Thinking Sideways: The Truth about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

That's that's a big mystery. This, by the way, was a listener suggestion was suggested by now just kidding. Yeah, if you somehow aren't familiar with the story of Rudolph, here is the story of Rudolph. You know Dasher and Dancer and Francer and pix Comic and Cupid and Donner and Blitz. But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all, Rudolph the red Nosed Reindeer had a very shining nose, and if you ever saw it, you would even say it close. All of the other reindeers used

to lat them call him names. They never let or Rudolf joining in. They reindeer games. Then one foggy christ Mussy Saven came to say, Rudolf with your nose, So, Brian, want you guide my slage in nine? Then how the reindeer loved him? As they shot it out with glee, Rudolf the red nosed reindeer, you go down in his story. Now, I think you know the story Rudolf, though. The question is how did he come to be and why does his nose glow? And each of us has done a

little research. We've kind of gone out and got our own theories as to where where where all this comes from their widely diversion, they kind of are. I personally believe that I've gotten to the bottom of the story. He helped okay, okay, And I think the whole thing starts with Santa. Yeah, okay. So we all think that Santa is We all know that Santa is the good guy who takes toys to the good girls and boys.

But I also I personally believe that Santa is a bit of a mad scientist, and I think that's how this happened. In my extremely cursory investigation into genetic manipulation, I think I figured out how this happened. Yeah, Santa. Santa. Actually, you know, um was pretty pretty busy one day of the year, but after that he had a lot of time in his hands, exactly to kill time old laboratory.

So I personally think that Santa made Rudolf, and I think, well, Santa is a master of genetic manipulation, and he luded some unsuspect acting reindeer into his lab, probably with a handful of grass cart or something, and then once he got the little guy in there, he started the process of creating his own glowing reindeer. So now you're saying that Rudolph's snows glowed, that Rudolph glowed overall. Let me let me go, let me, let me finish this, and

then you'll get an idea. The first step was in this, you know, this bioengineering of a reindeer, was to introduce traits of a creature that is known as a new to break. I'm sorry, what a new to break? New to branks. This is a big science e word. New braanks are a member of the family of new to Bronchia, which their soft bodied moss basically slugs. They have this awesome, awesome ability to incorporate certain bits of biology from creatures

that they consume into their bodies. Why didn't we develop that That would be kind of cool. I know that'll be eating lions all the time and stuff. Here's well, here's what they do is, there's there's a certain new to break which is called the sea swallow, and it feeds on the Portuguese man war, which you know, is a jellyfish with nasty, nasty stingers. It eats them. It incorporates the stinger and the toxin into itself, so it is dangerous to other creatures that try to eat it.

So it's Kirby got it. Yeah, Yeah, that's exactly Okay. From there, Santa, again, being the super scientist that he is, figured out how to introduce angels glow into the animal system. And Angels glow is I'm gonna destroy this, but it is a photo hob dress luminescent creature. I believe that might be how you say it, that could be correct as well. Angels glow back is a bacteria that is bioluminescent. So this is where I'm getting the glowing part in.

There's actually accounts of soldiers in the Civil War getting this bacteria into their wounds and the wounds would glow at night, and oddly enough, it had kind of an anti bacterial effect on the wounds, so it helps sterilize him, which is an awesome side effect. How could bacteriaioaziness to other bacteria? Again, this is Santa who figured this out, and not on you. I don't know how, but what he's doing is that he's introducing this into their food.

And because they've gone to this this trade of the what was that little guy All the angels glow? No, no, no, no, the sea swallow. Sorry, not the angels glows. The bacteria. The sea swallow is the critter that was incorporated into said reindeer, The poor little guy you lured in and from there created a glowing reindeer. Now, the great thing is the reindeer don't globe all the time because he only needs him to glow it a little bit of the year at a time, one day. Yes, so we

didn't feed it this thing the whole time. But that's how he gets a reindeer that glows. So I'm saying the whole reindeer is glowing, not just the nose. Rudolph. By the way, I don't think it's a single reindeer, because unless we're gonna say he's a magical reindeer, reindeer lived like ten or twenty years, so I'm guessing that because he's a master manipulation, he's also cloning said reindeer, so he's probably either that he's just created this master

race of glowing reindeer. But yeah, essentially, yeah, you don't what is the head shade? No? No, I mean okay, yes, yes, yes, Rudolph's nose glows by bio woman at that's that's that much is clear. Okay that I am in line with you that the nose is biouminescent, but not the rest of the reindeer. No, he's obviously an alien. Okay, Okay,

here's listen. Okay, obviously like, no, he wasn't engineered. He It makes a lot of sense because he can fly right, and his nose is bioluminescent, and we don't have mammals that have evolved to have bioluminescent parts on Earth, but on other planets there would be the necessity for that potentially. Listen, you don't know, have you been to another planet? Do you know? Yeah? I actually haven't. Unfortunately, there you go,

so you just have to do the math. I mean really, like really, there are a lot of alien sightings around their UFO sightings around the North Pole, just like do the math people. Aliens are among us in the form of Rudolph. I'm sorry you laughing at my like very well done research right now? Are you sure because you look like your laugh I'm laughing at the idea about the research. Oh okay, so wait, but I can prove it.

Do you remember last year we talked about Santa and we talked about how it became clear through lots of analysis that we didn't do that we stole from other people, that uh, really he's just using quantum mechanics to like make it to all the different houses. I think I feel like we kind of agreed that that was what was happening, right Well, no, actually I said it was magic. Okay, well you were wrong. Where do you think Santa found

all of the quantum mechanics science? Like really, where do you think, like do you think he just like I was like, oh, suddenly I know how to use quantum mechanics. No, Rudolph gave it to him, obviously. The talking reindeer with the bioluminescent knows. That's why Santa was like, oh, hey, I can't figure out how to do any of this. It's foggy. I can't do anything. And then Rudolph was like, oh, hey, hey, you know what, actually, remember how I'm I'm an alien. Cool,

let's do this, and he helped him. But wouldn't it would actually make more sense for Rudolph to help him just engineer like a heads up display, like a fluor display, like forward looking for red. Despite the fact that Rudolph is an alien, he's still a reindeer. Do you know he flies, He doesn't need to like do a heads up display. He can just be like, oh hey yeah,

no attach it, like, we'll just fly. That's cool. I'll use my bioluminescent knows to like see through the fog, no problem, and then you use your quantum mechanics to get us there even faster. I feel like that's a win win. It's obviously, are you I'm sorry? Is that that's a look of disapproval? Yeah, Joe, you're the one given the funny look. Oh I don't know, I that bioluminescent knows. Obviously it is true though, right, I mean, Steve and I Steve and I we agree on that.

I mean, of course, if he was an alien, most of the planets that, like any alien would come from, would probably be darker than ours. There are hundreds, if not thous if not millions, of habitable, life supporting planets in this universe right obviously that are in the Goldilock zone. Obviously he knows how to fly, or he can fly, or he has whatever quantum mechanics himself to fly. He can help Santa fly much faster, so they could travel from the far reaches of the universe. As he's an alien,

he doesn't age. He doesn't have the natural age restrictions of the normal reindeer, which he said was ten twenty years. Yeah. Yeah, obviously he's outlived that. So he's nearly immortal then, yeah, pretty much. Yeah, that's making a lot of advances in human aging too. I mean, it might be some of our descenters will have to be two three years old. Yeah. So I'm just saying, obviously he's an alien. Case in

point I like case closed. Really, well, have you consider the possibility that perhaps he's his origins were actually terrestrial, but that he was abducted by aliens and modified No, I didn't because no, No, there's a lot of there's a lot of a big, huge body of research on that particular theory. Yeah, exactly. I actually didn't find any of that, which is interesting. I just I was really just two and two together to kind of have to find that, ye kind of have to look in the

dark corners of my mind. Oh, there's lots of research on the Internet of Joe's mind. Yeah, got it. Okay, Well this is why both of your theories suck. I'm gonna tell you all right to answer the question of why why did his nose glow? All? The answer is it didn't glow. It's a myth. Yeah, yeah, let me explain. I'm sorry. Are you saying that Rudolph Is is a myth? Uh? No, Rudolf was real, Rudoff. Rudolf actually did exist. He might still be alive for all I know. Yeah, So let's

go back to the beginning. Um. He was born into a respectable Northpole reindeer family. Dating the year of birth unknown. Rudolph was a sickly child. As he grew older, he became somewhat book is, being a bit of a weakling and also being good at school. Didn't really earn him any friends or allies. So you're saying he was a rangeer equivalent of a nerd. I kind of like that. Did you wear glasses? That's unknown? Yeah, he might have

worn context, well anyway, spent context. Yeah, speaking of allies, it would be so hard to put in your eye getting getting him back out of so I wanted to put a couple of this to rest, So I talked about friends. There. There was a nineteen sixty four document around Rudolf's life which first introduced this claim that Rudolf eight friends with a young elf named Hermie. Yeah. Have you seen that film? Yeah? A million times. Yeah, it's a hard hitting documentary, it is. It is, Yeah, but

a lot of journalistic malpractice here though. Frankly, that so Hermie that the alf dreamed of becoming a dentist. Yeah, yeah exactly. I mean now els eat Elvin food, which does not cost two. You'd don't need dentists up at the North Pole. The candy, Yeah, no, they don't need candy. That's for kids. It's because they secretly hate him humans and they want to rock their teeth out. But you know, if if he had to exceed it in getting into dental school and good luck with that, losers, since they're

aren'ty dal schools at the North Pole. He would have had a pretty lonely professional life, and he would have had to have shut it his business after the first month or so and go to work in the night shift at the plaid pantry. They have plaid pantries up there. I thought that was a local change. Yeah, and I think they called something else up there, but yeah, yeah, similar things. But yeah, Hermie, if he had ever existed,

would have been toiling away in Santa's sweatshops. And it's really unlikely he and Rudolph would ever even have met. And also because Reindeer carried the tix of cause lime disease els generally gave them a wide berth So yeah, so no Hermie. But and the Hermie thing is not the only bit of bs Thatt the so called documentary introduced into the whole Rudolph story. The film itself was an ready boy, a girl, a guy named Burl Ives

now Burl Eyes was a singer. He was not a reporter or a journalist in any way, shape or form, And tell you, tell you, to tell you the three guys. It's hard to take anything that calls itself a documentary. Seriously, what it's not hosted by someone like Heroldo Rivera. I mean, really, guys, take better take better care in your personnel choices next time. But you think okay, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, I mean.

Another big lie that these jokers put out in this film is that the Yetti also knows the abominable Snowman. Remember that. Yeah, he he was just yeah, he was just misunderstood that he was actually really pretty cool once he guys aching tooth fixed by that fictitious self named hermi Uh. In reality, Leaghetti is a vicious eight hundred pound monster that'll tear your head off and make the rest of you into jerky ash Yeah, and he'll just, like you know, suddenly appear in the middle of a

platinum pyramid. Was a platorm pyramid? Yeah exactly? Yeah, yeah, I guy you want to run into But thanks of these jokers that made this what's the word I'm thinking of execrable execrable film, The myth of the Benevolent Yetti lives on, and every year, without fail, at least a couple of tourists wind up getting their faces torn off when they get out of their cars to feed the nice yetti. So, folks, take my word for it. This

no such thing as a nice yetti. Al right, okay, and one last thing and then I'll then I'll get off my high horse here. They also claimed that there's a place called the Island of Misfit Toys and that Rudolphin heard me, went to this island. And this is also again pure bs. Uh. You can't find this island on Google Maps, right, you can't walk around street view. Yeah, now I looked, I checked out. Yeah I did, you know, and and no it's not there. And that's my second

big thing. It's like, seriously, who exactly transports these misfit toys to this island? And doesn't that strike you as an amazing waste of time and energy? Yeah? I mean I guess the dump is a pretty good alternate, would be a lot closer. Yeah, so childhood they're just But anyway, there really actually is already a place for misfit toys to go to, and it's called the Goodwill and they'll pick up probably heard of it, then pick up they pick up even better. Yeah, you don't even have to

go there. They'll pick up for you yeah, episode sponsored why I'm kidding, Yeah, sponsored by Goodwill. But yeah, yeah, maybe this Island of Misfit Toys was a metaphor for the dump for the good Will of the basement. But you know, I think it should go with that's saying that metaphors don't belong in documentaries, right, I don't know if I'm the savaging this week sees of a film. Let's get back to Rudolph and let's talk about his real story. Okay, yeah, please, ye, So I got off

of the weeds that I apologize. Uh So, anyway, I owe a good deal of my analysis here to Professor Haunts Morgan thou of the University of Munich at Doosel Door, who is one of the world's most famous Christmas Ologists and the leading authority on Rudolph's I think I've read a couple of his books, Yeah, and very interesting. They're quick, they're quick, but really weighty read. So a lot of the stuff about a story is kind of true that

we know about. Rudolph was indeed pretty much low man on the totem pool at school, but not because of his nose, which didn't glow and which wasn't read except when he was having one of his outbreaks of cystic acting. Yeah, and now, but he was a little man because he was scrawling and nerdy, and he got good grades. It's true that the other reindeer laughed at him and called him names, and it's also true that they excluded him from the reindeer games, but one a lot. It was

beyond that. They regularly vandalized this locker with dear Yarine. They were constantly giving him wedges, and at least once a month, if not more, there was at least one humiliating pantsing out the schoolyard. Doesn't matter, Yeah, it kind of, does it. Yeah, Then when foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say, Rudolph with your nose so bright, Well, you

know that's not what happened, Not what happened at all. Rudolph, as you can imagine, was a little bit bitter and and so he decided he was going to spoil some people's Christmas. So he he cultured himself some e coli, and he went down to the Beacon brew on the east side of Christmas Town, where reindeer families tended to congregate, especially around the holidays. And so for the two days before Christmas Eve, he dusted the salad bowl with e coli.

And he wanted to spoil this fellow reindeers and classmates Christmas by making sure they were sick as dogs and and yeah, sick as sick as reindeer, I guess so,

so it succeeded. It wanted what a little beyond is his hopes, and he actually sickened about the reindeer population of Christmas Town, which left Santa short of labor on Christmas Eve, so that the weather that day was not foggy, it was clear and cold, but Santa was short one deer, and so he didn't come to Rudolphin's and say, with your nose so bright, will you guide my slay a night. He just basically said, Rudolph, with my team all sick, yeah,

and so sue rude. He didn't get to He did not guide the slag He was actually he was actually were were and on the right, and he didn't get that. He didn't get the really choice position at the front. Yeah, And unfortunately for Rudolph, it it did. Actually the it earned him a little grudging admiration from the other reindeer, but it was only short lived and pretty soon they were back to their sick reindeer games and tormenting poor

Rudolph again. So after after that his foray into into guiding and not guiding helping to pull santas slagh, a little time went by it eventually some forensic work was done. It was and they managed to figure out that Rudolph was actually the guy behind the poisoning. And I don't think I mentioned that besides a lot of people getting sick, several reindeer died from leally kills people and he kills reindeer. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah it does. And yeah, after all this came out, Santa Santa scratched his head and decided it would be a good idea to put Rudolf and trap for murder since he killed several reindeer. And he took it to the eleven d a's office and they pointed out that since he's people who died or the reindeer died were not humans or else, the most Rudolf could be charged,

which was poaching. Yeah, Rudolf lawyer up his his attorney worked to deal with prosecutor's office and he wind up pleading guilty to two counts of first degree poaching and one kind of hunting without a license. He served a little over a year in the PAN and when he got out he changed his name when he moved to present Burg, which is a seedy suburb of Christmas Town. Yeah,

it's just a little ribbon town. Uh. And he was never asked the guy at Santa Slay again for obvious since he actually did all right, he want up owning and operating a small chain of liquor stores, and after that his fate is unknown. Oh and and last of all, his nickname was not Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer. It was Rudolph the Red for the blood on his hands. So so, kids, I hope you yeah blood I suppose. Yeah.

So another heartwarming Christmas tale. Any questions, No, I don't think I don't think there's any questions in that obviously fantastical idea that you got there, Joe, it was pretty dumb, questioning professor. I'm not going to say that I am. What I am going to say is that for all of our listeners, if you want to, if you're listening to this episode on our website, which by the way, is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com, you can always find the shows there and all of our research links. You

can also go ahead and find us on iTunes. If you're there, take the time to leave a comment at a rating. We're also on Stitcher. We're on a lot of other apps and and other sites, so there's a whole host of places that you can find us and stream us and download us. You can always go ahead and send us an email. That email address is Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. We of course got the Twitter account, so find us Thinking Sideways. So we

are there, and of course Facebook. We all love Facebook, and we're on Facebook. We've got the Facebook page, we got the Facebook group. Tons of people on their great conversations, so find us, friend us, like us. All that good Christmas jazz and uh that's that's all of that good stuff now before well, I just gotta say, right now, Joe, you're wrong. He was to he an alien in the natural occurrence. They had tried the case like a Christmas chestnut. They went down and done like this into the night.

Really it never seemed to stop. Happy Holidays to you and yours from the Thinking side Ways team.