Last Looks: 12 Pups of Christmas
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When was the last time I took a road trip? How many national parks could I hit in two weeks? What about hotels? Wait.

How much am I spending on travel?

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Eat more Reese's. I mean, that combination of sweet chocolate and salty peanut butter. I mean, this is something that brings other people and ourselves joy. That's why there's two in a pack. Shop Reese's peanut butter cups now at a store near you, found wherever candy is sold, and often in my pantry because I love these.

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bas.com slash bonkers and use the code bonkers at checkout. Terrible Moms, Jingle Bell Rock, and I get into Tim Allen's The Santa Claus TV series. All this and more. People, stand by for places. It's time for Last Looks. Last Looks. Hold up, we're not done. Gotta call Paul and see what is up on the D.C.

Hello, my whispery canine therapists and my dumbass tech CEO bros. I'm your host, Paul Scheer, and welcome to How Did This Get Made? Last Looks, where you get to voice your issues on the 12 pups of Christmas. Plus, Jason and I chat about holiday movies, TV that we're currently watching, and I

I get to really go to town on this one show that we will never discuss here, but I do get to discuss with him. Plus, we will play some exclusive deleted scenes from our last episode and reveal next week's movie. And most importantly, I will hear from you, our listeners,

Paul's Helpline. But first things first, a big shout out to Dan from Rochester for that amazing opening song. We love these songs. If you have one for last looks, please send them to howdidthisgetmade at earwolf.com, but keep them short, like 15 to 20 seconds is best. All right, people, let's get into it. I know we talk a lot about movies on the show, bad movies in particular, but there are bigger things out there in the world. You got problems, let me solve them. It is now time for Paul's Helpline. ♪

This is Paul's Health Life. Can you dig it? You give him cheese and he gives us eggs. And Devin and Cody give a big egg too.

This is Paul's Health Life. 1-800-Paul-Ass-Is-It-Not-Alive. Whoa, thank you, Teddy Love Supreme. Love that song. Last week, I asked you to call in and rant about the awful gifts that you have received, and we got a ton of calls. I mean, it really sounds like some of you have incredibly shitty family members. Like, seriously, I don't know.

Listening to these calls made me angry for you. So I might say some stuff here about your family members, and I apologize in advance, but I don't like these people. Here are a few of the worst calls that we got. The best calls, the worst gifts. Kenan,

From Michigan. Hey, Paul. Keenan from Michigan here. The worst gift I ever got, it's a little bit of a long story, but my mother got me a gift and the entire month of December was sitting under the tree and every night I was allowed to

to have one guess so that I could try to narrow down and guess what my gift was. One gift, one guess a night and my parents were divorced at the time so I was only in my mom's house at the time. But it really built up this excitement. I was like 10 or 11 years old at the time. I was so excited for this gift. I thought it was going to be like an N64 or a game system or something. And Christmas Day came. I opened up the gift and

And it was a toaster. And it wasn't my toaster because we just put it in the kitchen and it stayed at my mom's house. It was just a toaster because my mom knew I liked toast. So she just got her house a toaster and gave it to me as a Christmas gift. And that was the worst gift I've ever gotten. Let me know if it was a bad one. Thank you. Bye. Kenan, I know that I said I'm going to say some terrible things about your loved ones.

And I'm going to say one right now. So please brace yourself. I know nothing about your mom and I am sure she's a wonderful person, but fuck your mom. Holy shit. That is terrible. That is like,

I mean, this is like that scene from Scrooged, a movie that I love. You'll hear more about that later. And you heard about it last week, too. Like giving food to a kid and to make it torture like that. Like you like toast. This goes into the whole sled argument. You don't get anyone a toaster. No one needs a toaster. An air fryer, maybe. OK, but oh, come on. It's not even yours.

What I find interesting about this is it's cruel. It is downright cruel. Of course you thought it was an N64. We all did.

A toaster? It's like she knew she was fucking with you. Like, that is truly next level. Like, I am, I want to go back there. And I'm thinking to myself, like, I've played games with my kids. I've done funny things with them. But that is like, it wasn't like, and then you also have an N64. It's like, no, no, no, you just have a toaster for half of the year. Fuck that. Sugar Mama's great.

All right, let's listen to Kelsey's call. Hi, Paul. My name is Kelsey. I wanted to call you to tell you about one of the worst gifts I've ever gotten, which was from my mom a few years ago. I'm an adult woman.

And my mom is a baby boomer. And what she gave me, in fact, it was after years of just not giving me any gifts at all because, like, I have kids of my own and she gets them gifts. But she just one Christmas decided that I needed a gift certificate for teeth whitening. And that was out of the blue. And quite a message I got from my mom. Okay, bye. Oh, Kelsey, that –

That's rough. That is a rough one. Honestly, because I mean, yeah, yeah. I don't even know. We all know why it's rough.

Anytime that you get something, my mom was great at doing this, getting me the things that she thought I wanted, but they became insults like, oh, you wear fun sneakers. So I got you the ugliest sneakers imaginable because isn't that what you like? Ugly sneakers. And that even is a little bit light because this is like, yo, your teeth are

They need to be cleaned. If you talked about it, it would be acceptable. But to give that out of the blue, you don't give it. You don't give a teeth whitening. Put in a stocking stuffer, maybe even that's insulting. Honestly...

Fuck that. Fuck that. These are moms. What's going on with the moms? A lot of aggression coming out of the kids. All right, let's hear from Lindsay in Virginia. Hi, Paul. This is Lindsay from Virginia. I am calling in response to your prompt for worst holiday gifts ever received.

And I don't know if I have the best one, but I think it's pretty high up there, especially on the trauma meter. A few years after college, I was with my now husband and my family unwrapping Christmas gifts and crying.

I unwrapped my own middle school diary, which I thought was kind of strange. My mom then noticed what I had opened and said, you have to read it. It's hilarious.

I still can't believe that she found and read my middle school diary, even though I was an adult at this point. And I also can't believe she thought it was a great idea to wrap it for Christmas morning. I don't know. I think it's pretty high up there for a bad gift. Hope you and June and Jason are having a good holiday season. Take care. What? What?

You can't go into your kid's room after they're an adult and then wrap something and give it to them. And she read it. And she ridiculed you for it. Wow. That is just like more of like a oof. Oof my goof. Like, first of all, terrible gift idea. Just wrapping something that you already, that is yours, that you own. And then...

The invasion of privacy. My God. Now, there could be another version of it where, you know, maybe your house had a fire or you thought it was lost and they found it. But no, it seems like it was just in your room. Man, oh man. Damn these moms. Damn them to hell. Anyway, we are always looking for more Paul's Helpline voicemails. So if you need some advice or you want a second opinion about anything, give me a call at 619-P-A-U-L-A-S-K. That's 619-Paul-Ask. I am looking for...

What you are excited to leave behind in 2022. As we go into the new year, what do you want to get off? Like, what are you excited to be like? And I'm done and I'm not going back. What are we leaving behind in 2022? Call me, tell me what we're leaving behind. 619-P-A-U-L-A-S-K. Just a heads up, people. Drop Dead Fred on vinyl.

You can only order it up until 12-21. That's right. Up until December 21st at hdtgm.bandcamp.com. If you can't remember that, just go to hdtgm.com. This is a vinyl album of the Drop Dead Fred episode remastered from the original episode lovingly remastered. It's a double album. It has gatefolds. All the good has gatefolds.

You know what I'm talking about. They have a side that you can display that's Team Sanity, Team Fred. We're so excited. But once 12-21 comes, you can't order it anymore. This probably will come in May or April, depending. We have a lot of orders, so we're going to make a lot of albums. But that's it. One time. That's it. One printing. And you got it. And if you want to give it to someone as a stocking stuffer or a gift, you get a nice little PDF that you can...

Basically print out and give to your loved ones. Also, if you are listening right now and it is this weekend, I mean, what weekend is this? I would say it's the weekend of...

December 16th and 17th, Rob Hubel and I are hosting a live show on Twitch streaming to 1.5 million people. It's called Celebrity Yard Sale. And we are getting rid of celebrities junk. They're going to come on the show. They're going to sell their shit. And we are going to give away a brand new car. That's right. Go to twitch.com.

But you know what? You can just go to the front page Twitch because we will be there live 6 to 8 on Friday, 4 to 6 on Saturday. Caitlin Olsen will be there. Nicole Byer, Carl Tartt, Jerry O'Connell, Rob Riggle.

Kamau Nanjiani, David Wayne, June Diane Raphael. It is going to be a blast. Ben Lee is going to do a musical performance. People, it's going to be a big, big show. Now, before we get to your corrections and omissions on the 12 Pups of Christmas episode, we thought we would share a fun deleted scene from that very podcast. You see, um...

I almost didn't make it to San Francisco. I came extremely close to missing my flight. And this is the story of how my life got turned, done, flipped upside down. Sit back, relax, and hear the story of how I missed my flight from LAX. I drove here!

Wow. I may have to go back with you because I forgot my license. Oh, God. And I had to convince the TA. A frantic text from Paul Scheer. I'm driving. I'm like, do-do-do-do-do, having a great time. Have you left yet? I left my wallet at home.

And I was like, what? He lives close enough to me that I was like, oh, if you were to go to LAX, you could probably just make a five-minute loop out. But you made it. I made it. I was able to talk to the TSA agent. I luckily remembered the last three addresses I had, one from 2000, which was a little tough to remember. No way. I could never do it. It was so hard. And he's like, you don't remember your address? I was like...

Bro, 2000. I was living with like eight people. I don't even remember. That's 22 years ago, my guy. That is a college junior. And then he shook his head. You're asking me to remember the specifics of a college junior? Come on, man. He literally shook his head and was like, zip code? I was like, never. Never will I get that. I love that he thought at least you'll get the zip code. What? What?

From 22 years ago? I don't know the zip code from the town I grew up in. He asked me my dad's year of birth, not just his birthday. No. Luckily, I have it in my phone. This is amazing. Yeah, I have it. What an incredible series of questions. Yeah, it was a real... There was another guy away who was... Like, he was the conduit. Anyway, I'm here. Tomorrow getting home might be tricky. All right, so...

I wasn't going to miss this because... That's right, San Francisco. We're not going to give up on you. We could have given up. We could have canceled the show. And we said no. Paul punched that TSA agent in the face, ran down, opened the door...

And I said, you fly me to San Francisco. Don't ask any questions. I kept the pilot in headlock. I will be suffering a lot of charges for it, but they let me out for the show. That's how we roll. And we got to get to San Francisco. That's right. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce somebody who is part of the reason why we're doing this movie tonight. A person who's going to have a lot to say. My other co-host, June Diane Raphael. Positively bounding.

Bounding onto the stage. Wow. I just have to say, Paul, I did suggest that you FedEx overnight your identification to get home tomorrow. And you said, nah. Now that I know the address is I'm set. Exactly. And I'm like, are you ever going to come home? We'll see. We'll see. Do you live in San Francisco now? Oh, wow.

He's a real rice-a-roady, that San Francisco treat. I need, if I figured out if I was able to crash on everybody's couch here one night, I can live here for a couple years. Paul and I get on the flight, and we are barely on that plane. I mean, they came over, they said we're closing the doors, he barely got on the flight, and then both of us, so people are sort of witnessing, yeah. I want you to know, if I showed up at the airport...

Without my license, they are not going to ask me, what's your dad's birthday or what zip code did you grow up in? I would currently be in an LAX holding facility. That's right. You'd be in a camp of some sort. I'd be in an internment camp of some kind. Yes, yes.

So we're kind of taking a breath, but people are very aware because I've been talking to the flight attendants. Paul is running on. The flight attendants are talking. He got on. So we're sort of, we're a spectacle on the flight. People notice us, you know, and the first thing that we do, now Paul's sitting directly in front of me, before we take off is each of us opened up our computer and turned on 12 Pups of Christmas. I was thinking about those other passengers, like...

What a show. What a show. They're watching a show of like, whoa, the chaotic energy of the two last people who are freaking out. Oh, no, she was there like 40 minutes before I was. Comfortably seated. I was there, but I was talking to flight attendants getting an ETA on when those doors are closing, saying he just passed their security. He's running. Please, is there any way you can hold it?

please, please, please, 12 minutes. Okay, and she said, really just 10 and I told you 12. Yeah. So I was lying to him, you know, a lot was going on.

A lot was going on. I didn't want you to give up. Ten would have felt like I couldn't have done it. And I knew that. That's why I gave you two more. You needed those extra two. Psychologically, you needed those extra two. June is like the pet therapist in this movie. You knew. Aaron? June is Aaron? I couldn't believe it. I mean, really, I have this little...

I don't know, it's a Merce or whatever. I call it a bandolier. It's a fanny pack that I don't wear as a fanny pack. And that thing, I leave it too many places because I forget about it anyway. God damn it. It's the worst.

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Anyway, last week we talked at length about the 12 pups of Christmas. We had questions and we thought that we answered everything, but clearly we missed a few things. Here is your chance to set us straight. Fact check us if you will. It is time for corrections and omissions. Questions and omissions.

Thank you, Joe Foster, for that great theme. Let's go to the Discord. Jdubs writes, the company's product, a GPS collar, was inspired to stop dog napping. If you were dog napping a dog, wouldn't the first thing you do just remove the collar? Jdubs. Fuck yeah. Especially if it was as large as like a...

Like a computer battery from the 1980s. Yeah, you would just take that right off. Great point. Can't believe we missed that. I guess because there were so many other implausibilities that we just didn't even catch that one. ASG1982 writes, if your company was on the verge of bankruptcy,

How would you feel about giving some dog therapist who has just hired a penthouse at a hotel in New York for multiple nights? This is after she was given a first class plane ticket, all for a meeting that was completely unrelated to her job. Yeah. Where are the board of investors? Who is behind this company? This company will fail even with proper tech.

Dr. Guts 1003 writes, Martin says the investor meeting is on Christmas Eve, which means that Martin then makes all of his employees come to his house on Christmas Day to tell him that daddy bailed him out. I know Carly said the employees of Doggone were a family, but I think these people would rather be with their actual families on Christmas Day. Now, Scott actually pointed out.

Anyway...

made for TV holiday movie bosses, and I'm going to say actually even movie bosses, need to get their shit together and let their employees spend Christmas and Christmas Eve at home. This is not fucking Scrooge here. Christmas Carol style. Salvador Dolly Parton, I love that name, writes, I was glad that you talked about the cult mid-summer vibes, but did anyone else get the Theranos, the dropout vibes? Oh yeah, we did. My question is, who would you rather go on a double date with? Aaron or Martin or Elizabeth Holmes and Sonny Bolwani circa...

2014. Oh, wow. Aaron or Martin for me. Aaron or Martin for me because I think that they're weirder, oddly, which is a weird thing to say. Anyway, I think Elizabeth Holmes kept her shit tight. Like, you didn't know how crazy she was until later. I think in retrospect, she's crazy.

Who knows? Anyway, let's go to the phone. All right. Our first caller is Todd from Portland. What do you got, Todd? Hi, Paul. This is Todd from Portland. I had a question about 12 Pups of Christmas. When I watched it, well, I accidentally watched 12 Dogs of Christmas before the podcast, which is another terrible...

terrible 90s kids movie involving dogs. But then I realized I watched the wrong movie when I started the podcast and then I had to go watch this movie. But in 12 Pups of Christmas, there's a scene where the main character, Aaron, is rushing off to work and she's surrounded by the chaos of all the dogs in the house and her friend Taylor shows up to the door to apologize for taking Aaron's fiance. And so Aaron punishes Taylor by making Taylor take care of all the dogs and she rushes off the door to work and saying, oh, that dog needs to go to the bathroom already. Better watch out.

So my question is, what were Erin's plans before Taylor showed up? She had all of those dogs in the house and she was rushing off to work. She doesn't cancel any dog sitters when Taylor shows up or change any plans. She just leaves. So what was she going to do with all those dogs? Just let them crap and pee all over the house? Thanks, Paul. Keep up the good work.

Good point. Again, we don't know. I'm guessing the family would take care of it or maybe a kennel or maybe she was content with letting those puppies pee on the floor. I mean, at that point, you're not training them. So maybe she would just put down doggy pads. It felt like it again. We know that Aaron is vindictive and wants to hurt people. So I think that she gave her ex best friend a really hard job, not because she's.

she was going to do it just because she knew it would be hard. Like it was like, Oh, you know what? While you're here, why don't you fix the garbage disposal? You know, it's like, I wasn't going to do it anyway, but now you're here. I'm going to, I'm going to give you some manual labor. So I think that was like a fuck you punishment that just kind of happened in the moment. I don't think it was as thought out as she actually had responsibilities. I think that Aaron doesn't care about dogs as we stated, and was going to leave them to just waddle on their own piss and shit. Jenny.

Colin, next. What do you got? Hi, Paul. I'm Jenny. I was at the San Francisco show to see the 12 Pops of Christmas. It was a lot of fun. I really admired your tech skills and action. Basically, I noticed something weird about the movie, like...

Not like everything was super weird in that movie. But Taylor had a really easy time just finding where Aaron was staying in the belly. And then when Aaron was in New York, Travis also found her quite easily at the hotel she was staying at. I was wondering, do you think that Aaron had a tracker on her? Just wondering. Thank you so much. You're great, and I love the show. Bye.

Oh, goddamn right. You know...

You know that Aaron is being tracked. I think this is where the sister's coming in. I think the sister's like, you know what? I've done my research on her. I want to figure it all out. I think that she knew, and this is where we're getting into the nitty gritty of it. Like Aaron did accept this job before she broke up with her fiance or he broke up with her. So maybe it was spoken about and then she went there and then talked to that woman at the front desk who seems to be giving out information willy nilly to everybody. I'm just going to guess that that's actually just really bad corporate structure there that they give out.

people's personal information to whoever asks. All right, back to the Discord. Aaron Rene writes, omission that had me yelling at my phone like a lunatic. You played clips of the cult party where Aaron was welcomed into a new family. The music playing was Jingle Bells. Aaron hears it and loudly says, I know this song. Uh, yeah, as do most preschoolers.

Shit, I didn't even get that. I didn't even get that. You are blow. Everybody's observations are spot on. I love it. I know that song. Jeez, this is great. Shauna and Risa, right?

Right before Martin heads to jail, he tells Erin, I trust you and you got this, assuring her that he thinks that she can save the company. But immediately after she gets out of jail and a tearful Erin explains that what happened, Martin doesn't give a fuck. Why doesn't Martin care? Because he found a different investor while she was failing, implying that he didn't think she could do it. I mean, he must have thought to himself on the way to jail. Well, now we're fucked. I better find another investor because she's definitely going to screw things up. Well, that or he was double dipping. He was like, well, look,

I'll give you a chance to invest if this other thing falls through. You want to be number two? I mean, not the best thing to say to somebody investing in your company, but maybe again, this guy got ahead by, you know, a limited supply, you know, and that gives you high demand. Is that what is that a thing? I don't know. Cameron H. writes, one of the weirdest things to me about this film was that it seemed to posit that you cannot own a dog unless one is presented to you.

We get a little bit of backstory of the people that are gifted puppies, and they're all suitably thankful, but there was never anything stopping these people from simply going to a shelter and getting a dog. Yet they all act like they've never even considered it before, as if the idea of getting a dog themselves or ownership of a dog is beyond human comprehension. Well, guess what?

I brought that up. I talked about that when they gift that that puppy to the parents who can't have kids. Like, why were we presenting this as if we don't know where to get a dog? I think I did talk about that, Cameron, unless Scott edited it out. But I don't think he did because it's a salient point. Anyway, we have one more deleted scene. This is actually really fun. We had an audience member who had a correction.

an additional piece of information from the Great Wall episode with Matt Damon. Now, she waited to present this until we were in San Francisco. She came. So if you remember Great Wall of China, it was a movie with Matt Damon doing an accent that changed from scene to scene and Jackie Chan. It was about defending the Great Wall of China from these like Cloverfield monsters, the Toi Tai. And...

We made some fun of it. It was a little weird. We didn't understand all about it, but we did have an actual Chinese art historian show up in San Fran and she gave us the facts. Take a listen. All right. So you said to me, I have some information about the Matt Damon movie, The Great Wall. It will be worth it.

So I'm not putting you in the main show, I'm putting you here. Is it worth it? Come to me, come to me, here we go. Is it worth it? Is it worth it? What do you know? And again, reminder, we may not all remember this movie, so set us up the best way you can with this information, okay. - The monsters from the Great Wall of China movie with Matt Damon. - Yes, these monsters are like these green creatures, yeah. - They're called the taotie, which you called tau-tee. - Okay. - Tau-tie. - Okay, so, okay. - They're a real thing.

These monsters are real? No. I was confused when you said it was a real thing. Okay. They're a real ancient Chinese art history motif found on every single ancient bronze in China since 1000 BCE. Perfect. And...

Being on bronzes, they have now gotten a patina, which means they're all green. Okay. So they were bronze, now they're green, and that's why they're green. But back then they would be bronze. Yes. Okay. So the monsters themselves are like the taotie, where they have big eyes on the side, tusks that go like this, and horns. Uh-huh.

But they're not a real monster. They're just an ancient motif that no one understands. So they're just like a velvet Elvis or something like that. They're just... All right, so they were an imagination. All right, so this is... Was it worth it? I got a tattoo recently because I'm a Chinese art historian. You are a Chinese art... Well, look at this. Whoa, beautiful. I can't... I don't have a camera. It's like David Copperfield. I can't show it up there, but it's beautiful. The microphone does not work like that, but... All right.

It was worth it. That was good. We love Chinese art history majors coming in, setting us straight. That is amazing. I am so happy she came. I'm so happy that we got some old fact checks. If you come to the show and you have a fact check like that, I'll take them before the show because if they're good, we'll put them in the show.

So many great corrections and omissions this week. There can only be one that is the absolute best. And I gotta tell you, should I give it to the person who actually waited on their Great Wall information for a long time? Maybe. But honestly, the one that got me, the one that really opened my eyes...

was from Erin Renee, who brought up that Erin was so excited that she knew the lyrics to Jingle Bells. Erin Renee, you win this week's best correction and omission, and you get this amazing song from Hill Baker. Hit it! ♪

All right, if you want to chime in with your own thoughts about the latest episode, hit up the Discord at discord.gg slash hdtgm or call us at 619-P-A-U-L-A-S-K. Coming up, Jason and I chat about all the holiday TV and movies that we are currently watching. We'll be right back.

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You might have noticed on the How Did This Get Made feed that every Monday we have been pulling old episodes out of the vault and re-releasing them into the rotation. You get to listen to these classics. And last week's Matinee Monday was The Spirit of Christmas, a great episode with Jessica Sinclair. Next week will be Reindeer Games, which is, I mean, if you don't know the revelation about Reindeer Games, get ready. Check it out every Monday, old episodes back into the stream. And

And Reindeer Games with Howard Kramer is one of my favorite episodes. Okay, we have spent a lot of time hearing from you, but now no one has asked me about me. What's on my mind? Jason and I are going to break into some big Christmas talk. So if you're in the car with some kids, I would say...

Maybe stop listening now because there are some spoilers. We talk about a lot of things about Christmas. So, you know what? Little ears shouldn't hear the secrets that we know. Anyway, anyway.

Just want to let all the parents out there know that's your warning. And now, Tom McWatters, hit us with a theme. We're going to have ourselves a conversation. Just chat. No quarantine or vaccination. Just chat. Paul and Jason, a couple of cats. Just chat. Just chat. Just chat. Shoo-bee-doo-boo.

Jason, holidays are upon us. I love the holidays because it gives me a chance to catch up on all these things that I've been wanting to watch. It's like, it's the only time of year where I feel like I can just...

not be responsible for anything but just to watch the things I've been excited to watch. Oh, yeah. Just catch up, indulge. It's great. Wake up, watch tar. Yeah. Then eat lunch, watch tar. Tar. Then dinner, tar. Morning, noon, and night, tar. All day, tar holiday. Yeah.

That's your family's new tradition, right? The kids love it. Yeah. Every night of Hanukkah is Tar and Christmas Eve is Tarsmas Eve. Oh, we love Tarsmas Eve. It's so, I mean, it's intense. It's very intense at the house. But the kids really, they have a great time. Your kids don't believe in Santa Claus. They believe in Cate Blanchett.

And we have a little Kate on the shelf. It's like Elf on the Shelf, but it's like you got to hike Kate around. She conducts this part of the house. And sometimes it's characters. So sometimes it's Carol. Sometimes it's Tar. You know, it's Galadriel. It's weird. It's the character from the Amy Schumer movie, too. Sometimes he's very... Wait, wait. No, that's Emma Thompson. How dare you? Oh, I'm sorry. That's Tilda Swinton. I'm sorry. I've got to... You know, I got...

I kind of get confusing Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton. They have like a similar kind of from another world, ethereal energy going on. Yes. There's something about them that they are like, they are unlike a human being that we're used to. They are, they are, they are, they're glowing in a way. I will tell you, by the way, my kids right now are really quizzing us a lot about Santa. Oh yeah. From the shelf. And, and I feel like this might be,

the final year or in the final years. My youngest, oddly, doesn't believe it more. I thought, when did you stop believing? Because I feel like they're so young. I feel like I, well, you know, when I was a kid, I mean, I probably believed much later than most just because, you know, it was, I grew up in a small town. I didn't have any friends. It was not much, you know, speculated on, you know. Yeah.

So I got to be, I'm going to say I'm going to maybe nine or 10. Okay. Well, so my oldest is eight. So like, you know, that then I guess that makes my youngest is six. And my youngest keeps on saying like,

But you put the president of the tree, right? You can just tell me. You can just tell me. Oh my God. You can just tell me. And... But yet, they both don't question the elf on the shelf. Like, the elf on the shelf is moving around our house. And the elf makes total sense. The...

Santa myth is Rocky. And I will tell you, as a parent, I'm hating all these Christmas movies that...

really lead with, I know no one believes in Santa. Like, literally, that is the premise of all these movies about Santa. But I guess it's like trying to like, it's trying to like circumnavigate it. Like, and you feel it so much more as a parent. Like, an elf, which I love, and it's so fucking funny. Like, the premise of that movie is that like, Santa's power is dwindling because no one believes in him. Because people don't believe, yeah. And it's like, and I know that that has to come back and believing is coming back. But it is like, we're,

I always think that once you put that in a kid's head, like, well, why don't people believe it starts? It starts a domino effect. Like, I think that's absolutely true. Yes. No, to have that as to have that is even a possibility that Santa is to not be believed in. Even if you then provide a Santa Claus, like Ed Asner Santa Claus, it doesn't matter. Like you've set the you've set something in motion, which is like, wait a minute. As you get older, you don't believe Santa.

You know, and then like we have to like once I start asking questions and my only way to get through it is by not answering them. Yeah. Like with like one person gave me a beautiful piece of advice. She's a child psychiatrist. And she said to me, you know, we were dealing with like the death of someone in our family. And and what do we say? What do we do? And the person told us, she said, tell, you know.

Tell the truth, but don't be too, uh, don't be too specific. Like, just be like that person is broad strokes. Yeah. Broad strokes and don't get caught in the weeds. And that's how I treat Santa. I don't tell the truth, but they're like, how does Santa get down the chimney and do this? I'm like, I don't even know.

Yeah. Like I heard that the same way that, the same way that if they asked you, like, how does somebody get an operation done on their brain that, you know, like that you're like, I genuinely, I don't know how that job works. I'm like a complete idiot. I'm not even, I'm not even going to try to like figure it out. Cause it, it confounds me buddy. And that's, you know, listen, it's a, it's a, listen, I don't envy the guy's job. You know, it's gotta be really tough stuff. Yeah.

Oh, man. Oh, man. I don't even think the guy's getting paid. Yeah. I mean, look in these elves. I mean, like, and then they're like, well, what if we like keep the elf here all year? I'm like, I don't know. I mean, then the elf can't go. I mean, that's kind of holding a hostage. I don't need it. I just get frustrated by it. Is the mythology around the elf that the elf comes alive at night?

The mythology of the elf is that the elf is, or at least the way that I understand it, is sent by Santa to provide him with a naughty or nice list. Yeah, he's a fucking spy. This dude's a narc. He's a narc. And the elf will hide in the house or create little mischief in the house every morning. Now, I will tell you. I didn't know there was mischief. Oh, well.

if you look on the parents of Instagram that have a lot of time, and by the way, I would love to be one of those parents. And I admire what they do. Like I'm talking about like gumdrop shoes and, you know, making snow angels, like the, the, what the elves are up to. Like when you look on the Instagram of it is it as a parent, it hurts me. Cause I'm like, when do you have the time to do this? I'm barely, I'm barely remembering to move the elf. And there's some nights I forget, uh, or did this year have been good. Um,

But yeah, so the idea is that the elf is always watching and narking on you. That's such a weird thing to...

to convince a child is real. Yes. Is like this thing, this doll, this doll. And if they at any other time of the year brought you a doll and said, I think this doll at night comes alive and is watching me and moves around and move stuff. You'd be like, no way. Absolutely not. But if they bring you the elf doll and say, I think this, this doll is moving around and watching me and causing mischief. You're like, yup. That's what this one does. Yeah.

This one is special and it is sentient. It's watching you all the time. And the idea is like, it's not even a doll. It is a human. It is a human elf. Like the mythology isn't like, oh, Santa put a special piece of magic in your favorite doll. It's like, no, no, no. This is an elf that looks like a doll. You can't touch it. If you touch it, it doesn't move. And I think the idea of not touching it is so the kids don't play with it.

There's a lot going on, and I am dreading the day of revealing it. And I think that we'll have to go down together. And we have our next-door neighbor is Jewish, and he has been poking a lot of holes in our fantasies. And not even in a...

Like he's trying to. He's just like... Yeah, yeah. He's asking smart questions. He's a smart kid. The questions you would like a kid to investigate. No, my kids are buying a hook, line, and sinker. Your kids are weaker as a result. Yes. They're like, oh, yeah, yeah. No, I'm cool with a thing that just watches me and records my progress or my whatever. I'm cool with that. I'm writing letters and trying to do things with my handwriting at certain times so they can't imagine it as being that. I'm like... And it is...

As a parent, I've seen other parents very vocally be like, I'm not telling my kids about Santa because I don't want to lie to them.

I do think that there's something really beautiful about this. It's fun. We're just doing some fun. It's not like, it's not lying. Yes, you're lying to them, but it's like part of the fun of being a kid. Like, I don't understand like being like that kind of parent. It's also like, and I would, I'm wondering like, if your kids were like, would you, would you, um,

You know, like I remember with my nieces, they were into like making fairy houses for fairies that lived in the forest. And and they would make and it wasn't there wasn't any kind of like, no, that's not real. There are no fairies. If you see lights out there, it's just, you know, fireflies. You're dumb. Yeah. Yeah.

you're participating in a bit of, of magic and a bit of like fantasy for them to live inside of, which is great. Which I think it's like helpful for their imagination, but it's like, but man, oh man, as they get older, it's harder and harder because before they didn't really ask questions. Now they get, they, they want to know. I think the ideal, the ideal way of doing it is that they stop caring about Santa and

But they also still like all the things in the holiday. It's not like you're ripping the rug out. It's like, and then this year you get no gifts. No, no. You want to transition it into these are the traditions of our family, even if we don't necessarily believe in Santa Claus. By the way, how many people are listening to this in the car with their kids being like, no, turn it off. Sorry, we must give a warning. I'll give a warning before. Can I tell you the thing that my mom did that really stuck?

It started to make me question the Easter bunny. My mom was a big Easter bunny person, and she cut out footprints for the Easter bunny. So when I woke up in the morning, there were paper footprints, like Easter bunny footprints around the house. And in my childlike mind, I never was like, well, why would he be leaving Easter?

paper footprints. But I remember it so fondly. I don't remember when we talked about there is no Santa, there is no this, but it's so funny where logic just goes out the window. My parents, I remember when I was a kid, they got like jingle bell bells, you know, like sleigh bell type bells. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

and would sneak up into the attic and like late at night when they knew we were still staying awake, they would kind of stomp around and do the bells a little bit. Oh, I love that. Which was like, oh my God, Santa is here. Oh my God. Well, do you know that there is, my friend lives in the Netherlands and one of the traditions he is open to this year was that I guess like about three or four days ago, um,

There's a tradition where Santa practices his run. It's like before Christmas Eve, I'm going to do it. So what you do is you tell your neighbor to bang on the walls and make a lot of noise like you're Santa. So like the house feels like, oh my gosh, something's going on. And it's like this, again, a further idea of like Santa is like, of course he's got to, you know, this is it.

Oh, that's I love that idea. And my friend said it like also scared the shit out of his kids. Well, yeah, because, you know, like on a non magic, if you're if you're participating in magical, the magical thinking of it and you're on board, everything seems incredible. Yeah. But then when you if you apply even the smallest amount of real world logic to it, which kids are at a certain age.

constantly living inside of a logical world and inside of a fantasy world. But when you start to apply logic to it, you're like, wait a minute, there is a stranger who has access to my house? Like, everything about this is, I'm told, very wrong, you know? By the way, you know, look, we talk a lot about bad movies and things like that, and I don't want to shit on anything unnecessarily because that would be unlike anything I do. But...

Jason, the Santa Claus series, the Tim Allen series. Oh, yes. Yes. Okay. I've never seen them, but I'm aware of it. I've never seen the movies, but I put on the series. Whoa. Woof. Like, woof in the idea that...

It's weird because obviously Tim Allen brings with him some baggage, some baggage as a human being that I don't think he necessarily had that much when he was home improvement. Tim Allen, which is when he shot these original movies. I was going to say the movies are from that era, right? These are from like 20 plus years ago. Yes. And then this series is a brand new series that just was shot now. Oh, and I will tell you that this is one of the scenes. Santa is sitting down with his elves to make his naughty and nice list.

And he's like, all right, well, that person's naughty. And Elf's like, we don't like to use that term.

And like, it's all these like weird microaggressions and wokeness, but like Santa is oddly on the side of wokeness, but being like, Oh, can you believe this? Like he holds up like a sweater that says Santa sit on my lap. He's like, can you believe that people are wearing this? This is not the spirit of Christmas. Like it's, it's, and he's so upset that he can't like call kids naughty. It's,

weird. And are we sure this isn't an adaptation of like the Bill O'Reilly book killing Santa? I mean, it really does feel like there are. And so the whole premise of the movie or the, the mini series, I should say is that Santa is like, cause if the premise of the Santa Claus is that Tim Allen's a normal dude, uh,

He goes out on his front lawn on Christmas Eve to see what was on the roof. It's Santa, but he scares Santa. I believe this is what it is. And Santa then slips on the roof, falls down and breaks his neck. And so he kills Santa. Yes.

Wow. Yes. And so Santa has to like step in and fill his shoes. Well, yes, because the Santa Claus is that anyone who kills Santa has to take his place. The claws like a movie. The whole movie series is about Tim Allen murdering Santa. Yeah.

uh, so that, so that in and of itself is shocking. Yeah. It's, it's rough. Um, and, uh, you know, um,

Yeah. And so that's the premise of normal guy becomes Santa Claus. That's like, I guess, where it starts. And now this is like normal guy has been Santa Claus and is like, I'm tired of doing it now. I need to retire. So it's like Santa wants to retire and he's trying to recruit Cal Penn, who's like an Elon Musk slash Jeff Bezos, like...

like entrepreneur billionaire who, I mean, it's, and wait, is he, is Tim Allen? I know this is not the case, but boy, what I love it. If it is Tim Allen trying to get someone to kill him so that they become Santa Claus, there is a Santa Claus clause. Oh, which is yes, where he can. And again, June was so angry with the Santa Claus, uh,

miniseries that she was like, turn it off. But my kids oddly love it. So what do we know? It's weird. It's like, oh, and also there are two kids in the movie that play elves, but they're kids, right? They're there. Yeah. And but they're married.

So it's watching like two kids that come here, sweetie, give me a kiss. And she's like, not while we're at work. But it's like, it's weird to see. They're played by kids, but they're supposed to be adults. Like they're supposed to be old elves, right? Yes. But they're like, come on, give me a smooch here, honey. And she's like, I can't, not can't smooch you at work. It's like, oh, it's weird. It's weird to see all this sort of stuff. What a fucking weird ass series of things to put in a kid's

Like a kid series. Oh, and then Casey Wilson is in the series as well. Oh, wow. And for one little scene in the opening. But even this is like her, she plays it really great. It's a funny scene. But the idea is that Santa's like, I'm not feeling magical anymore. I'm losing my powers. I don't want to do this. Like I'm losing the lust for magic.

I need to go back to like Michigan where I'm from and like live my normal life again with my wife. He's like, I know what will cheer me up. I'm going to go visit this kid that I loved.

She always believed in Santa, and it's Casey Wilson, but Casey Wilson is living on her parents' couch. She's unemployed and, like, extremely depressed because her life hasn't worked out great. Because she still believes in Santa. No. Oh. Just because she's living a life that this was not... Oh, okay. Okay, got it. ...did not turn out the way that she wanted. And, like...

So kids need to see that. Kids need to see that that's a path of life. What the fuck is going on? Like, what is going on here? If you don't do it right, kids, you could end up like this. And he gives her a Polly Pocket, which I guess to like this, you know, person in their 30s that are living in their parents' house and miserable because they've fallen asleep on the couch. And like, it's like, there's a lot of questions I'm having. But anyway. Oh, I love it.

I love it.

I didn't mean to derail us with the Santa Clauses. And, you know, and it continues. I've watched the first four. Whoa, this is like your favorite show. Well, you know, I was kind of like, I gotta, let me watch a little bit more. Well, let's see what else is happening. Let me just see where it goes. And it's rough. It's rough stuff. It's rough because also like, it is weird to be like, Santa's like, oh, the perfect replacement for me is this tech billionaire.

Like, you know, who delivers a lot of toys. That's the answer to everything. Like, it's like, oh, well, Amazon delivers a lot of shit. Like, so the tech billionaire can. And then he does interview like, was it Drew Brees, the quarterback? Like, he's like, Drew Brees, you deliver packages. But you're like, oh, but I see that you only have a 60% rate of completion. That's not good enough. It's like, what the fuck am I watching? Yeah.

I love it. And I love that you make it sound absolutely absurd, of course. Yeah. I'm sure it is. But that your kids are like, nope, we love it. We're just on unabashedly on board. Yeah. And I think it's because, you know, I think it's because also there's a part of them that's like, oh, Santa, and this is fun. And I'm looking at some stuff and they're not reading. It's like maybe it's working on something.

It's working enough for them. Yes. It's working enough for them. And these Santa stories are few and far between, except for this time of year. So I guess they'll take what they can get. Well, I mean, again, not so few and far between anymore. It feels like everyone's got a Christmas special.

Oh my God. That's so true. I'm in one. I'm in a Christmas movie this year. What are you in? I'm in a, this movie called, uh, the binge too. It's a wonderful binge, which is on Hulu right now, but it's an adult. Yes. It, the binge one is, uh, the binge one is about, uh, a world in the future where drinking and drugs are illegal. So for one day where everyone gets,

stoned and drunk, and there's no consequences. The binge is like the purge? 100%. So that was so successful, they made a second one, but they were like, can you make it a Christmas movie? So they just changed the binge to Christmas Eve. But I will say, I have a very small part in it. It's fun. Jordan Vandina directed it, who did the Fast 9 reading. Remember we did that Fast 9 reading? He wrote that. So long story short, the binge is on Christmas Eve, but Tim Meadows and Caitlin Olsen

Are in this movie. And I think it's my favorite Tim Meadows performance I've seen. It's so funny. Danny Trejo. So funny. Yeah. Tim Meadows is great. He played with us at Dinosaur and he's just like, just so good. I did a show called No Activity with him on CBS All Access and he was fantastic. And he's just really, he's one of my favorite recurring Brooklyn Nine-Nine characters. Oh yeah. So funny. He's just like, he, and like, he's this low key solid in everything he does. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Incredible. And and a great dude. Oh, that's cool. I like that. I watched the the Justin Long Christmas movie that's like R rated. Oh, which is that? Christmas with the Campbells is what it's called. OK. And it's an adult one. It's an adult one. It's basically it's it's it's almost a spoof.

You know, it's almost a spoof of a Hallmark Christmas movie. It has all of the tropes and all of the archetypes of one of those movies, except it's an overtly a comedy. Julia Duffy and George Wendt are the parents and Justin Long and Alex Moffat from SNL are the kind of two dudes. And then Brittany Snow is at the center of it, just doing the best thing.

Like, everybody's acting like a lunatic, and then they cut to her giving like a, wait a second, what's going on? Look, she's doing takes that are so funny and so small in the face of just gigantic nonsense. I don't know. It was not what I was expecting, and I was delighted by it. Oh, I'm very excited to see that. I will say, and we don't have to get into...

R-rated. Like, it is full-blown, like, adult. You know, I saw this poster, and it looked to me like a straight-up, like, Hallmark movie. Exactly. And it's shot like one, and everybody's doing performances like they think they're in one. It's very... It's not, like, bulletproof, but they do a good job, you know? They do a good job, I think, of...

of sending up those kind of movies while also doing one. Okay. Oh, I'm very excited to watch this. And I will say that I'm in a little bit of a Justin Long Renaissance because maybe there's another episode to talk about this, but Barbarian, his performance. I haven't watched it yet. Wow. No, I know. His performance is like, I don't want to like oversell it, but I will just say that

It's a goddamn masterpiece only because he is primarily by himself. And it is all things.

It is. And I won't, I won't say, I won't say more than that because I heard his performance is good. And it just, I think what really impressed me was it is very good, but he's also by himself in a majority of the movie. Huh? And it's really fun to watch him kind of to chip away. Yeah. I like it. Uh, really fun. I love that. Is there any like, uh,

Do you have a Christmas traditional movie? Do you like a movie that you have one that you go to a bunch? You know, I will watch. I'm trying to think. I'm always happy to watch an Elf or a Love Actually or a Family Stone. These are all Christmas movies that I really like. I've never seen Family Stone.

Fantastic. Get involved with Family Stone. All right. I'm going to give you two good ones. Oh, yeah. Love Actually, you know, I just I really love. I also find this time of year I want to rewatch like winter and holiday episodes of Gilmore Girls or like all of those things that are similarly vibes wise. But like, for example, I don't watch.

like Miracle on 34th Street or It's a Wonderful Life. I don't rewatch any of those older Christmas movies, but those newer ones, I for sure do. I've been saving Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special because I want to get a little closer to the holiday. I want to get there. I want it in there. Loved it. I had a great time. I'm very excited for that. Yeah.

I will. Yeah. I was like, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. I was going to say, do you similarly, like, are there any, like that you either have had as a tradition from your youth or that you guys now do with your kids? I will say that home alone has really risen to the top. Oh, and die hard and die hard. I just watched die hard last night. Uh, and home alone is a very high on our list. Uh,

I will also say that Christmas Vacation is one we revisit a lot. And my personal favorite, which I'm realizing not everyone agrees with me about, and even Bill Murray doesn't agree with me, is Scrooged.

I love Scrooge. Oh, yeah. That's one I haven't watched in a very long time. On June's recommendation, last year I watched Mixed Nuts for the first time. The last Just Chat that June sat in for, she gave a very full-throated endorsement of Mixed Nuts. Oh, yeah. I really enjoyed it. Okay. I really enjoyed it. It was a little rocky at times. Yes.

But, I mean, great. I absolutely adored it. It's also like, it's a movie, having never seen it, that is, you know, it's Liev Schreiber, it's Steve Martin, it's Rita Wilson, it's, you know, everybody. It's, oh, it's, I mean, the best, the greatest. Yeah.

What's her name from Young Frankenstein? Oh, Madeline Kahn. Madeline Kahn. Madeline Kahn. I mean, give it to me forever, you know? It really has a great cast. It's an odd tone that I feel like they do nail, but you're right. It's a little rocky, but then you get invested in it. Like, Anthony LaPaglia is great. It is odd that it's June's favorite one because it doesn't really, like...

I mean, I think California Christmas is a tough thing to do anyway. It's very hard. Yeah. Because it looks like L.A. Story. And the only thing that lets you know that it's Christmas is just like... It's the Santa suit. It's like somebody's wearing a Santa suit and two people are trying to get a tree. Yeah. Like it's very not Christmassy in that way, but it is a very fun movie. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm glad. See, there we go. So there's more recommendations of that. I love just kind of...

I mean, I also am in the zone where I will pop on, and maybe this is not up your alley, but I will pop on a Melissa Joan Hart. Like, I watched one with her. Oh, interesting. Wow. And the dude, like, that young kid who was, like, the, who was on Blossom, the brother of Joey Lawrence, they do a handful of them together. Oh.

And there's one where Joey Lawrence and his brother, we did the Money Plane movie last year. They do a holiday one where she falls in love with both brothers at the same time. And they both invite her home for the holidays. And she picks one. But then the other one is like, oh, that's my brother.

And there is like, she doesn't know she's dating brothers. No. Amazing. It's great. Uh, and there's one moment where they're having a very tense meal, but it's like one of these cheapo movies. And, um, they're all eating Turkey subs. The entire table is that Turkey subs on plates. Uh,

Amazing. I love that. Give me that. I will occasionally dive into, not even for the show. Well, that's like you finding 12 Pups of Christmas that we just did because you literally watched it last year. I love it. Those are really fun for me because it gives me the spirit of Christmas and

But also I get very enjoying, like she did one called the very merry toy store where she runs a toy store. She did one called like, uh, dear, dear, uh, dear Christmas, which is a guy named Chris miss. Uh, like, you know, it's like, there's so many, uh, there's one called broadcasting Christmas, which I think is on my docket for this year. I got a lot of, yeah, she's like, she literally has made a, like she has a full, uh,

lineup of Christmas movies. Like, that's all she made. Did you watch the Lindsay Lohan one? No, because Avril said it wasn't good enough for us. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, okay. It could have been. I saw the thumbnail for it the other day on, is it on Hulu or one of them? And I was like, oh, this looks like something we would cover immediately. By the way, I just want to say that one of the movies she produced, Jason, is a Mario Lopez movie called Feliz Navidad.

Felice Navidad. Amazing. Amazing. We got it. I want to watch that. Felice Navidad. I need it. I need it. But yeah, I think she produces like one or two a year. Holy shit. That's smart. Well, Jason,

I know this is like a different kind of Just Chat, but it was lovely to just chat with you. I loved just chatting. All right. Now that we got 12 pups of Christmas out of the way, let's talk about next week's movie. You're going to want to forget about the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, because this year we are celebrating the holidays with the ghost.

In the machine. That's right. Next week, we are watching the 1993 sci-fi thriller Ghost in the Machine. Here's a short breakdown of the plot. An electrical surge causes a serial killer's soul to end up in a computer system. Boom. You don't need anything more than that. This movie is rated 11% on Rotten Tomatoes and Mark...

from the Austin Chronicle says, jumbled, messy, and inconsistent with its in-film logic, Ghost in the Machine's cardinal sin is in its complete lack of backstory. To wit, who are these people and why should we care? Wow, a perfect how did this get made review. Anyway, let's take a listen to the Ghost in the Machine trailer. From the director of Freddy's Dead, the final nightmare, comes the deadliest,

He's in the computer. No, that's impossible. He's on the loose. Someone or something is coming after my son and my friend. You can't run. You can't hide. You can't win. Ghost in the Machine.

Starts Wednesday at theaters everywhere. You can rent Ghost in the Machine on Amazon, Apple TV, or YouTube. I encourage you to also check out Hoopla or Canopy, which are digital media services offered by your local public library that allow you to borrow movies, books, audiobooks, e-books, comics, and TV shows online.

On your computer, tablet, or phone for free. All right, that is it. Please remember to rate and review the show. And if you listen on Apple Podcasts, make sure you are following us. Visit us on social media at all platforms at HDTGM. And for commercial free access to How Did This Get Made? and our entire archive and so much more, sign up for such a premium for a free one-month trial. Use the code BONKERS. A big thank you to our producers, Scott Sonney, Molly Reynolds, our movie-picking producer, Eval Halle, and our publisher, July Diaz. And a very extra special thank you and a bittersweet goodbye.

to our engineer and friend, Devin Bryant. This will sadly be Devin's last recording. We gave him a hero send-off in San Francisco, but truly, the reason why this show sounds so damn good, the live shows especially,

The remastered Drop Dead Fred album is all because of Devin. Devin really upgraded our game and not only upgraded our game from an audio level, he upgraded our game as just being an amazing collaborator on the show, a person that got what we were doing and always was incredibly additive. We are so sorry for

to see him go. And this is not as sincere as I would be if I was talking to Devin. He knows I feel this way and I spoke to him so much. So give him a lot of love. Follow him at BaffleGabs on Twitter. You can also follow him in PainkillerThePigeon on Instagram and you'll see what he is up to, where he's going. He's doing some really exciting stuff. We ready. Devin, how are you feeling? You're good? All right, great. Devin's in the way back. Tricky for him. He's recording the show. Can't see a thing. But that's how good he is.

Amazing producer, amazing editor. They put him backstage. All right. Doing it blindfolded. All right, here we go. All right. That's it, people. We'll see you next week.

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