December 10, 2024 • 33 mins
'Tis the season for knitwear! So we’re celebrating sweaters of all shapes and sizes. Did you know that the ugly Christmas sweater trend got its start over a hundred years ago? Or that American soldiers in WWI had beef with amateur knitters? We cover all that and more, including the most expensive sweater ever sold and delightful facts about sweater-loving celebrities like Mr. Rogers, Weezer, and… Sting? Look, if this episode doesn’t give you the warm fuzzies, we don’t know what will.
Show us your best, weirdest, and/or ugliest sweaters! Tag us on Instagram @parttimegenius.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will? What's that Mango? So you've
probably noticed that ugly Christmas sweaters have become big business
over the last decade, with some companies breaking in as
much as five million dollars each year from kitchy knitwear.
(00:25):
But do you know that the sweaters also have their
very own holiday? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I think I think they call it a Christmas right.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, But a truly goers sweater deserves to be seen
more than at least one year, and that's why. Ever
since twenty eleven, the third Friday in December has been
set aside as National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. The practice
started here in the US, but it's now celebrated by
the fashionably unfashionable all across the world. Some people mark
(00:55):
the day by running a charity race, throwing a party,
or organizing a pup. But you can really celebrate however
you want provide. Of course, you also do it while
wearing a chunky, cheerful sweater.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You know when this whole thing started with the ugly
and ridiculous Christmas sweaters, I have to admit I didn't
see it having this kind of staying power that whole
like day glows sweaters with tensil and pom poms and
light up reindeer. It's just not something I fully expected
to stick around this long.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, So it actually turns out that ugly Christmas sweaters
are a much older concept than you might think. The
idea of wearing special festive sweaters for the holidays dates
back to at least the Victorian era, but back then
they were advertised simply as Christmas sweaters, and the designs
were farm were reserved. But things changed by the nineteen
(01:46):
thirties with the rival of so called jingle bell sweaters,
which featured both embroidered bells and real metal ones that
would jingle as you walked.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
So, as you think back to those earlier times, or
you think back to the nineteen thirties or whatever like,
were those sweaters ironic as well?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
No, they were still considered tasteful at that point, even
elegant in some cases, and by the fifties, sweaters started
incorporating things like Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer and Frosty
the Snowmen, especially on kids Christmas sweaters, and as the
decades progressed, adults continued to favor more subtle designs, things
like snowflake patterns or argyle made to look like wrapping paper.
(02:24):
But it isn't until the nineteen eighties that Christmas sweaters
became truly tacky. Designs of previous decades had mostly stuck
to one holiday icon per sweater, but designers of the
eighties adopted sort of a kitchen sink approach. Right. They
put on candy canes, and then they threw on Christmas
trees and skiing polar bears, and it all went onto
(02:46):
the same garments.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
All right, So I have to guess by this point
you're finally seeing that this is like a joke, right,
like where they considered a joke at that point, I
need you to get to the point where they become
a joke.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So it it doesn't become a joke until ten years
later in the nineteen nineties, when American culture gets a
little more jaded and movies like Dumb and Dumbers start
making holiday sweater jokes. But from then on, ugly Christmas
sweaters became something to wear ironically, and people started competing
to find the most over the top patterns. In fact,
(03:19):
the growing trend pretty much wiped out the supply at
thrift stores, and by the twenty first century, companies were
pumping out brand new, purposely TACKI designs to meet the demand.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Set Mango, this is like a roller coaster for me
because I'm now I'm going the opposite direction where it
doesn't feel tongue in cheek enough when people are buying
these things off the racket full price. So I don't know.
We're gonna have to talk through this.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That is definitely true. But our ugly sweater history is
just the first of nine warm facts to usher in
sweater season. So let's get cozy and dive in.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketerter and on the other side of
that soundproof glass. I have to be honest, I was
looking forward to this today because you never know what
this guy's going to be up to. He's a super
talented guy. As we've discussed many many times before. He's
(04:32):
knitting a sweater for everything. Today of course, knit himself
a holiday sweater. He knitted ones for each of us,
which was very kind, and then he made a sweater
for the lamp in there, made a cozy frame for
the whiteboard in there. It's actually getting a little bit
out of hand, but that's our talented producer, Dylan Fagan
over there.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah. I think he said he wasn't going to stop
until he'd yarn bombed the entire studio, and I don't
know exactly what that means, but he clearly has a vision.
So yes, well we're talking sweaters today, a topic I
know since the first day we started the show all
these years ago, you said, Mango, we have got to
do a show on sweaters, but not yet, not yet,
(05:12):
not yet.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
It wasn't ready.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
And then last week you were like, remember how I
wanted to do that show on sweaters all those years ago.
Now is the time. It's finally the time to do this.
What fact do you want to start with?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, I was trying to get you in studio immediately
to do and you weren't ready at that point. But
now we're both here, We're both ready. Dylan's ready, And
of course, in doing a whole episode on sweaters, the
first thing I looked up, which won't surprise you, was
the story behind the Sweater Song from Weezer.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Oh man, I know that song as Undone, and I
feel so old because that song came out like our
freshman year of high school.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, it's been it's been a minute, for sure. But
you know what's interesting is that the Sweater Song, which
was their first big breakout song, was also the first
Weezer song that frontman Rivers Cuomo ever wrote.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, I always thought Undone was this quirky fun song,
but it's actually more bleak than you might think. So,
as Cuomo told Billboard Magazine, people thought we were just
being sarcastic and ironic. But when I wrote the Sweater song,
to me, it was a very sad song about depression,
and people heard it and they thought it was hysterical.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That is so weird. I do not associate that with
any sort of rough emotions. It's just like a happy,
fun song to me.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah. Apparently this goes back a few years before Weezer's
first album. The band was struggling to stand out in
the LA music scene, so Cuomo decided to enroll in
community college sort of as a backup plan, and then
one day, during a lecture on essay writing. He had
an English professor who was explaining the importance of a
strong thesis statement, and he likened it to the thread
(06:48):
of a sweater. He was explaining, a strong thesis statement
gives kind of shape to the entire essay, but a
weak one is like a loose thread. So if you
pull on it, the whole thing unravels. Image sticks with Cuomo,
and so after class it goes home and he incorporates
it into a chorus. Three years later, the same song
proved to be the big break the band had been
(07:10):
looking for. I always love stories like this, like you
never know where the inspiration is going to come from.
But while the Sweater song might not be as funny
as people think, the band did have a sense of
humor about it by the time they came to shoot
the music video, as all four members made sure not
to wear a sweater for the filming.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
That's funny. So since we're talking sweaters, of course, I've
got to bring up my main man, Fred Rogers. Now,
we did a whole episode dedicated to mister Rogers way
back in twenty seventeen, which people should check out if
they haven't, and in it we mentioned one of the
most well known facts about him, which is that many
(07:48):
of the cardigans Fred wore on the show were actually
knit for him by his mother. But one thing we
didn't cover in that episode is what a hard time
the production team had trying to source new sweaters for
Fred after his mom passed away in nineteen eighty one.
So the stockpile of hand knit sweaters she left behind
kept her son Confiance screen for upout another ten years.
(08:09):
But by the early nineteen nineties, after two dozen seasons
and hundreds of episodes, many of the garments were starting
to look their age right. They were starting to get
a little threadbare, and it was clear that a new
crop of cardigans was needed. But of course, this is
public television we're talking about, and the show didn't have
this huge budget commission a new hand knit wardrobe or
(08:30):
anything like that, So instead the art department launched this
desperate search for lookalike sweaters. They poured through catalogs, they
hunted the rats at stores all over Pittsburgh, but nothing
they found matched the style of Fred's trademark cardigans, And,
as the show's producer explained to Smithsonian quote, nobody wore
(08:50):
those zippered sweaters. They just weren't cool then, so what
do they end up doing? The show's art director Kathy
Borland found a suitable stand in. Eventually, it wasn't from
a store, though. She actually spotted a postal worker on
the street wearing a zippered cardigan that kind of looked
like Fred, so she chases him down. She gets the
name of the manufacturer from his sweater's label, Like I
(09:12):
imagine her just sort of like pulling it and looking
at the tag, although I'm sure it was a lot
nicer than that, And she was able to buy a
whole bunch of white sweaters and then she dyed them
different colors in this giant soup pot.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
That's amazing. I know you said she probably was very
nice about it, and I'm sure she was, But I
also like to imagine her in a sense of panic
and just having to basically like rip this thing and
being like I need it for mister Rogers. That I
get it, I get it. I would happily dedicate a
sweater to that, But you know, I know that he
wore different colored sweaters, but honestly, when I picture mister Rogers,
(09:47):
he's always wearing a red one.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
You know what I mean. Yeah, I think most people
actually remember the red ones because that's the color he's
usually wearing in all the marketing materials. He also donated
a red sweater to the National Museum of American History
if after his mom died. It was one of the
ones she had knit for him, and he was always
so proud that something she had handmade was in the Smithsonian,
(10:09):
which you know, is super sweet.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
That is very sweet. It does make me curious, though,
and I know this is the type of thing that
our crew loves to dig into. Did he wear a
certain color more than the rest or was it pretty
evenly split?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I actually had a similar question, and Gabe looked into
this and he found a data writer named Owen Phillips
who made this handy chart that tracks the color of
every sweater mister Rogers wore from nineteen seventy nine until
the show's finale in two thousand and one. And the
chart actually does reveal some fun surprises. For instance, Fred
(10:42):
wore a neon blue cardigan exactly one time in the
early nineteen eighties and then never again.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
That's a little too wild, I think.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Also as the years went by, mister Rogers gradually moved
away from pastels in favor of darker earth tones, And
in fact, it turns out that green was the color
he wore most frequently. He donned a green sweater in
seventy four episodes, compared to just fifty four in which
he wore a red one. That said Fred Rogers was
(11:13):
also red green colorblind, so really it all looked brown
to him.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
And I also would like to see if there's data
on which one Eddie Murphy wore most often playing mister Robinson.
Of course, a spoof of mister Rogers on SNL. So, Gabe,
if you can look into that, that will be helpful
in the next very helpful.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, you know. So.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
One thing I didn't realize is that there was a
time where you could actually receive negative attention for wearing sweaters.
And this is a story about a woman named Francine Godfried,
and for a brief period in the late nineteen sixties,
she was better known to New Yorkers as Wall Street's
sweater Girl. Now, this goes back to a more prudish
era when in the mid twentieth century many people were
(11:55):
downright scandalized by the side of a woman in a
tight sweater. In fact, the derice of terms sweater girl
was going to describe any woman who wore a tight,
form fitting sweater. This was a look that was popularized
by Hollywood actresses like Glanna Turner Jane Mansfield. But in
nineteen sixty eight, the most famous woman to sport it
was this twenty one year old clerical worker named Francine Gottfried.
(12:19):
She was a Brooklyn native. She lived with her parents
in Williamsburg, and she just started working in New York's
Financial District in May of that year. But by late August,
there was a small group of men who had taken
notice to the tight sweater she wore, and they began
timing her daily arrival at the Wall Street subway station.
This all sounds so weird, but it's actually true. So
(12:41):
over the next few weeks, those initial group of gawkers
told their creepy buddies, until finally, in mid September, there
were more than two thousand leering men just waiting to
catch a glimpse of her, some of whom reportedly climb
trees and lampposts to get a better view. I mean,
how strange is this mango?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
That is so weird? Also, can you I mention how
scary that must have been, Like You're just trying to
go to work and suddenly there's this mob of Wall
Street guys lining up to augle you at the subway.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
It sounds terrible and it's obviously very strange, But the
wildest part is that the crowd of sweater girl watchers
just kept growing. So in the afternoon of September I'm
not kidding, like these numbers are just bananas here. So
on the afternoon of September nineteenth, more than five thousand people,
five thousand people left to work early to go watch
(13:30):
fran scene exit the subway. There must not have been
anything in the world interesting happening at that point, and
it was such a madhouse that police had to close
the streets and escort her through the crowd. And this
chaotic scene was reported by all the papers later that day,
with the New York Times even publishing Francene's measurements, which
is perhaps the most upsetting part of all of this.
(13:52):
It's like, you expect certain people to just be dumb
about certain things, but when a paper like that joins
in and is publishing stuff like that, it's just it's
just ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And I'm sure getting more press attention only slowed down
the crowds right right, people were over it by the
end of the reporting.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Exactly right. Well, unfortunately, the following day the crowd doubled
to ten thousand people. I know, all this sounds like
a joke and I'm just going to keep making up
bigger numbers, but this is true now, that is no,
You're exactly right. And none of them got what they
wanted that day, as Francine stayed home, understandably for her
own safety, but the mob was unfazed. They came back
(14:34):
the next day to try again, and so The Times
of course gets in on the action. Reporting on it,
they described the anticipation, writing quote ticker tape floated down
from the high buildings. Newspapers as far away as Australia
waited for pictures, and for the second day, a cheering,
good natured crowd of more than ten thousand jammed Broad
(14:54):
Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange and
nearby Wall Street from wall to wall.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
That's so crazy, one that like international press was suddenly
coming in for this, but also like to call it
good nature. It feels so bizarre.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, That's what stood out to me.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
But what happened, like did Franccene start driving to work
or go incognito or what happens from here?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Not exactly. I mean she did start getting off at
a different station, and about a year later she reportedly
left her job on Wall Street. And I do want
to note that Francine was not the first or even
the last sweater girl to be leered at by big
crowds on Wall Street. But it is interesting to see
how the growing women's movement decided to push back.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
How did they do that?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
So in nineteen seventy the first national oglein was held
in Wall Street in which women use these cat calls
and harassed stockbrokers on their way to work to make
a statement both in real life and depressed that they
were tired of being pestered and objectified when they were
just trying to walk down the street to work.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
That's interesting that that was the way they pushed back.
But why don't we move away from the upsetting side
of sweaters and back to the cozy side. And what
better way to do that than by telling you and
our audiences about the Australian Wildlife Clinic that distributes handmade
sweaters to penguins.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
You know what, coming into this, I knew I could
count on you for a good mister Rogers fact, and
I knew you'd find something good related to animals and
penguins just takes it to another level. So why do
they give out sweaters to penguins?
Speaker 1 (16:30):
You know? Well, I thought you'd never ask, but.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
The program started in the late nineteen nineties after a
series of oil spills off Australia's Phillip Island threatened local wildlife,
including the island sizable population of little penguins. And to
be clear, I'm not trying to be cute here. The
species name is actually called quote little penguins. They're like
these pocket sized penguins, also known as fairy penguins, and
(16:59):
most of them are about twelve inches tall.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Oh wow, yeah, that's pretty cute. So I have to
ask why do penguins need sweaters other than the fact
that obviously it sounds adorable.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, every tiny animal should own a winter or wardrobe
of sweat.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
But I forget I asked, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
So, actually, oil spills are a problem for penguins of
any size because oil clumps their feathers together, and this
can expose their skin to freezing temperatures, but it can
also weigh them down as they swim and they hunt
for food. And the worst part is that when a
penguin tries to preen and clean off the oil with
their beaks, they actually wind up ingesting the oil, which
(17:38):
of course makes them sick. So these sweaters act as
a barrier to keep the penguins from picking at their
oily feathers, at least until the rescue staff can wash
them and clean them.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
It's a really smart idea and really sweet too, but
I mean, honestly, it is still sort of weird, but
that's I like that they came up with it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah. So the practice was pioneered by the rehabilitation team
at Phillip Island's Penguin Foundation. They started a program called
Knits for Nature to collect as many tiny sweaters or
jumpers as they're called there from local volunteers. Then, as
word spread, people began to knit and donate penguin sweaters
(18:16):
from all over the world, and they've collected well over
two hundred thousand sweaters over the last couple decades, although
not all of them are deemed suitable for actual penguins,
like some are too big or too small to fit correctly,
and others came embellished with like pomp pomps that would
potentially pose a choking hazard. But you don't have to
worry about it. Those sweaters still get used. All of
(18:38):
the takier sweaters, like all the Christmas sweaters, etc. Are
put on plush penguin toys and then sold to raise
funds for the island's conservation efforts. And since twenty twelve,
the sale of the sweater penguin plushies has raised roughly
four hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
That is wild and pretty awesome. So are they still
accepting donations then yeah, but at.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
This point and it's for nature, has enough sweaters to
meet demand for many seasons to come. But they still
accept sweaters to sell on their plush penguins. So for
any animal loving knitters out there, you can find all
the information and the free jumper patterns at Penguin Foundation
dot org.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That's pretty cool, all right. Well to go in a
different direction though, I guess a little bit animal related.
Did you know that one famous musician wore a sweater
so distinctive that it actually inspired his lifelong stage name.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Please say it's Snoop Doggy Dog.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I will not say that. It is not Snoop Dogg
and it's not bad Bunny either. It's actually Sting, the
former frontman of the Police and current Mega mentor on
NBC's The Voice Mengo Mega Mentor. That's how it's amazing.
His birth name is Gordon Matthew Sumner, which I actually
did not know that. But he often wore a black
(19:52):
and yellow striped sweater as a teenager, and his bandmates
teased them for looking like a giant bee, and so
they started to call him Stif.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
That's really funny. For some reason, I always assumed it
was like a nod to the Lord of the Rings
because Frodo has that little glowing sword called Sting. But
oh yeah, getting a nickname from a funny looking sweater
is way way better. And I actually really love that
he kept the nickname all those years later.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah. By the way, if anyone ever wondered whether we're nerds,
we give them one little fact like that every once
in a while that you thought maybe it came from
Lord of the Rings and remembered the name of the
sword that Frodo had it's pretty great. We need one
of those every episode. But you know, it doesn't sound
like he had much of a choice with this nickname.
His friends started calling him Sting even after he stopped
(20:38):
wearing the beast ripe sweater. Then, to make matters worse,
his mom started using it. In fact, in twenty eleven,
the singer told Time magazine, even my wife calls me Sting.
I was never called Gordon. You could shell Gordon in
the middle of the street and I would just move
out of your way.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
It is really amazing that something as arbitrary as a
sweater ends up sticking with him for that long. It's nuts,
it really is.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
It is worth noting that while Sting has embraced his
be based persona, he never went so far as to
legally adopt it. According to a twenty sixteen interview with
Howard Stern, Sting's passport still says Gordon Sumner.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
So, after all your music facts, I'm starting to feel
left out here, so I'm gonna skip ahead and throw
one of my own in. This fact is about Nirvana
frontman Kurt Cobain, because as of twenty twenty four, his
sweater is the most expensive sweater ever sold at auction,
And I'm sure you know this what I'm talking about.
(21:36):
It's the olive green one. Yeah, that was on MTV's
Unplugged Concert way back in nineteen ninety four. But the
show was taped just five months before Cobaine's passing, which
means that's really the last time a lot of fans,
including myself, saw him was wearing that sweater on TV.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
And was it something he had worn before? Was it
just part of the wardrobe for the taping.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
No, he definitely warn it before he He worred on
tour for a few months by that point, and there
was anything fancy or costume about it. According to the
Cardigan's label, it was made in the nineteen sixties by
a company called Manhattan Industries. The fabric is acrylic, mohair
and lycra and fashion historians think it retailed for about
(22:18):
sixteen dollars by at that point, but Cobain probably paid
less for it since he bought it at a thrift
store in Seattle in the early nineties.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
So how did it end up at auction?
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Well, this is an interesting story. After Kurt's death, Courtney
Love gave the sweater up to the family's nanny, who
held on to as a keepsake for about twenty years,
but in twenty fifteen, she decides to bring it to
auction because she has cancer and she's trying to pay
for her cancer treatments. The sweater was expected to fetch
(22:48):
about fifty thousand dollars at auction, but it wound up
selling for one hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars instead.
It is obviously a hefty price tag, but the buyer
did get a little something extra with his purchase. When
he reached into one of the pockets, he found what
he described as quote, some kind of brown crunchy something,
which he guesses was either chocolate or vomit.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
It feels like you should know the difference, but hold on.
So the nanny never washed the sweater, I guess not friendly.
She left it exactly as she had received it twenty
years earlier, right down to the crunchy treat in the pocket.
But wow.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
The buyer in twenty fifteen also declined to clean it,
believing that the sweater's musty smell, it's missing button, and
all the cigarette burns, which had multiple cigarette burns. All
of this added to the sweater's character and also its value.
All of this proves to be a wise decision for
the buyer, because when he put the sweater up for
(23:47):
auction in twenty nineteen, it sold for three hundred and
thirty four thousand dollars, more than twice would he pay
for it, And so I would imagine that's the highest
auction price ever paid for a sweater. I mean, at
least until the current owner decides to part with, at
which point it'll probably go for even more.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yeah, I would imagine. All right, Well, two more sweater
facts to go. But before we get to those, let's
take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
You listen to Part Time Genius and we're counting down
nine thread pulling facts about sweaters. So, will are you
a sweater guy? Like I wear cardigans a lot, but
I don't really think of you as wearing sweaters a
whole bunch.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, it's a really personal question, Mango. But part of
the reason I had been pushing to do this episode
is I'm ready to go ahead and state it publicly
that I have become a sweater guy. For years, I
was not as a kid. I found them itchy. I
couldn't do sweaters. I refuse to wear them. But over
the last few years. Maybe it's a dad thing. I
(25:01):
don't know, but I am totally a sweater guy now, Mango.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I love that you finally embraced this about yourself. We've
been waiting for that moment.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
This was my safe space to admit that thing.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
You know, It's funny because I just think about it
this week. And in elementary school, we had this project
where we had to figure out, like how we'd live
as adults, right, so we had to look up apartments
in the local paper to see where we'd rent a place.
We learned how to make a food budget and an
entertainment budget, all of which I've forgotten how to do.
But as part of that, I actually illustrated how I
(25:35):
was going to dress. And while I don't live in Wilmington, Delaware,
I don't eat burritos four times a week. Like like
my way to say a food budget was like, oh,
I'll just buy like a bag of frozen fries and
burritos and I'll use the rest on entertainment.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
But I do dress exactly like a nine year old
me pictured myself. I wear low top soccer sneakers. I
wear collared shirts and cardigans. But what's really funny about
it is like, now, that's fairly common style, but when
I was in fourth or fifth grade, people were like,
what is this lazy grandparents style? You want to look like?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yep, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I don't know. Maybe it was mister Rogers' influence, but
something clearly struck a chord with a style sense. So
what do you want to do with your last sweater fact?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
All right, well, I felt like we both got some
things out there. This is great that we've had a
sweater episode to work out some things. But I liked
your last penguin fact. So, speaking of sweaters for a
good cause, my next fact takes us back to the
First World War, when the American government promoted knitting as
a patriotic duty. And that may sound like a strange thing,
but even before US soldiers were deployed overseas, organizations like
(26:47):
the American Red Cross had encouraged the public to knit
and donate warm clothing as a way to assist foreign soldiers.
So it makes a lot of sense. And once the
US formally entered the war in nineteen seventeen, these knitting
campaigns kicked into high gear. These people were churning out
roughly three hundred and sixty million knit garments in the
course of just two years.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Three hundred and fifty million garments. That is no joke.
So who is it that is working the needles for
all this knitting charity?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
You know? That's the thing. These so called wool brigades
included everybody. You had, kids, adults, senior citizens. Even the
inmates that sing sing prison were said to a form
knitting circles and they'd be sitting out in the prison
yard knitting. It's actually pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I mean, I liked the enthusiasm, and I liked that
they trusted them to do that.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, of course. And you know, while most of the
work was done by women, as you might expect given
the era, many men did their part as well, and
the ones who couldn't fight abroad were encouraged to knit
at work during their lunch hours. And the soldiers who
were wounded on the battlefield actually took the knitting and
their hospital beds gave them something to think about.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
That is insane, Like, I've never heard of this, So
what kind of things were all these people knitting?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
A good deal of the output was not surprisingly wool sweaters,
but patriotic knitters also produced mass quantities of mufflers, scarves,
you know, most importantly socks, which were in dire need
because of the brutal conditions of trench warfare. But despite
all the good intentions there there was a downside to
sourcing clothing from amateur knitters. Namely, they didn't always know
(28:22):
what they were doing, and so the knitwhere soldiers received
on the front lines weren't always up to snuff, and
at least one soldier offered some not so constructive feedback
in the form of a short poem. I know you
and I both love it when people expressed their thoughts
through poetry, and I found this from our friends over
at Atlas Obscura and it reads as follows. A pair
(28:44):
of socks. They are some fit. I used one for
a helmet and the other for a mit. Glad to
hear you're doing your bit, But who the blank said
you could knit pretty great? Huh.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It almost feels like that old Cosby showed episode where
makes theo a shirt and he's complaining about how big
it is and just like just tucking in and he's like, Denise,
it's tucked into my.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Socks, said it was going to pass as as a
real Gordon Gartreel. I think I'm going to Gartreel. Amazing
the kinds of things that stick in our brains.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I do love the idea of how misshapens over the
knitwear must be. But speaking of getting into knitting, my
last fact actually starts back in twenty thirteen when the
Norwegian television network NRK broadcast a special event called National
Knitting Evening.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I got it, mimengo, that sounds like a long evening.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
You have no idea. The show actually lasted twelve full hours,
including four hours of knitting commentary, followed by eight and
a half hours of what the network build is quote
long quiet sequences of knitting and spinning.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
So wow.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Of course, this is all for the phenomenon we've discussed
before called slow TV. Is in this genre of things
like a seven and a half hour train journey or
There was actually a trilogy of shows devoted to firewood
that they did. The three episodes were National Firewood Morning,
National Firewood Evening, and National Firewood Night. Wow.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
That sounds riveting and I'm glad they did three different
versions because I imagine they are just incredibly different.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, but you know, first off, this is supposed to
be an antidote to the addictive nature of smartphones and
this smartphone culture we're all part of now, right, But
also listen to nur Case synopsis because it is really
really fun. This is what it says about National Knitting
Evening quote twelve hours non stop knitting. We knit our
(30:45):
way into the night by dressing up a Harley Davidson
in knitting clothes, which obviously would appeal to Dylan, but
also you will get tips on how to knit, learn
about the history of knitting, and meet enthusiastic knitters. From
midnight on we capp sure the back to back world
record from Australia, which means that we will have to
produce a sweater from sheep's back to humans back in
(31:08):
less than four hours, fifty one minutes and fourteen seconds,
which oh they also ended by saying, wish as luck.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
You know, Mango, I feel like you bury the lead
about the back to back challenge. I mean a sweater
knit off one animal's back onto another, Like now I
want to.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
See this, I know I do. And apparently Norwegian's felt
the same way because about one point three million people,
which is more than a fifth of the total population
tuned in for National Knitting Evening. The average viewer actually
stuck around for at least four hours.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
That is wild. You know, it's a difficult decision, Mango.
It's like, do I go home and hunt for an
hour of what to watch on Netflix and fall asleep
before I watch anything, or do I just go straight
to the knitting and then fall asleep.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, I don't think you can lose with other option.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
You're right. Well, I know I was the one who's
been pushing to do this sweater episode. But between the
penguin fact and the one about Norway's must see TV,
and of course our hero mister Rogers, I think you've
earned this week's trophy. Mango.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Oh I love it and I'm really grateful, But did
you please start a trophy with a tiny knitted cactus? Like?
Where'd you get this?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
That Dylan is a machine so he knit it for
me Earlier this week I just had this gut feeling
you were going to win it.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Well, I'm guessing you knit a cactus because he loves
dry humor. I'm gonna place this proudly on my bookshelf
where I definitely won't water it, but that's gonna do
it for today's Part Time Genius. If you like our show,
let us know by writing as a review on Apple
Podcasts or by hitting us up on our Insta you
know the handle it's at. Part Time Genius and from Will, Mary, Gabe,
(32:54):
Dylan and myself, thank you so much for listening and
bundle up. It's chilli out there. Part Time Genius is
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
(33:16):
by Will Pearson and Me Mongas Chatikler and research by
our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered
and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from
Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for iHeart by
Katrina Norbel and Ali Perry, with social media support from
Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more
(33:39):
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will? What's that Mango? So you've
probably noticed that ugly Christmas sweaters have become big business
over the last decade, with some companies breaking in as
much as five million dollars each year from kitchy knitwear.
(00:25):
But do you know that the sweaters also have their
very own holiday? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I think I think they call it a Christmas right.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, But a truly goers sweater deserves to be seen
more than at least one year, and that's why. Ever
since twenty eleven, the third Friday in December has been
set aside as National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. The practice
started here in the US, but it's now celebrated by
the fashionably unfashionable all across the world. Some people mark
(00:55):
the day by running a charity race, throwing a party,
or organizing a pup. But you can really celebrate however
you want provide. Of course, you also do it while
wearing a chunky, cheerful sweater.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You know when this whole thing started with the ugly
and ridiculous Christmas sweaters, I have to admit I didn't
see it having this kind of staying power that whole
like day glows sweaters with tensil and pom poms and
light up reindeer. It's just not something I fully expected
to stick around this long.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, So it actually turns out that ugly Christmas sweaters
are a much older concept than you might think. The
idea of wearing special festive sweaters for the holidays dates
back to at least the Victorian era, but back then
they were advertised simply as Christmas sweaters, and the designs
were farm were reserved. But things changed by the nineteen
(01:46):
thirties with the rival of so called jingle bell sweaters,
which featured both embroidered bells and real metal ones that
would jingle as you walked.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
So, as you think back to those earlier times, or
you think back to the nineteen thirties or whatever like,
were those sweaters ironic as well?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
No, they were still considered tasteful at that point, even
elegant in some cases, and by the fifties, sweaters started
incorporating things like Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer and Frosty
the Snowmen, especially on kids Christmas sweaters, and as the
decades progressed, adults continued to favor more subtle designs, things
like snowflake patterns or argyle made to look like wrapping paper.
(02:24):
But it isn't until the nineteen eighties that Christmas sweaters
became truly tacky. Designs of previous decades had mostly stuck
to one holiday icon per sweater, but designers of the
eighties adopted sort of a kitchen sink approach. Right. They
put on candy canes, and then they threw on Christmas
trees and skiing polar bears, and it all went onto
(02:46):
the same garments.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
All right, So I have to guess by this point
you're finally seeing that this is like a joke, right,
like where they considered a joke at that point, I
need you to get to the point where they become
a joke.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So it it doesn't become a joke until ten years
later in the nineteen nineties, when American culture gets a
little more jaded and movies like Dumb and Dumbers start
making holiday sweater jokes. But from then on, ugly Christmas
sweaters became something to wear ironically, and people started competing
to find the most over the top patterns. In fact,
(03:19):
the growing trend pretty much wiped out the supply at
thrift stores, and by the twenty first century, companies were
pumping out brand new, purposely TACKI designs to meet the demand.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Set Mango, this is like a roller coaster for me
because I'm now I'm going the opposite direction where it
doesn't feel tongue in cheek enough when people are buying
these things off the racket full price. So I don't know.
We're gonna have to talk through this.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That is definitely true. But our ugly sweater history is
just the first of nine warm facts to usher in
sweater season. So let's get cozy and dive in.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketerter and on the other side of
that soundproof glass. I have to be honest, I was
looking forward to this today because you never know what
this guy's going to be up to. He's a super
talented guy. As we've discussed many many times before. He's
(04:32):
knitting a sweater for everything. Today of course, knit himself
a holiday sweater. He knitted ones for each of us,
which was very kind, and then he made a sweater
for the lamp in there, made a cozy frame for
the whiteboard in there. It's actually getting a little bit
out of hand, but that's our talented producer, Dylan Fagan
over there.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah. I think he said he wasn't going to stop
until he'd yarn bombed the entire studio, and I don't
know exactly what that means, but he clearly has a vision.
So yes, well we're talking sweaters today, a topic I
know since the first day we started the show all
these years ago, you said, Mango, we have got to
do a show on sweaters, but not yet, not yet,
(05:12):
not yet.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
It wasn't ready.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
And then last week you were like, remember how I
wanted to do that show on sweaters all those years ago.
Now is the time. It's finally the time to do this.
What fact do you want to start with?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, I was trying to get you in studio immediately
to do and you weren't ready at that point. But
now we're both here, We're both ready. Dylan's ready, And
of course, in doing a whole episode on sweaters, the
first thing I looked up, which won't surprise you, was
the story behind the Sweater Song from Weezer.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Oh man, I know that song as Undone, and I
feel so old because that song came out like our
freshman year of high school.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, it's been it's been a minute, for sure. But
you know what's interesting is that the Sweater Song, which
was their first big breakout song, was also the first
Weezer song that frontman Rivers Cuomo ever wrote.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, I always thought Undone was this quirky fun song,
but it's actually more bleak than you might think. So,
as Cuomo told Billboard Magazine, people thought we were just
being sarcastic and ironic. But when I wrote the Sweater song,
to me, it was a very sad song about depression,
and people heard it and they thought it was hysterical.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That is so weird. I do not associate that with
any sort of rough emotions. It's just like a happy,
fun song to me.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah. Apparently this goes back a few years before Weezer's
first album. The band was struggling to stand out in
the LA music scene, so Cuomo decided to enroll in
community college sort of as a backup plan, and then
one day, during a lecture on essay writing. He had
an English professor who was explaining the importance of a
strong thesis statement, and he likened it to the thread
(06:48):
of a sweater. He was explaining, a strong thesis statement
gives kind of shape to the entire essay, but a
weak one is like a loose thread. So if you
pull on it, the whole thing unravels. Image sticks with Cuomo,
and so after class it goes home and he incorporates
it into a chorus. Three years later, the same song
proved to be the big break the band had been
(07:10):
looking for. I always love stories like this, like you
never know where the inspiration is going to come from.
But while the Sweater song might not be as funny
as people think, the band did have a sense of
humor about it by the time they came to shoot
the music video, as all four members made sure not
to wear a sweater for the filming.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
That's funny. So since we're talking sweaters, of course, I've
got to bring up my main man, Fred Rogers. Now,
we did a whole episode dedicated to mister Rogers way
back in twenty seventeen, which people should check out if
they haven't, and in it we mentioned one of the
most well known facts about him, which is that many
(07:48):
of the cardigans Fred wore on the show were actually
knit for him by his mother. But one thing we
didn't cover in that episode is what a hard time
the production team had trying to source new sweaters for
Fred after his mom passed away in nineteen eighty one.
So the stockpile of hand knit sweaters she left behind
kept her son Confiance screen for upout another ten years.
(08:09):
But by the early nineteen nineties, after two dozen seasons
and hundreds of episodes, many of the garments were starting
to look their age right. They were starting to get
a little threadbare, and it was clear that a new
crop of cardigans was needed. But of course, this is
public television we're talking about, and the show didn't have
this huge budget commission a new hand knit wardrobe or
(08:30):
anything like that, So instead the art department launched this
desperate search for lookalike sweaters. They poured through catalogs, they
hunted the rats at stores all over Pittsburgh, but nothing
they found matched the style of Fred's trademark cardigans, And,
as the show's producer explained to Smithsonian quote, nobody wore
(08:50):
those zippered sweaters. They just weren't cool then, so what
do they end up doing? The show's art director Kathy
Borland found a suitable stand in. Eventually, it wasn't from
a store, though. She actually spotted a postal worker on
the street wearing a zippered cardigan that kind of looked
like Fred, so she chases him down. She gets the
name of the manufacturer from his sweater's label, Like I
(09:12):
imagine her just sort of like pulling it and looking
at the tag, although I'm sure it was a lot
nicer than that, And she was able to buy a
whole bunch of white sweaters and then she dyed them
different colors in this giant soup pot.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
That's amazing. I know you said she probably was very
nice about it, and I'm sure she was, But I
also like to imagine her in a sense of panic
and just having to basically like rip this thing and
being like I need it for mister Rogers. That I
get it, I get it. I would happily dedicate a
sweater to that, But you know, I know that he
wore different colored sweaters, but honestly, when I picture mister Rogers,
(09:47):
he's always wearing a red one.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
You know what I mean. Yeah, I think most people
actually remember the red ones because that's the color he's
usually wearing in all the marketing materials. He also donated
a red sweater to the National Museum of American History
if after his mom died. It was one of the
ones she had knit for him, and he was always
so proud that something she had handmade was in the Smithsonian,
(10:09):
which you know, is super sweet.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
That is very sweet. It does make me curious, though,
and I know this is the type of thing that
our crew loves to dig into. Did he wear a
certain color more than the rest or was it pretty
evenly split?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I actually had a similar question, and Gabe looked into
this and he found a data writer named Owen Phillips
who made this handy chart that tracks the color of
every sweater mister Rogers wore from nineteen seventy nine until
the show's finale in two thousand and one. And the
chart actually does reveal some fun surprises. For instance, Fred
(10:42):
wore a neon blue cardigan exactly one time in the
early nineteen eighties and then never again.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
That's a little too wild, I think.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Also as the years went by, mister Rogers gradually moved
away from pastels in favor of darker earth tones, And
in fact, it turns out that green was the color
he wore most frequently. He donned a green sweater in
seventy four episodes, compared to just fifty four in which
he wore a red one. That said Fred Rogers was
(11:13):
also red green colorblind, so really it all looked brown
to him.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
And I also would like to see if there's data
on which one Eddie Murphy wore most often playing mister Robinson.
Of course, a spoof of mister Rogers on SNL. So, Gabe,
if you can look into that, that will be helpful
in the next very helpful.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, you know. So.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
One thing I didn't realize is that there was a
time where you could actually receive negative attention for wearing sweaters.
And this is a story about a woman named Francine Godfried,
and for a brief period in the late nineteen sixties,
she was better known to New Yorkers as Wall Street's
sweater Girl. Now, this goes back to a more prudish
era when in the mid twentieth century many people were
(11:55):
downright scandalized by the side of a woman in a
tight sweater. In fact, the derice of terms sweater girl
was going to describe any woman who wore a tight,
form fitting sweater. This was a look that was popularized
by Hollywood actresses like Glanna Turner Jane Mansfield. But in
nineteen sixty eight, the most famous woman to sport it
was this twenty one year old clerical worker named Francine Gottfried.
(12:19):
She was a Brooklyn native. She lived with her parents
in Williamsburg, and she just started working in New York's
Financial District in May of that year. But by late August,
there was a small group of men who had taken
notice to the tight sweater she wore, and they began
timing her daily arrival at the Wall Street subway station.
This all sounds so weird, but it's actually true. So
(12:41):
over the next few weeks, those initial group of gawkers
told their creepy buddies, until finally, in mid September, there
were more than two thousand leering men just waiting to
catch a glimpse of her, some of whom reportedly climb
trees and lampposts to get a better view. I mean,
how strange is this mango?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
That is so weird? Also, can you I mention how
scary that must have been, Like You're just trying to
go to work and suddenly there's this mob of Wall
Street guys lining up to augle you at the subway.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
It sounds terrible and it's obviously very strange, But the
wildest part is that the crowd of sweater girl watchers
just kept growing. So in the afternoon of September I'm
not kidding, like these numbers are just bananas here. So
on the afternoon of September nineteenth, more than five thousand people,
five thousand people left to work early to go watch
(13:30):
fran scene exit the subway. There must not have been
anything in the world interesting happening at that point, and
it was such a madhouse that police had to close
the streets and escort her through the crowd. And this
chaotic scene was reported by all the papers later that day,
with the New York Times even publishing Francene's measurements, which
is perhaps the most upsetting part of all of this.
(13:52):
It's like, you expect certain people to just be dumb
about certain things, but when a paper like that joins
in and is publishing stuff like that, it's just it's
just ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And I'm sure getting more press attention only slowed down
the crowds right right, people were over it by the
end of the reporting.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Exactly right. Well, unfortunately, the following day the crowd doubled
to ten thousand people. I know, all this sounds like
a joke and I'm just going to keep making up
bigger numbers, but this is true now, that is no,
You're exactly right. And none of them got what they
wanted that day, as Francine stayed home, understandably for her
own safety, but the mob was unfazed. They came back
(14:34):
the next day to try again, and so The Times
of course gets in on the action. Reporting on it,
they described the anticipation, writing quote ticker tape floated down
from the high buildings. Newspapers as far away as Australia
waited for pictures, and for the second day, a cheering,
good natured crowd of more than ten thousand jammed Broad
(14:54):
Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange and
nearby Wall Street from wall to wall.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
That's so crazy, one that like international press was suddenly
coming in for this, but also like to call it
good nature. It feels so bizarre.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, That's what stood out to me.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
But what happened, like did Franccene start driving to work
or go incognito or what happens from here?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Not exactly. I mean she did start getting off at
a different station, and about a year later she reportedly
left her job on Wall Street. And I do want
to note that Francine was not the first or even
the last sweater girl to be leered at by big
crowds on Wall Street. But it is interesting to see
how the growing women's movement decided to push back.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
How did they do that?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
So in nineteen seventy the first national oglein was held
in Wall Street in which women use these cat calls
and harassed stockbrokers on their way to work to make
a statement both in real life and depressed that they
were tired of being pestered and objectified when they were
just trying to walk down the street to work.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
That's interesting that that was the way they pushed back.
But why don't we move away from the upsetting side
of sweaters and back to the cozy side. And what
better way to do that than by telling you and
our audiences about the Australian Wildlife Clinic that distributes handmade
sweaters to penguins.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
You know what, coming into this, I knew I could
count on you for a good mister Rogers fact, and
I knew you'd find something good related to animals and
penguins just takes it to another level. So why do
they give out sweaters to penguins?
Speaker 1 (16:30):
You know? Well, I thought you'd never ask, but.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
The program started in the late nineteen nineties after a
series of oil spills off Australia's Phillip Island threatened local wildlife,
including the island sizable population of little penguins. And to
be clear, I'm not trying to be cute here. The
species name is actually called quote little penguins. They're like
these pocket sized penguins, also known as fairy penguins, and
(16:59):
most of them are about twelve inches tall.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Oh wow, yeah, that's pretty cute. So I have to
ask why do penguins need sweaters other than the fact
that obviously it sounds adorable.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, every tiny animal should own a winter or wardrobe
of sweat.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
But I forget I asked, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
So, actually, oil spills are a problem for penguins of
any size because oil clumps their feathers together, and this
can expose their skin to freezing temperatures, but it can
also weigh them down as they swim and they hunt
for food. And the worst part is that when a
penguin tries to preen and clean off the oil with
their beaks, they actually wind up ingesting the oil, which
(17:38):
of course makes them sick. So these sweaters act as
a barrier to keep the penguins from picking at their
oily feathers, at least until the rescue staff can wash
them and clean them.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
It's a really smart idea and really sweet too, but
I mean, honestly, it is still sort of weird, but
that's I like that they came up with it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah. So the practice was pioneered by the rehabilitation team
at Phillip Island's Penguin Foundation. They started a program called
Knits for Nature to collect as many tiny sweaters or
jumpers as they're called there from local volunteers. Then, as
word spread, people began to knit and donate penguin sweaters
(18:16):
from all over the world, and they've collected well over
two hundred thousand sweaters over the last couple decades, although
not all of them are deemed suitable for actual penguins,
like some are too big or too small to fit correctly,
and others came embellished with like pomp pomps that would
potentially pose a choking hazard. But you don't have to
worry about it. Those sweaters still get used. All of
(18:38):
the takier sweaters, like all the Christmas sweaters, etc. Are
put on plush penguin toys and then sold to raise
funds for the island's conservation efforts. And since twenty twelve,
the sale of the sweater penguin plushies has raised roughly
four hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
That is wild and pretty awesome. So are they still
accepting donations then yeah, but at.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
This point and it's for nature, has enough sweaters to
meet demand for many seasons to come. But they still
accept sweaters to sell on their plush penguins. So for
any animal loving knitters out there, you can find all
the information and the free jumper patterns at Penguin Foundation
dot org.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That's pretty cool, all right. Well to go in a
different direction though, I guess a little bit animal related.
Did you know that one famous musician wore a sweater
so distinctive that it actually inspired his lifelong stage name.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Please say it's Snoop Doggy Dog.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I will not say that. It is not Snoop Dogg
and it's not bad Bunny either. It's actually Sting, the
former frontman of the Police and current Mega mentor on
NBC's The Voice Mengo Mega Mentor. That's how it's amazing.
His birth name is Gordon Matthew Sumner, which I actually
did not know that. But he often wore a black
(19:52):
and yellow striped sweater as a teenager, and his bandmates
teased them for looking like a giant bee, and so
they started to call him Stif.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
That's really funny. For some reason, I always assumed it
was like a nod to the Lord of the Rings
because Frodo has that little glowing sword called Sting. But
oh yeah, getting a nickname from a funny looking sweater
is way way better. And I actually really love that
he kept the nickname all those years later.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah. By the way, if anyone ever wondered whether we're nerds,
we give them one little fact like that every once
in a while that you thought maybe it came from
Lord of the Rings and remembered the name of the
sword that Frodo had it's pretty great. We need one
of those every episode. But you know, it doesn't sound
like he had much of a choice with this nickname.
His friends started calling him Sting even after he stopped
(20:38):
wearing the beast ripe sweater. Then, to make matters worse,
his mom started using it. In fact, in twenty eleven,
the singer told Time magazine, even my wife calls me Sting.
I was never called Gordon. You could shell Gordon in
the middle of the street and I would just move
out of your way.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
It is really amazing that something as arbitrary as a
sweater ends up sticking with him for that long. It's nuts,
it really is.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
It is worth noting that while Sting has embraced his
be based persona, he never went so far as to
legally adopt it. According to a twenty sixteen interview with
Howard Stern, Sting's passport still says Gordon Sumner.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
So, after all your music facts, I'm starting to feel
left out here, so I'm gonna skip ahead and throw
one of my own in. This fact is about Nirvana
frontman Kurt Cobain, because as of twenty twenty four, his
sweater is the most expensive sweater ever sold at auction,
And I'm sure you know this what I'm talking about.
(21:36):
It's the olive green one. Yeah, that was on MTV's
Unplugged Concert way back in nineteen ninety four. But the
show was taped just five months before Cobaine's passing, which
means that's really the last time a lot of fans,
including myself, saw him was wearing that sweater on TV.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
And was it something he had worn before? Was it
just part of the wardrobe for the taping.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
No, he definitely warn it before he He worred on
tour for a few months by that point, and there
was anything fancy or costume about it. According to the
Cardigan's label, it was made in the nineteen sixties by
a company called Manhattan Industries. The fabric is acrylic, mohair
and lycra and fashion historians think it retailed for about
(22:18):
sixteen dollars by at that point, but Cobain probably paid
less for it since he bought it at a thrift
store in Seattle in the early nineties.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
So how did it end up at auction?
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Well, this is an interesting story. After Kurt's death, Courtney
Love gave the sweater up to the family's nanny, who
held on to as a keepsake for about twenty years,
but in twenty fifteen, she decides to bring it to
auction because she has cancer and she's trying to pay
for her cancer treatments. The sweater was expected to fetch
(22:48):
about fifty thousand dollars at auction, but it wound up
selling for one hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars instead.
It is obviously a hefty price tag, but the buyer
did get a little something extra with his purchase. When
he reached into one of the pockets, he found what
he described as quote, some kind of brown crunchy something,
which he guesses was either chocolate or vomit.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
It feels like you should know the difference, but hold on.
So the nanny never washed the sweater, I guess not friendly.
She left it exactly as she had received it twenty
years earlier, right down to the crunchy treat in the pocket.
But wow.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
The buyer in twenty fifteen also declined to clean it,
believing that the sweater's musty smell, it's missing button, and
all the cigarette burns, which had multiple cigarette burns. All
of this added to the sweater's character and also its value.
All of this proves to be a wise decision for
the buyer, because when he put the sweater up for
(23:47):
auction in twenty nineteen, it sold for three hundred and
thirty four thousand dollars, more than twice would he pay
for it, And so I would imagine that's the highest
auction price ever paid for a sweater. I mean, at
least until the current owner decides to part with, at
which point it'll probably go for even more.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yeah, I would imagine. All right, Well, two more sweater
facts to go. But before we get to those, let's
take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
You listen to Part Time Genius and we're counting down
nine thread pulling facts about sweaters. So, will are you
a sweater guy? Like I wear cardigans a lot, but
I don't really think of you as wearing sweaters a
whole bunch.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, it's a really personal question, Mango. But part of
the reason I had been pushing to do this episode
is I'm ready to go ahead and state it publicly
that I have become a sweater guy. For years, I
was not as a kid. I found them itchy. I
couldn't do sweaters. I refuse to wear them. But over
the last few years. Maybe it's a dad thing. I
(25:01):
don't know, but I am totally a sweater guy now, Mango.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I love that you finally embraced this about yourself. We've
been waiting for that moment.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
This was my safe space to admit that thing.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
You know, It's funny because I just think about it
this week. And in elementary school, we had this project
where we had to figure out, like how we'd live
as adults, right, so we had to look up apartments
in the local paper to see where we'd rent a place.
We learned how to make a food budget and an
entertainment budget, all of which I've forgotten how to do.
But as part of that, I actually illustrated how I
(25:35):
was going to dress. And while I don't live in Wilmington, Delaware,
I don't eat burritos four times a week. Like like
my way to say a food budget was like, oh,
I'll just buy like a bag of frozen fries and
burritos and I'll use the rest on entertainment.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
But I do dress exactly like a nine year old
me pictured myself. I wear low top soccer sneakers. I
wear collared shirts and cardigans. But what's really funny about
it is like, now, that's fairly common style, but when
I was in fourth or fifth grade, people were like,
what is this lazy grandparents style? You want to look like?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yep, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I don't know. Maybe it was mister Rogers' influence, but
something clearly struck a chord with a style sense. So
what do you want to do with your last sweater fact?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
All right, well, I felt like we both got some
things out there. This is great that we've had a
sweater episode to work out some things. But I liked
your last penguin fact. So, speaking of sweaters for a
good cause, my next fact takes us back to the
First World War, when the American government promoted knitting as
a patriotic duty. And that may sound like a strange thing,
but even before US soldiers were deployed overseas, organizations like
(26:47):
the American Red Cross had encouraged the public to knit
and donate warm clothing as a way to assist foreign soldiers.
So it makes a lot of sense. And once the
US formally entered the war in nineteen seventeen, these knitting
campaigns kicked into high gear. These people were churning out
roughly three hundred and sixty million knit garments in the
course of just two years.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Three hundred and fifty million garments. That is no joke.
So who is it that is working the needles for
all this knitting charity?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
You know? That's the thing. These so called wool brigades
included everybody. You had, kids, adults, senior citizens. Even the
inmates that sing sing prison were said to a form
knitting circles and they'd be sitting out in the prison
yard knitting. It's actually pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I mean, I liked the enthusiasm, and I liked that
they trusted them to do that.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, of course. And you know, while most of the
work was done by women, as you might expect given
the era, many men did their part as well, and
the ones who couldn't fight abroad were encouraged to knit
at work during their lunch hours. And the soldiers who
were wounded on the battlefield actually took the knitting and
their hospital beds gave them something to think about.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
That is insane, Like, I've never heard of this, So
what kind of things were all these people knitting?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
A good deal of the output was not surprisingly wool sweaters,
but patriotic knitters also produced mass quantities of mufflers, scarves,
you know, most importantly socks, which were in dire need
because of the brutal conditions of trench warfare. But despite
all the good intentions there there was a downside to
sourcing clothing from amateur knitters. Namely, they didn't always know
(28:22):
what they were doing, and so the knitwhere soldiers received
on the front lines weren't always up to snuff, and
at least one soldier offered some not so constructive feedback
in the form of a short poem. I know you
and I both love it when people expressed their thoughts
through poetry, and I found this from our friends over
at Atlas Obscura and it reads as follows. A pair
(28:44):
of socks. They are some fit. I used one for
a helmet and the other for a mit. Glad to
hear you're doing your bit, But who the blank said
you could knit pretty great? Huh.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It almost feels like that old Cosby showed episode where
makes theo a shirt and he's complaining about how big
it is and just like just tucking in and he's like, Denise,
it's tucked into my.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Socks, said it was going to pass as as a
real Gordon Gartreel. I think I'm going to Gartreel. Amazing
the kinds of things that stick in our brains.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I do love the idea of how misshapens over the
knitwear must be. But speaking of getting into knitting, my
last fact actually starts back in twenty thirteen when the
Norwegian television network NRK broadcast a special event called National
Knitting Evening.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I got it, mimengo, that sounds like a long evening.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
You have no idea. The show actually lasted twelve full hours,
including four hours of knitting commentary, followed by eight and
a half hours of what the network build is quote
long quiet sequences of knitting and spinning.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
So wow.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Of course, this is all for the phenomenon we've discussed
before called slow TV. Is in this genre of things
like a seven and a half hour train journey or
There was actually a trilogy of shows devoted to firewood
that they did. The three episodes were National Firewood Morning,
National Firewood Evening, and National Firewood Night. Wow.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
That sounds riveting and I'm glad they did three different
versions because I imagine they are just incredibly different.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, but you know, first off, this is supposed to
be an antidote to the addictive nature of smartphones and
this smartphone culture we're all part of now, right, But
also listen to nur Case synopsis because it is really
really fun. This is what it says about National Knitting
Evening quote twelve hours non stop knitting. We knit our
(30:45):
way into the night by dressing up a Harley Davidson
in knitting clothes, which obviously would appeal to Dylan, but
also you will get tips on how to knit, learn
about the history of knitting, and meet enthusiastic knitters. From
midnight on we capp sure the back to back world
record from Australia, which means that we will have to
produce a sweater from sheep's back to humans back in
(31:08):
less than four hours, fifty one minutes and fourteen seconds,
which oh they also ended by saying, wish as luck.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
You know, Mango, I feel like you bury the lead
about the back to back challenge. I mean a sweater
knit off one animal's back onto another, Like now I
want to.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
See this, I know I do. And apparently Norwegian's felt
the same way because about one point three million people,
which is more than a fifth of the total population
tuned in for National Knitting Evening. The average viewer actually
stuck around for at least four hours.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
That is wild. You know, it's a difficult decision, Mango.
It's like, do I go home and hunt for an
hour of what to watch on Netflix and fall asleep
before I watch anything, or do I just go straight
to the knitting and then fall asleep.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, I don't think you can lose with other option.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
You're right. Well, I know I was the one who's
been pushing to do this sweater episode. But between the
penguin fact and the one about Norway's must see TV,
and of course our hero mister Rogers, I think you've
earned this week's trophy. Mango.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Oh I love it and I'm really grateful, But did
you please start a trophy with a tiny knitted cactus? Like?
Where'd you get this?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
That Dylan is a machine so he knit it for
me Earlier this week I just had this gut feeling
you were going to win it.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Well, I'm guessing you knit a cactus because he loves
dry humor. I'm gonna place this proudly on my bookshelf
where I definitely won't water it, but that's gonna do
it for today's Part Time Genius. If you like our show,
let us know by writing as a review on Apple
Podcasts or by hitting us up on our Insta you
know the handle it's at. Part Time Genius and from Will, Mary, Gabe,
(32:54):
Dylan and myself, thank you so much for listening and
bundle up. It's chilli out there. Part Time Genius is
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
(33:16):
by Will Pearson and Me Mongas Chatikler and research by
our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered
and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from
Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for iHeart by
Katrina Norbel and Ali Perry, with social media support from
Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more
(33:39):
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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