9 Ridiculous Thanksgiving Facts to Pass Around the Table

From Big Bird's shameful secret to one American president who hated the holiday, Will and Mango share some of the weirdest facts they could find. Featuring FoodStuff's Lauren Vogelbaum.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend man guest Shot Ticketer. Although today we're in different
places because it's Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, Mango, they will so
I'm in a house full of family and kids, so
hopefully my Henry and Ruby won't start banging the piano
during this, but Happy Thanksgiving to YouTube, well we'll We'll

(00:42):
roll with it either way. And good news Mango guests
who finished that Thanksgiving sweater he's been knitting for like
what three weeks now? I think no way, Tristan actually
finished it. That's right, Yeah, that's the man on the
other side of the soundproof glass, our friend and producer
Tristan McNeil and Mango. It really is actually a beautiful sweater.
It's this it's a turkey reading on top of this

(01:03):
cornucopia and under it it says gobbled book. I don't
I don't fully get it, but I'll send you a
picture that sounds glorious. And joining us for the second
time on Nine Things and actually her third time on
the show is the brilliant co host of food Stuff,
Lauren Vogelbam, Lauren, welcome back. Oh, thank you so much. Well,

(01:24):
welcome to your own show too. Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving. Alright,
so it's no surprise that our facts today would be
focused on Thanksgiving. So let's let's get straight to them
so everybody can start feasting. Lauren, you want to kick
us off, Yeah, absolutely, so, Okay, my first fact is
about what the Pilgrim's probably eight, because you know, like

(01:44):
that that's a good first question to kick us off, like, like,
what was the original Thanksgiving about? Uh? Short answer is
that no one really knows. Long answer is that it
might not have been turkey but instead el huh yeah,
I mean you know, like like maybe turkey too, but
it probably wasn't the focus of the feast. There's probably
eels and lobster, clams and muscles, maybe some venison and

(02:05):
stuff like that. No potatoes, though potatoes hadn't even made
it to North America, neither white potatoes nor sweet potatoes.
We have a little bit of time to try to
pull together some some eel for this, so thank you
very much for that first fact. That's a good one,
all right, Mango, what's your first factum? My first facts
about plumbers. So if you think Black Friday is bad

(02:25):
because all the clogging at the malls, you should be
glad you're not a plumber. According to Rotor Ruter, the
day after Thanksgiving is referred to as Brown Friday because
it's year. Plumbers are actually twice as busy on Brown Friday,
and emergency calls go out all weekend. And while some
of the work is definitely bathroom related, you know, having

(02:46):
more guests does tend to overwork the toilets, the majority
of the work is actually about cleaning out clogged up sinks. Okay, wow,
Brown Friday, I had never heard that before. All right, well,
my first facts be King of Leftovers. Actually, the first
frozen dinner was created because of Thanksgiving leftovers. This was
back in nineteen fifty three. Someone at Swanson Foods ordered

(03:10):
a little too much turkey. Now we're talking two hundred
and sixty tons of excess bird to be exact on this.
So they had to find a way to use that meat.
So enter a salesman named Jerry Thomas, and he ordered
five thousand aluminum trays. Then he pulled together this assembly
line of people to scoop cornbread, dressing and peas and
sweet potatas into the trays, you know, along with all

(03:31):
that turkey and the frozen dinner was born like that.
Al right, so you're second fact, Lauren, what you got?
Oh okay about the wishbone? You know, the tradition of
splitting the wishbone over the dinner table. Yeah, that actually
stems from an ancient Etruscan ritual. Trust. Yeah, they believe

(03:53):
that chickens were oracles that could predict the future. Obviously,
and there's a word for this, it's called electriomancy or
rooster divination. Yeah. They would they would put a chicken
in the middle of the circle that they had drawn
in the on the ground, and that was divided up
into wedges, and based on where the chicken pecked, they
would they would translate that into these messages about what

(04:13):
to do, uh, you know, how to answer their big questions.
And because chickens don't last forever, they would also when
the chicken, you know, when the oracle chicken passed, they
would take the wishbone and dry it out and preserve
it so that they could have access to that poultry power. Later.
Supposedly they passed this onto the Romans and at that point,
the chicken supply was kind of dwindling, so they had

(04:33):
a tradition of breaking the wishbone in two to you know,
pass the past the magic along to more people, and
the Romans brought it to the British aisles and the
British brought it here. Wow, it's funny that that's one
of those things that got passed down for so long.
I had no idea the origin was so far back.
That's really good. All thanks to Rooster Nancy. That's that's right,
that's right. Alright, mango, what's your next fact? So this

(04:56):
is one of Thomas Jefferson, So you know, as admire
it as Jefferson was, did you know that he actually
refused to acknowledge Thanksgiving that yeah, friendly, I mean, you know,
now everyone knows that Lincoln is one who actually made
it a federal holiday, but before that, every president kind
of had to declare the celebration every year, and Jefferson

(05:17):
just refused. I mean, historians think it was because he
was so committed to the idea of separation of church
and state, because Thanksgiving this more religious and uh, prayer
filled holiday back then. But he actually called Thanksgiving quote
the most ridiculous idea ever conceived, it's not actually been.

(05:38):
Before we go on. I I did want to say
Stacy told me that fact, but she actually brought me
this extra fact nugget on presidents, and it's about William
Howard Taft and that he preferred to serve roasted possum
with quote decorative potatoes in their mouths potato. I don't
know about you, guys, but I'm glad I'm not eating

(05:58):
eel and decorative tatoes inside a possum today. So alright, Well,
my next fact also has to do with a um
with a president. So from nineteen thirty nine to nineteen
forty one, we actually had Frank's Giving, and I'll explain why.
In nineteen thirty nine, FDR moved Thanksgiving up a week.
This because it had previously been on the last Thursday

(06:21):
of the month, and in nineteen thirty nine that happened
to fall on the very last day of the month,
and that made retailers really anxious and angry because they
knew that that would be cutting into the holiday shopping season,
and so he decided to move it up by a week.
Well you think, maybe no big deal, but actually many
of FDR's political foes were furious about this. In fact,

(06:42):
one of them even compared him to Hitler. There's a
quote from the Kansas governor at the time, Alf land
and who who happened to be FDR's political opponent for
the nineteen thirty six election. But he said quote, more
time should have been taken in working it out so
as to assure wholehearted cooperation, and instead of springing it
upon an unprepared country with the omnipotence of a Hitler.

(07:05):
Pretty strong words there, Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so
until it was officially signed into legislation as the fourth
Thursday of November, there were a couple of years where
states and conservative control continued to celebrate Thanksgiving on the
last Thursday of the month, and then the New Dealers
celebrated it the week before, so the earlier holiday was

(07:28):
actually known derisively as Frank's Giving. All right, we've got
one more fact each, Lauren, Okay, this one is about
Julia Child. If if any of y'all part time genius
listeners out there, uh, listen to food stuff as well,
you'll know that she's kind of one of my personal heroes.
And this this is so charming. So even during the
height of her fame in the nineteen seventies and eighties,

(07:51):
Julia Child kept her home telephone listed in the phone
book in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she would answer calls from
people who were wondering what to do, like having trouble
with a recipe up to an including on Thanksgiving, like
she would be cooking dinner and uh, someone would call
in panicked about their turkey. She would hand her whisk

(08:11):
off to somebody else and just kind of talk them
down like whether or not it was actual like like
recipe advice or just going like, I don't know, now,
it's totally turkey, doesn't even have to be served warm,
do whatever you want, and just just you know, making
everyone's day a little bit nicer. And she she refused
to turn off the phone for for anything. She just
always always would try to help people out. That is unbelievable. Yeah,

(08:35):
that's a great fact. Well, you know, I know we
don't have Julia Child to call anymore, but we do
still have the butter Ball hot Line. Now, I'm assuming
most of our listeners are aware of the Butterball hot Line,
but just in case they aren't, it's been an operation
for more than thirty years now, and so in November
and December they're about fifty or sixty experts that are
on the lines to answer the more than one hundred

(08:57):
thousand questions that come into the hot line. People call
one eight hundred butter ball. And the most common question,
of course, is my turkey is still frozen, so what
do I do? But the reason I wanted to point
this out is I always like looking at the list
of the weirdest questions that come in, and there was
one that came in recently that was I left my
turkey in a snow bank to keep it cold, and

(09:18):
now I can't find it. What should I do? There
are for turkeys? Is that A that's a good question. Alright, Well, mano,
Sorry I had to jump in front of you there,
But after she shared the a Julia Child fact, I
just thought it was time to talk about butter ball.
So you've got you've got one more fact. Yeah, and
and it's a good one. So, um, did you realize

(09:40):
that Big Birds costume is entirely made of turkey feathers?
According to CNN, those beautiful big feathers come from the
rear end of a turkey and Sesame Street actually has
strict approval on what feathers get used. Apparently one out
of ten feathers gets rejected. And also to make that
beautiful plumage, it about several thousand feathers, along with extras

(10:03):
for when the costume woltz. And uh, just to be clear,
one of the many things I'm thankful for is big bird.
Oh absolutely, Ah, that's pretty great and it may be
my favorite fact for today. And and I kind of
want to name you the winner, but I actually feel
like Tristan Sweater is stolen the show, so I think

(10:23):
I want to give him the trophy. Are you guys
okay with that? Totally? I'm here, I'm here with him
in the studio, and I've got to say it's it's
actually glowing a little bit. I'm not sure how he
did that. Man. Well, congratulations Tristan, and listeners were certainly
thankful for you, and hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow.