Thinking Sideways: The Truth about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Stories. We're happy holidays, everybody from thinking sideways as always.
I am Steve, joined by my lovely ho co host
and Devin. I don't know you were just pointing to him.
I thought I wasn't lovely any No, no, you're You're

(00:37):
lovely and married. Your little elf had because it's the holiday.
Since since it's that happy time of year, we decided that,
in our tradition of investigating stories about the holidays, that
we look into the story of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

(00:57):
That's that's a big mystery. This, by the way, was
a listener suggestion was suggested by now just kidding. Yeah,
if you somehow aren't familiar with the story of Rudolph,
here is the story of Rudolph. You know Dasher and

(01:22):
Dancer and Francer and pix Comic and Cupid and Donner
and Blitz. But do you recall the most famous reindeer
of all, Rudolph the red Nosed Reindeer had a very

(01:42):
shining nose, and if you ever saw it, you would
even say it close. All of the other reindeers used
to lat them call him names. They never let or
Rudolf joining in. They reindeer games. Then one foggy christ

(02:07):
Mussy Saven came to say, Rudolf with your nose, So, Brian,
want you guide my slage in nine? Then how the
reindeer loved him? As they shot it out with glee,
Rudolf the red nosed reindeer, you go down in his story. Now,

(02:36):
I think you know the story Rudolf, though. The question
is how did he come to be and why does
his nose glow? And each of us has done a
little research. We've kind of gone out and got our
own theories as to where where where all this comes
from their widely diversion, they kind of are. I personally

(02:57):
believe that I've gotten to the bottom of the story.
He helped okay, okay, And I think the whole thing
starts with Santa. Yeah, okay. So we all think that
Santa is We all know that Santa is the good
guy who takes toys to the good girls and boys.
But I also I personally believe that Santa is a

(03:17):
bit of a mad scientist, and I think that's how
this happened. In my extremely cursory investigation into genetic manipulation,
I think I figured out how this happened. Yeah, Santa. Santa. Actually,
you know, um was pretty pretty busy one day of

(03:39):
the year, but after that he had a lot of
time in his hands, exactly to kill time old laboratory.
So I personally think that Santa made Rudolf, and I think, well,
Santa is a master of genetic manipulation, and he luded
some unsuspect acting reindeer into his lab, probably with a

(04:03):
handful of grass cart or something, and then once he
got the little guy in there, he started the process
of creating his own glowing reindeer. So now you're saying
that Rudolph's snows glowed, that Rudolph glowed overall. Let me
let me go, let me, let me finish this, and
then you'll get an idea. The first step was in this,

(04:27):
you know, this bioengineering of a reindeer, was to introduce
traits of a creature that is known as a new
to break. I'm sorry, what a new to break? New
to branks. This is a big science e word. New
braanks are a member of the family of new to Bronchia,

(04:48):
which their soft bodied moss basically slugs. They have this awesome,
awesome ability to incorporate certain bits of biology from creatures
that they consume into their bodies. Why didn't we develop
that That would be kind of cool. I know that'll

(05:09):
be eating lions all the time and stuff. Here's well,
here's what they do is, there's there's a certain new
to break which is called the sea swallow, and it
feeds on the Portuguese man war, which you know, is
a jellyfish with nasty, nasty stingers. It eats them. It
incorporates the stinger and the toxin into itself, so it

(05:32):
is dangerous to other creatures that try to eat it.
So it's Kirby got it. Yeah, Yeah, that's exactly Okay.
From there, Santa, again, being the super scientist that he is,
figured out how to introduce angels glow into the animal system.

(05:55):
And Angels glow is I'm gonna destroy this, but it
is a photo hob dress luminescent creature. I believe that
might be how you say it, that could be correct
as well. Angels glow back is a bacteria that is bioluminescent.
So this is where I'm getting the glowing part in.

(06:17):
There's actually accounts of soldiers in the Civil War getting
this bacteria into their wounds and the wounds would glow
at night, and oddly enough, it had kind of an
anti bacterial effect on the wounds, so it helps sterilize him,
which is an awesome side effect. How could bacteriaioaziness to

(06:42):
other bacteria? Again, this is Santa who figured this out,
and not on you. I don't know how, but what
he's doing is that he's introducing this into their food.
And because they've gone to this this trade of the
what was that little guy All the angels glow? No, no, no, no,

(07:03):
the sea swallow. Sorry, not the angels glows. The bacteria.
The sea swallow is the critter that was incorporated into
said reindeer, The poor little guy you lured in and
from there created a glowing reindeer. Now, the great thing
is the reindeer don't globe all the time because he
only needs him to glow it a little bit of
the year at a time, one day. Yes, so we

(07:23):
didn't feed it this thing the whole time. But that's
how he gets a reindeer that glows. So I'm saying
the whole reindeer is glowing, not just the nose. Rudolph.
By the way, I don't think it's a single reindeer,
because unless we're gonna say he's a magical reindeer, reindeer
lived like ten or twenty years, so I'm guessing that
because he's a master manipulation, he's also cloning said reindeer,

(07:45):
so he's probably either that he's just created this master
race of glowing reindeer. But yeah, essentially, yeah, you don't
what is the head shade? No? No, I mean okay, yes, yes, yes,
Rudolph's nose glows by bio woman at that's that's that
much is clear. Okay that I am in line with

(08:05):
you that the nose is biouminescent, but not the rest
of the reindeer. No, he's obviously an alien. Okay, Okay,
here's listen. Okay, obviously like, no, he wasn't engineered. He
It makes a lot of sense because he can fly right,
and his nose is bioluminescent, and we don't have mammals
that have evolved to have bioluminescent parts on Earth, but

(08:29):
on other planets there would be the necessity for that potentially. Listen,
you don't know, have you been to another planet? Do
you know? Yeah? I actually haven't. Unfortunately, there you go,
so you just have to do the math. I mean really,
like really, there are a lot of alien sightings around
their UFO sightings around the North Pole, just like do
the math people. Aliens are among us in the form

(08:49):
of Rudolph. I'm sorry you laughing at my like very
well done research right now? Are you sure because you
look like your laugh I'm laughing at the idea about
the research. Oh okay, so wait, but I can prove it.
Do you remember last year we talked about Santa and
we talked about how it became clear through lots of

(09:11):
analysis that we didn't do that we stole from other people,
that uh, really he's just using quantum mechanics to like
make it to all the different houses. I think I
feel like we kind of agreed that that was what
was happening, right Well, no, actually I said it was magic. Okay,
well you were wrong. Where do you think Santa found
all of the quantum mechanics science? Like really, where do

(09:33):
you think, like do you think he just like I
was like, oh, suddenly I know how to use quantum mechanics. No,
Rudolph gave it to him, obviously. The talking reindeer with
the bioluminescent knows. That's why Santa was like, oh, hey,
I can't figure out how to do any of this.
It's foggy. I can't do anything. And then Rudolph was like, oh, hey, hey,
you know what, actually, remember how I'm I'm an alien. Cool,

(09:55):
let's do this, and he helped him. But wouldn't it
would actually make more sense for Rudolph to help him
just engineer like a heads up display, like a fluor display,
like forward looking for red. Despite the fact that Rudolph
is an alien, he's still a reindeer. Do you know
he flies, He doesn't need to like do a heads

(10:18):
up display. He can just be like, oh hey yeah,
no attach it, like, we'll just fly. That's cool. I'll
use my bioluminescent knows to like see through the fog,
no problem, and then you use your quantum mechanics to
get us there even faster. I feel like that's a
win win. It's obviously, are you I'm sorry? Is that
that's a look of disapproval? Yeah, Joe, you're the one

(10:39):
given the funny look. Oh I don't know, I that
bioluminescent knows. Obviously it is true though, right, I mean,
Steve and I Steve and I we agree on that.
I mean, of course, if he was an alien, most
of the planets that, like any alien would come from,
would probably be darker than ours. There are hundreds, if

(10:59):
not thous if not millions, of habitable, life supporting planets
in this universe right obviously that are in the Goldilock zone.
Obviously he knows how to fly, or he can fly,
or he has whatever quantum mechanics himself to fly. He

(11:20):
can help Santa fly much faster, so they could travel
from the far reaches of the universe. As he's an alien,
he doesn't age. He doesn't have the natural age restrictions
of the normal reindeer, which he said was ten twenty years. Yeah. Yeah,
obviously he's outlived that. So he's nearly immortal then, yeah,
pretty much. Yeah, that's making a lot of advances in

(11:40):
human aging too. I mean, it might be some of
our descenters will have to be two three years old. Yeah.
So I'm just saying, obviously he's an alien. Case in
point I like case closed. Really, well, have you consider
the possibility that perhaps he's his origins were actually terrestrial,
but that he was abducted by aliens and modified No,
I didn't because no, No, there's a lot of there's

(12:02):
a lot of a big, huge body of research on
that particular theory. Yeah, exactly. I actually didn't find any
of that, which is interesting. I just I was really
just two and two together to kind of have to
find that, ye kind of have to look in the
dark corners of my mind. Oh, there's lots of research
on the Internet of Joe's mind. Yeah, got it. Okay,

(12:25):
Well this is why both of your theories suck. I'm
gonna tell you all right to answer the question of
why why did his nose glow? All? The answer is
it didn't glow. It's a myth. Yeah, yeah, let me explain.
I'm sorry. Are you saying that Rudolph Is is a myth? Uh? No,
Rudolf was real, Rudoff. Rudolf actually did exist. He might

(12:46):
still be alive for all I know. Yeah, So let's
go back to the beginning. Um. He was born into
a respectable Northpole reindeer family. Dating the year of birth unknown.
Rudolph was a sickly child. As he grew older, he
became somewhat book is, being a bit of a weakling
and also being good at school. Didn't really earn him
any friends or allies. So you're saying he was a

(13:07):
rangeer equivalent of a nerd. I kind of like that.
Did you wear glasses? That's unknown? Yeah, he might have
worn context, well anyway, spent context. Yeah, speaking of allies,
it would be so hard to put in your eye
getting getting him back out of so I wanted to

(13:29):
put a couple of this to rest, So I talked
about friends. There. There was a nineteen sixty four document
around Rudolf's life which first introduced this claim that Rudolf
eight friends with a young elf named Hermie. Yeah. Have
you seen that film? Yeah? A million times. Yeah, it's
a hard hitting documentary, it is. It is, Yeah, but
a lot of journalistic malpractice here though. Frankly, that so

(13:52):
Hermie that the alf dreamed of becoming a dentist. Yeah,
yeah exactly. I mean now els eat Elvin food, which
does not cost two. You'd don't need dentists up at
the North Pole. The candy, Yeah, no, they don't need candy.
That's for kids. It's because they secretly hate him humans
and they want to rock their teeth out. But you know,
if if he had to exceed it in getting into

(14:13):
dental school and good luck with that, losers, since they're
aren'ty dal schools at the North Pole. He would have
had a pretty lonely professional life, and he would have
had to have shut it his business after the first
month or so and go to work in the night
shift at the plaid pantry. They have plaid pantries up there.
I thought that was a local change. Yeah, and I
think they called something else up there, but yeah, yeah,

(14:34):
similar things. But yeah, Hermie, if he had ever existed,
would have been toiling away in Santa's sweatshops. And it's
really unlikely he and Rudolph would ever even have met.
And also because Reindeer carried the tix of cause lime
disease els generally gave them a wide berth So yeah,
so no Hermie. But and the Hermie thing is not
the only bit of bs Thatt the so called documentary

(14:56):
introduced into the whole Rudolph story. The film itself was
an ready boy, a girl, a guy named Burl Ives
now Burl Eyes was a singer. He was not a
reporter or a journalist in any way, shape or form,
And tell you, tell you, to tell you the three guys.
It's hard to take anything that calls itself a documentary. Seriously,
what it's not hosted by someone like Heroldo Rivera. I mean, really, guys,

(15:17):
take better take better care in your personnel choices next time.
But you think okay, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, I mean.
Another big lie that these jokers put out in this
film is that the Yetti also knows the abominable Snowman.
Remember that. Yeah, he he was just yeah, he was
just misunderstood that he was actually really pretty cool once

(15:39):
he guys aching tooth fixed by that fictitious self named
hermi Uh. In reality, Leaghetti is a vicious eight hundred
pound monster that'll tear your head off and make the
rest of you into jerky ash Yeah, and he'll just,
like you know, suddenly appear in the middle of a
platinum pyramid. Was a platorm pyramid? Yeah exactly? Yeah, yeah,

(16:01):
I guy you want to run into But thanks of
these jokers that made this what's the word I'm thinking
of execrable execrable film, The myth of the Benevolent Yetti
lives on, and every year, without fail, at least a
couple of tourists wind up getting their faces torn off
when they get out of their cars to feed the
nice yetti. So, folks, take my word for it. This
no such thing as a nice yetti. Al right, okay,

(16:21):
and one last thing and then I'll then I'll get
off my high horse here. They also claimed that there's
a place called the Island of Misfit Toys and that
Rudolphin heard me, went to this island. And this is
also again pure bs. Uh. You can't find this island
on Google Maps, right, you can't walk around street view. Yeah,
now I looked, I checked out. Yeah I did, you know,

(16:45):
and and no it's not there. And that's my second
big thing. It's like, seriously, who exactly transports these misfit
toys to this island? And doesn't that strike you as
an amazing waste of time and energy? Yeah? I mean
I guess the dump is a pretty good alternate, would
be a lot closer. Yeah, so childhood they're just But anyway,

(17:13):
there really actually is already a place for misfit toys
to go to, and it's called the Goodwill and they'll
pick up probably heard of it, then pick up they
pick up even better. Yeah, you don't even have to
go there. They'll pick up for you yeah, episode sponsored
why I'm kidding, Yeah, sponsored by Goodwill. But yeah, yeah,
maybe this Island of Misfit Toys was a metaphor for

(17:33):
the dump for the good Will of the basement. But
you know, I think it should go with that's saying
that metaphors don't belong in documentaries, right, I don't know
if I'm the savaging this week sees of a film.
Let's get back to Rudolph and let's talk about his
real story. Okay, yeah, please, ye, So I got off
of the weeds that I apologize. Uh So, anyway, I

(17:54):
owe a good deal of my analysis here to Professor
Haunts Morgan thou of the University of Munich at Doosel Door,
who is one of the world's most famous Christmas Ologists
and the leading authority on Rudolph's I think I've read
a couple of his books, Yeah, and very interesting. They're quick,
they're quick, but really weighty read. So a lot of
the stuff about a story is kind of true that

(18:14):
we know about. Rudolph was indeed pretty much low man
on the totem pool at school, but not because of
his nose, which didn't glow and which wasn't read except
when he was having one of his outbreaks of cystic acting. Yeah,
and now, but he was a little man because he
was scrawling and nerdy, and he got good grades. It's
true that the other reindeer laughed at him and called
him names, and it's also true that they excluded him

(18:35):
from the reindeer games, but one a lot. It was
beyond that. They regularly vandalized this locker with dear Yarine.
They were constantly giving him wedges, and at least once
a month, if not more, there was at least one
humiliating pantsing out the schoolyard. Doesn't matter, Yeah, it kind of,
does it. Yeah, Then when foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came

(18:59):
to say, Rudolph with your nose so bright, Well, you
know that's not what happened, Not what happened at all. Rudolph,
as you can imagine, was a little bit bitter and
and so he decided he was going to spoil some
people's Christmas. So he he cultured himself some e coli,
and he went down to the Beacon brew on the
east side of Christmas Town, where reindeer families tended to congregate,

(19:21):
especially around the holidays. And so for the two days
before Christmas Eve, he dusted the salad bowl with e coli.
And he wanted to spoil this fellow reindeers and classmates
Christmas by making sure they were sick as dogs and
and yeah, sick as sick as reindeer, I guess so,

(19:43):
so it succeeded. It wanted what a little beyond is
his hopes, and he actually sickened about the reindeer population
of Christmas Town, which left Santa short of labor on
Christmas Eve, so that the weather that day was not foggy,
it was clear and cold, but Santa was short one deer,
and so he didn't come to Rudolphin's and say, with

(20:04):
your nose so bright, will you guide my slay a night.
He just basically said, Rudolph, with my team all sick, yeah,
and so sue rude. He didn't get to He did
not guide the slag He was actually he was actually
were were and on the right, and he didn't get that.

(20:25):
He didn't get the really choice position at the front. Yeah,
And unfortunately for Rudolph, it it did. Actually the it
earned him a little grudging admiration from the other reindeer,
but it was only short lived and pretty soon they
were back to their sick reindeer games and tormenting poor
Rudolph again. So after after that his foray into into
guiding and not guiding helping to pull santas slagh, a

(20:48):
little time went by it eventually some forensic work was done.
It was and they managed to figure out that Rudolph
was actually the guy behind the poisoning. And I don't
think I mentioned that besides a lot of people getting sick,
several reindeer died from leally kills people and he kills reindeer. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(21:09):
yeah it does. And yeah, after all this came out,
Santa Santa scratched his head and decided it would be
a good idea to put Rudolf and trap for murder
since he killed several reindeer. And he took it to
the eleven d a's office and they pointed out that
since he's people who died or the reindeer died were

(21:30):
not humans or else, the most Rudolf could be charged,
which was poaching. Yeah, Rudolf lawyer up his his attorney
worked to deal with prosecutor's office and he wind up
pleading guilty to two counts of first degree poaching and
one kind of hunting without a license. He served a
little over a year in the PAN and when he
got out he changed his name when he moved to

(21:51):
present Burg, which is a seedy suburb of Christmas Town. Yeah,
it's just a little ribbon town. Uh. And he was
never asked the guy at Santa Slay again for obvious
since he actually did all right, he want up owning
and operating a small chain of liquor stores, and after
that his fate is unknown. Oh and and last of all,
his nickname was not Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer. It
was Rudolph the Red for the blood on his hands.

(22:14):
So so, kids, I hope you yeah blood I suppose. Yeah.
So another heartwarming Christmas tale. Any questions, No, I don't
think I don't think there's any questions in that obviously
fantastical idea that you got there, Joe, it was pretty dumb,

(22:35):
questioning professor. I'm not going to say that I am.
What I am going to say is that for all
of our listeners, if you want to, if you're listening
to this episode on our website, which by the way,
is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com, you can always find
the shows there and all of our research links. You

(22:57):
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(23:18):
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(23:38):
got the Facebook group. Tons of people on their great conversations,
so find us, friend us, like us. All that good
Christmas jazz and uh that's that's all of that good
stuff now before well, I just gotta say, right now, Joe,
you're wrong. He was to he an alien in the

(24:01):
natural occurrence. They had tried the case like a Christmas chestnut.
They went down and done like this into the night.
Really it never seemed to stop. Happy Holidays to you
and yours from the Thinking side Ways team.