November 22, 2024 • 40 mins
Join us as we delve into stories and legends that were the inspiration behind Coraline.
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(00:03):
Hi.
Welcome to True Creeps, wherethe stories are true and the creeps
are real.
We'll cover stories fromgrotesque gore to.
The possibly plausibleparanormal to horrifying history
to tense and terrible truecrime and.
Everything else that goes bumpin the night.
We're your hosts, Amanda.
And I'm Lindsey, and we wantyou to join us.
While we creep, we covermature topics.
(00:24):
Listener discretion is advised.
Hello, everyone.
Today we are going to chatabout the possible inspirations for
the movie Coraline.
And we're talking aboutCoraline because it's going to be
coming back to theaters forits 15th anniversary this year.
So people are watching it again.
(00:44):
Yeah.
Every time anything in theworld starts to have anniversaries
that are over 10 years, I justhave this, like, deep and heavy sigh,
like, oh, I'm old now.
Which, Like, I'm not that old.
I'm not even 40 yet.
But, like, it's still like,oh, no.
Like, I can say 20 years ago.
And it's like, me as asentient human, you know, it's not
like, yes.
You weren't a child.
(01:04):
Me being like, I was just ateeny baby.
But, no, no, no, no.
Yeah.
But it is a classically, like,spooky story, I think.
I think so.
I really loved it when itfirst came out, and in my head, it
came out, like, three years ago.
Not 15.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Definitely not 15.
It's great.
So if you don't know whatCoraline is, it is a kids movie,
but it's pretty unsettling.
(01:27):
And we've touched on it beforein other episodes.
But a lot of kids stories havereally creepy or unsettling beginnings.
Right.
Like, we did a whole episodeon it a while back.
This one, I think, isparticularly spooky.
These are stories that I hadnot heard of, which I feel like most
people have not heard of a lotof these stories.
Yeah.
For good reason.
Yeah, we dug deep.
(01:47):
Yeah.
So if you haven't seen it, youshould make some time to watch it.
But let's give you a quickrecap of what it's about.
Coraline is 11, and she movesto a new place with her mom and dad.
After moving, she's feelingbored, and she's kind of neglected
by her parents.
They're not bad parents, butthey're busy.
Right.
While exploring, she finds ahidden door that's been bricked up.
(02:08):
But during the night, she'sable to go through the door, and
she enters a strange, newparallel world.
Now, in this world, everyonehas buttons instead of eyes, and
it's very creepy.
She has another mother in thisworld, and this other mother seems
like she's everything thatCoraline's been wanting.
The other mother invites herto stay, but in order to do so, she
(02:30):
must get button eyes.
That seems very creepy and,like, jarring.
Yeah, yeah.
So of course Coraline's like,this is weird.
Doesn't want to.
Then she slowly discovers thatthe other world isn't all that it
seems, and she has to escapeand save her real family.
So, yeah.
What a creepy fucking story.
I do like creepy for kids, though.
(02:52):
That's a fun time.
I do, too.
I do, too.
And I love all the Halloweencostumes that I've been seeing already
this year.
Yes.
Well, you know, it's beenaround for 15 years, but it's also
iconic when you say buttonsfor eyes and you have that very specific
bob, especially if it's blue.
People know your core line.
Like, anything else is justgravy on top.
Yeah, she has the blue bob,and then she's always wearing that,
(03:14):
like, yellow rain jacket.
Yeah.
But I feel like you don't evenneed the rain jacket.
It's just button for eyes.
Blue bob.
Yeah.
So let's get into whatinspired the movie to start.
There was a book written in2002 by Neil Gaiman called Coraline
Shock.
There, I say with a little bitof humor, but I also did not know
that Neil Gaiman was involvedwith Coraline whatsoever.
No, I didn't either.
(03:35):
He was like, I don't know whatI thought it was, who did it.
But, yeah, I didn't read thebook or anything, but now I kind
of want to.
Yeah, I'm intrigued.
I'm intrigued.
So the story is very similarto the movie with a few differences,
like settings and some characters.
In the book, as always,there's bloopers at the end.
So if you ever hear Amanda andI laughing at a part where you're
(03:56):
like, that's not that funny.
It's because we've said utternonsense for people who are like,
hey, listen to us talk.
We are not so great at it.
Sometimes in the book,Coraline goes through a tiny door
to a new world, and then thebeing on the other side wants her
to stay and to sew buttonsonto her eyes.
And the question still stands,though, like, where the fuck did
(04:19):
he get this from?
Right?
Like, where did he get thestory of a little girl in a weird
world with buttons being sewninto the eyes?
Right.
Like, yeah, it's still fuckingscary, even if we're like, okay,
it's Based on a book.
But how did we get there?
So Neil says that he got theidea from his daughter Holly when
she was just four years old.
So she would go tokindergarten and when she would come
back, she would see him writing.
(04:39):
So she would crawl up on hislap and tell him stories that he
could type them out for her.
And she called them Holly story.
How cute.
So cute.
Love a little baby world builder.
So many of Holly's storiesinvolved young girls who would encounter
evil witches pretending to betheir mothers.
The witches would lock thelittle girls up, but they would always
manage to escape.
And he said that it wasterrifying, but it was also cool
(05:02):
that she liked, quote thisweird gothic fiction.
I love when a kid is creepy.
I love that for them,especially if they're storytelling
on purpose, not just likestanding at the end of your bed staring
at you while breathing heavily.
You know, that's creepycreepy, not cute creepy.
Anyway, so Neil was like, Ilove that she wants to write and
I love that she wants to hearsome scary stories.
(05:23):
So I'll go get her some.
And then he looks and there'snot a lot of scary stories for kids
at that time.
Yeah.
And he wanted a scary bookthat was for four year olds.
So he was like, you know what?
I'll write her one.
Which.
Love that.
Yeah, it's cute.
So what he planned is forCoraline to be a short story.
Neil says that he borrowedbits from his childhood and even
the layout of the flat wherehe used to live.
(05:45):
So some of the story overlapswith, like his personal experience.
But when he's talking aboutthe door that opened into a wall,
that's actually something thathe encountered when he was a kid.
And he always wondered if hecontinued to open the little door,
perhaps something other than awall would be there.
Yeah.
So that was just like hisimagination that he kind of interwove
(06:06):
into the story.
And then initially he had thelayout of the story of Coraline for
her to go through the door andfind the other mother.
But then when he startedwriting, realized that this wasn't
just going to be a shortstory, he had so much more to add
to the plot.
It took him 10 years to finishthe story.
And he said that he had tostop and start several times because,
you know, life.
(06:26):
And then he'd go, he'd pick itup again.
And then when he did, towards,you know, the last few times, he
realized that Holly was nowtoo old for the book, but that his
second daughter, Maddie, wasalso nearing being too old for it.
So he's like, I gotta get this done.
Yeah, I gotta get it done for her.
For Maddie.
So when he read it to Maddie,who was 6 at the time, she liked
(06:46):
it.
So he's like, okay, that'sgood feedback.
Eventually, the story got sentto Tim Burton and Henry Selick at
Neil's request.
And about a week later, HenrySelleck called him and said that
he wanted to make it into amovie in 2001.
Years later, in 2009, themovie came out.
So now we know the storystarted with his daughter, but then
there's also otherinspirations for the book.
(07:08):
So let's start with the onesthat Neil has confirmed.
In an interview, Neil said GKChesterton's quote really inspired
him.
And he summed up the quote as,you are not telling children that
the bogeyman exists or dragonsor monsters, because they know they
exist.
Instead, you're tellingchildren these monsters can be defeated.
(07:29):
Okay, I like it.
I like it.
Yeah.
I also do need to point out atthis moment that I have never called
him, that I've always said the Boogeyman.
Yes.
And that I think that's aregional thing.
Yeah.
We may have talked about thisbefore, but I was like, that's wild.
That's a.
That feels like a big regionalthing, though, the Boogeyman, because
he's a common trope.
(07:50):
Yeah.
But interesting.
Back to your bogeyman, though.
My bad.
So he mentioned that thisquote stuck with him, and I did look
up the real quote.
It's a little different, butit gets the same message across.
Additionally, Henry Selick,the director of the movie Coraline,
said that it was Alice inWonderland meets Hansel and Gretel,
which, like, now, I can'tunsee that.
(08:10):
It really is.
Yeah, it really, really is.
And many theorize thatinitially, Neil may have been inspired
by Lewis Carroll's Alice'sAdventures in Wonderland and through
the Looking Glass, becausethey do have a couple similar situations
that happen, like following ananimal into another world, Mirrors,
showing another world, and ofcourse, a talking cat.
(08:32):
And we're going to bring upmirrors again later.
Overall, Neil has done so manyinterviews and various introductions
to Coraline, like, for all ofthe different editions that were
released, and he's mentionedseveral authors, dark fairy tales
and other inspirations.
There's also been a lot ofpeople who have speculated what else
could have inspired Neil, andthey're basing it off of things that
(08:53):
he's mentioned he's read orthings that he's seen during interviews
for Coraline and other worksthat he's worked on.
So he's been in charge of,like, TV shows and various other
medias.
Yeah.
What we've done for today'sepisode is we tried to compile a
collection of some of theselesser known stories and how it may
(09:13):
relate to Coraline.
So the first story we're goingto talk about is called the New Mother,
and it's said to have inspiredthe other mother character.
So this is an 1882 story, andit's by a Victorian author named
Lucy Clifford, but it's beenretold in several different folklore
books, and it's even in scaryStories to Tell in the Dark.
So there's different variations.
And so you may have heard thisstory and it may have been called
(09:35):
a different name.
Some of those names includethe Pear Drum or the Drum.
Each changes slightly.
But we're going to review thebasics of the original story.
Just first off, I just lovethe names of the two sisters.
Their names are Blue Eyes and Turkey.
And in different versions,they have different names, but we're
going to call them Blue Eyesand Turkey because those are the
(09:57):
best versions.
Yeah.
Blue Eyes is the eldestdaughter, and she earned her name
after her in her father's eyes.
I'm just pretty sure that mostbabies have blue eyes when they're
born, don't they?
Like, isn't that, like, a thing?
So, like, they could have blueeyes and then change because my nieces
were very blue and now theyare not very blue.
Anywho, Turkey, she was named after.
(10:21):
I just love this so much.
So Turkey, when she was veryyoung, she cried so much because
there was a turkey that livednear their cottage, but it vanished
in the middle of winter, andshe was just so upset, so they decided
to call her Turkey going forward.
I'm so sad.
I thought that her birth namewas Turkey, but, like, I still.
I love a nickname.
But you cried a lot because ofthis Turkey when you were just a
(10:41):
little kid.
So now you're Turkey.
Now you're gonna think aboutit for the rest of your life because
we're gonna call you out.
Yeah.
Now we're gonna make you sadevery time anybody talks to you.
Yeah.
So the sisters also had ayounger sibling that was still a
baby.
Their dad was away at sea,good old Blue Eyes.
And Turkey would walk to thevillage, and it was about a mile
and a half away.
And when they were goingthere, it was typically so they could
(11:03):
go to the post office to seeif their father had written them
any letters.
One day, their mother waslike, the two of you go to the post
office, see if your fatherwrote any letters.
In my head, I'm like.
She was like, you're runningand playing in the house.
Why don't you go see ifthere's some letters?
You know, Probably.
Yeah.
But she's like, hey, it iscold though, so like, hurry up and
don't talk to strangers whileyou're on the way.
(11:24):
Fair.
And they're like, sounds good, theoretically.
So when they got to thevillage, they saw that they had just
missed a fair and they werepretty sad that they had missed it.
Which, you know.
You know, that's reasonable.
Yeah.
When they got to the postoffice, which was located inside
of a grocery store, there wasno mail, which meant there were no
letters from their father.
So, you know, they're disappointed.
And as they're leaving thevillage, they notice they quote,
(11:46):
wild looking girl who wasaround 15 years old.
She's wearing ragged clothesand she just generally seems like
she's not so happy.
So they go up to her to see ifthey can help her with anything.
And as they approach her, theysee her hide something under her
shawl.
So like, this is suspicious.
And she looks kind of asthough she was crying.
So they ask her, have you been crying?
(12:07):
And she replies, she has not.
So they talk to her for a bitand they learn that she had lived
in the village but they hadnever seen her before, which I feel
like you would notice anotherperson who was like around the same
age, especially if you'regoing back and forth.
Yeah.
Because villages aren't that big.
But anyhow, they asked whatshe was sitting on and she responds
that she's sitting on a pear drum.
(12:27):
And the girls are like, we donot know what that is.
And so she shows them.
It's kind of like a guitar inshape, but it only has three strings
and two pegs to tune those strings.
It also has a small square boxattached to the side.
And so they chat with thisgirl for a bit more.
And as they're doing this,she's talking to what appears to
be someone in a little box.
(12:48):
And they're like, she seems legit.
We should hear what she has tosay about the people in this box.
And she's like, oh, no worries.
There's just a little man, alittle woman in the box.
And if I play for them, theywill dance.
Okay.
Presumably she's playing thepair drum instrument we discussed
earlier.
Yeah.
But they're like, oh, reasonable.
Makes sense.
These tiny people in this boxwould dance.
(13:09):
And so the girls are like, canyou show us.
And then she's like, oh.
As a note, the little peoplein the box only dance for baddies.
So you have to be naughtier ifyou want them to dance for you.
And they're like, fuck, we'renot naughty.
And the naughtier you are, thebetter they will dance.
Yeah.
So, like, when you say better,do you mean like, they aren't giving
(13:31):
a lot of energy?
Do you mean faster?
I just want to know about.
Like, I've got a lot ofquestions as to what does it mean
for a little miniature personto dance better?
But anyway, the girls arelike, you know what?
I'm going to say this.
Like a Gen Z bet.
No, Cap, we'll be back.
Take it out.
It was bad.
No, I'm leaving that.
No.
So then, you know, Blue Eyesand Turkey are like, we need to see
(13:52):
these miniature people dance.
Like, so fucking help me God,I need to see these miniature people
dance.
So they're like, we're goingto be naughty and we'll be back.
We'll be your naughty girlsand then we'll be back.
So.
Amanda never knows what I'mgonna fucking say.
Nope.
So they go home and then justthe thought of them being bad, they
(14:16):
break down to their mom andthey cry about how they want to be
naughty.
The mom's like, what the fuckis happening, Mom?
I want to be a baddie.
Yeah.
So the three of them chat fora bit and the girls ask what would
happen if they were naughty.
Theoretically, if we were apain in your ass, what would you
do?
(14:37):
Yeah.
And the mom replies, then Ishould have to go away and leave
you and to send home a newmother with glass eyes and a wooden
tail.
Okay, I guess that'sreasonable if you're going to be
a little shit, I'm out, I'm leaving.
And you're going to getsomebody fucking weird in my place.
Like, I can't get.
That's all I can say.
Okay, okay.
Interesting.
So a while later, the girls goto the village again and they encounter
(15:01):
the same girl.
She says that they are stilltoo good and they cannot see the
little people dance.
They explain that they can'tbe bad or their mother will leave
them.
And the girl's like, ah, she'sjust threatening you.
All parents say that she's notgoing to leave.
Reasonable.
So again, the girls are like,oh, okay, okay, we can go be baddies
then.
Yeah, it'll be fine.
(15:21):
We'll go home, we're going tobe naughty.
It's going to go Great.
We're going to see theselittle people dance.
When they get home for teawith their mom, they go and they
break their mugs.
Then they throw bread andbutter on the floor and they just
will not listen to their mom.
Their mom then says the threat again.
But the girl said, nah, it'snot true.
And if a new mom came, wewould stick pins into her and send
(15:43):
her away.
Why?
Why?
Is that what you're gonna do?
Like, I just don't think thatthat's an effective way of.
Who am I?
I'm not Turkey and blue eyes.
That'll solve it.
I don't know why sticking.
Like, I'd be like, can Ifucking help you anyway.
Nope, nope.
You stick pins in them andthey'll go away.
Yeah, why not?
So the mom sends them to bed,but instead of going to bed, they
(16:05):
sat up, they laughed, and theysang songs.
The next day they went to meetthe girl again because, you know,
they were bad.
So they're like, we're gonnasee the people dance.
Like it's time.
But again, it wasn't enough.
Not bad enough to see thelittle dance.
So this pattern just continues.
They go home, they're bad.
They come back, it's not goodenough for the dancers.
And so as the cycle'scontinuing, the mom kind of breaks
(16:27):
down.
She cries and she says if itcontinues anymore, she's going to
have to leave.
And so they feel bad, but theyfigured once they saw the little
people dance, they would justbe good again.
So, like, what's the harm in it?
They go back to the girl andshe says, still not good enough.
But this time she added, hey,I'm actually going to be around your
cottage around 11am and I'mgoing to be playing the pair drum.
(16:50):
And if they were bad enough,they would be able to come outside
and see the dance.
So the girls were like, okay,great, this is going to work.
She's going to be playing thepair drum.
So we're going to hear her coming.
So we're just going to be baduntil we hear her coming.
So they go home, they act like assholes.
The mom gets pissed and she'slike, I'm done.
She picks up the baby and shesays that she's leaving.
(17:10):
I'm fucking out.
She says goodbye and that thenew mother will be there soon.
Fucking out, you little shepherds.
Right?
Just, I'm leaving.
You're bad children.
Goodbye.
So around 11, they hear thelittle girl singing and playing the
pair drum.
She's coming towards their cottage.
So they run Out.
They're like, mom's gone.
We gotta see this dance.
(17:32):
I gotta see these miniaturepeople fucking dance.
I don't need to have a good life.
I just need to know if thesepeople can fucking just move their
bodies, you know?
Yeah.
So of course they ask, can wesee the dance?
And they also tell her, oh,yeah, and our mom left.
The girl said everything theydid wasn't quite right and it just
(17:52):
wasn't enough.
And then the girl was like,oh, yeah, your mom, she boarded a
boat to meet your father.
Oh, and your new mother's onher way.
And then she just continued onher singing path and left.
But so, I mean, why do theyneed to go update her if she knew?
More information.
Also, I don't know how oldthese children are, but I love the
idea that the mom's like,they're a lot.
(18:12):
I'm going to go get on afucking boat with a baby.
I'd rather be on a boat with ababy, with my husband, with these
little assholes.
I just.
Fascinating.
Fascinating.
So the girls were like, okay,we would love for our mom to come
back now.
So they start cleaning up thehome and they're like, maybe if we
clean up our mess, she'll come back.
But then they just heard them.
(18:36):
They heard this loud, like,dragging sound like something heavy
was being dragged.
And then there was like a.
On the door.
So they look outside andthey're like, fuck, our new mother
with her glass eyes is outside.
And I guess apparently theydon't open the fucking door fast
enough.
So she, like, breaks it thefuck down with her tail.
(18:59):
So blue eyes and turkey arelike, we gotta get the fuck out of
here.
So they run out the back doorand you would think we would have
so much more, you know, butno, the store's just like.
And then they lived in aforest near the cottage, and sometimes
they come and look at old hometo see if the new mother is still
there with the glass eyes,dragging her tail on the floor.
(19:22):
I love that.
The.
The moral of the story is ifyou are a little shepherd, your mother
is going to leave.
Yeah.
With the least annoying sibling.
And then what will come intheir place is a peculiar amalgamation
of variables.
As your parent, like, it'll beyour parent, but, like, they're going
(19:42):
to have a wooden tail and someglass eyes or, like, they're going
to have a backwards goose footand they won't stop wearing a top.
Ha.
And they, like, no matter howmuch you ask, they won't stop talking
in, like a fusion southern andIrish accent, right?
Like, I don't understand howwe picked glass eyes and wooden tail,
but I'm here for it.
I don't know.
I love a weird variable.
I want a second book with themhaving an interaction with this creature.
(20:07):
I want, I want, I want asecond book from the new mother's
point of view where she'slike, I heard there were these young
girls who were living on theoutskirts of town like a mile away
by themselves.
And I realized they were home alone.
And I was so scared for themthat I went to take care of them.
And they saw me outside butthey wouldn't let me in.
(20:29):
But I figured that they werehungry because their mother had left
and their father wasn't around.
She comes to take care of themand they run away.
And like every day shesearches the forest for them to like
help find them to bring themback and that sometimes she sees
them outside and she goes andruns to get them because she's like,
I'm sure you're hungry and cold.
And they're like, she's got awooden tail.
(20:51):
She's got a wooden tail andglass eyes.
It doesn't mean she's a badperson, you know, maybe she's a good
person with a wooden tail andglass eyes.
You know, maybe don't judge anew mother by her glass eyes and
wooden tail.
The oldest lesson in time.
That's the story that I wantwhere she's actually this very nice
lady who just has some details.
Maybe, maybe.
(21:11):
But I mean, the weird eyescould have inspired the button eyes,
right?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
And the, the new mother,right, that it's not just, yes, yes,
a monster will come get you.
It is a variation of your mother.
She's got a one tail, glasseyes for some fucking reason.
Also I am curious how the factthat they have to specify that the
(21:33):
tail is wooden makes me wonderif their mother had a tail.
Anyway, neither here nor there.
So back to Coraline.
When Neil Gaiman was writingCoraline, he was also working on
the mythology centered novelAmerican Gods, which I did not read,
but I did watch at least oneor two of the seasons of the show,
which is beautiful.
And many people speculate thatsome of the research that he may
(21:55):
have been doing for AmericanGods may have been the kind of like
the back of his mind when hewas writing Coraline because when
he was working on both, likethe time periods overlapped, which
would that make sense?
Yeah.
Ten years is a long time towrite a book.
Yes, yes.
So there's also someReferences to old folklore, mythology,
and just old lord generallythat we saw.
One example, maybe the othermother being called the Beldam, which
(22:20):
means old woman, or might meanugly old woman, which would, you
know, portray her as a witchor a hag with those definitions.
But the origin of it might befrom a French phrase, which is belle
dame, which means beautiful woman.
So if you put both themeetings together, which is pretty
much what the other mother is,though, right, is that she starts
(22:41):
off being a better version ofCoraline's mother, and then it turns
out she is not a betterversion of Coraline's mother.
She is significantly worse.
Yeah.
Because at the end of themovie, she pretty much is a monster,
too.
Like, she.
She takes off her disguise.
So there's also an old poem byJohn Key.
It's called La Belle Dame sansmerci by French.
(23:02):
Exquisite.
And this means the beautifulwoman without mercy.
In the poem, there is a womanso beautiful that a knight thinks
she's a fairy.
And she's described as havingwild eyes.
I love this.
Everyone's wild looking, right?
You're so beautiful that youare fucking a tiny Tinkerbell lady.
She enchants the night, andshe brings him to her elfin grot,
(23:23):
or the translation would beelf's grotto or cave.
He falls into a dream, whichfeels sad or, like, despair.
He then encounters the ghostsof men that have also been enchanted
and imprisoned before him.
So they're like, just so youknow, you're kind of fucked, this
is what happened.
And it pretty much ends upwith describing his death on the
hillside where he fell asleep.
But so, like, these are justsome of the other things that may
(23:46):
have played into the othermother creation of the story.
I also just do need to pointout that I can't remember.
Have you watched True Blood?
Some of it.
I got bored.
Okay, look, True Blood's beenout for so long that I simply will
not be apologizing for spoilers.
Did you get to the point whereyou find out that the reason why
Sookie can mind read isbecause she's a fairy?
(24:08):
No.
Okay.
She can mind read becauseshe's a fairy.
And I feel like there was.
Whether you're watching itwhen it came out or you're watching
it later on, there is a collective.
When they're like, and she's a fairy.
I watched it with Ben.
I re watched it with him, andhe was watching it for the first
time.
He's like, what is she, like,a fairy or something?
(24:29):
And I looked at him and kindof gave him Like a kind of face.
And he went, she's a fairy.
Why?
And this is very similar tothings that happen in the show is
that beautiful women happen tobe fairies, not just beautiful women.
And that, like, people will,like, fall asleep and then find themselves
in the fairy realm.
And the fairy realm seems verylovely, but it's really not.
(24:51):
It's like.
And one scene, I want to thinkthat there's, like, beautiful, like,
food and stuff, but it'sactually rotted.
And people look, like mysticaland fantastical, but, like, are simply
not that.
Right, right.
And it's just another example,too, at least for this poem, of two
different people.
Right.
He sees a beautiful woman, butactually she's there to kill him.
Yeah.
And kind of the same with Coraline.
(25:11):
She sees what she thinks is abetter mom, but no, she's there to
trap her in this parallel world.
So another old world thingthat we have discussed now several
times is the practice of scrying.
And scrying could haveinfluenced a bit of the movie.
And where it could be seen isCoraline gets a doll of towards the
(25:32):
beginning of the movie, andthen she also has another object
given to her.
Now, scrying makes use of anobject or a medium to detect messages
or visions.
Usually it's a mirror orcrystal ball or something with, like,
a reflective surface.
Right.
Well, in the movie, the buttoneyes on the Coraline doll seem to
work in a similar fashionbecause that's how the other mother
(25:52):
is spying on Coraline.
So she's seeing all of theproblems that she's encountering
so that she can be theopposite when she gets to the other
world.
Additionally, there's a scenein the movie where she's given a
stone with a hole in it, andit's by her neighbors, Miriam and
April, and they tell her it'sused to look for bad things or lost
things.
And they actually, like,debate it in the scene.
(26:13):
They're like, one of them'slike, it's for lost things.
And one's like, no, it's tolook for bad things.
And they kind of bicker about it.
Well, we looked up what thatobject is, and the object has a variety
of names, including ahagstone, an adder stone, a witch
stone, or a fairy stone.
Okay, sometimes it's a stone,sometimes it's a shell that has a
hole in it, but either way,it's something with a hole in it.
(26:35):
Right.
And they're said to havemagical properties.
One theory says only goodthings can pass through a hole, and
bad things Cannot.
And it'll get stuck in the middle.
It came from the old beliefthat magic cannot work on moving
water.
So since these stones aretypically formed by moving water,
it works as a shield againstspells and that sort of thing.
(26:56):
Now, some people even hangthem on their front doors or their
windows to keep evil spirits out.
And they're used on ships toprevent witches from clinging to
them and to break up storm clouds.
Everyone knows witches love tocling to ships.
Classic witch behavior.
Right?
Right.
But I love that, like, it canbe used in a variety of ways.
Right.
Versatile.
(27:16):
Some people like to wear themas necklaces, and it's like, they
only take in good health whenthey're wearing it.
They can't have bad things happen.
Some put them on.
It's going to be your favoritebecause we know.
We love a decorated barn.
Love it.
Some people put it on barndoors to prevent witches from souring
the herd's milk.
Well, it also prevents nallygasters.
Maybe.
(27:36):
Maybe that's where they gotthe idea.
Yeah.
And then kind of like dreamcatchers, they're sometimes used
to prevent nightmares.
And some believe that the holeis actually a portal or a gateway
to see the fairy world.
So another world.
There's so many more.
There's so many more uses.
And in the movie, Coralinegets the object, and she uses it
to see through her othermother's illusions.
(27:58):
So when she's not sure ifsomething's real or fake, she holds
it up to her eye, and then shecan see what the other mother is
like, making her see.
I gotcha.
Interesting.
So we brought this up earlier,but the use of mirrors in Coraline
could also have come from old superstitions.
We've talked about somesuperstitions of mirrors before.
In previous episodes, we did,like, a Friday the 13th episode where
we talked about superstitions once.
We talked about broken mirrors.
(28:20):
We all also talked aboutsuperstitions with mirrors in our
Velisa episode because thekiller covered up the mirrors in
there.
But another superstition withmirrors is that they can trap souls,
whether they are imprisoninglost souls or, like, capturing the
soul of someone who's recently died.
Yeah.
And that's why a lot of peoplecover up mirrors in homes after someone's
(28:41):
dies, so that nobody gets trapped.
Also, like, sometimes there'sjust things that you do because you're
like, I would rather cover upa mirror and nothing happen.
Then, like, someone's soulgets trapped.
Like, maybe you're like, I'm99.9% sure that this is not going
to happen.
But what if I'm wrong anyway?
Yeah, what's the harm?
So in Coraline, the lostchildren are hidden behind a mirror
(29:01):
and she sees her missingparents in that mirror.
So again, it's pretty muchlost souls there.
Then in Coraline, the smalldoor she goes through leads her to
another world.
And surprise, surprise, we'regoing to talk about fairy doors here.
Because that would make sense, right?
Like, this could be similar toa fairy door or.
Or fairies in general, becauseof Neil's experience with the door
(29:22):
that he had in his own homewhere he was like, I wonder if this
just isn't a wall behind here.
And fairies are also prevalentin mythology.
And when you're thinking ofentities that are a little bit, like,
spooky, and I don't want tosay less scary, but they're a mythical
creature where you're like,don't fuck with them or you'll learn
a lesson.
(29:42):
And that feels much more likethe horror and scariness that you
would give a kid where you'reteaching them a lesson rather than
just trying to scare the fuckout of them.
You're not going to be like,and then Leatherface killed everyone.
You know, like, you're like,don't do this thing or something
might happen.
Right, yeah.
So he might have been inspiredby that.
Yeah, yeah.
It's an easy way to talk tokids about something scary.
(30:04):
Yeah, yeah.
And so in Coraline, to supportthis whole fairy theory, there's
even a fairy ring near thewell, which might signal that it's
a way to another world.
So the other mother also makesCoraline a feast to eat while she's
in that other world.
And classic fairy lore is, youknow, that you do not fucking eat
the food from the fairy world.
(30:25):
I am imagining Pan's Labyrinthwith the guy with the eye hands.
A delicious looking feast, butdon't fucking touch it.
So another.
It's just another layer ofwhat would keep her in that other
world.
Yeah.
And so the last possibleinspiration is probably the most
unsettling and is likely moreof an urban legend.
So we couldn't exactly confirmwhere this came from, like names
(30:49):
or more definite information.
But the story is chilling.
And when we talk about urbanlegends, the idea of pseudo facts
and pseudo names are alwaysjust so prevalent.
So even if we could findnames, unless we could find news
articles, it doesn't reallyprove that it happened.
Yeah, exactly.
But.
So let's talk about this urbanlegend anyway.
So it takes place in Hampshirein the UK and then the outskirts
(31:10):
of Hampshire, an old womantook care of her orphaned granddaughter.
And the grandmother was takingcare of the girl because her parents,
which was the woman's son anddaughter in law, died in a fire.
And she was veryoverprotective of the girl and would
never let her out of the house.
She was scared she would lose her.
And the neighbors had nevereven seen the girl.
(31:32):
And for this reason, somelocals called her the bad mother.
This has Rapunzel vibes, ifyou will.
To me.
Yes.
Yes.
Because of the stories thelocal children had heard, they wanted
to meet the girl, which Icould absolutely see that.
Right.
A bunch of kids are like,there's a kid who lives in that house.
We've never seen them.
Yeah.
And then it just snowballedand they're like, well, now, like,
we'll break into this fuckinghouse to see this child.
(31:54):
You know, like, we will do this.
We will find her.
So they organized and decidedthey would break into the woman's
house one night to see her.
When they got in, there wasnothing to suggest that a child lived
in the home other than an old crib.
When they approached the crib.
Don't love this.
They saw the burned corpse ofa baby with buttons sewn where its
(32:16):
eyes should be.
In some versions, they alsoinclude a seam that was sewed where
the mouth would have been.
Ugh.
Ugh.
But the children realized thatthe baby didn't survive the fire,
and they ran home and toldtheir parents what they had seen.
And the old woman was lateradmitted into a psychiatric hospital.
And some versions include hertaking a doll with her that was said
(32:36):
to contain the soul of her granddaughter.
1.
That's just so sad.
The idea of if it was real.
That's so sad.
My heart breaks for the ideaof, like, you aren't supposed to
lose your kid.
That's not how it's supposedto go.
Right.
But your grandbabies sad.
Yeah, that's definitely nothow it's supposed to go.
And so I could see how thatcould hurt the brain if you will.
(32:59):
Make you do some strangethings if you did.
Yeah, yeah.
But that's a fuckinghorrifying story.
And what an urban legend.
You know, it's interesting tothink that, like, this could exist
independently, you know, like,that this is a just a bizarrely similar
kind of aesthetic of thebuttons for eyes kind of deal.
Yeah.
It's unsettling, right?
(33:21):
Just the thought of seeing that.
Unsettling and devastating.
And then also the origin ofthe story.
It's hard to find.
I also noticed when we Werereading the variations story that
most commonly it happened inHampshire, uk.
Right.
But Americans have made it New Hampshire.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
That's the one we know.
That's the first one we sawwhen we were researching too, is
(33:43):
like, it happened in New Hampshire.
And I was like, that's weird.
I'm looking for records andstuff, can't find anything.
And then I find older versionsof the story and it's like, oh, no,
no, no.
It was the uk.
So bizarre.
And I guess that's commonthough, with urban legends.
It starts somewhere and thenit kind of moves around.
Yeah, yeah.
But interesting, scary urban legend.
Yeah, it really.
(34:04):
It really is.
It's deeply unsettling.
And because Neil has workedwith, you know, so many books and
movies and TV shows and all ofthis while writing Coraline over
a span of 10 years, a lot ofhis research for the other stuff
could have inspired it withouthim even knowing.
But like we said at thebeginning, he's done so many interviews
and he kind of leaves littlebreadcrumbs about his inspirations
(34:26):
and all these interviews.
And it's really interesting tosee how much can go into one book.
I think that when you'rethinking of how a story is created
so often you don't necessarilywant to pull from a whole bunch of
sources.
Right.
Like, you want to make it ascreepy as possible without repeating
somebody else's story.
And that's a hard thing to do,to create an independent universe
(34:51):
where the characters aren'ttoo similar to anything else, but
aren't so far fetched that youcan't identify with them and where
the monsters are realisticenough to seem scary, but not realistic
enough, where you don't seethem as monsters.
Right.
Like, it's a weird thing to doand it's hard.
And so I think that he does agood job of whether he was purposely
(35:12):
pulling all of these thingsthat we found today in or whether
they were just like, hmm, interesting.
That's an interesting element.
I'll pull an element from here.
I'll pull an element from there.
It's interesting how muchstuff overlaps with this story in
a very creepy way.
Yeah.
And what a fun time we hadpulling weird, creepy stories from
like different parts of the world.
(35:32):
And like putting thosetogether to be like, these are all
the things that are kind ofsimilar that we don't love this.
Right, Right.
And I remember when I firstwatched the movie, I was like, this
is like new, right?
It's kind of a new concept.
I've never heard of button eyes.
Right.
But never looking at it.
Now I'm like, okay, yeah,Alice in Wonderland could make sense.
Yeah.
There's a lot of differentoverlapping things.
The talking cat just.
(35:53):
I love it.
It's so good.
So we, of course, want toknow, what do you think about the
inspirations or possible inspirations?
And had you heard of these before?
I know our favorite was theBlue Eyes and Turkey, mainly because
of the name.
Love it.
10 out of 10.
And then also, what was yourfirst impression of watching Coraline?
When I first saw it, Iremember thinking, this is creepy
(36:13):
as fuck and perhaps too creepyfor children.
Yes.
Yes.
And somewhere I read again, Iwant to read the book.
I want to read the original.
But they made the Wybiecharacter into the movie because
it was so scary and it was her alone.
And they're like, okay, thiswill make it easier.
Right?
Like, it'll.
It gives her someone to talkto and it gives her someone to go
(36:33):
through this with.
So.
Which makes sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I love it.
I watched the movie again thisweek to prepare, and I was like,
oh, I forgot about a lot ofthis stuff.
I forgot about nearly all ofthis movie until we did a rewatch
before we did the research.
I was like, I don't remember this.
I don't remember this either.
It's very intricate.
But I also have a habit offorgetting any media once consumed,
(36:57):
so.
But it is a good movie, so ifyou haven't seen it, check it out.
Yeah.
Now, we're nearing the end ofthe year, and so we do want to mention
that we typically do not havenew episodes for the month of December.
So we only have a couple leftthis year.
Wild.
I cannot believe we arenearing the end of 2024.
Woof.
Woof.
(37:17):
I just.
My mind is blown.
We are recording things in abit of advance so that we can enjoy
Spooky season.
And the end of the year notfeels quite so stressful.
And so we're recording evenfurther out.
So it's wild to think thatthis is, like, we have, what, three
more episodes that we'rerecording for this year and then
nothing till next year.
(37:37):
Wild.
Yeah, it went by very quickly,but we've had a good time with all
of these episodes.
Yes.
Always.
Always.
Well, with that.
Have a great weekend.
Thanks for creeping with us.
So we're back.
We're recording this littlesection after we did our Coraline
episode a while back.
We do want to bring up that wedid see that Gamon has been involved
(37:59):
with some sexual assault allegations.
So we just wanted to bringthat up that we do acknowledge that
we don't condone anything.
Yeah, they're allegations fromwhat we can see right now.
But we will be following that.
Yeah, we recorded this episodebefore we had learned about the allegations
and we thought that theunderlying current of today's episode
was more about creepy,overlapping stories than it was about
(38:21):
him.
So we're talking aboutCoraline, not about that fuck.
Exactly.
I'm going to say that fuckbecause I'm going to go ahead and
assume most allegations untilwe have some solid evidence or not.
Because from our understandingit was several women.
And even if it was just one,we're going to go ahead and believe
allegations because I don'tthink they would be coming to light
in this way if there was notsome substance to them.
(38:42):
Agreed.
Thanks for listening and asalways, a special thank you to our
patrons who support us via Patreon.
Please see the link in ourshow notes to learn more about how
you yes, you can begin tohaunt the dump guard vortexes or
even become a scorching Sasquatch.
Also in our show notes you canfind the link to our website, more
(39:04):
information on our sources,our social media handles, and our
merch store.
We'd love for you to keepcreeping with us, so if you like
this episode, pleasesubscribe, rate, review and share
the show with your fellowcreeps and or ghosts.
I beg of you.
In the book, she goes througha tiny world to a new door.
(39:27):
And the being on the other side.
A tiny world to a new door.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did.
Yeah, I did.
Oh.
So okay.
In the book, Coraline goesthrough a tiny door.
You got it that time.
I know I did.
But then I was like, I doubted myself.
And then I laughed because Iwas like, that one's right, year's
(39:47):
lady.
Now I can't talk.
When Neil was writingCoraline, he was also working on
the masala, the chicken tikkamasala, and a monster.
She turns into like a sponsoror a spider thing.
I think she turns into apodcast sponsor.
Welcome to True Creep,sponsored by the Other mother.
(40:09):
I'm goofy today, Mom.
I want to be a baddie.
Hi.
Welcome to True Creeps, wherethe stories are true and the creeps
are real.
We'll cover stories fromgrotesque gore to.
The possibly plausibleparanormal to horrifying history
to tense and terrible truecrime and.
Everything else that goes bumpin the night.
We're your hosts, Amanda.
And I'm Lindsey, and we wantyou to join us.
While we creep, we covermature topics.
(00:24):
Listener discretion is advised.
Hello, everyone.
Today we are going to chatabout the possible inspirations for
the movie Coraline.
And we're talking aboutCoraline because it's going to be
coming back to theaters forits 15th anniversary this year.
So people are watching it again.
(00:44):
Yeah.
Every time anything in theworld starts to have anniversaries
that are over 10 years, I justhave this, like, deep and heavy sigh,
like, oh, I'm old now.
Which, Like, I'm not that old.
I'm not even 40 yet.
But, like, it's still like,oh, no.
Like, I can say 20 years ago.
And it's like, me as asentient human, you know, it's not
like, yes.
You weren't a child.
(01:04):
Me being like, I was just ateeny baby.
But, no, no, no, no.
Yeah.
But it is a classically, like,spooky story, I think.
I think so.
I really loved it when itfirst came out, and in my head, it
came out, like, three years ago.
Not 15.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Definitely not 15.
It's great.
So if you don't know whatCoraline is, it is a kids movie,
but it's pretty unsettling.
(01:27):
And we've touched on it beforein other episodes.
But a lot of kids stories havereally creepy or unsettling beginnings.
Right.
Like, we did a whole episodeon it a while back.
This one, I think, isparticularly spooky.
These are stories that I hadnot heard of, which I feel like most
people have not heard of a lotof these stories.
Yeah.
For good reason.
Yeah, we dug deep.
(01:47):
Yeah.
So if you haven't seen it, youshould make some time to watch it.
But let's give you a quickrecap of what it's about.
Coraline is 11, and she movesto a new place with her mom and dad.
After moving, she's feelingbored, and she's kind of neglected
by her parents.
They're not bad parents, butthey're busy.
Right.
While exploring, she finds ahidden door that's been bricked up.
(02:08):
But during the night, she'sable to go through the door, and
she enters a strange, newparallel world.
Now, in this world, everyonehas buttons instead of eyes, and
it's very creepy.
She has another mother in thisworld, and this other mother seems
like she's everything thatCoraline's been wanting.
The other mother invites herto stay, but in order to do so, she
(02:30):
must get button eyes.
That seems very creepy and,like, jarring.
Yeah, yeah.
So of course Coraline's like,this is weird.
Doesn't want to.
Then she slowly discovers thatthe other world isn't all that it
seems, and she has to escapeand save her real family.
So, yeah.
What a creepy fucking story.
I do like creepy for kids, though.
(02:52):
That's a fun time.
I do, too.
I do, too.
And I love all the Halloweencostumes that I've been seeing already
this year.
Yes.
Well, you know, it's beenaround for 15 years, but it's also
iconic when you say buttonsfor eyes and you have that very specific
bob, especially if it's blue.
People know your core line.
Like, anything else is justgravy on top.
Yeah, she has the blue bob,and then she's always wearing that,
(03:14):
like, yellow rain jacket.
Yeah.
But I feel like you don't evenneed the rain jacket.
It's just button for eyes.
Blue bob.
Yeah.
So let's get into whatinspired the movie to start.
There was a book written in2002 by Neil Gaiman called Coraline
Shock.
There, I say with a little bitof humor, but I also did not know
that Neil Gaiman was involvedwith Coraline whatsoever.
No, I didn't either.
(03:35):
He was like, I don't know whatI thought it was, who did it.
But, yeah, I didn't read thebook or anything, but now I kind
of want to.
Yeah, I'm intrigued.
I'm intrigued.
So the story is very similarto the movie with a few differences,
like settings and some characters.
In the book, as always,there's bloopers at the end.
So if you ever hear Amanda andI laughing at a part where you're
(03:56):
like, that's not that funny.
It's because we've said utternonsense for people who are like,
hey, listen to us talk.
We are not so great at it.
Sometimes in the book,Coraline goes through a tiny door
to a new world, and then thebeing on the other side wants her
to stay and to sew buttonsonto her eyes.
And the question still stands,though, like, where the fuck did
(04:19):
he get this from?
Right?
Like, where did he get thestory of a little girl in a weird
world with buttons being sewninto the eyes?
Right.
Like, yeah, it's still fuckingscary, even if we're like, okay,
it's Based on a book.
But how did we get there?
So Neil says that he got theidea from his daughter Holly when
she was just four years old.
So she would go tokindergarten and when she would come
back, she would see him writing.
(04:39):
So she would crawl up on hislap and tell him stories that he
could type them out for her.
And she called them Holly story.
How cute.
So cute.
Love a little baby world builder.
So many of Holly's storiesinvolved young girls who would encounter
evil witches pretending to betheir mothers.
The witches would lock thelittle girls up, but they would always
manage to escape.
And he said that it wasterrifying, but it was also cool
(05:02):
that she liked, quote thisweird gothic fiction.
I love when a kid is creepy.
I love that for them,especially if they're storytelling
on purpose, not just likestanding at the end of your bed staring
at you while breathing heavily.
You know, that's creepycreepy, not cute creepy.
Anyway, so Neil was like, Ilove that she wants to write and
I love that she wants to hearsome scary stories.
(05:23):
So I'll go get her some.
And then he looks and there'snot a lot of scary stories for kids
at that time.
Yeah.
And he wanted a scary bookthat was for four year olds.
So he was like, you know what?
I'll write her one.
Which.
Love that.
Yeah, it's cute.
So what he planned is forCoraline to be a short story.
Neil says that he borrowedbits from his childhood and even
the layout of the flat wherehe used to live.
(05:45):
So some of the story overlapswith, like his personal experience.
But when he's talking aboutthe door that opened into a wall,
that's actually something thathe encountered when he was a kid.
And he always wondered if hecontinued to open the little door,
perhaps something other than awall would be there.
Yeah.
So that was just like hisimagination that he kind of interwove
(06:06):
into the story.
And then initially he had thelayout of the story of Coraline for
her to go through the door andfind the other mother.
But then when he startedwriting, realized that this wasn't
just going to be a shortstory, he had so much more to add
to the plot.
It took him 10 years to finishthe story.
And he said that he had tostop and start several times because,
you know, life.
(06:26):
And then he'd go, he'd pick itup again.
And then when he did, towards,you know, the last few times, he
realized that Holly was nowtoo old for the book, but that his
second daughter, Maddie, wasalso nearing being too old for it.
So he's like, I gotta get this done.
Yeah, I gotta get it done for her.
For Maddie.
So when he read it to Maddie,who was 6 at the time, she liked
(06:46):
it.
So he's like, okay, that'sgood feedback.
Eventually, the story got sentto Tim Burton and Henry Selick at
Neil's request.
And about a week later, HenrySelleck called him and said that
he wanted to make it into amovie in 2001.
Years later, in 2009, themovie came out.
So now we know the storystarted with his daughter, but then
there's also otherinspirations for the book.
(07:08):
So let's start with the onesthat Neil has confirmed.
In an interview, Neil said GKChesterton's quote really inspired
him.
And he summed up the quote as,you are not telling children that
the bogeyman exists or dragonsor monsters, because they know they
exist.
Instead, you're tellingchildren these monsters can be defeated.
(07:29):
Okay, I like it.
I like it.
Yeah.
I also do need to point out atthis moment that I have never called
him, that I've always said the Boogeyman.
Yes.
And that I think that's aregional thing.
Yeah.
We may have talked about thisbefore, but I was like, that's wild.
That's a.
That feels like a big regionalthing, though, the Boogeyman, because
he's a common trope.
(07:50):
Yeah.
But interesting.
Back to your bogeyman, though.
My bad.
So he mentioned that thisquote stuck with him, and I did look
up the real quote.
It's a little different, butit gets the same message across.
Additionally, Henry Selick,the director of the movie Coraline,
said that it was Alice inWonderland meets Hansel and Gretel,
which, like, now, I can'tunsee that.
(08:10):
It really is.
Yeah, it really, really is.
And many theorize thatinitially, Neil may have been inspired
by Lewis Carroll's Alice'sAdventures in Wonderland and through
the Looking Glass, becausethey do have a couple similar situations
that happen, like following ananimal into another world, Mirrors,
showing another world, and ofcourse, a talking cat.
(08:32):
And we're going to bring upmirrors again later.
Overall, Neil has done so manyinterviews and various introductions
to Coraline, like, for all ofthe different editions that were
released, and he's mentionedseveral authors, dark fairy tales
and other inspirations.
There's also been a lot ofpeople who have speculated what else
could have inspired Neil, andthey're basing it off of things that
(08:53):
he's mentioned he's read orthings that he's seen during interviews
for Coraline and other worksthat he's worked on.
So he's been in charge of,like, TV shows and various other
medias.
Yeah.
What we've done for today'sepisode is we tried to compile a
collection of some of theselesser known stories and how it may
(09:13):
relate to Coraline.
So the first story we're goingto talk about is called the New Mother,
and it's said to have inspiredthe other mother character.
So this is an 1882 story, andit's by a Victorian author named
Lucy Clifford, but it's beenretold in several different folklore
books, and it's even in scaryStories to Tell in the Dark.
So there's different variations.
And so you may have heard thisstory and it may have been called
(09:35):
a different name.
Some of those names includethe Pear Drum or the Drum.
Each changes slightly.
But we're going to review thebasics of the original story.
Just first off, I just lovethe names of the two sisters.
Their names are Blue Eyes and Turkey.
And in different versions,they have different names, but we're
going to call them Blue Eyesand Turkey because those are the
(09:57):
best versions.
Yeah.
Blue Eyes is the eldestdaughter, and she earned her name
after her in her father's eyes.
I'm just pretty sure that mostbabies have blue eyes when they're
born, don't they?
Like, isn't that, like, a thing?
So, like, they could have blueeyes and then change because my nieces
were very blue and now theyare not very blue.
Anywho, Turkey, she was named after.
(10:21):
I just love this so much.
So Turkey, when she was veryyoung, she cried so much because
there was a turkey that livednear their cottage, but it vanished
in the middle of winter, andshe was just so upset, so they decided
to call her Turkey going forward.
I'm so sad.
I thought that her birth namewas Turkey, but, like, I still.
I love a nickname.
But you cried a lot because ofthis Turkey when you were just a
(10:41):
little kid.
So now you're Turkey.
Now you're gonna think aboutit for the rest of your life because
we're gonna call you out.
Yeah.
Now we're gonna make you sadevery time anybody talks to you.
Yeah.
So the sisters also had ayounger sibling that was still a
baby.
Their dad was away at sea,good old Blue Eyes.
And Turkey would walk to thevillage, and it was about a mile
and a half away.
And when they were goingthere, it was typically so they could
(11:03):
go to the post office to seeif their father had written them
any letters.
One day, their mother waslike, the two of you go to the post
office, see if your fatherwrote any letters.
In my head, I'm like.
She was like, you're runningand playing in the house.
Why don't you go see ifthere's some letters?
You know, Probably.
Yeah.
But she's like, hey, it iscold though, so like, hurry up and
don't talk to strangers whileyou're on the way.
(11:24):
Fair.
And they're like, sounds good, theoretically.
So when they got to thevillage, they saw that they had just
missed a fair and they werepretty sad that they had missed it.
Which, you know.
You know, that's reasonable.
Yeah.
When they got to the postoffice, which was located inside
of a grocery store, there wasno mail, which meant there were no
letters from their father.
So, you know, they're disappointed.
And as they're leaving thevillage, they notice they quote,
(11:46):
wild looking girl who wasaround 15 years old.
She's wearing ragged clothesand she just generally seems like
she's not so happy.
So they go up to her to see ifthey can help her with anything.
And as they approach her, theysee her hide something under her
shawl.
So like, this is suspicious.
And she looks kind of asthough she was crying.
So they ask her, have you been crying?
(12:07):
And she replies, she has not.
So they talk to her for a bitand they learn that she had lived
in the village but they hadnever seen her before, which I feel
like you would notice anotherperson who was like around the same
age, especially if you'regoing back and forth.
Yeah.
Because villages aren't that big.
But anyhow, they asked whatshe was sitting on and she responds
that she's sitting on a pear drum.
(12:27):
And the girls are like, we donot know what that is.
And so she shows them.
It's kind of like a guitar inshape, but it only has three strings
and two pegs to tune those strings.
It also has a small square boxattached to the side.
And so they chat with thisgirl for a bit more.
And as they're doing this,she's talking to what appears to
be someone in a little box.
(12:48):
And they're like, she seems legit.
We should hear what she has tosay about the people in this box.
And she's like, oh, no worries.
There's just a little man, alittle woman in the box.
And if I play for them, theywill dance.
Okay.
Presumably she's playing thepair drum instrument we discussed
earlier.
Yeah.
But they're like, oh, reasonable.
Makes sense.
These tiny people in this boxwould dance.
(13:09):
And so the girls are like, canyou show us.
And then she's like, oh.
As a note, the little peoplein the box only dance for baddies.
So you have to be naughtier ifyou want them to dance for you.
And they're like, fuck, we'renot naughty.
And the naughtier you are, thebetter they will dance.
Yeah.
So, like, when you say better,do you mean like, they aren't giving
(13:31):
a lot of energy?
Do you mean faster?
I just want to know about.
Like, I've got a lot ofquestions as to what does it mean
for a little miniature personto dance better?
But anyway, the girls arelike, you know what?
I'm going to say this.
Like a Gen Z bet.
No, Cap, we'll be back.
Take it out.
It was bad.
No, I'm leaving that.
No.
So then, you know, Blue Eyesand Turkey are like, we need to see
(13:52):
these miniature people dance.
Like, so fucking help me God,I need to see these miniature people
dance.
So they're like, we're goingto be naughty and we'll be back.
We'll be your naughty girlsand then we'll be back.
So.
Amanda never knows what I'mgonna fucking say.
Nope.
So they go home and then justthe thought of them being bad, they
(14:16):
break down to their mom andthey cry about how they want to be
naughty.
The mom's like, what the fuckis happening, Mom?
I want to be a baddie.
Yeah.
So the three of them chat fora bit and the girls ask what would
happen if they were naughty.
Theoretically, if we were apain in your ass, what would you
do?
(14:37):
Yeah.
And the mom replies, then Ishould have to go away and leave
you and to send home a newmother with glass eyes and a wooden
tail.
Okay, I guess that'sreasonable if you're going to be
a little shit, I'm out, I'm leaving.
And you're going to getsomebody fucking weird in my place.
Like, I can't get.
That's all I can say.
Okay, okay.
Interesting.
So a while later, the girls goto the village again and they encounter
(15:01):
the same girl.
She says that they are stilltoo good and they cannot see the
little people dance.
They explain that they can'tbe bad or their mother will leave
them.
And the girl's like, ah, she'sjust threatening you.
All parents say that she's notgoing to leave.
Reasonable.
So again, the girls are like,oh, okay, okay, we can go be baddies
then.
Yeah, it'll be fine.
(15:21):
We'll go home, we're going tobe naughty.
It's going to go Great.
We're going to see theselittle people dance.
When they get home for teawith their mom, they go and they
break their mugs.
Then they throw bread andbutter on the floor and they just
will not listen to their mom.
Their mom then says the threat again.
But the girl said, nah, it'snot true.
And if a new mom came, wewould stick pins into her and send
(15:43):
her away.
Why?
Why?
Is that what you're gonna do?
Like, I just don't think thatthat's an effective way of.
Who am I?
I'm not Turkey and blue eyes.
That'll solve it.
I don't know why sticking.
Like, I'd be like, can Ifucking help you anyway.
Nope, nope.
You stick pins in them andthey'll go away.
Yeah, why not?
So the mom sends them to bed,but instead of going to bed, they
(16:05):
sat up, they laughed, and theysang songs.
The next day they went to meetthe girl again because, you know,
they were bad.
So they're like, we're gonnasee the people dance.
Like it's time.
But again, it wasn't enough.
Not bad enough to see thelittle dance.
So this pattern just continues.
They go home, they're bad.
They come back, it's not goodenough for the dancers.
And so as the cycle'scontinuing, the mom kind of breaks
(16:27):
down.
She cries and she says if itcontinues anymore, she's going to
have to leave.
And so they feel bad, but theyfigured once they saw the little
people dance, they would justbe good again.
So, like, what's the harm in it?
They go back to the girl andshe says, still not good enough.
But this time she added, hey,I'm actually going to be around your
cottage around 11am and I'mgoing to be playing the pair drum.
(16:50):
And if they were bad enough,they would be able to come outside
and see the dance.
So the girls were like, okay,great, this is going to work.
She's going to be playing thepair drum.
So we're going to hear her coming.
So we're just going to be baduntil we hear her coming.
So they go home, they act like assholes.
The mom gets pissed and she'slike, I'm done.
She picks up the baby and shesays that she's leaving.
(17:10):
I'm fucking out.
She says goodbye and that thenew mother will be there soon.
Fucking out, you little shepherds.
Right?
Just, I'm leaving.
You're bad children.
Goodbye.
So around 11, they hear thelittle girl singing and playing the
pair drum.
She's coming towards their cottage.
So they run Out.
They're like, mom's gone.
We gotta see this dance.
(17:32):
I gotta see these miniaturepeople fucking dance.
I don't need to have a good life.
I just need to know if thesepeople can fucking just move their
bodies, you know?
Yeah.
So of course they ask, can wesee the dance?
And they also tell her, oh,yeah, and our mom left.
The girl said everything theydid wasn't quite right and it just
(17:52):
wasn't enough.
And then the girl was like,oh, yeah, your mom, she boarded a
boat to meet your father.
Oh, and your new mother's onher way.
And then she just continued onher singing path and left.
But so, I mean, why do theyneed to go update her if she knew?
More information.
Also, I don't know how oldthese children are, but I love the
idea that the mom's like,they're a lot.
(18:12):
I'm going to go get on afucking boat with a baby.
I'd rather be on a boat with ababy, with my husband, with these
little assholes.
I just.
Fascinating.
Fascinating.
So the girls were like, okay,we would love for our mom to come
back now.
So they start cleaning up thehome and they're like, maybe if we
clean up our mess, she'll come back.
But then they just heard them.
(18:36):
They heard this loud, like,dragging sound like something heavy
was being dragged.
And then there was like a.
On the door.
So they look outside andthey're like, fuck, our new mother
with her glass eyes is outside.
And I guess apparently theydon't open the fucking door fast
enough.
So she, like, breaks it thefuck down with her tail.
(18:59):
So blue eyes and turkey arelike, we gotta get the fuck out of
here.
So they run out the back doorand you would think we would have
so much more, you know, butno, the store's just like.
And then they lived in aforest near the cottage, and sometimes
they come and look at old hometo see if the new mother is still
there with the glass eyes,dragging her tail on the floor.
(19:22):
I love that.
The.
The moral of the story is ifyou are a little shepherd, your mother
is going to leave.
Yeah.
With the least annoying sibling.
And then what will come intheir place is a peculiar amalgamation
of variables.
As your parent, like, it'll beyour parent, but, like, they're going
(19:42):
to have a wooden tail and someglass eyes or, like, they're going
to have a backwards goose footand they won't stop wearing a top.
Ha.
And they, like, no matter howmuch you ask, they won't stop talking
in, like a fusion southern andIrish accent, right?
Like, I don't understand howwe picked glass eyes and wooden tail,
but I'm here for it.
I don't know.
I love a weird variable.
I want a second book with themhaving an interaction with this creature.
(20:07):
I want, I want, I want asecond book from the new mother's
point of view where she'slike, I heard there were these young
girls who were living on theoutskirts of town like a mile away
by themselves.
And I realized they were home alone.
And I was so scared for themthat I went to take care of them.
And they saw me outside butthey wouldn't let me in.
(20:29):
But I figured that they werehungry because their mother had left
and their father wasn't around.
She comes to take care of themand they run away.
And like every day shesearches the forest for them to like
help find them to bring themback and that sometimes she sees
them outside and she goes andruns to get them because she's like,
I'm sure you're hungry and cold.
And they're like, she's got awooden tail.
(20:51):
She's got a wooden tail andglass eyes.
It doesn't mean she's a badperson, you know, maybe she's a good
person with a wooden tail andglass eyes.
You know, maybe don't judge anew mother by her glass eyes and
wooden tail.
The oldest lesson in time.
That's the story that I wantwhere she's actually this very nice
lady who just has some details.
Maybe, maybe.
(21:11):
But I mean, the weird eyescould have inspired the button eyes,
right?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
And the, the new mother,right, that it's not just, yes, yes,
a monster will come get you.
It is a variation of your mother.
She's got a one tail, glasseyes for some fucking reason.
Also I am curious how the factthat they have to specify that the
(21:33):
tail is wooden makes me wonderif their mother had a tail.
Anyway, neither here nor there.
So back to Coraline.
When Neil Gaiman was writingCoraline, he was also working on
the mythology centered novelAmerican Gods, which I did not read,
but I did watch at least oneor two of the seasons of the show,
which is beautiful.
And many people speculate thatsome of the research that he may
(21:55):
have been doing for AmericanGods may have been the kind of like
the back of his mind when hewas writing Coraline because when
he was working on both, likethe time periods overlapped, which
would that make sense?
Yeah.
Ten years is a long time towrite a book.
Yes, yes.
So there's also someReferences to old folklore, mythology,
and just old lord generallythat we saw.
One example, maybe the othermother being called the Beldam, which
(22:20):
means old woman, or might meanugly old woman, which would, you
know, portray her as a witchor a hag with those definitions.
But the origin of it might befrom a French phrase, which is belle
dame, which means beautiful woman.
So if you put both themeetings together, which is pretty
much what the other mother is,though, right, is that she starts
(22:41):
off being a better version ofCoraline's mother, and then it turns
out she is not a betterversion of Coraline's mother.
She is significantly worse.
Yeah.
Because at the end of themovie, she pretty much is a monster,
too.
Like, she.
She takes off her disguise.
So there's also an old poem byJohn Key.
It's called La Belle Dame sansmerci by French.
(23:02):
Exquisite.
And this means the beautifulwoman without mercy.
In the poem, there is a womanso beautiful that a knight thinks
she's a fairy.
And she's described as havingwild eyes.
I love this.
Everyone's wild looking, right?
You're so beautiful that youare fucking a tiny Tinkerbell lady.
She enchants the night, andshe brings him to her elfin grot,
(23:23):
or the translation would beelf's grotto or cave.
He falls into a dream, whichfeels sad or, like, despair.
He then encounters the ghostsof men that have also been enchanted
and imprisoned before him.
So they're like, just so youknow, you're kind of fucked, this
is what happened.
And it pretty much ends upwith describing his death on the
hillside where he fell asleep.
But so, like, these are justsome of the other things that may
(23:46):
have played into the othermother creation of the story.
I also just do need to pointout that I can't remember.
Have you watched True Blood?
Some of it.
I got bored.
Okay, look, True Blood's beenout for so long that I simply will
not be apologizing for spoilers.
Did you get to the point whereyou find out that the reason why
Sookie can mind read isbecause she's a fairy?
(24:08):
No.
Okay.
She can mind read becauseshe's a fairy.
And I feel like there was.
Whether you're watching itwhen it came out or you're watching
it later on, there is a collective.
When they're like, and she's a fairy.
I watched it with Ben.
I re watched it with him, andhe was watching it for the first
time.
He's like, what is she, like,a fairy or something?
(24:29):
And I looked at him and kindof gave him Like a kind of face.
And he went, she's a fairy.
Why?
And this is very similar tothings that happen in the show is
that beautiful women happen tobe fairies, not just beautiful women.
And that, like, people will,like, fall asleep and then find themselves
in the fairy realm.
And the fairy realm seems verylovely, but it's really not.
(24:51):
It's like.
And one scene, I want to thinkthat there's, like, beautiful, like,
food and stuff, but it'sactually rotted.
And people look, like mysticaland fantastical, but, like, are simply
not that.
Right, right.
And it's just another example,too, at least for this poem, of two
different people.
Right.
He sees a beautiful woman, butactually she's there to kill him.
Yeah.
And kind of the same with Coraline.
(25:11):
She sees what she thinks is abetter mom, but no, she's there to
trap her in this parallel world.
So another old world thingthat we have discussed now several
times is the practice of scrying.
And scrying could haveinfluenced a bit of the movie.
And where it could be seen isCoraline gets a doll of towards the
(25:32):
beginning of the movie, andthen she also has another object
given to her.
Now, scrying makes use of anobject or a medium to detect messages
or visions.
Usually it's a mirror orcrystal ball or something with, like,
a reflective surface.
Right.
Well, in the movie, the buttoneyes on the Coraline doll seem to
work in a similar fashionbecause that's how the other mother
(25:52):
is spying on Coraline.
So she's seeing all of theproblems that she's encountering
so that she can be theopposite when she gets to the other
world.
Additionally, there's a scenein the movie where she's given a
stone with a hole in it, andit's by her neighbors, Miriam and
April, and they tell her it'sused to look for bad things or lost
things.
And they actually, like,debate it in the scene.
(26:13):
They're like, one of them'slike, it's for lost things.
And one's like, no, it's tolook for bad things.
And they kind of bicker about it.
Well, we looked up what thatobject is, and the object has a variety
of names, including ahagstone, an adder stone, a witch
stone, or a fairy stone.
Okay, sometimes it's a stone,sometimes it's a shell that has a
hole in it, but either way,it's something with a hole in it.
(26:35):
Right.
And they're said to havemagical properties.
One theory says only goodthings can pass through a hole, and
bad things Cannot.
And it'll get stuck in the middle.
It came from the old beliefthat magic cannot work on moving
water.
So since these stones aretypically formed by moving water,
it works as a shield againstspells and that sort of thing.
(26:56):
Now, some people even hangthem on their front doors or their
windows to keep evil spirits out.
And they're used on ships toprevent witches from clinging to
them and to break up storm clouds.
Everyone knows witches love tocling to ships.
Classic witch behavior.
Right?
Right.
But I love that, like, it canbe used in a variety of ways.
Right.
Versatile.
(27:16):
Some people like to wear themas necklaces, and it's like, they
only take in good health whenthey're wearing it.
They can't have bad things happen.
Some put them on.
It's going to be your favoritebecause we know.
We love a decorated barn.
Love it.
Some people put it on barndoors to prevent witches from souring
the herd's milk.
Well, it also prevents nallygasters.
Maybe.
(27:36):
Maybe that's where they gotthe idea.
Yeah.
And then kind of like dreamcatchers, they're sometimes used
to prevent nightmares.
And some believe that the holeis actually a portal or a gateway
to see the fairy world.
So another world.
There's so many more.
There's so many more uses.
And in the movie, Coralinegets the object, and she uses it
to see through her othermother's illusions.
(27:58):
So when she's not sure ifsomething's real or fake, she holds
it up to her eye, and then shecan see what the other mother is
like, making her see.
I gotcha.
Interesting.
So we brought this up earlier,but the use of mirrors in Coraline
could also have come from old superstitions.
We've talked about somesuperstitions of mirrors before.
In previous episodes, we did,like, a Friday the 13th episode where
we talked about superstitions once.
We talked about broken mirrors.
(28:20):
We all also talked aboutsuperstitions with mirrors in our
Velisa episode because thekiller covered up the mirrors in
there.
But another superstition withmirrors is that they can trap souls,
whether they are imprisoninglost souls or, like, capturing the
soul of someone who's recently died.
Yeah.
And that's why a lot of peoplecover up mirrors in homes after someone's
(28:41):
dies, so that nobody gets trapped.
Also, like, sometimes there'sjust things that you do because you're
like, I would rather cover upa mirror and nothing happen.
Then, like, someone's soulgets trapped.
Like, maybe you're like, I'm99.9% sure that this is not going
to happen.
But what if I'm wrong anyway?
Yeah, what's the harm?
So in Coraline, the lostchildren are hidden behind a mirror
(29:01):
and she sees her missingparents in that mirror.
So again, it's pretty muchlost souls there.
Then in Coraline, the smalldoor she goes through leads her to
another world.
And surprise, surprise, we'regoing to talk about fairy doors here.
Because that would make sense, right?
Like, this could be similar toa fairy door or.
Or fairies in general, becauseof Neil's experience with the door
(29:22):
that he had in his own homewhere he was like, I wonder if this
just isn't a wall behind here.
And fairies are also prevalentin mythology.
And when you're thinking ofentities that are a little bit, like,
spooky, and I don't want tosay less scary, but they're a mythical
creature where you're like,don't fuck with them or you'll learn
a lesson.
(29:42):
And that feels much more likethe horror and scariness that you
would give a kid where you'reteaching them a lesson rather than
just trying to scare the fuckout of them.
You're not going to be like,and then Leatherface killed everyone.
You know, like, you're like,don't do this thing or something
might happen.
Right, yeah.
So he might have been inspiredby that.
Yeah, yeah.
It's an easy way to talk tokids about something scary.
(30:04):
Yeah, yeah.
And so in Coraline, to supportthis whole fairy theory, there's
even a fairy ring near thewell, which might signal that it's
a way to another world.
So the other mother also makesCoraline a feast to eat while she's
in that other world.
And classic fairy lore is, youknow, that you do not fucking eat
the food from the fairy world.
(30:25):
I am imagining Pan's Labyrinthwith the guy with the eye hands.
A delicious looking feast, butdon't fucking touch it.
So another.
It's just another layer ofwhat would keep her in that other
world.
Yeah.
And so the last possibleinspiration is probably the most
unsettling and is likely moreof an urban legend.
So we couldn't exactly confirmwhere this came from, like names
(30:49):
or more definite information.
But the story is chilling.
And when we talk about urbanlegends, the idea of pseudo facts
and pseudo names are alwaysjust so prevalent.
So even if we could findnames, unless we could find news
articles, it doesn't reallyprove that it happened.
Yeah, exactly.
But.
So let's talk about this urbanlegend anyway.
So it takes place in Hampshirein the UK and then the outskirts
(31:10):
of Hampshire, an old womantook care of her orphaned granddaughter.
And the grandmother was takingcare of the girl because her parents,
which was the woman's son anddaughter in law, died in a fire.
And she was veryoverprotective of the girl and would
never let her out of the house.
She was scared she would lose her.
And the neighbors had nevereven seen the girl.
(31:32):
And for this reason, somelocals called her the bad mother.
This has Rapunzel vibes, ifyou will.
To me.
Yes.
Yes.
Because of the stories thelocal children had heard, they wanted
to meet the girl, which Icould absolutely see that.
Right.
A bunch of kids are like,there's a kid who lives in that house.
We've never seen them.
Yeah.
And then it just snowballedand they're like, well, now, like,
we'll break into this fuckinghouse to see this child.
(31:54):
You know, like, we will do this.
We will find her.
So they organized and decidedthey would break into the woman's
house one night to see her.
When they got in, there wasnothing to suggest that a child lived
in the home other than an old crib.
When they approached the crib.
Don't love this.
They saw the burned corpse ofa baby with buttons sewn where its
(32:16):
eyes should be.
In some versions, they alsoinclude a seam that was sewed where
the mouth would have been.
Ugh.
Ugh.
But the children realized thatthe baby didn't survive the fire,
and they ran home and toldtheir parents what they had seen.
And the old woman was lateradmitted into a psychiatric hospital.
And some versions include hertaking a doll with her that was said
(32:36):
to contain the soul of her granddaughter.
1.
That's just so sad.
The idea of if it was real.
That's so sad.
My heart breaks for the ideaof, like, you aren't supposed to
lose your kid.
That's not how it's supposedto go.
Right.
But your grandbabies sad.
Yeah, that's definitely nothow it's supposed to go.
And so I could see how thatcould hurt the brain if you will.
(32:59):
Make you do some strangethings if you did.
Yeah, yeah.
But that's a fuckinghorrifying story.
And what an urban legend.
You know, it's interesting tothink that, like, this could exist
independently, you know, like,that this is a just a bizarrely similar
kind of aesthetic of thebuttons for eyes kind of deal.
Yeah.
It's unsettling, right?
(33:21):
Just the thought of seeing that.
Unsettling and devastating.
And then also the origin ofthe story.
It's hard to find.
I also noticed when we Werereading the variations story that
most commonly it happened inHampshire, uk.
Right.
But Americans have made it New Hampshire.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
That's the one we know.
That's the first one we sawwhen we were researching too, is
(33:43):
like, it happened in New Hampshire.
And I was like, that's weird.
I'm looking for records andstuff, can't find anything.
And then I find older versionsof the story and it's like, oh, no,
no, no.
It was the uk.
So bizarre.
And I guess that's commonthough, with urban legends.
It starts somewhere and thenit kind of moves around.
Yeah, yeah.
But interesting, scary urban legend.
Yeah, it really.
(34:04):
It really is.
It's deeply unsettling.
And because Neil has workedwith, you know, so many books and
movies and TV shows and all ofthis while writing Coraline over
a span of 10 years, a lot ofhis research for the other stuff
could have inspired it withouthim even knowing.
But like we said at thebeginning, he's done so many interviews
and he kind of leaves littlebreadcrumbs about his inspirations
(34:26):
and all these interviews.
And it's really interesting tosee how much can go into one book.
I think that when you'rethinking of how a story is created
so often you don't necessarilywant to pull from a whole bunch of
sources.
Right.
Like, you want to make it ascreepy as possible without repeating
somebody else's story.
And that's a hard thing to do,to create an independent universe
(34:51):
where the characters aren'ttoo similar to anything else, but
aren't so far fetched that youcan't identify with them and where
the monsters are realisticenough to seem scary, but not realistic
enough, where you don't seethem as monsters.
Right.
Like, it's a weird thing to doand it's hard.
And so I think that he does agood job of whether he was purposely
(35:12):
pulling all of these thingsthat we found today in or whether
they were just like, hmm, interesting.
That's an interesting element.
I'll pull an element from here.
I'll pull an element from there.
It's interesting how muchstuff overlaps with this story in
a very creepy way.
Yeah.
And what a fun time we hadpulling weird, creepy stories from
like different parts of the world.
(35:32):
And like putting thosetogether to be like, these are all
the things that are kind ofsimilar that we don't love this.
Right, Right.
And I remember when I firstwatched the movie, I was like, this
is like new, right?
It's kind of a new concept.
I've never heard of button eyes.
Right.
But never looking at it.
Now I'm like, okay, yeah,Alice in Wonderland could make sense.
Yeah.
There's a lot of differentoverlapping things.
The talking cat just.
(35:53):
I love it.
It's so good.
So we, of course, want toknow, what do you think about the
inspirations or possible inspirations?
And had you heard of these before?
I know our favorite was theBlue Eyes and Turkey, mainly because
of the name.
Love it.
10 out of 10.
And then also, what was yourfirst impression of watching Coraline?
When I first saw it, Iremember thinking, this is creepy
(36:13):
as fuck and perhaps too creepyfor children.
Yes.
Yes.
And somewhere I read again, Iwant to read the book.
I want to read the original.
But they made the Wybiecharacter into the movie because
it was so scary and it was her alone.
And they're like, okay, thiswill make it easier.
Right?
Like, it'll.
It gives her someone to talkto and it gives her someone to go
(36:33):
through this with.
So.
Which makes sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I love it.
I watched the movie again thisweek to prepare, and I was like,
oh, I forgot about a lot ofthis stuff.
I forgot about nearly all ofthis movie until we did a rewatch
before we did the research.
I was like, I don't remember this.
I don't remember this either.
It's very intricate.
But I also have a habit offorgetting any media once consumed,
(36:57):
so.
But it is a good movie, so ifyou haven't seen it, check it out.
Yeah.
Now, we're nearing the end ofthe year, and so we do want to mention
that we typically do not havenew episodes for the month of December.
So we only have a couple leftthis year.
Wild.
I cannot believe we arenearing the end of 2024.
Woof.
Woof.
(37:17):
I just.
My mind is blown.
We are recording things in abit of advance so that we can enjoy
Spooky season.
And the end of the year notfeels quite so stressful.
And so we're recording evenfurther out.
So it's wild to think thatthis is, like, we have, what, three
more episodes that we'rerecording for this year and then
nothing till next year.
(37:37):
Wild.
Yeah, it went by very quickly,but we've had a good time with all
of these episodes.
Yes.
Always.
Always.
Well, with that.
Have a great weekend.
Thanks for creeping with us.
So we're back.
We're recording this littlesection after we did our Coraline
episode a while back.
We do want to bring up that wedid see that Gamon has been involved
(37:59):
with some sexual assault allegations.
So we just wanted to bringthat up that we do acknowledge that
we don't condone anything.
Yeah, they're allegations fromwhat we can see right now.
But we will be following that.
Yeah, we recorded this episodebefore we had learned about the allegations
and we thought that theunderlying current of today's episode
was more about creepy,overlapping stories than it was about
(38:21):
him.
So we're talking aboutCoraline, not about that fuck.
Exactly.
I'm going to say that fuckbecause I'm going to go ahead and
assume most allegations untilwe have some solid evidence or not.
Because from our understandingit was several women.
And even if it was just one,we're going to go ahead and believe
allegations because I don'tthink they would be coming to light
in this way if there was notsome substance to them.
(38:42):
Agreed.
Thanks for listening and asalways, a special thank you to our
patrons who support us via Patreon.
Please see the link in ourshow notes to learn more about how
you yes, you can begin tohaunt the dump guard vortexes or
even become a scorching Sasquatch.
Also in our show notes you canfind the link to our website, more
(39:04):
information on our sources,our social media handles, and our
merch store.
We'd love for you to keepcreeping with us, so if you like
this episode, pleasesubscribe, rate, review and share
the show with your fellowcreeps and or ghosts.
I beg of you.
In the book, she goes througha tiny world to a new door.
(39:27):
And the being on the other side.
A tiny world to a new door.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did.
Yeah, I did.
Oh.
So okay.
In the book, Coraline goesthrough a tiny door.
You got it that time.
I know I did.
But then I was like, I doubted myself.
And then I laughed because Iwas like, that one's right, year's
(39:47):
lady.
Now I can't talk.
When Neil was writingCoraline, he was also working on
the masala, the chicken tikkamasala, and a monster.
She turns into like a sponsoror a spider thing.
I think she turns into apodcast sponsor.
Welcome to True Creep,sponsored by the Other mother.
(40:09):
I'm goofy today, Mom.
I want to be a baddie.
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