Pod Insights Revisionist History In Defense of PAW Patrol About this episode PAW Patrol is in trouble. Like Ryder and the pups, Malcolm comes to the rescue.
Get ad-free episodes to Revisionist History by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows.
Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkin http://apple.co/pushkin
Subscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plus https://www.pushkin.fm/join-pushkin
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:09 Speaker 00 This is Jacob Goldstein. When you're a business owner interested in expanding to new markets, there's a lot to consider and countless questions to answer before making the call. The most important one being, are you ready? That's where ChatGPT comes in. Give it a goal, add your files, and ask Chat to help you map out different scenarios for the future of your business. So when growth is on the table, you've got an expansion plan ready to implement. Get started today at ChatGPT.com.
0:37 Malcolm Gladwell? We spend hours deciding what to buy, but there's a split-second decision that can make or break a sale. Do you have the trust to hit buy now? Agentic commerce is testing that moment more than ever. And that's where PayPal comes in. With 25 years of checkouts, 400 million consumer accounts globally, and the benefit of purchase and seller protection, all of which make sure wherever a purchase starts, it ends with trust. Built for payments, growth, and agentic. PayPal Open: Built for All Business. Visit PayPalOpen.com.
1:14 Speaker 02 Purchase and seller protections on eligible transactions only. Terms apply. See PayPal.com/risk-management for details.
1:24 Malcolm Gladwell? Hello, hello, everyone. You're in for a treat today. I'm going to do battle on behalf of my three-year-old against some of the leading intellectuals of our day. My producer says this is her favorite revisionist history episode ever. As they say on the internet, "big if true." If you missed it, we opened this mini-season with two episodes about the death of George Floyd, which I hope you'll listen to if you haven't already. And coming up soon, my colleague Ben Nadav-Hafrey gives us the real story about, well, I'm not going to tell you. All I'll say is, when I listen to it, every single fact Ben relates in that episode was something I'd never heard of before. Oh, and one last thing. I mentioned it last week.
2:07 Malcolm Gladwell? I'm doing my tour with No Small Endeavor and Drew Holcomb, April 9 in Louisville, April 10 in Indianapolis, and April 11 in Grand Rapids. It's going to be a lot of fun. If you live anywhere near those cities, you gotta go. Check it out at nosmallendeavor.com. Okay, off we go. Enjoy, everyone.
2:29 Malcolm Gladwell? Every night, after bath and just before bedtime, my three-year-old and I settle down in front of the television.
2:46 Malcolm Gladwell? If you're not a parent of a young child, it's entirely possible you have no idea what Paw Patrol is. That's fine. Before I had children, I had never heard of it either. So let me explain. It's a multi-billion-dollar franchise centered around a band of puppies who are called upon in each episode to rescue someone in peril. There's a police dog named Chase, a fire dog named Marshall, a helicopter pilot named Sky, a roadworks puppy named Rubble. They stop runaway trains, they fight fires, they repair the damaged flying saucers of adorable stranded aliens with enormous eyes. You get the picture. Among toddlers, Paw Patrol is bigger than Elmo. It's bigger than Mickey Mouse.
3:31 Malcolm Gladwell? Just ask my daughter.
3:32 Speaker 03 Paw Patrol, we're on the double. Whenever there's a problem, round Adventure Day. Rabbit is the team of pups who'll go and save the day. Marshall, Rubble, Chase, Rocky, Zuma, Sky, they're on the way. Paw Patrol, Paw Patrol.
3:53 Malcolm Gladwell? And yet, for some reason, every parent I know, every student of children's television, every adult who has more than a passing interest in the intellectual and moral development of our young hates Paw Patrol. Like the Reddit thread, "Paw Patrol has ruined my child's brain." Quote, "Everything about Paw Patrol is awful. The yelling and constant panic, the stereotypes, the terrible design, the tropes. I wish it would disappear from the face of the earth and take all of its merch with it." Unquote. Go to TikTok. They hate the puppies.
4:30 Speaker 04 There's some things that really piss me off when it comes to Paw Patrol.
4:34 Speaker 05 It's pretty simple. It sucks.
4:36 Speaker 00 My son watches Paw Patrol. I hate it.
4:38 Malcolm Gladwell? Everyone hates it, except for me. And this episode is my attempt to convince you that I'm right and everyone else is wrong.
4:51 Malcolm Gladwell? My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast where I like to argue on behalf of things that all common sense suggests are not true. The following defense of Paw Patrol is squarely in that tradition. It is a search and rescue mission for a show about search and rescue missions. In all my long years of doing Revisionist History, I have never tackled a more forbidding task. I started by calling people, anyone who I thought could help, asking the same questions over and over again.
5:33 Malcolm Gladwell? First, to a parent who had lived through what I'm living through right now. We are here to discuss Paw Patrol, which looms large in my life at the moment.
5:44 Speaker 00 Yeah, I'm sure.
5:46 Malcolm Gladwell? Then again, to an intellectual, someone I admire. What is...I don't understand the amount of hatred this show gets. And again, this time to a sociologist, someone who has published in academic journals on the Paw Patrol phenomenon. I am calling you because I spend every night watching Paw Patrol.
6:06 Speaker 00 I'm sorry. I'm sorry to hear that.
6:08 Malcolm Gladwell? I spent so much time Googling Paw Patrol, Google started feeding me Paw Patrol content, like the actress Keira Knightley on The Tonight Show, explaining what it's like to be the mother of a three-year-old. Wait for it. Baby's a toddler. Baby's not a baby. Baby's not a baby anymore. Yeah, she's huge. Three and a half. Three and a half. Are you into Paw Patrol? Oh. I'm sorry, yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Everyone is sorry. Well, I'm into Paw Patrol, and I'm not sorry. Paw Patrol takes place in two imaginary towns, Adventure Bay and Foggy Bottom. The group has as its headquarters what looks like a giant, postmodern air traffic control
6:51 Malcolm Gladwell? center, complete with a really cool fire station pole that moves the members of the Paw Patrol from the briefing room to their waiting vehicles. Vehicles, which are all, by the way, available separately for purchase.
7:08 Malcolm Gladwell? In a typical Paw Patrol episode, and I say typical when I really mean every single Paw Patrol episode ever, someone in the Greater Adventure Bay, Foggy Bottom metropolitan area, has a problem. They call Ryder, who is the little boy in charge of the Paw Patrol operation. He summons the pups from whatever adorably cute leisure activity they are engaged in. They come running.
7:31 Speaker 03 Mighty pups, to the lookout! Ryder needs us!
7:36 Malcolm Gladwell? And without fail, the problem is solved.
7:39 Speaker 03 No job is too big, no pup is too small.
7:42 Malcolm Gladwell? For example, in season seven, episode 13, Paw Patrol Pups Save Election Day, a particular favorite in the Gladwell household, Mayor Humdinger of Foggy Bottom has decided unexpectedly to run for mayor of Adventure City, precipitating a crisis. Humdinger is wreaking havoc on the campaign trail, causing all kinds of chaos downtown. This leads Alex, an adorable little boy who happens to find himself in the midst of the mayhem, to call for help.
8:09 Speaker 03 It all happened because Mayor Humdinger's kiddies are launching election stuff everywhere. Vote for me! We'll be right there, Alex.
8:17 Malcolm Gladwell? There's a short briefing in the Situation Room. Ryder gives that instructions.
8:21 Speaker 03 So for this mission, I'll need Chase. I need you to use your net to stop Mr. Porter's out-of-control skateboard ride. Chase is on the case. And Marshall. I'll need you to use your ladder to help get Danny down from that big billboard. I'm ready for a rough, rough rescue.
8:38 Malcolm Gladwell? And off the pups go. Hey, guys. Hey, Malcolm. How you doing? How's it going? I called up Cal Brunker and Bob Barlin, the writers behind the Paw Patrol movies. I asked them why they thought kids loved the show so much.
8:52 Speaker 00 The structures are so clear and consistent from episode to episode that it really, it pulls them in and they're able to feel comfortable and confident in that world of storytelling.
9:03 Malcolm Gladwell? Oh, I forgot to mention that in addition to 11 seasons of Paw Patrol television shows, there have been two Paw Patrol movies, which together grossed $350 million. The structure of the show is...
9:19 Speaker 00 Really quite smart in how they go about every rescue that takes place. Ryder tells the pups what they're gonna do. And then they show up and they do the same thing that he's just told the audience. So I think the participation level from a child is able to be so much more because it's less surprising.
9:43 Malcolm Gladwell? I did not grow up with a television, so this experience is all new to me. Maybe that's why I like Paw Patrol so much. Everyone else groans in silent agony over the thought of watching, say, Paw Patrol, the movie for the fourth time. Me, I'm like, what new fresh insights can I glean this time around about Chase, the police dog, a German shepherd who struggles with feelings of inadequacy?
10:05 Speaker 00 Chase has got a backstory. And I mean, at its highest level, Chase believes that being scared means he's not a hero. And so he shouldn't be part of it. And he learns that heroes get scared too, but keep going. That's what makes them heroes.
10:21 Malcolm Gladwell? Ryder has that scene with him where they relive when he found Chase for the first time.
10:26 Speaker 00 Yes, I love, I love to hear you saying this. This brings me great joy.
10:31 Malcolm Gladwell? On what is clearly University Avenue.
10:33 Speaker 00 That's absolutely.
10:34 Malcolm Gladwell? It's University Avenue.
10:35 Speaker 00 It feels like it, doesn't it? With the ballpark. The dividers, exactly, yeah.
10:39 Malcolm Gladwell? By the way, remember that reference. University Avenue. What am I referring to? A small clue to my grand unified theory of Paw Patrol. A clue which I'm guessing all the other parents missed because they were on their phones, checking Instagram. Now, that, so, because there is, what's really interesting is that there, when my daughter was watching that, she, we've seen it more than once, that movie. And the first time she saw it, I think she was genuinely affected by it. I mean, it was clear it was a different kind of emotional experience than she'd been getting from the TV shows.
11:19 Malcolm Gladwell? And the second and third time gripping my hand tightly. This is exactly what the corporate benefactors of the Paw Patrol franchise desire. A bonding moment between a dad and his daughter over a disconsolate puppy. Was my daughter wearing Paw Patrol pajamas as this was happening? Yes, she was. And yet, there are people, lots of people, who look on that picture of family togetherness and cry foul. Can you explain this?
11:58 Speaker 00 This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts, and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious, and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.
12:36 Speaker 03 Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
12:50 Speaker 06 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
13:01 Speaker 03 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a Point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
13:35 Malcolm Gladwell? On several occasions, in the course of almost a decade now of revisionist history, I have called on Angus Fletcher, neuroscientist turned narrative theorist, genius in residence at Ohio State University. If you remember, for example, back to our three-part revision of the ending of Disney's The Little Mermaid, arguably the intellectual high watermark of the entire revisionist history corpus, Angus provided the intellectual firepower. And remember when we did a whole series on the greatest movie scripts that never got made? Angus had one. Of course he did. Angus is much, much smarter than I am. More important, Angus is not hopelessly sentimental like I am.
14:19 Malcolm Gladwell? He would not be derailed by the gentle pressure of a three-year-old's stubby fingers. And when I remembered that Angus also has kids, I called him up.
14:32 Malcolm Gladwell? Now, a small thing before we go on. Normally, when we interview people, we edit the tape. I interject with commentary. The whole thing is compressed and annotated. We give you snippets, but snippets do not do justice to Professor Angus Fletcher. So you're going to get Angus Unbound. I want to start, you, you two went to a Paw Patrol period with your children. Is this correct? I did, yeah. So my son likes Paw Patrol and I had an immediate horrifying flashback when you brought the subject.
15:04 Speaker 00 Because I went back and tried to watch a couple of episodes just to remind myself. And I immediately had to shut them off, actually, for self-preservation.
15:12 Malcolm Gladwell? But there are many things to unpack here. First of all, how long did your son still actively watch Paw Patrol?
15:19 Speaker 00 No, no, absolutely. He's still alive. So we managed to save him in time.
15:24 Malcolm Gladwell? So you're, and while you were watching it with your son, why did this show not appeal to you? What is it about it that's hitting you the wrong way?
15:34 Speaker 00 It's designed to anesthetize your brain. I mean, I feel like I'm a mainlining horse tranquilizer. It's a show that is studiously designed to interrupt active thought. I mean, that's like the purpose of the show. And it's engineered brilliantly to do that. It's like the kind of diabolical apotheosis of hundreds of years of figuring out how to make audiences more and more passive.
15:58 Malcolm Gladwell? What do you mean? Okay, break that down. Tell me exactly what you mean by that.
16:04 Speaker 00 So it's the quintessence of this thing that we call narrative. We have a term for this in narrative theory. It's called vacuous agon. Vacuous agon. And basically, what that means is when there's a conflict, but there's no stress, there's no anxiety in the viewer, because you know that it's going to work out. And this is a, I have to give credit to who coined this term. It was a brilliant member of my lab. His name is Mike Benvenisti. He coined the term after watching Phineas and Fer, which is a Disney show with his three children. And the point of vacuous agon is that you're constantly being presented with problems that are solved immediately at the moment that you are presented with the problem. And I think it's probably obvious for you, having, I'm sure, watched several episodes of the show,
16:46 Speaker 00 how mechanically what the show does is it gives you a problem, and then immediately Ryder shows up, like a helicopter parent, like the ultimate helicopter parent, and tells everybody exactly what to do. So the problem will go away, and then we just kind of watch as the problem goes away.
16:59 Malcolm Gladwell? Yeah, that's exactly right. So, and you think that's problematic because?
17:08 Speaker 00 It's not that I think it is problematic, Malcolm, it's that I know it's problematic. So I don't know if you're aware of this, but there for the last 30 years, there's been this crisis in American schools. American kids have been getting less creative. And because they've been getting less creative, they've been less able to solve their own problems. And because they're less able to solve their own problems, they have these rises in anxiety and anger. You know, losses of self advocacy, resilience, all these kinds of things. And, you know, the major reason for this is that we are either solving their problems for them.
17:33 Malcolm Gladwell? Yeah.
17:34 Speaker 00 That we're coming in and solving their problems for them. Or we're essentially suspending them in this state of giving them artificial problems. So an artificial problem is like a math problem or standardized test or something that doesn't exist in the real world. And, you know, and you learn the formula and once you learn the formula, you know how to solve it. And so kids are developing this, you know, ability to get better and better and better and better at school. And then they just keep failing at life. And this TV show is a paradigmatic example of that entire process. I mean, I mean, it solves all the problems before you. There's no ability you have to exercise any curiosity. Because the moment a problem happens, like literally, you're told these two dogs are going to go solve it in exactly this way.
18:11 Malcolm Gladwell? Yeah.
18:12 Speaker 00 There's no opportunity for the brain to engage what we call in counterfactual causal thinking. These processes that occur when we encounter a problem. The whole reason for imaginative literature, the reason that things like Curious George and Winnie the Pooh were created are to stimulate these processes in young children. Because at the age of four is actually when they develop the capacity for irony, for narrative irony. And all those books and reading with your children, for reasons we can discuss if you're interested, stimulates all those processes. And when you watch this show, it nukes them. So it's not bad in the sense that like giving your children ice cream isn't bad, right? They can have ice cream, but if all you give them is ice cream, what happens to them, right? They become diabetic. And it's the same thing with this show in your brain.
18:50 Malcolm Gladwell? Yeah. God, I feel bad now. I'm, you filled me with a kind of degree of self loathing and guilt over the damage I'm doing to my daughter's imagination, her ability to problem solve. This is what you do. I should point out how strange this is. A generation ago, people loved children's television. The invention of children's television was one of America's signature cultural triumphs. Intellectuals wrote love songs to children's television. I remember once, in the late 1990s, when I discovered Sesame Street for the first time, I was so entranced that I went to the Sesame Street studios and just hung out there for what seemed like days.
19:33 Malcolm Gladwell? I was there during the great Slimy episode. Maybe you remember this. Slimy, the adorable Sesame Street worm becomes an astronaut. And so the Sesame Street staff brought in Tony Bennett, whose signature song, of course, was "Fly Me to the Moon," to sing. Fly me to the moon. And when this worm arrives, you'll find he'll take a leap that's small for him, but huge for all worm kind. I was there for that, standing this close to the legend himself, who acted like this was the greatest moment of his entire career.
20:16 Malcolm Gladwell? My point is, back in the day, the leading cultural figures of our time would happily make the pilgrimage to a random TV studio in Queens to make light of their own work on behalf of toddlers everywhere. But now, the cultural luminaries and the intellectuals have abandoned ship. By 11 minutes into his denunciation of Paw Patrol, Angus had mentioned Dickens, the A-Team, Plautus, and Aristophanes. Now, he'd moved on to explaining the phenomenon of new comedy and contrasting it with something he called old comedy.
20:54 Speaker 00 And what happens in old comedy is you're presented with real problems. So, an example of a real problem would be war, or the breakdown of democracy. And then, the comedy goes on, and the problem gets worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse. And then, eventually, the comedy falls apart and it just ends. And, basically, the comedy is saying, "That's a big problem. You guys in the audience better figure out how to solve that." So... And it forced people to think about hard things in a public place where they could kind of wrestle with it and solve their own problems. Then what happened was the emergence of new comedy, which is essentially light entertainment. And what happens in light entertainment is a fake problem is posed.
21:36 Speaker 00 A fake problem is posed. And then, just if you might be getting stressed about this fake problem, the comedy answers it for you by the end so you can relax. So what's diabolical about Paw Patrol is it takes real problems and turns them into imaginary problems. It's like, it's like the end. It's like the nadir of comedy. Cause I mean, there are real problems that it seems to embrace, you know, and people seem to get in trouble and stuff like that, you know? But then it just reveals that they're all, you know, not a problem. You don't have to worry about them because, you know, Ryder will just show up or there'll be some like weird gizmo gadget thing that will solve the problem for you. So, you know, just relax preschooler. Um, don't worry about this big bad world you're entering in. Cause it's just fine. Don't even use your brain. Why you, why were you even given a brain? What's the point of a brain? Right?
22:19 Speaker 00 You need to solve problems. See, everything's already solved. I've got perfect.
22:22 Malcolm Gladwell? I know I promised you that I was gonna play Angus at full length, Angus Unbound. And if this were the Joe Rogan experience, and I bring up Joe Rogan for a reason, by the way, because revisionist history is coming back to Joe Rogan big time in the coming weeks. If this were the Joe Rogan experience, I'd have just run it all. F it. Who among us does not have a spare three and a half hours to listen to a perfect stranger speak about their weightlifting routines? But my assumption is that you, unlike the many millions of Roganites, have jobs. So from here on out, I'm just giving you the good parts. So what would happen if you showed an old comedy show to a child? What happens if in Paw Patrol, they don't solve the problem? What does my daughter do?
23:08 Speaker 00 Yeah. So this is great. So your child will become concerned. Your child will become concerned. And then your child will probably turn to you as the authority figure in, in her life and be like, I'm kind of concerned. What's gonna happen? To that, to that truck that's suspended over that castle or whatever other Paw Patrolian problem there is, right?
23:25 Malcolm Gladwell? Yeah.
23:26 Speaker 00 And then you're gonna look very seriously at them and say, I don't know. What do you think is gonna happen? And then they would have to pause and then they would think, and then they would have to imagine themselves solving the problem. And that's the value.
23:41 Malcolm Gladwell? I'm a new parent, just over three years into the experience, and I have all the insecurities that come with being a rookie. I don't know what I'm doing. I put my daughters in bed at night and pray they fall asleep. I make them oatmeal in the morning and pray they eat it. I help build castles made of magnet tiles and pray they don't destroy them. And all the while, I ask myself, who are these mysterious creatures over whom I have recklessly been given dominion? And now Angus, who I admire like few others, was telling me I was doing it all wrong.
24:20 Speaker 00 You're deleting their capacity to develop an awareness of other answers to problems. You're removing that source of natural creativity. You're also removing the pressure on them to try and find that perspective to solve those other problems. And so this entire part of their brain is just atrophying at the exact critical moment when, as human beings, we're supposed to have it and it's supposed to come online.
24:42 Malcolm Gladwell? This is devastating. This has been a devastating conversation.
24:45 Speaker 00 Um, yeah, I'm sure.
24:49 Malcolm Gladwell? When we come back, my grand unified theory of Paw Patrol.
25:03 Speaker 00 This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts, and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious, and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.
25:41 Speaker 03 Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table. The Food Allergy Podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
25:55 Speaker 06 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
26:06 Speaker 03 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
26:39 Malcolm Gladwell? I said way back in the beginning that there was an important clue in my conversation with the creators of the Paw Patrol movies, something crucial to understanding my stubborn affection for the Paw Patrol franchise, something about University Avenue. Remember that? You might have wondered what University Avenue I was referring to. Well, it's the one in Toronto. University Avenue is one of the central boulevards that runs through downtown Toronto. It is the Broadway of Toronto. In the Paw Patrol movie, it appears as a little visual clue that tells you something crucially important about Ryder and his band of merry pups,
27:21 Malcolm Gladwell? something I realized as I prepared to respond to Angus's attacks, that even the mighty Angus had missed.
27:31 Malcolm Gladwell? Now, but wait, now I feel, Angus, your arguments are so compelling and overwhelming. I feel foolish in offering my defense of Paw Patrol.
27:42 Malcolm Gladwell? But I feel I should do it anyway. The key to understanding Paw Patrol, so this is the alternate Paw Patrol theory. And the key to the alternate Paw Patrol theory is understanding that it is a Canadian show. Paw Patrol is conceived, made, and distributed from my home country of Canada. It is as Canadian as maple syrup, as Canadian as a flock of geese streaking across the sky. And what Paw Patrol is doing is enacting a fantasy of municipal competence, which is absolutely essential to understanding Canada. That's what Canada is, right?
28:24 Malcolm Gladwell? Is a country which has formed, you know, the essential credo of the United States is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, an individualist credo. What is the parallel credo of Canada that was embedded in the Canadian Articles of Confederation? It is peace, order, and good government, right? What is Paw Patrol? Paw Patrol is an homage, and it is the elaboration of the notion of peace, order, and good government. And the key thing in the Paw Patrol song at the very beginning, they go, Paw Patrol, Paw Patrol, whenever you're in trouble, Paw Patrol, Paw Patrol will be there on the double. That's crucial.
29:08 Malcolm Gladwell? It is that not only is every problem assessed, but every problem is addressed in a timely manner, in an efficient, competent manner. So that what Paw Patrol is all about is that this is, in Canadian terms, what we want our state to do, right? It is to, and what is Paw Patrol itself? It's an example of interagency cooperation, right? Chase, the police dog, Marshall, the firefighter, Skye, the pilot, Rubble, the contractor, all working together. Very Canadian notion, that if only we join hands and cooperate across disciplines, we
29:53 Malcolm Gladwell? can more effectively address the social ills that plague us, right? It's just Canada. So what my daughter is getting is essentially Canada.
30:04 Speaker 00 Yeah, well, I mean, I've seen on the news how perfect things are in Canada, Malcolm, so you don't have to convince me.
30:10 Malcolm Gladwell? It's a utopian land where everything works out. There's no problems with settlements or anything. It's comparative judgment.
30:22 Malcolm Gladwell? This point about the centrality of public sector competence to the Canadian identity is worth a bit of a digression. It concerns the 1991 hit single from the band Crash Test Dummies. Perhaps you remember it. It was called "Superman's Song", and it turns on a sociological comparison of Tarzan and Superman.
31:01 Malcolm Gladwell? Superman, the song argues, is Tarzan's antithesis. He's not some rapacious profiteer.
31:29 Malcolm Gladwell? This is how the lead singer for the Crash Test Dummies, Brad Roberts, explained his thinking to a college newspaper. Quote, "Superman, as cast in Superman's song, is obviously a left-wing political figure. His activity in the community is intrinsic to his being. Superman is being juxtaposed against Tarzan, who is kind of a laissez-faire capitalist type who retreats to the forest and rejects the idea of the community. He wants to live in a so-called animal state, and he doesn't want to be bothered with any kind of political realities."
32:05 Malcolm Gladwell? First of all, how great is it that rock stars once talked like this? Second, on the basis of this argument, where do you think the Crash Test Dummies are from? It's obvious. Canada, of course. This is a song that could only have been written by a Canadian. Only a Canadian would find something utterly reprehensible in Tarzan's naked displays of strength and brute force. And only a Canadian would look long and hard at Superman and conclude. He's one of us. Listen.
32:39 Speaker 03 Hey Bob, Sue had a straight job. Even though he could have smashed any bank in the United States. Well, he had the strength, but he would not.
32:56 Malcolm Gladwell? Any bank in the United States. Meaning Superman is at a place below the border where the expectation is he will use his gifts for his own selfish ends. The superhero who puts his community first stands for peace, order, and good government.
33:13 Speaker 03 Sometimes when Sue was stopping crimes, I'll bet that he was tempted to just quit and turn his back on hell. Joined Ozzy in the forest.
33:30 Malcolm Gladwell? The forest. Clearly referring to anything below the 49th parallel.
33:36 Speaker 03 But he stayed in the city. Kept on changing clothes and dirty old phone booths till his work was through. Had nothing to do but go on home.
33:54 Malcolm Gladwell? He stayed in the city, working out of decrepit phone booths. Because he believed super strength and superpowers ought to be deployed on behalf of the public good. When I see Superman, I think, he's a Paw Patrol character. Before we got hooked on Paw Patrol, my daughter and I watched Minnie's Bow Toons. Equally absurdly popular short cartoons about a small business run by Minnie Mouse and her best friend, and maybe lover? I'm unclear on that, Daisy Duck. Devoted to selling bows, a boutique. And yes, the theme song is as good as you might imagine.
34:54 Malcolm Gladwell? Every episode of Bow Toons also begins with a problem which the episode resolves through Minnie's ingenuity and persistence.
35:03 Speaker 03 That gives me an idea.
35:05 Malcolm Gladwell? But who is the beneficiary of Minnie's ingenuity? Minnie is. Minnie and her considerable business interests. There is no community in Minnie Mouse's Bow Toons, no civic obligations. There is only the profit that ensues to Minnie and her shareholders.
35:21 Speaker 03 There's no business like bow business.
35:26 Malcolm Gladwell? All of this made me think of the first lines of Saul Bellow's novel, The Adventures of Augie March. Maybe the most famous opening sentence in all of American literature.
35:39 Malcolm Gladwell? Quote, "I am an American, Chicago-born, Chicago that somber city, and go at things as I have taught myself, freestyle. And will make the record in my own way, first to knock, first admitted. Sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not-so-innocent."
36:00 Malcolm Gladwell? That's Minnie Mouse in a nutshell. Minnie is American, Disney-born. Minnie is for Minnie. Minnie is about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But do you know the dirty little secret about Saul Bellow? He was a Canadian.
36:16 Malcolm Gladwell? And I wouldn't be surprised if, in an earlier version of Augie March, Saul Bellow admitted to the truth of his birthright.
36:24 Malcolm Gladwell? "I am a Canadian, Toronto-born, Toronto that clean and tidy city, and we go at things as I have been taught by the civic institutions of my municipality. Through cooperation and inter-agency task forces, first to respond, first to apologize, always an innocent knock."
36:45 Malcolm Gladwell? Angus Fletcher, genius in residence, made lots of very good points. But did he deal with the elephants in the room? Tarzan? Minnie Mouse? Saul Bellow? He did not. I'm simply saying that I'm understanding where this notion, the notion of the new comedy is so implicit in the Canadian national narrative. That's what it is. There are no real problems in Canada. Canada is this oasis. We're surrounded by countries with real problems. Not Canada. We don't pick fights with people. We don't have racism. We welcome immigrants. We have national healthcare. It is the... Canada is the embodiment of the new, of the promise of the new comedy.
37:28 Malcolm Gladwell? Every problem can be simply addressed through some inter-agency task force. Right? So my daughter is just getting a... She's just getting a little bit of Canadian propaganda. That's how I would read it.
37:42 Malcolm Gladwell? Angus said the Paw Patrol's problem was that it was vacuous agon. Paw Patrol's weakness was that it constantly presented its little viewers with a problem solved at the moment of its presentation. But when I look around me at the world, all I can say is, "I don't know." I could use a little more vacuous agon in my life right now. A world where there is a puppy optimized for every kind of peril. Where help arrives at the very moment it is summoned. Where the heroes work not to benefit themselves, but the community in which they live. Where the definition of a Superman is someone who turns down the opportunity to rob every bank and instead toils on behalf of his countrymen.
38:25 Malcolm Gladwell? As a fantasy, an aspiration, to plant in my daughter's head here and now, that doesn't sound too bad.
38:36 Speaker 03 Paw Patrol, we're on the double. Whatever is a problem, round adventure day. Rabbit is the team of pups we'll go and see today. My show, Wobble, Chase, Rocky, Dino, Sky, and Amway. Paw Patrol, Paw Patrol!
39:00 Malcolm Gladwell? Revisionist History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and Ben Nadaf-Haferi. Our editor is Karen Shakurji. Fact checking by Sam Rusak. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence. Mixing and mastering by Echo Mountain. Production support from Luke Leman. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Sarah Nix and El Jefe Greta Kung.
39:25 Malcolm Gladwell? I'm Malcolm Gladwell. My daughter made this whole episode possible.
39:33 Malcolm Gladwell? Get ad-free episodes of Revisionist History by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus. Pushkin Plus subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows. We spend hours deciding what to buy, but there's a split-second decision that can make or break a sale. Do you have the trust to hit buy now? Agentic commerce is testing that moment more than ever, and that's where PayPal comes in. With 25 years of checkouts, 400 million consumer accounts globally,
40:15 Malcolm Gladwell? and the benefit of purchase and seller protection, all of which make sure wherever a purchase starts, it ends with trust. Built for payments, growth, and agentic. PayPal Open: Built for All Business. Visit paypalopen.com.
40:31 Speaker 02 Purchase and seller protections on eligible transactions only. Terms apply. See paypal.com/risk-management for details.
40:43 Speaker 00 Wait, I came in for two things. How is this $47? All right, we're gonna need a plan here. Just start simple with Bank of America Advantage Safe Balance Banking. No overdraft item fees, no monthly maintenance.
40:57 Speaker 05 If you're under 25. Oh, that's actually really simple. Safe balance banking, one less thing to figure out. Learn more at BofA.com/simplebanking. Terms and conditions apply. Bank of America and a member FDIC.
41:12 Speaker 02 She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolaire, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.
41:25 Speaker 05 Zolaire 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolaire, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolaire. Zolaire may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolaire should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolaire is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or hardened circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolaire.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolaire. This is an advertisement for Zolaire,
42:10 Speaker 05 paid for by Genentech and Novartis.
Previous Memorial Day, 2020 | Part 2 Next Running Hot Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated