people is
called the History of the Snowman, and he did the round.
So there's a lot like a lot of snow research
or snowman research brings up his stuff. It's kind of
impossible to avoid. But one of the reasons why it's
impossible to avoid is because he actually did some like
really good scholarship on on snow people. And one of
(02:59):
the things that he is SERTs it's probably true, is
like our early ancestors had an aptitude for art. A
snowman or a snow person is a pretty basic shape,
and when you put those two together, there's a really
good chance that humans have been making snowman, snow people,
snow whatever for tens of thousands of years, if not longer.
(03:19):
Most likely that's right, and I think did you you
didn't mention the Book of Hours just then? Did you know?
Not not yet? Yeah, that's from and that is the
first known depiction of an actually in a manuscript of
a snowman. That's a long time ago. And that was
in the Oh boy, do you want to help me
out with this? Yes, it's it's Dutch. It's a coney kruk. No, no,
(03:46):
the coney kluck biblio. It still cracks me up after
all these years. People say I'm happy to help you
out with pronunciation, and we say never. It's a part
of the show. Yeah, I liked it. Oh, very nice.
So why is that jay even in there? I don't know.
I don't know because the Dutch love their Ja's and
(04:07):
Randau places. But what we're saying is the coney whatever
you said bibiliotiq in the Hague, Netherlands is where that
comes from? Uh? And you know there was it's a snowman.
Who was I guess you would have to say it's
anti Semitic, right, It's the traditional stacked ball snow person
(04:30):
and it has on a yamakle. So how you say
that it's not a yamakle? It's something else. It's like
a red cap with like ball on top. Yeah, but
apparently it was a very Jewish cap to wear at
the time. Okay, but he's sitting there, back turned to
the fire, and then aside the snowman is text pronouncing
(04:51):
the crucifixion of Jesus. So apparently what people think is
that this was you know, Europe during the plague, and
they needed the just they needed to take their frustrations
out on something, so it fell to this little Jewish snowman. Yeah.
And the Book of Ours is a really popular Christian
devotional too, and it um like I guess in every
(05:11):
copy of this it was illuminated, So in every copy
that would have been the drawing next to that part
about Jesus's crucifixion. So not the greatest start as far
as like the history of snow people or snowman um.
But it gets a little better from here on out
if you ask me. Yeah, there was one built. Michel
Angelo was commissioned in four ninety four by Piero the
(05:32):
Unfortunate of Florence. Love that name. That's gonna be my
new hotel, The Unfortunate. No, Piero the Unfortunate Oh, I
like Josh the unfortunate. No, it's a little too on
the nose. Okay, hits HiT's too close to home. Oh no,
you're the fortunate. Uh yeah, michel Angelo was commissioned to
build this giant snowman in the Medici courtyard. I guess
(05:55):
he put on his monkey suit and danced did what
he was told. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is, there's
two things here. One nobody bothered to draw or document
what it looked like. We just know that michel Angelo
built a snowman once, which is pretty cool. But it
also um shows like this during the era, the Renaissance,
(06:17):
the medieval era before it um, the artists actually like
kind of used snow as a medium sometimes during the winter.
Michel Angelo wasn't the only one, that's right, and that
is on evidence actually in another big moment in fifteen eleven,
when a town in Brussels got together and this was
(06:38):
during what was called the Winter of Death, so everyone
was pretty um down and despondent or dead and dying,
and so they built it. They just had kind of
like a snowman festival, and it was called the Miracle
of fifteen eleven, and there were real deal artists in
town that probably did some pretty great things along with
uh cynical townspeople. Who did people going poopoo, a snowboy
(07:02):
peeing on a passed out drunk all made of snow
by the way, um you know, body parts and atomically
correct body parts. Yeah, a lot of people having sex
but made of snow. Yeah, so they got involved, But
so did the artists of the town. Yeah, I like
the whole town did. It was called the Miracle of
fifteen eleven because the town poet Yon Smicken wrote a
(07:25):
poem called the Miracle of Pure Ice and Snow. So
that's how it got its name. Um. And for a
while historians thought like maybe Jon Smicken had just made
it up, but they've they've uh supported that with um
journals from some people that lived in the town during
the time that said, this was awesome. We totally made
(07:46):
a snow couple do and it and everybody went ponkers
for it. Here in the US. Uh, there's kind of
a weird story. Well not weird, it's sad and just
odd that it's tied to snowman. I guess um. One
of the bloodiest events in our history early on was
a mass of six uh. Sixty people ended up dying, ten,
including ten women and twelve children. The deal here is uh,
(08:10):
some Frenchmen and Native Americans launched an attack on Fort
uh Schenectady, and they were about ready to give up.
They had been traveling for about a week through the
snow through the Mohawk Valley. They were you know, obviously,
you know, going through the snow on a long trek
like that. They were exhausted and ill, and it was
really strenuous and they were about to surrender. But when
(08:32):
they got to the village, they saw that they had
a really easy entrance in that the gate was frozen open,
and as legend has it, the two guards went to
go have some drinks and put snowmen as guards in
their stead. Yeah, and that's the first documented snowmen built
in America back in sixte which is a terrible debut
(08:55):
as far as snow snowmen go in North America. Yes. Um. Also,
just as a little aside, that really ties into our
Salem witchcraft trial episode because that's exactly the kind of
thing that put the Salem villagers on edge and they
think led in part to the witch panic. And then
interesting that is interesting so one other thing about the
(09:17):
snowman and um, you're gonna love this, but Bob Extein
compares the snowman to um kind of a type of
Forrest Gump, like he just pops up at all of
these like really important moments in history, like this just
happens to be there as well. And one of them.
(09:37):
Was it bad? I mean it was early, so yeah
it was bad. I thought it was good. Still, I
haven't seen it in a while. But one of the
one of the early photographs UM that was ever taken
is certainly not the first or even necessarily one of
the first, but one of the earliest ones was taken
by a woman named Mary Dilwyn who was Welsh, and
(09:58):
she took a picture of her parents make can Um
a snowman out in their yard, which is pretty pretty
precious photograph, even though you can't really make out what's
going on in it very well. Yeah, she was actually
pretty interesting. She made need a short stuff. She just
got into photography starting in eighteen forty five and took
all kinds of cool pictures and uh, this was one
(10:19):
of them about eight years in. She it's it's kind
of nice. Her dad shoveling snow and Um, I just
love seeing those old pictures. It's really cool. It's like
a CPA fest, total cpafest. I also saw that that um,
the album that she put together of photographs recently sold
for a hundred grand. Oh really, maybe she should get
(10:40):
a short stuff let's do it. So. Um, here's the thing.
Up to this point, Chuck, snowman. Snow people have been
basically like the providence of artists. Uh. They've been used
for political satire, for lowbrow copulation, humor. Um. They they've
just kind of existed as an almost like a similacrum
(11:01):
to real humans doing real human things. Right. But around
the time when Christmas became like a thing in the
in the United States and in the UK during the
Victorian era, that's when the snowman finally took the shape
of the snowman as we recognize them today. Like they
(11:21):
were the part of winter. They were happy, jolly, They
didn't have any guile. They just wanted to like just
be free. They almost like they had a sense that
their lives were very short and limited and they were
just trying to to spread joy and happiness. The idea
of a snow snowman or snow person we have today
is based in that Victorian age. That's right, and maybe
(11:45):
we should take a break there. Okay, we'll come back
and talk about Christmas snow people right after this. Alright,
(12:23):
So snow men are popping up all over the place
and sometimes in some countries. And we've done plenty of
weird Christmas like legends and Christmas uh like different weird
cultural things around the world over there, Yes, and there's
plenty more to come. Everybody hopefully fear one day we're
(12:45):
going to run out of Christmas stuff. Never, we'll just
start making it up and add to the Christmas legend. Okay,
all right, well that's a good idea. That's some stuff
right there. One of these legends is the uh the
snugg snugger rock Uh Snega Rocca. I'm trying this sna
oh you're gonna go with the cheat. Yeah. Well she's
(13:07):
Russian Snega Rochka, which was a snow maiden and Russian
lure and these stories, uh you know, and this is
where this is where the melting starts. Um that was
he As the story goes that she was a snow girl.
She's built by an elderly couple who didn't have kids
in their own were not able to and so she
comes to life just like a Disney movie and becomes
(13:30):
their daughter essentially, and they're playing and they're having fun.
And one of the things that they decided to do,
and true Russian uh folk legend fashion, was hey, let's
decide to play a game where we jump over a
fire with our little snow daughter. And of course, you
know what happens. She ends up melted and gone. And
(13:50):
in the original stories, that was that the couple lost
her forever. They knew joy for a brief time and
then they lost her and and maybe we're worse off
than they had ever been for and by the way, um,
we're probably all going to starve this winter, yes the
end right. Um. Luckily, the Russians, like the rest of
the world, said, you know what, we've been a little
(14:11):
grim for a while. Let's kind of like pep things
up as we start to enter the twentieth century. Um
and the snegorochka Um kind of was revived, I guess,
and was associated with Dead Moros, who is known as
Grandpa Frost, and that is what Santa Claus Um calls
himself when he goes to Russia. Um, and he goes
(14:33):
to Russian and he gives out presents around New Year's
because he's so busy um giving out presents in other
parts of the world around Christmas time. That in Russia
it's traditional that he gives him out around New Year's
And Snegorochka became dead. Morrows is grand granddaughter and she
helps him give out presents around New year That's right.
(14:54):
We also have a great cartoon from Nazi Germany, which
we'll get into in a second, but it's called Dear
sna Man the Snowman, and it's a It was a
ten minute short, still is a ten minute short. Let's
they added onto it. I didn't know about it. Have
you seen it yet? I've watched a little bit of it,
but I couldn't make it do the whole thing. It
is so cute. I didn't care for it. Oh you didn't, Yeah,
(15:18):
oh well yeah, I could see not what not watching it?
Then if it doesn't click with you, I could see
being really turned off by it. But it's about a snowman,
and again this says there's another melting coming, but a snowman,
who obviously is is doing snowman things playing outside, having
a good time. And then eventually Uh goes inside of
(15:39):
a house nearby and sees a calendar of July and
these pictures of summertime and thinks, hey, this is pretty great. Yeah,
I would love to see summer and so let me,
let me put myself in the ice box and just
wait until the right moment. And then finally July comes around,
Snowman gets out, plays around, ultimately melts but has a
(16:01):
good time and experience his summer and dies with a
smile on his little face as it melts away. Yeah,
he's singing as he melts to nothingness, like he's definitely fulfilled,
like his dream. It was pretty great. Um. And so
for a long time, people who had seen their Nieman
in the US and and UM outside of Europe had
(16:22):
no idea it was a Nazi film, but it was
directly commissioned by Joseph Gebel's UM because during the war,
and I think their Schneman was was made in nineteen
a Nazi Germany was like cut off from the West,
like you couldn't get anything, including Disney cartoons. But they
had already developed a taste for Disney cartoons, so Um.
(16:43):
He went to Hans fisher Kusten. I think I nailed
his name, um, which sounds like somebody that Rose Nyland
would have dated on Golden Girls back in the day.
But Hans fisher Kusten became known as Germany's Walt Disney, Right,
that's right. I feel like his name should have an
oom out, did it not? I saw koe and I
(17:03):
took the oe as a like a stretched out or
deconstructed umlaut. That's why I said it like that. So
you're just making up rules for the German language. Basically, Yeah,
they listened to me, now, got you? Uh yeah, he
was like the Walt Disney and uh you know they
were he apparently he uh did not put any propaganda
(17:23):
in this film, even though some people say, you know
what the snowman waiting for July, like that is subtext.
It's basically the Germans longing to be free from the
Nazi Party. But his son says, no, no, no to that.
My dad was a political and did not make his
films with the political bent. But at the very least
it does not and clearly does not have any Nazi propaganda.
(17:45):
And you can watch it over and over again there's nothing,
um that that seems like, you know, pro Nazi or anything.
It's just like this guy made a cartoon with utterly
outside of the context of the Nazi Party ruling Germany
and being in World War Two at the time. It's
really interesting. It's definitely worth seeing. It's on all over YouTube.
So I wonder how many people will take it like
(18:07):
they didn't like it like you, or how many people
would be like that, that's pretty good. Maybe you should
do a poll. Let's do one of those Twitter polls
or something, right, Um, okay, So then Chuck, everybody knows
about der Schneeman, and if they didn't, they do now.
But everybody really knows here in the States, at least
about Frosty the Snowman. Have you heard of Frosty? Of course,
(18:31):
I love the I love that cartoon, that original cartoon
which we're gonna talk about. I love that. I love Christmas,
traditional Christmas music, so I love that song. So it
wasn't originally a Christmas song? Did you know that? Well?
I mean, here's my deal is I associate winter songs
as Christmas songs. I'm not as picky as saying like
they didn't say the word Christmas Christmas song you didn't
(18:54):
say the magic word. It could be played around spring
break if you wanted to. Yeah, I mean they're printing
plenty of wintertime songs that I associate as Christmas. Yeah,
I guess you would never hear the original Frosty or
Winter Wonderland jingle Bells. Those are usually the three sited
as non Christmas Christmas songs. You would never hear them
after Christmas, Like you don't play those on January first
(19:15):
or second. So I guess they are Christmas songs for sure.
But the point is that they don't mention Christmas, which
is why people say that Frosty does finally mention Christmas
after Rank and Basque out ahold of them and turned
the song into the nineteen sixty nine made for TV movie. Though,
that's right, and this song was was a pretty good
big hit by the way. They were these songwriters, Steve
(19:36):
Nelson and Jack Rowlins that realize you can make a
lot of dough pretty fast by cranking out, you know,
holiday theme songs. They wrote here comes Peter Cottentil for Easter.
They wrote this Frosty song for Gene Autry after they
saw that he had a big smash with Rudolph the
Red Nose Reindeer, and uh, you know, these are no
brainers about these They knock these things out in no
(19:58):
time at all and got some atty good cash for it. Yeah.
It made it to like number seven on the charts,
which is not not bad at all. And I think
between Rudolph and Frosty they kicked off like the idea
of Christmas songs in general. So there's this big debate
over where the song took place, but apparently it's been
settled now that Frosty the Snowman the song takes place
(20:19):
in the town of Armank, New York. If anybody ever
asks you big debate meaning eighteen people in Armock, New York. Well,
no white Plaines supposedly um laid claim to it, even tentatively,
but armand is like, we're not playing that. I think
one of the one of the writers lived in Armonk
for a while and they're like, it's our monk for sure. Uh.
(20:40):
So that became obviously the cartoon that we you were
speaking of, which was you know that's that's still places today. Uh,
one of the Rank and Bass cartoons classic. It's great.
There were sequels that was Frosty's Winner Wonderland and seventy
six not quite as good, but not bad. Uh. They
were married for Sty and his wife Crystal were married
(21:02):
by Parson Brown from the Winter Wonderland song. Quite a cameo,
and this then led to the stop motion Rudolph and
Frosty's Christmas and July. Things are kind of jumping the
shark at this point, I think in seventy nine and
then Frosty returns, and then, not to be outdone, they
made another one in two thousand five. Legend of Frosty
(21:24):
to Snowman. Yeah, I think Frosty as Rudolph and Frosty's
Christmas and July was still very cute and sweet, um,
but the Frosty Returns is definitely it jumped the shark.
It's terrible than the early nineties. It's bad. So that's
the US is claimed to Snowman. That's the one that
(21:44):
we all watch around um Christmas time, the holidays. But
the UK has their own. They said no, no, we're
not going to follow your trend. We're gonna start our own.
Um and back in a guy named Raymond Briggs wrote
a book and you can't really say wrote a book
because it's a wordless picture book. So I guess he
drew or illustrated a book called The Snowman. And it
(22:07):
is a very very sweet book and it was made
into possibly an even sweeter TV adaptation that they show
around the holidays every year over there. Uh. It is
about a boy and this snowman, and of course the
Snowman comes to life and you know what's coming everybody. Fun,
that's right. Fun. They become buddies, they explore all around
(22:30):
the house, they played dress up, they read a motorcycle.
They take a flight out to sea into the North
Pole to meet Santa, but he melts like all other
snowperson stories. Ever, Yeah, it's it's um. I watched it
the other day and man, it'll get you right in
the bread basket. Is really sweet. Um. And apparently originally
(22:53):
when they did the the the when they aired the
TV movie starting in it was on Channel four, which
had just begun broadcasting like the month before. Um, and
so they had a hit on their hands right out
of the gate. But originally there was like a live
action intro by Raymond Briggs who's like, you know, I
build a snowman when I was a kid, and it
inspired me to make this, so please enjoy and um.
(23:17):
The Brits were like, we need to get this over
to America. They're going to go nuts for this. But
apparently somebody at some lunch at like Spago or something
like that said no, no, no, no one knows who
Raymond Briggs is. You're gonna have to come up with
somebody else to to do the intro. And they said,
who who could do it? Chuck, who could possibly take
over from Raymond Briggs that the Americans would recognize? That
(23:38):
would be none other than David Bowie. Uh, weirdly has
a because that in the Bing Crosby thing has an
oddly large Christmas presents. I thought of that too. Well.
Apparently he did this um for his son. Uh Moon director.
I can't remember his name right now? What is his name?
(23:58):
I want to say Doug Douglas but it's not but
something like that. Yes, but he he directed Moon and
he's wonderful duncan. Yes, I can't remember. He had a
different last name though, right right, it's not Bowie. Regardless,
he said he did it for his son, so um,
I wonder if he did the thing with Big Crosby
as for his for his son as well. I bet
(24:20):
you he did. Which, by the way, man, did you
know John Lennon was famously like a terrible dad. Uh?
John Lennon was famously a terrible person. Well, I ran
across something I think on Cora where somebody broke down
like just what he was, you know, some of the
terrible stuff he was doing. As far as his son
Julian alone was concerned, I was like, wow, I had
(24:42):
no idea. Yeah, he was a complicated guy and had
a really rough childhood and was a bit of a
jerk in general. It's just one of those things, you know, well,
not a good guy. So back to Bowie. I don't
want to lose the magic of this chuck because Bowie
did in Raymond Briggs was replaced with David Bowie. And
this is like the ninth he needed two Let's Dance
or eighty three Let's Dance era, Right, So he's got
(25:04):
his platinum, spiky blonde hair and he does the intro
basically saying like I was this boy, and look, I
even have the scarf that the snowman gave me as proof.
And then did you just say he had spiky hair?
It was high it was high hair, spiky ish. No, no, no,
that was that was ziggy started Sarah when he had
(25:24):
the spikey. No, I don't mean that. I don't mean that. No,
big pompadour and let's dance. It was a pompadour, wasn't it. Yeah,
I guess it wasn't spikey. Okay, thank you for that.
So he had a big let's dance pompadour, but it
was platinum. We're agreed on that, correct, Yeah, I was
just I was trying to cut off the David Bowie
Penancy would email us stop that dead in its track.
(25:46):
You people know this, but David Bowie religiously listens to
stuff you should know every week, did he? Oh that's right.
Oh yeah, I was even listening to Black Are the
other day. It's great. So, um, that's the UK's version
(26:08):
their own Snowman. It's just simply called The Snowman. And
if you haven't seen it, go watch it because it
is very touching with or without David Bowie. That's right.
We have a few more touch points for the United
States culturally. Um Calvin and Hobbs never read Calvin Hobbs,
but apparently Um Calvin was the Boy or was Calvin
the Tiger? You're gonna get us some mail for that one, buddy, Yes,
(26:30):
Calvin was the Boy? All right, I don't if you
don't if you don't know something, you don't know it. No, No,
it's true. But the people who are into calvinant Hobbs
are like really into Calvin and Hobbs, and they're gonna
be like, how can you not read Calvin and Hobbs exactly?
Those are the kind of emails we're going to get. Well, Calvin,
I guess built great snowmen. Yeah, good ones, real dark
(26:51):
ones where like they would be run over by a
train or something like that. Just good ones. There's a
people have posted like collections of all of the ones
that were printed over the years. They're definitely worth check
it out. There's, of course Olaf from Frozen, which I'm
dying to know if you're the one or if you
got this from somewhere else who said he's widely considered
the best character in the movie. I got it from
(27:13):
somewhere else. Really, Yeah, who's the best of that? Who's
the best? I don't remember one of our sources. Interesting,
who who's the best character in the movie? Well, I mean,
I think if you ask any young girl who saw Frozen,
they would they would say Anna or Elsa, the two
lead characters. Maybe this was a from the parents point
of view. I don't know, you know, he's the I
(27:36):
take it you you haven't seen Frozen or Frozen too. Uh No,
I have not seen It's uh he's He's like the
character that you have in every Disney movie. He is
the comic relief, the donkey, sort of the gun. He's
the donkey. Yeah, I got you. Yeah, yeah, I think
people like Josh gadd As well, yeah, yeah, But I
just I thought it was funny. I don't know if
(27:56):
anyone would consider him the best character in the movie. Well,
I and I've never seen it, so that was very funny.
Um that we also have to shout out Chuck the
movie Jack Frost Um from I Think Yeah. It was
starring Michael Keaton as Jack Frost, snowman who is a
reincarnated reincarnated him. Yeah. I think people you could just
(28:20):
do yourself a favor and watch. If you have two minutes,
go watch the Jack Cross trailer online. It's got every bad,
dumb joke you could think of on a snowman from
like his arms falling off. There's one scene where they
throw snowballs at him and they land on him as
as breasts and he goes, oh, not for me or
(28:41):
something like that and rubs those off. Uh. He he
gets shaved down to go through a skinny crevass as
he's sledding, goes, boy, I've really gotten thin here, or
something like that. It's the worst thing ever. But at
the very end of this trailer it says Jack Frost
coming to the blah blah blah, featuring music from Hanson.
(29:03):
Oh wow, that's a real ninety eight selling point. Yeah.
Hansen um famously lobbied, uh launched the lawsuit to have
themselves taken off of that movie, but to no avail.
It wouldn't surprise me because it was really bad. And
Roger Ebert hated this movie and has has a part
in his book I hated, hated, hated this movie. Yeah,
(29:25):
he said, Jack Frost could have been co directed by
Orson Welles and Steven Spielberg and still be unwatchable because
of that damn snowman. The Snowman gave me the creeps.
Never have I disliked the movie character more. It looks
really bad. And Roger Ebert has seen a lot of
movie characters, and he's saying, like Jack Frost is the
worst of them all. For me, it might be right.
(29:47):
You want to take another break and then come back
and wrap up some some snowman stuff. Let's do it. Okay,
We'll be right back everybody, Okay, Chuck. So, one of
(30:27):
the thing about snowman, snow people, snow citizens are that, um,
they are like inextricably associated with winter, right, yes, So
some people around the world have hit upon the fact
that you can use a snowman as a stand in
an effigy for winter, and that if you can get
rid of a snowman in some spectacular fashion, you may
(30:51):
also be able to symbolically banish winter in favor of
being replaced by spring. And the people of Zurich, Switzerland,
have done just that. They have a festival called sex allot,
which sounds hotter than um. It actually is sex fillountain.
Uh translates to the ringing of the six o'clock bells.
(31:11):
That's right, And this is actually a spring festival and
it's a little bit akin to our our Groundhog Day celebration,
and that it signifies the end of winter, we're ready
to move on, and so we're gonna blow up a snowman.
Uh to do so, And they load this thing up
with literally a hundred and forty sticks of dynamite in
its head. It's built out of cotton and straw, and
(31:36):
it is lit like a wicker man basically on a
big pire. And then in the time that it takes
those flames to reach the dynamite and blow up is
how much longer it's gonna be till summer. So that's
sort of the the tie into Groundhog Day. Yeah. Um,
I think the faster it burns, the warmer the summer
is going to be. And they're like, yeah, the springs
(31:57):
um here and now um and gay Lord Michigan has
a alpinfest and they adopted this as well, but they
have a slight modification where um, rather than banishing winter,
the townspeople write down like their problems or worries or
concerns on a piece of paper and all those get
stuffed in the snowman. So when the snowman burns, their
problems burn away as well, which I think is right.
(32:18):
It's no hundred and forties sticks of dynamite, but they
they came upon something that's that's good too. Should we
go over some world records? How could you not? How
could you talk about snowman and snow people without talking
about world records? Like this would be an incomplete episode,
you know. Uh, let me see. Here's one that was
(32:39):
pretty good. In and Bethel, Maine. They made Angus King
of the Mountain after Senator Angus King. Uh. And this
bad boy was a hundred and thirteen feet tall and
had a real deal trees for arms and car tires
for buttons. That was big until too, that was an
(33:00):
eight when that they did Olympia after Olympia snow another senator.
They love their senators in Maine, Yeah, they really do.
And this thing was thirteen million pounds and a hundred
and twenty two ft and if you look at pictures
of this, it's pretty impressive. Like they said, sixty people
built it. I was surprised it wasn't more than a
(33:20):
couple of hundred, yeah, because it was apparently just about
thirty ft shorter than the Statue of Liberty, the actual
statue itself without the base um which is this is
a really huge snow man um or snow woman, I
should say in this case, um, and so they held
it may still hold the record that was when two
thou eight. I think they might. Apparently prior to that,
(33:43):
Dartmouth College they have a winter carnival that National Geographic
Ones called the Marty Grove Winter or the North or
something like that, and they used to hold the record.
I think they held it as recently. Um, so it's
possible that Bethel Maine still holds the record for tall
a snowman. It's wonderful. And then um, for the most
(34:05):
snow men ever built, you would just have to get
in your way back machine and travel to Supporto, Japan
in two thousand three, where you would find twelve thousand,
three hundred and seventy nine snowmen. But you'd also say,
wait a minute, wait a minute, they're cheating because they're
only doing two balls rather than the traditional three bald snowman.
(34:29):
And people would say, no, that's how the Japanese build
snow men. Did you know that? That's right, little two
bald snow man. I like the two balls already. It's
very cute. Apparently it's based it's called the Yuki Daruma.
Yuki means snow and daruma is a little around Japanese
doll that's based on the um what's his name, Bodhi Dharma,
(34:50):
the guy who is alleged to have brought alleged who's
thought to have brought um Zen Buddhism from India to
China and just kicked off the whole thing. So that's
why the Japanese make their doll or their snowmen to
two ball snowmen. But here in the United States we
(35:11):
do three balls, and the bigger the better, and name
him after your senator or else you're a commie. So
if you want to build a snowperson, you want to Uh,
the snow has got to be just right. They're not
just right. There's there's a range. But um, some snow
doesn't work as well as other snow. You want good
packing snow, so you want temperatures that are closer to
(35:32):
melting point and the snow flakes being a little little
wetter helps out a lot. Yeah, So you take that
packing snow chuck and you start with the snowball and
you roll it along the snow. You don't want to
go too deep rous you're gonna get a lot of
crud like leaves and pine straw in there, and that
is just unsightly as far as the snow person is concerned. Uh.
(35:53):
And there's this guy named Keith Martin that Martha Stewart
Living interviewed. He's an ice sculpture. He said, big tip here,
when you're halfway through, cut to the left or cut
to the right, because then your ball is going to
keep a rounder shape rather than turning into like a
giant snow cigar or something like that. Yeah, that's the
hardest part, I think is uh. And if you really
(36:15):
want it super round, and you don't want it to
look like a like a cylinder, like some small rugs
stacked on each other, right like carpet runners. I guess
that's what mine always ended up looking like because I
didn't follow that tip. You gotta alternate directions. Um. So
that's a big one. And then also Martha Stewart says,
(36:37):
um that you need to decorate and dress your snowman
or snow person. Um. And that quote a pine cone
still attached to its branch makes a distinguished pipe, which
is a great tip. You know, Jerry's meant Martha Stewart,
I didn't know that, that's right, Jerry. I think last
(36:58):
year I think we did something with a of the
company and Jerry actually got to go up there to
her house. Oh I remember that. Yeah, yeah, and she
like stole a vase or something it was associated with it.
Don't out her. Yeah, I forgot about that. That's cool.
She said. It was just as amazing in real life
as you would expect from what I was like. It
was very cluttered. He's kind of messy. So one last
(37:24):
thing we got to end on this. Okay, there's a
kids site called kid addle k I D A d L.
Are you going to do Yes, we are going to
do these because they are well I'm not so there's
a kid the site kid addle says, don't just finish
your snowman or snow woman snow kids, no baby, even
if you want to impress Chuck Um by just you know,
(37:44):
giving it a distinguished pipe, you gotta name your snow
creation as well. And don't just name him or her
Frosty or Crystal, right um. And they came up with
a big list of suggested names, and Chuck is going
to join me here in in trading off these names. Oh,
I'm not gonna read any of these because I know
if you build a snowperson with your child. The only
(38:05):
thing you can do is let your child name that
snow sure. But if your kids, like I can't think
of anything, here's some suggestions like mistletoe, jolly leaves, it's
a good one. What else, Chuck, I don't know. My
kid would name it fart poop the snowman. Or what
about peppermint cuddle pudding? That might be my favorite? All right,
sugar vone, Carrol's Teddy McCole. And then the last one
(38:29):
is twinkle Prance a lot. That's a great name for
a snow person. That's right. So I think the moral
here is if you have trouble naming your snow person,
get online and get some suggestions from a search engine.
From cadattle, that's right. Are they sponsoring us or something?
But that came up with some adorable names, and I
(38:50):
thought they deserved to be shouted out for that. So
they are shouted out, and we should also shout out
all of the other sources. Um, there were a ton
of them, but they include Smithsonian Atlas, Obscure, the Farmer's Almanac,
the Garden, fairy Tales dot biz because there's big money
in fairy tales online the Library of Congress song facts,
and Martha Stewart Living am more. So thanks to all
(39:12):
of those sources too, and thanks to everybody Chuck who
joined us for this great holiday themed episode on snow people. Huh,
that's right, not our Christmas episode. That will be one
of those, don't right. That's right. And so since Chuck said,
don't worry everybody, that means it's time for a listener mail.
So we're gonna shout out our friends at co ED
(39:32):
here at the end of the year. Yeah. Uh. If
you don't know, co ED, the Cooperative for Education. They
work to stop the cycle of poverty through education in Guatemala.
We went down to Guatemala years ago with him. They
do great work and we've been working with them ever since.
And they're in the home stretch of reaching their target
milestone of their thousand girls initiative and the last batch
(39:55):
of students identified to start the school year and early two. Uh,
they have the last ones, and they just need a
few dozen more sponsors to get past that finish line
of a thousand girls sponsored to continue past the sixth grade. Guatemala,
that's where they are, that's what they're trying to do. Yep.
So it's eighty dollars a month to change a kid's life.
(40:16):
As they put it, you can fully sponsor a student,
or you could do half of that forty dollars a
month to pay for half of the student's education. And
if two Stuff you Should Know Listeners each chip in half,
that will be one. And like you said, what they're
they're just a couple dozen short of their goal. And
I think Stuff you Should Know Listeners can definitely get
COED there, don't you. I definitely think so because we
(40:38):
have some statistics from how Stuff you Should Know Army
members have helped out co ED over the years, UH
four hundred and forty six supporters have collectively raised more
than seven hundred and thirty one thousand, five hundred dollars amazing.
Twenty nine of you have actually gone down to take
that tour in Guatemala, which we highly recommend, and one
(40:59):
and twenty two Rise students have been are currently sponsored
by members of the Stuff you Should Know Army, which
is amazing. What what great work everyone is doing with
co ED and the benevolence of the Stuff he Should
Know Army always means so much to us. Yeah, and
I think we can double triple quadruple that um just
hopefully with this call out, because I think the more
(41:20):
people who know about COED and learn about COED, the
more people who are gonna want to help out. So
you can go find out a lot more about co
ED by just going to co ed. You see dot org,
c o E D you see dot org. Check it out,
and then hopefully donator sponsor because Chuck and Josh have
given our seal of approval on COED many many times.
(41:43):
That's right. And if you actually want to pick out
a student to sponsor, which you can do, this is
these are real people. Everyone go to Cooperative for Education
dot org, slash sponsor Dash students. Yep uh. And that's it.
If you want to get in touch with us in
the meantime to let us know you helped out COD again,
that's Cooperative for Education dot org, slash sponsor DASH Students.
(42:06):
You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
My friend Charles W. Chuck Bryan is here too, and
it's just the two of us rolling and and having
some fun outdoors, making snow angels and most importantly making
(00:25):
snow people, which means this is stuff you should know,
the snow people addition, that's right. Uh, And I just
want to mention if you feel a presence among us
because Emily, Emily's in the room with me. Oh hi, Emily.
Now she can't hear you. I told her she had to.
She had to sit there and be quiet. She's, you know,
we got a sauna finally because of her lime and uh,
(00:49):
well not the line part, but the sauna part. Yeah, yeah,
which she's she's feeling better for now, by the way,
which is great news. But if you want to learn
about the health benefits of the sauna, go back and
listen to episode on the auna. But she was going
to this membership place and driving like, you know, forty
minutes each way, like four times a week, and so we, uh,
(01:10):
we've broke down and got one. So she is quietly
sitting back there sweating. Isn't it? Like? Have you used
it yet? Yeah? I love it. It's really nice. Um,
I do it's and it's also the solitude and just
thirty minutes of quiet time because you shouldn't take your
phone in there and bake it out. No, but um,
does yours have bluetooth? It does. So I downloaded like
(01:34):
a couple of bird song albums and nature song albums
and I'll just like turn that on and attach to
the bluetooth and just turn it real low. But it
adds a little extra something to a sauna. Do you
know what I do is I put on so Far
music for airports from Brian Eno and try to not
fall asleep. I could. I'm gonna give that one to try.
(01:54):
I'll trade you one of my bird song albums for
that Brian Eno album. Yeah, we'll meet in the middle
and literally exchange records. No, we'll just swap phones for
a few weeks, that's right. So anyway, and I have
a hot, sweaty wife behind me. Okay, gotcha. So speaking
of hot and sweaty, we're obviously talking about snow people today.
Snow man. But you know what you don't want to
(02:16):
do is put a snowperson in a sauna. No you don't,
but that is a recurring theme of the legends and
tales of snow people chuck, which we'll get too later.
They all melt, they do. They're ephemeral, they're fleeting and um.
There's this guy who wrote a book. He's a humorist
and a cartoonist. His name is Bob Eckstein, and he
(02:37):
wrote like the book on snowman and snow people is
called the History of the Snowman, and he did the round.
So there's a lot like a lot of snow research
or snowman research brings up his stuff. It's kind of
impossible to avoid. But one of the reasons why it's
impossible to avoid is because he actually did some like
really good scholarship on on snow people. And one of
(02:59):
the things that he is SERTs it's probably true, is
like our early ancestors had an aptitude for art. A
snowman or a snow person is a pretty basic shape,
and when you put those two together, there's a really
good chance that humans have been making snowman, snow people,
snow whatever for tens of thousands of years, if not longer.
(03:19):
Most likely that's right, and I think did you you
didn't mention the Book of Hours just then? Did you know?
Not not yet? Yeah, that's from and that is the
first known depiction of an actually in a manuscript of
a snowman. That's a long time ago. And that was
in the Oh boy, do you want to help me
out with this? Yes, it's it's Dutch. It's a coney kruk. No, no,
(03:46):
the coney kluck biblio. It still cracks me up after
all these years. People say I'm happy to help you
out with pronunciation, and we say never. It's a part
of the show. Yeah, I liked it. Oh, very nice.
So why is that jay even in there? I don't know.
I don't know because the Dutch love their Ja's and
(04:07):
Randau places. But what we're saying is the coney whatever
you said bibiliotiq in the Hague, Netherlands is where that
comes from? Uh? And you know there was it's a snowman.
Who was I guess you would have to say it's
anti Semitic, right, It's the traditional stacked ball snow person
(04:30):
and it has on a yamakle. So how you say
that it's not a yamakle? It's something else. It's like
a red cap with like ball on top. Yeah, but
apparently it was a very Jewish cap to wear at
the time. Okay, but he's sitting there, back turned to
the fire, and then aside the snowman is text pronouncing
(04:51):
the crucifixion of Jesus. So apparently what people think is
that this was you know, Europe during the plague, and
they needed the just they needed to take their frustrations
out on something, so it fell to this little Jewish snowman. Yeah.
And the Book of Ours is a really popular Christian
devotional too, and it um like I guess in every
(05:11):
copy of this it was illuminated, So in every copy
that would have been the drawing next to that part
about Jesus's crucifixion. So not the greatest start as far
as like the history of snow people or snowman um.
But it gets a little better from here on out
if you ask me. Yeah, there was one built. Michel
Angelo was commissioned in four ninety four by Piero the
(05:32):
Unfortunate of Florence. Love that name. That's gonna be my
new hotel, The Unfortunate. No, Piero the Unfortunate Oh, I
like Josh the unfortunate. No, it's a little too on
the nose. Okay, hits HiT's too close to home. Oh no,
you're the fortunate. Uh yeah, michel Angelo was commissioned to
build this giant snowman in the Medici courtyard. I guess
(05:55):
he put on his monkey suit and danced did what
he was told. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is, there's
two things here. One nobody bothered to draw or document
what it looked like. We just know that michel Angelo
built a snowman once, which is pretty cool. But it
also um shows like this during the era, the Renaissance,
(06:17):
the medieval era before it um, the artists actually like
kind of used snow as a medium sometimes during the winter.
Michel Angelo wasn't the only one, that's right, and that
is on evidence actually in another big moment in fifteen eleven,
when a town in Brussels got together and this was
(06:38):
during what was called the Winter of Death, so everyone
was pretty um down and despondent or dead and dying,
and so they built it. They just had kind of
like a snowman festival, and it was called the Miracle
of fifteen eleven, and there were real deal artists in
town that probably did some pretty great things along with
uh cynical townspeople. Who did people going poopoo, a snowboy
(07:02):
peeing on a passed out drunk all made of snow
by the way, um you know, body parts and atomically
correct body parts. Yeah, a lot of people having sex
but made of snow. Yeah, so they got involved, But
so did the artists of the town. Yeah, I like
the whole town did. It was called the Miracle of
fifteen eleven because the town poet Yon Smicken wrote a
(07:25):
poem called the Miracle of Pure Ice and Snow. So
that's how it got its name. Um. And for a
while historians thought like maybe Jon Smicken had just made
it up, but they've they've uh supported that with um
journals from some people that lived in the town during
the time that said, this was awesome. We totally made
(07:46):
a snow couple do and it and everybody went ponkers
for it. Here in the US. Uh, there's kind of
a weird story. Well not weird, it's sad and just
odd that it's tied to snowman. I guess um. One
of the bloodiest events in our history early on was
a mass of six uh. Sixty people ended up dying, ten,
including ten women and twelve children. The deal here is uh,
(08:10):
some Frenchmen and Native Americans launched an attack on Fort
uh Schenectady, and they were about ready to give up.
They had been traveling for about a week through the
snow through the Mohawk Valley. They were you know, obviously,
you know, going through the snow on a long trek
like that. They were exhausted and ill, and it was
really strenuous and they were about to surrender. But when
(08:32):
they got to the village, they saw that they had
a really easy entrance in that the gate was frozen open,
and as legend has it, the two guards went to
go have some drinks and put snowmen as guards in
their stead. Yeah, and that's the first documented snowmen built
in America back in sixte which is a terrible debut
(08:55):
as far as snow snowmen go in North America. Yes. Um. Also,
just as a little aside, that really ties into our
Salem witchcraft trial episode because that's exactly the kind of
thing that put the Salem villagers on edge and they
think led in part to the witch panic. And then
interesting that is interesting so one other thing about the
(09:17):
snowman and um, you're gonna love this, but Bob Extein
compares the snowman to um kind of a type of
Forrest Gump, like he just pops up at all of
these like really important moments in history, like this just
happens to be there as well. And one of them.
(09:37):
Was it bad? I mean it was early, so yeah
it was bad. I thought it was good. Still, I
haven't seen it in a while. But one of the
one of the early photographs UM that was ever taken
is certainly not the first or even necessarily one of
the first, but one of the earliest ones was taken
by a woman named Mary Dilwyn who was Welsh, and
(09:58):
she took a picture of her parents make can Um
a snowman out in their yard, which is pretty pretty
precious photograph, even though you can't really make out what's
going on in it very well. Yeah, she was actually
pretty interesting. She made need a short stuff. She just
got into photography starting in eighteen forty five and took
all kinds of cool pictures and uh, this was one
(10:19):
of them about eight years in. She it's it's kind
of nice. Her dad shoveling snow and Um, I just
love seeing those old pictures. It's really cool. It's like
a CPA fest, total cpafest. I also saw that that um,
the album that she put together of photographs recently sold
for a hundred grand. Oh really, maybe she should get
(10:40):
a short stuff let's do it. So. Um, here's the thing.
Up to this point, Chuck, snowman. Snow people have been
basically like the providence of artists. Uh. They've been used
for political satire, for lowbrow copulation, humor. Um. They they've
just kind of existed as an almost like a similacrum
(11:01):
to real humans doing real human things. Right. But around
the time when Christmas became like a thing in the
in the United States and in the UK during the
Victorian era, that's when the snowman finally took the shape
of the snowman as we recognize them today. Like they
(11:21):
were the part of winter. They were happy, jolly, They
didn't have any guile. They just wanted to like just
be free. They almost like they had a sense that
their lives were very short and limited and they were
just trying to to spread joy and happiness. The idea
of a snow snowman or snow person we have today
is based in that Victorian age. That's right, and maybe
(11:45):
we should take a break there. Okay, we'll come back
and talk about Christmas snow people right after this. Alright,
(12:23):
So snow men are popping up all over the place
and sometimes in some countries. And we've done plenty of
weird Christmas like legends and Christmas uh like different weird
cultural things around the world over there, Yes, and there's
plenty more to come. Everybody hopefully fear one day we're
(12:45):
going to run out of Christmas stuff. Never, we'll just
start making it up and add to the Christmas legend. Okay,
all right, well that's a good idea. That's some stuff
right there. One of these legends is the uh the
snugg snugger rock Uh Snega Rocca. I'm trying this sna
oh you're gonna go with the cheat. Yeah. Well she's
(13:07):
Russian Snega Rochka, which was a snow maiden and Russian
lure and these stories, uh you know, and this is
where this is where the melting starts. Um that was
he As the story goes that she was a snow girl.
She's built by an elderly couple who didn't have kids
in their own were not able to and so she
comes to life just like a Disney movie and becomes
(13:30):
their daughter essentially, and they're playing and they're having fun.
And one of the things that they decided to do,
and true Russian uh folk legend fashion, was hey, let's
decide to play a game where we jump over a
fire with our little snow daughter. And of course, you
know what happens. She ends up melted and gone. And
(13:50):
in the original stories, that was that the couple lost
her forever. They knew joy for a brief time and
then they lost her and and maybe we're worse off
than they had ever been for and by the way, um,
we're probably all going to starve this winter, yes the
end right. Um. Luckily, the Russians, like the rest of
the world, said, you know what, we've been a little
(14:11):
grim for a while. Let's kind of like pep things
up as we start to enter the twentieth century. Um
and the snegorochka Um kind of was revived, I guess,
and was associated with Dead Moros, who is known as
Grandpa Frost, and that is what Santa Claus Um calls
himself when he goes to Russia. Um, and he goes
(14:33):
to Russian and he gives out presents around New Year's
because he's so busy um giving out presents in other
parts of the world around Christmas time. That in Russia
it's traditional that he gives him out around New Year's
And Snegorochka became dead. Morrows is grand granddaughter and she
helps him give out presents around New year That's right.
(14:54):
We also have a great cartoon from Nazi Germany, which
we'll get into in a second, but it's called Dear
sna Man the Snowman, and it's a It was a
ten minute short, still is a ten minute short. Let's
they added onto it. I didn't know about it. Have
you seen it yet? I've watched a little bit of it,
but I couldn't make it do the whole thing. It
is so cute. I didn't care for it. Oh you didn't, Yeah,
(15:18):
oh well yeah, I could see not what not watching it?
Then if it doesn't click with you, I could see
being really turned off by it. But it's about a snowman,
and again this says there's another melting coming, but a snowman,
who obviously is is doing snowman things playing outside, having
a good time. And then eventually Uh goes inside of
(15:39):
a house nearby and sees a calendar of July and
these pictures of summertime and thinks, hey, this is pretty great. Yeah,
I would love to see summer and so let me,
let me put myself in the ice box and just
wait until the right moment. And then finally July comes around,
Snowman gets out, plays around, ultimately melts but has a
(16:01):
good time and experience his summer and dies with a
smile on his little face as it melts away. Yeah,
he's singing as he melts to nothingness, like he's definitely fulfilled,
like his dream. It was pretty great. Um. And so
for a long time, people who had seen their Nieman
in the US and and UM outside of Europe had
(16:22):
no idea it was a Nazi film, but it was
directly commissioned by Joseph Gebel's UM because during the war,
and I think their Schneman was was made in nineteen
a Nazi Germany was like cut off from the West,
like you couldn't get anything, including Disney cartoons. But they
had already developed a taste for Disney cartoons, so Um.
(16:43):
He went to Hans fisher Kusten. I think I nailed
his name, um, which sounds like somebody that Rose Nyland
would have dated on Golden Girls back in the day.
But Hans fisher Kusten became known as Germany's Walt Disney, Right,
that's right. I feel like his name should have an
oom out, did it not? I saw koe and I
(17:03):
took the oe as a like a stretched out or
deconstructed umlaut. That's why I said it like that. So
you're just making up rules for the German language. Basically, Yeah,
they listened to me, now, got you? Uh yeah, he
was like the Walt Disney and uh you know they
were he apparently he uh did not put any propaganda
(17:23):
in this film, even though some people say, you know
what the snowman waiting for July, like that is subtext.
It's basically the Germans longing to be free from the
Nazi Party. But his son says, no, no, no to that.
My dad was a political and did not make his
films with the political bent. But at the very least
it does not and clearly does not have any Nazi propaganda.
(17:45):
And you can watch it over and over again there's nothing,
um that that seems like, you know, pro Nazi or anything.
It's just like this guy made a cartoon with utterly
outside of the context of the Nazi Party ruling Germany
and being in World War Two at the time. It's
really interesting. It's definitely worth seeing. It's on all over YouTube.
So I wonder how many people will take it like
(18:07):
they didn't like it like you, or how many people
would be like that, that's pretty good. Maybe you should
do a poll. Let's do one of those Twitter polls
or something, right, Um, okay, So then Chuck, everybody knows
about der Schneeman, and if they didn't, they do now.
But everybody really knows here in the States, at least
about Frosty the Snowman. Have you heard of Frosty? Of course,
(18:31):
I love the I love that cartoon, that original cartoon
which we're gonna talk about. I love that. I love Christmas,
traditional Christmas music, so I love that song. So it
wasn't originally a Christmas song? Did you know that? Well?
I mean, here's my deal is I associate winter songs
as Christmas songs. I'm not as picky as saying like
they didn't say the word Christmas Christmas song you didn't
(18:54):
say the magic word. It could be played around spring
break if you wanted to. Yeah, I mean they're printing
plenty of wintertime songs that I associate as Christmas. Yeah,
I guess you would never hear the original Frosty or
Winter Wonderland jingle Bells. Those are usually the three sited
as non Christmas Christmas songs. You would never hear them
after Christmas, Like you don't play those on January first
(19:15):
or second. So I guess they are Christmas songs for sure.
But the point is that they don't mention Christmas, which
is why people say that Frosty does finally mention Christmas
after Rank and Basque out ahold of them and turned
the song into the nineteen sixty nine made for TV movie. Though,
that's right, and this song was was a pretty good
big hit by the way. They were these songwriters, Steve
(19:36):
Nelson and Jack Rowlins that realize you can make a
lot of dough pretty fast by cranking out, you know,
holiday theme songs. They wrote here comes Peter Cottentil for Easter.
They wrote this Frosty song for Gene Autry after they
saw that he had a big smash with Rudolph the
Red Nose Reindeer, and uh, you know, these are no
brainers about these They knock these things out in no
(19:58):
time at all and got some atty good cash for it. Yeah.
It made it to like number seven on the charts,
which is not not bad at all. And I think
between Rudolph and Frosty they kicked off like the idea
of Christmas songs in general. So there's this big debate
over where the song took place, but apparently it's been
settled now that Frosty the Snowman the song takes place
(20:19):
in the town of Armank, New York. If anybody ever
asks you big debate meaning eighteen people in Armock, New York. Well,
no white Plaines supposedly um laid claim to it, even tentatively,
but armand is like, we're not playing that. I think
one of the one of the writers lived in Armonk
for a while and they're like, it's our monk for sure. Uh.
(20:40):
So that became obviously the cartoon that we you were
speaking of, which was you know that's that's still places today. Uh,
one of the Rank and Bass cartoons classic. It's great.
There were sequels that was Frosty's Winner Wonderland and seventy
six not quite as good, but not bad. Uh. They
were married for Sty and his wife Crystal were married
(21:02):
by Parson Brown from the Winter Wonderland song. Quite a cameo,
and this then led to the stop motion Rudolph and
Frosty's Christmas and July. Things are kind of jumping the
shark at this point, I think in seventy nine and
then Frosty returns, and then, not to be outdone, they
made another one in two thousand five. Legend of Frosty
(21:24):
to Snowman. Yeah, I think Frosty as Rudolph and Frosty's
Christmas and July was still very cute and sweet, um,
but the Frosty Returns is definitely it jumped the shark.
It's terrible than the early nineties. It's bad. So that's
the US is claimed to Snowman. That's the one that
(21:44):
we all watch around um Christmas time, the holidays. But
the UK has their own. They said no, no, we're
not going to follow your trend. We're gonna start our own.
Um and back in a guy named Raymond Briggs wrote
a book and you can't really say wrote a book
because it's a wordless picture book. So I guess he
drew or illustrated a book called The Snowman. And it
(22:07):
is a very very sweet book and it was made
into possibly an even sweeter TV adaptation that they show
around the holidays every year over there. Uh. It is
about a boy and this snowman, and of course the
Snowman comes to life and you know what's coming everybody. Fun,
that's right. Fun. They become buddies, they explore all around
(22:30):
the house, they played dress up, they read a motorcycle.
They take a flight out to sea into the North
Pole to meet Santa, but he melts like all other
snowperson stories. Ever, Yeah, it's it's um. I watched it
the other day and man, it'll get you right in
the bread basket. Is really sweet. Um. And apparently originally
(22:53):
when they did the the the when they aired the
TV movie starting in it was on Channel four, which
had just begun broadcasting like the month before. Um, and
so they had a hit on their hands right out
of the gate. But originally there was like a live
action intro by Raymond Briggs who's like, you know, I
build a snowman when I was a kid, and it
inspired me to make this, so please enjoy and um.
(23:17):
The Brits were like, we need to get this over
to America. They're going to go nuts for this. But
apparently somebody at some lunch at like Spago or something
like that said no, no, no, no one knows who
Raymond Briggs is. You're gonna have to come up with
somebody else to to do the intro. And they said,
who who could do it? Chuck, who could possibly take
over from Raymond Briggs that the Americans would recognize? That
(23:38):
would be none other than David Bowie. Uh, weirdly has
a because that in the Bing Crosby thing has an
oddly large Christmas presents. I thought of that too. Well.
Apparently he did this um for his son. Uh Moon director.
I can't remember his name right now? What is his name?
(23:58):
I want to say Doug Douglas but it's not but
something like that. Yes, but he he directed Moon and
he's wonderful duncan. Yes, I can't remember. He had a
different last name though, right right, it's not Bowie. Regardless,
he said he did it for his son, so um,
I wonder if he did the thing with Big Crosby
as for his for his son as well. I bet
(24:20):
you he did. Which, by the way, man, did you
know John Lennon was famously like a terrible dad. Uh?
John Lennon was famously a terrible person. Well, I ran
across something I think on Cora where somebody broke down
like just what he was, you know, some of the
terrible stuff he was doing. As far as his son
Julian alone was concerned, I was like, wow, I had
(24:42):
no idea. Yeah, he was a complicated guy and had
a really rough childhood and was a bit of a
jerk in general. It's just one of those things, you know, well,
not a good guy. So back to Bowie. I don't
want to lose the magic of this chuck because Bowie
did in Raymond Briggs was replaced with David Bowie. And
this is like the ninth he needed two Let's Dance
or eighty three Let's Dance era, Right, So he's got
(25:04):
his platinum, spiky blonde hair and he does the intro
basically saying like I was this boy, and look, I
even have the scarf that the snowman gave me as proof.
And then did you just say he had spiky hair?
It was high it was high hair, spiky ish. No, no, no,
that was that was ziggy started Sarah when he had
(25:24):
the spikey. No, I don't mean that. I don't mean that. No,
big pompadour and let's dance. It was a pompadour, wasn't it. Yeah,
I guess it wasn't spikey. Okay, thank you for that.
So he had a big let's dance pompadour, but it
was platinum. We're agreed on that, correct, Yeah, I was
just I was trying to cut off the David Bowie
Penancy would email us stop that dead in its track.
(25:46):
You people know this, but David Bowie religiously listens to
stuff you should know every week, did he? Oh that's right.
Oh yeah, I was even listening to Black Are the
other day. It's great. So, um, that's the UK's version
(26:08):
their own Snowman. It's just simply called The Snowman. And
if you haven't seen it, go watch it because it
is very touching with or without David Bowie. That's right.
We have a few more touch points for the United
States culturally. Um Calvin and Hobbs never read Calvin Hobbs,
but apparently Um Calvin was the Boy or was Calvin
the Tiger? You're gonna get us some mail for that one, buddy, Yes,
(26:30):
Calvin was the Boy? All right, I don't if you
don't if you don't know something, you don't know it. No, No,
it's true. But the people who are into calvinant Hobbs
are like really into Calvin and Hobbs, and they're gonna
be like, how can you not read Calvin and Hobbs exactly?
Those are the kind of emails we're going to get. Well, Calvin,
I guess built great snowmen. Yeah, good ones, real dark
(26:51):
ones where like they would be run over by a
train or something like that. Just good ones. There's a
people have posted like collections of all of the ones
that were printed over the years. They're definitely worth check
it out. There's, of course Olaf from Frozen, which I'm
dying to know if you're the one or if you
got this from somewhere else who said he's widely considered
the best character in the movie. I got it from
(27:13):
somewhere else. Really, Yeah, who's the best of that? Who's
the best? I don't remember one of our sources. Interesting,
who who's the best character in the movie? Well, I mean,
I think if you ask any young girl who saw Frozen,
they would they would say Anna or Elsa, the two
lead characters. Maybe this was a from the parents point
of view. I don't know, you know, he's the I
(27:36):
take it you you haven't seen Frozen or Frozen too. Uh No,
I have not seen It's uh he's He's like the
character that you have in every Disney movie. He is
the comic relief, the donkey, sort of the gun. He's
the donkey. Yeah, I got you. Yeah, yeah, I think
people like Josh gadd As well, yeah, yeah, But I
just I thought it was funny. I don't know if
(27:56):
anyone would consider him the best character in the movie. Well,
I and I've never seen it, so that was very funny.
Um that we also have to shout out Chuck the
movie Jack Frost Um from I Think Yeah. It was
starring Michael Keaton as Jack Frost, snowman who is a
reincarnated reincarnated him. Yeah. I think people you could just
(28:20):
do yourself a favor and watch. If you have two minutes,
go watch the Jack Cross trailer online. It's got every bad,
dumb joke you could think of on a snowman from
like his arms falling off. There's one scene where they
throw snowballs at him and they land on him as
as breasts and he goes, oh, not for me or
(28:41):
something like that and rubs those off. Uh. He he
gets shaved down to go through a skinny crevass as
he's sledding, goes, boy, I've really gotten thin here, or
something like that. It's the worst thing ever. But at
the very end of this trailer it says Jack Frost
coming to the blah blah blah, featuring music from Hanson.
(29:03):
Oh wow, that's a real ninety eight selling point. Yeah.
Hansen um famously lobbied, uh launched the lawsuit to have
themselves taken off of that movie, but to no avail.
It wouldn't surprise me because it was really bad. And
Roger Ebert hated this movie and has has a part
in his book I hated, hated, hated this movie. Yeah,
(29:25):
he said, Jack Frost could have been co directed by
Orson Welles and Steven Spielberg and still be unwatchable because
of that damn snowman. The Snowman gave me the creeps.
Never have I disliked the movie character more. It looks
really bad. And Roger Ebert has seen a lot of
movie characters, and he's saying, like Jack Frost is the
worst of them all. For me, it might be right.
(29:47):
You want to take another break and then come back
and wrap up some some snowman stuff. Let's do it. Okay,
We'll be right back everybody, Okay, Chuck. So, one of
(30:27):
the thing about snowman, snow people, snow citizens are that, um,
they are like inextricably associated with winter, right, yes, So
some people around the world have hit upon the fact
that you can use a snowman as a stand in
an effigy for winter, and that if you can get
rid of a snowman in some spectacular fashion, you may
(30:51):
also be able to symbolically banish winter in favor of
being replaced by spring. And the people of Zurich, Switzerland,
have done just that. They have a festival called sex allot,
which sounds hotter than um. It actually is sex fillountain.
Uh translates to the ringing of the six o'clock bells.
(31:11):
That's right, And this is actually a spring festival and
it's a little bit akin to our our Groundhog Day celebration,
and that it signifies the end of winter, we're ready
to move on, and so we're gonna blow up a snowman.
Uh to do so, And they load this thing up
with literally a hundred and forty sticks of dynamite in
its head. It's built out of cotton and straw, and
(31:36):
it is lit like a wicker man basically on a
big pire. And then in the time that it takes
those flames to reach the dynamite and blow up is
how much longer it's gonna be till summer. So that's
sort of the the tie into Groundhog Day. Yeah. Um,
I think the faster it burns, the warmer the summer
is going to be. And they're like, yeah, the springs
(31:57):
um here and now um and gay Lord Michigan has
a alpinfest and they adopted this as well, but they
have a slight modification where um, rather than banishing winter,
the townspeople write down like their problems or worries or
concerns on a piece of paper and all those get
stuffed in the snowman. So when the snowman burns, their
problems burn away as well, which I think is right.
(32:18):
It's no hundred and forties sticks of dynamite, but they
they came upon something that's that's good too. Should we
go over some world records? How could you not? How
could you talk about snowman and snow people without talking
about world records? Like this would be an incomplete episode,
you know. Uh, let me see. Here's one that was
(32:39):
pretty good. In and Bethel, Maine. They made Angus King
of the Mountain after Senator Angus King. Uh. And this
bad boy was a hundred and thirteen feet tall and
had a real deal trees for arms and car tires
for buttons. That was big until too, that was an
(33:00):
eight when that they did Olympia after Olympia snow another senator.
They love their senators in Maine, Yeah, they really do.
And this thing was thirteen million pounds and a hundred
and twenty two ft and if you look at pictures
of this, it's pretty impressive. Like they said, sixty people
built it. I was surprised it wasn't more than a
(33:20):
couple of hundred, yeah, because it was apparently just about
thirty ft shorter than the Statue of Liberty, the actual
statue itself without the base um which is this is
a really huge snow man um or snow woman, I
should say in this case, um, and so they held
it may still hold the record that was when two
thou eight. I think they might. Apparently prior to that,
(33:43):
Dartmouth College they have a winter carnival that National Geographic
Ones called the Marty Grove Winter or the North or
something like that, and they used to hold the record.
I think they held it as recently. Um, so it's
possible that Bethel Maine still holds the record for tall
a snowman. It's wonderful. And then um, for the most
(34:05):
snow men ever built, you would just have to get
in your way back machine and travel to Supporto, Japan
in two thousand three, where you would find twelve thousand,
three hundred and seventy nine snowmen. But you'd also say,
wait a minute, wait a minute, they're cheating because they're
only doing two balls rather than the traditional three bald snowman.
(34:29):
And people would say, no, that's how the Japanese build
snow men. Did you know that? That's right, little two
bald snow man. I like the two balls already. It's
very cute. Apparently it's based it's called the Yuki Daruma.
Yuki means snow and daruma is a little around Japanese
doll that's based on the um what's his name, Bodhi Dharma,
(34:50):
the guy who is alleged to have brought alleged who's
thought to have brought um Zen Buddhism from India to
China and just kicked off the whole thing. So that's
why the Japanese make their doll or their snowmen to
two ball snowmen. But here in the United States we
(35:11):
do three balls, and the bigger the better, and name
him after your senator or else you're a commie. So
if you want to build a snowperson, you want to Uh,
the snow has got to be just right. They're not
just right. There's there's a range. But um, some snow
doesn't work as well as other snow. You want good
packing snow, so you want temperatures that are closer to
(35:32):
melting point and the snow flakes being a little little
wetter helps out a lot. Yeah, So you take that
packing snow chuck and you start with the snowball and
you roll it along the snow. You don't want to
go too deep rous you're gonna get a lot of
crud like leaves and pine straw in there, and that
is just unsightly as far as the snow person is concerned. Uh.
(35:53):
And there's this guy named Keith Martin that Martha Stewart
Living interviewed. He's an ice sculpture. He said, big tip here,
when you're halfway through, cut to the left or cut
to the right, because then your ball is going to
keep a rounder shape rather than turning into like a
giant snow cigar or something like that. Yeah, that's the
hardest part, I think is uh. And if you really
(36:15):
want it super round, and you don't want it to
look like a like a cylinder, like some small rugs
stacked on each other, right like carpet runners. I guess
that's what mine always ended up looking like because I
didn't follow that tip. You gotta alternate directions. Um. So
that's a big one. And then also Martha Stewart says,
(36:37):
um that you need to decorate and dress your snowman
or snow person. Um. And that quote a pine cone
still attached to its branch makes a distinguished pipe, which
is a great tip. You know, Jerry's meant Martha Stewart,
I didn't know that, that's right, Jerry. I think last
(36:58):
year I think we did something with a of the
company and Jerry actually got to go up there to
her house. Oh I remember that. Yeah, yeah, and she
like stole a vase or something it was associated with it.
Don't out her. Yeah, I forgot about that. That's cool.
She said. It was just as amazing in real life
as you would expect from what I was like. It
was very cluttered. He's kind of messy. So one last
(37:24):
thing we got to end on this. Okay, there's a
kids site called kid addle k I D A d L.
Are you going to do Yes, we are going to
do these because they are well I'm not so there's
a kid the site kid addle says, don't just finish
your snowman or snow woman snow kids, no baby, even
if you want to impress Chuck Um by just you know,
(37:44):
giving it a distinguished pipe, you gotta name your snow
creation as well. And don't just name him or her
Frosty or Crystal, right um. And they came up with
a big list of suggested names, and Chuck is going
to join me here in in trading off these names. Oh,
I'm not gonna read any of these because I know
if you build a snowperson with your child. The only
(38:05):
thing you can do is let your child name that
snow sure. But if your kids, like I can't think
of anything, here's some suggestions like mistletoe, jolly leaves, it's
a good one. What else, Chuck, I don't know. My
kid would name it fart poop the snowman. Or what
about peppermint cuddle pudding? That might be my favorite? All right,
sugar vone, Carrol's Teddy McCole. And then the last one
(38:29):
is twinkle Prance a lot. That's a great name for
a snow person. That's right. So I think the moral
here is if you have trouble naming your snow person,
get online and get some suggestions from a search engine.
From cadattle, that's right. Are they sponsoring us or something?
But that came up with some adorable names, and I
(38:50):
thought they deserved to be shouted out for that. So
they are shouted out, and we should also shout out
all of the other sources. Um, there were a ton
of them, but they include Smithsonian Atlas, Obscure, the Farmer's Almanac,
the Garden, fairy Tales dot biz because there's big money
in fairy tales online the Library of Congress song facts,
and Martha Stewart Living am more. So thanks to all
(39:12):
of those sources too, and thanks to everybody Chuck who
joined us for this great holiday themed episode on snow people. Huh,
that's right, not our Christmas episode. That will be one
of those, don't right. That's right. And so since Chuck said,
don't worry everybody, that means it's time for a listener mail.
So we're gonna shout out our friends at co ED
(39:32):
here at the end of the year. Yeah. Uh. If
you don't know, co ED, the Cooperative for Education. They
work to stop the cycle of poverty through education in Guatemala.
We went down to Guatemala years ago with him. They
do great work and we've been working with them ever since.
And they're in the home stretch of reaching their target
milestone of their thousand girls initiative and the last batch
(39:55):
of students identified to start the school year and early two. Uh,
they have the last ones, and they just need a
few dozen more sponsors to get past that finish line
of a thousand girls sponsored to continue past the sixth grade. Guatemala,
that's where they are, that's what they're trying to do. Yep.
So it's eighty dollars a month to change a kid's life.
(40:16):
As they put it, you can fully sponsor a student,
or you could do half of that forty dollars a
month to pay for half of the student's education. And
if two Stuff you Should Know Listeners each chip in half,
that will be one. And like you said, what they're
they're just a couple dozen short of their goal. And
I think Stuff you Should Know Listeners can definitely get
COED there, don't you. I definitely think so because we
(40:38):
have some statistics from how Stuff you Should Know Army
members have helped out co ED over the years, UH
four hundred and forty six supporters have collectively raised more
than seven hundred and thirty one thousand, five hundred dollars amazing.
Twenty nine of you have actually gone down to take
that tour in Guatemala, which we highly recommend, and one
(40:59):
and twenty two Rise students have been are currently sponsored
by members of the Stuff you Should Know Army, which
is amazing. What what great work everyone is doing with
co ED and the benevolence of the Stuff he Should
Know Army always means so much to us. Yeah, and
I think we can double triple quadruple that um just
hopefully with this call out, because I think the more
(41:20):
people who know about COED and learn about COED, the
more people who are gonna want to help out. So
you can go find out a lot more about co
ED by just going to co ed. You see dot org,
c o E D you see dot org. Check it out,
and then hopefully donator sponsor because Chuck and Josh have
given our seal of approval on COED many many times.
(41:43):
That's right. And if you actually want to pick out
a student to sponsor, which you can do, this is
these are real people. Everyone go to Cooperative for Education
dot org, slash sponsor Dash students. Yep uh. And that's it.
If you want to get in touch with us in
the meantime to let us know you helped out COD again,
that's Cooperative for Education dot org, slash sponsor DASH Students.
(42:06):
You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
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