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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 today we're bringing you a preview of Stump Mr. Eric.
You'll hear a complete story that's completely improvised by Miss Lynn and me.
Full episodes of Stump, Mr Eric, are available to all our supporters.
When we use your trivia, questions and ideas to challenge me and other, What If characters each month?
If you want access to all 41 Stump Mr Erics, as well as ad-free versions of every story, grown-ups can check us out at whatifworldpodcastcom.
Slash support or just click those support links in our show notes.
We're going to take a quick break before coming back with more Stump Mr. Eric.
So now it's time for round one, which is our What If World short story, which is going to be inspired by questions asked From two listeners.
The first one was a write-in question from Asher.
Asher asks, what if there was a new character named Walter the Wizard Walrus?
Ooh, oh my gosh.
Walter the Wizard Walrus.
That's so fun to say.
Thank you, Denny.
We love alliteration on this show.
Mm-hmm.
And then we have a called-in question.
The person's name is a little bit hard to understand.
I think it is Chip.
Hi, my name is Chip and my question is what if aliens, green mustaches and Fred the dog ate a Tyrannosaurus Rex?
Bye!
So...
The reason why I thought to put these two questions together is obviously walruses have big mustaches and the aliens have mustaches.
So there are questions from Asher and Chip?
Well, thank you, Asher.
Uh, for walter the wizard, walrus.
So fun to say.
Thank you chip, and also apologies if we misheard your name.
Folks at home, if you want to make sure this never happens to you, just repeat your kid's name and question for us.
Uh, makes our lives a lot easier.
We really appreciate it.
There's a lot of me texting Lynn.
Is this kid's name Chip or Jeff?
What does it sound like to you?
Or vice versa, yeah.
All right, so let's find out.
What if aliens grew mustaches and...
Fred the Dog ate a Tyrannosaurus Rex?
And what if there was a character named Walter the Wizard Walrus?
Oh, it's so nice being a wizardly walrus in outer space.
Yes, I said this.
Since I've mastered my wizard magic, I've been able to travel through the stars, but i must say it is, it is a bit lonely.
I thought i'd meet more aliens, you know, but space is a big place, thus i've taken to talking to myself, obviously.
So, as you may have already guessed, this was walter, the wizard walrus, And he was floating through space and had been for quite some time.
The thing he wasn't ready to admit to himself or anyone else because he hadn't met anyone else, is that he wasn't quite sure how to get home at this point.
Fortunately just then sound in outer space.
I know it's technically impossible, but i mean here i am talking in outer space, so let's just dispense with the astrophysics for a minute.
I heard a spaceship greetings earthling.
I am chip chip.
How did you know that I was an Earthling?
Because the sensors in my mustache told me.
And yes, this was an alien robot creature.
Some kind of part alien creature, heart robot, and its big bushy mustache was made of multi-colored wires all twisted up at the end.
Oh chip, i have never seen outside of walrus kind of course such a glorious mustache.
Thank you, i actually stopped To tell you I really like your mustache too.
Thumbs up.
Oh, you have thumbs.
Not me, but I don't need them.
I'm a wizard.
And Walter the Wizard Walrus was just about to wave goodbye to Chip the Alien.
But he knew that he needed to ask for help.
Have you ever had trouble in that moment when you just really really need to talk to someone or you really really need just a little bit of help, and the opportunity is just about to pass you by and you meet it with silence?
I've been there, for sure.
But what is Walter the Wizard Walrus going to do?
Well, so long, Cole walter, my sensors and my mustache are telling me that you are holding back.
Oh, thank you, thank you.
Sometimes i just need a little push, and sometimes that push needs to come from within, i understand, but today It came from you.
And speaking of pushing, could you maybe give me a nudge back in the direction of Earth?
I can do better than that.
Why don't you come inside my ship?
Oh, very good.
You don't happen to have a 30,000 gallon walrus tank by any chance, do you?
I've been floating in outer space for quite a while.
Funny you should mention it.
Is 45,000 gallons okay?
Almost definitely.
I actually don't know how much a walrus in captivity needs for space, but that sounds like a good number.
We're about to find out.
Let's go.
And Walter the wizard walrus, found himself teleporting into a nice big tank that also had a nice big flat warm rock right in the middle of it.
Oh Chip, you've thought of everything, but one thing that chip hadn't thought of is fred the dog.
Oh, it's so good being a dog and, just you know, going to visit my friend walter, the wizard wallace.
I haven't seen him in a while, you know, but But that's what it is between friends.
Time goes by and you miss them and then you get to see them and it's like you never left.
But you know, I've been sitting on this flat rock napping for so long that I started talking to myself.
Where is everybody?
Fred looks around.
Walter was the anchor walrus of his walrus community and after he left all the other walruses slowly drifted away, and even very much of the sea life.
Everyone except one little crab named Asher.
Oh, hey, Asher, there you are.
You are Asher the Backscrasher and I just am so happy to see you because I do have this itch right here and I've been rubbing it on the rock, but you just really get in the perfect place.
Would you mind?
Yeah, it's okay.
Just let me crawl up there.
Oh, yeah.
You too.
How's that?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Is that too hard?
The best part of a back massage from a crab is that the legs are part of it, too.
All the legs and the pincers are all working in tandem.
This is beautiful.
Oh, now it's like I forgot all my troubles.
What's that sound?
Oh, a spaceship.
A spaceship.
Oh my gosh, oh wait, oh it's coming in hot.
I better use my tongue and fly it around really fast, you know, around like the whole planet and slow the planet down, because otherwise, you know, when it lands it could just skip off the water like a skipping stone.
That sounds like a good plan for safety, right?
This story has some weird physics.
And in...
A very strange plan to somehow slow the Earth enough to make the spaceship land in a cushiony way on the sea.
Fred by accident flung his tongue around the world.
Oh, I think I stretched it a little too far.
And when it came back and rolled back into his mouth, It flipped the entire Earth, which started rotating in reverse.
And again, we've seen this in physics.
This wouldn't do anything.
It wouldn't actually send the Earth spinning back in time.
But, of course, this is What If World, and we need to get Fred to eat a T-Rex.
So...
Oh, I'm traveling us millions of years back in time with a little tongue mishap.
Oh, Tuesdays.
And just as the spaceship was landing on what would have been water, it wasn't water anymore.
Yes, Pangea had reformed, and there was a continent where an ocean had once been.
Oh boy, I think I did the opposite of what I intended to do.
That's never happened before.
What just happened?
Oh, my.
Oh, at least my tank spilled out into this little crevice, making kind of a lake here for me to just splash around in.
And my rocks and still.
Oh, you've been looking out for my rock, Fred.
Very good.
Except what happened to the rest of the planet?
Oh, yeah.
Um, about that, I think just maybe, just possibly, I spun us back in time, but it was all to make sure that your ship didn't, um, well, crash.
Wow Earthling, that was really overkill.
I have the power to make my ship land as soft as a cloud under any environs, but thanks anyway for bringing us back billions of earth years.
I think.
If i'm judging by the uh, by the uh local uh fauna, I think it's about, you know, maybe 100 million years or so.
67 to 100 million years.
Feels very Cretaceous to me, you know?
Seeing more T-Rexes than Stegosauruses.
Oh, boy.
Oh, hey, everybody.
Uh, welcome, welcome to, uh, the Cretaceous period.
I'm Creda Garber, and, uh, yeah, I'm a T-Rex, and I just saw this really big chew toy fall out of the sky, so I figured I would just come over and check it out.
Yikes, how dare you accuse my friend chip the robot alien with a mustache, of being a chew toy?
Oh no no no, i meant the the chip, not chip.
But the chip, it's big and round and it fell and now it's a little dented, looks beat up.
Anyway, you might as well just let me eat it.
Oh, he means she means They mean.
I'm sorry, I didn't get your pronouns.
It's she, her.
Oh, she means the ship.
Not the chip, but the ship.
Well, if you want to eat the ship chip, I guess that's okay.
But, you know, because of the what if question, I'm really supposed to eat you first.
I tried.
I don't know what you're talking about, but you don't really have the authority to give my ship away.
Oh, right.
Hey, you can just call me Fred the Dog.
We didn't really do introductions, but yeah, I'm Fred.
Nice to meet you.
Sorry about the whole chip ship thing.
Everyone in the ship.
Okay yeah, let's all go into the ship.
Whoa, i'll just you know.
What i'm gonna do is i'm just gonna to to protect us while we get into the ship.
I'm gonna i'm gonna just uh, stretch out my tongue to make like a tongue shield.
I stretch it out all the way across the world, of course, in case the T-Rex tries to get around it and then it won't be able to.
That sounds like a really overly elaborate plan, and your tongue would have to stretch it you know a rate of thousands of miles per minute to be able to cut me off.
Yeah well yes, what if we'll go?
Yeah, what is he doing?
I really i feel like i should use my magic, but i'm i'm not sure how.
I kind of used it all up in the uh, in outer space.
I was just going to teleport us back to the present, but this dog has made things Really overly complicated.
All right.
All right.
No, I've got it.
I know.
I will cast a protective spell upon the T-Rex, because I feel like this is all gonna end up with it getting eaten somehow.
And if it's protected, it cannot eat us.
We cannot eat it.
It will just be a sort of a wash on the eating of things, eating standoff.
I like it and we'll see about that.
And again, Fred's tongue flung off the world, giving it that one little flick.
It wasn't as big as last time because this was a little rushed and just only went a couple of years back into the past, and But as it did hey, what's happening to me?
Crud of the T-Rex turned into a dinosaur egg.
Oh, look at that.
That's so cute.
I haven't had an egg in a while.
Oh, I, this, this seems really awful.
You're not, but it was the what if question, so, but oh wait, no, eye protection spell.
Okay, just, just, can you get onto the ship already?
So it's fine that I just ate a dinosaur?
Nobody's, uh, nobody's having any problems with that?
I mean, I'm giving up at this point.
Ooh, that dinosaur egg's not sitting right.
It's probably the protection spell you were meant to eat it.
Oh, yeah, I feel like I'm going to lay an egg.
That is humanly and caninely impossible.
Oh, boy.
Yeah!
Why'd you make the chicken sound?
It just felt right.
And as they jumped back on the spaceship to take it off into the future, Fred the dog laid a dinosaur egg which cracked open.
Bye, Greta.
We'll leave you with some snacks.
So hopefully it doesn't change the future present.
Who knows?
Maybe they were always meant to be a dog, chicken, dinosaur laid by Fred in the past.
This planet is even weirder than mine.
The end.
The end.
Wow, i mean, there was a lot.
There was a lot to do.
Uh, we had to get starting.
Everyone in outer space was maybe a bad idea, but uh as, as far as making it a short story right um, but i liked the journey that we, that we took there.
You have it, folks.
What did you think the story was going to be like when you first heard the what if questions?
How did our story differ from the one in your mind?
Have you ever made up a song with a friend or family member?
It can be very challenging in the moment, but each mistake counts is actually a gift you give to your friend.
Plus, making up a song can be a lot quicker than telling a whole story.
So the next time you're feeling bored or a weird idea pops into your head, try singing about it.
Then let us know how it goes by getting your grown-up's permission to email.
Hello at whatifworldpodcastcom.
I'd like to thank Karen O'Keefe, my co-creator, my producer, Miss Lynn Craig Martinson, for our theme song, and all you musical kids at home who know that there's a silly song within you whenever you're ready to share it.
And until we meet again, keep wondering.
