Timesuck with Dan Cummins - BONUS 1 - Robert the Cursed Doll

Episode Date: December 30, 2016

Old porcelain dolls weird me out. Especially the kind whose eyes blink when you move them around. Those all too realistic looking glass eyes that seem to be truly watching you. Just thinking about it gives me the chills. Certain dolls are just creepy. And one of the creepiest of those dolls is named Robert. He talks, he trashes your house, he might kill your aunt in her sleep, and he’s probably the real life inspiration for Child's Play's Chucky. Let’s finish 2016 with some fear on a bonus, thank you for the 100 ratings on iTunes, episode of Timesuck!!

Anyone familiar with my album Crazy with a capital F knows that I'm afraid of clowns and knows why I used to have a replica That was a creepy clown doll from the original poltergeist movies a kid in my room just like the kid from the movie and also as a kid I was creeped out by dolls in general like not all dolls like Barbie never bothered me I actually found her curves quite pleasant as a kid to be totally honest But my great grandma my great grandma still had a collection of these old porcelain dolls, like the kind whose eyes would blink if you moved them around, right?

Like the kind from like a variety, a plethora of horror movies. Those all too realistic looking glass eyes, cold fucking eyes. They always seem to be watching me. Even thinking about it now just gives me the chills, you know, it's like I wouldn't want to sleep in a guest room full of those little shits

Anymore now that I did when I was a kid Certain dolls are just creepy and one of the creepiest of those dolls happens to be named Robert Robert talks Robert trashes your house Robert may be cursed He might have even killed the kids ants and he's definitely about the creepiest looking goddamn doll you will ever lay your eyes on Let's finish 2016 with some fear on today's cursed episode of Time Suck Okay, everybody here it is here it is your bonus episode time suckuck has now reached 100 reviews and counting on iTunes and just like I promised, every time we hit 100 new reviews, you get a bonus podcast that week,

two that week instead of one, one on Monday, one on Friday. Obviously this is the Friday one. And that's one of the, yeah, thank you for that. That was a very nice little holiday gift from you to me. I love getting those reviews, love knowing that more and more people are listening. And I'm listening to your feedback on iTunes, Twitter,

messages, people have been sending me and via timesockpodcast.com. And one of the biggest critiques I've gotten is that I should make the shows a little bit longer. And I'm listening. And I can't guarantee that every show is gonna be, you know, more than 30 minutes going forward. But what I can say is that I'm gonna change the way

I've been doing it. I've been, I've been watching the clock so far. I was, you know, I had this goal of trying to keep it down to 30 minutes. And I still don't want it to be one of those long, tedious podcasts that, you know, it ends up being like three hours, you know, like a, like a Dan Carlin's hardcore history, which I do love some of those, but God, I don't have the fucking

attention span to listen to anything for that long. Maybe, maybe, maybe most people do. Maybe, maybe most of you have a much better attention span than I do, but I still would like to keep it somewhat tight, but I'm not gonna be anal about it anymore. I'm not gonna watch the clock. I'm just going to tell the tale as I've prepared it and it's gonna take however long a fuck and takes to get through it.

Cause for these, I do a lot of research, I jot down my notes, I kind of put a little rough outline together and then I walk through it after I hit record. And you know, obviously sometimes I just digress as my brain kind of pings around in the middle. And you know what, it's supposed to be fun. This is all just fun. So criticism hurt.

I'm taking the training wheels off. I don't need the 30 minute security blanket anymore. It's just gonna be what it's gonna be. And this week it's gonna be about Robert the doll. And I want to thank Time Sucker Ben McGummary. For giving me today's topic, he emailed me at admin at TimeSuckPodcast.com. He found the website and sent me a note. And I love that.

I love the collaborative exercise into the strange we're developing here. Fucking love you guys, loving this shit. So let's get into it. Let's get into it. I wanted to start off by just describing this doll, this supposedly haunted doll, which is a real doll down in Florida, in a museum. I want to describe it for you as best I can. If you just like to check out a picture, you can go to timestuckpodcast.com. It's under the episode description. And I will say the podcast site works well on mobile and the computer, so you can pull all these pictures

on just like your phone and stuff too, and just check it out, because I feel like you gotta see this, but if you don't want it, if you just listen in the car, or whatever, Robert is 112 years old, and dressed in like an old, tiny, kind of like a baby blue and white old sailor suit like from the 20s.

Or I guess it'd be before the, before the from the, from the Ots of the 20th century, I guess I have some sailors dressed back then. His face, his creepy, creepy face, it's worn down from years of play to the point that it just kind of like vaguely looks human. And it almost kind of reminds me of like Hannibal Lecter when he has the mask in

Son of Siddalam's like so he can't bite people. But he still has his eyes but then he just has this weird mask with little like pinholes for so he can breathe. He looks kind of like that to be honest. And he currently resides in the Fort East Martello Museum in Kiwess, Florida. And the museum employees have traced Robert's origin back to the Steif Toy Company. It's STE, IFF. It's a German toy company that still exists this day. And some Steif historians have verified that Robert

is a Steif doll. But they don't think he was ever a doll. Well, they know he was never a doll created for like their historians. This company has this, I guess. He was never created for mass circulation, but they think it was probably part of like a window display, you know, back again at the dawn of the 20th century. And they think it was a part of a window display for gestures and clowns. Fucking clowns, man.

You can't get away from them. And they think that explains kind of his impish, kind of mischievous grin. And they think he was, he's probably part of some early, yeah, okay, I already said that. And anyway, the stif, little side note, this plush toy company was founded in 1880 in Germany by a woman named Margarit Steif, a woman who was confined to a wheelchair from about as a child with polio, and and a woman who based on every photo I could find of her young and old looks fucking exactly like someone you'd cast in a horror movie as the maker of an evil doll. I also have a picture of her

along with the episode description at timesuckpodcast.com if you want to check her out. I mean, it really does add to the creepiness. I just included that because if you see this lady, especially she's a little older and she's just all in black with a scowl on her face and she's sitting in her wheelchair holding this doll with like no fucking joy. And she looks like exactly who you would see in some fucking horror movie

as like the creepy old woman who makes creepy dolls. Like in the movie she has some crazy backstory where she felt polio and robbed her of her childhood. And there'd be like those flashback scenes of other kids, you can walk, you can walk, circling around her, and she's fucking crying, and then cut to Circle around her and she's fucking crying

and then cut to the future and she's fucking putting some like devil spell on this doll and they'll get you. And giving it to, you know, the kid who now lives across the street and she's an old woman and the fucking demon start coming out of there and killing their family. I can, I can, I can all see it.

I can see it all. I can see it all. So anyways, enough about Margarit, Germany again, man, fucking, Kranpus, the Germanic origins, we talked about that devil, now we got this fucking, maybe just old German people,

back in the 20s and stuff, just the way they decided to take pictures, just looked fucking terrifying. A lot of weird, so much weird shit comes from out, that part of the country, or world, excuse me. Anyways, back to Robert, his description, all of the kind of color skin with his light blonde kind of Aryan hair.

He has a little, little worn nub of a nose. It looks like a couple pinholes, you know, and a beady black is coal eyes. Really gives him a sinister look. And like the eyes. And also he has whatever kind of, oh, like material he's made of. It looks almost like spongy in the photographs.

But it has like, like a really, really hard styrofoam. It kind of has that look to it. So like little divots can come out of it. Not even a styrofoam. Trying kind of has that look to it. So like little divots can come out of it. Not even styrofoam. I'm trying to think of this, what the term board is. It's like this old material that I think some dolls I've seen actually made out of. And it's like spongy.

It's like a sponge, a hard sponge looking thing his face is with like very little tiny, like little spongy air holes. And maybe just the way whatever material he's made out of kind of age to give it look like that, but he has these like these pock marks all over his face, like little divots. So they look like scars. I mean, he really toughens up his little doll's image. He looks like he's been through some serious sinister shit and he lived.

You know, again, you know, if I was doing a fucking horror movie about this, they'd find like, you know, DNA in his, in his little pock markets on his face, and they would be from like missing kids, you know, who would claw to his face as Robert strangled them in their sleep. And he's an sizable doll too. He could strangle a kid, you know? He's not tiny. He's not like, you know, early GI Joe size, or, you know, or Barbie size. Now, he's like, he's 40 inches tall.

So he's three feet, four inches tall. He's a sizable doll. And so, you know, you probably think he's like, okay, so Robert, where does the Robert come from? Good question, person I just made up in my head. Let's get into that. This dolls, we're gonna get there. This doll's original home is now known as the artist house in Key West. It's like a bed and breakfast now. It was built in 1898 by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Otto. By Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Otto, sounds German, the Otto's had money,

enough money for a big colonial queen and style mansion, with these big beautiful columns and a veranda and a turret. It's actually a really pretty house. And it's, now you can stay there actually. If you just look at it, it's $160 to $360 a night to stay at the artist's house, Bed and Breakfast in Key West, little boutique, kind of hotel, Bed and Breakfast.

Also one of the most photographed former residences of the area along with the Hemingway House, down there in Key West. And there's a bunch of articles about the house, about how it's haunted and parted like little walking tours and everything. And there was information that the autos were, they were native keywesters. And among the you know, it took a couple years to build this house.

It was very expensive. They were very well off financially, enough to have multiple servants. And it sounded like they did very well because the dad, the Mr. Thomas auto, was a third-generation doctor. And so, you know, this is back in the age when like doctors make good money now, but I feel like back then they made like serious fucking coin compared to everybody else. And if you're a third generation now you have accumulated doctor wealth. And they traveled a lot, yeah they're active in the community and again just kind of like socialites. The mom was from the the Bahamas the mom was from the Bahamas, and they had three boys. And the youngest being the first to be born when living in this new mansion, now known as the artist's house, and that youngest boy is Robert Eugene.

There's Robert. Robert Eugene Otto. And he was born October 25th, 1900. And then on his fourth birthday, October 25th, 1904, he was given a doll. And with the doll here, there is, oh, questions as to its origin. Some things, I feel like lead me to believe that the doll was given to him just by his family. And especially when you know that it was this doll from Germany, this, goddamn it, I've already forgot the name of the fucking toy place.

Goddamn, what was it called? The client, stif. I wanted to just call it the client doll for some reason. So we know that it was a stifed doll. It was a stifed stuff animal. So I would imagine those costs a little bit of money and I only kind only make that point because a lot of these paranormal websites, what they say is they say the doll was given to

Little Robert by one of the servants in the house because they had multiple servants. And I just, I kind of question that because, you know, if you're a servant, you don't have a lot of money, you're not going to go buy an expensive doll. But that's part of the haunted history of this doll, is they think that it has these voodoo origins. Because legend has it that the autos, they were cruel to their servants, and also to the nurse, which was the term for nanny in those days, and that's who supposedly gave Robert this prized doll and the paranormal enthusiast and

his kind of pseudo historians, want to believe that a voodoo curse was placed on this doll as retribution for the cruel treatment on behalf of the autos. Another variation that I think is a little bit more plausible is that the doll was actually given by the family, but that the, and there's kind of some other little stories along these lines that this nanny, this nurse, placed a voodoo curse upon the doll after Robert got it. Again, it's retribution for the family. And that's a whole other can of worms, which like like do you believe in voodoo, do you not?

I mean, there definitely are tales of voodoo priests and priestesses attempting to curse or thinking that they've cursed things. So, that's up to you to think like, well, can things be cursed or can't they? I choose to believe that they can not, but at the same time, and I'm gonna keep hitting this point over and over

during the podcast, I say that they cannot, but at the same time, I'm gonna keep hitting this point over and over during the podcast. I say that they're not, but after reading all this stuff about Robert, and I would want nothing to fucking do with this doll. Just absolutely nothing to do with it. So, obviously, there is some part of me that has left the door open to the possibility of things being cursed as much as I hate that. I hate that I believe that, but yeah, there's a little bit of fear there. So anyway, what we do know for sure, for sure, for sure,

is that he was given this doll on his birthday in 1904. And I guess he loved it so much. He loved it so weird to me that he decided going forward that the doll would actually take his name and that he would go by a shortened version of his middle name. So he became known going forward that the doll would actually take his name and that he would go by a short inversion of his middle name. So he became known going forward as Gene and the doll became known as Robert and these two were fucking inseparable. Like they hung out together, you know, he took him everywhere, he went little Gene did and

as Gene grew older, he kept doing that. He actually got his parents to create a room for the doll, the doll sat at the dinner table with Jean, Jean would sneak at bites of food when his parents were looking, Robert stepped in the same bed as Jean, they were tucked in together at night. I mean, pretty crazy, pretty crazy. Yeah, and I love that he got his own fucking room and they put it up in the attic, which is like, why would you do that?

That's so creepy to give to give to give your your kid Is doll his own like room play room up in the attic and and that'll come back to to haunt them I guess literally if you believe in hauntings I just I don't man talk about indulgent parents though to allow all of this to happen. I can't imagine my kids were like, daddy, you know, Robert needs his own room.

I'd be like the fucking doll, I don't even, I don't even have an office, my own office. How does a dog get into my fucking room? That shit doesn't happen. Oh, oh, oh, and the doll's name is Kyler now. And the fuck that, I named you Kyler. The doll's named shit face, okay? Now the doll's shit face, that's how that works.

Like, why were they being so indulgent to this fucking kid? God damn. Okay, but anyway, let's get back into a gene in the doll. They're being inseparable, they're playing up in their attic room, indulgent, but you know, I guess not weird. Other than the parents started to believe that they were hearing two voices from the attic.

They were hearing that they were sun jean. I can't believe that they would even call them jihad. Again, why would you allow that? But they would hear jean talking and then they would hear robber talking in a deeper voice. And again, and I say they're claiming this, but I never found a legitimate, like, well, these kind of things in paranormal, I'm less critical of the websites than I

would be for like, well, like when I did the Lyndon B. Johnson thing. You know that? I'm like, okay, I'm not going to go on Reddit, I'm not going to go on these. And I still try to stay away from just, just bullshitty chatrooms for this research. However, when you go into the realm of paranormal, if you're only going to go to like, you know, super legitimate, the journalistic sites, you're not going to fucking get anything about your topic, all right? Because it is, there's just a ton of hearsay. And so a lot of this stuff about the parents is just alleged. And allegedly, they thought they would hear two people in the room, way creepier than that. Apparently, when the doll was alone in its little attic playroom that had

it don't complete with furniture and everything, they would still hear like giggling and playing and stuff then. So that is, that is super creepy. super creepy. And according to the website, Key West Paranormal.com, check this out. Quote, as incidents became more frequent with Robert, oh yeah, sorry, actually, before I say this, there was also a gene was starting to get into the habit of blaming things on Robert. That was a common occurrence, I guess, in the household. And that is fairly well documented that that apparently did happen. That it was always like, why didn't do it, Robert did it. I didn't do it. No, Robert did it. I didn't move the chair across the Robber did that. I didn't spill the milk, Robert did that. I didn't, all this kind of

whatever shit. I didn't throw knife at you. I don't know if that happened. But it was all blaming. Okay, and here we go into this quote. As incidents became more frequent, the Robert being blamed for things going wrong around the home, the servants consulted with the autos and explained that there seemed to be some sort of evil associated with Robert the Haunted Doll. The autos did not put much faith in the concept of Haunted Dolls, but eventually shared this possibility with relatives.

One of these relatives, which happened to be Jean's great aunt, made a suggestion based on the fact that there could be such a thing as haunted dolls. She believed that if the doll was stored securely in the attic, then perhaps the issues experienced in the home would come to a stop. The auto felt like this was an ideal plan. Despite the begging and pleading of Jean, they placed the doll and aading of jean, they placed the doll and a tight secure box and left it upstairs in the attic. Now it could be coincidence, but the night after Robert the haunted doll was stored away, the great aunt passed away in her sleep. As jean had such an issue with his loss, his parents let him have his toy back, never considering the fact that if haunted dolls were in fact real,

it could have been responsible for the great aunt's death. All right. So let's say this is true. Let's just go to the, let's take that leap of imagination and say that the doll maybe could have done it. What I don't understand in stories like this is why don't you just get completely rid

of the fucking doll at this point? Like take it out and the floor to swamp, chop it up, put it in a little hole and the ground, set its remains on fire and then bury what's left. There's no fucking way I'm keeping a doll after that shit. After a doll that I think can talk, a doll that's giggling up there on its own, now the ant wants to put in a box and then the ant dies. Oh, and then I'm gonna let my kid keep playing with it? Or are these fucking assholes?

But, you know, I have to realize that not everyone thinks the way I do about these things, not everyone would just like get rid of it. And I say that because I know somebody personally, actually, a very well, my manager, my manager Maggie, has a creepy doll that her brother had given, had bought in for her in Japan and given her and she has in her house. And I, I one time I'm over there and I remarked on this doll, my geez, what's, what's this, what's this dude? It's kind of creepy, you know, because it's one of those little porcelain ones with the crazy eyes.

And she's like, yeah, it actually is creepy. And then she proceeds to kind of tell me these stories where she says like when she gets up in the morning, a lot of times that she never touches the doll. And the doll is clearly facing in a different direction. She believes that it was the night before, and that I could kinda like just toss off to imagination though, I'm like, well maybe, but it's not, like, are you really taking notes of which way the doll was looking?

Cause it's not like she's writing the shit down, but she believes that it's looking in different directions. That didn't freak me out as much as she says, sometimes there will just be a little pool of water in front of the doll. And it's not like it's by a source of water. There's no pipes around there. It's just out in the living room.

There's not where people are setting water glasses. It's not near like her dogs like water bowl. It's not pee when she cleans it up. It's not the dog peen That's fucking creepy like what does that mean? Why is it what what was it like is it the spirit of somebody who drowned or something? But and I bring this up because after all that she will get rid of it I would fucking burn that piece of shit Like get wh- why but you know so so so maybe, so I bring that up again, to actually point out that, okay,

there's some plausibility to them not getting rid of this thing, despite its obviously creepy behavior if this stuff is true. Okay, so Gene continues to blame Robert after all this for, you know, things that parents assumed that Gene did. And other creepy stuff is happening.

Like, Jean's toys keep getting mutilated. There are stories of them going up, like it's quiet up in the attic and they'll go up there. And Jean is on one side of the little playroom and just kind of whimpering, like kind of huddled up in almost like a fetal position, holding his knees. And then the doll is across the room just looking at him. And then he talks about how like Robert's mad at him,

back on the stuff like they're having a fight. Fuck, again, again, this is the biggest idiots for parents. I do buy this thing about the kid blaming the doll. That's not actually that uncommon. It's uncommon for it to go on for a long time, I do buy this thing about the kid blaming the doll. That's not actually that uncommon. It's uncommon for it to go on for a long time, but it does remind me of a story with Monroe, my daughter, where one of the funniest stories

I've ever had with Monroe, that I've never told on stage. But one time, I'm at my mom's house, and Kyler is sitting just in the living room watching some cartoon on TV, and they were all gathered around. And then Ro is kind of back behind him, and off to the side playing with some little toys. One of these toys is a little toy dog.

And it's like a hard plastic little toy dog. And all of a sudden, you know, I don't know where I'm in Ro's, but she's probably like two years old this time. So, you know, maybe two and a half, maybe even three, maybe even three, so Kyla would have been around five. And she does all of a sudden walks across the room and fucking slams him in the head as hard as she can with this hard little dog.

Like it made an audible crack. And then Kyla starts bawling, like, look, I'm like a fucking herd. It wasn't just like a little kid crying. Like she hit him hard. So I start yelling him and Rowe. And I'm like, what are you doing? No, go to the corner, sit in the corner, you do not hit your brother like that.

Monroe vehemently denies hitting Kyler. She's like, I didn't do it. Puppy did it. Puppy did it. I'm not bad. Puppy's bad. Start talking to little kids. I know, I know, I'm not.

Puppy bad. Puppy bad. I know I didn't hit. Puppy hit him. That was one of the funniest things. She will not back down from that. We put her in timeout. The rest of us go back to consoling Kyler,

and then we leave her there for a while until she's going to apologize. You don't get to come out until you sincerely apologize. You know, that was a really bad thing you did. And then she doesn't, for like the next 10 minutes, we just hear her talking to herself. It was so hard not to just laugh so loud,

but she just talking to herself in the corner about, I know a bad girl, Pubby is naughty, I not naughty, Pubby is so naughty, Pubby did that, I didn't do it. So, you know, typical kid thing, I think to a point, but as you're about to see, Gene takes it way past typical, he ends up being buddy buddy with Robert for basically his entire life. He gets really fucking weird. So eventually, little Jean, you know, he grows up, leaves Robert at home for a time. Like you know, like a lot of kids who have a large inheritance coming to them and they know they'll never have to pay their own way through life, Jean goes to art school to study

painting. I have fun for Jean. He studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago and he attends a New York Arts student league, which sounds like a place that only spoiled, wealthy, kind of overly indulged East Coast, you know, kind of Brats would go to. Like, like, there's no one from like the Detroit inner city going to the New York Arts students league. I read about it a little bit and it was actually sound so pretentious. It was formed in 1875 by a group of artists, almost all of whom were students at the National Academy of Design in New York City and they felt

that quote, the the Academy's instruction was too conservative and unsympathetic to their new ideas about art. And they opened up this new school and again, none of these fucks are working night jobs so they can go to the league. It's a bunch of rich kids, fuck around painting. Just a bunch of eccentric rich kids shit. And then a bunch of trust funders. And then so after studying in New York for a while at the league, Gene decides to head to Paris.

He heads to Paris for a while to paint and study. Fuck this guy, man. More, more, more. More I was reading about Gene, the less I liked him. If you one thing, if you became an artist of renown, if not, but no, despite spending a lot of time and a lot of his parents, Monty and Chicago and New York and Paris never figured out how to make a living

as an artist or get another fucking job. Cause he never had to. If you wanna find some models work, don't go looking in a gallery or museum cause that shit ain't there, all right? The only thing you can find, after I did a lot of research, I found one picture of him and one of his paintings,

and I found it on a website called robberthedall.org. So, you know, if you're a successful artist, you're not gonna be mostly known for having a doll. Let's know how that works. If you was even like average, you know, you would have paintings and galleries just because of the fucking dollar association. If you're curious about this picture, by the way, I do have it up at timepsychpodcast.com

on the episode description. And again, he didn't need to be successful, you know. He's got mine and daddy's money. Well, eventually Jean does leave Paris. He leaves after a while after meeting a net parker of Boston, while over there, a gifted pianist who allegedly once played for the King of England, the two of them marry in Paris in 1930, and after a net finishes her piano studies over there, so obviously, she lived the life of fucking luxury as well. The two of them head to New York,

where a net fucks around with the piano, and Jean dicks around Peyton for a couple more years. where a net fucks around with a piano and Jean dicks around Peyton for a couple more years. Man, quite the life these two had. But then, Jean's mom becomes ill and he and Anne head back to Kiwess to take care of her. And apparently Anne does not like anything about Kiwess. One of the things she likes to least is there's no kind of bustling music scene that she could be a part of like there was in New York. And the thing she likes definitely the least is fucking Robert. Yep, Robert's back.

Oh, sweet little Robert. Jean's living in his childhood home again and back to his old childhood tricks. Uh, and apparently him and Robert, I mean, this guy's got to be in his thirties by now. Him and Robert are inseparable. If you fucking think about how creepy that is. If you have a foreign net like you, you marry this guy, not that not that she was, I don't know who she was, but maybe she was in the sharpest fucking knife in the drawer, but she couldn't have expected I would think that her husband would be like into a doll more than he was into her.

Especially if she meets him without the doll and they go home and all say, oh, robber, robber, I can't wait to be back and playing with you again. And that actually does kind of lead to like lend some kind of credence to there's something weird with this doll. Like what kind of power it had on him? You know, what the fuck is, I mean, maybe he's just mentally ill,

but why wasn't he so crazy in New York in Paris? Why is it when he got back around the doll that the doll like pulled him back in again? Because apparently during their marriage, the doll goes on vacations with them. Robert does his painting up in the attic. I'm sorry, Jean, Jean Robert, Jean does his painting up in the attic, you know, with Robert talking to Robert. And then there's weird stories from like neighborhoods kids at this time where they

would see the doll moving around up there and that and all kinds of creepy shit. kids at this time where they would see the doll moving around up there and that and all kinds of creepy shit. And so Robert, okay, I gotta get back into this. Okay, and so as soon as, and that hates the doll so much that finally when Robert dies in 1974, she immediately gets rid of the home. She sells the artist's house and he'd inherit it, you know, after his mom, his sick mom passed away and his dad passed away, you know, they inherited the house as soon as Gene dies. The house is gone. And according to the website, Key West Paranormal.com, which I got to say looks like a fucking crackpot website.

This is a story too good not to share and it does show up in numerous other kind of horror movie related sites and stuff. And I'll explain later why there's a horror movie association here. The new owners, okay, quote, the new owners moved in very excited about the beautiful home that they acquired. They discovered the homemade doll and decided to put it back in the attic. Yeah, because why wouldn't you do that? You move in some place, you're like, yeah, let me put a fucking creepy doll in my attic. Let's do that.

That's first order of business. Oh, what, you just find a creepy doll over there? In our new home, they were still getting used to order of business. Oh, what, you just find a creeper doll over there in our new home, they were still getting used to all the sounds? Oh yeah, yeah, what God, what should we do? Should we throw it away? Oh, no, let's not throw it away. I know, let's put it in the attic. So we always know it's there, but can't see it.

That's the fucking best plan. Okay, so unfortunately, this decision would haunt them regularly, yeah, no shit, back into the article now. They claim that unusual noises could be heard in and around the home, including the same ominous laughter that had been heard when the auto family lived in the home. Soon the evil doll started to make an appearance

at random locations throughout the home, no one moved the doll, but it seemed like it could move from one location to another on its own. Naturally, the home moved the doll, but it seemed like it could move from one location to another on its own. Naturally, the home terrified the new owners and immediately they left. It seemed to the last straw, was when they obviously possessed an evil doll, was found standing at their bed with an evil gaze upon them while yielding a knife. Yeah, yeah, I would say that would be the last straw.

I would say even if you're the dumb shit that it's like, yes, yes, I would say that would be the last straw. I would say even if you're the dumb shit that's like, yes, yes, I have a doll in my house that fucking moves around and shows up on its own different places that I choose to let live in the attic. Yeah, okay, in hindsight, that was a bad decision. However, I pulled my head out of my ass when I woke up one morning and the little fucker was holding a knife and looking at me ominously. Because I might not be a genius,

but I know that when a creepy, evil, animated doll is holding a knife and staring at me, that, you know, she's not gonna get better. This could end badly for this could end in tragedy. Fuckin Fucking unbelievable. So another website doesn't list the knife story, but it does say that, Mertle Rooter purchased the hardest house

after Otto's death in 1974. So, you know, and this was seemed like more legit. So that part of the story seems to be, I would guess true. And this one also says that she became Robert's new caretaker. So apparently, you know, and that did leave the doll, it was like, fuck that doll, it's doll staying in the house,

and I'm gonna touch it. Which if it was doing weird stuff or her husband was just like, preposterably obsessed with it, I don't blame her. And visitors swore that they heard footsteps in the attic and giggling going on. Some claim Robert' expression changed, like visitors to this place.

You know, and they heard, again, the footsteps. And also, there's these rumors that if anyone bad mouthed auto in the doll's presence, said anything bad about the previous owner, the doll's expression would change. Like it would get like a fucking grim expression. Like don't you talk shit about, you know, about Jean. And then after 20 years of listening to his antics,

this woman, Rooter, did get rid of the doll. She kept the house, but she donated little Robert to the museum in Key West that we mentioned earlier in 1994. So what has Robert been up to at this museum? There's a lot of stories about that. A lot of YouTube videos where you can hear first-hand tales from people who work at this museum. This is the the museum Fort East Martello Museum in Key West. And you know there's just like things of like it moving, it messing up technology, like people try to take pictures of the doll

and all of a sudden, they're camera stocks working. This is one paranormal guy that he tried to like move the doll's hat off of its head. It's a little sailor hat to get a better picture and immediately his camera stop working, the second he put his hat back on, the camera worked again. So, a little Robert, you know,

he's not gonna have a bad hair day, I guess, and he didn't want his picture taken. You know, look at all. So a little Robert, you know, he's back in having a bad hair day, I guess, and he didn't want his picture taken. You know, look at all he wanted to look, you know, more proper, like a proper sailor that he is. Fucking just got in from the high seas. And there's like, let's, yeah, stories that like he has this little dog on his lap and his display case, this little stuffed animal, and a lot of the pictures. And there's this rumor that he was never given that. That it was part of a different display. And one night, Robert just went out and took it.

Lots of things about him here. Him giggling. There's this one interview of this docent to this volunteer who works there. And she just talked about how she would not touch him. He just basically just creeper the fuck out. And Robert, so Robert will, you know, has become famous for all these kind of tales,

all these legends that have sprung up around him. And you know, he, and again, he, being in the museum kind of helps things going. And then also, a lot of people speculate that he is the basis for Chuckie and the child's play horror movies. Now, I can't find the actual writer and director Tom Holland. I actually interviewed when I hosted a show called The Playboy Morning Show a couple years ago, interviewed him

about some other horror movie and then talked about child's play when he came in, but I didn't know about Robert then, so I didn't ask him anything. But I can't find an interview where he says, yes, I based Chuckie on Robert, but there's a tremendous amount of speculation that he is the inspiration, this talking doll, this doll that possesses some kind of soul, this doll that is so buddy-buddy with the kid, but doing a bunch of evil shit. There's definitely some parallels there with Chuckie. And basically, like a lot of these websites point to the origin being some variation of

the knife story. Some stories claim that the people who moved in after auto died, that all of a sudden, the, the little doll came at the daughter with a knife. Some people claim that the little doll was at the foot of the bed with a knife. Who knows? Who knows? But, you know, again, I think this stuff silly, but I'm also getting like the chills. I'm fucking talking about this. And, but in that movie was a movie, maybe I just think about that movie too. The movie scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.

Child's play was a good horror movie. It is the only good horror movie I will say that's been based on Roberts. This has been made so far. There were two other movies in the last two years, one in 2015 and one in 2016 that were made about Roberts the Doll, and they look so fucking terrible, so, so terrible.

One is Robert the Doll, movie title Robert the Doll, it came out in 2015. Might need me to actually just be, I'm sorry, just Robert. Maybe the, I think I saw it listed as both. It's not a popular movie. And the other one is the Curse of Robert that came out in 2016. Comments have actually been disabled for the Curse of Robert trailer, which's not a popular movie. And the other one is the Curse of Robert that came out in 2016.

Comments have actually been disabled for the Curse of Robert trailer, which is never a good sign. No one disables comments on a video where people are complimentary. The Curse of Robert has been reviewed by no critics or people at all on Rotten Tomatoes since it came out. Last month, you can watch on Amazon or iTunes.

On Amazon, it's been reviewed seven times and has a two out of five star rating. The most positive review says, quote, You can watch on Amazon or iTunes. On Amazon, it's been reviewed seven times and has a two out of five star rating. The most positive review says, quote, I want it now and that was a review left before the movie came out. So somebody was just excited to see something with the doll.

All the reviews that came out after the movie was released are preposterously negative. Like really, really bad. My favorite negative review says, Robert's curse is having to watch this film. That's pretty clever. It's clever. The movie Robert, or Robert the Doll, that's not even listed on Rotten Tomatoes. It has a 3.3 out of 10 star rating on IMDB, internetmoviedatabase.com.

It has a 2.5 out of 5 star Amazon rating. We're out of 65 reviewers. 45% gave it one star. I'm guessing the other 55% left their review before the movie came out. My favorite one star review says worst piece of crap ever made. That's the subject and he gets into it. This Jodi con left on February 1, 2016 says He gets into it, this Jodie Khan left on February 1, 2016 says, excuse me, this is the worst movie ever. My son rented it and I just happened to sit down and watch it with him. He was bored to death. Does not even deserve one star. Complete waste of time and money, complete piece of crap.

My dog could make a better movie. Shame on you Amazon for including this piece of shit and your movie library and charging for this. What a complete ripoff exclamation point. This movie is not even worth viewing for free. So you might want to skip those. So what do you think? That's all the legend there laid out for you about Robert. There's just a lot of room in this one for whatever you choose to believe.

I mean, do you believe like my manager, Maggie, that dolls can move? Do you believe that Robert is cursed? Do you believe in curses? Does the spirit of gene now live within Robert? Or maybe something else entirely? Maybe it's voodoo related. Maybe it's demonic. Do you believe in voodoo or demons?

You know? If he is real, I wonder like, why didn't you just take off and leave his display? Like, why didn't you go on some kind of blatant killing rampage if he truly is evil? Like I always think about that with like monsters, like these rumors, why are they fucking hiding all the time? Like if you're some paranormal entity and can't be touched, especially like in some kind of ghost demonic way, why not just fucking tear shit up, go on a rampage, but you know, maybe I don't know all the rules.

Maybe that maybe they could be killed. Maybe they're itself preservation. I don't know, doesn't make any sense to me. And you know, again, I say I don't believe it. I say I don't buy it. I say all this stuff is people's imagination and a bunch of fucking nonsense. But at the same time, you could not pay me

to sleep in the same room with this little piece of shit. There's no, I would be fucking terrified. So is my fear irrational or is there some, you know, instinctual basis for some kind of paranormal? I don't know, I don't know. What I do know is that it's time for some top five takeaways. Time, suck, top five takeaways. Number one, never, no matter how much money you make, ever dedicate a room to one of your kids'

dolls, especially not in the f***ing attic. And if you start here in the doll talk, and believe the doll, is reckoning some shit in your home, like Jean's parents suppose he did, burn the little bastard. Number 2. Good horror movies are apparently incredibly difficult to make. Even if you start with a legend that basically writes a story out for itself, as demonstrated by Robert the doll and the curse of Robert. Number three, haunted or not, don't bring your doll on vacations with you and your wife like Jean fuckface trust fund auto did.

God, what a douche. If he deserved to be on it. Number four, if you're going to spend it your parents' money studying painting in Chicago, New York, Paris, and then New York again, like Jean Otto did, at least have the decency and the respect to get good at it. Number five, Maggie, if you're listening to this, give it a go at that damn doll. Before it goes nuts, it ends up inspiring more terrible movies to be made. Time, suck, tough, five, take away.

So that was it, you guys. That was the bonus episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope you have a happy new year's. And I want to thank everybody again for making me feel like the start of this podcast was successful. I appreciate the big boost in listenership over the last few weeks, especially, it's really going up and I have you to thank for that.

You know, word of mouth is the best advertising. You know, keep listening, keep telling your friends. I hope I touch on subjects that inspire you to talk about them and that you're having fun with. I really wanna make this project so much bigger and better in 2017. So keep those reviews coming. You know, keep telling your friends. Keep letting me know what you like, what you don't like, and I'll keep, and you do burn some doll that you feel is haunted.

I want you to know that just like Chuckie and Child's play, it might put up a fight, so prepare yourself. Get your filthy slut! Get your fuck with me! Help! Help! Help! Yeah! See you next year, everybody. You