Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Tooth Fairy: Not Real

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

Today we break down the history of everyone's favorite home invader, the tooth fairy. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry.

Ghost of Dave Kustan is hanging around here somewhere. And that means that this is short stuff. And in fact, Dave's not a ghost. I'm mistaken Chuck. He is a tooth fairy. That's right. Dave is very much alive. Don't worry, everyone. Short stuff producer Dave is not a ghost. No, you could astrally project yourself and still be what I would consider basically a ghost. I don't think, I think being dead is overstated as a reason for being a ghost. It's being, it's overrated. Yeah. Yeah. So we're talking about the tooth fairy and the reason I thought of this is because my daughter has not lost a tooth yet. She's coming up on six years old with those baby teeth.

And I'm just waiting. Like it could have happened by now and it can't happen at any time. And I was, you know, I was like, all right, I got to get up on the latest research on the story that I'm going to need to tell, the lie that I'm going to pound into her brain and like how much money these kids get these days. A lot. It's like how much do you get? I got like a quarter. I got a quarter too, which apparently is like 1930s level. I know. I also got a quarter for giving up my pacifier and only later did I find out like my sisters had gotten things like an easy bake oven or something like that. And I got bought off for a quarter. I'm still to this day a little upset about that. Now, how old were you when you gave it up?

Like 12, 13. It all depends on the kid. My daughter gave up her pacifier really early so she didn't even know what money was. Oh, there you go. That's the way to do it. She just didn't like it. Yeah. That was actually 13 was approaching the age where I also would have traded my pacifier for a pack of smokes. Right. Give me one more year. You got to suck on something. I never connected it to you. So the tooth fairy is pretty interesting in that since people had children all over the world through antiquity, there seems to be weird little stories here and there about traditions and things that you would do with the tooth. It seems like it was never just like, well,

that happened. Let me just toss it out of here. You know, it could have been some little ceremony, could have put it in a fire, but this was not like the tooth fairy as we know it. No, no, no. No, but it is, and we'll talk about in a minute, but there's rituals all over the world of what to do. It's not like it just goes unnoticed. The tooth fairy is one of the most all-American supernatural beings there is. And as a matter of fact, not even old. It's not even an old one. Apparently, the tooth fairy that is going to eventually come to visit your daughter that is running around this very night handing out dollars for teeth is basically sure. Although you could make a really strong case in court that putting the tooth under the pillow

could be construed as an invitation into your home. But that tooth fairy, that particular being, that entity is from basically the mid-20th century America and is very new and very young for being a supernatural entity. Yeah, I think there are a couple of references. There was one from 1908 from the Chicago Daily Tribune in an editorial that valued the contribution from the tooth fairy at a nickel. I think in 27, there was a short play with the tooth fairy in it from Esther Watkins Arnold. Oh, okay. I saw there was also a kid's book from the 20s that was an English version of an 18th century French tooth fairy kind of thing, but the tooth fairy was a mouse. Oh, okay. Well, mice will come into play though. The tooth fairy really kind of hit the zeitgeist

in the 20s, I guess. Yeah, it sounds like it. Okay. And then apparently, the whole thing broke wide open with a Collier's Magazine article in May of 1949. Yeah, so 1949. I mean, that's not that long ago that parents have been lying to their kids about this home invader who would leave money to avoid prosecution. That's right. I mean, it is kind of weird. Is there any explanation that you've run across so far as to why the tooth fairy wants teeth? That's something that no one ever taught me. No. And I looked a lot of different places and there's just not a lot out there. It's pretty interesting. There's no weird origin story. I mean, we could make one up if you want to kick that thing off. Let's see that. Let's just take the Cabbage Patch Kids origin story

and just replace it with tooth fairy. Yeah, or maybe the tooth fairy builds this fantasy land out of children's teeth. Okay. Sounds horrific. It does. It sounds like the teeth monster from... What was that? There was a weird Canadian TV show. What? Shits Creek? No. No. That was weird in a different way. I will come up with the name of it, but it was basically a bunch of urban legends that they blew out into an actual narrative over the course of the season. It was pretty interesting, but there was a monster made of children's teeth and it was... I'll send it to you. You can show it to your daughter. All right. Well, let's take a little break and we'll come back and talk about kind of some of these strange rituals and traditions all over the world right

after this. 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. Okay, 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. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids,

relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, 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 podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it.

So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So we mentioned that depending on where you are in the world throughout history, there have been these interesting traditions when it comes to your children losing their

first teeth. In a lot of different countries, Afghanistan, Russia, Mexico, New Zealand, there is a mouse or a rat involved. Whether or not you put it in a box for a mouse or put it in a little mouse hole like Tom and Jerry style. And I think the whole thing there was, it was a wish that the tooth would grow back to be as strong as a rat's tooth or a mouse's tooth. Yeah, which makes sense. Yeah. And that's called the transference wish that an anthropologist might call a sympathetic magic, which I think is a pretty good band name. Though wishing that your child's tooth grows back like a rat's tooth, that would be one of those careful what you wish for kind of situations if you ask me. That's true. What else do people do? Well, actually, so there was

like actually supposedly nine things, including everything from throwing the tooth into the sun, which that's got to be hard to do. Not possible. Much more easy is to throw it into a fire. Sure, like that. Between the legs, Huey Lewis style. Little weird. Onto or over the roof of your house. Yeah, I saw a lot of Asian countries do this. Okay, so one of the things I saw was that a lot of these rituals, pre-tooth fairy rituals, were often wrapped up or tied into burial rituals of that same culture. So does that mean that there are cultures out there that throw their deceased onto the roof of the house, you think? Maybe it's like a sky burial kind of thing? I don't know. I don't know. I was being funny at first and then pulled it out into something

really thought-provoking at the end. What else do people do? I think a lot of people bury them. And that kind of makes or hide them and that kind of maybe that's where we got under the pillow. I don't know. And then this one probably has nothing to do with the dead or the deceased, but there's one where the mother or the kid or you make a poor animal swallow the tooth. Oh, God. And talk about a rite of passage because that's why all of these cultures have a ritual surrounding the loss of the first tooth because that's basically the first rite of passage any kid cognizantly goes through. And so cultures tend to make a big deal about it, but imagine your culture having you swallow your baby's tooth and then you pass it as the mom.

That's got to provoke some sort of a mixed bag of emotions. Yeah. For some reason, that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw that mom sometimes swallow baby teeth. Tooth poop. Basically. Well, just keep going on from that little vignette. So it seems like when it really became the tooth fairy that we think of in America, it came about at the same time that Disney was putting out movies like Pinocchio and Cinderella, two movies that each featured these benevolent fairies who granted wishes. And I think it may have just been the public consciousness and we borrowed,

like we said, from other cultures that maybe buried their teeth or hid their teeth into the under the pillow thing and an exchange for money. Yeah. And the money thing still seems confounding like a fairy coming for your tooth. That's pretty cute. And that makes sense that Disney would have influenced it based on the time. But the money thing supposedly dates back to 12th century Norse custom, which was that you would pay a tooth fee to the kid who lost their first baby tooth. And rather than putting it under the pillow or there being any supernatural being who came to collect it, you'd just hand the kids some money or whatever to tell them to go away now.

So I think those combined to form this modern incarnation of the tooth fairy. Yeah. And what's the going rate these days? From what I saw, it's about $3.70, which means there's some weird parents out there who are right at the median who leave $3.70 under their kid's pillow in exchange for the tooth. But that also means that there's plenty of parents out there who are leaving like 10 bucks, you know, who are skewing the average upwards. And don't email me because I know median is not the same thing as average. I guess Emily and I need to do some soul searching to find out what the value of this

tooth is because it's, you know, it can also be an opportunity to teach, you know, kids have no idea what things cost. They think everything is free. So it can be an opportunity to teach them. About disappointment. Yeah, about disappointment. No, about the value of money and, you know, what this might buy or maybe you can save it or save part of it. I don't know. But the introduction to money and income kind of starts with the tooth fairy. It's pre-allowance.

Yeah. Well, I read that there was a, from a folklore that said like the reason why this tooth fairy is an American invention and gives you money in exchange for something is you're teaching your kids capitalism. It would just make total sense. Yeah. I mean, she's got piggy banks, so we'll put change in there occasionally. But that's about it as far as money goes. She thinks, you know, everything costs nothing. Well, you can teach her the value of a human tooth now and she'll go around the rest of her life thinking she can get about $3.70 per tooth if she just, you know, really tries at it. I think if I tried to do 370 on the nose, Emily would just be like,

are you kidding me? Just put a fiver in there. It would be hilarious. Hey, report back when it happens, will you? Yeah. And I also want to quickly shout out Janet Varney, one of our good friends here in the industry, a podcaster and one of the co-founders of SF SketchFest. And hosted the JV Club. Yeah, JV Club. Great, great show. I think had no tooth when I was first a guest of Janet's JV Club live at SketchFest. And when I got home, she sent me and Janet is one to just send people

funny gifts like this. She sent me a little tooth fairy pillow. That is very sweet. Yeah, because you can get an actual pillow, right? That special four of the tooth fairy. Okay, that's great. Yeah. So, well, that's the tooth fairy unless you got anything else to you. I got nothing else except three fake teeth. There you go. You can get some money for that, almost a little over $10, Chuck. Aaron Cooper would pay $15.

Yeah, there you go. And since Chuck's at Aaron Cooper, then of course that means short stuff is out.