Listener Mail: Avatar State, Yip Yip!

recent this one. You want to start with this one, Rob, Yeah, let's do it. Okay, This is from Caroline about the leshy. You remember the creature of the forest in Russian mythology. Caroline says, Hi, Robert and Joe, I just finished your episode on the leshy. Once you described the creature, I kept expecting you to bring up similarities it has with the wolf in the Little Red Riding Hood tale. I had never heard of creature before, but that was the

first thing I associated it with. You mentioned one of its usual forms is that of a wolf, and that it likes to lead unwary travelers off the path. Other parts of the character that seemed to correspond were when it disguises itself as the grandmother, there is something off, and Little Red riding Hood's mother specifically warns her not to talk to strangers or stray from the path. Could the wolf in this tale be a version of the leshy that traveled from the folk tales of Russia to

the folk tales of Germany. Regardless, from now on, I'm going to think of the wolf from that tale as a leshy in disguise. It makes a lot more sense as a lushy than as a random wolf interested in a quick two course dinner. Caroline, Well, Caroline, this is an interesting idea. I don't know if it would go exactly as as direct a line as that, Like you have leshy and then that turns into the wolf in

Little Red riding Hood. But I can absolutely uh see that this could come out of similar uh sort of myth or folk tale archetypes that are kind of banging around throughout folk tales of of of the whole world. Actually, because I remember reading in the past that the Little Red riding Hood folk tale is thought too is thought to sort of be influenced by myth themes or bits of stories and story elements that you find all throughout the world, You find all throughout the folk tales of

ancient Europe, in North Africa, even in Asia. Um, and it's uh yeah, so it it seems to be one of those things that's kind of a stew of different elements that you can find in bits and pieces for myths going way way back. Yeah. I mean Robert Frost was right about one thing. The woods are deep and they are dark, and uh, you know that has a lot of things have crept out of that imagined darkness in human myth making and legend over over time. So I feel like they these two creatures, even if there's

not any real connective tissue, they both emerge from that darkness. Yeah. I seem to recall that I don't know if this is actually a legitimate connection, but I seem to recall there's some kind of idea that there's like a very ancient myth archetype about like a fire maiden, like a young woman or girl who is somehow associated with with fire or redness in a way, who is attacked by a wolf and then rescued by a hero of some kind.

And then that I think is also paired somewhat with like the classic sort of restoration from the dead or restoration from the belly myth part that you get in the story of Jonah being swallowed by the whale and then spit back out, but you can even get in directly in Russian folk tales where somebody's eaten by a wolf and then survives after being cut out of the belly. Yeah, all right, we got another one. This is also I guess a straggler, but as we always say, stragglers are welcome.

This goes back to our episode on fingernails and it comes from Sicily Rob. Do you want to read this one? Sure? Go. This is what it says. I am a new listener and I am currently listening to your two part episode from September on Fingernails. I'm someone who regularly has enhanced with hard gel or alic very long fingernails. Attached a

picture for reference. You asked for stories about living with long nails, and I thought you might be interested to know that tool use and knuckle use are important for success. There are very few things I cannot do with long nails, and mostly turn my knuckles into fingertips to do things like pop soda tabs or remove contact lenses. Now that's impressive as a contact where Um, yeah, I have never attempted to use my knuckles to get them out. I

guess it's possible. Wait which knuckle? Would it be? Your first knuckle or second knuckle? I don't know. I'm just imagining all knuckles. Maybe I'm envisioning it wrong, but I'm just imagined just going in there just like tin knuckles, uh, and removing the contact lenses. You know, it would be a really interesting cyberpunk enhancement would be fingertips on your knuckles, so you get like separate finger pads extending out from I guess your your first your large knuckle. Have I

seen that before? I feel like I've seen something like that, and maybe not cyberpunky, but something like fleshy you know. Uh, I don't know it rings a bell anyway, they continue. Tools like tweezers can be helpful for things you might use the edge of your nail for. Certain styles of common objects are also more nail friendly, like a keyboard with flat than keys to allow typing with fingerpads instead of fingertips, though I still often use pencils with the

racers to type on other types of keyboards. The hardest routine task I encounter is actually putting an earring back onto an earring, as the nail tends to get in the way of both a very small object and a very specific motor movement. Oh maybe that's supposed to be putting an ear ring on an ear Okay, yeah, I

could see that being difficult. Uh, anyway, they continue. An additional layer to note about nails is that there is a tendency, at least for me to try to use them as tools, but doing so will cause them to break despy fortification. So much of the tool and knuckle uses not because I cannot do the task with nails,

but rather to preserve their integrity. Lastly, I enjoyed hearing the supernatural, slash scary aspects of long nails that you described in your episode because I specifically like having long, pointing nails that reference demonic or witchy aesthetics. I'm greatly enjoying the episodes I've heard so far, and I'm excited to keep listening. Thanks Cecily, Well, Cecily, welcome on board. We we hope you keep enjoying and thanks for sharing your experience. With long nails. I'm glad to hear that

you are specifically trying to be demonic or witchy. You know, I was just appreciating nails the other day because I was working on some miniatures, and you know, I use like a little file and I use a little razor blade to remove unwanted portions of the plastic. But then there are times where I realize, you know, what works better than either of these fine instruments, the fingernail itself.

You know, It's like fingernails are just so so useful for fine manipulation, often in ways that we just take for granted. I don't know how gross to get on the show here, but I think some people would say that that fingernails are sort of like perfect tools for pimple popping, perfect Griny's written tools. Yeah, yeah, that that that can lead to some skin infections. I've bet Wait, I guess a pimple already is a kind of skin infection, right or am I right about that? I don't really know.

I guess we'll have to sort that out later. Okay, Next, we've got a short message about the Bondsai episode where we talked about Tate's hell the Forest in Florida where the dwarf cypress grow. And this is a short message from Sammy. She says, Hello there, guys. I have been in the Florida Panhandle my whole life, which would be thirty five years. I knew not of this Tate and his personal hell. That is a Florida forest, So thank

you guys for bringing it to my attention. I've googled it and live about an hour and forty five minutes away, So now I have a new place to take my son camping. No, don't do it, Sammy, Uh, he will have fun with the name if nothing else. Thank you, Sammy. I'm sure it's safety these days if you, you know, have navigation devices and all that, it's more Tates heck these days. This next message comes to us from Mark

and it is about our episode on Gold. I guess I'm going to read this one because Rob After this there's some about Avatar the Last Airbender, and I assume those are your territory. Okay, Mark says, Hi, Robert and Joe, huge fan of your podcast. My favorite bits are when you connect the central topic to some other esoteric piece of knowledge deep in the recesses of your minds. When the pandemic is over, you should have a contest to win lunch with Robert and Joe. I expect the conversation

would lead to some interesting places. Well, that's very nice of you to say, Mark, but I suspect I am much more boring in person. My wife and son have been winning that contest every day for over a year now, and uh yeah, they they would prefer to to watch episodes of Avatar during during lunch. Take that for what it's worth. Mark goes on. In your Gold Medal episode, you talked about how gold did not have many practical applications beyond its use as jewelry or coinage and then

later in electronics in medicine. But the studious high school chemistry student in me would be remissed to forget Rutherford's gold foil experiment. This is great to bring up, Uh so, Mark Rits. At the time of the experiment, scientists did not know the structure of the atom. We know today that it consists of negative electrons orbiting a positive nucleus

of protons and neutrons. Back then, after the electron was discovered, someone theorized the quote plum pudding model, which conceived of the electrons surrounded by a field of positively charged plums. Rutherford's experiment was to shoot an alpha particle beam through a thin piece of gold foil and see what happened to the particles. The result was that the articles deflected

off at sharp angles, some even bouncing backwards. From this, he deduced that the positive charge was not spread out around the electrons, but rather packed into a tight compact to nucleus. So why was gold used. Because it was so soft and malleable, they could compress it into an extremely thin layer. In an ideal experimental state, the foil would only be one atom thick. Obviously this was not possible, but they got it thin enough. Thanks for all the

great episodes, keep them coming, Mark. Well, thanks for pointing that out, Mark, that was a great, great historic example to bring up. Awesome. Yes, uh, now we're about to get into some some Avatar the Last Airbender content, because I think in the Gold episode we ended up talking about gold bending in avatar. So if you have no idea what this stuff is about, I will try to

be your avatar in the conversation. Alright, Yeah, we we received some avatar listener mail from I think three or four different people, but we have two of them included here. So this one comes to us from Emily, Hi, Robert, and Joe. I'm a long time listener, and I am very grateful for the many hours of learning and entertainment you've provided me. I also love the new Weird House

Cinema episodes, so thank you so much for that. I reached out to my avatar Legend of Corus super fan friend Andy with your question about metal benders bending gold. This was her response. In the scene where Kuvira crushes the Kiyoshi Medal of Freedom during Prince Wu's coronation, you can see from the coloring of the metal that there

is likely gold in it. Additionally, when looking at the royal brooch, one can see it is meant to be gold, which would signify that royal artifacts in the Earth Kingdom have a large gold component. It would also be reasonable that if metal benders are able to bend meteorites, that there would be nothing stopping them easily bending a soft metal such as gold. Hope, this is interesting to you. Keep it up Emily in Vermont, Okay, Rob, can you

explain the context here? What's this about? Um? This was So I watched this episode not too long ago when we're going through, uh, the Legend of Cora, and yeah, it's basically someone who has the metal bending ability they crush something that has gold in it. But so so so yes, that's that's a good example from the show. But then we also heard from a listener named Hannah and she points out something even uh even more on

point here. So Hannah writes in and says, I was so excited when you mentioned Avatar the Last Airbender in your latest episode on Gold. I'm a huge fan of Avatar the Last Airbender and consider it one of the most formative pieces of media in my of my life. I was smack dab in its target age group. I think I was ten or eleven when it premiered on

Nickelodeon and watched every episode when it aired. I have since, at various points rewatched the entire series three or more times as I got older, as well as watching the Legend of Cora twice and reading all the comics. Watching it as a child, I just love the epic plot,

exciting fights, and fun humor. Coming back to it as an adult, however, I'm able to appreciate how well developed the characters are, and how nuanced the treatment of some heavy subjects are, like war, imperialism, genocide, and grief, especially how they impact children and families. I always appreciate media that treats its young audiences as the intelligent beings that they are and and knows that kids can handle complex

and challenging subjects if they're presented with enough patients. Anyway, the real reason I wanted to write in is that I think I know why we never see any Earthbenders bending gold. I'm going to avoid as many spoilers as possible. Metal bending is invented in Avatar, the Last Airbender by an extremely powerful Earthbender who realizes that because metal is quote Earth that has been purified and refined, they can use their unique ability to see the impurities left in

the metal and bend that. By the time of Avatar Legend of Corau seventy years later, metal bending is a technique is far more widespread in this areas. It is revealed that metal benders cannot bend platinum as it is too pure and there are not enough trace amounts of Earth for them to detect and bend. Given the associations of gold and purity. I think it would not be bendable in the same way that they treat platinum in

the universe of the show. I cannot possibly gush enough about Avatar soul In by mentioning the fun fact that each bending style is inspired by different real life martial arts. For example, water bending is based on tai Chi. I remember as a child seeing the short behind the scenes snippet during ad breaks on Nickelodeon where the martial arts consultants of the show would explain why certain styles were chosen with side by side comparisons between the animated scenes

and himself demonstrating the movements in real life. It was really interesting and beautiful. Anyway, thanks so much for the podcast. I always look forward to its showing up in my feed Well. Thanks so much, Hannah. Um Okay, so this

this raises more questions for me. So the idea is that the the the natural earth bender person in the show can can manipulate earth in like a telekinetic typeways that basically it um but the earth must mean something than just like any solid material that comes out of the ground, because of course, you know, gold and platinum would be would be metals that can be found in the earth. So what is the actual earth that can be bent and what are the kind of impurities you're

looking for in gold or platinum in order to bend it. Well, I mean basically the main earth bound inc is just like rocks, you know, like causing the rocks in the earth, whatever minerals happen to be there, and using those like making shields rise up, you know, throwing rocks at people with it, that sort of thing. Um, And you know, it gets really elaborate, and later you see people using like stone constructs as well. Um. But uh, yeah, the idea here is I guess that perhaps gold in and

of itself is just too pure to bend. Uh, you need something with it. If you're going to bend to metal, it has to have impurities and it so you're actually bending the impurities, are using the impurities as kind of the the you know, the the handle by which you

you bend the other material. In a similar way, there's a variety of water bender that pops up called a blood bender, where and it's you know, this is like the dark side of water bending, where you can manipulate a human being by bending the water in their body. So you're not bending the human you're bending the water in their flesh, and this is would be similar. You've

bend the metal by bending the impurities in the metal. Oh, it's like that thing we already mentioned the scene and X Men two where somebody gets injected with a bunch of iron and their blood and then Magneto messes with them. And you know, hey, if you go with the theory of of of gold's origin of it being ultimately extraterrestrial and nature, maybe you can you can heat that uh in there as well. You know, it's like you're an earth bender, not a you know, space mineral bender. Okay,

So I just looked it up. I was trying to find what are the main elemental impurities that are found in high purity gold, and according to a paper by dj Hinneberg called Origin and Effects of Impurities in high Purity Gold in uh, the majority of the impurities in gold were silver, followed by iron, copper, and lead. So maybe if you're trying to bend gold, you're you're looking

for one of those things. I mean, i'd imagine if you're able to, if you're an earth bender and you can move rocks around, probably one of the things you can move is iron right? Yeah, yeah, I would imagine so. So anyway, interesting interesting to think about it all into sort of. It's always interesting exercise to take the world of fiction and magic and then compare it with the

world of metallurgy and see where you go. Okay. This next message comes from Sophie and it is a follow up from a previous email she sent about our episodes on head and brain theft. Now. In Sophie's original email, she compared the repeated student prank theft of Jeremy Bentham's nasty jerky head to something called the gavel goat. We didn't know exactly what that was off off hand and were forced to do some rapid googling. But she follows

up on that subject. So Sophie says, dear Robert and Joe, all that time agonizing over sentence phrasing and making my contextual sidebars easy to cut around for anecdotes shortening, and not once did I think, hang on, they might not know what that is. Memory is so faulty, face palm. The gavel goat in Sweden, aside from seeming like a lovely annual tradition, has organically gained an unasked for tradition where the large goat raised for admint in Gavel, Sweden

gets burned down or otherwise destroyed nearly every year. She attaches a couple of articles. Um, Basically, it's become an embedded arms race between people trying to fireproof and protect the statue while others attempt to destroy it to extreme lengths,

involving cameras, flaming arrows, confused foreigners. Um. I don't know what all those references are, but she goes on the fact that it's illegal vandalism does little to challenge the fact that it's now an organically established socio cultural phenomenon. Once it becomes a globally known thing, watched annually to see what protections are added or how long it lasts,

it's much harder to stop. Thus, what I meant to reference was the fact that if stealing Jeremy Bentham's head became a routine occurrence with momentum behind it, like the unintentional tradition of burning the lovely goat has, it goes from an aberrant side note slash periodic problem to a constant battle that begins to feel inevitable and likely one that University College London wishes to avoid, unless, of course, Bentham had some sort of expressed wish somewhere that he

would like his head to be periodically stolen. That would be wild. Anyways, with the opportunity to once again compliment you on your work, your Friday features are the closest I will ever come to being able to watch many

of your favorite movies, like horror films. But I get to hear you talk about things with passionate enjoyment, and better wrap my head around the cult important yet mystifying troll to sausage Man synthetic flesh, synthetic flesh, and assure you that I'm not holding my breath on a website and writing this from the grave. But you can't receive that for which you do not politely ask. No, pretty sure,

I still have my head and brain and everything. Already, this looks so much longer than it felt in my head. So I shall away lest I conceive more syllables. Hope y'all are safe and well as that looks for you. Sophie, Well, I have to say I don't think there's really a cult following behind Sausage Man. No, I think that's just us. Just that's that hey, and maybe the cult is growing. Maybe we have three members of the cult. Now. I've never heard anybody else really make much cult reference to

synthetic flesh either. Weirdly, because it seems like that should inspire you think, like we're saying that should be DJ should be dropping that sample um like crazy. I would think, yeah, sinthetic flesh, sin that flesh, synthetic flesh k car um. But then again, even if the even if the actual phrase synthetic flesh and that and that the line from the film isn't worshiped, I feel like that's the use of special effects in that film definitely influenced a lot

of people. So at least the spirit of synthetic flesh has traveled far. Troll Too absolutely has its own organic cult following. But I think Sausage Man is all stuff to blow your mind, all right. This next one comes to us from Justin. This one says, hello, Rob, Joe, and Seth. I've been listening for approximately five years now, and this is my first time writing in. I have

really enjoyed the new format. I realized it takes a lot of effort for everyone on the stuff to blow your mind team to pull together and put out quality content consistently. But you really have been and continue to deliver the goods each day and every day. But I must insert that I was perfectly fine with how it was before. As a consumer, your program has truly become a five course meal. I enjoy having a listener mail

episode to kick the week off. It adds a real time element and offers a consideration on the perceptions of the audience with the topic while the topic is still fresh in my mind. While many of the listeners can offer expertise on subjects covered, I do not have anything new or exciting to offer at this time, and that's okay. I think I figure my input is just as valuable. I was concerned when Invention was absorbed. Invention episodes are a delight, and I'm happy to see core episodes of

stuff to blow your mind include Invention. I feel that the Artifact episodes show if your writing skills. I would say your conversational tone has been what keeps me listening, and Artifact episodes might lack that tone but have the same DNA incorporating curiosity and wonder all the while acknowledging some topics are short and Sweet Weird House. I was talking with my wife about this new portion. She mentioned that it seems like this show is Taylor specifically for me.

I happen to love movies found off the beaten path. I have often called them winners. I have a few personal favorites. I would love for you to explore Redline. If you only cover one animated feature, consider this film Creatures Speedsters an Invasion. I've watched this movie with the same group of friends several times, and I am always in awe. Funky Boy Awoken on Robo World. I don't know how to explain this movie. It's like a mashup of tropes and pop culture with an excellent artistic direction.

Uh dr Otto and the riddle of the gloom Beam. I stumbled upon this. It plays off the zany characters developed by Jim Varney, a k ernest um, a low budget sci fi delight. It hits all the weird notes. Lastly, I'm a sing of praise and admiration. You folks are my travel companions and always with my spirits. You should know how much your work and your integrity means to me and my fellow listeners. Often your work is the

best part of my day. Thank you. Oh well that is far too kind, justin Uh yeah, thanks for getting in touch, you know. Um, yeah, we appreciate the feedback, and thanks for bringing Redline to my attention. Uh. It was totally off my radar, but after watching a clip, I actually ordered a copy of this because it looks absolutely insane. So um, I don't know yet if it's definitely weird house material, but I'm looking forward to checking it out on my own at the very at least.

As for dr Otto, I've never seen it, but I grew up watching all the Earnest movies of course, and weirdly enough, I was childhood friends with director Earnest, director and co creator John our Cherry the Third's nephew, and so I remember distinctly he had some his nephew had some art on his wall in his room. Uh that had that Dutch that his uncle had drawn or painted for him, and I remember it was like, you know, weird almost kind of psychedelic art. It was. It was

pretty neat. Wow. I just looked up the VHS box for Doctor Otto and it is alive. Is this also? So it looks like Jim Varney as Earnest on the cover in like a little box, maybe just showing you like, hey, remember Ernest, it's this guy. But then the bigger picture is I think also Jim Varney, but more in a kind of psychedelic Elvis look. Uh. Yeah. He had several

characters that he played. You know, he did the Arnest character at an old woman character, and then this gloom beam character who it was like him as some sort of maniacal, you know, creature with a hand on the top of his head. Um. I seem like I saw saw that character pop up on some TV show or another when I was a kid as well. You know what he looks like a character who could fit in and Phantom of the Paradise. Yeah, yeah, probably so Varney.

Varney was a great performer. I enjoyed him and then pretty much everything I saw mostly it was Ernest films though, uh and I do remember Ernest Scared Stupid as being quite enjoyable, at least when I was a child. I gotta confess, I think I was scared by that movie like it had that was it had some legitimately scary stuff in it. As I recall, it's been a long time, but there's some sort of troll creature that is a

central threat is like legitimately a bit scary. I think that it could turn people into wood by looking at them, and that prospect scared me. I did not want to be turned into wood. Yeah, it delivered more horror than an earnest film, uh had to, you know, but I guess it was you know, for a for creators like

that was probably you know, one of the things. It's like, if you're gonna make just a whole bunch of earnest movies in your career, when you do a Halloween, when like, that's your excuse to let let loose and fit in as much like horror stuff as you possibly can. So I applaud them for that. Okay, now we got some straight up weird how cinema messages. So this first one comes from Brenda. Brenda says, hello, just listen to your

ghost in the Machine episode. I remember that was the nineties cyber panic one that was like the haunted computer movie. And Brenda says, was wondering if Johnnynemonic from nineteen nine would be a movie you would consider for weird house cinema. It's based on William Gibson's story with the cast including Keanu Reeves, Dolf Lundgren, Ice Tea and Henry Rollins. And don't forget the Yakuza uh a must at the time for futuristic cyberpunk and Jones a military trained dolphin and

it's set in one Thank You and stay well. Saying be well is a little too demolition man Brenda. Well, you know, I've I've never seen Johnny Nemonic. Um so I'm well well aware of it. I mean it was based on a William Gibson short story, as I recall, and yeah, it's loaded with with fun performers, so I don't know, maybe we'll check it out. We had it's a it takes place this year, so this would be the year to do it, I guess. So. Oh and then by serendipity, right around the same time, might maybe

even the same day. We got another note from a listener about Johnnynemonic. This one was from Chris. Chris says, hi, Robin Joe queued up quite the interesting film this evening on Prime. I'm a big keyan New Reeves fan but had never seen Johnnynemonic. Not sure if it's weird enough, but it's quite interesting as there is a strange and

nineties mashup of technology. There was talk of sending facts is having a brain capacity of three and twenty gigabytes, and some sort of device that looks like a mini CD player remember those. There is a wild device that looks sort of like a laser floss that can cut through anything. There's a cut scene of a concord jet landing. Dina Meyer, who plays uh I guess a character named Jane has a quite manic energy during some moment. Oh

and Dolph Lundgren is in this movie. There's a dolphin that can scan sound waves and Kiano refers to it as a fish. To be honest, I feel bad for the dolphin. Iced Tea shows up as a character. Well, it's really something else best Chris, Well, there you go. I mean it sounds like we should probably add it to the list. I've got enough people asking for it. Yeah.

Oh and one last thing. Chris also wrote to us, like right around the same time to say that they were going to watch Boggy Creek two, and they said, thank you for always expanding my horizons. That's what That's what Boggy Creek two does, expands horizons. It's about learning, all right, here's another one that one comes to us from Wonko Wonco writes in and says, hello, Robert and Joe. I was getting caught up on this week's cast and listening to Weirdout Cinema episode on Demon Night, I was

struck with inspiration to write in. You mentioned that each successive Chosen One adds their blood the key and possibly dilutes the blood of Christ in the process. But many Christian faiths believe that when normal water is added to holy water, then it too becomes holy. Perhaps the chosen One's blood is similarly transubstantiated when added. Thank you for everything,

Wonko Odd, this is very good point. Yeah. So like the thing in the movies that Billy's aane, I guess is trying to pour all of the christ blood out of this bottle key thing. It's the mcguffin in the movie. Uh. And somehow the Chosen Ones, which originally is William Sadler, the guy who's doing like naked martial arts in his hotel room and die hard to uh and then later Jada Pinkett, Uh, they put their blood in there and uh, and I guess that somehow mixes with the blood of

Christ and yeah, it does some kind of magic. But this is a good point though. I wonder if like by that logic, if the holy thing always like spreads its holiness basically infinitely, by almost the principle of like homeopathic medicine, you know, the things can just be like infinitely diluted. If it works like that, why couldn't you just like pour a drop of holy water into the ocean and then make all the water on earth holy m I don't know, because it eventually runs into uh fish,

I don't know. Um, would that not have the with would the holy water not have the power to overcome the p the p enos um? I don't know, or maybe maybe any animal that's not specifically mentioned in the Bible. If the holy water encounters it's your and then it stops, I don't know. Um, maybe there's a range of effect. You know, it's like dungeons and dragons. We'd have to look at the spell, the exact text of the spell, and go by that. You know. This raises a good issue.

I was just wondering about about the similarities between dungeons and dragons and constitutional law, and that could could you have like similar philosophy styles like are there dungeons and Dragons, strict constructionists versus original intent versus like living doc meant I guess you know, as I guess that the thing is in Dungeon and Dragons, you always have that dungeon

master that their their word is the final word. I guess that also has theological connections, right, Like that's the debate between solo script tour of versus like does the church have a say yeah, yeah, I mean all the Ultimately, the bottom line is ask your dungeon master, because they are they are the divine will on earth. They are your pope. Alright. This next message comes from Dan, and it is also about Tales from the Crypt Demon Night. Dan says, and this is a this is a Crypt

Keeper reference. So I'll try to do the voice. Hello, kitties. Oh that's pretty good, was it okay? Uh? Dan says, Hello kitties. I'm writing in regarding your weird House cinema episode on Demon Night. I never knew that it was a feature film that played in theaters and always thought it was a made for TV movie due to the fact that it was the Tales from the Crypt production. And I first watched it on HBO back in the

late nineties. Personally, I thought the title never really fit, as Billy Zane is less a night and more like a drifter or hitchhiker. It is, it is a movie with with a very high drifter quotitioned Dan goes on. Still, I enjoyed it. I'm glad that you decided to cover Demon Knight and not Bordello of Blood because that movie, even by late nineties horror standards, is terrible. Why would anyone ever cast Dennis Miller as the snarky protagonist in

a horror movie? Quick fun factor Regarding Demon Knight, I remember watching an interview somewhere with Jordan Peel who was asked his favorite final girl and he said it was Jada Pinkett and Demon Knight. Loving the Weird House Cinema episodes. Favorite Dick Miller rolls are in The Howling Gremlins and Terminator Dan Oh, Dan, Well, this was a great bit, and somehow this fact about Jordan Peel seemed familiar to me.

I wasn't sure if we had mentioned it in the episode, but I assume not a uh, since you brought it up in the email here, So so I looked this up. I found the actual video. It's apparently an interview with The Wall Street Journal, which seems like a kind of strange venue for Jordan Peel to discuss his thoughts about

horror as a genre. But it was a good interview where they're asking some kind of quick direct questions about like his favorite examples of things in horror, and he was giving his answers, and uh, there are some write ups you can find on the internet, like articles that summarize it, but I just wanted to talk about a few of the things, he says. Oh, and by the way, I guess I should should just say yeah, I'm a

big Jordan Peel fan. I love Key and Peel. It's one of my favorite uh comedy shows of recent years. And Jordan Peel's horror movies are really good. Absolutely, But anyway, on the subject of horror, he talks about how the first movie that scared him was The Fly, and he says that it scared him because he watched it in an age that was really inappropriate. He's I think he's talking about the David Cronenberg Fly, not not the one

with Vincent Price. And so I would mess you up that I would mess yet not a movie for kids to see. I don't know who should see that. I mean, like I respect that movie, but uh yeah, fun for no ages. Yeah, that's like with me. I saw RoboCop way too early and it's just like, oh my god, really really did off more than I could chew with that. But he also talked about a thing with reference to

The Fly. That's something I definitely feel. He says, you know, part of what's good about horror is that, like he said, he watched The Fly and it really messed him up, like it scared him, but then once it was over, he got through it and he was less scared because he'd made it to the end. And it does give you a kind of feeling of mental fortification to like make it through a simulated scary experience in a horror movie and then you come out the other end safe. Yeah.

But he also talks about how his favorite musical score from a horror movie is not Mere on ELM Street. I think that's a good choice. Yeah, I don't remember it at all. I would not go in that direction. I'd obviously go with with you know, some sort of Carpenter score I imagine. Yeah, I lean very on, very much on car Pender for for horror scores. But no, the now we're on ELM Street team is good as a do Do Do Do? Do Do? Do do do? Do you know? No? Okay,

vaguely yeah. He says his favorite B horror movie is Critters. It's so good. That's that one that sounds that's on the potential list for weird House. Critters is good. I need to revisit Critters. I basically don't have memories of this movie. I think I think I've only sort of half watched it. Yeah, I mean it's another Gromlin movie, so we gotta get in there. He says the scariest horror villain is Michael Myers because he says he's not even evil, he's just curious, which I see what he's

saying about that. But that's funny because that's a direct contradiction to what Loomis repeats over and over in Hewween and the whole series. The evil has escaped, He's the evil. Why are you not listening to Nick Jordan? Pe Uh. There is one part where he's asked to assemble an Avenger style team of horror villains. This is a really good mix, he says. Okay, Freddy Krueger, Candy Man, the silver Ball from Phantasm, Chucky from uh from the What's the Doll Movies, Child's Play, and one of the grab

boids from Trimmer's. Now that is a team. Yeah, yeah, I guess so, I guess I could go with that. Yeah, come on, that's funny. Only three of them talk, and well, yeah, and you know Freddie's going to do most of the talking. Well, I don't know. Chucky, Chuckie and Freddy both really talk a lot, so it's going to be mostly them with the silver Ball kind of going around in the background. Yeah. Oh,

but then the last thing is that. Yeah. In that interview, Jordan Peele absolutely does say that he he's asked his favorite final girl and he says Jada Pinkett and Demon Knight. He says that, h she was the first black final girl that he could remember from a horror movie and and he identified with her. I think she's a great choice. I mean Demon Knight, as as we've said, is pretty wonderful. Yeah. Yeah,

it's it's a solid horror flick. And yeah, and it it also goes to show, you know, the representation matters, you know, having having diversity in your cast matters because people are watching this and they grow they're you know, they're growing up. You know, we shouldn't get ourn entire view of of reality from horror films, but like that's part of the media we consume, you know. Yeah, the characters of horror films are not usually I don't know,

aspirational figures or role models. But but be horror is a genre where I don't know, admirable levels of diversity are still not often achieved. Absolutely. Here's a question that what would an Avenger style team of horror villains like this, What would they be trying to achieve? What? Why would they come together? Like? What would they be a post? I imagine it's like suicide Squad or something right like that. We've got a we've got an even batter. I mean,

I've never seen suicide Squad. I'm what I assume the plot of suicide Squad is is we've got a villain who's so bad they can only be defeated by people who are themselves bad. Oh man, what have it become? You could do it as like a generational thing, like to like there's a super team of of boring modern horror icons. You know, so it's like ghost Face and Uh and Jigsaw. I don't know. I realized those are

probably not modern anymore. But it's like those guys, that generation of horror villains, and opposing them that the previous generations of generation of horror villains. So it's like generation versus generation. Who's gonna win? Okay, Actually we just got a suggestion from Seth about what the modern horror icons are. These are good. I couldn't think of them. So you've got Annabelle from the annabel movies that messed up doll. And then you've got I hate that thing. I tried

to watch one of those movies. It was awful. Um, and then Uh, and then the guy from Sinister, which I also have not seen those movies, but Seth compared him to a member of slip Knot, and I think that's appropriate. That's exactly what he looks like. Now, they're often the same universe, right, is that the Conjuring universe that I've heard talk of? Well, Uh, annabel is the Conjuring universe. I don't think the Sinister guy is. I think he's just new Metal Demon universe. Okay, alright, I'm

just not up enough on my my current horror I think. Okay. But anyway, so those are the villains, and then you need a team like a crack Avenger style team of traditional horror movie monsters, demons, and ball technology to go up against them. All right, sign me up? Okay, Phantasm ball versus Blair Witch, how about it? Right? The question is does the ball get lost in the woods? It's zooming around, but is it zooming in circles? Okay, I'll

give it a shot. All right, Well, I guess we're gonna go ahead and uh put a stake in this one as well. Um, this is your weekly listener mail, but we'll be back next week, most likely with more listener mail, so keep it coming. If you have thoughts on content from this episode, If you have thoughts on recent episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, recent weird houses, recent artifacts, or older episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,

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