Tdhtdhtdhtdhtdh: Sound Effects!

Sound effects are one of the unsung parts of any movie or TV show – they’re best when you don’t even notice them making what you see on screen even more real, and when they’re off you notice immediately. Learn how hard this amazing craft is in this episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:38Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:47Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here, too. And this is Stuff You Should Know. I got nothing.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Hey, that was a sound effect in and of itself.

• 2:00Josh Clark?

  I guess. I don't know if it really qualifies, but I appreciate the support, Chuck.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  It was, uh, it was Josh introing the show as he falls off of a cliff.

• 2:10Josh Clark?

  Who knows, Josh in space.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that too.

• 2:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the cliff works too.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  I like you in space better than dying.

• 2:19Josh Clark?

  Thank you. I appreciate that. But I think that really goes to illustrate just how versatile sound effects can be.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm excited about this one.

• 2:27Josh Clark?

  I am too. This was a Dave joint. He helps us with this.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:31Josh Clark?

  And I knew nothing about this stuff. I mean, I knew that the people who make this are often called foley artists when they do a specific kind of thing. But just like the little details and everything and it was all new to me and it was all super interesting. So I'm psyched about this one, too.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. So what we're talking about is sound effects, if you haven't gathered that by now. And, you know, I never assume what people know about movie making. Because I worked in that field for a little while and you and I did a TV show, like you know some stuff about it. But I never assumed that people know things or not. So we should say right out of the gate, when you're watching a movie, you're watching a TV show or something like that. And also this stuff is for animation and video games and all that stuff. But we're mainly talking about, you know, live action stuff. When you see a car drive down the road or a person, a couple sitting in a restaurant, having a conversation. And you hear all the people in the background and you hear that car drive down the road or, or anything you hear, a door shut, footsteps.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  All of that stuff is created in post-production either by a person doing it, a foley artist, which we're going to talk a lot about. Or it might be from a sound catalog, like where you have all kinds of recordings you can pull from.

• 3:46Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Like car door shut, stuff like that. Or sometimes, you know, that stuff now obviously is created through the wizardry of computering.

• 3:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but there's a surprising craft that's still left, that has not been pushed out by computers yet. That seems like this sort of happened years ago. But the, the work that the foley artists do is so intricate and so well done. Like, computers just can't replicate it yet. Like, yeah, they had, there's a car door sound, sounds good, but it just doesn't quite work. And the reason why, from what I, I saw, all the explanations I saw basically said, foley artists are, they're sound actors. So they're acting along with the actors on screen to make the sounds that, that you know and love and actually don't even notice. But you would notice them if they weren't there or they were off.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And two more quick points for me. Sound is often overlooked, I think, by the general public in a movie or TV show.

• 4:48Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  And even, as you've seen, my friend, on actual sets,

• 4:54Speaker 02

  it's half the thing is what you're hearing. The other half is what you're seeing. But the sound department, every sound department I've ever worked with is always like, just they're shoved to the side and, you know, you know, they make room for the camera and everything, the lighting, and there's a boom person that's like, oh, don't worry about me, like, I also have to stand in this room.

• 5:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Brian.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  And do like half the sound. They're always, you know, just shoved off to the side, which is incredible that it's still sort of like that. And also, you know, getting back to what I said before about how every sound you hear, basically, that is not dialogue or music, like soundtrack stuff, or unless it's digetic. Sound actually screws things up on recording out in the world. Like, that's why they try to shoot as much as they can on a stage. Because if you're out on the street, you often hear the term "hold for sound" because there's a lawnmower. And they may add a lawnmower later to make something more real, but they don't want the lawnmower that's actually there. Or the plane flying over. They could add all of that stuff, the birds chirping. They add all that stuff later to make it real.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  But you can't have any of that on the day while you're shooting. So you're always holding for sound, waiting for the car, or the train, or the leaf blower. And that's why they shoot like restaurant scenes like completely silent. Everybody is miming, talking in the background. And it's really weird when you see like a clip of it.

• 6:14Josh Clark?

  Oh, it's definitely weird. It's also weird to be like in the middle of it, trying to act when everybody around you in the restaurant is silently miming.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's also hard. I did an extra thing or two. It's, that's hard to do.

• 6:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. I'm sure those are two sides of the same coin.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:30Josh Clark?

  So two, those were two great quick points. Seven quick points from me.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  That's about how it goes.

• 6:37Josh Clark?

  Oh. So you said a word back there a minute ago, "diabetic." And that stood out to me like, what? And the reason why I didn't stop you and say, "What are you talking about, Chuck?" It's because I already know what it means. So I feel like I should explain it. Diabetic sound is the sound inside the movie's world. So if you were one of the characters, or the extras, or anybody in that movie, you would hear these sounds, like that lawnmower, that car driving by, the machine gun. You know?

• 7:08Speaker 02

  It's pretty good.

• 7:09Josh Clark?

  From the car driving by. That's my best one.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, a lot of times you hear it in terms of music, like when they're they're playing a something in the car that they're hearing.

• 7:18Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  And then a very common sort of thing to do is then that becomes the soundtrack. It like kind of changes the tone a little bit, you know?

• 7:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  It's always great.

• 7:26Josh Clark?

  But so so that would be diegetic music, but like the score that's just going along with it, that would be non diegetic because the characters aren't hearing that. Same with narration.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, unless it's like a Naked Gun kind of thing, and then they might like the strings will swell, then somebody will be like, did you hear that?

• 7:42Josh Clark?

  Has Ruby taken you to the new Naked Gun?

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Uh, I took myself, Scotty, and I went.

• 7:47Josh Clark?

  Oh, really? How was it?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  It's very, very, very funny.

• 7:51Josh Clark?

  Really? So do you know Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson are a couple now?

• 7:56Speaker 02

  I wondered about that because they're they're both people at a certain stage in life that are without their partners. And for very different reasons, but I kind of was like, you know, I kind of hoped they would get together.

• 8:08Josh Clark?

  Well, they did, buddy. Your wish came true.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  She's very funny in it. It's I don't know if it's still out, but I highly recommend seeing it in a theater with laughing with a group of people.

• 8:17Josh Clark?

  Okay, good to know.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  But it's probably too late for that.

• 8:20Josh Clark?

  So so you talked about how you hold for lawnmower and all that, and that that stuff's added on later. I think something like 90%, I've actually seen higher than that of the sound you hear in the film that's not dialogue or music. Is added later on in post-production. That's how important this stuff is. And like you said, though, it just it gets treated like a second-class citizen. Despite how hard they work. And I think if we get across anything in this episode, it should be how hard and creative the people who make sound effects are.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And again, we're going to get into the Foley stuff and and mention things like sound banks of of of doors shutting and wind blowing and all that stuff that you can pull from. But a lot of times you have sound designers that go out and make their own recordings of that stuff. They just they don't want the the universal catalog of cars, car doors shutting. They want to get their own. Maybe it's a specific car. In fact, that's that's what they should be doing because car doors are very specific, the sound they make. Uh, so they'll go out in the field. Uh, there was a whole movie about that, Blow Up, or I'm sorry, Blowout. With John Travolta, where he played a guy that captures the sound of a car crash that ends up being very, you know, murderous.

• 9:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah, that was actually a pretty good movie.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Great.

• 9:40Josh Clark?

  It's a classic, right? Don't people consider it a classic? There's also, so in addition to car doors shutting, like the vehicles themselves, the sounds they make. Those are often like from a sound library. But I've also seen that they'll be layered, they'll like add certain details sometimes later on onto the sound library file called sweetening. And that's a, that seems to be a pretty common thing. Even if you're taking stuff that you're making out in the field yourself, or you're making in the studio as you're watching the clip. You'll probably still layer all that stuff together to get like the most realistic, richest possible sound.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, they get really into it. It's a good nerdy sort of line of work. You gotta have a good ear, that's for sure. Cause you're recreating, you know, punches and slaps and every gunshot that you hear in every movie is not what you hear on set, obviously. And then of course, you know, this is all stuff done, it's like real sound effects. A lot of the things that are created via computer are, but not all of them are things that don't exist, you know, like if you're gonna do like a movie set in outer space, you're gonna be making up a lot of brand new sounds that have never been made before.

• 10:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they seem to love that stuff because they have like carte blanche to just go nuts and get creative, basically.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  It's awesome.

• 11:02Josh Clark?

  Another one that gets left out, that sounds really boring, but apparently is really hard are footsteps. I'm sure there's tons of sound effects of footsteps in libraries. But those don't work from what I've seen. From, from what I've read, they're essentially there because somebody put them there. People don't use them. You have to make the footsteps based on the actor and how they're moving and not just in sync with them. But a good foley artist will take into account the weight, the height, the gait. Are they shuffling? Are they high stepping? Are they goose stepping? They're like, they take all this stuff into account to make a specific kind of

• 11:44Josh Clark?

  walk or footfall for a particular actor.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, and a lot of times this stuff is dictated by budget. Obviously, foley artists don't come cheap. So if you've ever been watching a low budget movie and the footsteps sounded kind of corny, it's probably because they're pulling from a library.

• 12:02Josh Clark?

  Probably. They're trying their best.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  They're doing their best. They don't have the kind of dough for that. So, you know, it all just depends.

• 12:08Josh Clark?

  So I say, do you want to go back to the beginning of all this?

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is surprisingly silent movies, right?

• 12:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well, apparently goes even further back than that to vaudeville before there were even movies. People would play along on stage to make sound effects with vaudeville acts. So it was a pretty brainless transition from vaudeville stages to the stage underneath a movie. And it was just somebody playing along, I think to start with like drums and like maybe some clackers and a few different things. But it very quickly took off as like a cottage industry to make props for people who did this live to use.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, props or?

• 12:54Josh Clark?

  Traps.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Traps, baby. Short for contraption. And a lot of times it was percussionists, even if they weren't literally playing drums. Because percussionists are just good at doing multiple things with the hands and feet at the same time.

• 13:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  So they had these contraptions or traps. And they started making them like drum companies like Ludwig started making traps to just simulate things like the sounds and you know, these are early, early talkies. So it's not like they were going for absolute realism with like a barking dog sound or a train whistle or a snore or a cash register. But they would make these traps that were close enough that people hearing this stuff for the first time in a movie were like, oh my God.

• 13:36Josh Clark?

  Right. I never knew a dog actually sounded like that.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:41Josh Clark?

  There is this video of a guy named Nick White and he is a master of this. He has a bunch of like vintage traps. And he does live sound effects along with like black and white talkie movies, silent movies, sorry. And there's a video of his called Vintage Sound Effect Artist for Vintage Films. And it's amazing to watch him do this in real time because like you said, he's doing stuff with his feet. He's doing stuff with his hands and then he's also probably got some sort of weird whistle in his mouth at the same time, too.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's funny, Dave mentioned him later in the article, but I was gonna bring him up anyway. This guy Josh Harmon is a very fun Instagram account to follow because he does it to old cartoons. And he is really blown up. He's like got four, close to five million Instagram people now. And has had like some famoses on there that take part. And the delight of Josh Harmon's stuff is not only watching him squeeze a balloon to make it sound like somebody like Porky Pig is trying to get through a door. But the delight he gets at the end of the clip, he just always lights up with this wonderful smile. And like, one of my life goals is to sit in and do a thing, a sesh with Josh Harmon.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Oh, man. I've asked.

• 14:57Josh Clark?

  Oh, have you asked?

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Well, just on Instagram, like, hey, I know I'm not Nick Jonas, but like, I got a few people who listen to me. Can I get in there? And then a bunch of stuff you should know, people are like, yeah, get Chuck, get Chuck. But he, you know, it didn't get through.

• 15:10Josh Clark?

  Oh, well, keep trying, Chuck.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  I'm gonna. Maybe this will get to him.

• 15:15Josh Clark?

  It could. Attention, Josh Harmon, do this.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  What about slapstick, though? I didn't know that even.

• 15:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the term is actually, you know, slapstick is like physical silly comedy made up with pratfalls. And the reason it's called slapstick is because there is a trap that people used to use that was a slapstick. I think I can imagine it. It's like two wooden duckbills that you smack together.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 15:42Josh Clark?

  As a clacker.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:43Josh Clark?

  And they used that when somebody had a pratfall, like when they tumbled and fell or something like that, they would use this slapstick. And that's where the name came from. So now you can go forth and tell everyone you ever meet where the origin of the term slapstick is from.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  I love it. Maybe, yeah, here, well, let's finish up with the jazz singer and then take a break. What do you say? Well, the jazz singer, as we've mentioned in other episodes, was the first sort of widely released, successful talkie.

• 16:11Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  And I know we've talked about the Vitaphone before, so did we do one on silent movies? Or was it just the birth of the movies or something like that?

• 16:18Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I don't, I don't know. I don't know.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  Well, Warner Brothers had developed something called the Vitaphone, and that was a separate machine that would sync the audio along to the projector while they're playing it. And it was basically like a record. They recorded it on chalak discs, like an LP. And once the Jassinger came out, a whole new industry was born from silent movies.

• 16:43Josh Clark?

  Right. Like throwing a light switch. Like silent movies were out and talkies were in. Like, this was an enormous innovation, for sure. So yeah, I'd say that's a great setup for where we are in history with the sound effects.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  All right. So we're just gonna walk away. Clip, clop, clip, clop.

• 17:02Josh Clark?

  Wait, wait.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Oh, no! We'll be right back.

• 17:25Josh Clark?

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• 19:48Josh Clark?

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• 20:46Speaker 02

  You do a great, uh, machine gun. And I have to say, you and Scott Aukerman both do great machine gun sounds with your mouth.

• 20:54Josh Clark?

  That is from years and years of playing with fake M16s in the woods.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  What is that horrible instinct that little boys have?

• 21:05Josh Clark?

  I don't know. It's weird. I'm glad it usually gets, it gets left behind or shed as you get older typically, but...

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Let's pick up that stick and go, "Poo-poo-poo."

• 21:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  See, that was terrible.

• 21:16Josh Clark?

  No, that was pretty good. That was a, that was a modified M16.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  All right, how about this? Bullet, bullet, bullet.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Is that good?

• 21:27Josh Clark?

  Did I ever tell you about the time, um, I was playing laser tag? And we didn't, it was like at like 10:30 in the morning on a Tuesday for some reason. And, um, we didn't have enough of us in a group to make it like even teams.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:41Josh Clark?

  So the guy, the guy who worked there, this other kid, he played with us. And he caught me in a corner and got me. And then he just stood there and shot me like every time like my, my chest piece would reset. He kept just shooting me and killing me. And finally I shouted at him like, "Stop." And he just laughed and walked away. But he killed me probably like 10 times in, in just, you know, however long it took to reset.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  Oh, since you mentioned that and we're doing this today, I had my very first laser tag at Ruby's birthday party this summer.

• 22:14Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  I had never done it before. And I was the only adult in there with all the kids. I was on the boys team. And, um, I was like, "Listen, guys, they're gonna be running around and screaming and shooting." I was like, "Everyone find a position and stay there, preferably higher ground." And I feel kinda bad because we dominated and I specifically dominated.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  I beat her. It was like, I had like 10 times the points as the next highest person.

• 22:42Josh Clark?

  That's awesome. Against kids, though?

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I just, I got in a, in a high spot and was just picking them off as they came up.

• 22:49Josh Clark?

  You're like Billy Madison playing dodgeball in Billy Madison.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Oh, and not only did I not feel bad, I got a lot of satisfaction out of it.

• 22:57Josh Clark?

  Oh, Batman.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was fun.

• 22:58Josh Clark?

  I'll bet. Um, instead of bullet, did you go laser, laser, laser?

• 23:03Speaker 02

  I did.

• 23:05Josh Clark?

  Well, that's our laser tag anecdotes, everybody.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  All right. We gotta talk about a legend named Jack Foley, and this guy's story is pretty great.

• 23:14Josh Clark?

  He was there at the beginning, like where we left off with the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927. So he was there at the transition to talkies. And he was doing all sorts of stuff. He wrote a monthly column in Universal Studios, like essentially Company Magazine, I guess. He did that for decades. He was a great illustrator. He was an insert director. Where like, if you showed one of the Three Stooges like grabbing a paintbrush out of a bucket and you just saw their hand, that's an insert. And then they would edit that in later. The director who directed the whole thing, like the Stooges, probably didn't actually take that or get that shot. Somebody like Jack Foley did.

• 23:58Josh Clark?

  And somehow, some way, he ended up becoming a sound effects guy. I don't know how he got his first chance. I think he was just hired on as one of the people doing it. And he became so good at it and so legendary that still today, anything that has to do with creating sound effects in a studio is called Foley.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. His name became an adjective, a verb, and an art form, and a department.

• 24:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  Which is, I don't know many people that can say that. So, and I also think he got hired because he was just around doing all kinds of stuff. So it was one of those things like Jack Foley can probably do it.

• 24:38Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  So after The Jazz Singer, you know, everyone was like, oh, my gosh, this is the new thing. We have to have our talkie. And Universal had already gotten the movie Showboat in the can as a silent film.

• 24:49Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  And they said, we want to change this into a talkie. So Jack Foley goes over to Stage 10 at Universal Studios with an orchestra and started working his magic, which was, you know, fairly limited stuff at first, like. Audience is cheering and water and the sounds of the steamboat and stuff like that. But, you know, he's kind of saved the day.

• 25:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and the thing is, so there's this live orchestra playing along with this and there's no retakes. You did this whole movie in one take because it was being recorded directly to that Vitaphone record, right? So it went out with the film, like that was it. So this orchestra is playing and he's making these sound effects as it's happening on screen. It's just mind boggling what he was doing and he got really good at it. Apparently he could do a reel of film, which I saw 10 minutes. I think it probably varies a little bit, but somewhere around there, let's say 10 minutes of film, several scenes, he could do the sound effects live in one take.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's amazing. They, he, you know, started assembling his props and stuff and they got him a room and it became known as Foley's Room. And then eventually that would just become The Foley Room, like on every studio. I don't know how quickly they adopted his name as an adjective and a verb and all that stuff, but I do know that it was pre-credit because he was not even getting a credit for this because there was no such thing as a Foley artist till after him.

• 26:19Josh Clark?

  No, his, his first movie, like you said, was Steamboat, which I think came out in 1928. And his last movie was Spartacus in 1960. He did scores, probably hundreds and hundreds of movies. And yeah, never once got an on-screen credit, which is nuts.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the credit is named after him. Like he invented a credit.

• 26:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. By the way, I think it was the early 60s and Desolue was the first studio outside of Universal to call their Foley Room a Foley Room.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Amazing. What year was that?

• 26:56Josh Clark?

  Like 61 or something like that.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  So kind of right after it was done, he got the honor?

• 27:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I guess it was.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 27:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah. That Des Arnes, man, he really, he was a class act.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  I did a shoot on the Lucy stage one time. It was pretty cool.

• 27:10Josh Clark?

  Oh yeah? Is she buried there?

• 27:12Speaker 02

  No, no, no. It was just where they shot it.

• 27:14Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  Like I would always ask, anytime you're shooting at one of the old, like Paramount lot or Universal, I would always kind of ask the old timers, like, hey, what was, what was here? And, you know, one time it was Happy Days, one time it was Lucy. It was always kind of neat.

• 27:26Josh Clark?

  Right. Hans Mollman goes, "I'm only 31 years old."

• 27:32Speaker 02

  A couple of books ago, I think three books ago, I read a really great dense Stanley Kubrick book and he talked about this fact, which was in Spartacus. He didn't like the audio recording of the Roman army marching, so he was trying to bring in a big, fairly expensive two day shoot to redo that. And Jack Foley was like, no, no, no, I think I've got this. And on the spot went and got car keys and was able to recreate the sound of like the armor kind of clanking such that even Stanley Kubrick approved of.

• 28:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, which is really saying something.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:07Josh Clark?

  But it went from potentially flying back to Spain and rehiring thousands of extras and reshooting these two days just for the sound to, no, check out these keys, I just saved your movie so much money. So just, I mean, that was his last one, too. That was a great way to go out, I think.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely. Great movie. There are about a hundred Foley artists working today in the United States, which, you know, that's not a lot. I was sort of surprised it was that high, given sort of the digital takeover of a lot of things in Hollywood. But, you know, they call them artists because they are true artists. They have their, they're obviously, you know, I mentioned earlier, they have great ears. Apparently Dave found that some of them have to wear earplugs in movies and concerts and things like that because their ears are just so kind of tuned in and sensitive.

• 28:58Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  And they have their own language, you know, they don't say, oh, they may say clip clop of a horse, but they definitely make words up as sounds like, you know, I need it to make a screechy sound or it needs to sound poofy and they just sort of know what they mean when they're talking to each other.

• 29:15Josh Clark?

  Right, oh, they definitely do. There's this really great profile in The New Yorker where I think that hundred working Foley artists came from, one of the Foley artists profiled said there was probably a hundred, but they, I mean, just the different words that they use for these sounds are, like, they immediately know what the other one is talking about.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:35Josh Clark?

  And just even more than that, they can point to some chain or block and tackle just hanging in a junkyard and say that'd make the swaying chink sound or something like that. And they, sure enough, they could go up to it and make it sound exactly like what they were just describing. So it's like a really niche.

• 29:58Josh Clark?

  Group of people who work in this really niche art. It's like you said before, it's an art form. And it's, it's just fascinating to read about, let alone talk about. I'm fascinated right now, if you can't tell.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Well, and just the, uh, the ability to disassociate sound from object is key. And just like super impressive, like you've mentioned, like to, to be able to look at a thing and not see the thing, but see the sound, you know, or hear the sound, I guess, in your head.

• 30:27Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Potentially, um, it's, it's super cool. I love it. Like when I was a kid, I remember seeing, um, videos of, of Foley artists at work with a split screen of what's going on on screen. And I was just like wrapped.

• 30:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so that's, that's how they do this. So usually they work in pairs because there's like in a given scene, there's probably, uh, frequently more going on than one person could possibly handle. I know, um, Jack Foley pioneered using canes with shoes attached to the bottom to make multiple people walking at the same time. It's a lot easier to just have another person in there. So you have like a, a Foley partner that you work with. Uh, and then there's the Foley mixer. And apparently they don't really see what the Foley artists are doing because they're keeping an ear out to see if it matches what they think it should on the screen. They're making a lot of the final decisions on how it gets, like what sound gets made,

• 31:24Josh Clark?

  how it gets sweetened or tightened or like tweaked or whatever.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:29Josh Clark?

  And then if you step back and watch, like, like you said, they're, they're in front of this giant screen or even a TV sometimes, and they're just acting along with the actor, but making the sounds with stuff that, you know, you just would never say like, yes, this is obviously, this celery is obviously what you would use to, to make the sound when somebody falls down and breaks a bone.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:53Josh Clark?

  But they use celery.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Snap is pretty good.

• 31:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it definitely works. It's a industry wide vegetable.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  It is. They start with a spotting session, which is essentially just sitting down with the director and all the sound department and Foley department and just making a huge list. You go through the movie and you just have a huge list of every single scene, every single sound you need to make. It's not the same thing as ADR, which is additional dialogue recording, which is a lot of times actors will have to come in. We had to do this for our own TV show a little bit.

• 32:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  And you have to restate your lines for one reason or another and try and match it up. And we're watching the screen. But they do use the same technique called looping, which is just playing the thing on a loop over and over and over to try and sync it as close as you can.

• 32:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And it's amazing that anybody can do that because it's really hard.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. What, ADR or Foley?

• 32:48Josh Clark?

  ADR. Well, both.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ADR, I always felt kind of dumb when I had to do it because it was, you know, you're trying to, even though we were bad actors, like we were trying to convey, you're always trying to convey some sort of emotion with everything that you're saying, even if it's just normal or bored.

• 33:04Josh Clark?

  That is true.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  And to do that in a room, looking at yourself, like with no experience, it was tough for me.

• 33:12Josh Clark?

  I blamed Brian for all of those.

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 33:16Josh Clark?

  So.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  He'll hear this, by the way, so.

• 33:19Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, I know. I'm hoping he will.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I knew it.

• 33:22Josh Clark?

  One of the other very classic things you'll see in a Foley studio is the floor will basically have like a raised section and it'll be divided into like squares. And one square will have like a concrete pad. Another square will have pebbles. Another square will have, you know, parquet floor.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Leaves, yeah.

• 33:39Josh Clark?

  Leaves. Although I saw that they don't usually use leaves. They use like old magnetic reel to reel tape.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:46Josh Clark?

  And just pull it out and crinkle it. And that makes a better leaf sound than a leaf. Somebody figured that out along the way. That leaf sounds don't really make a good leaf sound. Isn't that crazy? That's how manipulated we are when we watch movies.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  True. But I have seen them go in the field for like forest walks and stuff. So there's a mix of everything. There's not like just one way to do things.

• 34:07Josh Clark?

  Right, true.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  And they all, you know, share stuff. Like whoever came up with the celery is probably regarded as a, you know, a genius in the field.

• 34:16Josh Clark?

  For sure. Yeah, I'm sure they're.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  They were using carrots before that.

• 34:19Josh Clark?

  Right. I also saw there was in that New Yorker profile, one of the foley artists talks about a Halloween mask of the Tin Man that got handed down from her former foley partner when he retired. And she was like, nothing will ever make this sound. It's like a shit, like it's described as a yawning shit sound. I can't even wrap my mind around that.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  But what sound is it supposed to be?

• 34:45Josh Clark?

  A yawning shit sound. I don't know. I think it's.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Like, what's it used for?

• 34:50Josh Clark?

  I don't know.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 34:52Josh Clark?

  If you wait a little bit, I can look her up and call and ask.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no, no. That's all right. I just wondered if you were like, and that's the sound of a pot going on a stove.

• 35:01Josh Clark?

  How about this? Let's edit this in. The sound of a pot going on the stove.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Okay, perfect.

• 35:07Josh Clark?

  But she was, she was pointing out, like, I think they even said, like, she ordered a new one online and it came and she was like, this doesn't sound anything like it. It's made of different materials. So like, it's so nuanced. I saw a quote from David Fincher, the director, who is like a huge fan of foley artists. And he basically was like, we're, we're looking at like the, like a scene of some people having a, a meeting in a lawyer's office. And he's like, what is the, what is the nogahide or the leather on the sofa sound like?

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:42Josh Clark?

  Like, is it, is it fake? Like, is this a strip mall lawyer's office? Or is it like a really well-heeled lawyer's office? So it's real leather? Like, that kind of attention to detail that foley artists make, like, that's what, what makes a movie like engrossing or, you know, at the very least, extremely realistic. Like, that level of attention to detail.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, or if you, if you're not paying attention to detail like that, it makes something stand out as, and you may not even recognize it, but subconsciously, it may just, a sound may sit wrong if they don't do it right.

• 36:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like if somebody sits on a leather couch and it makes a yawning shit sound. You're gonna be like, what was that?

• 36:24Speaker 02

  That's a Tin Man helmet.

• 36:25Josh Clark?

  Right. You wouldn't believe them if they told you.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  That's right. So the, you know, the Foley stage is amazing. They have that floor. It's just riddled with props and weird things that they all, they don't call it by the thing, you know, they call it by the sound it makes. Like you don't say, give me those coconuts. You say, give me the hooves, although they don't use coconuts. A little bit of a Monty Python reference there. But yeah, it's a fun looking room. Like I encourage everyone to go like see some like YouTube video of, of a Foley artist in work in their little kind of cool air conditioned dark room. There's water, like there's usually like a bathtub. There's usually a working toilet. And just all manner of, of props that people use.

• 37:05Josh Clark?

  That's right. You wanted to take a break and come back and talk a little more about sound effects?

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 37:28Speaker 02

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• 38:31Josh Clark?

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• 39:04Josh Clark?

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• 39:47Speaker 02

  Shall we open my door?

• 39:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Oh, that was good. And then look out, Chuck.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Drowning out again. All right, so Dave kind of dug up some fun, classic, foley tricks from famous movies. And we're going to talk about those and more, because we're going to get into Star Wars as well, because everyone loves talking about Star Wars.

• 40:10Josh Clark?

  Well, the guy who was the foley artist and I guess sound designer for Star Wars, Ben Burt, just changed the industry from what I could tell. He's a really interesting, creative guy.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, we've talked about him before. He was the Wilhelm scream guy.

• 40:26Josh Clark?

  Yes, yes. Did you see the Wilhelm scream thing I sent?

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Hmm, I did not.

• 40:31Josh Clark?

  Oh, I know the story of the Wilhelm scream. You want to hear it?

• 40:36Speaker 02

  We did a whole episode on it, didn't we?

• 40:38Josh Clark?

  No, we just mentioned it and then Jerry put the wrong one in.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought we did a whole short stuff on it.

• 40:44Josh Clark?

  On the Wilhelm scream? I don't think so.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  I thought we did. Either way, just go ahead.

• 40:50Josh Clark?

  All right, if we have, then we'll edit this part out. But essentially, the Wilhelm scream was a scream that they think was recorded by a guy named Sheb Woolley, who is an actor and musician who's known for the song Purple People Eater. He's the guy who sang that. And it was in a movie called Distant Drums. And I think we can play the Wilhelm scream right here, right?

• 41:14Speaker 02

  I mean, I thought we could the first time and it didn't work.

• 41:17Josh Clark?

  Well, let's try again. So this is what we're talking about. This is the very famous Wilhelm scream.

• 41:23Josh Clark?

  Okay, so apparently Sheb Woolley recorded that for Distant Drums. But it didn't become kind of, I guess, a thing or iconic or well-used until two years later. There was a movie called The Charge of Feather River, and a character named Private Wilhelm gets shot in the leg by an arrow, and he screams "The Wilhelm Scream." Still wasn't called "The Wilhelm Scream" until Ben Burke came along for Star Wars. And he'd seen just tons of westerns as a kid, and the Wilhelm scream showed up in almost all of them. So he sought out that scream and found it in the Charge of Feather River sound library and used it. The first time it shows up is when Luke shoots a stormtrooper and the stormtrooper falls

• 42:08Josh Clark?

  off of something or other. I can't remember where exactly. And he adopted it as a signature sound, and it just became kind of an iconic in-joke among sound editors since then.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, it may have been movie crush.

• 42:23Josh Clark?

  That makes sense.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Where I covered that. Yeah, totally makes sense.

• 42:26Josh Clark?

  And I think it was all that's interesting, so it's been in over 400 films.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 42:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  The ET sound, they needed ET to sound a certain way when ET walked around, because they needed him to sound like an ET, but also not be like gross.

• 42:43Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  They wanted people to like ET, so they used like Jell-O wrapped in a damp t-shirt and raw liver, apparently just for the sort of squishy walking sounds. That's a pretty good one.

• 42:54Josh Clark?

  Yikes. What about Titanic? This is a good one.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  No spoilers are gonna spoil the end of Titanic.

• 43:01Josh Clark?

  Oh, come on.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  You can dial out now if you want to, but at the end of Titanic, Kate Winslet is floating on a door or a piece of wood or something. I think it's a door. And she's freezing cold and they used apparently frozen lettuce to recreate her, the sound of her hair moving.

• 43:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah. It was perfect because I remember that sound effect. I don't think I was like, that crispy hair sounds crazy at the time, but when I read about it, I remembered that it made some sort of impact on me.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:31Josh Clark?

  To prevent anybody from emailing in, apparently it's not a door. Everybody says it's a door, but some people on Reddit found the piece of the staircase that it was taken from. So James Cameron's film was so accurate that you could determine that she was floating on a piece of staircase that is shown earlier in the Titanic before it sinks.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  I think it was a door.

• 43:54Josh Clark?

  That's fine. I just wanted, I knew somebody was gonna email in and I wanted to burst their bubble.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  Fight Club, you know, if you've ever heard of fistfight in real life, um, A, I'm sorry, because that's a really dumb thing to do is to punch somebody. But a punch to somebody's face in real life or to their body doesn't sound anything like it sounds in the movies. It's, it's a fairly boring sound. So they need to recreate that, obviously. And a lot of times they're punching, you know, raw meat and things like that and adding extra like bass and kind of tweak it in posts, but apparently in Fight Club, chicken carcasses were pounded with baseball bats, along with the sounds of cracking walnuts.

• 44:36Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 44:37Speaker 02

  Pretty good.

• 44:38Josh Clark?

  There was this movie called Burberry and Sound Studio back in 2012. Did you see it?

• 44:43Speaker 02

  I've never heard of it.

• 44:44Josh Clark?

  It was a little art house movie. Um, what's the British actor, the, the short British actor with glasses, Toby, um, somebody, he played Capote, Truman Capote.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Toby Jones, maybe?

• 44:55Josh Clark?

  Yes, you're right. So Toby Jones is in it and he's a Foley artist who starts to descend into madness and essentially the entire movie takes place on a Foley studio stage. And there's parts where they're stabbing a melon to make the sound of the person on screen getting stabbed. And the foley artist who actually worked on that movie said that they had to use wet cloth and wood to make the sound of the foley artist on the screen stabbing the watermelon to make the sound of the person on their screen getting stabbed with a knife.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  I think I do remember that movie. I don't think I saw it, but I remember that happening.

• 45:36Josh Clark?

  It's worth seeing. It's a slow burn that possibly depending on your view never actually ignites.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 45:43Josh Clark?

  But it's a, it's an interesting movie. He does a good job.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  They should put that on the poster. Possibly never ignites, Josh Clark.

• 45:50Josh Clark?

  They're like, this is the best we could get.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Melons are useful. I use a lot of melons for a lot of things. A hand inside a melon apparently was when that first dinosaur egg hatches, sorry, spoiler alert, in Jurassic Park, it was a hand inside of the melon combined with the cracking of an ice cream cone.

• 46:08Josh Clark?

  Very nice. I also saw Raiders of the Lost Ark, that famous boulder rolling at Indy in the beginning of the movie, first movie.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:15Josh Clark?

  It was a car with no motor being rolled down a hill.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. And that was also Ben Burton.

• 46:24Josh Clark?

  Oh, was it? That makes sense.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, he did all the Indiana Jones movies. He did ET. He was clearly a Spielberg, Lucas-y guy.

• 46:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah. He was, he was good. And probably still is. Is he still working?

• 46:36Speaker 02

  I, I bet he is. He's in his mid-ish 70s, so I bet he's, he's still out there.

• 46:40Josh Clark?

  Okay. There we go.

• 46:42Speaker 02

  I like to think he is. Should we talk about some of those Star Wars sounds too, while we're here?

• 46:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  The Blaster, Star Wars Blaster, very, very legendary film sci-fi sound. He, and you'll see a lot of sound people that just like kind of always carry around their recording device. I don't know if they do that kind of stuff on phones now, just to say like, hey, this, like, just to pick up the sound. But back then, for Ben Burton, it was a Nagra reel-to-reel recorder. And he was on, he was just collecting sounds all over the place to potentially use for Star Wars. And that's kind of the fun thing is just looking around the world and like, just collecting noises and say, you know, this might come in handy later. You never know.

• 47:21Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  And they were in the Poconos, and he went to, he saw a radio tower with those big, taut, big-

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Bundled wire support cables. And he was like, I wonder what that sounds like when I hit it. He hit it with a rock and it made that sound. And then he did it at another tower, a radio tower in the Mojave Desert. And combine those, tweaked them a little bit. And that's how you get that laser blast, which you too can make if you ever see one of those really, really taut cables. If you hit that thing with something metal, it'll go.

• 47:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's a bunch of different laser blasts in Star Wars, but the, the ones that were made with that sound effect. You, once you know that, you can, you can really clearly hear it. It's perfect.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's the, the blaster sound.

• 48:04Josh Clark?

  What, you mean Han Solo's blaster?

• 48:07Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I mean, the, the blaster is just a type of gun. I mean, we're probably going to get in big trouble from Star Wars people.

• 48:12Josh Clark?

  Probably.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  But, uh, when they put laser sound, I was like, oh, you can't say that, dude. It's, it's a blaster.

• 48:18Josh Clark?

  Let's move on to the tie fighters. How about that?

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 48:22Josh Clark?

  Those are actually, so the very famous.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  Hey, that's pretty good.

• 48:26Josh Clark?

  Thanks. Those are African elephants that are roaring, layered over one another and then distorted so that it doesn't sound like elephants. But when you hear that and you go listen to the tie fighter sound being made, you'll say, yeah, that's an elephant, I think.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  You do a Chewbacca too, don't you?

• 48:45Josh Clark?

  No.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  I thought you used to do that now.

• 48:47Josh Clark?

  My Chewbacca sounds like this.

• 48:52Josh Clark?

  It's like a nitrous.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  I could have sworn it was you that did a pretty good Chewbacca.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  But maybe not, but apparently Chewbacca was made by just combining a bunch of different animals. And again, layering them on top of one another, including a walrus, a badger and a bear at the very least.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  And then we, we gotta mention R2-D2 because that's where Ben Burt brings in. And you know, a big change in the industry is when the synthesizer, especially the Moog was invented. Because not only could you make all sorts of like cool space agey music for soundtracks. You could also make just bleeps and bloops, which is what he did. He had a Korg synthesizer, a very early Korg and did these, you know, beeps and boops for R2-D2. And you know, you think, all right, that's great, big deal. But the genius of it is that he somehow creates emotion and conveys emotion through these beeps and boops from a little droid with a synthesizer.

• 49:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  It's, it's magic.

• 49:50Josh Clark?

  That's the reason Foley artists are still around because you can't, you just can't do that with stock stuff from a sound library.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, or you could tell when it's done that way.

• 50:00Josh Clark?

  For sure. There you go. So, um, one other thing we should probably touch on real quick are nature documentaries.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, get ready to be disappointed.

• 50:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they get a lot of guff for, um, basically fudging stuff and they are legendary for fudging stuff. Like apparently they'll use semi domesticated animals that they rent to film, you know, chasing a lamb around or something like that. Uh, but one of the things they're very frequently criticized on is using sound effects and really kind of going overboard with them. But it by the nature of what they're making, they have to use sound effects to begin with.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, a lot of this stuff is filmed on very long lenses from very far away. If you're, if you're filming a, a, a lion tracking down an antelope and killing it.

• 50:50Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  You're not like right up on it, you know, so you don't have the sound to begin with. Maybe they bring some people out there with those long distance mics to record some stuff. Uh, but then there's just so much ambient sound, they probably can't use it. So generally, if you see like, you know, a, a Planet Earth Discovery, um, documentary, these, the sound department is handed kind of like a silent film almost. And they use, you know, it's not like they, they gotta have to use like real animal calls for the real animals. They're not just like, hey, let's make this lion sound kind of like different.

• 51:22Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 51:23Speaker 02

  So they want accuracy there for sure. But, you know, when you see a mushroom growing in, um, a time lapse, they're, they're just adding all those sounds of like a mushroom stretching its arms out.

• 51:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  I guess mushroom doesn't have arms, it's head.

• 51:35Josh Clark?

  Sure. I mean, lean in and put your ear to a mushroom as it's growing and you're not going to hear anything.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:41Josh Clark?

  Doesn't make a sound.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  No.

• 51:43Josh Clark?

  Another one they get accused of, um, is making the Northern Lights make a sound.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:48Josh Clark?

  Those don't make a sound. There's just all sorts of like, if you stop and think about it, like a close up of a spider walking on a leaf, it wouldn't make a sound, but it would look weird to not have a sound. Or at the very least, it looks better, that it makes the whole thing better to add a sound. I don't really, I mean, nature documentaries are so fudged to begin with, that I don't really have a problem with that.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't have a problem. And I think if, if, if someone, like you said, if you sat someone down and showed them just the realistic thing with just the realistic sound, it's, it's probably not nearly as compelling.

• 52:24Josh Clark?

  They'd be like, can I leave now?

• 52:27Josh Clark?

  You got anything else?

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, one last thing, just sort of on the note of using things like Pro Tools. I mentioned earlier that it was is kind of budget related and obviously big movies can just afford to do whatever they want in terms of that kind of thing. But even then, the the sound line items are often just very, a very small part of the budget. You know, it kind of depends, but you know, when you budget out a movie or a TV show or a commercial or anything, you kind of have a general template to work for. Like, we're going to allocate this percentage for this, this percentage for this. Camera department's going to get probably something like this. And sound is always like, maybe 10% or so. And a lot of times that can include the the rights to play soundtrack stuff. And, you know, it depends on the movie. If it's like Dazed and Confused or something like that, that's really music reliant.

• 53:13Speaker 02

  You know, you're going to have to spend a lot of money on that. So you may, you may look at the post-production sound and be like, I'm sorry, you have very little to work with. So that's where you're going to get stuff like pulled from libraries a little more. When you get these big, big movies, that's when they can afford to bring in the Foley artists and the whole teams. And that's why the sound is always really awesome. And that's why they highlight it at the Academy Awards.

• 53:35Josh Clark?

  Yes, nice. Yeah, so go forth and watch movies and listen out for sounds and you'll probably be amazed here or there.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but don't get so caught up in that. Like, I wonder if Foley artists can even watch movies and enjoy them.

• 53:50Josh Clark?

  I feel so bad for people who can't watch movies, who can't enjoy food because they're chefs or something like that.

• 53:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, totally.

• 53:57Josh Clark?

  Who just can't enjoy simple pleasures in life because they know too much about it, you know? Can't enjoy bologna or sausage.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I say, here's a new Stuff You Should Know t-shirt. We have a new t-shirt seller, right?

• 54:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's on Cotton Bureau, our new merch merchant.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, we've never put a lot of effort into merch, but we always hear people asking. So Cotton Bureau, Stuff You Should Know, you can find our merch now. And I think a new t-shirt should be, stay dumb, enjoy things.

• 54:25Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's a good one.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:27Josh Clark?

  That's a great one. All right, well, let's have Aaron Cooper get on it. Because I say, I think two thirds of our shirts in our merch store from Aaron Cooper, because he's really good at it.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and Statum Enjoy Things is perfect to promote a show that's all about trying to make people smarter.

• 54:41Josh Clark?

  Precisely.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:43Josh Clark?

  I wonder if we can get a shirt that says

• 54:46Speaker 02

  How would you spell that?

• 54:47Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I'm gonna leave that to Aaron Cooper.

• 54:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:51Josh Clark?

  Well, since we said Aaron Cooper's name at least two times, I think maybe three, we've unlocked listener mail.

• 54:59Speaker 02

  You don't want to say it three times because he'll be right behind you.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  All right, here we go. This is from Stephanie, and I feel bad about this because I even knew this. "Hey, guys. Thanks for the great episode about the militarization of the police. I'm truly grateful for the decade of learning since I've been listening. One of you commented," I think it was me, probably, "that you were surprised to read about the police in Teen Vogue. I thought you might be interested to know that Teen Vogue is pretty well-known for serious journalism and being an example for taking young women and girls seriously." I knew that, and we have even talked about this before, and so I don't know why I was like, "Oh, Teen Vogue."

• 55:34Josh Clark?

  No, it was me.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Was it?

• 55:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was 100% me.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought it was me. Well, I'll throw myself in that grenade.

• 55:41Josh Clark?

  That's okay.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  Along with you.

• 55:43Josh Clark?

  That's all right.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  But she says, "Here's an article from Jezebel by Julian Escobedo Shepherd. If you're shocked, Teen Vogue is great. You're not paying attention. I imagine you may get other emails like this, although I may be the first since I was up crazy early and listened right away. Thanks and have a great day." And that is from Stephanie.

• 56:02Josh Clark?

  Thanks, Stephanie. Those are the corrections that we love to get, where it's very gentle, but also like, "You, you guys, come on," you know?

• 56:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:10Josh Clark?

  If you can balance those two things, you've come up with a great correction email, as far as I'm concerned.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 56:16Josh Clark?

  If you want to be like Stephanie and send us a correction, or just an email to say hi, or whatever, you can send it off to [email protected].

• 56:27Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 56:43Josh Clark?

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• 58:16Speaker 04

  What's that?

• 58:17Speaker 02

  My fresh detector.

• 58:18Speaker 04

  Uh, your what?

• 58:19Speaker 02

  There it is.

• 58:20Speaker 04

  What is it detecting?

• 58:22Speaker 02

  Fresh produce, fresh meat.

• 58:25Speaker 04

  Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

• 58:30Speaker 02

  Apparently, we celebrate.

• 58:32Speaker 05

  At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices. When your fresh detector is going off, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.