The Dogg Zzone by 1900HOTDOG - Dogg Zzone 9000 - Episode 280, PufnStuf with Bill Oakley

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Let's dive back into the 1960's.. 70's? Early 80s?? Confusion reigns as the DOGGZZONE investigates HR PufNStuf, as seen through the eyes of our very special guest, 'Golden Age' Simpson's Writer, Bill Oakley! Robert Brockway and Seanbaby chime in with their slightly younger, massively sexier view of what is obviously drug-addled hokum in this "Very Special Episode" of the DOGGZZONE 9000!

Welcome to the Dog Zone 9,000, the official podcast of 1,900 Hot Dog America's Last Comedy website. I'm the horse that can deep throat anything, Robert Brockway, and with me is the only rod that finally gave me pause. It's my partner, Sean, baby. What an intro, thank you. I don't know what you think I'm doing here. It's strictly relevant to the program we will be talking about today. That's all. That's all that's about.

Well, now I'm less honored, but sure. Okay, I get it. And our guest today, he's a monstron. and Little White Cowboy Boots, it's Bill Oakley. Hello, it is great to be here. Thank you for having me, guys. Thank you for agreeing to do this even after finding out what it was that we wanted to talk about and the title. I was attracted by the spelling of your podcast.

You knew it had certain pizzazz given the double T's and double Cs. Yeah, we went full drive time and not really being fully aware that drive time wasn't a thing anymore by the time we started this. as bitterly disappointing that we can't pivot our careers to that. We would have been so good at that because we love air horns. I think they gave us. Do they have an air horn on the soundboard here? I don't think so. I think there's some blast.

Oh, no, we only got a blast from Manimal. All right. Just the damn. We are in the morning with more clips from Minimal. I think people would love that, driving to work here in Manimal clips. That's really my own. only plan. That's my plan for my career. Before we pivot fully to minimal drive time, I guess is the bit we're doing. Bill, where can people find more from you? Bill Oakley.com or any of my socials,

which are all that Bill Oakley. Those are places where you can reach me, see what I'm doing. I do a lot of culinary stuff these days, but I'm actually here on the eve of the announcement of my newest big project. And what is that? It is the seat. sequel, the multi, the multi part, multi year and creation sequel to my Audible original Space 1969, which I believe you guys are a little familiar with at least. That's part of the reason I think I'm on this podcast. A few years ago, I did this project that I had been wanting to do this project for a decade, but it was too expensive for TV shows and it was too niche and too strange, but I got audible, you know, Audible, which is normally most of their projects, things are

like, you know, it's Harry Potter, somebody reading Harry Potter, somebody reading David McCullough's book about Thomas Jefferson or whatever. But they also do original material on Audible.com, and I was able to sell them this product as an original. It is a comedy, retro sci-fi magnumopus, and is my favorite thing I've ever written. Natasha Leon is the star. It takes place in a universe where John F. Kennedy did not die after being shot, but instead had a epiphany that we were wasting our time in Vietnam and should be colonizing space instead in the 1960s. So it begins on the eve of his third term. And Natasha plays a nurse on an American space station who was drawn into a conspiracy.

Now, that became a surprise bestseller. And for the past three and a half years, I have been writing and producing the sequel, which comes out June 11th, and it's called Space 1972. Awesome. I love the first one. I mean, go listen to the first one, everybody as well, of course. Absolutely. Get the first one.

I think it's on sale right now. an anticipation of this of the sequel and the sequel i will say is um it's i think it's even funnier and it's longer and there's a number of all your favorite characters will be back as well as a few new surprises that i think you will be um delighted and stunned by and um the story continues on from where it left off uh on the first one and i'd also like to say that it has a little bit of a bearing in and say without spoiling it too much JFK is now forced to run for his fourth term in this space 1972. And it has, I'd say it has a little bit of bearing on America today in that it's living under a, rather a tyrant who refuses to leave office.

And the repercussions of that in society are dealt with. But more fun than today. More fun than life today. Oh, yeah. It's nothing like life today. For sure. I'm going thinking it's prescient political commentary. Oh, no, no.

And I think also I'd like to say I spent a great deal of time differentiating the universe from the 1969 universe. So things have been, it's much more our 1972 thing. Things are a little funkier, a little grittier. America's not quite so squeaky clean as it was in the previous one. The music is more of the 70s, early 70s vein, as are the TV shows that we deal with. And the whole thing is, as you know, is soaked in pop culture. And it's a whole new set of pop culture references three years later that we have as well. So and the politics also play a role, of course.

Well, it sounds like a fucking blast. Sean, what would you like to plug today? 1,900 Hot Dog is our website. And it's the place where the very last living article writers live. It's the last funny website. Go to patreon.com slash 1,900 Hotdog to support like all, what is it, 13 of us? Yeah, we're a crew now. We're a posse, I think.

We're hanging in there, us joke writers. It's kind of the expendables, except we're all actually expendable. We're not former superstars. Really? I, of course, I am no longer legally obligated to promote my new book. In fact, my publishers say they would prefer me not to, probably because I introduce myself as the horse who can deep throat anything and things like that. But my new book is called I Will Kill You. your imaginary friend for $200, and I just want to take this time to say, it is closely associated

with both me and this podcast. My thoughts are necessarily the thoughts of my publishers, and they do endorse everything, every terrible thing I'm about to say after this. They were right to tell you to stop promoting it. And I will always throw that in their face. Of course, of course. Today we're talking about, well, we're talking about the show in general. It's called HR Puffin' Stuff. It's kind of an American classic for a really narrow window of time. And the episode in particular we're talking about if you want to watch it is called The Horse with the Golden Throat. So like right away, we're in trouble.

Like right away. Yeah. Right away. You're going to get some other videos before this. It won't be the top Google result. Turn on Safe Search and that'll be the one you can still see. Before launching this podcast, I always try to take temperature on Like, what was your experience?

Do you have any experience with HR Puff and Stuff? Or, like, Sid and Marty Croft shows in general, Bill. I was a devotee of these shows when I was. I think I'm much older than you guys. And I think that these shows were on when I was a little kid. That much to my surprise, I looked this up yesterday. H.R. Puff and Stuff was only on 17 episodes in late 1969. Yeah, just one year.

But yet it seems to, it wasn't even the whole season. It was just half of a TV. season and but yet it my guess is they must have rerun them over and over and over again those 17 episodes because I remember seeing them when I was a kid and uh when I was four or five six seven so that's and the same with Lidsville by the way which was the companion show to this also by said Marty Croft so yeah no I remember HR Puff and stuff and I think and I loved I say I was doing this I was watching this in my office my wife came in and she also sat down and insisted on watching the whole thing because she was a kid in this era

too. And we both had an extensive memory of the show, although we didn't remember all the crazy stuff that was involved in the setup of it, and as well as other strange details. Like the kid has a, the kid is British, but also has, wears an Australian hat in the opening. Right. Yeah, it's dense with weird details. Like every character, if you stop and look at it, you're like, God, there's like 11 things I didn't notice about this, this monster. Yeah, for sure. Was this part of your childhood, too? Did you have? hit. So like they did put this in syndication several times, but it was in a kind of weird way where they

would just, it would be like a year or two. And then like it's no longer because they don't have that many episodes and they don't necessarily want to just run it back to back to back forever. I caught some of this when I was a kid, but Cartoon Network got like the HD broadcast boost. They added this network called Boomerang that was just all old weird cartoons. I love that network. Yes. And so I caught a lot of it on that, but I was like old and enjoying it ironically, but just fascinated with this, but especially banana splits. I loved banana splits. Yeah.

Sid and Marty Croft's show. And then, of course, I grew up with Mr. Show and Mr. Show basically owns H.R. Puff and stuff now with their altered state of Drugachuset's parody, which just completely dominates this and became like what I think of when I look at this 100%.

I had heard of this. I had heard of H.R. Puff and stuff completely missed me as a kid. I just started watching it earlier this year. Tubey has it. now and so I found out too. Lain's a lost. I was a huge fan. I watched a bunch of Lola Lowe lost. That's what hit me on the reruns. That's Sid and Marty Croft too, if you didn't know.

Just like lunacy and puppets. If it was like some sort of lunacy and puppets that like gave you a complex as a child that you're still dealing with today, that was them. I was Sid and Marty Croft. That's what they did. That was their thing. But like I too had just assumed HR Puff and stuff had this legendary status because I had never watched the show, but I had heard of it over and over and over again.

And to go through and find out, there were like, there were like 15 episodes total. 17, I believe it was a total. 17 total. It's like Mr. Bean. There's just not that many of them, but like you see one, you're like, I totally get this and you think about it and you know about it forever. Also, the thing is that it has so, the pop culture, at least in retrospect, seems to think this whole thing was entirely drug-related. Including the fact that like if you look where does the name come from people the general speculation is that it means HR means hand rolled. So it's hand rolled puffing stuff.

Yeah. Meaning this is as close as you can get to saying yes, this is a joint. Now, but when you look at the people, the credits of the people, including Sid and Marty Croft, I don't really seem like people who were getting high all the time, you know. The people who wrote and produced this seem kind of like regular Hollywood journeymen, you know, they don't seem like hippies. So it's an interesting thing Whether How much of this drug stuff Was actually intended

And how much of it was just kind of a You know A joke that came 20 years later Right Yeah, they've denied it but I Come on There's all right There's a little on I'm on the fence here

So There's a kind of guy That if you write something a little out of mainstream It'll be like whoa I need what you're smoking and it's always very annoying. Yeah, we have been through that a lot. Yeah. In fact, there's jokes on The Simpsons about that same thing,

that exact same thing where somebody says, what were you smoking? And Dave Cohen says we were getting rotissory chicken. Yeah, like, that's true. We're hardworking comedy writers, dickhead. It's, you know, like not all creativity comes from drugs. But then again, if you look in like the background of the show, even in the episode we watched here,

he has no lines and he doesn't do or say anything, but there's just like a clearly drug withdrawal tree. In the back, he's got like the hippie glasses on the dreadlocks. And he's like, he's just kind of waddling around. Like ineffectually. He doesn't have anything to do with anything,

but he's just like, that guy is clearly supposed to be, that's supposed to be a hippie burnout. Like that's all the visual shorthand for that. So they do include little things like that that make you think like, all right, you're playing with it at least.

I don't know. Maybe you're playing with the expectations. Like people always say this to me. So we'll include that. But also it was the 60s, man. I don't know. You probably were just accidentally. I mean, you would think about like Telitubbies.

You know, we take it today's stuff. Telitubbies is just as out there in many ways as this stuff. And nobody ever accuses them of being high. What were you got smoking when you came up with Teletubbies? Whoa. Tinky winky. That's a drug name of I ever heard it. That preacher did accuse it of being gay.

I can't. What was that in the 2000s? Jerry Fall, Well, I think he came out and said that... Yes, yes. Somebody did insist that they're... Oh, because one of them carries a purse. Yeah.

That's what it was. And his name is Tinky Winky and he's like pink or whatever. But I feel like that might be what Puffin stuff is dealing with is that like a lot of kids programming is going to come off like a high person trying to make up magical belief stuff. But puff and stuff is hard to deny. So let's get into the episode. The episode itself, the horse with the golden throat. So all of the episodes, they start one of my favorite intro styles, which is prisoner style, where they start with the theme song is not only the explanation, but it's a short movie that takes you like literally into the show so that if you watch this out of order, you're never lost. This is maybe too generous of an expository theme song.

Like you could trim a little out. Like they describe the boat that he gets on. The witch comes by and changes the color of the boat. It's like, we don't need, we don't need a boat swap. We just get them to the island. Yeah, we won't play all of it, but I do have a clip of the intro just to... Also, don't get in strange boats. Yeah, it just seems because of that saying, like, kid, it's really advocating that kids get in strange boats that pull up to any old dock.

How are they supposed to know that before this? Nobody told them. There was no strange boat propaganda. Like the HR puffins. It looks like a tour boat for this crazy island. He just hops on. Well, just imagine if it was a white van. You wouldn't be advocating kids as kids.

in and drive off. Well, I think to talk about another tired trope, I guess, but I think that there's an argument to be made for none of this happened. This is very much like, because the opening starts with Jimmy, Jack Wilde, the little little boy,

just running out of control down a mountain in slow motion. And then the next thing you know, he's like getting on a magical boat and going to a wonderful island. Like, you did not make it off that mountain. Yeah. This is the 70s. You could just you could put a flute in a child actor's mouth and say, run down that hill for the first time.

This kid looks like he's going to die with every step. Yeah, this is like his misfiring neurons trying to make thought connections with a rock. This is a spinal foot of making out of the ears. Yeah, this is, that explains everything about it. Anyway, let's get a just a few seconds of the intro. Yeah, hit the music. HR pop and step. Push your friend when things get rough.

HR poppin step. Can't do a little because you can't do enough. Once upon a summertime, just a dream from yesterday. A boy in this magic golden flute heard a boat from off the bay. Come and play with me, Jimmy, come and play with me. And I will take you on a trip far across the sea. But the boat belonged to a cookie or win. You already see where they're starting.

It's like they chiming me, well, something wasn't right with the boat after. You're like, okay, okay. It's also important to note this kid, even before the show started, the kid already had a magic flute. Yeah. Yep. So right, right? There's already, before you even buy in, all this other crazy shit, the kid is in possession of a magic object in his regular life on Earth. Yeah, we don't know.

That would have been the show. That would have been enough for a show. Kid has a magic flute. Yeah. They're like, no, no, no. That's just, that's just the background. Like, that's before he has the adventure. Why?

It's so, it's a very strange choice. I mean, you don't cast. When you're a kid, you don't question this stuff, you know? We just watched it and we're like, oh, my God, look at all those crazy puppets. Yeah. I wish I could be in that land with all those crazy puppets. And that's why I think that we don't need all this song. I don't.

It's like two minutes straight of what obviously sounds like someone making it up as they go along. Yeah. Yes. Now, what's wild is that Paul Simon has the songwriting credit for that opening song. Oh, because he sued them. Because he sued them. Yeah. Amazing.

Because they took, I forget the name of the song. The 59th Street Bridge song, feeling groovy. That's what it's called. He thought it was too close to that. He won that lawsuit. And like, Monkey's Paw Curls the Finger style. He won that lawsuit and got songwriting credit on this. Oh, what?

No, you can take my name right back off that. Like, we don't need to do this. That's why we have pseudonyms in the writer's deal. This show is already famously over budget. Like, that's why they didn't get a second season. So that couldn't have helped having to give Paul Simon enough money for Paul Simon to care about. The takeaways from the song that you can skip are just that the little boy, he had a magic flute. He was tricked onto this cursed island where everything's alive.

It's called The Living Island. And there's a witchy poo is the evil witch who wants that flute. And that's like, that's the basis of every episode. She wants the flute, whole island's alive. His main friend, the little boy, the little boy's only friend on the island at first. is H.R. Puff and stuff, who is the mayor of Living Island. He's an abomination. He's a bloated monstrosity. He looks just kind of a tadpole sperm dragon. Yeah. He's the only thing on the island that isn't an animated object. I guess no, I guess

Wichipu has her henchman that looks like a little monster, but most of them are just other things come to life, like the fireplace come to life or the tree come to life. I can pinpoint down to what it is. It's the little white cowboy booth. So he's, this crazy bloated dragon thing. There's something about those. And then they put man-sized normal, not big foam ones, just a normal man's little white cowboy boots on him. See, I have a theory.

There's a perversion to it. He's the only voice that's not an old-time movie actor. Every other voice is Edward G. Robinson, Bella, go see Peter Lorry, but not Mr. Puffin's stuff. I guess not the horse either. The horse is kind of a strange, generic, dumb guy, Jim Neighborsy voice, I guess. Yeah, the kind of dumb that you're not. really allowed to do anymore.

Yep. You know what? They didn't specify anything, so I guess you're allowed, but like, no, nobody's going to let you. You can't get away with that anymore. I think you get a pass if you have two little people inside the suit. They're like, okay, give them whatever voice you want. No, wait, now that I hear myself, I think I might be wrong.

I was going to say about the boots that there's kind of a sex thing to it. Like, you see those boots, you're like, oh, those are his fucking boots. But I have a different theory. I think, I think they're a trophy from the last thing he killed. And I think that's where he gets all of his accessories. It gets where he got us medallion and his sash. He killed the mayor, became the mayor, killed the cowboy, became a little bit of a cowboy.

Yep. Yeah, he shouldn't be, it's just that they gave that they're normal. Like if you gave him part of the costume when they were big white foam cowboy boots, okay, but that they're an actual guy's just like, where did you get those? But we got to talk about some things. Yeah. Why aren't they talking? Let's take a seat over here.

Where'd you get the boots? Where'd you get the boots puff and stuff? So the premise of this, that a whole island is alive. It's a living island. It's fun. They have a lot of fun with it in the episodes up to this, which I've seen them all up to this point. And the reason I wanted to talk about this episode in particular

is that this happens sometimes in shows where they have a premise and then they either slowly realize or then slowly realize and then slowly realize them, all at once, like how fucked their premise actually is. There's like an episode where they start writing it and they're like, it clearly just gets away from them. I think that's what this is here, where you're like, this is the first time it feels like they have to reckon with like, oh, it's a fun island where everything's alive.

And then all of a sudden like, oh, no, everything's alive. Everything. Yeah, that's wild lore. Like the backstory of that is crazy. Like, what do they eat? How do they get around? Right. they never like have to address that.

And then it finally gets to this episode. And you see it right away from like, you see it right away from just the log line in the episode, which is that this horse, this very stupid horse, eats Freddy the flute. And now the magic flute that the boy had, that also comes to life when he gets to the island.

So it's got his thoughts. It's got his own little voice. And the horse accidentally swallows them. And so again, just like from the title, you're in trouble, you're in trouble right from the premise. where you're like, well, what does that mean? And it gets what I think is pretty horrifying.

So this absolute dipshit horse, he's just kind of running around and he reports to like a lion boss slash slave master, maybe. Yeah, I don't know. I couldn't. The lion wanted him to get a job because the horse is starving and no one will feed it because this is a capitalist system with no welfare state, which is a lore I didn't need, right? Is that, I think that lion is like a shopkeeper, right? That's a line with the voice of W.C. Fields, one of the many old voices they cribbed for this. But he's like the local shopkeeper, right? I don't know why the horse is reporting to him. I think he's supposed to be a snake oil salesman. And I think the horse is supposed to be the thing that carries his cart from town to town.

Oh, okay. All right. That wasn't clear from the script. No, it was never clear. That's just what I think the implication was because he does have a little wagon where he sells stuff. But that wagon is called lion lotion. Lion lotion. See, I don't think that's weird. If I saw like a disheveled hobo lion selling something called lion lotion, I'd give my daughter 20 bucks. I'd say, hey, go get a couple bottles, whatever that is. Definitely talk to that guy, sweetie. Get the full demonstration to make sure it works. Really let him rub you down with that, with his, the lotion named after him. Something worth mentioning to the listeners is that all these puppets are just doing a lot of puppety stuff as if like that's a show in and of itself. So they'll kind of walk on and just let it breathe. Like, hey, just, do some zany puppety stuff in a way that's like not quite anything um i don't know i don't know how to explain it it's like like a background and you know what i'm watching a movie and some characters watching like old-timey cartoons and laughing out loud at them and you're like what the fuck like nobody interacts with cartoons like this this this show feels like they're they're targeting

that audience like they're targeting the background guy of a movie they're targeting the person who laughs at cartoons and movies i don't think the laugh track is helping it doesn't It doesn't feel like the kind of show. The laugh track. They hit that for everything. They're like, where is the studio audience? The laugh track becomes nightmarish, especially in this episode. You're right, especially as we get into the more serious medical aspect of it, the laughs seem a little bit in that ear.

The more serious medical drama. The pit. Crowds love to watch puppets die. So the Jimmy sets Freddie, the flute down and the horse is eating some carrots while the lion tries. to sell them his lotions, I guess, his litany of lotions. Yeah. Jimmy, I also have some issues.

Sorry, I keep interrupting, but... No, go ahead. You sort of expect, like, a precocious, bubbly energy of a child actor, but he just kind of looks really bored and maybe a little scared. I'm not saying they intentionally drugged this kid, but I do think all of the food on this set

was laced with something. I think this kid is accidentally very high. That's just my theory. Whoa. What were you eating? cupcakes, not normal ones. But they tasted weird and so sleepy. The horse eats the flute and like right away

it starts setting a very strange tone. I did take a clip. It came from inside him. It swallowed breading. Jelly beanie. Why the laugh track? Why the laugh track? The flute kind of always sounds like this.

It's got a very tremulous voice. But as soon as it's swallowed by the horse, there's genuine fear. Like every time they open this horse's mouth, like very comically, he opened the horse's mouth to talk to Freddie in his stomach. All he really just screams in terror almost every single time. And then they will include the audience laughing at that. As though like, oh, that's a good, that's a good gag. He's scared for his life.

All right, this is sort of the premise falling in on you. Like, oh, no, he ate something that's also sentient on the Living Island. How does that work? Yeah. It's sort of the premise falling in on them, but they also double-down. down on this and I think they really know what they're doing because then the horse starts freaking out. The horse is like, oh God, get him out of me. I don't want to, I don't want to eat and digest something that is screaming for its life from within me. I really need help here. And so everybody's just panicking at this situation. It's not like a, oh, it's not a Jonah and the whale kind of thing. It's very much like, like Bill said, it's your medical emergency. That's the way they treat it.

Yeah. I mean, even though neither of them seems to be in pain, neither him nor the flute seem to be in any pain. They just, but there is an urgency to the crisis. They are freaking the fuck out about this. This is not a normal. We don't know how much time we have, but there is a ticking clock. Yes. It's a ticking clock before the flute.

And they don't seem to know what, like their first solution is to pick up the back of the horse, which again, is a little person in a costume by the crotch. Two of them. of them. Yes. It's one of those old-fashioned horse costumes that you don't see anymore, the two-person horse costume. I do find this to be a little bit. You don't often see the two little people in a horse costume doing the voice that they're not allowed to do. That's weird. I was going to say that picking up the back of a horse costume, where I'm from, that's a sex act. We call that a wet

centaur, and it is a valid expression of love. But I was not expecting to see it in a children's show. Yeah, they're trying to sell it like they perform the Heimlich maneuver, but they do perform almost exclusively on the crotch area. It's super messed up. Which is probably just a limitation of the two enormous like foam rubber costumes that they have to deal with. But it doesn't make for a great look. You're right.

So they got to, they decide they have to bring the horse to Dr. Blinky, the island's only doctor. But the horse is also terrified of this doctor for implied reasons. We don't know. And he's more scared of that than of, you know, digesting another living being while it screams for help. So he takes off.

Right. The lion has a line about how he doesn't want them to catch the horse because he could make a fortune with a musical Western about a whistling horse. I'll hit that laugh track. That's a fucking. It was one of the most inexplicable. Like, is that a reference to something? Was there a Western? It's hard to tell whether how much, how seriously the people took this.

The people were making this. Like, did they, this is one of the questions that I've had about this whole thing, watching it over and over, is like, did they just write this in an hour or two? Or did they really struggle to say something important and stay there all night, you know, working on it and whatever and it just didn't come across? Because I've heard this, like, we've discussed this back at this instance. Like, people said, like, you know, oh, I bet, you know, when you see some crappy TV show, it's like, oh, those guys probably got to go home by 3 p.m. But, in fact, we've talked to people who worked on those shows, and they were there all night working on that stuff. And so, like, you wonder whether the writers of HR Puff and stuff were really trying to make this good and just couldn't or whether they just didn't care. It could be.

It could be like the Marvel method where they just acted out in the puppets and then later in the ADR just sort of added the dialogue. Ooh, that's a real possibility. I'm just picturing them all, like, all of them in the booth watching the footage being like, is he a, is he helping that horse? He keeps checking off that horse. What am I looking at? What does the script say? So they got to go find the doctor. The horse takes off.

The witch, meanwhile, sees this. She has a device that can see anything happening anywhere on the island. And so in every episode, they always cut to her layer. And either her one of the henchmen are just constantly watching absolutely everything that happens on this island. I have a fun fact about this actress. This is Billy Hayes. And in 1968, they decided she sounded like a witch. And so she played a witch every three months for 50 years.

I went to our IMDB, and it is nonstop witches for the whole second half of the century. The only other actress to apply for this job was Penny Marshall, the great Penny Marshall. That's it. Oh, wow. Those two ladies were up for the role, and they gave it to Billy Hayes. I got to say rightfully so. She really kills him as a witch, like, throws her full body into every single line. I don't know if that's going to give, if that's going to terrify kids or give them impossible to live up to fetish.

but she's doing something. She's kind of like the other costumes on the show where they sort of feel like they're thrown together in a junkyard, but by really talented people. So she's got like my-m-eyes and olive skin, but like chunks of face and hair made out of asbestos insulation. And I don't know, it's a really high effort, but still looks super cheap. And I don't know how they did it.

It's kind of got a charm to it. It's really hard to explain. It's a griminess that feels sort of unsafe, I guess. The whole show is like that. Like they built every inch. Like the set pieces, they go off into the background. And you can see like at some point it turns into, you know, map painting, of course. But like way longer than you would think, there's just an actual full set piece of like this forest or whatever that they built every piece of.

And like, yeah, it kind of looks cheap and horrible in like a, and like you go to the Willy Wonka AI experience kind of way. But also, it must have cost them a fortune to do. And you're right, it does come across as like, that's very charming. And also sort of nightmare inspiring. Right. And I think maybe because everyone else is covered in 80 pounds of janky puppet

or as a very tranquilized boy, but like this witch lady is just lighting up the screen. Like she's so animated and inspired. And you're like, wow, this is, what a star. Yeah, everybody else is literally slow. They're in full too much shit on me mode. They're just like, I don't want to. This is hour eight.

I'm wearing 90 pounds of foam rubber. I don't want to be doing this. My only salvation is I got to bring my own cowboy boots from home. All right. So the horse takes off and Wichipu orders her evil trees to kid now. You know what? I just realized something. Those aren't really cowboy boots.

They're drummajorette boots. Oh. I just want to point that out. He ate a drummajorette. That's what I think happened. He killed a parade. Okay, that's a worst crime. See, like a cowboy is like, I don't know.

You beat him at his own game, right? Cavalways don't usually wear white boots. You know, those are more of the drummajorette variety. Maybe it was a good guy. I don't know. Killed a good guy. But you're right, they're much more drummajorette boots. Yeah, he ate, that's probably where he got the sash, too.

It was like a sash to celebrate a new mayor. And he just came and ate a parade, ate a whole parade, marched right into his mouth. So the evil trees try to kidnap him. And what I love is that they show the horse running up into the forest. And he's been galloping forever. He's out of breath. So as he's desperately, like, gasping and wheezing every exhale, you hear the flute a little bit, which, as we determine, is his voice. So, like, that means he's screaming from within the horse with his every breath.

The trees surround him, and it gets, I don't want it to be me that says this is weirdly against, like, sexually menacing. I don't want to be putting that much of that on this show, but, like, one of the trees says, come here and rub your back against me. And the other one calls the horse cute. My note said, this is not sexually charged at all. What normal trees? When a normal interaction between a tree and a horse. They all have creepy voices, too, and the trees, one of them is Bella Legosi. One of them's Peter Lurie.

Yeah, one of them's Peter. There's always got to be a Peter Lorry in every, like, 60s children's cartoon. Yeah. If you could do a Peter Lorry voice, you had a career that you could retire on. For sure. Just in time, Jimmy and Puffin stuff run in, and they say, like, Okay, so there's a way that you use evil animated trees

and fiction that we're used to. And that's like from, I don't know, Ent and Lord of the Rings to Evil Dead. Like, if the evil tree's there, it's like a creature that doesn't take damage like we would, like an animal would. Right. You would have to find fire or something or at least like chop it with an axe

in a certain way, but like you you can't beat it with normal means. That's the whole point of having like an evil tree. But Jimmy, the little boy, runs in and decides, I'm just going to beat the shit out of these trees. Yeah. And he just does.

He just runs up and just punches them in the face and they're like, God damn it, ow. Yeah, one of them straight up gives up and runs. He's like, I did not know these guys had hands and feet. It's such an interesting way to like, why were they, why in the story, why are they evil trees if like a little boy can come up and kick one in the crotch? And it's just like, oh my God, my tree growing area. I sort of wasn't expecting our heroes to be violent, I guess.

So the fact, I mean, it looks stupid, but in the fiction of the show, they can't beat the shit out of two trees. They just beat the shit out of them. Yeah. Like, evil doesn't stand a chance. Totally unusual. Wasn't expecting it. So they do finally get the horse to the doctor. As they enter the doctor's house, we see, like, much more of the way this is a living island.

Like, he has a candle that greets them, and he's lit. The candle was awesome. You can see that Peewee's Playhouse took a lot of cues from this, too, because it's very much, like, a real cheap primitive version of peewey's playhouse with every little object being alive and in this case every single one of them having a voice of an old actor from the 1930s yeah the uh the mobster boss uh fireplace edward g robinson fireplace yes and the guy and the doctor himself being the out the daffy owl edwin guy is um you know is is and is also a trope standard For sure.

Stereotypical quack trope. Especially like that candle with the lit wick was really kind of impressive. Like that had to been a pain in the ass to keep going. This is where you can really see how the show went over budget. Because everything in here is a puppet. And they would have had to build a set to hide all these puppeteers. And as you watch the other episodes, there really is that level of care put into like every set.

So like you'll come into a room or something. And in the background, a bunch of the obvious. will just have faces. Like, they designed them all as characters that potentially, I guess, could be interactable. But because that would be like, it's so distracting if like every time you entered a room, everything in it just started screaming. You're like, I can't tell the story. This is close to that.

Like, while they're talking, there's a skull behind them that's just spinning. Like the puppeteers like, well, I'm going to fucking do something. They pay me to be here. I'm going to do something with this skull. The implications of the world are very disturbing because, like, they have a bunch of books and all the books have faces, but they're totally slacked because, like, they don't have their line, they're not really on camera yet, but they're just like, everything here is slowly going insane from boredom because they have faces, but nothing else, and they're just

cinch it and have to wait for somebody to be like, oh, do you need a book? No, still? All right, this is my life. And just they, they're just waiting. But, like, the care that they put into the set means they have, you know, hundreds of these things throughout the show. Uh, it's It's really, I mean, it's neat to watch and within the lore of their universe, very, very worrisome. I was also worried about the candle because he's lit when they come in, which means like he's dying in real time rapidly right in front of him. Yeah. Yeah, he'll be dead by tomorrow. Yeah, he's gone every time.

You just want to light up your place, that's a life. So they get the horse to the doctor and the doctor is doing, you know, the very classic incompetent quack routine. He does decide to operate without any form of. anesthesia present. And the horse freaks the fuck out. The flute inside him starts screaming inside too. And of course, I did take a

clip of this. He's in his stomach. You've got to get him out. Yeah. Oh. Good heaven. He really is down there. Now, both still horse. Open your mouth and say, he's got an advanced case of flutitis

if I've ever seen fun. Jesus. The number of things in this scene that are each individually screaming for help. Also, it's worth mentioning that the two people in the costume, they've thrown them sideways onto a table, which I don't know, feels like a deceptively dangerous stunt. Like, I feel if you're sideways in a horse costume, you die in 40 seconds. Like, you need an exit strategy for that stunt, man. Well, at least for the rear. I mean, the guy in the front is just coming out the mouth.

But, like, they don't build trap tors in the anus of the. horse. Probably, probably for a reason. I'm sure there's been some sort of incident. So everybody's panicking. They want to, they want to operate, they want to just, they want to split this horse open. They want to cut the horse open to save the sentient flute inside of him who was, who was still screaming. Like this is, I mean, we're halfway through the show, maybe a little more. He's been screaming for help the whole time. And like, you expect children's logic like, oh, he's going to, he's going to build a little house down there and be like, well, maybe I don't want to leave. Like there's going to be a subversion of it somehow.

But no, the flute is just like, this is still fucked. You need to help me every time they open his mouth. So the witch arrives. The witch is going to Trojan horse her way. Her henchman is pretending to be sick. And she calls the doctor out to help. And she's going to try to sneak in and grab the flute. While the doctor's there, I guess she's going to cut the horse open.

I'm not out of the horse, yeah. Gonna butcher that horse. So she's trying to head inside. And all this time, nobody's been. been listening to the chimney. The chimney is alive as well inside this house. Right. And the chimney keeps by saying he has an idea on how to solve this.

And they won't listen to him. And so he finally, you know, has enough. And he takes that opening when the doctor leaves to go deal with which he poohs sick henchman. He finally just decides to start his plan. I have a clip of that too. I'll puff my cigar real hard, see? Fill up the place with smoke, say? And horse will cough up pretty, see?

Ask, do you think it'll work? Wash me. Here I go. Okay, I'm going to pause that. That's not the full clip. I'm going to pause that and be like, where do you think the proper reaction for this in a kid's show is? Like, the chimney has just gone like,

okay, well, now I'm going to fill the house with smoke. Hmm. Like, the thought in any other kids show in a cartoon or whatever is like, just some cartoonish coughing. Here's how HR puffing stuff handles it. Sure. No, stop that. Fireplace, cut that out.

We can't breathe. They start literally saying, I can't breathe. I need help. Everyone starts dying, yeah. It's just fucking crazy. We got back to outside where the doctor is still doing his wacky health gags. Now let's check back in on what's going on inside still. Air

Everyone has asphyxating in a comic way. I just don't think I get the bit. You know, Tom and Jerry, you've done plenty of a smoky house. You've got to run out a bit. But I don't think you should have the horse going, air.

I need air. Cut the scene. We're dying. Plus, there's a human in there, you know. They're not all just magical creatures. there's actually a little kid in there. Who could easily die from this? You're right.

None of this was on script. This was all like the directors there just going, God, we're getting gold. Don't stop. Totally. Infilling the whole set with smoke. And no one agreed to it. He's like, I got an idea.

They're like, no, please don't do this. Yeah. No, you love this. That's because he's the mobster, Edward G. Robinson or Jimmy Cagney. I couldn't tell which one. But yes, with a cigar. He were doing bugs bunnies impersonation of that, I think.

Yeah. He does not get their consent before choking. them for sure. Yes. But it works. Okay, so it does work. The horse finally gags up Freddie as they're all desperately running for the exit trying to breathe, still shrieking for help

that will not come. And then the house itself sneezes because the house itself, the chimney is like alive separately from the house somehow. Yeah, it's like a tumor. You're right, a talking tumor. The house itself is alive and the house sneezes. This was the one thing that I found genuinely surprising

and kind of cool in this episode because I did not expect the house itself, the whole big house to be alive and sentient as well. And I have to say, I was, I was pretty impressed. It implies that at one point not everything was alive. Like they built the house and then something happened that made everything come to life. Unless every brick of that house is alive, that's kind of a nightmare. Right. Like that's, oh, no. That's what I mean is like, you can feel it this episode where they're like, oh, no, what if we'd done. It's all like, it's all folding in on itself. Like, they pulled the thread too hard.

Okay. Sean mentioned it briefly, but like in the background, here's the one that fucked me up, in the background at one point, like the doctor has a skull because he's a doctor. It's just a little, like, actual human skull as a model back there. The skull starts talking because everything on Living Island is alive. Your fucking skeleton is alive? Is it alive in you right now? Yeah. No. Oh, no. Right? Yeah. If, if you skinned a man with his skin, sit in a and have a different personality from his skeleton.

It has to. Like, the doctor's office has determined, like, if something separates from you, like, you take a shit, you got to talk and shit. Like, that's what happens. Jesus, you're right. The implications of this become nightmares so quick, and they're realizing it live on air for this episode. And if a fly ate that shit, it would be screaming from inside the fly. Just taking like... Oh, God.

Taking the journey down to all of the things screaming inside the other things. Yeah, I think we're writing a Rick and Morty episode. Yeah, you're right. That's a Rick and Morty. So the house sneezes and it blows all the clothes off the witch, the witch is embarrassed of her old-timey underwear and runs away. The doctor was super into it. Like everybody else is laughing at her like, ha, ha, what a fool.

The doctor-all is like, did anyone else see her red bloomers? Okay. Which is crazy because he can't see anything. That's his bit is that he doesn't know what anything is and can't see it. But when he sees some underpants, he's like, va-av-voom. He's the one that's supposed to have the most clinical separation about the human body. And he's like, ooh. He could have been attracted to the panties personality.

Oh, you're right. He might have been talking literally about the panties. Your underpants are alive in this world. Like, these are the rules. And that's my new wife. I'm going to marry your underwear. And we're going to be very happy together. God.

that is going to be a 17-minute theme song to explain that and Paul Simon's gonna sue he's gonna be so mad about it so the sneeze blows Freddy the flute away nobody sees where he saw where he landed and then they start talking amongst themselves and they realize HR puff and stuff is like whistling every time he talks so he accidentally

swallowed the flute and Freddie is now in like somebody something else's gut still being digested and presumably screaming for help. So they immediately turn on HR Puffin stuff and bring him inside to be split open with that anesthesia by the doctor. By the way, it has to be noted,

they all say in unison, almost to the camera, here we go again. Here we go again. I do have a clip of this whole thing, which I took specifically so that you can see the performance by the guy voicing HR Puff and stuff who chooses to play this as oh no, I'm in hostile.

I don't want to die. Oh no. Here we go again. back to the operating table. Oh, no, please. Oh, not that. Oh, no, please. Oh, please. Oh, my goodness.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, I'm scared. As the music swells, as the laugh track comes in, his last words are, I'm scared. I'm scared. Baking for his life. Why do they have to operate on him when it's clear that all you have to do is sneeze to eject the flute from your body?

They always just like, let's find it into this thing. Whatever, just end it quick. That's all they had to do. So something I realized as I was taking, I didn't realize this as I was doing it, but as I was uploading all the sound clips I took, I tend to just name them the most generic thing I can because the soundboard on Riverside gets real crowded. So I named them like literally, it's something that's in the clip that caught my attention. Just a very plain name that I can be like, oh, I'm clearly looking for that.

And the names of all of these clips, here they are in all caps. The first clip is just intro. It was the intro song. Here are the other ones. Help Jimmy. Hurry. I can't breathe. I need air.

I'm scared. The crowd loved all of them, too. Pure comedy. Every clip I took of this show was something or somebody or multiple things screaming for help and mercy. I have another fun fact that that little sleastack spider that the witch brought over on the gurney. the guy inside the costume was the little gibbo-gobble guy from freaks. Oh, okay. If you've seen that movie, where he's Gibbo-Gabba one of us, that's him in the spider suit.

I have, if we're doing fun facts, I do have one more. Like, the whole reason we have McDonald's, the whole McDonald's extended universe is because of this show. They were inspired, as they said, they were inspired by HR Puff and stuff for their characters. and actually Sid and Marty Croft successfully sued McDonald's for stealing from them. Because if you look into the claim, it becomes like hilariously guilty, like guilty to a really truly funny degree because this ad agency contacted Sid and Martycroft about specifically McDonald's really wants to advertise with H.R. Puff and Stuff characters. And they started putting the deal together.

And then as they started getting, you know, negotiating the prices and everything, the advertising agency said, hold on, never mind. We've got our own team that are going to do their own thing for this ad and cut Sid and Rudy Croft completely out. And then they went and they hired the people that built the sets on HR Buff and stuff and the puppets. Wow. And they hired the voice actors. It's so. Yeah. What that?

It's so transparent. I guess they thought they would get away with it because they're McDonald's. How did you, you hired the voice actors from this show to come voice the original. We're talking like Ronald McDonald, Grimmis, the Fry Guys. Mayor McChese was literally just like a transplant. It's even like the same profile, the same silhouette as HR Puff and stuff, the mayor of Living Island. Yeah. Like truly a one-to-one thing.

All of that came from fraud from just trying to like grift, uh, Martin, uh, Sid and Marty Croft from their creation. Amazing. and nakedly hiring everybody who built the show to just build McDonald's land. Luckily, they did lose that lawsuit and did have to pay out. But that's where this enduring legacy came of McDonald's land, Ron McDonald's, all that shit came from this. It's crazy that a mayor with a cheeseburger head feels like such a dumbass first draft idea.

But the fact that it was stolen, it's absurd. The fry guys too were stolen from the little henchmen. They're just living fries. Like what? I guess? I don't know. Is Grimmis also HR? What is Grimmis?

We've always been wondering. Yeah, this whole time. He seems more like the horse, actually. Oh, yeah, he's the horse that eats things and freaks out. So he's got some... And filled with tiny limbs. Yeah, that checks out. He's just like that horse.

Yeah, his belly is full of screaming children, just like the horse. One more, one more final fun fact before I take us out of here. Because this was like the battle days of television, you can hear in the clips, like the The little kid, Jack Wilde was British. And this was an American show. So for the duration of filming the show, they simply gave guardianship of their child to, I think, Marty Croft. Oh, my God.

So Jack Wilde just lived in his house, and he took care of him. He was a teenager at that point. And of the experience, I don't have a lot of information about this, but of the experience, Marty Croft said, that little kid made my life hell. I'm 9100 Frank first

He's welcome to the 1,900 Hot Dog Stage, a brand new comedian debuting here tonight The insult comic with class Lord Jimathan Jigglesworth

Thank you, thank you That's quite enough Though I should say Flattery We'll get you everywhere Ah-ho What a supreme audience We have tonight

I recognize a lot of faces, though they might not like me saying that. Oh, I see Aaron Crosston here. A peacock in everything but beauty. Oh, Adrian H. I see Adrian H here, Alex Nolenberg, Alpha scientist Java, An Andy, Armando Nava, Autumn Armstrong Berg. Oh, I see Brandon Garlock. He has one of those fine bureaucratic faces that once seen, are never remembered.

Oh! Brian Sailor. Brockway famously loves the meat millie. A little too much if you know what I mean. Ceryl. Christopher Worthing, I am told pork packing is the most valued profession in America. Tell your mother, I said, thank you for your service.

Oh, oh, oh, I'm so naughty. Common sense, I see Craig Lemoyne, Dan B, David Schell. Popularity is the only insult that has not yet been offered to Dean Costello. Oh, oh, oh, Delta Fox Trot. I see Devin the Rogue Supreme here. I see Dusty's red title and Elizabeth Schope. Elliot Watson is said that he can talk brilliantly upon any subject, provided that he knows nothing about it. Christian Berg is here, fancy shark, Jello, good Satan and his hot witches, I see you there. Greg Cunningham, Greg Cunningham is an excellent man. He has no enemies and none of his friends like him.

Oh, oh, I slay, I truly do. A haraka, Harvey Pengweeney, honk! I have here, I want Brockway to say Dyke, which I'm allowed to do because this accent might be Dutch or something, you don't know. Jabar Al Aden, James Boyd, Jared Clack, Jared Mountain Man, it's the perfect man, always dull and usually violent. Oh, Jared Ruiz, John Deeb, John McCabin,

John Minkoff, a lot of John's here tonight, you know what I'm saying. Josh Quicksall, it is said some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go. Ah, but no really. Go fuck yourself, Josh Quicksall. You know what you did. Joshua Graves. Justin B.

Katie Favelle reminds one of a badly bound hymn book. Give her a few minutes, folks. She'll get it. Ken Paisley. K&M. I see KVH. I see Elaine Haygood here. Lisa.

Oh, she seems like a good citizen. Or a faithful wife. Or something else equally tedious. Oh! M. Jahi Chappelle, Mark Mahoney, Matt Riley, Max Broyd. I see mercenary sysidman here, Michael Lair. Mickey Lohman, oh, Mickey Lohman, such keen student, always ready to give his betters the full benefits of his inexperience. Oh-hoo!

Mort, Mr. Bob Gray, N. D. Neil Bailey, Neil, they say there is no sin, except stupidity. So tell the devil I said, Hello! Oh, fuck you, Neil Bailey. Neil Schaefer, Naku 104, Niclavino, obsolete. Ogilwan Supreme is like the best art.

All style, unpolluted by sincerity. Oh, I'm told one ball in has been received in all the great houses. Or once. I kid, I'm actually. I actually like one ball in. Henri Weevil, Ozzie Olin, Patrick Herbst. I see Peewey's uncle here with Rebrandrew and Red Wine Time.

Riannon, hello Rihanna. Russell Bauman. Oh, Russell Bowman, everybody. You seem, Russell, you seem the kind of person who's brilliant at breakfast. No, don't get that one? Go team up with Katie Faville. Maybe you two can figure yours out together.

Sam Copnik, Sarkovsky, Sean Chase, Seed Space Jam fan, I may not agree with you, but I shall defend to the death. You're right to be a dipshit. Spotty reception, supernot, day to stays, 10H, Thomas, Thomas is such a good friend, he will always stab you in the front air. Thomas Cavatzos, Timi Lay, Hey, Toastigan, I see Tommy G here. Velo.

Velo is the kind of person who deprives one of solitude without providing one with company. Ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, that one was bad. Victor Malavankan, Booster, Whalen Russell. I see Yvonne Clavom here. Zach and Eva. Jeff Oraski is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a speaker, he has mastered everything except language. As a dancer, he can do anything but move with rhythm.

And as a wiener, he is everything but plump. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha. I kid, of course. Thank you. Thank you all. I'd say you've been lovely, but I've been told untruths cause wrinkled. Oh, no, but seriously, folks, truth is everything. Stay true. One must always strive to be true to what they are, Even if what they are is a nasty little cunt.