Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - The 1994 Vancouver Island Cougar Attack - The 2023 End of Year Wrap-Up

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

Wes summons just enough focus and strength to deliver one final episode before the year ends, telling the story of a bloody encounter that 7-year-old Kyle Musselman had with a cougar on his way to school. The guys end the episode by talking about all their favorite things from 2023, and Wes finally commits to something we've all been asking for going into the new year. Watch our Top 10s of 2023 on YouTube! And subscribe to us while you're there, we plan on releasing a lot more video content from now on: https://youtu.be/-ovc9qRPciU ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yeah, yeah. We made it to another year. That was the goal. At the start of last year was just to make it one more year. So we've done it. Yeah. As a podcast or like as a live human beings? Both.

Yeah, both. All right. Two for one. If this ends, we end. Yeah, that's probably true. Okay, yeah. Sure. I'll make that packed.

Yeah. So my psychiatrist who just, like, got me on Adderall recently said it was like good to take breaks from it every once in a while. So I figured like Christmas, I don't have a lot to do, so I'll take a break. And then I didn't take it today either. So I'm not going to listen to anything, you guys. Oh, fine. Cold turkey. But I couldn't find my AirPods.

anywhere today. And then I like remembered that I have fine, like I just recently discovered you can do like find my AirPods and it like plays a sound. So I'd been like playing a sound all over the place and couldn't hear it anywhere, you know? Uh-huh. So I went and like looked in my car, couldn't hear it. And then like I remember doing laundry. So I just played it by the laundry room. And I heard it outside of our apartment. But I was like close enough to it that I could hear it. So I kept playing it and it was like in the trash. So then I had to like open up my trash and I'd thrown them away. But luckily I was also on wasn't taking Adderall so I didn't do anything so I forgot to take the trash out because today was the day to take the trash out.

Oh, good. So I could have like really messed it up. Yeah. They should make a movie out of your life. Hurt me and saved it. What would you call it? Crazy Adventure. Here's a Jeff.

Forrest Gump. Jeff's crazy. Yeah, Forrest Gump, too. Prequel or sequel, I don't know. Life is like a bag of Taco Bell. That's crazy. I'm glad you found them. Those aren't cheap.

No, that would have been better. And yours are pretty new, too. You didn't get them long ago. All right. Well, good job, Jeff. Thanks. I hope you would reward yourself with a little treat, a little Christmas treat.

Some extra Adderall. Okay. Yeah, I could use some extra Adderall. You know, today we put this, like, we were kind of deciding whether or not we wanted to do an episode today. We kind of, I felt like all three of us were maybe thinking about taking a little break, releasing some of the subscriber episodes to the main, recording something quick for our subscribers,

but we just decided to go for it. And I'll be completely honest with you guys. I had a hard time focusing today, a real hard time. Thanks, it would be nice. Yeah. And then I had the water. You didn't get your yearly Christmas dip. That's true.

I didn't dip in the water this year, in the river. See, I can't even say river. That's how bad I used to. Yeah, you're all scatty wampus right now. Also, I had to give Jesse's horses some water, and the hoses were all frozen. So that took a long time to sort out. Did you go down the whole hose rubbing them like this? To warm it up?

I did. Yeah. Really? Making a jerking off motion. That's not. Yeah, I mean, that's your interpretation of what I was doing. I had to push the ice to the end of the hose, and then I, like, stomped on it, and then I took, like, a long screwdriver and poked in there to try and clear it out, and it worked.

But one of the hose is just like jerking off. Yeah. Just like jerking off. It advanced. It's a little too frozen. So I, like, was probably 15 feet from the, where their water was. So I had to spray it using my thumb. And it's pretty cold.

And so my, and it took a lot of water. It takes like 20 minutes. So my thumb just went completely numb. But here I am. Oh, wow. Yeah. Jeff's story was more interesting. Those horses got water.

You beat the odds, Wes. Yeah. I started out low and still one. Yeah, I could, let me come up with something real boring to share. It's a low bar. I got the taco bell thing happened to me again that you always hate when I tell you that story. The sauce pet. I went today.

I went today. Something that you love. They took away. where I forget that I want to get sauce packs and then they ask me if I want sauce packs and then they still don't give them to me. Oh, man. They got to have like your picture by their window or something. Like every Taco Bell has a picture of Jeffs.

They're so, it's so necessary to. It really is. Did I ever tell you guys about the story of Taco Bell sauce when I was in high school and what I did to the guy's car? No. So, like in high school. I was kind of a little dickhead. And I went to Taco Bell one day for lunch with some high school buddies.

And we took some like hot sauce Taco Bell packets and we went out in the parking lot. And we just put them on the ground and we're like jumping on them. So they would squirt out all over everything. And we didn't realize that we were just painting this dude's car with Taco Bell sauce. And it was winter or two. So it was just like, I'm sure it was freezing on there and everything. And then we realized it. And we quickly went back into the store.

and we're eating our tacos as fast as we could, and this guy just comes in, and he's like, who the fuck sprayed Taco Bell sauce all over my car? And we're all just like put our heads down. And then he just like stormed back outside. But anyway. Wow.

That's neither here nor there, but it's a little story. He could have killed you. He could have. But here we are. We're all alive. And I feel bad. If you're listening, I'm sorry I sprayed Taco Bell sauce all over your car.

If that was neither here, nor there. Did it just happen in some kind of vacuum in the space time continuum? It did. It's just some like alternate dimension. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. We're kind of doing a weird space time thing because we're recording this in

2023, but it's going to be 2024 when it comes out. That's time travel. It is. Whoa. Yeah. Are you sure? Yeah. It comes out on January 1st, I believe.

Is that a Monday? I think that's a Monday. Yeah, it does. All right. Anyway. Okay, well, let's get into our story. We can just ramble on about this and time travel. I mean, how are we going to talk what to do and not to do?

Taco Bell sauce stories. It's pretty hard. Yeah, let's just quit here. Yeah. Okay. So today I wanted to throw something together. I kind of wanted just to pick an animal that we'd done, but a good story, but maybe one where we didn't necessarily have to go into a lot of biology or facts because we've got a lot

of categories, year-end categories that we want to get to. So I ended up picking mountain lions. I think this is a time of year where a lot of our listeners live in places where bears are hibernating, but there's still mountain lions out. And it's an animal that people still think about when they're out in the woods this time of year. That's kind of a new thought that's interesting is like, I guess mountain lions kind of are like the top predator for a few months of the year while bears are out hibernating, huh? Them and wolves, yeah, it depends.

If there's wolves where they are, then wolves are still top dog. But otherwise. Although there has been... Mountain lions are cats and wolves and dogs. There's been some studies that show that mountain lions kill wolves, which is pretty crazy. Oh, wow. I would say Mount lions probably are top dog, if you will. All right.

So anyway, I bought this book not long ago. It's called Cat Attacks. It's all about mountain lion attacks and kind of like the science behind them. It's by Joe Dubarock and Dean Miller. And I was like, you know what, I'm just going to open up that book and see what I can find. And I found a story. And as I was going through it, I'm like, wow, this is actually a pretty crazy story. And this is, like, going to be a really good episode.

So I'm excited for it. I am just going to go ahead and give a content warning on this one. There's even, like, parts of the story that I had to tone down because it was too graphic. There was, like, a point where I was reading this where I was just like, I just shook my head. and was like, holy shit, I said it out loud because it was so gnarly. Maybe one of the gnarliest ones I've read. So just so you know, this is kind of a rough one. And it involves a child.

So it's not an easy listen. Okay. Yeah. So start the year on like an all-time downer. And we can only go up from here, I guess. What did you like about Egypt? Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.

Okay. All right. So the village of Gold River sits almost exactly in the geographic middle of Vancouver Island. So we're in British. Columbia. Vancouver Island is just offshore of mainland British Columbia, just north of the USA-Canada border. Pretty much any of the nearest cities are a three-hour journey from the village. So in 1994, when this story takes place, or as I like to say, one AGP, JP, one year after Jurassic Park, that's kind of how I tell time. Almost all of the roughly 1,000 people that lived in Gold River worked for. And

the logging industry. There's a paper mill nearby. So pretty much everyone that worked there worked either for the logging industry or some other kind of outdoor industry. This is a small village. This is before tourism really took off in the area. So it's mostly a logging town. It's surrounded by just dense evergreen forest. There's beautiful crystal blue rivers, towering mountains. It's just an idyllic mountain town. Everyone knows each other. It's got this really strong sense of community and a really strong sense of safety too everyone in this place feels very safe they know all their neighbors they have lived there their whole lives it's just kind of like very idyllic but that safety was shattered in may 1994 almost one year after Jurassic park was

released in theaters okay so 12 year old yeah it wasn't a T-Rex yeah a T-Rex arrived on a boat got out stormed around town, killed a guy in a movie store. No. All right. So 12-year-old Brad Musselman lived in a yellow house on Donner Street with his 8-year-old sister, Brittany, his 7-year-old brother, Kyle, and his dad and mom, John and Joan. So early on the morning of May 9, 1994, Brad wakes up his brother Kyle because they had some chores to get done before they went to school.

he's the big brother, so he has to kind of be in charge of his siblings. Brittany's already up, she's already doing her chores, and as usual, Kyle was taking a little bit longer to get up and do his share of the cleaning. So Brad's waiting patiently as his little brother puts on jeans and a flannel shirt, and then he laughs to himself when his brother runs by and he smells the strong scent of pine and vanilla. Apparently Kyle, the little brother who's seven, had been keeping, you know those like tree-shaped car friends, fresheners. He kept like a pine one and a

vanilla one in each of his pockets because he liked to smell fresh. Yeah. Yeah. And he'd been doing that for like for weeks. Their dad John worked a night shift at nearby paper mill. So he was up making breakfast, but he was going to go to bed after he made

the kids breakfast. He just smells like pine from work. Yeah, maybe he just wanted to be like his dad. He just has two vanilla ones in his pocket probably. Yeah. He doesn't The pine. And then their mom, Joan, she was an EMT, and she had left on a bush plane to go visit a logging camp out in the wilderness. I guess she worked in these different logging camps around.

So after the kids ate breakfast, they finished their chores, they got on their backpacks, and they said by to their dad who was headed to go to sleep. And they ran out the door, and they joined up with a couple neighborhood kids for this walk to school, which was a pretty short walk. And the neighborhood kids were these brothers, Tony and Jamie Olson. So the walk to school wasn't very far, but the kids had about 500 feet from their house before they got to a 100-foot staircase that went down to the school grounds and the side of highway 28. So the school was kind of on the side of the highway. And this staircase is surrounded by dense pine and alder forest. So I'm going to say alders a lot in the story. Alders are pretty much their type of tree.

They kind of look similar to like birch or aspen. but when they're younger, they're really tightly bunch. So alders can be just like a description of really thick, deciduous brush, too. And so there's lots of alder on the side of this staircase, and the stairs are made for railroad ties, gravel, and asphalt. And then as the stairs went down, there was a total of three flights of stairs, separated by two long landings that were made of asphalt.

So the stairs would go down, there'd be a long landing with asphalt. Then they go down again, long landing of asphalt and then they go down again. So like the Scott Pilgrim stairs that Scott's like can you do a flippy thing down these stairs? Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm imagining. Just covered with trees and forest. Right. Yep. Same country. These kids had used the stairs hundreds of times. It was a necessary part of their short little commute to school and they'd just done this over and over and over again. And on that morning, Tony and Kyle were leading the small group of children down the stairs and when they got to one of these long landings, Tony yelled to Kyle that he'd

race him to the end and he ran off and Kyle started chasing him. So Brad was behind the 12-year-old and remember Kyle's a seven-year-old and Brad's watching as his little brother starts to run and then movement to the side of the path catches his eye. A dark brown blur shoots out of the woods toward Kyle and within a split second its front paws caught the shoulder of the seven-year-old boy. the impact spun him around and slammed him on his back. And Brad could hear his little brother screaming as this animal clamped its jaws down over his face. Holy shit, it's a cougar, Brad said to these other kids. So Kyle starts just screaming in high-pitch bursts.

Brad remembers saying it was louder than he thought it was possible to scream. Wow. And they're all just staring stunned as this cougar's swiping at him. And Kyle's kind of feebly pushing back at its face, but it keeps lunging down. and biting at his face. And he's kicking at it and trying to push it away and just screaming, but he's totally powerless. So Tony, the boy that was running with him,

picks up some rocks and starts throwing them at the mountain line, which is now trying to drag Kyle into the brush. And Brad, when he sees what's happening, he just takes off running for home because he knows they need an adult to help them out. So he runs into his house, and John Musselman was already asleep when the door banging open wakes him up.

And he hears his 12-year-old, son Brad run into the room screaming that Kyle was being attacked. And Brad's voice starts to crack and he yells, Dad, hurry, he's being eaten by a cougar. So Brad, John yells. Yeah. Miss Williams? Yeah.

The cougar down the road, she's eating him? The fourth grade teacher? So John yells back, what? And then Brittany also enters the room, the eight-year-old. And then John asks them both. He says, where? and the two children are just like wide-eyed, panicking, and in unison, they say he's on the stairwell, hurry. So John sprints out the door toward the stairwell.

It's about, again, 500 feet away from his house. And as he's running, he can't believe what's happening because he'd spent pretty much his whole life in the outdoors of British Columbia, and he had never seen a cougar. He had seen scrapes on the ground. He had seen dead deer remains. He'd seen claw marks on trees. So he knew they were around. but he also knew that they were really shy, really elusive animals.

So he just never expected to have one right in the village attacking his son. But now Cougars are really entering his life in a very real, very visceral way. And it's about to get a lot worse. He's just mad. He like always wanted to see one. And then he's like, not like this. Not like this. The monkey's paw.

Yeah. Yeah. He got a wish from a genie. Like, I just love to see. a local wild cougar. Yeah. And you can see the monkey's finger go down and he's like, wait, I should have thought about that one a little bit harder. I'm wondering what I was just thinking, you know, you grow up thinking Santa Claus is real.

But like slowly over time you realize that he's not, what if it was Santa Claus attacking this kid on the stairs? It's like, this is how you find out he's actually real and they're out there, you know. You always wanted to see one. It's an interesting comparison. Harrowing. All right. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh, no.

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Save up to 40% your first year at lifelock.com slash special offer. Terms apply. Okay, so a quick background on cougars in British Columbia. In the last 100 years, six people have been killed by cougars in British Columbia. Four of those deaths happened on Vancouver Island. So four out of the six, which is pretty substantial. And when you look at the entire population of British Columbia, there's like, I'll think a little over 5 million people, and about 860,000 of those people live on Vancouver.

Island. So it's definitely like a much higher ratio of people being attacked by cougars on Vancouver Island than you would expect by population. Vancouver Island does have some of the best cougar habitat in the world. Three of the four deaths that happened on Vancouver Island were seven-year-old children, which is kind of crazy. And one was a nine-year-old. One of the deaths happened in Gold River, actually, the same place we're talking about, this tiny village, in 1976 when a seven-year-old child was killed by a cougar while out walking on a forest road. A study in 1998 showed that in the previous hundred years, 29 people had been non-fatally injured by cougars in British Columbia, with roughly 20 of those incidents occurring on

Vancouver Island. We're not going to get too deep into the stats today, because we've talked a fair bit about mountain lions already, but we should just pan out a little bit and look at, you know, what this means. That means that over 100 years, six people have died. So that means there's a death from cougars in British Columbia roughly every 16.7 years, which considering there's like 4,000 cougars in BC, it's like this, BC is probably one of the most densely cougar populated places in the world. The fact that only six people have died in that long means this is an incredibly rare thing. And we say that a lot, but this is even more rare than black bear attacks, fatal black bear attacks. This just really doesn't happen that often. I read a really interesting

medical paper. It's called Cougar attacks on children, injury patterns and treatment. And they use two case studies for the paper. And there's like a really interesting section from the paper that I wanted to read you guys. It's crazy. More seven-year-olds in Vancouver Island die from car accidents than Cougars. Why do you say that? It's just a stat. It's just got to be. Yeah. Did you know that? Okay. I'm just, I'm, I'm pretty sure I'm right. Yeah, for sure.

Like I would, yeah, without a doubt, that's true. Okay, this is a quick excerpt from this paper. And this paper was written by Katzky at all. Yeah, for sure. Okay, this says there have been 83 documented cougar attacks in the last century, and this is looking at a worldwide perspective. Of these 50 have been on children with 13. fatalities. Fifty-nine percent of all attacks and 70 percent of all fatal attacks were on children.

The average age of children attacked was eight years old. Ninety-two percent of the children attacked were not alone at the time of the attack, with many having adult supervision nearby. All but one of the fatalities in children occurred when they were alone or only with other children. And 78 percent of the attacks of children occurred when they were out of sight of an adult. All attacks occurred either in wilderness areas or small, towns near wilderness areas. The predominant area of injury in survivors is the head and neck followed by extremity injuries. Fatal cartroid artery injuries and fatal cervical spine injuries have been reported. So we've talked about that a bit. With Mountain Lions or Cougars or Pumas or whatever you

want to call them, the two places they really go for on prey are the cartroid artery, which is the front of the throat or the cervical spine injuries, which is the back of the neck. So we talked about how in bigger prey, often their technique is to get the back of the neck and actually use their canines and their incisors to go in between vertebrae and separate them that way and kill their prey by essentially breaking their neck. And then with smaller prey that they can control a bit better, they'll just go for like what a lot of big cats do, which is front of the throat, which you get that cartoroid artery, you get the windpipe, it kills stuff pretty quickly if you're powerful enough to hold on to the front of the throat.

But McGrewber style. Magroupa style. Just rip out that throat. Yeah. So, but just going over all of this, what do we learn from all these stats? No one really is at high risk of cougar attack. There's just, it's just not an animal that attacks us very often. We are not typically a prey species for them.

It's incredibly rare. But when people are attacked, children are at higher risk than anyone else. And when children are attacked, the fatality rate is actually pretty high for wild animals. Like 25% is pretty high. One out of every four kids that gets attacked by mountain lions ends up dying. That's like, that's pretty substantial. And it's usually almost always, you were saying predatory. They're looking for something to eat. Yeah, almost always. Pretty much every fatality I read through was a mountain lion that was predatory. It wasn't like a a defensive cat. But I really think one of the most telling things that we just read is that a lot of

the fatalities, almost all of them, happened when children were only with other children or alone. Some of the attacks happened when they were under adult supervision, but usually when the adult was out of eyesight, and almost all the fatalities happened when they were alone. So an adult on site is usually enough to stop the attack from proceeding to a place where it becomes fatal. Okay, so that's what John was trying to do. He was trying to get there in time to stop this from being a fatal attack. So, he near the staircase, he saw a neighbor woman in a blue bathrobe standing near the stairs and throwing large rocks into the alders. And when the children had come screaming by her house,

she saw one of the other neighbors go running to a phone. So she started to go out and see what was happening. And she saw the alders whipping around violently and she just started throwing rocks in there knowing that something was happening to this kid. But John Musselman appeared beside her and he's desperate to save his son. And he yells, where is he? And she points to where she had last the bushes moving and steps aside and John runs past. And he runs up to the spot in the alders where the woman had pointed and he bends down and he's searching through this really thick underbrush. And then he sees the sneakers and the tiny legs of Kyle who's lying face down and motionless,

completely motionless. So this part is crazy to me what he sees now. He crawls forward to get closer to his son and figure out what's going on. And when he gets a little bit closer, he watches as his boy's body soundlessly, slithers away into the brush, and he described as rippling like water over the rocks. Oh, man. So not only is his son motionless and everything, but this mountain line still has him, and it's moving him away from him.

All right, so he had to crouch lower and crawl down this kind of tunnel that had been made through the leaves by the cougar, and moving toward where his body had disappeared. And after he moves a short distance, he once again can see Kyle's legs. and then he follows it up to his torso, and then his stomach drops when he sees that his arched back and twisted neck were off of the ground, and his son's face was being held in the jaws of the cougar. Oh, my gosh.

So he's in total horror, and he takes a quick second to survey the damage. I'm going to use some of the descriptions straight from the book. I'm guessing it comes right from the dad, because he was the only one there. But I'll be honest, in a lot of these stories, I find myself trying to find descriptions. of the injuries to kind of make the story a little bit more visceral. And in this one, I feel like I have to tone it down a little bit

because the descriptions were so gnarly in the book that I'm going to be a little bit more discreet than the book was. All right. So his bloody white skull was visible, and his scalp was hanging down like a wet, hairy mop, and covered in dirt and leaves. His mouth was inside of the cougar's mouth, and he was facing away from John.

but blood and dirt covered his entire head. And he was completely motionless, and John realizes that his son is dead. The cougar locks eyes with John, and it tenses up like it's about to run, and John's not sure if the cougar's going to run away or trying to fend this kill that it had in its mouth. So he calls the cat a son of a bitch,

and he lunges forward, and he's overcome by emotion and rage, and he's just wanting to recover this body of his youngest child, and he screams, get off of him. and the cat like crouches lower and then still just totally staring at John trying to guard Kyle's body. And John lunges forward again and yells, get off of him again. And the cougar finally decides like it's had enough. It drops Kyle and it sprints off into the brush.

So John grabs Kyle and he notices that all of his scalp has been removed aside from a tiny bit of hair that's still left on the top of his neck. but aside from that only his bloody white skull was visible. And then he, like the description of all of his scalp hanging down like a dirty, hairy mop was just crazy to me. He carefully turns his boy over and then he almost screams when he sees what's left of his face. So I'm not going to read word for word this part because it honestly was just like way too much, especially for a story about a seven-year-old kid. But suffice to say, the cougar had pretty much torn his entire. face off. It was all blood and raw flesh. Most of his nose, one eye, his cheeks, his lips,

and part of his ear had all been completely removed and a lot of the muscle too. So John lets out a silent, oh my God. And then as he does that, a little bubble of blood forms from Kyle's torn mouth. So John suddenly realizes, oh, he's breathing. Oh, wow. So he frantically starts calling out his name, telling him to hang in there and that his daddy had him and not to worry about. anything but breathing. He's just saying over and over again, just breathe, just breathe, I've got you, don't worry about anything, just breathe. And he starts clambering through the thick branches and it's set in the book several times he had to stop because his scalp, the boy's scalp was getting caught on twigs and stuff. But he keeps climbing through the branches and telling his

son to do nothing but breathe, not even knowing if Kyle can hear him. And then all of a sudden he he hears this tiny little voice, ask him who he was. So he looks down at Kyle and he tells him that he's his dad and that everything's going to be okay and he just needs to hang on and breathe. So they get out of the brush and his neighbor Glenn is there with this huge homemade hunting knife. And John tells him Kyle's alive and they need to get to help. So they run into the parking lot in the nearby school. And there's this teacher, Carol Volk, who's pulling into the parking lot in her minivan.

And she's with their daughters and she sees these men come running up. and they're yelling that a cougar had attacked Kyle, and she calmly tells her daughters to open the back door, and John and Kyle pile in, and they take off. They're speeding toward the clinic in Gold River. So John runs into the clinic with Kyle in his arms, and he's just screaming,

cougar attack, cougar attack. What about a crazy move to, like, go to the elementary school nurse? Like the school nurse who's like for sick kids with, like, and putting band-a-hakes on kids. Yeah. And he's like, hey, my son's face just get ripped off. She just quits. Just hands in her.

Yeah, I'm done. The clinic, I don't think, was too much better than that. Because when he gets there, all they can really do is take him to the emergency room. They cut his clothes off. They give him a sedative. They stabilize him and do a little bit of cleaning. And then they pretty much say, like, hey, we got to get him on a helicopter. And they had already called the helicopter at this point.

So the helicopter arrives and it takes Kyle to the nearest hospital in Campbell River, which I think is about a three-hour drive and John goes home to clean himself up and get ready to drive to Campbell River. Flight? Do you mean? No, it's a three-hour drive. The flight's not far at all. But John has to drive.

So they're taking Kyle by the helicopter. John goes home and he's getting ready to drive and when he gets in the shower he is just shocked by all the blood that comes off him and it's all his son's blood. And he just like says, holy Christ, what a mess. And then in the meantime, a neighbor had actually found a couple of Mounties, which are like Canadian cops, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

And they go to the stairs. And right when they get to the stairs, they see this cougar. Like, it's back out. Oh, wow. And one of the cops opens fire and just kills it instantly. And they take it to the local station. Back at home, John realizes he doesn't have any cash. This is 1994. He's going to need some gas money to get to Campbell River. And he's frantically tearing up the house looking for cash when Brad walks in, his 12-year-old son, and he holds out a handful of bills that he had been saving in like his piggy bank for a month. And he's like, here, Dad. And up until this point, I guess John had been able to control his emotions and hadn't cried. And he just breaks down and grabs Brad and like hugs him. And then he leaves and speeds off towards Campbell River.

So when he gets to the hospital, Kyle's lying motionless under tons of bandages and gauze. You can't see his face. you can barely see his body. They'd been working on him, and now no one's working on him. He's just like under a sterile hospital light, laying motionless under all these bandages. So John's heart skips a beat when he sees his son because he thinks he's dead again.

And the doctors explained that they had done all they could, but that Kyle needed the help of experienced surgeons in Vancouver, and they're waiting on the transport. It made me think of arrested development when that doctor's always like, I did all I could, and everyone's like, no. Yeah. And then he's like, you know, he says to get.

I lost him. Yeah. Or we lost him. And they're like, no. And then he's like, no, like he got out through the window. Right. Yeah, exactly. But pretty much the doctor tells him.

He's going to be all right. No, his right hand was amputated. Or left hand. Left hand. Yeah. Anyway, so there, Joan shows up to the hospital. She sees her boy under. all these bandages and gauze, and they realize, like, he needs help have an experienced surgeon,

and they need to get him to a hospital that has, like, full facilities, everything. So once again, he gets airlifted to a new hospital in Vancouver, and John and Joan are able to go with him on the flight, and they get there too. And then once they get to the hospital, these surgeons start working on Kyle, and they work on him for 14 hours straight. Wow. when his parents show back up in the early morning, the head surgeon who seems very tired approaches them,

and she says she can't believe that Kyle's still alive. And then she immediately tells the parents, you need to give up on hoping that he's going to look like what you know he looks like. She pretty much said the old Kyle is dead. He's never going to look like your son again. She says his face is being held together by wires. They had a few pieces of cheekbone on ice

that they were able to maybe, they were hoping they'd be able to reattach in later surgeries. And then she walked him through kind of the process of putting in a glass eye. He still had a very long road ahead of him, but his parents got to go in and see his face. And it was the first time that they had really seen him at all since John first put him in the helicopter, and Joan hadn't seen him at all.

And when she sees him, she just breaks down in tears and turns into John's chest and starts sobbing. But he actually, he had seen that. this raw mess of his face when the cougar had attacked him. So he was kind of encouraged because he could now see a glimmer of his son's face. And he actually started smiling because he realized that Kyle was going to be okay. Wow. The book then goes to another chapter and it doesn't talk too much more about it.

But essentially his recovery takes months. But when he finally gets to go back home, they throw this whole parade for him. Like everyone's so happy to see him back. But also no one can recognize him because he is. just like completely scarred. I looked, I tried to figure, like I tried to look up him in the current day. I couldn't find him anywhere. I hope wherever he is, he's been able to recover and lead a normal life.

Like I know that that kind of, those kind of surgeries and reconstruction and everything has come a long way since 1994. So hopefully he's been able to kind of, you know, piece by piece, regain what he had. But anyway, pretty gnarly one. And honestly, like, I could read what the authors described the injuries as, but I feel like you guys get the point, right? Yeah. I mean to read it. No, I think I'm good.

You can talk to Jeff later, maybe on the phone. Okay. Send him an email. So that's pretty much it for the story. I did just want to talk quickly about mountain lines for a second, just what you're supposed to do. And I think this information goes for anyone. If you're a child, if you're an adult, the thing that you need to do when you're confronted by a mountain lion is be completely dominant. There's really no other thing to do.

I mean, the main thing is to avoid quick movements because they do, I think a big chance, a big likelihood of this one is that him and Tony racing triggered it to attack because suddenly he's moving really fast. Yeah, away from the group. Right. And there was one of the wildlife officials that looked into this did say there was a chance that this cougar had been hit by a car and had been injured and decided to then, you know, go for a kid. But the thing that you really want to remember is like never run, just never run because it will trigger a predatory response in a cat. What you want to do is just make yourself as loud, as aggressive as you possibly can be. If you're wearing a jacket, you can like spread it out so you look bigger. you put your hands above your head, you yell,

you do whatever you need to do to convince this cat that you're not going to be an easy prey item for it. And then if it does keep coming toward you, you start throwing rocks, you throw whatever you can. And when you bend down to pick up those rocks, you want to do it as you're still facing the cat and just like, again, be as aggressive as you possibly can.

If it does still come at you and make contact with you, you have to do everything you can to fight it off. So essentially, aggression. If one of your New Year's resolutions is to start running more, maybe think of something else. Is that what you're saying? I'm not saying that. You can definitely still recreate and jog and ride mountain bikes or whatever in Cougar country. You just got to be smart.

Just throw some boxing. There's karate in with it. I will say bear spray works on mountain lions. It works well. So again, if you have any kind of fear, if you're in Cougar country and you have, concerns about mountain lions running into them, carry bear spray because it will work. Art that Justine did, you're spraying a mountain line. Yeah, exactly.

It doesn't like it. It doesn't. The thing that's different is with a bear, it's generally like a defensive thing and you have a little bit of time to kind of get your spray out and spray the bear, even if it's just a few seconds. And with mountain lions, they're stock and ambush predators. So often, like, you don't realize you're about to be attacked by a mountain line until it's on top of you, is how that it often has.

And like bears, it's kind of like a straight line at you when they charge you. I feel like mountain lions, it's not like necessarily just like a straight line. Yeah, it just depends. I think the thing that the thing that's been happening a lot recently is you see these videos online that say like Mountain Lane stocks hunter or Mountain Lane stocks hiker or whatever. And it shows these videos of Mountain Lines like following people slowly. And the thing to remember, and we've talked about this a lot, that might be a a curious mountain lion. It might be a mountain lion

that's trying to push someone away from something like kittens or whatever. But it probably isn't really stalking them. Like it's not really convinced that it wants to attack that person. Because when they really stalk, you don't really see them generally.

You know, it's going to use the brush, it's going to hide, and it's going to jump on your back. That might be a cougar that's deciding whether or not it wants to stalk a person. But if you're aggressive enough with that animal, it's probably going to decide you're not worth the risk. So again, aggression is the main thing.

Just remember that. Don't ever run and be as aggressive as possible. And carry bearspray again because it really just, it's a deterrent that works and you might as well have it. And if you do get attacked, maybe look up that comedian guy, Matt Rife. Look up his plastic surgeon because he really changed a lot. And I think they did a pretty good job. I guess.

He looks like handsome squidward to me. Oh, that's good. Hey, but if you look at the pre-surgery stuff, it's like, yeah, you're doing bad. Interesting. Did he just look like regular squid word before? I don't know what this guy looks like. We can make fun of him, too, because he's a sexist. All right.

I think, again, just remember, this isn't an animal that deserves to be demonized. There's a lot of these animals that live on the fringe of. society and they don't attack us they hardly ever do i was like 10 feet from one in patagonia and it didn't even notice of me i mean it knew i was there but it didn't care because it didn't see me as prey that hurt your feelings like it didn't i didn't want to see me as prey yeah probably made him feel good he's like i'm not that short yeah oh yeah yeah exactly uh but yeah if you're out recreating with your kids in cougar country keep an eye on them you know um because you never know what might happen. So all right. That's it for the story. Yeah, that's the crazy one. I'm shocked.

He survived. That's incredible. Yeah, I couldn't tell the way you were telling it. I couldn't tell if he was going to be one of the seven-year-olds or not. Yeah. In the book, when I was reading it, I didn't know either. And so I was, like, I got a lot happier when I saw that he was, I almost skipped ahead to see if he was alive because I was like, I don't know if I can tell this one if he dies. Yeah. But yeah, I was very happy that you survived. So Kyle, again, if you're out there, hope your recovery's been okay. And sorry that happened to you, bud. Yeah. You're about my age, so hopefully you've been able to live a good life. Like face scars from animals are really cool. Just put that out there. I know it's probably, you would rather not have happened, but it is cool

to me. There's probably a tipping point on where the scars. I just think it's cool. I would, I'd be excited to meet them and be like, have a lot of questions for sure. Definitely. I've always secretly been jealous. I don't know if secretly is the right word, but I always thought glass eyes are really cool. I just like the whole idea behind just putting a glass orb in your head. It's cool. I think it's cool.

I'm like Jeff on this one. If we're doing a, if we're doing a word Jeff or Mike paying attention, the loser has to like, the winner pokes. the loser's eye at. Oh, that's a good, yeah. Deal. Okay. Oh, shoot. I forgot to do that category.

Oh, well, I guess we're going to keep our eyes one more year, Mike. I'm just going to, I just want to cover my bases. I'm sure it's not ideal to have to have a glass eye. I'm not making light of it. Yeah. I just think it's cool. Right. Right.

Like, it'd be worse if no one thought it was cool, you know. But at the same time, like, sorry that I had to happen. I'm sure that everyone that has one would rather have their natural eye than a glass side. Like in one piece, Zorro fought all these monkeys and lost his eye and I liked Zora more even after, which was crazy because I always loved him. You already loved him. You thought you couldn't like him more. Let's do the, we're Mike and Jeff paying attention for the whole year in our next subscription episode. So that'll be a teaser.

You guys got to sign up. Can we pick which eye we lose? Oh, you guys lose an eye? Yeah. The winner pokes out the loser's eye. Okay. Great. Okay.

Does the winner get to keep it in like a jar? Yeah. Are you going to do like a kill bill, like just a quick stab and then show it to them and then throw it on the ground and smush it? Yeah. I think we're going to do like the billion dollar bets and just never actually pay up. Okay. At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light

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Adelante All right Well we got some fun categories For the week For the year That Jeff's gonna lead us in So Jeff Why don't you take over, bud

All right, thanks bud So First category Is Worst Ouchy of the year from our tooth and claw stories. It's funny because I was going to put this one, but then I realized this comes out on January 1st, so I can't include it. Yeah, that's a good one.

My pick is Ray Kitchin, who was one of the victims of the Leard River Black Bear attack. He was the guy that intervened to save the mom and the son. I forget their names off the top of my head. But he intervened, and then the bear essentially ate him to death. like the people that came to save him were a little late and the bear had already done enough damage to him but it mauled him for a while and started eating him while he was still alive. So that one for me

I think that of the year I think it's hard to beat a black bear, a predatory black bear when it comes to outchees. Yeah. That's going to be my pick. Right. I tried to think of one really the one that stuck with me the most is the Mother's Day episode, the Yellow Jackets, just because of...

Yeah. It's, of course, it's not nearly as bad. as dying from a Black Bear attack. But something about it just really gets under my skin, like an unavoidable swarm of yellow jackets around you and your family, the dogs broke his leg right away. Yeah. So that was my pick. I just couldn't stop thinking about that.

And you're scared of like your two-year-old. That one, I had that as my backup pick. Mine was the box jellyfish. Yeah, that's a good one. where like he hardly could even, I didn't write the name down, but I just remember, like, he could hardly breathe, and then, like, the more you touch it,

the worse it hurts because you, like, push out more venom because the stingers stay in you, right? Yeah, isn't that what you're saying? So then, like, but that's one of those situations where it hurts so bad, it's impossible not to touch it. So then, like, it just sounded like the worst. Yeah, I never,

one that stung by them just describes it as the worst possible pain. I don't remember his name either, but I remember one of his friends. His friends. Stanky Pee bag or something. Stinky Pee. It was stanky, I think. And one of our listeners wrote us and said they knew them, and they knew Stingled Pete or whatever.

Yeah, cool. That was cool. Well, sorry, I didn't write your name down. Yeah. Box Jelly Guy. Box Jelly. But there's your shout out. Mr. Jellyfish.

Okay. craziest news story that we did in our news episodes. I'll let you guys go first. Mine, I went with the hippo that, like, swallowed the two-year-old and then spat him out. In Uganda? Yeah, it was crazy that it didn't eat him. That's a good big. Two-year-old has, like, been inside of a hippo unscathed.

Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. Mike, do you need me to go? No, I'll go. I was just trying to. remember the details of that one because didn't it did kind of like projectile like blast them back out right yeah it like blew him out yeah and the hippo like it was like on land the hippo came out of the water and walked a few

hundred yards into this village ate this kid and then just like blew him out spit bald him yeah you just got wonder if that hippo was like i wonder how far i can launch this little spit this kid yeah yeah uh mine is the it's the headline that I would have the hardest time believing were I to see it. It's the hawk dropping the snake on the lady that was mowing her lawn. I just, it still is just like the weirdest set of circumstances that all just happened at the same time. And what really brought it home for me was when I saw a picture of her arm. It was messed up. Because it's like, her arm was like so shredded and it's like, oh, that's like insane. Yeah. Yeah. Because she was, she was, she was mowing her lawn and the way the story made it sound was that the snake hit her forearm and just

immediately wrapped around it so right and then started biting her well i think the hawk is what scratched her arm up the most because it is trying to get it off of it yeah yeah without a doubt but the like the snake reportedly did bite her too you know didn't it it said it dented her glasses which i still don't quite know how to interpret but um probably bounced off her head Yeah, who knows what that means. I was wondering about that myself too. Well, that was my pick too, but I'll go with a backup here. I'm going to go with the orcas.

You know, the orcas ripping rudders off boats and sinking them. It's crazy. It's like kind of funny. Sorry, it is. I know if you had your boat destroyed by an orca, it sucks, but to all of us, it's a little bit funny. And then also it's just like really interesting trend behavior in orcas. So it kind of, it checks all the boxes for me. All right.

My next one is funniest news story. And this doesn't necessarily have to be about animals. So I can start again. To me, it was Zion Williamson. Oh, yeah. What happened with him? What did that happen? Well, he was like sleeping with a porn star and got her pregnant.

But then, like, there was another lady who he, like, decided to be with and was going to marry. So this lady got like super mad and just started blasting him online. Yeah. And saying like all he would do is drink soda all day. His bathrooms like littered with bottles of soda everywhere. And then he would have sex with me because he said that he had to like do cardio and lose weight. I like that. I think my pick, I was just going to talk about Elon Musk just completely.

continuing to just tank Twitter throughout the entire year. But I decided to go with something a little bit more relevant. And I'm going to go with the, like, when he messages like, Hey, Taylor, you can release your video on, it's so desperate.

It's so desperate. Makes me a cringe. I have to look away. But yeah, I'm going to go with the sun bear in the zoo in China that everyone thought was a person in a bear suit. That's funny. Just because that one was like super funny,

just looking at the video because even I had to for a split second was like wait is that a person in a bear suit yeah but I just had that one sent to me and I was tagged in it so many times I had some news outlets reach out to me about that one that was just like for for a couple days I feel like that was my entire life was answering questions about that so I'm gonna go also that Japanese guy in like the ultra realistic dog suit was really funny that was that $10,000 dog suit it was like 20,000 Yeah. No, I still, some people, I've spoken to some friends about that sun bear, they still just

are adamant that that's a human. And I can't say anything to convince them. There's people that I can be like, listen, I'm like, I'm a bear expert. Like, this is what I, this isn't what I do, but like talking about bears and learning about bears. And I can promise you that's a real bear. And they're just like, nope, I will not believe it. Yeah.

Yeah. The funniest news story for me to follow this year was the Lord. the Rings Galaum game. Just start to finish what a debacle it was that the Tolkien estate, who is, Jeff was saying this earlier, just famously stingy on what they're going to allow. Their IPs. Like selling rights. Exactly.

And this is, this game was just, it was top to bottom, a disaster. Mechanically, visually, everything about it's terrible. It sounds like the most depressing game to ever play, too. Yeah. And it was so bad that the student. that made it closed down. And the funniest part of the whole thing to me was that they issued an apology on Twitter. But it was proven that the apology was written by AI.

It was like an AI generated apology. It was just like even the apology was couldn't even do that. Yeah. It was amazing. I love that. It was the guy that made the video that we watched. Oh, I have it coming up. Video game donkey.

Oh, okay. Okay. It was so funny. All right. Yeah. It was incredible. Also, shout out to that zoo, I think, in China that just had like a big dog as their lion. And it said this is like a lion.

Oh, I remember. That's why people aren't trusting what they see from zoos in China. Yeah. All right. Favorite animal fact you learned. I'll go first on this one. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

No, you go. No, you go first. I don't want to go. I'll go. So that was the Brazilian wandering spider. And like, ha ha, ha, it's fun. that there's naturally occurring Viagra or whatever you want to call it. But to me, once you get past the obvious comedic bent to the story and to the fact,

it's just kind of crazy that it's just a naturally occurring phenomenon, like this thing that humans are striving so hard to figure out, and these animals can just do it, you know? Yeah, but there's a venom out there that will make that happen in our bodies. Yeah, which to be clear, if someone didn't listen, it gives you like a very painful erection. Long lasting. It can last for days.

Exactly. I picked two. I picked them both from subscriber episodes that you guys did. Number one was that a sloth can poop a fifth of its own weight. Third. So I looked it up and I found a fifth. But I'll take a third. But I do think that's crazy.

If it is a fifth, that's like me taking a 30 pound shit, which is crazy. Like that's a wild amount. Thank you. I'm glad I behind me. And Jeff was very upset that we didn't recognize him for that fact. My second really interesting fact was from your doxen episode, Mike, which I really enjoyed. Learning that doxins were bred to hunt and kill badgers was such a crazy fact to me. Because when I have friends that have doxins and they just seem like such a little weaner dog, you know,

they seem like a dog that just can't do much. and learning that they like will chase down in their burrows and kill badgers is pretty amazing. So that was like a fact that stood out for me. Yeah, I had, I didn't want to just do my Jeff Animal fact one. So I wanted a shout out just that the box jellyfish. What's the fact with venom again that they like have the most venom or like the... The most potent venom, I believe. Most, yeah.

Yeah, I just thought that was crazy that like a jellyfish is like, up there for like most venomous. Yeah. And then... Some people say they're the most venomous animal in the world. The other one was just that starfish fact that like their mouths will come out of their stomach to like eat something. That was really crazy to me.

That is interesting. All right. Also, dung beetles using the Milky Way is cool. Yeah. Honestly, as I was, that was good. Looking back through our episodes to try and remember facts, it's just like, Wow, there's a lot of facts that we put out there this year.

Like, this is kind of hard to pick from. So I think those words are just two that, my two words is two that came off the top of my head. But I don't know, I, even the ones that I've learned myself as we've researched, like, I've really changed the way that I look at the natural world. That's not to, like, pat ourselves on the back, but that's my favorite thing about tooth and claw is that we also get to learn about all these animals as we're doing it, which is really, really fun. Also, me and West have been, Mike, are you on cameo?

How many cameos have you done? I've done zero. Me and Wes have been doing cameos, and I, like, put it on myself to come up with a new animal fact for, like, every video. But anyways, I just learned a lot of new ones, and I have a new fact for this episode. Okay. So whales are kind of like birds with mating, where they will see. to like find a new mate.

But humpbacked whales are unique because they group up and have like a choir and they will like have a choir sing to like attract female. Really? Interesting. That's crazy. Yeah. I heard I heard something about whale song recently too that they, I don't know if researchers played a new song for a group of whales.

I think they were right whales or if they heard it. it from a different whale, from like a different group. But the songs were different. And the whales that heard the new song went back and taught it to their group of whales. And they started singing a new song. And it showed that there's like cultural transmission between groups of whales in song, which is just like unreal to think about. Yeah. It's awesome.

All right. So we're skipping. Mike, what would it take to get you on Cameo? I feel like Mike's a sucker for the fans. If enough fans or listeners were like, we want to hear from Mike you might give in. I was thinking the opposite. I'd need there to be a guarantee that no one would ever ask me for one.

You should just get on and charge like the highest amount possible. Oh, is there a limit? Yeah. All it takes is one. Then I'm set for life. $5,000. Someone needs to ask me and Jeff for one for my mom because it'll totally make her year

if she makes an appearance in a cameo. All right. Best pop culture moment of 2023. I'm going to do a boring one, so I'll go first. But it honestly was probably my favorite thing that happened in pop culture this year. I loved all the actor and writer strikes.

Like for me, all the strikes that happened this summer, like not only them, but like the UPS workers, some of the audio unions, just like all the strikes that happened. I think it was so kind of like invigorating. The two extra years until retirement that they had. Yeah, yeah. It was invigorating to see workers take their rights into their own hands. And for me, like, I'm a big proponent of labor rights.

And I just, it was like cool to see the people come together as like a collective union and fight for those things. of the world losing some of that earning you. Yeah, those rich Hollywood producers need more money to, like, build whatever Epstein's little island was called and stuff. Exactly. Yeah. Anyway, you know, to all you writers and actors out there, I salute you and to everyone else that was part of strikes this year,

proud of you guys for getting what you deserve. I'm going to go on strike until you guys give me more. Um, more candy. Yeah, I was gonna ask like more of what? More starbursts. More airtime? Yeah, I want more stories. Okay.

Fine. All right, mine was the Ariana Grande and SpongeBob voice actor on Broadway or whatever, getting together. Especially because I started thinking about it and like people just like gave Pete David in the hardest time when he was, like, dating Ariana Grande, and they got engaged, like, how is this guy doing it? And he went on to, like, date so many more just beautiful women. And then she went on to date, like, the voice of SpongeBob. So it was just like, how did he end up, like, winning the breakup there?

What are you talking about? SpongeBob. He's, like, the Broadway SpongeBob. Oh, he's not even, like, he's not even, what's his, Kenny? What is his name? No. No. Yeah, that guy.

And they both left their husbands and wives. They seem happy, though. Good for you if you're happy. I guess. So maybe she did. Sorry for your families. Interesting pick. I like it. My favorite pop culture moment, this is another basic answer.

But I'm not saying you guys, you guys' picks weren't basic. That's not what I'm saying. Barbenheimer for me. because it's just like I thought about that. It's really exciting to see two worlds clash in a way where we were all very supportive of each other because I kind of know what it's like to grow up being made fun of for liking the things that I liked and it was just really wholesome to see the two crowds that were kind of like you you would usually think of them in being in two distinct camps.

Polar opposites. But like they were so like supportive and excited and they would like go to each other. there's movie and make it. It was like a whole event and I thought that was great. So yeah, that's, I almost picked that. I almost picked that just because for me, too, it was so nice to see people get excited to go to the movies again. I feel like the pandemic felt like kind of the last death knell of the like the theater industry.

And for me, like one of my true like greatest pleasures in the world is going to a movie theater. I love going to movies. And nothing scares me more. Not nothing. I shouldn't say that. There's a lot of things that scare me more. But something that I dread is like movie theaters going under permanently. And so seeing people rally to like go to movies made me really happy. Yeah. And especially where the movies weren't like sequels. Whereas just like original movies. Yeah. Yeah. Like that was cool. Yeah. It wasn't just like some superhero movie. Right. All right. So speaking of superhero movies, let's do our top 10 things in culture of 2023. And it can be TV, movies, songs, art, concerts, sporting events, just like things in

pop culture, your top 10. How should- Are we going one by one? Yeah. Should we all go like 10, nine? Okay. Mine aren't ordered by like, by preference, just so you know. I just got 10. 10 things that I really liked. Oh, I did mine in top 10. That's fine. Mine, I couldn't do that. Okay. Should we start at 10?

Let's do it. Sure. All right. Mine was the donkey Gollum game walkthrough. Yeah. I just loved it so much. He like really illustrates like, Gollum's just like a slave in Mordor and it's like,

what kid doesn't want to play as a slave? And like, like, just how depressing of a game it is. All right. You know, I'll try and do like 10 to 1, but just take it with a grain of salt with my list, okay? Ten, I put shows about cults. So just recently there was a bunch of really good documentaries about cults. One, a couple about the Twin Flames universe, which was like this really toxic dude and his wife who started this cult that's all about like finding your twin flame. And they convince people to like change their gender identity and a bunch of other things.

to try and find their twin flame. And it's really, this dude is one of the most punchable people I've ever seen in my entire life. And the documentary is really good. And then there's another one about The Love Has One Colt, which is this woman who convinced all her followers that she was like Mother God. And she started taking the silver supplement that turned her skin blue. And it's just like wild. And it was produced by the Safdi brothers, or at least Benny Safdi, one of them.

So it was a really well-made documentary. I loved it. So just recently shows about Colts. Pick one. You got to pick one, dude. This is top 10. I'm just saying shows about Colts. Okay.

You lose at this category. Wes' number 10 is Colts. Colts. Yeah. Indianapolis Colts. Got it. Okay. So mine is, I try to pick one thing from every subcategory that I was touched by this year.

I need to interrupt you really quick. Go for it. The first time ever that I add on like an extra thing to my answer and you, get mad at me, like every single time Jeff answers, he has like four backups to his answer. Hey, you had, you had two facts. We didn't call you out. Yeah. All right.

It's a matter of expectations, you know. Jeff broke down that wall long ago. My thing is, I just don't react when you guys get mad at me for it. Right. That's true. Yeah. Okay. I'll try and be more chill.

Okay. So this is my science pop culture pick. The James Webb Telescope, I've just been in love. with it ever since it deployed. Great pick. And in 2023, it discovered like a relatively, like, in quotes, close exoplanet with Earth-like atmospheric elements. Exoplanet K218B.

It just makes me excited for the future, thinking that, like, maybe there is some slight possibility of interstellar travel and inhabiting new planets and stuff. I just thought that was really fun. Yeah. I like that. All right. Number nine, for me is Godzilla. minus one. You guys have already talked about that a bit. I really loved like the opening scene with

Godzilla where he's chomping people and just tossing them. So that's my number nine. Yeah. Okay. My number nine, I'm going to go with the show killing it. It's the show that stars Craig Robinson, you know, Craig from like the office. And, uh... Who is he in the office? He's the black guy. It's like the big black guy that works in the mailroom and stuff. So it stars Craig Robinson and, and, you know, Craig Robinson and, you know, and Claudia or Claudia or Doherty. She's like an Australian actress. I'm sure you'll recognize her from a few different things.

She's really, really funny. It's about this kind of down on their luck, these two people that meet each other because they're killing pythons in the Everglades, and that's how they're trying to make money. And it just is really funny and goes kind of off the rails from there. It's really good. I loved it. So killing it is on my top 10.

Okay. My next one is going to be, this is my movie selection of the year. This one's a little bit cheating, but the Talking Heads concert movie stopped making sense, re-released in theaters for like a very limited amount of time. So I went and sought an IMAX. I was the only one in the theater hall. And it's great. I almost got up and started dancing by myself, but I didn't.

It's close. You're the only one in an IMAX? Yeah, it was amazing. I've never experienced that. I love it. That's crazy. Yeah. Best concert video ever.

Concert film. Yeah. Interesting. My number eight is going to be, I went to a UFC fight in Salt Lake. It was poor Euroverse, Gathe, too. But I really like this Brazilian guy named Pereira, who's, like, new in the UFC, and I was able to see him. And then that Derek Lewis guy fought, and he was crazy.

And it's just, like, such an insane atmosphere of just, like, every single person there had that same half-mollet haircut and like arm sleeve tattoos you know and like everyone just had like such a like bro energy but is like still very is just such an electric feeling and like it's really bizarre just when someone would get kicked in the head and knocked unconscious and your immediate reaction is just to like start screaming cheering yeah like is bizarre but It was fun. Did you feel like getting in a fight after you left? You get caught up in the energy.

I always get that a bit, yeah. I'm always like, this guy shortens me, it's on. Yeah. Not that guy, though. If they have cauliflower year, I'm, I'm, I'll just let them do whatever they want. That's the red flag. All right, my next one was Guardians of the Galaxy 3. I am not one to like, I've honestly.

I'm so tired of Marvel. I'm really tired of superhero movies in general. I've like tried to rewatch some of the old ones even recently and I just haven't been into them. You were pretty tired of Chris Pratt too. Yeah, I was really tired of Chris Pratt. But man, I loved that movie. Like I just had such a fun time with it and I'd been away from my dog for like a week or two and it made me miss my dog so much. It made me really emotional about my dog. And I just, yeah, I just loved it. I had the best time with it. I think it's my favorite Marvel movie ever. So I... Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's big so. Yeah, it's like the only movie I rewatched in theaters in a long time. Yeah. I rewatched it with Jesse and and afterwards she was just like, that was a perfect movie. It's just so good. Yeah. That's my number seven too, so we can just, I'll just

join in with you there. All right. Oh, okay. Yeah, I loved it. So my next, this is my sports choice. It's the nuggets. This one's kind of low. It would be higher. If not for one thing, the nuggets, won the NBA championship this year. You love Yolkich. I was so excited. Yokich has been my favorite player to watch the past few years. But what soured the whole thing for it was I genuinely felt like I was more excited about it than Yokic was when they won the whole thing.

I was like jumping around my living room and stuff. And he just wanted to go home. It's hard to be so excited for someone like that. Spraying champagne and all of his teammates are like going crazy. and he just like does like one tiny little like gives up it like hardly hits his shoes oh come on yokic i know he enjoyed it but it just yeah it was a little bit of a that's really funny wet blanket i like all the memes just with him talking about how the NBA is just like a job to him and i know his job yeah uh go ahead and give your next ones because mine was guardians go west

okay uh my next one i will say let's see i'm going to go with the show beef on Netflix. With, what's his face? Ashton Cusher. No, Glenn from from Walking Dead. Yeah, he's his individual.

No, what's this? Yeah, shoot. Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. Stephen Ewan and Ali Wong are the two leads in that show. And it's just about like this kind of rivalry beef that starts between these two strangers and it spirals

out of control. And then it ends up having like a really poignant couple last episodes that I thought were really beautiful. So that's that's my pick. The guy who wrote it, I listened to him on a podcast and he said he just like got mad in LA traffic and followed someone for like an hour. And then that's where he came up with the idea. Yeah. Yeah, it starts with road rage, which is I love a show that involves road rage.

That was my number six, right? Unanged. Yeah. I think that's seven. Okay. We're on seven, right? Yeah, you're right. Okay.

Sorry. So one of my favorite long-running manga's came to an end this year's Insomniacs after school. It's about two kids. Not attack on Titan. Not, didn't quite, I haven't watched the finale yet. I've heard great things. I just need to get around to it. But Insomniacs is about two kids that are insomniacs and they're having a hard time at school.

And they bond over a common affliction. And it's just like a really beautiful, awesome vibe of a story. The ending was a little confusing, but the author has come out and kind of clarified, to me at least, that things ended the way that I interpreted them to have ended. So I'm pretty happy with it. Just a beautiful story. I thought it was really, really cool. I thought it was really cool. I thought it was really cool. I had an awesome backdrop. And, you know, I might have tripped even a little bit. So I liked it. My six was the movie Fairplay, which I got to see it at the Sundance Film Festival. It's really good. It's super intense. It's about like a pair of like a couple where the woman ends up getting a promotion that the man thought he was going to get and kind of the stuff that happens to their relationship afterward.

That's not how it's supposed to happen. He's getting into the role of the guy. Jeff is definitely joking. there. But the movie's like really intense and crazy. And I just, I just felt like I was on a roller coaster the whole time. And I loved it. So who was it? It was two actors I really like. Who were there? Yeah. It's, um, shoot. I knew you're going to ask me this. Uh, or Alden Aaron Rick. That's right. The guy that plays solo. And then Phoebe DeAnver, who she's in like, um, that Outlander show, I think. Or no, she was in Bridgeton. Okay. Um, they're both great in it. Like,

so good. So I have to check it out. I recommend it. Mike, what's next for you? Okay, next for me. CX. One piece is a category unto itself. There's always going to be a spot. And I actually kind of had a hard time picking just one. But I determined that Luffy go in Gear 5 pretty recent event. It was my favorite. A lot of, it's kind of a controversial one. A lot of people don't really love what happened. But I just like is a 35 year old dude. It's just really fun for me to like still be able to get. super excited about like literally the most cartoony thing to happen in cartoons in recent memory. And I just like the animation was really cool. The storytelling I thought was perfect. Like everything made sense to me and I loved it. It was really, really exciting moment. Cool.

That's a good pick. Okay. So to number five, mine's VR mini golf. Not VR mini golf. That should have been playing a lot of VR mini golf and I really like it. It feels like you can. fly through the levels. It's just been really fun.

It's so fun. Better than real mini golf. I'm all dying on that. Honestly, it's right up there. You can't fly in real mini golf. The physics are like just as good. And it's fun because we just talk to each other while we play. It's very social.

I love it. We did like a tooth and claw meeting. Yeah. That's how all of our meetings are going to be from now on. Yeah. Instead of like going out to lunch and meeting over drinks, we're just in VR playing mini golf. that's great jesse's just staring at me with contempt while i'm playing thinking like why did i do this

no dude nothing looks cooler than a dude with VR goggle thought it's cyberpunk just so cool swinging around all right my number five pick is blue eyes samurai a show that jeff recommended to me on netflix um really cool animation like an adult animated show which i love i'm glad you liked it that much Yeah, really violent, really fun, and I just... Some nudity? Yeah, some nudity. The first season just left me wanting more, so that's going to be my pick. Yeah, I have that as my floor.

I'm also going with an animated show as my next selection. It's the Apothecary Diaries. Mau Mau, the main character. She's my favorite fictional character of the year. I thought she was just like such a joy and breath of fresh air as far as characters go. She gets abducted from, well, we don't need to keep. get into, she gets abducted to go and live in the, like a royal palace. And she is kind of the commoner, but she's pulling her way. She's super street smart. And just makes all kinds of

fun little relationships and discoveries and stuff. It's just a great show. Okay. Yeah. Mine was, my next one was blue-eyed samurai. Is like, oh, this guy's pretty hot. And then I was like, oh, it's sweet. It's a girl, actually. She's pretty hot. And then there's like some Awesome. I just loved like Japan samurai stuff so much. Like one of my favorite video games ever was Ghostos Sushima. So I just love being in that world. Yeah. To you. West. All right. So number four for me, I went to the death cab postal service reunion show. Oh yeah. I went to the one in Vegas. Vegas. I went to the one in Vegas with a bunch of my friends and just had the best time. Like I felt just all sorts of crazy nostalgia. They sounded so good.

both bands. Jenny Lewis joined the Postal Service part. So it was just like a 10 out of 10 concert for me. And yeah, just loved it. So that was my number four pick. All right, number four for me, this is a, my favorite YouTube video of the year. I've been getting really into long form video essays. And it was by a guy named Jacob Geller. And it was called the False Evolution of Execution Methods. And it really stuck with me because it was all about how a lot of these methods to put people to death have been thought, been conceived of as humane. But in reality, the statistics bear out that a lot of times they fail. A lot of times they don't go as quickly or as smoothly as you'd hope they would. Green mile.

Yeah. And it's just like one by the sponge wet. Right. Like how bad would it suck to be executed? And instead of, you know, the electric chair just. like zapping you to death immediately. It's just like you were in a chair for 10 minutes. Like one of the first ones is just like went so bad.

Yeah. It's just stuck with me for so long and just a really well researched and delivered. I got to go back to just have an elephant's stand on people's heads. Seriously. I might I might choose that if I, something in the video actually, one of the most recent death penalties was carried out that was carried out in Utah. the guy selected a firing squad because he had read all those statistics. Yeah, and he was like, I'd rather get shot.

It sounds like a much more, you know, like a surefire way to die rather than some of these other methods that aren't proven to work all the time. Yeah. All right. My next one involves a lot of death. Oppenheimer. So I just think, I don't know, I think it's one of the more important movies I've seen in a long time. because I just don't really consider nuclear warheads and atom bombs very often, and it kind of forced me to.

And it's just crazy that our best scientists ever just kind of like put their intelligence into forming bombs that could destroy the whole planet. I know. And now, like, you're not a powerful country unless you have a bomb that could just kill everyone. and it's just weird. It's crazy that we dropped them. Like that's the thing to me. It's crazy that like there was people that were like, no, let's drop them, you know?

Like the president was just like, let's do it. Yeah. It's just wild. It's, I mean, it's terrifying. And that's how we made Godzilla. Yeah. And then Godzilla, now are we going to stop him? You can't use a nuke because he's made a nuke.

That's true. I know. Godzilla's like. You need King Kong. He can't even do it. Good thing to come from nukes. And then for a long time, his movies weren't even good.

So it's like nothing good happened because of nukes, you know? Yeah. All right. My next pick. Number three was the final season of Succession. I know that's kind of a cheat because it's not like something new in 2020. But it did come out in 2023. That show just like been a long time since there was a show that I look forward to.

that much when it would come out with new seasons and new episodes. And I just think, I think it comes about as close as any show as just being a perfect run from start to finish. Like every episode was just expertly crafted and made and acted and everything. So I love the way it ended. Just loved everything about the final season. So final season of Successions, my number three. My number three is my favorite book of the year, and that goes to Will of the Many by James Ellington. He's an Aussie author, inspired by some of my favorite authors. And he created, you know that? Remember that meme was like, how often do you think about the Roman Empire that was going around earlier this year?

Yeah. Well, I was thinking about it pretty much all day long for about a week stretch there, because he made this really cool blend of like academia, student life with a mix of Roman culture and like a really cool. weird magic system. This is great. Just a follow up to his Likanius trilogy. I think he's about to write one of the modern classics of fantasy. Cool. Yeah, my number two was succession final season. I'm a con head, you know. I wish he would have been president. All right. So my number two is the show The Curse, which is directed and produced by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdi. A show hasn't grabbed me this hard in a long time. And I'm going to put like a pin in this one because I will say it hasn't ended.

And I do think this is a show where the end is really going to affect how I feel about it. But it's just this slow burn, like watching two of the most abhorrent people, but still somewhat kind of like relatable as they just like do the worst shit and like put their feet in their mouth. And it's just, I don't know, I just think it's so well done and made and acted. and I just can't wait to see what happens. So that's my number two, The Curse. Starring Nathan Filder and Emma Stone. Yeah. And one of whom is one of my favorite screen presences

and another who is maybe my least favorite human being ever, I think, potentially. It's Nathan Fielder because he hates awkward comedy. Okay. So my number two pick, this is my favorite album of the year, the new underscores album, Wallsocket. It's a really fun, a high, pop. What?

No, I just feel like what old people must feel like when their kids are telling them like band names and books and stuff. Oh, yeah. Anyway, awesome hyperpop. It's got this like really cool digital production style. She's some really fun, catchy hooks, but also like some disturbingly raw and scary slant to the lyrics as well in some of the songs. I don't think it's something that everyone would enjoy, but if that sounds,

You know, you like a little bit of daring in your music. I think you should check it out. It's really fun. It's great. If you're daring. I think you'd really like it, Wes. Jeff, I don't think you'd like it very much. Yeah, probably not.

Okay. Number one. And actually... Number one, drum roll. For number two, I'm going to get rid of succession. I'll put, I think you should leave season three in there because I forgot about it. But I love that show. And Tim Robinson is like my favorite funny.

funny person. My number one was a football game. Me, Mike, and West just went to Montana versus North Dakota State. And they won in double over time on the two-point conversion. That stadium is like the most beautiful stadium. And the mountain was like all frosted and like foggy the whole game. And it was like, I think I, I mean, I told you guys. in the moment, like, I think this is the coolest backdrop I've ever seen at a sporting event

that I've been to. So, like, it's just super cool. And now we're playing in a national championship. It was my favorite football game I've ever been to. I had so much fun. Yeah. That should have been on my list for sure. Pizza Hut, mini pizzas. Yeah. Yeah. You're into those pizzas. Mike, why don't you go next? Okay. So my number one, this is my favorite piece of culture that came out this year, is the new Super Mario Brothers Wonder, the new 2D side-scrolling Mario game. And I just had such a pleasant, it wasn't like a thrill a minute kind of experience because it's like a pretty simple, straightforward game. But it was just like a week and a half's worth of just feeling pleasant, feeling like we're back, you know, Mario's back, baby. He had a good movie, pretty good movie this year. And the best game,

in my opinion, that he's had in well over a decade. Yeah, that includes Odyssey. I went there. A tiny pat on your back. Yeah. I started playing that game. It is fun. I do like it. All right.

My number one is the movie Talk to Me, directed by Philippa Brothers. Probably pronouncing their names wrong. But they had a YouTube, like Raka, Raka, I think, was their YouTube channel. Yeah. But I love a good horror movie, especially one that's original and not based off any existing IP. I saw this one also at the Sundance Film Festival, and I just don't think I've been. that like viscerally affected by a movie in a very long time. Like I just felt waves of horror and fear and like fun.

I just loved it. Like I just had such a good time and felt lost in it. When I saw it again in theaters, I still really liked it, but it wasn't the exact same. But that first experience watching it just was probably my like number one media experience of the year. So I'm going with that.

Nice. Absolutely. All right. We made our top 10. Thank you guys for listening. I'm going to throw out my honorable mentions, but they'll be fast because you don't need to describe them at all. I'm really into Fargo season five right now.

The One Piece Live Action. Me and Mike went to WWE, and that was really fun. I went to Cincinnati for a Bengals game. Killers of the Flower Moon, important movie, the Spider-Verse, the Squid Game, the Challenge, and the final season of Barry honorable mentions for me. Nice.

You guys want to throw any out? You got any? No, I'm good. Yeah. Okay. And Taylor Swift, Dayton, Travis Kelsey. All right. When I'm making goals and resolutions

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just don't. I kind of just feel like the age of carrying what rich celebrities think should be over if it's not already over. So that's what I'm going with. Yeah. Mine is F1, specifically Max for Stappen winning like literally every race. So I kind of just like started dabbling into getting into F1 kind of seriously like following it and watching it. But every single week, it's Max. He wins every time. And it's just like, something is wrong with this sport. It's such a boring season. Either that or everybody else like sucks. And do you know what really hammered it home for me?

And this is really unfair on my part. But watching the movie Grand Turismo, some like game, if, if the story can be believed, some dude playing a video game in his room all of a sudden is like winning meaningful races, just getting put in a real car a couple months later. I think F1 and race car driving in general is an overrated talent. Really quick, before I sound like too much of a grinch, I want to go back on mine and just say, I do really like a lot of celebrities because I love movies, but I'm just talking about like celebrity culture, like the whole worship of celebrities that I think is overrated. Okay, sorry. Check out Wes's cameo at.

That's not. I don't see myself as a celebrity. I'm just joking. I had the Kardashians just because I feel like they're pretty. played out. Yeah, I don't know though. I'm kind of thinking I'm going to switch it to seagulls. I do seagulls. Go seagulls. Seagulls because I just think for common birds, I'd much rather see so many other types of like, I like crows more, I like magpies more, I like pigeons more. For like a big common bird

seagulls, I just don't think are that cool. And I think people like seagulls a lot. Yeah, I like Seagulls? I think that's a good pick, because I think everyone agrees with you on your other pick, so I like, I like sequels. That's a good answer. I'm glad you aren't with them. Yeah, I agree. All right, what are you most excited for in pop culture in 2024? I have two things. I couldn't pick between the two. The Furiosa movie, which is like the, I know, it's going to be so good. Which is like the Mad Max prequel, the Mad Max Fury Road prequel. George Miller directed, love that he uses like tons of practical stunts and effects. Yeah, he's a great director.

Have you seen Babe? I have, yeah. It's great. Babe's a good news. I will not abide any slander to baby. Yeah, and I think for me, like Mad Max, the one that came out in 2015, Fury Road, was one of my favorite movies of the decade. So I just can't wait for this next one. And then my second choice is something I know very little about, but I know that

There's a planned animated movie about the writers of Rohan called War the Roherim. And that's supposedly coming out in 2024. I'm really excited to see some animated Tolkien come out. So that's the other thing I'm really looking forward to. Nice. Just to clear something up real quick. George Miller directed the Babe sequel, A Pig in the City. Also a pretty good movie.

Pretty good. But the first one was Chris Noonan, which is great. Great movie. I'm looking forward to Dune Part 2. Those are, like, my big favorite books when I was little. I loved the Dune books. Even, I mean, it's kind of sacrilegious to say, but Dune was part of my life even before Lord of the Rings stuff

was really happening in my brain. So that's something that'll hopefully deliver. Also, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Favorite game, getting remade. It's looking amazing. Have a good time. How are you have a good time with it? Mine was Dune Part 2 as well.

It was probably mine last year, and then they pushed it back a year. But then they greenlit, Dune Mazaia. Messiah. Messiah. Messiah. I heard, too. Dennis Villanueva. Yeah, Villanueva.

And. Dene? Yeah. So that's mine. All right. Yeah, even the trailer for the second part was like one of my favorite things of the year. Well, great. I feel like we've rambled about stuff we like for a while.

Yeah. Let's do what's next for two. tooth and claw going forward. Okay. Our final category. There's a lot upcoming for us. We've got three trips on the docket, hoping to do more. So we've got Borneo and May.

We've got Kenya in August. And we've got Zimbabwe, Botswana in October. We are planning on getting into video soon. So keep your eyes peeled for that. More YouTube content. We haven't done anything to, get there but we do want to do it we really want to do it and we've been recording our sessions we have a few videos posted there and people are liking them so okay cool i didn't even uh we're hoping to

put out extra episodes every month we want to start getting to where we're almost like a weekly podcast a really big thing coming up this year is we are going to do the treadwell story i'll commit to doing the treadwell story in 2024 so you have my word that we will get to that i think that's our most requested story. What else? What else do we got? Anything? I mean, people are going to keep dying by animals, so we'll keep telling you about it.

We promised to remain friends. The three of us will stay friends. Me and Jeff have to. Because we're brothers. You never know what some of these mini golf games get pretty heated. And there's just some stuff that like, like the lasagna, Mike's mom died after making it. So now I can never try your lasagna. So, like, I'm, I don't know if I'll ever get over.

You're still holding on to that. Yeah. It was so good, Jeff. Oh, man. You think you're sad. You think you're sad that my mom died. Imagine me. That was good.

He tasted it. You at least ate it all. I know. Yeah. Imagine me. I do it again. Imagine me. I didn't even get to try it.

I don't want to imagine what it's like to be you. I think those are the main things coming up for us, but we're really excited for a new year. We had an amazing 2023. Our podcast has grown so much this year. Our community is grown. I think for me this year, the thing that really was the shiny... You've grown. I haven't grown.

Well, maybe... Wider, but not taller. Horizontally. That's humorous. I'm trying to be sincere for a second here, but the thing that really mattered to me, like the thing that really floated to the surface this year for tooth and claw was I just realized how cool our listeners are.

We get lots of messages from you guys. We have a really cool community on Discord and our Patreon family. And not only do we have some, like a lot of listeners, but our listeners are cool. Like you guys ask us cool questions. You tell us really interesting things about your lives. You share with us how the podcast has affected your lives. And it's been really meaningful to me personally. I feel like I have thousands of friends out there, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands friends.

And it's really neat. Do you think any of our listeners have, like, murdered someone and gotten away with it? I mean, statistically, they have. Yeah, for sure. So that listener is not very cool. Maybe they're not. Maybe if it was, like, a good reason. Yeah, this isn't a blanket statement.

Yeah, but. Like, the guy was, like, killing so many sharks every year or something. And so you just, what? I don't understand. Like, the guy, he killed him because he was killing way to many sharks. Yeah, maybe. We can just picture that for our murderer. listener but you're cool yeah I guess I guess you're cool now but honestly guys thank you it I don't think

any of the three of us pictured this kind of growth from this little podcast that we started ourselves and this has been our biggest year by far and it it's changed all three of our lives so thank you so much truly I mean that like from bottom of my heart yeah thank you so much we like I love our silly sense of humor together by also love like Wes's just encyclopedia of knowledge about animals so like to me it's something i could pretty much do for free is talk about this stuff with you guys but it's just really cool to me that people enjoy the same things that i do yeah enough to like support us which is amazing so um we mean it and we say we love you 24 our goal is to pass rogan yeah we want to be that's that's it dog yeah

Yeah, we want to be top dog. Exactly. Alphas. Yeah. If we pass him, we're all alphas. Mike, you got anything to add? Just that it's nice to, it's sad that it took a podcast like this, kind of on a bigger stage than it really needs to find acceptance out there.

But again, I kind of referenced it a little bit earlier in the episode. But I've always felt a little bit like an outsider. when it comes to things that I'm interested in what I get up to in my personal life. And every time I bring something up, people leave comments and share their stories about being interested and into the same things that I am. And I just think that's like, it was a really cool affirmation. And again, like, you don't need kind of messages from other people all across the world to tell you that like you're valid.

But it's just, that's what I felt. First and foremost is what I'm grateful for. And that's because of all you listeners. You guys are the best. Do you like animals yet, Mike? I'm getting there. Some of them less than others. Also, I went from zero fantasy football friends to over a hundred this year on just Patreon.

Yeah, I got to get on there and message you guys. When your pop culture pick is succession, your funnel doesn't have to be very big to find people that feel the same way as you. But when it's like the shock wall outlets or whatever it was, then like you do have to underscores. Great album. Go listen to it. All right. Well, thanks, guys. We truly do love you.

And we're really excited to bring you more episodes in 2024. Bigger and better than ever. Love you guys. See you. Happy new year. Bye.