Case: The Rainbow

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Case the Rainbow.

Dave brings the case against his niece, Morgan.

When Morgan was about five years old, she stole Dave's special collection of red Skittles.

Then she ate them.

Even now, after 24 years, Dave is still mad.

He demands restitution.

Morgan says she was just a kid.

Who's right, who's wrong, only one can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

If we could live our lives backwards, everything would be an omen.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear them in.

Dave Morgan, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, God or whatever.

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he's always eating Reese's pieces?

I don't know.

Reese's pieces for life.

I do.

I do.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

This case is about Skittles.

I don't think I've had a Skittle since 1985.

Reese's Pieces, that's the one I want.

1985 was the great Skittles to Reese's transition in American culture.

The Skittles came into this country in 1982 from Great Britain.

And I, you know, even though I don't have a sweet tooth, I have an alcohol molar.

I was curious like anyone else.

And I tried a Skittle.

Not for me.

Just sweet, not savory like a Reese's piece.

You inject Reese's pieces with some gin, you got something there.

I'll follow that trail of breadcrumbs to my spaceship or whatever.

Aliens probably hate Skittles.

Aliens probably do hate Skittles.

All right, anyway, Dave and Morgan, please be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours' favors.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

I'll give you the quote again since it's short and it's very profound.

If we could live our lives backwards, everything would be an omen.

Dave, let's start with you.

What's your guess?

I mean, that has to be John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, right?

The Grapes of Wrath.

Why does that got to be The Grapes of Wrath?

Well, I mean, one,

this

case is about Skittles, and as we all know, grape Skittles are a thing that exists.

So therefore, and then of course, moving backwards, it just fits with the whole narrative.

The whole theme yeah the whole theme all right is that the dust bowl novel grapes of wrath yeah right okay uh what do you think morgan what's your guess

i have no idea that the only thing that's coming to mind that has time that has any themes with time is doctor who so that's my that's my thought it's definitely not the answer but it's the only thing i can think of yeah both interesting guesses both of them all wrong.

Indeed, I would say all guesses are wrong.

Now, look, didn't either of you read a Wikipedia page about Skittles like I did five minutes ago?

I did it.

I did it yesterday, actually.

You think I've just been walking around with the knowledge, like it's normal, that Skittles got in trouble when they changed lime Skittles to green apple Skittles?

And then in response, they released all Lime Skittles.

There's a whole other thing happened when they tried to honor Pride Month and good for them by saying,

there's only one rainbow that deserves attention during Pride Month, and that is Pride.

So we are taking the color out of our Skittles and making them all white.

You're like, I don't think the words white and pride and month should ever be together.

Honestly, just sensorily, the idea of a bag of white Skittles seems terrifying to me.

It's like a stalk of celery after Banicula eats it.

Oh, yeah, great writer's house client, author of Banicula.

Right, yeah, exactly.

And do you think that I knew until literally this morning that there was a Skittles musical that was performed one time at the theater called the Town Hall in Manhattan in the theater district.

It's not a Broadway house, but it might as well be.

Starring Michael C.

Hall,

the actor for whom the Town Hall was named, I believe.

Seems right.

The music was by Drew Gasperini.

The book was by playwright Will Eno and Nathaniel Lawler, and the lyrics were by Nathaniel Lawler.

It premiered February the 3rd, 2019, as obviously a promotion for Skittles surrounding the Super Bowl.

It was a 30-minute musical.

And you haven't read about this.

So, this is a treat that you get to enjoy in the future, Dave and Morgan.

But if you read this Wikipedia page,

this is the most

annoyingly meta-musical there is.

The set is a recreation of the exterior of Town Hall with audience members protesting a commercial musical for Skittles.

It's like a snake eating its own tail.

The snake was made of Skittles.

I mean, anything that starts with the premise: the Super Bowl's in town.

Let's do a, let's put on some musical theater for candy.

Like they tried to book Michael Strahan and they ended up with Michael C.

Hall.

Yeah, we'll take any, we'll take any Michael, any acting Michael.

And the one line that is quoted here is the only line that I could find from this musical.

If we could live our lives backwards, everything would be an omen.

I mean, it's a great line.

Like, Will, you know, is a good playwright.

This is bananas.

bananas stuff.

Dave, are there bananas, Skittles?

Not in the normal pack, but they do exist.

There's a variety of flavors at this point.

Well, okay, let's get into it.

Who comes to my fake court seeking justice?

I do.

And that would be Dave.

Dave, what is the nature of your complaint?

Basically, the porg is a dirty rotten thief who stole all my red Skittles.

The porg?

The porg.

The porg?

The porg is what I call

my fellow litigant, Morgan.

Morgan.

Who is your niece, correct?

Who is my niece?

All right.

You can certainly use actual names.

Okay.

There's no way to hide her name.

You call her the porg.

Her name is the porg.

He doesn't call me anything else.

Other than the porg.

P-O-R-G.

Yeah.

I think the last time he called me Morgan was when I was really little.

It's been the porg for quite some time.

Permission to call you the porg?

Sure.

Very good.

The porg.

You have been accused of being a dirty, rotten thief.

And I will complete the sentence by saying that Dave accuses you of eating all of his Red Skittles that he had collected some almost 25 years ago or whatever.

How do you respond?

That that was 25 years ago or whatever.

And allegedly, I ate all of his Red Skittles.

Do you deny it, the Borg?

I don't remember it.

You don't remember eating the Red Skittles?

I don't remember eating the Red Skittles.

Morgan, I don't remember going to my aunt's NRDC company picnic and then coming back and saying I pooped on the beach like a dog.

It doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

That's fair, but I'm just saying I don't remember.

That's why I use the word allegedly.

I'll admit I may have eaten them.

I don't remember that, but I think it's time has passed.

It was a small infraction and we should move on.

I see.

The pork.

Dave is your uncle, but I think he's like only about 10 years older than you.

Can you explain this?

Yeah, so he's my mom's brother and he was the youngest of the siblings to be born or to be born.

I don't know.

And then I'm

to get around to being born.

Yeah.

And then my mom

had me and we just happened to end up being about 10 years apart.

We definitely

function more as like, we have more of like a sibling relationship

and we're super close.

So yeah, he's always been really close in age.

He's always taught me like video games and like fun stuff and been way more fun than most uncles.

Definitely more like a sibling.

Or simply like a funkle.

Yeah, definitely a funkle.

Definitely a funk.

Super close though, except for this point of contention, right, Dave?

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

As the porg stated, we are very close in age.

We grew up in the same household for many of our raising years.

That's what they're called.

So the porg very much is like the little sibling I never had.

My wife, who is a whole human being in her old right,

refers to the porg as my nibbling.

Right.

That's an internet coinage for non-gendered niece or nephew term.

But yeah, the porg has always been that close little nibbling to me.

And then to be betrayed by her just hits the heart in a place that I can't imagine.

Tell me the story.

How old were you when you were collecting these Skittles?

If the porg was five or six, I would have been 15 or 16.

Okay.

So this is like like prime years.

You're collecting Skittles to impress girls.

Exactly, exactly.

Like all 15, 16 year old boys do.

I had a three pound bag of Skittles.

All right.

And I love red Skittles.

And so in my mind, I decided I'm going to meticulously eat none of the red Skittles out of this bag.

Pick them out, place them in a glass jar, and save them.

That way, when I've finished the three-pound bag of grape, orange, yellow, and green, whether they're green apple or lime, right?

Yeah.

When those are all gone, I will have this treasure trove of red Skittles.

Every time I open the door, I just heard the

emanating from the jar.

I just realized I have a question.

You work for Skittles or something, Dave?

How do we get tricked into doing a product show?

You work for Skittles, don't you?

I do not.

I do not.

I'm actually a federal employee.

You're in the packet of Big Skittle?

You're a federal employee?

Federal employee.

I do government oversight work for Veterans Affairs.

I work for the Office of Inspector General.

Okay, we're doing a Skittles show.

I just realized it.

I just realized it.

I don't know why I got tricked into this.

Maybe this is why I got tricked into it because I'm curious.

Because as I mentioned, I've never had a Skittle in a long, long, long, long time.

They're just plain sugar, right?

They don't have flavor, do they?

No.

They do have flavor.

No.

Okay, the pork.

No, they don't.

I'll allow that objection.

So, Skittles, the company, if you look this up,

they don't actually have flavor.

They only have smell.

So essentially, like they scented the Skittles to trick you into believing that they have flavor.

Now, you can argue the semantics of that all you want, right?

But at the end of the day, they don't actually have

a flavor profile.

They're not flavored.

They just smell like each thing.

So, like, red smells like strawberry and green smells like green apple.

Green apple or lime.

Or lime.

Right.

So, you're saying that Skittles are essentially lip smackers?

Is that how lip smackers?

Yeah.

I mean, I guess.

I mean, I've eaten a lot of lips.

Have you eaten a lot of lips?

Yeah, they're a sham entirely.

They're just wow.

Fighting words, Dave.

Yeah.

Hitting words.

Let me ask you a question, the poor.

You work for Whoppers or something?

Are you the opposition?

No.

You tell me you work for Whoppers.

You win the case.

Malteasers?

No?

No.

I work for an EV charging company.

It's not nearly as fun.

Electric vehicle charging company?

Yeah.

Oh, cool.

All right.

I just want to make sure that there's no undisclosed bias here or attempt to buzz market.

I wish I worked for Willy Wonka, but I don't.

That's why I have to ask these questions and do these background checks because candy is a mean business.

If Skittles got Dexter to be in a Skittles musical, who knows what length they'd go to to get onto our podcast?

Think about these things.

I should have been afraid.

All right.

So the pork says that they have no flavor, Dave.

Obviously, flavor is subjective.

And the truth is, aroma is part of flavor.

Judge Hodgman, I've done some exhaustive internet research over the past 120 seconds.

Yes, sir.

And

according to perhaps the greatest scientific research organization in the world, TodayShow.com, while there is a neuroscientist who conducted a non-peer-reviewed quick study where he put nose clips on people and had them tell whether they were eating the Skittle he told them they were eating,

and he determined that while they have different flavors, which is the sensation that we get by combining taste and smell, they had identical tastes.

The Skittles Corporation, Skittles Incorporated, whatever the company is that makes Skittles, maintain very clearly that each Skittles candy does have its own taste as well as its own flavor.

Let me put it this way, Dave, have you ever done a blind taste test where you eat one Skittle and try to identify the flavor or taste?

I did.

I did.

The Porg and her partner forced me into this to prove their point, in which they forced me to plug my nose and eat Skittles.

I made the same contention that I can't tell the difference between bourbon and gin with my nose plugged because smell is such an important part of flavor.

So I take you, you failed the test.

I failed the test.

But in general, you can tell the difference because you can both see and smell.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And I would contend even without my sight, I would be able to tell the difference.

Right.

Do you believe, Dave, when he says that with his nose unplugged, but his eyes closed, he could tell the difference between a red Skittle and a lime Skittle.

And I remind you, you're under fake oath.

So even though you know what you want to answer as the annoying nibbling, I want you to be as honest as possible here.

Yeah, no, I believe him.

I did the blind taste test myself.

But yeah, so they don't have a sense of taste, but

I also kind of lost the

desire to pick different ones out, understanding that they're all the same.

That's just kind of like, I'm like, why do you care if they're all the same?

They're basically just, yeah.

Right.

So let's take a quick recess and hear about this week's Judge John Hodgman sponsor.

We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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Here's an interesting question, the porg.

If you hate Skittles so much, why did you eat all of Dave Skittles?

Because I was five.

Ah, so you admit that you did it.

If I did it, I was five.

I don't know.

I was young and I didn't know.

I didn't know any better.

I liked sweet things because I was a five-year-old or six-year-old, I guess.

So we can dispense with the pretense that this didn't happen.

Yeah, no, I don't think that it, I don't know for sure that it didn't happen.

I just don't know if it did happen.

I realized on the car ride over here that for a very long time, my uncle has told me that this story happened and was very grandiose about how it happened, said all these different things.

And then I realized that I never like tried to fact check.

I never went to my family.

I never was like, mom, you know, did this happen?

What was the grandiosity in his telling?

Did it all, did he say it all happened on an enormous sweeping staircase?

No, okay, so maybe grandiose isn't the right word, but it's like very like high, not like, I don't know, like very overblown.

High emotion.

Yeah, like very big and very like, this is a really big deal.

You know, Morgan's a thief.

And this was just in the car ride over here.

Yeah, this is what I pondered on the car ride over.

And how often does he bring it up?

I would say almost every time we see each other.

Like it, it is so much more often than I feel like it needs to be.

Like, let's say he and I see each other between five and ten times a year.

It's happening between five and seven times a year that he brings it up, I would say.

Dave, do you dispute that?

No, that sounds accurate.

So in your most grandiose style,

explain, first of all, where you kept the Skittles, how many you estimated you had, how long it took you to collect them,

and when you noticed that they were missing.

Absolutely.

So

as I stated previously, it was originally a three-pound bag.

So I had collected all of the red Skittles as I ate a handful at a time

by placing them in a glass jar that was located on a large cabinet speaker right next to my bedroom door.

So within my bedroom, like a jam jar.

So a little bit smaller than a pickle jar.

Right.

And it got pretty full.

I'd say maybe, I mean, one fifth of three pounds.

I maths that.

I don't know.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

So a good amount of Skittles.

And I'd say it took me about a month to curate that collection.

As you were working your way through this one three pound bag.

Correct, correct.

So yeah, just taking a handful, maybe two at a time, picking out the reds, eating nothing but

grapes, you know, purple, yellow, green, orange.

Right.

What is red flavor, by the way?

Supposedly cherry or something?

Supposedly, I believe it is strawberry.

Strawberry, okay.

And what was your plan for this jar full of red Skittles?

The plan was to enjoy it all in one,

not in one serving.

That's

a sick bacchanal.

But just to enjoy nothing but red Skittles.

I've always had a lifelong dream of opening up a fruit-flavored treat and having nothing but the red ones.

You know,

the grapes, the limes, the lemons, they're just there for filler, right?

Right.

I mean, everybody always wants the red popsicle, the red Skittle, the red whatever it is.

The red baron.

Yeah, that's true.

The lime baron was terrible.

Like you pull the lime baron, that's the worst.

One of the worst parons.

No one wanted to be shot down by the lime baron.

That was just embarrassing.

But I believe I discovered it when I had actually finished the bag.

So I had left the jar of red Skittles unattended,

went to school or whatever, knowing that when I came home, that jar of red Skittles was going to be there.

I was going to go up the stairs, open the door, and see that jar jar of red Skittles just awaiting for me.

So I opened the door and I looked to the jar and saw not a jar of red Skittles,

but a jar of two

red Skittles.

I like that

five-year-old Morgan left two for like plausible deniability.

Like, no, no, there's still Skittles in there.

Yeah.

See, and this is one of the, this is, to me, this was insult to injury.

Not, she didn't take all of the Skittles.

She left me two.

Your welcome.

No, no, you miscounted.

Previously, there are two now, as there were previously.

So I immediately was enraged,

in an enraged state, turned around, looking to the hallway area that was outside of my bedroom, and saw the porg

who just laughed.

And so, of course, did you eat my Skittles?

No.

Hee, he, he, he, he, he, he.

The telltale of a five-year-old lying.

Um,

just red smeared across her face like a cosplay joker.

Right.

Right.

Yeah, asking me if I wanted to see how she got these scars.

Um, and then immediately called my mother, her mother, into the room, voicing a complaint that my roommate had stolen my Skittles.

And then as punishment, my sister told the porg that she had to apologize to me.

And so I got a, I'm sorry.

Was it an I'm sorry?

I was like, I'm sorry.

It was the latter.

She was not sorry.

Was her mouth like the brightest red?

Did you have physical evidence?

I did not have physical evidence.

I believe she had done it earlier.

After the initial denial, once she had been caught, there had never a denial beyond that.

I see.

So let me get this straight.

You came home.

There are two Skittles left.

You go out into the hallway.

The porg is laughing at you.

You take that as a tacit admission of guilt.

You accuse her of eating the Skittles.

She says, no, I didn't.

Then you narrow to your mom or hers?

Both.

Both moms.

Both moms.

Double nar.

One of them compels an apology from her, which you take to be as tacit admission that

she did it.

She did it.

Right.

When she denied doing it, she was like, wasn't me?

Or did she come up with an alternate series of facts?

No, there was no alternate series of facts.

It was just, no, I didn't.

Yeah, like, couldn't even, couldn't even finish the

couldn't even finish.

I know, right?

Wonder she was even able to separate her jaw given the amount of sugar that had just compounded between her molars.

You're saying you caught her on the counter.

She said it wasn't me.

You saw her eating Skittles on the sofa.

She said it wasn't me.

Yeah, right, exactly.

She said she ate them in the shower.

It wasn't me.

Yeah.

Okay, one-fifth of three pounds of Skittles is roughly with 9.6 ounces.

Let's say that that's 10.

Each Skittle weighs 0.11 ounces.

So that means you could collect it in that jar,

roughly speaking, 90.90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90 repeated Skittles, red Skittles.

About 91 red Skittles,

which is about twice as much as a standard bag of Skittles, all red.

A standard 2.17-ounce bag of Skittles contains an average of 56 pieces of candy, those candies being Skittles.

Boy, I mean, for someone who loves red candy so much, just thinking about this must make you so excited.

Oh, man.

The joy I was expecting.

Did you even know that you had gotten two bags worth of Skittles until I did that math?

I thought I always assumed it was one bag.

Yeah, even more of that went down the drain of the porg's digestive system.

Yeah.

Was this uncharacteristic or was this characteristic of her behavior towards you?

This was fairly uncharacteristic.

Generally speaking, we got along really well.

The porg and I are closer in age than her mother and I.

The porg and I really...

I've already done enough math for one thing.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't need any more logic puzzles.

And how did it affect your relationship after the betrayal?

Was there a cooling of

relations?

There was a cooling initially.

I certainly did not trust her initially.

I believe I even requested a lock be added to my bedroom door because of the incident.

Eventually, the porg and I did become besties again.

But of course, one of our family traditions is stories never die.

They just keep being retold and retold over and over again.

Sure.

Grudges.

Yeah.

One of the family traditions is drubbing up old grudges.

I wouldn't even say it's drubbing up grudges.

It's getting a laugh.

perhaps at the expense of somebody else in the family done with love.

Who's bringing up this story?

You?

Oh, I bring, I'm the one who's watching this story.

Yeah.

Right.

You're trying to get family yucks by telling the story over and over again that the porg is a thief.

Yeah.

Trying to get attention.

That's accurate.

That's accurate.

And I do like me some attention.

Is it successful?

Oh, yeah.

The story goes over really well.

I'll talk to the porg for a moment here.

When we talk about the family of the porg, what family are we talking about?

What is the shape of this family?

And what was the conditions in which you guys were living together with two moms?

Sisters?

Yeah, so

we lived at the time, we lived with my grandma and grandpa, my mom, which is his sister, and my uncle, him.

Right.

Right?

So, what, five, four, five people?

I don't know.

Five people.

So, and then now that we've grown, we like he and I both have partners.

So, it's

my aunt, his wife, and then my partner, and then my mom, my other aunt, which is his other sister, and then my grandma, and I have a brother, and then my other aunt has a son.

So it's like, you know, a little under 10 people, I think.

But not all living together still in like Skittles Mansion or something.

No, not all living together in Skittles Mansion.

But having an annual picnic on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay where everybody comes and says, do you remember that time that you pooped on the beach and then said you pooped on the beach like a dog?

We get together every holiday, almost.

Like there's very few holidays that we aren't together.

So, and then we also, you know, have occasions every now and then where we'll get together for like a Dodger game or, you know, something else where we get together.

And he tells the story with some frequency.

Not just to you, but to the whole family.

Yeah.

Do you think it's more important to him that you hear that you're a thief?

or that the family hears that you're a thief and they all laugh and pat him on the back and say, good story, all at your expense.

I think whoever he can tell that I'm a thief, he thinks it's funny.

Like it's like, it's as long as it's told in his perspective with love as a joke, then he's fine with whoever hears it.

How do you feel about it when he's telling these stories and your family laughs at you?

I'm just over it.

Like it's been going for so long.

And my partner also thinks it's hilarious.

My partner's on his side on this case, which is very annoying because he thinks it's also really funny, but he's only heard it like twice.

So if he had heard it the amount of times that I've heard it over the course of my life, I'm sure he'd probably be like, this story's whatever also.

So the whole thing's a lot.

Your betrayal at this point has cooled.

You no longer feel it particularly keenly.

You're only dredging this up in order to participate in the family tradition of telling jokes at each other's expense.

At this stage of the game, the porg is one of my closest, not only family members, but just one of my closest people in the world.

I care for the Porg deeply.

I hold no ill will towards the Porg other than this is a great story that I love to tell.

And I think it's a good enough, obviously I took the bait.

Here you are on the podcast, but it's not like there's not a lot of twist to it.

The best part of the story is that this weird kid collected two packs of all red Skittles.

That's the story.

Morgan, when I said, how does it make you feel when he tells this story?

You said, I'm over it in a way that made me believe that you were born over it.

Like, certainly you never were really under it.

If it happened, and if you're being truthful, you have completely forgotten it.

Yeah.

You didn't seem to care one way or the other whether or not you got blamed for it or not.

You denied it, then you admitted it.

You said you were sorry.

Obviously, you weren't.

Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee, agent of chaos.

Exactly correct for a younger niece or sibling.

But surely now that you're adult, hearing the story year after year after year, your funkle saying my friend and family member is unreliable and should not be trusted.

That's got to take a toll, no?

Yeah.

Okay.

So my mom always used to say there's truth in every joke.

And so I think that's always kind of stuck with me.

Even though like I know he's joking and he's even like told me like, hey, like, you know, like this is a joke, right?

There's still this like little part of me that's like, what if he actually like thought that at any point in time?

Or like, have I ever, other than that, given him any reason to make him think that?

So, like, it's not that big of a deal.

Like, the, you know, hearing it over and over is that, but it does kind of subtly worry me a little bit that, like, there might be something there when it's told as often as it is, and how often I hear, like, little teeny tiny jabs.

Like, what form would a little teeny tiny jab take?

Kind of what I mentioned earlier.

So, like, the, you know, like, oh, well, like, she can't be trusted because she, you know, like, like, don't trust her around your food.

Don't trust her around this.

And it's usually usually like a food-based trust level.

He doesn't usually take it farther than that, but it's like, don't leave those around, you know what I mean?

So, it's like this, like, little subtle jab.

Dave, do you acknowledge that she has not stolen any more of your precious red Skittles?

I mean, we haven't lived together.

Yeah, we have.

We have not lived together in quite some time.

My wife and I lived in Colorado and the porg was going to move in with us.

In fact, she did move in with us.

And then, right after her stuff all arrived, she met a boy in Southern California and decided to stay in Southern California.

And so I just had a room full of porg stuff for the time that we were in Colorado.

And that giant glass carafe of red Skittles that you had collected in order to tempt and entrap her was all for naught.

Do you still like Skittles?

Skittles are a little on the sweet side for me now.

I enjoy them on occasion, you know, generally in the fun size packet like you get at Halloween.

If they came out with an oops all red bag, would you get it?

Would you enjoy it?

Absolutely, I would.

In fact, there is another candy that does that.

They came out with an all-reds and pinks, and it was actually the porg who first alerted me to said candy coming out.

Why would you just say the name of the candy unless you are actually a Skittles?

Because they're the opposition to Skittles, and I would blow my cover if I said Starburst.

Oh, no.

Got it.

Did you ever bother to collect the Red Skittles again?

No, my dreams were dashed.

Now, I will say.

When your dreams were dashed, how long did it take you to fill up this jar of Red Skittles?

Like a month.

Yeah.

How many months have you been alive?

There are 12 months in your

15th year alone.

We've already established we're not doing any more math.

Don't you dare.

I'm just wondering how important to you it really was if you didn't even bother to recreate the Red Skittles jar or even go bigger and put it in a vault.

It was recreated for me when I was dating my wife.

She,

having heard the story, because of course she did,

she recreated the jar of Red Skittles for me and gave it to me, I think, at a one-year-old at your wedding?

And on the altar.

Prior to the wedding, but it's definitely one of the reasons I married her for sure.

Right.

That's very adorable of your wife to do that.

I thought so as well.

But seriously, is Morgan unreliable?

Yes or no?

No.

Morgan is incredibly reliable.

Right.

Does she steal food off of people's plates or whatever it is that you're accusing her of?

She does, but it's, but I do too.

Like, we share food.

That's perfectly acceptable.

Like, ooh, what is that?

Share is different than steal.

Well, I mean, we take without asking.

Okay, steal.

Yeah.

All right.

I'll make a note of something here.

Yeah, it should be noted that Dave takes food off my plate very regularly.

He also strategically plans his meals to make sure that you get something different than what he gets.

So that way you know that he's going to take something off of yours that he wants to try.

Okay.

You know, like what?

What is he stealing from your plate?

What's he going for?

So, like, let's say, like, if I got the chicken tenders, he would get the hamburger so he could take a piece of my chicken tenders and make sure he got

to try them.

He wouldn't even have the decency to eat one tender.

He'd be, he'd be grubbing into your tenders, tearing them into pieces.

He might use a fork.

He wouldn't just like manhandle the chicken tenders.

I would only take part of a tender if she didn't get that many.

Like

if she got 50 tenders, I'm taking a tende.

Like that, that's that.

But if she got five.

Right.

You're saying you, if she gets five or three or whatever, you only want to bite.

And hygienically, you're going to break that off with a fork.

Exactly.

Right.

And obviously, you're going to ask her before you do this.

I mean,

there's an implied.

Again,

she's getting some of my moot food, too.

All right, Dave.

He took care of her stuff in Colorado.

That's true.

Did you eat any of the tenders that she sent from Southern California to Colorado for her room?

Yeah.

Her storage tenders.

I mean, they would have gone bad if I didn't.

Yeah, that's a fair point.

Do you steal food from his plate, Morgan?

No, I ask.

I don't steal food from anybody's plate.

I don't steal food from people.

Well, I do steal food from Steve's plate, my partner.

But he knows that's coming.

Let the record reflect that Dave has offered a 45-degree head tilt to indicate.

I mean, it's really important to your case that you present yourself as reliable and

non-deceitful.

Yeah.

So I'm going to ask you again, aside from your partner, because Dave is showing a tilt of the head that suggests that you're not telling the truth.

Now, this could be him laying another bad accusation at you.

I want you to answer truthfully.

Yeah.

Do you take food from your family members' plates?

without asking.

Not unless they've stated it's okay to do so or it's been implied that we are sharing plates.

Okay, and Dave is now nodding.

I would agree because anybody who eats with me, especially within family, knows that that is always implied reality.

Because that supports your point of view.

Does Dave do anything wrong that you don't also do with regard to taking food off plates?

That makes any sense?

Yeah, no, it does.

I'm trying to think.

I don't think so.

So you do the, it's the same deal.

You'll, will you take a bite of his chicken tendy?

Maybe, if I wanted it.

I don't know.

Sometimes, I feel like, I feel like sometimes it's like this, like, he always sets the precedent that we must share food.

Like, that's just how it is.

And so, like, it's just

there at the beginning of the conversation.

Morgan, has any of this brought up details of the day that the Skittles went missing?

No.

You literally, you have no memory at all.

Even a false memory that he's implanted into your consciousness by telling the story over and over again.

Nothing.

Yeah, the interesting thing about the story is, first of all, it started off as a two-pound bag.

The cup type has changed.

It wasn't always a jar.

Sometimes it's been a cup.

I thought for a period of time it was a red solo cup.

Yeah, the location of the jar or cup has been changed because I know for a fact it was right by the door because that's how I saw it and I clocked it.

But at one point, I think he said it was like up on a shelf.

For the holiday season.

Yeah.

Just to show it off.

But I do remember, I very vividly.

So this is why, like, I think it could be true.

I very vividly remember the two Skittles.

And I don't know if he showed it to me and was like, did you eat this?

Or if I ate them and looked at it and was like, ha ha, this is funny.

I don't know.

I do think it should be noted, we also had two dogs at the time.

So

things going missing

or somebody helping me.

What were your two dogs' names, M and M?

Bart and Lucy were their names.

Oh, that's

cute names.

Bart was named after Bart Simpson because that was like David's favorite character growing up.

And Lucy was named after Lisa Simpson.

Peanuts.

Linus and Lucy.

Linus and Lucy.

Got it.

Yeah, so I feel like if I did have help, that's who helped me.

Because if I was that young, I like, I don't know.

The idea of eating that many Skittles today gives me a stomachache just thinking about it.

So, but I know when I was a kid, I had an iron stomach, so I could probably, actually, no, I didn't.

I had a really bad tummy troubles when I was a kid.

So I don't know.

Do you think it's possible that eating half a pound of red Skittles cured your colic?

I think if anything, it contributed to it.

You know that Skittles were originally invented in England as a patent medicine, Jesse.

They were originally called Skittles nerve tonics, and they were good for your thymus gland.

They improved memory and skin tone, and they cured sciatica originally.

I take them whenever I have the gripe.

Yeah, totally.

They're terrific for gout as well, but only the purple ones for some reason because they're very different.

Each one is different.

It cures something else.

Purple are my favorite.

Oh, by the way, this is a reminder: don't take medical advice from our show.

Skittles are candy.

Skittles are not medicine.

Don't take them.

How many podcasts do you think have to offer Skittles are not a medicine?

Well, they look like little red pills, right?

Little red pills.

On some of these podcasts, they don't even bother saying that.

Were you trying to get red-pilled before that was even a thing, Dave?

Yeah, the Matrix had not come out yet.

I was not going for the idea.

You're saying you invented the idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

Somebody owes me some money.

Open your eyes and taste the rainbow.

All right, Dave.

It says here that if I were to rule in your favor, you would want me to order the porg to give you a heartfelt apology

and for the porg to recreate the red skittle experiment, to do it all over again and give you the red ones.

But importantly, she has to eat the non-red Skittles.

Why is it important that she has to eat them?

Because that was part of the betrayal was that I suffered through the non-red Skittles with no Red Skittle to make that enjoyable.

I say.

Your favorite candy was also an existential punishment.

Right.

I understand.

And also, you offer you an extra regular-sized bag of Skittles?

As interest.

As interest, I say.

Even though your wife already did the Red Skittle thing.

Without assistance from the pork.

Morgan, you would like me to rule that Dave never brings it up again and for him to stop smearing your name.

Correct.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Dave, how do you feel about your chances?

You know,

I have no idea.

The judge is very hard to read.

I was very saddened to hear that the porg thinks that there may be a kernel of truth in my accusations.

I do want her to know that she is incredibly important to me, and I do not think she is a person of bad character.

And perhaps I should re-examine how frequently I tell the story so that she knows that she is cared for and that it is all done in loving jest.

I find the judge very easy to read.

I enjoyed medallion status, vacation land.

I recommend them to our audience.

Morgan, how do you feel?

Um,

good.

I feel like I represented myself in the best way that I could.

So whatever happens, it will be based on my character.

Do you think Dave will ever treat you like a grown-up?

Yeah.

I think that he does a decent job of it today.

We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening and if not we just leave it out back and goes rotten so check it out on maximum fun or wherever you get your podcasts

all right we're over 70 episodes into our show let's learn everything so let's do a quick progress check have we learned about quantum physics yes episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Judge Hodgman, the Van Freaks Road is hitting the road.

That's right.

We've been talking a lot about our shows in Europe, in Dublin and London.

That's September 12th in Dublin, September 15th and 16th in London at King's Place.

Yeah, that's right.

Part of the London Podcast Festival.

But Europe is not the last stop on the Van Freaks Road Show tour because we will be visiting the new world, America.

That's absolutely right.

Starting October 9th, we will be in a place I've never been to in my life, Kentucky, the Bluegrass State.

Lexington, Kentucky specifically, going to that Lexington Opera House at the Lexington Center.

We'll be bringing our opera voices.

I'm a boy soprano and you're a beso profundo.

It's going to be very exciting.

We're also going to be at the Park West in Chicago, the Majestic Theater in Madison, Wisconsin.

Jesse, you're going to be so excited to see this theater.

It's a theater that literally turns a corner.

The house turns a corner.

I can't acclaim.

Love it.

Fitzgerald Theater, one of the most beautiful theaters I've ever performed in.

Love it so much.

St.

Paul, Minnesota.

The Paramount in Austin, Texas.

Again, this is just hit after hit in terms of incredible theaters and incredible green rooms.

Some of my favorite green rooms in the world are these theaters.

Plus the Variety Playhouse where we slayed it in Atlanta.

Oh, that was a fun show.

Right before we had to hide out for a couple of years.

The Carolina Theater, another beauty in Durham, North Carolina.

The Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I've never been there before.

I bet it's gorgeous.

The Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C., we've been there before.

And of course, the wonderful State Theater in Portland, Maine, the Wilbur in Boston, Massachusetts, and then a huge old final show in Brooklyn at the Murmur Opera House in Williamsburg.

Incredible venues, incredible shows, incredible surprise guests that we're lining up right now.

We're going to be combining all of the litigious fun that you've come to know from Judge John Hodgman, plus songs,

plus antiques, plus road shows, plus vans.

You're going to love it, and you ought to go over to the Van Freaks Road Show website right now.

Guess what it's called?

VanFreaksRoadshow.com to get those tickets and to send in your disputes for all these places.

First of all, I think our podcast is the only podcast I've ever been involved with where we get lots of letters from people who like the live shows even better than the studio shows,

which thank you very much.

Not only do you get to experience that live, but there's a lot of stuff that doesn't go on to the podcast because we want to keep it special for people who buy a ticket and come to see us.

Special stuff.

I'm going to sing two songs.

You might get to see Judge hodgman sing we settle the disputes of the people in the audience we uh often do a little slideshow we have a lot of fun one very very special i dare say unique thing we do as a touring podcast we stand up we don't just yeah we actually do a show we don't just sit behind a card table

okay you know i mean not that there's anything wrong with that on jordan jesse go we sit behind a card table yeah no there's anything wrong with that i'm just saying on the judge john hodgman podcast we stand up that's right we wear little outfits.

We stand up.

We walk around.

We have special stools for the little.

It is a blast.

It's a great time.

We don't have an inflatable dinosaur like I saw one time on Radiolab Live, but we haven't got that kind of budget.

No, no, no inflatables.

Maybe, maybe if everybody comes to the show next time around, we'll have that kind of budget.

We'll have dinosaur budget.

It's possible.

Anyway, could happen.

Come join us on the Van Freaks Road Show, vanfreaksroadshow.com.

That's vanfreaksroadshow.com.

And if you've got a case in any of those places we want to hear about it, go to maximumfund.org slash JJ H O and submit it.

Let's get back to the case.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

So one thing I have to circle back to is this contention you made, Dave, that everyone loves the red Skittles.

Or everyone loves red things.

The red baron, Clifford the big red dog.

I mean, obviously we don't like Clawford, the big yellow dog.

I like Clawford.

Clawford's fine.

But you offer this baseline presumption that everyone would love a red solo cup full of red Skittles.

And the truth is, people like what they like, and I'm not here to shame your kinks.

Red Skittles do nothing for me.

But now that I say it, a red solo cup full of red Skittles sounds pretty hot.

Next time you tell this made-up story that you clearly are changing the details on as time goes on, three-pound bag, two-pound bag, up on a shelf, up on a speaker, jar, red solo cup.

Lock in on the red solo cup because that's a good part of the story.

I think that's a really good detail.

That really brings it home.

It makes me feel it more.

You know what I mean?

I, a person who does not like a Skittle to begin with, any color.

I also like the part of the story where you're going upstairs, you're getting home from school, you cannot wait to see your red solo cup of red Skittles.

Because it's not in this moment just a story about your kink for red Skittles.

It's also a story about your achievement and its loss.

And then, in order for this story to have a completion to it, because we already have the protagonist on his hero's journey to collect all red things, he accepts the call to adventure and to taste that rainbow, that rainbow of a single color, achieves his goal, then has the achievement stolen from him.

There has to be a thief.

And you made the porg the thief.

And then the story ends.

I mean,

the truth is that it's unsatisfying as a story because your accusation is made.

She apologizes in the moment.

No one sold a hank of hair to get a gold pocket watch to, you know, to buy a hairbrush for the hank of hair.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, there's nothing, there's something missing to your tale.

I'm glad your family enjoys it.

But if there was some kind of twist.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

But you wanted to have more of a story.

You wanted a story to tell and continue to tell and continue to tell.

For that, you needed the porg to be a villain for the rest of her life.

And you created a character for her, which was, she's a thief and she's unreliable and she steals food.

Before you pull a moat out of Morgan's eye, check the chicken tender that's lodged in yours.

I think the porg is one of these admirable people who lets these accusations of skittle stealing roll off her back pretty easily.

Like, I don't sense from you, Morgan, a real sense of aggrievement that Dave has been out there all this time calling you a liar and a thief.

Now, Morgan, you're a cool character.

The porg is pretty cool, right, Dave?

She's incredibly cool.

Incredibly cool.

But I think you don't deserve to have to shrug this off.

Being called unreliable and a thief takes a toll, even if it's in the context of a family joke.

There could have been a version of this where the porg was delightfully evil.

A version of this story where you caught her and you said, you ate my Skittles, didn't you?

And she shook her head no vigorously and said, I know you did.

And then she shrugged and then spat all the Skittles back into the Red Solo Cup.

You know what I mean?

This is getting lively now.

Now we got a protagonist and an antagonist as opposed to just a useful Patsy, a five-year-old.

But absent having a real protagonist and a real antagonist and, you know, a struggle for authority or whatever the story is going to be there, right?

Your story basically redounds to this five-year-old ate my candy, which is fine.

And then the fiction that Morgan is still a five-year-old on some level, that she's a mischievous thief and liar and unreliable person when she's an adult who you care about.

That's the core of the story without anything else.

And you haven't even offered any evidence that she was that that person when she was five, other than the lone Skittles incident.

I feel that you actually felt a keen sense of disappointment.

I believe you and I see you.

When those red Skittles were taken from you, that's the hardest part of the story.

That's the most meaningful part of the story.

And it is fine for you to have told that story for as long as you've had.

I understand that you were wounded then.

I would focus on that.

It's not a grave offense that you've continued to tell this story, but now I think it is time to set it aside.

I think it is unfair to the poor to continue to call her a liar and a thief, even in jest.

And yet, I will say, that wound that you felt was real, and it needs to be healed for once and for all.

It is nice that your wife gave you a jar of red Skittles at the altar of your wedding, but it seems plausible and maybe even probable that the porg did either eat or get rid of those Skittles and laughed at you.

And the porg has to make good.

Morgan, I'm not going to ask you you to eat four-fifths of a bag of Skittles in order to get the red ones.

Thank you.

We're not about torture here.

Cruel and unusual punishment is not part of our game on the Judge John Hodgman Show.

But I do order you, however you do it, to get your hands on 90.909090909090 repeating forever, all red Skittles,

put them in a jar.

and deliver them to Dave and say,

this makes it right.

And then, I don't care, maybe, I don't know, bury the jar with a hatchet or something, something symbolic, get him some chicken tenders.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Bork.

Bork, pork.

Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Dave, how do you feel?

You know, it's not that far off of what I was expecting.

So

I'm feeling okay about it.

It just means that I've got to get a new story.

Did I ever tell you guys the one about when the porg and I went on a

podcast?

I can't.

Morgan,

how do you feel?

Good.

This was the outcome that I wanted, more or less.

I do have to figure out how to get my hands on 9.99999 or whatever, the ounce of Skittles.

So that'll be a fun adventure.

I mean, have you thought about like the drugstore?

Not just a separating out there.

I'm not telling you how to live your life.

I'm just saying.

I got to figure out how to separate them out and then not waste the additional ones.

So there's probably going to be candy dishes all over my house for a really long time of just Skittles with no red Skittles in them.

Morgan, Dave, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Happy to be here.

Thank you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

We'll have Swift Justice in just a moment.

First, our thanks to two redditors, OKProfessional7569 and J of the Internet.

They named this week's episode Case the Rainbow.

Join the conversation at the Maximum Fun subreddit.

That's at maximumfun.redddit.com.

That's where we have been asking for title suggestions.

You can see evidence and photos from this show on our Instagram account at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

Plus dank memes sometimes.

You know, sometimes we'll post some dank memes.

Yeah, sometimes we have some really cool dank memes.

We got to do something with a red solo cup full of red Skittles.

If you want to send us a dank meme, we'd love to get your dank memes.

Post them on the Reddit.

Send us dank memes at hodgman at maximumfund.org.

This is going to be great.

All your memeage, all your memeage belong to us.

Let's see, what else?

Oh, Judge John Hodgman created by Jesse Thorne and Judge Hodgman.

This episode engineered by Yvonne Rapin and John McDonald at at Cinematic Arts and Sound in Oceanside, California.

Marie Bardy runs our social media.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Now, Swift Justice Michael says, I want the court to rule that my five-pound chihuahua is too small to be considered a dog.

Any no-dogs allowed signage couldn't possibly apply to him.

Of all the ways that people are trying to sneak their dogs into places where there shouldn't be.

particularly their small dogs, to say that's not a dog.

It's extraordinary.

That's the boldest and the most bald-faced of lies.

The gall, the sheer gall.

I hope you have a big enough gallbladder to handle all your gall, Michael.

Yeah, no dog's allowed means your dog.

Means your dog and your dog and your dog too.

Trained service dogs, obviously get in there, you dogs.

But if it says no dog's allowed, that means your dog.

Here's my suggestion for a little, like, a little test, a little mental test before you make the claim that your five-pound chihuahua doesn't count as a dog.

When you see that no dog's allowed sign, imagine if in there they would accept weird rats, weird enormous rats, because that's what a five-pound chihuahua is.

I love my chihuahua.

I love all chihuahuas.

Yeah.

But if you're claiming it's not a dog, it's definitely a weird five-pound rat.

So.

Right.

That's the only other alternative.

You're absolutely right, Jesse Thorne.

I hope you enjoy your rat, Michael.

Anyway, you can't bring a dog on an airplane unless it's a service dog.

Can't bring a giant rat on an airplane unless it's a service rat.

uh but we are headed on airplanes we're about to travel the world the whole world well a good portion of it to bring justice to europe the uk and a whole bunch of the usa and we need your cases think of someone who is wrong and right to me at maximumfund.org slash jjho and of course let us know that you live in one of those places so that we know so we can get you into the show and get you special privileges and get you on stage yeah it's going to be fun disputes are the engine upon which Judge John Hodgman, both live and recorded, run.

So were you thinking, I don't think my dispute with my niece over a jar of Skittles is going to make the grade, oh, it makes the grade A plus.

Get all of your disputes on any subject over to us at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H.

O.

Hey, John, before we go this week.

Yeah.

As we were recording this week's episode, like literally as we were in the studio, I got a text from our former producer, Julia Smith, that said that Paul Rubens had passed away.

And

folks know Paul is a brilliant writer and actor, not least as Pee-Wee Herman, his iconic character.

And

so, like,

I

have a lot of comedy heroes, certainly, as we all do.

There's no, not a moment's doubt for me that my greatest comedy hero

is and was Paul Rubens.

Yeah.

Pee Wee Herman is the thing that made me think that I would want to do this with my life.

It's the thing that like defined my

childhood that

I had no less love and appreciation for at any moment in my life.

I used to, My parents had split custody, 55, 45, and the 55 was with my mom.

And it meant that every every friday night after school i would go to my mom's house and on saturday mornings she and i my mom a person who does truly does not understand almost any of popular culture would watch peewee's playhouse together

and

uh

it

and there's nothing more special to me

than that

And a few years ago,

I got an email from my friend Nick White.

And he was working at KCRW in Santa Monica at the time.

And he said, you know, our program director had a meeting with Paul Rubens.

He wants to make a show for KCRW.

And I told him, the only person to produce it is you.

And I had a meeting with the program director.

He said, Do you have any ideas for what the show could be?

I did.

And

he brought it to the highest ups.

There, they said yes.

And I brought in Julia Smith, who was the original producer of this show.

And

like, it's my job to meet celebrities and artists for Bullseye, right?

Right.

I will never forget the experience of sitting down in a diner across from Paul Rubens.

And

he

could not have been

more

warm, welcoming, and kind to me.

Yeah.

And

to work with him on something,

I think will always be

the highlight of my professional career.

And the thing that I think about, if I think, gosh, maybe I should have just become a veterinarian or something, I'll think, you know, you got to make a radio show with Paul Rubens.

And it was very difficult to make.

Right.

It was monumentally difficult to make because Paul was extraordinarily protective of this character that had defined his life and legacy.

Yeah.

As he had earned the right to be.

And

Paul didn't want to improvise at all

and

was just incredibly careful.

I mean, it took us years to make that hour-long show.

And

there was not one moment in all of that hard work that I thought anything other than,

I can't believe that I get to make a radio show with Paul Rubens.

And there was not one moment when I thought anything other than

this is one of the kindest, most gracious

geniuses I've ever had the chance to sit across a table from.

And

considering how hard it was to make this show, I think that's a pretty extraordinary achievement.

And, you know,

Julia texted me while we were recording, as I said, and she said,

I just know that he had more art to make and more friends to make.

And,

you know, I don't think you could find someone who

had a greater gift at either.

And

when I thought about it, like

the thing that I thought was,

gosh,

I guess I'm not going to get a text from Paul on my birthday anymore.

Yeah.

And so

you know,

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank him because

I feel lucky not just to have worked with him,

but

to have been able to have his

gift and his work

touch my life in the ways that they did and the ways that they will continue to do.

And so I hope everybody out there will go and,

you know, watch Peewee's big adventure or show the playhouse to their kids or

just take a moment to appreciate the

absolute singular genius of Paul and that character and what a jerk Pee Wee is.

I mean, you know,

yeah, but I'll just say this, that, you know,

people would resonate with Pee Wee for a lot of different reasons.

And,

but, you know, as an only child watching that weird only child living in that house, I was like,

I get this guy.

I get this guy really good.

I understand the selfishness.

I understand it.

I am a loner, Dottie.

I'm a rebel.

The first first thing I said when I found out that he had passed, and he passed apparently after struggling with cancer.

That's what's been reported.

And I don't know anymore, only that I'm glad to,

you know,

any age would be too young.

But I hope that he passed on his own terms as best as possible for him.

But I didn't know about it until you told me right after we finished recording with the litigants.

And the first thing I said was, thank you for not telling me, because because I don't know that I would have been able to

do it.

You know,

you were heroically dealing with those emotions because not only your idol, but your friend passed away, and I knew that too.

And while I met him in passing one time

in an act of sheer kindness on his part, which is very common,

I didn't have the relationship that you had with him.

But of course, I, like everyone else,

loved him and quite rightly, I mean, not only was he really, really, really funny, but he was

heroic.

When you think about what people saw in Pee-Wee Herman, right?

Obviously, weird-only children saw a weird only child, but Pee-Wee represented such an alternate and completely unapologetic way of being in the world

that I know

was very disruptive to the male MTV culture of the 1980s, you know, the cis male MTV culture of the 1980s.

And he triumphed in showing kids other ways to be, not just in himself, but when you look at who he put on Pee Wee's Playhouse, you know, the backgrounds and

the way people looked on that show, you think about how many kids looked at that show in the 1980s, never seeing anything like themselves.

And I'm not just talking about, you know, race, ethnic background, whatever.

I'm also just talking about straight-up weirdness.

Yeah.

Like, like, weird kids didn't have a lot in mainstream culture to look at and feel like, oh, I am completely, I do not listen to Van Halen and everyone at my school bullies me, but I feel like I belong there.

Never mind the fact that he could pivot perfectly between this downtown subversive arts scene to mainstream culture, right?

And bring people along with him.

Phil Hartman,

you know, was in the original Pee Wee's stage show,

along with countless other, like the, when I discovered that the set design on Pee-Wee's Playlist was by Gary Panter, the freaking visionary cartoonist and visual artist, like what he curated in that show and all of his work for the world to see was a completely different way to be alive and be happy.

And it it was just so meaningful, you know, and also obviously cross-generational because that was, along with the Muppet movie, Pee Wee's Big Adventure was one of the movies that I and my kids equally adored.

And we can still like just laugh if we just look at each other.

And I'm going to see, I'm going to see, we're all going to be together because they're out in the world.

They're adults basically now.

They are actually.

But like when I see them all together this weekend, I know that I can just look at our daughter or our son and just be like, I say we let him go.

I just, I,

I,

I, I'm jealous that you get to miss him personally

because that means that you actually got to be with him.

But I think we would miss him.

We miss him really terribly.

And it's only been an hour since we found out.

And I just, you know, thank you.

Thank you, Pee-Wee.

Thanks.

You know, when we made the radio show,

which by the way is on kcrw.com.

You can listen to it if you want to.

We booked Charo to be the guest, which we couldn't believe we got.

Like, we're like, we, we, we have this long list of like Jack White made an appearance on the show, but I, I, I couldn't believe that we got Charo.

And sure, Charo came in, and

you know, Charo is Spanish and has a grand accent.

Right.

Central to her art is her brilliant guitar playing and

her cartoonish persona.

Also, she says, coochie coochie.

Yep.

And

she came in just in a flurry,

as you would hope.

And she gave Paul a big hug and she said,

I love to see you, Pee-Wee.

And then she turned to me and she says, his name, it is not Pee-Wee, but I call him that.

It's okay.

And so, thanks, Pee-Wee.

Yeah.

And thanks, Paul.

Both of you completely changed my life.

So

thanks so much.

All right.

And thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

Yeah.

Thank you for listening.

And we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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