A Geek History of Time - Episode 275 - Belgian Nuclear Sensibilities, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Smurf the Bomb Part III

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

Okay, so there's there there are two possibilities going on here. One you're bringing up a term that I have never heard before. The other possibility is that this is a term I've heard before, but it involves a language that uses pronunciation That's different from Latin it and so you have no idea how to say it properly. It's an intensely 80s post-apocalyptic Schlock film. Oh and schlong film. You know, it's been over 20 years, but spoilers Okay, so so the Resident Catholic thinking about that. We're going for low Earth orbit. There is no rational. Blame it on me after.

And you know I will. They mean it is two o'clock in the fucking morning. Where I am. I don't think you can get very much more homosexual panic than that. No. Which I don't know if that's better. I mean you guys are Catholics. You tell me. I'm just kind of excited that like you and producer George will have something to talk about

That basically just means that I can show up and get fed I'm going to go to the bathroom. This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And this past, I'm trying to remember which day of the week it was, would have been Wednesday. As I was leaving my classroom and heading out to the parking lot to go home, I heard from the doorway of the classroom across from mine, so like I'm in one building, there's a little bit of a quadrangle and there's another building that faces mine. And I hear from the open doorway of one of those classrooms, one of the special education teachers saying to another one of the special education teachers, uh, no I love you but I don't

love you that much. Which of course me being the totally not nosy individual that I am, I was like, well, okay, I got to find out what's going on here. As I as I approach, she turns around the one who spoke turns around and sees me and says, Hey, Blaylock, how do you feel about snakes? And like somebody who was not born yesterday I say well that depends on the context what's up so so minutes before the the other special education teacher had been in her room at her desk with her door open had been working on something and she happened to look up because she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and she saw a snake as she described it

roughly the length of her forearm crawling through the open front door of her classroom into the room. She leapt from her seat, screamed bloody murder and ran through the connecting door into the other special education teacher's classroom next door. The other teacher had been outside of her room looking at another direction, had not seen the snake, came inside. What, what, what's wrong, found out the snake had crept inside. And, and they they had they had lost sight of the snake in the drama. And they were at that search for it. Um, I laughed because how could I not? And told him, yeah, I, you know, I love to help, but I really wouldn't.

So good luck with that and have a good afternoon. You know, snakes, not in my job description. Thank you. And on the way home My wife and I talk as we're driving home hands-free, you know on our cell phones And hey, I mentioned to her that that happened and all I got from the other end of the phone connection was you Oh god, oh god. Oh god. Oh god You realize I can never come on your campus again, right?

You're gonna cause a car accident because I just I need to pull my feet up off the floor of the car right now like my wife Had not been there was nowhere near the event in question, but they had a visceral full-body reaction The following morning I checked in to see if they'd ever found the snake they had And literally when I checked in via text with my wife the very first thing she asked me was did they find the snake yet? I said no they have not She sent me a text response That still makes me laugh all it was was three words. Oh fuck no

And so they still haven't found the snake It's it's been a week. The snake has probably wandered out of the building, but We're all now on site having fun making jokes about well, you know, it lives there now. So about well, you know, it lives there now so Yeah, so that's that's the most notable thing I had I had happen to me all week and it didn't even really happen to me But what about you? Well, I'm leaving harmony. I am a US history teacher up here in Northern, California at the high school level I think y'all missed out on a new mascot You know what I'm gonna bring that up you absolutely should I I need to bring that and you know what the Tigers anymore

We're right for snakes where the gopher snakes and and and or just the serpents there you go sounds cooler and Have your students come up with a name like just straight up come up with a You finish a lesson 15 minutes early. It's like alright guys We need to name our new mascot as many of you may have heard and then you just fucking dive in both feet I love it. Yes, I love it, and I'm teaching sixth graders right now, so yeah like they're gonna lose their minds Yes, like all I can think of like literally like I have this picture in my head Because of course our

campus was built before we had to worry about things like you know people coming on campus with a gun. Yeah, back when the campus was the center of a community where it was a safe place that you were supposed to go. Yeah, so we have these gigantic picture windows right and my picture windows face these classrooms well, I can picture is that at some point the snake is gonna come out of hiding and And I'm gonna I'm not gonna hear anything, but I'm gonna see I'm gonna be standing in the front of my room lecturing and I'm just gonna see one of the doors fly open and And a room or two rooms full of kids come running out and it'll just be mass pandemonium

Like the freakout will be epic and all I will be able to do is laugh There you go as I'm a terrible person. Yeah, or a middle school teacher Let's see what's going on with us. I actually just referenced episode 121 of our podcast to my children because we got into a discussion a little while back we were watching the X-Men 97 series which has been streaming and it is amazing and there is a episode where they're on Genosha now by the time this drops if these are spoilers to people too bad um but they're on Genosha which is like a living island and it's it's they finally created their own safe place, right? Yeah, the metaphors abound because it's X-Men. Jesus. Yeah

But they're on Genosha and there's a scene where Rogue is dancing and because she can fly and because Magneto can fly and the two of them are dancing and The background music is ace of base happy nation Wow, yes, so okay, we finished it by the way, and it's it is a harrowing episode I know you haven't caught up, so I don't want to spoil it for you, okay But it is a heavy fucking episode, okay? Okay, so I then talked to my kids about the song and the lyrics of happy nation up to it including the Latin

That's in the beginning of it because it says laudate or laudate Omnes gentes not omnesate omnes gentes, not omnes, not omnes fomines, omnes gentes. And gentes means nation, people, tribe, ethnic group. It does not mean everyone. Right? Yeah. And it's related to genus right yeah, and to gents Okay, it's related to a lot of words that come having to do with the testicles actually

but So yeah, all right. Yeah, and it'll be Roman. Yeah, okay, then tracks so more importantly though I Explained it. I was like omnes gentes means all peoples Which means y'all are not the same and all y'all need to listen to this and then I took them through the lyrics and We're listening to it. We're vibing to it. And then I talked them talk to them about what ethnic cleansings are I talked to them about What Swedish synth music was born out of and the white supremacy that was there and stuff like that and so now we're all kind of Bopping our heads going. This is not okay

This is so not cool. Yeah, so right now total vibe But it's as really this is not cool as we are recording right now. My daughter is reading Mussolini's fascism so Mussolini's fascism so Okay, just just just to clarify for those following along at home. How old is your daughter? Well, I don't want to time this but she is a teen. Yeah. Okay. All right Yeah, so my preteen daughter because she she's been wanting to bring the development of Worlds into fascism and the fight and struggle against that fascism into her writings Okay, and I was like, well, here's the guy who came up with the philosophy have fun. Yeah, and know your enemy. Yes

So and quite honestly, even though it's translated from Italian into English his writing was remarkably Number one, he kept it short number two. It was remarkably accessible Yeah, well, you know as you've pointed out He played up The character yes the kind of you know big numbe galute You know Bully kind of character yeah, but he really was actually the smartest guy in the room when it came to Him Hitler and all of those guys. Yeah, and when it came to actual fascism

He is the father of it because yeah, he was able to articulate its Its philosophies. Yeah He codified birthed them into being he gave them names the soul of the soul. That's his quote So anyway, let's go to the opposite end of that spectrum. Let's talk about Marx and let's talk about Smurfs Okay. Okay. So last time I left off speaking of fascism with Umberto echo the guy who actually said here's the 14 things You should look out for fashion. By the way checklist Exactly. Yeah, but Echo also

You can mark off the more fucked you are right now echo also wrote in 1979 Smurf and drunk And we talked about it at the end of the episode last time And I promised that we were going to look at Smurfs through a Marxist lens. So that's how we're starting tonight. So Smurfs, absolutely all the other things I've said are true. Remember the Smurfs live in this little idyllic spot in the middle of the cursed lands, right?

Right, right, right. They're Belgians enjoying capitalism. Yeah. With massive infusions of American capital. Yeah, and it worked for them. It genuinely worked. Like it was proof that the Marshall Plan was successful. Now the Smurfs could also be viewed through a Marxist lens, and I think it should be. The symbolism is quite frankly obvious as all hell, but I'm going to touch down on the basics and and this is gonna matter a lot as we're about to get into the Smurfs being pushed to an American audience at a very specific time.

Okay. Chung Ah-Yong wrote an article in 2008 for the Korea Times in which he detailed quite succinctly the ways in which the Smurfs are a metaphor for socialism. Now he was highlighting a book by Australian author Mark Schmidt, who published a book in Korean called Secrets of Popular Culture. I've not read the book, only the article discussing the book and excerpts that I was able to find that were translated in English. So this analysis is lifting heavily from those two sources. All right.

The short version is this, Papa Smurf obviously represents Karl Marx. Okay, well, dresses in red, has a big white beard. There you go. He's a learned elder who has all the answers. Okay, all right. Brainy Smurf is Trotsky Okay, he gets hit in the head a lot yeah gets tossed out of the village repeatedly

He's constantly hitting them with the writings of the experts saying Papa Smurf always said He's trying to keep the the the marks alive, and then he gets shouted down by the Politburo, right? Also, he wears glasses So so wait, Barani Smurf is Stalin It probably the man of Smurf. Yes. Yeah The see there you go with your southern The, oh, see, there you go with your southern... Damn doctrinal difference.

So the Smurfs themselves all have very specialized jobs, but they're also entirely equal to each other regardless of their jobs. Okay. They do what they're good at, but at no time is anyone deprived of what they need because they don't produce enough From each according to his ability to each according to his needs. Yeah The fact that they are all What's that? I said fucking northern The fact that they are all first and foremost smurfs is argument enough that they all deserve dignity and equity and so they have it

There is no currency in the Smurf village There is no religious Smurfs and everyone sings the songs together no matter who they are a Smurf international if you will Okay, okay Except it's it's limited to the one village. Yeah, so all right. I mean yeah. Yeah, okay. It has spread worldwide. Okay, yeah, they're that that one village is all the Smurfs that there are in here. Okay, all right, fair. All right. Gargamel on the other hand is always trying to extract the Smurfs.

Literally he's trying to turn their blood into gold. So this is capital trying to exploit labor. Yes, he is capitalism incarnate. See I've been paying attention. Yes you have. He's trying to alienate the Smurfs from their work, trying to squeeze and devour them all to enrich himself. And that is a means unto itself. it is its own end as well.

And as a result, his clothes are threadbare, he lives and works in a dingy, dismal tower that is closed off and away from the worker's paradise, and he's perpetually coming up with elaborate schemes to allow him success. Okay. He plots and he plans with the only end being his own excess and the only means being his extracting it from nearby workers

who found a way to make it all work. I also cannot emphasize enough how unhealthy old white and impoverished he is compared to them Yes, these are all these are all points that bear Recognition okay capitalism hurts everyone in the Smurfs not just the workers Asriel is the non unionized worker who hopes to be management but ultimately is at the beck and call of capitalism and he survives or dies based on the whims of those who are over him. Thus Asriel is the ultimate class traitor if he is to survive as all other natural creatures live in accord with the Smurfs. In fact the only time that a Smurf's individual achievements are recognized is when they do something to benefit the whole

Or when they get too up in their own ass about their own achievements and need to be Smurfed down a peg Okay when when they become counter-revolutionary and Have to have to submit to reeducation Right. Yeah, or if, what do you call it? If they start acting like they didn't have, they didn't like, they start acting like their exceptionalism is what pulled them ahead

of everything instead of this was built on everyone's labor. Yeah. Further, you could look to the Maoist expression of communism too. After all, this was written in Korea, so. The Smurfs all dress exactly alike alike so there's no class issues. Right. The few who do dress differently do so because they're either the dear leader

or it's a practical matter, Andy for instance with his overalls or an expression of gender, Smurfette. Right. Of course, Peo had no interest in such things and keep in mind he lived through the Nazi occupation and then the capitalist American salvation of Belgium so his preferring socialism Of course, Peo had no interest in such things, and keep in mind, he lived through the Nazi occupation and then the capitalist American salvation of Belgium. So his preferring socialism or Marxism to anything else is a subcurrent at best. But it is pretty clear that the world he designed was based on the deprivations

that he grew up with as a child too. And every Smurf had a house, every Smurf had a job, and every Smurf had enough to eat. So this was paradise to him. He didn't know it, but he was visualizing a worker's paradise. And there was a foreign attacker who wanted to squeeze this paradise to enrich itself. That's a very Belgian story. And obviously not a very self-aware one.

I'm looking at you Belgian Congo By the way side note I found the photo in question that I that I had mentioned of the the Congolese man Running away from them from motorcade carrying the dignitary sword. Oh, it was actually King Bodoin Or Bodwin but about it was it was yeah It was his sword. It was him. It was his sword. Awesome Crab was running away in the photo. He has his back turn He's busy waving the crowd and this and like I said the the man who took it is you know

Holding it Above his head like like you gotta send me that. You know what it was. Yeah, because when I teach world history again someday I'm gonna put that shit in there. Yeah, so I love it. Thank you for that Yeah, now one thing that pokes a hole in all of this or at least makes it an incomplete metaphor is this The Smurfs never overthrew anything to install this workers paradise Yeah, it was just organic right it was just kind of part of who they were right now in It's been a very long time since I read the portions of Das Kapital that I did But that I did. But if I remember correctly, it might not have been via Marx. It might have

been some other theorist who came after one of the ideas of, of, you know, Marxist analysis of history is that communism was really the earliesthmm and everything else got imposed upon it and and I mean swear that it was communalism that was so okay all right I could be wrong also you know I think I think you're right no it was yeah communalism which is a yeah sort of proto yeah absolutely it is it's the golden age of humanity if you yeah you know we fucked it up yeah you you can't have communism right really without there being an industrial base right right without honestly you can't have it without capitalism yeah right being as it is a reaction to exactly the rapaciousness of

Capitalism or some would say the logical next step And and because they never went through that necessary step of capitalism to bring about communism, right? Having is communism Exactly. Okay, so you have this paradise isolated from the background threat of nuclear annihilation by virtue of what the fuck else are you gonna do but work together and make the best life you can in your community and This makes it the perfect cartoon to come to the United States in the beginnings of the Reagan administration Because of course now, of course. Now of course, what is going to make the Smurfs as a cartoon for children in the 80s an attractive idea?

What makes any cartoon an attractive idea? Well the idea that it was already like before it arrived in the United States It was already a popular and beloved franchise that had all kinds of merchandise attached to it that part right there. Okay advertising Money from the movie is made. Yeah. Yeah now NBC's president Fred Silverman had a daughter Who had a smurf doll that she'd bought in Aspen, Colorado in 1979. Okay. Now he noted how much she enjoyed the stuffed dolls and he recognized that that would probably be make it a very profitable cartoon to bring to NBC and he said quote get the rights to the Smurfs and

you have the on-air commitment. So in other words, you can get the merch, then we can do the cartoon. Okay. And so in 1981, the Smurfs came to American television on NBC Saturday mornings. It met with a lot of success running for nine seasons, getting a daytime Emmy for outstanding children's cartoon. Now at first they captured 42% of the TV audiences watching kids cartoons. Oh wow. Yes and the messages were relatively simple and benign. Living together, working as a community, helping

those who need it, throwing out the know-it-alls like almost every episode And the fear of outsiders intellectualism isolationism Fear of outsiders who look nothing like you yeah in in essence is the perfect Hannah Barbera cartoon under Ronald Reagan's evil Empire laden presidency Just slipped that in there yes, just Just, you know, so subtle. Yeah. Now the thing is, it is delightfully subversive at the same time, okay? This is the era of the cowboy endorsed president who loved and worshiped at the feet of individual

enterprise. An entire society sprung up like a mushroom on Saturday morning cartoons that was entirely collectivist. Well, yeah, but I mean if you're looking for that shit, then you're already a Marxist. I mean come on. Like you know if you're not a pinko lefty, you're not gonna pay attention to that. Like come on. As you'd said earlier the thing that makes this acceptable to people, okay, you can do your little frou-frou like mushroom Yeah, yeah, you can do your little frou frou like mushel journalism, is because they're marketable as toys. They're first sold in 1979 for about a buck 50 a piece,

so really low price point, easily collectible. Enough of them are unique enough that you will have kids wanting to be completionists. Their demand grew before the cartoon even came to the US. And like most good products sold in America, they were made in Hong Kong and painted in Sri Lanka. So, starting at night, yeah. Now, they were, that's actually true after 1982

that they were painted in Sri Lanka after the cartoon got started and then they started getting sold as toys and breakfast cereal because they're small enough right right right and then they get sold on their own now by 1982 it's estimated that smurf cartoon merchandise those little figures those little static figures that don't move at all Merchandise those little figures those little static figures right don't move at all You know worth about six hundred million dollars in 1982 money What yeah, yeah, and they peak in 1984 How much were they worth in 84? I think they went up to like 750 or some insane goddamn number like 150 million dollars oh yeah

yeah it's it is in 84 money yes yeah my god so just to give you an idea yeah 600 million dollars in what did I say 1982 1982 monies is If we were to look at now Yeah, that would be One Billion nine hundred eighty seven million two hundred seventy thousand dollars a Two billion dollar industry yeah it based around based around you know two and a half inch tall Plastic figurines now. This is the part that I love

Do you know how much? Prior to endgame the highest grossing movie in all of American cinema history made movie in all of American cinema history made No, it was about two billion dollars, do you know what that movie was Star Wars no All right, they're really tall blue things the thunder smurfs The Sun or yeah, yeah thunder thunder smurfs. Yeah, I like it. I like it. Oh Oh my god, so the price point no matter how tall the blue thing is is roughly

two billion dollars You know, yeah, is it about the color blue like what I don't know Sometimes history gives you a gift and you just have to say thank you Just have to you just have to look at the rhyme and forget about the shitty scheme But with thundersmurfs and it's gonna make as much as like not thunder smurfs made so yeah, yeah, oh Yeah, yeah Fern gully with machine guns like right right you know or you know last samurai, but they're blue you know they're blue Yeah But okay, so they peaked in 84 and they start declining in value actually in in 85 as far as sales go

billion fucking dollars Yeah, well in today's go. In fucking dollars. Yeah. Well in today's money. I'm sorry. I'm still, well yeah I know, but I'm still like the volume of cheap plastic shit that had to be moved. Now is that, is that the figure that you just gave is that smurfs?

Merchandising like posters and plushies and all that stuff. That's just Just the figures you know what appropriately enough that has blue screened my brain thinking about like how how many How many tons of petroleum byproducts had to be used? Mm-hmm to I mean just a manufacturing of that right is like Adam Smith Like looks up from his grave and goes damn son

You know, right? I see that's that's I don't know. Is that the invisible blue hand of the market, right? Right? What the hell? All right, just by comparison the United States defense budget in 1982 Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Okay, I make my numbers there Zeroes I was like yeah, no, that's okay. Yeah, but You know That's it. That's that's that's a noticeable fraction when you can when you can Say that something is a you know, very small but noticeable fraction It's a whole number. Yeah for action. It's almost 1% of the US defense budget of the US defense budget like

that's Wow, yeah, just wow. All right, so Now now remember though that that is a 50 that 72 billion was a 50% increase over the previous year Yeah, right, but so previously it had been almost 2% of the US defense was a 50% increase over the previous year. Yeah. Right. But. So previously it had been almost 2% of the US defense budget. Yeah, stop me. Wow.

Anyway. My God. By the second, or rather, okay, so the decline in 85. Now the second reason that they were so successful as a subversive cartoon was this. Cartoons, historically, in the 80s, discouraged people from sticking out or making actual trouble. Yes. Order of the day in all cartoons was group conformity.

I talked about this with the G.I. Joe episode. Mm hmm. Yeah. Our cold and status quo is God. Exactly. Our Cold War society was determined to show how free we truly were and that's the only way to do that of course is showing how we're all exactly alike unlike those godless communists who are all forced to be exactly alike and We we choose to be this way right they're forced Right this way and there forced right this way It's and yeah, you know and I'm sure we stand in lines for gas they stand in lines for bread

It's different. It's totally different And to be fair they were standing in lines for gas too, but but also the bread was given to them by the state Yeah, we so making ourselves poor getting it. Now, that's something that the Smurf cartoon could easily pander to. All the glides, right? Now the Smurfs were not without their critics, after all this was the 1980s,

and an all-male society of shirtless men clearly trying to queer up our boys. Oh, oh really? Oh God. And Smurfettes, obviously, they're just to market to the girls and run cover for their little gay blue icons. A Smurf hag hag if you will Living Your face

Yes Oblivious to this at the time. Oh, yeah These hateful fucks have been okay. Mm-hmm Wow. Yeah living in the homotopia. That is the smurf village Somebody actually coined the phrase homotopia. I don't know if I came up with that. Okay. They did. I was like, like, yeah, I'm on, on the one hand, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm impressed that you did come up with it. If you did on the other hand, I desperately want that to be a quote because I want somebody to have been so

panicked by this. Right. Either I did it because I'm clever I want somebody to have been so panicked by this that they right either I did it cuz I'm clever or they did it cuz they're panicked Is it just one of the other freaking the fuck out like and by the way Smurf village? Hmm? No, well God and they're named brawny and handy Fucking ridiculous. Today, I'm sorry. Was that actually part of the argument? Yes. Really?

Yes, oh yeah. Oh my God. Again, it's that my neighbor's a pervert. Ma'am, you've called the police, we're here at your door, what are you saying? My neighbor's a pervertvert You have to come and look All right. See every day he's outside and he's doing this in his backyard and he's naked We can't see that ma'am. Well, you have to get the ladder out like I do every day

You know, it's yeah. Yeah, you got to install the you got to hear right and look at the monitor for the camera That I installed a while ago. Yeah, like Yeah, the only two that might be queer coded are Vanity, who's the dandiest, and possibly Brainy, who exhibits some sissy-like behaviors. You know, you could say that they're queer coded, but it's much more likely that they're going for marketable tropes with these characters.

Brainy had a book and glasses as a toy and vanity had a mirror as a toy Yeah, that's how you could tell them apart, right? That doesn't mean that dipshits 20 plus years later wouldn't try to make connections that weren't there Mm-hmm. Yeah, um and so at some point in 2008 Online reactionary started to claim that the smurf cartoon was a socialist propaganda piece claiming that smurf was actually an acronym Oh, no small men under red forces Okay, that has to be like somebody somebody on reddit or fortune going alright, we're gonna troll

We're gonna troll the right one is we're gonna say like really right now like this is clearly an American thought because it's assuming that Smurf has always been the name and would always be the name not that it came from a totally different language and wasn't spelled that way. Right. It's strong, you know, like an O, a U, a P and an F. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Small men under red forces. Like you, right. How, how tortured does your thought process have to be? Like I

You know what I'm calling I'm calling hijinks that that has to be somebody came up with that like, you know Like like we talked about you know, I spent I really much time and all that stuff I spent too much time on websites that were still up that were dedicated to these ideas Fuck me. Yeah You know, it's It's stuff like that that leaves me very little hope for humanity like good you you really you really Had to had to run with that right? This was your thing this this this is the hill This is one of the hills you're you're going to like attempt to die on right? This is your Ruby Ridge

Yeah Yeah, like oh My god Yeah, so okay and and and these are people saying this back in 2008. Yes 2008 so Yeah, so almost 30 years after Mm-hmm the inception of the series they yeah, they somehow dug this up years after it ended They they dug this up from the pop culture graveyard. Mm-hmm

Because there wasn't anybody talking about the smurfs in 2008 they hold you know the DVD market was booming in 2008 okay right it's early 2000 DVD market and a whole bunch of nostalgia shit And so that's that's the thing and people now Amazon is online and everything's happening so that people could order Imports if they couldn't find it here in America. Like, the copies I have of Fraggle Rock came from Australia. There was an Australian DVD release, you know, stuff like that. So, there is that. So, it is working its way into the sphere. Okay, but like, it's not like the Smurf specifically somehow spiked in Op Popcorn in like they didn't have a moment in the zit geist in 2008 like I'm in 2008. No Yeah, I mean, that's just like there's so coming in 2011

Okay, all right So and one doesn't come in 2011 without them kind of being somewhere in the zeitgeist So okay, I dare say the DVD market the import market stuff like that might Have had something to do with it also remember the Nickelodeon is a thing the cartoon network is a thing USA still ran hannah barbera cartoons in the daytime So syndication is very much a thing Okay, these are all things that might add into like people recognizing that that's still a thing So now the series ended after an incredible 200 plus episode run after nine years

Okay, there were a number of spin-offs that I'm not gonna go into They actually did end up with children smurfs and more female Smurfs to bring the total up It was kind of like Congress in the late 90s like they tripled their numbered and got to three Yeah, you know yeah, but in 2011 someone at Columbia and Sony green lit or blue lit the Smurfs movie It's star or blue lit, the Smurfs movie. It starred. Yes. And that's in 2011.

It starred among others, Hank Azaria, Neil Patrick Harris, and Katy Perry, who said that she herself had not been allowed to watch the Smurfs growing up because her parents were strict pastors who thought that it was bad for kids. her parents were strict pastors who thought that it was bad for kids. I'm just going to interject here that American Protestant Christians are especially nutty about this shit because let's see, we have a community in which they're all equal. They're all

equal. Nobody, nobody owns any property. Um, nobody goes hungry because they all look out for one another. There is no poverty because nobody hoards anything. And they are led by a paternal figure with a white beard Like how how could you read the New Testament of the Bible And and and have a problem with that I Yeah for worshiping a carpenter they sure seem to be missing the mark a lot. Yeah At least when the Catholic Church went after things there were actual homosexuals being depicted on TV in the early 1980s with so You know, um, you know, there was a there there There there wasn't it wasn't like well, you know if you play the record backwards, okay, right

We're gonna go get our ladder to find out why your neighbor is a pervert again Yeah, and you know, I mean father cocklin was never really that popular. So we really it's okay Yeah, I want to put that rock down. Yeah your windows. Yeah But you're right, it doesn't mean the Protestants are are not crazy Yeah Okay, so it took over 350,000 man hours to CG animate the movie It was the ninth highest grossing film of 2011 nestled right between hangover 2 and cars 2

Okay, both of which were like Sequels that did pretty well that were follow-ups to amazing first runs. Yeah, it did get horrid reviews, but I mean It's it's a it's a nostalgia fueled anime CGI Animated made for four-year-olds like made for made for yeah young children Like Neil Patrick Harris is there to to give the parents some sanity To hold on to and know that there will be jokes going over the kids heads. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

like Hold on to and know that there will be jokes going over the kid's heads. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah like Of course, it's gonna get crummy reviews. It's it's it's the Cinematic equivalent of a hyper homogenized boy band like yeah, it's the cinematic equivalent of red vines like Why are people shitting on red vines like you know what you're getting into Somebody fucked up a candle left out the wick and was thinking of sweets, you know, that's what it tastes like That is that is simultaneously the most devastating and most accurate description of Minds I've ever heard in my life.

But like you can't get mad that they taste like that. They're red vines. And they're still better than black licorice. Sure. Just saying. But yeah. Like I understand getting mad at candied corn because you get tricked into thinking maybe it is good. understand getting mad at candied corn because you get tricked into thinking maybe it is good. I've gotten over that. I know I have I have managed to go a couple of decades now without getting burned by that one again. Right. So yeah. So okay so here's here's the short version of the of the film. The Smurfs get sucked into New York City amongst the live action folks and are chased down

by Gargamel. They defeat him, they rescue Papa Smurf, who's voiced by Jonathan Winters, and they return back to the Smurf village by magic after getting Gargamel run over by a bus, like you do. When I say that professional wrestling has always... All right right wrong episode But I did read through a bunch of reviews Oh, no And so oh no Yeah, someone I loved when somebody was tearing it down while also tearing down the critics from the 80s

while also tearing down the critics from the 80s. So they said, the reviewer says, the good news about the big screen 3D version of the Smurfs that's opening at your neighborhood multiplex is that it's not the insipid and some say socialist Smurfs that you remember from the 1980s TV. You really had to get the political dig in. Right. You you had to really make this sound relevant by like come on. But also you heard the word socialist right? Yeah. Because it's 2011 and you remember what people were really mad that got passed in 2009 2010 Oh

Obamacare yeah, yeah, you know so So it just kind of hung there like my god like right right so people who are getting mad at the hum They're like a fart in the shower like a wet one um It just like creeps up with the steam and settles back down on the on the window Like you're like, oh when I squeeze you that off I will be squeegeeing off fart. Yeah Yeah, because this is the time of death panel This is the time of people being really mad that a black guy gave us health care

Yeah Really mad that a black guy gave us health care Yeah So people who don't like the Smurfs are trying to make hay out of it on some level And turn it into culture warshit It's the fucking Smurfs man, I know it's something that four-year-olds would love and parents will sit through because they love their kids Yes, I mean that sounds like bang for the buck to me. Yeah So it came out with with Happy Meals Toys there are a couple of video games that came out with it on the Nintendo DS and on the Wii and It did what it was supposed to do in many ways

It was a far more Reaganistic thing than the original iteration of the Smurfs. It moved units. Exactly. Now two years later in 2013 because a sequel is always a thing, Smurfs 2 came out and honestly it followed roughly the same trajectory that we saw with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first movie sequel, right? Okay made back plenty of money, but it made back about a half as much as the original did But it still was very much in the black or in the blue Now this time the plot is that Gargamel is now a celebrity in Paris,

and his magic is a known thing, hence his celebrity. He uses the Eiffel Tower to open a portal to Smurf Village and abduct Smurfette. The Smurfs return to New York to ask the cast from the last movie to help them to rescue her, and on we go. I think this time he was trying to create smurfs I couldn't quite figure it out. I did not for the love of the game watch the smurf movie

Anyway, they defeat him they make friends out of evil smurfs that gargamel had made called the Nautis and Ultimately, they go back to their own village again Okay. All right again. there's toys, happy meals, stuffed animals, it widened its platform on video games too, not just the DS and the Wii. It was unremarkable, it got even less praise from critics than its predecessor, because it was exactly what it was supposed to be.

Precisely what it said on the tin. Yeah, so here's one of the reviews right down to the brute functionality of its title the Smurfs to You know, you got paid by them by the word Oh, yeah, maybe it may be the platonic ideal of a major studio sequel no markedly better or worse than the first and with just enough difference to lay claim to being something new All right, but but he didn't but the the author they didn't didn't lean on the socialism angle there, right? They're not trying to make hay out of culture warship. They're just pointing out. It's a derivative They're not trying to make hay out of culture warshit. They're just pointing out. It's a derivative

C4 which yes is like you know exactly what it says on the tin right yeah Now yeah, all right. Yeah now some of this was also because Despicable Me 2 came out and it was good Yeah, right, but Smurfs 2 did open at number three on its first weekend out After but what else came out that weekend? Oh, I Think Wolverine Okay, um I could be wrong all right. Yeah So it did have the dubious distinction of being Jonathan Winters last film

Yeah, and if you're keeping track Orson Welles his last film was No Shit it's right on the front of my forebrain. What was it the Transformers movie? Oh Do you remember Raul Julia's last film? Street fighter right that's a hell of a tram for it. You know yeah You know Julia At least was was around after the movie long enough to talk about why he did it Yeah, yeah, and it was if there, there was something there more than just a paycheck in his case. And that's always been meaningful to me.

I'm pretty sure for Orson Welles, it was money, dear boy, was like it. And I don't know. I'm trying to remember what, I seem to remember there was something with Jonathan winners in his last years there being some questions about whether he was being Manipulated by his caretakers or if there was something going on there now is that Jonathan winners? There's your that you're talking about thinking about or is that Mickey Rooney because I know Mickey No, I'm probably thinking of Mickey Rooney. There were a lot of allegations of abuse Yeah, yeah, I'm probably thinking of Mickey Rooney. There were a lot of allegations of abuse by his caratators Yeah, yeah. All right, so

anyway in 2017 Sony Well, actually no they they chose to forego a third sequel, but then in 2017 they chose to reboot it So they recast the whole thing this time with Demi Lovato Rainn Wilson Mandy Patinkin and other high-end stunt castings. This reboot in 2017 earned a hundred and ninety-seven million dollars worldwide again following the same trajectory as TMNT movies where it just gets worse and worse at the box office, but it also costs half as much to make as the first one. So they're still in the blue.

Now, this time you're following Smurfette, who is searching for her purpose. Gargamel is looking to use their essence to become more powerful. It's just Smurf and repeat. This time he captures Smurfette, finds their village, and then they find a lost village of Smurfs beyond that. This time Smurfette sacrifices her essence since she was created by Gargamel in the first place. It's a net loss for him and she turns into a lump of clay. All of this

to stop Gargamel from hurting all the other Smurfs So she kind of does the Aslan thing They're saved she's dead and the Smurfs make a shrine and they share their love and admiration for her Until through the power of communal magic. She's brought back to life again Aslan This time kind of collective Pygmalion effect. Yeah. This time, despite the very tropey use of a woman's death to be the vehicle for everyone's salvation, the film got mild praise from critics

who noted that Smurfette was given real depth this time around. My favorite review of all the ones that I read of this one was, quote, Smurfs, the lost village village is a mediocre effort that nonetheless Succeeds in its main goal of keeping its blue characters alive for future merchandising purposes. Yeah Amen. There you go. Yeah money. That's what we're here for. Yeah money near boy. Yes money dear Smurf Now the chief marketing officer for the Smurfs in Belgium Philippe Gloria Gloria GLO

Gloria yeah Yeah This this person Philippe Decided that the lost village release was the proper time For making the Smurfs the ambassadors to the United Nations for sustainable living through gender equality. Okay, say that again. Sure.

Okay. So this release, right? Yeah. The Lost Village release was going to be the proper time for making them the ambassadors to the United Nations for sustainable living through gender equality. There's only one female Smurf. True, but she's the star of the film.

There's still only one thing like I'm. You're stuck on the math. I'm kind of I am. I'm going to admit I'm You're stuck on the math. I'm kind of I am I'm gonna admit I'm really stuck I have a hard time with with the idea being well, you know gender Quality and there's only One woman right and and the Smurfs are obviously very binary like there's no even attempt to be like well You know, some of them are poly or trans or yeah or you know non-binary No, yeah, like like even when there was not a female smurf. Mm-hmm

This is this is the part that kind of just occurred to me thinking about it in this in this context Even before there was a female there before there was a female smurf. Mm-hmm. The smurfs were not genderless They were little men. Yes, they were three apples high. Yes. Like it's yeah. And then well, you know, we need a girl. Bam, there you go. We have a girl. And even GI Joe had three. Yeah. Like, like, how exactly do you do you take that and and pitch that as the ambassadors of anything at all through gender equity? Well yeah he said quote it felt like the right moment to launch equality between the boys and girls

So how's about we have more female characters, yeah Like a lot right? Right, like how's about we show the Smurfs living in a society where there are men and women, right? Not men and woman, right? I Right not men and woman right I Can just see like fundamentalists though being like it's handy and smurfette not handy and smurf, you know Sadly you're not wrong so Yeah, no and and and now and now I'm going back to Payo Mm-hmm

Coming up with his original idea of this utopian society that didn't have any fucking women in it. Mm-hmm like It took it took how many years for that to be even interrogated by anybody? well, I Think it was 65 when he finally included smurf at Okay, yeah, so so And she was created as as a honeypot trap. Yeah, you know Yeah, she was she was literally created to create discord amongst these this utopia. Yes. Yes, because yes

Yeah, part of his key idea of his utopia was well You know there's no women here to fuck everything up, right? I'm sorry and now you're going to take this property and try to turn this into some kind of champion for no Sit the fuck down While you're at it go to the bathroom and wash your ass sir like I'm I am I am Unreasonably well, maybe reasonably. I don't know. I am very very

Offended by that. Yeah, I haven't seen a white dude get this mad about gender equity Since Tucker Carlson got pissed about the green M&M no longer being hot Equity since Tucker Carlson got pissed about the green M&M no longer being hot Because he wanted to fuck that M&M Pumps on the whole time Clearly clearly he wanted posh spice not sporty spice Well, yeah not recognizing that a woman in comfortable shoes M&M or not Might be more inclined to Amherst contact. Yeah with Tucker Carlson

But yeah, yeah We can we can leave off any any conversation about you know Any theories of what kind of woman might be interested in Amherst contact with Tucker Carlson money dear boy? So two years later in 2019, Philippe Glorio aimed the Smurfs at the European Commission for Sustainable Climate Advocacy, focusing specifically on beach cleanup. And he said, quote, I think the Smurfs are the only characters that can use their body, color and everything to send a message to the world a Message to the children to say to people pay attention to your planet Steve this one. Mm-hmm. I mean this still makes more sense to you though, right? This one does sense Yes, it still feels like a a corporate huckster trying to make a buck off of

It's environmental it feels like an afterthought that got committed like yeah, like it feels like I remember Do you remember when Lady Gaga wore meat to the whatever the fuck she wore a meat dress? Yeah, and like my favorite part was her shoes. They were just flip-flops fillet of soul. Um, but Good day, thank you. But like somebody later asked her about like What what was that all about and she used it? She's like I was trying to get people's attention because I didn't like that people's attention because I didn't like that people were being banned from the military because they were gay and you have rights and you have rights but you

don't because you're gay and so I was trying to call attention so people would ask me and I would talk about that and it was it felt very like you squeezed a round peg into a square hole, but okay, I will give you the benefit of my doubts there. That is how you try to get attention to that issue. But then everybody kind of gave an applause and it grew because yes, gay people should be able to serve where they want to and when they want to.

Then after the applause was still going, she was like, and, and and and the other message is I am not a piece of meat. And you know that she thought of it right then. Yeah and she thought that was a better answer right? That's what this felt like. Oh yeah. You know it's the I'm not a piece of meat argument. It's like, you just came up with that. And you just happened to be able to control this. Yeah.

You had a stairwell response as you were opening the door into the stairwell. Right, you did not craft it. And decided to turn around and throw it. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So. That's a better answer But I can tell you're bullshitting that wasn't what you're actually thinking at the time right yeah, yes, yes So the Smurfs marketability and licensing makes roughly a billion dollars a year now

Okay, yeah, why by the way paramount has plans to make a fourth movie in 2025 Okay Now I want to point out one last thing Smurfs a thing that brings it all the way back around to its Belgian and American introductions Okay, this is the Smurf UNICEF alliance of 2017 Okay now in Belgrade This is the Smurf-UNICEF Alliance of 2017. Okay. Now in Belgrade, they had a premiere of the 2017 Lost Village movie.

UNICEF stepped in, and this was all planned out, stepped in and took the time to say the following, quote, achieving the SDGs, which is some organization. Thank you. Is important as they give every child a fair chance in life. What we decide to do for children and how we engage them in building the future will ultimately determine whether we are successful in creating a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world. UNICEF is committed to that vision, joining with others to scale up what works,

innovate for improved solutions and results, and measure progress and share lessons learned. Oh, these are sustainable development goals by the way. I was like I know I wrote it down somewhere. Now all 193 nations the United Nations agreed to support the small Smurfs big goals campaign to support the sustainable development goals the STGs. Okay. This is a 17 point plan that is aimed at ending poverty and just making it fucking livable for Robbie Julia and William Right. It's simple. It's good shit like protecting life underwater and on land

Literacy gender equality clean drinking water that kind of stuff. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I'm down This makes sense. Yes. Yeah. Oh, and these are a recognizable mascot that you can attach to this. Sounds great. Now, this came 12 years after the thing that I loved most about Smurfs and UNICEF working together. In 2005, after the 9 p.m. broadcast, UNICEF ran the following commercial

What the actual fuck and Could you like explain what you just watched? No, if first, um, how dare you sir. Oh My god, um So so what I what I just watched Remember it's the after 9 p.m. Broadcast. So Right past watershed. Yes, they call it in the UK. All right It was Imagine if you are familiar with it the the opening animation to the Smurfs cartoon

Yeah, and that that's that's the music it's playing it's in to the Smurfs cartoon. La la la la la la la la play as an orchestra with Papa Smurf guiding all of them and Brainy playing the harp, I think. Anyway, and then they added in animation of bombs falling out of the sky and explosions and then scenes of panicked Smurfs running in every direction screaming And then and then I'm sorry, but this was the part that was like Okay, that's edgy but this is on this this is a psychic crime and infant smurf

Crying and it was and it was using the sound of a human infant crying in obvious distress And then the screen went blue And in white lettering don't let war destroy the future of children or violence. It was something like that. Right. Right. So, okay. All right.

Points for getting me in a spot I didn't realize was a spot there Thank you for playing find the trigger you win Congratulations, you're taking home a set of steak knives After you pulled them out of my back Would you say that they accomplished their stated goal of shocking a complacent public into backing their fundraising efforts for ex-child soldiers in Africa? Certainly got the shocking part right. Whether, I don't know whether it was actually successful at you know getting people far enough away from that moment of horror to do much about it, but yes it was certainly very shocking.

Sure, I mean you you know, days later, you could see that being talked about around the water cooler kind of thing, right? It also was an effort to help raise money for UNICEF projects in Burundi, Congo, and Sudan. Remember, this is in 2005, so all three of those places, there's shit going down in a big big way. Yeah

ER is sending their doctors to both Congo and the Sudan yeah, right yeah The and and the idea was to show us that war could happen in the most innocent of places Okay, yeah, and yes 25-second cartoon that ends with the phrase, don't let war destroy the children's world. Yeah. Okay, so mission accomplished.

Yeah. I need to go get another beer. That was shell shock inducing. Like the jarring shift of tone there is really yeah You know what it reminded me of? wizards Yes Yes, the other thing that comes to my mind is uh

godzilla versus bambi I I get to show that every year that I teach us history if I cover the Spanish-American war Back that's the name of the unit so oh Oh, I didn't I need to see any see your lesson play. I don't know. I'm not teaching us Everybody's my lesson plan. I'm a 20 year veteran. There is no such thing as a fucking lesson plan There's a plan book with three words in a box and I know exactly what 45 minutes of teaching looks like from that Yeah, yeah. Oh my god UNICEF Belgium spokesman Philippe Henon Henin UNICEF Belgium spokesman Philippe Henon said, quote, We wanted to have lasting effect of our campaign because we felt that in comparison to previous

campaigns the public is not easily motivated to do things for humanitarian causes and certainly not when it is involved or certainly not when it involved Africa or children in war. And keep in mind everything we had to say or that you had to say and I said amen to in our first episode about Belgians in particular and Africa. Yep. So the ad agency official behind it whose name was Julie oh Jesus Christ Lamaroo Lamaroo Lamaroo lame oh you are EUX Lamaroo Lamaroo Said quote we see so many images that we don't react that we don't really react anymore in

so many images that we don't react that we don't really react anymore in 35 seconds we wanted to show adults how awful war is by reaching them within their memories of childhood well mission accomplished yeah now payo despite not being political would most likely be very proud that they're promoting such awareness. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. And that's it. That's the end of it. So. Alright. That's the history of Smurfs. What have you cleaned? Um.

Well, right now I'm still reeling from the amount of money that got spent on bullshit little plastic figurines in 1984. I love that it had to go to two different places to be created and then shipped over here. Yeah, well, and anti Europe and wherever else they were being sold. But yeah, globalism is beautiful. Um for certain values of beautiful I would say awesome in that sense that all originally started out as a sense of fear right like wow um the the fact that this property Because I don't want to just say I mean it focuses a lot on the show, but the the comics too

and the films the way that Depending on Standpoint and the viewer's position. This is a message about conformity. They're all led by pop a Smurf who is a benevolent totalitarian ruler. There's also kind of neglectful, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and then, you know, on the other hand, you can, you know, throw a hissy fit about how clearly they're, they're socialists. And, um, the whole point

of this show is to try to sissify our men, you know, sisyphia our boys before they turn into men. Right. And, you know, clearly there's the homosexual agenda behind this whole thing. And it's like, you know, if you actually spend five minutes talking to an actual, anybody who is homosexual, their agenda is like, you know, brunch, you know, like, like going through life is their agenda but you know, um, it's this terrifying scary thing to so many people and like It's it's funny to me

that This acts in such a way as such a blank slate for Anybody to project their bugaboo onto it, right? you know when The whole point of it was I just want to write a silly comic to like maybe make people smile because I had a rough childhood. I don't want anybody else to have that. I just.

Yeah, I just want joy to be printed with my name next to it. Yeah, like the conception behind this was so incredibly wholesome. That, you know, looking at know, tying themselves into knots to try to figure out how this is some kind of, you know, evil leftist conspiracies like no, why, why do you have to do that? What kind of joyless asshole do you have to be? And, and I mean, that's that's the answer in and of itself is you're just a joyless asshole.

But I guess that's my biggest takeaway is much like The Wizard of Oz You know it was it was written by L. Frank Baum without any kind of political agenda behind it without any Axe to grind even though he was adjacent to all of this you know mover and shaker stuff Living where all the things happened. Yeah, I can live where all the things happen and being blissfully Yeah, I don't want to say ignorant, but just like oh, yeah upper class as you said yeah upper class twit About about literally everything And and yet people read into it well You know it's about the silver standard, and it's you know or the gold standard, and it's you know this that it's like How hard do you have to work?

Mm-hmm to like like how how do you find the energy? To come up with that stuff When it's a it's a Fairy it's a silly story It's a fairy tale that he that he wants to make a play out of because he's a drama nerd like You know and and Yeah, it just it it boggles me how resistant we can be

to just Letting something be joyful Yeah, and you know be not be insidious somehow. When joyful stuff is being written and the metaphors that it pulls from are so clearly from the world that we're all living in. Yeah. It's hard not to say, hey, did you give her Ruby or did you give her silver slippers

to walk on a yellow brick road because we've been talking bimetallism in your town for the last three years? That is a fair ask. And it could well be that he didn't know any better. It's like asking Tolkien like hey Five armies Yeah, you fought when if you continue with this line of questioning as you'll call the police, right? Yeah, you know yeah totally

But it's one of those of like it's yeah, it is it is it's there really fair yes but the Contortions that they go through in order to try to turn it into something conscious Yeah, yeah is you know and and make it something bad. Well, I think what it is is that like if If you're us we're looking at all those things so it's really assumed it's easy to assume everyone else is doing that too yeah okay you know and if you are deeply suspicious of culture war stuff in in the nuclear 1950s yeah or 60s you know when people doing that or or in the evil evil empire era of

Reagan's 80s Yeah, like You know, yeah makes sense. I can see that Yeah, like like it's it makes sense that you would assume the same bad faith that you're engaging in Okay, that's that's okay. That's that's fair. Yeah, I'll give you that one the the the Small-men under red forces is some bullshit like you are you are grasping not even at straws type stuff But I do think like a lot of the you know if you look at this through a Marxist lens It really holds up pretty well except for this little thing or oh you wow

It's interesting that you chose black Smurfs as being like the disruptors when you live in Belgium in the 1960s like you know, huh? Yeah Well, you know patterns on the wallpaper are always gonna be patterns on the wallpaper, right? Right, you know and Wow, you know, you really don't seem to like your husband. What do you mean? Well, you've literally made every dinner something encased in gelatin and it's always cold cuts You want to interrogate that no How do you feel about that right I don't I don't ask me those questions

Yeah, I don't want to feel I'm tired. That's that's why I'm taking the Valium is I don't want to feel anything just to refill the goddamn RX. I I'm glad he's having an affair. Nobody bowls that often, but it doesn't mean I'm happy with him Like yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so Alrighty, so is there anything that you would like to recommend to people to read or? Embark in some way go for it. Yes Kind of in the vein of us just having taken a feminist view of domesticity in the 1950s I want to very strongly recommend

a book that analyzes two not merely forgotten but erased Queens of the Franks the title of the book is the dark Queens And I am trying to find where I had it here in my notes So I can find the author's name Well while you're doing that oh you found yeah, yeah, great go for it it is The dark Queens the bloody rivalry that forged the medieval world Yeah. Yeah. Great, go for it. It is the Dark Queens, the Bloody Rivalry that Forged the Medieval World by Shelley Puhak, P-U-H-A-K. And it is, I haven't finished it. As a matter of fact, I haven't gotten very far at it at all,

but it is already really compelling because it centers on a pair of queens who succeeded in ruling in their own name for decades. And yet we have very little left of them in the historical record because after their deaths, their sons or nephews or whoever it was who took over after them, uh, worked to actively try to diminish and or erase their role in the development of their respective kingdoms. So it's, it's a fascinating history and it is it is proof that my seventh grade world history teacher was correct when he told me that real history is far more compelling

than anything you might find in a Dungeons and Dragons rule book. because this is this the the scheming in the back dealing and the everything that these women had to had to engage in in order to hold on to power is is better reading than Game of Thrones. It's it's wonderful stuff and written very very very well, very clearly and very accessibly. So big big big fan. How about you? I'm going to recommend Radio Priest, Charles Coughlin, the father of hate radio by Donald Warren. So I've been traipsing through the 30s quite a bit lately and Yeah, yeah But anyway, I recommend that one to folks you can find it

Probably at a local library is probably the best place just because I think that'd be better Ultimately, so grab it from there. Oh, yeah, so So, cool. Are you still the shadow in the warp? For the time being, yes, I remain one. But we collectively, of course, can be found on the Apple podcast app on Stitcher and on Spotify and on the Amazon App yeah stitcher has not that way in stitcher. Yes, okay Spotify and on the Amazon podcast app wherever it is you have found us and that can also include our website What but what but what but dot geek history time calm? You have found us you are listening to us So please take a moment to subscribe and

to give us the five star review that you know Damian deserves for his exhaustive research work. And where can you be found, sir? Ah, well, you can find me pretty much any first Friday of the month in Sacramento at the Comedy Spot at 9 p.m. with capital punishment slinging puns doing our pun tournament that we've been doing for eight years now. Let's see as of this recording I'm going to suggest that you go to the July 5th or the August 2nd or the September 6th show. Actually go to all three and if you can't make it there

Go and buy your tickets online Because when you go to the link on the ComedySpot website to buy the tickets you can buy it for streaming And then you can watch it at home And I don't even care if you get like dozens of people over and you only pay for one ticket go ahead and do that That's okay if you can't make it to the live show because our puns deserve to be heard and you deserve to be hurt. So cool. I can agree with 50% of that. There you go. Well for Geek History of Time, I'm Damian Harmony and I'm Ed Blaylock and until next time keep smurfing smurfs.