December 26, 2024 • 9 mins
Humans have accomplished a lot of great things throughout history. The folks behind these two stories are not among them.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
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. Everyone loves their pets.
(00:38):
Human domestication of animals goes back over ten thousand years.
In ancient times, we learn that dogs, cats, and even
bores could be fed and taught to follow orders. Most
of the time, all we ask is that the animals
be our cute little companions and pose for videos and
photos for social media. As history has progressed, domestication has
grown more and more sophisticated. In the modern age, this
(01:00):
process often goes too far, becoming horrific rather than cute.
Many of us can hardly stomach the thought of the
slaughter houses that mass produce meat. But if you go
back just a few decades, you can find one example
of domestication gone wrong that's more horrific than any other.
The CIA's Cold War experiments are now infamous. What was
(01:21):
once thought to be a conspiracy theory has now through
declassified documents proved to be actual conspiracy. One such document
reveals the existence of Operation Acoustic Kitty, an experiment meant
to assess the use of cats in spy operations. The
documents are still heavily redacted, so we don't know the
names of many of the people involved, but that's perhaps appropriate,
(01:44):
as from the cat's point of view, the CIA agents
were all strangers doing strange things. In order to make
the cat ready for the operation, several surgeries were performed.
The cat was cut open and batteries and a receiver
were sewn into its stomach lining. After this, the agents
ran a microphone from the receiver in the cat's stomach,
(02:04):
up its digestive tract and into its head out its
ear canal. And that's right, the cat had a microphone
and a speaker in its ear. And finally, the agents
ran a wire from the microphone in the cat's ear
down the cat's spine, this time weaving the wire into
its fur. This led to an antenna in its tail
that could both receive messages and broadcast whatever was being
(02:26):
picked up on the microphone. With their Acoustic Kitty now complete,
the agents sewed the cat back up and let it
recover from its surgery, and we can only imagine how
the cat felt. But once it was recovered, it was
time for its training. The agents played different tones in
the cat's ear, using obstacle courses to train it to
associate certain tones with certain directions. One tone told it
(02:49):
to go left, another told it to go right, and
so on. Now, if you own a cat, or you've
heard the phrase trying to herd cats, you're probably surprised
to hear that this worked.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
But the truth it is that it didn't. Always, not
for more than ten minutes at a time, the cat's
various instincts often took over and led it to do
whatever it wanted. Some reports suggest that the agents did
more surgeries to suppress those urges, but exactly how that
worked is unclear. Regardless, the agents were eventually satisfied enough
where they felt that the cat was ready for a
(03:21):
field test. They packed it up in a van with
a variety of other surveillance equipment and drove to a
park outside the Russian embassy in Washington, DC. Their goal
was to have the cat spy on some civilians On
a park bench, they unloaded the cat onto the street
and began to issue commands. Now, what happened next varies
depending on the source. If you want the happy ending,
(03:43):
the cat performed its job but was still hard to control. Afterward,
surgery was done to remove all the electronic components, and
the cat lived on after that. But if you want
the sad and to be honest, darker ending, one report
says that the cat began to cross the street and
was immediately hit by a taxi, destroying years of hard
work and millions of dollars in taxpayer money. Whatever the
(04:06):
true story, the CIA came to the conclusion that cats
would never be an ideal ally in the spy trade.
This is one example of domestication that went way too
far and yielded no results in the process. They say
that curiosity killed the cat, but in this case, the
curiosity was the CIA's lights, camera action. Those three magical
(04:43):
words are the first thing we learn about the process
of making films, a cliche that by now is a
little out of date. These days, if a director has
to call for the lighting to be turned on right
before a shot, something else has gone very very wrong.
Since the dawn of the twentieth century, though, motion xture.
Producers have been striving to create something worth seeing on
the silver screen, imagery that's so transporting that you just
(05:06):
have to go out and see it for yourself. Today,
thousands of artists work over computer screens to make such
spectacles happen. In the nineteen twenties, though, if you wanted
something spectacular, you had to invent it in physical reality,
which brings us to the story of Noah's Ark, not
the Bible tale, but the nineteen twenty eight film adaptation
(05:27):
of it, produced by the Warner Brothers. Adapting works from
the Bible was a popular strategy for Blockbuster's success. Just
four years earlier, Cecil B. De Mill had directed a
silent film version of The Ten Commandments, which made Paramount
Pictures almost four times its budget. So producer Darryl F.
Zanik saw the opportunity. He gave the story to a
(05:48):
hand picked screenwriter and hired an up and coming director
for the job, a thirty eight year old Hungarian American
named Michael Curtiz. Now, in case you've never seen it,
the climax of this film would involve a truly tear
fine amount of manpower. The Great flood in the Bible
this flood destroys every living thing on earth save for
Noah and his family and the animals that they managed
(06:09):
to save in the ark. So in order for this
divine apocalypse to play out on screen, it had to
be a showstopper. As many as seven thousand extras were
brought on for this scene along with livestock. The plan
was to actually flood the set with all of these
people there. The biblical city was built to break away
in the water, dramatically collapsing as Man's hubris was squashed
(06:32):
by the wrath of God. Cinematographer how Moore was an
early voice speaking up against the plan. He confronted the
director and producer Daryl Zanak. Allegedly he asked what would
be done about the extra people, and Curtis replied, they'll
have to take their chances, and it was then that
Moore walked off the set to be replaced by a
different cameraman. On the final day when the flood sequence
(06:55):
was to be filmed, there were fourteen cameras rolling and
on q torrential waves of water were released onto the set. Now,
accounts differ on how much water the flood required, some
say four million gallons others point the estimate closer to
one million. Whatever the case, the effect was intense. The
set broke and shattered, not just at the key points
(07:16):
designed to give way. One of the leading actors, George O'Brien,
had two of his toenails ripped off by the water pressure,
but that was the least of the damage. Extras and
cattle went from performing to fighting for their lives. Many
accounts afterward claimed that the water ran red with blood.
After the scene, thirty five ambulances rushed to the rescue.
(07:37):
It is frequently claimed that in the chaos three people
lost their lives, and hell more has even said that
at least one man lost a leg. Many of the
stars involved spoke openly in their later years about how
harrowing the sequence was, how the producers were not just reckless,
but ruthless. Alfred Hitchcock would infamously say that actors should
be treated like cattle, and in circumstances like these, it's
(08:00):
hard to argue that they were treated much better, but
there was only so much they could do. In an
era before robust safety regulations and labor unions had entered,
Hollywood performers were only safe if a studio wanted them
to be protected. Production records from Noah's Ark have either
been lost or destroyed, and all we have to go
on are the accounts of those who were there, like
(08:21):
the actors and the crew. Their description of a flood
flecked with blood and a set crashing down around them
paint a terrifying picture, even if the tangible details remained
something of a mystery. But what we do have are
the names of some of the survivors. One of the
men involved in the flood who very nearly lost his
life was an over six foot tall prop man named
(08:43):
Maryan Morrison. If he hadn't survived that shoot, today, the
history of film would have turned out quite differently. Later
in his career, he'd be known by a different name
as the Western hero John Wayne. While making films is
a lot safer now than it was in the nineteen twenties,
there is a less to take from all of this.
Whether you're a movie producer, a business owner, or anyone
(09:04):
people trust with their safety, be careful of who you
think is expendable, because you never know which extra is
a future star. 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
(09:27):
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
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 about it
over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
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. Everyone loves their pets.
(00:38):
Human domestication of animals goes back over ten thousand years.
In ancient times, we learn that dogs, cats, and even
bores could be fed and taught to follow orders. Most
of the time, all we ask is that the animals
be our cute little companions and pose for videos and
photos for social media. As history has progressed, domestication has
grown more and more sophisticated. In the modern age, this
(01:00):
process often goes too far, becoming horrific rather than cute.
Many of us can hardly stomach the thought of the
slaughter houses that mass produce meat. But if you go
back just a few decades, you can find one example
of domestication gone wrong that's more horrific than any other.
The CIA's Cold War experiments are now infamous. What was
(01:21):
once thought to be a conspiracy theory has now through
declassified documents proved to be actual conspiracy. One such document
reveals the existence of Operation Acoustic Kitty, an experiment meant
to assess the use of cats in spy operations. The
documents are still heavily redacted, so we don't know the
names of many of the people involved, but that's perhaps appropriate,
(01:44):
as from the cat's point of view, the CIA agents
were all strangers doing strange things. In order to make
the cat ready for the operation, several surgeries were performed.
The cat was cut open and batteries and a receiver
were sewn into its stomach lining. After this, the agents
ran a microphone from the receiver in the cat's stomach,
(02:04):
up its digestive tract and into its head out its
ear canal. And that's right, the cat had a microphone
and a speaker in its ear. And finally, the agents
ran a wire from the microphone in the cat's ear
down the cat's spine, this time weaving the wire into
its fur. This led to an antenna in its tail
that could both receive messages and broadcast whatever was being
(02:26):
picked up on the microphone. With their Acoustic Kitty now complete,
the agents sewed the cat back up and let it
recover from its surgery, and we can only imagine how
the cat felt. But once it was recovered, it was
time for its training. The agents played different tones in
the cat's ear, using obstacle courses to train it to
associate certain tones with certain directions. One tone told it
(02:49):
to go left, another told it to go right, and
so on. Now, if you own a cat, or you've
heard the phrase trying to herd cats, you're probably surprised
to hear that this worked.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
But the truth it is that it didn't. Always, not
for more than ten minutes at a time, the cat's
various instincts often took over and led it to do
whatever it wanted. Some reports suggest that the agents did
more surgeries to suppress those urges, but exactly how that
worked is unclear. Regardless, the agents were eventually satisfied enough
where they felt that the cat was ready for a
(03:21):
field test. They packed it up in a van with
a variety of other surveillance equipment and drove to a
park outside the Russian embassy in Washington, DC. Their goal
was to have the cat spy on some civilians On
a park bench, they unloaded the cat onto the street
and began to issue commands. Now, what happened next varies
depending on the source. If you want the happy ending,
(03:43):
the cat performed its job but was still hard to control. Afterward,
surgery was done to remove all the electronic components, and
the cat lived on after that. But if you want
the sad and to be honest, darker ending, one report
says that the cat began to cross the street and
was immediately hit by a taxi, destroying years of hard
work and millions of dollars in taxpayer money. Whatever the
(04:06):
true story, the CIA came to the conclusion that cats
would never be an ideal ally in the spy trade.
This is one example of domestication that went way too
far and yielded no results in the process. They say
that curiosity killed the cat, but in this case, the
curiosity was the CIA's lights, camera action. Those three magical
(04:43):
words are the first thing we learn about the process
of making films, a cliche that by now is a
little out of date. These days, if a director has
to call for the lighting to be turned on right
before a shot, something else has gone very very wrong.
Since the dawn of the twentieth century, though, motion xture.
Producers have been striving to create something worth seeing on
the silver screen, imagery that's so transporting that you just
(05:06):
have to go out and see it for yourself. Today,
thousands of artists work over computer screens to make such
spectacles happen. In the nineteen twenties, though, if you wanted
something spectacular, you had to invent it in physical reality,
which brings us to the story of Noah's Ark, not
the Bible tale, but the nineteen twenty eight film adaptation
(05:27):
of it, produced by the Warner Brothers. Adapting works from
the Bible was a popular strategy for Blockbuster's success. Just
four years earlier, Cecil B. De Mill had directed a
silent film version of The Ten Commandments, which made Paramount
Pictures almost four times its budget. So producer Darryl F.
Zanik saw the opportunity. He gave the story to a
(05:48):
hand picked screenwriter and hired an up and coming director
for the job, a thirty eight year old Hungarian American
named Michael Curtiz. Now, in case you've never seen it,
the climax of this film would involve a truly tear
fine amount of manpower. The Great flood in the Bible
this flood destroys every living thing on earth save for
Noah and his family and the animals that they managed
(06:09):
to save in the ark. So in order for this
divine apocalypse to play out on screen, it had to
be a showstopper. As many as seven thousand extras were
brought on for this scene along with livestock. The plan
was to actually flood the set with all of these
people there. The biblical city was built to break away
in the water, dramatically collapsing as Man's hubris was squashed
(06:32):
by the wrath of God. Cinematographer how Moore was an
early voice speaking up against the plan. He confronted the
director and producer Daryl Zanak. Allegedly he asked what would
be done about the extra people, and Curtis replied, they'll
have to take their chances, and it was then that
Moore walked off the set to be replaced by a
different cameraman. On the final day when the flood sequence
(06:55):
was to be filmed, there were fourteen cameras rolling and
on q torrential waves of water were released onto the set. Now,
accounts differ on how much water the flood required, some
say four million gallons others point the estimate closer to
one million. Whatever the case, the effect was intense. The
set broke and shattered, not just at the key points
(07:16):
designed to give way. One of the leading actors, George O'Brien,
had two of his toenails ripped off by the water pressure,
but that was the least of the damage. Extras and
cattle went from performing to fighting for their lives. Many
accounts afterward claimed that the water ran red with blood.
After the scene, thirty five ambulances rushed to the rescue.
(07:37):
It is frequently claimed that in the chaos three people
lost their lives, and hell more has even said that
at least one man lost a leg. Many of the
stars involved spoke openly in their later years about how
harrowing the sequence was, how the producers were not just reckless,
but ruthless. Alfred Hitchcock would infamously say that actors should
be treated like cattle, and in circumstances like these, it's
(08:00):
hard to argue that they were treated much better, but
there was only so much they could do. In an
era before robust safety regulations and labor unions had entered,
Hollywood performers were only safe if a studio wanted them
to be protected. Production records from Noah's Ark have either
been lost or destroyed, and all we have to go
on are the accounts of those who were there, like
(08:21):
the actors and the crew. Their description of a flood
flecked with blood and a set crashing down around them
paint a terrifying picture, even if the tangible details remained
something of a mystery. But what we do have are
the names of some of the survivors. One of the
men involved in the flood who very nearly lost his
life was an over six foot tall prop man named
(08:43):
Maryan Morrison. If he hadn't survived that shoot, today, the
history of film would have turned out quite differently. Later
in his career, he'd be known by a different name
as the Western hero John Wayne. While making films is
a lot safer now than it was in the nineteen twenties,
there is a less to take from all of this.
Whether you're a movie producer, a business owner, or anyone
(09:04):
people trust with their safety, be careful of who you
think is expendable, because you never know which extra is
a future star. 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
(09:27):
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
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 about it
over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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