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Tiny Tim - Weird Before Weird Was Cool · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Alex, how you doing?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Kelly, what's up, man?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: I want to take you back a few years to kind of a person that is interesting.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: He's dead.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: And he's probably someone that you haven't thought about in a long time.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: But you might have seen you might have seen him on TV in the 60s.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't around in the 60s, so I wouldn't have seen that.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Then you wouldn't have seen him in TV on TV in the 60s.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: He was born in 1932.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: And his um real name was Herbert, but he didn't go by that.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: That was that was his uh his actual name, but he had a stage name.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, imagine a tall, awkward man with long hair, and he's kind of singing, and maybe maybe he sounds like he's singing out of a gramophone from the 1920s.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: And he's got kind of this falsetto voice, and he's just doing weird stuff.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I think I know who you're talking about.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Who are we talking about?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Are you talking about Tiny Tim?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: We are talking about Tiny Tim.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_10: Well, he was on my I always keep this this list.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: You claim this all the time.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: You always you always do this to me.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like I have someone and then you tell me it's on your list.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, and I've you know, I I don't think I've gotten to the too many on the list, but Tiny Tim was on uh on my original list.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_10: I'm fascinated by this Tiny Tim.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_10: I was just gonna say oddball.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_10: And and Tiny Tim, um, man, uh I remember him on uh Johnny Carson.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_10: He'd be yeah, yeah.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_10: Johnny Carson made him real famous, right?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_10: Yep.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_10: And uh yeah, I remember, and as a kid, you're like, this is kind of cool, but I don't understand why adults like this.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's definitely I I don't know that as a kid I would have even thought it was cool.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: I still don't necessarily think it's cool, but I do think not cool, maybe cool was the wrong word, but like I remember thinking, wow, I don't know why all these adults are into this.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, it it was definitely his strangeness, and I think the timing of it, you know, kind of coming about in the 50s and 60s was was part of it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, he wasn't originally Tiny Tim.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: He was uh originally known uh or named Herbert Butros Kaury K-H-A-U-R-Y.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: And he was um the son of Lebanese and Polish immigrants in New York, and he was kind of a sickly kid.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he he he wasn't very um athletic, he wasn't very he didn't didn't really have much going for him, he wasn't good in school, right?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Reoccurring theme.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then at some point he was given a phonograph with one record, and it was maybe it was his dad or mom's phonograph, but it would have to be tiptoe through the tulips.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, actually, the original song that kind of turned him on to music and he became sort of obsessed with.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: And remember, back in the 30s, 40s, recorded music was still a novelty, right?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: There was no television really.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: There were certainly movies, but um, let's take a little listen to this first song that he heard to kind of make him become obsessed with not only music but old records.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's called Beautiful Ohio by Henry Burr.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually kind of like the vibe.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like to me, that music kind of makes me smile.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: It makes me think of I don't know, New York City on Christmas morning, you know, in the cold and and kind of walking and um maybe maybe going to get uh the the Christmas goose, you know.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know, it just it gives me a vibe.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: How does that kind of music make you feel?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: It makes me think about like gangsters.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_10: It's funny that you think maybe I've seen a lot of gangster movies uh well, you know, I I watched that boardwalk empire, and there were a lot of characters that were like singers that were saying that kind of uh uh like Al Jolson and people like that or characters in the show.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_10: So it's funny I associate that with like you know uh kind of bootlegging and gangsters and that East Coast, but it definitely kind of an East Coast feel to it.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, definitely but not warm and fuzzy to me.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of menacing, huh?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: But just because I know it from the movies.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I think of maybe being on a on like the Titanic, you know, like on a on a steamship going across the ocean and hot air balloon, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Drinking cocktails or a zeppelin, um and and uh you know, mingling with beautiful people from the 1920s.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: It probably smelled bad.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well penny farthing.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that was called Beautiful Ohio by Henry Burr.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was the first record that Tiny Tim kind of discovered, or or Herbert, I should say, uh kind of discovered.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: So he became obsessed with these old records.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: He dropped out of school his sophomore year, and he became a runner for a New York office in 1952.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now it happened that this office was MGM, so it was uh you know entertainment.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: So he was taking documents and things back and forth between offices in down new downtown New York, signed things, and you know, that was his job.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: And he kind of fell in love with show business because of MGM.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: He he he kind of, you know, even though it'd be like it would be like if you worked for uh Disney as I don't know, like a like a janitor at at the Disney parks, you know, you're like, yeah, I work for Disney, you know, there's an association there, right?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he became um sick and was hospitalized and had a very kind of long sickness where for for weeks and weeks, where he was so bored that he would just listen to these records and he would start to sing, and he realized he could sing in a high-pitched falsetto and that this was his superpower.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, just imagine you're singing one day and all of a sudden you realize you can sing in a high high pitch falsetto.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it worked for them.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: You remember uh Rudolph Valentino, right?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: You've heard of him, the famous actor.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he was famous for wearing this white makeup, and he was a big influence on Herbert, um, who later became Tiny Tim.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he decided to go to an open mic night, and he sang, You are my sunshine, and he wore white makeup, and he got a big round of applause, and he was like kind of hooked at that point on being an entertainer.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: This was this was his drug, this was his passion to sing for people and to get this applause.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: He started to love it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, in 1959, after kind of doing this for a little while, he started to do these free shows like open mic nights, and you know, a lot of places would let you go for just the exposure, but he landed a gig at Hubert's Museum and Flea Circus in Times Square in 1959.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: So this um Hubert's Museum and Flea Circus was um a freak show mostly, and he was one of the people that that played there, and he was so weird that he kind of fit in.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: So this was 1959, and there was still a flea circus going on.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, on Times Square.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: On Times Square.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, there is actually a shot in Midnight Cowboy, the movie, where you see the sign that says Hubert's Museum and Flea Circus.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: No kidding.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: In the background.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, kind of a faint club.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he started to gain a reputation and uh he uh decided he needed a stage name.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: So he kind of auditioned a lot of stage names, and I'm gonna read some of them to you.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: You tell me what your favorite is.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Judas K Foxglove.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good one.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Emmett Swink, S-W-I-N-K, uh, Texarkana Tex.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: He used all these were ones that he yeah, he tried them out to see see which one he liked.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Herbert Buckingham Cowrie, that was his real last name.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Larry Love, the singing canary, Derry Dover, Vernon Castle, and then finally Sir Timothy Timms.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think I like Larry Love the Singing Canary the best.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Larry Love the Singing Canary.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, these were this was a time when, again, he was just starting to figure out what he could do, and he decided that he liked Timothy Timms not only because it had a nice ring to it, but he added that tiny Tim to it, and it was ironic because he was actually six foot one.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say, I don't remember him being tiny.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, it was the irony of it.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: He thought it was funny, so he he decided to become tiny.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: That was that was sort of uh he was a he was a pioneer in that area.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it was kind of one of these things where it was such a odd, bad show that he people couldn't look away.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was it was something that people started to um see it as more of like a like a freak show, but they couldn't deny that it was interesting.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: So his first big hit, as you said a minute ago, was Tip Throat Tiptoe Through the Tulips.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna play just a little bit of that so you can hear that famous falsetto if you aren't familiar with it.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: He played a ukulele, yep.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: Another thing about his about his songs, they weren't originals.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: This was actually a cover.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: So so here is the original of Tiptoe Through the Tulips that inspired him.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Shades of my heart creeping.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's a man.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was more common to think in falsetto back in these days.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_10: But that's playing it straight.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_10: That guy's not trying to be uh ironic or like this was uh Tiny Tim was doing it as a gag, right?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_10: It was a novelty thing, right?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_10: It was definitely good.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think I think that he actually vocally was pretty talented.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: He could sing, um and see.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_10: I don't think it's pleasant at all.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_10: I think that guy that you just played was pretty good.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_10: I think Tiny Tim was not that wasn't a pleasant voice.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_10: As well, that's the thing is polished.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Around 1968, as you mentioned earlier, he started getting these TV gigs.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: He played on Laugh In, that was his first uh national television um show.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: He was on Ed Sullivan, which was kind of a you know, Ed Sullivan, I think, was the first one to play the Beatles and kind of make them famous, at least in the US.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but people couldn't decide if they loved it or if they were terrified of it, right?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_10: It was kind of I always thought it kind of went with the hippie um thing, right?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_10: I was it was frightening to me as a kid.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_10: He was frightening to me, like I mentioned in previous episodes that many hippies were frightening to me.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, and then there and then the parents would would kind of glom onto that because there were all these rumors about it, much like rumors about Ozzie Osborne or rumors about you know other metal bands back in the day.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they said he didn't use deodorant or soap, which actually was true.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that he saved his toenail clippings in jars and had jars and jars full of them.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: He collected women's hair and it was all cataloged by color.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's a little creepy.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: He ate he ate primarily potatoes.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: His main his main uh diet was all potatoes.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was just kind of a weird thing, but then where he really hit big was when he got the most watched uh television show in the history of the world.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Forty million people in 1969 tuned in to Johnny Carson to see him get married.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: So he married Miss Vicky, his uh teenage sweetheart, and uh that was more people than watched the moon landing.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Was Tiny Tim getting married on Johnny Carson?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_10: Wow.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_10: And she was like 16, right?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: She was she was she was young, he was a little bit older, um, he had a ruffled suit on.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Vicky was kind of confused, and it was just this train wreck that people couldn't uh turn away from.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was a cultural oddity.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_10: Wow.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_10: Now so is that advancement from like it's funny that he's associated with the flea circus because I mentioned lowbrow entertainment on a previous episode.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_10: I think this is kind of the epitome of lowbrow entertainment, right?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_10: And the the precursor to the to all the you know the the Jerry Springer type of things that we talked about before too.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe so.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, I feel like this has always existed.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, people used to go to public executions, right?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: And and go to um, you know, people would fight the gladiators fighting the lions.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that seems yeah, very base to me.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know about lowbrow, but it's it's you know, it's not very sophisticated or or educated or even sensitive or empathetic.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_10: And there's also a sense of laughing at someone versus laughing with someone, yeah, that I always have difficulty with, you know.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean like Rodney Dangerfield, you would laugh with him because you know he's doing a character, right?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas Tiny Tim, you're like, is this guy for real?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_10: Right.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_10: There was a guy on one of the first American Idols named William Hung.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_10: Do you remember that guy?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_10: And he was terrible, yep.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_10: And everybody turned him up, and he got really famous, and he may even have a hit record.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_10: Um and I always felt uncomfortable about that because I'm like, we're exploiting this guy.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: People be famous for being bad, bad at their craft.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: There is an expression of laughing all the way to the bank.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_04: No, you're right.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I'm not saying it's not lucrative, I'm just saying it's is it good for us?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think as a side society, it's not, but it was good for William Hung, and it was good for Tiny Tim because we're talking about him, right?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: He's he's interesting enough to be talked about.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: What uh you mentioned several times that you thought his um his style was grating and hard to listen to.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to listen to a little bit of this song, and this is one where he plays two different parts.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: He plays a man and a woman.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the woman is being followed by this man who she doesn't know, and he wants to take her on the old front porch and give her a kiss, but she's resisting.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: But it's kind of got a stalker feel to it.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: He he plays both parts.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's the man and the woman.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: So give this a listen.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_06: And now a little duet for you.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_09: There's a fellow.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_09: I'm the fellow.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of I kind of like this song.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: I need to admit it.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Is it cringey to you?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it well, it's it's scary.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_10: Like it's creepy, it is creepy.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_10: It gives me the ick.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_10: But it's I could see I could see somebody using this in a horror film.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_10: Uh while somebody's chasing somebody to play this in the bar.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_10: It's it's downright scary to me.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: But that is, you gotta admit, the back and forth between the the male and the female part is pretty seamless.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, it's funny because he's got a tinge of Andy Kaufman in him, right?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_10: That he knows can't possibly think that that straight up that people enjoy it.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_10: So he knows that there's some kind of novelty.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_10: He's gonna make it weird, but he's not as talented as someone like Weird Ow.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_10: Uh, although Weird Al doesn't exactly have a pleasant voice either, but I think his song parodies were way more clever than than this.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_10: But he kind of sits in that in that valley between Andy Kaufman and Weird Al, right?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's the Rhino Records, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's kind of these albums of of uh Dr.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Demento and um and you know Monster Mash would always be on those records.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: But I think he is downright.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: This guy scares me.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: So speaking of scary, I want you to listen to this one here.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's kind of it's kind of painful to listen to, but it's it's actually pretty clever, I think, and it ends with a really bad pun.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: This is called the Viper.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_06: Story of that old snake in the grass called the Viper.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_06: I was in my apartment all alone when I heard a ring tingling on the telephone.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_06: I said, Who's that at half past three?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_06: And a frightening voice came back at me.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_07: I am a vibe.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_08: I still in sex.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_06: My head was spinning and my knees were weak.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it's this whole kind of um poem similar to It's Next Call got me out of The Raven.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: And how I think this is our Halloween episode, right?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I hope so.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: The Viper.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well Holy cow, man, that that scares me.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't like that.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it ends it ends with a pun where he says, I want to vipe your windows.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: You love this stuff, don't you?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: So he his marriage to um Vicky, Miss Vicky, the 16-year-old, fizzled, didn't didn't last forever.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the 1970s saw the novelty wearing off, and Tiny Tim kind of became more of an occasional bizarre person um at county fairs, small clubs.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like he played Austin.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like I feel like he was here at at least once.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I remember maybe not in the but I remember seeing I don't know, Flyers for it or something.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: But he recorded a children's album, he recorded a Christian gospel album, he did a horror-themed record, kind of like that one.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think that Viper song was off of the horror-themed record.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he continued to eat mostly potatoes and onions.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: He ran for mayor of New York City.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um but he also wouldn't wash his hands, yet was a big germophobe but refused to wash his hands.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um his speaking voice was not uh what we just heard, right?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_10: Did he have a that was falsetto?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think that little introduction where he says, and now a story of da da da da he's kind of like doing the old British lady to me.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right is what it sounds like to me.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Julia Child.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, she wasn't British, but yeah, that yeah, but she she always sounded like the old British lady, right?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: So did he have a a deeper speaking voice?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think when he spoke, he spoke uh kind kind of like Getty Lee, right?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: You hear Getty Lee sing and then you hear him speak, and they're they're two different things.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um so he kind of went a little bit popular again in the 1990s with college kids, and it was sort of the you know ironic thing uh people found him ironic.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and um he was in his sixties then.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and he actually had a um a gig where he was playing and he had a heart attack and in 1996 and he died at the age of 64.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: At the age of 64.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: Doing a show.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: He was performing for I think it was a women's group.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that was that was the end.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: He he dropped over, he never recovered, and um he died performing.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: This is what it said.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: He actually collapsed playing Tiptoe Through the Tulips.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think there is actually a video of that.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think you can you can find a video of that of him collapsing on stage.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: I don't see that.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, I don't either.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was sad, but it was kind of um you know, a little bit touching that he died doing what he loved because he had had some heart conditions before based on his diet and kind of lifestyle, I think.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: He had had some problems with his heart, his doctors told him not to play, he said I'm gonna play anyway, and he did it, and then he died doing it.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Was he in on the joke?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_10: Is the big question.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a good question.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Hard hard to say.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you you keep making these uh or you made this uh connection to Andy Kaufman, and that's actually pretty brilliant because you wonder, you know, did he ever turn that character off, or was he just always this um genius who loved old timey songs and and and maybe liked creeping people out, liked annoying the critics, you know?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: It was kind of his shtick to do those things.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_10: At some point, even if he started straight, at some point he had to realize that the reason that he was popular was because he was odd.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_10: And did he take that all the way to the bank or did he not accept it and just No, no.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: I I I do think I do think I mean it's hard to say.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: I I guess when we're famous podcasters, we might get a little bit of an ego, but I feel like you know, when you do get some recognition, you're going on television shows, you are selling records, you're you know, you've got a green room in the back and you've got groupies and all that, it probably goes to your head a little bit and you start to think you are really talented.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I think he always kind of realized that he was an oddity.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, much the way you know we talked about circus freaks and I use that word as in freak show kind of people, but they know that people are there to gawk at them, they know that people don't necessarily find them appealing, but want to stare at them.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it's it's kind of uh it's a way to exploit what you have for your own benefit.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_10: So you said you've watched a lot of these Johnny Carson clips.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_10: What kind of interview questions did would he I mean when he was a person did he have a good personality?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: I I think he was pretty funny and witty and quick witted.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: And and yes, I think the interviews were a lot, a lot of what I saw was people asking about his personal habits and rumors, because there were a lot of rumors about him.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: So is it true that you that you collect your toenails in a jar?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I might do so.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: And he would talk in character during those, right?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's hard to say if he had a normal voice when he wasn't in this character, and those characters really did well on um on Johnny Carson because he and Ed McMahon were so straight-laced.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_10: Yes, it was a lot of a lot of juxtaposition, yeah, and just any kind of hippies going on those kind of shows, uh, really the like the way they dressed and the way they talked, and they were just like guys from another planet coming in, and they really got a kick out of him.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_10: Beautiful.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_10: It's amazing that that more people watch that wedding than the moon landing.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: 40 million people tuned in for the his his wedding on television.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to kind of wrap up with um one more song, and this song I will put it out there and say, I actually think this is a good song.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I actually enjoy this song.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now he says a goofy little quip at the beginning that is I don't know, it's like almost trying too hard.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: But listen, let's listen to a good you know 60 seconds of this song, and and I want you to tell me who it reminds you of, because I think there's a very clear influence influence here of someone who uh you wouldn't expect to be a um I mean maybe because he but based on the other songs that he seemed to emulate from, this one has a little different vibe.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: So let me play it for you.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: This is called uh Then I'll be satisfied with my life.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_07: Never hit your grandma with a shovel.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_07: It makes a bad impression on her mind.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: Kinda kinda odd from all the other little clips I played, isn't it?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: But my my takeaway on that was a bit of a Bob Wills thing.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_10: No, it's funny, because what when I heard that, I started thinking about Beck.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_10: I thought it started thinking about when Beck first came on the scene, nobody really knew what to make of him.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_10: He's this uh little guy that did um didn't look like a rapper, but he definitely had rap songs, and then as he went on, some he expanded into all kinds of different kinds of music, yeah, and then he got really respected.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_10: Like, wow, this guy's really got some chops.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, but I think when Beck first started, he was kind of like a weirdo.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, people considered him a one-hit wonder, right?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because Loser was a huge hit, sure, huge, huge hit, yeah.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: And and and that album, Odiley, I think, won a Grammy or something.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean Odile was his second album, second album.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: So his first album was called Mellow Gold, that was with Loser, which also has some great songs on it.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's a song called Soul Sucking Jerk and Beer Can.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: I I love that album.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: But Odeley is even better.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Odile, but it's weird, yeah.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like he leaned into the weirdness a little bit.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: Beck did.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_10: But Beck was a great musician, I think, as it turned out.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_10: And um, but that's interesting.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_10: If I if I if we had done this without me hearing that song, um, I would have thought, well, his act kind of worth in because all he did was sing songs from the 1920s in a high voice.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_10: But that I thought was interesting.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a nice little like like again, that kind of song, Western Swing, always takes me to kind of a happy place.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like I can listen to that um anytime and just it it's it's background-ish, but it's also just got a it's got a certain charm and vibe to it.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_10: I wonder he what he was trying to do with that.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_10: Was that when he was arc uh arcan uh texarcanatex?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what it probably was Texarcanatex?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm I'm glad to hear that uh Tiny Tim was someone you consider doing because I kind of I actually when you pull a name off that sheet and I've picked that name, I always consider it a compliment.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: To say that to say that okay, we we we're thinking along the same lines here.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um did you know much of that about Tiny Tim?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_10: No, I just remembered him as being this odd figure, and I always remembered him being real popular with the hippies.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_10: Um and I remember, of course, that wedding.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_10: People what year was that wedding?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_10: 69, December of 69.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_10: So that wedding happened before I was born, but it's something that I feel like I watched, even though I've probably never seen it.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_10: I've seen clips, you know.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_10: You can see clips of it.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, they're still available.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_10: It's funny that that was something that even though it happened before I was born, uh it was definitely something that is in my cultural knowledge base.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was a cultural touchstone, and again, that's because 40 million people watched it.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Same year as the moon landing.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was 69 as well, toward the end of the year.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_10: It was a good thing it wasn't on opposite the moon landing.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody would have watched the damn moon landing tonight on the Carson Show.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: Don't do the Moonlanding.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's Tiny Tim.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and he he I guess you'd call him maybe a beautiful freak.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Poor one of for Tiny Tim.