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CLASSIC: Japan, Baseball and the Curse of the Colonel · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
0:03
Speaker 1: We've got a classic episode on the way to you,
0:07
Speaker 1: and I'm Bet Bullen, joined as always with our super
0:11
Speaker 1: producer Max the Madman Williams as our colleague Noel Brown
0:16
Speaker 1: is also on Adventures Max. I suppose I can say
0:20
Speaker 1: it now as part of the intro to this, I
0:23
Speaker 1: am actually in Japan. As people hear.
0:26
Speaker 2: This, are you watching the baseball game while eating fried chicken?
0:30
Speaker 1: I should be through the magic of editing. That may
0:33
Speaker 1: well be the case, but we don't know yet. This episode, dude,
0:37
Speaker 1: it makes me think of you so back in twenty eighteen.
0:42
Speaker 1: I can't remember how often I was messing around with
0:44
Speaker 1: Japan at that point, but back in twenty eighteen, we
0:48
Speaker 1: got obsessed. Noel and I and our our good friend
0:51
Speaker 1: of the show, former producer Casey Pegram, we got obsessed
0:55
Speaker 1: with Kentucky fried chicken in Japan. It's a whole thing
1:00
Speaker 1: We've talked about on multiple shows, and we may have
1:03
Speaker 1: referred to this episode, but it is peak ridiculous history,
1:07
Speaker 1: and it's something that you know a little bit about
1:09
Speaker 1: because you're an absolute baseball encyclopedia.
1:12
Speaker 2: On two legs, American baseball, Major League Baseball, as I
1:16
Speaker 2: sit here with my Alanta Braves replica ring and my
1:19
Speaker 2: really old Atlanta Braves baseball. But yeah, I mean two
1:23
Speaker 2: very large American exports to Japan baseball and fried chicken, and.
1:29
Speaker 1: Also superstitions, curses, drunken revelry. Why did the Hunshin Tigers
1:38
Speaker 1: spend so long laboring under something called the curse of
1:42
Speaker 1: the Klonel? Yes that, colonel, Colonel Sanders, this is a
1:46
Speaker 1: true story. We can't wait for you to hear it.
1:49
Speaker 1: And also, by the way, Max, what year is a
1:52
Speaker 1: baseball from?
1:53
Speaker 3: Oh, like two thousand and three?
1:56
Speaker 1: Ancient history?
1:57
Speaker 3: At this point, it really is. It makes me feel old.
2:03
Speaker 1: Ridiculous history is a production of iHeartRadio. Tiger Tiger burning
2:32
Speaker 1: bright in the forest of the night, What immortal hand
2:36
Speaker 1: or I could frame thy fearful symmetry? That is an
2:40
Speaker 1: excerpt of a poem called The Tiger by William Blake.
2:43
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Ben, Ben, it is I Noel, and I
2:47
Speaker 3: have a query to pose to you. What does this
2:50
Speaker 3: poem snippet have to do with today's episode? I am
2:55
Speaker 3: so glad you asked, Noel. Oh before we go any further,
2:59
Speaker 3: let's have a big and everybody listening just go ahead
3:02
Speaker 3: and clap by yourself for our super producer Casey Pegram.
3:07
Speaker 3: It's okay if you don't want to clap, yeah, you know,
3:09
Speaker 3: just you can snap. Just give him props, Natalie.
3:12
Speaker 1: Props in such a way as you feel moved to provide.
3:15
Speaker 3: But Ben, yes, props. Aside, we're talking about tigers today.
3:20
Speaker 1: We are in a way. We are in a way.
3:23
Speaker 1: We are talking about the Hunshen Tigers, which is a
3:29
Speaker 1: sports team. We're also talking about urban legends. We're also
3:33
Speaker 1: talking about a somewhat romanticized view of the American South,
3:38
Speaker 1: which you know, you and I both love a big
3:41
Speaker 1: old accent. And we're talking about Japan, and we're talking
3:45
Speaker 1: about a curse.
3:47
Speaker 3: L Yeah, the curse of the colonel. And that's not
3:50
Speaker 3: just any colonel that is the standard bearer of greased
3:55
Speaker 3: chicken legs the world over. As it turns out, Colonel
4:00
Speaker 3: Sanders does he have a proper.
4:01
Speaker 1: Name, Yes, Colonel Harland David Sanders born in eighteen ninety.
4:07
Speaker 3: I think you mean halland David Sanders.
4:10
Speaker 1: Oh, do you mean Colonel Hall and David Julip Sanders.
4:15
Speaker 1: Don't you try to out Southern meme, Ben Bolin, Oh,
4:18
Speaker 1: I could chew this ax you O day least.
4:20
Speaker 3: Don't old sweet. People will tune out, people will not
4:24
Speaker 3: have it.
4:25
Speaker 1: We want to hear, by the way, your best Southern
4:29
Speaker 1: accent impression. If you record yourself, write us a letter
4:33
Speaker 1: and include that, we'd love to hear it.
4:35
Speaker 3: Absolutely. But yeah, so we were mashing now this is
4:38
Speaker 3: a mash up episode. This is a ridiculous history, the
4:40
Speaker 3: mash up episode wherein we mashed together quite a few themes.
4:44
Speaker 3: You mentioned curses, we're talking about chicken, We're talking about
4:47
Speaker 3: the South, We're talking about Japan. Where do we start.
4:51
Speaker 1: Let's start in nineteen eighty five. How about that.
4:55
Speaker 3: It was a very good year.
4:56
Speaker 1: It was a very good year, especially for the Hanshin Tigers.
4:59
Speaker 1: They're a baseball team in Japan. You see. They went
5:01
Speaker 1: on to win the Japan Championship Series, which is the
5:05
Speaker 1: equivalent of the World Series in Major League Baseball, and
5:09
Speaker 1: the fans went crazy.
5:12
Speaker 3: And I know, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, Ben,
5:14
Speaker 3: but I feel like there's sort of a stereotype out
5:16
Speaker 3: there the Japanese being very reserved people. They know how
5:20
Speaker 3: to keep it together and not get carried away? Shall
5:23
Speaker 3: we say, but this is a great example of a
5:27
Speaker 3: stereotype buster, and that these Japanese sports fans got quite
5:32
Speaker 3: carried away and there was alcohol involved too, right, Ben.
5:35
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, this is another episode where we find a
5:38
Speaker 1: group of people misbehaving, perhaps in part due to alcohol,
5:44
Speaker 1: perhaps just due to passions running high sports fever. Yes, yes,
5:49
Speaker 1: these drunken revelers took to a bridge in Osaka, the
5:54
Speaker 1: Ibisubashi Bridge. We should also note that Noel and I
5:59
Speaker 1: are not native Japanese speakers. This is very true, a
6:02
Speaker 1: fact that will become increasingly apparent if it has not
6:05
Speaker 1: already been clear from the jump.
6:07
Speaker 3: I'll throw my hat into the mispronunciation ring in saying
6:11
Speaker 3: that the eb Subashi Bridge is a bridge overlooking the
6:17
Speaker 3: dotan Bori River, which is notoriously polluted. I'm not sure
6:21
Speaker 3: today if that's still the case, but back in nineteen
6:24
Speaker 3: eighty five, not a very clean body of water. But
6:27
Speaker 3: that aside, these drunken revelers dove in kind of or
6:31
Speaker 3: jumped in off the bridge. I'm trying to picture. Yeah,
6:34
Speaker 3: that was how far a jump are we talking here? Ben?
6:36
Speaker 1: They jumped It was a safe enough distance It wasn't
6:40
Speaker 1: like jumping off the Golden gate Bridge. Don't do it
6:43
Speaker 1: for kicks, by the way, because you will break your
6:46
Speaker 1: legs easily. This was not going to be a lethal jump. Still,
6:51
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to do it. Still, you're dangerous. It's
6:54
Speaker 1: very much a hold my beer situation is what we
6:57
Speaker 1: would call it today. But they were jumped in a
7:00
Speaker 1: pattern because the crowd was screaming out the names of
7:06
Speaker 1: the players on the Tigers, and every time they yelled
7:10
Speaker 1: the name of one of the players, someone who looked
7:14
Speaker 1: like that player or was perceived to look like the player.
7:17
Speaker 3: How do you think this idea came to the forefront?
7:19
Speaker 1: I'm just still mystify, man, Like, how did they just
7:22
Speaker 1: think of the level of sophistication this game must have?
7:26
Speaker 1: You know, how did this happen organically? Yeah, we're not
7:29
Speaker 1: anywhere near this level of revelry.
7:32
Speaker 3: No, And this is a very specific form of revelry,
7:34
Speaker 3: almost kind of a ritual that they just invented out
7:37
Speaker 3: of whole cloth. I'm guessing I've not seen evidence of
7:39
Speaker 3: this type of thing anywhere else. But yeah, like you're saying,
7:42
Speaker 3: so every time, I'm guessing they were hearing the announcement
7:45
Speaker 3: from the stadium or was it on a televised broadcast.
7:48
Speaker 1: It was after the game, so it sounds like it
7:51
Speaker 1: was people in the crowd. So the crowd would yell out,
7:54
Speaker 1: you know, third basement Casey Pegram, and everybody go whoa.
7:57
Speaker 1: And then somebody is like, I look kind of like
8:00
Speaker 1: third baseman Casey Pegrim. They it's my turn to jump
8:03
Speaker 1: off the bridge.
8:04
Speaker 3: So you had to kind of like take it upon
8:05
Speaker 3: yourself to go forth when that name was called.
8:08
Speaker 1: Would hope so, because the alternative is that someone else
8:11
Speaker 1: points at a random person in the crowd and says, hey,
8:15
Speaker 1: he looks like third basement Casey Pegrim, and then they
8:18
Speaker 1: grab him and throw him off the bridge. But it
8:21
Speaker 1: appeared to be all in good fun until they called
8:27
Speaker 1: the name of first baseman Randy Bass.
8:31
Speaker 3: Wait, Ben, that doesn't sound like a Japanese name. What gives?
8:33
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked, because you and I did
8:36
Speaker 1: a little bit of research based on that name. It
8:38
Speaker 1: turns out Randy Bass was an American on the team.
8:43
Speaker 3: Interesting how did he find himself playing for a Japanese team? Ooh?
8:49
Speaker 1: He had spent six seasons in Major League Baseball with
8:53
Speaker 1: five different teams and then his contract expired, so he
8:57
Speaker 1: expanded his horizons.
9:00
Speaker 3: Okay, and they made him an offer he could not refuse,
9:02
Speaker 3: I imagine, and then he decided to take up his glove,
9:06
Speaker 3: his mit. He was a baseman, take up a mitt,
9:09
Speaker 3: I guess for the Tigers. He committed to the Tigers,
9:13
Speaker 3: and we're committing to the Bites, Yes we really are.
9:16
Speaker 3: But yeah, so here's the issue, right immediately, if that
9:18
Speaker 3: they're going for this this gag or this bit that
9:21
Speaker 3: they're committing to, which they were committing quite hard of
9:24
Speaker 3: having to look like the player in question whose name
9:26
Speaker 3: is being called. That sort of threw a wrench into
9:29
Speaker 3: the works there when they called mister Bass's name, because
9:33
Speaker 3: you know, there was nobody in the crowd. I'm guessing
9:36
Speaker 3: from the story at least it seems to be the
9:38
Speaker 3: case that looked like a big six foot something American
9:43
Speaker 3: first baseman.
9:44
Speaker 1: And this was a snag for sure, because you see,
9:48
Speaker 1: when Randy joined Japanese baseball, he became one of the
9:53
Speaker 1: most powerful hitters in the history of the game in
9:57
Speaker 1: that country. So with him on their side, the Tiger
10:01
Speaker 1: shot through the championship. This guy was a big deal.
10:05
Speaker 1: He was crucial to the game. Yes, so of course
10:08
Speaker 1: in this very specific, ritualized revelry, he needed to be represented, right,
10:13
Speaker 1: someone needed to be thrown off the bridge in his
10:15
Speaker 1: honor or to jump themselves.
10:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what what? What is it? What is a
10:21
Speaker 3: drunken pack of sports fans to do? Ben?
10:25
Speaker 1: I propose that before we follow the rest of the story,
10:29
Speaker 1: we bring in an outside factor. Oh, a tangent, if
10:33
Speaker 1: you will. I love it, A tangy, crispy, crunchy tangent.
10:37
Speaker 1: How many herbs and spices does this tangent contain? Is
10:41
Speaker 1: it eleven?
10:42
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's a secret.
10:44
Speaker 1: It is a secret. The number may not be a secret,
10:46
Speaker 1: but the specificity es spice wise is.
10:49
Speaker 3: It's one of those things where they probably have two
10:51
Speaker 3: executives that carry half of the secrets each and they
10:54
Speaker 3: never let them be on the same plane, like Coca
10:56
Speaker 3: Cola exactly.
10:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we're talking about Kentucky Fried Chicken, by the way,
10:59
Speaker 1: we're talking about Tucky Fried Chicken, or KFC as it
11:03
Speaker 1: is known today, the iconic red and white bucket, the
11:08
Speaker 1: vaguely creepy plantation owner. I feel like the representation got
11:14
Speaker 1: creepy now.
11:15
Speaker 3: Big time.
11:15
Speaker 1: You know, they had Darryl Hammond, they had Norm MacDonald
11:18
Speaker 1: do commercials.
11:19
Speaker 3: I think KFC advertising is sort of going down that
11:21
Speaker 3: same path that Burger King did years ago with the
11:24
Speaker 3: super creepy King with the you know, expressionless face kind
11:27
Speaker 3: of looks like a serial killer mask kind of. The
11:30
Speaker 3: KFC is doing that too with the Colonel. They're sort
11:32
Speaker 3: of doubling down on his creepy factor. Yes, because it's
11:36
Speaker 3: just like, you know, it works, I guess for like
11:38
Speaker 3: a memorable weird commercial as opposed to back in the day,
11:41
Speaker 3: where I think it was sort of like I felt
11:44
Speaker 3: like they shied away from it, even getting rid of
11:46
Speaker 3: Kentucky in the name. KFC kind of replaced it because
11:50
Speaker 3: I think they were shying away from that image, right,
11:52
Speaker 3: because it was a little problematic.
11:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the Learning Channel became TLC when they said,
11:57
Speaker 1: what are people actually learning on this thing? Right? That's
12:00
Speaker 1: a little shade. But yes, so KFC. There's probably one
12:04
Speaker 1: in a town near you if you live in the
12:06
Speaker 1: United States, right somewhere. It turns out KFC is phenomenally
12:13
Speaker 1: extraordinarily popular in Japan. The first KFC opened in nineteen
12:20
Speaker 1: seventy in Japan, and shortly after it opened, the guy
12:25
Speaker 1: who was the manager of this, Takeshi Okawara, woke up
12:29
Speaker 1: at midnight and he had a dream that he had
12:32
Speaker 1: to write down and make into reality. He said, let's
12:35
Speaker 1: sell a party barrel. A party barrel, you say, every Christmas? Yes,
12:41
Speaker 1: you can read this. You can read the full story
12:43
Speaker 1: of this in a great article by the BBC called
12:46
Speaker 1: Why Japan Celebrates Christmas with KFC by Eric Barton. Here's
12:52
Speaker 1: the rub. Every Christmas, an estimated three point six million
12:57
Speaker 1: Japanese families eat themselves to Kentucky Fried Chicken for Christmas.
13:03
Speaker 3: It's true, and we're going to get into more of
13:04
Speaker 3: these amazing Japanese phonetic kind of pronunciations for things. I'm
13:10
Speaker 3: just a huge fan of these. So they created that.
13:13
Speaker 3: This became kind of a local tradition for this original
13:15
Speaker 3: KFC joint. But then the company realized this was a
13:19
Speaker 3: super smart move to sell Kentucky Fried Chicken in Japan.
13:23
Speaker 3: So they created this marketing plan and they called it
13:27
Speaker 3: Kurisamasu niwa Kentucky or Kentucky for Christmas. I just love
13:33
Speaker 3: Kuri Samasu. That's fantastic.
13:35
Speaker 1: And these are spelled phonetically.
13:38
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, and the idea being that it's creating a
13:42
Speaker 3: new tradition out of nothing, because even though there are
13:45
Speaker 3: quite a large number of Christians in Japan, Christmas is
13:49
Speaker 3: not a nationally celebrated holiday and there's really no national
13:54
Speaker 3: tradition around it. So these folks at KFC kind of
13:57
Speaker 3: saw a niche and they filled the crap out of it,
14:00
Speaker 3: didn't They.
14:01
Speaker 1: Been, Yes, yes, there was absolutely no tradition, somewhat of
14:05
Speaker 1: a void a niche as you said, Noel, And they
14:10
Speaker 1: they morphed it into more than just a single bucket
14:14
Speaker 1: of chicken. It didn't include just the breast and thighs. Now.
14:18
Speaker 1: They came with these, they came with Christmas cakes, They
14:22
Speaker 1: included wine, they had sides. You could get the entry
14:28
Speaker 1: box for around thirty seven hundred yen that's about thirty
14:33
Speaker 1: two bucks yep, up to the premium one, which is
14:37
Speaker 1: about fifty eight hundred yen, and according to KFC, these
14:43
Speaker 1: Christmas packages alone make up about a third of the
14:46
Speaker 1: chain's yearly sales in Japan.
14:49
Speaker 3: It's insane, it's phenomenal, and you have to like reserve
14:51
Speaker 3: your package weeks in advance or risk having to stand
14:55
Speaker 3: in massive lines to get this. And you know it's interesting.
14:59
Speaker 3: In this article, they actually talked to you a local
15:01
Speaker 3: Atlanta chef.
15:02
Speaker 1: Yes, I know the guy, Kevin Gespie, Kevin Gillespie.
15:05
Speaker 3: I've never been to any of his restaurants, but I
15:07
Speaker 3: looked him up and he seems like really tasty stuff.
15:10
Speaker 3: What's one of his spots called Revival.
15:12
Speaker 1: Oh, that's like a really hot brunch place, right, yeah, yeah,
15:15
Speaker 1: he's a James Beard Award winning chef and they consulted
15:19
Speaker 1: him for this BBC article and he had a couple
15:22
Speaker 1: of good quotes. He said, if you brought a bucket
15:24
Speaker 1: of fried chicken to Christmas dinner, honestly, I'd be mad
15:27
Speaker 1: at you. And this is interesting because this is a
15:30
Speaker 1: very American perspective specifically surrounding Christmas, because it's all about family,
15:35
Speaker 1: it's all about homemade comfort food.
15:38
Speaker 3: But in Japan, since there's no official holiday aka time
15:44
Speaker 3: off work, surrounding Christmas, probably about the best you can
15:47
Speaker 3: do to reserve that KFC party barrel.
15:51
Speaker 1: Right, And this is not you know, this isn't too
15:53
Speaker 1: crazy because there's a huge tradition of eating Chinese food
15:58
Speaker 1: in Christmas here in these states.
15:59
Speaker 3: Right, for example, within the Jewish community, especially in New York.
16:03
Speaker 3: This came up a lot during our Chinese Food episode
16:06
Speaker 3: about the chop suet houses in New York. It became
16:08
Speaker 3: a huge tradition for Jewish families to have a Chinese
16:12
Speaker 3: dinner out on Christmas. That was also because not a
16:15
Speaker 3: lot of other stuff is open.
16:16
Speaker 1: True, So we do see an analog here. And you
16:21
Speaker 1: may be asking yourself, Ben Nole, super producer Casey Pecram,
16:26
Speaker 1: why why did you guys just start telling me about
16:30
Speaker 1: this granted fascinating story of chicken in Japan. We are
16:34
Speaker 1: going somewhere with this, folks, We promise back to Randy Bass.
16:43
Speaker 3: Okay, so we're gonna join. We're gonna rejoin our original
16:46
Speaker 3: story already in progress. It's all coming together, all coming together.
16:48
Speaker 3: So Randy Bass's name is called these drunken Tigers. Fans
16:52
Speaker 3: are looking around. They're looking for someone. They don't see
16:55
Speaker 3: anybody that even remotely resembles this hulking American man, any
16:59
Speaker 3: living any living person but nearby. This is not something
17:03
Speaker 3: you see typically in the States, or at least I
17:04
Speaker 3: have not.
17:04
Speaker 1: Oh that's a good point.
17:05
Speaker 3: Yes, outside of Kentucky Fried Chicken or KFC joints in Japan,
17:10
Speaker 3: you're gonna find a kind of, I think a little
17:14
Speaker 3: bit macabre statue of Colonel Sanders himself leering at the passers.
17:19
Speaker 1: By, daring them to accept the challenge of chicken, exactly,
17:25
Speaker 1: the chicken challenge.
17:26
Speaker 3: And they saw one of those nearby. It was it
17:28
Speaker 3: was as though it were written in the stars. They
17:30
Speaker 3: saw one of these nearby, and they goes, that guy
17:32
Speaker 3: kind of looks vaguely American.
17:34
Speaker 1: And in Randy's defense, he does not look like Colonel
17:37
Speaker 1: Sanders at this time.
17:38
Speaker 3: Right, there was a little profiling going on. He is
17:41
Speaker 3: just also American. He's just also American. Did not have
17:44
Speaker 3: a little little colonel beard. In fact, in the article
17:48
Speaker 3: from how Stuff Works Ridiculous History, the Curse of the Colonel,
17:51
Speaker 3: there's a fantastic side by side comparison. They did both
17:53
Speaker 3: have mustaches, though not you know, Randy's was not pure
17:58
Speaker 3: white and did not have the accompany being a little
18:00
Speaker 3: pointed goateee, nor the little what do you call that
18:02
Speaker 3: a cravat, You have a little kind of a bow
18:05
Speaker 3: tie thing around a string tie, a string tie exactly.
18:08
Speaker 3: But yeah, so they they uprooted this thing, right, They
18:11
Speaker 3: just ripped it out of the ground.
18:14
Speaker 1: And then they carried it to the bridge and they
18:17
Speaker 1: threw it into the river, and everybody presumably went yay.
18:21
Speaker 3: And then I'm guessing there was a current and it
18:23
Speaker 3: just got carried away, because if these folks were hanging
18:26
Speaker 3: out in the river themselves and not just up to
18:28
Speaker 3: their necks and water, I don't think the statue would
18:31
Speaker 3: have sunk right away. It probably got carried away in
18:34
Speaker 3: the current of the river downstream and then they lost it.
18:38
Speaker 3: It did.
18:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, it did apparently go under quickly, and that might
18:42
Speaker 1: be due to current. It's also it's got to be
18:45
Speaker 1: due to the weight of the statue as well, probably
18:47
Speaker 1: weigh more than a person.
18:49
Speaker 3: You think so I would have I would picture it
18:50
Speaker 3: as being hollow. I don't think they would have been
18:51
Speaker 3: able to rip it out of the ground unless it
18:53
Speaker 3: was just kind of a hollow, plastic shell.
18:55
Speaker 1: That's a good point. You know what, we need to
18:57
Speaker 1: take an extra credit segment, go to pan get some chicken,
19:02
Speaker 1: and investigate.
19:03
Speaker 3: I don't think that's in the budget, ben, but we
19:05
Speaker 3: can talk to management about it.
19:06
Speaker 1: We'll see. Let's write to the tigers, because we're telling
19:08
Speaker 1: a story that they feel needs to be told. You see,
19:12
Speaker 1: after they threw the statue in and everyone went yay
19:16
Speaker 1: Tigers forever World champions, decades and decades went by, and
19:24
Speaker 1: to date they have never won a championship again. And
19:28
Speaker 1: the Tigers fans will tell you that this is not
19:33
Speaker 1: simply a matter of being outplayed or having bad luck
19:36
Speaker 1: on the field. No, they believe there's something supernatural at work.
19:41
Speaker 1: They believe there is a curse.
19:43
Speaker 3: Yes, and what they referred to as I only saw
19:46
Speaker 3: this printed one place, but it definitely translates correctly as
19:50
Speaker 3: kanuru Sandasu no norroy or the curse of Colonel Sanders.
19:56
Speaker 1: Yes, the curse of Colonel Sanders.
20:00
Speaker 3: As well.
20:00
Speaker 1: They believe that by committing this disrespectful act, the entity
20:09
Speaker 1: the non corporeal Colonel Sanders, Yes, in the sky, the
20:14
Speaker 1: demigod of chicken all Chicken Fried, has decreed that they
20:18
Speaker 1: will be punished for this disrespect And you know, you
20:22
Speaker 1: have to wonder how much of this is just a joke, right,
20:25
Speaker 1: and how much people really believe it? Oh well, I
20:28
Speaker 1: mean well, it falls in line with some other pretty
20:31
Speaker 1: serious superstitions that exist in Japanese culture, which we'll get
20:35
Speaker 1: to in a little bit and sports are sports themselves
20:38
Speaker 1: are very rich soil for superstitions. But after such a
20:42
Speaker 1: strong showing, I mean, you know, the Colonel definitely brought
20:46
Speaker 1: down the hammer on them. The Tigers, they just barely
20:49
Speaker 1: won anything at all. Their best finish was third in
20:53
Speaker 1: eighty six and in nineteen ninety two, and they finished
20:56
Speaker 1: last a whopping eight times.
21:00
Speaker 3: Right, so it was exceptionally bad. Not just not winning, No, no,
21:05
Speaker 3: it was demoralizing. The fans were utterly humiliated, and they
21:10
Speaker 3: concocted I guess among themselves. How does something like this
21:12
Speaker 3: spread just by word of mouth? These people in the
21:16
Speaker 3: fan community or their message boards. What are we talking?
21:18
Speaker 1: These people are great at improv man, how did they
21:21
Speaker 1: figure out this ritual so quickly? And then how did
21:24
Speaker 1: they say, oh, okay, well here's the explanation.
21:26
Speaker 3: It's also reminds me of one of those things where
21:28
Speaker 3: it's like a I know what you did last summer
21:30
Speaker 3: kind of scenario where you and a close group of
21:32
Speaker 3: friends commit a horrible atrocity and then you are punished
21:35
Speaker 3: for it later, and then you have to figure out
21:37
Speaker 3: how to make it right.
21:39
Speaker 1: I hope someone feels like they saw the kernel.
21:41
Speaker 3: Exactly did you picture this though, is this this should
21:44
Speaker 3: be a movie and they should this should be a
21:46
Speaker 3: kind of Ringo or like the Grudge kind of movie
21:49
Speaker 3: based around connorou Sandu sou No, no, that could be
21:53
Speaker 3: the name of the movie.
21:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we'll just translate to the Curse of
21:56
Speaker 1: the Colonel for the American audience.
21:58
Speaker 3: Because they banded together to make this right.
22:01
Speaker 1: Yes, they said, just like we would imagine a Colonel
22:06
Speaker 1: Sanders esque figure. They said this injustice shall not stand
22:11
Speaker 1: and into But they you know, they didn't say it
22:14
Speaker 1: with this other accent.
22:15
Speaker 3: You don't know, or they did.
22:16
Speaker 1: Maybe they did. Maybe they were cause playing as well.
22:18
Speaker 1: So they went to search for the statue. They went
22:24
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the river and attempted to recover it,
22:27
Speaker 1: and in two thousand and nine they found a piece
22:31
Speaker 1: of it.
22:32
Speaker 3: I actually read two bend that in one of these attempts,
22:35
Speaker 3: a twenty four year old fan named Maseya Shitababa actually drowned.
22:42
Speaker 1: Hm. I read that as well.
22:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mean this was no joke. They were
22:47
Speaker 3: This was not a lark. They were out to break
22:50
Speaker 3: this curse, right, and as you were saying, Ben, they
22:53
Speaker 3: did find some success.
22:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, And in a way, in a very strange way, Noel.
22:58
Speaker 1: This death led to the discovery because after the death,
23:05
Speaker 1: the community announced plans to build a new bridge that
23:08
Speaker 1: would make it more difficult to jump into the river
23:10
Speaker 1: from and then they began constructing this in two thousand
23:14
Speaker 1: and four. But while they were constructing a walkway in
23:19
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine related to this new bridge, that's
23:23
Speaker 1: where they found. They didn't find all of the statue.
23:26
Speaker 1: It's like the torso in the head and the arms,
23:29
Speaker 1: but not the hands.
23:30
Speaker 3: So there was no mistaking that rictus grin of Colonel Sanders,
23:35
Speaker 3: even with the decay, that was definitely him. So you know,
23:39
Speaker 3: they were reasonably overjoyed and decided they needed to find
23:43
Speaker 3: some of the other pieces.
23:44
Speaker 1: Yes, because what if I love this horror movie that
23:47
Speaker 1: you just pitched to me. What if they haven't appeased
23:51
Speaker 1: the angry spirit of the statue until they assemble it all.
23:56
Speaker 1: You know, they find the hands, they find the glasses.
23:59
Speaker 1: Some were worried that until the statue was made whole again,
24:03
Speaker 1: the Tigers would never win another series.
24:06
Speaker 3: And you know, superstition and sports in general are super
24:10
Speaker 3: common even right here in the States.
24:12
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you might be referring
24:15
Speaker 1: to another famous curse, my friend, one that affects Boston
24:20
Speaker 1: Red Sox fans.
24:21
Speaker 3: The Curse of the Bambino.
24:24
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, the Curse of the Bambino, where the Red
24:29
Speaker 1: Sox fans believe that their team was cursed for almost
24:32
Speaker 1: a century eighty years for trading away legendary player Babe Ruth.
24:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, they probably just you know, Babe Ruth was really
24:39
Speaker 3: good and they would have done better if they'd had him.
24:42
Speaker 1: I but I love the I love the high dramatic
24:46
Speaker 1: stakes from a storytelling perspective of a curse. I feel
24:50
Speaker 1: like I have never encountered a curse, nor have I
24:54
Speaker 1: laid a curse upon someone, because I'm you know, I'm
24:58
Speaker 1: actually a really kind purseon. But I would love to
25:02
Speaker 1: just be involved in like a curse type situation, like
25:05
Speaker 1: solving a curse.
25:05
Speaker 3: Would you curse like someone who really had it coming?
25:08
Speaker 3: Maybe some maybe one of an enemy I.
25:11
Speaker 1: Guess so, But I don't really have enemies really, Yeah,
25:14
Speaker 1: that's cool.
25:14
Speaker 3: I don't either.
25:17
Speaker 1: I wish you all could see no slight eye rolled there,
25:21
Speaker 1: But yeah, I would like to solve a curse. And
25:25
Speaker 1: a lot of sports fans of course would like to
25:27
Speaker 1: do the same. We had an interesting quotation here in
25:32
Speaker 1: observation from a sports columnist named Dick Harmon for writing
25:36
Speaker 1: for The Desert News, who described athletes and superstition this way. Athletes,
25:43
Speaker 1: says mister Harmon, by their very nature tend to be superstitious,
25:46
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to preparing for events. I've seen
25:50
Speaker 1: players wear the same socks beneath their actual game socks,
25:53
Speaker 1: listen to the same song or music, eat the same food,
25:56
Speaker 1: hit the bathroom at the same time before going out
25:59
Speaker 1: on the court or field. I don't think this is
26:01
Speaker 1: hatched out of fear, but of comfort, not of jinxing themselves,
26:05
Speaker 1: but of setting their minds straight.
26:07
Speaker 3: Agreed. Yeah, Ritual to me is all about getting in
26:11
Speaker 3: kind of a zen state, you know, where you feel
26:14
Speaker 3: in control of your surroundings just by virtue of doing
26:18
Speaker 3: something the same way. I personally am a creature of habit.
26:21
Speaker 3: I typically get the same things to eat at restaurants,
26:23
Speaker 3: and you know, take the same routes home, even if
26:27
Speaker 3: there's a quicker route that my map is telling me,
26:29
Speaker 3: I'll typically go the way that I'm super comfortable with,
26:31
Speaker 3: And to me, that's a way of kind of doing
26:33
Speaker 3: all I can in the little way that I can
26:36
Speaker 3: to control my environment and my chaotic life.
26:39
Speaker 1: Right the vast incomprehensible universe that cares not which way
26:45
Speaker 1: this great world spins. We must exercise some control over
26:49
Speaker 1: our existence. With podcasting, for instance, you know, I've been
26:53
Speaker 1: doing this a while. I've got rituals, and we as
26:57
Speaker 1: a cohort collectively a house of works. A lot of
27:00
Speaker 1: podcasters have their own rituals. Chuck used to do a thing,
27:05
Speaker 1: remember with his cheeks.
27:06
Speaker 3: I I don't know about that. And now I know.
27:08
Speaker 3: Robert Lamb has a little squishy dinosaur that he brings
27:12
Speaker 3: in when he podcasts. Robert Lamb from Stuff to brow
27:14
Speaker 3: your Mind and I personally have been wearing the same
27:16
Speaker 3: pair of me undies the entire time we've been podcasting.
27:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I respect you for that. You know, I
27:21
Speaker 1: think you've you've gone past the area of diminishing returns
27:25
Speaker 1: to you were cleaning up now, you know, I do
27:28
Speaker 1: watch them occasionally. I've heard that, Yeah, I've heard. I
27:31
Speaker 1: can't remember why I heard that or how it came
27:33
Speaker 1: up in conversation, but I do remember hearing that.
27:36
Speaker 3: You're a very attentive listener, Ben, thank.
27:38
Speaker 1: You, thank you, And likewise, my friend, we thought this
27:43
Speaker 1: was fascinating because it's still in play. Like the Tigers
27:50
Speaker 1: fans will tell you.
27:51
Speaker 3: Did their fortunes turn around? Though, Ben' that's the kicker here.
27:54
Speaker 1: Well, we do know we can't predict what will happen
27:58
Speaker 1: by the end of twenty eighteen. None can, but we
28:01
Speaker 1: do know that things weren't completely bleak and dire for
28:05
Speaker 1: the Tigers. In fact, we had some good news in
28:07
Speaker 1: the early two thousands.
28:08
Speaker 3: That's right. They returned to the Japan Series after eighteen
28:13
Speaker 3: years away, and they had the best record in the
28:17
Speaker 3: Central League. And many of these KFC outlets, as sort
28:22
Speaker 3: of a precaution, I guess in the area in Kobe
28:25
Speaker 3: and Osaka, they personally uprooted their Colonel Sanders statues and
28:30
Speaker 3: moved them inside until the series was over, you know,
28:32
Speaker 3: to guard them against any potential desecration by over zeales
28:37
Speaker 3: Tigers fans.
28:38
Speaker 1: This is one of my favorite parts of the story. Now, though,
28:42
Speaker 1: let's say that you are in Let's say that you
28:46
Speaker 1: are in the area and you want to eat at
28:49
Speaker 1: this iconic KFC. You can't because it's closed. But let's
28:52
Speaker 1: say you travel to the KFC headquarters in Yokohama. There,
28:59
Speaker 1: if you have permission from KFC management, or if you're
29:04
Speaker 1: a VIP special guest or you are an honored employee,
29:09
Speaker 1: you may be allowed to see the rescued colonel.
29:15
Speaker 3: And they found most of his parts, right, they found
29:17
Speaker 3: a lot of them.
29:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you can't. It's not viewable by the public.
29:20
Speaker 1: That's what's strange to me. Like, you can go in
29:24
Speaker 1: and see the origin of the curse, but only if
29:27
Speaker 1: you have special permission.
29:28
Speaker 3: Well, I propose that we pitch our Curse of the
29:32
Speaker 3: Colonel horror movie to KFC Japan and they could sponsor
29:38
Speaker 3: and it could just be like a really elaborate commercial
29:41
Speaker 3: for KFC, and maybe we can actually get some some
29:43
Speaker 3: of those chicken dollars to make this thing really hit.
29:46
Speaker 1: Also, also, here's what we'll sell them on it. I'm
29:49
Speaker 1: telling you, it'll be cross brand promotion if they make
29:53
Speaker 1: special meals that are related, Yeah, to the tigers or
29:58
Speaker 1: to the curse ghost Pepper Chicken just off the top
30:02
Speaker 1: of the dome.
30:03
Speaker 3: Why not?
30:03
Speaker 1: Why not? You know what I've got to say, Man,
30:12
Speaker 1: thank you for this one. I've really enjoyed today's episode.
30:14
Speaker 3: I did too, and we're going to wrap up just
30:15
Speaker 3: with a couple of interesting Japanese superstitions. We mentioned it
30:21
Speaker 3: earlier at the show that this is a thing and
30:23
Speaker 3: they all have these amazing names. So, for example, one
30:26
Speaker 3: of them is it's apparently considered bad luck to cut
30:29
Speaker 3: your nails at night, and this tradition or superstition is
30:33
Speaker 3: known as yoru nitsume wakit jaken i. And apparently this
30:39
Speaker 3: is tied to the fact that in the olden days
30:43
Speaker 3: there were no lights at night due to lack of electricity,
30:47
Speaker 3: and people believed that evil spirits would come around to
30:51
Speaker 3: your home at night, and that when you cut your nails,
30:55
Speaker 3: because they imbue cutting tools of any kind with a
30:58
Speaker 3: lot of power, and that when you cut your nails,
31:01
Speaker 3: you're creating a sort of a window between worlds. This
31:05
Speaker 3: comes up time and time again on a lot of
31:07
Speaker 3: these superstitions, and that if you do it at night,
31:10
Speaker 3: you're opening that window and one of these evil spirits
31:14
Speaker 3: or a kuru could exit the nether world through that
31:18
Speaker 3: or possess you.
31:20
Speaker 1: There's also the one that happens if a funeral hearst
31:24
Speaker 1: drives past, you have to hide your thumbs in a fist,
31:28
Speaker 1: and that's because the word for thumb translates to parent fingers.
31:32
Speaker 1: So it's symbolically hiding your parents from death and if
31:36
Speaker 1: you don't. Similar to the way there's the old superstition
31:39
Speaker 1: step on a crack bake your mom's back, this is
31:42
Speaker 1: one where you hide your parents symbolically from death, and
31:47
Speaker 1: if you don't do it, your parents will die, it's right.
31:49
Speaker 3: And this one is known as rakayusha kara. Oh yeah,
31:52
Speaker 3: yubi will kakusu. And then there's one that I think
31:55
Speaker 3: you'll like ben where you shouldn't whistle at night. Yes, yes, yeah,
32:00
Speaker 3: you shouldn't whistle at night. You're no fui subeki d nik.
32:05
Speaker 3: And this one is more tied to a functional thing,
32:07
Speaker 3: right like not necessarily supernatural, although it may there may
32:10
Speaker 3: be some crossover.
32:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, back in the day in Japan, whistling was
32:14
Speaker 1: a sign used by burglars and other ne'er do wells,
32:20
Speaker 1: other good old fashioned nocturnal scumbags to communicate with each other. Yep,
32:25
Speaker 1: so whistling is associated with intruders, thieves.
32:28
Speaker 3: It's sort of like that urban legend of like flashing
32:31
Speaker 3: your brights or something, and how that's a sign for
32:34
Speaker 3: gangs or something, or like putting in your shoes in
32:37
Speaker 3: the power lines or I don't know, I'm reaching here.
32:39
Speaker 1: There are a lot of unlucky numbers too, which is fascinating,
32:42
Speaker 1: especially we're Did we ever talk about this off air?
32:46
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of buildings that don't
32:47
Speaker 1: have a fourth floor.
32:48
Speaker 3: Is that correct? I don't know about that for sure,
32:50
Speaker 3: but I know in the States there's no thirteenth.
32:52
Speaker 1: Floor, right, yes, yeah, yeah, I know that four is
32:56
Speaker 1: an unlucky number because the word for for she closely
33:00
Speaker 1: resembles the word for death.
33:02
Speaker 3: Gotcha.
33:03
Speaker 1: So what's a what's a good one? What's an up one?
33:05
Speaker 3: Like a silly one? Yeah, I don't know. I mean
33:07
Speaker 3: it's silly on the on the surface, but then it's
33:09
Speaker 3: also kind of morbid. You know. You're apparently when it's
33:12
Speaker 3: bad weather, when there's lightning and thunder, you are supposed
33:16
Speaker 3: to hide your children's mid sections or belly buttons.
33:20
Speaker 1: Oh specifically. Yeah, yeah, that checks out as a former meteorologist.
33:25
Speaker 3: And that's because the god of thunder ryi Gin supposedly
33:30
Speaker 3: would eat children's entire abdomens or their mid sections. And
33:36
Speaker 3: he also had a little running buddy named Rai Ju,
33:39
Speaker 3: who would nest himself supposedly in the belly buttons of
33:42
Speaker 3: children while they sleep, and this could lead to these
33:46
Speaker 3: kids being struck by lightning. That's right, because Rai Gin,
33:49
Speaker 3: in order to jostle his little familiar, I guess from
33:53
Speaker 3: this little nest, would shoot him with a bolt of lightning.
33:56
Speaker 1: Right, naturally, right, and this checks.
33:58
Speaker 3: Out, And then I assume eat mid section.
34:01
Speaker 1: So do take care in storms. But as you know,
34:05
Speaker 1: we are all about self empowerment, not just for ourselves
34:09
Speaker 1: but for you, dear listeners. So you might be asking, Hey,
34:13
Speaker 1: this curse thing sounds cool. How can I get in
34:15
Speaker 1: on this? How can I make a wish or make
34:19
Speaker 1: a curse? We'd like to introduce you to oyakudu mari.
34:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a ceremony even called ushi no koku mari
34:28
Speaker 3: where when you visit a shrine during a particular hour
34:31
Speaker 3: sort of the Japanese equivalent of the witching hour I'm
34:33
Speaker 3: guessing called the hour of the Ox, which is between
34:35
Speaker 3: one and three am, you can start your very own curse.
34:41
Speaker 1: Right. Yes, all you'll need to do is visit during
34:46
Speaker 1: the hour of the Ox, bring a straw doll with you,
34:50
Speaker 1: representing the person who will receive the curse, and use
34:53
Speaker 1: a long nail to nail the doll to the shrine's
34:56
Speaker 1: holy tree. That's for cursing. That's not for a wish.
35:00
Speaker 1: If you're trying to wish someone's success, don't do that.
35:04
Speaker 3: But there's a kicker ben because if you are witnessed
35:06
Speaker 3: making the curse, then that curse will visit itself on
35:10
Speaker 3: you tenfold. I added the tenfold part. But you know
35:13
Speaker 3: it doesn't sound good.
35:14
Speaker 1: No, no, it doesn't. So these shrines are powerful symbolically.
35:19
Speaker 1: Maybe we should end on how you make a wish.
35:24
Speaker 1: So we talked about making a curse, but we also
35:26
Speaker 1: mentioned making a wish. So to make a wish in
35:29
Speaker 1: a shrine, you must walk from a shrine gate to
35:32
Speaker 1: its altar or from the gate to a main haul
35:34
Speaker 1: one hundred times while praying for your wish to come true.
35:37
Speaker 1: If you want to increase your odds, walk barefoot. A
35:41
Speaker 1: little life pro tip there a little life hack. Alternatively,
35:45
Speaker 1: you can visit the shrine and make one prayer for
35:47
Speaker 1: your wish to come true each day for one hundred days.
35:50
Speaker 1: That's the long game. This is only scratching the surface
35:54
Speaker 1: of some of the fascinating Japanese superstitions we found, and
35:58
Speaker 1: granted there are a lot of fasting US or Western
36:02
Speaker 1: superstitions as well, but at this point we do not
36:06
Speaker 1: have a curse associated with Colonel Sanders.
36:10
Speaker 3: Now, but you know that could change.
36:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know the future. The future stretches before us,
36:16
Speaker 1: vast and endlessen its beautiful possibilities.
36:19
Speaker 3: What are some of your favorite Japanese curses? Can you
36:21
Speaker 3: think of any that could potentially be as outrageous and
36:24
Speaker 3: absurd as the curse of the Colonel? We'd like to know.
36:27
Speaker 3: You can write to us at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com.
36:30
Speaker 3: You can hit us up on social media where we
36:31
Speaker 3: are Ridiculous History on Facebook, Instagram, and I believe Twitter.
36:36
Speaker 1: And thank you so much for journeying with us as
36:38
Speaker 1: we stumbled through Japanese phrases. I feel like we shall
36:42
Speaker 1: also thank Casey for this. As always, Casey, don't go
36:46
Speaker 1: change it. You're amazing. Thanks for being on the show.
36:48
Speaker 3: He keeps us honest and I didn't notice him wincing
36:51
Speaker 3: super hard during any of those pronunciations, but sometimes it's
36:56
Speaker 3: hard too.
36:57
Speaker 1: I think it might have been a baseball related wins
37:00
Speaker 1: other than Casey's into sports pronunciation, well maybe not American
37:03
Speaker 1: baseball fair enough anyway. Also, thank you to Alex Williams
37:06
Speaker 1: for composing our soundtrack YEP.
37:09
Speaker 3: And most importantly, thank you to you for listening to
37:12
Speaker 3: the show. We hope you'll join us for our next
37:14
Speaker 3: episode where we get kind of grizzly with it.
37:18
Speaker 1: Yes, we are exploring gold in one of its most
37:22
Speaker 1: dangerous applications. What will it be? Tune in to find
37:28
Speaker 1: out in the meantime. On a personal request, if you
37:31
Speaker 1: guys have any great chicken recipes or you want to
37:33
Speaker 1: just send us pictures of chicken, please do it now.
37:46
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
37:50
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.