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The comedy4cast network.
Let's dog-ear that for now.

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This is comedy4ast,
episode 867, Lumbering Forward.

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It's time once again for the Dog Days
of Podcasting, a call for podcasters to

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try to put out a podcast every day in August.

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For more information on that and to hear
all the shows, go to dogdaysofpodcasting.com.

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Here at the lovely comedy4cast studio,
I always take this month to provide

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you with some interesting,
yet totally useless odd news.

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And this year, I'm doubling the useless
with not just one, but two odd news

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stories that I think deserve each other.

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So, let's have some fun
with odd news times twos.

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Rumors have been circulating
for years that Jonathan is dead.

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♪ DRAMATIC MUSICAL STING ♪

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But let's dog-ear that for now and talk
about Robin Hood. He robbed from the rich,

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and gave to the poor, which kind of
sounds like a never-ending cycle to me.

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So good on you, Mr. Hood,
you wacky entrepreneur, you.

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Of course, the stories go that not
everyone liked Robin's antics and hijinks

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and whatnot, so he often took to
Sherwood Forest with his merry men.

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You know, Dopey, Sneezy, Harpo,
Groucho, John Paul George and Ringo.

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The giant oak trees in Sherwood
provided plenty of places to hide,

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including one special oak tree.

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And while that legend may just be
a story, there is a giant English oak tree

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in Sherwood Forest that people have
decided was the hiding place for Robin and

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his crew. The tree is known as Major Oak.

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Oh, it was never part of
the military, that I know of.

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It's named after Major Heyman Rook,
an enthusiastic antiquarian.

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So that's a thing, who published sketches
of the forest in his hit 1790 book,

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Descriptions and Sketches of Some
Remarkable Oaks in the Park at Welbeck.

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Be sure to add that to your Summer
reading list. Anyway, after that, the tree

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became a celebrity in its own right attracting
tourists from far and wide. Huzzah!

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But as time marched on, like many of us,
the tree needed to be held up by a

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system of scaffoldings.

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And then a fence was put up to keep
the constant flow of thrill-seekers from

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walking around the tree. You see, their
feet were unintentionally compacting

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the soil, making it hard for Major Oak's
roots to get water out of the ground.

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Add to that the effects of climate change,
fires, insect infestations,

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and it's easy to see why, for decades,
rumors have swirled that the tree had died.

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But those rumors were false.

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Until 2026. Major Oak didn't sprout leaves
this year. The Royal Society for the.

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Protection of Birds, who manage Sherwood said
that they believe the tree has passed on.

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I'd say it was pining for the fjords,
but, you know, it's an oak tree.

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Still, it lived a good life for somewhere
between 800 and 1,200 years.

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Which brings us back to Jonathan.
Jonathan is a Seychelles giant tortoise.

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He was a full-grown adult at least 50
years old when he was sent from Seychelles,

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an archipelago east of Africa, and arrived at
St. Helena, a tropical island west of Africa.

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And that was in 1882. In the many, many,

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many years that followed, Jonathan,
living on the grounds of the governor's

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home, received royal visitors, fans, and
was even featured in a BBC production.

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Unfortunately, as happens to a lot of us,
Jonathan eventually lost his eyesight

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to cataracts. And he also lost his sense of
smell meaning he could no longer find food on

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his own. So rumors began to
circulate that Jonathan had died.

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And in 2026...

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♪ DRAMATIC MUSICAL STING ♪

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Jonathan is looking forward to celebrating
his 194th birthday on December 4th, and he's

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been named the world's oldest living land
animal and the oldest tortoise ever. Hooray!

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You thought we were going to
say the... Shame on you.

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I'm telling Jonathan. That about wraps it
up for today's Odd News Times Twos.

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But first, a very special shout-out to the
folks who help power comedy4cast,

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my Patreon patrons, including producer-level
patrons, Paul Barrie from the

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A Window to the Magic podcast,
Kirby Bartlett-Sloan,

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Chuck Tomasi from the Technorama
podcast, Kyle Nishioka, Brian Martzoff,

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Amy Murphy, and Steve Ng
from steveng5.com.

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That's S-T-E-V-E-N-G,
the number five, dot com.

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You too can support comedy4cast.
Just search for comedy4cast,

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all one word with the number 4,
on Patreon.com. Original script,

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voices, and original music
by me, Clinton Alvord.

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Copyright 2026.

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All rights reserved. Talk to you again
next time. But for now, that's it.

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We're done, done, done, done, done. Bye-bye.