Latest / Ridiculous History / The Rise and Fall of the Flea Circus, Part 1

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The Rise and Fall of the Flea Circus, Part 1 · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
0:31
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in today. Uh. This this is
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Speaker 1: a weird one and it's it's gonna go a lot
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Speaker 1: of places. No, but it's gonna start with fun fact.
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Speaker 1: One of the very few animals on this planet that
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Speaker 1: I actually don't care for. You know, I'm a real
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Speaker 1: I'm a real softy when it comes to animals in general.
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Speaker 1: I know you're a real animal lover band and my
0:54
Speaker 1: name is Nol and I'm a I'm an animal liker.
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Speaker 1: I don't have a lover and I know that in
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Speaker 1: your book that would probably make me something of a sociopath.
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Speaker 1: But I promise I'm a nice person. I do like animals.
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Speaker 1: I just you know, there's something I could take her leave. Well,
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Speaker 1: you know, we can agree on the subject of today's
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Speaker 1: episode for sure, I mean the best of us. Uh.
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Speaker 1: Super producer Casey Pegram probably doesn't even like these animals.
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Speaker 1: He's on Adventures, so he might not have a comment today.
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Speaker 1: But I think it's safe for us to say that
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Speaker 1: all three of us are fairly anti fleet. The three Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: the three of us, me, you, and super producer Casey Pegram.
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Speaker 1: That's right. But but to bury the lead here, we
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Speaker 1: have a fourth today. Well, actually it's it's a it's
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Speaker 1: a third because case he's on adventures. So, uh, we've
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Speaker 1: been teasing this for an age, but we're finally making
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Speaker 1: good on our promise to bring back to ridiculous history.
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Speaker 1: I present to you. Oh hey, thanks guys, very very nice.
2:05
Speaker 1: Welcome back. I feel I feel good to be here.
2:08
Speaker 1: I know last time we we chatted about cats for
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Speaker 1: a good long while, so it's only fitting I think that, uh,
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Speaker 1: we talked about another kind of animal often associated with
2:18
Speaker 1: cats today. Oh that's right. It didn't even occur to me.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it couldn't be a more like polar opposite
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Speaker 1: in terms of I don't know, maybe there's similarities. Uh,
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Speaker 1: you know, cats can be a little aloof and perhaps
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Speaker 1: there's some aloof fleas out there. I don't know. Man,
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Speaker 1: fleas are pretty extroverted. They're like they're they're all about it. Uh.
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Speaker 1: I hate them, but I'm fascinated by their abilities. If
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Speaker 1: they were person size, and you know, the environment was such,
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Speaker 1: the animals with their kind of carapists could survive at
2:49
Speaker 1: that size, they would be a world ending threat. And
2:52
Speaker 1: how do they hop like that? How do they hop?
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Speaker 1: It's those legs, man, it's those uh, those powerful back legs.
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Speaker 1: But I think they're so tiny, look little they look
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Speaker 1: so I mean again, not that I've ever actually examined
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Speaker 1: a flee up close. Um, they really just look like
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Speaker 1: little specs when you look at them with the naked eye.
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Speaker 1: But contained within those little black specs are multitudes. This
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Speaker 1: is interesting. So gave one approach I thought would be
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Speaker 1: illuminating today. Uh, would be for maybe you to tell
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Speaker 1: us a little bit about what inspired you to go
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Speaker 1: down this let's not call the rabbit hole, Let's call
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Speaker 1: it this, this flee hole. What what brought you into
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Speaker 1: this uh strange circus of obscure research. Yeah, that's actually
3:36
Speaker 1: an easy answer. It is Jurassic Park. Um. That's uh
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Speaker 1: the first movie I actually have any memory of watching
3:44
Speaker 1: as a kid, and I returned to it pretty frequently
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Speaker 1: because it's a great movie and um, one of the
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Speaker 1: scenes that always stuck with me it was my you know,
3:52
Speaker 1: that movie was my first introduction to a lot of
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Speaker 1: things dinosaurs, theme parks, uh, shirtless Jeff Goldbloom and also
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Speaker 1: flee circuses. Um, if you recalled, there's that scene towards
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Speaker 1: the end of the movie where John Hammond, the creator
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Speaker 1: of Jurassic Park Wax, is philosophical about one of his
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Speaker 1: older careers how he started out in the entertainment business. Uh,
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Speaker 1: And it was with a flee circus, and that was
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Speaker 1: the first time I had ever heard of such a thing.
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Speaker 1: They really colored the way I looked at it. From
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Speaker 1: then on, I assumed, like if you'll remember, his circus
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Speaker 1: was a mechanical one, right, Like all of the attractions
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Speaker 1: were run by gears and switches and that kind of thing.
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Speaker 1: And there were actually no fleas featured. That colored my
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Speaker 1: way of looking at flee circuses. Uh pretty much up
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Speaker 1: until about a week ago, I guess. Um, I assumed
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Speaker 1: they were all fake and I gotta do it. Though.
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Speaker 1: As John Hammond would have say, was we flease on trapeze, Yes, exactly,
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Speaker 1: that's exactly right. We flease on trapeze so good. He
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Speaker 1: really nailed it, that cadence I of his lilting delivery.
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Speaker 1: But fun fact, I didn't know this until recently. And
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Speaker 1: I'm sure many people are gonna just say, like donel uh,
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Speaker 1: the actor that played John Hammond is David Attenborough's brother. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's right. I actually I included a link in our
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Speaker 1: our research doc about with Um atton Borough talking about
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Speaker 1: flee circuses. He's he's got one in front of him.
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Speaker 1: So I always thought when when I thought of flee circuses,
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Speaker 1: I perhaps unfairly, well definitely unfairly relegated them to the
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Speaker 1: world of of novelty tents in the circus, you know,
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Speaker 1: the stuff on the periphery, like Okay, sorry, Johnny, we
5:43
Speaker 1: uh we got here too late to see the lion
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Speaker 1: tamer and the elephants. But there I can technically tell
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Speaker 1: your mother that I did take you to see some animals.
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Speaker 1: Come with me to the little tent. Yeah. It's like
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Speaker 1: a C tier attraction, right and yeah, um yeah, that's
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Speaker 1: kind of how I looked at it too, especially since
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Speaker 1: you know, in my mind it was all fake. But
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Speaker 1: what I found out in researching for this episode is
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Speaker 1: that it wasn't always like that. Back in the original
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Speaker 1: days of flea circuses, there were actual, real live fleas
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Speaker 1: um performing. There was no mechanical allusion to it, so
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Speaker 1: fleas can be trained. Was that what you're saying, Uh, yeah,
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Speaker 1: all right, okay, so so some some hucksterism involved on
6:33
Speaker 1: in both genre definitely. Yeah. Well, one thing that was
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Speaker 1: interesting to me, uh that was fascinated to find out
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Speaker 1: was that leading up to their career in the circus,
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Speaker 1: fleas actually had had another job in entertainment. They were
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Speaker 1: kind of like a Vana White or kind of like
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Speaker 1: those models that you know, lounge on exotic sports cars
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Speaker 1: it convence ins. Uh this was I mean, cars weren't
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Speaker 1: invented at this time, but they were. They were like
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Speaker 1: a an add on piece of advertising for watchmakers. Right, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's right. It's a very disturbing image you've painted of
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Speaker 1: giant fleas lounging on cars, but uh yeah, it's it's
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Speaker 1: accurate more or less because the origins of flea based entertainment,
7:25
Speaker 1: I guess we can call it goes all the way
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Speaker 1: back to the fifteen hundreds with watchmakers, as you mentioned
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Speaker 1: in Jewelers too. I guess I don't want to leave
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Speaker 1: them out, but uh yeah, the first the first guy
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Speaker 1: to do this on record was this London watchmaker named
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Speaker 1: Mark Scaliot. I think, what do you guys think, Scalio Scott,
7:44
Speaker 1: We're going with that. It wouldn't be an episode of
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Speaker 1: ridiculous history. We didn't like waffle struggling for a pronunciation,
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Speaker 1: So thank you for keeping the spirit of the show ALIVEE.
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Speaker 1: And he he's from He's from London, so Scaliat is
7:56
Speaker 1: probably pretty close. We'd be in deeper water if he
7:59
Speaker 1: would to you know, Eastern European. Then it's anybody's game.
8:03
Speaker 1: Who even knows where that is? Um? But yeah, so
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Speaker 1: this guy Mark Scaliott, which is definitely how you say
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Speaker 1: his name, he's credited with having made uh let's let
8:15
Speaker 1: me find the good description here. Uh So he made
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Speaker 1: a lock which consisted of eleven pieces of iron, steel,
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Speaker 1: and brass, all of which um together, you know, made
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Speaker 1: this little lock which had a key to it. And
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Speaker 1: if you added all that stuff up, it was so
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Speaker 1: small It only weighed the equivalent of one grain of gold.
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Speaker 1: So this was super super tiny stuff. But he didn't
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Speaker 1: just make this lock and key system. He also made
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Speaker 1: other very tiny objects and the idea was to kind
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Speaker 1: of flout his craftsmanship, right, he could work um with
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Speaker 1: these you know, very intricate tiny details, um, like the
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Speaker 1: inner workings of a watch or you know, the clasp
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Speaker 1: of a necklace or whatever. So to kind of show
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Speaker 1: off his skills as a watchmaker, he would make these
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Speaker 1: very tiny little objects that still functioned like the lock
9:02
Speaker 1: and key system. But he didn't stop there. He also
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Speaker 1: made a chain of gold that consisted of forty three links,
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Speaker 1: and once he had that made, he would actually attach
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Speaker 1: it to the neck of a flee. What flee, flossy?
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Speaker 1: Did he have something going on with that flee? Was
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Speaker 1: that like his side flee? Unclear? But he did not
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Speaker 1: want to let it out of his sight. He actually
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Speaker 1: yoked this little guy with this kind of golden leash
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Speaker 1: that he made. And this was a way again of
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Speaker 1: kind of advertising his services. I assume he was doing this,
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Speaker 1: you know, maybe in the his shop window or you know,
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Speaker 1: just outside of his shop in the street. And um,
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Speaker 1: the idea was, you know, see what fine work I
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Speaker 1: can do on this tiny level. You know, if I
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Speaker 1: can do this with a flee, if I can leash
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Speaker 1: a flee, then surely I can handle you know, gears
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Speaker 1: and and springs and stuff inside of watch We've all
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Speaker 1: been there, you know what I mean, We've all had
9:55
Speaker 1: that thought process, right, Yeah, only watchmaker in the crowd. Well,
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Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by it. It It just seems like a lot
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Speaker 1: of work and a lot of tiny parts that I
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Speaker 1: would likely lose very quickly, and then you know, you
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Speaker 1: lose one little gear and your whole watches shot. So
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Speaker 1: I leave that to the professionals. Yeah, I think that's
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Speaker 1: a good call. Yeah, I should point out the watches
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Speaker 1: I make are are huge, because otherwise I would instantly
10:20
Speaker 1: lose all kinds of stuff. That's what we used for
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Speaker 1: the timer and the quister segment. That's true, But be
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Speaker 1: careful with that Wendel. We've been getting away with it
10:27
Speaker 1: for so long. I think what you guys are describing
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Speaker 1: as a clock, right, okay guy, but alright, Dr Professor
10:38
Speaker 1: over here, I found out up your brakes on those degrees.
10:47
Speaker 1: But you're describing something that I think is going to
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Speaker 1: give a lot of folks in the crowd today. Uh
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Speaker 1: an immediate question, and I think it's a question will
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Speaker 1: come up multiple times in this episode. Fleas are just
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Speaker 1: so so very small. I feel like the casual passer
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Speaker 1: by would just be able to see the chain right
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Speaker 1: unless they were very close, or there was a magnifying glass,
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Speaker 1: or maybe there's oh you know what, maybe it is
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Speaker 1: It's not a lot of people could afford watches in
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Speaker 1: the first place, so he's probably presenting these maybe right
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Speaker 1: to his limited customer base. Yeah, well, I'm not so
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Speaker 1: sure about all of the details, but I do know
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Speaker 1: that he wasn't relying on people's eyesight, right, He wasn't.
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Speaker 1: He wasn't taking the flee for a walk on this
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Speaker 1: little golden leash by himself. Instead, he made another very tiny,
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Speaker 1: you know, handmade object, a chariot. And once you got
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Speaker 1: the chariot and you have your harness and you have
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Speaker 1: a little tiny flea to pull it, I mean, you
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Speaker 1: got yourself a street show, right, Like that's gonna that's
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Speaker 1: gonna catch some eyes. How is this chariot moving right? Right?
11:58
Speaker 1: I think the word you're looking for his parade. Parade
12:02
Speaker 1: is what it is. What they call that. Sorry, I'm
12:04
Speaker 1: just I'm just being pedantic back at you, So I
12:06
Speaker 1: appreciate that. But no, I mean this really was though.
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Speaker 1: This was how these guys would advertise. It started in
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Speaker 1: the late fifteen hundreds, but they were doing this all
12:16
Speaker 1: through the seventeen hundreds. Like this took off. It's not
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Speaker 1: an isolated thing. We can question why, you know it
12:22
Speaker 1: was a different era, but for whatever reason, people were
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Speaker 1: really drawn in by this. So the really interesting thing
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Speaker 1: about this time to me is that the fleas weren't
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Speaker 1: really the star of these watchmakers and jewelry uh and
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Speaker 1: these jewelers shows. It was really the miniature objects that
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Speaker 1: were that they were making. Those were the stars, um,
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Speaker 1: the little chariot, the little lock and key, the little
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Speaker 1: tiny harness, and that seems, you know, kind of strange.
12:50
Speaker 1: But at the time, again, we're in like the seventeen hundreds. Now,
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Speaker 1: people in northern Europe, you know, countries like Germany and
12:57
Speaker 1: Holland and England, they were like way into many at
13:00
Speaker 1: your houses or cabinet houses as they called them. I mean,
13:04
Speaker 1: we would just call them doll houses, but these were
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Speaker 1: adult doll houses. They weren't really four kids, and they
13:10
Speaker 1: often didn't even have dolls in them. It was it
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Speaker 1: was kind of like the feminine counterpart to the cabinet
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Speaker 1: of curiosities. So, you know, the husband would gather all
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Speaker 1: of these kind of you know, eccentric, eclectic, exotic objects
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Speaker 1: from his travels and store them in this cabinet and
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Speaker 1: show them off to visitors who would come over. But
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Speaker 1: women of the era didn't get out of the house
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Speaker 1: so much. So what they would do instead was they
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Speaker 1: would build a miniature house in a cabinet and they
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Speaker 1: would have these, you know, super detailed tiny pieces of
13:44
Speaker 1: furniture and utensils and other household objects, and they would
13:48
Speaker 1: just go to town decorating this thing. And when they
13:50
Speaker 1: had visitors over, they would walk them through each of
13:53
Speaker 1: the little miniature rooms these witnessed. Indeed, it's funny. There
13:59
Speaker 1: was a bit of a moment not terribly long ago,
14:02
Speaker 1: or maybe a few years ago, where there were really
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Speaker 1: popular YouTube videos of uh, this thing that was big
14:07
Speaker 1: in Japan of like cooking tiny food with right, I
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Speaker 1: gain it was never not, I don't. I mean, it
14:14
Speaker 1: could certainly could have been, but the ones I saw
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Speaker 1: were just for the pure pleasure of it. But they
14:17
Speaker 1: would be like on a tiny stove where you'd put
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Speaker 1: a little one of those like uh what we call
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Speaker 1: those candles, t tea light candles like inside this tiny
14:25
Speaker 1: stove and then put a tiny thing and they scramble
14:27
Speaker 1: a tiny egg or just a little bit of egg
14:29
Speaker 1: and make a tiny omelet and plate it and then
14:31
Speaker 1: have Chinese chopsticks on. It was a whole phenomenon. It
14:34
Speaker 1: seems to have gone away, but clearly uh you know,
14:37
Speaker 1: similar vibes there. Oh yeah, it's still yeah, it's still there.
14:40
Speaker 1: What's interesting about that is that in this case it
14:43
Speaker 1: seems that those hamsters or rodents were themselves and sillery
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Speaker 1: to the larger conceit of building the or cooking very
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Speaker 1: tiny food, just like the fleas were kind of just
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Speaker 1: a new like a little action figure to put in
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Speaker 1: your vultron of whatever cool toy you were showing off.
15:04
Speaker 1: And then you know, that way, maybe when you had
15:07
Speaker 1: people over, they would be more likely to visit because
15:10
Speaker 1: they would be like, I cannot go to Wilhelms again.
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Speaker 1: All he does is show us those miniatures. And then
15:17
Speaker 1: someone says, no, he's got he's got uh you know,
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Speaker 1: it's active now and he's got fleets and and how
15:24
Speaker 1: dare you call it a toy? This is this is
15:27
Speaker 1: an artifact. This is an artifact. That's yeah, no, that's
15:32
Speaker 1: exactly right. There's a strange long history of of kind
15:36
Speaker 1: of miniatures being paired with with showmanship and and being
15:40
Speaker 1: made into some kind of an attraction, whether it was
15:42
Speaker 1: just walking your visitors, you're forcing your visitors to appreciate
15:46
Speaker 1: your tiny little house, or making a little chariot and
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Speaker 1: harnessing a fleet. It was all about the small object
15:53
Speaker 1: at first. Um, but that started to change because of
15:57
Speaker 1: one man from Italy, acclaimed showman known as Here we Go.
16:04
Speaker 1: This one's gonna be a little harder. Let's say, Louis Burdetti,
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Speaker 1: There we go, Bert Lotto. Yeah, that's I think between
16:15
Speaker 1: the three of us, our powers combined, we have a
16:17
Speaker 1: halfway decent pronunciation. I hear. The key is to is
16:22
Speaker 1: to move your hands when you say it, sort of
16:25
Speaker 1: throw your hands up when you hit that. Uh that
16:28
Speaker 1: l Okay, I got it. I think I got it.
16:32
Speaker 1: Oh boy, keep digging this hole. But but yeah, this
16:36
Speaker 1: this guy is already a showman, right. He's not having
16:40
Speaker 1: one of those moments where he's working as a as
16:43
Speaker 1: a clerk or something and and takes a hard pivot
16:47
Speaker 1: in his life. He is. He's in the eighteen hundreds though,
16:52
Speaker 1: right some time after the Watchmaker craze. Yeah, I'm my
16:56
Speaker 1: understanding is, you know the Watchmaker. Things started in fifteen
16:59
Speaker 1: seven to eight with that guy we mentioned, that went
17:02
Speaker 1: pretty much all through the seventeen hundreds with still this
17:06
Speaker 1: only kind of being used to advertise watches and jewelry
17:10
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing. Um. And it was in
17:12
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, so a little while later, um where
17:15
Speaker 1: the focus kind of shifted and the fleas became the
17:18
Speaker 1: star of the show, um instead of the miniature set pieces.
17:22
Speaker 1: And we have this paradigm shift thanks to this Italian
17:25
Speaker 1: impressario we mentioned Louis Bertelatto who made his living in
17:31
Speaker 1: London and decided to put the fleas to work. Basically, yeah, yeah,
17:36
Speaker 1: so he he saw an opportunity and we know that
17:40
Speaker 1: he would have been aware of this context, right, he
17:42
Speaker 1: would have. He was not the first person think of this. Uh,
17:46
Speaker 1: but at the time, what I what I get the
17:50
Speaker 1: sense of from some of the research you dove into,
17:55
Speaker 1: is that it's not like maybe he was particularly financially desperate,
18:01
Speaker 1: but he hadn't really made it to the upper echelons
18:05
Speaker 1: of being an impresario. So this this is something that's
18:09
Speaker 1: maybe new to his area. It has that tinge of otherness,
18:13
Speaker 1: and then it's also original because at this point where
18:18
Speaker 1: he's at in Italy, nobody is gonna blow it up
18:21
Speaker 1: as much as he is. He's he's the he's like
18:25
Speaker 1: the guy who said, let's make the flee the star
18:29
Speaker 1: of the show. And and economically it makes sense because look,
18:33
Speaker 1: we're very careful not to dunk on the past here
18:36
Speaker 1: on ridiculous history, but some observations are true, and one
18:39
Speaker 1: of those observations is, uh, there were a lot of
18:42
Speaker 1: fleas in Europe at the time. It was it was
18:45
Speaker 1: very it was not expensive to get them the way
18:48
Speaker 1: it would be to like get a tiger or Yeah,
18:52
Speaker 1: that's that's absolutely true. It made economic sense. I mean,
18:56
Speaker 1: I think this guy was a bit of a self
18:58
Speaker 1: proclaimed impresario. Like I don't think anyone at the top
19:02
Speaker 1: of their game is like, I know what I'm gonna
19:04
Speaker 1: do now, the next natural step is a flea circus.
19:07
Speaker 1: But he had entrepreneur in his Facebook. Yeah, yeah, top
19:11
Speaker 1: of his game. But no, Yeah, he saw these watchmakers
19:14
Speaker 1: and jewelers doing this kind of thing, and he was like, well, okay,
19:17
Speaker 1: I don't know how to make a tiny chariot or
19:19
Speaker 1: anything like that, and I'm not interested in selling watches,
19:21
Speaker 1: but like, you guys have been burying the lead here right, Like,
19:25
Speaker 1: these fleas are pulling chariots, and like, what else can
19:28
Speaker 1: we get them to do? So he rounded up a
19:30
Speaker 1: bunch of them and he started, you know, um either
19:34
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if he built the sets himself or
19:35
Speaker 1: if he commissioned them, but one way or the other,
19:38
Speaker 1: he put together a little circus um and he had
19:41
Speaker 1: he had the old favorites, right like his fleas pulled
19:44
Speaker 1: tiny carriages and chariots just like the other guys. But
19:48
Speaker 1: he also had dancing fleas, and the music they danced
19:51
Speaker 1: to was provided by an orchestra which was also composed
19:54
Speaker 1: of fleas playing tiny little instruments. And so that was
19:58
Speaker 1: something like beyond with the jewel ers and watchmakers had
20:01
Speaker 1: done before. But Bertolucto took things even further than that
20:06
Speaker 1: because he actually had his fleas like reenact the Battle
20:10
Speaker 1: of Waterloo. That was his big act. And remember this
20:14
Speaker 1: was in the eighteen thirties, so it had only been
20:17
Speaker 1: like fifteen years since that battle, like it wasn't that
20:21
Speaker 1: long ago. Which is that? That's my question? Is that
20:25
Speaker 1: im poor taste? Like if fifteen years after um an
20:31
Speaker 1: intense conflict in Vietnam, I don't think people would want
20:35
Speaker 1: to see that re enacted by animals. I don't know,
20:37
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm putting human judgment on too much of a
20:40
Speaker 1: high horse. Well, I think you know, history has shown
20:43
Speaker 1: us that people very much wanted to see this. They
20:48
Speaker 1: this guy rounded up four hundred and thirty five fleas
20:51
Speaker 1: for this performance. He dressed them all in little outfits.
20:54
Speaker 1: He put them in golden saddles, um on these chariots,
20:58
Speaker 1: carrying tiny little swords, and he held these mock battles
21:01
Speaker 1: and that was kind of, you know, the main attraction
21:04
Speaker 1: of his circus. And people ate it up like he
21:07
Speaker 1: was incredibly successful. He actually took this thing on tour
21:11
Speaker 1: for over fifty years. Um, so for half a century
21:15
Speaker 1: he was making a living off of this, this flee circus.
21:18
Speaker 1: Oh wow. Uh. And it wasn't always the same cast,
21:23
Speaker 1: I imagine, unless I am incredibly wrong about the lifespan
21:27
Speaker 1: of fleas. No, yeah, you got that part right. That's
21:31
Speaker 1: uh one of the downsides to the businesses. There's a
21:34
Speaker 1: lot of turnover. Yeah. I gotta ask, like, what would
21:42
Speaker 1: I see visually? I don't understand how would he even
21:44
Speaker 1: do this like a flee. Maybe I'm not I'm not
21:47
Speaker 1: a flee expert, but it seems so small, Like what
21:50
Speaker 1: does an outfit look like for a fleet? How do
21:52
Speaker 1: you even get a sword? And a fleas hand claw.
21:56
Speaker 1: I don't understand the logistics of this escaped me. Yeah,
21:59
Speaker 1: it ain't he but I mean that's the question, right
22:02
Speaker 1: you have you I think you were kind of hinting
22:04
Speaker 1: at it earlier. Why was anyone doing this? Why put
22:07
Speaker 1: fleas in a circus? Like? Why fleas? Right? And I
22:10
Speaker 1: think Ben you already mentioned these things were really prevalent,
22:13
Speaker 1: especially at the time, like way more so in the
22:16
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds than we would find today. And they were
22:19
Speaker 1: also quick to reproduce. And you know, they drank human
22:22
Speaker 1: blood so they were easy to feed, right, didn't they
22:25
Speaker 1: also spread plague well, diseases in general, you know? Yeah,
22:31
Speaker 1: So this is one important clarification. These weren't dog fleas,
22:36
Speaker 1: they weren't cat fleas. There weren't rat fleas. There were
22:38
Speaker 1: over two thousand, apparently different god species of fleas in
22:41
Speaker 1: the world. And uh, these were human fleas um, which
22:45
Speaker 1: we don't see or interact with too much now, but
22:48
Speaker 1: of course they're still out there. It's still a thing. Uh.
22:50
Speaker 1: They're also you'll find them on pigs a lot, not
22:53
Speaker 1: just humans. Um. These human fleas were everywhere. People had
22:57
Speaker 1: them in their beds. It was a worldwide pest um.
23:00
Speaker 1: So one thing about these human fleas is they were
23:02
Speaker 1: a little bigger than your average flee. Okay, yeah, so
23:07
Speaker 1: you know, a dog flee might be like two and
23:09
Speaker 1: a half millimeters. These guys were four so big boys.
23:14
Speaker 1: Would this would this be sort of akin to what
23:16
Speaker 1: we think of as bedbugs today or is that something different?
23:19
Speaker 1: That's where people would would encounter them the most under
23:22
Speaker 1: their bed covers and you would get race itchy, like
23:24
Speaker 1: there's actually there's a Laurel and Hardy And to Charlie
23:28
Speaker 1: Chaplin films where these human fleas are like a big
23:31
Speaker 1: part of the plot, it was it was a thing.
23:35
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure high jinks commenced. And so this
23:39
Speaker 1: is uh, this is interesting because since he has embarked
23:44
Speaker 1: upon this quite successful multidecade career, uh, Bertolato is getting
23:49
Speaker 1: around and he kind of spreads this uh he he
23:55
Speaker 1: spreads this novelty act to places that have probably I
24:01
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe never heard of it before or never
24:03
Speaker 1: seen it or have been familiar. Like if you're the
24:06
Speaker 1: average person in say North America, when he's at the
24:10
Speaker 1: height of his career, would would you have heard of
24:15
Speaker 1: the concept of flee circuses or would you have heard
24:18
Speaker 1: of the concept of Bertolatto's flee circus. I think you
24:21
Speaker 1: would have heard of it and and not seen it,
24:23
Speaker 1: and had been very curious to see it. So maybe
24:27
Speaker 1: you read a report on it. Maybe there was a
24:28
Speaker 1: friend who you know, visited Europe and came back and
24:31
Speaker 1: told you there's this crazy thing over there. They got fleas,
24:34
Speaker 1: moving chariots. They're putting these guys to work. Why aren't
24:37
Speaker 1: we doing that here? Um? And at least one guy
24:41
Speaker 1: agreed In the early nineteen hundreds, an American named William
24:44
Speaker 1: Heckler was one of the first guys to kind of
24:47
Speaker 1: take this idea and run with it in North America.
24:50
Speaker 1: Also the inventor of the Heckel Right yeah, of course, right, um,
24:55
Speaker 1: he heckled his own circus, but uh yeah, and it
24:59
Speaker 1: took off here too. Like his circus could bring in
25:01
Speaker 1: more than two hundred and fifty dollars in admittance fees,
25:05
Speaker 1: you know, for a single showing, which is you know,
25:07
Speaker 1: well over three grand in today's money, So not bad, right,
25:12
Speaker 1: not bad at all? Um. And you know other copycats
25:15
Speaker 1: came along too in North America and in Europe. Everybody
25:18
Speaker 1: kind of got in on this. They started taking these
25:21
Speaker 1: flea circuses on the road, going from town to town,
25:23
Speaker 1: like you know, medicine road shows, and over time, flee
25:28
Speaker 1: circuses just became linked with those, uh, you know, carnival
25:31
Speaker 1: side shows that we're all used to seeing at the
25:33
Speaker 1: circus or county fairs. People. It just became an expected
25:37
Speaker 1: form of entertainment. Okay, so you know why fleas You've
25:42
Speaker 1: definitely answered one these particular fleas, um, because they were
25:45
Speaker 1: a little bigger and prevalent, they were available, they were
25:49
Speaker 1: easily reproducible. They in fact, they did it themselves. They
25:52
Speaker 1: were just everywhere. Um. We talked a little bit earlier
25:56
Speaker 1: about their fantastic jumping abilities, which that's to me, the
26:01
Speaker 1: coolest at least disgusting feature of the flea, and I
26:05
Speaker 1: think this played into it a little bit as well
26:08
Speaker 1: as to why fleas. Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true. I
26:11
Speaker 1: mean fleas are you know, the best jumpers that the
26:14
Speaker 1: natural world has to offer, don't tell kangaroos and human
26:18
Speaker 1: fleas in particular have really strong back legs, like stronger
26:23
Speaker 1: than than the fleas you'd find on a cat or
26:25
Speaker 1: a dog. So they're kind of well suited for the
26:28
Speaker 1: kinds of tricks that these guys we're having them do
26:31
Speaker 1: in their circuses. And again, the other thing that we
26:34
Speaker 1: mentioned is they were really easy to care for, right
26:36
Speaker 1: you just roll up your sleeve and uh, you know,
26:40
Speaker 1: let them have a taste. And you know, under conditions
26:43
Speaker 1: like that, these fleas could live for up to a year.
26:48
Speaker 1: Most of them wouldn't make it past like three months
26:51
Speaker 1: or so, so you you still run into that problem
26:53
Speaker 1: of kind of having to start over with a new
26:56
Speaker 1: cast every so often. But if you're really doated on them,
27:00
Speaker 1: if you nurse them, you could you know, they could
27:02
Speaker 1: run out the calendar year. You are of my blood,
27:05
Speaker 1: go forth on your tiny chariot, show waterloo to the people. Um. Seriously,
27:12
Speaker 1: they were like like like the Interview of the Vampire style,
27:14
Speaker 1: like roll up the old sleeve and give them a taste.
27:17
Speaker 1: That's very strange. They could have taken this in so
27:20
Speaker 1: many directions. You know, you've got one that lives, uh,
27:24
Speaker 1: like you were saying, up to a year. Just let
27:27
Speaker 1: that that old that old flee be in its own
27:31
Speaker 1: display and call it the Methuselah flee. Add some zeros
27:36
Speaker 1: to the end of that one. Year, no one send
27:39
Speaker 1: them to the Flee stud farm exactly exactly. So at
27:44
Speaker 1: this point, you know, the thing about fleas is and
27:47
Speaker 1: I've been pretty openly anti flee in this episode, so
27:50
Speaker 1: I hope I don't. I hope I don't poison the
27:52
Speaker 1: well here too much. But the thing about this is
27:55
Speaker 1: that the closer you drill into their physical capabilities old like,
28:00
Speaker 1: like you said, the jumping ability alone, you see these amazing,
28:04
Speaker 1: somewhat terrifying powers. But there's a question that we haven't
28:10
Speaker 1: answered yet, and that is that's a question we we
28:15
Speaker 1: we kind of Flee jumped around a little in the beginning,
28:18
Speaker 1: which is were they actually being trained? Can flee? Do
28:23
Speaker 1: fleas actually have the capacity to learn and retain and
28:28
Speaker 1: then apply information. This gets into the art of how
28:33
Speaker 1: flee circuses work. Uh, and maybe why not all flee
28:38
Speaker 1: circuses are created equally. But gentlemen, I propose that is
28:44
Speaker 1: a part two of this episode. What do you guys think?
28:46
Speaker 1: I second that. Yeah, there's a lot more to say.
28:50
Speaker 1: And you know how much we love a planned to partner,
28:52
Speaker 1: so good good, good on us, And yeah, plenty of
28:56
Speaker 1: juicy flee uh facts and and and and uh and
28:59
Speaker 1: trivia to come. That's right, we did it, Gabe. Thank
29:04
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on part one of the show.
29:07
Speaker 1: Due to the uh contract you signed in blood before
29:11
Speaker 1: we started rolling, you are obligated to be here for
29:14
Speaker 1: part two, but I I know I think you would
29:17
Speaker 1: have come along for part two anyway. What do you think? Yeah,
29:19
Speaker 1: I think the blood oath was was a little extra,
29:23
Speaker 1: but you know, we gotta we gotta cover our bases.
29:26
Speaker 1: We'll never know legal is uh legal is really into
29:31
Speaker 1: those lately, which we should probably look into at some point,
29:35
Speaker 1: but uh. In the meantime, we hope that you found
29:39
Speaker 1: this as bizarre a story as we have joined us
29:43
Speaker 1: for part two, when we explore how the flea Circus
29:48
Speaker 1: sausage gets actually made sausage Very well, the United Nations
29:55
Speaker 1: has a pretty strong argument for the importance of like
29:58
Speaker 1: the possibilities of consuming insects is protein. Hopefully I don't
30:03
Speaker 1: think fleas are on the list. How many fleas would
30:05
Speaker 1: it take just to make like one sausage path? Tune
30:08
Speaker 1: in next time to find out that sounds like the
30:11
Speaker 1: set up for a corny joke, which is very on
30:14
Speaker 1: brand for predict How many fleas does it take to
30:17
Speaker 1: make an omelet like a fleet of flee omelet. You
30:20
Speaker 1: you want to make an you've gotta break a few
30:23
Speaker 1: fleet Okay, Well anyway, that's uh, that's that's gonna be
30:27
Speaker 1: our show as always. Thank you so much to our
30:30
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram, Thanks as always to Alex Williams
30:35
Speaker 1: who composed this amazing track, and Gabe. Thanks to you man, Hey,
30:40
Speaker 1: you're welcome. Huge, thanks huge, thanks to Christopher haciots here
30:45
Speaker 1: and Spirit who will be joining us in corporeal podcast
30:48
Speaker 1: form in the near future. Uh. Just like Gabe, he's
30:52
Speaker 1: a real person too. We promised we did a really
30:54
Speaker 1: fun episode with him, uh years ago about cover songs
30:59
Speaker 1: like weird cover songs. That's that was a fun one. Um.
31:02
Speaker 1: I wonder what he has in store for his next appearance.
31:05
Speaker 1: You'll have to wait and find out. Thanks to Eve's
31:08
Speaker 1: Jeff Coates check out her show This Day in History
31:11
Speaker 1: Class and Jay dot Ill, the podcast featuring the marvelous
31:15
Speaker 1: and uh and talented Jill Scott. Uh. And thanks to you, Ben,
31:19
Speaker 1: thanks for for for being my fleapal Oh Hey, thanks
31:22
Speaker 1: to you Noel. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
31:32
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever
31:35
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.