Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

Stranger Danger

Ep. 609: Stranger Danger

What!?  You let your 9 year-old ride the subway in New York City?  Alone!?  Are you crazy!?!?  Or maybe you’re just being a good parent?  Join us for a look at the “our children are in danger!” hysteria gripping our country.  We’ll talk to overprotective moms and street smart kids, and also hear a heartbreaking account from Samantha Runnion’s mom.

We’ll also put some old wive’s tales (or more accurately, old mother’s tales) to the test, like “don’t go swimming after you eat, wear a jacket or you’ll catch a cold, and the ever-popular “five-second rule.”  We didn’t include the “don’t put a knife in the toaster” one because it turns out that one’s true.

And don’t miss our Mommy Cage Match between two mothers with polar opposite points of view on 'stranger danger'.

A moment with... Izzy

Izzy, the star of the Stranger Danger episode, is a really nice kid.  Take a look:

Teller's e-mail: Stranger Danger

Q: As a kid, I was told to wait an hour before swimming after a meal.  Do you remember anything like this from your childhood?

TELLER: "Stay away from 'that man.'"  There was a poor old schmo who used to take walks in the neighborhood I grew up in.  My guess now is he was a widower on a low budget, since his clothes looked a bit frayed.  He wore a Brooklyn cap and a raincoat.  This proved to all the parents of the neighborhood that he was a child killer and we kids all loved to scream and run from him, on the assumption that he would catch and eat us.  I suppose he must have enjoyed that, since he made the same rounds every day.  Or maybe he never noticed.