In Defense of PAW Patrol

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Speaker 31 Hello, hello, everyone.

Speaker 51 You're in for a treat today.

Speaker 11 I'm going to do battle on behalf of my three-year-old against some of the leading intellectuals of our day.

Speaker 3 My producer says this is her favorite revisionist history episode ever.

Speaker 31 As they say on the internet, big if true.

Speaker 46 If you missed it, we opened this mini-season with two episodes about the death of George Floyd, which I hope you listened to if you haven't already.

Speaker 24 And coming up soon, my colleague Ben Nadav Hafrey gives us the real story about,

Speaker 11 well, I'm not going to tell you.

Speaker 38 All I'll say is, when I listen to it, every single fact Ben relates in that episode was something I'd never heard of before.

Speaker 55 Oh, and one last thing.

Speaker 24 I mentioned it last week.

Speaker 31 I'm doing my tour with No Small Endeavor and Drew Holcomb, April 9th in Louisville, April 10th in Indianapolis, and April 11th in Grand Rapids.

Speaker 24 It's going to be a lot of fun. If you live anywhere near those cities, you got to go.

Speaker 56 Check it out at no smallendeavor.com.

Speaker 31 Okay, off we go.

Speaker 59 Enjoy, everyone.

Speaker 59 Every night, after bath and just before bedtime, my three-year-old and I settle down in front of the television. Paw Patrol, Paw Patrol, will be there on the double.

Speaker 59 Whenever there's a problem, round Adventure Bay.

Speaker 57 If you're not a parent of a young child, it's entirely possible you have no idea what Paw Patrol is.

Speaker 19 That's fine.

Speaker 36 Before I had children, I had never heard of it either.

Speaker 58 So let me explain.

Speaker 33 It's a multi-billion dollar franchise centered around a band of puppies who are called upon in each episode to rescue someone in peril.

Speaker 31 There's a police dog named Chase, a fire dog named Marshall, a helicopter pilot named Sky, a Roadworks puppy named Rubble.

Speaker 56 They stop runaway trains, they fight fires.

Speaker 51 They repair the damaged flying saucers of adorable stranded aliens with enormous eyes.

Speaker 58 You get the picture.

Speaker 68 Among toddlers, Paw Patrol is bigger than Elmo.

Speaker 69 It's bigger than Mickey Mouse.

Speaker 70 Just ask my daughter. Paw Patrol, we're on the double.

Speaker 71 Whatever there is album on Adventure Day.

Speaker 71 Rather is the team of pups. We'll go and see today.

Speaker 71 Marshall, Robo, Chase, Rocky, Zoo, guys.

Speaker 72 Paw Patrol, Paw Pro.

Speaker 10 And yet, for some reason, every parent I know, every student of children's television, every adult who has more than a passing interest in the intellectual and moral development of our young, hates Paw Patrol.

Speaker 75 Like the Reddit thread, Paw Patrol has ruined my child's brain.

Speaker 52 Quote, everything about Paw Patrol is awful.

Speaker 60 The yelling and constant panic, the stereotypes, the terrible design, the tropes.

Speaker 51 I wish it would disappear from the face of the earth and take all of its merch with it.

Speaker 31 ⁇ Unquote.

Speaker 67 Go to TikTok.

Speaker 69 They hate the puppies.

Speaker 77 There's some things that really piss me off when it comes to Paw Patrol.

Speaker 72 It's pretty simple.

Speaker 1 It sucks.

Speaker 25 My son watches Paw Patrol. I hate it.

Speaker 36 Everyone hates it, except for me.

Speaker 11 And this episode is my attempt to convince you that I'm right and everyone else.

Speaker 29 is wrong.

Speaker 34 My name is Malcolm Gladwell.

Speaker 75 You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast where I like to argue on behalf of things that all common sense suggests are not true.

Speaker 52 The following defense of Paw Patrol is squarely in that tradition.

Speaker 28 It is a search and rescue mission for a show about search and rescue missions.

Speaker 81 In all my long years of doing revisionist history,

Speaker 31 I have never tackled a more forbidding task.

Speaker 31 I started by calling people, anyone who I thought could help, asking the same questions over and over again.

Speaker 69 First to a parent who had lived through what I'm living through right now.

Speaker 57 We are here to discuss Paw Patrol,

Speaker 30 which looms large in my life at the moment.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm sure.

Speaker 75 Then again, to an intellectual, someone I admired.

Speaker 57 I don't understand the amount of hatred this show gets.

Speaker 84 And again, this time to a sociologist, someone who has published in academic journals on the Paw Patrol phenomenon.

Speaker 70 I am calling you because I spend every night watching Paw Patrol.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. Sorry to hear that.

Speaker 82 I spent so much time googling Paw Patrol, Google started feeding me Paw Patrol content.

Speaker 86 Like the actress Kira Knightley on The Tonight Show, explaining what it's like to be the mother of a three-year-old.

Speaker 49 Wait for it.

Speaker 77 Baby's a toddler. Baby's not a baby.
Baby's not a baby anymore. Yeah, she's huge.
Three and a half. Three and a half.

Speaker 25 Are you into uh are you into paw patrol?

Speaker 21 Oh.

Speaker 77 I'm sorry, dude. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 25 I'm sorry.

Speaker 56 Everyone is sorry.

Speaker 22 Well, I'm into Paw Patrol, and I'm not sorry.

Speaker 38 Paw Patrol takes place in two imaginary towns, Adventure Bay and Foggy Bottom.

Speaker 80 The group has as its headquarters what looks like a giant postmodern air traffic control center, complete with a really cool fire station pole that moves the members of the Paw Patrol from the briefing room to their waiting vehicles.

Speaker 58 Vehicles, which are all, by the way, available separately for purchase.

Speaker 58 In a typical Paw Patrol episode, and I say typical when I really mean every single Paw Patrol episode ever, someone in the greater Adventure Bay, Foggy Bottom metropolitan area has a problem.

Speaker 41 They call Ryder, who is a little boy in charge of the Paw Patrol operation.

Speaker 56 He summons the pups from whatever adorably cute leisure activity they are engaged in.

Speaker 22 They come running.

Speaker 76 Mighty pups, to the local! Ryder needs us!

Speaker 21 And without fail, the problem is solved.

Speaker 31 For example, in season 7, episode 13, Paw Patrol Pups Save Election Day, a particular favorite in the Gladwell household, Mayor Humdinger of Foggy Bottom has decided unexpectedly to run for Mayor of Adventure City, precipitating a crisis.

Speaker 61 Humdinger is wreaking havoc on the campaign trail, causing all kinds of chaos downtown.

Speaker 60 This leads Alex, an adorable little boy who happens to find himself in the midst of the mayhem, to call for help.

Speaker 76 It all happened because Mayor Humdinger's kidneys are launching election stuff everywhere.

Speaker 76 We'll be right there, Alex.

Speaker 28 There's a short briefing in the situation room.

Speaker 25 Ryder gives out instructions.

Speaker 76 So for this mission, I'll need Chase.

Speaker 76 I need you to use your net to stop Mr. Porter's out-of-control skateboard ride.
Chase is on the case. And Martha, I'll need you to use your ladder to help get Danny down from that big billboard.

Speaker 76 I'm ready for a rough, rough rescue.

Speaker 36 And off the pups go.

Speaker 11 Hey, guys. Hey, Malcolm.
How you doing? How's it going?

Speaker 25 I called up Cal Brunker and Bob Barlin, the writers behind the Paw Patrol movies.

Speaker 66 I asked them why they thought kids love the show so much.

Speaker 89 The structures are so clear and consistent from episode to episode that it really pulls them in and they're able to feel comfortable and confident in that world of storytelling.

Speaker 33 Oh, I forgot to mention that in addition to 11 seasons of Paw Patrol television shows, there have been two Paw Patrol movies which together grossed $350 million.

Speaker 89 The structure of the show is

Speaker 89 really quite smart in how they go about every

Speaker 89 every rescue that takes place. Ryder tells the pups what they're going to do, and then they show up and they do the same thing that he's just told the audience.

Speaker 89 So I think the participation level from a child is able to be so much more because it's less surprising.

Speaker 56 I did not grow up with the television, so this experience is all new to me.

Speaker 75 Maybe that's why I like Paw Patrol so much.

Speaker 56 Everyone else groans in silent agony over the thought of watching, say, Paw Patrol, the movie, for the fourth time.

Speaker 10 Me, I'm like, what new fresh insights can I glean this time around about Chase, the police dog, a German shepherd who struggles with feelings of inadequacy?

Speaker 89 Chase has got a backstory. And I mean, at its highest level,

Speaker 89 Chase believes that being scared means he's not a hero, and so he shouldn't be part of it. And he learns that heroes get scared too, but keep going.
That's what makes them heroes.

Speaker 56 The writer has that scene with him where they relive when he found Chase for the first time.

Speaker 21 Yes,

Speaker 89 I love to hear you saying this.

Speaker 2 This brings me great joy.

Speaker 57 On what is clearly University Avenue.

Speaker 1 That's absolutely University Avenue.

Speaker 13 It feels like it, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 With the boulevard.

Speaker 2 The dividers, exactly, yeah.

Speaker 36 By the way, remember that reference, University Avenue.

Speaker 67 What am I referring to?

Speaker 51 A small clue to my grand unified theory of Paw Patrol.

Speaker 75 A clue which I'm guessing all the other parents missed because they were on their phones checking Instagram.

Speaker 91 Now, that, so, because there is, what's really interesting is that there,

Speaker 90 when my daughter was watching that,

Speaker 56 she, the first, we've seen it more than once, that movie.

Speaker 38 And the first time she saw it, I think she was genuinely affected by it. I mean, it was clear it was a different kind of an emotional experience than she'd been getting from the TV shows.

Speaker 63 And the second and third time, gripping my hand tightly.

Speaker 92 This is exactly what the corporate benefactors of the Paw Patrol franchise desire: a bonding moment between a dad and his daughter over a disconsolate puppy.

Speaker 63 Was my daughter wearing Paw Patrol pajamas as this was happening? Yes, she was.

Speaker 28 And yet, there are people, lots of people, who look on that picture of family togetherness

Speaker 31 and cry foul.

Speaker 34 Can you explain this?

Speaker 6 In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal.

Speaker 10 T-Mobile knows all about that.

Speaker 13 They're now the best network, according to the experts at OOCLA Speed Test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan.

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Speaker 7 With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand.

Speaker 15 With built-in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients.

Speaker 12 And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite-to-mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid.

Speaker 17 That's your business, Supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com.

Speaker 15 Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky.

Speaker 12 Best network based on analysis by UCLA of Speed Test Intelligence Data 1H 2025.

Speaker 35 The Olympic Games have come a long way since the first one in 776 BC.

Speaker 59 In fact, those Olympic Games weren't even games.

Speaker 72 It was the Olympic game, as there was only one race, a straight 630-foot sprint.

Speaker 79 By 67 AD, chariot racing had become a big event, so big that the Emperor Nero competed.

Speaker 64 And even though he was thrown from his chariot and couldn't finish, he was nonetheless declared the winner.

Speaker 63 It's good to be king.

Speaker 34 One thing that hasn't changed is the importance of quality sleep to an athlete's performance.

Speaker 32 Which is why Satva is so proud to have been named the official mattress and restorative sleep provider for the U.S.

Speaker 69 Olympic and Para-Olympic teams.

Speaker 80 No one knows more about restorative sleep than Satfa.

Speaker 48 Each one of their mattresses is designed to provide the kind of sleep elite athletes need to perform at their peak.

Speaker 80 Of course, you don't have to be an elite athlete to benefit from sleeping well.

Speaker 54 Being human is the only requirement.

Speaker 34 Visit SATFA.com slash Gladwell to save up to $200 on a $1,000 or more purchase.

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Speaker 37 American Military University, where service members like you can access high-quality, affordable education built for your lifestyle.

Speaker 39 With online programs that fit around deployments, training, and unpredictable schedules, AMU makes it possible to earn your degree no matter where duty takes you.

Speaker 28 Their preferred military rate keeps tuition at just $250 per credit hour for undergraduate and master's master's tuition.

Speaker 37 And with 24-7 mental health support plus career coaching and other services, AMU is committed to your success during and after your service.

Speaker 13 Learn more at amu.apus.edu slash military to learn more.

Speaker 47 That's amu.apus.edu slash military.

Speaker 64 On several occasions in the course of almost a decade now of revisionist history, I have called on Angus Fletcher, neuroscientist, turned narrative theorist, genius in residence at Ohio State University.

Speaker 11 If you remember, for example, back to our three-part revision of the ending of Disney's The Little Mermaid, arguably the intellectual high watermark of the entire revisionist history corpus, Angus provided the intellectual firepower.

Speaker 64 And remember when we did a whole series on the greatest movie scripts that never got made?

Speaker 36 Angus had one.

Speaker 65 Of course he did.

Speaker 25 Angus is much, much smarter than I am.

Speaker 55 More important, Angus is not hopelessly sentimental like I am.

Speaker 41 He would not be derailed by the gentle pressure of a three-year-old's stubby fingers.

Speaker 66 And when I remembered that Angus also has kids, I called him up.

Speaker 24 Now, a small thing before we go on.

Speaker 38 Normally, when we interview people, we edit the tape.

Speaker 28 I interject with commentary.

Speaker 73 The whole thing is compressed and annotated.

Speaker 63 We give you snippets, but snippets do not do justice to Professor Angus Fletcher.

Speaker 61 So you're going to get Angus Unbound.

Speaker 82 I want to start.

Speaker 57 You too went through a Paw Patrol period with your children.

Speaker 12 Is this correct?

Speaker 2 I did, yeah. So my son likes Paw Patrol, and I had an immediate horrifying flashback when you brought the subject up because I went back and tried to watch a couple episodes just to remind myself.

Speaker 2 And I immediately had to shut them off, actually, for self-preservation.

Speaker 30 But there are many things to unpack here.

Speaker 83 First of all, how long did your son still actively watch Paw Patrol?

Speaker 2 No, no, absolutely. He's still alive.
So

Speaker 2 we managed to save him in time.

Speaker 40 So you're, and while you were watching it with your son,

Speaker 26 why did this show not appeal to you?

Speaker 30 What is it about it that's like hitting you the wrong way?

Speaker 2 It's designed to anesthetize your brain. I mean, I feel like I'm mainlining horse tranquilizer.

Speaker 2 It's a show that is studiously designed to interrupt active thought. I mean, that's like the purpose of the

Speaker 2 show. And it's engineered brilliantly to do that.
It's like it's like the kind of like diabolical apotheosis of hundreds of years of figuring out how to how to make audiences more and more passive.

Speaker 57 What do you mean?

Speaker 88 Okay, break that down.

Speaker 86 Tell me exactly what you mean by that.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 it's the quintessence of this thing that we call narrative. We have a term for this in narrative theory.
It's called vacuous agon.

Speaker 2 Vacuous agon. And basically what that means is like when there's a conflict, but there's no stress, there's no anxiety in the viewer because you know that it's going to work out.

Speaker 2 And this is a, I have to give credit to who coined this term. It was a brilliant member of my lab.
His name is Mike Benvenisti.

Speaker 2 He coined the term after watching Phineas and Ferd, which is a Disney show with his three children.

Speaker 2 And the point of vacuous agon is that you're constantly being presented with problems that are solved immediately at the moment moment that you are presented with the problem.

Speaker 2 And I think it's probably obvious for you, having, I'm sure, watched several episodes of this show, how mechanically what the show does is it gives you a problem, and then immediately Ryder shows up like a helicopter parent, like the ultimate helicopter parent, and tells everybody exactly what to do.

Speaker 2 So the problem will go away. And then we just kind of watch as the problem goes away.

Speaker 78 Yeah. That's exactly right.

Speaker 26 So, and you think that's problematic because

Speaker 2 it's not that I think that it's problematic, Malcolm. It's that I know it's problematic.

Speaker 2 So I don't know if you're aware of this, but for the last 30 years, there's been this crisis in American schools. American kids have been getting less creative.

Speaker 2 And because they've been getting less creative, they've been less able to solve their own problems.

Speaker 2 And because they're less able to solve their own problems, they have these rises in anxiety and anger, you know, losses of self-efficacy, resilience, all these kinds of things.

Speaker 2 And, you know, the major reason for this is that we are either solving their problems for them.

Speaker 22 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So we're coming in and solving their problems for them, or we're essentially suspending them in this state of giving them artificial problems.

Speaker 2 So an artificial problem is like a math problem or a standardized test or something that doesn't exist in the real world. And, you know, and you learn the formula.

Speaker 2 And once you learn the formula, you know how to solve it. And so kids are developing this, you know, ability to get better and better and better and better at school.

Speaker 2 And then they just keep failing at life. And this TV show is a paradigmatic example of that entire process.
I mean, I mean, it solves all the problems before you.

Speaker 2 There's no ability you have to exercise any curiosity because the moment a problem happens, like literally you're told these two dogs are going to go solve it in in exactly this way.

Speaker 2 There's no opportunity for the brain to engage what we call encounterfactual causal thinking, these processes that occur when we encounter a problem.

Speaker 2 The whole reason for imaginative literature, the reason that things like Curious George and Winnie the Pooh were created are to stimulate these processes in young children, because at the age of four is actually when they develop the capacity for irony.

Speaker 2 for narrative irony. And all those books and reading with your children, for reasons we could discuss if you're interested, stimulates all those processes.
And when you watch this show, it nukes them.

Speaker 2 So it's not bad in the sense that like giving your children ice cream isn't bad, right? They can have ice cream, but if all you give them is ice cream, what happens to them, right?

Speaker 2 They become diabetic. And it's the same thing with this show in your brain.

Speaker 31 Yeah. God, I feel bad now.

Speaker 13 You filled me with a kind of degree of self-loathing and guilt over the damage I'm doing to my daughter's imagination, her ability to problem solve.

Speaker 57 This is what you do.

Speaker 61 I should point out how strange this is.

Speaker 28 A generation ago, people loved children's television.

Speaker 65 The invention of children's television was one of America's signature cultural triumphs.

Speaker 63 Intellectuals wrote love songs to children's television.

Speaker 82 I remember once in the late 1990s when I discovered Sesame Street for the first time, I was so entranced that I went to the Sesame Street studios and just hung out there for what seemed like days.

Speaker 64 I was there during the great Slimy episode.

Speaker 36 Maybe you remember this.

Speaker 84 Slimy, the adorable Sesame Street worm, becomes an astronaut.

Speaker 63 And so the Sesame Street staff brought in Tony Bennett, whose signature song, of course, was Fly Me to the Moon, to sing, Slimey to the Moon.

Speaker 96 And when this worm arrives, you'll find

Speaker 96 he'll take a leap that's small for him.

Speaker 96 But huge for all worm kind.

Speaker 56 I was there for that, standing this close to the legend himself, who acted like this was the greatest moment of his entire career.

Speaker 28 My point is, back in the day, the leading cultural figures of our time would happily make the pilgrimage to a random TV studio in Queens to make light of their own work on behalf of toddlers everywhere.

Speaker 64 But now, the cultural luminaries and the intellectuals have abandoned ship.

Speaker 28 By 11 minutes into his denunciation of Paw Patrol, Angus had mentioned Dickens, the A-Team, Plautus, and Aristophanes.

Speaker 31 Now, he had moved on to explaining the phenomenon of new comedy and contrasting it with something he called old comedy.

Speaker 2 And what happens in old comedy is you're presented with real problems.

Speaker 31 So an example of a real problem would be war.

Speaker 2 or the breakdown of democracy. And then the comedy goes on and the problem gets worse and it gets worse and it gets worse and it gets worse.

Speaker 2 And then eventually the comedy falls apart and it just ends. And basically the comedy is saying, that's a big problem.
You guys in the audience better figure out how to solve that.

Speaker 2 So it forced people to think about hard things in a public place where they could kind of wrestle with it and solve their own problems.

Speaker 2 Then what happened was the emergence of new comedy, which is essentially light entertainment. And what happens in light entertainment is a fake problem is posed.

Speaker 2 A fake problem is posed. And then just if you might be getting stressed about this fake problem,

Speaker 2 the comedy answers it for you by the end so you can relax. So, what's diabolical about Paw Patrol is it takes real problems and turns them into imaginary problems.

Speaker 1 It's like

Speaker 2 the end, it's like the nadir of comedy. Because, I mean, there are real problems that it seems to embrace, you know, and people seem to get in trouble and stuff like that, you know.

Speaker 2 But then it just reveals that they're all, you know, not a problem.

Speaker 2 You don't have to worry about them because you know, Ryder will just show up or there'll be some like weird gizmo gadget thing that will solve the problem for you.

Speaker 2 So, you know, just relax, preschooler. Don't worry about this big bad world you're entering in because it's just fine.
Don't even use your brain. Why were you even giving a brain?

Speaker 2 What's the point of a brain, right? You need to solve problems. Everything's already solved.
Look how perfect.

Speaker 70 I know I promised you that I was going to play Angus at full length, Angus Unbound.

Speaker 65 And if this were the Joe Rogan experience, and I bring up Joe Rogan for a reason, by the way, because revisionist history is coming back to Joe Rogan big time in the coming weeks.

Speaker 75 If this were the Joe Rogan experience, I'd have just run it all.

Speaker 32 Effort.

Speaker 56 Who among us does not have a spare three and a half hours to listen to a perfect stranger speak about their weightlifting routines?

Speaker 59 But my assumption is that you, unlike the many millions of Roganites, have jobs.

Speaker 66 So from here on out, I'm just giving you the good parts.

Speaker 70 So what would happen if you showed an old comedy show to a child?

Speaker 52 What happens if in Paw Patrol, they don't solve the problem?

Speaker 10 What does my daughter do?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so this is great. So your child will will become concerned.

Speaker 1 Your child will become concerned.

Speaker 2 And then your child will probably turn to you as the authority figure in her life and be like, I'm kind of concerned. What's going to happen to

Speaker 2 that truck that's suspended over that chasm or whatever other Paul Petroleum problem there is, right? Yeah. And then you're going to look very seriously at them and say, I don't know.

Speaker 2 What do you think is going to happen? And then they would have to pause and then they would think and then they would have to imagine themselves solving the problem.

Speaker 67 And that's the value.

Speaker 36 I'm a new parent, just over three years into the experience, and I have all the insecurities that come with being a rookie. I don't know what I'm doing.

Speaker 10 I put my daughters in bed at night and pray they fall asleep.

Speaker 38 I make them oatmeal in the morning and pray they eat it.

Speaker 10 I help build castles made of magnetiles and pray they don't destroy them.

Speaker 18 And all the while, I ask myself, who are these mysterious creatures over whom I have recklessly been given dominion?

Speaker 69 And now Angus, who I admire like few others, was telling me I was doing it all wrong.

Speaker 2 You're deleting their capacity to develop an awareness of other answers to problems. You're removing that source of natural creativity.

Speaker 2 You're also removing the pressure on them to try and find that perspective to solve those other problems.

Speaker 2 And so this entire part of their brain is just atrophying at the exact critical moment when, as human beings, we're supposed to have it and it's supposed to come online.

Speaker 1 This is devastating.

Speaker 51 This has been a devastating conversation.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm sure.

Speaker 51 When we come back, my grand unified theory of paw patrol.

Speaker 6 In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal.

Speaker 13 T-Mobile knows all about that.

Speaker 15 They're now the best network, according to the experts at an OOCLA Speed Test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.

Speaker 18 With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged.

Speaker 7 With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand.

Speaker 15 With built-in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients.

Speaker 12 And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite-to-mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid.

Speaker 17 That's your business, supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com.

Speaker 15 Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S.

Speaker 5 where you can see the sky.

Speaker 12 Best network based on analysis by UCLA of Speed Test Intelligence Data 1H 2025.

Speaker 35 The Olympic Games have come a long way since the first one in 776 BC.

Speaker 59 In fact, those Olympic Games weren't even games.

Speaker 72 It was the Olympic game, as there was only one race, a straight 630-foot sprint.

Speaker 79 By 67 AD, chariot racing had become a big event, so big that the Emperor Nero competed.

Speaker 34 And even though he was thrown from his chariot and couldn't finish, he was nonetheless declared the winner.

Speaker 63 It's good to be king.

Speaker 34 One thing that hasn't changed is the importance of quality sleep to an athlete's performance.

Speaker 32 Which is why Satfa is so proud to have been named the official mattress and restorative sleep provider for the U.S.

Speaker 69 Olympic and Para-Olympic teams.

Speaker 64 No one knows more about restorative sleep than Satva.

Speaker 48 Each one of their mattresses is designed to provide the kind of sleep elite athletes need to perform at their peak.

Speaker 80 Of course, you don't have to be an elite athlete to benefit from sleeping well.

Speaker 54 Being human is the only requirement.

Speaker 72 Visit SATFA.com slash Gladwell to save up to $200 on a $1,000 or more purchase.

Speaker 93 That's S-A-A-T-V-A.com/slash Gladwell.

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Speaker 47 Visit amu.apus.edu/slash military to learn more. That's amu.apus.edu slash military.

Speaker 34 I said way back in the beginning that there was an important clue in my conversation with the creators of the Paw Patrol movies.

Speaker 63 Something crucial to understanding my stubborn affection for the Paw Patrol franchise.

Speaker 56 Something about University Avenue.

Speaker 21 Remember that?

Speaker 56 You might have wondered what University Avenue I was referring to.

Speaker 63 Well, it's the one in Toronto.

Speaker 60 University Avenue is one of the central boulevards that runs through downtown Toronto.

Speaker 52 It is the Broadway of Toronto.

Speaker 63 In the Paw Patrol movie, it appears as a little visual clue that tells you something crucially important about Ryder and his band of merry pups.

Speaker 63 Something I realized as I prepared to respond to Angus' attacks that even the mighty Angus had missed.

Speaker 90 Now...

Speaker 9 But wait, now I feel...

Speaker 36 Angus, your arguments are so compelling and overwhelming.

Speaker 26 I feel foolish in offering my defense of Paw Patrol.

Speaker 41 But

Speaker 57 I feel I should do it anyway.

Speaker 25 The key to understanding Paw Patrol, so this is

Speaker 50 the alternate Paw Patrol theory.

Speaker 69 And the key to the alternate Paw Patrol theory is understanding that it is a Canadian show.

Speaker 81 Paw Patrol is conceived, made, and distributed from my home country of Canada.

Speaker 32 It is as Canadian as maple syrup, as Canadian as a flock of geese streaking across the sky.

Speaker 16 And what Paw Patrol is doing is enacting a fantasy of municipal competence, which is absolutely essential to understanding what,

Speaker 36 understanding Canada.

Speaker 83 That's what Canada is, right?

Speaker 85 Is a country which has,

Speaker 95 which has formed, what is the, you know, the essential credo of the United States is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, an individualist credo.

Speaker 81 What is the parallel credo of Canada that was embedded in the Canadian Articles of Confederation?

Speaker 25 It is peace, order, and good government.

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 40 What is Paw Patrol? Paw Patrol is an homage.

Speaker 94 It is the elaboration of the notion of peace, order, and good government.

Speaker 57 And the key thing in the Paw Patrol song at the very beginning, they go, Paw Patrol, Paw Patrol, whenever you're in trouble, Paw Patrol, Paw Patrol, we'll be there on the double.

Speaker 74 That's crucial.

Speaker 40 It is that not only

Speaker 95 is every problem assessed, but every problem is addressed in a timely manner, in an efficient, competent manner.

Speaker 57 So that what Paw Patrol is all about is that this is in Canadian terms what we want our state to do, right?

Speaker 40 It is to, and what is Paw Patrol?

Speaker 94 itself? It is,

Speaker 94 it's an example of interagency cooperation, right?

Speaker 32 Chase the police dog, Marshall, the firefighter, Sky the pilot, Rubble the contractor, all working together.

Speaker 79 Very Canadian notion.

Speaker 31 That

Speaker 60 if only we join hands and cooperate across disciplines, we can more effectively address the social ills that plague us.

Speaker 85 It's just Canada.

Speaker 91 So what my daughter is getting is

Speaker 55 essentially Canada.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I mean, I've seen on the news how perfect things are in Canada, Malcolm. So you don't have to convince me.

Speaker 2 It's a utopian land where everything works out.

Speaker 2 There's

Speaker 1 no problems with

Speaker 1 settlements or anything.

Speaker 57 It's a comparative judgment.

Speaker 78 This point about the centrality of public sector competence to the Canadian identity is worth a bit of a digression.

Speaker 64 It concerns the 1991 hit single from the band Crash Test Dummies.

Speaker 63 Perhaps you remember it.

Speaker 73 It was called Superman's song, and it turns on a sociological comparison of Tarzan and Superman.

Speaker 1 He just come along and scoop my bunger his arm like that.

Speaker 1 Quick as a cat in the jungle.

Speaker 61 Superman, the song argues, is Tarzan's antithesis.

Speaker 84 He's not some rapacious profiteer.

Speaker 1 Superman never made any money for saving the world from Solomon Grundy.

Speaker 1 And sometimes I despair the world will never see another

Speaker 1 man

Speaker 1 like him.

Speaker 75 This is how the lead singer for the Crush Test Dummies Brad Roberts explained his thinking to a college newspaper.

Speaker 65 Quote, Superman, as cast in Superman's song, is obviously a left-wing political figure.

Speaker 81 His activity in the community is intrinsic to his being.

Speaker 32 Superman is being juxtaposed against Tarzan, who is kind of a laissez-faire capitalist type, who retreats to the forest and rejects the idea of the community.

Speaker 13 He wants to live in a so-called animal state, and he doesn't want to be bothered with any kind of political realities.

Speaker 22 Unquote.

Speaker 60 First of all, how great great is it that rock stars once talked like this?

Speaker 82 Second, on the basis of this argument, where do you think the Crash Test dummies are from?

Speaker 63 It's obvious.

Speaker 82 Canada, of course.

Speaker 84 This is a song that could only have been written by a Canadian.

Speaker 64 Only a Canadian would find something utterly reprehensible in Tarzan's naked displays of strength and brute force.

Speaker 60 And only a Canadian would look long and hard at Superman and conclude, he's one of us.

Speaker 95 Listen.

Speaker 41 Any bank in the United States, meaning Superman, is at a place below the border where the expectation is he will use his gifts for his own selfish ends.

Speaker 82 The superhero who puts his community first stands for peace, order, and good government.

Speaker 55 The forest, clearly referring to anything below the 49th parallel.

Speaker 1 But P

Speaker 1 stayed in the city

Speaker 1 and kept on changing clothes and dirty old phone booths till his work was through.

Speaker 1 And nothing to do but go home home.

Speaker 63 He stayed in the city working out of decrepit phone booths because he believed super strength and superpowers ought to be deployed on behalf of the public good.

Speaker 70 When I see Superman, I think

Speaker 36 he's a Paw Patrol character.

Speaker 74 Before we got hooked on Paw Patrol, my daughter and I watched Minnie's Bow Toons, equally absurdly popular short cartoons about a small business run by a Minnie Mouse and her best friend and maybe lover, I'm unclear on that, Daisy Duck, devoted to selling bows, a boutique.

Speaker 70 And yes, the theme song is as good as you might imagine.

Speaker 73 Every episode of Botoons also begins with a problem, which the episode resolves through Minnie's ingenuity and persistence.

Speaker 78 That gives me an idea.

Speaker 73 But who is the beneficiary of Minnie's ingenuity?

Speaker 74 Minnie is.

Speaker 81 Minnie and her considerable business interests.

Speaker 79 There is no community in Minnie Mouse's bow toons, no civic obligations.

Speaker 51 There is only the profit that ensues to Minnie and her shareholders. There's no business like bow business.

Speaker 64 All of this made me think that the first lines of Saul Bellows' novel.

Speaker 75 The adventures of Auggie March, maybe the most famous opening sentence in all of American literature.

Speaker 38 Quote, I am an American, Chicago-born, Chicago that somber city, and go at things as I have taught myself, freestyle, and will make the record in my own way, first to knock, first admitted, sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent, unquote.

Speaker 36 That's Minnie Mouse in a nutshell.

Speaker 74 Minnie is American, Disney-born. Minnie is for Minnie.

Speaker 38 Minnie is about life, liberty, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Speaker 58 But do you know the dirty little secret about Saul Bellow?

Speaker 74 He was a Canadian.

Speaker 10 And I wouldn't be surprised if, in an earlier version of Augie March, Saul Bellow admitted to the truth of his birthright.

Speaker 55 I am a Canadian, Toronto-born, Toronto that clean and tidy city, and we go at things as I have been taught by the civic institutions of my municipality.

Speaker 63 Through cooperation and interagency task forces first to respond first to apologize always an innocent knock

Speaker 22 angus fletcher genius in residence made lots of very good points but did he deal with the elephants in the room tarzan mini mouse salbello he did not i'm simply saying that i'm understanding where this notion, the notion of the new comedy is so implicit in the Canadian national narrative.

Speaker 82 That's what it is.

Speaker 31 There are no real problems in Canada.

Speaker 73 Canada is this oasis.

Speaker 83 We're surrounded by countries with real problems.

Speaker 62 Not Canada.

Speaker 83 We don't pick fights with people.

Speaker 62 We don't have racism. We welcome immigrants.

Speaker 84 We have national health care.

Speaker 85 Canada is the embodiment of the promise of the new comedy.

Speaker 16 Every problem can be simply addressed through some interagency task force, right?

Speaker 85 So my daughter is just getting a, she's just getting a little bit of Canadian propaganda.

Speaker 11 That's how I would read it.

Speaker 52 Angus said the Paw Patrol's problem was that it was vacuous agon. Paw Patrol's weakness was that it constantly presented its little viewers with a problem solved at the moment of its presentation.

Speaker 22 But when I look around me at the world, all I can say is, I don't know.

Speaker 25 I could use a little more vacuous agon in my life right now.

Speaker 64 A world where there is a puppy optimized for every kind of peril, where help arrives at the very moment it is summoned, where the heroes work not to benefit themselves but the community in which they live.

Speaker 36 Where the definition of a superman is someone who turns down the opportunity to rob every bank and instead toils on behalf of his countrymen.

Speaker 13 As a fantasy, an aspiration to plant in my daughter's head here and now,

Speaker 63 that doesn't sound too bad.

Speaker 71 Whatever there is album, on adventure day.

Speaker 71 Robert is the team of cups. We'll go and see today.

Speaker 71 Marshall, Robo, Chase, Rocky, Zoo, and Sky.

Speaker 72 Momento, popular.

Speaker 23 Revisionist History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and Ben Nadaf Haffrey.

Speaker 45 Our editor is Karen Shikurji.

Speaker 32 Fact-checking by Sam Russik.

Speaker 23 Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence.

Speaker 70 Mixing and mastering by Echo Mountain.

Speaker 25 Production support from Luke Lamon.

Speaker 3 Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.

Speaker 16 Special thanks to Sarah Nix and El Hefe, Greta Kong.

Speaker 31 I'm Malcolm Gladwell.

Speaker 58 My daughter made this whole episode possible.

Speaker 68 Get ad-free episodes of Revisionist History by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm slash plus.

Speaker 68 Pushkin Plus subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows.

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