July 2, 2022 • 48 mins
Not too long ago, people would pay money to gawk and stare at a performer with a physical disformity. They were called freak shows and they began in large part thanks to P.T. Barnum, whose circus we still enjoy today. Sounds awful, but some of these performers became rich folks as a result. Exploitive? You decide, after taking in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Hey everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select,
I'd chosen our March two thousand sixteen episode How Freak
Shows Worked. It's one of those episodes that turns out
to be more complicated and complex than you might expect.
And as an aside, a pre aside, I guess I'd
like to say rest in peace to Ronnie and Donnie Galleon,
who we lost in and who come up in this episode. Okay,
(00:24):
sit back, release your expectations, and enjoy this classic app
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
(00:45):
this shot Chuck, Bryan, Jerry, and this is stuff you
should have. You introde as if you were asleep and
I just walked by and poked you with a bold cue.
And that's your first thing you do, is you wake
up and just go, hey, welcome to the podcast. How
are you, sir man. I'm healing fine. Yeah, good, healing fine.
(01:10):
That's a Simpsons reference from what the Shining one? Oh yeah,
the shipping Classic. It's a good one. Um So, a
couple of quick matters of business, A little c o
A at the beginning, we're talking about freak shows, and
we will be saying freaks and things like that. That
(01:32):
is obviously an antiquated term. Yes, Um, but a lot
of there are a lot of quotes in here and
a lot of references to uh, freaks and midgets and
pin heads and all these awful terms that they used
to call these people that had, you know, physical deformities
and maladies. Um, so it's not us speaking. This is
(01:53):
a historic in historical context. Yeah, Like we get the insensitivity. Yeah,
we're not us. We're not We're not being insensitive. Here's
uh and we want to shout out if you We
used a couple of house Stoff how stuff it Works,
How Stuff Works articles as well as one from History
Magazine by Laura Grande Priceonomics. Zachary Crockett wrote one, and
(02:15):
who I have to say, I'm a fan of that
dude's work. Yeah, it was a good articles Priceonomics. He's
written some really interesting articles, agreed. And then one from
human Marvels dot com, which is just a good website
by j tithonus pit now and then pronounced right p
E D in a U D. Yeah that's a tough one, now, Yeah,
(02:39):
I assume that d is silent or maybe not, maybe
it's ped now pay nodee huh freaky and a couple
of other places we visited, so and everyone kind of
says the same thing. But it's a nice, well rounded thing.
I think. Yeah, well they I mean, we're talking about
the history of freak shows and there's only you know,
(03:00):
one history. Certain things happen, and we found we found
very quickly that like you can't extract um freak shows
from P. T. Barnum or vice versa. Like they they
they are inextricably bound. But freak shows UM, you know,
Barnum was working in the nineteenth century. But the concept
of freak shows, which um is basically someone who is
(03:25):
a human curiosity and that could be someone who was
born with a genetic deformity, of physical deformity UM, some
sort of mental incapacity UM, or some people have turned
themselves into human curiosity stay through the wonder of tattooing
or um learning to swallow swords or something like. Yeah,
(03:47):
we're like these days body modification like the gym Rose Show,
or there's one in Coney Island still that does a
like a traditional show. Yeah, side show by the seashore.
All So a great song by Luna, one of my
favorite bands. Um So, the the whole concept of this,
of having a human curiosity and um basically charging gawkers
(04:12):
to look at it, it dates back quite a way.
Um well, actually not that far. The sixteenth century. That's
pretty far. Yeah, I guess so. But you would think like, well,
the Greeks or the Romans did this, but apparently no,
everybody was fairly Um from what I understand, everybody just
kind of steered clear of human curiosities to that point. Yeah,
(04:34):
I think people feared them, right. They were locked away
mainly because they thought it was some evil curse or
punishment from God, and this wasn't someone you wanted to
consort with. Else you might bring back, bring down the
wrath of God upon yourself. That's right. But like you said,
in the late fifteen, hundreds of people started to say,
you know what I'm curious about, um, someone with hair
(04:55):
growing all over their face. I'm curious about the human
curiosity exactly. And I know, I don't Chuck, I want
to say, I don't think it's coincidence that about this
time science was starting to spread throughout Europe. So the
idea that um, this was God's breath was was taking
a bit of a backseat to uh, this is a
human condition of some sort, Yes, but not so far
(05:18):
down the road of science to where there was this
intermediate period where they were got Dad, And as we'll
find out later, science would eventually take part in ending
the side shows. But it created them and it ended them. Yeah,
it's kind of neat, good way to look at it.
Uh So one of the first UM viewings are one
of the first people put on display, and you know
(05:39):
this is also going to be well, we'll get into
it later, but the morality of this is very up
and down with exploiting people and these people that would
normally be locked away actually having super lucrative careers long
lasting made them rich. Also, UM, I think one of
the authors, I think it was Crockett points out that UM,
(06:00):
there early on, if you were in a freak show,
there was a good chance that um, you had been
abandoned by your parents, became a ward of the state
and adopted by somebody who just ruthlessly exploited you and
maybe barely took care of you. But one thing you
can definitely say to his credit as Barnum came into
(06:21):
it and basically normalized or created an industry out of
freak shows or four freak shows. Um, conditions definitely changed
and the exploitation seems to have less in some way. Yeah.
I thinking that with the big names like Norman and Barnum,
I think there were all manner of minor side shows
that probably didn't treat them as well. Uh, And usually
(06:44):
Barnum and Norman bought their curiosities from those minor side
shows lesser showman exactly. So we're talking about Tom Norman
out of England. Yeah, they were basically counterparts. Yeah, and
what we'll get into them. But back to one of
the earliest um quote unquote freaks was a man named
Lazarus Colorado not Colorado, who was a conjoined twin. He
(07:08):
had a brother, Johannas, who was upside down on his
chest and technically it was a parasitic twin to Lazarus, Oh,
not conjoined twins. They were conjoined. But Johannes like didn't eat, okay,
he um, he could, he didn't speak, he never opened
his eyes, and apparently the only way you could get
a physical reaction out of him was if you rubbed
(07:30):
his chest that would make him squirm like Quaid and
total recall very much got you. So. Uh. He went
on tour performed before King Charles the First in the
early sixteen forties. But it was not a big deal.
It wasn't a super lucrative side shows weren't really a
thing at that point. But this guy was saying, Uh,
(07:51):
you guys are gonna ostracize me. Well, I'm gonna charge
you to look at me then, and I'm going to
support myself and my brother doing this. He did at himself.
If it's not clear whether he worked with a manager
or not or a promoter, but he definitely um made
his own choice to go do this, yes, exactly, and
he was apparently an otherwise handsome man. That's how everyone
(08:12):
described him, which I think probably for the Court Um
or Europe who who came and looked at him, uh,
probably just made it even more mind boggling, you know.
But he's a good guy, right right, you know? Uh.
P T. Barnum and I think we should do in
a whole podcast on P. T. Barnum at some point
to really close out the circus suite. Well, then we
(08:32):
shouldn't mention him again in the show No Barnum as
as a teenager. Uh, he always had a pinchant for
making money. He was one of those magnets sort of
weird ways. Uh. He ran his own lottery as a teenager,
UM in Connecticut, and he said, here's what I'll do.
I can just sell these tickets. I'll give out prizes
(08:56):
in varying levels from is on down to cents and
uh yeah and um. But it was a very well
thought out for a teenager. He wasn't just like just
one prize. He'd spread it out so he would entice
people to play more. Uh. And he actually made a
lot of money from it until they outlawed the lottery.
(09:17):
He's making like eleven grand in today's dollars a week
as a teenager. Yeah, nineteen not bad. But then Connecticut
and the rest of the country said no more lotteries
for now. Um. We'll bring that back up later though,
don't you worry. T B C And Um. He had
to find other ways to make work, moved to New
(09:38):
York City and in eighteen thirty five, Um he had
You know, England is where a lot of this started.
We'll talk about Norman in a second, but he got
his queue from England, said here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna buy a person, gonna buy my first freak
uh this blind paralyzed slave woman and this is a
hallmark of freak shows. As I'm gonna make up a
story about her that's since a l and crazy like
(10:01):
a Ripley's believe it or not kind of thing, right
and and Barnum in particular was well known for just
taking these things to the nth degree, like, sure, no
one's gonna buy that, but he could sell it in
such a way that people believed it because they were
exponentially dumber back then. Uh. He The story for her
(10:22):
was that she was a hundred and sixty years old,
was George Washington's nurse. Uh and you can pay to
see her, when in fact she was only eighty years old.
She was half that age. Yeah, and her name was
Joyce Heath, and she was just an old lady, right, Yeah,
she was an old slave woman who was paralyzed and
blind and was being exploited by P. T. Barnum in
(10:43):
the year before her death. So she dies um, but
before then, like as he's touting her as this hundred
and six year old former nurse made to George Washington Um.
That gets an initial reaction, and then ticket sales drop.
And then PiZZ Barnum did something quite smart. He wrote
an anonymous letter to a Boston newspaper and accused himself
(11:07):
of being a fraud and saying that the the hundred
and sixty year old woman was a fake, that she
was actually a machine, a robot made of whale skin
and would and ticket sales went right through the roof. Again. Man,
what a guy. There should be a good movie about him.
I can't believe there's not, like a modern one. I'm
(11:29):
sure there is, you know, surely, like the What's the one?
The Greatest Show on Earth was a movie? Right, and
that like a Griffith movie or something, That's what I mean.
But like Tom Cruise should play him, yeah, and should
be directed by Michael Bay Russell Crow should No, not
Russell Crowe. Well, how about who could play p T. Barnum?
(11:50):
You know who who? He would be good at it,
but would just be so him? Sam Rockwell, oh totally,
he could play anything. So I'd rather see somebody even
broader playing him. Yeah, I heard research, go ahead, Gina,
who would end up playing him is freaking Hugh Jackman. Yeah, yeah,
(12:12):
because he can do cartwheels. Yeah, what were you going
to say? Somebody? It might have been during the Bill
Gates interview or something yesterday that somebody said that, No,
it's unseen it. Tom Hanks is the most trusted person
in America. Like for some Pole found that, Like, the
most trusted person in America is Tom Hanks. Were we
on the list? I don't think so. Sure, you gotta
(12:36):
trust on We're not even Also rans were never rans? Alright,
So he purchased that woman what was her name, Joyce
heth j O I c E H T H for
a thousand dollars and he made about that every week. Um,
from exploiting her. I imagined that she got very little
(12:57):
of that. Yeah, although you can't necessarily say that I
didn't see what she was paid, she was very likely paid,
and she was probably fairly well taken care of, especially
considering um that she probably just and this is based
on how Barnum treated other people later in a documented manner.
(13:18):
But um, he I don't want to say he rescued
her from slavery because she went from being a slave
to being owned by somebody who exhibited her. Um, but
it's not a guarantee or a given that her situation
got worse after she she was purchased by Barnum. Right,
(13:40):
does that make sense? Man? That felt like a minefield
I was walking through talking about slavery, human exploitation, a
blind woman who was also paralyzed. Good, good luck, sir
Um his first big hoax after that? Or uh? Well,
actually I guess it wasn't a hoax aside from the
made up story. But um, he had a real hope.
It was a hope. Well I hope, sure, um, but
(14:02):
this was a hoax in two because it was nothing
about it was real. He was promoting something called the
Fiji Mermaid, which was basically rogue taxidermy as all it was.
That's exactly what it was. It was a creature with
a head of a monkey and the tail of a
fish that he bought from Japanese sailors. Well he didn't.
He got it from a sailor who bought it from
(14:23):
jail right, and actually it was Japanese fisherman. Yeah, and
he well what's the difference. Well, they're like traditional they
didn't necessarily go to see they were like islanders and
this is like traditional art for them, folk art. Okay,
so not a sailor but fisherman, right, that's ped entry
one oh one. Sorry man, uh gets so fixated on things.
(14:45):
Yeah uh. And he leased it um for twelve fifty
a week twelve dollars and fifty cents um from from
the owners have said rogue taxidermy. And he tried he
print up pamphlets and tried to convince everyone it was
some real thing. So he he actually had a um
a partner named Levi what was Levi's name? He's definitely
(15:08):
an overlooked guy, Levi Lyman. Can you imagine like being P. T.
Barnum's partner, Like you'd never be in the spotlight, right,
So Levi Lyman posed as a English doctor, a scientist
who was in possession of this mermaid, and UM P. T.
Barnum very publicly was trying to get his hands on
(15:29):
the mermaid, and this guy was very publicly resisting him
because it was a man of science and this was
the real deal. And it helps just convince everybody, including
the newspapers, that like this is the genuine article and
just rubes nation a world of rubes. It seems like
he ended up opening up a museum on Broadway in
New York City in the forties, you know, sort of
(15:51):
you know, like a Ripley's Believe it or not kind
of thing, curiosities and weird things. Yeah, that's that was
his stock in trade. Uh. And then we should talk
about his counterpart in England, Um, Tom Norman. Yeah, Tommy Norman,
Tommy Norman. Uh. He was named the Silver King and
Barnum actually gave him that name apparently after meeting him,
(16:12):
and he said, boy, what a huge silver showy silver
watch you have there. You're the Silver King. He goes,
I am the Silver King. I've been waiting my whole
life for somebody to notice exactly. So he was doing
the same thing in England. Uh. And he he actually, um,
he toured with Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. Yeah, and
he got um castigated by a lot of people saying,
(16:36):
you're exploiting this guy John Merrick. And is it John
or Joseph? What I say, John? Yeah? And it's like
an ongoing thing. Oh is it? Yeah? I can't remember
if it's well, let's find out. No, it's Joseph for sure.
I just misspoke. Oh sorry. Um. He was attacked in
specifically in a memoir by Dr Frederick Treeves uh called
(16:57):
The Elephant Man and other Reminiscences. Uh. And he shot
back and he said, you know what, I haven't mistreated Merrick,
haven't abused him. He wasn't forced to do anything. And
he said, in fact, the big majority of showmen are
in the habit of treating their novelties as human beings
and in a large number of cases as one of
their own, not like beasts. Right. So you know the
(17:19):
morality battle was being waged even back then. Yeah, And
I mean if you you think about um, this time
when people would go look at people who had physical
deformities and pay for it. Just look at him to
standing there, you think, well, the whole world was pretty
evil and a moral at the time. Not necessarily true.
(17:41):
There's a um a lot of people who railed against
this stuff, like Frederick Treeve's who was um. He was
portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, right, isn't that him? Oh? I
don't know, Yeah, he was in The Elephant Man, the movie.
Oh was he actually Merrick's doctor? Yes, Okay, I didn't
know that. Yeah, yeah, man, that movie. David Lynch, God
One of the best ever um And then there was
(18:03):
an historian who at the time, I think in like
the eighteen sixties he wrote his name was Henry Mayhew,
and in eighteen sixty when he was British, he wrote
that that these freak shows were nothing more than human degradation.
And he said something that stuck out to meet Chuck.
He said that the men who preside over these infamous
places know too well the failings of their audience. And
(18:26):
I think he really hit the nail on the head
by he wasn't accusing the showman because I think he
understood that most of these people were just under contract,
and he wasn't accusing the people, the actual human curiosities,
the freaks themselves. He was rightly placing the blame for
all this on the observers, the gawkers. Like if there
(18:48):
wasn't a market for it, they wouldn't be doing it. Yeah,
Like you're the one who is having the moral failing,
who's paying to go see this person who may or
may not be exploited you don't know, And uh, it's
really on you audience. Yeah, it's pretty Uh it's a
lot of foresight for back then I thought so too.
So it's not like the point was. It's not like
(19:08):
everybody was just going along with this. People have had
a problem with it basically the whole time freak shows
were around, right. All right, Well, let's take a break
and we'll talk a little bit more about the evolution
of the side show. Right after this, we're back. I
(19:52):
brought my pencil. What's up? Seven? Right on? Man? I
didn't get that at first. You. I'm impressed that you
did get it. Yeah. Nice. Uh. That was from Van
Halen's popular song Hot for Teacher from and we are
now nineteen eighties DJs. Uh. So the side shows became
(20:16):
a legitimate thing, a big way to make money. There
were different kinds. Um. There was one called a tin
in one show, which I believe the sides side show
by the Sea Shore is today. You did it through
my missing tooth, uh. And that is when you have
ten people on display on a platform at once and
people just walk by and look at them. It's not
(20:37):
like a performance. It's just there's a bearded lady, there's
the dog faced boy, there's the tattooed man, and they're
all of a standing there. That's a tin and one
yokel uh. They had things, and this was all to
to drum up more money. They would advertise something as
an adults only or a man only even performance, well
(20:58):
the men only performance Freak Only had a stripper you
know yeah. Um, or stuff that they thought that were
just like a woman shouldn't see or children shouldn't see.
I don't know if it was as much of that
as if it was to just trump up, like, oh
my god, it's so bad that a woman can't see
lay her eyes upon it. I see. Um. I think
(21:18):
it was all part of the show. Uh, that's my feeling.
At least. One of the things that they displayed were
something called a pickled punk, which is awful. It is,
especially when you find out what it is. Yeah, it's
basically a an abnormal fetus in a formaldehyde in a jar.
And you could go by and look at pickled punks
(21:40):
and gaulk at them for money. It's it's awful. Yeah,
this is what people did, like on Saturday night in Kansas.
So um. The the usually this this side shows of
the Freak shows. At first, they were you would be
some enterprising entrepreneur in some small town and you would
(22:02):
notice that a little youngster had um, a third leg, okay,
and you your thought was, I can really make some
money with this kid to go to their parents. And
you'd say, I will give you of all of the
earnings of your child if you let me take him
on the road and he will stay in the finest
hotels and we're the best clothes and as the human
(22:24):
exactly and uh, the he will become famous in the world,
will love him. Uh, just let me handle it. I'm
going to be as manager from now on. And the
parents would very frequently, especially if they were poor, would say,
that's great, do that give me some money upfront? Though,
by the way, yeah, especially because a lot of times
some of these people were a burden on their family
(22:45):
because of their health condition, so they were happy to
be rid of them. That's all very sad, okay. So
that's how That's how it definitely started out. And then
and it went on like that, um for a very
long time as well. But once borne him and not
a Norman and some of the other guys, the big
guys came around, they would just basically keep an eye
out for that kind of thing, or they would be
(23:06):
approached by these guys who would essentially be middleman kind
of like, um, somebody who discovered a boy band selling
their contract to a bigger record company. But this was
with human curiosity, people with the third leg or hyper
trichosis or what have you. UM. And then Barnum would
take him and would would just take whatever exaggerated origin
(23:27):
story that they came with and just throw it out
and come up with one ten times more. Uh. And
after his uh, George Washington's nurse made Joyce heth diede Washington, right,
he started looking around for his next collaborator, if you
could call him that, UM. And he found out that
(23:47):
he had a distant cousin, a fifth cousin UM named
Charles Stratton, who had stopped growing when he was about
two years old. Yeah. He he never completely stopped. He
grew very slowly. Yeah. He made it to like just
over three feet I think by the time of his death. Yeah.
He died at forty five of a stroke and he
was three point three five ft tall. UM, but grew
(24:12):
so slowly. I mean you know he was He was
General Tom Thumb, very famously renamed General Tom Thumb by
his half fifth twice removed cousin. Uh PT what does
that stand? For even Paul Thomas Anderson bar Uh. So
he said, you know what, this is great. Um, you
(24:34):
were a small person and you're cute as the Dickens,
So let me dress you up in little adult suits
and you're my new side kick. Yeah that he he
collaborated with the kid's dad and said, let's, um, let's
make some money. Uh and he Um, he taught him
how to sing and dance, pretend he was Napoleon. Yeah,
(24:55):
he did impressions Cupid. He played Cupid sometimes. And then
he told everybody that this little five year old kid
was actually eleven, which made it all the more astounding
that he was that small, which she didn't even need
to do. And then for about the next like fifteen
or so years, Um turned Tom Thumb into what was
essentially the first international celebrity. Oh was he the first
(25:18):
international celebrity? Pretty much? Yeah, Tom Thumb was a sensation.
Queen Victoria was a huge fan. Met met with him
twice too, to at least twice um. She apparently was
really big into side shows, but Tom Thumb was her favorite.
Um and he They made so much money off of
their first European tour that um Barnum bought his museum
(25:42):
with the proceeds. Is there anything grosser than the Queen
of England laughing at a small person imitating Napoleon for money?
She may have even Napoleon at the time. Oh, I'm
sure she. That probably made it all the funnier to her. Unbelievable. So,
but he was. He was a rich dude. He was
(26:04):
paid uh in today's dollars who Tom Thumb? Oh yeah,
over four thousand dollars a week and retired and lived
the high life in New York City. Um. And you
know he didn't feel like he was exploited. No, he
he actually got married. I saw that he had children,
but I could I only saw that one place. I
didn't see it anywhere else. But he he was married
(26:25):
and actually, um, right after the marriage was um brought
to the White House to hang out with Abraham Lincoln
and Mrs Lincoln. Yeah, he had twenty thou people at
his funeral. He he was again, he was a very
big deal. And from what I understand, at the end
of the day he shed his persona. He was just
Charles Stratton uber wealthy, uh, some little person. Um. And
(26:49):
when he was doing his show, he was Tom Thumb
who would dress up as Napoleon or whatever and take
your money. Yeah, but um he he and P. T.
Barnum together really made a ton of cash. Tom Thumb
was a little better at managing his cash than Barnum was,
because Barnum fell in hard times. A lot of people
don't realize this, but he made some actually really bad
(27:10):
investments over over time too. Yeah. He invested a lot
of his money initially back into his business, which was smart, right,
and but a lot of times he would be like
this is gonna be a hit, and it wouldn't be
a hit. He didn't have the Midas touch necessarily, and
he fell on hard times more than once. And one
of the times Um Tom Thumb or Charles Stratton bailed
him out. Oh really, I get the feeling Barnum didn't
(27:32):
know when to leave well enough alone, you know, like
he had a big, thriving business and he just kept
wanting to push it further and further. Hugh Jackman, I'm
telling you, uh so, now we will talk about a
couple of people, Um, who are afflicted with something. Well,
they were micro cephalic, which means that they have a
(27:54):
cone shaped head smaller than normal shaped head as well. Yes,
if you've ever if you're how Stern fan, then you
know beetlejuice. He has this condition. Um, and they used
to call them pinheads back in the day, awful term. Uh.
And there were a couple of notable I'm not even
gonna keep saying that, but a couple of notable people
(28:16):
that performed um in these freak shows. One was Zip
William Henry Johnson renamed Zip to z I P. He's
from New Jersey, born to newly freed slaves and uh.
When Barnum found him, he says, you know I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna make up the story that you were found
during a guerrilla expedition near the Gambia River. I'm gonna
(28:39):
shave your head except for a little ponytailed tuft on
top and address you in a suit of fur. And
you get up on that stage and grunt like an animal. Yeah,
he was paid a dollar a day at first to
not talk to grunt and I guess to play the
violin really badly. Yeah. I didn't get was he paid
a dollar a day to start? Okay? I thought that
might have been part of the story, that he was
(29:01):
in fact paid a hundred dollars a day later. Okay,
he became a very popular um uh freak. I guess. Yeah.
The thing is is um he uh. William Henry Johnson
was probably not microcephalic at all. Um he microcephalic. Microsophalic
is totally different microcephalic um he. Actually they think now
(29:26):
that he had just like a slightly abnormally shaped head
that was exaggerated by the haircut that they gave him,
and that he actually had no diminished mental faculties once
what what at all and he was just pretending the
whole time, and not only fooling crowds, but he was
also fooling promoters. Yeah, because that's one of the hallmarks
of that condition. Is I believe that usually it's accompanied
(29:49):
by cognitive stunted cognitive development ye, usually very severe, but
not in his case. He was super smart. And when
he died said we fooled them all. Yeah, that's no.
He his sister Siste in his deathbed. They're also married, right,
Not true. So he made a lot of money too,
he did. He apparently retired with millions um a millionaire,
(30:10):
so he's not the only um again. Pinhead is what
this specific type of freak was called man. I can't
believe I just said that. This feels so wrong I. Um,
but there's a very sideshow performer and Chuck. Another very
famous side show performer who was also I guess technically
(30:32):
in the Under the Umbrella pinhead who actually was UM
micro's cephilic was Schlitze. Yes, Schlitze is one of my
favorite people of all time. Yes, schlet's see. They don't
know for sure his real name, but um, they believe
it's Simon Metz. Born in nineteen and one of the
Bronx and um. By all accounts from everyone who ever
(30:55):
met Schlitze, everyone loved Schlitze and he was a ray
of sunshine and a nice, sweet carrying, kind hearted man.
Loved life anything that you would take for granted. Um,
chlet's see, probably enjoyed the heck out of and um.
He was very frequently build as a woman. UM. I
(31:19):
think he was Bill as an Aztec warrior at first,
and then maybe even an Aztec woman. But he wore
dresses all the time because he was incontinent, and this
just made it the whole thing easier. UM. So he
was Bill as a woman for a very long time
and including in the movie, um Freaks, the Todd Browning
movie from two. Schlitze was in that and Schlitze actually
(31:40):
has like this big scene that's like has he has
a whole speaking like a dialogue section, But to this
day no one has any clue what he says. Yeah,
should we talk about freaks now or take a break
and then talk about it. Let's take a break, all right,
(32:24):
all right, So the movie Freaks. Uh, I've seen it,
have you? I saw it for the first time this morning.
No way, wow, college when most people see it so good?
Uh yeah, it's a nineteen thirty two pre code film. Uh.
There was a time between when um, they started making
(32:46):
movies to four when the Motion Picture production code kicked
in the haze code. Uh yeah, and properly called the
haze code. Um. For five years there you could do
whatever you wanted, I guess. Yeah. And uh, that's when
this direct her name Todd Browning, made a movie called
Freaks about side show performers. And this guy was he
(33:07):
actually ran away that the director actually ran away and
joined the carnival when he was sixteen and worked as
a carnival barker and even uh participated in stunts and
he was. He's a circus guy, right, and he had
a lot of um, sideshow performers as friends. And you
can tell in the movie that that's he's like, that's who,
he's whose side he's one, that's who that they're the
(33:31):
heroes of the story, that the protagonists, the antagonists or
normals or whatever. Um and uh, it's a really morally
fraud movie these days. But if you just step back
and and think of it as like this guy having
an affinity for side show performers and giving them a
(33:52):
shot at at stardom being on the big screen for
what they are, for who they are, for what they
can do. Um, then it's a really kind of a
heart growing tail heart growing Yeah, in a very weird way.
It's it's wrenching the watch. When's the last time you
(34:13):
saw a college Yeah, it's spent a long time. Just
see it again, all right, we'll check it out. Like
it's it's tough to watch. It's gut wrenching. Uh. There
are a lot of um, well, let's just talk about
some of the performers in the movie. Um. One of
them who stands out as Johnny eck John Eckhardt Jr.
Who was a twin and he was born with a condition. Uh.
(34:35):
Everyone said that he was cut off at the waist. Uh.
Not exactly true. We actually had um unusable underdeveloped legs
that you never saw, but it appeared as though he
didn't have anything from the torso down. And as from
a young kid, I believe he was even walking on
his hands before his twin brother was even standing. So
(34:55):
he was very advanced in a lot of ways. A
very smart guy. He's a painter. Uh yeah, very accomplished
the magician. Um. And you had a great personality too,
you could tell. Yeah, And apparently he was good buddies
with um Browning. And Browning always wanted him around and
by his side and was like, you know, you need
to come sit with me by the camera and almost
(35:16):
like his Uh. I don't know if he could consider
him a co director, but he always wanted him nearby.
Pretty neat Uh. Daisy and Violet Hilton. Yeah can joined twins, right, yeah,
which they called Siamese twins back in the day. Um,
thanks to Chang and Yang Bunker. Right. Yeah, they were
(35:36):
actually uh some of the first super famous. Uh. They
were from a Siamese fishing village and that's where the
term came from. Yeah, Siam was what we now called Thailand.
That's right. Uh. And Chang and Ing we're born in
nineteen I'm sorry, eighteen eleven. And they actually performed on
their own for many years, made a ton of money.
(35:58):
They got married, had kids, moved to North Carolina of
all places, and um that well actually interestingly, Daisy and
Violet ended up in North Carolina too, Oh yeah, but
under much much worse conditions. Yeah, but um, to finish
with Chang and Yng, they eventually lost their money. They
were millionaires losser dough and then we'd worked for Barnum
(36:20):
later on in life. But I get the impression that
they did it kind of like at their leisure almost
and ended up reamassing another fortune interest from working with Barnum. Yeah,
and they fathered twenty one children between them, married to
Paris sisters. Man each had a house and they would
spend three days at one house, three days at the
(36:41):
next house. Um and yeah, they had twenty one kids.
Pretty amazing. So Daisy and Violet Hilton, they were known
as Siamese twins back then. Of course, Uh, we don't
use that German anymore, But I mean I remember that
term when I was a kid. So it's definitely like
held on for way too long. Remember Ronnie and Dinnie Galle?
Oh yeah, are they still with us? Let's find out
(37:05):
you're you're checking that. I'll continue. Um, I believe that.
Uh that Browning spotted Daisy and Violet and said, you
guys are great, You're pretty, you can sing. You'll be
a big part of my movie. And they had been
performers all along. Um. By eighteen, they were ontour with
Bob Hope as part of his dance troupe and made
(37:27):
quite a bit of money. Um. But sadly their story
ends in North Carolina because they made an appearance in
at a midnight showing of Freaks at a drive in
and their manager ditched them and this party don't get
they had no way to leave North Carolina, so they
just stayed there. Yeah, they had to get a job.
That just seems odd to me. If you don't have
(37:48):
any money and no one to call to ask for money,
you go get a job at a grocery store and
I hope that you can eventually die there. It seems
like they would have gotten enough money to leave and
go back to wherever they lived. While they died in Charlotte,
North Carolina of the Hong Kong flu What is that?
It was a flu epidemic? She's that originated in Hong Kong.
(38:13):
It was a different world back then. Siamese twins died
to Hong Kong flu i. None of that seems politically correct.
To know who else was in Freaks? Uh, let's see. Um,
there were a pair of little people named Harry and
Daisy Earls and they played Hans and Frieda right, and
Hans is like the ring master of the side show
(38:36):
and um Frieda in real life, Daisy was known as
the midget may West. Um. And in the movie they're engaged,
but actually in real life they were brother and sister. Yeah,
and they were in The Wizard of Oz even as munchkins.
And we're in a bunch of movies with Laurel and
Hardy as well, so lifelong performers. So the the whole
(39:01):
this whole movie and again, um, we kind of we
didn't finish with the Schlitze. Schlitzy was in it too
and had his whole big speaking part. Um. It was
just adorable in the movie. You could like Schlitz's personality
just shines right through the movie. Very likable. Yeah, and
um Schlitze was actually uh adopted that no one had
(39:23):
any idea who Schlitz's biological family was. They were not around.
So the um, the people he performed with and worked for,
actually took care of him. And when his adopted father died,
his father's daughter, biological daughter said hey, schlt see, Um,
(39:45):
I'm going to commit you to an asylum in Los Angeles.
And that's where Schlitzy was until one day, just by
total chance, chuck Uh another circus performer, I think a
sword swallower named Bill Unks. Bill, you're Schlitze. Yeah, what
are you doing here? You look so sad? And Schlitze
(40:07):
was like, I remember you, let's go. So bill Unk
intervened and got Schlitze out of the institution, and uh
he got to live out his days hanging out in
the park being recognized by passers by. Yeah. He lived
near MacArthur Park in downtown l A. And uh lived
all the way up until at age seventy one. Yeah,
(40:31):
so you know you gotta see Schlitze. You should see freaks.
But even if you don't see freaks, like look up
Schlitze's part agreed, it'll probably make you want to see Freaks,
so chuck. Um, the Freak Show is well, some people
say that it's still around and that it's just on
TV in the form of reality shows, like basically that
(40:54):
same sentiment and everything still is found all over television. Yeah,
exploiting uh people like uh, exploiting obesity and exploiting dwarf
is um and uh, yeah it's on television now. Um.
But the actual side show itself, Um, it's well, it
(41:14):
went away in a lot of ways, at least as
far as like a traveling side show went. And it
went away with the rise of um, the rights for
the disabled. That that that movement that came along in
the starting in about the like late nineteenth century, early
twentieth century, and then really gaining steam by about the
time Freaks came around. The movie. Yeah, there were a
(41:36):
few things that kind of killed it, um, but one's
definitely like you said, science invented it and killed it
as And here's something that is sort of reprehensible that
I found out. There's a lot of these uh side
shows would try and keep doctors away from the people
because they thought, I don't want a doctor coming in here.
And saying that the dog faced boy actually has hypertrichosis. Yeah,
(42:00):
because and it's a condition where you have hair all
over your face. Yeah. I told everybody he was a
cave caveman. Yeah, exactly, did you know? Actually there was
another There was a woman um named Julia Pastrana, and
she had hypertrichosis too, and she ended up marrying her manager.
They were married, they had a baby together, and she
(42:22):
died during childbirth and and the baby was born stillborn,
and her husband, manager, who ostensibly loved her, said the
show must go on. So he mummified his wife and
they're still born baby, and then took him around to
display them in the side show as ever unbelievable. So
(42:43):
uh again, doctors would come along and start explaining these things,
and that helped kill the side show. The rise of
television and uh, you know at home entertainment meant people
weren't going out to places like sideshows anymore. Yeah, they
could stay in their house and watch television. And apparently
you could still find sideshows like that American horror story
(43:04):
was it freak show last season or whatever? I don't
watch that, but yeah, um it was setting I think
the fifties, and I think at that time you could
still see, you know, traveling side shows here there, but
they were pretty broken down by that point, they were
pretty pretty much gone. But by the sixties there was
a girl named Carol Browning and she I all I
(43:27):
could find is that she had deformed arms and legs.
I don't know what that means, but that was the
description that was given given of her. But she went
to a side show and when she visited the carnival
in North Carolina. I think she lived in Charlotte, No Raleigh,
and Carol, what is it with North Carolina? That's where
things beginning in with with sideshows. Well, Carol, Carol Grant
(43:51):
I think was her name. Carol wrote a letter to
the Agricultural Commission. The Agricultural Commission is in charge of
side shows at the time, at least in North Carolina,
and said this is wrong, like this is beyond wrong.
I'm I'm offended by this and this this should not
be allowed to happen. And she actually sparked a national
conversation about whether side shows should be allowed to be around,
(44:15):
even if performers wanted to be a part of them.
And that was the final death knell that conversation. But
a lot of people came out and said, hey, you
know what these people, you guys call them freaks, but
you also empty your pockets to them, and they're wealthy.
They enjoy the acclaim, they enjoy the money, and um,
it's actually you who has the problem. And it didn't
(44:39):
have much of an effect. Sideshows went away, and a
lot of the sideshow performers ended up going from being
pretty wealthy or well paid or having a steady income
to um being broke and ending up like being abandoned
by their managers like Daisy and Violet. Yeah, it's a
tricky ground, it is. It's pretty much sad all the
way through. Yeah, I mean except for some success stories.
(45:03):
And that makes the whole thing so morally ambiguous if
you think about it, Like, it's just so easy to
look from here and be like you named your movie
freaks or you you you charge people to look at
the elephant man. But what about those people who said,
I'm cool with this, I'm signing on for this. Yeah,
this is making a lot of very wealthy. I'm happy,
(45:26):
I've I've had all sorts of opportunities that weren't open
to me before. And I love what I do. What
do you do about that? Like, you can't condemn it.
It's not an easy black and white thing to to
deal with. Yeah, it's called a moral ambiguity. You said
it that There have always been them, them, those them
moral ambiguity. There always will be. Uh, you got anything else? No?
(45:49):
If you want to know more about sideshows, freaks, that
kind of thing, you can type those words into the
search bar at how stuff works dot com. And since
I said search parts, time for listener mail. Hey, before
listener mail, what about Ronnie and Donnie? Oh? Yeah, Ronnie
and Donnie are alive. Awesome. They are sixty four years
(46:11):
old as of past October I think one, and they
are the world's longest living conjoined twins. They're adorable too.
They're OHI ends right if I remember believe so? Yeah,
very nice man. What documentary did we see on them
or something? I can't remember, but we've we've talked about
him a lot over the years. So that's that's great news. Yeah,
but they're they're still at it alright. So listener mail,
(46:34):
I'm gonna call this one. Uh, quick feedback on the
Bill Gates podcast that is Quick Turnaround. Hey guys, my
name is Brendan Cologne announced like Cologne, and I'm a
PhD student at Habba Medical School in Pamelas Silver's lab
working on artificial photosynthesis. Shoutout Pamelas Silver. How about that.
(46:59):
I'm long time fan the show and wanted to say
what you guys did? Uh? You did? You did a
great job covering renewable energy with Bill Gates. During the episode,
there was a question about the current limitations of artificial
photosynthetic systems at present. The biggest issues are scalability, he
cost energy in producing the building materials, and the efficient
extraction of produced fuels. Uh. These are standard engineering hurdles,
(47:22):
but like Mr Gates said, we can call them Bill.
By the way, I don't think you can, Brendon, we can,
but we can. Uh. These are standard engineering hurdles, but
like Mr Gates said, the final product needs to be viable. Specifically,
such a product would need to harvest in store more
energy in the short term than what was required to
build it makes sense and do so on the cheap. Uh. Fortunately,
(47:43):
biotechnology and photo voltaic technology is advancing at a breakneck pace,
so the future of this technology looks bright. As new
biochemistries are discovered, more products will be available for production,
and one vision of this technology is a local and
individualized production chemical is on demand. I hope this helps.
Feel free to reach out. Cheers Brendan. Thanks Brendan, Yeah,
(48:07):
Brendan Cologne pronounced cologne, that's right. Uh. If you are
an expert in something that we talk about, we love
hearing feedback from people like you. You can send us
an email. Send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart
radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
(48:29):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
M Hey everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select,
I'd chosen our March two thousand sixteen episode How Freak
Shows Worked. It's one of those episodes that turns out
to be more complicated and complex than you might expect.
And as an aside, a pre aside, I guess I'd
like to say rest in peace to Ronnie and Donnie Galleon,
who we lost in and who come up in this episode. Okay,
(00:24):
sit back, release your expectations, and enjoy this classic app
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
(00:45):
this shot Chuck, Bryan, Jerry, and this is stuff you
should have. You introde as if you were asleep and
I just walked by and poked you with a bold cue.
And that's your first thing you do, is you wake
up and just go, hey, welcome to the podcast. How
are you, sir man. I'm healing fine. Yeah, good, healing fine.
(01:10):
That's a Simpsons reference from what the Shining one? Oh yeah,
the shipping Classic. It's a good one. Um So, a
couple of quick matters of business, A little c o
A at the beginning, we're talking about freak shows, and
we will be saying freaks and things like that. That
(01:32):
is obviously an antiquated term. Yes, Um, but a lot
of there are a lot of quotes in here and
a lot of references to uh, freaks and midgets and
pin heads and all these awful terms that they used
to call these people that had, you know, physical deformities
and maladies. Um, so it's not us speaking. This is
(01:53):
a historic in historical context. Yeah, Like we get the insensitivity. Yeah,
we're not us. We're not We're not being insensitive. Here's
uh and we want to shout out if you We
used a couple of house Stoff how stuff it Works,
How Stuff Works articles as well as one from History
Magazine by Laura Grande Priceonomics. Zachary Crockett wrote one, and
(02:15):
who I have to say, I'm a fan of that
dude's work. Yeah, it was a good articles Priceonomics. He's
written some really interesting articles, agreed. And then one from
human Marvels dot com, which is just a good website
by j tithonus pit now and then pronounced right p
E D in a U D. Yeah that's a tough one, now, Yeah,
(02:39):
I assume that d is silent or maybe not, maybe
it's ped now pay nodee huh freaky and a couple
of other places we visited, so and everyone kind of
says the same thing. But it's a nice, well rounded thing.
I think. Yeah, well they I mean, we're talking about
the history of freak shows and there's only you know,
(03:00):
one history. Certain things happen, and we found we found
very quickly that like you can't extract um freak shows
from P. T. Barnum or vice versa. Like they they
they are inextricably bound. But freak shows UM, you know,
Barnum was working in the nineteenth century. But the concept
of freak shows, which um is basically someone who is
(03:25):
a human curiosity and that could be someone who was
born with a genetic deformity, of physical deformity UM, some
sort of mental incapacity UM, or some people have turned
themselves into human curiosity stay through the wonder of tattooing
or um learning to swallow swords or something like. Yeah,
(03:47):
we're like these days body modification like the gym Rose Show,
or there's one in Coney Island still that does a
like a traditional show. Yeah, side show by the seashore.
All So a great song by Luna, one of my
favorite bands. Um So, the the whole concept of this,
of having a human curiosity and um basically charging gawkers
(04:12):
to look at it, it dates back quite a way.
Um well, actually not that far. The sixteenth century. That's
pretty far. Yeah, I guess so. But you would think like, well,
the Greeks or the Romans did this, but apparently no,
everybody was fairly Um from what I understand, everybody just
kind of steered clear of human curiosities to that point. Yeah,
(04:34):
I think people feared them, right. They were locked away
mainly because they thought it was some evil curse or
punishment from God, and this wasn't someone you wanted to
consort with. Else you might bring back, bring down the
wrath of God upon yourself. That's right. But like you said,
in the late fifteen, hundreds of people started to say,
you know what I'm curious about, um, someone with hair
(04:55):
growing all over their face. I'm curious about the human
curiosity exactly. And I know, I don't Chuck, I want
to say, I don't think it's coincidence that about this
time science was starting to spread throughout Europe. So the
idea that um, this was God's breath was was taking
a bit of a backseat to uh, this is a
human condition of some sort, Yes, but not so far
(05:18):
down the road of science to where there was this
intermediate period where they were got Dad, And as we'll
find out later, science would eventually take part in ending
the side shows. But it created them and it ended them. Yeah,
it's kind of neat, good way to look at it.
Uh So one of the first UM viewings are one
of the first people put on display, and you know
(05:39):
this is also going to be well, we'll get into
it later, but the morality of this is very up
and down with exploiting people and these people that would
normally be locked away actually having super lucrative careers long
lasting made them rich. Also, UM, I think one of
the authors, I think it was Crockett points out that UM,
(06:00):
there early on, if you were in a freak show,
there was a good chance that um, you had been
abandoned by your parents, became a ward of the state
and adopted by somebody who just ruthlessly exploited you and
maybe barely took care of you. But one thing you
can definitely say to his credit as Barnum came into
(06:21):
it and basically normalized or created an industry out of
freak shows or four freak shows. Um, conditions definitely changed
and the exploitation seems to have less in some way. Yeah.
I thinking that with the big names like Norman and Barnum,
I think there were all manner of minor side shows
that probably didn't treat them as well. Uh, And usually
(06:44):
Barnum and Norman bought their curiosities from those minor side
shows lesser showman exactly. So we're talking about Tom Norman
out of England. Yeah, they were basically counterparts. Yeah, and
what we'll get into them. But back to one of
the earliest um quote unquote freaks was a man named
Lazarus Colorado not Colorado, who was a conjoined twin. He
(07:08):
had a brother, Johannas, who was upside down on his
chest and technically it was a parasitic twin to Lazarus, Oh,
not conjoined twins. They were conjoined. But Johannes like didn't eat, okay,
he um, he could, he didn't speak, he never opened
his eyes, and apparently the only way you could get
a physical reaction out of him was if you rubbed
(07:30):
his chest that would make him squirm like Quaid and
total recall very much got you. So. Uh. He went
on tour performed before King Charles the First in the
early sixteen forties. But it was not a big deal.
It wasn't a super lucrative side shows weren't really a
thing at that point. But this guy was saying, Uh,
(07:51):
you guys are gonna ostracize me. Well, I'm gonna charge
you to look at me then, and I'm going to
support myself and my brother doing this. He did at himself.
If it's not clear whether he worked with a manager
or not or a promoter, but he definitely um made
his own choice to go do this, yes, exactly, and
he was apparently an otherwise handsome man. That's how everyone
(08:12):
described him, which I think probably for the Court Um
or Europe who who came and looked at him, uh,
probably just made it even more mind boggling, you know.
But he's a good guy, right right, you know? Uh.
P T. Barnum and I think we should do in
a whole podcast on P. T. Barnum at some point
to really close out the circus suite. Well, then we
(08:32):
shouldn't mention him again in the show No Barnum as
as a teenager. Uh, he always had a pinchant for
making money. He was one of those magnets sort of
weird ways. Uh. He ran his own lottery as a teenager,
UM in Connecticut, and he said, here's what I'll do.
I can just sell these tickets. I'll give out prizes
(08:56):
in varying levels from is on down to cents and
uh yeah and um. But it was a very well
thought out for a teenager. He wasn't just like just
one prize. He'd spread it out so he would entice
people to play more. Uh. And he actually made a
lot of money from it until they outlawed the lottery.
(09:17):
He's making like eleven grand in today's dollars a week
as a teenager. Yeah, nineteen not bad. But then Connecticut
and the rest of the country said no more lotteries
for now. Um. We'll bring that back up later though,
don't you worry. T B C And Um. He had
to find other ways to make work, moved to New
(09:38):
York City and in eighteen thirty five, Um he had
You know, England is where a lot of this started.
We'll talk about Norman in a second, but he got
his queue from England, said here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna buy a person, gonna buy my first freak
uh this blind paralyzed slave woman and this is a
hallmark of freak shows. As I'm gonna make up a
story about her that's since a l and crazy like
(10:01):
a Ripley's believe it or not kind of thing, right
and and Barnum in particular was well known for just
taking these things to the nth degree, like, sure, no
one's gonna buy that, but he could sell it in
such a way that people believed it because they were
exponentially dumber back then. Uh. He The story for her
(10:22):
was that she was a hundred and sixty years old,
was George Washington's nurse. Uh and you can pay to
see her, when in fact she was only eighty years old.
She was half that age. Yeah, and her name was
Joyce Heath, and she was just an old lady, right, Yeah,
she was an old slave woman who was paralyzed and
blind and was being exploited by P. T. Barnum in
(10:43):
the year before her death. So she dies um, but
before then, like as he's touting her as this hundred
and six year old former nurse made to George Washington Um.
That gets an initial reaction, and then ticket sales drop.
And then PiZZ Barnum did something quite smart. He wrote
an anonymous letter to a Boston newspaper and accused himself
(11:07):
of being a fraud and saying that the the hundred
and sixty year old woman was a fake, that she
was actually a machine, a robot made of whale skin
and would and ticket sales went right through the roof. Again. Man,
what a guy. There should be a good movie about him.
I can't believe there's not, like a modern one. I'm
(11:29):
sure there is, you know, surely, like the What's the one?
The Greatest Show on Earth was a movie? Right, and
that like a Griffith movie or something, That's what I mean.
But like Tom Cruise should play him, yeah, and should
be directed by Michael Bay Russell Crow should No, not
Russell Crowe. Well, how about who could play p T. Barnum?
(11:50):
You know who who? He would be good at it,
but would just be so him? Sam Rockwell, oh totally,
he could play anything. So I'd rather see somebody even
broader playing him. Yeah, I heard research, go ahead, Gina,
who would end up playing him is freaking Hugh Jackman. Yeah, yeah,
(12:12):
because he can do cartwheels. Yeah, what were you going
to say? Somebody? It might have been during the Bill
Gates interview or something yesterday that somebody said that, No,
it's unseen it. Tom Hanks is the most trusted person
in America. Like for some Pole found that, Like, the
most trusted person in America is Tom Hanks. Were we
on the list? I don't think so. Sure, you gotta
(12:36):
trust on We're not even Also rans were never rans? Alright,
So he purchased that woman what was her name, Joyce
heth j O I c E H T H for
a thousand dollars and he made about that every week. Um,
from exploiting her. I imagined that she got very little
(12:57):
of that. Yeah, although you can't necessarily say that I
didn't see what she was paid, she was very likely paid,
and she was probably fairly well taken care of, especially
considering um that she probably just and this is based
on how Barnum treated other people later in a documented manner.
(13:18):
But um, he I don't want to say he rescued
her from slavery because she went from being a slave
to being owned by somebody who exhibited her. Um, but
it's not a guarantee or a given that her situation
got worse after she she was purchased by Barnum. Right,
(13:40):
does that make sense? Man? That felt like a minefield
I was walking through talking about slavery, human exploitation, a
blind woman who was also paralyzed. Good, good luck, sir
Um his first big hoax after that? Or uh? Well,
actually I guess it wasn't a hoax aside from the
made up story. But um, he had a real hope.
It was a hope. Well I hope, sure, um, but
(14:02):
this was a hoax in two because it was nothing
about it was real. He was promoting something called the
Fiji Mermaid, which was basically rogue taxidermy as all it was.
That's exactly what it was. It was a creature with
a head of a monkey and the tail of a
fish that he bought from Japanese sailors. Well he didn't.
He got it from a sailor who bought it from
(14:23):
jail right, and actually it was Japanese fisherman. Yeah, and
he well what's the difference. Well, they're like traditional they
didn't necessarily go to see they were like islanders and
this is like traditional art for them, folk art. Okay,
so not a sailor but fisherman, right, that's ped entry
one oh one. Sorry man, uh gets so fixated on things.
(14:45):
Yeah uh. And he leased it um for twelve fifty
a week twelve dollars and fifty cents um from from
the owners have said rogue taxidermy. And he tried he
print up pamphlets and tried to convince everyone it was
some real thing. So he he actually had a um
a partner named Levi what was Levi's name? He's definitely
(15:08):
an overlooked guy, Levi Lyman. Can you imagine like being P. T.
Barnum's partner, Like you'd never be in the spotlight, right,
So Levi Lyman posed as a English doctor, a scientist
who was in possession of this mermaid, and UM P. T.
Barnum very publicly was trying to get his hands on
(15:29):
the mermaid, and this guy was very publicly resisting him
because it was a man of science and this was
the real deal. And it helps just convince everybody, including
the newspapers, that like this is the genuine article and
just rubes nation a world of rubes. It seems like
he ended up opening up a museum on Broadway in
New York City in the forties, you know, sort of
(15:51):
you know, like a Ripley's Believe it or not kind
of thing, curiosities and weird things. Yeah, that's that was
his stock in trade. Uh. And then we should talk
about his counterpart in England, Um, Tom Norman. Yeah, Tommy Norman,
Tommy Norman. Uh. He was named the Silver King and
Barnum actually gave him that name apparently after meeting him,
(16:12):
and he said, boy, what a huge silver showy silver
watch you have there. You're the Silver King. He goes,
I am the Silver King. I've been waiting my whole
life for somebody to notice exactly. So he was doing
the same thing in England. Uh. And he he actually, um,
he toured with Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. Yeah, and
he got um castigated by a lot of people saying,
(16:36):
you're exploiting this guy John Merrick. And is it John
or Joseph? What I say, John? Yeah? And it's like
an ongoing thing. Oh is it? Yeah? I can't remember
if it's well, let's find out. No, it's Joseph for sure.
I just misspoke. Oh sorry. Um. He was attacked in
specifically in a memoir by Dr Frederick Treeves uh called
(16:57):
The Elephant Man and other Reminiscences. Uh. And he shot
back and he said, you know what, I haven't mistreated Merrick,
haven't abused him. He wasn't forced to do anything. And
he said, in fact, the big majority of showmen are
in the habit of treating their novelties as human beings
and in a large number of cases as one of
their own, not like beasts. Right. So you know the
(17:19):
morality battle was being waged even back then. Yeah, And
I mean if you you think about um, this time
when people would go look at people who had physical
deformities and pay for it. Just look at him to
standing there, you think, well, the whole world was pretty
evil and a moral at the time. Not necessarily true.
(17:41):
There's a um a lot of people who railed against
this stuff, like Frederick Treeve's who was um. He was
portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, right, isn't that him? Oh? I
don't know, Yeah, he was in The Elephant Man, the movie.
Oh was he actually Merrick's doctor? Yes, Okay, I didn't
know that. Yeah, yeah, man, that movie. David Lynch, God
One of the best ever um And then there was
(18:03):
an historian who at the time, I think in like
the eighteen sixties he wrote his name was Henry Mayhew,
and in eighteen sixty when he was British, he wrote
that that these freak shows were nothing more than human degradation.
And he said something that stuck out to meet Chuck.
He said that the men who preside over these infamous
places know too well the failings of their audience. And
(18:26):
I think he really hit the nail on the head
by he wasn't accusing the showman because I think he
understood that most of these people were just under contract,
and he wasn't accusing the people, the actual human curiosities,
the freaks themselves. He was rightly placing the blame for
all this on the observers, the gawkers. Like if there
(18:48):
wasn't a market for it, they wouldn't be doing it. Yeah,
Like you're the one who is having the moral failing,
who's paying to go see this person who may or
may not be exploited you don't know, And uh, it's
really on you audience. Yeah, it's pretty Uh it's a
lot of foresight for back then I thought so too.
So it's not like the point was. It's not like
(19:08):
everybody was just going along with this. People have had
a problem with it basically the whole time freak shows
were around, right. All right, Well, let's take a break
and we'll talk a little bit more about the evolution
of the side show. Right after this, we're back. I
(19:52):
brought my pencil. What's up? Seven? Right on? Man? I
didn't get that at first. You. I'm impressed that you
did get it. Yeah. Nice. Uh. That was from Van
Halen's popular song Hot for Teacher from and we are
now nineteen eighties DJs. Uh. So the side shows became
(20:16):
a legitimate thing, a big way to make money. There
were different kinds. Um. There was one called a tin
in one show, which I believe the sides side show
by the Sea Shore is today. You did it through
my missing tooth, uh. And that is when you have
ten people on display on a platform at once and
people just walk by and look at them. It's not
(20:37):
like a performance. It's just there's a bearded lady, there's
the dog faced boy, there's the tattooed man, and they're
all of a standing there. That's a tin and one
yokel uh. They had things, and this was all to
to drum up more money. They would advertise something as
an adults only or a man only even performance, well
(20:58):
the men only performance Freak Only had a stripper you
know yeah. Um, or stuff that they thought that were
just like a woman shouldn't see or children shouldn't see.
I don't know if it was as much of that
as if it was to just trump up, like, oh
my god, it's so bad that a woman can't see
lay her eyes upon it. I see. Um. I think
(21:18):
it was all part of the show. Uh, that's my feeling.
At least. One of the things that they displayed were
something called a pickled punk, which is awful. It is,
especially when you find out what it is. Yeah, it's
basically a an abnormal fetus in a formaldehyde in a jar.
And you could go by and look at pickled punks
(21:40):
and gaulk at them for money. It's it's awful. Yeah,
this is what people did, like on Saturday night in Kansas.
So um. The the usually this this side shows of
the Freak shows. At first, they were you would be
some enterprising entrepreneur in some small town and you would
(22:02):
notice that a little youngster had um, a third leg, okay,
and you your thought was, I can really make some
money with this kid to go to their parents. And
you'd say, I will give you of all of the
earnings of your child if you let me take him
on the road and he will stay in the finest
hotels and we're the best clothes and as the human
(22:24):
exactly and uh, the he will become famous in the world,
will love him. Uh, just let me handle it. I'm
going to be as manager from now on. And the
parents would very frequently, especially if they were poor, would say,
that's great, do that give me some money upfront? Though,
by the way, yeah, especially because a lot of times
some of these people were a burden on their family
(22:45):
because of their health condition, so they were happy to
be rid of them. That's all very sad, okay. So
that's how That's how it definitely started out. And then
and it went on like that, um for a very
long time as well. But once borne him and not
a Norman and some of the other guys, the big
guys came around, they would just basically keep an eye
out for that kind of thing, or they would be
(23:06):
approached by these guys who would essentially be middleman kind
of like, um, somebody who discovered a boy band selling
their contract to a bigger record company. But this was
with human curiosity, people with the third leg or hyper
trichosis or what have you. UM. And then Barnum would
take him and would would just take whatever exaggerated origin
(23:27):
story that they came with and just throw it out
and come up with one ten times more. Uh. And
after his uh, George Washington's nurse made Joyce heth diede Washington, right,
he started looking around for his next collaborator, if you
could call him that, UM. And he found out that
(23:47):
he had a distant cousin, a fifth cousin UM named
Charles Stratton, who had stopped growing when he was about
two years old. Yeah. He he never completely stopped. He
grew very slowly. Yeah. He made it to like just
over three feet I think by the time of his death. Yeah.
He died at forty five of a stroke and he
was three point three five ft tall. UM, but grew
(24:12):
so slowly. I mean you know he was He was
General Tom Thumb, very famously renamed General Tom Thumb by
his half fifth twice removed cousin. Uh PT what does
that stand? For even Paul Thomas Anderson bar Uh. So
he said, you know what, this is great. Um, you
(24:34):
were a small person and you're cute as the Dickens,
So let me dress you up in little adult suits
and you're my new side kick. Yeah that he he
collaborated with the kid's dad and said, let's, um, let's
make some money. Uh and he Um, he taught him
how to sing and dance, pretend he was Napoleon. Yeah,
(24:55):
he did impressions Cupid. He played Cupid sometimes. And then
he told everybody that this little five year old kid
was actually eleven, which made it all the more astounding
that he was that small, which she didn't even need
to do. And then for about the next like fifteen
or so years, Um turned Tom Thumb into what was
essentially the first international celebrity. Oh was he the first
(25:18):
international celebrity? Pretty much? Yeah, Tom Thumb was a sensation.
Queen Victoria was a huge fan. Met met with him
twice too, to at least twice um. She apparently was
really big into side shows, but Tom Thumb was her favorite.
Um and he They made so much money off of
their first European tour that um Barnum bought his museum
(25:42):
with the proceeds. Is there anything grosser than the Queen
of England laughing at a small person imitating Napoleon for money?
She may have even Napoleon at the time. Oh, I'm
sure she. That probably made it all the funnier to her. Unbelievable. So,
but he was. He was a rich dude. He was
(26:04):
paid uh in today's dollars who Tom Thumb? Oh yeah,
over four thousand dollars a week and retired and lived
the high life in New York City. Um. And you
know he didn't feel like he was exploited. No, he
he actually got married. I saw that he had children,
but I could I only saw that one place. I
didn't see it anywhere else. But he he was married
(26:25):
and actually, um, right after the marriage was um brought
to the White House to hang out with Abraham Lincoln
and Mrs Lincoln. Yeah, he had twenty thou people at
his funeral. He he was again, he was a very
big deal. And from what I understand, at the end
of the day he shed his persona. He was just
Charles Stratton uber wealthy, uh, some little person. Um. And
(26:49):
when he was doing his show, he was Tom Thumb
who would dress up as Napoleon or whatever and take
your money. Yeah, but um he he and P. T.
Barnum together really made a ton of cash. Tom Thumb
was a little better at managing his cash than Barnum was,
because Barnum fell in hard times. A lot of people
don't realize this, but he made some actually really bad
(27:10):
investments over over time too. Yeah. He invested a lot
of his money initially back into his business, which was smart, right,
and but a lot of times he would be like
this is gonna be a hit, and it wouldn't be
a hit. He didn't have the Midas touch necessarily, and
he fell on hard times more than once. And one
of the times Um Tom Thumb or Charles Stratton bailed
him out. Oh really, I get the feeling Barnum didn't
(27:32):
know when to leave well enough alone, you know, like
he had a big, thriving business and he just kept
wanting to push it further and further. Hugh Jackman, I'm
telling you, uh so, now we will talk about a
couple of people, Um, who are afflicted with something. Well,
they were micro cephalic, which means that they have a
(27:54):
cone shaped head smaller than normal shaped head as well. Yes,
if you've ever if you're how Stern fan, then you
know beetlejuice. He has this condition. Um, and they used
to call them pinheads back in the day, awful term. Uh.
And there were a couple of notable I'm not even
gonna keep saying that, but a couple of notable people
(28:16):
that performed um in these freak shows. One was Zip
William Henry Johnson renamed Zip to z I P. He's
from New Jersey, born to newly freed slaves and uh.
When Barnum found him, he says, you know I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna make up the story that you were found
during a guerrilla expedition near the Gambia River. I'm gonna
(28:39):
shave your head except for a little ponytailed tuft on
top and address you in a suit of fur. And
you get up on that stage and grunt like an animal. Yeah,
he was paid a dollar a day at first to
not talk to grunt and I guess to play the
violin really badly. Yeah. I didn't get was he paid
a dollar a day to start? Okay? I thought that
might have been part of the story, that he was
(29:01):
in fact paid a hundred dollars a day later. Okay,
he became a very popular um uh freak. I guess. Yeah.
The thing is is um he uh. William Henry Johnson
was probably not microcephalic at all. Um he microcephalic. Microsophalic
is totally different microcephalic um he. Actually they think now
(29:26):
that he had just like a slightly abnormally shaped head
that was exaggerated by the haircut that they gave him,
and that he actually had no diminished mental faculties once
what what at all and he was just pretending the
whole time, and not only fooling crowds, but he was
also fooling promoters. Yeah, because that's one of the hallmarks
of that condition. Is I believe that usually it's accompanied
(29:49):
by cognitive stunted cognitive development ye, usually very severe, but
not in his case. He was super smart. And when
he died said we fooled them all. Yeah, that's no.
He his sister Siste in his deathbed. They're also married, right,
Not true. So he made a lot of money too,
he did. He apparently retired with millions um a millionaire,
(30:10):
so he's not the only um again. Pinhead is what
this specific type of freak was called man. I can't
believe I just said that. This feels so wrong I. Um,
but there's a very sideshow performer and Chuck. Another very
famous side show performer who was also I guess technically
(30:32):
in the Under the Umbrella pinhead who actually was UM
micro's cephilic was Schlitze. Yes, Schlitze is one of my
favorite people of all time. Yes, schlet's see. They don't
know for sure his real name, but um, they believe
it's Simon Metz. Born in nineteen and one of the
Bronx and um. By all accounts from everyone who ever
(30:55):
met Schlitze, everyone loved Schlitze and he was a ray
of sunshine and a nice, sweet carrying, kind hearted man.
Loved life anything that you would take for granted. Um,
chlet's see, probably enjoyed the heck out of and um.
He was very frequently build as a woman. UM. I
(31:19):
think he was Bill as an Aztec warrior at first,
and then maybe even an Aztec woman. But he wore
dresses all the time because he was incontinent, and this
just made it the whole thing easier. UM. So he
was Bill as a woman for a very long time
and including in the movie, um Freaks, the Todd Browning
movie from two. Schlitze was in that and Schlitze actually
(31:40):
has like this big scene that's like has he has
a whole speaking like a dialogue section, But to this
day no one has any clue what he says. Yeah,
should we talk about freaks now or take a break
and then talk about it. Let's take a break, all right,
(32:24):
all right, So the movie Freaks. Uh, I've seen it,
have you? I saw it for the first time this morning.
No way, wow, college when most people see it so good?
Uh yeah, it's a nineteen thirty two pre code film. Uh.
There was a time between when um, they started making
(32:46):
movies to four when the Motion Picture production code kicked
in the haze code. Uh yeah, and properly called the
haze code. Um. For five years there you could do
whatever you wanted, I guess. Yeah. And uh, that's when
this direct her name Todd Browning, made a movie called
Freaks about side show performers. And this guy was he
(33:07):
actually ran away that the director actually ran away and
joined the carnival when he was sixteen and worked as
a carnival barker and even uh participated in stunts and
he was. He's a circus guy, right, and he had
a lot of um, sideshow performers as friends. And you
can tell in the movie that that's he's like, that's who,
he's whose side he's one, that's who that they're the
(33:31):
heroes of the story, that the protagonists, the antagonists or
normals or whatever. Um and uh, it's a really morally
fraud movie these days. But if you just step back
and and think of it as like this guy having
an affinity for side show performers and giving them a
(33:52):
shot at at stardom being on the big screen for
what they are, for who they are, for what they
can do. Um, then it's a really kind of a
heart growing tail heart growing Yeah, in a very weird way.
It's it's wrenching the watch. When's the last time you
(34:13):
saw a college Yeah, it's spent a long time. Just
see it again, all right, we'll check it out. Like
it's it's tough to watch. It's gut wrenching. Uh. There
are a lot of um, well, let's just talk about
some of the performers in the movie. Um. One of
them who stands out as Johnny eck John Eckhardt Jr.
Who was a twin and he was born with a condition. Uh.
(34:35):
Everyone said that he was cut off at the waist. Uh.
Not exactly true. We actually had um unusable underdeveloped legs
that you never saw, but it appeared as though he
didn't have anything from the torso down. And as from
a young kid, I believe he was even walking on
his hands before his twin brother was even standing. So
(34:55):
he was very advanced in a lot of ways. A
very smart guy. He's a painter. Uh yeah, very accomplished
the magician. Um. And you had a great personality too,
you could tell. Yeah, And apparently he was good buddies
with um Browning. And Browning always wanted him around and
by his side and was like, you know, you need
to come sit with me by the camera and almost
(35:16):
like his Uh. I don't know if he could consider
him a co director, but he always wanted him nearby.
Pretty neat Uh. Daisy and Violet Hilton. Yeah can joined twins, right, yeah,
which they called Siamese twins back in the day. Um,
thanks to Chang and Yang Bunker. Right. Yeah, they were
(35:36):
actually uh some of the first super famous. Uh. They
were from a Siamese fishing village and that's where the
term came from. Yeah, Siam was what we now called Thailand.
That's right. Uh. And Chang and Ing we're born in
nineteen I'm sorry, eighteen eleven. And they actually performed on
their own for many years, made a ton of money.
(35:58):
They got married, had kids, moved to North Carolina of
all places, and um that well actually interestingly, Daisy and
Violet ended up in North Carolina too, Oh yeah, but
under much much worse conditions. Yeah, but um, to finish
with Chang and Yng, they eventually lost their money. They
were millionaires losser dough and then we'd worked for Barnum
(36:20):
later on in life. But I get the impression that
they did it kind of like at their leisure almost
and ended up reamassing another fortune interest from working with Barnum. Yeah,
and they fathered twenty one children between them, married to
Paris sisters. Man each had a house and they would
spend three days at one house, three days at the
(36:41):
next house. Um and yeah, they had twenty one kids.
Pretty amazing. So Daisy and Violet Hilton, they were known
as Siamese twins back then. Of course, Uh, we don't
use that German anymore, But I mean I remember that
term when I was a kid. So it's definitely like
held on for way too long. Remember Ronnie and Dinnie Galle?
Oh yeah, are they still with us? Let's find out
(37:05):
you're you're checking that. I'll continue. Um, I believe that.
Uh that Browning spotted Daisy and Violet and said, you
guys are great, You're pretty, you can sing. You'll be
a big part of my movie. And they had been
performers all along. Um. By eighteen, they were ontour with
Bob Hope as part of his dance troupe and made
(37:27):
quite a bit of money. Um. But sadly their story
ends in North Carolina because they made an appearance in
at a midnight showing of Freaks at a drive in
and their manager ditched them and this party don't get
they had no way to leave North Carolina, so they
just stayed there. Yeah, they had to get a job.
That just seems odd to me. If you don't have
(37:48):
any money and no one to call to ask for money,
you go get a job at a grocery store and
I hope that you can eventually die there. It seems
like they would have gotten enough money to leave and
go back to wherever they lived. While they died in Charlotte,
North Carolina of the Hong Kong flu What is that?
It was a flu epidemic? She's that originated in Hong Kong.
(38:13):
It was a different world back then. Siamese twins died
to Hong Kong flu i. None of that seems politically correct.
To know who else was in Freaks? Uh, let's see. Um,
there were a pair of little people named Harry and
Daisy Earls and they played Hans and Frieda right, and
Hans is like the ring master of the side show
(38:36):
and um Frieda in real life, Daisy was known as
the midget may West. Um. And in the movie they're engaged,
but actually in real life they were brother and sister. Yeah,
and they were in The Wizard of Oz even as munchkins.
And we're in a bunch of movies with Laurel and
Hardy as well, so lifelong performers. So the the whole
(39:01):
this whole movie and again, um, we kind of we
didn't finish with the Schlitze. Schlitzy was in it too
and had his whole big speaking part. Um. It was
just adorable in the movie. You could like Schlitz's personality
just shines right through the movie. Very likable. Yeah, and
um Schlitze was actually uh adopted that no one had
(39:23):
any idea who Schlitz's biological family was. They were not around.
So the um, the people he performed with and worked for,
actually took care of him. And when his adopted father died,
his father's daughter, biological daughter said hey, schlt see, Um,
(39:45):
I'm going to commit you to an asylum in Los Angeles.
And that's where Schlitzy was until one day, just by
total chance, chuck Uh another circus performer, I think a
sword swallower named Bill Unks. Bill, you're Schlitze. Yeah, what
are you doing here? You look so sad? And Schlitze
(40:07):
was like, I remember you, let's go. So bill Unk
intervened and got Schlitze out of the institution, and uh
he got to live out his days hanging out in
the park being recognized by passers by. Yeah. He lived
near MacArthur Park in downtown l A. And uh lived
all the way up until at age seventy one. Yeah,
(40:31):
so you know you gotta see Schlitze. You should see freaks.
But even if you don't see freaks, like look up
Schlitze's part agreed, it'll probably make you want to see Freaks,
so chuck. Um, the Freak Show is well, some people
say that it's still around and that it's just on
TV in the form of reality shows, like basically that
(40:54):
same sentiment and everything still is found all over television. Yeah,
exploiting uh people like uh, exploiting obesity and exploiting dwarf
is um and uh, yeah it's on television now. Um.
But the actual side show itself, Um, it's well, it
(41:14):
went away in a lot of ways, at least as
far as like a traveling side show went. And it
went away with the rise of um, the rights for
the disabled. That that that movement that came along in
the starting in about the like late nineteenth century, early
twentieth century, and then really gaining steam by about the
time Freaks came around. The movie. Yeah, there were a
(41:36):
few things that kind of killed it, um, but one's
definitely like you said, science invented it and killed it
as And here's something that is sort of reprehensible that
I found out. There's a lot of these uh side
shows would try and keep doctors away from the people
because they thought, I don't want a doctor coming in here.
And saying that the dog faced boy actually has hypertrichosis. Yeah,
(42:00):
because and it's a condition where you have hair all
over your face. Yeah. I told everybody he was a
cave caveman. Yeah, exactly, did you know? Actually there was
another There was a woman um named Julia Pastrana, and
she had hypertrichosis too, and she ended up marrying her manager.
They were married, they had a baby together, and she
(42:22):
died during childbirth and and the baby was born stillborn,
and her husband, manager, who ostensibly loved her, said the
show must go on. So he mummified his wife and
they're still born baby, and then took him around to
display them in the side show as ever unbelievable. So
(42:43):
uh again, doctors would come along and start explaining these things,
and that helped kill the side show. The rise of
television and uh, you know at home entertainment meant people
weren't going out to places like sideshows anymore. Yeah, they
could stay in their house and watch television. And apparently
you could still find sideshows like that American horror story
(43:04):
was it freak show last season or whatever? I don't
watch that, but yeah, um it was setting I think
the fifties, and I think at that time you could
still see, you know, traveling side shows here there, but
they were pretty broken down by that point, they were
pretty pretty much gone. But by the sixties there was
a girl named Carol Browning and she I all I
(43:27):
could find is that she had deformed arms and legs.
I don't know what that means, but that was the
description that was given given of her. But she went
to a side show and when she visited the carnival
in North Carolina. I think she lived in Charlotte, No Raleigh,
and Carol, what is it with North Carolina? That's where
things beginning in with with sideshows. Well, Carol, Carol Grant
(43:51):
I think was her name. Carol wrote a letter to
the Agricultural Commission. The Agricultural Commission is in charge of
side shows at the time, at least in North Carolina,
and said this is wrong, like this is beyond wrong.
I'm I'm offended by this and this this should not
be allowed to happen. And she actually sparked a national
conversation about whether side shows should be allowed to be around,
(44:15):
even if performers wanted to be a part of them.
And that was the final death knell that conversation. But
a lot of people came out and said, hey, you
know what these people, you guys call them freaks, but
you also empty your pockets to them, and they're wealthy.
They enjoy the acclaim, they enjoy the money, and um,
it's actually you who has the problem. And it didn't
(44:39):
have much of an effect. Sideshows went away, and a
lot of the sideshow performers ended up going from being
pretty wealthy or well paid or having a steady income
to um being broke and ending up like being abandoned
by their managers like Daisy and Violet. Yeah, it's a
tricky ground, it is. It's pretty much sad all the
way through. Yeah, I mean except for some success stories.
(45:03):
And that makes the whole thing so morally ambiguous if
you think about it, Like, it's just so easy to
look from here and be like you named your movie
freaks or you you you charge people to look at
the elephant man. But what about those people who said,
I'm cool with this, I'm signing on for this. Yeah,
this is making a lot of very wealthy. I'm happy,
(45:26):
I've I've had all sorts of opportunities that weren't open
to me before. And I love what I do. What
do you do about that? Like, you can't condemn it.
It's not an easy black and white thing to to
deal with. Yeah, it's called a moral ambiguity. You said
it that There have always been them, them, those them
moral ambiguity. There always will be. Uh, you got anything else? No?
(45:49):
If you want to know more about sideshows, freaks, that
kind of thing, you can type those words into the
search bar at how stuff works dot com. And since
I said search parts, time for listener mail. Hey, before
listener mail, what about Ronnie and Donnie? Oh? Yeah, Ronnie
and Donnie are alive. Awesome. They are sixty four years
(46:11):
old as of past October I think one, and they
are the world's longest living conjoined twins. They're adorable too.
They're OHI ends right if I remember believe so? Yeah,
very nice man. What documentary did we see on them
or something? I can't remember, but we've we've talked about
him a lot over the years. So that's that's great news. Yeah,
but they're they're still at it alright. So listener mail,
(46:34):
I'm gonna call this one. Uh, quick feedback on the
Bill Gates podcast that is Quick Turnaround. Hey guys, my
name is Brendan Cologne announced like Cologne, and I'm a
PhD student at Habba Medical School in Pamelas Silver's lab
working on artificial photosynthesis. Shoutout Pamelas Silver. How about that.
(46:59):
I'm long time fan the show and wanted to say
what you guys did? Uh? You did? You did a
great job covering renewable energy with Bill Gates. During the episode,
there was a question about the current limitations of artificial
photosynthetic systems at present. The biggest issues are scalability, he
cost energy in producing the building materials, and the efficient
extraction of produced fuels. Uh. These are standard engineering hurdles,
(47:22):
but like Mr Gates said, we can call them Bill.
By the way, I don't think you can, Brendon, we can,
but we can. Uh. These are standard engineering hurdles, but
like Mr Gates said, the final product needs to be viable. Specifically,
such a product would need to harvest in store more
energy in the short term than what was required to
build it makes sense and do so on the cheap. Uh. Fortunately,
(47:43):
biotechnology and photo voltaic technology is advancing at a breakneck pace,
so the future of this technology looks bright. As new
biochemistries are discovered, more products will be available for production,
and one vision of this technology is a local and
individualized production chemical is on demand. I hope this helps.
Feel free to reach out. Cheers Brendan. Thanks Brendan, Yeah,
(48:07):
Brendan Cologne pronounced cologne, that's right. Uh. If you are
an expert in something that we talk about, we love
hearing feedback from people like you. You can send us
an email. Send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart
radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
(48:29):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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