So... Alright - Give a Hoot

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Geoff goes down the rabbit hole of a few childhood friends. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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availability varies by restaurant prices exclude delivery. So today, I want to talk about an old friend, a couple of old friends, but in specific one old friend. I'm being a little coy about it, but let me in a roundabout way tell you who I'm talking about. When I was at Disneyland a few weeks ago with my wife

and some friends of ours celebrating a couple of birthdays, we spent two days just eating and riding rides and laughing and giggling and having the time of our lives and making ourselves sick and throwing up and having diarrhea and all of that fun stuff. But one of the big things we did while we were there, cause you know, we spent an entire day at Disney and then the second day we spent an entire day at California adventure. An entire day at Disney and then the second day we spent an entire day at California Adventure

And when you go to a theme park at 9 a.m And you don't leave it till 9 p.m There's a lot of time spent doing things other than eating and riding rides Most of that time I find is spent shopping my wife and our friends and I probably went in every single Store and souvenir shop across the two parks and I probably went in every single store and souvenir shop across the two parks. It's just fun to look at stuff, you know? And they were having a blast finding stuff to buy.

I found some stuff I wanted. I bought a puzzle, you know about me and puzzles, right? So I bought a Pirates of the Caribbean Thomas Kinkade puzzle I quite liked. And of course, Emily bought a couple of shirts and she had to buy an entire second round of clothes because she got so soaked on Tiana's ride, which by the way, if you need pants at Disney,

unless you are a two or three X, you are shit out of luck. They have next to nothing in the way. Interesting, all manner of shirts and hoodies and then really just a couple of different pairs of sweatpants, but then really limited on the sizes. Also, not a lot of pet stuff. I only found like pet adjacent things in one spot in the Magic Kingdom. I don't know why, but I thought that I'd be able to go to Disneyland and buy like a Pluto dog chew toy or something for Albert, but

that is not the case. So anyway, you do a lot of window shopping, a lot of just like going up and down aisles, going, oh, oh, and you see every single Disney property represented on every single thing a product can be represented on, except for sweatpants and dog toys, right? Throughout the course of all that, I was open to buying a shirt. I like to get a shirt when I visit a place, you know, you get like the Mackinac Island t-shirt because you went to Mackinac Island or whatever but I'll be damned if at my if at my age I just cannot See myself wearing a Donald Duck shirt Or a Magic Kingdom shirt no matter how it's stylized, I liked and appreciated the designs.

There's some great graphic designs out there. There's some great treatments. There's a lot of great merchandise at those places. But for whatever fucking reason, I just can't get myself to buy, you know, a Lilo and Stitch t-shirt, no matter how cool it is, and wear it. Now, Lilo and Stitch is a poor example

because I'm really ambivalent towards Lilo and Stitch. I feel neither positive nor negative towards them. I will say, I've only seen the movie once, but I had to watch that TV show about 3,000 times because Millie was super into the TV show, so we watched it a lot when she was a kid. So I guess I do have the fondness of that memory. But my favorite Disney character is Donald Duck, right?

I love a curmudgeon and he's a no-nonsense duck who doesn't have time for the bullshit, right? I identify with that. I respect that. I kind of revere and adore that. But no matter how cool a Donald Duck shirt is, I can't walk around in a Donald Duck shirt. I don't know, maybe it's a character flaw in me. But the one thing I did see,

so I was like, I want to buy something, right? Star Wars was a little closer, but I also can't be a 50 year old dude walking around in a Star Wars t-shirt. It's just, I have, bear no ill will towards anyone who does. I get it. You wanna wear your fandom on your sleeve

or on your fucking chest, literally, right? I love it when I see, when I find out people wear regulation shirts, right? I think that's awesome. But it's just something about like, I just, I can't see myself. It's just not me, right? So, but I'm looking desperately to find,

I wanna be in the club. I wanna be in the t-shirt club. I wanna find something to wear too. Finally, when we were in California Adventure over in, I don't know, like the Redwoods area or whatever, there was a store that was like camping stuff. And in that store, they had a Smokey the Bear sweatshirt. And then next to it,

they had a long sleeve Woodsy Owl t-shirt. I guess I don't quite know why they're there because they're not Disney properties. I guess maybe there's a licensing deal with the Forestry Service because I believe they are owned by the Department of Agriculture. I mean, it makes sense, right? They're mascots that exist to teach you to be responsible in nature and we were at a nature portion of Disneyland, which is, you know, the epicenter of mascots on earth. So I guess it makes sense that they were there, but seeing them there,

I instantly just got the warmest feeling. And I was on this nostalgia trip already. And I don't know why I see Smokey the Bear all the time. I'm pretty used to Smokey. I saw the Smokey sweatshirt and I was like, oh, that's cool. But the Woodsy one kind of floored me. And I realized, I don't see Woodsy anymore. I saw the smoky sweatshirt and I was like, oh, that's cool But the woodsy one kind of floored me and I realized I don't see woodsy anymore I don't know what woodsy's up to

I want to find out what woodsy's up to that's what we're gonna do right now We're gonna find out what woodsy's got going on but I Instantly bought the shirt Then I went ahead and got the smoky the bear sweatshirt as well And have been wearing them and have been delighted to wear them. And by the way, I have got to say, I have gotten more compliments on my Woodsy Owl t-shirt than any other article of clothing I've owned in a really long time.

I don't get a lot of compliments on my clothes. The last time I remember getting a bunch of compliments on one particular thing was one of my popsick like carry-on bags that was like all the popsicles on repeat pattern. And it was just like a, was just like a little duffel bag. Anytime I used that thing, I would get like 30 compliments at the airport. It was awesome. And so I think maybe this is the first time since then,

I think I've had four compliments and I've only worn the shirt twice. In public, crazy. So no compliments on Smokey yet, but people are loving the Woodsy shirt. Clearly I'm onto something here. But anyway, I had such a warm sense of nostalgia and I instantly bought those items.

And later, much later, I was thinking about it and it struck me, they're marketing campaigns for the forestry service, right? That's all they are. They're mascots designed to teach kids about fire safety and not to litter, which I think is a awesome and laudable cause. And exactly, honestly, like I'm not gonna get political here,

but we are watching Doge go through and dismantle government funded programs across the board. Haphazardly and aggressively with an axe. And you see these numbers that they throw around there like we saved this much money or this much money. I don't believe any of the shit that they say, but under the guise that they're saving government waste. But these are the kind of programs where the government spends money on a truly good thing, right, a truly important thing.

And it just got me thinking about how somehow as a small child, Woodsy Owl, I think it was created in 1970. And then I want to say Smokey the Bear was like 1940, 1944, somewhere around there. He'd been around a lot longer. He needed a companion, a pal to hang out with, and so they made Woodsy. But we are gonna get into that in a second.

But you just see like what a lasting effect. I'm a child of the 70s. I was born in 1975. Woodsy the Owl hit the scene around 1971. And I grew up with that campaign and it's prime. It was at its most active in the 70s and the 80s. And here I am at 50 years old, so endeared to the idea of Woodsy Owl

and his infectious catchphrase, give a hoot, don't pollute, which has by the way been changed and I'm not on board with that But we're gonna get into that in a little bit, too I'm so endeared by that and the idea of not littering and I view him as a childhood friend in the exact same way I view Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse and All of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons as childhood friends, even though his only purpose was to tell me,

stop littering you little shit head, right? Man, if that's not money well spent by our government to make our country a better place, I don't know what is. Anyway, minor rant over, let's find out about Woodsy Owl. So Woodsy Owl was an advertising character and a national symbol for the United States Forest Service that was created in the aim of motivating children to form lasting, healthy relationships with nature.

I would say that as a child of those campaigns, those initial campaigns, it worked like a fucking charm on me. It was created by a guy named Harold Bell of Western publishing Which was the producer of the smoky the bear public service announcements who is Harold Bell in specific? Let's see. Oh He was a Professional football player not not the same dude. I think okay 1919 to 2009 was an American marketer and merchandising executive who co-created

Woodsy Owl. He created Woodsy. So that was his claim to fame. Okay. Yeah, I was wondering if he was maybe known for other stuff too, but it seems like Woodsy was the big thing. The United States Forest Service requested that Bell and the others develop a new message and symbol for the agency.

A number of other animals. I feel like I'm jumping ahead here, but I don't care. A number of other animals were considered as the mascot, including a ladybug, a rainbow trout, an elk, and a raccoon. Dude. I think a rainbow trout or an elk would be a pretty good choice. I was thinking about this as well the other day. Woodsy was created to give Smokey a companion, but also a break so that they, I think they were afraid that Smokey was gonna get overused and it would, you know, if you just keep hammering people

on Smokey constantly about different messages, I think they start to tune out, right? So they were like, let's let Smokey focus on forest fires and then we can have Woodsy or some other new entity come in and say, hey, don't litter, dickhead, right? So they proved that it was possible to create a second Smokey as it were, and gave him this amazing friend in Woodsy.

But two is a weird number. I don't know if you work in entertainment, except for maybe NBA commentary, you need odd numbers. Three works much better. I think that they should consider creating, really they're a little behind the game, right? If Smokey was created in the 40s and then they gave him a partner in the 70s,

then really around 2000, we should have launched the rainbow trout forestry mascot who teaches people to keep our waters clean, right? I don't know why we haven't. We're 20 years behind on when we should be launching this rainbow trout, but regardless, let's learn more about Woodsy. All right, so he was created by this guy Harold Bell in 1970 as a part of a forest reservice campaign.

To raise awareness of environmental protection, his original motto was give a hoot, don't pollute, which is by the way a fucking banger, just a banger of a motto it rhymes it is Germane to an owl in a way that doesn't feel like owl pandering to me and it's easy and catchy to say Just out the gate. I don't know how you improve upon give a hoot Don't pollute but I can definitely tell you how they didn't and that is by updating his slogan to Linda Hand Care for the Land. Owls aren't known for their hands. It's not like there's that people out there holding hands with

owls left and right. I understand that Woodsy has little like wing hands. Owls have wings. Like it should be Linda Wing, don't throw away a ting or something. You know what I mean? If the Linda hand care for the land is fucking lame, especially off the back of give a hoot, don't pollute. Jesus Christ, man. Why do you mess with perfection? No, that's interesting. He was created in 1970 as a part of the second U S environmental movement. I wonder what, have we had a third US environmental movement? Was that the like 80s, 90s, save the whales kind of thing?

Have we had a fourth one since then with like the new green deal and climate change? Or are we just, I think I know the answer. We're shit in the bed. Huh, during this phase of growing environmental awareness, Smokey, which has existed since 1944, I was right, is increasingly relied on for environmental education. The US Forestry Service was concerned that the bear

with the motto of forest fire prevention could be misused through excessive use. Yeah, that makes sense. Therefore, he was, therefore, Forest Service officials commissioned the development of a new protagonist and a new message. So this marketer, Harold Bell, apparently used to work for Disney, among others,

and he got together with a couple of employees of the Forest Service, and technical consultants for the popular television series, Lassie. That's interesting. And they created the Robin Hood inspired Woodsy. The Robin Hood theme was motivated by a movie item that Williams found on set.

I wonder what set, that's interesting. Before choosing the owl, a raccoon, rainbow trout, ladybug and moose had been discussed, yeah. I think owl is the clear winner among those animals, but like I said, man, let's launch a rainbow trout or a moose. I think raccoons have been done to death. And I think ladybugs,

I just don't know they have a gravitas, you know what I mean? But I'd love to be proven wrong. I think the era of American mascot exceptionalism may be behind us. That's a grim thought, but man, what have we, what mascot have we launched since 1970 that had the impact of Woodsy Owl?

Think about it. Maybe I'm missing some huge glaring mascot that's just staring right in front of me that I can't see for some reason, but I'll be damned if I can think of it The first woodsy owl public service spot was created by US Forest Ranger Chuck Williams Who was the Forest Service's technical consultant for the last CTV show? That's what we were talking about a second. Yeah Several songs have been used in conjunction with woodsy owls

Environmental campaign including the ballotad of Woodsy Owl and Help Woodsy Spread the Word. It would be fun to use one of those as a song in the episode, but I'm not. I'm not gonna do that to you. But I do recommend we all look at them. Oh, and Weird Eye Yankovic's drummer recorded the Woodsy Owl song, interesting.

What else has he done? For appearances in commercials that aired in 1970s and 80s, Woodsy was voiced by several actors, including Sterling Holloway, Barry Gordon, Dave Kimber and Frank Welker. I feel like I've heard the name Frank Welker before. I'm gonna look him up. There's a picture of him at GalaxyCon in 2023. What is Frank Welker known for? Oh, everything. Absolutely everything. He began his career in the 1960s

and holds more than 860 television and video game credits as of 2023. He's best known for voicing Fred from Scooby-Doo, Baby Kermit in The Muppet Babies, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in Epic Mickey, Megatron, Galvatron, and Soundwave in The Transformers. You're telling me that every time Megatron and Soundwave were going at it,

it was the same guy on both ends, Jesus Christ. Santa's Little Helper and Snowball 2 on The Simpsons. Shao Kahn and Reptile in Mortal Kombat's film adaptation. George in Curious George. Garfield on The Garfield Show, Nibbler on Futurama, Jabberjaw on Speed Buggy. Oh no, he was Jabberjaw and Speed Buggy, holy shit. He was Astro in the Jetsons, well, 1980s revival of the Jetsons,

and he played multiple Smurfs. In 2016, he received a lifetime achievement Emmy award for his work, good Lord. Oh, I guess I did recognize Frank Wilker. I certainly did. Let's look at the others though. I could click on, who else was it? Mark Tra-

I'm getting ahead of myself on Mark Trail. We'll see what that is in a second. Sterling Holloway was the first one mentioned. Sterling's been dead for a long time. He was an American actor who appeared in a hundred films and 40 television shows. He did voice acting for Walt Disney, played Mr. Stork in Dumbo, the adult flower in Bambi,

the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, and Ka in The Jungle Book. He was Rokefoot the Mouse in The Aristocats, and he played Winnie the Pooh. How did they just throw out the, and the title character in Winnie the Pooh? That is a much bigger credit than the others. Oh my God.

Who's the other fucking guy? Barry Gordon. I'm about to get an education in this dude who I probably know very well too. An American actor, political talk show host, he was the longest serving president of the Screen Actors Guild and served from 88 to 95. He's perhaps best known as the original voice of Donatello and Bebop in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Holy shit. So man, Woodsy the owl has a fucking resume of voice actors.

You see what I'm talking about? This is the kind of heat they put behind Woodsy owl. They put Fred from Scooby Doo. They put the adult flower from Pampino. They called in the heaviest of heavy hitters to voice Woodsy Owl. Wow. Woodsy Owl appeared as a comic by Gold Key Comics from 1973 to 1976, as well as several other environmentalism or conservation themed comics like Mark Trail. environmentalism or conservation themed comics. Like Mark Trail. Who the fuck is Mark? Is that something I feel like I should know about?

Mark Trail is, hold on, Mark Trail is a newspaper comic strip created by the American cartoonist Ed Dot. In 1946, the strip centers on environmental and ecological themes. As of 2020, King Features syndicated the strip to nearly 150 newspapers and outlets worldwide. I grew up in the era of newspaper comics

and I don't think I've ever seen or heard of Mark Traill. Characters and story. Mark Traill's the main character as a photo journalist and outdoor magazine writer whose assignments lead him into danger and adventure. Are you guys aware of Mark Trail? Am I stupid? Should I know about Mark Trail? The wildlife photographer in his early 30s who's honest and upright? Huh. How did I miss this? Can I look at a Mark, what is it?

Mark Trail comic? Most recent comic. Okay, let's see Read the most recent what is comics Kingdom looks like Tuesday, March 11th. That's today. Okay, so he had a comic come out today Let's read it It's a three panel cut two panel comic three panel comic. Sorry had to load It's two people walking along the like a craggy little coast It's two people walking along the like a craggy little coast Next to some I'd probably like a lake and they're just walking along the edge Thanks for coming with me on my cryptid hunt auntie all of a cryptid hunt Wow, okay

My friend with the talk about updating your premise my friends are weird about doing cryptid hunts with me after the bass a gator went So here's the there's the joke. The bassigator hunt is looking for a bassigator. Our boat was surrounded by just a few gators. They act like it's such a big deal. And then the other person, I guess, Auntie Olive says, look, not everybody can handle gators like you can, Russ. And that's the comic. And of course, there's an alligator looking in the water that was by them the whole time.

Huh? Don't know how I made it to 49 and a half years old without knowing about Mark Trail, especially since it's been going consistently since 1946. But there you have it. I learned something today. I really, really learned something today. Oh wow, he has books and magazines book of animals

Second book of animals hunting tips from 1969. I wonder if those are still useful cooking tips 1971 I wonder if those are even less useful camping tips 1971 Huh, those won some awards 30 conservation awards. That's pretty cool See also smoky bear woodsysy Owl, Johnny Horizon. The fuck is Johnny Horizon? Johnny Horizon was a mascot used by the Bureau of Land Management in the United States in the 1970s

for its anti-litter campaign. First used, oh wow. First used in 1968 and resembling a cigaretteless Marlboro man, Johnny Horizon reached his greatest use in the years leading up to the United States bicentennial celebration with the Johnny Horizon 76 program. Huh.

Like the better known Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl characters of the Forest Service, use of Johnny Horizon mascot was protected under federal law beginning in 1970, and his protection was repealed in 1982. The character is no longer used by the Bureau. Interesting. So is Johnny Horizon just a free agent out there twisting in the wind just waiting for somebody to be a mascot for?

Is Johnny Horizon... Johnny Horizon's open to taking a call? Oh, in 1971, a Johnny Horizon environmental test kit was licensed by the US Department of the Interior and produced by Parker Brothers. It included four air pollution tests and six water pollution tests for young environmental scientists. I feel like something like that would be illegal in 2025. Johnny Horizon Environmental Test Kit was marketed to both boys and girls. Do you remember when we would market science to children? I wanna know what's up with Johnny Horizon.

Johnny, if you hear this, give me a call. Email me at eric at Jeff's boss. Might have an opportunity for you. Let me look him up. Johnny Horizon. Although I gotta put this in the regulation ideas real fast because I'm definitely going to bring this up to the guys. I think we might have just come up with our new potential new mascot or protector. I giggled him and this is what comes up.

Forgotten characters from forest history. How many are there? Oh, Burl Ives quickly teamed up with Johnny and the Department of the Interior to help spread his message. Interesting. Ives promised to get 200 million Americans aware and caring for the environment. Wow.

That's cool. Well, that's the son of a... Lots of images of Johnny. He's a good looking dude. In Twin Falls, Idaho, far from the prying eyes of Washington, every April, the town folk gather to honor the memory of their hero on Johnny Horizon Day.

They do what he first asked them to do in 1969, clean up the land because it's their land, and they do, by the thousands. And then they gather their children around and celebrate the great man. That is fucking cool, and I want to go to whatever that event is. Twin Falls County Johnny Horizon Cleanup Day

is Saturday is Saturday. When is it? I wanna know. This was in 2018. All right. You know what? We'll talk about this more over in regulation because I think there might be something there for us.

But I do wanna know, let's see. So what happened to him? By 1972, his message was everywhere. Then the men who hired Johnny left. The new guys didn't like Johnny, didn't like his image, and he wasn't a natural symbol like a certain bear. They resented the growing popularity and growing budget. The department nixed a deal to open a chain of franchise

Johnny Horizon Natural Park campsites. So 1976 was Johnny's biggest year, but his handlers overplayed their hand when they demanded double the money for their man. They wanted to double the budget. Department had had enough and they ordered him phased out. They even brought in an ex-military man to do the dirty deed. "'Spread the word,' the colonel said. said. Johnny Horizon, his job done, leaves government

service. I wonder where that appeared. Interesting. Okay. So from from Smokey Bear to Woodsy Owl to Mark Trail to Johnny Horizon. That was a wild little ride we went on today. Not too shabby. Also need to do a little NBA update. I guess I should have done it at the top of the show, but we're gonna do it here at the tail end. Just to give you guys a heads up, I am not gonna bother going through

and poring over the numbers. I don't think they really matter. Luca continues to average a low scoring triple doubles pretty much every game. His shooting efficiency is down, his turnovers are up, but he's still playing like a top NBA player. And the Lakers were still winning, were still continuing to win until they ran

into the brick wall that is the Boston Celtics. Left LeBron out for two weeks with a battered groin and Luca clutching his lower back. We were too much for them. We ran through them. It was a hell of a game, hell of a game. And LA was in it to the end, man. I was not sure we were going to win that game.

I would love to see that rivalry in the finals because I think that there could be a lot of really, really good basketball to be watched. Also, it is great for whatever reason, Jalen Brown is Luka Dončić's kryptonite. He may be no other person's kryptonite on earth, but he has, he is in Luka's head. We stole the ball from Luka alone like five times in that game, including on back to back possessions when he was walking the ball up the court Crazy level of defense from the Celtics. They were dialed in LA played very well, too The real story though to get to is that well 80 is still out I have heard no update on 80 but

Literally the day that I recorded last week's episode of so alright, maybe an hour after I finished editing it It was announced that Kyrie Irving's injury was a little bit more severe than a knee sprain. He tore his ACL. He's gonna have to have surgery. That is, that used to be a death knell for NBA players 15 years ago. Now it's a year, year and a half off. Kyrie is not playing basketball next year. So not only did Kyrie go down for the remainder of this season, he's out next season too. So even when AD comes back fully healthy, they're gonna be without their primary scorer

in Kyrie Irving for an entire season. Maybe he could step in at the tail end of the playoffs, but he's gonna be coming in off of an injury after a year or a little bit more off of basketball, you know what I mean? And he's not gonna be coming that back, the guy that left. Also, he's gonna be, how old is Kyrie Irving today? Let's look.

Kyrie Irving is 32 years old. Oh, how disrespectful. The number one image when you search for Kyrie Irving age is him in his Celtics jersey. Ugh, take that number 11 off and put it back on Peyton Pritchard. Gross. Anyway, Kyrie is 32,

so he's the same age as Anthony Davis, but he'll be, you know, just about 34, if not 34, when he comes back from this injury. So yeah, yeah, his birthday's in March, so he'll be 33 very soon. He'll be 34 before he plays basketball again. A kind of basketball that is predicated on his unreal handle and athletic ability.

Knees are a big component of that. We'll see what happens. Hate to see anybody go down for that long. Not even really feeling any schadenfreude there. It's just, can't imagine how horrible it is to be a Dallas Mavericks fan right now. I'm so sorry for you. I really am. That's your basketball update. Song of the episode is Lament's by Hop Along. Listen to it. Maybe you'll like it. Maybe you won't. I hope you do though. And definitely come back here next week for some more bullshit. Alright.

This is the end of the show. What?