This podcast was VERY SURPRISING. The idea that little kids aren't scared of inevitable death is just crazy. I am still way scared of something like that happening. The concept of just having to sit there in the silence of most likely a forest and knowing you are getting sucked underground to die slowly to "who knows where," scares the crap outta me. The logos incorporated in this podcast was quite interesting though because I had no idea that was the statistics of the quicksand films, and it actually makes sense with the children's views of quicksand. When they see it as a joke, they will take it as a joke, and not as seriously as it should.

It's strange how the public view of quick sand has changed over time. Quicksand seems very scary and horror oriented to me, but it seems as if it has become comedic in Saturday cartoons, and is even featured in my little pony. Quicksand had it's glory days, and now its retired and ridiculed on a daily basis.
R.I.P. Quicksand

I believe that quicksand is scary as all hell and should be in every horror movie possible. The idea of being stuck and knowing you are going to die is horrible. Not, only this but you are going to drown not in water, but in what is basically wet dirt. I also loved how they used quicksand as a metaphore for being stuck and doomed unless something drastic is used. I think it is a great way of getting an idea of being stuck in some fashion across. Quicksand is deffinitely underated, both in horror and its ability to incite fear and panic as well as its ability to allude to being stuck and doomed.

I found this podcast really interesting, because of the fact that people weren't scared of quicksand anymore. I am not afraid of quicksand, but we have been largely removed from quicksand, but I think that people aren't really afraid of quicksand, because it is not really shown as much anymore, so we aren't afraid of it. If it was shown more, we would have more fear of it in today's times. When we are exposed to something, we are scared more than if it isn't shown. Quicksand has turned into a joke because we aren't shown it anymore, and it is usually far away from the major cities.

I was out hiking a few weeks ago, and as I walked past children playing along a stream bank, couldn't help but remember this story when I heard one of them say "Its quicksand." and their conversation turned to getting sucked into it.

Rather than attributing quicksand's mid-century popularity to some subconscious expression of cold war anxiety, allow me to offer an alternative theory:

In the early days of film making, quicksand was an easy special effect to pull off in a way that created an actual sense of dread in the audience. As special effects technology progressed in the 1970s, quicksand quickly became rather tame. Eventually it became a kind of retro gag in the 1980s. Now we don't even both with it. Why would we when we can create Sharknados with computer animation?

It is interesting how the media can affect and shape each generation. Children are no longer afraid by quicksand because of the media's perspective on this once fearful thing. The media now looks at quicksand as a joke because over the decades its been repetitively used in TV and in movies that it is no longer seen as a fear. It was interesting how the podcast analyzed why the 1960s was a period that quicksand was used the most. The 1960s was a time that people were afraid of what would happen in the future. For example the podcast mentioned Martin Luther King's speech and how he stated the "quicksand of racial injustice," need to be lifted from our nation.It is clear how much of an effect the media has on our lives. It's possible the term quicksand may return because further exploration in space.

I remember coming across the concept of quicksand in cartoons, books, and other various media. It was mentioned so much that you think it’s one of those things you’d end up having to worry about in life. As a child, passing by murky looking pond-like areas always had me wondering if stepping in it would put me in a tooth-and-nail type fight with one of nature’s suckers. Listening to this podcast, I realize that quicksand really doesn't come up anymore, and if it does it seems to be some sort of comic relief. I find this podcast really interesting, and it brings me to wonder if quicksand will ever come back as something people are genuinely scared of.

This whole podcast on quicksand was really very interesting. As a child I encountered quicksand through movies and cartoons; personally I was afraid of it. I wasn't deathly afraid of it but when I was little I always wondered if the quicksand led to another place or in you just suffocated and were stuck there. I agree that quicksand has infact lost it's edge. In today's society, films, books, and tv shows are all about zombies, vampires, werewolves, and monsters basically. Which is why children today are afraid of those things, because it is what is popular now. Today we don't worry about exploration of new places because we assume everything that is worth discovering has been discovered already. I am wondering if the new Star Wars movie will indeed have quicksand, and if it does I wonder if it will cause a hype about quicksand yet again.

I never thought of quicksand as a danger, because personally I have never encountered quicksand. The only times where I remember hearing about quicksand was in a Scooby Doo movie. I only knew of it as, sand that makes you sink into the ground. I just remember laughing at the monsters being sucked down in the quicksand while the good guys got away. But I never noticed the real dangers of quicksand. I found this discussion interesting.

Quicksand is definitely something that cant be overlooked. I don't quite understand why this has become a topic of debate that is talked about for a solid 15 minutes. But for sure quicksand is something to be worried about if there is any quick sand around

I did not know that there used to be a common fear of quicksand. I had heard about quicksand in cartoons when I was younger, but the shows didn't put emphasis on the danger of quicksand, but rather used it as a small problem that was supposed to be funny. I think another reason the fear of quicksand is uncommon now is because of the emphasis on imaginary things like vampires and werewolves in movies and tv shows, instead of realistic dangers such as quicksand. I also agree that the decline in the use of sandboxes could contribute to the unawareness of quicksand. I never had a sandbox, so i would have never thought about pretending to be in quicksand.

I really thought this NPR podcast was interesting because now that you think about it, where did the thought of quicksand go? I do agree that the movies had a part in not revealing the fear of quicksand because most movies now are dealing with aliens and paranormal creatures. Movies today don't really involve environmental fears unless you are watching a bad movie on SciFy. I do think that because no one plays in the sand as much as our parents did, children don't know about what could happen in sand. To add on to the reasoning of quicksand, I think that people that aren't around sand as much as those countries that have jungles and deserts don't know how to react around quicksand because they haven't lived around it. The countries that have jungles and deserts have some sort of idea on quicksand and the dangers of it but I wouldn't say they have a big fear about quicksand because they know what to do.

I love Radio Lab, I really do but this episode was a serious let down. I kept waiting for the interesting part that usually washes over me when I listen to Radio Lab but this sounded like a documentary about somebody's poorly thought out Google search of quicksand with the typical vague uninteresting conclusion that is the product of most random curiosity Google searches... I want my 16 minutes back!

Of the almost 50 posts so far, between a half-dozen and a dozen claim that quicksand is "dangerous". LOL. So is a flat tire. As many commenters have said, you float on quicksand. Some have asked why the "experts" consulted were TV producers. One thing that happens when you saturate the public with fiction depicting supposed fact which turns out NOT to be, is everybody hears that it is a bunch of bunk. The most obvious reason it virtually disappeared is because it was FAKE. Apparently no one writing this piece has kids, the reason it appears in kids shows is BECAUSE ITS FAKE, and not real. As any parent should be able to explain. The most obvious reason no statistics are available on it, is because its far less "dangerous" than poison ivy/oak (i speculate). As a parent in the 80's I can tell you (as others have said) the reason sandboxes almost disappeared is because of the warnings from various Departments of Health about how cat scratch and other diseases, and protozoa, are spread through them, as well as small kids (and others not "box trained") using them to eliminate. Without good drainage, all sorts of nasty stuff can linger right below the surface. I'm sure many here have seen the plastic "turtle" sand boxes which come with a lid to prevent cats and other animals using them to do their business...You can't do that with public sandboxes. Interesting question is does their absence put our kids at more risk for alergies and autoimmune disease? or less? or no difference?

In response to the question about zombies, I don't think there is any connection with autism. Zombies are fluid metaphors, and they have been used to express fears and explore issues as diverse as black magic, slavery, capitalism, communism, consumerism, global pandemics, human consciousness and identity.

The question of community is also central in most zombie films. When values important for community--acceptance, trust, sacrifice, compassion--come into conflict with self-preservation, which will win?

This was great. So, what's with the current fascination with zombies? What's going on in our collective unconsciousness that makes us fascinated with animated bodies that eat......brains.......but have malfunctioning brains themselves. Any link to the rise in autism? Or more societal acceptance of neuro-atypicality?

I live on a mini farm with my 3 boys ages 4-10. Their "guys" are always falling into quicksand when they play with their legos or soldiers. Last summer during a drought my big boy tried to explore our dried pond only to get stuck up to his knees in mud for about 20 minutes before we heard his cries for help. Kids are no longer intrigued with nature in general because they rarely have independent exploration of nature.

I was wondering what kids replace quick sand? Also, what are people actually scared of now.

Hello! Just listened to this podcast today and found it incredidiblely interesting and coincidental! Just a few days ago I was explaining to my partner my childhood and somewhat current fear of quicksand. I was born in 1984 and as far as I know neither of my patents impressed upon me the notion of quicksand. After listening to this short I pondered on the origins of this fear and I guess I would attribute it to being introduced to quicksand in elementary school, both academically and then recreationally as it translated to the sandbox at recess. Also... The Princess Bride played its part, as you may remember the quicksand scene in the Fire Swamp!

Y'all make me laugh... and make me aware of things! I'm sorry for those who aren't afraid of Quicksand!

How could you not discuss sink holes as the new terror for kids and adults alike. What could be more terrifying then being asleep in bed when the next thing you know is that you are 30 feet underground and its all slowly coming down on you. House and all

I missed the peak of quicksand since I was born in the eighties, but I remember the emotional impact I experienced from The Neverending Story. By far the most traumatizing scene from my childhood was when Artax sunk into the swamp of sadness. While not technically quicksand it did make quite an emotional impact, especially because Artax didn't die because of the swamp but because he had lost the will to even try and save himself. In retrospect that's a pretty good metaphor for depression.

You must have missed the Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull scene with quicksand and a large snake that they were pulled out with.

Perhaps today's children will be more stigmatized by sinkholes. They are similar to the idea of quicksand and are in the news with alarming frequency these days. Maybe you could do a show on sinkholes? What causes them? How do villages, towns, cities recover from sinkhole damage? Can we prevent them? Also, maybe there's a thematic link regarding cities/areas below sea-level that are slowly eroding from the coastal lands and sinking like the city I live in-New Orleans. Also, is Venice, Italy really sinking?

(Sorry I'm a little late on leaving a comment. I'm a little backlogged on my podcast listening.)

I wanted to mention that if you think a little more metaphorically, you'll find quicksand references all over Star Wars. First one that comes to mind is the Sarlaac pit in Return of the Jedi. That scene with Lando slowly sliding into the pit is classic quicksand. Lando was helpless as he was slowly being pulling down into the pit. It just so happened that it was a monster doing the pulling.

Another scene that comes to mind is on Dagobah in the Empire Strikes Back. Luke's X-Wing landed in the muck and was sinking in the swamp. There was no sand in this case, but the key theme was still there. Even the trash compactor scene in the original Star Wars requires the complete helplessness and a key rescue.

All these "quicksand" scenes contain something that gets caught in a situation where they are completely helpless to overcome the problem and someone still on the outside must rescue.

I think what we're seeing in modern movies and story-telling in general is that there are many more interesting and imaginative ways of presenting a "quicksand" scene that make actual quicksand uninteresting and not scary like the children say. We all know how the standard quicksand scene plays out.

I must say I found this piece completely devoid of intrigue. It felt like filler to me.

wolfram alpha has a very nice feature. by putting any word, alongside with definiiton and other data, a graph showing the frequence of that word in textbooks through time will be given.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=quicksand

What about the quicksand in Princess Bride? A generation of women in their 30s grew up obsessed with this movie, and that is what immediately came to mind when listening to this podcast.

Quicksand is still around and still dangerous. But the way it works in real life is nowhere near how it is most often portrayed in the movies. If you come across quicksand unexpectedly, you may find that you do in fact sink deeper and faster when you struggle to step out. Irrational fear of succumbing to the quicksand is what causes most victims to get into real trouble. They try to remain in a standing position, afraid that they will sink in over their head and die, but the human body is buoyant, and unless you are wearing diving weights you will have an easier time floating above the quicksand than you would with ordinary water. The easiest way out of quicksand if you don't have someone to help you, or a strong vine isn't within arm's reach, is to try to kneel and then lie on your belly above the quicksand and just crawl out. You'll be muddy but you can get out. The hazard is when you stick around and wait. Quicksand is "quick" because it often does dry quickly, and if you sit waist deep and wait you may find yourself virtually cemented in place by a thick hard clay. By this point you can have a very, very, hard time digging your way out, and most victim's (animal or human) are discovered knee or waist deep, dead from exposure or dehydration, not suffocated.

Much more dangerous than quicksand though are spontaneous sinkholes that can open up under your bedroom while you sleep, like the one in Florida that swallowed a man earlier this year www.cnn.com/2013/03/01/us/florida-sinkhole/.

I suspect (without looking into your data) that this picture is incomplete. A quick search for quicksand in books from these times does not confirm this. Narrowing the search to English Fiction does show a local peak in 1940 but then a climb that passes that by 1990 and continues until today

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=quicksand+%2B+quick+sand&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=17&smoothing=5&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%28quicksand%20%2B%20quick%20sand%29%3B%2Cc0

All I could think about during this whole episode was a movie that was out when I was a kid, blood beach. "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... you can't get to it"

Although I always connected quicksand with Gilligans Island. As a parent we gave up on having a sandbox for our kids in about 1994 due to the over population of cats and the sandbox constantly becoming a litter box. Eww! Feline deseases became our new fear. BTW- my 30 year old son recommended Radiolab to me and you are now my hurry up and wait buddies.

So, maybe quicksand is already making a return as a metaphor for dangerous situations... Checkout this recent article from McKinsey Quarterly

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/strategy/avoiding_the_quicksand?cid=strategy-eml-alt-mkq-mck-oth-1810

.... just saw recent Beetle Baily comic had quicksand it it and thought of this show...

I don't have access to any statistics, but I think there was a mini-revival of quicksand scenes on TV in the 1980's when there was a lot of concern about kids being exposed to too much violent entertainment. Quicksand provided a life-threatening danger that didn't originate with one person attacking another.

Oh, and about those quicksand fetishists... when I was 11 or 12 I saw a World War II movie about a group of soldiers traveling across the desert. When one of them became trapped in quicksand I suddenly and involuntarily had the most intense erection of my life up to that moment. For the rest of my adolescence quicksand scenes triggered a combination of fear and excitement, and once I reached puberty...

You don't choose your fetishes; they choose you.

Is it just me or is it the particular quality of the threat of quicksand that seems interesting? It's impersonal, it's slow, and it's isolated. To me that suggests a reason why it wouldn't be a particularly apt metaphor for earlier times, and why it might no longer be a very apt metaphor for now. Sure, it's a lot of arm-chair entertainment hypothesizing ... but ...

The impersonal character seems less interesting to an earlier time. The idea of mechanisms that were created (or entered) at one time and then become out of control and threatening afterwards, was a theme that wasn't particularly present until machines became a part of every-day life.

The slowness seems like something incongruous with today's feeling about scary world events. Today things feel lightning-fast, like it'll happen and be done before we ever knew what was happening. Which is guess is how a lot of things in history often went, but perhaps today we're a little more self-aware that we're not going to understand what we're living through until it's over.

Anyway, those properties seem particularly apt for the Civil Rights activism. They had to fight a battle of endurance, never making explosive progress, but putting constant pressure against something that was constantly trying to suck you down. MLK commonly responded to his then-moderate contemporaries who wanted a slower change. It also seemed impersonal for, I think, obvious reasons: The conservatives didn't regard blacks as full persons, and it was a struggle to make a personal connection with them. I recall that one of the things Civil Rights activists were taught in preparation for the protests was to try to make eye-contact with the police while they beat you, to force them to recognize that you're a human being.

I think similar themes can come up when thinking about Vietnam and the global fight against Communism. A slow war of attrition against an impersonal and relentless force.

Or maybe I'm just forcing a square peg in an octagonal hole.

You guys totally missed the Tarzan connection, I was born in 1954 & found a cache of old Tarzan comic books that entertained me for hours on end when I was about 9. Quick sand was a huge peril Tarzan encountered all the time. Scary stuff! Loved this zany topic.

Is it possible the poupularity of theatrical quicksand simply rose and fell along with the western? If the appearance of the stagecoach were similarly tracked in American cinema (what, no stagecoach fetishists?!?), I'm thinking the curve would be similar. Perhaps the movie stunt in which a stunt actor "drowns" in quicksand through a trap door was perfected in the 50s, and this became an inexpensive (and therefore overused) effect.

When I think of quicksand, it's in adventure movies like Tarzan. I think that kind of movie just went out of style.

I for one find the Shivering Sands in the late 90's film adaptation of Wilke Collins' "The Moonstone" completely terrifying. Given the novel's age, it makes me think that quicksand is just one example of the kind of Gothic representation of fears and anxieties that receded from public imagination, but are undergoing a resurgence.

The "Nesquik sand" scene in Wreck-it Ralph is pretty great.

I have to say I'm shocked that nobody has yet commented on the misspelling of "vise grip" in the first sentence on this page.

This story was in Slate in 2010 from the same reporter. I agree, it should have been developed including some discussion of science for this story. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2010/08/terra_infirma.html.

I just listened to this podcast and one of the things that occurred to me was that being born in 1972 one of the more common "facts" on gum wrappers and cheap paperbacks was how to survive quicksand. They told me that it was almost impossible to sink and that if I relax I'll float and could easily make my way to shore. So I was sure by an early age that quicksand wasn't really a danger. When I saw it in film, I would find the situation laughable as I knew the people were safe and just hamming it up.
I know that it can be a problem for people in large vehicles as they have a large mass that can create a suction effect, but I just can't be all that worried as a pedestrian.

I too was disappointed in this. I agree with many of the previous posters that there should have been more about the nature of qicksand. What really hurts, though, is that in the preparation for this piece you did look into such matters. In fact you interviewed ME. After half a dozen emails, all of which I answered very promptly, and one phone call, you used not a whit of anything in that correspondence.

The comedian John Mulaney has a bit about quicksand on his album "New In Town" that I heard right after I listened to this episode that's worth listening to. But I have to agree with other listeners, this episode was interesting, but it felt thrown together and not worth my time. It would have been much more "Radiolab" had you given us more than some random fact internet fact about it and walked away. Inform me, don't just entertain me.

Four days ago, ABC's pilot of "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland" featured a quicksand scene. When Alice, the Rabbit, and her male anti-hero sidekick jump through the portal to Wonderland, they arrive in the middle of a marshmallow swamp. At first they walk along with no issue, but then when they stop for a moment and talk they find themselves knee-deep and sinking fast. It's not until they're almost neck deep that Alice has the idea of grabbing one of the fire-breathing dragonflies and 'toasting" a platform in front of them do they manage to pull themselves free.

I didn't find the scene to be strange, forced, or hokey. It's probably because (A) instead of using quicksand, they used a surreal feature of their new world to have the same effect, and (B) they didn't encounter it in England, but in the new frontier of Wonderland.

The episode should still be on Hulu if anyone wanted to see, the scene is probably about halfway through. A good example of how the 'quicksand' plot device isn't gone from media today.

I would add two comments to this discussion. First on a general note about the metaphor of quicksand. It's not just the fact of it- the first scary part is that you think you're on solid ground and suddenly you're enveloped and there's nothing that you can do. Secondly, on a cultural note, kids in the 70s and 80s had constant exposure to quick sand from repeated viewings of Gilligan's Iland in syndication. Their renditition was pretty realistic for a broad comedy show and I spent endless time think about where you go once you fall beneath the surface. I still think the same way when pondering black holes.

Why did fascination with quicksand end in the sixties? The daughter of a friend told me, "Your generation really did discover sex". Fellatio and cunnilingus were verboten to be spoken. Then they were. See SNL's ladies in hoop skirts on the porch of an Antebellum mansion discussing the charms of Colonel Lingus. Aside from that, I agree with others who said you should have talked about the science of quicksand. And I'm appalled to hear kids no longer have sand boxes. We played outside all day. No computer to screen at until our eyes goggle. Two navy officers I escorted to the Hayden planetarium, answered my question as to why kids do so badly in school, with one word: computers. It also wouldn't hurt to revive diagramming sentences.

Come on RadioLab, you guys can do better. This episode was like a bad SNL skit. No discussion of the science of quicksand? Nor the places around the world it occurs? Or that it's a very real danger?

All I really learned is that there exists on the internet, big surprise, yet another fringe group of moral degenerates who happen to keep an organized website.

It seemed to me that the producer of this story stumbled upon this group and then just quit trying to gather information. Additionally, I think the producer was really really reaching with his connections between world events and pop culture quicksand.

I recommend RadioLab to people all the time, but I have to say, it'd be embarrassing if this were the first episode someone where to hear. You can, and should, do better.

Dear Radiolab,

I too was disappointed by the lack of discussion or explanation of quicksand: what it is, how many people die in it each year, etc. Maybe this could be done as a SciFri talk? I live in Anchorage AK and the mud flats here are a real and understood hazard (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpQwdFQfMyw). In late June a guy died from walking out on them (http://www.adn.com/2013/06/24/2951466/body-recovered-of-man-missing.html) and in extreme events- like the 64 earthquake- SouthCentral Alaska experienced a lot of liquidification of the earth.

I thought the discussion of quicksand as a metaphor and having resonance with pop-culture was neat. Maybe the 60s hippies just played in the mud a little more ?? ;-)

Encore, encore!
I think there is enough for a full-length episode here

I blame Johnny Quest!

People should be scared. It's real: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/13/boy-rescued-from-indiana-_n_3591511.html

I'm disappointed that an explanation of what quicksand is, why it behaves that way (and if it really does), how many people die in it each year, etc., didn't factor into this Short.

Some mention if non-newtonian fluids (particularly those occurring in nature) and related topics like soil liquefaction under earthquake would also have held my interest.

One of the characters in Mountain Patrol http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386651/
dies in quicksand, and I know I didn't roll my eyes.

There's been an equally unhealthy decline in the appearance of lava pits and poison lakes too! Is this why kids aren't drawing mazes anymore?

How about the Bermuda Triangle, it seems the same.

if anything locust is getting a bad name.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=quicksand%2Czombies%2Clocust%2Cmegaton&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=2&share=

I did Film Studies at university and this phenomenon is found all over the arts - but more widely, as you have found, in general culture. You could trace other subject matters in films in a similar way as you have done with quicksand, perhaps most interestingly with the very era-specific Femme Fatale (which emerged in the post-war years as men returned home to find women had taken up - dum dum dum - JOBS!)

I enjoyed it, but I guess because this is more my area of knowledge I thought it didn't really go deep enough. You could have talked to a Film Studies or Cultural Studies professor who would be able to talk about wider cultural trends and how they occur and re-occur according to historical events.

I wonder if the transition of quicksand from horror to comedy device can be traced back to its use in "Blazing Saddles"?