Muzzbarketing and Morning Beverages

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

As always, the man, the myth, the legend, a hero from sea to shining sea, Judge Sean Hodgman.

Welcome to my chambers.

What are you, Judge John Hodgman, or some kind of Dracula?

I'm not a Dracula.

I am

just your ghost host.

Well, Judge Hodgman, if you're a ghost host, you're the ghost host with the most.

Well, prost, as they say, is a traditional toast in Scandinavian countries.

That's just a little preview of there's going to be some crow-eaten here in Chambers later on in the show when I am forced by pet ants, and not pet ants, actually, just people who value voiceover artists, to apologize for misattributing the ghost host to Thurl Ravenscroft, Ghost Host being, of course, the narrator from the Haunted Mansion attractions in Disneyland and Disney World, Magic Kingdom.

Why don't you stick around and find out who actually spoke the Ghost Host instead of the great Thurl Ravenscroft and listen to me abjectly apologize to the legacies of three great voice actors?

But until then, I think we've got a lot of justice to dispense.

So, what say we get with the first case there, Jesse?

Turns out, spoiler alert, it was young Jodie Foster.

That's right.

So talented, brilliantly talented.

Okay, let's start with a letter from Veronica.

She says, My husband Scott has too many t-shirts.

He has a shirt for every day of the year and shirts dating back to his childhood in varying degrees of decay.

Many have the collar separating from the neck and calcified armpits.

Every time he goes to Target, he comes back with some new retro Star Wars or superhero shirt from his childhood.

He's now building a collection for our three-year-old son.

My drawers are full of t-shirts he has gifted me or shirts he has shrunk in the wash and doesn't want to get rid of.

I want you to order him to trim back his collection and stop buying t-shirts.

So Veronica's husband, Scott, has shirts dating back to his childhood?

Apparently so, yeah.

So Veronica has a child-size husband?

Yeah, so it seems.

Fantastic.

Well,

I have a lot of comments to make about Scott's decisions.

But, Jesse, first of all, you are a clothing aficionado.

It's hard to get rid of clothing.

And I would guess that probably you've defined some policy over the years as to how much clothing is enough and when you have to start getting rid of some and how you make those decisions.

Do you have any such algorithm in your life?

Yeah, well, I mean, I may or may not have added closets to my home when I purchased it.

And I have an almost comically oversized amount of clothing, but there comes a point when you have to have roughly a one-in-one-out policy.

One-in-one-out.

Those were the words that came to my mind when I heard about Scott, the t-shirt order.

It seems to me that certainly we should freeze his collection at this point,

such that for every new t-shirt he acquires, he gets rid of one before

these children get buried in a pile of t-shirts and you never see them again.

But do you think that he should cull his t-shirt collection?

He's got one for every day of the year at a minimum.

Is that too many t-shirts, Jesse?

Yeah, I mean, it's absurdly too many.

Especially when you consider that it is absolutely, abundantly clear from Veronica's email that these are not in any way special t-shirts.

If he's, I mean, I don't mean to reverse buzz market here.

Please go on.

But if he's just buying Spider-Man t-shirts from Target and then hoarding those, that's not anything.

Would a reverse buzz market be a Muzzmarket?

Yes.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I don't want to muzzmarket Target here.

It's a fine t-shirt, but

first of all, I'm morally opposed to fake old t-shirts.

There we go, Jesse Thorne.

Thank you.

You say your words, then I'll say my words.

If you want to have

patina on your shirt, earn the patina on your shirt.

Correct.

There's a little bit of cracking in my promotional t-shirt for the common album like Water for Chocolate.

But it's been earned over the course of the now

more than 15 years that I've owned that shirt.

Yeah, I have to say that when we started out and Scott was holding on to t-shirts, I had to make some sort of intuitive guess as to whether or not he has good taste in t-shirts.

And when Veronica revealed that he was going to Target to buy phony retro t-shirts, I realized that he has no taste at all.

That is absolutely, I think, you know, I think for kids, a phony retro t-shirt can be adorable, but for grown-ups, I find it to be tasteless.

I'm not nuts about it for kids, Judge Hodgman.

I'm going to step on this right here.

Okay, I feel you.

I feel uncomfortable when kids are wearing fake retro t-shirts because

kids don't care about your nostalgia.

I know, it's true that that is a little bit of a gross dress-up game.

You think that it's weird that

I bought my son that Buckaroo Bonsai t-shirt?

Yes, I sure do.

Then again, who am I to judge when my children wear exclusively Waynesworld baseball caps?

Should I have gotten him that t-shirt featuring the

Lobby One sheet from the animated Watership Down?

No, yes or no?

As long as it doesn't have fake ink cracking on it, I'm fine.

I have

a prize possession, which is a Hartford Whalers t-shirt, which has been falsely aged.

It's a Ron Francis t-shirt, and it has fake cracking on it.

And I find it a little embarrassing to wear, but ultimately I keep it in the rotation because it was given to me guilelessly by the people of Hartford when I appeared at a public event there.

And I can't turn down a gift like that.

If I were to get some antique defunct hockey wear, I would want to either get the actual antique stuff or something new.

Like if someone wanted to send me a new Quebec Nordique's hat, brand new,

send it to me at Maximum Fun headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard.

Look up the address.

I'm not going to turn that away.

But none of the phony, phony, fake, old-timey stuff.

Nothing that's been frayed or artificially worn or bogus in any way.

Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse.

Phony nostalgia is...

I do not have the words.

So yes, Scott, this is a ban.

on getting phony retro old shirts.

What's your policy, Jesse, do you think, on vintage, like legit vintage old t-shirts?

Well, you're talking to a dude that went on eBay the other day and made a very, very intense and ultimately fruitful search for t-shirts featuring the late 1980s San Francisco giant slogan, hum baby.

And is now the proud owner of a t-shirt that says, hum baby believer.

It's interesting, though, Jesse.

I think that that's definitely a story of triumph, but also to me, a little bit of a story story of repulsion.

Because as,

and I hope you take that with the fondness in which I hold you, but you know, when Veronica talks about t-shirts in various degrees of decay, including calcified armpits,

t-shirts are a very intimate

form of shirt, both physically, they're obviously right up close.

They're not like a a suit jacket, or even for that matter, a pair of trousers, which are insulated from the body by boxers boxers or briefs.

But they're really up close to your body.

And they're intimate in that they often carry with them long history.

People carry shirts with them for a long time.

So they're in this weird area where absolutely they need to be purged once they have reached a point of disgusting

evidence of your bodily secretions.

But at the same time, one can appreciate why one holds on to them longer than one possibly should, because they are often so intimately attached in memory to an event that you enjoyed or a time in your life.

So, Scott, I make this order against you with understanding and empathy, but there are some t-shirts that you have to winnow out of your collection right away.

First of all, any bogus retro t-shirts are going to go straight to the Salvation Army.

Any t-shirts that have pit stains, you're going to cut those up and use them as rags or throw them away.

And once you've winnowed all of those out, you are going on a strict one-in, one-out policy.

Now, if you want to go the Jesse Thorne route and buy some legit vintage t-shirts on eBay or any other website,

people like what they like.

If you like essentially wearing

the skin of others, which is how I would feel about wearing a used t-shirt, you may do it.

Judge Hodgman, I want to clarify that these joints that I bought, I bought two Humbaby t-shirts, one for me, one for my man Peter Fraunfelder.

And the ones that I got for me and Frowie

were both new old stock, N-O-S.

They were not pre-stanked.

They had been sitting in someone's basement or attic for two and a half decades.

Well, then take a tip, Scott, from Bailiff Jesse and Frowie.

New old stock is the way to go.

And from Alon,

you know, don't be a shirt hoarder, be a shirt collector.

This is the sound of a gabble on that one.

Here it comes.

Judgment ruled.

Here's something from Cynthia.

My fiancé Nat spends most of his winter weekends skiing while I stay home.

I spend time catching up with friends on weekends and will occasionally go see a movie that Nat also wants to see.

He thinks I should check with him first.

I think that's ridiculous.

Nat chooses not to be home on what one might consider date nights because he prefers to be skiing.

I shouldn't have to see second-rate movies on my weekends just so I can save the good ones for him.

If anything, Nat should feel grateful that I'm just watching movies and haven't taken a winter lover in his absence.

I'd like the judge to order Nat to stop grumbling when I see a movie without him.

He's still talking about how I saw Grand Budapest Hotel without him in 2014.

To be fair, Grand Budapest Hotel was pretty dope.

That is pretty dope.

And

if I remember, it's definitely got some downhill snow action.

Does it have actual skiing scenes?

I can't remember.

There was like a tobogganing race, I think.

Yeah, something like that.

It would have to be something like a toboggan.

It was sort of like first-person

or just above the toboggan, like the scenes where you're in the tube collecting rings in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

That's right.

It was a classic Wes Anderson tobago cam shot.

That's right.

And by the way,

great Chuck Bryant trivia question from the wonderful Max FunCon we had.

How did Wes Anderson convey visually, cinematically, the difference between the three different time periods in that movie?

Give up?

Sure, you do.

No, the aspect ratio of the screen, right?

Oh, you got it.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

I remember that.

Do you remember that from the movie or do you remember that from Pub Quiz?

I remember that from the movie.

I wasn't at the Pub Quiz.

You would have beaten me on that point, sir.

I would not have remembered that.

That said, could I name any of the characters in that movie that I loved?

Absolutely not.

There was Eccentric Suit-Wearing Sophisticate, and there was

Smaller Pill Hat-Wearing Sophisticate Helper.

Yep.

And there was Bill Murray.

And there was.

Jason Schwartzmann was there.

Jason Schwartzmann and a beautiful gingerbread house

hotel

that was rendered in miniature but looked great.

Great movie.

Grand Budapest Hotel.

Go and see it.

Go and see it by yourself while your marriage crumbles around you.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Cynthia and Nat

have a marriage in crisis.

It seems that Nat and Cynthia are leading somewhat separate lives.

And there is a solution

one that I'm sure that they have considered.

When Nat goes skiing, Cynthia should go and stay with him at the lodge and hang out and look at the snow and drink brandy all afternoon.

And then they watch movies together after the skiing is all done.

Apre ski, Grand Budapest Hotel, as it were.

Clearly, they have made a decision to live somewhat separate lives, and there may be all kinds of nuances in that decision.

But when you make that choice in a marriage, if it's a functional choice for you, that's fine.

But you have to honor the somewhat separate part of your somewhat separate lives.

And that means Cynthia should be able to watch whatever movie she wants if Nat's going to be on the slopes all day long.

Look, it may be hard.

I may should have recused myself from this insofar as I have only skied once.

I was in fifth grade, cross-country, broke a pole, and that was the end of it for me.

You know, growing up in New England, some of my my classmates would spend their

February breaks up in the mountains cutting up powder in one form or another, whereas I would spend February break on the floor of John Lynn's bedroom,

the two of us reading his Alpha Flight collection.

That's as close as I got to snow.

That is the most frozen of the Marvel superhero teams.

It's true.

It's true.

Alpha Flight, if you don't know, were the Canadian supergroup created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.

And I'll tell you this.

If I were at Target and I saw an Alpha Flight retro t-shirt featuring that first lineup

of Guardian, Sasquatch, North Star, Snowbird, Aurora, Puck, and Marina, I'd buy it.

I'd throw all my principals away and I'd buy it and I'd make my son wear it to school.

But I'm not going to see that because it wasn't a very popular Group.

In any case, all these kids would come back from the mountains, and I didn't understand where they were.

I didn't understand why they had these reverse raccoon suntans on their faces because only the sun couldn't reach their eye area because of the goggles they had on.

I didn't understand what

these little things were dangling from their parkas.

I didn't know what a lift ticket was until I was 30.

Before that, I thought it was a merit badge of jerkism.

Ski kids.

That's who Nat is, one of those ski kids.

So, yeah, am I prejudiced?

Of course I am.

But am I wrong in my ruling?

No, I'm still right.

If you choose to go speeing or skiing for that matter, or spying, or skying, if you're doing anything

all weekend long and leaving your spouse behind, you should let your spouse enjoy the culture that he or she wants.

And Cynthia, my advice to you is: no matter the temptation, don't take a winter lover.

Cold hands, if you know what I mean.

This is the sound of a gavel on that one.

Let's take a quick break.

We'll be back in just a second.

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 maximumfund.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 Made In.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne with me, as always, the legendary Judge John Hodgman.

We're clearing the docket.

Here's something from Jeff.

Jeff says, my significant other, Jessica, and I had twins at the end of October.

The plan was for both kids to sleep in the same room, but Jess separated them pretty quickly, since they were waking each other up at night.

Our daughter's room is in a spacious bedroom with three windows and a walk-in closet.

My son's room is in a small, cramped basement bedroom with the electrical panel and a single lonely window.

I fear that when they grow older, my son will be jealous of his sibling's awesome bedroom.

I think we should pair them up again when they stop waking up at night.

Jess wants them to continue to have separate rooms for privacy reasons and to cut out the bedtime playing or chatting.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

I can't remember.

What Grimm's fairy tale is this one?

Where one twin is given a beautiful bedroom and

the other one is given a hole in the basement to live in.

They just gave him an electrical panel and a fork.

That's right.

That's right.

Hope this works out.

All history of children's literature should tell you that, Jessica, that you are doing a wrong thing.

First of all, by the way, congratulations on having

twins, and I guess congratulations on the fact that you love at least one of them

and maybe have mixed feelings about the other.

But you can't give one twin a beautiful bedroom and put the other one in a basement.

I appreciate that your space constraints,

and as they do with all families,

force you to make some hard choices with the lodgings of your children.

But if this continues, then you should go.

What you should do, Jessica, is look yourself in the mirror and say what's true.

I am Petunia Dursley.

You are Harry Potter's mean

aunt

who favors one child and puts the other one under the stairs.

Obviously, we're still talking about infants here, and I don't know whether that makes it better or worse.

It's better because I guess they don't know the difference between their rooms, because, let's face it, infants are pretty dumb.

They do not know what's going on.

They don't know nothing.

But at the same time,

putting an infant in the basement sounds a lot worse than putting a five-year-old in the basement.

So...

I appreciate that you're afraid that your twins are going to wake each other up and then when they start talking, they'll want to play together and form a special bond and start talking an imaginary twin language of gobbledygook so that they can plot your demise behind your back and that you are trying to forestall that prophecy by keeping them separate.

But

I feel strongly that they should be allowed to form that bond, that they should happily share a room until such time as it is inappropriate for them to share a room.

Because I think that kids, if possible, should have their own rooms.

And certainly brothers and sisters, if they're not living in New York City in the 1980s, like my friend Blake Eskin, they should not be sharing a room in high school.

But

at that point, you're going to have to move someplace where they can have separate accommodations.

And, by the way, separate but equal.

Come on.

You know what's right.

Honestly, what's wrong with every person on Earth?

This is a sound of a gabble.

Jesse Thorne, do you think I'm wrong?

Look, I don't mean to tell these people to live beyond their means, but for now, I think those kids should be together and then eventually they move on and get separate rooms.

What do you think?

I agree completely.

My children all live together in one bedroom.

You know, I live in unusual circumstances in that I live in squadillion-dollar housing Los Angeles.

But my intent is that despite the fact that they are of both genders, they will share a bedroom at least until they're adolescent.

I understand the necessity of keeping a baby away from another baby because one baby wakes up the other baby, and I would not ever

impress any rules upon the parents of twins.

I think if you have multiple children, you should be allowed to drug them if need be.

But

just give them some Benadryl like a dog on a plane flight.

By the way,

for

representatives of law enforcement, that is not an actual recommendation.

Yeah.

But But that having been said, yeah, I mean, if

there's make the downstairs room your virtual reality parlor.

That's right.

Yeah, why are you sending your son down there with the centipedes?

Yeah.

It's too weird.

I mean, I understand until they're cognizant of it.

But, you know, them talking and entertaining each other at night, that's just children.

That's what children do.

That is all children.

Most places, there aren't even rooms.

Rooms are

a function of the first world.

Like most places, everybody just sleeps in a pile to keep warm.

You know, everybody's in the center near the, everybody's as near to the hearth as they can get without inhaling too much smoke.

You know what I mean?

It'll be fine.

It'll be fine.

They don't care.

They're brother and sister.

They're twins, for goodness sake.

Twins have a special telepathic bond, from what I understand.

And one can turn into any animal, and one can turn into any form of water.

Is that right?

Is that what the Wonder Twins do?

Yeah.

Don't email me about the Wonder Twins, please.

No, you got it perfectly correct.

Let me just say, I was flirting in this American Life tradition with asking you, Jesse, which superpower would you rather have turn into any animal or turn into any form of water?

But then I realized that's not even a question.

That poor dude, it was Jan and Zayna,

and Jan had the, he could turn into water, and Zayna could turn into animals.

And I think

the reason for that wild discrepancy in valuable power is that Zayna had more self-confidence because she was given a bedroom growing up, whereas Jan

was given a space cupboard to live in.

He literally lived in an icebox of space.

That's why he developed that power.

You want your wonder twins to be of equal powers, and you need to treat them equally.

There we go.

Here's something from Bob.

He says, My partner and I divide equally most of our food.

However, we have an ongoing disagreement over the morning coffee.

We brew a full pot and then split it 50-50.

Because she adds milk to hers, which I do not, her coffee cup is fuller than mine.

This creates an inequity.

She gets a greater amount of her chosen morning beverage.

If we truly share equally, we should each get equal amounts of morning beverage.

I should get additional coffee from her allotment that's equal to half the amount of milk that she adds.

She disputes this interpretation of sharing, but I'm certain that this is what Solomon would advise.

How about you, Judge John Hodgman?

I don't care about Bob.

I don't care about Bob's partner.

All I'm going to say is this:

if you live in Brooklyn, New York, and there is leftover coffee from the day before,

and you're a person who likes to have iced coffee with milk,

and you take up all of that coffee, leaving behind no coffee for the other person

in your iced coffee morning beverage, and then drink a third of it, and then leave it

on the kitchen counter to gloat at the person who had no coffee,

then you are my wife.

And that has to stop.

Pour me some coffee in the morning before you take it all for your iced coffee.

I have obviously sympathy for Bob in this situation.

Limited sympathy.

The fact is that everyone needs to have coffee in the morning.

And I obviously am someone who has slighted in that way routinely in my own partnership.

But my sympathy

stops

because Bob, for whatever reason, when writing this in, stopped saying coffee and started saying morning beverage in quotes, which I do not understand, and makes the perfectly good word coffee sound more and more like the perfectly ungood word munch or moist.

Equal amounts of morning beverage.

Gross.

It's gross phrasing.

Gross phrasing, Bob.

Also, Bob is being extraordinarily petty.

He's not actually suffering any damages.

He's still getting plenty of coffee.

He just wants the extra amount of coffee that would be displaced by milk purely out of a hyper-vigilant sense of fairness that I do not think does a partnership well.

So, Bob, if your partner was taking all of the coffee for a big glass of milky iced coffee and leaving behind none for you day over day over day,

then obviously I would say that was wrong and

intervention is required.

But since you are both getting coffee and your partner is simply diluting it with a little bit of milk,

I do not see a meaningful enough problem here for judicial intervention.

And I would say, stop worrying about it so much, Bob, and start being glad that your partner leaves you any coffee at all.

What do you think about that, Jesse?

I'm on board for that.

I also am terrified by this morning beverage talk.

I also also

just

have this feeling like,

hey, Bob, like,

aren't you in love?

It's easy to forget.

You could just make extra coffee if you want.

Imagine, yeah, I mean, this is, I have to say,

I've said this on stage, I believe, and I'm going to say it again here.

I love everyone who writes in.

And I don't like to draw stereotypes or conclusions without a lot of data.

But we now have

more than 300 points of data, many of them being spousal-related.

And I would say in most heteronormative couples, dudes are crazy.

I don't get it.

This is a real point of vigilance on my part, thanks to being your judge for five and a half years, or however long it's been.

I'm constantly checking myself.

Am I being a crazy husband?

I don't even think I check myself enough.

But if you're a husband or a fiancé or a boyfriend

and you're on the ski slopes, weekend after weekend, leaving behind your beloved,

and thinking to yourself, oh,

she better not watch that episode of Twin Peaks without me.

Look around you.

You're on a mountain by yourself.

Go skiing and get back to your beloved.

Don't be mad at the people you love all the time, unless you're trying to get onto a podcast, in which case I guess anything goes.

Sorry to say that dudes are bad.

I bet some of you will say to your podcast listening devices right now, not all men.

I got a lot of statistics at this point.

A lot of guys are coming up with a lot of fights that don't need to happen.

And a lot of crazy theories as to why they're right.

Just love each other, you guys.

And the immortal words of Bailiff Jesse Thorne,

most people don't have rooms.

It's a good t-shirt.

Is that what you said?

Most people don't have rooms?

Yeah, most people don't have rooms.

Yeah.

Morning beverage.

Why is that so gross sounding?

Bob, I think that really lost the case for you on that one.

Morning beverage.

Just say coffee.

Say the words.

I think it's time for a break, Jesse.

I really need a break.

Yeah, well, when we come back, we'll have a letter from a child who wants a hamster.

Plus, we'll have

a cavalcade of people upset about your citations of voice actors.

There's a shock.

Voice actor at Disneyland Nerds listening to Judge John Hodgman.

Who knew?

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

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.

Nope, 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 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.

We're clearing the docket.

Here is a letter from Alice.

My name is Alice.

I am eight.

These are all the reasons I think it's time for me to have a hamster.

My mom, Holt, also thinks so and will help me with my argument.

My dad, Tony, said that I have to wait until I'm 14.

Okay, let's hear the reasons.

One, I will clean up all the waste.

Oh, no, you won't.

Two, I am going to buy the hamster and all of its equipment.

Hmm, I don't think it's your money, but okay.

Three, I've been saving up for years, so he doesn't have to be worried about money or time.

Well, you know what?

I don't want to underestimate you, Alice.

Maybe you've got a substantial savings.

I apologize.

Four, my dad said to wait until I was 14 because of the cat.

The cat passed away, so we don't have to worry about that factor.

Alice, that is cold, but that is logic, okay?

5.

The last time we talked was three years ago, and we thought I wasn't old enough.

I think I am now.

I'm beginning to lean towards your arguments.

Let's go on.

6.

I will feed the hamster.

Hmm, that's the fun part, sure.

7.

I will refill its water, food, and bedding.

Well, that's a big question, Mark.

8.

This isn't a big one, but it's 1 against 1.

My aunt is in, two.

Ants don't count.

9.

I also wrote a persuasive letter essay about this.

I thought that's what this was.

Okay, good.

10.

I'll keep the hamster in my room so it won't bother anyone else at night.

Well, here's what I can say about that.

It will be a huge bother at night, because that's when hamsters are awake.

That's why hamsters are terrible pets.

No offense to all the hamster owners.

Yeah, real talk.

Hamsters are terrible pets.

I've had hamsters.

I have many hamsters.

They're bad pets.

Get a rat.

Rats are pretty pretty good pets.

Yeah, you know what?

Rats are smart.

They are affectionate.

I do not know if they have the same strict nocturnal schedule as hamsters.

But hamsters, being prey animals,

are skittish, prone to bite and fight when picked up.

If you are unlucky enough to get one that is neurotic, which in my experience is three out of four,

they will be unpleasant when they are awake.

And they will also be unpleasant when they

are, well, they will be asleep when they are asleep, and they will be unpleasant when they are awake, and they are awake at night when they make a lot of noise.

And if you try to get at them when they are not during their normal sleep, when they're normally asleep, they're going to be annoyed at you, and they're going to bite you.

And then, after a couple of weeks, they might mysteriously start losing weight and die.

They are short-lived, short-tempered, and weird.

And I would not choose to get one again.

Judge Hajman, Hodgman, they don't just bite you when you pick them up.

If you manage to pick them up without them biting you, let's just say they have other weapons.

You're talking about execretory weapons?

Execretory weapons, without a doubt, that they are more than willing to use.

They will go to the nuclear option at the drop of a hat.

In fact, they will use both the nuclear and chemical option simultaneously if it comes to it.

Yep, they they will poop and pee in your hand, which is super gross.

It's gross.

Alice, not only do I find your entreaty adorable, but I also find it persuasive and I find you to be extremely well-reasoned.

And normally I would say

I wouldn't recommend a hamster for all of the above reasons, but most especially that hamsters are very short-lived and really should only be given to children if you are introducing them to the concept of death, which normally I would say an eight-year-old shouldn't have to worry about such a thing.

But since you are already so impassively reporting the passing away of your cat and using that as an argument in your advantage, perhaps a hamster is the pet for you.

For all of these things, I would say, Alice,

please reconsider your choice of pet.

These are not fun, but since you did argue so persuasively, and because I am binding you by fake internet law to fulfilling the promises that you have made in terms of cleaning up the waste, even when it's on your own hands, refilling its food and water and bedding and everything else,

I am going to find in your favor against your mom and dad,

Holt and Tony, and say,

please have this experiment in unpleasant pet ownership.

At least we know it won't last very long.

Did I ever tell you about

the source of my pronunciation of the word gerbil as in on the judge john hodgman podcast the nightmare gerbils let let me go into my best thurl ravenscroft and see if i can reenact this dramatically jesse

i stepped on your gerbil

you sound just like my father thurl ravenscroft

i didn't realize that he was your dad Yeah, you had a gerbil.

Oh, no, you had something else.

I had a hamster.

You had a hamster.

She was named Cora.

It was the only nice hamster I ever had.

I probably had six or eight hamsters, and only one of them was nice.

And Cora got out, and your dad stepped on her to death?

Yeah, the hamster got out in an earthquake or something and was missing for a few days.

And then one morning my dad brought me up to the kitchen table and sat me down and said, Jesse, I have to tell you something.

And I said, what's that, Dad?

And he said, I stepped on your gerbil.

i think i've probably told you this story too in the in relation to the gerbil thing but i took the class gerbil home for a school vacation when i was not going skiing and she gave birth mysteriously to a bunch of little gerbils and then ate a bunch of them because these small rodents are gross and then another time I tried to grab a gerbil by the tail in the classroom as I was discussing Mork and Mindy with my friend Tim McGonagall over my shoulder.

And maybe I grabbed the gerbil by the tail and maybe the tail just popped right off of that gerbil.

The small rodent world

is full of self-cannibalism,

mutual hatred, pop-off tails, weird body horror of all kinds.

And Alice, I'm warning you that when your Cora the hamster gets sick, it's going to be upsetting and frankly gross.

But with all those warnings and caveats, you have argued strongly enough that I'm willing to allow and indeed order you to get this hamster and to follow the promises that you've made.

This is the sound of this gavel.

Oh, gosh, Jesse, you know, I just accidentally smashed a gerbil with that gavel.

Now, some letters.

All right.

Jesse, I'm not going to ask you to read all of these letters.

Okay, good.

Because I had to bring them in in a wheelbarrow.

I got blasted

for making the claim, which I thought I was right on, but in fact was wrong on,

that the ghost host

at the haunted mansion attraction in Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom in Disney World,

and perhaps others of the international family of Disney theme parks, but I'm not sure,

was voiced by legendary voice-over artist Thurl Ravenscroft.

And by legendary, I mean he had the coolest name of them all.

I am sad that Thurl is not a more common name these days.

So I was wrong.

And Michael, and Ian, and Jeffrey,

and Tavy, and Keith, and Tom, and many others

wrote in

not angrily, but certainly pedantically and certainly correctly to correct the record with many, many links and details about where I went wrong and where I went right.

And

because voice acting is an art unto itself, and that voice actors don't always get the recognition they deserve,

Thanks to these fine listeners, let me correct the record for once and for all.

Thurl Ravenscroft

did not play the ghost host.

That was Paul Freese.

Paul Freese, R-F-R-E-E-S,

known as the Man of a Thousand Voices, incredibly

virtuosic and versatile voice actor who also famously played Boris Badinoff

on the Rocky and Bullwinkle

show and the voice of the dwarf bomber in the Rankin-Bass animated versions of The Hobbit and Return of the King.

He also did redubbing for live-action films.

For example,

Paul Freese, because he was so versatile in his impersonations, redubbed all of Humphrey Bogart's dialogue in Humphrey Bogart's final film, The Harder They Fall.

because Humphrey Bogart had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and could barely be hurt.

So,

Paul Freese.

Attention must be paid.

Thurl Ravenscroft did portray one of the singing animated busts in the Haunted Mansion ride,

singing the song Grim, Grinning Ghosts, but he did not play the ghost host.

I made another error in that I attributed Thurl Ravenscroft to another famous voice acting job, that of Sher Khan in the Disney animated version.

of the jungle book.

Sher Khan, of course, being the tiger that wants to to kill Mowgli.

That was not played by Thorll Ravenscroft.

All those good people and many more wrote in to point out that that was played by the British actor George Sanders.

George Sanders, who married not one but two Gabor sisters over his life, Zhaja and Magda,

played early roles in early Alfred Hitchcock films and lots of other voice parts,

and as well Simon Templar the Saint in five films made in the 30s and the 40s, and in a weird overlap of history, he also played

Mr.

Freeze, same name as Paul Freeze, in two episodes of Batman, sharing he was the first Mr.

Freeze in the Batman 1966 television show starring the late and beloved Adam West,

later played by Otto Premager, later played by Eli Wallach.

Why did I think Thorell Ravenscroft played that tiger?

Maybe it was because Thurl Ravenscroft's most famous gig, of course, was voicing Tony the Tiger, the mascot of Frosted Flakes.

Did I confuse them because I think all tigers look alike?

Maybe.

Maybe I'm a little tiger racist.

But the fact of the matter is, Shere Khan is a tiger from the jungle book, a colonial crypto-racist Fantasia, whereas Tony the Tiger simply wanted to feed kids as much sugar as possible and give them diabetes.

All right, I'm mean about both of those things.

The truth is, Jungle Book, that movie is pretty good.

And Frosted Flakes are great.

I like them very much.

And I will say,

if you want something of a more adult taste in the cereal variety, skip the Frosted Flakes.

Get them Kellogg's non-frosted flakes, what they call corn flakes, and do what my mom would do

for a little dessert cereal.

Pour some cream on them.

Oh boy, that that is good.

Jesse Thorne, you should give that.

Are you lactose intolerant or anything, Jesse?

I'm sorry.

I spaced out.

I got confused because the Judge John Hodgman podcast ended and the Dana Gould hour started.

Where it's just a list of actors whose names I don't recognize.

That's the greatest compliment I could have ever received for that little bit.

My question is,

Jesse, have you ever had corn flakes with cream instead of milk on them?

No, I've certainly had cut fruit with cream on it, and that's one of the great treats.

Yeah.

Corn flakes with some heavy cream, just a little bit.

They're great.

But in any case, I totally apologize to the legacy of these three

departed voice actors and actors of stage and screen too.

And thank you guys for correcting the record on that one.

That was embarrassing.

That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman, the show produced by Jennifer Marmer.

Thanks, Jen.

You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H.

O.

I always enjoy reading people's takes on every episode.

And check out the Maximum Fund subreddit to discuss this episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H.

O or email Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Thanks, everybody.

You can always choose my way out.

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