August 7, 2025 • 11 mins
Two iconic images, years of planning, and a whole lot of international love. Today's tour through the Cabinet is a fun ride.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
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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. Every country has its heroes,
(00:38):
people who, for better or worse, embody a sense of
national pride and spirit. These sorts of figures, whether they're
heads of states, are just powerful public speakers, are put
on pedestals by history books, almost mythologized while they're still alive.
It becomes easy to believe that if they succeed, their
country will as well, and if they fail, so will
their country. And of course it comes difficult to contend
(01:01):
with the fact that these people, like every other politician,
are just as human as uri, prone to the same flaws,
the same failures, and the same mundane vulnerabilities. Despite the
pedestal we've put.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Them on, they aren't figures out of Greek myth, and
for a particularly beloved head of state, an immense amount
of public effort would be put toward making sure that
his eventual death was properly commemorated. This was the case
with Sir Winston Churchill, who came out of the Second
World War with a reputation as a war hero, someone
who had led his country to victory against the evil
(01:33):
of the Nazis and had prioritized protecting the pride of
England even during the worst of the Blitz. No prime
minister before or since has held the same stature in culture. However,
Churchill was not a healthy man. He drank like a fish,
smoked like a chimney, and battled illnesses regularly over the
course of his career. Everyone close to him was keenly
(01:54):
aware that he was not invulnerable. In nineteen fifty three,
he had a major stroke at his home. While his
family worked tirelessly to keep the incident's secret, Queen Elizabeth
I insisted that they needed to draw up funeral plans
for Churchill to be prepared for when the time came.
It would be known as Operation Hope, not the plan
for an extravagant state funeral that would honor Churchill's service
(02:17):
to queen and country. Now Allegedly, the man himself was
not overly keen on the plan, but at the insistence
of the Queen, he allowed a committee to be formed
to plan his own funeral. The eventual plan was intensely specific,
time down to the second, how long he would lie
in state at the Houses of Parliament, what route the
car would take him through London, passed various locations that
(02:38):
were significant to Churchill's life. The roles of the others
were also specified, from who would serve as pallbearers to
where the Queen would be during the ceremony. Also time
down to the second. Two supplemental booklets, one forty seven
pages long and the other fifty nine included instructions for
the London Metropolitan Police and how they would time the
(02:59):
rays and lowering of bridges, managed traffic and generally just
control the flow of the city during the day of
the funeral. And the plan was completed in nineteen fifty three,
but it wound up undergoing several major revisions because Churchill
just well, he wouldn't die. He would suffer additional strokes
and eventually resign the Prime Minister role for health reasons,
(03:20):
but he lived well into the nineteen sixties and the
committee had to revisit Operation Hope, not regularly, as one
Lord put it, Churchill kept living and the pallbearers kept dying.
It should be noted that state funerals in Britain have
rarely been given for someone outside of the royal family,
but as I've mentioned, Churchill's position in British popular culture
(03:42):
was a special one. Ultimately, Churchill would die in January
of nineteen sixty five, almost twelve years after the plan
was first drawn up. Estimates say that as many as
three hundred and fifty million people watch the funeral worldwide.
As of twenty twenty five, his funeral will be the
last British state funeral held for someone not from the
royal family. Afterward, the initial documents remained a state secret
(04:05):
for thirty years, not seeing the light of day until
nineteen ninety five. Some of these documents have been since
auctioned off to private collectors. Others are held by museums
or the British government itself. Although he would not be
the last non royal to get such a treatment, Operation
Hope Not was not the only funeral plan that was
on the books in the nineteen sixties. At around the
(04:27):
same time they were working on the plans for how
to honor Churchill, Queen Elizabeth had her own funeral plans
drawn up as well, just in case. The code name
for that plan would be different, though they called it
Operation London Bridge. Sometimes things have a second life beyond
(04:58):
what we first imagined. How The Shawshank Redemption grossed less
than thirty thousand dollars at the box office, but is
now considered one of the best films of all time.
The Big Lebowski also flopped in theaters, but is now
so popular that it spawned its own religion, Dudaism, with
six hundred thousand ordained ministers. And the subject of this story,
(05:18):
a man named Roy, dreamed that his creations would tear
up the American highways, and he did leave his mark,
just not in the way that he expected. In the
nineteen fifties, the American auto industry was experiencing a boom
after two decades marked by a great depression in World
War II. The economy recovered and Americans could afford cars again.
Demand for American made cars was sky high, and the
(05:41):
market was dominated by three Detroit based automakers, General Motors, Chrysler,
and the Ford Motor Company. Every year, these companies fought
to one up each other at auto shows around the country,
they debuted concept cars that introduced flashy new designs and
futuristic features, some of which would be adopted into existing
car models and are still around today. In nineteen fifty five,
(06:04):
Ford Motor presented a real stunner, the Lincoln Futura. It
was a sleek, state of the art convertible inspired by
outer space and the deep sea. The cars hooded headlamps
and lifted tail fins resembled a reef shark, but its
roof and windshield looked like something more out of the
Jetsons than real life. The Lincoln Futura was a bold
(06:24):
design and the crowd at the Chicago Auto Show loved it,
which reflected well on the mastermind behind the concept car,
an up and coming designer named Roy born in Hamilton,
Ontario in Canada. He started his car designing career at
Cadillac before landing at Ford in nineteen fifty three. The
Futura was one of his first projects there, and given
(06:45):
his success, Ford executives decided to entrust Roy with a bigger,
more ambitious project, the design of Ford's first mid ranged car.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
You see.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
At the time, Ford mostly sold two kinds of vehicles, flashy,
upscale models like the Mercury and boxy, dependable rides that
would get you from point A to point B. They
wanted to compete in the mid range car markets and
debuts something that would rival the Chrysler Dodge and GM's Pontiac.
So Roy got to work designing a smart, but reliable
(07:15):
sedan that would appeal to young business professionals and fashion
forward families. For the next two years, he tuned and
tweaked eighteen different models of the car. His designs were
guided by countless focus groups that helped develop the car's personality.
Ford executives also enlisted the help of poet Marina Moore
to name the new model. She proposed some outlandish suggestions
(07:38):
like the utopian turtle Top and the Pluma Poluma, but
finally one executive stepped in and decided to simply name
the car after Henry Ford's late sun Edzel. By nineteen
fifty seven, Ford Motor had spent two hundred and fifty
million dollars on researching, tooling, and expanding production facilities for
the Ford Edzell. That's about two billion dollars dollars today.
(08:01):
In exchange, Roy Brown delivered a car that was truly unique.
The Edzel was large and colorful, with four headlights and
vertical tail lamps, which set it apart from the other
Ford models, and Roy also included some luxury touches, like
a push button transmission on the steering wheel and the
warning light system that would alert drivers when they were
low on oil or gas. When it was released in
(08:22):
September of nineteen fifty seven, eager buyers flooded four dealerships
across the country. The first weekend, thousands of Edzels were
driven off the lot, which was great news because Ford
had spent so much developing the card that they needed
to sell two hundred thousand units before they would turn
a profit. But in the coming weeks that outpouring of
interest slowed to a trickle. The following month, to try
(08:45):
and drum up business, Ford sponsored a TV special called
The Edzels Show, a variety show starring some of the
biggest names in Hollywood like Being Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong,
Rosemary Clooney. Fifty million Americans tuned in to watch it,
but none of those viewers stepped foot on a Ford lot.
By November, Edzell sales had plummeted. Ford executives were dumbfounded.
(09:08):
They had expected the Edzel to make a splash, but
instead it stunk. Unfortunately for all their focus groups in
market research. There was something Ford had overlooked. Compact cars
were surging in popularity, in part because a month before
the Edzel debuted, the US dipped into a recession and
unemployment rates doubled. Compact cars were simply more fuel efficient,
(09:31):
which people saw as a wiser investment given the economic downturn.
Ford discontinued the Edzel two years later, in November of
nineteen fifty nine, after selling only one hundred thousand units,
half of what they needed to break even on the car. Afterwards,
Roy was transferred to Ford London, where he went on
to design the enormously successful Ford Cortina, and he also
(09:53):
worked on the Thunderbird, Ford's best known luxury car. But
none of Roy Brown Junior's designs would be a sa
famous as that first one, the Lincoln Futura. In fact,
you've probably seen pictures of it your entire life, because
ten years after it debuted in Chicago, Ford sold the
Futura to a Hollywood producer who gave the car some
serious upgrades and a new paint job. He used the
(10:16):
Futura in his newest television project, and soon it became
the most iconic car to ever drive its way through
the screen. Because that producer was Chuck Barris, creator of
a TV series based on a legendary comic book character.
The Futura, you see, was transformed into the Batmobile. I
(10:39):
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 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
(11:01):
you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
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. Every country has its heroes,
(00:38):
people who, for better or worse, embody a sense of
national pride and spirit. These sorts of figures, whether they're
heads of states, are just powerful public speakers, are put
on pedestals by history books, almost mythologized while they're still alive.
It becomes easy to believe that if they succeed, their
country will as well, and if they fail, so will
their country. And of course it comes difficult to contend
(01:01):
with the fact that these people, like every other politician,
are just as human as uri, prone to the same flaws,
the same failures, and the same mundane vulnerabilities. Despite the
pedestal we've put.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Them on, they aren't figures out of Greek myth, and
for a particularly beloved head of state, an immense amount
of public effort would be put toward making sure that
his eventual death was properly commemorated. This was the case
with Sir Winston Churchill, who came out of the Second
World War with a reputation as a war hero, someone
who had led his country to victory against the evil
(01:33):
of the Nazis and had prioritized protecting the pride of
England even during the worst of the Blitz. No prime
minister before or since has held the same stature in culture. However,
Churchill was not a healthy man. He drank like a fish,
smoked like a chimney, and battled illnesses regularly over the
course of his career. Everyone close to him was keenly
(01:54):
aware that he was not invulnerable. In nineteen fifty three,
he had a major stroke at his home. While his
family worked tirelessly to keep the incident's secret, Queen Elizabeth
I insisted that they needed to draw up funeral plans
for Churchill to be prepared for when the time came.
It would be known as Operation Hope, not the plan
for an extravagant state funeral that would honor Churchill's service
(02:17):
to queen and country. Now Allegedly, the man himself was
not overly keen on the plan, but at the insistence
of the Queen, he allowed a committee to be formed
to plan his own funeral. The eventual plan was intensely specific,
time down to the second, how long he would lie
in state at the Houses of Parliament, what route the
car would take him through London, passed various locations that
(02:38):
were significant to Churchill's life. The roles of the others
were also specified, from who would serve as pallbearers to
where the Queen would be during the ceremony. Also time
down to the second. Two supplemental booklets, one forty seven
pages long and the other fifty nine included instructions for
the London Metropolitan Police and how they would time the
(02:59):
rays and lowering of bridges, managed traffic and generally just
control the flow of the city during the day of
the funeral. And the plan was completed in nineteen fifty three,
but it wound up undergoing several major revisions because Churchill
just well, he wouldn't die. He would suffer additional strokes
and eventually resign the Prime Minister role for health reasons,
(03:20):
but he lived well into the nineteen sixties and the
committee had to revisit Operation Hope, not regularly, as one
Lord put it, Churchill kept living and the pallbearers kept dying.
It should be noted that state funerals in Britain have
rarely been given for someone outside of the royal family,
but as I've mentioned, Churchill's position in British popular culture
(03:42):
was a special one. Ultimately, Churchill would die in January
of nineteen sixty five, almost twelve years after the plan
was first drawn up. Estimates say that as many as
three hundred and fifty million people watch the funeral worldwide.
As of twenty twenty five, his funeral will be the
last British state funeral held for someone not from the
royal family. Afterward, the initial documents remained a state secret
(04:05):
for thirty years, not seeing the light of day until
nineteen ninety five. Some of these documents have been since
auctioned off to private collectors. Others are held by museums
or the British government itself. Although he would not be
the last non royal to get such a treatment, Operation
Hope Not was not the only funeral plan that was
on the books in the nineteen sixties. At around the
(04:27):
same time they were working on the plans for how
to honor Churchill, Queen Elizabeth had her own funeral plans
drawn up as well, just in case. The code name
for that plan would be different, though they called it
Operation London Bridge. Sometimes things have a second life beyond
(04:58):
what we first imagined. How The Shawshank Redemption grossed less
than thirty thousand dollars at the box office, but is
now considered one of the best films of all time.
The Big Lebowski also flopped in theaters, but is now
so popular that it spawned its own religion, Dudaism, with
six hundred thousand ordained ministers. And the subject of this story,
(05:18):
a man named Roy, dreamed that his creations would tear
up the American highways, and he did leave his mark,
just not in the way that he expected. In the
nineteen fifties, the American auto industry was experiencing a boom
after two decades marked by a great depression in World
War II. The economy recovered and Americans could afford cars again.
Demand for American made cars was sky high, and the
(05:41):
market was dominated by three Detroit based automakers, General Motors, Chrysler,
and the Ford Motor Company. Every year, these companies fought
to one up each other at auto shows around the country,
they debuted concept cars that introduced flashy new designs and
futuristic features, some of which would be adopted into existing
car models and are still around today. In nineteen fifty five,
(06:04):
Ford Motor presented a real stunner, the Lincoln Futura. It
was a sleek, state of the art convertible inspired by
outer space and the deep sea. The cars hooded headlamps
and lifted tail fins resembled a reef shark, but its
roof and windshield looked like something more out of the
Jetsons than real life. The Lincoln Futura was a bold
(06:24):
design and the crowd at the Chicago Auto Show loved it,
which reflected well on the mastermind behind the concept car,
an up and coming designer named Roy born in Hamilton,
Ontario in Canada. He started his car designing career at
Cadillac before landing at Ford in nineteen fifty three. The
Futura was one of his first projects there, and given
(06:45):
his success, Ford executives decided to entrust Roy with a bigger,
more ambitious project, the design of Ford's first mid ranged car.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
You see.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
At the time, Ford mostly sold two kinds of vehicles, flashy,
upscale models like the Mercury and boxy, dependable rides that
would get you from point A to point B. They
wanted to compete in the mid range car markets and
debuts something that would rival the Chrysler Dodge and GM's Pontiac.
So Roy got to work designing a smart, but reliable
(07:15):
sedan that would appeal to young business professionals and fashion
forward families. For the next two years, he tuned and
tweaked eighteen different models of the car. His designs were
guided by countless focus groups that helped develop the car's personality.
Ford executives also enlisted the help of poet Marina Moore
to name the new model. She proposed some outlandish suggestions
(07:38):
like the utopian turtle Top and the Pluma Poluma, but
finally one executive stepped in and decided to simply name
the car after Henry Ford's late sun Edzel. By nineteen
fifty seven, Ford Motor had spent two hundred and fifty
million dollars on researching, tooling, and expanding production facilities for
the Ford Edzell. That's about two billion dollars dollars today.
(08:01):
In exchange, Roy Brown delivered a car that was truly unique.
The Edzel was large and colorful, with four headlights and
vertical tail lamps, which set it apart from the other
Ford models, and Roy also included some luxury touches, like
a push button transmission on the steering wheel and the
warning light system that would alert drivers when they were
low on oil or gas. When it was released in
(08:22):
September of nineteen fifty seven, eager buyers flooded four dealerships
across the country. The first weekend, thousands of Edzels were
driven off the lot, which was great news because Ford
had spent so much developing the card that they needed
to sell two hundred thousand units before they would turn
a profit. But in the coming weeks that outpouring of
interest slowed to a trickle. The following month, to try
(08:45):
and drum up business, Ford sponsored a TV special called
The Edzels Show, a variety show starring some of the
biggest names in Hollywood like Being Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong,
Rosemary Clooney. Fifty million Americans tuned in to watch it,
but none of those viewers stepped foot on a Ford lot.
By November, Edzell sales had plummeted. Ford executives were dumbfounded.
(09:08):
They had expected the Edzel to make a splash, but
instead it stunk. Unfortunately for all their focus groups in
market research. There was something Ford had overlooked. Compact cars
were surging in popularity, in part because a month before
the Edzel debuted, the US dipped into a recession and
unemployment rates doubled. Compact cars were simply more fuel efficient,
(09:31):
which people saw as a wiser investment given the economic downturn.
Ford discontinued the Edzel two years later, in November of
nineteen fifty nine, after selling only one hundred thousand units,
half of what they needed to break even on the car. Afterwards,
Roy was transferred to Ford London, where he went on
to design the enormously successful Ford Cortina, and he also
(09:53):
worked on the Thunderbird, Ford's best known luxury car. But
none of Roy Brown Junior's designs would be a sa
famous as that first one, the Lincoln Futura. In fact,
you've probably seen pictures of it your entire life, because
ten years after it debuted in Chicago, Ford sold the
Futura to a Hollywood producer who gave the car some
serious upgrades and a new paint job. He used the
(10:16):
Futura in his newest television project, and soon it became
the most iconic car to ever drive its way through
the screen. Because that producer was Chuck Barris, creator of
a TV series based on a legendary comic book character.
The Futura, you see, was transformed into the Batmobile. I
(10:39):
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 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
(11:01):
you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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