Yeardley:  Hey, Small Town Super Fam, it’s Yeardley. How are you? Gosh, I hope you’re well and doing things that you really want to be doing and not the things that you don’t. I’m so lucky because I’m here with Detective Dan.

Dan:  Happy Holidays.

Yeardley:  Aww, happy holidays, darling. And Detective Dave.

Dave:  Hey there.

Yeardley:  [laughs] Hey there, wherever you are in the world, here in the US of A, we are gearing up for the holidays. In the last few years, we do something sort of usually Christmas related. We read the Grinch who Stole Christmas one year, which I thought was magical. Dan, Dave and Paul and I. I was Cindy-Lou Who, and they were everybody else.

 The Night Before Christmas, we read that one too, and that was also magical. This year we thought it would be fun and funny to enumerate the crimes in the classic Christmas movie Home Alone, the original one. So, fellas, there’s a whole lot of shit that goes down. And our wonderful producers and Monica, our social media manager, who’s so fantastic, actually have gifted me a document with timestamps of when these crimes take place in the film. And then there’s just a laundry list at the end of all the things that Kevin does to the bandits, which may or may not be crimes, but also could probably be considered battery in some cases.

Dave:  I think young Kevin McAllister is actually a menace.

Yeardley:  He is a menace for sure.

Dave:  I went ahead and did homework over the weekend and watched Home Alone.

Yeardley:  So you’re [laughs] well acquainted with the many things that go sideways. I have to say they wreak some significant havoc in this tome.

Dan:  There’s an online conspiracy theory that Kevin McAllister turned into Jigsaw.

Yeardley:  Is that a horror movie character?

Dan:  That is. And he has elaborate puzzles and tests for people to avoid their own death.

Yeardley:  Is he in like Saw?

Dan:  Yes.

Yeardley:  Oh, he is.

Dan:  Jigsaw is Saw.

Yeardley:  Oh, yeah. I don’t watch those. That’s why I don’t know that people, because I don’t need that kind of horror in my life.

Dave:  You know, I went into watching that movie with a purpose. It’s the first time I watched Home Alone, going, I got to study.

Yeardley:  [laughs] Probably not a lot of people do that. You’re right.

Dave:  I was struck by young Kevin. He commits crimes. I mean, he steals a toothbrush from the convenience store and then runs from the cops.

Yeardley:  He also does not pay for his– Oh, no, he does pay for his pizza, but he tips the guy 20 cents.

Dave:  Well, and that’s a great segue to the next one, which, you know, the whole scene with the Tommy Gun I’m going to give you to the count of 10 to get your life, menacing. He’s threatening this person with a gun, the sounds. It doesn’t have to be real, but this person was in significant fear, the way he runs off. So, I think we got Kevin. He’s already on the board with three crimes, at least.

Dan:  And he didn’t tip.

Yeardley:  Which is a huge crime when the pizza guy brings you your hot pizza in the snow.

Dave:  Right. But the meat of the story. Yes, we can get into that.

Yeardley:  Okay, the first one here, at the very top of the film is Joe Pesci. He’s in the McAllister house, where it’s just bedlam because they’re all getting ready to leave on this big European vacation. And he’s impersonating a police officer. That seems like a big one. Although they don’t know that.

Dave:  That is a felony. I will say I checked out the uniform because I was like, “I’m just making sure he’s not like the neighborhood security guard, but no, he’s got the Chicago patch on the jacket, and he looks squared away.” The one takeaway I had was Kevin McAllister’s dad, when he finally does talk to Joe Pesci, gives way too much information, like, “Hey, we got all the lights on timers and we’re heading out of town. We’re all good.”

Yeardley:  Yeah. He gives basically the entire game plan.

Dave:  Yeah. [laughter]

Dan:  And I have a son who’s a menace. I’d say it’s the equivalent of posting on Facebook that you’re leaving town over the holidays.

Dave:  [laughs] Right.

Yeardley:  Absolutely right. I remember Paul telling us that back in the day when he would travel and his producer’s like, “You should post that we’re in, blah, blah, blah.” And so, he would do that. And then somebody went, “Ahem, maybe you shouldn’t do that,-

Dan:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  -Because your family’s actually back in your home.”

Dave:  Right.

Yeardley:  So, yeah, don’t do that, folks. Don’t give away the whole game plan.

Dave:  You know, the decision to use Joe Pesci as the cop impersonator rather than Daniel Stern. I think Joe Pesci in that role had more credibility as a cop right then, maybe if he didn’t smile and show his gold teeth-

Yeardley: [laughs]

Dave:  I thought that was an interesting choice. But, you know, the Wet Bandits, they’re a thing. [laughs] And watching that, I started thinking, I was like, Daniel Stern is really enjoyable. He’s an over actor at times. I mean, many times, like, his scream and pain scenes, the guy kills it.

Yeardley:  [laughs]We call that chewing the scenery.

Dave:  Not to go too far out of bounds, but you worked with Daniel Stern.

Yeardley:  I did.

Dave:  Do you have some stories from the set with Daniel Stern?

Yeardley:  So, I worked with Daniel Stern on the original City Slickers that play the girl in the supermarket that he either owns or manages. And we hook up and he gets me pregnant. Anyway, there’s a big birthday party and I crash it and say, “By the way, I’m pregnant.” I have a line where I go, “It came up blue.” It’s a very short scene. I was there for one day. That movie was so long ago. I still get recognized for that all the time. Daniel Stern was really lovely and so is Billy Crystal.

 Okay, back to our task at hand. So, the Wet Bandits, basically their MO is breaking and entering,

Dan:  Burglary.

Yeardley:  Burglary. And burglary because they do it when nobody’s home.

Dave:  Even if people were home, it could be a burglary. Robbery is use of a weapon, threat of force, intimidation. Robbery is like the physical taking of someone’s property. So, you can have a robbery inside of a burglary. You know what I’m saying?

Yeardley:  No.

Dave:  Robberies involve people. You can burglarize a house and there’s two occupants upstairs who are sleeping, and there’s never any interaction between the burglar and the two people that are asleep upstairs. That’s a burglary. If he goes into the room and now confronts these people and says, “Give me your watch, give me all your jewelry over there,” now you’ve got a robbery that happened during a burglary.

Yeardley:  Oh, copy that.

Dave:  So, I mean, they’re really good at casing. They did a bunch of pre-offense work to determine which houses are going to be vacant, kind of what the mood and the rhythm is of the neighborhood. Kevin McAllister’s dad gives away the timing of the lights so that now they know that, “Hey, that house that has lights come on at nine every night, that’s on a timer.” So, they’re doing a good job. I think Daniel Stern maybe doesn’t have the instincts that Joe Pesci has.

Yeardley:  [laughs] Indeed. So, it goes from burglary to robbery when they realize Kevin is still home and then the war is on.

Dave:  I mean, Dan was a burglary detective. An occupied dwelling burglary, Dan?

Dan:  Ups the ante. So, burglary is unlawful entry into a, in this case, dwelling to commit a crime. You often see this during like new construction. It’s usually kids, they break into a house that’s under construction and they break the windows out and punch holes in the walls, that’s a burglary. Even though they didn’t take anything, they had the intent to commit a crime or they committed a crime inside.

Dave:  Yeah. So, Dan and I have dealt with a lot of burglars for a lot of different circumstances. But an occupied dwelling certainly raises the ante for the sheer danger factor of what happens if husband comes downstairs and interrupts this. And now we’ve got a big fight, which clearly Kevin had no worries because he’s in very close proximity to two serial burglars and he’s just messing with them, so– [laughs]

Yeardley:  Nerves of steel for a six-or seven-year-old I would say.

Dave:  The kid’s ballsy.

Yeardley:  He’s ballsy [laughs].

Dave:  And really has a sophisticated mind. I mean, he’s thinking about routes of ingress and egress. He’s thinking about countermeasures to delay or stall. I mean, the ice on the stairs, pouring water on the stairs, it’s going to be a cold night, those types of things, really forward thinking. The basement, where he’s got the sticky stuff. And now Daniel Stern’s got to come out of his shoes, his socks. He steps on a nail, falls all the way back. That was one of the first scream scenes in that movie where he steps on the nail. And I was like, “Oh, God, I love his scream.”

Yeardley:  [laughs]It’s such a good one.

Dave:  Then Kevin, knowing that Daniel Stern’s not going to continue up the stairs, he’s going to turn around and backtrack. How does he know? I mean, the kid’s just– He’s got an idea of how this is going to evolve.

Yeardley:  Extraordinary forethought.

Dan:  We should probably touch on the child neglect.

Yeardley:  Yeah, [laughs] let’s touch on the child neglect. It is such a great scene when Catherine O’Hara plays the mom, is on the plane, and she’s like, “I don’t know, did I leave the stove on? Did I blah, blah. Oh, we forgot to close the garage. Oh, my God, we forgot one of the children.” [laughter] She does it so beautifully.

 In real life, one would assume that child services would be like, “Okay, this is an epic fail, but we’re not going to take your child from you because clearly, once you realized it, you did everything you could to come back,” but still.

Dan:  There are specific things that would happen following this realization by Kevin’s mom. There would be a welfare check. There would be the calling of the police, “Hey, can you go check on my son?” I think it’s not entirely unreasonable given the chaos of that house that morning that they might forget one of their children. I don’t think it should take that long to realize that you left Kevin at home-

Yeardley:  [laughs]

Dan:  -But Child Protective services would probably pay you a visit, but you would not lose your children.

Yeardley:  Would that go on a permanent record that CPS had come and gone? Let me check out your parenting skills.

Dan:  It would definitely generate a report.

Dave:  Yes. And the way those things work is whatever agency is investigating you and collecting information from you or on you, they have their own records. Those aren’t necessarily tied into all the other states. So, like, Child Welfare would have their own database, but that doesn’t tie into law enforcement databases.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Dave:  Permanent record with that agency. They would have a documented that we’ve had contact, and these are the circumstances. But permanent record, like the way we’re thinking about it, this is going to follow me forever? No.

Yeardley:  Fascinating.

Dan:  Yeah. The police would likely show up, contact Kevin. Kevin would be taken into protective custody.

Yeardley:  Until his parents got home.

Dave:  Yeah. We would try to find a family member first, but they were all on vacation. They’re all heading to Paris, and nobody wants to hang out with Uncle Frank. Guy’s an asshole.

Yeardley:  [laughs] True.

Dave:  So good point. The child welfare and neglect issues, I made a note of that. I was like, “Oh, they would have been getting a visit.”

Dan:  Yeah. Now In Home Alone 2, when they do it again, this is like progressive discipline.

Yeardley:  Right.

Dan:  It didn’t take the first time. Now you forgot Kevin again.

Dave:  You lose your kids until they’re 25.

Yeardley:  [laughs] Oh, God. That’s a good point.

[Laughter]

 Yeah. Funny that it’s basically the same plot for the sequel too. Usually, they try to evolve it. I’m not saying it’s the same movie, but it’s enormously similar.

Dave:  Yes. As sequels go, though, Home Alone 2, pretty good.

Yeardley:  Yeah. Yeah. It’s one of the more successful franchises, I would say. What does it do to Kevin, though? Like, are you guys just trying to tell me something that you wish I wasn’t part of the family and keep leaving me behind? We’ll never know.

Dave:  Kevin’s got resentment and probably has Christmas issues.

Yeardley:  Probably has Christmas issues. And you don’t even have to be left behind on two separate family vacations to have Christmas issues. So that kid probably was like, F Christmas.

Dave:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  One of the things that sort of the big piece of evidence is that Joe Pesci’s gold tooth falls out in the course of Kevin hazing Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci while he’s keeping his house safe.

Dave:  The old swinging paint can.

Yeardley:  Yeah. Now, back then in 1990, where were we with DNA. Could they have tested that for DNA or would they just have gone and said, “Let me see if it fits on your tooth, Joe Pesci?”

Dave:  That was definitely the early days of DNA. Early, early days. The other thing is, that’s an unreported burglary of the McAllister house.

Yeardley:  What do you mean? The police came?

Dave:  Well, the police came, but they never took a statement from Kevin. Kevin’s in the window waving at Joe Pesci as he drives off in the police car.

Yeardley:  Oh, right.

Dave:  So it’s n anonymous call from his residence. “Hey, there’s a burglary at blah, blah, blah.”

[laughter]

 And he sends him to the neighbor’s house that’s full of water in the basement because the wet bandits are just tearing apart this neighborhood. But really, I thought about, and I was like, “That’s an unreported burglary.” And so now our crime stats are all off.

[laughter]

Dan:  But also, I mean, Kevin’s got some street smarts and he ain’t no snitch. [Yeardley laughs] So, if he calls the burglary in on his own house, then his parents are going to get in trouble, and Kevin ain’t no snitch.

Dave:  Yeah, you can’t throw the home team under the bus.

Yeardley:  Right.

Dave:  Mom’s in a rider van with John Candy and his polka band, the Kenosha Kickers.

Yeardley:  Why wouldn’t you dedicate your life to polka? I mean, why not?

Dave:  They’re world renowned and on the road for 49 out of 52 weeks a year, because they’re popular. John Candy. I mean, that guy’s a treasure.

Yeardley:  Yeah. Such a treasure. He was incredible. So, an unreported burglary. Do you think that means that Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci wouldn’t pay for their crime because nobody said, “My house has been burgled.” Or it’s so obvious that these houses have been burgled and they arrest those guys. Like, what do you do?

Dave:  Well, they give it away. When the cops are walking Pesci and Daniel Stern out of the neighbor’s house, once they’re finally arrested, the cop lets them know, “Hey, great idea leaving the water on at all these houses. Now we know exactly which houses you hit.” So cumulatively, I think the McAllister house is not a big deal because they got so many other cases on these guys, so.

Yeardley:  Do you think that insurance would not cover all the damage that happens in the McAllister house because it’s an unreported burglary? Like, how do you prove to your insurance company that you got burgled if you don’t report it.

Dave:  I mean, the most damage was caused by Kevin himself putting the sticky stuff downstairs on the stairs. But other than that, there’s not like holes in the wall. The house is in pretty good condition. You’ve got the torch at the kitchen door that doesn’t set anything on fire other than Joe Pesci’s head. You got the front door hand with the warmer that turns it scorching hot. It felt like a little throwback to Indiana Jones with the burn on the hand.

Yeardley:  Oh, yeah.

Dave:  I was like, “Is that a nod? I don’t know.”

Yeardley:  I bet that’s a little easter egg to that.

Dave:  So Kevin did a really good job of covering the entrances and exits and encouraging entry into certain places, like downstairs, turn them around. Now Daniel Stern’s going through an open window on a freezing cold night. And he’s like, “Ah, there it is. Harry, I’m coming in.” [laughs]

Yeardley:  Right. And also, Pesci and Daniel Stern, they can’t complain or make any report about the amount of physical damage that was done to them, because then the question comes up, “Well, why did that happen to you?” Then they have to confess to the crime.

Dave:  Yeah. When we used to get calls from– It was mostly like drug dealers that would get their product stolen or somebody buying drugs, and they get. We call it bunk dope, where it’s not actually methamphetamine, it’s stuff that looks like meth. So, they would call the police and say, “This guy just ripped me off.” And you’re like, “Well, what was taken?” “Well, he took my money and he gave me this crap dope.” And you’re like, “You called us because you got a bad bag of meth. I want to make sure that I got this right.” I’m sure Dan’s had that.

Yeardley:  What would you do about that, Dan? Like, do you arrest that person because they’re buying drugs?

Dan:  Are they attempting to buy drugs? They didn’t technically buy drugs, right?

Yeardley:  Because the drugs weren’t the drugs.

Dan:  Yeah. It’s usually like, I’ve come across laundry detergent in a bag, rock salt.

Yeardley:  Passing as an actual drug.

Dan:  Yes. Oregano in a bag. Like, where you even look at it and say, “Dude, you thought that was real stuff?” Unless you were probably on probation or parole. It’s something that our DA’s office never would file on in a case like that. Those cases are few and far between, but it does happen, and it’s a head scratcher.

Dave:  I would always say, “Hey, do you really want me to put this in report?” Or “Do you just want to cut your losses and go, ‘hey, maybe I don’t do business with that person anymore?’” So, with the wet bandits, I don’t know how many houses they broke into, but it sounds like it was a lot up and down the McAllister block.

Yeardley:  And just to be clear, they’re wet bandits because their thing is they turn on the water.

Dave:  Right.

Yeardley:  Why?

Dan:  That’s their signature.

Dave:  Yeah, it’s the signature “Fuck you,” as you’re leaving.

Yeardley:  God, that’s a giant fuck you.

Dave:  That’s not uncommon either, is it, Dan?

Dan:  No.We had a guy, prolific car thief, but he was burglarizing houses, and then he would find the car keys in the house and steal the car. One of the things that he would do, and it’s so– It’s just in really poor taste. He would defecate on their kitchen table.

Yeardley:  Oh, my God. You’ve got to be kidding.

Dan:  Yep. That was his basically, FU move to the homeowner was, “Not only did I steal your stuff and break into your house, but you have to clean this up.”

Yeardley:  Oh, my God. That is the– Oh, people.

Dan:  That one ended in a pretty hairy pursuit and him fleeing on foot and getting apprehended by a canine. He actually ran into a rural area and hopped a fence and got into the backyard of this house and went into the doghouse. What we confronted was the dog who was freaked out, like, “Hey, there’s somebody in my dog house.”

Yeardley:  So the homeowner’s dog.

Dan:  Yeah. It was kind of funny. I remember this like it was yesterday. This dog house wasn’t big enough for our bad guy. So, his feet were hanging out of the doghouse.

[laughter]

Yeardley:  Good God.

Dan:  And we made announcement after announcement after announcement, like, “Hey, dude, we can see your feet. They’re hanging out of the doghouse. You need to come out now, or we’re going to send our dog on you.” Nothing, so we dogged him.

Yeardley:  Meanwhile, the homeowner’s dog is going, “Hey, somebody’s squatting in my dog house.”

Dan:  Yeah. We went and knocked on the door and said, “Hey, can you call your dog into your house? There’s somebody who ran from us who’s hiding in your doghouse right now.” “Oh, yeah, no problem.”

[laughter]

Yeardley:  Gee whiz.

Dave:  I remember looking for a bad guy. We were searching a house. Some of my stories overlap into maybe it was Dan’s story. And I just heard about it, like, on the next shift. But a guy, like, standing in the corner, acting like a statue, like a mannequin, trying to hide from the cops-

Yeardley:  Oh my god.

Dave:  -like, in plain sight, and you’re like, “Oh, there he is.” And he’s just frozen. You’re like, “I see you. Get your hands up.” Frozen. [laughs]

Dan:  We digress.

Yeardley:  It’s all so good, though. I guess the takeaway with Home Alone and the number of crimes committed and whether or not justice is served is sort of the Hollywood version of the breaking and entering story, and leaving your child behind while you go to Europe. [laughs]

Dave:  That’s right.

Yeardley:  We took a lot of liberties as we sometimes do in my profession.

Dan:  [laughs]I feel like a further discussion in the future on this. We could definitely discuss what kind of injuries Harry and Marv sustained during their siege.

Yeardley:  I mean, Harry gets tarred and feathered, for God’s sake. That’s got to be a crime.

Dave:  [laughs] Daniel Stern, “Why are you dressed like a chicken?”

[laughter]

Dan:  I don’t think it’s a crime at all. [laughter] This is a classic castle doctrine case.

Dave:  Reasonable force.

Yeardley:  To protect your castle.

Dan:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  I don’t know. I think we’re stretching it.

Dave:  [laughs] They’re lucky Kevin only had a pellet gun in the first attempt at the break in at the back door. Joe Pesci takes one to the pelvic girdle, as we call it in the police forces. There’s a lot of blood flow and a lot of nerves in the area. And then Daniel Stern, Marv takes one right to the forehead through the dog door. I mean, if that’s not a pellet gun, it’s a body recovery, two bodies.

Yeardley:  It’s a homicide investigation.

Dave:  [laughter] And, he’s totally justified.

Yeardley:  [laughs] Oh, boy. Yeah, we could do the injuries that were incurred in Home Alone at a later date.

Dave:  Next year, we cover the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation kidnapping.

Yeardley:  Oh, that’s a good one. So, we have that to look forward to.

 Small Town Super Fam. There you have it. I mean, I don’t even know what to say about that except once again Hollywood decided we’re just going to tell the story this way. We hope to God that nothing like Home Alone ever happens to you to ever and that you stay safe and well and well fed, and pretty happy this holiday season. Thanks for joining us here behind the paywall, you guys are great.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

 Small Town Dicks premium content is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith, and co-produced by detectives Dan and Dave. Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editors are Christina Bracamontes and Erin Phelps. Gary Scott is our executive producer and our production manager is Logan Heftel. Logan also composed our theme music. Our social media maven is Monika Scott. The Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor are our associate producers. And last but not least, our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell.

 Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 production. Small Town Super Fam our team is forever grateful for your support.

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