Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Ducks

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why ducks are secretly incredibly fascinating. Special guests: Jordan Morris and Jesse Thorn.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.Hang out with us on the new SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5Hear Alex's new "explainer podcast" about all things MaxFun: https://youtu.be/6kNplapKs-w (It's uploaded to YouTube because he filmed his face while he taped it.)

Ducks. Known for being birds. Famous for quack. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why ducks are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm very much not alone. First of all, I'm joined by my co-host, Katie Golden. Katie, hello. Happy middle of the Maximum Fun Drive. Yeah. Happy middle of the Maximum Fun Drive day to you too, Alex. I know everybody has the little automatic Google calendar thing, but I really want to just emphasize it. Yeah. Yeah. I got a ping about it. I got a ding and a ping about it.

And folks, the last official day of the drive is March 31st, this Friday. So please, you know, take the plunge. If you've never supported the show before, there's never been a better time. And you can also support this network that we are so overjoyed to be part of and for the first time with a drive. And as you heard, we do bring guests some of the time in general. But especially during this drive as a celebration, two wonderful guests join us today. general, but especially during this drive as a celebration. Two wonderful guests join us today. You know them from many podcasts, from award-nominated graphic novels, from all sorts of things. And they also podcast together as Jordan and Jesse go. Please welcome Jordan Morris

and Jesse Thorne. Hello. Hey. Hey, hey. Good to be here. What a thrill. What a thrill. And Jesse, welcome back. You were previously on the Murr episode And Jordan, welcome, welcome for the first time I'm glad to be here for the first of many times I'm just saying it now, you will be having me back constantly I'm so happy to be here for the final time Glad to be here for kind of my middle appearance I'm gonna come on one or two more times and then call it. And the run up starting this, Jordan, you mentioned that you had a past episode topic you want to dive into, get into.

Yeah, this is just I need some semantic clarification. On a recent episode about Ferris wheels you were doing. Fascinating episode, by the way. If people haven't heard the Ferris wheel episode. Thank you. Give it a download. Fun and funny. Give it a whirl.

I wouldn't say that, but, you know. Do Ferris wheels whirl? Is that your question? No, it wasn't. I guess I associate whirling with going really fast, but I guess they do. It's a slow whirl, a slower whirl. Anyway, you know, a similar language issue that your episode raised. Katie, when you were talking about Ferris wheels and kind of like getting sick on them,

Katie, when you were talking about Ferris wheels and kind of like getting sick on them, you used the phrase, horking up corndogs. Oh, yes. Now, I was under the impression that one horked down something. Like if you're an excited kid, you're getting're getting your first corn dog you hork it down but you you used it as horking up to mean yes you know vomiting i guess um do we know definitively do you hork up or do you hork down well what horks down must also be horked up i suppose i feel like horking that is so true that is so true now more than ever i feel like horked up, I suppose. I feel like horking... That is so true. That is so true. Now more than ever. I feel like horking is omnidirectional. It's an omnidirectional sort of horking.

You breathe in, you breathe out. You hork in, you hork out. To live is to hork. What are we on this earth to do but hork? I think horking is an act of extraordinary passage okay so any whether whether up or down it's kind of like the enthusiasm that matters is that what you're saying jesse the vigor yeah it's a sort of a matter of vigor and volume the two v's okay and when i say volume i mean volume in terms terms of amount of content and in terms of level of noise.

That's the two Vs of volume. So it's the two Vs, one of which is also two Vs. I thought it was the three Vs with viscosity as well. Yeah, viscosity is also. And, of course, you have to worry about thermal breakdown. That's what they say in motor oil commercials viscosity and thermal breakdown i was wondering if it was maybe a regional thing like east of the mississippi you hork up and west of the mississippi you best foods right exactly i mean i grew up in uh i guess i grew up in southern southern californ, so I'm not really sure if it's regional to Southern California or if it's regional to me, Katie.

Like to your house? I mean, I don't even know if my family says it, to be honest. So you're saying it's regional to you in the same way that rain cloud that's raining on you right now is regional to you? And my tiny umbrella that just covers my head. I mean, I guess I can torpedo that because I also grew up in Southern California and I'm and I'm and I'm horking down over here. So I see. I did as an Illinoisian. I just I just followed it so smoothly when she said it on the Ferris Wheel show.

I was like, I know exactly what she means, and I haven't heard this before. But at the power of this vernacular, I'm in. I'm going. Forget ducks. This is the episode. Well, I'm excited to be on this special episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating about horking. Yes. Hork is the title of this week's episode. It is what ducks do. They do horking. Yes. Hork is the title of this week's episode.

It is what ducks do. They do hork. Yeah, great segue. What's the chant for Mighty Ducks? It's just quack, right? So then we all start chanting hork. Just hork. Hork, hork, hork, hork, hork, hork, hork.

And then you get into their famous formation, the Flying V, which is something that was said earlier. We did mention Vs. It does tie together. This episode is good. The podcast is good. Everything's good. Because with this topic, Ducks, let's start with our relationship to it or opinion of it. Our guest, Jordan Jesse, either of you can start.

But how do you feel about ducks? Very pro. Something that ducks have given us is all of the, I wouldn't say all, some of the greatest cartoon characters of all time are ducks. And I'm speaking specifically of Yakky Doodle, the famous Hanna-Barbera duck that's friends with a dog. I think there might be some other cartoon ducks, but I'm mostly interested in Yakky Doodle. Yeah, well, you never worked on a Looney Tunes cartoon where you were encouraged to use secondary characters from the looney tunes universe listen i'm a company man there's a new season of jellystone coming to hbo max soon featuring lots of yacky doodle content i can't believe you didn't mention Baby Huey. Oh, Baby Huey. That's another good.

Yeah. He is a Harvey character. And an icon, of course. But I think he's from the Harvey family of characters. Yeah. But yes, an icon. We stan. We have no choice but to stan a diaper legend.

Yes. yes uh yeah but yes i i like ducks because of their association with some of some of the greatest cartoons of all time um we joke but donald and daffy so funny still to this day um yeah legends both of them i have two associations with ducks one is that my father was a duck collector. He had a duck collection. And I even, on my desk, I have a duck that he collected that I took from his house after he passed away. And I don't know why he collected ducks, but he did. He had quite a number of them and i think also that speaking to jordan's point

the duck is one of the funniest birds the reason being that it has all of the weird belligerence and flat beak of a goose but it's not actually scary so like an a goose if you've ever had a goose come at you it's genuinely scary whereas if a duck was bothering you you would just laugh in its face wow i never thought about him that way but i think that's my childhood association with him is walking around the arboretum in our town with Canada geese being threatening. But the ducks were fine. Yeah. Yeah, the ducks were like.

Yeah, the duck is the dinosaur that nature has humiliated. You velociraptors in a couple million years, you're going to be a real silly billy. Despite working in public radio, I'm not a birder. But my colleague, Kevin, who's the producer of my public radio show, Bullseye, is. And our office overlooks MacArthur Park Lake in Los Angeles, which is a very popular landing spot for waterfowl. And he will point out different ducks to me and we have binoculars in the office and ducks are genuinely remarkably beautiful in their many varietal forms. And that is a really cool thing about ducks because they land right there next to my office in the middle of Los Angeles and seem like a thousand varieties of tulip.

Oh, this is such sweet duck stuff. Yeah. Do you know the duck food joke? This was like the only joke I knew as a kid. I don't think so. Yeah. It's a duck goes into a delicatessen and he looks up at the guy at the counter. He says, Hey, you got any duck food, duck food, duck food. And the guy at the counter says, no, this is a delicatessen. Get out of here. And the next day the duck comes back. He looks up at the guy at the counter. He says, Hey, uh, got any duck food, duck food, duck food. And the guy at the counter says, this is a human delicatessen. I can't have birds in here. Get out of here. And the next day the duck comes back. He, he looks up and he said, Hey, uh, got any duck food, duck food, duck food. And the guy at the counter says, I swear to God,

if you come back in here and ask me that one more time, I will nail your feet to the floor. Get out of here. And the duck leaves. And the next day the duck comes back and he looks up at the counter. He says, got any nails? And the guy says, no. And then he says, got any duck food, duck food, duck food? Hey, hey.

Hey. I heard that joke growing up. I always heard grapes, like the duck wanted grapes, which is odd to me because I would always get hung up on the joke and I wouldn't laugh because I was thinking too hard about like, why would a duck want grapes? I've never seen a duck eat grapes. Yeah, that's something I'm wondering if we'll get into during the duck facts. What do ducks eat in the wild? I know that we feed them, you know, bread or like pellets if you're at a petting zoo or something. But without human interference, what do ducks eat? I don't know. Let's dive into that.

Because on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week, that's in a segment called... 2020, 24 stats to go. Do research for the SIF pod. Math into two and fake is to quote. Do research for the SifPod Hey Thank you guest guitarist

Jordan Morris 1, 2, 3, 4, I forgot to do that Can we do it again where I remember to say 1, 2, 3, 4 Oh man, I just got a telegram Jordan, you're not punk rock anymore Oh boy Well, I guess I'm a jock now.

Time to listen to Van Halen or whatever. I also really want a punk rock scene telegram, man. That would be great. He has the little hat, but also black t-shirt. Skinny suspenders. Yeah. And that song name was submitted by Johnny Davis. Thank you, Johnny.

We have a new name for this. Every week, please make a Massillion Wagon Bad as possible. Submit through the SIF Discord or to SIFpod at gmail.com. And the first number here is about what ducks eat. Because in general, ducks are omnivores. They will eat either grasses or invertebrates or fish. But the first number here is six million loaves of bread. Because six million loaves of bread is the estimated annual bread that humans feed to ducks in England and Wales. Wow. Holy cow. And just think,

at tuppence a bag, think about how much money that is. Yeah. Jesus. The tuppence ceiling needs to be raised. Yeah, I think so. Are they bigger? I mean, it would make sense, but are they bigger duck feeders over there than we are over here? Yeah, I just couldn't get U.S. numbers. I think we have not bothered to track it. It tracks.

I mean, it tracks. We got to do a FOIA on the duck bread. The NRA won't let America track duck feeding statistics. Oh, yes. A powerful lobby. They're afraid of what we might learn. But we might learn. And right away, in general, experts say don't feed bread to ducks. Apparently bread is the equivalent of junk food for them. It can leave them without other nutrients that they need. It can also contribute to bacteria and water if the bread just gets left there and not scooped up by a duck. But instead of bread, the UK Canal and River Trust, who got this number, they recommend feeding, if you're going to feed ducks at all, feed them leafy greens or feed them corn, peas, carrots, oats, seeds, rice, just all sorts of different

basic food for an omnivore works, but especially vegetable kind of stuff. Interesting. food for an omnivore works, but especially vegetable kind of stuff. Interesting. Have you ever seen videos of ducks going after a bowl of peas? No. You should. It sounds like a fun video.

It's one of my favorite genre of videos is ducks going ham on a bowl of peas. And there are surprisingly many of them. And they're all very, very good. The sound is very good. The sound is very good. The aesthetics is very good. The entire thing just makes me happy because ducks really love a bowl of peas. They love it. You're getting me hungry. I could really go for some duck with ham and peas right now.

peas right now but yeah it turns out there are also pet stores that make specially formulated waterfowl food that's nice you can get you can get like pallets of stuff that is the right duck nutrition uh just don't give them bread but give them lots of other stuff costs a lot more than tuppence a bag needless to say how i mean i understand why it's better but i feel like you you would look pretty crazy like down at the pond feeding ducks just out of like a bag of mixed greens you know people will think people will think there's something wrong with you they would and it's what you should do like even one source i found said you should specifically give them, if you have one of those frozen grocery store vegetable bags of like corn and peas and carrots, that combo they do, that's awesome for ducks. It's a really good idea, but it's not what you expect. I usually have one of those in the car.

Yeah, right. The next number here is also about duck eating, but the number is two. It turns out there are two broad categories of ducks based on how they go about eating. Because they're all omnivores, but the U.S. Forest Service says there are dabbler ducks and there are diving ducks. Wow. There are ducks that just dabble at being ducks and ducks that dive right into being ducks. Yeah. There are television news stations. dabble at being ducks. And ducks that dive right into being ducks. Yeah. There are television news stations.

There's Doppler ducks. There's dilettante ducks. And it's a shame what happened with those Dilbert ducks, huh? Yeah. Really them? Okay. Isn't that just Mallard Fillmore? Oh, yeah.

Wow, it really is. Well played. He was there the whole time, right through our noses. I like that we rated him below that Hanna-Barbera secondary duck character when we were listing cartoon ducks. We were like, Mallard Fillmore, not even in the conversation. No, absolutely. Cannot hold a candle to the hilarious yacky doodle. And his dog friend, Chopper.

I looked it up. Literally on the list of top cartoon ducks, Mallard Fillmore is below those quotation marks that represented George W. Bush and Doonesbury. That's how low I put Mallard Fillmore. Wasn't he a cowboy hat? Oh, man, he was a cowboy. What was the quotation marks represent then? I thought there was like a little asterisk, right? Something else not funny?

Something something Watergate? Duck eating. So we have dabbler ducks and what dabbler ducks do is they do most of their eating on the water surface or just below it or they kind of nibble at grasses or something same examples include the pintail the shoveler and the mallard and then diving ducks are ones that dive all the way under the water and swim through it. I think of penguins when I think of this. They're not this thing, but that kind of swimming under the water. That includes mergansers, eiders, and golden eyes. I do like that one of those ducks is called the shoveler, which I feel

like would be my sporting name if I was into competitive eating. Just call me the shoveler. competitive eating. Just call me the shoveler. Yeah, I feel like most people just think about mallards. And according to Bird Note, which is a great public radio show and podcast, they say mallards are the most common duck in the world and also one of the largest. And then the males have distinctive green heads during mating season. And so like that is also kind of everybody's mental duck for a lot of people. I'm sorry to take us off track of ducks here, but I have to say something about Bird Note, the public radio show that's basically just a bird call being played and then they say something about that kind of bird. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's like two minutes long. Yeah. I go to the public radio

conference sometimes and it's not the most fun of conferences and the conference floor not the most fun of conference floors nobody is selling anything interesting there's no booth hunks uh there's nothing exciting is happening there except for bird note which no matter where the conference is, brings an enormous live raptor. Whoa. So you'll just be walking along. Oh, there's the public radio satellite system. Oh, there's the public radio international booth. Oh, there's Sandrit Singh Lowe.

And then you look over there, you're like, ah, eagle. So for that reason, Bird Note is solid gold with me forever. It with me forever number one tote bag in its claws number one public radio animal show bad news for you dr zorba wait no bad news for you calling all pets i feel like this is a good moment for me to request if our podcast can have a network eagle uh i was gonna say this earlier but you know came up listen depends how the pledge drive goes okay maybe you were all getting eagles i don't know how how many people are going to maximumfund.org join like i promised that but then i think through having an eagle in both of our taping locations and then I try to sabotage the drive. I'm like, don't give.

It's a bad idea. I cannot take care of this eagle. I kind of want to wear one of those giant leather gloves. That'd be nice. Make your hand look big. Yeah, you do already have one of those mommy eagle hand puppets for feeding it, though. It's just how me and my therapist talk through difficult issues yeah the mommy eagle hand puppet next number here this brings us to some of the cartoon stuff we were talking about because it is the date april 17th 1937

and that is the premiere date of a looney Tunes short called Porky's Duck Hunt. And that featured an unnamed duck character who irritated the hunter Porky Pig, and then later was named Daffy Duck and reappeared in other Porky Pig shorts, mainly starting out. Yeah, I really actually find Daffy Duck's evolution as a character very interesting, Yeah, I really actually find Daffy Duck's evolution as a character very interesting because he starts out as the loony character. He's a loose cannon, kind of a chaotic force on the show. Not necessarily evil, but just chaos to the more sort of stuttering surprise of Porky Pig. And he slowly evolves to grow an ego.

Because I think at the beginning of his arc, he's purely id, 100% id. But then he develops ego over the course of many years to become sort of the Daffy Duck we know today, who himself is sort of the mockable one, not just this chaotic force, but one who has a reputation he feels he needs to uphold. He's also pretty malevolent. Like for a hero, he's pretty malevolent. He has many vices and he's motivated often by greed. He's venal.

I rewatched one the other day because I was like, isn't there one called the Scarlet Pimpernel or something? And most of the cartoon is him haranguing a Hollywood studio head to give him more like screen time and more opportunities in the business, which is just so selfish and also probably beyond anything I understood as a child. Like how could I follow that? Probably not. Just something from Mel Blanc's diary. Yeah. Man of a thousand voices and only one job? Yeah, and that's all dead on. Daffy, in that very first short, apparently mostly made that woohoo noise he makes when he kind of loses his mind in later cartoons and uh he's

gone on to be according to tv tropes.org the third most appearances of any looney tunes character behind porky and bugs he's probably the funniest isn't he yeah he's definitely like like you know a high status idiot which is like such a great comedy character. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the funniest cartoon characters ever. No shade at Donald, who was also pretty funny. But, you know, yeah, Daffy, you know, you love to see Daffy getting taken down a peg.

It's always hilarious. I feel like Daffy is us. Like, we want to be a Bugs, but really when we introspect, we are a Daffy. And I think that is important to the character. Boy, I mean, I know you three are Daffys, but I'll be honest here. I'm just a yakky doodle. Just a yakky doodle over here. Barely remembered to history.

Mostly forgotten. I'm the quotation marks from Doonesbury, and I literally can't remember what those are. Those talking quotation marks, I don't remember. General Norman Schwarzkopf? I don't know. When did anything happen? And with Daffy, I'm going to link pictures because I also liked finding out that he has looked almost exactly the same across his entire run. It's the same black body with a white ring on the neck.

And that's partly because he started in black and white cartoons. But also that has led people on the Internet to claim that they achieved birder stuff and figured out what species he is really this is though is a hot dog a sandwich of birders i think kind of yeah like you're trying to id daffy like you've got the merlin app open or something you know it's very silly to me what did they figure out was the good day from ice cubes today was a good day or whatever of birding what is he right they so i i disagree with what they think but i'll link the cornell ornithology lab of the species they say he's an american black duck is the name of the species that's an actual species name but it's really a brown looking duck that doesn't really have that neck ring. And I sent you folks a picture of one. It doesn't look like it to me, but the internet says that's Daffy's species.

It is traditionally the most high confidence duck. I'm looking at a picture of this duck, and this is why Cornell is a second tier Ivy League school. Yeah, finally, take him to Tav. The Harvard Ornithology lab would never right he kind of looks like a coot but coots aren't ducks so riddle me that cornell i also i have learned that coots are a kind of bird but even knowing that i just laugh every time i hear about coots it's greatoby, a lot of fun bird names out there. I mean, as a very, not very skilled birder, but I try nonetheless.

It does make me sound like a pervert because I'm always going, look at that coot over there. And then the mother escorts her child away from me. No, coot and a couple of boobies. Let's not forget about that dick dick. I know it's a little dear, but it's also fun to say. And another number here, very related to cartoon stuff, is June 9th, 1934. So a few years earlier, June 9th, 1934,

is the premiere date of The Wise Little Hen, which was a Walt Disney's Silly Symphony short and the debut of Donald Duck. I remember that. So Donald was first. I mean, have you seen that short? Because I remember that short, actually, the one with. Oh, I didn't actually watch it. Yeah, yeah. So it's it's a story of this chicken and her all of her little chicks are making corn, chicken and her all of her little chicks are making corn like planting corn and she goes to donald duck and porky pig and asks them if they want to help her plant her corn and yeah donald duck and the miserable layabouts that they are refuse uh because they're lazy and they pretend to have stomach aches so she goes back she does all this stuff with her corn. She makes a big corn banquet with, like, cornbread and corn soup, I think.

Everything is corn, and so Donald Duck sees the corn banquet and wants some of that corn. So he asks to come in for the corn. She's like, no, fool, you didn't help me. So then she sends him away. I think with castor oil, which I think in cartoons was shorthand for a really nasty medicine. Oh, yeah, gross air, man.

This is something I was curious about. If, you know, the cartoons were pulling from science, are ducks traditionally very close with their nephews? Well, there is... No, but they do wear tam-o-shanters. Interesting. Yeah, they do all have Scottish accents. All ducks are Scottish.

A hot dog's a sandwich. All ducks are Scottish. They do imprint on anything. Like, basically, when the ducklings hatch, there's, like, someone there with the duckling. It can be another duck. It can be a human. It can be in scientific setups, like, colorful objects tied to a pole. So, yeah, I do think nephews could imprint upon their deranged uncle, for sure.

Yeah, I guess they accidentally tapped into something about ducks by having so many duck family stories at Disney stuff, that they're like family-oriented beings and they're not Daffy Duck, always on his own being selfish. Oh, yeah. When it comes to money pits, are you guys divers or dabblers? Oh, yeah. Head first, baby. Right into those coins. Getting them in your mouth, spitting them out. Nothing like it.

And with Donald Duck's origin, it turns out a lot of it was driven by the voice actor. He was sort of the origin of the whole character because it turns out there was a voice actor in L.A. doing various radio comedy voices named Clarence Nash. And Walt Disney just kind of brought him in for a general audition. Like, let's see what stuff you can do. general audition. Like, let's see what stuff you can do. And Walt was so excited about Nash's impression of a family of ducks that he said, use that voice. We have a short coming up called The Wise Little Hen with a duck character. That'll be the voice of the duck. And then Clarence Nash went on to voice Donald Duck for almost 50 years, starting in 1934, finally in 1983 in Mickey's Christmas Carol. Wow.

You know, you know, Mel Blanc is the voice of all those Warner Brothers characters, but I guess the people who originated those Disney character voices, maybe not as famous. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that, the fact that I couldn't pull any names of those original Disney voice actors. I guess it's probably a combination of the kind of creative force and creative hegemony in those Disney cartoons that came from Walt Disney himself. And then the fact that they're not nearly as good or funny.

They're way less good. Yeah, the mouse keeps a tight leash on everyone in that corporation. Nobody gets more famous than the mouse or else, you know. The Goofy. I was going to say, the stuff where Goofy learns how to do something by listening to a record. Those are pretty funny. Still pretty hilarious to this day. Water skiing and stuff. Yeah.

Well, and we have a couple of big takeaways for this episode, and the others are more about scientifically the animal ducks, but this first one is about Disney. Takeaway number one. Donald Duck accidentally became a symbol of Chile's military dictatorship. I knew he'd do that. The world's fun. It's weird. I knew Donald Duck primarily as a symbol of Uruguay's military dictatorship. It is funny, like, what cartoon...

Like, that is kind of a thing. It's like... I know that, like, in... Donald is big in the Netherlands. I learned from working for Hanna-Barbera briefly that Top Cat is big in South America. South America loves Top Cat. Oh, good for them. And it's just this thing of these characters who are kind of second tier to us are huge in other countries.

When I was a kid, I was in Chiapas, in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas in southern Mexico. And I was friends with this kid named Miguel Angel. And we were just sort of like fast friends. I was only there for a few weeks, but we were like fast friends. And one day he was flipping his wig. I mean, we were like eight years old. And just like coming and grabbing me and my mom. He didn't have any English and i didn't have very much spanish my my mom did but not me and just coming mickey goofy mickey

goofy mickey goofy and we went and it was a traveling stage show of the disney characters Disney characters where they like sang and danced in, in Spanish, obviously to promote, I think Fanta, if I remember correctly, it was really something else. Like it was really just like, you could just imagine these sort of dingy Donald Duck heads coming off and somebody smoking a cigarette and being like,

I used to do Cervantes, you know, that is, there's two, two things that are always surprisingly huge in other countries. cigarette and being like, I used to do Cervantes, you know? There's two things that are always surprisingly huge in other countries are second tier cartoon characters and Fanta. Yeah, absolutely. Turns out, yeah. There's actually, in Mexico, this is interesting. In Mexico, there is actually Donald Duck flavored Haribo.

So that's exciting. Oh. What does Donald Duck taste like? Yeah, it's got like an orange mint flavor, herbal. So he's kind of duck all orange. Right. Yeah, the basic reason for this story is the weirdness of how one company in the U.S.,

especially in the past in the mid 1900s would transmit their media. Like it wasn't just easy to make a movie and put it in every theater in the world or a global streaming service. And so like in the mid 1900s, Disney was kind of not even mainly a movie or TV company in South America. They were mainly a comic book publisher. And then like the top Disney product in Chile was comics and people's favorite were the Donald Duck comics. They were like, Oh,

these are fantastic to read. I mean, here in the United States, Donald Duck is primarily a type of frozen orange juice, right? Like that is the, that is like the, like the Flintstones are almost exclusively a

chewable vitamin at this point. And Donald Duck is a frozen orange juice. Yeah. As a, as a kid, I watched a lot of Looney Tunes and watched very little cartoons of these like basic Disney characters of Mickey and Donald and Goofy. Like I mostly saw the Lion King and stuff, but I didn't see them. Yeah. They basically all stink. I mean, that's why the Goofy ones are a little funny and it is funny when Donald Duck goes, but like, besides that, they're a snooze. Yeah. Like you see those Looney Tunes ones, you're like, oh my God, this is a time transcending masterpiece. And then you watch the Disney ones and you're like, well, And sending Masterpiece.

And then you watch the Disney ones and you're like, well, they make a good sweatshirt for a girl you went to middle school with. Yeah. And as people in Chile and elsewhere in the world, too, but as people in Chile read these comics, like Donald Duck was a really omnipresent pop culture text and picture character. Well, the Donald Duck comic books are pretty good. There's a bunch of Donald Duck and Duck family comic books from the 50s and 60s, I guess they must be from. Maybe the 40s and 50s. They were some of the first comics to have continuity. They were the first ones to, like, introduce, you know, the fact that it was a story that went on past the issue.

Yeah, they're really fun and pleasant to read. I read a bunch of them with my kids when they were little, and they're really a good time. It's probably these same stories, but just with Spanish translation. Like, the story really starts in 1971, because at the time, Chile had elected a president named Salvador Allende, who was a relatively left wing and seen as almost revolutionary through democracy figure. Like he might really bring the country left and more socialist. And one advisor to the Allende administration was a writer and scholar named Ariel Dorfman. And he co-authored a short book titled How to Read Donald Duck, Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic. And this book by an Allende supporter said that Donald Duck is a mouthpiece of conservative right-wing politics and could ultimately be

supportive of, you know, something like the Pinochet dictatorship that rolled in a few years later. Wow. Classic Dorfman. That's why he's represented by just a talking cowboy hat. That's right. Makes you wonder where Uncle Scrooge got all that money from. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like they it was Dorfman and a Belgian sociologist co-wrote the book, and they basically argued that the stories are is a bad place to be the rich always win and

donald duck is constantly just letting life be how it is and chasing money and not actually trying to improve the system or or do any sort of positive progressive upgrading of anything yeah you know what it's hard just being a duck you know yeah a lot of peas to eat it this book is definitely kind of an overread maybe of these comics about a duck living in a city but it's it's what they found don't you dare alex i'm i have a degree in american studies there's no such thing as an overread just put the word problematics into any sentence and you've written the american studies phd Problematics into any sentence, and you've written an American Studies PhD. I mean, darkwing duck is... Diaspora.

Throw diaspora in there. Didactic and diasporic. Yeah, darkwing duck is a bit of a broken windows policing kind of symbol. Right. Symbol of broken windows policing, of course. Yeah. ADAB. Yeah, all darkwAB. All dark wings.

All dark wings are bastards. Gizmo duck in there, too. That guy. Yeah, what is up with him? He's got a wheel for a butt? I think it's in place of his legs. Oh, okay. Right, but the butt is an element of the legs.

So, you know. Yeah. That's true. What is the butt, if not the element of the legs. So, you know. Yeah. That's true. What is the butt? If not the top of the legs, more than ever. No, no. We're talking about ducks here. So what is the cloaca?

Oh, right. Oh, yeah. Probably a cannon or something. And yeah, this book, we're sort of reading it the way the authors did. Like, let's read as many things we can find in it. But then that book publishes in 1971. And then two years later, General Augusto Pinochet leads a military coup, overthrows Allende. The Nixon administration in the U.S. supports the overthrow.

And, you know, some dictators would probably just let this book go. But Pinochet banned and destroyed the book whenever possible. Apparently, Dorfman would turn on his TV and see like footage of soldiers burning copies of it. The Chilean Navy seized 10,000 copies and dumped them into the ocean. 10,000 copies and dumped them into the ocean. And protesters threw rocks at Dorfman's house windows. One of them tried to run him over with his car. And the attacker with the car shouted, Viva El Pato Donald while they did it, which is Spanish for long-lived Donald Duck. Oh, my God.

I'm just glad someone was standing up to wokeism. I know I sound like a broken record here but i mean if there was there's a duck for the workers and it's yacky doodle he controls forever between yacky doodle and that dog he's friends with chopper i looked it up baby huey is a is a staunch libertarian. Yes. You'll let the market decide. You'll take his gun when you pry it from his cold, dead diaper. Well, and we have a couple more takeaways coming. But in between, we're going to take a break, drink some OJ, and then we'll be back about the amazing lives of real world ducks.

I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because, yes, listening is mandatory.

The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Folks, we have two more takeaways for the main show here. And the next one is takeaway number two. Ducks are a helpful working animal on farms and a hardy livestock for surviving climate change. I've always seen those ducks toiling away with the duck plow.

Yeah. Duck-drawn carriages, draft ducks. They're strong, but it's hard to get them under the yoke. Right. Alex, is their job on a farm, and I, look, I haven't seen the episode outline here, but is their job on the farm pooping? It can be part of it. Yeah. And there's two different jobs here to talk about. I thought they had zero jobs at all. I thought they were just sitting around, but yeah. They're friends. Babe needs a best friend character.

And there needs to be some kind of comic relief. You know, Babe's got to have someone to talk to about his ambitions and hopes and dreams. And you need something to contrast with Babe. So that's one of the jobs that Duck has on the farm. I just like that Alex has been stewing all this time about Ducks not having jobs. Just like, get a job, ducks woke ism is killing ducks too many drag shows that's the problem ducks don't want to work anymore right yes they're quiet quitting quiet quacking that's funnier yeah i was i was thinking about what you could do there

quiet quacking, yeah. Now all I can think about is trend pieces about ducks. Like, you might be a millennial duck if... They're killing the bread industry. This first duck farm job almost sounds like a trend piece job to me. Because this is... It's a 2020 article from Alice Obscura. Their journalist covered a grape vineyard in the country of South Africa. But this this is a more than 300 year old vineyard. And they just started doing a natural form of pest control where each

morning they release a flock of about 2000 ducks into their vineyard. Sorry. And it's specifically a breed called the Indian runner duck. So it doesn't fly so much. It like runs around and eats bugs as fast as it can. The pest on these farms is one giant horse. I want to see a video of a thousand ducks being released. Two thousand. Yeah. Two thousand. Yeah.

Two thousand. Yeah. Imagine the sound. Yeah, they all run and quack and then they eat insects. They also eat snails. They will even eat the larvae of these kind of animals. And then also they, after eating, defecate in the fields, which is a natural fertilizer for the grapes as well. And so they are working farm ducks at a vineyard.

Sorry, guys, I'm watching the AP video of these ducks. Oh, do it. Yeah, yeah. How could you not? Like, I bring this up. They're so stupid looking. Now just imagine the Jurassic Park soundtrack over this. So majestic. And then just Laura Dern looking at them in awe.

Yeah. And then apparently also the owners said that they, this was their second idea was the ducks, and their first idea was chickens. But chickens, quote, proved not to be so efficient. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think you can tell a chicken what to do. Yeah, forget it. A duck, I think you can point that duck in the right direction. A chicken, no.

No, I don't see it with a chicken. Too busy listening to rem and drinking okay cola disaffected right chickens are the gen x bird ducks are millennials chickens are gen x believe ducks believe in that we can build a world without invasive snails. Right. And of course, boobies are zoomers. Yeah. Always on TikTok showing their plumage. Right.

I think turkeys are boomers. Just real. Turkeys are boomers. Old fashions. Yeah. And of course, penguins are the greatest generation. Thank you for your service. We salute you, penguins are the greatest generation. Thank you for your service. We salute you, penguins.

Shockingly accurate. Let me ask you this. Have you ever had this problem with puffins? Hello, what are you going to do about the teapot dome scandal? Yes, that's right. Puffins are from, is that the Gilded Age? Seems right. Because they wear little t, is that the Gilded Age? Seems right. Because they wear little tuxedos, yeah.

Right. Well, there's another kind of working duck here. And it turns out this is a Japanese rice farming technique called Aigamo. And it's also being spread worldwide now that there's more mass media to tell people about it. And it's also being spread worldwide now that there's more mass media to tell people about it. What you do is you plant your rice at the same time you introduce hundreds of baby ducklings into the rice paddy. It used to be more of a college radio thing. Makes the dean so mad he can't catch on. But apparently you do this in early June is the exact timing.

And then these seedlings of rice and the ducklings grow up together. And they become friends. Well, not so much, but unlikely animal friendship here. Because apparently it's a thing where rice plants have too high of a silica content for a baby duck to eat it. And so you leave them together for six weeks. The ducklings eat all of the other plants and weeds and make room for the rice. And then after six weeks, you remove the growing ducks and let those become adults, eat those ducks, and then also have thriving rice. Do they remove them with like those little nets that you get like at the carnival where you try to scoop up the duck from the rotating thing, but the net's kind of hard to handle and then you don't get a prize?

Yeah, sure. Each farmer gets a big bear. Oh, yeah. All right. A guns and roses mirror. Sure. Stewie from Family Guy, but with dreadlocks? This license probably isn't.

The very last story, it's about raising ducks as poultry, but it's because of climate change. It's because of climate change. And the magazine The Atlantic, they sent somebody to Bangladesh in 2019 and found out that due to flooding that's new from climate change in Bangladesh, people are raising ducks instead of chickens. We'll just are not good swimmers and also stupid. So they'll just sort of let themselves drown if water comes in. But ducks will just do the thing that ducks stereotypically do. Makes perfect sense. What would you say are our top five floating livestock? I think ducks are one. Number one, it's got to be bushy sheep, right? Oh.

Because of the lanolin. Sure. Keeps it buoyant. Goat with waders. Those little puffy inflatable waders on a goat. Oh, yeah. Sure. Like swim wings. Sure.

Yeah. Water wings. Let's say diving horse from early 19th century circus. Yeah. Absolutely. Oh. yeah absolutely oh and factoring meat farm in a boat man we had to bum us out jesse sorry stupid number five but there's one last fast takeaway for the main show. It is takeaway number three. Millions of North America's ducks gather and breed based on the past movements of glaciers.

It turns out there is a whole region of the U.S. and southern Canada called the Prairie Pothole region. And it's full of kind of divots in the land that become wetlands in the spring, where millions and millions of ducks will all gather to breed. That's amazing. I'm excited to find out that I've been in the wrong place to breed this whole time. Gotta get yourself to the wetlands, you know what I mean? All these years, I wondered why I wasn't breeding. Why won't anyone gather with me, I said. You didn't follow in the wake of a glacier. I like the idea that cool guys really know glacier movements.

Like, that's how they get the ladies. Hey, four eyes! What do you think carved this canyon, baby? Oh, I'm following glaciers here. Oh, nice ice sheet, nerd. I'm reading books. I'll see you out at the fjord tonight. And then he hits the glacier and it plays rock around the clock.

Yeah. So this region, it's more than 300,000 square miles of the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana, and the prairie provinces of Canada. That's traditional land of the Oceti Chicoan people and the Cree people, many other groups. But it's distinctive for this place where the Laurentide ice sheet a few million years ago advanced across it and then receded. And so that left behind huge stuff like the Great Lakes, but also tiny wetlands. And every year that attracts an estimated 8 to 10 million ducks, plus up to 1 million geese. It's the main breeding area for at least seven entire species of North American ducks. And then they go elsewhere to live after they're done breeding.

I didn't know there was this huge gathering of them going on. I hate to bring this energy to the podcast, but I keep imagining the smell. Oh, okay. Yeah. I think ducks do smell pretty bad right or i yeah i don't think i've smelled many ducks but i feel like you know in in petting zoo situations that i've been in um they're a smellier bird they're not as bad as penguins penguins i think are one of on the worse end of smell because it's the fish poop. It's sort of the liquid fish poop. But I'm just like, you know, millions of ducks all having sex at the same time can't be a good fragrance.

Yeah. San Francisco in the 70s. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Because it's very specifically for that for getting together this thing and the when they go there the females spend their spring eating and building up nutrients for egg laying and apparently the males spend most of that time determining territories and getting in fights with

each other uh and also they love this area because apparently apparently duck pairs like to have their own body of water for nesting and breeding. They don't like to share a body of water. So this place with a bunch of tiny little wetlands that works really good. It's a bunch of separate little pods. Duck suburbanites. They're millennial ducks, so they can't afford to buy their own body of water. They just rent. They can only rent duck

condominiums it's a live live poop development misuse but but yeah this is just going on it's a like migration miracle that i think is neat and also apparently locals in the dakotas especially whenever there's a heavy snowfall in winter, they call it duck snow because they know that when it melts, there will be plenty of wetland water for the ducks in the spring. Like it's, it's a very duck focused area. Duck snow, huh? Yeah. That's, I don't, I don't have any cool names for snow. It just happens to me, you know? This is why, in my opinion, every state gets two senators. They're not apportioned because someone has to speak for duck country. Yeah.

You can't have the tyranny of the majority not let the ducks have a voice. Somebody from South Dakota has to stand up for the ducks. Taxes. Toilets and taxes. Yay. Folks, wow. That is the main episode for this week. Welcome to the outro with fun features for you, such as help remembering this episode, with a run back through the big takeaways.

Takeaway number one, Donald Duck accidentally became a symbol of Chile's military dictatorship. Relays military dictatorship. Takeaway number two, ducks are a helpful working animal on farms and a hardy livestock for surviving climate change. And then takeaway number three, millions of North America's ducks gather and breed based on the past movements of glaciers. Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumFun.org

because members get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus story is very relevant to the Barnacles episode we did and also very relevant to the Barnacles episode we did, and also very relevant to anybody who knows their duck anatomy, because we're going to talk about the astounding features of duck genitalia and a U.S. political scandal that came out of that. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than 11 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of Maximum Fun bonus shows. And like we're saying, if you join the Maximum Fun drive, you get a huge stash of bonus audio,

including an episode where me and Katie and guest David Christopher Bell talk about the Super Mario Brothers movie from 1993. And me and Katie did a crossover with Dave Holmes and with the team at the Troubled Waters podcast, another awesome MaxFun podcast. All of that stuff is special audio just for members. Thank you for being somebody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun thing, check out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources this week include the U.S. Forest Service, the Ducks Unlimited non-profit group, The Guardian, and oh yeah, that non-profit radio show Bird Note with the fun raptors at the

conventions. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples. Also, Katie taped this in the country of Italy, and Jordan and Jesse each recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. I want to acknowledge that in my and Jordan and Jesse's location and many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here, and that feels worth doing on each episode. Also, join the free SIF Discord, where we're sharing stories about Native people and life. And hey, would you like a tip on another episode? Because each week I run all of our episode numbers through a random number generator to give you a tip on something randomly incredibly fascinating. This week's tip is episode number 49, which is about postal codes, such as zip codes in

the U.S. Also, the astounding Irish postal codes for every location in every town and city. So I recommend that episode. I also recommend my co-host Katie Golden's weekly podcast, Creature Feature, about animals, science, and more. Also linking you to tons of amazing podcasts by Jordan Morris and Jesse Thorne. I'm sure you know about many of them, but especially Jordan, Jesse Go is the two of them together. Our theme music on this show is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our members and thank you to all our listeners. extra extra special thanks go to our members and thank you to all our listeners i'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating so how about that talk to

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