Today we break down the history of everyone's favorite home invader, the tooth fairy.
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Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, there's Jerry. Ghost of Dave Kustan is hanging around here somewhere, and that means that this is short stuff and in fact, it's not a ghost. I'm mistaken, Chuck. He is a tooth fairy. That's right. David is very much alive. Don't worry everyone, Short Stuff producer, Dave is not a ghost. No, you could astray project yourself and still be what I would consider basically a ghost. I don't think. I think being dead is overstated as a reason for being a ghost. It's being it's overrated. Yeah. Yeah, So we're talking about the tooth fairy, and um, the reason I thought of this is because my daughter has not lost a tooth yet. She's coming up on six years old with his baby teeth, and um, I'm just waiting like it could have happened by now and it can't happen at any time. And I was, you know, I was like, all right, I gotta get up on the latest research on the story that I'm gonna need to tell the lie that I'm going to pound into her brain, and like how much money these kids get? These days a lot. It's like, did you get I got like a quarter and a quarter two, which apparently is like nineteen thirties level. You know. I also got a quarter for giving up my passive fire. And only later did I find out like my sisters had gotten things like an easy bake oven or something like that, and I got bought off for a quarter. I'm still to this day a little upset about that. Now, how old are you when you gave it up? Like twelve? It all depends on the kid. My daughter gave her PASTI fire really early, so she didn't even know what money was. You know, there you go, that's the way to do it. She just didn't like it. Yeah, that was actually thirteen, was approaching the age where I also would have traded my past fire for a pack of smokes. You're like, give me one more to suck on something. I never connected it too. So the tooth dairy is pretty interesting, and that since people had children all over the world through antiquity, there seems to be weird little stories here and there about traditions and things that you would do with the tooth. It seems like it was never just like well that happened. Let me just toss it out of here. You know, it could have been some little ceremony. You could have put it in a fire. Um. But this this was not like the tooth fairies. We know it. No no, no, no, but it is there there, and we'll talk about in a minute. But there's rituals all over the world of what to do like it's not like it. It just goes unnoticed. The tooth fairies one of the most all American um, supernatural beings there there is, and as not even not even old. It's not even an old one. Apparently, the tooth fairy that that is going to eventually come to visit your daughter, that is running around this very night handing out dollars for teeth is basically sure. Um, although you could make a really strong case in court that putting the tooth under the pillow it could be construed as an invitation into your home. But that that tooth fairy, that particular being, that entity is from basically the mid century, mid twentieth century America and is very new and very young for being a supernatural entity. Yeah, I think there are a couple of references. There was one from eight from the Chicago Daily Tribune and an editorial UM that valued the contribution from the tooth Fairy at a nickel. I think in twenty seven there was a short play with a tooth fairy in it from Esther Watkins Arnold. Oh, it's it was okay. I saw there was also a kid's book from the twenties that um was an English version of the eighteenth century French tooth fairy kind of thing, but the tooth fairy was a mouse, Okay. The tooth fairy like really kind of hit a zeitgeists in the twenties. I guess, yeah, it sounds like it okay. And then apparently the whole thing broke wide open with a Collier's magazine article in May of nineteen forty nine. Yeah, so ninety nine. I mean, that's not that long ago that that parents have been lying to their kids about this home invader. Who would who would leave money to avoid prosecution? That's right? I mean it is kind of weird, like, is there any explanation that you've run across so far as to why the tooth fairy wants teeth? That's something that no one ever taught me. No, And you know, I looked a lot of different places, and there's just not a lot out there. It's pretty interesting. There's no there's no weird origin story. I mean, we could make one up if you want to kick that thing off. Let's see that. Let's just take the Cabbage Patch kids origin story and just replace it with tooth fairy. Yeah, or maybe the tooth fairy builds this fantasy land out of out of children's teeth. That's horrific, it does it sounds like the teeth monster from what was that? There was a weird Canadian TV shows basically No, no, that was weird in a different way. Um, I will, I will come up with the name of it. But it was basically a bunch of urban legends that they blew out into an actual narrative over the course of the season. It was pretty interesting, but there was a monster made of children's teeth and it was creepy. I'll send it to you. You can show it to your daughter. All right, Well, let's take a little break and we'll come back and talk about kind of some of these strange rituals and traditions all over the world right after this. Alright, So we mentioned that depending on where you are in the world, throughout history there have been these interesting traditions when it comes of your children losing their first teeth um in a lot of different countries Afghanistan, Russia, Mexico, New Zealand, there is a mouse or a rat involved, whether or not you put it in a box for a mouse or put it in a little mouse hole like Tom and Jerry's style. And I think the whole thing there was it was a wish that the tooth would grow back to be as strong as a rat's tooth or a mouse's tooth, which makes sense. Yeah, And that's called the transference, uh wish that an anthropologist might call a simp called sympathetic magic, which I think is a pretty good band name though. Wishing that your child's tooth grows back like a rat's tooth. That would be one of those careful what you wish for kind of situations. If you ask me, that's true people do um well. Actually, so there's like actually supposedly nine things, including everything from throwing the tooth into the sun, which that's got to be hard to do, not possible. Much more easy is to throw it into a fire like that between the legs. Huey Lewis style, a little weird um onto or over the roof of your house. Yeah, that's not a lot of Asian countries do this, okay. So one of the things I saw it was that a lot of these rituals, pretooth fairy rituals, were often wrapped up or tied into burial rituals of that same culture. So does that mean that there are cultures are there that throw their there they're deceased, onto the roof of the house. You think maybe it's like a sky burial kind of thing. I don't know. I don't know. I was being funny at first and then pulled it out into into into something really thought provoking at the end. Uh, what else do people do? I think a lot of people bury them, right, and that kind of makes or hide them and that kind of maybe that's where we got under the pillow. I don't know. And then, um, it's from probably has nothing to do with the dead or the deceased, but there's one where the mother or the kid, or you make a poor animal swallow the tooth and talk about a write of passage. Because that's why all of these um, all of these cultures have a ritual surrounding the loss of the first tooth, because that's basically the first rite of passage any kid cognizantly goes through. And so you know, cultures tend to make a big deal about it. But imagine your culture having you swallow your baby's tooth and then you pass it as the mom, Like, that's gotta provoke some sort of you know, a mixed bag of emotions. Yeah, for some reason, it just that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw that mom sometimes swallow baby teeth basically ye, from that, from that little little vignette. So it seems like when it really became the tooth fairy that we think of in America, it came about at the same time that Disney was putting out movies like Pinocchio and Cinderella, two movies that each fit featured these benevolent fairies who granted wishes. And I think it may have just been the public consciousness and we borrowed, like we said, from other cultures that may be buried their teeth or hid their teeth into the under the pillow thing and an exchange for money. Yeah, and the money thinks still seems confounding, like it's fairy coming for your tooth. That's pretty cute, and that makes sense that Disney would influenced it based on the time. But the money thing supposedly dates back to twelfth century Norse custom, which was that you would pay a tooth fee to the kid who got there who lost their their first baby tooth. And you know, rather than them putting it in the pillar there being any supernatural being who came to collect that, you just hand the kids some money or whatever tell them to go away now. Um, So I think those combined to form this modern incarnation of the tooth fairy. Yeah, and what's the going rate these days? From what I saw, it's about three dollars and seventy cents, which means there's some weird parents out there who are right at the median who leave three dollars and seventy cents under their kids pillow in exchange for the tooth. But that also means that there's plenty of parents out there who are leaving like ten bucks, you know, who are skewing the average upwards. And don't email me because I know a median is not the same thing as average. I guess, I guess, Emily, and I need to do some soul searching, uh, to find out what the value of this tooth is because it's you know, it can also be an opportunity to teach you know, kids have no idea what things cost. They think everything is free, so it can be an opportunity to teach them. Yeah, disappointment. You know about the value of money, and you know what what this might buy or maybe you can save it or say part of it. I don't know, but the the introduction to money and income kind of starts with the tooth ferry. It's pre allowed ones. Yeah, well I read that there was a from a folklore that said, like the reason why this tooth fairies an American invention and gives you money exchange or something. As you're teaching your kids capitalism, it would just make total sense. Yeah. I mean, she's got piggy banks, so we'll we'll put change in there occasionally, but that that's about it as far as money goes. She thinks, you know, everything costs nothing. Well, you can teach her the value of a human tooth now, and she'll go around the rest of her life thinking she can get about three dollars and seventy cents per tooth if she just, you know, really tries at it. I think if I tried to do three seventy on the nose, Emily would just be like, are you kidding me? Put a fiver in there would be hilarious. Hey, report back when when it happens, will you? Yeah? And I also want to quickly shout out Janet Varney, one of our good friends here in the industry, a podcaster and one of the co founders of s F sketch Fest and the j V Club. Yeah, j V Club, great, great show. Um, I think I had no tooth when I was first a guest of Janet's JV Club Live It sketch Fest, And when I got home, she sent me and Janet's Janet is wanted to just send people funny gifts like this. She sent me a little tooth fairy pillow. That is very sweet. Yeah, because you can you can get an actual pillow, right, that's special for the little pocket fairy. Okay, that's great. Yeah, so um, well that's the tooth fairy unless you got anything else to you. I got nothing else except three fake teeth. You can get some money for that, almost a little over ten dollars Chuck Aaron Cooper would pay fifteen. There you go. Um and since Chuck said Aaron Cooper, then of course that means short stuff is out. Stuff you should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.