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Short Stuff: Pie-In-The-Face Gag · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, standing in for Dave.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: This is short stuff, So that's right, let's go.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about the old comedy bit of getting
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: a pie thrown in your face. It looks like you
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: source this from a bunch of different great places.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see. Gary Berman on Medium wrote a great
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: one today. I found out Mental Flaws Atlas, Obscure Slate,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: all the old hits.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, websites we've loved for years. Yeah.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: So you know the idea that in comedy, nothing is
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: funnier than somebody throwing a pie in somebody's face.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it does something really special to the person
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: who gets hit in the face. It completely demeans them momentarily,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and it also gives them the opportunity to laugh at
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: off and suddenly shift gears with their personality and win
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the crowd over. Or it can drive them to really
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: dig into their personality and get really mad about something
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: that is actually kind of comical.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: And it looks like this whole thing started back in
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  Speaker 2: vaudeville in the late eighteen hundreds with a Canadian performer
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: named Doc Kelly, and Kelly, as the story goes, saw
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: a I guess a cook throw a piece of pie
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: at a stable boy.
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  Speaker 3: Everyone laughed at that age old story. Everyone laughed at
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: this poor stable boy.
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  Speaker 2: And Kelly was like, now that's funny, A but you
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: hit him in the shirt. It'd be a whole lot
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  Speaker 2: better if you hit him in the face and just
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: said you're sorry.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, your hose head, your hose head.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: And then before you know it, it became a thing.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And then before you know it, it was in movies.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty quickly. There's a discrepancy over what movie it
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: was in. First, there's a nineteen oh nine film starring
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Ben Turpan, who was a really beloved cross eyed comedian,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and we're talking like these are silent movies at the time, right, I.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Bet that worked his advantage. Right.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: It was a movie called Mister Flip. And the reason
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: why we're not sure that that's the first one is
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: because apparently the movie Mister Flip is totally gone forever. Yeah,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: no one preserved it and probably caught fire at some point.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Only descriptions, like written descriptions of the film exist, So
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: we're not one hundred percent sure so you fast forward
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: a few years and then we know for a fact
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: that the first movie that we can document where a
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: pie in the face gag shows up is in nineteen
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: thirteen a movie called The Noise from the Deep.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this starred sounded like sort of the first
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: female comedian of the day, Mabel Norman. She was known
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: as the female Charlie Chaplin and a very young Fatty
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Arbuckle in the movie. And key to this was it
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: was produced by Keystone Studios, and they became very much
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: known as the studio that does a lot of this
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: pie in the face bit such that they eaten heeded
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: their own bakery to bake all these pies for all
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  Speaker 2: their movies that they were pumping out.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the same Keystone Studios that made the Keystone Cops. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: or I should say the Keystone Cops kind of made
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the Keystone Studios. You know what I'm saying. No, no,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: you mean so, there's another term for the pie in
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  Speaker 1: the face gag.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: It's called pieing.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I can't stand that word for some reason. It's just wrong.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But regardless of that, it caught on really really quickly,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Like people are like, I love that it gets a
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: huge laugh. We're gonna put this in every single film
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: that we put out from now on. In just a
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: few short years, it kind of became fairly trite.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, A movie from nineteen sixteen with Charlie Chaplin called
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Behind the Screen was sort of making fun of it already. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: so that went from what nineteen thirteen to nineteen sixteen,
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  Speaker 2: it had been so overdone, So I get the idea
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  Speaker 2: that it kind of went away or a little out
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  Speaker 2: of fashion until nineteen twenty seven when Laurel and Hardy
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: made Battle of the Century and Stan Laura was like,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: we're gonna do this so extremely and with so many pies,
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  Speaker 2: We're basically going to end it all and no one
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  Speaker 2: will ever be able to do this again because we
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: did the ultimate pie in the face bit right.
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  Speaker 1: They actually started with forty five hundred pies.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that'll do it.
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  Speaker 1: Probably the biggest order that the Los Angeles Pie Company
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  Speaker 1: ever filled. And yeah, I mean, like, if you stop
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  Speaker 1: and think about that, that's so so many pies, it's
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  Speaker 1: just nuts. And apparently they're the versions of Battle of
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the Century today is so edited that the pie the
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  Speaker 1: pieing sorry that happens throughout the movie it's impressive, but
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  Speaker 1: apparently it just doesn't even hold a candle to the
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  Speaker 1: original version, and they really did, you know, deliver on
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Stan Laurel's vision.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Right, it's on the cunning room floor.
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  Speaker 1: Actually, I believe that they found they found either a
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: second reel or the original version or something like that
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: not too long ago in the basement of some I
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: think maybe usc.
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  Speaker 3: Oh cool. Yeah, so they got all forty five hundred pies,
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  Speaker 3: I believe. So that's awesome.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it went on to be kind of had a
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: second life after that. In the late nineteen twenties and
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: early thirties, little rascals were doing it. Three Stooges were
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: doing it. Buster Keaton basically explained that they were sort
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: of unwritten rules for the bit, which is, if you're
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: going to hit someone in the face, like, it's got
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  Speaker 2: to be someone who deserves it, like a phony, someone
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  Speaker 2: that needs to come up, and nobody that's earnest like
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  Speaker 2: it was. Oftentimes it was like a very snooty high
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  Speaker 2: society person that you kind of was a way of
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  Speaker 2: putting someone in their place.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, if there was a pie on the screen, like
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  Speaker 1: on the table, and there was a person wearing a tuxedo.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: That person was probably going to get a pie in
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the face.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the pies were pretty specific too.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, they had figured out along the way there's
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: like a certain way that you should bake a pie.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And you should bake it to brittleness for one, because
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  Speaker 1: you want it to shatter. You should also double layer
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the crust so that you can handle it from the bottom,
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  Speaker 1: just the pie, because they used to serve pies or
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: bake pies in like tin pie tins still do. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: if you throw that at somebody, it can cut their
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  Speaker 1: face wide open. It's a really bad idea to do that.
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  Speaker 1: So you can only throw the actual pie, which is
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  Speaker 1: why they doubled up the crust and then also made
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: it brittle, and then when it hits the face, that
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  Speaker 1: crust shatters and just spreads the pie everywhere.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, before we get emails, I realize they don't still
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: make them out of ten. We did our aluminum podcast recently.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I know they're aluminum, yeah, but you know what I mean,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: tin plates. You know what the biggest rip though, is.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Later on in like modern era, when someone would.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Spoof this, maybe they just do they just put like
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  Speaker 2: they don't even have filling.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: It's not even real pie. There's no crust.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: They would just like take a pie tin and whip
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: cream it or shaving cream it up, and that's just
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  Speaker 2: such a cheap way out, Like it's so much better.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: But it's a real pie and you've got like a
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: blueberry all over your face.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a big distinction. But not all of
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: us can afford blueberry filling.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Chuck. Well, yeah, I had a.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Pie in the face birthday party when I was probably
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: ten or eleven. We just had the little flimsy tins
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  Speaker 1: and a bunch of cool whips. Nope, you wouldn't have
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  Speaker 1: liked my birthday party that year.
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  Speaker 3: No, I would have loved it.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure in that case, it's a little different. I
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  Speaker 2: didn't expect, like your mom to bake twenty pis.
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  Speaker 1: No, I know, I really just let you.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I walk that one out.
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  Speaker 1: I have to say. The just my memory of that is,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: even at a young age, I was like, this cool
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  Speaker 1: whip on the face feels really gross.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: It's really oily. Yeah, this is not right.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Well cool whip or was it shaving cream? It was
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  Speaker 2: cool whip, so at least it tasted all right.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, it definitely. It definitely tasted all right, just doesn't
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  Speaker 1: feel right on the face.
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  Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's take a break.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll apologize to Josh more sincerely off and we'll
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  Speaker 2: be back right after this.
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  Speaker 3: Softly jawsh.
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  Speaker 1: Sh soft you.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: S all right.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: So we were talking about Buster Keaton talking about some
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: of the rules of the game or of the bit.
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  Speaker 2: Another one was, you know, it's a lot of times
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  Speaker 2: someone would like turn around and get the pie right
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: in the face. That was kind of how the bit went.
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  Speaker 2: And he was like, you can't turn around too early
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: or you're gonna flinch, and af flinch ruins everything because
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: we have to reshoot it, which means we have to reset.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: And you've got BlackBerry in your hair, so we got
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: to do you know, wash you up and hair and
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: makeup and change your wardrobe. So it was a big
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: pain to redo that. So don't turn around too early
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: or you'll flinch. And also they figure out that like
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: because most of this stuff was black and white, or
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: all of it was at the time black and white,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: the darker feeling works better if you have blonde hair right,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: and then.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: The light for dark hair right like a peach or
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: an apple.
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  Speaker 1: Or something, and you mentioned it earlier before the break,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: when you asked if it was cool whip or shaving cream.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: They figured out that, like, you actually don't want real filling.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, sure, you want something that looks like BlackBerry
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: or something like that, but if you're looking for like marangu,
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  Speaker 1: you wanted to use shaving cream because it doesn't spoil.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: That's a big one, right, It can get kind of
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: hot on a studio set, in particular when it's in
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: what late may probably. Yeah, So there was a film.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: It came out in nineteen sixty three or sixty four.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: It's called The Great Race, and it promised an even
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: bigger pie fight than the Great Battle or Battle of
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: the Century. Had it didn't deliver. It's still pretty impressive,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: but nothing like that. And they shot this pie fight
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: scene at the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, and they
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: took a long weekend, and when they came back, the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: pies that they had left on the wall because they
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: needed to pick up the shoot from that point on
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: had all spoiled, and apparently the cast and crew were gagging.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: It was that nasty.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And then that's probably when they moved to shaving cream.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: So people were better at it than others. You could
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: get a real reputation as a as a champion pie thrower.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: As legend has it, Fatty Arbuckle could throw one with
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: each hand in opposite directions and hit the faces. And
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: apparently Mo Howard of the Stooges was so good at
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: it he did all the off camera throwing and then
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: got hired out to throw pies off camera just in
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: other movies that shows.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, that guy was just amazing through and through
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: what a specialty. So, like I was saying, like the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: reason why pies in the face started out is being funny,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and it's still funny today, but it's just been around
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: for so long it's kind of like a nod to
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the idea of being funny.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I mean.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Agreed, sure, But the whole premise is that, like you said,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: you're taking somebody down a peg. And so it's not
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: that surprising that it eventually kind of spilled out in
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: real life where people have have taken to hitting powerful
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: people in the face with pies to kind of show
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: them that they're and show the world they're not this
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: god god among humans, you.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Know, Yeah, which you know, these days, if you approach
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: anything any big famous person like that was something in
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: your hand to hit them with. It's it's never been
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: a good idea, but it's less so now more than ever.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean everyone from like Bill Gates to
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: to Rupert Murdoch has been pied in the face very publicly.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And apparently the guy who did that first was a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: guy named Thomas Forsaid. He was the founder of High
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Times and maybe seventy and eventually like got picked up.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: There was a group called the Biotic Baking Brigade out
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: of San Francisco who were big into this in like
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so they you know, they're on record saying like,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: you know, how about a neo Nasimi, neo Nazi or
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: a Klansman like they're great people to Pie or maybe
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: a homophobic preacher go Pie one of them.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I think they had like literature and pamphlets that suggested
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: that who to Pia? Who to Pai? Chucks of that
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: of course, that means short stuff's out.
• 12:22
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• 12:25
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