April 27, 2023 • 9 mins
Not everything ends up the way it started out, and that includes the lives we live as humans, as well as the inventions we make along the way.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
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 of Curiosities. Some
(00:36):
of us don't know what we want to be when
we grow up until well we're grown up. Many of
us start out wanting to be a lawyer, or a doctor,
or a firefighter, until we realize we're better suited as
mechanics or sales reps or acrobats. Melvin Kaminski knew what
he wanted to be. He just took a little longer
getting there than most. But he had a good reason.
He had a war to fight. Kaminski was born in
(00:58):
nineteen twenty six in Brooklyn tenement. He literally popped out
on the kitchen table. He didn't get to know his father, though,
who died at the young age of thirty four when
Melvin was only two. Instead, he was raised by his mother,
three older brothers, and his uncle Joe. Joe was a
cab driver who would often shuttle the doormen at Broadway
theaters back to their homes in Brooklyn in exchange for
(01:19):
free tickets to the shows. Melvin saw a performance of
Anything Goes starring ethel Merman, and he was hooked. He
knew he didn't want to work in the garment industry
like other young Jewish men at the time. He wanted
something more glamorous, so he started performing for guests at
the Belt Hotel while he was also learning to play
drums from fellow Brooklynite Buddy Rich. But before he had
(01:41):
a chance to really break into show business, all hell
broke loose World War two to be exact, Kaminski was
invited by an army recruiter to take an aptitude test
and scored high enough to be sent to the Virginia
Military Institute, where he was educated in specific fields, namely
electrical engineering, saber fighting, and horse back riding. These would
(02:01):
come in handy weeks later after he turned eighteen and
was enlisted to serve in the army. He moved around
from Fort Dix in New Jersey to Fort Sill in
Oklahoma for radio operator training. Then in nineteen forty four,
Kaminski made it to France and Belgium as a forward
artillery observer in the seventy eighth Infantry Division, but nineteen
forty five saw him take on perhaps the most dangerous
(02:23):
job of his military career after being transferred to the
eleven oh fourth Engineer Combat Battalion. He was tasked with
scouting ahead of the tanks, searching for and clearing land
mines along the terrain. He even participated in the Battle
of the Bulge, and more than once he was forced
to fight for his life against Nazi troops as infantry,
but the anti Semitism he faced wasn't just from the Germans.
(02:45):
Being a Jewish kid from Brooklyn made him a punching
bag for even his own fellow soldiers. One time, in particular,
he found himself on the receiving end of some nasty
insults from one of his comrades, which prompted an angry
Kaminski to remove the soldier's helmet and bash him over
the head with a meskit. That little stunt earned him
a little time in the stockade, but he never forgot
his roots in entertainment. At the end of the war,
(03:07):
Kaiminski joined these Special Services, where he became a corporal
and performed for the troops at Fort Dicks. After his
service had ended, I came time to find a real job.
His mother had lined up a position for him at
the Brooklyn Navy Yard, but Kaminski couldn't imagine working there
for the rest of his life. Rather than work on ships,
he hopped into a taxi and took it to the Catskills.
(03:28):
He cut his teeth as a drummer and a pianist
in various hotels and nightclubs until one night, a comedian
scheduled to perform at one of the clubs called in Sick.
That was Kiminski's chance to really shine. He took to
the stage and made the audience laugh with impressions of
famous celebrities. He found his calling as a comedian. Come
the nineteen fifties, he left the Borsch Belt for television,
(03:49):
where he got a job writing for a popular variety
show run by an old friend from his youth, Sid Caesar.
It was called Your Show of Shows, and Kaminski worked
right along side writers who would go on to great acclaim,
including playwright Neil Simon and lifelong friend Carl Reiner. But
eventually the world would come to know him as much
more than a television writer. He'd create iconic characters like
(04:12):
the two thousand year Old Man, as well as some
of the funniest and most enduring films and TV shows
of the last sixty years, including Get Smart, The Producers,
Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs, and so many more. He
was born Melvin James Kaminski, but when he was a
teenager he adopted a much catchier stage name, which he'd
(04:33):
borrowed from his mother's made a name of Brookman. Who
is he? He's comedy legend mel Brooks. A good invention
(04:54):
shouldn't just solve a problem, It should improve upon the
previous solution. When Henry Ford was asked if customers had
a say in the development of the Model T, he
famously said, if I had asked people what they wanted,
they would have said faster horses. The goal of a
new invention is to make life easier and reduce friction
in completing a task. Edison accomplished this numerous times with
(05:15):
items like his incandescent light bulb, phonograph, and mimiograph. He
built his career on quality of life improvements, unless that
life happened to belong to an elephant, of course, But
one invention that never really got off the ground involved
an upgrade to the common pen. It was part of
a complete system meant to make duplicating documents and drawings
much easier. Edison developed the idea over the summer of
(05:37):
eighteen seventy five. The pen really wasn't a pen filled
with ink. It was a pen shaped shaft with a
needle at the tip. As the user moved it across
a piece of paper, a small motor at the top
would drive the needle back and forth like a piston,
poking holes to create a stencil. Once the stencil was completed,
it would be placed in a press and a roller
(05:58):
would push ink through the holes, aiding a copy underneath. Now,
if you think about it, the electric pen was the
precursor to the photocopiers that we used today. Edison even
marketed it mainly to law firms, insurance companies, and other
offices that required documentation drafted in duplicates and triplicates. He
called it the electro Autographic Press. After two years of
(06:18):
making and selling them himself, Edison contracted Western Electric Manufacturing
Company to begin producing them going forward. By eighteen seventy seven,
he expected Western Electric to make at least two hundred
electric pens each month. Edison would then earn a royalty
on each pen sold. To broaden his audience, though, he
even pitched his electric pens toward average buyers with promises
(06:40):
of all kinds of flyers, blueprints, contracts, and personal correspondence
that would be so much easier to produce with his
invention rather than using the current analog tools. Of course, Unfortunately,
the device didn't find much footing. Office clerks found it
cumbersome and unwieldy, while the wet cell battery that power
it required too much maintenance. Five years after its debut,
(07:03):
competing mechanical pens started to hit the market, ones that
didn't need batteries to operate. They quickly overtook Edison's invention
and relegated it to nothing more than a historical footnotes
until Samuel O'Reilly got his hands on it. O'Reilly was
from Waterbury, Connecticut, and had moved to New York sometime
in the eighteen eighties, where he had started working as
(07:24):
an illustrator of sorts. He took one of Edison's automatic
pens and realized that it could be modified for his
own purposes, and so over the course of fifteen years,
O'Reilly tweaked and updated Edison's original design, developing a new
kind of tool that incorporated an ink reservoir directly into
the pen. Now the needle wouldn't just punch a hole,
(07:44):
it would push the ink into it as well. He
earned a new patent for his contraption as well in
eighteen ninety one. This made O'Reilly's job much easier on
his hands and on his clients. What used to take
him hours now only took minutes, with the ability to
perforate his canvas of choice fifty times a second. Although
he didn't work with paper or wood or linen, he
(08:07):
exclusively illustrated on skin, forearms, legs, chests, necks, anything the
client wanted inked. You see, Samuel O'Reilly was a tattoo artist,
and his brand new invention, the tattoo machine or tattooed gun,
was based on Edison's electric pen, and it not only
turned O'Reilly into an overnight success, but it changed the
(08:28):
future of the tattoo industry. In fact, the tattoo guns
used today aren't too far removed from what Samuel invented
back in eighteen ninety one. Thomas Edison didn't create his
motorized pen with the intention of revolutionizing how tattoos are made,
but to paraphrase an old saying, one person's trash is
another person's tattoo. Gun. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
(08:54):
tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
Apple Podcasts, or learn more were about the show by
visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
me Aaron Manke in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show, and you can learn all
(09:16):
about it over at the World of Loore dot com.
And until next time, stay curious.
Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
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 of Curiosities. Some
(00:36):
of us don't know what we want to be when
we grow up until well we're grown up. Many of
us start out wanting to be a lawyer, or a doctor,
or a firefighter, until we realize we're better suited as
mechanics or sales reps or acrobats. Melvin Kaminski knew what
he wanted to be. He just took a little longer
getting there than most. But he had a good reason.
He had a war to fight. Kaminski was born in
(00:58):
nineteen twenty six in Brooklyn tenement. He literally popped out
on the kitchen table. He didn't get to know his father, though,
who died at the young age of thirty four when
Melvin was only two. Instead, he was raised by his mother,
three older brothers, and his uncle Joe. Joe was a
cab driver who would often shuttle the doormen at Broadway
theaters back to their homes in Brooklyn in exchange for
(01:19):
free tickets to the shows. Melvin saw a performance of
Anything Goes starring ethel Merman, and he was hooked. He
knew he didn't want to work in the garment industry
like other young Jewish men at the time. He wanted
something more glamorous, so he started performing for guests at
the Belt Hotel while he was also learning to play
drums from fellow Brooklynite Buddy Rich. But before he had
(01:41):
a chance to really break into show business, all hell
broke loose World War two to be exact, Kaminski was
invited by an army recruiter to take an aptitude test
and scored high enough to be sent to the Virginia
Military Institute, where he was educated in specific fields, namely
electrical engineering, saber fighting, and horse back riding. These would
(02:01):
come in handy weeks later after he turned eighteen and
was enlisted to serve in the army. He moved around
from Fort Dix in New Jersey to Fort Sill in
Oklahoma for radio operator training. Then in nineteen forty four,
Kaminski made it to France and Belgium as a forward
artillery observer in the seventy eighth Infantry Division, but nineteen
forty five saw him take on perhaps the most dangerous
(02:23):
job of his military career after being transferred to the
eleven oh fourth Engineer Combat Battalion. He was tasked with
scouting ahead of the tanks, searching for and clearing land
mines along the terrain. He even participated in the Battle
of the Bulge, and more than once he was forced
to fight for his life against Nazi troops as infantry,
but the anti Semitism he faced wasn't just from the Germans.
(02:45):
Being a Jewish kid from Brooklyn made him a punching
bag for even his own fellow soldiers. One time, in particular,
he found himself on the receiving end of some nasty
insults from one of his comrades, which prompted an angry
Kaminski to remove the soldier's helmet and bash him over
the head with a meskit. That little stunt earned him
a little time in the stockade, but he never forgot
his roots in entertainment. At the end of the war,
(03:07):
Kaiminski joined these Special Services, where he became a corporal
and performed for the troops at Fort Dicks. After his
service had ended, I came time to find a real job.
His mother had lined up a position for him at
the Brooklyn Navy Yard, but Kaminski couldn't imagine working there
for the rest of his life. Rather than work on ships,
he hopped into a taxi and took it to the Catskills.
(03:28):
He cut his teeth as a drummer and a pianist
in various hotels and nightclubs until one night, a comedian
scheduled to perform at one of the clubs called in Sick.
That was Kiminski's chance to really shine. He took to
the stage and made the audience laugh with impressions of
famous celebrities. He found his calling as a comedian. Come
the nineteen fifties, he left the Borsch Belt for television,
(03:49):
where he got a job writing for a popular variety
show run by an old friend from his youth, Sid Caesar.
It was called Your Show of Shows, and Kaminski worked
right along side writers who would go on to great acclaim,
including playwright Neil Simon and lifelong friend Carl Reiner. But
eventually the world would come to know him as much
more than a television writer. He'd create iconic characters like
(04:12):
the two thousand year Old Man, as well as some
of the funniest and most enduring films and TV shows
of the last sixty years, including Get Smart, The Producers,
Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs, and so many more. He
was born Melvin James Kaminski, but when he was a
teenager he adopted a much catchier stage name, which he'd
(04:33):
borrowed from his mother's made a name of Brookman. Who
is he? He's comedy legend mel Brooks. A good invention
(04:54):
shouldn't just solve a problem, It should improve upon the
previous solution. When Henry Ford was asked if customers had
a say in the development of the Model T, he
famously said, if I had asked people what they wanted,
they would have said faster horses. The goal of a
new invention is to make life easier and reduce friction
in completing a task. Edison accomplished this numerous times with
(05:15):
items like his incandescent light bulb, phonograph, and mimiograph. He
built his career on quality of life improvements, unless that
life happened to belong to an elephant, of course, But
one invention that never really got off the ground involved
an upgrade to the common pen. It was part of
a complete system meant to make duplicating documents and drawings
much easier. Edison developed the idea over the summer of
(05:37):
eighteen seventy five. The pen really wasn't a pen filled
with ink. It was a pen shaped shaft with a
needle at the tip. As the user moved it across
a piece of paper, a small motor at the top
would drive the needle back and forth like a piston,
poking holes to create a stencil. Once the stencil was completed,
it would be placed in a press and a roller
(05:58):
would push ink through the holes, aiding a copy underneath. Now,
if you think about it, the electric pen was the
precursor to the photocopiers that we used today. Edison even
marketed it mainly to law firms, insurance companies, and other
offices that required documentation drafted in duplicates and triplicates. He
called it the electro Autographic Press. After two years of
(06:18):
making and selling them himself, Edison contracted Western Electric Manufacturing
Company to begin producing them going forward. By eighteen seventy seven,
he expected Western Electric to make at least two hundred
electric pens each month. Edison would then earn a royalty
on each pen sold. To broaden his audience, though, he
even pitched his electric pens toward average buyers with promises
(06:40):
of all kinds of flyers, blueprints, contracts, and personal correspondence
that would be so much easier to produce with his
invention rather than using the current analog tools. Of course, Unfortunately,
the device didn't find much footing. Office clerks found it
cumbersome and unwieldy, while the wet cell battery that power
it required too much maintenance. Five years after its debut,
(07:03):
competing mechanical pens started to hit the market, ones that
didn't need batteries to operate. They quickly overtook Edison's invention
and relegated it to nothing more than a historical footnotes
until Samuel O'Reilly got his hands on it. O'Reilly was
from Waterbury, Connecticut, and had moved to New York sometime
in the eighteen eighties, where he had started working as
(07:24):
an illustrator of sorts. He took one of Edison's automatic
pens and realized that it could be modified for his
own purposes, and so over the course of fifteen years,
O'Reilly tweaked and updated Edison's original design, developing a new
kind of tool that incorporated an ink reservoir directly into
the pen. Now the needle wouldn't just punch a hole,
(07:44):
it would push the ink into it as well. He
earned a new patent for his contraption as well in
eighteen ninety one. This made O'Reilly's job much easier on
his hands and on his clients. What used to take
him hours now only took minutes, with the ability to
perforate his canvas of choice fifty times a second. Although
he didn't work with paper or wood or linen, he
(08:07):
exclusively illustrated on skin, forearms, legs, chests, necks, anything the
client wanted inked. You see, Samuel O'Reilly was a tattoo artist,
and his brand new invention, the tattoo machine or tattooed gun,
was based on Edison's electric pen, and it not only
turned O'Reilly into an overnight success, but it changed the
(08:28):
future of the tattoo industry. In fact, the tattoo guns
used today aren't too far removed from what Samuel invented
back in eighteen ninety one. Thomas Edison didn't create his
motorized pen with the intention of revolutionizing how tattoos are made,
but to paraphrase an old saying, one person's trash is
another person's tattoo. Gun. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
(08:54):
tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
Apple Podcasts, or learn more were about the show by
visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
me Aaron Manke in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show, and you can learn all
(09:16):
about it over at the World of Loore dot com.
And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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