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Short Stuff: Humpty Dumpty · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: chuck this short stuff, as I said, and that means
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: we're going to start now to talk about Humpty Hump.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Do the Humpty Hump Dumpty R I P what he
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: passed away recently? I didn't. I definitely did not know that. No,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: that's sad. It was shocked. G Is that right? I
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: thought his name was Humpty. That's not Humpty. Yeah, I
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: mean I think he died just like within the past
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: couple of months even, Yeah, he din he done in April. Man,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that is very sad. Yeah, and I gotta say to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: just very quickly. That's a great song. But um Digital
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Underground was awesome, Like that was their big MTV hit.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: But they and it was kind of joky and fun,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: but they had they were really really good. Yeah, he
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: was like on this one song that I should say track,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I guess the sound hip with a rapper Nameed Merge
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: called Risky Business, and like you get a really good
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: view of what like Humpty was all about. It's pretty cool.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: So if you liked the Humpty dancing, you want to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: learn more? I would start there alright, So um Humpy
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Specting that Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Do you
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: need a minute? Are you good? You just go on,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I'll gather myself while you're talking. Humpty Dumpty sat on
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: together again. And the whole point of this episode is
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to sort of talk about why do we think this
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: thing is an egg when it doesn't say it's an
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: egg anywhere? And what are some of the theories about
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: how this whole thing came about to begin with? Well, supposedly,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and I found it very confusing in the article, the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: rhyme you just said is actually a riddle. It's meant
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: to be a riddle, and somewhere along the way the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: riddle was answered for us. And now we don't even
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: think of this as a riddle. But that's that's one
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: thing to to bear in mind. When the nursery rhyme
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: about Humpty Dumpty first came out, it was meant to
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: apparently there was some line like what is it? And
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: you were supposed to go an egg? And then that
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: was the delight that you found in it. Yeah, And
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: It's also something that's been rewritten in different forms over
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the years. I think the first time the rhyme itself
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: was in a book and Juvenile Amusement by Samuel Arnold,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: and the third line, instead of all the king's horses
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and all the king's men, it said four score men
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and four score more. So all of a sudden, it's
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: not rhyming, right unless it's four scoreman and four score more.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Couldn't help get Humpty restored or something like that. Sure,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm going with. I like that. But the
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: first the first rhyme, did you say, it was back
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: in when it first appeared. Yeah, And so from the
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: from the get go, I think everybody was like, what
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: is what is everybody talking about here? There's got to
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: be something to this. So people started thinking that they
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: were there were there was more to the Humpty Nursery
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: rhyme because it is so bizarre, like it gives you
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: almost no context whatsoever. It's really dumb. It's a little dumb.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: You know, not a lot happens, and the thing that
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: does happen is very unsatisfying. So so I think people
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: after the people who understood what this was all about
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: had died off and failed to pass along with what
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: they meant. Um, those people started wondering exactly what was
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: behind all this, and so there's some theories started developing. Yeah,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: one of it is that Humpty Dumpty was supposed to
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: be Richard the third, King of England. Uh And Shakespeare
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: about Richard the Third, He's depicted as a poisonous, humpback
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: toad and that's basically how history came to see him
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: thanks to Shakespeare's to fiction. Right, But King Richard was
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: only in office, ruled for a couple of years, about
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: twenty six months, and supposedly, like you know, fought for
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: the common man and was against you know, corruption and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: bribery and enacted a bunch of laws to fight that stuff.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: So not fair to King Richard. No, for some reason,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: some little part of my brain is being tickled right now,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Like we talked about King Richard as if he was
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and I think the Robin was there a robin Hood episode.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Isn't King Richard like the bad guy in that? Maybe
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: like he was like a just a lion who just
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: wanted his pudding or something weird like that. I don't remember,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: But yeah, apparently he wasn't a bad king, but it
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: was basically Shakespeare who did that. But the point is
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: is Richard the Third was the last English king to
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: die in battle. He died at the Battle of Boswell Bosworth. Bosworth. Yeah,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I've been watching a lot of Charlie's Angels lately and
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I wanted to say Bosley at first, are you really
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: watching lunch? Yeah? Remember they keep re showing that one
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: where Sammy Davis Jr. Place that got you hooked. But yeah,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: King Richard had a horse named Wall and supposedly fell
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: off of the horse and was bludgeoned. So you know,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: fell off. U sat on a wall and fell off
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the wall. So that's sort of where that connection comes in.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Couldn't be saved, all the king's horses and all the
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: king's men, couldn't put them back together again, So do it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: This is where my money is. I just want everyone
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: to know that that is where I think. That's what
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I think Humpty Dumpty is all about. All right, Well,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: let's take our break and we'll come back and talk
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: about Louis Carroll kind of gumming up the works and
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: some other theories right after this. All right, Chucks, is
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: where it first starts, Um, We've we see him again
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: a few years later in a book called Mother Goose's
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Melody from eighteen oh three. Right, yeah, and that one, Um,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: it was like a little little tubby kid because the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: last line is couldn't set Humpty up again? I guess
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: just couldn't get him up right, kind of like an
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Augustus Gloup type character. Yeah and um. Supposedly the British
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: satire Punch, the weekly magazine, said that Humpty was a
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: symbol for Cardinal Wolsey, and other people said that that
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: might be right too. So that's another theory. That one
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: to me. So Cardinal Wolsey was the guy who couldn't
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: get um, couldn't get a divorce from the pope for
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Henry the eighth. Um, so we kind of went down
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: in infamy. Is not a great advisor helper to the king. Um.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: That's a little politically nuanced for me, because remember this
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is a nursery rhyme. So I don't see kids like
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: singing a nursery rhyme about, you know, Cardinal Wolsey falling
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: from favor with Henry the Eighth. I do see them
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: singing a nursery rhyme about the death of King Richard.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Though I'm with you so far. I mean, adults don't say, like, hey, kids,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I got a nursery rhyme for you here it is.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Don't adults just like right down nursery rhymes that they
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: hear kids saying, and then that's how they become widespread
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and popularized. But they're ultimately created by kids. I think
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: that's a deal. So yeah, all the more reason I
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: got my money on rich with the third All right, well,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: then Lewis Carroll comes in through Alice. I'm sorry, through
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the looking Glass in eighteen seventy one, one of the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: more spectacularly seemingly drug fueled tones to ever be written,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: and the Eggman has a chapter in this dedicated to him,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: where in Alice says, she clearly saw that it was
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Humpty Dumpty himself. It can't be anybody else. I'm as
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: certain of it as if his name were written all
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: over his face. And great and uh, you know, if
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: you've ever read that or even parts of it, it's
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: it's really out there. So the idea of a walking,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: talking egg person human hybrid is not like far off
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the mark, right um, and so like that was the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: whole thing where like you and me and everybody else
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: breathing today thinks of Humpty Dumpty as an egg thanks
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: to that book, thanks to that chapter on him, thinks
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of the fact that he was just out and out
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: an egg. There was no riddle at this point any longer.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: It was just Humpty Dumpty is an egg. And the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: illustrator Um for that first edition, John Tenniel or tenniel Um,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: his illustration of Humpty Dumpty is like an egg with
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: pants on and a face and um, you know, arms
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and legs and all that stuff. That's that's where like
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the idea of Humpty Dumpty that we have today finds
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: a roots almost you know, visually and through our imagination, um,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: from that book. That's right. That's the first time it
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: was like, look, it's definitely an egg. Let's just let's
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: just cut to the chase. Face. It cut to the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: chase and there was also that was printed differently in
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: that book to the actual rhyme. The final line is
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I couldn't put Humpty Dumpty in his place again, so
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: there wasn't even an egg breaking in that version, which
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I found kind of sweet, nice, Um, so there's one
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: more theory. There's a few more theories, some are literally
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: not even worth mentioning. But um, there's an idea that
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: a humpty dumpty was actually the name of a drink, right,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and this is a boy. This doesn't sound good to me,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: but you never know? And in the old does this
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: sound good to you? Yes? So? Uh, beer boiled with brandy? Okay,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: not the boiled part. Did you check out the recipe
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: that was revived by by bartenders today? Oh you mean
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the modern version? Yes, now, I'm sure they made that
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: taste good. Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm talking about the original
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: version ale boiled with brandy was called and this is
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the first time that the rhyme wasn't there. But the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: words humpty dumpty ever appeared in print was in sixte
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and a slang dictionary, and it was ale boiled with brandy.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: And uh. The connection there is that, um, really, that
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: really strong beer was called hum and so humpty dumpty. Hum.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: There you have it. So, I mean, I feel like
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: we should give the recipe for the Humpty Dumpty, don't you?
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: And I think it sounds delicious. So you take one
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: ounce of brandy one and a half ounces of ale
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I would go with pale ale FI were you a
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: quarter ounce of lemon juice a dash of angustura, and
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: you put it in a mixing glass with some ice,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: stir fifteen seconds and strained into a glass without the ice,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: garne with the lemon peel and raise a glass to
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: your and humpty dumpty and Chuck g Apparently that's a great,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: great call back. You got anything else for a great MC?
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else. Well, uh, since Chuck said he
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: has nothing else, I can attest that I have nothing else.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: That means we have nothing else to share with you
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: in this episode of short Stuff, which means short stuff
• 11:21
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• 11:26
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• 11:30
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• 11:33
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