October 20, 2022 • 12 mins
Things get very weird on today's tour through the Cabinet.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
(00:27):
of Curiosities. Comedy is often maligned as a lesser form
of entertainment when compared with other genres, such as drama.
The Office actor Steve Correll once said, I don't think
about comedy and drama as separate genres. It's about trying
(00:49):
to make it as truthful as you can. And to
paraphrase the late Edmund Gwen who played Santa Claus in
Miracle on thirty four Street, dying is easy, comedy is hard.
Stand up can help us deal with difficult real world
issues by showing them in a more humorous light. Sitcom's
often depicted exaggerated but honest scenarios regarding parenting and marriage
(01:13):
to show us that we're all going through the same
things and just trying to get by. Parody is perfect
for lampooning those at the top and knocking them down
a peg or two, and when it comes to parody,
one man stands above all of them weird. Al Yankovic
born in Downey, California, in nineteen fifty nine. Alfred Matthew
Yankovic was raised by parents who unwaveringly supported him in
(01:36):
whatever he did. His father often said the key to
success is doing for a living whatever makes you happy,
and the young Yankovic took that to heart. He took
his first accordion lesson on the eve of turning seven,
after a door to door salesman stop by offering lessons
at a nearby music school. As he got older and
was stuck at home with little to do, Yankovic taught
himself how to play popular hits of the nineteen seventies.
(01:58):
But music was only half the equation. Al also had
a passion for comedy, specifically parody. He'd been quoted as
citing the likes of Alan Sherman and Tom Lahr as
inspirations for him growing up. Their influences as clear as
day on all of his albums. And where did he
hear these artists? His parents certainly didn't introduce him to them. Instead,
(02:20):
he listened to the comedic stylings of Dr Demento, who
would play all sorts of comedy albums and songs on
his syndicated radio show. In fact, in nineteen seventy six,
Dr Demento came to Yankovic school to talk to the students,
after which Al handed him a cassette tape of himself
playing various parodies and original songs on the accordion. Dr
Demento played it on his program almost immediately From there,
(02:44):
Yankovic started performing at coffee shops and open mic nights,
hauling his accordion up to the stage and blowing everyone's minds.
I mean, who else would perform the theme from two
thousand one of Space Odyssey on the accordion for a
bunch of college students, Al Yankovic, That's who. His big break, however,
came when Dr Demento played Al's homemade recording of My Bologna,
(03:05):
a parody of the Knacks hit song My Sharona. The
Knacks lead singer Doug Figer was so impressed with it
he reached out to Capitol Records and suggested that they
put it out as a single. From there came Another
One Rides the Bus, set to Queen's Another One bites
the dust, Eat It, a parody of Michael Jackson's hit
beat It, and dozens of other clever takes on popular
(03:27):
songs of their day. But one song did more than
make people laugh and smile. It changed the face of
television in the nineteen eighties and beyond. It was a
send up of the song Jeopardy by the Greg Kin
Band titled I Lost on Jeopardy, released in nineteen eighty four.
The song told the story of how the singer was
a contestant on the original iteration of Jeopardy, which ran
(03:48):
from nineteen sixty four to nineteen seventy five, and lost
to a plumber and an architect, both with a PhD.
Before Alex Trebek, Jeopardy was hosted by Art Fleming with
Don Pardo in announcer's chair. Pardau would go on to
be the announcer for Saturday Night Live from nineteen seventy
five until his death in two thousand fourteen. Both Fleming
(04:08):
and Pardeaux made appearances in the music video for Yankovic song,
as did Al's parents Dr Demento and Greg Kin, who
wrote and sang the original song. I Lost on Jeopardy
became a hit, reaching number eighty one on the US
Hot one hundred charts. But what weird Al didn't know
was that MERV Griffin, the creator of the original Jeopardy
game show, was working on something new. His other program,
(04:31):
Wheel of Fortune had become a smash, and he wanted
another half hour quiz show to round out the one
hour block each evening. He had filmed a test pilot
with Alex Trebec as the host in nineteen eighty three,
but reactions fell flat. Griffin, however, decided to move forward
despite what the test audiences said. One year later, on
June four night, Griffin and the rest of the Jeopardy
(04:55):
crew got together to plan out the show. It was
the same day that yankovic song was released, and Jeopardies
had writer made sure that everyone in the room heard it.
They initially thought that it was funny and cute, but
when they started hearing it more and more on the radio,
they got excited. Maybe there really was an audience out
there for a new kind of Jeopardy. Griffin even invited
(05:15):
weird Al onto his talk show to perform it later
that summer. After the performance, Griffin told Yankovic that the
success of I Lost on Jeopardy was partially responsible for
the show making a comeback, and hinted that there might
even be a hosting gig in it for him, with
tongue firmly planted a cheek, of course. In September of
(05:35):
Jeopardy made its triumphant return to the airwaves with Alex Trebek,
not Weird al Yankovic as host, and although Mr Trebek
sadly passed away from pancreatic cancer in the show he
helped define for almost forty years, is still going strong today.
As for Weird al Well, comedy came easy. Winning on Jeopardy, however,
(05:56):
was hard. Sheriff Uriah S. Gregory knew he was headed
for dangerous territory where he was unwelcome and likely to
(06:17):
be met with resistance. Tensions between the northern and Southern
States had been escalating for some time, and Gregory worried
that it would soon boil over into violence. After all,
a Missourian had recently crossed the Iowa border and cut
down three b trees rich with honey, and that was
practically a declaration of war. The Honey War between Iowa
(06:37):
and Missouri officially started in eighteen thirty nine, but it
had roots in a simple survey and assignment from twenty
three years earlier. You see when the United States bought
the territory from France during the Louisiana Purchase in eighteen
oh three. It was the first major addition to the country.
The territory was quickly joined by land wrestled from indigenous
tribes through threats and unfair treaties. In the aftermath of
(07:00):
the War of eighteen twelve, the new country finally had
the time to define its boundaries. Something about their army
getting badly beaten by the British for trying to steal
British territory in Canada didn't sit well with the U. S. Government.
In eighteen sixteen, they hired John C. Sullivan to survey
the area. Now. Sullivan's task was to find the north
(07:21):
south boundary of the United States. This would help distinguish
what was and wasn't indigenous land. Eventually, it would separate
southern states from northern states as well. The line was
meant to start at the east bank of the Missouri
River and end at the rapids of the Des Moines River. Later,
Missourians wanted to extend their northern border just to touch north.
(07:41):
This would give state residents access to rich, fertile land
full of wild honey bees that had taken up residents
in hollow tree trunks called b trees. Honey was a
hot commodity on the frontier as a sweetener, and these
be trees made that land incredibly valuable. But something unusual
happened when J. C. Brown was or to redo the
original line. As it turns out, Sullivan hadn't done a
(08:04):
very good job of it the first time. The markers
Sullivan was supposed to place along the way were nowhere
to be found. He said that he had ended at
the Des Moines River Rapids, when in reality he had
stopped at the Mississippi River Rapids. Brown worked hard, but
given the original materials, it's no surprise that his line
was off. It stretched nine to thirteen miles further north
(08:25):
than the Sullivan line. When Iowa split from Wisconsin in
eighteen thirty eight and began campaigning for statehood, the border
came into question. Although the federal government intervened, Missouri refused
to give up the Brown line. Many of the residents
in the new territory wanted nothing to do with slaveholding Missouri,
as they were free staters through and through Missouri, however,
(08:46):
didn't care and began sending state officials to collect taxes.
To make matters worse, In the spring of eighteen thirty nine,
a farmer from Missouri cut down three of the valuable
be trees, infuriating the islands. He then sold the honey
and wax without pain taxes, and then legged it to Missouri,
which refused to turn him over to Iowan officials. Between
(09:07):
this and the taxes, it was just too much. Iowan's
in the disputed territory contacted their governor, Robert Lucas in
July of eighteen thirty nine, who issued a proclamation stating
that if any Missouri officials crossed the Sullivan line, they
would be arrested. Having drawn the line in the sand,
uh literally. Lucas was quite confident that he wouldn't be ignored,
(09:29):
but it seems that he underestimated the indignation of the Missourians,
who felt that their dignity and the honor of Missouri
still needed to be protected. A month later, Missouri Governor
Lilburn Boggs issued a proclamation of his own. He said
that Missouri should continue to assert control over the land
tension finally came to a head in October of that
year when Sheriff Gregory entered the territory for the second
(09:52):
time to collect taxes on behalf of Missouri. He was
quickly surrounded by twelve hundred angry residents as well as
iow was Sheriff Henry Heffliman, who promptly arrested him. Things
quickly spiraled out of control from there. By December, both
Missouri and Iowa had assembled their militia's about a thousand
men armed with old flint locks and farming equipment. Fueled
(10:14):
by whiskey and rage, they marched to the disputed territory,
proudly flying a flag that read death to Pukes, Pukes
being the nickname for anyone from Missouri. Now it could
have ended very badly, but fortunately no one was adequately
prepared for winter, and although plenty of the men had
massed at the border, calmer heads would prevail. Delegations from
(10:36):
both sides mets and traded messages, and most people didn't
want an actual fight, except the governors, who weren't even there.
In the end, the militia from Missouri was sent home,
annoyed at the whole ridiculous ordeal. To show their displeasure,
they strung up two chunks of venison that they had
shot earlier and dubbed one Governor Boggs and the other
(10:57):
Governor Lucas. According to the words of one de lighted
militia man, we fired a few rounds at them until
we considered them dead dead. The effigies were then buried
with full military honors before the Missouri men returned to
their camp. Sheriff Gregory was finally released, but the charges
against him wouldn't be dropped for a few more years.
(11:17):
The Governor's backed down and the U. S. Supreme Court
decided that the boundary would be set along the original
eighteen sixteen line, which would be resurveyed and corrected. It
ran about halfway through the disputed territory. It was the
perfect compromise and that nobody got exactly what they wanted
and everyone was left unhappy. And to top it all off,
(11:38):
the loss of all those be trees probably stun I
hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me, Aaron Manky and partnership with how
(12:00):
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore
which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
you can learn all about it over at the World
of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious, Yeah,
Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
(00:27):
of Curiosities. Comedy is often maligned as a lesser form
of entertainment when compared with other genres, such as drama.
The Office actor Steve Correll once said, I don't think
about comedy and drama as separate genres. It's about trying
(00:49):
to make it as truthful as you can. And to
paraphrase the late Edmund Gwen who played Santa Claus in
Miracle on thirty four Street, dying is easy, comedy is hard.
Stand up can help us deal with difficult real world
issues by showing them in a more humorous light. Sitcom's
often depicted exaggerated but honest scenarios regarding parenting and marriage
(01:13):
to show us that we're all going through the same
things and just trying to get by. Parody is perfect
for lampooning those at the top and knocking them down
a peg or two, and when it comes to parody,
one man stands above all of them weird. Al Yankovic
born in Downey, California, in nineteen fifty nine. Alfred Matthew
Yankovic was raised by parents who unwaveringly supported him in
(01:36):
whatever he did. His father often said the key to
success is doing for a living whatever makes you happy,
and the young Yankovic took that to heart. He took
his first accordion lesson on the eve of turning seven,
after a door to door salesman stop by offering lessons
at a nearby music school. As he got older and
was stuck at home with little to do, Yankovic taught
himself how to play popular hits of the nineteen seventies.
(01:58):
But music was only half the equation. Al also had
a passion for comedy, specifically parody. He'd been quoted as
citing the likes of Alan Sherman and Tom Lahr as
inspirations for him growing up. Their influences as clear as
day on all of his albums. And where did he
hear these artists? His parents certainly didn't introduce him to them. Instead,
(02:20):
he listened to the comedic stylings of Dr Demento, who
would play all sorts of comedy albums and songs on
his syndicated radio show. In fact, in nineteen seventy six,
Dr Demento came to Yankovic school to talk to the students,
after which Al handed him a cassette tape of himself
playing various parodies and original songs on the accordion. Dr
Demento played it on his program almost immediately From there,
(02:44):
Yankovic started performing at coffee shops and open mic nights,
hauling his accordion up to the stage and blowing everyone's minds.
I mean, who else would perform the theme from two
thousand one of Space Odyssey on the accordion for a
bunch of college students, Al Yankovic, That's who. His big break, however,
came when Dr Demento played Al's homemade recording of My Bologna,
(03:05):
a parody of the Knacks hit song My Sharona. The
Knacks lead singer Doug Figer was so impressed with it
he reached out to Capitol Records and suggested that they
put it out as a single. From there came Another
One Rides the Bus, set to Queen's Another One bites
the dust, Eat It, a parody of Michael Jackson's hit
beat It, and dozens of other clever takes on popular
(03:27):
songs of their day. But one song did more than
make people laugh and smile. It changed the face of
television in the nineteen eighties and beyond. It was a
send up of the song Jeopardy by the Greg Kin
Band titled I Lost on Jeopardy, released in nineteen eighty four.
The song told the story of how the singer was
a contestant on the original iteration of Jeopardy, which ran
(03:48):
from nineteen sixty four to nineteen seventy five, and lost
to a plumber and an architect, both with a PhD.
Before Alex Trebek, Jeopardy was hosted by Art Fleming with
Don Pardo in announcer's chair. Pardau would go on to
be the announcer for Saturday Night Live from nineteen seventy
five until his death in two thousand fourteen. Both Fleming
(04:08):
and Pardeaux made appearances in the music video for Yankovic song,
as did Al's parents Dr Demento and Greg Kin, who
wrote and sang the original song. I Lost on Jeopardy
became a hit, reaching number eighty one on the US
Hot one hundred charts. But what weird Al didn't know
was that MERV Griffin, the creator of the original Jeopardy
game show, was working on something new. His other program,
(04:31):
Wheel of Fortune had become a smash, and he wanted
another half hour quiz show to round out the one
hour block each evening. He had filmed a test pilot
with Alex Trebec as the host in nineteen eighty three,
but reactions fell flat. Griffin, however, decided to move forward
despite what the test audiences said. One year later, on
June four night, Griffin and the rest of the Jeopardy
(04:55):
crew got together to plan out the show. It was
the same day that yankovic song was released, and Jeopardies
had writer made sure that everyone in the room heard it.
They initially thought that it was funny and cute, but
when they started hearing it more and more on the radio,
they got excited. Maybe there really was an audience out
there for a new kind of Jeopardy. Griffin even invited
(05:15):
weird Al onto his talk show to perform it later
that summer. After the performance, Griffin told Yankovic that the
success of I Lost on Jeopardy was partially responsible for
the show making a comeback, and hinted that there might
even be a hosting gig in it for him, with
tongue firmly planted a cheek, of course. In September of
(05:35):
Jeopardy made its triumphant return to the airwaves with Alex Trebek,
not Weird al Yankovic as host, and although Mr Trebek
sadly passed away from pancreatic cancer in the show he
helped define for almost forty years, is still going strong today.
As for Weird al Well, comedy came easy. Winning on Jeopardy, however,
(05:56):
was hard. Sheriff Uriah S. Gregory knew he was headed
for dangerous territory where he was unwelcome and likely to
(06:17):
be met with resistance. Tensions between the northern and Southern
States had been escalating for some time, and Gregory worried
that it would soon boil over into violence. After all,
a Missourian had recently crossed the Iowa border and cut
down three b trees rich with honey, and that was
practically a declaration of war. The Honey War between Iowa
(06:37):
and Missouri officially started in eighteen thirty nine, but it
had roots in a simple survey and assignment from twenty
three years earlier. You see when the United States bought
the territory from France during the Louisiana Purchase in eighteen
oh three. It was the first major addition to the country.
The territory was quickly joined by land wrestled from indigenous
tribes through threats and unfair treaties. In the aftermath of
(07:00):
the War of eighteen twelve, the new country finally had
the time to define its boundaries. Something about their army
getting badly beaten by the British for trying to steal
British territory in Canada didn't sit well with the U. S. Government.
In eighteen sixteen, they hired John C. Sullivan to survey
the area. Now. Sullivan's task was to find the north
(07:21):
south boundary of the United States. This would help distinguish
what was and wasn't indigenous land. Eventually, it would separate
southern states from northern states as well. The line was
meant to start at the east bank of the Missouri
River and end at the rapids of the Des Moines River. Later,
Missourians wanted to extend their northern border just to touch north.
(07:41):
This would give state residents access to rich, fertile land
full of wild honey bees that had taken up residents
in hollow tree trunks called b trees. Honey was a
hot commodity on the frontier as a sweetener, and these
be trees made that land incredibly valuable. But something unusual
happened when J. C. Brown was or to redo the
original line. As it turns out, Sullivan hadn't done a
(08:04):
very good job of it the first time. The markers
Sullivan was supposed to place along the way were nowhere
to be found. He said that he had ended at
the Des Moines River Rapids, when in reality he had
stopped at the Mississippi River Rapids. Brown worked hard, but
given the original materials, it's no surprise that his line
was off. It stretched nine to thirteen miles further north
(08:25):
than the Sullivan line. When Iowa split from Wisconsin in
eighteen thirty eight and began campaigning for statehood, the border
came into question. Although the federal government intervened, Missouri refused
to give up the Brown line. Many of the residents
in the new territory wanted nothing to do with slaveholding Missouri,
as they were free staters through and through Missouri, however,
(08:46):
didn't care and began sending state officials to collect taxes.
To make matters worse, In the spring of eighteen thirty nine,
a farmer from Missouri cut down three of the valuable
be trees, infuriating the islands. He then sold the honey
and wax without pain taxes, and then legged it to Missouri,
which refused to turn him over to Iowan officials. Between
(09:07):
this and the taxes, it was just too much. Iowan's
in the disputed territory contacted their governor, Robert Lucas in
July of eighteen thirty nine, who issued a proclamation stating
that if any Missouri officials crossed the Sullivan line, they
would be arrested. Having drawn the line in the sand,
uh literally. Lucas was quite confident that he wouldn't be ignored,
(09:29):
but it seems that he underestimated the indignation of the Missourians,
who felt that their dignity and the honor of Missouri
still needed to be protected. A month later, Missouri Governor
Lilburn Boggs issued a proclamation of his own. He said
that Missouri should continue to assert control over the land
tension finally came to a head in October of that
year when Sheriff Gregory entered the territory for the second
(09:52):
time to collect taxes on behalf of Missouri. He was
quickly surrounded by twelve hundred angry residents as well as
iow was Sheriff Henry Heffliman, who promptly arrested him. Things
quickly spiraled out of control from there. By December, both
Missouri and Iowa had assembled their militia's about a thousand
men armed with old flint locks and farming equipment. Fueled
(10:14):
by whiskey and rage, they marched to the disputed territory,
proudly flying a flag that read death to Pukes, Pukes
being the nickname for anyone from Missouri. Now it could
have ended very badly, but fortunately no one was adequately
prepared for winter, and although plenty of the men had
massed at the border, calmer heads would prevail. Delegations from
(10:36):
both sides mets and traded messages, and most people didn't
want an actual fight, except the governors, who weren't even there.
In the end, the militia from Missouri was sent home,
annoyed at the whole ridiculous ordeal. To show their displeasure,
they strung up two chunks of venison that they had
shot earlier and dubbed one Governor Boggs and the other
(10:57):
Governor Lucas. According to the words of one de lighted
militia man, we fired a few rounds at them until
we considered them dead dead. The effigies were then buried
with full military honors before the Missouri men returned to
their camp. Sheriff Gregory was finally released, but the charges
against him wouldn't be dropped for a few more years.
(11:17):
The Governor's backed down and the U. S. Supreme Court
decided that the boundary would be set along the original
eighteen sixteen line, which would be resurveyed and corrected. It
ran about halfway through the disputed territory. It was the
perfect compromise and that nobody got exactly what they wanted
and everyone was left unhappy. And to top it all off,
(11:38):
the loss of all those be trees probably stun I
hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me, Aaron Manky and partnership with how
(12:00):
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore
which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
you can learn all about it over at the World
of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious, Yeah,
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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