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Happy Pants - February 1 - In Disguise

Published Feb 3, 2025, 1:00 AM

What's in Geraldine and Jo's happy pants this week? A walking stick, wigs and sunglasses. The only way to find out what the clues are all pointing to is for them to try these items on... Wait, where did Geraldine and Jo go? All I can see now is a little old lady and a film star!

Because Geraldine and Jo are in disguise. Big word alert! A disguise is something that gives you a different appearance so you can pretend to be someone or something else.

Tune in for the usual silliness and fun, as well as a story, music and activities to follow along with.

One, two, three. It's happy pants.

Good day. And welcome to Happy Pants, a show especially for kids and especially for you. My name is Geraldine and my name is Joe. And together, we're your happy pants team for today. Are you wearing your happy pants? We are. And today, mine are a mellow yellow. This kind of yellow reminds me of how it feels to sit outside in the sun really, really early in the morning. Oh, mine are mellow yellow. To the kind of yellow that makes me think of yummy runny egg yolk on my toast for breakfast. My happy pants pockets are bulging this morning. I can't wait any longer, Joe. I'm going to see what's in there. Righto. Mine too. Let's take turns. You go first, Geraldine. Right. In this one is a wig with short, silvery white hair. My turn. Oh, I have a wig, too. Oh, but mine has long, shiny black hair. Next bucket. Glasses. Old fashioned wire framed glasses. Me again. Oh, I have glasses as well. But mine are very fashionable sunglasses with big blue frames. They just match my new sun hat. Oh, Joe. This pocket seems to have something long in it if I hold the top open. Could you try pulling whatever it is out? Please, Joe. Righto, Geraldine. Oh, it is long. Here we go. Ah! Oh! oh are there? Oh! Good heavens. It's a walking stick. Mm. So I have a wig with white hair, some glasses and a walking stick. And I have a wig with long black hair and big sunglasses. Uh, what do you think we're supposed to do with them? Oh, let's put them on and find out. Oh my word, Joe, I'd never recognize you. That black wig and sunglasses completely changes you. If you put on your blue sun hat, you'd look like a movie star. Oh, and your white wig and glasses changes you too, Geraldine. If you lean on that walking stick, I'd think you were a little old lady. The things in our happy pants pockets are always clues. And the clues today were things that made us look different. Hey, there must be a word for that. I'll just have to think for a for a minute. Um, a word which means to change how we look. Mm. Oh. Thinking is hard work. So do you reckon we could have some music to help our brains get started? Please. I'm sure Happy Pants has some. I hope it's something we can dance to. Because my brain needs a big wake up to. Oh. That's better. My walking stick got in the way a bit, though. Sorry about your shins, Joe. Oh, that's okay, Geraldine, the bruises won't last long. Have you thought of that word yet? The one that describes something you put on so you look different. Oh, it just popped into my head. Disguise. We are wearing disguises. Of course. Our disguises make us look like something we are not. You look like a movie star and I look like a little old lady. Humans have lots of ways to make a disguise. Like a wig or a false beard. Dyeing their hair, wearing makeup, using padding to change their shape. They can use costumes or masks too. One famous disguise happened 300 years ago in England. The Tower of London was supposed to be escape proof, but a Scottish lord, with the help of his clever wife, managed it. The story goes that the Earl of Nithsdale picked the wrong side in an argument with the King of England. The king's army won, and the earl was captured and sent to the tower to be executed. Big word alert. Executed means to be killed. In this case by having his head chopped off. But it also means done or finished. Lady Nithsdale wasn't too happy about this, so she decided to rescue him. She journeyed down to London with a number of her ladies who were in on the plan. She bought gifts of fine food and wine for the jailers, and begged to be allowed to say a last goodbye to her husband before he went off to be beheaded. The ladies crowded into the cell, weeping and hiding their teary faces behind their handkerchiefs. Then they started moving in and out, running with important messages and tasks, sometimes one, then sometimes two at a time, until the guards became confused with all the coming and going of these wimping women. Meanwhile, Lady Nithsdale was busy shaving her husband's beard and dressing him in the women's clothes and wig she had brought with her. Then he went out with a couple of the ladies, weeping with handkerchiefs over their faces While his wife stayed in the doorway of the cell, pretending to talk to him as if he was still inside. And when everyone had had time to get outside and into the carriages waiting for them, she said at last tearful goodbye, and closed the cell door. She thanked the guards and walked sadly to the carriage where her husband was waiting. Then the carriages went off in different directions and by the time the guards realised what had happened, nobody knew which carriage should be followed. Lord and Lady Nithsdale got away safely and went to live in France until it was safe to come home again.

Shush, mum and dad. I'm trying to listen to Happy Pants.

Fun fact A crocodile can not stick its tongue out.

A group of frogs is called an army.

Humans aren't the only creatures which use disguises. Some animals have brilliant ways to make themselves look like something else. Sometimes it's so they can sneak up on breakfast, and sometimes it's to fool something which might be hunting them for breakfast. The decorator crab is one animal which uses disguise. It has special spiny hairs on its shell, and it snips off bits of seaweed and sponge and plants them on its shell. The spiny hairs hold stuff in place, though, so things continue to grow, and the crab carries an underwater garden around on its back. It's a good gardener and prunes everything to keep it neat, and when the crab grows out of one shell, it carefully picks off the garden from the old shell, plants it on the new one. Having a garden on its back makes the crab look like any other bit of the undersea world, so it can move around looking for dinner and still fool other creatures which would love a juicy crab for their dinner. The leafy seadragon is a kind of seahorse which has a built in disguise, which makes it look like a bit of floating seaweed. But the champion undersea disguise artist is the mimic octopus. This is a small sandy coloured octopus which lives in shallower waters near river mouths. An octopus has eight arms, a soft body and big eyes. Right? Well, this octopus can shapeshift in seconds. One minute it's a squiggly armed creature crawling along the sandy bottom, the next it's pulled its arms to its side, flattened its body, and is skimming along like a flounder fish. Or it might rearrange the shape of its legs so they look jointed. Hold two up in front to look like claws, and it's become a crab. Sometimes it lies on the bottom, makes its body show stripes, waves its tentacles in the water, and pretends to be a sea anemone. Another trick is to bury its body in the sand and stick two arms up, waving around like sand eels, half out of their burrows. Being able to change its disguise quickly makes the Mimic Octopus a good escape artist to a hungry fish. Might want to eat an octopus, but a sea anemone or a sand eel isn't on the menu. Wow. Some amazing things happen at the bottom of the sea. There's some great disguise artists on land to stick. Insects are plant eaters and are hunted and eaten by birds and lizards. So a cunning disguise is one way to avoid being a meal for something big and hungry. Stick insects have two ways to avoid being eaten. Firstly, they feed at night when birds and lizards are asleep. But the second trick is a real disguise. Stick insects have long, thin bodies and even longer, thinner legs. During the day, they hide among the bushes like a bunch of thin twigs. Some are brown or gray, like dead twigs. Some are green like grass stems. Some stick insects are not much longer than your finger, but some are as long as your arm. Even the biggest kind is very hard to find when they are hiding in plain sight during the day. Not many birds or lizards eat dead twigs. So for sticking sex, being long and very thin works well. There are even spiders which use disguise. Guys. One Australian spider actually flattens its body and wraps itself around a branch, so it looks like a piece of bark. So of course it's called the branch wrapping spider. It stays wrapped around a branch all day, hiding in plain sight from birds and lizards. But as soon as it's dark and its enemies have tucked in for the night, the branch wrapping spider unwraps itself and spins a web to catch night flying insects. When morning comes, it destroys the web, eats it. So there's no telltale evidence left. So a bird or lizard can find where it's hiding and wraps itself around the branch again. Another Australian spider which uses disguise is the bird dropping spider. No, that doesn't mean it drops birds. A bird dropping spider looks just like a small blob of bird poo. It's coloured brown and white and it sits patiently on a leaf, waiting for a bush fly or two to come by, and to try to feed on what looks like bird poo. Then it pounces, captures a fly, and eats it while it waits for the next hungry fly to come by. Sometimes a bird dropping spider will spin a small, thick sheet of web and spread it out on a leaf so it looks like a tasty splash of new bird poo. Sneaky, eh? Have you heard about the Australian bird which disguises itself as a broken branch? Oh yes, the tawny frogmouth. I often hear they call at night that doo doo doo. Doo doo doo is easy to recognize. But boy are they hard to see during the day. I know there's a pair living near me. But their disguise makes them really hard to find. They hunt during the night and during daylight hours. They sit in a tree with their heads pointing skywards, pretending to be a couple of dead branches. Their colour and shape makes them look just like a little bit of tree. Oh, it's a perfect disguise. Well, those are things that look like something else. But there is one Aussie creature which doesn't worry about looks. It goes for smell as a disguise instead. Oh good heavens. Fancy using smell as a disguise? I think I'll stick to my wig, glasses and snazzy hat. Thank you.

It's happy pants on Vision Australia radio.

The creature I'm talking about doesn't go in for hats. It's a spider, and its favourite snack is newly hatched ant larvae. As soon as ant eggs hatch, the grubs are carried off to the nursery where they're fed and looked after by nurse ants. And that's where this spider likes to feed. But green tree ants live on spiders. They kill them, cut them up, and carry them off to feed the babies. Green tree ants attack anything which disturbs the nest and they are always hunting. They kill and cut up anything they can carry. Harry. When they bite humans, they spray acid into the wound and it hurts. Oh, a spider wouldn't stand a chance. Ah, but this one has a special trick. Ants do not have good eyesight, so they rely a lot on smell. The Queensland jumping spider takes advantage of this and smells like an ant. As far as the green tree ants are concerned, if it smells like an ant, it must be an ant. So the spider wanders through the nest, finds the nursery, has a good feed, and wanders out again until the next time it wants a meal. The ants don't seem to notice that the spider doesn't look like an ant. If it smells like an ant, it's okay. That's the famous ant eating Queensland jumping spider for you, right? Let's say that that spider has eaten two grubs for breakfast. Oh, it's still hungry. So it goes back for more. And this time it gobbles five grubs. How many ant grubs has the spider eaten altogether? Um, two the first time and five the second time. Two and five more makes seven. Ah, correct. How about this? It's lunch time and our spider is hungry again. It finds two grubs, then another two grubs, and then two more. How many grubs has it found? Mm. Two grubs. Then two more. That's four. Then two more. So two and two make four. And two more is six. All right. Geraldine, the spider eats two and puts the rest away for afternoon tea. How many has it saved to eat for later? Mm. It had six. Then it ate two. There must be. There must be four left. That's a very greedy spider. I hope it gets indigestion. Talking of disguises. Our story today is about a dog. Which didn't really mean to have a disguise. But he got one anyway.

Yay! Story time.

Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion. Harry was a white dog with black spots who liked everything well, except getting a bath. So one day, when he heard the water running in the tub, he took the scrubbing brush and buried it in the backyard. Then he ran away from home. He played where they were fixing the street and got very dirty. He played at the railroad and got even dirtier. He played tag with the other dogs and became dirtier still. He slid down a coal chute and got the dirtiest of all. In fact, he changed from a white dog with black spots to a black dog with white spots. Although there were many other things to do, Harry began to wonder if his family thought he had really run away, or he felt tired and hungry too. So without stopping on the way, he ran back home. When Harry got to his house, he crawled through the fence and sat looking at the back door. One of the family looked out and said, oh, there's a strange dog in the backyard. By the way, has anyone seen Harry? When Harry heard this, he tried very hard to show them he was Harry. He started to do all his old clever tricks. He flipped, flopped and he flopped. Flipped. He rolled over and played dead. He danced and sang. He did these tricks over and over again. But everyone shook their head and said, oh, no, it couldn't be Harry. Oh. Harry gave up and walked slowly toward the gate, but suddenly he stopped. He ran to a corner of the garden and started to dig furiously. Soon he jumped away from the hole, barking short, happy barks. He'd found the scrubbing brush and carrying it in his mouth, he ran into the house up the stairs. He dashed with the family following close behind. He jumped into the bathtub and sat up, begging with the scrubbing brush in his mouth, a trick he certainly had never done before. Oh oh, this little doggy wants a bath, cried the little girl. And her father said, why don't you and your brother give him one? Harry's bath was the soapiest one he'd ever had. It worked like magic. As soon as the children started to scrub, they began shouting, mummy, daddy, look, look! Come quickly, it's Harry, it's Harry, it's Harry, they cried. Harry wagged his tail and was very, very happy. His family combed and brushed him lovingly and he became once again a white dog with black spots. Oh, it was wonderful to be home. After dinner, Harry fell asleep in his favorite place, happily dreaming of how much fun it had been getting dirty. Oh, he slept so soundly he didn't even feel the scrubbing brush He'd hidden under his pillow.

That was a reading of Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion. The reader was Rebecca. If you like stories, the Phoenix Children's Library has loads of great stories, and you can have them in large print, braille or audio, whichever you like best.

Fun fact dogs hearing is ten times better than humans. Dogs can smell 100,000 times better than humans.

Now what have we done today, Joe? Well, we found out a lot about disguises and disguise. Was our big word for today. It means to take on the appearance of something you are not. Like me being a movie star and Geraldine being a little old lady. Our other big word was executed. Which means to be killed, done or finished. If there was anything in today's program about which you would like to know more, you can find us on radio at Vision Australia. Keep wearing those happy pants and we'll catch you next time.

Happy pants is produced on the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people. Vision Australia Radio acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first Australians and the traditional owners of the land across our working area. We pay our respects to elders past, present and future in maintaining their cultures, countries and their spiritual connection to the lands and waters. Vision Australia Radio acknowledges and respects the genuine diversity and richness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australia. Happy pants has been made possible with the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation.

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Happy Pants

Happy Pants is a weekly radio program and podcast distributed nationally for children aged under 10  
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