The Clearwater Monster

Summary

Summary of "The Clearwater Monster" – Criminal Podcast by Vox Media

Podcast Title: Criminal
Host: Phoebe Judge
Episode: The Clearwater Monster
Release Date: July 4, 2025
Description: Criminal explores stories about people who've done wrong, been wronged, or found themselves caught in between. In "The Clearwater Monster," listener Jeff Signorini delves into a decades-old local legend intertwined with a heartwarming family secret.

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Introduction to the Clearwater Monster Phenomenon

In the early hours of July 1948, Clearwater Beach, Florida, was the stage for an unusual event that would captivate the small community and eventually attract national attention.

Phoebe Judge narrates:

"One morning in 1948, a phone call woke up the police chief in the small beach town of Clearwater, Florida. It was 3 am..." ([00:00])

A mysterious caller reported seeing a large, "blowing and spouting" entity emerging from the water, standing nearly 10 feet tall. The eerie sight was accompanied by a request to borrow a high-powered rifle to shoot the creature. The caller's anonymity deepened the intrigue, and shortly after, peculiar footprints appeared on the beach, sparking widespread speculation.

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Emergence of the Legend

Local reporter Jeff Klinkenberg, with nearly four decades of experience covering Florida's mysteries, provides firsthand insights into the initial reactions:

"It was like something that didn't exist, like some kind of dinosaur from the Jurassic age." ([02:18])

The footprints were extraordinary—14 inches long, 11 inches wide, with a narrow heel and three prominent toes, resembling something out of a children's show rather than a natural creature. The fear and curiosity among residents grew as theories ranged from sea turtles to crocodiles, none of which matched the evidence.

Judge elaborates:

"Plans were made to send photographs of the tracks to the Smithsonian to be studied. But the rumor was already circulating that Clearwater beach had a sea monster." ([04:11])

The story quickly gained national traction, with letters pouring in from scientists and enthusiasts alike, fueling the monster's legend.

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Ivan Sanderson's Involvement

Enter Ivan Sanderson, a charismatic self-zoologist and pioneer of cryptozoology, known for his enthusiastic pursuit of mythical creatures.

Jeff Klinkenberg describes Sanderson:

"He was sort of like Douglas Fairbanks, you know, slick black hair, pencil-thin mustache... a ham." ([07:54])

Sanderson saw the Clearwater footprints as a potential groundbreaking discovery. Equipped with basic tools and his trusty aircraft, he embarked on an investigation, ultimately concluding that the tracks belonged to giant penguins—a hypothesis that added a whimsical twist to the mystery.

"He concluded that the creature was probably generally unhappy, based on its wandering path." ([10:44])

Despite his efforts, no substantial evidence of giant penguins surfaced, and Sanderson eventually returned to New York, leaving the Clearwater Monster mystery unresolved.

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The Secret Behind the Legend

The true story behind the Clearwater Monster was a playful secret kept within a family for decades. Jeff Signorini, the grandson of the man who would become known as the monster, reveals the heartfelt prank:

Jeff Signorini shares:

"My father and Al Williams came up with the idea for a prank that would top them all." ([18:18])

In collaboration with his friend Al Williams, Jeff's father, Tony Signorini, fabricated the monster's footprints using cast iron feet and high-top sneakers. Over ten years, they meticulously created the illusion of a sea monster traversing the beach, delighting in the community's reactions.

"They'd go out in a rowboat... put the feet on and step overboard, walking up onto the sand to create tracks." ([21:00])

The pranks were harmless, intended to bring joy and wonder to an otherwise quiet town. The secret remained within the family until years later when Tony decided to reveal the truth, sharing the hefty cast-iron feet with a reporter and unmasking the legendary monster.

---

Legacy and Reflection

Tony Signorini’s obituary highlighted his multifaceted life, including his service in World War II and his long-standing reputation as the Clearwater Monster. His son, Jeff, reflects on his father's legacy:

"It was part of him, and it had to be part of his story." ([29:28])

Today, Jeff cherishes the monstrous feet as a family heirloom and symbol of his father's playful spirit. The revelation of the Clearwater Monster serves as a testament to the enduring power of community legends and the simple joys of creative pranks.

Jeff Klinkenberg concludes:

"Pranks are fun. They give people some excitement... It's the stuff that makes life worth living." ([31:31])

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Notable Quotes

• Phoebe Judge:
  "I can't imagine. This must have been pretty exciting news." ([05:30])

• Jeff Signorini:
  "Anything that's done, that's the... he became the guidance to things in that way." ([29:53])

• Alyssa Shimco (Tony's Granddaughter):
  "It was just the joy of them thinking maybe they could get a rise out of someone." ([30:18])

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Conclusion

"The Clearwater Monster" intertwines local folklore, family bonds, and the universal love for mystery and storytelling. Through playful deception, Tony Signorini and Al Williams not only entertained their community but also created a lasting legend that continues to inspire curiosity and wonder.

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Support and Further Listening

For those intrigued by the blend of true crime and human stories, Criminal offers a rich array of episodes that delve deep into the complexities of right and wrong. Subscribe to stay updated with the latest stories that challenge and enlighten.

Transcript

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Phoebe Judge]

Today we're sharing an episode of this Is Love with you, one that we thought you'd enjoy. One morning in 1948, a phone call woke up the police chief in the small beach town of Clearwater, Florida. It was 3am the man on the phone said he'd seen something strange at Clearwater Beach. He told the police chief that he'd seen something in the water and that it was big. It was, quote, blowing and spouting and about 10ft high. The caller asked to borrow a high powered rifle from the police to go shoot the thing. The police chief said no. The man wouldn't give his name because he had, quote, been parked at the beach with a girl. When the thing rose out of the water, the police chief told the man to go home and sleep it off. But that morning, residents of Clearwater woke up to find that a strange set of footprints had appeared in the sand at Clearwater beach overnight.

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

And they were big. They were like 14 inches long, 11 inches wide, narrow, narrow heel, big toes, kind of like Big Bird in Sesame Street.

[Phoebe Judge]

Jeff Klingenberg was a reporter in this part of Florida for almost four decades, writing primarily for what was then known as the St. Petersburg Times.

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

It was like something that didn't exist, like some kind of dinosaur from the Jurassic age. And it was something that no one had seen before the tracks had a.

[Phoebe Judge]

Stride of nearly 4ft, sunk an inch deep in the sand and had three toes. There were dozens of them coming out of the water and heading inland. One man who had come out to the beach for his usual morning swim told a reporter, I saw those tracks leading from the water, then returning to the water, and I thought that I was going crazy. I think that people should be told what it is. If it's anything dangerous, then we should be warned. I've never seen anything like it. A crowd started forming on the beach to look at the prints. Some people thought they might have been left by a bear. One man told a reporter that there were large crocodiles in the salt marsh to the south, that they could have somehow gotten north to the beach. Some people said it was a huge sea turtle looking for a place to lay its eggs. But the police chief told the reporter, I've never heard of a sea turtle with a stride of that length. If it was a turtle, you can take my word for it, it was the granddaddy of them all. Plans were made to send photographs of the tracks to the Smithsonian to be studied. But the rumor was already circulating that Clearwater beach had a sea monster.

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

It ends up in the newspapers, it ends up on the radio. There's no television, but everybody's talking about it in this sleepy little town. And, you know, it was after World War II and there wasn't a whole lot to do except fishing there. There were loggerhead turtles. Usually if you went to the beach, that's at night, I mean, you might, if you were lucky, you might see a turtle come up out of the Gulf and lay its eggs. But who would have expected a monster?

[Phoebe Judge]

One visitor to the area said he thought he might have seen something while he was out fishing on his boat. He told a reporter that he had been very startled when he saw a, quote, hideous looking something break water twice near his motor. He described it as having a round face that was about a foot wide and a gray body about 2ft in diameter. He said it wasn't a sea turtle, crocodile or porpoise. So people are thinking this must be a new species or something. Was that what they were thinking?

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

They're thinking, well, they don't know. I mean, it's just. It's just a mystery, you know, it's a mystery, but it's also lots of fun.

[Phoebe Judge]

The story went national, and the Clearwater police chief started receiving letters from all over the country, including from scientists. Everyone had a theory, the police chief said the theories ranged, quote from the sublime to the ridiculous. He said that if the letters were any indication, Clearwater would be getting a lot of curious visitors soon. I mean, I think. I think if I heard about this, I would. I would go out all night and wait for this thing. I think. I mean, I can't imagine. This must have been pretty exciting news.

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

You know, if I had been born then and if I'd been old enough, I would have been there with a flashlight, sitting quietly though, up by the sand dunes and just waiting for something. A noise, a silhouette. Man, I mean, that's just how I live for that stuff.

[Phoebe Judge]

And then about three weeks after the first tracks appeared, the chief of the Sheriff's Identification Bureau got a call at 11:30pm on a Friday night to come out to Indian Rocks Bridge about six miles south of Clearwater. The caller told the chief to hurry. The monster was on the beach. When the chief arrived, he found tracks coming out of the water and going back in. He described them as being about a foot wide and as having three long toes with claws. One woman said her dog had seen a sea monster earlier that night. She knew her dog had seen it because it started yelping furiously at about 10:30pm the sheriff said he'd been called that night by a person who gave his name as John Moore. Residents said the ghost of a man named Moore had been hovering around the beach since he had been killed there in an accident. Whatever the explanation, the tracks kept coming. A reporter for the Tampa Bay Times wrote, it appears that old ugly really gets around.

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

And so all this excitement and this attention helps to bring down this guy named Ivan Sanderson.

[Phoebe Judge]

Who was he?

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

New York? Well, he was a self zoologist. He was an author. He worked for WNBC radio. And he came down and apparently I've seen pictures of him. He was sort of like a Douglas Fairbanks, you know, slick black hair, pencil thin mustache, a wardrobe, you know, I don't know if he was wearing a pith helmet, but I'd like to think he was. I would say, from what I've read, a ham. This was perfect for both the Clearwater monster and Ivan Sanderson. You know, there was a match made in heaven and he gets into it.

[Richard Gregonis]

He was quite taken with the whole idea of because he was always looking for some spectacular new, you know, thing.

[Phoebe Judge]

Richard Gregonis is working on a biography of Ivan Sanderson. He says that Sanderson was known for his charismatic personality. He would often walk into restaurants with a parrot on his shoulder. He was especially curious about mysterious or legendary creatures. He coined the term cryptozoology in the 1930s, meaning the search for creatures that haven't been found and aren't recognized by science, like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot.

[Richard Gregonis]

He had collected tens of thousands of specimens of animals for the British Museum back in the 1930s when he did his major expeditions to, you know, Africa, you know, the Cameroon and the Caribbean and whatever. So he was always looking for that great discovery, you know, that great thing. And he thought this might be it, that this was some strange, you know, Paleolithic creature that was living and leaving these footprints on the beach.

[Phoebe Judge]

Ivan Sanderson convinced the New York Herald Tribune, an NBC, to send him from New York to Florida to examine the prints and to see if he could figure out what or who had left them.

[Richard Gregonis]

He would make plaster casts and he would dig things up. He would dig up the actual plaster cast after making them. He had an aircraft and a pilot. He was flying around looking for additional tracks. And nothing extremely sophisticated. I mean, it didn't have. There weren't any electronic devices for, you know, like sonar or something. He would look for the actual creature. It was all relatively simple stuff that a zoologist would have, you know, and would talk to people, you know, what did you see? Where did you see it?

[Phoebe Judge]

He concluded that the creature was probably generally unhappy, based on its wandering path. He said it was probably lost. He noted that the general impression of the imprints is one of remarkable pudginess and that one of the toes seemed to incline slightly inward, indicating, he said, that the tracks could not possibly have been man made.

[Richard Gregonis]

And he simply, through the process of elimination, decided they were giant penguins.

[Phoebe Judge]

No giant penguins were ever seen. And eventually, Ivan Sanderson just went back to New York. The tracks reappeared every once in a while, and people in Clearwater would start talking all over again, excited that the monster had come back to visit.

[Jeff Signorini]

But anytime it was being discussed and anytime there was any kind of a story on it, he would just have the biggest grin on his face. Dad was the most unassuming guy, and he was the last person that anybody would have ever expected such a thing out of. My name is Jeff Signorini. I'm from Clearwater, Florida. Spent most of my life there. Tony Signorini was my father, and he is also known as the Clearwater Monster. Even to us kids, as we found out about it, it was like, really, dad?

[Phoebe Judge]

I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is love. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Deleteme. It's important to protect your personal information online, but knowing where to start can be so overwhelming that it feels impossible. Deleteme can do the hard work for you. When you sign up for Deleteme, their experts remove your personal information and your families from data broker websites. And they won't just do it once. DeleteMe keeps checking for your personal information online, monitoring and removing what you want removed. Lauren was the one who told me about Deleteme and when I tried it I was shocked to see how easily available my address was online. I feel a lot better now that I can choose who has access to that information, take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners today. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan by texting CRIMINAL to 64,000. The only way to get 20% off is to text CRIMINAL to 64000. That's CRIMINAL to 64000 message and data rates Support for Criminal comes from Greenlight Summer means more time for your kids to learn things they might not be practicing in school, like how to ride a bike, sell lemonade, or earn and spend their own money. It's an especially good time to give them the real world money skills they'll need to use forever with Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app made for families. Parents can send money to their kids and keep an eye on their spending and saving. It helps kids learn how to save, invest and spend wisely. My niece has her first real job this summer and we've been talking about what she wants to do with the money she makes with the Greenlight app. She can set goals to save up for things she wants, like a driver's ed class and keep track of any small treats and expenses along the way. Don't wait to teach kids your real world money skills. Start your risk free Greenlight trial [e-mail] Phoebe that's greenlight.com Phoebe to get started greenlight.com Phoebe Jeff Signorini's father grew up in a little town in Pennsylvania, Monongahela, where he met and married Jeff's mother in 1942. He joined the Air Force as a flight engineer during World War II, and when the war ended, the two of them went on a two week vacation.

[Jeff Signorini]

To Florida and then were intending on going back to Monongahela. And at the end of two weeks, mom said, well, hesitantly she said, well, I guess we better start getting things packed up, huh? And Dad's answer was, why? I'm not going anywhere. Are you and they never went back. They lived in Florida the rest of their lives.

[Phoebe Judge]

Tony got a job working at an auto shop there called Auto Electric with a man named Al Williams.

[Jeff Signorini]

Al was a great guy. He was, I guess a curmudgeon would kind of be about the best description of him as I saw him as a child. In my years growing up around Al.

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

Williams had this reputation of being kind of crabby. But as far as Tony was concerned, Al wasn't crabby. He was very funny and he liked practical jokes.

[Jeff Signorini]

And dad, I'm sure, was his willing accomplice on a lot of the things. Some of the ones that I'm aware of was they had at one point snuck a horse into a holding cell in the police department and actually gotten it locked inside, left, and just waited for it to be discovered.

[Phoebe Judge]

Wait a second. Wait. How did they do that?

[Jeff Signorini]

I don't know.

[Phoebe Judge]

Now, this must have been a different time because.

[Jeff Signorini]

Oh, yes. And they. Well, one of them, they used to do. They used to hold Saturday night dances in Clearwater. There was an auditorium on the waterfront, so all the cars would be parked out front. And they would go down there and remove hoods from one vehicle and put it on to a matching vehicle of a different color. And so people would come out of the dance and it would be dark, and they wouldn't notice anything, but they'd go home. And then the next morning, they would find that maybe their green car had a blue hood or their black car had a red hood, or they would intermix the things. And I think it always kind of came back on them as, okay, they got us.

[Phoebe Judge]

Jeff says his father and Al would sometimes attach whistles to the ignition switches of their friends cars.

[Jeff Signorini]

You know, you'd turn the key on the car and it would just go with a whistling sound. I think it was all the same. I think it was just a matter of pranking and. And having some fun and surprising people. It was just always something to be having fun and something to do and nothing that caused any damage or problems, but, you know, just having fun.

[Phoebe Judge]

And then Tony Signorini and Al Williams came up with the idea for a prank that would top them all.

[Jeff Signorini]

About 1940, 1947. Al had seen a photo in National Geographics of a fossilized dinosaur footprint. And he was looking at it and he showed it to dad and he said, we could have some fun with this.

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Phoebe Judge]

So your father, your father and Al Al said, what do you think about this idea? And your father immediately said, why not?

[Jeff Signorini]

Yeah, I think so.

[Phoebe Judge]

How do you make, how do you make monster feet? I mean, I'm sure. What is the blueprint for monster feet?

[Jeff Signorini]

Well, I think they just worked from that image in the photo of an imprint of a dinosaur foot. And they drew it out from there and it was a really intricate as far as how they did it. I mean, they had the three toes, they had claws on the end which were just a part of the cast. So it made it look like there were claws out on the end of the toes. It was made so that it actually kicked sand up at the back like it would when you take a regular footstep in sand. So they first tried some, they Made some concrete feet, made a cast and poured the concrete feet out. And they found in testing it that it wasn't heavy enough and it wouldn't make a good imprint into the sand. So then they took their photos and what they had drawn up and their description of it to a friend of theirs who had a metal shop in Clearwater and, and told them what they wanted to do. And he said, sure, I can do that. They weigh almost 30 pounds a piece. After having had the cast iron part of it completed, having that cast, they then bolted on a pair of Converse high top sneakers. And then you would just put the shoes on and the feet would be attached. So even just moving these things around when you're just picking them up, not wearing them, they're quite heavy. In the beginning, when they first left the first tracks on Clearwater beach, they would go out at night. And at that time, it's not like you had condos, you know, towering condos looking down on everything. There would have been a few bungalow type buildings around, but you could go out to the beach at night and it wasn't lit up and nobody would see anything. And the way they did it was they went out in a rowboat and then would row back up, just up to the shore. And dad would put the feet on and step overboard and walk up out of the water and go up onto the sand and then start down the beach for a distance. At various times they dropped seaweed behind like it had come off of the monster. And then he would walk down the beach for a distance and he would just turn and walk back out into the water. So it looked like the. The creature had come up onto the beach from the water, walked down down the shore a ways and then walked back into the water and swam away. And Al would be waiting there for him to pick him up. And I always said that dad had to be very trusting of Al Williams, that he didn't put him out in a little bit deeper water because he was going right to the bottom and staying there with those shoes.

[Phoebe Judge]

Did your father have a plan of how big a stride he needed to make to make these realistic, or did he just try to walk as a regular person? Was there some rhyme or reason in how he. He actually took his footsteps?

[Jeff Signorini]

Well, the decision was to make them as long as possible, to make the creature seem as big as possible. And as he described it, it was get a foot put down and get that footprint set, and then you just start swinging the other leg a little bit and then swing it out to as far as that one could reach and bringing the other leg with you. And with that, from what they measured, he was able to get between four and six foot strides, which was part of what made them think it was so large.

[Phoebe Judge]

So there was some skill in this. This wasn't just strapping these on and going for a walk, correct?

[Jeff Signorini]

Yes, definitely.

[Phoebe Judge]

Every now and again, Tony Signorini and Al Williams would pull out the feet. They nicknamed them Denny the Dinosaur. They did this for 10 years.

[Jeff Signorini]

I don't know what generated it. If they just said, okay, let's go do it again or hey, don't you think it would be a good time to bring it back out? Or some story ran in the paper and said nothing was ever known and it hasn't been seen for six months. And they'd say, yeah, might be time for it to be seen again.

[Phoebe Judge]

Did your mother know what was going on?

[Jeff Signorini]

Oh yeah. It wasn't anything uncommon for Al Williams to give dad a call and say, hey, let's go. And they would take off and go do something and come back and then dad would tell her about it after the fact.

[Alyssa Shimco]

The story that I heard was that he came home in the wee hours of the morning, you know, to or 3am Just giggling to himself and covered in sand.

[Phoebe Judge]

Tony Signorini's granddaughter, Alyssa Shimco.

[Alyssa Shimco]

And she knew something was up obviously because that wasn't normal behavior. But I think she just found it entertaining to know what was going on with them.

[Phoebe Judge]

Did you know your grandfather well?

[Alyssa Shimco]

I did. I spent a lot of time with him growing up. My grandparents house was maybe a couple miles from where my family lived. And so I grew up there. And I remember the monster feet being in this like wooden crate underneath one of the workbenches at the shop, just out in the garage. So it was kind of an open secret in that sense that they were just sitting there and that we knew about it. But it also feels like just a kind of cool family thing that makes me feel like I can do cool stuff or do silly stuff. And the important thing is always just to try to make other people smile.

[Phoebe Judge]

The family kept the secret for 40 years. And then Tony Signorini decided to let everyone in on the joke. Al Williams had passed away and it was Tony's secret to tell. He invited a reporter to the auto shop and pulled out the feet which were still in their box under the workbench. The reporter's headline read, clearwater can Relax Monster is unmasked. Do you think he was proud of it?

[Jeff Signorini]

Oh yeah. Absolutely.

[Phoebe Judge]

I mean, there must be a thrill after having hidden something for so long to finally be able to say it was me, huh?

[Jeff Signorini]

Absolutely.

[Phoebe Judge]

Tony Signorini died in 2012. Jeff wrote in his obituary that his father and mother were high school sweethearts. His father was devoted to his church and was famous for being the Clearwater Monster.

[Jeff Signorini]

I just couldn't imagine it not being included. It was a part of who he was. All the other things that were in there about his service in World War II and what he did and where he worked and how involved he was in church and everything, those were all true. Those were all the primary parts of his life. They were all the things that were so much a part of him and the man that he was. But so was Denny the dinosaur. It was just. It was an alternate thing that could not, not be included. It was something he took great joy in. I don't know about pride, maybe pride, but mainly joy in the entire episode and the fooling of everyone with it. And it just. It was part of him, and it had to be part of his story.

[Phoebe Judge]

The last line of Tony Signorini's obituary reads, men like him are few indeed. Do you think of your father when you pull a good prank?

[Jeff Signorini]

Yes, absolutely. Anything that's done, that's the. You know, he became the guidance to things in that way.

[Phoebe Judge]

Jeff Signorini has inherited the huge cast iron feet that his father once wore. And he says that now that the secret is out, at least two historical groups have asked him to donate them, but he's hesitant to let them go.

[Jeff Signorini]

He wanted to keep them. It was a family kind of a thing. I have them. It's a part of him. It's a connection to dad.

[Phoebe Judge]

You know, I like thinking about Tony and Al and thinking about them just to entertain themselves, you know, just to kind of play with reality, whether it made a big deal or not. But just the joy of them thinking maybe they could get a rise out of someone.

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

Yes. And it must have brought them great joy to, you know, the next day to talk about what they'd done the night before and just to relish the stories in the newspaper or what they heard on the radio.

[Phoebe Judge]

Journalist Jeff Klinkenberg.

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

And then, even better, people who then made the claim that they had actually seen the monster out on the beach. That must have been very satisfying.

[Phoebe Judge]

You know, what is it about a great prank that we love so much? I mean, there can be so many things going on in the world and tons of technology and people have attention spans that last 10 seconds now. But still, there's something about a great prank that seems to wipe that all away and that everyone will stop to hear about a good prank, you know.

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

And the thing about that prank in particular, first of all, it wasn't cruel. You know, it wasn't like a prank at the expense of somebody else. It was just one of these things that gave people some excitement. And I would say, joy, just this idea. I live in this world, nothing happens, blah, blah, blah. And suddenly there's something outlandish. It was just fun, you know, it was fun. Pranks are fun. And you. You're right. I mean, especially now. I mean, a lot of mystery has just disappeared. Most of us think we know everything. Of course we don't, but we like to think we do. We have access to all this information. So it's really kind of funny when something can knock us for a loop. It's the stuff that makes life worth living.

[Jeff Signorini]

It is. It lets you. It gives you a sense of wonder. It makes you curious as to what it's all about. It keeps you looking for the answer. Seeing this one from the inside, I feel that way. And when I see something else from the outside, I feel that way. When it's just something that you can't figure out. We have so much information anymore and so many variations. So when something is just. Huh, it's neat in its own way. Yeah.

[Phoebe Judge]

You know, I wonder, do you think that we should all try to spend a little time thinking about a good prank that we could pull? I think it might do us good to spend a little more time figuring out how we can have some more fun.

[Jeff Klinkenberg]

I think it would be a good idea. In fact, if you turn around right now, you'll see that I'm in the studio.

[Phoebe Judge]

That's a good. Now that's a good one. I'm going to try it. I'm going to work on that. Into my own repertoire. Right there. This is Love is the other show we make. We put out episodes twice a month. We tell all kinds of love stories. This week we put out an episode all about hot dogs. You can find all of our past [e-mail] we hope you'll subscribe. This is Love is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sajiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. This episode was mixed by Rob Byers, Michael Rayfiel and Johnny Vincevans. Special thanks to Erin Wade, Kelly Ki and Thomas Sawyer. We send out an occasional newsletter to both Criminal and this Is Love listeners that includes behind the scenes photos, recommendations and more. You can sign [e-mail] newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to this Is Love Criminal and Phoebe Reads mystery without any ads. Plus you'll get bonus episodes. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com we're on Facebook and Instagram @thisisloveshow. Thisis love is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great [e-mail] I'm Phoebe Judge and this is Love.

[Richard Gregonis]

Fox Creative.

[Hiro]

This is advertiser content from I'm's Pet Food. Hey humans. My name's Hiro. I'm a cat. I'm here to give you a crash course on how we went from fierce hunters to the floofy friends you can't live without. Although, let's be honest, we could probably live without you. Around 10,000 years ago, humans started farming, which accidentally created a rodent hunting bonanza that meant full time employment and activity for us. Humans were like, okay, these guys are chill. They can stay. So unlike dogs.

[Jeff Signorini]

Ew.

[Hiro]

Sorry. We basically domesticated ourselves. We chose you. Fast forward to today. Some of us may not get as much hunting in and okay, I admit maybe we can get a little chonky, but you can help keep us healthy and active with IAM's Healthy Weight Cat food now available in stores and online.