Creature Chats

Episode 3: The Dullahan

• Maisie & Jana • Episode 3

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Today the ladies talk all about the Dullahan, also known as the Headless Horseman! Learn all about the different iterations of carriages and riders who got too excited and lost their heads.

Make sure to check out our Instagram to see pictures of all the stuff Maisie and Mom are talking about and to keep track of any upcoming hints for new episodes.

You can also email us at mom@creaturechats.com!

SPEAKER_01:

In shadows, deep and starlit skies where ancient whispers never die. We walk the path where legends tread, and summon tells the world once.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Creature Chats, where myth and magic come to life through the eyes of a mother, me, and a daughter. I'm Maisie. And I'm Jana. Each week I'll introduce a mythical creature to Maisie, explore its origins, stories, and secrets.

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And I'll share my thoughts, ask the weird questions, and maybe even challenge the myths.

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So cozy in and join us for a journey into the enchanted forests, misty mountains, and mysterious waters of folklore and the creatures that reside there. What was that?

SPEAKER_05:

It was a Batman thing when we like when Batman rotates to different scenes.

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Oh, okay.

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Next scene.

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Okay. So, Maisie, we had a really busy week this week, didn't we?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

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What did we do?

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Any kids out there who get really jealous, I'm sorry. We went to Disneyland, we went to Universal.

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Mm-hmm. Basically, we went to California.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, we went. We yeah, we just went to California.

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California and we went to Disneyland and Universal, did all the parks, did a lot of rides. What was the best part for you?

SPEAKER_05:

Are you saying what my favorite ride was or what was just the best part? The car ride.

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Yeah, the one where you go really fast.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, it's fun.

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And the one we got stuck on twice.

SPEAKER_05:

Yep. So when we were just about to get started, it got stuck. And then right when we were done with the ride, it got stuck.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it was perfect timing. So we didn't have to get stuck in the middle of the ride.

SPEAKER_05:

And I feel bad for the people who did. Yeah, that wouldn't have been very fun. Yep. No. Like, oh wait, like, imagine you were in the middle of the race. Oh no. And they got ahead of you. And they were ahead of you and then you paused. And then they got an extra boost and then you lost.

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Oh, that would stink so bad.

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We um won both of our races.

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Did you? I thought you and Dad lost the first one. No, they won the first. Nice. Nice. What did you uh Maisie's got some crazy luck? So what did you get to do, Maisie?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, any big Harry Potter fans, you when you know at Universal there's this one thing, and one random kick gets chosen for it. I might have got chosen for it. I have some crazy luck. Oh, and at the airport, we got randomly chosen for two bomb checks.

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You did, not we. You did.

SPEAKER_05:

Dad had to do the bomb checks.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, because Dad got chosen one time and you got chosen one time.

SPEAKER_05:

No, I got chosen both.

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She got chosen and I had to do them.

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Because I don't know, I don't carry bombs. How does that work?

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Because they don't check the kid for it, they check the adult.

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So you got chosen, anyways.

SPEAKER_03:

That's weird. I had a double the chance.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, fair. Okay. So if you don't know, I'm pretty lucky. Yeah, she's very she gets a lot of a lot of cool experiences.

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Mm-hmm.

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Any other fun things that kind of surprised you or were like, oh, that was unexpectedly fun.

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Uh when we were at Star Wars um land, we went on the rise of the resistance, and um, I might have explained to a guard what Star Wars was. So he was just like, he was just like, so they made a movie about me. Yeah. And I didn't know.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Nice. It was a fun trip.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

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It was a lot of fun. We got to do a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, and also, um, if you haven't been to the turtle talk thing, I got to talk to the turtle.

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Oh, yeah, that's right.

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I try to make him say six, seven.

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Okay. Are you ready to figure out what I have planned for today? Yes. I kept it a little spooky because Halloween is coming up, and I figure we could do a spooky one.

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Ooh.

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Yeah. This creature comes to us from Irish folklore.

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Fiddly dee, fiddlyho.

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Okay. It is called the Doolahan.

SPEAKER_05:

Huh? Yeah. You could descend a vampire or witch or something.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I I I want something. I want something cool. What's a doolah?

SPEAKER_05:

A doolhan is a it sounds like an Irish word for like noodles or something. Like, like, like if you're having noodles, Mom, I want to have some doolahon.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't think this would be very tasty. You want you wanna know why?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

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Because it's essentially uh a headless horseman.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, that's cute. What? I like that's kind of cute. Okay. That's a cute name for Oh, a doula.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Granted, I'm I don't know if I'm saying it right because it is like Celtic, and Celtic has this like throaty.

SPEAKER_05:

I know how to do like wait. Nope.

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Let's just not try. There's I'm trying. For as much red hair we have, there is not as much Irish in us.

SPEAKER_05:

So, like, so like this is how you say Dunahan in Irish. Dun Lahan.

SPEAKER_02:

No. Sorry.

SPEAKER_05:

That was a way to high pitch.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. So that's what it is. We're doing basically a headless horseman. Or headless, it has like a headless coachman. And I'll explain that more later. It's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_05:

So it's like, what kind of coach is it? Like like a carriage. Is it a football? Is it a football coach?

SPEAKER_02:

No, no, like a carriage. Stop. Stop. Is it a baseball coach? Okay. It's a it's a carriage. And people who take care of and ride on the back of the carriages or drive the carriages are called coachmen.

SPEAKER_05:

You could have just said the people who drive carriages. Okay. Because I'm a kid and I don't understand like old words.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, you do. Old words. Yes, you do. Okay. So Adulahan is described as a headless rider on a black horse or a coachman who carries his own head, usually to represent imminent death upon someone's door. So uh this headless horseman will come and kind of collect souls or be a forewarning for people that are about to pass away.

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Okay. So at Disneyland. Mm-hmm. And you're in California, the California players.

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Yep.

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Um, there was a headless horseman. Oh, and if you didn't know, they decorated out for October.

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Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Because we we tr we tried so hard to go to the oogie boogie bash. That would have been cool. Oogie, oogie, boogie, oogie, oogie. And I might have pooped a couple people.

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You booped several characters.

SPEAKER_05:

When we were at Universal, I tried to boop a Velociraptor. They said no. I've I I was gonna be fine with it eating my hand.

SPEAKER_02:

I just want to boop a dinosaur. Maybe a good thing you didn't.

SPEAKER_05:

I just want to boop a dinosaur. I know. If it if if it was like a plant dinosaur, it I they would let me boop it.

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Probably, but this was a velociraptor.

SPEAKER_05:

I was fine with that.

SPEAKER_02:

Boop. Okay, should we keep going? Yep. Okay. So this headless horseman rides a black horse, like I said, and it usually rides or is seen coming out of a cemetery. So that's kind of spooky. Okay. Um, it can also be called uh duplicun or yeah. Yep, and which is just it's short for like a hobgoblin. Have you ever heard of a hobgoblin?

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It's like a goblin that's short and likes hobby. I don't know. Has a bunch of hobbies. Okay. Sure. I like that. That's Maisie's New Mythical Creatures, new podcast.

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Okay, add that one to the list. Okay. The doulahan means an unsealy or wicked fairy, or known as a dark and sullen person. Those two things can be interchanged. So, like the duplican and the doulahan can both be interchanged and kind of mean the same thing.

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If you're wondering why I did that, she said wiki. So w wiki, she said wicked. Wicked, yeah. So um I had to do.

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Some modern descriptions say that its mouth is full of razor-sharp teeth and grins that reach from both sides of its face. So it's got a really wide, creepy grin, like the Grinch, right? And or like pennywash. Yes. And it's got massive eyes that dart around like flies. Its flesh looks and smells like moldy cheese.

SPEAKER_05:

That kind of sounds good. Oh, you're weird. Okay. If you didn't know this, I'm a weird geek.

SPEAKER_02:

So when I was talking about the headless coachman, right, the coach that it rides is just a dark shadow that rides through the night. Yeah. And it's completely silent. So you can't even hear it coming. Okay. Okay. In some books and poetry, the carriage is described having axles of human spine and wheel spokes made of thigh bones.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, that's just gross.

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And there are two heads that make up the lanterns on the side of the carriage. Isn't that cool?

SPEAKER_05:

It's like the boss from the um Harry Potter.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh no. Like that head. That's a shrunken head, yeah. Yeah, that like head that no, this is skulls.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh god, that's gross.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. The coachman andor the headless rider uses a human spine as a whip. And what it does is on the way while he's traveling around, sometimes people describe it to use he uses the whip to take people's eyeballs out to get rid of any witnesses. I thought it was cool.

SPEAKER_05:

I thought he would use it to put on his little pumpkin, like blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_02:

No, it's cool though, right? It's disgusting. Yep. So we know one particular headless rider, and that's the legend of the headless horseman, right? And I'll get to him, but I found several other, like many of our creatures, to have different um cultural histories. So in Japan, there is one that's called the Kubinashi rider, and he, it, he or she is an urban legend that rides a motorcycle that is missing a head. And there also, along with that, is a headless biker gang.

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Yeah. At least they save money on helmets.

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Huh?

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Because they're headless, so they don't need a helmet.

SPEAKER_05:

That's worse than the dad jokes in my book.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Um, in Scotland, there is a character named Ewan, and he was decapitated in a clan battle, as he was denied a chance to be chieftain, and he and his horse are headless and now haunts the area around where the clan battle was.

SPEAKER_05:

You, the horse is headless.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_05:

Wait, what if they just swapped out their heads?

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They're missing. A lot of these cases, either the heads are missing or they're carrying it.

SPEAKER_05:

That'll be cool if they just swapped out their heads and it was called the horse head man. Yeah. And the and the um and the and the and the human head horse. Okay. New for our podcast.

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In Germany, there was a headless rider who allegedly killed its victims simply by touching them. And what happened was is that it wandered the earth um to atone for its sins. Do you know what that means? No. Basically, to like make up for what it's done. What did it do? Whatever, I don't know, whatever it did, whatever it sinned on.

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Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Um, in southern Texas, there is called the El Muerto, and he dangles his head. Yep. Weird, huh? Yeah. He just dangles his head.

SPEAKER_05:

So like in Harry Potter?

SPEAKER_02:

Um, no, because that's nearly headless Nick.

SPEAKER_05:

No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, that's hair. Headless Nick is in this book.

SPEAKER_02:

No, not in this. Okay. But he's uh he should you wanna so the other one I found out to be really cool is so the headless horseman, the one that we know of is is kind of uh European folklore, and that's been around since the Middle Ages. And according to that, and kind of maybe what we're familiar with, Maisie, is that it's missing its head and is searching for it or carrying it. So in some story, in some stories, the headless horseman is looking for his head, and in other stories, he's like carrying it. And those are some of the images that we most often see.

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Doty doe dee doe, just walking around the neighborhood.

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Exactly.

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With my head and my horse.

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Yep.

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And I'm the horse head too.

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Do you know who who eventually wrote um, I believe it was a poetry, wasn't it, about a headless horseman? You? No. Do you know who that was? Have you ever heard of Washington Irvine? Irvine? Irvine? No. Well, he wrote about the specific headless horseman that a lot of us know about today. But before we get to that, in Welsh history, there is um a creature as a headless woman specifically, who rides a headless horse.

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Finally, there's a woman.

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Right. And she allegedly haunted Bryn Hall, which is a city in Wales, or like within a city in Wales. So Bryn Hall is the house. And she stopped haunting when a servant realized that the horse person was looking for her buried head. And so what they had to do was go look for her body.

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Her body?

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Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

But I thought she lost her head.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, like the whole body. That's creepy. It is said, Maisie, that she is said to be the illegitimate child of Lord of Bryn Hall. And in Cornish folklore, which is where Washington Irving's parents would have heard this legend. And so people assume like him hearing this through like audible storytelling and things like that. I'm losing you. You're glazed over.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, because I don't know what audible means.

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Through word of mouth.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

So, like through spoken word or storytelling, right? Is how his parents would have passed on the story to him, which then the possibility is of him writing his own stories of this headless creature.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. We'll talk a little bit about Washington Irving. Um wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Have you ever heard of that? No. Um, it's been made into different types of movies and TV shows.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, that's why the headless horseman was in Disney?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

unknown:

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And um in his story, the headless horseman represents tension between reality and imagination, or what is like horror and spookiness versus reality. Okay. Did you know, fun fact, that Washington Irving is also the first person who described Santa Claus and his sleigh?

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Santa, tell me if you're really there.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh boy. Okay.

SPEAKER_05:

He said Santa.

SPEAKER_02:

I did say that, yeah. So there have been different movie um adaptations, like I said. And one has Johnny Depp and Christina Ritchie in it. Who's Johnny Depp? Um, he is just an uh like a recent actor. It's been around for a few decades.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I don't still don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

That's okay. You don't need to know who that is. Um Edward Scissor Hands.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. So oh, is this a guy like Cat who acted Captain Jack Sparrow? You got it. Yep. Um wait, he acted as Edward Scissor Hands? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_05:

That means like a what? How much movies does that guy act in?

SPEAKER_02:

A lot. He's in a lot of movies. Okay. Um, and so there's short films about the Sleepy Hollows. There's a movie in 2022 called The Asylum that is based on um A Headless Horseman. Is he is Johnny Depp in there? No. There's shows and TV stories or TV series such as Midsummer Murders, Sleepy Hollow. So Sleepy Hollow is kind of the big name, basically, because of that's because that's what Washington Irving wrote.

SPEAKER_05:

Which one was Johnny Depp in?

SPEAKER_02:

The legend of Sleepy Hollow.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, yeah. Johnny Depp is like is a lot of villains in the movie. Yeah, he does. He he likes the creepy stuff. He does, yeah. Because like he was Edward Scissorhands, he was a wolf in that fairy tale movie.

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Into the woods.

SPEAKER_05:

Into the woods. He he was bro, he was Captain Drax Barrow. Bro, he was so much.

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He did a lot, he does a lot. Um oh gosh, I can't think of his name now.

SPEAKER_05:

Johnny Dick.

SPEAKER_02:

Nope. Um scary. No. Johnny Dick. Who's the producer and director he always works with? Tim Burton. Duh. He does a lot with Tim Burton.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm pretty sure Tim Burton did the Sleepy Hollow movie.

SPEAKER_02:

Did he? Oh yeah, it seems about right. So Tim Burton and him are like best friends. Maybe, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay. There's also what if we saw Johnny at Disneyland? Yeah. I would love I would go like Yeah.

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He's done that before where he's dressed up as um Jack Sparrow and showed up at Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, why didn't that happen during us?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, we didn't go on the ride because it's too spooky for you.

SPEAKER_05:

No, it's not. No. Okay. Oh, because I never finished a movie.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. Okay. So lastly, there are tons of video games that also involve some sort of like headless creature or headless horseman, whatever, such as some people that people know Assassin's Creed, Skyrim, World of Warcraft. They all have different characters that are headless. And then there is also another sports team that is named after a mythical creature. Right? So this just continues our theory that sports name sports teams just need to be named after mythical creatures.

SPEAKER_05:

So like like like Dakota Dragons.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's a good one. Like um We have MSUM dragons. Uh we've already we've already discussed this. Go listen to the previous one if you want to hear more of our theories.

SPEAKER_05:

It was on the first one.

SPEAKER_02:

Is it? Yeah. Is that which one was it on?

SPEAKER_03:

First episode.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Um, no, it's a high school that is called the Sleepy Hollow High School. Oh, the best be sleepy. And their their character is I guess. Headless horseman? Yeah. Could you imagine playing against a team where their like mascot is a headless horseman?

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, like the ball is like a pumpkin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

There you go. Well, a basketball kind of looks like a pumpkin.

SPEAKER_05:

But all they but they would not put the stem on the pumpkin.

SPEAKER_02:

No. And he just carries around. Yeah.

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When he comes into the scene, he's just like, here's a pumpkin. Here's a pumpkin. Here's a pumpkin. Here's my chain whip.

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My spine whip.

SPEAKER_05:

Here's a spine whip. Hey, you notice me. Hey, you notice me. I need your eyeballs.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, I need your eyeballs. What am I gonna do with all these eyeballs?

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe he wears them around his neck while he collects them.

SPEAKER_03:

He doesn't have a neck, he's headless.

SPEAKER_02:

But um so okay, so that is, Maisie, that is my creepy, creepy creature for today. What did you think about it? No.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, I can't do one dad joke. Please can I just do one dad joke?

SPEAKER_02:

So I'm asking you what you thought about this. What did you like about it?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, I was thinking what he could do with all his eyeballs. He was like glue. Mm-hmm. Eyeballs. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Where? Oh, but yeah, he's had this. Exactly. On his um horse.

SPEAKER_02:

As a belt, maybe. On his horse. No, he just wears the eyes as a belt.

SPEAKER_05:

He glues his horse. Ew. His horse is eyes. That'd be cool. That's gross. And then then he takes and then when he needs some extra odds, he's just like, yoink. Yah! For what? He fights with his eyeballs. That's his new whip, his eyeball whip.

SPEAKER_02:

Gross. Like that'd be squishy.

SPEAKER_05:

I know and I would love it.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_05:

I would just grab it and go like.

SPEAKER_02:

So was this a surprise? Because nobody ever talks about this, I don't think. And I thought I thought about it when we were in Disney of being like, oh, this would be a really cool one to cover.

SPEAKER_04:

Did you study in Disney? No. Or just study. On the way home.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

But yeah, I thought it would be a good one. It's right on time for Halloween. It's kind of creepy. It's got a creepy story. So are you do you still enjoy these? Are you still excited about these?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Are they still like a surprise?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Maybe you're just tired right now.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. One more dad joke for the end. Sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Go for it.

SPEAKER_05:

What goes? Tick wolf, tick wolf.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know what.

SPEAKER_05:

A watchdog. Oh, okay. Next. Nope. On that note. What's a favorite? Thanks for listening to us. What's the fox? What's the frog's favorite drink? A fox? A frog of frogs. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. What?

unknown:

Nope.

SPEAKER_02:

On that note. What is the cat? What is the cat? Okay. Thank you for listening. We are signing off. Have a good night, everybody.

SPEAKER_01:

We're signing off with a joke. Shadows, deep in starlet skies where ancient whispers never die. We walk the path where legends tread. And summon tells the world once.

SPEAKER_05:

Guess who I bumped into on the way to the eye doctor? Who? Everyone, I need glasses.

SPEAKER_02:

Clever.

SPEAKER_05:

Why did a why did the pie go to the dentist? It needed a filling. Ooh.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. One second.

SPEAKER_05:

Jamie, Dr. Smith, guess what? I can see into the future, Dr. Smith. How long have you been able to do that? Since next Tuesday.