trains

Theatre abounds. And why aren’t there more versions of 12 Days of Christmas?

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

UI issues, minimalist set, frog and toad, imaginative play, community theater, international translations, final experiment, flat earth, Christmas train, choir concert, 12 days of Christmas, parody versions, Jeff Foxworthy, Alan Sherman, Muppets

SPEAKERS

Collin, Brandon

Collin  00:04

Music. Welcome to Oh brother, the podcast where we try to figure it all out with your hosts, Brandon and Collin on this week's show, trains Ahoy, ahoy.

00:18

How are we going?

Brandon  00:21

Oh my gosh, I'm gonna break this thing. Zoo. What is the matter with you? This is the biggest

Collin  00:29

bunch of numptiness I've ever seen in my entire life. Oh, surely it's not all that bad. It's quite bad, right? So there's this big box that pops up, right? Like I've

00:38

talked about, says, Oh,

Collin  00:41

are you sure you're okay with being recorded and you have to sit, you have to Yes, right? Oh, but the message popped up, but not the box that you have to click. And I was like, What? What you mean? That sounds terrible. Girl, what could possibly go wrong? Why terrible UI? Girl, zero out of 10. What the heck. I don't understand how this is a multi million, billion dollar company at this point that's used by people for all sorts of work and things like that, and yet they continue to have really, really poor UI choices, just like chronically, it's an issue, major issue. And again, I don't know if there's a setting where I can turn that off, because Do I ever explore this weird setting menu. No, no, I don't right. Like, so, but I feel like they should just let me turn that off because I don't care. Like, yes, I know that's the whole point of this. They don't know that. But, like, I know, come on, what are you doing anyway? How are you? Hi, I am, well, it is. It got cold drastically this week, so that's been fun to do, but this week has just this week has is really, it's flown by. It has genuinely been, um, kind of a whirlwind and, well, that's because we only actually talked a few days ago. Finally, no, I'm I've been trying to like, Oh, I hit, I hit another button. Oh no. It's like, no, don't do that. No to now, no. It just seems like I can't get my feet under myself this week, like it has been like I'm I'm looking at I just I sat down here, and I'm looking at how my calendar looks this week compared to last week. And I'm not happy. I'm very, very unhappy with all of the little things. But, you know, I did get to start out on Sunday. I think I had, I had given a little bit of taste of this, where we got to, did I tell you, we get, we would got to go to the the play a year with frog and toad. You said you were going to go, okay, that's where we left off last with our whirlwind of concert going adventure. Yes, you were going to that next. That's where you were doing, yeah. So I think I would. I'm going to give a review of the Liberty Center associations, all right here with frog and toad, let's go. It's very interesting that this comes on the heel of heels of us having a conversation about minimalist like set pieces for for plays. And I know that there are people out there who do things like, if you are going to claim to do an imaginary kind of play where people are supposed to be animals, like, I want to, some people will say things like, I want to see a costume. I want to I don't want you to just say I'm a bear. I want you to look like a bear this and, and I'm, I'm really not like that, like I It doesn't have to be, be like that at all. And that's what this one was, the set pieces for this, this thing. So, so the whole premise of frog and toad our frog and toad our neighbors. Okay, so on the left side of the stage, and this is a very small stage, so on the left side of the stage, on a little riser, there is a wing back chair with a table next to it with a tea set. Then there's a space. And on the right side of the stage there is a riser. With a matching wing back chair with a table and a clock. On the left side of the stage is where Mr. Frog is. On the right side of the stage is where Mr. Toad is, and those are their homes, okay, okay, and that's but obviously, then there's nothing. There's nothing else on stage, but everything else is imaginary, right? Them planting the seeds, them picking the flowers, them going on walks like they did. Have a scene, and it's a year with frog and toad. And so each little vignette is kind of a story about a new season and how things are going. And they open up with a song and dance number with the birds. And the birds are three ladies, and they're all, they all wear kind of one color. One was blue, one was red, one was pink, and they all just had little like feathers in their hair. One lady did have a boa, and those were the birds, and they ran around and flap their arms. Super Simple here, okay, yeah, but it's also, it's very nice then, because it's there's not distracting. You're just focused on. You're not focused on, oh my gosh, look how pretty the bird mask is and the beak and the detail and whatever. But they open this song and song and dance number about how the birds are leaving because it's winter time, it's really cold, and they'll be back in the spring. And so that's where the story picks up, with frog and toad and their adventures. Well, the coolest part about this was frog and toad have to go swimming. So how are we going to make believe swimming on a stage without water? Okay, so what they did was the risers on the left, the risers on the right, those are pulled forward a little bit, and there's a black backdrop behind them, which means there's a gap in between there, and that's where a lot of people came in. They'd enter center stage from the back wings, which were behind the chairs well. So what they just had, they had stage hands that held a blue piece of fabric and a light blue piece of fabric, and one on top of the other, and the frog, quote unquote, jumped into the water by climbing through where the pieces met in the middle, and was able to sit there in, quote unquote, in the water and talk while they talked about his bathing

07:16

suit. That's kind of what the school did

Collin  07:18

when they did their Dr Seuss play thing. They had something like that, and they just brought out, yeah, like, a big, like, blue, I don't know what it was. It wasn't, like, super huge, like, tableclothy looking thing, right? It was like, Ooh, and the water. Well, this one, no, but it was, sorry, it was, it was, it was held vertically so it was stretched across the stage by stage hands. And if you can imagine two pieces of fabric that are being held up by the top bit, so that they dangle down and they where one's higher than the other and where they touch, there's a gap there. And so you could, you could stand up between those two pieces of fabric, and it looks like you're standing up, and there's water at your waist, because that that piece of fabric is stretched across your waist from either side of the stage, and then there's another one that stretched across your back, so it does so that's what they did for this. And the water's kind of moving. And then the characters a little bit, yeah, they're shaking it. And then, like, Turtle comes by, and then, like, it's that kind of fun stuff. They also did rake leaves, where they took leaves and they threw them from the catwalk above, and so they could rake just a lot of I like the imaginative play, especially for younger audiences, but it's just nice to be like, we're going to develop a whole world here, right? And, and, and everything's just put before us. So I thought it was fun. It was, it was an hour long. No, it's an hour and a half long. So we did get an intermission, and they let you bring drinks into the auditorium. So the little thing, so gasp, drinks in the auditorium, or the concert, or the little Paul thing. So we got to have, we got to do was nice, yeah, yeah, that's cool, yeah? Very nice. Very again, small, little, kind of community theater thing reminded me a lot of the the theater you went to? Kind of like, oh, this is for theater nerds. Like, yeah, definitely those kind of people here. It was nice. It was very fun. So we were already kind of picking out ahead of things we'd like to go to next year. So yeah, that

09:35

is pretty cool. That does

Collin  09:36

kind of like match the vibe of the frog and toad books, right? Because they're not super illustrated a lot, right? Because it's like, correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't read a Froggen code book quite a while. Correct you absolutely, isn't it like the page? So there's like the white page. And then there's the text on the bottom, and then the picture on the top is kind of like, just like them. There's not like background a lot of times, right, right? Yeah. It's just kind of like them walking. It's like, oh, they're walking. So it's like them and the road, and that's it kind of all, right? Yes, there's not a lot. It's like, ground, right? It is definitely, if you were, like, storyboarding that what's going on, and you're, oh, yeah, that's a good like, this is going on while they're having this conversation. Like, let's just gonna plop you down and get a little snapshot of what's happening, and then the next page is right? So it's not big, detailed things. It's

10:43

there may

Collin  10:44

be, like, a couple, but like, overall, it's like, yeah, here's a couple. I've just pulled up some illustrations here. Yes, it's kind of sketched in, just enough to give you the idea. And you know, they had little details, like on they had a mailbox. Oh, the other thing they had on the left and right side, they had mailboxes. And of course, one said frog, and one said Toby. So it's like, also setting the scene and how they dressed. One was, I don't know, like one even like one wore, like, darker and richer, kind of heavier clothes. And that was Toad, and frog was more sleeker and smooth things. And, oh, it was just interesting, like, visually distinct, yeah, yes. And like, the squirrels, they just wore kind of all gray and had their hair done up. The snail. This was my favorite. Okay, so how in the world would given this kind of snail? Okay, there's a snail. And as you said that. Here's a picture of the snail. Wow, look at that. How would you do a snail for somebody? Give a kind of how it described what they're doing for here, what they're going for here? Well, I don't really know. Like, yeah, I I instantly, when I saw this person, I instantly knew, Oh, that's snail like, and I wasn't even thinking, like, let's see Lilian even got it right away. This person had on brown pants, a white shirt with a brown sports coat, and on their back they had a backpack with a rolled up bedroll. Ah, I was gonna say backpack, right, yeah, but the bedroll was really like, spiral, spiral, right? That's what got us. You're taking your home with you. Uh huh. There you go. Aha. And I was like, that's perfect. I love that. You know, turtle was in all green those just like, I don't need to get they. Don't need to say, I don't need to see a shell on somebody, or see webbed feet on the ducks or whatever. I don't need that. Yeah, I just need to, like, you get it's, I don't know, like, I just, I really appreciated that. Appreciated I say that word too much. I was, I was told recently, so I Oh, except for, it's fine. So we had a lot of fun with that. And so, yeah, I it was a, it was good, good to go out and see that I like that was, that was a good way to kick off, off the week. That's pretty sweet. I have accidentally fallen down a small rabbit hole here, because I need to know just exactly how many like apparently this book has a wider reach than I thought, because I was scrolling through the pictures here and I found just an image of frog and toad our Friends that that with, but the cover was in Armenian. So I really need to know how many translations this book has received, because that is, that is, um, like, if you're getting to Armenian, this is some serious reach that your book has. This is what I this is like. So I don't know if that was like a niche publishing house thing or what, but I cannot actually find the answer to my question currently. So there's a Spanish version, though, right there. As I say that, no, this one is in group. So I got okay that, yeah, sorry about that, but I got this thing trying to be like, what this? This? This touches on, on a point that i don't know i i. Of the shared lived experiences across cultures and stuff, and how it's gotten kind of harder to do in the world of on demand, streaming and everything's everywhere all the time whenever you not you need it. So it is very heartening to know that, yeah, there's these books that millions and millions of children read every year. That's a great I think that's a good touch point. Good thing. Yeah. So international friends, if you have read frog toda friends, we'd like to hear about it, we need to know if you need this conversation made, since you whatsoever, or if this is a book that has been translated to your language. Because this is very, again, this is very, yeah, that's Arabic, that's German. Sorry, I don't know the differences in Arabic script. Okay, I am ignorant in this. This could be, oh, no, this one is particularly Farsi. There we go. Got it. So, boom, recovery. Nailed it. Slovenian, wow, Japanese, yeah, there's Armenian again. Armenian script is cool looking. That's what drew my attention, just by the way, here's Persian. Yeah, there's a lot, apparently. So we'll see if we can find an updated total. But I'm liking this. Here we go. There's a prize I wasn't expecting, rock and Toad or friends around the globe. Done, done, speaking of around the globe. Oh, oh, guess what. Hey, do you know what? It's almost time for? That's right. Listeners in a big, giant dating of this particular episode. Again, I know Collin loves that, so I like to try to just throw in the dates here as much as we can. The final experiment has begun. Test. I have it in my calendar. It's for tomorrow, but yeah, it says, it says, How is the great experiment going? And so I'm going to click on this. And yeah, we have the final experiment. Antarctica will be commenced in two days, zero hours, zero minutes. And hold on hold on hold on waiting. We're all waiting with beta Earth right now. It is exactly two days from right now. We are a sub, sub 48 hours Flat Earth participants. We have three guys. Love them, and the they got, they they ended up getting three. Uh, I've been following the saga here a little bit like they were basically. One of them said he would go, but he didn't want to pay for it. And so the guy was like, Fine, boom, done, paid for and then he was like, Well, I don't want to go alone, because I think everyone will gang up on me. So they're like, all right, fine. All right, fine, we'll get another one. Boom. And then there was some sort of contest, but the results were a little bit, like, Inky and so, like, he was like, You know what? Don't care, crowdfunding, YouTube, bang. You're going also so and, and I think just to give a set of a nice reminder here, what is the final experiment, indeed, right? This is a group of individuals who are traveling to the South Pole or Antarctica, I guess, specifically to view the 24 hour sun, right to put an end, to prove that the Earth is not, in fact, flat right? Because on most Flat Earth maps or models, even though, you know, interestingly, lately I've been seeing a lot of flat earth people say, like, well, there is no like, real flat earth model, exactly like, Well, then why do you all show the same picture all the time that looks that's kind of like a model to me. Anyway, not a possible same level on a, on a on a flat plane, right, to have the sun only be visible for 24 hours in one location. So based on a lot of the things that these people talk about, this should not be a thing that happens right, right? And so they're just gonna be like, Okay, well, let's go look at it, right? And the blowback online has been hysterical, right? Some people being like, well, it's not really even a good experiment, it's just an observation. And like, Yes, I'm, I'm glad that you are coming and trying to understanding how science works, right? You look at stuff. Step one, look at things, right, right, right. Ah, you know, I. And I one person brought up this great point earlier, because if you were on their website, and you scroll down, you see this spectacular map here where everybody has been given a geo tag, and it kind of shows where they are currently. Yeah, right. One dude is just in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. Yeah. I think his probably hasn't updated from being on the plane. I don't know. I don't know. I hope I don't either. I don't know where he's going. He's got a nice looking beard, yeah, but like, they've all converged here into southern Chile here, or Argentina in Santiago arenas here at the very southern bit. Oh, yes, right? And so from there, over the past couple days, they've been all traveling. So they, yeah, they met in Santiago, and then they're going further south, and then they're gonna, that's how they're gonna get over, cross the Drake Passage, to the Antarctic station that they're going to, right? So, but it's like, hey, you know people that talk about how the Earth is flat, right? If you look at the flight paths here, these are exactly how the flight path should work on a global because it's stand. So little bonus experiment here, folks, this is, well, so you put it like that, yeah, so this is a it's pretty interesting thinking, but we do have the experiment happening in less than two days. So excited to see that. Maybe I'll see if I can find some stuff to watch, because it's pretty hilarious, pretty interesting. Um, the flat earth. People that are going, they seem like, pretty, okay, people, right? They seem pretty. One of those seems like, pretty cool dude, right? I feel like he would be like, Oh, okay, snap. Well, but he has, you COVID, really? What I hear, yeah, all of the really big proponents of, like, flat Earth, right? They refuse to go, je, refuse. And then they just have been like, well, you know, they've been like, putting all, like, saying all these ways that it could potentially be faked. And they're like, but, but there's gonna be like, 15 people there. Like, what do you mean? Yeah, they all say the same thing. You can't be like, oh gosh, they faked that too. Like, what guys and I like, the ones that say things like, I there's one guy. I can't remember his name. I don't want to give him publicity anyway, but he talks about stuff. He's like, I'm not a flat earther, I'm a demonstrable realist. Like, oh, like, wow. First of all, I feel like, uh, Nico Montoya sometimes, like, keep using the word I don't think it means what you think it means, right? Like, more people, yeah, like, I don't think that's like using that correctly, right? But, but anyway, so the the back pedaling has been kind of intense for some of this stuff, right? So we'll see, we'll see what happens, if anything, in two days, right? So, so we'll see. I just want to update, right? Maybe next week, we'll have an update if I remember to talk about that. There we go. Cobham, look an actual setup and payoff on the old brother podcast. Look at that. You weren't expecting that, or your listeners, nobody, literally nobody. But longer than a week too. That's uh, that's an important that's okay. We set that up. It's a milestone teed up for us. And we actually remember to circle back down to that. Yeah. Look at that. Look at that. We did that. We remembered a thing. We did a thing. Look at that. That's impressive. We don't usually remember things, so that's I think we I think that's it. I think we did it. Say it's been fun. Yeah, all right, here we go. Well, we're ahead. No, I am. I am interested. I yeah, I know they've got the bunch of YouTube stuff up and seeing everything there. So I'll, uh, yeah, this will be streaming some stuff too. So we'll see how that goes. Look for those editing lines people, oh my gosh, oh no, it's ready. That's, you know what? This is what we all know. We all know. This is how they do it. Definitely speaking of speaking of live TV magicians, am I right? Oh, am I right? Yeah, speaking of not editing, here we go. Oh, it makes me so sad. Oh, my goodness. Thought you had an actual segue. I thought you saw like David Blaine or something. I don't even know, is that even, no, I was just a callback. Callback. I like. It is, is what we do there? No, no, yeah, well, we're our it's, it feels weird. We're already starting to gear up for spring and summer things they're already doing, like early registration, like youth baseball and things like that and like, that's very early registration, guys, yeah, calm down. Okay, let people have Christmas or other holiday celebrations, right? Opened up last week and was, like, through February, early registration. I'm like, Okay, guys, that's stop. That's not how early registration works, right? Early registration means, like, a week, I know not. That's what that means, not, like, literally, before it's a Yeah, because this is just like, registering, and then they're like, registry, this is just registry window one. Yeah, that's all. This is pretty much. Anyway, we did have to register really early, so there was no early registration. It was just we had to do this immediately, and you had two options. This was for something we did. Gosh, when was this? Was this? I don't know, oh, this was a couple days ago. They said, Oh, you can call in register for this thing, because this the city, our town, has a miniature train that, like you can, that can, it uses a v8 engine out of something, something, and it's on tracks, and it looks like a real train, like a, like a, like a diesel locomotive, is kind of what it looks like. And it pulls cars. It can pull up to, like, 15 people behind it, and you get this little, tiny seat, one per person, and you just sit in a single file and have little cars back like that. Um, this, would you classify this as a sports train by any chance? Ah, no. Okay, good, that's good. No, it was not a Jag. So second question, is there a scum class? Yes, that wouldn't be good either. I did not see any straw. Okay, good. No straw. Okay, excellent. No spill. Drinks. Drinks at all. Okay, drinks not allowed, actually, so, oh, in the auditorium, but not on the trade. Wow, exactly. That's our reversal. I wasn't expecting it. This has actually been a long history of our town. They have the original small locomotive in the locomotive house, because they built out three years ago, they redid the entire house, storage area, train depot, basically, for this, the track is this huge, like figure eight in the park that's right by our house. And they have, like, a little, you know, water station, you know, like an old timey would do to fill up for the steam trains and decorations all around the the depot is beautiful, and they've got the the original

28:11

train back sign

Collin  28:12

sitting Next to a windman hall. By any chance, that's Thursdays. Yeah, the original train, which is, like, super cool. I need to find a picture and send this to you. Like, and again, these are, like, they're huge in the context of, like, things that you would have around you, but they're very tiny trains, and the tracks are super cool. They've got the original one from like, the 50s and 60s when they started doing this thing. And then they've got the more modern one, and they did a Polar Express in the park, oh, where, at set intervals you would get called out to go sit on the train. And it was like You left the station and people were around, and then when you came back like Santa was there and like different people, like, they kind of did a quick scene change, basically, for everybody, so you looked like you came back to the North Pole. Then they had hot chocolate and movies playing and stuff over in the corner and things like that. This was a lot of fun today. This was, that's when they had, and they did pay these poor or poor park employees who had who who basically had to stand out alongside the track and be dressed like an elf and wave to people as they pass by. So you got to see them move around and stuff, and meanwhile, all the lights in the park are on and going and things like that. Super fun, super fun to do. And here's the thing, most parents just registered their kids to go right on the train and then sat and watched, no, no. That's not how we do. We registered ourselves as well, of course, so we could ride on the train and then. Stop us. They didn't say, No, you can't do that when we did this a month ago or two months ago. So we got to ride in the train in the dark, and it was a lot of fun, because right? So that was fun to be, oh, that's cool on the train, it was. And thankfully, this was right before the temperature just plummeted, so it was still like 40 at night time, and it was very pleasant to be out driving around on a train open top. So also, so there's my plus two. Go see frog and toad, and also go ride a tiny train in your little park through Well, funnily enough, speaking of trains, oh, Susan is going to soon be going and doing train based activities as well, because our local area has a full size Christmas Train. What? Yeah, it's just a train. They have, like, this big thing, and so it's like, multiple cars, and they like, go on a train ride. It like, goes down the south spur here, like, down south towards Arkansas, and then they go down there, and then they just turn around and they come back. It's just a public train. What is this part? Well, it's, well, it's, I don't know. It's somebody puts it on, and they just, like, just have a train. No, it's part of the I don't know if the city does it or what. I'll have to ask her about it, but she is taking the because she's doing the parents as teachers stuff for, like, a little kids. And so they're doing that. That's what they're doing for their December like thing. They're going and doing that. So they bought all these tickets. They pre registered early enough that they got, like, a whole train car just for them, and they're just gonna cook, because it's like, open to the public. You just buy tickets, and you go, right. And so they just got so many that they're like, you can just have this whole car. They're like, oh yeah. Well, is this the wait, this my brain is, I'm I'm very confused. News. Is it the Arkansas, Missouri railroad? Yeah, I think so. What? Yeah, that's what it is. What is this? Yeah, it's the Santa train ride, right? It's the holiday train thing. Wow, yeah. And so they're doing it. And they, the best part here was that, yeah, but wait, But wait, there's more. And so Susan, they they were gonna do that thing. And they were asking her, like, what are you gonna do? Blah, blah. And she was like, Oh, well, we may have, like, a, I may be able to get, like, Santa and Mrs. Claus to come with my kids. And they were like, if, if you have a Santa and Mrs. Claus, would you mind if, if just everybody got to say hi to them and I'll wave. So she's like, Yeah, sure, fine. So she has volunteered her mother and her husband came to play Santa and Mrs. Claus, right? Does stand. So they're gonna be they're gonna stand outside and, like, wave at all the kids as they come on the train, and then they're gonna get on the train with Susan and the little kids and travel down to wherever they go, just some train ride, right? Like, it's kind of cool, but that's what they're No, it's absolutely wonderful. Yeah. So it's not this weekend, I think it may be next weekend. Oh, right. So more updates on that later as it comes, but that's what they're doing, yeah? So it's, yeah, it's like the, I think it's the Missouri exile roadway or something like that, associated with it, and it's like this, or the city, I think, helps do it too, and they just do the Christmas training thing. No, I, I'm so I this is so confusing to me. It starts in your town, and, yeah, it's only 150 miles, which I mean, and it goes to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Well, okay, it doesn't this. This ride doesn't go all that way. Well, sure, but it's that spur though, yes, yeah, but they're saying like this. It opened in 1986 which seems very recent for a railroad. I'm just being perfect. It operate. It's only operates 150 mile route. This is, it does very busy rent, though, yeah, it's freight. Yeah, it does okay. So it's mostly freight, yeah, because our town has a very historic train yard, not a lot of it is left, but it still runs a lot of freight through there, because it's the junction from, like to go down there, or to, like, keep going to Springfield or Joplin, right? And, yeah, they have much bigger railroads. So ours is a, like, junction of those big railroads. They go that way. So we have a lot of trains that come through all the time. So yeah, we saw very big rail yards, very big track. They lay trains up in there and all kinds of stuff. So. Go. So yeah, that's what they're doing. And so yeah, they this one is only going down to, like, I can't remember exactly how far down it goes, but like, it's only like a third. It's like a however far they go before they turn I come back. The whole round trip takes about an hour. So they're not going all the way to Arkansas, right? But, like, they're going pretty far down there. And how many, how many are get to go on this? Think, like, 25 what people? I mean, that's like families, like, plus, like, multiple children. Well, sure, but still, I mean, that's a lot. I can't remember the exact number, something like that. But, like some parents and grandparents are going to so it's like, maybe a little more than that, somewhere around that neighborhood that, I think, plus Mr. And Mrs. Claus apparently, apparently, that's awesome. Are they excited? But one of them is Mrs. Claus is, you know, the other day, she was like, I can't

36:09

believe you volunteered us for this. And he was like, but you volunteered us? She's like, Oh

Collin  36:14

no, oh my gosh, I wouldn't have if they hadn't brought up. But it was Yeah. It was somehow, yeah, what that pretty much happened? Susan was like, Well, I was wondering if you guys would want to do this. And he just goes, that'd be great. And she was like, like, daggers, like, salary, she'll have fun when she gets there. She knows, like, how fuel are going to so I was like, oh, but she knows something. Though it'll be really funny. So I may have to go down and help get them on the actual train. Because, like, I don't know if there's like, a ramp or, like, because the place they're loading there is no platform, right? It's just like the track. So I don't know if they bring out, I'm surely they like, bring out, like, and build like a little thing to get up there. You think they must have a platform? Yeah? So I don't, don't actually know how that works. We'll see about that too. Because you would think that they would, like, build a something. They wouldn't just be like, make everyone cross the road and through the ditch and then just like, get up in the tree, right? Because this is the thing they've been doing for a long time. So like, you know, maybe there's, like, a deal, but, but I don't know, or if they just have passion cards, maybe just roll them up and they're like, Yeah, you go, because I'm assuming it's not like a boxcar, right? Like, all right, get in, guys. Let's go. No, I'm looking at these pictures, and they're like, passenger cars that they get, they get hitched up and sit along here. So that's neat. That's pretty cool. They do have the nice and want, like, some nice viewing cars and everything, too. Oh yeah, that's pretty cool. So that's fun, yeah? So yeah, we'll do that, and also we'll update you in there. But yes, I may have to go help get them into the train, so that'll be good luck. Good luck. Yeah. In other news, my continuing your adventure concluded this week with the banded choir concert in school as well. It was very nice, right? Okay, the band concert, you know, it was, it was okay, like, they struggle, but it was pretty rough, but they did their best, right? They did okay. It was kind of hard. The high school band, the marching band stuff, was better, but the sixth grade band, they had little trouble, right, though they know. So some of them are like, we gotta do better in spring. Like, aha, that's the attitude, gotta go. That's what we need to go for, right there in the choir, concert was really good, right? It does help that there's like, a billion people in choir, so it's just like, helps a lot. That helps a lot the choir. It's a very disproportionate like the band is like, they try, they really try. And then the choir, there's like, a million people living like, oh, oh no, but it's good. They always end with, they do Silent Night, right? It's really cool, because all the kids come off stage and they just all stand around the auditorium, oh, friend with their little fake candles, right? They used to use real candles, but they had little fake light up candles, and it's really funny, because they like, still pretend to light each other's candle. Oh, as they pass them, I don't know if that's a direction received, yeah, or if they just do that because it's funny. And they like, blow them out. They're like, and then. Click the light. Oh, I bet, I bet. I think they're instructed to do that. I think so. But it's or some of them may just do it because it's funny, but like so do that. They stand around and they sing Silent Night with the audience, right? Yeah, because they put the words up on the thing, and they said, but last year, she did. It's really cool. She did they do one verse of Silent Night in English, then they do the next verse of Silent Night, or they sing the same verse again, but then they sing it in Spanish. Oh, cool, right? Yeah, and then they sing it a third time, and, like, it turns out, if you sing Silent Night in English or Spanish at the same time, it sounds really cool, really, yeah, so it's like a choose your own lyrics, right? They put them, they put the like on the screen that we have in the auditorium, right? The first time through is English lyrics. The second time through, it's the Spanish lyrics. The third time through, it's split. Both lyrics are on the thing. Oh, and if you think they sing them, people just sing whichever one they want at the same time. It sounds really cool. That's really neat. Yes, she did it for the first time last year, and it's like, whoa. Well, yeah, that's awesome. So I think it's really cool. That's how they closed their Christmas concert all the time, and they did it again this year, and which I was happy. So it was really cool when they do that. So it's like the whole auditorium in all the choir kids all singing silent night in a choose your own language for singing adventure, right? And it's really, it is surprising how good it sounds when you sing in just like whatever language simultaneously, yeah, yeah. That's a neat thing. I you would never really, I guess, guess like, hey, what if we just sang two different languages at the same time? Wouldn't that be fair? Yeah, I feel like that's maybe what happened. They were like, hey, what if we both did it. And then they're like, Wait, that's cool. I feel like I don't I'm not home. So sure about that, I could ask you, but I think they may have discovered this by accident. I don't know that for a fact, but it is really cool that they do that. It's really fun. It does sound like something that they would accidentally discover, you know, just in the quiet room, practicing one day, and then all sudden, like, Oh, what was that? Yes. So, so that's really cool. Yeah, we did that. We were there, and it was really fun. So that was our big adventure this week. It was nice going to that. I was wondering if you spent some time listening to any other songs, possibly. I did, indeed, many of them, many, oh, many, right, yeah, so did. Were you able to get five? I did not. I got, I got to get here. I got four. Okay, and it kind of peters out towards the end of a main proficiency. Well, yeah, this is a much harder thing than I thought it was going to be, right, yeah, I think I was aware of, like, two songs, and I just assumed there would be more, and there is, but they're not good, no, and I so listeners, here is our 12 days of Christmas challenge, right? Well, dive in here. Go ahead. Yeah, I was definitely much more enthusiastic and optimistic moving forward about this than than I should have been. I really thought, after how many years has the song been out? Like a billion. This is a very old, old thing, right? I was looking at us today, and it's like, insanely, oh, this comes from a very old tradition, and nobody's actually sure, like, where it comes from, but, like, it could be just like a memory game song where you have to, like, keep repeating lyrics and remember what comes next, right? That's kind of what it sounds like. It was supposed to be originally, right? But it's a very old Yeah. So I was, I just, I just had assumed, okay, well, we'll just find a million of these things. And we did not, we did not find a million of these things, and you get the Okay, like, what you I found myself having to wade through was, like, the i. I didn't think that the joke enthusiast, people who just made funny silly haha ones, and people who like music groups, or most of them were just the funny haha. Look what I did. I made a fart joke in this kind of Christmas song. And you're like, yeah, that's not really kind of like, that's not it, right? That's not what I want at all, yeah, literally, not what I want at all, yeah. So I have, I have four there. I they, I they're not, they're not good, I they're not strong. Um, I've got, I feel like I've got two strong one of mine is very strong, okay, I have one super strong one, okay, and then four other songs, okay, I have, I have, yeah, I'm gonna say I'm happy with two of them. The other two exist. Um, okay, so, and I don't think I'm being perfectly honest, I didn't really get to this was hard too, because it's like we were looking for alternate words and lyrics, yeah, but the just different versions kept coming up, right? Yeah, it's just like different people that have recorded their version, right? That's what made it. That's really difficult. So that does mean that next year, we may have to make the official, oh brother, 12 days of Christmas song, yes, I think, right? I think on the on the first day of Christmas, Oh, brother gave to me something, right? So I think, I think that needs to happen. And since we've discovered there is a lack of good alternate versions of the 12 Days of Christmas, right, I think we're going to have to ponder and create something superior to many of the versions that I discovered. Yes, I discovered a lot that were associated with, like cartoon shows. That is true, a lot of those, but a lot of them, a lot of those versions, have, like, eight days, right? They're just like, okay, whatever. So there's, like, a Rugrats one I saw, like an Inspector Gadget one, but like there's a Garfield one, but that somehow feels slightly too niche, and reading what they wrote in the thing, it doesn't feel right, you know? I mean, like, I can't exactly put my finger on it, but like it's not quite holiday e enough, you know what I mean, yes. So, like, that's kind of where I was at, because, you know the song, it may be not originally associated with holidays, right? Like, some of the early versions of the song, like the French version is like that. It's like 12 months, right? That's what it is, yeah. So it's not necessarily holiday E, right, but, like, you know that somehow it eventually became the 20s of Christmas. And so the versions and the parody cartoon versions are not really holiday E, like, or they are just bad jokes and like, they are a song. And the problem is, I don't really like the original song that well. But if your parody is worse than the original song, right? That's the whole point of this list. You know what I mean? Like, get out of here. That's not what I want. Like, Oh, you made a version, but it's worse than this, right? Like, get, get out of here, you know? Like, yeah, I don't know. So that's, that's where we are here. So, yeah, yeah, the earliest written version of this song that, according to Wikipedia. Earliest written version appeared in a book called mirth without mischief in about 1780 in London. Yeah, right. So you think you'd think in over what 240 years we could this is what I'm saying. But no, people just like to sing it in different ways. Yeah? And I'm like, no different words. People, different words. And I see lots of like, Oh, this one's by Frank Sinatra, this one's by John Denver. Like, that's not a different Yes, yeah. I see lots of people discussing this on Reddit saying, you know, we need, we need. Need a what would may be a modern version of this? What would be a modern version? I see that a lot. I don't see anybody acting on this. So people, the time is right, yeah, next year, the O Brother version coming right? Yes, stamping it here. There we go, boom, that's happening may not be good. We'll have to see. We got a long time workshop, though, so it's okay. All right. So since there is no number five for you, I'll hit you with my number five. Okay, right. Oh, we'll go from there. Wait, I don't, I don't have these in any particular room. Well, I don't really. I have them written down in a, I have a, I definitely have a number one, hey, right, so again, caveat of the standard Brandon, caveat here of this is My list right now. Okay, subject to change, right? Okay, so I have the first one. I found two that were there, like they were publishing a book. This one had, like a book and like a cassette tape, like sing along, style, situation, thing happening, right? This one is called Oh no, a again, apologies for the butchering of the language. Here a Pukeko in a ponga tree. This is a Maori New Zealand version. Oh, wow. Okay, 12 days of Christmas, right? So these are, this is like Maori heritage, New Zealand stuff, right? So that is what this version is all about, right? Your full 12 gifts include, again, my Maori friends, I'm sorry. Okay. I love your country. It's very beautiful. I like to come back and visit you. So please excuse my poor after this to be very Yeah, so please use my poor pronunciation of everything that I'm about to say, right? 12, pu swings. Don't know what that means, uh, 11, haka lessons, 10 juicy Fish heads, nine sacks of piss. I think those are flowers, maybe don't know. Eight plants of puja, seven eels swimming. His eels are very common in New Zealand, any that six poise, a twirling five big fat pigs, four, who grubs, three, flax kilts, two, kumara and a Bucha in a ponga tree. Okay, yeah, it's a big bird, by the way. Gotcha? I like it. Like it a lot. Yeah, that is my number five, or number five, I I come back through, I'm going to throw a number five out there to make number five. All right, I'm going to have a number five. This one is being perfect, honest, technically cheating, but fine. It does have number five. This is, this is not count. This is basically my bonus. If we were just doing this, it's okay. This is, this is actually, it's doesn't follow this. The thought of this entire experiment at all. It's just a different version, but it does have the Muppets. It's John Muppets. I just like it because it has the Muppets in it. So you'll have to deal with it. I mean, I think we can all agree that Muppets make things better. I think that's really a central tenet of the show. If we've learned nothing from the years of the old brother podcast, it's that Muppets make things better. And this is, this is Disney is under representing and under utilizing the Muppets. They just need to let us, they need to let us, give us keys. What I'm saying here is Kermit D'Artagnan. I'm telling you, this is the is it in the is it? Does it? Is it follow the letter of this? No, is it the spirit of this? Where it made it better? Yes, I do believe that the presence of the Muppets made the 12 days of Christmas better. And so that's why it's on my list at number five. I'm just gonna go ahead, that was a la late edition here. So we are on parody. That's fine. Number four, right, sticking with the international theme. Yeah, right. I also found another book slash tape version thing. This one is fantastic. This is the Canadian version, right? This is a porcupine in a pine tree, right? Here we go. So we have very canadianly, 12 cubs, a dancing, 11 puffins, piping 10 leafs, a. Weeping, nine loons, canoeing, double one, there eight Mounties. Munching, seven sled dogs. Sledding, six squirrels. Curling, yeah, five Stanley Cups, great, four, Collin moose, three beaver tails, two caribou and a porcupine in a pine tree. Great, a porcupine. Brilliant, pine tree. Yes. Okay, it interestingly, my number four was actually going to be a Canadian version, but it was not that one. It's by the Bob and Doug McKinsey. Did you? Oh, this one, I did, yes, these guys, yes. It's basically just two guys talking about what's going on, including three French toast and two turtlenecks and a beer in a tree. Yes, that one that was kind of funny, right? Eight comic books, seven packs of smokes anyway. But I think in this one, the comedy comes in the fact of how it's presented. And not really. It's just, yes, it is the delivery of the song, Straight, the delivery that this is just more comedy, though, but then it's pretty funny, like how he says he's like, in the beer, he's like, in here more, he's like, nah, nah. It's fine. It's fine, exactly. That is very funny, right? All right, my next version, right? This one is really random, and, like, the first time I listened to it, I didn't really like it, and I listened to it again, and I was like, Oh, it's okay. And it turns in, like, the catchiest song ever, because it does, like, musically, rewrite some things, right? And like, definitely add a spin, and like, extra course and stuff in there, the full blown song, Still International, oddly enough, this one comes to you from England. This is the Eddie Stover truckers seeing the 12 days of Christmas. Okay, so I had to look this up, right? Eddie Stover is apparently a very big like trucking company, excuse me, Lori company. Thank you. Thank you. Nailed it. Um, and they're, like, a big deal, right? It's like a huge shipping company, right? And so they made this, they did this thing. I don't know it was a while ago, but they did a song, and then they, like, donated the money to the Help for Heroes charity thing, right? Military charity, but it's all trucker themes stuff. So apparently, if you're an English trucker, right, the on the 12th day of Christmas, Eddie gave to me 12 loaded 11 Santa sacks, 10 mince pies, because, of course he did. Nine knitted jumpers, eight rolls of wrapping, seven spotters, spotting, I don't really know what that means, but six Christmas crackers, five tons of sprouts, or tons of sprouts, sorry, four frozen turkeys, three party hats, two twinkling trees, and a new truck for my deliveries. Aha, ah. And that in there? Pretty good, right? Pretty funny. Okay, and they have like a breakdown thing, and it's like different people singing. I don't know if these are truckers in the video, it has like, a Yeah, I see that very 80s, like, We are the world situation, thing happening going on here. I don't know, my gosh, but, like, it's like, acoustic guitar. And the first again, the first time I heard, I was like, Yeah, I don't really like it. Listen to again. I was like, Okay. And then the third time, I was like, dang it, okay. This is a good so I did, no, that's good. I have not seen that one yet, but I bet that was pretty good. You may need at it. So I've got it here. My number three actually comes courtesy of Mar What was that third grade music teacher? Oh, yeah, so many things in life. This is, yes, I'm talking about Alan Sherman's the 12 gifts of Christmas from 1963 including you just can't get out of your head a Japanese transistor radio, can I? That is not that's the only part of that song I remembered for you. I know. I didn't remember anything else I know, and I like how it's so what I another piece of humor of this is for the Japanese. Transistor radio. It keeps adding more information about it, like describing it to you, like it's a mark four model, right? Yeah, that's the one side of production, like it comes in the leatherette case with holes in it, yes. Oh, leatherette. I This is this? Just like she was the she showed us like this. Listen to this. We listened to the victor Borga thing. Victor Borga thing. Like I, I'm there's a pattern here for where a lot of my humor is anchored down in and yeah, that'd be this. Heck that'd be this. So I do enjoy this one a lot. That's pretty good. Yes, I agree, right. My number two, I found a random person. I'm sorry to refer to him as a random person on the old YouTube here, he has a Star Wars version of Christmas. And it's really just, I think his name is Daniel Ferguson for him, question mark, right? Yes, this song is just really funny, because I love Star Wars, and I thought it was great, right? So again, 12, Trooper storming, 11, Saber swinging. 10, Tuscan shrieking. Nine tauntons trotting. Eight power converters, seven, lords, a sitting. That was great. Six, Yoda Proverbs, five, jar, Jar Binks, four decent films. Ooh, got him three. Next swings, two Androids and a chew toy for my Wookie. Wookie. Yes, I did. I like this one so much. It's my number one. Oh, there you go. It scratched all the itches. It was also one of the better ones of like, just a fanfic kind of thing, done very I don't it was a lot of fun to watch. So that's, that's hilarious, yeah, stealer, here's my number one. Okay, that was, that was, I'll jump to number one there. So I like that a lot. But my, my number one, my number two, I'll say, I'll say to my industry now and then you go to your number one, number two. It's stupid. It's ridiculous. It is not even sung, for the most part, by the person that does this. It's not even like, Yeah, I think it's so not traditional that it doesn't person doesn't even sing it. And it's not even all that funny anymore, because this person is not really all that relevant. I'm talking about Jeff Foxworthy is redneck, ah, yes. Oh, man, he really milked that. You might be a redneck for, like, literally all it's worth, like, years, just years of the same joke. Yes. I think that's why I purposely left that off my list, just because I was like, you know, is this funny in 2024

1:03:11

almost 2025 No, it's not. No, it's not. If this

Collin  1:03:14

was being recorded in like 1998 Yes, yes, the only one that we could have come at it's true. Apparently, it would have been the only way. Apparently there was just one up until, yeah, this was, this was uploaded over 16 years ago, at least the version I found on YouTube. But the song's older than that. I'm pretty sure song is much older than that. That's just how old YouTube, right? It's like, hey, congratulations. It was one of the first things uploaded, because we needed more of that in our lives. That's where we were. I to document our history, and we uploaded that. But yes, I was rewatching it. He just does, like, achievements of humanity, like in the middle of it, he just does a big two minutes of stand up, or like a minute of stand up, about, like a redneck, I'm like, okay, yeah, that he was just looking for another excuse to do this. But it's also so like, again, it's a thing, and I it's on my list, so feel that. And although it is, the parts too of Mustang, GT is very catchy. Yes, very good. Yeah. So I am, I am eager to hear what your number one is here. Well, that may be true, but you already know what it is, because it's the 12 gifts of Christmas. Because that song is brilliant. I love it so much that it's my number one. Okay, nice. I don't want to spoil it too much because it was a little early in the literature. No Man, No, this August. It just makes me laugh the whole time. I love it so much. I just love how the lines don't necessarily rhyme, and the things just kind of get longer and longer and longer. Yeah. Us to get more obscure each they get so absurd, right? And I love the very last stanza because it is on the 12th day of Christmas. Although it may seem strange, on the 12th day of Christmas, I'm going to exchange wah, wah, wah, right? So we do have just to continue my reading these things loudly, the automatic vegetable slicer that works when you see it on TV, but not when you get it home. I love that. The chromium combustion manicure scissors and cigarette lighter, or combination, excuse me, pair of teak word shower clogs, indoor plastic bird bath, which, what does it make? 63 people. Yeah. 63 pink, pink satin pillow that says San Diego, with fringe all around it, and all the other stuff. Good. Oh, I do love how all a lot of the times when he sings his verse, he goes all that other stuff and other stuff that's, again, it's the comedic timing of the song. It's so brilliant. We also have the hammered aluminum Nutcracker, the classic statue of a lady with a clock where her stomach ought to be, ought to be, which is true, simulated alligator wallet, calendar book with the name of my insurance manager. I don't know why that was so funny, but it really is, the green polka dot pajamas. And, of course, a Japanese transistor radio, radio, no, the ad libs, I think, are the best part of the song. And like, the like you said, the things that he adds, like, about the radio all the time, like and then, like the players, like the part the wire that you could put in your ears, you could hear it, and the other part that you could put anywhere, because it's bent, it's bent. I love it. Susan, never heard that, and I play that for her today. And she Oh, really, yeah, I've never heard that before. And I told her the same thing. I was like, for some reason, my upper elementary school music teacher played this song. I have no idea why I have I have no idea why. I'm sure there was a reason. I should ask her, I'm friends with her on Facebook. Oh, you should tell her, she checks heavily. And I said to the show, like, hey, we were talking about you yesterday, and I need to know why. Why were we playing? Like, I don't know why. No, I'm sure there's a reason I have, like, a very strong visual memory of that classroom only in relation to this song, because we had to, like, turn around because she had the radio, like, sitting in the back right. Oh, and I just remember that when I think about her classroom, I think about, obviously, recorders and this song, I remember well, and Victor, Borga, Victor, bride, I was gonna say my my affinity to that room is the wheelie cart. Right? The wheelie cart brought up. I was in the front row, and I was stage right of the TV watching Victor Borga, realizing that I had just discovered comedy. Like, that's hilarious, really, what happened in that room. That's true, yeah? Between that and old Sherman here, right? Whatever, this thing's like, Okay, I there's a whole other world out here. This is amazing, yeah, right. So I, yeah, it's, it's clear that song is so funny. Like, I just love the combination, too, of like, the choir singing, and him like rambling, him saying things really fast, and, of course, the classic comic timing of all that other stuff. And, oh, that was my number one. I knew that had to be my number one when I started this, because it's the only other version I could think of, right? And then I knew, I was like, I knew about Jeff Foxworthy, I knew about that one. And I was like, Sure there's more. Barely, yeah, barely. Like, not really. I had to dig. Yeah, you for some of these, a lot as you Doug, a lot, lot more than I did. But that's for sure, was my arms are tired from digging you put the shovel down. I gotta go. Oh, well now, yeah, I'm gonna have to go re listen to Colin Sherman's again. Go to sleep, to that perfect I like it, yeah, we're gonna start the start the writing process. Yeah, oh, brother. Version, right, coming next year, 2025 Christmas. 2025 our spoken word rendition. No, no, it'd be fully produced. Uh, I don't know about that, but. We will be. You will have the list anyway. So we'll be, maybe we can print it on a pink pillow with a friend all around it. We'll listen to it with the one that goes in your ear. But oh, okay, um, it's going in the book, going in the black book. Your idea? What about it? What about five? Top five lists? So we'll do, we'll do, look back. No, no, that could be the number five on the Christmas song. You're getting ahead of yourself. You're already getting anyway, I should put this. I'm gonna put this in September. Yeah, there you go. Good idea. Let's go. Have we written

1:10:53

the 12 days? Yes, Christmas. Where does the hoy fish that's what we gotta get in there. We gotta get that in there. What do we gotta get over when our catchphrases

Collin  1:11:06

all day? I'm gonna show an alert for two days before, okay, yeah, let's go see what happens. Okay, we'll generally won't forget that. Start taking notes. All right. I uh.

1:11:29

All right now, I guess that's it. The only thing we have left is a haiku featuring the song

Collin  1:11:39

somewhere, just Yeah. So anyway,

1:11:44

where can I fit haikus into the 12 days Christmas song that's questions. Questions.

Collin  1:11:52

All right, your send off haiku this week. Okay, scene lit by candles, voices raised in gentle song. All is calm and bright. That's a good one. Oh, my goodness, okay, well, that's, that's a winner there. Ah, there we go. I like it, and that's my vote best moment. Great. I love it. Great. Thank you. Okay, well, I won't be able to beat that next week, so I'm just Oh, who knows. See what happens. Okay, very Good. Love you.

1:12:38

Bye, bye, bye.