Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Live Christmas Spectacular!

Episode Date: December 25, 2018

This year, Josh and Chuck go live for their annual Christmas Spectacular. Recorded from the Center Stage Theater in Atlanta, pour up some eggnog, light a fire and enjoy this live show with the whole family.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, what you're about to hear is our very first live Christmas spectacular. Hey everybody. Josh is here too. So yeah, this is a lot of fun man. We did a hometown live Christmas show at the center stage theater in Atlanta. This was in real time. This is what last just a few days ago. It was and it was a great show.

We brought the house down I think is how they put it. Yeah man and it was cold and rainy and Atlanta United was playing in a championship game and people still packed out the center stage and that really meant a lot to us. It was great. It was a Christmas miracle frankly. Yeah and you're going to notice something different. We actually used visual cues in this episode for the first time and we're going to post those on Facebook.

So if you want to see the pictures that we're talking about in our different segments you can go to Facebook, check those out and we also did a Christmas reading this year of a contemporary book which was kind of cool. We did a reading from a wonderful, wonderful kids book called Meet the Latkes and it tells the actual real story of Hanukkah and how that came about in a very fun childlike way and it was written by a man named Alan Silberberg. You can buy that wherever you buy your books. It's really wonderful or you can go to silberbooks.com that is S-I-B-E-R books.com and check out

what Alan's up to and it's not just for Jewish families. You should just spread the word of Hanukkah to all children because it's a really great story. Yeah it's a really great book too. So thanks to Alan and here we go. Away we go. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's even out there somewhere and we are here live at the Sonar Stage Theater in our hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. We love you too. I just lost the only gift you've ever given me. That's not true by the way. Are you going to put it on?

Well I had it on and I was like, why am I hotter than usual? All right. There it is. It fits perfectly. I had the tailor made for it. So we wanted to give you guys some information because this is a podcast, right? Yes, I'm redoing the horrible clumsy segue that I did already before we started the story. And we're going to talk to you about a history of aluminum trees.

Does anybody have an aluminum tree in here? Okay. A few people over 80. Can you see that over there? There is an aluminum tree over here and Chuck, where did you get that? Yeah. The story here is that this is now belongs to us and my family. This belonged to Emily's grandmother.

She's still with this. She's not here tonight because as you all know, Mary is, how old is she now? 98? Yes. Oh, they're over there. I was like, that's so weird that that person over there knows how old Mary is. And she sounds just like my wife who I've been looking at over here. And that lady's like, Chuck's a total creep because he's just looking at me.

Emily's throwing her voice is what it is. So she's 98 years old. She's still with us, which is amazing. But that was their tree. And as you can tell, if you're on this side of the stage, we will describe all these things in greater detail, but that is an original, I guess from the 1950s or early 60s, aluminum tree complete with color wheel. Yep.

So if you're over there, I'm sorry, you can see it peeking above the bar. So it's an aluminum tree, as Chuck said. And the aluminum trees got their start through the great American process of intellectual property theft. That's right. There was a guy from a company called Aluminum Specialties and he was walking down the street in Chicago one day and he stopped. He saw a tree made out of aluminum and he thought it was the most amazing thing ever.

And then he looked at the price, he was like a hundred bucks, it seems a little steep, and it looks a little heavy. I'll bet I can do better than that. So we went back to headquarters and he said, look, guys, I saw a tree made out of, wait for it, aluminum, but it was too heavy. It was too expensive. We can do better. And an aluminum specialty said giddy up.

That's right. And by the way, I heard a bell jingling and I was looking here and I was looking there. It's my hat. And I was like, is there someone behind me? Sorry everyone, the acid is kicking in. It should be a good show. So I did a little, I know you're the inflation calculator man, but I did a little calculating. So those original trees from Chicago that he saw and decided to rip off in today's dollars

were close to 900 bucks. What? Yeah. $885. And so Mr. Tom Gannon of aluminum specialty, like he said, was like, they're getting ripped off. And I think if we can package these for 20 to 25 bucks and we can make them so that a lady with her little lady arms can pick them up, that's literally, well, you didn't say

that. This was set at a marketing strategy meeting though. But it really was. They were like, well, we need to make them all in and a box light enough for women to pick them up off the shelf. Right. 1557. They did just that.

Yep. Then they put them in a box and on the box it said, aluminum for lasting beauty. Because you know, your tree will rot and die. Just try to keep it around past February. It's going to go up in flames, right? Oh, we do. Plus it was the safety tree too, because it won't go up in flames no matter how long you keep it around.

Yeah. I'm not sure about that. That thing looks highly flammable to me. That one, yeah. I'm not going to test it. I think it just kind of melt into a pool. And then we die from the fumes is what we get. So they set up shop.

They already had a plant in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Right there on the shores, really. Right there. Represent. Yeesh. Right there on the shores of Lake Michigan. During World War II they were building submarines, I guess, out of aluminum, which I don't think is true at all.

I had to be at something more durable than that, right? Well, I don't think aluminum specialties was making submarines. The town was known for it. Oh, I told you I was unprepared. So they started getting these out the door for 20 to 25 bucks. They had models that were two, four, six, and seven feet high. And initially people made fun of them. They called them tin tannin bombs.

People were mad when they saw them at first in 1959, because they thought it was gaudy and gross and not a real tree. Not some beautiful, what one day appreciated as like a kitschy, beautiful item. Well, plus also, it was like, what do you mean an aluminum tree? We just want tree trees. What are you, a communist? I want a tree made out of tree. Exactly.

I'm trying to take my real tree. Let's say happy holidays to me. There you go. So aluminum specialties cookies were saved by, believe it or not, tire sales people sold. So in Wisconsin, in the winter time, they don't sell a lot of tires. And so tire stores said, well, we need to make some bread somehow. We got to get Christmas presents for our kids.

How are we going to do this? And they heard about these aluminum trees and they started setting them up in their showrooms. And of course, the pride of every town is the tire store that everyone walks past constantly. But people started walking past the tire store, seeing the aluminum trees in there and said, oh, okay, they actually are quite beautiful. I want one. And they started selling them like hotcakes.

Here's an actual quote. I wish you could have found out who this person was. This was someone who worked at aluminum tree makers of America. He said, it was a salesman's dream to have this happen. Suddenly the guy who wouldn't give you the time of day is your best friend. I think that was actually a tire store guy. Sure. Come on, give me more aluminum trees.

I need them, man. I'm selling them too fast. So they sold something like, I think 90,000 in the first year. Is that correct, Chuck? Yeah. No, they sold over 100,000. They sold 40,000 in the first month, which is crazy. So within, of course, weeks, because aluminum specialty stole it from this other company.

Other people started stealing aluminum specialties idea and they came out with this thing. Within weeks, other people were selling aluminum trees. And so everybody started having an aluminum tree. Some of them were more expensive, some of them were less, but aluminum specialty played it smart. They went right down the middle and they had like 65% of the market share. And even today, their Evergreen product is like the most sought after. It's like the Cadillac of aluminum trees, I guess.

That's a terrible analogy, but you get what I'm saying. I like it. Tires, Cadillacs, it's all coming around. So some of these companies, because it's the 1950s, we thought we'd read some of these names of companies that ripped them off, because it's just so 1950s. Morris Novelties, Holiday Industries, Regal Electronics. Hold on. Holiday Industry.

Yeah. That's my favorite. Astrolite LTD. Not bad. That's a British company. And Asbestos Farms. Sweet. I made up that last one.

This thing just, like my neck just itched when you said that. I'm getting uncomfortable, just like every time I look over there, I want to take that off of you. Can I take this off, everybody? Yeah. You're going to literally cut. Thank you. Thank you.

It's a little something for you. A little something I've struck. And look, it's a nice, moundy garland. Thank you, everybody. All right. So they started to gussie up their trees a bit. One of these is gussied up, because you see those little pom-poms on the end. That was an addition that they made to later trees, because I guess they just wanted to

make them special. They made them in different colors. I think the pink ones these days are the most prized ones that you can buy on eBay. Yeah. One of them sold for like $3,600 once. Yeah. That's the appropriate response. What can I get for that one?

I don't know. Are you familiar with the term struggling? Yeah. I'm not sure. That tree is struggling. Oh. There's a, somewhere in Snailville, there's a 98-year-old woman very angry at you. So you're struggling.

She's not in Snailville. She's down at the, uh, the game, the football game. Oh yeah. She's watching Atlanta United lose. Right. No. I don't want that to happen, everybody. I'm just from Atlanta.

I'm preparing myself. I just turned the crowd on. I know. All right. So these things are moving like hotcakes. They literally sell over a million of these, uh, combined. And then of course, like every sort of Christmas fad that comes, it goes. And some people lay the blame at the feet of none other than Charlie Brown.

Yeah. And then weird, like most people think that Charlie Brown did away with the aluminum Christmas tree because in the, the Charlie Brown Christmas special, um, Lucy sends Charlie Brown. And Charlie Brown and Linus out to go get a tree. The biggest aluminum tree you can find preferably pink, right? And so they go off on this mission and they find some Linus taps on one and it sounds like he's tapping on a ship's hole. Yeah.

Um, and Charlie Brown's like, no, no, I'm not doing this. I'm going with this tree, this little weird, crinkly tree, a struggling Christmas tree. Um, and Charlie Brown takes it home and loves it. And it was like the spirit of Christmas was found in this little tree. And the commercialization of Christmas was personified in the, in the aluminum trees. And some people say that's what kind of turned the tide. That's right. Other people say it was just coincidence and it was bound to be a Christmas fad.

No matter what, Charlie Brown just kind of helps push it over the cliff as Charlie Brown does. He's got a lot of blood on his hands. But also gradually over the years, they did come back thanks to things like eBay and Etsy and people with extra money in their pockets that want to pay $3,000 for a vintage tree. People with no kids, I think in other words. Exactly. Uh, but we still have ours and it still looks great, despite what Josh says.

Let's give it up for the tree. All right, we made it through a segment. We made it through one tomorrow. So it wouldn't be Christmas, everybody, without a good Christmas miracle story or three. And we just so happen to have three of them for you. We had more, but we found out that a lot of them actually don't really add up once you start digging into them. These are legitimate, bona fide, the Pope is signed off on them Christmas miracles.

Okay. Hey, everybody. That's what the Pope says. Hey, everybody. That's a, that was Irish. I don't even know what's going on. Okay. All right.

Miracle number one. And this one's going to knock your socks off. Uh, this was in 1931. We're going back in the way back machine. Oh yeah. Let's do it. Further in time. That's, that's, that's what powers the way back machine.

That's right. Oh, now. Whoa. Whoa, everyone. We went too far. Are you dumb? Are you dumb? We're in like 1852 dinosaurs.

Can you guys say whoops in like reverse? That works. It's working. All right. All right. Wow. I've never felt this powerful before in my life. All right.

So 1931, uh, there was a couple named Ed and Julia Stewart, and they were making their way across Arizona on Christmas Eve going home and they stopped to change attire. Cause it got a flat out in the middle of nowhere near a town called Superior, Arizona. By the way, I looked up the population because you kept saying, you know, it's in the middle of nowhere. And I was like, yeah, we'll see about that. Their population in 1930 was about 4,500 people, and now it's about 2,800 people. That's a steep decline per cent.

They're not going in the right direction. But even still in 1931, 4,500 people, it's not that many, plus Arizona's not even a state yet. Yeah. It's just basically a bunch of people camping out together in the desert as what Superior Arizona was. And this couple, their names were Ed and Julia Stewart. They were about 10 miles west of Superior.

When their car got a flat on Christmas Eve, oh, just wait, just remember it's Christmas Eve when this happens. So they, they pull over, uh, Ed's fixing the car and his wife is like, well, I gotta get you to the restroom, I guess, out here behind a cactus because there's no one around. And oh my gosh, there's a hat box laying in the sand, and it's crying. Yes. It was a baby and a hat box. I know everyone, but this is a Christmas miracle story, so don't get too worried.

Keep hope. There's a little girl in there, and she's like, this is weird, there's a little baby in a hat box, I almost peed on it, thank God it cried. And so I think we should do the right thing and not leave this baby in the middle of the desert. I'm hoping that it wasn't even a thought. I'm hoping she didn't even have that thought. They flipped a coin and decided to take a little hat box baby.

They went Anton Chigar on the thing, they're like, hey baby, call it heads or tails. Haven't seen no country for old men. That was what that was referencing. So they pick up a hat box baby, they take a hat box baby to a hospital. You're laughing, but that's what they call this baby in the news. The hat box baby, seriously. Should have called it baby Christmas Eve. Sure.

Or just baby Eve, that's a real name. Yeah, sure. You know? Yeah, yeah. No one names your kid hat box? No, hat box baby. I'm sure somebody sang like a barbershop quartet song too, it was 1931. Yeah, that's true.

You're my hat box baby. So 17 couples ended up that wanted a little baby born in a hat box and they all applied to adopt a little hat box baby. 17 couples. Yeah. This is the part I don't get. How many showed up? Two.

Why? What happened in between then? And that was yesterday, I'm sort of excited. I think hat box baby fell out of the news a little bit, you know what I'm saying? And so two really had what they call sticktuitiveness. Even back then, huh? And of those two couples, a judge had to be like, you guys, thanks for coming. There's some other baby not from a hat box that they also found in the desert.

They're like, not interested. Right, exactly. I don't want cactus baby. Raised by coyotes. So in the end, they did find one couple and they named the baby Sharon, my mother-in-law's name. All right. Named him after my future mother-in-law.

Little Sharon Elliott never met her biological parents because this was the 1930s when you buried the stuff deep under the sand and lived a lie your entire life. Not only that, she didn't know she was the hat box baby until 1989. Seriously? Yes. She knew of the hat box baby, don't we all, but she didn't know she was the hat box baby. Did she find out by opening a hat box and having this weird psychic flashback? Right, yeah.

She's like, got to get out, got to get out. There's coyotes after me. Coyotes. Is that the end of the story? Oh no, the end is. She did not meet her parents, which is very sad, but for the 1930s, she went on to have a career in the aerospace industry, which was uncommon for a woman at the time, so she did really well for herself and lived a long and fruitful life.

She's here tonight, everybody. Give it up. Hat box baby. She's going to fly in on it. That's how you end a story. That was miracle one, so we have another one for you, two of three starting now. We actually had five and we had to cancel two miracles. Yeah, I told them.

One because it wasn't that interesting. And I'm just going to briefly say. I don't know. I don't know. It was this one story about a lady who got lost and buried in the snow for three days, but lived and they found her and I was like, this is amazing. I did some more research and apparently it was a suicide attempt and she lost her arms and legs and then sued the hospital.

And I was like, I think we should not do this one. It's no miracle here. What's the exact opposite of a miracle? Yeah, it's really bad. Of a Christmas miracle. I can't believe you told them that. Actually I'm proud of you for doing that. Stuff you should know way.

All right, so where are we going? Are we going to Korea? We are. We're going to Korea during the onset of the Korean War and the communists were coming down from China into the North Korean, into the Korean Peninsula, sorry. And they were pushing the North Koreans further and further south and a bunch of North Korean people had assembled at the docks at Hongnam. And in Hongnam, there were a lot of people hanging out, something like 100,000 civilians

plus a ton of Allied troops being evacuated. There were ships coming and going and coming and going and getting people out, but they were mostly getting the soldiers out and there were a lot of civilians standing there stranded. But luckily for those civilians, there was a captain with one of the greatest names ever, Leonard LaRue. And Leonard LaRue said, oh, you're going to die at the hands of the communists who are coming down?

Not on Leonard LaRue's watch. And he just happened to captain a ship called the SS Meredith Victory. And the SS Meredith Victory was a large cargo ship, but it was in no way, shape, or form a passenger ship. That's right. And it was actually weirdly named after Meredith College in North Carolina, where my niece went to school. It's all full circle.

Somehow this Christmas miracle from Korea in 1950 has to do with Chuck. I tried everybody. I like to feel like I had a hand in it. So they pull up this SS Meredith Victory. And here's where I got confused and Josh was kind of to clear it up because in this research it said that it was only designed to hold 60 people. Why don't you lower the boom on how many civilians they ended up fitting on this ship? Leonard LaRue in one shot fit 14,000 people.

This was a shoddy article. Yeah. So I saw that and I was like, we're going to have to erase this one because that's obviously a lie. You can't fit 14,000 people on a 60 person ship. But that was like 60 beds in the crew area. It was a large cargo ship, wasn't large for 14,000 people. They literally stuffed them in there like sardines.

They were all standing like elbow to elbow. No one could sit. No one could move on deck, below deck. There was no water, no food, no heat, no toilets. Yeah. Think about that. And 14,000 civilians from Korea. Think about that.

Yeah. 14,000 civilians from Korea were packed elbow to elbow in the ship, navigating mine-infested waters for two days at sea. Yeah. I saw a quote from one of the dudes that worked on the ship. What do you call those people? Dudes that work on the ship? Ship dudes.

Yeah. One of the crew members years later recounted and he was like, the Korean people are somewhat stoic in their nature. He said, but I couldn't believe even with that, the way they behaved. And no one, he said it was so orderly. No one fought. No one like jostled. Everyone just like sort of worked together to make this Christmas miracle happen.

So, okay. There were two miracles that came out of this. So they make land at Geoje Island on Christmas Day. That's right. And two miracles happened. One, over this two day period under these very treacherous conditions, not one person died. Not one person was injured.

No one. Yeah, you can clap for that. Sure. Please clap. That was that. I got political again. I'm sorry. That's right.

That was miracle one. What was miracle two? Miracle number two is they showed up with 14,005 people because guess what five little BBs were born everyone in this little journey. There was a medic on board that worked with the crew, I found out that didn't have any training of course, delivering babies. Just running around with a hat box like just drop it in here, drop it in here. The hat box is getting kind of gross after number two, but they lived with it.

Oh, Jerry cut this part out. Yeah. Seriously, make a note. Yeah. Five little BBs were born. One lived. Those little five babies are all right. And they're here tonight, everybody.

One of these times is going to come true. Oh man, wouldn't that be great? That was miracle two. Miracle three is as follows starting now. We should have done these in a different order now that I'm seeing what miracle this is. Does anyone out there like dogs? Same here. What about miracle dogs?

Momo. That's right. Sorry. Oh, that's a Simpsons reference. I know. Okay. You told me never to acknowledge people from the stage. Oh yeah.

This is a special show. I'm sorry, buddy. I was just doing as told, sir. All right, so April 2006, Aurora, Colorado, a woman named Vonda Lundstrom had a heart break when her little pet, rat, terrier, daisy got out from her fence and didn't come home ever. Which is, first of all, it's a miracle story, everyone. A rat and a terrier.

It's disgusting. That must have been like the ugliest dog on the planet. That's not how that works. Well, explain it to me later. Let's keep things going. Like a German bulldog doesn't mean a German man and a bulldog. Actually, I don't know. I'm not so sure what happens.

Fine, close doors. So daisy, the rat terrier, ran off and Vonda Lundstrom said, well, I guess that's it for me and being happy. So long, daisy. I mean, she's been months looking to be fair. And then just kind of gave up, resigned herself that she would never see her dog again. Never knew what happened to her and just was like, well, my heart is broken. On Christmas day of that year, she gets a call.

And this call is from a woman in Knoxville, Tennessee saying, hey, guess what? Oh, yeah, I got some Knoxville people here. Well, you prepare to be proud of your town because a woman from your town found daisy in Knoxville, Tennessee. She had made it 1,300 miles from Aurora, Colorado to Knoxville, Tennessee. No one has any idea how and showed up on this woman in Knoxville, Tennessee's doorstep. Yeah. And she said, where are you from, little dog?

And she went, go, go, go, go, go. It's pretty good. So dumb. I can't believe I did that in front of 850 people. No, she did what you should do, which is call the little number on the tag, got in touch. It was a rabies tag. So got in touch with a veterinarian in Colorado. She said, I think I have the wrong number.

This is a weird area code to be calling for a lost dog in my neighborhood in Knoxville. And he said, yeah, it is weird. It's in Colorado. And she said, I got a little rat terrier named Daisy. And the vet went, what? A rat terrier? What are you talking about? I don't know how you do it in Tennessee, lady, but here in Colorado, we breed dogs with dogs.

Oh, that's not how we do it in Tennessee. So he said, I think that we have a match here. This is one of my clients, and he called up Vonda, and he said, believe it or not, we think we found Daisy. This dog was missing in April, and this was Christmas, so you do the math. Yeah, had it not been Christmas, it would have just been a miracle, not a Christmas miracle. That's right.

Right. So they were reunited, and I guess if we've already told the other story about the other Christmas miracle, we can kind of pull the rug out on this one too. Daisy was reunited with Vonda, and Daisy got home to find out that Vonda had replaced Daisy, and she had to share her house with another dog. Yeah. That must have been pretty awkward for Daisy. It's like finally back home, and runs inside and is like, oh, this is my spot.

You haven't been here for a while, so let me tell you what the rules are, Daisy. Yeah, and the dog's like, no, I'd all over that. And I'm about to again. Is that our last miracle? That was it. That's what I'm saying. We did them out of order. All right.

Thanks, everybody. We can tell you guys are the hardcore stuff you should know fans, because you clapped for that one. So I don't know if you guys have noticed the theme or not yet, but we're talking a lot about Christmas. I've noticed you shifting it. What is it? Is there a rhyme or reason there?

Nervous habit. Okay. I thought you were deciding. No, that was the first time I've shifted. All right. Next segment. Right. Wait, no.

We just graduated from that one. Do the right. On to the next. You don't want that side to get cheated? Show them your ball. Right. Here you go, everybody. Get a look at it.

Get a load. You shouldn't be hearing things like this. So we're talking Christmas and what would Christmas be without shoving elbows to the teeth? Maybe like a little bit of choking and you're like, oh wait, I can go to jail for that. Over the must have toy of the season. And we found out that there was a toy that spanned not one, but two Christmas seasons. And that toy spanned the Christmases of 1986 and 1987. And his name was Teddy Ruxberg.

Yeah. Let's go ahead and remember that little guy. How adorable. Comes with a cassette and a storybook and you can buy more cassettes and more storybooks and more cassettes and more storybooks. That's how they get you. Right. That's how they got you with Teddy Ruxberg.

And he was super groundbreaking at the time, right? Teddy Ruxberg, if you don't know what Teddy Ruxberg is, he's this guy. But your kid would put a cassette in his back and press play with like sticky little chocolatey fingers and Teddy Ruxberg, there we go. We don't want to give away the horror that awaits. And Teddy Ruxberg would come to life and be like, Hey, you're my friend, whether you like it or not kid. And like his eyes would open and close and his nose would spin and he'd start talking,

but he would talk not just, you know, babble or just talk about his day or something like that. He would talk and he would tell a story, right? I was born in a hat box. Right. He was an amazing bear that told your kid stories and every kid wanted one. But there was actually a pretty great story leading up to it. And it was a Disney Imagineer named Ken Forsey, who was the guy who came up with Teddy Ruxberg.

And he worked on him for so long that his original idea was for Teddy Ruxberg to have been a monkey because he wanted to salute the space program. That's how long the guy had been working on Teddy Ruxberg. So I did a little more research into this guy. Like you said, he worked at Disney. What do they call themselves? Imagineers. Oh, wait.

I'm sorry. Imagineers. He actually helped design. He was one of the designers on the haunted mansion. So big ups for that. Best ride ever. And then if you were a long time at Lantan, you might remember over at where Philip Serena now is, was the old Omni CNN.

And they had the world of Sid and Marty Croft, which is this weird LSD-fueled amusement park, indoor amusement park. And he helped design that too, which is kind of cool. So like we said, he worked at Disney and he was like, I've been to the Hall of Presidents. Why don't I just take Abraham Lincoln and wrap him in fur, cut his head off, wrap him in fur, and I think I have a million-seller. Right. But he worked on it for a while.

And the reason it took him so long is because originally Teddy Ruxberg came in two parts. You had Teddy Ruxberg, and then you had a box, a big clunky, ugly box with sharp edges and would like catch fire. And this box sent FM signals to Teddy. And then that's how Teddy, with the receiver in his face, would talk and move his mouth on a literal radio signal. He could not have been more complicated if he tried. Right.

But also really clumsy and cumbersome, a two-piece set. No kid wants to set up a receiver and twist the dials, you know? No, they want the hard, sharp box inside the bear. Right. But it was a huge move when they managed to combine the two together. And what they figured out was that they could use one track and a regular cassette tape to record the story, Teddy's voice. And then the other track, they recorded ultra-high-frequency radio signals that told Teddy how to move

his face. Yeah. It was connected to a little motor. You know, cassettes record in stereo. So there's two sides. Yeah. And they just used one to send the signal to a little motor control, and all of a sudden he could come to life and haunt your dreams.

And with that, he took off. 1985, they released him in September, and they were sold out within a month. I think 43,000 units just overnight. Yeah. This guy was thinking big, though. Like, he was like, this is not a teddy bear, everyone. He created this whole backstory, and he wanted television shows and movies and things to accompany this.

And it actually worked. He went into the office and said, oh, he's not a bear. He's an Iliop, which is a species native to the fantasy world of Grundow. And the people he was selling it to, he was like, can he just be a bear? I don't want to think about this today. He's got a bear that talks, like, that's seriously all you need to do. Good enough. He's like, no, no.

First of all, he's wearing a tunic. Bears don't wear tunics. Don't be ridiculous. He's an Iliop. So it was a pretty big breakthrough, and Teddy Ruxman started to take off. 43,000 units in the first month. Yeah. They sold a million within, like, the first three or four months.

It was like a hit, so much so that it spanned 1986 and 1987's Christmases. Yeah, and so much so that he did get two specials out of ABC, believe it or not. He tried HBO, and they were like, that's weird, we're HBO. But ABC was like, sure, why not? So in November and December of 1985, they had two live action Teddy Ruxman specials about this cute little Iliop. From Grundow. From Grundow.

And it came back over the years. I mean, here's the deal. Parents hated this thing. Because, I mean, it was like 75 bucks back then. Which is like a million dollars today. A million dollars. And these cassettes, because the kids are like, I married that one. I want to hear the next one.

And they were $12.95 a pop to get the little book in the cassette. And he was like, oh, I can write stories all day long. Yeah. Children. Yeah, in the middle of these stories, you'd be like, hey, tell your parents to go get another cassette. Tell them this, just say what I'm about to say. You will hold your breath until you pass out unless you get another cassette today.

Okay? All right. Okay. So anyway, in Grundow, it's always lovely out. That's how we would talk. Like, there was something wrong with them. I found a few of these titles, too, by the way. Oh, you did?

Yeah. There was one called, they all had colons, too. One was called The Mushroom Forest. You can be anything you want to be. It's like a Gladwell. Wonder what was going on there. Oh, yes. There was one in the early 90s, and this is not a joke, everyone.

Grunge music, colon, tap your feet to the beat. You lie. I'm serious. You lie. Because grunge is the most toe-tapping genre of music out there. And then finally. But also, that's a Teddy Ruxpin title. What did he tell the story of?

I don't know. A bunch of stage-dive and Ilyops. I guess not. And then finally, you know, and Teddy Ruxpin came back a few times over the years. In fact, I think you can still buy them. Like, just a few years ago, there was another company that was like, sure, we'll buy the license. We'll take it correct, okay.

There was one, finally, where he jumped a shark that was called this. This is the title. Teddy Ruxpin visits the dentist, colon, sponsored by Crest. It wasn't implied. That was the title. Right. Anyway, we have to take a message break, everybody. I'm kidding.

I was making a joke about the Cresting. Settle down. Yeah. I do have my Christmas light me undies on though. Somebody said no. I do. I wear my Christmas light me undies. It's authentic, everyone.

So Teddy Ruxpin, he went away. The market got saturated. There was something called a wrap and rabbit. There was one called blabbering bear, which is just a terrible name. They did zero market research. That's how fast everybody was getting this stuff. That's the one I would have gotten, like the Sears version. Oh, yeah.

Blabber bear? Not by your own choice. No. Oh, same here, buddy. I know what you mean. Knights of the Round Table. Yeah. Yeah.

It looks just like Polo, except for the little flag. Yeah. The kids at school are not going to buy this. Is that the end of that segment? That's the end of that. It's going great. It's going not bad. So again, we're talking Christmas.

And what would Christmas be without the most horrific assemblage of monsters that you've ever encountered in your entire life? Well, if you're scared by this kind of thing, if you don't like monsters that make you uneasy, thank you Lucky Stars that you were not raised in Europe, because Europe has the scariest Christmas traditions of all time ever. And we're going to tell you about some of them. Yeah. We've talked about this in past Christmas specials, how Christmas was basically co-opted by Christians

from weird pagan holidays with horrific beasts. They're like, hey, let's turn that into the birth of Jesus in Christmas. It's wonderful. Right. Right. What about this angry forest goddess? Three wise men. It's fine.

They're going to be happy to get presents. It's fine. So we're going to start. You can go ahead and move the slide. Yes. We're going to start in Iceland, everyone, with the Yule Cat. You have to say it in the Icelandic, Chuck. That friendly guy.

Yes. In Icelandic, it is Yolak Kuturin. I'm sorry, everybody. Say Yolak Bjork, please. Oh. Yolak Kuturin. Yeah. Hey, that wasn't bad.

That was my best Bjork. It was a good Bjork, dude. It's oh, so quiet. And the face and the movement, it really spells it. You got to do that. She actually records these songs, right? Yeah. That's not a joke.

You can go on to YouTube and look up Yolak Kuturin and just guess how it's spelled, or Icelandic Yule Cat. And there's a poem that Bjork has sung, where they put the music and it's weird and creepy and perfect. But there's this tradition in Iceland that if you are a good kid and you do all of your chores and your work, and your parents are hardworking too, then you as a kid will be rewarded with a new piece of clothing on Christmas, right? And that's what you're looking forward to as a kid in Iceland.

Socks. Like socks. And you're happy to have it because if you don't have new socks or new shoes or something, the Yule Cat will come along and eat you on Christmas Eve. See it? Will eat you in your house, in front of your family. You see that kid? He knows.

He's like, there's totally a cat behind me right now, isn't there? And his friends are going, nope. Wearing their new jackets. Yeah. Members only. We're all good. So the whole thing is, the Yule Cat just goes from house to house and I think Christmas Eve or Christmas, one of the two, I think if you're being eaten by the Yule Cat, it

doesn't matter. Sure. It's one extra day. The Yule Cat's looking into the windows like you own new shoes, okay, you're off limits. A new apron, I guess that's an article of clothing. It's just going from house to house and then the Yule Cat will inevitably find some kid who was lazy and didn't do their chores so they didn't get a new pair, a new piece of clothing.

Pounce, tear, rip, meow, right? Yule Cat gets it done, but there's something really sad about this too. What if, what if you're like a good kid and you do all your chores but your parents are not well off? Well, T.S. for you, the Yule Cat's going to get you anyway because the Yule Cat doesn't discriminate. The Yule Cat just goes by whether you have new clothing or not. He hates all children.

Right. So, what's very sweet is if you read this Yule Cat poem, in the end it says, hopefully this will have you give a thought, children, to kids who are less fortunate than you so you can make sure that they have a new piece of clothing around the holidays so they won't get eaten by the Yule Cat. Right. And if not, the blood is on your hands. Right.

Meow. Meow. Yolak Kuturin. What I love about all these is it was, when you look at the progression, Christmas softened to the point now where it's like, well, you get cold and you're stocking and back then it was like, a cat will come and eat you. Eat you in front of your family because it's all like good kid, bad kid. What are you going to get?

Are you going to get a present or cold? And back then it was like, will you live or will you die? It's really amazing. All right. For this next one, we are going to Germany, the home of many horrors. A lot. Germany and Austria, which featured this kind woman and I guess her band of soul leaders. Yeah.

Clearly. This is Frau Perkta. Frau Perkta was a witch who would, you know, if she thought you were pretty good, give you some candy. If she thought you were bad, she would cut you open and tear out your guts and stuff you with garbage. Yes. If she thought kids better not be bad or your guts are going to get pulled out and replaced

with garbage by Frau Perkta. Yeah. She would visit over the 12 days of Christmas because she had a lot of work to do. I saw one descriptor that she was often described as having one abnormally large foot called a goose foot. I haven't heard that one. I don't know. It's a good one.

I thought it was called drop foot. I don't, I don't even know what that is. You got the, you got the goose foot. Did you have a mishap at the Manny Petty place? So the other thing it said too that she would slit their bellies open and stuff it with straw and pebbles. I like, I like garbage more. I like garbage too.

Because it also makes you think like, what kind of garbage? Like coffee grounds and banana peels or something or more like. I don't think she's composting. Right. Okay. But I mean, that's, that's garbage. Because remember, you have to turn the kid every two days. Exactly.

Keep it on the sun so it gets nice and steamy, maybe put some worms in there too. Well she was a forest goddess, so it would make sense. So for our character, not who you wanted to run into if you're a bad kid. Alrighty. Who's next? Germany again? Yeah. Of course.

If you're in Germany or nowadays, if you're in Pennsylvania, Dutch country, which is in Pennsylvania, you might run into a little guy named Belstickel. Let's bring up Belstickel. Guys. Like that kid is not joking around in that photo. This is supposed to be fun, holiday fun in Germany. I know it looks like a hostage situation. It does.

Like in Olympic games. Like, can you imagine if that guy came in through your door and was like, no, not your parents. I'm here to see you. Come here. Wow. So the thing about Belstickel was this, Belstickel was like, his name means either like, what does it belt in means to wallop in German?

Yeah. So he either means like walloping St. Nick or St. Nick and pelts and furs. And if you ran across Belstickel, he's like this old kind of woodsy guy who would show up a couple of days before Christmas to find out whether you were naughty or nice. And he would find out like this. He'd take some candy, maybe a few nuts because again, you're like a Pennsylvania Dutch kid. So like you'll go crazy for a few walnuts even throw them onto the ground. And he just wants you like, what are you going to do?

And the kid who went after it like Augustus Gloop or something like that just jumped onto the ground after the candy, what? He get a switch right to his back like two days before Christmas as part of the Christmas tradition. And that's what Belstickel was doing. He was there to sort the naughty kids from the nights, but he's not nearly as bad as like Frau Perkter or anything like that because he would, he would take time with the naughty kids and kind of teach them like, no, that's what's going on right there.

I think, I think so. This kid's about to be indoctrinated into the Belstickel way of doing things. He just showed himself to, he just threw them on the ground. The Belstickel way. Right. But he would spend time with the kids who were bad to basically say, this is how you do it. Here's some candy.

And he was meant to be a warning before St. Nick came to say, you can still be good before Christmas. I think that's a great warning. Let's go to the next slide. That's another picture of him. Just in case you needed some more nightmare fuel. And then let's go one more, yes. If that sounded familiar to anyone, there was an episode of the office.

Everyone knows Dwight Trude is from Pennsylvania, Dutch country. And so he brought the legend of Belstickel to the office in an episode. It's pretty good. So moving along, we're going to go on over to the Lorraine, Alsace and Lorraine regions of France. This has nothing to do with any of these except that this was a Christmas photo from Germany. The home of Belstickel. All right.

Let's get away from that. All right. Here we go. So Hans Tropp. There's Hans Tropp coming in the window there. Oh, it is okay. So this is nothing. The next slide will really kind of give you the feeling of what Hans Tropp's all about.

Hans Tropp is a man who is a rich, wealthy man who decided that he wanted to eat children. He was that rich and wealthy. And so he was just going to do it. So he waited for a kid one day and pounced on him and took him and cooked him, got this far, and was about to eat him and then God intervened and struck him down with lighting before he could actually eat the kid. Now, wasn't this a true story? Yes, it was a true story.

No, but there was really a guy named Hans Tropp though, right? They, I mean, according to legend, there was a cannibal Satanist and Christmas enthusiast. Right. Who was struck down by lightning by God. Right. Okay. Okay. So Hans Tropp was resurrected as a scarecrow man who will come through in the like around

Christmas time to make sure the kids are behaving so that they are not eaten by him. That's the yet another threat. Christmas in Germany, everyone, right behind me. Well, this is France, actually. Oh, all right. I'll back off Germany for a minute then. Right. I thought that was Germany now.

Hans Tropp's my least favorite Christmas figure. We're going to stay in France, everyone, with the last one. Let's switch that slide. Not bad comparatively, right? Like I'll take this guy any day over the rest of them. This is, how do you pronounce that? You're the, you're the Frenchie here among us. Perfuitade.

That last, that really finishes it off nicely. As is the French legend, the name translates to father whipper. And there was another evil butcher who craved children to eat. This is a constant theme in Europe around Christmas. And if you listen to our Grimm's fairy tales or the Grimm's brothers, it's a constant theme in children's literature that if you did not behave, you would be eaten by an adult. Right. Very sweet.

He craved children to eat and he and his wife would lure three boys into the butcher shop where, whether they would kill, chop up and salt these children until St. Nicholas comes to the rescue resurrecting the boys and taking custody of the butcher. I love that. He takes custody. He said, you're with me now. You work for me. I'm St. Nick.

Yeah. And he literally put him to work. He was not like, you go to the authorities, he was like, come on back to the North Pole. I think I got something for you. But it wasn't like, come on back to the North Pole. I want you to start painting checkerboards for the little boys and girls. It was, no, I like the cut of your jib. I want you to come do that for me.

So he would send him out ahead of time to basically belge-nickel all the little kids. It's like, you heard of belge-nickel? Just do that. Then St. Nick would come in and be like, oh, hey, at least I'm not paraphruitard, right? You know, I'm St. Nick. Good cop, bad cop. Basically, exactly like that, except the bad cop had no choice in the matter because he was in the custody of St. Nick.

That's right. And that's France. Who needs a drink? Us too. All right. We just so happen to have a bar over here. So we're going to go to it now. All right, everybody, we're moving to the bar set.

Yes. Hold on. Oh, thank you. Chuck's going to get my thing. I'm going to, we're going to talk about hot toddies. Is anybody a hot toddy fan? Thank you, Chuck. Well, we're hot toddy fans too, but Chuck, haven't you like not had one before or you

haven't had one for a while? I feel like, I feel like Emily's made me a hot toddy when I was sick because alcoholics like to tell each other that it's good for a cold, when it's really just like, I'm sick, but I really still like to drink. Right. They're like, oh, well, this is great for that. Let's put some lemon and honey in it and you're all set. Sure.

So Josh is the bartender. Why don't you walk us through? Well, first of all, we should talk a little bit about where the hot toddy might have come from. So they actually don't know. They think possibly it came from Scotland, Edinburgh, and in Edinburgh there was a well at general. Wait, you didn't say that right.

It's Edinburgh. Right. There was a well that everybody drew water from and water is like a big feature of the hot toddy and the well was called Todd's well, T-O-D's well. And they think, well, there you go, that's story one. Maybe there's another one in India. They drink a medicinal drink called the toddy. Yeah, T-A-R-I, the toddy.

And it's made from tree sap. No. There's another one. There was a guy named Robert Bentley Todd. Bentley Todd. He was a doctor and he would prescribe this stuff constantly, whether you were sick or not, he'd be like, just drink this. And they think maybe he was the inventor of the toddy.

No, I like that one. You like that one? Yeah. The fourth one that I came across was that it was invented to make scotch more palatable to women. And I think that's probably where the hot toddy came up. So they could sell more scotch, basically. And then they came up with these backstories for it.

That's right. So we're brewing up some water. I am. What do we have here tonight? Got a little local rye, it looks like. Resurgence rye, whiskey, everybody. So if you don't know how to make a toddy, it's super easy and it's really actually quite good.

Oh, great. This show just took a turn to the left. But a toddy is just a whiskey of some sort, usually. It can be scotch. It can be Irish. It can be bourbon. It can be bourbon or rye or something like that. A little sweetener, usually honey, some citrus, and then some hot water.

That's it. That's it. Right. But depending on where you are in the country, there are variations, of course, when you get geographically specific. In New England, you might have one made with clam juice. Just kidding. Just kidding.

Now, they actually use maple syrup instead of honey in New England. Where else? In Ireland, they use potato water? No? Just a joke? Like, we really have gotten into dad joke territory in the last couple of years. People have pointed it out and I'm like, my God, they're right. That is pretty lazy.

I'm like, Ireland potatoes, right? Right. Irish whiskey there. In Scotland, they use U.M. McGregor's sweat. Well, that's just heavenly. Kidding. You scotch. And then William Faulkner actually had a recipe that used bourbon.

I don't have a William Faulkner joke. It's a very serious man. So tell us what we're doing here, Josh. What do we got? So I put about an ounce and a half, two ounces. This jigger doesn't actually say how big it is, but you want to put one to two ounces in, a couple of tablespoons of honey, a bunch of lemon, because that's what makes it the honey and the lemon makes it medicinal.

Right? That's right. It's at the alcoholic. I'm going to put... I was talking about me, by the way, not you. Okay, thanks. All right. I was like, just get on with it.

He doesn't know it's time. I'm going to put a little less than a whole lemon in between the two of them. And then the coud de gras, which I found out means death blow, not the final touch. Did you guys know that? I've been saying coud de gras my whole life, thinking like, oh, it's the final touch. No, it means to cut off the head. A little bit of water. All right.

I will say this, though, jokes about alcoholism aside. Here's another one. There are... No, there are doctors, like Mayo Clinic doctors, that have said there is a little bit of legitimacy here. The lemon does help, the honey does help. Warm liquids... I know, people are like, yeah, whatever.

Warm liquids help with congestion. They help loosen things up. They help stimulate your saliva. They also said there is a mentally desired effect, which is just a nice warm drink, which, if you're stressed out around the holidays, that can help you for sick. And the booze. And I'm like, are the Mayo Clinic doctors all alcoholics too? Because this all sounds like enabling speech.

They recommend a little nip three times a day. So how is it? Have you tried it yet? I know, I smelled it. Oh, that's pretty good. Is it? Cheers. Happy holidays.

Happy holidays, everybody. Ooh. You like that? That's nice. Does it need any more honey or anything? I'll make it right for you. I think it's perfect. Okay, good.

So, well, that's our drink. That's a hot toddy. And the hot toddy, only at Christmas and every other show where there's a bottle of booze on the stage. This is all so delicious. I think we should retire by the fire, my friend. We are. We're going to take our hot toddies and we're going to go over and we're going to read

what we're going to talk first and then we're going to read a story. Okay? Okay. And seriously, this set, I'd love to have a set like this at our house. We get one of these, Yumi? Little fake fireplace. I feel like I should be walking like this during this song. Tiptoeing.

So, has anyone ever really paid attention to that famous Andy Williams song, It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, usually sung by Johnny Mathis, where if you really pay attention to the lyrics, he says, there will be scary ghost stories and tales of the glory of Christmas as long and long ago. I have totally never noticed that until you brought me this a week ago. Has anyone else heard that and been like, what are they talking about? Like this doesn't even make sense. It does make sense.

If you know a little bit about the history of Christmas. You are very close to your Don't Be Dumb set right now. I am. And he Don't Be Dumb fans here? I need a plank right here. Can you tell him Josh sent you? Yes. There's that guy.

Thank you. I just broke the fifth wall. Think about it. I know. So, the reason why that song says there will be scary ghost stories is that ghost stories were a part of Christmas for eons. For eons. Like remember we were talking about like Frau Perkta and Belchnickl and all of them and

how they were kind of co-opted from pagan lore. That's where Christmas originally came from was the winter solstice. And at the winter solstice, that's the longest night of the year, the shortest day of the year. And it was typically kind of celebrated by the pagans as the death of the sun. And then the next day it was the resurrection of the sun. The sun came back and there was a promise of another year. But on this night, on the night of the winter solstice, which usually was around December

21st, 22nd, maybe the 25th, who knows, the barrier, the veneer between the living and the dead was the thinnest. And so the dead could kind of come and go as they please and maybe finish up some unfinished business, that kind of stuff. Maybe watch with delight as Belchnickl scared the pants off of little kids. Whatever you wanted to do, you could do it that night. Yeah, there's a British humorist named Jerome, sorry, Jerome Fuzzy. Oh, no, wait.

His name is Jerome. Jerome. Jerome K. Jerome. Yeah. I thought I was reading that wrong. His name is Jerome. Jerome. Yeah.

Good Lord, what is happening? So he sort of explained that around England, he said this, whenever 506 English speaking people meet round the fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve, but to hear each other tell authentic antidotes about specters. I love you, Chuck. Jerome K. Jerome. That was wonderful.

What a delightful chat. That was great. That's exactly how Jerome K. Jerome talked, by the way. Specters. There's a very rare grainy phonograph of him talking, and that's exactly what he sounded like. Chuck spent weeks preparing this. I know.

Apparently it was lost on all of you guys. I saw a bunch of photos, and he was doing this on all of them. So it was well-known in Victorian England that ghost stories were part of Christmas, and that actually explains another weird thing, if you step back and think about it, why there's a bunch of ghosts in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. Yeah, I never really thought about that, because it didn't make sense. I mean, I think it makes sense just because you're born reading that story and seeing those movies, but when you look back, it doesn't make any sense that these ghosts are coming

on Christmas Eve, because here in America, we associate ghosts with Halloween. But in jolly old England, the specters come out. He's going to keep at it until you guys give him a good laugh, so I just get it over with now. There were three or four good laughs in there. No, I'm with you. So in the Christmas Carol, Jacob Marley comes and is like, Scrooge, don't be like me. He's finishing up unfinished business because he can kind of cross over to the other side.

So that's why ghosts pop up from time to time in Christmas stories and Christmas songs. Isn't it delightful? Because it is a tradition to tell a ghost story around Christmas, which is why we are not doing that. We're going to tell a story about Lachas at Hanukkah. That's right. Because we are nontraditional. Oh, look at that, everyone.

Has anyone read this yet? Do you have any Jewish friends in the audience? All right. This is for you, ma'am. So this is a story called Meet the Lachas. Chuck and I just happened to have the hardbound edition in different editions. Is it sub-sign down? Thank you.

And we're going to read you the story of the Lachah family, which hopefully you will love. We haven't even practiced this yet, so we'll see how it goes. Meet the Lachas by Alan Silverberg. All right. Let's go for two slides. One more. All right. Here we go.

You want to start off for me? I'll start. All right. Are you going to do voices and stuff? I don't know. Let's see how it goes. Okay. Meet the Lachah family.

They're just like you and me, except they're potato pancakes. That's Lucy Lachah and her dog, Applesauce, who despite his name seems to also be a Lachah. So Lucy says, hello. And Applesauce says, woof. I got to say, a dog named Applesauce is pretty great. It's great. Yeah. But as you'll find, Applesauce is a bit of a no at all.

You probably won't like Applesauce by the end of this. All right. Moving on, I'm going to read the top and I'm going to make you read this word. Well, I just happened to look it up. So I will probably get it partially right. Mama and Papa are busy in the kitchen making fried jelly donuts. Soufganiyat. Nice.

How was that, ma'am? Good. Check out. All right. All right. Next slide. Lucy's older brother, Lex, who apparently was raised on the Teddy Ruxpin grunge story. Lex is reading comic books.

Get out of my room. He shouts. Lex is a teenager. He doesn't care about anything. I don't care. But Lex should care because, Ellipse, tonight's the night Lucy sings. She just turned into Neil Diamond. It's the first night of Hanukkah.

No, it's not. Oh, right. There's someone else in the Latka family. Yes. Grandpa. Hi there. Tonight's not Hanukkah, Grandpa says. It's Hanukkah.

That's what I said. Lucy is confused. As I believe Chuck said, we hadn't run through this yet. Hanukkah. Can I keep going? Let me take this one too. Yeah, yeah. Or did you really want this one?

No, no, no. That's all you. Grandpa grumbles. Say it with me. Hanukkah. Hanukkah. Look at that Latka. So this is when applesauce comes along to clear things up.

Right. What about the time when you'll probably stop liking applesauce? Actually, both Hanukkah and Hanukkah are right. The holiday's name is Hebrew, everyone. So there are different ways to spell it and say it in English. I'm a dog. Name applesauce. That was a good applesauce.

Thanks applesauce, says Lucy. Says grandpa. Oh, they're still getting ready for Hanukkah, everyone. Hanukkah. The Latka family cooks and sings. It is wonderful. They're singing the dreidel song, everyone. Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel.

You know the rest. Yeah, it's very nice. Oh, we're singing. Don't worry. Yeah. And they decorate the house. But they've even decorated applesauce. Applesauce is like, actually, this is more bunting than decorations.

And he said, here, applesauce, eat this. Except for Lex. He still doesn't care about anything. I still don't care. I could do Lex all day. I'm trying to decide who the villain here is. Is it Lex or applesauce? It's applesauce.

Is it? Oh, I love, you knew. Oh, yeah. I've disliked applesauce since day one. But you're kind of a Lex, though, at the end of the day, aren't you? Do you really think so? I don't know. I thought more of a Lucy.

I thought you were kind of a grandpa. It's kind of a happy guy. Well, yeah, maybe. I identify with grandpa more. Sure. Yeah, all right. So after the menorah is lit and the dreidels are spun and the gelt gets gobbled, grandpa plops Lucy onto his lap.

Do you want to hear about the miracle of Hanukkah, my little Latka? And this is the best part, everyone. It tells the true story of Hanukkah. It's not just fun and games. I do, Lucy says, biting into her last chocolate coin. That's the gelt. Did someone just correct my pronunciation of gelt? Grandpa begins with just a whisper.

First, you need to know about the bees. Bees, Lucy asks. Grandpa nods. Hanukkah is a celebration of how the Jewish temple was saved from destruction. We celebrate this holiday thanks to the brave bees who buzzed and stung and fought to keep our people safe. I'm going to take the despicable applesauce. I'm pretty sure there aren't any bees in the history of Hanukkah or Hanukkah fits, says

grandpa. Whose story is this? You're a dog named applesauce. That's through that last part, and I don't know if you guys are following along. So Lucy's eyes widen. Were the bees big, grandpa? Big? They were huge.

Giant? They were megabees. And then applesauce comes in. You mean macabees. Grandpa says, no, definitely megabees. And the biggest bravest of them all was Judah megabe. That's Judah macabe. He was a mighty warrior and a heroic Jew who lived in Israel more than 2,000 years ago.

And there were no bees, wolf, pea. But too late applesauce. Lucy can see it now. Judah in his swarm of giant bees buzzing and stinging and fighting to save the Jewish temple and the lives of everyone who worshipped there. And who do you think Judah and his big bees were battling, grandpa asks? That's easy. It was.

Oh my goodness, everyone. It's alien potatoes. What's the planet's name? Sure. Thank you. Planet. I just thought it was a coincidence. I don't understand why you said planet.

I'll explain it later. Okay. Zip, zap, wowie. It's getting too small for my old eyes, said grandpa. Grandpa continues outer space spuds invaded earth, lasers shot from their eyes, and they had a lot of eyes. Everyone was doomed. Help.

This is ridiculous. Said applesauce because he's a cynic. Are you kidding me? The enemy wasn't a bunch of alien potatoes. It was a terrible king named Antiochus. Well, it is true. Antiochus demanded that everyone believe in the same religion as he did, applesauce goes on.

So the Jews that meant no more studying the Torah, no more celebrating Shabbat, and never again worshipping God, King Antiochus and his followers almost completely destroyed the Jewish temple. He was a tyrant, yep. Oh look, he threw a menorah and hit applesauce in the head and said, yep, yes, a tyrant agrees grandpa, Judah and the megabies were trapped by those evil tater tyrants from planet prisoners in their own hive. They only had enough honey to last one day.

Running out of honey? No, they were running out of oil. They needed oil to keep the temple's eternal flame blowing and burning. And they weren't bees. Everybody is, applesauce is going to find his way to a hat box in the desert. I love dogs and I hate applesauce. The megabies plotted and schemed grandpa says in the next morning when the sun rose on the temple, an enormous wooden dreidel stood in the village square.

What could it be? The alien potatoes all wondered and why does it buzz? Lucy waves her arms. I know the megabies were hiding inside the dreidel. Lucy was right. All right, everyone, let's finish strong. Smart Laka says grandpa, plits, plots, plots, the megabies burst from the dreidel and sliced and whipped and mashed those tater tyrants into taters.

Tattered tater tyrants? Lucy asked. Try saying that three times, grandpa says. Tattered tater tyrants, tattered tater tyrants, tattered tater tyrants, all right. You all get guilt. It's not bad, everybody. And then Miracle's grandpa says, bringing it down a little bit, Judah Megabie stood in the middle of all those spoiled spuds.

What a waste, he said. And so that great warrior added some egg and onion and a pinch of flour to make something good from the bad potato latkes. Us? Us. Oi. Oi. Applesauce.

Do we have any applesauce fans? No, that's great. I love this crowd. Oh, okay. Got two people like applesauce. Lucy's eyes and mouth are wide open. So the miracle of Hanukkah is that a long time ago, megabies turned alien potatoes into latkes?

Is that really true? Of course it's not true. You keep it up with applesauce on the next one. The miracle of Hanukkah, or Hanukkah, is that not only did the small group of megabies protect their temple from King Antiochus' powerful army, but also the tiny bit of oil left to light the holy menorah didn't last for just one day. The oil kept the eternal light bright for eight whole days. That's right.

You can applaud that. That's fine. Lucy points to her family's glowing menorah, eight candle holders, eight days of the Hanukkah miracle, and the, how do you pronounce that? Shamus. Okay. And the shamus, the tallest candle to light all the others. You know what, says grandpa?

I like the dog's miracle better. Me too, says mama, who we all forgot about. Me too, says papa. The same. I don't care, says Lex, stuffing his face with chocolate gill. Lex, you left your room, cries mama. It's another Hanukkah miracle. And she gives him a hug, squeezing his, his beats by Dre, clean off of his head.

And that is Meet the Lakers by Alan Sibberberg. Sibberberg. Sibberberg. You want to sing? I think we should sing. You guys want to sing? Okay. We're going to sing a carol.

We're going to lead you guys in singing a carol. And we're not joking. Okay. And this is, this is how we're closing the show, everyone. So thank you for being here with us. We hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas time, a wonderful holiday time. Happy Hanukkah. And here we go.

Wow. What a performance, Chuck. You did great, my friend. You did great as well. And I think this might be a new annual tradition, my friend. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. We did readings. We talked about monsters and miracles.

We sang a carol together. There was an amazing set on stage. Yeah, man. It was great. It was a good time had by all. So I guess Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy holidays.

And may the tidings of the season greet you with gladness, no matter who you are or where you are. I agree. Thank you.