The Stuff You Should Know 2015 Jolly Christmas Extravaganza

you never know what's going to happen in here. No, actually, you usually know what happens in here, which is no wine. Yeah, and gaminess. It gets gamy in here. Although they fixed the a C, Yeah, and I fixed the a C, we realized that they turned it on for the first time in here. They're like your flaps clothes. Oh, dead raccoon, there's your problem. Yeah, it's usually a dead raccoon, that's right.

You know. Uh, Well, since we said dead raccoon, they can mean nothing else than the fact that this is our two thousand fifteen holiday extravaganza. I don't remember what we called it. I think we've called it something different every year. Yeah, but I'm saying, like I don't know what we called this one yet. Yeah, yeah, but that's not bad. Yeah, but here we are in November. But

we have that Christmas spirit. It's well within us. It is alive in our bones and uh, we cobbled together were it's I thought I was starting to get thin really, but um, when you start digging around you you can find plenty of good holiday content. Yeah you know. Oh, I see what you mean. As far as like finding something to fill an hour. Yeah, and um, we didn't know. We couldn't remember because we've done. This is like I think the fifth one that we've done. Okay, we couldn't

remember which ones we've done. Documents helped went back and listen to all of them, and it's like, okay, we covered this, we did we cover that. There were several things that I was surprised to find that we had covered. Surprised and dismayed because we can't do them again. Nope, they're done. But um, we have put together a blog post on Stuff you should Know dot Com called the Christmas Sweet and it has all of our Christmas specials

so you can go listen to them all in one place. Yes, and as we do every year, we would like to encourage you to gather the family. Sure, build a fire if you have a fireplace, not not just on your hardwood floor or not out of your hardwood floor unless you're into that. There's a free country even still think you probably don't want to do that, you know, So

gather the family around a light the you'll log. Pour up some hot buttered rum or whatever you're boozy eggnog or you're non alcoholic drink of choice, sure, sparkling cider. Everybody loves that cold duck. And then listen, cold duck. Don't you remember cold duck? What's that? It's like a non alcoholic sparkling wine called cold duck. Yeah, I grew up on it. Weird. I guess it is a little weird now you think about it, Cold duck, and it

just doesn't sound like something you'd want to drink. Yeah, if you don't have a choice, that's what you drink. All right, support some cold duck and uh settle in and let us take you on a Christmas journey through the ages. And thanks to Jerry by the way as always, and uh our friend John begin did the jingles for this one. Yeah, so uh yeah, thanks for always gussing this thing up and putting us in the Christmas mood. Yeah, way to go to Jerry. All right, let's get do it, Chuck. Yes,

you were raised in the United States of America. That is true. I was too. Did you know that? Uh yeah, Toledo is in the U S. Toledo is in the US for now. Um, And so we were kind of raised. Even though you were in the South, I was in the north, the Midwest. Our Christmas customs were fairly similar. Sure we're children in the seventies essentially, Yes, for sure. So um we were raised with macromay Christmas, oh man.

So um. If you go around the world, though, Christmas is celebrated all throughout the world among Christians, non Christian, secular humanists, everybody, not everybody. A lot of people celebrate Christmas. But since it's in different parts of the world, Um, there's different traditions. I bet even Anton LaVey has given and gotten a Christmas kick. Yeah. He was like, Chris didn't mean anything. All right, it's a studied leather color. I'll take it, right, He's like, you have to open

it upside down. That's right. It is celebrated all over the world. And here in segment one are a few uh customs around the world that I had never heard of, and most of them are pretty interesting. Most of them I thought, well, you know, actually they were all pretty good. I thought they were great. Yeah, agreed. All right, let's start out. Maybe let's get not in the way back machine but just our space travel pod and let's go to India. Isn't it nice? It is? It's balmy, it is,

but it's lovely that people are great. There's a lot of them. And the food is amazing. I doesn't agree with much stomach, but I'll still eat it. Really, you have trouble with Indian food, I lament that for you. Indian food is it's tied for first with Japanese food. I think, yeah, it's good stuff. So you'll notice, chuck that there are twenty five million Christians here celebrating um Christmas in Andya. I can tell significant amount of people.

And the thing is, they don't have any customary type of tree that you would decorate, so they use mango and orange trees. That's right, you know. So if you look around, you're gonna see decorated trees on the streets. You're gonna see if you go into a house, you're gonna even see the leaves of these trees used as decoration. Yeah. Yeah, it's like Garland basically. And buy orange. I meant banana, of course. Oh did you say orange. Yeah, that was

my customary holiday slip up. That's right. Uh. So India is great everyone. I love the decorations they're getting in the spirit, even though they don't have the because you know, and I'll remember we covered it Christmas tree start out in Germany. Oh yeah, the ten In bomb. Yeah, they're lousy with fir trees and leave in the Tenon Bomb. But h so we're gonna leave India for now and let's travel over in our space pod. Okay, one of your favorite places. Japan wonderful, but they have a very

unusual to me Christmas tradition. Oh, it's unusual across the board. Eating Kentucky fried chicken. Kentucky fried chicken is the traditional Christmas Eve dinner for Japan, and it has been since about nineteen seventy four. So apparently there are some American travelers who are stranded or visiting Japan. That's the stranded. They weren't stranded, it was they were visiting Japan and around Christmas, and they went to try to find a turkey dinner. They don't turkey in Japan. You gotta be

beyond rich to find turkey in Japan. Basically, so it just so happened. KFC had been there for a couple of years that had just broken through. Starting about nineteen seventy there was a big expo. Wasn't called KFC back then, it was Kentucky Fright Chicken, right right? Um, And they they these I guess, these travelers alerted KFC that they had decided to go with Kentucky Fried Chicken instead of a turkey dinner. And Colonel Sanders sounds say, it sounds

like a good idea. Yeah, was that your Norm McDonald or your Daryl Hammond? Was Norm McDonald? That's not bad.

Um if it was Daryl Hammond, terrible. But so Kentucky Fried Chicken decided to capitalize on this, and starting in nineteen seventy four, they created the Kentucky for Christmas campaign and basically established a tradition among Japanese people that you go line up on Christmas Eve Day and wait in line around the block for your turn to buy your pre ordered bucket of KFC, your cake, and your bottle of champagne. Yeah, and uh, I think of champagne now,

but back then it was wine. And then they got classy, that's right. And today, uh, more than two hundred forty buckets or barrels two what I say two? Yeah, you stopped at two fourth. Now that was just that the main location. Two d forty thousand barrels or buckets of chicken or sold, which is apparently five to ten times the normal monthly sales. And um, it's a big deal. And these Christmas cakes are a big deal there too. Yeah. And they dress Colonel Sanders up as Santa Claus out front,

and it's a huge deal. It's wonderful. It is Kentucky for Christmas, Kentucky for Christmas. All right, let's get back in the spacepod. Let's jet on up to Finland. But the people are nice, and the taxes are heavy. But the health care that's so bad. Yeah, they pay like half your money in taxes. But it's the best place in the world to live. And it's one of the few places on Earth where people live that you can just see a reindeer walking around. Yeah, exactly, how's that

for Christmas spirit? And also, Chuck, you have ever seen Rare Exports? No, you haven't seen Rare Exports Christmas horror movie. Oh man, go see. It's set in Finland. It's awesome. Really, it's actually a finished movie with subtitles, and it's it's a Christmas classic? Is it? What year two thousand and

twelve already a classic? Yes? So in Finland. Um, despite their pinchon for enjoying the holidays, they have a little darker side, you might say, to Christmas because they visit the graves of their ancestors and uh, and they put candles on the graves. It's very nice, I guess, not exactly dark if they like dug them up and put their heads off or something after their first Christmas underground. I'm not saying, yeah, it's not dark necessarily because it

is a tribute to their cease loved ones. But it is unusual to me on Christmas to visit the cemetery, That's what I'm saying. But but apparently cemeteries because when they visit, they light candles for their deceased loved ones, and even people who don't aren't near their deceased loved ones will still like light a candle. So like by the time midnight rolls around on Christmas Eve, it's also they're burning down all over the country, right exactly, apparently

quite a sight to behold, it is. And not only that, but at home, uh and this is kind of sweet. They don't they sleep on the floor to to leave their beds. You know how we leave cookies out for Santa. They leave their beds open for the ghostly spirits of their ancestors to sleep and to sleep. And tonight here

you take the bed, I'll take the floor. And apparently it's the same with saunas too, So most families have their own sauna in Finland sauna sauna and after sunset that becomes they leave that alone for their dead ancestors to enjoy as well. Yeah, but before sunset it's naked family party time in the sound, which is not gross or pready, it's just how it is in Finland. All right, what are you gonna saw it? And like a bathing suit,

that's weird. Well that's what I do. But I'm at the y m c A. I'd get arrested, you know, you would. Venezuela. Let's hop in our little space spot and travel a little bit of Caracas, Venezuela. So we're in Caracas, and on Christmas Eve, the children do a kind of an odd thing. They tie a piece of string to their big toe and then they run the string out of their window and hang it down the side of their home. So far, so weird, Yeah, which is a little strange. Then the following morning they go

to early morning Mass. They they don't grown ups too, and they close off the streets until eight am so people can roller skate to maths. And if they see any of these strings still hanging, they tug on the string, which supposedly our guess logically would talk on the big toe of the child and wakes the kid up for Christmas morning. Pretty neat a passing by roller skater tugs on the string to wake you up for Christmas morning. That's pretty cool tradition. And finally, yeah, we will travel

from Caracas, Venezuela over to Sweden. Really we should have ordered this differently. We could have really saved some space gas. Yeah, but sky miles, Oh yeah, you know, we are racking up totally. So we're in Sweden now, and this is my favorite one. I think in nine st tall goat of straw was erected in the town square of Gavel. Yeah, it's called the gavel Baching gavel Bachen. At the stroke of midnight that first year, Uh, some kid thought it would be funny if he burned it down. And now

it's a tradition, Yeah it is. And so it's not a tradition like wicker Man where the town gathers to set the man on fire or the goat on The town does not want the goat to be set on fire. Instead, Um, the town hires security guards. Apparently one year it was particularly cold and all the guards went in to get warm at once, and when they did, vandals struck burned it down. Um. They fireproof the stuff with a subs or the goat with the with the substance that they

used to fireproof airplanes. And people still manage to burn this down apparently between nineteen sixties, six and two thousand and eleven, according to our friends honk yat where we got this article. By the way, Um it's been burned down twenty five times, that's what about or so not a bad rate. Not a bad burn rate if you're a vandal if you're a town elder, that's terrible rate. So uh, that's segment one and thanks to who our friends at honky Cat hon Kiyot hon Kiyot for that

not honky Cat. Okay, that's Elton John's subsite. So Chuck does a nice little interlude. Um, have you ever been in New York? I knew you've been in New York. No at Christmas? Do you remember the time we were the guests of Like Discovery for a Christmas party? Yes, at the Campbell apartment at Grand Central Station. One of the great, uh corporate parties I've ever been to. There was a pit bull there, Parole who owned the pit bull. We drank martinis, Yes, we did lots of them. Are

I did? I don't know what would you have whiskey Martini? I think I have martiniz And it was good. We were hot shots back then. We were we were up and coming. Um so at this at the during that that stay, I walked around and visited like shop windows, sacks. Yeah, I think I hit Barnes and I at the time, I'm like, I'm so clever, what a cool thing to do.

What I didn't realize is I was engaging in like about a hundred and fifty year old tradition of traveling to New York to see these storefront windows, the Christmas window displays. It's actually really old ritual, that's right. And this story is called not really old but kind of old. The story is called The History of Department Store Holiday Window Displays by Victoria Lewis, and I am not ashamed to admit that I had never considered the term department

store and what that meant until I read this. I was like, wait a minute, what is the their's departments is in? Yeah, the boys department, the ladies department, the sports department. I had just never dawned on me what that means. Just took it as like, that's what it is. I don't know, you know how it's one of those understand you know, we're in an old department store right now. Yeah,

here's Yeah, absolutely had terrible window displaces. It did. So here's the fascinating history of department store window displays, which I really enjoyed this article. Yeah, what was it from? Well, initially it goes back to the Industrial Revolution, the late eighteen hundreds, um. And like anything, it's usually some weird innovation that leads to something else. In this case, it

was the innovation was glass windows. Yeah. Up to that point, up to the Industrial Revolution, um shopkeepers just kept their wares behind piewood and no one could see it, you know. So once they figured out play glass windows, they were like, this is much better. And so the passers by on the street thought it was much better as well. Yeah, because that's literally where the turn window shopping comes from.

And they said, we can have these great window displays where people on the street, uh could walk by and and fantasize if they don't have money about buying the stuff. Thiks to our enormous sea through class um the best kind of glass, And apparently it was Mr Macy. Mr Macy had a great name, Roland Hussey Macy, who did not live up to his name, was quite approved frankly and Roland Hussey Macy. UM opened Macy's tried four times.

So I opened, yeah, and tried and failed, I should say the the fifth time, I think on sixth Avenue between thirteenth and fourteenth Street in eighteen fifty eight, Roland Macy opened his store with opening day sales totaling eleven dollars and six cents, which you're like, oh, well it's eighteen fifty eight. Sure, that's a three million dollars today bucks.

Not good for a department store. So back in the day, these stores were what are called dry goods stores, where you can find everything that wasn't wet, um, you know, chaps alasso, uh, stuff that wasn't wet, like that, wheat flour, wheat flower, all this stuff. And and these were the the progenitors of dry of department stores. And a lot of them grew out of dry goods stores into department stores. And over time, um, they got savvier and savvier. And again R. H. Macy was one of the first to

get super duper savvy. And he was apparently the first to put up these elaborate displays around Christmas time. Not only that, my friend, he was the first in eighteen sixty two to feature an in store Santa that children and could come in annoy yes, and if you want to know more about the life of an in store saying that you should listen to last year's because they went into that in depth. Absolutely so in eighteen seventy four he says, I'm gonna step it up a notch.

We got this plate class. So I'm going to create a window display porcelain dolls from around the world and uh, sort of weirdly scenes from Harriet Beecher Stowe's great book Uncle Tom's Cabin. It's all the rage. Yeah, it just seemed an odd choice for the holidays. All the rage, but I'm not gonna second guess it because it worked. It would be like making a Star Wars special holiday special at the time, you know what I mean. Yeah, I think all the rage. So it really caught on

By the early nineteen hundreds. Um, all the big retailers were doing it in New York, Chicago, all the bit major cities, and um, window shopping was a legitimate, legitimate thing at this point. Yeah, thanks to things like, um, again, the plate glass window people actually putting up displays worth seeing, and then later on electrical lighting so that you see these things long after the store had closed, and that attracted people to the displays just for the displays stake themselves.

It made him a destination, so that a hundred and fifty years later, yokels like you and me could be walking around New York saying, I'm gonna go check out the sex fifth Avenue window. It looks like real snow. Ye Lord and Taylor with the first to um, actually not even worry about showing merchandise in the window and just say, you know what, this is something cool looking that will attract people to our window. Well what the cool looking thing? They did too? At the time it

must have been mind blowing. You have to put yourself in their shoes. But it was automated bells that moved in time to a recording of the sound of bells playing, which sounds about as primitive as a monkey turning a crank. But it actually, I mean that must have been pretty

mind blowing at the time. We're talking ninety eight, and even before that, I think it was um, I think it Nieman Marcus in Dallas used free on in air conditioned copper tubings to basically create frosted trees in their window display that that's what they call for people who read books on airplanes. A game changer and not to be outdone in nineteen In the nineteen fifties, Washington d c s Woodward and Lowthrope, which I've not heard of, have you, no? Never? But it totally sounds like either

a law firm or a department. Uh, and they put live penguins in the display. This is clearly before animal rights activists had to say in things They're like, how can we make our window display cruel? And over the years many famous artists have even been involved, including Andy Warhol, Uh, Murray Sindac, Salvador Dali, and Jasper John's. Imagine it pays pretty good if you hire one of those artists, or maybe they were up and coming at the time they

were up and coming. Actually, I think they also hire famous people to come in. Oh, they definitely do sometimes for sure. Yeah, you're right. Um. So apparently today it's spread around. It's not just New York, and it's in London too. It started in London in nine thanks to an American the guy who started or who worked at

marshall Fields and then came and started self Ridges. Right. Um. But today, if you ask Lord and Taylor, about two hundred and fifty thousand people past their holiday window display every day. That's crazy, and between Thanksgiving and Christmas they'll attract eight million shoppers to their store. New York is great, and it's awesome during the holiday season because you can go broke, but you can also not spend a dime and just walk around and look at all the cool junk. Yes,

New York. I love you and you're giving me chills. All right, Uh, moving on to the next segment. All right, Josh, Now we're moving on to uh something. Believe it or not. I have never even tasted in my life, really never tasted fruitcake. I would be even more incredulous if I hadn't either, right, have you? That's what I'm saying. I haven't. Okay, I was trying to make sense of all that. Sorry, So neither on Jerry, You ever had fruit cake? Wow? Jerry says, No, Nol's like in the window with a

fruitcake in his mouth. I got a fruit cake in my pocket. Alright. So fruitcake is uh. It's famous for one thing, which is yeah, which is being a maligned, uh food product that is generally made fun of as like a brick or a concrete block or a doorstop. So much so that there's a town called Manitoo Springs, Colorado that in the at the beginning of January holds the Great Fruitcake Toss every year, and you throw a fruitcake as far as you can. It's kind of like

punkin chunking. But with fruitcakes, basically you know they should have though is on the landing side, they should have plate glass. Just see how much the fruitcake like maybe layers of plate glass and see how many layers it can smash. Yeah, like that one ice breaking scene and karate Kid too. So, um, the fruitcake. It's not much loved. Not a lot of people like it. The people who do like it are just trying to be ironic, by the way, or elderly and being genuine Maybe yeah, I

can't tell elderly people. It's tough to pin down whether they're really secretly being ironic. And it's just a big it's a big performance piece. But um, it's it's it is in and of it'sself ironic that fruitcake would be so maligned because it started out as a distinct luxury item for sure, because the stuff you find a fruit cake today then you're like, oh, what is this terrible stuff? Is actually an assemblage of If you go a thousand years back in history, you will find like these are

the most sought after items on the planet. Spices, nuts, um, fruit cake, ginger, all this stuff coming together to create some very rich delicacies. Wow. Thank you. Uh. It did not begin as a cake though supposedly in ancient Rome they use pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins and then they fold it in in some barley mash. This is before ovens. They didn't really bake it into a cake at this point. Was it before ovens though? I took issue with that? Oh yeah, yeah, I think they had.

They had bread back then. People have been making bread, remember to like use as a starter for beer, sure for thousands of years by then. Alright, so official issue taken ovens. Alright, we'll look that up. Uh. And then they started adding other spices. Is in the Middle East, um, honey. Ginger was a big deal in the Middle East before it spread to Europe. One of my favorite things in the world. Ginger, fresh ginger. Oh yeah, sure, love it. Get your hands on some good fresh ginger. You're like,

this is good? Shots of it? Oh yeah, hot stuff, health, yeah, health and wellness. Do you drink it hot or cool? And it's like hot spicy? Yeah? I mean, have you ever done a gender shot. It's super hot. Yeah, it'll burn your throat. So fair warning to all your juicers out there. But if you're a juicer your way on the ginger tip. There's nothing new to you. This is the hippest Christmas special we've ever recorded anyway. I love ginger and they loved it in the Middle East and

eventually spread to Europe in the fifteenth century. Then they added, uh, some butter, some sugar, and they said, we have a lumpy, dense cake on our hands. We definitely have ovens, so we're going to bake them, bake it. Yeah. And now there's apparently a couple of bakeries in the United States. One here right here in Blaxton, Georgia. You knew that, right, I didn't know that. Oh yeah, Claxton fruitcakes are huge, one of the big two, right yeah. The other one

is in Corsicana, Texas. Um, that's Colin Street Bakery. And if you have a fruitcake look at the label. I guarantee you it's one of those two. I'm gonna start giving them for gifts ironically or sincerely both nice because it's all in how you take it. Sure it is. Someone might say that's pretty funny, Chuck, and someone might say this delicious, my friend, Yeah, and then you go you are on my nice list. That's right, moving on, what is another Christmas food? This one was kind of

surprising to me. So sugar plums have nothing to do with plums, it turns out. And there's a lot of confusion, I guess, and the fact that it uses the word plums, so you would think, well, a sugar plum is a sweet plump, and food historians say there may actually have been some sort of fruit producing shrub that produced something that you would call a sugar plum, a plum like fruit that was very sweet. We don't have any evidence of it. It's all conjecture apparently. But sugar plums themselves

were candies. They were sugar balls surrounded with nuts or spices or seeds or some combination of that, and they had nothing to do with plums. Plums never made an appearance in the actual sugar plum. Yeah. And apparently a lot of dried fruit is called plum, which I didn't know, and that's where the confusion comes from. Yeah, And plum

pudding in England apparently doesn't even have plums in it. No, it can have like raisins, curans, all that kind of stuff, doesn't have any plums whatsoever, plum like, it's just from I think about the seventeenth century on, plum became a widely used term to describe certain kinds of candies, certain kinds of sweet desserts that dance in your head, and bribes.

I read, yes. So if somebody gives you a bribe, you're like, that's quite a plum, right, I can put it in my fruitcake, right, Or that's a plumb job. It's something like super sweet, something great like you, or a bribe. I'm asking for a bribe right now. I wasn't picking up on that. I'll slide this five dollar bill. Thank you across the tables. Gingerbread. It's one of my favorite things. Are you like gingerbread? Love it? I meant

to tell you this. In the one of the Fairy Tales episodes, Hansel and Gretel is based partly in fact, there's a woman named Katerina Schrederin who in sixteen eighteen, she was a renowned gingerbread baker. She was so good that a local rival tried to marry her to get her to quit baking and undermining him. She refuses advances, he accused her of witchcraft. The town came and burned her alive. Holy cow. That's true. Yes, it is true. And they think that she became the basis of the

witch in the Hansel and Gretel story. Yeah, how about that. But she was really good at creating gingerbread, and she was in Germany, which is the whole point of what I was just saying. That's right because it started in Germany, like so many Christmas things, Uh, sweet spicy cookies, cakes, breads, ginger flavored, which you know is one of my favorite things. Like you said, I don't pick up on it a

ton in gingerbread, not as much. You know, the molasses definitely dominates, absolutely, But try eating gingerbread without any kind of ginger in it. You'll spit it out, really spit it out on the ground. Uh. It involved into the Christmas treat we know and love because Um early on it started to be um known to be something you would serve at a special event, and I guess that dwindled down to the holidays and then some people got smart and started cutting it out to fund shapes. Yeah.

Pretty early on, the medieval bakers, including probably miss Katerina the Witch, um would cut him into like if you were having a coronation, you could probably in Germany you could find gingerbread cookies in the shape of a king. Yeah, you know that kind of thing, right, And that evolved into Christmas e things, and it became associated with the holidays ginger bread. Thankfully, I really want some gingerbread right now.

And then lastly, Chuck, have you ever did you get oranges as a kid and you're stocking we wouldn't you beat your hand in and be like, oh, this is great, I like this candies And then your hand would hit that familiar, cold, wrinkled skin and you draw it out and hold it up accusingly to everyone and be like, who did this? And your parents would be like, Santa, Santa, it was Santa, and you just glare at them that kind of thing, and I'd say, I think I saw

these in the kitchen yesterday. Right. It turns out that oranges are actually a long standing tradition and they used to be an amazing thing to get in your stocking, because until the eighteen eighties, if you lived outside of Florida or California, you were s o l as far as oranges went. Yeah, so it was a special treat um, which I guess caught on. I don't buy this other theory at all. Um. Apparently they said it may reference in a Christmas tale when St. Nicholas left bags of

gold in stockings. Uh, and in place of bags of gold, they put an orange. And you think, Yeah, I don't buy that. Everybody wants to suck on a lemon on Christmas morning. Yeah, I'm not so sure about that. I might be wrong. I could see it, but either way, it became a special Christmas treat that um somehow endors to this day. Josh, if you know me, then you know I love the movie Elf. I suspect that that's why you selected this. Do you like it? Yeah, it's good.

It's not my favorite. It's a good new classic. Yeah, agreed, it's no Christmas story, but it's good. It'll hold up over the decades. I guess. This is a great article that I found called ten things you Didn't know about Elf, and Uh, we're gonna go over those right now because one of my favorite things Wild Ferrell, uh in the classic movie about an Elf that is really a human that realizes he's a human and ghost in New York City to find his real papa James Cohn. But he's

not insane. He actually is an Elf insane his workshop, which he has to leave to go find himself. But he's not really enough because he's super tall and goofy and everyone that's the joke, right, and everyone else's Elf size. So, uh, if you haven't seen Elf, pause this episode, go watch Elf and then come back and tell me what the sunlight looks like outside your home because he's been living under a rock. So initially, apparently, Chuck, the script for

Elf is pretty old. I think it was originally made in the like two two seven somewhere around there, Okay, and um, it was actually written in and back. Will Farrell was basically in diapers, even though he was a grown man by this time. But the script was initially written for Jim Carrey or with Jim Carrey mind, and it was offered to him and he turned it down. Yeah. Uh, no good, I say, with Jim Carey being I can't

see anybody but Will Ferrell doing it. Yeah, I mean, I think it's one of those things where anytime someone is ultimately cast, he can't picture anyone else, like except for Tom Selleck, you could still probably picture as Indiana Jones, sure, yeah, or Christopher Columbus Huh he played Columbus, did he? Or did he played King Ferdinand in the uh, the movie

adaptation of your favorite book? No, it was okay, So Jim Carrey out Will Ferrell and uh classic now because of that great move sentence fragments Ralphie in a Christmas story, Um, Peter Billingsley appears as an elf. He's buddies with Favrow has produced a lot of his movies, and there he is a little Ralphie all grown up. Makes a cameo, so does Ray Harry House and he makes a voice cameo and he if his name sound familiar, he was the guy who basically pioneered stop motion animation and film

and motion pictures. So like, if you love Clash of the Titans, you loved Ray Harry Housing's work, that's right. And Jon Favreau very smartly said, you know what, there's a lot of people out there who love those ranking bass Christmas specials, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and others. And he said, let's have that same look so we can echo that beloved style. Uh. And it really paid off. I think it's one of the reasons it's such a classic today. Yeah, so he instead of doing it c

g I, which you totally could have. You can make it look stop motioning using computers, and he's like, no, I want to shoot it that way. And just as an additional nod, he grabbed Ray Harry Housing and said, why don't you do one of the stop motion Polar Bear cubs and he voiced it, which is pretty cool, very cool. And an additional nod was the costumes that the elves were were the exact costume replicas from the original Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer stop motion film. Yeah,

so I a nice little nod to the past. So if you find yourself just like overwhelmed with nostalgia and weeping when you watch ELF, these are probably the reasons. Why what else? Oh the famous scene one of my favorites with the Jack in the Box when Will Ferrell is testing the Jack in the Box. I had to

go look it up and watch it. It's pretty great And those were genuine reactions apparently, Yeah, he wanted Will Ferrell to not know, so he had even though I think he had the last one rigged to not even be attached to the Jack in the box. He had the control off screen and he wanted it to seem

like it wasn't gonna open at all. So yeah, in the movie, Will Ferrell's elf what's his name, Buddy, Buddy is he's he's been relegated to having to test Jack in the Boxes for um, the little clown and comers at Jackson the Box, Jacks in the Box, Yes, you're right, Jacks in the Boxes, Um, and he's he's he's the tester, the quality control guy. And while when they were filming it, yeah, John of Rowe had of remote control, so he had no idea when they were actually going to pop out.

And you can tell when you watch it, like his reactions are delightful, Yeah, they really are. Uh. The huge burp that he has after drinking the two Leader of Coke was done by Um, a voice from a very popular voice actor named Maurice La March who voiced everything from Egon on The Real Ghostbusters to Brain on Animaniacs and apparently was really good at burping. He's a belching champions, a belching champ like Booger from Better Off Dead? And uh, was it Better Off Dead or Revenge of the Nerds

that he burp did? Well, it was Revenge of the nerds, but he was he was better and better off. Dend agreed this entire mountains All right, let's go with one more here. Um. Will Ferrell actually worked as a department store Santa at the point years not not to train for it. Wasn't a method actor like this was years before when he was with the Groundlings in Los Angeles, US. That's like second City kind of sure or ucb um. And he and a fellow Groundling named Chris Ktan actually

got the same gig. Will Farrell was Santa and Chris Catan played an Elf, and they both ended up on SARTA Night Live together. Can you imagine being in Los Angeles and Will Farrell is your Santa and Chris Catan is an Elf and you have no idea, right yeah? Or watching sorta Night Live five years later and being like,

wait right a minute's wait a second. And Farrell was even offered a boatload of money to do a sequel to Elf, like almost thirty million dollars yeah, and he said no, which I think is great, a great move because then you have the untainted classic. Uh and like the Christmas Story Part two, you never have to suffer through something like that or Anchorman two. Oh you know, although a dude who is in our TV show was

in that his speaking part Matt. I don't remember his last name, but he played the paramedic in the episode where you get stung by It. Yeah, I know Matt. He's in. He's in Anchorman too, and he has like a little speaking role. Oh no, because they shot there here in Atlanta. Yeah, it's great. He does good. I haven't seen Anchor Man too. I avoided it because I didn't want to taint the original. I heard it was so bad. I take issue with that. I don't think

a sequel contained the original. The original stands on its own, you know what I mean. M I disagree with it, Okay, and I could be wrong. Well, now what's your opinion? Thank you? So you can't be wrong that Chuck? Pretty Christmas, wasn't It's the Christmas here? You want to end this thing, Yeah,

let's do it with our traditional reading. Yes, So, everybody, if you didn't have the law going yet, or you didn't have a family gather around, if you didn't take Chuck's advice at the beginning, you probably should now because it unto you. Yes, whoa whoa, Everybody it's time for our Christmas reading, and we read all sorts of stuff. We found the most obscure Christmas story of all time, written by the guy who wrote Wizard of Oz. For

last year. Um, we've done twice. The night before Christmas, we did some story about naked elves a few years back. You remember that we do a Gift of the Magi may Yeah, we read the entire Gift of the Magis the night before Christmas. Yeah, so this time we're finally we cannot put it off any longer. We are going going to read a selection from the movie Boogie Nights, all right, where the word Christmas is used but out

of context. That's good, chuckings. We're going to read a very classic letter, a real life letter that was written to the New York Sun on September by a little girl named Virginia O'Hanlon. And this really happened. Yeah, how about this? I'll read the little girls and then you can read the response. Oh wow, really yeah? Are you sure we have to take our roles here? Okay? All right, New York Sun, September eighteen seven. People, Dear editor, I

am eight years old. Some of my little friends say, there is no, Santa Claus, Papa says, if you see it in the sun, it's so. What he means is the Sun newspaper. Not look directly into the sun because you'll go blind. Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus, signed Virginia O'Hanlon of Well should we read her address? I think she's long gone one fifteen West Street. Man, if you live at one set today, you should know that that's a very legendary abode. Yeah,

all right. Now here was the reply, which was pretty great. This is from the editors of the New York Sun, who wrote, we take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that it's faithful author is numbered among the friends of the Sun. This was their apply, Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see.

They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours. Man is a mere insect, and aunt in his intellect is compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth

and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give your life its greatest beauty and joy. Alas how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Clause. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginia's. There would be no childlike faith, then no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment except in sense and sight, the external light with which

child old hood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in Santa Claus, you might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your Papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus. But even if you did not see Santa coming down, what would that proof. Nobody sees Santa Claus. But that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that

neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn, of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world. You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside. But there is a veil covering the unseen world, which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men

that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real, Virginia, In all this world, there's nothing else real and abiding. No, Santa Claus, Thank God, he lives and lives forever a thousand years from now, Virginia, nay ten times ten thousand years from now. He will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. How about that? Pretty great response? Yeah,

slightly scathing at times. Yeah take that, you little nonbelieving kids. All in the good name of the Christmas Spirit. Yep So, in the good name of the Christmas Spirit, from us Chuck and Josh and Jerry and No and Noel and h little sack from Casey to uh, Emily and Umi and Anna Sure nice uh Ruby Rose and yeah we have family. Wow, I know it's been a great two thousand fifteens. Pretty sweet. Who else? Anybody? I think that's everybody.

That's the whole stuff. You should know family, my mistress Natasha, all right, forget you. We want to wish you guys a happy holiday season. Merry Christmas. Yeah, be safe out there and enjoy each other. And hey, we'll see you again in well, we'll see them before them. Merry Christmas, everybody. For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com