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Silly String: Disaster in a Can · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here and we're silly and
0:16
Speaker 1: this is Stuff you should Know Silly podcast. Boy, did
0:20
Speaker 1: this one just not reek of the Old House Stuff
0:24
Speaker 1: Works days? Yeah? But what's awesome is that you knew
0:29
Speaker 1: that you could just you know, like you didn't have
0:31
Speaker 1: to double check any facts or anything like that, because
0:33
Speaker 1: Tracy Wilson was on the case here and she does
0:37
Speaker 1: not get her facts mixed up. No, this was an
0:39
Speaker 1: Old House Stuff Works article from Tracy and also got
0:42
Speaker 1: some stuff from CNN, Gismoto, a mental floss, the Wired,
0:46
Speaker 1: and Mother Jones, which feels like a veritable greatest hits
0:50
Speaker 1: of Stuff you should Know reference sites that look at it.
0:55
Speaker 1: But we're talking about Silly String. We haven't done one
0:58
Speaker 1: on a classic toy in a long time. It's been
1:00
Speaker 1: too long. And although this isn't quite as interesting as
1:04
Speaker 1: like say a Sea monkey, I think it still has
1:07
Speaker 1: some pretty interesting points. Well, there's a d percent less
1:11
Speaker 1: Nazis in this one, which I like, not one Nazi.
1:15
Speaker 1: So um, Silly String is a toy and it's one
1:18
Speaker 1: of those things that is so ubiquitous and everybody knows
1:21
Speaker 1: about it and may may even be annoyed by it
1:23
Speaker 1: or whatever. That, Um, you don't realize that there's people
1:28
Speaker 1: out there who talk about this stuff and think about
1:31
Speaker 1: this stuff, and that if you start to dive into
1:34
Speaker 1: the Internet and look for those people, uh, and you
1:37
Speaker 1: read what they write, you start to figure out that
1:40
Speaker 1: they're all very, very wrong in whatever they're saying about
1:43
Speaker 1: silly string. Yeah, and I think that was I think,
1:47
Speaker 1: especially at the time Tracy wrote this article, it was
1:50
Speaker 1: one of those deals where everything on the web basically said,
1:55
Speaker 1: and we don't even know what's in silly string, And
1:57
Speaker 1: it's one of those sort of like uh, easy chase.
2:00
Speaker 1: It's like this sort of mystery what's inside the can
2:03
Speaker 1: and science can't even figure it out and all we
2:06
Speaker 1: know is invented by Julius Simon in nineteen sixty nine.
2:11
Speaker 1: And it turns out that none of that stuff stuff
2:13
Speaker 1: is actually true. We do know what's in silly string,
2:16
Speaker 1: and Julius Simon did not invent it. No, And I
2:20
Speaker 1: think here, um, about a minute and a half into
2:23
Speaker 1: the podcast, we should probably tell everybody what silly string
2:26
Speaker 1: is in case they have been in case they haven't heard,
2:30
Speaker 1: living where living outside of a silly string laden country.
2:36
Speaker 1: That's right. Silly string comes in an aerosol can. So
2:39
Speaker 1: if you look at it, it's it might look like
2:42
Speaker 1: easy cheese or a small can of AquaNet. First spray paint. There,
2:49
Speaker 1: spray paint. I was trying to think of like antiquated things,
2:51
Speaker 1: but sure spray paint works as well. Uh. And you
2:55
Speaker 1: press the nozzle and out comes shooting a pressurized stream
3:02
Speaker 1: of this foamy string, and you can It depends on
3:07
Speaker 1: you know, how hard you shake it and your angle
3:10
Speaker 1: of incidents, I guess, or is that right. I've probably
3:13
Speaker 1: got that wrong. The angle in which you shoot it. Sure,
3:17
Speaker 1: angle of attack, angle of attack. But it can travel
3:20
Speaker 1: you know, five six seven up to ten twelve feet,
3:23
Speaker 1: and it's like kind of wet and cold cool feeling
3:26
Speaker 1: when it comes out, comes out very fast and then
3:30
Speaker 1: very quickly kind of um. It doesn't completely dry. It
3:33
Speaker 1: still has sort of that tacky feeling because it will
3:36
Speaker 1: stick to things. But the idea is that it stays
3:39
Speaker 1: in a string form unless you kind of pull it apart.
3:43
Speaker 1: That's what makes silly string fun and great. Yeah, it's
3:47
Speaker 1: not like your grandfather shaving cream that was just foams
3:51
Speaker 1: up in like into this pile, this bubble that kind
3:53
Speaker 1: of grows. It holds its shape, and that's a really
3:56
Speaker 1: important part of it because it wouldn't be a toy
3:57
Speaker 1: if it just came out like shaving cream. No one
4:00
Speaker 1: would want to play with it. It certainly would not
4:03
Speaker 1: have had a very famous uh part of the movie,
4:06
Speaker 1: the great Tom Hanks movie Big, So you've ever seen Big,
4:09
Speaker 1: that's silly string in the scene where he and uh
4:13
Speaker 1: Billy I guess are playing around. All of a sudden,
4:16
Speaker 1: they have all this money and they buy all this garbage,
4:17
Speaker 1: candy and stuff, and they buy silly string, and Tom
4:20
Speaker 1: Hanks acts like he's squirting. It's like snot out of
4:22
Speaker 1: his nose, and they spray silly string. And that's the
4:25
Speaker 1: ideas that kids have a good time with it and
4:27
Speaker 1: parents hate it. Yeah, parents and city council people, as
4:31
Speaker 1: we'll see. And you said another part of it too
4:34
Speaker 1: is not only just its shape, but the fact that
4:36
Speaker 1: it can really travel. You said it can travel up
4:38
Speaker 1: to ten to twelve feet, which for our friends and
4:41
Speaker 1: non imperial countries is a handful of meters um, and
4:45
Speaker 1: that's a lot. You know, like you can be standing
4:47
Speaker 1: pretty far away from somebody, spray them, drop the can,
4:49
Speaker 1: and turn and run, and you still have a pretty
4:51
Speaker 1: good head start on them chasing you. That's right. So
4:55
Speaker 1: the story of Silly String Chuck is actually pretty interesting one.
4:58
Speaker 1: I love ones that like toy that started out as
5:00
Speaker 1: something else, which seems like every toy we've ever talked about.
5:04
Speaker 1: It started, it started life as it's like a different thing,
5:07
Speaker 1: and then somebody was like, actually this is a pretty
5:09
Speaker 1: good toy, and everyone said agreed, and it became a
5:11
Speaker 1: classic toy, and then we podcasted on it sixty years later,
5:15
Speaker 1: that's right, Uh, not quite sixty, but in this case
5:18
Speaker 1: it was. If you look at the actual patent from
5:21
Speaker 1: n seventy two for foamable resinous uh for a foamable
5:26
Speaker 1: resinous composition, you will find Robert Peacox and Leonard A Fish.
5:31
Speaker 1: Fish was an inventor. Cox was a chemist, and what
5:35
Speaker 1: they were trying to originally invent was a medical device
5:39
Speaker 1: kind of an emergency largely battlefield, but an emergency cast
5:44
Speaker 1: that you could spray on like a spray on cast
5:48
Speaker 1: if you break a bone, that would sort of and
5:50
Speaker 1: if you think about silly string in a different application,
5:54
Speaker 1: and if you think about it, what if it instead
5:56
Speaker 1: came out and coated your arm and solidified. That's the idea,
6:01
Speaker 1: and from what I could tell, they were successful in
6:03
Speaker 1: that um. But part of what they were trying to
6:06
Speaker 1: do was find the right nozzle. They they have apparently
6:11
Speaker 1: tested like five hundred nozzles, uh, and one of those
6:15
Speaker 1: nozzles shot this stuff out, this concoction that they came
6:18
Speaker 1: up with in a string uh really far and that
6:22
Speaker 1: string held its shape. So they were like, let's put
6:25
Speaker 1: a button on this particular nozzle. I'm sure Leonard A
6:28
Speaker 1: Fish walked around with it in his little change pocket
6:31
Speaker 1: of his levies for many years. And then when the
6:34
Speaker 1: time was right, they said, we should get back to
6:36
Speaker 1: that because we've got the we've got the spray on
6:38
Speaker 1: cast down. Pat, I think that other thing would make
6:41
Speaker 1: a really good toy, And Robert Peacock said, agreed Leonard Fish,
6:45
Speaker 1: and Leonard Fish nodded silently. That's right. As the legend goes,
6:50
Speaker 1: they did not know anything about toy marketing, obviously, so
6:54
Speaker 1: they made an appointment with who at the time was
6:57
Speaker 1: probably the biggest name in toys in the early seventies,
7:00
Speaker 1: Wammo still a big name in toys, and uh, we
7:05
Speaker 1: covered Frisbees and Yo Yo's, Like the Wammos has made
7:07
Speaker 1: an appearance in a lot of these episodes. Yo Yo's
7:10
Speaker 1: was one of our better episodes if I remember correctly. Yeah,
7:12
Speaker 1: it was a good one. Um. So they went to Wammo,
7:16
Speaker 1: as legend has it, they sprayed the stuff all over
7:18
Speaker 1: the office and the person they were meeting with as well,
7:22
Speaker 1: and they said, get out of here. This stuff is
7:25
Speaker 1: like how dare you? Kind of reaction. And the next day,
7:29
Speaker 1: though apparently, fish got a telegram saying from WAMO saying
7:33
Speaker 1: we need twenty four cans of the stuff as a
7:35
Speaker 1: marketing test stop to stop right there. Uh and the
7:43
Speaker 1: the idea and this sounds very much like a legend,
7:45
Speaker 1: but who knows, it may be true. The idea is
7:48
Speaker 1: that the next day they cleaned it up. But there
7:50
Speaker 1: was one hangy string on a lamp that one of
7:53
Speaker 1: the owners of WAMO saw and picked up and said,
7:56
Speaker 1: what is this stuff? It's it's fantastic. It's like Paul
8:00
Speaker 1: Newman from Hudsucker Proxy. Okay, I haven't seen that one.
8:05
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know. I know I at least
8:08
Speaker 1: started it. Okay. It had to do with the invention
8:12
Speaker 1: of the hula hoop. Okay, yeah, I saw a lot
8:15
Speaker 1: of that, but it was some some Coen Brothers movies
8:17
Speaker 1: are just not for me. Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
8:19
Speaker 1: I like them all, but I get Emily doesn't like
8:22
Speaker 1: a lot of them because they they do mean things
8:24
Speaker 1: to animals and almost every movie. I never noticed that. Yeah,
8:28
Speaker 1: it's a Cohen Brothers thing. Okay, So they basically say,
8:31
Speaker 1: get these guys in here. This stuff is brilliant, and
8:35
Speaker 1: they did, and apparently within a couple of weeks they
8:37
Speaker 1: had a contract with WAMO to license and sell silly string.
8:41
Speaker 1: But that still doesn't explain Julian Simon, right, No, Julian Simon,
8:46
Speaker 1: the guy who is legendarily the person who invented silly
8:49
Speaker 1: string back in nineteen sixty nine, actually does have something
8:52
Speaker 1: to do with silly string. But he came into the
8:54
Speaker 1: picture thirty years after he was reputed too, because in
8:58
Speaker 1: WAMO said we've spent our silly string, We're done with this.
9:03
Speaker 1: Who wants it? And Julius Simon had a company called
9:06
Speaker 1: Julius Simon Limited, which was the parent company of the
9:10
Speaker 1: car Freshener Corporation. How great is that? And car Freshener
9:15
Speaker 1: had a subsidiary, a toy division called Just for Kicks,
9:18
Speaker 1: and Just for Kicks bought the rights to make silly
9:21
Speaker 1: string in and if car Freshener Corporation just rings the slightest,
9:28
Speaker 1: tiniest bell, you might have seen it in really little
9:31
Speaker 1: script on your tree air freshener that is dangling from
9:35
Speaker 1: your rear view mirror. So Julius Simon is the gentleman
9:39
Speaker 1: who holds the patent to the fur tree air freshener.
9:45
Speaker 1: It's amazing, another ubiquitous product I've never owned. Yeah, the
9:49
Speaker 1: same here. I never got into those either. He had
9:52
Speaker 1: he had two patents and one was for the tree
9:55
Speaker 1: shaped air freshener. Another one was, uh the Undressed Nake
10:00
Speaker 1: Lady silhouette air freshener. Those were two pads. Well, I
10:04
Speaker 1: guess he saw it on a mud flap and was like,
10:06
Speaker 1: I think that was the great at an air freshener. Yeah,
10:09
Speaker 1: I've never seen that one, but I can. I would
10:11
Speaker 1: guess it's kind of that mud flappy thing too. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
10:14
Speaker 1: I feel like mud flaps it's either Yosemite Sam saying
10:17
Speaker 1: back off, or it's like silhouette of a naked lady. Yeah,
10:21
Speaker 1: that's your mud flap selection. Um, all right, I think
10:26
Speaker 1: that's good enough for the first segment, which we'll just
10:30
Speaker 1: call history, and in our second segment after the break,
10:33
Speaker 1: we will bore you to tears by talking about the
10:37
Speaker 1: chemical contents of silly stringth That is not true, everybody, So, Chuck,
11:07
Speaker 1: I just want to say before we get started, I
11:09
Speaker 1: want to explain myself when I was saying stop while
11:11
Speaker 1: you were talking about the telegram, I wasn't telling you
11:14
Speaker 1: to stop a telegram. Stop. Yeah, yeah, I have. Have
11:18
Speaker 1: you ever heard the legend behind why people said stop
11:20
Speaker 1: instead of just adding a period? No, but I think
11:23
Speaker 1: this is definitely the episode to put that. Okay, So apparently,
11:28
Speaker 1: if you were sending a telegram, letters were very cheap,
11:31
Speaker 1: but punctuation was expensive, so you actually paid less to
11:35
Speaker 1: spell out the four letters then paying for a period.
11:40
Speaker 1: That's why people had stopped in the middle of their sentences.
11:43
Speaker 1: But the big dumb dumb would say stop exclamation point right,
11:48
Speaker 1: I really mean it period here. That's amazing. What a
11:51
Speaker 1: great little factory to be able to throw out at
11:54
Speaker 1: the next dinner party. It is a factory. It's a
11:56
Speaker 1: tenth of a fact. Oh wait, I might have my
12:01
Speaker 1: wires crossed. I know what you mean. There's probably a
12:04
Speaker 1: couple of listeners who get it. All right, let's dive
12:06
Speaker 1: into a can of silly string, because, uh, what it
12:11
Speaker 1: inside a can of silly string is known generally to
12:16
Speaker 1: the public now, although some of the stuff on the
12:19
Speaker 1: original patent is has had been changed since then, so
12:24
Speaker 1: I think there are some trade secrets. But let's just
12:26
Speaker 1: say it's definitely a liquid inside the can and it
12:30
Speaker 1: becomes the string outside the can because of the stuff
12:34
Speaker 1: that's inside the can. It is very lightweight, and like
12:38
Speaker 1: we said, it does have an adhesive quality. But it's
12:41
Speaker 1: got to be just the right mix that you want
12:43
Speaker 1: it to stick to a lampshade or stick to a wall,
12:46
Speaker 1: or stick to a person's like ears and hair if
12:49
Speaker 1: you're draping it over the room, over them, over the room.
12:52
Speaker 1: But you don't want it to be so sticky that
12:55
Speaker 1: you can't get it off of something. You want to
12:56
Speaker 1: be able to you know, it's got to be cohesive.
12:59
Speaker 1: You want to be able to pull it out and
13:00
Speaker 1: have it kind of generally come in one big ball
13:04
Speaker 1: as you're trying to clean up afterwards. Right, So that's
13:07
Speaker 1: the tension between the adhesiveness of it and the cohesiveness
13:11
Speaker 1: of it. And as long as it's more cohesive, meaning
13:13
Speaker 1: it'll it'll hold its shape when you pull on it
13:16
Speaker 1: um than it is adhesive, So it's it takes less
13:19
Speaker 1: forced to pull it off somebody than it does to
13:21
Speaker 1: take to pull it apart. That's why it's so easily
13:25
Speaker 1: cleaned up because it is a little bit sticky, but
13:27
Speaker 1: not fully sticky, and that that has to do with
13:29
Speaker 1: the genius of some of the stuff that's in it. Yeah,
13:32
Speaker 1: and imagine getting this right is I mean it sounds well,
13:35
Speaker 1: it's about to say it sounds silly, um to to
13:38
Speaker 1: put this much research and thought into a product like this,
13:43
Speaker 1: But if you get it wrong, no one's gonna buy it.
13:45
Speaker 1: If it sticks so bad everything that parents can't clean
13:47
Speaker 1: it up, they're not gonna buy it for their kids. Uh.
13:50
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of genius in a way that they
13:52
Speaker 1: figured like the exact recipe to make it fun for kids,
13:55
Speaker 1: but something that you could generally just sort of pull
13:57
Speaker 1: off and ball up and throw in the trash. Yeah,
14:00
Speaker 1: and Robert Pea Cox and Leonard A. Fish are the
14:02
Speaker 1: people who did spend that time figuring that out. Because
14:04
Speaker 1: you couldn't make an instant cast with the stuff that
14:07
Speaker 1: comes out of a can of silly string. So they
14:10
Speaker 1: had to go back and figure out how to make it,
14:13
Speaker 1: you know, very colorful, how to make it so it
14:15
Speaker 1: didn't stick too much, how it was cohesive, all that stuff,
14:17
Speaker 1: and they did. They managed to come up with the
14:19
Speaker 1: perfect mixture of basically three ingredients, although there's more than three. Um,
14:25
Speaker 1: there's I don't know why everybody says three, but everyone
14:27
Speaker 1: does say three. Three is the magic three. And then
14:31
Speaker 1: some other stuff. So there's a resin, a surfactant, and
14:34
Speaker 1: a propellant, and apparently there's also a solvent which is
14:38
Speaker 1: very important. There's also talc, which is very important, as
14:41
Speaker 1: we'll see. But each one of these things plays a
14:43
Speaker 1: really uh important role in the creation of the silly string.
14:48
Speaker 1: And you know, like you said, it has to be
14:51
Speaker 1: just right or else the whole thing is going the
14:53
Speaker 1: whole enterprise is going to collapse. I've picture doctor Strange
15:01
Speaker 1: Love wheeling into the room all of a sudden mind podcast.
15:06
Speaker 1: Uh So you've got your resin that's gonna form that
15:09
Speaker 1: plastic structure, that exoskeleton of the strand, and an original
15:16
Speaker 1: form on that patent it was an acrylic resin using
15:20
Speaker 1: poly isobutal methacry late. And the resin is like everything
15:26
Speaker 1: else with the silly string, you gotta get it just right. Um,
15:30
Speaker 1: that is the framework of those strands. If you have
15:32
Speaker 1: too much resin, it's not gonna foam like you wanted
15:35
Speaker 1: to foam, and it'd be more like shooting cock at somebody.
15:39
Speaker 1: And I think we can all agree that's no fun.
15:41
Speaker 1: There's no such thing as silly cock. Uh. If you
15:44
Speaker 1: have too little of the stuff, then they're not gonna
15:47
Speaker 1: hold together. And if silly string, I think we agree
15:50
Speaker 1: that if it came out as tiny little foam bullets,
15:53
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be as fun as if it comes out
15:55
Speaker 1: as a big string. But the whole point is is
15:58
Speaker 1: once this thing is propelled into the air, then it
16:02
Speaker 1: forms that shell that if you don't mess with it like,
16:05
Speaker 1: it'll stay there for a while. It's not like it
16:07
Speaker 1: just disappears. Yeah, because of the resin, that plastic structure
16:11
Speaker 1: that it lends to the whole thing. Um, Yeah, if
16:14
Speaker 1: you leave it alone, it can it can survive for
16:17
Speaker 1: weeks basically, I would guess indefinitely. I'm sure it's like
16:20
Speaker 1: how many licks it takes to get to the center
16:22
Speaker 1: of it pop. No one really knows because no one's
16:25
Speaker 1: just left silly string indefinitely, you know, talk about a monster.
16:29
Speaker 1: So the propellant is also really important too for a
16:32
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. Um, whatever propellant they're using is at
16:37
Speaker 1: room temperature and normal sea level pressure UM, which is
16:41
Speaker 1: what it's like outside of the can. It would be
16:43
Speaker 1: a gas, but the contents of an aerosolt can is
16:46
Speaker 1: under so much pressure that it's actually in its liquid
16:49
Speaker 1: state UM. And the propellant when it when it emerges
16:53
Speaker 1: from that can, it essentially boils. It changes from liquid
16:57
Speaker 1: to a gas. And as it does that, because is
17:00
Speaker 1: everything else is mixed up with that propellant. As we'll see,
17:03
Speaker 1: it takes all of those other components there, resid surfactant,
17:07
Speaker 1: the solvent on a wild ride, and they all combined
17:10
Speaker 1: with one another and turned foamy. So again, the structure
17:14
Speaker 1: of the exoskeleton the thing that lends the whole thing,
17:16
Speaker 1: it's initial support, that's the resin. Yeah, and The other
17:20
Speaker 1: thing the propellant does is that it also helps that
17:23
Speaker 1: resin form basically and uh helps sort of create that
17:29
Speaker 1: that foamy exterior because once that propellant is shot out,
17:33
Speaker 1: it evaporates very quickly. Uh if you if you shoot
17:36
Speaker 1: it at a normal distance, if you've ever taken silly
17:39
Speaker 1: string and like shot it into your like a closed
17:42
Speaker 1: palm or a fist or something, it's gonna be different.
17:45
Speaker 1: It's gonna be like a lot more wet because it
17:47
Speaker 1: doesn't have that chance to spread out and quickly evaporate,
17:50
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be a lot more brittle. That's why
17:52
Speaker 1: you're supposed to shoot you know, the propellant across the room.
17:55
Speaker 1: Is it sort of lends itself to doing what it
17:58
Speaker 1: does best. By doing what it does best, you're right,
18:02
Speaker 1: which is propelling things. So um, they used to originally
18:07
Speaker 1: use die chlora flora methane also known as free on
18:10
Speaker 1: twelve and free on twelve is so bad for the
18:14
Speaker 1: ozone layer that there is a global law against manufacturing
18:19
Speaker 1: free on. Like think about how many global laws there
18:22
Speaker 1: are that might be the only one. Um, I guess so,
18:26
Speaker 1: but yeah, this is this is like an actual yeah
18:30
Speaker 1: murder but still, how about like a global regulation maybe okay, sure,
18:35
Speaker 1: or something that has to do with industry you're manufacturing
18:37
Speaker 1: rather than you know, killing people. So so they used
18:43
Speaker 1: to use free on, but you can't use free on anymore. Um.
18:46
Speaker 1: You actually can use it in some applications. There's this
18:49
Speaker 1: a finite stock of free on left on earth, um,
18:52
Speaker 1: and you're allowed to use those. You just can't manufacture anymore.
18:54
Speaker 1: So eventually we'll run out of free on. Um. They
18:57
Speaker 1: had to figure out something else to use, and they did. So.
19:00
Speaker 1: You don't find free on twelve inside of silly string
19:03
Speaker 1: anymore because it's really bad for the ozone layer. That's right.
19:07
Speaker 1: Although as we learned in our research over the years,
19:10
Speaker 1: there have been various UH rogue off brands UH that
19:16
Speaker 1: have used free on that have popped up, like in
19:18
Speaker 1: the two thousands, and I think even in the two
19:22
Speaker 1: thousand tens, they would find some random silly string shipment
19:26
Speaker 1: that came from you know, Taiwan or China that still
19:30
Speaker 1: had that free on twelve in it, and you know,
19:32
Speaker 1: confiscate that stuff quick and get rid of it, right.
19:35
Speaker 1: So UM. One of the other things moving on from
19:38
Speaker 1: the propellant, which again it's really really important stuff. But
19:42
Speaker 1: all of these things are important. Each one plays its
19:44
Speaker 1: own role, and and the surfactant plays a really interesting
19:48
Speaker 1: role too, because it helps the resin foam, it helps
19:51
Speaker 1: the resin expand. And the surfactant does this by um,
19:56
Speaker 1: by the fact that it's ampiphilic and amphiphil. Sorry, it's
20:00
Speaker 1: hydrophobic and it's hydrophilic, so it repels water and it
20:04
Speaker 1: attracts water. It doesn't know what it's doing, but it
20:07
Speaker 1: does both of those things. And in that sense, it
20:09
Speaker 1: actually manages to keep molecules cohesive, so it lends it
20:13
Speaker 1: it's cohesive um property um. It also lends it a
20:18
Speaker 1: little bit of stickiness, but I saw that it keeps
20:20
Speaker 1: it from being too sticky. So this is like the
20:24
Speaker 1: surfactan is just a wonder chemical because it's doing the
20:29
Speaker 1: opposite at the same time. Yeah, and the surfactant is uh,
20:34
Speaker 1: like Tracy says, you know, so many years ago in
20:36
Speaker 1: this article that it's just sort of a fancy name
20:39
Speaker 1: for a detergent. And the idea is if you think
20:43
Speaker 1: about like, um, like if you have a sink full
20:48
Speaker 1: of water and you just squirt some soap, like dish soap,
20:52
Speaker 1: in there. It's just gonna sort of sit there, and
20:54
Speaker 1: you might not even know there's any soap in there
20:56
Speaker 1: until you turn on that uh that high pressure from
21:01
Speaker 1: the sink and maybe even put your finger over it.
21:04
Speaker 1: Then that stuff's gonna foam up all of a sudden.
21:07
Speaker 1: And that's sort of what's going on with this can
21:09
Speaker 1: of silly string, right, And originally on the patent they
21:14
Speaker 1: listed the surfactan as sorbitan trioliate, which has a trade
21:19
Speaker 1: name of get this tween five tween. Yeah, that's weird.
21:26
Speaker 1: It sounds like a super weird. Yeah, that sounds like
21:28
Speaker 1: a an Internet name for a predator. It does, for sure.
21:34
Speaker 1: But it's also one of those things that's like so
21:36
Speaker 1: innocuous that it almost makes you wonder if they went
21:39
Speaker 1: to great links to come up with something. You just
21:41
Speaker 1: look right past, you know, uh as far um as
21:46
Speaker 1: far as how much of this stuff is in there?
21:48
Speaker 1: Of what stuff is in there, um, the resin is
21:51
Speaker 1: about ten to fiftent. Surfactin is actually less than five percent.
21:55
Speaker 1: Most of what's in that can as that propellant. So
21:58
Speaker 1: if you had a see through can of silly string,
22:02
Speaker 1: it would be mostly that liquid propellant. Well, I guess
22:06
Speaker 1: it's all liquid at the time until it comes out
22:08
Speaker 1: like we said, um, but mostly propellant. But you did
22:12
Speaker 1: mention talc in there. I think without the talc it
22:18
Speaker 1: would it wouldn't have much body to it. Is that
22:21
Speaker 1: the idea? Yeah, it would, it would. I can't even
22:25
Speaker 1: imagine it will be like, yeah, just be like kind
22:27
Speaker 1: of flucky plastic e exoskeleton without it the foam, I
22:31
Speaker 1: guess is what what I saw. And I also saw
22:35
Speaker 1: get this, so I've been doing a little bit of sleuthing.
22:38
Speaker 1: Tween eighty five is actually used as an emulsifier for
22:42
Speaker 1: mixing mineral oil with other stuff in other applications, So
22:46
Speaker 1: I believe that tween eighty five serves a double duty
22:50
Speaker 1: as a surfactant but also an emulsifier for the talc
22:53
Speaker 1: as well. Oh okay, okay, did you just do that
22:57
Speaker 1: on the fly? I mean when I was researching it. Okay,
23:01
Speaker 1: it sounded in the moment. No, I mean I don't
23:04
Speaker 1: walk around knowing other industrial uses for tween eighty five
23:08
Speaker 1: that he just happened to look it up or something. No, no, no, no,
23:10
Speaker 1: I looked it up and wrote it down. I was like,
23:13
Speaker 1: this is juicy I can't leave this one out. It's
23:15
Speaker 1: pretty juicy. You also have h anytime you have something
23:18
Speaker 1: like this, you're gonna need a stabilizer. And in this
23:21
Speaker 1: case they use ammonia and is a prop alcohol And uh,
23:27
Speaker 1: I think the ammonia keeps it from corroding inside the can,
23:32
Speaker 1: and the alcohol stops bugs basically like stars life from forming. Right.
23:39
Speaker 1: I didn't find that anywhere else on the entire Internet.
23:42
Speaker 1: I looked in every single corner. I didn't find it,
23:44
Speaker 1: not only in relation to to silly string, but in
23:48
Speaker 1: relation to aerosol cans in general. Like, I have no
23:51
Speaker 1: idea where that came from, but I did some more sleuthing.
23:54
Speaker 1: Oh boy, that was from the Wired article. Right, maybe
23:59
Speaker 1: I think so? Actually, yeah, but I just don't understand
24:02
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. Um, I mean it makes sense,
24:05
Speaker 1: but I just haven't seen it anywhere else. But a
24:08
Speaker 1: propol alcohol is also commonly used as a solvent, So
24:12
Speaker 1: the unnamed solvent might actually be named. They might have
24:16
Speaker 1: all the ingredients listed here, but they're just not saying
24:19
Speaker 1: this thing is also as well. Yeah, a little bit
24:22
Speaker 1: of sleight of hand and what's it called misguidance? Uh,
24:28
Speaker 1: misdirection yeah, yeah, misdirection, that's right, misguid Yeah, you'd be
24:33
Speaker 1: a heck of a magician. I'm misguiding you. Everyone's like what,
24:40
Speaker 1: I don't think you're supposed an outst either, right, that's right, man,
24:43
Speaker 1: I would be terrible at this. If you think the
24:46
Speaker 1: coin would fall out of my knuckles. If you look
24:49
Speaker 1: at my right hand and not my left, you will
24:52
Speaker 1: notice miss guidance. All right? Is that Does that cover
24:56
Speaker 1: the ingredients? Oh? Just one more thing, No, I guess
25:03
Speaker 1: we already talked about it about how like the um,
25:06
Speaker 1: the aerosol um, the propellant boils and carries everything else
25:11
Speaker 1: out on it. And if you're just like, man, I
25:13
Speaker 1: need more, tell me more about the manufacturing of aerosol cans.
25:17
Speaker 1: But you're in luck because we actually did an entire
25:19
Speaker 1: episode on aerosol cans before, did we Really? That sounded familiar.
25:25
Speaker 1: That's an old one. Huh. Yeah. I was back and
25:27
Speaker 1: we were just casting about at the time, obviously, but
25:31
Speaker 1: if I remor correctly, we we did it. It was done.
25:33
Speaker 1: You know. When when we were finished, we were casting
25:35
Speaker 1: about trying to sell Toyota cameras. That's right, the two
25:40
Speaker 1: thou twelve camera are you ready alight, let's take that break.
25:46
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go fire up the camera and get the
25:47
Speaker 1: A C going because it's hot here. I'm ready to leave,
25:50
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about some interesting other uses in the
25:53
Speaker 1: environmental impact right after this. I can just see that
26:22
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera in your driveway with like the
26:25
Speaker 1: the ceiling liner kind of hanging down a little bit
26:27
Speaker 1: like it it came undone in one spot and it
26:30
Speaker 1: just kept going from those ceiling liners last forever. They
26:34
Speaker 1: sure do way beyond. I like the idea that people
26:38
Speaker 1: actually might think that they gave us like cameras right around. No,
26:44
Speaker 1: it's true. I mean seriously, there's still old episodes that
26:47
Speaker 1: had that that that ad embedded in. It's hilariousing that
26:50
Speaker 1: then won't go away. They really got their money's worth
26:52
Speaker 1: out of that one, Yes, and still do. One of
26:55
Speaker 1: the interesting uses of uh silly string popped up during
27:00
Speaker 1: in the War and a Rock when the US military,
27:03
Speaker 1: although they didn't officially endorse it and like buy this
27:06
Speaker 1: stuff for the troops, which I'm not sure why they wouldn't.
27:09
Speaker 1: Um they would use them to find I E. D
27:14
Speaker 1: s and trip wires, so they would like go up
27:16
Speaker 1: to like the doorway of a room and they would
27:18
Speaker 1: spray silly string around and see if they were if
27:23
Speaker 1: it hung on invisible trip wires, not invisible but you know,
27:26
Speaker 1: hard to see trip wires, Yeah, which is really awesome.
27:29
Speaker 1: It's kind of like Katherine Zeta Jones spraying that powder
27:32
Speaker 1: or whatever in that one movie. Um, I can't remember that.
27:37
Speaker 1: I don't remember Tom's kind of Affair. Maybe it was
27:40
Speaker 1: the one with Sean Connery. I can't remember the name
27:42
Speaker 1: of it, but um, it was just yeah, nineties dumb movie.
27:45
Speaker 1: But yeah, same thing, but using silly string in in
27:48
Speaker 1: in a rock taking out i e. D s rather
27:51
Speaker 1: than trying to steal a diamond or something. That's for
27:53
Speaker 1: some differences, but it's the same principle. Yeah. And there
27:56
Speaker 1: was a kind of a cool story from two thousand
27:58
Speaker 1: seven when a I think a soldier's mother in New Jersey. Uh,
28:02
Speaker 1: they were they wanted to get their hands on some
28:03
Speaker 1: of this stuff, and so she mounted a drive and
28:06
Speaker 1: collected about eighty thousand kinds of silly string to send
28:09
Speaker 1: to the troops. I think the sort of bummer ending
28:12
Speaker 1: in that story as she had trouble getting it shipped
28:15
Speaker 1: or something and I think a lot of it went bad.
28:17
Speaker 1: I never saw anytime there's like not a great follow up.
28:20
Speaker 1: It's probably not a great ending, right, or the media
28:24
Speaker 1: just got bored with it. Yeah, they're like, we're really,
28:27
Speaker 1: can we just write a listical again? I've got it now,
28:30
Speaker 1: chuck the two thousand and twelve camera, it's ready. Are
28:34
Speaker 1: you ready now? I still don't have it. Uh So
28:40
Speaker 1: if you heard us listing all these ingredients, even though
28:43
Speaker 1: free untwelve isn't in there anymore, you might think that
28:46
Speaker 1: it's probably um not something that's great for the environment.
28:51
Speaker 1: Uh And like you said, in the seventies and eighties,
28:54
Speaker 1: kind of right as this was being born, they immediately
28:57
Speaker 1: were uh started a um get rid of CFCs and
29:02
Speaker 1: hc fcs. Hydro chloro flora carbon's the greatest named carbons
29:09
Speaker 1: of all. Yeah, there's a lot of letters in that word.
29:12
Speaker 1: One of the problems was that they replaced um hydro
29:16
Speaker 1: chlora flora carbons with just plain old hydrofloora carbons, so
29:22
Speaker 1: you can tell fewer letters. Obviously, it's not nearly as dangerous. Right.
29:26
Speaker 1: The thing is, they're they're fine for the ozone layer.
29:29
Speaker 1: They basically do nothing for the ozone layer but keep
29:32
Speaker 1: it in place. So that's good. But they're finding that
29:35
Speaker 1: they also have a high global warming potential. So like
29:39
Speaker 1: any chemical that can enter the atmosphere, it can be
29:43
Speaker 1: given a global warming potential, and the lower the number,
29:46
Speaker 1: the less effective will have on changing the climate. The
29:49
Speaker 1: higher the number, the more greenhouse gas it is. And
29:53
Speaker 1: some of these h f c s are kind of
29:55
Speaker 1: high greenhouse gases. They have a high global warming potential,
29:58
Speaker 1: so we still need to keep figuring out how to
30:01
Speaker 1: get aerosols out. Yeah, I kind of had that feeling.
30:06
Speaker 1: I'm glad you look that up, because my feeling was like,
30:09
Speaker 1: surely they didn't solve that to where this is just
30:11
Speaker 1: like great and not a problem. And I imagine if
30:16
Speaker 1: even though we didn't see the ammonia in anywhere else
30:20
Speaker 1: on the internet, it can't be great to be squirting
30:23
Speaker 1: out something with ammonia everywhere, right, I don't know, I
30:28
Speaker 1: really don't know, and I know that, so, No, it
30:30
Speaker 1: wasn't the ammonia that I didn't see. I didn't see
30:32
Speaker 1: people putting ice aprople alcohol in an aerosol can to
30:35
Speaker 1: keep things from growing inside of it. That's what I
30:37
Speaker 1: didn't see. Okay, people do use ammonia. Yeah. Here's what
30:41
Speaker 1: I will say though, is that, UM, I haven't looked
30:45
Speaker 1: at a can in a while, and I don't know
30:46
Speaker 1: what warnings come on it, but I bet one of
30:49
Speaker 1: them should be like don't let your pets eat it
30:52
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing, or don't let humans or
30:54
Speaker 1: your little sister eat it. Yeah. Well also, yeah, that's
30:58
Speaker 1: just good advice. UM. There's also you can find some
31:02
Speaker 1: um warnings depending on what UM what kind of propellant
31:06
Speaker 1: is used in the can, UM to say, hey, uh,
31:10
Speaker 1: this is flammable, don't spray it to it camp fire,
31:12
Speaker 1: although it will look really awesome, because that's really dangerous.
31:17
Speaker 1: Another one is um it can freeze. It can like
31:20
Speaker 1: basically freeze your skin. And the reason why is because
31:24
Speaker 1: when that um compressed liquid is converting into a gas
31:28
Speaker 1: undergoing a phase change, part of that phase changes that
31:31
Speaker 1: it's it's drawing heat from any available immediate source that
31:35
Speaker 1: includes the can. So it turns the cant ice cold
31:38
Speaker 1: because it takes all the heat out of it to
31:40
Speaker 1: to help turn that um, that gas or that liquid
31:43
Speaker 1: into a gas. I did something kind of dumb a
31:46
Speaker 1: number of years ago, I you know, I have these
31:49
Speaker 1: little skin tags and I would go to the dermatologist
31:51
Speaker 1: to get them clipped. And then I thought, you know what,
31:53
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna buy some of that freeze spray and
31:58
Speaker 1: I'm gonna freeze and clip on myself because that's gotta
32:01
Speaker 1: be easy. And I got some of that spray, and
32:04
Speaker 1: I guess the idea is that it's not for that purpose,
32:07
Speaker 1: and you spray kind of from a distance to to
32:11
Speaker 1: maybe numb something. And I got it right up on
32:14
Speaker 1: that thing and sprayed it and it burned like the
32:16
Speaker 1: fires of hell. It hurts so bad. It felt like
32:21
Speaker 1: someone pressed a hot, like glowing piece of metal into
32:25
Speaker 1: my skin. I can imagine. I know where you're coming from, actually,
32:28
Speaker 1: because I went through a phase when I was a
32:31
Speaker 1: tween eighty five weirdly enough about in eighty five um
32:38
Speaker 1: and uh, where I had warts, especially on my elbows
32:41
Speaker 1: for some reason, and I had to go to the
32:44
Speaker 1: doctor like every couple of months and they would burn
32:47
Speaker 1: them off with liquid liquid nitrogen frozen nitrogen um. And yeah,
32:52
Speaker 1: if they missed even a little bit, it would really hurt.
32:56
Speaker 1: It was really damaging. But if they just got it
32:58
Speaker 1: on the work, which they normally did. It was weird.
33:01
Speaker 1: There was like no sensation whatsoever. I we should do
33:04
Speaker 1: a shorty on words. Sure, I don't know. That might
33:08
Speaker 1: be our At least listened to episode you'd think, yeah,
33:12
Speaker 1: I think so, even even less than ariosol Canes, that's right,
33:16
Speaker 1: or our poop centric episodes. People love those. Can we
33:21
Speaker 1: finish this one? The two thousand twelve camera? Who's up
33:25
Speaker 1: for one? I don't think that was it either. So
33:28
Speaker 1: the last thing will say is that we mentioned earlier
33:30
Speaker 1: about city council people. Uh, it has been banned here
33:34
Speaker 1: and there because it's such a pain. And uh, in
33:37
Speaker 1: the mid two thousand's, I think two thousand four, there
33:41
Speaker 1: was a city council person named Tom la Bonga in
33:45
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. You know, Hollywood just goes crazy on Halloween.
33:49
Speaker 1: There's like a lot of party in and right there
33:50
Speaker 1: in central Hollywood. And apparently the silly string was out
33:53
Speaker 1: of hand with people spraying it, with people getting on
33:56
Speaker 1: fights from getting sprayed with it, and that they actually
34:00
Speaker 1: put a price tag on that that said silly string
34:04
Speaker 1: remediation was costing the city of Los Angeles two hundred
34:08
Speaker 1: more than two hundred thousand dollars each year from that
34:11
Speaker 1: one night just from Halloween. So they said no more. Uh,
34:15
Speaker 1: not on Halloween, not in l A. Yeah, some fat
34:19
Speaker 1: cat silly string cleaner upper was making two d k
34:23
Speaker 1: on November one every year, so so they they actually
34:29
Speaker 1: passed an ordinance where silly string is outlawed one day
34:32
Speaker 1: a year Halloween in Los Angeles. Um, at the very
34:36
Speaker 1: least in Hollywood. And I did not go back and
34:39
Speaker 1: find out if there had been any change to this law.
34:43
Speaker 1: So let's talk about it as a potential if that
34:45
Speaker 1: existed at least in the past, if not currently, right,
34:49
Speaker 1: because there's because Tracy says that, um, these sanctions are
34:53
Speaker 1: even worse than a pot charge, and I don't think
34:56
Speaker 1: you can get charged for pot anymore in California, right, No,
34:59
Speaker 1: it's legal, right, Okay, So this fine of just carrying
35:02
Speaker 1: a can of silly string could get you a misdemeanor,
35:06
Speaker 1: a thousand dollar fine and up to six months in
35:09
Speaker 1: jail in in l A. Which is like a pretty
35:12
Speaker 1: glamorous jail, but it's still jail for six months. Yeah.
35:15
Speaker 1: They put it on par at the time, at least
35:17
Speaker 1: uh with um like a drunken disorderly charge bicycling or
35:24
Speaker 1: hunting while drunk was two fifty and respectively. Uh find
35:33
Speaker 1: hunting will drunk did not know that? Well, No, And
35:36
Speaker 1: I mean like each of those separately, it makes a
35:38
Speaker 1: lot of sense, but if you put them together, that's
35:40
Speaker 1: when it starts to get hilarious. You could have broken
35:42
Speaker 1: into the l A zoo and gotten a mirror two
35:45
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollar fine. If you had a can
35:48
Speaker 1: of silly string, it was a thousand. Did you see
35:50
Speaker 1: the video recently of that poor dog who got into
35:53
Speaker 1: a guerrilla enclosure. He was so scared and the gorillas
35:58
Speaker 1: weren't happy that he was there either, but he did
36:01
Speaker 1: not want to be in there, and um, when they
36:04
Speaker 1: finally got him out animal control got him out, he
36:06
Speaker 1: had like the guiltiest look on his face, like I'm sorry,
36:10
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go in there, but it just happened.
36:13
Speaker 1: He got out. Yeah, everybody was safe. It worked out
36:16
Speaker 1: very well. But yeah, he was really nervous and not happy.
36:19
Speaker 1: No one was. I guess you wouldn't be telling that
36:21
Speaker 1: story like, oh man, I got mauled into a million pieces. Yeah,
36:25
Speaker 1: he looks like a two thousand twelve camera now very
36:29
Speaker 1: nice full circle. Do you got anything else? No, just
36:33
Speaker 1: the rule of threes accomplished that. I think that was
36:38
Speaker 1: four or five tween eighty five words more than three
36:41
Speaker 1: as well, we're failing. Yeah, we're screwing it up left
36:44
Speaker 1: and right. Since I said we're screwing it up left
36:47
Speaker 1: and right, everybody, obviously it's time for listener mail. I'm
36:53
Speaker 1: gonna read this just because it's just a nice person
36:55
Speaker 1: saying thank you. We don't do these much, and we
36:57
Speaker 1: get to also answer a question. Hey, guys, want to
37:00
Speaker 1: write not about a specific episode, but rather to comment
37:02
Speaker 1: on your overall series. I've been listening for years now
37:05
Speaker 1: and continue to find episodes delightfully upbeat, informative, and extremely
37:09
Speaker 1: respectful of different viewpoints. Uh. The chemistry that you two
37:12
Speaker 1: have with each other as apparent to the listener through
37:15
Speaker 1: the silly banter and fun tangents. I love how one
37:17
Speaker 1: of you can say something like you know that thing,
37:19
Speaker 1: and the other one can name exactly what he means.
37:22
Speaker 1: I also have to say that I crack up just
37:24
Speaker 1: about every time Josh says well, since Chuck said blank,
37:27
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail. There's no rhyme or
37:29
Speaker 1: reason to the transitional phrase, and it up makes it
37:32
Speaker 1: all the better when you say it, I like that too,
37:34
Speaker 1: if that's one of the nice traditions here. Definitely, as
37:38
Speaker 1: a lifelong learner, your work on this podcast seems to
37:40
Speaker 1: be a dream job. It is. Uh, then I didn't
37:43
Speaker 1: mean that as a question. It is. Uh. You get
37:46
Speaker 1: to research an immense range of topics and you make
37:48
Speaker 1: them so accessible to the audience. Uh, something I appreciate
37:51
Speaker 1: as a teacher. Also applaud you for doing such a
37:53
Speaker 1: thorough job at being diligent with and mindful of your sources.
37:59
Speaker 1: That such a teach your word. Yeah, Uh what diligent
38:03
Speaker 1: h Yeah, Uh, one thing I always look forward to,
38:06
Speaker 1: as well as the fun musical interludes going in and
38:08
Speaker 1: out at the commercial breaks. Always wondered how you get
38:11
Speaker 1: them to fan submit them? Where do they come from?
38:13
Speaker 1: Keeps episodes fresh even after the many years that you
38:17
Speaker 1: have decided dedicated to your show. Uh. And so Amy
38:20
Speaker 1: from Agora Hills, California. Yes, those are absolutely listeners. Uh.
38:25
Speaker 1: They have been sending them in for years and they
38:28
Speaker 1: continue to and they're always fun and amazing and uh,
38:33
Speaker 1: it's just kind of one of the fun ways that
38:34
Speaker 1: we can make listeners a part of the show. Yeah.
38:37
Speaker 1: Like super big time. Thanks to every single person who
38:41
Speaker 1: submitted an ad jingle for us. They just agreed they
38:44
Speaker 1: keep the show fresh and happening. Indeed, who is that from?
38:47
Speaker 1: Chuck Amy from Agora Hills, California. Okay, Amy, thank you
38:51
Speaker 1: very much for that email. That was really kind of you.
38:54
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us like
38:55
Speaker 1: Amy did and say some kind words or call us
38:58
Speaker 1: out for something, whatever, you can send us an email
39:00
Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff
39:07
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
39:09
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39:18
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