Welcome to Stuck in Stony Brook, a podcast about The Babysitter's Club.Today we're discussing Mystery 18, Stacey, and the mystery at the empty house.
Ooh.Technically the house is never empty because Harriet is there the entire time.Oh, good point.
I also think of an empty house as a house that is fully uninhabited, not one where the people are on vacation.Right, like empty, like echoey.
Yeah, like when we had to move out of our house in Pacific Beach, but no one lived there yet, and we still had the keys, so we had an empty house party. Yeah, there's stuff in there.Yeah.And a dog, so rude.I know, poor carrot.Poor carrot.
or Zucchini.They really pushed that joke.Yeah.I don't know.I kind of like Robert.I think he's hot.I like Robert, too.Oh, more than Bart.Well, yeah, right now, because I get more more face time with him.
Yeah.I feel like Bart and Robert are kind of the same person, like they occupy the same space.
I think Bart is more earnest and Robert's a little more irreverent, which makes me like him a little more.
Wait, Robert's the one who put basketball over some... Yeah, because the teachers gave too much preference to the athlete kids.He was just trying to hook up with Stacy.Oh, that was a bit?
That wasn't noticed?Yeah, that was a bit.You know he wanted to drop out so he could smoke pot and not be randomly screened.Yeah.He's starting a league outside of school?Come on.Wow, okay.Emily has this whole backstory.That's a lot.That's a lot.Yeah.
That's like your fan fanfic account.I know.
I know.Here we go.Emily.I wish they were real teenagers.I mean, older teenagers.
Oh, like 17?Yeah.Yeah, I know why.102 and 0.Yeah.Well, we haven't even gotten to the, wait, we should probably back up.We still need to do our one-sentence summary.
Yeah, that's on you, Ms.Ichikawa.
What do you mean?Emily's the one who's talking about how earnest of artists.
Yeah, but you're assigned one-sentence summaries.
That's true.You could cut her off at any moment.I feel like my name wasn't big enough, so I didn't see it in the outline.
Who would like to show?Should I go first?Sure.Sure.Okay.Dr. Johansson is a poor communicator.
Nice, I like that one.That's a very good summary.Mine is, Stacey House sits for the Johanssons and their friend uses the house too.
Oh, mine is, Stacey is prejudiced against redheads and no one learns any lessons from babysitting.
Yeah, yeah.My asterisk, which is not actually a summary, is that this is the last book of 1994, you guys.We're leaving 94 behind and moving into 1995.I know.
We're getting to the bad side of the 90s now. I think we have one more good year.
Oh my god.Can't wait to find out what makes it bad.
At this point, this is like where all the Nirvana rip-off bands are starting to infiltrate the radio, and then eventually it turns into just Smash Mouth, Wall-to-Wall, Smash Mouth, and Mashbox 20.
Yeah, on that note, wait, you guys, we should probably back up and tell you about the members of the podcast.I'm Emily Crandall, a feminist scholar.I'm a total individual and I like health food.
I'm Esme Schaller, an adolescent psychologist.I'm kind of bossy, but I have a big heart.
And I'm Manu Chikawa, a freelance writer and a mischievous pragmatist with a sweet tooth.If you want to learn more about us and how we know each other, check out our prologue episode.Also, rate and review us, it really helps people find the podcast.
And if you have any questions, comments or commentary about anything BSC related, drop us a line at stuckinstonybrook at gmail.com.You can also support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash Slush slash Stony Brook.
Join our Patreon and we will send you a slushie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.Okay, before we dive into the book, I think it is time for us to do another BSC Big 5.BSC Big 5!
For those of you who, again, I don't know why you would be listening to this episode if you haven't ever listened to us before, but welcome if you decided to start with Mystery 18.They just skipped straight to Mystery 18.
Maybe Mystery 18 is someone's favorite book.Maybe someone grew up with a schnauzer named Zucchini and they really connected with it.
Anyway, this is our take on personality inventories like the Myers-Briggs or the more scientifically validated Big Five.
Or, I can't believe I forgot to send this to you guys.It completely consumed my day on Friday.Have you seen the What Veggie Are You quiz?Yes.No. Okay.As soon as we finish recording this, we're going to do it.
What are the choices?I want to guess your best.There's like 12 of them.It's incredible.And it's not, you have to go through like a whole.Don't spoil it.Okay.What are you, Emily?I'm a potato.Oh, I'm a green bean.
That's what I was going to say.
All right, yes, so this is our What Veggie Are You?And we're going to help Sarah figure out her BSC Big 5.So Anne, you want to read the email from Sarah, who is one of our patrons.The benefit of being a patron is we prioritize your BSC Big 5.Perks.
Here we go.Pretend I'm Sarah.As a kid, I loved Stacy.
What, why, what, it's like, we haven't met, we don't, why?Yeah, I don't know.
I was gonna start speaking in some sort of like undefined accent, but then I realized, I don't think, it's a long letter, and I don't think I could.
I want you to do like an old-timey mid-Atlantic.Yeah, yeah, like a Hepburn, do a Hepburn.I cannot do that.
I'll just speak in my normal Anne voice, I guess.I accept.Okay.As a kid, I loved Stacy, but most identified with Marianne more than any other babysitter.I was not popular in middle school or high school and was bullied horribly.
My safe space as a teenager was a theater camp that I went to for seven years. I found my people there.I have been interested in the arts since I was a little kid.I started ballet at the age of three and continued until age 10.
But before you say Jessie, I was not good at ballet.I just loved it.After that, I shifted gears to jazz dance, which I was much better at and enjoyed a lot more, but quit for good at 15.
As a kid, I loved to swim and was on the swim team for years, but again, as with dance, was never good at it.By 12, my main love was theater and singing, and I had found my true passion.
However, my father squashed my ambition at 18 when he told me I was not pretty enough or tall enough, question mark, to be an actress.
Yes, no actresses are tall.And yes, yikes overall, Sarah.We love you.I also just admire Sarah's stick-to-itiveness.I really like when kids keep doing things that they don't get a ton of reinforcement for just because they like doing the thing.
Yeah. Continues, at that point, I switched gears to psychology, which I had loved studying in high school, and ended up getting my BA and MS in psychology.My parents got divorced when I was nine, but had a very amicable divorce, very non-BFC-like.
Like, it was super amicable, not unlike- Oh, oh, I see, I see.
Still get along very well to this day.While as a kid, I was a very loud, boisterous kid with tons of friends.But in adolescence, that all changed.
I became shy and quiet and withdrawn, but at camp, while in my safe space, my true personality blossomed.I was happy, I was louder and more outspoken, but still needed time to myself to decompress and read and write my other loves.
I was a late bloomer, got my period shortly before I turned 13, and my first boyfriend at 16.I got married to my now husband almost 13 years ago and have two girls, both of whom have inherited my lack of athleticism and love of reading.
As an adult, I love to read still.I love to learn. My daughters both have epilepsy, and one thing I pride myself on is researching everything as thoroughly as I possibly can.
My youngest and I both have type 1 diabetes, and I credit Anna Martin and her portrayal of Stacy's diabetes, which led to my diagnosing myself at the age of 27 after months of being told I was wrong and crazy for thinking I had diabetes.
I love shopping.I have a style now that resembles more Chrissy, but I love getting dressed up when I can.As a kid, I wanted to dress like Stacey and Claudia and wanted to style my outfits like theirs, down to the slouchy socks.
Though, truly though, I am all about whatever is most comfortable. My guess is a little bit of everyone, but I don't think a great deal of Claudia.For one thing, I won multiple spelling bees as a teen, which definitely is not like our Claude.
But like Claudia, I hate math.Have at it, ladies.Wow.
I mean, a little bit of everyone is usually the answer, but let's get scientific, shall we?
Spoiler.Yeah.All right.Who do you guys think is in the lead?Who's jumping out to you here for Sarah?
Mal.Yeah.Needs a space to feel comfortable sort of letting the true personality shine and otherwise struggles with kind of being herself.Reads very Mal to me, at least in adolescence. childhood cusp adolescence.Yeah.Yeah, that's fair.
Also like creative but not I feel like liking dance but not being great at it is also a very Mao like, you know, I feel fulfilled in something and I might not be good at it, but it brings me a lot of joy.
So I'm going to keep like I'm going to persevere.
I feel like there's Dawn and Stacy. she kind of has a bucket attitude.Yeah.She just says what she wants.Yeah.Yeah, I do what I want.
Yeah.And she doesn't care about what other people say, which is very Dawn.And also kind of just the ease, like the confidence of a Stacey, which is like a more easygoing confidence, whereas Dawn is a more like, Yeah.
Well, and I also think of the BSC divorces, Stacey's, I mean, Dawn's is the most amicable as far as we see.We don't hear a ton.
I guess recently we got a little flashback-y stuff to them fighting, but Sharon and Jack work really well together to figure out, like, sending the kids back and forth.
forth and they're on the same page when Don runs away on the airplane and all of those kinds of things, whereas you see more tension with the McGill's still.And obviously it's not a Christie-style divorce, like she made that very clear.
Yeah, that was the one divorce I was going to potentially contest in Sarah's description.
Yeah.Well, no, she said non-BSC like hers was because it was so amicable.
Right, but I actually think that Dawn's parents- Oh, Dawn's.I thought you meant Christy's.
No, no.Yeah.No, Dawn's.I was agreeing with you.Wow.Oh, you know.Happens so infrequently that sometimes I don't notice.
Ugh.High roll.That's such a green bean thing to say.So true.And Anne doesn't even know how true that is.
Okay, so also obviously the diabetes has, you know, big Stacey vibes as well.So we have to, you know, somebody can't have T1D and not be part Stacey.That's like, that's huge.Okay.I don't know if there's much Christie.
Yeah. You know, Christy does it too much for, like, the accolades, I feel.
Although Christy is interested in psychology and, like, researching things and understanding, like, you know, the research she does for her daughters with epilepsy and the psychology degrees. Or Esme is.No, Christy is.
Christy wants to be a child psychologist.It's in the books.I'm just kidding.Okay.So I think that part is the Christy.Do we want to, does she not have some Jesse credit for doing ballet for seven years, even if she's not good at it?
That's a lot of time spent.She can get a little.A little.Yeah.Okay.6% Jesse.Any Claude or do we, do we agree with, do we agree with Sarah that she doesn't have any Claudia?
I think that feeling fulfilled in creative endeavors is a little bit Claude, even if, like just a little bit.
Even though Claude's not a performer necessarily.
So also six or a little more Claude than Jessie?
Okay, I vote we change Jessie to 6.9 and Claude to six.
Okay.We've never given anyone a decimal.
Okay, Mal is in the lead, followed by Stacey.
Oh, what's Mal's percentage?
I don't know, we haven't decided yet.
I think I have to decide before we can determine the others.I thought this was scientific.
Okay, go ahead, Anne.Thanks for keeping me on track.
Like, 70, no, 68.Oh, stop it!Christ!
All right, I'm saying 70% Mal.So then Don, is Don or Stacey more?Do you think Don is more?And followed closely by Stacey?
I think they're very close.I think they're even.Yeah, let's say even.
Okay, so how high are you? Okay, and then I feel like there's some Marianne there too, obviously, but introverted and reading and writing time, but less, it's more Mal than Marianne.Okay, and then is Christy zero?
Well, yeah, the child psychology thing.
Oh, the psychology, right, right, right, okay, 15.And some adult fashion, yeah, yeah, 15.Yeah, all right, there you have it, Sarah.70, Mal, 50, Stacy and Dawn, 40, Marianne, 15, Christy, 6.9 Jessie and 6% Claudia.
I would just like to point out that we have done 42.0 before.
Yes, that's true, but that's not actually a decimal point.Oh my God.Anyway, thanks for playing, Sarah.Thanks for being a patron.Thanks for writing.Thanks, Sarah. All right, Anne.
What's this book again?Oh, it's about an empty house.That's not really empty.I think this is a pretty, I mean, I think we really covered it in our one sentence summaries.Yeah, there's not a lot.There's like not a lot.
So the Johanssons, including Charlotte, go to Paris because Dr. Johansson's sister is a fancy schmancy art dealer. and very wealthy.So they're doing something over there.So Stacy is house sitting and taking care of care of the dog carrot.
And while they're weird things start to happen, coffin, there's a cup in the sink, broken face, a hairbrush with red hair.So this is the coffee makers warm coffee makers warm.This is the mystery toast.
At the same time, there's another loose prisoner like,
Escape convict, which happens a lot in Stony Brook.Yeah, it's happened like four times in eighth grade.Yeah, I know.
The prisons in Stony Brook are really not meant to hold people.
Minimum security.Jesse has the idea to use the surveillance option on the Johansson's answering machine. So they have like a stakeout party and they all have a slumber party.They call.You press 143 as their code.
Then you can listen to what's going on in the house over the phone.And they hear something, but it's just the dog.Yeah, it's like Carrot jingling his.Yeah. Yeah, so nothing happened.And then the next day it snows overnight.
I think they see footprints, but it's just the male person.But there's a pad of paper with a phone number on it.
Yeah, you guys skipped the meter reader.
Oh yeah, the meter reader was a long time ago.That was one of the first people.Yeah.She had red hair.
Yeah, she had red hair.She has red hair. This is an important detail because from my summary, Stacey is afraid of redheads.Also, the convict is a redhead, guys.
Yeah.This is me just editing out that part because I'm just trying to get through the recap quickly.
And then the B plot is that they want to do something special for the kids because it's the holiday times and Christy accidentally promises them all a sleigh ride and she's obsessively checking the weather.
But it's because Watson got offered a free sleigh ride. Yeah.Yeah.
But apparently like 50 people can go on it.
Yeah.The rich get richer.I know.I know.The rich get richer all the time.
Yeah.So back to the padded paper, they see something written on it.
Yeah.It's a phone number and Stacey calls it and then we don't know what it is, but she's like, I know where we need to go.And so then they go to the train station the next morning and the Johanssons are there.
And so is... Their old college friend, Bill Grohman.
Yeah.Super anticlimactic.Yeah.
Who also has red hair.Then I was like, oops, I should have told you.Someone was staying at the house while you were there.Well, he did write Stacey a note.
That Carrot chewed it up.
Yeah, well, because you shouldn't leave a dog alone for like 22 hours a day.
I mean, I would say this is a more believable mystery, though not good, than the one at the mall.What about when they solved the bank robbery? This one's like more like tame and maybe realistic.
Yeah, it's definitely believable.And I would have been scared if I was Stacey.Yeah.And I was like finding weird, like subtle weird things around the house, and I'm supposedly the only one that's going in.
Yeah, I mean, if it was me, I would have been like, I have 100% did not put that fucking glass there.
Stacey was like, maybe I just thought I washed it.And I was like, bitch, if you washed it, you washed it.
Yeah, yeah, that's the difference.Me and Emily would be that, and Anne would be like, huh, guess I forgot to put this cup away.
No, I would not think that.Okay, I may have left, I may leave a glass in the sink, but I would remember that I left a glass in the sink or not.Okay, take it back.
Potato green bean, take it back.Hold on, if you came home to a scene that wasn't how you remembered it, would your first thought be, someone was here, someone did this?
Or would your first thought be, hmm, maybe I didn't leave it the way I thought I left it?
I mean, it depends.If it was a broken base, I would know if I had broken the base.It was something smaller than maybe I could make it.Like a glass in the sink?No.I would not.I would not touch that.All right, fine.
However, there was a steaming pile of poo on the floor.And I feel like, did I do that?
There was a surprising number of Emily things in this small little book and very little psychology because it's mostly not anybody interacting with anybody else.
I mean, there's not really any anything.It's just like pretty blah.There's some good Emily bait though.
Well, there's an escaped convict.Yikes.Again.Yeah.
He keeps being spoken about as a dangerous convict but like we don't know what he's went to prison for.
You know what I like?It's the same person just keeps on escaping.
It's the phantom whatever.Well in that case he deserves to be free. Would we call him a dangerous convict?I don't know.I just take issue with that.
You know, it's like, we've talked about this a billion times, because there's so many fucking criminals in Stony Brook, but like, that he is the convict, the escaped convict, and he is inherently dangerous, because he is at his core a convict, right?
It's just, I don't know, man, maybe if he was actually tried, like if the prison in Stony Brook was actually trying to rehabilitate him.He wouldn't try to escape so many times.I don't know.This is lore now.He's escaped multiple times.
Yeah, I think it's the same guy too.I like that.And that's very cool.
Yeah, I find that irritating.
We learned that Shannon's on the debate team, and she's very excited about a debate. that has happened.And we get to hear the first line of the debate, which is on the question of can the two party system survive in today's United States?
So 1994, which by the way, welfare reform that year, the crime bill, this is a landmark year for the destruction of American democracy people.So Shannon's team argues it can't, the two party system cannot survive
because the changing political scene demands responsive dot, dot, dot.
What is the end of that sentence?I know.It doesn't matter.Her team was fucking wrong.So.
you know, with the with the crime bill, the sort of ratcheting up of the military outfitting of police departments all across the country, the rendering of poverty as criminal, combined with voter laws and gerrymandering.
I mean, basically 1994 is a threshold year for disenfranchising an entire demographic of poor black and brown people from voting.So
This is the moment, actually, Shannon, where the two-party system becomes more deeply entrenched than arguably ever, and two very bleak ends.And during a Democratic presidency, which is a bit of a bummer for middle lefts.
Right, but it was also the huge backlash to Bill Clinton's presidency, because 94 was also the giant wave in the midterm elections of all of those
Yeah, but Clinton ran on the platform on a tough on crime, anti-welfare platform.
I'm not, I'm not, I think it's, you know, more entrenched on both sides.
I'm not like saying it wasn't Clinton's fault, but I'm saying like the other thing that was happening in 94 was this huge evangelical, the rise of the evangelical right and the early days of that culminating in the election of W. Which also was a perfect, I mean, an intentional effort on the part of establishment Republicans to recruit and assemble
a new demographic that could counterbalance the vaguely progressive or left-ish leaning wave of people emerging out of the various social movements from the 60s and 70s. Lots of things, but Shannon's wrong.
Yeah, it's definitely survived.Here we go, 30 years later.Although, depending on what happens in November, it could all cataclysmically fall apart.
But Emily, I'm curious to know your thoughts on how, given that Shannon's on the debate team at the rich kid private school, whether you think that that influences the content of these arguments at all.
Well, I would be curious to know what her team understands the changing political scene to be and like what demands are responsive, right?
Because like typically people who advocate during elections for voting for a third party candidate tend to be vaguely left or leaning and about polling parties that have gotten comfortable sort of what we think of as the middle toward usually issue specific things like climate or something like that, right?
And so it I'd be curious to know whether for Shannon's team, it's a sort of abstract puzzle about procedure, and like democratic accountability, or whether there's a particular political issue that motivates the insight or the observation that there are urgent things that demand a response, you know, in this moment, is Shannon overlapping with Don here and like,
it is the 90s, this is the moment when we have to do something about the planet.And like the two party system isn't going to get us there.
Or is it merely like, we're, you know, our checks on democratic accountability are not as strong because of the interest of lobbying, and we need to rewrite some rules for the process.You know what I mean?I'd be curious to know what avenue there
their understanding the changing political scene to consist of, you know what I mean?
Well, and two years before this was also Ross Perot, right?So it was, you know, the only time we've had a remotely getting close, you know, third party candidate in modern history.
So that's another reason that Shannon would have been talking about this.I don't think she was talking about like taking whale heads home and stopping vaccines. In all likelihood, yeah.
I doubt that that's like the changing political scene that she's thinking of.Yeah.Yeah.But it would be interesting.Yeah.I wonder what like kids of wealthy, moderate Democrats were like fired up about politically in the mid-90s.
In the mid-90s Connecticut.Yeah.Like, we need more affirmative action at Yale or like what?
Well, we're only, yeah, I mean, we're only a couple of years away from them abolishing it in California.I know.
Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.I know.I thought that was funny.But we just get a two little lines on that.And then Stacy's like, oh, Claude got bored.I'm like, damn, throw her into the bus.But she's also not paying attention.
Okay, and then I just have a bunch of random little nuggets.Go for it.Oh, Stacey's mom spent her junior year in college abroad in Paris, which I also did.
Love that one of Stacey's signifiers for her sophisticated upbringing is that by the time she was eight, she could discern a Monet from a Picasso.
Yeah, that is not hard, by the way.Famously, famously.
Like, completely different. Yeah, styles of painting.Incredible.She teaches Charlotte to tie her scarf in the European style.What style is that?I really liked the descriptions of the interior of the Johansson's house.
Yeah, that they have like plain walls, but like beautiful wood floors that have brightly colored oriental rugs, except in the living room, they have a blue tiled floor. and I don't know, comfy couches and a cool cabinet that hides the TV.
I was like, I like that.It doesn't sound 90s cheesy.Does Carolyn Arnold have a mullet?
I thought it was a rat tail, not a mullet.Did we already know that the Kuhn kids are Jewish?I don't think so.And has there been any reference to Hanukkah or a description of it at all?First reference to Hanukkah.
Very cool.There has been in the little sister books prior to this.I only know that because of something else that we read where Karen referenced it.So, because Karen, oh, Karen is friends with Nancy Dawes, who I think is Jewish.
So Karen has a Jewish friend.So it's been referenced there, but not in the main.
Yeah, it was kind of cute.You know, they explain Hanukkah to Marianne and Marianne's like, oh, that sounds fun.Like rah rah, non-Christmas things are cool too.Yep. Marianne, as a babysitting activity, has the kids make traps to play catch a bad guy?
Sure.Has Home Alone come out yet?I think so, yeah.I think Home Alone came out in 92.Yeah.Interesting.That game feels like sus to me, but whatever. I could see Marianne finding that a fun way to deal with her anxiety.Yeah, Home Alone came out in 1990.
Oh, okay.Stacy's wearing a swatch.
And my last thing that's on my list of what I'm calling LOLs is that They borrow to stake out the Johansson's house.They borrow specifically Watson's fancy binoculars that he has for bird watching, which I thought was really funny.
You know Watson loves to try a bird.That's not surprising at all that Watson's a birder. Okay, that's my list.Nice.I was really trying to stretch to find something psychological.
There's just not a lot beyond stuff that overlaps with your stuff, Emily.So I also just have nuggets of things that I enjoyed.The one tiny thing is that I do love Robert as well.
And I think his and Stacey's interactions in this book are quite accurate and cute for like a cute teen couple.And I think in chapter three, she sort of describes when they're hanging out and he's joking about Carrot.
They just kind of like shove each other a bunch of times and then they hug.And I wrote down like, shove, shove, hug, which I think is like a very common teen way of showing affection.So I thought that was really good and super accurate.
We learn about the escaped convict from Stacey tuning into WSTO, the local Stony Brook radio station. and listening to the DJ Wild Bill.I believe this is the first we've heard of them.
We've heard a lot about the Stony Brook News before and about the local TV newscast, but we haven't heard about the radio station yet, so I'm very excited about that.Big fan of local radio.It will come back around, and I'm stoked on that.
In talking about the sleigh ride that they're going to do, Christy mentions that a lot of the kids are very excited because of Little House on the Prairie and Laurel Ingalls Wilder, and they're going to feel like her being tucked up in a sled.
And so I think in a different week, maybe we did before, talk about both why Little House on the Prairie is so appealing to kids and kind of this, well, I was like, what's a word for whitewashed?It's literally whitewashed view of Western expansion.
Frontier life.Frontier life and the simpleness of it, but also the autonomy that Laura had.I think it's sort of similar reasons to why people got so connected to the Babysitter's Club in some ways.
This is just like 1990s autonomy instead of 1850s, 1860s autonomy, 1870s autonomy.But I'm actually reading very slowly because it's very long.
I'm reading this book called Prairie Fires by Carolyn Fraser that's like the true story of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, who was like a reporter that encouraged her to write the books and like they edited back and forth.
Just wanted to recommend that, but thinking about this additional chapter in Native American erasure, just even in the background, since that's been a theme running through the books, with the exception of Don and the Big Sleepover, they're just like, oh yeah, just like Little House, yay, not problematic at all.
So I noticed that coming out.I also loved the Pykes art project of making potato print wrapping paper.I have done that before.I feel like maybe you and I did that at my house one time, Anne.
Like, it's just like a very classic board on a weekend afternoon, 80s, 90s kid activity.And so it made me really happy.It made me want to make some potato wrapping paper.Yeah.Some wrapping paper in honor of me, the potato.Yeah, in honor of you.
Cut you and carve you and then use you as a stamp.And then two weird gender things in the very last chapter that I'm surprised you didn't remark upon, Emily.One is that- Maybe I didn't read that chapter so closely.Maybe, maybe.
One is that Logan and Mary Ann are Santa and Mrs. Claus.I missed that entirely. Did I skip the last chapter?You did.At the party after the sleigh ride, they like sneak away.
Which I first was like, oh, they're sneaking away.But then they come back dressed up as Santa and Mrs. Claus.And I was like, oh, that's upsetting.Yeah.
I mean, I walked it out of my mind on purpose.
Yes. And I also, in the last chapter, they also explain Kwanzaa a little bit as well.And yeah, so they were disguised so well.So we have more children playing Santa in this book.
But also, if you're gonna choose someone to play a part, are you really gonna choose Marianne?Logan, I get, but I feel like any one of them probably could have role-played Mrs. Claus.
That seems like the kind of thing that Marianne would be super shy about.
Yeah, great question.But the other thing that was even weirder in the last chapter is, hold on, I have to find it.I should have written down the page. Claudia and I had talked about it while we dressed for the sleigh ride and party.
She'd come over to my house to get ready.As we piled on the layers, I was wearing a silk teddy, a thermal shirt and leggings, a turtleneck, and a big multicolored sweater.I could barely move.Then we had laughed about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
What 13-year-old has a teddy that they wear as a base layer?Is that not weird?Is this some East Coast thing I don't know about that 13-year-olds have lingerie?
Yeah, I don't know.I think I, I don't know what happened.Chapter 15 and didn't.It says I read it, but nothing committed to brain.
And did this freak you out as well?
Oh, good. I don't remember that part, or I didn't read it.
All right, so why does Stacey have a silk teddy?Does she just mean?Okay, this is what I'm thinking of.I wore these in the 90s.It's just like a little camisole.Like a slip.Like a slip top.
Right, but a teddy isn't just a slip top.A teddy like goes around under your, it's like a little.Maybe Ellen Miles doesn't know what a teddy is.Maybe it's a teddy bear.
I put a silk teddy bear in my underpants and then I put on thermals and a wool sweater.Yeah.
It doesn't say anything about underpants.
I was just figuring out how could she wear it if it wasn't a lingerie teddy.Anyway, I just thought that was weird.I was confused by that.
I just feel like she means something different.
Yeah, silk camisole, fine, fine.
Yeah, maybe there's a different definition for teddy.Let's see.Teddy, article of clothing. Let's see, okay.Ann's going to a weird place on Google, everyone.
A teddy, also called a chemi-knicker, is a garment which covers the torso and crotch in the one garment.See?So it's a similar style garment to a one-piece swimsuit or body, oh, so maybe it's a bodysuit.
Yeah, but have you ever- That's what they say it is.I know, I know that's what it is, but have you ever heard somebody say teddy when they weren't talking about like- Lingerie.
Lingerie?But that is an old-fashioned term, so maybe Ellen Miles is-
Yeah, yeah.All right, well anyway, those are my nuggets.I thought there were a lot of nice interactions between people in the book, and the sleigh ride was cute, and it was a fine little BSC book, but it did not seem like much of a mystery.
That's my summary.But I like Stacey and Robert's interactions. realistic.
Okay, cute, cute, cute, cute, cute.What do you got in my little corner?I picked up on how Mallory played Madlibs.And I think everyone is familiar with Madlibs.And we have all played Madlibs.
But you never really thought you just I feel like we just were like they were they've been around forever, right? Like, it's like we didn't, there was never a time where there weren't Mad Libs.
And I've never really thought about how they had to be invented.So I went on the good old internet and Mad Libs, the official site actually has a history page.So I'm going to just try to summarize it.
So Mad Libs was invented by accident by Leonard Stern and his friend, Roger Price, who were both writers.
Isn't the company Stern and Price?I remember the logo from the ads.
So Leonard was a writer for the Honeymooners and he was stuck, he was in his apartment and he was stuck trying to think of words to describe the nose of Ralph Cramden's new boss. So he was just like thinking about it.I wasn't sure how.
And he was like a really like wordsmith.He loved words.And then Roger, his friend, rang on the door.They're supposed to meet up.And he was like, what are you doing?He's like, I'm trying to figure out a word to describe Ralph Cramden's nose.
And he's like, well, do you want me to help you?And he's like, OK.So Leonard goes, I need an adjective that and Roger just interrupts with clumsy and naked.So without even knowing.So which gave Ralph Cramden's new boss a clumsy nose.
or like, and they just thought it was both hilarious.So they kind of they were, yeah, they're going to a party that night.And they just like, immediately made it into a game on their typewriter and just made up blanks.And they played it at the game.
And everyone loved it.Everyone invited the game.But first, they wanted to be both word people, they wanted to think of a really good name for the game. And that didn't come until five years later.
What year is this?53.Okay.Yeah.
Yeah.So I'm just gonna read how he told the story about how they came up with the name for Mad Libs. The name Mad Libs came to Roger and me out of the blue at Sardi's restaurant in New York in the summer of 1958.
At the table next to us, an actor and his agent were having coffee and an argument.From what we couldn't help but overhear, the actor wanted to ad-lib an interview, and his agent thought it was a mad thing to do.And they called it Mad Libs.
But they couldn't find a publisher, so hence they made the book and published it themselves.
Roger and Prentice, and that year the same year they thought of the, they publish it and they just distributed it themselves at like bookstores in New York, Leonard was now a writer for the Steve Allen show, which was like a popular variety show in the 50s, and he told Steve like, Oh, like, why don't we use Mad Libs as a way to introduce guests.
So with ideas from the audience.So on the next show they played Madlibs with the audience with noun, blank noun, Bob Hope.And that's how Madlibs got super popular and then the book sold out everywhere.
That's so fun.Isn't that a good story?
Yeah, it's a great story.
It's just a fun story of just, I don't know, it seems like something that could easily happen between friends, especially that they were both writers and they just like kind of did it.Yeah.
Is it still their company or has it been sold to like a different toy company or something over the years?
I'm not sure.I think it's still, okay, so it says they're publishing companies called Price, Stern, Sloan now.So I guess there's another person. Yeah, that's still them.That's still them though.Yeah, that's really cool.Yeah.
So Leonard Stern is has passed away since.But he said his license plate was Madlib.Yeah.And people would like stop him at Southwest and being like, Oh, is that like the game?And he'd be like, Oh, yeah, like I created it with my friend.
I'd be like, No way.And like, he talks about how everyone's always so surprised because they think that Madlib has just been around forever.Like how Yeah, felt, you know, like we didn't think someone like someone needed to create it.Yeah.Yeah.
He said, he said, I now state emphatically that Moses had mad lips with him to keep kids amused when they were on the road to Egypt. And he sounds like a cool dude, like really funny.So nice.It's a good trivia, a little bit of trivia.
And I think it's one of the boomer markers that is true.Like we definitely still liked them in the 80s and 90s.Yes.So it's not weird that Mallory was playing them.
No, I think like kids probably still play them now, do they?I feel like it's like a car ride thing where I guess maybe kids like, I mean, if you're in a long car ride, you gotta haveI wonder if there's an app.I'm sure there is.Should I check?
No, I'm just curious because I feel like kids play on their phones.
I know.In terms of Claudia's Candy, I think we just had Starburst.They had like drunk food at the surveillance thing but that wasn't technically Claudia's Candy.
Their surveillance event at the stakeout.We only had sophisticated and almond for tallies, but I just don't know why almond is still here.It's almost 1995, you guys.Because they hate Claudia.
She's a bad speller and has all the dice.
Um, there's a continuity error.
We just read Super Special 12, Dawn's Home.
Oh, yeah.Yeah, I don't know.Sometimes the, they came out the same month, right?So sometimes the list, like they both came out in December of 94.Okay.
And so sometimes it's hard to tell when they come out the same month, which one actually came out first. Ah, so this one might have come out before.Yeah, and there's no dates available for like the date it was released that I can find.Interesting.
Yeah.Okay, fine.No error.Maybe we should have read this one first.
I mean, I don't think it really matters, but it's just like funny because we just had Christmas.
Yeah, totally.And then it's Christmas again.Christmas again.Yep.What did you guys have for weirdest lines?
I liked all of my parents' jokes about carrot, but my favorite is when he says, carrot, zucchini, what's the difference?How about you, Annie?
I liked Stacey's mom talking about John Paul.She says, I'll always remember John Paul.
Yeah, I feel like it's a little swoony to say in front of a middle schooler.
Yeah, but that's the kind of relationship they have though.Yeah.Mine is, Marianne asks, what's our plan when the BSC is deciding how to help Stacey solve the mystery?And Christy says, total surveillance.That's pretty good for a mystery.
Sounds like somebody in one of those action movies.So I thought that was funny.Total surveillance.
I go for that.It goes well with the mystery theme.
I mean, you don't have to listen to me.
You had an opinion, we'll take it.This is somewhat of a democracy, so.
What should we pizza toast to?
I mean, we could pizza toast to Jean-Paul.
To junior year study abroad in Paris?
Yeah, let's pizza toast to Jean-Paul. We'll always have Jean-Paul.Okay, a pizza toast to Jean-Paul.
Maureen and Jean-Paul.This episode of Second Study Break is now adjourned.
Thank you to Anne and Martin for everything.Stuck in Stony Brook is edited by Emily Crandall.Theme song written and recorded by Gary Schaller, performed by the band Kid Kit.
You can follow us on Instagram, at Stuck in Stony Brook, or find us on our website, stuckinstonybrook.com.Need some books that we mentioned?
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