March 27, 2025 • 35 mins
PAW Patrol is in trouble. Like Ryder and the pups, Malcolm comes to the rescue.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hello, Hello, everyone, You're in for a treat today.
I'm going to do battle on behalf of my three
year old against some of the leading intellectuals of our day.
My producer says this is her favorite revisionist history episode ever.
As they say on the internet, big if true. If
(00:35):
you missed it. We opened this many season with two
episodes about the death of George Floyd, which I hope
you listen to if you haven't already, and coming up soon.
My colleague Benda daph Haffrey gives us the real story
about well, I'm not going to tell you. All I'll
say is when I listen to it, every single fact
Ben relates in that episode was something I'd never heard
(00:58):
of before. Oh and one last thing. I mentioned it
last week. I'm doing my tour with No Small Endeavor
and Drew Holcombe April ninth in Louisville, April tenth in Indianapolis,
and April eleventh in Grand Rapids. It's going to be
a lot of fun. If you live anywhere near those cities,
you gotta go check it out at No Small Endeavor
dot com. Okay, off we go. Enjoy everyone. Every night,
(01:24):
after bath and just before bedtime. My three year old
and I settled down in front of the television.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Pomcho.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Pomcho will be there on the double never there's a problem,
rounded bench base.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
If you're not a parent of a young child, it's
entirely possible you have no idea what pap Patrol is.
That's fine. Before I had children, I had never heard
of it either, So let me explain. It's a multi
billion dollar franchise centered around a band of puppies who
are called upon in each episode to rescue someone in peril.
(02:00):
There's a police dog named Chase, a fire dog named Marshall,
a helicopter pilot named Sky, a roadworks puppy named Rubble.
They stop when we trains, They fight fires, They repair
the damaged flying saucers of adorable stranded aliens with enormous eyes.
You get the picture. Among toddlers, pow Patrol is bigger
(02:22):
than Elmo. It's bigger than Mickey Mouse. Just ask my
daughter Pa Patrol.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
We're on the double wherever it is. Alb Don invent today,
rather is the female popule Gold and Fee Today. Marshall, Wobble,
Jay's Lucky new a guy I like Luck, Foculous.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
And yet for some reason, every parent I know, every
student of children's television, every adult who has more than
a passing interest in the intellectual and moral development of
our young hates pop Patrol. Like the Reddit thread, Paw
Patrol has ruined by child's brain quote. Everything about Paw
(03:08):
Patrol is awful. The yelling and constant panic, the stereotypes,
the terrible design, the tropes. I wish it would disappear
from the face of the earth and take all of
its merch with it. Go to TikTok. They hate the puppies.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
There's some things that really piss me off when it
comes to Popatrol. It's pretty simple. It sucks. My sun
watches Paw Patrol. I hate it.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Everyone hates it except for me. And this episode is
my attempt to convince you that I'm right and everyone
else is wrong. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening
to Revisionist History, my podcast where I like to argue
on behalf of things that all common sense suggests are
not true. The following defense of Power Patrol is squarely
(03:59):
in that tradition. It is a search and rescue mission
for a show about search and rescue missions in all
my long years of doing revisionist history, I have never
tackled a more forbidding task. I started by calling people,
(04:20):
anyone who I thought could help, asking the same questions
over and over again. First to a parent who had
lived through what I'm living through right now, we are
here to discuss poor Patrol, which looms large in my
life at the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Then again to an intellectual someone I admired. I don't
understand that the amount of hatred the show gets. And again,
this time to a sociologist, someone who has published in
academic journals on the Pow Patrol phenomenon. I am calling
you because I spend every night watching Paw Patrol.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
And I'm sorry, sorry to hear that.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I spent so much time googling Pow Patrol. Google started
feeding me Paw Patrol content, like the actress Kia Knightley
on The Tonight Show explaining what it's like to be
the mother of a three year old. Wait for it,
baby's a toddler. Baby's not a baby.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
It's not anymore.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, she's huge, three and a half, three and a half.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Are you into uh? Are you into Paw Patrol?
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I'm sorry, Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Everyone is sorry. Well,
I'm into Paw Patrol and I'm not sorry. Paw Patrol
takes place in two imaginary towns, Adventure Bay and Foggy Bottom.
The group has as its headquarters what looks like a
giant postmodern air traffic control center, complete with a really
(05:47):
cool fire station poll that moves the members of the
Paw Patrol from the briefing room to their waiting vehicles,
vehicles which are all, by the way, available separately for purchase.
In a typical Paw Patrol episode, and I say typical
when I really mean every single Paw Patrol episode ever,
(06:09):
someone in the greater Adventure Bay Foggy Bottom metropolitan area
has a problem. They call Rider, who is a little
boy in charge of the Paw Patrol operation. He summons
the pups from whatever adorably cute leisure activity they are
engaged in.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
They come running, mighty pups too long, lookout, Rider needs us.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
And without fail, the problem is solved.
Speaker 7 (06:33):
No job is too big, no pump is too small.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
For example, in season seven, episode thirteen, Pop Patrol pops
save Election Day, a particular favorite in the Glabal household,
Mayor Humdinger of Foggy Bottom has decided unexpectedly to run
for are of Adventure City, precipitating a crisis. Humdinger is
wreaking havoc on the campaign trail, causing all kinds of
chaos downtown. This leads Alex, an adorable little boy who
(07:00):
happens to find himself in the midst of the mayhem,
to call for help.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
It all happened because Mayor Hundinger's kidneys are launching the
election stuff everywhere.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
We'll be right there, Alex. There's a short briefing in
the situation room. Writer gives that instructions.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
So for this mission, I'll need Chase.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I need you to use your net to.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
Stop mister porters out of control skateboard ride. Chase is
on the case, and Marsha, I'll need you to use
your lender to help get Danny Dun from that big billboard.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
I'm ready for a rough, rough rescue.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
And off the pops go. Hey guys, Hey, malcolme, how
you doing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
How's it go ahead?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I called up Cal Brunker and Bob Barlin, the writers
behind the Paw Patrol movies. I asked them why they
thought kids loved the show so much.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
The structures are so clear and consistent from episode to
episode that it really it pulls them in and they're
able to feel comfortable and confident in that world of storytelling.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Oh I forgot to mention that in addition to eleven
seasons of Paw Patrol television shows, there have been two
Paw Patrol movies, which to get a grossed three hundred
and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
The structure of the show is really quite smart in
how they go about every every rescue that takes place.
Writer tells the pops what they're gonna do, and then
they show up and they do the same thing that.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
He's just told the audience.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
So I think the participation level from a child is
able to be so much more because it's less surprising.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I did not grow up with the television, so this
experience is all new to me. Maybe that's why I
like Pop Patrol so much. Everyone else groans in silent
agony over the thought of watching, say, Pop Patrol the
movie for the fourth time. Me I'm like, what new
fresh insights can I glean this time around about Chase
the police dog, a German shepherd who struggles with feelings
(08:58):
of inadequacy.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Chase has got a backstory, and I mean that at
its highest level. Chase believes that being scared means he's
not a hero, and so he should be part of it.
And he learns that heroes get scared too, but keep going.
That's what makes them hero.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Writer has that scene with him where they relive when
he found Chase for the first time. Yes, I love
I love to hear you saying that brings y on
what is clearly University avenue. That's, by the way, remember
that reference University avenue. What am I referring to? A
(09:39):
small clue to my grand unified theory of power patrol,
A clue which I'm guessing all the other parents missed
because they run their phones checking Instagram. Now that so,
because there is what's really interesting is it there? When
my daughter was watching that, she the first we've seen
(10:00):
it more than once, that movie, and the first time
she saw it, I think she was genuinely affected by it.
I mean it was clear it was a different kind
of emotional experience and she'd been getting from the TV shows.
In the second and third time. Gripping my hand tightly,
this is exactly what the corporate benefactors of the Paw
(10:20):
Patrol franchise desire a bonding moment between a dad and
his daughter over a disconsolate puppy. Was my daughter wearing
Paw Patrol pajamas as this was happening, Yes she was.
And yet there are people, lots of people who look
on that picture of family togetherness and cry foul? Can
(10:43):
you explain this? On several occasions, in the course of
almost a decade now of revisionist history, I have called
on Angus Fletcher, neuroscientist turned narrative theorist genius in residence
(11:06):
at Ohio State University. Remember, for example, back to our
three part revision of the ending of Disney's The Little Mermaid,
arguably the intellectual high watermark of the entire revision's history.
Corpus Angus provided the intellectual firepower. And remember when we
did a whole series on the greatest movie scripts that
(11:27):
never got made? Angus had one, of course he did.
Angus is much much smarter than I am. More important,
Angus is not hopelessly sentimental like I am. He would
not be derailed by the gentle pressure of a three
year old stubby fingers. And when I remember that Angus
also has kids. I called him up now a small
(11:52):
thing before we go on. Normally, when we interview people,
we edit the tape. I interject with commentary. The whole
thing is compressed and annotated. We give you snippets, but
snippets do not do justice to Professor Angus Fletcher. So
you're going to get Angus unbound. I want to start you.
(12:13):
You too went to a Paw Patrol period with your children?
Is this correct?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I did?
Speaker 8 (12:17):
Yeah, so my son likes Paw Patrol and I had
an immediate horrifying flashback when you brought the subject up,
because I went back and tried to watch a couple
episodes just to remind myself and immediately had to shut
them off, actually for for self preservation.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
But there are many things to unpack here. First of all,
how long did your son still actively watch Pow Patrol?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
No? No, absolutely still alive.
Speaker 8 (12:40):
So so we managed to we managed to save him
in time.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
You're so, you're and why you were watching it with
your son? Why?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Why?
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Why did this show not appeal to you? What is
it about it that's like hitting you the wrong way?
Speaker 9 (12:54):
It's designed to anesthetize your brain. I mean, I feel
like I am mainlining Horse trenqu Wiser. It's a show
that is studiously designed to interrupt active thought. I mean,
that's like the purpose of the show, and it's it's engineered.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Brilliantly to do that.
Speaker 9 (13:10):
It's like it's like the kind of like diabolical apotheosis
of hundreds of years of figuring out how to how
to make audiences more and more.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Pass What do you what do you mean? Okay, break
that down, tell me exactly what you mean by that.
Speaker 9 (13:24):
So it's the quintessence of this thing that we call narrative.
We have a term for this in narrative theory.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It's called vacuous agon.
Speaker 9 (13:33):
Vacuous agon, and basically what that needs is like when
there's a conflict, but there's no stress, there's no anxiety
in the viewer because you know that it's going to
work out. And this is a I have to give
credit to who coined this term. It's it's a brilliant
member of my lab. His name is Mike Bevinissi. He
coined the term after watching Phoeneas and Ferr, which is
a Disney show, with his three children. And the point
(13:53):
of vacuous agon is that you're constantly being presented with
problems that are solved immediately.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
At the moment that you are presented with the problem.
Speaker 9 (14:02):
And I think it's probably obviously few having I'm sure
watched several episodes of the show. How mechanically what the
show does is it gives you a problem, and then
immediately Rider shows up like a helicopter parent, like the
ultimate helicopter parent, and tells everybody exactly what to do
so the problem will go away, and then we just
kind of watch as a problem goes away.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah, that's exactly right. So and you think that's problematic, because.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It's not that I think it's problematic now, and it's
that I know it's problematic.
Speaker 9 (14:30):
So I don't know if you're aware of this, but
there for the last thirty years, it's been.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
This crisis in American schools.
Speaker 9 (14:35):
American kids have been getting less creative, and because they've
been getting less creative, they've been less able to solve
their own problems. And because theyre less able to solve
their own problems, they have these rises and anxiety and anger,
you know, losses of stuff, and I'm gonna see resilience
all these kinds of things and you know the major
reason for this is that we are either.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Solving their problems for them.
Speaker 9 (14:53):
Yeah, that we're coming in and solving their problems for them,
or we're essentially suspending them in this state of giving
them artificial problems. So an artificial problem is like a
math problem or standardized test or something that doesn't exist
in the real world, and you know, and you learn
the formula, and which you learn the formula, you know
how to solve it. And so kids are developing this
ability to get better and better and better and better at.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
School, and then they just keep failing at life.
Speaker 9 (15:14):
And this TV show is a paradigmatic example of that
entire process.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I mean, I mean it solves all the problems before you.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
There's no ability you have to exercise any curiosity because
the moment a problem happens, like literally, you're told these
two dogs are going to go solve it in exactly
this way, there's no opportunity for the brain to engage
what we.
Speaker 9 (15:33):
Call on counterfactual cause while thinking these processes that are
currently encounter a problem. The whole reason for imaginative literature,
the reason that things like Curious George and Winnie the
Pooh were created or to stimulate these processes in young shoulder,
because at the age of four is actually when they
develop the capacity for irony, for.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Narrative irony, and all those.
Speaker 9 (15:50):
Books and reading with your children for reasons we can
discuss if you're interested, stimulates all those processes.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
And when you watch this show, it nukes them.
Speaker 9 (15:59):
So it's not bad in the sense that like giving
your children ice cream isn't bad.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Right, they can have ice cream. But if all you
give them is ice cream, what happens to them? Right?
They become diabetic. And it's the same thing with this show.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
And yeah, God, I feel bad now. You filled me
with a kind of degree of self loathing and guilt
over the damage I'm doing to my daughter's imagination, her
ability to problem solve. This is what you do. I
should point out how strange this is. A generation ago
(16:28):
people love children's television. The invention of children's television was
one of America's signature cultural Triumphs. Intellectuals wrote love songs
to children's television. I remember once in the late nineteen
nineties when I discovered Sesame Street for the first time.
I was so entranced that I went to the Sesame
Street studios and just hung out there for what seemed
(16:52):
like days. I was there during the great Slimy episode.
Maybe you remember this Slimy, the adorable Sesame Street worm
becomes an astronaut, and so the Sesame Street staff brought
in Tony Bennett, whose signature, son of course, was fly
me to the Moon to sing.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Slimy to the moon.
Speaker 9 (17:14):
And when this worm arrives, you'll find.
Speaker 7 (17:19):
He'll take a leap that small for him but huge
for all worm God.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I was there for that, standing this close to the
legend himself, who acted like this was the greatest moment
of his entire career. My point is, back in the day,
the leading cultural figures of our time would happily make
the pilgrimage to a random TV studio in Queen's to
make light of their own work on behalf of Toddler's Everywhere.
(17:48):
But now the cultural luminaries and the intellectuals have abandoned ship.
By eleven minutes into his denunciation of Bob Patrol, Angus
had mentioned Dickens, the A team, Plautus and Aristophanes. Now
he'd moved on to explaining the phenomenon of new comedy
(18:11):
and contrasting it with something he called old comedy.
Speaker 9 (18:17):
And what happens in old comedy is you're presented with
real problems. So an example of a real problem would
be war or the breakdown of democracy. And then the
comedy goes on and the problem gets worse, and it
gets worse, and it gets worse and it gets worse.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And then eventually the comedy falls apart. It just ends.
And basically the comedy is saying, that's a big problem.
You guys in the audience, better figure out how to
solve that.
Speaker 9 (18:39):
So it forced people to think about hard things in
a public place where they get kind of oppress, up
with it and solve their own problems. Then what happened
was the emergence of new comedy, which is essentially light entertainment.
And what happens in light entertainment is a fake problem
is posed, a fake problem is posed, and then just
if you might be getting stressed about this fake problem,
(19:02):
the comedy answers it for you by the end, so
you can relax. So what's diabolical about paw Patrol is
it takes real problems in terms something to imaginary problems.
It's like it's like the end it's like the year
of comedy, because I mean, there are real problems that
it seems to embrace, you know, it don't seem to
get in trouble and stuff like that, you know, but
then it just reveals that they're all, you know, not
(19:22):
a problem and you don't have to worry about them
because you know, writer will just show up or there'll
be some like weird gizmo gadget thing that will solve
the problem for you. So, you know, just relaxed, preschooler,
don't worry about this big bag world you're entering in
because it's just fine.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Don't even use your brain. Why why were you even
giving a brain? What's the point of a brain?
Speaker 6 (19:38):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
You need to solve problems. Everything's already solved like a
perfect I.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Know, I promised you that I was going to play
Angus at full length, Angus unbound. And if this was
a Joe Rogan experience, and I bring up Joe Rogan
for a reason, by the way, because revisionist history is
coming back to Joe Rogan big time in the coming weeks.
If this was a Joe Rogan experience, I'd have just
run it all efit. Who among us does not have
(20:02):
a spare three and a half hours to listen to
a perfect stranger speak about the weightlifting routines. My assumption
is that you, unlike the many millions of Roganites, have jobs.
So from here on out, I'm just giving you the
good parts. So what would happen if you showed an
old comedy show to a child? What happens if in
(20:23):
paw patrol they don't solve the problem? What does my
daughter do?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah? So this is great, So your child will become concerned.
Speaker 9 (20:32):
Your child will become concerned, and then your child will
probably turn to you as the authority figure in her
life and be like, I'm kind of concerned. What's going
to happen to that truck that's suspended over that cast
and or whatever other paw patrol the problem there is, right? Yeah,
And then you're gonna look very seriously at them and say,
I don't know, what do you think is going to happen?
And then they would have to pause, and then they
(20:52):
would think, and then they would have to imagine themselves
solving the problem.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And that's the value.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I'm a new parent, just over three years into the experience,
and I have all the insecurities that come with being
a rookie. I don't know what I'm doing. I put
my daughters in bed at night and pray they fall asleep.
I make them oatmeal in the morning and pray they
eat it. I help build castles made of magnetiles and
pray they don't destroy them. And all the while I
(21:23):
ask myself, who are these mysterious creatures over whom I
have recklessly been given dominion? And now Angus, who I
admire like few others, was telling me I was doing
it all wrong.
Speaker 9 (21:39):
You're deleting their capacity to develop an awareness of other
answers to problems. You're removing that source of natural creativity.
You're also removing the pressure on them to try and
find that perspective to solve those other problems. And so
this entire part of their brain is just atrophying at
the exact critical moment when as human beings were supposed
(22:00):
to have it and it's supposed to come online.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
This is devastated. This has been a devastating conversation.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
When we come back my grand unified theory of pow
patrol I said way back in the beginning that there
was an important clue in my conversation with the creators
(22:31):
of the Paw Patrol movies, something crucial to understanding my
stubborn affection for the Paw Patrol franchise. Something about University Avenue.
I remember that you might have wondered what University Avenue
I was referring to. Well, it's the one in Toronto.
University Avenue is one of the central boulevards that runs
(22:53):
through downtown Toronto. It is the Broadway of Toronto. In
the Pow Patrol movie, it appears as a little visual
clue that tells you something crucially important about writer and
his band of Mary Pops. Something I realized, as I
prepared to rect bond to Angus's attacks, that even the
mighty Angus had missed. Now but wait, now, I feel Angus,
(23:19):
your arguments are so compelling and overwhelming. I feel foolish
in offering my defense of poor Patrol. But I should,
I think, I feel I should do it anyway. The
key to understanding Pow Patrol, so this is This is
the alternate Po Patrol theory. And the key to the
alternate Po Patrol theory is understanding that it is a
Canadian show. Pow Patrol is conceived, made and distributed from
(23:45):
my home country of Canada. It is as Canadian as
maple syrup, as Canadian as a flock of geese streaking
across the sky. And what pow Patrol is doing is
enacting a fantasy of municipal competence, which is absolutely essential
to understanding what understanding Canada. That's what Canada is, right,
(24:09):
is a country which has which is formed. What is
the you know, the essential credo of the United States
is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, an individualist credo.
What is the parallel credo of Canada that was embedded
in the Canadian Articles of Confederation? It is peace, order
and good government?
Speaker 8 (24:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
What is popetrol? Pow Patrol is an homage and it
is it is the elaboration of the notion of peace,
order and good government. And the key thing in the
po Patrol song at the very beginning they go pop Patrol,
Pa Patrol. Whenever you're in trouble, pot Patrol, Pop Patrol
will be there on the double.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
That's crucial.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
It is that not only is every problem assessed, but
every problem is is addressed in a timely manner, in
an efficient, competent manner. So that what Papacho is all
about is that this is, in Canadian terms, is what
we want our state to do. Right, it is too
(25:14):
and what is what is pap patrol itself? It is
it's a It's an example of interagency cooperation, right, Chase
the police dog, Marshall the firefighter, Sky the pilot, Rubble
the contractor, all working together. Very Canadian notion that if only,
if only we join hands and and cooperat across disciplines,
(25:38):
we can more effectively address the social ills of plague us. Right,
it's just Canada at all. So what my daughter is
getting is essentially Canada.
Speaker 9 (25:49):
Yeah, well, I mean I I've seen on the news
how perfect things are in Canada.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Malcolm Sino has convinced me it's a. It's a it's
a utopian land where everything works out, there's there's no
there's no problems.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Better it's a comparative judgment. H this point about the
central of public sector competence to the Canadian identity, it's
worth a bit of a digression. It concerns the nineteen
ninety one hit single from the band Crash Test Dummies.
Perhaps you remember it. It was called Superman's Song, and
(26:24):
it turns on a sociological comparison of Tarzan and Superman.
Speaker 7 (26:29):
Tarzaan wasn't the leadies Man.
Speaker 10 (26:35):
He just come along and scoop my bonder is arm
like that, quick as a kid him the junngle.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Superman, the song argues, is Tarzan's antithesis. He's not some
rapacious propheteer.
Speaker 7 (26:53):
Superman of made anybody receiving the world from silom and grundy.
And sometimes I've dispilled the global elbows.
Speaker 8 (27:09):
You love the man.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
This is how the lead singer for the Crash Test Dummies,
Brad Roberts, explained his thinking to a college newspaper.
Speaker 10 (27:21):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Superman, as cast in Superman's Song is obviously a left
wing political figure. His activity in the community is intrinsic
to his being. Superman is being juxtaposed against Tarzan, who
is kind of a lazy faire capitalist type who retreats
to the forest and rejects the idea of the community.
(27:42):
He wants to live in a so called animal state,
and he doesn't want to be bothered with any kind
of political realities. Unquote. First of all, how great is
it that rock stars once talked like this second. On
the basis of this argument, where do you think the
crash test dummies are from? It's obvious Canada. Of course,
(28:05):
this is a song that could only have been written
by a Canadian. Only a Canadian would find something utterly
reprehensible in Tarzan's naked displays of strength and brute force,
and only a Canadian would look long and hard at
Superman and conclude he's one of us.
Speaker 7 (28:23):
Listen, Hey, Bob, Soup had a strange job. Even though
he could of smashing any banking in the United States,
he hadn't strength, but he would.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Not any bank in the United States. Meaning Superman is
at a place below the border, where the expectation is
he will use his gifts for his own selfish ends.
The superhero who puts his community first stands for peace,
order and good government.
Speaker 7 (28:58):
Sometimes Soup was stopping crimes how bad he was tempted
to just quit an time bad long Man joint Tarzi Forest.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
The forest clearly referring to anything below the forty ninth parallel, but.
Speaker 7 (29:23):
Stayed in the sanity.
Speaker 10 (29:27):
Cap down, change.
Speaker 7 (29:28):
In clothes in dirty old Fall. Boostelia's work was through
the in earth and to dom.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
But go home.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
He stayed in the city working out of decrepit foam
booths because he believed super strength and superpowers ought to
be deployed on behalf of the public good. When I
see Superman, I think he's a Paw Patrol character. Before
we got hooked on Paw Patrol, my daughter and I
(30:00):
watched Minie's Bowtoons, equally absurdly popular short cartoons about a
small business run by a Mini Mouse and her best
friend and maybe lover I'm unclear on that. Daisy Duck
devoted to selling bows a boutique. And yes, the theme
song is as good as you might imagine.
Speaker 8 (30:29):
Coming time.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
You always well.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Every episode of Bowtoons also begins with a problem, which
the episode resolves through Minie's ingenuity and persistence that.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Gives me an idea.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
But who is the beneficiary of Minnie's ingenuity. Minis Mini
and her considerable business interests. There is no community in
Minnie Mouse's Bowtoons, no civic obligations. There is only the
profit that ensues to Mini and her shareholders.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
There's no business, let business.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
All of this made me think of the first lines
of sol Bello's novel The Adventures of Augie March may
be the most famous opening sentence in all of American literature. Quote,
I am an American Chicago born Chicago, that somber city,
and go at things as I have taught myself freestyle
(31:33):
and will make the record in my own way. First
to knock first admitted, sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a
not so innocent unquote. That's Minnie Mouse in a nutshell.
Many is American Disney born Many is for many. Many
is about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But
(31:54):
do you know the dirty little secret about sal Bello?
He was a Canadian, and I wouldn't be surprised if
in an earlier version of Augie March, sal Bello admitted
to the truth of his birthright. I am a Canadian
Toronto born Toronto, that clean and tidy city, and we
(32:14):
go at things as I have been taught by the
civic institutions of my municipality, through cooperation and interagency task forces.
First to respond, first to apologize, always an innocent knock.
Angus Fletcher, genius in residence, made lots of very good points,
(32:34):
but did he deal with the elephants in the room?
Tarzan Minnie Mouse, Saal Bella. He did not. I'm simply
saying that I'm understanding where this notion, the notion of
the new comedy is so implicit in the Canadian national narrative.
That's what it is. There are no real problems in Canada.
(32:56):
Canada is this oasis. We're surrounded by countries with will problems,
not Canada. We don't pick fights with people, we don't
have racism, we welcome immigrants, we have national health care.
It is the Kennedy is the embodiment of the of
the promise of the new comedy. Every problem can be
simply addressed through some interagency task force. Right, so my
(33:19):
daughter is just getting a She's just getting a little
bit of Canadian propaganda. That's how I would read it,
Angus said. The Paw Patrol's problem was that it was
vacuous agon. Paw Patrol's weakness was that it constantly presented
its little viewers with a problem solved at the moment
of its presentation. But when I look around me at
(33:39):
the world, all I can say is, I don't know.
I could use a little more vacuous agon in my
life right now. A world where there is a puppy
optimized for every kind of peril, where help arrives at
the very moment it is summoned, where the hero's work
not to benefit themselves but the community in which they live.
(34:00):
Where the definition of a superman is someone who turns
down the opportunity to rob every bank and instead toils
on behalf of his countrymen as a fantasy, an aspiration
to plant in my daughter's head here and now that
doesn't sound too bad, sapajo, We are on the double.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Wherever this is album Joan and Venturday rather is the
female possible Go and see today Marshall Wobble, James Lucky,
do It Guy on the Way Love A Popular.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Provision's History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan
and Ben Addaph Haffrey. Our editor is Karen Chakerji. Fact
checking by Sam Russick, Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, Mixing
and mastering by Echo Mountain. Production support from Lupleman. Our
executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks Sarah Nix and
(35:07):
l Hefe Greta Coom. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. My daughter made
this whole episode possible. Get add free episodes of Revision's
history by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the
show page on Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm,
(35:27):
slash Plus. Pushkin Plus subscribers can access ad free episodes,
full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all pushkin
shows
Pushkin. Hello, Hello, everyone, You're in for a treat today.
I'm going to do battle on behalf of my three
year old against some of the leading intellectuals of our day.
My producer says this is her favorite revisionist history episode ever.
As they say on the internet, big if true. If
(00:35):
you missed it. We opened this many season with two
episodes about the death of George Floyd, which I hope
you listen to if you haven't already, and coming up soon.
My colleague Benda daph Haffrey gives us the real story
about well, I'm not going to tell you. All I'll
say is when I listen to it, every single fact
Ben relates in that episode was something I'd never heard
(00:58):
of before. Oh and one last thing. I mentioned it
last week. I'm doing my tour with No Small Endeavor
and Drew Holcombe April ninth in Louisville, April tenth in Indianapolis,
and April eleventh in Grand Rapids. It's going to be
a lot of fun. If you live anywhere near those cities,
you gotta go check it out at No Small Endeavor
dot com. Okay, off we go. Enjoy everyone. Every night,
(01:24):
after bath and just before bedtime. My three year old
and I settled down in front of the television.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Pomcho.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Pomcho will be there on the double never there's a problem,
rounded bench base.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
If you're not a parent of a young child, it's
entirely possible you have no idea what pap Patrol is.
That's fine. Before I had children, I had never heard
of it either, So let me explain. It's a multi
billion dollar franchise centered around a band of puppies who
are called upon in each episode to rescue someone in peril.
(02:00):
There's a police dog named Chase, a fire dog named Marshall,
a helicopter pilot named Sky, a roadworks puppy named Rubble.
They stop when we trains, They fight fires, They repair
the damaged flying saucers of adorable stranded aliens with enormous eyes.
You get the picture. Among toddlers, pow Patrol is bigger
(02:22):
than Elmo. It's bigger than Mickey Mouse. Just ask my
daughter Pa Patrol.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
We're on the double wherever it is. Alb Don invent today,
rather is the female popule Gold and Fee Today. Marshall, Wobble,
Jay's Lucky new a guy I like Luck, Foculous.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
And yet for some reason, every parent I know, every
student of children's television, every adult who has more than
a passing interest in the intellectual and moral development of
our young hates pop Patrol. Like the Reddit thread, Paw
Patrol has ruined by child's brain quote. Everything about Paw
(03:08):
Patrol is awful. The yelling and constant panic, the stereotypes,
the terrible design, the tropes. I wish it would disappear
from the face of the earth and take all of
its merch with it. Go to TikTok. They hate the puppies.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
There's some things that really piss me off when it
comes to Popatrol. It's pretty simple. It sucks. My sun
watches Paw Patrol. I hate it.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Everyone hates it except for me. And this episode is
my attempt to convince you that I'm right and everyone
else is wrong. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening
to Revisionist History, my podcast where I like to argue
on behalf of things that all common sense suggests are
not true. The following defense of Power Patrol is squarely
(03:59):
in that tradition. It is a search and rescue mission
for a show about search and rescue missions in all
my long years of doing revisionist history, I have never
tackled a more forbidding task. I started by calling people,
(04:20):
anyone who I thought could help, asking the same questions
over and over again. First to a parent who had
lived through what I'm living through right now, we are
here to discuss poor Patrol, which looms large in my
life at the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Then again to an intellectual someone I admired. I don't
understand that the amount of hatred the show gets. And again,
this time to a sociologist, someone who has published in
academic journals on the Pow Patrol phenomenon. I am calling
you because I spend every night watching Paw Patrol.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
And I'm sorry, sorry to hear that.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I spent so much time googling Pow Patrol. Google started
feeding me Paw Patrol content, like the actress Kia Knightley
on The Tonight Show explaining what it's like to be
the mother of a three year old. Wait for it,
baby's a toddler. Baby's not a baby.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
It's not anymore.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, she's huge, three and a half, three and a half.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Are you into uh? Are you into Paw Patrol?
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I'm sorry, Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Everyone is sorry. Well,
I'm into Paw Patrol and I'm not sorry. Paw Patrol
takes place in two imaginary towns, Adventure Bay and Foggy Bottom.
The group has as its headquarters what looks like a
giant postmodern air traffic control center, complete with a really
(05:47):
cool fire station poll that moves the members of the
Paw Patrol from the briefing room to their waiting vehicles,
vehicles which are all, by the way, available separately for purchase.
In a typical Paw Patrol episode, and I say typical
when I really mean every single Paw Patrol episode ever,
(06:09):
someone in the greater Adventure Bay Foggy Bottom metropolitan area
has a problem. They call Rider, who is a little
boy in charge of the Paw Patrol operation. He summons
the pups from whatever adorably cute leisure activity they are
engaged in.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
They come running, mighty pups too long, lookout, Rider needs us.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
And without fail, the problem is solved.
Speaker 7 (06:33):
No job is too big, no pump is too small.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
For example, in season seven, episode thirteen, Pop Patrol pops
save Election Day, a particular favorite in the Glabal household,
Mayor Humdinger of Foggy Bottom has decided unexpectedly to run
for are of Adventure City, precipitating a crisis. Humdinger is
wreaking havoc on the campaign trail, causing all kinds of
chaos downtown. This leads Alex, an adorable little boy who
(07:00):
happens to find himself in the midst of the mayhem,
to call for help.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
It all happened because Mayor Hundinger's kidneys are launching the
election stuff everywhere.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
We'll be right there, Alex. There's a short briefing in
the situation room. Writer gives that instructions.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
So for this mission, I'll need Chase.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I need you to use your net to.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
Stop mister porters out of control skateboard ride. Chase is
on the case, and Marsha, I'll need you to use
your lender to help get Danny Dun from that big billboard.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
I'm ready for a rough, rough rescue.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
And off the pops go. Hey guys, Hey, malcolme, how
you doing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
How's it go ahead?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I called up Cal Brunker and Bob Barlin, the writers
behind the Paw Patrol movies. I asked them why they
thought kids loved the show so much.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
The structures are so clear and consistent from episode to
episode that it really it pulls them in and they're
able to feel comfortable and confident in that world of storytelling.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Oh I forgot to mention that in addition to eleven
seasons of Paw Patrol television shows, there have been two
Paw Patrol movies, which to get a grossed three hundred
and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
The structure of the show is really quite smart in
how they go about every every rescue that takes place.
Writer tells the pops what they're gonna do, and then
they show up and they do the same thing that.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
He's just told the audience.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
So I think the participation level from a child is
able to be so much more because it's less surprising.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I did not grow up with the television, so this
experience is all new to me. Maybe that's why I
like Pop Patrol so much. Everyone else groans in silent
agony over the thought of watching, say, Pop Patrol the
movie for the fourth time. Me I'm like, what new
fresh insights can I glean this time around about Chase
the police dog, a German shepherd who struggles with feelings
(08:58):
of inadequacy.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Chase has got a backstory, and I mean that at
its highest level. Chase believes that being scared means he's
not a hero, and so he should be part of it.
And he learns that heroes get scared too, but keep going.
That's what makes them hero.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Writer has that scene with him where they relive when
he found Chase for the first time. Yes, I love
I love to hear you saying that brings y on
what is clearly University avenue. That's, by the way, remember
that reference University avenue. What am I referring to? A
(09:39):
small clue to my grand unified theory of power patrol,
A clue which I'm guessing all the other parents missed
because they run their phones checking Instagram. Now that so,
because there is what's really interesting is it there? When
my daughter was watching that, she the first we've seen
(10:00):
it more than once, that movie, and the first time
she saw it, I think she was genuinely affected by it.
I mean it was clear it was a different kind
of emotional experience and she'd been getting from the TV shows.
In the second and third time. Gripping my hand tightly,
this is exactly what the corporate benefactors of the Paw
(10:20):
Patrol franchise desire a bonding moment between a dad and
his daughter over a disconsolate puppy. Was my daughter wearing
Paw Patrol pajamas as this was happening, Yes she was.
And yet there are people, lots of people who look
on that picture of family togetherness and cry foul? Can
(10:43):
you explain this? On several occasions, in the course of
almost a decade now of revisionist history, I have called
on Angus Fletcher, neuroscientist turned narrative theorist genius in residence
(11:06):
at Ohio State University. Remember, for example, back to our
three part revision of the ending of Disney's The Little Mermaid,
arguably the intellectual high watermark of the entire revision's history.
Corpus Angus provided the intellectual firepower. And remember when we
did a whole series on the greatest movie scripts that
(11:27):
never got made? Angus had one, of course he did.
Angus is much much smarter than I am. More important,
Angus is not hopelessly sentimental like I am. He would
not be derailed by the gentle pressure of a three
year old stubby fingers. And when I remember that Angus
also has kids. I called him up now a small
(11:52):
thing before we go on. Normally, when we interview people,
we edit the tape. I interject with commentary. The whole
thing is compressed and annotated. We give you snippets, but
snippets do not do justice to Professor Angus Fletcher. So
you're going to get Angus unbound. I want to start you.
(12:13):
You too went to a Paw Patrol period with your children?
Is this correct?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I did?
Speaker 8 (12:17):
Yeah, so my son likes Paw Patrol and I had
an immediate horrifying flashback when you brought the subject up,
because I went back and tried to watch a couple
episodes just to remind myself and immediately had to shut
them off, actually for for self preservation.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
But there are many things to unpack here. First of all,
how long did your son still actively watch Pow Patrol?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
No? No, absolutely still alive.
Speaker 8 (12:40):
So so we managed to we managed to save him
in time.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
You're so, you're and why you were watching it with
your son? Why?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Why?
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Why did this show not appeal to you? What is
it about it that's like hitting you the wrong way?
Speaker 9 (12:54):
It's designed to anesthetize your brain. I mean, I feel
like I am mainlining Horse trenqu Wiser. It's a show
that is studiously designed to interrupt active thought. I mean,
that's like the purpose of the show, and it's it's engineered.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Brilliantly to do that.
Speaker 9 (13:10):
It's like it's like the kind of like diabolical apotheosis
of hundreds of years of figuring out how to how
to make audiences more and more.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Pass What do you what do you mean? Okay, break
that down, tell me exactly what you mean by that.
Speaker 9 (13:24):
So it's the quintessence of this thing that we call narrative.
We have a term for this in narrative theory.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It's called vacuous agon.
Speaker 9 (13:33):
Vacuous agon, and basically what that needs is like when
there's a conflict, but there's no stress, there's no anxiety
in the viewer because you know that it's going to
work out. And this is a I have to give
credit to who coined this term. It's it's a brilliant
member of my lab. His name is Mike Bevinissi. He
coined the term after watching Phoeneas and Ferr, which is
a Disney show, with his three children. And the point
(13:53):
of vacuous agon is that you're constantly being presented with
problems that are solved immediately.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
At the moment that you are presented with the problem.
Speaker 9 (14:02):
And I think it's probably obviously few having I'm sure
watched several episodes of the show. How mechanically what the
show does is it gives you a problem, and then
immediately Rider shows up like a helicopter parent, like the
ultimate helicopter parent, and tells everybody exactly what to do
so the problem will go away, and then we just
kind of watch as a problem goes away.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah, that's exactly right. So and you think that's problematic, because.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It's not that I think it's problematic now, and it's
that I know it's problematic.
Speaker 9 (14:30):
So I don't know if you're aware of this, but
there for the last thirty years, it's been.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
This crisis in American schools.
Speaker 9 (14:35):
American kids have been getting less creative, and because they've
been getting less creative, they've been less able to solve
their own problems. And because theyre less able to solve
their own problems, they have these rises and anxiety and anger,
you know, losses of stuff, and I'm gonna see resilience
all these kinds of things and you know the major
reason for this is that we are either.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Solving their problems for them.
Speaker 9 (14:53):
Yeah, that we're coming in and solving their problems for them,
or we're essentially suspending them in this state of giving
them artificial problems. So an artificial problem is like a
math problem or standardized test or something that doesn't exist
in the real world, and you know, and you learn
the formula, and which you learn the formula, you know
how to solve it. And so kids are developing this
ability to get better and better and better and better at.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
School, and then they just keep failing at life.
Speaker 9 (15:14):
And this TV show is a paradigmatic example of that
entire process.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I mean, I mean it solves all the problems before you.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
There's no ability you have to exercise any curiosity because
the moment a problem happens, like literally, you're told these
two dogs are going to go solve it in exactly
this way, there's no opportunity for the brain to engage
what we.
Speaker 9 (15:33):
Call on counterfactual cause while thinking these processes that are
currently encounter a problem. The whole reason for imaginative literature,
the reason that things like Curious George and Winnie the
Pooh were created or to stimulate these processes in young shoulder,
because at the age of four is actually when they
develop the capacity for irony, for.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Narrative irony, and all those.
Speaker 9 (15:50):
Books and reading with your children for reasons we can
discuss if you're interested, stimulates all those processes.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
And when you watch this show, it nukes them.
Speaker 9 (15:59):
So it's not bad in the sense that like giving
your children ice cream isn't bad.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Right, they can have ice cream. But if all you
give them is ice cream, what happens to them? Right?
They become diabetic. And it's the same thing with this show.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
And yeah, God, I feel bad now. You filled me
with a kind of degree of self loathing and guilt
over the damage I'm doing to my daughter's imagination, her
ability to problem solve. This is what you do. I
should point out how strange this is. A generation ago
(16:28):
people love children's television. The invention of children's television was
one of America's signature cultural Triumphs. Intellectuals wrote love songs
to children's television. I remember once in the late nineteen
nineties when I discovered Sesame Street for the first time.
I was so entranced that I went to the Sesame
Street studios and just hung out there for what seemed
(16:52):
like days. I was there during the great Slimy episode.
Maybe you remember this Slimy, the adorable Sesame Street worm
becomes an astronaut, and so the Sesame Street staff brought
in Tony Bennett, whose signature, son of course, was fly
me to the Moon to sing.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Slimy to the moon.
Speaker 9 (17:14):
And when this worm arrives, you'll find.
Speaker 7 (17:19):
He'll take a leap that small for him but huge
for all worm God.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I was there for that, standing this close to the
legend himself, who acted like this was the greatest moment
of his entire career. My point is, back in the day,
the leading cultural figures of our time would happily make
the pilgrimage to a random TV studio in Queen's to
make light of their own work on behalf of Toddler's Everywhere.
(17:48):
But now the cultural luminaries and the intellectuals have abandoned ship.
By eleven minutes into his denunciation of Bob Patrol, Angus
had mentioned Dickens, the A team, Plautus and Aristophanes. Now
he'd moved on to explaining the phenomenon of new comedy
(18:11):
and contrasting it with something he called old comedy.
Speaker 9 (18:17):
And what happens in old comedy is you're presented with
real problems. So an example of a real problem would
be war or the breakdown of democracy. And then the
comedy goes on and the problem gets worse, and it
gets worse, and it gets worse and it gets worse.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And then eventually the comedy falls apart. It just ends.
And basically the comedy is saying, that's a big problem.
You guys in the audience, better figure out how to
solve that.
Speaker 9 (18:39):
So it forced people to think about hard things in
a public place where they get kind of oppress, up
with it and solve their own problems. Then what happened
was the emergence of new comedy, which is essentially light entertainment.
And what happens in light entertainment is a fake problem
is posed, a fake problem is posed, and then just
if you might be getting stressed about this fake problem,
(19:02):
the comedy answers it for you by the end, so
you can relax. So what's diabolical about paw Patrol is
it takes real problems in terms something to imaginary problems.
It's like it's like the end it's like the year
of comedy, because I mean, there are real problems that
it seems to embrace, you know, it don't seem to
get in trouble and stuff like that, you know, but
then it just reveals that they're all, you know, not
(19:22):
a problem and you don't have to worry about them
because you know, writer will just show up or there'll
be some like weird gizmo gadget thing that will solve
the problem for you. So, you know, just relaxed, preschooler,
don't worry about this big bag world you're entering in
because it's just fine.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Don't even use your brain. Why why were you even
giving a brain? What's the point of a brain?
Speaker 6 (19:38):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
You need to solve problems. Everything's already solved like a
perfect I.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Know, I promised you that I was going to play
Angus at full length, Angus unbound. And if this was
a Joe Rogan experience, and I bring up Joe Rogan
for a reason, by the way, because revisionist history is
coming back to Joe Rogan big time in the coming weeks.
If this was a Joe Rogan experience, I'd have just
run it all efit. Who among us does not have
(20:02):
a spare three and a half hours to listen to
a perfect stranger speak about the weightlifting routines. My assumption
is that you, unlike the many millions of Roganites, have jobs.
So from here on out, I'm just giving you the
good parts. So what would happen if you showed an
old comedy show to a child? What happens if in
(20:23):
paw patrol they don't solve the problem? What does my
daughter do?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah? So this is great, So your child will become concerned.
Speaker 9 (20:32):
Your child will become concerned, and then your child will
probably turn to you as the authority figure in her
life and be like, I'm kind of concerned. What's going
to happen to that truck that's suspended over that cast
and or whatever other paw patrol the problem there is, right? Yeah,
And then you're gonna look very seriously at them and say,
I don't know, what do you think is going to happen?
And then they would have to pause, and then they
(20:52):
would think, and then they would have to imagine themselves
solving the problem.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And that's the value.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I'm a new parent, just over three years into the experience,
and I have all the insecurities that come with being
a rookie. I don't know what I'm doing. I put
my daughters in bed at night and pray they fall asleep.
I make them oatmeal in the morning and pray they
eat it. I help build castles made of magnetiles and
pray they don't destroy them. And all the while I
(21:23):
ask myself, who are these mysterious creatures over whom I
have recklessly been given dominion? And now Angus, who I
admire like few others, was telling me I was doing
it all wrong.
Speaker 9 (21:39):
You're deleting their capacity to develop an awareness of other
answers to problems. You're removing that source of natural creativity.
You're also removing the pressure on them to try and
find that perspective to solve those other problems. And so
this entire part of their brain is just atrophying at
the exact critical moment when as human beings were supposed
(22:00):
to have it and it's supposed to come online.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
This is devastated. This has been a devastating conversation.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
When we come back my grand unified theory of pow
patrol I said way back in the beginning that there
was an important clue in my conversation with the creators
(22:31):
of the Paw Patrol movies, something crucial to understanding my
stubborn affection for the Paw Patrol franchise. Something about University Avenue.
I remember that you might have wondered what University Avenue
I was referring to. Well, it's the one in Toronto.
University Avenue is one of the central boulevards that runs
(22:53):
through downtown Toronto. It is the Broadway of Toronto. In
the Pow Patrol movie, it appears as a little visual
clue that tells you something crucially important about writer and
his band of Mary Pops. Something I realized, as I
prepared to rect bond to Angus's attacks, that even the
mighty Angus had missed. Now but wait, now, I feel Angus,
(23:19):
your arguments are so compelling and overwhelming. I feel foolish
in offering my defense of poor Patrol. But I should,
I think, I feel I should do it anyway. The
key to understanding Pow Patrol, so this is This is
the alternate Po Patrol theory. And the key to the
alternate Po Patrol theory is understanding that it is a
Canadian show. Pow Patrol is conceived, made and distributed from
(23:45):
my home country of Canada. It is as Canadian as
maple syrup, as Canadian as a flock of geese streaking
across the sky. And what pow Patrol is doing is
enacting a fantasy of municipal competence, which is absolutely essential
to understanding what understanding Canada. That's what Canada is, right,
(24:09):
is a country which has which is formed. What is
the you know, the essential credo of the United States
is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, an individualist credo.
What is the parallel credo of Canada that was embedded
in the Canadian Articles of Confederation? It is peace, order
and good government?
Speaker 8 (24:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
What is popetrol? Pow Patrol is an homage and it
is it is the elaboration of the notion of peace,
order and good government. And the key thing in the
po Patrol song at the very beginning they go pop Patrol,
Pa Patrol. Whenever you're in trouble, pot Patrol, Pop Patrol
will be there on the double.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
That's crucial.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
It is that not only is every problem assessed, but
every problem is is addressed in a timely manner, in
an efficient, competent manner. So that what Papacho is all
about is that this is, in Canadian terms, is what
we want our state to do. Right, it is too
(25:14):
and what is what is pap patrol itself? It is
it's a It's an example of interagency cooperation, right, Chase
the police dog, Marshall the firefighter, Sky the pilot, Rubble
the contractor, all working together. Very Canadian notion that if only,
if only we join hands and and cooperat across disciplines,
(25:38):
we can more effectively address the social ills of plague us. Right,
it's just Canada at all. So what my daughter is
getting is essentially Canada.
Speaker 9 (25:49):
Yeah, well, I mean I I've seen on the news
how perfect things are in Canada.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Malcolm Sino has convinced me it's a. It's a it's
a utopian land where everything works out, there's there's no
there's no problems.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Better it's a comparative judgment. H this point about the
central of public sector competence to the Canadian identity, it's
worth a bit of a digression. It concerns the nineteen
ninety one hit single from the band Crash Test Dummies.
Perhaps you remember it. It was called Superman's Song, and
(26:24):
it turns on a sociological comparison of Tarzan and Superman.
Speaker 7 (26:29):
Tarzaan wasn't the leadies Man.
Speaker 10 (26:35):
He just come along and scoop my bonder is arm
like that, quick as a kid him the junngle.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Superman, the song argues, is Tarzan's antithesis. He's not some
rapacious propheteer.
Speaker 7 (26:53):
Superman of made anybody receiving the world from silom and grundy.
And sometimes I've dispilled the global elbows.
Speaker 8 (27:09):
You love the man.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
This is how the lead singer for the Crash Test Dummies,
Brad Roberts, explained his thinking to a college newspaper.
Speaker 10 (27:21):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Superman, as cast in Superman's Song is obviously a left
wing political figure. His activity in the community is intrinsic
to his being. Superman is being juxtaposed against Tarzan, who
is kind of a lazy faire capitalist type who retreats
to the forest and rejects the idea of the community.
(27:42):
He wants to live in a so called animal state,
and he doesn't want to be bothered with any kind
of political realities. Unquote. First of all, how great is
it that rock stars once talked like this second. On
the basis of this argument, where do you think the
crash test dummies are from? It's obvious Canada. Of course,
(28:05):
this is a song that could only have been written
by a Canadian. Only a Canadian would find something utterly
reprehensible in Tarzan's naked displays of strength and brute force,
and only a Canadian would look long and hard at
Superman and conclude he's one of us.
Speaker 7 (28:23):
Listen, Hey, Bob, Soup had a strange job. Even though
he could of smashing any banking in the United States,
he hadn't strength, but he would.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Not any bank in the United States. Meaning Superman is
at a place below the border, where the expectation is
he will use his gifts for his own selfish ends.
The superhero who puts his community first stands for peace,
order and good government.
Speaker 7 (28:58):
Sometimes Soup was stopping crimes how bad he was tempted
to just quit an time bad long Man joint Tarzi Forest.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
The forest clearly referring to anything below the forty ninth parallel, but.
Speaker 7 (29:23):
Stayed in the sanity.
Speaker 10 (29:27):
Cap down, change.
Speaker 7 (29:28):
In clothes in dirty old Fall. Boostelia's work was through
the in earth and to dom.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
But go home.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
He stayed in the city working out of decrepit foam
booths because he believed super strength and superpowers ought to
be deployed on behalf of the public good. When I
see Superman, I think he's a Paw Patrol character. Before
we got hooked on Paw Patrol, my daughter and I
(30:00):
watched Minie's Bowtoons, equally absurdly popular short cartoons about a
small business run by a Mini Mouse and her best
friend and maybe lover I'm unclear on that. Daisy Duck
devoted to selling bows a boutique. And yes, the theme
song is as good as you might imagine.
Speaker 8 (30:29):
Coming time.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
You always well.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Every episode of Bowtoons also begins with a problem, which
the episode resolves through Minie's ingenuity and persistence that.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Gives me an idea.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
But who is the beneficiary of Minnie's ingenuity. Minis Mini
and her considerable business interests. There is no community in
Minnie Mouse's Bowtoons, no civic obligations. There is only the
profit that ensues to Mini and her shareholders.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
There's no business, let business.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
All of this made me think of the first lines
of sol Bello's novel The Adventures of Augie March may
be the most famous opening sentence in all of American literature. Quote,
I am an American Chicago born Chicago, that somber city,
and go at things as I have taught myself freestyle
(31:33):
and will make the record in my own way. First
to knock first admitted, sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a
not so innocent unquote. That's Minnie Mouse in a nutshell.
Many is American Disney born Many is for many. Many
is about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But
(31:54):
do you know the dirty little secret about sal Bello?
He was a Canadian, and I wouldn't be surprised if
in an earlier version of Augie March, sal Bello admitted
to the truth of his birthright. I am a Canadian
Toronto born Toronto, that clean and tidy city, and we
(32:14):
go at things as I have been taught by the
civic institutions of my municipality, through cooperation and interagency task forces.
First to respond, first to apologize, always an innocent knock.
Angus Fletcher, genius in residence, made lots of very good points,
(32:34):
but did he deal with the elephants in the room?
Tarzan Minnie Mouse, Saal Bella. He did not. I'm simply
saying that I'm understanding where this notion, the notion of
the new comedy is so implicit in the Canadian national narrative.
That's what it is. There are no real problems in Canada.
(32:56):
Canada is this oasis. We're surrounded by countries with will problems,
not Canada. We don't pick fights with people, we don't
have racism, we welcome immigrants, we have national health care.
It is the Kennedy is the embodiment of the of
the promise of the new comedy. Every problem can be
simply addressed through some interagency task force. Right, so my
(33:19):
daughter is just getting a She's just getting a little
bit of Canadian propaganda. That's how I would read it,
Angus said. The Paw Patrol's problem was that it was
vacuous agon. Paw Patrol's weakness was that it constantly presented
its little viewers with a problem solved at the moment
of its presentation. But when I look around me at
(33:39):
the world, all I can say is, I don't know.
I could use a little more vacuous agon in my
life right now. A world where there is a puppy
optimized for every kind of peril, where help arrives at
the very moment it is summoned, where the hero's work
not to benefit themselves but the community in which they live.
(34:00):
Where the definition of a superman is someone who turns
down the opportunity to rob every bank and instead toils
on behalf of his countrymen as a fantasy, an aspiration
to plant in my daughter's head here and now that
doesn't sound too bad, sapajo, We are on the double.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Wherever this is album Joan and Venturday rather is the
female possible Go and see today Marshall Wobble, James Lucky,
do It Guy on the Way Love A Popular.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Provision's History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan
and Ben Addaph Haffrey. Our editor is Karen Chakerji. Fact
checking by Sam Russick, Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, Mixing
and mastering by Echo Mountain. Production support from Lupleman. Our
executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks Sarah Nix and
(35:07):
l Hefe Greta Coom. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. My daughter made
this whole episode possible. Get add free episodes of Revision's
history by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the
show page on Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm,
(35:27):
slash Plus. Pushkin Plus subscribers can access ad free episodes,
full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all pushkin
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Host
Malcolm Gladwell
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