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Hi, grownups.
Today, Fred and I got to meet someone very special.
Cooper, the little live pets.
Ouchies, puppy.
Oh, boy, Mr. Eric.
When I first met Cooper, he had a little limp and a rosy glow to his cheeks.
He needed my help.
That's right, Fred.
Cooper isn't just cute.
He's interactive with over 50 sounds and reactions.
He'll whimper when he's hurt and even try to walk.
But don't worry, puppies.
I mean, kiddos.
You get to help Cooper feel better.
You can put on his splint, wet the bandages, wrap them up, and ta-da!
You've made him a real cast, just like a vet would.
And once the cast dries, you can decorate it however you like.
Then give Cooper lots of love and care.
And when he's ready, Cooper will play his happy sound woof woof, to let you know it's time to take off the cast.
He'll lift his head, rest his paw, and walk to his cheerful song.
Plus, Cooper comes with a puppy carrier that transforms into a vet tray, so you can bring your new friend anywhere and keep helping him heal.
I love helping Cooper feel better.
It's like real vet play, but with extra puppy cuddles.
Grownups, bring home Little Live Pets Cooper the Ouchie Puppy today.
Available at all major retailers.
What if kittens played the glockenspiel?
What if unicorns were real?
What if you could fly or travel back in time?
We welcome you to What If World.
Hey there folks, and welcome back to What If World, the show where your questions and ideas inspire off-the-cuff stories.
I'm Mr Eric, your host, and this was one of those weeks where literally everyone in the family took turns being sick and home from school or work.
Luckily for you, Miss Lynn and I recorded a few fully improvised bonus stories for just such an occasion.
These are meant to show you, warts and all, how messy and fun improv with a friend can be.
Remember that every conversation is improv.
Every time you play make-believe with a friend or family member, you are exercising your creative muscles.
So I hope our story helps inspire you to tell your own.
And your story starts today with a question from a listener whose name I couldn't quite understand.
I think it was Lialis.
But if you're out there listening, please let us know if I heard it wrong.
My name's Lialis.
I really like chihuahuas and koalas.
And my other question, what is Koalas play banjo?
Bye.
And then the other question is from Desmond.
Hi, my name is Desmond and my favorite thing is playing with my friends.
And my question is, what if everyone got an RV and Fred the dog drove and they went to Australia.
Bye.
I hope you have a good night's sleep.
So I thought if everybody's going to Australia, it only makes sense that there would be a banjo playing koala once they arrive in Australia.
Oh, wow.
I love these.
So thank you both so much, as always, for your what if questions.
One thing that I really love about koalas is Koalas have two thumbs.
Oh!
Two thumbs on one side and then the other digits, but they both like technically work like opposable thumbs.
Uh-huh.
Having two thumbs, that would be an interesting way to play a musical instrument.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so then we've got Desmond's question.
What if everyone got an RV, but...
That could be an RV for everyone.
You can kind of interpret that either way.
But so we've got especially Fred the dog's the driver that implies one big RV driving to Australia.
I love this so much because as many of you know, it is an island continents, right?
It's not connected to the other continents.
So fun like what?
What special thing is it about this rv that helps us get there?
So, kids at home, if you have heard this and you're already thinking about it, or you want to draw some art about it, or it inspires a different what if?
Question from you, you know, do that, write that question, write that story, tell that story, share it with your friends, share it with us all.
Right, here we go.
So let's find out.
What if koalas played banjos?
And what if everyone got an rv and fred the dog drove it and they went to australia?
Cool hey, grown-ups.
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Okay, everybody, you got your seatbelts buckled?
Miss Lynn?
Yes, Fred.
I've been sitting here with my seatbelt on for the past 45 minutes.
I'm ready to go to Australia.
Okay, but safety is very important.
Also is me figuring out how to drive.
Don't worry, I got this.
I am.
Starting to regret signing up for this RV trip.
Fred the Dog, you know it's customary to let a human drive the car that's built for humans to drive.
Who says this is built for humans to drive?
It's a magic RV.
Dogs can drive magical RVs once we read the manuals.
It's just that you've been sitting there trying to read the manual for a while and... Okay, okay.
I get it.
You're all just feeling really impatient.
I'm just going to put my paw on this little doggy paw print button and see what happens.
Sweet!
And the RV shot into the sky and then splashed into the water.
Okay, roll up your windows.
Down down it went to the bottom of the sea, driving at incredible speeds, dodging aside through shipwrecks and making sure not to run over any crustaceans until they got whoa, hang on.
A second look at this place to the great barrier reef.
Oh, it's more spectacular up close than I had ever imagined.
Look at all the colors.
Yeah, it's even more colorful than this RV that I insisted.
We all spend a week painting before we got inside.
Yeah, that was time well spent.
Wait, what's that around that big piece of coral there?
It's a koala!
What is a koala having its little... Is it a banjo?
And indeed there was a koala holding on with its feet to part of a coral reef and disappointedly trying to play a banjo.
Oh, silly koalas.
We must save them and their banjo!
And being very careful not to actually drive over the barrier reef...
Oh, yo, hang on.
I just gotta press this button.
Looks like a floating button.
Fred pulled the lever.
That's a lever, not a button.
Forget you, Abacus.
It's Alabaster.
Well, your names sound too similar.
And zoom.
The RV shot back up, and Fred stuck his tongue through the tongue port and grabbed on to the koala.
Crikey!
As they shot to the top of the water.
Oh, wow.
Good thing we were there.
I don't know if koalas can breathe underwater in this world.
I mean, I was doing just fine until you pulled me out of the water, but well, here we are.
Oh, I'm sorry, koala.
You have a very nice necklace with like a tag on it that says Desmond.
Are you a, uh, are you someone's pet?
Why someone's pet?
It's illegal to have a koala as a pet.
Oh!
But yeah, my name is, my name is Desmond.
My friends call me Dizzy.
Oh, hi, hi Dizzy.
We're not friends.
I, it's just, I'm a dog and I have a collar and my collar says Fred.
So I I wasn't, so I wasn't sure.
But yes, folks at home, you cannot have a koala as a pet, in the real world anyway.
Would you loosen up your tongue a little bit?
It's a little tight around the middle.
Sorry, it kind of has a mind of its own.
Furry.
You folks seem like you're new to Australia.
Would you like me to take you around to some of the sights?
Yeah, sure.
We just crashed onto this random beach.
But I think I've got it worked out now.
If I just put my butt on this other button.
I don't know what kind of universe you all came from.
Well, it does actually say button.
But there's a dash after the word butt.
So I think it's intentional.
All right.
Yeah, I told you it's a dog RV.
You all just got to read the manual.
Fred the dog sat on the RV and...
It took off backwards, flying across to near the middle of this great continent, to a large sandstone monolith.
Now, right here is the famous Uluru.
It's a giant sandstone monolith and it's very important to our native people in Australia.
Oh, my goodness.
I have never wanted to lick anything so badly in all my life.
Fred.
You know, it's against the law to lick a loo-roo.
I know, I know, I'm not doing it, but it's so hard.
Haven't you ever been to a museum and it's like, don't touch the dinosaur bones, but you're like...
I wasn't thinking about doing it until you said not to.
I mean, that is fair.
I have four thumbs and I just love to touch dinosaur bones.
I know.
Let's go somewhere else and dig up dinosaur bones.
I don't know where there are any, but all right.
I'm going to curl my tail along this bone button.
We might not find any dinosaur bones.
Okay, we ended up in Sydney instead.
Well, I don't know much about dinosaur bones, but there's the very famous Sydney Opera House.
Whoa, it's beautiful.
Is it okay to lick?
It's against the law to lick the Sydney Opera House.
Is that really more of a lie or a taboo?
All right, you got me.
It's a taboo.
Quit licking our old blouse.
We have a fantasy Australian accent.
Sincerely, Homer's Karen isn't listening to this episode.
It's okay.
Her Australian accent's pretty bad, too.
She was born in America.
Both her parents were born in Australia.
Wow.
I'm hearing some music coming from the Sydney Opera House, but I'm also noticing You haven't played your banjo yet.
Would you like a recital of the four-thumb banjo?
Yeah, yeah, Desmond.
All right, if you insist.
Four-thumb and one tongue?
It's against the law to lick somebody else's four-thumb banjo.
And as the sun set over this beautiful day in Australia, Fred the Dog, Alabaster Zero and everyone else in What If World, who'd crammed so tightly into this RV that they couldn't say a single line, enjoyed the banjo show.
Hey, Miss Lynn, can't you play a little string instruments too?
I only have two thumbs, Fred, and I didn't bring my guitar, but yes.
I can play a little bit of guitar, but I am nothing compared with Dizzy's banjo.
Yeah, it is dizzying.
I bet you've never heard that joke before.
Not before, just now.
The end.
Wow.
All right.
Well, apologies to the country and continent of Australia.
And to every Australian listener of the podcast.
Apologies to my half Australian children.
I hope you enjoyed it.
And really, this is coming from two people who just really, really do want to see Australia someday.
And I love learning more about it.
We actually do get a lot of questions from our Australian fans.
We have gotten a lot of questions from the Antipodes.
Yeah.
I hope you enjoyed our story.
And if you ever find a four-thumbed banjo, take a picture, send it to us, or maybe draw your own.
I'd love to see a two-thumbed koala, four-thumbed koala playing a banjo.
I wonder what that looks like.
It makes me wish I had some more thumbs, but.
I'll have to make do with just two for the time being.
So kids, when you do your own improv scenes at home, when you tell your own stories at home, remember just take it light and breezy.
Miss Lynn and I have done a lot of practice.
And we're throwing ideas out pretty fast, but also we edit out our mistakes.
So go ahead and make your mistakes.
We use our mistakes as gifts.
But when I say something wrong, I can just say it again.
So that you don't need to listen to me stumble over words.
Enjoy each other.
Enjoy the mistakes of it.
Enjoy how hard it is.
Because hard things help you grow.
And being a good improviser can help you in pretty much anything every aspect of your social and professional life as you grow up.
Life doesn't come with a manual, unlike the magical RV.
So it's pretty much an improvisation every day that you get out of bed.
Yeah, exactly.
Every interaction is improvisation.
During these improvs, did you have any special challenges?
I was constantly worried about my terrible accent.
We're never trying to punch down with these things, right?
We're just trying to be goofy and silly.
And these are always what if?
World versions of accents.
We are not professionals in that regard at all.
I always get stuck on names.
That's my biggest challenge.
I get stuck on them.
I will forget them if I introduce too many names.
So keeping a scene small and just having a couple characters is helpful.
That's why, in this last story, instead of trying to introduce one character after another, after another, I was like you know what?
It's going to be Alabaster Zero and Fred the dog.
Miss Lynn and Desmond.
And like that was enough.
That was all the story needed.
Yeah, because it can get unwieldy.
All right.
Well, we need to go rest our voices now after all this recording.
Thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next time.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
What if world?
This is what if world.
Today, Mama Gemma and I got to meet one of the cutest baby animals ever Choo-Choo, the little live pet's baby panda.
Oh, and Choo-Choo's so sweet.
He makes the cutest sounds, just like a real baby panda.
That's right.
With over 50 sounds and reactions.
Choo-Choo giggles, coos and even kicks his tiny feet when you feed him with his bamboo feeding stick.
And after his snack, you can place him on the potty.
He does a little potty dance, kick, kick, kick, and then he goes poo.
Oh, it's so funny.
But don't worry, when he's done, you can flush it away for repeat play.
Choo Choo loves to be tickled and rocked to sleep.
If you cuddle him close, he'll drift right off, just like a real baby panda.
Feed him, love him, care for him, and Choo Choo will quickly become your most cherished little best friend.
He's the baby panda I never knew I needed.
Grownups, help your kids nurture their nurturing side.
Bring home joy with Little Live Pets My Baby Panda Choo Choo.
Available at all major retailers.
