Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Falling Down

Transcript

Falling Down · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Every country has its heroes,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: people who, for better or worse, embody a sense of
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: national pride and spirit. These sorts of figures, whether they're
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: heads of states, are just powerful public speakers, are put
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: on pedestals by history books, almost mythologized while they're still alive.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: It becomes easy to believe that if they succeed, their
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: country will as well, and if they fail, so will
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: their country. And of course it comes difficult to contend
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: with the fact that these people, like every other politician,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: are just as human as uri, prone to the same flaws,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: the same failures, and the same mundane vulnerabilities. Despite the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: pedestal we've put.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Them on, they aren't figures out of Greek myth, and
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: for a particularly beloved head of state, an immense amount
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: of public effort would be put toward making sure that
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: his eventual death was properly commemorated. This was the case
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: with Sir Winston Churchill, who came out of the Second
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: World War with a reputation as a war hero, someone
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: who had led his country to victory against the evil
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: of the Nazis and had prioritized protecting the pride of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: England even during the worst of the Blitz. No prime
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: minister before or since has held the same stature in culture. However,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Churchill was not a healthy man. He drank like a fish,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: smoked like a chimney, and battled illnesses regularly over the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: course of his career. Everyone close to him was keenly
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: aware that he was not invulnerable. In nineteen fifty three,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: he had a major stroke at his home. While his
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: family worked tirelessly to keep the incident's secret, Queen Elizabeth
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I insisted that they needed to draw up funeral plans
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: for Churchill to be prepared for when the time came.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: It would be known as Operation Hope, not the plan
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: for an extravagant state funeral that would honor Churchill's service
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: to queen and country. Now Allegedly, the man himself was
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: not overly keen on the plan, but at the insistence
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of the Queen, he allowed a committee to be formed
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: to plan his own funeral. The eventual plan was intensely specific,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: time down to the second, how long he would lie
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: in state at the Houses of Parliament, what route the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: car would take him through London, passed various locations that
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: were significant to Churchill's life. The roles of the others
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: were also specified, from who would serve as pallbearers to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: where the Queen would be during the ceremony. Also time
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: down to the second. Two supplemental booklets, one forty seven
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: pages long and the other fifty nine included instructions for
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the London Metropolitan Police and how they would time the
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: rays and lowering of bridges, managed traffic and generally just
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: control the flow of the city during the day of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the funeral. And the plan was completed in nineteen fifty three,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: but it wound up undergoing several major revisions because Churchill
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: just well, he wouldn't die. He would suffer additional strokes
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and eventually resign the Prime Minister role for health reasons,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: but he lived well into the nineteen sixties and the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: committee had to revisit Operation Hope, not regularly, as one
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Lord put it, Churchill kept living and the pallbearers kept dying.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: It should be noted that state funerals in Britain have
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: rarely been given for someone outside of the royal family,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: but as I've mentioned, Churchill's position in British popular culture
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: was a special one. Ultimately, Churchill would die in January
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty five, almost twelve years after the plan
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: was first drawn up. Estimates say that as many as
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty million people watch the funeral worldwide.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: As of twenty twenty five, his funeral will be the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: last British state funeral held for someone not from the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: royal family. Afterward, the initial documents remained a state secret
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: for thirty years, not seeing the light of day until
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five. Some of these documents have been since
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: auctioned off to private collectors. Others are held by museums
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: or the British government itself. Although he would not be
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the last non royal to get such a treatment, Operation
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Hope Not was not the only funeral plan that was
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: on the books in the nineteen sixties. At around the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: same time they were working on the plans for how
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: to honor Churchill, Queen Elizabeth had her own funeral plans
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: drawn up as well, just in case. The code name
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: for that plan would be different, though they called it
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Operation London Bridge. Sometimes things have a second life beyond
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: what we first imagined. How The Shawshank Redemption grossed less
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: than thirty thousand dollars at the box office, but is
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: now considered one of the best films of all time.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: The Big Lebowski also flopped in theaters, but is now
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: so popular that it spawned its own religion, Dudaism, with
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: six hundred thousand ordained ministers. And the subject of this story,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: a man named Roy, dreamed that his creations would tear
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: up the American highways, and he did leave his mark,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: just not in the way that he expected. In the
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, the American auto industry was experiencing a boom
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: after two decades marked by a great depression in World
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: War II. The economy recovered and Americans could afford cars again.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Demand for American made cars was sky high, and the
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: market was dominated by three Detroit based automakers, General Motors, Chrysler,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: and the Ford Motor Company. Every year, these companies fought
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: to one up each other at auto shows around the country,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: they debuted concept cars that introduced flashy new designs and
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: futuristic features, some of which would be adopted into existing
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: car models and are still around today. In nineteen fifty five,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Ford Motor presented a real stunner, the Lincoln Futura. It
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: was a sleek, state of the art convertible inspired by
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: outer space and the deep sea. The cars hooded headlamps
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and lifted tail fins resembled a reef shark, but its
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: roof and windshield looked like something more out of the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Jetsons than real life. The Lincoln Futura was a bold
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: design and the crowd at the Chicago Auto Show loved it,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: which reflected well on the mastermind behind the concept car,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: an up and coming designer named Roy born in Hamilton,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Ontario in Canada. He started his car designing career at
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Cadillac before landing at Ford in nineteen fifty three. The
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Futura was one of his first projects there, and given
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: his success, Ford executives decided to entrust Roy with a bigger,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: more ambitious project, the design of Ford's first mid ranged car.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: You see.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: At the time, Ford mostly sold two kinds of vehicles, flashy,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: upscale models like the Mercury and boxy, dependable rides that
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: would get you from point A to point B. They
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: wanted to compete in the mid range car markets and
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: debuts something that would rival the Chrysler Dodge and GM's Pontiac.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: So Roy got to work designing a smart, but reliable
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: sedan that would appeal to young business professionals and fashion
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: forward families. For the next two years, he tuned and
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: tweaked eighteen different models of the car. His designs were
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: guided by countless focus groups that helped develop the car's personality.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Ford executives also enlisted the help of poet Marina Moore
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to name the new model. She proposed some outlandish suggestions
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: like the utopian turtle Top and the Pluma Poluma, but
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: finally one executive stepped in and decided to simply name
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the car after Henry Ford's late sun Edzel. By nineteen
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: fifty seven, Ford Motor had spent two hundred and fifty
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: million dollars on researching, tooling, and expanding production facilities for
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the Ford Edzell. That's about two billion dollars dollars today.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: In exchange, Roy Brown delivered a car that was truly unique.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: The Edzel was large and colorful, with four headlights and
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: vertical tail lamps, which set it apart from the other
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Ford models, and Roy also included some luxury touches, like
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a push button transmission on the steering wheel and the
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: warning light system that would alert drivers when they were
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: low on oil or gas. When it was released in
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: September of nineteen fifty seven, eager buyers flooded four dealerships
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: across the country. The first weekend, thousands of Edzels were
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: driven off the lot, which was great news because Ford
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: had spent so much developing the card that they needed
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: to sell two hundred thousand units before they would turn
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: a profit. But in the coming weeks that outpouring of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: interest slowed to a trickle. The following month, to try
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: and drum up business, Ford sponsored a TV special called
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: The Edzels Show, a variety show starring some of the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: biggest names in Hollywood like Being Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Rosemary Clooney. Fifty million Americans tuned in to watch it,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: but none of those viewers stepped foot on a Ford lot.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: By November, Edzell sales had plummeted. Ford executives were dumbfounded.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: They had expected the Edzel to make a splash, but
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: instead it stunk. Unfortunately for all their focus groups in
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: market research. There was something Ford had overlooked. Compact cars
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: were surging in popularity, in part because a month before
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the Edzel debuted, the US dipped into a recession and
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: unemployment rates doubled. Compact cars were simply more fuel efficient,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: which people saw as a wiser investment given the economic downturn.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Ford discontinued the Edzel two years later, in November of
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine, after selling only one hundred thousand units,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: half of what they needed to break even on the car. Afterwards,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Roy was transferred to Ford London, where he went on
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to design the enormously successful Ford Cortina, and he also
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: worked on the Thunderbird, Ford's best known luxury car. But
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: none of Roy Brown Junior's designs would be a sa
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: famous as that first one, the Lincoln Futura. In fact,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: you've probably seen pictures of it your entire life, because
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: ten years after it debuted in Chicago, Ford sold the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Futura to a Hollywood producer who gave the car some
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: serious upgrades and a new paint job. He used the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Futura in his newest television project, and soon it became
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the most iconic car to ever drive its way through
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the screen. Because that producer was Chuck Barris, creator of
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: a TV series based on a legendary comic book character.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: The Futura, you see, was transformed into the Batmobile. I
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: And until next time, stay curious.