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When Germany Sacrificed Sausage For War · Ridiculous History

• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Guden Talk Friends and neighbors. I am Ben brought worst
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Bowland and has always joined with my co host Nolan's
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: going to give you a nickname, Noel de Berlinger Brown.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I reject my nickname, and your nickname you can do better.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: You can't reject my nickname. You can only reject your Okay,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I reject my nickname, and I accept yours with open arms.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Um as it turns out that I am the one
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: most qualified in this room to give German nicknames. My friend,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: but I was once a young German boy. You mentioned
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: on a previous episode that you did live in Germany
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: until the age of six. I did, and then I
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: fell out of a tree house and I lost all
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of my memories of my childhood. And that's true, very true,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: except for the memory lost part. But I do have
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: a very distinct, terrifying memory of falling out of a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: treehouse that was overlooking the soccer field and everyone surrounding
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: my broken body. And uh, from then on I was
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I couldn't speak German anymore. And that was Thursday. That
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: was last Thursday? Right? Or were you a child? What
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: happens periodically in my life. There are a lot of
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: tree houses in your life and finding a dangerous amount
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: in fact, and I'm always drawn to them, despite my
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: troubled history with treehouses. And yet here we are to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: talk about sausages sort of by way of Zeppelin's Yes.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: And some of you may be saying, Hey, Ben, Hey Noel,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: how the heck are you going to pull that one off? Well,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: don't worry, We will tell you. But first we want
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to give a shout out to our super producer and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: fellow Treehouse fan, Casey Pegram. I'm gonna catch him. I'm
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: gonna catch him nice too quick. Now, when we say Zeppelin,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: this may be a huge plus to some of us,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: this may be a huge downer to others. We mean
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the vehicles, we mean the airships, dirigibles. We don't mean
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: led Zeppelin the band, although it does turn out to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Keith Moon, the insane, incorrigible. Keith Moon, drummer of The Who,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the late drummer of the Who, coined that term led
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Zeppelin when he heard the boys um that would go
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: on to become led Zepplin playing under their current name,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the new Yardbirds, and said it was would go over
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: like a led Zeppelin. In other words, he thought it
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: were shit as smart as a screen door on a submarine, right,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: But yes, Zeppelin's the real thing. You have seen them
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: in the past. You have often perhaps mistaken a blimp
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: for a zeppelin. But there's a very important difference, one
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: that we covered on car stuff, but we should examine today.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Let's set the record straight, Ben give it to us. Well,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: both of them work the same way, right, Both blimps
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and zeppelin's work by being lighter than air. They're filled
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: with a gas that's lighter than oxygen, so intensely flammable
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and intensely flammable. There's a great article from Mental Flaws
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: called Blimp versus Zeppelin? What's the difference? And as you
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: all know, we are big fans of mental Flaws over here,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and we think this is an important difference to make.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: So both of them work by being lighter than air
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and having a the same approach as a hot air balloon.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: But a zeppelin has a rigid structure, uh, a skeleton
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: if you will, a frame beneath this Uh. It makes
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: it more suitable for longer trips, but it also makes
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: them predictably more expensive. Yeah, it's true. Um. In fact,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the guy that invented the Zeppelin has a delightfully evil
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: sounding German name. Maybe I just think all German names
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: sounding evil, especially if they're related to the Nazis. But
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: his name was Count graph Ferdinand von Zeppelin, and he
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: created this monstrosity. And the idea was that it would
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: be a steerable balloon because, like you mentioned then, a
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: hot air balloon you can make it up or down
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: by releasing different weights, but it's very hard to steer it.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: A blimp, on the other hand, does not have that
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: rigid structure. And it was named apparently, according to this
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Mental Plus article, the name dates back to the nineteen
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: sixty and supposedly it's an automotopeia for the sound that
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: it makes when you thump a balloon blimp. That's great.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Also count Zeppelin as a fascinating side note. Part of
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: his inspiration for airships came from being an unofficial observer
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: in the American Civil War. It was with the Union Army. Yeah,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: but why are we talking about the structure of these Zeppelin's. Well,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: to answer that question, we will have to go to
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: World War One and you know, you can set the scene.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: You can picture the incredibly horrific deployment of various chemical agents. Right.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: You can also imagine, as you've seen in so many
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: films about this period in time, you can also imagine
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the brutal trench warfare that's occurring. But it wasn't all
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: people fighting on the ground, no, and the sky there
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: were buzzing planes dropping bombs and dive bombing and zipping
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: this way and that. And then in the front, approaching
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: you from the distance through the hazy fog of war,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: is this formidable shape coming ever so slowly towards you.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: And it is a scary mother, isn't it, Ben? And
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: it's the Zeppelin. It is as imposing as its name.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: This is a massive cylindrical balloon that has a metal
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: skeleton and it's filled with hydrogen. As we noted before,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: it can steer in and out of enemy territory. They
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: have a heavy hum that lets people know a bombing
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: raid is about to begin. And Germany was doubling down
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: on Zeppelin's at this time. They felt that raids led
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: by Zeppelin's would give them a clear advantage in war tactics. Yeah,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: largely because of that fright factor. You know, they were
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: absurdly menacing. I mean, it's it's It's just it's such
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: a trope to when you think about like kind of
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: steampunk sci fi, the idea of that menacing, hovering zeppelin
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: is always sort of a feature in the background games like, uh,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the Bioshot game that had that kind of like alternate
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: you know, civil post Civil War World. You know, Zeppelin's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: play a huge part in that. I think the big
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: boss fight at the end is inside this menacing vehicle.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: But they weren't incredibly effective at actually killing people. They
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: could carry large payloads and you could drop bombs from them,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and they could transport personnel, but because they flew at
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: such high altitudes to make them more difficult to detect,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: it was pretty tough for them to drop bombs with
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: any real level of precision, right. Yeah, they didn't have
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: a technology that would allow them to pinpoint an area
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: even even roughly speaking, So their primary purpose, the primary
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: use was to move supply and troops and to function
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: in a surveillance capacity, which, by the way, uh, some
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: airships still do today, very high on Earth's atmosphere. Throughout
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: World War One, Germany's one hundred and forties Zeppelins were
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: only responsible for around what deaths. Yeah, it doesn't seem
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: like a pretty good stat for killing. Yes, and one
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: thing that you and I both found fascinating, And I
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: don't know about you, my friends, but I was not
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: aware of this until our research for this episode began.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: It seems that Zeppelin's affected German citizens even more than
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: they affected citizens of enemy nations, but in an unpredictable way. Yeah,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would argue that it's possible that more
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: than fifteen hundred Germans died from lack of sausage. No, okay,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: it's a bit of a stretch. But seriously, though, they
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: did have to give up their delectable encased meat tubes.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Um because these Zeppelins. That casing that we're talking about
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: that you used to make so sussage, turns out that
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: functions pretty well as an air tight balloon material, which
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: is what they used to make these zeppelin's. Right. Specifically,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: they found the most effective material for encasing hydrogen was
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: something called gold beater skin. I love this. This sounds
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: so weird. It's just the word gold and beater together,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: gold beaters skin. This substance is made from cows intestines,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: you know, you source those from Butcher's right, and in
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: World War One. They sourced it from Austria, Poland northern France.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Here's what happened. You wash the cow intestines skin off
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the external membrane and then bathe them in an alkaline mixture,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: stretch them out to dry, and you've got this stuff
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: named gold beaters skin. Before the age of Zeppelin's it
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: had a different use. Yeah, they used it. Jewelers used
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: it to wrap around pieces of gold that they could
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: then hammer out in those super papery thin gold leaf layers. Um,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I had no idea about that, and I think that's
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: fantastic gold beater skins. But then, of course we know
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: sausage is basically just ground up meat that's encased in
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: this lining, and it's a perfect material for filling with
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: the sausage meat. And then you've got this self contained
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: packaging that you can also eat, and it gives it
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a nice snap, and when you grill it, you get
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: nice grill marks on it. Everybody likes a good a
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: good sausage. You didn't have that, it would just be
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: ground sausage like breakfast sausage that you'd form into your
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: own patties. And not nearly as sexy, no, not nearly
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: as sexy. And without this component of sausage, we also
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have we being human civilization, not just an old
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: casey of myself. We wouldn't have effective Zeppelin's because they
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: found that they could modify this gold beaters skin by
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: moistening the skin and then patching the pieces together into
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: larger sheets. When they when they patched these together, the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: sheets would dry with air tight seals. Yeah, I'm trying
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: to picture that. So you'd have the like just they
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: would lay out in giant warehouses, just these patches and
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: the sheets of guts and then just wet them down
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: and then kind of like stick them together and then
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: let him dry and then they would seal up perfectly.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: This just seems like whose idea was this? And how
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: did they decide, Okay, this is actually gonna work. We're
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: gonna be able to fill this with hydrogen and uh
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: have people hanging from it, you know, hundreds and hundreds
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: feet up in the air, right, How did they figure
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: this out? Human ingenuity is astonishing. I've always loved to picture, uh,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: some guy like the older man and the kids in
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the hall, sausage eating sketch, who is just trying to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: maybe he's trying to fuse sausages together and then boom,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: he invents the Zeppelin. I know that's not how uh
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: count Zeppelin actually discovered this, but it's a cool it's
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a cool idea, and regardless of the origin, no other
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: material could seal this tightly, mind blowing. So, like I
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: described a minute ago, I mean, I don't know if
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: that's exactly how it's done, but I'm picturing just sheets,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and she did this stuff laid out. And when I
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: say sheets and sheets, I mean the product of about
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand cow guts to make a
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: single hydrogen gas filled zeppelin. And as much as Germans
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: loved their vorce, they decided they were going to double
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: down on this long range bombing technology, um at the
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: risk of maybe never having a delectable sausage treat ever again.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: So let's do the math one and forties Zeppelins over
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: the course of World War One on the German side,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: and then two hundred and fifty thousand cow intestines per zeppelin.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: That leads us to thirty five million cow intestines Geez louise,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: And it became a big deal to keep track of
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: whether or not butchers were delivering these byproducts to the state,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: right then, Yeah, absolutely, you would have agents of the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Kaiser monitoring every book you're in areas that Germany controlled,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: so again Austria, Poland, Northern France and of course Germany.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Interesting story about northern France. No, for a time, the
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: butchers there were not allowed to make sausage. Yes, yes,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: that's German for forbidden. What I don't know what French
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: is for forbidden? Casey cool, Ladies and Gentlemen, has been
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Casey on the case Ladies and gentlemen. What would we
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: do without super producer Casey pegram So to my co
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: host earlier point here, when we picture this idea of
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: making this gold beater skin and then further modifying it
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to make this envelope for hydrogen, the question we have
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: to ask ourselves is how did this actually happen? And
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: here's a weird aspect to this story. In a documentary
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: called Attack of the Zeppelin's, a University of Cambridge engineer
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: named Dr Hugh Hunt notes that there's not much surviving
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: information on how these were constructed, and not only that,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: ben despite them not being the most effective weapons of war,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: they were kind of tough to shoot down for a
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: couple of reasons. They were so high up. We didn't
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: really have super precise long range weapons for just like
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: shooting them full of full of holes or whatever. And
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: it was pretty impervious, like you could shoot one with
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: a bullet and it wouldn't immediately go down. I would
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: like have a like pop, a slow leak, but this
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: material was so relatively sturdy and rigid, I guess that
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't just deflate like a balloon getting poked with
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: a needle. Actually, they ended up having to come up
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: with kind of special techniques for taking down these Zeppelins.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Did you hear about that? Right? Right? This gets a
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: little bit into James Bond territory. They would fire these
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: bullets that contained phosphorus inceniary bullets, and they would fire
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: a massive amount of them at once, just a barrage.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And as we mentioned before, and as you may have
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: heard in the tragic case of the Hindenburg that burst
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: into flames and incinerated in front of the eyes of
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: God in all of the American children watching on television.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Um hydrogen is incredibly explosive, and when you hit it
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: with phosphors, things happen astonishing things or terrible things, depending
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: on which side of the war you were on. So
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: now we know that even even the people who were
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: German citizens were being deprived of sausage and monitored. And
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: this is strange because we're thinking about intestines, right, but
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: we're exclusively focusing on on cattle. So what makes a
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: cow's intestine superior to say that of a of a
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: pig or a goat. Well, then not to degrade the pig,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: you know, as it's also one of God's creatures. But yeah,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: it turns out the cow, the structure of those massive
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: guts are just a lot more substantial as you can imagine,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: right right spot on. It's a matter of efficiency, and
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: cows guts are, as you said, just larger. There's another
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: question that pops up here. Could you make sausage without
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: a case? What would it be? I'm sure they had
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: to because the intestines were being taken, but not the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: ground meat that would later become sausage filling. Right, Yeah,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: that's true. It's like I said at the top of
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: the show, would be a lot more like the kind
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of packaged breakfast sausage you get that comes in a
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: plastic tube rather than an edible, delightful, snappy, gutty tube. Um.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: But you know, even some chefs, you know, you really
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: do treat that casing like packaging in some respects, because
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: you will split it open sometimes and you use it
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: for various cooking. If you're gonna do more of a
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: sauce or make a sausage base, you know, or if
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: you want to eat it whole. You got it all
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: right there. It's already made for you to just grill
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: up and dig right into. So it's kind of a
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: multi purpose thing, right, yes, multipurpose indeed. And here's another
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: interesting statistic. Earlier we had mentioned the amount of cow
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: intestines right two fifty per single zeppelin, But what does
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: that represent in terms of actual individual sausage casings. According
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: to one estament from from a cool website, if i'll
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: call edible geography, I'm in love. According to this estimate,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: each zeppelin floating through the air, each operational zeppelin represented
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: up to thirty three million potential sausage casinges Man, that
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: is a lot of gutty parts. And let's snap back
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to reality. You know, you look around today, you don't
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: really see these towering monstrosities lurking in the distance. Do
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: you unless you go to like a football game, but
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: we know that's more of a blimp situation. That's the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: good year. Yeah, And they they, you know, take really
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: cool aerial shots of football games and the like, and
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: they're used for advertising. You occasionally see one floating around,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: but no, it's not really a thing. Um. It was
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: such a thing back in the days of World War
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: One that that aerial at the top of the Empire
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: State Building was apparently initially the idea was to be
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a docking post for Zeppelin's but it turned out that
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: there were like up drafts from the city that caused
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: it to be wildly unwieldy. And who would want to
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: pop off blimp that high above a thriving metropolis. That
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: sounds terrifying. What would you come down like a giant ladder?
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I I don't know, I don't quite see how that
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: would work. Maybe just get a wingsuit and give it
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: a shot. So, you know, Von Zeppelin, he definitely left
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: his mark, and uh, I would say that the remaining
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: mark that he has left behind is more in pop
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: culture and art and film and this idea of this
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: kind of sinister looming uh Leviathan of the sky um,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: but not so much a functional thing that we do
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: much with anymore, whereas submarines and other technology developed the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: same time totally still around. Well this this is fascinating.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I love airships. And there's another episode that we have
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: to do spoiler alert on the first airborne aircraft carrier.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I know right that will be coming up soon, But
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: we do want to end also on a happy note.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: While the age of air ships may have passed, or
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: while airships in general maybe in decline, sausage survived World
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: War One, which I'm sure we all sort of understood
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: from walking through a grocery store, and thank God and
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: thank goodness. Yes, as of two thousand sixteen, the average
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: German consumed four point five ms of sausage alone. That
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: appears to be on the decline year over year, but
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I don't think it will spell the end of the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: sausage industry unless somebody comes up with something new to
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: do with those amazingly versatile sausage cases. Now, the last thing,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: since we're just in a trivia frenzy right now, did
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: you know that back in the day, another use of
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: those uh gutty parts were to make gut you know,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: children's balloons for you know, birthday parties. You know, it's
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: like he could definitely make like a puppy or something
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: out of it. We would probably smell a little weird,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: but um, yeah, it's true. Takes all kinds. Oh yeah,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: and the process of making these things would have smelled abominable.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: We didn't, we didn't even mention that part. But you
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: can find information on the strange history of sausage and
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: more by checking out the article on how Stuff Works
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: by Candice Gibson ridiculous history. A nation sacrifices it's sausage
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to fight a war. And we want to ask you, well,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I guess we both of us. I want to ask
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: you what your opinion is on sausage. Do you have
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Do you have some strong likes or dislikes? Because sausage
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: is one of those things that some people hate. And
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: if you do like sausage, are you a mustard guy
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: or gal? Do you do you like it just clean?
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Just as is you like it grilled boiled? Give us
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: all your sausage deats right to us. It ridiculous at
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And speaking of you specifically,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: you nol. What do you say to some listener mail
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: open the bag? Oh cool, we have a bag, of
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: course we do. What else? It's made of intestines, That's
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: that's why it smells in here. Our first letter comes
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: from Alison m uh and she says, hello, Ben Noel
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and podcast staff, thank you for the lovely podcast episode
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: on Star Trek and MLK two Trek. He's like myself
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: as old news, but it's still a lovely story and
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: one I love to hear over and over. Also, WHOOPI goldbk.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Sorry about seeing Michelle Nichols on TV makes me smile
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: every time. Unfortunately, I do feel the need to point
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: out one rather glaring error in the podcast which made
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: me laugh out loud. You've probably already received a million
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: emails we don't know, just the one about this um
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: us Treki's can be overly critical and particular about our
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: beloved Trek. Sorry about that. Please forgive me this email
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: is a million and one again, just the one. Um
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Noel mentioned how the chemistry is obvious between who Are
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and Kirk during the first interracial kiss, and you played
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: a clip of who Are talking about her trust of
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Kirk immediately before the history making clip. The clip, while correct,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: is a bit out of context. The characters are being
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: held hostage on a planet of very bored beings with
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: strong mental powers that can control the actions of our
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: heroic crew. They dressed them up, It's true, they're in
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: like these kind of Greek or gy type outfits and
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: make them dance and seeing and entertain the aliens like
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: puppets on strings. They also forced the kiss between Hura
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and Kirk. At the point of the kiss, who are
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and Kurt are both in fact being sexually assaulted. So yeah,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: I tried to cop as much as possible in that
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: episode to not being uh intimately familiar with the Star
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Trek canon, and I did think something was a little
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: fishy about that clip, But I still stand by the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: acting chemistry in the scene, you know what I mean,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Like that was important in and of itself, I will
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: say that, but contextually story wise, yeah, I can see
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: how that's a little problematic. Um, does it cheapen the
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: moment in history? No? No, it doesn't cheap in the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: moment in history, but it does make our show better
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: to hear from you, so thanks so much for writing it. Absolutely,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: that's not the end of the letter though, right. No.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: She goes on to say, you both set up front
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: that you're not Trek fans, and it's perfectly understandable how
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: such an air could be made from just that clip
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: without knowledge of the episode plot behind it. Kirk is
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: also a well known ladies man, uh, and it seems
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: plausible that he'd get with a whoa to This email
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: is not men as a criticism of your check knowledge
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: or research, just an explanation, and I wouldn't have sent
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: it if it weren't for the comment about the chemistry
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: between the two of them. Um. I got a good
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: laugh from that. Thanks. Thanks for all the hard work
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: with you on the podcast and sharing this pivotal moment
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: in TV and civil rights history with the general public.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I look forward to new episodes and love learning ridiculous history. So,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: you know, nice criticism, point well taken. But you know
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: she's not unsubscribing, so that's cool. So thank you very much,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Alison M. What a nice email. Thank you so much,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Alison in that was great. I'll take a ding all
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: day long, and I will cop to any mistake that
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I make UH any day of the week, especially when
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: you are so courteous about it. And Alison. Thank you
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: for not sending the borg after us say I did
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: a star trek reference those guys with the with pancake
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: makeup on in the weird glowy terminator eyes. Oh they
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: were my favorite. Did you see when Picard got assimilated?
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: He got borged, he got borged up, he got bored son.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Our next email comes from Megan L. Megan says he
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: been and nol. I've been listening since the pilot episode
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and really love the pod. Thanks for putting such a
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: whimsical spin on history. I also love those incredible tangents.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: You guys go on. Oh boy, don't encourage us, I thought,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: says Megan, I would share with you some ridiculous history
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: from here in the Green Mountains State. Almost fifty years ago,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: there were plans and blueprints made to put a glass
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: dome over the town of Winoski, Vermont. That's w I
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: N O O s K. I forgive us if we
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: mispronounced there. I've linked some articles that get into the details,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: but it was a crazy plan to combat rising oil prices,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the frigid northern temperatures, and also line some pockets with
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: poorly allocated government funding. Some people have heralded it as
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: an incredible innovation, and there was even the International Dome Symposium,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: in which garnered attention and excitement worldwide. I teach preschool
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: here Winoski is currently participating in the Refugee Resettle program.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: It's a wonderful town, and I live in a neighboring town.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I've been picturing what would be like to drive into
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: a glass dome every day, and it's just absurd. It
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: really is a great story, and I thought it could
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: make for an interesting episode. Keep up the good work, Megan.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Does that not make you think of that Stephen King
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: under the Dome business? True? It also makes me think
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of sort of the retro modern futuristic stuff that we
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: saw from the nineteen sixties, like work by Buckminster Fuller right,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: or the ideas that were espoused by Walt Disney. Or
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Biodome starring Poly Shore. Yes, yes, Biodome starring Polly Shore,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: but really a show that was stolen by one of
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the Baldwin brothers. Wasn't he in there? I think he was.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I think he was a stoner and pal um and
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: this wasn't weasing the juice that was in Sino Man right,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: The juice. That's correct. Alright, we've got our own juices
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: to wease. So we're gonna have to close up this
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: bag and head on out for the day, right, Thank
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you so much, Megan l thank you, Allison in and
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: thank you for listening. If you would like to take
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a page from our friends Alison and Megan, you can
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: find us on the internet. We're all over the place.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: You know who i'd like to thank. I'd like to
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: thank you Ben wow Man, I'd like to thank you.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: It's a love end. We should we should send each other,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: you know, just like nice motivational post. It's at our
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: desk every so offt well slide them to each other
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: under under the door. Let's say we don't have doors
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: open office plan. We could just get uh we could
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: get Frisbees and uh, you know, just draw cartoons and
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: then you know, throw them in the office. Surely that
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: won't be disruptive. I'm fine with that. Or maybe load
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: them into nerf guns. I don't know. We'll we'll, we'll,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: we'll come back to the drawing board on that. But
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: if we're thanking people, we might as well go ahead
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and thank our super producer, Casey Pegram Alex Williams, who
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: composed our theme, and Candice Gibson, who contributed once again
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: a fantastic article to Ridiculous Sisters and No, I have
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: to say this was a incredibly enjoyable episode. I'm sad
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: ad ended, but I'm excited to go to our next one,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: which is gonna be really weird. We're gonna talk about
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson's balls and his calls. We are actually going
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: to mention it's a weird trivia about Lyndon Johnson. So
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: do stay tuned and be sure to join us for
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: this next episode of Ridiculous History. Thanks everyone,