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That Time Germany Got Obsessed With Polar Bear Photos · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. We are, as we often do,
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Speaker 1: coming to you. Live sort of from Atlanta, Georgia, the
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Speaker 1: home of Coca Cola, which is a controversial company. It's
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Speaker 1: one of the largest plastic polluters in the world, according
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Speaker 1: to several recent studies. It's also responsible for our, uh like,
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Speaker 1: our cultural image of Santa Claus in the West. It's
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Speaker 1: also responsible for popularizing polar bears in a very endearing way. Hi,
0:55
Speaker 1: I'm Ben, Hey Ben, I'm no all. Basically, Cocola invented
0:59
Speaker 1: Santa Clause essentially for all intents and purposes, right, the
1:03
Speaker 1: visual of it. Yeah, I think that's just bonkers, Like
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Speaker 1: how far reaching marketing is. Like it just like a
1:10
Speaker 1: company that old has the power to literally change the
1:13
Speaker 1: course of like the Zepe guys and the way people
1:16
Speaker 1: view a mythological figure. That's what I love about the
1:19
Speaker 1: Coca Cola Museum. They're transparent about it. They're pretty much like,
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Speaker 1: this was Santa Claus beforehand, and then we got involved.
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Speaker 1: When was the last time you went to the Cocola
1:29
Speaker 1: Museum been, Oh, it's it's been a number of years.
1:32
Speaker 1: That they've done some extensive retrofitting or renovations, rather than yeah,
1:36
Speaker 1: when's the last of you went. I think I went
1:38
Speaker 1: on a school trip when I was a kid. I
1:40
Speaker 1: just remember there's the rum where you can taste all
1:41
Speaker 1: of the coke products from around the world at the
1:45
Speaker 1: very end, and the worst one for anyone who hasn't
1:47
Speaker 1: been there yet, the worst one is an Italian Uh
1:51
Speaker 1: did you Steve called Beverly? What does it taste like?
1:54
Speaker 1: It tastes like crime, you know, really, yeah, punishment, It's
1:59
Speaker 1: a crime in your mouth. Okay. Is this sort of
2:01
Speaker 1: like a ma Lord or like, you know, like like
2:04
Speaker 1: an herbal kind of vibe? Yeah, I think it's a
2:08
Speaker 1: it's an herbal vibe. Excuse me, it's not just Steve.
2:12
Speaker 1: It's an appertif, I say so, turn that on its
2:15
Speaker 1: head and as if. Is it fizzy? Yeah, it's carbonated.
2:18
Speaker 1: It's a soft drink. And you know, an appertif is
2:20
Speaker 1: something you drink before meal to help you digest. Right.
2:24
Speaker 1: It has been described as tasting of grapefruit rind leaning
2:28
Speaker 1: into the bitter. That's what Malord tastes like. Oh, okay,
2:31
Speaker 1: the Lord is like the Chicago the famous Chicago. Uh,
2:35
Speaker 1: liquor liquor. Ye, people love it in Chicago and sort
2:40
Speaker 1: of like a rite of passage for folks visiting or
2:43
Speaker 1: folks moving there to try it. And it's very grapefruity,
2:46
Speaker 1: but like absurdly heavy on the better tell you, uh,
2:49
Speaker 1: someone else that Chicago loves. That's a super producer, Casey
2:53
Speaker 1: Pegram and he loves Chicago. I love the deep dish pizza.
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Speaker 1: Yeah it's good, I said, Pets. Yeahzza, your Southern boy
3:02
Speaker 1: really came out there deep dish pizza. Um, probably just
3:06
Speaker 1: because you know, I only end up in Chicago once
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Speaker 1: every decade or so, so that's a pretty good pace
3:12
Speaker 1: for the deep dish I think. Um, I mean, I
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Speaker 1: genuinely enjoy it, but I couldn't eat it like all
3:17
Speaker 1: the time. Oh no, I kill you. Your heart would explode. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: what's the best deep dish pizza in Chicago? I had
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Speaker 1: a lou loumin al lose something um oh no, no, no,
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Speaker 1: I had um Georgana's organ is what I had? Georgano's
3:33
Speaker 1: is well known. Yeah, I've had that before. Chicago listeners
3:36
Speaker 1: right in and tell us your favorite Chicago deep dish
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Speaker 1: pizza joint. We were dying to know Philly listeners right
3:42
Speaker 1: in and tell me your favorite Philly cheese steak. I
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Speaker 1: feel way more comfortable asking people, not on stage, asking
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Speaker 1: from the safety of a studio. But we're not talking
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Speaker 1: about cheese steaks, nor Deep dish pizzas, nor Chicago. Um.
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Speaker 1: We let off talking about Coca Cola. We talked a
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Speaker 1: little bit about Santa Claus to lead a bit with
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Speaker 1: polar bears. Yeah, that's where I was setting us up. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: polar bears. So if you are in the West and
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Speaker 1: familiar with things like TVs or advertisements, then you have
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Speaker 1: probably seen the famous Coca Cola polar Bear. It's very
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Speaker 1: prominent three D animation now, but the polar Bear actually
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Speaker 1: dates back to nineteen twenty two. It's a very old
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Speaker 1: Coca Cola ad and they're they're advertising is super effective.
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Speaker 1: Oddly enough, around the time this was being invented, UH,
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Speaker 1: Coca Cola was not alone in their obsession with polar bears.
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Speaker 1: It turns out that across the pond in Germany, the
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Speaker 1: German people for several decades had an obsession with polar
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Speaker 1: bears themselves, not just polar bears, but specifically dudes wearing
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Speaker 1: polar bear costumes. Yeah, and just really quick. The first
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Speaker 1: advertisement featuring the Cocola polar Bear, or at least one
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Speaker 1: of from from nine two, as you said, is a
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Speaker 1: polar bear, uh, sitting kind of on his back, haunches
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Speaker 1: in a in a ice mound, um with some Coca
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Speaker 1: Cola is on ice and said mound, and he or
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Speaker 1: she is feeding Dare I say, squirting a bottle of
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Speaker 1: coke into the mouth of the sun, right, which uh,
5:26
Speaker 1: Megan the Stallion would for any hip hop fans would
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Speaker 1: call driving the boat. Is that a thing? Yeah, when
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Speaker 1: you pour a drink into someone's mouth. Yeah, from what
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Speaker 1: I could tell, it's when it's when that MC pour
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Speaker 1: shots into people's mouths and it's become a thing. Case here,
5:42
Speaker 1: you're aware of this. I am not aware of this.
5:45
Speaker 1: Well maybe maybe we're not plugged in enough, but yes, yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's very for anybody's fan of hip hop. Looked up
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Speaker 1: that poster Noel described. I think the one we found
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Speaker 1: is in French, but it's very much the picture. He
5:55
Speaker 1: did great job describing that. So that's one of the
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Speaker 1: reasons that this whole polar bear obsession hit. Another one,
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Speaker 1: possibly the more close to home. Reason was that in
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Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties there was a family of polar bears,
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Speaker 1: live polar bears that were sent to the Berlin Zoo,
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Speaker 1: and folks got really jazzed about it, and the zoo
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Speaker 1: um decided they wanted to really lean into this, and
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Speaker 1: so they dressed up a man in a polar bear
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Speaker 1: suit and had him, you know, posed like you do
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Speaker 1: there like the Atlanta Aquarium, they've got a person in
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Speaker 1: a penguin suit because the penguins are are a big
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Speaker 1: attraction there. Um. But you would get these commemorative photos
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Speaker 1: and these things were like printing money because at the time, UM,
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Speaker 1: folks didn't really have their own cameras, they weren't portable,
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Speaker 1: so to get one of these photographs was kind of
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Speaker 1: a big deal. And photography was experiencing a tremendous moment
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Speaker 1: here in the interwar years of Germany, and there were cabarets,
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Speaker 1: so many amazing automobile races and so on, and people
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Speaker 1: posing with polar bears, fake or real. Was was part
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Speaker 1: of this. I like that you point out that there
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Speaker 1: was not the proliferation of photographic technology that we are
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Speaker 1: so fortunate to experience today. Instead, people would go to
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Speaker 1: a professional photographer. Having a camera at this point was
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Speaker 1: a way to make a living. Just possessing that technology
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Speaker 1: could gain you entry into a livelihood. What's weird about
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Speaker 1: these polar Bear photos is that it went beyond the zoo, Right,
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Speaker 1: it makes sense for people to get a photograph of
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Speaker 1: the mascot or maybe the actual polar bears in the background,
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Speaker 1: But soon enough these photos began proliferating outside of the
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Speaker 1: zoo and there were no set patterns. You would see
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Speaker 1: people in swimsuits on the beach and then some dude
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Speaker 1: in a polar Bear costume with them, uh, polar Bear
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Speaker 1: with people of fancy parties, are hanging with the military.
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Speaker 1: And it went across all demographics, all classes, generations, and
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Speaker 1: so on. It's weird because most of these photos, and
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Speaker 1: you can see several examples online, most of these photos
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Speaker 1: are not only black and white, but they're close up,
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Speaker 1: so it's kind of difficult to guess exactly where they
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Speaker 1: were taken. But we have some clues, and we have
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Speaker 1: some lovely firsthand accounts that we are getting from a
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Speaker 1: blog called German Girl in America dot com, a young
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Speaker 1: woman recounting some of her memories as a child, and
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Speaker 1: this was something that was very much part of that experience.
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Speaker 1: Her name is Karen Ann. By the way, recommend checking
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Speaker 1: out her blog Lots of cool stuff about German culture
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Speaker 1: and history. Um And it's true, Uh, they were. They
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Speaker 1: became very popular attractions at vacation destinations. Resorts in a
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Speaker 1: town called ker were very popular and a gentleman by
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Speaker 1: the name of Carl bitter Ling in rugen Um created
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Speaker 1: his own version of this in his photography studio that
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Speaker 1: was specifically set up to stage these polar bear photographs
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Speaker 1: for folks that were there on holiday. And he would
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Speaker 1: get about five marks per um one of these photo setups,
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Speaker 1: and that was that was no no, no chump change
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Speaker 1: at the time. Right. And what I love about this
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Speaker 1: this blog is that our author goes on to say,
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Speaker 1: especially for notoriously frugal Germans, I guess you can say
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Speaker 1: that German girl in America dot com. I don't know
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Speaker 1: if we can. I don't know if I don't know
9:27
Speaker 1: if I feel comfortable going to a European stereotype. But
9:31
Speaker 1: I do feel comfortable exploring the weird history of Coca Cola.
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Speaker 1: It's very much from our native land so we have
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Speaker 1: that first theory about the zoo, right and the pair
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Speaker 1: of polar bears that that come to this German zoo.
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Speaker 1: We have this other theory that you can see proposing
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Speaker 1: in a number of different places that says these polar
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Speaker 1: bear outfits. This craze came out of an advertising campaign
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Speaker 1: for Fanta. As you know, Fantas was created as a
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Speaker 1: replacement soda during World War Two because there were Coca
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Speaker 1: Cola syrup shortages in Germany. I did not know that well.
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Speaker 1: Fanta is made from apple fiber and a couple of
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Speaker 1: other fruit syrups that were easier to get together. Let's
10:16
Speaker 1: look at the timeline. As we said at the top,
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Speaker 1: Coca Cola used a polar bear for ads back in
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Speaker 1: nineteen two, and Fanta wanted people to think of Fanta
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Speaker 1: when they think of Coca Cola, so they asked the
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Speaker 1: Stiff company to make a polar bear costume, and the
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Speaker 1: bear would pose with regular people doing regular things, and
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Speaker 1: it became this sort of reminder of what life after
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Speaker 1: wartime could be. Things could be normal again. And then,
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Speaker 1: of course, because people connect Coca Cola with a polar bear,
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Speaker 1: they see a polar bear and they see a Fanta,
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Speaker 1: you know, logo or can and then they they associate
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Speaker 1: the two and all of a sudden, Fanta becomes like
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Speaker 1: a stand in for coke. That was their mission. It's
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Speaker 1: funny we think of Fanta in the States is pretty
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Speaker 1: exclusively orange, an orange drink. There's a great fantasis, right.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, when I think of fantasy, I typically think
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Speaker 1: of orange soda. And it wasn't that. That's not where
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Speaker 1: its roots began at once another orange soda crush, Maybe
11:18
Speaker 1: that's it, slice maybe? Yeah, Yeah, there were a few.
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Speaker 1: There were a few orange sodas really like orange gina. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I was mispronouncing it for a year or two. Possibly.
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Speaker 1: Friend didn't tell me this was in this was in X.
11:35
Speaker 1: But we didn't break up due to the my mispronunciation
11:39
Speaker 1: of orangina. I'm I'm not gonna give the mispronunciation on
11:44
Speaker 1: the air, but you will all know what I was
11:46
Speaker 1: accidentally saying, uh speaking of segways, uh nineteen thirty three.
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Speaker 1: Al Right, we're talking about the interwar years in Germany.
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Speaker 1: And even if we talk about something that's cute and
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Speaker 1: innocuous as polar bears, we all know who is going
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Speaker 1: to show up that's right, Hitler. Yeah, yeah, he's always
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Speaker 1: lurking just around the corner and these cute stories. Um.
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Speaker 1: In nine three, when the Nazis assumed power, a man
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Speaker 1: by the name of Max Kite spelled like Keith but
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Speaker 1: pronounced kite Um. He took over the German subsidiary of
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Speaker 1: Coca Cola UM, and he decided to score some points
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Speaker 1: with you know, the Nazis, UM by really leaning into
12:29
Speaker 1: uh Coca Cola as like a lifestyle thing and emphasizing
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Speaker 1: this German way of life, which of course included uh
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Speaker 1: Nazi rule, arianism, all that jazz. Yeah. And here's the thing.
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Speaker 1: Back in the States, the Coca Cola Company, which was
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Speaker 1: led by Robert Woodroffe at the time, did not discourage
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Speaker 1: this at all. They kind of tacitly approved of it.
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Speaker 1: And we're getting some of this information from a fantastic
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Speaker 1: Atlas Obscura article called how Fanta was Created for Na
13:00
Speaker 1: Germany by Matthew Blitz. I cannot say enough good things
13:05
Speaker 1: about Atlas Obscura. I love it. They've got a hard
13:07
Speaker 1: back out about the hard Back, and it's great. It's
13:10
Speaker 1: great reading, really really great. So here's what goes down
13:14
Speaker 1: as we know, history buffs. On December seven, Japan bombed
13:20
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor. The US enters World War two, And when
13:24
Speaker 1: the US enters World War two, that means that legally speaking,
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Speaker 1: all American companies have to cut all business activities with
13:31
Speaker 1: the enemies with Germany. So Coca Cola headquarters here in
13:36
Speaker 1: Atlanta followed the letter of the law. They cut off
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Speaker 1: communications with Mr Kite in Germany, and they stopped exporting
13:45
Speaker 1: their seven X flavoring. And the flavoring is like this syrup, right,
13:49
Speaker 1: and you add the carbonation and the water later when
13:53
Speaker 1: you're making a coke, and that is the famous secret ingredients. Supposedly,
13:57
Speaker 1: like only a couple of executives have it and they
13:59
Speaker 1: can be part of it exactly be on the same
14:03
Speaker 1: plane at the same time. I think that's accurate. That's right. Um.
14:06
Speaker 1: But yeah, so I mean basically, uh, Coca Cola g
14:10
Speaker 1: M b H is what it was called. Um was
14:13
Speaker 1: left cold and there was the threat of the Nazis
14:17
Speaker 1: actually seizing taking control of the company. But he had
14:20
Speaker 1: a brilliant idea that that just might save his company.
14:24
Speaker 1: Because again it's a subsidiary, right, so it's like a
14:26
Speaker 1: franchise kind of or how would you consider that. I mean,
14:28
Speaker 1: obviously they were working in league with the Americans, but
14:32
Speaker 1: he was sort of independent and there was probably some
14:35
Speaker 1: licensing fees that he paid, right, But the infrastructure, the factory,
14:39
Speaker 1: the bottling apparatus and so on, that's technology that is
14:45
Speaker 1: now solely in his possession until the Nazi Party nationalizes it.
14:50
Speaker 1: And just because the businesses have cut ties, it doesn't
14:55
Speaker 1: mean that these factories are this manufacturing capacity goes away. Hmm.
15:04
Speaker 1: So here's what Kite does. It's it's pretty clever. He
15:07
Speaker 1: gets together with his chemists, his eggheads and stuff, and
15:10
Speaker 1: he says, let's take what we can find here in
15:13
Speaker 1: the midst of this horrible war, and let's try to
15:18
Speaker 1: using those ingredients in those constraints. Let's try to get
15:22
Speaker 1: as close to coke as we can in terms of taste.
15:26
Speaker 1: Here's what they were left with, though this is uh
15:29
Speaker 1: a story of ingenuity. There's some geiver action going on here.
15:32
Speaker 1: They essentially took the leftovers of other food manufacturers. So
15:38
Speaker 1: fruit shavings, leftover apple fibers, and pulp um beat sugar,
15:43
Speaker 1: even a cheese by product. Did you see that part
15:46
Speaker 1: that gives me the Williams, you're you're not into cheese
15:49
Speaker 1: soda and and this is we we tease this earlier
15:53
Speaker 1: in the episode, but this was the makings of fanta
15:56
Speaker 1: and he got that from the shorthand for the German
15:59
Speaker 1: word for fantasy, and it it did quite well. So
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Speaker 1: Fanta was from the very beginning a German invention. And
16:07
Speaker 1: even though he was doing this in step with the
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Speaker 1: Nazi Party, after the end of World War Two here
16:16
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Mr Kite was hailed as a hero from
16:20
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic because he had kept the fires burning
16:24
Speaker 1: for Coca Cola and Germany. How do you think that
16:26
Speaker 1: worked with profits at the time, you know, I think
16:29
Speaker 1: they were just glad that the factory didn't get bombed.
16:31
Speaker 1: I think that's probably true. And then they they they
16:33
Speaker 1: had somewhere to start back over once uh, you know,
16:37
Speaker 1: once the war A war ended and the Nazis were defeated,
16:39
Speaker 1: it would be it would be really tough to be
16:41
Speaker 1: an accountant for international corporation at that time. You know,
16:45
Speaker 1: I can only imagine so Coke's VP of sales at
16:49
Speaker 1: the time as a fellow named Harrison Jones, and Harrison
16:53
Speaker 1: Jones is over the moon about Mr kite, and he says,
16:56
Speaker 1: you know, he's a great man, who knows how he
16:59
Speaker 1: did it. He prated in the trenches. Uh, he is
17:04
Speaker 1: our pick. He He shouldn't just be in charge of
17:07
Speaker 1: this company in Germany, he should be in command of
17:11
Speaker 1: all of Coca Cola in Europe. Yeah, it's true. And UM,
17:14
Speaker 1: that original recipe, which obviously was made in dire circumstances,
17:20
Speaker 1: you know, under duress, with kind of whatever they could
17:22
Speaker 1: get their hands on. UM decided not to stick with
17:26
Speaker 1: the cheese beat juice soda and they went for what
17:30
Speaker 1: we now know as the orange Fanta, which is kind
17:33
Speaker 1: of just classic Fanta, right, And it made a huge
17:36
Speaker 1: splash in Italy and then came to the US in
17:40
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight. Yep, apparently they revived the name Fanta
17:46
Speaker 1: because it was already kind of a sunk cost. You
17:49
Speaker 1: know that we we'd already put in the leg work.
17:51
Speaker 1: I say we. By we, I mean the company that
17:55
Speaker 1: was doing this way before I was born. They had
17:58
Speaker 1: already had name record nition, which is one of the toughest,
18:01
Speaker 1: most important things to get, and Coca Cola, of course
18:04
Speaker 1: already had the copyright. So this polar bear that's showing
18:10
Speaker 1: up in the pre wartime Coca Cola ads, and this
18:13
Speaker 1: polar bear that's showing up in the German interwar and
18:18
Speaker 1: wartime ads. Uh, it becomes this symbol for the aspirational
18:24
Speaker 1: non wartime life, you know what I mean. Even though
18:28
Speaker 1: there's death and destruction and fire raining down from the sky,
18:33
Speaker 1: people get this comfort of warm, fuzzy feeling when they
18:38
Speaker 1: pose with a drink and furry friend, whether a real
18:41
Speaker 1: polar bear honestly dude in costume. I don't know if
18:44
Speaker 1: you guys ever saw this. I may have sent it
18:46
Speaker 1: to you before. One of my favorite ad campaigns of
18:50
Speaker 1: the past several years is for an Egyptian cheese. It's
18:55
Speaker 1: like made out of hesh. I can't remember what's called. Oh,
18:58
Speaker 1: it's panda panda cheese. And the commercials are a series
19:02
Speaker 1: of vignettes where there's a incredibly violent panda. Have you
19:06
Speaker 1: seen these? I gotta send them. They're gonna make your day. Also,
19:09
Speaker 1: Eden will love them because they're they're that kind of
19:12
Speaker 1: anti humor that that the young folks dig. Oh yeah,
19:16
Speaker 1: she's she's definitely an't got that absurdist sense of humor
19:18
Speaker 1: for sure. So this polar bear I know we got
19:21
Speaker 1: a little sidetracked into the story of Fanta, but don't
19:24
Speaker 1: don't worry. We we are getting back to the polar bear.
19:27
Speaker 1: And here's how, because you see, it turns out that
19:31
Speaker 1: we as a species were very close to completely forgetting
19:37
Speaker 1: the mysterious trend of polar bear photos in Germany. In fact,
19:42
Speaker 1: this may have been lost to history entirely were it
19:45
Speaker 1: not for a single French photo collector, yeah man by
19:49
Speaker 1: the name of Jean Marie Donna Casey. Yeah, Casey on
19:54
Speaker 1: the case. But I did an okay job to start with.
19:58
Speaker 1: But it's nice to have It's nice to have confirmation,
20:01
Speaker 1: Like Ronald Reagan said, trust but verify. Indeed, so this uh,
20:04
Speaker 1: this photo collector started coming across these images. There were
20:09
Speaker 1: tons of them, photos taken on the streets all around Germany,
20:13
Speaker 1: particularly in the capital of Berlin, and he was fascinated
20:17
Speaker 1: by just how strange this whole phenomenon was and then
20:21
Speaker 1: wanted to know why, you know, what was going on
20:23
Speaker 1: here that led to this? So he knew there was
20:26
Speaker 1: a bigger story, and he collected these photos in a
20:30
Speaker 1: book called Teddy Bar No Teddy Beer because it's an
20:33
Speaker 1: oom loud over day. So it's Teddy Beierre. So it
20:36
Speaker 1: sounds like an Ikea product. It absolutely does. And Ben,
20:40
Speaker 1: we were talking a little bit off air about how
20:42
Speaker 1: kind of terrifying and surreal these photos are. Didn't age, Well,
20:47
Speaker 1: it's weird because I'm I'm really into it and strange
20:49
Speaker 1: We're doing an audio podcasts about this bear. The bear
20:53
Speaker 1: costumes all looks sort of similar. But the thing that
20:56
Speaker 1: makes it weird, I think, is that the bear has
20:58
Speaker 1: beady little eyes. Clearly the person wearing the costume is
21:02
Speaker 1: seen out of the mouth or maybe just under the jaw,
21:05
Speaker 1: and the bear's mouth is always open with these prominent fangs.
21:09
Speaker 1: So it's got like dead Kirsten dunn sties and it's
21:13
Speaker 1: got this cavernous, carnivorous mouth. What do you have against
21:17
Speaker 1: Kirston dunst Ees. Nothing. I just think the dead eyes. Yeah,
21:20
Speaker 1: I don't think there's much feeling. I've never heard that
21:23
Speaker 1: said before. I'll have to take a look next time
21:25
Speaker 1: I watched one of her movies. I'm not saying it's
21:26
Speaker 1: a bad thing. It's a great thing for an actor,
21:28
Speaker 1: especially in interview with a vampire. That's true. That's true.
21:32
Speaker 1: She was a creepy vampire child. But now there are
21:34
Speaker 1: dozens of these photos and I highly recommend. There's an
21:37
Speaker 1: article on Vice called Polar Bears and black Face. Jean
21:40
Speaker 1: Marie donat Is collected over ten thousand creepy old photos. Actually,
21:44
Speaker 1: Jean Marei donat Is interviewed for this piece. Yeah, and
21:48
Speaker 1: I would say the polar bear photos or that collection,
21:52
Speaker 1: I would say that's definitely the more comfortable of the two, agree,
21:56
Speaker 1: because black face has such a is you know, black
21:58
Speaker 1: faces and atrocity of course, of course, but that's also
22:02
Speaker 1: a really interesting snapshot of Germany during a really surreal
22:07
Speaker 1: and strange transitional period. Like some of these photos, for example,
22:10
Speaker 1: there's one here I'm seeing with two Nazi s S
22:13
Speaker 1: officers posing with a quite horrific bear. Um reminds me
22:18
Speaker 1: of the dude and the dog costume and uh in
22:21
Speaker 1: the shining a little bit. Yeah, there's there's also pictures
22:24
Speaker 1: of children wearing Nazi regalia. There's one with a girl
22:29
Speaker 1: who's sitting on a Polar bears lap, sort of the
22:33
Speaker 1: way kids was sent on Santa's lap or the Easter
22:35
Speaker 1: Bunny's lap. And also I have to wonder too, am
22:38
Speaker 1: I the only one who thinks that all of those
22:41
Speaker 1: old photos with animal costumes are creepy. I haven't seen
22:45
Speaker 1: one that doesn't look creepy. Like have you ever seen
22:47
Speaker 1: the old nineteen fifties pictures of the Easter bunny horrific
22:52
Speaker 1: or even just Halloween costumes in general? They they look
22:55
Speaker 1: very demonic and like the kind of thing you'd see
22:57
Speaker 1: in like Texas chainsaw massacre or something. It's it's very,
23:00
Speaker 1: very very unsettling stuff. And this book, which is a tome,
23:06
Speaker 1: it's two hunter pages. It shows the bears with everyone
23:11
Speaker 1: that we have mentioned, including the Nazi soldiers and stuff,
23:14
Speaker 1: and the time frame of the book goes from about
23:17
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties to the nineteen sixties. There's also a
23:22
Speaker 1: think piece from a philosopher named Klaus Peter Spadel who
23:28
Speaker 1: adds some context to this, and he says that, well, well,
23:33
Speaker 1: it's weird. He does. He does sort of a thought
23:34
Speaker 1: exercise is probably the best way to describe it, where
23:37
Speaker 1: he tries to imagine the perspective of the people in
23:41
Speaker 1: the costumes, these German interwar elmos, that's kind of what
23:46
Speaker 1: they were, you know what I mean? Like if you
23:48
Speaker 1: go to Times Square in New York. They're all these
23:50
Speaker 1: sketchy it's it's almost a trope here. There's sketchy elmos
23:54
Speaker 1: that will come up to you, maybe smelling a booze
23:57
Speaker 1: or maybe just trying to support their acting rears, and
24:00
Speaker 1: they'll they'll try to get a picture with you and
24:02
Speaker 1: charge you for Yeah. And some of the folks that
24:04
Speaker 1: are in these uh, these costumes are really leaning into
24:06
Speaker 1: like the I Am a polar bear vibe and they're
24:09
Speaker 1: actually crawling on all fours and doing that kind of
24:11
Speaker 1: gir tiger hand you know what I mean, that whole thing. Um.
24:14
Speaker 1: Some of these are very very strange and uh and
24:17
Speaker 1: disturbing images. But again, such a fascinating look into this
24:21
Speaker 1: time period in this history. So we have one big
24:24
Speaker 1: question though, whether it started due to Fanta or whether
24:28
Speaker 1: it started due to the polar bears at the zoo.
24:31
Speaker 1: I bet both played a role. Why did it stick
24:34
Speaker 1: around for almost half a century? Like why why did
24:37
Speaker 1: the polar bear thing become a thing? And then why
24:41
Speaker 1: did it die when it did? I don't know. Germans
24:44
Speaker 1: just in general are really fond of a good gimmick,
24:47
Speaker 1: you know, they have a hard time letting it go.
24:50
Speaker 1: Um again from that from that wonderful German girl in
24:53
Speaker 1: America blog. First of all, I love this polar bear
24:56
Speaker 1: in German is ice ba e I s b a are.
25:00
Speaker 1: And by the way, UM, one of those famous polar
25:02
Speaker 1: bears at the Berlin Zoom who was absolutely beloved was
25:06
Speaker 1: Canute the polar bear, who UM sadly died of a
25:10
Speaker 1: mysterious autoimmune disease um that has only been known to
25:16
Speaker 1: occur in humans, and this was only just recently solved. Yeah,
25:22
Speaker 1: people identified with these creatures and anthropomorphized them to no
25:26
Speaker 1: small degree, and so that was that was part of it.
25:29
Speaker 1: This comfort right, who doesn't want to be friends with
25:32
Speaker 1: a cool Ursus maritimus, which is the scientific name for
25:37
Speaker 1: polar bear. I love that. And it's so crazy how
25:39
Speaker 1: we can kind of track the specially thanks to the
25:43
Speaker 1: exhaustive work done by um our photo collector friend or
25:47
Speaker 1: not um. The last dated photo that we have of
25:52
Speaker 1: of someone posing with the polar bear was at an
25:54
Speaker 1: October fest from nineteen sixty two. Because this trend kind
25:59
Speaker 1: of faded a and while we cannot concretely, definitively trace
26:04
Speaker 1: the death of the polar bear photo trend to a
26:07
Speaker 1: single cause, we do have one very very good guess,
26:11
Speaker 1: and it goes back to technology. Just like we said
26:14
Speaker 1: in the beginning, uh, cameras were very uncommon. They were
26:18
Speaker 1: not a thing that the average person would have in
26:21
Speaker 1: their wallet or in their satchel for their stick and
26:24
Speaker 1: bindle their valise. I'm just naming old containers. They wouldn't
26:29
Speaker 1: have a camera in their Cameras were specialized gear for
26:32
Speaker 1: a certain trade. But by the nineteen sixties, cameras are
26:38
Speaker 1: becoming more and more common. People have their own cameras.
26:41
Speaker 1: They don't have to pay for souvenirs, you know. So
26:45
Speaker 1: now these novelty photograph studios are having a tougher time.
26:50
Speaker 1: Why would I pay three to five marks to stand
26:53
Speaker 1: next to a polar bear when I have my own
26:56
Speaker 1: camera and just take a picture of the kids and
26:58
Speaker 1: the spouse by my health, That's absolutely true, um, And
27:02
Speaker 1: I think one thing that is interesting to talk about
27:06
Speaker 1: is the whole You know, people really have strong feelings
27:09
Speaker 1: about zoos one way or the other. I tend to
27:12
Speaker 1: be more okay with them if the animals couldn't survive
27:16
Speaker 1: in the wild, which I have been told is the
27:19
Speaker 1: case that the Atlanta Zoo for most of the animals
27:21
Speaker 1: that are there, but apparently um. According to the German
27:25
Speaker 1: Animal Welfare Association, polar bears shouldn't be kept in zoos
27:29
Speaker 1: at all, largely because of how far they like to travel. Right.
27:36
Speaker 1: Polar bears have a huge, huge range, a huge territory,
27:40
Speaker 1: and that's how they evolved to survive. Do you want
27:48
Speaker 1: to know what I think about zoos vampire rules? You
27:50
Speaker 1: have to invite me in, uh and you have so
27:53
Speaker 1: some people call zoo's animal jail. That's that's something that
27:57
Speaker 1: I've heard here at the Atlanta Zoo. They do a
28:00
Speaker 1: lot of good work, um, but there's there's a price
28:04
Speaker 1: to pay. So the merchandise and stuff that they'll sell
28:07
Speaker 1: at a lot of western zoos goes directly into conservation efforts.
28:12
Speaker 1: For a time, I don't know if this is true anymore,
28:14
Speaker 1: but for a time, the population of tigers in captivity
28:18
Speaker 1: in Texas was larger than the population of tigers in
28:21
Speaker 1: the wild across the planet. So wild animals may very
28:26
Speaker 1: well be a thing of the past by the time
28:29
Speaker 1: you have grandchildren, and you may be telling your grandkids,
28:33
Speaker 1: you know, once I saw a bear in the woods,
28:35
Speaker 1: or I saw a turkey and it was a jerk,
28:37
Speaker 1: and they'll be like, what an animal just walking around here?
28:41
Speaker 1: Get out of here. That's like typing with your hands.
28:45
Speaker 1: It's an old myth, and we do need zeos, But
28:48
Speaker 1: there are also a lot of great conservationist organizations. Polar
28:52
Speaker 1: bears are a special case because they're not only adapted
28:56
Speaker 1: or acclimated to a huge swath of territory, it's also
28:59
Speaker 1: a spece if a kind of territory, you know what
29:01
Speaker 1: I mean. Like we can take an animal that's used
29:04
Speaker 1: to a more temperate climate and put it in a reserve,
29:08
Speaker 1: a preserve of some sort, right, and it'll it will
29:10
Speaker 1: adapt more easily than something that was bred to be
29:14
Speaker 1: out in the waste lands of the frozen North. It's
29:18
Speaker 1: a shame. You know. One interesting thing that is happening
29:20
Speaker 1: though with polar bears they're breeding with grizzly bears as Yeah,
29:26
Speaker 1: they're hybrid looking up where where they become beige. Yeah,
29:29
Speaker 1: it's they're called piz les p i z z l
29:33
Speaker 1: y plar grizzlies. Uh. They're huge and they kind of
29:37
Speaker 1: look like they have ombre. Uh, you know the hair
29:40
Speaker 1: thing where an ambre is like a hair thing where
29:44
Speaker 1: the I guess the hair is lighter or darker. I'm
29:47
Speaker 1: not a cosmotolic. I don't know. Man Um, they look
29:50
Speaker 1: like they have weird highlights. Lick it up. It's it's interesting.
29:54
Speaker 1: They kind of you. If you wanted to be negative,
29:56
Speaker 1: you could say they look like dirty polar bears. Yeah,
29:59
Speaker 1: it's negative, like dirty blonde. There we go, here we go.
30:02
Speaker 1: What's their insting dirty blonde and strawberry blonde. I don't know.
30:06
Speaker 1: I think strawberry blond's got a little bit more of
30:08
Speaker 1: a of a highlight, like a fiery highlight to it,
30:11
Speaker 1: and dirty blonde is a little more beige blonde. Interesting. Well,
30:14
Speaker 1: today I learned something. Hopefully, Yeah, hopefully we ended on
30:19
Speaker 1: a not too down note. Pisley's Uh, this this ends
30:23
Speaker 1: our episode, but not our show. We want to hear
30:26
Speaker 1: about more strange trends. So just to recap on the
30:30
Speaker 1: things we asked to hear from you about today, we
30:33
Speaker 1: had several deep dish pizza, uh, Philly cheese steaks in
30:38
Speaker 1: philadelphiabably preferably, and uh. We want to hear also about
30:43
Speaker 1: the strange historical trends that you have found that may
30:47
Speaker 1: have been lost to the modern day. Polar bears in
30:49
Speaker 1: Germany had no idea that was the thing same. You
30:52
Speaker 1: can write to us at Ridiculous at I Heart radio
30:55
Speaker 1: dot com. You can hit us up on the social
30:57
Speaker 1: media where we're Ridiculous History on Insta Graham, and you
31:01
Speaker 1: can join our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians. Additionally, you can
31:04
Speaker 1: find us as individual human people on the social media.
31:08
Speaker 1: I am exclusively on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown.
31:11
Speaker 1: You can find me sipping on my branded Ridiculous History
31:16
Speaker 1: coffee mob. If you can get a t public dot
31:18
Speaker 1: com slash Ridiculous History right, you can find me doing
31:21
Speaker 1: this my own personal Instagram. In between bouts of getting
31:25
Speaker 1: kicked into and kicked out of various countries, communities and regions,
31:29
Speaker 1: I am in a burst of creativity at ben Boland.
31:31
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Twitter where I'm at
31:34
Speaker 1: ben Bowland hs W. The h s W stands for
31:37
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works. Big, big thanks to Casey Pegram Casey,
31:41
Speaker 1: I can see you in the studio today. That's pretty cool.
31:43
Speaker 1: We've got this window situation happening. Let's get that direct
31:47
Speaker 1: eye contact. Yeah, yeah, it's true, it's true. Spoiled Thanks
31:50
Speaker 1: also too, oh Man, I forgot yeah, it's time. Told
32:00
Speaker 1: them then. I can't believe we almost made it to
32:02
Speaker 1: the end. Jonathan Strickland aka The Quister. Actually, it's past time,
32:07
Speaker 1: you jerks. It's just trying to just trying to barrel
32:10
Speaker 1: through it. Now, are you what are you implying that
32:12
Speaker 1: we like invite you to do this? You don't. I'm
32:16
Speaker 1: sitting at the same table, and you're just thinking that
32:20
Speaker 1: if we just if we just put our noses down,
32:22
Speaker 1: surely and don't give him an opportunity. There's no way.
32:25
Speaker 1: But Casey has the hook up, he has the button
32:28
Speaker 1: that please the quiz to sound effect. Do it again
32:31
Speaker 1: in case that's all, put it in the post. You
32:32
Speaker 1: know this right, don't destroy the labouci is playing both sides.
32:38
Speaker 1: I see you, man, see you. This eye contact studio
32:41
Speaker 1: is a dangerous thing. Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quister.
32:44
Speaker 1: It has been quite some time. We had a streak where,
32:48
Speaker 1: for one reason or another, you weren't you weren't showing up,
32:51
Speaker 1: You did not deign to grace us with your presence.
32:53
Speaker 1: We were frequently in different time zones, yes, and then
32:57
Speaker 1: now we are all together and because of that, this
33:00
Speaker 1: this this sea of humanity within this increasingly stuffy studio.
33:05
Speaker 1: We're going to have a quiz to segment the most
33:08
Speaker 1: cringe worthy segment in all of podcasting, whereupon I give
33:12
Speaker 1: you a historical scenario and you two have three minutes
33:16
Speaker 1: to determine whether or not said scenario is in fact
33:20
Speaker 1: a real historical fact or if I made it up.
33:24
Speaker 1: Seas and also as all the ways, we have to
33:28
Speaker 1: have an arbitrary rule in the in the case that
33:32
Speaker 1: either of you have a question for me where you
33:35
Speaker 1: want some clarification, I have a question, are you the
33:38
Speaker 1: reason these studios are stuffy? That's the kind of low
33:40
Speaker 1: level mischief I wouldn't put past. I will say that
33:43
Speaker 1: I've been through the entire process where this studio was
33:48
Speaker 1: like a deep freezer and then became stuffy, and the
33:52
Speaker 1: other studio, the stuff you should know studio did the opposite.
33:57
Speaker 1: So apparently, if one studio is going to be stuffy,
33:59
Speaker 1: the other one is an ice box. Right. I would
34:01
Speaker 1: describe the the thermostats in these rooms is ornamental. You
34:06
Speaker 1: know what I mean? They look good? Yes, I would.
34:08
Speaker 1: I would call the duct work arbitrary, which is why
34:11
Speaker 1: I love it so much. Well, let me give you
34:14
Speaker 1: the scenario. Then I will give you your arbitrary rule.
34:17
Speaker 1: And as I recall today, you were talking about photography
34:22
Speaker 1: and polar bears. Yes, that's correct, and thank you for
34:26
Speaker 1: pronouncing that correctly. They're welcome. So we're going to have
34:29
Speaker 1: a photography related historical fact here. You are, all right.
34:34
Speaker 1: If you were to look at old photographs from the
34:37
Speaker 1: very early days of photography, you notice something peculiar. Some
34:42
Speaker 1: of those images appear to have both children and ghosts
34:46
Speaker 1: in them, not orbs floating around or transparent figures looming
34:52
Speaker 1: in the background, but rather the classic sheet ghost. Now,
34:56
Speaker 1: this was due to a superstition that children would be
34:59
Speaker 1: extremely so sceptible to having their spirits affected by the
35:02
Speaker 1: strange process of photography. So to distract any potential malicious forces,
35:09
Speaker 1: an adult would pose in the photo as well, ostensibly
35:12
Speaker 1: to attract the evil attention towards them instead of the children.
35:17
Speaker 1: But because the goal was to capture the photographs of
35:21
Speaker 1: the children, not the adults, the adults would attempt to
35:25
Speaker 1: hide themselves under sheets and throws so as not to
35:29
Speaker 1: pull focus, so to speak, from the children themselves. Accent
35:34
Speaker 1: is really wandering, well, so do I. So that is
35:37
Speaker 1: your scenario, and of course your obitrary rule is that
35:40
Speaker 1: if you wish to ask a question, you have to
35:42
Speaker 1: proceeded with can you picture that? From the Muppet movie?
35:48
Speaker 1: Begin the time? Hang on? This is gonna take me
35:50
Speaker 1: a second because the grandfather clocks in the other room.
35:53
Speaker 1: Yeah this so um so? No, yes, how's it going?
36:03
Speaker 1: It was? It's it's been better. Yeah, no, I hear
36:06
Speaker 1: you man, Yeah, I mean you have to be you
36:09
Speaker 1: you know, I know, I know, I know. And plus
36:11
Speaker 1: on top of that, this coffee machine we have now
36:14
Speaker 1: it's the worst. Is the worst? Okay? Guys? Ready, yeah,
36:18
Speaker 1: they do it? Okay, now you must what what's the
36:23
Speaker 1: what's the rule? Sorry? Can you picture that? Can you
36:27
Speaker 1: picture that? Yes? No? What was the It was the
36:31
Speaker 1: actual query? The query is, is this, in fact a
36:34
Speaker 1: real thing that happened whereat group deflection NINT children and
36:40
Speaker 1: adults underneath these sheets posing together with the purpose of
36:45
Speaker 1: the adults being there to pull the evil, malicious potential
36:49
Speaker 1: spirits towards them instead of towards the child. Pull focus.
36:52
Speaker 1: As you could not stop yourself from saying, so, they're ghosts,
36:55
Speaker 1: They're they're the ghost. There's also a ghost in the picture.
36:57
Speaker 1: It's just a person underneath a sheet. It looks like
37:00
Speaker 1: a ghost. If we were to look at the photographs
37:01
Speaker 1: in a series, if we had a scrap book of
37:03
Speaker 1: these photographs and we were to flip through them, we'd say,
37:05
Speaker 1: why are all these Victorian children posing with Charlie Brown
37:09
Speaker 1: styled ghosts? I see, So it's another it's it's another
37:12
Speaker 1: photographic trend if this is true. And still confused about
37:17
Speaker 1: you said the children are hiding under sheets, so the
37:20
Speaker 1: adults are hiding under the sheets. The children are posing,
37:23
Speaker 1: so that so the adults are the ghost. Okay, I see,
37:27
Speaker 1: and they're supposed to be kind of a paranormal lightning
37:30
Speaker 1: rod right, that's a good, good way of putting it.
37:34
Speaker 1: I should have written that part down. No, no, don't
37:36
Speaker 1: worry about it, man, I'm just pretty great and humble.
37:39
Speaker 1: So okay, So I don't like it, Ben, Yeah, I'm not.
37:43
Speaker 1: I don't like I do want to, real quick, give
37:45
Speaker 1: a shout out to our friend on Ridiculous his storians
37:50
Speaker 1: who actually added up the tally because I believe it's ten. Yeah, yeah,
37:57
Speaker 1: I'm aware. Uh heng on, let me find the name
38:01
Speaker 1: of the guy real quick. Um but um, well, let
38:06
Speaker 1: us know, we can't dig through the thread right now
38:08
Speaker 1: because we're on this three minute timer, but let us
38:11
Speaker 1: know who you are so we can give you a
38:12
Speaker 1: shout out on air. Someone did go back through and
38:15
Speaker 1: add this up. We're three behind. We also have fifty
38:19
Speaker 1: three seconds to go here. I stand by not liking it.
38:24
Speaker 1: What do you want to know? Why? Yeah? Yeah, I
38:26
Speaker 1: don't know. I just it seems kind of arbitrary and
38:28
Speaker 1: made up, and like he saw the episode we were
38:30
Speaker 1: doing and just sort of like made up a similar scenario. Well,
38:34
Speaker 1: he just saw the summary. That's why I didn't send them,
38:36
Speaker 1: like all of our notes. What is your gut? What
38:41
Speaker 1: is your gut? You know, I'm I'm tempted to say true,
38:46
Speaker 1: but I'm very like at this point, I don't know.
38:48
Speaker 1: I'm so shell shocked. He actually showed up again too.
38:51
Speaker 1: I thought we were done with him. All right, you
38:53
Speaker 1: want to rock paper scissors for it? You're doing You're falsome? True?
38:56
Speaker 1: One shot? All right? One to three shoot? Good audio. Okay,
39:02
Speaker 1: So we're going with the coin flip situation. You're so
39:08
Speaker 1: so incredibly confident of your answer. You're right. As it
39:14
Speaker 1: turns out, it is in fact false. However, photographs do exist.
39:18
Speaker 1: There are photographs of Victorian children posing with adults who
39:22
Speaker 1: are underneath sheets, but it was not to pull focus
39:25
Speaker 1: of some malicious So there's the lies the motivation exactly,
39:31
Speaker 1: because why this was happening is that you remember an
39:34
Speaker 1: old photography, the exposure time for a camera was incredibly long.
39:39
Speaker 1: Do sit perfectly still, and that's why you don't see
39:42
Speaker 1: people smiling in those old photographs, because holding a smile
39:45
Speaker 1: that long is unnerving and unsettling at the best. Untrue.
39:49
Speaker 1: They were just gangster. The smile was not invented until
39:53
Speaker 1: everyone knows. Also, to another thing company is that that
39:57
Speaker 1: children are little, tiny brats and they squirm like crazy
40:02
Speaker 1: all the time. So in an effort to keep the
40:04
Speaker 1: children from moving like crazy during a sitting for a photograph,
40:10
Speaker 1: the adults would sometimes hide themselves underneath a sheet to
40:15
Speaker 1: act as a reassuring presence towards the child for the
40:18
Speaker 1: process of photography. There's actually an entire photographic display called
40:23
Speaker 1: hidden Mothers, where it's moms who have been have a
40:27
Speaker 1: sheet draped over them as if they are a chair
40:31
Speaker 1: or perhaps an arm wak, a chaise lounge, an ottoman
40:35
Speaker 1: from the empire, perhaps and the child is posing right
40:40
Speaker 1: next to them. So now we're at thirteen eleven. Yeah
40:44
Speaker 1: or too down. But and I hope you don't regret
40:47
Speaker 1: showing up to hand this victory. This was a fun one.
40:50
Speaker 1: I enjoyed learning about the hidden mothers, and so I
40:55
Speaker 1: was very I debated on whether or not to give
40:57
Speaker 1: you the real reason, but I thought that one's so mundane.
41:01
Speaker 1: I was, you know, that's that's where I think, that's
41:04
Speaker 1: where I was misled, because I knew that there was
41:08
Speaker 1: this trend, but I was not certain of the motivation.
41:12
Speaker 1: Authoritative you say, reassuring, but I think we both know
41:15
Speaker 1: as an authoritative presence to keep them standing still. But
41:19
Speaker 1: be that as it may, win or lose. It's always
41:22
Speaker 1: a pleasure, uh slash disaster to have you on the show.
41:27
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quister. It looks like
41:30
Speaker 1: we're coming back, you know what I mean. We may
41:32
Speaker 1: be able to turn this around. Yeah, and feel free
41:35
Speaker 1: to come back again, you know, sooner than later, to
41:37
Speaker 1: give us a chance to to to even the score.
41:40
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, now we've got the taste of victory. So
41:42
Speaker 1: now we no longer hate them. Fear of this segment exactly.
41:46
Speaker 1: You're telling me to bring it Yes, bring it on.
41:50
Speaker 1: I think we made it almost all the way through.
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Speaker 1: We made through the social media bits, but uh, what's
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Speaker 1: that's the start? We think to Casey, because we think Casey,
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Speaker 1: and that's when that's when everything when everything be um big.
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Speaker 1: Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Thanks to
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Speaker 1: Thanks thanks Jonathan um Christoper Raciots here in spirit, not
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Speaker 1: a ghostly presence, but more of a He's sort of
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Speaker 1: like Mufasa the Lion King. He gave us a cool
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Speaker 1: lead on exploding muffins recently. Thanks also to Eve's Jeff Coat.
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Speaker 1: Thanks to Gabe Louisier, our research associate who has such
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Speaker 1: a good nose for good stories he absolutely does. Thanks
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Speaker 1: to the Coca Cola company. Thanks to Anthropomorphized the Polar
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Speaker 1: Bears the world over love to see that trend to
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Speaker 1: come back. Maybe we could bring it back. What do
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Speaker 1: you say? Yeah, I'm in let's do it. I got
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Speaker 1: a friend who was in one of those Polar Bear outfits.
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Speaker 1: Tight see you next time, FOLX. For more podcasts for
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Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
42:54
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.