Latest / Stuff You Should Know / A Nostalgic Look at Crayons

Transcript

A Nostalgic Look at Crayons · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, There's guest producer Matt Yeah,
0:18
Speaker 1: and Jerry's not here because Jerry is a storm sufferer. Yeah.
0:25
Speaker 1: How did you fare? Pretty good? I mean powers out
0:28
Speaker 1: for a little while, cables out for a little bit, nothing,
0:31
Speaker 1: nothing bad. Yeah, we um, we're talking about Irma. If
0:35
Speaker 1: this is this is obviously in the future, there maybe
0:37
Speaker 1: another hurricane by then for all we know. Yeah, well,
0:40
Speaker 1: Jose is starting to circle background. I think, yeah, that's
0:42
Speaker 1: what I see. Uh. But yeah, Irma came through Atlanta,
0:46
Speaker 1: which is weird for a hurricane and then eventually tropical
0:49
Speaker 1: storm to reach that far inland. Uh. And I was
0:53
Speaker 1: kind of like, well, you know, we get bad thunderstorms
0:56
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, will be fine. Didn't make you. I bought
1:00
Speaker 1: some extra milk for the kid, and but I didn't
1:03
Speaker 1: like go nuts with you know, prepper style stuff. But
1:07
Speaker 1: it was surprisingly scary. I'm here to tell you. Were
1:10
Speaker 1: you scared? Yeah, I mean that was like in our
1:14
Speaker 1: our part of Atlanta got hit the hardest. Um, sort
1:18
Speaker 1: of the Eastlake Decatur, Kirkwood, decap County area. Uh, And
1:22
Speaker 1: there was one there was one moment where the trees
1:25
Speaker 1: and we have all these old you know, Atlanta for
1:28
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know, as a city built
1:30
Speaker 1: in the middle of a forest. So there are these
1:32
Speaker 1: old oak and pine trees that apparently have shallow roots
1:36
Speaker 1: from past droughts and things, because the roots kind of
1:39
Speaker 1: come towards the surface. Just not good. Yeah, And I
1:43
Speaker 1: was kind of wondering, you know, us like we like
1:47
Speaker 1: to just sort of study things in general, and I
1:50
Speaker 1: was looking at these trees swaying, and I was wondering
1:52
Speaker 1: about the physics of an uprooted tree. And then it's
1:56
Speaker 1: probably like you know, and the roots give and every
2:01
Speaker 1: time it swings, it probably just gets a little more unstable.
2:04
Speaker 1: And then the big gust and then so we had
2:09
Speaker 1: before like five huge trees down within a thousand feet
2:15
Speaker 1: of our house. So we were just sort of waiting.
2:18
Speaker 1: I was just literally like, all right, which one is
2:20
Speaker 1: coming to hit us? And there was one huge gust
2:24
Speaker 1: that came through at one point where it was so
2:27
Speaker 1: scary sounding that we grabbed the animals and our daughter
2:32
Speaker 1: and like ran into the hallway and Emily stayed there
2:36
Speaker 1: with her and the animals. You know, I could not.
2:38
Speaker 1: I was pacing from window to window the entire time.
2:41
Speaker 1: What's going on? It was like, if I can see
2:42
Speaker 1: it coming down, I might give us a half a
2:44
Speaker 1: second to get out of the way. But I did
2:46
Speaker 1: see one come down behind my house in real time,
2:49
Speaker 1: which was scary. I'll bet that must have been kind
2:52
Speaker 1: of amazing to see though, too. Yeah, and the sound
2:54
Speaker 1: like obviously we we got nothing like uh Florida, so
2:58
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to compare, but um, it was a
3:01
Speaker 1: little scary. And we didn't have power for three days,
3:04
Speaker 1: which is not fun. So I've never seen a tree
3:07
Speaker 1: fall down in real time, so subtle a bet? Okay,
3:12
Speaker 1: does it make a Wilhelm scream? He started to follow
3:16
Speaker 1: the wine. We can get Jerry to dovin Wheah the
3:20
Speaker 1: wrong one. Uh So anyway, it was I mean, it
3:26
Speaker 1: was fun at first not being not having power, uh
3:29
Speaker 1: And then also wanted to announce because people care so
3:33
Speaker 1: much about our pets because they're part of the show.
3:36
Speaker 1: On Monday or Tuesday, it was Tuesday, we took the
3:41
Speaker 1: Wizard in because he had been like hiding and whenever
3:45
Speaker 1: animals start doing weird things like that. You know, it's
3:47
Speaker 1: not good. Uh, and you know, like the rest of
3:50
Speaker 1: the other three over the past nine months, tumors all
3:53
Speaker 1: over his body. So we put him down yesterday with
3:58
Speaker 1: no power, but had one really great night the night
4:02
Speaker 1: before with like we were forced to just be quiet
4:05
Speaker 1: and there were candles lit because it ended up being
4:08
Speaker 1: this like peaceful candlelight vigil because the power outage kind
4:12
Speaker 1: of forced that upon us. Works out like that sometimes. Yeah,
4:15
Speaker 1: I was going, you know, if that happened, we might
4:17
Speaker 1: have just been watching TV with him and you know,
4:19
Speaker 1: still petting him and caring for him. But he's just
4:22
Speaker 1: like game quick Game of Thrones. Well, I'm sorry, Chuckers,
4:28
Speaker 1: did I quick Game of Thrones from everybody? I'm sorry.
4:33
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Man, it was Emily. I mean I
4:36
Speaker 1: was wrecked, but Emily is destroyed. Is this cat like
4:39
Speaker 1: was attached to her body? Fifteen years? Is that how long?
4:43
Speaker 1: How old he was? Yeah? And you know, we got
4:46
Speaker 1: great lives atle lurn buckleyan wizards, so they were good,
4:48
Speaker 1: longful lives. But when you get together with a human
4:52
Speaker 1: and you get four animals in the space of a
4:55
Speaker 1: year or so, it's all good times and you don't
4:58
Speaker 1: think about the end of that. Yeah you know. Oh,
5:01
Speaker 1: well like the secession of deaths in quick order that
5:07
Speaker 1: can happen. Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean. You know. Yeah,
5:12
Speaker 1: now they're all here. Now they're all gone. Yeah, like
5:15
Speaker 1: I thought maybe like we'd lose one a year or
5:17
Speaker 1: every couple of years, but it's like, no, November, February, September. Yeah,
5:22
Speaker 1: that's that is quick secession. It's not fun. Yeah. So anyway,
5:26
Speaker 1: I just want to get that out of the way.
5:27
Speaker 1: Hang in there, man, and hats off to you for
5:30
Speaker 1: coming in. Yeah, than just being like nope, well we don't.
5:36
Speaker 1: We don't pad the queue like we used to know,
5:38
Speaker 1: which is good. It keeps it fresh, but there's also
5:41
Speaker 1: less room to just be like nope, yeah, we can
5:43
Speaker 1: bring breaking news one crayons, right exactly. I was gonna
5:47
Speaker 1: say during IRMA, did you guys with your power out
5:51
Speaker 1: scribble anything with crayons? Uh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean
5:56
Speaker 1: eventually we sent, uh sent my daughter over to my
5:59
Speaker 1: grandparents just as parents her grandparents. Yeah, and it's just
6:03
Speaker 1: she was getting a little kg, and quite honestly, I
6:06
Speaker 1: think we were getting a little kg. But at first. Yeah,
6:08
Speaker 1: it was that was greyon play yeah, play the big
6:11
Speaker 1: fat kind. Yeah, she has the big big daddies right now,
6:15
Speaker 1: because I mean she's got a little hand, so that's
6:17
Speaker 1: what she uses. That's the only kind she con grita
6:19
Speaker 1: better to scribble with. Right, her fine motor neurons are
6:23
Speaker 1: not quite refined enough to hold the normal traditional size crons. Well,
6:28
Speaker 1: I mean she would hold it, but she would hold
6:30
Speaker 1: it like she holds a long sword. Right, Yeah, yeah,
6:37
Speaker 1: I know, I know what you mean, the deathly purpose right.
6:41
Speaker 1: So um, it turns out, Chuck, I don't know how
6:45
Speaker 1: much of this, you know, having a young one with crayons.
6:48
Speaker 1: I don't know if like you read the back of
6:50
Speaker 1: the box and they're like, okay, that's the history of crayons. Huh,
6:53
Speaker 1: how was it on the back of the box. Maybe
6:54
Speaker 1: I don't even know. I haven't seen a cran in years.
6:57
Speaker 1: But I have a question for you. Is it normal
7:01
Speaker 1: to weep quietly while you're research and crayons? Didn't you
7:05
Speaker 1: have a nostalgia vers Yes? Yeah, I mean just like
7:08
Speaker 1: the idea of that that box with like the logo
7:12
Speaker 1: and the smell of them. We're talking about Crayola crayons.
7:15
Speaker 1: I might as well just go ahead and get that
7:17
Speaker 1: out of the way. And it's really funny because this
7:19
Speaker 1: this how stuff works article went to great links to
7:22
Speaker 1: just be about how crayons work. A nice effort. Yeah,
7:25
Speaker 1: but they you know still, I mean, it's Crayola that
7:28
Speaker 1: you're talking about in the United States when you're talking
7:30
Speaker 1: about crayons for the most part. Yeah, and so much
7:32
Speaker 1: so that, Um, the author didn't even really talk about
7:34
Speaker 1: Crayola as a company much, right, And I thought that
7:37
Speaker 1: was wrong. I thought so too, So we're going to
7:40
Speaker 1: correct that in the podcast. Um. But I've found out
7:44
Speaker 1: from this research that there is hydros Oreo situation going
7:49
Speaker 1: on in the cran world. Prang, which is at best
7:53
Speaker 1: and also ran in the Kran competition. It was actually
7:57
Speaker 1: around before Crayola or making Crans. Remember Praying I think
8:01
Speaker 1: they're still around Praying Ones. No, No, I think they
8:07
Speaker 1: were just an off brand, but they were. It's like
8:11
Speaker 1: Hi Drocks. Everybody thinks Hi Drocks is a knockoff. No Oreos,
8:14
Speaker 1: the knockoff but better, but the superior cook exactly same
8:17
Speaker 1: with Crayola, crayons and pranks, Like, what did we do
8:20
Speaker 1: why did you pick us? I'm sorry praying this is
8:22
Speaker 1: just the reality of the situation that I'm pointing out here. Yeah,
8:25
Speaker 1: I think so. Um. I learned a lot about this,
8:29
Speaker 1: but more than anything, I was just taken back to
8:31
Speaker 1: my childhood because childhood in Crayola go hand in hand. Yeah,
8:36
Speaker 1: Plato Crayola crayons, and we need to want Elmer's glue
8:41
Speaker 1: at some point. Sure, just knock off the Big three
8:43
Speaker 1: or paste. I had the purple kind with a pirate
8:48
Speaker 1: on it. Do you remember that one? It was highly edible, toxic.
8:55
Speaker 1: It made you know it wasn't toxic, I mean as
8:57
Speaker 1: far as I know, but the it made you want
9:00
Speaker 1: to eat it, Like you wake up and be like,
9:02
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna eat a little that paste today
9:03
Speaker 1: at school? Yeah? Why not? It's funny you mentioned nostalgia though,
9:07
Speaker 1: because I did, you probably did too. Went to the
9:09
Speaker 1: Crayola Effects and Figures page uh, And there was a
9:13
Speaker 1: Yale study that found Yale University that is um. They
9:19
Speaker 1: found that the smell of the crayon, the Crayola crayon Yes, specifically,
9:25
Speaker 1: is ranked number eighteen on the most recognizable sense for adults,
9:30
Speaker 1: just ahead of coffee. And peanut butter. Yeah, Like that's
9:33
Speaker 1: how And I would bet your play outs up there too.
9:35
Speaker 1: Isn't it crazy though that somebody's like, oh I I
9:39
Speaker 1: would have never guessed that was coffee, but they got
9:42
Speaker 1: they got yeah, weirdos, Yeah, peanut butter, what is that?
9:47
Speaker 1: It was like weird concoction? Yeah? Is that a turd?
9:53
Speaker 1: That word is just borderline acceptable to me. I think
9:57
Speaker 1: it's one of the great gross words because the way
10:00
Speaker 1: it's spelled, more than anything, the way you spit out
10:03
Speaker 1: the words t U r D is just looks gross,
10:07
Speaker 1: but you almost you make the sound that that you
10:11
Speaker 1: make when you're when you encounter the smell of poop
10:14
Speaker 1: in a bathroom or something like third right, I think
10:19
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why I don't like it.
10:21
Speaker 1: It's just too visceral. Oh man, all right, so let's
10:26
Speaker 1: get into this. Okay, So crayons have not been around
10:29
Speaker 1: very long, Chuck. The crayon as we know it as
10:32
Speaker 1: in the little round childhood writing implement has only been
10:38
Speaker 1: around since the latter half of the nineteenth century. But
10:42
Speaker 1: this article goes through great pains to talk about a
10:45
Speaker 1: bunch of things that are not crayons. But waxy forms
10:50
Speaker 1: of art, so we might as well talk about a
10:52
Speaker 1: little bit of that. Like, did you find out how
10:55
Speaker 1: to pronounce this bot or batique? Well? I said bautique
10:58
Speaker 1: because I did this. Believe it or not. Oh, you've
11:02
Speaker 1: done batique before? Nice? It was weirdly, well, not weirdly,
11:06
Speaker 1: I guess my My elementary school, of which my father
11:10
Speaker 1: was principal, as we know, had a a lot of
11:14
Speaker 1: interesting programs. I can't remember the name of the class,
11:19
Speaker 1: but it was like it was sort of like an elective,
11:23
Speaker 1: but for elementary school. It was the eighties, so it
11:26
Speaker 1: was probably called that, but it was just different kind
11:29
Speaker 1: of you know. We did photography and all sorts of
11:32
Speaker 1: cool stuff that usually don't get to do in great school.
11:34
Speaker 1: But we did a bautique course and my dad got
11:37
Speaker 1: really into it for a while, So we were boutiquing
11:40
Speaker 1: in our family for a short time. Was this like
11:43
Speaker 1: right before he got into bedazzlingk uh, he never got
11:46
Speaker 1: into that. He was into photography and batiquing. So we
11:50
Speaker 1: would batique like the only thing that I remember was doing.
11:54
Speaker 1: You're gonna think this is good. We did herschel Walker
11:57
Speaker 1: Georgia Bulldog bautique canvases nice that we framed. Yeah, so
12:04
Speaker 1: let me figure this out. Unpacked that one there was
12:07
Speaker 1: like a h an image of herschel Walker on a canvas. Yeah, Walker,
12:16
Speaker 1: it would look nothing like herschel Walker. So how did
12:18
Speaker 1: you How was it a herschel Walker camp? I think,
12:20
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, like we would get an artist
12:24
Speaker 1: to do it, and then we would batite on like
12:27
Speaker 1: a cloth canvas and then we would batique that so
12:30
Speaker 1: you would take wax and trace it over it or
12:32
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, I don't think it may not
12:34
Speaker 1: have been true in the batique style. For we're dancing
12:37
Speaker 1: around this a lot and people are like, what the
12:39
Speaker 1: heck is batique? It is a is a method of
12:44
Speaker 1: dying cloth where you create these patterns. You spread this
12:47
Speaker 1: hot wax over a cloth and then and then he
12:52
Speaker 1: died and then the the pigment doesn't get where the
12:56
Speaker 1: dot where the waxes, and then later you remove the wax. Right,
13:00
Speaker 1: But I don't we may have done just some weird,
13:03
Speaker 1: uh Southern version of that, because I remember like waxing
13:09
Speaker 1: already inked things and then you would crumple them up
13:13
Speaker 1: and wrinkle them and then it would give this cool
13:16
Speaker 1: like you know, like when you would wrinkle waxy fabric,
13:20
Speaker 1: that might look like shabby chiking. Maybe I don't know, man,
13:23
Speaker 1: So batique strikes me as kind of like tyde. It
13:27
Speaker 1: was well, I mean, the end effect could look sort
13:32
Speaker 1: of like tyed. It didn't have to that, but it
13:34
Speaker 1: didn't have to. But the point was, and the whole
13:37
Speaker 1: reason it's making an appearance here is that it's not
13:39
Speaker 1: like wax in a pigment. Right, So, at least two thousand,
13:44
Speaker 1: possibly even as far back as four thousand years ago,
13:47
Speaker 1: there were people who had put together that you could
13:50
Speaker 1: do cool things with wax and pigments. Yes, right, but
13:54
Speaker 1: fatique has is really not cry on in any way. No,
13:57
Speaker 1: it's not. It's a process, right, but it's the it's
14:02
Speaker 1: the seed, the kernel of the beginning of the idea
14:04
Speaker 1: of a crayon. Yeah. I think the antacoustic art is
14:07
Speaker 1: much closer. Okay, well, like a caustic art is um
14:10
Speaker 1: acoustic acoustic? Yeah, it's basically where you take a deconstructed
14:15
Speaker 1: crayon and rub it on something that's that's acaustic art. Basically,
14:22
Speaker 1: it's taking pigment and then some sort of waxy substance.
14:26
Speaker 1: UM and melting it together and then just yeah, using
14:30
Speaker 1: it to decorate. Maybe it's like a finger paint or
14:32
Speaker 1: something like that, and then I guess the wax hardens
14:35
Speaker 1: and you've got art. Yeah. I mean some of the
14:37
Speaker 1: stuff looks really cool. Did you look at any any
14:39
Speaker 1: acoustic art? Really beautiful stuff? Really so, like, what kind
14:44
Speaker 1: of art would you make with this? Well, I mean
14:46
Speaker 1: any kind Like if you if you just looked at
14:48
Speaker 1: it on a picture on your phone, you would just
14:51
Speaker 1: think it looks like a regular painting. Oh? Really? Is
14:53
Speaker 1: there like a three dimensional quality to it though? Because
14:55
Speaker 1: it's why maybe that's what I would guess, Like it's
14:57
Speaker 1: one of those things where you get up close to
14:58
Speaker 1: it and you go, oh, I see, because I'm always
15:02
Speaker 1: doing a museums, right, I know, I've been to a museum.
15:07
Speaker 1: Oh all those doses that it just man if a
15:10
Speaker 1: nickel for everyone. Uh. And then of course very famous
15:15
Speaker 1: artists like Da Vinci and Edward Munch and basically it
15:19
Speaker 1: sounds like kind of all of them we're making their
15:23
Speaker 1: own crayons in the truest sense of the word crayon,
15:28
Speaker 1: which is a French for pencil from cray which means chalk.
15:35
Speaker 1: Right c r a I E. Right, yes, and that's
15:38
Speaker 1: from the Latin creta, which meant chalk. Right, So this
15:42
Speaker 1: was not chalk, No, it wasn't, but chalk is kind
15:44
Speaker 1: of similar. And in fact, the earliest manufactured cryan, the
15:49
Speaker 1: conte crane um, basically grew out of chalk. Chalk is
15:55
Speaker 1: pigment and chalk. Yeah, I guess that's it. Uh And
16:01
Speaker 1: um artists would use chalks like you can use still today.
16:05
Speaker 1: Some some people create art using chalks, right, um, right,
16:09
Speaker 1: past cells, That's what I was looking for. So you've
16:12
Speaker 1: got past cells. It's not a really difficult hop skip
16:17
Speaker 1: and jump to say, well, how about instead of chalk
16:20
Speaker 1: we use wax and see what happens. And that's where
16:23
Speaker 1: the content cran came from. But the problem is is
16:25
Speaker 1: UM I believe it was made from beeswax, as most
16:29
Speaker 1: crans were up to the early nineteenth century. UM, and
16:34
Speaker 1: you I think had to warm it before you used it.
16:37
Speaker 1: So you probably had to take a flame to it
16:39
Speaker 1: for a little while, melted a little bit, at least
16:41
Speaker 1: get it a little malleable before you could use it.
16:44
Speaker 1: And the earliest content crans were black, brown, and red.
16:49
Speaker 1: Get a load of the beauty of those three together.
16:52
Speaker 1: If you looked up is it contra Conte? I'm saying Conte,
16:57
Speaker 1: I'm splitting the difference between the two. By the way,
17:00
Speaker 1: have you seen the response from the psychopathy who says
17:05
Speaker 1: it like that? Nut jobs say it like that. Apparently
17:08
Speaker 1: that's your psychopathy? Is just wrong, wrong, wrong? Yeah, it's
17:12
Speaker 1: apparently a real pet peeve with some people. You really
17:15
Speaker 1: need to calm down. And it's psychopathy. I don't say
17:18
Speaker 1: it like that. I never will. Yeah, psychopathy, psychopaths. It's
17:24
Speaker 1: like that guy's a real psychopath. People would just edge
17:29
Speaker 1: away from you. Uh, psychopathy. Wait and spoiler alert, where
17:33
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read an email from a legit psychopath. Yeah,
17:36
Speaker 1: we got a few emails from psychopaths. Sorry, Kapas. But
17:41
Speaker 1: if you look up the Conte crayon and a photo
17:45
Speaker 1: of it, you would see that and go, oh, I've
17:47
Speaker 1: seen those in art stores. Uh. As soon as I
17:50
Speaker 1: saw it, I was like, oh, I know what those are.
17:52
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of like for adults, adult artists who
17:56
Speaker 1: want to do crayon art. But that's where crayons came from. Yeah,
17:59
Speaker 1: I was legit art, right, And like you said, a
18:01
Speaker 1: lot of the earlier artists, pre pre mid nineteenth century
18:05
Speaker 1: artists made their own and then the first manufacturers of
18:09
Speaker 1: crans were making them for artists. Correct, So we'll we'll
18:12
Speaker 1: we'll get back into the history of crans after we
18:14
Speaker 1: take a break. How about that. Let's do it, okay, Okay.
18:45
Speaker 1: So when we left off, the manufacturer of krans was
18:48
Speaker 1: about to begin and it was all for artists. I'm
18:52
Speaker 1: in the corner batiquing herschel Walker. I don't even know
18:55
Speaker 1: what you were doing. Well, I don't think it was batiquing,
18:59
Speaker 1: though it was definitely batiquing. I bet you my dad
19:01
Speaker 1: still have some of this stuff in this basement. Well,
19:03
Speaker 1: can you bring one to work for Show and Tell?
19:06
Speaker 1: Maybe I will. Okay, I'm gonna hold you to that.
19:08
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring it up every episode. Uh So, where
19:12
Speaker 1: do we leave off? The modern crayon is in its infancy.
19:14
Speaker 1: So the kant cran the content cran um is invented
19:20
Speaker 1: and I think that was the late eighteenth century and
19:22
Speaker 1: then by the eighteen twenties. So apparently it's lost to
19:25
Speaker 1: history who actually created the first cryan that we would
19:30
Speaker 1: recognize as a krean today. Yeah, which surprises me. But
19:32
Speaker 1: this article points out um a manufacturer named Joseph Lemercier
19:38
Speaker 1: who by the eighteen twenties was producing wax crans. Right again,
19:44
Speaker 1: though these things are um, bees wax is not easy
19:48
Speaker 1: to work with. It was way easier to go to
19:50
Speaker 1: the store and buy them, but once you bought them,
19:52
Speaker 1: it was still kind of a pain to use. Yeah,
19:55
Speaker 1: and there was I thought this was funny too. There
19:57
Speaker 1: was another company in Germany about fifteen years later, J S. Statla,
20:02
Speaker 1: that had the same crayons, but they were all encased
20:05
Speaker 1: in wood, which just seemed like a very German thing
20:07
Speaker 1: to do, right, you know. I don't know why, but
20:10
Speaker 1: I don't know. It just struck me as very German. Yeah,
20:13
Speaker 1: I can see that, you know, they don't they wanted
20:16
Speaker 1: to be clean and they don't want to get their
20:19
Speaker 1: hands dirty or anything. Uh So, like you said, beeswax
20:24
Speaker 1: no good. Um, I was doing the job, I guess.
20:28
Speaker 1: But this is before kids were using this stuff at all.
20:31
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, again, they're making them for artists, but
20:35
Speaker 1: even artists are like this is this is not easy
20:38
Speaker 1: to use. If there's one thing that can be traced
20:42
Speaker 1: back to the Industrial Revolution, that depends on the Industrial Revolution.
20:48
Speaker 1: It is the cran tons of other stuff forward, economic progress,
20:53
Speaker 1: all that wealth capital, all of that depended on the
20:57
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution. But so too did the krayon like to
21:01
Speaker 1: a surprising degree. And it starts with um coal mining, right. What. Yeah,
21:07
Speaker 1: in Eastern Europe they were mining coal and they found
21:11
Speaker 1: from the coal mining in um, the process of mining coal,
21:16
Speaker 1: there was a byproduct called saracen. I'm a big fan
21:19
Speaker 1: of byproduct. Use pretty neat, you know. Yeah, sarason was
21:26
Speaker 1: softer than bees wax, which was a big, big plus
21:29
Speaker 1: cheaper than bees wax, which is always good if you're
21:32
Speaker 1: in the money making business. And so there was a
21:35
Speaker 1: check company Offenheim and Ziffa who started making crayons out
21:40
Speaker 1: of that stuff. And as our article puts it, it
21:43
Speaker 1: was soon praised for its durability of the marks that
21:46
Speaker 1: it made. Right. So it was the good stuff, right.
21:49
Speaker 1: It was easy to use and it left a good
21:51
Speaker 1: mark behind, which are two things you want in a krayon,
21:54
Speaker 1: especially if you're an artist, right, You don't want disappearing ink.
21:57
Speaker 1: So somebody said, oh, what else can we get from coal?
22:00
Speaker 1: In a few years down the line, h right around
22:05
Speaker 1: the Civil War. A little after the Civil War a
22:07
Speaker 1: guy named Charles A. Bowley Boli, let's say Bowli. He
22:12
Speaker 1: was a manufacturer from Massachusetts who started using something called paraffin.
22:19
Speaker 1: Everybody's heart of paraffin wax, right. Have you ever seen
22:22
Speaker 1: a package of paraffin wax that you get at the
22:24
Speaker 1: at the grocery store? Um? Sure I have. Have you
22:28
Speaker 1: ever noticed that most of the paraffin wax is Golf brand,
22:32
Speaker 1: the same Gulf that owns the Gulf seventies six gas stations?
22:35
Speaker 1: Have not because it's a byproduct, Yes, And I never
22:38
Speaker 1: knew that until today. I'm like, why would Gulf be
22:42
Speaker 1: into gas stations and wax that you buy at the
22:46
Speaker 1: grocery store. It never made any sense to me. Now
22:49
Speaker 1: I understand because it's a it's a byproduct of fossil
22:53
Speaker 1: fuel mining. Yeah. Like why does Yamaha make keyboards and motorcycles?
22:58
Speaker 1: That's a great question. I don't know that there's an
23:00
Speaker 1: answer to that one, like diversification. Maybe that's I would
23:05
Speaker 1: like to be in on that meeting. Like, you know,
23:07
Speaker 1: we're really good at motorcycles. So I'm thinking keyboards, thinking
23:12
Speaker 1: key tars. Uh? Yeah, So I need to look at
23:16
Speaker 1: parafitt in the store. Where is it usually like in
23:18
Speaker 1: the baked goods or yeah, like wherever you'll find like
23:22
Speaker 1: Mason jars that kind of thing. Oh so like an
23:25
Speaker 1: old country store. No, they have it at the grocery store.
23:28
Speaker 1: You just always walk past it unless you're looking for it, gotcha. Yeah,
23:32
Speaker 1: all right, we'll check it out. And it's golf usually. Yeah,
23:35
Speaker 1: that's been my experience. It's always golf. I better walk
23:38
Speaker 1: past it a million times. But all right, we I'm
23:40
Speaker 1: gonna keep a lookout next time of them in the
23:42
Speaker 1: the grocery store. No, the the bell Jar aisle. I
23:48
Speaker 1: think that's probably the baking good aisle. Okay, yeah, bell
23:51
Speaker 1: Jar is that right? Huh. I'm getting on my I'm
23:55
Speaker 1: just I'm not on my game today, so I appreciate it,
23:57
Speaker 1: all right, man. Uh So that was also derived from
24:01
Speaker 1: Cole But I guess now petroleum is that I don't know.
24:06
Speaker 1: I just as far as I know, it's a fossil
24:09
Speaker 1: fuel byproduct, gotcha. If you don't want to get into
24:14
Speaker 1: the ins and outs of the Gulf Corporation. Uh So
24:19
Speaker 1: that was that was when Bolli struck gold and everyone. Yeah,
24:24
Speaker 1: everyone was like this is the stuff. This is even
24:28
Speaker 1: better than saracen um. And he said, all right, I
24:32
Speaker 1: take these and make them into pencils. Right. He was
24:36
Speaker 1: the first one to make round crayons that we we
24:40
Speaker 1: would recognize now as crayon. He was, he was the guy.
24:44
Speaker 1: And this is around the Civil War in the United States. Yeah,
24:47
Speaker 1: so coupled this with uh, post Civil war industrialization like
24:53
Speaker 1: you were talking about, and then couple this with ah,
24:58
Speaker 1: this thing that was happening in the country, which is, well, hey,
25:02
Speaker 1: maybe we should start instead of sending kids out in
25:04
Speaker 1: the fields when they're six, maybe we should start educating
25:08
Speaker 1: them a little earlier in life. And kindergarten was born
25:13
Speaker 1: again though from industrialization because not only out the fields
25:17
Speaker 1: as much. I guess they didn't um and they like
25:21
Speaker 1: they needed to be prepared for a life outside of
25:24
Speaker 1: the fields, which school would prepare them for pre factory work. Right.
25:29
Speaker 1: I actually saw a really interesting article once that basically said,
25:33
Speaker 1: like schooling is at the very least initially was meant
25:37
Speaker 1: to prepare you for long periods of monotonous work, basically
25:43
Speaker 1: busy work, that you were being prepared for life in
25:46
Speaker 1: the factory by being in inculcated, having the inculcated in
25:50
Speaker 1: you like that, that level of patients and every day
25:54
Speaker 1: and going to a place right and then just like
25:56
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. Yeah, it's kind of a droney
25:59
Speaker 1: kind of saying that schooling was preparing you for a
26:02
Speaker 1: factory working interesting, But they made school too fun. They
26:05
Speaker 1: did eventually, because I was one of those kids who
26:08
Speaker 1: kind of like school for the most of all. If
26:09
Speaker 1: your dad was leading boutique classes exactly, I can see
26:13
Speaker 1: how you would. Dude, we were repelling off of mountains
26:16
Speaker 1: in my elementary school. Yeah, that's not how they initially
26:20
Speaker 1: viewed it. They No, you probably don't do that today either. No. Now,
26:26
Speaker 1: I think you hit it at just the point where
26:28
Speaker 1: school had gotten more fun than originally planned, but much
26:33
Speaker 1: more dangerous than is allowed today. Oh yeah, all those
26:38
Speaker 1: like that, that parental slip or the permission slip, I
26:42
Speaker 1: don't think that holds water legally anymore. Probably. I think
26:45
Speaker 1: that's one step of like fifteen to be able to
26:47
Speaker 1: go on the field. Yeah, it was, and it was
26:49
Speaker 1: like like literally, your child will be going down a
26:54
Speaker 1: mountain via rope, as taught by your principle, And it
26:58
Speaker 1: was on a piece of paper. It was like cut
27:01
Speaker 1: into third, wasn't even an eight by ten piece of
27:05
Speaker 1: paper right in half by eleven And there's an asterisk
27:07
Speaker 1: that said principle does not know what he's doing. But
27:11
Speaker 1: what I was saying ultimately was that. So that was industrialization.
27:14
Speaker 1: So coal mining industrialization led to the paraffin wax right. Um,
27:19
Speaker 1: industrialization getting kids prepared for factory work led to school,
27:24
Speaker 1: and in school they wanted crayons, so that led to
27:28
Speaker 1: the creation of crans, and then industrialization itself. Mass producing
27:32
Speaker 1: crayons led to the rise of crayons, and specifically Crayola crayons. Yeah.
27:38
Speaker 1: And why did they love him in school? Um? Because
27:40
Speaker 1: they didn't make a big mess. Um. It's not like
27:43
Speaker 1: paint that you know. If you ever been a kids
27:46
Speaker 1: class of paint, you know what happens there. Man. Remember
27:48
Speaker 1: wearing like your dad's shirt backwards is like a smock. Yeah. Um,
27:54
Speaker 1: it's just no must, no fuss. It's a very um,
27:58
Speaker 1: very tight, handy, little clean product for a kid it
28:01
Speaker 1: is to use. Um. The problem was, like you said,
28:05
Speaker 1: a lot of these things were toxic at the time.
28:09
Speaker 1: So there was a company called Binny and Smith and
28:14
Speaker 1: Binny and Smith. You would love them, chuck, if you
28:16
Speaker 1: like reusing stuff. They were cousins, right, I believe were they? Um,
28:23
Speaker 1: But they were big time into like finding by products
28:26
Speaker 1: of stuff and finding new uses for it. Right, Benny,
28:29
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do with that? You're gonna You're
28:31
Speaker 1: gonna eat that sandwich. You're gonna eat the rest of that. Um.
28:35
Speaker 1: So they had a patent on an iron oxide red
28:39
Speaker 1: that most farmers used in their barns. That's how they
28:42
Speaker 1: really started to make their money. They came up with
28:45
Speaker 1: a true black, a carbon black that was used again
28:48
Speaker 1: as a byproduct of some something or other. UM. But
28:53
Speaker 1: they already had crans in use. They used them to
28:57
Speaker 1: mark their own shipments in their factories, in their warehouses. Yeah.
29:01
Speaker 1: But Mr Binny's wife, Alice was a teacher, and she said, hey,
29:06
Speaker 1: you guys should start manufacturing these. Um. They're already in
29:10
Speaker 1: the pigment business, so it made sense. So they took
29:14
Speaker 1: the paraffin wax that Boldy had come up with for using,
29:19
Speaker 1: they took their pigments that they already had UM and
29:22
Speaker 1: then they said, we need to figure out how to
29:23
Speaker 1: make this non toxic. Tinkered around with that a little
29:25
Speaker 1: bit and the Crayola crane was born I think in
29:28
Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties. Yeah, and they believe are still mostly
29:32
Speaker 1: made in the US. Uh and I think are still
29:36
Speaker 1: But even they were, they were bought out in the
29:37
Speaker 1: mid eighties by Hallmark um during you know, the big
29:41
Speaker 1: Hallmark takeover of the mid eighties when they just started
29:44
Speaker 1: buying everything. Sure, you're like, DuPont, we own you now, ABC. Uh.
29:50
Speaker 1: Forks Township, Pennsylvania, if I'm not mistaken, is where Creole
29:54
Speaker 1: was still is after all these years there I saw
29:56
Speaker 1: Easton Maybe that's where they started out. I think it's
30:00
Speaker 1: Forks Township, now, Okay, well we will hear from the
30:03
Speaker 1: good people of Pennsylvania, you will, I'm sure. But they
30:06
Speaker 1: eventually Benny and Smith Company became Crayola, right, Yeah, they
30:11
Speaker 1: finally just said enough of the screwing around. It's not
30:14
Speaker 1: Benny and Smith presents Crayola. Crayole is the whole thing, yeah,
30:18
Speaker 1: which obviously came from the word crayon and then only
30:22
Speaker 1: agenic only agenic really, yeah, what does that mean? Really?
30:29
Speaker 1: You know? And it was Mrs Binney that came up
30:33
Speaker 1: with the name too, But the fact that she was
30:35
Speaker 1: a teacher helped a lot because Binny at least was
30:41
Speaker 1: predisposed to listening to teachers, and at the time, teachers
30:45
Speaker 1: were starting to get um a little more cloud their
30:48
Speaker 1: role in society was developing and strengthening, and that by
30:53
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, every state in the Union had a
30:56
Speaker 1: requirement that a kid between the ages of eight and
30:59
Speaker 1: fourteen had to go to school. Um, so there was
31:02
Speaker 1: like a ready made um uh relationship. No, what's no
31:10
Speaker 1: demand in schooling? And apparently one of the first customers
31:15
Speaker 1: of Crayola was the U. S Government, who bought them
31:18
Speaker 1: for the Native American schools that they forced kids into.
31:23
Speaker 1: Is that, Hey, we took you from your family and
31:25
Speaker 1: we're just drawing your culture while you're here. But have
31:27
Speaker 1: you seen these are awesome? Huh? Shall we take another break? Yes?
31:34
Speaker 1: All right, well let's do so when we'll come back
31:36
Speaker 1: and talk a little bit how Crayola crayons are made
31:38
Speaker 1: and believe it or not, a little bit about controversy
31:42
Speaker 1: with crayons. Okay, so industrialization gives us Crayola. Crayola takes
32:14
Speaker 1: the stick and runs with it, right, And who was
32:17
Speaker 1: the other company praying pranks? Just doesn't exactly roll off
32:21
Speaker 1: the tongue, doesn't it a corner? Like? Did you ever
32:25
Speaker 1: noticed you ever see a box of crayons that weren't Crayola,
32:28
Speaker 1: Like there's something wrong with them, you know what I mean?
32:31
Speaker 1: It doesn't look right. It's definitely one of those brands
32:34
Speaker 1: that was so iconic and synonymous with its own product that, ah,
32:39
Speaker 1: you felt like, you know, you felt bad for the
32:43
Speaker 1: kids who didn't have the Crayola crayon. Yeah, I hope
32:46
Speaker 1: I'm not coming off as elitist. Sure, I had a
32:49
Speaker 1: fancy six dollar Bucks, I had knockoff crans myself, but
32:53
Speaker 1: I was also quite familiar with Crayola, and I always
32:56
Speaker 1: just love the Creola ones. The knockoff crants never evoked
32:59
Speaker 1: any emotional response to me. Somehow, Crayola did. I'm looking
33:03
Speaker 1: at a praying now and I definitely have never even
33:05
Speaker 1: seen these. Um, maybe maybe I was the only kid
33:09
Speaker 1: with the praying crayon. Well, and I know the good
33:11
Speaker 1: people at praying right now, we're screaming, we're not knockoffs.
33:15
Speaker 1: We pointed that out earlier. Yeah, we already said that earlier.
33:18
Speaker 1: You should listen to the whole episode. Um, remember the
33:23
Speaker 1: the giant box that had the sharpener in the back.
33:26
Speaker 1: So let me give you a little bit about that.
33:29
Speaker 1: Are you just bringing it up or what are you
33:30
Speaker 1: gonna saying? Oh no, I was just it just sort
33:32
Speaker 1: of occurred to me that how many crayons were This
33:34
Speaker 1: started off with sixty introduced in nine. It was the
33:40
Speaker 1: first box, I believe with the flip top box what
33:43
Speaker 1: they call the stadium seating and the built in sharpener, yeah,
33:47
Speaker 1: in the back. And it debuted on Captain Kangaroo on
33:52
Speaker 1: his showy as a commercial. I'm sure he blurred the
33:57
Speaker 1: lines there anything you're gonna love this? Yeah, and he
34:02
Speaker 1: had blods of cash coming out of his pocket, out
34:05
Speaker 1: of his green jeans exactly. Oh no, it was a
34:07
Speaker 1: different dude, that was Mr Green jan Yeah. I think
34:10
Speaker 1: he wore his pants once in a while just to
34:12
Speaker 1: show him whose boss. Uh. Yeah. I used to love
34:16
Speaker 1: those because one of my big peeves still as an adult,
34:19
Speaker 1: is a dull crayon. Yeah. So that sharpener that was
34:24
Speaker 1: I would waste a lot of wax trying to get
34:26
Speaker 1: the thing sharp. It was a huge innovation for sure. Yeah.
34:29
Speaker 1: And then of course the saddest crayon is the the
34:33
Speaker 1: broken in half one that is worn down, so uh,
34:38
Speaker 1: it's not even a round mound at this point. It's
34:40
Speaker 1: worn down to the paper and you gotta start peeling
34:43
Speaker 1: the paper away and then I don't know. I was
34:46
Speaker 1: always just like I don't want to play with this anymore.
34:48
Speaker 1: Or what about the communist who would like use the
34:52
Speaker 1: use it sideways rather than at its point? They would
34:55
Speaker 1: just rub it lengthwise so that they would flatten out
34:57
Speaker 1: on one side. They were probably artists, I guess, trying
35:00
Speaker 1: to you know, create shading patterns or something. Well, it
35:05
Speaker 1: was lost on me at the time. Yeah, Yeah, I
35:08
Speaker 1: didn't realized that I yelled at a lot of kids
35:11
Speaker 1: unnecessarily apparently. Yeah, I used crayons from my very uh
35:15
Speaker 1: now famous village people portrait. What else you gonna use
35:19
Speaker 1: for that? I don't know, maybe color pencils, but that's
35:22
Speaker 1: if you're just trying to impress somebody. Yeah, I never
35:25
Speaker 1: got into those. They're hard to I mean, like they
35:28
Speaker 1: just didn't show up quite as well crayons, says I'm here. Yeah,
35:32
Speaker 1: And it would you press down hard, and when you
35:34
Speaker 1: pull it off, the page sometimes stick a little bit,
35:37
Speaker 1: and it would make that little sound when you pulled
35:39
Speaker 1: it off. Forgot about that. Sound man John Hodgman is
35:42
Speaker 1: having a very hard time if he's listening to this
35:44
Speaker 1: nostalgia asan episodes back, not just from this episode either.
35:50
Speaker 1: You don't think he listens anywhere? Probably not. I know
35:54
Speaker 1: a bunch of podcasters now, and they none of them
35:56
Speaker 1: will they stop listening once they get to know somebody.
36:00
Speaker 1: For the most part, I don't do that. I enjoy
36:03
Speaker 1: hearing my Friends podcast. I think that makes me an outlier, though,
36:08
Speaker 1: because I've heard several marks like, yeah, I can't listen
36:10
Speaker 1: anymore that now that we're friends. Well, I wonder if
36:13
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, um, you know, if you like
36:15
Speaker 1: somebody in real life, you very frequently can't be friends
36:20
Speaker 1: with them on Facebook because it's just like a different,
36:23
Speaker 1: what hate herbal side of them. I thought that's how
36:27
Speaker 1: Facebook work in in ideal situations, But you've never had
36:32
Speaker 1: somebody where just like I can't listen to you rant
36:35
Speaker 1: about this for another minute friends on Facebook anymore because
36:40
Speaker 1: I like you in real life and I want to
36:41
Speaker 1: keep liking you in real life. But I'm gonna hate
36:43
Speaker 1: your guts if we remain Facebook friends, or if I
36:46
Speaker 1: keep following you on Twitter, because I can't stand you
36:49
Speaker 1: on social media in real life. I really like it.
36:51
Speaker 1: I know what you mean totally. It's probably the same thing.
36:53
Speaker 1: I gotta dude like that. And it's not even like
36:56
Speaker 1: political stuff. It's just I don't know, sort a jerky
37:00
Speaker 1: complaining where I'm like, that's who you are, Like I
37:03
Speaker 1: thought you were a really nice guy, right, But that's
37:06
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It's like it brings out the worst.
37:08
Speaker 1: Social media brings up the worst in people. Yeah, the
37:12
Speaker 1: worst worst. All right, So where were we? We were
37:16
Speaker 1: talking about crayons, right, So we hadn't really started yet
37:20
Speaker 1: talking about the colors. I feel like we should because
37:23
Speaker 1: there's one thing, this is what Crayola did better than
37:27
Speaker 1: anybody else. So early on they've identified a um another company,
37:33
Speaker 1: arrival company called mons Ol. Mons Al made really high
37:39
Speaker 1: end crayons for artists, and Kreola said, you're making better
37:43
Speaker 1: crayons than we are. We're gonna buy you. We're gonna
37:46
Speaker 1: buy your cran division. So they adopted the techniques and
37:49
Speaker 1: the pigments that mons Al made but months old. Since
37:53
Speaker 1: they were gearing themselves towards artists. Their packages would say
37:58
Speaker 1: like five intermediate huge medium chrome medium, value artists cryans,
38:07
Speaker 1: and so instead of having the keeping the months old words,
38:12
Speaker 1: which would be like medium, uh medium reddish blue or
38:18
Speaker 1: something like that, they would change the name to plump.
38:21
Speaker 1: And then they would use other great names like periwinkle, dandelion.
38:26
Speaker 1: Nowadays it's things like macaroni and cheese or razmataz rasberry. Okay,
38:33
Speaker 1: but there's there's They used names that kids can get in,
38:37
Speaker 1: true and that not only can get into, like those
38:39
Speaker 1: words swirling around, swirling around in your in your consciousness,
38:45
Speaker 1: shape your worldview, like the world was kind of beautiful
38:48
Speaker 1: and there was beautiful words and things involved in it.
38:52
Speaker 1: But yeah, that was not one of them, but but
38:54
Speaker 1: the the and as a matter of fact, some of
38:57
Speaker 1: their early crayons were called things like venetia and read
39:00
Speaker 1: or cobalt blue, stuff you would find in an artist
39:03
Speaker 1: paint box. Um. And they they they figured out very
39:06
Speaker 1: early on that the name of the color means as
39:09
Speaker 1: much as the color itself. Yeah, And I think the
39:12
Speaker 1: first editions in nineteen o three they used some of
39:17
Speaker 1: them like uh, copper and gold and when they're one
39:22
Speaker 1: other one silver yeah, silver, of course, uh. And they
39:26
Speaker 1: didn't use any other metallics to the nineteen eighties. Uh,
39:30
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess said it covered there. But I
39:33
Speaker 1: think you're right. The naming, I mean, that's also gotten
39:36
Speaker 1: them into a little bit of trouble. We talked about
39:38
Speaker 1: a little controversy. Um, and you know you didn't think
39:42
Speaker 1: about this when you're a little kid in the seventies
39:44
Speaker 1: and eighties, Well, not as a little white kid. No,
39:47
Speaker 1: you're a more we're more uh for thinking society now.
39:52
Speaker 1: So when say that again, we're more poor thinking society.
39:58
Speaker 1: So when you see a crayon, um that's called flesh
40:02
Speaker 1: and it's clearly you know, uh, white white person, peachy
40:08
Speaker 1: sort of complexion of a crayon, that's not cool because
40:12
Speaker 1: they are all different colors of people. And Crayola got
40:15
Speaker 1: it right. I don't know if it was from intense
40:16
Speaker 1: pressure or internally or what, but in the when was
40:20
Speaker 1: that nineteen sixty two, they said, yeah, we probably shouldn't
40:23
Speaker 1: call this color flesh. Apparently they this was teachers again,
40:27
Speaker 1: this is listening to teachers and teachers saying like, you know,
40:30
Speaker 1: I don't think this is okay. There's apparently a study
40:33
Speaker 1: that found that kids typically used that to color and
40:37
Speaker 1: drawings of people as like a default skin color. So
40:41
Speaker 1: Crayola very wisely, I think, and and magnanimously said sorry
40:46
Speaker 1: about that. We're going to change it to peach like
40:48
Speaker 1: you said. Uh. And then they also said, you know,
40:52
Speaker 1: on their part, they said, you know, what we were
40:55
Speaker 1: talking about was the what they called them more or
40:58
Speaker 1: less universal color found on the palm of hands. But
41:02
Speaker 1: I don't know if I buy that. Yeah, I that
41:06
Speaker 1: was apparently the company line, And I'm not sure if
41:08
Speaker 1: I buy that that's even true from this article. What
41:12
Speaker 1: about this one just seems so patently racist that I
41:16
Speaker 1: can't believe it was ever a name until you look
41:18
Speaker 1: into it a little further. Indian red, yes, which was
41:22
Speaker 1: apparently derived from a plant pigment in India, And they
41:26
Speaker 1: didn't mean it like that, but then they thought, hey,
41:29
Speaker 1: maybe that's an association people are going to make. Probably
41:32
Speaker 1: not a good idea again, apparently teachers saying like, what
41:35
Speaker 1: are you guys doing? That's like as bad as having
41:37
Speaker 1: your team's baseball mascot chief nacka homer or something like that.
41:42
Speaker 1: Yeah her chief Wahoo. Yeah. Um. They change Indian read
41:46
Speaker 1: to chestnut, and uh, chestnut, it's very nice. It's a
41:51
Speaker 1: great name. No Bert Siana apparently. Also they've only dropped
41:56
Speaker 1: one other name, although they have like something like three
42:00
Speaker 1: what are called true colors, but then something like eight
42:03
Speaker 1: hundred names, so they've clearly used different names for the
42:06
Speaker 1: same color before, like magenta was renamed a red, violet
42:10
Speaker 1: was renamed magenta. I believe. Um, so they'll they'll do
42:14
Speaker 1: that old switchero here there. But apparently there are only
42:18
Speaker 1: three names they just completely got rid of. Or no,
42:21
Speaker 1: maybe there's a fourth one they retired of the they
42:23
Speaker 1: were retired the color dandelion, but just this year. Yeah,
42:27
Speaker 1: but Indian, red, um flesh, and Prussian blue were all
42:33
Speaker 1: names that were taken out and never brought back. And
42:36
Speaker 1: Prussian blue not for any reason other than kids couldn't
42:39
Speaker 1: identify with Prussia because no one knows what Prussia is anymore.
42:45
Speaker 1: I think you might have said three, there's three? Oh,
42:48
Speaker 1: is there right? I saw an article, Uh, it was
42:52
Speaker 1: like a college newspaper on their website. They said that
42:56
Speaker 1: they've crayoles sold more than a hundred thousand crayons. I
43:00
Speaker 1: can think you're missing three years three or more zeros
43:04
Speaker 1: there unless it was like today, you know, that's pretty funny.
43:09
Speaker 1: Did yeah, it got me. Um they now, you know,
43:13
Speaker 1: like any company, Um, I can't just leave it with
43:16
Speaker 1: the good old fashioned crayon. He's gonna diversify. So you
43:19
Speaker 1: see things these days like Neon colors, and and of
43:22
Speaker 1: course they make markers and all kinds of good stuff.
43:25
Speaker 1: I love the Crayola markers. Yeah, me too, the big
43:28
Speaker 1: fat marker, just the shape, the white with the color
43:32
Speaker 1: against it and everything. It was well and a lot
43:36
Speaker 1: of those now for kids are washable, so um, when
43:41
Speaker 1: the kid draws on the coffee table, it just wipes
43:44
Speaker 1: right off, very very nice. And the brand new white couch,
43:47
Speaker 1: which why did you even get that when you have
43:48
Speaker 1: a kid, what are you thinking? Oh, we would never
43:51
Speaker 1: have that because of wine consumption. It would be a
43:54
Speaker 1: purple couch. After a couple of years it would be magenta.
43:59
Speaker 1: I've got some crayle effects, were you well? First? Okay,
44:03
Speaker 1: now you go ahead, Now you go ahead. The largest one.
44:07
Speaker 1: Of course, any iconic brand like this is going to
44:11
Speaker 1: make a super giant one put on display somewhere. They
44:14
Speaker 1: did that, huh yeah, big blue, and it's kind of
44:16
Speaker 1: neat the way they did it though. They took a
44:18
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty three thousand old blue crayons that they
44:21
Speaker 1: gathered from kids all over the country and they melted
44:24
Speaker 1: those down into big blue, giant pound crayon. That's a
44:28
Speaker 1: great fate for some used up crayons, you know. Yeah,
44:31
Speaker 1: make three billion a year, not a hundred thousand. I
44:36
Speaker 1: don't know what that guy was thinking. I don't either.
44:38
Speaker 1: And maybe they met a minute or they left off.
44:41
Speaker 1: There was something missing from that sentence. I think. Uh,
44:44
Speaker 1: and the average kid supposedly, and I'm sure they're talking
44:47
Speaker 1: about dumb old American kids, by the time they're ten
44:51
Speaker 1: years old, they have gone through seven DWY crayons brand crayon. Wow,
44:56
Speaker 1: that's a lot. Yeah, we probably could have gotten someday
44:58
Speaker 1: out of these guys. Maybe we should retroactively and that
45:01
Speaker 1: how it works. Yeah, we get money out of Creola,
45:03
Speaker 1: and we get sued by praying, right, and then it
45:05
Speaker 1: all just comes out to ze right, we give praying
45:07
Speaker 1: our Creola money. Yeah. So, um Creole apparently also did
45:13
Speaker 1: a survey to find out what the top ten colors
45:15
Speaker 1: are of all time. Blue. That's my favorite color, but
45:21
Speaker 1: my favorite crayon's probably violet. That's the whole concept of it. Um,
45:27
Speaker 1: that's number three, Violet is number two is red, green
45:31
Speaker 1: is four, carnation, pink is five, black is six. Just
45:36
Speaker 1: try up black. You like the black cryan? Huh? Well
45:39
Speaker 1: for drawing lines, makes sense? I got it? Turquoise blue, blue, green, yeah, periwinkle,
45:48
Speaker 1: yeah my name, I think so too. But it's also
45:50
Speaker 1: a nice lovely type of silvery blue if I remember correctly, right,
45:55
Speaker 1: I think so silvery purplish. I'm not sure. I'm not
45:58
Speaker 1: very good with colors. Emily's great with that stuff, and
46:00
Speaker 1: it will ask her, Yeah, say what's periwinkle? Yeah, and
46:04
Speaker 1: she'll say it's but I need a thing. She'll say, like, oh,
46:07
Speaker 1: the whatever in our house is Perrywinkle. I got you know,
46:11
Speaker 1: I got you? Uh. And then magenta, yes, not big
46:14
Speaker 1: on magenta. Yeah, I think that's it. Chuck, what's your
46:19
Speaker 1: favorite of all time? I don't know. I don't think
46:21
Speaker 1: I have a favorite color of crayon or maybe at all.
46:24
Speaker 1: I see like black. Okay, we'll go with that, Johnny cash, Um,
46:29
Speaker 1: I do have one more thing. It's funny that one
46:33
Speaker 1: thing that we usually do is look at just when
46:36
Speaker 1: we're searching things online, we'll look at news just to
46:39
Speaker 1: see if there's anything breaking and believe it or not,
46:42
Speaker 1: I looked at crayons Crayola, and it was an eight
46:46
Speaker 1: minute old story, breaking story right before we record, like
46:51
Speaker 1: CNN breaking news, like actual breaking news. That's right, they
46:55
Speaker 1: have they're releasing a new blue this year. Uh. There
46:59
Speaker 1: was some scientists at Oregon State University Go Ducks, Ducks, No,
47:07
Speaker 1: that's University Oregon, Oregon State, the Loggers, Periwinkle Cowboys. Uh.
47:16
Speaker 1: The in two thousand nine at Oregon State, they were
47:19
Speaker 1: um doing some research trying to discover materials for electronics,
47:26
Speaker 1: and as often happens, and something accidental occurred, they mixed
47:31
Speaker 1: an oxide with some other chemicals, heated it up, and
47:33
Speaker 1: they discovered a brand new pigment of blue. In two
47:36
Speaker 1: thousand nine, why, I in m in yanman. I'm not
47:42
Speaker 1: sure how it's pronounced. That's not very marketable, but it's
47:45
Speaker 1: a very sort of cobalt. Yeah, this is very vivid blue.
47:52
Speaker 1: And uh, we should do something on pigments at some point,
47:54
Speaker 1: because I didn't. It's just weird to me that they
47:57
Speaker 1: could say, like, no, this is a brand new color, um,
48:00
Speaker 1: but let's definitely do that. It would be kind of
48:02
Speaker 1: interesting the science behind that. So Crayola is making uh
48:06
Speaker 1: this ynman into a and the outsourced that they let
48:10
Speaker 1: kids vote many many entrants, uh to this name, and
48:14
Speaker 1: they are naming it blutiful. Oh I know right, Yeah,
48:19
Speaker 1: it's like get your get your color naming staff back,
48:23
Speaker 1: get the team back together. Crayola Blutiful is what happens
48:26
Speaker 1: when you ask ten thousand six year olds. Uh so
48:31
Speaker 1: Bluetiful is coming out just in time for the holiday season.
48:37
Speaker 1: Well there, yeah, that's crayons, specifically Crayola crayons. Sorry for
48:42
Speaker 1: the buzz marketing, but we couldn't help it. Did we
48:45
Speaker 1: get organ state they're the cowboys right now. Thank you
48:49
Speaker 1: guest producer Matt for looking it up. I like periwinkle cowboys.
48:54
Speaker 1: Uh well, if you want to know more about crayons,
48:56
Speaker 1: go get some crayons, break them open and smell them.
49:00
Speaker 1: It'll tell you everything you need to know. And in
49:02
Speaker 1: the meantime, it's time for a listener mail. And I
49:08
Speaker 1: also want to say to the good people of praying
49:10
Speaker 1: once again, people should support praying as well as the
49:14
Speaker 1: o G at the very least, go out in diversify
49:19
Speaker 1: your crayon portfolio, you know, alright, like like Yamaha did
49:25
Speaker 1: with their feyboard and jet skis. That makes a little
49:28
Speaker 1: more sense. At least they knew how to make engines
49:30
Speaker 1: from a motorcycle. Um, all right, this is I'm reading
49:34
Speaker 1: another Satanist reply, but it felt like this one should
49:38
Speaker 1: be read. Hey guys, I'm a Christian pastor. As such,
49:42
Speaker 1: I hold strong religious convictions, and yet I've always found
49:45
Speaker 1: it incredibly important, both personally and professionally, to learn what
49:48
Speaker 1: I can about other belief systems. So you're doing it right,
49:51
Speaker 1: We're storing my faith in humanity. I want to thank
49:54
Speaker 1: you for the episode on the Church of Satan. It's
49:55
Speaker 1: not an organization that I've taken the opportunity to learn
49:58
Speaker 1: much about, perhaps out of fear or pride, but I
50:00
Speaker 1: found what you share to be very informational in any
50:03
Speaker 1: study of other belief systems. It is not only important
50:05
Speaker 1: to know what we disagree on, but perhaps just as importantly,
50:09
Speaker 1: but we do agree on. While there are clearly areas
50:12
Speaker 1: where Satanist and I would never agree, there are actually
50:15
Speaker 1: many things that we have in common. In a climate
50:19
Speaker 1: of increased divisiveness, is important to focus on what we share,
50:22
Speaker 1: not what divides us. Your episode open my mind and
50:25
Speaker 1: gave me new insight and for that I am incredibly grateful.
50:28
Speaker 1: Thank you for your show. Please keep up the good work.
50:31
Speaker 1: Isn't that great? Yeah? Uh signed peace. Reverend Lee Finish
50:36
Speaker 1: of Temple, Texas. Thank you, Reverend Lee soon to be
50:40
Speaker 1: former reverend. And this is uh Lee, Lady Lee, I
50:45
Speaker 1: saw that, but it could be a man. No, it's
50:48
Speaker 1: a lady. Oh it is well. Thank you, reverendly Again. Seriously,
50:51
Speaker 1: we heard from you and from one other reverend who
50:54
Speaker 1: basically said, you know, thanks for opening my eyes and
50:57
Speaker 1: and I I find it very interesting too. That's just
51:01
Speaker 1: opening their eyes but also like restoring their faith, like
51:04
Speaker 1: it confirmed their faith running out to church and Satan
51:09
Speaker 1: right it was challenged. They thought about it and they said, nope,
51:12
Speaker 1: I'm doubling down. And I feel good about this after
51:16
Speaker 1: being confronted with opposing viewpoints, critical thinking. Yeah, nicely done.
51:22
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, you
51:23
Speaker 1: can tweet to us. I'm at Joshum Clark and at
51:26
Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast, both on Twitter. You can
51:29
Speaker 1: hang out with Chuck at Charles W. Chuck Brian on
51:32
Speaker 1: Facebook or Stuff you Should Know on Facebook. You can
51:35
Speaker 1: send us an email to stuff podcast that how Stuff
51:38
Speaker 1: Works dot Com and has always joined us at home
51:41
Speaker 1: on the web. Stuff You Should Know dot com. For
51:47
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
51:50
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com.