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0:45

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0:51

Wink wink, nudge nudge, elbow

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elbow, ho

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ho ho. Please go check.

1:03

I find myself at

1:05

a certain stage of life. Is it wiggly? Mm-hmm.

1:08

What's going to happen when you lose it? Um, the

1:11

tooth fairy's going to get it.

1:14

My children are losing their baby teeth.

1:17

What do you do with your teeth? I put them in

1:19

my tooth pillow. And what happens in the

1:21

morning? The tooth fairy takes it

1:23

and then I get, she gives me money and

1:25

she flies away. The amount they

1:27

get for each tooth, a dollar, is

1:30

what I got as a kid, and the tooth pillow

1:32

they used was mine, too.

1:34

But the questions they have are all

1:36

their own. I

1:38

wonder what all the tooth fairies, if

1:41

they have a world to live in, like

1:43

a town or a world or a country

1:45

or something, like we do. Yeah,

1:48

totally. I feel like they might,

1:50

like, make their houses out of teeth. These

1:53

would take a long time because they're big.

1:55

Pixies are the tiny ones. Do fairies

1:58

have their own tooth fairy?

1:59

That is a great

2:02

question. You know what I actually

2:04

kind of think they do. They're

2:06

six and eight, and I must have

2:08

thought about things like this when I was their age, though

2:11

I seriously doubt I thought anything

2:13

as good as doofberries

2:15

have a tooth fairy. These

2:18

days, I still have questions about the tooth

2:20

fairy, but they've changed, gotten

2:23

more grown up. What

2:26

do you think the tooth fairy looks like? Tooth fairy

2:28

are like nature-y items. They're

2:30

not like weird things

2:32

that just like float around wearing big poofy skirts

2:35

all the time. What the tooth fairy

2:37

looks like is a grown-up question, because

2:39

there's no right answer.

2:41

I definitely don't know what I thought the tooth fairy looked

2:43

like. I don't

2:45

remember. Yeah, I change my mind all the

2:47

time. There are illustrations

2:50

of tooth fairies in plenty of kids' books,

2:52

and in 2010, a Hollywood movie

2:54

called The Tooth Fairy decided

2:57

it looked like a tutu wearing Dwayne

2:59

The Rock Johnson.

3:00

Who are you? I'm the tooth

3:02

fairy. Oh, yeah. That

3:05

movie also had the incredible tagline.

3:08

You can't handle the tooth. But

3:11

generally speaking, you can picture the tooth

3:13

fairy however you want. So

3:15

here's maybe the most grown-up question

3:18

of all.

3:19

How'd the tooth fairy pull that off?

3:21

How'd the tooth fairy, a widely

3:24

known and beloved magical

3:26

being already embedded in children's inner

3:28

lives, escape being sold to us in

3:31

a thousand different ways? How

3:33

has it not been given a name, an outfit,

3:36

a backstory, a TV show, a theme bark, a

3:39

cinematic universe, or an endless

3:41

line of merchandise? I

3:43

mean, how is it that we don't even know what it does

3:46

with all those teeth?

3:48

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin. We

3:51

pride ourselves on being grounded. grounded

4:00

rational beings, but flitting amongst

4:02

us is a mystery. That tooth fairy

4:04

is a flying piece of folklore alive

4:07

and well in the 21st century, handed down

4:10

from parent to child, like pretty

4:12

much however we want. In

4:15

this episode, with the help of Tinkerbell,

4:17

Santa Claus, and some savvy humans

4:19

who are trying to exploit this untapped

4:21

piece of intellectual property, we're

4:23

going to look at this strange creature, its

4:26

origins, its persistence, and

4:29

its remarkable

4:29

resistance to commercialization

4:32

in order to try and extract some grown-up

4:35

meaning from what we think of as

4:37

a childhood

4:38

ritual. So today,

4:40

on Decoder Ring, how has

4:43

the tooth fairy stayed

4:45

so free?

4:55

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does

5:02

the tooth fairy stay so free? Reboot your credit card with Apple

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5:49

Growing a tooth is a universal human experience,

5:51

but the tooth fairy is not. And

5:54

Amanda Beeler learned that as a child.

5:59

tooth fairy come. And my mom said, of course,

6:02

we'll make sure you put it in the bag. We'll take it home. At

6:04

the time, Amanda and her mom Selby were

6:06

visiting a friend from Brazil. And

6:08

the woman looked at her and said, what's the tooth fairy?

6:10

And my mom said, what do you mean, what's the tooth

6:13

fairy?

6:14

Amanda's mom Selby asked the friend

6:16

what had happened to her baby teeth instead.

6:19

And the friend said she'd tossed them outside

6:21

while reciting a poem. Soon Selby

6:24

was asking everyone. We

6:26

lived in Rochester, Minnesota, which is where the Mayo Clinic

6:29

is. It's got a huge international population.

6:31

And so she had access

6:34

to people from all over, even at home, and started

6:37

asking people, can I ask you a silly question?

6:40

Do you remember when you were a child what you did with your

6:42

teeth? When Selby asked this, people

6:44

who'd been looking at her skeptically would

6:46

smile and remember and answer.

6:49

And she just started writing them down. Selby

6:51

ultimately gathered all the rituals

6:53

she found out about in a children's book. So

6:56

my mother would be over the moon

6:58

to have this conversation. But my mother has Alzheimer's

7:00

disease. She's 81.

7:02

And she's had it for a

7:04

long time, but she has her

7:07

book on her bedside table.

7:09

It's called Throw Your Tooth on the Roof. Tooth

7:12

traditions from around the world. And

7:14

I read it to my own children. In your hand and a

7:16

big hole in your mouth. It happens

7:19

to everyone everywhere all over the world.

7:21

Look, look, my tooth fell out. My tooth fell out. But

7:23

what happens next? What

7:26

in the world do you do with your tooth? So

7:29

Throw Your Tooth on the Roof obviously is a

7:31

big one because they chose that as the title.

7:34

But there are many other traditions too. In

7:36

a bunch of countries, upper

7:39

teeth

7:39

are thrown on the roof, lower teeth are

7:41

buried in the ground to make your teeth, your

7:43

top teeth grow down and your straight

7:45

and your lower teeth grow

7:47

up. Heavy teeth are also buried.

7:49

They're thrown into fires and towards the

7:51

sun. And very often they're taken

7:53

by animals. Makes sense for a mouse

7:56

or a rat because it's somebody who's got good, strong teeth

7:58

that's going to take your tooth.

7:59

I put my tooth

8:02

under my pillow and wait for El Raton to leave

8:04

me some money. He's a mouse.

8:08

In Europe specifically, the tooth mouth can be traced

8:10

back to at least the 17th century, a

8:12

folkloric ancestor of La Petite

8:15

Suri, the little mouse who takes children's teeth

8:17

in France to this day, and also

8:19

of El Raton Bérez, who does the honors

8:22

in most Spanish-speaking countries. In

8:25

fact, the tooth fairy is the norm in just a handful

8:27

of places, mostly English-speaking

8:29

and including

8:29

Canada, where the writer Michael

8:32

Hingston

8:32

is from. It's not a foot, it's not

8:34

a finger, it's not a piece of clothing. Michael

8:37

has always been captivated by teeth. There's

8:40

something about a tooth being like this part

8:42

of a person that detaches and

8:44

then like lives on that I found so fascinating.

8:47

He started researching teeth, which promptly

8:49

led him to the tooth fairy.

8:51

So I think the surprising thing

8:53

for most people, certainly the surprising thing for me when I started looking

8:55

into this, is the tooth fairy is a pretty

8:57

recent entry to sort of these

9:01

folklore figures, these like mythological

9:04

holiday-related creatures. The

9:06

tooth fairy basically dates back to the turn of the

9:08

20th century. So she combines

9:10

two different figures that you see in

9:13

Europe and other places that date back much

9:15

further. One is that animal with

9:18

strong teeth, like a mouse or a rat,

9:20

but it could be a dog or a beaver. The other is

9:23

the fairy. Fairies

9:25

go back centuries, but they could be impish,

9:28

naughty, frightening. And

9:30

that's not the tooth fairy. She's

9:32

a good fairy. Tinkerbell! Hey,

9:36

where are you? And around the turn of the century,

9:39

the good fairy was having a bit of

9:41

a moment. J.M.

9:45

Barrie's Peter Pan, which introduced the world

9:47

to the beam of light known as Tinkerbell, was

9:49

first written as a play and staged in 1904. Around

9:53

the same time, romantic-looking fairies

9:55

were appearing in paintings and poems and illustrations.

9:58

In 1908, the term The Tooth Fairy appeared

10:01

for the first time in print, in

10:03

a domestic advice column in an American

10:05

newspaper, as a tip on how to get stubborn

10:07

children to part with their teeth. Tell

10:10

them about the Tooth Fairy, and set

10:12

aside some nickels.

10:15

The

10:16

American twist is money. Like

10:18

Americans introduced money to the equation. Tooth

10:21

rituals don't have to be transactional. Children

10:24

throw their tooth on the roof so their new tooth

10:26

will grow in straight and strong. And

10:29

in America, it

10:30

doesn't mean anything unless you also get cash.

10:33

The money may help explain why after sporadic

10:36

mentions through the 1910s and 20s, the Tooth Fairy

10:38

really took off at the tail end of the Great

10:41

Depression, when families would have

10:43

been able to afford to shell out

10:45

for a tooth.

10:48

It's also when the Good Fairy got

10:51

an exceptionally powerful boost

10:53

from a hype mouse

10:55

named Mickey. As

10:58

I live and breathe, a fairy.

11:00

Mm-mm. In 1940,

11:03

Disney released Pinocchio, in which

11:05

the Blue Fairy, a glimmer of light

11:07

who becomes a full-sized blonde woman with

11:10

wings and a sparkly blue gown,

11:12

brings the puppet to life.

11:14

She was followed by Cinderella's fairy godmother,

11:17

and in 1953, Disney's animated Peter Pan. Oh,

11:21

look, a firefly.

11:23

A pixie. Amazing. Moviegoers

11:26

are starting to become familiar with this benevolent

11:29

fairy-like figure who can make wishes and

11:31

dreams come true, and the Tooth

11:33

Fairy emerges as a result.

11:36

By the 1960s, the Tooth Fairy

11:38

was just about as established as it is

11:40

now, though a survey from the 1970s found

11:42

that 25% of people thought the Tooth Fairy was male.

11:47

Fifty years later, even if most

11:50

people now imagine the Tooth Fairy as

11:52

a Tinkerbell clone, they still

11:54

don't have to.

11:56

A kid could say they thought the Tooth Fairy looked like

11:58

a poked-out monster, and the grown-up

11:59

on hand would probably tell them they had a great

12:02

imagination or just play along.

12:04

In fact, adults playing along is

12:06

a big part of this tradition.

12:09

And sometimes it can

12:11

go wrong. So

12:13

according to my mom, I started

12:15

losing my teeth in first grade and

12:18

almost immediately I started asking

12:21

a lot of questions about the tooth fairy.

12:23

Christina Kottarucci is a senior

12:25

writer at Slate.

12:26

I was asking like, well, yeah, what's her

12:28

name? How does she do it? Basically

12:31

like what's her deal? So

12:34

Christina was encouraged to write the tooth fairy

12:36

a letter. When she woke up in the morning, there

12:38

was a response from a fairy

12:40

named Tooth Lula written

12:43

in delicate, shaky fairy

12:45

handwriting.

12:47

Tooth

12:47

Lula and Christina began a correspondence.

12:50

One time Christina even left her a present, a

12:52

cute little fruit eraser. If

12:55

you were ever a kid, especially in the

12:57

90s, you know how valuable little like novelty

12:59

erasers were. So it was actually kind of a precious

13:02

object that I was giving her.

13:04

But Christina and Tooth Lula's back and forth

13:07

was interrupted when Christina read a book for

13:09

kids that just came out and said, the

13:11

tooth fairy isn't real. I

13:14

read this book and was sort of astounded

13:17

by this revelation and

13:19

thought, you know, you don't believe

13:21

everything you read. So let

13:24

me try to figure this out for myself.

13:28

She decided to do an experiment. So

13:31

I went into my parents

13:33

room specifically with the intention of

13:36

trying to find this little token that I had given the

13:38

tooth fairy. Sure enough in

13:40

my mom's jewelry box, there was the

13:42

little eraser if I remember correctly, it was shaped

13:44

like an apple. So, you know,

13:46

that

13:47

was a big disappointment. But in my head,

13:49

I was like, okay, this

13:53

is an incontrovertible proof. There

13:56

could still be a way to explain this away. You

13:58

know, maybe the tooth fairy is a little

13:59

fairy didn't have room

14:02

for my eraser in her bag and

14:04

my mom didn't want me to feel bad. So I said,

14:06

okay, let me try one more thing.

14:09

She wrote the tooth fairy another note, but

14:11

this time she didn't tell anyone. I

14:13

put the note under my pillow

14:15

in the morning. I checked and it was still there.

14:18

And I, you know, like my heart fell. I

14:21

don't know how I made it through that whole day, but I

14:23

remember I didn't confront my parents until that

14:25

night. They were tucking me into bed

14:27

and I was like, I

14:29

have to ask you something. You

14:32

know,

14:33

I think you're the tooth fairy. I don't

14:35

think the tooth fairy is real. And here's why.

14:38

And my mom and dad were like,

14:41

you know, you're right. We're

14:43

so sorry. But like,

14:46

you know, I hope you appreciate the magic of it.

14:49

It's almost one of my strongest memories from my childhood

14:51

bedroom was like sitting in my bed and having

14:53

this conversation with my parents. And then my

14:55

mom tells me now that she could just see the gears

14:58

turning in my head and probably

15:00

like one minute into the conversation.

15:03

I go,

15:04

oh my God, what

15:06

about the Easter bunny and

15:08

Santa? Here comes

15:10

Santa Claus. Here comes Santa Claus right

15:12

down Santa Claus Lane. The tooth

15:14

fairy is, of course, part of an exclusive

15:17

club, a trio whose other members

15:19

young Christina just named. And

15:21

though they share a lot of qualities, you

15:23

can't just go around saying Santa's got polka

15:26

dots or that his name is tooth Lula.

15:28

There's so much attention paid and

15:31

detail fleshed out about like

15:33

all the questions a kid might have to try to

15:36

disprove Santa, like how does he get into

15:38

a house without a chimney? How does he make it around the

15:41

world in one night? Why do some kids not

15:43

get presents? And so I think that helps

15:45

kids believe in it more because you're like, oh,

15:47

OK, you're telling me that you recognize

15:49

that those questions exist and there's an explanation.

15:59

come back, we're going to take a look at how Santa became

16:02

Santa to get some insight into why

16:04

it hasn't happened to the tooth fairy, and

16:07

if it still could.

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18:10

So before we continue, I feel that I have to

18:12

tell you, I do not have personal

18:15

experience with the magic of Santa

18:17

Claus, because I don't celebrate

18:19

Christmas. But you don't have to have

18:22

personal experience with Santa to

18:24

know a lot about him.

18:27

Santa, like you literally close your eyes, we

18:29

all see the same thing. Isn't that stunning?

18:32

Penny Reesat is the author of Christmas in America,

18:34

a history. Well into the

18:36

1800s, Christmas was not

18:38

as we now know it. It wasn't even

18:40

a national holiday. Back then, America

18:43

was a new country full of immigrants with

18:45

different traditions and churches. Puritans

18:48

banned Christmas because it wasn't scriptural.

18:50

For many, it was an occasion for carousing

18:52

and drunkenness. People did not have

18:55

Christmas trees. And there was certainly

18:57

no Santa Claus in the mix.

19:00

Santa Claus has got a really long history

19:03

and also a very short history. So

19:06

the long history starts him off as

19:08

being St. Nicholas of Barry.

19:10

St. Nicholas supposedly performed miracles

19:12

back in the third and fourth century AD.

19:14

But by the late Middle Ages, he'd been adapted

19:17

and adopted by various European cultures

19:19

as a gift bringing folk character who would visit

19:22

in the winter.

19:23

Versions of this figure made it to the New World.

19:25

But despite going by the name St. Nick,

19:27

Kris Kringle, and the Dutch Sinterklaas,

19:30

they were not chubby, jovial bearded

19:32

men in red suits.

19:34

One of these figures, for example, was called Belznickel,

19:37

and he was found among German immigrants in Pennsylvania.

19:40

Belznickel wore a furry pelt and carried

19:42

a sack and a switch that he would use

19:45

on kids who couldn't recite a Bible

19:47

verse.

19:49

So here's a character

19:51

that is a fantasy

19:54

or a folk tale or a folklore,

19:56

and he exists in kind of hazy. in

20:01

various parts of the nation, but

20:04

not in all of it. And

20:06

we start to see this, what,

20:08

is it a felt need? Is it an impulse

20:11

to envision

20:13

this character? This

20:16

envisioning began with a poem.

20:20

Twas the night before Christmas,

20:23

when all through the house, not

20:26

a creature was stirring, not

20:28

even a mouse. A visit from St. Nick

20:31

was written by Clement Clark Moore, a member

20:33

of New York City's literary elite in the early 1820s.

20:36

He just shows up in

20:38

Clement Clark Moore's poem as

20:41

this little elf. He's

20:44

short, he's rotund, he's

20:46

cheerful. He's a little driver so

20:48

lively and quick. He's impish.

20:52

Despite being tiny, he uses

20:54

a chimney. He's got Donner and Blitzen, and

20:56

he arrives on Christmas Eve. But

20:59

even as this poem began running annually

21:01

in newspapers across the country, St.

21:04

Nick was still ill-defined to the

21:06

point that he could have a sleigh pulled by

21:08

turkeys, as he did in an 1858

21:11

illustration in Harper's Magazine.

21:14

That changed just a few years later though,

21:16

thanks to some other illustrations published

21:19

in Harper's by the famous cartoonist, Thomas

21:21

Nast.

21:23

It's Nast who creates

21:25

this kind of full-size portrait

21:28

of Santa Claus, and

21:31

who's no longer an elf. He's

21:33

got his own elves. Nast began

21:36

to draw Santa in the 1860s, and

21:38

the images were so popular, he would go on to

21:40

draw Santa for the next 20 years.

21:42

Thomas Nast had this wonderfully

21:45

creative mind, and

21:47

really loved home. And

21:50

I think he had a great deal of fun

21:52

creating this Santa Claus that

21:55

we now look at

21:56

as, oh, where's Santa? One of his drawings

21:59

is called Santa. and his works. It's

22:01

a large illustration with a number of inset

22:03

circles showing Santa getting up to

22:06

various, now familiar, activities.

22:09

And it shows Santa Claus checking a list.

22:11

Do you

22:12

know he's got a telescope looking

22:14

for good boys and good girls?

22:16

As Penny

22:18

and I spoke, I peppered her with questions

22:20

about when things that we think of as canonically

22:23

Santa first appeared. When

22:25

did he start to live in the North Pole? When did he

22:27

get a Mrs. Claus? When did he start

22:29

wearing red?

22:31

Penny explained that he picked up all

22:33

of these qualities in the late 19th century,

22:36

as various creative adults and business

22:38

people elaborated on this myth

22:40

meant for children. Even so,

22:42

she says it wasn't until the 1920s and

22:45

30s that his image became completely locked

22:47

in. And that was thanks to magazine covers

22:50

by Norman Rockwell and other illustrators

22:52

and a series of famous Coca-Cola ads.

22:56

And even after that, the myth was still growing.

22:59

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer didn't appear until 1939,

23:01

when the department store Montgomery

23:04

Ward was looking for a draw during the

23:06

Great Depression.

23:07

And so one of their admin

23:09

writes this story, and they give out

23:13

the story of Rudolph as

23:15

a freebie for people who come into the

23:18

store to buy things.

23:20

Less than a decade later, the movie Miracle

23:22

on 34th Street suggested a Macy's

23:25

department store Santa was the

23:27

real deal.

23:28

And that Santa was already worried

23:30

about the holiday's debasement.

23:32

That's what I've been fighting

23:34

against for years, the way they commercialize

23:37

Christmas. Yeah, there's a lot of

23:39

badisms floating around this world, but

23:41

one of the worst is commercialism. Makeup

23:43

buck, makeup

23:45

buck.

23:47

The Tooth Fairy is never going to be

23:49

Santa Claus. It's never going to be the centerpiece

23:52

of the nation's biggest, most revered, most

23:54

lucrative annual domestic and religious

23:57

holiday. But in the 2000s, commercialism

23:59

is not the only thing that's been

23:59

Commercialization finally came

24:01

for it anyway, thanks

24:04

to one company in particular.

24:06

Can you believe that a childhood character known

24:08

by millions worldwide has

24:11

not yet been licensed? We'll

24:13

be right back.

24:17

Priceline presents Go

24:19

To Your Happy Price. What's

24:22

up? It's Kaylee Cuoco. When

24:24

it comes to travel, we all have a happy place.

24:26

You can see yourself already there. It's

24:29

beautiful. It might be sunny and sandy for

24:31

some, neon and urban for others,

24:33

deserts or rainforests or hiking trails. With

24:36

Priceline, you can get to your happy place

24:38

for a happy price with deals you really

24:41

can't find anywhere else, like up to 60%

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off select hotels to Costa Rica

24:46

or five-star hotels for two-star prices

24:48

in Cabo. Go to Priceline.com

24:51

and travel to your happy place for a

24:53

happy price. All right, see ya. I'm

24:55

off to Miami. No, actually,

24:57

wow, look at that. No, I'm going to Hawaii now. Ooh,

25:00

Cancun looks nice. You know what? Belize

25:03

looks pretty nice this time of year. Or,

25:06

mmm, Palm Springs.

25:07

Go to your happy place for

25:10

a happy price. Go

25:13

to your happy price, Priceline.

25:16

Hey, everybody. It's Tim Heidecker. You know me, Tim and

25:18

Eric, bridesmaids in The

25:19

Fantastic Four. I'd like

25:21

to personally invite you to listen to Office Hours

25:23

Live with me and my co-hosts, DJ

25:26

Doug Pound and Vic Berger.

25:29

Every week we bring you laughs, fun, games, and

25:31

lots of other surprises. It's live. We take

25:33

your Zoom calls. We love having fun. Excuse

25:35

me? Songs. Vic said something.

25:37

Music.

25:39

Songs. I like having fun. I like

25:41

to laugh. I like to meet people

25:43

who can make me laugh.

25:45

Please subscribe now.

25:49

From

25:49

the minute I noticed the Tooth Fairy was relatively

25:51

uncommercialized, I've had this kind

25:53

of dual reaction. I'm grateful

25:56

that she's still so unfettered and

25:59

very supportive.

25:59

that's the case. In fact,

26:02

the first thing I did when I started thinking about

26:04

all of this was Google commercializing

26:07

the tooth fairy because I couldn't believe

26:09

someone hadn't tried to do it. And

26:12

lo and behold,

26:13

someone had.

26:15

And someone else had noticed. My

26:17

name is Susan Lynn. Susan is a

26:19

psychologist and the author of a number

26:21

of books, including Who's Raising the Kids,

26:24

Big Tech, Big Business, and The Lives

26:26

of Children. She's also a puppeteer

26:28

and a ventriloquist.

26:30

Sometimes I think

26:32

that when I'm in the hospital,

26:35

it's because I'm bad. Going

26:38

to the hospital doesn't have anything to do with

26:40

being bad or being good. It

26:42

has to do with being sick.

26:45

That's her on a 1987 episode of

26:47

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, doing what

26:49

she does, using puppets to talk

26:51

with kids about serious issues. In

26:54

the 1990s, she was becoming concerned

26:56

with an issue that hit close to home.

26:59

When my daughter was in fourth

27:01

grade, their spring concert

27:03

was just an evening of Disney music.

27:06

For me, the idea that the

27:08

school

27:10

was teaching

27:12

a body of music that she was sold

27:15

every single day. That's not

27:17

what school is supposed to be for. I

27:20

was the only parent who was upset about

27:22

this.

27:23

As someone who sang A Whole New World from Aladdin

27:25

for her sixth grade graduation, I wouldn't

27:28

have been that upset about this either. But

27:30

it distressed Susan. She

27:32

started to notice just how blatantly companies

27:35

were milking kids for money, encroaching

27:37

on every aspect of their imagination.

27:40

It's not that the characters

27:42

are necessarily bad. It's

27:45

the business model. The

27:48

commercialization of children's lives has

27:51

been linked to childhood

27:53

obesity, eating disorders,

27:54

precocious sexuality, youth

27:57

violence, family stress, the

27:59

erosion of creative play and

28:02

the acquisition of materialistic

28:04

values, the false notion that

28:07

the things we buy will make us sustainably

28:10

happy.

28:11

And so she became the founding director of a nonprofit

28:13

called the Campaign for a Commercial-Free

28:16

Childhood, which is now called Fair

28:18

Play. In 2013, the organization

28:21

received a tip.

28:22

We were anonymously sent

28:26

this sales video for

28:29

a brand called the

28:31

Real Tooth Fairies. What

28:33

if this moment of real life magic

28:36

that kids and parents already buy into

28:38

could be captured in a tooth fairy

28:40

brand that girls love? The

28:42

video was meant for potential investors, not

28:45

the general public. And the gist is that

28:47

the tooth fairy is a slam dunk,

28:49

a hugely lucrative idea hiding in

28:52

plain sight, one that has a giant

28:54

head start on becoming a mega brand.

29:10

The video includes clips of smiling little

29:12

girls with missing teeth, some parent testimonials,

29:15

and an interview with a former Disney executive

29:17

about the brand's massive potential. It

29:20

also boasts of offering hundreds of licensing

29:23

opportunities and a sticky online

29:25

experience.

29:27

It includes games, virtual

29:29

shopping, and a social community

29:31

where users make friends, exchange

29:33

presents, and rate each other's castle

29:36

rooms. Needless to say, whoever

29:38

sent this video to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free

29:41

Childhood

29:42

knew what they were doing.

29:44

The nonprofit began to look into the

29:46

Real Tooth Fairies, which was launched in 2011 by

29:49

a married couple. They declined to

29:52

speak with me for this episode, but they had a lot

29:54

of experience in children's entertainment

29:56

and with children.

29:58

One was a veteran of the children's Toy Jogernot

30:00

Hasbro, and the other is a licensed

30:02

social worker and psychotherapist who

30:05

had consulted for Fisher Price and written

30:07

more than two dozen

30:08

children's books for Disney. The

30:10

company had already raised $2.9 million and had a website,

30:12

which they

30:15

said had reached millions of

30:16

users. They were trying to raise $5 million

30:19

more with the aim of reaching 30 million

30:22

users by the end of 2014.

30:25

They'd trademarked scores of real

30:27

world products and counted executives

30:29

from companies including Disney and Mattel

30:32

as consultants. They

30:33

would also later attach Hilary Duff

30:35

to an animated film project.

30:39

Twinkle, are you in

30:41

there? I want to fly

30:43

with you. Twinkle

30:45

is one of six main fairies who all

30:47

have impossibly big eyes and heads

30:50

that sit atop tall, slim,

30:52

glittery, B-wing, the begowned

30:54

bodies.

30:56

This is going to sound strange if you're not already familiar

30:58

with contemporary girls toys, but the doll's

31:00

sexualized airbrushed physical aesthetic

31:03

was paired with a stated interest in math

31:05

and science and computer coding. STEM

31:08

skills have become a pretty standard way

31:10

to insulate a toy from any critique

31:12

about over-sexualized or unrealistic

31:15

beauty standards. And in fact, back

31:18

in 2013, the real tooth fairy's villain

31:20

who has since been changed was a short,

31:22

clump, glasses-wearing woman named Stappella

31:26

who

31:26

didn't shave her legs. Like

31:28

that was a really big character beat her

31:30

unshaven legs.

31:37

Anyway, the six kindness

31:39

performing science-loving fairies all

31:41

reside in fairyland, where they

31:44

work hard answering earthy kids

31:46

letters while manufacturing them

31:48

presents that would presumably

31:50

also have been for sale on the website.

31:53

At center is the present popper

31:56

powered by glow magic. It

31:58

pops out the perfect present.

31:59

for earthy kids for every occasion.

32:02

Susan Lynn and her colleagues took all of this

32:04

in and decided that though the real tooth fairies

32:07

was a fledgling company, it should be

32:09

taken seriously. They launched a PR

32:11

campaign with Susan writing an op-ed

32:14

for the Huffington Post titled, Save

32:16

the Tooth Fairy.

32:17

It was easy to horrify

32:20

people with this particular

32:22

campaign, which was, you know, so

32:24

blatantly about greed. The

32:27

story, which does have a real, you

32:29

can't make this up quality,

32:31

was aggregated across the feminist blogosphere

32:34

covered by the New York Times and disparaged

32:37

by the comedians on NPR's, Wait, Wait,

32:39

Don't Tell Me.

32:40

I would rather have my kids' teeth rot out of

32:42

their head. All right. It

32:45

seemed that plenty of adults who were inured to

32:47

a certain amount of commercialization in

32:49

children's lives were not inured

32:52

to this. It all amounted to

32:54

a big burst of negative attention for

32:57

what was a new company, attention,

32:59

The Real Tooth Fairy's has never generated

33:02

again.

33:02

It's been almost 10 years.

33:06

The Real Tooth Fairy's website

33:08

is still up and functioning, but

33:10

it has not become the mega lucrative

33:13

brand it aspired to be.

33:15

Hilary Duff no longer seems to be attached

33:17

to the movie, which has been stalled out for years,

33:20

and it has not seared a copywritable

33:23

image of The Tooth Fairy into our

33:25

minds.

33:26

The Tooth Fairy's freak flag is

33:28

still flying.

33:30

And I'd like to think that's innate to the Tooth

33:32

Fairy, somehow guaranteed

33:34

that there's an inherent wildness

33:37

to a creature so associated with

33:39

teeth,

33:40

but I'm not so sure. The

33:43

Real Tooth Fairy's founding observation

33:45

seems sound to me if icky. The

33:48

Tooth Fairy is low hanging fruit.

33:50

If this particular attempt to monetize

33:52

it was way too brazenly ka-ching, ka-ching,

33:55

maybe something more subtle, more adorable,

33:57

more innocent could work.

34:00

Something that wasn't trying to be like other

34:02

girls' toys, but had its eye on Disney

34:04

or the history of Santa Claus. A

34:06

brand that understood that though you

34:09

absolutely have to appeal to children,

34:11

you have to appeal to adults too. Be

34:14

something grownups will accept and

34:16

pass on.

34:18

Because we're the ones who are keeping

34:20

these mythical beings alive in

34:23

the first place. When

34:26

my children started losing their teeth, I

34:28

hadn't thought about the Tooth Fairy for decades.

34:30

But there she was, just waiting

34:33

for us. A ritual that had been

34:35

packed up and stowed away, but

34:37

that could be taken down and put right

34:40

to use. Most parents

34:42

do this, has the Tooth Fairy

34:44

on reflexively, because it's sweet

34:46

and magical, because we remember it fondly,

34:49

because it's what you do, because it's a way to

34:51

reassure ourselves our children are still

34:54

little, even as they are demonstrably

34:56

going through the physical process of getting

34:59

older. We pass it on

35:01

even though it's not as central or sacred

35:04

as Santa, and even though it is a lie.

35:09

My mom described it in hindsight as

35:11

like the end of innocence. Christina

35:15

Kottarucci again. Apparently my

35:17

sister and I both asked my parents, like, why

35:19

did you lie to us? Why do parents lie to

35:21

their kids? Because it is painful in that moment.

35:24

And they're like, we didn't really have a good answer,

35:26

just sort of like, well, we enjoyed it when we were

35:28

kids, and it's just

35:29

kind of what you do. But

35:31

the experience wasn't only negative.

35:34

I just remember the next day, you know, waltzing

35:36

into second grade, feeling like

35:38

an old grizzled vet, like almost

35:41

feeling like super

35:44

upset by the knowledge, but proud also,

35:47

that I felt like I had some knowledge that

35:49

these other kids didn't have. So

35:51

Christina felt disappointed. But

35:53

she also felt mature. We

35:56

tend not to focus on this part of the ritual,

35:58

the end and all its completeness. complexities.

36:01

But I think it's as important as all of the adorable

36:03

believing that comes before. The

36:06

Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa

36:09

may be about magic and imagination

36:11

and innocence, but they peter out

36:13

for kids, usually between the ages of 8

36:15

and 10, with a creeping awareness

36:18

that something is not quite right, that

36:20

grown-ups are keeping something from

36:23

them, that they have to figure out

36:25

what's really going on for themselves.

36:29

And if they've been lucky, that might

36:31

be the first time that's happened

36:33

to them. But no matter how

36:36

lucky they are, it

36:38

will not be

36:41

the last. It's another

36:43

strange thing about these mythical

36:45

beings. We think of them as

36:48

a joyful right for little kids, but

36:50

they're also a milestone on the

36:52

way to no longer being

36:55

one. In this way, the Tooth Fairy

36:57

is for grown-ups. It's

36:59

for helping us make them. I

37:02

wonder if it's actually real, because sometimes

37:05

it looks like a grown-up's handwriting, and then

37:07

the other times it looks like a fairy.

37:09

But it's weird. So I'm in

37:11

the middle of whether I think a Tooth Fairy is real or not.

37:20

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin.

37:23

You can find me on Twitter at Willa Paskin.

37:25

And if you have any cultural mysteries you

37:27

want us to decode, you can email

37:29

us at DecoderRing at Slate.com. This

37:32

podcast was written by Willa Paskin, who

37:35

produces Decoder Ring with Katie Shepard. This

37:37

episode was edited by Jamie York. Derek

37:40

John is Slate's executive producer of narrative

37:42

podcasts. Merritt Jacob is senior technical

37:44

director. Thank you to Charles Duan,

37:47

Jim Piddick, Purva Merchant, Hannah Morris,

37:49

Laura Leahy, Tori Bosch,

37:50

and Rebecca Onion. I'd also

37:52

be remiss if I didn't mention Rosemary

37:55

Wells. Wells was an instructor at

37:57

a dental school in Illinois who in the 1970s— realized

38:01

no one had ever seriously looked

38:03

at the Tooth Fairy or where it originated

38:05

and so she became that person.

38:08

She is the Ur Tooth Fairy Investigator

38:11

and a lot of her work is out of print but you

38:13

can find one of her pieces in a collection called

38:15

The Good People, new fairy

38:17

lore essays. If you haven't yet

38:19

please subscribe and rate our feed

38:22

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38:24

better, tell your friends. If

38:27

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38:35

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