July 18, 2024 • 25 mins
Meet Tom Slick: Mystery Hunter, the most interesting man you’ve never heard of…
_____
"Tom Slick: Mystery Hunter" Stars Owen Wilson, Sissy Spacek and Schuyler Fisk
Written and Directed by Caroline Slaughter
Story Edited by Jeb Stuart
Produced and Assistant Directed by Emilia Brock
Original Score, Sound Design, Mixing and Mastering by Jesse Nighswonger
Executive Produced by Owen Wilson, Sissy Spacek, Schuyler Fisk, Jeb Stuart, Caroline Slaughter, Brian Lavin, L.C. Crowley, Brandon Barr and Virginia Prescott
Special thanks to historian Catherine Nixon Cooke whose expert advice on Tom Slick Jr. and book – "Tom Slick, Mystery Hunter!" – served as inspiration for the show.
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On Twitter @iHeartPodcasts
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
School of Humans.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This podcast is based on the true story of explorer, inventor, visionary,
and science pioneer Tom Slick. Some of the story elements, names,
and characters have been altered for dramatic purposes. Consider using
headphones to enhance your listening experience. We've created an immersive
(00:29):
soundscape to tell our story.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Can't bring over there, do west towards those woods? Following
you stick, Tom Slick. February fourteenth, nineteen fifty eighth.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
My team and I have been out here in the
Himalayas for months, fairly surviving on an expedition that's nearly
hijack my life, bankrupt me. Hell, it's taking everything, But we.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Just heard it, the sweet, sweet.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Sound of victory, the proof stop.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It's closer than I thought, Slick.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
I'm gonna get a better look, Bud.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Turn the flashlight off.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
You don't run.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
If it knows we're.
Speaker 6 (01:39):
Close, and if we spook it, well, who knows.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
What he'll do?
Speaker 5 (01:47):
All right, Oh god, we're so close. Frank stink Is
don't hunting me. But in seconds I'll be face to
face with one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of our time. Dad,
(02:09):
I control the world.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yet he is real. It's real.
Speaker 7 (02:16):
Come on, no, no, oh my god.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
Chapter one. This is the mostly true tale of Tom
Slick mystery Hunter.
Speaker 8 (03:06):
Shut it.
Speaker 7 (03:13):
This is gonna fill seats. What this tape of your
granddad's nineteen fifty eight yetti hunt, it's a fake. What
are you doing, live, Blair?
Speaker 9 (03:27):
No, come on, this is an event celebrating my grandfather's
legacy in science, so.
Speaker 7 (03:34):
We get donations for his institute fighting to keep science
funded through the twenty first century.
Speaker 9 (03:39):
Yeah, but this yetti hunt or whatever that was that
we just heard isn't science.
Speaker 7 (03:44):
No, it's a hook to get pressed to the event
exposure least a funding live I know.
Speaker 9 (03:50):
But even if that was my granddad on the tape
and he did spearhead some expedition to the Himalayas, this
tape makes him crazy. The yetti I believe that's why
you're not wearing a lab coat.
Speaker 10 (04:05):
So where did you find this.
Speaker 7 (04:07):
With the rest of your granddad's research material? Look, most
of his tapes are a snooze fest that's boring on
top of boring. But this one, that's my mom. Okay,
Well we know she's gonna eat up sometimes. So if
I could just have that tape back.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Fine, take the tape, thank you.
Speaker 9 (04:29):
Don't do anything with it until we talk.
Speaker 7 (04:32):
We just did you know what I mean? Live. We
don't have a lot of time to sit on this.
The event is tomorrow night.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Oh I know I still have a speech to right.
Speaker 9 (04:41):
Wow, it's gonna get don't worry.
Speaker 7 (04:45):
Well, you better answer that otherwise she's just go We
keep calling and calling and calling.
Speaker 11 (04:53):
Live.
Speaker 10 (04:54):
Mom. Are you okay? What's going on.
Speaker 11 (04:58):
To the attic?
Speaker 12 (05:00):
God?
Speaker 10 (05:00):
You sound like you're hyperventilating up here.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Okay, it's for you.
Speaker 7 (05:06):
What is it?
Speaker 11 (05:08):
I don't know and I don't want to touch it?
Speaker 13 (05:12):
Mom?
Speaker 10 (05:13):
Mom, Mom, okay, do you do you have frozen peas
or something to ice that bruise?
Speaker 7 (05:26):
Just fuck up, I'm moving.
Speaker 11 (05:33):
It's the only thing left in the freezer.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Do a.
Speaker 7 (05:41):
Live.
Speaker 11 (05:42):
I'm telling you that bad just can't bat me.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
He was mad.
Speaker 11 (05:46):
It almost got me, so I dove for the attic stairs.
Speaker 13 (05:51):
Well, I guess it could have been a lot worse.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (05:53):
I could have broken my hip or my neck.
Speaker 11 (05:55):
Oh there's no way I would have been able to
move out of this house. Then, honey, I need you
to clean that that account for me. You know that
thing your granddad invented that lifted the roof up.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
The left holes in the siding.
Speaker 11 (06:11):
Now it's an open season for bar mets up there.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Oh my god.
Speaker 10 (06:15):
Wait, you said there was something up there for me?
Speaker 7 (06:17):
What is it?
Speaker 11 (06:18):
I didn't get a good look, So I take this.
Speaker 9 (06:24):
You want some bowlines to go with that vodka?
Speaker 11 (06:26):
Think of this spaghetti strainer as protection. They go for
the head first.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Okay, God bless you. Gee?
Speaker 10 (06:50):
Has this place ever been cleaned?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Never?
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I told you.
Speaker 11 (06:54):
I don't go up there anymore.
Speaker 10 (06:55):
No lights either, if you want to wake them.
Speaker 9 (06:58):
Sure, here's my phone.
Speaker 11 (07:02):
Look to the left, it's in the corner.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
I don't see anything.
Speaker 7 (07:09):
This box.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, it's a box.
Speaker 7 (07:12):
Get it and go, and don't let the bat out.
I think he's back. Throw the box down, hold it off,
(07:33):
hold it, get.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
It good, lord?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Okay, where's the box there?
Speaker 9 (07:41):
So cassette tapes, they're not labeled.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
He's are these?
Speaker 9 (07:46):
Read the box for my grandchild?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Listen, Granddad's slick. So these tapes are yours?
Speaker 8 (08:10):
All right, Tom Slick May sixth, nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Look a day over seventy.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I'll tell you that much, all right?
Speaker 4 (08:28):
All right, yeah, thank you, I'm just gonna if you
couldn't tell, it's my birthday, and the scientists around here
use any excuse for a boozy lunch. But my intoxicant
of choice is this birthday gift I'm speaking into. It's
a new prototype we created here at the Institute, a
portable cassette recorder. Now we're not the first to come
(08:51):
up with something like this, but this is the sleekiest
model I've ever experienced. It's about the size of an
over fed doxin and hold it under one arm, strap
it to your back, eyed it in a bag to
catch someone else's secrets, or like me, use it to
make sense of your own. Yeah, I'm at a turning point.
(09:12):
There's a big venture I have up ahead, and in
order to look forward, well, I'm forced to look back
at what got me here, and that story. It start
one person, my father, Tom Slick Senior. I never called
him dad. He was senior and I was junior and
(09:33):
Slick senior he was at the inception of an American
revolution in the early twentieth century. Oil was gold men
chase this tar black American dream to the fields of Texas.
My father was never one to follow a crowd so
(09:54):
in nineteen twelve he carved his own path, bowing to
strike it rich. In oaklahom He convinced a petroleum company
to back them, secured a lease to dig, set up camp,
and started a drill. But at two thy eight hundred
feet there's no sign of oil. He lost a lot
(10:18):
of money on that dry hole, and against everyone's wishes,
including my mother's, he kept at it. He drilled nine
holes in the Oklahoma dirt, all of them dry. In Texas,
they laughed a dry hold Tom, the dust mining wildcatter
or chased the unknown to Oklahoma and ended up dirt poor.
(10:41):
But my father wouldn't quit. He had no money to
lose at that point, only people he owed. But he
had a sixth sense. When it came to luck, he
saw it as an opportunity. It cleaned and he had
one more hole to dig, So dry Hold Tom, he
risked it all, his marriage, his reputation, his life to
(11:03):
try his hand at luck. He set up camp and Cushing, Oklahoma.
That drill went down three thousand feet into the chalky soil,
and the only thing that came back up was black soot.
His men begged him to stop. At that point they
(11:23):
were exhausted and broke, working for nothing but the promise
of a dream. It said one of them put a
pistol to my dad's head, thinking that would be the
only way.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
To end it.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Then a spurt, then another, then.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
A gusher.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
That oil went one hundred and fifty feet in the air,
took nine days to cap and seven men to restrain,
but only one man was laughing. Now that's the day
my father earned a nickname that stuck Lucky Tom. That
was the first well in an oil field that produced
three hundred and thirty thousand barrels every day for thirty
(12:12):
five years, making my father the king of the Wildcatters
and one of the richest men in the world. With
that dream realized, another took its place, and it was
just as seductive. My father left us for pretty long
(12:33):
stretches at a time to explore parts of the globe
many Americans had never heard of. He'd come home with
epic tales of the mysteries of the world, mummified Egyptian
kings preserved in coffins of gold stone walls with no entry,
mysteriously surfacing in Jordan, and one that still haunts me,
(12:59):
The King of the snow who roams the roof of
the world. The Yetti my white whale to me. My
father was a legend. But when you live your life
like a god, you still die like a man. The
(13:20):
doctor said it was a thyroid disease that killed my father,
but mother said he lived too hard. His body just
couldn't keep up with his spirit. When he died, I
was fourteen, forced to be the senior when all I
knew was how to be his junior. My father taught
me about luck, but when he died, leaving a seventy
(13:43):
five million dollar estate, I didn't need it. Who needs
luck when you have money?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
What his father left him?
Speaker 10 (13:51):
How much?
Speaker 11 (13:52):
I think it was close to one point five billion today?
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Where is that money?
Speaker 10 (13:57):
Now?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
My name?
Speaker 11 (13:58):
I'm afraid those tapes of the gold your grandfather left behind?
Speaker 6 (14:02):
What do you mean you never knew him?
Speaker 7 (14:05):
I barely did.
Speaker 11 (14:07):
But from what I know about these tapes he made,
there probably is a wealth of secrets buried on them,
and he wanted you to find them.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
What have preferred the real gold?
Speaker 7 (14:20):
Okay?
Speaker 13 (14:22):
The money my father left me, well, it gave me
influence at Yale. It secured my seat and skull and
bones and chased off loneliness by landing me a date
and more.
Speaker 8 (14:35):
Any night of the week.
Speaker 13 (14:36):
Ooh ugh, and it gave me access to the cryptozoological mysteries.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
My father teased me with.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Oh God, here we go with the Yedi.
Speaker 11 (14:46):
The Yetti was Dad's true love, but he had a
couple of flames before.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
In the spring of nineteen thirty seven, I was seduced
by NeSSI, the prehistoric lizard of Lockness. So I lured
two of my brothers from scull and Bones and Dulles. Yeah,
he went to Princeton but was always looking for a
free ride. Dulles's first name was Allen, but to attract
(15:19):
the fair Sex, he went by Dulles thought it made
him sound more authoritative. It definitely got him into bed
with the government. He's now the director of the CIA.
So I lured the boys and Dulles to the highlands
of Scotland and hooked them on NeSSI, the Lockness Monster.
(15:43):
Before starting any scientific investigation, you need intel. At the time,
I was an amateur and nineteen so I found what
I was looking for at a pub. The locals I
interviewed said Essie was spotted for the first time in
nineteen thirty three, when the A eighty two Highway was
(16:05):
reconstructed in the Highlands. They said the dynamite that blasted
open the rock walls woke something from its depths, a
creature they believed had inhabited the lock for centuries. The
locals warned us not to go out on the still
(16:27):
water at night. That's when NeSSI prays, So obviously we
went in the inky darkness. Nothing was visible. I had
to trust my instincts. But againness kept flowing, and when
dawn broke we woke up passed out on the shore.
(16:54):
Our boat was gone, and so was any hope of
finding NeSSI my first fling with cryptozoology, and I didn't
even get to first base. So just stroked my bruised ego.
I went back to the States and performed a cryptozoological miracle.
I frankenstein my own monster by breeding a hog and
a goat. That's right, a hog and a goat. The
(17:19):
offspring idious. He had the swine face of his father
and the hairy rear of his mother, never a great combo,
and his hoofs well, I'll never forget what those horns
felt like when he first jumped on my lap Oh.
Some people say crossbreeding is playing God, but only a
human would willingly create the devil's doppelganger and name him
(17:43):
Sweet William. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. I
was abusing my money, squandering it because I could. My
father wasn't around to give me validation, so I let
his money do it. But all of that changed summer
day in nineteen thirty eight when I saw a gun
(18:03):
press to my mother's temple. I remember that day being
(18:28):
just unbearably hot, the air stiff with humidity. Mother had
all the windows open in the drawing room, where my
sister Betty was playing the piano, which was being recorded
on their new Western Electric That's why you can hear
pieces of this horrific scene play out.
Speaker 14 (18:51):
Stop that screaming or up blow your head off, lady.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I had made the trip home to Oklahoma City that
summer to tell my stepfather, Charles Erschall, I was planning
to enlist in the Office of Naval Intelligence to assist
Europe in what would become World War Two. My stepfather
called me a hero. But when that hellion walked in
the front door that afternoon, grabbed my mother by her
(19:16):
hair and pressed the mouth of his machine gun to
her temple.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Up.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
I knew my stepfather was wrong. I was no hero.
I wasn't even in the room. Please don't hurt her,
but I heard everything.
Speaker 7 (19:35):
Look, we'll give you whatever you want.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
My stepfather was pistol whipped, took him out with one blow.
I didn't know it then, but this man holding my
family hostage was the notorious machine gun Kelly, the bank
robber is infamous as he was deadly.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
How are you doing this?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Why us?
Speaker 14 (20:02):
You made headline news with those millions you got.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
The week my father died, news of the seventy five
million dollars stead he left us was posted all over
the papers. Little did I know it had marked us
as fresh meat for vultures like Kelly to feed on later.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Okay, just take me. Don't touch my children, this real
little thing.
Speaker 7 (20:26):
Stop it, Betty, go on, Darling, play something for me.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Please, please don't hurt her.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I can't.
Speaker 14 (20:44):
She's why I'm here.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
You her sleep, Junior.
Speaker 14 (20:49):
You're all worked around twenty five thousand dollars ahead. You
can't expect me to turn that kind of money down, nap,
can you? The savior has reasen Take me stay on
the ground or all blast your sculling. And now before
I shoot her.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
They don't have the money you're after.
Speaker 14 (21:11):
You expect me to believe that. Look at this house,
that baby grand these earrings she's wearing.
Speaker 6 (21:20):
When I'm married Bernice, I took control over their estates.
Speaker 7 (21:23):
So all that money, it's mine.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Women.
Speaker 7 (21:28):
You don't get to keep nothing, do you.
Speaker 8 (21:33):
Well?
Speaker 7 (21:34):
Looks like this is goodbye, sweetheart.
Speaker 14 (21:38):
The gentleman has one. I got my gun right here
at your back.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
You feel it? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
It was then as they were leaving that I heard
my father's voice in my hand. I'm urging me to
be a man of the family. How do you on
this money as a form of luck? Now I was
time to try my hand at the real thing. So
I left my hiding spot and quietly approached Kelly as
(22:13):
he dragged my stepfather out of the room. When he
turned to face me, I treated him like I would
any formidable creature. I met his eyes first, trying to
form a connection.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
But in that moment, what your kid?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
I froze. I couldn't speak, move, breathe. Kelly rolled his eyes,
then spit a watt of tobacco in my face, or
at least I think he did. All I remember is
how my stepfather, who had called me a hero just
seconds before, couldn't meet my eye as he was viciously
(22:52):
dragged out the front door. That was one of the
lowest moments of my life. It's also when everything changed now,
when danger taunts me, I don't freeze, I chase it
and machine gun Kelly. Well, he didn't see me coming.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
Wait, that's it.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
There's a whole box of tapes there.
Speaker 10 (23:23):
But you know what happens, right.
Speaker 11 (23:24):
I know what side of the story Mom told me,
but I never heard it from Daddy, So.
Speaker 7 (23:31):
Got's let him tell us then.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
Tom Slick Mystery Hunter is a production of School of
Humans and iHeart Podcasts, starring Owen Wilson as Tom Slick,
Cissy Spasick as Claire Slick, Skyler Fiske as Livslick. Written
and directed by Caroline Slaughter, story editor Jeb Stewart. Executive
produced by Owen Wilson, Sissy Spasic, Skyler Fiske, Jeb Stewart,
(24:17):
Caroline Slaughter, Brian Lavin, L. C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, and
Virginia Prescott. Produced and assistant directed by Amelia Brock. Original score,
sound design, mixing and mastering by Jesse Niswanger, Casting by
Daisy Church and Caroline Slaughter sag coordination by Daisy Church
(24:38):
and Julia christ Gaw, Promo and trailers by Carl Catel.
Special thanks to Catherine Nixon Cook. Recording engineers are Tyler
Klang and Casey Pegram.
Speaker 12 (24:48):
For iHeartMedia Episode one, cast Ian Shaw as bud Ava,
Davis as Blair, Jackson Beals as Machine Gun Kelly, Tiffany
Morgan as Bernice Fratis, Lowry Brown as Charles Ursul, Mike
Shotts as the Voice of God in the introductory voiceover,
(25:11):
with additional roles voiced by David Devrees, Michael Mao, and
Phil Clark.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
If you're enjoying the show, share it with everyone you know,
and don't forget to rate and review in your favorite
podcast app. Tune in again next week wherever you get
your most thrilling adventure stories
School of Humans.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This podcast is based on the true story of explorer, inventor, visionary,
and science pioneer Tom Slick. Some of the story elements, names,
and characters have been altered for dramatic purposes. Consider using
headphones to enhance your listening experience. We've created an immersive
(00:29):
soundscape to tell our story.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Can't bring over there, do west towards those woods? Following
you stick, Tom Slick. February fourteenth, nineteen fifty eighth.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
My team and I have been out here in the
Himalayas for months, fairly surviving on an expedition that's nearly
hijack my life, bankrupt me. Hell, it's taking everything, But we.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Just heard it, the sweet, sweet.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Sound of victory, the proof stop.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It's closer than I thought, Slick.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
I'm gonna get a better look, Bud.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Turn the flashlight off.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
You don't run.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
If it knows we're.
Speaker 6 (01:39):
Close, and if we spook it, well, who knows.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
What he'll do?
Speaker 5 (01:47):
All right, Oh god, we're so close. Frank stink Is
don't hunting me. But in seconds I'll be face to
face with one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of our time. Dad,
(02:09):
I control the world.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yet he is real. It's real.
Speaker 7 (02:16):
Come on, no, no, oh my god.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
Chapter one. This is the mostly true tale of Tom
Slick mystery Hunter.
Speaker 8 (03:06):
Shut it.
Speaker 7 (03:13):
This is gonna fill seats. What this tape of your
granddad's nineteen fifty eight yetti hunt, it's a fake. What
are you doing, live, Blair?
Speaker 9 (03:27):
No, come on, this is an event celebrating my grandfather's
legacy in science, so.
Speaker 7 (03:34):
We get donations for his institute fighting to keep science
funded through the twenty first century.
Speaker 9 (03:39):
Yeah, but this yetti hunt or whatever that was that
we just heard isn't science.
Speaker 7 (03:44):
No, it's a hook to get pressed to the event
exposure least a funding live I know.
Speaker 9 (03:50):
But even if that was my granddad on the tape
and he did spearhead some expedition to the Himalayas, this
tape makes him crazy. The yetti I believe that's why
you're not wearing a lab coat.
Speaker 10 (04:05):
So where did you find this.
Speaker 7 (04:07):
With the rest of your granddad's research material? Look, most
of his tapes are a snooze fest that's boring on
top of boring. But this one, that's my mom. Okay,
Well we know she's gonna eat up sometimes. So if
I could just have that tape back.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Fine, take the tape, thank you.
Speaker 9 (04:29):
Don't do anything with it until we talk.
Speaker 7 (04:32):
We just did you know what I mean? Live. We
don't have a lot of time to sit on this.
The event is tomorrow night.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Oh I know I still have a speech to right.
Speaker 9 (04:41):
Wow, it's gonna get don't worry.
Speaker 7 (04:45):
Well, you better answer that otherwise she's just go We
keep calling and calling and calling.
Speaker 11 (04:53):
Live.
Speaker 10 (04:54):
Mom. Are you okay? What's going on.
Speaker 11 (04:58):
To the attic?
Speaker 12 (05:00):
God?
Speaker 10 (05:00):
You sound like you're hyperventilating up here.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Okay, it's for you.
Speaker 7 (05:06):
What is it?
Speaker 11 (05:08):
I don't know and I don't want to touch it?
Speaker 13 (05:12):
Mom?
Speaker 10 (05:13):
Mom, Mom, okay, do you do you have frozen peas
or something to ice that bruise?
Speaker 7 (05:26):
Just fuck up, I'm moving.
Speaker 11 (05:33):
It's the only thing left in the freezer.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Do a.
Speaker 7 (05:41):
Live.
Speaker 11 (05:42):
I'm telling you that bad just can't bat me.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
He was mad.
Speaker 11 (05:46):
It almost got me, so I dove for the attic stairs.
Speaker 13 (05:51):
Well, I guess it could have been a lot worse.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (05:53):
I could have broken my hip or my neck.
Speaker 11 (05:55):
Oh there's no way I would have been able to
move out of this house. Then, honey, I need you
to clean that that account for me. You know that
thing your granddad invented that lifted the roof up.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
The left holes in the siding.
Speaker 11 (06:11):
Now it's an open season for bar mets up there.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Oh my god.
Speaker 10 (06:15):
Wait, you said there was something up there for me?
Speaker 7 (06:17):
What is it?
Speaker 11 (06:18):
I didn't get a good look, So I take this.
Speaker 9 (06:24):
You want some bowlines to go with that vodka?
Speaker 11 (06:26):
Think of this spaghetti strainer as protection. They go for
the head first.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Okay, God bless you. Gee?
Speaker 10 (06:50):
Has this place ever been cleaned?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Never?
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I told you.
Speaker 11 (06:54):
I don't go up there anymore.
Speaker 10 (06:55):
No lights either, if you want to wake them.
Speaker 9 (06:58):
Sure, here's my phone.
Speaker 11 (07:02):
Look to the left, it's in the corner.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
I don't see anything.
Speaker 7 (07:09):
This box.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, it's a box.
Speaker 7 (07:12):
Get it and go, and don't let the bat out.
I think he's back. Throw the box down, hold it off,
(07:33):
hold it, get.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
It good, lord?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Okay, where's the box there?
Speaker 9 (07:41):
So cassette tapes, they're not labeled.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
He's are these?
Speaker 9 (07:46):
Read the box for my grandchild?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Listen, Granddad's slick. So these tapes are yours?
Speaker 8 (08:10):
All right, Tom Slick May sixth, nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Look a day over seventy.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I'll tell you that much, all right?
Speaker 4 (08:28):
All right, yeah, thank you, I'm just gonna if you
couldn't tell, it's my birthday, and the scientists around here
use any excuse for a boozy lunch. But my intoxicant
of choice is this birthday gift I'm speaking into. It's
a new prototype we created here at the Institute, a
portable cassette recorder. Now we're not the first to come
(08:51):
up with something like this, but this is the sleekiest
model I've ever experienced. It's about the size of an
over fed doxin and hold it under one arm, strap
it to your back, eyed it in a bag to
catch someone else's secrets, or like me, use it to
make sense of your own. Yeah, I'm at a turning point.
(09:12):
There's a big venture I have up ahead, and in
order to look forward, well, I'm forced to look back
at what got me here, and that story. It start
one person, my father, Tom Slick Senior. I never called
him dad. He was senior and I was junior and
(09:33):
Slick senior he was at the inception of an American
revolution in the early twentieth century. Oil was gold men
chase this tar black American dream to the fields of Texas.
My father was never one to follow a crowd so
(09:54):
in nineteen twelve he carved his own path, bowing to
strike it rich. In oaklahom He convinced a petroleum company
to back them, secured a lease to dig, set up camp,
and started a drill. But at two thy eight hundred
feet there's no sign of oil. He lost a lot
(10:18):
of money on that dry hole, and against everyone's wishes,
including my mother's, he kept at it. He drilled nine
holes in the Oklahoma dirt, all of them dry. In Texas,
they laughed a dry hold Tom, the dust mining wildcatter
or chased the unknown to Oklahoma and ended up dirt poor.
(10:41):
But my father wouldn't quit. He had no money to
lose at that point, only people he owed. But he
had a sixth sense. When it came to luck, he
saw it as an opportunity. It cleaned and he had
one more hole to dig, So dry Hold Tom, he
risked it all, his marriage, his reputation, his life to
(11:03):
try his hand at luck. He set up camp and Cushing, Oklahoma.
That drill went down three thousand feet into the chalky soil,
and the only thing that came back up was black soot.
His men begged him to stop. At that point they
(11:23):
were exhausted and broke, working for nothing but the promise
of a dream. It said one of them put a
pistol to my dad's head, thinking that would be the
only way.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
To end it.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Then a spurt, then another, then.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
A gusher.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
That oil went one hundred and fifty feet in the air,
took nine days to cap and seven men to restrain,
but only one man was laughing. Now that's the day
my father earned a nickname that stuck Lucky Tom. That
was the first well in an oil field that produced
three hundred and thirty thousand barrels every day for thirty
(12:12):
five years, making my father the king of the Wildcatters
and one of the richest men in the world. With
that dream realized, another took its place, and it was
just as seductive. My father left us for pretty long
(12:33):
stretches at a time to explore parts of the globe
many Americans had never heard of. He'd come home with
epic tales of the mysteries of the world, mummified Egyptian
kings preserved in coffins of gold stone walls with no entry,
mysteriously surfacing in Jordan, and one that still haunts me,
(12:59):
The King of the snow who roams the roof of
the world. The Yetti my white whale to me. My
father was a legend. But when you live your life
like a god, you still die like a man. The
(13:20):
doctor said it was a thyroid disease that killed my father,
but mother said he lived too hard. His body just
couldn't keep up with his spirit. When he died, I
was fourteen, forced to be the senior when all I
knew was how to be his junior. My father taught
me about luck, but when he died, leaving a seventy
(13:43):
five million dollar estate, I didn't need it. Who needs
luck when you have money?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
What his father left him?
Speaker 10 (13:51):
How much?
Speaker 11 (13:52):
I think it was close to one point five billion today?
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Where is that money?
Speaker 10 (13:57):
Now?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
My name?
Speaker 11 (13:58):
I'm afraid those tapes of the gold your grandfather left behind?
Speaker 6 (14:02):
What do you mean you never knew him?
Speaker 7 (14:05):
I barely did.
Speaker 11 (14:07):
But from what I know about these tapes he made,
there probably is a wealth of secrets buried on them,
and he wanted you to find them.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
What have preferred the real gold?
Speaker 7 (14:20):
Okay?
Speaker 13 (14:22):
The money my father left me, well, it gave me
influence at Yale. It secured my seat and skull and
bones and chased off loneliness by landing me a date
and more.
Speaker 8 (14:35):
Any night of the week.
Speaker 13 (14:36):
Ooh ugh, and it gave me access to the cryptozoological mysteries.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
My father teased me with.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Oh God, here we go with the Yedi.
Speaker 11 (14:46):
The Yetti was Dad's true love, but he had a
couple of flames before.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
In the spring of nineteen thirty seven, I was seduced
by NeSSI, the prehistoric lizard of Lockness. So I lured
two of my brothers from scull and Bones and Dulles. Yeah,
he went to Princeton but was always looking for a
free ride. Dulles's first name was Allen, but to attract
(15:19):
the fair Sex, he went by Dulles thought it made
him sound more authoritative. It definitely got him into bed
with the government. He's now the director of the CIA.
So I lured the boys and Dulles to the highlands
of Scotland and hooked them on NeSSI, the Lockness Monster.
(15:43):
Before starting any scientific investigation, you need intel. At the time,
I was an amateur and nineteen so I found what
I was looking for at a pub. The locals I
interviewed said Essie was spotted for the first time in
nineteen thirty three, when the A eighty two Highway was
(16:05):
reconstructed in the Highlands. They said the dynamite that blasted
open the rock walls woke something from its depths, a
creature they believed had inhabited the lock for centuries. The
locals warned us not to go out on the still
(16:27):
water at night. That's when NeSSI prays, So obviously we
went in the inky darkness. Nothing was visible. I had
to trust my instincts. But againness kept flowing, and when
dawn broke we woke up passed out on the shore.
(16:54):
Our boat was gone, and so was any hope of
finding NeSSI my first fling with cryptozoology, and I didn't
even get to first base. So just stroked my bruised ego.
I went back to the States and performed a cryptozoological miracle.
I frankenstein my own monster by breeding a hog and
a goat. That's right, a hog and a goat. The
(17:19):
offspring idious. He had the swine face of his father
and the hairy rear of his mother, never a great combo,
and his hoofs well, I'll never forget what those horns
felt like when he first jumped on my lap Oh.
Some people say crossbreeding is playing God, but only a
human would willingly create the devil's doppelganger and name him
(17:43):
Sweet William. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. I
was abusing my money, squandering it because I could. My
father wasn't around to give me validation, so I let
his money do it. But all of that changed summer
day in nineteen thirty eight when I saw a gun
(18:03):
press to my mother's temple. I remember that day being
(18:28):
just unbearably hot, the air stiff with humidity. Mother had
all the windows open in the drawing room, where my
sister Betty was playing the piano, which was being recorded
on their new Western Electric That's why you can hear
pieces of this horrific scene play out.
Speaker 14 (18:51):
Stop that screaming or up blow your head off, lady.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I had made the trip home to Oklahoma City that
summer to tell my stepfather, Charles Erschall, I was planning
to enlist in the Office of Naval Intelligence to assist
Europe in what would become World War Two. My stepfather
called me a hero. But when that hellion walked in
the front door that afternoon, grabbed my mother by her
(19:16):
hair and pressed the mouth of his machine gun to
her temple.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Up.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
I knew my stepfather was wrong. I was no hero.
I wasn't even in the room. Please don't hurt her,
but I heard everything.
Speaker 7 (19:35):
Look, we'll give you whatever you want.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
My stepfather was pistol whipped, took him out with one blow.
I didn't know it then, but this man holding my
family hostage was the notorious machine gun Kelly, the bank
robber is infamous as he was deadly.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
How are you doing this?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Why us?
Speaker 14 (20:02):
You made headline news with those millions you got.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
The week my father died, news of the seventy five
million dollars stead he left us was posted all over
the papers. Little did I know it had marked us
as fresh meat for vultures like Kelly to feed on later.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Okay, just take me. Don't touch my children, this real
little thing.
Speaker 7 (20:26):
Stop it, Betty, go on, Darling, play something for me.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Please, please don't hurt her.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I can't.
Speaker 14 (20:44):
She's why I'm here.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
You her sleep, Junior.
Speaker 14 (20:49):
You're all worked around twenty five thousand dollars ahead. You
can't expect me to turn that kind of money down, nap,
can you? The savior has reasen Take me stay on
the ground or all blast your sculling. And now before
I shoot her.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
They don't have the money you're after.
Speaker 14 (21:11):
You expect me to believe that. Look at this house,
that baby grand these earrings she's wearing.
Speaker 6 (21:20):
When I'm married Bernice, I took control over their estates.
Speaker 7 (21:23):
So all that money, it's mine.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Women.
Speaker 7 (21:28):
You don't get to keep nothing, do you.
Speaker 8 (21:33):
Well?
Speaker 7 (21:34):
Looks like this is goodbye, sweetheart.
Speaker 14 (21:38):
The gentleman has one. I got my gun right here
at your back.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
You feel it? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
It was then as they were leaving that I heard
my father's voice in my hand. I'm urging me to
be a man of the family. How do you on
this money as a form of luck? Now I was
time to try my hand at the real thing. So
I left my hiding spot and quietly approached Kelly as
(22:13):
he dragged my stepfather out of the room. When he
turned to face me, I treated him like I would
any formidable creature. I met his eyes first, trying to
form a connection.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
But in that moment, what your kid?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
I froze. I couldn't speak, move, breathe. Kelly rolled his eyes,
then spit a watt of tobacco in my face, or
at least I think he did. All I remember is
how my stepfather, who had called me a hero just
seconds before, couldn't meet my eye as he was viciously
(22:52):
dragged out the front door. That was one of the
lowest moments of my life. It's also when everything changed now,
when danger taunts me, I don't freeze, I chase it
and machine gun Kelly. Well, he didn't see me coming.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
Wait, that's it.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
There's a whole box of tapes there.
Speaker 10 (23:23):
But you know what happens, right.
Speaker 11 (23:24):
I know what side of the story Mom told me,
but I never heard it from Daddy, So.
Speaker 7 (23:31):
Got's let him tell us then.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
Tom Slick Mystery Hunter is a production of School of
Humans and iHeart Podcasts, starring Owen Wilson as Tom Slick,
Cissy Spasick as Claire Slick, Skyler Fiske as Livslick. Written
and directed by Caroline Slaughter, story editor Jeb Stewart. Executive
produced by Owen Wilson, Sissy Spasic, Skyler Fiske, Jeb Stewart,
(24:17):
Caroline Slaughter, Brian Lavin, L. C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, and
Virginia Prescott. Produced and assistant directed by Amelia Brock. Original score,
sound design, mixing and mastering by Jesse Niswanger, Casting by
Daisy Church and Caroline Slaughter sag coordination by Daisy Church
(24:38):
and Julia christ Gaw, Promo and trailers by Carl Catel.
Special thanks to Catherine Nixon Cook. Recording engineers are Tyler
Klang and Casey Pegram.
Speaker 12 (24:48):
For iHeartMedia Episode one, cast Ian Shaw as bud Ava,
Davis as Blair, Jackson Beals as Machine Gun Kelly, Tiffany
Morgan as Bernice Fratis, Lowry Brown as Charles Ursul, Mike
Shotts as the Voice of God in the introductory voiceover,
(25:11):
with additional roles voiced by David Devrees, Michael Mao, and
Phil Clark.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
If you're enjoying the show, share it with everyone you know,
and don't forget to rate and review in your favorite
podcast app. Tune in again next week wherever you get
your most thrilling adventure stories
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