November 16, 2021 • 33 mins
When a horrific accident left railroad signalman James Wide without the use of his legs, he was desperate to maintain his livelihood -- an effort that may well have been futile were it not for a chance encounter with a highly intelligent baboon named Jack. Jack began by assisting James with simple tasks, and gradually became competent enough do James Wide's job for him. In today's episode, the guys explore the strange circumstances that led to Signalman Jack becoming an actual railroad employee.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our
one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. You know him,
you love him. He's live and direct. I'm Ben and Noel.
I gotta tell you man this by way of tangent.
One of the first things I thought about when we
(00:48):
were diving into today's story is how you and I
and our colleague Matt has spent so many years trying
to get work to pay for us to ride amtrack. Yeah,
we were trying to do it for a tour we
did for stuff they don't want you to know, and
ended up being more expensive than just like renting a car.
It is a great way to travel, though, like I
(01:10):
not terribly many years ago, took a train from Boston
to New York, and while the train ride is pretty long,
you kind of forget the fact that you end up
right in the middle of everything, as opposed to at
like JFK or LaGuardia, which is like easily an hour
car ride into the city, which is also expensive. When
you take the train, you end up kind of right
(01:32):
in the heart of the city, So it's definitely a
trade off. Yeah, and there's something I think romantic about
it or I just have this airbrush damage. I I
have not taken a long Amtrak trip, but I have
traveled extensively on the Japanese train system, which was pretty awesome,
even the super fast ones, the Shinkansen. It's like it's
(01:54):
like a weird Uh. It's like a weird robot snake
from the future that just flies as very visual. It's
super is what's the sensation? Like, do you get a
sense that you're moving much much faster than a traditional trains?
I always feel like traditional trains feel slow, right, Yeah,
it's weird because once you're in motion at speed, you'll
(02:17):
look out the window and things are It's hard to
gauge just how quickly you're traveling unless you see something
up close. You know, like when you go into a tunnel,
it hits you and you go, oh oh wow, okay, there,
open the door. It's like going into it's like going
into warp speed or something and Star Wars, yes, engage uh.
(02:38):
And the staff, at least in Japan, they're all super professional,
pretty fancy people. Uh. Max are you a train guy,
if you traveled by training? I don't think Nolan, I've
ever asked you this. Well, first and foremost I want
to say, uh, you guys said warp speed, and then
Noll said Star Wars. That is incorrect. That is Star Trek.
(02:58):
Come on, excuse me? That that that's that that's the
trigger right here for you. What do you call in
Star Wars? Though? What's the thing they what do they
do in Star Wars? And they kick in the hyper draft?
They talk about parsecs in a way that is technically incorrect,
but are a real measurement? Yes, yeah, but the welcome
to pedantic sci fi corner on ridiculous history. Yeah, Max,
(03:21):
you're the wrong show. This is ridiculous history. Not just kidding,
but but yes, make it so you've corrected us. Star Trek. Yes,
I like that. I like that, but yes, uh, I
actually am. My dad is a miniature train collector. He's
a big time fans train. He's got like the whole
the situation with like the townspeople and all of the
(03:41):
conductor's hat. Yes, I've spent many a day as a
child at ministure train expos. Alex has come along as well,
but he, being the older brother, has found it easier
to slip his way out. I'm the youngest child, so
I I just you know, it would be like seventeen
and my Dad's like, all right, get up at like
six in the morning on a sa today we're gonna
go to this expo and I don't know Shamble or somewhere.
(04:03):
You know who else is into miniature trains to surprising figures.
One is Neil Young, Um the singer, songwriter, musician renaissance man,
and the other is Sebastian Bach. Not Johann Sebastian Bach,
mind you, Sebastian Bach, the frontman for the seminal hair
metal band skid Row. He actually has his own arc
(04:25):
in a season of Trailer Park Boys, revolving around a
model train heist that Bubbles initiates. And so, uh you
know what's funny about that is, first Max, you're referring
to Alex Williams, who composed our soundtrack, and it's also
your brother. But what's funny is that I bet old
man Williams about your pattern. Familius knows that Neil Young
(04:46):
and Sebastian Baker into trains. Uh so wait, so miniature trades. Yes,
but back to the question, have you traveled on a train? No,
I have not. What you think, okay, well you are
in for an adventure, my friends. Uh so, the thing is,
there's a null. I know you like traveling by train
(05:07):
or by rail because it's less stressful than going to
the airport. That's something people can agree with. And that imagine, folks,
fellow ridiculous historians, if you are traveling on a train,
imagine you're pulling into the station and you see the
usual bells and whistles sometimes literally you know, bells and whistles,
and uh you see if you if you're traveling, you know,
(05:31):
back in the olden days, you might see what's called
a signal man. A signal man is the person who
they're also called a signaler, who operates a signal box
to control the movement of trains because you know, trains
are trains are good, but they're not super nimble, that's right,
and the signal and in particular and does not. There's
(05:53):
such thing as a signal woman as well. If you
go to the Wikipedia entry for it US, that's the
first thing they show you as a picture of a
signal woman in great central cabin at ANALCUH Nottinghamshire, UH
in the UK. But this is an individual who operates
these switches that actually switches the tracks. There's these parts
of the tracks, these junctions that have variable you know, paths,
(06:14):
and according to the number of toots that the train
conductor um gives off exactly, the signalman listens to that
and switches the tracks accordingly. So pretty rudimentary system. Probably
not operated exactly the same way anymore. I have a
feeling it's more automated these days. But back in the
eighteen hundreds is what we're talking about today. This was
(06:36):
a very manual and analog task. Some say it was
a simple job. Some may have even said it was
so simple a monkey could do it. Yeah. Yeah, that
is our segue. Today we are traveling to South Africa,
and well done with that seguel, because we're traveling to
(06:57):
South Africa to explore the story of a unique signal
operator signal person uh signal sentience named signal man Jack Signal. Yes, yes, yes,
that's true. You see what made Jack most unique in
(07:17):
his job in the eighteen hundreds in Cape Town area
around the Port Elizabeth Railroad was that signal man. Jack
was not a man signal man. Jack was a male baboon.
And uh, it's yeah baboon. You guys, you guys know
what everybody knows what a baboon is. Uh. That said
(07:38):
that they're about as intelligent as a three year old child.
But I think that this this will. I feel like
you have to be smarter than a three year old
to do what Jack's doing here a million percent. And
Jack does prove to be quite a special boy. Baboons
are the ones with the red butts, right, yeah, I
believe so. Baboons are the ones with a really scary
(07:59):
snouts and they can be very aggressive. Um, they are
very very strong, uh, and they have quite large, very
scary teeth uh and opposable thumbs which plays a very
important role in being able to grip and uh and
switch those levers that we're talking about. But let's talk
first about the human center of our story. We're going
back to Cape Town, like you said, in the eighteen
(08:21):
hundreds and a man by the name of James Edwin
Wide who had the nickname Jumper. He was an employee
of the Cape Government Railways for ten years. Um, he
got the nickname jumper because he was a bit of
a daredevil Um. He would hop on and off of
moving trains and swing from rail car or rail car
to to do his job. Eventually, this you know, kind
(08:44):
of reckless behavior caught up with them and he jumped,
and he misstepped and fell underneath the moving train, where
his shins and feet were absolutely obliterated by an eight
ton car. Um. The damage was so bad that he
had to have his leg amputated at the knee, which
left him handicap. But he didn't want to lose his job,
(09:05):
and he was a very tenacious dude. UM, So he
carved himself a pair of wooden peg legs and he
asked his superiors to give him another chance and and
give him a job as a signalman. And they agree, yeah,
they agreed. Well, he was also this is before the
time of like disability insurance and things like that, if
(09:25):
he was out of a job, he could starve become
a beggar. Any family members he had might end up
going down with him. So his motivation here was apparent
from the beginning, and the company put him in that
position of signalman that allowed him to communicate with conductors
(09:47):
via the different signals placed along the track. His jumping
days were over, and the job itself didn't have a
ton of super strenuous activity because he had he was
sitting in a chair, of course, and he had a
series of levers that he would pull. There was one
catch though, He still had trouble getting to and from work,
(10:11):
to from his job to to his house, and so
he ended up carving the way, carved his his legs,
his prosthetics. He made a trolley that he could sit on.
And it's still it's still sucked for let's be honest,
because it's not an electric trolley, right, it's it's there's
no internal combustion. He's pushing himself every day, right, And
(10:33):
there were no Americans, or rather South Africans with disability
acts that you know, made conditions more acceptable in that situation, So,
I mean absolutely would have been a total slog and
in a real strenuous task is getting to and from work.
So he found the answer to his prayers at a
market in eight one was at his local um open
(11:01):
air market where he saw something miraculous. It was a
baboon who was leading an oxen cart and wide was
absolutely fascinated he talked to the animal's owner, and he
learned that the baboon UH named Jack, was trained to
obey some specific commands and that he could push and
pull these different loads uh and that he was pretty
(11:24):
good at what he did. And wide Um was able
to talk Jack's owner into selling him the baboon and
they became fast friends, and he was able to train
him to be his helper monkey essentially, which is a
thing I think still to this day, I've always been
fascinated by the term helper monkey. It would be it's
the same as having, you know, a guy dog that
could help somebody who is visually impaired. A helper monkey
(11:45):
is able to jump around and grab things again because
of those handy dandy opposable thumbs. And he was even
able to train Jack to do things like sweeping up
and cleaning the dishes and uh taking out the trash,
So some pretty specific um duties that Jack was doing
for for Why. Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of like
a service animal. But given his given Jack's intelligence, it
(12:10):
was pretty obvious to Why pretty quickly that he had
indeed stumbled upon something something special in his pal the
signal man. So there is one funny part of this
story that it's strategy nuts. You wouldn't do this normally
with a service animal, but Jack's original owner told him, Hey,
(12:33):
you want to keep the you want to keep the
boy happy, give him a good shot of Kate Brandy
each night before bedtime if you want him to do
good work the next day. And if you don't, Jack
is going to pout at you and he might even
become rebellious. Our pal Gabe Bluesier notes that this is
similar to the story of a circus elephant named Jumbo,
(12:55):
who would get super super angry if his train or
didn't give him his daily bottle of beer before he
went to sleep. Was a Jumbo also the nickname that uh,
who's that creepy president who was always Johnson Lennon Johnson
and he needed his pants uh uh taken out to
make room in the bunghole area. But yeah, he nicknamed
(13:16):
his his his tender bits Jumbo. Yeah. Yeah, in a
burst of humility, so so so, like you said, at first,
whid gave Jack some pretty simple chores and the main
thing was to help him with his commute. But then
all of a sudden he realized, Wow, this this baboon
(13:39):
is much more intelligent than I thought. He can do
other stuff. Uh. And one example of this is the
key that Why kept in his signal box, as pointed
out in Baboom Matters dot Org. Yeah, the baboom that
worked for the railroad. Uh. This key unlocked the differ
(14:00):
print points that allowed locomotive drivers to hit the coal
sheds to re up their coal supply. And whenever a
driver wanted to get to one of those coal sheds,
he would blow the whistle four times. Max helped me out, yep,
like that, and four tutes and Wide would go out
(14:26):
and he had to he still had to walk on crutches,
even with those prosthetics. He would go out and he
would hold up the key. And after Jack was watching
this for just a few days, Jack clocked it and
as soon as he heard those four tutes, he would
run out with the key. And then you know why
I liked it. And he thought, okay, all right, pal,
(14:49):
that's extra shot of brandy for you tonight, and this
is your job now. And Jack loved he was like
a dog with a ball. As they said, that was
some baboon is what with the cent she uh anthrow
morphic spider with a celebrity voice would would write in
her web in this situation, and it escalated from their
why It started to be like this guy might be
(15:09):
a little smarter than I gave him credit for. I
think he might be able to take this partnership to
the next level. And so he started to teach um
Jack how to actually run the signal levers himself, and
and then you know, interpret the number of toots and
act accordingly. And by the way, the train station in
question here, uh is it's a really interesting word. The
(15:31):
spelling is U I T E n h A g
E and I looked it up and it's pronounced eden
hague us, the name of the train station in South Africa.
So Jack was now in charge of the levers and
why it could just kind of chill, uh, The train
drivers would toot their whistles or their horns, Um and
Jack would act accordingly, and the rest of history. I mean,
(15:54):
he was essentially, for all intents and purposes, taking over
the job for his master, who was just kind of supervising.
Right right, there was a there was a human quote
unquote at the wheel, but this was quickly becoming Jack's responsibility.
And to be fair, the system itself wasn't super complicated.
(16:14):
It wasn't necessarily rocket science, nor was a brain surgery,
but it was very important and we have to remember
that if things went wrong, lives could be lost. So
the system, now, if if you looked at it, you
would see there were a couple of levers that control
different pieces of track and you pull them in a
certain order based on what you hear the conductor of
(16:35):
the train toot on their whistle, so you'll hear people
say this, this is something could train a dog to do.
Canines are quite intelligent. But you know, like you said, thumbs,
that's that's the big decider. Uh, And pretty soon according
to the railway signal, why didn't even have to watch
(16:57):
Jack that much? He sat around and he would stuff
birds he got into like taxidermist. That's right. He was
an amateur taxidermist. UM, and he did keep Jack chained up,
you know, but probably wasn't even necessary. I mean, Jack
was a very loyal companion who by all accounts um
loved his master, and it was very, very very loyal.
(17:17):
But there was kind of a wrinkle in this story
that took place when a very high class woman Um
traveling to Port Elizabeth spotted Jack working the levers and
kind of freaked out. Um, and she reported this situation
to the railway authorities, who then promptly came and visited.
(17:41):
They didn't believe her at first thought this was like
a wild tale from like a proto Karen type figure,
and they didn't pay much more mind. But then they
decided to come inspect the scene themselves, and they did
so then saw, out of their surprise, this uh, this
baboon running the signals, and they promptly fired. Why Jack
wasn't officially in a boy so he just kind of
went along. Um, but yeah, it was not a happy
(18:03):
day for Mr. Why. Yeah. And Jack had to know
something was up because he had learned these patterns, right,
He kind of just trained himself through observation in a
very real way and he was into it. And Why again,
just like with his earlier train accident, he he tried
(18:25):
to get the company to reconsider and he said, look,
they're nothing went wrong. Before Jack knows what he's doing,
you guys never would have heard about this. It would
have all been fine. And then several more workers had
Jack's back. He was like a mascot to them or
a colleague. They came forward and they told the company themselves.
They said, look, honestly, this baboon is doing a pretty
(18:49):
pretty good job. And so as surreal as it may sound,
as much as this may sound like a Pixar movie
or something you would see on Disney, the big wigs
at the rail company said, okay, all right, we'll give
up a shot. We'll give him a shot, and they struck.
They made this test that was pretty tough, and the
(19:13):
test was comprised of a bunch of rapidly changing whistles
that Jack would hear, and he would be placed in
front of a set of dummy levers. So they were
it was like a flight simulator, but for a signal operator,
the same exact layout as the ones that he was
actually working in in I R O exactly. And so
we had this um. So they had somebody observing while
(19:35):
these engineers were blowing these train whistles, and Jack was
supposed to make the correct changes, pull the correct levers
in the correct order. How to go No, quite well, Ben,
He passed UM with honors. He did a fantastic job,
and the railway system manager was incredibly impressed, he gave
(19:56):
Wide his job back and get this hired Jack on
uh just to become the only baboon in the history
of the South African railway system to be given official
work and pay. Um. His pay was twenty cents a day.
It's about five bucks a day in today's dollars and um.
(20:16):
He was given food and half a bottle of beer
on Saturdays, and presumably Wide was still giving him his
little his little schnops before bet or what was it, Brandy.
So pretty insane. And he goes on to continue working
for the company for several more years and it created
a kind of a boom for the the area, the
(20:36):
region because it was like now they had this tourist attraction.
People would come from miles around to see the famous
signalman Baboon Jack the baboo. Yeah. People would buy a ticket,
not to really go anywhere, but to just get a
chance to see our boy Jack. And it's interesting to
me too that they landed on half a bottle of beer.
(20:57):
It feels like there was a negotiation give him the
full bottle. You know, maybe they were just concerned, you know,
they want him drinking on the job. This is only
on Saturdays though I assume that was his day off.
But he also acted as a guard and would chase
away any trespassers or you know, like trained kids that
would come along with their dogs wearing bandanas. Um and uh.
(21:18):
He even was able to repeat some of the tasks
that Why taught him at home and clean rail cars
and move railway sleepers. That's right, pull pull weeds and all.
That was his giant baboon arms. And he was officially
put in charge of that key. We were talking about
the key to the coal yard that was originally um
(21:40):
wide responsibility. So I imagine Wide still kind of just
got to stay on and supervise and do his taxidermy. Yeah,
Like who is the in the Curious George books? Who
is the man in the yellow hat? Is that just
his name? He's just the man on the yellow hat? Yeah, yeah, okay,
his George's owner. And know what he actually does. I
(22:01):
think we've got a max with the facts coming in here. Hot,
Yes it is Ted Shackleford, Are you kidding? And why
he has a name. In a deleted scene in the
two six Here Is George movie, the man with the
yellow at full name was revealed as Ted shackle Ford
canon from that quick Google search, but it is from
(22:24):
a senn Arkle But no, that is not Canada. All right, Well,
well he was in a curious George situation, is what
I'm saying, and he got he got glowing reviews. A
railway superintendent, uh circa ninety a guy named George B.
Howe visited and he said, Jack knows the signal whistle
(22:44):
as well as I do almost every one of the levers.
It was very touching to see his fondness for his master.
As I drew near. They were both sitting on the trolley,
the baboon's arms round his master's neck, the others stroking
Wide's face. Total, MAT's I love it? Yeah, well don't
you mean? Yeah a little bit. The whole thing. The
(23:05):
whole thing is weird love, which is touching. He like touching.
But there this is weird too, and something that I
was completely not aware of. Jack unfortunately passed away. Um
(23:25):
he contracted tuberculosis, in which I had no idea was
something that affected the monkeys, but only what's referred to
in this Today I found out article as Old World monkeys,
which is what Jack was, unlike New World monkeys. I'm
not quite sure that the distinction is there, but probably
worth a little further investigation. Um. But Jack worked the
(23:47):
rails for a total of nine years and he never
made a single documented mistake yep, which not every trade
employee can see by the way he u His story
got covered in a science journal Nature in eighteen ninety,
and then it was kind of like an obscure thing.
It was a story of regional interest for a lot
(24:10):
of people, but not internationally until a century later. The
Telegraph newspaper covered it and a lot of people thought
it was a hoax because it sounds crazy, but the
truth is often stranger than fiction. This is unlike the
story of Otto. The first we can historically established there
was a baboon. There wasn't Mr Wide. The baboon was
(24:32):
called Jack and did work at the railway. UM. Because
we know we saw correspondence as well from scientists who
ran into Jack. You can even if you visit the
Albany Museum in Grahamstown, South Africa, see what the curator's
claim is Jack's skull, which is a little mormid, but
(24:52):
it's proof consistent. Yeah, and that's at the Albany Museum
in Grahamstown, South Africa that also has a little bit
of a photo exhibits about the old eden Hague station.
M and I, you know, I felt like this episode
was an excellent opportunity for us to talk a little
(25:13):
bit more about interesting things that baboons do. So we're
talking about Jack, who's kind of like a super heroic
service animal. You could say, but did you guys know
That's why I think baboons are more intelligent than they
get credit for it. Did you guys know that baboons
keep pets. They abduct. Yeah, they abduct like puppies, wild dogs,
(25:38):
and they they feed them, They raised them, and they
groom them. They play with the dogs, and the dogs
are treated like family pets for the baboon community, the
baboonity and community. Sorry, and so the uh no, we're
keeping it. We're keeping it, Maxi'm sorry. Uh. The the
(26:01):
dogs have a role to play because they defend their
family from other dogs who haven't been turned by the baboons,
and they watch over them when they sleep at night.
That's kind of wild, right, they really is. And in
true curious George fashion, uh, Jack and Jim are the
subject of a best selling children's book called Railway Jack,
(26:24):
The True Story of an Amazing Baboon, which you can
get on Amazon UM if you're interested by Kat Johnson.
Really really cool story. I can't believe this hasn't been
made into UH at the very least like one of
those UM Pixar shorts. You know they feature that'd be good. UM.
I can see them adding a little detail and then
creating a feature out of it. UM. But let's see too.
(26:47):
To close out, we've got a couple of interesting UM
examples of other types of animals working at railway stations,
in the form of Japan's station master cats. Yes, that's correct.
So there's a Japanese hound called Keno Kawa and for
around eight years, the station master of Kenya Kawa's Kishi
(27:08):
station was a Calico cat named Toma and Toma or
Tama she was astray. She lived near the station. Some
people worked there were feeding herse so she was hanging
out and the station was automated in two thousand seven
to save some money on the bottom line. So this
cat was hired, or as we say on our other show, hired,
(27:32):
and she was paid in food and people loved seen
her just like folks would ride the train to see
signalman Jack. People would travel to the station just to
see the cat boss of Kishi Station, and they gave
her a tiny hat, a tiny station master hat while
(27:53):
she worked in her office. That's adorable. Um. And unfortunately,
I sorry, we're killing off all these animals, not us.
It's just time in history. Uh. Tama passed away in
heart failure. But she lived on the right bold cattage
of sixteen which is up there. And she was actually
credited with saving the train line from financial collapse because
(28:14):
of all of the tourists that she drew with an
estimated at one point one billion yen of additional revenue
UM since her tenure began. Yeah, yeah, and Uh. If
you would like to learn more about this very strange
but fascinating and adorable are often adorable corner of history,
then do check out ten animals with better jobs than
(28:36):
you at how Stuff Works dot com by Melanie rad
Zicki McManus. Uh. This is where you'll find some some excellent,
more lighthearted examples of animals being employed in jobs that
you know are commonly thought to be the domain of people. Uh.
This doesn't count a ton of military animals, but Also,
(28:58):
you know what this reminds me of, you guys, there
is who's that dog? There's a dog in the US,
maybe more than one that is like the mayor of
a town. I am not aware of a dog mayor
Ben Ah. Yes, I'm thinking of Max the gold Retriever,
not Max Williams superducer. Max Williams, no Goldener Treever, who
(29:19):
was also mayor of idle Wild, California in two thousand
and twelve. I wonder if they gave him a dogs
like one of those mayor sashes like we talked about
on the last apsode, like with Mayor mccheese. Yeah, and
two uh dog named Duke the Dog became mayor of Cormorant, Minnesota.
(29:41):
This is weird. There are actually a lot of uh.
There's an insider dot com article that points out there
have been no less than nine dogs who have been
elected mayor of small towns. I fell asleep trying to
put on a pair of pants once. And these dogs
are out here changing the world a man, They really
are an doing God's work. And hey, if you're interested
in more crazy stories about animals or unusual animals and
(30:06):
unusual locations, um, why not check out an episode that
we did several years back about weird presidential pets. Worth
a listen, and we would also love to hear from you.
We hope you enjoyed today's episode. It's a little bit
short and sweet story UM where luckily nothing terrible happened
to signal man Jack and Uh, a man who was
(30:27):
grievously injured was able to get in a very real way,
a new lease on life with a new best friend.
So tell us your stories of other animals that have
had amazing jobs. Uh, we'd love to hear from you.
You can find us at Ridiculous at i heeart media
dot com. You can find our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians
(30:48):
some of the some of our favorite animals on the
internet us included and uh and as always, folks, UM,
thank you for thank you for tuning in. UH, maybe
we could a ridiculous history rail tour. Ridiculous rails? What
do they call that? A whistle stop tour? Like the
presidents used to do? You know, he's like you, we
(31:09):
hang out on the back and just wave very very
minimal movement to our wrists. We'll do that. We'll stop
and hang we'll stop and chat. But I'm down for
that idea. I like old timey stuff like that. You
can also find Ben and I as individual human people
on the Internet. I am exclusively on Instagram at how
Now Noel Brown. How about you, buddy. Yeah, you can
find me at Ben Boland bow L I n On
(31:31):
Instagram you can get a preview of my various misadventures,
what I'm reading, the research I'm doing. Uh. And you
can also find me on Twitter, where I am at
Ben Bowland hs W and in a never before revealed
look into the life of super producer Max Williams. Uh, Max,
you're on the undernet too, I hear, Yes, I am,
(31:53):
and I am on Twitter and only Twitter. I am
at a t L underscore Max Williams. Okay, alright, got
a lot of hot takes on sports ball games uh
Lional trains, uh not a ball games and Lionel trains,
the Max Williams story, and a lot of Star Trek,
A lot of Star Trek and a lot of Star Trek. Okay, man, well, uh,
(32:14):
this this is gonna do it for us today. Thanks
of course to Max Williams. Thinks to Alex Williams who
can post our track. Thanks to Gabe bluesier who keeps
this show on track. And and thanks of course to
Jonathan Strickland ak the Twister. Yeah, he's a good monkey.
That's nicer. That's nicer than what we've we said and
cut off air. We'll keep this parted. We could talk
(32:36):
about the backstage. Do you think we can teach them
how to pull levers? I bet you we could. He
pushes my buttons. That's that's he's already got ahead to start.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
(32:58):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our
one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. You know him,
you love him. He's live and direct. I'm Ben and Noel.
I gotta tell you man this by way of tangent.
One of the first things I thought about when we
(00:48):
were diving into today's story is how you and I
and our colleague Matt has spent so many years trying
to get work to pay for us to ride amtrack. Yeah,
we were trying to do it for a tour we
did for stuff they don't want you to know, and
ended up being more expensive than just like renting a car.
It is a great way to travel, though, like I
(01:10):
not terribly many years ago, took a train from Boston
to New York, and while the train ride is pretty long,
you kind of forget the fact that you end up
right in the middle of everything, as opposed to at
like JFK or LaGuardia, which is like easily an hour
car ride into the city, which is also expensive. When
you take the train, you end up kind of right
(01:32):
in the heart of the city, So it's definitely a
trade off. Yeah, and there's something I think romantic about
it or I just have this airbrush damage. I I
have not taken a long Amtrak trip, but I have
traveled extensively on the Japanese train system, which was pretty awesome,
even the super fast ones, the Shinkansen. It's like it's
(01:54):
like a weird Uh. It's like a weird robot snake
from the future that just flies as very visual. It's
super is what's the sensation? Like, do you get a
sense that you're moving much much faster than a traditional trains?
I always feel like traditional trains feel slow, right, Yeah,
it's weird because once you're in motion at speed, you'll
(02:17):
look out the window and things are It's hard to
gauge just how quickly you're traveling unless you see something
up close. You know, like when you go into a tunnel,
it hits you and you go, oh oh wow, okay, there,
open the door. It's like going into it's like going
into warp speed or something and Star Wars, yes, engage uh.
(02:38):
And the staff, at least in Japan, they're all super professional,
pretty fancy people. Uh. Max are you a train guy,
if you traveled by training? I don't think Nolan, I've
ever asked you this. Well, first and foremost I want
to say, uh, you guys said warp speed, and then
Noll said Star Wars. That is incorrect. That is Star Trek.
(02:58):
Come on, excuse me? That that that's that that's the
trigger right here for you. What do you call in
Star Wars? Though? What's the thing they what do they
do in Star Wars? And they kick in the hyper draft?
They talk about parsecs in a way that is technically incorrect,
but are a real measurement? Yes, yeah, but the welcome
to pedantic sci fi corner on ridiculous history. Yeah, Max,
(03:21):
you're the wrong show. This is ridiculous history. Not just kidding,
but but yes, make it so you've corrected us. Star Trek. Yes,
I like that. I like that, but yes, uh, I
actually am. My dad is a miniature train collector. He's
a big time fans train. He's got like the whole
the situation with like the townspeople and all of the
(03:41):
conductor's hat. Yes, I've spent many a day as a
child at ministure train expos. Alex has come along as well,
but he, being the older brother, has found it easier
to slip his way out. I'm the youngest child, so
I I just you know, it would be like seventeen
and my Dad's like, all right, get up at like
six in the morning on a sa today we're gonna
go to this expo and I don't know Shamble or somewhere.
(04:03):
You know who else is into miniature trains to surprising figures.
One is Neil Young, Um the singer, songwriter, musician renaissance man,
and the other is Sebastian Bach. Not Johann Sebastian Bach,
mind you, Sebastian Bach, the frontman for the seminal hair
metal band skid Row. He actually has his own arc
(04:25):
in a season of Trailer Park Boys, revolving around a
model train heist that Bubbles initiates. And so, uh you
know what's funny about that is, first Max, you're referring
to Alex Williams, who composed our soundtrack, and it's also
your brother. But what's funny is that I bet old
man Williams about your pattern. Familius knows that Neil Young
(04:46):
and Sebastian Baker into trains. Uh so wait, so miniature trades. Yes,
but back to the question, have you traveled on a train? No,
I have not. What you think, okay, well you are
in for an adventure, my friends. Uh so, the thing is,
there's a null. I know you like traveling by train
(05:07):
or by rail because it's less stressful than going to
the airport. That's something people can agree with. And that imagine, folks,
fellow ridiculous historians, if you are traveling on a train,
imagine you're pulling into the station and you see the
usual bells and whistles sometimes literally you know, bells and whistles,
and uh you see if you if you're traveling, you know,
(05:31):
back in the olden days, you might see what's called
a signal man. A signal man is the person who
they're also called a signaler, who operates a signal box
to control the movement of trains because you know, trains
are trains are good, but they're not super nimble, that's right,
and the signal and in particular and does not. There's
(05:53):
such thing as a signal woman as well. If you
go to the Wikipedia entry for it US, that's the
first thing they show you as a picture of a
signal woman in great central cabin at ANALCUH Nottinghamshire, UH
in the UK. But this is an individual who operates
these switches that actually switches the tracks. There's these parts
of the tracks, these junctions that have variable you know, paths,
(06:14):
and according to the number of toots that the train
conductor um gives off exactly, the signalman listens to that
and switches the tracks accordingly. So pretty rudimentary system. Probably
not operated exactly the same way anymore. I have a
feeling it's more automated these days. But back in the
eighteen hundreds is what we're talking about today. This was
(06:36):
a very manual and analog task. Some say it was
a simple job. Some may have even said it was
so simple a monkey could do it. Yeah. Yeah, that
is our segue. Today we are traveling to South Africa,
and well done with that seguel, because we're traveling to
(06:57):
South Africa to explore the story of a unique signal
operator signal person uh signal sentience named signal man Jack Signal. Yes, yes, yes,
that's true. You see what made Jack most unique in
(07:17):
his job in the eighteen hundreds in Cape Town area
around the Port Elizabeth Railroad was that signal man. Jack
was not a man signal man. Jack was a male baboon.
And uh, it's yeah baboon. You guys, you guys know
what everybody knows what a baboon is. Uh. That said
(07:38):
that they're about as intelligent as a three year old child.
But I think that this this will. I feel like
you have to be smarter than a three year old
to do what Jack's doing here a million percent. And
Jack does prove to be quite a special boy. Baboons
are the ones with the red butts, right, yeah, I
believe so. Baboons are the ones with a really scary
(07:59):
snouts and they can be very aggressive. Um, they are
very very strong, uh, and they have quite large, very
scary teeth uh and opposable thumbs which plays a very
important role in being able to grip and uh and
switch those levers that we're talking about. But let's talk
first about the human center of our story. We're going
back to Cape Town, like you said, in the eighteen
(08:21):
hundreds and a man by the name of James Edwin
Wide who had the nickname Jumper. He was an employee
of the Cape Government Railways for ten years. Um, he
got the nickname jumper because he was a bit of
a daredevil Um. He would hop on and off of
moving trains and swing from rail car or rail car
to to do his job. Eventually, this you know, kind
(08:44):
of reckless behavior caught up with them and he jumped,
and he misstepped and fell underneath the moving train, where
his shins and feet were absolutely obliterated by an eight
ton car. Um. The damage was so bad that he
had to have his leg amputated at the knee, which
left him handicap. But he didn't want to lose his job,
(09:05):
and he was a very tenacious dude. UM, So he
carved himself a pair of wooden peg legs and he
asked his superiors to give him another chance and and
give him a job as a signalman. And they agree, yeah,
they agreed. Well, he was also this is before the
time of like disability insurance and things like that, if
(09:25):
he was out of a job, he could starve become
a beggar. Any family members he had might end up
going down with him. So his motivation here was apparent
from the beginning, and the company put him in that
position of signalman that allowed him to communicate with conductors
(09:47):
via the different signals placed along the track. His jumping
days were over, and the job itself didn't have a
ton of super strenuous activity because he had he was
sitting in a chair, of course, and he had a
series of levers that he would pull. There was one
catch though, He still had trouble getting to and from work,
(10:11):
to from his job to to his house, and so
he ended up carving the way, carved his his legs,
his prosthetics. He made a trolley that he could sit on.
And it's still it's still sucked for let's be honest,
because it's not an electric trolley, right, it's it's there's
no internal combustion. He's pushing himself every day, right, And
(10:33):
there were no Americans, or rather South Africans with disability
acts that you know, made conditions more acceptable in that situation, So,
I mean absolutely would have been a total slog and
in a real strenuous task is getting to and from work.
So he found the answer to his prayers at a
market in eight one was at his local um open
(11:01):
air market where he saw something miraculous. It was a
baboon who was leading an oxen cart and wide was
absolutely fascinated he talked to the animal's owner, and he
learned that the baboon UH named Jack, was trained to
obey some specific commands and that he could push and
pull these different loads uh and that he was pretty
(11:24):
good at what he did. And wide Um was able
to talk Jack's owner into selling him the baboon and
they became fast friends, and he was able to train
him to be his helper monkey essentially, which is a
thing I think still to this day, I've always been
fascinated by the term helper monkey. It would be it's
the same as having, you know, a guy dog that
could help somebody who is visually impaired. A helper monkey
(11:45):
is able to jump around and grab things again because
of those handy dandy opposable thumbs. And he was even
able to train Jack to do things like sweeping up
and cleaning the dishes and uh taking out the trash,
So some pretty specific um duties that Jack was doing
for for Why. Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of like
a service animal. But given his given Jack's intelligence, it
(12:10):
was pretty obvious to Why pretty quickly that he had
indeed stumbled upon something something special in his pal the
signal man. So there is one funny part of this
story that it's strategy nuts. You wouldn't do this normally
with a service animal, but Jack's original owner told him, Hey,
(12:33):
you want to keep the you want to keep the
boy happy, give him a good shot of Kate Brandy
each night before bedtime if you want him to do
good work the next day. And if you don't, Jack
is going to pout at you and he might even
become rebellious. Our pal Gabe Bluesier notes that this is
similar to the story of a circus elephant named Jumbo,
(12:55):
who would get super super angry if his train or
didn't give him his daily bottle of beer before he
went to sleep. Was a Jumbo also the nickname that uh,
who's that creepy president who was always Johnson Lennon Johnson
and he needed his pants uh uh taken out to
make room in the bunghole area. But yeah, he nicknamed
(13:16):
his his his tender bits Jumbo. Yeah. Yeah, in a
burst of humility, so so so, like you said, at first,
whid gave Jack some pretty simple chores and the main
thing was to help him with his commute. But then
all of a sudden he realized, Wow, this this baboon
(13:39):
is much more intelligent than I thought. He can do
other stuff. Uh. And one example of this is the
key that Why kept in his signal box, as pointed
out in Baboom Matters dot Org. Yeah, the baboom that
worked for the railroad. Uh. This key unlocked the differ
(14:00):
print points that allowed locomotive drivers to hit the coal
sheds to re up their coal supply. And whenever a
driver wanted to get to one of those coal sheds,
he would blow the whistle four times. Max helped me out, yep,
like that, and four tutes and Wide would go out
(14:26):
and he had to he still had to walk on crutches,
even with those prosthetics. He would go out and he
would hold up the key. And after Jack was watching
this for just a few days, Jack clocked it and
as soon as he heard those four tutes, he would
run out with the key. And then you know why
I liked it. And he thought, okay, all right, pal,
(14:49):
that's extra shot of brandy for you tonight, and this
is your job now. And Jack loved he was like
a dog with a ball. As they said, that was
some baboon is what with the cent she uh anthrow
morphic spider with a celebrity voice would would write in
her web in this situation, and it escalated from their
why It started to be like this guy might be
(15:09):
a little smarter than I gave him credit for. I
think he might be able to take this partnership to
the next level. And so he started to teach um
Jack how to actually run the signal levers himself, and
and then you know, interpret the number of toots and
act accordingly. And by the way, the train station in
question here, uh is it's a really interesting word. The
(15:31):
spelling is U I T E n h A g
E and I looked it up and it's pronounced eden
hague us, the name of the train station in South Africa.
So Jack was now in charge of the levers and
why it could just kind of chill, uh, The train
drivers would toot their whistles or their horns, Um and
Jack would act accordingly, and the rest of history. I mean,
(15:54):
he was essentially, for all intents and purposes, taking over
the job for his master, who was just kind of supervising.
Right right, there was a there was a human quote
unquote at the wheel, but this was quickly becoming Jack's responsibility.
And to be fair, the system itself wasn't super complicated.
(16:14):
It wasn't necessarily rocket science, nor was a brain surgery,
but it was very important and we have to remember
that if things went wrong, lives could be lost. So
the system, now, if if you looked at it, you
would see there were a couple of levers that control
different pieces of track and you pull them in a
certain order based on what you hear the conductor of
(16:35):
the train toot on their whistle, so you'll hear people
say this, this is something could train a dog to do.
Canines are quite intelligent. But you know, like you said, thumbs,
that's that's the big decider. Uh, And pretty soon according
to the railway signal, why didn't even have to watch
(16:57):
Jack that much? He sat around and he would stuff
birds he got into like taxidermist. That's right. He was
an amateur taxidermist. UM, and he did keep Jack chained up,
you know, but probably wasn't even necessary. I mean, Jack
was a very loyal companion who by all accounts um
loved his master, and it was very, very very loyal.
(17:17):
But there was kind of a wrinkle in this story
that took place when a very high class woman Um
traveling to Port Elizabeth spotted Jack working the levers and
kind of freaked out. Um, and she reported this situation
to the railway authorities, who then promptly came and visited.
(17:41):
They didn't believe her at first thought this was like
a wild tale from like a proto Karen type figure,
and they didn't pay much more mind. But then they
decided to come inspect the scene themselves, and they did
so then saw, out of their surprise, this uh, this
baboon running the signals, and they promptly fired. Why Jack
wasn't officially in a boy so he just kind of
went along. Um, but yeah, it was not a happy
(18:03):
day for Mr. Why. Yeah. And Jack had to know
something was up because he had learned these patterns, right,
He kind of just trained himself through observation in a
very real way and he was into it. And Why again,
just like with his earlier train accident, he he tried
(18:25):
to get the company to reconsider and he said, look,
they're nothing went wrong. Before Jack knows what he's doing,
you guys never would have heard about this. It would
have all been fine. And then several more workers had
Jack's back. He was like a mascot to them or
a colleague. They came forward and they told the company themselves.
They said, look, honestly, this baboon is doing a pretty
(18:49):
pretty good job. And so as surreal as it may sound,
as much as this may sound like a Pixar movie
or something you would see on Disney, the big wigs
at the rail company said, okay, all right, we'll give
up a shot. We'll give him a shot, and they struck.
They made this test that was pretty tough, and the
(19:13):
test was comprised of a bunch of rapidly changing whistles
that Jack would hear, and he would be placed in
front of a set of dummy levers. So they were
it was like a flight simulator, but for a signal operator,
the same exact layout as the ones that he was
actually working in in I R O exactly. And so
we had this um. So they had somebody observing while
(19:35):
these engineers were blowing these train whistles, and Jack was
supposed to make the correct changes, pull the correct levers
in the correct order. How to go No, quite well, Ben,
He passed UM with honors. He did a fantastic job,
and the railway system manager was incredibly impressed, he gave
(19:56):
Wide his job back and get this hired Jack on
uh just to become the only baboon in the history
of the South African railway system to be given official
work and pay. Um. His pay was twenty cents a day.
It's about five bucks a day in today's dollars and um.
(20:16):
He was given food and half a bottle of beer
on Saturdays, and presumably Wide was still giving him his
little his little schnops before bet or what was it, Brandy.
So pretty insane. And he goes on to continue working
for the company for several more years and it created
a kind of a boom for the the area, the
(20:36):
region because it was like now they had this tourist attraction.
People would come from miles around to see the famous
signalman Baboon Jack the baboo. Yeah. People would buy a ticket,
not to really go anywhere, but to just get a
chance to see our boy Jack. And it's interesting to
me too that they landed on half a bottle of beer.
(20:57):
It feels like there was a negotiation give him the
full bottle. You know, maybe they were just concerned, you know,
they want him drinking on the job. This is only
on Saturdays though I assume that was his day off.
But he also acted as a guard and would chase
away any trespassers or you know, like trained kids that
would come along with their dogs wearing bandanas. Um and uh.
(21:18):
He even was able to repeat some of the tasks
that Why taught him at home and clean rail cars
and move railway sleepers. That's right, pull pull weeds and all.
That was his giant baboon arms. And he was officially
put in charge of that key. We were talking about
the key to the coal yard that was originally um
(21:40):
wide responsibility. So I imagine Wide still kind of just
got to stay on and supervise and do his taxidermy. Yeah,
Like who is the in the Curious George books? Who
is the man in the yellow hat? Is that just
his name? He's just the man on the yellow hat? Yeah, yeah, okay,
his George's owner. And know what he actually does. I
(22:01):
think we've got a max with the facts coming in here. Hot,
Yes it is Ted Shackleford, Are you kidding? And why
he has a name. In a deleted scene in the
two six Here Is George movie, the man with the
yellow at full name was revealed as Ted shackle Ford
canon from that quick Google search, but it is from
(22:24):
a senn Arkle But no, that is not Canada. All right, Well,
well he was in a curious George situation, is what
I'm saying, and he got he got glowing reviews. A
railway superintendent, uh circa ninety a guy named George B.
Howe visited and he said, Jack knows the signal whistle
(22:44):
as well as I do almost every one of the levers.
It was very touching to see his fondness for his master.
As I drew near. They were both sitting on the trolley,
the baboon's arms round his master's neck, the others stroking
Wide's face. Total, MAT's I love it? Yeah, well don't
you mean? Yeah a little bit. The whole thing. The
(23:05):
whole thing is weird love, which is touching. He like touching.
But there this is weird too, and something that I
was completely not aware of. Jack unfortunately passed away. Um
(23:25):
he contracted tuberculosis, in which I had no idea was
something that affected the monkeys, but only what's referred to
in this Today I found out article as Old World monkeys,
which is what Jack was, unlike New World monkeys. I'm
not quite sure that the distinction is there, but probably
worth a little further investigation. Um. But Jack worked the
(23:47):
rails for a total of nine years and he never
made a single documented mistake yep, which not every trade
employee can see by the way he u His story
got covered in a science journal Nature in eighteen ninety,
and then it was kind of like an obscure thing.
It was a story of regional interest for a lot
(24:10):
of people, but not internationally until a century later. The
Telegraph newspaper covered it and a lot of people thought
it was a hoax because it sounds crazy, but the
truth is often stranger than fiction. This is unlike the
story of Otto. The first we can historically established there
was a baboon. There wasn't Mr Wide. The baboon was
(24:32):
called Jack and did work at the railway. UM. Because
we know we saw correspondence as well from scientists who
ran into Jack. You can even if you visit the
Albany Museum in Grahamstown, South Africa, see what the curator's
claim is Jack's skull, which is a little mormid, but
(24:52):
it's proof consistent. Yeah, and that's at the Albany Museum
in Grahamstown, South Africa that also has a little bit
of a photo exhibits about the old eden Hague station.
M and I, you know, I felt like this episode
was an excellent opportunity for us to talk a little
(25:13):
bit more about interesting things that baboons do. So we're
talking about Jack, who's kind of like a super heroic
service animal. You could say, but did you guys know
That's why I think baboons are more intelligent than they
get credit for it. Did you guys know that baboons
keep pets. They abduct. Yeah, they abduct like puppies, wild dogs,
(25:38):
and they they feed them, They raised them, and they
groom them. They play with the dogs, and the dogs
are treated like family pets for the baboon community, the
baboonity and community. Sorry, and so the uh no, we're
keeping it. We're keeping it, Maxi'm sorry. Uh. The the
(26:01):
dogs have a role to play because they defend their
family from other dogs who haven't been turned by the baboons,
and they watch over them when they sleep at night.
That's kind of wild, right, they really is. And in
true curious George fashion, uh, Jack and Jim are the
subject of a best selling children's book called Railway Jack,
(26:24):
The True Story of an Amazing Baboon, which you can
get on Amazon UM if you're interested by Kat Johnson.
Really really cool story. I can't believe this hasn't been
made into UH at the very least like one of
those UM Pixar shorts. You know they feature that'd be good. UM.
I can see them adding a little detail and then
creating a feature out of it. UM. But let's see too.
(26:47):
To close out, we've got a couple of interesting UM
examples of other types of animals working at railway stations,
in the form of Japan's station master cats. Yes, that's correct.
So there's a Japanese hound called Keno Kawa and for
around eight years, the station master of Kenya Kawa's Kishi
(27:08):
station was a Calico cat named Toma and Toma or
Tama she was astray. She lived near the station. Some
people worked there were feeding herse so she was hanging
out and the station was automated in two thousand seven
to save some money on the bottom line. So this
cat was hired, or as we say on our other show, hired,
(27:32):
and she was paid in food and people loved seen
her just like folks would ride the train to see
signalman Jack. People would travel to the station just to
see the cat boss of Kishi Station, and they gave
her a tiny hat, a tiny station master hat while
(27:53):
she worked in her office. That's adorable. Um. And unfortunately,
I sorry, we're killing off all these animals, not us.
It's just time in history. Uh. Tama passed away in
heart failure. But she lived on the right bold cattage
of sixteen which is up there. And she was actually
credited with saving the train line from financial collapse because
(28:14):
of all of the tourists that she drew with an
estimated at one point one billion yen of additional revenue
UM since her tenure began. Yeah, yeah, and Uh. If
you would like to learn more about this very strange
but fascinating and adorable are often adorable corner of history,
then do check out ten animals with better jobs than
(28:36):
you at how Stuff Works dot com by Melanie rad
Zicki McManus. Uh. This is where you'll find some some excellent,
more lighthearted examples of animals being employed in jobs that
you know are commonly thought to be the domain of people. Uh.
This doesn't count a ton of military animals, but Also,
(28:58):
you know what this reminds me of, you guys, there
is who's that dog? There's a dog in the US,
maybe more than one that is like the mayor of
a town. I am not aware of a dog mayor
Ben Ah. Yes, I'm thinking of Max the gold Retriever,
not Max Williams superducer. Max Williams, no Goldener Treever, who
(29:19):
was also mayor of idle Wild, California in two thousand
and twelve. I wonder if they gave him a dogs
like one of those mayor sashes like we talked about
on the last apsode, like with Mayor mccheese. Yeah, and
two uh dog named Duke the Dog became mayor of Cormorant, Minnesota.
(29:41):
This is weird. There are actually a lot of uh.
There's an insider dot com article that points out there
have been no less than nine dogs who have been
elected mayor of small towns. I fell asleep trying to
put on a pair of pants once. And these dogs
are out here changing the world a man, They really
are an doing God's work. And hey, if you're interested
in more crazy stories about animals or unusual animals and
(30:06):
unusual locations, um, why not check out an episode that
we did several years back about weird presidential pets. Worth
a listen, and we would also love to hear from you.
We hope you enjoyed today's episode. It's a little bit
short and sweet story UM where luckily nothing terrible happened
to signal man Jack and Uh, a man who was
(30:27):
grievously injured was able to get in a very real way,
a new lease on life with a new best friend.
So tell us your stories of other animals that have
had amazing jobs. Uh, we'd love to hear from you.
You can find us at Ridiculous at i heeart media
dot com. You can find our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians
(30:48):
some of the some of our favorite animals on the
internet us included and uh and as always, folks, UM,
thank you for thank you for tuning in. UH, maybe
we could a ridiculous history rail tour. Ridiculous rails? What
do they call that? A whistle stop tour? Like the
presidents used to do? You know, he's like you, we
(31:09):
hang out on the back and just wave very very
minimal movement to our wrists. We'll do that. We'll stop
and hang we'll stop and chat. But I'm down for
that idea. I like old timey stuff like that. You
can also find Ben and I as individual human people
on the Internet. I am exclusively on Instagram at how
Now Noel Brown. How about you, buddy. Yeah, you can
find me at Ben Boland bow L I n On
(31:31):
Instagram you can get a preview of my various misadventures,
what I'm reading, the research I'm doing. Uh. And you
can also find me on Twitter, where I am at
Ben Bowland hs W and in a never before revealed
look into the life of super producer Max Williams. Uh, Max,
you're on the undernet too, I hear, Yes, I am,
(31:53):
and I am on Twitter and only Twitter. I am
at a t L underscore Max Williams. Okay, alright, got
a lot of hot takes on sports ball games uh
Lional trains, uh not a ball games and Lionel trains,
the Max Williams story, and a lot of Star Trek,
A lot of Star Trek and a lot of Star Trek. Okay, man, well, uh,
(32:14):
this this is gonna do it for us today. Thanks
of course to Max Williams. Thinks to Alex Williams who
can post our track. Thanks to Gabe bluesier who keeps
this show on track. And and thanks of course to
Jonathan Strickland ak the Twister. Yeah, he's a good monkey.
That's nicer. That's nicer than what we've we said and
cut off air. We'll keep this parted. We could talk
(32:36):
about the backstage. Do you think we can teach them
how to pull levers? I bet you we could. He
pushes my buttons. That's that's he's already got ahead to start.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
(32:58):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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