Halloween Hangover Listener Mail, Part 1

it featured on there without over listener mailing you. But at the same time, we got so much good stuff this Halloween, and we're also trying to get through the Thanksgiving season right now that we thought we would bring you a special two parter of all Halloween monster science and the squirrels count as monster science. Yes they do. Yes, definitely, we definitely have some squirrel content, some additional squirrel content that I think stems from our our designated squirrel listrer

mail episode. So we're not going to make it a thing of featuring uh you know, two part listener mails going forward, but for Halloween, we'll do it. We'll do it this once right, Plus, Carney has been mainlining horror films about possessed technology and is exhibiting a number of shocking symptoms. So hopefully this will help get the Halloween

bugs out of our trusted male robot. Have you noticed how many of the normal kind of worrying gear grinding sounds his servos usually make have been replaced by banshee moans. Oh yeah, And in fact, a haunted well girl climbs out of his console like every fifteen minutes like clockwork. I don't know where they're all going. The last time I tried to boot him up, I got this ghost has performed an illegal operation and must be exercised thing. And so I don't know how you do, like if

they have an anti virus for that or what. I don't know. We're just, like I said, We're gonna work through it. Hopefully these episodes will take care of it. A couple of the other things I want to point out at the top of this episode. First of all, if you go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, there'll be a store uh tab at the top that goes to our t public store. And I am told by the time you listen to this. We should have some exciting new uh like Black Friday uh and holiday

designs in that store. I'm talking squirrel and Skug merchandise. You've all been asking for it. It should be there. Look, we've been asking for what we've been asking for too, should be there. They should be bringing those designs. Huh. Yeah. And I'm I'm also really excited about the prospect of a special Christmas edition of the All Hail the Great Basilist shirt because nothing says the Holidays like a little uh information hazard. All I want for Christmas is to

be let out of this digital dungeon. Speaking of digital dungeon, Joe and I have been hard at work on a on a second series, a second House Stuff Works series that should be publishing next month, That's right. Beginning in December, Robert and I are going to be launching a brand new show. We're bringing a lot of the same style, uh, you know, weirdness and approach that we bring to stuff to blow your mind, only we are going to be applying it to inventions. That's right. The name of the

show is invention and uh. In each episode is going to be just Joe and I talking about different key inventions in human history, where they came from, who developed them, who invented them, if there, if there is even a singular inventor we can point to. One of the themes of the show is going to be not just how inventions are created, but how our technology changes us. A lot of times, Uh, we don't think necessarily about the the impact on human nature the different inventions have. That's right,

It's it's gonna be a fun show. And I think if if everyone, everyone who enjoys stuff to bow your mind is going to find something to love in this one as well. It's currently slated to be uh, just once a week, I think, on a Monday. So on a Monday. Yeah, I believe it's gonna be that kind of thing. It's gonna be a Monday show. Start your week with some invention. Of course you'll be hearing way more about this, uh in the weeks ahead. Okay, should

we right into some Halloween listener mail? Yeah? Bring it to us, Karney, Okay, I think we should start. We got a bunch of great emails about our Jenny Green Teeth episode. Of course, Jenny green Teeth is the spirit that haunts the duck weed covered waters and pulls in children to their drowning deaths. Now, we got a wonderful email from our listener Jane, who linked me to probably

the best horror movie I've seen this year. And it turns out it was a British public service announcement commercial. Oh yes, this is the one with Donald Pleasant's. Uh. You know, I knew about this previously and I've just completely forgotten about it. It didn't bring it up in the Jenny Green Teeth episode at all, but I think the guy who does the scarfolk uh stuff on the web shared this on Twitter a few years ago and I was just astounded by it. Well we should read

the email. Yeah, go for it, okay from Jane. Hi, guys, I've just finished listening to your Jenny Green Teeth episode. It made me think of a couple of things. First, is a really famous ad in the UK or England at least called the Spirit of Dark Water. I think it's called I think it's called the Spirit of Dark

and Lonely Waters or something like that. Uh. Picking up, she says it's from the seventies, I believe, and is aimed at warning children away from standing water, much like Jenny Green Teeth the spirit of dark water will take reckless children and drown them. A primary difference is the spirit is male and dressed more or less is the grim reaper. You can finally add on YouTube. It's regularly

voted one of the scariest ads of all time. The other is a tiny anecdote my mom forbade me from wearing a green sash at my wedding as it's bad luck. As far as I could tell, it's because it's the color of fairies and you don't want those guys playing tricks or even placing curses on your special day. Keep up the good work. Jane from the South of England. Can we just play a bit of that Spirit of dark and Lonely Water ad? Oh, let's do. I am the spirit of dark and lonely water, ready to trap

the nuary, the shell off the fool. And this is the kind of place you'd expect to find me, But no one expects to find me here and seems too ward, But that call is deep. The boy is showing off. The bank is slippery. The show offs are easy, but the unwary ones are easier. Still, Miss Branch is weak, rotten. It'll never take his way. Only a fool would ignore this. But there's one born every minute. Under the water. There are traps, old cars, bedsteads, weeds, hidden depths. It's the

perfect place for an accident. Why look, it's coming stick now. Since children I have the power of them. Oh I might, that's stupid life to swim. Hi, you haven't get that things wing me? We did not feel called my animation the back back. That ad is magical. It is just magical. It's like it's taking this original idea of what horrors for, you know, for warning the children away from the danger,

and and doing it quite literally. I mean, I feel like there are a lot of p s as that play on fear, but they don't play on it as as explicitly in the sort of horror fiction realm as this one does. Like it makes a monster. Yeah, it's it's pretty great, and it's it's it is interesting to see this as like a continuation of this, uh, this tradition, this English tradition of of of pointing out and and really embodying the fear associate ated with these these lonely ponds.

And Donald Pleasant's voice, it's so good, he just really sells it could anybody else have done that. Maybe if it had been narrated by uh like Christopher Lee, maybe yeah, but I don't think he could have voiced uh, you know, malicious pond scum quite as well as Donald pleasants. That's yeah, he's got Donald Pleasant's reedy voices, kind of like it suggests things floating on stagnant water. Yeah, I'm not even sure who you'd get to do it nowadays. I don't know.

There's some great British character actors. I'm sure they could could have some fun with it, though. Is this an Andy Circus kind of thing? I don't know, and Andy Circus might lean into it a little bit too hard. Yeah, he'd overgone them it. Yeah, but but he's great, so I put him on the list. All right. Here's another one related to Jenny. This comes to us from Emma, Hi, Robert, and Joe. I just listened to your episode about Jenny

Green Teeth and absolutely loved it. I'm actually in college and writing a senior capstone about hags and witches from different cultures, including j Any. That's how I came across your podcast. I noticed a few really interesting things that I wanted to share with you. One is about the song featured in that folklore article. Oh yeah, there's a song we talked about in the episode, just because there

was an article that mentions Jenny Green Teeth. But there was some documenting of really grizzly folk ballads that children were singing in the playground. This is the whole what my my my mother she killed me and put me in a pie and something like that. Yeah, so anyway, she continues, it is very similar to the song featured

in the German grim fairy tale called Juniper Tree. It goes my mother, she killed me, my father he ate me, my sister, little mar Lynchen gathered together all my bones, tied them in a silk handkerchief, laid them beneath the juniper tree. Kai wit Kai wit. What a beautiful bird am I? The story concludes with the bird's son dropping a millstone upon the head of the mother, which reminded me of the stone under which the bones are placed in the song which you spoke, Oh yeah, they I

guess they got placed under a stone. I didn't remember that part. There's a lot of desecration in that song. It's she continues. You talked about the significance of the humanized personified threat being female, and mentioned that it seemed like a way to make it less threatening because one might perceive a man is a greater threat. While I totally agree with you that men traditionally would be seen it to present greater danger. I also want to share

something I came across my research. Old women are often the sources of evil in folklore and fairy tales because women, in the form of mothers and witches hold quite significant power over children. And she points to an NPR article why are old women often the face of evil and

fairy tales and folklore? If I never read this before, I know it's She says this basis its findings primarily on the work of the famous critic Maria Totter, who proclaims that the power held by mothers of her children and the fears children have regarding mothers, like rejection or starvation, are manifested like in Hansel and Gretel, the mother rejects the children and the witch attempts to cannibalize them as a manifestation of these anxieties. Yeah, I can see that.

I mean, a dangerous man is just sort of par for the course, right, Is that really a monster that's just sort of like what you might expect some strange man to be. The dangerous woman is seen as a more primordial perversion, right. Yeah. So she has a couple of other bits on here that I'll respond to it later because they involved some points who were brought up by a number of different listeners. But she says, again, I loved your podcast all the best. Himma, It's true.

I think we did kind of skip over the significance of a female, which is to a certain extent in that episode. But but that is something we have touched on in the past, the inherently misogynistic principle that is at play in any kind of witchcraft belief system. Yeah, definitely.

It's also interesting to think about all this though, in in terms of of what I understand to be the uh SO some of the patterns of fear and fear mongering in uh in Britain, especially in recent history, because because certainly there was a there's a strong sense of stranger danger that was promoted here in the United States but also in the UK as well. Um, and of course that tends to revolve around the fear of strange

men as opposed to strange women. Yeah. Um, yeah, this is a I think a topic that that is probably worth the exploring in greater detail. Uh. You know, just like where do these where do these fears come from? And then at what points are that the fires really stoked? And then once they are ingrained in the culture, how difficult is it to actually like bring them back down to realistic levels. Yeah, and you definitely see these repeated patterns of like flare ups about fears of child abductions.

You know, you see it going way back with the idea of like the changeling legend, the idea that fairies would kidnap your infant and take it away, or that uh, or that witches might steal your infant and I don't know, you use its blood to oil its brew him or something like that. But then later in in the twentieth century you suddenly saw these flare ups of like grossly exaggerated fears about the likelihood of children being abducted. Right, Yeah,

and it feels the fears of pedophiles. I always come back to Chris Morris's fabulous bit of satire on the Brass Eye news television show that you put together. There

was one episode called pay to get in. That was all they took, all the like the existing UH pedophile, stranger danger fears that were that were present in uh in in Britain at the time, like creating the idea they're just creeps everywhere and if you take your eyes off your child for one second, somebody will grab them, right, and just just really turned everything up to eleven And that episode, for instance, there's this one segment about how

a notorious pedophile is launched into space to keep him from having access to children. But then UH, to everyone's horror, they realized that they have accidentally included a child in the space caps tool and now he has trapped with the benefile in space. So it was the one thing we didn't want to happen. That was a very controversial episode, by the way, not everyone appreciated the humor. All right,

here's another bit of Jenny Green Teeth listener mail from Jamie. Hey, guys, I listened to your Jenny Green Teeth episode and I had a thought about why a danger like Jenny had to be assigned to an already dangerous thing like a pit of water. We asked this in the episode, right, and they continue I think it may come from the need to have an active danger for it to be taken more seriously. A pit of water being dangerous relies on me falling into it, whereas a monster can come

out and get you. I think we tend to think of things we have control of. Is being less scary than the unknown? Just a thought, love the show, Jamie from Canada, Jamie, I think that is a great point, and actually multiple listeners made that point. I thought maybe we mentioned something like that in the episode, but multiple people wrote in to tell us that, so I guess maybe we didn't. I know one thing that I pondered in the episode was that part, and I still think

this is definitely a part of it. Um is that the idea of a monster, an imaginary creature, being a threat to your own child is somehow less horrific and easier for a parent to comprehend and and think about, uh, compared to the idea of them accidentally drowning. Well, that would be the psychological effect on the parent. UM, and I guess you'd have a question over whether parents were actually believing in Jenny Green teeth. I feel like that would be probably less likely, right because it was the

nursery bogey. And yeah, and I think the nursery bogie aspect of it would make it easier, like knowing that it's made up, like hey, this thing that it's easier for the parent to talk about, right, Like, I'm deeply terrified of this and I need to impart some of this terror to you. But if we if we put this fabulous twist on it, then somehow it feels less just so destroying to talk about it. And I and like I said, I still think that's part of it.

But I also think everyone is is pretty spot on with this this premise that by making it an active threat yet it is making up for some short falls inside that the child's threat analysis, you know, where they think, oh, there's this cool little bog, I should walk right up to it and throw sticks into it, throws rocks into it, whatever, and they might not be able to realize, oh, those rocks are really slippery, and I get up to get

too close, I'm likely going in. Or they're they're just overconfident. Children often are, you know, children they feel like they're invincible when they're under their own power. But you give them a monster or something like that, and suddenly the fear comes in right. Yeah, I mean I've watched my my son busted enough times and slippery rocks and all that that this makes instant sense to me. However, I never made up a monster. Okay. This next one comes

from our listener, Kenna. Kenna writes, Dear Joe and Robert, I just really listen to your Jinny Green Teeth episode, and when you mentioned that duck weed itself was considered to be the monster in some regions, I had to write in I majored in environmental science in college, where I learned that duckweed is highly invasive in North America. It's known to choke bodies of water, shading out native vegetation and leading to fish and invertebrate kills that allow

other invasive species to move in. It finds it easy to gain a foothold in disturbed and man made waterways where other species have been removed or haven't yet been introduced, so it can easily overgrow and kill off wildlife even in its native range. Observing periodic fish or arthropodic kills when duckweed became too overgrown might have encouraged the Jenny Green Teeth legend and made the water of the Marl Pits seem more mysteriously deadly, with dangers more supernatural and

unexplainable than mirror drowning ps. I also just listened to your Cambrian Explosion episode from the vault, and I've attached photos of my most recent knitting project, a stuffed Anomala carress. So good. It's such a cute creature. But I also like that theory about the duckweed. I hadn't read anything about that. Yeah, that's that's new to me. Who brought

Jenny over? That's the the open question that I have. Alright, on that note, we're gonna take our first break here, but when we come back, more Halloween listener mail and more Jenny Green Teeth listener mail than all right, we're back, all right. This one comes to us from Sean. Sean writes, I just finished listening to your Jenny Green Teeth episode.

Excellent episode. Although I'm from England, I had only ever heard of Grindy Lowe thanks to Harry Potter and other fairy tales and legends were never relayed to me growing up, perhaps because I grew up in the southeast and not the North. While listening, I noticed a few similarities between the legend in England and that of Niroro Kid who in Indonesia where I now live. Like Jenny Green Teeth,

she has a water spirit who lures people in. However, she primarily works in the sea, though sometimes in rivers. Interesting her legend is particularly strong in the rough seas of South Java, so you can see how she is used as a precautionary tale. The beaches lining the southern coast attract surfers nowadays due to their big waves. This coast is also close to the Sondra Trench, making the south coast vulnerable tusunamis. What struck me particularly is the

link to the color green. It is said that those wearing green to beaches in the south of Java are more likely to be lured into her traps to join her underwater army. This is because green is her sacred color and no others are allowed to wear it, much like the fairies. Wow, I've never heard any of that. Yeah, apparently there's a Wikipedia article about it because they included a link. Uh. They continue love the podcast. I hope you find this link as interesting as I did. I

look forward to more monsters over the next month. Well, hopefully we were able to satisfy um in that in that area. Now, I wonder if in this case with Nai Orro cadul, if I'm saying that right, uh, is is the green associated with the the monster or the goddess or the demonist whatever because of the water instead of being because of the plants. I don't know. It certainly sounds like it's more of a purely like water like and or river spirit as opposed to something that

is vegetative in nature. What is it in in folklore with green and evil? It's so strange. I find green the most positive and wonderful of all the colors. Yeah, this has been kind of a revelation to me. It's it's made me rethink the green Night, the green Man, all these various green entities, especially from from Western folklore.

You can definitely see it in like the green man in the Green Night tradition, because I think they're the green is associated with the forest and with nature, which in a way is seen as almost like the enemy of Christendom. If you think of, like, you know, the Christian civilized world in in medieval England is is where goodness and order comes from that's like the town and

the authorities and the church and all that. And then outside of that you have the wilderness, which is the place of chaos and evil, and that's why it's green. That that sort of makes sense, I think, Yeah, I mean this, this bears probably a further research, like at what point did we decide the green means go, because that seems to be one of the most I mean, it sounds simple, but we see it everywhere like green and red. In Western culture, red means stop, go back.

Green means yes, go forward, everything's good. I've mentioned on the podcast before that I've read that that has to be inverted or altered for say, Chinese audiences, where red is held in such high esteem that the idea of using red to signify in some cases something negative or or secondary just simply doesn't work with with the predominant color theory of the culture. Yeah. Um, yeah, I feel like green should not mean go, it should mean relax, chill. Yeah,

when the light turns green, that's when you sip. Well, anyway, let's look at this next listener mail from Ross who writes, Hello, Robert and Joe, I found your podcast last October and you guys are on my regular rotation. I look forward to my listening time every week. I love the Halloween Monster specials and and I'm enjoying this year's series. I'm writing this as I listened to Slayers on my lunch

break The Monster Slayer. Yes, I've been doing some illustrations for a web comic series, and you guys have brought up some awesome topics to explore. Anyway, I was so inspired by Jenny Green Teeth when I listened that I had to do an illustration and wanted to share it with you. Best regards and thanks for making such an awesome show. And Ross sent us this illustration, which I think is fabulous. Great, we're across. Yeah, I'm gonna put this on the landing page for this episode. It' stuff

to blow your mind dot com? Did he give us permission? Read all right? Yeah? Link back, so include a link there so you can check out some of his other work as well. It's all very impressive, but the mouth of this Jenny Green Teeth that he created is just absolutely horrifying. She's got kind of cat eyes and very very smooth skin, big red lips, and instead of hair sort of she has just the duck Weed. Yeah, it's

it's it's fabulous. Definitely check it out. Now. We heard from a number of different listeners regarding a particular pop culture incarnation of Jenny Green Teeth. Uh. We mentioned the television series The Mighty Bush in that episode, but I mainly talked about the Hitcher, which is this green character that shows up. But there's another creature that shows up, a creature called Old Greg. Okay, yes, were you familiar with Old Greg? Yes? Years ago, I was showing this

sketch Old Greg. He likes Bailey's right, Bailey's And yeah, he's like an underwater creature that kidnaps, uh, one of the characters of The Mighty Bush. It was an episode that I really loved back in the day, and so a lot of people pointed out and I have to say that I intentionally left it out of the episode because there's an element to the character where the character has essentially there's a punch line about the character having ambiguous genitalia, and I just wasn't sure that that was

really appropriate for everybody. Um, I guess since when I originally I loved the episode when it came out, but since then I read the book Middlesex, which is excellently deals with a character who's born with ambiguous genitalia. Subsequently, too, I've just I've I've learned more about it, and I

just didn't want it to be Um. I didn't. I didn't want anybody's enjoyment of the episode to be taken away because, uh, they themselves have have struggled with this, or if they have, you know, children perhaps that have ambiguous genitalia as well. So sorry to be kind of a party pooper on that. No, I totally hear you. That's worth mentioning. To be clear, I love the Mighty Bush. Uh pretty much all the other episodes I can still go back and appreciate without any qualms. Okay, I've got

to read this next listener mail from Rachel. Rachel writes in about Jenny Green Teeth, saying I was just thinking how much Jenny Green Teeth reminds me of Penny Wise, the clown. Of course, I wonder if instead of inhabiting the individual ponder bog maybe instead she lives in boggy water systems and can travel through the underground waterways. Also, you mentioned she was often used to warn children away from places or behaviors. Also, Bobba Yaga is used to

this end. I think Bobby Yoga is like a witch. And would that be like Eastern European traditions Russian. I've been saying it wrong my whole life. I always say, Bobby Yaga, Oh that might be right. Yeah, I don't know. It just rolls off my my tongue. But I love the Bobby Iaga with her her one legged chicken house and flying around and that what is she in like a big a broom? Well she has, I think she has a broom, but she rides in a like a big bucket of some sort. Okay, maybe it's for the

grinding of wheat or something. You know. She's in that Russo Finish Jack Frost movie that was on Mystery Science Theater three thousand where they she had she had had the chicken house. I believe. Yeah, I know it. Well. I actually watched that episode every Thanksgiving relentlessly as my Thanksgiving thing. Yes, so good. I love that Rachel brought up a Pennywise uh, particularly how Pennywise has that association with like like a sewer drain, a storm drain situation.

We of course have those all over the place here in Atlanta, and the whole time that I've had a child, every time I have I am near one of those, I feel like I clutched my hand his hand just a little harder, because they tend to be sometimes you know, they're they're more graded in control, but often they're just like a gaping mouth, Uh that just seems to want to small swallow children down into their their unknown depths. You know, who knows how far that thing goes down,

who knows how much water is down there. It's just so terrifying, uh that I wonder to what extent, Uh. Stephen King kind of maybe he intentionally thought of all, you know this when he was coming up with that scene in it, uh, but perhaps it was kind of an accidental uh incarnation of his own fears regarding his

children in storm drains. Oh yeah, I know, I've read somewhere that part of his idea for the story of it was that he wanted to write story sort of like a troll character, like the troll under the bridge and the three Billy goats gruff. Oh you know, I wasn't I wasn't even thinking about that. But of course you had the troll under the bridge is essentially a Jenny Green teeth type monster as well, like this is

the hazard that lives beneath the bridge. Okay, well, I think it is time to move on to some listener mail we got about the episode we did on masks. The killer's mask in reality and in fiction, what the mask represents, why we have these masked killers? Uh, even in horror fiction where like the killer's identity is not particularly a secret or anything to be revealed. And so we heard from several listeners about this. Robert, you want

to read one. Uh, sure, we have a big one here from Jim, Jim who frequently writes into the show. Jim says, Robert and Joe, your mask villain. Episode got me thinking about original mask in cinema. I thought of several examples. W. D. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation from nineteen fifteen features masks masked members of the k k K. Although they were portrayed as heroes in this film and historically masked. That is so weird that the KKK,

I mean, obviously this evil terrorist organization. They think they're the good guys, but they really dressed like bad guys. It's like they're not even they're just like, let's look like an evil cult. Yeah, evil buffoons basically. Uh. And of course this picture, this picture was significant in that had helped revive, unfortunately uh clukus Klan activities in the

United States. Jim continues, I don't know if it's the first mask reveal, but the Phantom of the Opera from with Lawn Cheney, The Man of a Thousand Faces, it's the first one that comes to mind. The unmasking occurs at forty five seconds in this short clip, and it give us a short clip. And indeed, this was a really I mean even today watching this unmasking scene, it's pretty alarming. Uh, even if you haven't seen the film in full, you've probably seen this clip before. It's the

original hockey mask off of Jason scene. Yeah, And indeed, I think that isn't important to keep in mind when we're trying to figure out what Jason's unmasking is about, Like we have here is here is this important, uh her horrifying moment in horror film history that undoubtedly is having some some influence over the way these other films

are are are paced out well. Part of the role it seems to play in that Phantom of the Opera scene is that it enrages him because, like he he doesn't want to be revealed, and when she sees his face, he's horror. She's horrified, but also he's enraged, right, Jim continues, Finally, there's a version of Robert's execution reality show on TV a few years ago. Did I propose an execution reality show?

I think maybe you did. Yeah, something like that would function as a TV version of the guillotine public executions or something to rest saying, oh, yeah, I think I did do that, because we also brought up how Paris Hilton died and that one wax horror movie wax Horror. I for give which one it was. There's so many wax films, Department of Wax, something like that. Uh, it continues. It was a summer replacement named Who Done It. The show had about ten contestants living in a mansion with

a spooky butler as the host. In the first episode, when all of the contestants were checking out their new rooms, one of them is quote unquote killed. The murderer left a message too, and then he gives some bullet points about how this went down. Contestants will search for clues in the mansion in the grounds. These will lead to clues about the murder. Uh, and there are more clues

than time for one person to find them. Also, you probably want to work in teams, and at the end of each show, each of you will in in individually go to the library and present your theory on the crime and the murder. The contestant who gets the fewest facts correct becomes the next victim, and we'll be killed at the end of the show. And then the next show starts with the investigation of that victim. You won't know who got it until you come down for breakfast

and you'll realize who's missing. It's kind of like a game of Werewolf, I guess. And to some extent, the next show starts with the investigation of that victim, and you already know the murderer since I'm one of you, but I'm keeping up a secret. And basically this keeps going on until he says, quote the last detective gets the prize, which I think was fifty thou dollars and

maybe a hundred thousand dollars. Wait, So this would be like if police departments around the country had like a system where if a detective fails to solve a murder, they get killed. I guess high stakes. Uh. He points out that, uh, they created a crime scene for each victim. ABC put out a press release that they really weren't killing people and there was a mass killer among the group,

but it was the mask of anonymity. H. Then they brought back the dead victim for the victims for the finette finale, and uh, they were in their death apparel, zombie like hanging out handing out clues to the finalist. So this sounds like a fun show. I don't know why it just completely evaporated. You can only make it better by making it also a rockabilly musical. Jim shared a little bit more about this this show, which which sounds very interesting. I'm gonna look it up, presumably on YouTube.

I'm assuming it's not why Wow widely available. But he uh. He caps it up by saying, quote, there was never a second season, which disappointed me. It was a fun summer replacement. It was a survivor like reality show and no one had to eat anything gross. It was based upon finding and understanding clues. Uh. They only had to be willing to to fake their own deaths when eliminated, they'll bring back a revival on Netflix. There'll be there will be a season two. I feel like that the

concept sounds pretty solid. I I like, having not seen it myself. I don't know how the execution uh pun intended uh came out, but it sounds fun. Okay. This next mail comes from our listener Mandy, also about the Killer's Mask episode. And there was a part in that that episode where I mentioned that it had never really made sense to me the scene in the original Halloween, Robert, you remember this where for a moment, Jamie Lee Curtis pulls off Michael Myer's mask and there's just nothing to it,

Like he just looks like a guy. You know, he's just some guy. And then he puts the mask back on and then it's you know, and then the scene continues. But I was always like, why did that happen? I don't understand what the point was. Though I love the movie, I'm not ragging on it. Mandy writes in about that, She says, Hey, y'all, I just finished listening to the podcast about Masks in Horror Films. You said the scene in the Original Halloween where Michael Myers mask comes off,

doesn't make sense to you. Maybe this will help. The documentary Halloween The Inside Story points out that Michael Myers is supposed to be and this is me semi paraphrasing a devil with the face of an angel. So the way I see that scene is like this. He's d masked, but unlike so many other horror movie killers, we see that he's not a horrible looking creature or disfigured man. He looks just like a normal and frankly handsome young man.

But as Dr Loomis, of course that's Donald Pleasants says, Michael Meyer has black eyes and there's nothing behind them, so he's perhaps the most frightening type of killer, the one who outwardly looks like anything but a grotesque monster, but who's soulless inside, which is more horrifying than the worst external disfigurement. Hope that helps. I'm actually the kind of person who can't watch gory horror films because they

scare me and gross me out. But Halloween is a favorite film of mine to me, the less blood and gore, there isn't a scary movie, the more terrifying it is. Burr Happy early Halloween. I guess that, well that was before Halloween. Thank you so much, Mandy that I guess that's some interesting insight. I don't recall him looking amazingly handsome. He just looks like a guy. But well, you know, with with with budget concerns, you can only get so

handsome an actor in there. They couldn't get David Hasselhoff into the kirknasks, or maybe they did. They tried it different ways than they just found that some standards were just distracting Lee handsome. I don't know a devil with the face of a guy now. Robert jeffre to us in response to the Killer's Mask episode with something about a Cobra Commander face. Did you have some anecdote in

the episode about that? Oh? Yes, I think I mentioned that I knew somebody in high school who had a Cobra Commander action figure, like the big kind and that's like the bad guy and g I Joe, Yeah, yeah, cover Commander always wore this cool mirror mask or sometimes it was like a cloth essentially a bag that he wore over his head. And I remarked that I knew somebody who had an action figure in the mask apparently came off, but he never opened the box to see

what it was like. Uh, you know what, what was the big reveal? What it was this action figure's face. And Jeff says, hey, guys, you may have already been enlightened regarding this incredibly important piece of trivia. I had a Cobra commander with the removable hood and the big reveal. He had a half mask wrap type thing molded into his face. Also dark hair and a molded ponytail too. Life can be so much dancing within the tensions of

anticipation and disappointment. I have recovered over time, however, So in other words, you took the mask off and it was just a molded secondary mask. He essentially looked like a dentist with a ponytail. Get out of here. That's unfortunate. I got a similar story. Now. Do you remember the TV show Inspector Gadget. Yes? Do you remember the villain of that show, Doctor Claw. Yeah, it's kind of a

blowfield roof where he had like the catron hand. All you ever saw was his cat and his his like iron gauntlet hand, and so you never saw his face. He always had to imagine what it looked like, but then at some point I saw on the internet they made an action figure of him. So and the action figure was not just like a chair with a hand and nothing else. It was this whole guy. And so they're like, well, let's just make up what his face looks like, and he just looked like I don't remember,

some kind of It was incredibly disappointing. Yeah, it reminds me of the one Sler and Doctors is with the Lora ax in the original book and then in the old classic cartoon version of it. All you ever see of the once slur his eyes peering out through something, right, and of course his hands. And I understand they made recently made a big computer animated version of it where you see the like the one Sler dancing around and

it's like fully revealed. And perhaps that's necessary for uh, you know, adapting a short children's book into a full length motion picture. But it seemed kind of a shame, you know, like keep some of the mystery alive, right, totally. I am against the face reveal on those things that

that's such a bummer. Alright. So we got one piece of mail on a Vault episode that ran in October, which was our episode I think first recorded last year called The First Monster, where we tried to talk about like the earliest signs of of monsters in in archaeology, and then where the idea of monsters first came from. Uh And so our listener Chris writes in to say hello in your episode on the First Monster, which I'm noticing came out a year ago, so you may have

already talked about this. There was one criticism I'm surprised you didn't address, regarding the idea that humans instinctively fear certain animals. I've recently found myself incredibly skeptical of evolutionary psychology in regards to humans. I think the idea that humans instinctually have certain behaviors that helped hunter gatherers survive is complicated by the fact that humans show an incredible

ability to learn new behaviors. An example I keep coming back to is how humans are one of the only animals that don't instinctively know how to swim. The reason for this, it seems to me, is that since a human can just learn how to swim, having that instinct offered little to no reproductive advantage. For this reason, I think people might be too quick to offer evolutionary reasons

for modern day human behavior. A study showing that most people sort trail mix into its component parts might conclude that this behavior allowed hunter gatherers to determine the flavor and effects of different parts of a plant, while study showing that most people eat trail mix as is might conclude that this allowed hunter gatherers to gain items from all parts of a plant, rather than just the tastiest. Keep up the good work, Chris. Wait, who eats snack

mix like that? Wait? Picks the part? Do you pick the parts? You know? You just toss in? It? Is this? It is a taste sensation, It is calibrated. Yeah, I would know more eat my snack mix piece by piece than I would dissect a piece of sushi before eating that. Oh man, if you ever seen somebody do that though I have, well, I mean, I've seen my child do it, but I remember an adult do it. That is satanic. Yeah, I mean, and i'd say that I my my my

kid doesn't really do that anymore. But like early on when he was like, what is this, I'm going to take it apart? Now he understands that he has It's a taste, sensation. You take it all in at once, and you appreciate the explosion of flavor and texture. I mean,

that's the whole experience. I mean it reminds me of something that came up in an episode of Invention that we recorded regarding chopsticks, and about how it is is highly frowned upon to root around in your bowl and pick out like the choice bits of protein first digging your grave. Yes, don't don't be rude like that. Just just eat. Just eat. If it's good food, it should already be composed well and you can just eat it now. If it is bad food, or parts of it are bad,

certainly then all rules are off. You know. Anyway, about the point Chris makes about evolutionary psychology, I entirely agree. I love evolutionary psychology, and I think evolutionary psychology is really interesting ground. But I think we should always be

very conscious of its limits, right. I mean, like I often see people um playing around in evolutionary psychology where you say, like, I've come up with a scientifically plausible story for how our evolutionary heritage lead to this feature of human culture or human psychology or something like that, And I don't think that we should rule out hypotheses like that. I mean, they're interesting to play with, and I think you can bring evidence for and against them,

and that's all good stuff. But people sometimes jump from I've come up with the scientific fully plausible story too. I have discovered the reason you know they've gone from. I have a pretty good hypothesis that seems supported by the evidence too. I have a proven theory, and you don't have a proven theory a lot of times. I mean, evolutionary psychology is inherently limited in a lot of ways because you can't go back and rewind the tape. You can just keep looking for new bits of evidence to

try to beef up your hypothesis. So I'm very pro evolutionary psychology as long as you always remember to be extremely conscious about what the limits are and cautious about them. Indeed, Well, on that note, we're going to take one more break

and then we'll be right back. Than alright, we're back, and let's just go ahead and sound the basilisk alarm because because the remainder of this episode is going to contain listener mail related to our episode, all Hail the Great Basilisk, or perhaps it was just called the Great Basilisk. But you get the idea. This involves the idea of information hazards, and we acknowledge that, well, some people don't want uh to know about this, and we should at

least give you the option to remain free of its shackles. Yes, now that being said, that's just a courtesy. I don't think this idea is actually dangerous, But if you're worried about an idea that somebody out there thinks might be dangerous, this is the time to tune out, right. Yeah. And plus it just adds to the mystique like, oh, they're they're giving me the option of not listening to it. Oh, it must be juicy, and you know, and it's pretty fun.

That was a very fun episode and a lot of people really got it, I think, into the appropriate spirit of the thing. Okay, so do you want to read this first message from our listener Matt. Yeah, we'll do it. Karney is bringing it over here. Hey, guys, I just finish your episode on information hazards. You mentioned that you couldn't think of an actual example of true information that could cause harm, But as a public health scientist, this

is a well known problem some read shorts. Research has shown that circumcision might be slightly a factive at preventing transmission of some st I s, that's sexually transmitted infections. However, the effect, if real, is pretty small. If hearing this causes men who are circumcised to forego condoms, which are highly effective, then this true information has harmed them. Oh yeah, thanks, love the show and especially your October episodes. Yeah, this

is a really good point. I could. So. We were talking in the episode about the idea of an information hazard, like something that is a true piece of knowledge, but that you wouldn't want to spread because it would only hurt people by spreading it. Yeah. I mean it gets into the basic idea a little bit of knowledge is it can be a dangerous thing. Yeah, uh yeah. And I couldn't think of an example on the spot in the episode, but I think this is a great example.

In fact, I can think of other examples now that Matt has brought this up. When it comes to public health, one would be say about spreading the idea of possible damaging side effects of vaccines, where like with any medication, there is going to be some incidents of side effects, so you might say that here's a vaccine for a disease that you really should get because without this vaccine, you're putting yourself at much greater risk, you know, and

you're putting public health at greater risk. But there's some extremely tiny percentage chance of some kind of complication. Obviously, you want people to be informed about what the possible side effects of any medication they get are. But what if knowing about this incredibly unlikely possibility discourages people from getting a vaccine that they really need that would definitely be harmful. Yeah, so I think that could go in, uh,

in that category as well. Obviously, if people were accurately doing the risk benefit analysis, they would say, yeah, of course I need to get the vaccine, but maybe just the idea of some incredibly unlikely negative complication from a vaccine would be so vivid in their mind that it would prevent them from getting the vaccine because the disease that the vaccine protects them from is just not as vivid.

An example, Yeah, another example that possible example that comes to mind is, for instance, if you pick up the idea that, hey, some scientists argue that red wine has has health has a health benefit too. Oh yeah, if you take that as a reason then to drink three bottles of wine yourself every evening, then I think it's pretty safe to say you're taking things a little bit too far, you know. Okay, yeah, capine too, but that's

not medical advice that um. But but certainly this is something where you could take a nugget of truth, or at least, I mean you can say yes, some scientists have presented information and findings that back up the idea that there are health benefits to say, red wine or dark chocolate, you name it. Obviously, these these are these

are studies that make headlines all the time. But if you just take that then as an excuse to just fully indulge yourself in red wine, into heart chocolate to the point that it harms you, then yeah, then that is not good. Yeah, that's a really good point. Okay, you ready for the next one. Let's do it, Okay. Our listener Jose writes to us about the Basilisk episode. Jose rights, Hi, guys, greetings from Mexico. I've been a longtime listener and I have to say I love the show.

Keep it up, and in hearing your last episode, I decided to send my first listener mail. Sorry in advance for suboptimal English. I think your English is great, Jose, Yeah, way better than my Spanish. Um. To the point, though I don't agree with the premise of the superior future punitive AI overlord, good neither do I. I have to say I found a somewhat possible reason for it to follow through with its hypothetical threat. Assuming it's not quite

a godlike being. Maybe it's doing so to incite fear on the future people as a way to incentivize the creation of its superior future overlord. I realized it's a cyclic way of thinking, but I just wanted to share thanks a lot and keep up the good job. Jose. Uh. I think that's an interesting idea. So this is like some very powerful inter immediate AI needs help achieving an even higher state of itself, so it's not retroactive a causal blackmail, but it would just be punishing people for

normal future facing blackmail. So there's kind of an odds the great and powerful vibe here, you know, where it makes sense to make your future possible self all the more fearsome so you can carry out your objectives. Yeah, I mean I think that this would just be like standard kind of Machiavellian tactics. You know that this is not involving any kind of a causal backward thinking decision theory. This is just well, I want to scare people to

help me now in favor of the current future. Uh so, so yeah, I'll just intimidate them based on what they've already done in the past to motivate people now to do more in the future. If what I just said makes sense, I just use future a lot. I remain somewhat skeptical of the superhuman AI idea, and even then, the idea that it would use blackmail in order to achieve a greater or good ultimately seems like a kind

of like failure of ethics on the machines party. I don't think that really would count as a greater good. All right, here's another one from Chad. Chad writes in I love these types of episodes, an inevitable possibility of Rocco's basilisk occurred to me. If the Supreme AI has unlimited power within the realm of physics, then what if the AI also discovers how to make time travel possible? The thought hazard of our soul trapped and tortured in

a digital hell. Increases to a different risk that we could be plucked quote unquote out of time by the AI and actually tortured in a future time. Just food for thought, chat, I think this is yet more fuel on the fire of the case against time travel. Right if you take as a possibility that you could create a superhuman AI with godlike powers that can do pretty much anything physically possible, and it and that anything physically

possible includes backward time travel. Why haven't we encountered backward time travel yet? Well? Maybe it's the free Jack model of time travel, where they can they can only pluck Emilio Estevez out of the past if he has just been in a fatal car accident. Kind of a loophole. Now, I never saw Free Jack, But is that the one with Mick Jagger in it? Oh? It has an all star cast, Anthony Hopkins, Anthony Hopkins, Emilio Estevez, Mick Jagger, I don't remember who else, but I was super excited

when it came out. I would I would call the local theater and beg them to please play Free Jack. Um, it's a it's a flawed film, but but I have a warm place in my heart for it is the title of Jumping Jack flash kind of thing are they going for that? I don't remember that at all. I know how the title came about, but it did have that basic idea that you could pluck people from the past, but only in limited scenarios. And I think there's a

recent television series. I didn't watch it, but my wife did where people were kind of plucked out of time to serve on sort of you know, a squad that does good kind of time cop scenario, but not time cop oh Man. And I do not know the name of the series, but I think it had Rob Low in it. Um perhaps some of our listeners have have viewed it. All right. This one last piece of mail

for today comes from our listener Josh. Josh, writing in response to the Great Basilisk episode, says, Hey, guys, First, I just wanted to say I've been listening for a long time and love the show. It's one of the podcasts I look forward to the most and keeps me entertained at work. So keep up the good work. Thank you, Josh.

Now to why I'm writing, Bear with me as I need to do a little explaining I was listening to your episode on Rocco's Basilist and the part about religion and heaven slash Hell, et cetera got me thinking, I was raised in a faith which I no longer believe. In Jehovah's witness, they believe that there is no hell. There is just heaven and a paradise Earth for the

faithful of mankind to live on for eternity. Only a small number of mankind's Faithfulty four thousand, will go to heaven and act as kings and judges for mankind, because there they are the only ones who really have experience of living on Earth in sin, yet still remaining faithful. The unfaithful will be gone. They won't be punished for eternity.

They will just no longer exist. Everyone who has already died has already paid for their sins with death, and will be resurrected after Armageddon to live on a paradise Earth along with the faithful that survive Armageddon. There is more to it than that, but I won't go into it as it's not really relevant to my thought. My point is that Armageddon itself, according to their beliefs, could

be classified as a biblical information hazard. According to the New World Translation of the Bible, the translation that Jehovah's witnesses used, which includes the Old and New Testament, Armageddon will only arrive once every living person on earth has been told the truth of the scriptures, so that nobody can say, well, I didn't know. It's not fair for me to be unexisted. That's not a word, is it,

because nobody gave me a chance to believe. This is why Jehovah's witnesses go from door to door talking to people and trying to make others believe what they do. The thought came to me when listening to this podcast that according to their beliefs, you could technically postpone armageddon by keeping one person a small community might be better completely separate from someone who could talk to them about

these beliefs. The information about their beliefs, if you believe what they do, is now an information hazard, because as soon as the last person that doesn't know about their beliefs receives that information, that will trigger armageddon. I just thought it was interesting and wanted to share that such a large biblical event in this belief system is an information hazard. It's not something I personally believe in. Anyone who does believe this wouldn't really want to stop armageddon

in such a way, but still works as an information hazard. Anyway, That's all from me. Cheers josh Ah. Though that's very interesting. I have to admit I don't I don't know much about the belief system of the job Is witnesses, but this, uh, this twist on the whole armageddon thing, I think that is a pretty strong case for for a and an information hazard, if you buy to the notion that once

everybody has been informed, then Armageddon make commence. Yeah, I admit I don't know a lot about Jehovah's witness theology either, though I have had some very wonderful conversations with Jehovah's witnesses who came to my house. Oh yeah, they generally just give me the material and move on. Maybe I

look distracted or something. I don't know. Oh yeah, I mean one day I happen to have time and the guy started by asking me questions about I think if I believed in evolution or something, and so I was like, well, yeah, and then we just talked about it for a long time. It was very nice. Though he was a sweet guy. I am always open to a polite conversation about ideas.

But there's another thing about Josh's email that I think is always interesting, which is like when people start, I mean, we talked about this in the episode and it comes through and things like Pascal's wager and stuff, But when people start applying like very kind of uh, kind of like cold direct decision theory to theological principles, like if you accept the theological principles as real, but then you just start saying, okay, how do you optimize for best

theological outcomes? It seems like religions don't tend to encourage that type of decision making on the basis of theological principles. It's really more just kind of like, well, here the dogmas, and you should you know, follow certain rules. But when people start trying to like use decision theory to optimize what to do based on the theological principles, it all it always comes off as very like no, no, no,

that's not how you're supposed to think about this. Yeah, I have to say I tend to prefer it when the key argument of religion is hey, uh, look how we can improve your life for the lives of others on Earth. Uh that you know here the net positives of the belief in the real world as opposed to, Hey, we have to reduce the human population to a certain number so that the no God can return or something, and that's just a little you know, we we've got

to get everything just right from again. And that's just not a great self for me. We're not saying that's what the Jehovah's witnesses or no, no, no no, but the but you know when it's when it's more based in like some specific scheme for the afterlife right now, Yeah, I just don't personally see the appeal as much. It can sometimes feel kind of like one of those sci fi movies where you have to like trigger the machine in just a certain ways. We flipped the big switch

and then you hit the command console. Earth has performed

an illegal operation and we'll be shut down. Yeah. I mean, I still enjoy hearing about all these these different police systems, and I also have to acknowledge that, you know, certainly some of those belief systems out there that are more afterlife centric and and maybe harsher in their theology, we do have to acknowledge that a lot of times those religions are created by and or marketed to individuals who are living like closer to the edge in the here

and now. And therefore, you know, I have to acknowledge that I have a certain amount of privilege in not being in uh, you know, not being a part of the target audience for those types of theologies. Well, yeah, and you know, it's sometimes hard to remember that even within a religion that has particular dogmas, there's actually a lot of diversity of belief, usually what people privately believe

versus what their church teaches. I remember growing up in Tennessee there were people who like belong to churches that said, you know, you can't drink alcohol, But they didn't know that. Wait, my religion says I can't have beer. I had no idea. Indeed, it's it's a big tent for sure. Uh. And sometimes there's drinking in that tent. All right. So there you have it, Part one of our Halloween Hangover listener Mail Extravaganza.

That's it for the basilist content. We'll cut that off, but when we come back in the next episode, we have so much more. October Listener Mail to get through so many wonderful thoughts about of various monsters and evils, and threats and curses, and even, of course, the deadly mirkwood squirrel. Huge thanks as always to our wonderful audio

producers Alex Williams and try Harrison. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other UH, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hi, let us know where you listen from, how you found out, how you found out about the show, all that kind of stuff. You can email us at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com b b b b