The Cryptid Factor - 69: #069 The Challenging Issue

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

We're back! After a long break from the shortest season ever (of 1 episode), we bring you EP 69 where you'll find a bunch of terribly challenging awards, hippos challenged to be human and a magic museum thats a challenge to find. There's also challenging news of Nessie sonars and Mamophants. To be quite honest though, the most challenged things in this ep are simply the three rusty hosts. Thanks for enduring this mess with us!

The Cryptid Factor with Rhys Darby and Dan Schreiber. Well, Elon gate my column with a series of traditional neck rings. Then tape a cushion to my back and throw me in the lock, cause we are back! The folks have waited long enough, cause we did the huge comeback special and then literally disappeared. Like the great Nessie, rearing its huge neck out of the lock and everyone finally going, oh my god they're back! Everyone took photos, drew sketches, tried to go for a ride on it and then unfortunately it was because it was such a big splash that went down and it really was never seen again. It's gone! It's gone! Till now! We just realised how good coming back felt and we were like, every time we should have a comeback.

It feels good coming back, it doesn't feel good staying. Being predictable is so boring. It's like when you go to a party and you're late to arrive and then everyone goes, oh my god he's finally here! And then you kind of, you know, you mingle for a bit and people get used to you and then you go, you know what I'm going to disappear again. Because I like the feeling of when I arrived. So you go and hide in the kitchen for a bit or you go and have a look around the house and have a bit of a snoop around, find some hidden beers and then you turn up again another hour and a half later. Oh, there he is! It's constantly having that feeling.

That's a great idea. I'm doing that at your next birthday party. I like that you think you're being invited. Now, so where are we basically? Okay, well I'm still on LA. Now, Dan, where are you? You're home? I'm in London, but I have, I mean partially the reason we haven't been back is I've been on tour for the last month and I've... Have you been touring the Cryptid Factor without us? I have. It's much easier without you guys.

All this bullshit banter about, let's come back an hour later to a party. I can just get on with it, tell the facts, do the stories, get out of there. That'd be amazing. We were like, recently I walk along and see a sign saying the Cryptid Factor live at the Hollywood Bowl. We're like, oh, gotta go to that. That'd be amazing. I love that show. Just you on stage. Yeah, I've been on tour.

Can I tell you a really cool thing of this tour is, so it's with the other podcasts that I do, the lesser podcast. And in the first half... The fish thing. The fish thing, yeah. In the first half, I talk about local Guinness World Record holders and I sort of celebrate the town and the cities that I'm in, sort of saying, you're one of the city of champions and I've found all the world records that they have. So I've been going around the UK meeting, as a result, amazing Guinness World Record holders from each town. Wow.

So I've met people who've been a part of the longest travelled conga line in the world. Oh, wow. So like 11 people. How long? So it was only 11 people, but they travelled, I think it was like 17 miles. So like for 17 miles. Really? Yeah.

But they did it on like one strip, so they just went back and forth. So it's not like they disappeared 17 miles into the distance. It was just like 500 metres back and forth. I met a guy who has the world record for flipping the most beer mats in one go and catching them in his hand. Wow. We did that at my company, Augusto. We printed beer mats and invited all of our friends and clients around and did that competition. Oh, really?

I'd never heard of it before, but it's awesome. How many did you do? I did. I can't remember exactly. It was like 20 or something like that. Okay. So this guy flipped with one hand and caught 127 in one go. Oh, come on.

Yeah. So he flipped it using one hand, caught it in one hand, and his name is Matt Hand. Oh. Yeah. Beer Matt Hand without the beer. Wow. Yeah. So it's been amazing.

I've been meeting all these incredible people. I met the daughter of a guy sadly passed away who shaved most faces in one hour. What do you reckon? What do you reckon that number is? How many faces do you think he shaved? One hour. Is it with like a hand razor? It's a hand razor.

The photo I found of him online was with a machete, but apparently he used to attach a little razor to a machete and scare people by shaving them with it. Yeah. What do you reckon you could do in an hour? In an hour? Oh, you'd probably do quite a few, really, if he was very proficient. I would say 35. I'd say about high, I would say 45.

I'm pretty sure it was 1,990. No. Damn. Come on. And he did it on a military base. Were they good, were they good shaves though? Because like, oh, is it just like with, you know, big clumps left here and there. He said it though.

You said military base. Military base. So yeah, tight mustaches. And I think he did three, like quack, quack, quack to get the mustache off. And he tried it again five years later to beat his record. And he got to 1,990 would 15 minutes to go, but couldn't go on because he ran out of hairy faces. They just had no more and people were coming back second time round, third time round. And they were like, I'm sorry, you're just shaving bare skin here.

So yeah. He's just wiping off shaving foam. Yeah. It's been amazing meeting like three of champions around the world. That's so cool. What a great idea. Well, what are you going to do when we go on tour? Dan, what's your, like, when we eventually go on tour?

This is the cryptic factor tour. What do you do? All right. This is it. I'm sorry. Yeah, right. Well, it sounds awesome. Can't wait for you to come to New Zealand.

All right. So just to briefly sum it up, you're in London. You're on tour. Yeah. You're having a great time. Buttons is heading back to New Zealand. He's in New Zealand. I'm in New Zealand.

He's in the quarantine hotel. Yeah. And he'll be there for two weeks. I'm summing up your bit. Oh, thanks. We've got time for you to talk. And I'm in LA. I finished the TV show I was working on.

So I'm kind of in between jobs, as usual, for an actor, which is good. Get a bit of rest. That's great. And so finally, hopefully, definitely from next week onwards, and then this is never a promise, but it looks like the cryptic factor are back in the game. Yes. After the world's shortest podcast season of one episode. Yeah.

And then we're back. New app, new series. This is episode one of series 17. And then I guess there's only one thing to do, which is to kick off the greatest... The greatest... Oh, God. That's why we don't go on tour. That's why we don't go on tour.

I can't make my words work. It's really painful. Yeah. Let me do it. Well, let's edit in here. Well, that's really great and exciting to hear about all your news guys. But now... That's even worse.

Okay. You have a go, Dad. Dad, you have a go. Okay. Well, that was a great catch up. Good to be back for series 16, but now it's time for... Weekly World Weird News. Yeah.

That's the one. That's the one. It's good to be back for series 16 and we're series 17. Uh-oh. So, okay. Here we go. Now, okay. I'll have a go.

You ready? Yeah. Okay. Well, this is so exciting to be back together, guys. This is a new segment, by the way, where we get to all have a round of see if we can actually link into the actual segment. Really crazy. We're never actually going to start the segment.

Guys, that is so exciting to all be back together. Now, I guess there's only one thing to do. What's that? Well, it's to kick into the greatest segment of all time. What's it called? It's Weekly World Weird News. No, it was pretty good, but you don't have to actually say it because the actual segment sting will say it.

So you were so close there, but now it's my turn. Well, as always, guys, I love catching up with your fascinating updates on what you've been doing with your lives. But now it's time for the one and only segment we're all waiting for. What is it? What is it? Weekly World Weird News. Crazy.

Spreaky. Watch out. Do you want to kick it off, Risi? Do you want to do some headlines? Yeah, let's do some headlines, as per usual. Let's do some headlines. Bird of the Year controversy after contest is won by a bat. No, that was my one.

Oh, come on. Oh, shit. OK, well, that's a great headline, but I had two others to go along with it. Oh, that's not like you. Well, no, exactly. But they're all linked together because my headline was multiple competitions with... No. It's really hard, guys.

It's been a while. It's been a while. Don't get too nervous. I can't. OK, multiple global competitions thrown into disarray as the world is challenged with its challenges. As the world says the overly challenged buttons, Kirk Beck, facing his own challenges during this challenging time. It's very challenging for me to talk, OK? So what was it again?

Say it again? No, I can't. The world is thrown into disarray as it is challenged with challenges. Yeah, its challenges are challenged with Bird of the Year Challenge, for one. Old Person of the Year Award, challenged. And finally, Porridge of the Year Challenge is challenged. Wow. Well, this all works out really well because Dan was initially talking about the accomplishments of those that try to do challenges with the Guinness Book of Records.

And now all of a sudden our news is about how challenging times are challenging challenges. Let's see. And I've been challenged because I've got to remember how to speak and I'm struggling with that. Well, you're the only one of us that's being diagnosed as actually challenged, aren't you? Now, what have you got, Dan? I've got two. One is Headliney, which is, well, hippos that used to belong to Pablo Escobar have been challenged for hippo status and have been recognized as humans instead of hippos. What?

Yeah. What? So that's one. The other option. Well, that's very challenging for me to believe. And then here's a challenging one. There's a new book out by David Copperfield, the magician. And so this was just part of a headline, but I just thought I can't not mention this on the show.

So the location of the world's largest private collection of magic memorabilia. It turns out is located in a Las Vegas warehouse, which has been disguised as a fake mail order lingerie shop and is only accessed by pressing a hidden button in a mannequin's bra. Oh, come on. Yeah. Are you kidding me? So that's a challenge to get into. You get the Guinness Award for Breast News article. I'm telling you right now.

And I think we should save yours till last. So what you're basically saying is to get into the world's largest collection of magic memorabilia is very challenging. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. I did say that literally a second ago. Yeah. No, but it's challenging.

Yeah. Listen, as it has been a while as you can tell, some of us are rusty and some of us are more challenged. Some of us were already challenged and now facing a new challenge, which is coming back. Rusty. I'm exhausted. Okay. Now, some of you may and others may not know, but New Zealand holds a bird of the gear competition every year. And it's a big deal, isn't it, Leon?

That's huge. Everybody talks about it. Honestly. It's on the news. Everyone tweets about it. Because what's that? They tweet about it. Oh, there it is.

Some of us aren't as rusty because some of us have been on tour without other more popular podcasts. So that's going to show tonight. But yeah, basically this bird of the year competition, it's a big deal. Everyone votes. New Zealand, as you know, or may know, is full of birds. It's a kingdom of birds. Birds are our greatest animal. It's the one we always rave about because we have so many of the native birds and their wonderful shapes and sizes.

And everyone has a favorite. And so every year they do it. It's a fun social competition for the country. They actually take votes globally, though, as well. Oh, they do too. Yeah. A thousand votes come in from all around the world. Yeah.

And I'm sure the winner changes every year, but there's a lot of conservation money that gets put down for this to save the birds that are endangered, right? That's right. So let's have a look at this news with regards to this year's competition. Yeah. This year's bird of the year saw an unlikely winner capture voters' hearts. The inclusion of a bat has proven to be a controversial choice. And that's not surprising because last time I checked, a bat was not a bird. A bat, of course, for those of you that don't know, and I'm sure that you guys do, is a mammal.

Yes, that's right. But the success for those pushing to get more attention for the mammal is now in serious trouble. I'm going to say that again. I'm going to read that again so that it makes more sense, but also is less dramatic. Exactly. You're not so much rusty. You're more just sort of seized. You just need a little square of lubricant.

We can share this article because I know you had it as well and you were let down by me taking it after you foolishly asked what was my news article first. Knowing that probably you should have just told us what yours was at the beginning, thus leaving me in the poo. Well, it is controversial this because not only is the bat a mammal and not a bird, but also it's controversial because there's so many endangered bird species that need the attention. There is literally a bird called the fairy turn that has a group of conservationist watching the families. There's about three little nest of these fairy turns and there are people guarding them 24 seven. And so people are coming out saying, well, yeah, great, Noel put a bat in there. But what about all these other birds? So it's actually there's a lot of heat in it.

I tell you. Yeah. There's divided the nation. Yeah. If you read this article, apparently, I mean, I've been living outside the nation for a while now. Now, if you want to do a share screen, we can have a look at the animal in question. There it is. Oh, isn't that gorgeous?

How could you not love that? I mean, pecker pecker to a rower is its name long tailed bat. You know the size of this bat? I'm guessing very small. It's a fruit bat. Right. It's the size of a human thumb and a wingspan of a human hand. Okay.

It's tiny, a tiny little beautiful thing. There it is, guys. Oh, look. Oh, yeah. Oh, you should enter that in next year. For those that can't see is doing the classic butterfly with, you know, linking your thumbs and waving your hands. But that would be to pecker pecker to bat mating.

Yeah. Shaking their hands. Yeah. Yeah. So is this bat winning it or Reese entering his own hands pretending to be a bird? Because I'm endangered. I think, I think the hands would be slightly more controversial. That's true.

That's true. Well, and the thing is, is that for the 58,000 votes that came in for the wide range of beautiful New Zealand birds, the bat actually had a massive lead of 3000 votes ahead of any other bird. That's impressive. The head of forest and bird, and that puts this competition on, said that every year there's controversy. One Twitter user demanded a recount. Really?

And then another one likened the bat to Australia's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. Oh, yeah. Yeah. In 2019, the competition had another big stir because they saw a massive influx of votes from Russia, and they literally did an investigation to make sure that the competition wasn't rigged or swayed in some way, much like the American elections. Yeah. But they actually verified them, and the votes were legit.

So a whole bunch of Russian voters came in out of nowhere. They ought to check this year just to see how many votes came in from Transylvania, if you know what I'm saying. Well, I've got rid of the rust, guys. I am back in the game. Just as Buttons was really getting boring there with that news article, which as you might have noticed, I ended up just giving to him once I realized it was pretty shit. Okay, let's move on to your other thing there, Buttons.

Trying to redeem yourself with what else was it? Some other competition about... Parage of the Year, was it? Some challenging porridge or something? Let's rock on into that. It's riveting stuff. It's porridge of the year, an old person of the year. That's the same thing, isn't it?

It's got to be the same competition. Well, it's been entered, no doubt, by the same people. Yeah. It's an old porridge of the year. Who's the judge, you wolf? This porridge is really old. Let me see this porridge. It's a little bit okay, but not quite right.

This porridge is just right. Before you go too far, you're mixing your metaphors there. You've mixed the bears who have the porridge with the wolf that eats the old lady in red riding hood. But you've blended them perfectly for the old porridge people, yeah? Okay, good. And if you guys haven't opened your big snappy mouth, I would have got away with it. Always trying to bring me down, especially in the middle of a great piece. That's the shittiest Scooby-Doo bust ever.

Who better to inquire about bad metaphor mix-ups than Scooby-Doo? That's what they do now. They just ruin people's gags at parties. People's anecdotes, they come up. Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to stop you there, mate, because actually you've got a different metaphor mix-up there. Wrong metaphor, Swaggy. Hey, Scooby, you should check these snacks out at this party.

Oh, man. They've got twisties. No, if you let me get on with my very important news, the Oldie of the Year competition has been thrown into turmoil this year because the person who was nominated to win it has turned it down, saying, with a quote, you're only as old as you feel. Or actually, she said, you're too young at heart. Get the quote, right?

This is the quote. This is how old she is. She just couldn't get it. No, she says, you're only as old as you feel. And the person who has turned down this very kind offer of Oldie of the Year, none other than the Queen herself. Her Majesty. Right.

Her Majesty. And just to clarify, is this Oldie of the Year as in the British magazine, the Oldie? Or is this? Yes. OK. That's right. Well, hang on.

I don't know about that. Tell the listeners what the hell this is. There's a magazine called The Oldie about old people. Yeah, it's an awesome magazine. So it was a magazine that was set up quite a few years ago by Richard Ingrams, who was the editor of Private Eye Magazine. And it's sort of a satirical. It's not really satirical.

It's just a magazine for people in their retirement, but written by amazing writers from the UK. So I, you know, if you bought it and read it, it's just a great magazine, just great articles. And every year they do Oldie of the Year. So they recognize someone who's a bit older and just say, I didn't realize they gave it or tried to give it to the Queen. It's usually for, you know, younger people.

Yeah. Well, because she, well, she's had a hell of a year. You know, she's lost her husband and stuff. And, you know, she's one of the greatest battlers in the world ever. And she's still rocking it. So I can see why they wanted to give it to her. Yeah. And the honest truth is, is that she's 95 years old

and still kicking ass, as it were. Turning up to events, wearing those amazing outfits. Yeah. That's right. And also still doing her daily red boxes of official papers. I mean, they're probably just putting coloring in competition papers in there now and stuff for her. But she basically got offered the award.

And she said, no, you're only as old as you feel. And she doesn't feel 95. She doesn't feel old, which I think is pretty cool. And she's the longest serving monarch, 70 years in the country, as it were. And just for you guys, there's another impression of a monarch. Very much like the bat, the award-winning Pekka-Pekka-Toldora. Yeah, and I see how many other opportunities I get to do that in the show. This is mainly for the visual cryptid knights segment.

That maybe later in the show, we can talk about how hot you are and you need to fan yourself, you know, cool. Yeah, or I could just come up with my own things that might fit better. Okay, so what's the- Okay, very finely, finely, finely. The World Porridge Making Championship. This year, which was a virtual event, which is really hard because the judges didn't get to actually taste the porridge that has won the award,

the glorious porridge of the year award. The name of that award, the Golden Spirtle. The Golden Spirtle! The award this year was won by Dutch food blogger Miriam Groot. Great name. She won it controversially with a porridge that had white wine and mushrooms as part of the ingredients. What? Exactly, she made a savory Italian porridge with white wine and mushrooms.

That sounds like an amazing COVID recipe, if ever I've seen one. You know, when you're in those pandemic times and you just want to add a bit of alcohol to whatever you're making because you're not leaving the house. That's it. And she also added vegetable stock, lemon, zest and pepper. Wow, I bet it was beautiful. Well, this is the thing. It's like the judges couldn't taste it.

It was all virtual. So they just imagined that it would be good. Yeah, I guess so. It sounds good to me. That's- I can see why she won it. Yeah, yeah. Basically, they're saying there's a version of arachini. Anyway, so you can see all of these awards have been thrown into chaos and disarray.

Yeah, very good rapper. All these challenges. Yeah. They're very challenged. I think the spurtle. I think that's your porridge spoon. I think it's like a really big spoon because they're- I think I'm right in saying that because they used to be in the UK,

a thing where a lot of houses would have a porridge drawer in their kitchen and that's where you would make your porridge. So you didn't make it in like a bowl and have it. You had a physical drawer in your kitchen. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it was so popular. But even when I was a kid, we used to have it. Nana was the one who would definitely have porridge every day.

And we used to have it only in the winter or whatever. And I haven't really had it properly since I was a young-in. But I remember the process you go through with the milk making a hole in the middle, putting the wheat germ on, putting the brown sugar on. I miss those times. Have you not had it for so long because you haven't had a spurtle to make it? Maybe you need to go and get yourself a good spurtle. Oh, yeah.

I really need a good spurtle. I know what to get you for Christmas now. Give me a spurtle. But these days, it's all about the overnight oats, isn't it? What's that? Well, people put these oats in overnight and then they, and then the next day they have it. And it's, I think it's been in the fridge all night or something.

Right. Clearly you guys don't know. I was hoping you'd know more than I do. I just got the title there, something I heard on the ethos. I feel, I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry that my news articles have taken us to a point of talking about making porridge. This is, this is, I'm so rusty.

I'm so rusty that my news article. Well, congratulations on making the most boring Christian factor comeback show since the comeback special. Well, they end up just old guys talking about porridge and reminiscing about wheat germ and spurtle. What a disaster. I remember when you guys used to be young and hip and talking about cool things like Bigfoot and Yeti.

You've moved on. You know, you've given up on the dream. What happened to the cryptid factor? All right, Dan, it's up to you to save us. What have you got? Please save us. I get, well, super quickly, the first one, which is the less interesting one to an extent.

So hippos have been recognized as humans in Columbia. So Pablo Escobar, the drug lord. Yeah. When he was killed in 1993, he had a bunch of hippos that he'd bought and that were living on his ranch and they were, and they were like flamingos and giraffes and kangaroos. He had the whole menagerie. Yeah, they were sold to zoos, but they didn't collect them all.

And they've just been roaming Columbia for ages. And the population got bigger and bigger with these hippos. They're huge. Yeah, many of them there now. Exactly. So this is a big problem. They've been called them and there's a lot of conservationists who don't want them to be culled.

So they had, they filed an application. And as a result of it, they have been recognized as humans, which means you can't, you can't cull humans. So what they're going to try and do is do a non-surgical sterilization on them so that maybe they can't reproduce going forward. And this is the community. I'm getting close to those hippos.

Oh yeah. Crazy, right? They're dangerous animals. Yeah. So right now there are not animals roaming, but human hippos roaming. That's a weird thing to have to do. Yeah. Because they don't look anything like humans.

And there's no way people are going to go, you know, what if you end up in court? You accidentally shot one or something like that. And you're, you can say, look, I'm sorry. I thought I was a human. And they'll be like, what are you talking about? And look at the site. It's a hippo.

It's a giant sea dwelling mammal. Water dwelling. I don't know if I want to go there necessarily, but if it's officially and legally considered a human now. I see where you're going. You're going to try and marry it. Yeah. You can cut you.

You would literally legally be able to. That's a great thing because we know on this show we've talked to and spoken of people who have married weird objects, including trees, lamps, you know, various things. So let's get it out there and let's get these hippos married. Let's, let's partner them up with other humans. Yeah. Maybe that's the punishment.

If you do accidentally shoot one and you're in court, you could say, look, I'll tell you what, I thought it was a human. I got it wrong. But clearly it was a human. I'll marry it. Yeah. You can either go to jail for the rest of your life for first degree murder on this human hippo, or you can marry it.

And I would also clarify it is dead because you did shoot it. Do you take this dead hippo to be your lawfully wedded wife? Ah, yes. If it gets me out of jail, yes. All right. Well, good luck on mounting it on your wedding night. On the wall. On the wall.

Get, get down. Come on, you guy. I miss the days we were talking about porridge. Yeah. And then we started talking about fucking dead hippos. I mean, honestly, the show's gone all over the place now. Talk about rusty. No, but that's essentially a brilliant strategy, right?

To be able to start to protect things. It's a good idea, Buttons, until we fall into a new controversy when a hippo wins the human of the year competition. Controversely. On the front of Time Magazine. Yeah. To be like, human of the year. This is amazing hippo.

Have you seen how many vaccines he's invented? He's donated millions of dollars to schools and underfed humans around the world. And then he controversially enters himself into bird of the year award the next year. I've got birds of my bird. I've got birds of my bird. Yeah, but they're not part of you.

You're not the bird. I think I am. I don't know if I agree with this thing of, like, turning things into, classifying things as human to make them better. Because aren't we, like, the worst example of species on the planet? Yeah, exactly.

That's not something to be aspiring to. And we're forcing them. They're not, they're not, they're not a... What's the word? Complaint, not complete. Oh, now who's rusty, folks? Look, old touring guy. Rust is spreading, they're rust is spreading.

I'm glad I'm spreading our rust back into your London mic setup. Well, I've got, just very quickly, because we, we almost wrapped up the weird news, but I did mention the, the biggest private collection of magic memorabilia. So... Oh, yeah.

Let's kick on with that one. Just quickly to wrap up on that. So there's a new book out, which is called David Copperfield's History of Magic. And it turns out that David Copperfield has, he is the owner of the private collection of magic memorabilia. It's the largest in the world.

It's in Las Vegas in this big David Copperfield compound that he has out there. He bought all the private collections of previous people who've, who've collected other magician stuff. He's got the largest Houdini collection of magic artifacts. And so this is, it's not open to the public,

but what you do is you go and book a visit with him if there's relevance. So when Christopher Nolan was doing the prestige, he went and he got a tour around it by David Copperfield. And so the outside, he's made it, Hugh Jackman, who went to see it for the P.T. Barnum, greatest showman movie that he did.

He went to it and he said, the front of it, it's a facade and it looks like a sex shop. And Forbes described it as looking like a mail order lingerie shop. And once you go inside, yeah, but it's so cool. Once you go inside, he has made it.

So the first bit you walk into is a replica of the very first magic shop that he went to as a kid based on photos and memories. So you walk in and it's the old counters and the glass cabinets and stuff. And yeah, it's just amazing that this place exists, but you can't really go and visit it. It's a museum, but for magicians, basically.

Another one of their secret places that we don't really hear about until now, of course, but even then can't really get to it. And I thought, as you were saying that, when you, a couple of obvious gags that you missed, David Copperfield, Copperfield, that was a mistake. That's an old one.

That's a classic. David Copperfield is putting out a new book. Or is he? That would have been the first one I would have gone for. And the other one is, I've had 15 minutes to go and think about this.

The other one was, he's got this place. How he's famous for these illusions. How he can literally make something disappear. Didn't he make the Empire State Building disappear? That's right. I know he did something in Las Vegas too,

whether it was a 747 jumbo jet or something like that. It was a plane. Yeah, just through illusion. Surely he could do that with his place. So you could go there and just go up there. And all of a sudden, it'll go, it'll disappear. That's genius.

But I like how he has got this false front on it. But also, wouldn't that encourage people who are into sort of women's lingerie to sort of go in there? It's really weird. I don't know if it, because I think it's within a Copperfield compound.

So I think it's sort of like you couldn't get to it anyway. You can't really even get that close to it. So he's hiding it from, if it's in his own compound, he's hiding it from himself behind it. He's trying to trick himself, isn't he? He's like, shit, I've lost it again.

Where did I put that bloody museum? What am I into again? Oh, that's right. I'm into women's lingerie. Oh, my God, a women's lingerie shop here. Oh, this is it. Oh, there's the old magic shop from my childhood. Oh, this is it.

Oh, hang on. There's nothing here. The one part that I want to just go back to, because when you said in the headline at the start, to get into it, there's a hidden button within the bras-a-rea of bras-a-rea bra. The bra. The bra of one of the Americans.

Like, where is the hidden button in the bra? I know. It's very Adam West Batman, isn't it, to get to the bat pole. It's not a bust. And you push the nipple and a door opens, right? Yeah. But you don't know which one you're pushing.

Well, there's only two options. But then, of course, if you're trying to break in, imagine you're a thief going, I'm going to break in and steal all of David Copperfield's magic stuff. And you know this information because you listen to the cryptid factor and you sneak on in there. And then to go and try and break in, you're going up to all of these mannequins

and pushing their nipples. You're going to look a little bit dodgy. And he's captured all of that on his in-store camera. Yeah. And he's got a little microphone and he goes, let me guess, you listen to the latest cryptid factor? What? Over this microphone?

It's so weird though. You know, Penn and Teller, they live in, well, Penn lives in Las Vegas as well. They all have these weird, quirky houses. So I think he's sold it now, but his house was called the Slammer. And he designed it to look exactly like a prison. So it had prison guards, stuff on the outside.

It had like a yard with all the exercise bars. Yeah, so weird. These guys are like, I love them, but like, what quirky decisions. David Copperfield, this has blown my mind today. I've been reading about this all day. He bought a bunch of islands in the Bahamas and he said while he was there, he found,

in one of the lakey bits of it, the Fountain of Youth. He claimed the elixir of life is there. He said when a dead plant would go in it, it would rejuvenate to be a living one. If a dying insect went into it, it would suddenly come back to full life and fly off. And he's had biologists chest it out, but he doesn't want to expose it to the world yet.

This was back in 2006. And supposedly on his island, he's got the Fountain of Youth. Is that why he stays so young? He's looking so good. That's a good point actually. Not quite as good as the point of how do we get into his magic place. Well, that's a big point, isn't it?

That's a big point at a nipple. That's just a real easy one. So he owns these islands. So therefore, if he has found it, you wouldn't really get permission to go and find it yourself. You'd be trespassing. So that's interesting. Well, hang on as well.

Is this just him as a marketing ploy wanting to get into the bottled water market? Because if he starts this thing and you got the literally water from the Fountain of Youth, like imagine that. True. That would be a great angle. Or do you?

Oh, wow. That's really cool, guys. What an awesome Weekie Worldwide news session we've covered off. Bats pretending to be birds. Old woman pretending to be young. Porridge pretending to be Aaron Cheney. David Copperfield pretending to...

Have a Fountain of Youth. And Hippo's pretending to be humans. Humans. Wow. Wow. That's a cool new segment. Buttons is wrap up segment. The end of...

Yeah. Thank God for that, because I didn't know what we'd just been speaking about the last half an hour. I'm just pointing out that it's all very old-manish, isn't it? There's still a chance for us to save this show with some cryptid news, albeit relatively old.

But you brought it up at the start of the show. So let's go into it. Let's do... Cryptid Buzz. Attention. Old personnel. It's time for this week's Cryptid... Help me!

Now... I know it's been a few weeks, and there's been many articles come through, especially from the Cryptid Knights, who are now, I'm sure, at a point of just stop sending us stuff because it's not going anywhere.

But look, please don't stop. It is going into our heads. And in one head and out the other. And then, if you're lucky, into the other guy's head, and then out his one, and then Dan's too busy to capture anything in his head right now. But...

So here's an article here, which is dated September 2021. So a few weeks ago, but it's very relevant because, of course, it is about Nessie showing up on Sonar. So here we go. It's part of the EdinburghLive.co.uk

website system. Good website system, that one. A visitor to the Highlands claims to have caught Nessie swimming deep in the murky waters. The third time the prehistoric resident has been caught this year over the summer period.

The spotter, named by the official Loch Ness Monster sightings register as Brandon Scalion, claims to have recorded a sound image of a creature rumoured to be between three to four metres, which is around nine to 13 feet, for those living in America still,

long below the waves. Mr. Scanlon was travelling on the Nessie Hunter vessel, which I've been on. According to the register, during the latest sighting, on August 26th, Benjamin Scanlon was on holiday with his family

and took a trip on the Nessie Hunter Loch Ness Cruises. He spotted something on the sonar, on the boat, and caught the image. Oh wow, the image looks pretty good. I've just checked it out. Spoiler alert for myself. Captain Mike of the boat

estimated it to be three to four metres in length, at a depth of about 20 metres, while the boat was in water about 40 metres deep. Pleasure sores typically grow to a length of around 11 feet, according to fossil records, placing the eyes right in the middle

of the captain's estimate. Do you want to see the image? Yeah. Oh no. Okay, here it is. Oh wow, it looks like a big orange snake. No, that's the bottom of the lock. You're looking at just above that.

Ah! That's at the 40 metre mark. If you look between 40 and the surface, which is 20, halfway up, you'll see that much. You know what it looks like, like a dude in a

scuba gear, swimming along with his legs kicking out the back. That's hot! You can see the full girth of the body and even the long neck. Look at that, that's pretty impressive. Oh yeah, it's got the bend. It's got the neck bend.

Oh yeah, if that was the front, but yeah right, if that's the big body in the middle, that's good. That's really good. See, I remember when I was a kid, there was somebody who had an attempt at sonaring the entire lock

and having a line of boats all with sonar on go from one end of the lock to the other, all in one run, to try and find Nessie that way. And they couldn't find Nessie, but I was really disheartened with that. I was like, they've just gone and proven

that it doesn't exist. And here we go, it goes to show it. I mean, there could be cave systems there. If this plesiosaur goes down and lies on the bottom of the lock, sonar ain't going to pick that up. But is it doing that because it knows it's being sonar'd?

Or does it happen, is that just timing that it happens to be laid? Just bad luck. All good luck. The only things that know they're being sonar'd are submarines with technological equipment. That's my point.

It's too convenient that it would be laying on the ground. I was about to click on another link here, but unfortunately it's taken so long between the link happening and the next show happening that it comes up on my screen, this site can't be reached. I know. So that was a shame.

I was going to have a chat about the woolly mammoth situation. So if any of you have got any updates on that because they are trying to bring that mammoth back and that's been in the news recently. I haven't seen that. You mean like DNA, bring it, like rebuild it. We can recreate it.

Yeah, we talked about it years ago, but now they've progressed to actually really on the verge of doing it. Like cloning, making a clone of it. Yeah, well if I had the article, I'd be able to tell you. Well, I do have an article here that says

scientists say they could bring back woolly mammoths, but maybe they shouldn't. Does that sound like that? Yeah, it sounds in the ballpark. Okay, well it says here that they using recovered DNA to genetically resurrect an extinct species.

The central idea behind the Jurassic Park films may be moving closer to reality with the creation this week of a new company that aims to bring back woolly mammoths thousands of years after the last giants disappeared from the Arctic tundra.

Flush with a $15 million infusion of funding, Harvard University's genetics professor George Church known for his pioneering work in genome sequencing and gene splicing hopes the company can usher in an era where mammoths walk

the Arctic tundra again. That's the one. Researchers have hoped that a revised species can play a role in combating climate change. How does bringing back the woolly mammoth help with climate change? All they're going to do

is eat polar bears or whatever and poo them out and then have more How's that? It's for the biodiversity of subarea. That's where they want to put them. Right. I haven't read that far down the article.

They're going to keep more living things by introducing another huge thing to the food chain. That's interesting. And guess what the name of the company is called guys? Colossal.

That's great. What a great thing. And they want to place thousands of these magnificent beasts back on the Siberian tundra. Wouldn't that be amazing? That would be so freaking cool because then like you start with the woolly mammoth

and where do you stop? Colossal could literally start the Jurassic Park because they have DNA from dinosaurs, right? Do we? I don't know. And of course humans were around when the woolly mammoth was around. And there's been

even some theories that back then there was also the Pteranodons were still around. Which leads me to this point because I've actually got one here with me. Oh! Hang on. Hang on. Have I had another excuse

to do this? Butterfly fingers? Butterfly fingers. Butter the ear. I think what he's actually doing is a shadow puppet in the middle of the day with no shadows. Well funnily enough

your story wonderfully links back almost as if you plan this back to our very first story about porridge. Well, maybe woolly mammoth porridge that could be one of the future spirtles

know is that what they're arguing people say that we should not be bringing back extinct animals but that colossal should be using this technology to help endangered species from going extinct.

So taking this DNA and actually creating and making more of the animals like the bat the size of a thumb that won the bird competition I like the what is it called? The new human animal?

The hippo. Thank you. Here's the last thing I'll say from this New York Times article anyway about the mammoth situation. Today the tundra of Siberia in North America where the animals once grazed

is rapidly warming and releasing carbon dioxide. Mammoths are hypothetically a solution to this Dr. Church argued in his talk today the tundra is dominated by moss but when woolly mammoths were around it was largely grassland

some researchers have argued that woolly mammoths were ecosystem engineers maintaining the grasslands by breaking up moss knocking down trees and providing fertilizer with their droppings. Oh, okay, that's cool. So we're going to take a look at

the tundra whether they just to link back into our earlier stories as well if they did remove all these human hippos from where they are

and dropped all of those buggers off in the tundra whether they might help provide some eco-diversity get your own river you know the awesome thing that they're doing

is that to bring the mammoth back they're using the live DNA from Asian elephants they've come up with a term for this new animal it's a mammoth which is genius which I love I mean if I have to choose between a mammoth

or an elephant or a mammoth I know which one I'd be choosing as a pet if that was an option but the best thing is is that there's Matthew Cobb a professor of zoology at the University of Manchester told the Guardian

that he's very concerned he says the proposed de-extinction of mammoths raise a massive ethical issue the mammoth was not only a set of genes it was a social animal as is the modern Asian elephant he says

what will happen when the elephant is born he asks the questions how will it be greeted by elephants and it's like I don't know how to greet elephants but they're like hi they certainly can't shake hands so I don't know

why is it important of how they will be greeted just keep them apart why do they need to have a greeting I also think he's forgetting that in the animal kingdom animals actually get on or they just move on that famous old animal adage get on or move on

you've probably heard the song get on or move on it's the way we're gonna be get on or move on from bumble bumble bee to the biggest giant as mammoth creature that you've ever seen if we don't get on we simply move on

and that's what we'll always be moving moving and moving shaking and arriving shaking and arriving it's going to be go existing in the world today break it down

break it down now break it down if you want to break it down now you're breaking down doesn't look like anybody wants to say we're not gonna bother breaking it down what genre of music was that it was like seven different genres

seven different genres and also introduced which I've never Reese has done a lot of songs with a lot of beats in the background I've never heard you use a sniff as a drum beat before it was like a snare drum

it was amazing you're doing it was awesome well I got one more cryptid story just to lob in and it's very on message for what we're talking about de-extinction and extinction and missing animals

the holy grail of giant owls that hasn't been seen for 150 years has been photographed in Ghana it's found again yes so an animal we thought was gone and it is an owl that's called Shelly's

Eagle owl not after Mary Shelley I don't think it's also called Bubo Shelly a body that measures between 21 and 24 inches a wing length of 16.5 to 19.4 inches and it weighs about 2.7 pounds

and this is a bird that was thought to have gone extinct and it was witnessed by Dr. Joseph Tobias who's from the department of live sciences at Imperial College from London so who must have been over there so yeah they can confirm that it

is around this presumably gone animal pretty amazing because we're talking about extinction we're talking about animals that are winning birds of the year because their numbers are running low some are really in danger so we're adding them

to the list even though they're not even birds and yet now at the end of this episode we're finding a bird that is back it's awesome to have good news like that especially in 2021 not knowing for its good news that really isn't

do we have a picture or something to to look at? yeah I've got a drawing so an artist impression? an artist impression is what I have because it landed on the branch something I might actually have one here I was just going to say oh hello

I'm not sure whether you guys have seen it but there's one just coming in from the side here did you have one as a pet all this time you just had one well this is it this is Shelly's Eagle Owl my sister's Shelly stop hat

my sister Shelly we've had this pet for quite a while actually and she wanted me to take it back to the States get out of it wasn't it called Shadow Puppet Shelly Eagle Owl? I have to confess the only reason I'm doing a lot of these puppetry bird pieces

which I know aren't great for the audio but the truth is I am promoting my new comedy special Mystic Time Bird which is now available on all good platforms so please watch and for the first

time on any of my shows this is the fifth comedy special I've done by the way it is now available on audio only if you like so amazing for one of the world's greatest physical performers I see somebody sort of giving a little

sort of commentary on the site now what he's doing now is he's walking very funnily he's putting his legs up very funnily putting them down planting his feet oh god it's very funny yeah hello and welcome to you had to be there

now you watch him come out on stage he's doing one of his funny walks he's about to do a stand up good evening he's just said good evening director's commentary well I have to say that was a really amazing comeback

guys season 17 it's going to be great if it continues at this rate I mean I would say I'd go as far as to say if it continues that would be more groundbreaking than anything we've ever done in the last few weeks okay that's it for this week

like I said go out there see my special it's on all the platforms and other than that couldn't care less I'm just promoting that really no we vow

right here in front of your ears now that we will try and get this back to a regular thing because it's good for us and it's good for you it's good for the geese it's good for the gander it's good for there's nothing it's not good for it's good for a sore if you've got an open

sore or some kind of wound it's good for that just rub it in good for that it's good for a suit put it in as an additive in your suit I honestly think we should go door to door and just try and sell our podcast to people in a little tin got any issues you can

rub it on you know if you rub it on a certain area you might bring willow mammoths back if you've got a mammoth and you want to get rid of it rub it on there it might go away okay alright till next time season 18 I wonder when that will be

two months time catch you next year bye you