Rats

Scurrying, skittering, and scampering into your ears, it’s the Caustic Soda rats episode! Toren, Joe, and Kevin look at the brown rat and black rat. Infanticide, rat-based murder and torture, and the “Ratamari Damacy” gruesomeness of “Rat Kings”, and rat-baiting!

Music: “Muskrat Ramble” by Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby.

Images

Videos

Movies

Willard (Remake)
Toren: 5/10

Ratatouille
Joe: 8/10
Toren: 8/10

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Joe: 7/10
Kevin: 7/10
Toren: 7/10

The Princess Bride
Joe: 10/10
Kevin: 9/10
Toren: 10/10

The Secret of NIMH
Kevin: 7/10
Toren: 7/10

The Sweet Hereafter
Kevin: 10/10
Toren: 7/10

29 Responses

  1. An interesting thing about Alberta: It’s rat free. They actually have a rat border patrol that exterminates them. Rat pets are illegal, and if they escape, rat patrol will come in and do whatever it takes to get rid of it. They do this to ensure that rats cannot get into the crops and destroy them. I have heard that Saskatchewan is also trying to become rat free.

    Growing up in Alberta I had never seen a rat before in my life. When I moved to Vancouver and saw one at the sky train station, I was the only one pointing it out in excitment.

  2. An interesting thing about Alberta: It’s rat free. They actually have a rat border patrol that exterminates them. Rat pets are illegal, and if they escape, rat patrol will come in and do whatever it takes to get rid of it. They do this to ensure that rats cannot get into the crops and destroy them. I have heard that Saskatchewan is also trying to become rat free.

    Growing up in Alberta I had never seen a rat before in my life. When I moved to Vancouver and saw one at the sky train station, I was the only one pointing it out in excitment.

  3. As Canadians, I hope you are aware of the fact that the province of Alberta is completely rat free! Recently some pet store owner in Alberta tried to import rats and was quickly slapped down.

    http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex3441

    Of course there is the story of the Pied Piper which I’m assuming everyone knows. If not…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin

    Also, Flash Fact! The Pied Piper is a character in the Flash series. He started off as a rogue but eventually changed his ways and is now a crime fighter, assisting the Wally West Flash numerous times. An interesting note, Pied Piper is also openly gay in the comic.

    http://www.hyperborea.org/flash/piper.html

  4. You overlooked one of the most entertaining rat-attack songs: NoMeansNo and Jello Biafra’s “Chew.”

  5. You overlooked one of the most entertaining rat-attack songs: NoMeansNo and Jello Biafra’s “Chew.”

  6. What about Brown Jenkin, from HPL’s Dreams in the Witch-House, where he kills a baby and EATS THE HEART out of the protagonist, Walter Gilman, referencing your lesser of two evils.

  7. What about Brown Jenkin, from HPL’s Dreams in the Witch-House, where he kills a baby and EATS THE HEART out of the protagonist, Walter Gilman, referencing your lesser of two evils.

  8. A rat king was featured in Alan Moore’s The Ballad of Halo Jones, 5 rats are joined together and become super-intelligent and used to direct a rat-war, a form of warfare so viscious that it was band as it involves unleashing millions of rats upon the enemy and spreading disease and general nastiness.

    Also, cult british tv series Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace features rats peripherally in the form of the entirely-real-and-not-at-all-made-up-honest novel, “Black Fang”, which asks the question, “What if rats learned to drive?”

    1. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is the closest TV has come to perfection. I encourage you all to watch it.

  9. Great episode. Definitely one of your more disturbing ones, especially the ‘Lesser Evil’ segment. I was totally on the rat side until Joe came up with the idea of knocking yourself unconcious in the brass bull. Though, in that sense you could just swallow your tongue or bite it off in the rat situation. Depends on if you want to choke or bleed to death I guess.

  10. Great Show and enjoy listening to it. Thanks for putting it out, the show is the one I make sure to download every week. Don’t give up and keep them coming. Question by the way anyone coming out to Winnipeg for Central Canada Comic Con this year. Be cool to see the group out here.

    On the lesser of two evils, bronze bull all the way over the rats any day. Once the temperature reaches 150 degrees you’ll pass out in 15 minutes or less, human body can’t rid itself of heat at that temperature. You’ll go quicker as the temperature rises. Rats gnawing through your guts, hours of pain before death.

    1. Hey, if you know anyone who runs that Comic Con and they want to invite us out to attend as guests, I’m sure we would be more than happy to come out and record a live episode!

      The bronze bull is definitely gaining some momentum, but that slow boil is a tough pill to swallow.

  11. Great Show and enjoy listening to it. Thanks for putting it out, the show is the one I make sure to download every week. Don’t give up and keep them coming. Question by the way anyone coming out to Winnipeg for Central Canada Comic Con this year. Be cool to see the group out here.

    On the lesser of two evils, bronze bull all the way over the rats any day. Once the temperature reaches 150 degrees you’ll pass out in 15 minutes or less, human body can’t rid itself of heat at that temperature. You’ll go quicker as the temperature rises. Rats gnawing through your guts, hours of pain before death.

    1. Hey, if you know anyone who runs that Comic Con and they want to invite us out to attend as guests, I’m sure we would be more than happy to come out and record a live episode!

      The bronze bull is definitely gaining some momentum, but that slow boil is a tough pill to swallow.

  12. The most disturbing pop culture reference was from the book American Psycho (but not the movie). This is from the plot summary write up on wikipedia:

    “In one section of the novel, Bateman forces a tube into a woman’s vagina and lets a rat loose inside of her. After pulling the tube out he continues to saw her in half with a chainsaw.”

    There’s also the scene from 1984 where they take Winston to room 101. They finally manage to break him through exploiting his fear of rats by attaching a cage full of hungry rats to his face.

  13. Just a couple of mentions: King Rat, a book by China Mieville, it’s worth a read, it’s similar to American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

    Also if you ever do a spiders episode you can mention Sweet Hereafter again for Ian Holm’s monologue about his daughter being bitten by a black widow.

  14. 1.) If capybaras are on the table (so to speak), we’ve got the Rasputina song Rats

    2.) Speaking of Chinese torture, if you ever saw the original single volume publication of Masks of Nyarlathotep, well you know the full color plate I’m talking about.

    3.) Rats were a massive ecological disaster following European sailors in the Pacific, wiping out all sorts of indigenous species.

  15. 1.) If capybaras are on the table (so to speak), we’ve got the Rasputina song Rats

    2.) Speaking of Chinese torture, if you ever saw the original single volume publication of Masks of Nyarlathotep, well you know the full color plate I’m talking about.

    3.) Rats were a massive ecological disaster following European sailors in the Pacific, wiping out all sorts of indigenous species.

  16. Emperor Rats are a Wyld-tainted monster that can be found in White Wolf’s Exalted game system. not content to merely have a bunch of rats tangled together these are giant rats that are the result of many smaller rats being fused together and growing as one creature. you get a few giant rat heads near the front and the several other regular rat heads here there and everywhere along with little tails and other things poking out of it’s body randomly.