Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: How Miranda Rights Work

Episode Date: August 4, 2018

Back in 1966, the Supreme Court decided that suspects in criminal cases had the right to be reminded that they didn't have to talk to the fuzz if they didn't want to, as stated in the 5th amendment. Since that ruling, scores of other cases have shaped and defined the ruling that created a staple of police procedural dramas. 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

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, ya 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. Hey everyone, it's me, your buddy Josh. And for this week's SYSK Selects, I've chosen for you guys, my buddies, how Miranda writes work. It's a pretty great episode.

It's full of stuff like irony, interesting history, and sometimes unpalatable, but important civil rights. So I hope you all enjoy it, it's one of my favorites. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And this is Stuff You Should Know.

Sherry just told us, right before she pressed record, don't forget to be clever. Yeah. What is that about? I don't know. Man, I have a lot of pressure. I'm a little thrown off right now. Well, I think maybe because you said Miranda Wright's

were named after the Sex and the City character. Is that what you're talking about? That was like 45 minutes ago. It's a callback. So I guess that was clever in Sherry's book. That's the thing, like I didn't even consider that clever. Right. Juvenile, maybe.

So Miranda from Sex and the City. So what was your response to that one? I don't remember what I said. I thought it was fairly clever. Well, we'll just skip over that. You said you have the right to remain fabulous. Oh yeah, that's right. So that's the recap of a conversation we had

a little while ago, everybody. Well, people always say they want to know what happens behind the scenes. It's just tomfoolery. There you go. Chuck. Yes. I know that you and I have both been arrested many times

and we've done some time in the stir and all that. So we know what Miranda Wright's are. Yeah, not true. But the average person also knows what Miranda Wright's are because they're so ubiquitous on every cop show, every lawyer show, every show. I think they show up on like ER. Is it still on, right?

I have no idea. You know, like season 27? I have no idea. I don't think it is. Is it not? I had a pretty good long run. I'm sure. Miranda Wright's are just this thing

that have become totally ingrained in our culture. We can all say it. Well, let's say it together. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. But hey, buddy, don't fret. You have the right to an attorney.

And if you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you. Right. And then over time, apparently some agencies have added, and if you waive these rights, you can invoke them at any time. Yeah, I hadn't heard that one. They hadn't made it to TV yet, really. Right, yeah.

You know, they just keep it short and sweet. I'm not even going to tell you that. Yeah, Castle, he's all business. Yeah, is he a cop, though? And I think he's a private investigator. Oh, gotcha. Although I'm not sure. So he wouldn't have to Miranda's anybody.

No, but he's Castle, so he does. I've never seen it. I love Nathan Fillin, though. Oh, who doesn't? Yeah. He's a nice guy. But this idea that Miranda writes are, you know, they're everywhere and everybody knows them

and knows that they exist. Sure. But first of all, the case behind them, I think, is probably unknown. And then secondly, what they're designed to do, really, the real nuts and bolts of it, it hadn't really occurred to me, even though it's pretty self-evident once you think about it.

Yeah, and it seems really straightforward, but it can give a little tricky, which we'll discuss how that happens. Well, so the idea of the Miranda rights is fairly recent. It goes back to 1966, the case called Miranda versus Arizona. The Arizona. Yeah, yeah, which is like the legal provision came and be bothered to include the S when they abbreviate

versus, you know? And we should also point out that it wasn't just this one case. Miranda v. Arizona gets all the press because the name Miranda, but it was actually four cases that they consolidated. But we want to give Vignara v. New York, Westover v. United States, and California v. Stuart, their due as being part of this thing.

And basically, all the cases were similar in that there were confessions after interrogations, and those confessions were used against these various people. Right. But we're going to stick with Miranda, though. The lawyers of these, well, not just us. I mean, everybody does.

Well, it's called the Miranda case, the Miranda laws, the Miranda rights, your Miranda eyes, you know? Yeah. But the whole point behind these and all of the cases that the complainants had was that the people who committed these crimes and made these confessions and were later convicted for them were not aware that they didn't have to talk to the police.

Right. And this is actually, the Miranda case goes back to 1966, but the American right, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution to refrain from self-incrimination, that goes back to 1791. Like I said, the Fifth Amendment basically says that you don't have to tell on yourself. The cops can't make you talk is what that is.

Yeah, but until 1966, I guess you just needed to be up on your constitutional knowledge. And then in 1966, eventually, we'll get to the case, they said, maybe we should start telling people this when we arrest them. Right. So let's go back in time to 1963. In Phoenix, Arizona, the cops picked up Ernesto Miranda

for questioning in a kidnapping and rape case. His car was spotted near the scene of the crime. He was called in. When he got there, he was like, I didn't do this, man. He was completely cooperative. He was like, I didn't do any of this. Two hours later, an interrogation, he was not identified in a lineup.

But the cop said, the girl identified you in the lineup. And he went, oh, well, I guess I think his direct quote was, well, I guess I ought to tell you about it then. And so the cops lied to him. And this is a clear case of not doing things the right way. Well, no, the Supreme Court has upheld the use of deception by police in interrogation. They can lie their tails off to you.

Right, but not if you're not Miranda-ized. That was the point, is he didn't know that he could just be quiet and not say anything. So he just volunteered the information, signed a written confession. And that's the whole point. And that's what the justices in the Supreme Court who heard the Miranda case and all the other cases

that combined to make it were getting at, was that when you are being interrogated by the police, you're in their custody. They are allowed to use deception. They are allowed to use all sorts of tactics to coerce you to talk. But if you're not aware that you don't have to talk, then what you're saying amounts to an involuntary confession

and hence shouldn't be able to be used against you because you have a constitutional right against self-incrimination. If you're informed that you have that right, then you are making the decision to go ahead and confess against yourself and you're waiving that right. Yes, and that can be used in court. Exactly.

So they give you the option, essentially. So this is what the whole case was about. In 1966, like we said, the Supreme Court heard this case and ruled. Yeah, he was convicted, we should say, based on that confession. And sentenced to 30 years, I believe. 20 to 30, yeah. And the Supreme Court case was part of an appeal.

That's right, three years later. They heard this case. Yeah, and apparently like the other three people probably represent even more than just those four cases total. Usually when the Supreme Court hears something, there's a lot of it going on in the courts. Yeah, yeah. And they said in a five to four decision, you know what?

The suspect has to be read his rights, which we'll now call as Miranda rights. Yeah, and they specifically said prosecution may not use statements stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. But the key there is custodial interrogation.

Right. And established a couple of things. One, you can't self-incriminate from the moment you are in custody. It's not like you're on trial or something. And then any confession is involuntary, basically. And again, the reason that they're differentiating between in custody and not in custody

is because once you're in custody, the cops can do things like lie to you or something like that. That's right. And in custody is the three key words taken into custody is where all the gray area has been since then and still is today. Yeah, because they were pretty clear in their ruling. Like, yeah, this person has to be read their rights.

And let's even print some cards for police officers to carry around with them so they can read off of the card if they have to. Yeah, and we should point out that Miranda actually, they retried him without his confession. And his girlfriend said he confessed to me. So that was used in court. So he was found guilty again since the 20 to 30 years again,

paroled after five years, and then sold those little Miranda cards with his autograph on them for a while for like a buck 50. And then he was stabbed to death in a bar fight in 1976. Yes, and the suspect who stabbed him was read his Miranda rights. And so he never talked, and he walked. Really?

Yeah. Oh my god, the irony. It's definitely irony. Wow, yeah, in like the truest form of the word. That's right. Man. 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 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 as we take you back to the 90s. 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. 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. 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. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you.

Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael, and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander 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, 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. So custodial interrogation is one of the keys here, in custody,

is where it gets a little hinky, like if you're in the back of a police car and you've got your handcuffs on, then you're in custody. Right. That's pretty straightforward. Or even if you don't have handcuffs on, if you're in the back of a police car or even if you don't have handcuffs on, if the cops lock you

in the car and it's understood by you that you're not allowed to get out, you're in police custody. Right. The official definition of custody in the Miranda decision is, quote unquote, denial of complete freedom of action. Right. But that's open to interpretation, you know?

It is, because if you're handcuffed and you're put in the back of a locked police car, you're obviously denied freedom of action. You obviously have to be Miranda-ized, right? You can bang your head on the little clear glass in front of you. Right. What were you saying in police chases?

Like, you can defecate or urinate or whatever. Do whatever you want back there. Masticate. But that is not freedom of action, you know? It's been brought up, though, because of the legal authority that cops represent with their uniforms and their outwardly worn guns and tasers, all that stuff. Their mirrored sunglasses.

That they had some sort of, they project a sort of, just talking to a cop, a person might feel detained. Yeah, it's an implied, yeah, I think it's like an implied detention. Like, if a cop came to my front door and said he had some questions for me regarding a crime, I don't think I would feel, even though it's within my right, I don't think I would feel like I was able to say,

no, actually, I'm going to go to the grocery store right now. Right, exactly. And just walk past him and get in my car. Or even, I'm going to have to ask you guys to leave. Yeah. Which, again, you said it is your right to do. They haven't placed you into custody. But you don't have to be Miranda's in this situation,

because you can tell the cops to leave. If you are in an interrogation room and you tell the cops to leave, they're not going to listen to you. If they're on your front doorstep and you tell them to leave, they are supposed to listen to you. And because of that, you're not being, you have freedom of movement.

You can go back in your house. You can go to the grocery store. You can tell the cops to leave. So even though the perception might be that you are being detained by the cops just by their very presence and you don't feel like you can tell them to leave, the law isn't, this law isn't designed to let you be slippery.

Right. Like a traffic stop, for instance, is a kind of a, not weird, but if you get stopped by a cop and you say, you know, I've got five pounds of weed in my trunk, by the way, Mr. Officer. You caught me. That can be used in court because that is a non-custodial situation.

Right, which is weird, though. I didn't realize that a traffic stop is considered non-custodial. Does that mean you can just drive off? Because then if you can't drive off, then that's a custodial situation. So does that mean that you can drive off legally? Or does that mean that the court just,

it is a gray area that the courts have never really tried? No, that means you're evading. Evading what? Arrest? A traffic stop. OK, well then that means you can't leave. You don't have freedom of movement. Therefore, that's a custodial situation.

And you should have to be mirandised when you're pulled over. Well, hey, talk to the Supreme Court, my friend. I've been trying. But I do have a question. If there are any constitutional lawyers, or any kind of lawyer, really, who knows what they're talking about, defense attorney, I'm very curious about that.

Like, are you allowed legally to just drive off once a cop pulls you over, since it's a non-custodial situation? My answer is no. I would imagine no, too. Because every time you do, they, well, because you have committed a crime and the cop has pulled you over, maybe, I mean, that's where the language gets tricky.

You're not in custody, but maybe you're temporarily detained. I bet you there's some specific language that allows for this. And I would never argue this with a cop who pulled me over. That's not what I'm getting at here. I'm just genuinely curious. If you can't drive off, then how is it a non-custodial situation?

That's my question. Yeah, that's a good question. But that shows the slippery slope in the gray area. Right. Right. And like you said, I mean, if you say, hey, I've got five pounds of weed in my trunk and the cop never mirandized you.

And then after that, he says, well, you're under arrest. And then he mirandizes you. And you shut up from that point on. They can still use that initial confession. Because it was non-custodial. Yeah. And here's the other thing. A lot of people, well, not a lot of people,

some folks may be confused by, if you're not read your Miranda rights, then you just get released or whatever. Right. Not true at all. That just means that they can't use what you have said in court and any ancillary incriminating evidence that came from that confession can't be used either.

Right. Like if they arrest you and you say, they tell you you're placed under arrest, and then they're like, so we're going to get some tacos, rather than here's what we have to tell you about your Miranda rights. Yeah. And then you say, I've got a bunch of weed on me.

Yeah. Like they can't use that confession about the weed against you because you hadn't been mirandized. You've been told that the cops wanted tacos. Yeah. I wonder what keeps someone from voluntarily talking about evidence so it won't be able to be used. Yeah.

Man, we are criminal minds right here. I'm sure there's workarounds for all this. We're like Mandy Patinkin and like the rest of the cast right here at this table. In Yintl? No, is any in criminal minds? No, I don't know. He's in Homeland.

I watch that. He's also in The Prince is Bright. He's in Nigo, Montoya. Monday Patinkin. He was also the alien cop in Alien Nation. A lot of people don't know that, but Jimmy Kahn, you never saw Alien Nation? No, is that good?

That was a great movie. It always looked silly to me. I'll tell you what. When you're 13, it is a great movie. I haven't seen it in a long time. So was Krull. Did you see that one? Yeah, it was nothing like Krull.

It had like a good plot. It was like to live and die in LA with aliens. Right. Or enemy mine on Earth. Yeah, I never saw that one. It was kind of the same deal. It's like, it's Luke Gossett Jr. in an alien suit. And Dennis Quaid, right?

Randy Quaid. Dennis Quaid. It definitely wasn't Randy. It was Dennis Quaid. It was Dennis Quaid. I'm pretty sure. All right. So Miranda Wrights.

There is the requisite meandering tangent. So there's an important thing we haven't covered yet in regards to Miranda Wrights. And it was recently got a lot of press with the bombings in Boston. Right. And that is the public safety exception in the case of the Boston bombing. What was his name? Jokar Sarnaev. Okay.

Jokar. Jokar. Did Jokar. There's a lot of ways to say it that are wrong. And then there's one right one, which I may have had in there. So he is in the hospital. Everyone knows what happened. You know, the bombings went off.

The one brother was killed. They caught the other one. And he was wounded. And so he was in a hospital. And they had what they called an urgent public safety interview in the hospital without reading him his rights. He's asking for an attorney. They're like, you're not getting an attorney.

Yeah. Why didn't she tell us what's going on? And he did. Yeah. He did. He confessed to the bombing. He told them about possible other bombs. I think that's how they found out that the apartment was possibly rigged with explosives

or at the very least there were explosives in his apartment or his brother's apartment. And they found all this out by denying him his right to keep quiet. And a lot of people were saying, well, you guys just blew the case. You guys, why didn't you morandize him? And it was because of this public safety exemption that came about that the Supreme Court ruled on in 1984. Yeah. New York v. Quarles.

Benjamin Quarles was in custody at a grocery store in 1980. And a rape victim had identified him. And the cop frisked him and said, hey, you've got an empty gun holster here. Is there a gun nearby? And he was like, yeah, it's right over there. The cop went and got the gun, unloaded it, obviously secured the scene. And that became a court case because the gun evidence was thrown out and appellate court agreed.

And then later on the Supreme Court said, no, you know what, that's called securing the scene. That's a public safety exception. You can't have a loaded gun in there. You can't have bombs waiting to go off potentially somewhere else. So forget the morandizing. You need to secure everything. Right.

And once that threat to public safety is secured, then you have to morandize them. Yeah. In which the Boston case, he just shut up after that. Right. Too late. Yeah, exactly. The feds had gotten all they wanted out of them and were like, sure, whatever. And apparently a judge ordered the feds to morandize the guy after like two days of this

questioning. I bet that was a pretty satisfying reading of the rights at that point. I'm sure. You know, because they knew they were covered. But I mean, this is such a Gestapo tactic too. Like, we'll just question you about everything we want for two days until the judge ordered us to morandize. That means that some attorneys are going to have to go through all two days of that confession

to pick out at what point the public safety exemption was basically exhausted. And I mean, you can argue that any question that has to do with even possible future terrorist attacks is, you know, preventing or protecting public safety. But it's just like, I mean, I don't know, it definitely skirts the spirit of the law, I would think. Yeah. And I found an article written by the guy who originally, I think, wrote the Quarles verdict.

And he was like, you know what, in the case with the Boston bomber, they shouldn't even done that anyway, because there was so much evidence they didn't even need these confessions. And it was in the true spirit of trying to secure public safety to find out if there was other explosives. But from that point on, they were like, it was completely unnecessary because the guy was convicted just from, you know, the evidence was so strong that they didn't even need that confession. Exactly.

So like after they found out about the bombs or whatever, whether there were, weren't bombs, then it seems to me like the public safety exemption would have been exhausted. Yeah. And they would have had to have morandized him. It's a slippery slope. But I mean, it's not like the CIA has to have, you know, admissible evidence in court to go after all the people that Joe Carr named, if he named anybody or whatever he gave up. You know?

So it's just, I don't know, I'm coming to trust like Obama's security policies like less and less. Really? Yeah. That's my opinion. No, I get it. It's a very fine line between like, hey, this guy's a terrorist and get that information or people still have their human rights.

Right, exactly. And it's such a difficult thing to swallow, too, the concept that some little punk who him and his brother blew people up in Boston and took people's lives and legs and that they did this, that the concept that they have any rights whatsoever is pretty unpalatable. But we as a society have decided that, yeah, you do have rights. If you're an American citizen, you have certain rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and court interpretation of those rights. And that's the law of the land.

And I guess to just routinely skirt around those whenever it's determined to be called for by whoever's in charge in power, that's equally unpalatable to me. Because also, you know, the courts judged a criminal suspect when you invoke the public safety exemption, it's not that that person doesn't have any rights, it's that the safety of the public trumps that person's constitutional rights right then. But just for that narrow window of time, and then after that it's exhausted. And this is not the first time, it was just three years ago that the feds did the same thing.

They did the public safety exemption for the Times Square Bomber. Yeah, and he sang like a canary. Which is, if they just did it to Zhokar Sonayev, I don't think I would have a problem, but just the fact that it popped up three years ago, too, that's starting to indicate a pattern to me. Yeah, terrorism, I think, is the key agent there, you know, can anything else? I'm done. Man, we're going to get so much mail for that one.

Hey, buddy, you have the right to remain fabulous. Thank you. This is my takeaway. Thank you. If you want to learn more about being fabulous, you can type that word into the search bar at HouseSelfWorks.com. You can also type Miranda writes, M-I-R-A-N-D-A writes. And since I said search bar somewhere in there, it's time for a message break.

Stuff is should go. 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 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 non-stop references to the best

decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Is 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 as we take you back to the 90s. 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. 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 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 will 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. Not another one. Uh-huh. 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, 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. And now it's time for Listener Mail. Yeah.

Uh, before Listener Mail, we have a quick shout out, and we don't usually do this, because we get inundated with requests for shout outs. Yeah. But every once in a while, they caught you at the right time, huh? Exactly. It's a happy anniversary shout out from Josh Underwood, he and his wife are teachers in Robertson County, Kentucky, and they've listened to our show, incorporated it in their classrooms, and they are celebrating their 10-year anniversary.

And he said, if we could say happy anniversary to Amanda, it would, uh, can't think of anything that would make her smile more. Oh. So on June 14th, he said, if it's late, you know, don't worry about it. So this is probably going to be late. But I hope you guys had a great anniversary on June 14th. Josh and Amanda Underwood. Yeah, happy anniversary, you guys.

Or I don't know if Amanda took your name. Yeah. Whatever her name might be. Yeah. So, the real Listener Mail, speaking of taking names, uh, is a good one. Now, I'm going to call it Royal Tannenbaum's, uh, theory. Oh, I like this already. Yeah.

It's one of my favorite movies. It has to do with losing a finger in a wood chopping accident, right? Hi, guys. Uh, my wife, Molly, and I have been listening for about three years. We both love it. I've always wanted to email you, but I didn't have a reason, and I didn't want to sound like a 12-year-old girl talking to NSYNC or something. I guess it's pretty out of touch.

Yeah, I guess it's 1994. I wanted to say something interesting, so here are two interesting things. One, my name is Josh Bryant. Pretty interesting. It's like the two of us together. That's right. I appreciate you taking my name. Uh, number two, he actually had three things, but one wasn't so interesting.

Number two is I watched Wes Anderson's Royal Tannenbaum's was amazed at how different and unique all the characters were and how well they all worked together as a family. After reading other theories about the movie, I think the one I love most is that every character represents a different stage of grief. So Denial. Good one. Yeah, that's good. I collect fan theories.

Oh, I love it. That is a great one. Have you seen Room 237 yet? No of you. No, I'm dying to though. Yeah. They didn't release it in Atlanta. I know.

So Denial is Margot Tannenbaum, her unknown smoking habit, numerous marriages, secret crush on Richie. Totally Denial. Yeah. Uh, Anger, Chaz, Tannenbaum, need I say more, pretty much throughout the whole movie he's angry and full of resentment. Uh, bargaining, Royal Tannenbaum himself, he lies to get out of bad gambles and gambles to cover up bad lies.

This is like pretty good. Yeah. And he didn't make this up. He got off the internet, but that's still good. But Joshua Bryant, you get no credit. That's like that kid who stole that Haiku from a t-shirt. Oh man. Um, Depression, Richie Tannenbaum, uh, again very obvious, sees when he tries to, uh, see

when he tries to commit suicide. Great scene. Uh, an acceptance is Etheline Tannenbaum. Her role is more subtle. Her acceptance is seen, uh, when she accepts Mr. Sherman's marriage proposal. It's a little thin there. It's also seen when she finally moves on from her old marriage and accepts her new life with her new husband.

So that's sort of, that's the most tenuous. Yeah. But he asks what we think. And I think that's pretty good. I love fan theories. Like you. Yeah. Five stages of grief.

I doubt if that's the case. Well, that's what makes fan theories so great. If, like, if you just unlocked the director's secret, then it's done. It's fine. You figured it out. One of the great things about fan theories is if it rivals what the director was trying to do or the writer was trying to do. Yeah.

It was like English class. Mm-hmm. Uh, it was always, and I had a problem with it back then, but now I love it. I would always be like, well, this teacher's just interpreting this like who knows what the author meant. Oh, yeah. But that's kind of the point now in my old age. I realize.

Yeah. I remember feeling my brain unfurl and start to get like, yeah, there are specific interpretations of things that, that kind of fit within a framework, but still are, it's pretty wide. Yeah. Agreed. It's nice. Pretty cool. Fan theories.

I'm writing a blog post on them right now. I'm collecting them. It's called Brian. Joshua, I guess, is the result of some weird stuff you should know in breeding. Oh, yeah. He's an experiment. That's right. Yeah.

Foreigner Petri dish. Let us know where you are right now. He escaped. Yeah. Uh, if you escaped from our lab, we want to hear about it, um, especially if you have some cool fan theory, man, send us fan theories, like good ones. Yeah. I mean, like good ones, not like, uh, stupid ones.

Yeah. I've been on Feral Children lately. What? Just, that's been my obsession lately, reading about Feral Children. I might try and write a thing for our show. Fan theory? Feral Children. What does that have to do with fan theories?

Nothing. That's just, that's my obsession. Yours has been fan theories. Oh, I gotcha. I gotcha. I've just been obsessed with Feral Children. Yeah. Cause there have been like actual ones in the, like, um, the Emerald Forest.

The many cases. So, uh, okay. If you have a good fan theory and or a good Feral Children story, we want to hear about it. We have a, uh, S-Y-S-K podcast. You can join us on, uh, Stuff You Should Know, which is prior to that, slash, prior to that, Facebook.com. Uh, you can send us an email to stuffpodcastthediscovery.com, and you can 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, HeyDude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude 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 HeyDude, 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, 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.