March 9, 2021 • 31 mins
Fleas -- they're one of the only animals Ben actually doesn't like! Yet, once upon a time, these bloodsucking nuisances were star performers in novelty acts across Europe and, later, North America. But what were they, exactly? Can you really train fleas to do tricks and play instruments? Who even came up with this weird idea? In this episode, the guys welcome special guest and researcher extraordinaire Gabe Luzier to dive into the origin of that bizarre novelty time largely forgot: the flea circus.
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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. As always, thank you
so much for tuning in today. Uh. This this is
a weird one and it's it's gonna go a lot
of places. No, but it's gonna start with fun fact.
One of the very few animals on this planet that
I actually don't care for. You know, I'm a real
(00:49):
I'm a real softy when it comes to animals in general.
I know you're a real animal lover band and my
name is Nol and I'm a I'm an animal liker.
I don't have a lover and I know that in
your book that would probably make me something of a sociopath.
But I promise I'm a nice person. I do like animals.
I just you know, there's something I could take her leave. Well,
you know, we can agree on the subject of today's
(01:11):
episode for sure, I mean the best of us. Uh.
Super producer Casey Pegram probably doesn't even like these animals.
He's on Adventures, so he might not have a comment today.
But I think it's safe for us to say that
all three of us are fairly anti fleet. The three Yeah, yeah,
(01:33):
the three of us, me, you, and super producer Casey Pegram.
That's right. But but to bury the lead here, we
have a fourth today. Well, actually it's it's a it's
a third because case he's on adventures. So, uh, we've
been teasing this for an age, but we're finally making
good on our promise to bring back to ridiculous history.
(01:56):
I present to you. Oh hey, thanks guys, very very nice.
Welcome back. I feel I feel good to be here.
I know last time we we chatted about cats for
a good long while, so it's only fitting I think that, uh,
we talked about another kind of animal often associated with
(02:18):
cats today. Oh that's right. It didn't even occur to me.
I mean, it couldn't be a more like polar opposite
in terms of I don't know, maybe there's similarities. Uh,
you know, cats can be a little aloof and perhaps
there's some aloof fleas out there. I don't know. Man,
fleas are pretty extroverted. They're like they're they're all about it. Uh.
(02:39):
I hate them, but I'm fascinated by their abilities. If
they were person size, and you know, the environment was such,
the animals with their kind of carapists could survive at
that size, they would be a world ending threat. And
how do they hop like that? How do they hop?
It's those legs, man, it's those uh, those powerful back legs.
But I think they're so tiny, look little they look
(03:01):
so I mean again, not that I've ever actually examined
a flee up close. Um, they really just look like
little specs when you look at them with the naked eye.
But contained within those little black specs are multitudes. This
is interesting. So gave one approach I thought would be
illuminating today. Uh, would be for maybe you to tell
(03:22):
us a little bit about what inspired you to go
down this let's not call the rabbit hole, Let's call
it this, this flee hole. What what brought you into
this uh strange circus of obscure research. Yeah, that's actually
an easy answer. It is Jurassic Park. Um. That's uh
the first movie I actually have any memory of watching
(03:44):
as a kid, and I returned to it pretty frequently
because it's a great movie and um, one of the
scenes that always stuck with me it was my you know,
that movie was my first introduction to a lot of
things dinosaurs, theme parks, uh, shirtless Jeff Goldbloom and also
flee circuses. Um, if you recalled, there's that scene towards
the end of the movie where John Hammond, the creator
(04:05):
of Jurassic Park Wax, is philosophical about one of his
older careers how he started out in the entertainment business. Uh,
And it was with a flee circus, and that was
the first time I had ever heard of such a thing.
They really colored the way I looked at it. From
then on, I assumed, like if you'll remember, his circus
was a mechanical one, right, Like all of the attractions
(04:28):
were run by gears and switches and that kind of thing.
And there were actually no fleas featured. That colored my
way of looking at flee circuses. Uh pretty much up
until about a week ago, I guess. Um, I assumed
they were all fake and I gotta do it. Though.
As John Hammond would have say, was we flease on trapeze, Yes, exactly,
(04:54):
that's exactly right. We flease on trapeze so good. He
really nailed it, that cadence I of his lilting delivery.
But fun fact, I didn't know this until recently. And
I'm sure many people are gonna just say, like donel uh,
the actor that played John Hammond is David Attenborough's brother. Yeah,
that's right. I actually I included a link in our
(05:15):
our research doc about with Um atton Borough talking about
flee circuses. He's he's got one in front of him.
So I always thought when when I thought of flee circuses,
I perhaps unfairly, well definitely unfairly relegated them to the
world of of novelty tents in the circus, you know,
(05:37):
the stuff on the periphery, like Okay, sorry, Johnny, we
uh we got here too late to see the lion
tamer and the elephants. But there I can technically tell
your mother that I did take you to see some animals.
Come with me to the little tent. Yeah. It's like
a C tier attraction, right and yeah, um yeah, that's
(05:59):
kind of how I looked at it too, especially since
you know, in my mind it was all fake. But
what I found out in researching for this episode is
that it wasn't always like that. Back in the original
days of flea circuses, there were actual, real live fleas
um performing. There was no mechanical allusion to it, so
(06:21):
fleas can be trained. Was that what you're saying, Uh, yeah,
all right, okay, so so some some hucksterism involved on
in both genre definitely. Yeah. Well, one thing that was
interesting to me, uh that was fascinated to find out
(06:42):
was that leading up to their career in the circus,
fleas actually had had another job in entertainment. They were
kind of like a Vana White or kind of like
those models that you know, lounge on exotic sports cars
it convence ins. Uh this was I mean, cars weren't
(07:03):
invented at this time, but they were. They were like
a an add on piece of advertising for watchmakers. Right, Yeah,
that's right. It's a very disturbing image you've painted of
giant fleas lounging on cars, but uh yeah, it's it's
accurate more or less because the origins of flea based entertainment,
(07:25):
I guess we can call it goes all the way
back to the fifteen hundreds with watchmakers, as you mentioned
in Jewelers too. I guess I don't want to leave
them out, but uh yeah, the first the first guy
to do this on record was this London watchmaker named
Mark Scaliot. I think, what do you guys think, Scalio Scott,
We're going with that. It wouldn't be an episode of
(07:46):
ridiculous history. We didn't like waffle struggling for a pronunciation,
So thank you for keeping the spirit of the show ALIVEE.
And he he's from He's from London, so Scaliat is
probably pretty close. We'd be in deeper water if he
would to you know, Eastern European. Then it's anybody's game.
Who even knows where that is? Um? But yeah, so
(08:09):
this guy Mark Scaliott, which is definitely how you say
his name, he's credited with having made uh let's let
me find the good description here. Uh So he made
a lock which consisted of eleven pieces of iron, steel,
and brass, all of which um together, you know, made
this little lock which had a key to it. And
if you added all that stuff up, it was so
(08:29):
small It only weighed the equivalent of one grain of gold.
So this was super super tiny stuff. But he didn't
just make this lock and key system. He also made
other very tiny objects and the idea was to kind
of flout his craftsmanship, right, he could work um with
these you know, very intricate tiny details, um, like the
(08:51):
inner workings of a watch or you know, the clasp
of a necklace or whatever. So to kind of show
off his skills as a watchmaker, he would make these
very tiny little objects that still functioned like the lock
and key system. But he didn't stop there. He also
made a chain of gold that consisted of forty three links,
and once he had that made, he would actually attach
(09:12):
it to the neck of a flee. What flee, flossy?
Did he have something going on with that flee? Was
that like his side flee? Unclear? But he did not
want to let it out of his sight. He actually
yoked this little guy with this kind of golden leash
that he made. And this was a way again of
kind of advertising his services. I assume he was doing this,
(09:33):
you know, maybe in the his shop window or you know,
just outside of his shop in the street. And um,
the idea was, you know, see what fine work I
can do on this tiny level. You know, if I
can do this with a flee, if I can leash
a flee, then surely I can handle you know, gears
and and springs and stuff inside of watch We've all
(09:53):
been there, you know what I mean, We've all had
that thought process, right, Yeah, only watchmaker in the crowd. Well,
I'm fascinated by it. It It just seems like a lot
of work and a lot of tiny parts that I
would likely lose very quickly, and then you know, you
lose one little gear and your whole watches shot. So
I leave that to the professionals. Yeah, I think that's
(10:14):
a good call. Yeah, I should point out the watches
I make are are huge, because otherwise I would instantly
lose all kinds of stuff. That's what we used for
the timer and the quister segment. That's true, But be
careful with that Wendel. We've been getting away with it
for so long. I think what you guys are describing
as a clock, right, okay guy, but alright, Dr Professor
(10:38):
over here, I found out up your brakes on those degrees.
But you're describing something that I think is going to
give a lot of folks in the crowd today. Uh
an immediate question, and I think it's a question will
come up multiple times in this episode. Fleas are just
(11:01):
so so very small. I feel like the casual passer
by would just be able to see the chain right
unless they were very close, or there was a magnifying glass,
or maybe there's oh you know what, maybe it is
It's not a lot of people could afford watches in
the first place, so he's probably presenting these maybe right
(11:23):
to his limited customer base. Yeah, well, I'm not so
sure about all of the details, but I do know
that he wasn't relying on people's eyesight, right, He wasn't.
He wasn't taking the flee for a walk on this
little golden leash by himself. Instead, he made another very tiny,
you know, handmade object, a chariot. And once you got
(11:45):
the chariot and you have your harness and you have
a little tiny flea to pull it, I mean, you
got yourself a street show, right, Like that's gonna that's
gonna catch some eyes. How is this chariot moving right? Right?
I think the word you're looking for his parade. Parade
is what it is. What they call that. Sorry, I'm
just I'm just being pedantic back at you, So I
(12:06):
appreciate that. But no, I mean this really was though.
This was how these guys would advertise. It started in
the late fifteen hundreds, but they were doing this all
through the seventeen hundreds. Like this took off. It's not
an isolated thing. We can question why, you know it
was a different era, but for whatever reason, people were
really drawn in by this. So the really interesting thing
(12:29):
about this time to me is that the fleas weren't
really the star of these watchmakers and jewelry uh and
these jewelers shows. It was really the miniature objects that
were that they were making. Those were the stars, um,
the little chariot, the little lock and key, the little
tiny harness, and that seems, you know, kind of strange.
(12:50):
But at the time, again, we're in like the seventeen hundreds. Now,
people in northern Europe, you know, countries like Germany and
Holland and England, they were like way into many at
your houses or cabinet houses as they called them. I mean,
we would just call them doll houses, but these were
adult doll houses. They weren't really four kids, and they
often didn't even have dolls in them. It was it
(13:13):
was kind of like the feminine counterpart to the cabinet
of curiosities. So, you know, the husband would gather all
of these kind of you know, eccentric, eclectic, exotic objects
from his travels and store them in this cabinet and
show them off to visitors who would come over. But
women of the era didn't get out of the house
(13:34):
so much. So what they would do instead was they
would build a miniature house in a cabinet and they
would have these, you know, super detailed tiny pieces of
furniture and utensils and other household objects, and they would
just go to town decorating this thing. And when they
had visitors over, they would walk them through each of
the little miniature rooms these witnessed. Indeed, it's funny. There
(13:59):
was a bit of a moment not terribly long ago,
or maybe a few years ago, where there were really
popular YouTube videos of uh, this thing that was big
in Japan of like cooking tiny food with right, I
gain it was never not, I don't. I mean, it
could certainly could have been, but the ones I saw
were just for the pure pleasure of it. But they
would be like on a tiny stove where you'd put
(14:20):
a little one of those like uh what we call
those candles, t tea light candles like inside this tiny
stove and then put a tiny thing and they scramble
a tiny egg or just a little bit of egg
and make a tiny omelet and plate it and then
have Chinese chopsticks on. It was a whole phenomenon. It
seems to have gone away, but clearly uh you know,
similar vibes there. Oh yeah, it's still yeah, it's still there.
(14:40):
What's interesting about that is that in this case it
seems that those hamsters or rodents were themselves and sillery
to the larger conceit of building the or cooking very
tiny food, just like the fleas were kind of just
a new like a little action figure to put in
your vultron of whatever cool toy you were showing off.
(15:04):
And then you know, that way, maybe when you had
people over, they would be more likely to visit because
they would be like, I cannot go to Wilhelms again.
All he does is show us those miniatures. And then
someone says, no, he's got he's got uh you know,
it's active now and he's got fleets and and how
dare you call it a toy? This is this is
(15:27):
an artifact. This is an artifact. That's yeah, no, that's
exactly right. There's a strange long history of of kind
of miniatures being paired with with showmanship and and being
made into some kind of an attraction, whether it was
just walking your visitors, you're forcing your visitors to appreciate
your tiny little house, or making a little chariot and
(15:50):
harnessing a fleet. It was all about the small object
at first. Um, but that started to change because of
one man from Italy, acclaimed showman known as Here we Go.
This one's gonna be a little harder. Let's say, Louis Burdetti,
(16:12):
There we go, Bert Lotto. Yeah, that's I think between
the three of us, our powers combined, we have a
halfway decent pronunciation. I hear. The key is to is
to move your hands when you say it, sort of
throw your hands up when you hit that. Uh that
l Okay, I got it. I think I got it.
(16:32):
Oh boy, keep digging this hole. But but yeah, this
this guy is already a showman, right. He's not having
one of those moments where he's working as a as
a clerk or something and and takes a hard pivot
in his life. He is. He's in the eighteen hundreds though,
right some time after the Watchmaker craze. Yeah, I'm my
(16:56):
understanding is, you know the Watchmaker. Things started in fifteen
seven to eight with that guy we mentioned, that went
pretty much all through the seventeen hundreds with still this
only kind of being used to advertise watches and jewelry
and that kind of thing. Um. And it was in
the eighteen hundreds, so a little while later, um where
the focus kind of shifted and the fleas became the
(17:18):
star of the show, um instead of the miniature set pieces.
And we have this paradigm shift thanks to this Italian
impressario we mentioned Louis Bertelatto who made his living in
London and decided to put the fleas to work. Basically, yeah, yeah,
so he he saw an opportunity and we know that
(17:40):
he would have been aware of this context, right, he
would have. He was not the first person think of this. Uh,
but at the time, what I what I get the
sense of from some of the research you dove into,
is that it's not like maybe he was particularly financially desperate,
(18:01):
but he hadn't really made it to the upper echelons
of being an impresario. So this this is something that's
maybe new to his area. It has that tinge of otherness,
and then it's also original because at this point where
he's at in Italy, nobody is gonna blow it up
(18:21):
as much as he is. He's he's the he's like
the guy who said, let's make the flee the star
of the show. And and economically it makes sense because look,
we're very careful not to dunk on the past here
on ridiculous history, but some observations are true, and one
of those observations is, uh, there were a lot of
(18:42):
fleas in Europe at the time. It was it was
very it was not expensive to get them the way
it would be to like get a tiger or Yeah,
that's that's absolutely true. It made economic sense. I mean,
I think this guy was a bit of a self
proclaimed impresario. Like I don't think anyone at the top
of their game is like, I know what I'm gonna
(19:04):
do now, the next natural step is a flea circus.
But he had entrepreneur in his Facebook. Yeah, yeah, top
of his game. But no, Yeah, he saw these watchmakers
and jewelers doing this kind of thing, and he was like, well, okay,
I don't know how to make a tiny chariot or
anything like that, and I'm not interested in selling watches,
but like, you guys have been burying the lead here right, Like,
(19:25):
these fleas are pulling chariots, and like, what else can
we get them to do? So he rounded up a
bunch of them and he started, you know, um either
I'm not sure if he built the sets himself or
if he commissioned them, but one way or the other,
he put together a little circus um and he had
he had the old favorites, right like his fleas pulled
tiny carriages and chariots just like the other guys. But
(19:48):
he also had dancing fleas, and the music they danced
to was provided by an orchestra which was also composed
of fleas playing tiny little instruments. And so that was
something like beyond with the jewel ers and watchmakers had
done before. But Bertolucto took things even further than that
because he actually had his fleas like reenact the Battle
(20:10):
of Waterloo. That was his big act. And remember this
was in the eighteen thirties, so it had only been
like fifteen years since that battle, like it wasn't that
long ago. Which is that? That's my question? Is that
im poor taste? Like if fifteen years after um an
(20:31):
intense conflict in Vietnam, I don't think people would want
to see that re enacted by animals. I don't know,
Maybe I'm putting human judgment on too much of a
high horse. Well, I think you know, history has shown
us that people very much wanted to see this. They
this guy rounded up four hundred and thirty five fleas
(20:51):
for this performance. He dressed them all in little outfits.
He put them in golden saddles, um on these chariots,
carrying tiny little swords, and he held these mock battles
and that was kind of, you know, the main attraction
of his circus. And people ate it up like he
was incredibly successful. He actually took this thing on tour
(21:11):
for over fifty years. Um, so for half a century
he was making a living off of this, this flee circus.
Oh wow. Uh. And it wasn't always the same cast,
I imagine, unless I am incredibly wrong about the lifespan
of fleas. No, yeah, you got that part right. That's
uh one of the downsides to the businesses. There's a
(21:34):
lot of turnover. Yeah. I gotta ask, like, what would
I see visually? I don't understand how would he even
do this like a flee. Maybe I'm not I'm not
a flee expert, but it seems so small, Like what
does an outfit look like for a fleet? How do
you even get a sword? And a fleas hand claw.
(21:56):
I don't understand the logistics of this escaped me. Yeah,
it ain't he but I mean that's the question, right
you have you I think you were kind of hinting
at it earlier. Why was anyone doing this? Why put
fleas in a circus? Like? Why fleas? Right? And I
think Ben you already mentioned these things were really prevalent,
especially at the time, like way more so in the
(22:16):
eighteen hundreds than we would find today. And they were
also quick to reproduce. And you know, they drank human
blood so they were easy to feed, right, didn't they
also spread plague well, diseases in general, you know? Yeah,
So this is one important clarification. These weren't dog fleas,
they weren't cat fleas. There weren't rat fleas. There were
(22:38):
over two thousand, apparently different god species of fleas in
the world. And uh, these were human fleas um, which
we don't see or interact with too much now, but
of course they're still out there. It's still a thing. Uh.
They're also you'll find them on pigs a lot, not
just humans. Um. These human fleas were everywhere. People had
them in their beds. It was a worldwide pest um.
(23:00):
So one thing about these human fleas is they were
a little bigger than your average flee. Okay, yeah, so
you know, a dog flee might be like two and
a half millimeters. These guys were four so big boys.
Would this would this be sort of akin to what
we think of as bedbugs today or is that something different?
That's where people would would encounter them the most under
(23:22):
their bed covers and you would get race itchy, like
there's actually there's a Laurel and Hardy And to Charlie
Chaplin films where these human fleas are like a big
part of the plot, it was it was a thing.
I'm sure, I'm sure high jinks commenced. And so this
is uh, this is interesting because since he has embarked
(23:44):
upon this quite successful multidecade career, uh, Bertolato is getting
around and he kind of spreads this uh he he
spreads this novelty act to places that have probably I
don't know, maybe never heard of it before or never
seen it or have been familiar. Like if you're the
(24:06):
average person in say North America, when he's at the
height of his career, would would you have heard of
the concept of flee circuses or would you have heard
of the concept of Bertolatto's flee circus. I think you
would have heard of it and and not seen it,
and had been very curious to see it. So maybe
(24:27):
you read a report on it. Maybe there was a
friend who you know, visited Europe and came back and
told you there's this crazy thing over there. They got fleas,
moving chariots. They're putting these guys to work. Why aren't
we doing that here? Um? And at least one guy
agreed In the early nineteen hundreds, an American named William
Heckler was one of the first guys to kind of
(24:47):
take this idea and run with it in North America.
Also the inventor of the Heckel Right yeah, of course, right, um,
he heckled his own circus, but uh yeah, and it
took off here too. Like his circus could bring in
more than two hundred and fifty dollars in admittance fees,
you know, for a single showing, which is you know,
well over three grand in today's money, So not bad, right,
(25:12):
not bad at all? Um. And you know other copycats
came along too in North America and in Europe. Everybody
kind of got in on this. They started taking these
flea circuses on the road, going from town to town,
like you know, medicine road shows, and over time, flee
circuses just became linked with those, uh, you know, carnival
side shows that we're all used to seeing at the
(25:33):
circus or county fairs. People. It just became an expected
form of entertainment. Okay, so you know why fleas You've
definitely answered one these particular fleas, um, because they were
a little bigger and prevalent, they were available, they were
easily reproducible. They in fact, they did it themselves. They
were just everywhere. Um. We talked a little bit earlier
(25:56):
about their fantastic jumping abilities, which that's to me, the
coolest at least disgusting feature of the flea, and I
think this played into it a little bit as well
as to why fleas. Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true. I
mean fleas are you know, the best jumpers that the
natural world has to offer, don't tell kangaroos and human
(26:18):
fleas in particular have really strong back legs, like stronger
than than the fleas you'd find on a cat or
a dog. So they're kind of well suited for the
kinds of tricks that these guys we're having them do
in their circuses. And again, the other thing that we
mentioned is they were really easy to care for, right
you just roll up your sleeve and uh, you know,
(26:40):
let them have a taste. And you know, under conditions
like that, these fleas could live for up to a year.
Most of them wouldn't make it past like three months
or so, so you you still run into that problem
of kind of having to start over with a new
cast every so often. But if you're really doated on them,
if you nurse them, you could you know, they could
(27:02):
run out the calendar year. You are of my blood,
go forth on your tiny chariot, show waterloo to the people. Um. Seriously,
they were like like like the Interview of the Vampire style,
like roll up the old sleeve and give them a taste.
That's very strange. They could have taken this in so
many directions. You know, you've got one that lives, uh,
(27:24):
like you were saying, up to a year. Just let
that that old that old flee be in its own
display and call it the Methuselah flee. Add some zeros
to the end of that one. Year, no one send
them to the Flee stud farm exactly exactly. So at
(27:44):
this point, you know, the thing about fleas is and
I've been pretty openly anti flee in this episode, so
I hope I don't. I hope I don't poison the
well here too much. But the thing about this is
that the closer you drill into their physical capabilities old like,
like you said, the jumping ability alone, you see these amazing,
(28:04):
somewhat terrifying powers. But there's a question that we haven't
answered yet, and that is that's a question we we
we kind of Flee jumped around a little in the beginning,
which is were they actually being trained? Can flee? Do
fleas actually have the capacity to learn and retain and
(28:28):
then apply information. This gets into the art of how
flee circuses work. Uh, and maybe why not all flee
circuses are created equally. But gentlemen, I propose that is
a part two of this episode. What do you guys think?
I second that. Yeah, there's a lot more to say.
(28:50):
And you know how much we love a planned to partner,
so good good, good on us, And yeah, plenty of
juicy flee uh facts and and and and uh and
trivia to come. That's right, we did it, Gabe. Thank
you so much for coming on part one of the show.
Due to the uh contract you signed in blood before
(29:11):
we started rolling, you are obligated to be here for
part two, but I I know I think you would
have come along for part two anyway. What do you think? Yeah,
I think the blood oath was was a little extra,
but you know, we gotta we gotta cover our bases.
We'll never know legal is uh legal is really into
those lately, which we should probably look into at some point,
(29:35):
but uh. In the meantime, we hope that you found
this as bizarre a story as we have joined us
for part two, when we explore how the flea Circus
sausage gets actually made sausage Very well, the United Nations
(29:55):
has a pretty strong argument for the importance of like
the possibilities of consuming insects is protein. Hopefully I don't
think fleas are on the list. How many fleas would
it take just to make like one sausage path? Tune
in next time to find out that sounds like the
set up for a corny joke, which is very on
brand for predict How many fleas does it take to
(30:17):
make an omelet like a fleet of flee omelet. You
you want to make an you've gotta break a few
fleet Okay, Well anyway, that's uh, that's that's gonna be
our show as always. Thank you so much to our
super producer Casey Pegram, Thanks as always to Alex Williams
who composed this amazing track, and Gabe. Thanks to you man, Hey,
(30:40):
you're welcome. Huge, thanks huge, thanks to Christopher haciots here
and Spirit who will be joining us in corporeal podcast
form in the near future. Uh. Just like Gabe, he's
a real person too. We promised we did a really
fun episode with him, uh years ago about cover songs
like weird cover songs. That's that was a fun one. Um.
(31:02):
I wonder what he has in store for his next appearance.
You'll have to wait and find out. Thanks to Eve's
Jeff Coates check out her show This Day in History
Class and Jay dot Ill, the podcast featuring the marvelous
and uh and talented Jill Scott. Uh. And thanks to you, Ben,
thanks for for for being my fleapal Oh Hey, thanks
(31:22):
to you Noel. For more podcasts for 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. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
so much for tuning in today. Uh. This this is
a weird one and it's it's gonna go a lot
of places. No, but it's gonna start with fun fact.
One of the very few animals on this planet that
I actually don't care for. You know, I'm a real
(00:49):
I'm a real softy when it comes to animals in general.
I know you're a real animal lover band and my
name is Nol and I'm a I'm an animal liker.
I don't have a lover and I know that in
your book that would probably make me something of a sociopath.
But I promise I'm a nice person. I do like animals.
I just you know, there's something I could take her leave. Well,
you know, we can agree on the subject of today's
(01:11):
episode for sure, I mean the best of us. Uh.
Super producer Casey Pegram probably doesn't even like these animals.
He's on Adventures, so he might not have a comment today.
But I think it's safe for us to say that
all three of us are fairly anti fleet. The three Yeah, yeah,
(01:33):
the three of us, me, you, and super producer Casey Pegram.
That's right. But but to bury the lead here, we
have a fourth today. Well, actually it's it's a it's
a third because case he's on adventures. So, uh, we've
been teasing this for an age, but we're finally making
good on our promise to bring back to ridiculous history.
(01:56):
I present to you. Oh hey, thanks guys, very very nice.
Welcome back. I feel I feel good to be here.
I know last time we we chatted about cats for
a good long while, so it's only fitting I think that, uh,
we talked about another kind of animal often associated with
(02:18):
cats today. Oh that's right. It didn't even occur to me.
I mean, it couldn't be a more like polar opposite
in terms of I don't know, maybe there's similarities. Uh,
you know, cats can be a little aloof and perhaps
there's some aloof fleas out there. I don't know. Man,
fleas are pretty extroverted. They're like they're they're all about it. Uh.
(02:39):
I hate them, but I'm fascinated by their abilities. If
they were person size, and you know, the environment was such,
the animals with their kind of carapists could survive at
that size, they would be a world ending threat. And
how do they hop like that? How do they hop?
It's those legs, man, it's those uh, those powerful back legs.
But I think they're so tiny, look little they look
(03:01):
so I mean again, not that I've ever actually examined
a flee up close. Um, they really just look like
little specs when you look at them with the naked eye.
But contained within those little black specs are multitudes. This
is interesting. So gave one approach I thought would be
illuminating today. Uh, would be for maybe you to tell
(03:22):
us a little bit about what inspired you to go
down this let's not call the rabbit hole, Let's call
it this, this flee hole. What what brought you into
this uh strange circus of obscure research. Yeah, that's actually
an easy answer. It is Jurassic Park. Um. That's uh
the first movie I actually have any memory of watching
(03:44):
as a kid, and I returned to it pretty frequently
because it's a great movie and um, one of the
scenes that always stuck with me it was my you know,
that movie was my first introduction to a lot of
things dinosaurs, theme parks, uh, shirtless Jeff Goldbloom and also
flee circuses. Um, if you recalled, there's that scene towards
the end of the movie where John Hammond, the creator
(04:05):
of Jurassic Park Wax, is philosophical about one of his
older careers how he started out in the entertainment business. Uh,
And it was with a flee circus, and that was
the first time I had ever heard of such a thing.
They really colored the way I looked at it. From
then on, I assumed, like if you'll remember, his circus
was a mechanical one, right, Like all of the attractions
(04:28):
were run by gears and switches and that kind of thing.
And there were actually no fleas featured. That colored my
way of looking at flee circuses. Uh pretty much up
until about a week ago, I guess. Um, I assumed
they were all fake and I gotta do it. Though.
As John Hammond would have say, was we flease on trapeze, Yes, exactly,
(04:54):
that's exactly right. We flease on trapeze so good. He
really nailed it, that cadence I of his lilting delivery.
But fun fact, I didn't know this until recently. And
I'm sure many people are gonna just say, like donel uh,
the actor that played John Hammond is David Attenborough's brother. Yeah,
that's right. I actually I included a link in our
(05:15):
our research doc about with Um atton Borough talking about
flee circuses. He's he's got one in front of him.
So I always thought when when I thought of flee circuses,
I perhaps unfairly, well definitely unfairly relegated them to the
world of of novelty tents in the circus, you know,
(05:37):
the stuff on the periphery, like Okay, sorry, Johnny, we
uh we got here too late to see the lion
tamer and the elephants. But there I can technically tell
your mother that I did take you to see some animals.
Come with me to the little tent. Yeah. It's like
a C tier attraction, right and yeah, um yeah, that's
(05:59):
kind of how I looked at it too, especially since
you know, in my mind it was all fake. But
what I found out in researching for this episode is
that it wasn't always like that. Back in the original
days of flea circuses, there were actual, real live fleas
um performing. There was no mechanical allusion to it, so
(06:21):
fleas can be trained. Was that what you're saying, Uh, yeah,
all right, okay, so so some some hucksterism involved on
in both genre definitely. Yeah. Well, one thing that was
interesting to me, uh that was fascinated to find out
(06:42):
was that leading up to their career in the circus,
fleas actually had had another job in entertainment. They were
kind of like a Vana White or kind of like
those models that you know, lounge on exotic sports cars
it convence ins. Uh this was I mean, cars weren't
(07:03):
invented at this time, but they were. They were like
a an add on piece of advertising for watchmakers. Right, Yeah,
that's right. It's a very disturbing image you've painted of
giant fleas lounging on cars, but uh yeah, it's it's
accurate more or less because the origins of flea based entertainment,
(07:25):
I guess we can call it goes all the way
back to the fifteen hundreds with watchmakers, as you mentioned
in Jewelers too. I guess I don't want to leave
them out, but uh yeah, the first the first guy
to do this on record was this London watchmaker named
Mark Scaliot. I think, what do you guys think, Scalio Scott,
We're going with that. It wouldn't be an episode of
(07:46):
ridiculous history. We didn't like waffle struggling for a pronunciation,
So thank you for keeping the spirit of the show ALIVEE.
And he he's from He's from London, so Scaliat is
probably pretty close. We'd be in deeper water if he
would to you know, Eastern European. Then it's anybody's game.
Who even knows where that is? Um? But yeah, so
(08:09):
this guy Mark Scaliott, which is definitely how you say
his name, he's credited with having made uh let's let
me find the good description here. Uh So he made
a lock which consisted of eleven pieces of iron, steel,
and brass, all of which um together, you know, made
this little lock which had a key to it. And
if you added all that stuff up, it was so
(08:29):
small It only weighed the equivalent of one grain of gold.
So this was super super tiny stuff. But he didn't
just make this lock and key system. He also made
other very tiny objects and the idea was to kind
of flout his craftsmanship, right, he could work um with
these you know, very intricate tiny details, um, like the
(08:51):
inner workings of a watch or you know, the clasp
of a necklace or whatever. So to kind of show
off his skills as a watchmaker, he would make these
very tiny little objects that still functioned like the lock
and key system. But he didn't stop there. He also
made a chain of gold that consisted of forty three links,
and once he had that made, he would actually attach
(09:12):
it to the neck of a flee. What flee, flossy?
Did he have something going on with that flee? Was
that like his side flee? Unclear? But he did not
want to let it out of his sight. He actually
yoked this little guy with this kind of golden leash
that he made. And this was a way again of
kind of advertising his services. I assume he was doing this,
(09:33):
you know, maybe in the his shop window or you know,
just outside of his shop in the street. And um,
the idea was, you know, see what fine work I
can do on this tiny level. You know, if I
can do this with a flee, if I can leash
a flee, then surely I can handle you know, gears
and and springs and stuff inside of watch We've all
(09:53):
been there, you know what I mean, We've all had
that thought process, right, Yeah, only watchmaker in the crowd. Well,
I'm fascinated by it. It It just seems like a lot
of work and a lot of tiny parts that I
would likely lose very quickly, and then you know, you
lose one little gear and your whole watches shot. So
I leave that to the professionals. Yeah, I think that's
(10:14):
a good call. Yeah, I should point out the watches
I make are are huge, because otherwise I would instantly
lose all kinds of stuff. That's what we used for
the timer and the quister segment. That's true, But be
careful with that Wendel. We've been getting away with it
for so long. I think what you guys are describing
as a clock, right, okay guy, but alright, Dr Professor
(10:38):
over here, I found out up your brakes on those degrees.
But you're describing something that I think is going to
give a lot of folks in the crowd today. Uh
an immediate question, and I think it's a question will
come up multiple times in this episode. Fleas are just
(11:01):
so so very small. I feel like the casual passer
by would just be able to see the chain right
unless they were very close, or there was a magnifying glass,
or maybe there's oh you know what, maybe it is
It's not a lot of people could afford watches in
the first place, so he's probably presenting these maybe right
(11:23):
to his limited customer base. Yeah, well, I'm not so
sure about all of the details, but I do know
that he wasn't relying on people's eyesight, right, He wasn't.
He wasn't taking the flee for a walk on this
little golden leash by himself. Instead, he made another very tiny,
you know, handmade object, a chariot. And once you got
(11:45):
the chariot and you have your harness and you have
a little tiny flea to pull it, I mean, you
got yourself a street show, right, Like that's gonna that's
gonna catch some eyes. How is this chariot moving right? Right?
I think the word you're looking for his parade. Parade
is what it is. What they call that. Sorry, I'm
just I'm just being pedantic back at you, So I
(12:06):
appreciate that. But no, I mean this really was though.
This was how these guys would advertise. It started in
the late fifteen hundreds, but they were doing this all
through the seventeen hundreds. Like this took off. It's not
an isolated thing. We can question why, you know it
was a different era, but for whatever reason, people were
really drawn in by this. So the really interesting thing
(12:29):
about this time to me is that the fleas weren't
really the star of these watchmakers and jewelry uh and
these jewelers shows. It was really the miniature objects that
were that they were making. Those were the stars, um,
the little chariot, the little lock and key, the little
tiny harness, and that seems, you know, kind of strange.
(12:50):
But at the time, again, we're in like the seventeen hundreds. Now,
people in northern Europe, you know, countries like Germany and
Holland and England, they were like way into many at
your houses or cabinet houses as they called them. I mean,
we would just call them doll houses, but these were
adult doll houses. They weren't really four kids, and they
often didn't even have dolls in them. It was it
(13:13):
was kind of like the feminine counterpart to the cabinet
of curiosities. So, you know, the husband would gather all
of these kind of you know, eccentric, eclectic, exotic objects
from his travels and store them in this cabinet and
show them off to visitors who would come over. But
women of the era didn't get out of the house
(13:34):
so much. So what they would do instead was they
would build a miniature house in a cabinet and they
would have these, you know, super detailed tiny pieces of
furniture and utensils and other household objects, and they would
just go to town decorating this thing. And when they
had visitors over, they would walk them through each of
the little miniature rooms these witnessed. Indeed, it's funny. There
(13:59):
was a bit of a moment not terribly long ago,
or maybe a few years ago, where there were really
popular YouTube videos of uh, this thing that was big
in Japan of like cooking tiny food with right, I
gain it was never not, I don't. I mean, it
could certainly could have been, but the ones I saw
were just for the pure pleasure of it. But they
would be like on a tiny stove where you'd put
(14:20):
a little one of those like uh what we call
those candles, t tea light candles like inside this tiny
stove and then put a tiny thing and they scramble
a tiny egg or just a little bit of egg
and make a tiny omelet and plate it and then
have Chinese chopsticks on. It was a whole phenomenon. It
seems to have gone away, but clearly uh you know,
similar vibes there. Oh yeah, it's still yeah, it's still there.
(14:40):
What's interesting about that is that in this case it
seems that those hamsters or rodents were themselves and sillery
to the larger conceit of building the or cooking very
tiny food, just like the fleas were kind of just
a new like a little action figure to put in
your vultron of whatever cool toy you were showing off.
(15:04):
And then you know, that way, maybe when you had
people over, they would be more likely to visit because
they would be like, I cannot go to Wilhelms again.
All he does is show us those miniatures. And then
someone says, no, he's got he's got uh you know,
it's active now and he's got fleets and and how
dare you call it a toy? This is this is
(15:27):
an artifact. This is an artifact. That's yeah, no, that's
exactly right. There's a strange long history of of kind
of miniatures being paired with with showmanship and and being
made into some kind of an attraction, whether it was
just walking your visitors, you're forcing your visitors to appreciate
your tiny little house, or making a little chariot and
(15:50):
harnessing a fleet. It was all about the small object
at first. Um, but that started to change because of
one man from Italy, acclaimed showman known as Here we Go.
This one's gonna be a little harder. Let's say, Louis Burdetti,
(16:12):
There we go, Bert Lotto. Yeah, that's I think between
the three of us, our powers combined, we have a
halfway decent pronunciation. I hear. The key is to is
to move your hands when you say it, sort of
throw your hands up when you hit that. Uh that
l Okay, I got it. I think I got it.
(16:32):
Oh boy, keep digging this hole. But but yeah, this
this guy is already a showman, right. He's not having
one of those moments where he's working as a as
a clerk or something and and takes a hard pivot
in his life. He is. He's in the eighteen hundreds though,
right some time after the Watchmaker craze. Yeah, I'm my
(16:56):
understanding is, you know the Watchmaker. Things started in fifteen
seven to eight with that guy we mentioned, that went
pretty much all through the seventeen hundreds with still this
only kind of being used to advertise watches and jewelry
and that kind of thing. Um. And it was in
the eighteen hundreds, so a little while later, um where
the focus kind of shifted and the fleas became the
(17:18):
star of the show, um instead of the miniature set pieces.
And we have this paradigm shift thanks to this Italian
impressario we mentioned Louis Bertelatto who made his living in
London and decided to put the fleas to work. Basically, yeah, yeah,
so he he saw an opportunity and we know that
(17:40):
he would have been aware of this context, right, he
would have. He was not the first person think of this. Uh,
but at the time, what I what I get the
sense of from some of the research you dove into,
is that it's not like maybe he was particularly financially desperate,
(18:01):
but he hadn't really made it to the upper echelons
of being an impresario. So this this is something that's
maybe new to his area. It has that tinge of otherness,
and then it's also original because at this point where
he's at in Italy, nobody is gonna blow it up
(18:21):
as much as he is. He's he's the he's like
the guy who said, let's make the flee the star
of the show. And and economically it makes sense because look,
we're very careful not to dunk on the past here
on ridiculous history, but some observations are true, and one
of those observations is, uh, there were a lot of
(18:42):
fleas in Europe at the time. It was it was
very it was not expensive to get them the way
it would be to like get a tiger or Yeah,
that's that's absolutely true. It made economic sense. I mean,
I think this guy was a bit of a self
proclaimed impresario. Like I don't think anyone at the top
of their game is like, I know what I'm gonna
(19:04):
do now, the next natural step is a flea circus.
But he had entrepreneur in his Facebook. Yeah, yeah, top
of his game. But no, Yeah, he saw these watchmakers
and jewelers doing this kind of thing, and he was like, well, okay,
I don't know how to make a tiny chariot or
anything like that, and I'm not interested in selling watches,
but like, you guys have been burying the lead here right, Like,
(19:25):
these fleas are pulling chariots, and like, what else can
we get them to do? So he rounded up a
bunch of them and he started, you know, um either
I'm not sure if he built the sets himself or
if he commissioned them, but one way or the other,
he put together a little circus um and he had
he had the old favorites, right like his fleas pulled
tiny carriages and chariots just like the other guys. But
(19:48):
he also had dancing fleas, and the music they danced
to was provided by an orchestra which was also composed
of fleas playing tiny little instruments. And so that was
something like beyond with the jewel ers and watchmakers had
done before. But Bertolucto took things even further than that
because he actually had his fleas like reenact the Battle
(20:10):
of Waterloo. That was his big act. And remember this
was in the eighteen thirties, so it had only been
like fifteen years since that battle, like it wasn't that
long ago. Which is that? That's my question? Is that
im poor taste? Like if fifteen years after um an
(20:31):
intense conflict in Vietnam, I don't think people would want
to see that re enacted by animals. I don't know,
Maybe I'm putting human judgment on too much of a
high horse. Well, I think you know, history has shown
us that people very much wanted to see this. They
this guy rounded up four hundred and thirty five fleas
(20:51):
for this performance. He dressed them all in little outfits.
He put them in golden saddles, um on these chariots,
carrying tiny little swords, and he held these mock battles
and that was kind of, you know, the main attraction
of his circus. And people ate it up like he
was incredibly successful. He actually took this thing on tour
(21:11):
for over fifty years. Um, so for half a century
he was making a living off of this, this flee circus.
Oh wow. Uh. And it wasn't always the same cast,
I imagine, unless I am incredibly wrong about the lifespan
of fleas. No, yeah, you got that part right. That's
uh one of the downsides to the businesses. There's a
(21:34):
lot of turnover. Yeah. I gotta ask, like, what would
I see visually? I don't understand how would he even
do this like a flee. Maybe I'm not I'm not
a flee expert, but it seems so small, Like what
does an outfit look like for a fleet? How do
you even get a sword? And a fleas hand claw.
(21:56):
I don't understand the logistics of this escaped me. Yeah,
it ain't he but I mean that's the question, right
you have you I think you were kind of hinting
at it earlier. Why was anyone doing this? Why put
fleas in a circus? Like? Why fleas? Right? And I
think Ben you already mentioned these things were really prevalent,
especially at the time, like way more so in the
(22:16):
eighteen hundreds than we would find today. And they were
also quick to reproduce. And you know, they drank human
blood so they were easy to feed, right, didn't they
also spread plague well, diseases in general, you know? Yeah,
So this is one important clarification. These weren't dog fleas,
they weren't cat fleas. There weren't rat fleas. There were
(22:38):
over two thousand, apparently different god species of fleas in
the world. And uh, these were human fleas um, which
we don't see or interact with too much now, but
of course they're still out there. It's still a thing. Uh.
They're also you'll find them on pigs a lot, not
just humans. Um. These human fleas were everywhere. People had
them in their beds. It was a worldwide pest um.
(23:00):
So one thing about these human fleas is they were
a little bigger than your average flee. Okay, yeah, so
you know, a dog flee might be like two and
a half millimeters. These guys were four so big boys.
Would this would this be sort of akin to what
we think of as bedbugs today or is that something different?
That's where people would would encounter them the most under
(23:22):
their bed covers and you would get race itchy, like
there's actually there's a Laurel and Hardy And to Charlie
Chaplin films where these human fleas are like a big
part of the plot, it was it was a thing.
I'm sure, I'm sure high jinks commenced. And so this
is uh, this is interesting because since he has embarked
(23:44):
upon this quite successful multidecade career, uh, Bertolato is getting
around and he kind of spreads this uh he he
spreads this novelty act to places that have probably I
don't know, maybe never heard of it before or never
seen it or have been familiar. Like if you're the
(24:06):
average person in say North America, when he's at the
height of his career, would would you have heard of
the concept of flee circuses or would you have heard
of the concept of Bertolatto's flee circus. I think you
would have heard of it and and not seen it,
and had been very curious to see it. So maybe
(24:27):
you read a report on it. Maybe there was a
friend who you know, visited Europe and came back and
told you there's this crazy thing over there. They got fleas,
moving chariots. They're putting these guys to work. Why aren't
we doing that here? Um? And at least one guy
agreed In the early nineteen hundreds, an American named William
Heckler was one of the first guys to kind of
(24:47):
take this idea and run with it in North America.
Also the inventor of the Heckel Right yeah, of course, right, um,
he heckled his own circus, but uh yeah, and it
took off here too. Like his circus could bring in
more than two hundred and fifty dollars in admittance fees,
you know, for a single showing, which is you know,
well over three grand in today's money, So not bad, right,
(25:12):
not bad at all? Um. And you know other copycats
came along too in North America and in Europe. Everybody
kind of got in on this. They started taking these
flea circuses on the road, going from town to town,
like you know, medicine road shows, and over time, flee
circuses just became linked with those, uh, you know, carnival
side shows that we're all used to seeing at the
(25:33):
circus or county fairs. People. It just became an expected
form of entertainment. Okay, so you know why fleas You've
definitely answered one these particular fleas, um, because they were
a little bigger and prevalent, they were available, they were
easily reproducible. They in fact, they did it themselves. They
were just everywhere. Um. We talked a little bit earlier
(25:56):
about their fantastic jumping abilities, which that's to me, the
coolest at least disgusting feature of the flea, and I
think this played into it a little bit as well
as to why fleas. Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true. I
mean fleas are you know, the best jumpers that the
natural world has to offer, don't tell kangaroos and human
(26:18):
fleas in particular have really strong back legs, like stronger
than than the fleas you'd find on a cat or
a dog. So they're kind of well suited for the
kinds of tricks that these guys we're having them do
in their circuses. And again, the other thing that we
mentioned is they were really easy to care for, right
you just roll up your sleeve and uh, you know,
(26:40):
let them have a taste. And you know, under conditions
like that, these fleas could live for up to a year.
Most of them wouldn't make it past like three months
or so, so you you still run into that problem
of kind of having to start over with a new
cast every so often. But if you're really doated on them,
if you nurse them, you could you know, they could
(27:02):
run out the calendar year. You are of my blood,
go forth on your tiny chariot, show waterloo to the people. Um. Seriously,
they were like like like the Interview of the Vampire style,
like roll up the old sleeve and give them a taste.
That's very strange. They could have taken this in so
many directions. You know, you've got one that lives, uh,
(27:24):
like you were saying, up to a year. Just let
that that old that old flee be in its own
display and call it the Methuselah flee. Add some zeros
to the end of that one. Year, no one send
them to the Flee stud farm exactly exactly. So at
(27:44):
this point, you know, the thing about fleas is and
I've been pretty openly anti flee in this episode, so
I hope I don't. I hope I don't poison the
well here too much. But the thing about this is
that the closer you drill into their physical capabilities old like,
like you said, the jumping ability alone, you see these amazing,
(28:04):
somewhat terrifying powers. But there's a question that we haven't
answered yet, and that is that's a question we we
we kind of Flee jumped around a little in the beginning,
which is were they actually being trained? Can flee? Do
fleas actually have the capacity to learn and retain and
(28:28):
then apply information. This gets into the art of how
flee circuses work. Uh, and maybe why not all flee
circuses are created equally. But gentlemen, I propose that is
a part two of this episode. What do you guys think?
I second that. Yeah, there's a lot more to say.
(28:50):
And you know how much we love a planned to partner,
so good good, good on us, And yeah, plenty of
juicy flee uh facts and and and and uh and
trivia to come. That's right, we did it, Gabe. Thank
you so much for coming on part one of the show.
Due to the uh contract you signed in blood before
(29:11):
we started rolling, you are obligated to be here for
part two, but I I know I think you would
have come along for part two anyway. What do you think? Yeah,
I think the blood oath was was a little extra,
but you know, we gotta we gotta cover our bases.
We'll never know legal is uh legal is really into
those lately, which we should probably look into at some point,
(29:35):
but uh. In the meantime, we hope that you found
this as bizarre a story as we have joined us
for part two, when we explore how the flea Circus
sausage gets actually made sausage Very well, the United Nations
(29:55):
has a pretty strong argument for the importance of like
the possibilities of consuming insects is protein. Hopefully I don't
think fleas are on the list. How many fleas would
it take just to make like one sausage path? Tune
in next time to find out that sounds like the
set up for a corny joke, which is very on
brand for predict How many fleas does it take to
(30:17):
make an omelet like a fleet of flee omelet. You
you want to make an you've gotta break a few
fleet Okay, Well anyway, that's uh, that's that's gonna be
our show as always. Thank you so much to our
super producer Casey Pegram, Thanks as always to Alex Williams
who composed this amazing track, and Gabe. Thanks to you man, Hey,
(30:40):
you're welcome. Huge, thanks huge, thanks to Christopher haciots here
and Spirit who will be joining us in corporeal podcast
form in the near future. Uh. Just like Gabe, he's
a real person too. We promised we did a really
fun episode with him, uh years ago about cover songs
like weird cover songs. That's that was a fun one. Um.
(31:02):
I wonder what he has in store for his next appearance.
You'll have to wait and find out. Thanks to Eve's
Jeff Coates check out her show This Day in History
Class and Jay dot Ill, the podcast featuring the marvelous
and uh and talented Jill Scott. Uh. And thanks to you, Ben,
thanks for for for being my fleapal Oh Hey, thanks
(31:22):
to you Noel. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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