Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Handiwork

Transcript

Handiwork · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Many people go their entire lives on a
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: single track. They go to school, find a comfortable career,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and stay in that career until it's time to retire.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: But every once in a while, someone gets tired of
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: their daily grind. They yearn for something else, something more
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: fulfilling than what they were trained to do, like Robert Norman.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Robert was born in Daytona Beach, Florida. In His father
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: was a opener while his mother worked as a waitress.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Robert loved animals, and when faced with an injured squirrel
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: or a snake, he wouldn't hesitate to take them in
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and nurse them back to health. He once kept a
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: baby alligator in his bathtub until it was healthy enough
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to release back into the wild. Robert dropped out of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: school once he reached the ninth grade and went to
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: work with his father as a carpenter. A mishap with
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: one of his tools, though, resulted in the partial loss
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: of his left index finger, but the injury didn't keep
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: him from joining the Air Force when he was eighteen.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Robert served as a medical records technician and was even
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: stationed at Ailson Air Force Base in Alaska. His time
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: there seemed to transform him to living in Florida. He
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: had never seen mountains or snow before, and the majesty
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: of the Alaskan landscape stayed with him for the rest
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of his life, but he eventually realized the military just
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't for him for one. Aside from his duties as
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: a records technician, Robert also served as a basic training instructor,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the guy whose job it was to yell at new
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: recruits about making their beds or cleaning the latrines. He
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: hated it, and he swore if he ever left the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: military he would never raise his voice toward another person again.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: But instead of dwelling on the negative, Robert channeled his
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: energy into something more creative. When he found out that
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the Anchorage USO Club was holding art classes, he decided
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: to attend one. However, despite his newfound love of painting.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: He took issue with the way his instructors taught him.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: They were more interested in abstract art rather than showing
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: students how to paint what they saw around them. The
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: way he put it, they tell you what makes a tree,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: but they wouldn't tell you how to paint a tree.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Robert eventually got a job as a bartender, but he
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: continued to pursue his art. While bartending, he came across
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: a television program hosted by a German painter named Bill Alexander.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Now Alexander worked in oil, using an old technique known
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: as wet on wet, in which he would apply wet
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: paint on top of wet paint instead of letting the
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: different layers dry first. Unlike the other methods that took
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: hours to complete, this technique allowed him to finish a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: paint teen in just half an hour. Robert adopted Alexander's
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: style for himself and began painting on his lunch breaks.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Some of his earliest landscapes were painting on old gold
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: mining pans, which he was able to complete in a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: matter of minutes. He then sold them for twenty five
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: dollars a piece, before moving on to canvases. Robert eventually
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: sold so many paintings that he out earned his Air
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Force salary. After twenty years in the service, he retired
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one with the rank of Master sergeant.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: He left Alaska for the warm sands of his home
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: state of Florida, where he connected with his TV teacher
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Bill Alexander. Alexander hired him to work with his art
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: supply company as an instructor and traveling salesman, and sometime
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: during his travels, Robert met a woman naming net Kowalski
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: who also attended one of his classes and gave him
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: some advice. She believed that he could do much better
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: working on his own rather than for someone else, so Annette,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: along with Robert and his wife, put their money together
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to build a new company. It almost didn't re vibe,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: but Robert managed to turn things around with a television
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: show of his own, which launched on PBS. Through it,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Robert breathed life into thousands of blank canvasses over eleven years,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: from happy little trees to happy little mountains. Robert Norman Ross,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: simply Bob Ross the viewers of the Joy of Painting,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: was the quiet artist with the perfect perm and he
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: was true to his word too. After leaving the Air Force,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: he almost never raised his voice against another person. But
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the military wasn't all that bad after all. It helped
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: him find his true passion. I guess you could call
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: that a happy accident. Necessity is the mother of invention.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: When we want to see change in our own lives,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: we tend to make it happen for ourselves rather than
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: wait for someone else to come along and do it
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: for us. And even if someone beats us to it,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: that doesn't mean we can't try and do it better
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: than them. Those who come first often become the rungs
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: on the ladder for the people climbing up. James Moray
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: was not the first in his field, nor would he
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: be the last, but in his short time on Earth,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: he changed the game for everyone by doing things his way.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: James was born in Greenville, Mississippi, in nineteen thirty six.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: His mother and father raised him in Mississippi until the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: late forties when they moved north to Maryland. James had
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a simple childhood, but it turned upside down once the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: family bought their first television set. It was a life
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: changing moment for young James. As he came face to
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: face with the people in programs that would influence him
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. He gravitated toward performers
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: who entertained with their hands and used funny voices to
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: create different characters, in other words, ventriloquists, people like Edgar
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy. James began following in
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: their footsteps from a young age, performing shows for his
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: clubs out Troop with homemade puppets. As he got older,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: he branched out into other mediums. His teenage years, for example,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: were spent in his school's theater department building sets. He
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: even drew a comic strip for his high school yearbook.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And it was during his senior year when James was
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: given a great opportunity. His local television station had come
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: up with an idea for a new show. It would
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: be produced by kids four kids, with young people acting
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: as on air talent and as the puppeteers behind the scenes.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: He didn't quite know what he was doing just yet,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: but he got a job building and creating puppets for
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the show. Sadly, it only lasted for two episodes before
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: getting pulled, but James had learned a lot while working
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: on it. He'd also made important industry connections that would
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: come in handy later in life. He eventually graduated high
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: school and moved on to college, attending the University of Maryland,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: where he studied graphic arts, textiles, and home economics. However,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: while many college students take their time in finding out
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: James fell into his future pretty quickly. It all started
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: with a single class. He enrolled in a puppetry class
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: where he met a senior named Jane Nevill, a young
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: woman who would eventually become his wife. The two became
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: fast friends and got to work on a project for
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: local television affiliate w r C TV. James came up
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: with lots of ideas for the show, ideas that went
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: on to define how televised puppet shows would be performed
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: for generations to come. Unlike the Wooden Charlie McCarthy dummies
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: of his use, he made his puppets out of foam.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: He also oriented the camera so that the puppets and
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the sets were the only things in the frame. This way,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: it looked like the characters were moving on their own
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: while the puppeteers were crouched down out of the shot
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: to preserve the illusion. He called his show Sam and Friends,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: a character's program about a human puppet named Sam and
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: his many companions like Harry the Hipster, Professor Madcliffe, and
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: a curious green lizard. This lizard was instructed from an
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: old coat that had belonged to James's mother. He'd cut
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: it up and stitched it back together, giving this creature
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: a kind of tube shaped body with a pointed, expressive mouth.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: His eyes were made from two halves of a ping
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: pong ball attached on top. He didn't know it at
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the time, but James's character was going to leap off
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the screen and into the hearts of children and adults
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: around the world. You see. He originally started out as
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a generic lizard, but over time the creature evolved, as
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: most creatures do. Subsequent iterations added a pointy color around
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: his neck, and the pale green of the coat was
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: replaced with the fabric of a more verdant hue. He
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: also changed species. The character was now clearly labeled as
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: being a frog. So what two things did James Murray
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Henson keep from his original design. First there were the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: friendly white ping pong ball eyes and second the characters
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: soon to be iconic name Kermit the Frog. I hope
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,