The Thing’s Jewish Mother


August 2, 2002


[SOUND EFFECTS FROM THE FANTASTIC FOUR]

ANNOUNCER: The Fantastic Four, starring Reed Richards, [sp?] Sue Richards [sp?], Johnny Storm [sp?], Ben Grimm-- [SIREN-LIKE SOUNDS] Reed Richards with his power to stretch! The Thing with the strength of a thousand men! Johnny! Flame on, Torch! And Sue, the invisible girl! The Fantastic Four -- united in their fight against interplanetary evil. [BOILING CAULDRON SOUNDS] Fantastic! [EXPLOSIONS]

ANNOUNCER:As Galacticas hatches a plot to enslave the universe, Ben Grimm, The Thing, stirs from his slumber. He can feel the force of evil vibrating in his granite musculature. And he is getting a message -- from far away.

JEWISH MOTHER: Benny? Benjamin! It's your mother.

BEN GRIMM, THE THING: Impossible! You died when I was a child! I was raised by Uncle Jake and Aunt Petunia!

JEWISH MOTHER: Excuse me. You took a rocket into deep space and got yourself transformed by cosmic radiation into a fakakta [sp?] metamorphic mesomorph, and you don't think your own mother can talk to you from beyond?! And by the way, you look a little jaundiced. Have you been eating leafy vegetables?

BEN GRIMM, THE THING: Ma, I'm a mutant. I'm orange.

JEWISH MOTHER: Listen to the big shot talk to his mother. Mr. Superhero with a shiksa [sp?] girlfriend. To the Mole Man you wouldn't talk this tone. Or Dr. Doom! Who, by the way, has made something of himself. I always told you, podiatry! It's a gold mine.

BEN GRIMM, THE THING: Mmmom-- I gotta go. Galacticus is wreaking havoc on the universe, and it's-- clobbering time!

JEWISH MOTHER: All right, doll. Bundle up! [SUPERHERO BAD GUY CLOBBERING MUSIC]

BOB GARFIELD: That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price and Katya Rogers with Sean Landis and Megan Ryan; engineered by Dylan Keefe, Rob Weisberg and George Edwards, and edited-- by Brooke. We had help from Rex Doane and Dan Bobkoff. Our webmaster is Amy Pearl.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Pesca is our producer at large, Arun Rath our senior producer and Dean Capello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. You can listen to the program and get free transcripts at onthemedia.org and e-mail us at onthemedia@wnyc.org. This is On the Media from NPR. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

BOB GARFIELD: Jewish. And I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Also Jewish. [LAUGHS] [MUSIC TAG] 58:30 [FUNDING CREDITS] ************