December 24, 2020 • 42 mins
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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. Y Hey ho, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:26):
I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's even here, and
we're all wishing you glad tidings and merry tidings and
decking the halls and all of that for this very
special Christmas edition of Stuff You Should How did you
say stuff you Should? Hoe? I did? That's great, I thought.
(00:49):
I don't know. It just came to me. And you know,
it basically made up for the pan of apple Pie
turnover analogy in the buffet episode. If you ask me,
you rid it twice though, didn't you? The apple Pie one? No,
I hit the three time thing did for for genuine
community effect. And I think that episode might. I don't know,
(01:10):
is that gonna come out before this one? Yeah? It come.
It came out on the okay, and what day is
this one out? I believe is it on Christmas Day
this year? I don't know. I'm going to look right
now to see. And as I'm talking, no, today, this
one comes out. So buthdays came out of but it's
Christmas Eve. That's even better. Almost. Yeah, Merry Christmas Eve, everybody, Yeah,
(01:34):
Merry Christmas Eve, and we like to remind people as
per tradition, we fight tooth and nail for this. Uh.
It is an ad free episode and that's all we
have to say about that. We don't do ads for
these episodes. Nope, this is a it's a it's a
very special thing every year, this one in the Halloween episode. Yeah,
we didn't even talk about which how we're going to
(01:55):
order these, but I'll go ahead and make a pitch
for lead treat Censel to go first. Okay, that's what
I've got it up. First to Chuck. It's a Christmas miracle,
(02:19):
so Tinsel. I think we've talked about in another episode
before Chuck. Um where that came from. I believe it
was in one of the really early Christmas episodes. But um,
we can give a little background here in that think
starting around the sixteenth century UM or the seventeenth century,
very wealthy aristocrats UM started putting actual like gold and
(02:44):
silver strands or like more commonly I think these kind
of like twisted almost candy cane looking hooks made of
gold and silver. They would put it all over their
their tree. UM hang this stuff, and they called it tinsel,
which is from Old French for eston cell or sparkle,
and that's kind of where tinsel came from. But you
(03:06):
have to be fairly wealthy to put strands of pure
gold and silver on your Christmas shoe. You know. That
kind of is how it goes. Yeah, I'm surprised that's
a French word. It sounds very German. Tinsel, yeah, tinsel does.
But eston cell, well, that sounds very French. You're right,
it does. It's almost like that a Spree brand of clothing,
(03:29):
but just it takes a real sharp turn after that
first es syllable. So yeah, the rich people were doing
this on the tree, they kind of kept it to themselves. Uh.
And then the industrial age rolls around and all of
a sudden we had less expensive varieties of this kind
of thing, which meant aluminum copper great for both, and
(03:55):
lead not great. Well, the aluminum wasn't so great either.
They would make an aluminum paper tinsel with acetate and
that stuff would go up faster than a matchbook on
like a dead tree. And you know, this is a
time when everybody was smoking everywhere all the time. So
the the illuminum one was particularly bad. And the copper.
(04:17):
I saw it still around, Chuck. They make garlands of
copper tinsel, but it's not for decorations. It's for you
to walk through to discharge static, like if you're going
into say like a computer clean room or something like that.
They make copper tinsel now, but that didn't really catch
on either. So they settled finally, like you said, on lead.
(04:37):
And you know that's kind of problematic because leads as poisonous,
as we talked about in Our Wise Lead So poisonous episode?
Did we do that? Yeah? Don't you remember? Um In
Mother Jones, Kevin drum like made the made them the
case that the the end of leaded gas actually was
(04:58):
responsible for the decline and violent crime over there. You
did an episode and that was a good A long
time ago. So this was before the FDA got involved
and knew that lead was you know, in our plates
and in our paint and in our jewelry was killing people.
And there was a German company called uh Staniel fabriqu
(05:21):
Epstein and they had an imperial pattern on lead tinsel
in nineteen o four and people love this stuff. It
translated uh Stanniel Lamenta into tiny Blade, which is hysterical
if you think about it, it's kind of what they were.
But it was people love this stuff because they started
(05:43):
making it in South Philly too in the early fifties.
It really hung on it really looked great. It hung
on the tree very heavy, obviously because it's lead, and
it looked Apparently this woman, Susan Wagoner wrote a book
called hand Crafted Christmas where she talks about how wonderful
it was and it didn't turn ish and it just
gave a really kind of heavy icicle look to the tree. Yeah.
(06:05):
And so that German patent was issued in nineteen o four,
and I guess it took almost fifty years before it
made its way over to the United States. But by
the fifties there is a company called bright Star Manufacturing
that was making lead tree tensil for use in the
United States to UM, but the party didn't last very long.
(06:25):
About a decade really before UM it was becoming quite
obvious that lead poisoning was was a real problem. And
the thing is, it's like you said, there's a you know,
there's a lot of um places where lead turned up
in your house, including on the plate you ate from.
So tree tinsel was probably one of the lesser evils
(06:47):
in your house too, that that you were going to
get lead poisoning from. But it was also one of
the easiest things to phase out. And so the FDA
kind of zeroed in on getting rid of lead tree tensile,
using these kind of back channel methods to to get
rid of it before anybody knew what was going on. Yeah,
so they ended up making a deal, the f d
A with tinsel importers and said, you know what, you've
(07:12):
got no product here that you can sell here anymore.
And this was in the early seventies. Uh, your time,
face it, Your time here is done. And the thing is,
though they didn't get the word out, it's not like
they that was like burning up the headlines all over
the country, because what they were afraid of was people
love this stuff, and if they hear that it's going
(07:33):
to go away, people are going to go out and
start buying up all the lead tinsel. Total. It's going
to be counterintuitive to our goal here, which is to
get rid of the lead tinsel. Right. It would take
you know, years and years before they finally got phase
would be so much easier if it just didn't come
back one year and that's basically what happened. The FDA
managed to kind of secretly get rid of lead from
(07:54):
Christmas tinsel and say, come up with some other stuff,
and uh, in very short order plastic came along to
replace it. But what what was crazy, Chuck, is that
um lead tinsel remained available in Germany until really yeah,
they did not get rid of the the lametta until then.
(08:17):
It's very surprising. Germans are tough. So I want to
say also, um, big shout out to our friend and
longtime listener Robert Paulson for suggesting that one. And as
you'll see later on in the episode, he's basically the
secret elf for this year's Christmas extravaganzas so thank you
very much, Roberts. His name is Robert Paulson. Should we
(08:39):
move on to Charles Dickens? Oh yeah, I thought we
would just leave it at his name is Robert Paulson.
But yes, all right, here we go with a little
bit on how Dickens saved Christmas. Enough enough, he's going
from name uh um so um. Everybody thinks like a
(09:17):
Christmas Carol is the most Christmas e thing that anyone's
ever come up with, and until a Christmas story came
along that was true, and Christmas Carol is kind of
responsible for um a lot of the traditions that we
think of as Christmas Eve these days. Um it basically
came from the end of christ of Dickens pen things
(09:39):
like this idea of having your family around you and
and and being charitable and um spreading goodwill and peace
and all of that stuff. Like, all of that kind
of came from this Christmas Carol. And in fact, even
wishing people marry Christmas was a Dickens invention too. But
what a lot of people don't realize is that um
(10:00):
Dickens when he wrote a Christmas Carol, he basically grabbed
Christmas out from the clutches of oblivion and dragged it
back into popular culture. That he was largely responsible, or
one of a few Victorian authors who were responsible for
saving Christmas from obscurity from around that time about the
(10:21):
middle of the nineteenth century. It is hard to believe,
but that is true that in eighteen sixty three Christmas
was dying in no small part to uh at the
hands of a man named Oliver Cromwell, Boo, Lord and
Protector of England, very famous seventeenth century Puritan who didn't
(10:43):
like Christmas. He didn't like the people were going out
and having a good time and drinking and eating too much.
And he was like, listen, there's no scriptural basis for Christmas.
It's not in the Bible. Uh, there is no you know,
there's the Sabbath, of course, but it doesn't say, hey,
everyone get together on and get drunk, does it right?
(11:04):
And I mean that's definitely what they were doing. In fact,
like since the medieval era in Britain and other parts
of Europe, especially like Celtic centric but pagan basically parts
of Europe. Um, they would get together, uh and kick off.
I guess the whole thing on Christmas kind of like
Fat Tuesday ends Marty Gras. It's like, in reverse, Christmas
(11:26):
kicked off twelve days of festivals and celebrating, of gathering
at the tavern, of having friends and family over for
a big feast um, and all of it can be
traced back to these pagan winter solstices. But then when
Christianity came along, they said, oh, we'll just say it's
the birth of Jesus kicking all this stuff off. But
it was a big, long twelve day winner festival of revelry,
(11:50):
and um, people really appreciate it. And Cromwell said, no,
that's too much fun. Christmas is here here by band,
and he got it pushed through Parliament that Christmas was
in fact banned. Yeah, and a couple of acts of
Parliament and forty four and forty seven sixty seven. He uh,
he pushed it underground essentially because people uh still did
(12:13):
their celebrating. It just wasn't as a raucous at the
local tavern. It was a little more at home behind
closed doors. But he certainly could not dampen people's spirits. Uh,
they just took it inside basically. Uh. Then the Industrial
Revolution comes along and people worked on Christmas and it
(12:33):
wasn't like, well, we gotta work on Christmas this year.
It was like Christmas was kind of like any other day,
and you just worked because the factory was open, because
there were seven days in a week and you were
expected to work all of them. Yeah, Cromwell couldn't quite
get rid of it. And he actually he and the
rest of the Puritans got pushed aside when the monarchy
came back and all that stuff got overturned. But just yeah,
(12:55):
about a hundred years later, when um England went through
the first Industrial evolution. That was I mean, that almost
did it in because, like you said, everybody was too
tired to celebrate Christmas. They didn't have any time off.
But also very importantly, chuck a lot of those people
who had been celebrating these Christmas is in the medieval
(13:17):
style with feasts and friends and family and revelry and
carols and all that stuff. They used to do that
back in the country during the agrarian age. Well, the
agrarian age had come to an abrupt halt during the
Industrial Age, and so all those people had moved from
the country to the city and they didn't have these
longstanding multi generational community ties any longer. So celebrating Christmas
(13:38):
kind of fell away. It stayed back there in the
in the rural areas, and it didn't quite make that
transition to the city. So between these long seven day
work weeks and then this transplanting from the countryside to
the city, Christmas was almost lost had it not been
for Dickens. That's right. Then a Christmas Carol comes along, uh,
(14:00):
and that kind of did it. People loved it. It It
was a very big hit Uh, he didn't make a
ton of money on it because and that was kind
of his fault because he really wanted, um, a really
good looking book that was packaged well, he didn't want
to charge a lot for it. Um. And like you
said at the beginning, a lot of the things that
we think of it Christmas, like saying Mary Christmas, um,
(14:21):
wishing for a white Christmas. This all comes from Dickens
version of a Christmas Carol and it was a big hit.
And he he worked in stuff like um ghost stories,
which in the medieval times they told Christmas ghost story,
so that's people think that's kind of where he got
the ghostly visitors from. I think we talked a couple
(14:42):
of I think the Live Christmas Show we talked about that,
didn't we I think so? Yeah. But yeah, thanks to uh,
thanks to Dickens, Christmas was a big hit again and
his not been threatened since, except for you know, people
trying to kill Christmas. Now. I guess it's rampant, isn't it.
(15:03):
The new Cromwells. Right, that's right. Well, now you can
say Merry Christmas everybody, and you can know you're giving
a hat tip to get old Charles Dickens. Al Right.
(15:34):
Next on our list of merriment is finance and economics,
but in a very fun way. I think I gotta
feel like we've talked about this before because it seems
so familiar. But the PNC Christmas Price Index, Uh, since
the PNC Bank has been doing this where they calculate
(15:55):
the current annual cost or the cost of that year
for the items on the song from the song that
Twelve Days of Christmas. Obviously we're talking about French hens
and leaping lords and five golden rings and all of
that livestock and jewelry and entertainment. They have very in
(16:18):
a very fun way, since the mid eighties, have been calculating,
hey what would that cost this year? Yeah. And in fact,
there's one particular economist at the bank, Rebecca McCann. Fun
job kind of yeah, it kind of oversees this whole thing.
She's like, yeah, it's super fun. I don't get to
stop doing any of my regular work. They make me
do this on top of everything probably and I don't
(16:39):
even give me a bonus anymore. They did away with
bonuses in the merger. So it's funny when you when
you think about this a lot of these are pretty
easy to get, like turtle doves and partridges. You could
call bird suppliers or hatcheries for hens and swans, or
a nursery for pear trees and stuff like that, or
(17:00):
obviously jewelry chains for gold rings. But it gets a
little trickier when it comes to uh, ladies dancing and
lords of leaping, Like, what do you pay for that? Well,
she calculated the cost by getting in touch with things
like like dance companies the Philadelphia Ballet I think was
one of them, for the Pennsylvania Ballet. The other one, Um,
(17:22):
she got in touch with philadanco UM, which is a
dance company in Philadelphia, believe it or not. And Um said, basically,
you know how much would it cost to to put
on a show or to rent I guess eleven lords leaping?
You know? And I'm sure they hung up a couple
of times on her before she finally convinced him to
(17:42):
to give her a straight answer. Um, but yeah, she
really like she she goes through and figures out the
price of each of these things. But then she's also
being an economist, says, well, it's more than just that,
you also have to pay for things like gas for shipping. Um,
the cost of services has gone up recently, but the
cost of goods has gone down by comparison. She takes
all of this, all these different prices together, UM, adds
(18:05):
them up, and that is the Consumer Price Index every year.
That's right, the Christmas Price Index. That's right. I'm sorry,
so it actually it reflects the Consumer Price Index, which
is a legit thing that's used as a metric to
track the economy of the United States. This is a
slightly more tongue in cheek, although we're gonna see it
(18:26):
actually does have some like real world reflections to it,
and it is you know that if you went through
and hired eleven lords of leaping, this is probably roughly
what you would pay for it, you know. Yeah, I
think the saddest one for me would be made of milking.
And it's also the easiest one to figure out, because
all she has to do is plug in minimum wage,
because that's what a milking made would probably get paid.
(18:48):
But that one hasn't changed obviously since two thousand nine,
as uh horrifically, the federal minimum wage has been locked
in place for eleven years. It seven. Yeah, so that
was a bit of a bummer, and then, um, the
big surprising thing for for me definitely was that, um,
(19:11):
there were a number of things that you couldn't get
this year McCann found out, and that the this year's
total Christmas Price index was about sixty percent less than
last year's. The cost of it In two thousand nineteen
it was thirty eight thousand, nine nine dollars and fifty
(19:32):
In twenty it costs you just sixteen thousand, one hundred
and sixty eight dollars and fourteen cents. And you say, like, okay,
well that's great. You know things prices are going down. Well, no,
the like I said, the reason why the cost had
gone down is because you couldn't get things like Lord's
leaping or drummer's drumming, or pipers piping, or ladies dancing
(19:55):
because of COVID nineteen. Yeah, kind of rise me. And
it's not very fun. It's not you could get a
drumline outdoors, space them out and pay them money. I guess.
So maybe McCann wanted to point out that there's a
coronavirus pandemic going on right now. Yeah, I think that's
kind of the deal, is there. I think there's a
(20:15):
bit of a of a nod and a wink and
a message to be sent each year when this is released.
But um, the thing is chucky. Even if you're like, whatever,
I don't care about the pandemic. I'm I've got this
this price in hand. I'm gonna go with the two
thousand nineteen prices because I'm really going to twist the
arms of those dance companies and get them to to
(20:36):
lend me some dancers. Um, do you have to stop
and ask yourself like, are these actually good gifts anymore? Yeah,
the answer I think would be no. I mean yes,
the the birds are calling, those are canaries. That's a
pretty good idea. Or if you have like a a
farm friend and you're like, not only did I get
(20:56):
you some chickens, I got you some French hens. I
think they might be slightly impressed. Everybody would like five
gold rings that kind of thing, But if you put
the whole thing together all at once, it can be
kind of overwhelming. And they they mentioned this on an
episode of Christmas episode at the Office, where Aaron, the receptionist, says,
whoever is my secret? Saying it that's buying me the
(21:18):
twelve Days of Christmas presents, like, please stop, it's ruining
my life. She said. The French ends are plucking at
her hair to make nests out of it. That's another
terrible stuff. So I guess if that's a if that's
your idea, if that's you're thinking that you're going to
buy your true love the presents from the twelve Days
of Days of Christmas, just don't don't do it. Maybe
(21:41):
some leaping words, but then stop. Al Right, shall we
move on to our next segment? Yes, let's we need
to thank Robert Paulson for this one too. Write the
(22:03):
little Elf from Los Angeles came to visit us yet again. Yeah,
the little elf who could? So this is about the
first department store Santa Claus and we need to caveat
this in a big way because um is when Colonel
Jim James, Colonel Jim Edgar Brockton, Massachusetts claims and people
(22:27):
look at him as the first department store Santa Claus. Uh.
And we were emailing back and forth because Macy's they say,
goes back to eighteen what sixty something? Yeah, there's apparently
there was another one called I think J. W. Parkinson's
from Philadelphia who hired somebody to dress up as Santa
(22:47):
and climb the roof. Um, even before Macy's. But Macy's
was the first to actually have a Santa in their store. UM.
And there's postcards from the seventies that clearly show this.
That's that Macy's was the first. And yet you can
go all over the internet and you you search the
first department store Santa, you're gonna come back with James Edgar.
(23:09):
And people even mentioned this in the same article that yeah,
Macey's had it first, but this guy's the first. Just
you know, let's go out back and fight over it
if you want to. Yeah. I think what you found
and what we're just gonna agree on is that it
said he was the first known what it what it
was the exact wording, not known quantity, but known individual,
(23:30):
known entity. I think is how they put it in
the weirdest possible way. Yeah, the only thing we could
figure out was is that James, Colonel Jim Edgar was
the first person to say, Hey, I'm Santa Claus in
this town and my name's Colonel Jim Edgar, and everyone
knows it's me that's doing this thing. And he became
(23:53):
known as the guy, whereas I guess Macy's just had
nameless Santa Claus. So maybe that's the difference that's got
that's is, That's all I can figure out. But let's
put all that nitpicky stuff aside. Okay, but I think
it's important that we said, and I'm glad you man,
I'm glad you brought it up. But the thing is
that I think a lot of the reason why people
(24:13):
are really willing to go out back and fight you
over Jim Egger being the first Santa Claus is because
this guy's character was as close to Santa's probably ever,
any any Santa's helper whoever put on the suit and
when worked at a department store over the holiday season
ever has Yeah, he seemed like a really good guy.
(24:34):
And there are stories that abound about the good things
that have happened with Colonel Jim and in his wake.
Uh And one that happened in his wake was about
thirty years after he started doing Santa. I guess he
was gone at this point. But Brockton, mass was a
shoemaking town. It was very famous for making shoes, but
(24:56):
by the ninet twenties and thirties it had fallen upon
hard times, and there was a truant officer that found
out that hundreds of kids we're not even going to
school because they didn't have new shoes or means to
repair their shoes. And so that truant officer's name was
Charles Brooks explained this to William Wright, uh, the president
of Edgar's department store, and he said, what should I do?
(25:20):
What should I do? And he said, you know what
you do? You do what James Edgar would have done.
And the guy says what And the other guy goes, God,
do I have to spell everything out for you every Tuesday?
I have to explain everything I say. And the other guy,
the truant officer, said please, just one more time. I
have to know what would James Edgar do? And he said,
(25:41):
well he rip off Macy's and yeah, um, So what
he said was that the James Edgar would um fix
these shoes and that he would use his company to
do that. And so that's exactly what the president of
this James Edgar's department store did. They removed the third
floor of the department store. Amuse but I think a
(26:01):
three thousand dollars shoe repairing machine, hired six cobblers in
the town and started repairing children's shoes for free. Amazing,
you found another little piece about James Edgar and what
kind of guy he was to write. Do you want
me to talk about it? Because I will. That'd be great.
So he Um, this is why I said he he
(26:23):
had the character of Santa Like. He would dress up
as a clown or that kind of stuff like and
and wander around and finally one day he decided to
dress up like a like a Santa Um. But he
loved children, um like really genuinely loved the kids. And
I read Chuck that when he died uh and the
local school let out for lunch, all the kids went
(26:44):
down to his funeral to pay their respects, like hundreds
of children in town. And that was because he did
things like he was well known to take care of
his his staff, his employees. He made them shareholders in
the business. Um. He lived on a second floor walk
up apartment, even though he's very healthy man, because he
wanted to have more money to share with his employees. UM.
(27:06):
He would close early four nights a week so that
his employees could go spend more time with their families
and he had a really great quote that I think
sums them up pretty well. I've made a barrel of money,
and I have spent it as freely as I've made it.
Thousands of it goes back to the people from whom
I made it for. I fully believe in that kind
of in exchange. And he seems to be the kind
(27:26):
of guy who really literally put his money where his
mouth is. He would he would take his money, put
it in his mouth and be like Carker, I wanna
good one. Thank you. So the the whole reason people
say Jim Mega was the first department store saying is
because he did this thing in nine and you know,
he attracted kids from all over the Northeast and um
(27:49):
in very short order. Starting the next year, department stores
all over the place suddenly had Mall Santas or department
store Santras So, which is so a lot of people
point to Jimer's influence is the reason why I love it.
So hats off to you, Colonel Jim. We salute you, sir, Yes,
yes we do, all right. So the leg lamp from
(28:27):
a Christmas story. I know that we had to have
talked about this at some point when we talked about
a Christmas Story and one of our previous holiday episodes,
but we're gonna talk about it again. We could talk
about this every year and I'd be happy. Man. Everyone
knows the very famous major award from the Christmas Story
(28:47):
when the old man wins this award that is brought
into his house in a crate pulled out to the
horror of his wife, the wonderful Melinda Dylan, and the
leg lamp, the the kitschy item that everyone likes to
have on their tree or in their actual window to
this day, was born. Yep, so Um, there's some there's
(29:11):
some really great background about that leg lamp in particular Um.
As far as the movies production went, it was designed
by the production designer. I believe his name was Reuben
what was his last name, Chuck, Reuben Freed, Reuben Freed,
and so Reuben Freed. Um based it on the description
(29:34):
by Jeane Shepherd, who wrote the book and God We
Trust all others paid cash Um that a Christmas Story
was based on and Um. Apparently Jean Shepherd was involved
in the production and saw some drafts of what Reuben
Freed had drawn up and said, Yep, that's it. But
he apparently Jean Shepherd apparently based it on a knee
(29:55):
high sign that he'd seen as a child. Right, Yeah,
kneehigh soda. Uh is you can still get any house.
I like the kneehigh orange and grape. And I think
it had a pair of pair of gams, had some
ladies legs, and he liked the look of him. And
this is how I love the reading. Actually, uh and
(30:15):
this is from I actually got this part from the
Man behind the leg Lamp from Read Krieger from inventor
Digest dot com a few years ago. And this is
from the actual short story My Old Man and the
Lascivious Special Award that heralded the birth of pop art.
(30:36):
And I guess it was that the deal is and
God we trust all of us to pay cash. Was
a collection of short stories. Yeah, and that that Bob
Clark interpreted them perfectly into the movie A Christmas Story.
So this is how it was described in that book,
the leg lamp. From ankle to thigh, the translucent flesh
radiated a vibrant, sensual, luminous orange yellow, pinkish nimbus of
(30:58):
pagan fire. All it needed was Tom Tom's and maybe
a gong or two and a tenor seeing in a high, quavery,
earnest voice, A pretty girl is like a melody. Such
great writing, it is really great. I love Jean Shepherd stuff,
even though I've never read a lick of it. I
just love a Christmas story that much, right, exactly so.
(31:18):
The leg Lamp actually made its first debut before Christmas
Story did. It showed up on a PBS UM special
called um The Phantom of the Open Hearth and I
watched it, Dude, I watched it, and it is wrong.
It is the most alien thing I've ever seen. Ralphie
(31:39):
is like fifteen and a bit of a punk. Uh
Randy is like about what Ralphie's ages and a Christmas story.
It's just really weird in mid seventies, so it should
be stricken from the memory of humanity. But if you're interested,
you should go check it out and you'll see what
I'm talking about. It's just it's it's just very weird.
But they have a leg lamp in there. They basically
(32:02):
adapt the same short story, but this leg Lamp is
way more tasteful than what Reuben Freed came up with.
And once you've seen the Reuben Freed one. Everything else
is kind of pales in comparison to it. Yeah, I mean,
do you remember Reuben Fried's version had a at a
stocking and a little fringe hanging down. It was a
very sexy lamp and uh, I think that's what made
(32:22):
it so iconic. I believe they made three of them
for the movie. The story is that they were all
broken during the production of filming, although uh, and this
is from from Reed Krieger's article, Supposedly there was a
special effects like prop shop in Toronto that said that
they had one of them, one of the originals, until
(32:45):
the early nineteen nineties, which may be true. Yes, there
it was. Um, there was a guy named Martin Malavoir
and he worked on the movie. He worked on several movies,
but he worked on a Christmas story. And he said
himself he had several of these things in his shop.
That they actually made more than a dozen, not just three.
(33:05):
So it's not entirely clear, but there doesn't seem to
be any surviving ones. He said he threw his out
in the nineties, which is terrible. It's like me throwing
up Burt Reynolds's door or Jackie Gleason's store. Yeah, or
Burt Reynolds mustache. Don't throw that out. But the one
thing I couldn't find was whose leg it was molded from,
(33:26):
because it was supposedly molded from actual human models leg
and it could not. That seems to be lost to history.
Another kind of fun fact here, if you notice carefully,
when they're bringing that crate in, uh, it says his
end up instead of this end up And a lot
of people think that's just a little joke, but apparently
(33:47):
it's just a movie thing. That crate was too big
to fit through the door, so the set carpenters came
in and shaved four inches off, which included that letter T. Yeah,
that's good. And then that UM. That lamp is just
so iconic it actually has patented. The lamp itself is
patent number three three six four five four two, And
(34:07):
there's a Christmas ornaments you can get. We actually have
a string of lights of leg lamp lights, but the
ornament itself is has a patent. UM and the town
of Cleveland, where we talked about Christmas Story being shot
partially UM turned one of its skyscrapers, like they changed
the lights so that it created a leg lamp to
(34:30):
commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the movie in two thousand thirteen.
And that's right. And as we said back when we
initially talked about The Christmas Story House, if you were
a fan of that film, I highly highly recommend you
visiting the Christmas story House. Uh there in the shadow
of Cleveland. It's to walk around that home is uh
(34:53):
is a pretty great thing, very special place to be.
I gotta go. You saw, Oh you never went. No,
it's still not been. Yeah, you guys will make it
over there at some point. Go to Cleveland. Cleveland's great.
Go the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Check out this.
You probably don't care about the NFL Hall of Fame.
That's kind of cool though if you're into football, But
(35:13):
it's worth it to go to the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. And uh in the Christmas story House?
Are you talking about the Hard Rock Cafe Cleveland? No,
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I don't I
don't know what that means. It's where you walk around
at the end when they have everyone's uh original clothing
and these iconic outfits like Princess Purple Rain and Quick
(35:34):
Jaggers thing and Bruce Springsteen's outfit from Born in the USA.
And you just walk around and look at them all
and think, was Prince nine years old? Yeah he was
a little guy, wasn't it was Mick Jagger twelve. They're
all tiny. Well, a lot of energy. It's like a
small dog. Small dogs have a lot more energy than
big dogs, you know what I mean? That's right, um man,
(35:58):
I guess that's it. About the the leg lamp huh yeah, well,
actually were I want to know where you hang those lights?
Do you string those on the tree or they like,
you know, on a archway or something archway or something. Yeah, yeah,
because you can't just throw one string of leg lamp
lights among your other lights now. And plus, I mean
(36:18):
the trees already got it going on those leg lamp lights.
They can really light up a neglected or overlooked area
and they're so bad corner. Yeah, exactly awesome. I gotta
get some of those myself. I'll get you some for Christmas,
all right, Chuckers. So it wouldn't be if we didn't
(36:53):
have a Christmas segment about COVID nineteen. This is for
all the kids out there, because I know kids listen
to this with their families on Christmas Eve. It's a tradition.
Nothing else happens on Christmas Eve, and just across America,
just people listening to this. So this is from people
(37:13):
dot Com from Rachel to Santis and uh, this is
a great article from Dr Anthony Fauci revealing to all
the kids all around the country and all around the
world that they don't need to worry about Santa Claus
coming in with COVID because Santa Claus is basically immune
(37:35):
to coronavirus because, as Fauci says, quote of all the
good qualities, he has a lot of good innate immunity. Yeah.
So Dr Faucci uh is reassuring us that Santa is immune.
And it makes sense, Chuck, because you know, um, as
everybody knows from a night before Christmas, Santa is actually
(37:56):
an elf. He's a jolly old elf, so of course
he would be immune to something like COVID nineteen. That's right.
And that's not to say that Santa's helpers who are
in department stores and malls all over the country and
all over the world, like James Edger, That's right. Those
guys are oftentimes are elderly gentlemen. Sometimes they may be
(38:20):
carrying a little extra weight. And I guess the nicest
way to say that say this is that those Santa's
are high risk, right, But everybody wants to see Santa's
helpers in the mall whenever they get a chance to,
even during a pandemic. So there's a lot of these
Santa's helpers who are figuring out how to do it
as safely as possible. This year. Um, there there's things
(38:44):
like virtual um virtual Santa visits, which apparently Macy's, which
apparently is the originator of the department store Santa. Uh.
This is the first year since the eighteen sixties that's
that macy will not have a Santa at their department
store in person. They're still going to have a virtual
(39:06):
Santa though. The ghost of Colonel Jim Edgar is right
now just saying, why are these two loud mouths messing
with me? Right? I will haunt you? Yeah? And he
has been? Has he been haunting you? He's been haunting
me for the best couple of days for sure. Is terrifying. So, yeah,
they're doing some virtual Santa meeting by appointment. I thought
(39:30):
this was fairly creative. Um. This one Santa named Stephen Arnold,
who is a professional Santa, said he has three engagements
where they are setting him up in that sort of
a protective bubble built to look like a snow globe.
And I thought that was a very cool, kind of fun,
creative idea. Yeah. The other two engagements, he's going to
(39:50):
be sitting on a giant fire truck or a giant
sleigh and like it don't climb up me fire trucks basically,
but his foot sticking out like fayback, yeah, fayback. Um.
But yeah, there's there's no reason you can't see Santa,
but probably just virtually this year, you know. But at
the very least you don't have to worry about the
(40:11):
real deal coming through on Christmas Eve and Christmas, you
know when saying it comes through, because he's not going
to be spreading COVID. He's just going to be spreading
glad tidings and jolly nous, So you don't need to
worry about that. Kids. You need to put out those
cookies and milk. You need to put out those carrots
and celery for those reindeer, and make sure you're cooperating
(40:33):
with your parents or else you're gonna get cold in
that stocking. That's right, and it always helps to put
out probably triple or quadruple the amount of celery or
carrots you think you should kids. That's right? Is that it?
I think so, Chuck, I think it's time we wish
Merry Christmas to everybody in the Charles Dickens way. That's right.
(40:55):
Put a figurative bow on it, and what else. We'll
put your finger right here, and I'm going to tie
the bow. And then when I counted three, move your
finger at the last second. Is I tightened the bow?
You're ready? Three? Two? Three? Ouch? Okay, we just got it.
Got you a little bit that you're gonna lose that nail.
So happy holidays everyone, no matter how you celebrate it,
(41:18):
We're thinking of you. It's been a tough year for everybody.
We look forward to a light at the end of
the tunnel next year, and uh, we just hope we're
with the friends and family that you really care about,
and everyone's forced to keep it small, but hopefully that
will not tarnish your Christmas and that everyone has a
really great holiday. Yeah. I just remember there's going to
(41:39):
be another Christmas. Six year, and the year after that
and the year after that, and we can all make
it through this one because Christmas isn't necessarily about traveling
or flying or doing or seeing. It's about feeling and
family and charity, and you can experience all of that
online this year. So no matter where you are, no
matter how you celebrate it, no matter who you are,
Merry christ Us, Happy Holidays, however you say it, Hopefully
(42:03):
the joy of the season alights upon you and yours. Huzzah.
Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where every listen to your
(42:23):
favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Y Hey ho, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:26):
I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's even here, and
we're all wishing you glad tidings and merry tidings and
decking the halls and all of that for this very
special Christmas edition of Stuff You Should How did you
say stuff you Should? Hoe? I did? That's great, I thought.
(00:49):
I don't know. It just came to me. And you know,
it basically made up for the pan of apple Pie
turnover analogy in the buffet episode. If you ask me,
you rid it twice though, didn't you? The apple Pie one? No,
I hit the three time thing did for for genuine
community effect. And I think that episode might. I don't know,
(01:10):
is that gonna come out before this one? Yeah? It come.
It came out on the okay, and what day is
this one out? I believe is it on Christmas Day
this year? I don't know. I'm going to look right
now to see. And as I'm talking, no, today, this
one comes out. So buthdays came out of but it's
Christmas Eve. That's even better. Almost. Yeah, Merry Christmas Eve, everybody, Yeah,
(01:34):
Merry Christmas Eve, and we like to remind people as
per tradition, we fight tooth and nail for this. Uh.
It is an ad free episode and that's all we
have to say about that. We don't do ads for
these episodes. Nope, this is a it's a it's a
very special thing every year, this one in the Halloween episode. Yeah,
we didn't even talk about which how we're going to
(01:55):
order these, but I'll go ahead and make a pitch
for lead treat Censel to go first. Okay, that's what
I've got it up. First to Chuck. It's a Christmas miracle,
(02:19):
so Tinsel. I think we've talked about in another episode
before Chuck. Um where that came from. I believe it
was in one of the really early Christmas episodes. But um,
we can give a little background here in that think
starting around the sixteenth century UM or the seventeenth century,
very wealthy aristocrats UM started putting actual like gold and
(02:44):
silver strands or like more commonly I think these kind
of like twisted almost candy cane looking hooks made of
gold and silver. They would put it all over their
their tree. UM hang this stuff, and they called it tinsel,
which is from Old French for eston cell or sparkle,
and that's kind of where tinsel came from. But you
(03:06):
have to be fairly wealthy to put strands of pure
gold and silver on your Christmas shoe. You know. That
kind of is how it goes. Yeah, I'm surprised that's
a French word. It sounds very German. Tinsel, yeah, tinsel does.
But eston cell, well, that sounds very French. You're right,
it does. It's almost like that a Spree brand of clothing,
(03:29):
but just it takes a real sharp turn after that
first es syllable. So yeah, the rich people were doing
this on the tree, they kind of kept it to themselves. Uh.
And then the industrial age rolls around and all of
a sudden we had less expensive varieties of this kind
of thing, which meant aluminum copper great for both, and
(03:55):
lead not great. Well, the aluminum wasn't so great either.
They would make an aluminum paper tinsel with acetate and
that stuff would go up faster than a matchbook on
like a dead tree. And you know, this is a
time when everybody was smoking everywhere all the time. So
the the illuminum one was particularly bad. And the copper.
(04:17):
I saw it still around, Chuck. They make garlands of
copper tinsel, but it's not for decorations. It's for you
to walk through to discharge static, like if you're going
into say like a computer clean room or something like that.
They make copper tinsel now, but that didn't really catch
on either. So they settled finally, like you said, on lead.
(04:37):
And you know that's kind of problematic because leads as poisonous,
as we talked about in Our Wise Lead So poisonous episode?
Did we do that? Yeah? Don't you remember? Um In
Mother Jones, Kevin drum like made the made them the
case that the the end of leaded gas actually was
(04:58):
responsible for the decline and violent crime over there. You
did an episode and that was a good A long
time ago. So this was before the FDA got involved
and knew that lead was you know, in our plates
and in our paint and in our jewelry was killing people.
And there was a German company called uh Staniel fabriqu
(05:21):
Epstein and they had an imperial pattern on lead tinsel
in nineteen o four and people love this stuff. It
translated uh Stanniel Lamenta into tiny Blade, which is hysterical
if you think about it, it's kind of what they were.
But it was people love this stuff because they started
(05:43):
making it in South Philly too in the early fifties.
It really hung on it really looked great. It hung
on the tree very heavy, obviously because it's lead, and
it looked Apparently this woman, Susan Wagoner wrote a book
called hand Crafted Christmas where she talks about how wonderful
it was and it didn't turn ish and it just
gave a really kind of heavy icicle look to the tree. Yeah.
(06:05):
And so that German patent was issued in nineteen o four,
and I guess it took almost fifty years before it
made its way over to the United States. But by
the fifties there is a company called bright Star Manufacturing
that was making lead tree tensil for use in the
United States to UM, but the party didn't last very long.
(06:25):
About a decade really before UM it was becoming quite
obvious that lead poisoning was was a real problem. And
the thing is, it's like you said, there's a you know,
there's a lot of um places where lead turned up
in your house, including on the plate you ate from.
So tree tinsel was probably one of the lesser evils
(06:47):
in your house too, that that you were going to
get lead poisoning from. But it was also one of
the easiest things to phase out. And so the FDA
kind of zeroed in on getting rid of lead tree tensile,
using these kind of back channel methods to to get
rid of it before anybody knew what was going on. Yeah,
so they ended up making a deal, the f d
A with tinsel importers and said, you know what, you've
(07:12):
got no product here that you can sell here anymore.
And this was in the early seventies. Uh, your time,
face it, Your time here is done. And the thing is,
though they didn't get the word out, it's not like
they that was like burning up the headlines all over
the country, because what they were afraid of was people
love this stuff, and if they hear that it's going
(07:33):
to go away, people are going to go out and
start buying up all the lead tinsel. Total. It's going
to be counterintuitive to our goal here, which is to
get rid of the lead tinsel. Right. It would take
you know, years and years before they finally got phase
would be so much easier if it just didn't come
back one year and that's basically what happened. The FDA
managed to kind of secretly get rid of lead from
(07:54):
Christmas tinsel and say, come up with some other stuff,
and uh, in very short order plastic came along to
replace it. But what what was crazy, Chuck, is that
um lead tinsel remained available in Germany until really yeah,
they did not get rid of the the lametta until then.
(08:17):
It's very surprising. Germans are tough. So I want to
say also, um, big shout out to our friend and
longtime listener Robert Paulson for suggesting that one. And as
you'll see later on in the episode, he's basically the
secret elf for this year's Christmas extravaganzas so thank you
very much, Roberts. His name is Robert Paulson. Should we
(08:39):
move on to Charles Dickens? Oh yeah, I thought we
would just leave it at his name is Robert Paulson.
But yes, all right, here we go with a little
bit on how Dickens saved Christmas. Enough enough, he's going
from name uh um so um. Everybody thinks like a
(09:17):
Christmas Carol is the most Christmas e thing that anyone's
ever come up with, and until a Christmas story came
along that was true, and Christmas Carol is kind of
responsible for um a lot of the traditions that we
think of as Christmas Eve these days. Um it basically
came from the end of christ of Dickens pen things
(09:39):
like this idea of having your family around you and
and and being charitable and um spreading goodwill and peace
and all of that stuff. Like, all of that kind
of came from this Christmas Carol. And in fact, even
wishing people marry Christmas was a Dickens invention too. But
what a lot of people don't realize is that um
(10:00):
Dickens when he wrote a Christmas Carol, he basically grabbed
Christmas out from the clutches of oblivion and dragged it
back into popular culture. That he was largely responsible, or
one of a few Victorian authors who were responsible for
saving Christmas from obscurity from around that time about the
(10:21):
middle of the nineteenth century. It is hard to believe,
but that is true that in eighteen sixty three Christmas
was dying in no small part to uh at the
hands of a man named Oliver Cromwell, Boo, Lord and
Protector of England, very famous seventeenth century Puritan who didn't
(10:43):
like Christmas. He didn't like the people were going out
and having a good time and drinking and eating too much.
And he was like, listen, there's no scriptural basis for Christmas.
It's not in the Bible. Uh, there is no you know,
there's the Sabbath, of course, but it doesn't say, hey,
everyone get together on and get drunk, does it right?
(11:04):
And I mean that's definitely what they were doing. In fact,
like since the medieval era in Britain and other parts
of Europe, especially like Celtic centric but pagan basically parts
of Europe. Um, they would get together, uh and kick off.
I guess the whole thing on Christmas kind of like
Fat Tuesday ends Marty Gras. It's like, in reverse, Christmas
(11:26):
kicked off twelve days of festivals and celebrating, of gathering
at the tavern, of having friends and family over for
a big feast um, and all of it can be
traced back to these pagan winter solstices. But then when
Christianity came along, they said, oh, we'll just say it's
the birth of Jesus kicking all this stuff off. But
it was a big, long twelve day winner festival of revelry,
(11:50):
and um, people really appreciate it. And Cromwell said, no,
that's too much fun. Christmas is here here by band,
and he got it pushed through Parliament that Christmas was
in fact banned. Yeah, and a couple of acts of
Parliament and forty four and forty seven sixty seven. He uh,
he pushed it underground essentially because people uh still did
(12:13):
their celebrating. It just wasn't as a raucous at the
local tavern. It was a little more at home behind
closed doors. But he certainly could not dampen people's spirits. Uh,
they just took it inside basically. Uh. Then the Industrial
Revolution comes along and people worked on Christmas and it
(12:33):
wasn't like, well, we gotta work on Christmas this year.
It was like Christmas was kind of like any other day,
and you just worked because the factory was open, because
there were seven days in a week and you were
expected to work all of them. Yeah, Cromwell couldn't quite
get rid of it. And he actually he and the
rest of the Puritans got pushed aside when the monarchy
came back and all that stuff got overturned. But just yeah,
(12:55):
about a hundred years later, when um England went through
the first Industrial evolution. That was I mean, that almost
did it in because, like you said, everybody was too
tired to celebrate Christmas. They didn't have any time off.
But also very importantly, chuck a lot of those people
who had been celebrating these Christmas is in the medieval
(13:17):
style with feasts and friends and family and revelry and
carols and all that stuff. They used to do that
back in the country during the agrarian age. Well, the
agrarian age had come to an abrupt halt during the
Industrial Age, and so all those people had moved from
the country to the city and they didn't have these
longstanding multi generational community ties any longer. So celebrating Christmas
(13:38):
kind of fell away. It stayed back there in the
in the rural areas, and it didn't quite make that
transition to the city. So between these long seven day
work weeks and then this transplanting from the countryside to
the city, Christmas was almost lost had it not been
for Dickens. That's right. Then a Christmas Carol comes along, uh,
(14:00):
and that kind of did it. People loved it. It It
was a very big hit Uh, he didn't make a
ton of money on it because and that was kind
of his fault because he really wanted, um, a really
good looking book that was packaged well, he didn't want
to charge a lot for it. Um. And like you
said at the beginning, a lot of the things that
we think of it Christmas, like saying Mary Christmas, um,
(14:21):
wishing for a white Christmas. This all comes from Dickens
version of a Christmas Carol and it was a big hit.
And he he worked in stuff like um ghost stories,
which in the medieval times they told Christmas ghost story,
so that's people think that's kind of where he got
the ghostly visitors from. I think we talked a couple
(14:42):
of I think the Live Christmas Show we talked about that,
didn't we I think so? Yeah. But yeah, thanks to uh,
thanks to Dickens, Christmas was a big hit again and
his not been threatened since, except for you know, people
trying to kill Christmas. Now. I guess it's rampant, isn't it.
(15:03):
The new Cromwells. Right, that's right. Well, now you can
say Merry Christmas everybody, and you can know you're giving
a hat tip to get old Charles Dickens. Al Right.
(15:34):
Next on our list of merriment is finance and economics,
but in a very fun way. I think I gotta
feel like we've talked about this before because it seems
so familiar. But the PNC Christmas Price Index, Uh, since
the PNC Bank has been doing this where they calculate
(15:55):
the current annual cost or the cost of that year
for the items on the song from the song that
Twelve Days of Christmas. Obviously we're talking about French hens
and leaping lords and five golden rings and all of
that livestock and jewelry and entertainment. They have very in
(16:18):
a very fun way, since the mid eighties, have been calculating,
hey what would that cost this year? Yeah. And in fact,
there's one particular economist at the bank, Rebecca McCann. Fun
job kind of yeah, it kind of oversees this whole thing.
She's like, yeah, it's super fun. I don't get to
stop doing any of my regular work. They make me
do this on top of everything probably and I don't
(16:39):
even give me a bonus anymore. They did away with
bonuses in the merger. So it's funny when you when
you think about this a lot of these are pretty
easy to get, like turtle doves and partridges. You could
call bird suppliers or hatcheries for hens and swans, or
a nursery for pear trees and stuff like that, or
(17:00):
obviously jewelry chains for gold rings. But it gets a
little trickier when it comes to uh, ladies dancing and
lords of leaping, Like, what do you pay for that? Well,
she calculated the cost by getting in touch with things
like like dance companies the Philadelphia Ballet I think was
one of them, for the Pennsylvania Ballet. The other one, Um,
(17:22):
she got in touch with philadanco UM, which is a
dance company in Philadelphia, believe it or not. And Um said, basically,
you know how much would it cost to to put
on a show or to rent I guess eleven lords leaping?
You know? And I'm sure they hung up a couple
of times on her before she finally convinced him to
(17:42):
to give her a straight answer. Um, but yeah, she
really like she she goes through and figures out the
price of each of these things. But then she's also
being an economist, says, well, it's more than just that,
you also have to pay for things like gas for shipping. Um,
the cost of services has gone up recently, but the
cost of goods has gone down by comparison. She takes
all of this, all these different prices together, UM, adds
(18:05):
them up, and that is the Consumer Price Index every year.
That's right, the Christmas Price Index. That's right. I'm sorry,
so it actually it reflects the Consumer Price Index, which
is a legit thing that's used as a metric to
track the economy of the United States. This is a
slightly more tongue in cheek, although we're gonna see it
(18:26):
actually does have some like real world reflections to it,
and it is you know that if you went through
and hired eleven lords of leaping, this is probably roughly
what you would pay for it, you know. Yeah, I
think the saddest one for me would be made of milking.
And it's also the easiest one to figure out, because
all she has to do is plug in minimum wage,
because that's what a milking made would probably get paid.
(18:48):
But that one hasn't changed obviously since two thousand nine,
as uh horrifically, the federal minimum wage has been locked
in place for eleven years. It seven. Yeah, so that
was a bit of a bummer, and then, um, the
big surprising thing for for me definitely was that, um,
(19:11):
there were a number of things that you couldn't get
this year McCann found out, and that the this year's
total Christmas Price index was about sixty percent less than
last year's. The cost of it In two thousand nineteen
it was thirty eight thousand, nine nine dollars and fifty
(19:32):
In twenty it costs you just sixteen thousand, one hundred
and sixty eight dollars and fourteen cents. And you say, like, okay,
well that's great. You know things prices are going down. Well, no,
the like I said, the reason why the cost had
gone down is because you couldn't get things like Lord's
leaping or drummer's drumming, or pipers piping, or ladies dancing
(19:55):
because of COVID nineteen. Yeah, kind of rise me. And
it's not very fun. It's not you could get a
drumline outdoors, space them out and pay them money. I guess.
So maybe McCann wanted to point out that there's a
coronavirus pandemic going on right now. Yeah, I think that's
kind of the deal, is there. I think there's a
(20:15):
bit of a of a nod and a wink and
a message to be sent each year when this is released.
But um, the thing is chucky. Even if you're like, whatever,
I don't care about the pandemic. I'm I've got this
this price in hand. I'm gonna go with the two
thousand nineteen prices because I'm really going to twist the
arms of those dance companies and get them to to
(20:36):
lend me some dancers. Um, do you have to stop
and ask yourself like, are these actually good gifts anymore? Yeah,
the answer I think would be no. I mean yes,
the the birds are calling, those are canaries. That's a
pretty good idea. Or if you have like a a
farm friend and you're like, not only did I get
(20:56):
you some chickens, I got you some French hens. I
think they might be slightly impressed. Everybody would like five
gold rings that kind of thing, But if you put
the whole thing together all at once, it can be
kind of overwhelming. And they they mentioned this on an
episode of Christmas episode at the Office, where Aaron, the receptionist, says,
whoever is my secret? Saying it that's buying me the
(21:18):
twelve Days of Christmas presents, like, please stop, it's ruining
my life. She said. The French ends are plucking at
her hair to make nests out of it. That's another
terrible stuff. So I guess if that's a if that's
your idea, if that's you're thinking that you're going to
buy your true love the presents from the twelve Days
of Days of Christmas, just don't don't do it. Maybe
(21:41):
some leaping words, but then stop. Al Right, shall we
move on to our next segment? Yes, let's we need
to thank Robert Paulson for this one too. Write the
(22:03):
little Elf from Los Angeles came to visit us yet again. Yeah,
the little elf who could? So this is about the
first department store Santa Claus and we need to caveat
this in a big way because um is when Colonel
Jim James, Colonel Jim Edgar Brockton, Massachusetts claims and people
(22:27):
look at him as the first department store Santa Claus. Uh.
And we were emailing back and forth because Macy's they say,
goes back to eighteen what sixty something? Yeah, there's apparently
there was another one called I think J. W. Parkinson's
from Philadelphia who hired somebody to dress up as Santa
(22:47):
and climb the roof. Um, even before Macy's. But Macy's
was the first to actually have a Santa in their store. UM.
And there's postcards from the seventies that clearly show this.
That's that Macy's was the first. And yet you can
go all over the internet and you you search the
first department store Santa, you're gonna come back with James Edgar.
(23:09):
And people even mentioned this in the same article that yeah,
Macey's had it first, but this guy's the first. Just
you know, let's go out back and fight over it
if you want to. Yeah. I think what you found
and what we're just gonna agree on is that it
said he was the first known what it what it
was the exact wording, not known quantity, but known individual,
(23:30):
known entity. I think is how they put it in
the weirdest possible way. Yeah, the only thing we could
figure out was is that James, Colonel Jim Edgar was
the first person to say, Hey, I'm Santa Claus in
this town and my name's Colonel Jim Edgar, and everyone
knows it's me that's doing this thing. And he became
(23:53):
known as the guy, whereas I guess Macy's just had
nameless Santa Claus. So maybe that's the difference that's got
that's is, That's all I can figure out. But let's
put all that nitpicky stuff aside. Okay, but I think
it's important that we said, and I'm glad you man,
I'm glad you brought it up. But the thing is
that I think a lot of the reason why people
(24:13):
are really willing to go out back and fight you
over Jim Egger being the first Santa Claus is because
this guy's character was as close to Santa's probably ever,
any any Santa's helper whoever put on the suit and
when worked at a department store over the holiday season
ever has Yeah, he seemed like a really good guy.
(24:34):
And there are stories that abound about the good things
that have happened with Colonel Jim and in his wake.
Uh And one that happened in his wake was about
thirty years after he started doing Santa. I guess he
was gone at this point. But Brockton, mass was a
shoemaking town. It was very famous for making shoes, but
(24:56):
by the ninet twenties and thirties it had fallen upon
hard times, and there was a truant officer that found
out that hundreds of kids we're not even going to
school because they didn't have new shoes or means to
repair their shoes. And so that truant officer's name was
Charles Brooks explained this to William Wright, uh, the president
of Edgar's department store, and he said, what should I do?
(25:20):
What should I do? And he said, you know what
you do? You do what James Edgar would have done.
And the guy says what And the other guy goes, God,
do I have to spell everything out for you every Tuesday?
I have to explain everything I say. And the other guy,
the truant officer, said please, just one more time. I
have to know what would James Edgar do? And he said,
(25:41):
well he rip off Macy's and yeah, um, So what
he said was that the James Edgar would um fix
these shoes and that he would use his company to
do that. And so that's exactly what the president of
this James Edgar's department store did. They removed the third
floor of the department store. Amuse but I think a
(26:01):
three thousand dollars shoe repairing machine, hired six cobblers in
the town and started repairing children's shoes for free. Amazing,
you found another little piece about James Edgar and what
kind of guy he was to write. Do you want
me to talk about it? Because I will. That'd be great.
So he Um, this is why I said he he
(26:23):
had the character of Santa Like. He would dress up
as a clown or that kind of stuff like and
and wander around and finally one day he decided to
dress up like a like a Santa Um. But he
loved children, um like really genuinely loved the kids. And
I read Chuck that when he died uh and the
local school let out for lunch, all the kids went
(26:44):
down to his funeral to pay their respects, like hundreds
of children in town. And that was because he did
things like he was well known to take care of
his his staff, his employees. He made them shareholders in
the business. Um. He lived on a second floor walk
up apartment, even though he's very healthy man, because he
wanted to have more money to share with his employees. UM.
(27:06):
He would close early four nights a week so that
his employees could go spend more time with their families
and he had a really great quote that I think
sums them up pretty well. I've made a barrel of money,
and I have spent it as freely as I've made it.
Thousands of it goes back to the people from whom
I made it for. I fully believe in that kind
of in exchange. And he seems to be the kind
(27:26):
of guy who really literally put his money where his
mouth is. He would he would take his money, put
it in his mouth and be like Carker, I wanna
good one. Thank you. So the the whole reason people
say Jim Mega was the first department store saying is
because he did this thing in nine and you know,
he attracted kids from all over the Northeast and um
(27:49):
in very short order. Starting the next year, department stores
all over the place suddenly had Mall Santas or department
store Santras So, which is so a lot of people
point to Jimer's influence is the reason why I love it.
So hats off to you, Colonel Jim. We salute you, sir, Yes,
yes we do, all right. So the leg lamp from
(28:27):
a Christmas story. I know that we had to have
talked about this at some point when we talked about
a Christmas Story and one of our previous holiday episodes,
but we're gonna talk about it again. We could talk
about this every year and I'd be happy. Man. Everyone
knows the very famous major award from the Christmas Story
(28:47):
when the old man wins this award that is brought
into his house in a crate pulled out to the
horror of his wife, the wonderful Melinda Dylan, and the
leg lamp, the the kitschy item that everyone likes to
have on their tree or in their actual window to
this day, was born. Yep, so Um, there's some there's
(29:11):
some really great background about that leg lamp in particular Um.
As far as the movies production went, it was designed
by the production designer. I believe his name was Reuben
what was his last name, Chuck, Reuben Freed, Reuben Freed,
and so Reuben Freed. Um based it on the description
(29:34):
by Jeane Shepherd, who wrote the book and God We
Trust all others paid cash Um that a Christmas Story
was based on and Um. Apparently Jean Shepherd was involved
in the production and saw some drafts of what Reuben
Freed had drawn up and said, Yep, that's it. But
he apparently Jean Shepherd apparently based it on a knee
(29:55):
high sign that he'd seen as a child. Right, Yeah,
kneehigh soda. Uh is you can still get any house.
I like the kneehigh orange and grape. And I think
it had a pair of pair of gams, had some
ladies legs, and he liked the look of him. And
this is how I love the reading. Actually, uh and
(30:15):
this is from I actually got this part from the
Man behind the leg Lamp from Read Krieger from inventor
Digest dot com a few years ago. And this is
from the actual short story My Old Man and the
Lascivious Special Award that heralded the birth of pop art.
(30:36):
And I guess it was that the deal is and
God we trust all of us to pay cash. Was
a collection of short stories. Yeah, and that that Bob
Clark interpreted them perfectly into the movie A Christmas Story.
So this is how it was described in that book,
the leg lamp. From ankle to thigh, the translucent flesh
radiated a vibrant, sensual, luminous orange yellow, pinkish nimbus of
(30:58):
pagan fire. All it needed was Tom Tom's and maybe
a gong or two and a tenor seeing in a high, quavery,
earnest voice, A pretty girl is like a melody. Such
great writing, it is really great. I love Jean Shepherd stuff,
even though I've never read a lick of it. I
just love a Christmas story that much, right, exactly so.
(31:18):
The leg Lamp actually made its first debut before Christmas
Story did. It showed up on a PBS UM special
called um The Phantom of the Open Hearth and I
watched it, Dude, I watched it, and it is wrong.
It is the most alien thing I've ever seen. Ralphie
(31:39):
is like fifteen and a bit of a punk. Uh
Randy is like about what Ralphie's ages and a Christmas story.
It's just really weird in mid seventies, so it should
be stricken from the memory of humanity. But if you're interested,
you should go check it out and you'll see what
I'm talking about. It's just it's it's just very weird.
But they have a leg lamp in there. They basically
(32:02):
adapt the same short story, but this leg Lamp is
way more tasteful than what Reuben Freed came up with.
And once you've seen the Reuben Freed one. Everything else
is kind of pales in comparison to it. Yeah, I mean,
do you remember Reuben Fried's version had a at a
stocking and a little fringe hanging down. It was a
very sexy lamp and uh, I think that's what made
(32:22):
it so iconic. I believe they made three of them
for the movie. The story is that they were all
broken during the production of filming, although uh, and this
is from from Reed Krieger's article, Supposedly there was a
special effects like prop shop in Toronto that said that
they had one of them, one of the originals, until
(32:45):
the early nineteen nineties, which may be true. Yes, there
it was. Um, there was a guy named Martin Malavoir
and he worked on the movie. He worked on several movies,
but he worked on a Christmas story. And he said
himself he had several of these things in his shop.
That they actually made more than a dozen, not just three.
(33:05):
So it's not entirely clear, but there doesn't seem to
be any surviving ones. He said he threw his out
in the nineties, which is terrible. It's like me throwing
up Burt Reynolds's door or Jackie Gleason's store. Yeah, or
Burt Reynolds mustache. Don't throw that out. But the one
thing I couldn't find was whose leg it was molded from,
(33:26):
because it was supposedly molded from actual human models leg
and it could not. That seems to be lost to history.
Another kind of fun fact here, if you notice carefully,
when they're bringing that crate in, uh, it says his
end up instead of this end up And a lot
of people think that's just a little joke, but apparently
(33:47):
it's just a movie thing. That crate was too big
to fit through the door, so the set carpenters came
in and shaved four inches off, which included that letter T. Yeah,
that's good. And then that UM. That lamp is just
so iconic it actually has patented. The lamp itself is
patent number three three six four five four two, And
(34:07):
there's a Christmas ornaments you can get. We actually have
a string of lights of leg lamp lights, but the
ornament itself is has a patent. UM and the town
of Cleveland, where we talked about Christmas Story being shot
partially UM turned one of its skyscrapers, like they changed
the lights so that it created a leg lamp to
(34:30):
commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the movie in two thousand thirteen.
And that's right. And as we said back when we
initially talked about The Christmas Story House, if you were
a fan of that film, I highly highly recommend you
visiting the Christmas story House. Uh there in the shadow
of Cleveland. It's to walk around that home is uh
(34:53):
is a pretty great thing, very special place to be.
I gotta go. You saw, Oh you never went. No,
it's still not been. Yeah, you guys will make it
over there at some point. Go to Cleveland. Cleveland's great.
Go the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Check out this.
You probably don't care about the NFL Hall of Fame.
That's kind of cool though if you're into football, But
(35:13):
it's worth it to go to the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. And uh in the Christmas story House?
Are you talking about the Hard Rock Cafe Cleveland? No,
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I don't I
don't know what that means. It's where you walk around
at the end when they have everyone's uh original clothing
and these iconic outfits like Princess Purple Rain and Quick
(35:34):
Jaggers thing and Bruce Springsteen's outfit from Born in the USA.
And you just walk around and look at them all
and think, was Prince nine years old? Yeah he was
a little guy, wasn't it was Mick Jagger twelve. They're
all tiny. Well, a lot of energy. It's like a
small dog. Small dogs have a lot more energy than
big dogs, you know what I mean? That's right, um man,
(35:58):
I guess that's it. About the the leg lamp huh yeah, well,
actually were I want to know where you hang those lights?
Do you string those on the tree or they like,
you know, on a archway or something archway or something. Yeah, yeah,
because you can't just throw one string of leg lamp
lights among your other lights now. And plus, I mean
(36:18):
the trees already got it going on those leg lamp lights.
They can really light up a neglected or overlooked area
and they're so bad corner. Yeah, exactly awesome. I gotta
get some of those myself. I'll get you some for Christmas,
all right, Chuckers. So it wouldn't be if we didn't
(36:53):
have a Christmas segment about COVID nineteen. This is for
all the kids out there, because I know kids listen
to this with their families on Christmas Eve. It's a tradition.
Nothing else happens on Christmas Eve, and just across America,
just people listening to this. So this is from people
(37:13):
dot Com from Rachel to Santis and uh, this is
a great article from Dr Anthony Fauci revealing to all
the kids all around the country and all around the
world that they don't need to worry about Santa Claus
coming in with COVID because Santa Claus is basically immune
(37:35):
to coronavirus because, as Fauci says, quote of all the
good qualities, he has a lot of good innate immunity. Yeah.
So Dr Faucci uh is reassuring us that Santa is immune.
And it makes sense, Chuck, because you know, um, as
everybody knows from a night before Christmas, Santa is actually
(37:56):
an elf. He's a jolly old elf, so of course
he would be immune to something like COVID nineteen. That's right.
And that's not to say that Santa's helpers who are
in department stores and malls all over the country and
all over the world, like James Edger, That's right. Those
guys are oftentimes are elderly gentlemen. Sometimes they may be
(38:20):
carrying a little extra weight. And I guess the nicest
way to say that say this is that those Santa's
are high risk, right, But everybody wants to see Santa's
helpers in the mall whenever they get a chance to,
even during a pandemic. So there's a lot of these
Santa's helpers who are figuring out how to do it
as safely as possible. This year. Um, there there's things
(38:44):
like virtual um virtual Santa visits, which apparently Macy's, which
apparently is the originator of the department store Santa. Uh.
This is the first year since the eighteen sixties that's
that macy will not have a Santa at their department
store in person. They're still going to have a virtual
(39:06):
Santa though. The ghost of Colonel Jim Edgar is right
now just saying, why are these two loud mouths messing
with me? Right? I will haunt you? Yeah? And he
has been? Has he been haunting you? He's been haunting
me for the best couple of days for sure. Is terrifying. So, yeah,
they're doing some virtual Santa meeting by appointment. I thought
(39:30):
this was fairly creative. Um. This one Santa named Stephen Arnold,
who is a professional Santa, said he has three engagements
where they are setting him up in that sort of
a protective bubble built to look like a snow globe.
And I thought that was a very cool, kind of fun,
creative idea. Yeah. The other two engagements, he's going to
(39:50):
be sitting on a giant fire truck or a giant
sleigh and like it don't climb up me fire trucks basically,
but his foot sticking out like fayback, yeah, fayback. Um.
But yeah, there's there's no reason you can't see Santa,
but probably just virtually this year, you know. But at
the very least you don't have to worry about the
(40:11):
real deal coming through on Christmas Eve and Christmas, you
know when saying it comes through, because he's not going
to be spreading COVID. He's just going to be spreading
glad tidings and jolly nous, So you don't need to
worry about that. Kids. You need to put out those
cookies and milk. You need to put out those carrots
and celery for those reindeer, and make sure you're cooperating
(40:33):
with your parents or else you're gonna get cold in
that stocking. That's right, and it always helps to put
out probably triple or quadruple the amount of celery or
carrots you think you should kids. That's right? Is that it?
I think so, Chuck, I think it's time we wish
Merry Christmas to everybody in the Charles Dickens way. That's right.
(40:55):
Put a figurative bow on it, and what else. We'll
put your finger right here, and I'm going to tie
the bow. And then when I counted three, move your
finger at the last second. Is I tightened the bow?
You're ready? Three? Two? Three? Ouch? Okay, we just got it.
Got you a little bit that you're gonna lose that nail.
So happy holidays everyone, no matter how you celebrate it,
(41:18):
We're thinking of you. It's been a tough year for everybody.
We look forward to a light at the end of
the tunnel next year, and uh, we just hope we're
with the friends and family that you really care about,
and everyone's forced to keep it small, but hopefully that
will not tarnish your Christmas and that everyone has a
really great holiday. Yeah. I just remember there's going to
(41:39):
be another Christmas. Six year, and the year after that
and the year after that, and we can all make
it through this one because Christmas isn't necessarily about traveling
or flying or doing or seeing. It's about feeling and
family and charity, and you can experience all of that
online this year. So no matter where you are, no
matter how you celebrate it, no matter who you are,
Merry christ Us, Happy Holidays, however you say it, Hopefully
(42:03):
the joy of the season alights upon you and yours. Huzzah.
Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
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(42:23):
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