Stuff You Should Know - The 2017 SYSK Christmas Extravaganza!

Episode Date: December 21, 2017

It's the most wonderful episode of the year! Join Josh and Chuck as they ride their sleigh through the debate over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, the Rockefeller Center tree, a boozy holiday recipe and plenty more great holiday tidings! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, ho, ho, ho, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we have a special elf with us this time this year for our Christmas special, Noel. Elf on the shelf. Noel. Hark, hear the bells, there go the bells, where are the bells, I am the bells. That's pretty good. Thanks.

Was that tubular bells? No, but one of my, that just reminded me of one of my favorite SNL skits of all time were the Sweeney Sisters, it was at Jan Hooks, geez, the late Jan Hooks, very sad about that, and I think Nora Dunn, if I remember correctly, remember them? The Sweeney Sisters? Of course I do. So great, and I think they did that for their Christmas episode, they did a great medley of Christmas tunes, and that one sort of went like that.

Nice. So good. Well, you just nailed it, man. How are you feeling? Pretty good. I'm feeling great because this is one of my favorite episodes of the year. Me too. And we'd like to point out, not to toot our horn, but one of the things we always fight

for every year is that the Christmas episode, along with the Halloween episode, remains ad-free. We fight for it to the death, there are so many dead ad salespeople in our wake. But you know what, they deserved it. They shouldn't have crossed us, they should have just let us, you know. Yeah. So this is an ad-free episode, like you said, and I'm pretty proud of that too. I think it's nice of us.

Yeah. This is just one of my favorite episodes of the year, it's fun. So as we do every year, Josh, I think we want to encourage everyone to light a fire, maybe pour up a hot buttered rum. Oh yeah, that's a good one. Although we do have a good recipe for this year. Yeah, I guess they could listen to that and then come back to the beginning. Or a rummy eggnog, or just your favorite non-alcoholic Christmas drink of choice.

Sure. And get the family together, light the yule log, hang that mistletoe, and let's get this underway. So it's been an interesting year so far, right? Yeah. But I always like these ones because they make me reflect on the year. It seems like it was just a month ago that the year started. It has gone on by fast.

I feel like I'm speeding toward death. But when I think about being 46 years old and speeding toward death, I think, well, when I was a kid, that was a long time ago. So if I'm around middle age-ish, I got a long way to go and it just seems like it's that trick that your mind plays on you, or it seems like time is gaining speed as you get older. Right. I think there's some science behind that, too.

I think there is, too. I think it's because you have less time to compare it to when you're a kid, whereas the older you get, you have more time to compare it to. Probably so. But I've had that same exact thought, Chuck, within the last probably two weeks. Oh, yeah? Yeah. No, no, no.

The other one where it's like, wait a minute, I've lived for a very long time and I'm like right at middle age, so I've got a long time left and, baby, I'm going to make the most out of it and I'm going to start with the 2017 stuff you should know. Christmas extravagant. I'll tell you what you shouldn't do, then. If you got a good feeling about the future and you're a long way toward death, don't then go down the road of, yeah, but I only got about 15 or 20 more good years. Right now.

That's when it gets really sad. I assume that medical science is going to advance by such leaps and bounds that, yeah, we're going to be living healthy to like 150. That's my prediction. Yeah, we're going to be playing tennis at 149 when I finally just go over and unplug and drop dead right there on the tennis court. Yeah, after you beat me in our final game. Yeah, and a simulation of Andre Agassi.

All right, so let's do this. Should we take an ad break? Pretty good, Chuck. Let's take a little jingle break. How about that? Oh. And then we'll get into it. All right.

Happy holidays, Chuck. Thank you. All right, buddy. We're back. Oh, and speaking of jingles, big thanks to our pal, John Begin, who composed us for us. He's composed a number of stuff you should know, ad break jingles. And we went to him and said, hey, will you compose for us this Christmas season? And he said, yes.

And it was a Christmas miracle. Agreed. And what should we start with? Oh, man, I think we have to start with Die Hard. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? You found this. You put together most of this. This is a world class episode, by the way.

I want to commend you for it. Thanks. It's not like I dug this up. And I almost got annoyed by this one because it's become a very trendy thing over the past few years to argue about whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Yeah. It's basically the clearest symbol that civilization is sliding into a reversible decline. The argument over this.

So let's talk about it. Yeah. Because I think the reason why I got jazzed about it, I feel very similar to you. It's kind of like, guys, this could not matter less. Stop arguing about this. That was my William Shatner impression. Um, this article you sent by Art Tavana from LA Weekly, I just think it really gets the point across so well that it jazzed me.

Yeah. You know what? Do I even have that one? Why don't you lead this one then? Oh, okay. Well, Jiminy Crickets. I think I might have sent it to you and then not even use that one. Oh, it's great, man.

This one is like the best. I'm actually putting it on my website. Are you serious, Clark? It's going on the reading list. What's the name of it? It's called, yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Stop debating it. Okay, I don't think I have that one, but I know Die Hard inside and out, so I can get

in there. Okay, so Art says this, he starts with a quote, this is a quote from a BuzzFeed article, but from way back in 2013, this has been going on a while, but BuzzFeed wrote, quote, most prized among people of this opinion that Die Hard is a Christmas movie, is the transgressive act of selecting a violent action movie over home alone or more classic fare. We get it. You're too cool for regular Christmas movies, right? So they laid down the gauntlet, I think they did a good bit of calling out and they probably

got it right for some people, but Art says, wait a minute, wait a minute, who's to say what classic Christmas fare is? If you're saying, if you're talking about it's a wonderful life, you're being brainwashed, like Frank Capra followed in the tradition of Norman Rockwell, and all of this is like some weirdo small town communalism, utopianism that doesn't even really exist. And the whole reason that you're crazy for, it's a wonderful life is because it lost its copyright back in the 70s, and the television networks around the country started showing it for free, so it almost was force fit into a Christmas tradition, right?

That's right. And it's a wonderful life. I mean, if we're really going to take this down that path, it's not a Christmas movie. It's not even set at Christmas. There is a scene set on Christmas Eve, one scene in that movie, and something I read, because I was looking up whether or not it's a wonderful life is a Christmas movie, or it's just got that by association, and they said, if it's a wonderful life is a Christmas movie, then E.T. is a Halloween movie.

I don't know, man, I don't know, because here's the thing, and we'll just go reveal the end here then, the one thing that die hard, and it's a wonderful life having common, is getting your family back before Christmas morning. Like the whole thing that's driving the plot is a race against time to get everything the way that it should be before Christmas morning happens. Sure, and also, is the Christmas movie one that is set at Christmas, or one that is just got filled with the spirit of Christmas? I think, are you asking what my opinion is?

Sure. My opinion is that if somebody feels like Christmas-y when they watch a movie, and it becomes like a tradition for them to watch it, or they have a good Christmas feeling from it, then leave that person alone. Well, but like, is the Godfather Thanksgiving movie, because they showed everything's giving on TV? Sure. And the Sound of Music is an Easter movie, because they showed it around Easter.

If it is that to some people, then that's fine. It makes it that for those people. Okay, so you're saying the setting of the movie and the contents therein have no bearing on whether or not, like it doesn't even have to take place at Christmas or be Christmassy? No, I'm saying that, yes, it does not have to take place at Christmas, but I'm not saying that the settings have no bearing, because I do think if Die Hard wasn't set at Christmas, no one would be talking about whether it was a Christmas movie or not. Sure.

So that the time that it takes place definitely does have an impact on it, but that's not the only thing. And if it doesn't take place around Christmas, that doesn't automatically disqualify it from being a Christmas movie. It just makes it... Or make it a Christmas movie. Right. So that's our...

That's our opinions, but let's get into what Art Tavana says all the reasons why Die Hard is a Christmas movie, huh? All right, what's he got? So he says not only is it a Christmas movie, but he said that it is one of the... This is a quote, one of the most carefully sculpted Christmas allegories in history. So either Art Tavana is totally mad, or this guy's got something figured out that everybody else is missing. Yeah.

I mean, he does make some pretty good points. One of the things... Well, I mean, we can just tick through a bunch of these. One of the things is the name John from John McClain. He said it could be an allusion to John the Baptist or John the Apostle. And also Holly Gennaro, the wife, her name was Holly, doesn't get much more Christmassy than Holly. That's right.

And so John, the premise of this is John has lost his wifers in the process of losing his wife. Yeah. She's moved from New York, their home, to LA to pursue her career. And in the process, she's dropped her married name in favor of Gennaro, her maiden name. Or Gennarick. That's what she goes by professionally, right? Yes.

John is out there. The premise of this is what has brought John out to LA for Christmas is to basically reclaim his wife as Art Tavana puts it. That's right. Okay. So that's the premise, and John's name can be an allegory for John the Baptist, John the Apostle, something religious and Christmassy, Christiany, I should say. Yes.

And then Holly's name is that pagan plant, Holly. And then he also says that there's 13 terrorists, which doesn't at first seem very Christmassy, right? Yeah. But he says that very specifically, Hans Gruber says that he is not a terrorist. And so then you have 12, but see, this is where it falls apart from me. He says 12 card-caring terrorists, like the 12 apostles of Christ or the 12 days of Christmas, but none of them are terrorists.

They're all robbers. Yeah, but only one of them. Said that they're not a terrorist. Right. I thought that one was week two, but then Art wins me back with the very next point. He says that like Santa Claus, John McLean, it keeps a list, but he writes it in Sharpie on his arm and rather than it's boys and girls who have been good or bad, naughty or nice, these are terrorists.

He's either killed or plans to kill. Yeah. And of course, in one of the great scenes when, and by the way, spoiler alerts. Oh man, I guess, I guess so. People like, man, I was just going to watch Die Hard this year for the first time ever. He sends the one dead terrorist down in one of my favorite scenes from the 32nd floor down the lobby, the door opens. He is dead and has a on his chest.

Okay. Say it in a German accent, please. And not only that, I'll say it with my best Alan Rickman. Okay. RIP. Now a half a machine gun. Ho, ho, ho. Oh goodness.

So he says this proves that McLean is a sociopathic Santa Claus. Yeah, and that the elevator was his chimney. Yeah. So it's getting a little weird here. John McLean has Christmas dinner. That's the Twinkie that he eats during a period of respite. Week. The respite.

That's weak. But he says, art says, there is a miracle in this and they even call it out. There's a Christmas miracle because remember Theo, the guy who's kind of like the hacker of the group. Yeah. So you crack the safe with the drill and Hans comes down to see how the progress is going and Theo tells them it's going to take a miracle to get past this electromagnetic lock. Yeah.

Very, in very short order, the FBI turns off the power. But before this, Hans Gruber says, Theo, you asked for a miracle. I give you the FBI. So they specifically say there's a miracle in this movie. Yeah. That's another one. That's right. What else?

John McLean makes it, he makes it back to his family. He and his wife are reunited at the end. She gives him her Christmas gift. She identifies herself as Holly McLean, right? Yeah. And then ostensibly, by extension, I guess, they're going to go home to their six-year-old daughter for Christmas morning. The sun has not risen yet, so it's still Christmas Eve, and there are barra bonds floating down

like snow around them, and they even play the song, Let It Snow. Yeah. So Art points some stuff out. He says he went back and looked at reviews that he could find, because he works for LA Weekly. He's a movie critic, I think. Yeah. This holds water to me at this point.

He said, I could not find any reviews that cited this thing as a Christmas movie. It came out in July of 1988. Yeah. This is definitely something that has been retrofitted, for sure. No one called it a Christmas movie back then. Only the clever generations of today shall do so. Yeah. So he points out that no one at the time said this is a great Christmas movie.

It was a buddy picture, is how they put it, right? Yeah. Or just an action, like shoot them up fest. And it was. It was a great movie. Still is, right? Oh, sure. But he says that at the same time, there was a weird kind of foreshadowing that same year,

because Scrooge came out, which is another great Christmas movie. And that is a bona fide Christmas movie, because it's an adaptation of a Christmas carol. There's no question about that. But in it, Bill Murray plays a TV executive who has green-lit a picture called The Night the Reindeer Died, and it's about a terrorist attack on the North Pole in Santa's workshop. And he says the implication of this is that you would have to be some soulless TV executive to watch an action movie for Christmas. Yeah.

I don't buy it. Oh, I think it just ties the whole thing up. It just brings it right back to the beginning, man. No, no, no. I don't buy that you would have to be a soulless. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I'm on board. Art Devana is the oracle of our time. So I have... Are you done with Art Devana? Yeah. All right, because I've got a very special Christmas gift for you, sir. Okay. And I kept this a surprise.

Thank you. I was wondering what this was. You see, I'm holding a piece of paper in my hand, and what I have in my hand is an email exchange with the writer of Die Hard. What? Jeb Stewart. What? This is insider information.

What? What? I know, right? Wow. All right. So, man, look at that smile. I can't believe I'm dizzy. All right.

So I was able to get this email, and he was happy to oblige. Wow. He's sort of been making the rounds on this. I think 2020 interviewed him on it, and he's just a great dude. So I knew that there was a book that Die Hard was based on called Nothing Last Forever by Roderick Thorpe. And so I thought, well, when he wrote the, you know, was that set at Christmas, was Christmas a big deal, or did you run with it?

So this is his reply. And all this... This is amazing, Chuck. And this is not super long, but I'm going to read the whole thing because it deserves it. Okay. So he said that Nothing Last Forever is a dark noir novel about a 60-plus-year-old man who comes to visit his 40-year-old daughter in L.A. So obviously, he changed that stuff.

And then he, you know, talks a little bit more about the writing process. And then he says, so back to your question, yes, Christmas was always part of the theme. Thorpe said it on December 24th and 25th in the novel for a very practical reason. We need the building as empty as possible. Oh, yeah. So that makes sense. That's where that comes from. However, once he established this, he sort of abandoned the theme.

Since I had a lot of dramatic leeway, I took the approach, let's go for it. But this all came from Jeb Stewart, all the Christmassy stuff. First, I changed the main character's ages, set up the story about a 30-year-old guy with old-school ideas about marriage coming from New York to visit his estranged wife, but everything right again with his family. L.A. represents and conflicts with his views of normal. Christmas music is different. The office party and gifts are over the top.

His wife keeps her maiden name and the temperature is warm and not snowy. It drives him crazy. But once Hans Gruber takes over Nakatomi Plaza, all that melts away. All the action, all the struggle become John McLean's long journey to discover what really matters is family. You don't appreciate what you have until you risk losing it. Since family is at the core of the idea of this work, what better holiday than Christmas? There's no question in my mind that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

Wow, there you have it. There you have it. A Christmas movie has more to do with just being set at the holiday. It has to include the holiday and the themes of the film. Christmas also needs to be reflected in the characters, their stories and dialogue. I tried to do this as much as possible, even when it means sending a body down the elevator with a Santa cap and a message written on a shirt saying, Ho, ho, ho, now I have a machine gun.

Anyway, that is my argument that Die Hard's a Christmas film. I'm happy some people agree. As someone once told me, it's not Christmas at our house until Hans Gruber falls off Nakatomi Plaza. Amen to that, Jeb Stewart. Wow, that is definitive, Chuck. Nicely done. Yeah?

That's funny, I had no idea that it was originally, ho, ho, ho, now I have a machine gun. I'm sure some execs workshopped it and focus grouped it and then they switched it around. Well, I'm not sure if you're saying that's how he wrote it, but. That's wonderful, Chuck. Kudos to you. That's a great Christmas present. Good. And kudos to Jeb Stewart.

He says he's a big stuff. You should know fans to take that for what it's worth. Awesome, man. Yeah. Well, I just got you some socks. Oh, wow. Sorry. I got you a personalized letter from Jeb Stewart.

I know. And some socks. Oh, man. All right. Is that the end of our segment? Yeah. All right. OK.

Okay, which one you want to do next? I'm happy to rock around the Rockefeller Christmas tree. Okay. Rockefeller? It's the R is silent and invisible. So most of this information comes from an article this year from Dana Schultz, the history of Rockefeller's center Christmas tree, a New York holiday tradition. So the Rockefeller center tree, everybody knows this thing, right?

Yeah. They probably know more than they realize that that statue is Prometheus, the big golden statue, and I only say that because I didn't realize that until researching this article. But it's an extremely famous thing because it's a giant tree, it's in the middle of New York and everybody watches it, but it has some really sweet, humble origins that I wasn't aware of at all. Yeah. And I got to say, if you've never been to New York at Christmas, do yourself a favor

and go because the word magical is thrown around a lot, but it is truly magical. It is. It's truly. It's great. Rockefeller center, it's wonderful to go down there, you know, even if you're a Scrooge McDuck, I think your heart might melt a bit. Can you just see like Scrooge McDuck weeping quietly in public off to the side of the ice skating rink in front of you?

I sure can. That'd be kind of neat. You'd be like, there's a cartoon in real life. So back to the origins. Where are we? 1931? Yeah. And the Great Depression was in full swing.

This is another thing I didn't realize. Did you know the Great Depression is also called the clutch plague? Is that what that is? Yeah. The only explanation I saw was that the clutch plague more refers to the global depression, whereas the Great Depression is the American Great Depression. Gotcha. That's all I saw.

But so the clutch plague slash Great Depression is going on. It's 1931 and a group of workers, construction workers are building Rockefeller center at the time and Christmas comes around and the workers decide, Hey, we need to Christmas up this place a little bit. So they pool their money together and they buy a 20-foot tree and they install it right there on the construction site. And if that's not heartwarming enough, their families made garland to decorate the tree with.

So it's truly like this great little thing that these people did in the peak of the depression, the deepest trough of the depression to increase their spirits as the Christmas sweaters always have embroidered on them, increase your holiday spirit. Oh, that's good. You really stumbled through that one. So the men lined up apparently to get their paychecks at the tree and a couple of years later in 1933, the Rockefeller Center said, You know what? Let's make this a thing.

We're going to actually erect a tree and have a lighting ceremony. It's going to be 50 feet tall and this is now just a great new tradition here in New York City. Yeah. So yeah, in 19... What was that? 1933? Uh-huh.

They've been doing it ever since and they actually were smart enough to broadcast it on the radio. And then 20 years later, they started broadcasting it on television. And apparently today, like tens and tens, if not hundreds of millions of people watch the tree lighting. Yeah. Except me. I wasn't one of them. I forgot to watch it.

I have never watched it. I haven't either. I mean, if I'm in New York City in the winter time, I always go by Rockefeller Center. Well, sure. Sure. So there's actually some pretty cool facts about the tree that I wasn't aware of. They tend to be a typical species, the white spruce. Yeah.

And apparently that's because they are generally very straight and very strong and grow about the height that they want, which is generally between 80 and 100 feet. Right. And they find them by scouting by helicopter, like Pennsylvania, Connecticut, upstate New York. Apparently they got one from Ohio once in 1998 that had to be flown in the world's largest cargo plane. Yeah.

How about that? Pretty cool. So they put a lot of thought into this. It's not like, oh, there's a big tree. And they want them to be upright and the head gardener whose job, in part, is to go scout throughout the year to find a tree. His name is Eric Posey. He says that you want to not be able to see the sky through it.

Oh, wow. You want it to be dense enough that you can't just see the sky through it. Yeah. So they erect that thing. It usually does not arrive by world's largest cargo plane. It's usually in a truck. And then they have these guy wires, of course, is so large. They have guy wires supporting it right there at the midpoint.

They have a steel spike in the base. And for many, many years, they've had scaffolding installed around it so they can obviously get up there to decorate it. And they've been using LED lights for how long? I thought I saw it a year here. 2007. All right. So about 10 years they've been using the LEDs, about 50,000.

So these trees are usually donated. And I get the feeling that's a great honor. Sure. I think some guy from New York City lands his helicopter in your field and says, can I have that tree for free? Well, we'll mention your name in the press release. And the city slicker just takes advantage of the poor country folk and gets a tree out of them.

In the true spirit of the season. So one of the things that grabbed me was those LED lights. They save 1,200 kilowatts of electricity a day, which is enough to power a 2,000 square foot home for a month, which means that about four years worth of energy for a 2,000 square foot home is saved every year from the month and a half that the tree is lit. That's what gets you? That's nuts. That's so much energy.

And that's not how much it uses. That's how much they save by transferring to LEDs. You know what gets me? What? So starting many years ago, they started to recycle the trees. And for a while, what they would do was mulch it up and then spread it around the walking paths of Central Park, which is pretty great, you know, that's a good way to do it. But for the past 11 years, I think, including this year, what they do is they donate the

tree to Habitat for Humanity. So it comes down on January 7th, then they mill the wood, make that into lumber and they build homes. So there are Habitat for Humanity homes that people are living and built from the Rockefeller Christmas trees. And you can sell them for a million bucks. That's so great. It is pretty great.

I mean, just the Habitat for Humanity part's great enough, you know? I think when they were mulching it, they got about 33 bushel bags of mulch. And everyone involved in the spreading of the mulch was mugged. Yeah. That's Central Park. It's 19... Wow. I guess back then, maybe.

Yeah. So one of the other things that grabbed me was the star that's now become pretty famous, too. I think it was introduced in 2004, it says. Yeah. It's made of 25,000 crystals, right? And the thing is like 10 feet tall and weighs 500 pounds. Yeah.

It's crazy. It's nine and a half feet wide. It was designed by an artist, a German artist, Michael Hamas. And yeah, they've been using that thing since 2004. Yeah. I've had 50 pounds of star. Can you imagine if that thing just came off the top? It would kill somebody.

Sure. Because there's actually a pretty good chance that it could kill somebody, Chuck, because three quarters of a million people come see that tree every day. So the chance of it falling on somebody are pretty high. Yeah. I've never been by one. It's just desolate. I'll say that.

No, I can't imagine. I have a million in a day. That's crazy. A lot, folks. So that's it for the tree, huh? That's all I got. One of these days, we're going to watch the lighting. We'll make some popcorn, get our coziest socks on.

Get our eggnog on. Oh, yeah. I think that would just one without saying. So, Chuck, this is one of my favorites of all time. Which one? I had no idea. Well, I could finding out about little weird pop culture things that happened before I was born that I had no idea about.

It's one of my favorite things in the world. And you've delighted me by sending this thing to me about Christmas in Space in 1968. Did you know about this already? No, but I was just thinking, like, you have been diligent about keeping a list of what we've done every year so we don't repeat ourselves, and it's getting tough. I got to say. There's only so much Christmas that's happened. I literally looked up, like, I think two or three different things.

I was like, oh, we've never done this. And then I saw your list. I was like, ah, we've done that. Curses. So, I thought, wait a minute, like, astronauts spending Christmas in space, that's got to have happened. So you had an independent thought about it, like it wasn't, you didn't just come across it?

I don't know. I had an independent thought. That is magnificent. A Christmas miracle. It must have increased your holiday spirit tremendously by at least 38%. So Christmas in Space happened for the first time in 1968. There was actually, like, a holiday transmission, basically. The Apollo 8 crew, starring Frank Borman, who is the commander, Tom Hanks slash Jim Lovell

was the pilot, and William Anders was the lunar module pilot. And they orbited the moon on Christmas Eve, 1968, and they knew they were going to be orbiting the moon, so they planned a transmission from space to basically. They knew. They launched on December 21st, we're like, oh, wait a minute, we, I didn't, oh, oh man. Yeah. And they sent back a Bible for them to read from. I thought you did.

Well, somebody thought about it, because they had a Bible up there, or else they have, like, a bunch of scripture rehearsed and memorized, because they decided to go with Christianity that year for Christmas, which is appropriate. Sure. And they, from space, they read some scripture and bestowed blessings on the earth below them. And apparently a billion people watched this transmission of their live pictures and their audio over the, like, from the lunar module.

Yeah. So they sent out this transmission. They closed with the message, good night, good luck, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth. That was a great Frank Borman. Yeah. You know, Borman. You're very stiff.

Yeah. I thought that was nice. It was kind of velvety. Oh. Well, I appreciate that. The velvet fog. Right. So the Christmas in space thing, it was kind of sporadic for a while.

Skylab, five years later, we're the next group to spend Christmas in space. They made a little Christmas tree out of food cans. Very cute. There was a space shuttle launch, or a space shuttle mission in 1994, or 1999, I'm sorry. They spent Christmas in space, and they fixed the Hubble telescope on that mission, which was huge, huge. It changed everything. Yeah.

That was a big deal. The first time there was Christmas in space on the Russian mirror, American astronaut John Blaha went up there and said, I'm up here with cosmonauts, but I guess I'll celebrate Christmas anyway. And I believe that was his second Christmas in space. Yeah, that guy was just showing off by then. Yeah. He's like, I don't have a family I care about.

Just go ahead and send me up. I was just a single guy. I got some plants I don't take very good care of. And you know, my parents are gone too, so Mother's and Father's Day, go ahead and send me. Right. They always sent him whether he wanted to go or not. If it wasn't in space, he was eating by himself and kind of weeping quietly at cracker

barrel. So which ones are going to be? You choose, buddy. Is cracker barrel open on Christmas? Oh yeah. Is it? Yeah. I knew Waffle House was.

You mean I ate there for Thanksgiving this year? At Waffle House? No, at the cracker barrel. Oh, okay. It was actually really good. I ate Waffle House Thanksgiving one year by myself. How sad is that? Did you really?

Yeah. I can't remember the deal, but it was one year where like my family wasn't around or maybe I was away from them and everyone was gone. So I was like, all right, scattered some other than covered. Well, that sounds pretty good. No, it was great actually. It was the best Thanksgiving ever. So that's how I was going to say, was it actually like way more amusing than you thought?

Like that's how it was for us. I was like, is this going to be like sad or great? And it was great. Did they serve traditional Thanksgiving dinner? Yes. And again, it was really good. I mean, just as salty and tasty and fatty as you would imagine Thanksgiving at cracker barrel to be.

Yeah. But Thanksgiving is my mom's jam, so we always go to Diane's place and I cook up my cornbread dressing and mashed potatoes is what I bring. Very nice. Yeah. But this is not about Thanksgiving. No, it's about Christmas in space. That's right.

So now it's become kind of routine, Charles. Ever since they launched the International Space Station, it's been continuously occupied since November of 2000. So every year there's astronauts in space from all different countries aboard the ISS. And one of the cool things I saw about that was that they, anytime you're on the ISS, you go around the earth about every 92 minutes. So in any given day, you see about 15 sunrises. But on Christmas Day, that means that the astronauts get 15 Christmas mornings throughout

the whole day. Yeah. So I thought that was pretty cool. That is pretty cool. I think they make a big deal about it now. I think it's a bit of an honor to go up and be at the ISS on Christmas now. Yeah. And imagine they have, you know, it stinks to be away from your family, but I imagine

they have a great familial experience together up there. Yeah. Taking care of business. They do for the future of humanity. You got anything else? Space, no. All right. Well, we'll move along right after this jingle to some great, great Christmas toys.

Okay, Chuck. I don't know if you remember this or not, but the 20th century was just 17, 18, 19 years ago. Yeah, I remember it. Yeah. I remember it too. It formed a substantial portion of my life. Yeah.

Those were our best days. Yeah. And one of the reasons why they were some of our best days is because some of the greatest toys ever invented came out of the 20th century. Yes. Dangerous toys. Dangerous toys that you had to have. The first time in world history that anyone ever had to have a toy on Christmas happened

in the 20th century. All right. And before we get to these, I'm going to ask you, do you have a standout memory of one Christmas where there was something you had to have? I can't. I think the Nintendo, the original Nintendo was probably it. All right. And I don't remember.

I don't remember if I got it for Christmas or some other time or whatever. But for me, I remember opening a robot arm, which I hadn't asked for, but turned out to be like one of the coolest things I'd ever had. Opening a robot arm? Yeah. It was a robot arm. And then there was another like zip racer. You remember the cord that would like make a motorcycle go really fast, which we talked

about in the Evil CanEvil episode? Yeah. I remember that. I remember opening that on Christmas morning too. Is the robot arm something that you could wear? No. It was like on a tabletop robot arm, you could pick stuff up with. Oh, OK.

Yeah. So do you have a must have toy that you remember? Well, I do. I have a couple. One was the year that the Pac-Man Atari cartridge came out. Nice. That was a big one. And little did we all know that that game sucked really bad.

Pac-Man did? Yeah. It was OK, actually. But you wanted it to be like the arcade game. Oh, it wasn't. I don't remember playing Pac-Man on Atari. Yeah. It was instead of walk-a-walk-a-walk-a, it went donk, donk, donk, donk, donk.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. When it ate one of the things, it was pretty bad. And the other big one before that was when I was younger, I wanted more than anything one year. I wanted a stretch arm strong. Did you get it? Well, my parents actually did the old trick-a-rooski on me, like oh, is there one more thing

over there? Because I was disappointed because I didn't get stretch arm strong. So they actually pulled one over on me and I got stretch. It would have been funny if they were like, oh, no, there isn't anything over there. Is there one more thing under the tree? Oh, no. That's just dog poop. Which we wrapped up for some reason.

All right. But getting to these iconic 20th century toys, first on your list is the iconic, iconic cabbage patch kid. I had one of these. Maybe I got it at Christmas. I don't remember. Well, at our house, and I may have told this story before, we had the original dolls. The ones that these were later ripped off from?

Yeah. The original all cloth dolls handmade by Xavier Roberts, I think was his name. Because they were made right here in Cleveland, I'm sorry, not made, born in Cleveland, Georgia, where Baby Land General still is. But my sister got, I think, the 75th or the 80th one ever made that was signed by him. And it's worth some dough today. Do you still have it? Oh, yeah.

Michelle's got it. So she has, it was one of the top hundred ones made. And it became pretty valuable. And then I have, my mom ended up getting my brother and I to each, which I literally have never touched. But I'm just waiting for those to gain enough in value. And I'm going to sell those. Is it still like in the box?

No, no, no. They didn't come in boxes. They were, they were just like on a shelf. Oh, oh, wow. Those were early ones. Yeah. The ones I got came in a box. Yeah.

That's when they, I think, I can't remember who took it over. Coleco. Yeah. Coleco took it over. They got plastic heads. And those were sort of the mass market version. And I guess Xavier Roberts probably got rich. Oh, yeah.

Man. All that deal. I would think so. So the cabbage patch kid in 1983 was when Coleco took over and it became like just a breakout hit. It was one of the first times, if not the first time when there were reports of people like shoving and punching each other in the face and paying like way more than the actual value of the doll.

Like apparently people were selling it for like 10 times what the, the doll went for, which was 25 bucks, which back in 1983, 25 bucks is not cheap. No. I have no idea how much it would be now, but I'll bet it's a lot. And the cabbage patch kid craze was so significant, it spilled over to the next year, 1984. And so Christmas of 1984 was just as crazy as Christmas of 1983. And apparently they made two and a half billion dollars off of cabbage patch kids between 1983 and 1988.

Yeah. And I think 1984 was just 2.5 billion, wasn't it? Oh my goodness. Is that right? Yeah. That's just one year, dude. That's so many. That's like a hundred million cabbage patch kids.

Yeah. And they, like you said, it went all the way through 1988. This is not a one year craze. And it's just nuts. You can, like I said, you can still go to Babyland General. And the whole deal with those was they were born and not made and they were, I mean, that was like the little cutesy selling point. But the dolls came named.

Yeah. Do you remember yours named? Well, I remember, I don't remember my two original dolls. They were like the little TV stars or something that was on their t-shirt. But my sisters, I remember because her doll, and it was even kind of misshapen. Those early ones were kind of funny looking like his hairline was crooked and stuff because it was like folksy and handmade. And he was routinely drunk while he was making them.

But her doll's name, the one that's so valuable, is Chuck. No. Yes. That's a sign from God. Yep. Mine was Weber Dino. Wait, is that first and last name? No, that was his first and middle name.

His last name was Clark, obviously. Weber Dino D-I-N-O? Yep. Weber Dino Clark. Pretty weird, huh? Yeah. I like that. Weber Dino.

Weber Dino. That's what he came up with. That's great. Yeah. Do you still have it? Oh, no, no. I imagine those probably aren't worth much money. No.

Probably not in the shape he was in by the time I aged out of him, too. He had a mohawk and stuff, by the way. I don't think his head was attached any longer. Right, yeah. Eventually, he blew up that doll. So there's more, Chuck, and we got to go backward in time for this next one. As it turns out, and we talked about this in the action figure episode a little bit, but when Star Wars came out, it was such a total surprise to everybody that Kenner,

who had the rights to make the action figures, had even started production by the time Christmas came around. Yeah. I mean, no one thought the movie was going to be much less the ancillary products associated with that movie. Sure. But little kids got vouchers. I remember that.

Did you have a voucher? I don't think so. I think I got the toys a little bit later. Okay. Because this was Christmas of 1977. They were like, oh, God, we got caught with our pants down. Get some vouchers out quick. So little kids got vouchers wrapped up as presents that they were finally able, I guess, in 1978

sometime to trade their voucher in for the actual action figure. Yeah, and they were a hot ticket for a solid seven years, and I certainly had a ton of them. I had no idea that there was a thing that people did where they left them in boxes and didn't play with them. I didn't know that was a thing. So I played with mine, and they were all very well-worn, which I think is the way to do it.

Same here. I think I still have a box of busted up GI Joes that are in no way shape or form sellable. Yeah, my brother and I have a bunch of these. But yeah, unless you have some super rare Jawa, and I'm not going to get it wrong, but it's either the cloth cape or the plastic cape. I think the cloth one. Is that the valuable one? I don't remember.

There are nerds out there that are freaking out right now. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Or Luke Skywalker's Take Your Eye Out lightsaber. Right. The double telescoping. Yeah, I think that was worth a lot of dough. Yeah.

So back in Christmas of 1977, no one had any idea, and little children were unwrapping presents and going, I had no idea what a voucher was until just now. Thanks, mom and dad. And they said, well, that's good, because here, mom and dad, I have what I got you as vouchers for a back scratch in breakfast in bed. Free hugs. So cute. And then lastly, Chuck, is Tickle Me Elma, and I have to say shout out to history.com.

Yes. They came up with this article. I think there was a lot more to it, but these are the ones that held the most water. But Tickle Me Elma. If you thought the cabbage patch doll craze was nuts, Tickle Me Elma was just off the chain. Yeah. Elma, I think we've even talked about this before for some weird reason, but it became

way after me, probably in the Muppets episode. So I was never an Elma aficionado, because this was 1996, and by that point, I was 15 years old, and I didn't care about things like that. But my daughter loves Elma, and it has transcended since then, for sure, because Elma is still super popular. You were 25, by the way. 1996? Oh yeah, I was like in 86.

Oh yeah, I was way too old for Elma. Right. Even more so than being 15 would have been. Yeah, I was still drunk in Athens, Georgia. But I think that's cute that she's still into that, or that Elma's still around for kids to be into today, because Elma's just too cute and great a character to just go away because of some stupid craze, you know? I agree.

And I had the curse of doing too good of an Elma impression, so now almost every morning still I have to start out by doing Elma voices with the Elma doll. Oh, that's sweet. It is sweet. So in October, I guess, of 1996, there was a big surprise on the Rosie O'Donnell show when she debuted the Tickle Me Elma doll, which most people hadn't heard of by this time. Yeah.

And if you remember the doll, right? I think you'd press its belly or maybe even tickle it, and it'd be like, huh, stop, stop, right? Yeah, I think you'd give it a squeeze and it'd giggle. Right. And it was super cute, and it just captured America's heart. And Rosie O'Donnell's show was huge at the time, like Oprah level huge. So it was a huge plug for the Tickle Me Elma makers, and they were totally caught off

guard. They had no idea that this was coming. And since it was October, there was a huge shortage of this suddenly very much in demand doll by the time Christmas rolled around. Yeah. And they did not do vouchers, right? Didn't they did raffles or something? I think they did raffles and stampede.

Those were the big ones. The classic stampede. Yeah. There was a report of a Walmart employee in Fredericton, New Brunswick, who was trampled and had to go to the hospital. Oh, man. Because, yeah, they did the smartest thing possible, line up. But then when we opened the doors, it's every person for themselves.

For themselves. Yeah. And this is the final thing from history.com. It says, in New York, the son of jailed mob boss, John Gotti, along with his friends, dropped $8,000 at a toy store, and a report he'll be made off with a case of Tickle Me Elma. Pretty smart. Those Gotti's.

That's true. I hope it is, too. That would be so great. So what's the must have toy this year, do you know? I have no idea. Do you have no idea? Nope. All right.

Well, we'll find out one way or another by hanging out at toy stores, I guess. I get the feeling there isn't a, well, maybe that still happens sometimes, like a single must have. Oh, yeah. It definitely happens sometimes. Yeah. I don't know what it is, though. I guarantee it's not going away.

Like the Furby, remember that? Mm-hmm. That silly thing? Yeah. Now it's Hatchimals. Oh, well, that might be the thing. Well, actually, that was last year, right, Noel? Yeah, because I remember Noel had trouble finding one for his daughter.

Oh, yeah. But you came through it, didn't you, Noel? He did. It was a Christmas miracle. It was. All right, so we're going to have another little jingle and come back with our traditional Christmas boozy recipe. Yeah.

Okay, so I have a little background here, because we're talking about wassal. Did you see the background thing? Did I send it to you? No. I can't wait. So the etymology, not the entomology, the etymology of wassal, the word. W-A-S-S-A-I-L. Yeah, apparently, it comes from the Old Norse, Vesshael, and then the Old English, because

most English words come from the Norse or Germanic words, right, washal. And the whole thing was basically like a greeting or a toast, which was, be in good health. Okay. Eventually, it was turned into washal and then wassal. And wassal is so old that it actually appears in Beowulf as a greeting, right, again, be in good health. So there was this tradition of going on Christmas day, or Christmas Eve, I can't remember which one, or you would basically just go to people's houses around town during a whole day and

hang out and maybe bring them a little present or eat some food. It was like kind of a roving Christmas party, and that was called wassaling. And then eventually, this warm punch that you would serve your guests came to be called wassal. And because it kind of came out of this tradition, there's no one wassal recipe. But it's usually a very strong, drinky, boozy, warm punch. It's basically the only requisite for it that usually has something like nutmeg or something in it.

That's right. And you're the cocktail man, so you want to go with the recipe here? Oh, well, there's two. Did you see both? I only saw the one that was super rummy. Oh, okay, well, we'll just go with that one then, because the other one's pretty traditional. This one is not just rummy, but it's beery. Oh.

It doesn't sound that funny, I gotta admit. I'm ready to try this one, Chuck. All right. Two quarts of lager beer, and you don't have to just use beer that comes in a quart size. As a matter of fact, you might want to just steer clear of those all together for this one. A quart of rum, I just got giddy, five ounces of simple syrup, three ounces of lemon juice, a teaspoon of grated nutmeg, you want that freshly grated, a teaspoon of grated ginger,

you want that fresh too, and then fruit slices for garnish. Pretty simple stuff that you can really kind of put together from just about any store. That sells such things. That's right. So you take the beer, the simple syrup, the lemon juice, the nutmeg and the ginger, and you put it together in a saucepan, and you warm it on low heat for about 10 minutes. You want to get a nice steam off of it, but do not let it boil. If you boil it, all the alcohol will cook off, so don't do that.

That's right. You add the rum, and you stir it, and then you place that fruit in a heat-resistant bowl or some sort of serving vessel, and you pour the wassal in there, and then you have wassal. You drink it. So you haven't had this? No, I haven't. I just found it the other day. All right.

This recipe was from the spruce, and there's another one they have which has brandy and sherry in it. But beer and lager, two quarts of beer and one quart of rum, that's a party. It's a party in your mouth. It is. And of course, always drink wassal responsibly, and if you're over 21 in these United States. Yes, and if you're wassaling at someone's home and they ask you to leave, do the Christmasy thing and leave.

That's right. If you're in the UK, you can be like 12 years old and drink probably. Is that true? No. I don't know. I think it's probably 18. Is that a Christmas legend? Yeah, I think so.

So Charles, we've reached the end here. That's right. This has been maybe our best one yet. I like to think each year they get a little bit better. The guest appearance from the writer of Die Hard, are you kidding me? That was pretty, pretty great. The socks that I got, too? Those are amazing.

Yeah. I think they vibrate. I was very surprised when I put them on. They're magic fingers, toe socks. I love it. Well, happy, happy Christmas, merry New Year, and all that stuff to all of you people out there. We hope you have just a wonderful holiday season, no matter how you celebrate it, no

matter what your religion, no matter whether you have no religion at all, no matter where you are in the world. We hope you have a very, very warm and glad holiday tidings, right? Agreed. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next year.