Stuff You Should Know - North Korea: What's the Deal?

Episode Date: May 4, 2018

For almost 70 years, North Korea has been the bane of South Korea, Japan and the US or has stood as the sole defenders of the Korean homeland from the American hordes, depending on who you ask.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant with Jerry Rowland.

And this is Breaking Stuff You Should Know, recorded two days before it gets released. We're basically like Pod Save America now. Yeah, and I think it's funny that the only reason that we are speeding this through is because of laziness. Because I sent an email earlier, it was like, guys, if we publish this in two or three weeks, we're gonna have to go back and rerecord updates.

And I don't wanna rerecord updates. I don't want to either. We could've also been super-duper lazy and released it and not done updates, but then we would've just been like slobs. We would've been like Brother Pluto in Animal House. Right, kind of like we went back and updated the Obamacare episode so many times.

Exactly, I mean, think about how much work we put into that one. Oh, man. So Chuck, we're talking today about North Korea. I've been wanting to do this one for a while. I learned so much. Yeah, one of the things that I learned is that a lot of the bizarre rumors

I've always heard about North Korea, a lot of those are actually totally true. Yeah, and I learned that just knowing, just having a basic understanding of its history really just sort of helps frame everything. It does, you know? Very much so. You definitely get a feel for why it is the way it is.

Yeah, just a basic understanding. Yeah, just what we do, you know? We're definitely not North Korea experts by any means. Oh my gosh. But what's interesting to me is there are actually people out there who are, it's their job to analyze reports that come out of Pyongyang and the way that Kim Jong-un might wave,

is he using his left hand today? Oh, that actually means this. There's people whose job it is to know that and to be able to say this is probably what they're going to do next. Yeah, how's he wearing his hair today? Oh, the same he's worn it every day of his life. Well, here's the fact for you.

Speaking of his hair, he has a very unique hairstyle for his country. As a matter of fact, he may be the only person in his country with that hairstyle. Really? Yes, because when he came to power, right after he came to power in 2011, the North Korean government led, of course,

by Kim Jong-un, issued a decree that if you're a man, you can have hair that is two inches long and if you're an older man, three inches long, that's it. If you're a woman, you can have one of 14 hairstyles. Have you seen the poster? That's it, I haven't. Oh yeah, they got the hairstyles for the men and women that are allowed.

That's why I thought that was just a rumor or something. It's one of the things that was confirmed for me. I never saw the poster, although I probably would have been suspicious even after the poster because Photoshop and all that. But his hair looks like one of the approved hairstyles. It's long, way longer than a couple inches. It's hard to tell because he's...

Keeps it slick back. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that his hair is totally unique in North Korea, at least with length. So when he wakes up in the morning and he's in shaggy dog mode, it's all hanging down in his face. Yeah, he looks like the new bass player from Metallica.

Who was who? Oh, he's like the guy from Metal Apocalypse. Is he the same guy that took over since the, what's her, Jason? Jason Newstead. Newstead left? Same guy? Yeah.

It's like him and that Zach Galifianakis? No, the guy who played guitar for Ozzy Osbourne. Like the two most metal looking guys in the history of metal, probably. The new bass player from Metallica? Uh-huh. Oh, yes, dude. It's almost like they prayed to God

to craft a metal bass player. Yeah, he's an archetype, for sure. But I'm pretty sure he's the guy from Metal Apocalypse, Metal Apocalypse. You know what I'm talking about. Sure. It's like about the metal band from Adult Swim. There's like a cartoon about the metal band.

Oh, okay. So I'm pretty sure that's him. Gotcha. At any rate, North Korea. That's already the guy. Hey, if we're gonna have to talk about Dennis Rodman, then we're gonna talk about Metallica's bass player. So let's start at the latest as it stands right now, okay?

Like what's going on now? Do you want to or do you want to end up with that? No, that's fine. Okay, so there's been some really surprising developments and a lot of people are very much reserved in saying do not be distracted by this, do not be fooled. But as it stands, North Korea and South Korea just had a summit, which they've had from time to time,

but they had a summit in the demilitarized zone where the president of South Korea and the president of North Korea got together and said, let's make this a denuclearized peninsula. Let's end this war. By the way, the Korean War has still been going on since 1950, it never ended. Yeah, it's been a long truce.

Let's end it and let's just reunify. And people are going nuts because this actually seems like there's a possibility of it. And one of the reasons why they think there's a possibility is because this is such an about face for the North compared to two weeks ago. Yeah, I mean, all right, let's dig in because there is reason for optimism.

There is plenty of reason for skepticism. Sure. And I don't think anyone really knows whether or not to believe North Korea. No, but there are plenty of people who do believe that you should not believe it. Right, because some people say this could be a ruse to unify Korea and get America out of there

once and for all, which could be scary. There's people that thinks that, you know, there's recent reports that this whole notion of shutting down their nuclear test site is merely symbolic for two reasons. A, because they've got what they needed and they don't need to test anymore. And B, because this geologist in China,

did you see that report? No. He just came out like yesterday saying, I think that this site has been destroyed. Oh, I did see that. Via earthquake, via setting off nuclear bombs. Right. So like it's not even there anymore anyway.

Right, they set off a hydrogen bomb and blew their nuclear testing facility up. Yeah, so. But now it's a bargaining chip on the table. Exactly. And the reason they can say that is because it is such a closed off area and it's so difficult to surveil

that you have to rely on the report of a Chinese geologist and say, okay, maybe that's true, maybe it's not. You don't know, because it's a hermit kingdom. Yeah, but there have been a few olive branches in the past few days. I didn't even know this. In 2015, North Korea set their clocks off by 30 minutes

so they wouldn't have the same time. Is that right? Yeah. Wow. And so North Korea said, you know what, we're gonna set these clocks back, we're gonna realign. Wow.

And I've also in recent days been dismantling these propaganda loudspeakers at the border. Yeah, I saw that. Where they both sides pump, like on the South side, they pump K-pop and like, hey, this is what it's like to be free.

And then on the other side, they pump out, I don't know, just North Korean propaganda. But they're taking down these loudspeakers. So there are little signs that like, I don't know, maybe this is for real. I was looking all over for some verbatim examples of the propaganda that comes out of the North's loudspeakers.

Oh, sure. They're taking it anywhere. Yeah, set that to a nice 808 beat. Sure, right. You've got a K-pop hit of your own. But yeah, dismantling this is, that's huge, that's a big deal. And the steam militarized zone,

we'll talk more about it, but it is widely considered the most dangerous, I think two-mile strip of land on the planet. Yeah. And the reason why it's so dangerous, the reason why it's there is again, as far as Korea is concerned, and especially as far as North Korea is concerned,

the Korean War is still ongoing. Back in, I think, 1953, they signed an armistice, not a peace treaty, a ceasefire. Yeah, it's like a truce. But there hasn't been a peace treaty, so the war is still going on, which is clue number one that I didn't realize, but that's clue number one to the situation over there.

Once you understand that, you start to understand, oh, they've been in a war like stances whole time because they consider themselves to have been at war still. Yeah, and no one even knows what this early on, as of this recording, no one even knows what de-nuclearization. Is that a word? Nuclearization?

I think so, yeah, yeah. Well, that even means in this case. Like, does that mean we're gonna stop our building programs, but we can keep in those missiles? Or does this mean we're gonna destroy everything? Right, that is another reason why it's so surprising. But the whole reason that this is such big news is because, and the reason that this summit is

is even on the world stage, is because North Korea has finally gotten to a point where they have just come out of being strictly a regional threat, and a big regional threat to South Korea and to Japan. Yeah. But now they're actually a threat to the United States because they've just shown

through an intercontinental ballistic missile test that had the trajectory been a certain way, they could have hit Chicago. Yeah. And that changes everything. And then, of course, after that, we conducted a test of our THAAD system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense.

I looked into that, and you know what that thing is? What? It is, it basically shoots the rocket out of the sky in orbit. It goes pew, pew, pew. But it doesn't like, it doesn't have any explosives. It just, it works through velocity, so. Oh, it just punches right through it?

It just punches right through it. Wow. With the idea that it won't detonate the nuclear warhead. Smart. So it'll just disable the rocket, and I guess it'll just tumble back into the atmosphere and land where it may. Right, but hopefully the ocean.

It's probably gonna try to shoot it down over the ocean. I think that's the idea. Right? Yeah. We have about a 50-50 chance of shooting down any ICBM coming out of North Korea. Oh yeah? Which is, as Mark Bowden put it in this article

that I read, it's good, but on the other hand, it's actually really bad. Because that's even odds that ICBM will strike the United States if they shoot it. So the point is, North Korea showed that they actually have this technology now, and it changed everything. So the idea that they just proved that they could do this

and are now saying, let's denuclearize. Right. That's huge and crazy. And actually, people are talking about no bells over all this. Yeah, I mean, left-leaning websites are saying Donald Trump has done what no other president has been able to do, potentially.

Right. If this happens the way it looks like it could happen. Which it's a shocking thing to read. It's as shocking as the out phase from North Korea. Yeah, to see CNN go like, oh, I hate to say it, but he's really done something here, the end. Right. It was written by Wolf Blitzer while he was applying

like hot paper clips to his inner thighs. As things are getting strange. So it's gonna be really interesting to see how this unfolds and whether or not it is a trick. Right, yeah. I mean, it's really weird for weeks and months ago for North Korea to be saying we will destroy you, we will crush you, we will blow you to pieces.

I've got it. And I'll be like, everything's good. That they will strike a merciless blow at the heart of the US with our powerful nuclear hammer honed and hardened over time. That was from July, less than a year ago, Chuck. I don't know. I mean, is it possible that he's seeing the light?

I mean, these sanctions have put a serious hurt on a country that was already in a bad way. Right, but they've lived in a bad way for like half a, well, more than half a century now. It's so weird that if that's true, then we figured out a sanction that no one had tried before and it was exactly the right thing. It's just too bizarre, because they've lived with this stuff.

Well, but it also could be a symbol of just the changing times and there are a lot of North Korean citizens now that are saying like, you know, we should reform. Now is the time to play with the rest of the world and become part of the rest of the world and not be a hermit kingdom. See, it's my understanding that if you would say that out loud in the North, like you would be executed

with an anti-aircraft gun. Well, I think a lot of these have been defectors that have said like there's a lot of quiet sentiment. I got you. You know, I don't think anyone yet in the country is standing upon the rooftop saying reform, because that's what Kim Jong-un's brother, I mean, he was two women and assassins at an airport

sprayed him in the face with a nerve agent and killed him because, well, for a few reasons. One is because he believed in reform potentially. Yeah, I get that he was a little more Western oriented than his family. He's trying to get to Disneyland. Disneyland Japan, right? Yeah, on a Japanese, or I'm sorry,

Dominican Republic passport that he had and he got killed, assassinated and, you know, of course they haven't come out and said so, but it seems like a direct order from the top. Sure. From his half brother who, unless I misread, they have never met or had never met. That's possible.

Because I think the tradition is you raise potential successors in isolation from one another. Oh, I had not heard that. I just assumed that like the first family was in exile. Oh, no, I mean, they were half brothers and... That makes sense. Kind of like a little lab experiment and see which one grows the way you want it to, you know?

The one grew up and was like, I kind of want to go to Disneyland. Right, and he got caught doing it. Yeah, he was assassinated. I would guess his name was Kim Jong Nam and he was assassinated in 2017. And I would guess because Kim Jong-un was trying to consolidate his power,

just make sure there was nobody who could be like, you know, built up as a leader in exile and come and take his life. Little bro was in line, you know, he was the first born. Right. So let's take a break and then we're gonna come back and talk about Korean history and maybe things will get a little clearer, huh?

Yes. (#DestinyDigital story theme music starts playing...) On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Kristine Taylor, stars of the co-classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use HeyDude as our jumping off point,

we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster?

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Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

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All right, Chuck, we're back. What an intro. It really was. Intrigue, assassination, Disneyland. I felt impassioned. Metallica? Yeah. Had it all.

Oh, I forgot we talked about Metallica, jeez. All right, so let's go back in time, because understanding, and this article is actually really good on our site from Patrick Kriger. Gold. He does a good job. The section is titled How North Korea Came Into Existence. And it really just kind of brings it all into focus

once you know how this all, because I think a lot of people these days don't educate themselves. They watched MASH, and that's about the extent of it. That's about all I knew about Korea. Me too. Sure. So Korea was actually a, for a very brief time in the 20th century, actually not too brief,

but 1910 and 1945. It had been invaded and annexed by the Japanese, and it was in the process of becoming a Japanese colony when Japan lost World War II. Yeah, go look at Korea on a map. Start there. It's pretty close to Japan. Yeah, and it's also just a little bongal peninsula hanging

down from China. It also has amazing food, by the way. Oh, yeah. OK. So Korea fell out of the possession of the Japanese and into the possession of the Americans, the Allied forces that had invaded Japan, and part and parcel with that was invading Korea as well, right?

Yes. So because the United States and the USSR divided up the world, basically, one of the things that got divided was the Korean Peninsula. And right at the 38th parallel, above it was the North and below it was the South. And the South was controlled by the US, or supported. Sorry, I just made scare quotes for those of you

can't see me. Yeah. And the North was a puppet regime installed by the USSR. Yeah, pretty simple. OK. So to run the show up there in North Korea, this is really interesting how this dynasty started with this family that's been in power for so long.

Yeah, the Kim family. Yes, the Soviets said, all right, Kim Il-sung, you were born Kim Song-ju in 1912, you grew up in China mainly, and we're going to install you as a leader, and we're going to tell everybody at least that you were a very brave leader and fighter in the resistance against the Japanese.

However, no one really knows if that's true or not. He might have pulled the Don Draper, in fact. Don't tell me I haven't seen it. Probably shouldn't eat while it's too late now. There are some people believe that he is living under, or lived under an assumed identity from another guerrilla fighter who died in battle. Who actually was like a glorious resistance

leader against the Japanese. Yeah, so this family that has been ruling since the mid-40s may not have even had any legitimate claim whatsoever. Right, so it's amazing. So yes, it's entirely possible that the first president of North Korea, who's known as the eternal president, Kim Il-sung, was an imposter.

That's not widely confirmed at all. And it's not necessarily widely held, but there's at least one Korean analyst out there who says. Is that the deal, is it a fringe conspiracy theory? No. Or is it a little more like, hey, this might be real? I think the latter of the two. I don't think it's a conspiracy theory at all.

I think it's entirely possible. Either way, it doesn't matter. Because what happened was, whether this guy was the guy, or whether this guy was the guy posing as that guy, this person, Kim Il-sung, who the world knows is Kim Il-sung, was installed as the leader of Soviet-controlled North Korea right after World War II. Also a similar haircut to his grandson.

Sure. They all kind of had that look. Well, Kim Jong-il had his own look. He had the little mini fro going on, if you remember correctly. Short, cropped close above the ears. And fondness for cover all pantsuits. All right, so 1940, he joins the Soviet Red Army. This is Kim Il-sung.

In 46, Stalin makes him what they call the head of North Korean Temporary Peoples Committee. And then finally, in 1948, they appointed him North Korean, the Soviets did, appointed him North Korea's prime minister. And then the whole propaganda machine of communism, and especially here in Korea, has always been massive. Yes, huge, right?

So there was this woman, I wish I could remember her name, it's Suki something. But she posed as an English teacher for a missionary group in North Korea. She was actually a journalist, planning to write a book. But she went undercover, which, ethically, there's a lot of things going on here. But she came back and reported on this and said,

seriously, honestly, this whole country has suffered generations of psychological abuse. And the propaganda is everything to them. Like, yes, some of it is overdone and overblown, but ultimately, at their core, they experience happiness by thinking of sacrificing for their dear leader and their country. It's not about themselves, it's not about their friends,

it's about the country and dear leader in particular. Interesting. Because yes, the propaganda machine works. That, combined with surveillance, OK. So he's in power. The regime is going strong. The Soviets withdraw. And there are a lot of little skirmishes breaking out

along that, I guess, it was the 38th parallel back then, even? Yeah, it's always been. All right, so they were fighting a little bit back then. And I get the sense that he was sort of, not maybe paranoid, but definitely, I mean, this article says he was uneasy. So he sort of overcompensated by saying, you know what,

if anyone comes at me, you will be crushed completely. He had a lot of fear that he was going to get overthrown from the South. Yeah, because, I mean, the Soviets withdrew. And they were like, we're still bodies, we're still supporting you. Our military is not going to be there to back you up any longer. Which is a big deal.

Right, but he said, basically, to the Soviets, hey, listen, I'd like to preemptively take care of this problem. Can I do this? And finally, in 1950, the Soviets said, sure, go for it. Which was a huge surprise to South Korea and the US military. Yeah, we didn't expect that. All of a sudden, the North Koreans overrun the 38th parallel and invade South Korea and almost had the place.

And it turned out it was a small handful of Japanese regulars who had been, I guess, flipped to fight with the Americans and the South Koreans. And they were the ones who actually managed to repel the North Korean invasion long enough for MacArthur to bring in American troops and push the North Koreans back up over the 38th parallel. Yeah, like, I don't know a lot of military history,

but from what I did research-wise on this, MacArthur is a renowned figure for a very good reason. Like, it seems like he pulled off a near impossible feat here. He did, he was famously fired in the middle of the Korean War, though, by Harry Truman at a time when people had no idea the president could actually fire a five-star general, especially the nation's most prized general. But he did.

And the reason why I found was because MacArthur wanted to keep going right into China. And Truman and actually the Joint Chiefs, too, said, look, man, we are kind of overextended as it is right now. If you invade China, then we're at war with China. Yeah, that's a big deal. Don't forget, North Korea is a puppet stator it was of the Soviet Union, so you're going to draw Russia into this war.

No way. And they actually had to fire MacArthur because he was publicly criticizing the fact that they weren't allowing him to go into China. Right, so MacArthur, though, pushes up into North Korea, staves off above the 38th parallel. And then in the meantime, Kim Il-sung is going to Stalin saying, hey, I need some backup here.

You said I could do this, and now this MacArthur guy is ruining my party. Can you help? And out of nowhere, to everyone's surprise, China comes on board. Right, because Russia said no, which is that's huge, right? So they left their guy twisting in the wind. Well, which, as we will later see,

psychologically did a little mind game. There's some people who say that that experience crafted the mindset of the Kim dynasty. That's still around today. OK, so a bit of an overreaction, but it does make sense a little bit. So the Soviets said, Nyet, we're not going to help you. We're definitely not about to get into a ground war

with the United States right after World War II. And then he turned to Beijing. And Beijing said, let us think about it. And apparently there were two days, two long days, before Beijing finally surprised everybody, like you said, and came into the war. And those two days where the Soviets had said no, and China was thinking about it, North Korea

was utterly and totally alone. And they were against the United States. And that helped create the mythos that, still to this day, is the point, the existence of North Korea. Yeah, isolationist nation that they feel like they can't trust anybody. They can't trust anybody. They are the defenders of the Korean race, which

is the purest, greatest race on the planet, as far as the North Korean mythology is concerned. I didn't see whether it was widely held in South Korea or not, but the North Koreans definitely believe they are. And that the North Koreans are actually still, to this day, the defenders of the Korean peninsula. And if it weren't for the North, the American hordes would have overrun the Korean peninsula by now.

And so South Korea should be thanking their lucky stars at North Korea is there to defend them, even though the South is just a bunch of ingrates. That's the mythology behind this. And all of it finds its place in the guise or in the persona of the dear leader, whichever member of the Kim family that is at the time. Right, so after this happens, after China saves their bacon

and fighting just continues for a couple of years before this truce is signed, bad fighting, it was not pretty. Things got really serious. And Kim Il-sung, within his country, said, you know what, I'm going to go a little crazy here, and I'm going to purge the system. And anyone who's a threat, whether they're citizens or whether they're military leaders of my own,

they're all going to be under the gun, literally. And I will kill them. I will assassinate them. I will cleanse my country of anyone who doesn't worship me, basically. That's kind of a good way to say it. It is, yeah. It's almost like worship.

He turned, right, very much so. And it still is today, right? Yeah, I guess. Since his campaign to retake the Korean peninsula was repelled, he turned inward, focused it all inward. And it became very, very dark in North Korea. Yeah, he had 50,000 statues of himself erected. And this is with aid money from the Soviet Union and China

that was meant to go to, I don't know, things like housing construction and food and all that stuff. Yeah, so, I mean, if there was a propaganda machine before, it's like he turns it to 11 at this point. Right. And this is how the place is going for years and years and years and years until the early 90s, when something really significant happened.

And that was the fall of the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union kept North Korea as a client state, but not exactly as a communist country. They had communist ideology. But you can make a case, and a lot of people do, that North Korea is not actually a genuinely communist country. Because part of that experience of Kim Il-sung

being left to twist in the wind against the Americans by the Chinese and the Soviets was a concept called Zhuzhe, Zhuzhe, I really tried. And I could not find the right pronunciation. Oh, really? But it's J-U-C-H-E. What did you get? Well, I mean, if you believe that YouTube videos. Emma saying?

What is it called? Emma saying? Oh, I don't know. Is that what it is? Where it does like the crazy circle wipe? Yes. Yeah, they said Zhuzhe. Right, I thought it was a little on the nose.

OK. I saw in like written out, and I'm no linguist, but it didn't look anything like that. All right, well, either way, this was in early 1970s. This is the political philosophy, which is basically what they call here being the master of revolution and reconstruction in one's own country.

In other words, self-reliant, reject all outside influence. We're the masters of our own domain, except for whatever financial assistance you want to give us. Right, but we're not going to tell you about that. We're not going to tell you we're getting aid from the outside world because your glorious dear leader and eternal president is providing for you, so don't you worry about that at all.

So it isn't exactly a purely communist country. It is its own thing. It's actually a unique country because of that Zyusha thing and the fact that it has communist ideology. And then that it's actually what's considered to be a hereditary dictatorship. Right.

Very close to a monarchy. May as well be. But it's not exactly, although it is frequently called the hermit kingdom. So that's the way it stayed for years under Kim Il-sung. And then the USSR fell. And when the USSR fell, like most of the aid to North Korea that kept things humming went away.

Humming being a relative term. Right. They weren't living large. No, but they certainly weren't engaged in famine, which is what happened right after the Soviet Union. Stop being the Soviet Union. All right, so that's the Kim dynasty. Like we said, it might as well be a monarchy.

But what did you call it? Hereditary dictatorship. And the whole thing is the Kim dynasty. Yeah. That was just Kim Il-sung. Yeah, yeah, Kim Il-sung. Well, I was setting up for the Kim dynasty to follow. So Kim Il-sung passes away in 1994.

His eldest son, Kim Jong Il, who most people probably know, because he was around until pretty recently. He had a big part in Team America, World Police, too. I never saw that. Oh, you're missing out. I know. That one just got by me. It just, just watch it.

It's good. Yeah. His guys are great. Anything you want. See the unedited, uncut version, OK? So he was selected. Well, he was the first born, the eldest son. However, he was, there seems to be a lot of leeway,

because it's not a monarchy, on who they select. And he seems to have been selected, because out of the five kids, he was the biggest jerk, you know? This article says that he'd shown his talent at propaganda. One of the ways that he showed his talent at propaganda was by kidnapping a famous director and his actress wife from South Korea, and forcing them to spark North Korean cinema.

That was one of the ways he was a propagandist. Have you ever heard that story? It sounds familiar, but I don't think so. Kidnapped a film director and made him make propaganda movies for the North, for years, years. And they finally escaped. Oh, they did? Yeah.

And did the wife star in them? Yeah. Husband directed it. Wife starred in them as hostages of the state of North Korea. And was it like, hey, we'll take care of you. And they gave them a nice place? Or was it like, there's a gun at your head. Go make this movie?

The first four years were spent in a concentration camp. Got you. The rest of the time after that was in the lap of luxury. OK, so give very little, and then take care of them. Sort of like a head game, I think. Very much so. But four years in a concentration camp to start. Right.

Which means you'll do anything. Right. But they were in the lap of luxury. The director later said that a lot of people thought that I was living it up. He said, yes, I had everything I wanted. But to live in comfort like that while everyone around you is in agony is terrible.

Yeah, but that's something that the Kim Dynasty doesn't seem to mind so much. Because they very much live in the lap of luxury, obviously. So Kim Jong-il, he inherits a North Korea that's not in good shape. The Soviets are gone economically, like you said. They are, like you mentioned, there was a brutal famine. There were floods.

There were droughts. About 2 and 1 half million people supposedly died of starvation. And so he said, all right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to maybe try some small economic reform. And in the early 2000s, he started allowing a semi-private market to emerge, but it was not much. Certainly not the kind of thing to turn a country's economy

around. Not enough for sure, yeah. So after the Soviet Union fell, they were down to one state. And they still received outside aid unless somebody had a sanction du jour against them. But the one country they could rely on was China for financial aid. But they used to be the Soviet Union and China.

And then all of a sudden, the Soviet Union went away. And then it was China. Well, that's why the most recent sanctions have packed such a punch because China got involved. Because you were saying earlier, like whatever sanctions, it's because China, I think. Well, that was part of Obama's, what's it called, strategic patience.

Was basically being like, you guys want to act like a brat? That's fine. Check out our military over here. And while you're just over here being like this, we're going to go to China and put pressure on China. Like China was the key. You get China further and further out onto the world stage, more and more

and meshed in global markets, the less they're going to tolerate outbursts by North Korea. And if you take China away from North Korea, North Korea is done. Strategic patience is, has there ever been a more like? Obama-esque term? Well, in just government-crafted title. It's like, here's a good one to try it out there.

Strategic patience. Strategic patience. But that was one thing and one reason why a lot of people are crediting Trump with this about face. And we'll talk more about this, but it's worth saying right now. It's because he very much went against strategic patience. And his whole thing was a show of bluster and strength, saying we're not going to put up with your crap.

Don't push me, fella. And a lot of people are saying that this is what actually got North Korea to the table again. That he actually scared North Korea. That to me, though, is like, that's what makes it so unbelievable to me. That's what makes me suspicious of the whole thing. That that is what worked?

Yeah, that the Kim family scared that easily. I don't know, man. Who knows? All right, so semi-private markets, not working out too well. Certainly not turning the country around. Kim Jong-il died in 2011 of a heart attack. Yeah, and we're skipping over a lot of stuff. If you want to know more about just how bizarre North Korea is,

you can't possibly go to it. Right, but also specifically look at Kim Jong-il's reign. Like, he was well known for importing nearly $1 million worth of cognac into his country every year when the average wage was $1,100. Like, just crazy stuff, crazy stuff. But he was also able to be bought off. That was a big one.

Yeah, what was, I don't know, I think this was for Kim Il-sung when they first got the propaganda machine going, that they said things like, first time he went bowling, he scored a 300. And the first time he went golfing, he got 11 straight holes in one. First time ever.

That's so funny that it just sounds like something, like they got a third grader to write his backstory. Right, oh, I know, I got it. This is going to knock their socks off. He grew a full beard when he was four, just because he could. So you got Kim Jong-il's song, and then Kim Jong-il, his son, and then Kim Jong-il dies, and Kim Jong-un takes over. And he's the third in line.

I think it was like 27 when he took over. And he was different, for sure. He had been educated in Switzerland. He was a fan of Western music. Love basketball. Basketball is huge in North Korea, but they actually have slightly altered rules. Like there's such a thing as a four pointer.

Oh, really? Yeah. Is that just a super long shot? I don't know. But I do know that if you miss free throws, you actually lose points. Oh, interesting. It's kind of a good idea.

Really puts the heat on you. That sounds like something that whatever the XFL version of the NBA would do. Right. But this is the North Korean version of the NBA. Or if you shoot a three pointer with your eyes closed, it's a four pointer. But behind your back, over your head.

That explains Dennis Rodman, at least. Right. Sort of. Talk about Dennis Rodman. Well, I mean, I don't have a whole lot on him other than he very famously made the news a couple years ago. 2013, and then again, within the last year or so. Yeah, by going over there and being buddies with him,

and then coming back and saying, he's not such a bad guy. Yeah, he was super criticized for it. Rodman was. Sure. Because he didn't go under the premature of the State Department or anything like that. Yeah, we did not send him. No.

As envoy. He was a rogue envoy. But at the same time, some people were saying like, hey, man, a rogue envoy is an unofficial ambassador to North Korea. It's better than the status quo right now. Let's see what he comes back with. One of the things he said was that Kim Jong-un

lives basically on Ibiza or Hawaii, except he's the only one that lives there. Yeah, he lives on an island off the coast. A gorgeous tropical island. Yeah, of his own. Right. And there's lots of other stuff that Rodman came back with. But the point was, there is a period of time

where Dennis Rodman was the unofficial ambassador to North Korea for the United States, right? I'm sure they showed him a great time. Rodman was probably like, man, that dude knows how to party. Right. And so with Kim Jong-un coming in like this, being Western influenced in some ways, there was a lot of hope that he was going to open up

the country. He was going to drop the saber rattling and bellicosity of his predecessors, his father and his grandfather, and that maybe the North Korea problem was going to be solved now. And it looked like that for a month, and then he started killing people. Well, yeah, but that's why I think it might be real now

is that after he went through his kill people phase, that he might have been like, well, this isn't working. Sanctions are worse than ever. I've got this new president in the United States that wants to prove a point. Oh, wow. You should be the ambassador to North Korea. That wants to prove a point with his bluster

and his bellicosity. So maybe it wouldn't be so bad to get American movies over here and kind of like, I'm young, and he's totally watching all that stuff. Oh, sure. He is. You know? But the idea that the like, am I really

threatened by my own citizens? I don't know if he's threatened by it, and this probably isn't a huge factor, but the amount of psychic damage that that would do if it wasn't properly handled by their propaganda machine would just supposedly mentally crumble or emotionally crumble a significant portion of their population who are just so dedicated to this that the idea of North Korea

suddenly laying down its arms. When the whole purpose of North Korea's existence was to be armed against an American invasion, it doesn't fit, so it doesn't make sense. All right. Well, here, let's talk about his killing people phase and then take a break. Sounds good.

Because I don't want to leave people hanging. So like you said, he comes in there, he's in his late 20s, mid 20s, and in his first five years, he's just executing people left and right. Like basically his father's contemporaries. One of the guys was his uncle. 140 senior members of the military government and the party elite.

His uncle, like you said. How did he kill his uncle? Tell him. Well, if you believe reports, he was literally torn apart by an anti-aircraft gun. In front of his family. In front of his family. Which that's not a good look.

Like a four-barreled gun used to shoot down planes. Right. They used on. Right in the kisser. Hyeon Young Choi, who was also his defense minister. And his uncle. And his uncle. And if you believe reports, which I mean they have to be true,

had his half-brother assassinated. Right. By two female assassins spraying him in the face in an airport because he's trying to go to Disneyland. I also saw reports that he had, I think also by anti-aircraft gun, executed his mistress. And there was suspicions that it was at his wife's behest. Oh really?

Yeah. So that happened right after he came to power too. That basically signaled like, nope, this guy's following in the family footsteps for sure. Well, there was a very embarrassing video of his uncle nodding off at an event. Oh, that's what got him killed, huh? Well, I mean.

He was the guy? That was the guy who did that? Yeah, I mean, that may have been the tipping point. But he wanted him out of there for whatever reasons. But he was caught on video napping at an event where Kim Jong-un was. And that, I think, was what sealed his fate. You know, Chuck, if you listen to us,

we're both kind of hedging like if these reports are true or reports say this or whatever. Yeah, because who knows? We were raised in the Cold War, right? And once the Cold War was over, we realized that a lot of the stuff we were told about the Soviet Union was just total BS. So I think we can't help but approach what we've been told

about North Korea with the same kind of suspicion. But from what I've seen, a lot of this stuff seems to be totally true. Like it doesn't need to be exaggerated, which is really jarring. You want to take a break now? Yeah, let's do it. OK.

Hey, dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in,

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Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear.

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radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. OK, so North Korea is known as the Hermit Kingdom. And for good, good measure, right, for good reason. Yeah, they have sealed themselves off as much as is possible in today's modern age of information. Yeah. Pretty successfully sealed themselves off from the rest of the world.

Yeah, oh yeah, I'll bet other totalitarian states are just like, oh, those guys do it right. They really do. So one of the ways that they do, like they really keep outside influences to a very large degree outside, right, the radios that you buy. And again, I can't help but see us in like 15 years being like, I can't believe we said that was fact.

But what I've been told is that the radios and televisions that you buy in North Korea are preset to the state channels so that they can't tune in anything but the state-approved media. Yeah, no labor unions, no independent news media. They jam networks, foreign broadcasts from coming in. Right, they still use Yahoo. Netscape.

People, there are public executions. It's a very grisly scene to keep everyone in line. They're labor camps. I took issue with the public execution thing because I think that's pretty standard. It's like something the state does, any state. Oh, you mean to keep people in line? Our own executions of criminals?

Yeah, everybody does that. It's like to keep people in line. Yeah, but I think when they say public, it's probably broadcast on television, that kind of thing. Gotcha. Whereas we don't do that yet. No, there was a moment. Do you remember that TV special had almost aired

in the late 90s, early 2000s, where they were going to broadcast an execution on Fox or something? That's horrific. So yeah, forced labor camps. And this is startling too. Supposedly, sometimes you could be in a labor camp because of a sin, quote, sin, unquote, that your grandfather committed.

Yeah, they have like a three generation rule in some cases where if you did something, they would put you and then two other generations of your family into a labor camp. Forced labor camp, not fun labor camp, a forced labor camp. Yeah, not a fun labor camp. We already talked about the hairstyles. Go look up the posters of what's approved.

The women's hairstyles are not current, to say the least. The men's hairstyles are kind of all the same version of the Kim family, which is to say high and tight and short. Yeah, they look like a racist, Bugs Bunny, Western propaganda cartoon. I don't even know what that means. Look it up. OK.

We talked about their military. For the size of their country, their military is huge. They only have 25 million people. And they have 1.2 million full time service members. That's just full time. And another almost 8 million reservists. That's insane. Yeah, compared to South Korea, they

have twice the population and only about 655,000 full time soldiers. And from what I understand, if you just put North Korea against South Korea, South Korea would whip North Korea. Just wallop them militarily. Oh, right, even though they have half the soldiers. But that's not to say that North Korea has some slouchy, sloppy military.

They spend almost all of their money on their military. And it's actually pretty top notch. Plus it's peopled by extraordinarily dedicated soldiers. Yeah, that they parade through there every October. Everyone's seen those parades with the tanks and the ICBMs. And it's a big show. It's a big show. I was going to follow that up.

But that's what it is. You just say it twice. It's just a big show. It's the description so nice you said it twice. Their GDP is small. It's just about $40 billion. Like we said, they have a life there isn't fun. They don't produce a lot.

They certainly can't produce enough for themselves. So they're really reliant. That's why these sanctions are put such a whooping on them. Because they really rely on imports and exports to get by. Right. But one of the things that workers have to do no matter what your industry is, almost all workers have to stay after work.

Part of your job is after you're done laboring for the day. And god, this is so bleak. You have to stick around for mandatory government meetings. And there's two varieties. There's one where it's called the community session, where they talk about production goals and stuff like that. That's fine.

I mean, it's like a work meeting, basically. But then there's the learning session. And that's just depressing. Yeah, that's when you basically rat people out. Even yourself, too. Yeah, rat yourself out. On if you break broken rules, if you saw someone breaking rules, and apparently this is where the defectors have

shed a little light and said that people aren't coming to these as much as they used to. Because things are so bad here, people need the spare time after work to go in and hunt and scour for food. Yeah, you've got to look for food. You might also be just sick. Like, you basically have to work,

but you're just too sick to stick around for the learning session, right? Well, yeah, I mean, it's amazing the physical toll that life, and this is just since the 40s that it's taken. Life expectancy is 67 for men, and 74 for women. And this is all compared to South Korea, which, by all accounts, it shouldn't be that different. No, no, there's literally divided families that are still

divided from the Korean War. So 60 years for men, 74 for women, compared to 79 and 85 to South Korea. And then just their height and weight is different. The North Korean men are between about 2 and 4.3 inches shorter and 13 to 27 pounds lighter. That's based on a study of defectors from North Korea, compared to their South Korean counterparts.

So I don't know how robust that is, but it's actually literally taken a physical toll on a population. And from all accounts, life is extraordinarily hard there. It gets very cold in North Korea, even though there's Pacific Paradise Island that Kim Jong-un lives on. In the mainland, it gets very cold in the winter,

but they don't have a lot of electricity. Brownouts, blackouts. So there's a lot of lack of heat. There's a lot of, yeah, blackouts and brownouts. It's a very hard existence, which makes it all the more remarkable that they've managed to keep the population this devoted, not just in line, utterly devoted for decades, for generations now.

Yeah, but are they? Yes. How do we know that? I'm basing mine on, I think, from defectors. And I think from the woman who posed as an English teacher, she came back saying, yes. She's like, yes, there are glimmers here and there of curiosity about the outside world,

about all this other stuff. But there's so much self-censorship because everyone knows that they are being surveilled at all times by their buddies, by military soldiers, by everybody, that for all intents and purposes, the easiest, the path of least resistance is to just be dedicated and devoted as much

as they expect you to be. Yeah, but my point is there's a difference between really believing in that and doing it out of fear for being killed. And as soon as that Berlin Wall falls, then everyone is awake. But I don't know that that's necessarily true because think about people who are institutionalized in prison. You spend enough time in prison, the day you get out

of prison is not necessarily like you're right back into society. Then Red hangs himself in a halfway house. Exactly, that's where I learned about this. That means it must be true. So many lessons from Shawshank. They do things like control or the ways that people can get a little taste of the West is,

I thought this was interesting, is that they will. Now, who is making these DVD players with the USP? China, OK. So China will make a DVD player with a sneaky little USB port so you can have the state propaganda disc, digital versatile disc in the player, but be sneakily watching something else via USB port, like whatever.

Welcome back, Carter. Yeah, I literally couldn't think of a new movie. That's huge in North Korea. Avengers Infinity War. Actually, from what I understand, the North Korean media on TV consists of three channels, two of which are available only on the weekends. And so the North Koreans really love bootleg smuggled

South Korean soap operas. Love them. And K-pop. So there are outside influences that do trickle in, especially along the border between China and North Korea. But it's just not widespread. And it's certainly not widespread enough that there doesn't seem to be any internal threat

to the Kim dynasty, OK? Yeah. None. And the whole reason for this is because it's us against the rest of the world. And they've managed to keep that mentality going for generations. So the idea that now that the Kim dynasty, North Korea,

has the very thing that they've sought for decades, nuclear warhead that could pierce into the United States, now that they're saying we'll give that up, it boggles the mind. You know what's mind boggling is to go to an image source online and type in daily life in North Korea and daily life in South Korea and bring them up. And just to look at one modern society on one side

and then one on the other side and realize there's just like an imaginary line drawn between these two things. Yeah. It's really unbelievable. Yeah. It's actually a pretty serious, very real line at TMZ. Well, you know what I mean.

I do know what you mean. Although I will tell you this, I was very surprised to hear this. Pot is not at all illegal in North Korea. Oh, really? Pot. So they use it and smoke it? Yes.

Isn't that bizarre? I wonder if they do that to keep everyone just sort of stoned. But you think they'd be like, wait a minute, things are really messed up here. Oh, I got all reflective? Yeah. I don't know. Look at Bob Marley.

Or, man, things aren't so bad. It's possible. It spins on what strain you're smoking. But look at Bob Marley. He was like, get up and the other thing. Stand up. Yeah, but he was also like, let's go kick the soccer ball around.

Yeah, that's true too. But Pot also made him invincible when he was shot. Was Bob Marley shot? Oh, yeah. I saw that documentary. It was really good. I just forgot that part. I don't remember why, but somebody

tried to assassinate him. He got shot with eight bullets and he managed to live. Yeah, yeah. How would someone kill Bob Marley? I don't know. I was just listening to Talking Blues this past weekend. And Emily was like, why is he talking so much in between the songs?

And what language is that? And I went, he's talking because he's for studio sessions that's called Talking Blues. And he's speaking English. It's just very heavily accented. You need a subtitle almost. We should do one on Bob Marley. I think you're right, man.

Have you ever heard his Dortmund Germany show? From, I think, 1980? No, it was great. It's not just one of the greatest Bob Marley shows. Not just one of the greatest Rege shows. It is one of the greatest live shows of all time. Check it out. Why that one?

It just, when you see a live show every once while everything just comes together and it just happened to converge on Bob Marley and the Whalers in Dortmund, Germany in 1980. It was amazing. Yeah, I was at a show like that about a month ago. The Stavichino Show? No, no, no.

Just Albert Hammond Jr. But it was just, you catch someone on the right Friday night and the crowd, everything just kind of came together to where you could see the band looking at each other, going like, what is going on tonight? That's awesome. You know, it was just one of those things. I'm sorry I missed that show.

I would like to see him. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I interviewed him for Movie Crush. Oh, when is that coming out? The next couple of weeks. I can't wait to hear it. Yeah, he's an interesting guy.

I'm sure. Yeah, he's a good one. OK, so where were we? Are we done here or do we need to? No, we need to talk about what's going on today. That's right. I brought us up to today, basically, the idea that Kim Jong-un, now that he has everything he wants,

would just turn his back on it. It makes zero sense, dude. So what is going on? I don't know. OK, well, how about this? Let's talk about up till two days ago, there were basically four ways of dealing with North Korea that had been discussed and bandied about.

Did you read that Mark Bowden article? Yes. OK, so you know these four prongs, basically. Sanctions. I guess that would be part of the last one, yeah. But their prevention, turning the screws, decapitation, and acceptance. Where does a patient, what was Obama's jam?

A strategic patient. Where does that figure in? That could be conceivably part of turning the screws because it's sanction heavy. It's also, in a way, part of acceptance, depending on your take on it. But there were a couple that we need to talk about real quick. Prevention is a full-on attack on North Korea,

a preemptive attack on North Korea. And here's why no one did that yet. No one's done that. It would be a devastating loss of life. There would be literally millions, if not tens of millions of people, who died in the handful of hours the first day following that attack.

They would be people who lived in Seoul, which is 40 minutes south of the DMZ. And they would be people in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan. They would die because the North Koreans have not just nuclear warheads that are capable of hitting Seoul and Tokyo. So right there, you've got 50 million people, more than 50 million people, almost 60, if not more,

who are just vulnerable in two cities. They also had 8,000, what they call big guns, which could just rain artillery down on Seoul for as long as they were allowed to stay intact. They also have nerve gas and chemical agents and biological agents, enough to kill many, many millions of people just by releasing this gas. We don't really have any means of defense against a gas

attack, which is one of the reasons why chemical and biological agents are just internationally outlawed. But if you're a hermit kingdom, you don't have to play by those rules. So the fact that they have had all of the stockpile, at least since 1997, is the reason why no one has just gone in and taken out North Korea,

because it would result in a huge loss of life that just could not be morally defended. Yeah, I mean, geographically, it's so unique. Like you said, with Seoul being right there, there's just no way around it. I mean, the brightest military minds have tried to construct ways to do this, and it's just not possible.

It's just not. So prevention is basically like, we can't do that, which is one reason why Donald Trump's bellicosity really made a lot of people nervous, because it made some observers think, oh, god, he might go for the prevention choice, which is not OK. There's also turning the screws, which is basically like a series of drawn out attacks with pauses in between

to let North Korea know this is not the prevention, but we're still going to hurt you. But it would leave Kim Jong-un in power on purpose to keep stability in the country. There's decapitation. Like assassination? Yes. Yeah, and that's just tough to do.

Well, first of all, the US supposedly doesn't sanction assassination like this. I think the rest of the world would kind of be like, meh. This one. But at least the way this writer sees it is that any assassination attempt would require at least some kind of inner circle cooperation, and that's just impossible, they say.

They're so dedicated that even one person wouldn't be a turncoat. No, and even if they could get them, these people are so surveilled and watched that they would be. Yeah, it would be. And then the last one is acceptance, the idea that we would just have to live with the idea of North Korea being a member of the nuclear states.

And that's just that. The idea with acceptance is that then you create a framework to denuclearize them by continuing with sanctions, by using carrots and sticks, and hope that they will end up behaving enough that you can keep them from using their nukes. So here we are today with a complete about face, and a lot of people say, OK, what's going on?

And from what I understand, the talk is that South Korea is now headed by a president who's a liberal, a human rights lawyer. Moon? Correct. Moon Jae-in. And the South Koreans and the North Koreans, we'd like to think of South Koreans as our allies, and they

are, but they're also Koreans, and North Koreans and South Koreans, they're Koreans. Yeah, and they have family that are on the other side. Right. So to be a Korean and say, we want to just reunite. We want to end this war, first of all, but we want to reunite. To do that at the expense of the US having a post there,

you could see South Korea being like, OK, let's figure this out. The problem is that leaves Japan extremely vulnerable, because don't forget, Korea was a colony of Japan as recently as 1945, and the US would very much like to have a presence on the Korean peninsula either way, and North Korea just wouldn't put up with that. So is that the case, because I don't see any scenario where the US are just like, all right, well, we're out of here then.

You guys good? We're out of here. Right, I don't either. But I also don't see North Korea saying, yeah, well, unify, and US, you can stick around. It's going to be a very interesting few weeks. It certainly is. And we could talk about North Korea for 10 more hours,

but if you want to know more about it, just start looking into it. It's a fascinating country. Yeah, or go visit. Oh, wait, you can't. No, you can't. Not anymore. No.

Let's see, you got anything else right now? No, sir. OK, well, we said North Korea in there, I think once or twice, which means it's time for Listener Man. I'm going to call this Walrus Correction. Oh, boy. Hey, guys. A little behind, recently listened to Walrus podcast.

It's very exciting to hear some familiar places and names, because I've just gotten back from the Arctic in the last month. I'm working toward my PhD studying Arctic sea ice. And I spent six weeks in Svalbard recently. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know Chuck was excited to talk about his Alaska friend. But now you can say you have another Arctic friend, even if I technically live in Colorado.

So we got something a little wrong here. Emailing you because you guys said Walruses can survive water down to negative four. And then Chuck said, even down to negative 59 Fahrenheit. I'm pretty sure you meant air because water, even with a lot of salt, does not get that cold without freezing. Certainly not below 28 degrees. I stand by negative 59.

Anyway, I've been listening since 2009. Back when I was a baby scientist just working on my undergraduate degree, still love the podcast. I wish your Denver shows didn't sell out so fast. Seriously. That's from Erica Schreiber. That's it? That's it.

All right. Oh, you left this hanging there. Have you ever been in a car where you press the brakes, but it doesn't fully complete and you just kind of roll to a stop? And it feels like you haven't really fully stopped, but you're not moving any longer? I have no idea what you mean.

That means you have bad brakes? No, it just means a weird twist of fate happened. It's possible. You don't lurch to a stop at all. That's what you just did with that listener mail. All right. Thanks a lot, Erica. Glad to hear that you made it back safe.

And thanks for listening. And if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at SYSK Podcast or Josh M. Clark or Movie Crush. You can hang out with us at facebook.com slash stuffyoushouldknow or facebook.com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastathousestuffworks.com.

And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted

Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast,

and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.