March 14, 2024 • 42 mins
What happened to the payphone? Were you also stunned the first time you saw Abe Lincoln without a beard? In the second part of this special two-part series, Mo Rocca explores the strange passage of the past to the present, and what we carry with us along the way. Join Ben, Noel, Max and Mo as they learn more about Mobituaries and the art of storytelling with a soul.
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Episode Transcript
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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. Big big shout out to our super producer,
mister Maxwilliams. I'm Ben your nol and we're kind of
like joining the show in media arrests.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oh yes, yes, res Es. Let's jump right in with
mo Raka.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
There's something else that we have to get to here.
At the risk of sounding a bit pretentious, there is
this amazing audio texture. I would haul it to mobituaries
in podcast form because you have this tremendous prowess with
(01:09):
research and with archival footage. Could you know one of
the I think it's actually the very first episode, right
about the.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Kennedy impersonator bond meter. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, And so in there you're going to the secret
CBS vault and pulling footage and stuff. Could you could
you tell us like how finding that stuff works?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, well, so, I mean CBS and there aren't a
lot of them, my guests with CBS News a legacy,
you know, news Broadcaster is a is kind of a
gold mine of history. I mean, the archives go back
at this point, I think you know basically I think
about one hundred years they are. I'm not, you know,
(01:59):
not flattering my bosses by saying this, but it's a
mess in there. The archives stuff is just kind of
thrown around. It's not They're trying to get it organized,
I think. And we were in there. My producer at
the time, Megan Marcus, was in there I think essentially
in the Kennedy section, and her sister Zoe had said,
(02:21):
you know, if you find anything on von Meter, that
could be pretty great. So they initially had the idea,
and the guy who was working in the archives who
was found this great tape, found this great raw tape
of a man named von Meter, who was once wildly
famous as a Kennedy impersonator, whose career forgive Me, died
(02:45):
with the assassination, had much later in life, given an
extraordinarily raw interview about what his life was like, I
mean really from the beginning. And this was shortly before
he died, and only seconds of this interview had ever
aired in an overnight show that was long forgotten. So
(03:08):
this was virgin material and just so raw and frankly,
when I looked at it, I thought it sounds like
a sort of Academy Award obsessed. I don't think I am.
But I looked at and I thought, this is like
a Bill Hayter oscar like the guy, like the way
he just he looks, and I could see Bill Hatter
basically doing this. But to find that kind of archival
(03:32):
stuff is a real gift, you know, especially if no
one's ever heard it. And to hear this guy telling
a story that only he could tell. What was it
like to be incredibly famous, impersonating this president who, whether
you liked him or not politically, was incredibly glamorous, and
who was the center of American life, not just political
(03:54):
but pop cultural life. And then this tragedy happens, this
assassination happens. You become a living reminder of this horrible day.
And he lived for significantly, I thought, forty years. More
so it was almost like biblical forty years in the
desert there the archival really led. It was also just
(04:15):
a really great episode to begin with, because it was
about politics, about comedy, about pop culture, and in a
very dramatic way.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I would like to take this opportunity if I could
give a quick shout out to a good friend of
Ben and mine as well as the brother of super
producer Max Williams Alex Williams, whose podcast Ephemeral is a
fantastic example of diving through the refuse of history. He
has a great line and his description the best sources
on our cultural identity is not the official historical record,
(04:45):
asking the anthropologist, it's the town dump. And I just
think that is very akin to what you do with
digging through these things that a lot of people don't
think about or they don't really have a shelf life
beyond their functional first appearance. I wonder, you know, especially
when you start to use those as jumping off points
to dig into these amazing archives you have access to.
(05:07):
Do you have any any thoughts just about like what
obituary represents in terms of like the historical record or
is it just a starting place, like you know, I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
First time, Yeah, I think it's I think I think
it's the first shutter of history. I think it's a
I think it's a starting point. I think what's kind
of I mean, I don't know. I want every every story,
every person's life to kind of represent something beyond just
their life. So Lawanda Page, who was hysterical as Aunt
(05:39):
Esther and Sanford and Son. If people remember with Red
Fox in the seventies. I was on Twitter one day
and I saw this picture, this beautiful woman in a swimsuit,
young woman, and people somebody said, who does anybody know
who this is? And I thought she looked familiar and
it turned out to be Lawanda Paige, who on Sanford
(06:01):
and Son played this battle axe, this Bible toting battle
axe or the adversary. I love that term battle axe, right, yeah,
the Bible total battle axe, the adversary of Fred Sandford.
And I thought, all right, immediately, there's a great story here.
But then it also turned out to be a story
about party records because she had become a really big
deal comic in the nineteen sixties and seventies, or these
(06:23):
things called party records that Red Box really helped Spearhead
and Richard Pryor really found his voice on, which were
largely black, not entirely, but were these these really raw
comedy albums, really profane, hilarious and that came in brown
paper pat rappers because the art on them was really adult.
(06:47):
But it was it was it was like a whole
subgenre lifestyle. I mean, there was so much there, and
so that to me is like irresistible as delicious because
there's like a and at least two plots A and
B plot. There's her life, and then there's the whole
history of kind of comedy, you know, running in parallel
(07:08):
with it. That's why, by the way, not to go
over the top here, why I love doing my cooking
show because I always thought there was like three plot
lines going. There was the recipe, there was the life
of the grandparent, and then there was my relationship with
a grandparent, and all three tracks running at the same time.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Not to mention, cooking in and of itself is such
a performative thing, like a storytelling opportunity. It's living history. Yeah,
it's great. What we're seeing is.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
The deeper exploration of a public figure versus the lived
experience of the person. And it reminds me of the
first time I saw a rendering whatever of Abraham Lincoln
without a beard.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And I was like, it's like Alex Trebek without a mustag.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I was as confused as my old dog used to
be if it saw me wearing a hat.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I was like, this guy was president. This isn't right.
It's so funny.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I love that. That's so interesting because I wonder, because
I had that experience too with it. I wonder if
that's so, if that's for for how many people that's
a moment kind of an epiphany or a jarring moment
or something. The first time do you remember the first
time you saw Abraham Lincoln without a beard? Yeah, it's
really wild. And he also looks without a beard. He
(08:29):
it's a little spooky because he looks a little like
Jefferson Davis and you're like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Oh no, and also a little known. In fact, all
of his political prowess was contained within his beard, much
like Samsung.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It was Samson exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
That's great.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
He was a facial Samson. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, Abraham Lincoln noted amateur wrestler. Uh, comma on that guy.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
He was. It's a true story. That's true. We shout
him out.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
He was also a president or something at some point.
But you know, you get in situations and did a
few things.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Do we have time for any more dead things?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
We've mentioned floppy disk skew morph So that's our word
of the day. We've got one for you that you
will surely remember.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Mom.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
What happened to the public payphone? Are there any left
in New York City? Do you happen by them?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
I did a story on this for CBS Sunday Morning
a few years ago, and I went to one on
the Upper West Side. I can't quite remember what the
count was when I did this story, which was nearly
ten years ago, I think, but there were very, very few.
The delight of doing this story was hanging out at
a public payphone on the Upper West Side and having
(09:47):
at least a couple of moms come by with their
little kids, because the kids loved to visit it because
it was such a weird artifact. They didn't know what
it was for. They thought it was funny. They thought
it was like a like a weird play booth or
something that you go to Hogwarts or yeah. Yeah, but
it was like and these, by the way, the ones
(10:08):
that were remaining, at least at that point, weren't charging.
And I'm not sure why anyway, but they weren't charging,
and so the mother would hand the kid a quarter
and the kid would put it in. It was hah,
We're having a phone conversation. And you know, they weren't
actually using them, but they were seen as such artifacts.
So yeah, I don't you know. The it's funny because
(10:31):
the phone I don't even remember that many phone booths
because then there were the phone kiosks, the one that
were that were.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Never as relevated, right, it was sort of on a pole,
like on a pole with a phone booth connected by
a chain.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Or they were like almost like semi detached homes like
town homes. You'd see a row of the phones right
at like an airport or something.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And it goes hand in hand with the pager too,
by the way, because that was what many people used
to do, pag your communication that they'd put in the
payphone number. And this is also, uh, it's such an
important thing. It's no longer able to be used as
a plot point in movies anymore. The payphone.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Well, I feel it's a great point because I think
that you know, Melanie Daniels to go back to Hitchcock,
Tippy Hedron's character and the birds would have been dead
two thirds of the way through the movie because remember
when she when they're in Butadega Bay and the birds
start attacking in that sort of climax, like about two
thirds of the way through the movie, and they're all
(11:35):
hiding in that diner and then she steps out of
the diner, but she has to go into a pay
booth and that's where she you know, and then the
birds start like.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Just throwing you yeah, I mean her eyes.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
She would have ended up like Suzanne Plachette with like
her eyes, eyeballs plucked out, and the movie, the movie
would have just ended well, I love I mean, that's
always been an interesting dialectic, like Suzanne Plachette and Tippy Hedgron,
because I think people really ended up loving Suzanne Plischette more.
But Hitchcock preferred blondes, so you know, he killed her
(12:06):
off sooner.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
But anyway, got yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Also Hitchcock had some issues he did he did he
really preferred blondes.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That'd be a diplomatic.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Well, however, I will tell you that I interviewed two
Hitchcock blondes, Eva Marie Saint of course from north By Northwest,
and Kim Novack from Vertigo. I have not interviewed I've
only met Tippy Edron. I haven't interviewed her. But Eva
Marie Saint and Kim Novac both loved Hitchcock.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Just do you have to point that out? Nice? Okay?
Who was it who made some kind of problematic reports
that he is that was I thought, that's what.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
But I mean, after all, he you know, had all
these birds attacker, so she wasn't gonna be abbey, but
she didn't have a phone booth to protect herself.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Really quickly, I didn't realize that the phone the original
phone booth was erected in eighteen eighty one was known
as the fans Kiosk in pots in Berlin. I was
in Berlin. Yeah, that was a public plaza.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yeah, and do we know what it was made of?
Because one thing I found in that story also is
that the phone boots that were all made of steel
were actually kind of terrible, like the the acoustics were
really really bad, Like the ones he wanted were the
British ones that were all wooden.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Last time I was, I was over in London. I
did the same thing as those kids in your in
your CBS piece. We happened by you know, one of
the At this point it's it's as British as like
the famous black cabs or whatever. Uh So I'm an
unrepentant basic tourist. So we saw the phone booth and
(13:43):
I remember, uh, this is embarrassing, guys. But I remember,
like on a cell phone, texting one of my friends
in the US and be like, Hey, I'm gonna call
you on a phone, and he was like, you have
a phone, you're texting me. It was like, hold on
for like eight minutes while I figure out this complicated
series of numbers.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
And you actually placed a call from the phone booth
phone to I think, wow, okay.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That must have been pricey. I was. It was first.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
It was not the best financial decision a story, you know,
But well, I think the three of us were way
more impressed with the idea than the person I was calling.
But still, you gotta get one under your belt. I'll
tell you what I love and I bet you you
do tum.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
And this is just something that I think of when
I think of like the Golden Age of Hollywood is
like those really elegant, wooden, kind of French door telephone
boosts that you'd find in hotel lobbies. Yes, if you've
ever been to sleep no more. The thing that the
mckitchen Hotel, which is very much styled after that era,
(14:51):
there's a there's these little phone kiosks you can go
into and actually like, you know, pick up the little
phone and there's a weird message that is spoken to you.
But that is one style. And then of course we've
got the They went through different evolutions. You have the
kind of French store ones, you have ones that were
really bad acoustically, and then they kind of landed on
the ones that gave you a little more privacy. Originally
(15:12):
they didn't give you privacy. Privacy became a big, a
big concern. But it wasn't until eighteen eighty nine that
these were actually coin operated. And originally the original ones
you had to buy a ticket. Tickets. Yeah, Like, I
don't even know how that would work logistically. It's interesting, Scalpers.
I love the idea of a phone call.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Scalper. He's like outside the.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Booth, you know what I mean, hold out for weeks.
You can't get into this booth. You cannot.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
So there there are other things. I think we've got
to go to you with this. Given your expertise, what
you have been teaching us about the nature of obituaries
and indeed the way that the past stays with us
even when it seems perhaps ephemeral, we have to ask you,
what are some non human things that you believe the
(16:05):
future might miss, you know, similar to similar to our
jfk impersonator, similar to the pager, even though the page
is still sort of around.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
But you know what I'm saying, mean things that are
around now that people might miss, Yeah, things that were
already missing.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Right, things that in the in generations from now will
be yeah, will be missed.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Or curiosity if way.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Like going you know, going the way of the Dodo.
In some respects, I feel like it was ethical and
responsible of us to mention one of the big downers,
which is that print is often in trouble in terms
of like newspapers and stuff. But what what do you think, like,
if we're sending this as a time capsule to the future,
what what will people miss?
Speaker 3 (16:54):
I mean this might seem really obvious and it just
occurs to me now, but I mean I think that
in twenty or thirty years, you know, our kids and
grandkids might think it's funny that people actually drove cars,
actually drove them. If the self driving thing happens, I
can imagine that I think they might.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
So risky, it's so dangerous. My kid is fifteen and
it's about to you know, get a driver's license I
live with in Atlanta. I'm terrified. It's just it's always
been such a risky proposition. I hope it goes that way.
I'm sorry it's been on my mind.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
So well, that's that's interesting, and I also wonder and
for real downer, but I think in fifty years people
will look back at cancer treatment. I hope they do
and think, are you guys crazy that you would pump
chemicals into your body? Like then think it was just
Barb barrack and like yeah, and think it was just
kind of crazy, like the equivalent of like, you know,
(17:44):
drilling a hole in your.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Head or using leashing leaching, Yeah, leaching.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
So I think it could be that, and I think
it could be the you know driving as well, Like
so people would get behind a wheel and then every
year tens of thousands of people would die on the highways,
you know, like.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Roll the dice.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Oh, I love that you mentioned this because I've thought
of this one too, and totally think to me, the
most bizarre explanation to like future grandkids or generations would
be no non autonomous vehicles, Right, we used to drive
by ourselves and see, well, how many people died oh
(18:22):
a lot. But we had this honor system.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
You see.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
There were lines that were painted on the road and
you just sort of agreed that you wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Go over them.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And they're like, oh, so, like you would hit them
if you turned, and like, no, no, it was just paint.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
People went nuts. That's funny.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And I wonder about eyeglasses too.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
One thing.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Not to gross everyone else out, but this is more
like something that I remember from the past that and
maybe maybe I've just been fortunate, but I remember pack
it on fifty five. I remember in the nineteen seventies.
I totally use this kind of gross. But in the
nineteen seventies everyone had BO. I just remember that.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Like it just was so stinky London, the great stink
of London before sanitation. I mean, it's just you.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Know, yeah, and of course it was mixed in with
cigarette smoke and all that.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
People just had.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Like summer in the nineteen seventies just everyone had BO.
And I was like, you know, if you went down
this Smithsonian, it was like bo from all over the
country was coming down to the air and space being Yeah,
it really was like a stew and like and and
it was you know, Washington's already kind of very swampy
(19:41):
and human, but the whole city just stank. And I
I think what happened is maybe deodorant became much and
it became much more accessible or something because better and
better and better because people don't stink in the same way.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Do they know? You run out much more so if
you're the one you can usually people speak it out.
People notice also, I do. I do love that shout
out to this Smithsonian. Uh and the idea that every
summer they had an accidental bo curation, right.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Well, they work creating. It's so interesting. You're right, they
work curating a lot of BO there. And partly was
because it remained and I think it remains free as a
taxpayer dollars free, so a lot of tourists would just
use it as for the free air conditioning, just so
it come in there.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah. That is a pro travel tip, y'all. If you
if you like, have a flight that's late and you
need somewhere to stash your bags, go to a museum.
They'll hold your bags for you like a hotel, and
then you can just wander around the museum, even leave
and have lunch, come back, then get your bags go
to the airport, and that secret stays with just us.
Just us, do not contact the Smithsonian, folks. I just
(20:51):
wanted to really quickly add for my last last bit here.
A lot of this makes me think of that scene
with Little Elijah Wood and Back to the Future too,
where he does, you know, Martin McFly does his thing
with the guns the video game cabinet with the like pistols.
It's like an old and it's at this point in
the in the you know, the timeline of the films.
It's the future. This thing is a blast from the pass.
He's in this bar or this restaurant, Dino if. It's
(21:13):
like very nineties throwback. And he does it and like
bbbble knocks him all down, hits all the targets, and
then you know, puts him in his holster like he
does in the first movie. And then Lille Elijah Wood,
wearing his weird future headgear, says you have to use
your hands. It's never clear what that actually means, like
what would the alternative be to use your mind or what.
But I just always that always stuck with me, and
(21:35):
it's exact what we're talking about here. You know, the
way something that was so obvious and so the only
way to go could in five, ten, fifteen, twenty years
be just like absurd to a new generation.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Grandpa's got this weird obsession with using his hands for stuff,
Like I know he's from a different time.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Mo.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
This is been amazing. We have just we have just
like two quick last questions. Yeah, that's all right, okay,
So uh, fellow ridiculous historians, we are literally hanging out
with the gentleman who wrote the book on presidential dogs.
I can't believe we didn't mention that, Matt.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I didn't know that. Ye be we love presidential pets,
ridiculous system. Yeah, I mean, we've done a couple episodes
on it.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
We uh we mentioned your book previously, All the President's Pets,
the story of one reporter who refused to roll over
with this mode. We have to ask you our producer Max,
he met Max. He's gonna kill us if I don't
ask you this. Who's your favorite presidential pooch?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:46):
I I always I have some affection for Warren Harding's
Airdale Laddie Boy, and I love that the newspaper boys
of America each gave I guess pennies or was it Yeah,
I guess, and that was I think that what went
into the statue that was in Maid of Laddie Boy
when Warren Harding died before they realized that he was
(23:06):
one of the most corrupt residents in history. I loved
the Kennedy's romance between Charlie the Welsh Terrier, who was
kind of he was sort of he was pretty hot
that dog and Pushinka, the beautiful fluffy Russian dog, because
I always imagine, I mean, and I say this having
never sat through all of Doctor Shivago, but I love
(23:29):
the theme music, Lara's theme and and I always you know,
I mean, we actually told the story on a podcast
about Nepo babies because Charlie the Welsh Terrier was the
nephew of Asked from the Thin Man series, and Pushinka
was the daughter of Strelko, the first dog to come
back from space alive, because the Soviets before then, right
(23:52):
when the first dog they sent out like yeah, like
I just died out there, that's you know, and but.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
You know, into a camera after or maybe it was
the other way.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
And Pushenka then was given as a gift because Khrushchaub
was termed by Jackie, I think in Vienna and gave Pushinka,
the daughter of Strelka and Belka Belka interestingly, because Belka
I didn't I don't think Belka went into space. I
think Belka was like a stay at home dad, and
you know, well, Ostrelka was off in space. But Pushenka
(24:22):
was very beautible, and she was extremely fluffy and as
you'd hope, and she came to the White House and
the Kennedy's had a managerie pet. But it was Charlie
who went in for the kill. I mean, he just
I actually thought the clipper of the German shepherd, he
probably wanted Pushenka and probably thought he was going to
get her. But Charlie just had that swagger and you know,
(24:44):
and I've always imagined them with the single string of
spaghetti like I have to believe that they did that
lady in the tramp thing. But when they when when
they they they made love to each other. Pushinka and
Charlie de Welsh Terrier. They had their offspring were called
Pupneck and so I've always loved that story that the
pup knicks were given away during a letter writing campaign,
(25:05):
So I've always loved them. I do love Fido, who
was the first, of course fighter, and that was you know,
that was Lincoln's dog. And Fido is the very first
presidential dog to be photographed, and there is a photograph
of post photograph with him on what looks like sort
of a plinth that sort of draped. And the thing
(25:26):
that always saddens me about Fido is that after the
president was murdered, that a drunk killed fighter with a bottle,
and so that always has upset me. But Fido is
just has the soul of Lincoln, as does Lincoln's horse,
Old Bob. Like the name of the horse was Old Bob,
and he looks like just so kindly. You know, we
(25:49):
don't have enough kindly people. It's the word I always
associate with, what is it, mister Brownlow and Oliver Twist.
He's kindly, like we need more kindly, Like I'm sick
of kind I'm wrilli into kindly, and.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Also like doing poorly, I'm doing poorly kindly. I just
remember as a kid, like hearing Fido as just a
stand in for dog tunes cartoons. It was just such
before I even had any idea what the history was.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
It was like an eponymous trademark or whatever result where
you just google something.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Now there's I think it's I think it's time for
a fighter comeback. Yeah, I think it is. Yeah, I
think it's time for a fighter. But I think that
those are among my favorite. I mean, I love the
Coolidge's dogs. I mean it's like Rob Roy and what
is the other one. They're in the first Lady Portrait
of Grace Coolidge and they're just beautiful, those dogs. And uh,
(26:43):
but yeah, there have been there. It's really hard to
choose a favorite presidential it was a presidential dog or
preessential pet. Yeah, yeah, way, Max is saying what about
what what is Max saying? I can't here we go?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Max's mask is saying, what about the raccoon? Coolidge is raccoon?
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Well, the Coolidge raccoon. Uh yeah, I'm forgetting the name
of the raccoon.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And just get the reccoon.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Isn't the raccoon? Didn't the raccoon have something to do
with like a local softball team or something.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
But Rebecca, Rebecca, now Rebecca the raccoon.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I do remember Rebecca And yeah, Rebecca, yeah, because I
was maybe conflating some of the Hoover's pets with the
Coolidge's pets. The Coolidges had the second most pets. The
most pets belong to Teddy Roosevelt, who had thirty six pets.
What is Max saying there now right? The cow Pauline
Waynees is the name of the cow. She's a Holstein
(27:43):
and she belonged to Taft. So Taft had the cow. Yeah,
and then then Wilson had the ram old Ike and
then who developed a tobacco addiction from eating cigarette butts
and was retired to a Maryland farm where he.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Died different time.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah, it was a really imperdent time.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Max just wants us to know that they got another
another pet, raccoon, I believe Ruben, and Ruben was apparently,
according to our chat here, Ruben was severely a second
tier pet.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
He was just overshadowed by but he was.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Yeah, he's like the second Darren of raccoons. You know,
if you you're a fan of be which But you know,
I'll tell you one thing that in this is I
have not disclosed this anywhere, and this is hot off
the presses from Kinderhook, New York. I recently did a
story on Martin van Buren's home, linden Walled, named after
the beautiful Linden trees in the Hudson Valley, and I
(28:43):
one of the things I was so excited about was
that Martin van Buren had been given tiger cubs by
the Sultan of Oman during his presidency, and he was
known as the little Magician, so I always imagined him
sort of as a sincreed or roy, the one who
wasn't mauled. Sorry, but I always imagined. And when I
went up to Linden Wall to do this story, I
(29:07):
asked the ranger about the tiger cubs, and the ranger said,
without any warning, without any trigger warning, he said, that's apocryphal.
He didn't It's been proven that he did not have
tiger cubs from the Sultan of Oman. And I gasped
so hard that my producer acted like like as if
(29:27):
this was like I was finding out who deep Throat
was for the you know, like in Watergate, Like I
like that this was so so earth shattering or like
such a major like like should be on like all
networks at once.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
That's the kind of story you just inherently believe because
it seems right to just see. Oh, of course that's true,
you know, and you just kind of move on.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well, I just with his mutton chops and which they
call Martin chops there like to buy gravity. He looked
like he looked like he should be in a circus,
Martin Vamberen. So it just con It's one of these
things that we have to in the news business to
be skeptical that just because something seems to fit the narrative,
we can't accept it right away. And for me, tiger
(30:06):
cubs from the Sultan of Oman underlined affirmed everything I
assumed about Martin van Buren, and I should have gotten
a second source on it.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Martin van Buren Kama, who did not, in fact own
tiger cubs.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Comma, you heard it here first God today, that is
that is the circle. I was just going to say,
speaking of folks that did or did not get mauled,
any quick hot takes on Commander the German shepherd that
apparently likes to eat secret service agents the White House
You major, right, well, no, commander as well. Believe yeah,
(30:41):
there's there's two. I don't know if they're both problematic,
but the news that I've been seeing is referring to
commander the German Shepherd, who I believe like has had
multiple attacks, one of which involved a bite so deep
that the Secret Service agent had to get six stitches.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Well, you know, so my service on that beat and
did when the book was published in two thousand and four,
So I'm not really great with posts. With post two thousand,
I moved on to grandmothers and the Ravioli at that point.
Jules Jusseran was the French ambassador to the US during
the administration of Teddy Roosevelt, and he had the seed
(31:18):
of his pants ripped out by a dog that one
of the kids had. I think it was a dog
that did that. Yeah, can Max check on that Jules
Juiceran and that his pants were literally torn by a
dog that attacked his ass and want to do Yeah,
(31:42):
so can you can we check on that? Get just
a quick Google search because it's it did happen? I
don't or or maybe it was an evil cat, but
I do know that we had all to say that
there is a precedent for presidential pets attacking people, attacking officials.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, Dollie Madison apparently had a very violent McCaw she
had Oh wait, wait, what did Max say.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Max is coming in hot with the facts.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
That seeking in the phone and peacefull in knowledge. It's
just for you right now. It is Pete. Uh.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Pete tore the pants off Jean Jules Jusserande.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
What a name for a diplomat.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
And he also, Pete was a fighter. He was a
bull terrier, according to many reports baby a bulldog, maybe
a Boston bull terrier. But he's a real hard case
Pete uh. And in nineteen oh seven in May he
got a little bit of not amazing press for because
he had a penchant for fighting another dog that would
(32:53):
get in fights with him on the White House grounds
and then run away and then come back and fight
another day. That's a very interesting thing. Pete had a nemesis.
I wasn't aware of that.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
And I have to say, I mean, I wish I
had the discipline for it. It would be an interesting
piece to write with the news about the Biden's dog.
So you know we've been here before.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, I like that. You bring it back
to history, as we do to always do here on
ridiculous systems. Yeah, the thing with history of the name.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
One one more question for you, please, almost a question?
So you were also in addition to your many works
of journalism, the shows, the podcast Mobituaries from Morocca, you
were also in what I think we can agree is
objectively the best episode of Law and Order SVU Authority,
(33:42):
which is season nine, episode seventeen. So we have to
ask what lessons did you give that up and coming
actor Robin Williams about showbiz?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
You know, it's so funny.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
First of all, I know that that episode replays a
lot because I get a check for four cents like
every few months, because I mean, it's aired so many times.
The flash mob that I was the leader of in
that episode, we shot that scene. One of the scenes
at least in Bryant Park. The other one I think
was in Grand Central Station. I guess where the two were.
And all I remember is that Robin Williams was It's
(34:18):
interesting because he was entertaining all the extras and there
were so many because there was a flash mob, and
you know, when the cameras weren't rolling, but I was
standing sort of behind him, and I remember that he
kept opening his body up. I really is when I
haven't thought about this since then, but he kept sort
of opening up his body to bring me into it,
(34:39):
and I was sort of a little bit frozen because
I thought I can't possibly like join in with you
to start trying to like keep these people entertained. So
I kept shrinking back. But I thought it was really,
I mean it was it was. It was very telling
and incredibly generous that he kept doing that, like like
you get in here too, and you you know, you
be funny with me, and that he was very very approachable.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah yeah, yeah, ok, sorry, No, I was saying, by
all accounts of exactly what you're describing.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
I also remember that when we did the scene like
Grand Central Station, Chris Maloney was a really nice guy.
I don't know him. I only dealt with him on that.
Every single woman, it's felt like who walked through their
rush hour was like when they would just come into
his orbit, was like ready to just abandon their husband
(35:31):
and just like.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Throw him onto the track. I mean completely.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
I mean like and also like we're talking like New
York Long Island, like women who were like you know,
you know all types, but like you know, an Italian
broad who was like I got a husband at home,
but he can feed himself. I mean like like just
it was just the energy that was, I mean, how
(35:56):
he handled it. It was miraculously the energy at him.
He was kind of crazy and.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
It sounds like it was none too subtle.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
But the one of the things here that I think,
speaking of form and function, one of the things that
we have just encountered here towards towards the end of
our show is your gift for storytelling. You bring people
back to these moments, right, whether it's whether it is
maybe more recent past, maybe it is further into the
(36:29):
years of your And we just have to say, and Nola,
I'm sorry I derailed us to talk about law and
order escue.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
We love it. We're professional big fanc here. We stole
the sound cue for the longest time with our previous producer,
Casey Pegrams Casey on the case and we do the
dump dumb. But then we were eventually alerted by legal
that that was probably some very pricey ip and we
shouldn't be playing with fire with Dick Wolf because that
guy'll come for you. So we just replaced it with
us going dump dumb.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
We were told in a very kind way, we got
a a our pages went off. We got a three
six thousand asterisk eight four.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
And one seven. Yes, and we got a wolf he
means business.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
It's I actually was driving my truck and I heard
about it over the CB.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
But yeah, yeah, I'm with you, Ben. I mean, and
it's interesting how that need or that drive to tell
stories comes from the place of wanting to share with
people and wanting to communicate with people. And it could
be talking about a one off acting gig you did
in two thousand and eight, or it could literally be
delving into the archives of obituaries and history and presidential dogs.
(37:41):
And the impulse I think comes from the same place,
and that's one of connectedness and wanting to share and
be part of the world, you know, And I think, Yeah,
you're excellent adit mode.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Well, thank you both. This is I really enjoyed this.
This has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Speaking of generosity, so thank you for being so very
generous with your time. We do like to deliver.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
The documentary about obituary writers for the New York Times
is and this was tricky to me too. It's literally
named oh bit.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Yes, yes, it was right there, the whole right in
my backyard.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, so where can uh this is a question. I
feel like we're obligated to do. It's part of the
you know, it's part of the show. But uh, you
have so many projects, you have so many endeavors. Where
can people learn more about your work not just with
mobituaries with Moroka, but your your many other projects.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Oh gee whiz. I think like on X the platform
formerly known as Twitter. No, I mean if you, I
mean I'm on I'm on CBS Sunday Morning, you know,
a couple of a couple of episodes each month. Uh,
and the podcast is through there. I have a new
book coming out in June because I can't stay away
from puns called rock to Genarians about out people who
(39:01):
had triumph slate in life, so and so sort of
the pre dad, if you will. But yeah, I'm around.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Well, we appreciate you being around with us on ridiculous history.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
And holy smokes. As much as we want to keep going,
we're going to have to call it a day.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
What a ride, nol.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
I think we were both we came in with like
high expectations. I think we're both even more surprised.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Oh man, we well, I mean, first of all, you know,
we had all this whole plan about what we were
going to do and when mo Roka, you know, is
on your podcast. God laughs at your plans when up.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah, there's some stuff we didn't we didn't get to,
but it was just so so much cooler to learn
about kind of this history of obituaries, the ephemeral nature
of the past, and peak behind the curtain.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Folks.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
We're recording this like a week after we did the
actual show.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Still reeling, and Max is here stif Yeah, yeah, Max, just.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Take you super producer Max and h we It's funny
because we got for anybody who's been a performer in
the past. You know, when you do live shows, you
get something sometimes called a show high. And I think
we had a show high, man. I think we just
like high fived each other and then left. I'm still high, bro,
definitely from the show thing. By the way, I was
(40:24):
scrolling around when I realized that I have like secret
like sort of faux cable through my Roku. It's like
the whole menu system and everything like on the old Exfinity,
you know, systems where you can like scroll through the
different things that are on quote unquote regular TV.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
And little bar popped up said Celebrity Jeopardy and guess
who was on him.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Was it.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
It was Morocca? Oh okay, I didn't know if it
was a shot Aalan twist. Funny thing is though the
other three like what do you call contestants? Never heard
of them, so to me it was the only celebrity
featured in this edition of Celebrity. Are they still doing
co hosting duties with Ken? It's just Ken. This must
(41:06):
have been a rerun because I think Miam Biolic was
on it, so I guess that was sort of a
trial bassess thing.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, this brings us to anytime we mentioned celebrities. This
brings us to our ending credits, the celebrities of Ridiculous
history that we would like.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
To thank for making this show possible.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Super producer mister Max Williams, Thank you, Noel, and of
course famous famous arch villain of the show who aspires
to be on Celebrity Jeopardy one day, Jonathan Strickland, a k.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Thequister. Do you think the Celebrity Jeopardy contest and still
have to take that brutal test that mortals have to take?
Probably not they probably, I.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Think it depends they might get softballed.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Mo absolutely did and probably absolutely past it a million percent.
The reason I even brought up Mo being on Celebrity
Jeopardy is that guy is just a polymath of information.
I mean, he is a font of data and as
you mentioned, Ben can deliver it and tell stories with
such precision and personality that it was just absolutely a
(42:08):
joy to get to spend some time with that fellow.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Thanks so thanks to Mode. Thanks also to Eve's Jeffcoat.
Christopher hasiotis Gabe Blues. Yay, I'm saying his.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Name different now, his backcent on the Gabe, you know,
with a little vibe to it, like a like some intonation.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Big big things course, yeah, big big thanks of course
to Zarah and Elizabeth and Dave over Ridiculous Crime and
of course no big thanks to.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
You, sir Ah. Yes, of course, thank you Ben and
to you as well. 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. Big big shout out to our super producer,
mister Maxwilliams. I'm Ben your nol and we're kind of
like joining the show in media arrests.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oh yes, yes, res Es. Let's jump right in with
mo Raka.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
There's something else that we have to get to here.
At the risk of sounding a bit pretentious, there is
this amazing audio texture. I would haul it to mobituaries
in podcast form because you have this tremendous prowess with
(01:09):
research and with archival footage. Could you know one of
the I think it's actually the very first episode, right
about the.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Kennedy impersonator bond meter. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, And so in there you're going to the secret
CBS vault and pulling footage and stuff. Could you could
you tell us like how finding that stuff works?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, well, so, I mean CBS and there aren't a
lot of them, my guests with CBS News a legacy,
you know, news Broadcaster is a is kind of a
gold mine of history. I mean, the archives go back
at this point, I think you know basically I think
about one hundred years they are. I'm not, you know,
(01:59):
not flattering my bosses by saying this, but it's a
mess in there. The archives stuff is just kind of
thrown around. It's not They're trying to get it organized,
I think. And we were in there. My producer at
the time, Megan Marcus, was in there I think essentially
in the Kennedy section, and her sister Zoe had said,
(02:21):
you know, if you find anything on von Meter, that
could be pretty great. So they initially had the idea,
and the guy who was working in the archives who
was found this great tape, found this great raw tape
of a man named von Meter, who was once wildly
famous as a Kennedy impersonator, whose career forgive Me, died
(02:45):
with the assassination, had much later in life, given an
extraordinarily raw interview about what his life was like, I
mean really from the beginning. And this was shortly before
he died, and only seconds of this interview had ever
aired in an overnight show that was long forgotten. So
(03:08):
this was virgin material and just so raw and frankly,
when I looked at it, I thought it sounds like
a sort of Academy Award obsessed. I don't think I am.
But I looked at and I thought, this is like
a Bill Hayter oscar like the guy, like the way
he just he looks, and I could see Bill Hatter
basically doing this. But to find that kind of archival
(03:32):
stuff is a real gift, you know, especially if no
one's ever heard it. And to hear this guy telling
a story that only he could tell. What was it
like to be incredibly famous, impersonating this president who, whether
you liked him or not politically, was incredibly glamorous, and
who was the center of American life, not just political
(03:54):
but pop cultural life. And then this tragedy happens, this
assassination happens. You become a living reminder of this horrible day.
And he lived for significantly, I thought, forty years. More
so it was almost like biblical forty years in the
desert there the archival really led. It was also just
(04:15):
a really great episode to begin with, because it was
about politics, about comedy, about pop culture, and in a
very dramatic way.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I would like to take this opportunity if I could
give a quick shout out to a good friend of
Ben and mine as well as the brother of super
producer Max Williams Alex Williams, whose podcast Ephemeral is a
fantastic example of diving through the refuse of history. He
has a great line and his description the best sources
on our cultural identity is not the official historical record,
(04:45):
asking the anthropologist, it's the town dump. And I just
think that is very akin to what you do with
digging through these things that a lot of people don't
think about or they don't really have a shelf life
beyond their functional first appearance. I wonder, you know, especially
when you start to use those as jumping off points
to dig into these amazing archives you have access to.
(05:07):
Do you have any any thoughts just about like what
obituary represents in terms of like the historical record or
is it just a starting place, like you know, I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
First time, Yeah, I think it's I think I think
it's the first shutter of history. I think it's a
I think it's a starting point. I think what's kind
of I mean, I don't know. I want every every story,
every person's life to kind of represent something beyond just
their life. So Lawanda Page, who was hysterical as Aunt
(05:39):
Esther and Sanford and Son. If people remember with Red
Fox in the seventies. I was on Twitter one day
and I saw this picture, this beautiful woman in a swimsuit,
young woman, and people somebody said, who does anybody know
who this is? And I thought she looked familiar and
it turned out to be Lawanda Paige, who on Sanford
(06:01):
and Son played this battle axe, this Bible toting battle
axe or the adversary. I love that term battle axe, right, yeah,
the Bible total battle axe, the adversary of Fred Sandford.
And I thought, all right, immediately, there's a great story here.
But then it also turned out to be a story
about party records because she had become a really big
deal comic in the nineteen sixties and seventies, or these
(06:23):
things called party records that Red Box really helped Spearhead
and Richard Pryor really found his voice on, which were
largely black, not entirely, but were these these really raw
comedy albums, really profane, hilarious and that came in brown
paper pat rappers because the art on them was really adult.
(06:47):
But it was it was it was like a whole
subgenre lifestyle. I mean, there was so much there, and
so that to me is like irresistible as delicious because
there's like a and at least two plots A and
B plot. There's her life, and then there's the whole
history of kind of comedy, you know, running in parallel
(07:08):
with it. That's why, by the way, not to go
over the top here, why I love doing my cooking
show because I always thought there was like three plot
lines going. There was the recipe, there was the life
of the grandparent, and then there was my relationship with
a grandparent, and all three tracks running at the same time.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Not to mention, cooking in and of itself is such
a performative thing, like a storytelling opportunity. It's living history. Yeah,
it's great. What we're seeing is.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
The deeper exploration of a public figure versus the lived
experience of the person. And it reminds me of the
first time I saw a rendering whatever of Abraham Lincoln
without a beard.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And I was like, it's like Alex Trebek without a mustag.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I was as confused as my old dog used to
be if it saw me wearing a hat.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I was like, this guy was president. This isn't right.
It's so funny.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I love that. That's so interesting because I wonder, because
I had that experience too with it. I wonder if
that's so, if that's for for how many people that's
a moment kind of an epiphany or a jarring moment
or something. The first time do you remember the first
time you saw Abraham Lincoln without a beard? Yeah, it's
really wild. And he also looks without a beard. He
(08:29):
it's a little spooky because he looks a little like
Jefferson Davis and you're like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Oh no, and also a little known. In fact, all
of his political prowess was contained within his beard, much
like Samsung.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It was Samson exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
That's great.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
He was a facial Samson. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, Abraham Lincoln noted amateur wrestler. Uh, comma on that guy.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
He was. It's a true story. That's true. We shout
him out.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
He was also a president or something at some point.
But you know, you get in situations and did a
few things.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Do we have time for any more dead things?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
We've mentioned floppy disk skew morph So that's our word
of the day. We've got one for you that you
will surely remember.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Mom.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
What happened to the public payphone? Are there any left
in New York City? Do you happen by them?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
I did a story on this for CBS Sunday Morning
a few years ago, and I went to one on
the Upper West Side. I can't quite remember what the
count was when I did this story, which was nearly
ten years ago, I think, but there were very, very few.
The delight of doing this story was hanging out at
a public payphone on the Upper West Side and having
(09:47):
at least a couple of moms come by with their
little kids, because the kids loved to visit it because
it was such a weird artifact. They didn't know what
it was for. They thought it was funny. They thought
it was like a like a weird play booth or
something that you go to Hogwarts or yeah. Yeah, but
it was like and these, by the way, the ones
(10:08):
that were remaining, at least at that point, weren't charging.
And I'm not sure why anyway, but they weren't charging,
and so the mother would hand the kid a quarter
and the kid would put it in. It was hah,
We're having a phone conversation. And you know, they weren't
actually using them, but they were seen as such artifacts.
So yeah, I don't you know. The it's funny because
(10:31):
the phone I don't even remember that many phone booths
because then there were the phone kiosks, the one that
were that were.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Never as relevated, right, it was sort of on a pole,
like on a pole with a phone booth connected by
a chain.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Or they were like almost like semi detached homes like
town homes. You'd see a row of the phones right
at like an airport or something.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And it goes hand in hand with the pager too,
by the way, because that was what many people used
to do, pag your communication that they'd put in the
payphone number. And this is also, uh, it's such an
important thing. It's no longer able to be used as
a plot point in movies anymore. The payphone.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Well, I feel it's a great point because I think
that you know, Melanie Daniels to go back to Hitchcock,
Tippy Hedron's character and the birds would have been dead
two thirds of the way through the movie because remember
when she when they're in Butadega Bay and the birds
start attacking in that sort of climax, like about two
thirds of the way through the movie, and they're all
(11:35):
hiding in that diner and then she steps out of
the diner, but she has to go into a pay
booth and that's where she you know, and then the
birds start like.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Just throwing you yeah, I mean her eyes.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
She would have ended up like Suzanne Plachette with like
her eyes, eyeballs plucked out, and the movie, the movie
would have just ended well, I love I mean, that's
always been an interesting dialectic, like Suzanne Plachette and Tippy Hedgron,
because I think people really ended up loving Suzanne Plischette more.
But Hitchcock preferred blondes, so you know, he killed her
(12:06):
off sooner.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
But anyway, got yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Also Hitchcock had some issues he did he did he
really preferred blondes.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That'd be a diplomatic.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Well, however, I will tell you that I interviewed two
Hitchcock blondes, Eva Marie Saint of course from north By Northwest,
and Kim Novack from Vertigo. I have not interviewed I've
only met Tippy Edron. I haven't interviewed her. But Eva
Marie Saint and Kim Novac both loved Hitchcock.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Just do you have to point that out? Nice? Okay?
Who was it who made some kind of problematic reports
that he is that was I thought, that's what.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
But I mean, after all, he you know, had all
these birds attacker, so she wasn't gonna be abbey, but
she didn't have a phone booth to protect herself.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Really quickly, I didn't realize that the phone the original
phone booth was erected in eighteen eighty one was known
as the fans Kiosk in pots in Berlin. I was
in Berlin. Yeah, that was a public plaza.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yeah, and do we know what it was made of?
Because one thing I found in that story also is
that the phone boots that were all made of steel
were actually kind of terrible, like the the acoustics were
really really bad, Like the ones he wanted were the
British ones that were all wooden.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Last time I was, I was over in London. I
did the same thing as those kids in your in
your CBS piece. We happened by you know, one of
the At this point it's it's as British as like
the famous black cabs or whatever. Uh So I'm an
unrepentant basic tourist. So we saw the phone booth and
(13:43):
I remember, uh, this is embarrassing, guys. But I remember,
like on a cell phone, texting one of my friends
in the US and be like, Hey, I'm gonna call
you on a phone, and he was like, you have
a phone, you're texting me. It was like, hold on
for like eight minutes while I figure out this complicated
series of numbers.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
And you actually placed a call from the phone booth
phone to I think, wow, okay.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That must have been pricey. I was. It was first.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
It was not the best financial decision a story, you know,
But well, I think the three of us were way
more impressed with the idea than the person I was calling.
But still, you gotta get one under your belt. I'll
tell you what I love and I bet you you
do tum.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
And this is just something that I think of when
I think of like the Golden Age of Hollywood is
like those really elegant, wooden, kind of French door telephone
boosts that you'd find in hotel lobbies. Yes, if you've
ever been to sleep no more. The thing that the
mckitchen Hotel, which is very much styled after that era,
(14:51):
there's a there's these little phone kiosks you can go
into and actually like, you know, pick up the little
phone and there's a weird message that is spoken to you.
But that is one style. And then of course we've
got the They went through different evolutions. You have the
kind of French store ones, you have ones that were
really bad acoustically, and then they kind of landed on
the ones that gave you a little more privacy. Originally
(15:12):
they didn't give you privacy. Privacy became a big, a
big concern. But it wasn't until eighteen eighty nine that
these were actually coin operated. And originally the original ones
you had to buy a ticket. Tickets. Yeah, Like, I
don't even know how that would work logistically. It's interesting, Scalpers.
I love the idea of a phone call.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Scalper. He's like outside the.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Booth, you know what I mean, hold out for weeks.
You can't get into this booth. You cannot.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
So there there are other things. I think we've got
to go to you with this. Given your expertise, what
you have been teaching us about the nature of obituaries
and indeed the way that the past stays with us
even when it seems perhaps ephemeral, we have to ask you,
what are some non human things that you believe the
(16:05):
future might miss, you know, similar to similar to our
jfk impersonator, similar to the pager, even though the page
is still sort of around.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
But you know what I'm saying, mean things that are
around now that people might miss, Yeah, things that were
already missing.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Right, things that in the in generations from now will
be yeah, will be missed.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Or curiosity if way.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Like going you know, going the way of the Dodo.
In some respects, I feel like it was ethical and
responsible of us to mention one of the big downers,
which is that print is often in trouble in terms
of like newspapers and stuff. But what what do you think, like,
if we're sending this as a time capsule to the future,
what what will people miss?
Speaker 3 (16:54):
I mean this might seem really obvious and it just
occurs to me now, but I mean I think that
in twenty or thirty years, you know, our kids and
grandkids might think it's funny that people actually drove cars,
actually drove them. If the self driving thing happens, I
can imagine that I think they might.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
So risky, it's so dangerous. My kid is fifteen and
it's about to you know, get a driver's license I
live with in Atlanta. I'm terrified. It's just it's always
been such a risky proposition. I hope it goes that way.
I'm sorry it's been on my mind.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
So well, that's that's interesting, and I also wonder and
for real downer, but I think in fifty years people
will look back at cancer treatment. I hope they do
and think, are you guys crazy that you would pump
chemicals into your body? Like then think it was just
Barb barrack and like yeah, and think it was just
kind of crazy, like the equivalent of like, you know,
(17:44):
drilling a hole in your.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Head or using leashing leaching, Yeah, leaching.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
So I think it could be that, and I think
it could be the you know driving as well, Like
so people would get behind a wheel and then every
year tens of thousands of people would die on the highways,
you know, like.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Roll the dice.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Oh, I love that you mentioned this because I've thought
of this one too, and totally think to me, the
most bizarre explanation to like future grandkids or generations would
be no non autonomous vehicles, Right, we used to drive
by ourselves and see, well, how many people died oh
(18:22):
a lot. But we had this honor system.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
You see.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
There were lines that were painted on the road and
you just sort of agreed that you wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Go over them.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And they're like, oh, so, like you would hit them
if you turned, and like, no, no, it was just paint.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
People went nuts. That's funny.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And I wonder about eyeglasses too.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
One thing.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Not to gross everyone else out, but this is more
like something that I remember from the past that and
maybe maybe I've just been fortunate, but I remember pack
it on fifty five. I remember in the nineteen seventies.
I totally use this kind of gross. But in the
nineteen seventies everyone had BO. I just remember that.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Like it just was so stinky London, the great stink
of London before sanitation. I mean, it's just you.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Know, yeah, and of course it was mixed in with
cigarette smoke and all that.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
People just had.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Like summer in the nineteen seventies just everyone had BO.
And I was like, you know, if you went down
this Smithsonian, it was like bo from all over the
country was coming down to the air and space being Yeah,
it really was like a stew and like and and
it was you know, Washington's already kind of very swampy
(19:41):
and human, but the whole city just stank. And I
I think what happened is maybe deodorant became much and
it became much more accessible or something because better and
better and better because people don't stink in the same way.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Do they know? You run out much more so if
you're the one you can usually people speak it out.
People notice also, I do. I do love that shout
out to this Smithsonian. Uh and the idea that every
summer they had an accidental bo curation, right.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Well, they work creating. It's so interesting. You're right, they
work curating a lot of BO there. And partly was
because it remained and I think it remains free as a
taxpayer dollars free, so a lot of tourists would just
use it as for the free air conditioning, just so
it come in there.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah. That is a pro travel tip, y'all. If you
if you like, have a flight that's late and you
need somewhere to stash your bags, go to a museum.
They'll hold your bags for you like a hotel, and
then you can just wander around the museum, even leave
and have lunch, come back, then get your bags go
to the airport, and that secret stays with just us.
Just us, do not contact the Smithsonian, folks. I just
(20:51):
wanted to really quickly add for my last last bit here.
A lot of this makes me think of that scene
with Little Elijah Wood and Back to the Future too,
where he does, you know, Martin McFly does his thing
with the guns the video game cabinet with the like pistols.
It's like an old and it's at this point in
the in the you know, the timeline of the films.
It's the future. This thing is a blast from the pass.
He's in this bar or this restaurant, Dino if. It's
(21:13):
like very nineties throwback. And he does it and like
bbbble knocks him all down, hits all the targets, and
then you know, puts him in his holster like he
does in the first movie. And then Lille Elijah Wood,
wearing his weird future headgear, says you have to use
your hands. It's never clear what that actually means, like
what would the alternative be to use your mind or what.
But I just always that always stuck with me, and
(21:35):
it's exact what we're talking about here. You know, the
way something that was so obvious and so the only
way to go could in five, ten, fifteen, twenty years
be just like absurd to a new generation.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Grandpa's got this weird obsession with using his hands for stuff,
Like I know he's from a different time.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Mo.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
This is been amazing. We have just we have just
like two quick last questions. Yeah, that's all right, okay,
So uh, fellow ridiculous historians, we are literally hanging out
with the gentleman who wrote the book on presidential dogs.
I can't believe we didn't mention that, Matt.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I didn't know that. Ye be we love presidential pets,
ridiculous system. Yeah, I mean, we've done a couple episodes
on it.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
We uh we mentioned your book previously, All the President's Pets,
the story of one reporter who refused to roll over
with this mode. We have to ask you our producer Max,
he met Max. He's gonna kill us if I don't
ask you this. Who's your favorite presidential pooch?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:46):
I I always I have some affection for Warren Harding's
Airdale Laddie Boy, and I love that the newspaper boys
of America each gave I guess pennies or was it Yeah,
I guess, and that was I think that what went
into the statue that was in Maid of Laddie Boy
when Warren Harding died before they realized that he was
(23:06):
one of the most corrupt residents in history. I loved
the Kennedy's romance between Charlie the Welsh Terrier, who was
kind of he was sort of he was pretty hot
that dog and Pushinka, the beautiful fluffy Russian dog, because
I always imagine, I mean, and I say this having
never sat through all of Doctor Shivago, but I love
(23:29):
the theme music, Lara's theme and and I always you know,
I mean, we actually told the story on a podcast
about Nepo babies because Charlie the Welsh Terrier was the
nephew of Asked from the Thin Man series, and Pushinka
was the daughter of Strelko, the first dog to come
back from space alive, because the Soviets before then, right
(23:52):
when the first dog they sent out like yeah, like
I just died out there, that's you know, and but.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
You know, into a camera after or maybe it was
the other way.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
And Pushenka then was given as a gift because Khrushchaub
was termed by Jackie, I think in Vienna and gave Pushinka,
the daughter of Strelka and Belka Belka interestingly, because Belka
I didn't I don't think Belka went into space. I
think Belka was like a stay at home dad, and
you know, well, Ostrelka was off in space. But Pushenka
(24:22):
was very beautible, and she was extremely fluffy and as
you'd hope, and she came to the White House and
the Kennedy's had a managerie pet. But it was Charlie
who went in for the kill. I mean, he just
I actually thought the clipper of the German shepherd, he
probably wanted Pushenka and probably thought he was going to
get her. But Charlie just had that swagger and you know,
(24:44):
and I've always imagined them with the single string of
spaghetti like I have to believe that they did that
lady in the tramp thing. But when they when when
they they they made love to each other. Pushinka and
Charlie de Welsh Terrier. They had their offspring were called
Pupneck and so I've always loved that story that the
pup knicks were given away during a letter writing campaign,
(25:05):
So I've always loved them. I do love Fido, who
was the first, of course fighter, and that was you know,
that was Lincoln's dog. And Fido is the very first
presidential dog to be photographed, and there is a photograph
of post photograph with him on what looks like sort
of a plinth that sort of draped. And the thing
(25:26):
that always saddens me about Fido is that after the
president was murdered, that a drunk killed fighter with a bottle,
and so that always has upset me. But Fido is
just has the soul of Lincoln, as does Lincoln's horse,
Old Bob. Like the name of the horse was Old Bob,
and he looks like just so kindly. You know, we
(25:49):
don't have enough kindly people. It's the word I always
associate with, what is it, mister Brownlow and Oliver Twist.
He's kindly, like we need more kindly, Like I'm sick
of kind I'm wrilli into kindly, and.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Also like doing poorly, I'm doing poorly kindly. I just
remember as a kid, like hearing Fido as just a
stand in for dog tunes cartoons. It was just such
before I even had any idea what the history was.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
It was like an eponymous trademark or whatever result where
you just google something.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Now there's I think it's I think it's time for
a fighter comeback. Yeah, I think it is. Yeah, I
think it's time for a fighter. But I think that
those are among my favorite. I mean, I love the
Coolidge's dogs. I mean it's like Rob Roy and what
is the other one. They're in the first Lady Portrait
of Grace Coolidge and they're just beautiful, those dogs. And uh,
(26:43):
but yeah, there have been there. It's really hard to
choose a favorite presidential it was a presidential dog or
preessential pet. Yeah, yeah, way, Max is saying what about
what what is Max saying? I can't here we go?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Max's mask is saying, what about the raccoon? Coolidge is raccoon?
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Well, the Coolidge raccoon. Uh yeah, I'm forgetting the name
of the raccoon.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And just get the reccoon.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Isn't the raccoon? Didn't the raccoon have something to do
with like a local softball team or something.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
But Rebecca, Rebecca, now Rebecca the raccoon.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I do remember Rebecca And yeah, Rebecca, yeah, because I
was maybe conflating some of the Hoover's pets with the
Coolidge's pets. The Coolidges had the second most pets. The
most pets belong to Teddy Roosevelt, who had thirty six pets.
What is Max saying there now right? The cow Pauline
Waynees is the name of the cow. She's a Holstein
(27:43):
and she belonged to Taft. So Taft had the cow. Yeah,
and then then Wilson had the ram old Ike and
then who developed a tobacco addiction from eating cigarette butts
and was retired to a Maryland farm where he.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Died different time.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah, it was a really imperdent time.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Max just wants us to know that they got another
another pet, raccoon, I believe Ruben, and Ruben was apparently,
according to our chat here, Ruben was severely a second
tier pet.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
He was just overshadowed by but he was.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Yeah, he's like the second Darren of raccoons. You know,
if you you're a fan of be which But you know,
I'll tell you one thing that in this is I
have not disclosed this anywhere, and this is hot off
the presses from Kinderhook, New York. I recently did a
story on Martin van Buren's home, linden Walled, named after
the beautiful Linden trees in the Hudson Valley, and I
(28:43):
one of the things I was so excited about was
that Martin van Buren had been given tiger cubs by
the Sultan of Oman during his presidency, and he was
known as the little Magician, so I always imagined him
sort of as a sincreed or roy, the one who
wasn't mauled. Sorry, but I always imagined. And when I
went up to Linden Wall to do this story, I
(29:07):
asked the ranger about the tiger cubs, and the ranger said,
without any warning, without any trigger warning, he said, that's apocryphal.
He didn't It's been proven that he did not have
tiger cubs from the Sultan of Oman. And I gasped
so hard that my producer acted like like as if
(29:27):
this was like I was finding out who deep Throat
was for the you know, like in Watergate, Like I
like that this was so so earth shattering or like
such a major like like should be on like all
networks at once.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
That's the kind of story you just inherently believe because
it seems right to just see. Oh, of course that's true,
you know, and you just kind of move on.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well, I just with his mutton chops and which they
call Martin chops there like to buy gravity. He looked
like he looked like he should be in a circus,
Martin Vamberen. So it just con It's one of these
things that we have to in the news business to
be skeptical that just because something seems to fit the narrative,
we can't accept it right away. And for me, tiger
(30:06):
cubs from the Sultan of Oman underlined affirmed everything I
assumed about Martin van Buren, and I should have gotten
a second source on it.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Martin van Buren Kama, who did not, in fact own
tiger cubs.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Comma, you heard it here first God today, that is
that is the circle. I was just going to say,
speaking of folks that did or did not get mauled,
any quick hot takes on Commander the German shepherd that
apparently likes to eat secret service agents the White House
You major, right, well, no, commander as well. Believe yeah,
(30:41):
there's there's two. I don't know if they're both problematic,
but the news that I've been seeing is referring to
commander the German Shepherd, who I believe like has had
multiple attacks, one of which involved a bite so deep
that the Secret Service agent had to get six stitches.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Well, you know, so my service on that beat and
did when the book was published in two thousand and four,
So I'm not really great with posts. With post two thousand,
I moved on to grandmothers and the Ravioli at that point.
Jules Jusseran was the French ambassador to the US during
the administration of Teddy Roosevelt, and he had the seed
(31:18):
of his pants ripped out by a dog that one
of the kids had. I think it was a dog
that did that. Yeah, can Max check on that Jules
Juiceran and that his pants were literally torn by a
dog that attacked his ass and want to do Yeah,
(31:42):
so can you can we check on that? Get just
a quick Google search because it's it did happen? I
don't or or maybe it was an evil cat, but
I do know that we had all to say that
there is a precedent for presidential pets attacking people, attacking officials.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, Dollie Madison apparently had a very violent McCaw she
had Oh wait, wait, what did Max say.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Max is coming in hot with the facts.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
That seeking in the phone and peacefull in knowledge. It's
just for you right now. It is Pete. Uh.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Pete tore the pants off Jean Jules Jusserande.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
What a name for a diplomat.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
And he also, Pete was a fighter. He was a
bull terrier, according to many reports baby a bulldog, maybe
a Boston bull terrier. But he's a real hard case
Pete uh. And in nineteen oh seven in May he
got a little bit of not amazing press for because
he had a penchant for fighting another dog that would
(32:53):
get in fights with him on the White House grounds
and then run away and then come back and fight
another day. That's a very interesting thing. Pete had a nemesis.
I wasn't aware of that.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
And I have to say, I mean, I wish I
had the discipline for it. It would be an interesting
piece to write with the news about the Biden's dog.
So you know we've been here before.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, I like that. You bring it back
to history, as we do to always do here on
ridiculous systems. Yeah, the thing with history of the name.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
One one more question for you, please, almost a question?
So you were also in addition to your many works
of journalism, the shows, the podcast Mobituaries from Morocca, you
were also in what I think we can agree is
objectively the best episode of Law and Order SVU Authority,
(33:42):
which is season nine, episode seventeen. So we have to
ask what lessons did you give that up and coming
actor Robin Williams about showbiz?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
You know, it's so funny.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
First of all, I know that that episode replays a
lot because I get a check for four cents like
every few months, because I mean, it's aired so many times.
The flash mob that I was the leader of in
that episode, we shot that scene. One of the scenes
at least in Bryant Park. The other one I think
was in Grand Central Station. I guess where the two were.
And all I remember is that Robin Williams was It's
(34:18):
interesting because he was entertaining all the extras and there
were so many because there was a flash mob, and
you know, when the cameras weren't rolling, but I was
standing sort of behind him, and I remember that he
kept opening his body up. I really is when I
haven't thought about this since then, but he kept sort
of opening up his body to bring me into it,
(34:39):
and I was sort of a little bit frozen because
I thought I can't possibly like join in with you
to start trying to like keep these people entertained. So
I kept shrinking back. But I thought it was really,
I mean it was it was. It was very telling
and incredibly generous that he kept doing that, like like
you get in here too, and you you know, you
be funny with me, and that he was very very approachable.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah yeah, yeah, ok, sorry, No, I was saying, by
all accounts of exactly what you're describing.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
I also remember that when we did the scene like
Grand Central Station, Chris Maloney was a really nice guy.
I don't know him. I only dealt with him on that.
Every single woman, it's felt like who walked through their
rush hour was like when they would just come into
his orbit, was like ready to just abandon their husband
(35:31):
and just like.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Throw him onto the track. I mean completely.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
I mean like and also like we're talking like New
York Long Island, like women who were like you know,
you know all types, but like you know, an Italian
broad who was like I got a husband at home,
but he can feed himself. I mean like like just
it was just the energy that was, I mean, how
(35:56):
he handled it. It was miraculously the energy at him.
He was kind of crazy and.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
It sounds like it was none too subtle.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
But the one of the things here that I think,
speaking of form and function, one of the things that
we have just encountered here towards towards the end of
our show is your gift for storytelling. You bring people
back to these moments, right, whether it's whether it is
maybe more recent past, maybe it is further into the
(36:29):
years of your And we just have to say, and Nola,
I'm sorry I derailed us to talk about law and
order escue.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
We love it. We're professional big fanc here. We stole
the sound cue for the longest time with our previous producer,
Casey Pegrams Casey on the case and we do the
dump dumb. But then we were eventually alerted by legal
that that was probably some very pricey ip and we
shouldn't be playing with fire with Dick Wolf because that
guy'll come for you. So we just replaced it with
us going dump dumb.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
We were told in a very kind way, we got
a a our pages went off. We got a three
six thousand asterisk eight four.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
And one seven. Yes, and we got a wolf he
means business.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
It's I actually was driving my truck and I heard
about it over the CB.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
But yeah, yeah, I'm with you, Ben. I mean, and
it's interesting how that need or that drive to tell
stories comes from the place of wanting to share with
people and wanting to communicate with people. And it could
be talking about a one off acting gig you did
in two thousand and eight, or it could literally be
delving into the archives of obituaries and history and presidential dogs.
(37:41):
And the impulse I think comes from the same place,
and that's one of connectedness and wanting to share and
be part of the world, you know, And I think, Yeah,
you're excellent adit mode.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Well, thank you both. This is I really enjoyed this.
This has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Speaking of generosity, so thank you for being so very
generous with your time. We do like to deliver.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
The documentary about obituary writers for the New York Times
is and this was tricky to me too. It's literally
named oh bit.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Yes, yes, it was right there, the whole right in
my backyard.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, so where can uh this is a question. I
feel like we're obligated to do. It's part of the
you know, it's part of the show. But uh, you
have so many projects, you have so many endeavors. Where
can people learn more about your work not just with
mobituaries with Moroka, but your your many other projects.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Oh gee whiz. I think like on X the platform
formerly known as Twitter. No, I mean if you, I
mean I'm on I'm on CBS Sunday Morning, you know,
a couple of a couple of episodes each month. Uh,
and the podcast is through there. I have a new
book coming out in June because I can't stay away
from puns called rock to Genarians about out people who
(39:01):
had triumph slate in life, so and so sort of
the pre dad, if you will. But yeah, I'm around.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Well, we appreciate you being around with us on ridiculous history.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
And holy smokes. As much as we want to keep going,
we're going to have to call it a day.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
What a ride, nol.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
I think we were both we came in with like
high expectations. I think we're both even more surprised.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Oh man, we well, I mean, first of all, you know,
we had all this whole plan about what we were
going to do and when mo Roka, you know, is
on your podcast. God laughs at your plans when up.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah, there's some stuff we didn't we didn't get to,
but it was just so so much cooler to learn
about kind of this history of obituaries, the ephemeral nature
of the past, and peak behind the curtain.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Folks.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
We're recording this like a week after we did the
actual show.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Still reeling, and Max is here stif Yeah, yeah, Max, just.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Take you super producer Max and h we It's funny
because we got for anybody who's been a performer in
the past. You know, when you do live shows, you
get something sometimes called a show high. And I think
we had a show high, man. I think we just
like high fived each other and then left. I'm still high, bro,
definitely from the show thing. By the way, I was
(40:24):
scrolling around when I realized that I have like secret
like sort of faux cable through my Roku. It's like
the whole menu system and everything like on the old Exfinity,
you know, systems where you can like scroll through the
different things that are on quote unquote regular TV.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
And little bar popped up said Celebrity Jeopardy and guess
who was on him.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Was it.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
It was Morocca? Oh okay, I didn't know if it
was a shot Aalan twist. Funny thing is though the
other three like what do you call contestants? Never heard
of them, so to me it was the only celebrity
featured in this edition of Celebrity. Are they still doing
co hosting duties with Ken? It's just Ken. This must
(41:06):
have been a rerun because I think Miam Biolic was
on it, so I guess that was sort of a
trial bassess thing.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, this brings us to anytime we mentioned celebrities. This
brings us to our ending credits, the celebrities of Ridiculous
history that we would like.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
To thank for making this show possible.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Super producer mister Max Williams, Thank you, Noel, and of
course famous famous arch villain of the show who aspires
to be on Celebrity Jeopardy one day, Jonathan Strickland, a k.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Thequister. Do you think the Celebrity Jeopardy contest and still
have to take that brutal test that mortals have to take?
Probably not they probably, I.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Think it depends they might get softballed.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Mo absolutely did and probably absolutely past it a million percent.
The reason I even brought up Mo being on Celebrity
Jeopardy is that guy is just a polymath of information.
I mean, he is a font of data and as
you mentioned, Ben can deliver it and tell stories with
such precision and personality that it was just absolutely a
(42:08):
joy to get to spend some time with that fellow.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Thanks so thanks to Mode. Thanks also to Eve's Jeffcoat.
Christopher hasiotis Gabe Blues. Yay, I'm saying his.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Name different now, his backcent on the Gabe, you know,
with a little vibe to it, like a like some intonation.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Big big things course, yeah, big big thanks of course
to Zarah and Elizabeth and Dave over Ridiculous Crime and
of course no big thanks to.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
You, sir Ah. Yes, of course, thank you Ben and
to you as well. We'll see you next time, folks.
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Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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