This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Welcome to Red Panda Report.
Buckle up for two-fisted pulp action as I talk about the terrific Tucson of Toronto.
Red Panda Adventures 27, now the news.
This is the copy for the episode written by Greg Taylor, the writer and director and voice of the Red Panda.
And now, from headlines around the world and here at home, join us as the Radiogram News Picture Corporation presents News on Parade.
Sometimes there's more to the story than a headline, as we follow our heroes on three short adventures that take us behind the scenes and show us that there's more to current events than meets the eye.
With special guest star Jack Ward of the Sonic Society.
This episode, now the news, was originally aired October 20th, 2007.
Again, it's written and directed by Greg Taylor and this episode is called now the news. It's Red Panda Adventures number 27, if I wasn't clear about that before.
I've got a cat over here complaining and he's distracting me a little bit.
So I thought the premise of this episode was pretty cool.
I wonder why it happened. I wonder how intentional it was or how much of like an act of desperation it was to have us get three short stories and
they kind of vary in length and tenor and tone maybe you could say. And I find that to be interesting.
I know somebody who I've been kind of made reading for and helping them workshop their books as they're writing and every now and then I'll say, oh, this is another clip chapter because they do this thing where they say, you know,
there's multiple scenes going on. It's all conveying one story, one overall message, and they do it by.
I don't know if it's specifically contrasting the scenes because I don't I wouldn't say that these scenes are specifically contrasting each other.
They're different. They're unique. They're in different settings at different times in different places with different foes and different types of enemies.
So, you know, it does. I mean, I guess they are technically contrasting and like showing that variety and showing the range of the characters in one chapter
or one episode like this where you're having all these different things happening.
It kind of does. I know it does. It does favors to the characters. It definitely helps them, which is good.
I think it's a really good thing. And like I said, I really like the idea.
And not only do I like the idea, I like what they did with it.
And I like the actual episode as it played out because each little mini adventure was really interesting and entertaining.
So, so the first issue or first episode has to deal with these.
I don't know if Canada had prohibition or not, but there are Canadian gangsters, mobsters, the criminals who are willing to smuggle alcohol into the United States during prohibition.
And this is actually after the ending of prohibition, I believe, but still the stills, the distilleries haven't made able to crank up to work because they were closed down.
Businesses were destroyed by prohibition, you know, by that law being put in place.
And yet other businesses flourished and grew. And, you know, Al Capone was a huge guy.
He made a lot of money because the illegality of alcohol. And it's interesting because the story is a little bit more complicated than people think.
So like in this, the criminals specifically are putting antifreeze in these barrels.
They're cutting real alcohol, I guess, maybe with antifreeze and antifreeze is poison.
Actually, fun fact. It's not actually fun. It's kind of morbid.
In the late 90s or early 2000s, so many people were poisoning their relatives, their spouses typically, by putting antifreeze into their food.
And then it would eventually kill them that they actually, I think they did they make antifreeze.
I think they now add something to antifreeze to make it either taste disgusting or to make it a really crazy color like a day glow green that it will not go.
Like you'll be able to taste it basically. And you can't be poisoned because a bunch of people were poisoning their whoever they were close to to kill them, obviously, to murder them with antifreeze.
Why were they killing them? A lot of his insurance stuff to collect on life insurance.
Anyway, but the actual the actual poisoning that a lot of people encountered during prohibition by drinking illicit or illegal alcohol was actually not only from criminals, but it was also from the government.
Although I guess I repeat myself, don't I? It's really interesting. If you look into it, I even like Snopes, which I don't trust for many reasons.
But maybe that's because I have a particular bent and Time magazine, who I would say, I don't know, would people say they're on either side of the political aisle?
I'm not sure. I would say Time magazine is like mainstream and Snopes is a little bit more off to one side than the other.
But I would say that both of them are reliable in this.
Yes. Snopes says it's mixed that the government, the United States government was poisoning alcohol and are allowing.
Yeah, it's a little it's a little interesting. I'm not going to go into the whole thing, but you know, I'm going to go to the whole thing.
This is my show and I can do whatever I want. So Snopes actually quotes a Time article, possibly the Time article that I have pulled up as well.
Let's see. It doesn't say the history of poison alcohol includes an unlikely culprit.
This is from Time magazine. The U.S. government. It's a five minute read written by Lily Rockland in 2015, actually.
So that's interesting. Let me see.
Apparently Slate covered it as well.
Apparently Time reported in 1927 this solution emerged from the anti-drinking forces in the government that year.
A new formula for denaturing industrial grade alcohol was introduced, doubling how poisonous the product became.
The new formula included four parts methanol or wood alcohol, two and a quarter parts pyridine bases, half parts benzene to 100 parts ethyl alcohol.
And as Time noted, three ordinary drinks of this may cause blindness in case you didn't guess, blind drink isn't just a figure of speech.
I've never heard blind drink before.
Senator Edward I. Edwards from New Jersey called it legalized murder, which is interesting.
And yeah, I mean, it's more complicated. But basically they did things willingly, knowingly that caused alcohol to become poisonous so that when people drink it, they would either become blind or die because they figured if it's, well, I don't want to go into the motives, but it's not good.
And, you know, Red Panda, obviously, it's these criminals who are doing it who think it's bad or who are doing it just so they can make a profit.
And I don't know what's worse. Is it worse to intentionally harm or kill people because you're going to make a profit for yourself, or is intentionally hard? Is it worse to intentionally harm or maybe kill people because you don't want them sneaking and fighting away to do something you don't want them to do?
One's moralistic and puritanical, and you're trying to force people to choose what you want them to choose. Otherwise, you're giving them an unnatural consequence of poisoning them and having them killed.
And the other is just you're greedily preying upon other people's want for something that they can't get any other way.
But the reason they can't get it any other way is because the government they elected has forced this on them and restricted them from it. So it's bad in either way.
But I'm anti-prohibition, if you can tell, and I'm also anti-government poisoning people on purpose. I hope you can agree with that.
Okay, so next we have this greedy, awful man who's being hypnotized into being so charitable that he's going to give away all his money for the rest of his life and people are going to remember him for that. He's going to have a state funeral where the common people are going to weep for him for a long time.
It's cathartic. It's pretty beautiful. It's great.
It's a little bit Robin Hood feeling, but it's a little more complicated than that because of the hypnotism and everything, although I guess burglaring something from somebody or stealing it from them isn't really that different from hypnotizing somebody to doing the same thing.
But I wondered like, oh, is this like, is this criminal? Is this a moral action? I'm not really sure if this is like a heroic thing to do because of the hypnotism and everything.
And there's also like, it's blackmailed him. Is it like, look, I'm cursing you with my hypnotic powers that you're going to see these awful visions and hear these awful things of all the women and children and men who you've caused to suffer.
You're going to hear them crying. You're going to see them upset before you. And it's going to torture you because of, you know, how awful is what you're doing.
And like, it's a really cool concept. Like, it's a really metal concept. It's really interesting. It's, you know, there's right.
There's right. Indignation there. And it's like, it feels like a measure of justice. But like, it almost feels like that's a little bit like too much like that's divine judgment that should come upon this guy in the, in the hereafter.
And as Steve blue would say, Steve Bloom would say, anyway, feels kind of like that. But it's also like, it feels very cathartic. It feels very good. And I liked hearing it.
And like, it made me laugh because like, it's ironic. And it feels just for what this guy has done throughout his life. And he's not being killed. He's not being murdered.
Yeah, if they'd like killed him then and there, that would have been murder, I would say. And he's not being killed because of self defense, which they could have potentially justifiably said they were killing him in self defense because he was shooting at them and stuff.
But this punishment is like, it's a lot better. And it's pretty fantastic. So yeah, I think it's great.
I think it's great. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. But I wanted to know, you know, what do you think about it?
Is it moral? Is it just? Is it right? Or is there something wrong with it? And I'm degenerate for for enjoying it.
So next thing, we have the reappearance of Friedrich Ron Schlitz. He doesn't actually appear in the episode, but he's referenced and he's involved in what's going on.
So only a few episodes ago, or it was last season, really. I mean, it was in the last season, but it was towards the end of last season. It was just a few episodes ago from here. It was like episode 24, I think.
We had this line come up. Remember where you were when you said that regarding Von Schlitz, because it was bad, but a mixed movie. That's right.
He comes back later. I'm going to spoil it for you as Brian McSweeney. OK, we'll talk about that in a year or something.
Anyway, so he said that about Von Schlitz because Red Panda was saying, but he's an isn't man and he's just a scientist.
And, you know, how could you want to punish him for things that he hasn't done yet?
And yet here, Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel are knowing the potential of danger that this guy has and knowing that in another universe, he's bad in the world next door.
He's a really bad guy. And they're kind of watching him with a wary eye because maybe he will be bad.
And there's that potential there. And they want to be careful and have a contingency plan for everything. Right.
So it's interesting that he's very much connected to this plot to have this air balloon dirigible, whatever hijacked in like, you know, like 9-11 style.
I would say it's what I thought of right away, you know, flown into Toronto to crash and to cause damage and kill people and stuff.
And it also was going to do something with Americans and their unwillingness to sell helium to other people because they're worried about the explosive nature of it and things like that.
I thought that was pretty interesting.
You know, Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel are seeing how the world is changing and how threats are forming and they're thinking about not just their own country, but about the rest of the world,
which Taylor seems to espouse that, like, for lack of a better term, like boomery, like, you know, non-isolationist worldview where, you know, at least he wants his superheroes involved in that stuff.
Maybe he wants his government. Canada, ironically, as nice as a country as it is and like as chill as the people are, they actually did a lot to support the U.S. War on Terror.
I don't remember exactly where was it, Iraq and Afghanistan, where they had deployed a lot of people.
And when I was in a different life or a different part of my life, I was very happy about that.
And I was very pleased with the Canadians for having helped us, the U.S., in that effort. And anyway, I wonder how deeply rooted that is in their culture, in their government.
I don't really know, but I'm curious because Taylor, who's a Canadian, seems to kind of espouse that kind of, you know, we're all going to work together against the bad guys in the world kind of attitude and an ideology.
And he's putting it forward with, you know, Red Panda here. And it's just kind of interesting because it seems to be a little bit of a tell about political leanings, but maybe it's not.
It could just be, you know, for the story. And I just find it interesting to see Red Panda and Flying Squirrel taking this, you know, I don't know what you would call it, the opposite of isolationist worldview, but like, I don't know, like we need to police the world kind of view.
But they really do hold back from that over the whole course of the show. It's more, I don't know, it's interesting. We'll talk about it later.
But I do like the subtle world building Taylor's doing here. I like how he's not just making the Nazis this like bad force automatically.
He's showing that like, yeah, Germans are fine. Like, Germans are good. Whatever. It's another country. They do their own thing.
And then, like, they don't even know about the Nazi party, Red Panda and Flying Squirrel, but they're going to find out about them. And eventually, as time goes on, you'll see this escalation of the Germans and the Nazis into like a real big bad threat.
And I don't think there's ever like a good German that shows up in the show. There's definitely not a good Nazi. They're all bad.
But it's interesting how they like ratchet that up. And over time, they become more of a threat and it like formalizes into something as opposed to just being something like, oh, they're Nazis, they must be bad.
And that's how Mick Smoothee sees them. But he's been fighting them for years, like a long time. And he's seen the Nazi threat grow.
And it's interesting because it was, from my understanding of history, it seems like it was something kind of in cities that people didn't realize how bad it was until they realized how bad it was.
And I'm not saying that's at the end of the war and after the Holocaust. I'm saying that's even before then. It was already pretty bad. And people should have done more. But whatever.
So yeah, I'm liking this. It was a fun episode. It was interesting. Lots of interesting stuff to think about.
And it's ironic that Flying Squirrel said, isn't this supposed to aren't these things supposed to take you out of the world, not like depress you and bring you back into the world?
And here I'm talking about real world stuff, like some heavy real world stuff. But yeah, then the cartoons come on and you can just enjoy that. So anyway, till next time, folks, take care.