October 11, 2022 • 52 mins
Virtually every foodie is aware of the Michelin Guide -- the last word in high-end restaurant ratings -- but originally came about as a way to sell more cars (and, ultimately, tires). In today's episode with research associate Geoff Bartlett, Ben, Noel and Max dive deep into the origins of the Michelin guide, as well as Michelin's iconic mascot Bibendum, the Michelin Man. Spoiler: the Michelin Man was originally the absolute worst mascot for anything related to driving. Tune in to learn why.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:26):
welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up
for the man, the myth, the legend, the one and only.
Mr Max Williams. Uh. Folks, they call me Bed as
always with my ride or die. Mr Noel Brown, Yeah,
(00:47):
I'm not used to get this. And so we were
coming to you a quite an auspicious time this week
because we are welcoming on air finely one of our
newest research associates, Mr Jeff Bartlett. All Right, y'all, you
(01:09):
know what time it is. It's here for Jeff. Jeff Yeah,
Jeff is here. Oh yeah, show showy show Jeff Yeah,
(01:37):
actor performer, writer here in the Atlanta area and a
dear friend of ours. Jeff, welcome to the show. Thank you.
I'm happy to be here. I can tell your enthusiasm
is infectious. No, I really am. I'm very happy to
be here. We're happy to have your So this is
no This one was kind of a long time in
(01:59):
the make for us. We were peeking behind the ridiculous curtain.
We were going to record this a couple of different times,
curtain is so absurd. It's just the color scheme is
all out of whack. Our priorities when we were doing
the original budget for this show kind of came back
to haunt us. This is like, I don't know if
you guys know this, but podcast curtains are kind of pricey.
(02:21):
Oh yeah, I gotta have sound absorbed, you know, properties,
and then of course you want them to look nice.
But somewhere along the way everything got all ridiculous to five,
which I guess is on brand. It's ridiculous to fight
a word. I'm gonna make it a word. It is now.
It's it's American English. Bro. The world is yours. And
that's something. Uh, that's something that we thought you would
enjoy to Jeff. Now, Jeff, when you're working on research
(02:46):
for Ridiculous History, you you started off listening to the show, which,
thank you surprise, surprised us. But we asked you if
there was something that was close close to your mind,
something you really wanted to come on air and explore
with us on Ridiculous History, and you had it locked
and loaded. Man. We were on a call and you
(03:08):
told us michelin Man, how much do you guys know
about the michelin Man because it's it's such a strange thing,
like this character who has become, you know, a strange
version of a mascot. Like he's not a very likable mascot.
(03:29):
I don't know if that's the way to put up,
but well, he's got a smile on his face. He's
got a smile on his face, modern version. He doesn't
make much sense. Yeah, it's like presumably he's meant to
be stacked up tires because also whites and tires are black,
and I guess they are those whitewall tires that come on,
what are those ben those uh fancy cars that Butler's
(03:52):
drive or I guess first excuse me, Yeah, Duisenberg's Packard's
kind of that era of fancy fancy motor coaches. Uh. Yeah,
we're gonna find out how the michelin Man started. And
you know, for a lot of people who have nostalgic
feelings about this mascot, you might be surprised by Jeff's
(04:16):
statement that the michelin Man is maybe not a ten
ten dude, which, okay, so long story store is our introduction.
Michelin Man is the mascot of the Michelin company, which
is now maybe equally known for their opinions on restaurants,
(04:37):
but originally was just known for making tires for automobiles,
right absolutely, which is very strange because it's, uh, it's
sort of like Guinness, they make the beer, they also
make the world records, and you think it was two
different companies. But Mitchellin, Yeah, they do the restaurant rating
(04:59):
from their travel guide, which was probably like a exactly
you know, marketing stunt that then kind of took on
a life of its own and then began to become
this very sought after status, you know, the Michelin Stars
and all of that. But it all came from I
guess it's being kind of first to market with that
kind of publication, right Yeah. Definitely their whole thing. They
(05:22):
were making tires. That was the only thing they did.
But hey, if you're gonna have tires on cars and
people are motorists wandering around for restaurants hotels, why not
rate them. So they did it at the same time
and and now it just seems like two completely different companies,
(05:45):
but they're not same guys. Yeah, it would be kind
of like I was trying to find analogy. This isn't
a perfect comparison, but it would be kind of like
your favorite podcast also doing a separate show us rating microphones,
you know, and then becoming known for that. Right they've
(06:05):
got They've got four out of five ridiculousness is uh
the sure microphones? Then don't don't pitch as been off
for me to do. I mean, no one, I'll take
care of that one right there. It's gonna be more
successful in this show has ever been. Well, maybe it'll
just be an episode strong words, Yeah, Ben, for all
you know, maybe ridiculous history in the timeline will just
(06:28):
be the episode. Maybe maybe in the great Timeline of
all things Max, our lives are but one episode. Uh So,
as you can tell, it's been a weird Monday morning
for us. I like the idea of timeline though, what
(06:48):
a great segue, because we got to get to the
bottom of this origin story. So we've laid this out.
The michelinman used to look really weird. But where did
he come from? And how how old is he? Oh?
Very old? So he's just seen the world change, just
as his fellow tire men have died around him. He's
(07:11):
he's wandered the earth alone low these many years, claiming
victims to stay alive. That's how claiming victims. Yes, so,
so the way that we know this story, it goes
back to a guy named ed Ord and a guy
named Andre and their brothers. They're the Michelin Brothers. Spoiler alert,
(07:31):
Uh this, I don't know how solid this story is,
but from what we understand, they're at an auto industry
show in the home, France in like you said, Jeff,
and one of the brothers says to the other one, Hey,
look at that pile of tires. Looks sort of like
(07:53):
a dude, right, Andre, Right? You see it? Right, Bro,
it's like a It's like a dude without arms and legs,
but still but still like a dude. I don't know
something we could do with this, right, Let's make him
into something. They're they're frenchmen, correct, yes, so I don't
(08:14):
know why I'm giving them a like a New England
Jersey accident, yea or New Jersey. So these guys, it's
important to note these guys were already in the tire business.
They weren't just two random dudes who wanted to go
to an auto show. Can you tell us a little
bit about Michelin the company, well, the company itself, they
(08:37):
definitely started out just making tires. That was their entire thing,
um entire ah, no pun left behind. Yeah, they created
the company just to supply tires for the earliest cars,
which were all white, which is why land Man every
(09:03):
time you see him he looks like the State Puff
marshmallow Man or the Pills very dou boy, like a
cousin of maybe one of them, because that's how tires
were still about a nineteen fift They're all white because
I mean rubber, you know, untreated or un you know, uh,
filled with some additive or other is white. Yes, indeed,
(09:29):
the latex from rubber specifically harvested mostly from the Congo region.
Just as an aside lots of rubber trees. There lots
of stories there too, but that's for another time. Yeah,
let's think about this right now. If you own a car,
or you walk by a car at some point during
(09:50):
the day, you will see that tires themselves are pretty
complex and aside from some novelties or specific indias treets,
it's easy for us to look at tires and say, hey,
these all kind of look the same. I've seen one tire.
I've seen the mall, But we have to realize that
(10:11):
back in the day before Michelin got in the game,
tires were made of different materials. Would metal or this
is a really surprising when leather, especially when you think
about how heavy a car can be. Uh that's that's
gonna be some pretty pretty strong cow hide. Huh gotta
(10:31):
be even would surprise me because uh sure there's horse
drawn carriages, you know, in so many different uh historic horrificenses,
but would just doesn't seem like it fits with engines
to me, Like it doesn't uh seem like a great
(10:57):
tire when you're goinging over you know, twenty miles an
hour or so. And ultimately we'll find the reason that
tires today are black. But as you said, noll rubber
in its natural form is white, and you can see
this still on some old cars, but they're very fancy,
(11:19):
like period accurate cars that you you know, you wouldn't
see these parking at your neighborhood quick trip. So it
seems like the Michelin man evolves in step with the
technology of tires. So what we're scientists doing that turn
tires from white to black? Carbon black was a material
(11:44):
that um around um or so folks were like, hey,
these white tires are kind of degrading way faster than
if we add carbon black to them. So even though
tires by the nineteen twenties were all black, the michelin
(12:08):
Man stayed white. They just never changed him. Even though
those were that you only, I don't know, twenty years
of tires were white. Traditions are good, you know, I mean, yeah,
was it a brand recognition thing? I'm wondering. Well, the
carbon black made tires way more resistant to like temperature changes,
(12:30):
The rubber wore down more slowly, It made the tires stronger,
probably increased traction too, I imagine. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah,
And and they even according to Goodyear, the chemical engineers
had found that a tire made without carbon black would
likely last five thousand miles or less, but the carbon
(12:54):
additive gave them ten times more life, and it also
made them black. So Jeff, Noel, Max and I a
while back we did an episode on McDonald's which was
super trippy because we learned a lot about the depth
(13:18):
of McDonald land lore. And it was surprising, Uh, I
don't know about you know, but surprising to me that
michelin Man has its own deep lore, not all of
which has aged very well. Absolutely, his name is uh.
He's widely known as michelin Man, of course, but um,
(13:43):
he literally has the first name, which is be Bendham,
which is uh Latin because he was Bendy for to drink,
which you know, we don't usually associate drinking and driving
as a good thing these days, but it's he was
a He was an alcoholic mascot basically for tired business. Okay,
(14:11):
this is back in like kind of Madmen rules where
it was okay to have a martini, you know, for
your morning meeting, saying, I imagine for a nice drive
in the country. You know, the early cars probably came
with you know, built in bars, I imagine is that true? Now?
I'm just but yeah, there were there were so many
um adverts that were included his first name, the Bendam,
(14:36):
which again is basically translates uh, now is the time
to drink to your health. The Mitchell entire drinks down
the obstacles probably wouldn't go over well these days. To
drink to drive, Let's do it together, yes, yeah, and
(15:00):
please drink and drive responsibly. There it is perfect exactly.
It's weird too, because for most of us listening to
the show today, you were probably not alive in the
late eighteen hundreds. I don't want to profile, but I'm
just saying statistically, that's my guess. If you are a
person who knows the Michelin man from the modern day,
(15:23):
you might be surprised learn over time the dude, our
boy bib has really mellowed out. Uh, Jeff, you found
that back in back in the days of old. In
his earlier Hellen years, the Bendam was known for being
made of tires, drinking a lot, and smoking like a chimney. Right.
(15:45):
He was also a cigar aficionado, loved cigars. Was just
every single ad he had martini and a cigar. And
even for a while, um he was led as a
care They're being known as the road drunkard, which you know,
(16:07):
it doesn't really work out so well these days. But
can I say, no, no shade on Europeans, But this
all sounds intensely European, It does, doesn't it to Drinking
and driving was pretty much almost their slogan for a while.
Let the michel entire drink down the obstacles and we been.
(16:31):
Do you know when it became illegal to drink and drive?
It's a great question. As far as we can tell,
I'm kind of spitball in here. Uh drunk driving or
drink driving as they were called in Europe, has only
been illegal for a little over a hundred years in
a lot of states in the US, and it actually
(16:52):
went state by state. And that's why you can see
that some uh d Y or d w I or
whatever they're called. Some of those law as me very
even today. But as always, don't do it. Don't trust
the old Michelin man. He's reformed. The Bendam does not
want you to drink and drive. I think he quit
smoking too, after a while he did. Yes, he's a
(17:15):
lot more happy looking now. Again, as we were saying earlier,
you know, he looks like very innocent. He looks like
the state buff marshmallow man. He looks like the Pills
very dough boy. But back in the day he kind
of looked scary. And a lot of those ads you
had pince nez is that what they're called. Yes, yeah,
(17:37):
he had pince nez umla and the French glasses that
are just perched on your nose. They don't really have
the backing the stems. Yeah, and I think you would
wear a monocle time to time. So also he needs
(18:01):
a vision correction apparently. And it was also very they
wanted to portray him as a rich man about town
because those are the only people who could afford cars.
I mean, we can argue that that's true still sometimes,
(18:23):
but uh, yeah, he was advertised to the rich, which
is one of the reasons that they were like, hey,
let's let's make him look fancy, let's give him a drink,
and then over time, of course we see him now
and he's just he's just a lovable, lovable chubby boy.
(18:44):
It reminds me of a really great sketch on Mr.
Show Um where some kind of marketing guys come into
this company and they invent a what is it, non
threatening pan sexual spokes thing named pit Pat pit Pat,
and at the end he goes, take it from me,
I love you. And I think they probably took some
(19:07):
inspiration from the Michelin man because he is genderless and
that he's just kind of got This is just a
flat area down there. He is presumably nude, and yeah,
non threatening pan sexual spokes thing. I like this and this,
this takes us to an interesting place because there is
this cartoonish quality to the Michelin man who was who
(19:29):
was sort of you know what it was. He's the
dose eckies guy made out at Tires. That's what they're
going for, like the most interesting man. And what I
didn't know about this before we launched into prepping for
this episode is that there is another creator who deserves,
who deserves their flowers, their shout out as ridiculous News
(19:51):
would say, a cartoonist named Marius R. Celion. Could you
tell us a little bit about this guy? Well, I
mean he created b Bentam basically in he created this
strange character, he wanted to use it for a brewery,
which again comes back around to the alcoholism of our
(20:14):
Michelin van. And he depicted this man of Tires drinking
from a goblet filled with nails and broken glass, which
seems so strange, but the whole point was to be
indicative of how tough and hardy mitchelland Tires were and
(20:36):
that they would not puncture that easily. Okay, so he's
coming from a really weird place as an origin story already,
you know, I can see why maybe the Michelin Restaurant
Guide doesn't have this guy on the cover, you know,
shotgutting a glass of nails and uh and chain smoking
(20:59):
you know what I mean, black and milds or whatever,
which I guess, or technically cigarillos. But if we look
at the old Michelin Man and the new Michelin Man,
we see uh, we see those apparent changes. Also ditched,
the ditched the glasses and now has the big sort
(21:21):
of cartoonies. Right. Are they more expressive or was it
just to make him look less creepy? Yeah, the earli
iterations again, Like we we've said he's smoking cigar wearing
glasses looked kind of I would say, like whipped cream,
(21:44):
a little bit of a dippity due on the top
of his m Yeah, but not like as soft as
he looks now. Like it was a it was a
a mess. Like he almost looked like a little mess
of tires, whereas now he's more stacked. Okay, So from
(22:06):
from U tire tire pile to like tire model this guy. So,
after hearing all of this in two are fellow ridiculous historians,
especially concerned parents with kids about to drive, might be
thinking this is literally the worst person to be a
mascot for driving. You know, you were telling us earlier, Jeff,
(22:30):
that he was actually pretty popular when he came out. Oh,
he was very popular. He was beloved. He was Mitchelland
again they became almost two separate companies because he the
mitchelland man would recommend place to stop, you know, places
(22:53):
you know you're driving. You're driving, you're rich, you want
to stop at a nice restaurant. Let's give him three
Mitcheln st ours. I I actually, you know now, I
want to look that up. Is it five? Is five
the highest Michelin Star rating or is it I believe
(23:14):
it is five, But that's incredibly high, or that's incredibly
different there, Getting one is a big deal. I'm wrong
three because is such a big deal. Five almost seems
like a bridge too far, because even a one Michelin
(23:35):
Star restaurant is a pretty pretty big to do, pretty
big hubbles out the restaurant instantly. So three Michelin Stars.
We don't know yet why they landed on three instead
of five, but again we've established they're pretty into traditions.
I was surprised to learn that you know this, you
(23:56):
know what this reminds me of guys. This reminds me. This,
the part we're about to get to, reminds me of
how corporate entities have started going on Twitter on social
media as their own accounts, you know, and all of
a sudden, Burger King and McDonald's are fighting. Wendy's drops
a mixtape and if you have not heard it yet,
(24:19):
I have to reluctantly give the props that mixtape slaps.
It's undeservedly good. It has no right to be as good.
It's so good that this isn't even the first time
it's been brought up on this show. We've brought this
up beforehand. Well, just the fast food social media wars
has really become a thing to behold. Uh. And sometimes
(24:39):
they'll hire some rogue, you know, gen z social media
buff that takes it a little too far. There's one
I can think of, and I'm gonna have to beat
myself here. It's a Wendy's posted It's like an army
sign that says we have a fred Chicken sandwich too,
and they'll caption it from Wendy's Days. No one gives
a sh wow wow, no holds bart Okay, So yeah,
(25:05):
maybe one day, maybe one day far into the future,
will be on ridiculous history as very old people saying,
you know, back in the day that crazy meme account.
Wendy's was a fast food restaurant, and so a meme
was a photo something posted online. Also, yeah, exactly. Also,
(25:27):
this is back when everybody ate food with their mouths.
It will literally be that that image of the young
lady pushing her grandma on the wheelchair. It'll be very
meta because it'll be, you know, a meme describing what
a meme was back in my day. Only now we're
the old lady in the wheelchair, which we're already approaching
that we've nailed it. Okay, well, at least we know
(25:47):
what's coming. Uh. No one could have predicted, however, the
uh startling global success of the Bendam as a mascot.
I was surprised to learn that Michelin. When they launched
this travel magazine in UH nineteen o seven, an Italian
travel magazine, I believe they had a regular column from
(26:11):
the Bendam just sort of sort of like fast food
places have a regular Twitter account now and maybe I
don't know. Let's let's chew on this. Do you do
you do you think that the the public in general
was a little less jaded back then as in comparison
to the public today when they hear from corporate mascots.
(26:33):
I don't know, certainly was more novel because there's weren't
as many, you know, and like now, we're just it's
so old hat that I think everyone's just kind of
almost bored by it, and that's why advertisers are having
to go increasingly weirder and weirder, like the Burger King,
you know, serial killer looking King. That's true, they really have.
(26:54):
You know, we're recently talking about McDonald's on the series,
and it's strange what happened with Ronald. You know, he
was such a such a wonderful, cartoonish, wonderful dude, and
he's terrifying. So it's weird that Burger King was able
(27:16):
to turn their mascot into something terrifying and lovable, and
yet McDonald's sort of lost their mascot for being too creepy.
Just a bit strange. Well, so the tide has sort
of turned against clowns because of obviously things like it
(27:37):
and John Wayne Gaycy and stuff like that. So you know,
I mean clowns as a profession. Professional clowns have come
out against movies like It, saying that it it aligns
their profession. And I'm sure to a lesser degree, Ronald
McDonald probably didn't help either, because he was just so ubiquitous.
And you know, you still will see that creepy Ronald
(27:59):
McDonald life size kind of statue with his arm out
on a bench for you to like sit with him
putting his arm around you. And it's usually at the
Ronald McDonald house, which is like a charity for you
know kids essentially, So having a creepy clown with his
arm around a kid, while you know, used to be
the clown was just the you know, the bread and
(28:19):
butter of birthday parties, and now because of these associations,
has all these connotations that I think we're uh, certainly
not intended. Yeah, I like I don't have cool phobia
fear of clowns, but it was startling. When I used
to live in Central America, there's not the same level
(28:39):
of disdain, and it was kind of shocky, you know.
It was just I wasn't expecting random clowns and I
was trying to be cool with them. But if you're
not expecting him. You know, there's some deep, primal psychological
triggers for some of this stuff. Uh michelin Man I
I would pose it then is definitely a corporate spokes
(29:03):
tire pile and is also u fulfilling this kind of
jovial clown role. But might be surprised felt ridiculous historians
to learn that our boy, but Bendam was in his
column not doing basic advertising. There was. It's not like
(29:24):
he had a column in every issue where he said,
let me give you the latest updates on tires. He
in one case talked about attending a grand ball and uh, yeah,
he's a bit of a lothario, right, a bit of
a bit of a lover's lover. And here's one thing
he did that might not age well. He was kind
(29:46):
of praising and rating women he saw at this ball.
Could you tell us a little more about his columns? Ah,
he had several columns um love letters almost to look
a a house letters almost. He had a particular fondness
for Italy. A quote of his about Italy, Oh you
(30:11):
sublime Madonna Rome's destiny, except my homage you whose eyes
shine with the splendors of the renaissance. This is a
tire man talking. Did he write in character? Did he
refer to things that an anthropomorphic pile of tires might
(30:32):
be concerned with? And he also he had he had,
he had enemies as well. He had a pretty fiery
excerpt trumpeting the crushing impact that his social conquests were
having on his rivals, calling them ashen faced suitors with
fixed smiles, living symbols of a shattered illusion. Again from
(30:57):
a man made of tires. He's like a Carl Mark's
kind of figure there, you know, he's like leading the revolution.
He's coming for the fakers and the haters. Uh so,
so I can see how this would be really fun read.
I mean, obviously it's satire. Uh satire Cheez Max thrown
(31:18):
a boo but or a wamp wamp thank you? No, yeah,
go with the drums, Max Williams. Ladies and gentlemen. So this, uh,
this is strange, Like everyone knows this is satire, they
know it's a corporate brand. They're laughing at it. And
(31:40):
now they're also on the Michelin side starting to realize
this is an excellent way to communicate with future tire
buyers right now, Like that's how that's how you get them.
It's fun to read, it's fun to hang out in
your mind with the Bendam. Maybe, uh, I don't know,
Maybe he'll recommend a brand of cigar to us in
(32:03):
the next column. Maybe he'll tell us what beer is
most in fashion in Milan. You know, But how do
we get to how do we get to this idea
of restaurants from here? Oh, it's strangely straightforward. For such
(32:29):
a long time, I was like, well, seriously, mitchellin the
tire brand can't be associated with Michelin the folks who
rate restaurants. But yeah, at the beginning of the the
tire boom, uh, you know, they had rich people who
could afford cars, and they wanted to, uh say, hey,
(32:53):
maybe we can do something a little more here and say, um,
these are the restaurants you should go to in your
fancy cars that we're providing your tires for. And it
seems like a lot of sense at the beginning, but
you know, at this point it doesn't seem connected at all.
(33:15):
But yeah, he's the guy. He's the guy. The Bendam
is the guy recommending these restaurants two uh quote the
actual Mitchell and guide to help motorists develop their trips,
there by boosting car and tire sales. So of course, hey,
(33:35):
let's do something to boost our tire sales. They started
producing a small red guide filled with handy information for travelers,
such as maps, information on how to change a tire,
where to fill up with fuel, and for the traveler
in search of respite from the adventures of the day.
(33:55):
So they started rating restaurants. I can vibe with that,
because I mean and one reason the Guinness comparison is
so astute is that the Guinness Beer Company recognized early
on that a lot of people like to debate and
argue when there are a couple of a couple of
a couple of cans, or in their case, a couple
(34:16):
of points in So they got to the game early,
and they associated themselves with the idea of proving or
resolving all sorts of arguments, and then they started to
focus on world records. So it's pretty cool that Michelin
caught onto this. But from what you're describing here, Jeff,
(34:40):
I don't know about you know, it sounds like this
was a situation in the beginning where people would buy
tires and then they would be given the guide. Is
it something like that or was it just sort of
all around a city? At first? It just started in Paris.
They started giving the guides out with the tires Uh
(35:02):
in the nine twenties, including lists of like hotels, restaurants,
specific categories like that. And it was a good way
to get out of having paid for advertisements and the guide.
Restaurants wouldn't have to pay for anything. They could just
(35:22):
be listed in the Michelin Guide, and both the restaurants
and Michelin would prosper without any of them really having
to spend money. Yeah, it does make sense. This is
like an advertising coup. It's a win win, as they
would say in corporate American parlance. But now we have
(35:43):
to talk. I think about a dream job. Can we
get like a dream job? Q Max? There it is, there,
(36:07):
it is. I don't know about you know, but I
I enjoy it. I'm grateful to hang out with our
crew on this show. But every so often, I too,
have dreamed to beat a mystery Dieter. Do you ever
want to do that? It's like a secret shopper kind
of right, where you go in and pretend like you're
(36:29):
a civilian. But in fact, you're they're infiltrating the restaurants
um in order to write a potentially game changing review
that could you know, up the profile of this place
or absolutely crushed their dreams of restaurants success. And nowadays
the sad thing is that everyone is their own mystery
(36:49):
diner just by virtue of having a Yelp accounts. Yeah,
it's it is true. But but like michelin got involved
with this, right they they they weren't sending people dressed
as the Michelin Man to restaurants where they how would
you do the soup? Right? He's got no fingies? Does
(37:09):
he have fingies? He's more of like a glove, like
a mitten. Right? Does he? I feel like I can't
really picture his digits he's got Yeah, that's actually a
good question. He has he has digits. He does have digits. Okay,
excuse me, please forgive me from aligning the michelin Man's appendages.
(37:35):
My pal has been a lot. I've been through a lot.
So the At this point, the reformed alcoholic michelin Man
gets a gets a team of human diners who I
didn't know the proper term for them until you introduced
it to us Jeff Restaurants inspectors. I feel like you
(37:55):
should get a badge, you know that you can flash
at people at the end of the middle licensed. Yeah,
I like that. Yeah. Uh. There should be some qualifications.
You can't just have an Instagram accounts. Maybe, but this
so also peak again behind the curtain. We paid for
this curtain. We're going to use the curtain more. We
(38:17):
have a good friend of the show, Christopher Hasiotis, who
is a food critic of Note. You knew that, right, no,
oh yeah, yeah, very good taste that Christopher Aciots have
had the pleasure of dining with them a few times
and having him recommend some fabulous restaurants. Yeah. Anytime Christopher
(38:39):
Christopher gives you a restaurant recommendation, you listen and if
you can get in, and that's where you go. Uh.
And we've gotta we've gotta have Chris Christopher on the
show again. But what he's doing, what a food critic
is doing, is different from what these mystery diners or
restaurant inspectors are doing. They're not supposed to be idea divide,
(39:00):
They're supposed to be anonymous, right, so they're like gutty
a food inspectors or their spy uh spy restaurants people.
Uh Are they the ones who give the stars? I
believe they are. That's that's the strange thing about it,
and I sort of wish it was more like that.
(39:21):
It reminds me of um Ratatui, where they're expecting a
restaurant review and so they do everything in their power
to help make everything perfect. And that's sort of why
I I'm not a I'm not a huge fan of
(39:41):
the of yelp and such. You know it, it exists,
It's great, it can be. I like the idea of
these secret reviewers and the Michelin reviewers our secret they today.
I believe so. Yes, so it could be any one
of us. We could Maybe we're all mitchelndber yours. I
(40:05):
am actually the Michelin man. No, I had my suspicions.
This is just like John Carpenter's the thing which I
was not expecting in this show. All right, we need
we need a blood test, max if if you're bleeding,
rubber Man, We're still going to have to do the
show for contractual reasons. But poke, poke with a poke
(40:28):
with any implementency. If there's air leaking out, yes, yes,
this is not the turn I was expecting old, but
I like where we're going with the one we got though,
you know, it's the one we got so uh. So
these guides are these mystery diners, these restaurants inspectors. Uh,
(40:50):
they're working with the Michelin Guide, and by nineteen twenty six,
the guide starts to give its points two restaurants. Uh.
Initially they're all fine dining establishments. I mean it's still
like always pretty fine dining or very special places. And
(41:12):
I was it was fascinating to find that. In the beginning,
it was just like they were giving people stars, just
like in sing spool you get a gold star. Yeah,
single stars. So when did they start adding more stars?
In about ninety six they decided on the three star system,
(41:33):
which is again something we were talking about before because
most places rank things by five stars, but Michelin has
always been just one to three. That means that the
the individual stars are just way more valuable then in
a five star system, you know. And uh, and so
one star again, one star, one star review and a
(41:54):
five star ranking system is a bad review, but a
one Michelin star, you know, is very special. Mm hmm.
I think also with the one Michelin star, the implication
is keep your eye on this restaurant or keep your
eye on the chef they're going. And they don't give
stars out willie nilly. It's only they review every restaurant.
(42:14):
Every restaurant gets on that spectrum at all. It's like
you've really got to be in the top notch, in
the top echelon of restaurants to even rank. And that's
where it really does differ a lot from things like
crowdsourced Yelp or whatever, you know, where anyone can give
any star to anything for any reason. Mitchellan will only
(42:39):
give you a star or two stars or three stars.
And it's also it's a it's a legacy thing. Like
I said at the top of the show, it's the
fact that they were first to market with this type
of you know, guide, that they became the authority um
despite its seeming like it doesn't make a whole lot
of sense, the fact they were the first one to
(43:00):
do it, and then they realized that people were paying
a lot of attention to it because they were really
kind of the only game in town. UM. And then
over time it's just continued to have that impact and
to have that kind of cashe um and they've really
been good stewards of that because you know, you can
pretty reliably know that if a restaurant has a Michelin
Star that it's something to be you know, taken seriously.
(43:22):
And chefs, you know, the top chefs in the world, uh,
feel the same way. And really and you can lose
a Michelin star too, by the way they can take
it away. M hmm. I have a feel like it's
just like the Michelin manager shows up and it's like,
I am taking this from me. Just peels it off
your restaurant. Yeah, like like in like bugs Buddy cartoons
or they like, you know, they're literally dressing down like
a millet. Like it generally rips off all the epaulets
(43:45):
and the you know, the general the kind of badges
and merit badges or whatever. Yeah. This is uh and
this is interesting too. This isn't just brilliant advertising for
the restaurants. It's also aimed at least it its origin,
it's aimed squarely at people who were on the fence
(44:07):
about the expense of buying a motor vehicle, right you, Jeff,
you told us that nineteen there were fewer than three
thousand cars on the roads of France, the country, the
entire thing, not Paris. Imagine Paris alone with just three
thousand cars. Today people would be dancing in the streets.
But they did this to increase demand for tires, to
(44:29):
get people on on board with the idea. Right like
in Madmen, you're selling an idea. You're selling a dream,
the dream of driving on the open road. Uh. And
there's no arguing. They met with great success. I was
surprised to find that the Michelin guides have become best
(44:50):
sellers multiple times. Spoiler you I think you do have
to buy them? Now? You do? You do? They were
free at first. It was kind of almost sad with
Andre Michelin. For two decades, all that information came at
no cost until a faithful encounter that that remains a
(45:13):
favorite anecdote repeated today when Andre himself arrived at one
of his tire shops to see his beloved guides being
used to prop up a work bench. Oh no, sort
of like those A O. L discs we always just get.
Eventually they start to lose their their their value, and
you just get them in the mail every week and
(45:34):
people started using those for like doorstops. So yeah, after
that he started selling them for I think seven francs,
and so that became its own business. And that's sort
of why again we tend to separate the tires from
(45:55):
the restaurant guide because it doesn't seem like they fit together.
But um, that's why he started selling them at his
tire shops nuts and and there we have it, folks,
the relatively little known story of the Bendam, the crazy, smoking,
(46:18):
drinking and driving tire mascot who later learned his lesson
and reformed UH and became a bit of a food critic,
a bit of a gourmand, if you will. Uh, Jeff,
thank you so much for coming on the show with
us today. We love, love love introducing UH, introducing the
(46:43):
team at large to all our fellow ridiculous historians and
uh nol. I guess you know. At this point, we've
we've both learned a lot. Um. We've both been to
Michelin restaurants in the past, I know, UM, and we
have some of our favorites. But uh, I got to
tell you, even knowing all we had just learned today,
(47:06):
I still think the original Michelin man is super creepy,
super duper creepy. Well, you know, we didn't even we
describe him a bit, but I just I didn't want
to point out that as I was looking through some
vintage photos which you can find yourself with a quick
cursory goog um, he looks more like a mummy than anything.
It's like, it's almost like a weird, square headed mummy
where the tire things look more like bandage wraps than
(47:30):
they do what they're intended. And back to my question
about the fingies in the original costume, they just didn't
have a gloved part and so just the human it
had human hands, which made it even more strange and creepy. Yeah,
sexy and feeling it. And also, as we're ending today's show,
(47:53):
since from McDonald came up, I wanted to give a
big thanks to everybody. Went to our Facebook page Ridiculous
a story ins and posted pictures of the Ronald McDonald
vestiges in their own neck of the Global Woods. Just
like the early michelin Man. Those things are kind of creepy. Uh.
And we are creeping up on Halloween, one of my
(48:16):
most favorite times of the year. Uh, So hopefully we
can get some some spooky stories of ages past on
vintage michelin Man. No, take some regular hands, Yeah, regular hands.
I bet we could get one car and speaking a cigar. Ye. Yeah,
(48:40):
you're gonna get the cops called if you're walking around
that thing, and you probably deserve it as well. You
should as well, you should. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants
that thing walking around. But we do want to hear
from you. We want to hear your stories of mascots
of yesteryear. Uh, the ones that you love, the ones
(49:00):
that really freak you out, the ones that you think
most people may have forgotten. You can find us on Facebook,
as we said, ridiculous historians. We're still working on our MySpace,
but more news to come. We're probably not gonna get
a TikTok. I don't I don't think we I don't
think we need TikTok. We're already talking about how old
we are in person, about the meetings and TikTok at
(49:22):
this point, I mean, it just it would just seems
like a like a real like cry for attention. Honestly,
carry a pigeon telegraph. Thank you, Samuel with Moss, please
please do contact us. I mean, we just basically barely
figured out Instagram. I'm not ready for another platform. You know,
we've been We've been toying with this Pinterest page for
(49:43):
years now, and pictures isn't even hardly a thing anymore.
Maybe in another five years time or year old. We're
thinking long term. You know, that's our Event Horizon. I'm
just saying that because I recently rewatched Event Horizon. It's amazing,
dude movie. Because you may remember Ben, when that came out,
it was really advertised just speaking of truth and advertising
(50:06):
as a sci fi romp, you know, through the reach
of the far reaches of space, turns out not really
a spoiler alert, more of a cautionary alert. Uh. It
is a gore fest existential, dread filled horror nightmare of
lovecrafty in proportions, Lovecraft is where we're going. You won't
(50:29):
heal Razor in space basically well yeah, uh oh, and
we just uh shout out to our pal Dave Bruckner,
who uh just directed the newest hull Razor. Good on
you man, UM check it out. Let's know what you think, uh,
and let us know about these mascots. UM can't wait
to hear from you. Thanks as always, to our super producer,
(50:50):
Mr Max Williams, thanks to our UH one half of
our new research associate team, thanks to Jeff Bartlett, and
thanks to Zach Williams no relation. We call him Doctors
act now he earned it UH and and thanks of
course through our special guest today, Mr Jeff Bartlett NOL.
Thanks to you, man. I feel like a road trip.
(51:12):
I'm feeling a road trip to a restaurant, like your
road trip. You're welcome. And by the way, shot speaking
at a restaurants, I don't think they have a Michelin
star you. But I checked out a new Atlanta restaurant
called De Boca and Boca or in Bocca de Bok
I forget. It's like a really nice, upscale kind of
Mexican restaurant that does incredible tacos. And they had like
(51:33):
Beeria tacos and they do like, you know, tomahawk steak.
You know what is it? Carne ASADA's really really amazing.
Check it out and do check out those early pictures
of the initialivan Nightmare Fuel. We'll see you next time, folks.
(51:58):
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:26):
welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up
for the man, the myth, the legend, the one and only.
Mr Max Williams. Uh. Folks, they call me Bed as
always with my ride or die. Mr Noel Brown, Yeah,
(00:47):
I'm not used to get this. And so we were
coming to you a quite an auspicious time this week
because we are welcoming on air finely one of our
newest research associates, Mr Jeff Bartlett. All Right, y'all, you
(01:09):
know what time it is. It's here for Jeff. Jeff Yeah,
Jeff is here. Oh yeah, show showy show Jeff Yeah,
(01:37):
actor performer, writer here in the Atlanta area and a
dear friend of ours. Jeff, welcome to the show. Thank you.
I'm happy to be here. I can tell your enthusiasm
is infectious. No, I really am. I'm very happy to
be here. We're happy to have your So this is
no This one was kind of a long time in
(01:59):
the make for us. We were peeking behind the ridiculous curtain.
We were going to record this a couple of different times,
curtain is so absurd. It's just the color scheme is
all out of whack. Our priorities when we were doing
the original budget for this show kind of came back
to haunt us. This is like, I don't know if
you guys know this, but podcast curtains are kind of pricey.
(02:21):
Oh yeah, I gotta have sound absorbed, you know, properties,
and then of course you want them to look nice.
But somewhere along the way everything got all ridiculous to five,
which I guess is on brand. It's ridiculous to fight
a word. I'm gonna make it a word. It is now.
It's it's American English. Bro. The world is yours. And
that's something. Uh, that's something that we thought you would
enjoy to Jeff. Now, Jeff, when you're working on research
(02:46):
for Ridiculous History, you you started off listening to the show, which,
thank you surprise, surprised us. But we asked you if
there was something that was close close to your mind,
something you really wanted to come on air and explore
with us on Ridiculous History, and you had it locked
and loaded. Man. We were on a call and you
(03:08):
told us michelin Man, how much do you guys know
about the michelin Man because it's it's such a strange thing,
like this character who has become, you know, a strange
version of a mascot. Like he's not a very likable mascot.
(03:29):
I don't know if that's the way to put up,
but well, he's got a smile on his face. He's
got a smile on his face, modern version. He doesn't
make much sense. Yeah, it's like presumably he's meant to
be stacked up tires because also whites and tires are black,
and I guess they are those whitewall tires that come on,
what are those ben those uh fancy cars that Butler's
(03:52):
drive or I guess first excuse me, Yeah, Duisenberg's Packard's
kind of that era of fancy fancy motor coaches. Uh. Yeah,
we're gonna find out how the michelin Man started. And
you know, for a lot of people who have nostalgic
feelings about this mascot, you might be surprised by Jeff's
(04:16):
statement that the michelin Man is maybe not a ten
ten dude, which, okay, so long story store is our introduction.
Michelin Man is the mascot of the Michelin company, which
is now maybe equally known for their opinions on restaurants,
(04:37):
but originally was just known for making tires for automobiles,
right absolutely, which is very strange because it's, uh, it's
sort of like Guinness, they make the beer, they also
make the world records, and you think it was two
different companies. But Mitchellin, Yeah, they do the restaurant rating
(04:59):
from their travel guide, which was probably like a exactly
you know, marketing stunt that then kind of took on
a life of its own and then began to become
this very sought after status, you know, the Michelin Stars
and all of that. But it all came from I
guess it's being kind of first to market with that
kind of publication, right Yeah. Definitely their whole thing. They
(05:22):
were making tires. That was the only thing they did.
But hey, if you're gonna have tires on cars and
people are motorists wandering around for restaurants hotels, why not
rate them. So they did it at the same time
and and now it just seems like two completely different companies,
(05:45):
but they're not same guys. Yeah, it would be kind
of like I was trying to find analogy. This isn't
a perfect comparison, but it would be kind of like
your favorite podcast also doing a separate show us rating microphones,
you know, and then becoming known for that. Right they've
(06:05):
got They've got four out of five ridiculousness is uh
the sure microphones? Then don't don't pitch as been off
for me to do. I mean, no one, I'll take
care of that one right there. It's gonna be more
successful in this show has ever been. Well, maybe it'll
just be an episode strong words, Yeah, Ben, for all
you know, maybe ridiculous history in the timeline will just
(06:28):
be the episode. Maybe maybe in the great Timeline of
all things Max, our lives are but one episode. Uh So,
as you can tell, it's been a weird Monday morning
for us. I like the idea of timeline though, what
(06:48):
a great segue, because we got to get to the
bottom of this origin story. So we've laid this out.
The michelinman used to look really weird. But where did
he come from? And how how old is he? Oh?
Very old? So he's just seen the world change, just
as his fellow tire men have died around him. He's
(07:11):
he's wandered the earth alone low these many years, claiming
victims to stay alive. That's how claiming victims. Yes, so,
so the way that we know this story, it goes
back to a guy named ed Ord and a guy
named Andre and their brothers. They're the Michelin Brothers. Spoiler alert,
(07:31):
Uh this, I don't know how solid this story is,
but from what we understand, they're at an auto industry
show in the home, France in like you said, Jeff,
and one of the brothers says to the other one, Hey,
look at that pile of tires. Looks sort of like
(07:53):
a dude, right, Andre, Right? You see it? Right, Bro,
it's like a It's like a dude without arms and legs,
but still but still like a dude. I don't know
something we could do with this, right, Let's make him
into something. They're they're frenchmen, correct, yes, so I don't
(08:14):
know why I'm giving them a like a New England
Jersey accident, yea or New Jersey. So these guys, it's
important to note these guys were already in the tire business.
They weren't just two random dudes who wanted to go
to an auto show. Can you tell us a little
bit about Michelin the company, well, the company itself, they
(08:37):
definitely started out just making tires. That was their entire thing,
um entire ah, no pun left behind. Yeah, they created
the company just to supply tires for the earliest cars,
which were all white, which is why land Man every
(09:03):
time you see him he looks like the State Puff
marshmallow Man or the Pills very dou boy, like a
cousin of maybe one of them, because that's how tires
were still about a nineteen fift They're all white because
I mean rubber, you know, untreated or un you know, uh,
filled with some additive or other is white. Yes, indeed,
(09:29):
the latex from rubber specifically harvested mostly from the Congo region.
Just as an aside lots of rubber trees. There lots
of stories there too, but that's for another time. Yeah,
let's think about this right now. If you own a car,
or you walk by a car at some point during
(09:50):
the day, you will see that tires themselves are pretty
complex and aside from some novelties or specific indias treets,
it's easy for us to look at tires and say, hey,
these all kind of look the same. I've seen one tire.
I've seen the mall, But we have to realize that
(10:11):
back in the day before Michelin got in the game,
tires were made of different materials. Would metal or this
is a really surprising when leather, especially when you think
about how heavy a car can be. Uh that's that's
gonna be some pretty pretty strong cow hide. Huh gotta
(10:31):
be even would surprise me because uh sure there's horse
drawn carriages, you know, in so many different uh historic horrificenses,
but would just doesn't seem like it fits with engines
to me, Like it doesn't uh seem like a great
(10:57):
tire when you're goinging over you know, twenty miles an
hour or so. And ultimately we'll find the reason that
tires today are black. But as you said, noll rubber
in its natural form is white, and you can see
this still on some old cars, but they're very fancy,
(11:19):
like period accurate cars that you you know, you wouldn't
see these parking at your neighborhood quick trip. So it
seems like the Michelin man evolves in step with the
technology of tires. So what we're scientists doing that turn
tires from white to black? Carbon black was a material
(11:44):
that um around um or so folks were like, hey,
these white tires are kind of degrading way faster than
if we add carbon black to them. So even though
tires by the nineteen twenties were all black, the michelin
(12:08):
Man stayed white. They just never changed him. Even though
those were that you only, I don't know, twenty years
of tires were white. Traditions are good, you know, I mean, yeah,
was it a brand recognition thing? I'm wondering. Well, the
carbon black made tires way more resistant to like temperature changes,
(12:30):
The rubber wore down more slowly, It made the tires stronger,
probably increased traction too, I imagine. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah,
And and they even according to Goodyear, the chemical engineers
had found that a tire made without carbon black would
likely last five thousand miles or less, but the carbon
(12:54):
additive gave them ten times more life, and it also
made them black. So Jeff, Noel, Max and I a
while back we did an episode on McDonald's which was
super trippy because we learned a lot about the depth
(13:18):
of McDonald land lore. And it was surprising, Uh, I
don't know about you know, but surprising to me that
michelin Man has its own deep lore, not all of
which has aged very well. Absolutely, his name is uh.
He's widely known as michelin Man, of course, but um,
(13:43):
he literally has the first name, which is be Bendham,
which is uh Latin because he was Bendy for to drink,
which you know, we don't usually associate drinking and driving
as a good thing these days, but it's he was
a He was an alcoholic mascot basically for tired business. Okay,
(14:11):
this is back in like kind of Madmen rules where
it was okay to have a martini, you know, for
your morning meeting, saying, I imagine for a nice drive
in the country. You know, the early cars probably came
with you know, built in bars, I imagine is that true? Now?
I'm just but yeah, there were there were so many
um adverts that were included his first name, the Bendam,
(14:36):
which again is basically translates uh, now is the time
to drink to your health. The Mitchell entire drinks down
the obstacles probably wouldn't go over well these days. To
drink to drive, Let's do it together, yes, yeah, and
(15:00):
please drink and drive responsibly. There it is perfect exactly.
It's weird too, because for most of us listening to
the show today, you were probably not alive in the
late eighteen hundreds. I don't want to profile, but I'm
just saying statistically, that's my guess. If you are a
person who knows the Michelin man from the modern day,
(15:23):
you might be surprised learn over time the dude, our
boy bib has really mellowed out. Uh, Jeff, you found
that back in back in the days of old. In
his earlier Hellen years, the Bendam was known for being
made of tires, drinking a lot, and smoking like a chimney. Right.
(15:45):
He was also a cigar aficionado, loved cigars. Was just
every single ad he had martini and a cigar. And
even for a while, um he was led as a
care They're being known as the road drunkard, which you know,
(16:07):
it doesn't really work out so well these days. But
can I say, no, no shade on Europeans, But this
all sounds intensely European, It does, doesn't it to Drinking
and driving was pretty much almost their slogan for a while.
Let the michel entire drink down the obstacles and we been.
(16:31):
Do you know when it became illegal to drink and drive?
It's a great question. As far as we can tell,
I'm kind of spitball in here. Uh drunk driving or
drink driving as they were called in Europe, has only
been illegal for a little over a hundred years in
a lot of states in the US, and it actually
(16:52):
went state by state. And that's why you can see
that some uh d Y or d w I or
whatever they're called. Some of those law as me very
even today. But as always, don't do it. Don't trust
the old Michelin man. He's reformed. The Bendam does not
want you to drink and drive. I think he quit
smoking too, after a while he did. Yes, he's a
(17:15):
lot more happy looking now. Again, as we were saying earlier,
you know, he looks like very innocent. He looks like
the state buff marshmallow man. He looks like the Pills
very dough boy. But back in the day he kind
of looked scary. And a lot of those ads you
had pince nez is that what they're called. Yes, yeah,
(17:37):
he had pince nez umla and the French glasses that
are just perched on your nose. They don't really have
the backing the stems. Yeah, and I think you would
wear a monocle time to time. So also he needs
(18:01):
a vision correction apparently. And it was also very they
wanted to portray him as a rich man about town
because those are the only people who could afford cars.
I mean, we can argue that that's true still sometimes,
(18:23):
but uh, yeah, he was advertised to the rich, which
is one of the reasons that they were like, hey,
let's let's make him look fancy, let's give him a drink,
and then over time, of course we see him now
and he's just he's just a lovable, lovable chubby boy.
(18:44):
It reminds me of a really great sketch on Mr.
Show Um where some kind of marketing guys come into
this company and they invent a what is it, non
threatening pan sexual spokes thing named pit Pat pit Pat,
and at the end he goes, take it from me,
I love you. And I think they probably took some
(19:07):
inspiration from the Michelin man because he is genderless and
that he's just kind of got This is just a
flat area down there. He is presumably nude, and yeah,
non threatening pan sexual spokes thing. I like this and this,
this takes us to an interesting place because there is
this cartoonish quality to the Michelin man who was who
(19:29):
was sort of you know what it was. He's the
dose eckies guy made out at Tires. That's what they're
going for, like the most interesting man. And what I
didn't know about this before we launched into prepping for
this episode is that there is another creator who deserves,
who deserves their flowers, their shout out as ridiculous News
(19:51):
would say, a cartoonist named Marius R. Celion. Could you
tell us a little bit about this guy? Well, I
mean he created b Bentam basically in he created this
strange character, he wanted to use it for a brewery,
which again comes back around to the alcoholism of our
(20:14):
Michelin van. And he depicted this man of Tires drinking
from a goblet filled with nails and broken glass, which
seems so strange, but the whole point was to be
indicative of how tough and hardy mitchelland Tires were and
(20:36):
that they would not puncture that easily. Okay, so he's
coming from a really weird place as an origin story already,
you know, I can see why maybe the Michelin Restaurant
Guide doesn't have this guy on the cover, you know,
shotgutting a glass of nails and uh and chain smoking
(20:59):
you know what I mean, black and milds or whatever,
which I guess, or technically cigarillos. But if we look
at the old Michelin Man and the new Michelin Man,
we see uh, we see those apparent changes. Also ditched,
the ditched the glasses and now has the big sort
(21:21):
of cartoonies. Right. Are they more expressive or was it
just to make him look less creepy? Yeah, the earli
iterations again, Like we we've said he's smoking cigar wearing
glasses looked kind of I would say, like whipped cream,
(21:44):
a little bit of a dippity due on the top
of his m Yeah, but not like as soft as
he looks now. Like it was a it was a
a mess. Like he almost looked like a little mess
of tires, whereas now he's more stacked. Okay, So from
(22:06):
from U tire tire pile to like tire model this guy. So,
after hearing all of this in two are fellow ridiculous historians,
especially concerned parents with kids about to drive, might be
thinking this is literally the worst person to be a
mascot for driving. You know, you were telling us earlier, Jeff,
(22:30):
that he was actually pretty popular when he came out. Oh,
he was very popular. He was beloved. He was Mitchelland
again they became almost two separate companies because he the
mitchelland man would recommend place to stop, you know, places
(22:53):
you know you're driving. You're driving, you're rich, you want
to stop at a nice restaurant. Let's give him three
Mitcheln st ours. I I actually, you know now, I
want to look that up. Is it five? Is five
the highest Michelin Star rating or is it I believe
(23:14):
it is five, But that's incredibly high, or that's incredibly
different there, Getting one is a big deal. I'm wrong
three because is such a big deal. Five almost seems
like a bridge too far, because even a one Michelin
(23:35):
Star restaurant is a pretty pretty big to do, pretty
big hubbles out the restaurant instantly. So three Michelin Stars.
We don't know yet why they landed on three instead
of five, but again we've established they're pretty into traditions.
I was surprised to learn that you know this, you
(23:56):
know what this reminds me of guys. This reminds me. This,
the part we're about to get to, reminds me of
how corporate entities have started going on Twitter on social
media as their own accounts, you know, and all of
a sudden, Burger King and McDonald's are fighting. Wendy's drops
a mixtape and if you have not heard it yet,
(24:19):
I have to reluctantly give the props that mixtape slaps.
It's undeservedly good. It has no right to be as good.
It's so good that this isn't even the first time
it's been brought up on this show. We've brought this
up beforehand. Well, just the fast food social media wars
has really become a thing to behold. Uh. And sometimes
(24:39):
they'll hire some rogue, you know, gen z social media
buff that takes it a little too far. There's one
I can think of, and I'm gonna have to beat
myself here. It's a Wendy's posted It's like an army
sign that says we have a fred Chicken sandwich too,
and they'll caption it from Wendy's Days. No one gives
a sh wow wow, no holds bart Okay, So yeah,
(25:05):
maybe one day, maybe one day far into the future,
will be on ridiculous history as very old people saying,
you know, back in the day that crazy meme account.
Wendy's was a fast food restaurant, and so a meme
was a photo something posted online. Also, yeah, exactly. Also,
(25:27):
this is back when everybody ate food with their mouths.
It will literally be that that image of the young
lady pushing her grandma on the wheelchair. It'll be very
meta because it'll be, you know, a meme describing what
a meme was back in my day. Only now we're
the old lady in the wheelchair, which we're already approaching
that we've nailed it. Okay, well, at least we know
(25:47):
what's coming. Uh. No one could have predicted, however, the
uh startling global success of the Bendam as a mascot.
I was surprised to learn that Michelin. When they launched
this travel magazine in UH nineteen o seven, an Italian
travel magazine, I believe they had a regular column from
(26:11):
the Bendam just sort of sort of like fast food
places have a regular Twitter account now and maybe I
don't know. Let's let's chew on this. Do you do
you do you think that the the public in general
was a little less jaded back then as in comparison
to the public today when they hear from corporate mascots.
(26:33):
I don't know, certainly was more novel because there's weren't
as many, you know, and like now, we're just it's
so old hat that I think everyone's just kind of
almost bored by it, and that's why advertisers are having
to go increasingly weirder and weirder, like the Burger King,
you know, serial killer looking King. That's true, they really have.
(26:54):
You know, we're recently talking about McDonald's on the series,
and it's strange what happened with Ronald. You know, he
was such a such a wonderful, cartoonish, wonderful dude, and
he's terrifying. So it's weird that Burger King was able
(27:16):
to turn their mascot into something terrifying and lovable, and
yet McDonald's sort of lost their mascot for being too creepy.
Just a bit strange. Well, so the tide has sort
of turned against clowns because of obviously things like it
(27:37):
and John Wayne Gaycy and stuff like that. So you know,
I mean clowns as a profession. Professional clowns have come
out against movies like It, saying that it it aligns
their profession. And I'm sure to a lesser degree, Ronald
McDonald probably didn't help either, because he was just so ubiquitous.
And you know, you still will see that creepy Ronald
(27:59):
McDonald life size kind of statue with his arm out
on a bench for you to like sit with him
putting his arm around you. And it's usually at the
Ronald McDonald house, which is like a charity for you
know kids essentially, So having a creepy clown with his
arm around a kid, while you know, used to be
the clown was just the you know, the bread and
(28:19):
butter of birthday parties, and now because of these associations,
has all these connotations that I think we're uh, certainly
not intended. Yeah, I like I don't have cool phobia
fear of clowns, but it was startling. When I used
to live in Central America, there's not the same level
(28:39):
of disdain, and it was kind of shocky, you know.
It was just I wasn't expecting random clowns and I
was trying to be cool with them. But if you're
not expecting him. You know, there's some deep, primal psychological
triggers for some of this stuff. Uh michelin Man I
I would pose it then is definitely a corporate spokes
(29:03):
tire pile and is also u fulfilling this kind of
jovial clown role. But might be surprised felt ridiculous historians
to learn that our boy, but Bendam was in his
column not doing basic advertising. There was. It's not like
(29:24):
he had a column in every issue where he said,
let me give you the latest updates on tires. He
in one case talked about attending a grand ball and uh, yeah,
he's a bit of a lothario, right, a bit of
a bit of a lover's lover. And here's one thing
he did that might not age well. He was kind
(29:46):
of praising and rating women he saw at this ball.
Could you tell us a little more about his columns? Ah,
he had several columns um love letters almost to look
a a house letters almost. He had a particular fondness
for Italy. A quote of his about Italy, Oh you
(30:11):
sublime Madonna Rome's destiny, except my homage you whose eyes
shine with the splendors of the renaissance. This is a
tire man talking. Did he write in character? Did he
refer to things that an anthropomorphic pile of tires might
(30:32):
be concerned with? And he also he had he had,
he had enemies as well. He had a pretty fiery
excerpt trumpeting the crushing impact that his social conquests were
having on his rivals, calling them ashen faced suitors with
fixed smiles, living symbols of a shattered illusion. Again from
(30:57):
a man made of tires. He's like a Carl Mark's
kind of figure there, you know, he's like leading the revolution.
He's coming for the fakers and the haters. Uh so,
so I can see how this would be really fun read.
I mean, obviously it's satire. Uh satire Cheez Max thrown
(31:18):
a boo but or a wamp wamp thank you? No, yeah,
go with the drums, Max Williams. Ladies and gentlemen. So this, uh,
this is strange, Like everyone knows this is satire, they
know it's a corporate brand. They're laughing at it. And
(31:40):
now they're also on the Michelin side starting to realize
this is an excellent way to communicate with future tire
buyers right now, Like that's how that's how you get them.
It's fun to read, it's fun to hang out in
your mind with the Bendam. Maybe, uh, I don't know,
Maybe he'll recommend a brand of cigar to us in
(32:03):
the next column. Maybe he'll tell us what beer is
most in fashion in Milan. You know, But how do
we get to how do we get to this idea
of restaurants from here? Oh, it's strangely straightforward. For such
(32:29):
a long time, I was like, well, seriously, mitchellin the
tire brand can't be associated with Michelin the folks who
rate restaurants. But yeah, at the beginning of the the
tire boom, uh, you know, they had rich people who
could afford cars, and they wanted to, uh say, hey,
(32:53):
maybe we can do something a little more here and say, um,
these are the restaurants you should go to in your
fancy cars that we're providing your tires for. And it
seems like a lot of sense at the beginning, but
you know, at this point it doesn't seem connected at all.
(33:15):
But yeah, he's the guy. He's the guy. The Bendam
is the guy recommending these restaurants two uh quote the
actual Mitchell and guide to help motorists develop their trips,
there by boosting car and tire sales. So of course, hey,
(33:35):
let's do something to boost our tire sales. They started
producing a small red guide filled with handy information for travelers,
such as maps, information on how to change a tire,
where to fill up with fuel, and for the traveler
in search of respite from the adventures of the day.
(33:55):
So they started rating restaurants. I can vibe with that,
because I mean and one reason the Guinness comparison is
so astute is that the Guinness Beer Company recognized early
on that a lot of people like to debate and
argue when there are a couple of a couple of
a couple of cans, or in their case, a couple
(34:16):
of points in So they got to the game early,
and they associated themselves with the idea of proving or
resolving all sorts of arguments, and then they started to
focus on world records. So it's pretty cool that Michelin
caught onto this. But from what you're describing here, Jeff,
(34:40):
I don't know about you know, it sounds like this
was a situation in the beginning where people would buy
tires and then they would be given the guide. Is
it something like that or was it just sort of
all around a city? At first? It just started in Paris.
They started giving the guides out with the tires Uh
(35:02):
in the nine twenties, including lists of like hotels, restaurants,
specific categories like that. And it was a good way
to get out of having paid for advertisements and the guide.
Restaurants wouldn't have to pay for anything. They could just
(35:22):
be listed in the Michelin Guide, and both the restaurants
and Michelin would prosper without any of them really having
to spend money. Yeah, it does make sense. This is
like an advertising coup. It's a win win, as they
would say in corporate American parlance. But now we have
(35:43):
to talk. I think about a dream job. Can we
get like a dream job? Q Max? There it is, there,
(36:07):
it is. I don't know about you know, but I
I enjoy it. I'm grateful to hang out with our
crew on this show. But every so often, I too,
have dreamed to beat a mystery Dieter. Do you ever
want to do that? It's like a secret shopper kind
of right, where you go in and pretend like you're
(36:29):
a civilian. But in fact, you're they're infiltrating the restaurants
um in order to write a potentially game changing review
that could you know, up the profile of this place
or absolutely crushed their dreams of restaurants success. And nowadays
the sad thing is that everyone is their own mystery
(36:49):
diner just by virtue of having a Yelp accounts. Yeah,
it's it is true. But but like michelin got involved
with this, right they they they weren't sending people dressed
as the Michelin Man to restaurants where they how would
you do the soup? Right? He's got no fingies? Does
(37:09):
he have fingies? He's more of like a glove, like
a mitten. Right? Does he? I feel like I can't
really picture his digits he's got Yeah, that's actually a
good question. He has he has digits. He does have digits. Okay,
excuse me, please forgive me from aligning the michelin Man's appendages.
(37:35):
My pal has been a lot. I've been through a lot.
So the At this point, the reformed alcoholic michelin Man
gets a gets a team of human diners who I
didn't know the proper term for them until you introduced
it to us Jeff Restaurants inspectors. I feel like you
(37:55):
should get a badge, you know that you can flash
at people at the end of the middle licensed. Yeah,
I like that. Yeah. Uh. There should be some qualifications.
You can't just have an Instagram accounts. Maybe, but this
so also peak again behind the curtain. We paid for
this curtain. We're going to use the curtain more. We
(38:17):
have a good friend of the show, Christopher Hasiotis, who
is a food critic of Note. You knew that, right, no,
oh yeah, yeah, very good taste that Christopher Aciots have
had the pleasure of dining with them a few times
and having him recommend some fabulous restaurants. Yeah. Anytime Christopher
(38:39):
Christopher gives you a restaurant recommendation, you listen and if
you can get in, and that's where you go. Uh.
And we've gotta we've gotta have Chris Christopher on the
show again. But what he's doing, what a food critic
is doing, is different from what these mystery diners or
restaurant inspectors are doing. They're not supposed to be idea divide,
(39:00):
They're supposed to be anonymous, right, so they're like gutty
a food inspectors or their spy uh spy restaurants people.
Uh Are they the ones who give the stars? I
believe they are. That's that's the strange thing about it,
and I sort of wish it was more like that.
(39:21):
It reminds me of um Ratatui, where they're expecting a
restaurant review and so they do everything in their power
to help make everything perfect. And that's sort of why
I I'm not a I'm not a huge fan of
(39:41):
the of yelp and such. You know it, it exists,
It's great, it can be. I like the idea of
these secret reviewers and the Michelin reviewers our secret they today.
I believe so. Yes, so it could be any one
of us. We could Maybe we're all mitchelndber yours. I
(40:05):
am actually the Michelin man. No, I had my suspicions.
This is just like John Carpenter's the thing which I
was not expecting in this show. All right, we need
we need a blood test, max if if you're bleeding,
rubber Man, We're still going to have to do the
show for contractual reasons. But poke, poke with a poke
(40:28):
with any implementency. If there's air leaking out, yes, yes,
this is not the turn I was expecting old, but
I like where we're going with the one we got though,
you know, it's the one we got so uh. So
these guides are these mystery diners, these restaurants inspectors. Uh,
(40:50):
they're working with the Michelin Guide, and by nineteen twenty six,
the guide starts to give its points two restaurants. Uh.
Initially they're all fine dining establishments. I mean it's still
like always pretty fine dining or very special places. And
(41:12):
I was it was fascinating to find that. In the beginning,
it was just like they were giving people stars, just
like in sing spool you get a gold star. Yeah,
single stars. So when did they start adding more stars?
In about ninety six they decided on the three star system,
(41:33):
which is again something we were talking about before because
most places rank things by five stars, but Michelin has
always been just one to three. That means that the
the individual stars are just way more valuable then in
a five star system, you know. And uh, and so
one star again, one star, one star review and a
(41:54):
five star ranking system is a bad review, but a
one Michelin star, you know, is very special. Mm hmm.
I think also with the one Michelin star, the implication
is keep your eye on this restaurant or keep your
eye on the chef they're going. And they don't give
stars out willie nilly. It's only they review every restaurant.
(42:14):
Every restaurant gets on that spectrum at all. It's like
you've really got to be in the top notch, in
the top echelon of restaurants to even rank. And that's
where it really does differ a lot from things like
crowdsourced Yelp or whatever, you know, where anyone can give
any star to anything for any reason. Mitchellan will only
(42:39):
give you a star or two stars or three stars.
And it's also it's a it's a legacy thing. Like
I said at the top of the show, it's the
fact that they were first to market with this type
of you know, guide, that they became the authority um
despite its seeming like it doesn't make a whole lot
of sense, the fact they were the first one to
(43:00):
do it, and then they realized that people were paying
a lot of attention to it because they were really
kind of the only game in town. UM. And then
over time it's just continued to have that impact and
to have that kind of cashe um and they've really
been good stewards of that because you know, you can
pretty reliably know that if a restaurant has a Michelin
Star that it's something to be you know, taken seriously.
(43:22):
And chefs, you know, the top chefs in the world, uh,
feel the same way. And really and you can lose
a Michelin star too, by the way they can take
it away. M hmm. I have a feel like it's
just like the Michelin manager shows up and it's like,
I am taking this from me. Just peels it off
your restaurant. Yeah, like like in like bugs Buddy cartoons
or they like, you know, they're literally dressing down like
a millet. Like it generally rips off all the epaulets
(43:45):
and the you know, the general the kind of badges
and merit badges or whatever. Yeah. This is uh and
this is interesting too. This isn't just brilliant advertising for
the restaurants. It's also aimed at least it its origin,
it's aimed squarely at people who were on the fence
(44:07):
about the expense of buying a motor vehicle, right you, Jeff,
you told us that nineteen there were fewer than three
thousand cars on the roads of France, the country, the
entire thing, not Paris. Imagine Paris alone with just three
thousand cars. Today people would be dancing in the streets.
But they did this to increase demand for tires, to
(44:29):
get people on on board with the idea. Right like
in Madmen, you're selling an idea. You're selling a dream,
the dream of driving on the open road. Uh. And
there's no arguing. They met with great success. I was
surprised to find that the Michelin guides have become best
(44:50):
sellers multiple times. Spoiler you I think you do have
to buy them? Now? You do? You do? They were
free at first. It was kind of almost sad with
Andre Michelin. For two decades, all that information came at
no cost until a faithful encounter that that remains a
(45:13):
favorite anecdote repeated today when Andre himself arrived at one
of his tire shops to see his beloved guides being
used to prop up a work bench. Oh no, sort
of like those A O. L discs we always just get.
Eventually they start to lose their their their value, and
you just get them in the mail every week and
(45:34):
people started using those for like doorstops. So yeah, after
that he started selling them for I think seven francs,
and so that became its own business. And that's sort
of why again we tend to separate the tires from
(45:55):
the restaurant guide because it doesn't seem like they fit together.
But um, that's why he started selling them at his
tire shops nuts and and there we have it, folks,
the relatively little known story of the Bendam, the crazy, smoking,
(46:18):
drinking and driving tire mascot who later learned his lesson
and reformed UH and became a bit of a food critic,
a bit of a gourmand, if you will. Uh, Jeff,
thank you so much for coming on the show with
us today. We love, love love introducing UH, introducing the
(46:43):
team at large to all our fellow ridiculous historians and
uh nol. I guess you know. At this point, we've
we've both learned a lot. Um. We've both been to
Michelin restaurants in the past, I know, UM, and we
have some of our favorites. But uh, I got to
tell you, even knowing all we had just learned today,
(47:06):
I still think the original Michelin man is super creepy,
super duper creepy. Well, you know, we didn't even we
describe him a bit, but I just I didn't want
to point out that as I was looking through some
vintage photos which you can find yourself with a quick
cursory goog um, he looks more like a mummy than anything.
It's like, it's almost like a weird, square headed mummy
where the tire things look more like bandage wraps than
(47:30):
they do what they're intended. And back to my question
about the fingies in the original costume, they just didn't
have a gloved part and so just the human it
had human hands, which made it even more strange and creepy. Yeah,
sexy and feeling it. And also, as we're ending today's show,
(47:53):
since from McDonald came up, I wanted to give a
big thanks to everybody. Went to our Facebook page Ridiculous
a story ins and posted pictures of the Ronald McDonald
vestiges in their own neck of the Global Woods. Just
like the early michelin Man. Those things are kind of creepy. Uh.
And we are creeping up on Halloween, one of my
(48:16):
most favorite times of the year. Uh, So hopefully we
can get some some spooky stories of ages past on
vintage michelin Man. No, take some regular hands, Yeah, regular hands.
I bet we could get one car and speaking a cigar. Ye. Yeah,
(48:40):
you're gonna get the cops called if you're walking around
that thing, and you probably deserve it as well. You
should as well, you should. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants
that thing walking around. But we do want to hear
from you. We want to hear your stories of mascots
of yesteryear. Uh, the ones that you love, the ones
(49:00):
that really freak you out, the ones that you think
most people may have forgotten. You can find us on Facebook,
as we said, ridiculous historians. We're still working on our MySpace,
but more news to come. We're probably not gonna get
a TikTok. I don't I don't think we I don't
think we need TikTok. We're already talking about how old
we are in person, about the meetings and TikTok at
(49:22):
this point, I mean, it just it would just seems
like a like a real like cry for attention. Honestly,
carry a pigeon telegraph. Thank you, Samuel with Moss, please
please do contact us. I mean, we just basically barely
figured out Instagram. I'm not ready for another platform. You know,
we've been We've been toying with this Pinterest page for
(49:43):
years now, and pictures isn't even hardly a thing anymore.
Maybe in another five years time or year old. We're
thinking long term. You know, that's our Event Horizon. I'm
just saying that because I recently rewatched Event Horizon. It's amazing,
dude movie. Because you may remember Ben, when that came out,
it was really advertised just speaking of truth and advertising
(50:06):
as a sci fi romp, you know, through the reach
of the far reaches of space, turns out not really
a spoiler alert, more of a cautionary alert. Uh. It
is a gore fest existential, dread filled horror nightmare of
lovecrafty in proportions, Lovecraft is where we're going. You won't
(50:29):
heal Razor in space basically well yeah, uh oh, and
we just uh shout out to our pal Dave Bruckner,
who uh just directed the newest hull Razor. Good on
you man, UM check it out. Let's know what you think, uh,
and let us know about these mascots. UM can't wait
to hear from you. Thanks as always, to our super producer,
(50:50):
Mr Max Williams, thanks to our UH one half of
our new research associate team, thanks to Jeff Bartlett, and
thanks to Zach Williams no relation. We call him Doctors
act now he earned it UH and and thanks of
course through our special guest today, Mr Jeff Bartlett NOL.
Thanks to you, man. I feel like a road trip.
(51:12):
I'm feeling a road trip to a restaurant, like your
road trip. You're welcome. And by the way, shot speaking
at a restaurants, I don't think they have a Michelin
star you. But I checked out a new Atlanta restaurant
called De Boca and Boca or in Bocca de Bok
I forget. It's like a really nice, upscale kind of
Mexican restaurant that does incredible tacos. And they had like
(51:33):
Beeria tacos and they do like, you know, tomahawk steak.
You know what is it? Carne ASADA's really really amazing.
Check it out and do check out those early pictures
of the initialivan Nightmare Fuel. We'll see you next time, folks.
(51:58):
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