The Curious Kitschy Crime of Sea Monkeys

A mad inventor, his cheated heiress, a villainous toy company called Big Time Toys, astronaut John Glenn, Howie Mandel, the Pixies, and a dark secret... this story has it all and then some. Get ready for a wild ride into the underwater world of Sea Monkeys and their very, very strange inventor. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's a gardener. Have you been gardening? You're all freckled
in red? Yes? Oh, I know you're happy, so happy.
It explains that glow. Yeah, it's the sunburn.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
I think our rainy season is over for the most part,
and so I was able to get in the cold,
cold nights where it dips into like the low forties,
really cold for us, so cold, well was giving into
the high third. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Yeah, how about you?
What are you up to?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Nothing? Yeah, listen, I got a question for you. Do
you know what I do?

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Know? I wanted to get ahead of it because this
is so ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
What is it? You seemed all lamped up on this.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
We got it from a number of reduced to us
and yeah, right. Have you heard of a company called
His Smile like high Smile.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
I've heard of hims dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah right, No, they advertised during my sports this is
a toothpaste company.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Huh hissmile dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Or it's high it's like high smile, not double No,
but his Smile is how I see it when I
read it. Anyway, they you know, they do all the
cool like disruptor toothpaste.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
I suppose it could be his mile, his mile.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Okay, there it is his mile, and call me his mile.
And so they've teamed up with this company and anytime.
There are a couple of phrases in this press release
thing where I'm like, you know, if you say that
this is not good. So like it started as in
April Fool's joke, but we thought, why not make it real? Okay,

(01:44):
right there, there's a reason sounds like involved so close.
The other one is full on flavor takeover.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
See the impulse is fiery.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Is just like it's like, yeah, exactly, they drenched it. No,
it's there's no fury involved. You know what it is.
It is KFC Fried Chicken flavored toothpaste, inspired by all
of KFC eleven herbs and spices. It's a full on
flavor takeover of your oral care routine. So anyway, this

(02:19):
is how the toothpeci quote like biting into a hot,
juicy piece of KFC original recipe chicken. This toothpaste is irresistible,
coating your teeth in flavor while leaving your mouth feeling
fresh and clean.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
No, no, you're you're on.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
The subway going to work and people are like, have
you been eating chicken? So it's fluoride free too, because
you know, and it's while supplies last. You can order
it from them. It's thirteen dollars a tube.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
And if you want image much of this stuff going
on in the world where chemist are and labs begin
cooking up stuff that's marketing department worthwhile regardless of that,
it could just be something edible or something that you.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Know, if you can order for fifty nine dollars matching
electric toothbrush that has the kernel's disembodied head on it,
like on the body of it, not like as the
tooth like a peas container, like pretty much anyway. So yeah,
and they talk about how other brands have been doing
this type of stuff. Another thing that we've gotten from
a lot of people Crumble cookie partnered with doves so

(03:26):
that you can smell like they're ridiculously so oh.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
I thought it was gonna be a cookie. They taste
like soap, you know those ways.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
Maybe I try.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
I don't know this mashup game.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
I steer clear of both AnyWho. That's like probably one
of the worst mashups I've I've encountered. Fried Chicken toothpaste.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
I'm probably not going to forgive you for a while.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
I'm not going to forgive me. I'm putting myself on
time out for that one.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Thanks for dudes.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
You're so welcome.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Rid dudes, everyone, everyone just teaming up.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Is that we found so gleeful. I get these messages
sword to me and they're just like.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
I'd like to know till zir I'd like them to
know that it lasts like for some two three days.
I'm thinking about this and just like people get songs
stuck in their head, I get mash up worms.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
It's I feel so devilish. Yeah, like that.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I got a question for you, devilish. Did you ever
buy anything from the back of a comic book? No? No, no, okay,
we do. You remember how in the eighties and the
back of comic books they had all these novelty toys
they're still hanging around from the heyday.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Of the fifties and sixty Yes, yes, yes, stuff that they.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Sold like maybe an ant farm or X Ray Spex
or the Classic Sea Monkeys.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
I totally wanted some of that stuff, Like you try
and get that by my grandma. That's not going to happen.
Although like I wanted sea monkeys and she was like,
that's not no, that's just like you know, brin shrimp
or whatever they are, it's gross.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well I got answers for you about what they are.
Oh yeah, because today I want to tell you about
the heir to the sea monkey fortune range tail of
the man himself. But I bet you won't see it coming, Elizabeth,
not even with x Ray Spex. This is Ridiculous Crime,

(05:29):
a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heist and cons.
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
percent ridiculous ridiculous. Oh Elizabeth, if I got a super weird,
ridiculous one for you today.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
I love this already.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
No, I kept saying it up top, But what do
you remember of those ads in the comic book? When
was the last time you saw an ad like say
this one for x Ray.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
Spex ages ago, right, and it's yeah, it was in
comic book, like I used to get I wasn't really
a comic book magazine. I was going to say those
kind of things. They had him in the back. My
brother it was in like a Sunday Circular though. When
he was maybe four saw an ad for like a

(06:14):
Rambo knife that you unscrew the base which have a
compass bottom, and it had like a garrot that you're
supposed to use to cut down trees or take.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Out your enemies, and like whatterproof matches.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Whatterproof matches and some other stuff. Right, So this four
year old Travis Dutton goes to his grandmother is like, hey, Grandma,
can I have this? She's like, yeah, sure, cuts a check,
sends it off. Meanwhile, sharp knife, it was a real
honest to goodness it was. It was it should put
you on a list somewhere. And it had like the

(06:47):
curved end for like digging in at stuff.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Bone.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yeah, and so she let him get it, and like,
I think, I don't think that is legal.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Now does he have all his fingers still?

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Some of them? Okay? Like give a kids some matches anyway,
But he's no, no, he was no worse for wear.
So maybe that's a lesson.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, there you go. There it is the uh. Also,
by the way, we'll put all these images on the
Ridiculous Crime Instagram pace so you can see these because
they are worth.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
A that's something to remember, Like, you know, you may
not be like a big Instagram person, But it's worth
going on there to see the pictures that we find
for every episode. They're nuts, they are, but they do
an incredible job getting together like that.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, yeah, the x ray Spex ones. I was stoked
the interns found and man, that was such a dirtbag
toy x ray Specs. Like you could see obviously that
in the In the ad it shows you looking at
your hand and seeing like the bones in your hand right.
Also you could see through clothing. Like I said, dirtbag energy.
I mean, like the ads showed a guy like he's
got this dumb grin and he's looking at a woman
while wearing his X ray specs. One plus one you

(07:53):
get where we're going. These things made for teenage boys completely.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
It never crossed my mind seeing those ads. I think
I was like, well, I could pulsibly fee into the
next room and see if I was bothering anybody.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
I could look at the bones of my dog. If
you were wondering, by the way, do these x ray
specs actually work sure or how it worked, Elizabeth, that's
I have answers for you. The lenses of the x
ray Spex they were not actually designed to filter out
X rays. Shocker, I know, but they were designed to
have grooves and feathers in them so that the light
would go prismatic and then it kind of like you'd

(08:27):
see something that looked like an X ray effect because
you're seeing the image, but then it's also kind of
like blurring out.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
Did you have to wear a lead apron?

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Apparently this tricked a lot of people. They were like, oh, look,
it was working anyway. There were a ton of these.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
It was a simpler time.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
I think it would have worked now. There were a
ton of these types of novelty toys that came popular
in the last mid century, right, so to think the
nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties primary Yeah, right, that's like this
is when the hula hoop was invented, the Frisbee slip
and slide. Also, you get like Barbie and the original
g I Joe action figure with kung Fu grip.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Booming economy and people having like disposable income and totally
advertising shifting over and realizing that you can get kids
to nag their parents, and you get parents who want
their kids to have more than they had totally.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
And all the plastic coming out of World War two,
because before that most kids toys were wood or tin.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
So now all of a sudden, you can make plastic
mold bo you're making you're knocking out toys.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yeah so in microplastics life forever.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Do you remember ever, Like, there's this whole era of
America and really just whatever kitsch culture it was made
fun of often. Right, but do you remember the classic
Saturday Night Live skit with Dan Akright, he plays a
novelty toy salesman Candas Bergo. She's the host of the
show that's like a nighttime talk show, and dan Ackroyd
plays an Irwin main Way.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
And she's just such a good.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
She's recounting the toys that his company tells and she's like,
such as pretty Peggy ear piercing set and mister skin Grafter.
There's General Tran, Secret Police Confession Kit, and Doggy Dentist.
And what about this innocent rubber doll which you market
under the name Johnny Switchblade? Press his head in two
sharp knives spring from his arms. Now, my favorite bit

(10:13):
of all this is the part about bag of glass.
Yes that right defends to like, yeah, I mean, you know,
it's a backup broken glass. It sells very well. As
a matter of fact, Hey, it's just a backup broken glass,
you know. So Cannis Bergen's host characters is having a
hard time with all of this, right dan Akroy's sleazy
toy salesman character. But then he drops my favorite bit
of capitalistic logic, and he says, now, look a kid,

(10:35):
average kid picks up broken glass anywhere the beach, that street,
garbage cans, parking lot's all over the place, any big city.
We're just packaging what the kids want. This is the
air we're talking about today. It started in the fifties
and sixties, but it lasts well into the eighties. And
a main toymaker of these fine novelty toys was of
course Whammo. Right. They gave the Ula hoop and the frisbee,

(10:58):
the slipping slide, also the Hackey, Oh, Silly Straight you Neede,
the super bouncy ball. Not all their toys were winters,
though they would have the occasional dud. Oh Like, for instance,
there was instant Fish that was a Whammo dud. The
toy was a package of freeze dried fish, not just
any fish, Elizabeth. The fish were called African killifish. Wait, yes,

(11:21):
that's kille fish. Like this fish is so aggressive it's
kind of killing kill Yeah. But now, if like me,
you had never heard of the African killifish before I
just mentioned it, then I have I got good news
for you, Elizabeth. I looked it up and I know
you like information. So the African killifish aka the turquoise
killifish is native to Africa. Just like the name. Yeah,
it calls the lakes, ponds and watering holes of Mozambique

(11:44):
and Zimbabwe it's home. Now, the African killyfish is special
for one particular reason. It doesn't die if there's no water.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Oh oh I see yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
So the African killyfish is, as I pointed out, from
these semi arid sections of Africa. So the water resources
they routinely dry up. Right, So this African killy fish
is like, oh, I see you nature, you're trying to
kill me, okay bet? And so what does it do?
It involves this crazy adaptation the Affrikan killyfish. When it
feels the water's drying up, it lays eggs that are
desiccation resistant, so that means the eggs can just sit

(12:15):
and dried up mud for like a year. Yeah, however,
long until the rain season comes along and the boom
conditions are right, the fish pop out amazing. So this
novelty toymaker, whamo, here's about this. They're like, wait, you
got these African fish that lays dried up eggs in
the mud. I smell a prophet. So they were like,
how do we get some of these fish? Markt them,

(12:36):
sell them into American kids, and so I about they'll
go crazy for a fish you can't kill. So Elizabeth, sadly,
the youth of America did not go for the African killyfish.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Was it like an invasive species?

Speaker 2 (12:46):
No? No, it was perfectly fine. But even when it was
renamed and rebranded as instant fish, just to add water
and stir, it didn't really work. So it turns out
it wasn't as easy as just adding water and voila
magical undead fish. Yeah, but the one flop would go
on to inspire another novelty toy maker. And I bet
you can guess where I'm headed with this instant fish.
Was the John the Baptist for the Jesus. That was

(13:08):
sea monkeys. Now, before I tell you about sea monkeys
Can I tell you about another fish based novelty toy.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
Those little fish fortune teller plastic things.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
No, no, I do, I do remember those. That's not.
That's not the one I got for you.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
Much like when you go to Catholic school, and I'm
sure they had it in public school. But there's like
a like a fairy on a Friday, and you do
all sorts of.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
The give the kids waste to gamble, yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Then you can win like one of those, and everyone's
standing there and figuring out if.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
They're liars, divining their fortunes according to.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
The name of the Lord.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
This other fish based novelty toy that is not those,
that is, But this was a hit right for the
same toy maker they gave us sea monkeys, Elizabeth, have
you ever heard of the novelty toy invisible goldfish like
pet rock? Basically, send your money in in this novelty
toy company, we send you back a special kit. You'd
receive a glass bowl the kind you put in with goldfish. Right.

(14:06):
Good so far. The kit also included fish food, right,
because you got to feed your fish. That's always key.
Even a visible goldfish need to eat. So if this
is your first time raising invisible goldfish. You'd also receive
a handbook that told you how to care and feed
your invisible goldfish. And that was it. That was the
total package. A glass bowl, some sea plants, a handbooks,
some fish food, and there was also a little sign
that they included you could place next to the fish bowl.

(14:29):
The sign read invisible goldfish, do not feed No Elizabeth.
You maybe noted that I have not mentioned any invisible
goldfish sold in this kit. That's because the buyer wasn't
sent any fish. There was one hundred percent guarantee that
the customer would never see his or her invisible goldfish.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
It would just have a bowl of cloudy water.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
So the customer with this guarantee never saw invisible goldfish.
Satisfaction guarantee glass. So now you know now that we've
gone into the novelty fish toy precedence. Let's talk too, munchies.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
I want to be in the meeting where they dreamed
that up invisible.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Listen.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
I've got a warehouse full of gold fish bowls and
them and yeah, no one's buying the fish bowls. But
here's the concept. Half of them were going to sell
to tiki bar.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Ye for drinks.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
The other half we're.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Going to sell the kids in Indiana in New Jersey.
They're just gonna put it on their little bookshelf and
then nothing in it. It was perfect. Parents won't mind because
nothing dies.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
See great, that's true.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
So around the year nineteen fifty seven, actually in the
year nineteen fifty seven, the novelty toy industry had just
witnessed the flame out of Whammo's latest instant fish right.
So now most reasonable people would look at that failure
and think, well, I'm definitely not gonna follow that path, right,
But not everyone, Elizabeth, because there was one man who
looked at that colossal failure and he saw potential. So

(15:50):
we contacted a marine biologist named Anthony di Agostino, and
he asked him about, uh, if there are any other
candidates in the marine world that could be instantly reanimated
with just the introduction of water. Now, this marine biologist,
dia Gastino, thought about it, thought about it a while,
and he's like, I did some reading, did some research.
Didn't have the Internet. So he's like going to the library,
he's looking through his books at home. He comes back

(16:12):
with an idea. He's like I got one Brian shrimp.
I was like, oh, okay, So Agastina's like, no, no, seriously,
turns up. I've been monkeying around. No. Pun intended with
a process called a super homeogenation, which we would call
super homogenation. Okay, they called it super homeogenation anyway. Anyway,
don't worry. I looked it up. For what I can tell,
it's a process where a robust heterogeneous reaction is matched

(16:34):
by a homogeneous reaction which has fewer factors because they're
all the same thing. Right, So when you put your
brin shrimp in right into this new substrate, this water
or whatever you have, the marine biologist could get it
that these brin shrimp would populate at the rate of
say multiple organisms and their failure rate. So the problem

(16:55):
is if you sday, you have three different things and
you try to put them in and get them all
to go, you'll have the success rate cumulatively that it
equals the rate he could get for just one species. Right,
that makes.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Sense, I guess.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
So like say you have like a three different fish
you're putting in there, and your Brian shrimp, right, so
he got four things, and then you have one this
just Brian shrimp. If you counted all the things that
survived this process, he got it where his brine shrimp
could equal the other bowl. We have all these other
populations trying to compete.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
So in gardening terms, it's a higher germination rate.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
There you go, Boom, it's a much higher germination rate. Okay,
that's spot on. Okay. So this was a relatively new
process at the time. So the marine biologist he creates
this hybrid brine shrimp that has a higher germination rate
and then he's like, oh, they can be suspended in
dry storage and then with the introduction of water, boom,
they come back in crazy numbers. So Richard Pell, who

(17:46):
works at the Center for post Natural History in Pittsburgh,
he maintains a sea monkey aquarium there, he explains, is
better than I do. So we'll give it to him.
As Richard Pell puts it, the Brian shrimp were quote
selectively bred and in the early seventies so that they
would have this extra long dormant cycle in their egg state,
and they were able to increase that yield so that
you get that satisfying swarm.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
Oh, it's satisfying.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah. So this innovation wasn't solely due to the marine
biologist dia Agostino. He'd been prompted to consider the question
by this novelty toy maker. And now the novelty toymaker
he called this invention of his his greatest invention. His
lawyer said that it was the evidence of his client's
business genius that he could manipulate, quote the science to
get them to live for a prolonged period of time.

(18:30):
Everyone's just marveling at this guy who's like, yoh, what
if we had long living brinshrum. So the novelty toymaker
who I'm about to tell you about, his name was
Harold von Brownhut or Brownot. Now, now that we're gonna
go a little deeper into the world of sea monkeys
and the heiress who lived off the fortune and this
genius toymaker had a very dark, strange secret. But first, Elizabeth,

(18:53):
let's take a break, okay, And after these ads for
Bago Glass, we'll be back to dive into the bizarre
and ridiculous legal fight over sea monkey. We're back, Elizabeth,

(19:22):
Yes we are. No you ready to dive deeper into
the world of sea monkeys. I like to bring you
up to date with a historical precedent. A man by
the name of P. T. Barnum. Oh yeah, he's the
master of hokum and humbuggery. Do you know what humbuggery is?
I didn't know this term. I learned it reading up about.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Him, like ba humbug It's like, so it's kind.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Of yeah, but it's a term that he used a
little bit different. It's inspired by that, and then he
turns it into like a showbiz term, right, humbug humbug.
So the humbug is a thing, and humbuggery is to
put over on the rubes with your humbug, right, so
y well, yeah, I'll put it this way. In eighteen
forty five, he wrote a letter to his manager for

(20:04):
Dice Hitchcock, great name f R. Dycee four Dice Hitchcock. Yeah.
In his letter, P. T. Barnum defined his trade as
being a humbugger. And he's like, that's what I do. Now,
I'll let him say it, and I quote. Genuine humbug
consists in making a man feel that he has got
the worth of his money, that he has seen wonders
such as could not be found elsewhere on the face

(20:26):
of the earth, that those wonders must have cost the
enterprising and liberal proprietor many sleepless nights and oceans of gold.
And then, in fact and in truth, the beholder of
the humbug is much indebted to the owner thereof, for
having kindly permitted, by paying for it, to behold this
precious sight, whatever it may be. Now, in case his

(20:48):
manager was unclear about this meaning, disquote P. T. Barnum added,
and again I quote humbug to be profitable must be
such as one as will bear puffing. For although you
may buy puffing get persons once to visit a poppable humbug,
it will neither visit it nor its owner twice. So
you gotta get them once. No, exactly this nineteenth century language,

(21:12):
it's like, oh, we put all the phrases and you'll
get the understanding at the very end, like it's German,
so Pt. Barnum, He's like, how do you sell your
humbug to the Rubes, the Yokels, the marx Well as
he put it, you know, and I quote. Having secured
the proper humbug, the first thing to be done is
to puff it. And in these days of universal and
scientific puffing. Very much depends upon the manner of conducting

(21:34):
this branch of the business. The puff in direct or
puff oblique. The puff served up as the French serve
up all their viands, smothered in sauce and gravy is
the best kind of a puff. If you gild it
with a covering of science, covered with an anecdote, or
half smothered in poetry, it does it all very well. Now,

(21:54):
the reason why one must work so diligently to trick
the public with your humbug and have them pay you
for this pleasure, even if it only works once, is that,
as any great showman like P. T. Barnum can tell
you and I quote, the public is a queer fish,
and no fish which is up to snuff will bite
at the naked hook. Much depends on procuring the proper bait.

(22:16):
More depends on placing the bait properly on the hook.
So the humbug, as if you can get it, is
basically something of wonder rarety marvel. It's you know, it's
the the girl, the alligator skinned woman. You know, it's
whatever you'd see like an a sideshow. But also it
can be as my man, Harold, I shouldn't say my man,
but as Harold von Braun who puts it later on,

(22:38):
as we'll see, it can be a toy. It can
be a thing that children marvel at, and that can
be even more profitable than the rubes, because they're all roobes.
They're all barn suckers. So I told you all this
because I want you thinking about how to fleece suckers
right before we discuss the sea monkey empire. Yes, because
in the words of P. T. Barnum, sea monkeys are
pure humbuok no, the very profitable kind anyway, as some

(23:00):
PT Barnam has said with the last quote, no humbug
is great without truth at the bottom. So that's why
I like the sea monkeys have to come alive. Yeah, right,
you got to see something you drop in and all
of a sudden turn a.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Lot invisible goldfish did take off.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Well, it actually did because he lived up to what
you got invisible cold fish. It was a crazy backward tombug.
But so what anyway, what's the truth at the bottom
of the sea monkey empire other than a higher germanation rate. Well,
we know they're not really monkeys, but are they from
the sea. No, well, here, here's how it goes. What
else do we know? We know the sea monkeys, created
nineteen fifty seven were by far the greatest success of

(23:37):
their inventor, Harold von Bronhote. And this dude was quite
the inventor. He had one hundred and ninety six different
patents for various inventions, and long before he became an inventor,
he was something of a wild man. I'll say. Uh.
For instance, he used to race motorcycles. Okay, his track
name was the Green Hornet, just like the old radio

(23:58):
show I listened to, by the way, the Green Hornet.
He had a car that he named the Black Beauty.
So I'm like, why not name it yourself the Black Beauty.
Then I'm like, right, Sara, and I know why I
didn't name himself the Black Beauty.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
So anyway it could be you.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
That'll be I'm taking that one now. After he was
a motorcycle racer, he changed tax careers whole bit, became
a TV producer because in the twentieth century, this is
what you could do. So then he switched it up.
He stayed in show business though. He became a magician,
and you know. Yeah. His stage name was the Great Telepo.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Not the Green Hornet, No, the Great Hornet, to go
to Green, the Great Tileppo.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Great Tileppo. I don't know. It's just like I guess
he wanted something vaguely Italiana. Everybody wants vaguely Italian after Houdini.
So when that fizzled, he became a booking agent, but
for strange and unexpected performers, like he had this one
guy he booked to a jump off of a high
dive and plummet into twelve inches of water. Hold up
a roller, that's what the guy dived into.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Really, yes, and it wasn't a fake, like, no, it's a.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
You can pull. Well, I guess you have to like
hit and go and like you know, like real shell.
I don't know, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
The thing is, when you tell me, I'm imagining it's
one of those kiddie pools. So it's like a circumference
of like four feet mat.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, I honestly do not know how they pulled that
one off. Like I was like, huh, But apparently from
what I read, it was done. This is a description
of the act. Yeah. Yeah, so anyway, I'm sure there's
a trick, but While he's working on all this, he's also.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
A diameter not circumference anyway.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, I knew what you imagined.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
You know.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
As he's working on all this, this early humbuggery, he
was also coming up with new inventions, such as the
direct to mat. This is one of his early inventions.
Now it may sound like a rug or a carpet,
but the direct a mat was actually a map app.
That was hard to say. The director mat was a
map app.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah, direct like.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Long before he had smartphones. This is how it worked.
The device was it held a map of New York
City and a person could punch in the address of
their just destination and then the directive map would tell
you the fastest subway route to use. How Yeah, because
it's just like a there's the map and then you
can figure out where you are and it's like use this.
It's a computer, very basic. It's not like they don't
think of an electronic computer. Think of it like an

(26:03):
automated machine. You plug in something, it's like it's like
an abacus. So it's just going it slotting into positions
of like oh this that, and the other thing.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Is like how does it how do you plug in
and how does it read out?

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Did I invent the director map? I don't know.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
Sounds like.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
I can just tell you that from what I read,
he'd found a way for people to know the fastest
subway route. I think it just highlighted the subway map,
and then it showed you when you you showed your
destination and showed where you were, it would highlight the
fastest route. So you can do that mathematically with.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
The graph, like, I want to see what one looks like.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
I'm sure there you we'll see if the interns can
find a picture.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Go, hey, go go see if you can find that.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah, well, we'll see how that goes.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Now.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
We also they hated other memorable early inventions, such as
the doll baby that when you laid it down on
its back, their eyes would close. That's that's Harold Wan Brown,
who oh really yeah? And then also he was going
to shake up the world obviously with his greatest invention,
sea monkey. So back to the sea monkeys? What is
the story and these little aquatic lies?

Speaker 3 (27:04):
Great question, Elizabeth, I am so good at questions, is.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
The best I know. That's why I love having you here.
So if you can believe it, even now, sea monkeys
remain a five million dollars a year business, even now,
even now, five million dollars. A yea, people buy sea
monkeys five million dollars today. Yes, how is that possible?
Great question, Elizabeth, thank you, Because people still love to
be fleeced. They love the humbuck. According to Harold von Brown,

(27:27):
who he first wanted to give the world sea monkeys
not because of profit margins, but because he loved nature.
He's wanted people to have nature in their homes. So
he's like, what if they had some Brian shrimp. I
remember how I told you about the marine biologists who
helped Harold von Brown who to develop the Brian shrimp. Right,
they could be dehydrated and then had the higher germination rate. Right. Well,
if you have that, you have this like large amount

(27:48):
that are able to be reanimated with water. You know,
all you have to do is put them in a
package and then you just dump them in some water.
Boom voi la. Right, you gotta put a baby little
food package in there also to like stimulated, because obviously
a living creature needs food. Sure, that's about it. They
kids have water. Yeah, yeah, we'd hope. Yeah. In the
fifties and sixties they did so. Now and then you

(28:09):
buy sea monkeys. This is what you receive, a packet
of white powder. The white powder is the dehydrated sea monkeys.
You sprinkle that into the water. Voila instant life. But
you also get the food packet and then the aquarium
that's like and then like little like bits of like
plastic sea life to put in your aquarium, kind of
jazz it up.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
I feel like it probably smells so bad.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Right, well, you'd see it's Brian shrimp. Now for a
small child, it's like they're transformed into a tiny god
bestowing light. Sure, in a week or so, when their
sea monkeys die, they're also dispensing life. So they got
the full cycle as a god. No, a little longer that,
but they don't last long, especially if you don't feed them.
A lot of people don't think to feed them. They're like, oh, yeah,

(28:50):
they came to life. They gave them the first food packet.
And then they're like, they didn't sell me a lot
of food packets, and yeah, exactly. The easy magic of
white powder turning into a teeming community of Brian trimp
is the big part of the surprising success of Sea Monkeys.
But that's not all, Elizabeth, because it also required diligence, creativity,
and a marketing campaign entered. Joe Orlando. What a great name, right,

(29:14):
great name. It's up there with like Robert California from
your show of the Office. Yeah, Joe Orlando. Now, Joe
Orlando was an artist, and he would become an industry
standard when he drew cover art from Mad magazine and
for DC Comics. He became a highmuckety muck in both
of those places. But in the late fifties early sixties,
he's this young, starving artist is willing to take it
by just any gig, and that's how he came to
be the artist who gave us the look and the

(29:36):
feel of the underwater world of sea monkeys. And long
before SpongeBob SquarePants, yeah, sea monkeys were the og fun
and friendly, kind of strange underwater sea creatures. Elizabeth, Do
you remember the artwork that I'm talking about the look
and feel of the underwater world of sea monkeys? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Yeah, because it was weirdly like space.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Like, yes, totally, like they're kind of Martian but they
also live underwater. It's like, what do we do here, And.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
I was not looking at those ads in the fifties
or sixties because I was not on the planet, but
like they used the same ass. Yeah, so it felt
very like retro.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, there was like this throwback of like this was
good for grandpa or you know, for your dad and mom.
That could be good for you. Yeah, I'm the ad.
You'll see there's like a family looking in on the
the aquarium bowl watching it, and there's like a castle
that they have when you're like, whoa, there's like a
whole thing, like a kingdom. Right, So we'll post all
this once again on Instagram so you can enjoy their
three pronged like flesh crowns as well. Now, once kids

(30:30):
in JFK's early sixties got an eye full of that
image in the back of their comic books, they couldn't
tear it out fast enough, right, They tore out the
return slip, begged, borrowed, or earned enough scratch they could
send this cash off and buy their very own underwater
family of sea monkeys. Now we've talked about this, but like,
did you ever know anybody later on, like in a
punk house who had sea monkeys or anybody else like

(30:52):
because it kind of becameitchy again.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Later on punk houses, we get skaties.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
We have different life forms yet.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
But yeah, no, I don't think I I had a couple.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Of friends who got him like ironically, yeah, interesting, But
I think that they also wanted them like more earnestly.
I think that they thought they were kind of fun
and then they acted like, oh, I'm just being ironic.
I'm like, you want an aquarium. So once these ads
a writer are in the back of comic books and
kids are sending off their money as as soon as
they get out of their hot little hands, Harold von
Brownhood he just goes for broke, right. He starts mass

(31:22):
marketing his new kitchen toy because he's seeing the numbers.
The early sales numbers are amazing. So then he starts
publishing books about how to care and feed for your
sea monkey families. Then go well, for instance, like he
was like, you know, you got to feed your feed
your sea monkeys. So sea monkeys often like and this
is where he had help ready for them, sea monkey
branded banana treats. This is just basically dried up banana

(31:42):
slices you could chop in the ballas well. Anything. They're
Brian shrimp. They could eat a lot of like stuff.
Turns out right, So he also had Cupid's arrow, maas.
He also Cupid's arrow mating powder in case you wanted
to see, like makes them kiss totally. You want to
make get them to pro create. He's like, you think

(32:05):
about it this way. Remember you got the sea monkeys
because they were dropped in and magically came to life.
What good is the mating powder gonna do. It's gotta
just be more sea monkeys, you know. It's like they're
just selling you more monkeys calling a different thing. Anyway,
reanimation be damned. So, Elizabeth, this mad inventor, Harold von Brownhood,
he had way more in story. He goes bigger. He

(32:26):
comes up with the sea monkey speedway. Yeah, I bet
those are three words that are raising all sorts of questions. Yeah,
I just I think, Yeah, sea monkeys live in a
plastic aquarium underwater. How can they have a speedway? Well,
great question, Elizabeth. That turns out the kids. They would
sell them these enormous eye droppers or like turkey basers,
if you will, and they could suck up some of

(32:46):
the brine shrimp and then they would just shoot them
down like a hot wheels track back into the water.
Since they started to drop the waters like which dropper one?
I guess. I don't know. That was a hit. It
was bizarre. He came up with sea monkey ski trials.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Oh my god, what's the.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Little mountain you go down the mountains? Sea monkey fox hunt?
If you're an adventurous kid, there is a sea monkey robodiver.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Sea monkey fox Hunt? What is that?

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Well, you would I don't know.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
I wish I could tell you a different turkey baster.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Different is a turkey baster. Everything's turkey. You just run
these drops through different things. So it's like, oh, yes,
you're the fox, and we were on horses to the horses,
I don't know, Elizabeth to the hounds. Yeah. So then
there's also space sea monkey kit, Like you're taking your
sea monkeys and putting them.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
In put them in a super soakery.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Good luck. So I'm with all these hits, right, sea
monkeys in space? And oh, by the way, did you
know that sea monkeys have been to the moon?

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Really?

Speaker 2 (33:47):
No, Like, I'm not even kidding, that's a true story.
This isn't part of the humbug.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
We dumped some.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Sea monkeys. Well, I guess it is part of the humbug,
because anything sea monkey related is part of the humbug.
But what I mean is this in nineteen seventy two,
back when we were regularly sending astronauts to the moon
with the Apollo missions, sea monkeys were sent to the
Moon on two count them, two lunar missions, Apollo sixteen
and Apollo seventeen. The story goes, sea monkeys were sent
to the Moon as an experiment to see if they
can endure the rigors of space, right, because there's a

(34:15):
lot of cosmic radiation and stuff that will like denature
a human body, give them cancer, and all sorts of
problems with like bone deterioration and so forth. So they
want to see how space travel affected living organic creatures.
So like, let's send up some sea monkeys. Those things proliferate,
bring the speedway.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
So this is a.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Decade and a half past like space monkeys. And this
is like in Laika, the Soviet cosmo dog dog, and
they're back two sea monkeys like Brian shrimp. Like this
is mini steps backwards. Anyway, the sea monkeys they go
up and they put them up. If you're wondering what
happened with the experiment with sea monkeys in space. About
ten percent of the space monkeys or space sea monkeys whatever,
survive their trip to the moon, and this is bad

(34:53):
news for Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and the other
space wannabes. But of the ten percent of sea monkeys
who survived the trip to the Moon and back, many
of them were deformed by the high levels of cosmic radiation.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
You're kidding? Did they have extra sensory perception?

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Not that kind, not like mutants and ex powers. No, no,
not the good kind. We're like, oh, what's wrong with
your arm? It shouldn't go that way? And why is
your head all shaped wrong? And like you have four eyes? Yeah, exactly.
It was not good. Well, flash forward to nineteen ninety
eight when NASA decided, you know what, let's send some
sea monkeys back to space number three for a new experiment,
and this time with a former Apollo astronaut.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Just to keep it fine, Like, someone go down to
the market, get an archie comic, because we need we're
doing retro. We need to cut out the back coupon.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
They want to send up an Apollo astronaut some sea
monkeys and they just have like a good old like
tang of a good time right now. The man who
they picked was John Glenn. I would send boss Aldron
personally fighting buzz Aldron like I love that guy. Call
me a coward. I'm gonna punch you like guy's like
any he's punching in twenty year olds anyway. But rather
than tell you all about that, Elizabeth, I'd like you

(35:59):
to close, and I'd like you to clus. It's nineteen
ninety eight. At the moment, you're feeling a little nervous,
which is perfectly understandable since you're currently wearing a diaper,
and you have a good reason for that, since you
were sitting next to Senator John Glenn and he's also
wearing a diaper, and you both have a good reason
for that. In fact, it's the same good reason why
you were seated next to John Glenn while wearing a diaper,

(36:20):
because both of you are wearing astronaut suits. That's right
at the moment, you are strapped into the space shovel Discovery,
just moments before the shuttlecraft is propelled skyward by a
great and tremendous explosion that rockets you into the stratosphere.
Will you will slip the bonds of gravity and pilot
your way into the cosmos. As John Glenn gives you
a reassuring smile through his space helmet, you focus and

(36:41):
try to calm your nervous mind. As you hear the
countdown begin T minus ten seconds nine eight. You really
hope that NASA fixed that whole issue with the O
rings seven six, five four. You remind yourself that lots
of astronauts do this all the time. Hell, John Glenn
came out of re tirement for one more ride on

(37:01):
this rocket three two one. Lift off the booster rocket's light,
the force generated as tremendous you John Glenn, and the
Space Shuttle Discovery indeed lift off the launch Paddy, You
rocket skyward. John Glenn gives you a thumbs up. It
seems he can tell you're a little nervous. As planned,
the booster rockets fall away, soon followed by the main thruster,

(37:23):
until finally all is quiet. You've broken free of the
gravity of Earth. You gaze out at the vast and
inky sea of blackness that surrounds the shuttlecraft. You are
in space, Elizabeth. Now that it's quiet enough to speak
over the comms. You hear John Glenn say, how cool
was that? Never get tired of the endless ocean of space?
You marvel at how small and insignificant the Earth is,

(37:43):
framed against the seeming infinity of darkness, a tiny, fragile
blue ball. And then, as if to break the tension,
or perhaps because he came here before, John Glenn asked
the shelter crew, so when can I break out my
sea monkeys? You forget it isn't just you, John Glenn,
and the rest of the astronauts who you've also aboard
the Space Shuttle a few loads of space sea monkeys,
currently in dehydrated, powdered form. John Glenn is like a

(38:06):
giddy school boy, eager to rip open the packet and
make some instant life. He plans to experiment on the
sea monkeys to see how they endure the radiation of space,
same for the earlier Apollo astronauts, only now with more
modern shielding technologies. Flash forward nine days later, You and
John Glenn are both giddy as school boys about the
fact his sea monkey's hatched, and this time none of

(38:28):
them were deformed by space. The experiment was a complete success.
But you wonder why it is that you have to
clean the plastic aquarium. That's not easy in zero gravity. Personally,
you prefer the space monkeys. Elizabeth, I took you to space.
We've never been to space. First time space.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Yeah, that is the first time in space.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah. Without also turned out to be Sea Monkey's final
voyage to space. But they weren't done spending time amongst
the stars. Because after these messages, I will tell you
about well, this other character, enter another Howard, a former
prop turned to reality TV talent judge named Howie Mandel.
Let's take a break of two and two and I'll
tell you more these Okay, Elizabeth back, do you have

(39:31):
fun with the thinking about Sea Monkey's space Sea Monkeys
and John?

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (39:35):
God, glad you enjoyed that. I always feel bad that
sometimes I put you in less and desirable situations. So
this time I wanted to put you on a fun ride.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
That's cool.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah, So researching the story right was it was a
wild ride, and I found a bunch of fun facts.
One of them had to do with Howie Mandel. I
was like, well, Elizabeth loves Howie Mandel. About this In
nineteen ninety two, Howie Mandel start in a live action
sea monkey based TV show. Wait what Yeah, it was

(40:05):
a Saturday morning live action cartoon show. Howie Mandel starred
as a mad professor with this ridiculous German accent who
for some reason lived in a lighthouse. What year is this,
nineteen ninety two And one day the professor he makes
this accidental discovery in his lighthouse laboratory and he reanimates
sea monkeys who accidentally grow to human size. And naturally,
these three human sized space monkeys can walk and talk,

(40:27):
and they have personalities. So the professor makes them his
new lab assistants and roommates in the lighthouse. To the
TV show, So to tell the sea monkeys apart, obviously
we needed to have them to have distinct personalities. So
there was Bill, Dave, and Aquarius. You knew which one
was which because Bill was the one who was afraid
of imperial style facial hair. If you're wondering what imperial

(40:47):
style facial hair is, think of like the Kaiser Wilhelm German,
the big mustache and then the goatee that drops down,
and he was terrible. That's how you would note. It's
a kids show. So the one named Aquarius. He was
terrible with secrets. And lastly there was Dave Shout Out

(41:08):
producer d who this Dave loves poke music and would
start dancing whenever he heard, like, you know, roll out
the barrel.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
So I wanted you one of those oral history of
the writer's room for the Sea Monkeys Saturday Morning.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Clearly Teenage Mutantninja tur Turtles had come out and it
was a huge hit. Howie Mandel had a daughter who
bought some sea monkeys. He's like, this could be just
like the teenage Mutant Into Turtles. So he went to
CBS pitched the show. They're like, I love it, here's
a zillion dollars, let's make it. And then it did not.
It was not a hit. So it was not bigger
than the Teenage Mutant Into Turtles, and after eleven episodes,

(41:45):
CBS canceled the amazing live Sea Monkey TV show. It
seems only Harold von Brown, Hoot and Joe Orlando knew
how to make sea monkeys pop. All right, So I
told you now about Howie Mandel's live action Saturday Morning
cartoon show and starring him in the to promorphize sea monkeys.
I also found that Frank Black from the Pixies. Yeah,
he loves sea monkeys, apparently because he wrote a whole

(42:07):
song about them called Palace of the Brine. Oh, the
lyrics are fun. I'll just read you a song in
a place they say is dead in the lake that's
like an ocean. I count a billion head all the time.
There's a motion Palace of the Prime, Palace of the Prine,
I saw the cloning of the famous family. Are here
the drone and in the Shrine of the Sea Monkey,
Palace of the Brian, Palace of the Prine. Beneath reflections

(42:30):
in the fountain, the starry sky and Utah Mountains, they
are swimming happily. Can't you see a life that's so sublime? Oh, Frank,
what is going on right? So you may be thinking, Zarin,
this is a fun look back into the kitchy world
of sea monkeys in mid century marketing and in the nineties.
But where are the crimes? Well, oh, you know what,
that's funny, So enter Big Time Toys. That's literally the

(42:55):
name Big Time Toys. So harravon Brownhood. He passed away
in two thousand and three, and he left his vast
sea monkey and other related kitchy toys to his wife, Yolanda,
and she's quite a piece of work. Now, more on
her in a moment. But what she found was when
it was her business, she didn't like running the Sea
Monkey Empire. So yeah, she knew her husband's secret formula
for sea monkeys was worth a fortune and she got

(43:16):
that right. So she kept that in the lock security
box in like a secret location in like a bank
in Manhattan. And then she licensed the empire to Big
Time Toys. She's like, you handle it now. The deal
was Big Time Toys would do everything. They would supply
the packaging, the marketing, the distribution, order fulfillment, all of it. Right,
All Yolanda had to do was supply the sea monkeys,
the packets of sea monkeys. Okay, But what she may

(43:37):
or may not have known was it in the licensing
contract that she signed was a stipulation for Big Time
Toys to buy out the Sea Monkey Empire and the
secret formula. Now, I need to tell you the backstory
of Yolanda von Brownhuts can get a sense of this woman.
She the wife of the mad inventor, heiress to the
great Sea Monkey fortune. Yolanda Signovan Brownhut was a very

(43:57):
attractive young woman apparently from everything I read, she in
fact she was wants an actress. She and she was
a singer. She was her father taught her she was.
People wanted to get to know her ander sisters. From
everything I read, there's just like imagine like a very rich,
like artistic family with these daughters who were like, ooh,
what have you met the signarette girls? Right right? She
goes on to become an actress, and then she stars
in a nineteen sixty seven movie called Venus in Furs, which,

(44:20):
if you didn't know, and I don't expect you to know,
but it sounds like you do, that movie is considered
a classic of the bondage genre. Yeah. Now, Young Yolanda
was also the Vixen and All Women Are Bad and
Death of a Nymphet Or there was also Assignment Female.
Oh my. One of my favorites file X for Sex
The Story of the Perverted. But my favorite title was

(44:43):
too much, too often with an exclamation.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
Bob like it's really highbrows very.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Very much so. So was Yolanda a porn start, Well
not exactly. She was a bondage queen, but Yolanda told
The New York Times. In those days they might have
been racy, but today I don't think so. Now, in
the late six she met Harold von Brownhood, and she
tells it Harold was such an exciting person. Show business
was kind of a tough thing, and I'm not into
all that myself. I like being around Harold and the

(45:09):
sea monkeys. So she marries him. Yeah, she marries him,
and she goes to work hawking sea monkeys. Her husband
past is, though, a right, so her desire to be
the queen of the sea monkey Empire kind of fades
with his passing. So she trusts her business to Big
Time Toys. That was a mistake, sounds. Enter Sam Harwell,
CEO of Big Time Toy Company. He arranged the deal

(45:31):
with the proviso that for ten million dollars, Big Time
had the option to buy the company from Yolanda, which
would include the secret formula for the nutrient packet and
the dehydrated sea monkeys. So one day he sent Yolanda
a letter exercising his option and works. Yet he claimed
that he'd already paid the necessary amount over time and
thus the company was now his, So he was just
informing her, I now own your company. It belongs to

(45:52):
Big Time Toys. So such a great villain name for
a company, Big Time Toys. It sounds like it's from
Hutsucker Proxy. Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
Well also it's like the dan ackroid Carriac.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, totally, it's exactly what yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
So anyway, in twenty thirteen, Yolanda sued Big Time Toys.
She took them to court for breach of contract and
trademark infringement, all the usual suspects. Right in the court filings,
it's revealed that Big Time Toys had already gone ahead
and started selling sea monkeys with or without Yolanda's patented
supply and proprietary nutrient packets. Instead, Big Time Toys they
just bought Brian Trimp from China and called them sea monkeys.

(46:27):
That ah wow. So, by the way, at the time,
he probably thought he could get away with all this
since he had some clout in his home state of Tennessee.
He was a big man in Nashville Elizabeth. More importantly,
Sam Harwell, his wife was the Speaker of the House
of the Tennessee House of Representatives. What so he didn't
fear getting popped for selling phony sea monkeys to Walmart

(46:48):
now man now true to farm. Twenty fourteen, US District
Judge ed Edgardo Ramos ruled against Yolanda, and he refused
to prohibit Big Time Toys from selling its own sea
monkeys really, which they can heeded to do to this
day with their counterfeit Chinese Brian shrimp. Yah. Now, if
you buy a sea monkey set today, that's what you receive,
but with all the same old artwork and booklets on

(47:08):
how to care and feed your sea markets. Now, there
was an earlier legal fight background Harold von brown Hoot
was still alive, and that fight was far more serious,
far scarier for the future of the sea monkey empire.
In the nineteen seventies, the buzzword at the time in
American court rooms was consumer protection. Yeah, it was like
a big deal. That's what what the snel skit was
making fun of was consumer protection. Right, So the New

(47:29):
York State Attorney General, Louis Lefkowitz, he went after sea
monkeys for conning the public. He wanted to litigate the
ethical limits of humbug, so left Kowitz. He made the
case that Harold von Brown Hood sold fraudulent goods and
services such as the quote limited group sea monkey life
insurance policy.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
Insurance to the agent took with.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
The Brian trimp insurance you know, and he demanded it
was it was a silly legal fight, right, but he
demanded to the court prohibit the sale of life insurance
policies for sea monkeys. And this would cost brown Wood
millions of dollars. I don't think they should pain and
I'm sure they didn't because they held I don't know,
They're like, oh, act of God, once again, act of God?

(48:14):
How always an act of God. So the judge listened
to the merits of the case, but in the end
he sided with whimsy. To ground his reasoning in a
real world example, he compared sea monkeys to sponge cake
and also to butter. The judge said, and unquote sponge cake.
It's not a sponge butterflies or not made of butter.
Sea monkeys were deemed to be a legally permissible fiction

(48:36):
since the public chose to be fleeced. But this is
not the end of the legal and ethical issues facing
Harold von Brownhood. Because Elizabeth I saved the best, or
rather the weirdest, the darkest for the last In two
thousand and two, just before he died, Harold von Brownhood
gave an interview to Planet X magazine, which I need
to get a subscription to. In the interview, he's this fun, funny,
strange seller of Kitschy toys, right the harmless Grandpa, if

(48:58):
you will. He's just talking about it Kitschy Toy Empire.
But what he leaves out was that, you know, just
earlier about in the late anteen eighties and nineteen eighty eight,
I think the Washington Post had a story that was
it kind of ruined his good name for a long time.
But by two thousand and two people had forgotten about
it because they didn't really talk about it, or they
maybe they decided to leave it out. I don't know.
But Elizabeth the Washing Post, they did some digging and

(49:20):
they discovered that Harold von Brownhoot was not who he
said he was or who he seemed to be. They
revealed to the world that he was a secret Nazi.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
But then that's not all.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
What was even more shocking is that he was Jewish.
He was a Jewish secret Nazi. How it happens, he
was born in Manhattan. He was named Harold Nathan brownhood.
His parents were both Jewish. His father ran a print shop,
his mother of his family had a toy business. But
he walked away from his Judaism, his whole Jewish identity,
and he added a Vaughan to his name to make
it sound more Germanic. And then he became a full

(49:53):
blown neo Nazi. And not just like a quiet secret
believer who bought like SS uniforms and danced around in
his basement. No, no, no, he was a major backer
and financier of the movement. What In nineteen seventy nine
he was busted in LaGuardia Airport for carrying six unknown weapons, right,
and he had invented them, because you know it's him.
He called them the Kyoga Agent M five, nicknamed the
steel Cobra. So the steel Cobra was a small wand

(50:17):
with a spring loaded retractable section so you could like
kind of hit a button and out would come like
you know, kind of like a Russian nested dolls.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
No, it's like Jennifer Lopez and out of sight.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yes, yes, the telescope, that's the that's the better version
of it.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
And then you want to toe that's the.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
One that's there that one you shake and it comes
out and then you can't back it up. This one
hit a button and if you hit the end, it
could go right back in. It was it was a
toy anyway. The steel cobra you could buy for fifty
nine ninety five. Now, yeah, if you if you wanted
your very own, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Now he sold this pocket size I have a truncheon.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Oh there you go. That's right, you know, like a yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
No, it's like a policeman's truncheon, is wood and it's
got a metal rod running right through it.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
Oh that's cool.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
So if anyone breaks into my house.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah, you got a sock on it so they can't
grab it. Uh huh, very good. I like that.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
Were you the one I hit in the middle of
the night.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
No, no, not that time. So he sells this pocket
sized secret weapon with a pithy phrase to let people
know exactly what he's about. If you need a gun
but can't get a license, get a steel cobra.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
This.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
So it's for people who've been to prison and had
their rights to hide them. So, Elizabeth, that you should
know that for every steel cover he sold, Harold von
Brownhood donated almost half of the proceeds to his friends
in the neo Nazi Party. Oh now, this all came
out in the nineteen eighties. When Richard Butler, head of
the Aryan Nations, was indicted in nineteen eighty seven for
attempting to overthrow the government. He smugly cooled the concerns

(51:44):
of his supporters by informing them that, via like a
courthouse steps interview with the press, that he had powerful backers.
Not to worry. I'm gonna fight this like the man
behind the Sea Monkey Fortune. He's got my back. So
the heads of the Aryan Nations boasted that he felt
he was in good hands because von brown Hood had
quote made a pledge of twenty five dollars to my
defense fund for everyone sold to Aryan Nation supporters.

Speaker 3 (52:07):
This is a clown show.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
Fun fact, Elizabeth. When I was a kid, my uncle,
the former Hell's Angel biker, former gunsmith and soldier of
Fortune magazine subscriber, he had one of these steel cobras,
and I had to wonder. Now, after reading about this,
I'm like, wait, Hell's Angel Bikers, soldier, Fortune Magazine gunsmith,
I'm turning to hear it now, and I'm wondering, did
he know he was backing the Neo Nazi Legal Defense Fund.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
You're lucky you made it out a.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Lot anyway, Harold von Brown hood wasn't just a supporter
of neo Nazis. He was also partial to old timey
racism like the KKK. In the nineteen eighty five weapons case,
a grand Dragon was prepared to testify in federal court
that the infamous kitchen toymaker was his backer and lent
him money to buy eighty three guns.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
You kid this guy, yea. He was also surrounded.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Oh my god, I'm not even close to done. He was.
He was a frequent guest at the Hayden Lake White
Power comp found in Idaho. The Tom Metzger's Crew are associated,
so they, according to the LA Time, sometimes they let
the Jewish toy maker light the crosses on fire at
their ceremonies. Wait, yes, apparently Von Brown would like to
play dress up when he was with his bigot buddies.
He liked to call himself a quote priest at large,

(53:15):
and he used to wear a priest collar and a
black shirt. So there he is lighting a thing on
fire dressed as a priest. It's a whole thing.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
I don't even know like psychology.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yes, right. It made me mad tho, because remember I
told you I bought a pre shirt a collar, and
I'm like, am I like this guy's it's like, oh.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Man, the black Nazi.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Well, no, it's not that part. Not like Kanye about it.
But I mean, like, do I have the same sense
of humor? Is this kitchy toy maker? I hope? God,
I know.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
I don't think he was doing it to get preferential
treatment in an airport. No, like someone I know, I
think I think this guy has got Well.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
If you asked Landa Signorelli about her husband's racial peculiarities,
she would tell you, Harold and I never really talked
about things like that. We just really loved each other
and I didn't question him already tarrogets him. I'm very
inclusive with everybody, and that's why I live on a
farm with all kinds of animals and try to impact
the earth with in the least possible way and try

(54:09):
to live a peaceful, happy, loving life. That this is
paid for by selling Brian Trimp to glible children while
her husband banks the overthrow of the US government by
neo Nazis. I want a peaceful So why does this
story have modern echoes anyway? Why would all the skinheads

(54:30):
and neo Nazis and grand Dragons want to pal around
with a Jewish toymaker in the first place. If you
ask Harold von Brownhood, he said, I will not make
any statements whatsoever.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
So that was his whole comments because he because money.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
It comes out that he's Jewish. They find out in
the eighty eight when Washington Post comes out. They say
he's Jewish and he's a neo Nazi.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
And the Nazis irony of it coming out.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
In and at the same time, he was still paying
for the upkeep of his parents grave at a Jewish
cemetery in Long.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Island because they're just spinning in there. They have to
keep some that's his maintenance.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
He basically he hadn't fully turned his back on his
Jewish family or identities.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
My boys, they all found out and they just kept
taking his money.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Back to his new fam the Aryan Nations. So in
nineteen ninety five, a decade after nearly after the Washington
Post reveal, there he was dressed as a priest at large,
presiding over the funeral of Betty Butler, wife of the
head of the Aryan.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
Nations, the priest at large thing too. It's like like
a so.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Her husband member at large, like the head of the
Arian Nations who was known to say the Jews were
the spawn of the devil, to send us a satan himself. Yeah,
he had one of devil's own send his wife over
to the other side.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
I guess is that he was cheap and wanted to
save money on his wife's funeral, or that he had
a friend do it, or like maybe he just really
wanted Harold von brown out to be the one to
say words over his dearly departed wife, like Betty just
loved Harold. I don't know. I have no idea, but
it just goes to show the truth of this statement, Elizabeth.
The truth is always stranger than fiction, even if the
fiction is sea monkeys. Yes, by the way, May sixteenth

(56:00):
is National Sea Monkey Day. Please celebrate responsibly, don't celebrate,
but don't worry. The money no longer supports Neo Nazis.
It goes to Chinese brine, shrimp farmers and the husband
of the farmer speaker the House of the Tennessee House
of Representatives. So there you go, what's our ridiculous takeaway here?

Speaker 3 (56:18):
You know, my ridiculous takeaway is just how disgusting it
is that we perpetually take advantage of and fleece people's
sense of silliness and wonder.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
Yes, yes, not trying to profit up whimsie like so cheaply.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
Yeah exactly. I mean that's that's the point of it all.
But like, whatever, what's your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 2 (56:43):
That I learned so much in this episode, But the
thing that shocked me the most is learning about the
steel Cobra and my uncle and having to do the
math on that is like soldier from.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
Like zany sea monkeys to neo Nazi.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Sorry about that a lot. I've tried to squeze it
in just at the ends. I wouldn't hang over everything.
So there you go. You're in the mood for a
talk pact to kind of wash this all away, pretty
could you favor us with one?

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Oh my god? Ill get.

Speaker 4 (57:22):
Hi's Aaron, Hi, Elizabeth, this is kit, your favorite ridiculous
first suitmaker. I am sending you a message from anthro
New England and Boston to tell you that I am
at another fury con. I have seen many people who
are indeed quirky and unique and it's great. Love you guys,
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
I'm glad you're having a good time out there.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Oh do you know I'm backing your cheering.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
They're quirky.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Elizabeth's come around.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
I think the cool one.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Yeah, so thank you for that knows no enjoy well,
I've always you can find us online. Has a Ridiculous
crime on the social media's mostly blue sky Instagram, so forth,
I think we have we have the web Ridiculous Crime
dot com. That one is still winning awards. We just
won I think Car and Driver's best pickup of the
year for towing capacity. So I'm very excited about that. Yeah, exactly,

(58:12):
you know, I'm stoked. So also, we love to talk
backs obviously, so please go to the iHeart app download it,
record one and maybe you'll hear your voice here. Also
your emails if you like a Ridiculous Crime at gmail
dot com, we'd love to hear from you. We very
much enjoy your emails. Thank you for all the suggestions.
We've been coming up with new stories from the big
Board from some of your suggestions, So thank you guys
so much, and thank you also for the nice words,

(58:33):
We've heard some really nice stuff about getting through the
times right now and just know we are there with you,
So thanks for listening. We will catch you next. Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaronet, produced
and edited by President of the Buzz Aldrin Fight Club

(58:56):
for Men, Dave Kustin, and starring Annals Rutger as Judith.
Research is by CEO of Big Time Toy Company's chief rival,
Happy fun Time Toys, Larissa Brown. Her theme song is
by Thomas land Air and Sea Monkey Lee and Travis
Og Space Monkey Dutton. The host wardrobe provided by Botany
five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshow and mister Andre.

(59:18):
Executive producers are ben Yolanda Signerelli, fan Club President Bolan
and inventor of the Land Dolphin Noel Brown.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
Cui Say It One More Time, Geekue Crime.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more Podcasts.
My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.