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What are ninja? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always as
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Charles W. Bryant. Hi, Josh Chuck. I'm gonna tell you
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: something that you might not know about me. Oh boy,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: as a youth. As a youth youth, a an older
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  Speaker 1: boy in the neighborhood named Tommy Roper trained me as
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  Speaker 1: a ninja, an altar boy or older older Yeah, so
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna train ninja right? Yeah? This Uh, this encompassed
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  Speaker 1: generally sitting on top of a storage shed in my
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  Speaker 1: backyard quietly for hours on end, waiting for somebody to
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  Speaker 1: walk past, uh, so that we could find out whether
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  Speaker 1: or not they noticed us. Then that's where you started
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  Speaker 1: smoking because you were bored. Now, yet that came like
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  Speaker 1: a year or two later. Yeah, you did not adhere
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  Speaker 1: to the bushito. No, I don't know if smoking is
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  Speaker 1: is outlawed by the bushido. I just meant the way
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  Speaker 1: of the ninja. No, that's the samurai. Well, no, the
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  Speaker 1: ninja though, shun the bushido, right, Okay, I got what
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  Speaker 1: you say on the same page, So, Chuck, I thought,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I kind of carried that with me my
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  Speaker 1: whole life. I'm sure i'd see a throwing star every
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  Speaker 1: once in a while and be like, I know how
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  Speaker 1: to throw that, you know? Did you have any of those,
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  Speaker 1: Tommy did? I've never had any of those? Are big
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: in the eighties for little nerves to collect totally um.
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  Speaker 1: I found out though, when I read how Ninja's work,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I am nothing more than a dultant. Really, yeah, I
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: was surprised to find that out. I believe you said ninja,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: so that is not correct, right, No, it is. It's ninja.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: It's like fish or deer. I know we've been drilling
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that into each other's head and I'm still saying Ninja's yeah,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So if we slip up, then give us a break, So, Chuck, Josh.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: One of the first things I noticed from this article
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: was that um Ninja, although Japanese in nature and origin,
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  Speaker 1: actually can trace its roots back to the Chinese. Yes,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: very much, because of kind of what I was just
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: talking about with the Bushido was the Samurai code, where
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  Speaker 1: you very respectfully would face one another, face your enemy
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  Speaker 1: one on one and do battle, and the Ninja subscribe
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: more to the art of war school of thought right
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  Speaker 1: as espoused by Sun Zu, which was a little sneakier, right,
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  Speaker 1: and smarter if you ask me, it is smarter. And
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I mean that's how the American colonists won the War
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: for Independence. The British were all like, hey, we've got
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a bunch of Hessians here and they're ready to fight
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  Speaker 1: you on this field, and our guys were, yeah, jumping
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  Speaker 1: out of trees and bayoneting them. Yeah, very Ninja, asked
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  Speaker 1: very sun sue he wrote the Art of War back
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  Speaker 1: in the fourth or fifth century BC, and uh, yeah,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: it kind of went against the grain, as it were, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: big time where you could uh. I think there's a chapter,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: chapter thirteen, where he specifically said that you should use
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: people to spread confusion in the ranks and paranoia, um,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: through sabotage, spying, spying, um yeah, espionage, that kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Pretty cool, Yeah, just basically underhanded stuff. Disguise was okay, yeah, deception,
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  Speaker 1: I love it, right, So that is actually where it's
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: That's pretty much the basis of ninja, isn't it. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: from what I gather and and what is it? The
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: art of ninja, the art that ninja's practice. Yeah, ninjutsu
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  Speaker 1: and it is not a martial art, but it is
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  Speaker 1: an art of war, is what they call it. It
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: sounds like a martial arts. Yeah, but it's not. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: that's because utsu sounds like jiu jitsu. Right, So, okay,
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  Speaker 1: we've got this first seed of the ninja planet by
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  Speaker 1: sun Su right, um and uh it takes a little
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: while to catch on. And actually, strangely enough, we can
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  Speaker 1: trace back um to some of the first ninja stories, right, right,
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  Speaker 1: some people who were thought to be among the first
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  Speaker 1: ninja in Japan. We've moved over to Japan now, by
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the way, yes, right, tell me about Prince Yamato. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Prince Yamato, Uh is in some halls called the first
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  Speaker 1: ninja because he was the first person that we know
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  Speaker 1: of to blatantly use deception and disguise by addressing as
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  Speaker 1: a woman and uh to attract. This is where it
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  Speaker 1: gets sottlehinky to literally physically attract to barbarian chieftains. So
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  Speaker 1: apparently he was a good looker as a woman, or
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  Speaker 1: at the last he actually gained their confidence and uh
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  Speaker 1: lull them into a sense of security. A false sense
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  Speaker 1: of security and killed them. Yeah, then he withered them.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, uh that's um not a bad one. Frankly,
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  Speaker 1: I like that first Ninja story. I like yours though.
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  Speaker 1: The thirteen year old kid, yeah, Kuma Waka Yeah, he
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  Speaker 1: um was a little I guess, kind of a little shrimpy, right,
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  Speaker 1: but he had some pretty good legs on him. He
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  Speaker 1: traveled a really far distance to visit his father who
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  Speaker 1: was ailing. Um, but his father was being held prisoner
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  Speaker 1: by a monk and his family. Apparently monks did that
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  Speaker 1: back then. I didn't know that what we do now, right, Um.
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  Speaker 1: So a little thirteen year old Kuma Waka um was
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  Speaker 1: turned away after traveling this long distance wanting to see
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  Speaker 1: his father who's dying. And before he gets a chance
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  Speaker 1: to see him, his father dies. So the kids like,
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  Speaker 1: you know what, I swear vengeance right here and now, right,
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  Speaker 1: little thirteen year old vengeance? Right? So I think Um,
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  Speaker 1: possibly not so much that he'd read the Art of war,
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  Speaker 1: but just that being thirteen, you know, he wasn't aware
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  Speaker 1: of pitch battles or really didn't care about him. And
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  Speaker 1: he was like, you know what, I'm going to use
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of deception myself. He was doing't big
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  Speaker 1: enough to just fight them straight upright right he Um.
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  Speaker 1: He started kind of I guess, staking out the monks home,
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  Speaker 1: and this kid was awesome. He he opened a window
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  Speaker 1: to the monk's bedroom and let a bunch of moths in,
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  Speaker 1: and they flocked to a lantern, blotting out all the light,
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  Speaker 1: whereupon he snuck into the room, got the monk's sword,
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  Speaker 1: and butchered him. Yes, have you noticed that most ninja
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  Speaker 1: stories end in butchery. Yeah, that's a good point. Um.
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  Speaker 1: The story is not over though, right, I don't think so. Well.
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  Speaker 1: You should also point out, though he was actually in
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  Speaker 1: their home, he faked an illness. Remember that's how we
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  Speaker 1: got in there. That's right. He faked like he was sick,
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  Speaker 1: so they brought him in and took care of him,
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  Speaker 1: and he gained their trust, and then did the old
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  Speaker 1: moth trick, right, the old moth trick. That's that's like
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  Speaker 1: Ninja one oh one right there. Um. So, after he
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  Speaker 1: butchers the monk, he flees and he's being pursued, so
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  Speaker 1: he climbs up a huge length of bamboo until it
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  Speaker 1: tips over a river and he jumps off the other
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  Speaker 1: side and he's gone into the annals of ninja history.
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  Speaker 1: That is serious ninja stealth right there. Yeah, a little
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  Speaker 1: thirteen year old, right, how many times can I say
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: a little thirteen year old? I don't know. We could
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  Speaker 1: go back and count. So yes, even though these are
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  Speaker 1: cool stories and they are thought of as maybe practicing
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  Speaker 1: the first ninja practices, they aren't really believed to be
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the first ninjas, right, No, I mean they're kind of
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  Speaker 1: legend exactly, and there's a lot of lore surrounding ninja.
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  Speaker 1: It's really tough, as the grabster who wrote this article
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  Speaker 1: pointed out, to kind of separate fact from fiction. And
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  Speaker 1: in some cases, Japanese historians just have admitted ninja altogether
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  Speaker 1: because they're so secretive, right, or uh, you know, exaggerated
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  Speaker 1: and glorified it to the point that it's misinformation, right,
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  Speaker 1: which is part of the whole ninja lore as well, right,
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  Speaker 1: which apparently the ninja were perfectly fine with because it
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  Speaker 1: freaked people out. We'll get to that in a minute, right,
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  Speaker 1: the supernatural stuff. Yeah, okay, so Chuck, what was the
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  Speaker 1: true birth of the ninja? Then? Well, they think that
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  Speaker 1: the regions of IgA and Coca or is it Egaga
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  Speaker 1: and coca. You know what, I think, I have no
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  Speaker 1: idea for those two. But you were getting good at
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the Japanese. And let me tell you you have what
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  Speaker 1: is called pura pura pura, which means you're very fluent.
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  Speaker 1: It's Japanese for that describes very fluent. The Japanese is
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  Speaker 1: a little easier to pronounce, I think than some because
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  Speaker 1: it's usually just kind of pronounced like it reads. There's
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  Speaker 1: just a lot of letters sometimes yeah, and there's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of vowels together. It don't
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  Speaker 1: make any sense, but we're doing our best. Yeah, you're
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  Speaker 1: doing a great judge going with Ega and Koga, and
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  Speaker 1: they are considered to be the birthplace of ninja as
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  Speaker 1: a major force in warfare. And here's why. There was
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of clans in these two regions, and the
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  Speaker 1: guys Um who were members of the clans tended to
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  Speaker 1: farm themselves out as mercenaries, which we've talked about before. Um,
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  Speaker 1: and they actually adopted a lot of the Ninja attitude,
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  Speaker 1: the Ninja, the Ninja tude, right nice Um. They they
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  Speaker 1: adopted a lot of it Um serving as spies, saboteurs,
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  Speaker 1: and assassins, right, love that word, by the way, saboteur.
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  Speaker 1: It's a pretty cool word. That's why a firefly was
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  Speaker 1: one of my favorite g I Joe's, which we'll get to.
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  Speaker 1: It's all coming around. Yeah. So in Ega and Coca,
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  Speaker 1: right this basically this region, rather than um turning to
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  Speaker 1: brewing or um grain production, they turned to ninja production,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and they protected They were hired out by
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  Speaker 1: the daimio, which were what was another word for a lord,
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  Speaker 1: a feudal feudal lord, and basically like mercenaries, they would
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  Speaker 1: whoever had the most dough would get hired, so they
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  Speaker 1: were not known as loyal. They would go where the
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  Speaker 1: money was no, which, as you said, is completely contrary
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  Speaker 1: to the Bushito code of the samurai. Who was I
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: guess you could probably make a case was a rival
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  Speaker 1: faction in Japan at the time. If you wanted somebody
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  Speaker 1: who would be willing to die for you, you had
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  Speaker 1: your samurai. If you wanted somebody who you could pay
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  Speaker 1: to go do horrible things for you, but then may
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  Speaker 1: eventually come back and kill you through he was hired
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  Speaker 1: for somebody else, you went with the ninja. Yeah, right,
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  Speaker 1: good point. So one of the cool things that the
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  Speaker 1: grabster mentioned was that the reason uh Ego and Koga
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  Speaker 1: were I guess these hotbeds of activity for ninja was
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  Speaker 1: that the the the art of ninja two yeah, was
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  Speaker 1: passed on from father to son, generation after generation after generation. Right,
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  Speaker 1: And we're talking sneaking around. Uh. From what I gather
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  Speaker 1: from reading is that uh, the lowly ninja were the
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  Speaker 1: ones that were slinging the swords around and the true
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  Speaker 1: uh skilled ninja did not do a lot of face
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: to face fighting. They were sneaking around, They were gathering information.
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  Speaker 1: Like you said, they were sabotaging, they were spying and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: giving mis information. Right. And apparently since castles were they
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: figured so largely into feudal japan Um, the ninja became
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: especially a dept at um infiltrating castles and escaping from
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  Speaker 1: castles that were undersea. There's the story of one ninja
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  Speaker 1: who was hired by a damio um who owned a
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  Speaker 1: castle that was under siege, and one night he slipped out,
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  Speaker 1: went to the enemy encampment, stole their flag, and then
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  Speaker 1: when they woke up the next morning they saw their
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  Speaker 1: flag like on the embattlements of the castle, which you
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  Speaker 1: can imagine you just like wa wa wa. We don't
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: we have that sound effect? I think so? Or did
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  Speaker 1: they wake up and think, did we already capture this castle?
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  Speaker 1: What were you doing here? That's what I would think
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: we already captured because their flag was flying, But apparently
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: it was a mocking thing and right, yeah, take the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: wind out of their sales. And there was also another
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  Speaker 1: story legend, Ninja lore of a group of Ninja's actually
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: a group of Ninja sorry um that captured the uh
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  Speaker 1: I guess the badge of paper lantern badge which identified
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  Speaker 1: like it identified with the castle and a damio Okay,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna knock your socks off right here, chuck. So
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  Speaker 1: they stole this lantern and reproduced it, reproduced the badge,
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  Speaker 1: put him on other lanterns, and then just walked right
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  Speaker 1: into the castle, right, butchered everybody like they do, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and then walked back out. And when everybody woke up
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the next morning and found the people who were not butchered,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: found uh you know what was going on? Um? They
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: they had created uh paranoia, right, which, as we said,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: is another thing that Ninja liked to do, absolutely disruption. Yes, uh,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: they were very skilled. Are your socks knocked off. These
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: are actually new socks and they are still on. You know, uh,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: did you know that George Hamilton's once said that he
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: wore a new pair of socks every day. He never
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: wore the same pair of socks. I can see him
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: doing that. My good friend Andrew told me that once
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: moving on the ninja, Josh, you know what their their
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: main deal was you when they were best at assassination, Yes,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: sneaking in and the dead of night and killing you
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: in your sleep sometimes. And my favorite story was, and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: this one is not verified, but the the legend of
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the ninja who hid beneath the outhouse and you know
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: what goes on beneath the outhouse? Yeah, he hit in
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the pit, hit in the pit, and then the the
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: daimio came in obviously sat down on the john and
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: then then just struck from below with the sword. But
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: which is just that's not a comfort. My favorite part
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: of the story though it says, uh, it's probably not
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: true because historical record show that the daimio in question
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: probably died of a stroke or brain aneurysm. But I
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: think maybe if you had a sword stuck up your butt,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: then maybe you might have a stroke or brain and
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I would have a stroke for sure, so maybe that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: did happen. Plus also I could see his family trying
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: to keep that hush hush. Yeah, I would say so,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: you know, but it made made the Daimio very paranoid,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: right yeah. And actually they took a lot of measures
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: to protect against these ninja'sassiens that they always figured we're
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: coming for them. Like, um, there was one clan where
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: at their castle everyone had to wear long um I guess,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: bell bottoms basically that made noise whenever you walked, So
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: anyone who was in the castle had to wear these
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: kind of corduroy bell bottoms pretty much. And I can
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: only imagine that they had an ample supply for visitors
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: if everybody had to use them, you know, and not
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: everyone was walking around with bell bottoms. I imagine they
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: had them for you, right, like drop your keys in
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the bowl and put on these bell pots. I'm gonna
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: stay here right. Uh. The other one, a cool one
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: was in Kyoto. They had a the Nie Joe Castle
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: had what they called nightingale floors, and they were purposefully
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: squeaky the way they made these wooden floors, so the
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: people counterbalance, right, so anyone walking on them, even in
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Ninja could be heard. Yes, And also the Daimio would
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: spend more and more time away from their home at
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: what they called Secret Springs, basically a little hidden resorts
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: at natural Springs. So it sounds like out of Ninja
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the vacation resort, bell bottom jeans and squeaky floors were born. Nice,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. You wrap that up very nicely, So chuck
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: um the whole Um. I guess Samurai soared up the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: bottom story that that it was probably a legend because
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the guy probably died of an aneurism or stroke. Right. Um,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: that kind of reveals that lower that has surrounded Ninja
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: forever and one of the things that um, they've been
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: attributed with or bestowed with their like supernatural powers. Right
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: of course that's not true, No, but it's fun and
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: like you said, earlier than Ninja loved it. They were like, yeah,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: we're seven feet tall, and we can fly and become invisible.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Those are three. They could also walk through walls, which
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I imagine it would would really come in handy for
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: a Ninja, you know. But I mean, if you think
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: about it, if you're penetrating a castle that no one
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: else can get through. It probably seems a lot like
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: you can walk through walls. And then of course there's
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the real basic go to one that there ghosts, yeah,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: shape shifters. Did you ever read Um Commando comics? No?
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: There there was like they were from the seventies. I
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: think they were like just black and white comics set
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: in World War Two? Uh. And in one of them
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: that was this guy had to fight Ninja's in Burma,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Ninja and Burma and uh, it was pretty cool. Did
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: you ever say I was a little whiss boy with
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the comics. I was like, I was into Archie and
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Ritchie Rich what I know what awful and then stuff
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: like the Star Wars comics and stuff like that. But
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I don't try to cool it up now it's awful.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: What it was a big Archie guy. I was a
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: little Baptist boy and Richie Rich. Yeah, Ritchie Rich was great. Yeah,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I like the cartoon. You never read the comic. Oh yeah,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I was a little wiss. Yeah, you were into ninja's
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and stuff smoking cigarettes that I was reading Archie in
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the Bible. Good for you. But here we are years later,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I know the same. We're both as twisted, alright, I've
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: been trying to get better, You've been trying to get worse. Yes,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and we met in the middle. Where are we now?
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: With their gear, I would say we're writting inja gear
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: and Chuck, I should say, Chuck has a several large
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: print outs of pictures of ninja gear that are just bitching. Yeah,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: let's go ahead and talk about some of these um ninja. Well, first,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: let's talk about their clothes, their uniform, the ninja yori,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: your roy your roy roy. It is also called ninja armor,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and it's like the black jacket, black trousers, hooted cowl,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: and light sandals. Not a lot of protection with that
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the right word. Well, they said some of them were
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: light armor under that, right, but it's not much trust me, No,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: it's cloth. Well, because they wanted to be sneaky and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: not make a lot of noise, so armor probably wasn't
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the best way to get around. And traditionally the your
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: roy was um black, although apparently there is some historical
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: evidence that they wore all white your roy which is
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: pretty cool too in the snow if it were snowy. Yeah, sure,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: they're like, oh, it's know, you gotta put on the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: white Euroy today and go kill people. However, Josh, most
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: of this is uh fanciful lore. Although they did have
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: these costumes, what they mainly wore they wanted to blend in,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: so they mainly just dressed like you and I. Yeah,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: that's an excellent point too, Like if you're going to
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: be an assassin um and you're in a public place,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: if you're dressed like a ninja, people are going to
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: be like, look out for that ninja. Right. So yeah,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of times they they they were apparently masters
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: at um hiding in plain sight. Yeah, disguised as priests
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and merchants and farmers, which is you know, makes sense
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: to me because what was it that Henry Hill said?
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: He said, when you get killed, it's it's somebody who's
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: coming at you with a smile. Who's your friend? That's
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: who kills you? Sure? Yeah, Henry Hill, he comes up
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: a lot. It's funny. Yeah. I never thought he would
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: come up in a ninja podcast. Uh. What else did
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: they use, Josh, the ninja to was the short sword.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Then they were back, which is pretty cool. Yeah, used
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to butcher people. And then here's what I have the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: pictures of the shook go is this cool little claw
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: hand it's like claws on your palm you would wear
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: as a glove. And it says you can use to
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: fight or to climb trees with. Tell me, tell me
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: rope her head one of those. Really Huh. He tried
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: to climb trees once in a while to us ever success.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Really he could when he didn't have those on, like
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: he could just climb a tree, but just climbing like that,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: it didn't work. Uh. And this is the tiger claw.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Those are cool. Yeah, that looks like Freddy Krueger wolverine
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: or something. That's exactly what it looks like. And it
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: would butcher you if put to your jugular. And what
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: are these? And this is my favorite? These are the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: cow trops and these were they look sort of like
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: little metal sharp origami razor things. I was just about
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: to say orgamy they do. You got to leave it
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: to the Japanese. They have great design with everything. Yeah,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: they're beautiful, including little tags meant to puncture your feet
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and soles of your feet. Yeah, that's what you would do.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: You would throw these on the floor, uh, for your
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: enemy to step on. And they apparently wore like the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: sandals and the thin shoes, so that worked. And I
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: wish this were a video podcast because Chuck gave Jerry
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and I had demonstration and what that would look like
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: when people were chasing the ninja. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: also used smoke bombs and what else. The coolest thing
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: small one person boats that were collapsible, so they were
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: highly portable, so ninja would just be running away from people.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: He's thrown his tax whatever, the tax call again? Uh?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: The cow drops, right, He's thrown his cow drops and
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: they didn't work. A couple of guys got around and
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: he's reached a river. There's no bamboo and site. He
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: just whips out of his little boat and sails across
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: like so long, chumps. Pretty cool. I'll be back to
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: kill you when you're sleeping. Uh. The other thing that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: has been refuted by the MythBusters I read was the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Mizzou gumo and they were wooden shoes to walk on
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: water with. They kind of look like snow shoes, actually
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: big round things and your foot goes in the middle
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: to disperse the water. Those MythBusters guys said, yeah, this
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't work. Did they try it out themselves? Yeah, of
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: course they did. It doesn't disprove anything that they should
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: be too fat. We should call that show the fun
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Killers instead of the Mythbuss. Yeah, all they do is
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: destroy fun. But they said they could work on marsh
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: is what they said, Like, we'll give him something. Yeah,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: of course there's the throwing star a k a. The
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: sugar ken. Yeah, and I didn't know this. I thought
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: that you know, when you see in the movies they
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: clearly always fling knees and right into somebody's forehead right
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: between the eyes. Yeah, that's really not true, was it. No,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Apparently they were just kind of a distracting weapon, like
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: it was meant to look like it was about to
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: hit you right between the eyes, but the chances of
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: it actually hitting its target are pretty low. So they
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: would turn around when being chased, throw a star at
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: them to distract them, and then drop some cow trops
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: on the floor in a smoke bomb maybe, And then
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: he's a grappling hook and a rope ladder to escape.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: That's what they call the Schenectady Shuffle and Ninja lore
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: that combo right there. Really Yeah, so Chuck, there's the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: grappling hook right which you can't leave out. Basically, if
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: you have all this stuff. You are a little white
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: kid in suburban America trying to be in ninja, because
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: if you're a stealthy guy and you're infiltrating a castle,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: you're not going to have all this stuff except maybe
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: your collapse will boat your colchrops and your little sword. Right.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: But other than that, it seems like this was more
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the arsenal that no ninja at any one time had
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: all these things on them, right. Yeah, But in the movies,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: of course, that's how it's portrayed, because it's more fun
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: movies like Enter the Ninja, maybe the Ninja American Ninja?
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Did you see that one? Did you watch ninja movies
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: as a kid? And now where were you, Chuck? I
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: told you I was reading Archie. American Ninja was awesome.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I was watching, Uh, Escape from Which Mountain? And Archie?
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: That was a creepy movie that wasn't Escape from Which Mountain?
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Well it did? It didn't age? Well you should go
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: watch it now and not the cruddy remake? Uh isn't
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: isn't like the rock In then? Of course that's Dwayne Johnson,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: do you, buddy? What was the first movie? Though Josh
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: credited as being the first movie with the Ninja. Uh
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: you only lived twice. The James Bond movie it uh it.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: And when the movie came out in nineteen seven, Ninja
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: just exploded in Western culture. Of course, because people that
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: go to see go to see the James Bond movies
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: are looking for any cool new thing anyway, So imagine
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: when they saw the Ninja, they were like, oh my gosh,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: that's the coolest mercenary I've ever seen in my life.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: They're like, click, those guys butchering everybody. Teenage mutant ninja turtles.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Of course I never got into them neither. And then chuck,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: of course, Um, you probably haven't heard of this, but
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: there's this thing called g I Joe. I know, the
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: early g I Joe. We've been over this, the twelve
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: inch g I Joe with the kung fu grip, not
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the tiny ones. They're not dolls, are action figures. What
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: you played with their dolls like, you can hug them
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and cuddle them. You can't cuddle an action figure. And
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: they had bendable elbows and stuff like that. Did your
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: twelve Ventures have kung fu grip? Because a little acts
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: figures it too? Did they really? Huh? Yeah. Yeah, that's
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: where it started, buddy. Okay. Well, um. In the two series,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: a little ninja was introduced known as Snake Eyes, who
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: worked on the good side. Oh really, I thought Snake
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Eyes was bad. No, you're thinking of storm Shadow. Storm
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Shadow is a cobra ninja. And actually I was looking
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: on Yo Joe dot com today. Have you ever told
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: that site? Oh my god, it's like nostalgia central, right,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: I did see that new movie though, the Joe movie.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Is it out? It's out on video now. Was it
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: any good? No? Not really? Okay, and I love the
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: cartoon though I don't think any uh animation had more
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: of an impact on the development of my personality and
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the car. Yeah, every time it came on, I was
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: just like, thank you God, thank you for letting me
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: be alive and at an age where I can fully
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: appreciate the g I Joe cartoon. See, I said the
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: same thing about Tom and Jerry. So that's where we
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: were so well again, let me let me go back
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: to uh Snake Eyes and storm Shadow. Storm Shadow is
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: clearly a ninja. Snake Eyes is listed on his file
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: card on the back of the package as a commando,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: although he is proficient in bladed weapons and uh martial arts,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: several martial arts. Right, so I'm thinking, why why would
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: he be called the commando? Is he not a ninja?
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: And I was gonna totally throw the smack down on
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the Grabster for calling Snake Eyes a ninja in this article.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I did a little more digging. It turns out that
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: snow Job and Snake Eyes were once brothers in arms
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: for the same clan, and actually Snake Eyes is a
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: trained ninja, although he's also a commando. Yeah, and then
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: they went their separate ways. Uh, there was a little
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: bit of a falling out. They went their separate ways. Uh,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Storm Shadow of the Cobra Ninja actually went to work
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: for Cobra as a disguise to find who who killed
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the clan leader. Well yeah, and um, once he did
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: find out he was actually um brainwashed, he was discovered
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: as a as a spy. Uh, he was discovered brainwashed
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and then actually did start working for Cobra. Snake Eyes
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: he always was on Joe Sigh. Dude, I did not
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: know that there was that much real information out there
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: about g I Joe. So this is all in the history.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Someone's actually written that. Yeah, well there's like there's again
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: there's a comic series you're probably not aware of. Uh
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and and yeah it's pretty storied. See. I was confused
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: when I watched the movie. I kept waiting for Joe,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: kept waiting for Franco Harris to come out, you know
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: with a beard who Joe always look like Franco Harris
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: to me, the Pittsburgh Steeler running back. Wait a minute,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of who you're thinking of. Duke
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: was the closest to the well there was that was
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the collective name of him. Yeah, I see. That just
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: confuses me because back in the day, back in the day,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Gi Joe was a dude, a single dude, right, But
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: then they just kind of said that sucks. Let's go
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: with the better version here, let's go with action figures,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Let's make the collective thing. Right. Did you see that
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: link to the stop action um Vietnam movie full link
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Vietnam movie that I did you see my reply to that? Yeah,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: you made a movie I did. My brother and I
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: when we were six and nine years old, respectively, made
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: a stop motion Super eight movie with g I Joe
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: dolls and had a little plot and everything. What was
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the plot. Um, we had this little shiny button and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the button represented like uh, micro film disc and they
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: you know, it got stolen and Joe had to go
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: retrieve it from the bad guys. We shot it in
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the woods near our house and it was pretty cool.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Do you have thereon now? There were no explosions. I
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: think we might have lit something on fire. I don't
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: know if it still exists. It's got to be somewhere,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: but I don't want to see it. So, Scott, if
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you're listening, if you have that, we would love to
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: see that, agreed Scott, But I don't think he has it.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: We should probably get Path to Ninja, right, Is there
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: anything else there? There are a couple of things. Of course,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Ninja exploded in popular culture recently. It's a kind of
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: rival Pirates and Chuck Norris, right, well, that's what I hear.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't know about that though. So there's like that
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: site I just showed you real Ultimate Power about how
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: ninjas flip out and kill everybody. They're awesome and by awesome, mommy,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: and totally sweet. It tells a It tells the story
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: of one ninja who was eating in a diner and
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: some guy dropped his spoon and then Ninja flipped out
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: and killed the whole town. Yeah, just stuff like that.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: It's the great pirate versus a Ninja thing because someone
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: wrote in about that that one. I don't know. I
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: just I know that Asking Ninja took on. Uh. Asking
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Ninja dot com is another site you can ask Ninja
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Ninja practical questions like how to work a new iPhone
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: app and stuff like that. But he does actually take
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: on the pirates on Pirate talk like a Pirate Day,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: which we mentioned as well. So apparently there's some bad
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: blood between pirates and Ninja. My money is on the Ninja. Well, sure,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: because they gets sneaking onto a pirate ship pretty easily.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I would. Pirates are all brash and Ninja just comes up,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: puts the blade at the base of your skull, inserts
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: it into your brain, scrambles it dead. Pirates the pie
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: it's are all drunk on ram and Ninja. I don't
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: think they drank. No, they might hit the saki every
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: once in a while, but that's about it. And then
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: one last thing. If you're a true Ninja lover, there's
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: one place you have to be the first week of
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: April and that is in IgA at the Haku Hojoe
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: White Phoenix Castle known as the Ninja Museum. Yeah, they've
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: embraced I I guys really embraced their ninja roots and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: they try to capitalize on that obviously. Yeah for money,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Well why not. It's the root of all ninja. Yeah.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I went to that website. Museum website is pretty cool,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: is it? But they have they have a festival and
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Ninja festival every year, including in Ninja parade. I want
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: to see that. I can see ninja like driving around
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: in a little shriner's car. Yeah, so that's ninja. That's it. Yeah. Great,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: we covered just about everything. But if you want to
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: see some boss picks of ninja hiding in trees and
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: ninja weapons and stuff like that, you can type in
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: ninja and the handy search bar at how stuff Works
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: dot com. And uh, I guess now it's time for
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: listener mail. Huh. Yes, josh I got a short one.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I want to call this our Influence on the World. Nice,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: this is pretty cool. You're gonna, I don't know if
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you read this one or not, you're gonna love it. It
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: It just came in today, Chuck and josh I am
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: a geologist in Columbus, Ohio go buck Eyes, and I
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: often stumble across geo Is it cache? I always say
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: cations catch. I think you can say either one, and
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I often stumble across geo cashes when I'm out in
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the field during research. I always follow all of the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: geo cashing rules and signed the log book along with
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: usually leaving something behind for others to find. This time, however,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I was a little different. It was a little different
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: because when I opened the sealed plastic container, I found
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: a key chain, a deck of cards, bottle caps into
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Carlos Santana c d's. So so awesome. I thought this
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: is a little odd until I remembered your podcast on
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: geo cashing caching from last year when YouTube joked about
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: putting Santana c d's. So wait, we put a should
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: we go to should we go back and listen to
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: one part? Sure? So, like, if your average hiker happens
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: upon this box full of Santana c d's and they're thinking, wow,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I can just take d c d someone left these,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: this is awesome. So there it is. And apparently, uh,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: and that wasn't the only time we mentioned Santana c
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: D several times several times, and j D from Columbus says,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I thought I would let you know that at least
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: two Geo catching fans in Columbus listen to your podcast
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: and it was awesome to sort of meet one of them.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: That's cool. I don't think that's coincidence to you. I
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: don't see how it could be a Santanas c D
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: and a Geo cash Are you joking? Yeah? Yeah, I
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: think that was our influence directly. I agree. Pretty cool.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: You know, we've had another um another influence on somebody
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: in I believe Slovakia. Not sure, I think so. Uh,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: there's a guy who wrote in and he founded a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: site called weird Worm and actually started a podcast and
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: it's pretty good. You should listen to it, and he
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: attributes it directly to being inspired by us. Very cool. Yeah,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: so you should check out weird worm dot com and
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: their accompanying podcast to watch. They're going to overtake us
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: in the ratings immediately. Yeah, sorry, thanks a lot. At
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: least there's people out there trading San Santa ce ds.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: That'll be our legacy each other. Right, Well, if you
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: have any story about how Chuck and I have impacted
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: your life, influenced you in any way, or got you
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: to do something really really bad. We want to hear
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: about it in an email, which you can send. A
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com
• 32:54
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• 32:59
  Speaker 1: twelve k Emory. It's ready, are you