Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Snoopy

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writer/podcaster Katie Goldin (‘Creature Feature’ podcast, @ProBirdRights) for a look at why Snoopy is secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode. See NordPass Business in action now with a 3-month free trial here nordpass.com/sifpod with code SIFPOD.

Snoopy. Known for being cartoony. Famous for being doggy. Nobody thinks much about him, so let's have some fun. a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. I'm joined by one of my favorite guests and people. Katie Golden is a comedy writer, a podcaster, the host of Creature Feature on iHeartRadio, the comedy writer behind At Pro Bird Rights on Twitter, and a writer for the Some More News channel on YouTube.

She's also a great friend, she is a dog owner, and she's my favorite person to talk strip newspaper comics with. Also, I've gathered all of our postal codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca. I want to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples. I want to acknowledge that in North America and in many other locations, native people are very much still here, and that feels worth doing on each episode. Also, my guest today, Katie Golden, she taped this from the country of Italy, and as I understand it, that location has a context outside of this.

Today's episode is about a special topic, a patron-chosen topic. We are talking about Snoopy. Thank you very much to patron Karen Biernat for spearheading that suggestion, really making it happen in the polls. Also a lot of support from Samuel Ross, from Mark Mosley. Others have also piped up and said, hey, that's a great idea. This episode is also full of stuff I never knew about Snoopy. I think people particularly know I like him because I tweet the same picture of him every month. It's a drawing of Snoopy wearing sunglasses and playing

the saxophone. And I feel that that has more value in it than most of the tweets I see, partly because Twitter is a tough experience all around. I actually discovered that picture because my partner, she was a teacher at one point, and one of her students used that picture of Snoopy playing the saxophone and sunglasses as their Gmail avatar. And I saw that and said, something about that picture is very engaging. And then I started tweeting it every month. And so that's how that became something I do. But as you'll hear, I'm a huge fan of Peanuts in general. And I'm so excited that we get to do a whole episode about a character who really is the topic of the podcast. There is a lot more there than you would think.

So please sit back or lay all the way back on top of a doghouse. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Katie Golden. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Katie Golden, what a thrilling time. Of course, I always stare past and guess the relationship and stop at your opinion of it. How do you feel about Snoopy? Da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da,da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- What a gentleman. What an icon. Yeah. He and his close friend, Joe Cool.

Yeah. Never seen them together, but yeah, I think they hang out. Two different people, just like Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus. Were you a fan of Peanuts as a kid? Were you into it? Yeah, I was. I, you know, I don't know that we had the comic strip in our local newspaper, but I actually really loved the cartoons and the, the, uh, Charlie Brown Christmas was one of my favorites, you know, watched it like every year, but like, it's such bad animation. It's so like, you know, poorly funded, cheaply made. And yet I loved it

so much. There was something so magical about it, even like with this sort of this, like not very good animation when you're a kid and you're watching it, there's something like you find the magic to it. Uh, and yeah, I just, I loved, I loved Snoopy. I loved, uh, his, you know, I loved Snoopy. I loved his whole nature. Because he's sweet, but he's also got his whole own thing going on. And he's not always that loyal a dog. He's got a mystery to him where he loves Charlie Brown, and yet he's tough on him. It's tough love.

It's true. He never totally betrays Charlie Brown, but he is very, very independent of him and is on top of the doghouse and is fully living his own life and then receiving food from him. Well, I mean, he's got a busy life. He's an author. He's a pilot. He's a jazz musician.

You know, he's a, his best friend is a bird. So he's got a lot of stuff going on. Hey, your best friend is a bird. Hey, wait a minute. You're Snoopy. I would never be a dog Snoopy called Snoopy. That's preposterous. Anyways, I want to like lie on this slanted roof and eat dog bones like they're crackers. and eat dog bones like they're crackers. Sounds good.

Yeah, and I think I have a similar Snoopy relationship. They would run repeats of the Peanuts strips in our newspaper after Charles Schultz stopped doing them. And then I would read the comics and then I would see especially the Christmas special. Whole bonus show is going to be about the Christmas special. So we'll talk all about it then. But yeah, he was like around and especially on merch, like Snoopy is the main Peanuts merch, I feel like even even if people want all the characters. Right. Snoopy is the Garfield of Peanuts. And I learned researching this that apparently Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, part of his thought process was that

Snoopy sells the most merch from Peanuts. So what should Jim Davis make as a strip? An animal, probably. Like, that was part of how Garfield came to be. Yeah, Jim Davis is a whole interesting character, because he's actually quite a good artist, but his whole goal with Garfield was like, I'm going to make a commercial success. Yeah. He was like, money is great. And this would probably be pretty fun. And then he'd make our children. Yeah. And with Snoopy, I think we can start with, before the statistics and numbers, one big takeaway, because it's the origin of Snoopy, like in life and how he came to be. So jumping into... I mean, when a mommy dog loves a daddy dog

and they mate, usually they, you know, whelp a bunch of puppies. Sorry, what were you saying? Yeah. I'm thinking of all those Daisy Hill puppy farm clips and gifs from that one special now. There's a whole special where they spell out where Snoopy's from,

but it came like 20 years after the start of the strips, yeah. Yeah, he's got like a bunch of siblings. Some of them have like mustaches and stuff. It's great. That brings us straight into takeaway number one. Snoopy is based on Charles Schultz's childhood dog named Spike. Aww. And Charles Schultz's first ever published art was a drawing of Spike.

Aww. It turns out that, like, Charles Schultz got a drawing into national newspapers where he just drew Spike before he ever made Peanuts or made Snoopy or anything. Wow. So like the tail really did wag the dog, the dog being the comic strip and the tail being the drawing of Snoopy. I have a bunch of sources here, but there's one Schultz interview where he talks about being in high school and a different kid did a bunch of illustrations for an essay. And he was like, oh, I guess I could do that much drawing if I wanted to. Like he always drew, but he never was like super into it until relatively late in childhood. Yeah. No, I mean, I get that, though, where I think as a kid, I was so interested in drawing animals. And I think that's still, it's like, when you're interested in animals, or you have

a beloved pet, sometimes a lot of your art just kind of revolves around animals, like even more than people, because, you know, you just, you're so interested in the animal you almost want to be able to bring them to life on the paper and so you know that's how I mean like I think that that enthusiasm for Snoopy really kind of is very clear throughout Charles Schultz's career. Yeah absolutely like he it was kind of his favorite thing to draw and and a lot of the spark of everything he did. Main sources here are a compilation of Charles Schultz's talks and letters. It's called My Life with Charlie Brown. And then also digital resources from the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, California, Northern California. Northern California. It turns out Charles Schultz was an only child. There were no siblings. And then when he was 13 years old, the family got a dog and that became kind of his best friend in the family. And they named the dog Spike. Oh, that's magical. Spike pretty much looks like Snoopy. Was he a beagle? And so Schultz describes him as a black and white mixed breed dog,

maybe with some pointer. But other than that, he says, quote, when I decided to put a dog in Peanuts, I used the general appearance of Spike with similar markings, end quote. So he didn't grow up with a Beagle specifically, but he had like a black and white dog about that size. And he was like, that's it. This is the best thing. Yeah, there's something special about like your first pet. I think that's, it shapes your imagination so much as a kid. Like my first pet was a kitty named Mittens and you know, she, she's long gone, but, uh, all, a lot of her mannerisms, a lot of the, the like fun things that about her growing up, it's like, those have stuck with me for, you know, the rest of my life. And I think that's a very shared experience. We've all, all of us who have had childhood pets, like you really

remember that first pet and it's very, there's something special about that first pet you ever have. Yeah. How old were you when you got men's? I was, I think in second grade. So I was pretty little. Um, and there's also, it's just like, she, I, I, you know, grew up with this cat. She, she died when I was an adult. Um, and she was there for most of my childhood. And that's, it's like almost like a sibling in a way, but of course they're an animal. So their whole, their whole ways of expressing themselves and their whole world is very different from yours. But I think it's such a valuable experience. And I think it's, that's probably like a lot of the appeal of Snoopy is just like,

his clear love for this little dog character is so very apparent. Yeah. And that sibling comparison is interesting. I feel like he was an only child and, you know, 13 is relatively late in childhood, but like he gets a dog and it seems like he, you know, was almost treating them like a sibling and a person. And then Snoopy becomes a whole person in the strip. Right. I mean, who doesn't like, I certainly with our dog, like give her a voice, speak as if, you know, she's talking and just like we anthropomorphize our animals. you know, she's talking and just like, we anthropomorphize our animals, but you know, it's, it's out, it's done out of love, out of this, like, this is how I imagine they're feeling because they can't talk to me. And of course Snoopy is a silent character, which I find really

fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like it almost makes Snoopy's life more private. Like he's doing all of these discussions and typewriting and all these ways of speaking. And sometimes the kids kind of catch what he's doing, but otherwise he's just out there on his own doing his thing. Yeah, he has thought bubbles and he has writing, but he doesn't speak. You know, he's a dog. Of course he can't talk. But, you know, and so it's this mysteriousness to the animal character who clearly has the brain of like a human, you know, like can write a novel and, you know, fly a plane in the shape of his doghouse. But he's also he can't really communicate with, you know, language with the kids, but they just kind of accept like, yeah, this is a super intelligent dog, but this is just normal stuff. But also he can't talk. He's a dog.

Yeah. And I think this real dog Spike was pretty communicative. Like a dog can be, Schultz thinks that Spike understood about 50 words. He also, here's a Charles Schultz quote, he was a wild creature. I don't believe he was ever completely tamed, end quote, which is very Snoopy. Like, boy, oh boy. Yeah. Snoopy is nobody's dog. Yeah. It's like, oh, this is the whole character. Great. Yeah. And then Schultz not only likes to draw Spike, but they get Spike when Schultz is 13. Within

about a year, he does a drawing of Spike and gets it published in national newspapers. Wow. And I'll link the Schultz Museum's website because they have an upload of the piece. It turns out in early 1937, Schultz gets a drawing of Spike published in the newspaper feature Ripley's Believe It or Not. I did not know this, but back in the 1930s, Ripley's Believe It or Not was a regular feature in newspapers. It was an illustrated thing. February 22nd, 1937, Ripley's had Schultz's own drawing of Spike and a story claiming that Spike was a hunting dog that eats pins, tacks, and razor blades. Was that true at all? I couldn't find more information about that.

Like I'd see either Spike is an amazing wonder dog of eating dangerous stuff or he made it up and tried to get him in the paper. Like, I don't know, but that's how Spike was in Ripley's, believe it or not, in a newspaper. I feel like that would be a lot of expensive vet bills. Although once my dog grabbed my shaving razor from the bathroom and then chewed it up, I don't think she actually ate any of the razor blade itself, but she impressively dismantled it. And I like checked her mouth or gums for any bleed and she was fine. I was like, how did you like, that's pretty amazing. Yeah.

It is fascinating how it seems like dogs and toddlers share this incredible skill, which is find the most dangerous thing they can immediately zoom in on it and grab it and just like put it in their mouth. Right. Like a bathroom is full of so many tiny objects and to specifically choose the razor, I guess it's sort of shaped like a stick or something, but still, like, wow. Yeah, just like, this looks good. I'll chew this into a pulp. What if you found her in the next room and she's fine but completely shaved? Like, how'd you do that? What? You're smooth like nothing I've ever seen. It's amazing. You're smooth like nothing I've ever seen. It was amazing.

It's funny because when I have to trim her because she gets these little like sort of dreadlocks unless I give her little trims. Like I have to hold her like a baby and give her lots of treats. Otherwise, she won't allow it. And pets have so much personality like that. Like not every dog wants to be cradled and for trimming, but some do some super want that. And you know, so then, then you end up thinking like my dog should be the main focus of my art and all my work. If I'm Charles Schultz, this makes sense to me. And it's, I mean, it's, they're very simple drawings, but they're very expressive, which I love. Yeah. And he, he really just kept on doing them. Like I'll, I'll have other links to other examples.

Cause for one thing that everybody knows, Charles Schultz starts Peanuts in 1950. Also partly gets kind of walked into that name, Peanuts. He wanted to call it Lil' Folks, and Lil' Folks was the name of a single panel newspaper comic he did before Peanuts. And I'll link an example of a Lil' Folks panel where there's a dog that's just definitely Snoopy or Spike talking to a kid. He started doing this drawing kind of immediately and then wrapped kids around it as he went. started doing this drawing kind of immediately and then wrapped kids around it as he went. So Snoopy really is like the core of Peanuts. Like there would be probably no Peanuts without Snoopy.

Yeah, I think like his two ideas, because the main premise of Lil Folks was look at how funny these kids can be interpersonally. So I feel like those are the two strips always going on in Peanuts is kids saying things and increasingly over the years with a lot of gravity to them or meaning to them. But like, it's either interactions between human children or the adventures of a dog. Like those are the two broad stories going on in Peanuts. And then they started interlocking as he went. So how do you stumble into the name Peanuts. And then they started interlocking as he went. So how do you stumble into the name Peanuts? It was some editor or publisher was like, what about this different name? And he was like,

I guess. And then he drew 50 years of strips called Peanuts. I used to think it was called Peanuts because Snoopy's head was kind of shaped like a peanut. Oh, I don't believe so. No. No, no, I know. I know that's not true. That was my child logic of like, it must be called Peanuts because Snoopy's head is a peanut. And I feel like a lot of people just call it Charlie Brown or Charlie Brown and Snoopy because that name makes more sense than this other name. Like the strip Garfield is called Garfield.

Like Jim Davis figured out that part really well. It's a good name for name. Like the strip Garfield is called Garfield. Like Jim Davis figured out that part really well. It's a good name for Garfield, the strip. If this strip was a Marvel movie, there'd be like a moment where Charlie Brown turns to directly to the camera is like, I guess that's why we're a bunch of little peanuts. a little peanuts in the in the early strips lucy is like born like she you see her as a tiny baby i would love it if he recruited her for the peanuts initiative that would be great but yeah and then i'll link i'll also with those early strips i'll link a timeline of all the peanuts character appearances because they they shift, but Snoopy changes the most. And in early strips, Snoopy just looks like a dog and then gradually gains the like physical shape that matches all the kids and walking upright and

everything. So there's a huge art range with Snoopy. I love early Snoopy though. What a cutie. I love early Snoopy, though. What a cutie. I really love the first Snoopy. Just like little bean head. Very cute. Big floppy ears. Wonderful. It's a really realistic Beagle as they go. It's how Beagles look. It's not this like humanoid figure that it eventually becomes. I think my favorite Snoopy though is 1966. That Snoopy. That's the one that like is the most Snoopy to me. Maybe because like it's the most similar to the animated cartoons that I guess maybe were made in the sixties, but also just stylistically it's my favorite because there's a certain heft to them. And he just feels like if I picked him up, there'd be that little like sort of like saggy weight to him like a little puppy. And I love him. He's my favorite one. And also with the end of the Spike story here, Schultz also ultimately writes the name Spike into the strip. Because if people know Snoopy has siblings and his main sibling is his brother, who is named Spike.

That's a skinny dog with like a mustache kind of whiskers and a hat who lives in the desert. But in 1975, Schultz started introducing Snoopy siblings and the first one was a brother named Spike. So the name made it into. first one was a brother named spike so the name made it into i do love that spike looks a little bit like a pot dealer from the 60s but like a cool one you know who's like hey and invites you and gives you some tea and like cookies yeah and also a huge bag of weed. I think he's supposed to look like a starving, dried-out desert guy. Like in the strips, they say the coyotes won't share their food, and that's why he's skinny.

But he also looks a little bit like George Harrison. Like, it's all those things at once. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I love him. He's got the sleepy eyes, too, like the half-lidded sleepy eyes. Yeah, there are whole strips where Spike sits in the desert and talks to a rock. Like, he's just very calm and not doing a lot. Yeah, that's that kind of eye.

He's putting Christmas lights on a cactus. I really feel this Spike character because growing up in Southern California and like you, all of your popular media you consume is like Christmas is snowy and beautiful. And I'm like, I'm living in a desert pretty much. So. That's kind of the two poles of Schultz's childhood, because he grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, very cold. And then that's why there's so much hockey and Christmas in the strips. But then for about a year, the family moved to Needles, California, like actually in the desert. Wow, really?

He writes Spike to live specifically in Needles because they lived there for a bit. Like he and then later moves to Northern California, which is less desert-y, but like, yeah, he, he understands those two particular American climates of like Minnesota and desert California. Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. I love that. I mean, I guess I should have known he would have been in California with the Christmas lights on a cactus comic strip because, uh, Christmas lights on a cactus comic strip because I've definitely seen animatronic dancing cactuses with sunglasses and a Santa hat in malls growing up. Whoa. I did not get that. That's great. I found it slightly depressing because I always really wanted it to snow on Christmas and I didn't understand why it was so unfair. Um, but yeah,

in retrospect, I do love the kitschy, just like, Hey, we're in a, we're essentially living in a desert, but let's make it Christmassy. Let's have Santa, Santa right on the sleigh through the desert and, uh, you know, Christmas cactus, why not? My one reverse thing with that with media was when I would read Dr. Seuss books, I thought he just drew like alien fantastical trees. And then when I moved to L.A., I was like, oh, those were probably palm trees that were just colored in. Like, I see. Now I understand. It's not like Mars. Okay, cool.

Cool, cool. But yeah, that's the first takeaway. Like Snoopy is based on his dog from when he was a kid and kind of drove the whole thing. I love that. I love that that is like the heart and soul of the comic strip. Yeah. It really comes through. Like it feels authentic.

And yeah. Now that we have that takeaway done, our next fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week, that's in a segment called... Because baby, I am Alex Schmidt. And here's a bunch of statistics. It's data to log, log, log. On this segment of the pod, pod, pod

I keep forgetting to bring my lighter So that I can like, you know Bring that up I had sparks shooting out of my chest as I did that So that actually, that took care of the illumination We're all set That name was submitted by Jaren Keys. Thank you, Jaren.

We have a new name for this segment every week. Please make him as silly and wacky as possible. Submit to Sip Pod on Twitter or to SipPod at gmail.com. And the first number is third. Third. Because Snoopy debuts in the third ever Peanuts comic strip. He's in the series from the beginning, like the third strip. He's right there.

Already he's the heart of the strip. Like, probably, really, he's just like, I want to test drive these first two strips, make sure it's all safe and comfortable so Snoopy can come right in. It's warming it up for Snoopy. You know, you've got your headliners, but then you've got, you know, the acts that come before warm up the audience. Then here's Snoopy. Yeah, basically. And then the crowd gets their letters out, right? Like, yes, thank you. Good. They're milk bones. Yeah. So what was the what was the first Snoopy strip? So what was the first Snoopy strip?

Yeah, it was October 4th, 1950. So in 1950, he draws a strip where a small dog is walking with a flower on its head. And then the dog walks under a window box of other flowers that a girl is watering. And then she soaks the dog in the flower as she does that. And that's it. That's the entire strip. There's no dialogue. Snoopy is not named. I'll have it linked because it's online. This is so mysterious.

It's just a sort of single visual moment. And that's the entire strip. That's it. It's very avant-garde. I love it, but I don't understand it. Like, why does Snoopy have, it looks like maybe the flower is tucked into his collar. Was this a thing that dogs did or people did with dogs, put flowers in their dogs? Because it looks like it's this long flower. And why does he have the flower? And why does he get watered? Huh. Yeah, I feel exactly the same way.

And for the past few Christmases, I've been getting one volume of the Complete Peanuts each year. A lot of the early strips are this mysterious. Like, it's just a vibe. And it doesn't seem to be a reference to anything. And it's just him doodling stuff that caught his fancy. I love that. I feel like comics arenling stuff that caught his fancy. I love that. I feel like comics aren't like that as much anymore. I know Heathcliff is a little bit like that.

There's some just like, hey, here's the garbage ape. And it makes no sense. It's just a fever dream. But I think a lot of early comics were kind of a fever dream. Which, yeah, now it's like there's got to be a setup and a punchline rather than just interesting vibes. But I really love interesting vibes for comics. Yeah. And you do see some of the depth and vibe that made Later Peanuts really great. I honestly think the very first strip is excellent. And that brings us to the next

number here, which is fourth, because Snoopy is the fourth character ever to appear in Peanuts. And the first three are humans. They are Charlie Brown. And then it's another boy named Shermie and a girl named Patty. And also Patty is not the later character of Peppermint Patty. This is a separate General Patty. General Patty? So she commanded an army? Oh, yeah, mostly tanks and slapped a guy. Yeah, yeah. Wow. But the, yeah, like the, so that very first strip is Charlie Brown walking past Shermie and Patty. And Shermie just repeatedly says, Charlie Brown, that good old Charlie Brown. And then the last panel is Shermie saying how I hate him. It's so good.

It's kind of awesome. I love this so much. It's wonderful. Because you have Charlie Brown walking in. First of all, I love the original Peanuts designs. I actually think I like them in some ways more than the later designs. They're just like these little round-headed children. And Charlie Brown has this like big smile, you know, kind of generally same like Charlie Brown knows,

a little like floof on his forehead. And he's just like walking by happily, unaware. And this kid is like he's like yeah here comes good old charlie brown yes sir good old charlie brown and then suddenly his brow darkens and he goes how i hate him and it's i just love it it's perfect yeah and it's kind of already peanuts in the first trip like there's that's sort of a vibe that the children will have to get. Like Shermie has kind of a Lucy vibe to me in the first trip. Like Lucy will just get mad at other kids.

And it makes sense. Spiting someone for their happiness and existence. And you can also in the first trip see they're kind of figuring everybody out a little at least like Charlie Brown does not have his shirt striped yet. He's just a kid in a shirt. Not yet. And then also in the very first strips, the main character is kind of Shermie. And Shermie, by the 1970s, is not in the strip anymore.

He got canceled. Right. Right. For his crimes. We don't need to get into it. We don't need to get into it. Many, many crimes. I mean, he's got he's a toxic he's a toxic gaslighter. You can tell already by the strip. It's true. He is really beat in the first trip. But but yeah. And so like as Schultz draws the strip, it takes a few years for Charlie Brown and Snoopy to become the main characters. And quick numbers with that evolution.

The next number is 1952. So two years in. 1952 is the first year when Snoopy has words in a thought bubble. For the first basically two years, he just does dog stuff and does not say anything to us, the viewer. So he just I do love the implication that it's a normal dog, and then he suddenly comes to full cognizance and full sentience, sort of spontaneously, sort of like a singularity moment for this dog,

which just makes Snoopy all the more mysterious of how did he sort of spontaneously grow a metacognition. He just absorbed enough human speech in the strips and like spied on Blondie and Dick Tracy and stuff. God, that's so cool. I love that. That rocks so hard. You just like have this strip. Here's a normal dog. And then suddenly dog is like, my God, I can think. Therefore, here I am. I think and I am.

years in, 1956, that's when Snoopy begins standing on his hind legs in a human way. Because like, you don't think of it reading all the modern strips where he's just walking around with the kids. But like early on, he drew him like a dog who's on all fours and sits up like a dog sometimes. But just in 1956, he begins walking around. I mean, it's interesting too. Like if you think of this from a biological perspective, you can see he starts out with sort of a smaller skull, smaller head. And then like as he walks on his upright, he has a larger cranium, which indicates perhaps that you have some sort of like cognitive development. I think this is very similar to human evolution, honestly. development i think this is very similar to human evolution honestly yeah especially like is when you remember that all the humans and peanuts well they're children but like they're all kind of bulbous and a specific unrealistic shape snoopy achieves

that shape over time yeah they're a little encephalotic, but yeah, it's, uh, yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's interesting. I, I, I do love also just like how you just kind of have to accept it. It's like, well, he's a little person now deal with it. Right. Don't question it. No. And, and the other big thing they backfill is I couldn't get a specific date for this, but early on Snoopy is not specifically Charlie Brown's dog. Schultz decides later that he specifically belongs to Charlie Brown, but the first indoor Snoopy strip is him with Charlie Brown. But the next few are him and Shermie's house.

And there's an early strip where Snoopy's being walked by Shermie. Like he doesn't belong to Charlie Brown yet early on I mean he doesn't belong to anyone it seems like exactly yeah yeah I always yeah he he uh he always does have sort of like I guess there's more development of like Charlie Brown like you know this is his dog and they love each other but there there is I think the independence of Snoopy remains where he's often doing his own thing all the time. He's certainly, uh, not one to sort of, uh, be obsequious around Charlie Brown. I mean, it's Charlie Brown. How can you? Pathetic. Oh, that's a great excuse. you. Pathetic. Oh, that too. Right. Does Snoopy respect Charlie Brown? Cause I would say no,

right? He usually can't remember Charlie Brown's name. I guess in his defense, he doesn't theoretically speak the same language. Like we're getting his language through translation, but he calls him like the roundhead kid a lot. Uh, which, you know, dogs can learn a limited vocabulary. You would think he would learn the words Charlie and Brown together. Yeah, I can tell my dog to go find my husband. I say, go find Brett. Where's Brett? And she knows like she knows who I'm talking about. Yeah, she.

Yeah. She so like it is I think it takes a certain amount of lack of respect and disdain to not bother to learn Charlie Brown's name. And I love that. I do love the disrespect. Yeah. And I guess he had a lot of opportunities. So the next set of numbers here are just the run of Peanuts real quick. Schultz drew every strip personally. He drew them from the years 1950 to 2000. Also, he happened to pass away within a few hours of publication of the final strip.

He knew he was ill and retired, and then a few more came out and he passed away. So it was slated to be the last strip? Like it was planned to be the last strip, and then he died after it was published shortly. He, yeah, it was, uh, he officially decided to retire in like December 99. And then the last strip was a Sunday strip in February of 2000, but he passed away the night before it published, which is kind of freaky. Yeah. Like he knew he was going to pass, so he stopped, but yeah, the alignment is strange. published, which is kind of freaky. Yeah. Like he knew he was going to pass, so he stopped, but yeah, the alignment is strange. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, I guess I don't really know much about, about these things, but I guess like sometimes, um,

you can kind of hang on a little longer. Um, yeah, yeah. I don't know. You can kind of hang on a little longer. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. But he spent, you know, 50 years daily drawing the strip. It did a total of 17,897 strips. Oh, my God. Almost 18,000 peanuts. That's incredible.

So he literally really worked almost until his death on these strips. And I'm sure he didn't have to. Like, he was well off. It was because he was passionate about it, right? Exactly. Like, I don't mean to keep bringing up Garfield, but that's an example of a cartoonist getting a strip going and hiring a staff

and saying, you guys help. But yeah, Schultz insisted on drawing and writing all of them himself. And those strips were published at their peak in about 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not a particularly spiritual person, but I really hope there is like an afterlife and like Spike's waiting for him. Like the real Spike, he's like, I saw, I saw what you did. That's nice. He's got, got, got a pile of newspapers, you know, like a pile of bones in a bowl that he's eating

like popcorn and a pile of newspapers like, hey, hey, Charles, I like what you did. Oh, yeah. I'd like to think Spike the dog would be so stoked to be like, I'm the most famous dog ever because of you. Like, I'm the most famous dog ever because of you. Like, I'm the most famous dog, right? It's me. Yeah. I mean, I imagine him to be to like, be like, oh, yeah, no, this makes sense.

Like, of course I would be. Thanks, Chuck. Thanks for letting the people know about how awesome I was. Yeah. I'm really grateful to my assistant, Charles Schultz, for getting the word out. Good job, kid. Yeah. Like what's your name again? Roundheaded man. Good job. The Minnesota gym. I don't know. Whatever it is. Good job spreading the good word about me, the best dog.

Yeah, good job spreading the good word about me, the best dog. All right, off of that, we're going to a short break, followed by the big takeaways. See you in a sec. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

The JV Club with Janet Varney is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. When a few more stats here, one of them is a very specific stat. It is 2.3%. 2.3%. And that's an amount of peanut strips. It's about 415 strips. But 2.3% is the amount of peanut strips that specifically depicts Snoopy pretending to be a World War I flying ace and doing Red Baron stories. I love that you worked the mouth out on that.

Yeah. I got it from somebody else, but yes. Well, still, I love that you worked the mouth out on that. Yeah. I got it from somebody else, but yes. Well, still, I love that somebody worked the mouth out on that. So that's incredible. I was always like, I've never been like a World War buff. So this was like a World War I fighter pilot. World War I. World War I. And he was like, fight the Red Baron, right?

A fighter pilot? World War I. World War I. And he was like, fight the Red Baron, right? Yeah, the Red Baron was a real German ace who gets shot down late in the war, but kills a bunch of Allied pilots before that. And yeah, Snoopy has a bunch of strips where he's on top of his doghouse as a plane or he's like in cafes between fights. And yeah, a little more than one in every 50 peanut strips is Snoopy fighting the Red Baron or in World War I. And he's got he's got like, uh, aviator goggles and a little scarf. So, you know, like he's serious about this. Really means it yet. So what's the interpretation? Is he

imagining this because he's he's got this imagination and he likes to think of himself as a pilot? Or is his doghouse really a little airplane and he is actually defending the peanuts from a German pilot? Yeah, with all of his fantasies, apparently Schultz said a few things about them. One is that he felt like some real life dogs do not have that fun of a life. And so he imagines dogs needing to have powerful fantasy lives to stay entertained. And Schultz also said, you know, that as a creator, Schultz had all sorts of ideas that do not make sense with these relatively grounded kids. And so Snoopy was the way to do them and just write them and make them happen. Yeah, I love that.

I do think dogs have wild imaginations sometimes. Like my dog does invent problems. So like she, when we're about to leave the house, she'll look out the window and start barking and there's nothing there. We live on the top floor. There's literally nothing there. Not even pigeons, nothing. And then she'll bark and look at us and then bark again. And it's like, look, see, danger, stay here. There's literally nothing there. Not even pigeons. Nothing. And then she'll bark and look at us and then bark again.

And it's like, look, see, danger. Stay here. There's problems. Or like after you actually after you flush the toilet and come out of the bathroom, she barks at something. It's not there. But what she's saying is like, look, I defended you from this invader who was going to like burst in while you're peeing. And so thank me for that. Now, when you say there's nothing on the roof, what if there is something,

let's say above the roof in the sky, such as a German fighter pilot from World War I? Have you considered this? Well, then, you know, I would, I'd really have to do a little bit of a egg on my face, mea culpa to my dog. Who's been protecting me from Germans this whole time. Yeah. And it's such a part of the strip. Like, you know, it's not really one out of every 50 strips. It's like whole weeks would be red Baron stories and then others are not, but, but, um, but like, cause you got to depict the whole fight sequence. It's probably like a Mad Max-esque fight sequence that's very painstakingly choreographed.

Right. A lot of crew. And also, Schultz wrote so many of these that apparently he also got a lot of mail from World War I veterans. And once in a while, somebody who was like, yeah, I flew and saw the Red Baron one time. And it's wild to me. It was long enough ago that there were living vets who were like, hey, cool. I recognize that stuff.

That's incredible. Also, this stat, which is amazing. It's from Stephen J. Lind, who's a professor of business and entertainment communication at USC and also has written a whole book about Schultz and faith that we'll talk about in the bonus show. But he makes a point that like that Red Baron fantasy is a lot more of the strip than some of the other big tropes. He also says that, you know, 2.3 percent are Red Baron, but 0.3% is strips where Lucy holds a football for Charlie Brown to kick. Like it almost never happens in the comics, except it's the most famous thing. That's interesting. Yeah, I guess we, you know, we love a villain and Lucy's such a good one that the football being pulled away.

I do think that was depicted a lot in the cartoons as well, which I think can, you know, that probably, you know, influence some of the. But yeah, sometimes you just have sort of a standout moment, like the the gaslighting of pulling this football. I mean, she's a toxic, gaslighting boss bay. You know, she's the original one.lighting boss bae, you know? She's the original one. What if she's just Shermie in a wig? Like, Shermie stayed in the strip that way? Like, I'm in disguise. I'm still in the show.

Shermie? Yeah. Yeah, and, like, there'd be whole weeks of just Snoopy fantasies as you read the weekly strip. He'll be Joe Cool, who we mentioned, who is a big man on campus character. Wait, no. Snoopy is not Joe Cool.

Joe Cool is a distinct... All right. Individual. And he's also sometimes a member of the French Foreign Legion, which is a whole other military thing, or a star hockey player, which is especially from Schultz's Minnesota roots. He just had all sorts of ideas that somebody normal like Linus or somebody cannot play out. And so he gives it to Snoopy.

I love that. I love that so much for Snoopy. Just he's, you know, I mean, who's to say he's not part of the French Legion? That's right. You don't have to be a French citizen. So there you go. Right. There you go.

Yeah. And there's one more number here takes us into the rest of the takeaways. The number is November 26th, 1922. So November 26th, 100 years ago. That's the birth date of Charles Schultz. It's when he was born. It's the recent 100th anniversary of his life. He was born in Minneapolis. His father was named Karl Schultz, was a German-born owner of a barbershop. And then his mother was Dina Halverson Schultz, who was a first-generation daughter of Norwegian immigrants. This next takeawayverson Schultz, who was a first generation daughter of Norwegian immigrants.

This next takeaway actually highlights Schultz's mom, Mrs. Schultz. Because here we go. Takeaway number two. Snoopy was almost named Sniffy. Huh. It was a very close thing. That was the thing Charles Schultz was going to name this dog. But then he changed his mind and used his mom's idea. Yeah. Snoopy Snoopy is definitely better than Sniffy. There's something about Snoopy. It's the oop. It's the oop in it. Oop is a good it's a good sound.

Maybe that's why Gwyneth Paltrow did goop because of the oop. I feel like oop stuff, you know? Yeah, and I don't know exactly why he picked Sniffy, but it turns out when Charles Schultz came up with the character, like we talked about with these first strips, there's no name for the dog early on. And like he's backfilling all this backstory and like like 20 years later he'll invent a puppy mill origin and stuff but early on he's like i'll do a dog that looks like my dog spike i don't want to use spike's name how about sniffy and then apparently schultz was like out walking one day right before a strip was going to publish that says this is sniffy the dog and he sees a newsstand with a comic on it featuring a cartoon dog named Sniffy. And he says, oh, no, and runs home to pick a new name.

He's like, I got scooped. I got scooped. Ooped. Snoopy. But and with this specifically, Schultz says that like he was going to run home and write a list and brainstorm. But on the way, quote, I recalled my mother once saying that if we ever had another dog, we should name him Snoopy. So Dina Halbertson Schultz just fully came up with the name of Snoopy. Perfect.

But by accident, thinking about a second dog. No, it's a perfect dog name. I love it. Yeah. Because they truly do snoop. That, yeah, that actually leads us right into the other takeaway for the main show. So here we go into takeaway number three. Snoopy is a key NASA mascot and a spaceflight safety advocate. Wow. Snoopy. I guess he flew that little dog house right up and he's like, NASA's like, hey, maybe this little guy's onto something. Oh, right. Oh, yeah. I think still, but especially all the first astronauts were military pilots. Like, wow, Snoopy is qualified. That's great. They named the lunar lander Snoopy because it was not going to land on the moon, but it was going to snoop around above the moon for like a place for Apollo 11 to land and go on the moon.

I see. Oh, that's fun. Like that's one of many connections here. have like underneath the the fishbowl helmet they have like it looks like big ear muffs that must contain like their communication devices and those look like snoopy ears yeah and in the 60s the astronauts start wearing these i'll have a picture linked if people don't know what katie's talking about but that like kind of soft skull cap that goes under a helmet they nicknamed it snoopy caps because it's black and white and has ear flaps. Like they explicitly were like, this is like Snoopy from the comics.

Yeah. It's totally like Snoopy. It's actually very much like the original 1952 Snoopy, because he had this sort of big, almost like Princess Leia bun ears. Oh, yes. Yeah, there's a lot of Snoopy strips where just it's a visual joke of those sticking out or something. The first Snoopy gags are all like dog does physical comedy. It's great. Yeah. I love it. Yeah, like Snoopy was explicitly part of NASA missions starting in the 1960s and to this day and is a huge mascot of NASA and U.S. space exploration.

I love that because it makes me feel a little safer from like aliens, because if an alien race bumps into us and then they see like Snoopy as our mascot, they're going to be like, these people are too cool to like blow up. A dog, a dog wearing sunglasses. This truly is a civilization worth preserving. Like, right. They're pointing the Independence Day laser at the White House. And then what's that little sweater wearing sunglasses figure leaning on the White House? Oh, no. Yeah. Hold up, Gleek Glorp. Hold up, Gleek Glorp. Hold up, Gleek Glorp. Don't press that button. What is that? Is that a dog wearing sunglasses? This planet rules. We can't blow it up. But yeah, the key sources here, there's a piece for PBS Southern California by Kristen Bopes and then pieces for Smithsonian Magazine by Matthew Hirsch and by Amy Stamm, because Peanuts' timeline really aligned with NASA. Peanuts begins in 1950,

and by the early to mid-60s, it's a national, massive pop culture hit. The first best-selling book is 62. The first TV special, 65. It's going on really right when Americans are saying, hey, let's go land on the moon. Like the key JFK speech about it is 1962. And then we do it in 1969. I love that. Same era. Yeah. We're like, we had so much cool stuff going, and we went on the moon. And I just, yeah, it's like those are the good, fun things that we did. Let's not look into too much other stuff we did in the 60s, but those two specific things are pretty rad. That's probably all we did. That's cool.

Yeah. Don't check which president's name is on the moon plaque. It's Richard Nixon. Don't check. Don't check. Don't look into it. Yeah. And it also turns out that like Charles Schultz was an early NASA fan.

Oh, really? He was excited about NASA and space exploration before most other people. And according to PBS, he first got in touch with them in 1959. Really? Which is early. Like, for context, the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, goes up to space in 1961. Schultz was before that writing space flight stories in peanut strips. And he also contacted NASA and gave them a free license to use Snoopy however they wanted for no cost. Wow. He was like an early space adopter. Nice. It's cool. Yeah. Like people had heard of space stuff like Sputnik had happened in 1957. But but he was still like one of the

first Americans who was like this rules. Like when JFK was doing his speech, he was kind of like, who was like, this rules. Like when JFK was doing his speech, he was kind of like, come on, like, let's get into it, please. And Schultz was like, I'm going to write Charlie Brown looking at the stars. Fun. You know, like he was into it. That's great. Yeah. And yeah. And then Schultz also, he gave NASA free range to use Snoopy. The only condition was that Charles Schultz wanted to personally draw every nasty use of Snoopy, which is also like a benefit, but it's more work for him. He was like, but I have to draw it. My one caveat is that you get an original drawing from me, Charles Schultz.

Like, oh, no. Dang it. What a bummer rule, Mr. Charles Schultz. And NASA used Snoopy right away. They were like, great, thank you. It was almost kind of private, though, because they made Snoopy the internal workplace mascot for safety. Like NASA printed posters, banners, all kinds of material encouraging the crew and the staff to be as careful as possible in their work. And he became so associated with safety at NASA, the astronauts started doodling Snoopy tells me to do something, I'm doing it. No questions asked.

Like if Snoopy told me to jump off a cliff, I'd do it. Absolutely. So it's a good thing he cares about safety because I will unquestioningly follow Snoopy. Some people, I think, like unquestioningly follow people like Elon Musk. Wrong decision. He's a psychopath. Not a dog. Snoopy is the true space hero that we should be following.

Yeah, that's, wow. Very different people in terms of reliability and space. Yes. Exactly. Wow. Yeah, they even in 1968, so late in the Apollo run, but NASA created an award at NASA, the organization called the Silver Snoopy. And I'll have a picture linked of the pin you win if you get a Silver Snoopy, but it's given for outstanding achievement in human flight safety. Anybody working at NASA can get it and they award it to this day.

They continue to give it to less than 1% of staff annually earns a silver Snoopy. I love, I love the care about safety because so much it's like, you know, this idea of like, Hey, we just got to make cool stuff. Who cares about the people involved? Like they may get injured in the process, but it's for, you know, technological development. But no, the process, but it's for, you know, technological development. But no, in this case, it's like, we really want to keep people safe. Uh, and we will give you this and it's a very charming pin. So I would definitely, I mean, on one hand, I would want to remain safe so as not to kill myself or others. But I feel like this pin is really a huge motivator as well because it's

it's a lovingly i mean it looks like it was drawn by charles schultz um it's like this lovingly crafted snoopy he looks so pumped he's in a little space suit he's got the little bubble on i think he's got he's got his classic scarf as well his uh you know uh is is that what i'm saying his little his little uh fighter pilot yeah he's still an aviator yeah yeah my one note snoopy is i don't i feel like neck scarfs maybe not the safest thing to do when you're around a bunch of uh spaceship machinery. That's a good point, yeah. Yeah. But he pulls it off, so.

It's amazing because there's not quite a way to quantify it, but a lot of the writing about this Snoopy safety at NASA material talks about a huge morale element to it. Because spaceflight is dangerous, talking about safety can be really sad. There was also a key low point of that in 1967, where it was the start of the Apollo missions, and a ground test for Apollo 1, there was a fire and all three astronauts died. And so Snoopy, in a really concrete way, made it easier and happier to talk about safety and focus on safety. You didn't have to point to tragedies.

You could be like, make Snoopy happy. Make the dog we all love happy and be good at safety. It was meaningfully helpful to the space program. I really hope that they've phased out things for high schoolers like red asphalt. Because I remember they kind of scare you into being safe stuff. Like where it's like bloody driver's ed videos. Yeah, exactly. I hope they don't show those anymore.

They're just there's something mean spirited about those. And I get that you want to like, oh, if I scare kids enough, they will want to be safe. I mean, I think it's important to inform, uh, young adults, like of the dangers of driving and stuff. But I feel like that was just so traumatizing and so negative. Uh, it's scary. It like made me very scared to drive for a while. I like the idea of just like, Hey, Snoopy wants you to be safe. Like Snoopy wants you to wear your seatbelt. Uh, and it's like, yeah, I'll do what Snoopy wants me to do. So I hope that we like, I feel like even high schoolers love Snoopy. Maybe not. I mean, I guess Zoomers like, do you still like Snoopy? Yes. And why if yet, why is it? Yes. If it's yes. That's, that's absolutely right. Like you can just do safety positively. Cause it makes sense.

You don't need to like use fear to do this thing that just makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and Snoopy also, I, I do get curious about his generational appeal because he definitely in the sixties was huge. And then maybe I wonder how much that'll last, you know, as there's not daily strips anymore. But like in the 60s here, he's so big that in a public facing way, the whole Apollo 10 mission was Peanuts themed. did like a mission walkthrough where they all petted a big plush Snoopy for luck. And then I'll have another picture linked of a press conference where they did a press conference with a plush Snoopy and sunglasses sitting with them. That's so good. It's like this, like just very, very stereotypical looking NASA guy.

He's got the buzz haircut, got the stern brow, and then just Snoopy wearing sunglasses. But yeah, and they continue to award the silver Snoopy at NASA. Space shuttle astronauts brought the first Snoopy toy to space in 1990. And then as you listen to this podcast, folks, like mid December 2022, a NASA Snoopy toy should be returning to Earth or back on Earth because the Artemis 1 mission carried a Snoopy toy to space along with a Shaun the Sheep toy. That's fantastic. I love that. Yeah. And I had like a mission role.

We've talked about this before, haven't we? If folks are patrons and hung out for the latest live stream show, we talked all about Artemis 1. And for folks who don't know, that's the first mission in a set that's going to bring humans to the moon again. And Artemis 1 had seats for a crew, but they put mannequins in them just to simulate human bodies. And then the toys, including Snoopy, are microgravity indicators. Wonderful. So there's cameras inside the ship and people back at NASA can see the floating toy to know that the ship is in microgravity. That's what they're doing.

Snoopy's doing real science. Yeah. Because also that mission flew to the moon and then flew further. Like it's further than any mission with humans in it has gone. So that Snoopy has gone farther in space than any human. Amazing. And I hope it's back on earth safely. If it all went okay,

we'll find out. Yeah. It's Snoopy safe. This is a number one priority. Silver Snoopy's all around. If you bring, bring that boy back home. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Katie Golden for being the Woodstock to my Snoopy or the other way around. It works either way. But really fun being buddies and discovering stuff about this cartoon dog.

While I'm talking about him, the cartoon bird, Woodstock. It turns out Woodstock started out as one of two birds in a very brief storyline in the comics. Somebody built a bird's nest on top of Snoopy and he didn't want to move and there were two baby birds in it. One of the birds stuck around to be Snoopy's secretary, and Schultz initially thought of the bird as female, but then decided to make them male and Snoopy's friend and name them after the music festival that was a recent thing. Anyway, I said that's the main episode about Snoopy and Briefly Woodstock, because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now.

If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is the story of the Charlie Brown Christmas special, titled A Charlie Brown Christmas, and then further stuff about Charles Schultz and Christianity and faith. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than 10 dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring Snoopy with us.

Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, Snoopy is based on Charles Schultz's childhood dog, Spike, and Charles Schultz's first ever published art was a drawing of Spike. Takeaway number two, Snoopy was almost named Sniffy, and Snoopy's name came from Schultz's mom. And takeaway number three, Snoopy is a key NASA mascot and a spaceflight safety advocate. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guest. She's great. If you've heard this podcast, you know Katie Golden. She's an awesome guest on it every time, and she also has her own fantastic podcast. It is called Creature Feature. It's on iHeartRadio. It is a funny podcast that has amazing stories and science

and more about animals and about them and our world and about how they are sometimes a lot like us. Also going to link Katie's comedy writing and Twitter and more, but what a fantastic guest. Please check out Creature Feature and all her other stuff. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A lot of books and a lot of primary sources this week. In particular, Fantagraphics' combined collected volumes of all the Peanuts strips. Fantagraphics is an amazing comics publisher, and the first volume in particular is excellent. It's the years 1950 to 1952. It also has a fantastic interview with Charles Schultz conducted by Rick Marshall for a magazine called Nemo. Also use Charles Schultz's writing and talks and other letters that's compiled in a volume called

My Life with Charlie Brown, and that is edited and also has additional material from Professor M. Thomas Inge of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia. Yet another book here is A Charlie Brown Religion Exploring the Spiritual Life and Work of Charles M. Schultz. That's by Stephen J. Lind, a professor at USC, and then tons of online material from everybody from The Economist to The Smithsonian and the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, California. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Get that logo on a shirt. Go to sifpod.store or visit the website of topodico.com. That's where the SIF store is. Special thanks to Chris Souza

for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.