Latest / Ridiculous History / How Pie in the Face Became a Comedy Classic, Part 1: Rise of the Pie

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How Pie in the Face Became a Comedy Classic, Part 1: Rise of the Pie · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Shout out to our super
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: producer Casey Pagrib, Shout out to our guest producers Max
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: William Andrew Howard. Let's welcome them all within inaugural pie
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: in the face. That's how he hates people here on
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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History. I've been I have been in a pie fight,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: have you know? I have not been, but this news
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of this inaugural hazing situation as news to me. I've
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: never ever gotten a pie in the face. Ben. It
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  Speaker 1: sounds really unpleasant and messy and sticky. It's it's fun.
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  Speaker 1: I've I've done it mainly under the auspices of sketch comedy,
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  Speaker 1: so I knew the pie was coming, and I think
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  Speaker 1: that's a key factor in how one receives a pie
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  Speaker 1: to the face. It definitely is been. You know, my
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  Speaker 1: first exposure to pies in the face was probably on
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  Speaker 1: Nickelodeon shows like Doubledare, and you can't do that on
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  Speaker 1: television and stuff, and obviously by that point it's such
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  Speaker 1: a cliche. Amazingly for for the right reasons, cliche thing
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  Speaker 1: in comedy and to see them kind of like revive it,
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  Speaker 1: you know for a younger audience, is that it's it's inspiring. Ben,
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  Speaker 1: after doing the research for this episode, Yeah, yeah, it's
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  Speaker 1: one of those legendary physical comedy or slapstick tropes up
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: there with slipping on a banana peel, which is much
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: more difficult than it looks. I don't want to go
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: into the nuts and bolts of why I tried to
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  Speaker 1: figure that out. But even if you are one of
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: those are people who says I don't really like comedy,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: your says that I don't know someone, some imaginary person
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  Speaker 1: who is just all set to have a really wholesome
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  Speaker 1: change of heart, hopefully maybe in this episode. Uh, this
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  Speaker 1: is the thing. Pie throwing is going to be familiar
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  Speaker 1: with anybody, even if you don't consider yourself a fan
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  Speaker 1: of comedy or slapstick comedy specifically. And when you look
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  Speaker 1: into it like we did along with Gabe, our research associate,
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  Speaker 1: what you'll find is that it has a very, very
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  Speaker 1: surprisingly long history, so much so that our history of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the pie in the face gag is going to be
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  Speaker 1: a two parter. We couldn't fit all of it in
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  Speaker 1: one episode. Could we know? We couldn't. And this is
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  Speaker 1: the rare but increasingly less rare, proactive two parter, So
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  Speaker 1: here we are, So Here we are, Here we Are.
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  Speaker 1: It's funny if you think about why slapstick had such
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  Speaker 1: a day in the sun for so long, what you
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  Speaker 1: learn is that it since to you slapstick comedy during
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the era of silent film silent moving pictures, because you know,
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  Speaker 1: it was way easier to show a joke to the
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  Speaker 1: audience than tell them about it. And you know, that's
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  Speaker 1: still sort of like an important ethos in filmmaking. They
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  Speaker 1: always say show don't tell. That's why, like voiceover narration
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  Speaker 1: is considered kind of a hackneyed and cliche technique. I'm
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: looking at you, Ridley Scott with Blade Runner original cut,
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  Speaker 1: But then I think he made up for it in
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  Speaker 1: the director's cut. But it's true and and it's not
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  Speaker 1: only because of the show don't tell idea, because there
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  Speaker 1: literally was no sound with which to tell the contrast
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  Speaker 1: and the way you know, early film and early comedy
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  Speaker 1: was was shot was such that a pie had a
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  Speaker 1: perfect level of color to make it pop in the frame. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's a good point there. And it's also true that
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  Speaker 1: this phenomenon does not originate with silent film. It goes
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  Speaker 1: back to the days of the vaudeville circuit. That's where
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  Speaker 1: we first see documented purposeful cases of tossing a pie
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  Speaker 1: at someone's face for a laugh, and it was always
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  Speaker 1: extra funny to the vaudeville audience if the victim was
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  Speaker 1: real posh and real fancy. Seeing someone dressed as a
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  Speaker 1: hobo get hit with a pie is not as subversive
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  Speaker 1: as seeing, you know, someone dressed as the Duke of
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  Speaker 1: um Earl on water, but getting hit with totally. It's
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  Speaker 1: because inherently, you know, kind of lowers your guard or
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  Speaker 1: cuts you down to size, you know, if you're some
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  Speaker 1: kind of high salutant swell and then like the humble
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  Speaker 1: tramp hits you in the face with a pie. It's
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  Speaker 1: a way of kind of like normalizing everyone, and like
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  Speaker 1: it's like allowing you to kind of laugh at yourself
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  Speaker 1: or be really grumpy and you know, stamp away and
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  Speaker 1: a huff. Yeah. Yeah. And there's also there's some good
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  Speaker 1: comedic theory that goes into this as well. It's part
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  Speaker 1: of a larger structure, you could say, of the ideas
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  Speaker 1: of good narrative storytelling, which is there must be a
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  Speaker 1: status switch. It's interesting for the audience of one of
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  Speaker 1: low status, you know, goes from poper to prints, if
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  Speaker 1: someone of high status goes in the opposite direction, and
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  Speaker 1: a pie fight is a very quick way to do that.
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  Speaker 1: It's also a beautiful way to end a story that
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  Speaker 1: doesn't really have an ending, right. A lot of silent
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  Speaker 1: films above little bits are just kind of here is
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  Speaker 1: an anthology of things that we think are funny. How
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  Speaker 1: do we end it? That's right, And in the earliest
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  Speaker 1: days of it, back in the pre filmed days, it
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  Speaker 1: was definitely used as a device to like break up
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  Speaker 1: a sketch or you know, kind of change gears right,
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  Speaker 1: because it's sort of like, is this event that then
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  Speaker 1: everyone has to remark upon, and then it gives you
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  Speaker 1: almost this like like a sleight of hand ability to
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  Speaker 1: kind of change course and then have people like focus
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  Speaker 1: on one thing and then now they're looking at the
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  Speaker 1: new scene that's kind of formed around it. Yeah, it's
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  Speaker 1: got some of the similar vibes to the famous Benny
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  Speaker 1: Hill Chase montages. They're like, let's just make it as
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  Speaker 1: Steve Massa described absurd, antarctic, and funny. That's him speaking
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  Speaker 1: about the cream pie fight as a visual non sequitur
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: in an excellent New York Times article called comedy Sweet
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  Speaker 1: Weapon the cream Pie, But Noel. When we are looking
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  Speaker 1: at the history of the pie fights or the pie
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  Speaker 1: in the face, if we are looking to the world
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  Speaker 1: of film, it seems like opinions differ on which silent
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  Speaker 1: film had the quote first pie fight. We've got like
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  Speaker 1: three different opinions here, and now it's borderline controversial. Band.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think it's okay for us to wade into
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  Speaker 1: these waters? I think, you know what, I think we
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  Speaker 1: can throw a pie or two of conversation here and
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  Speaker 1: maybe we can talk. Maybe after we go through the
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  Speaker 1: first three, we can figure out which one we think
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  Speaker 1: is more likely. What I am completely with you. So
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  Speaker 1: one of the first examples comes from Gilbert M. Bronco
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  Speaker 1: Billy Anderson's film Mr. Flip, which came out nineteen o nine.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. I had to go off Mike
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  Speaker 1: for a second, be like, was there really there was
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  Speaker 1: film in nineteen o nine. I feel like I'm obviously
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  Speaker 1: not a Hollywood historian, but the stuff absolutely fascinates me,
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  Speaker 1: and it follows it's sort of like, you know, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it's this guy's kind of a hell. He's this abusive
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  Speaker 1: store manager, like of a general store in a town,
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  Speaker 1: played by Ben Turpin, and that's Mr Flip And he
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  Speaker 1: gets a pie to the face as is not fine
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  Speaker 1: why I'm laughing after sexually harassing every single woman that
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  Speaker 1: he encounters. That's sort of his thing. That's he's a hell.
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  Speaker 1: But again, that device, that cream pie allows some sort
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  Speaker 1: of like visual representation of him being cut down to
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  Speaker 1: size and uh, kind of getting his retribution for all
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  Speaker 1: of that, you know, awful hellish behavior. Yes. Also nineteen
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  Speaker 1: o nine, that's the year that newspaper reporting of the
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  Speaker 1: Jersey Devil the cryptod exploded. That has nothing to do
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  Speaker 1: with today's episode. I'm just kind of on an info
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  Speaker 1: dump getting rid of all these things I learned full
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  Speaker 1: disclosure exactly has something to do with what we talked
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  Speaker 1: about earlier today. It all kind of bleeds together. What
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  Speaker 1: are we talking about history or cryptids? It's it's all
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  Speaker 1: kind of, you know, two sides of the same coin.
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  Speaker 1: Here's something I also didn't know. Mabel Norman, who is
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  Speaker 1: one of the great woman comedians of all time comedians,
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  Speaker 1: and I always like to say that, but who knows
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  Speaker 1: that that's even appropriate. She was called often by the
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  Speaker 1: press the female chaplain, which seems dismissive, but you know,
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  Speaker 1: it was the It was the nineteen tense. And she
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  Speaker 1: in a nineteen thirteen comedy called A Noise from the
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  Speaker 1: Deep directed by Max Sennett, she throws a pie on
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  Speaker 1: film at Fatty r Buckle. Max Sennet, the director also
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  Speaker 1: known as the quote father of slapstick comedy. So those
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  Speaker 1: are two of our big contenders for first pie throne.
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  Speaker 1: But unfortunately you can't see a copy of A Noise
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  Speaker 1: from the Deep today. No princes of the film are
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  Speaker 1: known to exist, and so the pie in question has
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  Speaker 1: become a little bit of a passion project. Intrepid entertainment
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  Speaker 1: historians and the right right and a lot of them
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  Speaker 1: rely on help from early descriptions of the scene at
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  Speaker 1: the time by people who were able to watch the film,
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  Speaker 1: including the author Andy Edmonds. That's right. Andy Edmonds wrote
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  Speaker 1: a book on Fatty Arbuckle called Frame Up, and she
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  Speaker 1: recounts kind of in the oral tradition, this event that
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  Speaker 1: may or may not have happened exactly like that, and
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  Speaker 1: I love everything about this. So apparently the crew of
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  Speaker 1: the shoot, we're looking for some way, like we said,
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  Speaker 1: to break up a comedy sequence, and there was some
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I have craft services, I guess. There was
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  Speaker 1: a pile of pastries on a nearby craft services tray
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  Speaker 1: or table, and Fatty or Roscoe, as his mother called him,
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  Speaker 1: um saw an opportunity here for comedy gold. And he
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  Speaker 1: grabbed one of these pies and he called Mabel over
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  Speaker 1: and handed it to her and instructed her to throw
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  Speaker 1: the pie in his Yeah, and Senate the director couldn't
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  Speaker 1: hear what they were saying, and our Buckle wouldn't tell him.
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  Speaker 1: It was probably like, I don't want to lose the magic.
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  Speaker 1: Just trust me, bro, just roll the cameras. So he said, okay,
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  Speaker 1: I trust you. He let the cameras roll, and he
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  Speaker 1: used a wide angle, and then at some point in
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  Speaker 1: the scene, Mabel took a pie, reared back, and then
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  Speaker 1: flu popped it into our Buckle's face. Everybody cracked up
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  Speaker 1: while filming it, which is a good sign audiences felt
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  Speaker 1: the same way, and this became part of the primary
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  Speaker 1: foundation of film slapstick, and then from there, you would
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  Speaker 1: see a pie throwing scene in all sorts of comedies,
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  Speaker 1: both by Senate because he was not above using the
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  Speaker 1: same gag multiple times, and by his competitors and his rivals.
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  Speaker 1: But there's a third film that enters the chat here,
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  Speaker 1: also directed by Senate. That's right. Senate directed another short
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  Speaker 1: called The Ragtime Band, And it's a little hazy here,
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  Speaker 1: but it seems like he got the idea to have
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  Speaker 1: characters throw baked goods at each other from the story
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  Speaker 1: of the shoot that we don't have a print of anymore,
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  Speaker 1: from a Noise from the Deep where Mabel Norman, you know,
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  Speaker 1: through that pie at Fatty r. Buckle. So this is
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  Speaker 1: like kind of like this weird, you know, echo chamber
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  Speaker 1: of Hollywood lore. But it seems like that's it may
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  Speaker 1: have also been just another story of that happening in
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  Speaker 1: real life that she was like irritated at. Ben Turpin,
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  Speaker 1: the actor who played Mr. Flip himself, What do you think, Ben, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's it's interesting. But regardless of which of those three
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  Speaker 1: narratives is accurate, we know that pie throwing blew up
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  Speaker 1: in a big way around that time. Somewhere between nineteen
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  Speaker 1: o nine and nineteen thirteen, and after that it was everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: Charlie Chaplin threw pies in nineteen sixteens behind the screen.
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  Speaker 1: This became a comedy trope, the epitome of a comedy trope.
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  Speaker 1: And shout out to our friend Rowan, who made some
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: appearances on her earlier series Idiomatic for the People when
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: he came up with a race I just love, he said,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: support the tropes. Indeed, thank you for your Yes, you've
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: done us, You've done us. Proud yes. And so after this,
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  Speaker 1: for over a century this was a common occurrence in
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  Speaker 1: slapstick comedies. And this is thanks in part to Max
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  Speaker 1: Senate and Keystone Studios. Keystone Studios was started by Senate
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  Speaker 1: back in nineteen twelve, and the studio was often called
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  Speaker 1: a comedy pioneer. They had a huge hand and making
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  Speaker 1: pie throwing ubiquitous. They did and bent. Do you remember
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  Speaker 1: that one time when you and me and our buddy
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed our theme, were in Los Angeles
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  Speaker 1: and we were walking down We had gone to like
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: an awards thing, and we were all kind of suited
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: up a little bit and we were walking down Hollywood
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  Speaker 1: Boulevard like more in the Las Vilas portion, and somebody
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  Speaker 1: yelled Keystone cops at us. Yes, I was accused of
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: being a cop no less than three times that, which
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  Speaker 1: was funny because as by the end of that night,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I was in my cups and would not have been
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: a good representation of law. Candidly, none of us would
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: have been a good representation, no question about it, but
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  Speaker 1: I did not. That is such an l a thing
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  Speaker 1: to yell. Because the Keystone Cops were a famous kind
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  Speaker 1: of comedy bit. I guess that Keystone Studios put out
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  Speaker 1: so much that that kind of became. It almost seems
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  Speaker 1: to me, I haven't seen this bit, but it sounds
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  Speaker 1: to me like a little bit of a proto the
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  Speaker 1: Benny Hill thing, where it's like, you know, sped up
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  Speaker 1: kind of cops chasing around people and like fallen down
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  Speaker 1: and looking like idiots. Yeah, that's always mentioned, the Benny
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Hill montage. It works in a couple of different ways
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: here because it depicts chaos, right, you want comedic scenes
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: to escalate their steaks and become chaotic, find the comedy
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: in the chaos or unexpected connections. But then also from
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  Speaker 1: a very structural standpoint, it's a great way to wrap
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: stuff up. The studio itself used this bit so often
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  Speaker 1: that they became publicly owned for pie tossing, and the
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  Speaker 1: studio eventually they this is how often they used this
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: idea of food fights, of throwing pies. Especially Eventually, Keystone
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Studios needed its own bakery just to make prop baked goods,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and they were trying to figure out how they could
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  Speaker 1: get a good pie connect They found the answer literally
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: across the street from the studio. There was a business
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  Speaker 1: owner named Sarah Brenner showed a variety store at this location,
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  Speaker 1: but she also was the pie person. She was the
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  Speaker 1: pie plug for the studio. And uh, it's funny because
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: sometimes when they were pies that were made to be eaten,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: they were actually pretty good. Charlie Chaplin called him the
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: best pies in town. But the thing is, if you
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: know anything about food as it's depicted on film, even
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: in the modern day, a lot of the stuff that
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: looks delicious on screen is not stuff you would want
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: to eat. In fact, a lot of times it's not
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: even food. It's not even edible, or it has like
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: you know, like I know that I've have been friends
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: with a few people who are food photographers, and they
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: put like clear nail polish on things sometimes to make
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: it like shine like for example, a pie even probably
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: could be or like a burger bun, you know, like
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: in a McDonald's dad, where it just looks so shiny
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and perfect. The light hits it and that kind of glints.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: That's because there's some sort of like noxious you know,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: solvent of some kind painted onto the outside of it.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: But this was true for prop pies as well, because
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: you needed, you know, not just any pie would do.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: It needed to be weighted in a certain way. It
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: needed to pop for the color, for the black and
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: white like we were talking about, and it also needed
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: to explode like a blood squib, you know, when it
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: hit its target. The ones that Keystone ended up using
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: pretty often were especially made to be more ballistic heavy
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: duty pastry in Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the author describes them as you seeing a quote, especially
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: slurpy custard, which sounds gross, but it's show business, right,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: And there's a recent custard pies where used so much
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: more often. They're super messy, and most importantly, they don't
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: have a top crust, meaning that you'll get more of
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: a splat factor and it'll be less potentially dangerous for
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: your actors. Right. Think about like if you had like
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: a true lattice worked like cherry pie or something like that,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: you know, it would hit you in the face and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the impact would be absorbed by that like lattice top
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: crust rather than like maximum splattery impact. So this was
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: very thoughtful and Fatty R. Buckle and Buster Keaton, who
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: was his protege, definitely know him from physical comedy stuff.
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  Speaker 1: You know, the idea of like that set piece barn
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: door kind of falling down. He's the lands right in
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  Speaker 1: the window. You know, very very physical, dangerous at times
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  Speaker 1: comedy stunts that Buster Keaton would do. But he learned
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: everything he knew from Fatty R. Buckle, and between the
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: two of them they sort of furthered this formula left
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: for how to have the perfect pie impact for the
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  Speaker 1: camera and for maximum laughs. Yes, you could call it
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: high impact. He could call it hi pie impact, just
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: pie impact, pen impact. I'm over I'm overthinking this. I'm
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  Speaker 1: all the way there with you, Ben. And this was
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventeen where these dudes took pie throwing to
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: the next level in a film called The Butcher Boy.
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  Speaker 1: That was actually Keaton's first on screen appearance. Yeah, you
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: see the food fighting roots here. Artbuckle didn't go with
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: a pie for this when he went with a bag
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: of flower, and he wanted to make sure that he
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: caught Keaton absolutely by surprise, so he said, Okay, don't
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: look at this bag of flower coming. I don't want
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: you to flinch. Just don't look and turn around when
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you hear me yell now. Keaton turned around here Arbuckle,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: yell now, and turn around just in time to get
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: knocked on the floor by this bag of flower. And
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: so they probably rethought throwing just bags of flower people
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and said, okay, maybe pies because you can will stand up. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And it's basically, you know, it's flower. This is a
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: raw material experiment. And they realized, oh, maybe, like the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: weight and half of a giant bag of flower hitting
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: somebody in the face is a little much. I'm sure
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: it was hilarious, but Keaton said in his memoir that
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: he absolutely got knocked on his backside when he was
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: hit by this thing. He said, he put my head
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: where my feet were. That's what that means. I mean
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: he knocked him on his Keister, on his buster Keister.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And so they had also, over time working with pies
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: in this comedic way, they had become increasingly sophisticated in
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the construction of these stunt pies. What the the they
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: even detail it. Author Mary and Meade talks about this
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: recipe that Keaton came up with. First, they cooked two crust,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: one inside the other until they're quite brittle, because a
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: double crust will prevent crumbling when you're throwing the pie.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: And then secondly, you never used a tin plate that
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: could cut somebody in the face or the eye, right,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: And they said, this happens because the once the plate hits,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: it slides sideways at the moment of impact, which is
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: part of the gag, right. I mean, you know, we'll
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: get to it later, but like I always think of
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the Loony Tunes kind of completely exaggerated version of that,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: where the pie hits and it just slow most slides off,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: leaving all the good behind right exactly exactly. And they
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: had specific recipes which I found pretty interesting. So after
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: they've got this crust and they say no tin plates,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: they're gonna fill it with an inch of flour and
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: water paste. That's very thick, and then the rest of
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the recipe varies on the person's appearance. I love this
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: so much. It gets so specific. They talk about if
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a man in a suit, a light colored suit, was
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: to be the target, then they would add chocolate or
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: strawberry to add, you know, something that would completely wreck
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: their clothes and make it really clear that they had
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: been hit with something, and that black and white. If
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: a blonde was going to be hit, then custard would
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: not be used. Instead, it was a mixture of blackberries, flour,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and water topped with whipped cream, which is that classic
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: like double dare. And those were just literally pie plates,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: you know, with whip cream, like in Revenge of the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Nerds where they're giving away pies that just have naked
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: pictures on the bottom of the plate, right, they're just
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: whipped cream over the pictures. Yeah, that's that's the most
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: basic version of a thing that you maybe could call
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: it pie. But this is so fascinating. Brunette's even had
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: their own category of pie. I love the idea of
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: ballistic pie that would be a lemon meringue filling um
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: to contrast with their darker hair. And Keaton even had
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: really specific recommendations on how to go about throwing it,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: like how to you know, surprise your victim to get
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: like the maximum you know, genuine reaction. The shot put,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: the shot put. That's right. He refers to several kind
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: of techniques of throwing pies, and he says this in
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: his memoir This is the Custard Pie Surprise. I was
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: about to heave its sweet faced Alice Faye in their
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: film Hollywood Cavalcade, which came out in nine. I worried
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: about her flinching. Besides spoiling the shot, that would mean
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and this I love is it's so perfectly functional. This
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: would mean hours of delay while Alice took a shower,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: got a whole new makeup job of hair do, and
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: was fitted for a duplicate close outfit. That makes sense.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: That would have taken forever to reset that. It's like
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: a very small scale version of like doing some sort
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: of pyro event on a movie set where you like
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: blow up a bank or something. And so we can
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: already see that there's a lot of work going into
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the comedy pie business. But when we return for part
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: two of our episode, we're gonna see that this goes
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: even further. It leads to something called the Battle of
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the Century, which is the epic pie fight to end
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: all pie fights. What are we talking about. You'll have
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: to tune in for part two. And please, by the way,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: just to be safe. We know, we explain how to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: make various kinds of movie pies for throwing at people.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: But please don't take that as us say you should
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: throw a pie at an unwilling person. No, you have
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to have pie approval before. I mean, unless, like you're
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: working in comedy and it's understood that you know, by
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: entering into this there is the potential that you might
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: get here with a pie or a double dare situation.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: That's something that you kind of like sign up for
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: when you get one of that set. Yeah, consensual pie
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: fights also as well learn in part two there's a
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: little bit of what you might call pie throwing ethics.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: People like Buster Keaton thought that not everyone should get
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: a pie thrown at them. We'll tell you more about
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: this in the second part of our series on the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: history of pie throwing. In the meantime, you know, I've
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: been dying to ask this whole episode, doll fellow ridiculous historians,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: have you ever been in a pie fight or a
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: food fight. What happened? How to go down? Did you ever? Just?
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I feel like we have at least one person the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: audience who just slammed a pie in their own face.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: That'd be fun. There is a game, like a kid's
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: game that you can get that involve these like spring
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: loaded hands that like shoot pies in your face, but
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: they really are just tiny little piethons that I believe.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: You have to supply your own whip cream. It never
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: seemed like a very good bargain to me as a game,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: like think of all the think of the whip cream
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: costs that would go into playing this game. Yeah, you've
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: got to think of the R O I or R
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: O pie I should say, Max, Uh, if you put
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a wall PLoP in there, I'm not gonna be mad
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: at you. Thanks as always to our super producer Casey Begraham,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: our producers Andrew Howard and Max Williams, and Uh you
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: can't help the shout out. The man himself, Alex Williams
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: composed this slapping track. As we mentioned earlier. He did
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: indeed one of our Keystone Cop brethren. If you want
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to check us out on the internet, you can do
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: so ridiculous history. We're pretty much all the places that
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: would lead you to. You can also find Ben and
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I as individual human people. I am on Instagram at
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: how Now Noel Brown. You can also find me on
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Twitter at Ben Bulling h s W, where you can
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: get a sneak peek at some of the stuff I'm
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: working on. You can also drop by Instagram where I'm
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: at Ben Bolan bo w l I n okay. We
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: already think Alex Williams, who composed our theme twice. Even gosh,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: we're on a roll. Gabe Lucier, our research associate extraordinaire.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Christopher hasciotes here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland, the Quister, may
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: ever mayhe rain. If one man that I know deserves
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a pie in the face, it's Jonathan Strickland's a k
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the Twister. Jonathan. If you're listening, I want you to
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: know that the future hurdles toward you unstoppable. Even now,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: there is a pie, the pieces of a pie coming together,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: aimed for your face. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows.