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Short Stuff: Frozen Dead Guy · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave pretending
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: like she did. She does that a lot, and this
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: is short stuff.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: That's right about it.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Frozen body, that's right exactly. There is no way we
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: could do this without that, so thank you for clearing
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: it up right out of the gate.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I feel like we've talked about this festival at some
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: point on maybe it was one of our videos or something.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: We did an episode on Strange Festivals. I'm sure we
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: mentioned this, but I don't remember the story behind it.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: So I made the same frozen body joke.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Let's get into it, you can't not. I think that's
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the town motto.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about a frozen body of a man
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: who in life was called Brado Morstole m r ste
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: L and he was from Norway, and when nineteen eighty
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: nine rolled around, he was a ripe eighty nine years old.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: He'd been living in Norway outside of Oslo for basically
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: his whole life, and his life had been kind of unremarkable.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Apparently he designed city parks, which is a pretty cool job,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: but like he hadn't set the world on fire, and
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I don't really think he cared about that from what
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I understand, although I don't personally know because I don't
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: know him, but suffice to say that when he died
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: in Norway in nineteen eighty nine, it did not make
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: international news. How about that?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Okay? He had a grandson, and I have no idea
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: how to pronounce this trick V. I'm not big on
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: my Norwegian.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: It's really trick v okay.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: And he was really into cryonics in preserving bodies. And
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: this was in nineteen eighty nine when that wasn't and
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: it's still not the most common thing, but it's certainly
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: gained a lot more popularity sure in recent years. But
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: in eighty nine he was he was kind of, you know,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: a groundbreaking guy to try to do something like this
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: on his own, and that is, try to do this
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: on his own and say, hey, granddad, I think we
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: want to preserve you and so so I am going
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: to build a chryonic facility myself. Eventually, I'd like it
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: to be a business, but at least want to get
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: you going because the clock is ticking.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Right, And his grandfather didn't respond because he was dead,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: but trig Vy went ahead with the plans anyway. He
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: had Bredo shipped from Oslo to Oakland. That you know,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: typical route that a dead body follows after you expire.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: And the reason he ended up in Oakland, California is
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: because there was an established cryonic facility there called trans Time,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and for three years that's where Brado's first final resting
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: place was. He was immersed in liquid nitrogen and kept
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: in an extraordinarily cold temperature to preserve him. Because that's
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the point. I mean, we did a whole cryonics episode
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, but this is a brief refresher.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: The point of cryonics is to preserve the living tissue
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: to the degree that if we ever figure out how
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to reanimate dead people, you will be intact when they
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: revive you. These doctors of the future. That's the key,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: and that's that's what trig v wanted to do with
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: his grandfather Brado.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you look up one of these facilities today,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: they'll say, great, you want just the head or the
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: whole body?
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is very interesting.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: So which is speaking of met Granning. That's also sort
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: of a Futurama.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Reference totally like Nixon.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: That's right. And as a reminder, I saw a head
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: in the bucket once. People are talking about that.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Still, that is so crazy.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: So over the course of a few years he got
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: the help of his mom Oud and said, all right,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I'm building this thing out in Colorado, as it turns out,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: a place called Nederland. And it was a legal thing
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: to do at first, but then he applied for a
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: permit and they said, nah, you can't do that, and
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: he said, well, I'm just going to keep doing it
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: anyway illegally. And in nineteen ninety three, so this is
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: four ish years after his granddad had died, they said,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: all right, I think we're okay. We can move him
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: from Oakland into our own sort of home setup in Nederland, Colorado.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: It was a decided step down for Braido. We went
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: from the high life immersed in liquid nitrogen to a
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: makeshift wooden freezer surrounded by foam, rubber and dry ice blocks.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: But apparently it worked. It was good enough for Trigg
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: V and Odd his mom, and so that's where Brado
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: set up. Starting in ninety three, they also decided that
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: they were going to build a structure that could not
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: only keep a cryonic body indefinitely, the structure itself would
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: survive and definitely, So they build a concrete structure. They
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: build it out with studs, and then they stopped there.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And one of the reasons they stopped was because suddenly
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: all of this stuff came to the attention of the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: outside authorities. And I say, we take a break on
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: that and come back and tell the rest of this crazy,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: crazy story. So in nineteen ninety three, Tigby's in his
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: new house in a wooden structure out back. Apparently he
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: was in a blue RII sleeping bag, zipped up, surrounded
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: by foam, foam, rubber, all that, and then outside of
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: all that were the bricks of dry ice, and I
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: guess Trigvy for future handiness labeled which end of the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: sleeping bag was the head, but was later found to
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: have gotten it wrong, which is kind of funny. And
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: they kept it at I think a negative one hundred
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: and ten degrees celsius, which is pretty pretty cold, but
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: from what I read, still inadequate for cryonics. But they
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: kept him that way anyway, and every two weeks they
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: would have to put new dry ice blocks around him,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and they kept doing that and we're planning on doing
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: that indefinitely. And about that time immigration officials sipped into
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: this whole phray.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's kind of the irony of this
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: whole thing is they were, I guess from the naked
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: eye what they thought were preserving him, but they weren't
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: preserving him good enough to ever bring him back to life,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: if that were to ever be a thing.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: That's my understanding of it. Yeah.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So Immigration said, I'm sorry, your visa has run out.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: You have to leave the country. So trigg Vy left
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety four and said, Mom, you gotta take
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: care of your dad there. I'm leaving. He got to
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: switch this dry dry ice out every two weeks and
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: keep that temperature down. And mom was like, all right,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: I got it. And the news got out a little bit.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: This is you know, needle In wasn't the biggest place.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: It probably still isn't the biggest town. And get the
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: feeling that trigg Vy was sort of an eccentric there,
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: ye did.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: The local polar bear plunge tradition.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Awesome, that's fun. So when he got deported, you know,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: there were interviews being done by the local alternative weekly
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: and they got in touch with Mom. During this interview,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: she I get the feeling sort of accidentally set out loud,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: like I wonder what's going to happen with Dad's remains now.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: And then the word was out that there was a
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: frozen dead guy in the town, and eventually that would
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: become a festival called Frozen Dead Guy Days.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because very quickly this story got out of Colorado
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and went around the world, and Nederland decided, hey, we
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: could capitalize on this, like, yes, this is a really
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: weird story, and people think were weirdos for having a
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: guy who had his dead grandfather frozen out back, but
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: let's do something with that. And the Chamber of Commerce
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: came up with Frozen Dead Guy Days starting in two
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: thousand and two, which is, you know, definitely making lemonade
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: out of lemons, I guess you could say. But in
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the meantime there was still the matter of what to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: do with Braido. Right after it was found out that
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Brado was out back, and not only Brado, by the way,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Triggvy had gotten his first paying customer. So Brado and
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: a man named Al Campbell shared that makeshift freezer for
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: a little while, but the Netherlands town council said, we actually,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: like we've got something on the books right, like this
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: is illegal. What they hadn't factored in him is that
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Triggvy was a died in the wool libertarian, the kind
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: of guy who would raised holy heck for arbitrary you know,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: movements or decisions by the government, and he forced that. No,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: it was not very clear what the town's position on
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: keeping a frozen dead body of a relative out back
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: in your house was, and so Brado got grandfathered in,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: even after the town passed a new ordnance saying like
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you can't.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Do that anymore, No pun intended.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Oh grandfathered in. Yeah, it really wasn't, is the sad thing.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: So he's there still, he's allowed to stay, and so
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden he needs a little help taking
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: care of grandpa. He puts out an ad and says,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I need someone to help me take care. You have
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: to like change out this dry ice, check on him,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing. And a guy named Bo Schaffer said,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: I'll do it and so for and not only will
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I do it, he did it for thirty years. He
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: looked over this guy that wasn't even his grandpa bringing
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: in that fresh dry ice, packing him every two weeks,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: making sure he was okay and checking in on him,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: and I think it's pretty remarkable. Eventually that shed needed
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: some work because of a blizzard, and the local rock
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: radio station got involved, and of course, you know, like
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: local rock radio does, they find some kind of weird
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: thing to get behind for some press, and they ended
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: up getting Tough Sheds, the company, which is great, by
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: the way, big fan of Tough Sheds. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I've got one. They're awesome, And they're awesome because they
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: donated this shed free of charge. Also good press for them,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: and of course the radio station painted their you know,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: their logo and stuff on the side of it. So
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: now this guy wait wait.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Wait, not just what their logo was, they you have
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: to say the words that they also painted on this structure.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that was their thing. They were classic rock.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: They painted classic rock on the shed that held Breido's
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: frozen corpse.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they had to take advantage of it. So
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: from that point on, it was, you know, not much
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: of a story. I mean, they had their frozen dead
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: guys festival. Bredo was still there and in twenty twenty,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: I imagine because of COVID, the town Chamber of Commerce
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: went bankrupt. The town kind of fell on harder times,
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: and they sold the rights to that festival to a
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: private entity. And everyone was like, this thing stinks now.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: It's just not the same as it used to be.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it got moved to ST's Park, which is a
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: little ways away, lost the edginess of it, It wasn't
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: rough around the edges anymore, and it lost its spirit
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: according to the people who liked the original version. That
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: was one thing that changed. Another thing that changed around
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: that time is that Trickby started looking for a third
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: final resting place for his grandfather Braido, And in August
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, the town of Nederland found out
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: that their famous Frozen Dead Guy Brado had been moved
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: to SD's Park. Like Frozen Dead Guide Dates had been
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to the Stanley Hotel.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: That Stanley Hotel, the same one that inspired the Shining
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: when Stephen King and his family vacation there. So if
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: you ever hear anyone say you know what the Stanley
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Hotel is known for, right, just kind of throw them
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: off base and say, yeah, they have a cryonics museum
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: and a frozen dead Grandpa.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where Brado is. He's in an exhibit sponsored
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: by alcre one of the leading cryonics companies, and who
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: knows where his next final resting place will be, but
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: that's where you can find him. Now.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I hope this is it, but I have a feeling
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: it won't be.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: No way, not in an exhibit at the Stanley Hotel.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: He's gonna end up somewhere else, and I for one
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: can't wait to see where it is.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I wonder if we should raise some money and see
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: if we can take custody.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like KRFX one oh three point five, the Fox.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: That's how we wait end. That's how we'll do it.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: We're gonna paint classic rock and sysk on whatever we
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: built for him too. I love it, well, Chuck said,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I love it. And you can't really end on a
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: better note than that. So short stuff is apt.
• 12:39
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• 12:42
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• 12:46
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