Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Listener mail.
This is Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And it is Monday, the day of each week that we read back messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address, which is contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. If you have never gotten in touch before, why not give it a shot. We always welcome feedback to recent episodes. If you have something interesting you'd like to add to a topic we've talked about, send it on in. Of course, if you have corrections, those are
welcome to. If you would like to suggest a topic for the future, or if you just want to say hi, tell us who you are, tell us you know what you like about the show, how you listen, anything like that, send it on in contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Let's see, rob we got so this week is going to be very weird, how cinema heavy. We got a lot of weird house messages to get through, a lot of great feedback on things such as Gorgo
and other recent features on the show. But to kick things off, we got a couple of messages in response to our series on hermit crabs. I think I'm going to do this one from long time correspondent Jim in New Jersey.
All right, let's have it.
So this is in response to our discussion of a phenomenon known as vacancy chains, which are observed in hermit crabs as they compete for shells, but also in markets for some human resources like housing and certain types of jobs. Basically, the way it works is if you put a nice empty snail shell in the middle of a bunch of hermit crabs, one of them will come along and decide they want it. They want to take it, so they will discard their old shell and upgrade to the new
empty shell. But the process doesn't stop there because in most cases, another hermit crab will come along and decide to swap their current shell for the shell abandoned by the first animal, so they leave their shell behind. Then another one will come along and decide to swap for that shell, and so on and so on and so. The interesting thing about vacancy chains is that you only put one new resource into the environment, but multiple individuals
in this market get a benefit. Only one new shell goes in but maybe three or four or even more crabs end up with a better shell than they started with. So Jim in New Jersey says Robert, Joe, and JJ, your discussion of human uses for vacancy chains as seen by hermit crabs reminded me of kidney transplants. Yeah, I hadn't even thought of this. This is really interesting, so Jim says. The best donor for a kidney transplant is often a blood relative, but sometimes there are no viable
matching donors in the family. A kidney transplant vacancy chain occurs when a group of recipients and their donors are chained. The donor may not be a good match for their family member, but they may be a good match for another recipient. The chain starts with someone receiving a kidney donation. Their own willing family member donates a kidney to the next person in the chain, which triggers a new donor, et cetera, until the last willing donor has no current matches,
so the original kidney donation may trigger many donations. The world record for the longest chain is thirty five recipients. Oh wow, yeah, and I did click through. Jim includes a link to a page that describes this. It's on the Guinness World Records page and it cast So I guess when a chain like this forms, they might sometimes get a name. I'm not sure how that works, but this chain was called chain three point fifty seven, suggests
a magnum. I don't know if that's a coincidence or what. Anyway, Jim goes on to say Lloyd Shapley and Alvin Roth received the twenty twelve Nobel Prize in Economics, which specifically included kidney chains as one of the practical applications of their work. So I think they were studying how resources get allotted in sort of a market where people are trying to find the best match for what they want, and vacancy chains would have some overlap in similarities to that kind of situation.
That's fascinating.
So I guess we can put this on the list of human resources that do at least in part function these like these hermit crab shells. So you've got housing, you've got certain types of jobs, and to some extent also you have kidneys. Now, this next message about hermit crabs concerns a type of snail that came up multiple times in our series on hermit crabs, the Narrates snails,
or the Narrite snails. We talked about them the most in the context of an essay about her crabs by Stephen J. Gould, in which he talked about the hermits of Bermuda, which he often observed trying to fit into snail shells that were way, way too small for them. And these were the snails producing the shells in question.
This would be the whole deal with the wearing of fossil shells that was so fascinating.
Right, So most of the hermit crabs were trying to fit into shells that were too small, but the ones that did have a bigger shell, that shell was usually a fossil.
Yeah, so this one comes to us from Graham. Graham says, Hi, Rob, Joe and jj. I hope everyone is well. A big hello from Dorset in the UK. I've just listened to part three of your series on the hermit crabs and your discussion on naar eed snails piqued my interest. I have a pet near eight snail called Jeff. He is
a Naerwi natalensis, otherwise known as a zebra nairide. You'll see why if you look at the attached picture of him, and yeah, look at that picture, I can definitely see the why zebra would be the animal you'd want to invoke.
Right. So, the spiral shell has these stripes running along it. They're sort of at least in this picture. I don't know how much that's colored by the lighting, but they're sort of alternating black and pale orange.
He continues, he lives in my freshwater aquarium with my fish. He roams around for four or five days constantly, and then sleeps for a day or so. In a day, he can do several laps of the tank, clearing up algae and other detritus as he goes. I include a link to a short video I took of Jeff as he moved over the glass of my tank, so you can see the underside of his foot when he moves. Watch out for his goofy teeth clearing algae from the glass as he goes. I hope you found this interesting, Graham.
Now, Rob, I want to put your mind at ease in case you're thinking about clicking on the video but you are worried that this might be another bleeding tooth situation. It is not that that when Jeff is talking, not Jeff, Jeff is the snail's name. Sorry, when Graham is talking about Jeff's teeth, I think, sorry, Graham is talking about the snail's actual mouth, which you can see because the snails crawling along the opposite side of the glass of the tank and it's flexing its little mouth as it
looks for algae to scrape up. This is not the disgusting looking, bleeding teeth that are actually just part of the shell of a specific naryight snail. We talked about that in the episode two, one of the most horrifying visions of a molluscu I've ever seen.
Yeah, this is more on the adorable end of the snail observation spectrum here.
I agree. This is really cute, So thank you for sharing, Graham.
All right, well, let's get into some of these weird house cinema messages. I understand we've got a lot of gorgo content.
Yes we do, so let's see. I don't know what's the best order to do these, And I think I got to start with this one because I got to partially apologize to a listener here and explain my logic in regards to bow ties, So Chris writes in and says, Joe and Robert on the recent Weird House episode about the British Kaiju film Gorgo, one of you made a
remark about the character Dorkin. Dorkin is the circus operator in Gorgo, who, essentially London is attacked by Gorgo's mother almost exclusively to prevent Dorkin from losing out on profits that he would otherwise acquire. So Chris says that we described Dorkin as a quote, pencil mustache to bow tie wearing money freak. I did say that, Chris says, as a longtime wearer of bow ties, self tied, not clip on.
I found that a potentially offensive characterization. I am guessing other listeners might feel similarly, especially since the bow tie's recent revival as stylish, tasteful, and practical apparel. Perhaps due to my over fifty years of effort. You can make amends by doing an episode on creation of the Humanoids. Chris, Well, thank you for the message. Chris. I do apologize. I did not mean to attack anything about your fashion choices. I do have to partially defend my logic here, so
I would never insult the bow tie. In principle, I totally agree it can look great. It's part of a fantastic signature look for lots of people, both modern and historical. For some reason, I was trying to think of like people who I love the bow tie look of, and the people who came to mind are Groucho Marx and Abraham Lincoln. You gotta admit they both did rock a
bow tie. But I think you'll also have to admit, Chris, that while there is absolutely nothing wrong with the bow tie on its own, in certain cases it is part of a different kind of signature look, and in those cases that signature look has negative connotations. And I think there are a lot of fashion accessories like this one. Another one that came to my mind is like Aviator sunglasses.
So they look cool, there's absolutely nothing wrong with them in principle as part of many people and characters looks. They look really great, but there is also a signature, kind of cocky jerk look that would feature Aviator sunglasses. I think the bow tie is the same you know, on some people it looks great, but it's also a core part of Dorkin. The character wouldn't be Dorkin without the bow tie, and yet it remains a wonderful part of Groucho or Fred Astaire or you know whoever else.
So I have full faith that you are one of the people who knows what you're doing with the bow tie. You wear it well, looks great on you, and congratulations for that.
All right, And well, I guess you know we'll have to cover a creation of the humanoids at some point. We either keep hearing requests for it or this one listener keeps requesting it. Maybe it's the latter.
I think that one came up when a listener was describing a movie to us that they couldn't remember the name of and we were trying to figure out what it was, and that was one of the candidates. Does this sound familiar?
This does sound familiar. Yeah, it's also come up, of course because it's uh, it's part of the filmography of Dudley Man Love.
Oh that of course, there you go of Plan nine from Outer Space. Fame, Yes, yours, yours?
What your was it? Your stupid lot? Was it? Stupid lives, your stupid minds, your stupid mind, stupid stupid Yes, great performance. He's sadly not the lead of creation of the human rights, but at any rate, still still worth a peek at some point. All right, This next one comes to us from column. Colum writes, and it says, Hi, guys, just watch Gorgo last night, and watch with interest the first part of the film, which you said was set in Ireland. I wanted to see if I could recognize any of
the locations used. Turns out the location was not any rugged and remote island off the Way coast, but actually right here in Dublin, in the suburbs. It's a place called Dalki. I have included some Google map but links and some photos with the email. There are a couple of small islands just a few hundred meters off the coast, and the little harbor they used is right there also. Dalki is a very affluent suburb on the south side
of Dublin Bay. It's home to Bono and Edge of You Two, Van Morrison, Anya, and a host of other celebrities and notable figures. I remember hearing about that. I think like Matt Damon was over there during the pandemic or something and was talking about living there, And I remember getting poked fun of in various like late night comedy bits because it was I guess it was like, you know, big celebrity being down to earth, just talking about how nice the super affluent suburb this living in was.
But I but I remember talking about like like his neighbor was Anya and so forth. Anyway, he goes on to include yeah, some links, some photos, and I know, for for our part, I think we just had to look at these and imagine a Gorgo in the shot, and then we might be able to say, oh, yeah, this is definitely it. This looks exactly like the Gorgo area.
No doubt at all for me, Rob, especially if you scroll down to the pictures of Collimore Harbor that column included here, M yeah, you see these, like oh yeah, this is where. This is where they came in on the dinghy. This is where they walked up to go to the harbor master's shack and meet with the scheming archaeologist who is trying to keep all the Viking gold for himself. This is where Gorgo attacks first, before he's even called Gorgo, when he's just Ogre, the sea spirit,
a giant rat attacking the harbor. This is where they throw fire at him and drive him back into the water. It's all there and I can see it. And also, yeah, the little island, Dalky Island is beautiful. I'd like to walk around on it. And I think I must recognize that from the movie too. That might be so in the background of maybe some of the I don't know what the effect would be called, but you know where they've got Gorgo in the foreground and this location shot in the background.
Yeah. Oh, and then they need to build like a bronze statue of.
Gorgo, right, Yes, that would fit right in. Yeah, celebrate, well, thank you call them? Yeah, yeah, thanks for sending in these shots. Always it's always fun to hear about anyone's personal connection to various locations featured in these films.
I agree. Actually, yes, message to listeners if you have physical, direct, physical access to a location where a movie we talked about was shot, and you want to send us photos of it and stuff, please do Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's always great. I you know, we've talked about a few films that have been shot in places that either around the Atlanta area or places we've traveled to, and yeah, I always appreciate that connection, you know, where it's like, yeah, this is this is where, this is this is where John Saxon came out of the subway. That's actually the artist system before he turned into a cannibal, that sort of thing.
Yeah, Marta is in the deleted scenes and Escape from New.
York too, that's right. Yeah, sometimes I like to go to the museum here in Atlanta, which of course is the very place that doctor Hannibal Lecter was sequestered in the film Manhunter. Manhunter, Yes, the adaptation of Red Dragon. So yeah, there are all sorts of fun and creos like that. I love it.
But that was Brian Cox's Hannibal Lecter of course.
That yeah, that was og Hannibal Lecter.
Yeah, all right. This next message is from Roberta. Roberta says, I've been thinking about writing in since you covered the Magic Sword on Weird House. Now, Rob, we haven't done an episode on the Magic Sword, but I know the Magic Sword came up in another episode. Was it when we were talking about Attack of the Puppet People?
Possibly? Because Yeah, this is a bird Eye Gordon film that I've seen before. It was featured on MST three K. It has Basle Rathbone in it and Estelle Lynnwood, Gary Lockwood. It's a lot of fun, and I remember a sort of like putting a pin in it that we might come back to this one in the future.
I remember the same. Yeah, it's on my mental list for the show. So that must be what Roberta is referring to here. So Roberta says, recently, you mentioned that you'd love to hear from people who saw the movies during their original releases. I saw The Magic Sword during its original release at a drive in. I was three or four years old, and it was supposed to be
a kids movie. This, of course was my very first exposure to movie acid pools and movie quicksand I sat in the far back part of the station wagon in my pajamas, absolutely terrified. I went through my childhood with a real fear of being dissolved in acid or being smothered in quicksand not to mention the fear of being ensorceled real witches. I can really sympathize with you there, Roberta.
I also had when I was younger for some reason, I really don't remember what triggered this, but I remember when I was young, I had an intense fear of like quicksand or of just being buried in sand, It was like an image that captivated my mind, and I don't know exactly where it came from. It was horrifying.
Yeah, I mean, it's a clear and present danger if you're just going off of various films they're airing on like a on TPS on a Sunday afternoon, that sort of thing.
ROBERTA continues. This was the first feature at the drive in that night, after which my older sister and I were expected to fall asleep while mom and Dad watched the second feature, which we weren't supposed to watch, But as as soon as the music came up, I was riveted to the screen. The second feature was Gypsy, the musical about the famous stripper Gypsy rose Lee. This went a long way toward calming my fears. I became lost
in the music. Unfortunately, we were new in town, and I went around singing my favorite song from the movie If Mama was married in nineteen sixty three, This was some serious scandal anyhow. I wouldn't say the magic Sword scarred me for life, but it definitely scarred me for my childhood. Many thanks for your well researched podcast. Of all types. When my friends start complaining about their various ailments.
I tried out random facts from your podcasts, like about how lobsters have one cutting claw and one grinding claw. It really helps to get people talking about something interesting. Thanks again, Roberta. Oh well, thank you, Roberta. That's heartwarming to hear.
Yeah, and this is why you should You should keep a lobster on you at all times as a conversation starter. You know, you know, if somebody starts talking about politics at a dinner, they just bust out a lobster instantly, just cleanses the palate, instantly changes the subject.
Let's talk about the bleeding tooth naried.
All right, Well, I think there's only one listener mail we can go to from that. Since we're on the subject of content in a scarring one for life and so forth, this one comes to us from Jeff. Jeff says, Greetings science humans. First of all, I wanted to thank you for attempting to express just how horrible Emil's death is in RoboCop. To this day, I do not care for body heart. And while RoboCop was one of my favorite movies as a kid, experiencing that scene once was
quite enough for me. Ever since, I have averted my eyes from that part of the film, which, as you noted, just keeps going on. Somehow, it makes me feel better that even you guys were struck by its awfulness, truly revolting.
Correct on all counts.
Yep, Yeah, absolutely, it was hard to watch this when I rewatched it in December. Anyway, Jeff continues, I'm a bit older than you, so to me, the weirdest thing about Robocop's appearance on Weird House was that this is an obvious classic and one of the best movies of the eighties. As if you dug up a little known nugget called cast Blanca for us, you know, I have. It has crossed my mind before. It's like, what if we did Casablanca? What if we just did Castle Blanka
on Weird House. It's not weird, but like as a one off, like it could be fun. It's got weird actors in it.
Yeah, Peter Lourie all that.
Yeah.
I've mentioned a few times before in summarizing the show that on Weird House we will cover movies that are good or bad, well known or obscure. Uh, the only real criterion is that they're weird. I guess with the secondary unspoken criterion that like, they're weird and there's something we actually want to talk about. You know, there are plenty of weird movies that I would not be very interested in watching or would not be very interested in talking about for ninety minutes.
Yeah, and sometimes they're boring, you know. Yeah, but and sometimes they're boring in just the right way. So it's yeah, it's really hard to nail down exactly what makes it a weird house selection other than like, can weirdness be isolated in this sample anyway? Jeff continues and says, but I can imagine what expectations might be if your first exposure to it RoboCop was looking at the box on
the video store shelf next to something like Eliminators. And I certainly see the value of directing listeners to a film that, on the surface appears to be a standard
boring eight shoot them up. It is it is worth noting, yeah, that if you're just going off of the like the VHS box art and so forth, you know, a lot of these films appeared to be on equal footing, and especially in my experienced, films that you didn't get to see or you weren't allowed to see at the time, you know, your mind would just put them on that level.
You would assume that the eliminators in RoboCop are like exactly the same like effects wise, Like at a young age, I really didn't, you know, I didn't have quite that expectation for like, this is going to be a good movie, this is going to might be a bad one. This one has a huge budget, this one has a minuscule budget, and so forth.
Yeah, from a distance, all sci fi action movies look the same, and but of course when you get up close to them you might realize that some are actually quite complex, are interesting, or is there's something you know, they've got a heart to them, There's something going on
that there is not in most of them. In fact, I would say that Paul Verhoven in particular specializes in making movies of this type, movies like RoboCop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers, all movies that I think are actually quite smart and quite complex and interesting. But from a distance or if you you know, you know, with a little bit of blur on could just be taken as another dumb sci fi shoot them up.
Yeah, absolutely, all right, Well, Jeff has more to say and has some more movies to mention here. Jeff says, also thanks to the listener who beat me to the punch by drawing attention to the connection between Peter Weller films and rat kings. I haven't seen an unknown origin in this century, but I do remember it being pleasantly weird and funny if memory serves. It also features a lock and load scene, although I only remember the final result.
It's not clear to me. If there's an appropriately clicky and snappy montage on another retro subject, I might have missed it. But I was surprised that you didn't mention the fire Gang from Labyrinth during the episodes on headless creatures, or, for that matter, the ones about beasts and humans flinging things such as heads. I had a friend who, if he saw you from a distance, would shout, and I'm not going to do the voice, where are you going
with a head like that? Labyrinth fans know exactly the creatures we're talking about here, and I would like to come back and perhaps discuss Labyrinth at some point, because it is a film that's full of perplexing details, and at times there are things that don't make a lot of sense, and it invites interpretations, so I'm a huge Elabyrinth fan, so we may have to come back to
that one anyway. Jeff continues, Finally, I'm sure you don't need another recommendation to check out Godzilla minus one, but I am going to provide you with an unprovoked one anyway. It's a truly wonderful and emotional film. I'd even say the giant lizard is not the best part, but all that effective melow drama and social commentary plus a giant lizard must see cinema. Thanks again for putting so much effort into entertaining and informing us.
All well, thank you, Jeff. Yeah, Godzilla minus one is near the top of my list of new releases. I'm sure I will see it quite soon.
Yeah, all right, Hey, maybe Gorgo minus one.
All right, This last message comes from Jared. Jared says, Greetings, Joe and Robert. I'm quite a bit behind on my listening, but I wanted to comment on something you mentioned in the Weird House Cinema episode about Creature with the Adam Brain. You commented on how the hero of the movie was a quote science cop. What was the deal with that? Yeah, it was like not clear whether that he was like a scientist or a cop.
This might have been one of the ones where this is like a non police officer who just gets to hang out and ask questions at murder investigations. Oh yeah, it feels about right. We often encounter that sort of of character, like what's your role in the investigation? Again?
Yeah, Jared goes on. Over the Halloween season just passed. I had decided to see if I could find any movies from any of my subscription streaming services that were in the vein of what you feature on your Friday shows. I found The Magnetic Monster from nineteen fifty three. In that movie, the two heroes are federal agents working for OSI, the Office of Scientific Investigation science cops. I guess the people behind the Magnetic Monster were maybe just a little
more decisive about the details or something. I also noticed that the main character and his wife were also rather affectionate slash flirtatious with each other. Oh, this was a major feature of a creature with the Adam brain that stood out to us, Like the main dude and his wife were all over each other. Jared says, it doesn't sound like they were quite as lovey Dovey as the
couple in Creature with the Adam Brain. But maybe this was the style for some movie makers of the time, how TV families were portrayed as much more wholesome and polished than real families. Anyway, as always, I'm loving the show. I'm continuing to work my way up to current day. Cheers Jared. Well, thank you, Jared. Coming back on Creature
with the Adam Brain. I don't remember exactly what we said, but I did want to make it clear I don't have any objection to a monster movie, incidentally depicting a married couple who are all over each other. It just struck me, I think struck both of us as unexpected for a movie of this type from this time period, especially where like the relationship is not the central focus
of the story. Like if it was a love story, that'd be one thing, but it's just like, oh, yes, this guy has to investigate the murders caused by Atomic Superman. Also his wife is just constantly trying to get him back into bed.
Yeah, yeah, it's a fun film. And this one that they recommend, the Magnetic Monster. Yeah, this one is also a film that was written and I think also partially directed by Kurt siod Mac who we talked about in relation to that film, but also he was involved in nineteen forty six as the Beast with five fingers.
Oh okay, that's right. Yeah, coming back to Peter Lorie.
Yeah yeah, so yeah, well have to put that one on the list as well. All right, Well, keep the recommendations coming. Like I say, I do try to add these to a list, but sometimes I say I'll add them to the list and then I forget too. So if there's something that you're excited for, don't hesitate to
pester us about it. And you know, sometimes that's all it takes, because a lot of times we have these films, we have kind of have an amorphous list of movies we want to get to, and sometimes it doesn't take much to just sort of push one to the forefront and help us make our decision for the week.
That's right, all right.
We'll remind everyone out there that, Hey, Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener mail around here. On Wednesdays we have a short form episode and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird movie on Weird House Cinema. If you haven't rated and reviewed the podcast recently, go
do that help us out. We really appreciate it. And likewise, if you listen on an Apple device or an Apple podcast, go in check make sure you're still subscribe, make sure you're still receiving downloads. That also helps us out.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.