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The Dumbest Mobster Ever Tried To Steal Ruby Slippers · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Shout out to Las Vegas is
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Speaker 1: the Sphere. Shout out to our super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Max, There's no place like home. There's no place like home, Williams.
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Speaker 2: There we go.
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Speaker 1: Love it. That's mister Noel Brown, returned from some adventures.
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Speaker 1: They call me Ben Bullen in this part of the
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Speaker 1: world due to some ongoing litigation. Look, once upon a time,
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Speaker 1: as our pal Jordan told us, Uh, the Wizard of
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Speaker 1: Oz was a big deal. Did you ever read the
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Speaker 1: old books by there was a book?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I did.
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Speaker 3: I am aware of the book, and apparently in the
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Speaker 3: book the slippers are silver, But that did I wouldn't
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Speaker 3: have translated to the silver screen as well as read
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Speaker 3: for some reason and the infinite wisdom of the pictures
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Speaker 3: and the golden age of Hollywood. Yeah, no, I do
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Speaker 3: love the story. You know if the Frank Albaum series
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Speaker 3: of books, which also I believe encompassed a lot of
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Speaker 3: the lore that went into the utterly terrifying children's film
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Speaker 3: Returned to Oz. Yes, like Queen Momby And there's some
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Speaker 3: ruby slippers in that one too, by the Gnome King
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Speaker 3: and the.
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Speaker 1: Most unfriendly rollerbladers in.
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Speaker 2: The Wheeler History nightmare stuff my friends.
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Speaker 1: Ah, yes, yeah, that's one of those things that will
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Speaker 1: encourage the Mandela effect because you're wondering whether or not
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Speaker 1: that actually happened or if you just had a traumatic
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Speaker 1: childhood fever dream.
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Speaker 3: In the film Young Ferusa Bulk, you may remember from
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Speaker 3: the Craft, I'm still terrified to other things. Yeah, for sure,
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Speaker 3: she's great in the Craft, and she's also an American
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Speaker 3: History X when she was a kid, and she's in
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Speaker 3: this film and her character has I believe, been committed
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Speaker 3: to a psychiatric institute and is given like shock treatment
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Speaker 3: and that's what leads her to re hallucinate Oz kind
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Speaker 3: of and it's boy, is it ever dark?
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Speaker 1: And I wonder what I wonder what Frank would think
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Speaker 1: about that, what the author Baum would think.
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Speaker 2: Anyway, here's a Disney picture by the way.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, a lot of stuff got co signed
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Speaker 1: by Disney.
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Speaker 3: This was a golden era for Mega Mega Dark Live
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Speaker 3: Action Disney. This is the I want to say, early nineties.
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Speaker 1: People were going through stuff, you know, Alison Shean's was big.
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Speaker 2: It was a whole thing, all right.
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Speaker 1: Here's our story for today, courtesy of our phenomenal research
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Speaker 1: associate friend of the show, Jordan run Talk. In the
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Speaker 1: story Wizard of Oz, the film adaptation, our protagonist Dorothy
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Speaker 1: Gale Tornado jokes true, she has gifted a pair of
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Speaker 1: magic ruby slippers, and these are actual artifacts because the
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Speaker 1: MGM studio, their prop department did, of course have to
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Speaker 1: make actual ruby slippers. These have become one of the
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Speaker 1: most coveted bobbles in movie history.
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Speaker 2: Pieces of movie memorabilia.
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Speaker 3: And we're going to get to some great info Jordan
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Speaker 3: found about how like at the time, movie memorabilia was
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Speaker 3: not a thing, the studios didn't know what they had.
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Speaker 2: I guess they just didn't have.
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Speaker 3: A long view of it all, and this kind of
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Speaker 3: kind of popped up as a cottage industry that then,
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Speaker 3: of course became incredibly lucrative.
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Speaker 1: They were still using as best This is snow exactly.
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Speaker 2: Oh totally.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of a lot that's maybe another episode,
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Speaker 3: because there's a lot of crazy behind the scenes stuff
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Speaker 3: involving the production of the Wizard of Oz.
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Speaker 2: Ben Mins. I imagine as you mentioned the sphere in
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Speaker 2: Las Vegas.
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Speaker 3: You're aware of this bizarre sort of event experience. I
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Speaker 3: guess where they've reimagined The Wizard of Oz film through
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Speaker 3: enhancements using AI and machine learning in order to widen
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Speaker 3: the frame of this classic Golden Age Hollywood film to
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Speaker 3: encompass the entire three hundred and sixty degrees of the
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Speaker 3: Vegas sphere. There's also live action elements where the flying
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Speaker 3: monkeys swoop in on like you know, like what do
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Speaker 3: you call it? Wires and you know, hurricane wind effects
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Speaker 3: and all that. Very four D cinema at its arguably,
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Speaker 3: I don't know, kind of most gross. It's not my thing.
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Speaker 3: Maybe if it's free you by all means up you
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Speaker 3: enjoy yourself. But general, you little odd, little odd, that's
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Speaker 3: a general you ridiculous historians. This fear has fascinated all
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Speaker 3: three of us and hopefully you as well since its construction.
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Speaker 3: Check out our pals. I was hanging with Jack and
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Speaker 3: Miles talking about this earlier. I can't remember when, but
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Speaker 3: it is.
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Speaker 1: You know, the best way to do it, since we
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Speaker 1: want to save some time here, is to go to
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Speaker 1: the New York Times article from September one, twenty twenty
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Speaker 1: five by Alyssa Wilkinson, and I love the title here,
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Speaker 1: nol it is. It is film criticism, and the headline reads,
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Speaker 1: is the Wizard of oz a Sphere the future of cinema?
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Speaker 2: Or the end of it? That is the question.
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Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's sort of part and parcel
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Speaker 3: of the kinds of conversations that folks have around let's
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Speaker 3: say George Lucas reimagining his previous films and making the
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Speaker 3: original versions no longer able to be seen or acquired,
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Speaker 3: And then the question then becomes like, is there any
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Speaker 3: end to this kind of revisionist history of like classic cinema?
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Speaker 3: And I would argue this is maybe not at the end.
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Speaker 3: I don't want to be dire about it, but it
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Speaker 3: just kind of rubs me the wrong way. So we
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Speaker 3: are talking more specifically about the original creation of this
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Speaker 3: incredible piece of Hollywood history and some of the props
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Speaker 3: and the screen used pieces that kind of developed a
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Speaker 3: life of their own in terms of like Hollywood lore.
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Speaker 3: And there's a really really cool story surrounding these ruby slippers.
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Speaker 1: Yes, in two thousand and five. So we're because we
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Speaker 1: love Jordan, we're pushing our typical historical timeline a bit
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Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, the actual slippers, the props
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Speaker 1: that ished in the wee hours of the evening. They
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Speaker 1: were stolen will learn by a retired mobster who was Mexican,
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Speaker 1: me some heist music. He was desperate to make one
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Speaker 1: last score because he thought last job. Yeah. He thought
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Speaker 1: the shoes were encrusted and bedazzled with real rubies, and
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Speaker 1: he was convinced that he had made this huge win
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Speaker 1: until he went to an actual jeweler who says, I'm sorry,
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Speaker 1: but these are sequins and class. So he sat on
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Speaker 1: these stolen slippers for over ten years, and he had
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Speaker 1: no idea that one day these legendary shoes would sell
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Speaker 1: for thirty two point five million US dollars.
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Speaker 3: Much like MGM itself, though, you know, with the gift
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Speaker 3: of hindsight, I suppose had no idea that this was
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Speaker 3: going to be such a hot item. So fans of
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Speaker 3: the novels by Frank Alboon, specifically the original nineteen hundred
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Speaker 3: book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, know that Dorothy Gale's
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Speaker 3: famous kicks were originally going to be silver slippers. That's
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Speaker 3: what they were in the book. Has a nice ring
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Speaker 3: to it, the silver slippers, but MGM brass did not
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Speaker 3: think that they would pop well enough on screen. This
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Speaker 3: was going to be obviously a very very important early
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Speaker 3: use of technicolor, going from black and white to color.
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Speaker 3: From when Dorothy lands in the Wonderful World of Oz.
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Speaker 2: And silver.
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Speaker 1: Silver, we're not really flexing And the whole silver slippers
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Speaker 1: yellow brick road thing is about the gold standard as
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Speaker 1: a metaphor.
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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, for sure.
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Speaker 3: And I don't know, man, I still to this day
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Speaker 3: I'm so baffled by how well it works when you
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Speaker 3: play Dark Side of the Moon along with the Wizard
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Speaker 3: of Oz. There's no way they could have done it
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Speaker 3: as on purpose as it seems. But boil boy, is
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Speaker 3: that a fun thing to do? So just start the record,
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Speaker 3: I think after the third roar of the MGM Lion.
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Speaker 3: The slippers were designed by legendary costumer Gilbert Adrian, who
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Speaker 3: was the chief costume designer over there at MGM. Originally
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Speaker 3: they were made in what was referred to as the
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Speaker 3: Arabian motif, with these curling toes and high heels, elaborate
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Speaker 3: jewel encrustation. They were using a costume test, but ultimately discarded.
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Speaker 3: I don't know at the time if I'm giving them
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Speaker 3: too much credit by saying they maybe realized it was problematic,
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Speaker 3: but it's certainly.
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Speaker 1: Here, Jordan, if you're listening, I will I will take
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Speaker 1: exception on this. I'll push back because the racist reasoning
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Speaker 1: for maybe not having them was that was probably that
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Speaker 1: Louie b Meyer who shows up in stuff they don't want,
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Speaker 1: you know, in a few episodes. He probably thought it
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Speaker 1: was too exotic for the time because it's a wholesome
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Speaker 1: Midwest fantasy story.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, at least the way possibly the further reasons of
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Speaker 2: xenophobia that maybe led to them not being.
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Speaker 1: Used, at least the way they're framing that it's supposed
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Speaker 1: to be a wholesome Midwestern fantasy.
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Speaker 3: So the second design after that one was mixed was
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Speaker 3: a bit closer to what we now know as the
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Speaker 3: famous iconic ruby slippers. However, they had one modification. The
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Speaker 3: red beads were initially deemed to be too heavy, and
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Speaker 3: they were ultimately replaced by two three hundred sequins per
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Speaker 3: shoe made of a gelatin material, which have since caused
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Speaker 3: an absolute nightmare for folks who are trying to maintain
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Speaker 3: and preserve these items.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we'll get into some of the restoration, but
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Speaker 1: essentially the boffins who have to clean these shoes have
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Speaker 1: to do each sequin one by one with a very
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Speaker 1: small piece of cotton dipped in very cold water. It's
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Speaker 1: weird because the shoes themselves are not super duper or
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Speaker 1: nate nor elaborate. They're these white silk pumps made by
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Speaker 1: a place called the Inn's Shoe Company, and then they
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Speaker 1: get dyed red and then they put these burgundy sequined
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Speaker 1: organza overlays around it. And because technicolor, I still think
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Speaker 1: we all remember that moment where you watch the first
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Speaker 1: part of Wizard of Oz, the adaptation, and it's in
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Speaker 1: black and white, and then all of a sudden we
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Speaker 1: burst out into Oz and it's in technicolor. Incredible, it's amazing.
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Speaker 1: But technicolor technology was technically not techan because the shoes
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Speaker 1: would have looked orange on screen, so the costume team
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Speaker 1: had to correct for that. If you look at the
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Speaker 1: shoes in real life, you can see them at Smithsonian
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Speaker 1: over there in DC. Huge fans of that check out
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Speaker 1: their podcast Side Door. You'll see that the shoes are
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Speaker 1: not as impressive Irl as they are in the film
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Speaker 1: because they're darker.
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Speaker 3: They're darker, and obviously the look of them in the
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Speaker 3: film had a lot to do with really really powerful
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Speaker 3: lights and just again the way that color saturated on
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Speaker 3: that Technicolor film. So, according to folks who worked on
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Speaker 3: the film, somewhere between six and ten pairs of size
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Speaker 3: five ruby slippers were made for the production. Not uncommon
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Speaker 3: to have, you know, duplicates for various reasons.
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Speaker 2: Some of these were meant to be used for close ups.
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Speaker 3: Other that were a little maybe less bespoke, were meant
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Speaker 3: to be used in wide shots when she was walking
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Speaker 3: and dancing. Perhaps they were not as ornately decorated so
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Speaker 3: they couldn't get messed up if they got dinged. These
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Speaker 3: had orange felt attached to the souls, so they didn't
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Speaker 3: make as much noise on the set, the yellow brick
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Speaker 3: roads set.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And that makes sense for anybody in production.
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Speaker 1: We've got a lot of friends in the world of
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Speaker 1: movie making and motion pictures here in our metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia.
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Speaker 1: You know, you have to make all sorts of little
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Speaker 1: compromises and tweaks and fixes to get the effect you
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Speaker 1: want on screen. Let's get to the saga of a
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Speaker 1: guy named Kent Warner, which we have chosen to call
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Speaker 1: a memorabilia savior.
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Speaker 2: So as we know now.
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Speaker 1: We're jumping around in time here, folks. There are four
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Speaker 1: pairs of ruby slippers that were used on screen that
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Speaker 1: we know exists today, and the reason they exist today
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Speaker 1: is entirely due to our buddy Kent. He was working
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Speaker 1: in the costume department of an MGM project. And for decades,
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Speaker 1: as we mentioned at the top, the studios didn't really
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Speaker 1: care for their old movie props. You made the thing,
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Speaker 1: you hope it played well in theaters and for the audience,
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Speaker 1: and then you left stuff to gather dust in case
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Speaker 1: you needed it again. So if you did a film
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Speaker 1: and you know, ancient Egypt or something, you had all
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Speaker 1: that costumerey or all those props, and you would just
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Speaker 1: literally put them in storage on the off chance you
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Speaker 1: might be able to do another film about it, another
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Speaker 1: Egyptian picture coming right, yeah, or Greek film, you know
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Speaker 1: what I mean.
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Speaker 3: In that kind of short sightedness too, as we know,
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Speaker 3: extended to the way they stored film as well. Like
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Speaker 3: you know, you had a lot of archival issues because
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Speaker 3: of the fact that these film stocks were or something
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Speaker 3: called vinegar syndrome as well, like there's a thing that
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Speaker 3: happens when you leave these things unprotected where they start
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Speaker 3: to more or less degrade over time. Not to mention Ben,
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Speaker 3: you're absolutely right, fire hazards. So a lot of this
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Speaker 3: stuff was very short sighted. They did not look at
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Speaker 3: this as a long term play in terms of archiving
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Speaker 3: and making sure that this stuff would be around for
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Speaker 3: future generations to enjoy on its own merits in terms
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Speaker 3: of like museum quality and can I also just really
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Speaker 3: quickly give a shout out to somebody who I know,
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Speaker 3: you know and love friend of the show and former
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Speaker 3: house stuff works Alum russ Vic, who works over there
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Speaker 3: at the Center for Puppet Shire Arts. I hadn't thought
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Speaker 3: about Russ in a minute, and I saw a video
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Speaker 3: on their instagram of Russ doing some incredible puppet restoration
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Speaker 3: on a globe from Pewee's Playhouse. And that is a
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Speaker 3: very similar type of process to what would have had
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Speaker 3: to have been done cleaning individually these sequence you know,
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Speaker 3: so you had to know about what kind of weird
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Speaker 3: methods were used at the time and then adjust accordingly.
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Speaker 3: So you're doing a good job and cleaning it rather
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Speaker 3: than making it worse.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Russ is absolute, utter legend, good friend of the show,
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Speaker 1: good friend of ours, and and he works in rarefied
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Speaker 1: air as a restoration expert in a very specific genre.
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Speaker 1: Do check out the Center for Puppetry Arts if you
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Speaker 1: ever have the opportunity to visit Atlanta. We are huge
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Speaker 1: fans of very specific museums, and by golly bye gosh,
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Speaker 1: that is indeed one to the point about what happens
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Speaker 1: to these shoes. I've got to tell everybody. This reminds
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Speaker 1: me of when I was appearing in commercials for big
16:32
Speaker 1: companies and we would have a production that lasts a
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Speaker 1: couple of days or whatever. Everybody and the crew walks
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Speaker 1: off with stuff, right, you hit up crafty, you get
16:43
Speaker 1: a twelve pack whatever soda is left over. You might also,
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Speaker 1: just like members of the Wizard of Oz production crew,
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Speaker 1: you might just walk off with a souvenir, you know,
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Speaker 1: a little relic at your time there, and the studio
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Speaker 1: heads don't care. Louis Meyer is doing other stuff like
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Speaker 1: frantically and aggressively harassing women.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, story for another day, but that's absolutely true.
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Speaker 3: Is was the case with a lot of the big
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Speaker 3: wigs in these days and hey, in much more recent
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Speaker 3: time as we know, and you hear stories even in
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Speaker 3: more recent times of actors walking off with pieces of
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Speaker 3: wardrobe and stuff like that.
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Speaker 2: You're not technically supposed to, but it does happen.
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Speaker 3: But in these days it was not even like an
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Speaker 3: unspoken thing that it was a no no, It was
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Speaker 3: just they didn't really care. And that was largely because
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Speaker 3: again of that short sightedness. So whatever stuff got left
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Speaker 3: was just thrown kind of haphazardly into warehouses or basements
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Speaker 3: or barns, barely cataloged, just kind of very willy nilly
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Speaker 3: sort of ad hoc operation. But one person who absolutely
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Speaker 3: did care was that Kent Warner that we talked about
17:44
Speaker 3: who worked for MGM in nineteen sixty nine when the
17:46
Speaker 3: studio had just been sold and we're basically doing a
17:49
Speaker 3: bit of house cleaning. So there was a lot of
17:51
Speaker 3: stuff to comb through. Imagine like your one little storage unit.
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Speaker 3: This is that times, you know, one hundred kits.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And so our buddy Kent looks at the studio
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Speaker 1: heads at the top brass as he's trying to clear
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Speaker 1: out all these dusty relics of older films, and they say,
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Speaker 1: all right, burn it, burn it all. Just start burning stuff.
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Speaker 1: And as he's about to set this bonfire, he sees
18:20
Speaker 1: an overcoat and he looks a little closer. Ah, what's
18:24
Speaker 1: wish he says, in a perfect impression, And he looks
18:29
Speaker 1: inside the lining of the coat and someone has stitched
18:33
Speaker 1: the name Bogart. It turns out this is the overcoat
18:38
Speaker 1: that Bogart is wearing in Casablanca. And he starts to say, wait,
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Speaker 1: what if this is part of history, not just stuff
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Speaker 1: we should burn? And he goes to the studio and
18:48
Speaker 1: he says, hey, I know you guys want me to
18:50
Speaker 1: burn all this stuff, but could we keep it because
18:53
Speaker 1: it maybe important later. And everyone at the studio is like,
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Speaker 1: I don't care.
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Speaker 2: So he's wild to me. The lack of foresight on
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Speaker 2: this stuff.
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Speaker 3: It just seems like it's their job to kind of
19:06
Speaker 3: think about legacy stuff and literal no pun intended, big
19:09
Speaker 3: picture scenarios.
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Speaker 2: Well, let's not paint them as villains, though absolutely not.
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Speaker 3: It's just more of like a I don't know, it
19:17
Speaker 3: was sort of the way things were done at the time,
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Speaker 3: But what what do you got?
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Speaker 1: They had, not me, but they had other things on
19:24
Speaker 1: their mind. And the reason I'm saying we can't paint
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Speaker 1: them entirely as villains, can't technicolor them as monsters, is
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Speaker 1: because they didn't get in the way of Kent taking
19:37
Speaker 1: this stuff. Very true, you know, they said essentially, they
19:40
Speaker 1: probably said, we need the square footage, we need the
19:44
Speaker 1: space for other stuff. So you do with it what
19:47
Speaker 1: you want. You can take it, you can burn it,
19:51
Speaker 1: we don't care. We're not going to charge you. And
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Speaker 1: he does that. He takes this and eventually stars from
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Speaker 1: some of these earlier films start coming to him. For instance,
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Speaker 1: Debbie Reynolds becomes a regular customer of Kent's and she
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Speaker 1: would call him up and say, hey, can you find
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Speaker 1: costumes from films I did in the past, like Singing
20:12
Speaker 1: in the Rain? And they would go digging, and he
20:15
Speaker 1: would literally meet her in a parking lot behind a
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Speaker 1: drug store a rite aid on Fairfax and Sunset and
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Speaker 1: sell her stuff from the trunk of his car.
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Speaker 2: Pretty cool man. He was a real wheeler dealer.
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Speaker 3: And you know, here are other situations.
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Speaker 2: Like where he would provide.
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Speaker 3: Some of these pieces to other actors who maybe were
20:41
Speaker 3: looking for something that had a particular sentimental value. Sometimes
20:45
Speaker 3: he would just give these pieces to folks who maybe
20:47
Speaker 3: didn't even know it was coming, or it never even
20:49
Speaker 3: occurred to them to ask about. Like an example where
20:52
Speaker 3: Betty Davis was working on the Smothers Brother's comedy Hour
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Speaker 3: on the Lot and Warner brought her a Queen Elizabeth
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Speaker 3: costume that she'd worn in The Virgin Queen nineteen fifty
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Speaker 3: five film that she actually won an Academy Award for.
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Speaker 3: And so, as Jordan points out on All We Dig Kent,
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Speaker 3: Warner's vibe he is a venerable Robin Hood of memorabilia, right.
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Speaker 1: Stealing from the studio, given to the people. But it's
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Speaker 1: not really stealing, he's just finding it.
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Speaker 2: He more or less had permission, he did. He very
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Speaker 2: much did so.
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Speaker 1: At this point, our cigar chomping tycoons of the film industry,
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Speaker 1: the studio top dogs, they say, I're sitting on a
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Speaker 1: gold mine here. And they have a huge auction in
21:41
Speaker 1: May of nineteen seventy and this auction is comprised of
21:46
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of various props and costumes from over
21:49
Speaker 1: the year. They go to our man Kent and they say,
21:54
Speaker 1: find these things, anything of value? Cataloged them, and this
21:58
Speaker 1: is where Kent finds the ruby slippers. He is pawing
22:02
Speaker 1: through almost five hundred thousand different costume sets and then
22:07
Speaker 1: he discovers them in and Jordan is on the fence
22:12
Speaker 1: about this. The shoes are either discovered in a barn
22:16
Speaker 1: that used to be on the MGM lot or in
22:20
Speaker 1: a neglected basement. He finds three pairs of these slippers.
22:25
Speaker 1: He only turns over one pair to MGM for the
22:28
Speaker 1: auction and that becomes their centerpiece, that's like their big
22:33
Speaker 1: ticket item. Then he sells another pair. You know, he's
22:36
Speaker 1: side hustling behind the right aid, right, and he keeps
22:39
Speaker 1: a third pair for himself and Noel. The pair he
22:43
Speaker 1: keeps for himself is the best pair.
22:47
Speaker 3: Arguably the nicest looking ones that would have been reserved
22:49
Speaker 3: for those close up shots. Super beautiful and elaborate. So
22:54
Speaker 3: what happened to the shoes? The MGM auction took place
22:57
Speaker 3: again in nineteen seventy and they were bought by a
23:00
Speaker 3: lawyer for fifteen grand. The lawyer is acting on behalf
23:05
Speaker 3: of an unidentified client, and that's believed to be the
23:08
Speaker 3: pair that is currently on permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian
23:11
Speaker 3: Museum of American History in DC. It's been there since
23:15
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy nine. Since then, there are a lot of ausi's,
23:20
Speaker 3: you know, of people in the oz circles referring to
23:24
Speaker 3: them as the People's shoes.
23:26
Speaker 1: Oh, and for a quick inflation calculator, max, if we
23:30
Speaker 1: could get a boop.
23:31
Speaker 2: Of course, excuse me, we must at a dude. He
23:37
Speaker 2: booped off, Mike, We've got the boob.
23:39
Speaker 1: So fifteen thousand dollars in nineteen seventy is one hundred
23:46
Speaker 1: and twenty five and forty eight dollars and forty five
23:49
Speaker 1: cents today.
23:50
Speaker 3: Still seems like a deal to me, considering where we're heading.
23:54
Speaker 3: I think we tease that at the top of the
23:55
Speaker 3: show the People's Shoes. To this day, that attraction is
23:58
Speaker 3: so popular that the carpets surrounding the case in the
24:01
Speaker 3: museum has had to be replaced on multiple occasions due
24:05
Speaker 3: to the wear and tear from all of the tourists
24:09
Speaker 3: and ozzies coming in to take a look. A lot
24:12
Speaker 3: of very observant visitors will even notice that the shoes
24:16
Speaker 3: on display are actually mismatched. Two of the pairs that
24:19
Speaker 3: we talked about of those various dupes got jumbled up,
24:22
Speaker 3: presumably back at the MGM lot, and to this day
24:25
Speaker 3: they've never actually been rematched with one another.
24:28
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, let's go back to the fancy shoes that
24:34
Speaker 1: Warner kept for a while. They're called the Witch's shoes.
24:37
Speaker 1: They're the ones you see on the spoiler for Wizard
24:41
Speaker 1: of Oz. There's a death very early odd in the show.
24:45
Speaker 1: The Wicked Witch of the East has a house dropped
24:49
Speaker 1: on her while she's wearing these lucky iconic magic shoes.
24:53
Speaker 1: Those are the pair he is coveting right and holding
24:58
Speaker 1: with him. They are are from those shots. Eventually, in
25:03
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, he sells that pair at another auction
25:07
Speaker 1: for twelve thousand dollars. One more inflation calculator. That's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
25:14
Speaker 1: boopit and a dude, boopit, bop it, flex it. What's that?
25:22
Speaker 2: That's the thing? Yep, the boppit. Yeah you do. You
25:24
Speaker 2: can twist it, pull it, punch it, stab it.
25:29
Speaker 1: I don't know, and Max, we need sylecus for all
25:32
Speaker 1: of those. So it's twelve thousand dollars in nineteen eighty
25:36
Speaker 1: one is the equivalent of forty two thousand, seven hundred
25:41
Speaker 1: and sixty nine dollars and eleven cents today.
25:44
Speaker 2: Man Bucky used to go so much further than't it?
25:46
Speaker 1: No kidding? So, unfortunately we know that Kent Warner is
25:52
Speaker 1: no longer with us. He passed away in nineteen eighty
25:55
Speaker 1: four due to some some medical issues. The witches shoe
26:00
Speaker 1: change hands a number of times, or change feet.
26:04
Speaker 2: Because it shoes, because it shoes.
26:06
Speaker 3: It changes feet and they're mismatched. Wait, no, maybe these
26:11
Speaker 3: are these? Maybe these we don't know if these were mismatched.
26:13
Speaker 1: These are yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, So they change feet
26:17
Speaker 1: a number of times. And why am I doing that joke?
26:20
Speaker 1: It's crazy that I'm allowed to vote or drive anyway.
26:23
Speaker 1: So at some point, these witches shoes get acquired by
26:29
Speaker 1: a cabal, a shadowy Hollywood cabal, uh for the Academy
26:35
Speaker 1: of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum. Who's in the cabal?
26:40
Speaker 1: We don't know all the members, but we know Leo
26:42
Speaker 1: DiCaprio was there. We know Steven Spielberg was there. Is
26:48
Speaker 1: that what it's called?
26:49
Speaker 3: No, that was what Leonardo DiCaprio's Little Gang of Homies
26:52
Speaker 3: was called. Oh wow, yeah, Leo DiCaprio. Toby maguire a
26:57
Speaker 3: handful of others. Toby, Toby was in the in the Pepassea.
27:01
Speaker 1: I say it like I'm about to call him after
27:03
Speaker 1: this and telegon it does.
27:04
Speaker 2: Seem like a sweet little cuddly fellow. Yeah. No, he
27:07
Speaker 2: apparently banging his way all over town.
27:11
Speaker 1: Oh geez, Well, there's another pair of shoes, the contest pair.
27:15
Speaker 1: This was not acquired by our buddy Kent. A Tennessee
27:19
Speaker 1: woman named Roberta Bauman got a genuine pair of the
27:24
Speaker 1: Ruby Slippers after she after she entered a contest called
27:30
Speaker 1: name the best movies of nineteen thirty nine was.
27:33
Speaker 2: The answer of the Wizard of Oz, that's the best
27:36
Speaker 2: movies of nineteen thirty nine to.
27:38
Speaker 1: The Ruby Slippers were the door prize. They were the
27:41
Speaker 1: second place prize.
27:42
Speaker 2: The contest pair. Yeah.
27:44
Speaker 3: To illustrate just how little the organizers thought of these,
27:48
Speaker 3: we need look no further than that very fact, Ben
27:52
Speaker 3: they were the second place prize. They were sold in
27:54
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight for one hundred and fifty grand to
27:57
Speaker 3: a man who worked for the Walt Disney Company, who
28:00
Speaker 3: had plans to put them in an entryway for their
28:02
Speaker 3: Great Movie Ride in what was then known as their
28:06
Speaker 3: MGM Park. They were sold again in two thousand for
28:11
Speaker 3: a devilish amounts of six hundred and sixty six thousand
28:14
Speaker 3: dollars to LA memorabilia dealers who have not displayed the
28:19
Speaker 3: shoes reportedly, And that's probably, as Jordan points out, for
28:22
Speaker 3: good reason when you hear about what happened to the
28:24
Speaker 3: fourth and final pair.
28:26
Speaker 1: Doom Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom Doom. The final pair
28:36
Speaker 1: of ruby slippers were those that we mentioned earlier, the
28:40
Speaker 1: ones Kent sold on the side in nineteen seventy and
28:43
Speaker 1: he did that just during a little little bit extra cash.
28:47
Speaker 1: That's the other side of the mismatched pair at the Smithsonian.
28:51
Speaker 1: So for a long time these were on display at
28:53
Speaker 1: the Judy Garland Museum over in Grand Rapids, where Judy
28:57
Speaker 1: Garland used to live. And then on the night of
29:01
Speaker 1: August twenty seventh, two thousand and five, a thief broken
29:05
Speaker 1: in the night and he smashed the Plexi glass case
29:08
Speaker 1: with a sledgehammer, and he ran away with the shoes.
29:11
Speaker 1: He didn't put them on, he just held them and
29:14
Speaker 1: ran away.
29:14
Speaker 3: It wouldn't have been cool, though, would be like dropped
29:16
Speaker 3: through the ceiling like a mission impossible and then used
29:18
Speaker 3: the diamond on the glass to.
29:20
Speaker 2: Cut like a perfect circle out of it.
29:22
Speaker 3: Nah, this guy was not thinking that he was a
29:24
Speaker 3: smash and grab artist.
29:26
Speaker 1: I've started saying falcon when I think stuff is cool.
29:29
Speaker 2: That'd be so.
29:29
Speaker 1: Falcon of him.
29:30
Speaker 2: That would be absolutely hell a falcon.
29:33
Speaker 3: What was not falcon was the fact that these things
29:35
Speaker 3: were now missing, and an anonymous donor offered a million
29:39
Speaker 3: bucks in exchange for information leading to their recovery.
29:42
Speaker 2: The actually the FBI actually got involved and a man
29:45
Speaker 2: hunt began, which.
29:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, thirteen year manhut. I just got to say priorities, right,
29:55
Speaker 1: The FBI had other stuff to.
29:56
Speaker 3: Do, it would think, so, I mean, MGM had other
29:58
Speaker 3: stuff to do. You'd think the FBI, I would definitely
30:00
Speaker 3: have other stuff to do.
30:01
Speaker 1: How many children can you feed with a million dollars?
30:05
Speaker 1: How many libraries or hospitals can you help out? Anyway,
30:09
Speaker 1: let me get off this.
30:10
Speaker 3: So No, it's a good point, Ben, but Andy, this
30:13
Speaker 3: is not the This is not all they did. They
30:16
Speaker 3: actually dredged a lake, searched an old mine, you know,
30:20
Speaker 3: all the things you do usually when you're looking for
30:22
Speaker 3: a body.
30:25
Speaker 2: Some slippers.
30:26
Speaker 3: I guess the fact that they were potentially worth a
30:27
Speaker 3: lot of money, but dude did not seem to realize
30:32
Speaker 3: that once he got the info from his jeweler that
30:37
Speaker 3: they were not in fact encrusted with actual precious stones exactly.
30:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. Can you imagine He's like, I went to all
30:44
Speaker 1: this trouble. These shoes are recovered in twenty eighteen because
30:49
Speaker 1: there is an FBI steamed operation in Minneapolis. A guy
30:53
Speaker 1: approaches this insurer and says, Hey, I know a guy
30:58
Speaker 1: who knows a guy who knows a guy. I can
31:00
Speaker 1: maybe get these shoes back for you, but I need
31:03
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars more than the one million dollars
31:08
Speaker 1: being offered.
31:09
Speaker 2: Very specific, Yeah.
31:11
Speaker 1: Very specific. He's definitely looking for a vigorous there.
31:14
Speaker 2: Yep.
31:15
Speaker 3: And it would appear that the FBI never gave any
31:18
Speaker 3: further information about the sting. But five years later, a
31:21
Speaker 3: federal grand jury indicted a Minnesota man by the name
31:25
Speaker 3: of Terry John Martin's on one count of theft, for
31:28
Speaker 3: which he pled guilty. Terry John Martin's Jordan puts it
31:31
Speaker 3: a dumb mobster or the dumbest mobster.
31:34
Speaker 2: I think we've already choic.
31:35
Speaker 3: Hinted at the level of his lack of preparedness and
31:40
Speaker 3: seeming ineptitude every stage of this operation. Martin was a
31:45
Speaker 3: former mobster who had a long history of b and
31:48
Speaker 3: ease as they call them, breaking and entering burgling jobs.
31:52
Speaker 3: Not so much heist kind of guy, more of a
31:54
Speaker 3: smash and grab type dude, you know, glorified per snatcher.
31:58
Speaker 3: He also was known for receiving stolen goods, potentially fencing them, etc.
32:03
Speaker 3: Before retiring from his life of crime after being released
32:07
Speaker 3: from prison in nineteen ninety six.
32:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so this is not a guy who's a
32:11
Speaker 1: hit man.
32:12
Speaker 2: He's not a nice man.
32:13
Speaker 1: He didn't make his bones, but he was very into
32:15
Speaker 1: what we call petty crime, a second story artist, according
32:19
Speaker 1: to his public defender, as he was trying to live
32:25
Speaker 1: the square life post nineteen ninety six, a former associate
32:30
Speaker 1: from his criminal past came to him and said, one
32:34
Speaker 1: last job.
32:36
Speaker 2: He's the one that always gets yet, that's the.
32:38
Speaker 1: One that gets you, you know what I mean, walk
32:40
Speaker 1: away from the casino of crime while you can. It's
32:43
Speaker 1: two thousand and five. This guy comes to him and
32:46
Speaker 1: he says, Terry, I gotta tell you about a very
32:50
Speaker 1: special pair of shoes. And at first Terry says, nah,
32:53
Speaker 1: I'm out of the life. You know, I'm into beanie
32:57
Speaker 1: babies or whatever. Now the baboos boo oo, and so
33:01
Speaker 1: at first he passes on it, according to the Attorney
33:05
Speaker 1: Dane decree. But old habits die hard. This is a
33:10
Speaker 1: quote from Dane. And the thought of a final score
33:13
Speaker 1: kept Terry up at night.
33:15
Speaker 2: It always does.
33:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, So after a lot of deep thought, some come
33:18
Speaker 1: to Jesus. Moments there in the dark, Terry relapses and
33:23
Speaker 1: he says, all right.
33:25
Speaker 2: I'm your huckleberry. I'll do it. I'll do one. I'll
33:27
Speaker 2: do this smash and grab for you.
33:30
Speaker 3: He, of course, as we mentioned, mistakenly believed the ruby
33:32
Speaker 3: slippers were adorned with actual rubies, and it wasn't until
33:36
Speaker 3: he stole the things took him to a a.
33:39
Speaker 2: So called jewelry fence.
33:41
Speaker 3: Someone who buys and sells core stolen goods in the
33:44
Speaker 3: jewelry world, possibly someone you might find in the gem district,
33:48
Speaker 3: as portrayed in the film Uncut Gems.
33:50
Speaker 2: Sure in Manhattan.
33:54
Speaker 3: It was, in fact, of course, as we'd mentioned, made
33:56
Speaker 3: of glass and sequins. Party cities equals Wait a minute,
34:01
Speaker 3: why would party party city didn't exist back then?
34:04
Speaker 1: We're just styling on it, okay, God, yeah, just to
34:06
Speaker 1: say that they are of low value.
34:09
Speaker 2: Also, rip party City. It's gone, no more party city,
34:12
Speaker 2: no more parties. The real party city is the friends
34:15
Speaker 2: we make along. That's very true.
34:17
Speaker 3: So Terry John Martin reportedly had never seen The Wizard
34:19
Speaker 3: of Them.
34:20
Speaker 2: Which is weird.
34:21
Speaker 1: He was too, well, he was in prison for.
34:23
Speaker 2: A while, that's true.
34:24
Speaker 3: But that's the kind of movie they'd like show on
34:27
Speaker 3: a movie night in prison. You know, I don't know,
34:29
Speaker 3: maybe it's a little too racy, right. But he also
34:32
Speaker 3: he also was.
34:33
Speaker 1: Living a very different B and E focused life, so
34:37
Speaker 1: he was Yes, he was born in the late nineteen forties.
34:40
Speaker 1: He was in the prime age because this became a
34:42
Speaker 1: cult classic so quickly. But he he was about the
34:47
Speaker 1: idea of stealing the shoes as a gem heist to
34:51
Speaker 1: this point. So when he learned that the ruby slippers
34:55
Speaker 1: were indeed not encrusted with a ton of rubies, they
34:58
Speaker 1: weren't like Faberge eggs your feet or whatever, he thought
35:02
Speaker 1: they were worthless and he just kept them for years.
35:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, he wasn't sitting on him hoping they with like
35:07
Speaker 3: appreciating value. He's sort of done with them, which is interesting.
35:11
Speaker 1: He get GMed them, just did his studio.
35:13
Speaker 2: You know what he did mgm them.
35:15
Speaker 3: It is interesting though, because you think he would have
35:18
Speaker 3: knowing at least in his mind, that this was not
35:20
Speaker 3: going to have been worth the risk that he has
35:22
Speaker 3: already run by doing this crime. Why didn't he just
35:26
Speaker 3: ditch him or give them to somebody else or whatever.
35:30
Speaker 1: He says he did forty eight hours or less than
35:32
Speaker 1: forty eight hours after the heist. Our our second story
35:37
Speaker 1: artist gave these to a third party, but the answers
35:40
Speaker 1: aren't clear. We do know the shoes ultimately get returned
35:43
Speaker 1: to the museum, and our buddy Terry, who is in
35:47
Speaker 1: his late seventies at this point, he goes to court hearings.
35:52
Speaker 1: He's got he's in a wheelchair, he has to breathe
35:55
Speaker 1: supplemental oxygen because he has COPD with which you know, unfortunately,
36:02
Speaker 1: as some of us may know, that's a very dangerous condition.
36:06
Speaker 1: He pleads guilty. He's sentenced to time served, which means
36:10
Speaker 1: he doesn't go back to prison in January of last year,
36:14
Speaker 1: and he gets time served because of his very poor
36:18
Speaker 1: health and his guilty plea. His lawyer says, I think
36:22
Speaker 1: you wanted to take responsibility to move on with his life,
36:26
Speaker 1: the little life he has left.
36:28
Speaker 2: I hate hearing that. I know he goes on. I
36:30
Speaker 2: think he lived a fast and loose life, and I
36:33
Speaker 2: think he's okay with what's happening now. I think he's
36:36
Speaker 2: at peace with it.
36:36
Speaker 3: Frankly, and Jordan points out that at the time he
36:39
Speaker 3: was given six months to live.
36:40
Speaker 2: However, we have not seen any updates as.
36:42
Speaker 1: To his.
36:44
Speaker 3: Passing or lack thereof, so it would appear that he
36:47
Speaker 3: may still be living in hospice today.
36:50
Speaker 2: And our last note for today's episode, those ruby slippers
36:55
Speaker 2: that were stolen in Returned were put up for sale
36:58
Speaker 2: by Heritage Auction in December twenty twenty four, and the
37:03
Speaker 2: auctioneers believed that these slippers would earn something like three
37:08
Speaker 2: million dollars. That's right, three million dollars is where it got.
37:12
Speaker 2: In the first couple of.
37:14
Speaker 3: Seconds of the auction opening, more than eight hundred people
37:19
Speaker 3: placed bids, and ultimately an unknown buyer spent thirty two
37:23
Speaker 3: point five million bucks on these making them the most
37:26
Speaker 3: valuable piece of movie memorabilia ever to be.
37:29
Speaker 2: Sold at auction.
37:30
Speaker 3: And I think we actually we talked about this story
37:33
Speaker 3: on Strange News when it happened, because that was a
37:36
Speaker 3: big deal when the sold, and it had a connection
37:40
Speaker 3: to this hight story. So it's really cool to kind
37:42
Speaker 3: of dig in and get some more of the details
37:44
Speaker 3: surrounding this incredible, bizarre and dare we say, ridiculous story
37:51
Speaker 3: of what happened to the ruby slippers.
37:53
Speaker 1: And this is so this is our last point. This
37:55
Speaker 1: is so illustrative of how arbitrary value can be for memorabilia.
38:02
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty nine, as Jordan points out, a pair
38:06
Speaker 1: of actual ruby encrusted ruby slippers were made as a
38:12
Speaker 1: celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Wizard of Oz
38:15
Speaker 1: film adaptation, and they were only worth about three millions,
38:19
Speaker 1: so much less than the fake ones. This is this
38:24
Speaker 1: is so nuts. This has been such a wild ride.
38:28
Speaker 1: Thank you folks for tuning in and walking the yellow
38:32
Speaker 1: brick road with us. Big thanks to our super producer
38:35
Speaker 1: mister Max Williams, as well as Alex Williams who.
38:38
Speaker 3: Composed this track, of course, and thanks again to Jordan
38:41
Speaker 3: runtag and check out his podcast Too Much Information, where
38:44
Speaker 3: he does deep dives and all kinds of fun pop
38:46
Speaker 3: culture stuff ranging from you know.
38:49
Speaker 2: I think like a multi multi part episode on the
38:51
Speaker 2: making of.
38:52
Speaker 3: The film Titanic. So do give him a listen. Christ
38:56
Speaker 3: Frasiotis and eaves. Jeff Coates here in Spirra, Jonathan Strickland
38:59
Speaker 3: quizt hey j Mohamed Jacob's the Puzzler.
39:02
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Mangesh Hadakatur friend of the show. We might
39:05
Speaker 1: have him on later. Our Pals Daily Zeitgeist, our Pals
39:10
Speaker 1: at Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us and stories like this,
39:14
Speaker 1: you will love them. So get thee to thy podcast
39:17
Speaker 1: platform of choice. And I've got to tell you, I
39:22
Speaker 1: always wonder which character I would be in The Wizard
39:27
Speaker 1: of Oz.
39:28
Speaker 2: I think you're kind of a no, no, no, you're
39:30
Speaker 2: a bit of a wizard man us. I think that's nice.
39:34
Speaker 2: You've said to be a twenty five Well, I mean,
39:37
Speaker 2: and I don't want to Oh, is it not a compliment?
39:39
Speaker 2: It is? It is a compliment in this contest.
39:42
Speaker 3: Then you are the version of the Wizard that comes
39:46
Speaker 3: clean and gives out all of.
39:47
Speaker 2: The honorifics and all of the.
39:51
Speaker 1: Who do you want to be at the show?
39:52
Speaker 3: I don't know, man, I'm sort of a cowardly lion
39:54
Speaker 3: type figure. I guess, or I could be a scarecrow.
39:57
Speaker 3: I identify with both of those casts.
39:58
Speaker 1: I identify with the sc I think we all are
40:01
Speaker 1: at some point in our lives. Well, thanks so much, man,
40:03
Speaker 1: Everybody tune in next week. We've got more ridiculous history
40:07
Speaker 1: on the way.
40:08
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks.
40:16
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
40:20
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.