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The Ridiculous History of the "Ice Cream Sundae" · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super producer,
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Speaker 1: Max the Madman.
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Speaker 2: Williams screaming for ice cream. Yeah, I love ice cream.
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Speaker 2: It's delicious.
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Speaker 1: And that's mister Noel Brown, none other than And you're
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Speaker 1: Ben Bullin and I am Ben Bullen. And today, in
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Speaker 1: typical Ridiculous History fashion, given that it is a colder
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Speaker 1: time of the year and our Fairmantrop Bliss of Atlanta,
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Speaker 1: we decided to do an episode about a specific version
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Speaker 1: of ice cream. And I can't remember if I told you,
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Speaker 1: nol MX, but when circumstances found me in Vienna as
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Speaker 1: the weather was turning several years ago, was quite cold,
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Speaker 1: and surprise, surprise, people were still lining up for ice cream.
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Speaker 1: Austrians love ice cream in all versions.
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Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, yeah, I mean, I don't blame them. It's
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Speaker 2: a delightful confection and I don't find it to be
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Speaker 2: necessarily seasonal. If you're indoors and you have climate control,
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Speaker 2: what's stopping you from eating ice cream?
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Speaker 1: Right? And you have to have some kind of climate
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Speaker 1: control to make ice cream in the first place.
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Speaker 2: My gosh, we should do an episode on the history
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Speaker 2: of ice And one of my favorite phrases you ever
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Speaker 2: used that still occurs to me sometimes is once, oh,
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Speaker 2: a few years ago, we were making some videos for
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Speaker 2: stuff they Don't Want you to do, and you described
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Speaker 2: part of the good life as iced creams. Oh. Yes,
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Speaker 2: of course I love iced creams. Yes, I like that.
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Speaker 2: I like like egg creams, which contains neither egg nor cream.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, the pity of the formula, right, we don't have
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Speaker 1: to relitigate that one. But we do have something to
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Speaker 1: bring to you today, fellow ridiculous historians. It's something that
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Speaker 1: caught the eye of our research associate superproducer Max Williams
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Speaker 1: for this episode. The concept of the ice cream Sunday
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Speaker 1: conventionally spelled here in the US, not like the day
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Speaker 1: of the week, but s U N.
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Speaker 2: D a e s one of those things you see
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Speaker 2: and you're like, I don't know, maybe it's it's given
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Speaker 2: you pause where you're like, is that what is this?
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Speaker 2: Is this an invented word?
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Speaker 3: Uh?
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Speaker 2: And I realized in reading this brief Max, I'd never
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Speaker 2: really questioned it. I don't believe. But then the moment
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Speaker 2: that I started looking into your research, I was like,
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Speaker 2: of course that's weird. Why in the hell is it
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Speaker 2: spelled that way? And of course it has something to
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Speaker 2: do with religion.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yes, as we'll see. So let's begin with an
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Speaker 1: excellent article slash Investigation by Cory Ryan Earl, writing for
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Speaker 1: the Kenelians.
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Speaker 2: Cornellians.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, from Cornell, a semi famous university in Ithaca, New York.
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Speaker 2: Right, shout out to my buddy James, the Cornell alone
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Speaker 2: one of them Ivy leagues. If I'm not mistaken, it
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Speaker 2: is true. That is true.
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Speaker 1: No, and congrats James. Those schools so our buddy Corey says,
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Speaker 1: the ice cream Sunday is an American staple. This simple
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Speaker 1: and customizable treat simply put scoops of ice cream with
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Speaker 1: some sort of sauce and toppings, gained popularity in the
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Speaker 1: early twentieth century. Now, if you go to Corey's research,
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Speaker 1: you'll see that there's a strong argument the ice cream
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Speaker 1: Sunday originated in Ithaca, New York. However, as we will learn,
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Speaker 1: with so many inventions that may not be entirely the case. Spoiler,
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Speaker 1: Wisconsin is going to enter the chat a little bit later,
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Speaker 1: maybe we get to what about this, Maybe we get
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Speaker 1: to the origin story that Corey Earl gives.
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Speaker 2: Us for sure. Can we also just get it out
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Speaker 2: of the way right up front? Ice cream with sauce
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Speaker 2: and toppings. Not the most unique take. It probably was
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Speaker 2: done by a couple of folks, you know, for the
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Speaker 2: quote unquote first time. The idea of calling it a
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Speaker 2: Sunday is I think what's at question was at the
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Speaker 2: heart of this investigation. So yeah, it's almost more branding
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Speaker 2: one hundred percent yep. And then why the hell is
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Speaker 2: it spelled that way? Well, we're gonna get to it.
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Speaker 1: So.
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Speaker 2: Plattin Cult's drug Store was a soda fountain shop operating
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Speaker 2: in downtown Ithaca on two sixteen East State Street. One day,
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Speaker 2: according to lore Chester, Platt, the proprietor of said drug
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Speaker 2: store slash soda fountain, stopped by the shop after church
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Speaker 2: on Sunday, where he attended at Ithaca's first Unitarian church.
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Speaker 1: Which is interesting for the time universal Unitarianism could be
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Speaker 1: its own episode.
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Speaker 2: Very progressive. I grew up hanging with some Unitarians and
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Speaker 2: they would always host like metal shows in there, like
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Speaker 2: a fellowship hall, which I thought was pretty cool. So
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Speaker 2: we would play, you know, shows at the Unitarian church
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Speaker 2: there in Augusta. So yeah, the first Unitarian church. He
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Speaker 2: actually came with a with a guest to his shop,
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Speaker 2: the Reverend John Scott, and Platte asked his soda fountain
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Speaker 2: worker one de Forest Christians, I love the name, the
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Speaker 2: fabulous name, to prepare two dishes of vanilla ice cream. Now, well,
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Speaker 2: let's set the stage here, folks. We are again on Sunday,
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Speaker 2: mid afternoon, April third, eighteen ninety two, where a Platin
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Speaker 2: Colt's drug store and the guy who is bringing his guest,
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Speaker 2: a man of local renowned the reverend. The guy, the
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Speaker 2: proprietor Chester is trying to flex a little bit, so
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Speaker 2: we say he's probably saying to the Reverend John Scott,
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Speaker 2: you know, get whatever you want, Reverend. Don't order the
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Speaker 2: lobster because we probably don't have it. But you know,
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Speaker 2: if you want to throw something on this vanilla ice cream,
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Speaker 2: be my guest. And so accounts different again per Corey
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Speaker 2: Earle as to which man chose the specific toppings for
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Speaker 2: this vanilla ice cream. Ultimately they ended up with ice
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Speaker 2: cream that was not just vanilla, but it had cherry
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Speaker 2: syrup and a candied cherry atop the scoop. Now it
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Speaker 2: would have been the kind of cherry syrup they would
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Speaker 2: have used in the soda fountain problem. So this was
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Speaker 2: not like we did not yet have bespoke ice cream toppings. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: and they had to kind of use what was available.
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Speaker 2: Hence the lore of it all. One man asked the other,
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Speaker 2: which one asked, who is still as history mystery what
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Speaker 2: the new concoction might be called? The reply was a
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Speaker 2: cherry Sunday, in honor of its creation day.
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Speaker 1: Get it, because it's Sunday, we put cherries on it,
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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We're today, we're doing our thing,
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Speaker 1: and we're also a bit unitarian and unorthodox because we're
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Speaker 1: putting soda syrup.
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Speaker 2: It's a bit of a cross of the sacred and
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Speaker 2: the profane, you might argue, you know, I mean, ice
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Speaker 2: cream is sort of an indulgence, a bit of a
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Speaker 2: naughty treat.
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Speaker 1: I like the papal reference. Also, we have to admit that,
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Speaker 1: we have to admit that American nomenclature has had a
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Speaker 1: weird headway and with the phrase vanilla, because now vanilla
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Speaker 1: is meant to describe something very beige and unremarkable. But
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Speaker 1: civilizations absolutely rose and fell based on vanilla as a spice.
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Speaker 1: So it's weird for sure, and you know, it does
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Speaker 1: make me think too. This idea of christening a dairy based,
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Speaker 1: you know, treat after the Lord's Day is pretty progressive
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Speaker 1: considering that, you know, in the past, the Catholic Church
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Speaker 1: might have, you know, forced you to put a buck
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Speaker 1: in that butter box in order to consume a tasty
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Speaker 1: dairy treat. Right, yeah, And you can hear various games
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Speaker 1: of telephone regarding the Sunday origin story, and some of
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Speaker 1: these pieces of anecdote or apocrypha will suggest that students
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Speaker 1: at Cornell helped popularize this idea. They also wanted their
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Speaker 1: vanilla with a little bit of cherry, the concept being,
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Speaker 1: or the argument being, that they witnessed the debut of
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Speaker 1: this secret off menu item, and they kept coming back
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Speaker 1: to pratting cults and ordering the new treat just the
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Speaker 1: same way the reverend did. And then they would go
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Speaker 1: on vacation on the constitutionals and they would come back
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Speaker 1: to the town after graduation and they would say, oh,
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Speaker 1: we want that platin cult off menu special item, not
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Speaker 1: just vanilla. Creams for us, but please with some cherry
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Speaker 1: sauce and a cherry at top. Please, Yes, pretty please
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Speaker 1: with a cherry on top. I like the etymology there, Noel,
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Speaker 1: we also see the Platin cult leaned into this. Over
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Speaker 1: the next several weeks, they would run advertisements in the
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Speaker 1: local paper, the Daily Sun, advertising what they called the
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Speaker 1: Cherry Sunday spelled at this point s U n.
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Speaker 2: D A y Well. I mean, soda fountain history has
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Speaker 2: a lot in common with diner history and the idea
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Speaker 2: of like daily specials and stuff like that, you know,
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Speaker 2: so this sort of falls into that in an interesting way.
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Speaker 2: We're gonna get to more of of how that's the
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Speaker 2: case in a little bit. But we've got another potential
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Speaker 2: version of the story in the form of Wisconsin, who
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Speaker 2: has now entered the chat.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely not, this is the origin story. This is our
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Speaker 1: shortest episode ever. Thank you for tuning in, and sorry
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Speaker 1: about the ads.
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Speaker 2: Fun Let's talk about Wisconsin. Scratch, nice scratch Wisconsin people.
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Speaker 2: Oh god, they're so nice, and they, you know, are
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Speaker 2: a bit more dairy centric over there and very little
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Speaker 2: so record scratch.
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Speaker 1: Wisconsin has entered the Chat. Let's go to Dean Robbins
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Speaker 1: for Wisconsin Life, he says, and I'm not going to
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Speaker 1: do the voice. I like driving across Wisconsin to see
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Speaker 1: a legendary historical sites. I planned whole trips around the
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Speaker 1: Euclaire baseball field where Hank Aaron got a start, and
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Speaker 1: the Janesville House where Abraham Lincoln spent the night, which
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Speaker 1: is his story for another day. But every once in
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Speaker 1: a while, says Dean, I stumble across a bit of
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Speaker 1: Wisconsin history. I knew nothing about. That happened on a
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Speaker 1: recent drive through the northeast part of the state. When
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Speaker 1: I pulled into two rivers in Central Park, I noticed
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Speaker 1: an official Wisconsin historical marker claiming it as the birthplace
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Speaker 1: of the ice cream Sunday spelled Sundae, which is oddly
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Speaker 1: a bit Korean.
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Speaker 2: Any Wait a minute, now, they can't. They don't just
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Speaker 2: pass out historical markers willy nilly, right, so the guy continues,
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Speaker 2: Dean continues, coincidentally, my favorite dessert.
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Speaker 1: Could such a major phenomenon have originated in this small town?
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Speaker 1: Let's learn more about the marker.
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Speaker 2: On the marker, it claims that a local man by
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Speaker 2: the name of George Hallower. Too many very similar story
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Speaker 2: walked into a soda fountain fifteenth Street there in Eau
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Speaker 2: Claire in eighteen eighty one. This is eleven years. However,
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Speaker 2: prior to the previous origin story, he asked the proprietor
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Speaker 2: of this soda fountain, one Edward Berner, to top a
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Speaker 2: dish of ice cream off with some chocolate sauce, a
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Speaker 2: substance that had previously been only used for ice cream sodas,
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Speaker 2: which is of course a thanks scoop of ice cream
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Speaker 2: like a root beer float. Also, chocolate sauce would have
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Speaker 2: been used in those egg creams we were talking about
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Speaker 2: a minute ago. This new concoction says, the marker caught
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Speaker 2: on and Berner began to sell them for a nickel,
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Speaker 2: but only on Sundays.
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Speaker 1: Only on Sundays, and as we have proven in previous
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Speaker 1: episodes of this and many other shows, capitalism manufactured scarcity right. However, However,
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Speaker 1: out of all the people who might have walked in
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Speaker 1: on a Saturday or a Tuesday and unsuccessfully attempted to
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Speaker 1: order this nickel chocolate sauce iced cream, there was a
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Speaker 1: ten year old girl who must have had a lot
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Speaker 1: of charm about her. She said she wants her dish
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Speaker 1: of ice cream, well with that stuff on the top
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Speaker 1: on a different day of the week. Now our buddy,
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Speaker 1: our momentary protagonist, the proprietor, Edward Berner. He says, absolutely
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Speaker 1: not until this girl, who again is just rolling that
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Speaker 1: twenties on diplomacy.
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Speaker 2: Regular Shirley Temple.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, just so she says, well, you know,
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Speaker 1: mister b why don't we just pretend it is Sunday
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Speaker 1: that he's going. He's not a monster, he's not gonna
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Speaker 1: be rude to a child. So he says, okay, very well,
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Speaker 1: because you are so arming, and so Shirley templish, we'll
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Speaker 1: give it to you. That opens the flight gates. Other
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Speaker 1: kids here about it. They call them scamps. Patted him
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Speaker 1: on the head, you know, I get yeah, you little rumplements.
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Speaker 1: And so the shopkeeper, I'm okay with it.
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Speaker 2: It's an Apartif I'm not mistaken, I can't remember.
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Speaker 1: I just think it's a fun word. So this spreads
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Speaker 1: like any other popular treat or toy amid the children,
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Speaker 1: amid the juvenile populace, and the shopkeeper can't if he
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Speaker 1: says yes to one kid, he's got to say yes
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Speaker 1: to the other ones. So they start offering the dish
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Speaker 1: every day, and they start offering it in more flavors. Again,
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Speaker 1: this is pretty apocryphal. But now we've got Wisconsin versus
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Speaker 1: New York for the origin of the Sunday. Now our
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Speaker 1: next question is which of these stories is true. So
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Speaker 1: if we go back to Corey Earle, we'll see that
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Speaker 1: he looks into this origin or providence of the chocolate
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Speaker 1: Sunday or the Sunday is a concept right for his
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Speaker 1: case in Ithaca, it's the cherry Sunday, and he says, look,
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Speaker 1: if you check out the publications of the time, then
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Speaker 1: you will see the first use of the word Sunday
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Speaker 1: referring to this dessert does show up in the Ithaca
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Speaker 1: Daily Journal on Tuesday, April fifth, eighteen ninety two, just
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Speaker 1: two days after local Lore says this confection was created.
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Speaker 2: Right, and then we have another notice published in the
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Speaker 2: Daily Sun the next day, Cherry Sunday a delicious, dainty
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Speaker 2: ice cream novelty just out yesterday at Platin Colts Fountain
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Speaker 2: and nowhere else. Earl goes on. Platin. Coult's claim is
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Speaker 2: bolstered by its attempts to trademark the term Sunday. Evidence
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Speaker 2: by a letter dated March twenty third, eighteen ninety four
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Speaker 2: in Chester Platt's collected papers that are held in archive
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Speaker 2: at the University Library's Rare and Manuscript Collections. So as
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Speaker 2: far as the wisconstant claim goes Robbins, the historical nemesis
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Speaker 2: of Earl. Now, I'm sure they're cool, goes on. The
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Speaker 2: most aggressive challenger is Ithaca, referring to the Wisconsin claim
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Speaker 2: New York, which points to a nineteenth century newspaper article
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Speaker 2: or ad rather are for a locally served Sunday as
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Speaker 2: referred to above. In a New York Times article on
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Speaker 2: the dispute, Ithaca's mayor through some serious shade at Two Rivers,
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Speaker 2: saying we have the historical documents to prove it, and
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Speaker 2: they don't. Two Rivers wouldn't take this sitting or lying down,
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Speaker 2: and they passed a resolution. There's a RealD beef going on.
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Speaker 2: No trouble right here in Two Rivers City. The city
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Speaker 2: passed a resolution demanding the Ithaca cease and desist with
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Speaker 2: its Sunday's landers. It said, man, this is getting heated.
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Speaker 1: I do want to point out the Chester Platte you
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Speaker 1: did something awesome. I've always i have always speculated over
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Speaker 1: whether my collective works will end up in a university
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Speaker 1: library's rare manuscript collection.
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Speaker 2: It's pretty tight. I hope that far. It's the dream.
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Speaker 1: It's a dream for sure. Let us not forget that, Nola,
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Speaker 1: you did a pretty solid reference to trouble right here
17:30
Speaker 1: in River City. Phenomenal musical number.
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Speaker 3: Uh.
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Speaker 1: If we're trying to figure out whether these folks in
17:38
Speaker 1: Ithaca and two Rivers are actually beefed up, we have
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Speaker 1: to get an outside opinion. So if you go to
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Speaker 1: trade groups like US Food, you'll see articles here's the
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Speaker 1: best one. You'll see articles like a brief history of
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Speaker 1: the ice Cream Sunday s U n d Ae. Who look,
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Speaker 1: they delve into it as an objective third party. They
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Speaker 1: cannot figure out the providence, and they make the whole
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Speaker 1: thing even more of a slappy bowl of ice cream
18:11
Speaker 1: because they point out that there are not just these two,
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Speaker 1: but several other cities who claim to invent to have
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Speaker 1: invented the ice cream Sunday, including New Orleans and Eveston, Illinois.
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Speaker 1: So now we have to maybe loop Illinois and Louisiana
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Speaker 1: and this conversation. Look, we already have a ton of
18:36
Speaker 1: we already have a ton of episodes that hinge on
18:40
Speaker 1: New York, Illinois and Louisiana because we clearly listen to
18:46
Speaker 1: those first two soft John Stevens albums and decided that
18:50
Speaker 1: we were going to make an episode for every state.
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Speaker 1: And yes, Discounts is our Wisconsin episode. We're in on
18:59
Speaker 1: a technicality.
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Speaker 2: Heck, yeah, love a technicality. So what's the deal? Which
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Speaker 2: story is true? As often is the case in these
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Speaker 2: types of history mysteries, not entirely clear even to this day.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And with that, the mystery remains unsolved. The
19:19
Speaker 1: riddle remains ridiculous, ridliculous. I'm gonna keep it and Max,
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Speaker 1: thank you for the drum riff on that. When one
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Speaker 1: of the big questions we had the hopefully the same
19:34
Speaker 1: question you had, fellow ridiculous historians, one that we posed
19:38
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this episode, why is it now
19:41
Speaker 1: spelled sun day s U N d A E and
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Speaker 1: not sun day s U and d A Y.
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Speaker 2: What happened? Yeah, it's like we teased at the top.
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Speaker 2: The idea is an Evanston, Illinois, which was often referred
19:58
Speaker 2: to as Heavenstone ill because it was known for being
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Speaker 2: a bit Bible Thumpy, they passed a city ordinance banning
20:07
Speaker 2: the sale of ice cream sodas on Sunday. We've talked
20:11
Speaker 2: about these blue laws often. Some have been in effect
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Speaker 2: still to this day, and in fact, in South Carolina
20:18
Speaker 2: across the bridge from my hometown. I distinctly remember when
20:21
Speaker 2: I was a student in college needing to repair something,
20:26
Speaker 2: or needing like a shower curtain or some kind of
20:29
Speaker 2: household item, and being denied purchasing them at the local
20:33
Speaker 2: hardware store. And that was the first time I was
20:35
Speaker 2: kind of made aware of what blue laws were. But
20:37
Speaker 2: they are these puritanical sort of prohibitions of certain items
20:41
Speaker 2: that are not considered to be necessities or even could
20:46
Speaker 2: be considered more like indulgences. Alcohol sale on Sundays would
20:52
Speaker 2: certainly be considered one of these blue laws, and I'm
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Speaker 2: sure there are still places in the country that do that,
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Speaker 2: and there are of course dry counties. Well, but yeah,
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Speaker 2: they needed a workaround, didn't they been, Yeah, they did.
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Speaker 1: Blue laws are a very strange phenomenon, not unique to
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Speaker 1: the United States. So Heavenston Evanston is getting a little
21:22
Speaker 1: bit persnicty about their fundamentalist approach to recreation and to
21:29
Speaker 1: what they see as vice. So thanks again to Jeff
21:31
Speaker 1: Wells writing for Mental Floss, which is where we're pulling
21:35
Speaker 1: this from. The Methodist Church which runs the town of
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Speaker 1: Evanston doesn't like that there are a lot of crowds
21:44
Speaker 1: going to local soda fountains, perhaps in place of going
21:48
Speaker 1: to church. So the soda fountains and drug stores came
21:52
Speaker 1: up with this workaround and they started calling it not
21:56
Speaker 1: an ice cream soda, but a Sunday soda. Here's a
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Speaker 1: former newspaper editor named Richard Lloyd Jones who grew up
22:04
Speaker 1: in Evanston at the time, and he said, look, here's
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Speaker 1: what they did. They served ice cream with the syrup
22:13
Speaker 1: of your choice, the stuff that would ordinarily go in
22:17
Speaker 1: your favorite soda, without the soda. So it was technically
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Speaker 1: not an ice cream soda. It was just ice cream
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Speaker 1: and the syrup.
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Speaker 2: They were upset about the soda, not the ice cream.
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Speaker 1: The specific ingredients were the problems, so they removed one
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Speaker 1: of the ingredients, which means they technically complied with the law.
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Speaker 2: I guess that it's funny that there's this whole hullabaloo
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Speaker 2: around ice cream sodas versus just sodas or just ice cream.
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Speaker 2: It's like the combination of them makes it like more decadent.
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Speaker 2: It's two decaded for Sunday.
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Speaker 3: And this is.
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Speaker 1: Something that reminds me of again that excellent song You
22:56
Speaker 1: Got Trouble, originally written by Robert Preston, where he talks about, uh,
23:02
Speaker 1: you know, the the first thing a kid is gonna
23:05
Speaker 1: do is start wearing knickerbockers.
23:08
Speaker 2: You'll hear him say so is your old man? Uh yeah, he'll.
23:12
Speaker 1: Trouble sleep it in the core crip. Well, never mind
23:14
Speaker 1: the Dan lines getting pulled.
23:16
Speaker 2: Oh man, it's okay. With a capital T that rhymes
23:18
Speaker 2: with P that stands for pool.
23:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, well the capital B and that rhymes with P
23:22
Speaker 1: and that stands for pool, and your youth will be
23:25
Speaker 1: frittering away. So it is a great song, and please
23:28
Speaker 1: do check out SETH McFarland's cover of it. I don't
23:32
Speaker 1: know if anybody's seen it, but the man has perfect pitch.
23:34
Speaker 1: He's a phenomenal musician.
23:36
Speaker 2: He's a great singer and a great voice artist in
23:39
Speaker 2: his comedy ticularly Also, the New Its series on HBO
23:44
Speaker 2: IS makes great use of this exact sequence from the
23:48
Speaker 2: music Man as a as A as A motif in
23:50
Speaker 2: the first episode.
23:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, the name of that show is Welcome to Darry.
23:54
Speaker 1: We're big fans of it. If you're checking out HBO
23:58
Speaker 1: or Max already do check out The Chair Company, which
24:01
Speaker 1: we are absolutely gaga for anyway. So, because of this loophole,
24:08
Speaker 1: the Sunday Soda succeeded where other approaches in Evanston failed.
24:15
Speaker 1: They went with another name change to avoid offending the
24:19
Speaker 1: church so that they did not.
24:22
Speaker 2: They did not.
24:23
Speaker 1: Have the Lord's Day Day associated with this confection, so
24:28
Speaker 1: they changed it to be spelled s u n d A.
24:33
Speaker 1: That's the theory at least.
24:35
Speaker 2: Right Yeah, no, but it makes sense though, I mean,
24:37
Speaker 2: whether that's the case or not, the wanting to keep
24:42
Speaker 2: that branding and keep that you know, everyone knows who
24:45
Speaker 2: this thing is now, but also not run a foul
24:47
Speaker 2: of any you know, religious organizations. I could see it.
24:51
Speaker 2: But can you Are there any other clever ways you
24:53
Speaker 2: could you could reappropriate Sunday other than AE?
24:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, Yeah you could. You could call it
25:00
Speaker 1: su u n That's sure. You could call it you know,
25:05
Speaker 1: you could just elongate the vowels mm hmm, yeah, you
25:10
Speaker 1: could do that, or s.
25:11
Speaker 3: U n d ee heyway, so the the there's a
25:16
Speaker 3: murky bit of historical mystery here, but we do know
25:20
Speaker 3: again leaning on the research of Corey Earl, that in
25:24
Speaker 3: a nineteen o two article in a magazine called the Spatula,
25:29
Speaker 3: which was sort of a trade uh trade rag for pharmacists,
25:33
Speaker 3: you don't understand what to do with pharmacists, but I guess, yeah, yeah,
25:39
Speaker 3: I guess spachelas were much more important in pharmacology at
25:42
Speaker 3: the time.
25:43
Speaker 1: They they described the growing popularity of the Sunday spelled
25:47
Speaker 1: s u n d ae. So that proves that this
25:52
Speaker 1: spelling had become popularized, normalized, and accepted by the end
25:58
Speaker 1: of the by the turn of the twentieth century. Wisconsin's
26:04
Speaker 1: idea of Wisconsin's defense of the spelling change and the
26:10
Speaker 1: providence is tough because most of them have been drinking
26:16
Speaker 1: too much to give us a straight answer.
26:19
Speaker 2: Too much milk. Sure, and we'll go with that.
26:26
Speaker 1: With that, we have we have a bunch of other
26:28
Speaker 1: stuff that we we wanted to get to, but we're
26:31
Speaker 1: just gonna mention too.
26:33
Speaker 2: For time.
26:33
Speaker 1: You can't talk about the original og Sunday without talking
26:39
Speaker 1: about the infamous banana split.
26:41
Speaker 2: Well that's the thing, man, It starts to really occur
26:43
Speaker 2: to me that this idea of a Sunday is such
26:45
Speaker 2: a catch all because like I think, all banana splits
26:49
Speaker 2: are Sundays, but not all sundays or banana splits. It's
26:51
Speaker 2: one of those kind of like ven Diagram things because
26:55
Speaker 2: it is literally just an ice cream Sunday ad banana right.
26:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.
26:59
Speaker 1: And you could even argue that an ice cream Sunday
27:02
Speaker 1: is kind of a tactic or that's aproach more so
27:06
Speaker 1: than a list of discrete ingredients.
27:09
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because it can be anything. I mean, that's
27:11
Speaker 2: why it's so, it's why it seems to be such
27:13
Speaker 2: parallel thinking. And the use of Sunday is really the
27:16
Speaker 2: only mystery here, because ice cream on its own is great,
27:19
Speaker 2: But who wasn't going to decide to, you know, drizzle
27:22
Speaker 2: some stuff on top of it.
27:23
Speaker 1: You've got other stuff that you can add in about
27:25
Speaker 1: olive oil and ice cream.
27:27
Speaker 2: I have good, yeah, good, nice grassy olive oil. Yeah.
27:31
Speaker 1: I like that you point out grassy because not all
27:34
Speaker 1: olive oil is created equally.
27:36
Speaker 2: And you got that out with a plum, my friend,
27:39
Speaker 2: Thank you, sir.
27:40
Speaker 1: So the history of the banana split, according to the
27:44
Speaker 1: Great American banana split celebration is a real thing.
27:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
27:50
Speaker 1: It starts when a kid who's like twenty three years
27:53
Speaker 1: old named Dave Strickler is working in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and
27:58
Speaker 1: he starts combining different stuff with ice cream.
28:01
Speaker 2: Real mad scientists there, Yeah, very much so.
28:04
Speaker 1: And he he ends up splitting a banana in half
28:08
Speaker 1: length wise. He adds vanilla, chocolate and strawberry or we
28:13
Speaker 1: know he adds three scoops. We don't know what they
28:15
Speaker 1: were originally, and then he puts syrup, nuts, swipt cream
28:19
Speaker 1: and a little cherry on it and people love it.
28:21
Speaker 2: Remember that terrifying hr puffin stuff. Ask the television show
28:26
Speaker 2: the Banana Splits, I do horrifying hor They look like
28:31
Speaker 2: the Rock of Fire explosion band from Chuckie Cheese came
28:34
Speaker 2: to life and started a psychedelic band.
28:37
Speaker 1: Oh god, I mean honestly, I just read this and
28:40
Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, this guy just sounds like he's like
28:41
Speaker 1: super high, Like he just comes in He's.
28:43
Speaker 2: Like totally yeah, throw it in there.
28:48
Speaker 1: Also, at this point in time, he without getting into
28:51
Speaker 1: the weeds of chronology, our buddy Dave does not have
28:55
Speaker 1: a cell phone, so he's not on social media. He's
28:58
Speaker 1: sitting around and if it's a slow day, he's got
29:01
Speaker 1: to find something to fill his time. And that happened
29:03
Speaker 1: to be mad Science experiments with confections.
29:07
Speaker 3: You know.
29:08
Speaker 2: That's why the sixties are fine. That's why, like you know,
29:10
Speaker 2: period films are so important and and fun, like the
29:13
Speaker 2: new it thing takes place in the sixties where kids
29:15
Speaker 2: had to go outside and play and make stuff and
29:18
Speaker 2: trying funny ingredients on their ice streak from a hose.
29:21
Speaker 2: There you go.
29:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mom says, I can't come back in the afternoon
29:26
Speaker 1: because the milkman's coming over, and then the post office worker,
29:30
Speaker 1: and then I still have to be home before dark.
29:33
Speaker 2: Is there some hanky panking going on between mom and
29:35
Speaker 2: the and the milkman?
29:36
Speaker 1: Who are we to pank the hank? We can't say. However,
29:40
Speaker 1: one thing that's always on our mind with this kind
29:43
Speaker 1: of stuff is the most outrey, the most ostentatious, the
29:48
Speaker 1: most opulent version of a nice cream.
29:52
Speaker 2: How much could a banana cost?
29:53
Speaker 1: Michael right, exactly so per the Guinness Book World Records.
29:58
Speaker 1: As we found out, this is something w end on.
30:01
Speaker 1: The World's most expensive ice cream ever comes from Japan
30:07
Speaker 1: from a company called salato.
30:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw a video of somebody eating one of
30:11
Speaker 2: these and they were like it's fine, you know, like
30:14
Speaker 2: A yeah, I mean because the sticker shock of something
30:17
Speaker 2: like that, there's no way it can live up to
30:19
Speaker 2: the high There's just no possible way. And a big
30:22
Speaker 2: part of this cost is that, of course it's like
30:24
Speaker 2: covered in gold leaf and has like you know, finest
30:28
Speaker 2: Parmesano Reggiano cheeses and some sort of byproduct of sake
30:33
Speaker 2: that's like, uh, do you know about this ben sake?
30:35
Speaker 2: Le's isn't like the way that comes from the cheese,
30:38
Speaker 2: like the curry. Okay, that's a that's a good comparison. Yeah,
30:41
Speaker 2: they're claim to fame. This Japanese company is an ice
30:45
Speaker 2: cream called b.
30:47
Speaker 1: Y A k u y a.
30:50
Speaker 3: Uh.
30:50
Speaker 1: They source white truffles from Alba, Italy. Like you like
30:55
Speaker 1: you said Pamagano Reggiano. Uh, the sake lees I that
31:00
Speaker 1: comparison you're making to kurds and whey, they're they're the
31:04
Speaker 1: leftover stuff.
31:04
Speaker 2: There's a ton of gold leaf, folks.
31:06
Speaker 1: If you want a scoop of this ice cream, you're
31:09
Speaker 1: paying six thousand, six hundred and ninety six US dollars
31:15
Speaker 1: for four point four ounces. I'm gonna pass.
31:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a hard pass for me. But if you
31:22
Speaker 2: do want to check it out and see somebody react
31:25
Speaker 2: to it, you can go to it looks like Insider Food. No,
31:29
Speaker 2: here we are. There's an even better one. BuzzFeed video
31:31
Speaker 2: did it. This is the one where they're kind of
31:33
Speaker 2: like it's man on Tasty as well as on Insider Food.
31:36
Speaker 2: Is the world's most expensive ice cream worth its price tag?
31:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the answer is going to be probably not,
31:43
Speaker 1: just to be honest. Also, ice cream is a flavor medium,
31:49
Speaker 1: which means you can put all sorts of flavors upon
31:53
Speaker 1: that frozen dairy confection. I've had blue cheese ice cream.
31:57
Speaker 1: I didn't hate it. I've had every everything. Bagel ice
32:01
Speaker 1: cream appeals to me.
32:05
Speaker 2: That's somewhat appeals to me.
32:06
Speaker 1: I wasn't mad at it, but it felt like the
32:08
Speaker 1: scoop took a while. They're all all sorts of flavors.
32:13
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I like. I like cereal milk
32:16
Speaker 2: ice cream. There was a Mama Fuku had like a
32:19
Speaker 2: little soft survey place. I don't know if they do
32:22
Speaker 2: it anymore. It was called Momofuku Milk Bar. But not
32:24
Speaker 2: to be confused with milk bar, the other cookie you know,
32:27
Speaker 2: confectionery place. But they had Cereal milk ice cream, which
32:30
Speaker 2: I think they made by like soaking like fruity pebbles
32:33
Speaker 2: in milk and then using that milk to make the
32:35
Speaker 2: ice cream. But one that I really dug there was
32:37
Speaker 2: a little odd seeming was cream corn. Very tasty.
32:40
Speaker 1: I wasn't opposed. I was also surprised by mac and
32:43
Speaker 1: cheese ice cream. Pickle ice cream was interesting, but I'm
32:49
Speaker 1: also quite compelled by the future of spiced ice cream.
32:54
Speaker 2: Spiced cream. Yeah, yeah, with that, we can't wait to
32:58
Speaker 2: spice must flow.
33:00
Speaker 1: Yes, the spice bus flow. We can't wait to hear
33:03
Speaker 1: from you, folks. Hop on over to our Facebook page,
33:06
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. Give us some of your favorite weird ice
33:10
Speaker 1: cream flavors. Who are we to judge one person's weird
33:14
Speaker 1: as another person's Thursday?
33:16
Speaker 2: Tell you someone's young, right, you know, live and let lift.
33:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, as long as you're not hurting somebody else, right,
33:22
Speaker 1: uh so. Big thanks to our super producer mister Max
33:25
Speaker 1: Williams as well as our research associate for today's episode,
33:29
Speaker 1: and big thanks to Alex Williams who composed this Slap
33:34
Speaker 1: and bop has breaking news nol Jonathan Strickland aka the
33:39
Speaker 1: Twister invited us to go see a play.
33:43
Speaker 2: I did not receive this invites.
33:46
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll forward the email. He's not performing in it,
33:49
Speaker 1: so so we're.
33:50
Speaker 2: Gonna give you as to forward. And I don't think
33:52
Speaker 2: I was invited. Just put that out there, Just put.
33:54
Speaker 1: It out so we'll say, we'll say this, you get
33:59
Speaker 1: a pass this time in the credits, Twister, We're not
34:03
Speaker 1: gonna dump on.
34:04
Speaker 2: I also thought you were gonna say has died. Just
34:09
Speaker 2: throw that in as you said it a little little
34:12
Speaker 2: known fact that Jonathan Strickland, the Quizz has died and
34:16
Speaker 2: now he lives. He lives.
34:19
Speaker 1: I would just be like, okay, and who else? Noel?
34:21
Speaker 2: Who else? He's unkillable?
34:22
Speaker 1: Frankly, yeah, he rises faster and stronger.
34:27
Speaker 2: You can't kill an idea, you can't kill a concept.
34:29
Speaker 1: Of he can't stop the signal. Also big thanks to
34:34
Speaker 1: doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance and A. J. Bahamas Jacobs.
34:38
Speaker 1: Who else? Who else?
34:40
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, a jbj that's what we call him. Who else? Gosh,
34:43
Speaker 2: Chris Frosciotis and Eves Jeff Co's here in spirit, I'm
34:47
Speaker 2: gonna throw my hat in the ring to thank Max
34:49
Speaker 2: again for this awesome research doc. And thanks to you Ben,
34:52
Speaker 2: this has really been a fun conversation.
34:54
Speaker 1: And thanks to you, Cory, Ryan Earl, thanks to you
34:58
Speaker 1: Dean Robbins, and thanks to all the bored soda jerks
35:02
Speaker 1: of yesteryear.
35:04
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
35:14
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
35:17
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.