October 31, 2023 • 59 mins
Every year at the end of October, countless children (and adults) don costumes and head into the night, going door to door with the same ritual cry: Trick or Treat! But where did this odd practice come from? In today's special Halloween episode, the guys explore the ancient predecessors of this tradition... as well as the more extreme versions, where there's way more emphasis on tricks than on treats.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in, and Happy Halloween.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Mary Sowen, Sam Hayne.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Now I was just oh, I'm Ben your nol and
we are immensely fortunate to be recording on this the
most wonderful time of the year. Because while our while
our good friend or write or die, mister Max Williams
is encountering adventures rocking his white pants, we pulled some strings,
(01:02):
we have a little bit of juice, we called in
some favors, and Noel, we are joined yet again by
none other that the Man, the Myth, the Heartbreaker of
Paris super producer Casey Pegrum.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Guys, this totally makes up for the hour of poop.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Talk that I do endure it. I'll come on, really,
how dare you?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, Casey, as as you may or may not know,
me and Noel often conspire, we talk about you all
the time, dude, we're fanboys a little bit. The only
people who talk about you more than us are, of course,
our fellow Ridiculous Historians. So maybe before we roll in here,
(01:51):
you've been back for a few episodes. We're going to
continue this bit and we have to ask, just for
everybody once again, what about your adventures? Man? What what's
what's going on in the world of Pegram.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I mean, I'm I'm domesticated these days. I have not
been outside the country. I have not been on a
a voyage more than one state away.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
A boy.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, it was a it was a good trip. It
was a weekend trip to Miami. It was a lot
of fun. We've never been to my it was my
first time there, and it's a it's like another world.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, it's interesting. Get there before it sings, you know, enjoy.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Why I can. But yeah, I mean my my kind
of world gallivanting ways for the moment are kind of
on pause. But we do hope to do some international
travel soon to visit my west family and Cameroon as
well as.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Other other places amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
And this will, I hope I'm not telling tales out
of school. This will not be our brother Casey's first
foray into that into that continent. Because, as people may
or may not know, during another project that we that
we worked on together, uh, Casey flew out to Johannesburg.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
That is true. That was an amazing experience and I
still think back on that often fondly. And yeah, I
can't wait to get back to the continent again. Although
Cameron is quite different.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yea, yeah, yeah, far fewer africaners. Uh, that's true from
what I understand. And and the thing about Miami is
that Miami itself has uh it's kind of an East
Coast Los Angeles. There is a unique culture, distinctive culture.
There are a lot of people who are dressed up,
(03:45):
which is the worst segue I've done this year, And.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I was wondering it does seem, you know, from all
the videos and whatever the vicarious experiences of Miami that
I've had, it has sort of a carnival esque kind
of atmosphere, right, Oh for sure.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Yeah, I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I'm gonna tell you guys, I've got some I've got
some friends who live in Miami. They love it unanimously.
And I've had a couple of Miami romances. And I
haven't been to the town as an adult, but I
imagine when I go there, I'll be like a schlubby
(04:23):
Frodo esque hobbit. I will accidentally do cosplay in Miami,
like like we accidentally did cosplay in Las Vegas. We're
talking about costumes. That's the that's the pitch, that's the
thing we are. We were earlier, Noel, you and I
were talking on our show stuff They don't want you
(04:44):
to know about all things Halloween. We did an episode
recently on the practice, the fact of fiction of witch hunting,
which is a terrible phenomenon that exists today in Cameroon
as well, Casey.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So well, you know, it came up at the end
of the episode that there are still, despite you know,
history and all the march of history, still quite a
few which actual facts witch trials that take place to
this day. And I do imagine that they, you know,
are in countries where the law around those kinds of
things is still a little more murky, you know, and
(05:22):
a little more kangaroo quartie perhaps Papua New.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Guinea, parts of rural India, rural areas of states on
the African continent, and the Amazon.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah. I mean, you hear people talking about voodoo in
like a real palpable way sometimes.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And here in the United States, this obsession with strange
things that go bump in the night, with the occults,
with accusations of the infernal and the paranormal. These ideas
have been commodified, monetized, and they've become the bedrock or
(06:01):
the predecessors of some actual, pretty enjoyable stuff. Halloween is
on the way as we record, and you know, us, folks,
we had to do an episode to solve the history
of trick or treating. You guys remember trick or treating
where all all three of us lived in the US, Right,
(06:22):
that's not a sleeper hit.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Right, No, I remember it fondly, and my kid is
only just now borderline aging out of it. You know,
it's a lineal space, right, It is a little bit so.
Around fourteen, I think, is when trick or treating becomes
less about knocking on doors for candy and more about
perhaps the trick aspect of the devil's bargain is implied
with trick or treat. Yeah, my kid's good, good kid
(06:47):
would never tp someone's house, you know, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
The trick or treat dichotomy, that's that's beautiful. And I
think in the United States in general, the cutoff starts
to occur when someone gets their learners permit, right when
you can drive.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So we're preparing for that with baited breath and heart palpitations.
Oh yeah, we speak.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Oh yeah, you're gonna be sitting in the shotgun seat
and unconsciously pump your foot on a break that doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, the good news is the car that I've been
driving for years now is totally paid off, and it's
a very safe car that never had trouble with And
I'm just going to gift it, you know, to my
kid when they when they turn of age. And it
means I get to buy a car for myself.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Which is that on? Was that a Ford Focus?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
It's a Ford? Uh, Honda Fit does have a similar
shape profile to the Focus, but they don't make Honda
Fits anymore, So I've got to get something else because
I have loved that. Well, they don't make it in America.
I think it's available in overseas, but I don't know.
I'll have to talk to you offline, Ben, you being
the car stuff guy, about what I should get.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, hey, I'm I'm probably getting a new vehicle as well,
So maybe we can make it a double date, go
shop around.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Oh yeah with a good cop, bad cop them?
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Vic? Vinegar always tend honey somebody honey something honey.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, it was honey, and hangar hank honey.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I don't know. It was definitely alliterative, no question about
it was yes, because alliteration is awesome.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Get it.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
We're moving on.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
So trick or treating. How would we describe the concept
of trick or treating to someone who was unfamiliar.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, again, it is a there's an implied bargain. And
if you watch the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where
Larry gets terrorized by some aged out trick or treaters
who he refuses to serve, the cops come to his
house and say, well, sir, did you give the treat?
He's like, no, they were they were too old. He goes, well,
if you don't give the treat, the implication is the trick.
(08:57):
So again, I think that we've gotten to a place
largely where the trick part isn't necessarily guaranteed. But it
used to be that, yeah, you're giving an option of
give me a treat or else you will be visited
upon by some sort of malfeasance, whether it be you know,
dog poop set on fire in as casey you knew
(09:19):
poop was coming back that you have to stop out. Well,
that's not malign, casey to, but who does it? Man?
Who doesn't love a good poop joke? But yeah, I
mean it's certainly the mischief aspect of it has always
been kind of historically in play. Right.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, here's the setting seen in setting. Folks in the
United States on October thirty first, right as the twilight
hour hits, right, golden hour fades away and the sun retreats,
you will, depending upon your neighborhood, find yourself beset by
(09:59):
roving group children and teenagers and sometimes their parents ringing doorbells.
And when you answer the doorbell or the knock on
the door, and they will be clad in any number
of costumes, they will say the following phrase trick or
treat hopefully with my feet, give me something good to eat?
(10:20):
Please you don't I don't care.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, there's a whole mythology around it. It's also it
occurs in other countries as well. The way this covenant
works is these kids show up and they ask for candy.
They're dressed as you know, astronauts and vampires and whatever.
And the weird thing about this is how normalized it
(10:43):
is in a country that often behaves in a religiously
conservative manner. So why has this thing, Why is this
bit of theater every year been normalized, accepted and judge wholesome.
It's because the origins of trick or treaty are still murky,
(11:05):
but we know they date back really far. You can
see predecessors in ancient Celtic festivals, early Roman Catholic holidays,
some medieval social mores. And this was a surprise to me.
Shout out to our research associate Jeff Bartlett. You can
even see some traces of this in British politics. No,
(11:28):
I love that you mentioned Sawen the ancient origin of Halloween.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
What is so? Yeah, it was what the Celts dubbed
this particular season, involving villagers disguising themselves in various costumes,
often made from animal skins. And it's something like we
(11:55):
see in a lot of traditions, like I believe in
like Chinese New Year, the drag and all the beating
of the drums and the fireworks and stuff to scare
away evil spirits. So it's again, we just did an
episode of Stuff That Don't Want You to Know about
witch hunts and talked about how the belief in evil
spirits or demonic forces or the devil or whatever. Black
(12:16):
magic is a tale as old as time, and it
required some sort of intervention, you know, whether it be
to spare your village from a blight you know, on
the crops, or whatever, from like the death of children.
Because you know, in past times these things were much
more common. You'd know, people didn't live as long, and
there was a sense that people could control their destiny
(12:39):
and help steer the course of their lives by participating
in some of these you know, events, And what we
see now in the United States is obviously a much
more sanitized, less functional version of this. But they were
intending during Sawen celebrations to drive away these spirits. They
would have banks that were prepared, food was left out
(13:03):
to placate some of these spirits. That's also a thing
we see in a lot of other cultures, like the
hungry leaving hungry ghosts, leaving out food for your ancestors
on a shrine perhaps, And you know, we see numerous
flavors and styles of this kind of thing throughout history,
and many of which really persevere today in what you
(13:23):
could argue is a much more functional way, right yes,
just so in terms of the level of belief that
it will actually that it is accomplishing something. It's not
just a kind of a marketing holiday, which is sort
of what Halloween has become. If it's great though, it's
so fun.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
It is so fun if you have not visited the
United States and for October you can have a great time.
The I love that you're bringing up the Celtic origins
of sown here, and I love that we're we're talking
about this commonality cultures, especially in northern latitudes, because during
(14:04):
this time in autumn moving into winter, multiple cultures saw
what they interpreted as a ven diagram, the barrier between
the lands of the living and the lands of the dead.
It grows thin, right, and the idea is just like
a Voldrigis night. The concept is that demons, evil spirits,
(14:31):
those who have passed before us, they all can roam
the earth again for one night. And this reminds me
of that the obvious, in my opinion, the obvious best
part of Fantasia, which is.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Cherabog, you know, Mountain wakes. Yes, it's terrifying. It holds
up to this. It's really great.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And what's nuts about this I guess with the benefit
of wretch respect. Is the idea that people back in
the day would dress up as spirits, would put on
the countenance and costumes of demons as a defense mechanism,
such just in case, you know, you run into a
(15:17):
real life infernal spirit roaming the earth at night, they
will clock you know, your they will clock your animal
skins or your glued on horns, and they'll think, oh, yeah, no,
he's cool, he's just he's out as well. For a second.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
It's funny how in like zombie movie culture or you know,
the trope of zombie movies, something kind of evolved that's
been done to death now haha a little bit. But
the idea of pretending to be a zombie or covering
yourself in blood or gore so that you can walk
amongst them because somehow they know the difference between the
living and the dead and they won't come at you.
(15:55):
It's a good way of creating a diversion. Or I
actually watched Sean of the Dead recently, which absolutely holds
up as an excellent piece of filmmaking. Like it's just
the editing is great. Everything about it is fabulous. It
capitalizes on so many different tropes, but there's a scene
where they all pretend to be and they allows them
to move through the crowd of the zombie Horde.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And so from this the first, the first folks we
would call trick or treaters were kids in medieval Europe.
They were not super well to do, and they would
go door to door begging for food and money, not
for funzies, not necessarily with costumes, but because you know,
(16:39):
life kind of sucked for him and they had to
do their best to stay alive. And they realized that
if they went door to door during this Celtic holidays
Sowin on October thirty first, they would have a higher
rate of success asking for free stuff. And they would
(17:01):
Here's where the trigger treat thing comes in, the first
predecessor of the covenant, the exchange in exchange they would offer.
It would say, give us whatever you can and exchange,
we are going to pray for the souls of your
dearly departed. This tradition was called in a burst of
creativity solely l I G.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Well, it's interesting because a lot of this hinges on
a time where it is acceptable to knock on a
stranger's door and not be treated as a trespasser or
you know, something to be feared and potentially dealt with, right,
and that holds true to this day. Everyone knows that
on Halloween you're gonna have people knocking on your door.
(17:47):
And if you kill all the lights and don't have
candy out and are not participants, that's when you are
maybe more likely to get dealt with, you know, in
terms of like, ah, these old sour pusts, We're gonna
do them a dirty trick. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And so if we haven't mentioned before, it's the night
before the Celtic New Year, So this is a momentous occasion.
Let's fast forward to the Middle Ages. If you look
at the Catholic Church, you will see this idea of
religious syncretism, which is the appropriation of previously existing spiritual
(18:25):
practices by a new school of metaphysical or religious thought.
We want to give a big shout out to Smithsonian magazine.
Rose Evelyth wrote this absolute awesome article called the History
of trick or Treating is Weirder than You thought? And
Rose one hundred percent agree. No notes. What they would
(18:47):
do is, in the Catholic tradition, they would take some
take another belief systems holidays and attempt to leverage it
as a way of proselytizing, of converting people to the
Catholic faith. So they saw this ancient holiday, of this
(19:07):
ancient process of swen and they said, well, you know,
there's also All hallows E, all Souls Day, all Saints Day,
and they for a time they had people dress up
as saints or angels, and then you know a few demons,
because every bit of theater needs a villain, right.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yes, absolutely, And once again we see religious fervor kind
of changing the narrative a little bit around some of
these holidays that are based around you know, pagan rituals,
where it's like, oh yeah, let's not do it that
way anymore. Let's try to change the themes so it's
a little more on brand with our vibe, right yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
And during this era we're still not quite to the
modern Halloween. During this era are trick or treaters who
went door to door exchanging prayers for food. They expanded
the brand a bit. Instead of just promising prayers, they
started also doing songs, even telling jokes, doing like a
(20:06):
tight three minutes and which wasn't that long before the
era of television, and they would maybe stage short performances
at the doorstep or at the entrance. This tradition still
exists in some ways. It was known as mumming m
U m m G. There's an interesting note we found
(20:30):
from Business Insider about how young women who are single
would also do a series of rituals on All Hallow's Eve,
with the idea being that they could divine the identity
of their future husbands and get married by the following year.
Because of course, if you're not buried by like sixteen,
(20:52):
you're a horrible person with a foot in the grave.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Now. I hope this isn't too controversial, but you know,
I think we're all suckers for some etemal. You know
the term that's used for sex workers turning tricks. I
kind of wonder if that isn't rooted in this, because
while they're not performing sex acts for money, there is
a certain amount of what's the word, kind of seduction involved,
(21:20):
or like kind of trying to ingratiate themselves to these
future husbands. Potentially, I just I do wonder maybe I'm
completely off.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Base there, there might be something to it. Etymology is
often muddy. Why I still have yet to create a
show just about etymology, like the source is tough, but
I believe it's early nineteen hundred's early twentieth century and
trick as a mischievous or naughty act for a sex worker.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
At the time, the idea was that the trick was
a socially unapproved action. But again, it's still a covenant.
You know you're exchanging something.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And these if we go to the idea of if
we go to the idea that the young women on
all hallow z, what kind of divination were they practicing?
What kind of magic were they practicing? There were things
you similar to what you might have done in middle school.
If you watch something like The Craft, you might have
done like light as a feather, stiff as a board, uh,
(22:26):
played with a wija board. These tricks would for these
folks looking to figure out their future spouse. They involve
stuff like throwing apple peels, or you would crack eggs
into a bowl, kind of like reading tea leaves. When
you crack the eggs into the bowl, you look into
it like a rorshak image and you try to find
(22:51):
the initials of your future husband. There was even one
where you it's very bloody Mary or a candy man.
There is one where you go in a room with
just like one candle and you look in the mirror
and you hope to see in the mirror a vague
reflection of your future spouse's face.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Why is it, guy? Be so spooky? That sounds I
don't want to do that. That doesn't sound like it's
not romantic at all, I don't think. So you're gonna
be like horrified when you see that person in real life,
not to mention if it actually worked, you know, and
like who is that weird looking cat in the mirror?
You know, I just I don't know, I just what
if you don't like them? Yeah? You know, question what
(23:34):
if you don't like him? Was not really a question
of import back to those days in terms of marriages
going down.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
You know, the court of the occult did not have
a mechanism for appeals of decisions, just apple peals. So
there's also to the trigger treaters. There were these people
who would dress in costume and then they would perform dances,
and the idea of the dances was that it was
(24:02):
a it's like a public service. You're scaring off the
demons and in exchange, you receive food and drink, and that,
as far as we can tell, is the rough origin
of when the trick part of the trick or treat
was bored, and there's all sorts of other stuff there.
You know, you would get specific food if you were
(24:25):
going door to if you were a door to door
prayer sales person, you would get soul cakes, specific kind
of pastry, which again, to your point, reminds me of
the reminds me of the practice of feeding hungry ghost
in Asia.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Or like the sugar skulls involved with Day of the
Dead celebrations going now in Latin America. And I believe
maybe they're they're they're they're a little different. But hot
Cross buns they have like this X on them, and
the soul cakes also have that X on them, So
I think that is meant to be like a It's
almost like a form of the Eucharists in a weird way,
(25:03):
like maybe not exactly, but there is a certain body
of Christ aspect to it, at least it feels like
to me.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, there's some branding for sure, soul cakes and Hot
Cross buns. That's a great comparison. Soul cakes were they
contained you need to still find versions of them today.
They contain nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and raisins, which were very good,
very hot at that point, and because you know, dried
candy fruit before the rise of sugar beets and cane sugar,
(25:34):
that was one of the sweetest things people could eat.
The cross at the top of both of those pastries
or confections symbolizes a soul being saved from purgatory. The
earliest soul cakes were placed outside of homes like a
ring or a nest camera because the idea was this
(25:55):
will prevent these mischievous spirits from playing tricks on us,
But eventually they just made them for the trick or treaters.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
So the tricks originally were like the mischief was from
mischievous goblin types, right, and then like a lot of
the trick or treating kind of like you know, was
almost meant to like we're gonna make you think that
we are are the demons, right again, it's not specifically,
but over time it evolves, and I think that's part
(26:26):
of the impetus, where it's like we are pretending to
do the same things that the mischievous spirits would be doing.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Perhaps, yeah, Yeah, that is the evolution, and he yieled
it because it starts with infernal powers doing serious damage.
Then it goes to like little rascals from the unseen realm,
you know, brownies and things like that, and then it
evolves to these people doing some sort of defensive service,
and then it becomes cosplay. Then it becomes tradition. It's
(26:54):
in the eighteen hundreds, not until then that folks start
offering treats to trigger treaters. And usually these obviously it's
not like a Snickers.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Bar or quote unquote treats.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
It's like nuts and fruits. And if you don't care
for raisins like we do, you would be disappointed for
several hundred years. They also just gave you apples, no caramel,
just like, here's an apple.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
This is the kind of stuff that'll get your house
rolled instantly these days. Yeah, the old man Wilson gives
out apples like he's like the neighborhood dentists like, nah, man,
that's not how we play.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
So one example, our modern growing up, our modern controversial family.
In one of my neighborhoods, they got in trouble because
they gave out lottery tickets and packs of cigarettes to children.
Candy cigarettes just no, I think just regular cigarettes because
(27:54):
they were having a crazy party and looking back, I
think they were probably drinking and doing some other stuff.
It probably want swingers too. One of those lottery tickets.
I won two hundred bucks off of it. It was
a little scratch off ticket. So happy Halloween.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
So the idea of giving apples or dried fruits starts
with another festival, not Celtic, but Roman, the festival of Pomona,
which in that civilization occurred during harvest, and Pomona is
named after the goddess of fruitful abundance that took place
on November first. But you know what's a little timeline
(28:32):
discrepancy between friends.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, Apples have often been associated with plentiful nests, you know,
the cornucopia overflowing harvest kind of, and also, of course,
because of their shape and color, I imagine a symbol
of love and therefore fertility. And again we see a
lot of these things carry over into more kind of
(28:55):
sanitized versions in modern day. We see bobby for apples
or caramelized apples. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Man, that's where it comes from, which I love that
we have an explanation for that, because even as a kid,
that's sort of weird, right, like, hey, let me waterboard
myself for an apple.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Anyway, I don't think that's bad. People still do that.
It seems like it's like gone the way of lawn
darts to a certain degree.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
People still do it, particularly in my experience, particularly in
Christian youth groups. That's where I see it most often.
That's where you have like the hay ride bobbing for apples.
Let's make this thing wholesome and less associated with the demonic.
There's also a kind of relationship or similarities at least
(29:46):
between Tricker Treating and Guy Fox Night aka Bonfire Night
aka the loose mcguffin plot device of VV for vendet.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Remember remember the what is it of September? The fifth
of November? November. That's of course it wouldn't be September,
because it's got to be around spooky season. Yeah, and
that's you know, the mask, the famous Guy Fox mask
is largely I think the centerpiece of what we're talking
about on this night in question. There was a very
(30:22):
successful foiling of what's known as the Gunpowder plot in
sixteen oh five, and this was a plot to I
believe what blow up parliament?
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yeah yeah, Guy FOWX big fan of the Catholic faith,
hated Protestants. His idea was a little bit Rube Goldberg esque.
He thought, if I blow up the Parliament building, King
James the First will be removed from power, and then
naturally everybody in the land will agree with me that
(30:55):
Catholicism is cool.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Nope. That's why sometimes revolutionary acts like this are sort
of a little sad in retrospect, because so many people
get hurt and then they just replace them monarch.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
It's like, let us terrorize people into a green with us,
you know.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
And so on this night, which again commemorates this this event,
British children wear or war masks and carry effigies of
Guy Fox, and the masks themselves are basically effigies. Uh.
And they beg for pennies, which is that just seems sad,
like like his whole deal didn't work. Why are they
begging for pennies A penny?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Uh, you know, we don't inflation calculate on this one,
but a penny worth more?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, yeah, you could buy it was actual precious metal,
you know, right.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And the Guy Fox day the celebration of it begins
pretty much right after Guy Fox is executed, and they
started making these bonfires and they lit effigies and that. Yeah,
and they called them own fires too, because the idea
(32:02):
was that they were burning the Catholic pope, very very
nasty stuff. And then by the early eighteen hundreds, these
kids would roam around the streets of England and they
would have effigies a Guy Fox and they would go
to door to door asking, quote, for a penny for
(32:24):
the guy.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Hey, can you get a penny for your guy? Here?
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Can my guy get a penny?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Let me get a penny?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Let me get a penny for the guy.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
So moving on trick or treating, which is you know
this it wasn't I want to know more when it
was called that? Like do we have that because none
of these these historical accounts quite you know, go all
the way into trick or treat, right, it's.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Pretty murky, Yeah, it's pretty murky. We can find competing
sources for the first time the phrase is in print,
but we know that the act of asking for candy
it was around and wasn't always tied to Halloween during
the late eighteen hundreds, the mid nineteen hundreds, especially in
(33:12):
New York New York City, excuse me, sorry, Watertown. Kids
dressed up and they went looking for treats the same
way they do today. But they did it on Thanksgiving,
which is weird. How many turkey costumes were there? When
did turkey become the Thanksgiving thing? Well that's a story
(33:34):
for another all right, I'm putting it on the list.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I did find a reference to nineteen twenty seven and Canada,
which is when trigg or treat first started being a
thing verbally spoken. So good job to our neighbors to
the north for like coining the thing that we think
we invented.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Good hustle, guys, don't worry, we'll take more of your stuff.
Later in eighteen sixty three, our old buddy, famous trash
talk and amateur wrestler, also known for a couple of
other things.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Good reach out.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah, Abraham Lincoln. He's the one who said, all right, Thanksgiving,
it's gonna be a holiday throughout all of these United States,
which means kids get a day off from school and
children can just run wild. So go to New York
in the eighteen seventies, New York City, Sorry, Buffalo some
(34:25):
kids decided it would be massive fun to cause play
as homeless people.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Which is so messed up considering what we've talked about
in terms of how originally this was actual facts. You know,
poor destitute British children exchanging a prayer, which is I
guess as where living on a prayer came from the
idea of like, that's all I've got to offer you
is my prayers, you know, for like some food, not
(34:54):
for funsies, but like for survival. So leave it to
the United States to take something that was once a
very real, you know, situation involving danger and kids living
on the street and turn it into sort of like
a cosplay, like you said, where these kids in the
eighteen seventies are dressing up in shabby, oversized clothes, probably
(35:15):
blacking their noses and cheeks with a burnt cork, you know,
carrying around a bindle like all of the kind of
you know, pick your poison like cliche images of unhoused
people throughout the years, and then they would get into
what could really just be described as trouble mischief, okay,
(35:37):
and it became as known as I love this word,
by the way, it became known eventually as ragamuffin day,
ah ragamuffin and ne'er do wells and scamps, the whole
pantheon of poorly behaved children. I once called my ex
(36:01):
wife's niece a ragamuffin, and she took great issue with
that word. Triggered her. She was like, what is that?
That sounds like the worst thing that ever could be.
Don't you dare call me that again? Uncle Noel, or
I will end you. How old I think she was,
about six? Maybe just dismissed. You're in the clear, fair enough,
(36:22):
fair enough the statute of limitations as best. I think
she's probably forgotten all about it. We'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
And with this idea, this ragamuffin day, these kids sewing
chaos there became increasingly creative disguises because on some level
these kids don't want to get in trouble and cries
right right in the commission of crimes. So right before
the turn of the century, late eighteen hundreds, we see
(36:51):
that around. There's one article in PR quoted from eighteen
ninety seven, and it says the Thanksgiving is quote the
busiest time yeah for the manufacturers and dealers in mask
and false faces.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
The fantastical costume parades and the old custom of making
and dressing up for amusement on Thanksgiving Day keep up
from yeah to yeah in many parts of the country,
so that the quantity of false faces sold the season
is enormous false faces.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
What you've just described there, though, is the realization of
the commercialization of all of the history stuff that we've
been talking about.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Just so, and if you were to ask me before this, Ben,
where does trigger treating come from? Where does the beautiful
Halloween costume tradition come from? I totally would have missed Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh for sure. And you guys, have you seen images
like on social media of like the costumes from the
thirties and stuff like earlier before like mass produced costumes
became a thing. They're horrifying turnups instead of pumpkins for
jack a ladder. But just like the faces, they're like
(38:05):
burlap sacks with a piece of twine wrapped around the neck,
you know, I mean, just and like weird gouged rough
holes cut in the eyes and mouths, like like something
like with the scarecrow would wear in Batman movie. You know,
I mean, it's really scary stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Like the old michelin man, Oh, just like that distressing,
and then pretty much any pre nineteen fifties easter Buddy
cost us also hor horrific. So people are fighting against it, right,
the kids rebel and the authorities are squares, same as
it ever was, same as it ever was. There's a
(38:42):
school superintendent named William J. O'Shea, and he our buddy
Willie tells all his superintendent goons that modernity is incompatible
with children masquerading and annoying adults by asking for gifts
and money. And then other organizations say they're making fun
(39:04):
of the poor.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
He well, I would argue that there is some truth
to that making fun of the poor part. But this
is also like this guy ended up on the wrong
side of history. He's like William O'Shea, the guy that
tried to murder Halloween. You know. But at the time,
though I don't completely disagree with them, I think, you know,
the whole Ragamuffin Day thing is a little offensive, you know,
(39:27):
to people, especially when we're approaching the Great Depression, when
this stuff was nothing to sneeze at. You know, this
this level of like, you know, poverty and to even
be able to afford to masquerade as a poor person.
You probably weren't a poor person. You were probably coming
from an upper middle class. Well, I guess middle class
(39:47):
didn't really exist quite yet. It was more just upper class.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And now it's I love pointing out the Great Depression.
Now it's no longer funny satire. If satire's done well,
has to come from a place of affection. That's what
makes the mockery work. When punching down right, when millions
of people are starving, unemployed, dying in the streets, then
(40:13):
dressing up as victims of what, even at that stage
was late stage capitalism, that becomes a totally different calculation.
So Ragamuffin Day falls out of favor, but as it falls,
a new thing rises. We reached the inflection point of Halloween.
(40:33):
And it's entirely because some American colonists we're familiar with
practicing sown traditions and guy fallowies all hallows, all saints,
all souls, all the things, and so they brought that
culture with them. By the mid eighteen hundreds, I want
to say, especially with the influx of Irish immigrants fleeing
(40:56):
the Potato famine, Halloween became a thing and in the process,
it became thoroughly American.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, and I mean, you know, the sort of I
guess sanitization or organization of trick or treating and Halloween
largely stemmed from the fact that the early kind of
unchecked version of this, when things were a little more
wild West again because of the Great Depression and a
lot of like a huge gulf between the haves and
the have nots, there were a lot of acts of violence,
(41:26):
you know, setting fires, assaulting people because there was a
real sense of like, I don't know, resentment kind of
just like festering in this country. And so in order
to kind of stem that, one theory says that the
widespread adoption of a more community based, kind of family
(41:47):
friendly trick or treating tradition in the thirties was really
crucial to kind of cutting down on some of this
more you know, mischievous Dare I say criminal acts?
Speaker 3 (42:00):
M m.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah, Let's get these rowdy kids under control. You know,
we're talking about stuff like the origin of Devil's Night
in Detroit, which is the crow.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Maybe that's what I always think of.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
And it's also it's an escalation of that. Instead of
toilet papering someone's house, or putting a bunch of forks
in their yard or throwing eggs out there at the siding. Instead,
we're talking physical assaults or setting the whole house fire, vandalism,
acts of violence. And the weird thing is that if
(42:37):
you look at stuff like Miriam Webster, you'll see etomologists
like Barry Popik Popik who suggests that trick or treat does,
as you mentioned, go back to the nineteen twenties when
Canadian newspapers use variations of the term. I think it
was November nineteen twenty three the Saskatchewan Leader Post said
(43:01):
that fighting against this idea of child led violence, they said, treats,
not tricks, are the order of the evening, Hugs not drugs.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, there was a November nineteen twenty four article published
in Alberta's Red Deer Advocate, which is such a Canadian
name for a newspaper, that had this to say. And
by the way, Halloween in a lot of these printings
is spelled ha llowe apostrophe e n, which seems very
Canterbury Tales to me for some reason. But this is
(43:36):
what the Red Deer Advocate had to say. Halloween night
was observed in the usual manner by the young bloods
in Penhold. Fun is fun and tricks are tricks. But
when such public buildings as school and Memorial Hall are
molested with no opinion for trick or treat, we cannot
see where either fun or trick is enjoyed by the participants.
(43:59):
Speaking of Hannterbury Tales talk, this is a little You
gotta run this through a couple of filters to unpack
what they're even talking about here. Help us out, Ben,
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
The idea here is that. The idea here is that
picture the Transatlantic voice. When you hear this, it's written
with a bit of a high faluting tone. But they're saying, ultimately,
this is not good for anyone. Order must be maintained.
(44:29):
These scamps, these ragamuffins, these nahd wells. If you look
south across the border in the United States, the first
printed example of the phrase goes to nineteen twenty eight.
Michigan's Bay City Times talks about tricks or treats and
they call it the fatal ultimatum. So metal you know
(44:51):
what I mean, Finisher bump.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Them jock Jams version of Mortal Kombat. There's a really
great quote here. Also, by the way, the fact that
you mentioned this is very interesting. Nineteen twenty eight in
Michigan Devil's Night obviously Detroit, Michigan, so that part of
our country, which is also really close to Canada. By
the way, Detroit makes sense that it would kind of
(45:16):
filter down to there, and the Devil's Night would be
such a uniquely Detroit kind of thing. Again, I may
not be completely on base with that, but there's an
excellent quote from that Bay City Times article you mentioned,
referring to let's see it is a phrase, a dreaded
utterance by quote some small child who clutched in one
(45:38):
grubby fist, a small chunk of soap capable of eliminating
the transparency from any number of windows or mischief? What
key the out of sides?
Speaker 4 (45:51):
What's indoors or outdoors?
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Jeez mayhem?
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Absolutely chaos, pandemonium, cats and dogs.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
They saying this with tongue in cheek. They're not.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
They were very mad about it.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Really, Yeah, are you serious? I really can't tell if
you're being serious or not.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
I am being serious. They were upset.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
How dare they eliminate the transparency of our windows.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Like a penny a window was a bigger deal back
in the day.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
That's a good point. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
In the nineteen twenties, this idea of souling right, of
advocating for the dead loved ones right, it was replaced
with prankie as the Great Depression hit, as socio economic
problems got turned up to eleven, the Shenanigans got worse,
(46:42):
I would argue, because they became a socio economic vent,
an escape hatch for all these pent up aggressions, absssions, resentiments,
you know, traumatic experiences, and that's where we see the
cars getting overturned, the houses getting be in need broken
and entered, and even harassment physical assault. Fast forward today,
(47:06):
why is that not happening. It's because parents and community
leaders got together and said, we need to pivot, we
need to steer the ship in a different direction. Let's
try to make some wholesome iterations of these traditions, because
otherwise we're doing the purge once a year.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
One hundred percent. But also, the purge is an interesting
concept in the movies for a reason because in that
society that exists in the purge, we're not saying all
of them are good, and maybe even the first one
is not good. But the concept's interesting is that, like
in order to it's an acceptance of this primal urge
in human beings to absolutely f stuff up and to
(47:50):
just act out on their most you know, animalistic kind
of impulses. And that is sort of what Halloween became
in a certain sense before it was sort of sanitized.
Is like, you know, whether it's let your freak flag
fly dressed in a crazy costume or like burn an
abandoned car. It did involve this one night where we
(48:14):
could run with the demons, we could run with the
ghouls and be part of that cliqu and let out
a lot of those things that will allow us to
every other day of the year live like good civilized Christians. Yeah,
I think you've outlined it well. I think I am
not alone and saying that is morally bankrupt and a
very it's an evil thing.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
But this idea of turn of pivoting towards something more wholesome.
This brought communities together and they would say, well, we're
not going to just let our kids and maybe criminals
run the streets. We're gonna get together at the community center,
you know, the church, the local Elks club, lab parades,
and the parades from the twenties turn into the nineteen fifties.
(48:59):
But here, Casey Noel Fellow, ridiculous historians. Here, towards the
end of tonight's show, we can tell you the origin
of the phrase, not tricks or treaty, not trick or treating,
but the freeze.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Trick or treat.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
It does have dashes, It does have a discernible origin.
It becomes a catchphrase thanks to Charlie Brown and Charles Schultz,
the peanut Gey, the Great Pumpkin.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
I think Charlie Brown is so cool. I think Charlie
Brown is the like mainstreaming of sarcasm in so many ways.
Those characters were so they're like jaded, weird little children
that are like no way too much.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
And also a normalized male pattern baldness for four year olds.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah, and therapy, you know with like was it Lucy No,
which one is the one that always pulls the football
away from Charlie. I think it's Lucy. It's Lucy. And
she always had the little lemonade stand that was like
therapy for like fifty cents or whatever. In my gosh,
that probably was like one hundred dollars back then, But yeah,
it was in a comic strip, because before we even
had the animated version of Peanuts, we had these comic
(50:10):
strips in the early fifties. You're right, that phrase appeared
in those. So the next time you watch It's the
Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, you do need to sometimes take
stock of what is as modern ish as that stuff
seems even today, that stuff was a historical hallmark in
so many ways, you know, just like Doctor Seuss in
(50:32):
certain phrases and words that were coined, Like a lot
of these things that we take for granted as because
again they've been so sanitized and mass produced and commercialized,
we don't remember that a lot of these pieces of
pop culture actually steered the history of this country and
of like the way we think about these kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yeah, and so this practice, it ebbs and flows. It
encounters a difficult time during World War two, due to
you know, the World War and due to sugar rationing,
the rationing of everything, no more sweets, no more sweets,
and at the at the height of the post World
(51:13):
War two economic boom, right, the origin of the what
we call the baby boomers trig or treating is cool again,
and then millions of kids and families buy in, especially
because there are suburbs built everywhere, right, and these are
just hou housing neighborhoods. You can walk for miles and
see nothing but residential stuff. And candy companies get in
(51:38):
on this because sugar rationing is gone, and they start saying, hey,
let's normalize buying a ton of candy every year. Today,
the United States spends an estimated three point one billion
dollars on candy during Halloween alone.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Dude, I went to Bert's Pumpkin Patch week or so ago,
which is this place like north of here in Atlanta
and the kind of North Georgia Mountains adjacent kind of area,
and I spent seventy five dollars or more on pumpkins.
I'd never done that before. But I'd also never been
to the pumpkin patch. And to a previous point you
(52:17):
made about like the sort of like community, sort of
like let's take the evil out of Halloween. This I
went on my first hay ride. And on this hay ride,
I think we actually talked about this in a previous episode,
but you passed this part where there are these like
really rudimentary animatronic pumpkins that give you a little lesson
on the scripture real quick. And I thought that was
(52:40):
charming and a little weird.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Twisted, right, Dylan Dylan said when he went there too,
And yeah, and it's nuts because look, has it been commercialized?
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Has it been monetized? Absolutely? Is there a bit of
appropriation inherent in it?
Speaker 2 (52:59):
Arguably?
Speaker 1 (53:00):
But is it still awesome? One hundred percent. And that's
where we end the episode. Tonight, go forth, ye, creatures
of the Evening, have a great time, save some souls.
I think we're legally bound to tell you not to
commit dangerous pranks.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Yeah, don't do that. You could get in trouble.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
We are officially required to tell you it is not
super duper easy to get away with.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
A lot of that. Yeah. We are also super legally
required to tell you that the Anarchist Cookbook is not
available in PDF format on the open Internet.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
It is super not easy to find it wherever you look.
And you know what, though, with those I love that
we did it that way, with those caveats aside, we
as we get to the end of the year, we
just want to thank everybody so much for tuning in
the show only happens because you're here, and we owe
a big, big thanks to mister Max Williams to miss
(54:00):
your casey, pegram Casey, are you taking a you're doing
a trick or treat thing.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
We're gonna try it. This will be the first year
with my son trigger treating and we're gonna we're gonna
dip our toes in the pond. Because he's a little uh,
he's very independent minded. He doesn't necessarily stop when you're
tell him to.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
He's just gonna go running off, setting houses on fire
and stuff. What is he like to two and a
half ish?
Speaker 3 (54:23):
Two and a half?
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah, yeah, okay, what kind of costume we haven't We
haven't gotten you yet. Little kids do really well in
chucky costumes. Just putting that out there because because of
their stature, that's a good joke.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
Also great pumpkin. I think a lot of kids in
the United States, one of their first Halloween costumes, especially
when they're still infants and a bit rotund, they often
gets as French chefs.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
Ooh, I like that.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
I ever heard of that in my life. But I
don't know if I bost you, but I do like fully
you like that, you know, really quickly before we wrap
it up. Do each of you have a favorite Halloween
Tree Edition movie that you enjoy watching. I'm a big
fan of Halloween is Grinch Night, the psychedelically weird Doctor
Seuss Grinch Short.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
I guess something wicked this way comes. I've got a
lot of hocus pocus just for the fun. Of course,
you like Carnival of Souls a lot. You always talk
about that.
Speaker 5 (55:21):
Yeah, oh man, Carnival of Souls is like so amazing.
I mean it's also not because it's also, like, you know,
not a very well made movie. But I don't know,
I have that look like Ben I had that like
deep love and appreciation for it as well. So and actually,
if you want to learn more about Carnival Souls, check
out the ephemeral episode titled HERK Harvey, where we dive
(55:43):
into the movie's director and the fact that he wasn't
you know, a guy who made feature films. Carnival Souls
is literally his only credit in that way.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
Also, you know The Exorcist, I got a whole playlist.
Speaker 4 (55:56):
I'm deep on that.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
How about you.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
Pegrim gotta go with the shining you know, it's the
classic scene. It a million times and to me, nothing
better every tall.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
More than that movie. Yeah. Do you think those takes
that Shelley Devaal did got better every time? All seven
of them? They just slowly drove her mad. I feel
like there's a sleeper in those takes.
Speaker 3 (56:19):
That no number like seventy seven was the one, you know, yeah, yeah, right,
are those archives somewhere, Casey, all those unused takes probably
the film probably they were, they were they were looking
to reuse the silver from the film. I think, I think, yeah,
I think Cupick probably destroyed all.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
The excess footage.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
I remember seeing an interview about that where someone asked
him that very question. But also, Shelley Duvall got robbed
because she was given a Razzie award. That's right for
that performance, which is egregious.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
It's a genius. It's fabulous. Also, that's bulls.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
Check out our pals uh Jack of Miles over the
Day a Zeitgeist if you want to learn why the
Razzies are just a garbage fire.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
It's not good.
Speaker 3 (57:06):
They did. They retroactively retracted that Razzie for Chilly Devall.
But they did it like a few years ago. You know,
it stood for like thirty something years.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
It's like Pitchfork reevaluating their review of Daft Punk Discovery, pretting.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
It huh, but better late than never. As cheech Marin
said in Ghostbusters two, when the Titanic arrives, Ghostbusters do
another cool holiday film. I think a big, big thanks
of course to mister Alex Williams composing this slap and
bop you hear at the very end. Who else know
who else?
Speaker 2 (57:43):
Oh well, speaking of Alex Williams, please check out if
you're into something spooky, The Thirteen Days of Halloween from
Aaron Mankey, that at this point should be well into
its thirteen episode run. There's also I believe three or four,
maybe three seasons of it to enjoy. It's like for
the Yaml del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosity and audio form.
(58:03):
It's really immersive, really really cool, and highly recommend that
you give it a listen. Also huge thanks to Eves,
Jeff Coat, Christopher hasiotis here in Spooky Spirit.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
Research associate Jeff Bartlett, our pal Gabe Lucier, and of
course the Man who Must probably needs no introduction, the
man known for always dressing in a gruesome costume. I
can only assume regardless of what day of the year.
It is Jonathan Strickland aka the Quizz.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
That is a costume, right, Yeah, it's a really successful
balt cat.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
I've never asked them. I don't know how I ask
people that, and of course I think touch it. Thanks
to you go in Casey, Happy Halloween you as well.
Speaker 2 (58:48):
Ben. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in, and Happy Halloween.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Mary Sowen, Sam Hayne.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Now I was just oh, I'm Ben your nol and
we are immensely fortunate to be recording on this the
most wonderful time of the year. Because while our while
our good friend or write or die, mister Max Williams
is encountering adventures rocking his white pants, we pulled some strings,
(01:02):
we have a little bit of juice, we called in
some favors, and Noel, we are joined yet again by
none other that the Man, the Myth, the Heartbreaker of
Paris super producer Casey Pegrum.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Guys, this totally makes up for the hour of poop.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Talk that I do endure it. I'll come on, really,
how dare you?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, Casey, as as you may or may not know,
me and Noel often conspire, we talk about you all
the time, dude, we're fanboys a little bit. The only
people who talk about you more than us are, of course,
our fellow Ridiculous Historians. So maybe before we roll in here,
(01:51):
you've been back for a few episodes. We're going to
continue this bit and we have to ask, just for
everybody once again, what about your adventures? Man? What what's
what's going on in the world of Pegram.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I mean, I'm I'm domesticated these days. I have not
been outside the country. I have not been on a
a voyage more than one state away.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
A boy.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, it was a it was a good trip. It
was a weekend trip to Miami. It was a lot
of fun. We've never been to my it was my
first time there, and it's a it's like another world.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, it's interesting. Get there before it sings, you know, enjoy.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Why I can. But yeah, I mean my my kind
of world gallivanting ways for the moment are kind of
on pause. But we do hope to do some international
travel soon to visit my west family and Cameroon as
well as.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Other other places amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
And this will, I hope I'm not telling tales out
of school. This will not be our brother Casey's first
foray into that into that continent. Because, as people may
or may not know, during another project that we that
we worked on together, uh, Casey flew out to Johannesburg.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
That is true. That was an amazing experience and I
still think back on that often fondly. And yeah, I
can't wait to get back to the continent again. Although
Cameron is quite different.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yea, yeah, yeah, far fewer africaners. Uh, that's true from
what I understand. And and the thing about Miami is
that Miami itself has uh it's kind of an East
Coast Los Angeles. There is a unique culture, distinctive culture.
There are a lot of people who are dressed up,
(03:45):
which is the worst segue I've done this year, And.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I was wondering it does seem, you know, from all
the videos and whatever the vicarious experiences of Miami that
I've had, it has sort of a carnival esque kind
of atmosphere, right, Oh for sure.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Yeah, I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I'm gonna tell you guys, I've got some I've got
some friends who live in Miami. They love it unanimously.
And I've had a couple of Miami romances. And I
haven't been to the town as an adult, but I
imagine when I go there, I'll be like a schlubby
(04:23):
Frodo esque hobbit. I will accidentally do cosplay in Miami,
like like we accidentally did cosplay in Las Vegas. We're
talking about costumes. That's the that's the pitch, that's the
thing we are. We were earlier, Noel, you and I
were talking on our show stuff They don't want you
(04:44):
to know about all things Halloween. We did an episode
recently on the practice, the fact of fiction of witch hunting,
which is a terrible phenomenon that exists today in Cameroon
as well, Casey.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So well, you know, it came up at the end
of the episode that there are still, despite you know,
history and all the march of history, still quite a
few which actual facts witch trials that take place to
this day. And I do imagine that they, you know,
are in countries where the law around those kinds of
things is still a little more murky, you know, and
(05:22):
a little more kangaroo quartie perhaps Papua New.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Guinea, parts of rural India, rural areas of states on
the African continent, and the Amazon.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah. I mean, you hear people talking about voodoo in
like a real palpable way sometimes.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And here in the United States, this obsession with strange
things that go bump in the night, with the occults,
with accusations of the infernal and the paranormal. These ideas
have been commodified, monetized, and they've become the bedrock or
(06:01):
the predecessors of some actual, pretty enjoyable stuff. Halloween is
on the way as we record, and you know, us, folks,
we had to do an episode to solve the history
of trick or treating. You guys remember trick or treating
where all all three of us lived in the US, Right,
(06:22):
that's not a sleeper hit.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Right, No, I remember it fondly, and my kid is
only just now borderline aging out of it. You know,
it's a lineal space, right, It is a little bit so.
Around fourteen, I think, is when trick or treating becomes
less about knocking on doors for candy and more about
perhaps the trick aspect of the devil's bargain is implied
with trick or treat. Yeah, my kid's good, good kid
(06:47):
would never tp someone's house, you know, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
The trick or treat dichotomy, that's that's beautiful. And I
think in the United States in general, the cutoff starts
to occur when someone gets their learners permit, right when
you can drive.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So we're preparing for that with baited breath and heart palpitations.
Oh yeah, we speak.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Oh yeah, you're gonna be sitting in the shotgun seat
and unconsciously pump your foot on a break that doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, the good news is the car that I've been
driving for years now is totally paid off, and it's
a very safe car that never had trouble with And
I'm just going to gift it, you know, to my
kid when they when they turn of age. And it
means I get to buy a car for myself.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Which is that on? Was that a Ford Focus?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
It's a Ford? Uh, Honda Fit does have a similar
shape profile to the Focus, but they don't make Honda
Fits anymore, So I've got to get something else because
I have loved that. Well, they don't make it in America.
I think it's available in overseas, but I don't know.
I'll have to talk to you offline, Ben, you being
the car stuff guy, about what I should get.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, hey, I'm I'm probably getting a new vehicle as well,
So maybe we can make it a double date, go
shop around.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Oh yeah with a good cop, bad cop them?
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Vic? Vinegar always tend honey somebody honey something honey.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, it was honey, and hangar hank honey.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I don't know. It was definitely alliterative, no question about
it was yes, because alliteration is awesome.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Get it.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
We're moving on.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
So trick or treating. How would we describe the concept
of trick or treating to someone who was unfamiliar.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, again, it is a there's an implied bargain. And
if you watch the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where
Larry gets terrorized by some aged out trick or treaters
who he refuses to serve, the cops come to his
house and say, well, sir, did you give the treat?
He's like, no, they were they were too old. He goes, well,
if you don't give the treat, the implication is the trick.
(08:57):
So again, I think that we've gotten to a place
largely where the trick part isn't necessarily guaranteed. But it
used to be that, yeah, you're giving an option of
give me a treat or else you will be visited
upon by some sort of malfeasance, whether it be you know,
dog poop set on fire in as casey you knew
(09:19):
poop was coming back that you have to stop out. Well,
that's not malign, casey to, but who does it? Man?
Who doesn't love a good poop joke? But yeah, I
mean it's certainly the mischief aspect of it has always
been kind of historically in play. Right.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, here's the setting seen in setting. Folks in the
United States on October thirty first, right as the twilight
hour hits, right, golden hour fades away and the sun retreats,
you will, depending upon your neighborhood, find yourself beset by
(09:59):
roving group children and teenagers and sometimes their parents ringing doorbells.
And when you answer the doorbell or the knock on
the door, and they will be clad in any number
of costumes, they will say the following phrase trick or
treat hopefully with my feet, give me something good to eat?
(10:20):
Please you don't I don't care.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, there's a whole mythology around it. It's also it
occurs in other countries as well. The way this covenant
works is these kids show up and they ask for candy.
They're dressed as you know, astronauts and vampires and whatever.
And the weird thing about this is how normalized it
(10:43):
is in a country that often behaves in a religiously
conservative manner. So why has this thing, Why is this
bit of theater every year been normalized, accepted and judge wholesome.
It's because the origins of trick or treaty are still murky,
(11:05):
but we know they date back really far. You can
see predecessors in ancient Celtic festivals, early Roman Catholic holidays,
some medieval social mores. And this was a surprise to me.
Shout out to our research associate Jeff Bartlett. You can
even see some traces of this in British politics. No,
(11:28):
I love that you mentioned Sawen the ancient origin of Halloween.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
What is so? Yeah, it was what the Celts dubbed
this particular season, involving villagers disguising themselves in various costumes,
often made from animal skins. And it's something like we
(11:55):
see in a lot of traditions, like I believe in
like Chinese New Year, the drag and all the beating
of the drums and the fireworks and stuff to scare
away evil spirits. So it's again, we just did an
episode of Stuff That Don't Want You to Know about
witch hunts and talked about how the belief in evil
spirits or demonic forces or the devil or whatever. Black
(12:16):
magic is a tale as old as time, and it
required some sort of intervention, you know, whether it be
to spare your village from a blight you know, on
the crops, or whatever, from like the death of children.
Because you know, in past times these things were much
more common. You'd know, people didn't live as long, and
there was a sense that people could control their destiny
(12:39):
and help steer the course of their lives by participating
in some of these you know, events, And what we
see now in the United States is obviously a much
more sanitized, less functional version of this. But they were
intending during Sawen celebrations to drive away these spirits. They
would have banks that were prepared, food was left out
(13:03):
to placate some of these spirits. That's also a thing
we see in a lot of other cultures, like the
hungry leaving hungry ghosts, leaving out food for your ancestors
on a shrine perhaps, And you know, we see numerous
flavors and styles of this kind of thing throughout history,
and many of which really persevere today in what you
(13:23):
could argue is a much more functional way, right yes,
just so in terms of the level of belief that
it will actually that it is accomplishing something. It's not
just a kind of a marketing holiday, which is sort
of what Halloween has become. If it's great though, it's
so fun.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
It is so fun if you have not visited the
United States and for October you can have a great time.
The I love that you're bringing up the Celtic origins
of sown here, and I love that we're we're talking
about this commonality cultures, especially in northern latitudes, because during
(14:04):
this time in autumn moving into winter, multiple cultures saw
what they interpreted as a ven diagram, the barrier between
the lands of the living and the lands of the dead.
It grows thin, right, and the idea is just like
a Voldrigis night. The concept is that demons, evil spirits,
(14:31):
those who have passed before us, they all can roam
the earth again for one night. And this reminds me
of that the obvious, in my opinion, the obvious best
part of Fantasia, which is.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Cherabog, you know, Mountain wakes. Yes, it's terrifying. It holds
up to this. It's really great.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And what's nuts about this I guess with the benefit
of wretch respect. Is the idea that people back in
the day would dress up as spirits, would put on
the countenance and costumes of demons as a defense mechanism,
such just in case, you know, you run into a
(15:17):
real life infernal spirit roaming the earth at night, they
will clock you know, your they will clock your animal
skins or your glued on horns, and they'll think, oh, yeah, no,
he's cool, he's just he's out as well. For a second.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
It's funny how in like zombie movie culture or you know,
the trope of zombie movies, something kind of evolved that's
been done to death now haha a little bit. But
the idea of pretending to be a zombie or covering
yourself in blood or gore so that you can walk
amongst them because somehow they know the difference between the
living and the dead and they won't come at you.
(15:55):
It's a good way of creating a diversion. Or I
actually watched Sean of the Dead recently, which absolutely holds
up as an excellent piece of filmmaking. Like it's just
the editing is great. Everything about it is fabulous. It
capitalizes on so many different tropes, but there's a scene
where they all pretend to be and they allows them
to move through the crowd of the zombie Horde.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And so from this the first, the first folks we
would call trick or treaters were kids in medieval Europe.
They were not super well to do, and they would
go door to door begging for food and money, not
for funzies, not necessarily with costumes, but because you know,
(16:39):
life kind of sucked for him and they had to
do their best to stay alive. And they realized that
if they went door to door during this Celtic holidays
Sowin on October thirty first, they would have a higher
rate of success asking for free stuff. And they would
(17:01):
Here's where the trigger treat thing comes in, the first
predecessor of the covenant, the exchange in exchange they would offer.
It would say, give us whatever you can and exchange,
we are going to pray for the souls of your
dearly departed. This tradition was called in a burst of
creativity solely l I G.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Well, it's interesting because a lot of this hinges on
a time where it is acceptable to knock on a
stranger's door and not be treated as a trespasser or
you know, something to be feared and potentially dealt with, right,
and that holds true to this day. Everyone knows that
on Halloween you're gonna have people knocking on your door.
(17:47):
And if you kill all the lights and don't have
candy out and are not participants, that's when you are
maybe more likely to get dealt with, you know, in
terms of like, ah, these old sour pusts, We're gonna
do them a dirty trick. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And so if we haven't mentioned before, it's the night
before the Celtic New Year, So this is a momentous occasion.
Let's fast forward to the Middle Ages. If you look
at the Catholic Church, you will see this idea of
religious syncretism, which is the appropriation of previously existing spiritual
(18:25):
practices by a new school of metaphysical or religious thought.
We want to give a big shout out to Smithsonian magazine.
Rose Evelyth wrote this absolute awesome article called the History
of trick or Treating is Weirder than You thought? And
Rose one hundred percent agree. No notes. What they would
(18:47):
do is, in the Catholic tradition, they would take some
take another belief systems holidays and attempt to leverage it
as a way of proselytizing, of converting people to the
Catholic faith. So they saw this ancient holiday, of this
(19:07):
ancient process of swen and they said, well, you know,
there's also All hallows E, all Souls Day, all Saints Day,
and they for a time they had people dress up
as saints or angels, and then you know a few demons,
because every bit of theater needs a villain, right.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yes, absolutely, And once again we see religious fervor kind
of changing the narrative a little bit around some of
these holidays that are based around you know, pagan rituals,
where it's like, oh yeah, let's not do it that
way anymore. Let's try to change the themes so it's
a little more on brand with our vibe, right yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
And during this era we're still not quite to the
modern Halloween. During this era are trick or treaters who
went door to door exchanging prayers for food. They expanded
the brand a bit. Instead of just promising prayers, they
started also doing songs, even telling jokes, doing like a
(20:06):
tight three minutes and which wasn't that long before the
era of television, and they would maybe stage short performances
at the doorstep or at the entrance. This tradition still
exists in some ways. It was known as mumming m
U m m G. There's an interesting note we found
(20:30):
from Business Insider about how young women who are single
would also do a series of rituals on All Hallow's Eve,
with the idea being that they could divine the identity
of their future husbands and get married by the following year.
Because of course, if you're not buried by like sixteen,
(20:52):
you're a horrible person with a foot in the grave.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Now. I hope this isn't too controversial, but you know,
I think we're all suckers for some etemal. You know
the term that's used for sex workers turning tricks. I
kind of wonder if that isn't rooted in this, because
while they're not performing sex acts for money, there is
a certain amount of what's the word, kind of seduction involved,
(21:20):
or like kind of trying to ingratiate themselves to these
future husbands. Potentially, I just I do wonder maybe I'm
completely off.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Base there, there might be something to it. Etymology is
often muddy. Why I still have yet to create a
show just about etymology, like the source is tough, but
I believe it's early nineteen hundred's early twentieth century and
trick as a mischievous or naughty act for a sex worker.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
At the time, the idea was that the trick was
a socially unapproved action. But again, it's still a covenant.
You know you're exchanging something.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And these if we go to the idea of if
we go to the idea that the young women on
all hallow z, what kind of divination were they practicing?
What kind of magic were they practicing? There were things
you similar to what you might have done in middle school.
If you watch something like The Craft, you might have
done like light as a feather, stiff as a board, uh,
(22:26):
played with a wija board. These tricks would for these
folks looking to figure out their future spouse. They involve
stuff like throwing apple peels, or you would crack eggs
into a bowl, kind of like reading tea leaves. When
you crack the eggs into the bowl, you look into
it like a rorshak image and you try to find
(22:51):
the initials of your future husband. There was even one
where you it's very bloody Mary or a candy man.
There is one where you go in a room with
just like one candle and you look in the mirror
and you hope to see in the mirror a vague
reflection of your future spouse's face.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Why is it, guy? Be so spooky? That sounds I
don't want to do that. That doesn't sound like it's
not romantic at all, I don't think. So you're gonna
be like horrified when you see that person in real life,
not to mention if it actually worked, you know, and
like who is that weird looking cat in the mirror?
You know, I just I don't know, I just what
if you don't like them? Yeah? You know, question what
(23:34):
if you don't like him? Was not really a question
of import back to those days in terms of marriages
going down.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
You know, the court of the occult did not have
a mechanism for appeals of decisions, just apple peals. So
there's also to the trigger treaters. There were these people
who would dress in costume and then they would perform dances,
and the idea of the dances was that it was
(24:02):
a it's like a public service. You're scaring off the
demons and in exchange, you receive food and drink, and that,
as far as we can tell, is the rough origin
of when the trick part of the trick or treat
was bored, and there's all sorts of other stuff there.
You know, you would get specific food if you were
(24:25):
going door to if you were a door to door
prayer sales person, you would get soul cakes, specific kind
of pastry, which again, to your point, reminds me of
the reminds me of the practice of feeding hungry ghost
in Asia.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Or like the sugar skulls involved with Day of the
Dead celebrations going now in Latin America. And I believe
maybe they're they're they're they're a little different. But hot
Cross buns they have like this X on them, and
the soul cakes also have that X on them, So
I think that is meant to be like a It's
almost like a form of the Eucharists in a weird way,
(25:03):
like maybe not exactly, but there is a certain body
of Christ aspect to it, at least it feels like
to me.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, there's some branding for sure, soul cakes and Hot
Cross buns. That's a great comparison. Soul cakes were they
contained you need to still find versions of them today.
They contain nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and raisins, which were very good,
very hot at that point, and because you know, dried
candy fruit before the rise of sugar beets and cane sugar,
(25:34):
that was one of the sweetest things people could eat.
The cross at the top of both of those pastries
or confections symbolizes a soul being saved from purgatory. The
earliest soul cakes were placed outside of homes like a
ring or a nest camera because the idea was this
(25:55):
will prevent these mischievous spirits from playing tricks on us,
But eventually they just made them for the trick or treaters.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
So the tricks originally were like the mischief was from
mischievous goblin types, right, and then like a lot of
the trick or treating kind of like you know, was
almost meant to like we're gonna make you think that
we are are the demons, right again, it's not specifically,
but over time it evolves, and I think that's part
(26:26):
of the impetus, where it's like we are pretending to
do the same things that the mischievous spirits would be doing.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Perhaps, yeah, Yeah, that is the evolution, and he yieled
it because it starts with infernal powers doing serious damage.
Then it goes to like little rascals from the unseen realm,
you know, brownies and things like that, and then it
evolves to these people doing some sort of defensive service,
and then it becomes cosplay. Then it becomes tradition. It's
(26:54):
in the eighteen hundreds, not until then that folks start
offering treats to trigger treaters. And usually these obviously it's
not like a Snickers.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Bar or quote unquote treats.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
It's like nuts and fruits. And if you don't care
for raisins like we do, you would be disappointed for
several hundred years. They also just gave you apples, no caramel,
just like, here's an apple.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
This is the kind of stuff that'll get your house
rolled instantly these days. Yeah, the old man Wilson gives
out apples like he's like the neighborhood dentists like, nah, man,
that's not how we play.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
So one example, our modern growing up, our modern controversial family.
In one of my neighborhoods, they got in trouble because
they gave out lottery tickets and packs of cigarettes to children.
Candy cigarettes just no, I think just regular cigarettes because
(27:54):
they were having a crazy party and looking back, I
think they were probably drinking and doing some other stuff.
It probably want swingers too. One of those lottery tickets.
I won two hundred bucks off of it. It was
a little scratch off ticket. So happy Halloween.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
So the idea of giving apples or dried fruits starts
with another festival, not Celtic, but Roman, the festival of Pomona,
which in that civilization occurred during harvest, and Pomona is
named after the goddess of fruitful abundance that took place
on November first. But you know what's a little timeline
(28:32):
discrepancy between friends.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, Apples have often been associated with plentiful nests, you know,
the cornucopia overflowing harvest kind of, and also, of course,
because of their shape and color, I imagine a symbol
of love and therefore fertility. And again we see a
lot of these things carry over into more kind of
(28:55):
sanitized versions in modern day. We see bobby for apples
or caramelized apples. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Man, that's where it comes from, which I love that
we have an explanation for that, because even as a kid,
that's sort of weird, right, like, hey, let me waterboard
myself for an apple.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Anyway, I don't think that's bad. People still do that.
It seems like it's like gone the way of lawn
darts to a certain degree.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
People still do it, particularly in my experience, particularly in
Christian youth groups. That's where I see it most often.
That's where you have like the hay ride bobbing for apples.
Let's make this thing wholesome and less associated with the demonic.
There's also a kind of relationship or similarities at least
(29:46):
between Tricker Treating and Guy Fox Night aka Bonfire Night
aka the loose mcguffin plot device of VV for vendet.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Remember remember the what is it of September? The fifth
of November? November. That's of course it wouldn't be September,
because it's got to be around spooky season. Yeah, and
that's you know, the mask, the famous Guy Fox mask
is largely I think the centerpiece of what we're talking
about on this night in question. There was a very
(30:22):
successful foiling of what's known as the Gunpowder plot in
sixteen oh five, and this was a plot to I
believe what blow up parliament?
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yeah yeah, Guy FOWX big fan of the Catholic faith,
hated Protestants. His idea was a little bit Rube Goldberg esque.
He thought, if I blow up the Parliament building, King
James the First will be removed from power, and then
naturally everybody in the land will agree with me that
(30:55):
Catholicism is cool.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Nope. That's why sometimes revolutionary acts like this are sort
of a little sad in retrospect, because so many people
get hurt and then they just replace them monarch.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
It's like, let us terrorize people into a green with us,
you know.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
And so on this night, which again commemorates this this event,
British children wear or war masks and carry effigies of
Guy Fox, and the masks themselves are basically effigies. Uh.
And they beg for pennies, which is that just seems sad,
like like his whole deal didn't work. Why are they
begging for pennies A penny?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Uh, you know, we don't inflation calculate on this one,
but a penny worth more?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, yeah, you could buy it was actual precious metal,
you know, right.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And the Guy Fox day the celebration of it begins
pretty much right after Guy Fox is executed, and they
started making these bonfires and they lit effigies and that. Yeah,
and they called them own fires too, because the idea
(32:02):
was that they were burning the Catholic pope, very very
nasty stuff. And then by the early eighteen hundreds, these
kids would roam around the streets of England and they
would have effigies a Guy Fox and they would go
to door to door asking, quote, for a penny for
(32:24):
the guy.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Hey, can you get a penny for your guy? Here?
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Can my guy get a penny?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Let me get a penny?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Let me get a penny for the guy.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
So moving on trick or treating, which is you know
this it wasn't I want to know more when it
was called that? Like do we have that because none
of these these historical accounts quite you know, go all
the way into trick or treat, right, it's.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Pretty murky, Yeah, it's pretty murky. We can find competing
sources for the first time the phrase is in print,
but we know that the act of asking for candy
it was around and wasn't always tied to Halloween during
the late eighteen hundreds, the mid nineteen hundreds, especially in
(33:12):
New York New York City, excuse me, sorry, Watertown. Kids
dressed up and they went looking for treats the same
way they do today. But they did it on Thanksgiving,
which is weird. How many turkey costumes were there? When
did turkey become the Thanksgiving thing? Well that's a story
(33:34):
for another all right, I'm putting it on the list.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I did find a reference to nineteen twenty seven and Canada,
which is when trigg or treat first started being a
thing verbally spoken. So good job to our neighbors to
the north for like coining the thing that we think
we invented.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Good hustle, guys, don't worry, we'll take more of your stuff.
Later in eighteen sixty three, our old buddy, famous trash
talk and amateur wrestler, also known for a couple of
other things.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Good reach out.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah, Abraham Lincoln. He's the one who said, all right, Thanksgiving,
it's gonna be a holiday throughout all of these United States,
which means kids get a day off from school and
children can just run wild. So go to New York
in the eighteen seventies, New York City, Sorry, Buffalo some
(34:25):
kids decided it would be massive fun to cause play
as homeless people.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Which is so messed up considering what we've talked about
in terms of how originally this was actual facts. You know,
poor destitute British children exchanging a prayer, which is I
guess as where living on a prayer came from the
idea of like, that's all I've got to offer you
is my prayers, you know, for like some food, not
(34:54):
for funsies, but like for survival. So leave it to
the United States to take something that was once a
very real, you know, situation involving danger and kids living
on the street and turn it into sort of like
a cosplay, like you said, where these kids in the
eighteen seventies are dressing up in shabby, oversized clothes, probably
(35:15):
blacking their noses and cheeks with a burnt cork, you know,
carrying around a bindle like all of the kind of
you know, pick your poison like cliche images of unhoused
people throughout the years, and then they would get into
what could really just be described as trouble mischief, okay,
(35:37):
and it became as known as I love this word,
by the way, it became known eventually as ragamuffin day,
ah ragamuffin and ne'er do wells and scamps, the whole
pantheon of poorly behaved children. I once called my ex
(36:01):
wife's niece a ragamuffin, and she took great issue with
that word. Triggered her. She was like, what is that?
That sounds like the worst thing that ever could be.
Don't you dare call me that again? Uncle Noel, or
I will end you. How old I think she was,
about six? Maybe just dismissed. You're in the clear, fair enough,
(36:22):
fair enough the statute of limitations as best. I think
she's probably forgotten all about it. We'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
And with this idea, this ragamuffin day, these kids sewing
chaos there became increasingly creative disguises because on some level
these kids don't want to get in trouble and cries
right right in the commission of crimes. So right before
the turn of the century, late eighteen hundreds, we see
(36:51):
that around. There's one article in PR quoted from eighteen
ninety seven, and it says the Thanksgiving is quote the
busiest time yeah for the manufacturers and dealers in mask
and false faces.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
The fantastical costume parades and the old custom of making
and dressing up for amusement on Thanksgiving Day keep up
from yeah to yeah in many parts of the country,
so that the quantity of false faces sold the season
is enormous false faces.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
What you've just described there, though, is the realization of
the commercialization of all of the history stuff that we've
been talking about.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Just so, and if you were to ask me before this, Ben,
where does trigger treating come from? Where does the beautiful
Halloween costume tradition come from? I totally would have missed Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh for sure. And you guys, have you seen images
like on social media of like the costumes from the
thirties and stuff like earlier before like mass produced costumes
became a thing. They're horrifying turnups instead of pumpkins for
jack a ladder. But just like the faces, they're like
(38:05):
burlap sacks with a piece of twine wrapped around the neck,
you know, I mean, just and like weird gouged rough
holes cut in the eyes and mouths, like like something
like with the scarecrow would wear in Batman movie. You know,
I mean, it's really scary stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Like the old michelin man, Oh, just like that distressing,
and then pretty much any pre nineteen fifties easter Buddy
cost us also hor horrific. So people are fighting against it, right,
the kids rebel and the authorities are squares, same as
it ever was, same as it ever was. There's a
(38:42):
school superintendent named William J. O'Shea, and he our buddy
Willie tells all his superintendent goons that modernity is incompatible
with children masquerading and annoying adults by asking for gifts
and money. And then other organizations say they're making fun
(39:04):
of the poor.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
He well, I would argue that there is some truth
to that making fun of the poor part. But this
is also like this guy ended up on the wrong
side of history. He's like William O'Shea, the guy that
tried to murder Halloween. You know. But at the time,
though I don't completely disagree with them, I think, you know,
the whole Ragamuffin Day thing is a little offensive, you know,
(39:27):
to people, especially when we're approaching the Great Depression, when
this stuff was nothing to sneeze at. You know, this
this level of like, you know, poverty and to even
be able to afford to masquerade as a poor person.
You probably weren't a poor person. You were probably coming
from an upper middle class. Well, I guess middle class
(39:47):
didn't really exist quite yet. It was more just upper class.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And now it's I love pointing out the Great Depression.
Now it's no longer funny satire. If satire's done well,
has to come from a place of affection. That's what
makes the mockery work. When punching down right, when millions
of people are starving, unemployed, dying in the streets, then
(40:13):
dressing up as victims of what, even at that stage
was late stage capitalism, that becomes a totally different calculation.
So Ragamuffin Day falls out of favor, but as it falls,
a new thing rises. We reached the inflection point of Halloween.
(40:33):
And it's entirely because some American colonists we're familiar with
practicing sown traditions and guy fallowies all hallows, all saints,
all souls, all the things, and so they brought that
culture with them. By the mid eighteen hundreds, I want
to say, especially with the influx of Irish immigrants fleeing
(40:56):
the Potato famine, Halloween became a thing and in the process,
it became thoroughly American.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, and I mean, you know, the sort of I
guess sanitization or organization of trick or treating and Halloween
largely stemmed from the fact that the early kind of
unchecked version of this, when things were a little more
wild West again because of the Great Depression and a
lot of like a huge gulf between the haves and
the have nots, there were a lot of acts of violence,
(41:26):
you know, setting fires, assaulting people because there was a
real sense of like, I don't know, resentment kind of
just like festering in this country. And so in order
to kind of stem that, one theory says that the
widespread adoption of a more community based, kind of family
(41:47):
friendly trick or treating tradition in the thirties was really
crucial to kind of cutting down on some of this
more you know, mischievous Dare I say criminal acts?
Speaker 3 (42:00):
M m.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah, Let's get these rowdy kids under control. You know,
we're talking about stuff like the origin of Devil's Night
in Detroit, which is the crow.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Maybe that's what I always think of.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
And it's also it's an escalation of that. Instead of
toilet papering someone's house, or putting a bunch of forks
in their yard or throwing eggs out there at the siding. Instead,
we're talking physical assaults or setting the whole house fire, vandalism,
acts of violence. And the weird thing is that if
(42:37):
you look at stuff like Miriam Webster, you'll see etomologists
like Barry Popik Popik who suggests that trick or treat does,
as you mentioned, go back to the nineteen twenties when
Canadian newspapers use variations of the term. I think it
was November nineteen twenty three the Saskatchewan Leader Post said
(43:01):
that fighting against this idea of child led violence, they said, treats,
not tricks, are the order of the evening, Hugs not drugs.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, there was a November nineteen twenty four article published
in Alberta's Red Deer Advocate, which is such a Canadian
name for a newspaper, that had this to say. And
by the way, Halloween in a lot of these printings
is spelled ha llowe apostrophe e n, which seems very
Canterbury Tales to me for some reason. But this is
(43:36):
what the Red Deer Advocate had to say. Halloween night
was observed in the usual manner by the young bloods
in Penhold. Fun is fun and tricks are tricks. But
when such public buildings as school and Memorial Hall are
molested with no opinion for trick or treat, we cannot
see where either fun or trick is enjoyed by the participants.
(43:59):
Speaking of Hannterbury Tales talk, this is a little You
gotta run this through a couple of filters to unpack
what they're even talking about here. Help us out, Ben,
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
The idea here is that. The idea here is that
picture the Transatlantic voice. When you hear this, it's written
with a bit of a high faluting tone. But they're saying, ultimately,
this is not good for anyone. Order must be maintained.
(44:29):
These scamps, these ragamuffins, these nahd wells. If you look
south across the border in the United States, the first
printed example of the phrase goes to nineteen twenty eight.
Michigan's Bay City Times talks about tricks or treats and
they call it the fatal ultimatum. So metal you know
(44:51):
what I mean, Finisher bump.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Them jock Jams version of Mortal Kombat. There's a really
great quote here. Also, by the way, the fact that
you mentioned this is very interesting. Nineteen twenty eight in
Michigan Devil's Night obviously Detroit, Michigan, so that part of
our country, which is also really close to Canada. By
the way, Detroit makes sense that it would kind of
(45:16):
filter down to there, and the Devil's Night would be
such a uniquely Detroit kind of thing. Again, I may
not be completely on base with that, but there's an
excellent quote from that Bay City Times article you mentioned,
referring to let's see it is a phrase, a dreaded
utterance by quote some small child who clutched in one
(45:38):
grubby fist, a small chunk of soap capable of eliminating
the transparency from any number of windows or mischief? What
key the out of sides?
Speaker 4 (45:51):
What's indoors or outdoors?
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Jeez mayhem?
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Absolutely chaos, pandemonium, cats and dogs.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
They saying this with tongue in cheek. They're not.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
They were very mad about it.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Really, Yeah, are you serious? I really can't tell if
you're being serious or not.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
I am being serious. They were upset.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
How dare they eliminate the transparency of our windows.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Like a penny a window was a bigger deal back
in the day.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
That's a good point. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
In the nineteen twenties, this idea of souling right, of
advocating for the dead loved ones right, it was replaced
with prankie as the Great Depression hit, as socio economic
problems got turned up to eleven, the Shenanigans got worse,
(46:42):
I would argue, because they became a socio economic vent,
an escape hatch for all these pent up aggressions, absssions, resentiments,
you know, traumatic experiences, and that's where we see the
cars getting overturned, the houses getting be in need broken
and entered, and even harassment physical assault. Fast forward today,
(47:06):
why is that not happening. It's because parents and community
leaders got together and said, we need to pivot, we
need to steer the ship in a different direction. Let's
try to make some wholesome iterations of these traditions, because
otherwise we're doing the purge once a year.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
One hundred percent. But also, the purge is an interesting
concept in the movies for a reason because in that
society that exists in the purge, we're not saying all
of them are good, and maybe even the first one
is not good. But the concept's interesting is that, like
in order to it's an acceptance of this primal urge
in human beings to absolutely f stuff up and to
(47:50):
just act out on their most you know, animalistic kind
of impulses. And that is sort of what Halloween became
in a certain sense before it was sort of sanitized.
Is like, you know, whether it's let your freak flag
fly dressed in a crazy costume or like burn an
abandoned car. It did involve this one night where we
(48:14):
could run with the demons, we could run with the
ghouls and be part of that cliqu and let out
a lot of those things that will allow us to
every other day of the year live like good civilized Christians. Yeah,
I think you've outlined it well. I think I am
not alone and saying that is morally bankrupt and a
very it's an evil thing.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
But this idea of turn of pivoting towards something more wholesome.
This brought communities together and they would say, well, we're
not going to just let our kids and maybe criminals
run the streets. We're gonna get together at the community center,
you know, the church, the local Elks club, lab parades,
and the parades from the twenties turn into the nineteen fifties.
(48:59):
But here, Casey Noel Fellow, ridiculous historians. Here, towards the
end of tonight's show, we can tell you the origin
of the phrase, not tricks or treaty, not trick or treating,
but the freeze.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Trick or treat.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
It does have dashes, It does have a discernible origin.
It becomes a catchphrase thanks to Charlie Brown and Charles Schultz,
the peanut Gey, the Great Pumpkin.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
I think Charlie Brown is so cool. I think Charlie
Brown is the like mainstreaming of sarcasm in so many ways.
Those characters were so they're like jaded, weird little children
that are like no way too much.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
And also a normalized male pattern baldness for four year olds.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah, and therapy, you know with like was it Lucy No,
which one is the one that always pulls the football
away from Charlie. I think it's Lucy. It's Lucy. And
she always had the little lemonade stand that was like
therapy for like fifty cents or whatever. In my gosh,
that probably was like one hundred dollars back then, But yeah,
it was in a comic strip, because before we even
had the animated version of Peanuts, we had these comic
(50:10):
strips in the early fifties. You're right, that phrase appeared
in those. So the next time you watch It's the
Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, you do need to sometimes take
stock of what is as modern ish as that stuff
seems even today, that stuff was a historical hallmark in
so many ways, you know, just like Doctor Seuss in
(50:32):
certain phrases and words that were coined, Like a lot
of these things that we take for granted as because
again they've been so sanitized and mass produced and commercialized,
we don't remember that a lot of these pieces of
pop culture actually steered the history of this country and
of like the way we think about these kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yeah, and so this practice, it ebbs and flows. It
encounters a difficult time during World War two, due to
you know, the World War and due to sugar rationing,
the rationing of everything, no more sweets, no more sweets,
and at the at the height of the post World
(51:13):
War two economic boom, right, the origin of the what
we call the baby boomers trig or treating is cool again,
and then millions of kids and families buy in, especially
because there are suburbs built everywhere, right, and these are
just hou housing neighborhoods. You can walk for miles and
see nothing but residential stuff. And candy companies get in
(51:38):
on this because sugar rationing is gone, and they start saying, hey,
let's normalize buying a ton of candy every year. Today,
the United States spends an estimated three point one billion
dollars on candy during Halloween alone.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Dude, I went to Bert's Pumpkin Patch week or so ago,
which is this place like north of here in Atlanta
and the kind of North Georgia Mountains adjacent kind of area,
and I spent seventy five dollars or more on pumpkins.
I'd never done that before. But I'd also never been
to the pumpkin patch. And to a previous point you
(52:17):
made about like the sort of like community, sort of
like let's take the evil out of Halloween. This I
went on my first hay ride. And on this hay ride,
I think we actually talked about this in a previous episode,
but you passed this part where there are these like
really rudimentary animatronic pumpkins that give you a little lesson
on the scripture real quick. And I thought that was
(52:40):
charming and a little weird.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Twisted, right, Dylan Dylan said when he went there too,
And yeah, and it's nuts because look, has it been commercialized?
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Has it been monetized? Absolutely? Is there a bit of
appropriation inherent in it?
Speaker 2 (52:59):
Arguably?
Speaker 1 (53:00):
But is it still awesome? One hundred percent. And that's
where we end the episode. Tonight, go forth, ye, creatures
of the Evening, have a great time, save some souls.
I think we're legally bound to tell you not to
commit dangerous pranks.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Yeah, don't do that. You could get in trouble.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
We are officially required to tell you it is not
super duper easy to get away with.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
A lot of that. Yeah. We are also super legally
required to tell you that the Anarchist Cookbook is not
available in PDF format on the open Internet.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
It is super not easy to find it wherever you look.
And you know what, though, with those I love that
we did it that way, with those caveats aside, we
as we get to the end of the year, we
just want to thank everybody so much for tuning in
the show only happens because you're here, and we owe
a big, big thanks to mister Max Williams to miss
(54:00):
your casey, pegram Casey, are you taking a you're doing
a trick or treat thing.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
We're gonna try it. This will be the first year
with my son trigger treating and we're gonna we're gonna
dip our toes in the pond. Because he's a little uh,
he's very independent minded. He doesn't necessarily stop when you're
tell him to.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
He's just gonna go running off, setting houses on fire
and stuff. What is he like to two and a
half ish?
Speaker 3 (54:23):
Two and a half?
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah, yeah, okay, what kind of costume we haven't We
haven't gotten you yet. Little kids do really well in
chucky costumes. Just putting that out there because because of
their stature, that's a good joke.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
Also great pumpkin. I think a lot of kids in
the United States, one of their first Halloween costumes, especially
when they're still infants and a bit rotund, they often
gets as French chefs.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
Ooh, I like that.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
I ever heard of that in my life. But I
don't know if I bost you, but I do like fully
you like that, you know, really quickly before we wrap
it up. Do each of you have a favorite Halloween
Tree Edition movie that you enjoy watching. I'm a big
fan of Halloween is Grinch Night, the psychedelically weird Doctor
Seuss Grinch Short.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
I guess something wicked this way comes. I've got a
lot of hocus pocus just for the fun. Of course,
you like Carnival of Souls a lot. You always talk
about that.
Speaker 5 (55:21):
Yeah, oh man, Carnival of Souls is like so amazing.
I mean it's also not because it's also, like, you know,
not a very well made movie. But I don't know,
I have that look like Ben I had that like
deep love and appreciation for it as well. So and actually,
if you want to learn more about Carnival Souls, check
out the ephemeral episode titled HERK Harvey, where we dive
(55:43):
into the movie's director and the fact that he wasn't
you know, a guy who made feature films. Carnival Souls
is literally his only credit in that way.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
Also, you know The Exorcist, I got a whole playlist.
Speaker 4 (55:56):
I'm deep on that.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
How about you.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
Pegrim gotta go with the shining you know, it's the
classic scene. It a million times and to me, nothing
better every tall.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
More than that movie. Yeah. Do you think those takes
that Shelley Devaal did got better every time? All seven
of them? They just slowly drove her mad. I feel
like there's a sleeper in those takes.
Speaker 3 (56:19):
That no number like seventy seven was the one, you know, yeah, yeah, right,
are those archives somewhere, Casey, all those unused takes probably
the film probably they were, they were they were looking
to reuse the silver from the film. I think, I think, yeah,
I think Cupick probably destroyed all.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
The excess footage.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
I remember seeing an interview about that where someone asked
him that very question. But also, Shelley Duvall got robbed
because she was given a Razzie award. That's right for
that performance, which is egregious.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
It's a genius. It's fabulous. Also, that's bulls.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
Check out our pals uh Jack of Miles over the
Day a Zeitgeist if you want to learn why the
Razzies are just a garbage fire.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
It's not good.
Speaker 3 (57:06):
They did. They retroactively retracted that Razzie for Chilly Devall.
But they did it like a few years ago. You know,
it stood for like thirty something years.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
It's like Pitchfork reevaluating their review of Daft Punk Discovery, pretting.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
It huh, but better late than never. As cheech Marin
said in Ghostbusters two, when the Titanic arrives, Ghostbusters do
another cool holiday film. I think a big, big thanks
of course to mister Alex Williams composing this slap and
bop you hear at the very end. Who else know
who else?
Speaker 2 (57:43):
Oh well, speaking of Alex Williams, please check out if
you're into something spooky, The Thirteen Days of Halloween from
Aaron Mankey, that at this point should be well into
its thirteen episode run. There's also I believe three or four,
maybe three seasons of it to enjoy. It's like for
the Yaml del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosity and audio form.
(58:03):
It's really immersive, really really cool, and highly recommend that
you give it a listen. Also huge thanks to Eves,
Jeff Coat, Christopher hasiotis here in Spooky Spirit.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
Research associate Jeff Bartlett, our pal Gabe Lucier, and of
course the Man who Must probably needs no introduction, the
man known for always dressing in a gruesome costume. I
can only assume regardless of what day of the year.
It is Jonathan Strickland aka the Quizz.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
That is a costume, right, Yeah, it's a really successful
balt cat.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
I've never asked them. I don't know how I ask
people that, and of course I think touch it. Thanks
to you go in Casey, Happy Halloween you as well.
Speaker 2 (58:48):
Ben. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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