Why I'm Afraid of Bees

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You wanted to see me, boss? Yes, Harris.
I have a problem that needs taken care of.
Jimmy Garcia, the rat Fink, has failed to pay what he owes for
the last time. Yeah, boss.
You want me to break his knees, give him concrete galoshes?
I want you to talk to him. Tell him he pays what he owes by
tomorrow or I turn him into AB. You want me to tell him you can

(00:26):
do that? I'm not going to explain myself
to you, Harris. I'm going to turn him into a
bee. He will regret having crossed me
when he is a little bumblebee. He will have proboscis.
He will make honey. He will fly from flower to
flower. And everyone will know that the
price of failing to pay your debts Dada miela you get turned
into a bee. I don't think I understand.

(00:49):
Don't act like you want to know how it works, Harris.
Then you tell him exactly what Itold you.
Oh, you'll find yourself very small and fuzzy.
Hey everybody, and welcome to You Can't Scare Me.

(01:09):
On today's episode, we're doing book #17 Why I'm Afraid of Bees,
and with me, as always, my pal Mario.
Hi, it's me. It's Mario the cool ghoul who's
everybody's pal. Who's also afraid of bees?
Actually, in real life I. Am you're you're right.
This book was a harrowing read for me.

(01:31):
Just imagining you holding this book just covered in sweat.
It was a grim experience that reminded me constantly of the
the lowest points of my life. And we've also got Brandon.
What's up, Brandon? Hi, me and bees have a a wary

(01:51):
understanding of each other. You're you.
You're not a bee, right? I just want to.
Confirm. Not that you know.
Let's get something. Let's get one fucking thing real
clear. There are no bees on this
podcast, am I right? Yeah.
If you're a bee, you have to tell me.
We don't have to do shit. That's that's the law.
Mario, I have something to confess.

(02:12):
Oh my God, I'm a family. That's OK, It's all right.
It's OK, OK, It's OK. You're not afraid of flies.
OK, here is the thing. I encounter many an insect in my
daily life. In my in my work life I
encounter many an insect. And for those who don't know.
He's a bee. I'm a forensic pathologist.
I'm a bee. I'm a bee man.
I'm a bee man. I'm a bee man.

(02:37):
Oh God, this is this is just making me think of Resident
Evil. What was it 6, the one, the one?
Or was it No 7? Oh, the B man with the B man.
No, the B lady. The lady, Yeah.
The mom, Yeah. Oh.
What if What if the B mom from Resident Evil 7 and B Man from
Metal Gear Solid 3:00 What if they what if they got together?

(02:58):
You think they would be? They would have a thing going
anyway. Moving on to Mario, There's some
history we gotta. Go.
Before we move on, let's actually analyze this.
I think that they probably are compatible.
Emotionally and I just think that they probably want a little
bit of variety out of life and and I mean like, I could imagine

(03:20):
her being like into like a hive kind of guy.
Well, the pain knows Kung Fu. Let's be let's start there.
It's true. I.
Think that they would definitelykiss passionately, but I don't
know if the relationship would last beyond a couple of days.
Well. She's happily married, right?
That's the other thing, right? I mean that's they got you got
to consider that part. But you know, the premise of the
question assumes that like, you know, something happened or
like, you know. I think she likes a a simple

(03:43):
home life and I think The Pain is a much more adventurous kind
of guy. I also think The Pain has some
real emotional issues he's got to work through.
I mean his name is literally ThePain which is.
Yeah. A lot to take.
In I think the pain is a little too Looney Tunes to settle down
with anybody. I think he's definitely like a
one night stand kind of guy. Yeah, probably.

(04:04):
He's a he and he's a love him and leave him.
I agree. I think that's right.
And I don't know, you know, the the mom from Resident Evil 7
would probably just be climbing on the walls all the time.
I mean, if I could climb on walls, I would just do that all
the time. I would just like keep.
You know, I mean, if I had a hive of, if I had a hive of bees
living inside of my body, I would also be pretty freaky, I

(04:24):
have to imagine. What about the giant bee from
Mario Galaxy? Wow.
Well. Bee.
I'm certain that the Internet has started this conversation
for us. If you know, I'm certain they
won't finish it, but they will continue.
All right, Mario, we got to. Say no.

(04:46):
I was going to say I'm Oh, I gotthe thought.
The bugs, the flies. Flies are good.
Bees are not. And I'll tell you one other
thing I like. Flies are OK, Maggots are good.
As a person who cuts the dead into chunks, I commonly see
them. However, you get a you get, you
get some beetles in there, you get some spiders and I'm out.
I'm fucking out. I can't do it.

(05:07):
I'm sorry. I cannot.
I open a body bag and there is afucking there is a if there is a
crawly thing larger than a dime in there.
It sucks. I hate it.
I hate it. What about that?
An entire hive of Carpenter bees.
I wouldn't like that very much either, Wouldn't I?

(05:29):
Wouldn't love it. We did find a salamander
recently. Cool.
Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, we kept that.
Hey, let's talk about history. But only as it pertains to
movies, television and video games.
The only history that matters. The year was 1984.
The month was March. Everyone loves March.

(05:51):
We all love that month. I don't know.
No one who don't like it, Yeah. Exactly.
Let's talk about movies. You know what?
Here is some great news. After two months of not having
movies, we do in fact have some movies.
I'm so excited to tell you this.We have some people care about
this. Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Yeah, it's a movie. People know I've.

(06:12):
Yeah, I've heard. I've watched it.
I've. Heard of it?
Haven't haven't watched it but Ihave heard of it.
My mom liked it. The Hudsucker Proxy I.
Need to. Watch that.
Thank you for reminding me. There you go.
Look at that. The Sud pucker hoxie.
The Sud pucker hoxie Hey Brandon, hold on to your horses
because we're getting some greatpuns in literally one more movie
title so the. Sister Act 2, back in the habit.

(06:36):
The Ref starring Dennis Leary, which I saw on Comedy Central,
maybe years later. I thought it was an OK movie in
which Dennis Leary breaks into adysfunctional family's home and
has to like be their couples counselor.
It's I haven't watched it in years.
Kind of passingly enjoyed it. That's that's my great on it.

(06:57):
It's fine. And here we go.
Here is the pun title. All right, Silence of the hams.
Oh my God. Silence of the Lambs parody
film. Is that the subtitle for real?
No, I don't know what the subtitle is.
Let me I I got to check one thing on this here to make sure
I'm right in my remembrance. Silence of the hams.

(07:21):
Yes, it is an Italian film, so, but Billy Zane is the star of
it. Wow.
So I actually kind of feel like I do have to see it.
Yeah, of the Zane star. Although let me read you the
summary from Google. FBI Agent Joe D Foster Billy
Zane solves the case with help from a killer called Doctor

(07:41):
Animal Cannibal Pizza, played byDom Delouise.
This cannot be real. This movie is not real like.
Budget $3,000,000 What? What is that?
Why is? This a different time.
This is unbelievable. The poster looks incredibly like

(08:01):
DSP. Anyway, John.
Carpenters in it. What?
Yeah. What?
OK, we need to watch this OK, Critical response.
The silence of the hams has widely received negative review.
That's 0%. We.
Have to watch this. I'm so I can't I'm I'm sold.
I'm fucking so intrigued by thisOh my God.

(08:23):
Time Out London called it a wholly redundant exercise, while
Empire criticized it for, quote,a script staggeringly bereft of
humor or invention, and a clumsy, amateurish direction
that seems largely concerned with focusing on Charlene the
Tilton's breasts. Amazing.
I. I I have to watch this film.

(08:46):
I think I have to watch this. Oh.
Buckle up for a bad time. OK, moving on from that bad
parody to a probably better parody.
Naked Gun 33 and One third. The final Naked Gun film came
out this month. Probably.
Probably not the best of the Naked Guns, but you know.

(09:08):
Make a gun nonetheless. He's funny.
I love watching Leslie Nielsen do what he does.
Yeah. Yeah.
But let's I wanna watch Airplaneagain, yeah?
But forget all of that because Igotta tell you right now, OK?
The biggest movie of the month, no questions asked and no and no
rebuttals accepted. D2 The Mighty Ducks.
Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack,

(09:33):
quack, quack, quack. For a second I thought you were
going to say D war, which I don't know if you.
No, I do know what D War is, butthat's much later in history.
Yeah, significantly later on theroad of history.
I remember for my birthday one year, one of my friends gave me

(09:54):
it was a Blu-ray of D War. I hate that I've watched D war
like 4 times. I don't even know why I've
watched D war like 4 times like I don't know why I can't explain
it. D2 comma Vampire hunter Colon
Bloodlust. Right, Vampire Hunter D2 The
Mighty Ducks. Yeah.
So anyway, that movie came out this month, which of course is

(10:18):
the when they go international and they take on Iceland, our
enemies, our classic enemies, Ice.
Our enemies to the northeast. Right.
I got one more movie on here. No, I got two more, Class of
1999, two, The substitute. And I thought really excitedly
that it was just class of like 99, which is the movie where Pam

(10:41):
Grier plays a Cyborg teacher. And if you want to see a very
funny scene, you just look up Class 99 999 on YouTube and
there will undoubtedly be like 1st result, probably the scene
where a robot teacher spanks to ruffians like really, really
aggressively and robotically. And it's very silly.

(11:17):
Horrible punishment. Is that still legal Sir?
If. It's necessary to keep the
children alive. And then.
However, this is not that movie.This is probably a much, much
worse sequel, but it does have atrailer narrated by Tony J,
which is. Elder God, Elder God himself.
Yeah, pretty fucking wild. That was interesting.
And then finally Don Bluth Thumbelina came out.

(11:40):
If you've ever seen that Charo is in it.
And if you were in Japan, I've got great news for you.
This month in Japan you could goto theaters and watch Keep on
Masturbating. Nonstop Pleasure AKA serial
masturbation disorder. Why would I pay to watch that

(12:01):
when I do that all the time at? Home I.
Pay for what's free. I want to stress that as a real
movie, it's not me saying like that's not a that's not a oh,
those wacky the wacky Japan movie.
Not saying it. It's just a Japanese pink movie
and it has a very silly title, Midnight.

(12:22):
Ukraine. Midnight Sleepy train.
Yes, TVTV. It's like a movie, but in your
own home. What happened?
Well, I've got great news. the United States pay television
content advisory system went into effect.
Remember when your TV used to tell you that there is brief
partial nudity and stuff like that?
That's when this started and everything went to shit.

(12:44):
Madonna appeared on the Late Show.
I didn't know this, but this apparently was a big deal
because she went on one of she she went.
It was one of the most concert events on American television
ever to this day. She swore 13 times during the
interview in a profanity laden tirade.
I did watch a clip of it. She is very clearly high.

(13:09):
She is very clearly absolutely stoned out of her mind.
It was. However, it's one of the highest
ratings of Letterman's late night career.
Robin Williams would later describe the segment as, quote,
a battle of wits with an unarmedwoman.
So there you go. Premieres of March 1994.

(13:30):
The Tom Arnold Show, simply called Tom, was premiered and
was cancelled mid season. We'll come back to that one.
In five books, Duck Man appear premiered.
Yeah, like a good duck man. Weird Science.
The TV show The busy world of Richard Scary.

(13:54):
I think I remember that. I remember it, it was on Nick
Junior. It was the like it had all the
little. Books.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Also, hey, Ellen. Everyone loves Ellen, and she'll
never do anything wrong. And that show will run for a
long time with no controversy. But I've got the best news of
all. And this isn't even about this
month. We are one month away from the

(14:17):
premiere of Space Ghost Ghost Coast to Coast.
Space Ghost Ghost Ghost Ghost Ghost Ghost ghost ghost.
Ghost ghost, ghost ghost. Is there a?
Reverb in my brain What the? Hell, we are one month away from
space. Space.
Space. Dude, we are.
We are one. We are one.
Month from space to ghost. Red leather, yellow.

(14:42):
We are one singular month away from the premiere of Space Ghost
Coast to Coast. It would be so.
Funny if I didn't put any like any of that previous shit in and
you just awkwardly say Space Ghost coast to Coast Space

(15:04):
Ghost. Coast.
You got. Both leather, feather, feather.
But you are not allowed to make any jokes about Space Ghost yet
because you got to save them fornext month.
We've got to practice our our weeach have to take a character
who we got to find who's the closest to Brac, We got to find
who's the closest to Zorac. I can do a pretty good maltar.

(15:25):
You can do a pretty good Maltar.Yeah, I do feel that.
That's Yeah, we can you do. That I can.
I'm hosting the show I'm. Trying to remember that.
Space Ghost. The Brac on the Street, Song on
the street, Don't Touch Me. You said we can't do the jokes,

(15:45):
but here we are. We can't help ourselves.
We. Can't do it.
Knifing around. I bet he doesn't even.
I bet he doesn't even use shampoo.
I put anything into my mouth that is given to me, whether
it's supposed to go there or not.
Because I'm different, you see, just different.

(16:06):
I don't need intelligence drugs,Tom.
Yeah. I'm going to have to.
We're we're going to have to think about this trial, yeah.
We got time. We got time.
Oh. My God, there's so many quotes.
So many quotes. No shows were cancelled.
I didn't love you enough, now I must lash out at everyone around
me. Feel my anger, Banjo.

(16:27):
Oh, Kentucky, you shouldn't be out there.
You need to put on some sunblockand a wide rim.
Oh no, why do sharks explode? I heard them talk.
I heard them talking about your Mama and they were laughing.
They were laughing, man. Molter Molter's out here
smoking. No, I'm not.
Bull smoker. OK, there were no shows ended in

(16:51):
this. Way.
Wait, wait. OK.
Yes, my documentary. OK, continue.
OK, no shows ended in this month.
Great news and the world rejoiced for only beginnings
this month, March, March, the month of birth.
Birth video games. I love them.
I got a lot. I got a lot of these, all right.

(17:13):
I had both in my life and on this Word document that I'm
looking at Elon. Musk plays video games.
I hear he's really good, the best.
In fact, some might say he's thebest in the world. #1 gamer
worldwide. Who knew?
Give us money. On.
That's apropos nothing. Just give us money.
March 19th, 1994. The atmospheric music fades in.

(17:42):
Super Metroid, distributed on a 24 megabit cartridge, the
largest of its of its time, was released.
In one game you have overshadowed every I'm sorry.
A big, big sorry to Silence of the ham.
Here's the thing. I've overshadowed every other
game on this list because it doesn't get better than this.

(18:03):
I mean, like Super Metroid? Top of the list.
OK, let's move down Andre Agassi's Tennis Super Famicom.
Wait, wait, hang on a SEC. You say Super Metroid's better
than Andre Agassi's tennis. Agassi.
Agassi Agusi, you can't. Agusi you don't pronounce.
His name perfectly. Don't pronounce it like that.
Is that actually? It's you see, I'm pretty sure,

(18:24):
but Agusi art of fighting two. We already talked about this
one, but it's now available in your house.
Hooray, Castlevania, Bloodlines for a Genesis and Mega Drive.
Oh, there you go. Hey, stop right there.
That's a double dribble. The playoff edition is out for
Mega Drive. Virtua Racing like Virtua

(18:45):
Fighter but but not but with your cars.
Streets of Rage 3. Oh.
OK, all right. Yeah.
Shimoga 10 say 2 for CBA Com. Shadow Run is here.
People like that game. I have never played it.
People like it. Yeah.
Record of Lotus War for a Sega CD.
OK, Panic Bomber, which I don't think anyone knows, but the name

(19:09):
is funny. The name is funny.
The name, I'll grant you that, yes.
Ogre Battle, March of the Black Queen for Sness.
Mega Man Soccer for Sness. We already talked about it
before, but it's out for Sness now.
Yeah, but. And now forget all that shit.
OK, But except for some Metroid,because Fatal Fury 2 is now out,
which means that Wolfgang Krauser will say I'll chisel

(19:32):
your gravestone. Sleep well.
I'll chisel your gravestone. Sleep well.
Thanks for a good time. What follows is all of us doing.
What follows is we spent 30 minutes talking about the
delivery of this line. I'll.
Chisel your. Gravestone.
I'll chisel your gravestone. Sleep well.

(19:55):
We're going to do another 30 minutes, y'all.
Sleep well. Sleep.
Well. This is the first appearance of
my Shiranui. That's a big deal.
More Shiranui. My Shiranui, perhaps besides
Terry Bogard. Maybe more than Terry Bogard,
S&K's most iconic fighting game character and.
For two reasons. For two reasons.

(20:17):
Her. Great personality and her nice
wardrobe. And her iconic delivery of Nipon
Ichi and no good little boy or girl has ever seen her to quote
my to quote soccer eye, creator of Smash Brothers.
My Srini was not included in Smash Brothers because it's a

(20:38):
game for it's a game for good little boys and girls.
She's she's got the the hams arenot silent with her.
No, I mean, my Churnui is iconicfor a number of reasons, let's
put it that way at. Least two, A minimum of two.
Reasons I. Was going.
To say XCOM came out. Hey, OK.

(20:59):
And also, unfortunately, historywas blighted by the creation and
release of Elder Scrolls Arena. Todd Howard assumes control of
time and space. Maybe this was before he was
evil. I don't know.
I'm not going to find out. I don't think.
I bet he didn't own his leather jacket yet, I'll put it that
way. Super Metroid, Yeah.

(21:22):
I mean, that's, yeah. Super Metroid.
Yeah, man, I mean nothing. What else is there to say?
I repaired a Super Metroid game cart last week.
Cool. Yeah, it is cool.
And I played the beginning of itagain and God I loved that game.
Got the vibes it's. Really good man.
It's like it was the first game I had on the SNES.

(21:42):
It's very good. I played the absolute snot out
of it back in the day. I couldn't beat the first area,
but I played it a lot anyway. That was me on the 1st TMNT
game. God.
Not one of the arcade like side scrollers, but the the one where
you're like you've got the overworld map and then you go
into the little like sewers and stuff and.

(22:02):
Oh, the NES weren't. That was just rough.
That was rough. And some of those?
Times are hard. Just older games are tough.
We haven't developed the motor skills yet, and you know what,
that's it. We can close the Big Book of
History, putting a bookmark for April of 994 when we'll talk
about Space Ghost. Finally, I've got the quotes

(22:24):
lined up. Brandon.
Yeah. I hear you like covers of books.
It's a secret, though. Yeah, I thought that we, I we
agreed that I told you that in confidence.
Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I can cut this part out if
you want. I mean, well, Mario has heard
it, so I'm going to be really shitty about this.

(22:45):
OK, We'll, we'll, we'll put, we'll, we'll put it.
Online, with the caveat that only Mario was allowed to listen
to the podcast from now on. It's OK, It's OK.
I clicked on the second image and I died.
So actually don't worry about it.
I fucking am dead, so don't worry about it.
I'll take this secret to my grave.
Mario Yeah, it would be really. I don't want to ask you this.

(23:06):
It's kind of, well, could you die right now?
Sure, give you one second. You can come back after you're
dead. Wait, does Mario?
Think that dying is is coming, is it?
I guess. He hold on.
I just heard. Yeah, well, all right.

(23:32):
Not to get too didn't do it, butnot to get too into it.
This is what? Wait, Wait, wait, wait, wait,
wait, wait is. Everybody think dead.
Hold on, we need to know how Mario fucking dies, no?
Wait, wait, we need to know the.Sound that happens when you
fucking jizz your pants. This is the sound that happens
when you die. Woo woo.

(23:53):
Woo, Yes, Thank you. Thank you for the future,
robber. No the the the sound of dying is
the sound of the guy from blood saying the this.
Is going to be so fun to listen back to your reporting.
Because you are getting clipped.Hard.
I'm sorry, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure your
mic has like a an auto unclip which instead silences you and

(24:17):
so it's very strange. It's, it's, it's a fun feature
of. It's a fun feature.
It's a fun feature. Anyway, Brandon, I'm dead.
I'm dead and apparently I've achieved touchless orgasm.
So, so So, let's talk about covers.

(24:38):
Yeah, let's do it. Touch.
This orgasm, Oh my God, all. Right, all right.
I just we. Just got a comment praising us
for not talking about Trouble Fluid on the last podcast.
We haven't talked about any. Fluids yet?
OK. Yeah.
We, we've been very careful. We did, you see?
How did you hear? Sorry.
How responsible we were with thechest hams.
We did. We were we You could almost not

(25:00):
know what we were talking about when we were talking about my
Sharingui. Yeah, it's 2025, baby.
It's a brand new podcast. It's.
A brand new podcast. New year, new fear your.
Your kids and your parents will love this podcast.
Yeah. Now, now, little babies can
listen to this too. All the little babies that grew
up in 1994 reading Goosebumps will be able to listen to this.
And no one's going to talk aboutDick Willies and Ding Dongs and

(25:24):
any of that. None of that or the stuff that
they produce, except for piss. Piss is fine.
Yeah, piss is. Fine, I think we're going to.
Our parents do piss. And this is a fact of life.
You can't avoid it. Yeah, Even if you try.
Well. What about shit?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, OK, so piss and shit.
Goosebumps. So you can't scare me
completely. Fine 2025 piss and shit.
You can't. You can't.
You can't piss me off. You can't piss me.

(25:46):
I'm making eye contact with the cover of this book.
Yes. It's I'm staring deeply into.
It it's disturbing and that haircut is very.
It's a buzz cut. It's a.
Buzz cut, though it's a buzz cut.
Yeah, it's a pine. I was.
Writing up the description and Iwas like, oh, that's.
Why? I hate that I know this
information. I wish that I didn't know it.
I know that's that's that's inspired, that's Jacob is doing

(26:08):
a little link and a nudge at you.
Anyway, let me describe. This all out.
Yeah, describe it. The font here is orange on a
light yellow ground. It's like the image image
depict. Yeah, like honey.
The image depicts a bee flying directly towards the viewer with
a human child's head. The head is has a is has a
surprised expression, a buzz cutnice and antennae.
In the background is a morass oftrees with a gap at the top

(26:31):
center revealing an orange sky transitioning to sunset.
The tagline is he's no ordinary human bee ING.
Sucks. Ass.
They should have not done that. I've done a different one,
extremely simple. Buzz off would have been fine.
No my. Knees would be good too.

(26:51):
Oh no, I'm bees. Oh no, I'm Bee.
Life's hard when you becomes a. Bee, here's a good one.
Fuck. Oh no, I'm a bee.
Also, I got to point out to Jim Jacobus.
I, I, I, I respect this cover. I do think that this cover pops.
I think the the expression works.
Yeah, it's, I mean, as you said,you're staring at it.
So it's it's very. That is not how bee wings look,

(27:15):
and that's not how they connect to bees.
So. That's also not how they legs
look, but yeah, it's. Fine.
Very spidery. Spidery.
Yeah, very spidery. I think it's because he didn't.
He's replaced the bees. I mean, the head of that bee is
its entire body. Do you know what I'm saying?
Like. Yeah.
There should be a mid segment here.
There should be a thorax. That's true.

(27:35):
That's true. Can we talk about something real
quick? I'm very concerned or confused
about the anatomy of Gare bee. Yeah, like in this story, like,
OK, he's he describes at one point his mouth being that of a
bee. Like it's a pretty accurate
description of a bee mouth. And he talks about having the
tongue of a bee and slurping up honey like that.

(27:56):
Yeah. But he's talking.
He's like, that's a pretty integral part of the story.
Well, let me. His ability to talk.
So I'm. Going to hit you with this one.
He's a female bee. So like, I mean, he has a
Stinger, so he's a female bee. So I mean, I guess we don't
engage with that conversation. That one I don't even, I don't

(28:19):
even like that's that never registered to me because it's
like, you know, there's that part in the in the book where I
forget her name, but she says like, Hey, you can, you know,
you can become a girl if you want, you know.
You can, she does say. You know what, You're right, she
does say that. So that's not the weird.
The weird thing to me is like. There's a lot.
There's a lot. OK.
I just want to real quick say the entire book changes for me

(28:43):
and becomes very, very, very, very funny if the bee that Gary
looks like in the story is this bee that we're seeing right
here, which is a little human head.
I mean first of all, it can't bebecause everyone looks at this
bee as if there's nothing wrong with it.
And if I saw this bee, I would fucking burn my house.

(29:04):
Down so lose my shit dude, I would fucking lose my shit.
I would literally willingly, voluntarily give myself over to
mental health experts because I would be very concerned about
this. I think that the book reads a
lot funnier if you can imagine that he's got a bee's body and

(29:26):
legs and wings and it's a full size human child's head.
It's just flying around. Oh, I thought you were going to
go where it's like a human sizedbee.
Oh no, both would be funny. Full size human childhood trying
to squeeze through the window. I I want to be his body.

(29:49):
I want to be soul. I'm a beach.
They call me Buzz Bo. There's nothing else to say with
the cover. There's.
Nothing else to say. That's nothing else to say.
It's I think it's OK. I think it's OK.
Moving on to the UK. UK.

(30:11):
Hey fuck guys, stop fucking you can't do this.
Why it looks like man? Fuck.
Oh, the cover. I thought you were telling us to
stop. No, I'm talking, I'm talking,
I'm talking the artist. I'm talking the artist of the of
the UK Goosebumps. UK Goosebumps because what the

(30:32):
fuck. Yeah, there's no, OK, I'll
describe it. OK, UK cover the new case slime
come on is back, but this time there's a twist.
I'm not going to keep doing that.
The traditional goo is there, this time in purple, but nothing
is in the goo. They're out of the goo.
Are 4 BS. This is the only cover
apparently where they're not in the goo.

(30:52):
Where there's no children submerged in goo.
Can we say how fucked up a trivia fact that is that like
that was just, that's such a known thing that on the fucking
Goosebumps fan wiki, it makes a point.
And this is the only book where they're not in the goo.
It's so messed up. I mean like somebody.
Had to look at all of them. Yeah, flying above the goo are

(31:12):
four BS, the closest and largestof which has a boy's head.
But the expression's fucked up because he's smiling serenely,
as in a family portrait, and a long, curling tongue.
Tongue is drawn awkwardly extending out of his closed
lips, just like it's there too. Yep, it looks like he's vaping.
Yeah, he looks like he's rippingthat fat cotton, although these

(31:32):
legs look like B legs. The wings and the.
Wings look like B wings. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, he does appear to have AI.Think he has a thorax.
I think he does. It's goofy.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it looks bad.
It looks, it looks bad, but you know.
Yeah, what are you going to do? OK, there's 3 French covers.
I I don't know why the French apparently are afraid of bees.

(31:55):
Most of the most of the most of the foreign covers are just the
Jacobus cover reprinted. But there's 3 French covers so.
This is haunting. It's MI fi vu de zabe.
Beware of bees. This cover, canted in a Dutch
angle, depicts a red shirted child, hands raised in fear,

(32:15):
standing in a giant honeycomb structure.
A giant bee looms over him with a long tongue hanging below its
mouth. I hate this.
Yeah, yeah. I mean.
I this really gets to me in a ina bad way.
Yeah, I think that this is OK. It's OK as a as as a horror book

(32:35):
for kids. It's it's.
I mean, I think beware the bees is not really accurate to the I
mean, well, I guess I guess it is.
I guess you should beware the bees.
Yeah, I mean like I guess you should We're we're not going to
get into it. But there there's several bees
that that trouble him even when he is a bee.
French cover Two Another French cover depicts a close up of a

(32:55):
child's face. The T zone is that of a child of
ambiguous gender. They are sweating and their wide
open eyes are focused on a bee perched on the nose.
This is the fear. I like this.
Is the beef here? I think this is good.
Yeah, I think this is this is effective.
It is acceptable. Honestly, yeah, this might be my
favorite of them. I'll be honest with you.

(33:17):
Really. Yeah.
I mean, I think this pops. Actually, honestly looking at
oh, wait, no. Is there a better one coming?
Maybe. Oh, Oh yeah, actually, that's
pretty good. I like the color I.
Do too. Yeah, that's cool.
Third French cover. I don't know why there are so
many French covers. And this is recent too.
Yeah, it looks recent, Yeah. Yeah, in the third cover, a cel

(33:40):
shaded boy stands in a field at sunset.
The camera is at ground level looking up at the boy,
surrounded by a whirlwind of insects.
Some other insects like fly towards the screen as in a
squadron. They are lit from below by the
orange of sunset. The sky above is pales to purple
or darkens to purple. The colour is pretty effective.

(34:00):
It's. A great cover.
The colours are The colours are awesome.
Can we? Please read the title of the
book. Yes, days on Sect.
Days I Insects, insects, insects.
Insects. There you go.

(34:21):
There it is. There's on sick lay on lays on
falls to Reeves. Lays insects terrible.
Yeah, I would the only. Thing is that this cel shaded
kid, everything else looks greatbut he like he looks like he's
been taken out of it. Yeah, it's weird.
He looks. Yeah, I'm.
Cool with it. It's very, I don't know, they're
all that's kind of the style of a lot of Christian media back in

(34:42):
the day, kind of used to it, that kind of cartoony like look,
but. I'll just say this, I would hang
out if not for the bees that hang out in the location this is
taking place in. Yeah.
It looks fun. You know what it kind of looks
like Evangelion like in those scenes where they're.
Kind of. Yeah, kind of the war area.
And you can hear like the cicadas in the background.
Yeah, not the war area, the areawhere the kid is playing war.

(35:07):
I forget his name, but yeah, anyone who knows Evangelion, you
know what I'm talking about. Moving on to the merch
merchandise. I love merch. 1.
Oh fuck off. This is not very good.
Yeah, the shirt just has the Jack Jacobus cover art.
Jacobus. He's with the tagline.
He's no ordinary human being. Overlaid the back of the title

(35:27):
and #17 they didn't try. Why wouldn't you just swap?
Why don't you? How about be afraid?
How about that? How about that one for you?
I think even that's too much. Just have the the the just the
bee, just the picture that's. It actually the picture is fine.
Yeah, how about he is a fucking bee?
Oh no, I'm bees. Oh no, I'm bees.
I just want to real quick praiseRestraint for not doing a

(35:51):
reference to the Wicker Man. Just just throwing that out
there. Very proud of us.
Can you get like a button that has a guy whose name I can't
believe? I can't remember screening bees
Nicholas Nicholas Page. Can you get a button and just
insert it whenever? Just have just just clip it like
before and right at the right only for the word bees.

(36:14):
Oh yeah, only the word bees. Not the whole thing around it,
just the word bees. Bees now.
You got me thinking of Nicolas Cage as being the head of this
bee. We need to Commission Jacob.
OK. Oh my God.
Fucking I would fucking watch. The movie adaptation of this,
wherein the kid is played completely straight by Nicolas

(36:35):
Cage, I would watch. That we missed an opportunity to
do the because there's no TV episode associated with this
book. We should have just watched
Wicker Man and then talked aboutit the entire ending.
Well, I have grim news about what one person in this podcast
decided we should do instead of watching ATV episode, but I'll

(36:58):
let him hold that close to his chest if he wants to, OK?
We I thought we should try to watch the Bee movie.
I had that idea and I kept it from you guys because I thought
it was too torturous. It was.
I was, you know, I watched that big Joel video and I think that
he's just a very charitable guy and didn't make it sound as bad

(37:23):
as it is. I well, let's just talk about it
briefly here. The B movie, man, we watched 30
minutes of it and then we couldn't go any further.
We tried, we really did. It's, it's the worst part about
it is that there's like they keep saying the lions with the

(37:44):
emphasis and timing of comedy jokes, but they like, they're so
not funny. They don't even read as jokes
the majority of the time. There's a couple of funny ones
in there. The majority of them are just
so, so bad. And I, I, it's like, it feels
like, like, I don't know, it's like, it's like they're doing
the comedy version of gaslighting.

(38:07):
Like this is funny. They're not, they're just saying
words. These are just words that
they're doing like weird character development and
they're saying it like it's a joke.
I, I just don't understand. It hurts.
It hurts. So we had to stop.
We went much longer than I thought we would as well 'cause
it was, it was not good. Patrick Warburton, though, he's

(38:28):
a real workhorse. Does it?
Does the work. He's he gives some unhinged
deliveries like he he gave it 110%.
It's not his fault. You know, the problem may have
been the format that you decidedto watch B movie.
Have you have you considered, and this is real, I'm not
joking, If you have AVR headset and you download the game Beat

(38:52):
Saber, you can play the entiretyof the B movie in Beat Saber.
Have you considered doing it like that?
I no I did not know that was an option, but I guess I guess it
it it is I I wonder about the format.
I wonder. I wonder about the.

(39:13):
Format. I wonder, like, do you, are you
playing the movie? Yeah.
So I think that's probably the entire movie.
They did that with Shrek too. That's probably a pretty good
way. That's certainly art.
Experience it. That is art.
At least it's art, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Art. Hey.
Speaking of art, though. I love art.
A second cover, a second shirt I'm looking like this.

(39:34):
The second shirt I'm looking at,I'd wear this like.
Actually kind of sick. Yeah, no, the second shirt is
good. OK, so shirt too.
A more interesting design features a spiral of bees
increasing in size towards the outer extremity, each with a
stylized human face bearing a surprised expression based I'm
sure, on the Jacobus cover, but with just the word goosebumps

(39:55):
visible. The shirt material the is white
and grey tie dye of each of the bees is the exact same image but
like it in different They're rotated differently and they
expand in size towards the viewer.
It's like AII don't know the theterminology for it in graphic
design but it looks great actually.
I mean. Pretty cool, yeah.

(40:16):
Like if you took Goosebumps off of it they would still be pretty
strong. Yeah, the word goosebumps.
Like I don't even really like tie dye things, but the grey
white works for me. And the spiral bees.
I mean, genuinely and ironically, I'd wear this.
Yeah, it's good. Yeah, it I would say it's maybe
even too good considering the quality of the book.

(40:37):
Yeah, it's definitely better than this book deserves, but
yeah. But hey.
Don't worry too much, I guess the next piece of merchandise
just goes ahead. And shut the fucks off.
What is with this book and just puns?
There's just nothing but puns. Yeah.
I mean like, I think bees sort of invite it.
Yeah, I guess. Please describe what the what

(40:58):
horror we are looking at currently.
What horror you are looking at currently is the Visa card I
think. Yep.
Yeah, so the Visa card is meant to look like a credit card.
It's based on Visa. It's got three.
Let's see, a truly strange object meant to resemble a
credit card, or I suppose a debit card for the Goosebumps

(41:19):
Bank. The front has three colored
stripes and the Jacobus B with achild's head as well as fake
credit card numbers are on the front.
The text on the back reads The Visa card is just is the card
that lets you be yourself. It says you don't have to trade
places with anybody because you're OK just the way you are.
So believe in yourself and carryVisa.
It gives you the credit you deserve.

(41:41):
I don't know what this is for. I can only imagine the reaction
of any person to whom this card was presented would be utter
confusion which could not be dispelled by any explanation a
child could give. Or probably an adult either.
Also, I want to point out that is not the message of this book.
I I really want to stress that sounds great on paper, but it is

(42:03):
not the message of this book. That's not what this book is
about at all. We'll get to it, but the lesson
is fucking terrible. I want to stress.
But yeah, it's not a fucking getit this card.
Who would? Think there is a lesson?
Who would have this? Who would have this?
What is the purpose? It's it's even it's for it's

(42:23):
even misprinted. Like look at the it's offset.
It's like the the the edge on the left is like much smaller
than the one on the right. So it's like whatever and the
card stock isn't even. It's not like AI don't
understand why anyone would wantthis.
I don't. It's just like one of the
bullshit things you got in in the like goosebumps Loot Crate

(42:46):
that they that they gave out like fucking like club thing.
I don't fucking know. I, I, I couldn't imagine
spending money on this. So like like.
What I do know is there is a another image in this folder I.
Don't like it? Another, and then there's a
secret double extra image because I'm excellent at

(43:07):
multitasking. So they made a hat.
This is a black Trekker's cap with a patch depicting the B
child, a red Goosebumps logo, and the tagline No Ordinary
Human Being. I can't imagine anyone wearing
this. However, I think it looks pretty
good. They did a Whoever did this
thing did this patch did a pretty good job on it.
I the level, the layers of ironyit would take for a person to

(43:31):
wear this are further than I canimagine.
You know what I mean? Like it would either have to be
a person who was so completely removed from it that they have
no idea what this fucking hat is, or someone who so knows this
hat is that they are like, I'm going to pick the the fucking B
goosebumps hat, you know, like, you know what I mean?

(43:52):
Like yeah, it exists in two extremes.
Or we got a discord. Okay, thank you.
It has been busy. Posted a picture of like B.
Of Nicolas Cage yelling as a bee.

(44:13):
From face off, I. Believe, you know, the cage
face, It's the one where his mouth is open in chalk and his
eyes are are wide, wide open, tiny pupils.
I can't remember what this is from.
I think it's face off, face off.Yeah, yeah, and he is.
But he is on the bee. But in addition to that, it
seems like we have some trick ortreat Studios reveals their new

(44:35):
Goosebumps figure packaging. Have you seen that was the thing
I sent? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did you? See this?
Yeah, yeah, Someone on a blue sky, I think it was Spider High.
Dude they fucking do look reallygood.
I just looked at the mud monster, it looks excellent.
Yeah, again another example of merch that does not befit the
quality of the source material. So it fucking sucks when I have

(44:59):
to buy all of these because you can build a God damn curly.
Yeah, you build the curly. I fucking hate that I buy all
these. God damn it, it's very funny,
but. Also shout out to Brandon's
brother, who for Christmas got me a statue, an authentic of the
time figure of the mud man, complete with goosebumps.

(45:21):
Sound effect generator. Yeah, yeah, It sits on my desk
now. It's it's observing me as we
talk. Do we speak?
Do you have batteries in it? Can you play it for the?
For the battery that is in it died.
Oh, alas. I will get batteries for it so
stay tuned. But FYI, the the toys are it's

(45:42):
Night of the living Dummy. It's You can't scare me.
It's the Curse of the Mummy's tomb. 2 bangers back-to-back.
Yeah, the scarecrow Walks at midnight and the haunted mask
completely. And the haunted mask comes
complete with the fucking the stick with I forget.
Carly, Beth. Carly Beth, Carly Beth's head on

(46:03):
it. Yep, that's incredible.
They all look really good, like really authentic to the cover.
They they all look great. I I must say and the fucking if
you buy them all. And curly.
Build build a Curly and he looksfantastic.
Officially, it's called Build a Bonehead.
I'm going to have to unfortunately buy all of these.

(46:24):
I I think I might be with you. How much do they cost?
They are more expensive than you'd like to think.
Oh, $25 each AC. AC AC indeed AC indeed.
Well, well. Well, just got to shuffle off
the Buffalo. It's not, I mean, I'm, I'll,
I'll shuffle off the Buffalo. That's not going to stop me.
It's not going to stop me. It's just going to make the

(46:46):
purchase even more irresponsible.
Like I'm. Just going to make him an offer
he can refuse. All right.
And with that, we do have a little bit of a we got a, we got
a wonderful little e-mail from alistener.
Friend of the show. Friend of the show Josh Moniz,
who was really kind and sent us a very, very long explainer on

(47:12):
some of the legal happenings that were going on with a behind
the scenes and Goosebumps. And a lot of these happen from
so basically, and thank you JoshMooney so much for writing all
of that. So basically the owner of the
rights to Goosebumps is Parachute Press and Parachute
Press. It's basically the Steins and I

(47:34):
think one other person. And so they had the rights to
the Goosebumps for the longest time, but then they made a deal
with Scholastic for, I forget exactly what the the terms of
that deal was, but basically Scholastic feels felt like at a
certain point that they, that parachute press had gone back on

(47:55):
that deal. And so that resulted in a
lawsuit and a bunch of other lawsuits that were reactions to
that lawsuit, etcetera, etcetera, until basically a
bunch of information came out. And so here's that information.
One Stein would write a 10 page outline of a Goosebumps story.
Parachute claims. This includes the title, story

(48:17):
concepts, each chapters plot outline, characters, and key
dialogue. 2 The hired writers would flesh out the 10 page
outline into a full 100 to 120 page book, writing as they saw
fit. 3 Stein would review the finished manuscripts and suggest
changes before it goes to print.Scholastic claims his input was

(48:39):
so minimal he was basically a passive aggressive editor.
Parachute claims he made numerous changes to ensure his
tone, style of humor, and approach to horror was complete,
even discarding or rewriting some manuscripts himself.
For he wrote some of the early Give Yourself Goosebumps books
because he had written previous Game books but didn't write the

(49:03):
majority of them. He also didn't write any of the
Ghost of Fear St. books or Ghostof Fear books.
He had he had with a different part.
Oh my God. So yeah, it's very interesting.
I I actually saw that there was a a YouTube video that was
making the rounds like earlier, like last week.
The timing was really funny. But yeah, that talked about

(49:26):
basically all this stuff. It's a really good YouTube
video. I'll, I'll go ahead and link it
in the description. But yeah, it it the whole
background with what's happeningat this point as this book is
being written and Parachute Press is kind of like figuring
out the logistics of making it work.
You know, I can imagine, you know, I think Brandon, we've you

(49:47):
mentioned specifically I think afew times in these podcasts that
like, you can't imagine like Stein like constantly like
writing these out and banging these out and just like it being
a fucking nightmare. So some of the quality is not to
be like, you know, it's not likea surprise that the quality is
kind of dropping off around now,yeah.

(50:08):
I mean, Stein, for his part, apparently, again, according to
what Josh has sent us, has in the past said that he did not
have a ghostwriter, right? So that it's on record that he
did for legal documents. But he has never said that he he
he did in public. Like that was another

(50:30):
stipulation that the the YouTubevideo that I've watched also
made. Like Stein has maintained that
he did not have a ghost writer which is weird because in the
legal documents like even parachute press was like no he
did have but I think they calledthem, I forget the exact word
but basically like helpers like like not researchers but like

(50:51):
assistants writing. Assistance.
I mean it, it is, it is as they themselves acknowledge.
It would be impossible for RL Stein in the height of
Goosebumps popularity, as he wastouring and giving speeches and
talking and giving interviews. It would be impossible for him
to write one book a month. It, it just, it just isn't

(51:14):
possible. I know these books aren't short,
but they still would take work, you know?
I mean they would take more thana week to write and he has a
very limited time. I just it it is not hard to
believe that someone else in some way contributed to this.
Right. And we're going to get into it

(51:35):
because there's some stuff in this book where it's just.
Like this doesn't feel like it'swritten by Earl Stein at.
All no, no, no, not at all. It's it's actually interested in
things that are very not like, not in Stein's wheelhouse.
I agree completely. Like this is this feels very
like kind of there has been bodyhorror, but like not like
Cronenberg body horror. This is this feels much more

(51:57):
like, what did I say it was whenwe were talking earlier?
It's basically like it's, it's like Star Trekkian versus like
something like. Well, it's not even, it's more
CFI beyond even subject matter. The way this book is written
does not feel like the way the other books are written.

(52:18):
And I, I don't know that I exactly have a way to put that
into words. But if you have like we now have
read 16 books allegedly by RL Stein, you kind of get a feel
for RL Stein's voice. And I don't really think this is
his voice. I got it.
I got to tell you. With that in mind, should we
start talking about this book? Let's.

(52:39):
Go ahead and start going throughthe book.
We've talked about it so much already.
Who has the first few chapters? I have the privilege of talking
about the first eight chapters of this book.
Huzzah. Huzah, let's begin chapter 1.
The a terrifying homunculus wearing RL Stein's skin opens
with a threat to those readers with an actual fear of bees, and

(53:02):
I close the book forever. Sorry guys, I didn't read this
one. I was too scared by the promise
that this book is in fact full of bees.
If RL Stein is constantly telling us to beware, like
sometimes you got to take him upon that, you know?
Sometimes. Thanks.
For the warning man, I'm out. You're you got to do sometimes
you got to do it for yourself. That's all I'm saying.
You sometimes. Got to read for yourself, you

(53:23):
know? Exactly.
You're worried about your health?
OK. A fear of bees, by the way, is
apophobia, but it is also calledMelissa phobia, which is funny
if you think about it. I'm afraid of Melissa.
Yes, if you know anyone named Melissa, think about it like
that. It's funny.
Gary Letts. I'll take a look after any joke.

(53:46):
It's funny. It's funny.
Please fly. Hey, I told you it's funny.
Gary Lutz, who is 12 years old. Huzzah.
Wait, that's the most evidence we have that this is an RL
Stein? See, I do think I do think that
here's what's weird. The book doesn't open with Gary
Lutz saying he's 12. It's like really shoehorned in a

(54:07):
random line of dialogue. Like it's like his mom says
something about like, you're 12 years old.
That I'm imagining. RL Stein like looking at the
ghost writer and like reading the draft and being like, well,
the kids need to know that he's 12 years old.
Yeah, he didn't say he's 12 years old.
So why? And then as hey, I can't but
notice he didn't put that he's 12 years old in here like.

(54:31):
Do I need to or? I'm going to find it.
I definitely made a note of it. I made a note actually.
Oh, here it is. Here it is.
Here it is. On page 4, a whole one page into
the actual story, we get his neighbor.
His neighbor, Mr. Andretti says,is the FBI recruiting 10 year

(54:52):
old spies these days. And he says this remark really
steamed me because Mr. Andrey knows perfectly well that I'm
italicized letters 12 years old.And I feel like this is an
editor's note, you know, All right.
So Gary Lutz, who is 12, informsus immediately that he is afraid
of bees. Relatable, correct, justified.

(55:13):
Who can blame him? He said me unbiasedly.
We learned quickly that Gary hasdepression.
He stares at himself for hours pondering why he has no friends.
He's afraid of dogs, he's afraidof other kids, he's afraid of
swimming, and he's afraid of hisnine year old sister Chrissy's

(55:34):
cat Clawed. I guess it's a funny kind of
clawed is funny. I thought it was claws.
Claws. Sorry, claws.
Yes, you're right. You're right.
Claws. Pond.
I mean, either way, pause pun ineither case, it is a pawn.
It's it's a claw pun. It's a claw pun.
That's the point. It's a claw pun.
Mario, do we need to say I didn't read this book?

(55:57):
It's. So.
Fucking funny that we did. We actually legitimate
listeners. We actually did like even like
as a joke vocal warmups before this podcast and this is my far
been the most vocal fuckups fromMario I've ever heard of.
The Space Ghost 1 is That was that was.
This one is just because I I genuinely forgot the name of the

(56:17):
cat. That one's on me.
It wasn't a fuck up. I genuinely forgot the name of
the cat. Look, I do not blame you for
shunting the information garnered from this book.
I didn't. I didn't have it written in this
part of the book summary becauseI didn't think the cat was
important and then the cat turnsout to be sort of important.

(56:38):
So I did write it down later, but I was just preemptively
giving that information anyway. Worst of all, forgetting the
cat, forgetting the sister, forgetting the dogs and the kids
and swimming. His greatest fear is bees.
His neighbor, Mr. Andretti, is, would you believe it, a
beekeeper. Wow.
No way. What are the odds?

(57:00):
The odds are just wow. Gary goes to spy on him, as one
does. And I actually understand this
because as a person with a fear of bees and I think anyone with
a fear of anything there is likea need to be constantly aware of
what's of the of the thing you're scared of, right?
Like if. Keeping tabs on it.

(57:22):
Right. Like if I live next to a literal
beehive and I was afraid of bees, I definitely would be
constantly looking over and being like, OK, where are the
bees at now? Like what's, what's the bee
situation over there right now? He when he does this, Gary
discovers that Mister Andretti is 100% covered head to toe in
bees, which is fucking insane. Like from his bee tomb and

(57:49):
Treddy weren't scary that the bees are out of control.
I'll hand it to the ghost writer.
A hell of an opening image. Chapter 2.
Unless there are any further comments on that.
Nope. OK, just that, just that the
tone of this book is is pretty wild considering RL Stein was
supposed to have been revising this to keep this in line with

(58:11):
his way of writing and this is way too much stuff happening way
too quickly. I would agree.
I think that even if it was justthe final image of Mr. Andretti
being covered in bees, that is already more than happens in
most first chapters of the Goosebumps book.
Yeah we need we need 6 chapters of him.
Like having a bad relationship with his friends and family.

(58:32):
Boringly, we need 6 chapters about.
How Deaf People Secretly Run theWorld Chapter 2 Gary Runs home
only to discover that Mister Andretti is just a psychopath
who covered himself in bees to make Gary stop being a creep and
And yeah, OK, cool. That's what people do that

(58:55):
right? If you were like, you know when
your neighbor like it was looking in your yard too much so
you fucking cover yourself in bees.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Mr. Andretti mocks Gary by explaining how bees work.
I guess another reason I think that RL Stein didn't write this
is that there are several parts of this book where the author
talks, includes some bee facts. And that one, I think, is we all

(59:23):
listen, we all got to make that page count work somehow.
I get it. I do.
I understand. And if it's 994, I bet you got a
copy of Zoo Books lying around that you can just pull from.
But man, I just fucking every time one would come up, I'd be
like, all right, put on your fucking learning caps kids,
because we're going to talk about.
What? I I have a bunch of moments in

(59:45):
of that in happening in my chapter are my chapters.
It's very it's very overt. It's very funny.
Oh, it's blatant, but the. The the thing that I got from
that was it's it's like it's like a it's a bad Animorphs
where it's like Animorphs does conveys its animal facts very
naturally and through the kids like finding them out and like

(01:00:06):
it like be by becoming the animals.
And which is kind of what happens here when Gary
eventually becomes a bee and he's like using his tongue and
realizing, wait, oh, the tongue is weird.
Oh, I can see like behind. Me.
Because I yeah. And it's like, wow, this is all
nuts. But then some of the information
that is just like, I don't know what, it doesn't come naturally.
He has to remember from like a. He's like, he read like a.

(01:00:28):
Yeah, I remember in the book I read about bees that said this.
Yeah. It's just, you know, again, you
got to do what you got to do. Get that paper, my friend.
So Carrie's mom comes home and makes him a sandwich.
Gary tells us his favorite lunchor snack is APB and J and Taco
chips, which is. I love.

(01:00:50):
Taco chips. So that's Doritos, right?
I, I, yeah, I have to think it, it, it is either, it is either
Doritos or it's tortilla chips. Like I, I don't know, it's a
very 1994 way of saying that. Yes, but apparently 941994 now

(01:01:11):
I. Did I did?
I did. I did that on purpose.
Yeah, Betty bought her. Beth bought a bit of butter, but
she says the buckers. You know you can't win.
I fuck it up, get up and I'll. Give I get a bit of.
Better do it good and. That I make my batter better.
I do it well and then suddenly I'm also the villain.
I do it well. I was praising you, looking for

(01:01:33):
an opportunity to say so Betty bought her, bought a bit of
better. Butter better.
Than her bitter butter. Wait, did they?
Well, that one. What is that one chip?
The the really spicy one. Takis.
The Takis. Gary loves Takis.
Gary loves Takis. There is no universe in which
Gary is interesting enough to like Takis.
There's there's no universe, youknow?

(01:01:56):
Gary doesn't like spicy food, you know?
He's probably one of those people who's like, oh, ketchup's
too spicy. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest with
you right now. I'll say it here because it is
actually relevant. So.
So they're out of they're out ofJelly, apparently.
And Mom suggests honey. Gary has a has a very normal
reaction to honey because he's avery normal guy.

(01:02:18):
Gary sucks. I really hate Gary and like I
feel for Gary because he very clearly is depressed.
However, he is so miserable and so bad at everything that I hate
him a lot like. His reaction is to fall
backwards onto the ground and rise.
Yeah, no, for real. Like when when the when it's

(01:02:39):
honey, Gary very basically approaches the point of shitting
his pants. Like which listeners if you have
not tried a PB and honey? Sandwich.
It's delicious. It's so.
Yeah, it's good. I, oh, back in the day, I used
to, my mom would get the honey with the honeycomb in it and
just a toast in that with a little bit of the beeswax on it.

(01:03:02):
Oh, it's so, yeah. Toast, toast, some honey on it.
Oh, you can't go wrong. Oh yeah, Oh yeah, Gary needs to
learn, and perhaps he will. Powerful stuff.
Gary decides to mope around the school where he finds himself
getting picked last for softball.
But I can't help but note that he is picked like you know what
I mean. He is picked for softball.

(01:03:24):
We learn that there is a specialGary Lutz rule 4 strikes you're
out, which he says it as if it'smaking fun of him, but I've got
to say is actually pretty considerate.
Like they. Yeah, they've actually said OK,
Gary, we know that you're bad atsoftball.
So to allow you more time to play this game with us, we will

(01:03:44):
let you go an extra time changing the rules of this game
for you and you only like that'skind of go on the extra mile.
I got to tell you like, I mean, I OK as it.
Turns out there is some jeering involved.
I mean, they make fun of him. I'm not saying it's done with
the right. But for kids, I'm with you like
kids are. Cruel kids are.

(01:04:05):
Cruel. Yeah, it is more.
It is more considerate in its cruelty than most kids are
capable of. As it turns out, Gary just kind
of sucks at everything. Softball goes badly in
predictable ways. But worse yet, on the way home,
Gary encounters the neighborhoodrowdies and they're hanging out
knuckle suppers. I did not write any of their

(01:04:27):
names down so. It's three boys 3.
Boys and Yeah. No, you could think about it
this way. He's great at sucking.
That's true. I will actually get to a thing.
We're coming. We're 1 chapter away from a
thing that I think the book doespoorly.
No. He said yeah, In Chapter 3, Gary

(01:04:51):
returns from his brutal beating,which sounds surprisingly
Stephen Kingian. I mean, he has like a bloody
nose and stuff. Yeah, yeah, it's very, it's
Monster Blood 1 like. Yeah, yes, I guess it's not
fully Stephen King because, like, the bullies didn't
literally stab him to death, butyou know, it's bad for
Goosebumps. Yeah, there's.
Blood. Usually in the Goosebumps book,

(01:05:12):
when there's blood, it's like, oh, that's kind of.
We learned that Gary. Literally cannot even open a jar
of peanut butter. Which is what?
Like. I like what was it a different?
Like they make that shit specifically openable for
children. They're easy open like.

(01:05:34):
Unless peanut butter came in a very different jar in 1994, I
cannot fathom how this is possible.
He takes a minor tug on the jar and then falls backwards and
stops moving. Like I he.
Tried he. He really quickly tries to do
it, jerks his hand and smash cut.
He's in the hospital with a fulllike body.

(01:05:55):
He's in a full body cast. He he turns lid and in this cuts
my arm fell off. He touches.
He touches. Peanut butter jar next shot in
traction. Yeah, yes.
No next shot of gravestone. Chisel your gravestone.

(01:06:17):
Moms like you choose. Eat well.
This gravestone just says Nerd nerd.
Honestly, here's the thing. I think Wolfgang Krauser, the
boss of Fatal Fury 2 who says that line would indeed right
nerd on that. Right.
And then right below it'd say question mark, question mark,

(01:06:38):
question mark to who cares? So.
Just imagining a 2D fighter where we've got Krauser on one
side and then like a pixel of a beat with like.
A beat. Then you as soon as the mat it's
like 321 go immediately Krauser with.

(01:07:00):
Just it's also important that one of Krauser's attacks is
Kaiser Wave and he just goes Kaiser.
OK, so anyway, after dying trying to open this Jarred
peanut butter, Gary decides onceagain that he needs to leave the
house to go mope and decides to ride his cool bike.

(01:07:22):
There he encounter while riding his bike.
He encounters Judy and Caitlin, the former of which he has a
long time crush on and who once once smiled at him.
That's everything. That's how you know the Dustin.
Trying to show off, Gary is struck by a car and killed.
The world rejoices that at the death of this pathetic loser,
loser, loser. Let me retake that.

(01:07:45):
Give me the gift of a grip top sock, a drip drape ship, ship
the. World rejoices at the death of
this pathetic loser. Chapter 4 Surprise Ghost riders
can be liars too. Gary lives, but he wrecks his
bike on a lamppost. Injured and mocked by a girl who
doesn't ever think about him, Gary goes home to take solace in

(01:08:07):
the one place every emotionally vulnerable, lonely male can find
belonging. Internet message boards about
video games. This was the the most like
accurate thing. Yeah.
I mean, yeah. Of course, like he, he went to
his room and and logged online and I was like, oh, yeah, OK,
yeah, yeah, someone knows. I don't think RL Stein would

(01:08:30):
know this. Was also the most not RL Stein
part of this book as well. Whereas like RL, Stein has no
fucking idea what this is. Absolutely no clue.
It's OK though, it's 1994, the Internet was just fine back
then. Gary wants to play Monstro.
A cool game where warrior must escape planet Monstro, but he
needs tips and tricks. He heads to drum roll please

(01:08:51):
computer note on electronic bulletin board and gets
unhelpful advice from Ted in Ithaca.
And the advice, by the way, is to stab the dragon between the
eyes or something, which it's like, OK, so here is here is
what I think is bad about this book from like a moral sense.

(01:09:13):
I think that Gary should have atleast been good at video games.
Yes, like. He should be good at something.
Like give him yeah. And that's what, that's the
thing that I thought was going to happen.
Sorry to cut you off, but like. No, no, go ahead.
I thought that the, and I was just about to ask, like, did
anyone else think the twist in this was going to be he was
going to be good at games? And then the IT turned out that

(01:09:33):
when he was turned into a beat, it was a simulation and he was
playing a game. So I thought that the lesson of
this book, the the take away of this book would be, you know,
Gary learns to appreciate what he is good at instead of, you
know, like the things about his life that are good.
For example, Yeah, he's good at video games.
We later learned that he is goodat math.

(01:09:54):
But the weird thing is that's not the lesson of this book at
all. Or that the end of this book
does not come about with to him.Like realizing that his that he
was, he doesn't suddenly realizethat being kind of a nerdy guy
is fine. That is not the lesson of this
book. I don't know that there is a
lesson. I would say there is a lesson,

(01:10:15):
there is a lesson. I would say there very much is
like. Weirdly enough, I agree with
both of you somehow. I mean, the lesson is bad, but I
do I do think that this book is trying to do the I mean, I mean,
there's literally it's. One of those things where it's
saying something, but I don't necessarily think that it's
trying to say it. I mean maintaining a status quo.

(01:10:36):
Here is the thing, there is literally an an item called
Ibiza, which is your permission to be yourself.
So certainly someone thinks thisbook had something to say.
It's true. Be himself, though?
Well, we'll get to do it, but he's a different person.
That's what I'm saying, that hey, hey, hey, we got there.
We did it. We've arrived.

(01:10:56):
He's not being himself, he's being something else.
He's improving. That's different.
Well, improving is one word for it, anyway.
The while on the bulletin board,Gary discovers a curious
advertisement. Take a vacation from yourself.
Change places with someone for aweek.

(01:11:16):
Chapter 5. Chapter 5.
Gary presses the Enter key. That's the fucking first
sentence. Incredible the.
Excitement is palpable. I am living.
Person to person vacations, funnily enough, P2P vacations.
If you think about it, they offer vacations from yourself.

(01:11:38):
Gary thinks that sounds crazy, but interesting.
At dinner, Gary's life continuesto suck, but the thought of
escape gives him hope. Gary goes to bed or his foot
touches something. This something is real and it's
very scary. A very scary event is about to
happen. Chapter 6.
It's a Brandon. What do you think it is?
It's a mummy. It's a mummy.

(01:11:59):
It's Mommy. Yeah, there's a mummy in his.
Room. It's a mummy.
That would be good. A mummy would be nice.
I think it's I think it's a gremlin.
I think it's gremlins. Gremlins.
What if it's? What if it's Satan?
What if it's Baphomet? What if Satan is there?
I think. Is Satan real?
What if the if? I don't think that Goosebumps
ever touches in the existence ofSatan, But I think it would be.

(01:12:21):
I think it would be a curious and exciting choice to do it
right now. If you can believe it, there's a
rat in Gary's bed. Oh my God, that's actually
pretty scary. That is scary, but lower your
expectations, Bob, because it's just a rubber rat.
It's a rubber rat, which which apparently, apparently it's it's

(01:12:42):
clause's favorite toy. I don't think that rubber rats
are cat toys. I don't think that's, I don't
think they are, but. I've seen.
I've seen. I have seen rat shaped toys or
mouse shaped toys for. Cats, not rubber.
Yeah, but rubber is not the textbecause I'm imagining that this

(01:13:05):
author who air they may be meanslike the Halloween decoration,
you know, prank rubber rats thatare like large and that to me is
not a cat toy, but I could be. When this was described in the
book, I thought of the the classic, like black rat with the
red eyes. That toy.
Yes. So yeah.

(01:13:26):
Yeah, in that way. Yeah.
That's not that's not a cat toy.I could be totally wrong.
This author may be coming from avery different place.
I'll, I'll grant them that. Gary hears his sister mocking
him, but decides not to thump her because, and this is real,
he believes he'll probably get beat up by a nine year old girl.

(01:13:46):
Gary. Oh, is it fucking?
Worst who opened the the fuckingpeanut butter?
Oh yeah, his sister did. His sister.
Did Chrissy came over and openedit for him so.
Yeah, his sister could be. He could, you know, she could.
She could kick his ass. Yeah, Gary heads to Peer Person
to Person Vacations, which is located in a very unassuming
building. The lady there, Miss Carmen

(01:14:08):
tells. I kept bringing Miss Karen and I
and I had to go back and change that in my mind.
She tells them all about it. It's body swapping.
You kind of kind of get it. I'm guessing you understand the
premise like, And she goes for the hard sell.
Gary vacillates, who would want to swap bodies with him after
all, but gives her his details anyway, and she tells him she'll

(01:14:30):
call him with any offers. On the way home, Gary is again
beaten up and resolves to returntomorrow to swap bodies
immediately. Remember this sentence because
this pissed me off actually. You're getting pissed off a lot
in this one. I mean not so much but like in
Chapter 7. I just want to point out that's

(01:14:52):
chapter 6 ends with him saying Iam going back there tomorrow.
Chapter 7 opens with I waited for a week and no one called
like. Like I changed my mind.
Gary. I mean, like, I get it.
I do think Gary wouldn't be proactive but I mean damn.
I've heard about an unreliable narrator but this is this is too

(01:15:13):
much. What about an indecisive,
depressed narrator? Yeah, what about?
What about just a real piece of shit?
Anyway, the phone rings often inthe house, but it's just
Chrissy's friends calling to gossip.
Was this a thing 9 year olds didin the 90s?
Did they? I don't know, I kind of shudder

(01:15:34):
to think what 9 year olds have to gossip about.
I mean, I guess they didn't havethe Internet.
They do, actually, a lot. They do have the Internet.
Yeah, they have. Clothing and on Disney stuff
they depict us a lot. Computer.
Note Computer. Note.
MSN Messenger is, you know, before then, what did kids do?
They didn't. Normal kids didn't have bulletin
board systems. They didn't know about that.

(01:15:55):
Well, they did, because it's in this book.
It is in this book, but I thought it's really weird, I
guess Gary. Isn't normal is that's fair,
Yeah. I will say this though.
Super nerd thing. How's Gary accessing computer?
Note if Chrissy is always on thephone gossiping because we know
they must have dial up Internet.I'm seeing plot holes here.
Oh. My God, Ding.

(01:16:17):
Ding. I mean, I can tell you that at
some point, I think in like 8th grade, I began using the phone
with regularity to talk to people.
But it was like, I mean, I'm, I'm in 8th grade.
I'm certainly not nine years old, you know, like, I guess I
don't know. I guess I don't remember what
kind of person I was at nine years old.
Like I could have had gossip. I could have had gossip.

(01:16:38):
I mean, this is also a book where we definitely know this
child is going to be turned intoa bee.
You're right, you're right, and you're right.
And once you've once, once you've signed up for that story,
I guess you can dispense with the logistics of dial up.
And you know what you're That's a fairpoint.
That's a fairpoint well made. A few days later, Gary sits

(01:17:00):
outside reading science fiction.Suddenly he hears a bee flying
by him. Remember bees?
Yep, they're back again. Gary sees a large hole and Mr.
Andre ceasing. To exist the second you stop
looking at them. The bees have escaped.
Gary rushes to call the paramedics.
I don't know what that would be,911.

(01:17:21):
I need an ambulance. Bees.
Ain't someone been stung? No.
They're just, I'm just really scared.
What if you can call 911? Whatever, you're just really
scared. So.
What's up? I've got bad news.
The bees are out again. Oh, No 9.
One, one help. I'm I'm trying to go into my

(01:17:42):
house but it's really dark and I'm scared of this.
I think there's someone in there.
Gary rushes to call the paramedics, but then he hears
Mr. Andretti mocking him. Releasing all your bees in your
neighbor. A cool prank, but what's?
This. Imagining a tune in a beekeeper
suit. Just like looking at Gary and
being like bitch. Yeah, let's, let's backtrack

(01:18:04):
here. Gary has spent in this course,
this book for all we know, a whole week, not bothering Mr.
Andretti at all. Because the last episode Gary
walks outside to read a book forone day, and Andretti has
created a whole his own bee apparatus to allow his beast to

(01:18:26):
escape and terrorize this child.He might as well.
And Mr. Andretti may as well be the other girl from You Can't
Scare Me. Who Just hey, hey, Gary, come
here. And he just takes a beat and
throws. It yeah.
Oh my God. Through the live wasp.
Weaponized bees. Bees.
Oh my God. It was foreshadowing.

(01:18:47):
Also, I will hear label Mr. Andretti as a fucking freak.
I think this man is a fucking freak of.
Everyone in the book I, I think you've got a couple freaks.
He's the biggest freak. Of all, I think he's the fucking
freak. I think Gary's a Gary's a freak,
but. Yeah, he's a but he's not.
He ain't. He ain't this freaky.
He ain't. This freaky.

(01:19:08):
As Gary returns to his home, hisphone rings.
It's Miss Carmen. What she's found a match and if
you can believe it, person to person vacations makes home
visits. I'm shaking my head.
No, I I don't. Believe it.
I don't believe it. I do not.
Fast forward to Miss Carmen showing up immediately at Gary's
house. Look, we got we got places to
be. We got places to be.

(01:19:29):
We realized we were 7 chapters in and he hadn't become a bee
yet, so we were like all right, so the donor, the donor of body
in this case is someone named Dirk Davis, if you can believe
that every. Time I hear his name, I think
Dirk Diggler, but that's anyway.Yeah, Dirk Davis is good at
skateboarding. Wow.
Whoa so cool. Why would he ever want to be in

(01:19:50):
a nerd ass body? Well, there's a reason for that,
Bob, and I'm so glad you said it.
It's because Gary is good at math.
Did we ever establish this before?
No, but the author is here to tell us that he is now good at.
The author realized there wasn'ta reason.
I was like. He's got it, man.
Breaking from the mold, it turnsout Gary is good at at least one

(01:20:12):
thing. See, this is again a thing I
feel like earlier in the book itshould have been established
that Gary was good at school. You know what I mean?
Like that Gary was was good at his classes, got straight A's or
whatever, but that he was unhappy because he didn't do
well in sports or like wasn't getting along with his friends
because he was trying to fit in with certain groups of people
that really didn't understand him.
Like that to me is the set up this book, and I realized that

(01:20:36):
maybe that's cliche, but this isa book for children aged 12, so
you'd kind of take what you get.You know, you still got to do
the work. You can't just say, well, my
readers are stupid kids, so I'm just not going to write the
story properly. I mean, I agree.
I agree. That's what I'm saying.
I think there should just establishing A baseline where
Gary, like I think Gary should have been getting on computer

(01:20:57):
note to give advice to someone else.
You know what I mean? I think he should have been
giving, getting on there to helpother people with the game such
that at the end of this book, when Gary gets his body back,
he's like, I realize now that the things I was good at, we're
good actually. And I was just trying to be
someone I'm not like so. You're saying that if RL Stein
wrote this book, he did a bad job, and if RL Stein was the

(01:21:22):
editor the the power editor of this book, he did also did a bad
job? Yes, I'm saying one to two
people did a bad job on this book.
Either one single question. Mark about of people.
A singular person or a multitudedid a poor job writing this.
Can you just imagine getting like like being a freelance

(01:21:43):
writer and just getting an e-mail in your inbox from
fucking jovial Bob RL Stein? And I want you to write a book
about a kid that becomes a bee. Hey, once you're I just book,
you've got a kid who becomes AB.Hey, you got that?
You got that book. Yeah, I told you.
You're right about that fucking B.
How's that coming along? You want a summary?

(01:22:06):
All right. One kid becomes B2, he becomes.
He became AB OK. I appreciate you not going A&B.
Oh, no, no. It's 1-2 and D.
All right, so anyway, kind of wish we'd established the Gary

(01:22:28):
is good at math earlier, but Oh well, we've established it now.
This is called writing. But as as Miss Carmen begins the
process, the the. Process the process the.
Bees enter. Could it be the plot indeed All
right now, chapter 8. I need you to kind of, I did
this in a somewhat experimental way.

(01:22:51):
Okay, so you're gonna have to bear with me here.
And I think you'll see your own going very quickly.
But, and you may find yourself having soft skin covered by fur,
and you may find yourself with small arms bending it on angles.
And you may tell yourself, this is not my tall muscular body.
And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

(01:23:13):
Letting the Davis go, flying around.
Now I'm flying around letting the days go by and I'm making B
sounds. Oh my God, that's good.
I love. That and then I said into the
blue again. Miss Carmen let me down once in

(01:23:35):
a lifetime. Guess I'm AB now.
This. I'm clapping.
Thank you so much. That was very good.
That was exceptionally good. This is not my beautiful wife.
Fuck off. Yeah.
Oh my God. Buzz off.
And so concludes my portion of this book.

(01:23:58):
And so concludes Mario's torture.
Gary's AB End of, end of chapter, end of.
Part Gary's AB End of story, really.
Oh, is it BDSM? No, it's not.
No, it's not. No, it's not.
Oh, God. All right, so I've been keeping
something from you guys. So I've I've I've had a shameful
secret. OK, we could tell.

(01:24:20):
We could feel the gravity. I'm going to share my screen and
you're going to see a man. This man, his name is John, BAKA
smooth hot chocolate. Is this how you read this book?
Yes, thank. You, Mario, thank.
You yes, this. Is how I experienced this book

(01:24:43):
through the wonderful John B AKASmooth Hot Chocolate, Smooth
Smooth Hot chocolate. Smooth chocolate, as he calls
himself in the video is a wonderful person.
I have nothing against him personally, he is just he is
very entertaining. I loved because the book does
not have an audiobook version. This is how I I just I'm an

(01:25:05):
audiobook person. I'm sorry I listened to it, and
I'm so grateful that I did so that I could experience the
wonderful cacophony of background noises of a John B
AKA Smooth Hot Chocolate throughout this read.
This is chapter 1 of Smooth Chocolate reading Why I'm Afraid

(01:25:26):
of Bees, and let me know if you hear something strange.
Just just you know what? We're going to play a little bit
of it. Tell me if you can detect the
moment where I lost my shit. He.
Thumped himself on the chest What?
And went on. But you're truly outstanding
beekeeper such as myself. He likes to work with this bare
hip, bare hands can. You play that again, yes.

(01:26:00):
Hip, bare hands. Did the person cap in this
personal? Well, wake up.
Oh yeah. He just looks up for a second.

(01:26:20):
Did they hear it? Did they know?
For the for the listener, it is this man reading this book,
looking down at the book and when you hear fuck, oh, wait,
I'm sorry, fuck. Smooth chocolate looks up,
panicked for a quick second. And this is this is the
culmination. Like this is the last time this
happened. But before you, you kept hearing

(01:26:44):
like weird background noises andsomeone like yelling.
Loudly. And this was like, I don't know
if they were telling him to shutup or something.
It was just, it caught me completely by surprise and I
couldn't stop laughing. It was so good.
I fucking can't man. Hold on, let's listen to.
It again. Myself likes to work with this
bare bare hands. Absolute.

(01:27:09):
Panic in his eyes. Decision making face
immediately. We're just going to keep going.
Oh God, Mario's going to do thatnow.
What I'm what I'm reading, he's just going to background.
Be I'm going to go out of the. Room out of the room.
OK, Chapter 9. Oh no dear listener, our

(01:27:31):
protagonist has been turned intoa bee.
Do you know what a bee is? If not, don't worry, this book
has you covered as Chapter 9 opens with Gary going through
the physical description of whathe now looks like, which is to
say a bee after examining his reflection.
Gary proclaims in his squeak, inhis new squeaky voice.
This is the putz. That's how I would be like.

(01:27:55):
That wonderful, wonderful. I didn't want to go a straight
the fly, but yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Help me. Realizing Miss Carmen made a
mistake and was about to leave in her car, Gareby attempts to
get her attention, only to be blocked by the front door of his
house, which he can't open because quote.

(01:28:16):
Please can't open doors. Remembering the back door was
cracked open slightly, Gary B, I'm going to stop.
Gary decides the best course of action is to fly directly at
Miss Carmen's head. Yeah, let's do it.
This turned out to be a terribleidea, as Miss Carmen proceeds to
smack Gary to the ground and immediately attempts to run him
over with her car, which will definitely happen and isn't a

(01:28:39):
Gary and isn't a patented Goosebumps Loathsome
cliffhanger. Oh man, there's one in your
chapters I think that's just absolutely fucking vile.
Oh, I've got a couple, I think. I would just love to say Gary
takes a lot of fucking punishment in this book.
Bees be kinder to bees, you guys, because they don't take
this. They can't hold up to this.

(01:28:59):
Like you can't just bat them around.
They will not survive. Yeah, they get kind of messed
up. Gives a an incorrect impression
of how much punishment a bee cantake.
Chapter 10 Gary screams, and just before he squashed, Miss
Carmen stops to adjust her seat belt.
Hey. Seatbelts really do save lives,
Gary tells himself. Garry's mom and dad walk outside

(01:29:21):
and approach him laughing. Garry's dad picks up the little
B boy and says, That's right Gary, it's always important to
wear your seat belt. Even when I get turned into a
bee? Gary asks.
Yes dear, laughs Gary's mom. Even when you're turned into a
bee. Gary buzzes excitedly around his
parents sense and says, well nowI know.

(01:29:43):
Then Mr. Andretti emerges from the nearby bushes in a ghillie
suit and holding an M4 and knowing is half the battle, he
says, looking directly into the camera.
A disembodied chorus sings GI Joe as everyone laughs, knowing
deep down that the G stood for goosebumps.
This whole time. This whole time.

(01:30:03):
It's been that way this whole time.
You didn't know, now you do You didn't.
Learning is learning is half thebottle.
Learning is half the battle. No, I said.
Bob. Learning is half the learning is
half the bottle. Hey kids.
Speaking of getting fucked up, I'm screwing around over here to
try to make a joke. I fucking have.

(01:30:25):
When you try to do shit you always like get really.
Quiet, you go Quiet. Yeah.
Razio Oh, you're. Just thinking about Tony J.
So Gary doesn't get run over, ofcourse, and his adventure
adventures outdoors start with him getting scared by a
Caterpillar because it's really ugly and looks like a dragon.
Gary's mom comes home, and Gary watches as Dirk, in Gary's body

(01:30:48):
asks his mom for, can you guess,Taco chips.
It looks like they do have that thing in common, causing Gary,
causing Gary to spiral into depression.
Yeah, you're welcome. If they could do it, I can do it
too. Motherfucker.
Watching Dirk eat. Watching Dirk eat makes Gary

(01:31:08):
realize he's starving, but he doesn't know what bees eat.
Thankfully, Gary read a book called The Big Book of Bees at
some point in his life, which isweird because I thought he hates
bees, but whatever. He remembers that bees eat
pollen, but just as he recalls this information, his dad
appears and walks into the back door of the house.
Gary shouts. Bob, let's Boo.

(01:31:30):
Gary will help me. His dad responds.
Hi Gary. That's the end of the book.
Yeah. That's a, that's a, that's a
good. You're very close to Gollum.
You I know it's just saying that.
Yeah, it's just saying that. I'm trying to like go in between
like the fly and like, you know,like a Gollum kind.
Of I just like to point out, forthe sake of scientific accuracy,

(01:31:52):
that bees eat both nectar and pollen from flowers.
It's true. Yeah, this book is fucking lying
to you. Chapter 11.
Turns out his dad was just talking to Dirk and Gary's
Gabadi, because of course he fucking was.
Gary tries to fly inside the house and get slammed by the
door after returning from the sucking plate.

(01:32:13):
Sucking place? Did I say sucking place?
All right, what the fuck is Brandon been working on that
he's been quiet about for the past fucking hour?
Nothing special. It's just, it's just Nick Cage

(01:32:34):
screaming about bees, but it's got a nine second Reverb tail.
That's the sequel to the previous audio file that he
posted in the Discord while we're recording Nick Bees dot
wave, which is just Nick Cage saying bees.
Can I say also, I've got to makea quick addenda to my last

(01:32:55):
statement about the pollen and nectar.
So this is important to know, and I think it's important
because it's cute. Bees take nectar and and pollen,
right? But they convert the nectar into
honey, which they also eat, yes.And they convert the pollen into
bee bread. Bee bread.
Bee. Bread.
What is bee bread? Bee Bread according to

(01:33:17):
indiana.gov. Tell me more about brosia.
I want to know so much more about bee bread.
I'm Googling it right now. Bee just sourdough.
No, red pollen is what? Pollen Bee pollen, also known as
bee bread and ambrosia, is a ball or pellet of field gathered
flower pollen packed by worker bees.

(01:33:38):
Oh. That's actually really cute.
That's really cute. Bee bread is.
They're little balls. That's really cute.
That's really cute. It's a little minorly screwed up
I guess, considering what pollenis.
I mean, yeah, yeah. The substance that we cannot,
that we have, we now are contractually obligated.

(01:33:59):
We will be sued if we may. Yeah, we, we all signed
contracts before the 20. 25 that's.
One of the things that we got, yeah.
We can talk about pollen though.Yeah, yeah.
I I didn't say anything about that.
Wait, is this formed because they put the the pollen to
honeycombs and that's what makesthe bee bread because they pack
it into the honeycomb? They're.
Kind of hexagonally shaped. They do indeed pack it into

(01:34:23):
cells, which I would guess. Are the cells of the honeycomb.
I would think so. Yeah.
Yeah, they are. And then they seal the cells of
honey. Aw.
Bees are cool. That is interesting.
Bees are cool. That is interesting.
There's so much. Yeah.
That's what stuff. That's what the honeycomb is
for, yeah. Yeah, well, I think it's also a
dual purpose because don't or isit Wasps?
I think the honeycomb for Wasps is how the you know the the.

(01:34:45):
They lay eggs and the the. Larva.
Yeah. And the eggs.
And yeah, do bees do that too? I don't know.
I don't actually know. Bees do indeed.
They do indeed lay eggs in the cells of the honeycomb.
So yeah, dual purpose. Wow, they're efficient.
They're wow, they're cool. I love bees.
Oh no, they literally put the bee bread in the honeycomb and

(01:35:06):
then lay an egg on top of it. Oh, so it's maybe the the.
The honeycomb is the. The bee bread is there to feed
the the. Yeah, the larvae.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK, yeah, that makes sense. Wow, that's cool.
I love animals. Wild shit.
Wild shit. Hey listen, that's our new
podcast, Wild Shit. These just lay their eggs on top

(01:35:27):
of a nice fresh loaf of bread. Yeah, that's very cute if you
think about that way. So much like us, they are.
Yeah, Chapter 11. Turns out his dad was just
talking to Dirk in Gary's body, because of course he was.
Gary tries to fly inside the house and get slammed by the
door. After returning from the sunken

(01:35:47):
place, Gary realizes that one, he's still a bee, and two, he
needs to go to Miss Carmen's office and get her to change him
back. He's then attacked by Claws the
Cat. That's Claus.
Like Santa Claus, who grabs him by his claws.
That's CLAWS. Please clap.
Chapter 12 After contemplating using his Stinger to escape the

(01:36:10):
situation, but realizing he'll die if he does, once again, big
thanks to the Big Book of Bees. Gary escapes, claws the cat by
flying real fast at the right moment or something, only to get
caught in Mr. Andretti's net. Yeah, Where is Andretti in all
this? Like he just like hanging
around, like appearing to the bushes.

(01:36:31):
Like I see a cat has caught one of my bees again.
Well, you know. What he's doing, he's he's a
fucking freak. So what he's doing is he's, he's
like he, you know, when do you tell people that you're scared
of something and they're like, ohh, what about in this
situation? What about And then they might
try to like do that like immersion therapy shit to like
quote UN quote help you. And so this.
Is. Yeah.
It's the excuse of many bullies.A scared, depressed child.

(01:36:55):
I had better, yeah. My adult neighbor.
I'm an adult man. I better torture this child.
Mr. Andrei's been crouching in the Bush with a gun that fires
bees. Again, that would explain the
ghillie suit and the M4 from before.
Yes the he's he's just staring at this kid.
Like canonically he is planning and plotting to fuck with this
kid. Yep.

(01:37:16):
Like staring over the fence likefucking Wilson from Home
Improvement but with like a fucking beekeeper shoot on.
Evil Wilson and Evil Wilson. Evil Wilson.
Yes, exactly. Dark Wilson, Yeah.
Dark. Wilson Chapter 13 This chapter
opens with Mr. Andretti calling the bees he's caught in his net
his honeys, a pun he makes a fewtimes in this chapter which
makes him very happy and everyone reading the book

(01:37:38):
irrationally angry. He should have said his buzzy
buddies. Buzzy.
Buddies Andretti dumps the bees into his hive as Gary
contemplates once again using his Stinger to escape the
situation. Chapter 14 And once again Gary
remembers that using his Stingerwill cause him to die, so he
does not do it. Gary gets dumped into the hive
and has run insurance with angrylooking bees until he makes it

(01:38:01):
to the honeycomb. Gary thinks to himself, I've
always hated the sweet. I've always hated the sweet
stitch there. No.
No pause for pause for childish laughter.
Gary slurps up some honey and finds it delicious.
So delicious that he loses himself for a moment in the idea

(01:38:23):
that maybe being a bee isn't so terrible.
Mom spaghetti. The charter ends with Gary
thinking to himself. I'm not a boy anymore, I'm a.
Can I just make a quick statement as?
I'm trying to be waspinator there you.
Were hitting Waspinator. You were getting there.

(01:38:44):
You were getting, Yeah, can I just say, backtracking slightly
to the part where Gary contemplates stinging and ready.
We know because of the Klaus thing that Gary knows that
stinging someone will kill him, but he still thinks to himself,
it would be really cool to stingMr. Andretti.

(01:39:06):
So his his mental math there wasit would be really cool to
fucking die, but I wouldn't get to sting.
I would get to mildly inconvenience a man who's
probably been stung 1000 times. Also he's constantly thinking
doing the over under of the Yoshi mitts to seppuku where he

(01:39:27):
stabs himself through to injure his opponent.
Yeah, like, or as we call it in our household, the the Goku
sacrifice. Yes.
Yes, yes. Yes, yes, when he gets hit with.
The special Beam cannon. Special beam cannon.
Yeah, surely. Special beam cannon, yes.
Special B Cannon. Shut the fuck up, Brandon.

(01:39:48):
God damn motherfucker. Chapter 15.
Gary wakes up from his honeycomba and discovers he's
trapped in the hive with bees. Well, who knew who seemed to not
like his presence. So he attempts to leave, only to
end up surrounded by more angry bees.
Surely the bees are going to kill him and there isn't some
misunderstanding happening here.Someone would have written in a

(01:40:10):
nasty comment if we didn't say special bee cannon.
I I like that he compares the bees to his bullies as though
there are bee bullies. Yes, yes, yes.
As though they're not doing their own thing.
Like, yeah. Wasps, I guess, right?
I guess that's true. WASP are kind of bullies.
Yeah, it's true. But I guess actually.
Wasps are fucking. Bullies don't really kill you

(01:40:30):
when you. Yeah, Wasps are fucking
homicidal cannibalistic murderers.
And interestingly enough, for anybody who likes nature
documentaries, there's a really good one.
I think it's part of Planet Earth.
I, I think go on YouTube and look this up.
It's basically a giant wasp versus like a hive.

(01:40:50):
Hive. Yeah, honey bees.
And the entire time where this was happening, I wasn't thinking
that it would happen, but it kept reminding me of how honey
bees defend against giant Wasps.Oh yeah.
They surround them and then theyoverheat the wasp, basically
cooking it from the inside. You know, Bob, that's a really
great point and it's never mentioned in this book if that's

(01:41:11):
like what's actually happening? I don't think that.
I think that the author didn't know that, but it is really a
great point. Unintentionally, they've landed
on an actual thing bees do to defend their hive.
Yeah, it's a thing, yeah. Against invaders and stuff,
yeah. Desiccate your enemies.
Chapter 16 So it was a big misunderstanding and the hive
just wanted Gary out of the way so they could watch a scout be

(01:41:32):
do a wee little jig to tell themwhere the nearby.
No, Bob, what? Not a wee little jig.
Okay. Not a wee little jig, it's a hip
hop dance. Yes, okay, break dance.
Watch a bee break dance. Very important that we know that
they call it a hip hop dance in this book.
It's got the hippity hoppity. It's it's So what those kids,

(01:41:53):
the kids are into these days. If this were an animated film in
1994, they would have this BB played by Robin Williams and he
would do a rap. And if it was done today it it
would be Ray Gun. No one laughed so.
Yeah, yeah. No, no, I got it.
If it was done today, it would be a literally a here's the

(01:42:16):
thing. If it was a ray gun thing, all
like my mind immediately went tothis being.
And in fact, I think if the Bee Movie were made today,
absolutely without question, I think Jerry Seinfeld would have
included a segment where a bee doesn't break dance because he
would know that bees communicateby dancing.
I. Think you're wrong?

(01:42:36):
And it would be Ray Gun. I think he would do it.
I think it would suck, yeah. I think it would suck, yes, but
two years? Ago I think Fortnite dance.
I also think that if B movie wasmade now, everyone involved
would be summarily executed. Yeah, I also you don't have to
backtrack Bob. I think you can call it if B
movie happened now, if B movie happens now like if we if it

(01:42:59):
happened to us now. People would just think it was
AI. Yeah.
Like we kept thinking while we were watching it, we were like,
this is this feels like AI slop even though it definitely
couldn't have been. Yeah, that's OK.
You're getting me thinking aboutthat.
But I've been thinking about this for a while because I've
been working on a video that basically deals with some, a

(01:43:20):
company kind of ingesting content and like milling it in
a, in a very AI way. But there's no way they could
have used AI because back then, you know, they just didn't have
it there. There's, there's something to be
said about content made by humans that just feels like fake
or inauthentic. It's, it's weird.
There's, there's a bunch of media that does that for me.

(01:43:41):
It's it's, it's so strange when when it happens, but now we just
say, oh, it's AI and so. It it's sort of like a, it's
like a a bulk drivel. Uncanny.
Yeah, Uncanny valley. Kind of, yeah.
Like we, you encounter stuff like this and I think like this
is going to be one of the interesting things about the
future is that like a bunch of, I think that there's a lot of
media that people in the future will be like, they'll they'll

(01:44:02):
call it AI or they'll call it slop and they'll mean it in the
way that they know, but like, but they might, might not even
appreciate like that. It wasn't possible for it to
literally be that yet. But spiritually it will be
identified. Spiritually, it was, yeah.
It will become. It will have become always AI
slop. Hey, remember, it's like a.

(01:44:23):
Genre that. Yeah, yeah.
Hey, remember in the B movie when?
No, they have they have Larry King in it and he's and he's,
he's just playing his literal name is B Larry King.
Yeah. And it was funny for one second
because it was like if they justwent with that and they just
like didn't. Didn't get it off.
Not like Larry queen cuz queen of a hive or something.

(01:44:45):
B Larry King but his amateur hour.
But then Jerry Seinfeld's B says, hey, you know, they have a
Larry King in the human world, too.
And they talk about Larry King for a minute a lot like they
talk a lot about Larry. King and.
Literally just lists things thatLarry King does and the B Larry
King is mildly annoyed by this and he keeps going on and it

(01:45:08):
just keeps going. And just keeps going.
It's like uncomedy, the oppositeof comedy.
It's also also from you. That movie, I'm pretty sure
Larry King wasn't even still doing his show at that time.
So like when that movie came out, so like, not even who is it
for? Who's it for?
But did you think for a minute while reading this book?

(01:45:30):
Wouldn't it have been kind of funny if the if this book had
had like a depiction of B society where they were
characters? I mean, there wasn't enough time
for it, but it would have been something if it were.
But I guess it's more threatening when they don't
communicate and just break danceat you, Yes.
Yes I no I. What if he'd?

(01:45:50):
What? If he'd What if he'd come back
from being a bee and he knew howto dance?
There. You.
Go, Patrick. Warburton I thought they would
kill. Him with a rolled up copy of
Italian Vogue. What if Patrick Warburton tried
to kill this child with a rolledup coffee copy of Italian Vogue?
Yes, what if? Patrick Warburton in that movie

(01:46:12):
had had one, one level of energyand it was screaming constantly.
He tried very hard. He did a great job, but it's
just like good morning. You just clipped completely.
You you vanished into the Phantom Zone for a second there
like. You'll probably get it on
Audacity. I was trying to spare your ears.

(01:46:34):
It was incredible. You did the exact thing that
what was it? Was it a cat or I forget what it
was but it was like. Yeah, yeah, he did like he did
that. Yeah.
Yeah, that's exactly it. I'll try again, but okay, here
we go. Wait, what does he sound like?
Yogurt night. Yeah, yeah, okay.

(01:46:55):
I'm just saying it would have been a great book.
If B is cooking my wife. It would have been great if at
the end of the book, Gary revealed that he was really good
at hip hop dancing because of his time as a bee that didn't
have there. Would be more dancing because
bees communicate by like dance like little dance like.
There's that MS3. K Joke.

(01:47:16):
Yeah, yeah. It's fucking in the book, It's
there, it's textual. The author knows bees dance, but
they don't use it and it's fucking.
Yeah, it's the author seems to think that bees only dance, and
this may be information that like came to light later because
we were learning a bunch of shitabout.
I think that was a relatively recent discovery.
That they dance all the time, I think is a relatively recent
discovery. But there was that MST3K episode

(01:47:38):
that I mentioned before. And how old was that episode?
The Deadly Bees is one of the best episodes of MST3K in my
memory. I think it's actually kind of
boring, but. OK, In 1973, Carl von Frisch was
awarded the Noble Prize for his research on the honey bee waggle
dance. But I don't know dance
specifically for scout bees to communicate to the hive where

(01:48:01):
the honey is. Yeah, let me see.
Let me see if there's a further information what about this?
Yeah, because I always thought it was they danced in general
just to communicate. Let me see this.
I'm looking. I'm looking to see here.
What if the waggle dance instructions are basically just
like and kind of go that direction generally just like

(01:48:21):
for a little while and then likemaybe you'll see.
OK, well, I guess I should say there's just been like
constantly more information about this basically that
there's just been, there have been more, many studies have
built upon this information. So I don't know to what degree
it was completely understood what bees were doing when they
were dancing when this book cameout or what the author would

(01:48:42):
have known about it. But certainly the author is
aware that they do dance. So it is a shame there's not
more of it, I'll put it that way.
And also that Gary doesn't do 1.He should have become a break
dancer. Yeah, that would have been an
excellent. End.
That's what I'm saying, yeah. I agree.
So let's just so I'll I'll rewind.
It was a big misunderstanding and the hive just wanted Gary

(01:49:03):
out of the way so so they could watch a scout bee do a.
Hip hop dance. Not a wee little jig that then
Gary would look at and ingest. Remember, for when he gets out
into the real world eventually, if he can.
Who knows what happens at the end of this book.
Maybe he's a bee forever. I don't know.

(01:49:24):
Yeah, could be. So yet again big ups to the Big
Book of bees for Gary under understanding what was going on
here. So Gary followed the bees out of
the hive only discover a hole Andretti had in his screen
keeping the bees in had been patched up.
Dejected Gary sat on top of the hive only for Andretti to see

(01:49:44):
him declare him a sick bee and try to grab him.
Yo that yo that bee is sick. Yo, that bee sick.
Not son of a bee. So, OK, I, I just referenced
something. I, I make this joke with Rachel
all the fucking time. And it's a local commercial.

(01:50:04):
And so I, I feel like you all need to need to, all right,
sharing video. This is a very multimedia
episode, all right. OK, I'm watching.
Yeah. Wow.
Wow yo man, don't watch this set.
Oh yeah. Woodbridge going pond, baby.
Sorry, that's it, but. That's a hell of.

(01:50:25):
A delivery. Wow.
Yo man, that watch is. Sick.
And it's like, yo man, that. Watches you should have gotten
the other guy also to do his video that.
I agree. It's true.
Chapter 17 Gary escapes Andrettiand goes through the hole in the
screen the other bees were usingto escape.
Surprise, there was another holein the screen.

(01:50:46):
Andretti really needs to maintain a screen.
Bees keep getting the fuck out. This is kind of a problem.
Honestly I'm surprised this his like neighbors haven't like come
over and be like hey man fix your bee shit like this is a
problem like the bees are getting into the neighbors
houses. My house is filled with.
Bees. Imagine, you know, going up to

(01:51:09):
the door and being Andretti, opening the door and it's just
your neighbor completely coveredin bees.
They go into their kitchen and there's a bread box next to
their bread box. A little tiny bread box full of
bee bread. A.
Little door that the bees. Oh my God, that's that's.
Having a little cup of coffee, yeah.
Copy. Did you say copy?
Copy. Yeah, copy.

(01:51:30):
I was reading she makes a propercup of coffee in a copper coffee
pot. Oh, it was on the screen and it
and it tripped me up. Yeah, we are.
OK. Are are we?
Do we all like hot box before this is that?
No, no, we're all. Just kind of like loopy she.
Makes a proper cup of coffee in a copper coffee.
It's been she. Sells B shells by the B shore.

(01:51:52):
It's been a heck of a 24 hours, you know?
B cells by the B butter. Better batter.
Gary notices his dad leaving through the back door to his
house and makes his way inside, only for his sister Chrissy to
attack him with a family swatter.
He's definitely and this time that's my chapters.
While my chapters were very not good, I did appreciate that

(01:52:15):
most, the vast majority of them were like a page and 1/2 or not
even because the chapter, like the page denoting that it's a
chapter that's the start of a chapter is like it takes up like
half the fucking page anyway. So really, they're all, they
were all basically like a page. I appreciate, and I'm going to
say this again at the end that this book says it's going to do
something and then it does it and, and you know, whether or

(01:52:39):
not you think it does it, well, it it, it does the thing it said
it was going to do. Like kids, a bee.
He's doing bee stuff. He's in a hive.
He's flying around, he's gettingswatted at, he's struggling to
communicate. He's doing stuff.
This isn't him running from one end of a town to another, having
like shitty, lame conversations with other kids.

(01:53:00):
He's in peril constantly. You know, I appreciate that.
I'm, I'm glad that they did that.
This, this could have been so much more boring and worse.
I. Agree.
Yeah, it's true for me. So Brandon, I think you're,
you're, you've got the final chapters.
Yes, all right. Chapter 18 Betty bought her,

(01:53:21):
bought a bit of butter, but she said this butter's bitter.
If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter, but
a bit of better butter that would make my batter better.
So Betty bought her, bought a I'm done.
You know how the bees surround the the Hornet to overheat?
You just did that with my brain.Sting me, sting me.

(01:53:42):
My body is a road map of stings.No, I deserve it though.
All right. Chapter 18 Gary's sister
continued to attempt to murder her brother with a family
swatter. Gary began darting wildly around
the room, crashing into the walls and cupboards to show
Chrissy how upset he was. I think we can all agree that's
a strategy. Then he fucked off.

(01:54:04):
His new idea was to buzz the Dirk Davis and Gary's body and
ask for help. The fake Gary was asleep on his
bed and refused to wake B Gary decided to try typing a message
on his computer. Gary managed to turn on the
screen, but Fake Gary began to stir on the bed.
Belch Time. Did you write that or did that

(01:54:28):
just happen? Did that just happen?
Was that an Austrian demand? Did.
You just announced Belch time. I'll leave it to you to decide.
Why is that funny? Oh God.
Because we're two hours into a podcast recording session.
So what's funny is A is a different metric.

(01:54:50):
B Gary, panicking, quickly dashed out.
I am not a bee, I am Gary. Hello me.
That's supposed to be help me, but he mistyped it and this is
in story. Seeing that he had made a typo,
B Gary considered a revision before giving up due to a fast
approaching deadline. Goosebumps.
Wow, the meta commentary. The meta commentary, it's good.

(01:55:12):
Yeah, Fake Gary instead woke up,got dressed, and began to leave
the room without checking the screen.
Oh no, Chapter 19. But then he did check the
computer, and he turned it off without reading the message.
Shit. He did not even safely shut down
the computer. He hit the power switch.
It's a computer, not a toaster, you cretin.
B Gary followed Fake Gary downstairs and watched him walk

(01:55:35):
outside with an old skateboard. Caitlin and Judy approached, but
instead of making fun of Fake Gary, they asked if they were
late for their skateboarding lesson.
No way, said Fake Gary, want to head over to the playground like
we did yesterday? B Gary was flabbergasted that
Fake Gary was giving the children skateboarding lessons.
The girls admit they had invitedother girls to get skateboarding

(01:55:56):
lessons too. Then off they fucked.
I don't know what it is about. B Stories and cookery like this
isn't exactly cookery, but spiritually.
This is cookery. What is it about bees and and
cooking humans? Let me ask, what is the thing?
I have a question. I have a question.
It has been like how long in thecourse of this book?

(01:56:17):
Like 2 hours. Like like it can't have been
more than 24 hours in the courseof this book.
So how did Fake Gary give them askateboarding lesson yesterday
and is now doing it again today?How how is that he's?
Just so fast man. Maybe at a certain point in my

(01:56:41):
chapters Gary fell asleep, like after he drank the honey.
Yeah, but that means that like, fake Gary not only discovered a
skateboard, got like, OK, swap bodies, found a skateboard,
found these two girls, gave themskateboarding lessons, got Taco
chips, ate dinner with his family, went to bed, woke up,

(01:57:02):
woke up, and then is now doing the skateboarding lesson again.
Like what? What?
Like, I'm so confused as to things happen so fast.
Life comes at you fast. You know when you're, when
you're when. You're AB when you're AB.
Everything happens so much, I think.
Everything does happen so much. Yeah, it's really the take away.

(01:57:23):
Yeah, Gary followed them to the playground and buzzed.
Fake Gary, who swatted him away.B Gary decided to try to find
Missus Carman at the body swap office when his reverie was
interrupted by the shadow of a dragonfly.
Stay calm, Gary told himself. A dragonfly is an insect, isn't
it? And insects don't eat don't eat
each other. Gary, you've read a book.

(01:57:43):
On the author think that kids don't know that bugs eat other
bugs. You must know this, Gary, you
can't you? There's just no way that a 12
year old doesn't know that bugs eat bugs like it's.
It gets worse. Before he could move, the
dragonfly zoomed down, wrapped its teeth around Gary's middle,

(01:58:04):
and bit him in two. This is the end of the chapter,
so this last sentence was a lie.Chapter 20.
It took Gary a few seconds to realize that the dragonfly had
turned and buzzed off in the other direction instead of doing
the thing that Gary said it did declaratively.
Just a fucking that is. That's the worst.
That's the worst. The word is despicable.

(01:58:25):
Yeah. Loathsome.
That's perhaps the most loathsome has ever been, like, I
don't think. Literally.
I can't think of any worse that that is.
You literally said that he was bitten in half.
No take back. So you can't do that like.
Yeah, you're gaslighting these children.
RL Stein, you are gaslighting children.
Yeah. Well, not RL Stein, although

(01:58:45):
this might have been a thing that it could have been.
It could have been. I think that.
It has his name on it. So at the very least he deserves
like, you know, if we're going to give him the credit, we
should give him the blame. Yeah, the ultimate
responsibility for. I mean, he probably, I, I'm
going to guess that this was like a thing.
He was like, this is a thing youhave to do burp time.

(01:59:11):
I wish some. People would do that more fart
time and then it's. Really stupid, but you know.
Burp Time. Yeah, yeah.
OK, so Gary said that real quick.
Real quick. I just want to go ahead and put
it out there whenever that happens in the future.
Can we? Can we all just collective

(01:59:32):
collectively agree to call it goose lighting?
Goose sliding. Yeah, yeah.
OK, yeah. That I I like that, yeah.
Thank you. Yes.
Please continue. I I think that that might be the
last time that it really happened.
This is definitely the worst one.
This is like so, so egregious. It's so bad.
Out of the entire. Series, Yeah, yeah, you even

(01:59:53):
have to stop the story to justify it.
They, they have never done that before.
I think where they in text justify the shit maybe.
Maybe a couple of times anyway. He said it, it declaratively bid
him in half. It did not Loathsome.
In this case we also get a lame explanation about why he would
say that, which is that his imagination was running away

(02:00:14):
with him because he was overtired.
I don't think it's any better with a shitty explanation.
I think you should just run awayfrom it.
When you do a crime, Don't. Don't slap me to and tell me
that you didn't do it. Just run away from.
It you know, I would have respected it more if it just
like kept going and it's like, wait, what?
But also at least it tries to explain it, because we have

(02:00:40):
something that happens later at the end of this book that has no
explanation. Whatsoever and it's and it's
magnitude, it's more egregious. Yeah, there's the next one's at
least entertaining. Yes.
B Gary flew off to the body swapoffice.
When he arrived, he puzzled overhow to get inside until a

(02:01:01):
convenient mailman provided him egress by opening the mail slot.
A random girl appeared and B Gary screamed at her to leave
the business, but obviously she didn't hear our hero.
Woefully devoid of pattern recognition, like some kind of
brainless June bug, Gary flew directly into a glass partition.
Those fucking June bugs. We hate them.

(02:01:22):
We feel feelings, we have thoughts about them.
We all think they're stupid. We reflect on this often, don't
you guys? I mean, I, I don't we all think
about. That, yeah, I hate.
I hate him, Yeah. Feel free to speak for me.
I Yeah, yeah. Yeah, You know, a ton of this
book does revolve around Gary trying to talk to people without
despite knowing that they fucking can't hear him.
Yeah. Yeah, continuously, without

(02:01:44):
success. He's supposed to be smart in
some form. Allegedly that they they say he
is, yeah. He's good at math.
Now you know he is stressed out.He is a bee.
And like you can also explain all this away by saying like
he's got a human intellect shoved into whatever equipment a
bee has. Probably like 3 copper lines

(02:02:05):
wired together. That one says honey here, the
other says cook wasp. But yeah, anyway.
And part of it is just break dancing, yeah.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, probably half of it's break.
Dancing, right? Yeah.
If you did a diagram, listeners,if you want to do fan art,
there's Nicolas Cage as the bee.And then there's also, yeah, a

(02:02:28):
diagram of a bee's brain and where it's segmented to show how
much of it is dedicated to breakdancing.
Thank you in advance. A little tiny part of it is
stinging Nick Cage in the face. It's.
True. Identifying Nick Cage and
stinging in the. Face mapping Nick Cage Nick Cage
Location determined. It's got a little.
Nick Cage, GPS, The track. They're all dancing to show the

(02:02:51):
where Nick Cage is. This is the phone number of his
agent. Anyway, like some kind of stupid
June bug, Gary flew directly into a glass partition.
Riding on the floor, fucking idiots.
Fucking June bugs. Fucking June bugs a dumbass,
Yeah. Right, I think yeah, fucking

(02:03:13):
dumbass. Some of the bitch it would be.
So much it would be. A much more entertaining book if
people bullied him. Like realistically like yeah the
fucking dude covered in bees andmaking fun of him and then you
just hear under his breath. Fucking dumb ass.
Dumb. Ass.
Yeah, this. Is.
This stupid repulsive anteater fucking garbage.

(02:03:36):
Did you just make a fucking overdrawn at the memory bank?
Reference. Oh yes, it lives in my brain.
That's what you're you're, you get what you pay for, you know?
Yeah, yeah. My nuts, mom.
My nuts can. Someone turn off the fat
rotating guy. Yeah, it's like, I think for a
very long time it was my favorite episode because I had

(02:03:57):
not yet seen Space Mutiny. Yeah, but overdrawn at the
memory bank. Big Mclart.
Huge. Yeah.
Big Mclart. Huge, yeah.
The fucking scream and then rollout of the little fucking yeah
the jump. My grandma, Daughter.
Yeah. Oh my God.

(02:04:17):
This year of Christmas comes from Santa.
For Santa. Damn.
Some would love some cookie though for Santa.
We just need to have a maybe, maybe one day we can have a
bonus episode where we just quote, do all of the quotes.
We just get it out of the system.
I would legitimate. I would legitimately enjoy doing
a Space Ghost and Mystery Science Theater like episode.

(02:04:40):
That could be maybe a bonus thing or something.
But like, yeah, definitely. Like what are your favorite
episodes? Let's go through our favorite
quotes. You know, stuff like that, that.
Hell yeah. I would definitely talk about
those things that they they form.
I mean like if you're talking about like a bee's brain is half
dancing, half of mine is girl with gold boots.
Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank andSpace Mutiny.

(02:05:02):
Did anyone notice I teleported here?
It's impressive. Thrown violently into the next
scene, you. Turned violently at this point.
At this point, I hadn't yet reacted.
Yeah, yeah, this. Is the fucking Hobgoblins
episode. I think about hobgoblins all the
time. If you'll follow me this way,
I'll tell you about my Mary urethra, but I'll tell you about

(02:05:25):
my problematic urethra. Sorry, I was complaining of.
Was was was it that episode? Was it Hobgoblins where Crow
does the presentation on women? Where he like treats women like
Bigfoot? Because.
He's never seen a woman. Women.
Women. Women.
Women, women. Women Oh man, the this one's on
topic. Actually, the Deadly Bees 1 Crow

(02:05:47):
gives a recites performs a poem reading about his love for the
smoking woman in the movie and it is I I like aped the meter
and and tone of that in like third grade writing assignments.

(02:06:09):
I felt yeah I would rather die than switch as I move my claw
through silky locks to my delight, though some would call
the the witch. I love the filter flavor pack or
box. Yeah.
Yeah, it's got that and the Canada song.
Oh my God. Yes, yes.
Yes, yes, yes. We love, we love.

(02:06:30):
Let's get back to hate. Mustn't hate, mustn't hate.
Oh, not so overtly. Enough of love, we return to
hate. So B Gary shouted for Miss
Carmen, writhing on the floor inagony.
Chapter 21 Miss Carmen also did not hear him.
B Gary finally understood that no one could hear his little B

(02:06:52):
voice. He should have belched loudly.
That was that was a sorry, that one was not.
A. Little wet.
It's hard to do on command. Yeah.
He curled up into a ball on the seat of a chair and ruminated on
the hopelessness of his situation.
And a depressed bee, the book continues.
Sad. Sad.
How sad. A depressed bee, the book

(02:07:16):
continues. I had never been so miserable in
all my life. I wished someone would come
along, drop into the chair and sit on me.
Sit on me, B Gary screamed into the void.
Sit on me until I am a bee pancake crush.
Me by this. Is all in the book.
Death of my ass. Crush me between those sweet
cheeks. In this chapter of the author's

(02:07:37):
thinly disguised fetish. Yeah, B Gary noticed Miss
Carmen's microphone and suddenlyhad the obvious idea.
He flew to it and screamed into it, which finally caught Miss
Carmen's attention. I can't wait to see how this
doesn't work. There is no way real Stein would
let this resolve the conflict, right?
Sort of. But no, they have a

(02:07:58):
conversation. Miss Carmen is incredulous at
first, but Bea Gary explains thesituation, blaming her
negligence for his unbelievable predicament.
Miss Carmen says, well, that explains why Dirk Davis body has
been acting so strangely. Yeah, let's check in on that.
Yeah. Tell us more about that.
Yeah, yesterday he filed A lawsuit against Big Honey on
behalf of all bees. The company thought that was

(02:08:20):
weird. God damn it, Miss Carmen said.
Yeah, yeah. B movie, B movie is AB Movie is
like a punch line. You just say the words B.
Man, Yeah, You mean say? Think you have to do?
Funnier than the rest of the movie.
Don't say it, don't think it theBB man.
Don't say it, don't spray it. Oh my God, it's a tarm B man.
Yeah, the B man over there. That's the baby, man.
B man anyway. You.

(02:08:42):
See Jerry Seinfeld in public. You go like.
That's the B movie guy. It's an insult.
Nasty what? What a nasty thing to do.
But he would also deserve it. He can't say anything about
that. Yeah.
Miss Carmen said she hoped it atleast had been interesting.
And Gary poured out his grievances about the series of
near death events he had experienced.

(02:09:03):
Gary demanded to be put back into his own body, but Carmen
explains there's a problem. Dirk Davis doesn't want to give
up Gary's body. He wants to keep it forever.
A weird conflict chapter. 20 I hate this.
What? What, what, what?
I mean, I guess I don't hate it.I guess I would say that is it
shocking to me that a like experimental tech company would

(02:09:27):
be wildly irresponsible and market their product without a
fail safe mechanism to prevent aperson from just staying in the
body permanently? I guess.
And I live in the real world. And no, that's not that shocking
that they. Would.
That part isn't weird to me. The part that's weird to me is
that they would give a shit whatany of the users want.
That's true too. Like, I just understand.
Yeah. You're telling me that you built

(02:09:48):
this system and the user has control over this?
Like I don't make any sense to me that.
No, like the real world version of this would be like.
She would panickedly, in a panicked fashion, hook him back
up to the chair and beam him into what she thinks is his old
body. It would be some.
It would be like a lamppost or something.
Also they don't do this and it'sa huge oversight for me that I

(02:10:10):
couldn't grab my head around whythey didn't?
They don't put him in Dirks body.
Why don't they put him in Dirks body instead of leaving him as a
bee? This is not going to be covered.
It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't have to in this
section, Miss Carmen and the entire operation is going to be

(02:10:33):
extremely, superficially, unbelievably stupid in a way
that that strange credulity. But again, we're talking about
the company that for free apparently will beam children
into the bodies of other children.
Fair enough. I don't.
I don't think we really want an explanation for why this is
happening. I also just, it just, it's funny
when hearing it for the first time that like someone, this is

(02:10:55):
potentially the first time someone just doesn't want to go
back. It's like if someone was, it's
like if Airbnb was like, yeah. You can't come on over.
And then they're just actually, yeah, we, we don't want to move
out anymore. This is our house now.
This is my house. It makes it makes as much sense
as if he said, hey, beam me backand he's like, we can't.
He painted his fingernails. I'm.

(02:11:16):
Like. It just doesn't make it doesn't.
Matter. It's just, it's just like Miss
Carmen. Walk like you'll.
You'll get there. I'm not going to.
I'm on. Steal your Thunder.
You can say what Miss Carmen does.
For all the 22, Carmen explainedif he doesn't want to get out of
Gary's body, there's nothing shecan do.
She apologizes, but says she guesses they'll have to be more
careful in the future. Oh well, got to chalk that one

(02:11:37):
up. Can't win them all.
This is the first thing she said.
Instead of let's swap you into Dirk Davis body.
At least instead of leaving a bee in there, Yeah.
Yeah, or leaving you in a bee. This bee is going to die.
He has no idea how any of this works.
Yeah, and nobody else is having is going.
Hey, Wing. What's weird?
What? However Dirk Davis is acting,

(02:11:58):
it's not going to be normal unless he's like, hello, mother.
I love you. I have always loved all things.
Let me tell you of the secrets of the bees, The Secret Life of
bees and our wisdom. That would be good.
I would have liked to read that.Yeah, I would have liked to have
read that. Also they talk about like a

(02:12:18):
thing that comes up eventually but is worth noting here.
She is perfectly fine leaving this child in a bee's body.
Bees live for a month to two months.
This is not him being transplanted into the body of a
freshly born bee. Well, you know now that he is a
bee. His life is meaningless and

(02:12:39):
everyone treats it. Like, I mean, that's true, this
bee could just die at any minute.
Meanwhile there is a human body with a bee's brain in it
available. The bee doesn't want to stay in
Dirks body. See, for a moment I thought
that, oh, wait, maybe this is like some like grand scheme
where like, it's, it's a thing where everybody's constantly

(02:13:04):
like figuring out ways of getting the bee to a new body or
like trying to get their body back, but in the process.
Sort of a musical chairs, but with.
Exactly, but with like a bee brain and human bodies and like
it was just like, you know, and then the the point of it would
be kind of like this this commentary on like not

(02:13:24):
generational, but just like how these how that kind of shit is
like passed on, but like fuckingOK, you just.
Thought no, Bob, they have. Got nothing to say.
No, Bob, they actually gave up at this point.
The story at this point may as well be over because they've
given up completely. The the the completely giving up
part is, is coming. Yeah, it's, it's pretty.

(02:13:45):
It's bold. It's bold.
So Carmen suggested B Gary. B Gary goes back to the hive,
you know, and just chill, I guess This is getting fanciful.
Carmen says she'll think about his case before abruptly leaving
her office and slamming the doorshut behind her.
Gary shouted after her that he has been locked in, but Carmen
did not return. What the fuck is happening?

(02:14:06):
B Gary noticed Dirk Davis address on some paperwork on
Carmen's desk and decided to go buzz Dirk's body for half a
page. B Gary searched for and found an
exit. He flew to Dirk's house, saw the
body of Dirk in his front yard, who looked at B Gary confusedly,
then motioned with his hand. B Gary followed Dirk's body to
the backyard, where it stuck itsnose into a rose Bush and said

(02:14:29):
Yom. I mean, I do think that's kind
of funny. I think that's.
Funny. It is funny.
Yeah, we are expected to believethat that B Gary was only has
only just now realized that the bee's mind was in Dirk's body.
B Gary said that Dirk the Bee was in worse shape, to which
Dirk responded to hum hum. I am picturing that he is not
humming or making a buzzing noise.
He is saying the English word hum aloud.

(02:14:50):
I also like that when he goes tosee the Dirk Bee, he is like,
maybe who? Maybe whoever is in Dirk's body
can help me. Gary, you're good at math.
There are three brains in this equation.
I'm starting to think that Gary's not good at math.
It might be the case that Gary is normal at math.

(02:15:12):
And Dirk's very bad at it when it.
Comes to math. I think good at math is relative
to everything else he is, which is bad.
That's true. Fair, Fair, fairpoint.
Fairpoint. So B Gary fucked off as Dirk
continued to stick his face in the bushes.
As B Gary flew away, he heard the bully Marv accosting Dirk's
Gary. Barry, Marv and Carl, those are

(02:15:33):
the names of the bullies. We're closing in on Dirk's Gary
to give him the pounding of the life.
I pray Real Stein has a good idea for this confrontation that
involves his idea of skateboard tricks.
I would love to read that. No, I'm sorry.
Chapter 23. To B Gary's surprise, the
bullies were recoiling in fear from Dirk's Gary.
B Gary could not believe this. While Dirk Gary left, B Gary, a

(02:15:56):
giant idiot, decided to also have some fun with the bullies
by buzzing them instead of getting crushed or slapped.
It actually works in a series ofslapstick B shenanigans ensue.
These include that B Gary flew into Marv's mouth, who nearly
deafened B Gary with his scream.B Gary flew away as Marv spat
and choked. B Gary clearly has a death wish.

(02:16:17):
I guess I can't blame him. B Gary flew to his old room
where Dirk Gary was lounging. B Gary tried to communicate with
Dirk Gary again and was swatted at.
Dirk Gary finally said, Will youplease quit bothering me?
I'm trying to relax. We learned that Dirk Gary has
been aware of B Gary's attempts to communicate, and that the
mistaken transfer allowed him tohear quote all kinds of little

(02:16:37):
bug noises. Now Dirk Gary tells B Gary that
he likes Gary's body and refusesto give it up.
That's very forward. B Gary freaks out and buzzes him
and is confused when Dirk is notaffected.
Dirk Gary says he doesn't want to murder B Gary, but he will if
he has to. That's fucked window.
And ruminated on The Secret Lifeof bees.
Pretty fucked up how many peoplein this story are just like

(02:16:59):
completely OK with him dying. It's like the transitive
property of a bee's life not being worth that much is just
effective. Even if there's a human in it.
It's it's really says something deep about the value we place on
human life. Yeah.
Bro. Be a human life, man.
Yeah. Bullshit.
Nothing bullshit. Fucking wow, son of a bitch.

(02:17:20):
Fuck off, son of a bitch. Wow, bees are bees are cool.
It's deep. What if she was like a little
man? Little race.
Car bees like a little man What?If it's what if a bee could
drive? And like, what if he?
Wanted 85 What if What if a bee could drive a car?

(02:17:40):
What would be math? What if B math?
Hey, I'll tell you one thing. Dirk didn't get better at math,
that's for fucking sure. He goes to that next math test
that's going to be awkward as hell.
I don't know, I mean like maybe,maybe he.
Shows up to the math test. It's like completely nude.
Yeah, that's the Honestly, I would have thought that a bee,

(02:18:03):
in having a human body, would have gone much crazier than what
Dirk is doing currently. I'm actually I'm actually really
impressed with the. Yeah, the bee is like actually
adapted really well. Yeah.
Yeah, he's done. He's done.
OK. I mean, like, and also he's
gonna live so much longer. I don't think he wants to.
Yeah. This is a.
This is nothing but an upgrade. It's a huge win for the bee,
yeah. Yeah, just, I mean, you could

(02:18:24):
stick him in a factory job. He probably would be fine with
that. Yeah.
Maybe like this is I feel at home.
This is it. Maybe he like had a great.
I love this. Yeah, I mean, you'll have to.
He's definitely be sucking on pop all day.
Yeah, yeah. He's going to be Mountain Dew.
He's going to be addicted to that stuff.
He's not even have teeth. You don't even need teeth.
He don't even need teeth. He just.
Dog, dog, don't mind. China don't mind.

(02:18:47):
Dog don't mind The big book of Bknowledge referenced earlier is
recalled again and B Gary realized he has only a few
months until his B body dies. Suddenly 3 angry bees appear and
begin to drag him away. He was being taken prisoner.
Chapter 24. Gary tried to escape the bees
but they turned their stingers on him.
Bee Cops B Gary escaped the vileclutches of the bee police and

(02:19:10):
flew back inside the house, The bee police in hot pursuit.
Dirk Gary freaked out and screamed for them all to get
out. B Gary decided he actually
needed to get the rest of the hive involved.
He flew to the hive and made them angry by doing what I
assume are bee crimes. Having stirred up the nest, he
led the hive of angry bees into his bedroom window.
Dirk Gary cried for help. B Gary landed on his nose and
asked if Dirk Gary had had enough and Dirk Gary responded

(02:19:32):
he would never, never give up Gary's body, even while he was
covered in bees. The other bees started to lose
interest. With a furious Will be, Gary
committed Sepuku and plunged hisStinger into Dirk Carey's nose.
He began to celebrate before thehopeless idiot remembered that
bees die when they sting people.Chapter 25 I too long for death
be Gary felt the strength drain from him.

(02:19:53):
He gave up his life for the chance to sting his own body,
which had been taken over by a hated rival.
A relatable conflict. No, the world faded from view.
Then the faded back into view. Are you ready?
I'm ready. Are you guys ready for the
fucking? Yeah, I'm locked.
In for this year. I'm ready.
I'm fucking ready. Chicken chickening all the way

(02:20:13):
out. Yeah, 100% chickening out of the
premise. The world faded back into view,
and Gary saw his backyard and Mr. Andretti's house.
He was in a human body again, somehow.
What had happened? How did he get his body back?
You'll never know. It doesn't matter.
Gary ran into the house and kissed all of his family members
on the lips. His dad denounced.
Gary's room was full of angry bees.
Gary announced he was no longer afraid of bees.

(02:20:34):
He had grown. He had had a character arc, you
just didn't see it. And then he was actually looking
forward to seeing the bees again.
He threw some crackers at them and the whole swarm fucked off
after it. Gary's parents stood behind him,
frozen in shock. Chapter 26 Epilogue Gary was
fine. He was not just fine.
He was finer than fine. Because Gary was the bee Lord

(02:20:54):
when the unexplained shit made his body swap happen again.
And let's not pretend you'd rather have some sort of
explanation. The boy was a bee.
Some power was left behind. The power to become all bees.
Now Gary could become all bees. Who needs skateboarding prowess
when at a moment's thought you could become a buzzing, angry
hive full of bees? What a power.

(02:21:15):
What a spectacular power. Yes.
This is where the book ends. This is where the podcast ends.
It's over. We're free.
We're all bees now. Together, we have become bees.
Look down at your hands, dear listener.
Did you not realize what we weredoing?
This was not a podcast. This was not a book.
You reach out with a hand, but it is not a hand, is it?
You try to cry out, but there isonly a hum.

(02:21:36):
You are bees now, and so am I. This thing we called a podcast
was a spell. 17 long episodes, Atremendous incantation, an
elaborate enchantment. Thank you for listening, Bees.
It's like the fucking Rapture, but everyone, everyone just gets
turned into bees. Everyone gets.
Turned into bees. Cars careening off the road

(02:22:00):
because there's just a bee on the steering.
Bees fly out, you know, It's taken years and meticulous
planning and patience to reach the stage, but it was worth it.
Who do you think supplied Los Muertos?
Yeah, OK, We love Crackdown. Me and Mario love Crackdown.
That's the ending of Crackdown. That's the thing.
That's part of. It you turn into bee.

(02:22:21):
Well, you turn into bees. Yeah, he turns you into bees.
I'll say this, I'll say this right now, I actually think the
end of this book, the end of this book is bad, but the ending
of this book is pretty good. I I think this is one of the
better RL Stein twists. It's got like Twilight Zone.

(02:22:42):
Yeah, which should be clear is not that the world turns into
bees that that. No, no, here let me, let me real
Chapter 26. It has been a month since Gary
was bees. He seems very happy now.
Maybe because he narrowly survived death about 20 times
already. That probably does stuff to you.
Gary narrates that he gets alongwith his family now, and the
bullies leave him alone. He's better at sports, including
skateboarding, and the girls in class hang out with him all the

(02:23:05):
time. Dirk Davis even apologized for
trying to steal his body. You know he didn't earn any of
that, but I think it's cool thatit happens anyway.
I, I, you know, why not? Why not?
Then at the end of the book, Gary instructs the reader how to
suck pollen out of a flower by puckering your lips and sticking
your tongue way out into the blossom at the end.
So lame. It's so dumb.

(02:23:28):
Yeah, so I mean, this, this is like my, this is like my my
overall feeling of it, right? And it's it's just like, I hate
that the end of the book is thatGary just becomes good at sports
and skateboarding and then he's happy because everyone likes him
or whatever because now he's good at sports and skateboards.

(02:23:51):
That's a really like, I do thinkthat this book is trying to do a
message because I don't think that there is any other.
I mean, I get it. Yes, you can just write a book
where a person comes to be. But I think that there's
definitely given the existence of the bisa, somebody thinks
this book is about like learningto appreciate your life and
those around you. In fact, Gary says it so.

(02:24:12):
But the problem is he doesn't learn to appreciate his life and
those around him. I mean, he likes his sister and
his family more, I guess he appreciates them sort of.
But his life he doesn't appreciate.
He just becomes good at other stuff he didn't.
He's he's not even himself. And no, he's a hard Dirk.
Like, yeah, the moral seems to be.

(02:24:33):
Become somebody. Else stop.
Stop being bad at stuff like be better and then also get girls.
Don't be a fucking nerd. The moral is pretty fucking
nerd. Oh yeah, because he doesn't.
Get on the fucking computer anymore, yeah?
Never mentions it, never mentions it.
Yeah, Dirk does some nerd idiot.Dirk does some of the work
socially, so Gary didn't have todo that.

(02:24:55):
And then also at the end, we know because of the fact that
Gary is like literally trying tosuck like pollen out of flowers
that he is Part B too. He's not Gary anymore.
He he didn't grow as a person. He's literally spliced with
other creatures. Right.
It's not him anymore. And like, that's not played for
horror or whatever. I mean, I don't care.
It is horrific though, like. Like my guess is that the RL

(02:25:17):
Stein notes on this like was this is about accepting your
like station and accepting yourself in life and this
doesn't do that at all. This runs that top speed away
from it. He is a completely different
creature. He's literally a chimera now
Which? Is fun.
I mean, that's. Cool.
It's Annihilation. It's it's the fucking movie
Annihilation. It's like the trauma that he's
experienced has changed him. Yeah, let's get, let's get real

(02:25:40):
to this. This book is not about being
yourself. It is about the complete
annihilation of self. It's about the Gary of self
like. Gary's self is comically
horrible and nobody likes it, not even him.
Right. And so.
He's only given release from it by becoming a chimera.

(02:26:01):
He literally it's not even the experience that changes him,
it's just the mysterious mechanics of the body swap
chicken out mechanism that causes him to be shunted back
into his own body when he dies as a bee, which makes no sense
and is not explaining it doesn'twe don't want we don't want that
either. We don't want an the lesson not.
Gonna be good. The lesson is if you're
depressed and you don't have friends, you need to suffer

(02:26:22):
complete ego death. Like clean slate Tabula Ross of
a human being. Merge your personality with that
of those around you who are moresuccessful.
Become a different person. Fuck that old person, he sucked.
Don't eat them garbage. Fuck them.
You enjoy computers? No, you don't.
You don't enjoy computers. You like to skateboard?

(02:26:45):
OK, That's what you like to do. That's what you like to do you
dumb ass like. Yeah, it's a completely
different story. It's, you know what it reminds
me a little bit of is that that movie that came out recently I
did not watch, but I remember thinking, like the premise was
kind of disgusting. And it was that movie where the
guy is shunted into, he gets Issa Kide into a world where

(02:27:05):
people don't know what The Beatles are.
Oh yeah, just. Yeah, like.
Quote UN quote writes all of their songs having known them.
And you're like, this is something that a, a, a
tremendously evil old person thought.
Like if only I could go and become responsible for all of
that great music and everybody would think I was the king.
But actually it was just pullingit out of my memory.

(02:27:27):
I don't actually have any artistic credit.
What if I could just get the credit for a bunch of stuff I
didn't know how to do and the work I did not do?
Was that Was that yesterday? Yesterday.
I it may have been, and I don't know anything about the movie.
Maybe it like does something with that premise, but like the
idea of that and the fact that it could be wish fulfillment for
like lazy talentless art to artless people was just kind of

(02:27:50):
disgusting to me. It's like the death of the
concept of art in general and ofwork of it.
It's like what matters is that people assign credit for things
to you, not any of the other crap.
Like all that stuff sucks. That's just you gotta again, I
haven't seen the movie. I don't know, maybe he actually
does something with it, but the idea of it was kind of

(02:28:12):
disgusting on its face. Gary doesn't have to do any work
on himself. He doesn't become a better
person through character growth.He just becomes a different
person because now he just is 1.It's like what I was hoping for.
Like, yeah, when I was saying that the break dancing, the hip
hop dancing thing, I would have been, it would have been a weird
ending. We would all would have sort of

(02:28:33):
chuckled awkwardly at the concept.
But like, what if in becoming a bee, Gary does become more
fearless? That would be a good thing.
He overcomes a lot of his his his fears.
But also, what if he literally did learn how to dance through
the bees? And that's a thing he was good
at? What if he came back and he was

(02:28:53):
good at hip hop dancing, which in 1984 may have been a thing
like. And the problem, or the
difference between this and the Yesterday premise, is that and
Yesterday, that guy doesn't haveto pretend that he wrote all The
Beatles songs where B Gary has been forced into being a kind of
yes. He did.
Gary is dead. To be clear, Gary is dead.
He does like Gary dies. He literally does die.

(02:29:14):
Gary dies when he sings his own body.
Yeah, he's dead. I don't know what the last thing
is. I don't know if it's Dirk, Gary
B or just Gary B, but it's not just.
Gary yeah, let's also. Yeah.
But Gary we all hated, and he and who hated himself is dead.
Let's also be very clear the that ending sucks.
Fully fucking sucks. Like.

(02:29:35):
Yeah, I mean, a, a child would have definitely felt cheated out
of that. But at the same time, at at the
same time, if you think like onestep further, it's like, would
you have wanted them to explain this?
Would you have wanted them to have like a lame scene where he
flies back into the office and they ZAP his his his shoot his
Dick? With I certainly think I would

(02:29:55):
have wanted more than Gary dies but doesn't like.
I think that's a bad. I think it's bad.
Yeah, I mean, it sucks, but like, I don't know, I, I mean, I
imagine. If a wizard had walked in and
been like, I'm turning you back into a boy, I would have been
more engaged with the events of this book, like.

(02:30:15):
They should have had, Oh my God,they should have had a bee
wizard. Yes, there should have been a
bee wizard in the hive. Yeah, I would have fucking loved
that, You know what I mean? Like.
I was kind of hoping this was going to turn into the body bags
like the brain slug. Oh yeah the the the the way it's
like yeah, the toupees. Yeah, where where where the the
body to the the body swap place is like a front for bees aliens

(02:30:39):
that just. Want a front for?
Bees. But but in this case it's just
bees. Like we wanted it a taste of the
honey in society and we found out it sucks.
Can we also just note we actually don't ever learn why
he's afraid of bees? Being afraid of bees is one of
those. Things I'm afraid of bees, but
like. You tell me.
But like, I think that that's a pretty natural fear.
It's like being afraid of snakes.

(02:31:00):
It's like. I'm afraid of bees fucking bite
you. I'm just saying the book is
called Why I'm afraid of Bees. He never we don't know why he's
afraid of bees. He.
If anything, at the end of the story it's.
Like the story, he's actually not afraid of bees, so the.
Opposite. You're like emulating behavior,
so like. The end of the book should be or

(02:31:21):
the title of book should actually be.
How I stopped being afraid of bees.
How I became a bee timer. Yeah, I mean.
Well, that gives away the ending, but.
I mean, it's just like. How I learned to stop hating and
became a bee. Yeah, exactly.
Anyway, that's the whole book. You know, well, let's we can, we

(02:31:44):
can go through our patented systems.
Sure, Yeah, sure. Who would like to start?
Because we usually go with Brandon and then Mario, and I
realize that that's just becausehow I have it like set up here
if we want. I can go first out here.
You can go 1st and go for it. Go for it.
Review away. Hang on, I I forgot to do
something pretty important. OK, OK.
Mario, did you want to go or youwant me to go?

(02:32:05):
I can. No, no, I was going to say I'll
do my. Bit here, mine's more of a
discussion. He'll do.
You're going to do a what will it?
Brandon said. Something.
That's right, Bob. This is judging a book by its
cover. The part of the podcast where I
was supposed to say what they should not do.
But you didn't say before the part you couldn't have.
Scared us and you couldn't have told us what to do.

(02:32:26):
But that was before the part where we did the covers.
Yeah, yeah. I I realized you didn't say
that. I was wondering if you noticed
it. Well, you said it.
Now you could we could do a clever edit.
That was right, Bob. That was judging a book by its
cover, the part of the podcast where we were supposed to do
what they say we should not do. You couldn't have scared us and

(02:32:47):
you couldn't have told me what to do.
There we go. Perfect.
There we go. Not just like, transport
yourself back in time, actually.Remember.
Remember, just send yourself back there, listener.
It's true. Right before I said a word and
after I said another word, you could just put it there.
In your mind. That's right, so patent heard

(02:33:11):
review system I can't remember. I keep accidentally taking
Mario's somehow, so I will go with the eyes of a child.
I think a kid would also have hated where this went in terms
of the ending. I think a kid would have found
like basically all of the descriptions of our miserable
protagonist miserable. But I do think, like, I think

(02:33:35):
that it's good that the majorityof the book is about what's on
the cover. A kid is a bee and he's doing
bee stuff. We don't go to the hive.
And they all talk in English. He's not like effortlessly able
to avoid death. In fact he is threatened with
death basically constantly. The logic or the lack of it, of

(02:33:58):
the body swap place when he finally communicates with Miss
Carmen is is maybe less infuriating from the perspective
of a child who doesn't know how like an organization could be
run and what their responses would be to a problem.
I think honestly, it's kind of achildish logic where she's just
like, I don't want to think about it right now.
I'll think about it later. Bye.

(02:34:18):
And I think that a child would be, or at least a in my mind, a
child would be infuriated by theabsolute betrayal of the non
ending that just like he dies, but then he doesn't in a way
that I think it doesn't. I don't feel the same way as an
adult, but I think a, a kid would find it loathsome, truly
despicable, an utter failure to deliver on a pretty big set up.

(02:34:43):
Like when you're reading these books as a kid, you're like,
what? Where's this going?
You know what's going to happen?And when it doesn't go anywhere
at all, when it just gives up and says I decided not to write
the ending, that kind of sucks. You know, that feels like they
it feels like they chickened out.
They did. Maybe wisely, I don't know,
Maybe they decided they couldn't, you know, bring in a
wizard at the end, which would have been the obvious solution.

(02:35:05):
But the goose wizard is back. He's here again.
Oh, you, young man, Are you dying as a bee?
I can tell I have got creepy oldwizard eyes.
I can see. I can see to your human spirit
in the bee body. But I'm going to make you a
chimera though, OK? OK.
Yeah. That's the deal.

(02:35:26):
Angry old man from the perspective an angry old man.
I don't know, man. I think it was fine that they
chickened out. I wish that they had done
something, anything at all. Would it have been more
interesting if when he went to like, you know, lick the flower
like a big proboscis came out ofhis?

(02:35:47):
Mouth. Yeah, yeah, 100.
Percent, yeah. I mean, I think that there's
there's many things that they could have done.
If I was if I was revising this book, I would have just written
the last two chapters myself. Yeah, it will be a wizard.
Definitely feels like the most important chapters in any
Goosebumps book are going to be like the last couple and the

(02:36:07):
first like 5 or so. Yeah.
Yeah. So you really kind of like,
yeah, that would be an interesting writing exercise
too. Like just just, you know, even
without the whole like legal stuff, try it for yourself at
home listener, come up with a premise right at the beginning
and the end and then give it to somebody and see how they fill
in the in the blanks. That'd be fun.
You don't need anyone's permission.

(02:36:28):
You can just rewrite the last two chapters.
You can do this one as long as you don't.
You can do what you want. You can write a Goosebumps book.
You can do it. Do it live you.
Can goose like the hell out of people.
I'm doing it right now. Here we go, Chapter 25, right
after Gary B. Gary stung himself in the face.
Chapter 25 That was when the wizard appeared.

(02:36:50):
He had never seen a wizard before and as he lay dying on
the grass, the wizard approachedand said, Gary, I know of thee,
let me help you out. He zapped me with his wand,
which he had. I woke up in a daze.
I was a vampire in a vampire village and I lived as a vampire
for the rest of my life and and occasionally the wizard came to

(02:37:13):
my house and I visited the bees too because I was also part BI
was a bee vampire. You said vampire in Vampire
Village. Did he become an attraction at
one Day at Horrorland? Hell yes he did.
He did. Like, tie into the previous
book. I like it.
Wow, that's actually good. Yeah, that actually gives me the
idea of like, yeah, the Bee Wizard is a dude who's just
running around trying to get attractions for Horrorland.

(02:37:36):
Yeah, and he's got black and white robes.
That's it. Wait, is the bee wizard RL
Stein? I'm the bee wizard.
Or I'll sting. Hello.
Prepared to bewitched. Hello, I'm the bee wizard.
I don't know man. I mean, I think like I'll I'll
say it again, I would rather Goosebumps be Twilight Zone for

(02:37:59):
kids for the most part rather than having a kid run from one
end of town to the other on his bike and talk to kids with like
boring kid talk about nothing atall and then have like 2
chapters occasionally actually contain the supernatural stuff.
I'd rather just be AB the whole time and like go on that flight
of fancy and do that as a writing exercise.

(02:38:20):
It might not be like super gripping fiction or whatever,
but it's better than a bunch of lame conversations where you're
going like, Oh my God, come on, get to the Werewolf of the
swamp. Get me to the Mud monsters,
which have not appeared for 24 chapters.
Yeah. Fucking book.
Yeah. Get to the fucking mummy.
It's that you have on the cover.There are worse.

(02:38:44):
There are worse Goosebumps booksthan this.
I think I think this might soundbad.
I think this is a better goosebumps book.
It's what's on the tin. It doesn't lie to you.
The the fake out non ending is really egregious but the bulk of
the book. No, this is a better book than
You Can't Scare Me. Ain't no doubt about it.

(02:39:04):
Ain't no doubt about it. You could, yeah.
It was actually I wanted to talk.
Maybe this is a good segue into my section for the ranking.
I was kind of naturally drifting.
I haven't put it in yet, but I'mkind of naturally drifting
toward like around a three. For for context, I have Be
careful what you wish for at 3.5.
Piano lessons can be murdered around 3.5.

(02:39:26):
Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is 3 and welcome to Camp Nightmare is
2. You can't scare me one.
So I was thinking like, honestly, I put this kind of
around monster blood, maybe, maybe under it.
I think this could be in the in the area of monster blood.
They when I was reading it, I was thinking a lot about Monster

(02:39:47):
Blood for whatever. Reason.
Yeah, me too. Me too.
I think it was the. Bullying, maybe that's why.
But also, like in construction, it feels a bit like monster
blood. It's it's it's a messy book.
It's not good. It's not the worst.
It's better than the two. If 2 is where?
Yeah, it's better than that. It's better than one for sure.

(02:40:07):
I I will see if you're. This was easy to read.
Some of the other ones were likeOh my, I struggle.
I wanted to stop. Yeah, yeah.
I mean. You can't scare me.
I'd want to. Keep the fact that he spends a
lot of time as a bee means that stuff is at least happening.
And that is credit where it's due.
Shockingly uncommon in the worldof goosebumps.

(02:40:28):
Like, you know what I mean? Like so I I'll give it credit.
Yeah, yeah. And I will too.
And in doing so I think I will put it just under Monster Blood
at 4 out of 10. OK.
Yeah, sure. So that would be monster blood
is 4 out of 10 Why I'm afraid ofbees just under it 4 out of 10.
And then be careful what you wish for right under it at 3.5.

(02:40:49):
OK, OK. I think that's.
Fair. I think that.
I think that feels right. Trust your heart.
Do you want me to tell you my thoughts on it?
Yeah, please. OK, here's my pan's review,
which as we remember is in threeparts and I also remember it as
I say it. So number one is relatability,

(02:41:10):
AKA the kids zone. Here is the thing I think this
book is super relatable in. I do think plenty of kids and
probably playing kids reading Goosebumps because reading of
course is not quote UN quote cool, despite what libraries
might tell you and despite what is in fact true of life.
Reading is not cool to kids. Probably relate to Gary being a

(02:41:32):
nerdy loser guy. You know what I mean?
Not popular guy, not good at sports, doesn't skateboard that
kind of shit. I think that's quite relatable.
I think that the, the urge, the desire to switch places with
someone else who is nominally cooler than you or, or, you
know, better looking than you and all and and just more a more

(02:41:54):
perfect person in your mind thanyou are is very relatable.
So premise wise I would initially say it's a 10 out of
10. However, the lesson is so
fucking bad that being yourself is worthless.
Become a become somebody else you fucking loser is so shitty.

(02:42:17):
I like have to subtract like it's in two parts.
Like pre chapter pre end of bookit's a 10 out of 10.
In end of book it's like a one out of 10.
It's like noxious. So I don't know, like A5 if we
just split the difference and say it's a 5, you know what I
mean? That seems fair.

(02:42:37):
We'll call it we'll go with thatscariness.
Is it scary? Well, if you're afraid of bees,
I'd say it's a 10 out of 10, frankly, it it is as advertised,
a book that is full of bees. So I'm now I think there's the
body slopping stuff around it. That's not super scary.
I'll give it a nine. If you if you are afraid of
bees, if you are not afraid of bees, it's like a one.

(02:42:58):
Ain't nothing in this book gonnado it for you.
I'll put like, you know what I mean?
There's a lot of subjective parts of this one.
This thing gets a little confusing.
And then the final factor is theStein factor.
How RL Stein is it? And again, such a weird one to
go to because RL Stein didn't write it.
So man, I don't know, it doesn'tfeel very Steinie.

(02:43:18):
It doesn't. But there is like but there's
like 3 really bad fake outs and 1 egregious 1 so I'll give it a
three. Yeah, I would say yeah, the the
fake outs are Steinie in their in their, in their severity,
maybe not in the fact that they explain themselves.
And the ending is I think even too much of a cop out even for

(02:43:41):
RL Stein. I think generally speaking, he
at least tries to do something with them.
Yeah. Also, I don't think like RL
Stein doesn't generally do like entire book flights of fancy.
The I don't think he really generally would want to do the
whole B thing. If this was RL Stein, he would
get turned into AB in act 3 and have like basically he would he

(02:44:05):
would not go to the hive. He wouldn't do any of that shit.
He would just be flying around trying to talk to people.
I don't think he I think he generally resists those like
Twilight Zone, like let's actually engage with this
premise type vibe most of the time.
Although one extremely Steinie thing was that there were
skateboard tricks and hip hop dances.
Yeah, that's true. Those those might have been
things he actually added to it. He might have been like can you

(02:44:28):
get more pop dance in here and skateboards please?
That's what the kids like. Oh God I'm reading the the the
wiki that shall not be named just in the trivia just cuz I'm
like curious about what some of the stuff and one of them is.
The Goosebumps Official Collectors Caps book hints that
Gary Lutz attempted to sign his sister Chrissy up for a body

(02:44:51):
swap, but the workers at Person to Person Vacations concluded
that nobody wanted to be her. That's.
OK. That's got layers of that's got
problem layers, yeah, and. Problematic.
It's problematic for one. Also according to It Came from
Ohio, which is a book that we need to read right now.

(02:45:13):
It Came from Ohio is the autobiography of RL Stein and
how he became a writer. Looks like the cover was done by
Jacobus, which looks amazing. Yeah, according to It Came From
Ohio. The idea for the story was
inspired by the Robert Sheckley novel Mind Swap.
So there you go. Also, it looks like we didn't
really mention it, but some of the original cover art, the

(02:45:35):
sketches from Jacobus, it looks like it's just a it's just a
beat. It's it's not AB with a kid
head. It's just a.
It's just AB freaking BI mean that would be accurate.
It's not exciting, but it's true.
There's another interesting trivia thing on the wiki that
shall not be named which somebody has put here.
Bullet point This book references Star Trek.

(02:45:59):
It's true, It's true. I can't confirm.
Yes. That's amazing.
No explanation. No explanation, just it's a
fact. It's just a fact.
It's just a fact spitting facts.Alrighty.
And with that, yeah. So thank you very much for
listening. We have a Patreon.
That's how if you wanted to, youcan donate to us.
You don't have to you reminder. You can become a Patreon patron

(02:46:21):
for free. You could just sign up for
updates and all you know the thevisual version of the podcast on
Spotify. That would be you can go to
ysmpod.com or you can go to patreon.com/youcan't scare me.
We are also you can't scare me. You can't scare dot me on Blue
sky. Also, I'm going to, moving

(02:46:41):
forward, I'm going to be linkingthe YouTube videos to all this
and thank you to everybody who'sbeen listening.
We've gotten a lot of comments from people on the YouTube.
People are very excited to talk to us about various goosebumpy
and things. So yeah, we're reading all those
comments where it's it's a greattime for everybody.
So swing on by, you can watch those videos.

(02:47:02):
It's got all the visual references in there and stuff.
It's a good time. All right.
And with that, are you all ready?
Are you all ready to go back? We've got, we've got to go.
Back. It's not the time.
It's not what was it? It's not a, it's not a loop.
It's a spiral. You ready to spiral?

(02:47:22):
Maybe up Maybe. Let's is he?
Monster Blood 2. Monster Blood 2.
Do I have to read the first one?I will not tell you no.
No, you really. You for sure shouldn't like.
Tell me in three sentences what happens.
Nothing, nothing. And then monster blood.
Big slimeball eats things. Giant dog which Which?

(02:47:48):
Monster blood makes things get bigger, OK?
That's it. And there's a witch.
Oh yeah, and it's a curse from awitch who was a who was a cat.
You can watch the episode Oh oh.Wait, we're forgetting the most
important thing. This is crucial information you
need. Deaf people hold all the power
on this earth, yeah. That sounds that sounds like a

(02:48:09):
lot. Definitely not read it.
You could watch it. It's not a bad watch, so.
You could also listen to the podcast.
You could. You could.
We weren't happy, but you could do it.
That's right, I could. It's got a, a the the deaf, the
RL Stein hates Deaf people moment is one of my favorite
moments in this podcast. And it's one that I am
absolutely going to turn into like a little video.

(02:48:30):
I don't know if I'm going to animate it or whatever, but it
it definitely lends itself to that.
It was very, very funny. Oh, yeah.
The dog is named Trigger. Anyway, Yeah, yes, let me, let
me show you, let me, let me to prep us for what we're about to
experience. Let me let me go ahead and share
a image with everybody. OK, Yep, there he is.

(02:48:52):
There he. Is, I mean, a big hamster?
I do think it's iconic. It's not the.
Yeah, it is the cover. I mean, if you're if we're
talking about iconic Goosebumps covers, Monster Blood 2 is up
there. Listen, there are some sequels
that are better than the original.
It happens. It does happen.
Silent Hill 2, That's it. I mean, I could throw out some

(02:49:12):
controversial suggestions. Yeah, it was what the
controversial takes. Exorcist 3 maybe?
Oh yeah, I hear that one's pretty good.
Yeah. But yeah, I it's possible that
could RL Stein could have learned something in 17 books
minus -1. Arlstein and his ghost writer.

(02:49:33):
Right, exactly. Oh, look at this, it's back,
Goosebumps. It's green, it's slimy, it's
growing, and it's swallowing everything in its path.
It's monster blood, too. Don't miss Arlstein's creepiest
thriller yet, goosebumps #13 #18Monster Blood 2 oozing into a
bookstore near you. That's that's.

(02:50:00):
Perfect. That's it.
I mean, you can't, dear listener, you can't see it, but
that is the perfect it. Is a cat that is asleep.
It's it's a little tongue out, just a little bit.
It looks very derpy. I, I mean eyes glaze over.
Honestly, you can't beat that like this.
Yeah, the cat's second eyelids like coming in.

(02:50:20):
Listen, and if you'll come and we'll, we'll be back.
Way back, listener. And when we are back, you will
know by the tone of our voice whether our cautious optimism
about Monster Blood 2 has been all for not.
Monster Hunter 2. Monster Hunter Monster Blood
Hunter 2. Success.
Goodbye. Goodbye, bees.

(02:50:43):
Bees.

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