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Achoo! · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's cabinet of curiosities, a production of IHEART
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  Speaker 1: radio and grim and mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the cabinet of curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: While Steven Spielberg was filming jaws, he met with composer
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  Speaker 1: John Williams to discuss the score. Williams offered to play
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  Speaker 1: for him the theme he had come up with, and
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  Speaker 1: Spielberg couldn't wait to hear it. The director had expected
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  Speaker 1: to hear something melodic and other worldly, the kind of
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  Speaker 1: Song meant to symbolize the majestic terror of a great
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  Speaker 1: white shark. Instead, Spielberg heard only two notes played on
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  Speaker 1: the piano, two notes that started out slow before increasing
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  Speaker 1: in tempo, and you can probably hear those notes now.
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  Speaker 1: In your mind. You can picture a dorsal fin breaking
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  Speaker 1: the surface of the water as it glides toward its
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  Speaker 1: next victim, and if you're listening to this near a
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  Speaker 1: large body of water, your heart rate probably just spiked.
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  Speaker 1: John Williams described it as that combination of sound and
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  Speaker 1: image forming a memory. Music has that effect on us.
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  Speaker 1: We can remember where we were when we first heard
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  Speaker 1: a life changing song or how we felt during the
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  Speaker 1: first dance at our wedding. Even hearing the theme song
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  Speaker 1: to a beloved childhood cartoon can instill a sense of
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  Speaker 1: longing and nostalgia in us, taking us right back to
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  Speaker 1: our living rooms as we scarfed down a bowl of
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  Speaker 1: sugary cereal in front of the TV on a Saturday morning.
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  Speaker 1: But monty didn't know that his music would have the
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  Speaker 1: same effect decades later, especially given its unorthodox origins. He
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  Speaker 1: was born in London in April of Nineteen to Jewish
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  Speaker 1: immigrant parents. His father had been born in Latvia and
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  Speaker 1: moved to England to work as a cabinet maker, while
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  Speaker 1: his mother was a seamstress. As he got older, Monty
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  Speaker 1: took an interest in music, encouraged by his mother, who
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  Speaker 1: presented him with his first guitar when he was just sixteen.
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  Speaker 1: When he got older, Monty enlisted in the Royal Air Force,
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  Speaker 1: where he deepened his musical interests and explored singing as
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  Speaker 1: a career. He worked for a time as a big
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  Speaker 1: band singer in the nineteen fifties, and sixties for band
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  Speaker 1: leaders such as Cyril Stapleton and Nat Temple, before showcasing
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  Speaker 1: his talents in variety shows. He even appeared alongside entertainment
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  Speaker 1: legends like Benny Hill and Peter Sellers. And while he
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  Speaker 1: was making a name for himself on stage, Monty also
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  Speaker 1: worked behind the scenes as a composer and lyricist. He
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  Speaker 1: was particularly skilled at adapting novels into stage musicals. In
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine he turned the nineteen fifty two book
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  Speaker 1: make me an offer by Wolf Mankowitz into a song
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  Speaker 1: and dance production, and in the early sixties he adapted
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  Speaker 1: the novel a House for Mr Bisus by vs Night Paul.
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  Speaker 1: He told the story of a man named Mohan Bisus
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  Speaker 1: from Trinidad and Tobago who was born with an extra finger.
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  Speaker 1: The young boy was prophesied to be a liar and
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  Speaker 1: a spendthrift, as well as a danger to his parents.
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  Speaker 1: His father accidentally died trying to save him from drowning.
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  Speaker 1: This was was moved around from family member to family
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  Speaker 1: member until he grew up and got married. Following the
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  Speaker 1: expectations of others, however, it was his dream to build
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  Speaker 1: himself a house and a life of his own in
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  Speaker 1: which he could lay down roots and be happy. Monty
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  Speaker 1: finished the show, but it never saw the light of day.
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  Speaker 1: It was shelved indefinitely. Sometime later, though, he was contacted
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  Speaker 1: by a pair of movie producers looking to work with him.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't want to film a house for Mr Bisuss,
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  Speaker 1: mind you. They were launching a brand new film franchise
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  Speaker 1: and wanted Monty to write the score for the first installment.
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  Speaker 1: He refused at first, but one of the producers offered
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  Speaker 1: him and his family a free trip to Jamaica, where
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  Speaker 1: the movie was being shot. He relented, happy to get
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  Speaker 1: a vacation out of the deal. One of the key
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  Speaker 1: pieces of music needed for the film was a theme song.
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  Speaker 1: It would be the Lynch pin that held together everything,
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  Speaker 1: influencing the numera, motifs and variations that would be heard
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  Speaker 1: throughout the picture. Unfortunately, monty couldn't come up with anything.
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  Speaker 1: After several false starts, he delved into his archives, rediscovering
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  Speaker 1: one of his favorite compositions. It was a playful song
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  Speaker 1: from his unproduced musical house for Mr Biswas that he
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  Speaker 1: titled Good Sign, bad sign. It's opening lyric. I was
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  Speaker 1: born with this unlucky sneeze was intended to be Sung
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  Speaker 1: over the plux of a Sitar, but the lyrics wouldn't do. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: he took the opening melody and rearranged it as an
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  Speaker 1: instrumental with less whimsical, more mysterious sounds to it. It
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  Speaker 1: was a vast improvement and should have worked well as
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  Speaker 1: a theme song. Sadly, even though the producers saw its potential,
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  Speaker 1: they hated the arrangement. They gave it to another composer
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  Speaker 1: named John Barry, who reworked it to include strings, brassy
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  Speaker 1: trumpets and a Driving Electric Guitar riff that tied it
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  Speaker 1: all together. The producers, Harry Saltzman and Albert Cubby Broccoli,
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  Speaker 1: loved the new version. It was the perfect blend sexy
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  Speaker 1: and enigmatic, the ideal theme to embody their hot new hero,
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  Speaker 1: a British spy ripped from the pages of a popular novel.
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  Speaker 1: Monty Nosurovich, otherwise known as Monty Norman, had taken his
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  Speaker 1: unused musical number and spun it into one of the
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  Speaker 1: most recognized movie theme songs in the world. It's usually
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  Speaker 1: heard over the image of a black and white gun
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  Speaker 1: barrel as a pans across the screen before a single
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  Speaker 1: gunshot causes a shock of red to cover the scene
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  Speaker 1: like a curtain. As John Williams said. It that combination
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  Speaker 1: of sound and image forming a memory, and you can hear.
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  Speaker 1: It's in your mind, can't you, the theme song written
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  Speaker 1: for a legendary fictional character, a man named bond, James Bond.
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  Speaker 1: Excitement used to flood a town when a traveling circus
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  Speaker 1: came to that people would gather from all over to
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  Speaker 1: watch lion tamers and clowns and enormous elephants all put
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  Speaker 1: on a show under a big tent. Whenever the circus arrived,
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  Speaker 1: everyone knew they were in for a good time. Traveling
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  Speaker 1: acts were quite popular during the nineteenth in early twentieth centuries,
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  Speaker 1: especially the unorthodox kinds. Spectators flocked to see all manner
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  Speaker 1: of exhibitions, such as side shows, hoping to catch a
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  Speaker 1: glimpse of something strange or even shocking. But for those
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  Speaker 1: who wanted to witness the face of true horror, they
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  Speaker 1: save their money to see painless Parker. Painless Parker was
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  Speaker 1: born Edgar R R Parker in Brunswick, Canada, in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy two. As a child, he found opportunities to practice
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  Speaker 1: one of his natural talents, salesmanship. He developed the skill
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  Speaker 1: through his life and got his start by convincing a
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  Speaker 1: neighbor to accept some fresh fish from him in exchange
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  Speaker 1: for their hand and some eggs. But Parker would go
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  Speaker 1: on to enroll at the New York College of dentistry
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  Speaker 1: when he was seventeen. Today it's part of N Y
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  Speaker 1: U as The New York University College of Dentistry. Unlike today,
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  Speaker 1: we're dent history as its own discipline, with its own
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  Speaker 1: education and licensing standards. Dentistry in the late eighteen hundreds
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  Speaker 1: was much less regulated. Often dentists were either general physicians
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  Speaker 1: who did it on the side or apprentices who struck
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  Speaker 1: out on their own when they felt that they were
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  Speaker 1: good enough. So Parker, in need of money to put
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  Speaker 1: himself through school, started traveling door to door throughout New
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  Speaker 1: York City offering teeth cleanings for only a dollar or two.
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  Speaker 1: Eventually the Dean heard about Parker's little side hustle and
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  Speaker 1: kicked him out for violating the school's policies. So the
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  Speaker 1: intrepid would be dentists went back to his hometown and
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  Speaker 1: did the same thing up there. Earning money to put
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  Speaker 1: himself through another dental school, this one in Pennsylvania. He
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  Speaker 1: attended Philadelphia Dental College years before it was absorbed into
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  Speaker 1: Temple University, and earned his degree. Barely diploma in hand,
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  Speaker 1: Parker struck out on his own and opened his own practice.
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  Speaker 1: If only he could attract some new patients. Six weeks
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  Speaker 1: went by and only a few patients had walked through
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  Speaker 1: his door. So Park decided to think outside the box.
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  Speaker 1: He closed down his office and put it on wheels,
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  Speaker 1: kick starting a traveling operation. In he mounted his dental
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  Speaker 1: chair onto a horse drawn wagon, hired a cornet player
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  Speaker 1: and traveled from city to city performing feats of dental
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  Speaker 1: deftness for the public. And did it work? Surprisingly yes,
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  Speaker 1: but it wasn't only because he made the science of
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  Speaker 1: dentistry a spectacle, nor was it the Cornet player who
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  Speaker 1: blared from the back of the wagon to coax people
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  Speaker 1: into the chair. Now, it was because Parker had advertised
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  Speaker 1: his services as painless. People didn't go to the dentists
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  Speaker 1: regularly back then because they thought it would hurt too much.
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  Speaker 1: But painless Parker, as he called himself, wanted to change that.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, his methods would be frowned upon today, but
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  Speaker 1: back then they certainly did. The trick. Parker like to
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  Speaker 1: use a special solution he called Hydro Kane to numb
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  Speaker 1: the person's mouth before the procedure, and it's secret ingredient
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  Speaker 1: is hidden right there in the name cocaine. His shows
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  Speaker 1: often followed the same routine to Parker would roll into
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  Speaker 1: town and lure a big crowd around him. He would
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  Speaker 1: lecture them on proper oral hygiene and then make them
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  Speaker 1: an offer. He would remove any of their offending teeth
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  Speaker 1: for fifty cents apiece painlessly. If they felt any discomfort,
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  Speaker 1: he would give them a five dollar refund. The patients
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  Speaker 1: then lined up to sit in his chair, at which
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  Speaker 1: time he would apply his special hydrocane solution and go
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  Speaker 1: to town on their rotting teeth. The live band played
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  Speaker 1: as Parker and his players got to work. The music
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  Speaker 1: wasn't just to announce his arrival in town either. It
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  Speaker 1: distracted the person sitting in the chair and covered the
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  Speaker 1: sounds of their screams. He once made a necklace out
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  Speaker 1: of three hundred and fifty seven teeth that he had
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  Speaker 1: pulled after one day's work. It's currently on display at
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  Speaker 1: Temple University's Cornburg School of Dentistry and is exactly as
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  Speaker 1: terrifying and creepy as you think it is. After a while, though,
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  Speaker 1: parker ran into problems. For one, advertising dental services at
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  Speaker 1: that time was frowned upon and several times he found
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  Speaker 1: himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit. He also
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  Speaker 1: came persona non grata back in New Brunswick and was
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  Speaker 1: run out of town. Parker eventually moved to New York
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  Speaker 1: with his family to try and build back his business.
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  Speaker 1: Low on money and rich in desperation, he reached out
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  Speaker 1: to someone who knew a thing or two about advertising,
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  Speaker 1: William Beebe an ex employee of P T barnum. With
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  Speaker 1: BEAB's guidance, Parker added a six piece band and a
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  Speaker 1: circus tumbler to his show. He also advertised a lot more,
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  Speaker 1: putting up signs on the sides of buildings with catchy
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  Speaker 1: taglines like pains and pangs. Positively prevented, and it seems
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  Speaker 1: to have worked painless. Parker became quite successful in his
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  Speaker 1: dental career. By the time he hung up his pliers,
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  Speaker 1: he had launched his own product line and owned a
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  Speaker 1: chain of twenty eight offices with more than seventy dentists
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  Speaker 1: in his employee his income topped three million dollars per year,
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  Speaker 1: but that hadn't been his ultimate goal. Sure, the money
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  Speaker 1: was welcome, but painless. Parker was more interested in preaching
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  Speaker 1: proper oral hygiene techniques. He wanted people to take care
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  Speaker 1: of their teeth, especially in rural and poorer areas where
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  Speaker 1: such a thing wasn't often practiced. was He unconventional in
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  Speaker 1: his methods? For sure. But you try getting someone to
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  Speaker 1: go to the dentist when they don't want to. It's
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  Speaker 1: almost like pulling teeth. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the cabinet of curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: curiosities PODCAST DOT COM. The show was created by me,
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Manky, in partnership with how stuff works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series and Television Show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the world of Lore Dot Com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Ye