Selects: How Vampires Work

all the Twilight fans out there. When this episode was recorded, I hadn't fully adopted the concept of not yucking someone's yea. And with all that said, from Chuck, Jerry, Dave, and me, Happy Halloween. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant sitting across from me back in the saddle. Uh, and this is Stuff you Should Know yo, back in the satellite. Yeah.

Do you want to explain that or should we just leave it a mystery saddle? Well, with the metaphorical saddle is in this case? Yeah? Well, um, you know, we have been kind of away, even though it seems like we've been here every week through the magic of um digital recording. That's right, pre recording. We uh, we batch recorded our episodes and covered ourselves. We built up what we call a kittie and uh we've been releasing them steadily and faithfully while we've been off recording a TV show,

recording a TV show. That's right, our own TV show where and you me pointing this out to me, how cool it says we play ourselves. Yeah. I think that's the only thing I'm qualified to do it. Oh, yeah, totally. We would have failed miserably if we've done, you know, anything else, like a Sherlock Homes Up eight or something like that. There's so many of those going on already, I know, So why not? Yeah, why not elementary my dear Clark. Yeah, um, but yeah, we have a TV

show coming out. I guess we can talk about it freely. We're done. Yeah, we'll we'll really ramp up the plug edge come December, but look forward in January on Science Channel. And if you don't have Science Channel, go out and purchase Science Channel. Yeah, and we are. We do not know because I know people are already asking about online um stuff if they're going to be available, like, uh, you know through various media outlets online. But yeah, we

don't know yet and we're working on that. We'd love for it too, but it's not up to us. Yeah. So, I mean you have to head your bets and yes, added to your your cable subscription, and if your cable provider doesn't offer Science Channel, you burn down their offices until they do. That's right. Um? Okay, So Chuck, Yes, have you ever heard of a little movie called Twilight? Yeah, I've seen all those You've seen them? Oh yeah, Emily has read the books and she's way into it, so

I have been I sucked into it. That's very supportive of you. I don't think they're very good. Um, but I must admit I do want to see the final one, just because it's like when you watch four of something, or however many it's been three of something, it's just become a weird to stop there. So I will see the last one. When does that come out? I think probably sometime around this published date? Oh really, yeah, I

think it's a Thanksgiving her Christmas release. Yeah, okay, Um, well, I bring that up to propose that that's the only time we talk about that franchise for throughout this whole podcast. Agreed, Agreed. Um, Because vampires, which is what we're talking about, they go back a very, very very long way. They've evolved, they've changed, they've shifted their shape. But um, they seem to all have certain characteristics in common. Right. For example, Um, they

can't see their reflection, well, not necessarily. Okay, if we go back to the ancient myths, Okay, Uh, they are wary of crucifixes, crucify na crucifixes. Uh, they only come out at night. Yeah, they're the undead. Yeah, suck blood from a victim's neck. They have to be invited into your home. Yeah. Garlic as well, holy water, Yeah, superhuman strength, al tenants of the modern vampire lore. Yes, and modern is a good It's a good way to put it, because all of this is a fairly recent um image

of the vampire. Thanks to Bram Stoker and then shortly after that Bella Lagosia, we now have this conception of the vampire. But like I said, it goes back way way further than the nineteenth century or even the eight eighth century. Yeah, it goes back as much as four

thousand years as far as we know. I'm probably further back, right, Yeah, And I will say one thing, not to bring up the T word again, but brom Stoker and other authors and filmmakers, the cool thing I like about the vampire and pop culture is you can pull from all these different things to create your own creature of the night. Yes, like some of them. You know, in in like True Blood for instance, you know, they can retract their fangs, they're super sexy. They you know, Lilith is in that

a version of Lilith that we'll talk about. So I just think that's kind of one of the cool things about vampires is brom Stoker did the same thing. He pulled from different areas of mythology and said, this is a fictional character I'm going to create using all these old folk legends. Right. But there are some things that are are very basic. The commonalities among all vampires that generally they suck blood um, and they are dead in

some way, shape or form. They are they're undead. That's a that's a great way, just coined an excellent term. Just made that up. Um. So you have undead people, former people in most cases, um, feeding on the living. That's the vampire. That's the basis of almost all vampires, but even that has exceptions because these early, the earliest vampires that we know of that arose out of the first civilization Mesopotamia. Um, we're actually demon goddesses, right, Yeah.

Lamas Do was a demon goddess and she was the daughter of Anu, the sky god. And she would um, creep in and kill your babies. Yes, she was not a happy, nice person. She had talents wings um. And they believe that the Assyrians and Babylonians were basically going like what is going on when they would encounter sudden infant death syndrome or miscarriages, and they said, well, of

course it is lamas Do, thank you. Yeah. I think it's so funny how so many of these things were sort of used to explain and not vampires, but all kinds of folk legends to explain like what medicine health says is Sid's right, yeah you know, but I mean like it's that that this basis of the vampire legend using it to explain stuff people didn't understand, usually some sort of sudden death or wasting away as we'll see later. Um, it spans thousands of years. People have been going back

to that, well for thousands and thousands of years. That's pretty interesting, you know, when you look at this one group in the nineteenth century with the Assyrians four thousand years ago, and they're all thinking the same thing. That's I find that very interesting. That's that's an archetype if you ask you. Yeah, and it just goes to show you we're all humans all over the world for as long as we've been around. We're all stupid. We're all stupid,

all right. Um. Lamas Do is also associated with lilith who I mentioned who this past season was on True Blood like a version of Lilith but Um. She is in prominent in Jewish texts and is a lot like lamas Do. She Um was the first woman, supposedly not Eve but Adam and Lilith. Yeah, that's like that question about like who's the first president. Yeah, well, apparently there were other presidents before Washington, like eight or nine before Washington, but you just have to say, well, were they the

president of the United States? No, they weren't, right, So lilith Um was a modern woman and she was like, you know, Adam, I ain't putting up with this because I am just the same as you. I was created from God just like you are, and so, um, stop acting like you're not made of dust exactly. So she left Eden said I'm out of here. I'm gonna have my own kids. God sends angel Us to bring her back.

She's like, no, I'm not going. And the angel said, all right, you think angels are nice, We're gonna kill one hundred of your children every day until you get back up to Eden or Heaven. Yeah. And rather than say okay, well let's go back to eat and then Lelis said do it, and they did it, and so she started killing human children in return. That's right again,

with sharp talents, winged demonus stealing infants and fetuses. And I find that extremely interesting, um that the vampire legend is kind of born out of this um, this folklore of how you're supposed to be subservient to men, you know.

That's uh, that's very interesting because they there's this element of seduction that kind of was reinvented with vampires here there, but it's one of the It may have gone away in some areas, but it always came back, this idea that there was a woman or a person who didn't follow sexual mores, whether that sexual meaning like intercourse or gender. Yeah, they didn't follow the rules. And that's kind of like another thing that's always kept the vampire legend going, or

that's always been a part of it. I guess that's a good point, because lilithaus set up the notion of the uh seductress. You know, we see over and over in further legends, right Um. And then so Lilith is associated with ancient Jewish texts. Um, Lamas too is Uh from Mesopotamia. And they aren't certain if Um Lilith was a variation of Lamas too or if they both evolved from a third character. But um, those are the two

most ancient ideas of vampires that we have. Shortly after that, we can head on over to Greece, and they had they feared a lot of vampire like creatures. Yeah, Lamia was another demonus um head and Torso a woman lower body of a snake and Um. Evidently this was one of Zeus' mortal lovers. His wife did not take kindly to this Hara, and she was like, no, I'm gonna make you go insane, lady and eat all your children. Yeah, you're so crazy, You're gonna eat your kids and then

come to afterward, that's right. And when she did, she went so she she went so berserk, not in the Viking way, not berserker, no, just straight up berserk that she um became a monster again killing children. Yeah, because she was jealous of other women who had children. Um. Who else? Um? They also had the mp Yes, the daughters of Hakad, who was the goddess of witchcraft, and they were shape shifters for the first time. Right. So like you have all these all these different cultures contributing

to the vampire that we understand today here there. Um. And it wasn't just the Greeks. It wasn't just the Mesopotamians. You also had India getting into the mix with the rock Shassa right, um, which was basically like a a ghoule shape shifting google who once again killed children. Right. And same with the Vitala, but they were more like a zombie if you ask me. Yeah, a demon who took possession of recently dead bodies freak havoc on a living that's a that's a sounds like zombie. Um. And

then the Chinese also had their own thing, um, the Kuei. Sure, Okay, you have to say, like that. Yeah. Yeah, Like, um, the guy on NPR who always reports from China, he speaks to normally and all of a sudden, I mean he's doing it accurately, but it's like, um, a little bit like Daniel day lewis doing Lincoln. It's like, yeah, that's accurate, but do you do you know what? You sounds like I wanted to get rid of slavery. That was sort of like a jacked up Kennedy. That's weird.

Little Um, So, how do how do quai come about? They are corpses who would rise from the grave kill again, and that happened when a person's lower spirit did not pass into the afterlife because of bad things they did. So the po was angered by the lower spirit. Yeah, and that would reanimate basically and say, you know what, I'm gonna attack the living at night once again, because what else do I have to do? Nothing? Well, it's a good way to exact revenge. Just have to hang around.

Here's the wheelbarrow. So all of these stories were floating around the world and eventually, um, through trade and things wound up in Europe. Yeah, the first globalization, the silk roads started bringing all these things together and Yeah, they moved over to Europe, and that's where they really sort of took off, I guess you could say. And in the place that became the epicenter um was Central Europe or Eastern Europe, Russia. Yeah, early on with the upier

and again Greek with the oh boy uh rycholacas or kilacas. Yes, one of those, one of those. You can't start a word with four consonants, one of them got to be silent. Yeah. And this kind of like um was an offshoot of the Chinese conception of how a vampire became a vampire. Uh. The upier um, which they think is the word that led to vampire or vampire um, was basically a person who during their life was a sinner un baptized baby,

which is really sad, a vampire baby, that's kind of funny. Um. And they anyone who wasn't a Christian, Yeah, practitioners of witchcraft, especially of course for obvious reasons, because you'd already sold your soul of the devil. Yeah, so you were you were doomed. You're like halfway there, right, So um, all of these fa actors combined to basically make you a loser in the afterlife and you're going to come back. Um. And families were I guess aware of this kind of thing.

They knew that there was the possibility that you know, uncle Uncle Vigo who had a lot of big gambling problem which the village looked down upon, um when he was alive. When he died, well, he was probably going to become a new pier. And so if all of a sudden Uncle Vigo's like nephews start dying in a weird way, um say of maybe a dread disease, the family probably go dig up Uncle Vigo and do crazy

stuff to his body. Yeah. And uh, one thing to point out here this is I think the first time with the upier that we get the notion that they would go back to the grave to rest. Oh yeah, it's a big one on a regular basis, And that sets things up moving forward kind of right. So, like you said, they would, um sometimes dig these bodies up, sometimes burn them, um, drive a stake through the heart. They would really take care of this corpse. They would

bury them face down sometimes. Yeah, so like if they tried to crawl out, they would be headed in the wrong direction. That's pretty awesome, or steaks facing down, so if they tried to crawl up, they would stake themselves. And um. That was this was the about a thousand years ago in Central Europe, this stuff, or central or Eastern Europe, this stuff started to Um, these beliefs started to come about that you could solve your vampire troubles

by butchering the corpse of the suspective vampire. Um. And it started then and it carried on anytime there's a vampire panic, which uh, interestingly all almost always attended a an outbreak of some sort of disease. Yeah, I could see that, um, because once again they're just trying to

explain away exactly medical conditions, right. Um. People would dig up corpses and like do crazy things to them, Like in Venice they found a sixteenth century corpse that had a brick in its mouth and they no, it hadn't it didn't fall in there. Um. And then in the eighteen fifties there's this really cool article Chuck called the Great New England Vampire Panic. It was on the Smithsonian

website recently. It is awesome. And in the eighteen fifties in Connecticut there was a tuberculosis outbreak and people panicked and started digging up graves and just completely um rearranging the people's bones, are cutting out their hearts and burning them and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. And these were this is the eighteen fifties. I mean, this wasn't

the Dark Ages. Like people were starting to have an understanding of like disease like the Salem which trial same deal, right, but hundred years later, a hundred fifty years later, you know, so, um, there there was this big panics still as recently as the eighteen fifties in the US among you know, folk who dug up their family members and like burn their

their hearts. Those people are funny. Yeah, they call them undecided voters, but those are right, those are the people that I'm talking about that they're doing the same thing. We're thinking the same things that the Assyrians did four thousand years before. I just think that's so interesting and backward. Yeah.

Stuff you should know, stuf stuff you should should know. Um. So in uh Wallachia, Moldavia, in Transylvania which is now Romania, Um, they had something called troy and strictoi were um they were a little bit different because they were um they would go through different stages after rising from the grave, Like at first they were just poultergeists and they were invisible spirits that would torment their family in the afterlife, um or in their regular life district boys, afterlife? Does

that make sense? Um? But then they would as time passed, they would become visible looking like they did in life, and they would still return and steel cattle and bring disease and all that stuff to their family for food. Yeah. Why would they do this to their family? That's what I never got I think I saw later. Um that metaphorically, it's a it's basically a vampire lore is um a life lesson, like, don't be a drain on your family. Support your family, take care of your parents in their

old age, Like you don't want to be a strogoy. Okay, you know what I mean? Sure, I guess that makes sense. Um. And strogoy or a strigg O, which I guess is the singular of the strogoy would um. They would have to go back to the grave a lot, just like the upier did, and they followed the same pattern. They if they thought someone was a striggo, they would exhume the body and take care of it. The old fashioned way.

And um, but here's a little loophole. If you managed to survive for seven years as a Striggo, then you're good to go. And they're like, all right, you've got staying power. You just go do your Striggo thing. Right. You are like the living debt. You no longer have to like return to your grave to rest. You're basically reborn. Well done. Um. And apparently the Striggo couldn't um or the strogoy couldn't make their way in their town after that seventh year, you know, because they went on to vote.

There is all sorts of the title relations right, Um. So they would move to other towns and they would have secret meetings with other str oy and um, that's where the idea of vampires fraternizing came from. Yeah, hanging out, Yeah, talking shop. Yeah. Basically a secret culture of vampires existing outside of our awareness. You remember, remember like on Jerry Springer when that was on, or it might still be on. Have no idea I think it is? Is it really? Yeah? Wow?

Is it still the same crap? Oh? Yeah, yeah, he didn't take the high road at some point. No, I just remember back in the day, they would have like those real vampires, the people that lived the vampire lifestyle. There's a video of it in this um is there in this article? Oh boy? Yeah those people. Yeah, the guy looks like a cross between Marilyn Manson and um Brandon Lee. Oh yeah, yeah, interesting, kind of kind of odd looking. He's got the contact lenses and everything. Yeah.

And they'll they'll shave down their their fangs, like for real, right, they'll file them down. Yeah. Um. So there's two types of STROGOI. Right, you've got the strigoi mort not morty no more isn't dead. So this is the basically who we were just describing, and then the strong oy view, which is the living, the person who's going to become a streak o when they die. Yeah, people that I feel very sorry for because they were probably just born

with a bump. What are those called? The when you're born with a like really just racking my head with a vestige like a partial tail, yeah, uh, vestigial tail. Yeah, No, there's a word for it. I can't remember. I'm so tired of doing this. Stories have we wasted combined saying oh I wish I could remember it? Well, we just invented this off the top of our heads vans at, Yes, exactly right, and it sort of drug. Yeah, it is actually.

Um so, if you're a poor baby born with a vestigial tail a little bump on the top of your tailbone or um uh, some sort of fetal membrane still attached to the head, which is called a call, yeah, they would just call you a string strong o view or vou right, and you're sort of like, sorry, I was born with his bump. I'm not a vampire living

walking on the earth. They said, no, you are, and if you have kids, and they're gonna be h string oy in the afterlife, and we'll have to destroy your body when you die, and they did, and they did so. But I guess it's kind of nice that they didn't just kill the person while they were living. They just

showed them. I'm sure. Yeah, exactly. Um. The idea of a call like having some sort of um special significance is it goes beyond the vampire thing to like like you're gifted with the second side or there's all sorts of like supernatural paranormal folklore surrounding people born with a call.

Once again, people have proven to be stupid over the years, so um, but this is where vampire came in, right, Yeah, this street go, this tregoy um started to come to be called the vampire, which is again from Upier in the Russian and all of a sudden, the stages set for the vampire legend to really take hold. As it's taking shape. Yeah, and like this is where pop culture came into plague. Hysteria had set in, and so painters and artists and authors had this material that's pretty rich

for the time. All this hysteria's gone on, So let's write a scary book about it. And that's what Bram Stoker did. Yeah, and he was, um, he was, are you going with Brom? I go with Bram, you go, Bram? Yeah? Have you ever read it? I know I saw the movie though I took it literally. The movie was a pretty faithful add taste with the couple one. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty good. The book is great, though. I took a literature of horror class at Georgia and it

was one of the cooler classes I took. I'm sure he did Dracula and f Kenstein and like the House of Usher and then a bunch of short stories. Yeah, very cool. So Bram Stoker also Abraham Stoker, which I didn't know until I read this that was his first name. Yeah, yeah, just because the class um. He he was a theater manager and a novelist and also a really great researcher because you know all this stuff from this vampire um um, hysteria, yeah, panic from all this took place like hundreds of years

before him. And I guess I don't know what inspired him exactly or where he saw it or where the where this all took place. But he didn't just go, oh, that's a pretty good idea and wrote his book like he went and did some serious research. Yes, supposedly he was inspired by uh he was a personal assistant to this actor um who ran the theater that he worked at. And supposedly Henry Irving was a guy's name was the

inspiration to write the book. And I don't know if that meant he was some jerk he was like, I'm just gonna personify he was a blood sucker or what. But or maybe he just inspired him creatively. Who knows, Um, But I bet someone knows more about this and I do. Oh I'm sure, so right in and tell me, um, and so Bram Stoker goes and he starts to do some research and pokes around, and he finds a great place to set this vampire tale is in Transylvania, which

is the heart of the Strigoy vampire. This is where everything that we just talked about came together. Wallachia, Transylvania, Romania is what we call it today. Um and uh. And he he thought, well, this is just perfect. I'm gonna set it there and let's see if I can find somebody of that area how it can base this vampire character on. And he came up with a guy named Vladislav Bazzarrob. Yeah, that's a creepy name period, yea. Um, but it would be even creepier. He was the prince

ruled Wallachia in the mid fourteen hundreds. Uh. Creepier is that his father was Lad Vlad the Dragon or the Devil and um. Vlad Jr. Was referred to as Vlad Dracula, which is son of Dracula or Vlad Tepis or Vlad the Impaler because, even though it's not verified, supposedly he was a very fierce warrior. He would impale his victims. Okay, I really feel like we should do um the real Count Dracula episode sometime. Yeah, I wrote this awesome article on it, and it is it's verified. It was there

a real countract. It's about Vlad Tepis, the Vlad the Impaler. Yeah, because he just borrowed the name in the in the title, right, he wasn't really based on this guy who Count Dracula brom Stoker's yes version, right, Vlad Tepis was probably far far worse than um anything bram Stoker wrote about Count Dracula,

way worse. Yeah, yeah, his like it is verified, Like, yes, he had all sorts of guys who were um against him and who published extensively all these um like books and pamphlets and all this stuff to smear his name. But they got a lot of stuff, right, Yeah, Like he was into some horrible stuff. He killed a lot of people. Uh, he had a lot of people killed. His armies killed a lot of people. He Uh, he's probably like most rulers of the day. He was he

was worse. He was most likely worse than anybody else. So he borrows this name in this title and social standing as an aristocat aristocat great movie aristocrat. You know, it's a naked woman in that um in that one in the Aristocats, Yeah, the Disney cartoon. Yeah, that's the one with the is that the one with the No, I'm thinking of the Rescuers. I remember that there's a naked woman in the Rescuers. Yeah, when they're flying through

the city. If you watch it frame by frame, they passed by a window and there is a photograph of like a woman standing in the window naked. Um and like you have to watch it like in in you know, frame by frame is the only possible way to see it, but it's in there. Yeah, they were dirty. There's also the little mermaid thing the the palaces. Yeah, hidden, not so hidden, pallast Yeah. I'll bet that guy was like, no one's ever going to see this, and then he

lost his job forever. So um, So Stoker borrows this, uh the name. Like I said, the social standing says, this would be a great setting. Let's throw it in Transylvania. Let's let's change a few things. Let's borrow from a bunch of different uh folklore, and let's let's say maybe you can't go out in the sunlight, and let's bring up the crucifixes. Now, and let's make him really smart and um charming, and well that was largely Bella le GHOSTI that did that. Well, No, brom Stokers was totally

like that. I thought his was um that he was like a withered, ugly old man, you know, but he was still had like the stuct of powers, suave and all that wave because he would Yeah, he changed ages if I remember correctly, Well he does in the movie, and I've heard the movies are pretty faithful adaptation. And it was also I think the first time where um, all of a sudden they didn't have any reflection because

most of the previous les uh legends they love their reflection. Yeah, apparently not only were they in love with their own reflection and they could be lost for hours staring into a mirror, they were also supposedly obsessive compulsive, as some

like Eastern folklore goes. And one way to ward off vampires was to spread seeds outside of your house because the vampire would be um bound to count every single seed, and if you put a little nail or attack or something in there, when the the vampire went pick that one up, it would prick itself and I'll drop all the seeds and forget where it was and start counting all over. Oh, you gotta start counting again, and then you'd just be sitting inside, laughing, drinking your ale. Stupid vampires.

So um, that was another difference. I'm sorry, we've been calling them stupid vampires and up until the nineteenth century, like you could make that case like they were kind of dead zombiesque a little bit. Um. It was Stoker that introduced, like you say, not not to sell this other stuff, but the acute intelligence, that's right, this this very smart like power of persuasion, almost hypnotic um Svengali type.

And in True Blood they have this thing they do called glamouring, which is kind of a silly name, but it's almost like a charm, like a spell that they can put over you if you like black eyes with one and you know, when you glamor them there you know, basically in a hypnotic state, you can They're highly suggestible, I get into a sexual way, well, in all kinds of ways, but yeah, there's plenty of They usually are just like take off your pants, did you say like

that point and say in a creepy tone, yeah, see, you don't tell me you can't act, you could play the role as a vampire. Take off your pants. Yeah, you got the job. Let's do some voguing stuff you

should know, Stu, stuff you should you should know. So you mentioned Bella Lago Si film Dracula um, which was you know, where we get the cape and the I want to Drink your blood and the sort of familiar modern vampire that pop culturally speaking that we're familiar with today and one of the best songs ever Ba houses Bella Ghost He's Dead. Yeah, excellent silent film Nosavarato with Max Shrek a little more true to the original creepy looking guy. What was the movie starring Willem Dafoe and

um uh oh about Yeah, yeah, that was good. What is the name of that movie? Do you remember? I can't remember, dude. That is such a good movie. Yeah, I want to see that movie again. I do too. Actually, it's a great one. The ending is just yeah, what is it? Shadow of the Vampire? R that live correction? Uh. And Rice then came along and um yeah, nothing happened in between, but and Rice definitely brought things more into the forefront as far as um this range of emotions

and he's really complex characters. Um, I didn't think the books were very good, but it's just not my bag. Oh yeah, I read the first one and it's just not my thing. Okay, yeah, I mean I'm not saying it was not good. It's just not my thing. I'm with you. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course, classic, not so a great movie, great TV series. I love that movie. Well that's good. God. Yeah, I thought it really became itself when the cast changed. And I love that movie. Yeah,

well that's great. Have you seen that South Park where like all the kids start becoming like vampires, all the good kids. It's like very trendy and hip to be to be like a vampire and give yourself a new name and everything. Um, and they drink clomato. Oh I love clomato. Yeah, you're in the minority, buddy. That's the secret to my famous bloody Mary. I know you've told me it's a good South Park Chuck. I'll check it out. Um, where are we now? Should we talk about psychic vampires

a little bit? I guess all right? These are people in modern times that claim that they crave and feed on others energy, their psychic energy and they claim to be vampire rish or vampire rick, vampire esque, vampire esque um, and that they will not If they do not do this, then they will not have feel like they have fed on you know, sustenance like that is their sustenance is other people's psychic energy. And it also goes back. It's you know, modern people claim this, but it goes back

you know, thousands of years. Um. This phenomenon does is nothing new. Well, they actually think that it may have given rise to vampire lords. We understand it now. And it's also a metaphor if someone you know, someone can call someone a psychic vampire if they're just a drain as a person. You know those people I do energy vampires. That's right. Not to be confused with the other kind of energy vampire, which is like your coffee maker. Yeah,

these things that are left on all night. Um. So there's there's we kind of touched on it earlier, the idea of why, um, where we would have gotten vampire legends. People use it to explain phenomenon that we didn't understand

before there was such a thing as like germ theory. Right, so you have like um lamas too being blamed for sids and and um, uh, miscarriage is that kind of thing, right, And then you have, um, a couple other diseases that we've come to understand that they're like, you know what, We've never really definitively linked this to vampire lore, but I'll bet you this gave rise to it. It probably didn't help, so like like, what, uh, porphyra? Do you

pronounce that? Porphyria? Porphyria? All right, we'll go with that. Have you ever seen the others? Nicole? Is that what those kids had? Okay, all right, that makes sense. Uh, it's a rare disease. Um irg irregularities in the production of of him with himmy, which is an hemoglobin hem hem yeah, like himmy, but then got a himmy that's a that's an engine. Yeah. Um. And basically what you're gonna be sensitive to sunlight, You're gonna have a bad

stomach pains, you may be delirious. Um. Back in the day, one prescription may have been to drink blood. So I would say that's probably a dead giveaway right here. And have you seen pictures? Yeah, people stricken with us creepy looking. Their teeth can be like red or black, and their gums can be red and black, which is I think

probably another reason why they link that to that. And it's hereditary, so there, you know, there were places where there was more of this um happening than other places, which would also lend itself to the whole vampire thing and feeding on your family. Yes, the same with tuberculosis, like when when people were kind of spread out except your family and there were nineteen of you and you

all lived in one house. If one of you had TB probably the rest of you were going to catch TV and a lot of you were gonna die from it. And whoever was the first one to die of this was probably the original vampire who's feeding on the other and you're probably the one who's going to be dug up and have your heart cut out and burned. But at that point, who cares. And then there's another disease called catalepsy, which is associated with epilepsy. This one is freaky.

Do you ever see that Twilight Zone where um, I can't remember what actor it was. It may have been the professor from Gilligan's Island or he's in a cart and he's paralyzed and he's the whole thing is just him talking to himself in his head like locking these people. Yeah, to not bury him because he's not dead, and um, it's really it's a great episode. So is he cataleptic? No, he was kind of like you said, locked in Twilight Zone.

Catalepsy is a it's a specific neurological disorder, like I said, associated with epilepsy, where your muscles just freeze up and an episode like this can last for days and your heart rate slows and your respiration slows and you're alive and God knows what yourans doing, but you're alive during this time. But you know, prior to say embalming, you may have just been taken for dead and putting in the ground and you had to dig your way out

and go back home. Yeah. And it's also associated with schizophrenia. So you're sitting around the dinner table and uncle, um, uncle, what Vigo? Uncle Vigo? Remember like the gamble. He comes in three days after you buried him, brushing dirt office overhauls in a schizophrenic having a schizophrenic episode, and you you know you're gonna put a stake through his heart. Yeah, you know if you're smart, which is just not fair because after an experience like that, it's like, why would

you wait? Why not? Why not let fate kill this man before he goes to this horrific stalectic experience and then it all end with a stake through the heart. Let him get hit by a truck with a hemmy or something ahead of time. Uh. And then I'm not so sure about this suggestion, but it might carry a little weight that what happens after a regular human body dies. Um might have fed into this a little bit, I would say, so um, fingernails and hair um continue growing.

So this is like if they dig you back up, they're like, look, the fingernails are long, the hair has grown. They're bloated because you're full of you know, gases expanding. So let's cut them open and this all this fluid drains out and say, see they've been growing their hair and fingernails and feeding on others bodily fluids. They're alive there well or undead, but uh well, I mean I can see like they're going back and resting, and like

they obviously have gorged themselves. Look at their stomach, it's all distended. So I mean I think it was probably like the nailing the coffin on their beliefs like this is just is all absolutely correct. Yeah I could see that though. Yes, and then the notion of the vampire bat um came along later on, where the vampire could shape shift into bats and sometimes wolves, although in Twilight, wolves and vampires are on opposite sides. Yeah, I said

I would mention it again. Yeah, there I went. Um, but the whole thing of the vampire bat was just like a creepy uh. You know, real vampire bats are docile creatures and they might drink like the blood of a cow, but they're not attacking people. No, that was all for there's harmless as vampire babies. You know, what are some of your favorite movies, Josh, Oh, vampire movies? No, just comedies like a DC cab dr Detroit Um. I would say probably the best of all time in my opinion,

as Lost Boys, it definitely has a kitch value. Now, that is a great movie. It doesn't hold up super well. Have you seen it? No, I haven't seen it in a while, And it's the ways that other eighties movies don't really, because that was like a cool movie. Yeah, Echo and the Bunny Man covered the doors in it. Come on, shall not ki? It's a it's a strange song. Near Dark. Did you ever see that one? I don't think so. Seven Bill Paxton and uh that one guy

Lance Heinrixen. They're like these modern vampires traveling in a r V through the desert and killing people. Really good. I have not seen that. Near Dark is excellent. What about first bite with the George? George Hamilton's first bite was yeah, he's like a disco Dracula. Vampire's kiss was funny. Nick Cage, I never saw that one. It was good. I thought the original Fright Night. Granted it was the eighties again, but for me, it was pretty good back

in the day. I haven't seen that. Um Cronos, have you seen that? Garma del Toro? I don't good one. I think I've seen it, and then um, of course let the right one in Both versions to me very good. I really I heard the American version of us compared to the original, I thought they were both pretty great. I'll check it out. Then you know they didn't like

definitely didn't ruin it by americanizing it. And then there of course the bad ones like Van Helsing West Craven's Dracula two thousand, Um Blood rain R A Y n E. I mean, there's lots and lots of bad vampire movies. Dracula Dead and Loving It. That was good, though. Um, do you know how many emails we're gonna get from people that would say, like, you forgot about this one? Yeah,

let's just say there are hundreds of vampire movies. There's TV shows now, the Vampire Diaries, True Blood, which I mentioned, which is sort of good again after falling off the rails in my opinion, and um, Twilight Breaking Dawn part two, what is your problem? It's twice in theaters near you. Oh. Actually, that seventy nine Dracula with Franklin Jella. That was good. Did he play Dracula? Yeah? Yeah, he was good. Oh yeah, okay, I could see him. I'm sorry I wasn't thinking of

the right person. And then if you're into old movies, you know, you can't go wrong with with Bella Orghosi or uh not Sparatoya. Take some time watch an old movie. That's what I say. Yeah, that's uh, that's pretty much your life coaching, I think. So take some time watch an old movie, says Chuck. Watch some of them black and white for a change. Um. Hey. Also, while we're while we're on this kind of scary esque topic, you

want to plug somebody real quick? Yeah, I think we have another horror fiction as right as we said we would um plug people who sit in their stuff for a horror fiction contest. Um and who went on to publish stuff? Um. And one of the guys, Christopher Kelly, who wrote the very cool short story Variable UM, took us up on that, and he says that he has a creepy novella about two boys whose father tries to

kill them called Abraham Road not Bram Road. Uh. He says that it's, um, it's what would have happened if HP Lovecraft free wrote of Mice and Men, which is pretty awesome. It's available on Kindle. You can go find that on Amazon dot com Abraham Road ebook. Uh. And then he also has a collection called I Held My Breath as Long as I could twenty three stories of the strange, the Sinister in the literary um. And you can get that on Amazon as well, So check those out.

Christopher Kelly, thanks for sending in your work. We liked it a lot. And remember anybody else who has published and entered our horror fiction contest. We want to say thanks by letting everybody know about your stuff. If you wanted more about vampires, and it's been a while, hadn't um You can type that word into the search bar a House of worked dot com. It will bring up a bunch of cool stuff, including um, who was the real count Dracula? This vampire article written by Tracy Wilson,

which is a great one. Oh. Tracy wrote that, Yeah, couldn't you tell? It was pretty thorough? Uh. And then also another one I liked a lot was a Hungarian um countess the world's most prolific serial killer. She's like the female Dracula, Elizabeth Bathroy. Yeah, yeah, awesome stuff. Type that in the search bar and it will bring all this great stuff up. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. All right, Josh, we're gonna

call this a trivia plug. Um. We went to New York for Comic Con and we had one of our trivia nights there and one of the things that we were required to do and want to do is read the names of the trivia winners, and so I got emails from them, and the thought in the runner up team because they were cool and I'm gonna read them all. This is from the winner, Kyle um Jannish or Yannish. I'm sure how he pronounced that. Thanks guys for hosting the event. Um as an Avid s y s K listener,

our team, Steve Holt, had a great time. Nick team name was Steve h Holt. We were made up of mainly former Midwesterners, which gave us a good advantage in the Great Lakes question. We had three girls in fashion, Caitlin Grummel, Monica Lange and Amy Guidal. We also had three teachers, Dan Ferrell, Michael Rakowski and myself Kyle Jannish and my twin who does social work Mike Jannish and my friend who seems to always be working for a pyramid scheme, Mica Sterling. So those were the winners there.

And uh, he says the fashion expertise did not come in handy this time, but we were prepared for anything except for the Kevin Smith movies category, which I wasn't a fan of. They were far behind coming to the last question, but wager did it all and one, um, that's crazy. That's how it goes in At one of our trivia events. Yeah, so Kyle, AND's there, Mike remember meeting them? There were buddies with Joe Ran does him and he says thanks for hosting and thanks for the

sweet T shirts. And then the runner ups, runners up, runners ups, sorry to ghost of Williams Sapphire just ran through to thanks for hosting the super fun trivia night at the cutting Room. Um, and boy, by the way, thank you cutting Room. That place is amazing and very generous in hosting us, and it is back up and running after like redoing the inside and it is really nice.

So give them some love if you live in New York. Um, I'm a longtime listener four years of Pure Love, and I recently got my boyfriend David hooked as well and it has been a nerdy bonding experience for us. Anyway, we decided to come up from Virginia. Came up from Virginia for this that's a Walter drive. Um. We met some awesome people in line and formed Team phil Um.

Our lovely teammates were Paul mcgowski, Leah Talman, Jim Nelson, Charlie Tran, David Bury and others who skipped out early, and myself who is Natalie David, and Natalie is the one who brought us the Mike's on pants off T shirts. So um, not only was that super nice, but they sat in the table next to us and I was able to talk a lot of smack with them, and so I said I would read about them on the show.

This is just how it goes to one of our trivia events, would bring people together, chuck talk smack like directly to you. It's a lot of fun. So Natalie David says, thanks a lot and cheers, and I hope you enjoy the shirts and all that good stuff. Yeah. We also we met the Convo Kings, who we've been in touch with. That's right. They have a podcast of their own called Appropriately Appropriately the Convo con Very nice guy, um and uh yeah that's worth checking out too. Yeah.

So it was great fun meeting everyone, and it's always fun. I enjoyed Robin Elbows like that. Nice people. Uh what else? I got nothing? All right, Um, if you have had a good experience because of stuff, you should know whether it's at one of our trivia events, standing in line from one of our trivia events, or nothing at all. Um. You can tweet to us right at s y s

K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you can send us an email to stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.