Episode 47 Transcript: Who Goes There?: The Thing and The Shape of Paranoia

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Joe: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to the Rabbit Hole of Research down here in the Basement Studio for another fun episode, part of our October, month of horror. So

Bill_H: yes, I finally

Nick: I mean,

Joe: tasty episodes for you. So this one

Nick: here we are known for our horror. 

Joe: we

are, . And the Breaking News.

Nick: Breaking news. 

Joe: news. Maybe we’ll get another Breaking News this year. I don’t know

Nick: if something big happens. We’ll find out here first.

Joe: This episode has been a long time in the making, probably for me, since 1982. And we’re gonna be, you know, Who Goes There, The Thing and the shape of paranoia.

So all things creature related there. So we should have some fun. We have actually, not only the full crew, we have a full house, every mic in the studio,

Nick: is hot

Joe: plus zoom. So we have five folks. 

Nick: I’m sorry, who are you?

Bill_H: And how many of you are actually human? That’s

Nick: right. Am I sure you are who I think you are. Maybe none of us are who we are,

Joe: we [00:01:00] are, but I am Joe

Nick: You got Nick. 

Joe: got Nick. we’ve got Georgia and guest number one.

Bill_H: Hi, I am Bill Haller. I’m a artist and designer, work in television and film and comic books.

And I’m here for the horror 

Joe: here for the horror.

Here

Bill_H: here for the, I’m here for the horror. Yeah.

Nick: Oh

Joe: Yep. Here for the horror and our other guests.

Todd_T: Hi, 

I am Todd Thyer, and I’m a designer artist letterpress printer.

And I make books with my letter presses, I work in fiction predominantly,

but then I also do a lot of social justice, work as well. But who goes there?

and The Thing are like my favorite story. And they’re a big part of Who I am today.

Joe: awesome. Yes,

Bill_H: Yeah. You know what I’d like to say? Just at the top here. Thank you for giving me any excuse to rewatch The Thing. Reread Who Goes There. Go through my comic bin thinking, I know, I read a comic about this. I don’t care if [00:02:00] the internet says it doesn’t exist. Yeah. And I found it.

Yeah.

Nick: damn. 

Joe: There’s a few,

Bill_H: Yeah.

Joe: Horse? Dark Horse Did

Bill_H: I found a straight up adaptation that I read. When I was a kid, I’m pretty sure it’s the first time I came across any of this material was a 17 page adaptation that was published in like 73 or 74. Okay. Company called Whitman Comics. They had a magazine 

Todd_T: think I have 

Bill_H: yeah.

Georgia: All right. That’s awesome. I was gonna say edit, bring it for show and tell

Bill_H: own it. I couldn’t find it. I tracked it down on the

Georgia: Oh, I gotcha. You verified.

Bill_H: I do have CBRI can send you guys if you guys read Digital Comics, but I went through that because there’s a piece in there that I always remember when I read the books or watch the movies that.

Aren’t, it’s not anywhere else. And it’s like, where am I getting 

Joe: that 

Bill_H: from? And it’s from this comic. Yeah. Yeah.

Georgia: And I wanna mention too, that this is a second episode for you, Bill. Yeah.

Joe: it says [00:03:00] Yes,

Bill_H: Coming

Georgia: You’re only the second person to come for a second time, really. So it’s pretty, that’s pretty big. That

Bill_H: is, I feel.

Thanks

Joe: But

all

it all depends on the order of these episode releases in

Georgia: that’s true.

Bill_H: I guess I didn’t do so badly last time.

Joe: No, yeah, that’s right. So

Nick: were you able to find it? 

Joe: Oh,

Todd_T: So I’ve, I picked this up at a

comic show recently? It’s Quest Star?

Bill_H: yeah. That collects all those, yes. Yeah,

Todd_T: It’s like by Golden Press, but it’s got Who Goes There in it.

Bill_H: that’s the one.

Todd_T: this is the One. You read as a 

Bill_H: the, that’s a collection of the ones that I read as a 

Todd_T: oh, gotcha. Gotcha.

Bill_H: the one from the, apparently the magazine at the time was called Star Stream or Slipstream, I believe, and they only did three issues and then they co, somebody other company years later bought those issues and collected it into that graphic novel there.

So that has. That

Nick: oh damn

Georgia: ah, that’s so cool.

Joe: we’ll put that in the show 

Bill_H: But yeah, that one really, you know, I stumbled across it at a [00:04:00] Goodwill when I was probably 11, you know, and it was

cost me costing me a quarter or 

Todd_T: here’s the title. 

Bill_H: Yeah.

Nick: Oh damn.

Bill_H: And

Joe: nice

Bill_H: that

one Blair falls asleep on the block of ice that they just cut out and they’re transporting back to their base and he’s so tired that he falls asleep on the block of ice and has nightmares maybe psychically transmitted by the alien within.

And I always think of that and it never comes up again in the movies, and it’s not in the book. They just made that up from, you know, inferences and stuff in the story, but. My mind is wait, where is that

Georgia: You’re like, I know.

Bill_H: fall asleep on that thing?

Joe: Yeah,

Nick: Yeah. Hasn’t anyone taken a nap yet? Yeah.

Bill_H: Not enough naps in John Carpenter’s movie.

That’s where it falls down for

Joe: You need naps.

Bill_H: I’m gonna,

Joe: I’m gonna take a step back because

Georgia: because we probably need a list or some sort of you know, very. We’re just,

Joe: I wanna give my definition

Or my grounding and I have a list.[00:05:00] 

Georgia: We’re just really excited to talk about this. If you

Bill_H: so exciting.

Joe: Humor me a little bit, and then I do have a list and we can add and argue, but actually this has been a while since I’ve given a list right off the top.

But I’m gonna do this thing here, because 

Nick: I

Joe: I wrote something special because The Thing is special to me. I think as Todd said. I saw in 82, I was like seven. My dad took me to see it. Probably not advised to take your 7-year-old to see The Thing, but it did. It truly did.

Nick: But a 4-year-old is cool for this right

Bill_H: I can imagine.

Joe: Take a 4-year-old. So I have, The Thing is a self replicating polymorphic organism composed of functionally autonomous units capable of simulating and replicate, replicating the form and behavior of other organisms at a molecular and cognitive level. The Thing is, a horror made flesh, an unknowable, uncontainable intruder that weaponizes biology and identity by undermining the metaphysical distinction between self and other, revealing the fragility of human [00:06:00] perception, trust and cohesion who goes there.

And on this episode, we’re gonna find out who’s who.

Georgia: Ooh, Ooh.

Joe: And then, you know, just to ground everything I

Nick: there’s grounding in this

Joe: all, there’s gr, there’s grounding in the handwavium soup. We will, we’ll try to ground it and get someplace safe. I as rules and assumptions, watching the movies, the stories you know, the Carpenter Watts just going Campbell.

And so I have these kind of eight, I only had seven and I ran a list, actually passed my youngest son

and he added the

eighth Nice.

So I’m gonna give, I’m gonna give him credit for the eighth one because I was like, oh, what do you think it is? And didn.

Georgia: He loved the movie. He did love movie. We went What? What anniversary? It’s

Joe: The 40th

Georgia: Was it the 40th? I think like we recently went to the movie theater, you know, whenever it was re released. And we took Xavier and he’s oh yeah, I think we need to watch that again.

Like the next day. Yeah.

Bill_H: is

Joe: [00:07:00] he is like

Bill_H: a dream come true. That’s so cool.

Joe: I’m gonna figure out who’s who. He was like, really? He is I, you know, he’s mapping it.

Bill_H: I’m like,

Joe: wow, you should focus on your schoolwork like this man you know. 

Todd_T: How young did you expose

him to it?

show him at seven as 

well? 

Joe: was not seven. No, he was, it

Georgia: he was,

Joe: it was a few years. Either it was 12 or 13. Something in that 

Bill_H: ballpark. Well, Perfect. Is 

Joe: that right? Yeah.

Georgia: Yeah. If it’s even been that long, but like

Yeah. No,

in the last couple of years it hasn’t even been that long, has it? Yeah. So he’s 15 right now,

Joe: right now. Yeah. So we can do the math

Nick: later. 12 or 13 sounds

Joe: yeah.

Georgia: yeah.

Joe: I

Bill_H: that’s the kind of stuff that’ll stick with you.

Joe: right after, it was like right after the pandemic. It was a good time to go see The Thing. 

Bill_H: Oh man.

Joe: it of we can go to a movie theater with a mask on. So I have these eight kind of rules and assumptions that I, and we can add to ’em or you can, you guys can scratch some of ’em if you like.

One, I have any biomass can be assimilated, not just humans. Two. Each assimilated host becomes an independent replicator. [00:08:00] Three replication is cellular. No need for the full organism to act. So it’s, it really happens at the cellular level. It can spread via blood aerosol or tissue. Contact detection is difficult, especially early on and.

Assimilation time ranges from 10 minutes to a few hours. Depending on proximity and complexity. One fragment can start over like a viral pandemic with perfect self replication and the one that Xavier added, it can survive extreme cold temperatures for extended periods of time and heat fire.

Those 

Georgia: an extremophiles.

Nick: extreme. Oh, you’re bringing this one back,

Joe: we’re ringing it back from the Fantastic Four series, if you haven’t checked that out though. But yeah,

Nick: months ago, Georgia, months ago, as

Georgia: As many times as I could say that

Joe: did.

Nick: Yes.

Georgia: I like to say it. Thing

Joe: foul. Yes.

Bill_H: Now I have this unholy union of The Thing and a water bear like in my head right now.[00:09:00] 

Joe: Yes. That, so we The tardigrade We were like, oh, it doesn’t come up that often. And now 

Bill_H: no, it’s everywhere.

Joe: everywhere you go, the tardigrade. Yeah. So that’s what I had for the assumption, the assumptions of the thing and maybe rules. I don’t know. So I don’t know if I missed something or you guys, the one I held on after I read it was the actually, I don’t know now.

Nevermind. Detection is difficult. Especially early. I think at

Georgia: think detection is difficult, even not early on.

Wasn’t that the whole point 

Joe: Right. Yeah. Well, I 

Nick: I mean, there are certain ways, it’s just depending on what scientist is figuring it out. Yeah. Because what, in the prequel, the 2011, The Thing they were looking in everyone’s mouth. Let me see your fillers.

Joe: For the

Bill_H: that’s right. Yeah. For the fillers,

the fillings, right? Yeah, that’s

Joe: Or you have the clothes rip open, like that was the theory that you shred your clothes, like you lose ’em. But no one’s running around naked.

So I don’t know if 

Bill_H: a lot of that.

Nick: that was,

Joe: that’s not it. They got 

Todd_T: [00:10:00] Despite, Yeah,

despite the different deaths, like

everybody always seemed to, their shirts 

Joe: That’s right. They had pants on you know.

Bill_H: That 

Todd_T: They were no longer bloodied 

Bill_H: In Watt’s story. That he addressed a little bit that I thought was very interesting. His take on that the longer that it’s been in you and how much of it you’ve been exposed to. It may just be in there hanging out, learning things, you know, and not really affecting anything else. Yeah. Until maybe it’s all you and then,

Georgia: so it’s almost like it’s dormant a little bit, or not dormant, but

Bill_H: It was sneaky in his

Joe: Or which percentage.

Because I think the one thing that no one talks about is that not only is The Thing mimicking human cells

And function, but also we have a lot of other organisms that live in US, bacteria, fungal, and on us. So there, there are these other species. That’s why that any almost biomass can be converted then technically, because if your gut is still filled with [00:11:00] bacteria that, you might just have a lot of intestinal kind of 

Bill_H: mm-hmm. down 

Joe: as the thing comes in. So it is it’s fascinating. 

Bill_H: some, you,

Todd_T: yeah. If you can

subsume any sort of creature that you on the planets you land on, like you can

certainly do their microbes as well. 

Bill_H: That’s

Joe: Yeah. 

Yeah.

Bill_H: I basically watch The Thing once a year at least it is a part of my DNA. 

Joe: trying

to find a 

Nick: h Oh, wait, all the way down to your DNA?

Bill_H: Yes. All the way down.

Nick: man.

I gotta in you

Georgia: yeah. Is there a certain time of year you find yourself going over more in the winter times, you know, or maybe winter, like it’s really cold yeah,

Bill_H: I usually get a call to watch all like his unofficial apocalypse trilogy Carpenter’s Apocalypse, Trilogy with the the thing. And then what’s it? 

Todd_T: From New York.

Bill_H: no 

Todd_T: Oh. 

Bill_H: the lemme say I wrote this down

Nick: because

Bill_H: knew what would go outta my head the second I needed to remember

darkness. the one in the middle is

Joe: yeah, I’m trying to,

Bill_H: the one I always

Joe: you said darkness, and now I’m [00:12:00] like,

Bill_H: yeah. Now 

Georgia: now you’re stumping us. So it’s

Bill_H: The Thing, and it’s Prince of darkness. Prince of, and it’s

Georgia: it’s

Bill_H: of madness. Okay. And if you extend a little bit, there’s Cigarette Burns years later that like sh short film he did.

Georgia: So do you watch ’em like boom,

Bill_H: Yeah. Like one sort of initiates the other in my memory and I’m like I

Nick: gotta watch

Bill_H: other one. And they all have, they all harken up to the, end of the world in some way in different ways, but Right. They’re really interesting together, which I like sort of the ideas that they bring up and then play off of each other.

But so I’ve, I watch The Thing all the time, but I haven’t read the original story. Who goes there in ages? I’d forgotten quite a bit of

Georgia: there, there’s a really nice letter press copy that you could, it’s beautiful.

Joe: Yeah,

Bill_H: I will be getting one.

That’s what this is all about. It’s selling you a bunch of these books, isn’t it?

It worked damnit

Joe: That’s why we have people [00:13:00] on the podcast. So that’s

Bill_H: so there was quite a few things I forgot about the story. I was pleasantly surprised how much of even dialogue I recognized, you know, that Carpenter used in the film. But there was a bit in there where they’re talking about the cows that they have

and they go to check on the cows and then they’d come back and say, the cows are all dead. We killed them. They were all. Things. And one of the guys sitting there freaks out and rushes out into the Antarctic, apparently, to die. ’cause he just drank a bunch of the cow’s milk. Cow. That wasn’t a cow.

Nick: Oh, 

Bill_H: and then they test the milk and they say, it is. It is. As cow’s milk.

As cow’s milk is cow’s milk. And I thought that was a really interesting thing that the cow wasn’t a cow anymore, but it was such a perfect. Adaptation, you know,

Joe: and it made milk

Bill_H: that it made milk and the milk was okay. 

Nick: So that guy pretty much doomed the world though.

Joe: But I don’t

I don’t understand [00:14:00] why in that scenario that the milk wouldn’t have Thing

Bill_H: Things in it.

Georgia: That you could de

Joe: like it’s a convenient

Georgia: about detection. You should be able to detect something. This was

Bill_H: the fifties. They didn’t have, you know, quite as high levels Exactly.

Georgia: analysis of their milk and 

Joe: who’s you know, who’s

Georgia: and then at what point does the cow stop being the cow and become The Thing?

Joe: Yeah. And I was gonna ask,

Georgia: and I think that’s like your point, like at what point, do you know what I mean? Is the host.

Todd_T: I’ve always thought it’s more, almost like viral or it needs to reach a tipping

point before you’re like, especially in the original story of Who Goes There, he talks

Or no, I guess.

it’s more in the things because

You’re hearing through Peter Watts. you’re hearing the viewpoint of the alien,

but he’s trying to you know,

gain control. and how sometimes he’s just I just feel like I’m

wearing this

skin.

And then, you know, so it’s, so maybe it is that up

until a certain point.

like so many [00:15:00] hours or

whatever where it can multiply and Take over

The cells,

but yeah. You think the milk would go bad?

Bill_H: I 

Joe: wonder

Georgia: Or it tastes funny.

Joe: that kind of to play on that idea a little bit. If, does it matter how The Thing gains entry? So if it actually takes over the brain cells 

Bill_H: first. mm-hmm. 

Joe: Does it have now cognitive control versus if you you know, get a cut on your foot or something like that?

And it takes some time for it because it has now to assimilate all the foot cells, come up to leg cells, you know, you have this whole process. I mean, once it gets to the bloodstream, potentially, then you would have this kind of movement. But it, it’s then would you be as a human cognizant of it?

Oh, something’s wrong with me. You know, 

Georgia: I can feel it coming. 

Todd_T: It burns. 

Joe: is being disconnected from my body. All the neurons and everything aren’t firing correctly. I got a dead leg now. Why you gotta limp there all of a sudden?

Georgia: I’m trying to remember, I’m trying to, is there a clear way that The Thing [00:16:00] infects someone that’s not really, that’s not really,

Joe: it’s fast and loose. It’s it’s kinda like zombie biology you know, it’s like sometimes one little particle can do it. Sometimes you got your hands, you know, arm deep into a carcass and like pulling out organs and everyone’s watching.

It’s like everyone, there’s infected now. Just, I just wanna say the scientists there, they have no they’re,

Bill_H: every time it’s

Joe: and fast with you know, 

Georgia: not a, Not a good representation of the scientist.

It’s like a 

Joe: videos every year for training about biosafety, like what to do with needles and how to do this and how to take gloves off.

Nick: Is it bad that caught my attention too. I was like, this is definitely gonna be a Joe thing, where he’s they shouldn’t do that. Like they should be wearing some kind of sleeves going in and

Georgia: protective, yeah. You’ve got

Bill_H: Wilford Brimley, Blair walking around pointing out this still steaming carcass on the table. It looks hot and I know people say if you look really closely, his pencil doesn’t touch it, but he like [00:17:00] taps at it. He points at it and then almost immediately puts the pencil against his mouth and I’m screaming inside the whole time, oh my God,

Joe: Do not do that.

Bill_H: stop that. It

Joe: Hmm. It

tastes like raspberry.

Bill_H: I’d

Nick: would rather him just start licking at, I love just being like let’s see what this tastes like.

Joe: The one with the dogs, they go, they burn the dogs all up, but then they go in and he’s just cracking stuff. Look at this. There’s a, I mean, there’s particles

Bill_H: nitrile gloves.

Joe: It’s yeah. And he’s little, the thinnest gloves. One could get.

It’s for your pleasure. It was like, God

Nick: I’m not

Joe: there. Know. It’s like just,

Nick: they might as well just

Joe: yeah. It was like

Bill_H: Brimley 

Todd_T: don’t have to guess. When they lock him up, you’re like, oh

yeah, right. Yeah. 

the 

Joe: he was done. Really, I’m looking at everyone that’s around who gets close oh, let me see that second intestine that you pulled out there.

You know, it’s as he is going through the whole, you know, just really digging in there.

Bill_H: He’s really getting his hands

Joe: was just like 

Bill_H: I read that, I think that might have been something to do with the effects guy Rob Botin, who was like, originally they had this gonna be this creature.

We, we don’t know what it is yet. [00:18:00] We haven’t made it yet, but there’ll be this creature stalking around and he being like young and crazy was like. How about it’s like different every time we see it to partially in between changes and this and that and so it’s never the same creature. It’s always a different one.

And I can make, I can drive myself to the point of exhaustion making, you know, multiple different versions of these things every time it’s a new horror, you know? And that might’ve been where that sort of came from. And that does, it is nice, it does leave open

Georgia: think that

Bill_H: I don’t

Georgia: works perfectly with the story.

Yeah. The fact that it, that. It does shape shift and goes to all these things so it makes sense that the creature itself would be do you know what I mean?

Joe: but it was also that thing. If Blair, let’s say Blair got

Nick: that thing pretty

Joe: on

Bill_H: Kind of Thing.

Joe: and then he goes, lock this, lock the body up in a little coat closet with, you know, then you have the next couple people in there with it.[00:19:00] 

I mean, is it now, you know, like really thinking and strategizing, how do I spread myself to others? Because it, yeah, because The Thing does a great job at hiding itself, and it does a really poor job at hiding itself. And it usually breaks out at the most inopportune time. It’s you should really just stay quiet.

This is the time you stay

Nick: quiet. How are you making it through the galaxy like this, like you are going gungho. It’s just what? Why

Joe: Here I am now. Like when he went in the dog kennel, he could just chilled out. Yeah. But then it was like, oh, there’s four other dogs in there.

I’m gonna get ’em. This is my time. Like there you go now. And it’s and he obviously, or I’m saying he, it obviously had dealt with dogs before and understand that once you rope the dog with your coily, stringy stuff and juices, that they’re gonna freak out and then humans will come. And it, is that a strategy, I mean, is that the strategy? Once the humans come, then I can spray them and it was an interesting thing. Like what [00:20:00] was the strategy with the dog kennel? ’cause he could have just laid back and then went and bit people and licked them and really just, it could have, I keep saying he, I don’t know. 

Todd_T: I think it’s I think that the theme is

like universal bad decisions. Like just

later when you see like people going out into the dark by

themselves or you know, don’t go up

there, there’s a killer in the basement or whatever.

It’s yep. Even brilliant space creatures are like

Joe: Yeah.

Georgia: right,

Nick: That makes me feel good about the

Georgia: That’s right. We all have

Nick: can just do it. 

Todd_T: you’ve got a chance. Yeah.

Bill_H: I don’t know, for the listener, we are drawing from three, like major texts here, right? Yeah. Like you got the, who goes there

so 

Joe: I can, who goes there by John W.

Campbell, 1938, right? We have The Thing From Another World, 1951. That was the

Georgia: Okay. And that was the movie. Yeah.

Joe: we 

Todd_T: the Howard 

Joe: Howard

Hawkes. We have The Thing 1982 by John Carpenter. And then we have The Thing, the prequel 2011 there,

Nick: but it’s also just called The Thing,

Joe: called The [00:21:00] 

Nick: It’s 

Bill_H: A Little Confusing

Joe: the Things by Peter Watts in 2010.

That was a short short fiction.

Bill_H: which

was fantastic

Joe: from the perspective of The Thing. I

did 

Bill_H: not read

that one and it knocked my socks off. I seriously, the last sentence knocked some wind out of me. I ver I was like, oof. When I read the final sentence of that story, 

Todd_T: it hits like a punch. 

Bill_H: it was a physical punch into my guts.

But there he deals with a lot of some of these ideas in a very interesting way. And the original story does too, that you can’t quite get across in, you know, action horror film. But there are some interesting things in there about in Watt’s specifically that the things he the creature is letting those things happen as, you know, sometimes as distractions, right?

So that, you know, it can continue to do other things while everyone is rushing around trying to track down a monster. It’s still a dog somewhere or one [00:22:00] of these other guys, and it’s doing things, you know, many Blair in the movie is in that hut for days building a spaceship.

Joe: so

Bill_H: you know,

Joe: I mean, at the dog scene, and I’m gonna go back

Georgia: dog scene in

Joe: thing 82 Carpenter, the dog actually splits off

Bill_H: So

Joe: then goes out somewhere to either assimilate into another dog.

Or do something out in the wild. And so you had that scene. So not only was Blair out there, but there was another fully formed thing that was out there running around and running off somewhere. You’re right. It was one of these things where it actually, it never really, no one ever said, where’d that thing go?

Like it was just gone. Like they flame thrower. Childs came up with the flame thrower. They flame

Georgia: That’s probably a good thing to ask. No one

Joe: let’s go out and find it.

Georgia: Either that or just let’s not worry about that. Let’s pretend that didn’t happen.

Joe: But this gets to, to a point that it’s [00:23:00] not just assimilation either because that dog it developed a lot of biomass that it just is.

So there’s some, you know, rapid growth factors that’s happening. I mean, it was, it had arms. I mean, it really reached 10, 12 feet. I don’t know how tall it was, but it reached up with strength pulled itself out. So you had all these scenes where it wasn’t just, I’m making another Bill. It’s like I can actually do other stuff on the fly.

And is that’s probably pulling from some historical DNA, is it, does it have like many copies of species DNA that it can pull from in some conscious. Way. I mean, it really I started thinking about that as a, as an organism.

Bill_H: that’s always what I imagined like the things we were seeing, especially in that scene. Yeah. Where we get that at the end we get that like flesh flower that blooms that’s right from the head of the

Joe: that. Yep. Yeah. 

Bill_H: Oh my, this is some sort of alien creature that it is assimilated eons ago and is just referencing from, its [00:24:00] like memory banks of anything it’s ever been and if it’s got enough.

Biomass, it can just recreate whatever that is. 

Joe: I mean that dog wasn’t, didn’t have a lot of biomass. No. I mean, it, I think if we did

Bill_H: technically he was also attached by its tendrils and

Joe: stuff. Yeah. But he wasn’t, I mean,

Bill_H: and could have been drawing in.

Joe: That was a lot. I mean

Bill_H: a lot. It was

Joe: that was

like 10 dogs worth

Todd_T: But that’s where in The Things like, so when I talked to Peter Watts about this, he was just like, that was one of the things that he was, try he tries to,

fix some 

of those little errors. 

Like he was in, in,

the Things he refers to it, like eating all their food

In the background.

and then not knowing it.

But yeah, it does certainly grow

exponentially.

Joe: Because you not only have the biomass, but you also need the energy to calories. So even though you’re eating all the food, and we can,

Nick: how many calories does a human have, Joe?

Joe: how many calories does a human have? Yeah.

Nick: If you were to eat a human body.

Georgia: we’ve talked about this I feel like we have, but I don’t remember.

Joe: think it was like, was it like a hundred thousand?

I mean, it was

Georgia: it was a lot.

Joe: Yeah. It was enough [00:25:00] for someone to turn into a werewolf.

Nick: Oh, that was last Halloween episode. Episode last h geez.

Joe: That’s right. 

Georgia: I’m just thinking about in nature. Like creatures that are para parasites. And that can and then also there’s creatures that can change.

Like I, I don’t know. I’m not, I don’t have anything specific, but it just seems like something in nature is similar to that.

Bill_H: Yeah. Like a butterfly over its lifespan does completely physically transform at some point. 

Joe: And actually will it juices itself down and then it reforms out of that, , so it uses that biomass, it converts it down to basic, like a soup and then

Bill_H: which is amazing forms

Joe: out of it. Yeah. So that was something there, but yeah, there’s no real,

there’s nothing

on earth that we can directly compare to the thing.

Georgia: that we know of.

Joe: unless we are right. No, we’re there. But there are, there were a lot of things, and I I mean, just thinking about it , we’ve formed , relationships or with things over [00:26:00] time at the cellular level . So mitochondria and chloroplast, those are organelles.

And you carry our cells. So our cells have mitochondria, plants have chloroplast or those photosynthesis, but those organelles used to be free living organisms that were eating, eaten by something else and then incorporated to do work for the cells. And then they became larger, more multi complex organisms.

You know, that type of thing happens in nature. We have mind controlling organisms.

So we have, you know, corti opus is all of age right now you know, the parasitic fungus, you know, you know, the wasp, 

Bill_H: that can,

Joe: as they get infected, they do things. Toxoplasma Gondii.

That one’s really cool that can actually infect mammal brains.

It’s

Georgia: It’s cool unless it happens to you

Joe: particular, it, if people don’t know it, infects rod. So lifecycle is multi organism, so it infects rodents and then the rodents can become infected and then they become attracted to cats, which will kill the, and eat

Nick: what kind of attracted to cats? What 

Joe: [00:27:00] it aggressively goes after the cat.

Bill_H: Not sensually.

Nick: Oh, okay. It’s not,

Joe: I mean, 

Nick: I was like, is it like, Hey cat?

Todd_T: seen that? You 

don’t 

Nick: that’s right. The rat 

Joe: doesn’t live long enough to really get his

Bill_H: I’m not a scientist. I’m not a sexy scientist. I shouldn’t have, I’ve, I’m

Nick: Hey kitty cat whatcha you up to

Joe: Toxoplasma will, it actually can infect human brains. It actually will.

So if you have a cat on, like an indoor outdoor cat and you change litter, you probably are infected with Toxoplasma

Nick: Oh, Joe, you didn’t tell me

Georgia: they weren’t, they warn a lot about Yeah, if you’re pregnant, you really are not supposed to change

Joe: and that’s why yeah, if it’s an indoor cat, you probably don’t have a lot to, you probably don’t have to worry unless you got a, you know, a rodent problem, then you probably do.

Especially if they’re playing with the cat. I think like in Tom and Jerry, I think Jerry was infected with Toxoplasma.

Bill_H: Definitely. That makes really

Joe: challenged Tom a lot. I mean, he was in his face

Bill_H: just left him alone. It

Joe: right. It wasn’t, it was like The Thing, it was like, what are you doing there, guy?

Come on let’s back off of him. Yeah. So Toxoplasma is [00:28:00] one there we have organisms that do gene transfer, horizontal gene transfer, so different species, so agrobacterium. So Agrobacterium is really well known in the molecular genetics community, especially with plants. It’s a bacterium that can transfer.

DNA from itself to a plant. So it’s used for a lot of modifications. So gene modification of plants, GMOs. That was the kind of breakthrough technology understanding and hijacking that for our purposes. But in the wild, it does it all the time. So it will have these kind of transfers like that. So we have things like that where you can move DNA

Bill_H: Between

Joe: different species.

You know, we have cell mimics, so there’s things that will digest other organisms and use their bits. So there’s , the sea slugs that will eat algae and then use the chloroplast to do photosynthesis in itself. And so we you know, so we have all these things. We have bits, we have all the makings of it, so we just get some funding, get in the lab, and we can do

Bill_H: it, stick ’em

Joe: you [00:29:00] know,

Nick: in the 51 film. They said something about the material of it being plant-like.

Bill_H: Yeah.

Joe: Yeah.

Nick: so they said that it could pretty much be a intelligent carrot.

you go. So is the thing a carrot?

It’s it’s a carrot.

Joe: That’s what they had. It’s eight feet tall. It had arms and legs.

Nick: I just wanted to be 

Joe: It came out. It was like, I am Groot. It’s it.

Nick: Oh,

man. Gro has a lot of, that’s

Joe: Gr fruit is a thing.

Bill_H: That was an interesting take. It was an interesting take. They really did make, they changed a lot of the story.

Nick: It was just like, why, what?

It’s coming.

Bill_H: which is funny because really I, for me, I lo I love the special effects and the thing visual guy, I draw that kind of thing all the time. Tentacles, , twisting veins and things like that. But the real scare of the story for me is the like. You know, that whole who you can’t trust anybody

Joe: Yeah. That

Georgia: It definitely

Bill_H: who is who, and that story [00:30:00] doesn’t need any special

Georgia: effects. None to be told.

Exactly. In the fifties, That’s they still could have made a very convincing version of that story without, with very few special effects. You know, they didn’t need a big monster rampaging through the hallways. They could have just, you know, hinted at a couple of things here and there, and then let your imagination go with, now who

Joe: was gonna say that in, I’m, I’ll have to look it up and put it in show notes, but Invasion of body 

Bill_H: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: That was the fifties, right? That was all in that time. Paranoia. It wasn’t the fifties. It was in the sixties, but yeah, you had that, , if it quacks like a duck, it looks like a duck, then it’s a duck. You know, you had that same idea. That’s, and then they remade it in the seventies, the Donald Sutherland movie where it had, you know, but the special effects wasn’t I think in that one, the Donald Sutherland Spock and Jeff Goldblum, they were all young.

A very young Jeff Goldblum, I believe. I don’t know if he was young. I don’t know

Georgia: They all were

Nick: than you.

Georgia: They all were pretty young. Yeah.

Joe: was the idea, the paranoia, because you work your way through that movie, who to trust, who [00:31:00] can’t you trust? And the special effects wasn’t besides the big green pods with some, you know, vines hanging off of ’em.

It wasn’t, and no big monsters 

Georgia: really. 

Joe: at the end when he opened his,

That, like you said, that gut punch of an ending that was yes. Yeah. But

Todd_T: In, in doing all the

research for these books and just knowing what was.

what had come before and not wanting to do the same.

Like I just learned a lot about him and that apparently it’s

really supposed to be about

communism. Like they’re, you know, 

Joe: Yeah. The book one, that’s right.

Todd_T: and 

Georgia: right.

Todd_T: Make it an alien 

Bill_H: Yeah. That makes 

Georgia: It was really like that post World War II kind of, and this whole idea about the Atomic Age and not understanding, the atomic bomb and all the, I think that had a big influence on that.

That’s But

Joe: it was the 51 movie was set in Alaska.

To

go with that same, that paranoia from world the post-war kind of paranoia and communism that was very different than the other ones were set in

Georgia: And [00:32:00] I love that. John Carpenter was a young boy and watched Yeah. That watched the 1951 movie, and that had such an effect on him.

He loved it. Yeah. Yeah. 

Bill_H: Yeah. Not

so much the monster, but 

Georgia: And then when he did his movie, we had Reagan. And we had the kind of, you know, and also the Cold War kind of thing. So in some ways, those. Those themes were repeated, you know? Yeah. I wanna

Bill_H: muddy the waters with one more extra story.

Georgia: Oh, please.

Bill_H: in looking back into this stuff, digging through it, right? I started checking out was it Campbell? My, my brain is shot. Yeah. 

Joe: Campbell wrote the story. 

Bill_H: He wrote a story a couple years before who goes there. He wrote a whole bunch of stories.

He’s a very prolific author before he became an editor. And there was apparently a very famous author who he either died or he quit, and the magazines asked Campbell to fill the hole by writing a similar kind of story, sort of like upbeat, humorous [00:33:00] stories about a couple of like scientists who like, you know, go out doing things.

And so he came up with these guys named Preston and Penton and Blake, and he wrote a couple of Penton and Blake Adventures, and one of them was called Brain Steelers of Mars.

and in that one it’s it is a great read. It’s pretty

Georgia: that one needs to be made into, it’s very,

Bill_H: It’s pen. Penton and Blake are these like, seriously two fisted atomic scientists who are, they’re on the run from earth.

Because it’s illegal to do atomic experiments on Earth. And they did it anyway man, because they know what they’re doing.

and they,

not only did they do it at the beginning of the store, they’ve done it, they’ve cracked it and they’ve used it to power their spaceship. So now they can get to planets that no one have been able, hadn’t been able to get to.

And they, which is good ’cause they have to get away from Earth. ’cause they’re 

on the lamb, and they land on Mars and they start seeing trees that look like trees from [00:34:00] Earth. And it’s weird. Until they go look at the trees and then the trees are different than they were when they saw them at first.

And then they run into centar. The, these are the creatures that live on Mars, these centaurs. And it turns out that those trees are another creature that lives on the planet. A shape shifting creature that, eats their children and takes their pl the place of their children. And

Joe: Wow.

Bill_H: they used to have a problem with it, obviously, but since they can’t tell the difference between the children that were real and the children that are the reproductions, they’ve stopped worrying about it.

And for generations have just lived alongside these other creatures, these mimics. And they’re just like,

Georgia: do?

Bill_H: Alright. And, but our American boys, that’s where the

Georgia: how I stopped worrying it. They’re

No,

Bill_H: we are leaving now. And it [00:35:00] becomes this huge deal where suddenly copies of Penton and Blake start showing up and they’ve gotta get away from the planet and get back to earth without these mimics coming back to earth.

And there are sections in that story. I don’t think they make it into the published version of who goes there, but there’s that, Frozen 

Todd_T: Frozen hail. 

Bill_H: There are passages in there that are almost word for word where they’re like if a thing got stranded in the desert, it could just make itself a cactus and get along just fine.

If a snake tried to bite it, it could turn itself into something that couldn’t be bitten by a snake. And, you know, he rattles off these great things that this creature could do to avoid, you know, dying and live basically anywhere. And I was like, I recognize that. I just read that.

Georgia: Oh my gosh.

Bill_H: But that was definitely where that like where he

first had that idea and was playing with it in a much more comical, but still really right, freaky way.

And then a couple years later, he dusted that off and went at it [00:36:00] from a different angle for who goes there. But I’m interested in what you think about this idea that like, all right, the things here, some of us are things. 

Georgia: Let’s just deal with it. I can’t prove you’re not, you’re

Bill_H: the thing. And if even if you are you’re just as good a Georgia as you were before,

Georgia: maybe better.

Bill_H: you know? In the Watts story, it’s that the creature is going for advancing species. It’s like taking things over and bringing in its mind, bringing the worlds together and bringing them to a higher, you know, more perfect organism. And in this story, it’s it’s perfect Camouflage in, in a, like a really disturbing way to me that I, coming to terms with that was super

Georgia: That’s the feeling you got at the end of body snatchers. You know what I mean? I don’t know,

Joe: almost, you start talking like a Ship, of Theseus kind of thing where you’re going like after some point almost doesn’t matter.

Bill_H: right?

Joe: It’s, are you still the same or have [00:37:00] you changed enough to be something different? Are you really a different Joe

Georgia: And I think 

Joe: or Bill,

Georgia: idea that we’re losing our humanity and we, you know what I mean? We don’t wanna lose our humanity,

Joe: Yeah. And you have that. I mean, that was the anime Parasite

that you had that, so that was the same thing.

Alien species comes and it infects people. If it goes through like the nose, mouth, ear, it gets to the brain and then they become. A parasite, whatever the, this alien creature, but the protagonist of the story, the alien goes into the arm ’cause it was like dying or sick, I can’t remember that. But it went into the arm and then just the arm was the alien, but the rest of the body and the brain was human.

You, you get some mixing and stuff and the episodes go through and that, that’s really it. What is humanity? What are you struggling for? And that’s that same kind of idea looking at where does, where do you draw the line between humanity and other, you know, the thing like, you know, so at some level, [00:38:00] but if you are cognitively making copies and assimilating, are you assimilating?

And then using that and maintaining that level of humanity in, in yourself Or are you know, bringing other things to the table that you have.

Todd_T: Just the themes of that

Just

were

so

reminiscent of,

colonialism, of just Oh you’re an uneducated,

heathen, 

let me introduce you to the ways of the universe.

Bill_H: Yeah. Wa that story, man, that final line in Watt’s story just blew me away. And I, he did a beautiful thing there. And that, the paragraph leading up to that, the creature is musing and sort of like contemplative and things sort of ease off and chill out a little bit. Oh, okay, this creature’s okay it’s I see.

And then bam, it’s all,

Georgia: can you see that story being adapted to a film or something visual?

Like

Bill_H: It’s all internal. And I don’t know how you would [00:39:00] do 

Georgia: so

Bill_H: Somebody could do it. Maybe somebody great or

Georgia: something. It’d have

You know? 

Bill_H: But it would be really hard to do, I feel visually, I don’t know.

What do you think?

Joe: yeah.

Todd_T: I haven’t

thought about that, but now that, yeah.

It’s it’s all it is. I mean, that’s what the, that’s

what my Illustration. challenge was with my 

additions. How, you know, it’s the alien talking and thinking and trying to understand why these people are so bad to you know,

you Woke me up.

and now you want to kill me.

What? I just wanna sh I just wanna show you what I know. Don’t know. 

I’d love to see it in a film.

Bill_H: Yeah.

one 

Joe: one of the interesting things is after The Thing assimilated somebody, let’s say Blair, ’cause he probably was the fir or to, I think Blair probably was the first fully assim assimilated. If, let’s go with that. Let’s say one of them. But why the thing. Could have spoke through Blair and communicated with the humans in some way because you would have

Nick: but humans are brash and they’ll

Joe: But [00:40:00] you could have pulled I think you, it probably could have chatted with somebody and be like, Hey, guess what? Or given, be

Bill_H: aside,

Joe: tipped off with the

Georgia: what? Instead of going crazy. Because

Joe: that’s, that was the thing about Blair and I pick on Blair because I think he was digging in and he should have been assimilated if he wasn’t.

So when he destroyed the 

Bill_H: mm-hmm. 

Joe: and went crazy and they locked him in the shed, I guess the assumption was he had not fully assimilated maybe. So he might’ve been struggling. His humanity versus a Thing in his mind, maybe he was this, his intelligence, he could actually parse that, was thinking about it and knew, oh crap, I’m infected, I’m going down.

And then when he got to the shack and was like, Hey, I’m okay, you can let me back in. Was that now the thing like, Hey, you can really trust me again. 

Bill_H: I love that

Joe: I was just

Bill_H: that part

Joe: really one of those things. It was like, Hey I hear noises and

Bill_H: I’m really much better

Joe: right. Yeah. I’m really,

Nick: oh,

Bill_H: I’m

Georgia: ao

Joe: a okay

Georgia: now buddy. 

Joe: You know. Yeah, you’re a hundred percent thing. Now. Maybe back then you were 50 50 and you were really [00:41:00] struggling against you know, this entity in you and couldn’t communicate that you just raged up because you were with the lizard brain. Might have been all that was left of the human the humanity was reduced to the lizard brain, and that was, let me protect, you know, he had all those numbers in his head, which

Bill_H: I always thought that was inter, that was possible. I don’t know. Oops. I always thought it was possible. They, because in the book they make a, they kinda make a big point about not destroying.

The radio equipment and even go so far as to talk about creating fake broadcasts back so that everyone thinks that they’re okay and nobody sends out a search party because a search party, until they deal with it one way or another, even if that means death until they deal with it,

A

search party would mean infection for the world.

So they were, there was a bunch of stuff

Georgia: So like the reporter was wanting to get out there, the

Joe: the word out.

But you, but you also had, which was really clever in a narrative device [00:42:00] in that story, was that you had the paranoia still of the Cold War and keeping secrets. So really it was like,

Georgia: you

mean of the

Joe: Yeah. In there. And so

Georgia: of the,

Joe: were they thinking of this as a weapon? Can we weaponize this?

Because you always you know, like the alien, we need to weaponize it, right? Let’s you know 

Todd_T: Go.

Bill_H: You know, we,

Joe: you know, t rexes weaponize it. You know, that’s

Nick: can I put a machine gun on it?

Write the

Joe: weapons. Can we make a weapon out of this thing? Then let’s go your green light.

Nick: Can we put a laser on a head and have it attack

Bill_H: Like 

Joe: anything. It’s man, this thing’s gonna eat everybody in the world. How can we turn into a weapon?

Bill_H: It already is like, It just, we need

Georgia: That sounds like a good weapon.

Joe: I think we can control this uncontrollable weapon. Okay. Eh, yeah. Let’s do it.

Okay. Yeah. No I wonder if that was part of that and a really nice narrative kind of setup that you had, whereas you’re in Antarctic, you know, Antarctica.

You know, you, you have people coming in probably to check on your supply drops and things like that. I had friends when I was in grad school that would go down and [00:43:00] stay at the science center there studying an Antarctica plant life.

And so they would go and stay down there for months at a time and then come back and they would talk about the supply drops and things like that. Did

Georgia: Did they ever watch The Thing while they were there?

Joe: I don’t, I didn’t

Georgia: ask

Joe: but the other thing is that alcohol was banned. So you, you weren’t allowed, I mean, people smuggled it in, I mean, like anything.

But you weren’t supposed to, it wasn’t actively encouraged. So I always think when I watch The Thing and he’s got his JB and he’s just I’m gonna go to my shack and get drunk. It’s just with his sombrero you know, it’s this kind of,

Nick: I actually do have a problem with one of the first scenes in the thing, the John Carpenter one chess, no. So when they were doing the that was funny too.

But when the Norwegian guy came in, the guy inside busted open the window to shoot him,

Joe: Oh, yeah.

Nick: Windows aren’t easy to come by out there, right? 

Joe: Yes. Yeah they

Nick: I’m assuming they would be thicker than that. You

Joe: mean they’re Swedish?

Nick: I thought it was Norwegian.

you. I was like, wait.

Joe: [00:44:00] that’s what

Nick: I was like, I watched the movie.

I know the film.

Joe: I was hoping I got the do that. But yeah. So thank you. Thank you very much.

Nick: But yeah, I’m assuming

Georgia: been that easy to

Nick: He just busts it over him with his hand and it’s 

Joe: and quick shot too. Yeah. I mean that was,

Nick: very little aiming.

Joe: Oh, aim. I mean, you know, he didn’t even do

Bill_H: you

Joe: twist, neck twist and side it up. It was just go for it. Yeah.

Bill_H: I don’t know. I would imagine they would have thicker

Joe: glass. Yes.

Georgia: Yeah. But,

also 

Nick: frowned upon to just break open a window

Joe: not open it and go out and this Yeah. I don’t 

Nick: he walks out the door, the very next scene like. Seconds later, he’s out the door.

He’s

Bill_H: He’s gotta, he’s gotta protect his men, you 

Todd_T: But there was an active shooter

situation. You don’t know what you 

Bill_H: already shot in the

Georgia: lake. Shot in the lake. The dog’s

Joe: A dog’s licking him. 

Todd_T: Yeah. 

Joe: It’s right there. You can, you get student, the count right there, like pop, all these folks are infected, but then they’re really not, like when they did the [00:45:00] blood test, which once again, can a thing, if it’s a conscious organism, can it choose to display pain or not?

Like you were saying, and you know, Watts version that it was doing these things to be a distraction. Was it really reacting to the fire or was it just putting on a display? Because now it set people up, they’re all tied to a couch and things like that. They got ’em lined up in a row and this is it, you know, distract here.

Palmer can split his head open and juice blood flies all over an aerosol. But, you know, the 

Bill_H: original story, they talk about the possibility of it leaving them sort of. As food for later, like having taken over a couple guys, it knew that they’re in the middle of nowhere and it knew that it might not see any more people for a little while.

So it could just not, it didn’t have to take over everybody. It would just take over people when it needed to eat or when it needed to do something.

Joe: eating?

It wasn’t eating, it [00:46:00] wasn’t feeding off people.

Bill_H: It’s that was their conjecture. They were still talking about it at the

Joe: Oh, I see.

Okay. How it worked.

Bill_H: yeah.

Joe: yeah. So I was like, that’s not it. It would just eat regular food. I would imagine like a can of beans, like whatever they had in the pantry,

Bill_H: or It could, we could, I mean, as you know, we use our stores of fat. Maybe, you know, it could use our stores of fat as well to,

Joe: or did it use the store as a fat to assimilate?

Fat cells are human cells. So are they now? Thing. Sell and Thing. Fan. Yeah, the thing fan, it’s the new,

it’s the new weight loss plan.

Georgia: the whole idea about the com, this communist scare and who’s a communist and who’s not. And there’s those scenes, where there’s those posters about venereal disease and who could have it.

And they’re official, like from the government do you know you know, so it like completely feeds on that home, like paranoia and that.

Joe: I love it too, that they have those [00:47:00] signs up in the base where it’s all men.

What does that say?

I mean, so little progressive there. It’s like 

I was 

gonna, I was gonna add something because we had the, the Campbell story, I was 38 in, in there. But DNA as a hereditary agent wasn’t really known until 44. So when that story was written, it still wasn’t quite, how does DNA,

How does that, how’s that functioning?

How does it act? I think people had idea, but the actual DNA molecule, and that’s a thing in the cell that’s doing the job. That was round then and I’ll put that in the show notes that date and make sure that’s right. And another movie from the nineties and The Stuff

The stuff a little bee a bee movie. And it was these guys are out mining and then they discover something’s bubbling and then they eat it for whatever reason.

Bill_H: I remember. Really? I remember very

Joe: ice cream. Yeah. It’s 

Bill_H: a homeless

Joe: no, that’s

Bill_H: stumbling around and there’s just [00:48:00] white stuff bubbling up and you Yeah. He makes that sound like, eh,

Joe: Just

Bill_H: a bite, loves it.

Starts digging it out of the ground.

Joe: They go, yeah. It’s like the whole thing. They start mining it and it’s just this random stuff coming out the ground. And it’s similar. It takes over the, it’s a parasitic kind of organism that takes over and does that. So I, that came to mind as we were talking, that you have this and then who’s who who’s infected with the stuff and who’s not.

And then it’s just out in the store. It’s like the grocery store. It’s gotta get The Stuff. There’s like a jingle in my head. I can almost hear it still if you haven’t seen The Stuff.

Georgia: It’s a cautionary tale.

Todd_T: I 

have not. 

Joe: fun watch. Like it’s just, if you’re gonna take over people, The Thing needs to do that.

Just getting ice cream, man. That’s you’re

Bill_H: and you’re in

Joe: milk, the cow’s milk. It added

Bill_H: Just

a little sugar, a little vanilla. That’s

Joe: right.

You’ve got it. You’ve got it there. 

Georgia: This

totally doesn’t have to do with The Thing, like the science of the thing or anything, but I didn’t even realize it was Howard Hawks that made

Bill_H: [00:49:00] Oh, yeah.

Georgia: And the 1951 version. And when I read that, he’s one of my favorite, I mean, he made so many movies, but Bringing Up Baby is like all time favorites. And I think to myself, how did that same person make bringing a baby? And, 

Bill_H: he was like the producer of it, but there’s a lot of talk about, he did a lot of, A lot of directing of the film. He was on set and making decisions and

Georgia: And The Big Sleep,

Bill_H: it feels like a lot, all that, like people talking over each other, you know, moving around as they talk and, you know, the even a little bit of sexual tension between the secretary and

Was the captain, you know, like that’s all very hawk and,

Georgia: Yeah. It totally, once I like it came to me, I was like, oh my gosh. And I didn’t know, but Howard Hawks was born in Goshen, Indiana. go.

I didn’t know that. So anyway, I just thought I’d throw that off. You should

Bill_H: have known it. Yeah. Hoosier you all along.

Joe: out. I mean, I really, I enjoyed a movie 51 because there’s just like [00:50:00] two botanists in there on the team.

I mean, botanists were very revered scientists back in the day. And if people don’t know, I, my PhD in botany. So that’s we’re that’s it. So

Bill_H: they’re the real smarties

Joe: when it’s there. You know,

Bill_H: I had a real question for you. The head scientist sort of makes a turn, like in the story the 

Joe: or Who Goes which story?

Bill_H: in Hawks’,

Joe: Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Bill_H: The thing with

Nick: The guy with the turtleneck, right?

Georgia: the

Bill_H: with the turtleneck, he starts off okay, he’s a scientist. You know, and the government rushes in and just starts taking over. And so you’re a little bit on his side, you know, Hey, he’s out here doing his job, trying to figure things out.

These guys come and just start telling him what to do. But then he slowly, he’s his he’s the quintessential sort of crazed scientist where like the science gets in the way of everything else till at the end he’s like telling everyone that they should all, we should all die. It’s more important for this thing to continue living so that it can be studied.

By, but my, [00:51:00] I, there was a real disconnect for me. Eh,

Joe: If

Bill_H: if you are all dead.

Nothing’s going to stop the next group of people from also being dead. Somebody’s gotta survive so the information can serve. The science is great. I love it, you know, but if you don’t have someone to pass that science on, this thing’s just gonna kill everybody, you know?

Joe: I think also in that generation of movies, the scientists, A, they knew a whole lot about the alien

With very little information. And B, they always wanted to communicate, be friendly, you know, the idea that if you travel, light years, you have the technology to travel light years away, arrive on earth, that you’ll have transcended the follies of mankind.

You must

Bill_H: be an advanced species of some kind, except, 

Joe: you know, if we humanize them then and we go, they’re gonna act just like any other advanced species. When they go somewhere new, they [00:52:00] usually go with guns a blazing. Like they don’t show up like, you know, peaceful usually. I mean, we haven’t, so I don’t know why we would expect, like what is this expectation now?

Oh, they’re gonna be so much more different out there, have seen so much more and traveled. Why are they traveling all this way to get here? You know? I mean some, there’s this exploration, so you have this thing where, and I think a lot of the scientists were like that in those movies where they were like, Hey, let’s give ’em the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe they have something they can teach us and you know, yeah, they can teach the takeover. You know, it’s I dunno if that’s like it. So I do think it’s funny that’s. You still see it and I think Mars attacks poked fun of that. Yeah, that was a very

Fun, because that was like that whole hum homage to that genre of sci-fi movies and stories that the scientists were always Hey, let’s let’s be friends.

You know, they can teach us something about something that we don’t know, but I know everything about their anatomy. Got it.

but Yeah.

Todd_T: Is an interesting Contrast

between the two, the Hawks version and the

[00:53:00] Carpenter version.

I mean, not like the original had so Many people.

I mean, it was just like this big

military base versus what, like 12 or 

Bill_H: mm-hmm. That’s

Joe: right. 

Todd_T: Carpenter’s, which just

makes it feel So much tighter,

and more

paranoid ridden.

Bill_H: Yeah. Isolated claustrophobia really 

Todd_T: Yep. 

Georgia: and also all men.

Joe: All men. Yeah. Yeah. The original the 51 movie had at least one

Bill_H: I think there

Nick: were two, and the prequel had, yeah. Two. 

Bill_H: The

pre

Joe: had the couple. Yeah. So yeah, I think they could have used a couple women there that probably would’ve, Hey, you knew you should wear different gloves, bud.

You know, 

Nick: Are you sure you wanna be looking that? What are you doing? That’s right.

Bill_H: It’s fine. It’s imitation.

Todd_T: The eraser, Ugh.

Bill_H: Yeah.

Nick: You just lick your eraser 

Todd_T: no. I was just like

making the motion

Nick: Oh, I thought you went ahead and did it anyways. I was like, you shouldn’t do that. Yeah.

Joe: Todd, we need some blood for the Petri dish test. Come on, flame. Throw it up. That’s an official test we do at the lab. That was in the videos [00:54:00] I watch. It’s if you got questions, just do the Petri dish test.

Go ahead. And so Todd as a question, as you went through and you put together these stories, I mean, did you find, what was the connection or threads and things like that? Bet you know, between the thing as a creature because they, it’s presented different in so many stories. I mean, were there threads?

, I gave my list of what it can do, maybe from a cell point of view, but from a, narrative point of view. I think that’s

Todd_T: of, was a pretty comprehensive list. Like for in doing The Things I wanted to,

I spent some time

In a phone call.

or

I asked Peter Watts a bunch of

questions and,

I. To hear a zu I think he’s a zuo biologist.

Like I, I love the the amount of science that he’s bringing to

his science fiction, like Adrian

Tchaikovsky, you know, like his living creatures just feel so

realistic. You know, it’s like my take from the stories is just like this Thing

Seems it’s like the pinnacle

of evolution even though it’s not [00:55:00] evolution. It’s you know, something different. But

you know, talking about the the distributed 

intelligence and

how would that work?

If the beast gets too big now, you’ve

got latency issues with communicating and just,

I don’t know, as an artist

like hearing, like just

learning so much about this about biology was just, I don’t know.

I found like pretty amazing. 

Joe: Yeah, no I think, I always think of fungal slime molds. 

Bill_H: I was thinking a lot about fungus this time ever. I didn’t know about it much as a kid, but since then I’ve learned a lot more and it is very fascinating and. Yeah. The,

Joe: Except from your beer drinking

Bill_H: Thing?

Joe: a lot

Bill_H: No, it’s just, it’s growing in the corner of my

Georgia: studio.

Bill_H: and don’t look at it and no one will worry.

Joe: Yeast is a a fungus for people out there in the world 

Bill_H: But I thought Watts really brought some really cool things to the table. Yeah, definitely to think about. And talking about,

The way he embodied this intelligence it seemed to have come across [00:56:00] obviously vast distances. It’s come across who knows how many planets and assimilated them or gone through them in some way.

And a big surprise for it was how different this planet was and the creatures on it. And it seems like hundreds of planets that it’s been on. It hasn’t come across that. And I was trying to wrap my head around what that other Thing was. Obviously, you know, it’s marveling at the idea of a brain, a centralized brain kept up in a inside of a skull and like being protected.

And it’s that is a weak failure point. That’s, anything’s gotta just attack that head and the whole rest of that body is done What terrible design, you know? So what’s, what is the opposite of that? What has it come across? I mean, it obviously has some way to think in every cell right? In some way.

So each cell is its own thing. Each cell has its own brain of some [00:57:00] kind. And then when they link up, they commune and share what they’ve learned when they were apart and they grow and you know, their knowledge grows that way. What does a planet of creatures. That look like. You know, what does a planet of creatures look like where there aren’t things with heads or brains where things change shape as needed for?

Joe: and do you have to be? Do you have to be multicellular? Like you could just

Bill_H: just be one big cell,

Joe: a biomass, right?

We think about bacterial mats

Interactions. There’s cheats in there. There are suppliers, they have communities, there are,

Nick: or are they just nomads?

Joe: right? And they just go around. So maybe on their planet they could be the microbes and the high, you know, the hu the quote unquote evolutionary higher organisms.

You know,

the humans 

octopuses, whatever you want. They have evolved that they maybe are gut bacteria they just live in. And it’s so they’re a gut bacteria. So they went to some planet, someone pooped, and then now they’ve infected, and now [00:58:00] it’s oh, hey, we’re free.

We can do all this stuff. That’s, if humans go to other planets, exoplanets, and we do that we’re not careful with our waste, then we would release organisms that may become you know, symbiotic like chloroplast and mitochondria so they could then go in and now co-op cells and become part of the organism.

And do that. And so these Things had to come across other intelligent species that knew how to fly spaceships and travel across the galaxy.

Nick: Didn’t you have a theory about it being connected to a

Joe: Predator? Yeah. Yeah. I had the Predator. I think any of these creatures that come to Earth, they have, was this ship that crashed, could have been, you know, a Predator ship potentially.

So you have your predators going to all these planets hopping around. Would it not hop it, it went, found the Alien. Why couldn’t it hop to a planet that had been completely assimilated by The Thing in this way? And then it became itself. So we got back in a ship, it’s going to this next They go crazy like [00:59:00] in Antarctica. You know, now it’s 13 predators in a ship that’s you know, killing each other in a crash land. They’re eight feet tall, they’re ugly looking and

Bill_H: You know,

Joe: one of ’em thaws and there you go. You got it. You know, a hundred thousand years ago, they’re whatever that, that timestamp,

Bill_H: man, you gotta think that is a heck of a trophy for a Predator

Joe: That’s right.

Bill_H: Planet size, intelligence. You know,

something 

Georgia: yeah.

Joe: yeah. Didn’t, it didn’t work out so well. Probably it’s like they’re coming back. Hey, we got it. We did it. 

Todd_T: So you’re saying there’s essentially one portal to Earth and like all these aliens, like ET went through

it 

Nick: right.

Georgia: Yeah.

Todd_T: of 

Joe: right. 

Todd_T: So they’re all, you know, they might run into each other. We could. have 

Predator against ET and that’s just gonna be 

Joe: You know, planet a

Nick: ET is gonna destroy predator. That thing is a predator in of

Joe: What’s the mini chlorine of The Thing, I mean, I mean,

Nick: Is

Joe: is there a Thing Jedi you know, out there it’s are you, I dunno, are you the are you master Jedi?

Or, you know? Yeah, no, you have that no, I think you could see the thing. I mean, if it’s out there, if [01:00:00] doesn’t take a lot, so that means if, you know, if the, let’s say The Thing ship luckily crashed into the Antarctica, but if it crashed into, 

Nick: Nebraska 

Joe: else, right? Yeah. I’m trying to think a hundred thousand years ago.

Yeah. Nebraska or some

Bill_H: would be dug up

Joe: America, or near the equator where it wasn’t frozen. It might not have died. I mean, you then you have all the biomass. So every plant, all this biomass would convert. So that means anything that came across as biomass would all of a sudden be infected. Yeah. So I mean that’s, you know, so if it just landed in an isolated jungle, all that biomass is converted.

So when you go through exploring, so all these explorers that went out looking for gold or whatever, and they didn’t come back

Bill_H: disappear

Joe: Maybe they became The Thing, they just slaughtered each

Nick: So

Joe: So you can start really spinning that off,

Bill_H: But yeah,

Joe: it crashed, landed in Antarctica, which was smart because then it froze and, you know, was resilient enough to actually be thought and then come back.

And speaking of that, I [01:01:00] had thought about some numbers.

Bill_H: of

Joe: I like thinking the

Nick: He just likes numbers.

Joe: Blair had 27,000 hours. I dunno why he doesn’t say approximately three years, but that’s about three years to infect all life. On, on Earth. And so that, you know, sounds like a lot of time, but I think just looking at it, that started going through different scenarios, the pandemics we’ve lived through now, and ones that have happened in the past.

Kind of a few different models, maybe like the one in Antarctica, you would have this infection, probably containment would happen pretty quick. It would burn itself out kinda like the Ebola. So Ebola is one of these that viruses that you get, you bleed out, you see people bleeding out, and you go, whoa, let’s get, you know, contain.

And you can actually isolate it relatively quickly.

Bill_H: Keep your pencil away from him.

Joe: It unlike, you know, a very successful virus like HIV or , chicken pox, I mean, they hang out and you get shingles later in life. I mean, right? They’re very good [01:02:00] viruses.

Sexually transmitted viruses are extremely good in humans ’cause they just hang out and do their thing.

Nick: Wait. What? Good. Why do you think Good?

I’m

Joe: they’re good at what they do.

Bill_H: doing what they

Georgia: They’re good at being viruses.

Joe: at being viruses.

Nick: I was like, they’re good virus. You know, I enjoy having

Georgia: because if the

Joe: presents itself too fast and actually then, you know,

Georgia: kills everybody and then it can spread and

Joe: and within hours, you know, someone has it, then

Georgia: it can be

Joe: to isolate.

Georgia: isolate. So

if you have 

Joe: something like COVID where it COVID was perfect ’cause it was like, I don’t know if you’re sick or not. You might be a carrier, you might be infected it, you know, have this latency period where it was like you just could have it for, you know, a week and spreading around

Bill_H: moving all over the place, dropping it

Georgia: so

Bill_H: and there and

Georgia: good means it can stick around and spread perspective easily

Joe: the human’s

Georgia: Yeah.

Joe: not from the infected.

So I had 

Todd_T: And then you’ve got, oh, and then you’ve got half of the

Population.

who’s just [01:03:00] oh, I don’t,

Joe: That’s right. 

Todd_T: not worried about that. 

Joe: Yeah. I know they’re not,

Bill_H: let’s have a party.

Joe: so I, I had, you know, there that if the outbreak is misidentified as some sort of neurological viral in this, instead of being truly The Thing that’s assimilating you start doubling every 1224 hours based on some of those assumptions earlier.

Governments are slow to respond, which we’ve seen on an action. Due to human mimicry, right? We could have it to higher top so that The Thing might infiltrate way up. Po politicians. And next thing you know, we’ve got you probably

Nick: wait, they aren’t already.

Joe: there might be mad cow. That’s the mad cow’s conspiracy, right 

Todd_T: would think they’d be better than this.

Joe: Have 50% of Earth’s population, probably 50, 60 days. And in total global assimilation, maybe nine to a hundred to 20 days, you know, a few months, you know, six months.

Bill_H: that’s not a lot.

Joe: You know, and then you would, society would collapse, you know, people would be in bunkers you would start.

But yeah, once, if biomass can be converted, [01:04:00] then the minute you start, like everything then goes all the trees. Like you’re,

Once you do that,

Nick: but what about with those all the toilet paper, tape paper people are stocking up on? I mean,

Joe: I don’t know. I’ll still be there. I don’t, I think the things would eat and still poop.

I mean, I, if they assimilate completely, I think they would use our, if, are they using our biology or are they now? You know, like you said, it’s a, I feel like in a skin suit.

Bill_H: You know,

Joe: and so that’s it. So they have a different internal structure maybe, but I’m sure everything poops. There was a book about it and everything.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a,

Georgia: I don’t know where this is going, but 

Bill_H: Yeah,

Todd_T: Quoted Everybody Poops.

Bill_H: I

Joe: to eat. That’s right.

Georgia: the

thing to Everybody Poops though and accelerated, you would, if you get to a major city. So you land Chicago, New York, LA, Tokyo, Shanghai, some huge city doubling every four, six hours and you’re really just spreading this around.

Joe: You know, probably a billion infected you, you start getting the numbers, you know, 15, 20 days maybe total assimilation, [01:05:00] maybe 45 days. And the total biosphere collapse. You know, so you would have just complete Thing. This would be a thing, planet, know, it’s a bug planet. It’s a dead planet.

Bill_H: Like that last scene in society where

Joe: That’s right. Yeah. 

Bill_H: Flesh. A waves of flesh.

Joe: it very similar to we, we had an episode, we the grey goo model

Of, of nanoparticle kind of assimilation where you would wash over you know, and just once you have self-replicating uncontrolled assimilation of some, , very small, microscopic particle it would just take over. You wouldn’t be

Georgia: Like you said, it’s a, it’s apocalyptic.

Bill_H: But

that is also

Georgia: a vision

Bill_H: it’s not intelligent. If it is, if it’s intelligent enough to stop and just Yeah.

Joe: I

Bill_H: then that can change Things

Joe: Two things. One could be your scenario that it’s intelligent and it doesn’t really want to be all.

But the other one is maybe it is intelligent and it does want to be all right. 

Bill_H: [01:06:00] Absolutely.

Joe: Or it could be just unintelligent and just mm-hmm. 

it, you know, the thing does what the thing do, I mean, it’s 

Bill_H: That’s

Joe: you probably have three. That’s right. And you

Nick: The Thing does what the thing do love that.

Todd_T: It is I know I should stop. Just like we know we

probably shouldn’t, 

drive so much, but we do. 

Bill_H: I shouldn’t have another cookie. But you know what,

Nick: It looks so damn tasty.

Joe: down this forest, but we need a few more cows. I mean, that’s a, so that’s a that’s you have that. So I think those are but would you be able to tell the difference if you’re.

If it’s happening, Bill, would you be able to go, I think the thing’s really, so you’ll be that scientist, like I think The Thing’s intelligent I can reason with it.

Bill_H: to it. I think it likes me. Hey

Joe: Hey buddy. Hey Joe. What’s going on down there? Hey Bill. I’m doing really fine now. Let me

Nick: Let me out buddy. I’m good

Joe: maybe it’s time for me.

Todd_T: all good.

Joe: Yeah,

no. Yeah, and we, we come to the end the how the horror episodes always go a little longer, so it’s all right.

Bill_H: There’s a lot to dig into.

Joe: I know I, you know, I have a question and maybe [01:07:00] Todd you might lead us off or maybe you’ll pass it. I don’t know. But I

Nick: I’ll

Joe: the 

Nick: No, I don’t wanna answer that.

I’m good. The

Joe: Carpenter Stro Cat, and I think that’s the last scene of the 82 movie.

We’ve got childs, we got MacReady ready there, we got Max sitting there. And, you know, it’s you know, why don’t we just wait here a while and see what happens. So we have the three maybe you can say four, but pretty much three. Everyone thinks Mac is human. Right? We can argue that maybe he’s not.

And I have, so three theories. One is, Childs is a thing and there’s different reasons, and I can mention some of those if you want. Both are human, they’re just there doing their thing, or they’re both The Thing. I think those are the three scenarios that I guess you could say Childs is human and Mac is the thing, but that never, no one ever says that.

I don’t know why, but we could throw four in there

Just for fun. And if there I’m missing one, just go and throw it in there. But yeah, I mean, [01:08:00] what do we think there? 

Todd_T: I’ve

always thought

that Childs was the

thing and that Mac wasn’t you know, just, he’s the protagonist He’s the man of bronze essentially but I

know, Yeah.

I know. There’s all sorts of. theories.

and 

Joe: Yep. Yeah. Bill, what do you got? You not thought you 

Bill_H: Over the years I’ve vacillated back and forth, , I’ve even thought about Mac being The Thing, ? Yeah. But I like the questions. I like the possibility, , the ambiguity is great for me. It’s taken me a while to come to that when I was a kid.

Ambiguity really got on my nerves, but as I got older I started to see how great. The ambiguity makes it stick.

Georgia: I think that’s the beauty of that ending. Yeah.

Bill_H: You keep questioning it. You can’t because it’s

Georgia: and everybody can have a different Yeah. You know what I mean? You could talk about it. It’s,

Bill_H: and you can trot out why you think McCready’s not the thing or why Childs is and you know, and Yeah, 

Georgia: And [01:09:00] I think you can, and you all, you all get the feeling no matter who you think The Thing is, we’re screwed.

Bill_H: I still, there

Joe: that, I just gave

Georgia: numbers there. 50 days, man.

Bill_H: Yeah.

Joe: Because, you know, some scientists are gonna bring it back you know, bring these people.

That’s, you know what, yeah. I think we can make a weapon. Georgia, do you have an opinion or are you’re

Georgia: No I really don’t know, but I actually agree. I like the fact that you don’t

Joe: you wanna keep it ambiguous, Nick, you got something, you

Nick: I think they both are.

both

I really do. But it’s like still dormant enough to where they’re fighting. But they’re like, oh,

Joe: the Blair? He the early Blair.

Nick: Early Blair right now

know exactly you know, where? it’s dormant, but yeah. It’s there. They’re gonna go and, know, we got 50 days, let’s figure out what we’re doing with that. Yeah.

Georgia: Get out that survival guide.

Bill_H: I read that there was a couple different endings filmed. Yeah. And that they tried them out [01:10:00] in a couple test audiences too. They filmed one where it jumps ahead and a plane shows up and McCready’s there, and it was like, thanks guys. I’m real hungry.

You know, let’s get outta here.

Joe: Need to eat

there it is. The response wasn’t enough to the good endings, the happy endings to like. Say, this is definitely the one we should go with. So they were like, let’s stick with the ambiguous one, because

Bill_H: A little more fun. People can mull over it, you But studios are not cool with things

Nick: like,

Joe: they 

Bill_H: not today.

Joe: No. You gotta,

Bill_H: When you spend,

Joe: want tighten it up, this

Bill_H: spend millions of dollars on it, you definitely have to, you know, stick it. And

Joe: unless you got part two coming 

Bill_H: yeah. Then 

Joe: Then you can do

Bill_H: you can do whatever you

Joe: It’s like, all right.

You know,

Georgia: what about you?

Joe: Yeah, so I’m almost think that they’re both human, 

Nick: really. 

Joe: come out and I set this up earlier, there’s a thing running around out there. I don’t think he killed it. I don’t, I think he killed the Big Blair thing.

But I think there [01:11:00] was still some other Thing out there.

So I, I do think there’s two humans and one Thing still out, out in the wild. And I think Mac. I think m knew, knows that. And he’s sitting there and I think Childs, also has his suspicions and they’re just gonna go and they know it’s the end. And those two protagonists, the heroes that was, you know, Todd mentioned that they’re there already.

You know, neither one wants to really go down,

Bill_H: They know

Joe: they’re going down. Yeah. And so it’s can they stay long enough to warn somebody? Can they stay long enough to go there’s something still out here and you should leave it alone.

Bill_H: That’s a good question. How do you do that? 

Joe: Yeah. You’ve 

Bill_H: You’ve got two men in this situation. Everything is destroyed.

Everything’s

Joe: gonna die. I mean, it’s

Georgia: and

Nick: what did you guys

Georgia: they’re in and

Bill_H: Anna at best, a couple of hours before they freeze to death. How do you warn the people that are coming

Joe: right. That’s right. That’s right.

Bill_H: to 

Todd_T: You pee your message in the 

snow. 

Joe: right.

Bill_H: That’s right.

Todd_T: Do not.[01:12:00] 

Joe: Yeah. That’s in English and in Swedish

Todd_T: Yes. 

Georgia: it was 

Bill_H: the thing.

Joe: in a region. 

Nick: Alright.

I do have one more thing before we wrap up.

Joe: You wanna how many Big Macs it takes? No,

Nick: Yeah 

Joe: I do, I did have that. But

Bill_H: Oh boy.

Nick: don’t. The dude who at the Norwegian base who slid his wrist and the blood froze. Is that possible for it to freeze going down like that?

Joe: Depending on how cold Yeah. No, you can, yeah. It will freeze. You can do it, but yeah. So

Bill_H: what I, okay. What I didn’t think is possible. His throat is 

Nick: cut.

Exactly.

Bill_H: That’s okay.

That’s 

Joe: Hey you potentially could cut your 

Nick: both wrist and

Joe: your throat. Yeah, I think you could.

Bill_H: That is dedication.

Joe: That is a lot of

Nick: it’s 

Joe: Yeah,

Nick: I wanna be dead. Yeah.

Joe: yeah.

Georgia: wanna make sure.

Todd_T: is, there’s no

hesitation marks

Nick: no, the problem 

Bill_H: is 

Joe: that they, the, [01:13:00] this Norwegian base, they didn’t get as far along in their science as Blair did

Bill_H: And was it? Yeah. That, that oh, every particle can do this because then you would know blood letting isn’t the way to

go, isn’t gonna help you.

Joe: That you don’t need, you know, you’re still gonna be there pretty much freeze the death. And, you know, that was interesting that they had it

Bill_H: I know we’re running along

Joe: Or I think the other thing, did he kill himself not to become the thing?

Bill_H: That makes

Joe: That was probably

Bill_H: I’ve seen what’s happening and I want to be out of

That’s something that the movie doesn’t really do a lot with, but I was really interesting in the book is this sort of how does the cells communicate so that it, if it’s gonna become McCready, it’s got to very quickly. Know what McCready knows to pass itself off, right? It’s not just a dog or a lion.

Someone’s gonna say something to it and it’s gotta answer back.

Joe: But I think that’s that whole thing about time that it needs to

Georgia: at what point? At what point it may. And is

Joe: the brain or is it just the body? Because if your body is just being converted and not your head, 

Bill_H: taking [01:14:00] over 

Joe: thinking you, and you can still answer questions about your life and everything.

But once The Thing takes over, you’re right. What amount of memories does it get? What command of memories does it have? Things like that. Which some, someone say it, it has

Bill_H: It’s got everything. 

Joe: Yep. Okay. You were saying what was your 

Bill_H: so in the book, there’s a lot of talk, there’s talks about nightmares, people before they’re infected,

Just being in proximity to it are having, starting to have nightmares and have weird feelings and images in their heads and stuff. There’s this. Possible psychic

Joe: Yeah, that’s right.

Bill_H: Yeah, that’s right. You know, that is a very interesting piece that is really hard to do in a film, , but does show up.

The idea is in that a Prince of Darkness Carpenter’s next apocalypse movie, you know, where they’re like getting the dreams from the future, this idea that it’s psychic and even when it’s frozen there, it’s still active mentally in some way. Even if it’s not doing it, it’s it could be [01:15:00] dreaming and we are receiving it’s alien dreams and just driving everybody a little crazy, you know?

Joe: Yeah. That some psychic kind of ability. Yeah. I also think at that time, like ESP was like huge. I mean, that was like, it was like, we’re gonna weaponize what’s

Todd_T: Oh, 

Bill_H: Gonna

Todd_T: yep. 

Joe: I think

That was the talk like that they’re gonna do LSD 

Todd_T: Randys. 

Joe: Yeah. LSD and you know, and ESP that, that was it. That was like the, that was the rage. We’re gonna develop all these new age weapons, but yeah, no, that’s yeah, but you’re right. The book and the 51 movie both had that kind of psychological telepathy. Yeah.

That you have this higher organism that can manipulate across mental distance and, you know, have this kind of control. But yeah.

Bill_H: it was great in this story how like this, all these guys, these scientists were just like. If it’s anything like the look in its face, it’s evil, then we must destroy it. Yes. Look at that face. It’s the face of pure Evil. they were so [01:16:00] quick to judge that thing. Look at those eyes.

The look in his eyes. If I’d known that was in those eyes, I would’ve just destroyed it.

Joe: Yeah.

we would’ve blew it up.

Bill_H: Wow. Okay guys. Yikes.

Joe: Yeah. I mean it is The Thing evil, right?

That’s it. Exactly.

Bill_H: all judgment.

Todd_T: You know,

Joe: Cool. Yeah, so probably wind down a little bit here. You guys wanna get anything cool coming out or anything? Folks, you know, they’re all hyper excited. 

Todd_T: I’m 

Georgia: Around 

Todd_T: yeah, so I just I just sailed to Antarctica in

February and so I’m working on some books from that. And

one of them is basically a, I have a goal to now that I’ve made an,

addition of Who Goes There and The Things I’m writing and gonna illustrate essentially like my own story

in that 

universe. 

And it’s going to take place in the early 19 hundreds. So it’s sailing ships

and people crashing on shore and stumbling into [01:17:00] things weird.

Georgia: Oh wow. 

That’s awesome. Yeah, you guys have to

Joe: out and your website is,

Todd_T: Angel bomb.com.

Joe: It is. So yeah, go check it out. Check out

Georgia: that’s amazing.

Joe: Really fabulous. Work the, you know, letter press work and things like that. You know.

Nick: Yeah. You absolutely have to check out these books.

They are, they’re phenomenal. So fricking cool.

Bill_H: There are pieces of art and awesome stories on your shelf.

Joe: Bill

when you got anything coming up

Bill_H: have anything particularly interesting going on. I’m sorry. Just your average, you know. No. We’ve got some talk about the new cryptic closet coming up, but that’s not for another, that’ll be out next October,

Joe: gotta have a, we gotta have a thing s story in there, right?

Bill_H: that would be great. You know, I missed my chance when we did the 3D story. In, in, in one of these books here, The Thing is revealed by some UV light, right? Yeah. Is it in the thing? 

Joe: yep. The Things, yep. 

Bill_H: It’s awesome.

It’s invisible to the naked eye. You black, [01:18:00] you put the UV light on it and you can see it.

Joe: Yeah.

Georgia: Yeah.

Bill_H: We did a 3D issue Yeah. That I wrote a story for, but I just didn’t have the time to work on, and me thinking was like, how can I do this differently than just.

And a 3D story I gotta always make it harder on myself for no particular

Joe: You gotta do

that. That’s what artist 

Bill_H: so I, I wrote a story ab about a interdimensional infection where a character becomes infected by something that he can’t perceive.

And the idea was 

Todd_T: Ooh. 

Bill_H: When you, the red and blue would be printed on the page, you know? Yeah. But you wouldn’t be able to like, suss out what was going on there with the naked eye. And when you put on the glasses, it would like, you know,

If you look through one lens, you could see things normally and through the other lens you could see that he’s actually covered in invisible interdimensional parasites.

Georgia: I love that.

Bill_H: And I’m working on

Georgia: put on the damn glasses. Yeah, another

Joe: Carpenter [01:19:00] favorite. They Live, yeah.

Georgia: Yeah, exactly.

Joe: Put on the

Bill_H: Fantastic.

Joe: You are gonna wear these glasses. Yeah. Cool.

Nick: Thank you again guys, for joining us.

Bill_H: Thanks so much for having me 

Todd_T: you. Thanks for having me. 

Joe: Yeah.

Bill_H: reason to rewatch these movies definitely. I mean, any final thoughts, Todd? Bill, as we come, we’re gonna wrap up on anything we missed or you wanted to really say about The Thing and The Thing universe.

I’m much better now. I’m fine. I can come back in.

Todd_T: Clark.

Clark. 

Bill_H: right. Yeah.

Georgia: It’s

Joe: Sweeds. Cool. You have, we have me, Joe, you got Nick.

We got Nick Georgia. We got Georgia, we got Bill, we got Todd and

Nick: we went down some hole. Are you sure we went the hole? Wait, I think we went the 

Georgia: hole. Which hole? Which hole?

Joe: Who? Who Goes There

Bill_H: Is that next week?

The witch [01:20:00] hole

Nick: That’s next year’s witch hole.

Bill_H: Oh, I want to be on that one. Yeah.

Joe: We love y’all. Stay safe, stay curious.

Nick: Bye-bye. Cheers.