December 7, 2023 • 23 mins
When Yasser was a boy, he saw a cartoon that changed his life. He’s been searching for it ever since. The only problem is… it’s vanished.
Credits
This episode was hosted and produced by supervising producer Stevie Lane, along with Jonathan Goldstein, Mohini Madgavkar, and Phoebe Flanigan. The senior producer is Kalila Holt.
Editorial guidance from Emily Condon.
Special thanks to Pia Gadkari, Bobby Lord, Dr. Mohamed Ghazala, and Tom Scharpling over at The Best Show.
The show was mixed by Bobby Lord.
Music by Christine Fellows, John K Samson, Blue Dot Sessions, Podington Bear, and Bobby Lord. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Heavyweight is a Spotify Original Podcast.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stevie Lane. Hello, So now you have a story I
do to tell to share with the nation. Yes, does
your grandmother what's your grandmother's name again, Philip, Ruth?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Ruth close?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Has she listened to your stories in the past?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
She has?
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Has she listened to my stories?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
No? Not as much, not at all.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Should we call her up on the telephone to tell
her that you have a story?
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Who's this?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, Grandma, it's Stevie. Oh.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Oh, it just said New York. I almost wasn't going.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
To take it.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Okay, fun, how to do it?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I was just calling because I wanted to tell you
that I'm hosting today's episode of Heavyweight.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Oh and of course, you know what, I'll hear you
better because I just came back from the audeologist. She
fixs my hearing aids so I can hear a little better.
And no, everybody who listens, you know, so I we're
hearing age.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Oh, Grandma, I think that most ninety five year olds
have hearing aids.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
And right now you're told everyone I'm old.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
I am.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I was going to say I'm only eighty nine, but okay,
I've got to say ninety five.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
No, I was only teasing you, and I don't care.
I don't know me so well, but they don't know
I don't look my age. You'd have to tell them that.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Oh yeah, So for everyone listening, she does not look
her age.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Good.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I'm Stevie Lane and this is heavyweight, Today's heavyweight short.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, sir, I'm ready to hear it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Now you may right after the break. Hello, Hi is
this Yasir? Yes, this is he. Yaser is twenty eight.
He lives in Saudi Arabia and he's a dentist. I
love going to the dentist.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Actually, oh nice, I see you floss.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Every day and I have a water floss.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Wow, A plus do it.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I could talk about my oral hygiene all day. Cavities,
zero gum recession. If anything, my gums are advancing. But
we're not here to talk about my superior dental health.
We're here to talk about Yaser and a cartoon he
first encountered when he was a kid. Yaser hasn't seen
(02:38):
it in twenty years because it's completely vanished. Yasser grew
up in a small Saudi town. He loved cartoons. This
was back before streaming, so his mom would go to
the video store to buy VHS tapes for him, and
(03:01):
one day, when Yaser was about eight years old, she
came home with a cartoon that changed his life.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
The show is called Little Eliphonteau. It's about a family
of elephants living in suburbia.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
The elephant family was called the boom Mills.
Speaker 6 (03:18):
The father works in a company and he's always worried
about his bonus.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Oh, when is my boss going to give me my bonus?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And the show was dubbed in Arabic. Yasser always assumed
it was originally American.
Speaker 6 (03:31):
You know the fact that they're living in suburbia, that's
very American. The father's financial woes also American. Brown nosing
with the boss and trying to make him like him,
that seems to me very American as well.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I take offense at yas theer's assumption that all Americans
are career obsessed sick offense, But I just laughed politely.
After all, I have an interview to finish, and I
want to make my talented and intelligent boss, Jonathan Stuart
Goldstein proud. Maybe this year I'll finally get that bonus.
(04:14):
The show quickly became a classic in Yasser's home, He
and his brother would watch it every morning before school
with a breakfast sandwich and a big cup of Nest Cafe.
The star of the show was the baby elephant, Filo,
who was.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
Very young and still in diapers and has a teddy
bear named Hong.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Filo and Hong would go on imaginary adventures together.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Fodo was so magical to me whenever we would go
on camping trips or desert outings.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
Every time we would go, I would try to discover something,
a secret door, a treasure like Fido.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yes, or love the show because like Philo, he was
a kid with a big imagination, the kind of kid
it would pretend that inanimate objects were alive. He tells
me about one time when he was driving down a
bumpy road with a friend.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
I was kind of imagining the car, kind of going, oh,
what are you doing to me?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Oh, calm down, slow bloo. But in Yaser's small town,
he didn't feel like there was a lot of support
for kids like him, kids who looked drawing and making
up stories.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
And I longed for a place to bring my creativity
to light.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Pursuing a creative field didn't feel like an option for Ya, Sir,
And when he got older, he chose a career that
was practical and prestigious dentistry. Now a decade later, Yasser
admits that he doesn't love it. He's always been this
really imaginative person, but in his daily routine, he's not
that excited by what he does. He spends his days
(05:57):
looking at rows of teeth and checking gums. There's no
sense of wonder like there was when he was a
kid living in his imaginary world. He's nostalgic for that
feeling and sees the cartoon as a sort of portal.
He knows that watching Philo would bring him right back
to his childhood. The only problem is Filo is gone.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
I tried to find it everywhere. No one ever recognizes it.
No one knows this show aside from our family. It's
so insane. It almost feels like a like a dream
we had as a family.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
It's as though Little Philo has been wiped from existence.
Yaser has poured over media archives, has tried googling Elephant
cartoon in every language he can think of. Once, he
even heard an actor's voice on TV and recognized him
as one of the characters from the show.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
So I looked up the guy on Facebook, and then
I find Hi.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
I tell him about this show. He does not recognize it.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
In a last ditch effort, Yaser made a drawing of
the characters from memory, the dad and his bowtie, invest
the mom in her green, ruffled house dress. He bought
ads based on Instagram and posted the drawing to see
if anyone could identify it. Nothing.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
I keep thinking there must be like some like cartoon
lunatic guy living in a basement that would like instantly
pick it up.
Speaker 5 (07:30):
But I just don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I mean lunatic basically cartoon guides.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
So you want to break it down with the maestro?
Is that what this is about?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
From Gimblet Media, he's Jonathan Goldstein, post of Most Heavyweight Episodes.
I tell him about my conversation with Yaser and his
beloved TV show about a family of elephants.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Can I stop you and ask a question?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Please?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
This family of elephants is one of them wearing a crown.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking Babar. I'm thinking Babar.
I think it's Babar. What's Who's b bar? B Bar
is the elephant with a crown? But Yaser sent me
the drawing he made and it looks nothing like Babar
or bab Bar.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Oh, now you're calling him babar. Huh.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I'm just trying to I'm just trying to be agreeable,
you know.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Can can you hear this?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You're ready? Oh? I think you're right? I mean you
were right. I knew I was right.
Speaker 7 (08:30):
I just didn't.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Let's see one more, one more, hang on, here it comes.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Oh did you hear that?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Okay, so you're gonna take the set what sounds like
a barely literate child and use that.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Who would know better? Who would know better than a
ba bar?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Okay? So let's just say we're both right. Well, Jonathan
says he isn't the basement dweller. I seek he does know,
just the guy.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
He has a very quick mind, very quick on his toes,
fleet of foot and fleet of mouth. It's like everything
that he says sounds like it could be scored to
flight of the bumblebee? Does that make sense?
Speaker 8 (09:09):
Not really?
Speaker 1 (09:10):
You'll you'll see what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Hi, Stev, how are you? This is Howard? And Jonathan
was right. Talking to Howard feels like clinging to an
electric fence. Like here's what he says when I send
him asters drawing.
Speaker 9 (09:26):
They actually look like elephant seals. Holy shit, they have
known known that they are elfan seals. They would have
they would have flippers. They're They're definitely most evil animals
on the planet. I think male elephant seals. They smother
their babies to death. What Dolphins are also not the nicest.
I love dolphins so much, but they're really mean. They're
mean to sharks.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Howard is a cartoonist himself and has an extensive knowledge
of all things animation. I tell him all about the
boom Mill family and some of the other characters, like
the janitor elephant with a cigarette butt hanging out of
her mouth.
Speaker 9 (09:54):
That changes a lot. Then it's most likely not an
American or Canadian kid series because they would never put
a cigarette in the mouth, especially if it was like
late nineties, early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Oh that's a good point.
Speaker 9 (10:07):
I'm going to find this Philo Elefanto little Elephants.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I'm obsessed with this now. I expect to hang up
and get a call from Howard in a few days
with the answer. Instead, he launches into his investigation right
then and there with a dizzying speed. He turns to Wikipedia.
Speaker 9 (10:26):
And if Philiu camp Plasio, Chico Bombon, Edward and Friends, Elephant,
Edward and Friends. That's who that is clearmation Now see
Jungle Cubs, Kirian Lou knowing Asanski Wikiyaku jungle junction, as
of tay Lulu's islands. Well, I'm searching. We can have
all kinds of discussions without other things. It's spaghetti here,
Philu are you talking about Tarzan? You're not talking about
(10:48):
tet now, I'm sorry, Yo, Nakima Ton Tour, Tonturs elephant
mean the Tarzan san any adventures remember that ton Tour
Elephant Magic adventures A mumpy now he's sound right. My big,
my big big friend. Nelly the elephant arguing the cock
coroaches meet Poco yo. What's is poco yo? The one's
called Nelfie Nelly, No, sorry, Nelly. The resk in mompfy
tesc and moumfy Oh.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
I found it.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I found it. What are you saying? He's holding a
teddy bear. This has got to be him. It's all
in Arabic.
Speaker 9 (11:15):
Is a little baby elephant and he's holding a teddy bear.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
A teddy bear my heart sores and the teddy bear
is like a panda and sinks in Yasser's drawing, the
teddy bear is not a panda. It turns out all
Howard has found is a book called The Elephant Learns
to Share about an angry elephant who keeps everything for himself.
It was never adapted into a TV show, which is
(11:37):
probably why the Elephant is so angry. After Howard's failure,
I lose faith in guy's and basements everywhere. I need
a professional, one who dwells above ground. So I call Ramins,
a heat editor in chief of Animation Magazine, and send
him Yaser's drawing. He'll post it to the magazine's Facebook page,
(11:58):
which has hundreds of thousands of follows. A few days later,
I get an email Stevie exclamation Point. We found it,
exclamation Point. At the bottom of the email, there's a
YouTube link to an animated show about a family of elephants.
(12:21):
Many of the details match up with what Yaser had
told me about Filo, right down to the little kid
elephant with a teddy bear, and it's an Arabic flo
Filo Helentie Hula. I don't speak Arabic, but I feel
like I can hear them saying Filo. Surely this must
be it. I am like ninety percent sure this is
(12:43):
not it. This naysayer is my producer, Mona. She speaks Arabic,
so I ask her to take a look at the clip,
and she says. There are a number of differences between
this show and what Yaser described. For one, the baby
elephant isn't named Filo. That's just a way of saying
elephant in air. And like this show is extremely boring.
(13:03):
I would say that's like my strongest reason that I
don't think this is it. Yaser described a magical show
where Philo went on fantastical adventures. The episode of this
show that Mona watched was about watering a neighbor's plants.
Hat in hand, I returned to the Maestro to see
if he has any ideas.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Is it not possible or even likely that he is
Key and his family have conflated a couple different cartoons
into one.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Is it? I look at Yaser's drawing again, and this
time I noticed that the elephants don't even really look
like elephants. Their trunks are scrunched and wrinkled, much more
like snouts. They look a bit like alf drawn in
the style of Maurice Sendak, and over the next few months,
my luck in finding Philo doesn't improve. I reach out
(13:52):
to the Museum of the Moving Image, the UCLA Film Archive,
the Pale Media Center. I speak to a professor of
animation at Saudi Arabian University. I do a reverse image
search on Yaser's drawing. I even wait on hold for
three hours on a live Colin radio show Who's prompt
that week? As Luckwood have it is for movies and
TV shows that people can't quite remember the names of,
(14:15):
but everyone just says the same thing.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
The only elephants family I can think of is Bar.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
The elephant was very famous.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Maybe I'm just confusing it with people are saying bomb
al bab Bar. It's pretty close.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Somebody said bi Bar, So.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
There was something was elephants.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Are you thinking of Bibar?
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Yes, yes, yes, I'm thinking of Okay.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It's not ba Bar, And I gotta tell you, like, yes, sir.
At this point, I'm like starting to doubt your memory
a little bit.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
I'm starting to doubt my own memory, are you sometimes?
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:00):
Did I actually imagine this show? Or is it a
real thing that existed at one point?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
An answer to that question after the break. Hi, yes, sir, Hello,
can I play you something?
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Okay?
Speaker 10 (15:19):
Okay ha ha, Oh my god, No way, that's the intro.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
You recognize it?
Speaker 5 (15:35):
Oh, that's it.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
You found it. We found it, and here's how we
found it. As a last resort, I posted Yaser's drawing
from the Heavyweight Twitter account and asked for help. A
man named Simon in Germany responded, I found your show,
(16:02):
he said. I wasn't hopeful. How many times had I
already heard those very same words from Howard, from Amen,
from anyone and everyone who's ever seen Babar. But Simon
sent a YouTube link to a German cartoon called Auto's
Autifantin and the characters looked exactly like the ones in
Yasser's drawing. And as it turns out, Simon didn't even
(16:26):
have to be one of those lunatic basement cartoon guys,
because in Germany the autifants are famous. They're on lunchboxes
and in video games. There's a whole museum dedicated to them.
Simon told me anyone on the street would have recognized
Yasser's drawing. Then, in my own Wikipedia frenzy, I learned
that the characters were created by a famous German comedian
(16:49):
named Otto Vodkas. He's sort of like a German Robin Williams.
If you ever moved to watch the movie ice Age
in German. He's the voice of Sid the sloth.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Hello, this is so.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I called Auto at his home in Fort Lauderdale to
find out more about the Odifants, and it was easy
to imagine how he made a famous cartoon character, because
he's basically a cartoon character himself.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
I have a studio up in the first floor here
with a little diving board. From there, I can jump
in my pool. No, yes, I love it.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
If talking to Howard was like clinging to an electric fence,
talking to Auto was like trying to catch a super
bouncy ball in a room full of trampolines. Like when
I tried to ask him about Yaser's favorite episode, That's
my favorite, and then without warning, he suddenly became the Grinch.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
I'm going to steal Christmas.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Before whiping out a guitar.
Speaker 7 (17:51):
I wonder, like under one ring Star, I wonder if
you know it's funny, like you say dog when you
said that.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Only when I finally was able to squeeze in a
question about the otifans. Otto told me he's been drawing
them ever since he was a child. It all started
one day in school when Otto was doodling at his desk.
(18:22):
He tried to draw a self portrait.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
It was so I changed the eyes a little bit,
extended the nose, a little bit of the legs, A
little elephant.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
They call it fund Ottiphant, a mash up word of
Auto an elephant. Auto based the boom Mill family on
his own. The character Filo, who in Germany is named
Baby Bruno, was meant to be Otto himself.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
I had my little teddy bear. You know this crystal
hug because it was made in Hong Kong. That's why
I called him Honk.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Growing up in post war Germany, Otto's family didn't have
a lot of money for paint and paper, so he'd
make drawings on the backs of wallpaper scraps. I showed
Otto the drawing Yaser made of his audifence, and Otto
was delighted. He asked me to record a message.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Yes, Sah, when you were here in America, in Fort Lauderdale,
you gott to visit me. I have a diving board.
We can talk about Baby Bruno and we can draw,
and I saw your drawing at a really excellent I'm
looking forward to meeting you. Holda nity. I can bark
that I'd do anything for you. Okay, oh my god.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Back on the phone with Yaser, we debrief about the
creator of his favorite TV show. He and Otto were
similar kids, always drawing, always imagining. They both identified with Philo,
and yet Otto's life went one way towards a career
in the arts, while Yasers one another. That's the thing.
Yasers particularly fixated on how Auto stayed true to his
(20:02):
childhood passion followed his dream of being an artist.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
It's all inspiring.
Speaker 8 (20:10):
I wonder when he made that decision and how did
it affect his.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Life, Like did he have to break up with someone,
did he have like trouble in his household?
Speaker 8 (20:23):
Was it a good decision or did he regret it?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It feels like these are questions he answer is asking
himself rather than Auto. Maybe questions he's been asking himself
for a long time, questions he's still asking.
Speaker 8 (20:41):
I think that no matter how older you get, no
matter what position in life you're in, there's always the
question of who.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Am I and what purpose do I fulfill?
Speaker 8 (20:52):
I just always kind of like, never really feel sure
of what I'm doing, and in my work sometimes I'm like,
what do I want out of this?
Speaker 5 (21:03):
What purpose?
Speaker 6 (21:06):
I think that we're always in search of our truest self.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
And it turns out there's a reason Yasir is reflecting
so much on his life because Yaser tells me he
and his wife just found out that they're having a baby.
Oh yes, sir, I'm so happy for you.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeser might still have questions about his truest self, but
when it comes to his future child's there's one thing
he knows for sure. Yaser wants something different for his
kid than what he had. He says that if his
kid enjoys making art as much as he did, He's
going to encourage that in any way he can.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
Or even if they're not artistic and just kind of
are crazy about.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Math and robotics or whatever.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
I'll try my best to support that.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
A few weeks after we talk, Yasser receives a package
from Germany. It's full of Audi fund and swag, sent
by Auto to his number one fan in Saudi Arabia.
There's a hat, a T shirt, a toe bag, and
a little stuffed animal otifhant Yasser says he's going to
give it to his baby, his own little Felo. This
(22:41):
Heavyweight short was produced by Mohemi mcgouger and me Stevie Lane,
along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our executive producer is Jonathan Goldstein.
Our senior producer is Khalila Holt. Special thanks to doctor
Mohammed Gazala, Pia Gadkari, Bobby Lord, and Tom Sharpling over
at the Best Show editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Bobby
Lord makes the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,
(23:02):
John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions and Bobby Lord. Additional
music credits can be found on our website gimlipmedia dot
com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker
Theands courtesy of Epitaph Records. Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast.
Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight, Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast,
or email us at Heavyweight at gimlipmedia dot com. You
(23:22):
can also follow our show on Spotify and tap the
bell to receive notifications when new episodes drop and speaking
of new episodes, will be back with a brand new
one next week
Stevie Lane. Hello, So now you have a story I
do to tell to share with the nation. Yes, does
your grandmother what's your grandmother's name again, Philip, Ruth?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Ruth close?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Has she listened to your stories in the past?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
She has?
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Has she listened to my stories?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
No? Not as much, not at all.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Should we call her up on the telephone to tell
her that you have a story?
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Who's this?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, Grandma, it's Stevie. Oh.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Oh, it just said New York. I almost wasn't going.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
To take it.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Okay, fun, how to do it?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I was just calling because I wanted to tell you
that I'm hosting today's episode of Heavyweight.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Oh and of course, you know what, I'll hear you
better because I just came back from the audeologist. She
fixs my hearing aids so I can hear a little better.
And no, everybody who listens, you know, so I we're
hearing age.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Oh, Grandma, I think that most ninety five year olds
have hearing aids.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
And right now you're told everyone I'm old.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
I am.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I was going to say I'm only eighty nine, but okay,
I've got to say ninety five.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
No, I was only teasing you, and I don't care.
I don't know me so well, but they don't know
I don't look my age. You'd have to tell them that.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Oh yeah, So for everyone listening, she does not look
her age.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Good.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I'm Stevie Lane and this is heavyweight, Today's heavyweight short.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, sir, I'm ready to hear it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Now you may right after the break. Hello, Hi is
this Yasir? Yes, this is he. Yaser is twenty eight.
He lives in Saudi Arabia and he's a dentist. I
love going to the dentist.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Actually, oh nice, I see you floss.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Every day and I have a water floss.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Wow, A plus do it.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I could talk about my oral hygiene all day. Cavities,
zero gum recession. If anything, my gums are advancing. But
we're not here to talk about my superior dental health.
We're here to talk about Yaser and a cartoon he
first encountered when he was a kid. Yaser hasn't seen
(02:38):
it in twenty years because it's completely vanished. Yasser grew
up in a small Saudi town. He loved cartoons. This
was back before streaming, so his mom would go to
the video store to buy VHS tapes for him, and
(03:01):
one day, when Yaser was about eight years old, she
came home with a cartoon that changed his life.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
The show is called Little Eliphonteau. It's about a family
of elephants living in suburbia.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
The elephant family was called the boom Mills.
Speaker 6 (03:18):
The father works in a company and he's always worried
about his bonus.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Oh, when is my boss going to give me my bonus?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And the show was dubbed in Arabic. Yasser always assumed
it was originally American.
Speaker 6 (03:31):
You know the fact that they're living in suburbia, that's
very American. The father's financial woes also American. Brown nosing
with the boss and trying to make him like him,
that seems to me very American as well.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I take offense at yas theer's assumption that all Americans
are career obsessed sick offense, But I just laughed politely.
After all, I have an interview to finish, and I
want to make my talented and intelligent boss, Jonathan Stuart
Goldstein proud. Maybe this year I'll finally get that bonus.
(04:14):
The show quickly became a classic in Yasser's home, He
and his brother would watch it every morning before school
with a breakfast sandwich and a big cup of Nest Cafe.
The star of the show was the baby elephant, Filo,
who was.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
Very young and still in diapers and has a teddy
bear named Hong.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Filo and Hong would go on imaginary adventures together.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Fodo was so magical to me whenever we would go
on camping trips or desert outings.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
Every time we would go, I would try to discover something,
a secret door, a treasure like Fido.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yes, or love the show because like Philo, he was
a kid with a big imagination, the kind of kid
it would pretend that inanimate objects were alive. He tells
me about one time when he was driving down a
bumpy road with a friend.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
I was kind of imagining the car, kind of going, oh,
what are you doing to me?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Oh, calm down, slow bloo. But in Yaser's small town,
he didn't feel like there was a lot of support
for kids like him, kids who looked drawing and making
up stories.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
And I longed for a place to bring my creativity
to light.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Pursuing a creative field didn't feel like an option for Ya, Sir,
And when he got older, he chose a career that
was practical and prestigious dentistry. Now a decade later, Yasser
admits that he doesn't love it. He's always been this
really imaginative person, but in his daily routine, he's not
that excited by what he does. He spends his days
(05:57):
looking at rows of teeth and checking gums. There's no
sense of wonder like there was when he was a
kid living in his imaginary world. He's nostalgic for that
feeling and sees the cartoon as a sort of portal.
He knows that watching Philo would bring him right back
to his childhood. The only problem is Filo is gone.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
I tried to find it everywhere. No one ever recognizes it.
No one knows this show aside from our family. It's
so insane. It almost feels like a like a dream
we had as a family.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
It's as though Little Philo has been wiped from existence.
Yaser has poured over media archives, has tried googling Elephant
cartoon in every language he can think of. Once, he
even heard an actor's voice on TV and recognized him
as one of the characters from the show.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
So I looked up the guy on Facebook, and then
I find Hi.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
I tell him about this show. He does not recognize it.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
In a last ditch effort, Yaser made a drawing of
the characters from memory, the dad and his bowtie, invest
the mom in her green, ruffled house dress. He bought
ads based on Instagram and posted the drawing to see
if anyone could identify it. Nothing.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
I keep thinking there must be like some like cartoon
lunatic guy living in a basement that would like instantly
pick it up.
Speaker 5 (07:30):
But I just don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I mean lunatic basically cartoon guides.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
So you want to break it down with the maestro?
Is that what this is about?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
From Gimblet Media, he's Jonathan Goldstein, post of Most Heavyweight Episodes.
I tell him about my conversation with Yaser and his
beloved TV show about a family of elephants.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Can I stop you and ask a question?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Please?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
This family of elephants is one of them wearing a crown.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking Babar. I'm thinking Babar.
I think it's Babar. What's Who's b bar? B Bar
is the elephant with a crown? But Yaser sent me
the drawing he made and it looks nothing like Babar
or bab Bar.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Oh, now you're calling him babar. Huh.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I'm just trying to I'm just trying to be agreeable,
you know.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Can can you hear this?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You're ready? Oh? I think you're right? I mean you
were right. I knew I was right.
Speaker 7 (08:30):
I just didn't.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Let's see one more, one more, hang on, here it comes.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Oh did you hear that?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Okay, so you're gonna take the set what sounds like
a barely literate child and use that.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Who would know better? Who would know better than a
ba bar?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Okay? So let's just say we're both right. Well, Jonathan
says he isn't the basement dweller. I seek he does know,
just the guy.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
He has a very quick mind, very quick on his toes,
fleet of foot and fleet of mouth. It's like everything
that he says sounds like it could be scored to
flight of the bumblebee? Does that make sense?
Speaker 8 (09:09):
Not really?
Speaker 1 (09:10):
You'll you'll see what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Hi, Stev, how are you? This is Howard? And Jonathan
was right. Talking to Howard feels like clinging to an
electric fence. Like here's what he says when I send
him asters drawing.
Speaker 9 (09:26):
They actually look like elephant seals. Holy shit, they have
known known that they are elfan seals. They would have
they would have flippers. They're They're definitely most evil animals
on the planet. I think male elephant seals. They smother
their babies to death. What Dolphins are also not the nicest.
I love dolphins so much, but they're really mean. They're
mean to sharks.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Howard is a cartoonist himself and has an extensive knowledge
of all things animation. I tell him all about the
boom Mill family and some of the other characters, like
the janitor elephant with a cigarette butt hanging out of
her mouth.
Speaker 9 (09:54):
That changes a lot. Then it's most likely not an
American or Canadian kid series because they would never put
a cigarette in the mouth, especially if it was like
late nineties, early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Oh that's a good point.
Speaker 9 (10:07):
I'm going to find this Philo Elefanto little Elephants.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I'm obsessed with this now. I expect to hang up
and get a call from Howard in a few days
with the answer. Instead, he launches into his investigation right
then and there with a dizzying speed. He turns to Wikipedia.
Speaker 9 (10:26):
And if Philiu camp Plasio, Chico Bombon, Edward and Friends, Elephant,
Edward and Friends. That's who that is clearmation Now see
Jungle Cubs, Kirian Lou knowing Asanski Wikiyaku jungle junction, as
of tay Lulu's islands. Well, I'm searching. We can have
all kinds of discussions without other things. It's spaghetti here,
Philu are you talking about Tarzan? You're not talking about
(10:48):
tet now, I'm sorry, Yo, Nakima Ton Tour, Tonturs elephant
mean the Tarzan san any adventures remember that ton Tour
Elephant Magic adventures A mumpy now he's sound right. My big,
my big big friend. Nelly the elephant arguing the cock
coroaches meet Poco yo. What's is poco yo? The one's
called Nelfie Nelly, No, sorry, Nelly. The resk in mompfy
tesc and moumfy Oh.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
I found it.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I found it. What are you saying? He's holding a
teddy bear. This has got to be him. It's all
in Arabic.
Speaker 9 (11:15):
Is a little baby elephant and he's holding a teddy bear.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
A teddy bear my heart sores and the teddy bear
is like a panda and sinks in Yasser's drawing, the
teddy bear is not a panda. It turns out all
Howard has found is a book called The Elephant Learns
to Share about an angry elephant who keeps everything for himself.
It was never adapted into a TV show, which is
(11:37):
probably why the Elephant is so angry. After Howard's failure,
I lose faith in guy's and basements everywhere. I need
a professional, one who dwells above ground. So I call Ramins,
a heat editor in chief of Animation Magazine, and send
him Yaser's drawing. He'll post it to the magazine's Facebook page,
(11:58):
which has hundreds of thousands of follows. A few days later,
I get an email Stevie exclamation Point. We found it,
exclamation Point. At the bottom of the email, there's a
YouTube link to an animated show about a family of elephants.
(12:21):
Many of the details match up with what Yaser had
told me about Filo, right down to the little kid
elephant with a teddy bear, and it's an Arabic flo
Filo Helentie Hula. I don't speak Arabic, but I feel
like I can hear them saying Filo. Surely this must
be it. I am like ninety percent sure this is
(12:43):
not it. This naysayer is my producer, Mona. She speaks Arabic,
so I ask her to take a look at the clip,
and she says. There are a number of differences between
this show and what Yaser described. For one, the baby
elephant isn't named Filo. That's just a way of saying
elephant in air. And like this show is extremely boring.
(13:03):
I would say that's like my strongest reason that I
don't think this is it. Yaser described a magical show
where Philo went on fantastical adventures. The episode of this
show that Mona watched was about watering a neighbor's plants.
Hat in hand, I returned to the Maestro to see
if he has any ideas.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Is it not possible or even likely that he is
Key and his family have conflated a couple different cartoons
into one.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Is it? I look at Yaser's drawing again, and this
time I noticed that the elephants don't even really look
like elephants. Their trunks are scrunched and wrinkled, much more
like snouts. They look a bit like alf drawn in
the style of Maurice Sendak, and over the next few months,
my luck in finding Philo doesn't improve. I reach out
(13:52):
to the Museum of the Moving Image, the UCLA Film Archive,
the Pale Media Center. I speak to a professor of
animation at Saudi Arabian University. I do a reverse image
search on Yaser's drawing. I even wait on hold for
three hours on a live Colin radio show Who's prompt
that week? As Luckwood have it is for movies and
TV shows that people can't quite remember the names of,
(14:15):
but everyone just says the same thing.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
The only elephants family I can think of is Bar.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
The elephant was very famous.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Maybe I'm just confusing it with people are saying bomb
al bab Bar. It's pretty close.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Somebody said bi Bar, So.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
There was something was elephants.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Are you thinking of Bibar?
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Yes, yes, yes, I'm thinking of Okay.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It's not ba Bar, And I gotta tell you, like, yes, sir.
At this point, I'm like starting to doubt your memory
a little bit.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
I'm starting to doubt my own memory, are you sometimes?
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:00):
Did I actually imagine this show? Or is it a
real thing that existed at one point?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
An answer to that question after the break. Hi, yes, sir, Hello,
can I play you something?
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Okay?
Speaker 10 (15:19):
Okay ha ha, Oh my god, No way, that's the intro.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
You recognize it?
Speaker 5 (15:35):
Oh, that's it.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
You found it. We found it, and here's how we
found it. As a last resort, I posted Yaser's drawing
from the Heavyweight Twitter account and asked for help. A
man named Simon in Germany responded, I found your show,
(16:02):
he said. I wasn't hopeful. How many times had I
already heard those very same words from Howard, from Amen,
from anyone and everyone who's ever seen Babar. But Simon
sent a YouTube link to a German cartoon called Auto's
Autifantin and the characters looked exactly like the ones in
Yasser's drawing. And as it turns out, Simon didn't even
(16:26):
have to be one of those lunatic basement cartoon guys,
because in Germany the autifants are famous. They're on lunchboxes
and in video games. There's a whole museum dedicated to them.
Simon told me anyone on the street would have recognized
Yasser's drawing. Then, in my own Wikipedia frenzy, I learned
that the characters were created by a famous German comedian
(16:49):
named Otto Vodkas. He's sort of like a German Robin Williams.
If you ever moved to watch the movie ice Age
in German. He's the voice of Sid the sloth.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Hello, this is so.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I called Auto at his home in Fort Lauderdale to
find out more about the Odifants, and it was easy
to imagine how he made a famous cartoon character, because
he's basically a cartoon character himself.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
I have a studio up in the first floor here
with a little diving board. From there, I can jump
in my pool. No, yes, I love it.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
If talking to Howard was like clinging to an electric fence,
talking to Auto was like trying to catch a super
bouncy ball in a room full of trampolines. Like when
I tried to ask him about Yaser's favorite episode, That's
my favorite, and then without warning, he suddenly became the Grinch.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
I'm going to steal Christmas.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Before whiping out a guitar.
Speaker 7 (17:51):
I wonder, like under one ring Star, I wonder if
you know it's funny, like you say dog when you
said that.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Only when I finally was able to squeeze in a
question about the otifans. Otto told me he's been drawing
them ever since he was a child. It all started
one day in school when Otto was doodling at his desk.
(18:22):
He tried to draw a self portrait.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
It was so I changed the eyes a little bit,
extended the nose, a little bit of the legs, A
little elephant.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
They call it fund Ottiphant, a mash up word of
Auto an elephant. Auto based the boom Mill family on
his own. The character Filo, who in Germany is named
Baby Bruno, was meant to be Otto himself.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
I had my little teddy bear. You know this crystal
hug because it was made in Hong Kong. That's why
I called him Honk.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Growing up in post war Germany, Otto's family didn't have
a lot of money for paint and paper, so he'd
make drawings on the backs of wallpaper scraps. I showed
Otto the drawing Yaser made of his audifence, and Otto
was delighted. He asked me to record a message.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Yes, Sah, when you were here in America, in Fort Lauderdale,
you gott to visit me. I have a diving board.
We can talk about Baby Bruno and we can draw,
and I saw your drawing at a really excellent I'm
looking forward to meeting you. Holda nity. I can bark
that I'd do anything for you. Okay, oh my god.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Back on the phone with Yaser, we debrief about the
creator of his favorite TV show. He and Otto were
similar kids, always drawing, always imagining. They both identified with Philo,
and yet Otto's life went one way towards a career
in the arts, while Yasers one another. That's the thing.
Yasers particularly fixated on how Auto stayed true to his
(20:02):
childhood passion followed his dream of being an artist.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
It's all inspiring.
Speaker 8 (20:10):
I wonder when he made that decision and how did
it affect his.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Life, Like did he have to break up with someone,
did he have like trouble in his household?
Speaker 8 (20:23):
Was it a good decision or did he regret it?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It feels like these are questions he answer is asking
himself rather than Auto. Maybe questions he's been asking himself
for a long time, questions he's still asking.
Speaker 8 (20:41):
I think that no matter how older you get, no
matter what position in life you're in, there's always the
question of who.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Am I and what purpose do I fulfill?
Speaker 8 (20:52):
I just always kind of like, never really feel sure
of what I'm doing, and in my work sometimes I'm like,
what do I want out of this?
Speaker 5 (21:03):
What purpose?
Speaker 6 (21:06):
I think that we're always in search of our truest self.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
And it turns out there's a reason Yasir is reflecting
so much on his life because Yaser tells me he
and his wife just found out that they're having a baby.
Oh yes, sir, I'm so happy for you.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeser might still have questions about his truest self, but
when it comes to his future child's there's one thing
he knows for sure. Yaser wants something different for his
kid than what he had. He says that if his
kid enjoys making art as much as he did, He's
going to encourage that in any way he can.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
Or even if they're not artistic and just kind of
are crazy about.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Math and robotics or whatever.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
I'll try my best to support that.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
A few weeks after we talk, Yasser receives a package
from Germany. It's full of Audi fund and swag, sent
by Auto to his number one fan in Saudi Arabia.
There's a hat, a T shirt, a toe bag, and
a little stuffed animal otifhant Yasser says he's going to
give it to his baby, his own little Felo. This
(22:41):
Heavyweight short was produced by Mohemi mcgouger and me Stevie Lane,
along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our executive producer is Jonathan Goldstein.
Our senior producer is Khalila Holt. Special thanks to doctor
Mohammed Gazala, Pia Gadkari, Bobby Lord, and Tom Sharpling over
at the Best Show editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Bobby
Lord makes the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,
(23:02):
John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions and Bobby Lord. Additional
music credits can be found on our website gimlipmedia dot
com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker
Theands courtesy of Epitaph Records. Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast.
Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight, Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast,
or email us at Heavyweight at gimlipmedia dot com. You
(23:22):
can also follow our show on Spotify and tap the
bell to receive notifications when new episodes drop and speaking
of new episodes, will be back with a brand new
one next week
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!