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The Ridiculous History of Ping Pong · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear a pong and a
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Speaker 1: ping for our super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Max the Ping of Pong, the King of Kong Williams Max.
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Speaker 1: If you are a pizza, you would be a supreme pizza.
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Speaker 1: And I mean that, oh my God, with my heart.
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Speaker 2: Yes, thank you guys. What constitutes a supreme pizza? Is
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Speaker 2: it just all the toppings or is there an agreed
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Speaker 2: upon you know, because not all pizza places have the
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Speaker 2: same topping options, So a supreme it kind of seems
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Speaker 2: like a little bit of an innocuous category.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of in the eye of the beholder,
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Speaker 1: because it's sometimes it's the entirety of the restaurants pantheon
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Speaker 1: of toppings, and then other times it's you know, the olive,
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Speaker 1: the onion, the pepper. But they'll they'll save the specialty
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Speaker 1: meats I find mm hmmm, yeah, for sure.
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Speaker 3: Little note here, I have not read this yet, but
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Speaker 3: according to pizzaplanet dot com, which is under their news section,
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Speaker 3: they have a fascinating history of Supreme Pizza, So that.
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Speaker 2: Just episode Well, wasn't Pizza Planet the pizza place in
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Speaker 2: the toy Story cinematic universe? That right?
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Speaker 1: You might be right, it was totally Oh, we've got
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Speaker 1: to introduce ourselves. Also, I'm big bullet. This is what
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Speaker 1: are is the one and only Noel Brown, who's also
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Speaker 1: our research associate for this episode, which has little to
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Speaker 1: nothing to do with pizza, but maybe we'll get there.
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Speaker 2: Tangentially, you did drop a bit of hands with your
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Speaker 2: categorization of Max's pizza type being supreme. Is that a
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Speaker 2: there should be like a test for what is your
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Speaker 2: pizza type? Like a Myers Briggs situation, And I agree
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Speaker 2: with you, Max would be supreme. We are talking about
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Speaker 2: ping pong today, the history of ping pong, and with
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Speaker 2: the release of the Timo te Chalamet film Marty Supreme
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Speaker 2: and all that media hoopla surrounding you. Did you see
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Speaker 2: all this, guys? It's pretty amazing. I was kind of
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Speaker 2: blown away by the on the ground, the sort of
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Speaker 2: bootstrap marketing that old Timmy was doing in the style
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Speaker 2: of Supreme, the brand like Marty Supreme jackets and I
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Speaker 2: think hoodies and custom little ping Pong balls, and dude
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Speaker 2: actually stood on top of the Vegas Sphere, which is
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Speaker 2: already in the perfect shape for this. They made it
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Speaker 2: look like a Marty Supreme ping pong ball, and there
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Speaker 2: was a blimp. I know you love a blimp, then
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Speaker 2: I love a blimp mill. So this is probably more
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Speaker 2: so than in recent memory least, making the sport of
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Speaker 2: table tennis a little bit more in the zeitgeist. And
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Speaker 2: I haven't seen it yet full disclosure. I actually had
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Speaker 2: tickets to go see it and then something came up.
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Speaker 2: But I'm very much looking forward to and people seem
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Speaker 2: to be enjoying it. It tells the story of Marty Mauser,
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Speaker 2: an ambitious young shoe salesman in New York of the
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Speaker 2: nineteen fifties with dreams of becoming an international star in
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Speaker 2: the rising world of table tennis. And we'll get to
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Speaker 2: a little bit later a bit about who Marty Mauser
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Speaker 2: is based on in real life. But the inspiration for
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Speaker 2: a particularly famous vintage video game that we talked about
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Speaker 2: recently would also have come from today's topic table tennis.
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Speaker 2: Of course, talking about pong.
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Speaker 1: Ah Yes, yeah, one of the first legendary video games
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Speaker 1: in all of history, and one of the initial questions
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Speaker 1: I had when we first started talking about this is
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Speaker 1: the the difference between nomenclature and names. So table tennis
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Speaker 1: correct me if I'm out of school here. Table tennis
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Speaker 1: is the official name for this recreation, but ping pong
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Speaker 1: is the same thing, just a different, less official name.
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Speaker 2: I guess it could be considered like a colloquialism. You know,
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Speaker 2: it's fun to say. Obviously it is, of course automati paic, yes,
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Speaker 2: would be the word for it, describing with words the
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Speaker 2: sound that the ball makes as it pings and pongs
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Speaker 2: across the table. These are automatipaic terms, if I'm not mistaken,
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Speaker 2: ben that date back to the Far East in the
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Speaker 2: late eighteen hundreds, imitative of the sound of the paddle
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Speaker 2: or bat striking, the ball being the ping, and then
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Speaker 2: the pong being the sound of the ball bouncing off
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Speaker 2: the table.
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Speaker 1: Oh right on, Okay, yeah, that makes sense in my
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Speaker 1: head here. And also I think we're all on the
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Speaker 1: same page that Sure table tennis will say it if
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Speaker 1: we're in an official meeting, but if it's just us
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Speaker 1: hanging out together, ping pong is clearly the more fun,
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Speaker 1: cooler name, right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I would seem that some of the official governing
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Speaker 2: bodies of the sports you may be in an effort
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Speaker 2: to be taken seriously. Maybe there's a history or a
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Speaker 2: little feeling of maybe being looked down the nose from,
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Speaker 2: you know, by the sports community. Ping pong might be
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Speaker 2: considered a little diminutive, But when are you going to
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Speaker 2: pass up a chance to say fun words like ping
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Speaker 2: and pong. So we're gonna say that a bunch, I
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Speaker 2: think any chance we get today. So why don't you
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Speaker 2: all at home, grab your commemorative Marty Supreme paddles or
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Speaker 2: bats if you got them, and let's serve up the
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Speaker 2: fascinating and ridiculous history of the sport of table tennis.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is fascinating. That's the perfect word for it,
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Speaker 1: as you found. The origins of what we call modern
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Speaker 1: ping pong or tablets can be traced back right to
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Speaker 1: England in the eighteen hundreds, and like a lot of
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Speaker 1: things in that time, this started out as a leisure
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Speaker 1: activity for the upper crust.
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Speaker 2: I repeat, they had their own automoutopaic name for it.
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Speaker 2: I don't know if they quite nailed the sound though, No, No,
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Speaker 2: we all probably will enjoy saying this one a little bit,
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Speaker 2: as we have a fondness for overemphasizing our h's in
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Speaker 2: British parlance with whaff if you will or if you
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Speaker 2: will yes with waff perhaps waft maybe would be a
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Speaker 2: little more brit That was what they do it as
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Speaker 2: and it was played using super rudimentary equipment, initially things
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Speaker 2: like these lightweight well they would initially be quarks, champagne
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Speaker 2: corks or wine corks, but then they evolved eventually into
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Speaker 2: these little celluloid balls. They had these crude paddles or
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Speaker 2: bats that are often themselves made out of cork and parchment,
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Speaker 2: sort of fashion together from stuff that was hanging around,
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Speaker 2: and this was taken the influence for this very diy sport,
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Speaker 2: indoor sport was taken from the outdoor sport of lawn tennis.
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Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so it's a natural evolution and now we
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Speaker 1: can play it inside and we're not held hostage by
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Speaker 1: the weather, right, So that all makes sense. We also
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Speaker 1: know that if we fast forward to eighteen ninety, there's
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Speaker 1: an Englishman named David Foster who comes up with this
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Speaker 1: with this concept and he says, you've got tennis, you've
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Speaker 1: got a table. Why don't we combine the two.
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Speaker 2: It's true, Ben, and it just shows how they were
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Speaker 2: really just thinking about this as an extension of lawn tennis,
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Speaker 2: because lawn tennis is really just kind of tennis, if
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Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken right, like it was using a nicely
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Speaker 2: manicured lawn, which also would have required some upper crustness
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Speaker 2: to even have access to such a thing and be
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Speaker 2: able to, you know, maintain it in that kind of way.
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Speaker 2: But David Foster puts out this book that kind of
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Speaker 2: collected a bunch of different sort of fun indoor kind
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Speaker 2: of family games, and we found an image from the
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Speaker 2: company corn Corny Cornerlio I think is what they're called.
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Speaker 2: They are a legacy table tennis company with skin in
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Speaker 2: the game literally, and there's a lot of good historical
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Speaker 2: info on their site. They have this vintage advert Ford
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Speaker 2: Foster's patented parlor table games this book and a page
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Speaker 2: showing to very hoity toity British noble types pinging and
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Speaker 2: pong and a ball on this kind of what looks
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Speaker 2: like just a dressed up dinner table. You see there's
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Speaker 2: like wooden legs peering out from underneath. It seems to
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Speaker 2: just be covered up in a green cloth with the
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Speaker 2: sides batting on the side exactly around the edges to
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Speaker 2: keep it, you know, sort of from popping off. Of course,
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Speaker 2: we know that modern table tennis doesn't have any such thing,
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Speaker 2: but then it has a little net going across the
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Speaker 2: side and some of the same lines of demarcation that
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Speaker 2: separate the left on the right side of your part
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Speaker 2: of the court. But they are just referring to it
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Speaker 2: here as law tennis, which is a little confusing. So
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Speaker 2: the earliest surviving action game of tennis on a table,
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Speaker 2: as ITTF refers to it as on their website. They
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Speaker 2: are the official governing body the International Table Tennis Federation.
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Speaker 2: We love a Federation is made by David Foster, patented
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Speaker 2: in England in eighteen ninety number one to one zero
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Speaker 2: three seven Parlor Table Games. Is this book I mentioned
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Speaker 2: that includes table versions of lawn tennis. That's exactly what
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Speaker 2: it is. They're doing spins on popular court type games
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Speaker 2: like cricket and football, and they're making it or he's
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Speaker 2: making it, condensing it into a game you can play
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Speaker 2: indoors with less space. So the lawn tennis game featured
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Speaker 2: strung rackets more like a badminton racket, a thirty millimeter
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Speaker 2: cloth covered rubber ball, a wooden fence set up around
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Speaker 2: the perimeter of the table, and some side nets even
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Speaker 2: in addition to of course these the nets down the middle.
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Speaker 1: And you know what, I just realized, and everybody tuning in,
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Speaker 1: I just realized why the name David Foster was sticking
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Speaker 1: in my head. It's because I used to be a
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Speaker 1: huge squirrel nut Zippers fan. You remember they have that song.
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Speaker 4: Met the ghost of Stephen Foster at the Hotel Paradise.
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Speaker 4: This is what I told him as I gazed into
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Speaker 4: his eyes. Dude, I have been down a scroll Nut
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Speaker 4: Zippers nostalgia rabbit hole. Recently, there's a count I follow
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Speaker 4: on Instagram that just like posts old like one hundred
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Speaker 4: and twenty minute videos from the very important MTV show
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Speaker 4: that showed lots of weird like indie videos of the
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Speaker 4: moment and their song, The scrore nuts Zippers, who are
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Speaker 4: from I believe Asheville, North Carolina, near not too too
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Speaker 4: far from us.
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Speaker 2: Hell, was a huge hit at the time. I was
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Speaker 2: like in the afterloa mm hmm, great band, really fun.
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Speaker 2: They were one of the more interesting and tolerable of
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Speaker 2: that era of like swing dance revival type, not.
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Speaker 1: The cherry popping daddies or whatever.
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Speaker 2: You got your suit riders, you got your big bad
11:15
Speaker 2: voodoo skull I like them big bad food. I'm sorry,
11:18
Speaker 2: it's big bad voodoo daddy Addy. Then there were also
11:22
Speaker 2: the Voodoo glows Skulls, and then of course the Mighty
11:24
Speaker 2: Mighty Bostones, but they were more they weren't really swing.
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Speaker 2: We're talking about the stray Cats, the Seltzer Orchestra, Brian
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Speaker 2: Setzer or extracts. Yeah. Yeah, it was a golden top
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Speaker 2: for that kind of thing.
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Speaker 1: So so we will, we will figure out.
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Speaker 2: Uh, it's the same David Fosters.
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Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be amazing?
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Speaker 4: Uh?
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Speaker 2: Why is the Why is the ghost of the guy
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Speaker 2: that had been like made the parlor table games haunting
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Speaker 2: the singer of the scroll Zippers, who obviously is playing
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Speaker 2: a vintage character, sort of in the style of the Decembris.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, exactly, you have to. I hear that they're
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Speaker 1: a good hang but maybe oh you know what, never mind,
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Speaker 1: cut everything, We'll keep this in, but cut everything. We said, folks,
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Speaker 1: it's the ghost of Stephen Foster.
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Speaker 2: Stephen Foster being a music the composer, right, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 2: Stephen Foster. And then of course you've got You've got
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Speaker 2: David Foster Wallace. Yes, it's like the most pretentious writers
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Speaker 2: ever walked the face of the earth.
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Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, I love his work. I have
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Speaker 1: to regretfully say, don't love his fans.
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Speaker 2: But isn't he like he's the guy with the he
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Speaker 2: did sadly pass away? But Infinite Jest is often lampooned
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Speaker 2: as being holy cow. David Foster Wallace has a book
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Speaker 2: about tennis called String Theory, which is a very clever
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Speaker 2: name for a book about tennis.
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Speaker 1: And tennis is a huge deal in Infinite Jest as well.
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Speaker 1: It's it's like.
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Speaker 2: I think there's a connection that can't it can't be os.
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Speaker 2: I don't know.
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Speaker 1: The world is so weird, but so shout out to
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Speaker 1: all the Fosters we just mentioned. Another thing you've found
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Speaker 1: here is that Foster's Foster didn't just say here's the
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Speaker 1: setup for tennis on a table. He said, here are
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Speaker 1: the rules for the game as well. And one thing
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Speaker 1: I liked is that the rules are pretty straightforward and
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Speaker 1: they're not super duper complicated like some of those really
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Speaker 1: difficult board games we've tried to play in the past.
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Speaker 2: So yeah, there's a couple that I still haven't even
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Speaker 2: summoned the will to try again. That I do love
13:33
Speaker 2: Munchkin Pandemic and what's the one I really like?
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Speaker 1: The one I love hers?
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Speaker 2: Oh, wingspan, wingspan. Thank you once you get the hang
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Speaker 2: of it. Those are a good hang and a joy
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Speaker 2: to play. But you're right, Ben. The rules of table
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Speaker 2: ten is very similar to the rules of tennis. Tennis,
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Speaker 2: it's played to eleven points. You have to win by
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Speaker 2: two serves, alternate every two points, except in the event
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Speaker 2: of a tie ten to ten tie, because that would
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Speaker 2: be match points. If I'm not mistaken, then you alternate
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Speaker 2: per point at that point. So a legal serve involves
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Speaker 2: tossing the ball at least six inches straight up from
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Speaker 2: an open palm and hitting it behind the table so
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Speaker 2: it bounces on your side once, then on the opponents side,
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Speaker 2: and players then have to return the ball after one bounce.
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Speaker 2: Can't touch the net or the table with their free hand,
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Speaker 2: and volleying hitting the ball before it bounces is strictly verboten.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I whatever I see rule lists like this,
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Speaker 1: especially given the cultural period we're talking about. I keep
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Speaker 1: imagining them figuring out the rules because of one bad
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Speaker 1: actor who keeps cheating, Like there's one gal who keeps
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Speaker 1: grabbing the net, yeah.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, or like doing the old Spiker Rooney. You can't
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Speaker 2: spike it right now.
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Speaker 1: You spike it, well, it has to bounce once. It
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Speaker 1: has to bounce once, and then you can absolutely. I'm
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Speaker 1: just picture I'm just picturing somebody at a gentleman's club
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Speaker 1: going to say something.
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Speaker 4: Like, Nigel, you irascible Cad Again, bothol.
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Speaker 2: Of you keeps exactly so. In eighteen ninety seven you
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Speaker 2: see the first national championships that are organized in Hungary.
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Speaker 2: Actually following a trip to the US in nineteen oh one,
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Speaker 2: we got a guy named James Gibb who brings back
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Speaker 2: with him the very first example of that celluloid ball
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Speaker 2: that I mentioned earlier, that you can picture as being
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Speaker 2: the you know, still to this day most popular type
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Speaker 2: of table tennis ball, very much lighter than the rubber
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Speaker 2: balls that we talked about. Therefore, uh huh, much more zippy,
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Speaker 2: you know, and bouncy. Yeah, you could do.
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Speaker 1: More cool tricks. And then we know that this this
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Speaker 1: caught on it's convenient, right, if you have the space
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Speaker 1: and you have the means. It's easy to learn because
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Speaker 1: a lot of people already know tennis and it also,
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Speaker 1: i'll say it, it doesn't demand as much physical fitness
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Speaker 1: as some other forms of recreation.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's funny been thinking about this Parlor Games book.
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Speaker 2: I'd love to see what some other like miniaturized games
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Speaker 2: look like, because I can't really think of any other
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Speaker 2: examples of ones that really stuck around, Like Who's ball
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Speaker 2: is not anything like actual soccer. It's its own thing.
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Speaker 2: But can you think of another game that would uh,
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Speaker 2: that would what's the word translate? In the same way?
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Speaker 2: What a mini version of cricket look like? I don't
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Speaker 2: think it works.
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Speaker 1: I'm in love with the idea of tiny croquet just
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Speaker 1: because it's an inefficient it's.
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Speaker 2: The same as regular croquet. Everything is miniature. Yeah, you
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Speaker 2: have you look ridiculous.
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Speaker 1: You have to have your thumb and forefinger holding holding
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Speaker 1: the club. Yeah, yeah, durable. That's a great question. We
16:47
Speaker 1: should get a hold of the Parlor Games book because
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Speaker 1: I would be cool to see. I bet you like
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Speaker 1: twenty bend bucks. There is there. We're going to see
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Speaker 1: a lot of things that were uh not near a
17:00
Speaker 1: popular and they were probably just super weird.
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Speaker 2: But some things lost to history, like yeah, like lawn darts,
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Speaker 2: you know, lost the history for good reason. I believe
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Speaker 2: they skewered a child or two in their day.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, just like you and I and Max
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Speaker 1: lived through the uh slipping slide era when people started
17:19
Speaker 1: breaking their backs on that thing.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, or like slicing themselves open on like I particularly
17:25
Speaker 2: pointy rock that somebody missed that was underneath the damn thing.
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Speaker 2: We have talked. You know, it's funny. I think I
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Speaker 2: maybe mentioned this in previous discussions we've had around these
17:33
Speaker 2: like games. Uh, there was a class like it was
17:36
Speaker 2: like a pe substitute class I took in college called
17:39
Speaker 2: backyard games. What that's cool? They know, backyard games?
17:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was your favorite?
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Speaker 2: Fact? It was largely badminton. I just remember playing a
17:47
Speaker 2: lot and I enjoyed it. That was a fun game.
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Speaker 2: But then there were some other real goofy ones that
17:51
Speaker 2: we had to do as well that I'm kind of
17:53
Speaker 2: spacing on what they were, but definitely didn't have any
17:55
Speaker 2: table tennis setups there. We start to see, you know,
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Speaker 2: after this introduction of the Celluloid Ball by James Gibb.
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Speaker 2: Interest starting to kind of rise in the game, and
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Speaker 2: there's enough that we see an association being created in
18:16
Speaker 2: England called the Ping Pong Association. They're still using the
18:19
Speaker 2: colloquialism at the time, but not for long. That was
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Speaker 2: in nineteen oh one, five hundred players and enthusiasts were
18:26
Speaker 2: registered to the organization, and just a year later, in
18:30
Speaker 2: nineteen oh two, you see a British fellow enthusiast fan
18:33
Speaker 2: of the game E. C. Gould introducing the first bats
18:37
Speaker 2: or paddles that were very similar to what we see today,
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Speaker 2: rubber rubberized material glued to wooden circular little mini paddles
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Speaker 2: with little they called they're calling them pimples here on
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Speaker 2: Cornelieu dot com, which a little buss me out. This
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Speaker 2: is what it is. It's a grippy it's that grippy
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Speaker 2: material and it makes sense that it would be it
18:57
Speaker 2: would help with traction, you know, on the ball.
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Speaker 1: Yeah on you ec for saying, okay, lads, the the
19:03
Speaker 1: rubber balls didn't work out, But let's not get rid
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Speaker 1: of rubber entirely because it's a it's a great surface,
19:09
Speaker 1: right because now you get a little more.
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Speaker 2: Grip wonder material time too. Still, we're probably loving, you know,
19:16
Speaker 2: any any use of rubber, and we're going to get
19:18
Speaker 2: into some issues that come as a result of this
19:21
Speaker 2: rubber and changing it out or you know, having little
19:24
Speaker 2: lacks that could maybe make your paddle a little more
19:27
Speaker 2: bouncy than the other guys.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, because of course, even if it's a non professional sport,
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Speaker 1: there are going to be people who try to sneak
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Speaker 1: in some edgy moves.
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Speaker 2: Like Nigel and Bartholomew like that. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So, uh so, okay, we we were going back to
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Speaker 1: our question ping pong versus table tennis? What's in a name?
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Speaker 2: Uh?
19:54
Speaker 1: We know, as you found that the Ping Pong Association
19:59
Speaker 1: of eventually had its day in the sun and then
20:03
Speaker 1: kind of fell a little bit in popularity.
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Speaker 2: Pretty much brief, brief candle, Yeah.
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Speaker 1: It was, but then it became a popular again in
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Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties and that's where they started adopting the
20:17
Speaker 1: name table tennis. So maybe in addition to wanting to
20:21
Speaker 1: be taken a bit more seriously, which I can see,
20:23
Speaker 1: maybe they were also going for a little bit of
20:26
Speaker 1: a rebrand, you know what I mean.
20:28
Speaker 2: I think that's right. They wanted to. I thought ping
20:30
Speaker 2: pong sounded a little too like childish or something, or like,
20:33
Speaker 2: you know, it sounded like a kid's game, and they wanted,
20:37
Speaker 2: you know, they wanted it to be taken seriously. So
20:39
Speaker 2: the original association in the ping pong one had broken
20:42
Speaker 2: up in nineteen oh five. The game did continue, but
20:45
Speaker 2: that just wasn't you know, a governing body, so to speak,
20:49
Speaker 2: mainly outside of London. And then in the twenties you
20:53
Speaker 2: started to see it enter other countries, you know, outside
20:57
Speaker 2: of England, so you started to see the public exhibition
21:01
Speaker 2: type tournaments. Some of the most popular ones took place
21:04
Speaker 2: at Queen's Hall in London. And then in nineteen oh
21:07
Speaker 2: two you started to see the formation of a world
21:11
Speaker 2: championship type event. There we're gonna see a that happened
21:15
Speaker 2: kind of again as a larger governing body sort of
21:18
Speaker 2: swoops in and becomes the sort of you know, taste maker,
21:22
Speaker 2: gatekeeper of the sport. But you are starting to see
21:26
Speaker 2: formations of smaller, more regional and you know, country wide
21:31
Speaker 2: federations or governing organizations, one of which was the British
21:35
Speaker 2: Table Tennis Federation. So of course England in London, and
21:39
Speaker 2: then in some of the suburbs and outside of England,
21:42
Speaker 2: and then you know outside in other parts of Europe.
21:45
Speaker 2: It's definitely the hub of the sport originally, so in
21:48
Speaker 2: nineteen oh seven you start to see the first European Championships,
21:52
Speaker 2: and then in the twenties is when things really get gone.
21:55
Speaker 2: That's when you see the Table Tennis Association, the ITF's
22:00
Speaker 2: who I've mentioned early on in the episode.
22:02
Speaker 1: The Table Tennis Association, not to be confused with the
22:06
Speaker 1: International Table Tennis Federation, which comes about in nineteen twenty six.
22:13
Speaker 1: And this leads us to of course the World Championship
22:17
Speaker 1: picture Eurovision, but a century ago with table tennis instead
22:21
Speaker 1: of pop socks.
22:23
Speaker 2: So these folks are coming because they love the Eurovisions.
22:27
Speaker 2: I really want to man, I don't know much about it.
22:30
Speaker 2: I have some really dear friends in Berlin and they
22:32
Speaker 2: said it's basically like the way we watch like the
22:34
Speaker 2: Super Bowl over absolutely massive to do. I watched it
22:38
Speaker 2: during COVID and uh, yeah, I get it. It's awesome.
22:42
Speaker 2: They have parties over there. It's a spectacle. It's it's
22:46
Speaker 2: something we should do an episode on. So we've got
22:49
Speaker 2: supreme pizza as an episode, and we've got Eurovision. Oh gosh, man,
22:54
Speaker 2: I definitely have to do a Eurovision. That's a great idea, Ben,
22:57
Speaker 2: We've got to do it.
22:58
Speaker 1: So we know that these we know that these championships,
23:02
Speaker 1: the World Championships were a big deal, and other countries
23:08
Speaker 1: started to despite the fact that there was already an
23:11
Speaker 1: International Table Tennis Federation, other countries started their own similar
23:18
Speaker 1: nation specific organizations, like, of course the French. Kidding, French,
23:23
Speaker 1: we love you, but they you started your own table
23:26
Speaker 1: Tennis Federation where there already was one Internet.
23:29
Speaker 2: Which makes sense, I guess, because it would be an
23:32
Speaker 2: organization that could maybe help organize regional competitions things that, yeah,
23:37
Speaker 2: and helping, you know, just raise the profile within that
23:41
Speaker 2: particular country. Though I'm sure the ITTF, especially nowadays, kind
23:45
Speaker 2: of has a lot of that on luck. I'd be
23:46
Speaker 2: curious to see what some of the other more country
23:51
Speaker 2: specific federations are remaining to this day. The French get
23:54
Speaker 2: in on it eventually in a tournament that takes place
23:57
Speaker 2: in Budapest, Budapest in eighteen twenty nine, and then you
24:02
Speaker 2: start to see rising stars like Marty Supreme or like
24:05
Speaker 2: the dude that he's based on a guy by the
24:07
Speaker 2: name of Richard Bergmann, who is an Austro Briton and
24:11
Speaker 2: Franco Polish player a la Soi Alasi Erlik. And then
24:17
Speaker 2: we've got a Romanian fellow by the name of Anglica Rosano.
24:20
Speaker 2: And these were some of the rising stars of the
24:23
Speaker 2: sport at the time. And this is in the era
24:26
Speaker 2: that is depicted in the movie Marty Supreme when we're
24:29
Speaker 2: starting to see this real table tennis fever kind of
24:32
Speaker 2: sweeping the nation.
24:33
Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah, we also know that there were technological advances
24:39
Speaker 1: and setbacks, so not everything was a perfect score for
24:44
Speaker 1: ping pong. As you pointed out earlier, Noel, in the
24:47
Speaker 1: beginning days, when this was a very ad hoc kind
24:51
Speaker 1: of recreation activity for the upper crust, they were using
24:56
Speaker 1: found items for paddles, like cigar boxes, and when they
24:59
Speaker 1: got pong, actual fat paddles, shout out to Low and
25:03
Speaker 1: vocal bomb those paddles. Yeah, those paddles didn't have the
25:07
Speaker 1: materials you're going to see today, No fancy sponges, no rubber. Instead,
25:13
Speaker 1: they had this grit kind of fine sandpaper and it
25:19
Speaker 1: gave you a very small amount of friction with the ball,
25:22
Speaker 1: so you couldn't put any spin on it. You can
25:25
Speaker 1: put the English on it. That meant that the ping
25:28
Speaker 1: pong players of the time weren't as reliant on speed
25:33
Speaker 1: and power. They were more strategic with their moves, and
25:37
Speaker 1: the ball was moving slower, and the games took longer.
25:42
Speaker 2: They took longer, it was not nearly as exciting to watch.
25:46
Speaker 2: You're not seeing as many of this those aces and
25:50
Speaker 2: spikes as you might see in modern versions of the game.
25:54
Speaker 2: So a lot of technical innovations came along, changes and
25:57
Speaker 2: regulations allowing some of the innovations that had a major
26:01
Speaker 2: impact on the speed and excitement of the sport. You know,
26:07
Speaker 2: a lot of high profile tournaments had their outcomes affected
26:11
Speaker 2: by some of this new stuff and it wasn't considered
26:13
Speaker 2: cheating or anything because there was that was allowed. You know,
26:16
Speaker 2: in particular, you'd have specific changes to the rubber and
26:21
Speaker 2: the blade that were recognized by formerly by the governing body,
26:26
Speaker 2: the International Table Tennis Federation in nineteen twenty six, which
26:29
Speaker 2: is of course still the governing body to this day.
26:32
Speaker 2: Modern table tennis rackets have what's called and this is
26:36
Speaker 2: coming from a really cool blog, Tom vatch dot com,
26:40
Speaker 2: talking about the history of table tennis technology and different
26:45
Speaker 2: types of glue we're going to get to in just
26:46
Speaker 2: a second. So the blade is the wooden part. The
26:51
Speaker 2: rubber is the you know, bouncy material that is attached
26:56
Speaker 2: to it. Volcanized rubber bonded to an inner layer of
27:00
Speaker 2: banded sponge or foam, so it has less dense exactly
27:06
Speaker 2: less dense, and it has to be of course attached
27:10
Speaker 2: to the blade, and doing that required certain types of glue.
27:16
Speaker 2: And it was in the nineteen seventies that some European
27:20
Speaker 2: table tennis players realized that they could kind of try
27:24
Speaker 2: different types of adhesives that would change the playing characteristics
27:29
Speaker 2: of the rubber layer. Unfortunately, the ones that were the
27:35
Speaker 2: most effective were real fume. Oh right, Okay, this is
27:41
Speaker 2: you know, like sniff and glue. You know, yeah, it's
27:44
Speaker 2: not good for you.
27:45
Speaker 1: This is where we're talking about stuff like trichloroethylene and
27:49
Speaker 1: one one trichloro ethane.
27:52
Speaker 2: Right. I think that's right, Ben, those are the ones
27:54
Speaker 2: in question. You were actually allowed to you know, re
27:59
Speaker 2: it here your rubber surface, though typically prior to this
28:04
Speaker 2: situation we're describing here, it would really only be done
28:07
Speaker 2: when the old surface had worn out, but there wasn't
28:10
Speaker 2: any rule against doing it, you know, more frequently. And
28:15
Speaker 2: at this point, the type of glues that people were
28:18
Speaker 2: using were the kind you might see to repair a
28:20
Speaker 2: bicycle tire or like you know, plug a leak automotive tire.
28:27
Speaker 2: They were one part vulcanizing fluids is what they're referred
28:32
Speaker 2: to as. And players were finding that what was then
28:35
Speaker 2: referred to as speed glue could produce shots with increased
28:40
Speaker 2: speed and spin that english you were talking about, ben
28:43
Speaker 2: compared to just putting the rubber on with some of
28:46
Speaker 2: the traditional rubber cements that were used.
28:49
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, and this is interesting. And I like the
28:53
Speaker 1: reference to tires for cars because it reminds me of
28:57
Speaker 1: the way changing tires works in some professional racing, you know,
29:03
Speaker 1: like F one or NASCAR. The idea is that you
29:08
Speaker 1: can pit crew. Yeah, you can pick crew stuff essentially,
29:11
Speaker 1: and you can change out these tires that will affect
29:15
Speaker 1: your performance, just like changing out the glue can affect
29:19
Speaker 1: the performance of your paddle, but you're sacrificing longevity. So
29:25
Speaker 1: speed glue. Speed glue has a big disadvantage, which is
29:30
Speaker 1: this high performance gift or this edge that it gives
29:34
Speaker 1: you only lasts for a few hours instead of three
29:37
Speaker 1: to six months, and the rubber has a shorter playing lifetime,
29:41
Speaker 1: so you could do this. And as you said, no,
29:45
Speaker 1: it's perfectly legal to reglue the rubber onto your paddle
29:49
Speaker 1: between matches.
29:50
Speaker 2: However many times you want. At this point, there are
29:52
Speaker 2: no rules against that. But you've got to have your
29:56
Speaker 2: kit with you. You've got to be able to maguiver stuff.
29:58
Speaker 2: This is fun.
29:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, with your glue bottle, your brushes, your scissors, your
30:03
Speaker 1: rolling pins so you can flatten the rubber evenly, and
30:07
Speaker 1: then hair dryers even yeah, later hair dryers, which is
30:11
Speaker 1: cool because I don't know about a lot of other
30:13
Speaker 1: sports that require you to bring hair dryers.
30:17
Speaker 2: Well, these are all very It's interesting and it almost
30:19
Speaker 2: goes back to the diy roots of the sport because
30:22
Speaker 2: a lot of this field very do it yourself kind
30:25
Speaker 2: of craft project, you know. But as we mentioned, while
30:29
Speaker 2: this glue might yield some short term increases in speed
30:33
Speaker 2: and bounce, it also contains some pretty gnarly toxic fumes
30:36
Speaker 2: that if you surround yourself with it for too long,
30:39
Speaker 2: it can cause some real problems. There's an evidence of
30:42
Speaker 2: a Japanese player, and this is all pretty recent, by
30:45
Speaker 2: the way, collapsing while gluing his paddle during a tournament
30:48
Speaker 2: in two thousand and seven, And as of September one
30:51
Speaker 2: of two thousand and eight, the ITTF has banned glues
30:54
Speaker 2: containing quote unquote volatile compounds and now allows only water glues.
31:01
Speaker 2: And there's like glue sniffing contraption that like test for
31:05
Speaker 2: the wrong kind of illegal glues before matches, almost the
31:09
Speaker 2: way that you know athletes in the Olympics and other
31:13
Speaker 2: high profile competitions are tested for things like blood doping
31:17
Speaker 2: and use of steroids. However, I believe that this was
31:21
Speaker 2: so controversial and there was concern that it would slow
31:25
Speaker 2: down the speed of play that the ITTF kind of
31:27
Speaker 2: held back on this decision for a little while. And
31:30
Speaker 2: I think now it is in place, But there was
31:32
Speaker 2: a while where it was an outcry and I think
31:34
Speaker 2: they sort of held back on implementing this. But now
31:37
Speaker 2: I think, you know, this is back in two thousand
31:39
Speaker 2: and eight, I do believe that it is now illegal
31:41
Speaker 2: to use these speed glues.
31:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at that point it's it's a health concern,
31:47
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. This is however, this is
31:51
Speaker 1: a great time to mention our earlier idea that we
31:54
Speaker 1: pitched to Dan Harmon and anything goes Olympics. We don't
31:59
Speaker 1: know how the paper work would uh pay.
32:02
Speaker 2: It out, but you know, didn't we There was a thing.
32:04
Speaker 2: Remember there was a story about some.
32:07
Speaker 1: Tech Olympic guy.
32:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was it. It was about like steroids allowed
32:13
Speaker 2: all all kinds of but we had the growth hormone
32:16
Speaker 2: blood doping out. We definitely did, no.
32:18
Speaker 1: Question, but that's where that's where this would go. And
32:21
Speaker 1: everybody can agree. You know that the health of the athletes,
32:24
Speaker 1: the help of the health of the support staff is crucial.
32:28
Speaker 1: You know, so play the game to the best of
32:30
Speaker 1: your ability, but part of that is also playing the
32:33
Speaker 1: game with your health in mind for sure.
32:37
Speaker 2: And just to double back again, like none of this
32:39
Speaker 2: was like corking your bat in baseball, which is illegal.
32:43
Speaker 2: You know, that is like considered cheating or deflate gate.
32:46
Speaker 2: Remember deflate Gate in American football. It was this idea
32:50
Speaker 2: of choosing slightly slightly deflated footballs. This was all above
32:55
Speaker 2: board and it wasn't like anybody was doing it in
32:57
Speaker 2: secretor in the dark of night. You know, like everyone
32:59
Speaker 2: knew that this was being done, and it was allowed
33:02
Speaker 2: until it wasn't. Another reason that I think it wasn't
33:05
Speaker 2: allowed despite the toxic fumes thing. The ITTF seemed very
33:09
Speaker 2: concerned about making the game easier to follow for spectators,
33:13
Speaker 2: and apparently those balls were pinging and ponging so fast,
33:16
Speaker 2: so that's speed glue that it was hard for the
33:18
Speaker 2: eyeball to follow that tiny little thing.
33:21
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, we're talking.
33:23
Speaker 2: What are they doing? Some guys wa with it and
33:25
Speaker 2: waffing their arms around. I can't even see them all.
33:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is crazy. Okay, So a world class ping
33:31
Speaker 1: pong players, as you mentioned in Tom Vish's website, a
33:36
Speaker 1: world class ping pong player can make shots with speeds
33:41
Speaker 1: of up to one hundred miles per hour with a
33:44
Speaker 1: ball spinning nine thousand revolutions per minute. So, like like
33:50
Speaker 1: Nola was saving folks, you can easily imagine how it's
33:54
Speaker 1: tough to keep track of everything because these are pretty
33:57
Speaker 1: small balls.
34:00
Speaker 2: And one concern of a body like the ITTF is
34:03
Speaker 2: making the game as accessible and as popular as possible,
34:06
Speaker 2: So they are thinking about the big picture of like
34:09
Speaker 2: what makes this the most engaging too, you know, viewers.
34:13
Speaker 1: And it turns out that they were onto something because
34:17
Speaker 1: as we see I think we'll mention Forrest Gump a
34:20
Speaker 1: little bit later too. As we see in the nineteen fifties,
34:25
Speaker 1: table tennis really takes off in the Asiatic sphere, just
34:36
Speaker 1: like Hungary in days of yore. Japanese teams were a
34:41
Speaker 1: huge deal at the World Championships between what nineteen fifty
34:46
Speaker 1: four to nineteen fifty nine.
34:48
Speaker 2: For sure, and then you start to see the Chinese
34:51
Speaker 2: teams or it's not really a team sport, is it's
34:55
Speaker 2: an individual sport. You know, the Chinese entries into the
34:58
Speaker 2: chat starting to really dominate, that is around nineteen sixty one,
35:05
Speaker 2: and then in ninety sixty three and nineteen sixty five
35:07
Speaker 2: we see triple world champion titles won by Juan Zeidong.
35:12
Speaker 2: And then during this period you start to see ping
35:16
Speaker 2: pong almost as a method of soft diplomacy, which I
35:20
Speaker 2: know is your wheelhouse.
35:21
Speaker 1: Ben. Oh yeah, I man. We're excited about this because
35:24
Speaker 1: it'll play into the idea of soft diplomacy, plays into
35:28
Speaker 1: another episode we're going to have coming up about Thailand.
35:32
Speaker 1: But you nailed it. That's exactly what I was thinking
35:35
Speaker 1: about that sequence in the film Forrest Gump. Wherefore absolutely
35:41
Speaker 1: gets really at the ping pong and then ends up
35:44
Speaker 1: playing the Chinese delegation. This is this is fascinating because
35:50
Speaker 1: we also see an evolution of strategy. It's nineteen seventy
35:55
Speaker 1: seven and the World Championships are in Birmingham, and this
36:00
Speaker 1: is where we see the first official use of something
36:03
Speaker 1: called the Chinese service, which is a particular type of serve.
36:09
Speaker 2: Yep and Asia then, of course, really becomes cemented, rubber
36:15
Speaker 2: cemented or spell mood into the annals of a ping
36:19
Speaker 2: pong slash table tennis history, and I think even to
36:21
Speaker 2: this day they are quite good.
36:24
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I have not played ping pong over
36:29
Speaker 1: in an Asian country, but I know it's still a
36:33
Speaker 1: huge deal and the people who are good at it
36:36
Speaker 1: are very very good at it. I don't know how
36:39
Speaker 1: are you at table tennis.
36:41
Speaker 2: I haven't played in a very long time. Dear pal
36:45
Speaker 2: and friend of the show, Frank just got one a
36:48
Speaker 2: table tennis set up and has invited me over to play,
36:50
Speaker 2: and I'm sure it would love to have you as well,
36:52
Speaker 2: and so maybe we should do a little ping pong
36:54
Speaker 2: adventure sometime.
36:56
Speaker 1: That would be so much fun. I always, I always
37:00
Speaker 1: mess up in the first few minutes, because I keep
37:03
Speaker 1: forgetting you have to have a light touch.
37:06
Speaker 2: I know our buddy Chandlers, who we work with on
37:10
Speaker 2: podcasts and have known for many, many years. I've seen
37:12
Speaker 2: on his Instagram stories lately that he's been pinging a
37:14
Speaker 2: lot of pongs.
37:15
Speaker 3: Also, do not try to play putt putt against Chandler.
37:18
Speaker 3: That guy is insane. He's so good at pussy.
37:21
Speaker 2: He's great, plays regular tennis. He's a serious he's a
37:26
Speaker 2: serious athlete.
37:27
Speaker 3: We've had a company outing where we played putt putt
37:29
Speaker 3: not that long ago, and man, he smoked everybody. I
37:31
Speaker 3: was playing with the guy who was really good, and
37:33
Speaker 3: then look to this scorn. It was nothing competed to Chandler's.
37:35
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is in Chad, I love you, man,
37:39
Speaker 1: I say this with great affection. You are always going
37:42
Speaker 1: to be also way more competitive than I am.
37:45
Speaker 2: Just he's got fire in the blood.
37:51
Speaker 1: That's why I love playing games with Chandler, because we're
37:55
Speaker 1: so different in that regard, and he's usually going to
37:59
Speaker 1: be better at the game that I'm endlessly congratulated because
38:03
Speaker 1: I think it's cool.
38:05
Speaker 2: It's good to be good at stuff, no question about it.
38:08
Speaker 2: Speaking of being good at stuff. We've already really seen
38:11
Speaker 2: the transition of table tennis from like a you know,
38:14
Speaker 2: a quaint little parlor game to a serious competitive sport.
38:18
Speaker 2: This is no question about this, But we have not
38:22
Speaker 2: yet entered the world of the Olympics. It doesn't happened
38:26
Speaker 2: until almost the nineties.
38:28
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy? It's lately crazy to eighties. So this
38:32
Speaker 1: has ping pong has become such a global phenomenon that
38:36
Speaker 1: it's actually a form of diplomacy right for decades at
38:40
Speaker 1: this point, and in nineteen eighty eight, like with player
38:43
Speaker 1: exchanges and normalizing relations between hostile countries, so that thank you, Ben.
38:51
Speaker 1: It's weird, right, So South Korea, Soul, they have the
38:55
Speaker 1: Olympics nineteen eighty eight and table tennis officially become an
39:00
Speaker 1: Olympic sport, and you know, no surprise to a lot
39:05
Speaker 1: of the people following ping pong, the winners are both
39:11
Speaker 1: from Asia. The female Chinese player Chen Jing takes the
39:16
Speaker 1: gold medal in her category and the male Korean national
39:22
Speaker 1: Yu nam q takes gold medal in his category.
39:26
Speaker 2: And it's interesting that we don't really even see like
39:28
Speaker 2: pro tours, we've got the sport in the Olympics. But
39:32
Speaker 2: there's nothing resembling like the PGA. You know that we
39:36
Speaker 2: have surrounding you know, golf of course, but we have
39:38
Speaker 2: that happening in nineteen ninety six, so well, almost a
39:42
Speaker 2: decade after that first Olympic inclusion. And yeah, to what
39:47
Speaker 2: we were saying earlier, it has largely remained dominated by
39:50
Speaker 2: Asian players since the beginning of the professional world of
39:56
Speaker 2: ping pong, and that includes the triple world champion and
40:00
Speaker 2: world number one player for many years, Wang Liquin. Oh
40:04
Speaker 2: and to answer my own question that I posed earlier,
40:07
Speaker 2: I believe Ben you could probably confirm this tennis. Table
40:10
Speaker 2: tennis is the most practiced sport in all of Asia.
40:14
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's still a huge, huge deal.
40:19
Speaker 1: You know, I put it up there with football or
40:23
Speaker 1: excuse me, soccer in Latin America. You know, people love
40:26
Speaker 1: it and we know that now the International Table Tennis
40:31
Speaker 1: Federation includes more than two hundred nations. It's the size
40:37
Speaker 1: of a nation itself in terms of membership and population.
40:41
Speaker 1: Thirty three million people are part of the itt F.
40:46
Speaker 2: Remember the earliest ones we mentioned, I think it was
40:48
Speaker 2: something like fifty or five hundred sorry players. Yeah, that
40:51
Speaker 2: we're involved and even then at the time that seemed
40:53
Speaker 2: like a lot because it was much more niche. But
40:55
Speaker 2: it is. It's huge, bigger than bigger than Rock and roll.
40:58
Speaker 2: Maybe not, it'll give rock and Roll a run for
41:00
Speaker 2: its money. But ben you teased Forrest Gump. I think
41:03
Speaker 2: a lot of our first you know, views into ping
41:07
Speaker 2: pong as a serious sport and as a method of
41:10
Speaker 2: soft diplomacy was from the nineteen ninety four film Forrest Gump,
41:14
Speaker 2: where the title character played by Tom Hanks, after being
41:18
Speaker 2: discharged from the military because I believe the bullet flew
41:22
Speaker 2: up and bit him in the butt.
41:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get a billion dollars wound a ticket home,
41:26
Speaker 1: that's right. So a bullet that takes about a service
41:30
Speaker 1: and puts him in the hospital for a little bit.
41:34
Speaker 1: But does it ruin his life?
41:36
Speaker 2: No, And I think it's in the hospital that he
41:38
Speaker 2: just gradually starts to enjoy playing table tennis, because that's,
41:42
Speaker 2: you know, again, while it is a serious sport at
41:44
Speaker 2: this time, or it's beginning to be, it's also still
41:47
Speaker 2: a fun parlor game, you know. And he, of course
41:51
Speaker 2: is also an elite American football player, a shrimp boat captain,
41:56
Speaker 2: and a professional table tennis player. And one thing I'll
41:59
Speaker 2: always remember about that scene where they're recreating footage of
42:04
Speaker 2: him playing table tennis is that the balls were moving
42:07
Speaker 2: so fast that they were animated in the ball. And
42:09
Speaker 2: that was like, at the time, a really big deal
42:12
Speaker 2: in you know, special effects.
42:14
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, especially because it was so subtle. You know,
42:19
Speaker 1: it looked believable. It was quite impressive, you know. And
42:22
Speaker 1: we also, okay, we also see a wonderful easter egg
42:27
Speaker 1: that I wasn't aware of. I actually had to go
42:30
Speaker 1: back and watch this sequence after you pointed this out
42:33
Speaker 1: in your research. The director, Robert Zemeckis does something really clever,
42:39
Speaker 1: and it's a special gift for actual ping pong fans.
42:44
Speaker 1: It's all about the grip. Remember we mentioned the Chinese
42:47
Speaker 1: service when Forrest is picking up the ping pong paddle.
42:52
Speaker 1: Originally he uses the traditional grip what we call the
42:56
Speaker 1: shake hand grip, kind of like how you would hold
42:58
Speaker 1: a hand mirror.
43:00
Speaker 2: Right, Can I just say, why do they call it
43:01
Speaker 2: the shake hand grip and not the handshake grip? That
43:04
Speaker 2: just makes that boils my blood? Yeah, that shaa, it
43:08
Speaker 2: really does, man, that's cool. Yeah, it is. It is
43:11
Speaker 2: the grip that would be typically used by players today.
43:17
Speaker 2: He continues to use this grip until he travels to China,
43:21
Speaker 2: where he sees players using a grip that was much
43:24
Speaker 2: more popular over there, called the penholed grip, which is
43:27
Speaker 2: an alternate style of holding the paddle that had been
43:30
Speaker 2: popularized over there and was you know, favored by Chinese players,
43:34
Speaker 2: especially in the heights of its rise there in the
43:38
Speaker 2: mid twentieth century. He uses this grip later in the film.
43:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and this he's using this gript specifically towards
43:49
Speaker 1: the end of the film when he plays the game
43:52
Speaker 1: with spoiler his son Forrest. She sees dead people, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
43:58
Speaker 1: that's the spoiler for sixth sense. The whole time, that's
44:01
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis. He's just playing a different character.
44:04
Speaker 2: It's true. No, we're talking about a little baby. Haley
44:07
Speaker 2: Joel Osmon big big winner and cleaned up at the
44:10
Speaker 2: Oscars Best Picture, Best Director for Zamecha's Best Adapted Screenplay,
44:16
Speaker 2: Best Editing, Best Visual Effects. There were a couple other
44:20
Speaker 2: really good, low key, brilliant effects where it's like showing
44:25
Speaker 2: gump in you know, imposed into historical events really really
44:29
Speaker 2: thoughtfully and creatively and convincingly. Rather yeah, and with.
44:34
Speaker 1: Some alarming historical accuracy, because Lyndon Johnson was known to
44:39
Speaker 1: be fascinated by scars. That's why that's why when he's
44:43
Speaker 1: talking to Forrest Gump in that scene.
44:46
Speaker 2: I'd like to say that something yeah, and he moons him.
44:51
Speaker 1: We also would be remiss if we didn't mention that
44:53
Speaker 1: there was a Forrest Gump is based on a novel,
44:57
Speaker 1: and there was supposed to be a sequel because of
44:59
Speaker 1: the man success of the film adaptation.
45:02
Speaker 2: There was a sequel to the novel, but they didn't
45:04
Speaker 2: make it into a movie.
45:05
Speaker 1: Because the guy who actually wrote the story, unfortunately he
45:09
Speaker 1: got hollywooded out of his share of the profits, so
45:13
Speaker 1: he didn't really make a dime out of it. That's
45:15
Speaker 1: why there's not a Forrest Gump sequel. It's a tangent,
45:17
Speaker 1: but it's important for us to mention it.
45:20
Speaker 2: I did also read something interesting too about how like
45:22
Speaker 2: they ran out of money on production of Forrest Gump,
45:25
Speaker 2: and there were some sequences that they weren't going to
45:27
Speaker 2: be able to shoot. But Tom Hanks, like I think
45:30
Speaker 2: he exchanged a big part of his salary for like
45:33
Speaker 2: points on the back end, which obviously ended up working
45:35
Speaker 2: on in his favor, but he like donated his salary
45:39
Speaker 2: to help pay for some of these sequences that they
45:41
Speaker 2: like didn't have the money to do.
45:43
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks seems like a stand up guy man, and
45:45
Speaker 1: true she.
45:46
Speaker 2: Just canceled out as don't know why, I don't know
45:48
Speaker 2: what to do. It's not gonna happen.
45:50
Speaker 1: We'll have good life to pause the show for like
45:52
Speaker 1: a week to mourn. But what one cool Tom Hanks
45:56
Speaker 1: fact is he is We mentioned this on another show somewhere,
46:00
Speaker 1: but he is super duper into old school typewriters, so
46:06
Speaker 1: much so the word on the street is if you
46:08
Speaker 1: write him a letter on your typewriter, he will take
46:12
Speaker 1: out one of his typewriters and type a letter back
46:15
Speaker 1: to you. So ti him up.
46:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, on another one of our discussions recently, it must
46:19
Speaker 2: have been on stuff they don't want you to know.
46:20
Speaker 2: Check us out on Netflix, by the.
46:22
Speaker 1: Way, Oh nice segue. Yeah, we are as of this week,
46:27
Speaker 1: live and direct with two new episodes per week on Netflix.
46:32
Speaker 1: So if you're thinking, ah, I'd love to give the
46:35
Speaker 1: guys a rating or a review, or oh I'd love
46:38
Speaker 1: to hear more strange things from these Jibroni's, then Hi,
46:44
Speaker 1: the to Netflix and click the remind me button and
46:48
Speaker 1: then click the little thumbs up button. That'll be a
46:52
Speaker 1: massive help to us. And we couldn't thank you more, folks.
46:56
Speaker 1: And no, I can't thank you more for this awesome
46:59
Speaker 1: research which really makes you want to want to play
47:02
Speaker 1: Ping pong. Not at the Chandler's level, but.
47:05
Speaker 2: Just no, I'm sure that guy's brutal at a restaurant somewhere.
47:10
Speaker 2: We're gonna wrap it up to just dovetail back to
47:13
Speaker 2: how we started the episodes talking about Marty Supreme. So
47:16
Speaker 2: I'm very much excited to see You know, it's still
47:18
Speaker 2: in cinemas. Do check it out if you want to
47:20
Speaker 2: get out to the movies. I am going to try
47:23
Speaker 2: to catch it before it leaves, but I also think
47:25
Speaker 2: it'd probably be cool to watch at home. There is
47:28
Speaker 2: a dude that The Marty Supreme character portrayed by Timmy
47:31
Speaker 2: Challamey is based on a guy named Marty Resman, who
47:34
Speaker 2: is an award winning table tennis player. Born in New
47:38
Speaker 2: York City in the Lower East Side to Russian Jewish
47:41
Speaker 2: immigrant parents in nineteen thirty. He got really into table
47:46
Speaker 2: tennis as a kid, and in an interview with Forbes
47:48
Speaker 2: magazine in two thousand and five, said that he learned
47:51
Speaker 2: how to play at a local community center after having
47:54
Speaker 2: some significance nervous issues. Let's just say I mean term
48:00
Speaker 2: nervous breakdown. I find to be a little bit hyperbolic,
48:02
Speaker 2: but it does seem that as a young man or
48:05
Speaker 2: young like a nine year old, he was dealing with
48:07
Speaker 2: some anxiety and some difficulties there and this helped him
48:11
Speaker 2: kind of focus a bit. Yeah, And he used it
48:14
Speaker 2: initially as an escape for quickly.
48:16
Speaker 1: In recovery just so wound, Yeah, just.
48:19
Speaker 2: So, and then used it as a as a means
48:22
Speaker 2: to a career and became real competitive at thirteen.
48:25
Speaker 1: And he was known for an aggressive, flashy playing style.
48:30
Speaker 1: He had his own signature super moved the atomic blast,
48:34
Speaker 1: which was.
48:36
Speaker 2: Going to be a massive spike right right.
48:38
Speaker 1: One hundred and fifteen miles per hour. This guy, and
48:42
Speaker 1: he was also similar to Michael Jordan. He was no
48:48
Speaker 1: stranger to the world of gambling and the whims of fate.
48:53
Speaker 1: He would place bets on himself.
48:56
Speaker 2: Hey, you know what they say, bet on yourself, you know, right.
48:59
Speaker 1: Right, And we know that when he was fifteen years old,
49:04
Speaker 1: still a very very young person, a child, his reputation
49:09
Speaker 1: for a hustling people as a ping pong shark came
49:12
Speaker 1: back to haunt him. He bet five hundred bucks on
49:16
Speaker 1: himself at a national tournament in Detroit, but he accidentally
49:21
Speaker 1: handed the money not to a bookie but to the
49:25
Speaker 1: head of the United States Table Tennis Association.
49:28
Speaker 2: And I say we leave it there as not to
49:30
Speaker 2: spoil any events of the movie Marty Supreme, But yeah,
49:35
Speaker 2: do check it out. It sounds like a romp that's
49:37
Speaker 2: gonna have involved table tennis Tyler the creators in it.
49:41
Speaker 2: Oh cool. I just I'm very excited to see it.
49:43
Speaker 2: But this has been a super fun episode, a lot
49:45
Speaker 2: more involved than I would have expected, almost two partner material,
49:50
Speaker 2: but not quiet wouldn't have been a good place to
49:51
Speaker 2: break it. So we give you. We gift you with
49:54
Speaker 2: this beefy episode of ridiculous history.
49:57
Speaker 1: And thanks as always to our super producer mister Max Williams.
50:01
Speaker 1: Thanks to aj Bahamas Jacobs and you know what I'm
50:05
Speaker 1: going to say it I don't always do it, but
50:07
Speaker 1: an actual thank you to Jonathan Strickland aka the quister
50:12
Speaker 1: who wrote the Human Ping Pong Ball Human ping Pong Ball,
50:15
Speaker 1: who wrote us a very nice message about getting on Netflix.
50:19
Speaker 1: So thank you, Jy.
50:20
Speaker 2: I'm Joey. I love the guy.
50:21
Speaker 1: He's all right, three out of five.
50:23
Speaker 2: He's a good dude. Yeah, and thanks to you, Ben,
50:26
Speaker 2: this is a lot of fun. Thanks super producer Max
50:27
Speaker 2: of course, Alex Williams who composed this theme, Chris Frasciotis
50:31
Speaker 2: and Eaves, Jeff Coates, Aaron Spirit.
50:33
Speaker 1: Thanks for the awesome research here, Noel, and thanks to
50:36
Speaker 1: the rude dudes of Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us,
50:39
Speaker 1: you'll love them.
50:40
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time.
50:41
Speaker 4: Books.
50:48
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
50:52
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.