Oddity Archive: Episode 114.5 - Ben’s Junk: Gemmy Douglas Fir Talking Christmas Tree

[@SmeddyTooBestChannel]

That's fucking terrifying. I want 20.

[@NeoPolitona]

20? You need 5200. Make a Legion thats not only horrifying and satanic, but historically accurate.

[@Dannypuck]

It would bring down the government. lol

[@kattsass69]

Smedis2 You can find him on eBay

[@SpencerShirey1998]

This thing traumatized me as a child. It still creeps me the heck out.

[@juleksaas4144]

I lived in Poland in the 90s so my access to gemmy toys was limited, I didn't know what they were. Until my uncle brought me Douglas fir. I remember how happy I was until they connected it in my room, I didn't expect anything and suddenly the Christmas tree started to sing. I hid in the kitchen and cried. I don't remember what happened to that Douglas after that

[@MichaelMangi]

When that Douglas Fir started singing "Up on the Housetop" some memories came back. My parents had a wreath version of this! Same light up eyes and a smaller version of the mouth that moved. No aux jack, but it did the pre-recorded songs after yelling out "IIIIIIITS CHRISTMASTIIIIIIME!"

[@SailorMaxie]

That last bit is why we need a No Context Oddity Archive Twitter

[@MrWolfSnack]

I have a smaller older one, with no 3.5mm aux input.

[@LFZSeiryuu]

This is popular among collectors of dancing items apparently.

[@hallmarkcollector5892]

4:02. He looks surprised

[@pogostix6097]

Man, I've got a bit of a story about Gemmy trees. When I was 2 or 3 years old (1996-7 ish), I was at the supermarket with my mother and my twin sister. We were sitting in the shopping cart, and going past the big display of artificial trees near the front of the store... when suddenly one RIGHT NEXT TO THE CART opens up these BIG BUGGY EYES and shouts "MERRY CHRISTMAS! JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS" etc. Its mouth was as big as my head, flapping next to my face. My small toddler brain identified this as an unholy abomination and assumed, pretty reasonably, that I was going to die and be eaten. My fear set off my sister. Her screaming reinforced my fear. Mom says I was trying to climb out of the cart and up her arms in sheer terror. That is how I came to be traumatized by an animatronic tree at a very young age. To this day I can remember it sounding exactly like this (mercifully much smaller) one. It took me years to recover from this. My sister doesn't remember it anymore, but I'm almost 27 now and still don't like walking past the fake tree displays. It's like going into a SPIRIT Halloween store and walking past the props, not quite sure which ones are static objects and which ones are going to lunge and scream at you, but 2 months late. The weirdest thing about all this is that I remember the tree in question being HUGE. Like, a proper 6-7 foot tall artificial tree. I asked Mom if I had misremembered, and just remember it being huge because I was tiny and terrified, but she also claims it was a full-size Christmas tree. However, no matter where I look on Google or KZbin, I can't find any trace of such a thing existing. Which means they were either so unpopular that they were discontinued early and faded from history... or that was a legitimate demon in the supermarket that day.

[@tamacat2001]

That was a real thing, there's a whole page on Douglas on the Gemmy wiki, and it states that there is indeed a much larger, normal tree sized Douglas. Not sure if there's any video on KZbin of it, but I do know that they exist.

[@BlackFlagHeathen]

My brother and I had one of these as kids. We would hold the mic that came with ours up to whatever device our parents were playing Christmas music off of and we'd laugh our asses off at the Christmas tree singing as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, etc. until our parents got sick of it and took this damn thing away. Our cat knocked it off the table we had it on and broke it one year. In retrospective that was a godsend because had my two younger sisters gotten to play with it they would have driven us insane with it year-round. Good times.

[@PashPaw]

1. Even for me, that's too much. Do not want. 2. I just got the "I'm A Christmas Tree" "song" out of my head yesterday...

[@singletona082]

I want a wall of them all laughing with different laughs.

[@IAmNotAFunguy]

Some guy hooked that up to his Amazon Dot.

[@_SkylarStudios]

IAmNotAFunguy yea I saw it.It's funny.

[@wolfmaster873]

there was a 3ft douglas fir on ebay they are rare, I should have got it when I had the chance but now its gone

[@wolfmaster873]

Wow i never seen a high pitched auxiliary jack one

[@ThisGuyFrritz]

9:25 Douglas Fir said *beep*!

[@IVR02]

I seem to recall seeing something like this at a supermarket when I was little, except it was a snowman. Yes, it had an aux cord. I was terrified of it, and refused to go to that specific store for years because of it.

[@Cecnorthernohio]

Maybe it was a life size snowman

[@TheRealPentiumMMX]

My grandma had a knock-off of this, that only played a minute-long clip of Rocking Around The Christmas Tree

[@GoldKnightProduction]

There's a dancing version of this as well.

[@AMG93]

Thanks Ben, you've dug up my childhood uncanny memories once again.

[@SuperCosmicMutantSquid]

We still have one of these in our garage. Also, they made GIANT ones.

[@generalcoon47]

This thing freaked the living crap out of me so much as a little kid that my family still talks about it to this day. I'm 23 now and it's still disturbing to look at.

[@Fluteboy]

Why not have it recite the Max Headroom "He's a freakin' nerd" diatribe?

[@Fuzy2K]

The tree didn't frighten me until I read that and imagined it yelling "Bend over, bitch!" (shudder)

[@christenorio9555]

play the mister hanky the Christmas poo

[@STOG01]

Oh oh so exciting! I actually have that walkman model too! Boooy was I proud of having it back in the day. Very high tech!

[@aaronz9687]

Wow that takes you back to the late 90's. Such a long time ago. Sarcasm intended.

[@Busch22Fan]

"Thanks, Billy Crystal."

[@FrankChickens]

Love the audio at the end which came from the sex tape episode. Both creepy and funny in equal amounts!

[@VintageToycollecters595]

What Sex Tape Tf?

[@keithrawlings7633]

Hey Ben. Great stuff as usual. I never miss any of your Archive episodes. BTW, what is that yellow (plastic?) thing on your shelf - right side? Looks kinda like a tape recorder or cassette player.

[@kabelsalad8380]

A friend of mine told me of his experiences with one of these. Apparently, someone decided to store it in his bedroom. While the batteries were dying. Then it triggered in the middle of the night.

[@siouxmoux3]

So this is why old Benny Boy Hide behind that box.

[@_SkylarStudios]

The volt was too high on that 2nd Douglas fir you showed.

[@Flyersphan203]

I still have mine from when I was a kid. it scared the crap outta me. now it's good for scaring cats lmao.

[@randypanthegoatboy7114]

Five Nights at Freddy's: Christmas Edition!

[@xbell1232]

RandyPantheGoatBoy you are cancer

[@stankydanky]

Oh my god was that the Hired Stud tape at the end?

[@morelenmir]

Its that later, limp waving of the lower jaw that does it! Can you make two of them scream at each other through an infinite feedback loop?

[@FernieCanto]

Oh, boy. I think Brian Eno would love that idea.

[@2574mcu]

I must have missed the episode, but why do you use the box?

[@fixman88]

I remember seeing those in the stores back in the day but I never saw one actually working; I think they're kind of neat (and nowhere near the Nightmare Fuel level of the Big Mouth Billy Bass, I always considered those to be cringe-inducing).

[@SumProject18]

I think your pfp is cringe inducing

[@wolfmaster873]

I know whats the matter with the second one, too high adapter

[@DATNIGGA42069]

Yep and gears

[@Vynncent]

It's interesting how recently you uploaded this. A few weeks ago, +databits uploaded a video where he paired one of these with an Amazon Echo Dot. It's creepy as hell.

[@coondogtheman]

if I had one of these I'd hook it to my phone and play swearing music.

[@ColeWalker]

I have a friend that specializes in fixing these things. He could fix your other one for you. Btw check out my Gemmy group on Facebook

[@emeryclarksanimatronicscha4246]

I hope this video helps you: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hGLYiJRpadJobKc

[@jameslaidler4259]

NOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@foxhack5011]

Hook it up to Alexa.