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The Strange Story of Sea Monkeys · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. We
0:17
Speaker 1: are swimmingly excited about this one because it is about
0:22
Speaker 1: sea monkeys. Jerry is mama see monkey. Yes, she's got
0:28
Speaker 1: a little blonde bob hair do going on. And I
0:31
Speaker 1: guess we're baby sea monkeys. I guess. Yeah, that's that's cool. Well,
0:36
Speaker 1: let's some we'll we'll let the dad no exist. Okay,
0:41
Speaker 1: we're brothers, that's right. I think that's a good move
0:45
Speaker 1: with a non existent father, which really explains a lot
0:47
Speaker 1: about us. Nonexistent sea monkey father no less so chuck Um,
0:53
Speaker 1: I realized that I don't know something about you, which
0:56
Speaker 1: is weird because we've been doing this for almost ten years.
0:59
Speaker 1: And or sea monkey brothers. We we are. We know
1:02
Speaker 1: a lot about one another. We know one another smells um, looks, scowls,
1:09
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff, right, triumphs, victories. One thing I
1:13
Speaker 1: don't know about you is whether you were into comic
1:16
Speaker 1: books as a kid. Well, glad you asked. I feel
1:21
Speaker 1: like we've talked about this at some point but maybe not.
1:23
Speaker 1: I yeah, we have for sure, um, because remember I
1:28
Speaker 1: read Archie and Richie Rich. Oh yes, yeah, yeah yeah,
1:31
Speaker 1: and I wasn't so well. Here's a couple of things
1:33
Speaker 1: I read Archie and Richie Rich growing up, and UM
1:37
Speaker 1: didn't get into the superhero comics much because I don't
1:41
Speaker 1: know why. But then also you don't know this part.
1:45
Speaker 1: We used to go to visit my grandmother on my
1:48
Speaker 1: father's side. She was big time into thor Granny Thor. Uh.
1:54
Speaker 1: She lived in Jackson, Tennessee, and it was I had
1:59
Speaker 1: sort of the modern grandparents with cable TV who lived
2:02
Speaker 1: in a and then old school granny who lived in
2:06
Speaker 1: a house in the country. And so granny Granny Bryant
2:10
Speaker 1: didn't have TV or anything like that. But what she
2:13
Speaker 1: did have in the back room was a bunch of
2:16
Speaker 1: my dad and uncle um Ed's old toys and comic
2:20
Speaker 1: books from when they were kids. So I think the
2:23
Speaker 1: mainly Uncle Eddie, so I got. I had a big
2:26
Speaker 1: stack of comics from my guests the nineteen sixties, uh
2:31
Speaker 1: that were like Man from Uncle Um. I'm trying to read.
2:35
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of a few more. No superhero stuff,
2:39
Speaker 1: but just those weird sort of. I guess it wasn't weird,
2:44
Speaker 1: but man from Uncle is only when I can remember,
2:46
Speaker 1: but it's a little weird. Long story short is because
2:50
Speaker 1: that's all the entertainment we had to ingest. We would
2:55
Speaker 1: my brother and I would go back there and read
2:57
Speaker 1: those every year for years. That's pretty awesome. So you
3:02
Speaker 1: made your way through that stack of multiple times, oh
3:05
Speaker 1: many many times, Like I remember the ads, I remember,
3:09
Speaker 1: I remember everything about him. So then you remember, obviously,
3:13
Speaker 1: I think you probably knew where I was going with
3:14
Speaker 1: us from the outset. You remember the ads for the
3:18
Speaker 1: sea monkeys. Then I remember sea monkeys, remember X ray specs,
3:23
Speaker 1: which we'll get into. And I remember for sure all
3:27
Speaker 1: the ads for like can you draw this parrot? Or pirate?
3:31
Speaker 1: Oh yeah? Remember for the art school? Yeah? What was that?
3:34
Speaker 1: I think they just took your money and then sent
3:36
Speaker 1: you a degree for your art school. Is that what
3:39
Speaker 1: it was? I'm pretty sure. So disappointing. Yeah, but the
3:42
Speaker 1: turtle was pretty cool. He had like a Newsy camp
3:45
Speaker 1: on and a turtleneck and he just looked like he
3:48
Speaker 1: was ready to get mellow, you know. Oh you know
3:50
Speaker 1: the other one too, was the Charles Atlas workout thing.
3:54
Speaker 1: Do you remember that? Yeah, where the pound weekly gets
3:58
Speaker 1: stand kicked in his face. Totally. Yeah, that's really playing
4:01
Speaker 1: on some fifteen year old insecurities and it worked. And
4:06
Speaker 1: what about you? I remember Sea Monkeys. There's one that
4:10
Speaker 1: always stuck out to me was a Bonker's ad from
4:12
Speaker 1: the eighties. This would have been way past your man
4:15
Speaker 1: from Uncle era comic books. But um, I think I've
4:18
Speaker 1: asked you before the if you had ever had bonkers
4:21
Speaker 1: there like these fruit shooes they were like just the
4:24
Speaker 1: superior Starburst. And there was a comic book ad in
4:27
Speaker 1: there with like this like kind of crotchety old lady
4:30
Speaker 1: in it, and I don't even remember the gist of it.
4:32
Speaker 1: I think maybe she was mad that the kid was
4:34
Speaker 1: eating bonkers and enjoying it. I don't know, But um,
4:37
Speaker 1: I'll never forget that comic for some reason, because the
4:40
Speaker 1: colors in it were just just perfect and they struck
4:43
Speaker 1: my brain just right. So I've I've always got that
4:46
Speaker 1: Bonker's comic book ad in there too, and a lot
4:49
Speaker 1: of bubble bubble um comic book ads are stuck in
4:52
Speaker 1: there as well. Nothing that means anything, really, and certainly
4:56
Speaker 1: nothing pertinent to this episode except for that Sea Monkeys
4:58
Speaker 1: And yeah, but you and I were also into Mad
5:01
Speaker 1: Magazine big time, which I believe was ad free, wasn't it.
5:04
Speaker 1: It was they had like those fake ads, of course,
5:07
Speaker 1: which were pretty hilarious. Sure, but now that I don't
5:11
Speaker 1: think they had any like actual ads in them. They
5:13
Speaker 1: were just strictly subscription based. So in that Sea Monkey's aid,
5:18
Speaker 1: if you'll remember correctly, and I think for many decades
5:21
Speaker 1: it was virtually the same thing. It was this kind
5:25
Speaker 1: of group, this tribe of humanoid figures. It was a family.
5:32
Speaker 1: But but exactly what kind of family they were is
5:36
Speaker 1: really up for debate. So they're they were kind of lanky,
5:39
Speaker 1: like stringy ropey arms and legs, paunchy tummies, naked is
5:45
Speaker 1: the day they were born, webbed feet, webb tails, Like
5:49
Speaker 1: the end of their tail was like webbed, which if
5:52
Speaker 1: you look closely, I think was probably just a device
5:55
Speaker 1: to cover Dad's junk in the In the illustration, they're like,
6:01
Speaker 1: we need something on the end of their tail there, buddy. Uh.
6:04
Speaker 1: And this this just like this classic illustration of the
6:07
Speaker 1: sea monkeys that apparently was done by this guy named
6:10
Speaker 1: Joe Orlando Magazine Yeah, he's from Mad Magazine. Creepy Magazine
6:15
Speaker 1: is another one. He ran some comic lines at d
6:19
Speaker 1: C Comics. Was kind of a legend, but he's also
6:22
Speaker 1: extremely well known outside of the comic world for having
6:25
Speaker 1: drawn that sea monkey family. Yeah, I mean I'm looking
6:29
Speaker 1: at right now. Look at that. It's like unchanged, I know.
6:34
Speaker 1: And what's great too, is that we'll talk about later.
6:36
Speaker 1: Somebody some people went in and fiddled around with it.
6:39
Speaker 1: And if you look now, if you go to buy
6:41
Speaker 1: the sea monkeys now, they're basically back to the way
6:44
Speaker 1: they were before. Well, yeah, and we'll get to that too.
6:47
Speaker 1: You also didn't mention the castle, which is kind of
6:50
Speaker 1: key because somehow they have these little crown like heads
6:54
Speaker 1: and I guess we're kings of the Bowl. I guess
6:59
Speaker 1: they were. Yeah, they were a royal sea monkey family,
7:02
Speaker 1: kings of the fish bowl and only inhabitants. Actually, So
7:06
Speaker 1: if you write so you can proclaim yourself the royal family,
7:11
Speaker 1: you mean, I have done that at our house. So. Um,
7:14
Speaker 1: if you look closely at some of those ads, they say, um,
7:17
Speaker 1: there's like a little fine print that says these are
7:19
Speaker 1: caricatures of sea monkeys. Is not actually what your sea
7:22
Speaker 1: monkeys look like it's an artist interpretation or something like that.
7:26
Speaker 1: And it turns out that sea monkeys and just prepare
7:30
Speaker 1: for your childhood to blow away like so much dust
7:33
Speaker 1: in the wind, chuck. Sea monkeys don't actually exist. There's
7:37
Speaker 1: no such thing. Yeah, did you know that already? Well,
7:42
Speaker 1: of course, well sea monkeys, uh as, sea monkeys don't exist.
7:50
Speaker 1: But they are real little living creatures that you buy,
7:55
Speaker 1: have shipped in an envelope back in those days, in
7:59
Speaker 1: an envelope to your home, and they are actually their
8:02
Speaker 1: own things. So what they are ultimately is something called
8:06
Speaker 1: artemia or Brian shrimp. But the guy who ended up
8:11
Speaker 1: calling them sea monkeys was actually well within his right
8:14
Speaker 1: to call him something different than just Brian shrimp, because
8:16
Speaker 1: they're a hybrid version of Brian shrimp. The guy who
8:19
Speaker 1: invented sea monkeys actually tinkered along with a micro crustaceans
8:24
Speaker 1: expert named Di Augustino. I can't remember his first name.
8:29
Speaker 1: I think when you have a name like de Gistino,
8:32
Speaker 1: you can just go by that. So so de Gistino
8:35
Speaker 1: and this guy named Harold von Broughton or brought bron Hot, right,
8:41
Speaker 1: they got together and they actually took Brian shrimp and
8:45
Speaker 1: made them into something different, a hybrid version that we
8:48
Speaker 1: now know and love as sea monkeys. Yeah, so the
8:52
Speaker 1: literal sea monkeys that you buy don't exist in nature, right,
8:57
Speaker 1: They are a man made creation. I don't think we
9:00
Speaker 1: can get that through clearly enough, because it's pretty scientifically,
9:04
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing. And they did that because they couldn't
9:09
Speaker 1: find any of these Brian shrimp varieties that would live
9:15
Speaker 1: through the shipping process and be able to be essentially
9:19
Speaker 1: rehydrated and brought to life to the delight of children.
9:23
Speaker 1: So they made them right, and there's no no clapping
9:27
Speaker 1: and squealing with original Brian shrimp, right. So through these
9:31
Speaker 1: cross breeding programs they made Brian shrimp. Brian shrimp are
9:34
Speaker 1: already you could. I think you can still go to
9:37
Speaker 1: pet stores and buy them. They're a type of food.
9:39
Speaker 1: They're a pet food, um and all. They're just like
9:43
Speaker 1: tiny little micro crustaceans and they enter into what's called cryptobiosis,
9:50
Speaker 1: and they're basically if you'll remember our Tartar grade episode,
9:53
Speaker 1: they basically do the same thing that's harder grades too.
9:56
Speaker 1: They enter into the state of suspended animation UM. A
9:59
Speaker 1: desk hated state where they're just dried out and just
10:02
Speaker 1: sitting there waiting for the conditions to be right to
10:04
Speaker 1: basically come back to life. That's what sea monkeys are. Yeah,
10:09
Speaker 1: so you get this little package there basically their brin
10:12
Speaker 1: shrimp eggs is what it is, or what they are,
10:15
Speaker 1: and then you get purified water. Put him in there,
10:18
Speaker 1: and I believe there's a growth formula as well. Right, Yeah,
10:22
Speaker 1: that's like their food. It's like spilina and yeast, I believe, right,
10:26
Speaker 1: But it's no one truly knows what the exact formulation
10:30
Speaker 1: for all this stuff is because it is locked in
10:32
Speaker 1: a vault in Manhattan because it was it was the
10:37
Speaker 1: only one that worked, and it was owned owned by
10:40
Speaker 1: this Van Broughten character. Van Broughten braun Hutt. Braun Hut.
10:44
Speaker 1: I know, it's a tough word, tough name to say.
10:46
Speaker 1: I've seen it a hundred times in the last like
10:48
Speaker 1: eight hours, but still yeah, so um. Until he died
10:53
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, Harald von braun Hutt and his
10:56
Speaker 1: wife Yolanda were the only two people on the planet
10:59
Speaker 1: who knew what this special formula was that created those connections.
11:03
Speaker 1: Because you remember, you've got sea monkeys little Brian shrimp
11:07
Speaker 1: that are in the state of cryptobiosis, this dried out,
11:10
Speaker 1: descated state, and when you put them just into regular
11:13
Speaker 1: tap water, they don't necessarily come to life. There's something
11:17
Speaker 1: in that powder that alters the pH and the salinity
11:22
Speaker 1: and makes it just perfect for them to emerge from
11:25
Speaker 1: this cryptobiosis almost instantaneously. In fact, early on the sea
11:30
Speaker 1: monkeys were originally just called instant Life, I believe, is
11:34
Speaker 1: what they name. They were originally marketed under. Its not
11:37
Speaker 1: the best, not the best name, no uh, and it
11:41
Speaker 1: is It's weird that um that name was chosen because
11:45
Speaker 1: it turns out that Harold von braun Hutt is or
11:49
Speaker 1: was a marketing genius. UM he wrote the original thirty
11:55
Speaker 1: two page booklet that I believe still comes with the sets.
11:59
Speaker 1: Is that right? I couldn't find evidence of that, and
12:01
Speaker 1: I was looking online to find a transcription of it
12:04
Speaker 1: and was very surprised to find no one's done that.
12:08
Speaker 1: Like you would think there'd be entire fan sites that
12:10
Speaker 1: are that this is like their bible, you know, the
12:12
Speaker 1: original version of it would have later editions of it.
12:16
Speaker 1: Couldn't find it anywhere. Well, I don't know if it
12:18
Speaker 1: still comes with it. But for many, many many years
12:20
Speaker 1: and even after his death, that original pros was which
12:28
Speaker 1: told this fantastical story. I mean that's the whole point.
12:30
Speaker 1: It wasn't just like Edwater in your on set, I
12:33
Speaker 1: told the whole story of sea monkeys. Yeah. It said
12:35
Speaker 1: things like, you can your sea monkeys can be hypnotized.
12:39
Speaker 1: You can train them to play baseball, Um, you can
12:42
Speaker 1: race them. They're they're like they love to race. There
12:46
Speaker 1: all sorts of things. You can basically train them into
12:48
Speaker 1: a pack of friendly seals, I think is the way
12:50
Speaker 1: they put it. It talked about like their um courtship
12:54
Speaker 1: and reproduction and just all sorts of stuff like it was, Yeah,
12:58
Speaker 1: this guy is just basically do you remember that that
13:01
Speaker 1: treatment that George Lucas wrote about Wookies and and Chewbacca's
13:05
Speaker 1: planet that got turned into the Star Wars Christmas special.
13:08
Speaker 1: This is the exact same thing. But this is the
13:10
Speaker 1: Sea Monkeys world, right, I would like to see I
13:14
Speaker 1: was about to say I'd like to see the Sea
13:15
Speaker 1: Monkeys TV show, but I did. What did you think?
13:18
Speaker 1: Did you watch any of it? Yeah? I did. Yeah,
13:21
Speaker 1: So that was a TV show in the eighties, UM
13:24
Speaker 1: starring how He Mentel. Yeah, it just really doesn't get
13:28
Speaker 1: any better. Like who else would have been better than
13:31
Speaker 1: how He Mandel For that, it was Howie Mandel. He
13:33
Speaker 1: produced it as well, along with the Chioto brothers, who
13:36
Speaker 1: were known for making killer clowns from outer space. So
13:39
Speaker 1: you know what you're kind of going to get there.
13:41
Speaker 1: It is the definition of camp Like they watched Pee
13:44
Speaker 1: Wee's Playhouse and they're like, this is kind of campy,
13:47
Speaker 1: but let's increase it by thirty and that's what they did.
13:51
Speaker 1: It was not not long for this world though, what right? No?
13:54
Speaker 1: And the thing is is, I don't know if we've
13:55
Speaker 1: gotten this across. It was live action. Oh yeah, it
13:59
Speaker 1: wasn't a cartoon. That's what made it so not just campy.
14:02
Speaker 1: That made it unsettling as well, Like the actors were
14:05
Speaker 1: all done up as like sea monkeys and it was
14:08
Speaker 1: four kids, but it was obviously made by adults with
14:12
Speaker 1: a wink and a nod to other adults. It was
14:14
Speaker 1: a weird, weird, weird show. Yeah it was. I didn't
14:19
Speaker 1: see it, and I only watched like a bit of
14:21
Speaker 1: one episode. I didn't see enough to judge the whole eleven.
14:24
Speaker 1: I think episode lifespan. But it was like Sid and
14:28
Speaker 1: Marty Croft without the LSD, right, it was with PCP instead.
14:36
Speaker 1: That's how it struck me. I was like, these people
14:39
Speaker 1: are on angel dust. Yeah. But all this to say
14:42
Speaker 1: that it was was and continues to be a big
14:45
Speaker 1: selling item. Like kids loved sea monkeys. They bought them,
14:49
Speaker 1: and I mean, from what I can tell, when kids
14:52
Speaker 1: bought sea monkeys, they didn't care that they didn't look
14:56
Speaker 1: like those things, and they were just thought it was
14:58
Speaker 1: cool that something they got in the mail really had
15:00
Speaker 1: come to life. Yeah, for sure, and you could raise
15:02
Speaker 1: them and after you know, after some tinkering Um von
15:05
Speaker 1: braun Hut, Um managed to get them to live for
15:09
Speaker 1: a while. So these were like pets to to the kids.
15:12
Speaker 1: Plus I also think Chuck I suspect and this is
15:14
Speaker 1: a big reason why sea monkeys were such a success.
15:18
Speaker 1: Um von braun Hut when he started to market these
15:21
Speaker 1: things early on, he was following immediately in the wake
15:24
Speaker 1: of something called instant fish that I think Whamo had
15:27
Speaker 1: tried to market and had failed terribly at And he
15:31
Speaker 1: was going around trying to market something similar, and toy
15:34
Speaker 1: stores and retailers were like, we don't want anything to
15:37
Speaker 1: do with those. People almost lost their jobs over that
15:39
Speaker 1: instant fish stuff. Get out of here. So von Braunhut
15:43
Speaker 1: in a in a stroke of genius, said, you know what,
15:46
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go right to the source. So he started
15:48
Speaker 1: marketing directly two kids. He started hanging out at elementary
15:51
Speaker 1: school parking lot. He did, and he'd be like, here, here, kids,
15:55
Speaker 1: come look at my minivan. I've got a bunch of
15:57
Speaker 1: stuff for you to choose from. Right. Yeah, Well, the
15:59
Speaker 1: comic book, saying was a genius. Um how many like
16:02
Speaker 1: three three and a half million ads a year? Was
16:06
Speaker 1: at it, three hundred three million pages a year? And
16:11
Speaker 1: now though so most of those were two page inserts.
16:15
Speaker 1: So that's a hundred and fifty issues of a hundred
16:18
Speaker 1: and fifty million issues of comic books a year. I
16:20
Speaker 1: wonder how expensive that was. I don't know. I'm quite
16:23
Speaker 1: sure he got some deals over the years, because he
16:25
Speaker 1: started that marketing push in ninety four, and I don't
16:30
Speaker 1: know exactly when it stopped, but it was well into
16:32
Speaker 1: the nineties that there were sea monkey um ads and
16:35
Speaker 1: comic books still that were virtually the same as ever,
16:38
Speaker 1: did you ever buy any of that stuff? I had
16:40
Speaker 1: a friend who had sea monkeys. I never did myself. Oh,
16:43
Speaker 1: but that was the point that I was getting away
16:45
Speaker 1: from um that I wanted to make. I think one
16:48
Speaker 1: of the reasons sea monkeys were successful was because it
16:51
Speaker 1: wasn't just that these things were pets or whatever. You
16:54
Speaker 1: ordered them yourself, Like you handled this transaction yourself, and
16:58
Speaker 1: you got to show your friends something that you purchased,
17:01
Speaker 1: like your parents would take you to the store or
17:03
Speaker 1: anything like that. You can't you You contracted with this
17:07
Speaker 1: this strange man to buy these Brian shrimp from him,
17:11
Speaker 1: and they arrived and you followed the instructions, and now
17:14
Speaker 1: they're floating around. Yeah. Well, you probably got mom or
17:17
Speaker 1: dad to cut you a forty nine cent check or
17:21
Speaker 1: have them cut a check, uh or or you know
17:24
Speaker 1: you you maybe got the funds from your lemonade stand
17:27
Speaker 1: and converted that to a cash bond bearer bond. I
17:33
Speaker 1: don't know any of that stuff is, but yeah, so
17:36
Speaker 1: you probably had little assistance for mom and or maybe
17:38
Speaker 1: you put a dollar in an envelope. I'll bet many
17:41
Speaker 1: kids did. I wonder if Braunhud sent the change the
17:46
Speaker 1: change back, it was like, I'm keeping this change, kid,
17:49
Speaker 1: just to teach you a lesson not to send a
17:50
Speaker 1: dollar bill in the mail anymore, because you can't send
17:53
Speaker 1: change in the mail, right right, So I mean suffice
17:56
Speaker 1: to say, see, monkeys were and are just like one
18:00
Speaker 1: of the classic toys of all time, largely because of
18:04
Speaker 1: the way they were marketed. Right. Well. Yeah, and von
18:07
Speaker 1: Brown Hut, this was not his only jam. He had
18:09
Speaker 1: close to two patents on everything. Like you know, we
18:13
Speaker 1: mentioned the X ray specs, uh and that great great
18:16
Speaker 1: ad of of the guy looking at his hand or
18:19
Speaker 1: the or the uh sexist misogynistic ad of him leering
18:24
Speaker 1: at a woman in a dress. Uh. And X ray
18:27
Speaker 1: specs were very disappointing when you got those because they
18:31
Speaker 1: were it was two pieces of cardboard with little pinholes
18:36
Speaker 1: that you look through, and in between the cardboard where
18:39
Speaker 1: that pinhole is is a feather, right, And so what
18:42
Speaker 1: it did was it basically projected two overlapping images of
18:47
Speaker 1: the same thing, so that edges around the outside of it,
18:51
Speaker 1: we're just kind of fuzzier than the middle. Basically supposedly
18:55
Speaker 1: that was what an X ray of your hand looked like. Yeah,
18:58
Speaker 1: so that that the case of um fraud. Yeah, A
19:04
Speaker 1: good way to put it, or what about the invisible goldfish?
19:07
Speaker 1: That was another one. Is that is that's so fraudulent
19:10
Speaker 1: that it's just beautiful, it's elegant, and it's fraudulent. Well,
19:13
Speaker 1: but it's almost not fraudulent because here was the deal.
19:16
Speaker 1: He sold what was called invisible goldfish, uh, which basically
19:21
Speaker 1: means nothing. He sold nothing successfully, right. It was the
19:26
Speaker 1: kit came with the fish bowl, fish food, and instructions,
19:30
Speaker 1: and that was it. And there was a guarantee that
19:34
Speaker 1: you would never see your invisible fish, that they would
19:37
Speaker 1: remain invisible. Yeah, and that's I think that is the
19:39
Speaker 1: distinction that makes it not fraud As he basically said,
19:43
Speaker 1: you're not gonna sing an hanging in this bowl, and
19:45
Speaker 1: and that was that. What else did he do? Um?
19:49
Speaker 1: He had He invented balder dash. He also invented those
19:55
Speaker 1: um dolls eyes where you lay your doll back and
19:58
Speaker 1: its eyes closed. He invented those. Yeah, he invented that
20:01
Speaker 1: that technology, which is it was a game changer for
20:04
Speaker 1: creepy baby dolls. He also, even before his days of inventing,
20:08
Speaker 1: he was an interesting guy basically his whole life. He UM.
20:12
Speaker 1: He raced motorcycles and cars under the name the Green Hornet.
20:17
Speaker 1: He was a talent manager for a couple of people.
20:21
Speaker 1: One was a mentalist. Yeah, talent talent manager like Broadway
20:25
Speaker 1: Danny Rose was a talent manager. Okay, I don't know
20:28
Speaker 1: that just bum would go along with it? What is that?
20:31
Speaker 1: Is that? What? What's that from? The name is familiar,
20:33
Speaker 1: but I don't know. It was a Woody Allen movie
20:35
Speaker 1: where he played there was it was a talent manager
20:37
Speaker 1: that managed like you know, um, people like this that
20:41
Speaker 1: with the high divers that would dive into shallow pools
20:43
Speaker 1: and mentalists. And this guy was even a wouldn't he
20:47
Speaker 1: a mentalist for a little while I didn't see that.
20:49
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be at all surprised. Yeah, I think he
20:52
Speaker 1: did a little work as the great something did you say? Well?
20:55
Speaker 1: He managed a guy named the Great Danager. I didn't
20:58
Speaker 1: get whether that was him or not, though it could
20:59
Speaker 1: have been. No, no no, no, that wasn't that was that
21:01
Speaker 1: was him and he had his own act. Oh god, Okay,
21:05
Speaker 1: did you see the guy who who the the high
21:09
Speaker 1: dive guy? Did you see his jump? No? Oh my, okay,
21:14
Speaker 1: there's a guy named on real Lemouth. I believe he Yeah,
21:20
Speaker 1: on Red Lamouth. If you go look him up h
21:23
Speaker 1: N R I L A m O t h E.
21:26
Speaker 1: You're going to be treated to an AP video that
21:28
Speaker 1: was shot in the early seventies from the looks of it,
21:31
Speaker 1: where he's opening up for an evil kinevel act in
21:34
Speaker 1: a parking lot and god knows where in New Jersey,
21:37
Speaker 1: and he climbs up this ladder, a forty ft ladder,
21:41
Speaker 1: and below beneath is one of these tiny little kiddie
21:45
Speaker 1: pools filled with like eighteen inches of water. And this guy,
21:49
Speaker 1: who who is clearly in his mid seventies maybe older,
21:54
Speaker 1: dives forty ft into eighteen inches of water in a
21:58
Speaker 1: kiddie pool belly first. He does basically a belly flop
22:01
Speaker 1: and immediately stands up with like tata. It's one of
22:04
Speaker 1: the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life.
22:08
Speaker 1: And and this guy, Harold von braun Hutt, managed that
22:11
Speaker 1: guy back in the day. Uh yeah, Okay, he wasn't
22:14
Speaker 1: a He was a magician who worked under the name
22:17
Speaker 1: the Great Tlepo. That's a pretty good name. And he
22:21
Speaker 1: also inmen in something called the Director Mat, which was
22:24
Speaker 1: this device where you punch in your destination and like
22:28
Speaker 1: your New York City you punch in your destination and
22:31
Speaker 1: the machine told you the fastest subway route. Oh that's smart.
22:35
Speaker 1: It was Google Maps. That's very smart, but using like
22:39
Speaker 1: punch cards instead of you know, real technology basically. But
22:43
Speaker 1: I mean the guy, you know, not only was he
22:45
Speaker 1: a marketing genius, he had a real knack for inventing
22:49
Speaker 1: some successful useful things. So he had this other thing
22:52
Speaker 1: that you could get for like uh and it was
22:56
Speaker 1: actually a weapon, so much so that he was stopped
22:59
Speaker 1: at a Guardia airport nine and arrested because he had
23:03
Speaker 1: a briefcase of samples of this stuff that he was
23:06
Speaker 1: selling I think through mail order. And it was called
23:09
Speaker 1: the UM what what coo? Yoga agent M five, Yeah,
23:14
Speaker 1: the kiyoga agent and five. It's basically a telescoping metal whip. Um.
23:20
Speaker 1: You know you've seen the telescoping batons and things that
23:24
Speaker 1: cops can use. I guess anybody can use them. And
23:28
Speaker 1: do actually had one of those for a little while
23:30
Speaker 1: for some reason, did you really? I did? I thought,
23:33
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not a gun guy, but I
23:34
Speaker 1: thought I'll put this thing in the floorboard in my
23:36
Speaker 1: car and if anyone ever reaches their hand in the window,
23:41
Speaker 1: then they're gonna get a wrapped knuckle. Smart. I don't
23:46
Speaker 1: know where it went though. I didn't telescope properly, so
23:48
Speaker 1: I was like, that's probably not good. No, it's not
23:50
Speaker 1: because you I mean, that's not what you want and
23:53
Speaker 1: you plus you have to practice with that kind of thing,
23:55
Speaker 1: that's all. It's a big commitment. You're just turning and
23:57
Speaker 1: running is way better? Well? Yeah, just I went back
24:00
Speaker 1: to plan A, which is poop, poop my pants and
24:02
Speaker 1: cry right, hopefully that works now once the punch of
24:06
Speaker 1: guy who's just pooped his pants, you know. All right,
24:08
Speaker 1: so none of the but at least um, so this
24:13
Speaker 1: M five telescoping water whip. Um, all right, this is
24:18
Speaker 1: where things get weird. Yeah, and we'll we'll set this
24:22
Speaker 1: up right before the ad break. Um, because it turns
24:26
Speaker 1: out that Mr van bro Hud, Mr von brown Hut
24:32
Speaker 1: was perhaps almost certifiably a white nationalist aryan Nazi. Sure
24:41
Speaker 1: is that fair to say? I think so? All right,
24:43
Speaker 1: and we'll get to that right after this. If you
24:45
Speaker 1: want to know, then you're in luck. Just listen up
24:49
Speaker 1: to Chuck self. You shoot stuff, you shoo, okay, Chuck,
25:11
Speaker 1: I'm sure everybody just bit the tips of their fingers
25:14
Speaker 1: off waiting for those ads to finish so we could
25:16
Speaker 1: get back to it. Is it fair to call him
25:18
Speaker 1: a Nazi? So here's the thing. It has been so
25:22
Speaker 1: thoroughly documented by legitimate sources like the Washington Post, the
25:27
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Times, his own Mouth, the Yes, his own Mouth,
25:31
Speaker 1: the Jewish Anti Defamation League, I believe. I don't know
25:36
Speaker 1: if the Southern Poverty Law Center actually tracked him or not,
25:38
Speaker 1: but this guy has definitely been identified as somebody who
25:43
Speaker 1: is has was a longtime contributor to white nationalist groups,
25:50
Speaker 1: specifically the Arian Nations out of Idaho, which was one
25:54
Speaker 1: of the original white hate groups in the United States.
25:59
Speaker 1: Here's the problem with that. This is the guy who
26:02
Speaker 1: invented sea monkeys. The problem number two is that if
26:08
Speaker 1: you ever sent your money off to buy some sea monkeys,
26:12
Speaker 1: some of that money had a very good chance of
26:14
Speaker 1: having been turned around and given to the Aryan nation.
26:18
Speaker 1: And here in lies a real moral conundrum for a
26:20
Speaker 1: lot of people, understandably. So yeah, so well, I didn't
26:25
Speaker 1: see did he just give money? Period? Yes, But the
26:29
Speaker 1: people are saying I gave you some of that money
26:31
Speaker 1: for sea monkeys. Who knows what dimes and nickels that
26:34
Speaker 1: I gave you went to Arian Nation. I don't want
26:36
Speaker 1: any money going to Ariyan Nation. So I feel horrible
26:40
Speaker 1: that my money went to you, which you turn in
26:43
Speaker 1: turn gave to the Arian Nation. Right, However, this M
26:47
Speaker 1: five was uh. There was a man named Richard Butler. Um.
26:52
Speaker 1: This guy was the real piece of human garbage. He
26:55
Speaker 1: was a founder of the Arian Nation. Yeah, he was
26:57
Speaker 1: the worst. He's not with us anymore, thank fully, but
27:01
Speaker 1: he he was a very bad man. And he was
27:04
Speaker 1: brought brought up on trial. And basically this h M
27:10
Speaker 1: five little uh telescoping whip that was invented by von
27:15
Speaker 1: braun Hut that was specifically UH used that that that
27:20
Speaker 1: product and proceeds from that specifically went to a fund
27:25
Speaker 1: to help out Richard Butler. So we know that. Yeah,
27:29
Speaker 1: everything's going along for Harold von braun Hutt um pretty
27:33
Speaker 1: swimmingly until the late eighties. Right in the late eighties,
27:38
Speaker 1: Richard Butler is brought up along with I think fourteen
27:41
Speaker 1: or fifteen other white nationalist leaders on sedition charges basically
27:45
Speaker 1: trying to overthrow the government through plotting assassinations, UM, trying
27:50
Speaker 1: to start a race war. They were they had some
27:53
Speaker 1: serious charges against them. They were eventually acquitted of these charges.
27:57
Speaker 1: But but as part of this defense fund. In Aryan
28:00
Speaker 1: Nation newsletter, UM, Richard Butler talks about the Kyoga Agent
28:06
Speaker 1: M five as a great you know, um, a great
28:09
Speaker 1: tool for every Arian nationalist to have a great weapon
28:13
Speaker 1: and defense mechanism. And if you order this thing on
28:18
Speaker 1: the order form, write the letters a N for Ariyan Nation.
28:22
Speaker 1: And the inventor of this project product has pledged that
28:26
Speaker 1: twenty five of those sixty dollars will be given to
28:29
Speaker 1: my defense fund. So now, all of a sudden, for
28:31
Speaker 1: the first time ever, the guy who invented sea monkeys
28:34
Speaker 1: is tied to the guy who founded the Aryan Nation
28:38
Speaker 1: UM hate group. Yeah, and this was just like the
28:42
Speaker 1: beginning of the can of worms, uh, which he did
28:45
Speaker 1: not invent the can of worms, but he should have.
28:48
Speaker 1: It was the beginning of that being open because uh,
28:51
Speaker 1: like you said, late late eighties, what was the eight
28:53
Speaker 1: eight I think in the Washington Post basically got ahold
28:56
Speaker 1: of this story, did some investigating and found owned that
29:01
Speaker 1: he was involved in quote some of the most extreme
29:03
Speaker 1: racist and anti Semitic organizations in the country. Um. But
29:09
Speaker 1: here's the deal, Like there are quotes from his mouth
29:12
Speaker 1: that say things about uh inscrutable, slanty Korean eyes when
29:18
Speaker 1: dealing with Korean shop owners and talking about uh Jews
29:22
Speaker 1: and black people, like literal quotes. Yet when he's finally contacted,
29:27
Speaker 1: this is great article that we kind of started with.
29:30
Speaker 1: Um was when he was still alive. He would deny
29:34
Speaker 1: that this was that this was him, and but not
29:38
Speaker 1: try and clear it up or anything. Basically just say
29:40
Speaker 1: that's a bunch of bunk um. There was where there
29:43
Speaker 1: were news letters written for an organization called the National
29:47
Speaker 1: Anti Zionist Institute, written by one Hendrick von Braun. But
29:52
Speaker 1: the return address was the same po box that you
29:55
Speaker 1: sent off to get sea monkeys. Yeah, sea monkey like
29:58
Speaker 1: paraphernalia still today, same address. So it's not very Yeah
30:02
Speaker 1: it's in Maryland, which is where he lived. Uh So
30:05
Speaker 1: he wasn't like covering his tracks very well at all.
30:07
Speaker 1: So he so all that started that Washington Post expose
30:12
Speaker 1: a specifically also came out of a property dispute. He
30:17
Speaker 1: later claimed that all of these were lies and that
30:19
Speaker 1: they were drummed up by somebody who's in a property
30:22
Speaker 1: dispute with I think there was a developer who was
30:24
Speaker 1: encroaching on his land and he was suing them, And
30:26
Speaker 1: I think he said that the developer had brought all
30:29
Speaker 1: this up. The thing is whether the developer exposed it
30:32
Speaker 1: or not, or tipped the Washington Post off to this
30:34
Speaker 1: or not. This is already like pretty well known in
30:39
Speaker 1: the toy industry and pretty well documented. Like it wasn't
30:43
Speaker 1: just that this um Harold von braun Hutt gave money
30:47
Speaker 1: to the Aran Nation, Like he would go to their
30:52
Speaker 1: annual rally in Idaho and light the cross himself. He
30:57
Speaker 1: would um. He would beak at some of their their
31:01
Speaker 1: um conferences and apparently not very well received. No, he would.
31:08
Speaker 1: He would kind of go off on topics that the
31:10
Speaker 1: Arians weren't particularly interested in, like numerology or the pyramids
31:15
Speaker 1: or how it all tied together. But the thing is
31:18
Speaker 1: he had a lot of money and he was apparently
31:21
Speaker 1: quite willing to give it. Now, no one has, we
31:24
Speaker 1: have to say, no one has ever documented a penny
31:28
Speaker 1: that was given to the Area Nation. The closest thing
31:32
Speaker 1: to a smoking gun is that newsletter from Richard Butler
31:35
Speaker 1: saying that the inventor of this has pledged twenty five
31:37
Speaker 1: dollars per but the very fact that he was basically
31:41
Speaker 1: allowed into the orbit of Richard Butler himself strongly suggests
31:45
Speaker 1: that he actually followed through on those campaign pledges and
31:49
Speaker 1: legal defense fund pledges and and apparently a former spokesman
31:54
Speaker 1: for the Area Nation who is now a reformed racist,
31:58
Speaker 1: he says, um poke out about Harold von braun Hunt
32:02
Speaker 1: and said he didn't know exactly how much he gave,
32:04
Speaker 1: but he gave a lot, and he gave pretty frequently
32:06
Speaker 1: when he was asked. Right. So things get a little
32:10
Speaker 1: weirder here because it turns out that von braun Hut
32:14
Speaker 1: was actually Jewish. He was born to Jeanette Cohen and
32:20
Speaker 1: Edward braun Hut, not von braun Hutt at that little
32:23
Speaker 1: Vaughan to uh, I guess germanize him uh. And he
32:30
Speaker 1: was born in New York City on March thirty, first,
32:31
Speaker 1: ninety six as Harold Nathan braun Hutt. And if you
32:37
Speaker 1: know anything about Arian Nations or any of those groups,
32:39
Speaker 1: they don't take kindly to a Jewish guy, even if
32:42
Speaker 1: he's like rebukes that to being a member. But like
32:46
Speaker 1: you said, he had a lot of dough And that's
32:49
Speaker 1: basically why everyone thinks they allowed him to stay on
32:52
Speaker 1: as a member. Yeah. So that eight Washington Post article
32:56
Speaker 1: did a couple of things. One out of the inventor
32:58
Speaker 1: of sea monkeys as an aryan white supremacist, or I
33:02
Speaker 1: should say just a white supremacist. He was an Arian.
33:05
Speaker 1: It also outed him as a non Arian, as a
33:08
Speaker 1: Jewish person born Jewish to Jewish parents, about as Jewish
33:12
Speaker 1: as you can possibly get aside from being um a
33:15
Speaker 1: practicing jew. Right. So he he was outed in this
33:21
Speaker 1: in this Washington Post article like two times over. So
33:25
Speaker 1: everybody was mad at him from either side. Right. The
33:29
Speaker 1: thing is like, even after I guess, the Area Nation
33:32
Speaker 1: released as a press release about this saying that they
33:36
Speaker 1: were disappointed to find out this guy that they were
33:39
Speaker 1: friends with was actually Jewish, but he was not kicked
33:42
Speaker 1: out of their circle. He stayed apparently as as intracted
33:47
Speaker 1: as he was before and still was always a part
33:51
Speaker 1: of the organization's conferences and stuff like that. Yeah, and
33:55
Speaker 1: he was. It wasn't just the Arian Nations he uh
33:58
Speaker 1: In the Washington Post, says the U S Attorney Thomas Bauer.
34:04
Speaker 1: U there was a weapons case in five against a
34:07
Speaker 1: member of the clan Um Grand Dragon Dale Rouch. Yeah,
34:12
Speaker 1: it was in nineteen eighty. I think that the transaction happened, okay,
34:18
Speaker 1: but the weapons case was in five and Van braun
34:22
Speaker 1: Hut basically loan the guy twelve thousand dollars so he
34:27
Speaker 1: could buy more than eighty firearms. Yeah, like, here, go
34:31
Speaker 1: buy a bunch of guns. Well the okay, yes, and
34:33
Speaker 1: this is a grand wizard of the clan, I believe, right, yes,
34:38
Speaker 1: So the reason I pointed out that it would happened
34:40
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty, the year before the Washington Post had
34:43
Speaker 1: had um drummed up in that nine eight article. The
34:46
Speaker 1: year before he had paid like thirteen hundred dollars for
34:50
Speaker 1: his parents graves in a Jewish cemetery to be kept
34:53
Speaker 1: up in perpetuity. So this is like this, this is
34:56
Speaker 1: this weird dual life. This guy is living like born
34:59
Speaker 1: and raised jew respecting his Jewish parents funeral wishes and
35:03
Speaker 1: burial wishes, and then months later helping a grand Wizard
35:08
Speaker 1: of the KKK by eighty three firearms and then taking
35:12
Speaker 1: possession of the firearms himself until the loan was paid back.
35:17
Speaker 1: It's crazy. It is a little crazy. It's quite surprising
35:20
Speaker 1: actually too. I Mean, that's like a big one to punch,
35:23
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, so he didn't actually, Um, he would
35:26
Speaker 1: do licensing deals over the years, I saw he ran
35:28
Speaker 1: his business probably smartly to do that, uh, if you
35:33
Speaker 1: ask me. But over the years have been many many
35:35
Speaker 1: companies that held the license for sea monkeys that he
35:38
Speaker 1: partnered with, and they all kind of had different reactions. Um.
35:42
Speaker 1: There was one called Larmie Limited, one called Basic Fund,
35:46
Speaker 1: one called Educational Insights. There may have been more. Today
35:49
Speaker 1: it resides with Big Time Toys. But um, this article
35:55
Speaker 1: that we dug up from when he was still alive, basically,
35:57
Speaker 1: this guy gets in touch with a lot of these people,
36:00
Speaker 1: and some of them said they believe the story that, um,
36:03
Speaker 1: it was just some story that this angry neighbor cooked
36:06
Speaker 1: up to slander his name. Other ones have said, yeah,
36:12
Speaker 1: you know what, Um, everyone kind of knew about it,
36:16
Speaker 1: but we're not gonna we're not gonna take that out
36:19
Speaker 1: on the sea monkeys, right. Um. And he was a
36:23
Speaker 1: nice guy to us, and what he does in his
36:25
Speaker 1: private time is no one's business. Yeah. The thing is is,
36:27
Speaker 1: like some of the people that he was doing business
36:29
Speaker 1: with were Jewish, and we're taking some of the things
36:32
Speaker 1: he was doing in his private life personally themselves, like
36:36
Speaker 1: the guy who was the president of Basic fund which
36:40
Speaker 1: that's one of the worst names for a toy company. Basic.
36:44
Speaker 1: It's like, don't get too excited, this is just Basic fun.
36:46
Speaker 1: That was They had a spin off company called Minimal Enjoyment,
36:49
Speaker 1: right he he Um got the license or his company
36:53
Speaker 1: got the license for Sea Monkeys to handle distributing and
36:57
Speaker 1: marketing sea monkeys, and um he he apparently asked von
37:01
Speaker 1: braun Hut like, is this true? And von braun had
37:05
Speaker 1: told him no, there's this developerman a dispute with who's
37:07
Speaker 1: like trying to drum up bad press. They're all lies. Well,
37:10
Speaker 1: within a year, The New York Times wrote an article
37:14
Speaker 1: about that um annual rally at the Area Nation Compound
37:18
Speaker 1: in Idaho and said that Harold von braun Hud had
37:21
Speaker 1: been a speaker there. So the guy from Basic Funds like,
37:24
Speaker 1: it's it. I'm done with your contracts broken. Yeah, I
37:29
Speaker 1: mean that did happen sometimes over the years. Uh, and
37:32
Speaker 1: other times you know, people I guess money talks, so
37:36
Speaker 1: they were willing to put up with it. Yeah, yep,
37:40
Speaker 1: it's crazy. He um. You know, like when he was
37:43
Speaker 1: called personally, he said, I don't have to defend myself
37:45
Speaker 1: to you or anyone else. I'm hanging up. So I
37:49
Speaker 1: guess it was a time when, you know, pre Internet,
37:53
Speaker 1: pre social media, where you could kind of get away
37:56
Speaker 1: with stuff like this a little easier. Yeah, I mean,
37:59
Speaker 1: like he was, Yeah, it was just an open secret.
38:02
Speaker 1: And I think, like you said, I think you hit
38:03
Speaker 1: the nail on the head man, when there's like this
38:05
Speaker 1: much money involved, and when you're talking about a brand
38:09
Speaker 1: where it's just like a beloved American icon. Yeah, like
38:14
Speaker 1: people just look the other way on the fact that
38:17
Speaker 1: you're a white supremacist. You know, it's it's bizarre, but
38:21
Speaker 1: that's apparently this is a story of how the world
38:24
Speaker 1: works in that respect. Yeah, it was interesting for this.
38:27
Speaker 1: One article, I think from the early two thousand's from
38:31
Speaker 1: the all was that oh no, no, no, that was
38:33
Speaker 1: from two thousand and eleven. The other one was, um
38:36
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, that was when he had currently the license.
38:40
Speaker 1: He was Educational Insights, and they at the time, it
38:44
Speaker 1: was funny to go back and read this that they
38:46
Speaker 1: were trying to update the image for the sea monkeys. Yeah, yeah,
38:50
Speaker 1: and they had like these drawing They hired some big
38:53
Speaker 1: advertising guy and marketing guy, and he came in and
38:55
Speaker 1: was basically like, no, man like kids these days, they
38:59
Speaker 1: don't want these skinny pot bellied uh King Queen, Prince
39:04
Speaker 1: and princess family. They want superheroes. So he buffed them
39:07
Speaker 1: up but capes on them and made a new jingle
39:11
Speaker 1: and uh, they never went with any of that stuff.
39:13
Speaker 1: It kind of all went in the wastebasket. I think. Well,
39:15
Speaker 1: one new thing did come out of it, and um
39:18
Speaker 1: von Or Harold Braun had a patent on it was
39:21
Speaker 1: one of his last patents. It was a a watch
39:24
Speaker 1: that you could inject a couple of live sea monkeys
39:28
Speaker 1: into and they would live in there for twenty four
39:30
Speaker 1: hours before I guess either they died or if you
39:34
Speaker 1: could suck them back out and put them back in
39:36
Speaker 1: their aquarium. But you could walk around with your two
39:39
Speaker 1: favorite or luckiest sea monkeys for the day and tell
39:42
Speaker 1: time as well. So that was there was at least
39:44
Speaker 1: one thing that came out of that updating. But if
39:47
Speaker 1: you go back and look, if you look at those,
39:49
Speaker 1: you're like, this is pretty lame. And you go back
39:51
Speaker 1: and look today at the sea monkey packaging, it's it
39:53
Speaker 1: is basically back to how it was like in that
39:56
Speaker 1: Joe Orlando style. But if you do want to watch
40:00
Speaker 1: some business people do some tap dancing, it's really interesting.
40:04
Speaker 1: Read this article. It's called the Sea Monkeys and the
40:07
Speaker 1: White Supremacist. It was in the l A Times on
40:09
Speaker 1: October one, two thousand, written by Tamarrow Brod, who did
40:13
Speaker 1: a pretty good job of like just some good old
40:15
Speaker 1: fashioned like um like like footwork or leg work, going
40:20
Speaker 1: to to to pound the beat, pound the beat with
40:25
Speaker 1: the with the footwork, sniff them off the case, you
40:27
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. All Right, Well, let's take another
40:29
Speaker 1: break and we're gonna come back and we're talking about
40:31
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about where things stand today in the
40:35
Speaker 1: fight over the rights and the fortune of the Sea monkeys.
40:37
Speaker 1: If you want to know, then you're in luck. Just
40:41
Speaker 1: listen to chuck self. Sh alright, So we know what happened? Actually,
41:07
Speaker 1: how did he die? I didn't even see that. I
41:10
Speaker 1: didn't see that either. Um, he died in two thousand three,
41:14
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure why. All right, So he died, Yeah,
41:18
Speaker 1: that's true. But he left behind his wife, Yawanda uh
41:22
Speaker 1: Signarelli von braun Hutt. Did you lock her up? Oh? Yeah, Okay, Yeah,
41:28
Speaker 1: she was. She was an actress. Uh, she was sort
41:33
Speaker 1: of a sort of like a pin up bombshell b
41:36
Speaker 1: movie actress, is fair ish. I had also seen her
41:41
Speaker 1: movies as described as adult films as well. Um, she
41:46
Speaker 1: was in a movie. I gotta see this one. It's
41:48
Speaker 1: called Love After Death and it's a softcore zombie flick
41:54
Speaker 1: from the sixties. Yeah. Um, but yes, she was a
41:58
Speaker 1: pretty interesting person in her own right as well. Yeah.
42:01
Speaker 1: And she says for her as far as the Aryan
42:05
Speaker 1: Nation stuff, she says like, I never knew and saw
42:09
Speaker 1: this side of him. So I don't know she's being
42:12
Speaker 1: on the level or if she's just um, kind of
42:15
Speaker 1: quashing this and covering for him. It's kind of not
42:19
Speaker 1: clear to me. I saw. I don't know if it
42:21
Speaker 1: was in that New York Times article or in the
42:24
Speaker 1: Washington Post article, but his first wife was contacted and
42:28
Speaker 1: interviewed for it, and she was like, what are you
42:30
Speaker 1: guys talking about? Really? Yeah? So who knows. Maybe he
42:34
Speaker 1: did just keep that He was clearly somebody who could
42:37
Speaker 1: compartmentalize the different parts of his personality. So maybe maybe
42:42
Speaker 1: he really did just leave leave the wives out of it. Man,
42:46
Speaker 1: How how could you not know something like that's crazy,
42:48
Speaker 1: just going going to Idaho on my yearly trip. Yeah,
42:51
Speaker 1: that's weird. He always goes to Idaho and the Aryan
42:54
Speaker 1: nation assembles, all right. So um, Yolanda Signare Levon bron
43:00
Speaker 1: Hut lived and I think still lives in or at
43:05
Speaker 1: least as of two years ago when this article came
43:07
Speaker 1: out in the Potomac River estate in southern Maryland. But
43:12
Speaker 1: she is um, she's she's she's broke. Basically, she has
43:19
Speaker 1: no electricity, no running water, and she has been in
43:23
Speaker 1: uh been an illegal battle with Big Time Toys and
43:28
Speaker 1: their chief executive Sam Harwell for basically several years, trying
43:35
Speaker 1: to get money because Big Time Toy says, this is
43:39
Speaker 1: our company. Now. Yeah, Big Time Toys sounds like I'd
43:42
Speaker 1: be nervous about going into business with them. I'm more
43:45
Speaker 1: of a basic fun guy. Big Time Toys sounds like
43:49
Speaker 1: they're moving too fast for me, you know what I mean?
43:52
Speaker 1: So yeah, so um, so Yolanda braun Hutt has she's
43:56
Speaker 1: got kind of like a great gardens thing going on
43:59
Speaker 1: right now, get against her will. This is not something
44:02
Speaker 1: she's happy about at all. And her position is as
44:06
Speaker 1: far as the Times tells. It is that she engaged
44:11
Speaker 1: in a licensing deal, which is how sea monkeys have
44:14
Speaker 1: been produced basically since the beginning, with a company with
44:19
Speaker 1: that company, Big Time Toys, where they would handle the
44:21
Speaker 1: packaging and the distribution, and her company, her own little
44:26
Speaker 1: company UM would handle making the actual sea monkeys that
44:31
Speaker 1: that that were that were put into the packaging that
44:36
Speaker 1: Big Time Toys sold. Right, So Big Time Toys would
44:39
Speaker 1: buy the sea monkeys that they would put into the
44:42
Speaker 1: packages and then would turn around and sell to the public.
44:45
Speaker 1: That was the arrangement initially, right, So we have the
44:49
Speaker 1: secret formula that no one else has seemed to be
44:52
Speaker 1: been able to crack. This is Yolanda talking. Should have
44:56
Speaker 1: done my Jolana voice. Yeah, let's hear. I don't know
44:59
Speaker 1: what she sounds like. I pitched Italian stereotype. No no, no,
45:04
Speaker 1: uh she It would have been like three different groups
45:07
Speaker 1: of people if um she she basically said, we have
45:11
Speaker 1: the secret formula for the only one that works that
45:13
Speaker 1: can keep these things alive. Everyone else has tried and failed,
45:17
Speaker 1: and so we will sell these to you and you
45:19
Speaker 1: can do everything else and cut me a check. And
45:22
Speaker 1: there was also a side deal that said you can
45:26
Speaker 1: buy this company, including the secret formula, for five million
45:29
Speaker 1: bucks up front and then another five million and installments.
45:34
Speaker 1: And so Big Time basically called her up a few
45:37
Speaker 1: years ago, probably about five years ago at this point,
45:40
Speaker 1: if my math is right, and said, UM, you know what,
45:43
Speaker 1: all these payments we've been making to you, um for
45:46
Speaker 1: the licensing deal, we just kind of consider that layaway.
45:50
Speaker 1: And as far as we're concerned, we own sea monkeys. Now, yeah,
45:53
Speaker 1: we've reached that five million dollar points. So there are
45:57
Speaker 1: which ostensibly should not have been that money. It should
46:00
Speaker 1: been separate payments, if I understand this correctly. But I mean,
46:04
Speaker 1: when somebody does that, what are you gonna do? You
46:06
Speaker 1: gotta go sue them, And that's what they're doing, and
46:09
Speaker 1: they're bleeding this lady dry at least as far as
46:11
Speaker 1: this this New York Times UM profile is concerned. Uh.
46:16
Speaker 1: And I mean, if you get into a fight like
46:19
Speaker 1: that and you don't have the money, you can lose.
46:22
Speaker 1: So this is a this could be a sad end
46:25
Speaker 1: to the sea monkey um saga, because here's the other problem.
46:30
Speaker 1: You might be saying to yourself, well, why doesn't she
46:32
Speaker 1: just not sell them the sea monkeys anymore? Well, she did.
46:35
Speaker 1: She stopped when they stopped making payments and said they
46:38
Speaker 1: own the Sea Monkey brand. And it turned out that
46:40
Speaker 1: in this court case, um, that big big, Big Time
46:45
Speaker 1: Toys have been buying knockoff sea monkeys from China, and
46:50
Speaker 1: then that's what they were putting into the Sea Monkey thing.
46:52
Speaker 1: So apparently if you're buying, if you buy a currently
46:56
Speaker 1: a Sea Monkey package, you're getting Time Toys packaging, and um,
47:03
Speaker 1: Chinese knockoff see monkey packets which don't work. Apparently, I
47:08
Speaker 1: went and looked at Amazon reviews and almost all of
47:12
Speaker 1: them for all the products said none of them hatched,
47:17
Speaker 1: or they hatched for like a day. These things stink.
47:20
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, they worked, So it's weird that. Um,
47:25
Speaker 1: it's sort of ironic that they ended up creating the
47:27
Speaker 1: special breed essentially that worked, and that ended up being
47:32
Speaker 1: there undoing. Because in court, in the affidavit, the leader
47:36
Speaker 1: this Harwell guy, whose wife, by the way, is the head.
47:40
Speaker 1: She's a speaker of the House of the Tennessee House
47:42
Speaker 1: of Representatives. So yeah, they're they're a power family all
47:46
Speaker 1: the way around, not to be trifled with. In his affidavit,
47:49
Speaker 1: he says he outsourced the sea monkeys to China and
47:53
Speaker 1: says there are seven recognized species of our timmy a
47:57
Speaker 1: brine shrimp, and this is not one of them. So
48:02
Speaker 1: because they had created their own, uh species, it ended
48:06
Speaker 1: up being there undoing at court. It looks like because
48:09
Speaker 1: it doesn't officially exist as a real species that these
48:14
Speaker 1: guys are getting. Yeah, but I'm pretty sure he got
48:16
Speaker 1: a patent on the species that they they made. Well, no,
48:21
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying though, But he's not getting that species.
48:23
Speaker 1: Oh I see, he's getting these Well they're not knockoffs
48:26
Speaker 1: there Mother Nature's own China, but they're not the ones
48:31
Speaker 1: that are working, right, I got you. So it's just
48:33
Speaker 1: a mess. But then still doesn't that like raise questions
48:36
Speaker 1: about how you could use the sea monkey's names? That's
48:39
Speaker 1: what I wondered. But I guess if they had the
48:42
Speaker 1: license to use the sea monkey's name because they were
48:44
Speaker 1: in charge of packaging and distribution, then yeah, I guess
48:49
Speaker 1: they could say, well, we're not going to use the
48:51
Speaker 1: official ones any longer, We're going to use these natural ones. Man,
48:54
Speaker 1: what a mess. Well, and it's a mess too because
48:56
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, do I root for the side of
48:59
Speaker 1: this guy who was a white nationalist. Um. But you know,
49:05
Speaker 1: his wife says she didn't know anything about that, and
49:07
Speaker 1: she's going broke and has has been basically had this
49:10
Speaker 1: company stolen from her. It seems like, yeah, it's just
49:14
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know what to think. Or
49:15
Speaker 1: do you root for the guys who are apparently stealing
49:19
Speaker 1: the company? Fam widow of the white nationalist. Yeah, you
49:24
Speaker 1: know what I predict, the chuck. I predict that Sea Monkeys,
49:27
Speaker 1: the brand will ultimately rise about this, that it will
49:30
Speaker 1: it will survive this somehow and still be around thirty
49:35
Speaker 1: years from now. The sea monkeys will take over. Yeah,
49:39
Speaker 1: they will eventually overthrow the human race, like the Arians
49:44
Speaker 1: plotted to overthrow the US government. What a story, It's
49:47
Speaker 1: quite a story. There's a good one, man. Thanks for
49:50
Speaker 1: digging this up. Sure, well, if you want to know
49:53
Speaker 1: more about sea monkeys, just start digging around, pulling at
49:56
Speaker 1: the loose threads. You're gonna find some interesting stuff. And
50:00
Speaker 1: since I said interesting stuff, that means it's time friends
50:02
Speaker 1: for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this, uh pomp
50:08
Speaker 1: paii Pompeian lemons. Is that how you would say it? Pompeian? Yeah,
50:14
Speaker 1: I thought that was beautiful. All right, Long time listener,
50:16
Speaker 1: first time emailer. Guys recently listened to the Pompei show.
50:19
Speaker 1: Very informative. Uh. And I used to be a tour
50:22
Speaker 1: guide in Europe and led close to fifteen tours on
50:24
Speaker 1: the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius. I listened to
50:28
Speaker 1: Josh experience with the lemons. They do, in fact grow
50:31
Speaker 1: to be the size of your head. However, those gigantic
50:34
Speaker 1: lemons are actually called cedri and are more for show
50:38
Speaker 1: than anything. They're called cedri the entertainer. If you ever
50:43
Speaker 1: cut one and a half, the inside is actually about
50:46
Speaker 1: the size of a normal lemon. The rind can be
50:48
Speaker 1: a few inches thick, and boy are they better. Definitely
50:52
Speaker 1: not something you keep around for lemonade. Just something I
50:55
Speaker 1: wanted to share. Thanks for ruining everything for me. Uh
50:59
Speaker 1: And also another thought the other day in the car,
51:02
Speaker 1: have you either of you just said no when one
51:06
Speaker 1: of you asked for a commercial break? But it'd be
51:09
Speaker 1: funny if one of you just said, nah, we've come close.
51:14
Speaker 1: Have we have? Haven't we? I don't know. Did not
51:17
Speaker 1: make it into an episode? It might not? Have we have?
51:20
Speaker 1: And we just edited that part out and kept going.
51:23
Speaker 1: I think, well, that is from Matt McDonald, who has
51:26
Speaker 1: a software developer at Neo Cloud. Thanks a lot, Matt, um.
51:30
Speaker 1: I think I was kind of disappointed to read that
51:33
Speaker 1: email originally, but whatever. I guess you gotta just live
51:37
Speaker 1: with reality, right, You've made an enemy today. Uh. If
51:41
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us and ruin
51:43
Speaker 1: our reality like Matt did, you can tweet to us.
51:46
Speaker 1: I met joshuam Clark. There's also an s Y s
51:49
Speaker 1: K podcast Twitter handle. I also have a website called
51:52
Speaker 1: are You Series Clark dot com. Chuck your Friend Chuck
51:55
Speaker 1: is at Facebook dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
51:59
Speaker 1: There's also a book dot com slash Stuff you Should
52:01
Speaker 1: Know site. You can send all of us, including Jerry,
52:04
Speaker 1: an email to stuff podcasts at how stuff Works dot
52:06
Speaker 1: com and has always joined us at our home on
52:08
Speaker 1: the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
52:15
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
52:18
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Mhm