Stuff You Should Know - The SYSK Holiday Spectacular

Episode Date: December 24, 2019

It's an annual treat, folks. Our holiday special is back and better than ever, and as always, brought to you ad-free. It's the least we can do.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Spirit of Christmas Bryant. Josh Kringle. And there's Jerry Krampus Rowland over there. And this is Stuff You Should Know. That's right. The, jeez, we should know how many this is. 17? No. 92.

Yes. Our 92nd Christmas Special Edition. Second try. Holiday Spectacular Spectacular. Spooktacular. No, that's Halloween. All right. All right. Yeah, I don't know how many this is, but we've been podcasting for almost 12 years now.

It'll be 12 this next year, right? Yes. Like, summer-ish? Yeah. Spring. Did we release a Christmas episode the first year? I don't know. We'll have to go back and do our homework about ourselves.

Yeah, I'm sure someone knows this stuff. Right. But as usual, not that we're tooting our own horn, but we just want to remind everyone that we release this ad free every year, so our Christmas episode is without taint. That's pretty great. It's untainted. Toot-toot. Well, you know, it always just felt weird to slap an ad in the middle of the Christmas-themed

show. Who advertises around Christmas? Yeah, exactly. So anyway, this is, we're all pleased with that tradition. We are pleased as punch, Chuck. Yes. Jerry's especially pleased to look at her. Mm-hmm.

So, Jerry, do you know it's Christmas? Yeah. Jerry's so grumpy. So, Chuck. Yes. I feel like we should start this one off in our usual tradition by a little bit of music to play us into the next, the first segment. Fantastic.

That's nice. It really is. Jerry's good at this. It really sets the mood. I think that was trans-Iberian orchestra, if I'm not mistaken, was it? I don't know. We'll find out. Before we get started with this episode, Chuck, we should, we have in the future concluded

that here in the past, we should issue a COA. I know. Who would have thought our Christmas episode might not be appropriate for kids, but we're us. Yeah. So, this first story has to deal with magic mushrooms and Santa Claus, and it's all legit, but if you don't want your kids to listen to that, then don't listen to it. Sure.

Okay. Well, let's get on with it. Let's do. So, I dug something up years back, and we've talked about it before, at least in passing, but the more I jumped into it, the more I was like, this is nuts. I don't even know which order we're going in. You see, I have my papers all over. Well.

So, I'm excited. I'm going to, I'm along for the ride. Okay. Just like the listener. I'm going to direct. To hear the first, yeah, you're directing. Okay. I'm, I'm, this is, this is really a lot of pressure all of a sudden.

Places everyone. That's what you got to say. I wasn't expecting this. Hold on. Let me put my shoulder or my, let me put my sweater over my shoulders and tie it. Get out your old school megaphone. Yep. Okay.

Chuck, please stand right there. Okay. Gary, keep doing what you're doing. Chuck, we're going to talk about Santa Claus as a possible psychedelic mushroom. Oh, right. I was hoping we'd start with that one. Okay. So, like I said, we've talked about this before.

I don't remember what episode. I know we have. Yeah. We have. But never this in depth. No. And I also want to point out that the, uh, Amanita, Muscaria, is that the full name? Yep.

This mushroom, the very famous red and white Christmasy looking mushroom. The one that anytime you think of a gnome, that's like the toadstool they live around. That's right. I saw some of these just a few weeks ago in the woods. Wow. Yeah. Have you come down yet? Well, the person I was with said, I think those are magic mushrooms.

I said, no, those only grow in cow poop and they were like, no, I think those are too. There's different kinds. Yeah. And, uh, we went back to the research and it turns out they are, we did not touch them or pick them. Sure. We left them to grow. Yeah.

They apparently, they're also very toxic. Sure. I imagine. Um, but there's ways, there's things you can do to them to remove the toxicity, especially if you live around reindeer. That's right. But that plays a part in this story because, uh, this great article you sent, Santa Claus and the, uh, Santa Claus, the magic mushroom and the psychedelic origins of Christmas.

Yes. By Melanie Zulu. That's what I'm going with. X, X, U, L, U. Yes. That's a great name. Sure is. Uh, and what publication was this?

Oh, what a great rag. Yeah. So, uh, Melanie Zulu basically, um, did some research on, on this idea, um, that Santa Claus was inspired by those psychedelic mushrooms, the fly agaric mushroom. Yeah. And I gotta say, when all of this stuff is read together, there's a lot of pretty heavy coincidence. It really is.

You know, whenever you, whenever you read about something like this, where something might have been based on speculation or whatever, you're like, uh, that's, there's a couple of those are kind of convincing from start to finish. This is so absolutely convincing that I'm like, this is, this is the answer, everybody. That's right. Magic mushrooms. Maybe so. So, um, on the very far end of the spectrum of the speculation that Santa Claus is based

on a psychedelic mushroom, you'll find Jack Herrera, who's a very famous pot, pot activists. Um, so, so famous. And in fact, I believe he has his own strain of pot, if not like brand, like Willy Weed basically, or whatever Snoop Dogg's brands are. Right. Um, and Jack Herrera said, not only was Santa Claus based on a mushroom, Santa Claus was the mushroom. That's where they got it from.

It was like this is, they used to basically eat these mushrooms and call them Santa Claus. Okay. Most people, most people don't, don't agree with that. Instead, they say, no, we think that there is something to the idea that Santa Claus was inspired by the, the rituals around this, this mushroom in particular though. That's right. Uh, notably there's a professor, a professor named John Rush, uh, at Sierra College in California and it's pretty neat.

There are like legit Christmas scholars out there that you can get expert, you know, takes on. Yeah. And he's one of those guys. And his quote is up until a few hundred years ago, uh, these practicing shaman, and we're talking about shaman in, uh, the Lapland. Yeah. In, in Northern Finland.

Yeah. Northern Finland. He said, uh, these priests, they connected to older traditions, they would collect these mushrooms, dry them up and give them as gifts in the winter solstice. So the stage is set. Yeah. We know this for sure. Yeah.

They would collect these mushrooms and they would give them out for people to eat and get high. Right. But exactly what they were doing when they did that really kind of drives the Santa idea home a lot. Yeah. Notably what they wore. Okay.

Well, let's first start with that fly agaric mushroom. When you saw it, you were out in the woods. I'll bet you they were growing at the foot of a fir tree. They were. A pine tree, some sort of evergreen, right? Correct. Okay. That's almost exclusively where they grow.

I feel like I'm on the witness stand. Right. What did you recall? And then the other thing about it is they grow at least up in the northern climes around the winter solstice. So you've got the winter solstice, which happens to coincide pretty nicely with Christmas, and you have the emergence of these mushrooms around fir trees, evergreen trees, around that time.

Right. Then you have the Siberian shaman, or shamans, seems like it should be shaman, plural even. But it's not. They would dress up to look like those mushrooms. So you think, all right, those red and white mushrooms, interesting. So all of a sudden you've got a shaman with black boots, a red felt hat, white fir. Red coat. Does that sound like anyone?

Yeah. It's pretty surprising. If that were the long and short of it, I'd be like, that's a bit of a stretch, but let's continue, shall we? Yes. If it was the same shaman, they would give these fly agaric toad stools out as gifts around Christmas. But how?

They would, because by the time the winter solstice rolled around, there would be snow everywhere. They couldn't get through the door of their friends and loved ones' yurts. So they would enter through the smoke hole, the chimney, you might call it, to deliver these gifts. I like smoke hole better. Yeah. I'm going to start calling my chimney.

Actually, I don't have a chimney anymore. No. You could though if you wanted to. Have a chimney? Sure. No, we got rid of our chimney. Just punch a hole in the roof. A smoke hole?

Yeah. Yeah. So they would climb down wearing the red coat, the white fir, the black boots, climb down a chimney and deliver these magic mushrooms. As gifts. As gifts, and then they would hang them in front of the fire. The people who receive the gifts. Yes.

They would hang them to dry in front of a fire. Sometimes in. They would hang them in a stocking, perhaps, in front of a fire. This is all true stuff. Yeah. This really went on. It just up until a couple hundred years ago in Siberia among the Sami people in Northern Finland and just as an aside, Northern Finland, the Lapland, happens to be where the geographical

location for where Santa lives is. Yes. And we should add one final little note to this. They would, when they're picking these mushrooms, they want to dry them out so they would put them on the tree boughs. These fir trees hang them to dry in the sun. So now they're hanging, I don't know, ornaments maybe? Yeah.

On trees. That's right. Under which presents tend to grow, these mushrooms that are given as presents. So if you step back and take all this stuff and put it together, you have, based on these rituals among the shaman of the Sami and in Siberia, the idea of harvesting mushrooms that grow under fir trees, fir trees that people bring into their homes and put gifts under and hang ornaments on in order to celebrate Santa Claus coming down the chimney. While wearing a Santa suit.

With a bag of gifts, sometimes filling up stockings with those gifts. That's right. When you add all this stuff up, it's really, really convincing. Yeah. And then there's a little cherry on top, which is apparently reindeer really love to eat these mushrooms. Yeah. Remember how I said that they're toxic, but there's things you can do to detoxify them?

Well, yeah. You can drink the urine of a reindeer who has eaten this and that is a way to detoxify it. It is. The reindeer metabolize the toxic parts, but they don't metabolize all of the hallucinogenic parts. They boil their urine and drink the urine and not be sick. Yes, but still twig.

Should we have had a COA at the top of this? Maybe. Probably so. Well, I have to go back and record one. Okay. Well, that's it for that one, huh? Yeah. So should we throw our bag of magic mushrooms in the sleigh and take off for the next house?

Quite a gift. Okay, Chuck, so behind the scenes, I've done a little directing. That's right. And we have determined, I should say I've determined that we're going to do this one about it's a wonderful life. A movie I still have not seen. What? I know.

For real? I've seen old Christmas classics I haven't seen. I haven't seen Santa Claus is coming to town, Miracle on 34th Street. I haven't seen this. Wow. You haven't seen the stop motion Santa Claus is coming to town? Oh, no, I've seen that. What are you talking about?

I don't know. I think I just made up a movie that doesn't exist. Okay. That's a song and it's a stop motion movie and movie feature. Yeah, I've heard and seen both those things. You could have just stopped with Miracle. It's a wonderful life. You should see Miracle on 34th Street.

That's just wonderful. I don't know. To me, there are three Christmas movies and that's all I see. Oh, there's a lot more than that. There's Elf. There's... Wait a minute. There's Christmas Vacation and there's a Christmas story.

Okay. You're putting Elf above Miracle on 34th Street. Your brain is broke. I am putting it light years ahead of it and I haven't even seen it because everyone I know says it's a wonderful life is boring and Elf is hysterical. No, no, I'm saying Miracle on 34th Street. Well, I haven't seen that, but it sounds boring. It's great.

It's a wonderful movie and it beats Elf just terribly. I will watch that just so I can come back and argue my point. Okay, good. Please do. I'll wait. I would argue that they're so different like why compare them. Well, you can compare them because Miracle on 34th Street is so better. Do you laugh 400 times?

Probably 450. Oh, I didn't know it was comedy. Well, I'm just lying right now to win. You don't know that. Let's talk about this mental floss writer, Jay Serifino, who put out, and we still love mental floss as much as we always did. It's one of our favorite publications. We even know the guys who founded it.

I know, they're colleagues. So we can do this. I don't know if that's right. He wrote a great article called How It's a Wonderful Life Went from Box Office Dud to Accidental Christmas Tradition. Yeah. I mean, this kicks off, really, this is the intellectual property law edition of our Christmas episodes.

Yeah. Good point. That is a weird thread. It just keeps popping up. So this movie from 1946, directed by Frank Capra, tells the story of George Bailey. I can't believe you haven't seen this movie. And I've just heard it's so boring. It's not.

I have no desire. It's not. It's a classic, wonderful movie. Right. It's not one of those things where it's like, oh, you have to see it's like a life-changing movie. It's a good, sweet movie with great themes, well-acted, well-directed. Everything about it, it's just a good movie.

You should really see it. You have to see it. I demand that you see it. I'll watch Elf again. Do you not like Elf? Elf is fine. It's a good movie. I'll watch it.

Just curious. A couple of times over the Christmas season. I've got no problems with Elf. All right. So, don't not see it's a wonderful life because you like Elf. Okay? Okay. Okay.

So, I'm not going to see it despite you. So in 1946, when it was released, the critics and the audiences didn't like it. Imagine that. And it was a big box office flop for Frank Capra's brand new production company, Liberty Films. Yeah, it was. Capra was a pretty famous director in the 30s, and he went off to head up the propaganda film division for the U.S. government during World War II, and then after that, he and

some other director friends of his got together and said, let's start our own production company. And they did. They started Liberty Films. And the first project from Liberty Films was It's a Wonderful Life. And it was a mess. It was a mess. And actually, as much as it's just a holiday classic for every single person on earth except for you, it was a huge dud, like you were saying, early on in its life.

So much so that it actually, it wiped their company out because it turned out to be a really big bet. It had a $2 million budget initially, which is something like $26 million today. Still pretty modest, but back then, if you were a new fledgling production company, that was a big first feature. And it actually ended up being like a $3.7 million film. It went that far over budget. Yeah, it almost doubled its budget because it had a, what they refer to as a bloated

shooting schedule. They were rewriting the script over and over and over. It sounded like just a nightmare production, which is pretty funny when you think about it. Yeah, and they kept rewriting the script despite the fact that it was based on a short story. It wasn't just an original story. Well, that might have been the problem.

But maybe so. Sometimes a short story is difficult. Yeah, I could see that. So, regardless, this over-budgeted, I think they turned it in late even, movie was released. The public didn't like it. The critics didn't like it. And it was basically headed for the dustbin of history, if not for the fact that in 1974, the movie entered the public domain because the copyright holder forgot to file for renewal.

I also forgot to, I also saw that they just didn't bother. Okay. Either way. Imagine that, that like they knew the copyright was coming up and they just said, forget it. This literally isn't worth our time and effort. But yes, either way, in 1974, it entered the public domain and it went from this schlocky flop because that was one of the other things too. This is an audience in 1946.

They thought that this was just too corny. And they rejected it wholesale. But by the time the 70s came around, people were a lot more jaded. And they kind of wanted that corny, home-spun kind of nostalgia from the 40s. They wanted a dose of George Bailey. You haven't even seen the movie and that was, you nailed it. Who Jimmy Stewart is. So they, like every TV station that wanted it got its hands on, it's a wonderful life.

Because it was free for them. Free. Yeah. They could show this movie over and over and over again. And they did. The idea of running a Christmas movie marathon, the same movie, like they do with the Christmas story today, that was apparently founded in the mid-70s by, it's a wonderful life entering the public domain.

That's right. And that was a tradition up until 1993, when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Stewart v. Abend. And that's Jimmy Stewart, by the way, but it's another movie, Rear Window. Right. Which is a certified great movie and a classic. And critics love that one, and so did the public. That was a great movie.

That established a precedent that allowed republic pictures, republic pictures who originally owned the film's copyright to regain ownership because they owned the copyright on that short story that you mentioned and the score of the movie. So they're like, you own the score, you own that short story, you basically own the movie. Yeah. Their argument was you cannot show this movie without the story or without the score. So like this is our movie and the Supreme Court or the whatever court ruled on it said, yeah, you're right.

That's right. So in 1994, NBC stepped in and said, well, we've got a bunch of cash here. That's right. We're flushed from friends making us a trillion dollars. We're going to spend some of this on the rights to It's a Wonderful Life. Yep. And they locked it down. And that's why you don't see 24-hour marathons of It's a Wonderful Life anymore.

And that's why you don't see it on FXX anymore. Right. But if you happen to be listening to this in the United States on Christmas Eve, the day that this comes out, it's on tonight on NBC. I will not be watching. Okay, Chuck, so we're going to spend the rest of the episode with me convincing you to watch It's a Wonderful Life. I can't.

I'm so agitated right now. I can barely sit still. I know. It's my gift to you. Where do you want to go next, Mr. Director? Well, let's keep the intellectual property law thread going. Okay. We're going to talk about a song, a little ditty, and it is called Santa Claus is Coming

to Town. That's right. It's a fake movie that you made up that you've never seen, that no one's ever seen. But it's also that classic animated film, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, I think it's Rankin' Bass, isn't it? Yeah. And it's also a song that goes a little something like this. One hand to two.

Song redacted. That was good, Chuck. You like that? Oh, that was better than Bruce Springsteen and the Jackson Five put together. Because we can't afford to pay for that. No. They say that it's one of the richest songs ever written because it's a holiday tune. Number seven.

Richest song of all time. Yeah. Written by a man, and I got this original article, NKY Man wrote Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Jeff Seuss. I think that means Northern Kentucky. Yeah, sure. Right. For those of you who live outside the NKY region.

Well, it's interesting when you see it, do you think, does that say New York City? Nope. It does not. Northern Kentucky. That's what they want you to think. They go from Cincinnati.com and Jeff Seuss, and they were championing one of their own, lyricist Haven Gillespie is a Kentuckian. And he actually worked for one day at the Cincinnati Enquirer, which is the paper that

owns Cincinnati.com. That's right. So he was really one of their own. He was born in 1888, born in February, worked as a typesetter in Cincinnati and Chicago, and became a really famous lyricist. But this is kind of a neat little side note, even though he got very famous as a songwriter. Whenever he was in Cincinnati, apparently, he would do some shifts at a newspaper print shop just to keep up his union status.

Healthcare. Pretty interesting. Yeah. So, he wrote a few songs, actually, he wrote one of what I think is one of the best songs ever written. You go to my head. Mm-hmm. You know that song?

I don't know. You'll have to listen to it. Sing it. Song redacted. But there's a Marlene Dietrich version of it that you should look up. It's amazing. It's a great song as it is, but Marlene Dietrich singing it just does something to it. That's really something.

I think it's Marlena, right? Or is this her sister, Marlene? Is it Marlena? I think so, isn't it? I don't care. Anyway, Ms. Dietrich does a really great rendition of it. Did I say her last name correctly? I think it's Frowl Dietrich, yes.

So Haven Gillespie wrote this song, and he had a couple of songs, and then he finally wrote a hit, and this is in the Tim Pan Alley era, right? He finally wrote a hit called Breezin' Along with the Breeze, which is the dumbest name anyone's ever given to a song. But people liked it, and he moved to New York, and he really started writing for Tim Pan Alley and Ernest. But it wasn't until Santa Claus is coming to town that he was on Easy Street. That's right.

The publisher at Leo Feiss named Edgar Bittner came forward and said, here's a composer, Mr. J. Fred Coots, why don't you get together and write a children's Christmas song. Coots and Gillespie. That's right. And this was, I don't know whether he took this as an insult or not, but he said he wrote it as a favor for a friendly publisher who said I had a vocabulary children could understand. Maybe that's a sweet sentiment. Who knows?

Sure. He said, hey, dum-dum, write a dum-dum Christmas song. Right. Do it. And he did it very quickly. Something like 15 minutes, he said, on the backs of an envelope. Yeah. Isn't that like 90% of all classic songs are written in 15 minutes on the back of an envelope?

Yeah, that's fishy. Including the police's do, do, do, no, die, die, die. Publishers thought the song was corny. The very first person to sing it, Eddie Cantor originally rejected it. But his wife was like, come on, honey. Is there any day that a wife hasn't saved? Like she saved the song from obscurity because Eddie Cantor, he was huge at the time. Yeah.

He had a radio show and on Thanksgiving day, she said, sing it for the love of God. And he did. And it blew up. And if you listen to 10 Pan Alley, you know that what happens when a song blows up means sheet music is selling because it's not recorded music yet. And I don't normally go use Wikipedia for work. I'll use it in my personal life. Sure.

But I couldn't help but come across an article on this. They said that it sold half a million. Sheet musics. Yes. In a day. Wow. That's how big it blew up. Man, that's incredible.

It really is incredible. And by the way, Wikipedia is hitting everybody up right now and I contributed $20, I'm just saying. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Because I think it's good that it exists in the world and I think we need it. No, I love it. So, read Wikipedia, give them a few bucks.

Yeah. We've never used it as source material, even though half of our internet reviewers think we do. Right. But that's why we don't do it because we want to prove them wrong every day of the week. That's right. So, this song Skyrocketed, I guess, would you say, a half million?

Yeah, that's what Wikipedia said. That's pretty amazing. I can't believe I just said that. The first time it was recorded, and I said they didn't have recorded music, of course they did. October 24th, 1934, was when Harry Ressar's Orchestra recorded it. Gillespie died in 1975, having written more than a thousand songs and is a songwriting Hall of Fame member.

And like you said, it's one of the seven richest songs ever. It really is. So, there's some really interesting stuff about that that pertains to copyright law. That's right. Because if it's one of the richest songs ever, if you own the rights of that song, you want to hang on to those rights big time. Yeah, you want that birthday, happy birthday to you, money. Right.

So, which doesn't exist any longer. Right. But the heirs of Coots, the guy who wrote the music, they entered into a contract with EMI, which is the huge, giant music publisher, back in 1951, and then again in 1981. And in 1976, get this, I didn't know this, these, I think this is the Supreme Court ruled that if you had a publishing agreement with somebody, after 35 years, you could say, that's enough, it's done, I want the rights back. No matter what, as long as this agreement was entered into after 1978.

Yeah. So, the Coots family, again, had a 1951 agreement and a 1981 agreement. Well, EMI said, no, Coots tried to file a termination order on this, for this 1981 agreement. And even though this is the contract we have with them, is the 1981 agreement, we're really going to say it's a 1951 agreement, so the family can't issue this termination. Okay. A circuit court judge said, EMI, you're wrong. Your agreement with the Coots family is based on this 1981 agreement, which came after 1978,

which means it wasn't grandfathered in, which means that 35 years after 1981, the rights to Santa Claus is coming to town, reverted to the Coots family for an extended copyright protection period, going to 2029. That's right. Isn't that fascinating? That is. And if you wondered why I wasn't talking much during that segment, everyone, it's because on the way in the room, I said, you know, all that stuff I sent about dense copyright

law, who's just so boring, let's not do it. But Josh is directing this episode. That's right. So, you got it in there. Yeah. I love it. I think it's really interesting, especially considering this is like the family, this guy's heirs, got it back in 2016, they got the rights back to one of the richest songs

ever. That's right. And they're rolling in it now. They're called as a unit, the Little Coots. That's great. That's the court ruled in favor of the Little Coots. Isn't that the name of the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic band? I think so.

Chuck E. Cheese and the Little Coots. What was showbiz pizza's band name? Hmm. Man, did you ever see that documentary? No. Oh, dude. There's a documentary on showbiz? About the animatronic band from showbiz, the guy who invented it, the people who collect

them and keep them in their house. I'd like to see that. It's one of the better ones ever. I didn't go to showbiz a lot because there was two near us, there was a Chuck E. Cheese and there was a local, I don't know if it was a chain called Sargent Singers, Pizza Circus. That sounds pretty local. Did Sargent Singer work there?

Because if so, that was local. Yeah, he asked me to call him Sarge. And then he later appeared on Six Feet Under. Oh, Sarge. Nice. Nice ref. But I want to see the documentary. All right.

So shall we load up the sleigh though? Oh, are we done talking about Santa Claus is coming to town? I think so, unless you have some more copyright law you want to cover. Let's leave the courtroom behind for the rest of the episode. All right. We've got, what do we got? Two more segments here. We do.

Well, let's have a little music play us into the next one, shall we? All right. All right, Chuck, and then there were two. Giddy with anticipation. Are you? About which one we're going to do. Oh, oh, I haven't told you yet. Well, we're going to go back to our friend's mental floss again, and we're going to go

in particular to an article from mental floss by a guy named Tate Williams, and it's about Christmas tree flocking. Yes. And my only criticism here, Mr. Tate Williams, is he did not title this, What the Flock is Flocking. Yeah. You really missed an opportunity there. Well, so.

Staring you in the face. With most publications, usually it's the editor that comes up with headlines. So Tate probably suggested that and the editor was like, no, I'm in a bad mood today and shot that down. So now it's titled, What exactly is Christmas tree flocking? Very straight ahead. Right. That's right.

But what is flocking? Well, flocking in particular, Chuck, is adding texture, fiber texture to something. In this particular instance, flock is fake snow, and there's a whole movement, maybe. I don't know if that's the right word, but there's a subculture of people who like to make it look like it snowed in very particular parts of their house, inside their house. Yeah. And the only, I've never been into this stuff because it just looks like a nightmare to clean and especially with animals.

Like my tree is already being destroyed on day one by my terrible cats. But I worked in the movie industry, as you know, and I worked in TV commercials, as you know. And so. I know both of those. Like September or October, I would work on these, you know, those car commercials where it's a very happy couple and there's a big bow on a car. They're wearing sweaters.

They're wearing sweaters and they're throwing snow. That's all on the back lot in LA. And it's a ton of fake snow and it's awful to work with. That flocking is terrible. Okay. So if you're working with it under those circumstances, yes, I can see it being terrible. But there are people out there that are like, no, we don't get snow here. And I like the idea of it looking like there's snow on my tree, but it's hot outside.

I live in Arizona or New Mexico or Nevada or, you know, the southern part or Texas where some parts of it are very hot, although it snows in Texas as well. Have you ever been where at Christmas time somewhere where it's really hot? It's not. It's weird. I used to think it was weird. Now I've gotten used to it. I like it.

Really? LA was, I mean, part of what happens, and I don't know if this is true for wherever you were, but in LA, people would really go over the top, I think, to combat the fact that it's just LA. So you would get some really nice decorations and people really went the extra mile. But I just always had a hard time getting in the Christmas spirit there. I know what you mean. And that's what I thought too.

But I've been in Florida for a couple of Christmases and it's actually kind of pleasant. Yeah. Because you see the movie Bad Santa, it's set in Arizona, I think. Was it? I don't remember. And it really kind of plays up that thing where it's just like weird desert and Christmas juxtaposition. It's not a good fit.

But I find Florida at Christmas time is very nice. Okay. Fair enough. I know what you mean, though, is what I'm trying to say in the spirit of the season. Well, people for a long time, though, have been trying to get that look all the way back to the 1800s using things like cotton or flour, apparently in the popular mechanics in 1929. There was a recipe with cornstarch, silicate, mineral mica, and varnish. I don't want to use silica.

And varnish. I mean, all of this sounds like if you add one more thing, it's a bomb. But silica, you can inhale and get silicosis. Did you know that? No. Like people who work with granite countertops are really susceptible to it. It's really bad news. Yeah.

And there have been long been kits that you can buy for make your own. Yeah. There was one that General Mills put out called Snow Flock, S-N-O-F-L-O-K. They're like, let's take out any sensibleness to this name. That's what we'll call it. But there's an ad for it. It's so cute. There's like a General Mills blog, or there used to be, and there's like a newspaper ad

for the Snow Flock thing where it was like a canister filled flock that you would hook up to your vacuum cleaner, and I guess somehow reverse the polarity and use it to blow the flock. Reverse the flock. Yeah. You reverse the polarity on the flux capacitor. Well, very nice. It seems like there's one big shot company now called Peek Seasons in Riverside, California.

At least they're the only one that Mr. Tate Williams recognizes. Yeah. I mean, they seem like they're the heavyweight player here, and they make and sell a lot of this stuff. And they start with something that they liken to toilet paper, just a big roll that you feed into a machine, and it comes out the other side, they liken it to baby powder. Yeah. It's like a very white powdery substance.

Yeah. And some of them are, some of the flock comes in like colors, and if you have a colored flock like royal blue or purple or gold or something like that, you have to add cotton to like hold the dye. Yeah. And that's part, they produce the stuff with some cornstarch, I believe, the paper and then boron all together makes this flock that they sell in bags. Yeah.

And they ship these bags out to like Christmas tree farms, where you can go to a Christmas tree farm and say, I want that tree, but I want it flocked. Make it so. Take that tree and flock it. And what they're doing, right, what they're doing is they're adding some Peek Seasons flock, bag of flock to their flock gun, and they shoot it out, they shoot this mixture that Peek Seasons sells them. And at the end of this gun, it mixes with a mist of water, and it turns into this kind

of slurry that sprays onto the tree, and the tree's like, stop, stop. And that's when you know it's done. That's right. But here's the deal with this flocking process. It's got to look good or else you're kind of screwed because you can't reflock. Right. You can't spray it again. That tree can't get wet a second time because it won't dry once it's been flocked.

Right. You can never go buck. Right. Nicely done. Terrible. And we are on fire in this episode. You think? Yeah.

With the dad buns? Yeah. You got anything else on flocking? Yes. You can also not contribute to big flock if you don't want to. You can make it yourself. There's a video by a person called... Mama Flock?

No. In the flock towns? Something Mama. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Scratch. I think they got into your head subconsciously.

Probably so. Mama from Scratch had a recipe that consisted of barbersaw, cornstarch, and white glue. Whip it into a froth and then you paint it on and apparently when it dries, it puffs up and you've got some nice flocking. So you can make it yourself at home too. Here's my Christmas tree tip for the year. All right. Don't allow them to stuff it into netting because it's harder to get it back to Christmas

tree-shaped. Really? Yeah. I mean, you want that tree for those bowels to fall and that's a struggle anyway. Yeah. When they wrap it up tight in a net and strap it to your car, it's just harder to unfurl. Maybe you need heavier ornaments. No.

I don't need anything. I need to not have that net. See, I have a pickup truck, so I just throw it in the back. No one's strapping anything to my car. Yeah, but doesn't it get wind-burned on the way back? Where am I, Alaska? Well, no. I mean, at high speeds, driving on at high speeds, you drive really, really fast.

I don't drive at high speeds. No, I get my trees locally. Okay. All right. Yeah, throw it in the back of the truck. Okay. It's all great. What if you don't have a truck?

What do you recommend? Well, you can strap it to the top, but I don't see the need for that netting. I see. I don't know why they do that. I think it's to prevent wind-burn. I'm not kidding. Well, it's not a sock. It's just still getting wind-blown on it.

Yeah, I mean, some. But I think it's so compressed that it's, I don't know, let's say on this part, okay? All right, all right. All right, now that we've settled that, I don't know if it was actually settled. Well, I just want to finish so I can go watch It's a Wonderful Life. I'm so happy. I'm going to do it today. It's the miracle of the season that just happened.

Miracle at Pond City Market. Yeah. So, Chuck, I think we should finish then on this sweet little thing that they do over in Finland, in particular in Turku, Finland, which is the oldest city in the whole country. It was founded in the 12th century, the 13th century, and since the 1300s, about a century after it was founded, they've been reading this declaration of Christmas peace every year, almost every single year since the 1300s. That's right, and it sounds like a really sweet thing, and it is with a tinge of minutes,

because what they do every year is the bells of the Turku Cathedral toll in the midday. On Christmas Eve, the chief of administration goes out to a balcony there in the old square in town. There's a lot of fanfare and reads this declaration and really brings out the people, even in the worst of weather. They said there could be like 10,000 people out there. Yeah, out in the square. Tons of people.

The exact wording over the years from the original declaration have been lost to time, but the long and short of it is this, is, hey, everyone be cool, everyone be harmonious, everyone be peaceful and love your neighbor, or else you're going to be punished. That's pretty much it. And not with coal, with monetary fines. Yeah, and I would look this up. So basically the local administrator of like a town during the medieval era was beholden to the local representative of the church to keep everything nice and orderly around

Christmas, this holiest season for the church. And they were basically saying, if you make me look bad to the church, I'm going to really bring down the hammer on you. So they've lost the wording, like you said, on some of the older versions, but they've been reading the same one since 1903. And apparently, back in the old days, and still the gist of it today, is that any war, any violence, it ceases on Christmas. You got a bone to pick with your neighbor, if you're a Hatfield or a McCoy, cut it out.

Stop for Christmas season. And Christmas season, by the way, this starts at noon on Christmas Eve. Did you say that? Yeah, I was at midday. So from that point on until the end of Christmas, you're expected to just live peacefully, at least avoid one another if you're in a feud like you're saying. That's the first part. Well, yeah.

The next part is you can't work, which is that's great. You can feed your cows and things. Yeah. Why should the cows suffer because you're hanging out on Christmas? Right. But don't work. And you can't even have guests, apparently, unless you have permission from the authorities. Right.

And just great. Back in the day, if you were punished, if you were found in violation of this, you could be fined so severely that it says that you could be in debt for the rest of your life. So they took it very seriously. And it wasn't until the 1970s that they actually removed punishment from the law books in Finland. Amazing. So now... The 70s.

Right. So now there's no real punishment to this, but they still read this proclamation every year. That's right. There's other towns that do it, but as far as anyone knows, Turku is the oldest and the longest continuous one. Great tradition. Great to close this episode with us, if you're okay with that.

So before we split, I want to say Merry, Merry Christmas to everybody. Happy holidays. Happy Hanukkah. Hope it was a good one. Happy everything. Yeah. However you choose to celebrate this year, or even if you don't at all, we hope you're having a good time with your friends and family.

And as we always say every year, this season can be very tough for other people. And so just keep that in mind and show some kindness, show some compassion, and reach out to someone if you think they need that hand. Sure. Absolutely. Be kind to everybody. That's great. Or else you'll be fine.

Right. So everyone to end this Christmas spectacular, we're going to finish with the Declaration of Christmas peace tomorrow. God willing is the graceful celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior. And thus is declared a peaceful Christmas time to all by advising devotion and to behave otherwise quietly and peacefully. Because he who breaks this piece and violates the peace of Christmas by any illegal or improper behavior shall under aggravating circumstances be guilty and punished according

to what the law and statutes prescribe for each and every offense separately. Finally, the joy's Christmas feast is wished to all inhabitants of the city and by city we mean world. Happy holidays everyone. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.