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Selects: How Circus Families Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Happy Saturday. I hope you're having a great weekend.
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Speaker 1: If you want to learn something about circus families, you're
0:06
Speaker 1: in the right place because this is a throwback select
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Speaker 1: episode to July two. Circus families, Believe it or not,
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Speaker 1: It's a thing, great, great, rich traditions all over the
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Speaker 1: world with circus families, fathers and mothers teaching sons and daughters,
0:21
Speaker 1: aunts and uncles teaching nieces and nephews how to swing
0:24
Speaker 1: on trap pieces and climb ropes and dew flips and
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Speaker 1: ride motorcycles. Here we go, how circus families work. Welcome
0:36
Speaker 1: to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
0:45
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Just Charles
0:48
Speaker 1: W Chuck Bryant, and Jerry, Which makes this the Flying
0:53
Speaker 1: s Y s Cades, Flying Stuff, stuffy In's Stuffino, Oh,
1:00
Speaker 1: Steffini's Flying stef Man Boy. See you look at that.
1:04
Speaker 1: It took us we seven seconds, maybe even less, to
1:08
Speaker 1: come up with the best name in the history of
1:09
Speaker 1: podcasting circus teams. Yeah, we'll go back and look at
1:12
Speaker 1: the time stamp after this publishism we'll know for sure,
1:15
Speaker 1: But I say less than seven seconds. The Flying Stefeni's
1:18
Speaker 1: good job man. All right, I guess we can retire.
1:20
Speaker 1: We've hit it big, Yeah we have. You can make
1:24
Speaker 1: some money being a circus family, I learned. Yeah, I
1:27
Speaker 1: have no idea about costs. So you will delight me
1:30
Speaker 1: because I think everyone, well not everyone. I think some
1:33
Speaker 1: people when they go to the circus, they're like, what's
1:35
Speaker 1: that guy make for throwing knives? Oh? I have no
1:39
Speaker 1: idea what they make. It's just the question I got
1:41
Speaker 1: from this research. Gotcha, And I thought you had some
1:43
Speaker 1: hard numbers. Uh. No, you're the statman, remember, And I know,
1:47
Speaker 1: but people, you know, it's rude to talk about money,
1:51
Speaker 1: so people don't share these things these days. That's why
1:54
Speaker 1: I'm not saying anything. I'm just telling you the impression
1:56
Speaker 1: I had. They're always strutting around with goblets full of
1:59
Speaker 1: really expensive wine circus families, so you know, yeah, they
2:05
Speaker 1: got uh. You know. Every time I think we're all circused,
2:08
Speaker 1: out there comes another topic. Well, we have yet to
2:11
Speaker 1: do how circuses themselves work. We will do that one day,
2:15
Speaker 1: so we've done all of its component, every last one.
2:19
Speaker 1: After that. Well, it does have interesting history, so well
2:21
Speaker 1: we will save that then. Yeah. Well, I do want
2:23
Speaker 1: to do how circuses working. We should also say I
2:25
Speaker 1: don't want anybody to have the impression that by talking
2:28
Speaker 1: about circus families we are endorsing circuses in general. I
2:32
Speaker 1: have serious issues with some of them, with them for
2:36
Speaker 1: the most part, oh, like because of their treatment of animals. Yeah,
2:40
Speaker 1: but a lot of them don't use animals at all anymore. Well,
2:43
Speaker 1: not a lot of them, some of them don't. I
2:44
Speaker 1: have no problem with those circuses. Yeah, Like I remember
2:47
Speaker 1: the Big Apple Circus. They have a dog thing. Well dogs,
2:51
Speaker 1: I mean, we're horse thing, and I think that was it.
2:55
Speaker 1: And horses love to show off, So I'm okay with
2:57
Speaker 1: the Big Apple. Yeah, you wouldn't shoot, you know, but no, no,
3:00
Speaker 1: they wouldn't show like an elephant, right right, Which is
3:05
Speaker 1: funny because apparently an elephant is equal to a family
3:10
Speaker 1: circus performer. Oh yeah, I saw that. I should say
3:13
Speaker 1: circus family performer. Family circus is totally different. Yeah. This
3:17
Speaker 1: is a little frustrating research because I kept getting lots
3:19
Speaker 1: of circular cartoons that weren't funny. You don't think they're funny, Okay,
3:24
Speaker 1: they're they're not funny. I think they're charming and heartwarming. Yeah, sure,
3:28
Speaker 1: you know, Jeffy wrote on the wall, right, it's not funny,
3:33
Speaker 1: but it's cute. Their little hair in the noses and
3:36
Speaker 1: the they're cute. U that I have a brief segue here. Initially, Um,
3:41
Speaker 1: that reminded me. Was just at max fun Con, uh,
3:44
Speaker 1: the the weekend retreat of Jesse Thorn and his podcasting empire.
3:48
Speaker 1: Everybody loved you that picture of you and Hodgeman and
3:52
Speaker 1: Justin McElroy's kid. Yeah, well baby Charlie. Yeah, very cute. Yeah,
3:55
Speaker 1: I think people love babies. Hodgeman, who doesn't even particularly
3:58
Speaker 1: like kids, was like, give me that baby. You know, Um,
4:02
Speaker 1: husband likes kids, at least he likes his own kids. Um.
4:06
Speaker 1: So I was just there. And first of all, let
4:08
Speaker 1: me recommend the Super Ego podcast, very funny improv podcast
4:14
Speaker 1: featuring Matt Gorley and Paul if Tompkins and Mark McConville
4:18
Speaker 1: and Jeremy Carter. You could have stopped at Paul if Tompkins.
4:21
Speaker 1: Yeah right, Um, but one man improv is like, it's
4:24
Speaker 1: not the best he can do it. I bet he could.
4:27
Speaker 1: He does, I've seen it. So anyway, a long story short,
4:29
Speaker 1: we were playing this game one night where we were
4:31
Speaker 1: naming comic strips and the comic strip Mark Trail came up.
4:34
Speaker 1: Oh man, you remember that. Well it wasn't even trying
4:37
Speaker 1: to be funny. Well, no, it wasn't funny at all,
4:39
Speaker 1: but it wasn't even like interesting. It was literally like
4:42
Speaker 1: you know the what a beautiful sunset today? Right, that
4:46
Speaker 1: was tracing the trail of a hawk in the sky
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Speaker 1: like through eight panels. Yeah. I thought it was refreshing
4:54
Speaker 1: in a little ways, like you just make it all
4:56
Speaker 1: like through a hilarious spasm of laugh or after like
5:00
Speaker 1: Funky winker Bean or Hagar the Horrible and you needed
5:03
Speaker 1: to like chill out, remember that, so you'd like read
5:06
Speaker 1: the Mark Trail and then like you go at it
5:09
Speaker 1: again and just laugh and laugh and beatle Bailey, which
5:12
Speaker 1: is great institches and then maybe you come down a
5:15
Speaker 1: little on Merry Worth or Department at three G Well,
5:18
Speaker 1: back up on Wizard of It, back down with Brenda Starr.
5:22
Speaker 1: Yeah that's the way you do it. But Mark Trail,
5:24
Speaker 1: I don't want to knock it too much because I
5:26
Speaker 1: believe it like taught kids about nature and conservancy and
5:28
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But and how to follow a hawks
5:31
Speaker 1: trail in this guy didn't belong in the comics section,
5:34
Speaker 1: but I don't know. It was a comic strip. Yeah.
5:36
Speaker 1: A lot of those comics were like they started out
5:39
Speaker 1: or a lot of things started out as comics like
5:41
Speaker 1: Lone Ranger comic sure, comic strip or comic book m
5:48
Speaker 1: because some have been both. You know, well the Bolster
5:50
Speaker 1: my point. Let's say comic strip. Okay, okay, great, and
5:54
Speaker 1: it might have actually started out as a radio show.
5:56
Speaker 1: And I think about it, Hey, that work. That worked
5:59
Speaker 1: out well. I was thinking, how can we kill some
6:01
Speaker 1: time here before we do circuses? That's how family circus
6:04
Speaker 1: tangent so family circuses. Uh. When I first circus families,
6:11
Speaker 1: when I first started researching, I was like, what a
6:14
Speaker 1: weird thing to be in a circus family? And then
6:17
Speaker 1: I thought it might be weird to be in one,
6:19
Speaker 1: but not weird that there are circus families, because it
6:22
Speaker 1: makes total sense that it's the family business. Well, that's
6:26
Speaker 1: how circus is largely started out. Yeah, very familiar. It was,
6:30
Speaker 1: you know, like you some patriarch of a family would
6:34
Speaker 1: find out that, hey, I'm I'm kind of good at juggling.
6:36
Speaker 1: Why don't I try doing it while I stand on
6:39
Speaker 1: the back of a moving horse and they go, Holy cow,
6:42
Speaker 1: I'm actually doing this. And uh, they'd say, well, let
6:45
Speaker 1: me see what happens when I tossed my sons in
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Speaker 1: the air instead of juggling you know, batons juggle my sons. Yeah,
6:52
Speaker 1: if I set their hair on fire using some sort
6:55
Speaker 1: of safe flammable material that will burn but not burn
6:59
Speaker 1: the sun, say yeah, like have a flame retardant cap. Sure,
7:02
Speaker 1: that's then all of a sudden, you've got a circus family.
7:06
Speaker 1: And like these people would would start out by you know,
7:09
Speaker 1: the whole family would get involved in This is a
7:11
Speaker 1: time when they were much larger families than there are today,
7:15
Speaker 1: and they would form their own mini circus and travel around.
7:18
Speaker 1: And as circuses became more and more established and entrenched
7:21
Speaker 1: and divided among some very big names. Um, they started
7:26
Speaker 1: basically freelancing for these things. Like they go on a
7:29
Speaker 1: tour or a couple of tours would be you know,
7:31
Speaker 1: with a large circus for a couple of years, and
7:34
Speaker 1: then they go off and get on another tour or
7:36
Speaker 1: something like that. But um, they would form these family
7:39
Speaker 1: acts and that's how circuses originally got started. Yeah, and um,
7:43
Speaker 1: apparently it's it just the more you look at it,
7:46
Speaker 1: the more it makes sense. You know, they're on the
7:48
Speaker 1: road a lot um and if you want to spend
7:51
Speaker 1: time with your family, get your family and the family business,
7:54
Speaker 1: because then mom and dad aren't on the road doing
7:57
Speaker 1: their equestrian act. They're bringing the kids along and teaching them,
8:00
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden they're the writing uh steffins,
8:04
Speaker 1: and there's spending time together and it's uh, you know.
8:07
Speaker 1: I read a few interviews with people in circus families,
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Speaker 1: and apparently if you were not from a circus family, uh,
8:15
Speaker 1: this quote from Big Apple Circus guest director Steve Smith said,
8:19
Speaker 1: for those us, those of us who didn't grow up
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Speaker 1: in the circus, there's always a feeling as if we're
8:24
Speaker 1: on the outside looking in on what they call quote
8:28
Speaker 1: being circus. Yeah, Like if you're born into a circus
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Speaker 1: family and you're in the circus, you have automatic prestige,
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Speaker 1: you're part of a dynasty, and that's being circus. Yeah.
8:37
Speaker 1: It's like real police. If you're a fan of the Wire,
8:40
Speaker 1: Sure there's cops and there's real police. Yeah, but like
8:44
Speaker 1: if you were born into being police, which a lot
8:47
Speaker 1: of cops are also another family tradition job. Yes, I
8:51
Speaker 1: don't know if a little podcasters are going to come along.
8:55
Speaker 1: We were not at that point yet where like there's
8:57
Speaker 1: been a generation you know it. But yeah, maybe a
9:01
Speaker 1: little Charlie McElroy will be a podcast maybe. Um And
9:05
Speaker 1: then they call uh they say marrying inside the circus
9:09
Speaker 1: also makes a lot of sense because where you're gonna
9:11
Speaker 1: meet people, but probably fellow performers, other circus families. So
9:14
Speaker 1: these are not towners if you're not like, uh, I
9:18
Speaker 1: like you and I are towners. Yeah, a k A
9:21
Speaker 1: slack jawed yokels. Yeah you know, sure, how are you look?
9:25
Speaker 1: Well that thing on fire and jump through it. Yeah.
9:27
Speaker 1: There's a there's a pretty neat article on pbs UM
9:32
Speaker 1: called being Circus Life in the Family Business about being
9:35
Speaker 1: born into a circus family. It seems like a pretty
9:38
Speaker 1: cool life. I mean, you know, they go to school
9:41
Speaker 1: on the road, and I think it's like one big
9:44
Speaker 1: family because they say, you know, if you're in a
9:46
Speaker 1: trap ees act, you can't be mad at your dad
9:49
Speaker 1: who is catching you in the trap ez act tonight.
9:52
Speaker 1: So I think you gotta like, yeah, well, you know,
9:56
Speaker 1: you can't go into performance, a dangerous performance like the
9:58
Speaker 1: globe of death, harboring any animosity towards your siblings. So
10:03
Speaker 1: you gotta work this stuff out. You know, they're they're
10:04
Speaker 1: tight en it people, right, And it seems like the
10:07
Speaker 1: custom is that once you are done performing as a
10:11
Speaker 1: member of a circus family, there's a non performing job
10:15
Speaker 1: for you, ready and waiting in the circus elsewhere, like
10:19
Speaker 1: an administration or something like that. I thought you were
10:22
Speaker 1: gonna say, break a deal, face the wheel, longstanding tradition
10:27
Speaker 1: in the circus. I know, welcome to Bartertown. Um. I
10:32
Speaker 1: watched that not too long ago. I told you I
10:34
Speaker 1: think I watched the whole mad Max trilogy. Yeah, the
10:37
Speaker 1: quadrilogy now well yeah, I think it's still trilogy plus one.
10:42
Speaker 1: Like Durham is our plus one on the Northeast tour. Yep,
10:46
Speaker 1: lousy people of Durham. Get it together, Durham. Um, all right,
10:52
Speaker 1: So you want to talk about some of these famous families,
10:54
Speaker 1: you know, you marry into it, you're born into it,
10:56
Speaker 1: and then before you know, and it seems like they
10:58
Speaker 1: always have a lot of kids too, Yeah, like seven children,
11:02
Speaker 1: because you need seven to complete a pyramids exactly? Is that? Why?
11:06
Speaker 1: Probably if you think you need help um, you know,
11:10
Speaker 1: tending to the farm. Imagine having like a circus act.
11:13
Speaker 1: That's good point. And some circus families also kind of expand,
11:17
Speaker 1: especially once they form a troop, they'll expand the family
11:21
Speaker 1: act to include non family members. Where they're they're members
11:25
Speaker 1: of the troops, they're not members of the family. But
11:27
Speaker 1: for for any outsider, they're like, oh, there's like three
11:31
Speaker 1: dads here. Yeah. But they take the traditional blood oath
11:34
Speaker 1: I think, sure, you know, and cut themselves with an
11:37
Speaker 1: elephant tusk that's still attached to the elephant. Yeah, that's right,
11:41
Speaker 1: and then they do a trepeze. It's gotta hurt. Yeah.
11:45
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the Clarks, one of the earliest
11:48
Speaker 1: um British circus families. Any relation to you probably? I mean,
11:53
Speaker 1: can't you tell you see me on the high wire?
11:56
Speaker 1: I have? You're quite skilled. Yes, they the Clarks go
12:01
Speaker 1: all the way back to the very first uh circuses,
12:05
Speaker 1: because a man named Philip Astley is credited as being
12:10
Speaker 1: the inventor of the modern circus in the late seventeen hundreds. Right,
12:13
Speaker 1: and he heard about John Clark, who was a horseman,
12:16
Speaker 1: and a lot of these people are horse people. Yeah,
12:18
Speaker 1: it's a good way to start in the circus. Just
12:20
Speaker 1: be good on a horse. Um he Uh. John Clark
12:24
Speaker 1: was good on a horse. He caught the attention of UM,
12:27
Speaker 1: Philip Astley and Uh. In the early nineteenth century they
12:32
Speaker 1: started a circus act. Yeah, it was an area act
12:36
Speaker 1: at first. And it seems like anytime you're good, then
12:41
Speaker 1: the Ringling Brothers will come a call in at some point. Yeah,
12:44
Speaker 1: for sure, to snap you up, because they're the greatest
12:47
Speaker 1: show on earth. That's right. Um. The one of the
12:51
Speaker 1: ways also to cement your family act as a dynasty,
12:55
Speaker 1: in addition to having multiple generations that stay in the circus, UH,
13:00
Speaker 1: is to create some new thrilling move that no one
13:04
Speaker 1: else has done before, like the Clarks are credited with
13:08
Speaker 1: um coming up with the triple back somersault in nineteen
13:12
Speaker 1: o nine. Right, and the whole the Clark family dynasty
13:18
Speaker 1: actually broke up because of World War Two. World War
13:20
Speaker 1: two interestingly had a really direct impact on a lot
13:26
Speaker 1: of circus families, and the Clarks were among them. Um.
13:31
Speaker 1: So the men went off to war, I'm sure some
13:33
Speaker 1: of them died. The ones it returned, We're like, I've
13:35
Speaker 1: seen too much to go back into the circus and
13:38
Speaker 1: it was up to Ernestine Clark, who was a great
13:41
Speaker 1: granddaughter of John Clark I believe, to carry on the
13:46
Speaker 1: family business single handedly and daughter of Ernest. Her name
13:50
Speaker 1: was actually Elizabeth Laura, but she looked so much like Ernest.
13:54
Speaker 1: People called her little Ernie and uh yeah, she eventually
13:58
Speaker 1: went by Ernestine. I guess she was. I come on
14:00
Speaker 1: as well, just make this a little more feminine. It's
14:03
Speaker 1: like a family circus trip. And she did soldier on
14:07
Speaker 1: um you know, after World War Two, Like you said,
14:12
Speaker 1: it's so crazy to think about these famous people going
14:15
Speaker 1: and joining the army. Well, Elvis did. Yeah, Elvis was
14:19
Speaker 1: in the army. I know. He's also probably like more
14:21
Speaker 1: protected than Prince Harry is sure, but he was still
14:24
Speaker 1: in the army. And famous athletes like can you imagine,
14:27
Speaker 1: like Justin Bieber is in the army it's a fight
14:30
Speaker 1: in the Middle East. No, I really really came, just
14:32
Speaker 1: doing his Duty's an American just a different time. It's
14:37
Speaker 1: just mind boggling to think about the mindset back then.
14:40
Speaker 1: You know. Do you know I got my haircut recently
14:42
Speaker 1: by the guy who created the Bieber haircut back in
14:46
Speaker 1: the day. Is that why you went to him. No,
14:50
Speaker 1: I didn't find out until part way through, and I
14:52
Speaker 1: was like, please don't give me a Bieber, Please don't
14:53
Speaker 1: give you which what was the sweepy in your face? Wow? Yeah,
14:59
Speaker 1: so he is Bieber stylists, yes, early on, and gave
15:04
Speaker 1: him that haircut. Isn't that cool? I guess man, I
15:08
Speaker 1: was like one degree from Justin Bieber. I think we
15:11
Speaker 1: all are. Um, so everybody, UM, I don't know if
15:15
Speaker 1: you found this. I thought this is pretty amazing. Um.
15:17
Speaker 1: The Clark's performance group early on, we're called the clarkon Ians.
15:22
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty good. It's weird, it's so funny,
15:25
Speaker 1: like for some reason, if you're a circus promoter, you're like,
15:29
Speaker 1: that name is not nearly Italian enough at an eeny
15:32
Speaker 1: or an owny or something on the end of it,
15:34
Speaker 1: even if it doesn't work like clark one in yeah,
15:37
Speaker 1: or as we'll hear about later, the hoy Genie's this
15:40
Speaker 1: isn't that's that's senseless. It is pretty senseless. But you
15:45
Speaker 1: can thank circus promoters for coming up with those horrible
15:49
Speaker 1: hybrids of names. I think there's a rich tradition in Italy,
15:53
Speaker 1: so they just sounded you know, fanciful um. So Ernestine
15:58
Speaker 1: carried the torch um. She finally left the circus in
16:00
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. Uh and had a husband that was
16:04
Speaker 1: a part time circus performer, part time actor, and her
16:07
Speaker 1: little girls who Parley, Yeah, part of whole. He was
16:11
Speaker 1: the mayor and Andy Griffith. Oh no way. And if
16:13
Speaker 1: you look up his um his credits, he was in everything.
16:17
Speaker 1: He like made appearances in everything, like you would recognize
16:20
Speaker 1: him immediately. Interesting. He's been in everything from Three's Company
16:24
Speaker 1: to the Golden Girls. He was just in everything. Wow,
16:27
Speaker 1: that's pretty awesome. Bewitched. Yeah, did I say three His Company?
16:31
Speaker 1: He did? I'll say it again. Uh. So she married
16:35
Speaker 1: the famous actor um and then her daughters became trapeze artists,
16:40
Speaker 1: carrying on the family tradition. And Ernestine eventually became the
16:44
Speaker 1: first daughter to follow her father into the International Circus
16:47
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. And I have a little clip here.
16:51
Speaker 1: Do you ever read the old New York Times articles?
16:53
Speaker 1: Sometimes the PDF ones with eighteen different headlines? Yeah, yeah,
16:59
Speaker 1: this is his base. Clear read the headline several headlines actually,
17:02
Speaker 1: So this is about Clark Um Ernest Clark in New
17:06
Speaker 1: York City and Madison Square Garden and the first headline
17:09
Speaker 1: is trapeze man noted for twist and air. Uh Ernest
17:14
Speaker 1: Clark of wrinkling circus, turns at right angles and leap
17:17
Speaker 1: for life line line, broken rib brings panic, I'm sorry
17:21
Speaker 1: payne line and then writhing action during triple somersault starts
17:27
Speaker 1: sweat of agony all right, And then in the article
17:30
Speaker 1: it says, h Clark's feet is apparently in defiance of
17:34
Speaker 1: all the laws of mechanics, for he turns his body
17:37
Speaker 1: in the air and a pirouette at right angles to
17:40
Speaker 1: its line of flight with no other leverage than that
17:44
Speaker 1: he can exert by a thrust of his shoulders. Jo
17:50
Speaker 1: it is. And then later when they're describing him, describing
17:52
Speaker 1: him says Clark as a small, almost slight man, but
17:55
Speaker 1: with a large, wonderfully developed chest with a great heart
18:01
Speaker 1: beating inside. Old New York Times articles are just the best,
18:04
Speaker 1: I would say, all old newspapers period. But there times
18:07
Speaker 1: they knew what they were doing. Yeah, you could access
18:09
Speaker 1: You can access that stuff today pretty easily, pretty neat.
18:13
Speaker 1: You know. I looked up what um that line and
18:15
Speaker 1: staying alive means about the New York Times Don't Make
18:18
Speaker 1: a Man? Is that in the song Stay Alive The
18:21
Speaker 1: New York Times Don't make a Man? Oh? I never
18:23
Speaker 1: knew that's what they were saying. Yeah, so what does
18:25
Speaker 1: that mean? It means basically at the time that if
18:28
Speaker 1: like if it wasn't in the New York Times, it
18:29
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. And this is about a man whose life
18:32
Speaker 1: still does matter even though it's not worthy of being
18:35
Speaker 1: reported on it in the New York Times. John Travolta
18:38
Speaker 1: or the character. Yeah, I can't remember his name, Tony Manera, right,
18:42
Speaker 1: I think as scarface, Tony Marinera. Was it Tony? It's
18:47
Speaker 1: probably Tony, you know. So that movie was based on
18:51
Speaker 1: an article in New York magazine and it turned out
18:54
Speaker 1: that the guy who wrote it made the whole thing
18:56
Speaker 1: up from beginning to end. That made it up crazy. Yeah,
19:01
Speaker 1: but it's still worth reading. And especially if you know
19:04
Speaker 1: that he made it up, you're like, how did how
19:05
Speaker 1: did anybody buy this? This kind of like like on
19:08
Speaker 1: the spot reporting is just done by a handful of people. Sure,
19:13
Speaker 1: and he found this guy that they worked on a
19:15
Speaker 1: hardware store in Brooklyn, and yeah, and then like was
19:17
Speaker 1: there like with the it was was able to like
19:20
Speaker 1: almost omnisciently track, like the people that came into this
19:23
Speaker 1: guy's orbit. Yeah, it's funny that the editors were like, Wow,
19:27
Speaker 1: you did a really good job here, not you're a
19:29
Speaker 1: fraud who cares? Yeah, they should have. Just when I
19:33
Speaker 1: hear things like that, I'm like, just say it's fiction
19:35
Speaker 1: from the beginning. It's still interesting. It's like when the
19:38
Speaker 1: guy the the author wrote about his drug rehab the
19:43
Speaker 1: James Fry. Yeah, that was a great book. And I
19:46
Speaker 1: remember at the time when all came out, I was like, man, man,
19:49
Speaker 1: you should just call it fiction. It's a really good book.
19:51
Speaker 1: But I thought I followed that story and and thought
19:54
Speaker 1: the same thing, like like, why why would you why
19:57
Speaker 1: would you say that every word of this is accurate? Yeah,
20:00
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense. We will get back to uh.
20:05
Speaker 1: Circus families believe it or not right after this message,
20:24
Speaker 1: So Chuck sometimes them if the family Circus, the Circus
20:28
Speaker 1: family can get in front of a show promoter, they
20:32
Speaker 1: can have some sort of control over their own name,
20:35
Speaker 1: the change that comes to it. And that is the
20:37
Speaker 1: case with the Hobson's. Robert Hobson, who left England for
20:41
Speaker 1: the US in eighteen sixty um and started a family,
20:47
Speaker 1: a circus family act, acrobats family act. That's right. And
20:51
Speaker 1: apparently he was noted for tossing his son's about like
20:55
Speaker 1: indian rubber. I don't even know what that means. It
20:58
Speaker 1: means he was basically throwing us ones all over the
21:00
Speaker 1: place and they're just landing places. Well, no, I get that,
21:04
Speaker 1: but I just I don't know what indian rubber is.
21:06
Speaker 1: I think that they were very pliable. Okay, gotcha. Uh
21:12
Speaker 1: So with the name change, they were originally Hobson, I'm sorry,
21:17
Speaker 1: originally Nelson, but changed their name. No, it was Hobson first. Oh,
21:22
Speaker 1: it was changed to Nelson. Man, it gets confusing. So
21:25
Speaker 1: he called themselves professor Nelson and sons. Right, the son
21:28
Speaker 1: So he tossed about like indian rubber. Right, But it's
21:31
Speaker 1: not a better like Nelson's, no better than Hobson. That's
21:34
Speaker 1: just strange. Uh. Yeah, he changed it, supposedly allegedly because
21:39
Speaker 1: he wanted to pay homage to a former stage partner
21:43
Speaker 1: that I guess it died or moved on or whatever.
21:47
Speaker 1: I couldn't find the person's name, whoever the Nelson was,
21:49
Speaker 1: but it was an homage. Well, maybe he wanted to
21:52
Speaker 1: anonymity as well. Yeah, but he's probably on the run
21:54
Speaker 1: from the law. So um, the Nelson's became the Great
21:58
Speaker 1: Nelson Family because they they follow that tradition of like
22:01
Speaker 1: needing more people, um, more quickly than they could reproduce. Uh.
22:06
Speaker 1: So they brought in other performers who weren't family members,
22:09
Speaker 1: and they became the Great Nelson Family and then ultimately
22:13
Speaker 1: the Flying Nelson's, which is what they became famous as
22:15
Speaker 1: the Flying Nelson's. Yeah, and here's I thought the cool
22:18
Speaker 1: little factoid about them in the early I'm sorry, late
22:21
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. Um, granddaughter Hilda taught lot was hired to
22:25
Speaker 1: teach Lon Cheney, the actor, how to walk the high
22:28
Speaker 1: wire in a movie called Laugh, Clown Laugh, and then
22:32
Speaker 1: all of the Nelson's, Um, we're in a movie called
22:36
Speaker 1: Circus Rookies in so um they still continue, I think,
22:41
Speaker 1: not as the Nelson's, but um, they said their ancestors,
22:45
Speaker 1: some of which still perform. Yeah, they basically retired mostly
22:49
Speaker 1: by nineteen thirty five. But then yeah, some carried on.
22:54
Speaker 1: What about the Flying Wallendas. These are the ones that
22:56
Speaker 1: everybody knows, everybody's heard of that it's sort of uh
23:00
Speaker 1: that became part of the lexicon. Yeah, the flying Wellendus Um.
23:04
Speaker 1: And then funny enough, the flying Wallendas actually got their
23:07
Speaker 1: name from a newspaper headline that dubbed them that because
23:11
Speaker 1: four of them fell from a high wire. Yeah, in
23:14
Speaker 1: acron Ohio and they said, like the flying Mollendis. Yeah,
23:18
Speaker 1: they said, the quote was the Wolendas Volendas. The Wallendas
23:22
Speaker 1: fell so gracefully that it seemed as if they were flying. Uh.
23:28
Speaker 1: But I wonder, like there were other flying flying Nelson's, Like,
23:31
Speaker 1: was this the first one? I wonder the Wollenda's. No,
23:34
Speaker 1: because the flying Nelson's were called that long before the
23:37
Speaker 1: middle of the twentieth century, So I think it was
23:40
Speaker 1: a natural word to apply to a circus family that
23:44
Speaker 1: did acrobatics. They're flying, And they definitely did acrobatics. Man,
23:48
Speaker 1: they were Um. They cemented their legacy for the seven
23:52
Speaker 1: person chair pyramid wait for it, on a high wire
23:57
Speaker 1: no nets, no nets, no harnesses. Very dangerous, so dangerous
24:01
Speaker 1: in fact that Carl will lenda Um, who was the
24:04
Speaker 1: patriarch at the time, died at age seventy three from
24:08
Speaker 1: a fall on the high wire. Yeah, they had a
24:10
Speaker 1: lot of tragedy. Um when they had the pyramid collapse
24:13
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two. Two people died and Carlson Mario
24:17
Speaker 1: was paralyzed. Carl goes on to die. They had a
24:20
Speaker 1: sister in law who fell to her death in nineteen
24:23
Speaker 1: sixty three, and then in nineteen forty four they were
24:29
Speaker 1: the group performing when the Hartford Circus fire broke out.
24:35
Speaker 1: Oh really, so their act was going on. Uh. These
24:38
Speaker 1: tents were made of They were coated in paraffin wax
24:41
Speaker 1: at the time, probably kerosene to keep it from uh,
24:45
Speaker 1: to keep it waterproof. Paraffin wax is highly flammable, so
24:50
Speaker 1: scarrocene and UM A little tent sidewall started and during
24:54
Speaker 1: their performance, UM a band leader spotted it and apparently,
24:58
Speaker 1: and they should tell everyone this the song Stars and
25:02
Speaker 1: Stripes Forever as a warning signal to the circus performers.
25:07
Speaker 1: He said, start playing that, and that signaled like big
25:10
Speaker 1: trouble as ahead, and a hundred and sixty six to
25:14
Speaker 1: sixty nine people died. It didn't only have one point
25:18
Speaker 1: of entrance, entrance or exit. I think, I don't know.
25:21
Speaker 1: I know that some of the exits were blocked because
25:23
Speaker 1: they had like the ramp set up for the lions
25:27
Speaker 1: and stuff to come through like portals, and so they
25:30
Speaker 1: couldn't get out that way. So you might be right,
25:32
Speaker 1: But yeah, that was one of the deadliest fires in
25:34
Speaker 1: US history. And that's a that's a bad fire. Yeah,
25:37
Speaker 1: And there were a bunch of circus fires. I read
25:39
Speaker 1: about two or three. I would guess if you have
25:41
Speaker 1: huge canvas tents, a lot of hay on the ground, yeah,
25:45
Speaker 1: and um, they're coated inflammable material. Yeah, and everybody smoked. Sure, yeah,
25:51
Speaker 1: and then we'll just they still don't know. There was
25:53
Speaker 1: a guy that claimed responsibility as an arsonist, but um,
25:58
Speaker 1: they don't think he did it. He was mentally and
26:00
Speaker 1: although he was an arsonist, just not that time that time.
26:05
Speaker 1: So the will Lendas have become synonymous with um circus
26:10
Speaker 1: tragedy strangely, but they also has an overshadowed their accomplishments
26:15
Speaker 1: there in the world. The Guinness Book of World records
26:18
Speaker 1: for the world's first and only ten person pyramid on
26:21
Speaker 1: a tight rope. Consider this, several of their family members
26:25
Speaker 1: died doing this, and they went on and not only
26:28
Speaker 1: redo it, but they add three more seats, three more
26:31
Speaker 1: Wilenda's Yeah, that's crazy. So they set a world record. Um.
26:35
Speaker 1: And then uh Nick will Lenda who has been on
26:39
Speaker 1: Discovery Channel before. I believe he walked over the Grand
26:42
Speaker 1: Canyon channel Discovery Channel. Have you heard of it? They?
26:48
Speaker 1: I think he was the one who walked over the
26:50
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon. He definitely walked over um uh Chicago in
26:54
Speaker 1: between two skyscrapers over a six foot drop. Yeah. Man,
26:57
Speaker 1: that stuff is just just nutty. Which is two meters crazy? Yeah,
27:02
Speaker 1: on a on a high wire without a net. You
27:05
Speaker 1: could put a net at the bottom. It's not gonna
27:06
Speaker 1: do anything. How did we talked about this a little
27:08
Speaker 1: bit recently with the movie coming out about Man on Wire,
27:12
Speaker 1: the tyro walker between the Twin Tours. How does the
27:14
Speaker 1: wind not just knock them off? Well, that's what that
27:16
Speaker 1: polls for to extend their um their point of what
27:22
Speaker 1: balance point center of gravity. Yeah, I mean I knew
27:24
Speaker 1: it helped them balance, but it just seems like the
27:26
Speaker 1: wind could be so fierce a good like, like the
27:28
Speaker 1: wind blows me over just walking down the street. I've
27:31
Speaker 1: seen it. I frequently have to help you up. That's
27:35
Speaker 1: how you found most of your lucky pennies. Yeah, that's
27:37
Speaker 1: a good point. Hoovered them all up all right, Are
27:41
Speaker 1: we onto the the hoy Genie's Yes, we are the
27:45
Speaker 1: hoy Genies. Which is it started out as the Hodges
27:49
Speaker 1: not good enough, Let's make it more Italian and add
27:53
Speaker 1: any to the end of Hodges. Yes, which is what
27:56
Speaker 1: a promoter did to that lovely English surname on the
28:00
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century. And um, they have been around for
28:04
Speaker 1: a long time, three hundred and fifty year uh, ancestry
28:08
Speaker 1: of circus performers. It's not bad, it isn't bad. I
28:12
Speaker 1: think that's the oldest in here. The Wallendas went back
28:15
Speaker 1: to the late eighteenth centuries, seventeen hundreds. Yeah, I think
28:19
Speaker 1: the Hygenies might be the oldest one in here. This
28:22
Speaker 1: one lady I saw that was interviewed. I can't remember
28:24
Speaker 1: her name. She was a twelfth generation on one side
28:28
Speaker 1: and seventh on her father's side. Man, that's serious being circus.
28:33
Speaker 1: So with the Hygiene's chuck um they were, They were
28:38
Speaker 1: really good with the horse ye equestrians. Yep. They had
28:41
Speaker 1: their own um, in particular Harriet, which was one of
28:45
Speaker 1: m Albert Hygenie's um who I well, I guess he
28:50
Speaker 1: wasn't the founder. If it went back through hundred fifty years.
28:52
Speaker 1: But um in early hygiene, early twentieth century hygiene or
28:56
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century UM, his kid Harriet UH would somersault
29:02
Speaker 1: and like dance on the back of a moving horse,
29:05
Speaker 1: which is weird because I've seen that before. I've seen
29:08
Speaker 1: like footage from the forties or fifties, So I wonder
29:10
Speaker 1: if I was seeing her because there's probably not that
29:13
Speaker 1: many people walking around on Earth who can do backflips
29:16
Speaker 1: on a horse. That's a good point, Um. But the
29:20
Speaker 1: really notable thing about the Hygiene's is what they did
29:22
Speaker 1: in retirement. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. Tom
29:25
Speaker 1: and Betty Hygeni uh from Indiana, Peru Indiana, not to
29:30
Speaker 1: be confused with Peru, the country Peru Peru. Yeah. Uh.
29:34
Speaker 1: They retired in n and businessman there said, you know what, wy,
29:39
Speaker 1: don't you come and work with some kids and teach
29:42
Speaker 1: them like your your craft. And that began we were
29:46
Speaker 1: just like, leave us alone, seriously retired. Uh. And that
29:51
Speaker 1: will welcome Matt now because we didn't put went out
29:55
Speaker 1: get off a property. Uh. That began what is now
29:58
Speaker 1: the Peru Amateur circus, in which kids perform like ten
30:03
Speaker 1: performances every summer. And it just sounds like a neat
30:07
Speaker 1: little program. Yeah, and it's not that little. Apparently tens
30:10
Speaker 1: of thousands of people show up for it. Yeah, a little,
30:13
Speaker 1: you know. And um, it's actually going on July eleven,
30:17
Speaker 1: ye around. I don't know exactly when this one's gonna
30:20
Speaker 1: come out, but it will be in time. So if
30:21
Speaker 1: you find yourself around Peru, Indiana, go check out the
30:25
Speaker 1: circus there July eleven. Chuck, we got more, don't we
30:30
Speaker 1: up our sleeves and more ennis, um, and we will
30:33
Speaker 1: talk about them right after this. You remember you said,
30:52
Speaker 1: Chuckers that, Um, a lot of these families started out
30:55
Speaker 1: as like a great equestrian families. Um. The Knees are
30:59
Speaker 1: probably the premier equestrian circus family around. Yes, they began
31:04
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy a teenager named Leopold Knot and they
31:08
Speaker 1: were Hungarian. Um. He he did the old like right
31:13
Speaker 1: out of a story book. He said, I'm running away
31:15
Speaker 1: and joining the circus. Yeah, that's another way to found
31:17
Speaker 1: a circus family. Go start your own, to run off
31:21
Speaker 1: through the circus. Yeah, and started. Yeah, start having kids
31:25
Speaker 1: and then you won't be circus, but your kids will
31:28
Speaker 1: be circus. Yeah, it's got to start somewhere exactly. All
31:32
Speaker 1: starts by running off to the circus. That's right. Of
31:35
Speaker 1: course he might have married into circus. He probably, Yeah,
31:39
Speaker 1: he probably did. You could have. So not only were
31:42
Speaker 1: they equestrians, they and of course when we say equestrian there,
31:46
Speaker 1: it's always bareback writing tricks almost yeah, but this article
31:51
Speaker 1: actually has. It features a member of the Konyats, Tina Konyacht,
31:56
Speaker 1: who um was competing for the US in the two
31:59
Speaker 1: thousand twelve Olympics. Yeah. Like sure, she got out of
32:03
Speaker 1: this circus and said, let me, what's something super snobby
32:06
Speaker 1: I can go do? Is that dressage? I don't know.
32:11
Speaker 1: That's not snobby though, It's just it's actually beautiful and amazing. Yeah.
32:15
Speaker 1: I don't want the equestrians there. You don't want them
32:18
Speaker 1: after you. Is that a hornet's nest? Yeah, it's a
32:20
Speaker 1: hornet's nest. Uh. They're on horses, for God's sake. You know,
32:25
Speaker 1: they can run faster than you own a horse. So,
32:27
Speaker 1: like most performers, John Ringling of the Barnum and Bailey
32:31
Speaker 1: Circus caught ahold of them in nineteen o seven said
32:34
Speaker 1: you're coming to America, and um, they performed there for
32:39
Speaker 1: a little while, but then said, you know, we're gonna
32:40
Speaker 1: go back to Europe and we're gonna start our own circus. No,
32:43
Speaker 1: that's just a circus, an American style circus and wild
32:46
Speaker 1: West show. Yeah, it's good on them, you know, Yeah,
32:49
Speaker 1: I think it's hilarious. So they're like, Okay, they're gonna
32:52
Speaker 1: go crazy for this in Europe. So the equestrian part
32:56
Speaker 1: of the show was really big in Europe. And then
32:59
Speaker 1: Lie which was the family the Clark's World War Two
33:04
Speaker 1: put a dent in all of Europe and so they said, well,
33:07
Speaker 1: I guess we got to go back to America now,
33:10
Speaker 1: And then they kept performing and eventually stopped. At least
33:15
Speaker 1: they I guess. The family legacy was to create equestrian centers. Um,
33:21
Speaker 1: so they weren't circus performers anywhere anymore. But it's almost
33:24
Speaker 1: like this equestrian family had a brush with circus notoriety
33:29
Speaker 1: and then leverage that. Yeah, and then just continued on
33:32
Speaker 1: as in equestrian family. It's just pretty neat. Probably make
33:35
Speaker 1: more money in equestrian I guess, you know. And then
33:39
Speaker 1: Arthur Koonyat, who's one of the original who's one of
33:43
Speaker 1: the sons of the founder Leopold. He's in the International
33:46
Speaker 1: Circus Hall of Fame. Nice. So there you go, so
33:51
Speaker 1: you're not doing too bad. All right. We got a
33:53
Speaker 1: couple of more here. Um Tina, how to pronounce this one?
33:57
Speaker 1: T o G and I s I would say Tony
33:59
Speaker 1: Tony's us What I was going to say, marr, Yeah,
34:03
Speaker 1: that's right. They are another Italian family um in circus
34:08
Speaker 1: dynasty and the original founder u Arris he said it
34:15
Speaker 1: was a student and he said, you know what, I'm
34:16
Speaker 1: done with school and I'm going to go performance circus,
34:22
Speaker 1: open my own have eight kids so I can open
34:24
Speaker 1: my own circus. Yeah. I get the impression that he
34:27
Speaker 1: decided he was done with school. Oh yeah, yeah, so
34:30
Speaker 1: he ran off to the circus. Um. Did you have
34:34
Speaker 1: the impression whether his wife was a circus was circus family,
34:38
Speaker 1: circus performer? I don't know. Well she was. After they
34:41
Speaker 1: got married, they um had kids and set up their
34:44
Speaker 1: own circus and it was such a success that um
34:48
Speaker 1: in n the king of Italy or the king of
34:53
Speaker 1: that part of Italy. Because I don't when was Italy
34:56
Speaker 1: unified together in a single country? Was it under Musulini? Boy?
34:59
Speaker 1: I don't it wasn't that long ago. UM Well, King
35:03
Speaker 1: King Victor Emmanuel the third Um created or said that
35:08
Speaker 1: the Circo Toni was the Circo Netsinale. Yeah, and that
35:13
Speaker 1: ran for a while. Um again. A circus fire in
35:16
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one hit the Circo Nacional and from that
35:22
Speaker 1: point three of the Suns split apart and formed three
35:26
Speaker 1: different circus factions. Yeah. That fires spread them far and wide.
35:31
Speaker 1: I guess so. But they are noteworthy because not only
35:34
Speaker 1: were they a circus family, they were really smart inventive
35:39
Speaker 1: engineer types and made a lot of advancements in the
35:43
Speaker 1: circus uh itself, like the tent uh, like the big
35:47
Speaker 1: top tent, the couple of Yeah, they came up with that. Yeah,
35:50
Speaker 1: they came up with three different design the round couple
35:53
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, the oblong in the seventies, and
35:56
Speaker 1: the the hugely famous round pull a quarter pole free
36:01
Speaker 1: in the nineties. And one of the other sons too,
36:05
Speaker 1: UM invented the collapsible seating wagons and a metallic mesh
36:09
Speaker 1: cage that I don't know if that's the globe of
36:11
Speaker 1: death or not. No, that's the URIs as you came
36:14
Speaker 1: up with the globe of death. All right, So the
36:16
Speaker 1: metallic mesh cage he invented must have just been like,
36:19
Speaker 1: I don't know, for animals or something. Probably. Yeah. The
36:23
Speaker 1: point is though they were inventors and made some money
36:26
Speaker 1: doing that stuff, yes, like designing tents and the like.
36:29
Speaker 1: And one of the things that we haven't really kind
36:32
Speaker 1: of hit squarely on is the fact that these if
36:36
Speaker 1: if you're born into a circus family and you are
36:39
Speaker 1: raised in the circus um, from what I've read, you're
36:43
Speaker 1: very rarely pressured into being a part of the family.
36:46
Speaker 1: It's more like this is your reality. So you start
36:48
Speaker 1: doing gymnastics and acrobatics at an early age and you're
36:52
Speaker 1: surrounded by yeah, and then eventually that you know, age six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
36:57
Speaker 1: you end up like being a part of the family
36:58
Speaker 1: act and then the circus as at large. Um. But
37:01
Speaker 1: it writes a question to me, like about that ten myth,
37:05
Speaker 1: like is it just from practicing this stuff at an
37:08
Speaker 1: early age, or you know, are some is this just
37:12
Speaker 1: the result of some you know, people who are born
37:14
Speaker 1: acrobats coming together and producing offspring that are born acrobats themselves.
37:19
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's a great question. This is a
37:21
Speaker 1: good question. Um, I wonder how many time it's happened
37:25
Speaker 1: that you're in a big circus family. You have like
37:27
Speaker 1: seven kids, and six of them are in the circus,
37:31
Speaker 1: and one of them is like, I want to be
37:32
Speaker 1: a city planner. Probably not much. No, we got one
37:38
Speaker 1: more we do the uriasis. Who did come up with
37:40
Speaker 1: that globe of death in nineteen twelve? That globe, that
37:44
Speaker 1: metal globe motorcycles in? Yeah, that was invented in nineteen twelve. Yeah,
37:49
Speaker 1: I had no idea it went back. It seemed. I
37:51
Speaker 1: was sure that this thing was probably invented in like
37:53
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties or seventies. I was gonna say seventies.
37:56
Speaker 1: It seems like a seventies thing to invent totally, you know. Yeah,
38:00
Speaker 1: but yeah, it goes all the way back to ninewelve.
38:03
Speaker 1: That is nuts. So the the actual globe of death
38:05
Speaker 1: was a sixteen foot diameter metal mesh orb. Yeah. And
38:09
Speaker 1: the idea is, if you haven't seen one of these,
38:11
Speaker 1: a just look up a video real quick, be uh
38:14
Speaker 1: crawl out from under that Rocky live in right under
38:17
Speaker 1: and then uh see it's when you put multiple motorcycle
38:22
Speaker 1: riders that just gun it and fly around this thing
38:27
Speaker 1: without hitting each other ideally and they they would um
38:33
Speaker 1: add people who are juggling fire in the center of
38:36
Speaker 1: the globe, riding around it, going up to sixty miles
38:39
Speaker 1: an hour. Apparently, um and they had the urias Is
38:44
Speaker 1: in particular, were the first to feature female motorcycle riders,
38:49
Speaker 1: the first to feature two female motorcycle riders, because how
38:52
Speaker 1: are you going to top the first one? But ed
38:54
Speaker 1: to UM and there's one where the Jody Urias who
39:00
Speaker 1: does the next spin you know that thing where like
39:02
Speaker 1: you just have a harness attached to the back of
39:05
Speaker 1: your head and you spin around until you vomit. They
39:10
Speaker 1: had her doing that with people going around her on
39:14
Speaker 1: their bikes and circles. Yeah, it's really impressive. I mean,
39:16
Speaker 1: the precision is is ridiculous when you see I mean
39:20
Speaker 1: I've seen I don't think it's I mean, they're still
39:22
Speaker 1: doing this act today. I saw another family that they
39:25
Speaker 1: don't have the market cornered on the Globe of Death,
39:27
Speaker 1: but but they invented it. Yeah. Yeah, they just failed
39:30
Speaker 1: the copyright or trade market, I guess. But I did
39:32
Speaker 1: see another family that was I think they had like
39:35
Speaker 1: eight motorcycles and this thing. It was ridiculous. And one
39:39
Speaker 1: where they actually brought the globe apart, so where there
39:43
Speaker 1: was a gap that they would be jumping or riding over,
39:48
Speaker 1: it was suddenly filled with crocodiles. But these people crashed.
39:53
Speaker 1: When was it every couple of weeks I looked at
39:58
Speaker 1: There was a crash not too long ago. Oh, it
40:00
Speaker 1: was in April of this year at the Washington Fairgrounds.
40:04
Speaker 1: And there's actually a YouTube of it. It's not like remarkable.
40:07
Speaker 1: It just at the very end of their thing. They
40:09
Speaker 1: all just sort of run into each other. But um,
40:12
Speaker 1: there was a fractured leg and some broken ribs. But
40:14
Speaker 1: other than that, everyone was okay and got right back
40:17
Speaker 1: up on the horse, iron horse, the iron horse, the
40:21
Speaker 1: steel horse. You got anything else, No, So that's Circus Families,
40:27
Speaker 1: part of our never ending quest to explain absolutely everything
40:30
Speaker 1: there is on planet Earth and beyond. That's right, it's
40:33
Speaker 1: one of them. If you want to know more about
40:35
Speaker 1: Circus Families, you can type those words in the search
40:38
Speaker 1: bar how stuff works dot Com. And I said search bar,
40:40
Speaker 1: which means it's time for a listener. Mayo, I'm gonna
40:50
Speaker 1: call this. We misspoke on something in the Bridges episode.
40:54
Speaker 1: Oh I did, Chuck? I take full responsibility, and we
40:57
Speaker 1: like to point these things out. Do you want to
40:59
Speaker 1: set this up? Yeah? In the Bridges episode, I talked
41:03
Speaker 1: about the HIGHERT Regency Skywalk collapse. Remember you made that
41:07
Speaker 1: Lionel Richie's joke and all that stuff. Well, like hundred
41:11
Speaker 1: and four I believe a hundred and fourteen people ultimately
41:14
Speaker 1: died from this thing. And I said that it was
41:16
Speaker 1: because they were dancing on the skywalk at the time.
41:19
Speaker 1: Totally not true. There was a t dance going on
41:22
Speaker 1: in the lobby below and people were standing on the
41:25
Speaker 1: skywalks looking at it, and the skywalk apparently in the
41:30
Speaker 1: design um there had been a change in design that
41:35
Speaker 1: nobody did the numbers and crunched the math on and
41:39
Speaker 1: this thing could barely hold up its deadweight. And then
41:41
Speaker 1: once you had, you know, a few dozen people on it, though,
41:45
Speaker 1: the fourth story skywalk collapsed onto the second story skywalk
41:49
Speaker 1: and both of them collapsed onto the ground. It was
41:52
Speaker 1: It's crazy. If you look up the Highest Regency Skywalk
41:55
Speaker 1: collapse and look at some of the images, just the
41:57
Speaker 1: destruction is amazing. Wow. All right, So I guess you
42:01
Speaker 1: just picked out the we heard from a few people.
42:04
Speaker 1: You picked out probably the nicest one. I would imagine
42:06
Speaker 1: that's what we usually try to do. Hey, guys, wanted
42:09
Speaker 1: to point out your explanation of the Kansas City High
42:11
Speaker 1: Regency collapse side of the wrong cause. The collapse is
42:15
Speaker 1: due to a change that was made to the initial design.
42:17
Speaker 1: Two walkways we're supposed to be supported by long continuous
42:21
Speaker 1: threaded steel rods from the ceiling design was changed to
42:24
Speaker 1: two separate rods. UH. It should be noted that the
42:27
Speaker 1: original design was determined to hold only of the minimum
42:30
Speaker 1: Building Code load UH, and the way it was built
42:33
Speaker 1: would only support half of that. Not enough, not nearly enough.
42:37
Speaker 1: One bridge failure that should be mentioned is the Quebec
42:40
Speaker 1: Bridge crossing the St. Lawrence River. UH. This bridge collapsed
42:44
Speaker 1: twice when it was being built, and it's cited as
42:47
Speaker 1: a reason behind the idea of registering and licensing engineers
42:50
Speaker 1: to practice something that is a standard throughout the world. Now.
42:54
Speaker 1: And that is from Taylor, who is a geo technical
42:58
Speaker 1: engineer branches civil engineering that deals with soils, rocks, and foundations.
43:03
Speaker 1: She said, or he I don't know which that I
43:06
Speaker 1: make sure the ground can support the structure. Thanks a lot, Taylor.
43:10
Speaker 1: It's a pretty neat job, I guess, and you very important. Yeah,
43:13
Speaker 1: and thanks for the email. We appreciate that. And uh,
43:16
Speaker 1: I went back and looked to try to figure out
43:17
Speaker 1: where I got that info. But I swear I did
43:20
Speaker 1: not make up. Don't you hate that? Yeah? I've been
43:22
Speaker 1: called out on stuff that I've read and I couldn't
43:25
Speaker 1: find the source and it's still wrong. But it's maddening.
43:28
Speaker 1: It's like, I know, I didn't just create this out
43:30
Speaker 1: of my own brain. Yeah, so we we believe. But
43:32
Speaker 1: thanks to everybody who wrote in and said, hey, dudes, uh,
43:36
Speaker 1: that is absolutely wrong, because we want to make sure
43:38
Speaker 1: we get it right. So if we got something wrong
43:42
Speaker 1: that you want to point out and correct us on,
43:43
Speaker 1: let us know. You can tweet to us at s
43:45
Speaker 1: y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
43:48
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43:50
Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works
43:53
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43:55
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44:00
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