Spooky Day, Spooky Night

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket.

And with me is the great judge himself, Judge John Hodgman.

Oh, hi, Jesse.

How are you?

Well, I didn't have a, you're not wearing a hat today, so I didn't have a thing to say about the hat that you're wearing that wouldn't make any sense to the audience because they can't see you and I can.

This is my Halloween costume.

Yeah, guy in gray shirt.

Well, yeah, first of all, that's spooky.

And also, a 50-year-old man who is trying to not look like he's going through a midlife crisis by wearing wacky baseball hats all the time.

Got it.

I was told by a grown woman who no longer lives in our house and now attends an accredited four-year college that she would prefer that I not

come to help her move in for this semester.

Specifically because

of hats.

You'd probably wear one of those hockey hats.

Specifically, I think she was most concerned that it would not be a hockey hat featuring an extinct hockey team like the Plattsburgh Pioneers,

which was part of the Junior Quebec League, or the one I just ordered in the mail from the Ottawa Nationals logo that I just ordered.

I think she was most concerned I'd be wearing my Day Glow Aaron Drapplin hat.

I can understand that.

I was told by an intermediary, a third party, don't wear a hat.

And And you know what?

I didn't.

It really made me think about myself, and I'm wearing hats less frequently now for that reason.

It's good.

It's good to have self-reflection, John.

But do you know why I'm wearing this dark gray, almost black t-shirt?

Why is that?

Because it's almost Halloween.

That's the spooky season, John.

Yeah.

Do you know my Halloween song?

No.

I made it up when I was 19 years old.

I was working at Claire's Corner Copia in New Haven, Connecticut.

This is how the song goes: Spooky Day,

spooky night,

Halloween.

Many spirits, many frights,

Halloween.

They asked me to stop singing it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Makes sense.

I also worked there.

I used to whistle someone someone to watch over me.

They told me to stop whistling as well.

Just ladle the soup, they said.

You know what?

Maybe if listeners are lucky, after the credits, they'll get to hear me sing my nephew Obie's song about bulldozers.

Let's get into the docket.

Okay.

Here's a case from Rob in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

Are sleep shorts underwear or pajamas?

I like to wear sleep shorts in the summer, and sometimes we'll wear them outside the house in situations where I would wear full-length pajamas, such as getting the newspaper from the driveway or taking the dogs on a short pre-dawn walk.

But my wife, Greta, says I shouldn't because they look like underwear to other people.

I say, they're pajamas.

It's other people's problem if they don't recognize them as such.

What do you think?

P.S.

My favorite pairs of sleep shorts are one, Spider-Man, two, Star Wars, three, Hershey's Kisses, four, minions.

Very important ranking there.

We should have made that into an internet slideshow.

I know.

Get a lot of clicks.

Breaking.

We just got bought by BuzzFeed.

We do have photos, of course.

I insisted that Rob send in photos of him wearing these sleep shorts.

They will be available and are now on the show page at maximumfund.org, as well as on our Instagram account, which is instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

Jesse, I'm going to ask you, a professional menswear consultant and expert, to comment on this in a moment, moment, but I just need to point out something

about Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

First of all,

same name as Fitchburg, Massachusetts, my father's hometown.

Weird, right?

Weird.

Now, you're lucky, Jesse, because I looked very, very hard to find some body of water in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, that would lead to Lake Superior.

Because Wisconsin does have a tiny, tiny bit of novelty coastline on Lake Superior, even though it's edged out by Minnesota to the west and the upper peninsula of Michigan to the east, which frankly just should be Wisconsin.

Sorry, you press.

Get out of here.

You shouldn't be part of Michigan.

You're part of Wisconsin.

And I've been catching a lot of flack on the Reddit when I gave my last Great Lakes Beach Report, which regular listeners to the podcast will know is probably the most popular feature of Judge John Hodgman.

Everyone loves it.

No one just spaces out.

No, no one spaces out.

They're wrapped, Wrapped, I say, R-A-P-T wrapped when I talk about the beach communities of the Great Lakes of the American Midwest and Canadian Midwest.

Sorry.

But I caught some flack on Reddit because I made the point that Lake Huron and Lake Michigan count as one lake.

Geologists consider them, or I should say hydrologists consider them a single lake and thus the largest freshwater lake on earth.

And the Lake Superior stands got on me in the Reddit.

They were so mad mad because, yes, by area, if you combine Huron and Michigan, it's the largest.

But guess what?

Lake Superior is deeper, deeper.

So I wanted to do something on Lake Superior, but I could not find a hydrological connection between Fitchburg, Wisconsin, which is a suburb of Madison, and Lake Superior.

So you're off the hook, Jesse.

And I'm sorry, listeners who love the Great Lakes Beach Report.

I will say, in the spirit of Halloween, Fitchburg, Wisconsin does have a park in it called the Knollwood Conservation Park.

And I looked it up online.

And according to Google reviewer Eric, as of yesterday, September 5th, 2021, when he wrote this, it was September 6th, there was a big electric fence going through the trail.

No explanation on what, why, or when.

Holy cow.

A ghost fence.

in Knollwood Conservation Park.

Anyway, three stars.

Spooky.

Spooky days and spooky nights.

I don't know what that fence is doing there.

It's a mystery.

It sounds like a nice park, other than the electric fence that goes through the trail.

If it comes,

why is there an electric?

What are they trying to keep in that park?

Yeah, a Sasquatch?

I don't know.

A New Jersey devil?

I don't know.

Anyway, let's get to these shorts.

Anyway, no, sorry, everybody.

No Great Lakes speech report today.

Just a weird fence in a small park.

All right.

You want to look at these photos of this guy, Jesse?

His name, as we know, is Rob.

I didn't have the photo I didn't know there was photos until I scrolled down.

Always glad to get an honest reaction.

Okay, Jesse, let me tell you what we're seeing here.

First up, Spider-Man shorts.

This is Rob walking his dogs or preparing to walk his dogs.

His dogs, of course, want to go in two different directions because dogs.

Yeah, they're attached in a T-shape.

That's right.

Dogs love that.

Yeah.

Then we have Rob jauntily throwing his garbage away in a city of Fitchburg, Wisconsin trash can wearing, are those, what are those on his shorts there?

Well, we're seeing one pair of holiday-themed Spider-Man shorts and one with an abstract Darth Vader design, Darth Vader being an evil character from the movie Star Wars.

He's got Darth Vader's on there?

Yeah, he's got

covered in Darth Vader's.

And in that picture, he's jauntily tossing one of his feet backwards as he puts the trash into the trash can.

Sort of like Tommy Toon, if Tommy Toon was taking out the trash and had some mild skin irritation on his calf.

Tommy Toon is human, too.

He produces trash and sometimes has irritated skin.

That's the way it goes.

Now, I thought this next photo of Rob holding the newspaper, he was wearing the tornadoes on his sleep shorts, but those must be the Hershey's kisses, right?

Yeah.

And then I think number four, what we're seeing is him enjoying a morning beverage while wearing what look like minions.

That would be minion.

We would have to ask Nick Weiger of the Doughboys to know for sure.

We'll send him this photo and get confirmation that those are minions down there.

I love Rob's Scruffy Dog.

Yeah.

Well, he's got two scruffy dogs.

Other one's not scruffy.

I like the other one.

I love the scruffy one.

You love scruffy?

All right, you're right.

The other one is smooth.

You take scruffy, I'll take smoothie.

Today I was coming home from dropping my kids off at school.

Yeah.

And

I saw some dogs walking down the sidewalk by my house and I thought, oh my God, look at those dogs.

And I like stopped my car to look at the dogs and then I realized it was my wife walking my dogs.

Wow.

You didn't even notice your beloved human companion.

Nope.

Checking out the scruffs.

Just the two scruffs.

But my question to you, Jesse, is a dog owner and a person interested in

fashion and style and appropriateness,

would you, if you were walking the Scruffy and Smoothie in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, would you be doing it in any of these shorts?

There's cultural context here, which is that I am from a place

where you would not walk the dogs in your regular pajamas.

I can't imagine walking down the streets of my neighborhood in my pajamas, culturally speaking.

Not for reasons of fanciness, but just for reasons of the public life of the city.

Wisconsin is known throughout the land as the laid-back state.

Well, he does.

I mean, we can see from the photograph, he lives in the kind of

suburban or ex-urban neighborhood that does not have sidewalks, just lawns.

Yeah, it's all about Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

This is classic Fitchburg, Wisconsin style living.

Given that context, I honestly can't endorse anything beyond the limits of one's own property that involves wearing pajamas.

I have no problem with wearing pajamas in a robe to go get the newspaper, but taking the dogs for a walk in pajama pajamas is too much for me, especially before dawn.

Isn't he cold?

What if you're a bananas in pajamas?

If you're bananas in pajamas, well, that's your normal attire.

You can come down the stairs, for sure.

We know that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I will say, though, that even if I spotted him that, even if I said, this is a cultural difference, he lives in a very quiet ex-urban neighborhood where people walk around in their pajamas with their dogs.

These sleep shorts that he is wearing

are pretty high and tight.

And

while they do appear to have some kind of pocket, they are made of jersey.

and really do look like underpants.

In fact, I assumed that what the objection was was that they look like boxer shorts and they are at least 40% of the way to boxer briefs from boxer shorts.

And

it really does look like he's wearing his underpants.

The Hershey's kisses one,

I think, is the greatest offense

because the Hershey's kisses are not hiding anything.

And it's and it's and it just is just a mysterious shape.

They make kisses feel intimate.

Kisses feel intimate, especially if

at a slight distance as I'm seeing them now, they look like either tornadoes, like the Great Tornado Room in Madison, Wisconsin, a restaurant I hope to return to soon.

Sure.

And I'll tell you something else.

They also kind of look like, and I know this is a family-friendly podcast, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about adult themes from time to time.

They look like sperms.

Yeah.

They look like deformed sperms.

Yeah, they do look a little bit like shiny, deformed sperms.

Whereas the minions, because he's got his hand in his pocket,

it's changing my perception.

Those do almost look like extremely tacky shorts that Nick Weiger would wear.

Almost.

All of these

are well above the knee.

All of these are snug, and all of them are made of jersey, the same kind of material that a t-shirt is made out of.

None of them have the hard finish.

of

a short.

Or these aren't even, you know, these aren't even made of the kind of of stuff that like a basketball shorts are made out of or something like that.

Right.

These are not shorts that he's sleeping in.

These are

little undies for snoozing.

Little undies for, I agree.

Look, I'm sorry, Rob.

You throw your garbage away jauntily.

You've got a wonderfully scruffy and a wonderfully smooth dog.

You obviously have a love of life living there in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

But it looks like you're wearing underwear.

And I don't blame your wife at all for having some concerns.

Greta is correct in this one.

They look like underwear to other people.

Rob, get some sweatpants or something.

Throw on some breakaway pants or something before you go out there.

Also, pre-dawn walk for Scruffy and Smoothie, you're going to be cold.

It's Wisconsin.

Here's something from Helen in Boston, Mass.

My husband, Ryan, loves chocolate chip cookies.

Whoa.

This one opened bold.

It's quite an accusation.

Let's see if the evidence supports it.

At Christmas, it's been a long-standing tradition in my family to make Christmas cookies.

Every year, Ryan wants me to make chocolate chip cookies as part of this fun celebratory day of baking.

My family has a collection of cookie recipes that we only make for Christmas.

They are special cookies, made special by their rarity.

They're frankincense cookies.

They're myrrh cookies.

They're gold cookies.

Yeah.

Every year, I say, no, chocolate chip cookies are not Christmas cookies.

Every year Ryan says I am wrong and that chocolate chip cookies are appropriate to every holiday and occasion.

I'm asking Judge Hodgman to rule on the Christmassiness of chocolate chip cookies.

I would like the judge to rule that Ryan must select a different actual Christmas cookie to request during the season.

I'm not talking about Christmas yet, Jesse Thorne.

We haven't even made it to Halloween.

It's too soon.

I'm going to put this on hold, not indefinitely, but for a moment, to point out Boston is the largest city in New England, my home region.

That's a collection of

states and commonwealths in the southeastern region of Canada, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine.

Send me letters.

And Boston is a very old community, so is it haunted?

Yes.

Are all kinds of haunted houses found in Boston?

Of course.

Is that what I find most interesting?

No.

What I find most interesting is that a little bit south of Boston is something called the Bridgewater Triangle, a term coined by our friend Lauren Coleman, the curator, founder, and sole employee, I believe, of the International Museum of Cryptozoology up there in Portland, Maine.

The Bridgewater Triangle is...

200 square miles or so of Massachusetts that is haunted.

It's roughly bounded, and I've never heard of this before, but it's roughly bounded by Abington, Freetown, and Rehoboth,

right?

And

includes the entire town of Taunton, Massachusetts, named after the Star Wars creature.

And it is the site of many different paranormal experiences, ghost orbs.

Yeah.

You think Taunton, Massachusetts stinks on the outside?

I thought they did.

Until I got into Taunton.

Yeah.

Until I had to throw my friend in there so he didn't freeze to death.

I'm a medium Star Wars guy.

You're a medium Star Wars.

That was good.

And within the Bridgewater Triangle, people have seen ghost glowing ghost orbs.

They have seen Bigfoots and Sasquatches.

They have seen Thunderbirds.

They have seen giant snakes.

They have seen ghosts.

All kinds of different phenomena.

And it all gets muddled up there, especially in Hakamak Swamp,

where every one of the 24 reviews talks about how haunted Hakamok Swamp is, including this review.

This one really scared me.

Kane wrote,

caught an EVP, that's electronic voice phenomena.

You know what that is?

When you're in a haunted house and you're recording and you listen back and a ghost says, I'm here too, right?

Caught an EVP while doing Sasquatch research.

Double exclamation point.

Man, that's the last thing you expect.

Completely.

Well, Kane goes on, it completely caught me off guard because I wasn't talking to the spirits.

I was speaking to the Sasquatch.

Two stars.

It's not true.

Four stars.

It was fine.

It was a good experience for Kane anyway.

Hockamock Swamp.

I'll have to go there next time in New England.

All right.

Now that we got the Halloween content out of the way, we can talk about the Christmas content.

Are chocolate chip cookies, first of all, a Christmas cookie?

Jesse Thorne, you celebrate Christmas.

Love it.

Love Christmas.

What would you call a Christmas cookie?

You know, my father's cousin Joanne used to send us Christmas cookies.

Right.

Joanne was a biker who lived in Arizona, New Mexico, lives in Arizona, New Mexico.

A bicycler or a motorcycler?

A motorcycler.

Cool.

Yeah, she was a cool lady.

But she loved to bake Christmas cookies as well.

And she would send a broad selection of Christmas cookies.

I think there there are classic Christmas cookies, various kinds of cookies that can be decorated with Christmas themes.

Yeah.

Different types of sugar cookies and so forth.

Like sugar cookies that are in the shape of a pine tree and they have green frosting on them.

Yeah.

And white piping and little red dots to look like they're decorated, right?

Wintry cookies, like ginger cookies.

Something with a little snap.

A gingerbread man.

Sure.

Would be a Christmas cookie sure.

Various types of fancier sugar cookies.

Something with a chocolate kiss in it, for example, or a minion.

Yeah, or a deformed sperm, a shiny sperm.

I wouldn't consider a chocolate chip cookie to be a core Christmas cookie, but I think that part of the spirit of the Christmas cookie, in my experience, is the breadth of cookies laid out before you.

That

when I have experienced Christmas cookies, be it in the mail from my dad's cousin Joanna,

or at the office when

one of our office's great bakers like our own Jennifer Marmer or Daniel Baruella bring in some baked treats.

Part of what's magical about Christmas cookies is that often people spend a whole day baking a broad variety of cookies and there's like an exciting and beautiful, dazzling, smorgasbord of different kinds of cookies.

It's more cookies than you want,

but it's a beautiful bounty.

Yes.

And also, sugar cookies

are not that good.

That's right.

So it's nice to balance out the sugar cookies with other kinds of cookies that are better.

Yeah, they're good.

Jennifer Marmer, go ahead.

Mine are good.

Your sugar cookies are good.

Yeah.

All of Jennifer's baked cookies.

Jennifer's a wonderful and skilled baker.

Look, what can I say?

Brown the butter, caramelize the sugar.

A sugar cookie tastes like something.

Jennifer Marmor, what about you?

In your household, what is your relationship to Christmas, if any?

We celebrate it.

My husband and his family celebrate Christmas.

So

I get to live my childhood dreams and have a Christmas tree in my house.

Whoa.

I mean, you are a Jewish person.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you would celebrate Hanukkah.

Yes.

Yes.

And we do both.

We do both of the winter, um, the, you know, we do both of those.

Um,

and a friend of mine, um, in, you know, normal times throws a Christmas party or a holiday party every year.

And I usually bring sugar cookies and they are requested.

Um, and that's a fun event for me where I get really ambitious with decorating.

And so the first

several batches are very nicely decorated and then I run out of time and the rest are a real mess.

But they're still, it's fun.

I'm sure they're delicious.

They are, I think.

So I only celebrate Saturnalia, the Roman festival of Saturnalia.

So I don't have cookies.

I just have melted goat fat,

olive oil, figs that I've picked from my own tree.

My wife has painted with poison.

This is a shout out to I, Claudius.

In any case, I'm going to go to your expertise then, Jennifer Marmor.

Chocolate chip cookies.

Are they Christmas cookies?

Here's the thing.

I make an even better chocolate chip cookie, but I would not bring them to a holiday party.

I wouldn't include them in the Christmas cookie bounty.

You know,

we grew up with a friend of my sister's, her mom would do this, like making Christmas cookies and, you know, bringing them around.

And there were always Spritz cookies and like all kinds of.

What's a Spritz cookie?

It's kind of like a shortbready sugar cookie, and you put it in this tube that has a little trigger, and you just spritz them out.

I know exactly what you're talking about.

You have little

stencil-y things that you can stick in the bottom, and they come in different shapes.

It's like when you use a pastry bag to make deviled eggs.

Exactly, exactly.

And it comes out in that appealing swirl.

Yeah, it could be a swirl.

It could be a little decorative flower.

It could be a tree.

Right, right.

Those are fun.

Can't get a chocolate chip through one of those.

Oh, no, no.

Chocolate chip through a spritz gun.

No way.

They'd get stuck.

You would just get the rest of the dough.

With all due respect, it would gum up the works.

That's right.

It would chip up the works, maybe.

It doesn't work.

That's possible.

Decide whether to keep that in later.

I'll leave it up to Val.

You could put a chocolate chip cookie in there.

No, you couldn't.

You're just being nice.

You're being nice.

Yeah, that would be, you know, I really,

I'm sympathetic to Helen's husband, Ryan.

I, you know, a chocolate chip cookie is good, but also it's not special.

You could have it any time of year.

Hey, you know, look, Ryan, chocolate chip cookie, it's a quintessential cookie.

It's one of the top cookies.

Even I, a non-sweet eater, appreciate.

a chocolate chip cookie.

The only chocolate chip cookie that you could potentially, that I think that I've ever seen on a tray of what we're calling Christmas cookies would be a mini chocolate chip cookie.

And those are the worst form of chocolate chip cookie.

It's just one step above a cookie crisp.

You know what I mean?

The mini chocolate chip cookie.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're completely right about that.

It's sort of like if you got a chocolate chip cookie in one of those blue tins of Danish cookies.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they're like, usually they're.

Those pacos.

It's like they took a picture of a chocolate chip and put it in those things.

Yeah.

And then the chocolate chip cookie,

you know, it's in the tin with all the other Christmas cookies.

Probably not that blue Danish tin because that's holding all your sewing supplies and buttons.

But

I wish.

I wish all the sewing supplies and buttons were in one tin in my household.

That's another story.

That's a dream.

You know, but you have a decorative winter theme tin or box or whatever.

All of the other cookies, they kind of like meld together and you get this like just general cookie taste.

And it like

the chocolate chip cookie is not going to be that good it's not going to be as good as you want it to be it doesn't belong there it doesn't belong there ryan but do you know what

you can make chocolate chip cookies any day you want

what the heck

why are you trying to force your wife to make you chocolate chip cookies on her day of christmas cookie baking You're using the birth of the Son of God to try and blackmail your wife into making you chocolate chip cookies.

You are perfectly capable.

Like, go and learn how to make a cookie, Ryan.

If you don't know how to do it, go and learn how to make a cookie.

And then the oven's going to be preheated.

It's going to be cooking all day.

Just have a, go out and get yourself, you know, like a baking sheet.

Get all the ingredients, get a silpat or something, or some parchment paper.

Learn how to do it.

Yeah.

Have those cookies ready to go.

And, you know, when your wife is pulling out some Spritz cookies, just throw in your chocolate chips.

Enjoy.

Keep them in a separate tin for yourself.

It's fine to enjoy them at Christmas time, but using the Christmas cookie day to try to force someone to make you something you like when you can make it any day you want, learn.

Learn a thing, Ryan.

Christmas is a special time of year.

It's not when we eat chocolate chip cookies.

It's when we eat cookies that taste less good, but can be made to look more like trees.

Right.

That's the whole point.

More cookies than you want and you also want none of them.

You on board with cooking your white sugar, Jen?

You ever do this?

Cooking the white sugar?

Caramelizing the sugar.

I'm on board.

You don't make it into caramel.

It's still granulated sugar, but it's caramelized.

No, I've never done that.

I am on board with that idea.

It's incredible.

I can't.

Brave tart.

You know about this Brave Tart?

No.

Brave Tart is a baker named Stella Parks.

She got this whole thing about caramelizing your sugar.

If you're making chocolate chip cookies or sugar cookies, something where some nuttiness, some richness of flavor in a sweet cookie is desirable,

it kicks things up 12 notches.

That and browning butter are two things that you have to adjust for the amount of moisture you lose from steam when you brown butter.

but

both of those are real kicks in the flavor pants.

Okay, look, we're going to

take a technique.

R.I.

Paul Hollywood.

Classic Paul Hollywood.

We're going to take a quick break here from this week's partner.

We'll be back with more cases to clear from the docket on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Quince.

Jesse, the reviews are in.

My new super soft hoodie from Quince that I got at the beginning of the summer is indeed super soft.

People cannot stop touching me and going, that is a soft sweatshirt.

And I agree with them.

And it goes so well with my Quince overshirts that I'm wearing right now, my beautiful cotton Piquet overshirts and all the other stuff that I've gotten from Quince.

Why drop a fortune on basics when you don't have to?

Quince has the good stuff.

High quality fabrics, classic fits, lightweight layers for warm weather.

and increasingly chilling leather, all at prices that make sense.

Everything I've ordered from Quince has has been nothing but solid, and I will go back there again and buy that stuff with my own money.

John, you know what I got from Quince?

I got this beautiful linen double flap pocket shirt that's sort of like an adventure shirt.

And I also got a merino wool polo shirt.

Oh, it's like a

mid-gray, looks good underneath anything, perfect for traveling.

Cause with merino wool, it like it basically rejects your stink.

You know what I mean?

It's a stink-rejecting technology, John.

It says, get thee behind me, stink.

Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, honestly, even if I do need to wash it, I can just wear it in the shower when I'm traveling and then

roll it in a towel and it's pretty much ready to go.

Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes.

Quince has wonderful clothes for women, men, kids, babies.

They have travel stuff.

They have gifts.

They have quilts quilts and bedspreads.

They've got everything.

Go over there and find out for yourself.

Keep it classic and cool with long-lasting staples from Quince.

Go to quince.com/slash JJHO for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash JJ H O to get free shipping and 365 day returns.

Quince.com slash JJ O.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by by Made In.

Let me ask you a question.

Did you know that most of the dishes served at Tom Clicchio's craft restaurant are made in, made in pots and pans?

It's true.

The brace short ribs, made in, made in.

The Rohan Duck Riders of Rohan, made in, made in.

That heritage pork chop that you love so much, you got it.

It was made in, made in.

But Made In isn't just for professional chefs.

It's for home cooks, too.

And even some of your favorite celebratory dishes can be amplified with made-in cookware.

It's the stuff that professional chefs use, but because it is sold directly to you, it's a lot more affordable

than some of the other high-end brands.

We're both big fans of the carbon steel.

I have a little carbon steel skillet.

that my mother-in-law loves to use because cast iron is too heavy for her, but she wants that non-stick.

And I know that she can, can, you know, she can heat that thing up hot if she wants to use it hot.

She can use it to braise if she wants to use it to braise.

It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery.

And it will last a long time.

And whether it's

griddles or pots and pans or knives or glassware or tableware.

I mean, you know, Jesse, I'm sad to be leaving Maine soon, but I am very, very happy to be getting back to my beloved made-in entree bowls.

All of it is incredibly solid, beautiful, functional, and as you point out, a lot more affordable because they sell it directly to you.

If you want to take your cooking to the next level, remember what so many great dishes on menus all around the world have in common: they're made-in,

made-in.

For full details, visit madeincookware.com.

That's m-a-d-e-i-n cookware.com.

Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week.

I'm not Paul Hollywood.

I'm the guy from the Mighty Bush.

With me, as always, is Judge John Hodgman.

Hi, John.

Hello.

How are you?

I'm good.

Hello, Noel Fielding.

How are you?

You know, Noel Fielding came in to do Bullseye years ago.

This is the guy from the Mighty Bush, if people don't know.

This is the guy from the Mighty Bush.

Very, very, very funny British actor and comedian who got recruited to host the Great British Make Off, aka the Great British Baking Show

because.

Yeah, somewhat controversially.

And as when I watched The Mighty Boosh for the first time, and I thought, this is probably just going to be some silly nonsense that people like because it's cute, not because it's good.

And then I was like, oh, no, it's really good.

And then I loved it.

When Noel Fielding came in, I thought, I wonder if this guy is just a silly and ridiculous man

who I'm not going to love meeting and talking to.

And then when he came in, he was just wonderful.

He was just everything you would hope he would be.

A silly and ridiculous man who you love.

Silly and ridiculous, very bright and lovely and present,

not just doing a weird thing to be weird, just a lovely and interesting man.

Noel Fielding, four thumbs up from me.

Yeah.

An extra four from me, Noel Fielding.

I'm glad you got that gig on the baking show.

Yeah.

Terrific.

Here's a case from Debbie.

Dearest Judge Hodgman.

I'm writing this now because I'm worried that by tomorrow I'll have forgotten.

My wife committed a grievous offense.

We were at a sit-down restaurant.

She ordered a salad.

After the salad was delivered, she added avocado, which was given to her by my mother.

She then used her salad fork to stab and scrape a grocery store avocado onto her salad.

Wow.

Please prevent prevent this from happening again.

Thank you, Debbie.

Now, where's Debbie from?

Does it say where Debbie is from?

It doesn't say, but I'm going to say San Diego.

I guess I can include a haunted fact for Debbie.

I got a little concerned about this, so I went and I looked for the original email.

You want to hear a scary story?

I searched my email for Debbie avocado.

Could not find the original email.

All right, weird enough, right?

But what turns up instead?

A letter from Michael Ian Black requesting a blurb for his book, which I did not respond to.

A letter from Tamara Shopson requesting a blurb for her book, which I did not respond to, but I did blurb her book.

It's called Laser Writer 2.

It's coming out very soon.

It's great.

And then an invitation from 2014 to audition for a TV show.

And I went into the audition

and I did not get the role.

Do you know why?

Supernatural intervention?

They said I didn't show up on camera.

I think that's why I'm not being invited to audition to things.

Holy cow.

I no longer show up on camera.

It's a concern.

But none of these emails had either Debbie or avocado in them.

What's happening?

Ghost in the machine.

Okay.

Debbie's wife, name redacted,

brought in an avocado

from the outside and put it on her restaurant salad.

Jesse Thorne, is there ever a situation in which you can bring in outside food and put it on food you order from a restaurant?

There are people who bring hot sauces to restaurants.

I'm going to leave them aside.

Okay.

That is an issue for another day.

In fact, it was an issue for another day, I think, on Judge John Hodgman some years ago.

Yes.

And I'm going to say I judge that appropriate.

Yeah.

Some people disagree.

But if you are discreetly hotting up your food with your own hot sauce, I have no problem with that.

This, though, is a truly wild maneuver.

did they stop at the green grocer on the way to the restaurant debbie's mom had a whole avocado in her bag actually it's not even clear that it's a whole avocado right might have just been half an avocado covered in saran wrap because debbie never specifies that her wife sliced the avocado in half she just started stabbing at it with a fork i feel like it was half an avocado in saran wrap in debbie's mom's bag can i tell you guys a similar situation that i've heard of?

Please.

My husband's grandfather liked things a very certain way and

was very rigid about that.

And so, his wife, my husband's grandmother, my mother-in-law's mother, would bring up sliced Vidalia onion wrapped in tin foil to every restaurant they went to so he could put it on whatever he wanted to put it on.

Wow.

What

a thing to bring.

Wow.

Grandpa Mason loved that onion.

The Vidalia onion.

What would he put the Vidalia onion onto?

A salad?

Maybe a salad, maybe

his steak that he ordered super well done.

I don't know, actually.

Raw.

Raw sliced.

I mean, a Vidalia onion is a sweet.

It's a sweet onion.

So I think it is raw.

That is a detail that I cannot remember.

I just know that she would just wrap it up and bring it with her in her purse.

And that's not even the worst of that.

The worst of it is grandma-in-law Mason is wrapping these onions up in tinfoil.

Maybe there was a plastic baggie.

Well, I don't know.

That's, I mean, it's just, you know, tinfoil is not going to keep the moisture in.

And

it looks like garbage.

Sorry.

Sorry, tinfoil.

Aluminum foil.

Sorry.

Whoa.

Yeah.

I get it.

God, I'm so tired of getting letters from tinfoil.

First of all, I can't.

I can't stop saying tinfoil.

And somebody, an old coworker of mine, made fun of me once because he's like, what do you mean tin?

It's aluminum.

And I was like, I know, but I can't stop.

What else am I going to put it in when I put it in my ice box?

There are also people who have particular dietary needs that are difficult to satisfy at restaurants.

And

I understand for those people why they might bring something with them in order to allow them to participate in the ritual of eating at a restaurant, despite the fact that they have particular dietary restrictions.

You know, I think of something that they would add to their what are you, please, what are you thinking of?

I'm I agree.

You know, there are people

I think there are people who, you know, especially in situations like where they're traveling and they're vegan and they're allergic to some stuff, they have to do what they can to get some food.

And

I'm not going to pick on any of those people who are just really just trying to find some food to eat so that they don't have to skip going to a restaurant all day.

Sure, of course not.

Of course not.

And I agree, but we're talking about something else here.

This is obviously some kind of weird avocado upcharge avoidance scheme.

Yeah, the probably the restaurant.

I mean, if you need to bring in outside food to either eat or augment a meal

for a deeply personal, health-related, or just personal reason.

And you can say to the restaurant, hey, look, I got to do this.

The restaurant will probably be like, no big deal.

It's the same thing as asking to get free seltzer water out of the soda fountain at a chain restaurant.

If they say yes, then do it.

Just

if you want to know if your behavior is okay,

don't be sneaky.

Say it.

If you go into a restaurant and you're like, hey, do you mind if I put on my own avocado onto this salad?

They will will probably go,

we have avocado.

Let me get you some.

They probably wouldn't even charge you.

Or they might.

Vidalia onion is actually a little bit more specific than avocado.

Because if granddad-in-law Mason

needs that very specific kind of onion, I get it.

But change.

I mean, I don't think he needed it.

Maybe he needed it to live.

No.

What I'm saying is, you don't necessarily expect a restaurant to have every variety of onion, right?

Okay.

But there is something

rude about bringing your own food into a restaurant.

I do not have a problem with hot sauce.

Sure.

I do have a problem with barbecue sauce or any other kind of sauce.

Hot sauce,

people are very, very particular about it.

I get it.

So, sorry, Debbie, your wife is wrong and your mom is wrong.

And And you should tell them both I say so.

Here's something from Gabriel in Berkeley.

It's Berkeley, California.

Berkeley, California.

I seek an order against my fiancée, Kristen.

She types at an impressive volume.

It's incredibly distracting for me.

She's great at her job, and the last thing I want to do is affect her productivity.

However, her cacophonic typing makes it difficult for me to complete my work when I'm within earshot.

In my years of office work, I've never encountered a keyboard or typist that produces such an impressive jackhammering.

I ask that you order Kristen to 1.

Acknowledge she may be a loud typist.

2.

When we must work from the same room, at least try to remember that computers do not need to hear the keys in order to register the characters on the screen.

Hardy har, Gabriel.

3.

Use more care when using my laptop.

4.

consider joining a local mechanical keyboard hobbyist club where she could type at whatever volume she pleases with people who would actually appreciate it.

Okay, you know what, Gabriel?

I gave you the hardy RR.

That's actually a pretty good joke.

At least try to remember computers do not need to hear the keys in order to register characters on the screen.

Yeah.

I don't want listeners and potential litigants writing in.

with a case thinking that they got to punch it up and be funny.

You don't have to do that.

Just present your case.

It's fine.

But that was a good joke.

Berkeley, California.

That's your neck of the woods, right, Jesse?

Yeah, I'm a native of San Francisco, California, which is right across the

San Francisco Bay from Berkeley.

Yeah.

You ever hear of the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, California?

I have heard of the Claremont Hotel.

Wonderful.

And got married there.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Because that's one of the most haunted hotels in the United States.

Did you know that?

Well, he's had a wonderful marriage.

Oh, good.

And is he a good

ghost?

No, he's a good, good, good, good, good guy, though.

Room 422, notoriously haunted.

In 2014, Jeff Ayers, a basketball player who was then with the San Antonio Spurs, was in town to do basketball battle with the Golden State Warriors,

got his room key, went up to his room.

The room key didn't work.

It was the key for the room.

He looked at it.

Wouldn't open the door.

And he heard inside the sound of a baby crying and also the sound of two little girls arguing with each other, and the sound of a book being repeatedly thrown on the floor.

Did you know that?

I didn't know that.

Went down to the front desk and said, There's these kids in this room.

Front desk said, No one's supposed to be in that room.

And they gave him a new room, and they went and checked the original room.

No one was there.

Scary, scary stuff.

Wow.

Claremont Hotel.

Now, to the point, Jesse.

What are we talking about?

What's this guy want?

All right.

Loud typing.

Hey, Jesse, I'm trying to do a podcast here.

Do you mind not typing so loud?

No, Jesse.

You're typing in, remind Valerie to cut out all scary stories in this episode, right?

Trust me, it's going to pay off.

This pre-Halloween episode, it's going to pay off.

Make sure you wait till the end to the surprise post-credit sequence, everybody.

It's going to pay off.

It's a slow burn, slow burn as we work our way towards Halloween.

But meanwhile, loud typing.

Okay.

I asked Gabriel if you could provide some audio evidence of Kristen typing, and Jennifer Marmor, Gabriel, sent this in, correct?

Yes.

All right, let's take a listen.

Get out!

Did you guys hear that last part?

Spooky.

Play that back.

I'm not sure if I heard that right.

Get out!

Whoa, geez.

It's there.

It's totally there.

Jennifer, are you playing this audio forward or backward?

I'm playing it forward.

Try playing it backward.

It's weird.

I can't, I can't, I can't.

I couldn't make that out, but that's weird.

We need to send that to Lauren Coleman at the International Museum of Cryptozoology right away.

Jesse Thorne, it's hard to evaluate that evidence because we don't know, first of all,

one can adjust the volume.

Gabriel did send in a photo indicating the distance from Kristen's workspace to the place where they store their cute dog.

You can see that photo there of the tape measure on the floor and the dog.

That dog is named Kona the Poodle.

I don't know.

That sounded pretty loud.

Jesse Thorne, you're a loud typist.

What do you think about this?

I think the style of typing was the most distressing part to me.

I'm not so much bothered by the volume, which, as you said, is difficult to judge.

It just had a quality of feeling like she would type a couple words and then just flap her hands at the keyboard.

Do you want to do your imitation of it?

Yeah,

this is what it sounded like to me.

That's what it sounded like to me.

I like that sound.

I don't have a problem with Kristen's typing.

I like this.

I have a keyboard that doesn't make any noise anymore.

And we've discussed it in the past on this podcast: how, you know, way back when in 1984, little John Hodgman had a dream of getting a home computer and couldn't decide between the Macintosh, which was very cool,

and the IBM PC because it had a very clicky keyboard.

I really loved that clicky keyboard.

And lots of people really do love clicky keyboards, as Gabriel points out.

Jesse Thorne, am I out of order?

I love clicky keyboards myself.

I have a mechanical keyboard.

I love the way it clicks.

I bought a medium amount of clickiness.

mechanical keyboard in terms of noise.

Yeah.

There's no evidence here, though, that what she's in it for is the sound or even the feel.

Those are the things that appeal to me.

That's the reason that I bought a mechanical keyboard.

I'm not a PC gamer where I need the precision.

I feel more comfortable typing when I can feel that click and hear that noise.

Makes me feel productive.

But

it sounds like she's typing on a normal laptop computer keyboard that has very little key distance.

The keys don't travel far to be pressed.

And this is more like a situation like that

time at Bonnaroo when Kanye West's set couldn't get up in time for him to do his headlining performance at the festival.

He tweeted, This Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I've ever had in my life.

This is the most offended I've ever been.

This is the maddest I will ever be.

I'm typing so effing hard I might break my effing MacBook air.

So my question is, is it not possible that the answer to this situation is for her to obtain a different type of keyboard, such as one that has more traveling distance so she can feel like she's really pressing something, but isn't clicky auditorially?

It doesn't make a lot of noise.

I say this.

With regard to Gabriel's request one, that I order that Kristen acknowledge she may be allowed typist, I will definitely make that order.

Kristen, you may be allowed typist.

It sounded pretty clicky and loud.

Hard to tell.

Acknowledge what you're doing.

Don't gaslight your partner and say that you're not a clicky keyboardist because you clearly are.

With regard to two, when we must work from the same room, try to remember the computers do not need to hear the keys in order to register characters on the screen.

Again, that's a joke.

Sorry, Gabriel.

I'll order it, but it doesn't mean anything.

Regard to three, use more care when using my laptop.

Yeah, I would say that if

it's your property,

Kristen should lighten up.

And what I would suggest is that Kristen find a delightful, clicky keyboard that she can connect via a hardwire or a Bluetooth to your laptop just to annoy you.

Why not?

But

as long as she's using her computer, she should use the keyboard that makes her her feel

get the most pleasure out of work because it's hard to come by in work.

And when it comes to four, consider joining a local mechanical keyboard hobbyist club.

I was not sure that that was a thing,

but there are definitely

nodes of interest in clicky keyboards.

And there was at least one mechanical keyboard meetup in the Bay Area in 2019, organized by a user called Man of Interests on Reddit, who is a member of R slash Mechanical Keyboards.

Now, I did not have enough time to work my way through this Reddit carefully, so I do not know whether it is 1,000% toxic and offensive or only 999% toxic and offensive.

This is not necessarily an endorsement of Man of Interests, of this Reddit thread, of the Bay Area meetup, which may or may not be happening in 2021.

I have sent a message via Reddit to Man of Interests asking, will there be another Bay Area mechanical keyboard meetup?

I have not heard back yet.

When I get an answer, I will let you, Gabriel, Kristen, and the listeners know.

But yeah, you can,

I don't order Kristen to join a mechanical keyboard hobbyist club.

She can do what she wants.

But basically, I guess even though I have no problem with her typing, and clearly Kona the poodle doesn't either, because Kona's sitting right there, undisturbed.

Dogs have very good hearing, Gabriel.

Didn't think of that when you sent him that evidence, did you?

Type away, Kristen.

Type the way you need to type and Gabriel, you just deal with it.

But I will grant.

Don't destroy.

Don't bash up Gabriel's MacBook.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we'll have some follow-up letters from juvenile court.

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 Long.

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.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne with me, Judge John Hodgman.

Do we have any letters from listeners this week, John?

Well, we do have some letters from listeners, but I just realized, Jesse, and I apologize, Gabriel, from before the break, Gabriel did send in some more evidence, which is a NIOSH noise measurement report that Gabriel apparently performed on Kristen's keyboarding,

indicating that the decibel level of Kristen's typing is not just subjectively loud, but objectively harmful.

You can review this report.

Apparently, this noise measurement report, which was conducted in August of 2021 at 7.55 a.m., getting to work bright and early, Kristen.

I appreciate that.

Your LC peak was 86 decibels.

Anything above 85, apparently, is harmful.

So I don't know, gang.

Kristen, you're a loud typist, and I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of.

Meanwhile, we did have a letter from Emily.

Now, you may recall, Jesse Thorne.

Emily claimed to have a copy of the the very first Nancy Drew book entitled The Mystery of the Old Clock.

And she said that her copy of the book was 91 years old, which would make it a first edition of the book.

And Emily is 10 years old, and Emily was mad at her eight-year-old sister, Louisa, throwing this old book down on the floor.

And I said to Louisa, stop throwing the book down on the floor.

But Emily wrote back and said, thank you for hearing my case on the juvenile court episode.

I have just a few things I would like to add.

Emily, I found in your favor.

I don't know why you're bothering me.

Okay, first, Louisa wants you to know that she is eight and not 35.

Okay, my mistake.

Second, I will send pictures of the book, and I think you will agree with me that it is 91 years old.

I guess I questioned that.

Third, just to make things worse, my mom is an English teacher.

Not sure how that makes things worse, but I appreciate it.

Thank you, Emily.

And she sent in some photos.

And this does look like a very old book.

And there is indeed a copyright page that says copyright 1930.

But, Emily, I have to tell you something.

Yes, on the copyright page, it says copyright 1930 by Groston Dumlap Incorporated.

But it also has a list.

of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight other Nancy Drew mysteries.

So even though this book is very, very old and precious to you, and perhaps even of some intrinsic financial value, if that is important to you, I don't know.

Maybe Carolyn Keene already had eight other books in her pocket when she published this first one.

But the list of other books in the series would suggest that this edition had to have come out after Nancy's Mysterious Letter, which is the last book listed in the other Nancy Drew Mystery Stories list.

That said, let me say two things.

One, a listener named Susan,

who lives in Oxford, UK, so you know, pretty smart, said, if you wanted to, just take your book or send a picture of it to anyone within the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America.

That's the ABAA for a trustworthy expert opinion.

And I guess I would have to agree with Susan.

who is a rare book dealer, because probably a member of the ABAA is better equipped to appraise the age and value of your book than me, a guy with a podcast.

So, Emily, I appreciate your writing in.

I still find in your favor, Louisa should stop throwing those books on the ground, no matter what their age.

And you should go on a little Nancy Drew style mystery solving of your own and try to determine exactly how old this book is.

If it's 91,

I make this promise to you.

If that book is 91 years old,

send it to me and I will eat it on the podcast.

That'll be the whole podcast: me eating your old book.

Jesse, do you know what?

Emily had a PS on this letter as well, a post script.

You know what it says?

Now, this I think you're going to find surprising.

P.S., Judge John Hodgman, I forgot to mention that Louisa and I are both ghosts that live in the Claremont Hotel.

Wow.

Yeah, we often.

Very spooky postscript.

night after night.

We argue about this and throw the spectral book on the floor, reenacting the original drama.

I think a basketball player may have heard me once in 2014, but can't be sure.

Anyway, love the podcast, Emily.

Weird, right?

Wow.

Very weird.

Spooky stuff.

No.

Very unusual.

The PS just said I'm writing this on my phone.

I don't know why.

Good to know.

No typos.

No typos.

You did a great job, Emily.

Oh, Judge Hodgman, we actually got a dispute from an eight-year-old named Louisa.

I think that might be Emily's sister.

Eight-year-old Louisa?

Does it say she's a ghost who lives in the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, California?

I don't see a PS here, but.

Okay, well, let's see what the letter says.

Hello, my name is Louisa.

I'm eight.

I have a sister who is 10, and I get a lot of clothes from her.

My size is 10-12.

Hers is 14-16, but she still wears 10-12s.

Whenever I wear one, she yells at me and says it's hers.

She only gives me clothes she doesn't like.

I would like you to order her to give me my size clothes and wear her size because she gets new stuff and I don't.

P.S., please come play with us forever and ever and ever.

Weird.

What a weird postscript.

Okay, that P.S.

is not real.

I added that.

Louisa and Emily are not ghosts as far as I know.

They are real human beings, sisters.

What I'm going to say about this is, Emily, if you want Louisa to respect your stuff,

then you need to treat your sister, Louisa, with respect too, and not just give her the clothes that you hate.

Because you know,

there are two things you don't want: a vengeful ghost in your house and a vengeful sister in your house.

So avoid both of those by just being a little bit more generous with your clothes and a little bit more careful with each other's books.

I will tell you, Louisa and Emily, if you like a ghost story, that thing I told about Jeff Ayers of the San Antonio Spurs going in the Claremont Hotel and hearing a baby crying

in the room that he was supposed to occupy that didn't, that turned out to be empty.

That's a true story.

I mean, Jeff Ayers is a real person.

That's a true story.

I wasn't making that up.

Why would I ever make up a ghost story about a basketball player?

I don't know the names of any basketball players.

I just looked it all up.

It's all part of a spooky podcast storyline I was trying to spin.

It's like the Mercury Theater over here, Jesse Thorne.

People are going to, they're going to take to the streets.

They're like the Hockamuck Swamp

has Martians in it.

Doesn't have Martians in it.

It's just a swamp.

The docket is clear.

That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Our editor is Valerie Moffat.

Sound effects this week by the metal shop across the street from my house.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

You think they could get a furniture palette, like a roller with wheels?

Because they build things and then they just drag them across the concrete floor of the shop.

Yeah, get a roller, a roller with wheels.

They're really nice.

They were here before me.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohodgman tweets, hashtag jjho, and check out the maximum fun subreddit to discuss this episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfun.org/slash jjho or email hodgman at maximumfun.org.

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

Judge Hodgman, we've just completed the credits and my young nephew Obie of Marin County, California has written what I think may be the next great

song

about construction equipment.

Well, it's certainly topical given the metal shop across the street.

It's called Bulldozer.

It's already been described by no less an expert than celebrated singer-songwriter John Darnell of the Mountain Goats as having incredibly powerful 1990 Olympia Washington vibes.

All right.

I don't want to play.

Look, he's his own child with his own life, so I'm going to leave aside the recording I've heard of him performing the song and instead perform the song myself, since I am, of course, a gifted professional musician.

Sure, sure.

And again,

this song was written by

Obie, my

nephew, who is three years old.

And Obie owns the full intellectual property, copyright, everything else.

Ask at BMI.

This is just your interpretation of the song.

We don't need to.

I have 20% of the publishing.

We don't need you to get bad art-friended over here.

You are quoting a song.

I am his representative, and I have a portion of the publishing on this song.

So do contact me if you wish to record the song in a professional context, and we'll work out an arrangement.

let's hear the song about what's the title of the song is Bulldozer.

It's called Bulldozer, yeah.

And it's accompanied by a hand drum, which I'll be playing on my thigh.

All right,

let me do a radio DJ.

Hey, everybody, we have a very special guest on today's live show, live and direct from the mind of Obi in Marin County and interpreted here by your own Jesse Thorne.

It's called Bulldozer.

Bulldozer,

you pushed the grounds away.

Bulldozer.

You are.

You are so loud, but I love you so much.

Bulldozer.

That's fantastic.

Fantastic, Obi.

Keep it up.

See you at the Grammys.

Wait, wait, wait.

Bailiff Jesse Thornton, you thought that was the only post-credit sequence we have today?

We have a very special Halloween post-credit sequence as well.

Oh, wow.

I had no idea.

Yeah, because we have a very special guest with us who has materialized out of a spooky vapor into

a human form.

Right.

And it's Aiden, the co-administrator of the Spirit Halloween Wikipedia.

It's not Wikipedia.

It's a wiki.

It's its own wiki, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, it is.

I apologize, Aiden.

That's all right.

You remember, Jesse Thorne?

We had a letter a while back from a listener whose little child wanted to know if he, the dad, was on personal good first-name basis relationship with the Harvester of Souls.

And we learned that the Harvester of Souls is a large-scale, very scary consumer animatronic that you can buy from the Spirit Halloween store.

that not only is inappropriate for a young child to know about, but also is featured very heavily on the Spirit Halloween wiki, which is co-administered by Aiden.

Aiden, how are you?

I am doing well, thank you.

Isn't Aiden also a

Spirit Halloween content creator?

Like,

not on behalf of Spirit Halloween, but no, not affiliated with Spirit, but I am a Spirit Halloween content creator.

Yes.

What does that mean?

You have a YouTube channel where you talk about Spirit Halloween stuff?

Yeah, not as regularly as some people, but I do

a lot of Spirit Halloween-related content over on my YouTube channel.

Aiden, I think we can agree.

Some people take this whole thing a little too seriously.

Yeah, no, definitely.

I completely agree.

I might be one of those people, but you know.

I thought you were talking about me.

Aiden,

remind the listeners, and frankly, me,

who you are, how old you are, where you live, and how you got involved in Spirit Halloween.

Yeah, so my name is Aiden.

I am 17 years old, and I live just outside outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

I got into

are we talking about Villanova?

We're talking about Bryn Mawr?

That kind of area, yeah.

All right,

got you.

About 30 minutes from King of Prussia, yeah.

That's all I needed to know.

Yep.

So interview over.

Thank you so much, Aiden.

All right, I'll log off.

Yeah.

So I got into the Spirit Halloween world.

I think it started around my first trip when I was five years old in 2009.

My parents made the grave mistake of taking me to a spirit halloween

and I was terrified of it at first

but years went by and I started getting more interested in kind of the behind-the-scenes aspect of it doing my own research on them via the internet and YouTube but yeah I think my involvement in the spirit Halloween community and the company itself reached definitely greater heights in 2019 when I got in contact with some of the people over at Spirit and formed some friendships over there.

And then I started getting more involved in the community itself.

And

it just, it turned into way more than a hobby.

It is an all-consuming thing at this point.

So I know

it's terrifying.

Aiden is talking to us from what can only be described as a home spirit Halloween store,

where he has three horrifying spirit creatures larger than a human man behind him.

And he's wearing, frankly, a Spirit Halloween store t-shirt that I think is pretty cool.

It's an orange and black,

like tie-dyed number featuring the slightly goofy, creepy, and slightly low-rent logo of Spirit Halloween stores on the front.

And it is a very neat and charming tableau he's presenting to us.

I thought I would do my interview in the middle of my haunt.

This is my haunted house that I do every October.

So I am currently in one of the rooms of it.

So I think.

You're a 17-year-old.

You have your own house that you've made in the house.

No, this is just my basement in my house.

I don't live by myself.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now, for those of you who don't know, Spirit Halloween is a seasonal retailer that supplies Halloween decorations, costumes, and accessories.

It was founded sometime in 1983 by Joseph Marver, who opened his first location in the Castro Valley Mall that same year.

By 1999, the store had 60 seasonal locations across the United States.

It was purchased by Spencer Gifts.

I know all of this, of course, because I have access to the Spirit Halloween Wikia,

which is the wiki that you help maintain and administer, where there is an entry for the Harvester of Souls, where, thanks to your graciousness and my badgering, the Judge John Hodgman podcast is featured.

Harvester of Souls, if you want to look it up, is a giant

grim reaper-style ghost that is sucking the soul out of the mouth of a child.

And in the trivia section, the Harvester of Souls, along with this article, is featured in the Judge John Hodgman podcast and the episodes Grocery Store Quilts and Maine's Holiday Boy.

So thank you for that.

Of course, of course.

So it's getting on Halloween season now, Aiden.

No one knows more about it than you.

Not only are you a Spirit Halloween enthusiast, it sounds like you've also bought the company or you've got some weird inroads with the company.

You're going to take over this thing eventually.

You're the heir apparent.

Yeah, it's possible you've married one of the king of the company's children.

Something like that.

You are in your basement, which you describe as your haunt, and there are three horrifying things behind you.

This is an audio medium, so could you describe for our listeners the statuettes or the things that are behind you there?

Yeah, sure.

So

to my uh left we have uh this is uncle charlie these are all spirit halloween animatronics i should say first um uncle charlie was an animatronic originally released in 2010 and then re-released last year um

so because of fan demand to bring him back which i always think is a pretty funny thing um

that there was enough demand for the company to say all right we'll do it um they brought him back in a chrome edition john

they did They redesigned him.

They brought in some new features.

He's just kind of, I like to describe him as kind of a

lead-in prop,

like a prop that you would put at the front because he seems to kind of like not welcome you in because he's scary, but he,

you know, he's kind of an entranceway sort of thing.

He's a scary clown with red hair.

Basically, yes.

And I'll tell you right now, I'm comparing the 2010 mold of Uncle Charlie to the 2020 and 2020 is a leaps leaps and bounds more scary and lifelike.

I mean, Uncle Charlie is welcoming you in in the sense that he's holding an enormous lollipop.

Who doesn't love lollies?

And a bucket that reads free candy.

Yes, there is a free candy bucket, which I think that is probably the selling point for me of why I purchased him.

And I do like to put actual candy in there.

You can do that.

Sure.

It says here that Uncle Charlie speaks one of several different phrases.

What are some of the phrases Uncle Uncle Charlie says?

I don't know if I have them memorized.

He does ask a lot about if you want candy.

He offers you candy a lot.

I shouldn't have put you on the spot there, Aiden.

I apologize.

No, that's all right.

The product sayings are listed on the Spirit Halloween wiki.

Yes.

Come here.

Take a little bite.

Don't worry.

Clowns scare me too.

Creepy laugh.

Want a little candy?

Come on.

I won't hurt you

much.

I might hurt you some,

is implied there all right who else you got behind you there um so on my other side I have another one from last year this is peekaboo clown he was the first spirit Halloween prop to feature screens in the eyes uh instead of just traditional LED eyes there are actual screens in there that play a spiral animation um

so that was the big selling point for me but he's just a uh he's just a polka dot suited clown who uh covers his eyes and then sits up and reveals them with his arms to show the spiral animation.

What's the scary thing that's lighting turning different colors directly behind your head?

So that was actually the first clown I ever bought, which is a great sentence, in my opinion.

So

that this clown's not for sale.

Yeah, this was my first.

This is Grimsley, the towering clown.

He is a little over seven feet tall.

And he was the first of the towering animatronics that Spirit made.

They made a couple of them.

And other companies have made some.

But he is, I'd say, more of a traditional clown, just non-traditional proportions.

He's got like really long legs, really skinny, long arms.

And he just kind of towers over you, turns back and forth, and says some menacing things about taking your body parts, which is always fun.

Sort of like when I'm doing a show with Jesse Thorne, that's what it feels like to me, someone towering over me.

John, I don't tower.

I loom.

You loom.

You're a loomer.

Definitely.

Aiden, this is all within the context of your family home, correct?

This is true, yes.

What do the other members of your family think about this?

Funny story, my dad is terrified of clowns.

He eats them.

And I remember distinctly when I bought Grimsley, I was was standing in a Spirit Halloween store with my grandparents and $200 cash in my hand.

And I

how old were you?

This was 2018, so I can't do math.

I can't either.

Subtraction of math.

You were about 14, 14 or 15.

Yeah, around that.

And

I

called my dad because I knew he didn't like clowns.

And I basically tried to badger him and annoy him into letting me purchase this clown.

And eventually he caved and let me do so.

And now I have about five of them

and he still hates it.

But I just keep it in a far-off part of the basement.

Yeah.

I was about to say, when it's not October, are they just in the guest bedroom?

Well, some of them stay in my bedroom all year round,

but I usually box most of them up.

I don't know how many I had last time I spoke with you, but I now have about 43

animatronics.

Holy moly.

And when we say animatronics, we're talking about full-size, like human proportion, as long as it's not part of the towering line.

We're talking about roughly human proportion.

Right.

Yes.

Scary, ghouls, monsters, goblins, clowns, et cetera.

Right.

43.

Yep.

How many are boxed up during the year, would you say?

During the year, I'd say all but around seven or eight of them are boxed up.

Okay.

So only seven or eight animatronic monster clowns around the house around the 4th of July say.

Yes, and I do put some of them out in the front lawn on the 4th of July wearing American attire.

USA number one.

Yep.

Do you rotate them or is it always the same seven or eight that stay out?

I do rotate them just depending on what I'm liking at the moment, I guess.

But yeah.

And they're all boxed up in what, your sub-sub-basement?

This is like a West World situation.

Just the normal basement.

I don't care what that is.

I would have to say, as scary as these clowns are,

the idea that you have 43 animatronics and boxes in a storage unit somewhere is even scarier to me.

And I don't even own a storage unit, so it's just in the basement.

We just keep them, they fold up pretty tight.

So you never know when you're going to open a box and see a head is basically the motto.

That's the new spirit.

That's the new spirit commercial.

They fold up pretty tight, so you never know when you're going to open a box and see a head.

Spirit Halloween superstores at the King King of Prussia Mall.

Aiden,

inside what used to be Mervyn's.

Aiden, is there real life friendship or even romance in the Spirit Halloween superstore

enthusiast community?

Non-virtual, in IRL.

Yes, absolutely.

In fact,

We just had the grand opening at Spirit Halloween flagship store,

which was in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey.

And me and

6725 East Black Horse Pike.

That is true.

And about

30 close friends who I know via online and me met up from all over the country, flew out and drove to this location to meet up some of us for the first time.

And then

about 300 other people came.

There were probably about 400 people total.

And it was just the craziest day of my life, probably.

But it was so nice to finally meet some of these friends who I do have online, who I did meet in person.

And there are some locally who I'll meet up with off-season to talk about this sort of stuff.

So these are people that you knew online that you were meeting in person for the first time.

Right, yes.

And okay, wow.

That also sounds like a horror movie.

Yes.

And there was definitely a fear that I was going to get stabbed or something.

but it turned out to be good.

I mean, everyone was super nice.

Did they have candy?

Did they have candy at the Grand College?

They did not.

Where did they charge her the candy, Aiden?

They actually didn't have any candy, which

cents for a Halloween store.

Get it together, Spirit Halloween flagship store.

Come on.

So you're 17 years old.

When is your birthday?

February 6th.

All right.

You've got to be thinking about your future at this point.

Yeah.

Soon you're going to turn 18 and you're going to be able to marry Spirit Halloween Superstore.

If If it was possible, I would.

Do you have plans to go to college?

If anything, I would probably be taking a gap year at this point just because of some personal stuff, but I think it is definitely in the plan, yeah.

Understood.

I mean, because I was just going to say, if you go away to college, how many animatronics are you going to bring with you?

That's a very good question.

I did bring one on vacation with me, so it is feasible.

That's not a joke.

I went to Alexandria, Virginia, and I brought my night crawler animatronic.

That is absolutely not a joke.

I have a

staying in a hotel or with friends in family.

And an Airbnb.

And an Airbnb, right?

Oh, yeah.

Why wouldn't you bring your Nightcrawler to your Airbnb?

It was a last-minute decision, but I crammed them in the car.

They fold up pretty tight.

Exactly.

Eventually, you're going to be moving out of your house.

You're going to take this hobby forward with you into your studies, into your life?

or is this a potential career path for you i i would definitely like to take it forward in life um as a career path i mean in the engineering division of spirit alone they have their own designers and design team and engineers that build animatronics for a living um

and i would love to take that as a career path Now, listen, I don't want to give a Halloween city any ideas, so I'm just going to preface this by saying this is your ID, your IP, you own it.

What would would you design for Spirit Halloween that they don't have in their repertoire right now?

You don't have to get into specifics, you don't have to give it a name like Towering Boogeyman or Janglin Bones Trio or anything.

I was gonna say, you just got those two from the wiki, didn't you?

Because

no, I it's just this is common knowledge, everyone loves this stuff.

I heard Towering Boogeyman, I'm like, wait a minute, um, yeah, towering boogeyman, so yeah, 2016.

Um,

wow, wow, okay,

I would probably

do more like creatures of legend sort of thing, like mystical, mythical creatures, because we don't really get anything like that.

So like some Greek mythology something.

Don't say anything else.

I don't want anyone to take this because you've got a whole line.

You listen to this spirit Halloween.

Aiden's going to bring you a whole line that you've never even covered.

I know exactly where you're going with this.

You could do like a unicorn with blood dripping from its mouth.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Right?

Now, it's almost Halloween.

What do you recommend to the Judge John Hodgman listener to get this year?

What's the new stuff that Spirit is offering?

Some new animatronic you're really excited about?

Some old classic that every collector should start with?

What do you recommend?

What do you like this year?

If you're just getting into the animatronic game, I would always recommend a jumping spider because it's cheap and it's it's small.

And I mean, I personally have three of them.

I love these things.

You can get them for, with a coupon, you can get them about 30, 40 bucks.

And they're a great starter animatronic.

If you're looking more for a life-size, bigger animatronic, I would probably say this year, the new Grimm animatronic, which is a six-foot skeleton who is run off of special servo motors and has this super lifelike, super fluid animation

and is first of its kind in the in the industry of consumer animatronics.

And another one I have, I got him a couple weeks ago and I absolutely love him.

Current status out of stock.

Well, he's out of stock online, but he will be restocked soon and he is still in stores.

So

get him before he's gone.

This is one

scary skeleton, I gotta say.

Yeah,

he's a very cool.

There are not many flaws on him.

I'll say that.

He's a pretty cool prop.

How do you feel when Halloween is over?

It's definitely a little depressing

because you got to just tear down everything you've built.

Like with my haunt, I just kind of have to pull the band-aid off quick and tear it all down.

But I also focus a lot on Christmas.

I do a lot of Christmas decorating, so I can kind of get into that mindset pretty quickly.

And then starting like day after Christmas, before even

New Year's Eve happens, I'm on to the next haunt, and I start working.

So

it's always Halloween.

It is always Halloween.

I was going to say, why ever put the animatronics away?

But you got to make room for your

scary Santa Clauses and stuff.

Well, I got to, yeah, I got to make room for the Christmas display, but also my parents want the basement back.

So, you know,

I know it's crazy, but I got to give them something.

What are their first names, if I may?

Oh, Daniel and Wendy.

Daniel and Wendy, this is your judge, John Hodgman.

The basement is Aiden's.

From now until he moves out, within reason.

Within reason.

Yeah, I was going to say that might not be good.

From now until he turns 18 years old, the basement is Aiden's.

Let your son thrive in his haunt.

There is no, as far as I can tell, there is no scary Santa Claus.

Nothing.

Are you missing it?

No.

I mean, you got your Krampuses.

Spirit did make a Krampus.

That's true.

But that's about as close as you guess.

Lie spread by Halloween City.

Right, yes.

It's not just, you know, it's not just the, I'm not even going to get into it, but yes.

Oh, the Krampus is really scary.

Yeah, the Krampus came out last year.

I kind of forgot about him, but

he's massive.

He is one of the biggest.

Six and a half feet tall, seven and a half feet with the horns.

Yes.

$349.99 in the United States.

Current status in stock.

Item number 014-63835.

Judge Sean Hodgman, listeners, if you can't get this by Halloween, surely you can get it by the winter holidays.

Aiden, thank you so much for joining us and giving us some Halloween tips.

Of course.

Thank you for having me.

Will you stay in touch with the podcast?

Yes, absolutely.

I'd like to see more of your decorations in the future.

Yes.

All right.

Aiden, I have watched and enjoyed some of your YouTube videos on your YouTube channel, which is just your name, Aiden K, A-I-D-A-N-K-A-Y-E.

I'm going to be honest, they're probably the best Spirit Halloween YouTube videos I've ever watched in my life.

You also have completed recently your most ambitious project of all time,

which is a documentary about Spirit Halloween superstores.

Yes.

What a ridiculous project I put myself under.

I had just come off of doing an equally ridiculous project, which was a Spirit Halloween album.

Which was...

I don't know why I even bothered with that.

No, I'm kidding.

It was super fun.

You got a SoundCloud or a Bandcamp for that?

It's on Spotify.

It's on iTunes.

You can get it.

You can see it everywhere.

It's just called Superstore.

It's five songs all about spirit halloween with a bonus track and it that was a big project but then i really wanted to do some actual film related project which turned into this spirit halloween documentary flagship um

which was just it's an hour-long piece going from january of this year to

August of this year, documenting the whole process from

finding out information, Spirit giving us sneak peeks, all the way up to the flagship store opening and opening day.

I'm incredibly proud of this project.

It was so many months of just painful work, but I think it really turned out good.

Aiden, congratulations on all of this.

It is so incredible.

It so far outstrips the time I flew to Phoenix for the Society of American Baseball Research Convention when I was 17.

So

it's so great.

And thanks for joining us on Judge John Hodgman.

Yeah, of course.

Thank you for having me.

MaximumFun.org.

Comedy and culture.

Artist-owned, audience-supported.