Latest / Crime and Horror / His-final-words-made-them-BILLIONS
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Today, we're going to look at three stories about real
- 0:02Speaker 1: people who, at some point in their lives made choices. Now,
- 0:06Speaker 1: at the time, these choices were fairly innocuous, but eventually
- 0:11Speaker 1: those choices would completely change not only their lives, but
- 0:16Speaker 1: millions of other people's lives as well. But before we
- 0:18Speaker 1: get into those stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark,
- 0:21Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to
- 0:24Speaker 1: the right place, because that's all we do, and we
- 0:26Speaker 1: upload once a week. So if that's of interest to you,
- 0:29Speaker 1: please steal the like button's phone and change the names
- 0:32Speaker 1: of all their contacts to just say spam so that
- 0:36Speaker 1: every call they get they think it's spam and they
- 0:39Speaker 1: don't answer. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn
- 0:41Speaker 1: on all notifications so you don't miss any of our
- 0:44Speaker 1: weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories. On January seventeenth,
- 1:04Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, a thirty six year old man named
- 1:07Speaker 1: Gary Gilmore walked towards an abandoned canned food factory and
- 1:11Speaker 1: draper Utah. Gary was surrounded on all sides by guards
- 1:15Speaker 1: because they were afraid that Gary might try to run
- 1:17Speaker 1: and not go inside of this factory, but Gary was
- 1:20Speaker 1: not about to run. He'd been waiting for months for
- 1:23Speaker 1: this and he was ready. So Gary, along with the
- 1:25Speaker 1: guards at his sides, made their way towards the factory,
- 1:28Speaker 1: and then without any hesitation, Gary stepped inside and what
- 1:32Speaker 1: he saw was this big, cavernous open space with no
- 1:35Speaker 1: equipment in it. Nothing. It was just basically this massive
- 1:38Speaker 1: empty space and one chair pushed up against the far
- 1:42Speaker 1: back wall. Gary knew he was supposed to sit in
- 1:44Speaker 1: that chair, so without even being told, he just began
- 1:47Speaker 1: walking across the floor towards it, and then when he
- 1:49Speaker 1: reached the chair, he sat down. And once Gary was sitting,
- 1:52Speaker 1: the guards that had walked him in began strapping his
- 1:55Speaker 1: wrists and his ankles to this chair so he couldn't move.
- 1:57Speaker 1: And as they did this, Gary didn't put up a fight.
- 2:00Speaker 1: He just sat there, staring straight across to the other
- 2:03Speaker 1: side of this factory. And on the far side of
- 2:06Speaker 1: this factory was one other thing inside of the space.
- 2:09Speaker 1: It was like this big curtain like somebody had wheeled out,
- 2:13Speaker 1: like this massive curtain that was protecting something on the
- 2:15Speaker 1: other side. And as he was staring at this curtain
- 2:18Speaker 1: that was sort of perpendicular to him. He saw there
- 2:20Speaker 1: were five evenly spaced cutouts across the curtain, And even
- 2:24Speaker 1: though Gary couldn't actually see anything in any of these cutouts,
- 2:28Speaker 1: he knew what was behind them. He knew that at
- 2:30Speaker 1: each station there was a police officer armed with a rifle.
- 2:34Speaker 1: They were the firing squad that Gary himself had requested.
- 2:38Speaker 1: So Gary was a convicted murderer and he had been
- 2:41Speaker 1: sentenced to death just a few months earlier. His death
- 2:43Speaker 1: sentence had gotten a lot of media coverage, and immediately
- 2:46Speaker 1: after the sentencing, his mother, along with the American Civil
- 2:49Speaker 1: Liberties Union, had lobbied to try to change the sentence
- 2:52Speaker 1: and make it a life sentence instead. But while Gary
- 2:55Speaker 1: appreciated their efforts, he actually did not want that. He
- 2:58Speaker 1: did not want, you know, to spend the rest of
- 3:00Speaker 1: his life in prison. That was the only alternative to
- 3:03Speaker 1: the death sentence is life without parole, and that sounded horrible,
- 3:07Speaker 1: and so instead he had basically pushed to go forward
- 3:10Speaker 1: with his execution, and he was very specific about how
- 3:13Speaker 1: he wanted to die. He wanted to die by a
- 3:15Speaker 1: firing squad and that had been granted to him. And
- 3:18Speaker 1: so after the guards had finished strapping Gary into the chair,
- 3:21Speaker 1: they backed off, and then the chaplain came over and
- 3:24Speaker 1: read Gary his last rites, and then after that he
- 3:27Speaker 1: asked Gary if he had anything else he wanted to say,
- 3:29Speaker 1: and Gary looked up at the chaplain and just said,
- 3:32Speaker 1: let's do it. And so the chaplain backed off, signaled
- 3:35Speaker 1: to the firing squad that Gary was ready, and then
- 3:38Speaker 1: once everything was in place, rifles poked through the five
- 3:41Speaker 1: holes in the curtain and they fired. Shortly after Gary
- 3:45Speaker 1: was dead. Ten years after Gary's execution, in nineteen eighty seven,
- 3:50Speaker 1: a young marketing executive named Dan Widen was having a
- 3:53Speaker 1: meeting with his colleagues at his company's headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
- 3:57Speaker 1: So Dan actually owned this marketing agency and his company
- 4:00Speaker 1: had recently signed this new client. It was a small
- 4:03Speaker 1: business with a lot of promise who's hopefully looking to expand,
- 4:06Speaker 1: and they were leaning on Dan and his team to
- 4:08Speaker 1: help them do that. And while Dan certainly believed that
- 4:10Speaker 1: this company had the chance to be huge, he just
- 4:13Speaker 1: felt like they lack something. They needed a strong marketing
- 4:16Speaker 1: campaign to really get them off the ground and sort
- 4:18Speaker 1: of begin to make them a household name. And so
- 4:20Speaker 1: this meeting that Dan was having right now with his
- 4:23Speaker 1: colleagues was their attempts at coming up with, you know,
- 4:25Speaker 1: what can we do? What kind of campaign can we
- 4:27Speaker 1: run for this company? And so for hours they sat
- 4:30Speaker 1: there pitching different ideas, you know, different concepts of how
- 4:33Speaker 1: we can elevate this brand. But it was like, even
- 4:36Speaker 1: though a lot of ideas seemed promising, nothing really felt right.
- 4:40Speaker 1: Everything just sort of felt like, you know, maybe maybe
- 4:42Speaker 1: that would help. There was no slam dunk idea, at
- 4:44Speaker 1: least not yet. And so as Dan is beginning to
- 4:46Speaker 1: get frustrated, you know, realizing he really doesn't have any
- 4:49Speaker 1: great ideas yet, he suddenly has this epiphany. Now Dan
- 4:52Speaker 1: does not understand why he had this epiphany. He had
- 4:55Speaker 1: not been thinking about this information until it just popped
- 4:58Speaker 1: into his head. Instead, this idea really just kind of
- 5:01Speaker 1: suddenly came to him. As he's sitting there with his colleagues,
- 5:04Speaker 1: feeling frustrated, not knowing what to do, he just randomly
- 5:07Speaker 1: found himself thinking about the execution of Gary Gilmour ten
- 5:11Speaker 1: years earlier, death by firing squad. It was all over
- 5:14Speaker 1: the news, and Dan, like his colleagues, had certainly kept
- 5:17Speaker 1: up with that story. It was a big deal at
- 5:19Speaker 1: the time, and as Dan is sitting there just thinking
- 5:21Speaker 1: about that execution, he remembered a very particular detail about
- 5:26Speaker 1: the execution that, for whatever reason, just felt like, oh,
- 5:29Speaker 1: my goodness, we can use that to market this brand.
- 5:32Speaker 1: Dan would take a well known detail from the execution
- 5:35Speaker 1: of Gary Gilmore, he would tweak it slightly, and he
- 5:38Speaker 1: would use it to fuel this advertising campaign for the
- 5:42Speaker 1: small business and it would work amazingly. In fact, this
- 5:46Speaker 1: campaign was so successful it literally doubled this company's business
- 5:50Speaker 1: practically overnight. And this campaign, it featured a slogan that
- 5:54Speaker 1: has since become arguably one of, if not the most
- 5:57Speaker 1: famous slogans for any business in the entire world. The
- 6:01Speaker 1: slogan that Dan created as part of this very famous
- 6:03Speaker 1: campaign was based directly on Gary Gilmore's final words, just
- 6:09Speaker 1: do it. Dan's client that small business was Nike. Last year,
- 6:20Speaker 1: we launched a brand new podcast here at Ballin Studios
- 6:23Speaker 1: called Redacted Declassified Mysteries with Luke Lamana and so far
- 6:27Speaker 1: you guys have loved it. And in case you haven't heard,
- 6:30Speaker 1: we also launched a YouTube channel for Redacted where you
- 6:33Speaker 1: can not only listen to these episodes, but also watch
- 6:36Speaker 1: the beautiful animations we've done for each of these episodes.
- 6:40Speaker 1: That channel already has one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers
- 6:43Speaker 1: and it's growing really quickly and there are hours of
- 6:46Speaker 1: content available right now for you to bench. New uploads
- 6:49Speaker 1: to this YouTube channel will be every single Tuesday. All
- 6:52Speaker 1: you have to do is look up at Redacted Mysteries
- 6:54Speaker 1: on YouTube and I'll also be putting a link in
- 6:57Speaker 1: the description below. Wonderplus subscribers can also watch Acted on
- 7:00Speaker 1: the Wondery app. Okay, back to the stories. One night
- 7:12Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, a twenty three year old
- 7:15Speaker 1: man named Chris, along with his date, walked into a
- 7:17Speaker 1: McDonald's in London, England. The following day, Chris had a
- 7:20Speaker 1: very important job interview in the morning, and so this
- 7:22Speaker 1: dinner in McDonald's was going to be the last part
- 7:25Speaker 1: of the date. There were no plans beyond this. This
- 7:28Speaker 1: McDonald's was dirty, it was loud, it was packed with people,
- 7:31Speaker 1: so not exactly a romantic location for a date, but
- 7:34Speaker 1: this was all Chris could afford. In fact, he really
- 7:36Speaker 1: needed that job the next day because he just didn't
- 7:39Speaker 1: have much money. But for now, this was the best
- 7:41Speaker 1: he could do, and so he put on, you know,
- 7:42Speaker 1: his best smile and looked at his date like is
- 7:45Speaker 1: this okay? And she kind of looked back and smiled like,
- 7:47Speaker 1: I get it. It's fine, we can eat here. So
- 7:49Speaker 1: they hopped in line and they waited, finally got to
- 7:51Speaker 1: the counter, they ordered their food and their drinks, and
- 7:54Speaker 1: then after receiving them, they turned around and look for
- 7:57Speaker 1: a place to sit down. But as they looked around,
- 7:59Speaker 1: they saw every table was taken, literally everyone, and so
- 8:03Speaker 1: Chris and his date began looking for tables where, you know,
- 8:05Speaker 1: there were at least a couple of empty seats. You know,
- 8:07Speaker 1: maybe somebody was sitting there, but they might allow Chris
- 8:10Speaker 1: and his date to sit with them. And so they
- 8:12Speaker 1: began walking around and eventually they would find a table
- 8:15Speaker 1: where there was just this one guy sitting there. He
- 8:17Speaker 1: was sort of minding his own business, you know, just
- 8:19Speaker 1: eating his meal. He was not taking up the whole table.
- 8:21Speaker 1: And critically, there were two seats at this table that
- 8:24Speaker 1: were unused, and so Chris kind of tapped his date
- 8:26Speaker 1: and pointed to the table, and then the two of
- 8:28Speaker 1: them walked over and Chris very politely asked this guy,
- 8:31Speaker 1: you know, hey would you mind if we sat here too,
- 8:33Speaker 1: you know, we won't bother you. We're just gonna eat
- 8:35Speaker 1: and we're gonna get out of here. And the guy
- 8:36Speaker 1: just kind of looked at them and he was like, sure,
- 8:38Speaker 1: go ahead, and so Chris and his date they sat
- 8:40Speaker 1: down and they began eating and chatting and it was
- 8:43Speaker 1: all fine. But as they were eating and chatting, chris
- 8:46Speaker 1: Is mind kept going to the next day. You know,
- 8:48Speaker 1: he had that big job interview the next morning, and
- 8:50Speaker 1: it was just really the only thing he could think about.
- 8:53Speaker 1: In fact, he tried hard to focus on his date,
- 8:55Speaker 1: but he was just so anxious about this interview that
- 8:58Speaker 1: he just couldn't. And so he found himself no really
- 9:00Speaker 1: eating and just kind of waiting for the date to
- 9:02Speaker 1: be over so he could just go home, go to bed,
- 9:04Speaker 1: and you know, focus on tomorrow. But as he's sort
- 9:07Speaker 1: of distracted and his date's chatting about whatever she's chatting about,
- 9:10Speaker 1: he realizes the guy they're sitting with is no longer
- 9:13Speaker 1: just looking at his food. He stopped looking at his food,
- 9:16Speaker 1: and he's just staring across the table at Chris's date,
- 9:19Speaker 1: and like, the way he's looking at the date does
- 9:21Speaker 1: not seem friendly. And so Chris realizes, Okay, what's going
- 9:24Speaker 1: on here? Did she say something? Did he say something?
- 9:26Speaker 1: And so Chris kind of snaps out of his anxiety
- 9:28Speaker 1: about the interview, and he looks at this guy and
- 9:31Speaker 1: he's like, what's going on because again, this guy's just
- 9:34Speaker 1: staring at his date, and this guy, sort of unprompted,
- 9:38Speaker 1: without even looking at Chris, just begins insulting Chris's date,
- 9:42Speaker 1: insulting the way she looked, insulting the way she talked,
- 9:45Speaker 1: and Chris is like, what's going on here? He's looking
- 9:47Speaker 1: at his date like did I miss something? You know,
- 9:50Speaker 1: remember he was sort of distracted a minute ago. But
- 9:52Speaker 1: then eventually this guy he says to Chris's date, you're
- 9:55Speaker 1: an ugly pig. And at this Chris is like, I
- 9:59Speaker 1: can't just sit here. And so Chris, who had actually
- 10:02Speaker 1: never been in a fight in his whole life, just
- 10:04Speaker 1: sort of reflexively stood up and he was like, hey, man,
- 10:06Speaker 1: get up, like he's gonna fight him here. But as
- 10:08Speaker 1: soon as he did that, Chris realized he had made
- 10:10Speaker 1: a horrible mistake because Chris, he was only about five
- 10:13Speaker 1: foot eight inches tall, and this guy just the way
- 10:15Speaker 1: he'd been sitting at the table. Chris hadn't really seen
- 10:18Speaker 1: his full stature, and this guy when he stood up,
- 10:21Speaker 1: towered over Chris. But Chris, you know, he was not
- 10:24Speaker 1: a scared guy. You know, he hadn't fought before, but
- 10:26Speaker 1: he was defending his dates honor here and he kind
- 10:29Speaker 1: of looks up with this guy and he just kind
- 10:31Speaker 1: of winds up and hits him once. But then this
- 10:34Speaker 1: huge guy just proceeds to beat the living crap out
- 10:37Speaker 1: of Chris right there in the McDonald's. The next morning,
- 10:40Speaker 1: Chris walked up to this big, fancy building in London
- 10:43Speaker 1: for his job interview, and Chris was doing his best
- 10:45Speaker 1: to be confident, but it was really hard given the circumstances.
- 10:49Speaker 1: So the previous night, after Chris had been battered by
- 10:52Speaker 1: this total jerk, you know, eventually the guy had stopped
- 10:55Speaker 1: and stepped off of Chris, and Chris had gotten back
- 10:57Speaker 1: up again, and the guy kind of wandered off and
- 11:00Speaker 1: was not held to account in any way. He just
- 11:02Speaker 1: kind of left the restaurant and vanished. But Chris, you know,
- 11:05Speaker 1: he got to his feet and he looked at his
- 11:06Speaker 1: date and she was totally rattled by it. And Chris
- 11:09Speaker 1: was super embarrassed at this point, and he kept apologizing
- 11:11Speaker 1: to his date and she's like, no, it's fine, and
- 11:14Speaker 1: they just wanted to get out of there, and so
- 11:15Speaker 1: they left the McDonald's and they both went to their
- 11:18Speaker 1: respective homes and Chris just went to bed. And then
- 11:21Speaker 1: the next morning, when Chris got up early because he
- 11:23Speaker 1: has this big job interview, he went into the bathroom
- 11:26Speaker 1: and he looked in the mirror and he saw he
- 11:28Speaker 1: had this enormous black eye. But even though Chris understood
- 11:32Speaker 1: that this very well could affect his chances of getting
- 11:35Speaker 1: this job. I mean, they're gonna ask about his black eye,
- 11:38Speaker 1: and what's he going to say, Oh, yeah, I got
- 11:39Speaker 1: in a big fight at the McDonald's last night. You know,
- 11:41Speaker 1: there wasn't really a good excuse for it. And he
- 11:44Speaker 1: wondered what they would think of him if he showed
- 11:45Speaker 1: up looking like this ruffian, you know. But he was like,
- 11:48Speaker 1: you know what, this is the biggest opportunity I've ever had.
- 11:50Speaker 1: I just going to go in there, try to be confident,
- 11:53Speaker 1: and don't let the black eye define the outcome. And
- 11:56Speaker 1: so fast forward too later that morning, Chris goes into
- 11:59Speaker 1: the building, he arrives for the interview, and before long
- 12:02Speaker 1: he's having his interview and he can tell they're all
- 12:05Speaker 1: staring at his black eye, but nobody brought it up,
- 12:08Speaker 1: which was sort of like worse in some ways. He
- 12:11Speaker 1: almost wanted to be able to describe what happened, even
- 12:13Speaker 1: though it didn't make him look good, but it was
- 12:15Speaker 1: like the fact that they're staring at it and not
- 12:18Speaker 1: acknowledging it. It really made him feel awkward. But you know,
- 12:21Speaker 1: Chris did his best. He got through the interview, and
- 12:24Speaker 1: by the end of it, he had no idea what
- 12:26Speaker 1: the interviewers thought of him or what they thought of
- 12:28Speaker 1: his ridiculous black eye, but he thanked them for the
- 12:31Speaker 1: opportunity and he left thinking I'm not going to get
- 12:34Speaker 1: the job. However, not long after this interview, Chris got
- 12:37Speaker 1: some shocking news he had gotten the job, and it
- 12:41Speaker 1: actually might have been because of his black eye, because
- 12:44Speaker 1: this job interview was actually an audition for a starring
- 12:48Speaker 1: role in an upcoming TV show, and the character that
- 12:51Speaker 1: Chris was auditioning for was this guy who sort of
- 12:54Speaker 1: got into fights. And so Chris rolls in here looking
- 12:58Speaker 1: like a guy who gets into fights, and oh my goodness,
- 13:01Speaker 1: he can hit his lines. He's got the charisma and
- 13:03Speaker 1: look at him, he's even a ruffian himself. He fits
- 13:06Speaker 1: the character perfectly. He's our guy. So Chris got cast,
- 13:10Speaker 1: and this TV show that he starred in became one
- 13:13Speaker 1: of the most popular TV shows in the entire world.
- 13:16Speaker 1: And so Chris went from being this guy who could
- 13:18Speaker 1: barely afford a dinner at McDonald's to being this amazing
- 13:22Speaker 1: actor who was getting nominated for Golden Globe Awards and
- 13:25Speaker 1: Emmy Awards. I mean, he truly was an a less star. Today.
- 13:29Speaker 1: Chris is better known by his stage name Kit Harrington,
- 13:33Speaker 1: and the starring role that he landed that changed his
- 13:35Speaker 1: life was the role of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones.
- 13:50Speaker 1: One night in nineteen twenty five, a twenty one year
- 13:53Speaker 1: old college student named Ted was inside of his dorm
- 13:56Speaker 1: room at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, surrounded by his friends.
- 13:59Speaker 1: Ted and his friend had gotten their hands on a
- 14:01Speaker 1: bottle of gin, and so tonight they were just sitting
- 14:03Speaker 1: around drinking this gin and having a great time. Now
- 14:06Speaker 1: Ted and his friends knew this was not allowed. I
- 14:09Speaker 1: mean literally, they knew this was illegal. It didn't matter
- 14:11Speaker 1: that they were twenty one years old. At the time.
- 14:14Speaker 1: In the United States in nineteen twenty five, the country
- 14:17Speaker 1: was in the middle of prohibition, which meant no one
- 14:19Speaker 1: was allowed to possess or consume alcohol. It was actually illegal,
- 14:23Speaker 1: but Ted specifically was willing to take that risk because
- 14:26Speaker 1: tonight he wanted to celebrate. Ted was a senior in
- 14:29Speaker 1: college and was getting ready to graduate with honors, and
- 14:32Speaker 1: also he had recently been named the editor in chief
- 14:35Speaker 1: of Dartmouth's humor magazine called Jack o Lantern. This was
- 14:38Speaker 1: a big deal for Ted. I mean, he had aspirations
- 14:41Speaker 1: of graduating and becoming a professional writer and publisher, and
- 14:44Speaker 1: it just felt like everything was falling into place, you know,
- 14:47Speaker 1: getting this job as editor in chief, it was a
- 14:49Speaker 1: huge accomplishment. So Ted took a swig from the bottle
- 14:51Speaker 1: and passed it around the circle, and before long he
- 14:54Speaker 1: and his friends were all pretty drunk and having a
- 14:56Speaker 1: great time, laughing and joking and telling stories. Lot of fun.
- 15:00Speaker 1: But at some point they heard a knock on their door,
- 15:03Speaker 1: and right away Ted and his friends went silent, you know,
- 15:05Speaker 1: remembering that, Oh my god, are we in trouble now,
- 15:07Speaker 1: you know? Ted said, now, it's fine, I'm sure, it's
- 15:09Speaker 1: just you know, more friends coming to stop by and
- 15:11Speaker 1: hang out with us, and so Ted he gets up,
- 15:14Speaker 1: he goes to the door, and you know, his heart's
- 15:15Speaker 1: racing a little bit because he doesn't know who's there.
- 15:18Speaker 1: He opens the door and it's not friends, it's two
- 15:21Speaker 1: police officers. And so Ted and his friends all got
- 15:24Speaker 1: busted for drinking alcohol. However, fortunately for them, the police
- 15:28Speaker 1: did not press charges and so nobody went to jail.
- 15:30Speaker 1: And also the school Dartmouth decided not to expel Ted
- 15:34Speaker 1: or any of his friends. However, they were dealt some
- 15:37Speaker 1: pretty severe punishments. Specifically, Dartmouth stripped Ted of all of
- 15:41Speaker 1: his academic honors and extracurriculars, which meant he was no
- 15:45Speaker 1: longer the editor in chief of the Jack o' Lantern magazine.
- 15:48Speaker 1: In fact, he was told by the school that not
- 15:50Speaker 1: only was he no longer the editor in chief, but
- 15:53Speaker 1: he couldn't even submit to put anything in writing into
- 15:55Speaker 1: that magazine. He was totally banned. Ted was heartbroken, less
- 15:59Speaker 1: so about the academic honors and much more so about
- 16:02Speaker 1: being cut off from the Jack o Lantern magazine. He
- 16:05Speaker 1: really had attached a lot of value to being the
- 16:08Speaker 1: editor in chief. He felt like things were going in
- 16:10Speaker 1: the direction of him graduating and becoming this professional writer,
- 16:13Speaker 1: and so this was sort of a devastating blow. Ted
- 16:16Speaker 1: considered fighting with Dartmouth to try to reinstate himself with
- 16:19Speaker 1: the magazine, but the more he thought about it, the
- 16:21Speaker 1: more he knew that was going nowhere. They were not
- 16:24Speaker 1: going to change their mind. However, Ted was not quite
- 16:27Speaker 1: ready to just totally give up on this magazine. He
- 16:30Speaker 1: knew this magazine did accept submissions from the public, and
- 16:33Speaker 1: so he thought, Okay, well, you know, I'm not allowed
- 16:36Speaker 1: to submit anything to this magazine, but maybe if I
- 16:38Speaker 1: come up with a different name, a pen name, then
- 16:41Speaker 1: I can submit my work. They won't know it's me,
- 16:43Speaker 1: and maybe I can get something published. And so that's
- 16:46Speaker 1: exactly what Ted began doing. And the new editor in
- 16:49Speaker 1: chief of this magazine had no idea this pen name
- 16:52Speaker 1: was actually Ted, and so when they received the work
- 16:55Speaker 1: from the pseudonym, they thought it was some new person
- 16:58Speaker 1: they had never heard of, and they were so wowed
- 17:00Speaker 1: by the work. They're like, this is great, and they
- 17:02Speaker 1: began publishing all of Ted's work, not realizing it was his.
- 17:05Speaker 1: And for Ted, oddly enough, this became in some ways
- 17:09Speaker 1: more satisfying than when he was writing under his own name.
- 17:11Speaker 1: He kind of liked this pen name, kind of, you know,
- 17:14Speaker 1: fit the vibe of his writing, and so he just
- 17:16Speaker 1: continued up with this ruse for the rest of the
- 17:18Speaker 1: time he was at Dartmouth, and then after he graduated,
- 17:21Speaker 1: he just continued to write under this pen name throughout
- 17:24Speaker 1: the rest of his life. Ted would write and illustrate
- 17:27Speaker 1: over sixty books, all under this pen name, a name
- 17:30Speaker 1: he came up with basically just because he got caught
- 17:33Speaker 1: drinking in the dorm in college. These books would entertain
- 17:36Speaker 1: and inspire generations of people, and in fact, he would
- 17:39Speaker 1: even win a Pulitzer Prize for his contribution to American
- 17:42Speaker 1: literature and education. Ted's full name was Theodore Geisel, but
- 17:46Speaker 1: I'm sure you know him much better by his pen name,
- 17:49Speaker 1: which is doctor Seuss. In case you haven't heard yet,
- 18:00Speaker 1: our newest graphic novel, Mister Ballin Presents Where Nightmares Live,
- 18:04Speaker 1: is available for pre order right now. It contains another
- 18:07Speaker 1: nine heart stopping, strange, dark and mysterious stories, all based
- 18:11Speaker 1: on real events. This was a passion project. It took
- 18:15Speaker 1: a lot of time, a lot of people involved, from
- 18:17Speaker 1: the artwork to the storytelling. I mean, this is a
- 18:19Speaker 1: beautiful piece to add to your collection, so you got
- 18:22Speaker 1: to check it out. The book comes out on September thirtieth,
- 18:24Speaker 1: but again, you can pre order your copy at book
- 18:27Speaker 1: dot ballinstudios dot com or you can click the link
- 18:30Speaker 1: in the description below. There are a limited number of
- 18:32Speaker 1: hand signed copies available, but those are going to sell
- 18:35Speaker 1: out very quickly, so please pre order today because remember,
- 18:40Speaker 1: your nightmares are waiting. Thank you so much for watching.
- 18:43Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
- 18:45Speaker 1: the comments. And remember, we have hundreds of videos for
- 18:49Speaker 1: you to binge right now. But if you're looking for
- 18:51Speaker 1: a recommendation for me of that one video that's worth
- 18:54Speaker 1: your time, well it's this one right here, So give
- 18:58Speaker 1: it a watch. All right, Until next time, see ya,