Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Burial Bits & Bites

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Burial Bits & Bites · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Video games have become the dominant form of entertainment in
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  Speaker 1: the modern world, but it's easy to forget that they've
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  Speaker 1: actually been around for quite a while. Before Microsoft, Nintendo,
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  Speaker 1: and Sony dominated the market, there was, of course, Atari,
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  Speaker 1: and Atari has a curious history with a few skeletons
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  Speaker 1: in its closet, well sort of. Atari wasn't the first
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  Speaker 1: or only game company in the nineteen eighties. I personally
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  Speaker 1: remember playing with my in television, but it did own
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  Speaker 1: the vast majority of the market. Video games were a
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  Speaker 1: new and addicting form of entertainment, and people ate up
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  Speaker 1: just about every new game that Atari put out. But
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  Speaker 1: it was a business tale as old as time. Atari
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  Speaker 1: became too comfortable in their success and the quality of
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  Speaker 1: their product started to diminish. The most infamous example of
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  Speaker 1: this was their adaptation of Steven Spielberg's movie Et the Extraterrestrial.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed that this was going to be a slam dunk.
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  Speaker 1: The movie was a mega hit, instantly impressing audiences as
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  Speaker 1: one of the greatest films ever made, and it remained
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  Speaker 1: the highest grossing movie of all time for over a decade,
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  Speaker 1: and Atari spent millions on acquiring the license to make
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  Speaker 1: a game. But as any good developer will tell you,
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  Speaker 1: this is a very backwards way to go about doing things.
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  Speaker 1: Games are gameplay first and story second. They need to
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  Speaker 1: be fun to play. Just because the movie was good
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  Speaker 1: didn't mean that the game would be, and the company's
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  Speaker 1: approach to production was all business and no creativity. They
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  Speaker 1: wanted to release ET in time for Christmas, so it
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  Speaker 1: was made entirely from scratch to completion in exactly five weeks.
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  Speaker 1: Before comparison, Atari's version of pac Man took twice as
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  Speaker 1: long to develop, and that's a much simpler concept than ET.
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  Speaker 1: Would the game include Elliott releasing the frogs from his
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  Speaker 1: science class. Would it show the inner workings of ET's spaceship.
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  Speaker 1: Would it faithfully recreate the iconic family home? Well, no,
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  Speaker 1: it would do none of those things. Instead, creator Howard
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  Speaker 1: Warshaw immediately got bogged down in the idea of pits
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  Speaker 1: literally just big holes that Et would fall down into
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  Speaker 1: and then climb out of. This wasn't representative of anything
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  Speaker 1: in the movie, although to be fair, there are some
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  Speaker 1: aspects of the game that did match the film. ET's
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  Speaker 1: goal in going down into these holes was to collect
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  Speaker 1: pieces of a phone so that he could phone home.
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  Speaker 1: He also picks up Reese's pieces for health and is
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  Speaker 1: chased by government agents, just like in the film, but
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  Speaker 1: it simply wasn't enough. The game technically sold a good
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  Speaker 1: amount of copies over the holidays, but Atari had expected
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  Speaker 1: it to do so well that they produced millions more
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  Speaker 1: cartridges than they actually sold, and this contributed to the
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  Speaker 1: collapse of Atari's overall business. By nineteen eighty three, many
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  Speaker 1: of their assets were being sold off. Most curiously, this
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  Speaker 1: included a warehouse in New Mexico where Atari had a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of unsold games stored, and since these were absolutely worthless,
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  Speaker 1: it was decided that the cheapest thing to do would
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  Speaker 1: be to dump them in a nearby landfill. But then
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  Speaker 1: something curious started to happen. Children from town caught on
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  Speaker 1: to the fact that it was an Atari warehouse that
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  Speaker 1: had dumped its stock into the landfill, and so they
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  Speaker 1: began to scavenge the site, where they found free copies
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  Speaker 1: of ET and other games, and soon everyone in the
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  Speaker 1: town had a copy, although if they played it, they
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  Speaker 1: probably didn't feel so lucky. The owners of the landfill
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  Speaker 1: caught wind of what was happening and soon covered it
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  Speaker 1: up and posted guards to keep people away. Then years
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  Speaker 1: passed by, and an urban legend began to form around
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  Speaker 1: the site. People knew that millions of copies of ET
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  Speaker 1: had gone unsold, and it gradually gained a reputation as
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  Speaker 1: the worst video game of all time. People also knew
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  Speaker 1: about the landfill story, and they started to conflate the
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  Speaker 1: two things. They thought that Atari hadn't just dumped one
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  Speaker 1: warehouse worth of games into the landfill, but millions of
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  Speaker 1: unsold copies of ET. The legend got so popular that
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  Speaker 1: a documentary was made about it, and a crew got
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  Speaker 1: permission to dig up the site in twenty fourteen, and
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  Speaker 1: what they found filled them with even more curiosity. There were,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, unopened copies of ET buried at the site. However,
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  Speaker 1: as they kept digging, they realized that it wasn't just
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  Speaker 1: et but a variety of Atari games from that time.
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  Speaker 1: In the end, there were about thirteen hundred games in
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  Speaker 1: the landfill, not millions, and not all et. Extra et
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  Speaker 1: stock was probably destroyed in a variety of ways in
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, and plenty was probably sold or even
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  Speaker 1: given away. But if the game wasn't as heartwarming as
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  Speaker 1: the movie, at least it could fill some minds with
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  Speaker 1: curiosity and lead them on a decade's long search for
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  Speaker 1: buried treasure. That is, of course, if terrible Atari games
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  Speaker 1: are your idea of a prize. Humankind's love affair with
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  Speaker 1: alcohol has always transcended mere drunkenness. Ever since discovering the
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  Speaker 1: brewing process in the Neolithic period, through the Ages, and
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  Speaker 1: across civilizations, we have spent countless hours experimenting with booze,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes finding bewilderingly new ways to enjoy both the intoxication
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  Speaker 1: and the journey to get there. Now, if you're curious,
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  Speaker 1: the intentional fermentation process dates back to around seven thousand
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  Speaker 1: BCE in Iran and Egypt. The drink of choice back
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  Speaker 1: then was zabib, a barley and honey brew flavored with
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  Speaker 1: herbs and dates, which was said to produce visions within
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  Speaker 1: its drinker, and at the very same time, on the
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  Speaker 1: other side of the world, the Mayan and Incan civilizations
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  Speaker 1: were brewing chicha and cooem, which was made by groups
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  Speaker 1: gathering to chew cassava or maize and then spitting the
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  Speaker 1: saliva forward mass into large communal bowls to ferment. The
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  Speaker 1: enzymes in the saliva helped to speed the process along,
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  Speaker 1: converting the starches into sugars that slowly turned into the
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  Speaker 1: desired alcohol. This isn't some long lost recipe. It is
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  Speaker 1: still made and enjoyed today in some South and Central
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  Speaker 1: American countries. And the Romans too came at drinking in
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  Speaker 1: creative ways, mixing honey with their wine to make a
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  Speaker 1: sweet beverage known as mulsom. They also added garum, pungent
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  Speaker 1: fermented fish sauce for a deep umami undertone that would
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  Speaker 1: scandalize contemporary palettes. And elsewhere in the Mediterranean, the Greeks
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  Speaker 1: brewed a heady mix of wine, honey, and spices called hippocris.
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  Speaker 1: Their parties featured elaborate rituals where hosts served three bowls,
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  Speaker 1: the first for health, another for pleasure, and a third
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  Speaker 1: for sleep, and according to the comedian Ubulus, there were
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  Speaker 1: actually more bowls than that, with a fourth belonging to violence,
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  Speaker 1: a fifth to uproar, and so on. These early brews
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  Speaker 1: evolved over the centuries into caudle, a medieval mix of
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  Speaker 1: warm ale sugar and nutmeg, as well as egg and
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  Speaker 1: the occasional grated cheese. These weren't merely meant as a
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  Speaker 1: way to unwine. They were easy ways to get calories,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes serving as an entire meal replacement. Frequently, these drinks
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  Speaker 1: serve medicinal purposes as well. In Europe, there were endless
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  Speaker 1: variations on these concoctions. Monks made oxomel, mixing wine and
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  Speaker 1: honey with vinegar, which was used as a tonic to
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  Speaker 1: cure any number of ailments, and which was frequently spiked
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  Speaker 1: with herbs. But these, of course, are all easy to
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  Speaker 1: imagine drinking. Not so with a few other examples. In
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  Speaker 1: seventeenth century France, the aristocracy would steep their brandy with
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  Speaker 1: animal carcasses, frequently cats, to give the spirits a particular
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  Speaker 1: musky aroma which the very wealthy prized. This wine of
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  Speaker 1: the dead saw variations elsewhere, for instance the United States,
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  Speaker 1: where men on the frontier would sometimes filter their harsh
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  Speaker 1: frontier liquor through none other than a horse's intestines, in
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  Speaker 1: the belief that it would help make it taste smoother.
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  Speaker 1: Even in the modern era, there have been a number
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  Speaker 1: of strange ways to get intoxicated. For instance, Victorian era
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  Speaker 1: Russia favored keffer based kumis an alcoholic fermented mare's milk
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  Speaker 1: which was known for its invigorating qualities. Southeast Asian snake
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  Speaker 1: wine emerged during this era as well, involving entire venomous
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  Speaker 1: serpents sealed within rice wine bottles, where toxins alleged neutralized
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  Speaker 1: while imparting health boosting essences. Contemporary experimentation shows no sign
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  Speaker 1: of diminishing. There are all sorts of numerous modern oddities,
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  Speaker 1: including bacon vodka, pizza beer, liquor with any number of
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  Speaker 1: insects or worms in the bottle. In Vietnam, for example,
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  Speaker 1: there's a baby mouse wine, and I think you can
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  Speaker 1: work that one out for yourself. In Japan, there's a
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  Speaker 1: whiskey made with urine. One particularly hard to swallow cocktail
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  Speaker 1: is found only at the Sour Dough Saloon in the
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  Speaker 1: Yukon province of Canada called the sour Toe cocktail. Its
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  Speaker 1: creation dates back to the Prohibition era, when a bootlegger
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  Speaker 1: named Louis Lichen had to remove a toe due to frostbite.
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  Speaker 1: Instead of throwing the toe out, this digit was placed
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  Speaker 1: in alcohol for preservation. Years later, the toe found its
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  Speaker 1: way into the tavern, where the local drunks made it
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  Speaker 1: a rite of passage to do a shot of whiskey
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  Speaker 1: with that mummified toe in it. The original toe has
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  Speaker 1: long since gone missing, don't ask me where. Nobody really knows,
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  Speaker 1: but don't worry. New toes, amputated for health reasons, have
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  Speaker 1: been regularly donated to keep the tradition alive, and it's
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  Speaker 1: still active. My friend Josh Gates drank a glass of
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  Speaker 1: the stuff on an episode of Expedition Unknown. I'll just
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  Speaker 1: have you watch that episode to see how it tastes. Now,
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  Speaker 1: these cocktails are more than just drinks. They mark social boundaries.
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  Speaker 1: They demonstrate hospitality through shared risk taking, They encode spiritual
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  Speaker 1: beliefs about medicinal properties, and they protect cultural identity against
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  Speaker 1: dominant norms. In short, they provide plenty of opportunity for
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  Speaker 1: drinkers to engage in boundary crossing. Rituals that transcend everyday experience,
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  Speaker 1: making the mundane briefly and sloppily sublime. All you need
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  Speaker 1: to do is pick your poison. I hope you enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with Ihearts,
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  Speaker 1: researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and
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  Speaker 1: produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and
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  Speaker 1: the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot com
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  Speaker 1: slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official
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  Speaker 1: Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online,
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  Speaker 1: as well as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking
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  Speaker 1: for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: all the same stories, but without the interruption for a
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  Speaker 1: small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at
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  Speaker 1: patreon dot com, slash Grimandmild, and until next time, stay curious.