Heavyweight Short: Yasser

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?

Ruth close?

Has she listened to your stories in the past?

She has?

Has she listened to my stories?

No? Not as much, not at all.

Should we call her up on the telephone to tell her that you have a story?

Who's this?

Hi, Grandma, it's Stevie. Oh.

Oh, it just said New York. I almost wasn't going.

To take it.

Okay, fun, how to do it?

I was just calling because I wanted to tell you that I'm hosting today's episode of Heavyweight.

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.

Oh, Grandma, I think that most ninety five year olds have hearing aids.

And right now you're told everyone I'm old.

I am.

I was going to say I'm only eighty nine, but okay, I've got to say ninety five.

I'm sorry.

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.

Oh yeah, So for everyone listening, she does not look her age.

Good.

I'm Stevie Lane and this is heavyweight, Today's heavyweight short.

Yeah, sir, I'm ready to hear it.

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.

Actually, oh nice, I see you floss.

Every day and I have a water floss.

Wow, A plus do it.

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 it in twenty years because it's completely vanished. Yasser grew

The show is called Little Eliphonteau. It's about a family of elephants living in suburbia.

The elephant family was called the boom Mills.

The father works in a company and he's always worried about his bonus.

Oh, when is my boss going to give me my bonus?

And the show was dubbed in Arabic. Yasser always assumed it was originally American.

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.

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. 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.

Very young and still in diapers and has a teddy bear named Hong.

Filo and Hong would go on imaginary adventures together.

Fodo was so magical to me whenever we would go on camping trips or desert outings.

Every time we would go, I would try to discover something, a secret door, a treasure like Fido.

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.

I was kind of imagining the car, kind of going, oh, what are you doing to me?

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.

And I longed for a place to bring my creativity to light.

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 looking at rows of teeth and checking gums. There's no sense of wonder like there was when he was a

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.

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.

So I looked up the guy on Facebook, and then I find Hi.

I tell him about this show. He does not recognize it.

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.

I keep thinking there must be like some like cartoon lunatic guy living in a basement that would like instantly pick it up.

But I just don't know.

I mean lunatic basically cartoon guides.

So you want to break it down with the maestro? Is that what this is about?

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.

Can I stop you and ask a question?

Please?

This family of elephants is one of them wearing a crown.

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.

Oh, now you're calling him babar. Huh.

I'm just trying to I'm just trying to be agreeable, you know.

Can can you hear this?

You're ready? Oh? I think you're right? I mean you were right. I knew I was right.

I just didn't.

Let's see one more, one more, hang on, here it comes.

Oh did you hear that?

Okay, so you're gonna take the set what sounds like a barely literate child and use that.

Who would know better? Who would know better than a ba bar?

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.

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?

Not really?

You'll you'll see what I'm talking about.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Oh that's a good point.

I'm going to find this Philo Elefanto little Elephants.

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.

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 tet now, I'm sorry, Yo, Nakima Ton Tour, Tonturs elephant mean the Tarzan san any adventures remember that ton Tour

I found it.

I found it. What are you saying? He's holding a teddy bear. This has got to be him. It's all in Arabic.

Is a little baby elephant and he's holding a teddy bear.

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 probably why the Elephant is so angry. After Howard's failure, I lose faith in guy's and basements everywhere. I need

Is it not possible or even likely that he is Key and his family have conflated a couple different cartoons into one.

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 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

The only elephants family I can think of is Bar.

The elephant was very famous.

Maybe I'm just confusing it with people are saying bomb al bab Bar. It's pretty close.

Somebody said bi Bar, So.

There was something was elephants.

Are you thinking of Bibar?

Yes, yes, yes, I'm thinking of Okay.

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.

I'm starting to doubt my own memory, are you sometimes?

Yeah?

Did I actually imagine this show? Or is it a real thing that existed at one point?

An answer to that question after the break. Hi, yes, sir, Hello, can I play you something?

Okay?

Okay ha ha, Oh my god, No way, that's the intro.

You recognize it?

Oh, that's it.

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, 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

Hello, this is so.

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.

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.

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.

I'm going to steal Christmas.

Before whiping out a guitar.

I wonder, like under one ring Star, I wonder if you know it's funny, like you say dog when you said that.

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. He tried to draw a self portrait.

It was so I changed the eyes a little bit, extended the nose, a little bit of the legs, A little elephant.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wow.

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 childhood passion followed his dream of being an artist.

It's all inspiring.

I wonder when he made that decision and how did it affect his.

Life, Like did he have to break up with someone, did he have like trouble in his household?

Was it a good decision or did he regret it?

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.

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.

Am I and what purpose do I fulfill?

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?

What purpose?

I think that we're always in search of our truest self.

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.

Thank you.

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.

Or even if they're not artistic and just kind of are crazy about.

Math and robotics or whatever.

I'll try my best to support that.

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 Heavyweight short was produced by Mohemi mcgouger and me Stevie Lane, along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our executive producer is Jonathan Goldstein.