Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio Happy Friday. I'm Tracy Vie Wilson
Speaker 1: and I'm Holly Fry. One of our episodes this week
Speaker 1: was on Oh Henry, Holly, did you have to read
Speaker 1: any Oh Henry short stories? In school? Okay? I have
Speaker 1: been holding back a confession to you with a gun
Speaker 1: to my head. I couldn't have told you who Henry
Speaker 1: was until I was in my early forties. Nice Like,
Speaker 1: I feel like I I read some version of Gift
Speaker 1: to the Magi, but it was not really ever discussed
Speaker 1: in terms of its authorship, and we certainly didn't study
Speaker 1: him as a person that I can recall any of
Speaker 1: the places I was growing up. Um, I am a
Speaker 1: percent sure that we read both the Ransom of Red
Speaker 1: Chief and The Gift of the Magi in school. As
Speaker 1: I noted in the uh in the episode, I do
Speaker 1: not know if the most racist language in Ransom of
Speaker 1: Red Chief was in there. There's a whole other line
Speaker 1: of discussion about, like the use of the word red
Speaker 1: Chief and the way that he is quote playing Indian,
Speaker 1: which I don't know. I was a kid and I
Speaker 1: had similar like Cowboy and Indian weird games when I
Speaker 1: was a child. Um, but there was definitely stuff in
Speaker 1: there that was jarring. Um. Gift of the Magi not
Speaker 1: nearly as jarring. And I don't remember if there was
Speaker 1: anything else of his that we read. Um. I do
Speaker 1: the thing where I talked to my husband about what
Speaker 1: I'm working on. Uh, And so I said, Hey, did
Speaker 1: you ever read any Oh Henry in school? And he said,
Speaker 1: what are some examples? And so the first thing I
Speaker 1: said was Gift of the Magic because that was probably
Speaker 1: the most famous, And he said, no, I learned about
Speaker 1: Gift of the Magi in And then he went down
Speaker 1: a circuitous road of trying to describe emmett Otter's jug
Speaker 1: band Christmas. Yeah, but he couldn't remember the name of it,
Speaker 1: and so it was a guessing uh. And then that
Speaker 1: led me to read or to just do like an
Speaker 1: informal query on Twitter of like, hey did people have
Speaker 1: to read this in school? And do people still remember?
Speaker 1: And the answers that I got were really all over
Speaker 1: the place. I wondered if we had read more Oh
Speaker 1: Henry because I grew up in North Carolina and he
Speaker 1: was from North Carolina. Um, but I heard from lots
Speaker 1: of other people living in other places. I think all
Speaker 1: of them in the United States or Canada. Among the
Speaker 1: people who said yes, there were a couple of people
Speaker 1: who did not grow up in the US or Canada,
Speaker 1: and we're like, I don't know who that is. Um,
Speaker 1: so it's it seems like it just kind of depends whether,
Speaker 1: um it's a school reading thing. Because the stories are
Speaker 1: pretty short, and they tend to be fun and clever. Um,
Speaker 1: it makes sense that that they are included. It does
Speaker 1: not make sense to include the racist ones, for sure.
Speaker 1: We've talked many times about lots of writers who include
Speaker 1: a lot of casually racist stuff in their fair work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: looking at you, HP Lovecraft. Yeah, it's the It's such
Speaker 1: a source of consternation for me because I love HP
Speaker 1: Lovecraft's world that he created so much, but man, it
Speaker 1: is hard to get past some of the garbage he wrote. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a monster. And there's actually a tie in related
Speaker 1: to your listener mail, which is that we talked about
Speaker 1: how I cooked through the entire Star Wars Galaxy's Edge cookbook,
Speaker 1: and I recently acquired a Lovecraft theme cookbook called Necronomnomnom
Speaker 1: that I may or may not do the thing with
Speaker 1: uh no rounds like fun no racism in my cooking.
Speaker 1: I hope, Man, that's a whole other issue of like
Speaker 1: food availability and stuff that can be super fraught. But
Speaker 1: we have not been any similar cookbook challenges at my house,
Speaker 1: but there has definitely been more cooking experimentation and learning
Speaker 1: to make new things. Um, we really just shifted entirely
Speaker 1: our our food acquisition at our house during the pandemic. Um,
Speaker 1: like I was going to the farmers market every week
Speaker 1: in years prior, but now like the vast majority of
Speaker 1: the meat we get comes directly from the farmer and
Speaker 1: most of the produce also. So anyway, that's kind of
Speaker 1: a digression. I Um, I don't know what I was
Speaker 1: really expecting when I got into the Oh Henry biography story,
Speaker 1: but man, when I found this random passing reference to
Speaker 1: like prison in Honduras or prison after Honduras, with like
Speaker 1: his incarceration being when he really became established as Oh Henry,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, that was a big thing for
Speaker 1: to be left out. That did not make the syllabus
Speaker 1: of No, let's skip that part, Jasey, we got to
Speaker 1: talk about Rudolph the Red Nose rained here this week.
Speaker 1: We sure did. Can I just tell you that this
Speaker 1: was a very hard episode from an editing standpoint in
Speaker 1: terms of the writing of the outline. Yeah, because it's Rudolph,
Speaker 1: So they're like eight thousand rabbit holes. You can go
Speaker 1: down on the side and find yourself swirling in a
Speaker 1: whole other story. I mentioned the gene autry stuff, right
Speaker 1: how for music nerds, there's a whole other story to
Speaker 1: discover there, but it was kind of too much additional
Speaker 1: that didn't really go along with the rest of our story.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we didn't talk about that
Speaker 1: is really part of what made Rudolphs so extraordinary when
Speaker 1: it first came out in nine was the fact that
Speaker 1: even though it was kind of printed pamphlet style, it
Speaker 1: wasn't you know it hard copybook. It was literally like
Speaker 1: stapled together pages that parents who had gotten this while
Speaker 1: they were shopping for Christmas at Montgomery Ward could like
Speaker 1: roll up and stuff in a stocking or like put,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhere on top of gifts or something. It
Speaker 1: was meant to be like an easy add on. It
Speaker 1: was printed in full color, which was like mind blowing
Speaker 1: for people, right like Rudolph has like a blue outline
Speaker 1: on his eyes. In that picture that I talked about
Speaker 1: where he's crying, his tears are blue. You know, his
Speaker 1: face is brown, his nose is obviously red. His eyes
Speaker 1: are like the epitome of a simplified doe. I. They're
Speaker 1: huge and they're dark. But because that initial version looks
Speaker 1: kind of like it's done with with artist crayons, there's
Speaker 1: like some subtle shading in there. It's really quite extraordinary,
Speaker 1: and so that's like one of those weird things that's
Speaker 1: just people. I think we're probably blown away by that
Speaker 1: as much as anything else. Right, the story is fabulous,
Speaker 1: but it's like, whoa, that's a free thing we got
Speaker 1: while we were shopping. Yeah. Um. We also didn't get
Speaker 1: to talk about the Rank and Bass Special as much
Speaker 1: as I would like, because I am a huge fan
Speaker 1: of it, Like we get to talk about Burl Lives
Speaker 1: at all, which I would love. The soundtrack for that special,
Speaker 1: which has great songs in it, has been a best
Speaker 1: seller for years and years and years, And we didn't
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that Rudolph inspired one of my
Speaker 1: favorite characters of all time, Jack Skellington's ghost dog Zero.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Uh, yeah, it's um, Rudolph is kind
Speaker 1: of everywhere, whether we know it or not. Do you
Speaker 1: remember when you first encountered the Rudolph story was at
Speaker 1: the song or the special? Oh man, that would be
Speaker 1: really hard to pinpoint, because I remember singing Rudolph the
Speaker 1: Red Nosed Reindeer like in chorus. Yeah, we called it
Speaker 1: music music class, like elementary school music class, to sing
Speaker 1: it for a PTA meeting. Um. But then I also
Speaker 1: remember watching the the special on television, and I would
Speaker 1: be really hard pressed to tell you which of those
Speaker 1: things came first, but I feel confident it was one
Speaker 1: of those two and not like a book. Yeah, I um,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I could pinpoint either which one
Speaker 1: I encountered first. But I don't remember the first time
Speaker 1: I heard the song. I imagine I heard it because
Speaker 1: my dad was a big fan of playing Christmas music
Speaker 1: at the holidays. But I remember the first time I
Speaker 1: saw the special because I was just it was almost
Speaker 1: Star Wars level? What is this? Right? Like? The Island
Speaker 1: of Misfit Toys spoke to me in a way that
Speaker 1: is hard to describe to people, like just this idea
Speaker 1: of all these toys that would love to be loved.
Speaker 1: There's also an interesting story there where the special actually
Speaker 1: changed after its initial airing because initially the Misfit Toys
Speaker 1: did not get to go to new homes. The original
Speaker 1: version of it that credit sequence where we now see
Speaker 1: them getting dropped off via parachutes to children, with Santa
Speaker 1: just delivering regular gifts to kids. And enough people wrote
Speaker 1: in about it and they were like, this is not
Speaker 1: a happy ending for the Misfit Toys. But they went
Speaker 1: back and reanimated that that final segment to show the
Speaker 1: Misfit Toys finally getting a home. So Charlie in the
Speaker 1: Box and Dolly and Um all of their their cohort
Speaker 1: finally get to be loved by kids. Yeah. I kind
Speaker 1: of feel like, and I'm this is pure speculation. I
Speaker 1: have never read anything that says this, but I kind
Speaker 1: of feel like you can easily trace an inspiration line
Speaker 1: from the Island of Misfit Toys to Pixar's Toy story.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like that idea of toys having personalities and
Speaker 1: needs and wants and desires, I mean some of that, right,
Speaker 1: Like those toys are sad in Rudelph, right, And so
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a whether it was a conscious
Speaker 1: inspiration or not. I um, I feel like they probably
Speaker 1: have a little bit of shared DNA. Mm hmm. Woody,
Speaker 1: is you know, related to the Cowboy writing an Ostrich?
Speaker 1: Now I want to go watch that special. I think
Speaker 1: that's good. Okay, let's do it. I literally think I
Speaker 1: have it on DVD or something somewhere in this house,
Speaker 1: probably King Moon Racer forever. Since this is coming out
Speaker 1: just before Christmas, if you celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas. If
Speaker 1: you are not, you know, I hope you're having a
Speaker 1: great season of winter time and even though the world
Speaker 1: for a lot of people is continuing to be chaotic
Speaker 1: and full of pandemic. Uh. You can drop us an
Speaker 1: email you'd like. We're a history podcasts at i heart
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Missed in History Class is
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
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