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CLASSIC: Roland the Farter and the Weird World of Professional Flatulence · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians, you have statistically farted about five to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: ten minutes before you tuned in.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: And it in.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Tune it in.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there he is, Yes me, No, we love farts.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: It's fun farting, humor doing it. It feels good, it
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  Speaker 2: feels right, y'all. It's human and that's been And there
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: was once a time in ridiculous history when farting was
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: not only a fun thing to do and joke about,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: but an actual profession.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Let's roll the tape. Oh my gosh, wait, do you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: guys know any good fart jokes. I know a joke
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: about a guy who farts on an elevator, but it's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: wrong on so many levels. Ridiculous History is a production
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. First things first, everyone, no matter who you are,
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  Speaker 1: from a king to a popper, everyone farts. Not the
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  Speaker 1: fart would be not only medically fascinating, but it would
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  Speaker 1: probably be dangerous. On the average day, most people are
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  Speaker 1: passing more than a leader of gas per day, spread
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  Speaker 1: out over like thirteen to twenty one incidents.
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  Speaker 2: Isn't there a book about this? Everybody farts?
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  Speaker 1: There should be surely there is no. I think that's
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  Speaker 1: poops Everybody Poops is the children's book, but Everybody Farts
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  Speaker 1: would be a great follow up.
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  Speaker 2: Surely there should be one, and that should be a series,
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  Speaker 2: a series that we could write. Noel, that's you, oh Man,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: and you're Ben, and as apparently you also fart.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, even our super producer Casey Pegri. It's just
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  Speaker 1: a medical fact that people do this. However, the vast
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  Speaker 1: majority of human beings do it purely.
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  Speaker 2: As a.
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  Speaker 1: Labor of love. Purely is a thing that happens in
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  Speaker 1: the human body.
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  Speaker 2: It's sort of a regulatory process, right, It keeps your
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: systems and check your guts and all that. Right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, most of us are amateure farmers. However, there are
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  Speaker 1: a very very small number of people who have managed
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  Speaker 1: to become professional flatialist.
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  Speaker 2: It's true, Ben, it's true. And this dates back much
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  Speaker 2: farther than you might think. Or maybe I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: Maybe it's exactly as far as you might think. Maybe
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  Speaker 2: it's even less far than you would think. But where
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  Speaker 2: we're gonna start today's story is in the medieval times.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Like the restaurant you know where you go and you
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: eat a turkey leg and they got the horses and
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: the show like and the cable guy.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: And you cheer for whichever team you're assigned to.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it turns out that restaurant concept based on an
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  Speaker 2: actual history oracle period.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Oh yeah, right, it's not the medium level of
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  Speaker 1: evil the way that some people might assume.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that for a long time. You spelled
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  Speaker 2: really funny too, like med. I guess it's one of
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  Speaker 2: those words I can never properly spell. But we digress.
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  Speaker 2: I do at least Ben tell us about fartistry in
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  Speaker 2: medieval times.
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  Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked Noel travel with us, folks to
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  Speaker 1: the reign of King Henry the Second. There's a great
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  Speaker 1: line about King Henry the Second from historicuk dot com
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  Speaker 1: the very first sentence of the poor guy's biography, Henry
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  Speaker 1: two seems to struggle to make an impactable and popular history.
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  Speaker 2: That's the first sentence, and that is also printed on
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  Speaker 2: his gravestone. Ouch, that's not true, but that'd be funny.
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  Speaker 1: That would be funny and sad. So King Henry Two,
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  Speaker 1: who reigned from the December of eleven fifty four to
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  Speaker 1: eleven eighty nine, was known for several different, hugely important
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  Speaker 1: things in the course of the history of the United Kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: But did you know, fellow ridiculous historians, that he also
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  Speaker 1: had a notoriously popular gesture.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, and we're gonna invoke a word here that
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  Speaker 2: every time I see it printed, I think it's a
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  Speaker 2: different word. The word that it actually is is flatulist.
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  Speaker 2: The word I always think it is when I see
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  Speaker 2: it on paper is floutest. Both do involve making sounds
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  Speaker 2: by expelling air from their bodies, but the flatualist is
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  Speaker 2: a little bit different. It is, as we've alluded to,
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  Speaker 2: a professional farter. But what's really cool about this is
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  Speaker 2: it requires a pretty specific set of skills, doesn't it been.
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  Speaker 1: That's right, So this guy Noel was known as Roland
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  Speaker 1: the Farter. He had several other nicknames. They are in French.
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  Speaker 1: At this point, I'd like to ask for some help
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  Speaker 1: from you, Casey. Could you help us out with some
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  Speaker 1: of Roland the Farter's French nicknames?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so that would be Roland la sarcere, Roland la fartere,
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  Speaker 4: and Roland la Piturey's.
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  Speaker 1: But off the record, while the court is not in session,
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  Speaker 1: I have a couple more questions, Casey, could you translate
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  Speaker 1: some of these for us into into English.
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  Speaker 4: So, uh, roland la fartere fartre pretty self explanatory, right there.
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  Speaker 4: Fart roland, la piture peture derived from pete, which is
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  Speaker 4: the French verb to fart pass gas. So p e
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  Speaker 4: t e r is the verb form, and then peture
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  Speaker 4: is just that kind of personified. And then the last one,
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  Speaker 4: roland la sarcer comes from Old French. And I'm getting
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  Speaker 4: this from a book called on Farting, Language and Laughter
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  Speaker 4: in the Middle Ages by v Allen. And in that
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  Speaker 4: book they write that it's a variation sarce, a variation
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  Speaker 4: on sare to siv. Alternately, sarsier means to dark. Also,
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  Speaker 4: sarsara could simply just be a slip of the pen,
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  Speaker 4: and they meant to write farcar, which is from farsier
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  Speaker 4: to just or to make fun of.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, they do say you ever heard somebody
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: say something was tight as a sieve? Yeah, maybe they're
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: talking about you know, also leaks like a siev. Oh wow, okay, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: maybe no one says tight as.
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  Speaker 4: Hey, let's start it.
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  Speaker 2: Let's start.
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  Speaker 4: I think it starts today.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've excented you. Well, you know, because a siev
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  Speaker 2: just lets certain things pass through so maybe you know
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  Speaker 2: it's about the action of passing, because you know passing
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  Speaker 2: of the guest. I have a question for you, Ben,
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  Speaker 2: and I think you have an answer for me. With
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  Speaker 2: this gester being a British gester, an English gester, why's
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  Speaker 2: he got all these French nicknames? Ah?
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  Speaker 1: Great question. You see, although Henry two was King of England,
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  Speaker 1: he never learned the English language himself because his family
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  Speaker 1: came over from Normandy in ten sixty six, which means
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  Speaker 1: that they spoke Norman French. Now Henry was intelligent, he
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  Speaker 1: spoke Latin as well, which was the language of the
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  Speaker 1: elite at the time, just as French was. So his
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  Speaker 1: court would have a lot of business conducted on Francais.
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  Speaker 2: All right, So let's pop into this Latin section. Here
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  Speaker 2: there is a book, a document, a collection of ledgers
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  Speaker 2: called the English Liber Feodorum, which translates roughly to the
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  Speaker 2: Book of Fees. And this is where we get the
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  Speaker 2: information that we know about Roland because it was an
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  Speaker 2: account of all the payments that went to various members
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  Speaker 2: of the court, but unfortunately didn't have any dates. It
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  Speaker 2: just had personnel and what they were paid, and you
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  Speaker 2: know what their particular skill was or the action that
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  Speaker 2: they were paid for for. Roland the language is as such,
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  Speaker 2: unim saltem at siphalitum at unim bumbalum executed simultaneously.
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  Speaker 1: That translates in English to one jump, one whistle, and
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  Speaker 1: one fart. And this happens every Christmas.
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  Speaker 2: Every Christmas because they had a big old shindig soire thing.
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  Speaker 1: And what does he get in return for this very
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  Speaker 1: specific physical stunt.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Henry the second must have been a huge fan
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  Speaker 2: of this guy, because he was awarded with like lands
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  Speaker 2: and an estate.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yes, he was granted a manor house Hemmingstone in
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  Speaker 1: Suffolk and depending on which source you read, either thirty
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  Speaker 1: acres of land or a hundred, which is a heck
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  Speaker 1: of a variation.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that obvious. He didn't keep particularly good records
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  Speaker 2: back in those days, so you know.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And we do know that although Roland the Fart
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  Speaker 1: really did exist and really did carry out this very
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  Speaker 1: specific act of a jump, a whistle and a fart
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  Speaker 1: once a year executed, at the same time, we know
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  Speaker 1: that his story gets very murky very quickly. There's actually
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  Speaker 1: very little verifiable information about the guy other than the
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  Speaker 1: Book of fees and later biographers loved this story so
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  Speaker 1: much that if you look back at the timeline all told,
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  Speaker 1: it sounds as if he has been doing he was
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  Speaker 1: doing this for more than one hundred years, which is
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  Speaker 1: clearly not true.
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  Speaker 2: No, there's no way. And was this like his big finish,
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  Speaker 2: the jump in the whistle on the fire or was
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  Speaker 2: this you know, it sounds like he was sort of
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  Speaker 2: a member of a particular type of performer that would
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  Speaker 2: have had a variety of skills, not just being able
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  Speaker 2: to jump whistle and far simultaneously, but this was his
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  Speaker 2: particular kind of like signature move.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, he would pull off.
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  Speaker 2: And the fact that he was credited like that in
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  Speaker 2: a legal document that speaks volumes.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that was the only thing that he legally had
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  Speaker 1: to do. But surely there was a bit of showmanship.
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  Speaker 1: There was a bit of lead into it, you know,
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  Speaker 1: probably a couple of politically sensitive hot take kind of jokes,
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  Speaker 1: because Jester's ough pi such a unique and powerful role
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  Speaker 1: in a court. We also know that Roland was not
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  Speaker 1: the only professional flatialists. We know that there are practices
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  Speaker 1: involving did I see these pictures to you of Japan
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  Speaker 1: in the Edo period? I'm just gonna show this to you.
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  Speaker 2: Noel. Oh, that's a whole genre of art. I've seen
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  Speaker 2: like these prints, these Japanese wood cut prints of like
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  Speaker 2: dudes just you know, with crazy explosive fart lines coming
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  Speaker 2: out of there usually bear behind, right.
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  Speaker 1: There's this artistic trope of in Japan of depicting farts
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  Speaker 1: both as satire and as weapons of battle. The word
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  Speaker 1: war would be he gossen h e ash g A
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  Speaker 1: S s e n. There were also the Brugador or
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  Speaker 1: farters of Ireland, and there were seven rule other a
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  Speaker 1: ritualistically important or professionally paid flatialists throughout history. Unfortunately, we
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  Speaker 1: do know a lot about one of the most famous,
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  Speaker 1: I would say the most famous flatialist in history.
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  Speaker 2: Talk about lat Yes, yes, La pet that's right, La
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  Speaker 2: Petro Main aka Joseph Pougeol, who was a young Frenchman
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  Speaker 2: from Marseilles, I believe, isn't that right, Marseille.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Marseille, Marseille. Yeah, that's been Casey on the Case, Part.
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  Speaker 2: Two, Part two, and we've got a third one coming up.
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  Speaker 2: But don't don't you, don't you worry. And that was
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  Speaker 2: in eighteen fifty seven, by the way, that that he
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  Speaker 2: was born. Yeah, he was. He was the son of
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  Speaker 2: a baker, and baking becomes another one of his passions
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  Speaker 2: throughout his life. But he there's a really great story
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  Speaker 2: about young Pougeol. When he was a young man, he
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  Speaker 2: was swimming in the sea and realized that he was
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: actually taking in water up his uh is uh anus.
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  Speaker 1: I was going to say Australia for the euphemism, but
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  Speaker 1: or his rectum, we could just go into the scientific
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: term series it's yeah uh. And this happened as he
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: was inhaling. There's a great depiction of this off damninteresting
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: dot com written by Alan Bellows. He returned to shore
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and he freaked out, understandably feeling this water in the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: wrong place or an unexpected place, and he immediately goes
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  Speaker 1: back to shore where he is astonished to see quote
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  Speaker 1: a great deal of seawater pouring from his backside. Luckily,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: a doctor said that this was not something he needed
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: to be gravely concerned about, and Joseph, in a way
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  Speaker 1: similar to like a Marvel superhero, discovers that he has
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  Speaker 1: an extraordinary ability.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he could actually do this with with air in
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  Speaker 2: addition to water, which makes sense, but you know, how
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  Speaker 2: cool is it to be able to realize this is
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  Speaker 2: something he could control and not just a fluke, because
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure he was kind of, you know, understandably freaked
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  Speaker 2: out by it. And then all of a sudden it
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  Speaker 2: became like empowering. It's like I can do this, you know,
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  Speaker 2: for fun. Yeah, And and oh what fun he had.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. He found that he could deliberately suck water in
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  Speaker 1: through this area of his body and then project it
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  Speaker 1: back out, even creating a spout that went on for
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: several meters. He thought, you know, this is cool, but
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: let's see if I can do the same thing with air.
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  Speaker 1: And in addition to discovering that he could do the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: same thing with air, he also learned that with the
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: right contortion rhythm, he could reproduce some songs. And again,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: he's a young person at this point, he's still in school.
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  Speaker 1: This is a hit in his class, right.
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  Speaker 2: I can only imagine, can only imagine. I bet the
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  Speaker 2: teachers loved him.
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  Speaker 1: No, no, they might have. They probably laughed about it
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  Speaker 1: outside of the classroom.
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  Speaker 2: We haven't even talked about the fact that farts are
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  Speaker 2: are funny.
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  Speaker 1: Still, farts are funny because they're something a little bit
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  Speaker 1: naughty that applies to everyone.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 1: It's a very equalizer like death. And as Alan wrote
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: in the in the book that Casey had mentioned earlier,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: farts had a We're seen as a reminder of mortality
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: back in the day, right, so they occupy this important role.
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  Speaker 1: We learned so many fart facts for today's episode, fun
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  Speaker 1: far facts, fun fart facts.
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  Speaker 3: Just so.
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  Speaker 1: We learned that the oldest joke in the world is
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: a joke about farts, which maybe we can get to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: at the end of the story. It's not really related
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: to this, but it is interesting also objectively, I don't
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: think it's that funny. I think something's lost in the translation.
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  Speaker 1: But back to the Petal Main, before he becomes this
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: professional artist, he joined the army.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've seen it in a couple of different
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: places that he actually got that nickname from his army buddies.
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  Speaker 2: They bestowed it upon him. And as we learned from Roland,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: the fart or the peture right, this means fart. But
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: it took it a step beyond where Roland's name was.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: It took it to the level of an artist, the fartist. Yes,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: he became known as the fartiste, and when he left
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: military service, he opened a bakery in his hometown and
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: he was known for making these amazing brand muffins. But
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: he decided to take it further and in eighteen eighty seven,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: when he was thirty years old, he went on stage
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: in his hometown, not to do a live baking demonstration,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: but to take his flag to the to the theater.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Aren't brand muffins a little bit farty?
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one of the common beliefs about them. They
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: contain fiber which makes people regular, right, so that could
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: play a role. We also we had a long list
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: in some old episode of brain Stuff of all the
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: different foods that are thought to be fart inducing foods.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: So of course beans, right, and brand muffins could be
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: on there.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I hesitate to ask people to write in and tell
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: us about their experience brand muffins in this regard?
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Why why don't hesitates? We welcome your brand stories with
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: open arms. So what was his performance all about, Ben.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked Noel. Initially it was met with
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of skepticism fart history, said the French audience members.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: What on earth could this be. Surely it's a one
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: time gig, but he won the audience over. He was
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a big success. I think now it's time to let
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the badger ount of the bag. We have an example
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: of some of his work, don't wait.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: We do we do? This is what one of his
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: performances might have sounded like, let's roll the tape.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: What doing that? Ola found.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: No name and we heard it up. I think we've
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: heard it up.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: This is what Let's stop there. You could hear it
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: in full.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: I can't help I'm such a child. I just think
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: I just can't help but laugh.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Well, it's his it's his also his real job. I'm
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: sure he'd be glad to hear that his craft is
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: respected well in twenty eighteen.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: And what you realized he is, he's like he's doing
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: bits in between them. He's he's setting up the different
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: types of right arts that.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: He's doing, giving context like any good impressionists. Let's if
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: we can stop the let's uh, let's defer to Casey Pegram. Casey,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: can you help us out with I know that audio
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: is really rough, but could you give us any guesses
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: at what the petal manas saying in these.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah? So you guys sent me this clip, and at
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: first I didn't know if I was going to be
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: able to get much of anything out of it, but
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: I did eventually kind of decode a few different other phrases,
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: and then I was able to plug those into Google
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: and actually find a complete transcript of the entire thing
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: courtesy of somebody on a Reddit. Then that reddit person
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: was Ariat that was on the r today. I learned
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: subreddit six years ago. Anyway, So some of my favorites here, well,
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: to begin with one of the early ones, the pet
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: de my mother in law's fart, the pet de masson.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: That's a pretty rough rue. That's the Mason's part.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: No man uh.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: And then immediately after he says lamemn, which is the
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: same dry being failed. So wait what he gambled and
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: he lost?
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: I think? Is the.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, there's there's a little some extra at the
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: end of that one.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Was there something about giraffes?
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: The draft one is bizarre, so la pete dela and
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: metical debut. Part of the standing up draft or the
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: draft as it's standing up, it cuts one.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: And that's been Casey on the Case Part three, Part three.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: We're a Part three and I'm loving every second of it.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: He also the petal man, not our man, Casey. He
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: also played songs, and he blew out candles, and we
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: should mention I guess some of the song stuff, because
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: that's what seems tough to me. Right, Even if you
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: can expel gas on command, getting the right tone is different.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Well, Ben, it's a lot like whistling, my friend. I mean,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: you're whistling. You make different challenges by changing the tightness
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: or looseness of your lips. So I would imagine the
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: same would apply to the butt.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: We're being very like, I'm proud of us for being
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: as diplomatic. We're doing our best as we are at
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: this point. It's tough, so we said. The crowd reacted
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: favorably despite their initial skepticism. So what happened? What happened
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: to Laptomol after this first show?
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Well, he was a hit. He was a massive hit, right, Yeah,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: And he parlayed that first performance into a pretty lucrative
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: contract at the famous Mulin rouge.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the same one that you've heard about in film.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: And the show started to get a hint danger, right,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: because people were laughing so much that some women would
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: pass out because of their laughter and their tight corsets.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: And then one guy had a heart attack and died.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: That's terrible, but you know, farting is objectively hilarious, and
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: I guess that's an okay way to go.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Well, they capitalized on it in the marketing. They put
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: up signs and they had nurses stationed around the theater,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and the signs would be like, this may be dangerous.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Now let's point something out, okay before we go any further. Sure,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: this might be grossing you guys out, and I can
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: understand that. But let's not forget that lepetut Man. Remember
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: that first story about the intake of the water. Yes, well,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: he basically was able to give himself kind of an
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: automatic enema, right, and he did that up to three
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: times a day. He was apparently a health food and
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: a vegetarian and a teetotaler. He did not drink a
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: drop even in the crazy, absynthe soaked world of the
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Mulan Rouge.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Not.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: His effort was devoted entirely to his craft, so his
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: farts did not smell bad.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting point. Yet, Now he did smoke cigarettes
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: from both ends, so was it completely healthy?
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: I think everybody smoked cigarettes, and I think that was
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: just a rite of passage for being French.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: It would be abnormal not to at this point in history, right,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: And it's true his expellations really did not generate a
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: noticeably terrible smell. And just to clarify as the Grand Final,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: when he's playing the songs, he has an ocarina attached
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to the end of a hose and he plays through
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the ocarina and the audience sings along with him, a
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: little bit of crowd work at the end.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: And he's a real seasoned pro.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: And he gets an exclusive contract with mulin Rouge. Did
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: we mention that part?
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: No, I just said it was a contract, but yeah,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: exclusive is right. And it caused him a little bit
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: of trouble because he, I think, did a piece of
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: his act like on the street for somebody, or like
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: a private fart serenade, Yeah, to promote a friend's new
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: business in eighteen ninety five, and that did not go
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: over well with the proprietars of the mulon Rouge.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the owner of the theater sued him for breach
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: of contract because of this public serenade. His contract allowed
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: him only to do this sort of performative farting. It's
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: a weird term, performative farting in the mulin Rouge theater itself.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: And this might make the owner of the theater sound
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: like a real pill. But it's important to note for context.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: At the time of this lawsuit, Le pental Mount is
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the highest paid entertainer in the entirety of France. He's
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: like the Michael Jordan of professional farting. That's twenty thousand
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: for some of his higher performing shows. And that's not
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: per year, that's a single show. And again that's way
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: back in the late eighteen hundreds.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we actually off. Mike tried to run this through
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: the handy dandy inflation calculator, but it could not crunch
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: the numbers this time, the timeframe and the currency exchange
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: was a little too much for the inflation calculator to crunch.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Old Flady can't win them all, but the inflation calculator
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: will return in future episodes. You have our word. So
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: he gets sued by the owner of the Mulan Rouge,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and he doesn't take this sitting down, because that's not
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: part of the act. He instead fights the situation in court.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: But while this is going on, the Mulan Rouge decides
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: to replace him with a different performer.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Now it's really really a rough time. I'm for old
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: La Petu Man because they replaced him with a lady
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: f artist named it was just left.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Me.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, who turned out to be a fraud fatale.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: It's right. Yeah, Apparently under her enormous petticoats, she was
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: hiding a bellows that was being worked I'm guessing by
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: her foot or.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Maybe like thigh master rule. Yeah, but couldn't you see
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: that he's moving.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: And adding insult to injury. Her act was a one
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: to one ripoff of his act, and it it. You know,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: it was quite a kerfuffle.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was quite a to do for sure.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: No Joseph Parole, not to be defeated, said, you know what,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to open my own theater. God knows I
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: have the money in the capitol to do so. So
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: he opens his own theater and begins working for him himself,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: and for years and years and years he is doing
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: quite well. He builds up a name, people go to
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: see the world famous Le Petromint, and things are rolling
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: smoothly along until World War One occurs in nineteen fourteen.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I guess. I guess things just
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: got kind of dark and people just weren't in the
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: same mirthful spirits they used to be, where farts would
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: would make them, you know, have heart attacks in the aisle,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: they were having heart attacks from like serious stuff, like
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: you know, having bombs dropped on them and things, and
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: just living in utter fear and terror.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: And additionally, his two sons were disabled in World War One.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: So he packs up his career as a professional flagelist
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and he reopens a bakery, which he was doing at
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the story. And guess what he's known for, Noel,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Is it the brand Muffins? It is the brand Muffins.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: He lives to the ripe old age of eighty eight
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: years old and expires in nineteen forty five.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and leaves behind him a legacy of fartestry that
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: has actually been carried on today by a pretty admittedly
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: small group. But there is one guy who is carrying
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: this mantle, and I mean an appearance on the BBC
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety seven. He goes by the name of
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: mister Methane and uses the same technique the whole idea
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: of inhaling air into the sphincter and pushing it back
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: out and being able to make different tones. And you
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: can kind of tell by the way he sticks the
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: microphone right in his butt and then speaks into it
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: afterwards that he too has a odorless expulsion.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Well, he certainly certainly presents it as such. An we
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: can talk a little bit about the science of this too,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: but first let's let's play a clip of mister Methane
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: if we've got one handy.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, by the way, this clip was banned from the
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: BBC on the grounds of bad taste. According to this
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: this YouTube clip here, you'd be the judge, a man
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: a mud party of my hatstead. Still, somebody told me
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: his name was phil.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: O my hot stead. Still his name was phil.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: And when just just set the tone. And this guy
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: is wearing green spandex a with a purple cape and
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: a green little face mask, and that is mister Methane
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: and Frank Skinner performing did Run Run, which is backed
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: by the band the Skinnerettes, for BBC Television nine ninety seven,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: but apparently it did not make it to air. I
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: want to confirm that, but that is what I'm reading here.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: He is not for the record singing. He is just
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: providing the the wind for this. Praised as a true genius,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: a huge star by Howard Stern. He's appeared on numerous
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: different programs, not just the BBC, but he's on Francis
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Scott Talent, Britain Scott Talent. Simon Cowell called him a disgusting.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Creature, did in fact call then that's true.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: But he also mister Methane, not Simon, got to the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: German version of the show Dos Super Talent. He made
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: it to the semi finals. The winner was actually a dog.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: You know, the Germans are into that stuff.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: You can read the entire story from his perspective at
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: his website, which is still up mister Methane dot com.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: He also has a Facebook page where he has six
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: and ninety five likes. So, you know, an admittedly niche talent,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: but very much you know, carrying on the torch of
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: you know, past heroes like Roland the fartr and La
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: pate Main.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: And since we promised it in the beginning, we can
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: go ahead. While while we're on the subject of farts,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: tell you the world's oldest joke. It has been traced
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: back to nineteen hundred BCE, and it is Samerian. These
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the s Marians lived and was now southern Iraq. And
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: here it goes. Tell us if you think it still
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: translates something which has never occurred since time immemorial, semi colon.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Here a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: That's it, that's the joke.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't I don't understand.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I don't get it either. It feels like maybe there's
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: some social commentary that applied more to that time than
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: it does the twenty eighteen. But it's it's neat that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: the world's oldest joke is a fart joke. I suppose, Yeah, yeah,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: you said you like fart humor.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: I just don't think. I don't know. I would rather
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: hear hear a fart than that joke.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And someone who did not like poop humor. This might
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: surprise some of us to learn, was Le Petelm himself.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: He did not want to denigrate or diminish the quality
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: of his artistry and impressions.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a fartiste. He had been working on
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: this craft for many years. I don't even think we
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: said that that from the time he found out about
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: his talent to the time he actually graced the stage
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: for the first time. He had been like working on
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: this stuff for like five years or something, and you know,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: work shopping him.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, picture him staying up late night at the bakery
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: just humming songs to himself and trying to figure out
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: where he could slip the right fart in. And you know, no,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I think this was a pretty good one. This is
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: this is some fascinating stuff. I gotta speak up in
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: defense of farts though.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: I wonder how many times we said the word fart
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: in this episode.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Well, we've certainly said the word more often than hopefully
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: either of us have actually farted during this recording.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, man, didn't you have a stat
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: about how often in a day people fart and they
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: don't even realize it. It's not like they're like big,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: you know, boisterous ones. It's just like that kind of
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: regulation of your gas.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I said in the top of the show,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: it's about a leader to one point five leaders of
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: gas per day, and most people will tend to fart
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: on average about thirteen to twenty one times.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: So we're all on this together.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: We're all in this together. And as I was setting
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: up in defense of farts, if you ever feel guilty
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: for laying a particular stinker, remember your farts are going
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: to be manufactured by the bacteria that lives within your body.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: About seventy five percent of your farts are created in
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: your lower intestine, not by you. So the true culprit
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: of a smelly fart is not you, but your bacteria.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: And that's why le petalumint and other professional flatulists don't
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: have that smell because they're taking in air from outside
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: and then expelling it.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: But you're saying that the legit way. It's not even
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: your fault because you're really just farting your farts farts.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Right, which leads us to a bigger question, who or
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: what are we farting inside of?
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Let us know what you think. You can write to
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: us at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can check
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: us out on Facebook and Instagram, or we are Ridiculous
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: History and we should thank everybody.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we'd also like to before we go to our
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: thank you's issue a clarification. Previously we had attributed to
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: episodes to our research associate, Christopher hasiotis Christopher being the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: stand up, great guy that he is, wrote to us
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: off air to point out that those previous two episodes
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: were actually the work of our research associate, Eve's Jeffcoat,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and you can find more of Eve's work over at
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the Afropunk Solution Sessions show, as well as stuff Mom
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Never Told You So do tune in check those out.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks of course to super producer Casey Pegrim, thanks to
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams who wrote this track, and thanks to you, Noel,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: always a pleasure.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: You're welcome, Ben goodbye. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: your favorite shows.