Just while I'm being a sucky employee anyway, I figured I'd respond to your comment...
I had the same first reaction to the joy-buzzer. I was deeply conflicted about it - was it in character? were the writers losing their minds? After the previous episode's fiasco of a phone conversation, it was easy to say "DEAN WOULD NEVER DO THAT, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?!"
But rewatching it...you can really see the thought process, the confirmation on the kids face that he now believes the thing to be harmless. Dean's rapid fire questions that basically confirms that THIS kid holds all the beliefs that are occurring in town, and it's THIS kid who is at the epicenter of everything...and the kid really does do a great job of showing us on this face that he has changed his mind about the joy buzzer. So, I don't think Dean saw it as much of a risk as we, or Sam, did. Now, you can go ahead and accuse me of grasping at straws, but I don't feel I am.
As for a kid believing in the tooth fairy and the hairy-palm thing....I blame television. Kid's left alone a lot, he hears a joke or two...we don't know how his powers work really. If he actually has to know in intimate detail what masturbation is or not...it could just be a matter of him hearing a joke, and associating "masturbation=hairy palms" in his head and that's enough to have it be so. He might not actually know what masturbation is.
Actually, when Susie was that age, we were watching an episode of Rosanne. And she heard a joke and turned to me and ASKED "What's masturbate mean?" Lord, I was not prepared to handle that question...I believe I said "ask Mum!" and we proceeded to get into a fight because she didn't understand why I couldn't just tell her...ugh, TV is the devil for creating really awkward kid questions.
We haven't gotten to my least favorite episode yet... :P
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I had the same first reaction to the joy-buzzer. I was deeply conflicted about it - was it in character? were the writers losing their minds? After the previous episode's fiasco of a phone conversation, it was easy to say "DEAN WOULD NEVER DO THAT, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?!"
But rewatching it...you can really see the thought process, the confirmation on the kids face that he now believes the thing to be harmless. Dean's rapid fire questions that basically confirms that THIS kid holds all the beliefs that are occurring in town, and it's THIS kid who is at the epicenter of everything...and the kid really does do a great job of showing us on this face that he has changed his mind about the joy buzzer. So, I don't think Dean saw it as much of a risk as we, or Sam, did. Now, you can go ahead and accuse me of grasping at straws, but I don't feel I am.
As for a kid believing in the tooth fairy and the hairy-palm thing....I blame television. Kid's left alone a lot, he hears a joke or two...we don't know how his powers work really. If he actually has to know in intimate detail what masturbation is or not...it could just be a matter of him hearing a joke, and associating "masturbation=hairy palms" in his head and that's enough to have it be so. He might not actually know what masturbation is.
Actually, when Susie was that age, we were watching an episode of Rosanne. And she heard a joke and turned to me and ASKED "What's masturbate mean?" Lord, I was not prepared to handle that question...I believe I said "ask Mum!" and we proceeded to get into a fight because she didn't understand why I couldn't just tell her...ugh, TV is the devil for creating really awkward kid questions.
We haven't gotten to my least favorite episode yet... :P