Spooky Halloween Episode with Chloe Radcliffe

0:00 Us.

0:00 Scotty, you ready?

0:03 Could he be? I am so ready to laugh and laugh and laugh. Here it is.

0:08 Happy Halloween, folks, because we're going to learn about the Virginia Bunny Man and the top five scariest Halloween urban legends in the United States.

0:17 Whoa!

0:19 A themed episode? A spooky banana?

0:22 It's a Bananas After Dark, folks.

0:26 If I said something bad.

0:30 Would you believe me? If I did blow your mind to a zillion pieces, would you believe me?

0:41 Driving me bananas, baby, bananas, banana, nana.

0:46 Driving me bananas, baby, bananas, banana, nana. Guys, gals, non-binary pals, welcome to Bananas After Dark. I am Kurt Braunohler.

0:57 I am Banana Boy number two. Champagne Scotty Landis, welcome to Bananas, the silliest little podcast there ever was, specifically to the good and decent people of Sweden, Maine.

1:12 Sweden, Maine?

1:13 How many? I've never heard of it. Population 426 proud maniacs, including Bananimal, I think it's Beret, it could be Beret, it could be Beret, and her... 94-year-old mom.

1:28 Oh, man. That's great. You're on the map.

1:31 You're officially on the map. Sweden, main population, 426. And Beret Barrett, whatever it is, we love you. I am so sorry if I butchered your name.

1:42 And real quick before we bring our guests on, Denver, I'm going to be at the big final show, the last show of the High Plains Comedy Festival. High Plains Comedy Festival is ending tomorrow. I'll be doing their big finale show November 21st. And then New Year's Eve, I'm in Madison. So come on out and see me in Madison.

2:04 There's three shows, folks. Three shows in Madison at Comedy on Stage.

2:09 I love Comedy on State. That is a great club.

2:12 It's a delightful place to spend New Year's Eve. You know, more delightful would be with my family. But this is great because.

2:21 Happened animals are your family. They're your found family.

2:24 They are 100%. Now, I'm very excited. We've got a return special guest. She's a special guest. She's returned. And most exciting is her very first comedy special. is coming out today, October 27th. You can watch it right now on Comedy Central Stand-Up's YouTube. The name of it, of course, is Eyes Down Here. Please welcome the wonderful and fantastic Chloe Radcliffe.

2:55 Hello. I'm so happy to be here.

2:59 Congratulations.

3:01 Thank you so much.

3:03 Last time you were on, Bananas, you were recording. You were about to record this special.

3:07 Yes! Oh my God. That's exactly. I was, and, and I was so worried. We had to move nights for some reason.

3:16 I can't remember what happened, but we had to bump the recording up by two, by a night or two. And so I was so worried about ticket sales for that first night.

3:26 And I panic texted Scotty and was like, can I come up bananas?

3:31 Yeah, we need butts in seats. We need people to come and laugh.

3:34 At this thing. The Bananas listeners in Denver, you fucking showed out. Thank God. God bless you all. You came. The shows were sold out. They were packed.

3:45 It was so fucking fun. And now that exact special is finally coming out.

3:52 It's funny. I've had people be like, I've had fans email and DM and be like, didn't you record a special in December? Where is that? And I'm like, I know. I know. I know. Just give me one second.

4:05 It takes so long. It drives me crazy.

4:09 It's crazy.

4:09 Yeah.

4:10 Well, and I felt really guilty for a little while because at the beginning of.

4:16 The year, I was like, fuck, I'm dragging my feet.

4:19 Because I found it so hard to watch the edit that any time my.

4:26 Editors, my production company would be like, all right, we have a pass. Can you review this? Can you give notes? I would be like, yeah, definitely. And then like... Three weeks go.

4:36 By and I'm like, yep, yeah, nope, I'm getting, I'm going to give you notes really soon.

4:43 I'm going to get in there and I'm going to watch myself on camera.

4:48 It's hard.

4:49 The amount that you have to re-watch jokes that you're so done with and you don't want to hear anymore. But to just make sure it's like, is this the best take of this? Is the second show better? Maybe we can switch that in. It is unbearable. You hate it. You end up hating it by the end of the process, having watched it so much.

5:09 It's so crazy. It's so crazy. You know what's funny? The nice... So.

5:17 We finished the cut, like, you know, the first cut that we were, like, sending out to people to check out in May. And then we sent it out to a bunch of folks. And I'm so excited to be with Comedy Central. It's... First of all, like, I love Comedy Central. I miss what Comedy Central was.

5:35 Me too.

5:36 I'm so excited that they're, like... Sort of reigniting their online presence.

5:41 Yes, they are.

5:42 It's so funny that it has to be reignited. It's like Comedy Central was a person who just got busy and then forgot that they happened to run the comedy scene in America.

5:53 Do you know what I mean?

5:54 Like, oh, whoopsie doodles. Did we were we were we doing that? Oh, let me get back to doing it.

6:00 Mm hmm.

6:01 Yeah no i'm i i'm i am so honored to be a part of the now people are like is comedy central doing cool things again and i'm like yes they are doing cool things again thank god they're and like this is so this is the speaking of the whoopsie doodle this is the first full-length live action stand-up special that they will have put out in five years holy shit.

6:24 Love to hear it. Also on YouTube is the right place. It's the right platform. Every single person listening to this has YouTube, everything else in life. You hunt, you go, what is it on? Is it on to be, is it on movie? Is it on Fubo? Is it, you just sling? Do I have to have sling blue? And so YouTube is such a great place to reach the widest audience imaginable. Is it on sky dance?

6:50 I remember my, my first special was with comedy central and, And it aired once at midnight, and then the next day it aired at four in the morning, and then it never aired again, and then it was behind a paywall for 10 years. Yeah.

7:08 Yeah.

7:08 And so no one saw it. It was just like, oh, wow.

7:11 The bananas were paying that paywall.

7:14 Yeah.

7:14 The bananas were like, get me behind that paywall. I got to see that special.

7:20 I mean, we did house party for three years and we had 84 new face comics on. And then the way that they didn't pick up seasons four, five, six, seven, like we, we wanted to just keep doing that forever. That show, if you knew the budget on that show, it was so cheap to make very fun standup special. And I kind of feel like they just said, let's just play friends. Let's just put friends and family guy on instead. And you're like, but you have shows. You don't need to play The Office. You have Workaholics. It was a really weird bail. But I think all those people are gone. I actually know all those people are gone because some of them are like, will you help me get the script together? I'm like, no. You didn't

7:59 buy my show in 2016. So I'm not helping with shit, man.

8:04 And I think the people who are left at Comedy Central are like, they're sitting there being like, A bunch of, well, not a bunch. The ones who survived are people who care about Comedy Central and care about comedy and care about comedians. And they are like, look, we have big dreams and hopes just like everybody else does. We miss what the brand was just like everybody else does. We want it to come back. We want there to be that presence again just like everybody else.

8:36 And there's, you know, there's a lot of... corporate pressures. There's a lot of dynamic. There's a lot of merger dynamics, but.

8:47 The people who are there are like, how can we make shit fun and present? And how can we come back and how can we do fun shit? And I mean, it's, I, I, I feel so lucky to be, uh.

9:04 I don't know.

9:05 Look. Yeah.

9:05 You're on the front wave of it.

9:07 I'm on, I'm, I'm honored to be the one that they want to come out with that to be the, to be the one that they.

9:12 Want to like re restart with.

9:15 Um, and I basically just was like, I believe.

9:19 In you guys. Do you guys believe in me? And they were like, we believe in you. Do you believe in us?

9:24 And we were, we're both sort of like holding hands and jumping into the void, you know?

9:28 And, and I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm really, really, really pumped. Nice.

9:32 Eyes are down here. I was in a, a writer's room years ago. And the two show runners, one of them came in and he looked a little like sleepy. He was like a dad stuff. So sometimes, sometimes the dads have to get up because the kids are puking all night or whatever. So we were like, are you okay, man? He goes, yeah, I had to get up early. My wife is getting breast reduction surgery today. And we were like, oh, that's crazy. So he's like, so I drove her. She already got the surgery done. I drove her home. Now i'm here and so you just you know have a long morning along with her and finally somebody had one of the women writers emily was like well how big were her boobs And she goes, or he said, they

10:15 were eyes. They were size eye breasts. And so we just made the joke all day, my eyes are down here. And he had never said that, and his wife had never said that. I'm like, if you have size eye boobs, and you're not saying my eyes are down here, you are missing out on.

10:35 Yeah, look me in the eyes. Yeah, exactly.

10:37 So.

10:39 Sadly, yeah. But that was a weird day. And that joke went around that room all day. And then, of course, at some point it becomes almost like, is this sexual harassment? We need to stop talking about this woman's boobs in this room.

10:49 Are we sexually harassing this woman's husband?

10:52 Yes.

10:54 Have we found a way?

10:55 Yeah.

10:56 And it's legal. And it's legal.

10:58 We're in a room. Anyways, could it be? Tell us.

11:03 Yeah.

11:04 About the spooky stuff.

11:06 Here we go. Happy Halloween, everybody. It's Halloween week, and this was in grunge.com. Hell yeah. Because we only sample the highest quality publications here, bananas. This is top five scariest Halloween urban legends in the United States. Lots of intro explaining that the supernatural is tied to Halloween.

11:31 We're looking at- That's crazy.

11:32 Is it?

11:33 What?

11:33 We're looking at three paragraphs.

11:36 Okay.

11:37 This was written by the wonderful Andrew. Oh, wow.

11:43 Oh.

11:44 Okay.

11:45 Uh-huh.

11:46 Andrew Amelenkix. There's an X at the end. It just goes A-M-E-L-I-N-C-K-X. They really wanted to end that name. They had a C, then they had a K, and then they had an X.

12:03 C-K-X.

12:06 Uh, do you think it's what, what could it be?

12:10 Well, is this a given name or is this a, is this a chosen name?

12:15 I think it's, I think it's a given name. It's Andrew. I'm a link. I think.

12:21 Best in the biz.

12:22 I guess who would choose that? Who would be like, yeah, I write for grunge.com. I'm going to put an X at the end. Yeah. You know what?

12:30 If it wasn't for the C, it could be just links, you know, like L I N K Z. Um, But it's L-I-N-C-K-Z. So there's some silent stuff in there. I don't know if you say the X. You think it's Polish?

12:44 No. I just wanted to add something to the conversation.

12:47 Thanks.

12:48 Here we go.

12:49 Sometimes on podcasts, you just got to get in there.

12:51 It's all about talking, man. Doesn't have to make sense.

12:55 It's an audible original.

12:58 Have you ever found, because like, have you ever done so many podcasts in a day and then you go out to like a dinner with friends and then you're still in that mode of just like, you got to say something because you got to keep this going. And people are like, why did you just say that?

13:15 Why are you responding with something that absolutely does not, why are you just validating what I said.

13:20 Of, oh, yeah, that's really interesting.

13:24 Yeah.

13:25 I used to, I used to teach swimming lessons to ages two to nine. And I would find that after days of teaching swimming lessons, I would then talk to my friends like a child.

13:37 I would be like, good job. That's awesome. I'm proud of you.

13:43 Honestly, that sounds delightful.

13:46 Yeah.

13:47 Yeah.

13:47 I should go back to that. Yeah. My friends were not complaining. They were like, stay in this mode. Never go back to your true self.

13:55 I recently read an article that certain people in conversations at the beginning of, say, like a dinner or at a party, there's always a person, and I think it's called anchoring, and it's the person who sets the tone for the entire hang. And if they come in, they go, this is going to be awesome. Then everybody subconsciously is like, this is going to be awesome. Or if someone's like, it's kind of hot and gross out today, then everybody's attitude comes down a little bit.

14:21 Interesting. And I realized.

14:23 That's been me my entire life. And my friend Norris the other day was like, that's what you do. When you come in, you go, you know, here we go. Oh, my God, it's so good to see you. And then everybody's like cranks. Kurt's witnessed. If I go to like an Oscars party, I'll just repeat the same phrase the entire night, like big night for Hollywood. And I'll say it 400 times. And at some point people are like, shut up.

14:53 Are you doing it as a bit?

14:55 Of course.

14:56 A hundred percent. It is very, very funny. And I try it cause I knew that that was his thing. And then I had, I think the last time I was at an Oscar party with you, I had taken like just a very small amount of mushrooms beforehand. Cause I wasn't drinking. And, um, And just, it didn't affect me other than it made me incredibly cold the whole time.

15:19 You mean physically cold or like emotionally cold?

15:22 No, physically cold.

15:22 Physically cold.

15:23 It was so cold.

15:24 And Kristen has like these walls that are windows that like, so she can open up like half of her. Living room to the outside. And she had opened it up while we were watching. And to me, it was just unbelievable that she would open up these doors on this cold, cold day.

15:41 It was cold.

15:42 And I had a big jacket on. I was wearing, I think, a big blanket I found over my head. And then I just kept walking over to Scotty and going... man, it's real, real cold in here today.

15:57 You think it's cold?

15:59 Does it seem.

16:00 Cold to you?

16:01 And I did it maybe like 20 times.

16:03 I loved it.

16:04 And Scotty, did you keep going, big night for Hollywood?

16:07 Oh, or the stars come out on Oscar night. Just something dumb to establish the tone.

16:15 Here's my repetitive mushroom. This is short.

16:18 My repetitive mushroom phrase. The one time that I took more mushrooms than I've ever.

16:23 Taken in my entire life.

16:24 The closest I've ever had to like a true bad trip.

16:26 I did not mean to take this many mushrooms.

16:29 And I kept saying, and my boyfriend at the time was also on mushrooms, but much less than me and much more experienced than me. And I kept going, I don't know what's happening. And he would go, I do. And then I would go, I would like calm down for like 45 seconds. And then truly like less than a minute later, I would, I would have the same thought again.

16:49 And I would go, I don't know what's happening. And he would go, I do. And it was like a very calming, it was nice. It was like, he's like keeping me calm and grounded.

16:56 Yeah. But then I learned that as a little, as my anchor phrase. And so then for an hour, I just kept going, I don't know what's happening.

17:06 I do. I don't know what's happening. I do. I don't know what's happening. I do. Like imagine me in the corner of a room. This is a crazy person. This is a person who should be in a padded room. This is, and it's just a, just drugs, man.

17:21 It's the PSA that they need to be putting out there. They always do. Like, you're going to cut your hand off if you're using a tractor on drugs. And you're like, no, it's just you're going to be kind of annoying to everybody else for six hours.

17:32 Yep, yep.

17:33 I don't know what's happening. I do. I don't know what's happening.

17:36 I do.

17:37 Inseparable.

17:39 So here's some of the scariest ones of the urban legends. I love urban legends, and specifically I love. specific uh you know country specific ones so of course the bunny man of fairfax county do you know about the bunny man scotty do not okay is an urban legend dating back this from virginia uh dating back 50 years in some versions he'd escaped from a mental institution and left skinned rabbits hanging from the fairfax station bridge perhaps as a warning to stay away One Halloween night, some local teens were hanging out under the bridge when the Bunny Man attacked and killed them, leaving them in the same condition as the rabbits. In other tellings of the tale, the killer was an escaped prisoner who wore a bunny

18:23 suit while searching for his victims, usually young people, and in still other versions, he was a killer ghost. Some urban legends turn out to be true, and the Bunny Man is at least partially based on true events, including an unsolved murder from 1918.

18:37 Wow.

18:39 That August, 14-year-old Eva Roy was found, well, okay, strangled. Killer was never found, although an escaped convict falsely confessed to the crime. Even stranger, in 1970, there was a man dressed as a bunny suit who terrorized the town of Burke. In the first incident, just after midnight on October 18th, he threw a hatchet through the window of a parked car in which a couple was sitting. That's a classic horror movie trope. Neither victim was hurt in the incident. A few weeks later, the Bunny Man vandalized an unoccupied house with an axe and threatened a security guard.

19:17 The police recovered the hatchet. We're never able to identify the Bunny Man. Louisiana's Devil's Toy Box. Anybody know about the Devil's Toy Box?

19:27 No, I don't. That just sounds like something you would find in a cheap motel in the corner.

19:34 That was their intimacy kit?

19:36 Yeah, it's the intimacy kit, the devil's toy box.

19:39 Yeah, it does sound like a store that you pull off of like, you know, Highway 80 and there's like a big billboard that's like, come to the Devil's Toy Box.

19:48 Yeah. And you're like, God damn it, there's going to be the ugliest truckers in this store.

19:54 Yeah. You're like, and who is buying these French ticklers? Why are they still by the register? Is that an impulse buy? Is that Trident for sex shop shoppers?

20:04 Are French ticklers a condom with a feather at the top of it? That's the only thing.

20:08 Or like a rubber thing at the top of it.

20:10 Yes.

20:10 It has like a little thing.

20:11 Okay. What everybody wants.

20:14 Wait, but it's at the end of the... Oh, which end of the condom? At the tip?

20:19 Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. So it just gets smushed?

20:22 Yeah. That's right. Do you need more stuff up there? Is that what we're going for? We need a more complicated thing going in there.

20:28 Have you ever wanted your cervix to be tickled? Because that's what everybody loves.

20:34 Have you ever wanted to add something inside?

20:37 No.

20:39 I'm fine.

20:42 Not at all. And it's weird and it tickles. I bet it doesn't. Also, why is it French?

20:49 Um.

20:50 Yeah, it is interesting how much the French were connected to sex, like French kissing. And then there's that whole thing about like the French call orgasms a tiny death.

21:01 Like that whole thing. Ménage à trois.

21:03 Ménage à trois. That's another one. That's right.

21:05 Like the only French most Americans can say is ménage à trois.

21:09 And omelette.

21:11 And omelette.

21:13 See?

21:14 Louisiana is a state rife with scary urban legends. There's the rogueroo, a werewolf-like creature said to roam the bayou of southern... You know about that, Scotty?

21:24 No, I just assume all these are real, by the way.

21:26 Yeah. Then there are the numerous legends of New Orleans, including the voodoo queen, Marie Laveau, who is supposedly gifted with supernatural powers.

21:35 French. Another French hornball.

21:38 I haven't talked in three minutes, and what I just said was French. I'm busy trying to brainstorm other French sex terms, and I just hear Marie Laveau.

21:48 That's a French word.

21:53 Fiance, that's French.

21:54 Okay, here it is.

21:55 Oh, my God. We were kind of close, guys.

21:58 Listen.

21:59 But there are also newer urban legends that have spread via the Internet, and one is the story of the Devil's Toy Box. According to the tale, there's a now-closed Halloween attraction in an unnamed place in North Louisiana that will drive anyone who enters insane. It's a shack lined with mirrors where Satan appears, steals your soul, and may even flay you alive. There is something actually called a devil's toy box, a six-sided mirror box that some paranormal researchers use to try and record or capture supernatural entities.

22:33 But in the case of this particular urban legend, there is a solid source of its origin.

22:36 I love the term paranormal researcher as opposed to a wacko with an old radio that's broken.

22:44 That they walk around an empty house with. I know. Yeah.

22:50 It's research.

22:51 I'm doing research. Like, you can call anything research.

22:55 Yeah.

22:56 That's right.

22:58 I could be walking around one of those truck stop porn shops and be like, well, it's research.

23:03 I'm researching this.

23:05 Oh, you got that right.

23:06 I research forbidden liminal spaces, primarily porn shops. Okay, but in the case of this particular urban legend, Solid Source... Likely starred in 2015 horror story by writer Joe Farrelly that appeared on the website Thought Catalog. Even so, thanks to the internet, this one is an urban legend that just won't die. That's cool. There's three more. Do we have time for all of these?

23:34 Why not? It's a Halloween episode.

23:37 Can I just say, here's what stopped me for the last three minutes was I was like, I want to figure out a riff back about the bunny man. There's so many of them that it's like they bred like rabbits.

23:52 Yeah.

23:52 And I've been spending the last three minutes being like, how do I write the joke?

23:57 How do I get that back in here?

23:58 How it's the bunny. It's the bunny babies. It's the bunny. Anyway, just want.

24:03 Everybody to know. As a cryptid thing, I like like a local cryptid thing that just breeds so fast like bunnies. So then you see two of them and then you go back outside and there's six of them. Then you go back outside, there's 18 of them. You go, that is a really cool, scary thing. I like that. I'm sure there's a horror movie like that already, but if not, there you go. I think that's a cool trait for a scary thing.

24:30 Right now, folks, Scotty is completely frozen mid-sentence. And now he's gone. He's completely gone. Do you want to hear a little bit more?

24:39 I do. I do.

24:40 So far, you know, I was worried that I was going to be scared by these because I have a very low fear threshold. I walked out of Spider-Man 1 because it was too scary when the Green Goblin, when Willem Dafoe turned into the Green Goblin. I was 11 and I whispered to my mom and my.

24:53 Sixth grade friend, I'm going to wait outside.

24:55 And I walked into the movie theater lobby and they came out a couple minutes later and they were.

24:58 Like, we're not going to watch the movie without you.

25:00 Um, but so I was worried that I was going to be afraid. And so far I have not been afraid. So yeah, please hit me with more.

25:06 I do remember also being, I'm trying to think like my scary movie experience. Um, I think like, I think my first scary movie, my mom took me to when I was very young, I think like five, six, seven, which was a Stephen King movie called Christine, which was about a car that murders people. And I didn't really understand most of it. Um, But I remember when I was 12, I went and saw the movie Aliens. And Aliens is pretty, it's not as scary as Alien, but like Aliens is still pretty scary, but it's also like an action movie as well.

25:40 Yes.

25:41 But I spent the whole time like curled up like gripping my uncle's girlfriend who was probably like, like a new girlfriend. She had this like 12 year old, like holding onto her.

25:52 Oh, that's so funny and cute. That, and that's, that's another fun litmus test. Did they stay together? Did the uncle and the girlfriend stay together?

26:01 No, no.

26:03 Yeah.

26:04 Yeah. Do you feel like that was, yeah. Do you think that was your fault?

26:09 No, she was just like, I want to get a, I want to get a man as emotionally available as this young boy. one who's sensitive yeah yeah.

26:19 One who needs me one who looks to me for comfort.

26:22 Because that's what every woman wants is just to be the old the emotional comfort.

26:28 For a man.

26:31 All right you ready to get into idaho's killer.

26:34 Let's see yeah is it the college guy.

26:39 Uh no it is not surprising because this was i think an older article Another more recent urban legend relates to what's been dubbed the Halloween Massacre, which supposedly took place in a small Idaho town in 1962. That night, a group of masked teenagers, unbeknownst to them, one of the guests wearing a homemade creepy grinning black hooded mask was a bloodthirsty killer. He looked around. I don't understand this.

27:04 He locked everyone inside the house before murdering seven of them and making his escape. while the FBI later found the mask, they never caught him. Is this Scream?

27:14 Is that the plot of Scream? That's really scary.

27:16 But I mean, like, the mask and everything, and it's like, Scream is, like, they're having, like, a party at the house, right? And then there's somebody who keeps calling, and that's the mask guy, right?

27:24 I gotta be honest, I've never seen Scream.

27:28 You worked with two people who have died. I think I saw....

27:34 I know, all I know is the call is coming from inside the house.

27:38 I don't know anything else.

27:41 This is another urban legend disseminated through the internet. Apparently began with an old photograph that was turned into a meme. This is interesting, too. How many horror things now are originating on the internet, like Slenderman and the whole backroom's liminal space idea, too. Scotty, you're back.

28:03 I'm blaming the heat for everything. It's 99 degrees.

28:06 My god.

28:09 We should have done a podcast, Kurt, when we started Bananas. We should have started a cousin podcast that was us just reading Nextdoor and WhatsApp group chats. Because I'm in my neighborhood WhatsApp group chat. And the amount of times the internet goes down in Los Angeles and these older folks are like, AT & T' s out. Spectrum's out. This is out. It's so constant that I'm like, are we in a first world country? All of us can't keep our internet going. All over this place. Anyways, we should have done one because the complaints from these people are just, it's fabulous. It's so good.

28:45 I know.

28:46 But I just contributed.

28:47 It was a missed opportunity, wasn't it? It really was.

28:50 Well, oh well. That's what we need. More podcasts. That's what the world needs.

28:54 Welcome back. Welcome back. We're happy to have you.

28:58 You want me to do a scary story?

28:59 Yeah, why not?

29:01 Yeah, spook us.

29:02 I have some sweet ones, but also I have one kind of like, well, I'll do. I'll do a very dumb one. Okay. First, I'll do a dumb one. This one was sent in by Rebecca Johnson. You can send your stories into the Bananas Podcast at gmail.com or the Bananas Podcast on Instagram. We'd love to have you.

29:18 Thank you, Rebecca Johnson.

29:20 Oh, my gourd. British grandfather grows the world's biggest pumpkin.

29:26 Yeah, there he is. You love a man grows the largest something story, Scotty. You really do.

29:34 You gotta think big. You gotta aim high. Tell me how big. Okay, British Gardener. A British Gardener has once again set a new world record by growing the largest pumpkin ever produced. Ian or Ian Payton, 65 years young, we needed to know, Said he was delighted after claiming the world title in his very first season competing without his twin brother, Stuart.

30:08 Did he kill Stuart?

30:09 What happened to Stuart? He was crushed by a giant pumpkin.

30:11 He fed Stuart to the pumpkin.

30:12 To the pumpkin. Yeah, how do you think you get the pumpkin so big?

30:15 Stuart was moving a pumpkin and it rolled backwards on it.

30:18 That's what happened.

30:19 I hope that's not true. We'll get to that. I really do, too.

30:25 Iron.

30:27 Why do you keep saying Ian?

30:28 Do you think that British people are not called Ian?

30:31 Some are called Ian.

30:33 No.

30:33 What?

30:35 Ian Ziering from 90210.

30:38 Aren't you naming an LA zip code?

30:41 Yeah. Ian Payton. Ian spent six hours every day tending the 2,856.8 pound specimen of which weighs roughly the same as a female hippopotamus.

31:00 Wow.

31:01 It's so big, guys. It's bigger than you're picturing.

31:04 Do you think a female hippopotamus is insulted to be compared to the world's largest pumpkin?

31:09 Yeah.

31:10 Do you think she's like, are you calling me fat?

31:12 Hey, pumpkin.

31:14 Also, don't hippopotamus eat pumpkins? Isn't that like one of the things they like to chomp on?

31:18 Oh. They love them.

31:20 Right?

31:20 Also, isn't it pronounced pump-kine?

31:23 It is.

31:24 In England, it's pumpkin. I and pumpkin. So this guy, Mr. Payton, now has grown the three heaviest pumpkins ever recorded. This man has a passion.

31:37 Wow.

31:38 He has five of the top ten of all time.

31:40 That's crazy.

31:42 Does that mean that no one else is really trying to compete? Yes.

31:45 Everybody else is like, just let this guy have it.

31:47 Let him have it.

31:48 He's really good at it. I mean, yeah, if you're this good at something, go get it. He's only 65. He could be doing this for another 35 years. No problem.

31:57 He could be breaking new frontiers in pumpkin size that we have.

32:01 Not ever imagined.

32:03 It is.

32:04 It's like, why not? Go for it. I hope next year he goes 2,600.

32:09 This man could get to male hippopotamus at this rate.

32:11 Thank you. Thank you.

32:13 I bet you the female's bigger in the hippopotamus thing.

32:18 This is a spider situation.

32:20 Yeah, a lot of different things. This could be a, what is that big fish that we were just talking about last time? The lanternfish. The lanternfish is the size of my head, and then the male is this big. It's like the size of my pinky.

32:33 They've got it right.

32:33 Yeah.

32:35 Yes, male hippos are slightly heavier and larger than females, but only 5% to 30% depending on the reference source. Males can weigh up to 35, between 3,500. This can't be right. It says that male hippos can weigh up to 9,920 pounds. How is that possible?

32:53 9,000 pounds?

32:53 I don't even understand that as a weight. Five tons? I didn't know that. Is that right?

33:06 Wow, look at that.

33:07 I'm trying to think.

33:08 Good conversion, Chloe.

33:10 A math major.

33:12 Oh, really?

33:13 Like a big, yeah, really. And all they.

33:15 Taught us was how to convert hippos to tons.

33:19 To tons.

33:19 Tonnage.

33:21 Sometimes they would just flash a hippo and you had to be like, four and a half tons.

33:27 And then they'll flash other objects and we have to measure it in hippos.

33:30 0.8, 0.28 hippos. Yeah.

33:35 What was that little pygmy hippo that everybody loved? Moondang.

33:38 Yeah, Moondang.

33:40 Boy, that. had its 15 minutes of family.

33:44 Do you feel like Mudang is another victim of the infantilization of women that we only like women when they look like children?

33:51 No comment. I only like women when they don't look like.

33:56 That's me too. Mudang became a woman and then we're like, fuck her. We don't give a shit about her.

34:02 Now she's just a hippo. I go with that.

34:04 Yes.

34:04 I think that's what happened.

34:05 A hundred percent. You know what? This guy's growing drama reminds me of my growing drama.

34:12 Oh, what?

34:14 Here's my question to you. This has perplexed me. So I have, in my front yard, I have a tree of paradise growing out of kind of a section that has a lot of ornamental plants in it. And do you guys know what a tree of paradise is?

34:31 It's a sex stop on I-80.

34:34 It's right next to the devil's toy box.

34:38 Yeah, sign me up.

34:40 So it's an invasive species from Asia, and they grow everywhere. They have them in L.A., they have them in New Jersey, and they're everywhere. They out-compete everything in America. And here's the thing that happens with them, which is crazy, is if you cut them down... They panic and then they shoot like thousands of things underneath the ground so that like thousands more trees will grow right there if you just cut them down. So the way to kill them is like really cuckoo crazy. It's like bamboo. You have to like slit them in four separate places and then apply herbicide so it like draws it into the roots and then kills it. You have to pull it out.

35:20 It's so crazy. So anyway, I didn't know any of this. I pointed it out to a tree guy. And I was like, what's this? Is this a nice tree? Should I just let this grow here? Because I wanted a tree in my front yard. And he's like, no, it's a tree of paradise.

35:32 Get rid of it.

35:32 I was like, okay. So I chopped it. My phone was in my pocket, muffled. There's no way that my phone heard this guy who was outside, probably 10 feet away from me, say it was a tree of paradise. I haven't spoken to my wife about the tree of paradise.

35:47 Why would you?

35:48 All I did was I chopped it down.

35:50 Now.

35:51 My Instagram feed is full of Tree of Paradise content of just people cutting down Tree of Paradise, which is a whole world of Instagram that I didn't know existed. How the fuck is my phone spying on me at that level? Is it using Google Maps to see my property and see that I have a tree of paradise? Like, how is it getting it? There's no, I didn't make any purchases. I didn't, no one's around me purchased it.

36:18 No one said it. I haven't spoken about it. It was mentioned to me once and it was outside of my phone. It was in my pocket. I can't imagine how it did that.

36:27 I don't know.

36:29 Don't you think it's the tree itself?

36:31 Yes, I do.

36:33 It's at A Thousand Roots. A Thousand Roots, right over to the AT & T store, got a new iPhone.

36:39 Yeah. But you didn't use a credit card to buy a herbicide?

36:44 Nope, I have not bought herbicide because I was like, herbicide? That seems fucking intense. Also, I don't want to kill all the other stuff that's in that spot.

36:51 Didn't your phones know that you were going to have Olive before you told anybody?

36:56 Straight up, but I figured out how that happened.

36:59 Okay.

36:59 Because... We went to a CVS, and I stayed inside, so I never went inside the CVS, but my wife went inside the CVS, and she brought a pregnancy test kit with a credit card. And because our phones are near each other, it knows that she bought the pregnancy test, so then it started sending me, like, dad content pretty quickly after I found out I was going to be a dad.

37:26 So scary.

37:26 Yeah.

37:27 But there was no purchases here. Anyway, if any Bananimals have any idea, if you're in tech and know how my phone knows this, please, please DM me. I would like to know.

37:36 You don't think it's just that it probably, the phone microphone probably did hear him say Tree of Paradise?

37:42 He said it once outside, 10 feet away. It was in my pocket. I just don't, I don't buy it. It was said once. You know what I mean? I don't know.

37:51 I looked them up. Those are very familiar on the East Coast. Those things are everywhere. And they're not that great. They're not like, sometimes I don't understand weeds. You know, like here we have invasive mustard grass and it's yellow and it's like beautiful and everybody always is like, that's an invasive species. I'm like, I kind of like it.

38:09 I think it looks nice.

38:10 I heard the story of how it all got here. Do you know this story?

38:14 No.

38:15 It was fucking missionaries and they would, they're on their walk between like churches in missions. They would throw mustard seed plants mustard seeds along the path so that the next time they came back, like in 10 years.

38:31 They could follow the path?

38:33 And it would just be a golden path going.

38:35 From one to another. The original internet. That's the internet. They invented the World Wide Web. Missionaries were the original internet.

38:47 Unfortunately, that idea sort of rocks.

38:50 I know. It's a pretty cute idea.

38:53 Unfortunately, it's actually really kind of very cool.

38:55 That's how you should advertise your special. You should do mustard seed to YouTube on people's– it's just– you've got to think outside the box.

39:03 I just am going to try and– I'm going to go up and down every single person's driveway, spread mustard seed, and then in 20 years– They're going to be like, now, where does this lead?

39:13 This leads to.

39:14 Comedy Central's stand-up YouTube, not Comedy Central's YouTube.

39:19 Comedy Central's stand-up YouTube.

39:22 Yes.

39:23 Tree of Paradise, what a deceptive name, too, because when it's an invasive animal, it always has the craziest, most demonic name. It's always Snakehead Fish or, you know, this.

39:33 Fishhead Snake.

39:34 Yeah, exactly. The only other interesting thing I'll say about this guy, our homeboy. It was growing 40 centimeters a day in every direction.

39:47 That's fucking crazy.

39:50 It's 2.2 centimeters per inch.

39:51 Sorry, not the tree of paradise here.

39:53 Yeah.

39:53 Conversion queen, how much is 40 centimeters in inches?

39:56 40 centimeters. It's the size of a hippo's dick. I know that.

40:00 Thank you. Educational podcast.

40:03 In all directions.

40:05 Yeah.

40:07 A hippo's dick is just a perfect sphere.

40:11 That would make sense. Honestly, that would make perfect sense. Could it be you want to tease us into some thumbs-ups?

40:17 Are you kidding me? It's Bananas After Dark? I sure do. And since it's Bananas After Dark, we're going to get into this.

40:23 Here it is.

40:26 It is porn's most popular Halloween-related search terms for 2026.

40:34 Oh, I like that. That sounds good. Okay, Kurt and I are thumbing up our good friend, Jake Brown, who's running for Denver City Council.

40:44 Yes.

40:44 Jake's a great guy. We love Jake Brown.

40:47 Do we know Jake Brown?

40:48 Yeah, he's a good friend. And he even dressed up as a clam named Chowdy Doody at Bananas Fest. So we obviously endorsed him.

40:56 And we forced him to do it. He did not want to be Chowdy Doody that day, and we made him do it.

41:00 It was awesome.

41:01 But now, soon, those pictures will come out and will undermine his city council campaign.

41:08 No, it's cool. We all have big elections coming up, and sometimes when it's your district election, sometimes you don't know these names. So what we're saying is if you live in Denver and you're a voter, which obviously open animals are, and you go, I don't know all these people's names. If you see Jake Brown, that's our guy.

41:25 He's a great human being. You could help the city. Lisa is thumbing herself up for finally getting tenured after 10 years of teaching. She bounced around a lot from school to school. She was finally able to work in one place long enough She's celebrated by buying a Andy Warhol screen print. Fantastic.

41:46 That's cool.

41:46 Congratulations. Thumbs up, Lisa.

41:49 I think for a long time, I did think that getting tenured meant you spent ten years somewhere.

41:55 I got tenured.

41:57 It's funny that it sounds exactly like that. And I'm sure it usually took ten years.

42:02 I love the tradition of buying art.

42:04 That's my, whenever I finish a project, I buy art for myself or like something like I bought like a crazy kettle, like a tea kettle. That's like super designed and weird where it's like, this is a thing that I can have forever. Yeah.

42:17 And it reminds you of that, of that accomplishment.

42:20 Yeah. Yeah.

42:21 That is nice. Years and years ago, 2015-ish, I'd sold something. And it was a pretty good sale. It was either a TV pilot or a movie script. And I was dating a woman who was an actress. I think the last actress I ever dated, actually. And she was like, what are you going to do to celebrate? I was like, literally nothing. She's like, you have to do something. I was like, I've never done anything. Because the level of rejection is so constant that Even when you sell something, like a pilot, so exciting. We get to write it.

42:50 We get to shoot it. It's not going to go to series grade. All those dreams get dashed. That money goes away quickly. She's like, Scotty, you have to learn to celebrate any victory. So what I used to do is, I've changed it slightly in the last few years, but if I got the news, the deal is closed. They're moving ahead. It's going to be a thing. I used to smoke one cigarette, something Kurt will tell you, I never I don't smoke cigarettes. Never does. I mean, truly never do. And I would do a shot of tequila and that would be it. And the only reason I did the cigarette is because I don't do it, but it lasts a little bit longer than a shot. So I would sit on my balcony and be like, congratulations,

43:34 you did something good. This is your moment. Now I just don't do the cigarette. Now I just do a shot.

43:39 It's so funny to use a cigarette as a reward.

43:43 I thought it was going to be like you used to smoke and you never smoke anymore.

43:47 And this is your all out. Nope. You're just like.

43:50 Don't even enjoy them.

43:52 I'm doing a thing that's going to make my breath smell pretty bad for a while.

43:56 Yeah, and my hand.

43:56 As a congrats to me.

43:58 Yeah. Yes.

43:59 It just was like I'm going to do something to market that is like out of my normal life. And so that was my thing for, I don't know, eight years. And the other thing is it's like I would make one sale a year, two sales a year. So it's not like I was going through a pack. A pack of cigarettes would last me five years. Anyways, shout out to that person.

44:17 Pretty great.

44:19 Oh, man.

44:19 I want to do a shout out, Scotty.

44:21 Please.

44:22 I want to shout out. So I've only ever heard of Ticonderoga 3 pencils. Have you guys ever heard of any other type of pencil?

44:31 Yes.

44:31 Or is Ticonderoga 3 the primary pencil you've ever heard of? Well, my daughter went out and found Ticonderoga 2 pencils. And I'm going to put on my video just so you guys can see this for a second.

44:43 Look at that.

44:44 It's not, you know how a pencil has like all the little It's like the octagon ridges. Yeah, the facets.

44:50 Look at that.

44:51 And this is just round, and it's thicker. It's, like, bigger.

44:54 Gorgeous.

44:55 And it feels so much better. It's nice.

44:58 Don't you feel like that's sort of, like, now you know what it feels like.

45:01 To touch a hippo's dick?

45:02 I do, 100%. People say that a Ticonderoga 2 is the exact same length. They say it's 40 centimeters.

45:10 It's gorgeous. Good for you, Olive. Thumbs up for finding the two. Yes, I was aware of the three and the one. Why were they still making the threes and the ones?

45:18 When the two is perfect. Ticonderoga two, folks.

45:22 Man.

45:23 All right. I got one more. Ryan is thumbing herself way up for 330 days sober from weed and drinking. After 10 plus years, she realized last November it was time to let them both go. best thing she's ever done for her family and herself. Love the pod. Thumbs up to you, Ryan. I'll send you a dry 69 bumper sticker.

45:48 That's great. I think you have over 20 of them.

45:51 Yeah.

45:51 Good job.

45:53 Can I, can I do a wait?

45:55 Thumbs up.

45:56 Thumbs up. Okay.

45:57 This is a very self-serving thumbs up. I mentioned this to you guys before we were recording. So in honor of my special eyes down here, Yes.

46:06 Comedy Central.

46:07 So I figured out where my high school and college crushes live and work.

46:14 Now back in the Twin Cities.

46:16 That's amazing.

46:16 And Comedy Central put up billboards at the intersections.

46:20 Where they live and work.

46:21 No way.

46:23 To make them feel bad for not having crushes back on me in high school and college. Dude, rep.

46:31 I went back to Minnesota and filmed in front of those billboards and those videos are up on my page now. So that's, I guess the thumbs up, I guess I'm thumbs upping myself now. for, I should be thumbs upping myself for, for, you know, being out of their league now, except I think the reality is I'm still doing these desperate cries for attention for the attention of my high school and college crushes. So actually I think I'm thumbs upping them for being so like cool and hot and compelling still that I'm still obsessed with them.

47:07 There you go. Thumbs up to those guys keeping out for those billboards. Look at her go.

47:14 Yeah, it's a great idea.

47:15 The one that got away.

47:16 That is such a good idea, Chloe. Congratulations.

47:19 Thank you.

47:19 Everybody, go watch Chloe's special. Right now you can see it on Comedy Central Stand-Up's YouTube page. It is called Eyes Down Here. Came out just today.

47:31 Yeah, go watch.

47:32 Immediately after this podcast, put it on in the background and let it loop. Play it as many times as you can. We need that algorithm to be like, people like this because then it'll start pushing it out.

47:42 Every device is going to get it in this household, Chloe. I'm going to have five or six devices going.

47:47 God bless you.

47:49 Truly, if anybody listening, if you know anybody who might like a Santa special.

47:52 Please send it.

47:54 Literally hitting that share button on YouTube, sending that link to people. feeds back to the YouTube algorithm because they can tell when something has been shared.

48:05 And then they're like, oh, people like this.

48:07 So yeah, share the link, send it to anybody you know, click on it, please. Literally all of that makes a difference in how the special performs.

48:18 Good. Support Chloe.

48:20 100%. That's good information.

48:23 And happy Halloween, everybody. Have a safe and fun Halloween, no matter where you are, what you're dressed up as, what you do. Have a good time out there.

48:30 Happy Halloween.

48:32 Bananas.

48:33 We did it. Happy Halloween, everybody.

48:35 We did it. What noise was that?

48:41 I don't know. Scotty, say it.

48:45 Bananas. Bananas.

48:51 Oh, it was a spooky bananas. Now I get it. Bananas. Bananas is an Exactly Right Media production.

49:01 Our producer and engineer is Katie Levine.

49:04 The Catchy Bananas theme song was composed and performed by Kay Han.

49:07 Artwork for Bananas was designed by Travis Millard.

49:10 And our benevolent overlords are the great Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark.

49:14 And Lisa Maggett is our full human, not a robot, part-time employee.

49:18 You can listen to Bananas on the iHeartRadio channel. And please feel free to rate and review as many times as you can. We love those five stars.

49:14 Bananas!