Heavyweight - Heavyweight Short: Yasser

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

When Yasser was a boy, he saw a cartoon that changed his life. He’s been searching for it ever since. The only problem is… it’s vanished. Credits This episode was hosted and produced by supervising producer Stevie Lane, along with Jonathan Goldstein, Mohini Madgavkar, and Phoebe Flanigan. The senior producer is Kalila Holt. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Pia Gadkari, Bobby Lord, Dr. Mohamed Ghazala, and Tom Scharpling over at The Best Show. The show was mixed by Bobby Lord.  Music by Christine Fellows, John K Samson, Blue Dot Sessions, Podington Bear, and Bobby Lord. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records. Heavyweight is a Spotify Original Podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stevie Lane. Hello. So now you have a story. I do. To tell, to share with the nation. Yes. Does your grandmother, what's your grandmother's name again? Ruth.

Ruth. Close. Has she listened to your stories in the past? She has. Has she listened to my stories? No. Not as much? Not at all.

Should we call her up on the telephone and tell her that you have a story? Who's this? Hi, Grandma. It's Stevie. Oh, I just said New York. I almost wasn't going to take it. Okay, fine, honey. How you doing? I was just calling because I wanted to tell you that I'm hosting today's episode of Heavyweight. Oh, and of course, you know what? I'll hear you better because I just came back from the audiologist. She fixed my hearing aid so I can hear a little better. And now everybody who listens

to you knows that I wear hearing aids. Oh, grandma, I think that most 95-year-olds have hearing aids. And right now you've told everyone how old I am. I was going to say I'm only 89, but okay, I've got to say 95. I'm sorry. No, I was only teasing you. And I don't care. They don't know me, but they don't know I don't look my age. You'd have to tell them that.

Oh, yeah, so for everyone listening, she does not look her age. Good. I'm Stevie Lane, and this is Heavyweight. Today's Heavyweight Short. Yeah, sir. I'm ready to hear it. or... Yeah, sir. I'm ready to hear it.

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Hello? Hi, is this Yasser? Yes, this is he. Yasser is 28. He lives in Saudi Arabia. and he's a dentist. I love going to the dentist, actually. Oh, nice. And do you floss? Every day. And I have a water floss. Wow. A++ student. I could talk about my oral hygiene all day. Cavities, zero. Gum recession, oral hygiene all day. Cavities? Zero. Gum recession? If anything, my gums are advancing.

But we're not here to talk about my superior dental health. We're here to talk about Yasser and a cartoon he first encountered when he was a kid. Yasser hasn't seen it in 20 years because it's completely vanished. Yasser grew up in a small Saudi town. He loved cartoons. This was back before streaming, so his mom would go to the video store to buy VHS tapes for him. And one day, when Yasser was about eight years old, she came home with a cartoon that changed his life. The show is called Little Elephanto. It's about a family of elephants

living in suburbia. The elephant family was called the Bumils. The father works in a company and he's always worried about his bonus. Oh, when is my boss going to give me my bonus? The show was dubbed in Arabic. Yasser always assumed it was originally American. You know, the fact that they're living in suburbia, that's very American. The father's financial woes, also American. Brown nosing with the boss and trying to make him like him, that seems to me very American as well. I take offense at Yasser's assumption that all Americans are career-obsessed sycophants, but I just laugh politely. After all, I have an interview to finish, and I want to make my

talented and intelligent boss Jonathan Stewart Goldsteinoud. Maybe this year I'll finally get that bonus? The show quickly became a classic in Yasser's home. He and his brother would watch it every morning before school with a breakfast sandwich and a big cup of Nescafe. The star of the show was the baby elephant, Philo. He was very young and still in diapers and has a teddy bear named Hong. Philo and Hong would go on imaginary adventures together. Philo was so magical to me. Hmm. Whenever we would go on camping trips or

desert outings, every time we'd go, I would try to discover something. A secret door, a treasure like Philo. Yasser loved the show because, like Philo, he was a kid with a big imagination.

The kind of kid who would pretend that inanimate objects were alive. He tells me about one time when he was driving down a bumpy road with a friend. I was kind of imagining the car kind of going, what are you doing to me? Calm down. Slow. But in Yasser's small town, he didn't feel like there was a lot of support for kids like him, kids who loved drawing and making up stories. And I longed for a place to bring my creativity to light. Pursuing a creative field didn't feel like an option for Yasser. And when he got older, he chose a career that was practical and prestigious, dentistry. Now, a decade later, Yasser admits that he doesn't love it.

He's always been this really imaginative person, but in his daily routine, he's not that excited by what he does. He spends his days looking at rows of teeth and checking gums. There's no sense of wonder like there was when he was a kid, living in his imaginary world. He's nostalgic for that feeling, and sees the cartoon as a sort of portal. He knows that watching Philo would bring him right back to his childhood. The only problem is, Philo is gone.

I tried to find it everywhere. No one ever recognizes it. No one knows this show aside from our family. It's so insane. It almost feels like a dream we had as a family. It's as though Little Filo has been wiped from existence. Yasser has pored over media archives, has tried Googling elephant cartoon in every language he can think of. Once, he even heard an actor's voice on TV

and recognized him as one of the characters from the show. So I looked up the guy on Facebook, and then I find him. I tell him about this show. He does not recognize it. In a last-ditch effort, Yasser made a drawing of the characters from memory, the dad in his bow tie and vest, the mom in her green ruffled house dress. He bought ad space on Instagram and posted the drawing to see if anyone could identify it. Nothing. I keep thinking there must be like some like cartoon lunatic guy living in a basement that would instantly pick it up. But I just don't know any lunatic basement cartoon guys.

So you want to break it down with the maestro? Is that what this is about? From Gimlet Media, he's Jonathan Goldstein, host of most heavyweight episodes. I tell him about my conversation with Yasser and his beloved TV show about a family of elephants. Can I stop you and ask a question? Please.

This family of elephants, is one of them wearing a crown? I know what you're thinking. You're thinking Babar. I'm thinking Babar. I think it's Babar. What's, who's Babar? Babar is the elephant with a crown. Bayaser sent me the drawing he made and it looks nothing like Babar or Babar. Oh, now you're calling him Babar, huh? I'm just trying to be, I'm just trying to be agreeable, you know? Can you hear this? You ready?

Babar. Uh-oh, I think you're right. I mean... You were right. I knew I was right. I just didn't have to... Let's see. One more, one more.

Hang on. Here it comes. Babar. Oh, did you hear that? Babar. Okay, so you're going to take what sounds like a barely literate child and use that over... Well, who would know better? Who would know better than a child?

Bad bar. Okay, so let's just say we're both right. While Jonathan says he isn't the basement dweller I seek, he does know just the guy. He has a very quick mind, very quick on his toes, fleet of foot and fleet of mouth.

It's like everything that he says sounds like it could be scored to fly to the bumblebee. Does that make sense? Not really. You'll see what I'm talking about. Hi, Stevie. How are you? This is Howard. And Jonathan was right. Talking to Howard feels like clinging to an electric fence. Like, here's what he says when I send him Yasser's drawing. They actually look like elephant seals.

Holy shit. No, no, if they were elephant seals, they would have flippers. They're definitely the most evil animals on the planet, I think. Male elephant seals. They smother their babies to death. What? Dolphins are also not the nicest. I love dolphins so much, but they're really mean.

They're mean to sharks. Howard is a cartoonist himself and has an extensive knowledge of all things animation. I tell him all about the Bumil family and some of the other characters, like the janitor elephant with a cigarette butt hanging out of her mouth. That changes a lot. It's most likely not an American or Canadian kid series

because they would never put a cigarette in the mouth, especially if it was like late 90s, early 2000s. Oh, that's a good point. I'm going to find this. Filo Elefanto, Little Elephant. I'm obsessed with this now. I expect to hang up and get a call from Howard in a few days with the answer. Instead, he launches into his investigation right then and there.

With a dizzying speed, he turns to Wikipedia. there. With a dizzying speed, he turns to Wikipedia. While I'm searching, we can have all kinds of discussions about other things. Spaghetti. Here, feel you. Are you talking about Tarzan? You're not talking about Tarzan. No, no, sorry. Yo, Nakima. Ho, Tontor. Tontor's elephant in Tarzan's Animated Adventures. Remember that Tontor elephant?

Um. Magic Adventures of Mumphy. Remember? No, so none of these sound right. My big, my big, big friend. Nelly the Elephant. Augie and the Cockroaches. Pick me.

Pocoyo. What's this Pocoyo? You know, one's called Nelfy. Nelly. No, sorry. Nelly the Elephant. Where did I say Mumphy? Didoyo, what's this Pocoyo? That one's called Nelfie. Nelly, no, sorry, Nelly the, where did I say Mumfie? Did I say Mumfie? Oh, oh, oh, I found it! I found it! What? Are you serious? Hold on a second. He's holding a teddy bear.

This has got to be him. It's all in Arabic. It's a little baby elephant, and he's holding a teddy bear. A teddy bear? My heart soars. And the teddy bear's like a panda. And sinks. In Yasser's drawing, the teddy bear's like a panda. After Howard's failure, I lose faith in guys in basements everywhere. I need a professional, one who dwells above ground.

So I call Ramin Zahid, editor-in-chief of Animation Magazine, and send him Yasser's drawing. He'll post it to the magazine's Facebook page, which has hundreds of thousands of followers. A few days later, I get an email. Stevie! We found it! At the bottom of the email, there's a YouTube link to an animated show about a family of elephants. Many of the details match up with what Yasser had told me about Filo, right down to the little kid elephant with a teddy bear. And it's in Arabic. I don't speak Arabic, but I feel like I can hear them saying Filo.

Surely this must be it. I am like 90% sure this is not it. This naysayer is my producer, Mona. She speaks Arabic, so I asked her to take a look at the clip, and she says there are a number of differences between this show and what Yasser described. For one, the baby elephant isn't named Filo. That's just a way of saying elephant in Arabic. And like, this show is extremely boring, I would say. That's, like,

my strongest reason that I don't think this is it. Yasser described a magical show where Filo went on fantastical adventures. The episode of this show that Mona watched was about watering

a neighbor's plants. Hat in hand, I return to the maestro to see if he has any ideas. Is it not possible or even likely that he and his family have conflated a couple different cartoons into one? Is it? I look at Yasser's drawing again, and this time I notice that the elephants don't even really look like elephants. Their trunks are scrunched and wrinkled, much more like snouts.

They look a bit like Elf, drawn in the style of Maurice Sendak. And over the next few months, my luck in finding Filo doesn't improve. I reach out to the Museum of the Moving Image, the UCLA Film Archive, the Paley Media Center. I speak to a professor of animation at a Saudi Arabian university. I do a reverse image search on Yasser's drawing. University. I do a reverse image search on Yasser's drawing. I even wait on hold for three hours on a live Colin radio show

whose prompt that week, as luck would have it, is for movies and TV shows that people can't quite remember the names of. But everyone just says the same thing. The only elephant family I can think of is Babar the elephant. You know Babar? Babar was very famous. Maybe

I'm just confusing it with Babar. People are saying Babar the elephant. No, Babar. Babar was very famous. Maybe I'm just confusing it with Babar. People are saying Babar. Bah-mail, Babar, it's pretty close. Somebody said Babar. There was something with elephant. Are you thinking of Babar? Yes, yes, yes, I'm thinking of Babar. Okay, it's not Babar.

I'm thinking of Babar. Okay, it's not Babar. And I got to tell you, like, yeah, sir, at this point, I'm like starting to doubt your memory a little bit. I'm starting to doubt my own memory. Are you? Sometimes, yeah.

I'm like, did I actually imagine this show or is it a real thing that existed at one point? An answer to that question after the break. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning,

in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hi, Yasser.

Hello. Can I play you something? Okay. Okay. Ha-ha! Oh, my God. No way. That's the intro.

You recognize it? Oh, my God, that's it? Oh, that's it. You found it. We found it. And here's how we found it. As a last resort, I posted Yasser's drawing from the Heavyweight Twitter account and asked for help. A man named Simon in Germany responded. I found your show, he said.

I wasn't hopeful. How many times had I already heard those very same words? From Howard, from Amin, from anyone and everyone who's ever seen Babar. But Simon sent a YouTube link to a German cartoon called Otto's Ottifanten, and the characters looked exactly like the ones in Yasser's drawing. And as it turns out, Simon didn't even have to be one of those lunatic basement cartoon guys, because in Germany, the Ottifants are famous. They're on lunchboxes and in video games. There's a whole museum dedicated to them.

Simon told me anyone on the street would have recognized Yasser's drawing. Then, in my own Wikipedia frenzy, I learned that the characters were created by a famous German comedian named Otto Wadkas. He's sort of like a German Robin Williams. If you're ever moved to watch the movie Ice Age in German, he's the voice of Sid the Sloth. Hello, this is Otto. So I called Otto at his home in Fort Lauderdale to find out more about the Audifonts. And it was easy to imagine how he made a famous cartoon character, because he's basically a cartoon character himself.

I have a studio up in the first floor here with a little diving board. From there, I can jump in my pool. No. Are you serious? Yes, I love it. If talking to Howard was like clinging to an electric fence, talking to Otto was like trying to catch a super bouncy ball in a room full of trampolines.

Like, when I tried to ask him about Yasser's favorite episode, and then, without warning, he suddenly became the Grinch before whipping out a guitar? I wonder, like, um... Born under a wandering star. Shut up! I wonder if you... You know, it's funny, like, when you say... Out with the dog. When you said that.

Only you... Shut up! Only you... Shut up! Shut up! Um... When I finally was able to squeeze in a question about the Oti fans, Otto told me he's been drawing them ever since he was a child.

It all started one day in school, when Otto was doodling at his desk. He tried to draw a self-portrait. It wasn't total failure. So I changed the eyes a little bit, extended the nose a little bit, and the legs, and made it a little elephant. I call it Otyfant. Otyfant. A mash bit, and made a little elephant. They call it Ottifant. Ottifant. A mash-up word of Otto and elephant. Otto based the Bumil family on his own. The character Filo, who in Germany is named Baby Bruno, was meant to be Otto himself. I had my little teddy bear, you know.

I call him Hong because it was made in Hong Kong. That's why I call him Hong. Growing up in post-war Germany, Otto's family didn't have a lot of money for paint and paper, so he'd make drawings on the backs of wallpaper scraps. I showed Otto the drawing Yasser made of his audifense, and Otto was delighted. He asked me to record a message. Yasser, when you're here in America, in Fort Lauderdale, you've got to visit me. I have a diving board. We can talk about baby Bruno, and we can draw. And I saw your drawing,

and they're really excellent. I'm looking forward to meeting you. Hold on a minute. I can yodel. I can bark. I'll do anything for you. Okay? Oh, my God. Wow. Back on the phone with Yasser, we debrief about the creator of his favorite TV show. He and Otto were similar kids, always drawing, always imagining.

They both identified with Philo. And yet, Otto's life went one way, towards a career in the arts, while Yasser's went another. That's the thing Yasser is particularly fixated on, how Otto stayed true to his childhood passion, followed his dream of being an artist. It's awe-inspiring. I wonder when he made that decision and how did it affect his life? Like, did he have to break up with someone?

Did he have, like, trouble in his household? Was it a good decision or did he regret it? It feels like these are questions Yasser is asking himself rather than Otto. Maybe questions he's been asking himself for a long time. Questions he's still asking. I think that no matter how old you get, no matter what position in life you're in, there's always the question of who am I and what purpose do I fulfill?

I just always kind of like never really feel sure of what I'm doing. And in my work, sometimes I'm like, what do I want out of this? What's purpose? I think that we're always in search of our truest self. And it turns out there's a reason yasser is reflecting so much on his life because yasser tells me he and his wife just found out that they're having a baby oh yasser i'm so happy for you uh thank you yasser might still have questions about his

truest self but when it comes to his future childs, there's one thing he knows for sure. Yasser wants something different for his kid than what he had. He says that if his kid enjoys making art as much as he did, he's going to encourage that in any way he can. Or even if they're not artistic and just kind of are crazy about math and robotics or whatever. I'll try my best to support that.

A few weeks after we talk, Yasser receives a package from Germany. It's full of Audifant and swag, sent by Otto to his number one fan in Saudi Arabia. There's a hat, a t-shirt, a tote bag, and a little stuffed animal otifant. Yasser says he's going to give it to his baby, his own little philo. This Heavyweight Short was produced by Mohini McGowker and me, Stevie Lane, along with Phoebe Flanagan.

Our executive producer is Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is Kalila Holt. Special thanks to Dr. Mohamed Ghazala, Pia Gadkari, Bobby Lord, and Tom Sharpling over at The Best Show. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Thank you. our theme song is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast or email us at heavyweight at gimmotemedia.com you can also follow our show on Spotify and tap the bell to receive notifications

when new episodes drop and speaking of new episodes we'll be back with a brand new one next week.