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Selects: How Freak Shows Worked · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select,
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Speaker 1: I'd chosen our March two thousand sixteen episode How Freak
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Speaker 1: Shows Worked. It's one of those episodes that turns out
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Speaker 1: to be more complicated and complex than you might expect.
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Speaker 1: And as an aside, a pre aside, I guess I'd
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Speaker 1: like to say rest in peace to Ronnie and Donnie Galleon,
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Speaker 1: who we lost in and who come up in this episode. Okay,
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Speaker 1: sit back, release your expectations, and enjoy this classic app
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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
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Speaker 1: this shot Chuck, Bryan, Jerry, and this is stuff you
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Speaker 1: should have. You introde as if you were asleep and
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Speaker 1: I just walked by and poked you with a bold cue.
0:57
Speaker 1: And that's your first thing you do, is you wake
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Speaker 1: up and just go, hey, welcome to the podcast. How
1:04
Speaker 1: are you, sir man. I'm healing fine. Yeah, good, healing fine.
1:10
Speaker 1: That's a Simpsons reference from what the Shining one? Oh yeah,
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Speaker 1: the shipping Classic. It's a good one. Um So, a
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Speaker 1: couple of quick matters of business, A little c o
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Speaker 1: A at the beginning, we're talking about freak shows, and
1:28
Speaker 1: we will be saying freaks and things like that. That
1:32
Speaker 1: is obviously an antiquated term. Yes, Um, but a lot
1:36
Speaker 1: of there are a lot of quotes in here and
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Speaker 1: a lot of references to uh, freaks and midgets and
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Speaker 1: pin heads and all these awful terms that they used
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Speaker 1: to call these people that had, you know, physical deformities
1:48
Speaker 1: and maladies. Um, so it's not us speaking. This is
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Speaker 1: a historic in historical context. Yeah, Like we get the insensitivity. Yeah,
1:58
Speaker 1: we're not us. We're not We're not being insensitive. Here's
2:02
Speaker 1: uh and we want to shout out if you We
2:04
Speaker 1: used a couple of house Stoff how stuff it Works,
2:06
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works articles as well as one from History
2:09
Speaker 1: Magazine by Laura Grande Priceonomics. Zachary Crockett wrote one, and
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Speaker 1: who I have to say, I'm a fan of that
2:16
Speaker 1: dude's work. Yeah, it was a good articles Priceonomics. He's
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Speaker 1: written some really interesting articles, agreed. And then one from
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Speaker 1: human Marvels dot com, which is just a good website
2:27
Speaker 1: by j tithonus pit now and then pronounced right p
2:35
Speaker 1: E D in a U D. Yeah that's a tough one, now, Yeah,
2:39
Speaker 1: I assume that d is silent or maybe not, maybe
2:42
Speaker 1: it's ped now pay nodee huh freaky and a couple
2:50
Speaker 1: of other places we visited, so and everyone kind of
2:52
Speaker 1: says the same thing. But it's a nice, well rounded thing.
2:55
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, well they I mean, we're talking about
2:58
Speaker 1: the history of freak shows and there's only you know,
3:00
Speaker 1: one history. Certain things happen, and we found we found
3:05
Speaker 1: very quickly that like you can't extract um freak shows
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Speaker 1: from P. T. Barnum or vice versa. Like they they
3:13
Speaker 1: they are inextricably bound. But freak shows UM, you know,
3:17
Speaker 1: Barnum was working in the nineteenth century. But the concept
3:20
Speaker 1: of freak shows, which um is basically someone who is
3:25
Speaker 1: a human curiosity and that could be someone who was
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Speaker 1: born with a genetic deformity, of physical deformity UM, some
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Speaker 1: sort of mental incapacity UM, or some people have turned
3:39
Speaker 1: themselves into human curiosity stay through the wonder of tattooing
3:44
Speaker 1: or um learning to swallow swords or something like. Yeah,
3:47
Speaker 1: we're like these days body modification like the gym Rose Show,
3:52
Speaker 1: or there's one in Coney Island still that does a
3:55
Speaker 1: like a traditional show. Yeah, side show by the seashore.
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Speaker 1: All So a great song by Luna, one of my
4:03
Speaker 1: favorite bands. Um So, the the whole concept of this,
4:07
Speaker 1: of having a human curiosity and um basically charging gawkers
4:12
Speaker 1: to look at it, it dates back quite a way.
4:16
Speaker 1: Um well, actually not that far. The sixteenth century. That's
4:20
Speaker 1: pretty far. Yeah, I guess so. But you would think like, well,
4:22
Speaker 1: the Greeks or the Romans did this, but apparently no,
4:25
Speaker 1: everybody was fairly Um from what I understand, everybody just
4:30
Speaker 1: kind of steered clear of human curiosities to that point. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I think people feared them, right. They were locked away
4:37
Speaker 1: mainly because they thought it was some evil curse or
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Speaker 1: punishment from God, and this wasn't someone you wanted to
4:43
Speaker 1: consort with. Else you might bring back, bring down the
4:46
Speaker 1: wrath of God upon yourself. That's right. But like you said,
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Speaker 1: in the late fifteen, hundreds of people started to say,
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Speaker 1: you know what I'm curious about, um, someone with hair
4:55
Speaker 1: growing all over their face. I'm curious about the human
4:58
Speaker 1: curiosity exactly. And I know, I don't Chuck, I want
5:01
Speaker 1: to say, I don't think it's coincidence that about this
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Speaker 1: time science was starting to spread throughout Europe. So the
5:08
Speaker 1: idea that um, this was God's breath was was taking
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Speaker 1: a bit of a backseat to uh, this is a
5:14
Speaker 1: human condition of some sort, Yes, but not so far
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Speaker 1: down the road of science to where there was this
5:21
Speaker 1: intermediate period where they were got Dad, And as we'll
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Speaker 1: find out later, science would eventually take part in ending
5:27
Speaker 1: the side shows. But it created them and it ended them. Yeah,
5:30
Speaker 1: it's kind of neat, good way to look at it.
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Speaker 1: Uh So one of the first UM viewings are one
5:36
Speaker 1: of the first people put on display, and you know
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Speaker 1: this is also going to be well, we'll get into
5:42
Speaker 1: it later, but the morality of this is very up
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Speaker 1: and down with exploiting people and these people that would
5:49
Speaker 1: normally be locked away actually having super lucrative careers long
5:53
Speaker 1: lasting made them rich. Also, UM, I think one of
5:57
Speaker 1: the authors, I think it was Crockett points out that UM,
6:00
Speaker 1: there early on, if you were in a freak show,
6:05
Speaker 1: there was a good chance that um, you had been
6:07
Speaker 1: abandoned by your parents, became a ward of the state
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Speaker 1: and adopted by somebody who just ruthlessly exploited you and
6:15
Speaker 1: maybe barely took care of you. But one thing you
6:18
Speaker 1: can definitely say to his credit as Barnum came into
6:21
Speaker 1: it and basically normalized or created an industry out of
6:25
Speaker 1: freak shows or four freak shows. Um, conditions definitely changed
6:29
Speaker 1: and the exploitation seems to have less in some way. Yeah.
6:34
Speaker 1: I thinking that with the big names like Norman and Barnum,
6:38
Speaker 1: I think there were all manner of minor side shows
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Speaker 1: that probably didn't treat them as well. Uh, And usually
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Speaker 1: Barnum and Norman bought their curiosities from those minor side
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Speaker 1: shows lesser showman exactly. So we're talking about Tom Norman
6:53
Speaker 1: out of England. Yeah, they were basically counterparts. Yeah, and
6:56
Speaker 1: what we'll get into them. But back to one of
6:58
Speaker 1: the earliest um quote unquote freaks was a man named
7:02
Speaker 1: Lazarus Colorado not Colorado, who was a conjoined twin. He
7:08
Speaker 1: had a brother, Johannas, who was upside down on his
7:11
Speaker 1: chest and technically it was a parasitic twin to Lazarus, Oh,
7:17
Speaker 1: not conjoined twins. They were conjoined. But Johannes like didn't eat, okay,
7:22
Speaker 1: he um, he could, he didn't speak, he never opened
7:26
Speaker 1: his eyes, and apparently the only way you could get
7:28
Speaker 1: a physical reaction out of him was if you rubbed
7:30
Speaker 1: his chest that would make him squirm like Quaid and
7:32
Speaker 1: total recall very much got you. So. Uh. He went
7:36
Speaker 1: on tour performed before King Charles the First in the
7:39
Speaker 1: early sixteen forties. But it was not a big deal.
7:44
Speaker 1: It wasn't a super lucrative side shows weren't really a
7:48
Speaker 1: thing at that point. But this guy was saying, Uh,
7:51
Speaker 1: you guys are gonna ostracize me. Well, I'm gonna charge
7:54
Speaker 1: you to look at me then, and I'm going to
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Speaker 1: support myself and my brother doing this. He did at himself.
8:00
Speaker 1: If it's not clear whether he worked with a manager
8:02
Speaker 1: or not or a promoter, but he definitely um made
8:06
Speaker 1: his own choice to go do this, yes, exactly, and
8:08
Speaker 1: he was apparently an otherwise handsome man. That's how everyone
8:12
Speaker 1: described him, which I think probably for the Court Um
8:16
Speaker 1: or Europe who who came and looked at him, uh,
8:19
Speaker 1: probably just made it even more mind boggling, you know.
8:22
Speaker 1: But he's a good guy, right right, you know? Uh.
8:26
Speaker 1: P T. Barnum and I think we should do in
8:27
Speaker 1: a whole podcast on P. T. Barnum at some point
8:30
Speaker 1: to really close out the circus suite. Well, then we
8:32
Speaker 1: shouldn't mention him again in the show No Barnum as
8:38
Speaker 1: as a teenager. Uh, he always had a pinchant for
8:42
Speaker 1: making money. He was one of those magnets sort of
8:44
Speaker 1: weird ways. Uh. He ran his own lottery as a teenager,
8:49
Speaker 1: UM in Connecticut, and he said, here's what I'll do.
8:51
Speaker 1: I can just sell these tickets. I'll give out prizes
8:56
Speaker 1: in varying levels from is on down to cents and
9:03
Speaker 1: uh yeah and um. But it was a very well
9:07
Speaker 1: thought out for a teenager. He wasn't just like just
9:09
Speaker 1: one prize. He'd spread it out so he would entice
9:12
Speaker 1: people to play more. Uh. And he actually made a
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Speaker 1: lot of money from it until they outlawed the lottery.
9:17
Speaker 1: He's making like eleven grand in today's dollars a week
9:21
Speaker 1: as a teenager. Yeah, nineteen not bad. But then Connecticut
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Speaker 1: and the rest of the country said no more lotteries
9:27
Speaker 1: for now. Um. We'll bring that back up later though,
9:30
Speaker 1: don't you worry. T B C And Um. He had
9:35
Speaker 1: to find other ways to make work, moved to New
9:38
Speaker 1: York City and in eighteen thirty five, Um he had
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Speaker 1: You know, England is where a lot of this started.
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Speaker 1: We'll talk about Norman in a second, but he got
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Speaker 1: his queue from England, said here's what I'm gonna do.
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy a person, gonna buy my first freak
9:52
Speaker 1: uh this blind paralyzed slave woman and this is a
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Speaker 1: hallmark of freak shows. As I'm gonna make up a
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Speaker 1: story about her that's since a l and crazy like
10:01
Speaker 1: a Ripley's believe it or not kind of thing, right
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Speaker 1: and and Barnum in particular was well known for just
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Speaker 1: taking these things to the nth degree, like, sure, no
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Speaker 1: one's gonna buy that, but he could sell it in
10:13
Speaker 1: such a way that people believed it because they were
10:17
Speaker 1: exponentially dumber back then. Uh. He The story for her
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Speaker 1: was that she was a hundred and sixty years old,
10:24
Speaker 1: was George Washington's nurse. Uh and you can pay to
10:27
Speaker 1: see her, when in fact she was only eighty years old.
10:31
Speaker 1: She was half that age. Yeah, and her name was
10:35
Speaker 1: Joyce Heath, and she was just an old lady, right, Yeah,
10:38
Speaker 1: she was an old slave woman who was paralyzed and
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Speaker 1: blind and was being exploited by P. T. Barnum in
10:43
Speaker 1: the year before her death. So she dies um, but
10:47
Speaker 1: before then, like as he's touting her as this hundred
10:51
Speaker 1: and six year old former nurse made to George Washington Um.
10:55
Speaker 1: That gets an initial reaction, and then ticket sales drop.
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Speaker 1: And then PiZZ Barnum did something quite smart. He wrote
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Speaker 1: an anonymous letter to a Boston newspaper and accused himself
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Speaker 1: of being a fraud and saying that the the hundred
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Speaker 1: and sixty year old woman was a fake, that she
11:13
Speaker 1: was actually a machine, a robot made of whale skin
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Speaker 1: and would and ticket sales went right through the roof. Again. Man,
11:23
Speaker 1: what a guy. There should be a good movie about him.
11:26
Speaker 1: I can't believe there's not, like a modern one. I'm
11:29
Speaker 1: sure there is, you know, surely, like the What's the one?
11:32
Speaker 1: The Greatest Show on Earth was a movie? Right, and
11:34
Speaker 1: that like a Griffith movie or something, That's what I mean.
11:37
Speaker 1: But like Tom Cruise should play him, yeah, and should
11:41
Speaker 1: be directed by Michael Bay Russell Crow should No, not
11:44
Speaker 1: Russell Crowe. Well, how about who could play p T. Barnum?
11:50
Speaker 1: You know who who? He would be good at it,
11:52
Speaker 1: but would just be so him? Sam Rockwell, oh totally,
11:56
Speaker 1: he could play anything. So I'd rather see somebody even
11:59
Speaker 1: broader playing him. Yeah, I heard research, go ahead, Gina,
12:05
Speaker 1: who would end up playing him is freaking Hugh Jackman. Yeah, yeah,
12:12
Speaker 1: because he can do cartwheels. Yeah, what were you going
12:15
Speaker 1: to say? Somebody? It might have been during the Bill
12:19
Speaker 1: Gates interview or something yesterday that somebody said that, No,
12:22
Speaker 1: it's unseen it. Tom Hanks is the most trusted person
12:26
Speaker 1: in America. Like for some Pole found that, Like, the
12:30
Speaker 1: most trusted person in America is Tom Hanks. Were we
12:32
Speaker 1: on the list? I don't think so. Sure, you gotta
12:36
Speaker 1: trust on We're not even Also rans were never rans? Alright,
12:40
Speaker 1: So he purchased that woman what was her name, Joyce
12:45
Speaker 1: heth j O I c E H T H for
12:49
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars and he made about that every week. Um,
12:53
Speaker 1: from exploiting her. I imagined that she got very little
12:57
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, although you can't necessarily say that I
13:00
Speaker 1: didn't see what she was paid, she was very likely paid,
13:05
Speaker 1: and she was probably fairly well taken care of, especially
13:10
Speaker 1: considering um that she probably just and this is based
13:14
Speaker 1: on how Barnum treated other people later in a documented manner.
13:18
Speaker 1: But um, he I don't want to say he rescued
13:23
Speaker 1: her from slavery because she went from being a slave
13:26
Speaker 1: to being owned by somebody who exhibited her. Um, but
13:31
Speaker 1: it's not a guarantee or a given that her situation
13:34
Speaker 1: got worse after she she was purchased by Barnum. Right,
13:40
Speaker 1: does that make sense? Man? That felt like a minefield
13:43
Speaker 1: I was walking through talking about slavery, human exploitation, a
13:47
Speaker 1: blind woman who was also paralyzed. Good, good luck, sir
13:52
Speaker 1: Um his first big hoax after that? Or uh? Well,
13:55
Speaker 1: actually I guess it wasn't a hoax aside from the
13:56
Speaker 1: made up story. But um, he had a real hope.
13:59
Speaker 1: It was a hope. Well I hope, sure, um, but
14:02
Speaker 1: this was a hoax in two because it was nothing
14:06
Speaker 1: about it was real. He was promoting something called the
14:08
Speaker 1: Fiji Mermaid, which was basically rogue taxidermy as all it was.
14:13
Speaker 1: That's exactly what it was. It was a creature with
14:16
Speaker 1: a head of a monkey and the tail of a
14:17
Speaker 1: fish that he bought from Japanese sailors. Well he didn't.
14:21
Speaker 1: He got it from a sailor who bought it from
14:23
Speaker 1: jail right, and actually it was Japanese fisherman. Yeah, and
14:26
Speaker 1: he well what's the difference. Well, they're like traditional they
14:29
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily go to see they were like islanders and
14:33
Speaker 1: this is like traditional art for them, folk art. Okay,
14:37
Speaker 1: so not a sailor but fisherman, right, that's ped entry
14:40
Speaker 1: one oh one. Sorry man, uh gets so fixated on things.
14:45
Speaker 1: Yeah uh. And he leased it um for twelve fifty
14:50
Speaker 1: a week twelve dollars and fifty cents um from from
14:54
Speaker 1: the owners have said rogue taxidermy. And he tried he
14:57
Speaker 1: print up pamphlets and tried to convince everyone it was
15:00
Speaker 1: some real thing. So he he actually had a um
15:03
Speaker 1: a partner named Levi what was Levi's name? He's definitely
15:08
Speaker 1: an overlooked guy, Levi Lyman. Can you imagine like being P. T.
15:13
Speaker 1: Barnum's partner, Like you'd never be in the spotlight, right,
15:17
Speaker 1: So Levi Lyman posed as a English doctor, a scientist
15:21
Speaker 1: who was in possession of this mermaid, and UM P. T.
15:26
Speaker 1: Barnum very publicly was trying to get his hands on
15:29
Speaker 1: the mermaid, and this guy was very publicly resisting him
15:31
Speaker 1: because it was a man of science and this was
15:33
Speaker 1: the real deal. And it helps just convince everybody, including
15:36
Speaker 1: the newspapers, that like this is the genuine article and
15:39
Speaker 1: just rubes nation a world of rubes. It seems like
15:45
Speaker 1: he ended up opening up a museum on Broadway in
15:47
Speaker 1: New York City in the forties, you know, sort of
15:51
Speaker 1: you know, like a Ripley's Believe it or not kind
15:53
Speaker 1: of thing, curiosities and weird things. Yeah, that's that was
15:56
Speaker 1: his stock in trade. Uh. And then we should talk
15:59
Speaker 1: about his counterpart in England, Um, Tom Norman. Yeah, Tommy Norman,
16:05
Speaker 1: Tommy Norman. Uh. He was named the Silver King and
16:09
Speaker 1: Barnum actually gave him that name apparently after meeting him,
16:12
Speaker 1: and he said, boy, what a huge silver showy silver
16:16
Speaker 1: watch you have there. You're the Silver King. He goes,
16:18
Speaker 1: I am the Silver King. I've been waiting my whole
16:20
Speaker 1: life for somebody to notice exactly. So he was doing
16:24
Speaker 1: the same thing in England. Uh. And he he actually, um,
16:28
Speaker 1: he toured with Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. Yeah, and
16:32
Speaker 1: he got um castigated by a lot of people saying,
16:36
Speaker 1: you're exploiting this guy John Merrick. And is it John
16:39
Speaker 1: or Joseph? What I say, John? Yeah? And it's like
16:42
Speaker 1: an ongoing thing. Oh is it? Yeah? I can't remember
16:45
Speaker 1: if it's well, let's find out. No, it's Joseph for sure.
16:48
Speaker 1: I just misspoke. Oh sorry. Um. He was attacked in
16:52
Speaker 1: specifically in a memoir by Dr Frederick Treeves uh called
16:57
Speaker 1: The Elephant Man and other Reminiscences. Uh. And he shot
17:01
Speaker 1: back and he said, you know what, I haven't mistreated Merrick,
17:04
Speaker 1: haven't abused him. He wasn't forced to do anything. And
17:07
Speaker 1: he said, in fact, the big majority of showmen are
17:09
Speaker 1: in the habit of treating their novelties as human beings
17:12
Speaker 1: and in a large number of cases as one of
17:14
Speaker 1: their own, not like beasts. Right. So you know the
17:19
Speaker 1: morality battle was being waged even back then. Yeah, And
17:23
Speaker 1: I mean if you you think about um, this time
17:27
Speaker 1: when people would go look at people who had physical
17:31
Speaker 1: deformities and pay for it. Just look at him to
17:34
Speaker 1: standing there, you think, well, the whole world was pretty
17:37
Speaker 1: evil and a moral at the time. Not necessarily true.
17:41
Speaker 1: There's a um a lot of people who railed against
17:44
Speaker 1: this stuff, like Frederick Treeve's who was um. He was
17:48
Speaker 1: portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, right, isn't that him? Oh? I
17:52
Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, he was in The Elephant Man, the movie.
17:54
Speaker 1: Oh was he actually Merrick's doctor? Yes, Okay, I didn't
17:57
Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, yeah, man, that movie. David Lynch, God
18:01
Speaker 1: One of the best ever um And then there was
18:03
Speaker 1: an historian who at the time, I think in like
18:06
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties he wrote his name was Henry Mayhew,
18:10
Speaker 1: and in eighteen sixty when he was British, he wrote
18:13
Speaker 1: that that these freak shows were nothing more than human degradation.
18:17
Speaker 1: And he said something that stuck out to meet Chuck.
18:20
Speaker 1: He said that the men who preside over these infamous
18:23
Speaker 1: places know too well the failings of their audience. And
18:26
Speaker 1: I think he really hit the nail on the head
18:28
Speaker 1: by he wasn't accusing the showman because I think he
18:32
Speaker 1: understood that most of these people were just under contract,
18:37
Speaker 1: and he wasn't accusing the people, the actual human curiosities,
18:41
Speaker 1: the freaks themselves. He was rightly placing the blame for
18:45
Speaker 1: all this on the observers, the gawkers. Like if there
18:48
Speaker 1: wasn't a market for it, they wouldn't be doing it. Yeah,
18:50
Speaker 1: Like you're the one who is having the moral failing,
18:53
Speaker 1: who's paying to go see this person who may or
18:56
Speaker 1: may not be exploited you don't know, And uh, it's
19:00
Speaker 1: really on you audience. Yeah, it's pretty Uh it's a
19:03
Speaker 1: lot of foresight for back then I thought so too.
19:05
Speaker 1: So it's not like the point was. It's not like
19:08
Speaker 1: everybody was just going along with this. People have had
19:11
Speaker 1: a problem with it basically the whole time freak shows
19:13
Speaker 1: were around, right. All right, Well, let's take a break
19:16
Speaker 1: and we'll talk a little bit more about the evolution
19:19
Speaker 1: of the side show. Right after this, we're back. I
19:52
Speaker 1: brought my pencil. What's up? Seven? Right on? Man? I
19:58
Speaker 1: didn't get that at first. You. I'm impressed that you
20:01
Speaker 1: did get it. Yeah. Nice. Uh. That was from Van
20:05
Speaker 1: Halen's popular song Hot for Teacher from and we are
20:10
Speaker 1: now nineteen eighties DJs. Uh. So the side shows became
20:16
Speaker 1: a legitimate thing, a big way to make money. There
20:18
Speaker 1: were different kinds. Um. There was one called a tin
20:21
Speaker 1: in one show, which I believe the sides side show
20:24
Speaker 1: by the Sea Shore is today. You did it through
20:28
Speaker 1: my missing tooth, uh. And that is when you have
20:30
Speaker 1: ten people on display on a platform at once and
20:34
Speaker 1: people just walk by and look at them. It's not
20:37
Speaker 1: like a performance. It's just there's a bearded lady, there's
20:40
Speaker 1: the dog faced boy, there's the tattooed man, and they're
20:43
Speaker 1: all of a standing there. That's a tin and one
20:47
Speaker 1: yokel uh. They had things, and this was all to
20:51
Speaker 1: to drum up more money. They would advertise something as
20:54
Speaker 1: an adults only or a man only even performance, well
20:58
Speaker 1: the men only performance Freak Only had a stripper you
21:02
Speaker 1: know yeah. Um, or stuff that they thought that were
21:06
Speaker 1: just like a woman shouldn't see or children shouldn't see.
21:10
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was as much of that
21:11
Speaker 1: as if it was to just trump up, like, oh
21:13
Speaker 1: my god, it's so bad that a woman can't see
21:16
Speaker 1: lay her eyes upon it. I see. Um. I think
21:18
Speaker 1: it was all part of the show. Uh, that's my feeling.
21:22
Speaker 1: At least. One of the things that they displayed were
21:24
Speaker 1: something called a pickled punk, which is awful. It is,
21:29
Speaker 1: especially when you find out what it is. Yeah, it's
21:32
Speaker 1: basically a an abnormal fetus in a formaldehyde in a jar.
21:38
Speaker 1: And you could go by and look at pickled punks
21:40
Speaker 1: and gaulk at them for money. It's it's awful. Yeah,
21:44
Speaker 1: this is what people did, like on Saturday night in Kansas.
21:49
Speaker 1: So um. The the usually this this side shows of
21:52
Speaker 1: the Freak shows. At first, they were you would be
21:56
Speaker 1: some enterprising entrepreneur in some small town and you would
22:02
Speaker 1: notice that a little youngster had um, a third leg, okay,
22:07
Speaker 1: and you your thought was, I can really make some
22:11
Speaker 1: money with this kid to go to their parents. And
22:13
Speaker 1: you'd say, I will give you of all of the
22:17
Speaker 1: earnings of your child if you let me take him
22:19
Speaker 1: on the road and he will stay in the finest
22:21
Speaker 1: hotels and we're the best clothes and as the human
22:24
Speaker 1: exactly and uh, the he will become famous in the world,
22:28
Speaker 1: will love him. Uh, just let me handle it. I'm
22:31
Speaker 1: going to be as manager from now on. And the
22:33
Speaker 1: parents would very frequently, especially if they were poor, would say,
22:37
Speaker 1: that's great, do that give me some money upfront? Though,
22:40
Speaker 1: by the way, yeah, especially because a lot of times
22:43
Speaker 1: some of these people were a burden on their family
22:45
Speaker 1: because of their health condition, so they were happy to
22:48
Speaker 1: be rid of them. That's all very sad, okay. So
22:51
Speaker 1: that's how That's how it definitely started out. And then
22:53
Speaker 1: and it went on like that, um for a very
22:56
Speaker 1: long time as well. But once borne him and not
22:59
Speaker 1: a Norman and some of the other guys, the big
23:01
Speaker 1: guys came around, they would just basically keep an eye
23:04
Speaker 1: out for that kind of thing, or they would be
23:06
Speaker 1: approached by these guys who would essentially be middleman kind
23:10
Speaker 1: of like, um, somebody who discovered a boy band selling
23:13
Speaker 1: their contract to a bigger record company. But this was
23:17
Speaker 1: with human curiosity, people with the third leg or hyper
23:20
Speaker 1: trichosis or what have you. UM. And then Barnum would
23:24
Speaker 1: take him and would would just take whatever exaggerated origin
23:27
Speaker 1: story that they came with and just throw it out
23:30
Speaker 1: and come up with one ten times more. Uh. And
23:33
Speaker 1: after his uh, George Washington's nurse made Joyce heth diede Washington, right,
23:41
Speaker 1: he started looking around for his next collaborator, if you
23:44
Speaker 1: could call him that, UM. And he found out that
23:47
Speaker 1: he had a distant cousin, a fifth cousin UM named
23:50
Speaker 1: Charles Stratton, who had stopped growing when he was about
23:56
Speaker 1: two years old. Yeah. He he never completely stopped. He
24:00
Speaker 1: grew very slowly. Yeah. He made it to like just
24:03
Speaker 1: over three feet I think by the time of his death. Yeah.
24:05
Speaker 1: He died at forty five of a stroke and he
24:07
Speaker 1: was three point three five ft tall. UM, but grew
24:12
Speaker 1: so slowly. I mean you know he was He was
24:15
Speaker 1: General Tom Thumb, very famously renamed General Tom Thumb by
24:20
Speaker 1: his half fifth twice removed cousin. Uh PT what does
24:25
Speaker 1: that stand? For even Paul Thomas Anderson bar Uh. So
24:31
Speaker 1: he said, you know what, this is great. Um, you
24:34
Speaker 1: were a small person and you're cute as the Dickens,
24:38
Speaker 1: So let me dress you up in little adult suits
24:41
Speaker 1: and you're my new side kick. Yeah that he he
24:45
Speaker 1: collaborated with the kid's dad and said, let's, um, let's
24:48
Speaker 1: make some money. Uh and he Um, he taught him
24:52
Speaker 1: how to sing and dance, pretend he was Napoleon. Yeah,
24:55
Speaker 1: he did impressions Cupid. He played Cupid sometimes. And then
24:59
Speaker 1: he told everybody that this little five year old kid
25:01
Speaker 1: was actually eleven, which made it all the more astounding
25:03
Speaker 1: that he was that small, which she didn't even need
25:06
Speaker 1: to do. And then for about the next like fifteen
25:09
Speaker 1: or so years, Um turned Tom Thumb into what was
25:13
Speaker 1: essentially the first international celebrity. Oh was he the first
25:18
Speaker 1: international celebrity? Pretty much? Yeah, Tom Thumb was a sensation.
25:23
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria was a huge fan. Met met with him
25:26
Speaker 1: twice too, to at least twice um. She apparently was
25:30
Speaker 1: really big into side shows, but Tom Thumb was her favorite.
25:34
Speaker 1: Um and he They made so much money off of
25:37
Speaker 1: their first European tour that um Barnum bought his museum
25:42
Speaker 1: with the proceeds. Is there anything grosser than the Queen
25:45
Speaker 1: of England laughing at a small person imitating Napoleon for money?
25:52
Speaker 1: She may have even Napoleon at the time. Oh, I'm
25:55
Speaker 1: sure she. That probably made it all the funnier to her. Unbelievable. So,
26:01
Speaker 1: but he was. He was a rich dude. He was
26:04
Speaker 1: paid uh in today's dollars who Tom Thumb? Oh yeah,
26:08
Speaker 1: over four thousand dollars a week and retired and lived
26:12
Speaker 1: the high life in New York City. Um. And you
26:16
Speaker 1: know he didn't feel like he was exploited. No, he
26:19
Speaker 1: he actually got married. I saw that he had children,
26:21
Speaker 1: but I could I only saw that one place. I
26:23
Speaker 1: didn't see it anywhere else. But he he was married
26:25
Speaker 1: and actually, um, right after the marriage was um brought
26:29
Speaker 1: to the White House to hang out with Abraham Lincoln
26:32
Speaker 1: and Mrs Lincoln. Yeah, he had twenty thou people at
26:34
Speaker 1: his funeral. He he was again, he was a very
26:37
Speaker 1: big deal. And from what I understand, at the end
26:40
Speaker 1: of the day he shed his persona. He was just
26:43
Speaker 1: Charles Stratton uber wealthy, uh, some little person. Um. And
26:49
Speaker 1: when he was doing his show, he was Tom Thumb
26:52
Speaker 1: who would dress up as Napoleon or whatever and take
26:55
Speaker 1: your money. Yeah, but um he he and P. T.
26:58
Speaker 1: Barnum together really made a ton of cash. Tom Thumb
27:01
Speaker 1: was a little better at managing his cash than Barnum was,
27:04
Speaker 1: because Barnum fell in hard times. A lot of people
27:07
Speaker 1: don't realize this, but he made some actually really bad
27:10
Speaker 1: investments over over time too. Yeah. He invested a lot
27:14
Speaker 1: of his money initially back into his business, which was smart, right,
27:17
Speaker 1: and but a lot of times he would be like
27:19
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a hit, and it wouldn't be
27:20
Speaker 1: a hit. He didn't have the Midas touch necessarily, and
27:23
Speaker 1: he fell on hard times more than once. And one
27:25
Speaker 1: of the times Um Tom Thumb or Charles Stratton bailed
27:28
Speaker 1: him out. Oh really, I get the feeling Barnum didn't
27:32
Speaker 1: know when to leave well enough alone, you know, like
27:35
Speaker 1: he had a big, thriving business and he just kept
27:37
Speaker 1: wanting to push it further and further. Hugh Jackman, I'm
27:40
Speaker 1: telling you, uh so, now we will talk about a
27:43
Speaker 1: couple of people, Um, who are afflicted with something. Well,
27:48
Speaker 1: they were micro cephalic, which means that they have a
27:54
Speaker 1: cone shaped head smaller than normal shaped head as well. Yes,
27:58
Speaker 1: if you've ever if you're how Stern fan, then you
28:01
Speaker 1: know beetlejuice. He has this condition. Um, and they used
28:07
Speaker 1: to call them pinheads back in the day, awful term. Uh.
28:11
Speaker 1: And there were a couple of notable I'm not even
28:13
Speaker 1: gonna keep saying that, but a couple of notable people
28:16
Speaker 1: that performed um in these freak shows. One was Zip
28:21
Speaker 1: William Henry Johnson renamed Zip to z I P. He's
28:25
Speaker 1: from New Jersey, born to newly freed slaves and uh.
28:30
Speaker 1: When Barnum found him, he says, you know I'm gonna do.
28:32
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make up the story that you were found
28:35
Speaker 1: during a guerrilla expedition near the Gambia River. I'm gonna
28:39
Speaker 1: shave your head except for a little ponytailed tuft on
28:42
Speaker 1: top and address you in a suit of fur. And
28:44
Speaker 1: you get up on that stage and grunt like an animal. Yeah,
28:48
Speaker 1: he was paid a dollar a day at first to
28:50
Speaker 1: not talk to grunt and I guess to play the
28:53
Speaker 1: violin really badly. Yeah. I didn't get was he paid
28:56
Speaker 1: a dollar a day to start? Okay? I thought that
28:59
Speaker 1: might have been part of the story, that he was
29:01
Speaker 1: in fact paid a hundred dollars a day later. Okay,
29:05
Speaker 1: he became a very popular um uh freak. I guess. Yeah.
29:10
Speaker 1: The thing is is um he uh. William Henry Johnson
29:14
Speaker 1: was probably not microcephalic at all. Um he microcephalic. Microsophalic
29:21
Speaker 1: is totally different microcephalic um he. Actually they think now
29:26
Speaker 1: that he had just like a slightly abnormally shaped head
29:30
Speaker 1: that was exaggerated by the haircut that they gave him,
29:33
Speaker 1: and that he actually had no diminished mental faculties once
29:37
Speaker 1: what what at all and he was just pretending the
29:39
Speaker 1: whole time, and not only fooling crowds, but he was
29:41
Speaker 1: also fooling promoters. Yeah, because that's one of the hallmarks
29:46
Speaker 1: of that condition. Is I believe that usually it's accompanied
29:49
Speaker 1: by cognitive stunted cognitive development ye, usually very severe, but
29:54
Speaker 1: not in his case. He was super smart. And when
29:56
Speaker 1: he died said we fooled them all. Yeah, that's no.
29:59
Speaker 1: He his sister Siste in his deathbed. They're also married, right,
30:03
Speaker 1: Not true. So he made a lot of money too,
30:06
Speaker 1: he did. He apparently retired with millions um a millionaire,
30:10
Speaker 1: so he's not the only um again. Pinhead is what
30:14
Speaker 1: this specific type of freak was called man. I can't
30:18
Speaker 1: believe I just said that. This feels so wrong I. Um,
30:23
Speaker 1: but there's a very sideshow performer and Chuck. Another very
30:28
Speaker 1: famous side show performer who was also I guess technically
30:32
Speaker 1: in the Under the Umbrella pinhead who actually was UM
30:37
Speaker 1: micro's cephilic was Schlitze. Yes, Schlitze is one of my
30:42
Speaker 1: favorite people of all time. Yes, schlet's see. They don't
30:45
Speaker 1: know for sure his real name, but um, they believe
30:48
Speaker 1: it's Simon Metz. Born in nineteen and one of the
30:50
Speaker 1: Bronx and um. By all accounts from everyone who ever
30:55
Speaker 1: met Schlitze, everyone loved Schlitze and he was a ray
31:02
Speaker 1: of sunshine and a nice, sweet carrying, kind hearted man.
31:06
Speaker 1: Loved life anything that you would take for granted. Um,
31:10
Speaker 1: chlet's see, probably enjoyed the heck out of and um.
31:15
Speaker 1: He was very frequently build as a woman. UM. I
31:19
Speaker 1: think he was Bill as an Aztec warrior at first,
31:21
Speaker 1: and then maybe even an Aztec woman. But he wore
31:24
Speaker 1: dresses all the time because he was incontinent, and this
31:27
Speaker 1: just made it the whole thing easier. UM. So he
31:30
Speaker 1: was Bill as a woman for a very long time
31:32
Speaker 1: and including in the movie, um Freaks, the Todd Browning
31:36
Speaker 1: movie from two. Schlitze was in that and Schlitze actually
31:40
Speaker 1: has like this big scene that's like has he has
31:45
Speaker 1: a whole speaking like a dialogue section, But to this
31:49
Speaker 1: day no one has any clue what he says. Yeah,
31:52
Speaker 1: should we talk about freaks now or take a break
31:54
Speaker 1: and then talk about it. Let's take a break, all right,
32:24
Speaker 1: all right, So the movie Freaks. Uh, I've seen it,
32:28
Speaker 1: have you? I saw it for the first time this morning.
32:31
Speaker 1: No way, wow, college when most people see it so good?
32:36
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's a nineteen thirty two pre code film. Uh.
32:41
Speaker 1: There was a time between when um, they started making
32:46
Speaker 1: movies to four when the Motion Picture production code kicked
32:50
Speaker 1: in the haze code. Uh yeah, and properly called the
32:53
Speaker 1: haze code. Um. For five years there you could do
32:56
Speaker 1: whatever you wanted, I guess. Yeah. And uh, that's when
32:59
Speaker 1: this direct her name Todd Browning, made a movie called
33:01
Speaker 1: Freaks about side show performers. And this guy was he
33:07
Speaker 1: actually ran away that the director actually ran away and
33:10
Speaker 1: joined the carnival when he was sixteen and worked as
33:13
Speaker 1: a carnival barker and even uh participated in stunts and
33:18
Speaker 1: he was. He's a circus guy, right, and he had
33:20
Speaker 1: a lot of um, sideshow performers as friends. And you
33:23
Speaker 1: can tell in the movie that that's he's like, that's who,
33:27
Speaker 1: he's whose side he's one, that's who that they're the
33:31
Speaker 1: heroes of the story, that the protagonists, the antagonists or
33:36
Speaker 1: normals or whatever. Um and uh, it's a really morally
33:42
Speaker 1: fraud movie these days. But if you just step back
33:45
Speaker 1: and and think of it as like this guy having
33:49
Speaker 1: an affinity for side show performers and giving them a
33:52
Speaker 1: shot at at stardom being on the big screen for
33:57
Speaker 1: what they are, for who they are, for what they
33:58
Speaker 1: can do. Um, then it's a really kind of a
34:05
Speaker 1: heart growing tail heart growing Yeah, in a very weird way.
34:10
Speaker 1: It's it's wrenching the watch. When's the last time you
34:13
Speaker 1: saw a college Yeah, it's spent a long time. Just
34:16
Speaker 1: see it again, all right, we'll check it out. Like
34:18
Speaker 1: it's it's tough to watch. It's gut wrenching. Uh. There
34:21
Speaker 1: are a lot of um, well, let's just talk about
34:24
Speaker 1: some of the performers in the movie. Um. One of
34:26
Speaker 1: them who stands out as Johnny eck John Eckhardt Jr.
34:30
Speaker 1: Who was a twin and he was born with a condition. Uh.
34:35
Speaker 1: Everyone said that he was cut off at the waist. Uh.
34:38
Speaker 1: Not exactly true. We actually had um unusable underdeveloped legs
34:42
Speaker 1: that you never saw, but it appeared as though he
34:46
Speaker 1: didn't have anything from the torso down. And as from
34:49
Speaker 1: a young kid, I believe he was even walking on
34:52
Speaker 1: his hands before his twin brother was even standing. So
34:55
Speaker 1: he was very advanced in a lot of ways. A
34:57
Speaker 1: very smart guy. He's a painter. Uh yeah, very accomplished
35:01
Speaker 1: the magician. Um. And you had a great personality too,
35:05
Speaker 1: you could tell. Yeah, And apparently he was good buddies
35:07
Speaker 1: with um Browning. And Browning always wanted him around and
35:11
Speaker 1: by his side and was like, you know, you need
35:12
Speaker 1: to come sit with me by the camera and almost
35:16
Speaker 1: like his Uh. I don't know if he could consider
35:19
Speaker 1: him a co director, but he always wanted him nearby.
35:22
Speaker 1: Pretty neat Uh. Daisy and Violet Hilton. Yeah can joined twins, right, yeah,
35:29
Speaker 1: which they called Siamese twins back in the day. Um,
35:34
Speaker 1: thanks to Chang and Yang Bunker. Right. Yeah, they were
35:36
Speaker 1: actually uh some of the first super famous. Uh. They
35:40
Speaker 1: were from a Siamese fishing village and that's where the
35:43
Speaker 1: term came from. Yeah, Siam was what we now called Thailand.
35:47
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. And Chang and Ing we're born in
35:51
Speaker 1: nineteen I'm sorry, eighteen eleven. And they actually performed on
35:54
Speaker 1: their own for many years, made a ton of money.
35:58
Speaker 1: They got married, had kids, moved to North Carolina of
36:02
Speaker 1: all places, and um that well actually interestingly, Daisy and
36:08
Speaker 1: Violet ended up in North Carolina too, Oh yeah, but
36:11
Speaker 1: under much much worse conditions. Yeah, but um, to finish
36:14
Speaker 1: with Chang and Yng, they eventually lost their money. They
36:17
Speaker 1: were millionaires losser dough and then we'd worked for Barnum
36:20
Speaker 1: later on in life. But I get the impression that
36:22
Speaker 1: they did it kind of like at their leisure almost
36:25
Speaker 1: and ended up reamassing another fortune interest from working with Barnum. Yeah,
36:32
Speaker 1: and they fathered twenty one children between them, married to
36:34
Speaker 1: Paris sisters. Man each had a house and they would
36:38
Speaker 1: spend three days at one house, three days at the
36:41
Speaker 1: next house. Um and yeah, they had twenty one kids.
36:45
Speaker 1: Pretty amazing. So Daisy and Violet Hilton, they were known
36:48
Speaker 1: as Siamese twins back then. Of course, Uh, we don't
36:51
Speaker 1: use that German anymore, But I mean I remember that
36:53
Speaker 1: term when I was a kid. So it's definitely like
36:56
Speaker 1: held on for way too long. Remember Ronnie and Dinnie Galle?
37:00
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, are they still with us? Let's find out
37:05
Speaker 1: you're you're checking that. I'll continue. Um, I believe that.
37:10
Speaker 1: Uh that Browning spotted Daisy and Violet and said, you
37:15
Speaker 1: guys are great, You're pretty, you can sing. You'll be
37:18
Speaker 1: a big part of my movie. And they had been
37:20
Speaker 1: performers all along. Um. By eighteen, they were ontour with
37:24
Speaker 1: Bob Hope as part of his dance troupe and made
37:27
Speaker 1: quite a bit of money. Um. But sadly their story
37:30
Speaker 1: ends in North Carolina because they made an appearance in
37:34
Speaker 1: at a midnight showing of Freaks at a drive in
37:37
Speaker 1: and their manager ditched them and this party don't get
37:41
Speaker 1: they had no way to leave North Carolina, so they
37:43
Speaker 1: just stayed there. Yeah, they had to get a job.
37:46
Speaker 1: That just seems odd to me. If you don't have
37:48
Speaker 1: any money and no one to call to ask for money,
37:51
Speaker 1: you go get a job at a grocery store and
37:53
Speaker 1: I hope that you can eventually die there. It seems
37:58
Speaker 1: like they would have gotten enough money to leave and
38:00
Speaker 1: go back to wherever they lived. While they died in Charlotte,
38:03
Speaker 1: North Carolina of the Hong Kong flu What is that?
38:07
Speaker 1: It was a flu epidemic? She's that originated in Hong Kong.
38:13
Speaker 1: It was a different world back then. Siamese twins died
38:15
Speaker 1: to Hong Kong flu i. None of that seems politically correct.
38:19
Speaker 1: To know who else was in Freaks? Uh, let's see. Um,
38:25
Speaker 1: there were a pair of little people named Harry and
38:28
Speaker 1: Daisy Earls and they played Hans and Frieda right, and
38:31
Speaker 1: Hans is like the ring master of the side show
38:36
Speaker 1: and um Frieda in real life, Daisy was known as
38:40
Speaker 1: the midget may West. Um. And in the movie they're engaged,
38:46
Speaker 1: but actually in real life they were brother and sister. Yeah,
38:49
Speaker 1: and they were in The Wizard of Oz even as munchkins.
38:54
Speaker 1: And we're in a bunch of movies with Laurel and
38:55
Speaker 1: Hardy as well, so lifelong performers. So the the whole
39:01
Speaker 1: this whole movie and again, um, we kind of we
39:03
Speaker 1: didn't finish with the Schlitze. Schlitzy was in it too
39:06
Speaker 1: and had his whole big speaking part. Um. It was
39:09
Speaker 1: just adorable in the movie. You could like Schlitz's personality
39:14
Speaker 1: just shines right through the movie. Very likable. Yeah, and
39:17
Speaker 1: um Schlitze was actually uh adopted that no one had
39:23
Speaker 1: any idea who Schlitz's biological family was. They were not around.
39:29
Speaker 1: So the um, the people he performed with and worked for,
39:33
Speaker 1: actually took care of him. And when his adopted father died,
39:39
Speaker 1: his father's daughter, biological daughter said hey, schlt see, Um,
39:45
Speaker 1: I'm going to commit you to an asylum in Los Angeles.
39:50
Speaker 1: And that's where Schlitzy was until one day, just by
39:54
Speaker 1: total chance, chuck Uh another circus performer, I think a
39:58
Speaker 1: sword swallower named Bill Unks. Bill, you're Schlitze. Yeah, what
40:04
Speaker 1: are you doing here? You look so sad? And Schlitze
40:07
Speaker 1: was like, I remember you, let's go. So bill Unk
40:11
Speaker 1: intervened and got Schlitze out of the institution, and uh
40:16
Speaker 1: he got to live out his days hanging out in
40:19
Speaker 1: the park being recognized by passers by. Yeah. He lived
40:22
Speaker 1: near MacArthur Park in downtown l A. And uh lived
40:26
Speaker 1: all the way up until at age seventy one. Yeah,
40:31
Speaker 1: so you know you gotta see Schlitze. You should see freaks.
40:37
Speaker 1: But even if you don't see freaks, like look up
40:40
Speaker 1: Schlitze's part agreed, it'll probably make you want to see Freaks,
40:44
Speaker 1: so chuck. Um, the Freak Show is well, some people
40:48
Speaker 1: say that it's still around and that it's just on
40:50
Speaker 1: TV in the form of reality shows, like basically that
40:54
Speaker 1: same sentiment and everything still is found all over television. Yeah,
40:59
Speaker 1: exploiting uh people like uh, exploiting obesity and exploiting dwarf
41:05
Speaker 1: is um and uh, yeah it's on television now. Um.
41:09
Speaker 1: But the actual side show itself, Um, it's well, it
41:14
Speaker 1: went away in a lot of ways, at least as
41:17
Speaker 1: far as like a traveling side show went. And it
41:20
Speaker 1: went away with the rise of um, the rights for
41:23
Speaker 1: the disabled. That that that movement that came along in
41:26
Speaker 1: the starting in about the like late nineteenth century, early
41:30
Speaker 1: twentieth century, and then really gaining steam by about the
41:33
Speaker 1: time Freaks came around. The movie. Yeah, there were a
41:36
Speaker 1: few things that kind of killed it, um, but one's
41:38
Speaker 1: definitely like you said, science invented it and killed it
41:41
Speaker 1: as And here's something that is sort of reprehensible that
41:45
Speaker 1: I found out. There's a lot of these uh side
41:48
Speaker 1: shows would try and keep doctors away from the people
41:52
Speaker 1: because they thought, I don't want a doctor coming in here.
41:54
Speaker 1: And saying that the dog faced boy actually has hypertrichosis. Yeah,
42:00
Speaker 1: because and it's a condition where you have hair all
42:02
Speaker 1: over your face. Yeah. I told everybody he was a
42:06
Speaker 1: cave caveman. Yeah, exactly, did you know? Actually there was
42:10
Speaker 1: another There was a woman um named Julia Pastrana, and
42:14
Speaker 1: she had hypertrichosis too, and she ended up marrying her manager.
42:19
Speaker 1: They were married, they had a baby together, and she
42:22
Speaker 1: died during childbirth and and the baby was born stillborn,
42:27
Speaker 1: and her husband, manager, who ostensibly loved her, said the
42:31
Speaker 1: show must go on. So he mummified his wife and
42:34
Speaker 1: they're still born baby, and then took him around to
42:37
Speaker 1: display them in the side show as ever unbelievable. So
42:43
Speaker 1: uh again, doctors would come along and start explaining these things,
42:47
Speaker 1: and that helped kill the side show. The rise of
42:50
Speaker 1: television and uh, you know at home entertainment meant people
42:53
Speaker 1: weren't going out to places like sideshows anymore. Yeah, they
42:58
Speaker 1: could stay in their house and watch television. And apparently
43:00
Speaker 1: you could still find sideshows like that American horror story
43:04
Speaker 1: was it freak show last season or whatever? I don't
43:08
Speaker 1: watch that, but yeah, um it was setting I think
43:11
Speaker 1: the fifties, and I think at that time you could
43:13
Speaker 1: still see, you know, traveling side shows here there, but
43:16
Speaker 1: they were pretty broken down by that point, they were
43:20
Speaker 1: pretty pretty much gone. But by the sixties there was
43:23
Speaker 1: a girl named Carol Browning and she I all I
43:27
Speaker 1: could find is that she had deformed arms and legs.
43:29
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means, but that was the
43:31
Speaker 1: description that was given given of her. But she went
43:34
Speaker 1: to a side show and when she visited the carnival
43:38
Speaker 1: in North Carolina. I think she lived in Charlotte, No Raleigh,
43:42
Speaker 1: and Carol, what is it with North Carolina? That's where
43:45
Speaker 1: things beginning in with with sideshows. Well, Carol, Carol Grant
43:51
Speaker 1: I think was her name. Carol wrote a letter to
43:54
Speaker 1: the Agricultural Commission. The Agricultural Commission is in charge of
43:59
Speaker 1: side shows at the time, at least in North Carolina,
44:00
Speaker 1: and said this is wrong, like this is beyond wrong.
44:04
Speaker 1: I'm I'm offended by this and this this should not
44:07
Speaker 1: be allowed to happen. And she actually sparked a national
44:10
Speaker 1: conversation about whether side shows should be allowed to be around,
44:15
Speaker 1: even if performers wanted to be a part of them.
44:18
Speaker 1: And that was the final death knell that conversation. But
44:21
Speaker 1: a lot of people came out and said, hey, you
44:23
Speaker 1: know what these people, you guys call them freaks, but
44:26
Speaker 1: you also empty your pockets to them, and they're wealthy.
44:30
Speaker 1: They enjoy the acclaim, they enjoy the money, and um,
44:34
Speaker 1: it's actually you who has the problem. And it didn't
44:39
Speaker 1: have much of an effect. Sideshows went away, and a
44:42
Speaker 1: lot of the sideshow performers ended up going from being
44:45
Speaker 1: pretty wealthy or well paid or having a steady income
44:47
Speaker 1: to um being broke and ending up like being abandoned
44:51
Speaker 1: by their managers like Daisy and Violet. Yeah, it's a
44:56
Speaker 1: tricky ground, it is. It's pretty much sad all the
44:59
Speaker 1: way through. Yeah, I mean except for some success stories.
45:03
Speaker 1: And that makes the whole thing so morally ambiguous if
45:06
Speaker 1: you think about it, Like, it's just so easy to
45:08
Speaker 1: look from here and be like you named your movie
45:11
Speaker 1: freaks or you you you charge people to look at
45:16
Speaker 1: the elephant man. But what about those people who said,
45:20
Speaker 1: I'm cool with this, I'm signing on for this. Yeah,
45:23
Speaker 1: this is making a lot of very wealthy. I'm happy,
45:26
Speaker 1: I've I've had all sorts of opportunities that weren't open
45:29
Speaker 1: to me before. And I love what I do. What
45:32
Speaker 1: do you do about that? Like, you can't condemn it.
45:34
Speaker 1: It's not an easy black and white thing to to
45:37
Speaker 1: deal with. Yeah, it's called a moral ambiguity. You said
45:40
Speaker 1: it that There have always been them, them, those them
45:43
Speaker 1: moral ambiguity. There always will be. Uh, you got anything else? No?
45:49
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about sideshows, freaks, that
45:54
Speaker 1: kind of thing, you can type those words into the
45:56
Speaker 1: search bar at how stuff works dot com. And since
45:59
Speaker 1: I said search parts, time for listener mail. Hey, before
46:04
Speaker 1: listener mail, what about Ronnie and Donnie? Oh? Yeah, Ronnie
46:08
Speaker 1: and Donnie are alive. Awesome. They are sixty four years
46:11
Speaker 1: old as of past October I think one, and they
46:15
Speaker 1: are the world's longest living conjoined twins. They're adorable too.
46:20
Speaker 1: They're OHI ends right if I remember believe so? Yeah,
46:23
Speaker 1: very nice man. What documentary did we see on them
46:26
Speaker 1: or something? I can't remember, but we've we've talked about
46:28
Speaker 1: him a lot over the years. So that's that's great news. Yeah,
46:31
Speaker 1: but they're they're still at it alright. So listener mail,
46:34
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one. Uh, quick feedback on the
46:39
Speaker 1: Bill Gates podcast that is Quick Turnaround. Hey guys, my
46:42
Speaker 1: name is Brendan Cologne announced like Cologne, and I'm a
46:48
Speaker 1: PhD student at Habba Medical School in Pamelas Silver's lab
46:54
Speaker 1: working on artificial photosynthesis. Shoutout Pamelas Silver. How about that.
46:59
Speaker 1: I'm long time fan the show and wanted to say
47:01
Speaker 1: what you guys did? Uh? You did? You did a
47:02
Speaker 1: great job covering renewable energy with Bill Gates. During the episode,
47:06
Speaker 1: there was a question about the current limitations of artificial
47:09
Speaker 1: photosynthetic systems at present. The biggest issues are scalability, he
47:15
Speaker 1: cost energy in producing the building materials, and the efficient
47:18
Speaker 1: extraction of produced fuels. Uh. These are standard engineering hurdles,
47:22
Speaker 1: but like Mr Gates said, we can call them Bill.
47:25
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't think you can, Brendon, we can,
47:27
Speaker 1: but we can. Uh. These are standard engineering hurdles, but
47:30
Speaker 1: like Mr Gates said, the final product needs to be viable. Specifically,
47:34
Speaker 1: such a product would need to harvest in store more
47:37
Speaker 1: energy in the short term than what was required to
47:39
Speaker 1: build it makes sense and do so on the cheap. Uh. Fortunately,
47:43
Speaker 1: biotechnology and photo voltaic technology is advancing at a breakneck pace,
47:49
Speaker 1: so the future of this technology looks bright. As new
47:51
Speaker 1: biochemistries are discovered, more products will be available for production,
47:55
Speaker 1: and one vision of this technology is a local and
47:58
Speaker 1: individualized production chemical is on demand. I hope this helps.
48:02
Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out. Cheers Brendan. Thanks Brendan, Yeah,
48:07
Speaker 1: Brendan Cologne pronounced cologne, that's right. Uh. If you are
48:11
Speaker 1: an expert in something that we talk about, we love
48:14
Speaker 1: hearing feedback from people like you. You can send us
48:17
Speaker 1: an email. Send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart
48:20
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
48:26
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
48:29
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
48:32
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.