The Belgian Beaver Bandit - Snap Classic

One man takes it upon himself to reintroduce the beaver to Belgium. When his proposal to the Ministry of Conservation is rejected he takes matters into his own hands. And -- the "Home Alone" Curse is all too real. The Belgian Beaver Bandit Sacré bleu! The damn beavers are on the loose! Belgium authorities are hot on the tail of Oliver Rubbers. A renegade with a wild mission… bring the beaver back. Thank you, Olivier Rubbers, for sharing your story with us! Olivier now lives with his wife and kids in Belgium and is still engaging in nature advocacy work. Produced by David Exumé, original score by Renzo Gorrio, special thanks to Isobel Cockerell, artwork by Teo Ducot. The Home Alone Curse The “Home Alone” Curse is all too real. The big-budget movie is in peril, and only one actor can save it. Not Macaulay Culkin. Not Joe Pesci. It’s the goofball cop, Larry Hankin, with one iconic glazed donut. This story contains strong language, sensitive listeners please be advised. Thank you, Larry Hankin, for sharing your story! From Escape to Alcatraz to Friends to Seinfeld and Breaking Bad, Larry has left an indelible mark on your TV screens over the last five decades. Yes, Llarry has a book, entitled, That Guy: A Cautionary Memoir. Special thanks to Sam Shaw for sharing Larry’s story with us. Sam is working on a documentary on Larry’s improvisational theater company, The Committee http://www.thecommitteemovie.com/. A special shoutout to The Crow Comedy Club https://crowcomedy.com/ in Santa Monica for hosting Larry during one of their unforgettable storytelling nights. Engineering by Pat Mesiti-Miller & Miles Lassi. Season 17 – Episode 31 Join Snap+ https://snap.supercast.com/if you aren't already a member! Get bonus eps, an ad-free stream and more. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

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• 1:21Speaker 01

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• 1:52Glynn Washington?

  I know a guy who wanted to build a deck on the back of his house. Just a deck. And to get the homeowner association's approval, to get the zoning approval, the building permit, the environmental review, the septic review, the department of whatever it is that day. It took four years before anyone raised a hammer. Four years for a deck. Well, today, we're gonna meet a guy who doesn't have four years to do what he has to do. Today's Snap proudly presents the Belgian Beaver Bandit. My name's Colin Washington, and here at Snap Headquarters,

• 2:35Glynn Washington?

  we never cut corners because we're listening.

• 2:43Glynn Washington?

  The Snap Judgment.

• 2:48Glynn Washington?

  Today's true crime Snap story crosses not just state jurisdictional lines, but international borders. In some ways, I call this a story about a heist, except the cargo isn't what you'd expect. Snap Judgment.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  The year was 1998. Olivier Rubbers was 29 years old, living in Belgium. And one day, he visited a friend.

• 3:18Speaker 03

  This friend of mine, Achille, he has a farm, not a farm to breed animals, but he has a farm for educational activities for the children of the city nearby. And the name of his farm is Ferm de Castor, so Farm of the Beavers. I said, "Why do you call your farm Farm of the Beavers? Why don't you choose the name of an indigenous animal?" You know, Farm of the Beavers sounded to me like Farm of the Kangaroos. I mean, we don't have kangaroos. They have kangaroos in Australia, but not in Belgium. And he said, "What? No, I mean, the beavers is indigenous. And the river, which is flowing along the farm, is called the BML, which etymologically refers to the beaver."

• 4:02Speaker 02

  And Olivier wondered, where did the beavers go? Then, after work one day, he was reading one of the many nature magazines he was subscribed to, and his eyes landed on something that reminded him of what his friend Ashiel had said.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  The title of the article was notre beaver, that's our beaver. And then the article described that the beaver is an indigenous animal and has lived in Belgium. The beaver was everywhere in Europe, everywhere, and had disappeared because the beaver fur in the 18th century was of very high value. And that's why the beaver almost disappeared on the Eurasian continent.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Olivier was fixated on what this article was telling him the beaver could do.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  So the beaver built dams, so it created wetlands and created nice habitats for all kinds of fish, frogs. Almost all animals take advantage of the beaver activity.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Here, most people would just say, that's interesting, and put down the article. Not Olivier. Olivier saw an opportunity.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  So I thought, if we would bring beavers back, we would reintroduce a kind of an engine that would produce nature.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  And Olivier had loved nature his whole life. Every chance he got, he escaped to the Alps, climbing peaks, camping, kayaking. He even built an igloo at the top of Mont Blanc one time. But he didn't have a degree in biology or environmental science. He worked in a cubicle.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Very interesting job. I was a so-called product manager, a quite nice job, actually, but I was not happy with my job. I had a feeling that my life was nothing great, really, and I had not a family, I had not a wife or a child or something. I wanted to achieve something.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  So how would Olivier bring the beaver back to Belgium? Well, he started by doing as much research as he could.

• 6:10Speaker 03

  But now I have to check a few points. What are the needs of the beaver? What does it need? Is it a very picky animal that can eat only very special plants or something?

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Turns out, Belgium's abundance of deciduous plants would be a great fit for the beaver's palate.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Just imagine a beaver is just living in the vegetation, a little bit as if you were living surrounded by pizzas, by french fries.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  And where would he get the beavers? Well, he looked into regions that did have them, like Bavaria, a state in southeast Germany. He called around and actually got in touch with a Bavarian beaver supplier, who said he was happy to help him out, as long as he got the necessary paperwork.

• 6:53Speaker 03

  I have spent many days to build up an official project. And so I wrote to the Minister of the Time of Nature Conservation, and I said, "Okay, look, the beaver, according to the Belgian law, is indigenous, is protected. Let's bring this animal back."

• 7:13Speaker 03

  And in my dreams, I was reintroducing beavers with the minister. We were shaking hands, and we said, "Oh, great, the beaver is back in Belgium." And I was shaking his hand. In my dreams, that is what would have happened. But actually, the administration said, "No, I don't give you the authorization to bring beavers back."

• 7:35Speaker 03

  "Oh, we agree with the comeback of the beaver. It's a good idea. We will study that. But you're not a biologist, you're just a commercial engineer. You don't have the profile to do that."

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Olivier was disappointed. Not only did the ministry say he didn't have the right qualifications for this job, but he was so sure that this project, if left up to them, would never get done.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  Well, I was afraid to be trapped in a process of, in French, we say, un en-commissionnement. So it's a kind of a process where you are involved in scientific studies, and there are many steps, and then at the end of the day, it leads to nothing.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Why should we wait? Why?

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Olivier was still feeling the bitter sting of rejection when the Bavarian beaver supplier called him up and said,

• 8:33Speaker 03

  "Mr. Rubris, did you receive finally the authorization for the transport? Because we have beavers for you." And then I had to give an answer. And I said, "Well, we have all the authorizations we need, which means none."

• 8:51Speaker 02

  During his research, Olivier found a little bit of a loophole. See, the Belgian Ministry of Conservation pointed to a European directive saying that he needed authorization. But this ministry only has jurisdiction in Belgium, and Belgium had no official rules about this specific kind of work.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  They wanted to fool me. You know, in my studies as commercial engineers, I had a good formation about law. And I learned that a European directive, as long as it is not enforced in the national country, has no value.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  And between that and what the Belgian ministry themselves had said, surely there was enough wiggle room to make this work, right?

• 9:35Speaker 03

  They even said, "Voilà, we agreed that it would be good that the beaver would come back."

• 9:40Speaker 02

  So if he just decided to reintroduce beavers on his own, wouldn't everybody really get what they want?

• 9:48Speaker 03

  And the idea came together. As we say in French, "The franc fell."

• 9:55Speaker 03

  I have to bring the beaver back.

• 10:00Glynn Washington?

  Now, when Snap returns, it looks like Olivier is about to take matters into his own hands. Stay tuned.

• 10:13Speaker 01

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• 10:45Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. You're listening to the Belgian Beaver Bandit episode. So, the Belgian government said no. But Olivier's got other plans. Snap Judgment.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Most of animals, they don't have to be smuggled because they can just come back by themselves. Beavers have legs, but they have flippers and they don't like to walk. They want to follow the rivers.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  And the river Olivier set his sights on was the Vireuil.

• 11:15Speaker 03

  If we introduce it in the Vireuil, it was good. Okay, because all these rivers are connected anyway. So when you put beavers in River A or River B or River C, on the long term, they'll be everywhere. The Vireuil is flowing through Belgium, but for two kilometers is flowing through France.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Those two kilometers of French country meant he would be free from Belgian authorities. So Olivier's plan was to do the beaver drop in France, knowing full well the beavers would flow down the river into Belgium. So he called the mayor of Vire-Mollin, a village on the French side, to get the okay.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  It was organized officially with this mayor and it was even planned to have the local press to film the release of the beavers.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Olivier had the drop-off spot secured. Now he needed to go to Bavaria to get the beavers. He had the road trip all planned out, but he decided he couldn't do this alone. So he called the one guy who started his beaver fascination in the first place.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  I contacted Achille and I said, Achille, we can get beavers. We can get four beavers, okay? Can we go and pick them together? And he said, okay, yes, go, go, go. He was never afraid of anything.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Olivier and Achille were now skirting Belgian law, which meant the two men had to be careful. If caught, they could be fined, denied access to beaver suppliers, or worse.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Even worse than getting no beavers from beaver suppliers would be that the police or the forest rangers would catch us and take the beavers and possibly kill them. That would be the worst case.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  The only other thing Olivier needed was a car big enough to transport the beavers. So he asked his dad if he could borrow his car.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  And I said, Daddy, may I borrow your car? Because my car was not big enough to transport so many beavers.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  He told his dad about the project. And it turns out, following your heart, not the law, it runs in the Rubbers family.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  So he said, well, just do for it. And if some people of the administration don't agree, well, that's absolute proof. It's a good project, so just do it. Did I agree with my dad? No, sometimes the authority, the government is right, makes some nice decisions. But, I mean, we don't have to follow rules like German Nazis, you know? And so we went to pick up the beavers and we drove during the whole night. We drove through eastern Germany. And then we arrived at the address and we slept in the car. And then the following day, the guy opened his door. He saw us in the car sleeping and they invited us for breakfast.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  The man they were meeting was a conservationist named Gerhard Schwab. He was raising beavers on his property and giving them to clients like the Bavarian government. So he was the real deal.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  It was a kind of a German Indiana Jones, you know, like somebody always in the forest, always in the nature, really a wildlife man, like an Indiana Jones, but without the violence, you know?

• 14:42Speaker 02

  The three men had a hearty Bavarian breakfast and then started talking beavers.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  And then he asked for the paper.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Olivier knew he had to show Schwab something, so he came prepared with some official-looking papers.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  And then I gave him just a full cardboard of paper. Here are all the documents.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Stamped and in French, that in no way said he had the approval. But Schwab couldn't tell. French was not his first language. And it was enough. Schwab took Olivier and Ashiel behind his house to an enclosure with a garden. And in the garden.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  There were four beavers, two parents and two cubs.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Milling about, rolling mud with their feet, swimming, patting down dams.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  I had never seen a beaver before, never.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Yup. The man who had tasked himself with bringing the beaver back to Belgium had never seen one.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  Wow, it's huge, it's big. The beaver has about the volume of an 11-year-old child. It has a weight of about 26 kilos. The body itself is 1 meter long and with the tail, 1 meter 30.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  One beaver alone could stand up to about Olivier's shoulders, and he was close enough to them to see their webbed paws, their long fingers, and their sharp teeth. And then?

• 16:14Speaker 03

  The German Indiana Jones told us that we had to catch them, actually.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Schwab gave Olivier and Ashiel two large butterfly nets and said, "Go get them."

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Catch first the parents, because if we would catch the cubs, the parents would attack us.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  The two men scrambled around Schwab's muddy garden, butterfly nets in hand, trying to catch four critters that are basically human-sized.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  I feel sorry that he's stressed, it's ridiculous, but I tried to talk to him and I said, "Come on, beaver, we are going to bring you to a nice place."

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Eventually, Olivier got it down to a science.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  The beaver goes in the corner of the enclosure. You get him in the corner, and then hop, and you get him in the net. And then he's in the net, and he's very heavy, because it's about 26 or 30 kilos or something. And he has his nose against the net.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  The four beavers each got their own cage and were put in the back of his dad's car.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  We were kind of afraid because Ashil didn't build so good cages. And the animals with their hands, they have, you know, hands like human hands. And they were shaking the top of the cage like this, you know? We were really afraid they would escape and bite us. And you know, when beavers bite, they have such powerful and long teeth. It's like you get stabbed by a knife. But actually, we solved this problem through covering the cage with a blanket. And then when it's dark, they're immediately relaxed. And then we could drive relaxed ourselves.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  Olivier and Ashil were on their way to the French village of Vire Mollin to drop off the beavers and talk to the press. And then they got a phone call. It was from the secretary of Ashil's farm.

• 18:16Speaker 03

  She said, well, we've been called by journalists. We've been called by the administration. They know you're on your way. You've gone to Germany to pick up some beavers. They will be driving around the river and they will catch you if they see you there. And they will seize the beavers.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  It turns out, the Belgian authorities got wind that Olivier was going to drop off beavers just across the border. And they were going to intercept him.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  And so we decided to take a totally different direction and to bring the beavers in a totally different place, actually.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  Thinking quick, Olivier remembered a secluded part of eastern Belgium that he had previously hiked. The two men pulled a 180 and drove over 100 miles in the opposite direction to eastern Belgium.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  We arrived in a region which is mostly covered by forests. No house, no village, nothing, just forest and a river. And then we took the cages out of my dad's car.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  And we brought the cages close to the river. And then we released the beaver. First, the cubs, then the parents. To kick them out in the river, just I kicked in the ass of beavers. And that's all I did, so nothing great. And then we stayed until the beavers swam away. And I just loved this moment to watch the beaver swim. And Sunday morning at 9 o'clock, I had to be in the office.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Olivier and Ashil had tried to do the kind of right thing by dropping the beavers in France. But they kind of ended up doing the not so right thing. And there were now unofficially beavers in Belgium, four of them. And Olivier and Ashil didn't even get caught. So mission accomplished, right?

• 20:18Speaker 03

  I felt the project was not achieved at all because we had released four beavers. And four beavers is a little bit little for a successful introduction.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  Because, again, the goal here is to have enough beavers in Belgium to propagate, form a population. So Olivier and Ashil decided to step up their game and head back to Bavaria.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  We hired Van. And then Ashil, in his farm, asked one of the person working there to build 15 cages. A few months later, we introduced again 15 beavers in other rivers.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  But why stop there?

• 21:03Speaker 03

  Sometimes I went pick up 19 beavers, another time 11, another time four. One time in Bavaria, they called me, we have one beaver. Do you want to have him? Yes, of course. I didn't want to miss just one beaver.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  When Olivier wasn't at his day job, beaver smuggling became all he did.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  And then the beavers were popping up everywhere in the country. Every time that beaver popped up, we went with the press to make a promotion of the beaver or saying the beaver is back, but it's great because it's doing this, it's doing that.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Olivier made sure to never admit to his beaver smuggling activities while on camera.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  But he was putting a spotlight on himself. And Belgium's Ministry of Nature Conservation was starting to put two and two together.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  It's not in my temper to be discreet. Unfortunately, I have a, my natural temper is to communicate. And unfortunately, that has played against me. Between 1998 and 2000, the authorities were indeed kind of following me.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  If Olivier got caught smuggling beavers, the consequences could be pretty serious for him and the people around him.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  And I had some, some people, even from the family, from, from close friends that told me, Oliver, stop it, stop it. We have enough beavers now.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  But against all the naysayers was Olivier's day one partner in crime, Ashil.

• 22:42Speaker 03

  The only one that said, no, let's go further. He said in French, I don't know how you could translate that. All these people from the administration, I [BLEEP] royally. That's what I wanted to hear, really. And you have a feeling, like an athlete that would achieve something great in sport, you have a feeling that you have to go further. If I have beavers from Bavaria, I mean, who could resist?

• 23:14Speaker 02

  For two years now, Olivier's been driving to Bavaria, picking up beavers and releasing them in Belgium.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  Myself, I was living in Brussels at that time with my girlfriend.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  And one day, when Olivier was driving to Ashil's farm to initiate another beaver pickup.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  I arrived with my car at Ashil's farm and directly I saw there was a lot of police cars. I thought there was something wrong going on there. And so I wanted to drive further. But then a car, the driver Rangers blocked me with this car.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Both of the cars stopped. The ranger got out, walked over to Olivier's car and said,

• 24:02Speaker 03

  You have to follow me and to go to the farm. Yeah, we are here to search your house and to search your car because we have a mandate of the judge.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  The Ministry of Nature Conservation was closing in on him. They were looking for any evidence proving that he was the one bringing these beavers back to Belgium.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Let us look for these documents and then, and then everything will be fine.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  The ranger ushered Olivier back onto the farm. There was a swarm of rangers all over the yard. Some were talking to Ashil and others were searching the front offices of the farm.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  From the time the building search begins, you have to stay there. You cannot move. And, and as I was in Ashil's farm, my mother called me. She said, Oliver, Oliver, they are searching a house here about the beaver. I wanted to warn you. I said, yes, mother, I know they search us as well here.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  Olivier calmed his mom down, told her there was nothing at her house that could get her incriminated. However,

• 25:13Speaker 03

  The only documents that, that could have incriminated me were at Ashil's farm.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Standing still, watching park rangers yank out and upturn drawers, spilling papers on the floor, Olivier was nervous.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Actually, there, there was a room which I used as an office where we had a file with, with letters and mails with beaver suppliers.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  The rangers weren't satisfied yet. They wanted to go deeper into the house and they told Ashil to guide them.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  And then Ashil told to the officer, yes, follow me. I will show you all the rooms. And then Ashil went in front of the, the offices quite quick, said, look at there, look there, there. And he draw their attention to other rooms and other offices. They were searching in all documents. They were searching everywhere.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  Then they got to the office.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  They asked to Ashil, what's this door?

• 26:16Speaker 02

  And Ashil did some quick thinking.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  Ah, that's the cellar. You want to search it? No, no, no, no, no. All right, follow me. And then Ashil brought them somewhere else. And they didn't search the room where I had all the documents.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Ashil helped me out indeed, yes, yes.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  The police left empty-handed. At least, that's what Olivier thought.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  A few weeks later, maybe two, three weeks later, they called me at the police building.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  The police sat Olivier down. And then, one of the officers pulled out a photo, which he slid across the table.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  There was one picture, the one picture of me releasing a beaver. You see me kind of wet because it was raining. And I was with the cage and you could see the beaver in the cage. And I was with my hands around the cage.

• 27:16Speaker 03

  They say, you say you didn't introduce beavers in Belgium? Look at this picture. What do you think of it?

• 27:25Speaker 02

  Olivier looked at the officers and immediately said.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  That doesn't prove anything. They say, yeah, release a beaver, yes, but what's the problem? Ah, you admit you release beavers. It was in Belgium, it was in France. And they said, oh, OK, we're in France.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  Are you a French officer? I mean, you're not, so I will tell it to a French officer, but not to you.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  They were kind of angry because they thought, well, he's making fun of us or he's playing with us. I mean, if the French authorities are not happy with it, they can contact me. And in you, of course, no French officer would ever ask me.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  And the Belgian officers did contact the French authorities.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  The French authorities didn't give a [bleep]. Despite the fact, we did introduce quite a few beavers on the French side. They have many beavers in France and in other regions of France. I mean, beaver is no big deal. They didn't care in France. So they couldn't really jail me or they couldn't really ask a big financial penalty.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Olivier bid them adieu and walked out a free man, which was impressive considering how many beavers he'd actually gotten away with reintroducing.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  Exactly 101, like the Dalmatians, you know, 101.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  If he could reintroduce that many beavers and still walk free, of course, he wouldn't be done yet. But when he went to contact his buddy, the German Indiana Jones, to set up his next beaver pickup, he got some unexpected news.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  Gerhard Schwab told me the Belgian administration got in contact with the Bavarian administration and they said, "Stop delivering beavers to these Oliver Rubbers."

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Olivier's number one beaver supplier was compromised.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  We stopped because Bavaria didn't want to, was a lot more cautious. I wish I could have gone further with the beavers and I could have reintroduced in other European countries, then I would have been finished.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  And the hits just kept coming. See, Olivier thought that with beavers back in Belgium, everybody would be as happy as he was. But that wasn't exactly how it played out.

• 29:55Speaker 03

  So some people are crying, are shouting, the beavers are destroying my land, are destroying my home and so on. I had a guy, "All my poplar trees are cut by the beaver." Okay, came to visit this poplar tree. I saw about 100 poplar trees standing. And then the guy said, "Look, three poplar trees the beaver had cut them." Okay, so you have 100 poplar trees? And now you're crying like a baby because you've got three that the beaver have cut?

• 30:25Speaker 02

  And because Olivier had made himself the face of Belgian beavers, by 2003, civilians had started suing him.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  There were civil parties and they demanded a huge amount of money, 300,000 euros or something of so-called beaver damages.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Olivier was stuck in a legal limbo of appeals and counter appeals for 10 years. He didn't end up paying all 300,000 euros, but he did end up owing the government a small fine.

• 31:06Speaker 03

  I had to pay a fine of 500 euros, which is about 5 euros per beaver. And they forgot to claim this money. So at the end of the day, I didn't pay a single penny.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  To this day, Olivier is a controversial figure in the field of nature rewilding.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  There was a scientist and he got mad that we, according to him, we reintroduced the beaver without scientific study.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  The long-term environmental impact of these 101 beavers is still being explored. But one thing is clear. Olivier brought the beaver back.

• 31:46Speaker 03

  All beavers in Belgium, they come from my reintroductions, for sure.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Olivier isn't as much of a beaver spokesperson these days. He's married with kids. But it doesn't seem like he's learned his lesson. He still can't resist the call of the beaver.

• 32:07Speaker 03

  Recently, for three years, I get regularly beavers legally that come from wildlife rehabilitation centers. And these centers call me. The last month, I've been reintroducing a few beavers on the French side. And I was surprised how scared I was. I was alone. It was night. I had the feeling that everybody would look at me. I was almost disappointed. I said, "How a coward you are." I mean, I was really scared.

• 32:40Speaker 03

  But if I can contribute to the comeback of the beaver in a big watershed, the risk is worth it, you know?

• 32:51Glynn Washington?

  Olivier Rubbers. Thank you for sharing your story. Olivier now lives with his wife and kids out in Belgium and is still engaging in nature advocacy work. Special thanks to Isabelle Cockrell. The original score for that piece was by Renzo Goryeo. It was produced by David Exabey.

• 33:14Glynn Washington?

  Now then, you think you know the story of Home Alone the movie? Well, guess what? You don't know nothing yet. Snap Judgment returns. Stay tuned.

• 34:02Glynn Washington?

  Ah, snappers. 'Tis the season, and in celebration, we're gonna break format a bit. We're gonna travel back to a simpler time, a time before iPods, before Cybertrucks, a time when computers didn't talk back. Larry Hankins. Larry remembers these magical days with a story about how he came this close to landing the role of a Lifetime, one of the most iconic Christmas movies of all time. Now, spoiler alert, Larry doesn't get the gig, but what happens next will become Home Alone history. So grab a glass

• 34:41Glynn Washington?

  of eggnog, because here's Larry, live, in the Crow Comedy Club. Snap Judgment. By a show of hands, how many people have seen Home Alone? Anybody?

• 34:56Speaker 04

  Okay. All right, this is about the curse on Home Alone. So this is about 1990, 1991. I was looking for rent. That was the whole point. I was looking for rent and trying to learn guitar. Two things. And in between that, I was trying to audition. So my agent called me and he said, "Are you available right now?" And I go, "Of course, you know that. You're my agent."

• 35:27Speaker 04

  So he said, "All right, look. Home Alone just called. They started a new production. It's John Hughes' next movie. It's gonna be a Christmas thing. It's gonna be big. It's got Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern and a kid called Macaulay Culkin. And they've been filming for three days now. And Daniel Stern has now stopped production because he wants more money. He's gonna quit if he doesn't get more money. And the producers say, "If he keeps on demanding more money, we're gonna fire him. And we need somebody to replace him. And we're thinking about you." And I think, "Whoa, are you kidding? John Hughes' movie? Home Alone?" I mean, everybody knew then

• 36:11Speaker 04

  it was gonna be a really cool movie. So I go, "Wow, that's amazing." He says, "Okay. They're in a negotiation right now. They're gonna end it in about a half hour. I'll call you back. Pack your bag. Put it by the door. You have to leave tonight. You're gonna have to start reshooting the new film tomorrow morning." I'm going, "Wow." She says, "Okay, I'll call you back in half an hour. Hold tight." "Okay, click." And I'm thinking, "Wow, I'm gonna be co-starring with Joe Pesci in 1990. And I need my rent. This is incredible, man. This is incredible." Okay, so a half hour goes by. I'm sitting by the phone. I'm tense, I'm jacked up. I'm really cool. And he goes, "Okay. We just got it in.

• 36:55Speaker 04

  Daniel Stern, caved, it's off. Never mind, there's other jobs." Click. I mean, I was madder than I've ever been, man, because they jerked me around. The producers jerked me around and I didn't like it. So I dealt with it as best I could. I dealt with it. And then I got on with my life, which was trying to learn the guitar audition. Learn the guitar audition. Okay, cool, right. Okay. And about two weeks later, I get a call from my agent again. He said, "Are you still available?" Come on, man.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  And he, "Why?" "Because Home Alone just called. They want you in the movie. They need you in the movie. You gotta be in the movie." And I go, "Why? Wha- wha- what's going on?" He said, "The movie is cursed." This is a true story. They called me and they said, "The movie is cursed." I said, "Is that your word or their word?" "No, that's their word." They say, "And the reason they say it's cursed is because of the way they jerked you around." And they feel guilty about it. And they feel that that's the reason the movie is cursed. Because it's already shot three days and nothing's happening. It's not going right. So they figured the only way is get Hankin back in. Get him in the movie anywhere, just to appease the curse and get it off the movie. And I go, "That is the weirdest."

• 38:15Speaker 04

  Okay, I mean, all right. So, "Well, you do it." "Well, what do they want me to do? What's a character? I don't get it." You know, it's just, "What do they want me to do?" And they said, "Well, that's the..." Okay, here's the thing. It's just, it's three lines. Three lines? Are you kidding? It's a cop talking to a mom about getting her son or checking on her son? No, I'm not gonna do it, three li... Two weeks ago, I was coast-stoning with Joe Pesci.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  And now they're offering me three lines? No, I'm not gonna do it. No. So he said, "No, listen, Larry. Just calm down, man. Now, look, they'll fly you there, first class, L.A. to Chicago. They'll pick you up in a limo, get you to the set. They'll have the set all set up for you. This is a half a day's work, Larry. Just go in. It's three lines. Do one take, back in a limo. You will sleep in your own bed the same day." "No, man, three lines? Are you kidding?" "Larry, listen to me. They will pay you $10,000 to do just what I said." "Oh, okay, fine. Let's do it."

• 39:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  Okay, wow, what's the problem?

• 39:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, and sure enough, the next morning, sure enough, I look down, I'm in an apartment now, so I look down, there's a limo, a white stretched limo downstairs waiting for me. I go down, I don't even have to pack, because I'm gonna sleep in my own bed, that's what they said the same night. Half a day's work, that's it. So I go down, I jump in a limo, uh, to the airport, first class limo's there, Mr. Hankin, chauffeur, everything to the set. They pull me up, there's an A.D. waiting at the curb. I get out, they go, they pull me in now. Right before I left, I got a phone call from one of the producers of Home Alone, to verify that I'm gonna show up and do it. And so, I go, "Are you kidding? Of course I'm gonna do it."

• 40:19Speaker 04

  Okay, so he says, "Larry, you just wanna verify that everything's gonna be okay. We'll see you there tomorrow," right, yeah. "Okay, what do you want?" I go, "W-what do you mean, what do I want? I don't deal with that." "No, no, no, because we understand it's just three lines. We understand it's a very small part. We just want you in the movie because of the curse. So just anything, so if you..." No, he said, "Okay, I can have anything?" I go, "Okay, what, it's a cop, right?" "Yeah, yeah, okay." "Okay, I wanna be eating a donut while I say your lines."

• 40:59Speaker 04

  "That's it?" "Yeah, that's it, I wanna be eating a donut, a glazed donut. I want a glazed donut."

• 41:07Speaker 04

  "Okay, see you here tomorrow," right, okay.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  They take me to the producers, and there's a set. It's a soundstage, they got the police station, the chair, and the phone, everything's there, they got the camera, the lights, everything. It's all set, and the producers say, "You know, okay, just changing your costume, get in the costume, sit down, one take, back in the limo, you're sleeping in your own bed tonight." "Okay, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. Where's my glazed donut?"

• 41:39Speaker 04

  Larry, just go change into the cop uniform. We'll have the glazed donut when you get back. Okay, so I go in, I change the cop uniform, I come back. And standing, waiting for, right next to the camera, as you know, these bakers' rolling trays with the trays, you know, and you can roll it around with the bread on it and everything. Okay, next to the camera is a baker's rolling tray with 20 trays, 20 shelves, and on each shelf is 30 glazed donuts.

• 42:07Speaker 04

  600 glazed donuts. And I just say, "I just asked for one glazed donut." And I'm thinking, "I'm not paying for these."

• 42:22Speaker 04

  I don't, I just don't understand what's going on with the whole thing with the curse. "Okay, give me a donut." "Oh, that one. Yeah, give me that."

• 42:34Speaker 04

  Okay, and, alright, so Chris Columbus is directing, which is another perk. I mean, Chris Columbus is really cool. "Larry, get in the chair. You got the phone, you got the donut. I'm gonna be eating it, okay, and take one, Larry, action." Okay, and, "Well, hello, police department, blah, blah, blah. You want me to check on your son in the cut?" Is that me? What happened? What was that? "No, no, no, camera went off the dolly." "All right, back to one, take two, Larry." "Give me another donut." "I just ate the whole thing. Just give me a new one."

• 43:12Speaker 04

  Okay, and take two, and action, Larry. Okay, so, "Police department, blah, blah, blah. You want me to go to your home and check on your son. Cut." Okay, now what happened? Camera jiggle, let's go back to, back to one, all right. Take two, "Larry, give me another donut." "No, I just ate the whole thing while I was waiting to reset the camera. I just ate it. All right, just give me another one." "All right, take three, and action, Larry. And you want me to go to check on your..."

• 43:48Speaker 04

  The light, it's very hot in there. It's a sound stage, it's really hot. And one of the lights above exploded and rained down glass, that shattered glass, all over the set, on me. So just on me. Okay, so the 20-minute break. While they clean up the set, get the nurse to check. I'm not cut, I'm not gonna sue, don't worry.

• 44:10Speaker 04

  All right, Larry, give me another, another. Nah, give me another donut.

• 44:18Speaker 04

  Okay, and this is, I don't know what, take four and take five, take six, take seven, take eight, take nine. We haven't gotten through one good take. Something always happens, and it's not me. It's not me. It's something technical each time, nine times. And now, I'm starting to think, it is Curtis.

• 44:46Speaker 04

  And you can even see the crew is going, all right, it's the curse. And I look over at the producers, and they're white, man. They are depressed, it's really weird. And everybody, except Chris Columbus. He's like, cool, he's like, okay, come on, take 10. Let's go, everybody. Take 10, Larry, get a donut. And I'm saying, wait a minute. The donuts are starting to disappear from the bottom shelf. The crew is eating the donuts.

• 45:19Speaker 04

  So, okay, all right, fine. So finally, take 10, all right, give me another donut. And, take 10, action, Larry. Okay, and you want me to go check on your son? Yeah. Okay, Rose, hyper on two.

• 45:38Speaker 04

  Cut, and everybody laughs. Now, for the nine takes, when it was, it didn't go all the way through to the end. Nobody laugh, because you don't laugh at cruise [BLEEP] ups, you don't. But if an actor [BLEEP] up, laugh, they all laugh. Oh, oh, oh, and they captured it on tape. So Chris Columbus says, "Print that one, Larry, you're released. Okay, get him in a limo, you can change your car, get out of your costume. You're released, Larry." And I go, "What just happened?" "No, if I [BLEEP] up, I want to do it again. I don't want that." "No, no, Larry, that's good, we're good. You're released." I go, "No, I want to do it again." "No, Larry, you don't have to do it again, we got it."

• 46:20Speaker 04

  And he says, "Come to the TV Village and we will play it for you." So I go and I watch it, and as far as I can see, what I'm doing is exactly the same for all ten takes. There's nothing different. But then I start to notice something, that there's a crumb from the donut, and it's caught on the mouthpiece of the phone. Now, all the other crumbs, because there's crumbs, you know, when you're eating a donut, and all the nine takes, they all fall to the ground or the floor. And even in this take, except there's one big crumb, is not only hanging, not like this, on the top of the mouthpiece,

• 47:03Speaker 04

  but it's over here. And it's not moving, and then very slowly, it starts to, very slowly, but it doesn't drop, it's just slowly rolling. And then finally, and I don't know, I'm just talking and talking, and right near the end of the scene, it drops. And then the scene ends. And they say, "We're gonna print that." "Why? I don't have to use a donut, I don't have to use..." "No, no, no, that's going in the movie, Larry, that's a money shot." And I go, "What do you call a money shot? What is that to you?"

• 47:44Speaker 04

  He said, "It means it's going in the movie. It's gold. It's funny, Larry." And I go, "Okay." He said, "Get out of here." "Okay, get him out of here. Get him in a limo. Get him home. He's got to sleep in his own bed tonight." "Okay, get him out of here." So I go in, I change my clothes. I come back and what I do is I don't go to the limo. I go over to the baker's tray because I want to see what's going on. Why did that stick and no other crumb did? And I go over and it was so hot. I looked at all the donuts that are left. The glaze had started to melt. So it was tacky. It was sticky. And that crumb obviously came from the top of the donut. So it was the glaze that was holding that thing there. Okay?

• 48:27Speaker 04

  Because people would come up to me on the street and say, "Hey, you know, you were in Home Alone." Right, yeah. How did they do with the donut thing? How did they do that? How did they?

• 48:39Speaker 04

  Okay, so then I get into the limo and I, they take me to the airport. And not only do I get to sleep in my own bed the same night, but I get $10,000 for a half a day's work. I can pay my rent. Yeah, okay. And then about a year later, Home Alone comes out and it's a big hit. Now, the reason that it's a big hit and the moral of this story is that because the producers treated me so nice and they paid me so much money for half a day's work that I removed my curse from the movie.

• 49:31Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Larry Hankin, for sharing your story. From Escape the Alcatraz to Friends to Seinfeld and Breaking Bad, Larry has left an indelible mark on your TV screens over the last five decades. And yes, Larry has a book entitled That Guy, a cautionary memoir. Special thanks as well to Sam Shaw for sharing Larry's story. Sam is working on a documentary on Larry's improvisational theater company, The Committee. Information about that at thecommitteemovie.com.

• 50:03Glynn Washington?

  And last but not least, special shout out to the Crow Comedy Club in Santa Monica for hosting Larry during one of their unforgettable storytelling nights, crowcomedy.com.

• 50:17Glynn Washington?

  Snap Nation, thank you for listening to the show, and thank you to the people who entrust us with their stories. Honestly, it is the best gift of all. Big love from all of us at Snap. On Team Snap, the union representatives, producers, artists, editors, and engineers, are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO Local 51. KQED in San Francisco is Snap's Orbiting Hall of Justice. Snap is brought to you by the team that would never release an animal species into the wild without explicit official authorization, except of course, for the uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristich, now there's Nancy

• 51:02Glynn Washington?

  Lopez, Pat McSweeney-Miller, Anna Sussman, Menzel Gorial, John Facile, Sheena Shealy, Kail Decot, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exame, Regina Veriaco. And understand, this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, you could know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who is a beaver supplier, and you would still, still not be as far away from the news as this is, but this is P-R-X.