Sleepy Animals (with comedian David Gborie)

What sleepy animals are making you happy today? What animal sleeps 20 hours a day and only eats one thing? Have you ever been porcupine-tired? Hear Laura and Rob talk about some furry animals who like to take naps, a song about sleepy animals, awesome animal clues from 4 year old Willow, and an interview with special guest, comedian David Gborie, who is the current voice of Comedy Central! What animal is making David happy today? Here are some clues: it is a sea creature, it can hold its breath for hours underwater, and it can crawl onto land with its hard shell and its flippers.

The Happiest Animal Show (on Planet Earth) is a comedy podcast for kids and families who love wildlife, with original animal songs, stories, jokes and special guests from comedians to scientists to kids. If you like grizzly bears, koalas, porcupines, moose, tigers or sea turtles, you might like this episode!

Here is a full transcript (please forgive any typos!)

And now for an animal joke. What should you do if you find a lion in your bed? What did you do if you find a lion in your bed? The answer is going to be revealed at the end of the episode. But first, get your ears ready because it’s the Happiest Animal Show on Planet Earth. The Happiest Animal Show on Planet Earth. You want to be sad? No! Do you want to be glad? No. Wait. Yes. Well, it’s the Happiest Animal Show on Planet Earth.

Hello and welcome to the Happiest Animal show on Planet Earth, the podcast that asks the very important question. What animal is making you happy today? Not yesterday, not even last night, but today. I'm Rob and I'm Laura. And we are a sister brother pair of zoologists, filmmakers and songwriters.

We are here to explore the wonderful world of wildlife and discover why animals make us happy. Today we are celebrating sleepy animals and we have a song with lots of sleepy animals in it. And we chat with comedian David Gborie, who talks about a sea creature who can hold its breath and sleep underwater for several hours at a time.

Here we go. What animal is making you happy today? I want to know. On today's episode, Rob and I are going to talk about sleepy animals that make us happy. You know, we have a podcast to do. No. I'm excited. Oh, here we go. Laura, what sleepy animal is making you happy? And bending the rules a little bit because it's not necessarily a group of animals I'm thinking of.

I'm. I picked an animal because it's a specific animal that we saw one time that didn't want to wake up in the morning, and it makes me laugh every time I think about it. Oh, yeah. But here are the clues for the kind of animal. It's an animal with brown fur. It's big. It's got big claws. Is the one we saw was living in Alaska.

Yeah, but let me give you some sleepy clues, okay? These animals do go into a very deep sleep during the winter, when they can sleep for up to eight months in their den. And so they, like they hibernate. Yeah, hibernate. Or sometimes it's called torpor. But yeah, they. And that whole time, like eight months, they don't eat, they don't drink, they don't pee and they don't poop a whole time.

And somehow that works. Those are my clues. Okay. So you are going with a grizzly bear? Yes. A grizzly bear. And, Rob, I know you picked grizzly bears for our animal moms episode, but I don't care. This is what animals are making me happy today. There's no rules for these. Fair enough. So tell me why. I guess why is a sleepy grizzly bear making you happy?

Well, as you know, Rob, we took a trip to Alaska to go film Grizzly Bears one time. Yeah, and we went with a guide. His name was Chuck. He used to be a crab fisherman on the Bering Sea. But Chuck knew a lot about bears. And we'd follow Chuck around, and he'd show us where the bears were so that we could film them with our video cameras.

And one day we were in a big grassy field. And there are all these bears eating grass, and I don't know how many bears do you think we saw eating grass? I counted up to 16 bears and bears. Yeah, 16. It was a big, expansive field, like miles wide. Yeah. Right. So yeah, it was early July. The grass was about knee high in most spots, and that was called hallow Bay, that area, it was surrounded by mountains and glaciers on one side and the ocean on the other side.

And there was a spot in the grass in front of us that didn't look right. It looked a little too brown. And I stopped and said, is that a bear? And everyone else looked around and in the distance and we could see bears in the distance. And they said, yeah, those are bears. And I said, no, no, no, right in front of us.

That probably about 7 or 8 steps in front of us. There was, a brown bear completely sound asleep, and we were walking straight toward it. Yeah. And couldn't see it in the in the grass. Yeah. And I was reading that these brown bears will make daybeds where they will dig little belly holes in the ground, stick their bellies in the ground, and just kind of sleep.

So, you know, its back was basically hidden by the grass. And if Rob hadn't noticed it, we probably would have walked right up to it. But what was funny was that all the other bears were awake and eating and playing and doing stuff. There were. Yeah, I feel like we saw a fox running around. The birds were awake every day.

All was up there. Eagles were flying. It was loud. And there's one bear with just everyone's will. Lift his head and look up and around like, oh my, supposed to get up. And then its eyelids would kind of droop again, and then it would close its eyes and its head and flop back down. It would go back to sleep like every few minutes.

It had suddenly pop up like the alarm clock went off. And then and it hit the snooze button and then its eyes would roll back into its head again, and then it would just flop back over and go back to sleep. That was really funny. It was so funny. Grown ups. We'll put a clip of that bear on our social media because it's funny.

Yeah it's great. And I relate to that. I'm not a morning person. It's hard for me to get up in the morning. And so that bear really spoke to me. Yeah, yeah. You and grizzly bears have a lot in common. So Laura picks a grizzly bear. We'll find out what I picked right after this. This episode of the Happiest Animal Show is brought to you by naps.

If you're feeling tired or cranky, try taking a nap. Naps are like sleeping at night, but shorter. Try taking a nap today. Your friends and your family will thank you. And we're back. Rob, what sleepy animal is making you happy today? It is normally found in trees, okay? And it is a very picky eater. Okay? It tends to only eat one kind of plant.

And even then it's very picky because it sniffs the leaves of that plant and chooses the correct ones. It wants to eat. Oh really. Yeah. And it lives in Australia. Does it have a pouch. It does have a pouch. Yes. Is it kind of a gray color. It is a gray color with a black nose.

Is it a koala? Yes. Ding ding ding.

Koala. Koala. So cute. Great. Yeah. Koalas. They are adorable. They're the cutest things. And they, you know, they're not very big koalas. They're about 2 or 3ft long. And they, you know, they weigh under 30 pounds. So they're they're they don't weigh that much more than a housecat or something. And and why are they making you happy today for people who love to take naps, the koala is the champion of the entire world.

There are 24 hours in the day, and koalas are usually sleeping for 20 of those hours in the day. They spend so much time sleeping and it's it's not because they're lazy, okay? It's actually really important that they that they do that. Okay. So koalas eat the eucalyptus right? Yeah. They eat the leaves of a eucalyptus tree. Yeah okay.

And that's the only thing they eat. That's. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So they're very picky eaters because they pretty much I mean they, it sounds like they will eat some other plants, but mostly it's this one thing. Eucalyptus and eucalyptus is poisonous to most other animals. I did not know this. Yeah. So koalas are very specialized because they can eat this stuff and it doesn't bother them.

But there's not a lot of calories and energy in those leaves. And so to get around that, they eat the leaves and then they go to sleep and they save their energy while their body digests the leaves. What a weird thing to have happened, that there's this animal that eats one thing, but the one thing they eat really doesn't have that much nutrition for them.

So in order to make it work, they have to sleep a lot because they don't have the energy or they need time to digest it. Yeah, they have to digest it and they have to save their energy. So they just sleep. And that's how they get through life. They usually don't have to drink water because they get all of their water that they need from eating leaves.

So you almost never see a koala heading down to the stream to take a drink. Wow, wow. Did you get to hang out in trees and eat leaves? Yeah. And then take naps, which I think a lot of listeners out there can appreciate. And I think a lot of us wouldn't mind being a koala. Yeah, yeah. So that's my pick.

Koala is a great choice. Thanks, Rob. And now for a song. I wrote this song originally as a pitch for Sesame Street Studios, but they did not choose it for their show. So we decided to finish the full song here for you. And also a big thank you to our parents for helping sing the background vocals on this track.

Enjoy! Have you ever been dog-tired, dog-tired,tuckered out from your day? Have you ever felt cat-tired, cat-tired, purring the night away? Have you ever felt chicken-tired, chicken-tired? tired as a donkey or cow or sheep? Then rest your weary head and go to sleep. Go to sleep. Cause it's sleepy time, sleepy time.

Curtains are drawin. Everybody's yawnin. It’s sleepytime, sleepy time, such a wonderful time of day. Because it's sleepy time, sleepy time. No need to try and stay awake. So close those tired eyes and go to sleep. Go to sleep. Have you ever felt walrus tired? Walrus tired from rocking a sweet mustache? Have you ever felt raccoon tired? Raccoon tired from looking through somebody's trash?

Have you ever felt chipmunk-tired. Chipmunk-tired, from stuffing so many nuts in your cheeks? Then rest your weary head and go to sleep. Go to sleep. Have you ever felt moose- tired. Moose-tired from being so incredibly tall? Have you ever felt octopus-tired , octopus-tired from having no bones at all? Have you ever felt archerfish-tired?

Archerfish-tired from spitting at every bug that you see. Then rest your weary head and go to sleep. Go to sleep. Cause it's sleepy time, sleepy time. Curtains are drawin. Everybody's yawnin’. It’s sleepy time, sleepytime, such a wonderful time of day. Cause it's sleepy time. Sleepy time. No need to try and stay awake. Just close those tired eyes and go to sleep.

Go to sleep. Have you ever felt porcupine-tired. Porcupine.-tired. Napping in a hollowed out tree? Have you ever felt albatross-tired? Albatross-tired and living life on the wing? Have you ever felt muskox tired? Muskox-tired, from digging around in snow so deep. Then rest your weary head and go to sleep. Go to sleep. Have you ever felt capybara?

Tired, cabybara-tired from hanging out with your friends. Have you ever felt human-tired, human-tired. Hoping this song will end. Have you ever felt parent -tired, parent-tired, begging your kid to fall asleep? Oh please please please please please just go to sleep. Go to sleep. Please please just go to sleep. Go to sleep. Just close those tired eyes and go to sleep.

Go to sleep. Before we get on with the show, here's a quick message for the grown ups and we are back. Before we get to our special guest, it's time for the happiest fan of all. We're a fan of the show, gives us clues to an animal that is making them happy. Today's submission is from four year old Willow from Seattle, Washington.

Clue number one. It has sharp claws. Clue number two. It eats meat. Clue number three. It lives in the jungle. Clue number four. It has orange and black stripes. Oh. Do you have a guess? The answer is a tiger. Tigers are making Willow happy because they are really, really pretty and have wet noses. And because they're a type of cat and cats have wet noses.

Thanks for your submission, Willow and Grown-Ups. If you or your family would like to submit a happiest animal, visit our website at Happiest Animal Show A.com. Today's special guest is comedian David Gborie, who currently can be heard as the voice of Comedy Central. Well, thank you for joining us today. Yeah. Of course. So big question for you, David, is what animal is making you happy today?

Sea turtles, sea turtles, sea turtles? Yes. Sea turtle. I really, really love sea turtles. Yeah. Me too. Like a lot. All of them. The leatherback one. All of them? Yeah. Something about, the pace that they move. And I really relate. Have you ever seen a sea turtle in the wild? Yes. In Hawaii. It was amazing. Yeah, it was amazing raising.

It was in Hawaii, on the beach, and we weren't too far out, maybe like 20 yards out from the shore. And it just kind of floated past the best and kept going, and it was amazing. Hawaii is probably the best place to encounter sea turtles because they're so chill. They're usually at least on the popular beaches. They're so used to people that they just don't care.

Yeah, he he he felt very unbothered, like he didn't feel worried about it. I, I man, I've been in the water with so many sea turtles over the years, a few different times. And I, I was working on a video shoot for PBS kids, and I was actually in an aquarium in new Jersey, and they had, like, loads of stingrays and sharks and things in the tank.

And there's this one huge loggerhead sea turtle. And, I was trying to film the stingrays in this tank. That was that was my job for that day, was like film getting footage of stingrays. And so I was down on the bottom and this, like, 200 pound sea turtle kept coming over and just climbing on top of me.

And so the whole time while I was filming, I kept having to shove this sea turtle off of me. Like, one of the weirdest things I've ever happened is just constantly being hounded by this. And it would just slowly start drifting back toward you, and then you'd slowly push it away, and then it would slowly come back. And it's just I found out later that when the divers are normally in that tank, it's just used to being fed.

And so I think he just thought I must have had snacks. And so it's just like, where are the snacks? And so he just kept moving on top of me is like my daughter. Don't you have crackers? Not right now. Yeah, yeah. Sea turtle. See, you like the way their pace. Just kind of that. They float in there.

I love that they get so old. They feel old when you. When you see them. They feel old. They feel wise. Yeah. Yeah, I guess, but also kind of silly. One of my favorite, favorite times. The sea turtle was I was at the aquarium in Dayton, Kentucky. It's like a really big aquarium. And I was walking through, you know, they have the bridge.

Yeah. Where it's kind of it. It's all covered and I was watching him and I was like, wow, he's so beautiful and so majestic and just, like, so elegant, the way they move through the water. And I was really, like, just really vibing with this sea turtle. And then as I'm watching him, he just being just goes right into the car.

He's staring right into the glass. Yeah. And it was just like, oh yeah, I, I don't know, I feel, I felt I get that when I see that I was just like, yeah, I relate to it just in his own brain space. Just like, yeah, just not worried about anything else. Just thinking his turtle thoughts and bonk.

Yeah. I think he was just so relaxed. Just having such a good time as I like to think about, you know, the first time I ever saw a sea turtle, I was with a friend on a beach in South Carolina when I was a teenager. And it was like. It was like a magic trick. We'd been walking on the beach for, like, a half hour, and I just said randomly, you know, I've never seen a sea turtle before.

And like a magic trick, a sea turtles head came out of the water and took a breath and went back down and disappeared. It was the coolest thing I've ever done in my life. Was some of the sea turtles. Yeah, like a Sunday. Best. Yeah. So I'm just realizing that aquarium is one that Rob and I have been to the Newport Aquarium.

We filmed there. Yeah, yeah. We filmed. Oh, really? It's it's a great. It was fun. Yeah. Yeah, I really liked it in there. We got in the tank to film. There are shark rays. It's like, are they a shark? Are they? Or. It doesn't matter. They're shark. They look like both. And we got in the tank filmed those also these big ragged tooth sharks or grain nurse sharks.

And so we got in with those and there was a safety diver with me that was making sure the sharks didn't get too close. And so every time a shark would swim by, I think it was always curious about my camera. It would sort of veer into me, and the guy would stick this PVC pipe out and poke the shark away.

So he didn't smoke it to me. But it was, it was a really fun trip going to get to do that. And I really like that aquarium a lot. Yeah, that's a good one. It's up there. Do you get to see a lot of aquariums while you're doing stand up or zoos? Not as much as you I would see, you would think, actually, but I really like the, was the Madison, Wisconsin Zoo last time I was there, they gave us a tour.

So we got to go kind of behind the scenes and everything. That's a top one for me and the Monterey Bay. Oh of course. Yeah. Also, that's a fun one I really like. Especially talk about turtles. The one. I'm not sure what the room's called. I think they call it like a Peter where it's like a giant. Yeah, the giant tanks are open ocean.

You're kind of in it. Yeah. Oh, man, I, I love that. Yeah, I love that. There's something really freeing thinking about a sea turtle just riding the currents, going wherever the currents are going. I guess I'm going that way. That sounds great. Just something. Right. So peaceful. Kind, romantic. Yeah. This is romantic. Yeah. The. We went to Laura and I went to see Pan and filmed a story about sea turtles.

Oh. Wow. About nine years ago, I think. And then we got to watch them as they came up on the beach and laid eggs there. Because the cool thing is that the females will come back to the beaches where they were born to lay their own eggs. So even though they go drift and follow the currents, they make their way back to the very beach where they're born.

Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that great? Is you're making me want to take a trip back to Hawaii just to hang out on the beach with those turtles? It's one of the one of the coolest animals I've ever seen. And that same trip, we saw whales as well. And I still the turtle was still moving. Oh, wow. That's cool.

I mean, the whales, the size really kind of was like, wow. But the the sea turtle was up close. Yeah for sure. Did the sea turtle did you see did they ever come up onto the beach near you or were they on the water? It was just one. And it was just it just kind of floated by. You just kind of floated.

So cool. It's a special thing to get to see a sea turtle out in the wild. I felt really lucky. Yeah, I got really lucky because that's the only time I've seen one in the wild. The rest I've kind of seen in aquariums and stuff like that. Well, David, sea turtles. Yeah, that's a great pick. Thank you. Yeah.

Thanks for joining us on the Happiest Animal Show. Thanks so much for having me, guys. And now the time we've all been waiting for the answer to the joke of the day. What should you do if you find the lion in your bed? Do you have a guess? The answer is find someplace else to sleep.

And before we go, remember, we live on a beautiful planet. So go out and find what makes you happy today. Hey, grown ups, we know you're busy, but if you like our show, we'd love for you to tell your friends and family about it. It's the best way for our podcast to grow and grown ups, you can also follow us on social media at Happiestanimalshow, or check out other fun things on our website, like how to submit an animal and how to get merch.

Visit Happiestanimalshow.com. The Happiest Animal Show is created by Laura Sams, Robert Sams, and Dave Cain. Produced by Sisbro Studios, hosted and directed by Laura Sams and Robert Sams, and written by Laura Sams, Robert Sams with story editor Dave Cain, and with only a little help from our cat walking across the keyboard. Now let's talk music. Original music is written and performed by zero time Grammy Award winning songwriters Laura Sams and Robert Sams.

Except for the end credits, music which was written by Laura and Robert's Grandma Max and the joke answer suspense music written by David Schultz. The theme song was written and performed by Laura and Rob and mixed by Jason Wells of Audio Wells. Thanks for listening. You're the best.