April 30, 2025 • 72 mins
Join Joey and Gil on an odd journey into the captivating world of circus and carnival sideshows, where oddities and marvels steal the spotlight. Listen in as we delve into the lives of iconic figures like Mike the Headless Chicken and The Lobster Boy, Grady Stiles Jr. as we explore their stories and the fascinating history that surrounds them. Discover tales of beautiful and odd love, bizarre performances, and the strange allure of the circus and carnival. Grab your ticket and your seat and prepare for the show!
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SOURCES:
Sideshow 1:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyandotte_chicken
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
https://www.britannica.com/story/how-mike-the-chicken-survived-without-a-head
https://www.fruita.org/mike/page/history
Sideshow 2:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grady_Stiles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectrodactyly
https://allthatsinteresting.com/lobster-boy
https://www.kickassfacts.com/grady-stiles-jr-the-murderous-lobster-man/
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-11-06-mn-59142-story.html
Sideshow 3:
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Ringling Brothers, PT Barnum, traveling sideshows, circus
oddities, clowns, elephants, bearded ladies, Tom Thumb,
diving horses, the Elephant Man Circus and carnival sideshows
lit up the nights in the eyes ofonlookers as they pass by.
People couldn't get enough of these traveling oddities in the
golden age of circus claws like a lobster, heads so mutilated
(00:26):
you'd say they didn't even have one at all, and genetic
conditions so pronounced they'recalled another species.
Yet these people and animals live lives that some of us
didn't even dare to dream of. They were inevitable rock stars
of their generations and live the touring life.
Hendrix, Paige, Dylan, Joplin Cobain couldn't hold a candle to
(00:49):
some of their stories. Because today we're going to
delve into the lives of Carnivaland.
Circus sideshows. I didn't see you there.
It all started early this morning.
From hunting ghosts to Bigfoot UFOs.
Cryptids, true crime, paranormal, and more I always
wanted to see. AUFO Oh, I was.
I was researching for your entertainment.
(01:10):
That's Bigfoot's cat. He basically wrote the book on
Monarch. We aren't really comedians.
What if Buddha did cocaine? The Addams family on meth?
This is the Black Cat report. See you on the other side.
Hello all, and welcome to the Black Cat Report in episode 100.
(01:31):
Get it 129. He doesn't.
He doesn't even have that many fingers.
I am Joey, and with me is the Ohio Originator, the Dayton
Delicatessen, the Cincinnati Curator, the Akron Apothecary,
the Sandusky Scriber, the Youngstown Yachtsman, and last
(01:54):
but not least, the Toledo Torpedo Gill.
Hello everyone. Hello.
That was your nickname in high school I believe.
Toledo Torpedo. Amongst others, yeah, I feel
like my official nickname was Mr. Gilbert Bentley.
Could you please report to the principal's office that was that
(02:16):
was closer to my nickname? Yeah, but that was the adults,
what they called you. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah. Well, the ladies called me
Toledo. Silence.
They didn't call me. Oh, they called you.
Oh, wow, Wow, that happened. Well, it did.
(02:37):
It didn't actually happen now that it happened because they
just didn't call. And so the ladies, the ladies
called me. Crickets.
That was his nickname, Cricket. Before we get into today's
episode, we want to let you knowthat you can follow us on
(03:00):
patreon.com/blackcat Report and get some awesome cool things
too. When you join, we give you a
free upgrade to our librarian level.
Is that correct, Bill? We usually give everybody a free
upgrade to librarian level. Then we'll give you.
Something we give you an upgradeto something.
Well, you can get some of our lost episodes that we've never
released there and you know, we just never released them because
(03:21):
we just did something better. They're good episodes.
They're just on there ready for you to listen to.
You can also get Cup of Joey, which is also coming out on May
4th at 10 AM, so you'll get a chance.
We also do Game Nights Live, which me and Gil, we had to cut
from last week, but for no reason.
(03:42):
For no reason. But it just happened.
You can also. Yeah, go ahead.
You can also catch all the fun updates for all the things that
we're doing, anything that we get involved in multiple.
Look, hey, we're in desperate need of of subscribers.
(04:02):
I'm going to be honest with you,while we do have a lot, we're
greedy and we want more always more.
So if you work for the NSA, for the CIA, the FBI, pretty much
the only one we don't want is the IRS.
Any other three letter, actually, they can stay with me.
We got you join up, have fun. We constantly have a lot of
(04:25):
content coming out. I don't want to make this, this
is too long of an intro, but I will say that if you are joining
us on Friday during the YouTube premiere of this episode, don't
be bashful, don't be shy. Join us tomorrow, Saturday, May
the, I don't know, the third, third, something like that.
May the 3rd, May the 3rd for beer, booze and boogeyman which
(04:46):
the link will be in the show notes. 7:30 PM.
Eastern. 6:30 PM. Central. 5:30 PM mountain time
and 4:30 Pacific Time. So, yeah, just go keep going
back. And then we don't accept any of
the other farther back. If you have to do it yourself,
you have to do it yourself. Yeah.
(05:06):
Yeah. Well, the episode for beer biz
and Boogeyman is called DeathbedConfessions.
And we've we're we're, we got some awesome ones and we're
excited about this episode. Gil, can you tell them how they
can be a part of that episode? Yeah, it's super easy.
Go to Ghost dot beer. That's GHOST dot EE ER.
(05:29):
Once you're there, you have a plethora of options, but one of
the main ones that we'd love if you did is hop on down, Scroll
down the page. Just a just a title bit, just a
titty bit. Scroll down the page and click
on the submission option. Once you're there, you can
submit a form, you can submit a voice message, you can send us
an e-mail, you can link to a Google Doc.
(05:51):
All right. I even have the option for
carrier pigeon. It's it's pending right now.
I'm trying to bring them back from extinction, but I'm working
on it. You will have that?
Yeah. We're, we will have that option
soon. And the goal of this month's
episode, next month's whatever, is any crazy shit you've heard
(06:12):
someone confess or you heard of,heard of, heard of someone
confess on their deathbed, anything, anything goes.
And all of our submission options, even technically e-mail
anonymous, you can submit it completely anonymous and one of
us will read it on there. So make it, make it crazy, make
(06:35):
it dirty. Make it that juicy, that juicy,
juicy shit. Good stuff.
We love it, you know? Yeah, Yeah.
So yeah, deathbed confessions and the month afterwards, I
don't know what the fuck we're going to do, but we'll announce
it there. Be there Saturday, please.
It'll it'll be fun. But now we're going to get into
(06:56):
other interesting oddities of history This week as we're going
to delve into the weird traveling sideshows, the circus
of oddities, so to speak. I came across some of these
trolling Reddit posts. And this got me excited because
we had just finished a few weeksof heavy and intensive research
weeks from Ronald True to John RBrinkley.
(07:18):
This was a light and fun little air before Gil and I get into
delving into some more heavy research topics.
And once I tell you the name of the first one, I'm going to tell
you how I found the first Redditpost and how I got into doing
this. So I just want to tell you the
name of the first one. So the first little sideshow for
this week will be the cuddly andcute Mike the headless chicken.
(07:43):
And I want to tell you how I found this.
So I was trolling, you know, Reddit post as I was going down
as I was scrolling down, you know, it's it's a bunch of
history. It's a bunch of like this battle
was crazy. This person was crazy.
You see this? And then it was literally one
sentence and it said Mike the headless chicken.
(08:04):
And that stopped me in my tracks.
And just like you, if you know me, when I look at stuff, I'm
like, that's it. I got to do that.
I got to find that. So I googled it and I'm going to
tell you the story. On September 10th, 1945, a
farmer named Lloyd Olson of Fruta, Colorado was getting
prepared to eat supper with his mother-in-law and his wife.
(08:28):
His wife sent him out to choose a chicken so that they can get
it ready for eating. Olson chose a really young 5 1/2
month old Wyandot chicken named Mike.
The Wyandot chicken originally was called the American Sea
Bright Chicken, but was changed a little later on because I just
found a better name for it and it had a lot of uses.
(08:52):
The chicken itself was raised for natural brown eggs and
yellow skinned meat. It was also used for chicken
shows. And I sent a YouTube video to
Gil earlier about what I'm researching and how to judge
chicken shows and I found some interesting stuff.
(09:15):
I just want to share this real quick with you.
So in the chicken world, you're looking for 3 chickens in a
cage, right? So that's the first judge of it,
right? So there is going to be 1 male,
it's going to be like a rooster,and there's going to be two
hens, 2 females. And the judging, which is, you
(09:36):
know, the patriarchy knows no bounds.
The male brings in 50% of the judging points and the females
each split 25% of the judging points.
So you get the male, the rooster, 50 percent, 25 each.
And so that equals 100%. So a lot of what they're doing
is they're just picking up the chicken, they're looking at the
(09:57):
breastbones, they're looking at it making sure there's no like
cuts, there's no little like, you know, little worms or
anything in there to make it like look bad.
And So what I found is that it'schicken shows are just for
mostly kids and, and it's mostly4H chicken shows.
(10:20):
I also saw some that were like we're trying to sell chickens,
but it was just mostly for kids.So I lost interest after a
little bit, but that's what I learned for you guys.
So now you know, as much as I know.
And once you know, this gets, you know, bigger, this is just
going to grow bigger and it's going to be chicken shows added
to it. So I'm just going to inscribe
some of these. Well, Gil, now that you know how
(10:44):
to judge a poultry show, we're going to get back into it.
Lloyd chose Mike, grabbed Mike the little chicken, and he set
it up to be slaughtered. Yeah.
Little little chicken. Little chicken.
He didn't kiss him, though. He was.
He's ready. He's hungry.
You know, he was salivating a little bit.
He was like, set him up to be slaughtered so that they could
(11:06):
all have it for dinner. Lloyd brought down the axe
breakdown on Mike's head, but incorrectly brought it down at
the wrong angle, and instead of removing the whole head, he
removed most of the bulk of the head, but he missed the jugular
(11:26):
vein. He also left one ear and most of
the brain stem intact, so the brain signals could still be
sent from the brain to the body.And the Yeah, exactly.
The chickens brains, just so youguys know too, so you can
understand, are actually locatedright in the back of their head
behind the eyes. So the axe just barely missed
(11:48):
everything and he missed the thing that controlled breathing,
digestion and the other bodily functions.
Well, instead of finishing the job, which most farmers would do
and just be like, let's put thisthing out of its misery and then
cooking Mike for dinner, Lloyd decided that he would let Mike
(12:09):
live. He put Mike down, saw that Mike
could still walk, albeit very, very, very clumsily, almost like
a very drunk college student after Thirsty Thursday and all.
You can drink margaritas, but Mike could still walk.
You know, walk is a relative term.
(12:32):
Well, Mike's still. Headless Chicken and Mike and
Walk Wait, We'll we'll work on the lyrics.
We'll work on the lyrics. Yeah, we'll get we'll get a song
going. Well, Adam's lost him.
Yeah, that's all good. Well, Mike still attempted to
preen, you know, preen his feathers, Peck for some food and
(12:54):
crow, you know, make a nice little.
But honestly, pro that he would let out would be a mixture of a
gurgling sound made in his throat and a little yeah, yeah,
literally without it, couldn't even balk anymore, but gurgled
(13:15):
almost like a Chewbacca chicken.It's a mixture of Chewbacca and
chicken. This is a vegan episode.
OK, it is a big A you know, if you want to know what the how
the sausage gets made, this is what happens.
Well, because Mike couldn't really swallow large food or
(13:36):
anything solid due to pretty much the whole head being gone,
Lloyd took his time feeding him a mixture of milk and water in
an eye dropper and specifically picked out very miniature grains
of corn and worms to feed to him.
I'm making judgements about him and his wife's like him and his
(14:00):
wife's sexual life. This dude had way too much time
on his hands and he was just like, well I guess I'll just
meticulously feed this headless chicken because Lord knows I'm
not getting laid tonight. You know what it also tells me
too is that they might have had like a chicken, you know, like a
their kids. Either they couldn't have kids,
(14:21):
which it did never mention that they have kids or that they like
or that their kids, like, flew that flew their nest, you know,
flew the coop, so to speak. Makes sense, you know?
Yeah. Mm.
Hmm. Attracts.
Yeah. Well, Mike lived on, pretty much
lived on for a good while. And Lloyd, after telling his
friends about this chicken, decided that people would
(14:42):
definitely pay money to see this.
So he decided he's going to go to a few poultry shows.
He took him on a few poultry shows.
Everybody loved him. Was like dude is does that
chicken have? No head headless fucking
chicken. Yeah, it's a circumcised cock
(15:04):
right there. That's a that's a big deal at
this time in history. Yeah, Yeah.
It's just a little bit of deal, little, a little bit less of a
deal though. Yeah, well Mike and Lloyd
started going on a career of touring sideshows and October
22nd of 1945, which was only a month and 1/2 after Mike's
(15:27):
beheading, which I would say wasa career defining move any actor
would do. If that would get them into a
Marvel movie, they would behead themselves.
I've done more. I've done more for less.
Let me put it that way. Time magazine came and
photographed Mike and featured him in an article, which
(15:48):
actually you can read if you want to.
Go online today and read the article about Time about Mike.
Oh. Do you imagine that Instagram
account these days? It's like it would.
I'm just feeding my chicken. It's just like a straw and he's
just shoving it down his little chicken throat.
People would make a lot of inappropriate jokes about that.
(16:09):
Yeah, nowadays it would not be good.
I'm here for it. Yeah.
I would. I would watch it.
I'd follow. I'd follow.
I would follow too, Mike Douglaschicken done TV show and it
would get a HGTV show just beinglike, Mike, what do you think
about this new, new house? Yeah, yeah.
(16:31):
Sure as hell can't see he blocksaround and bucks and bucks and
we all are scared of he Mike. Mike the Headless Chicken.
I want to say he lives by the sea, but he doesn't.
He's like in the Midwest somewhere.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder if he could swim.
(16:53):
He could swim without a head. Yeah, I guess so would probably
just be more floating. But yeah, I mean like a Cox
natural habitat is some more wet.
This makes sense. Yeah, well after that, after
they went touring for a little bit and Time magazine took them
(17:14):
under their wing, Mike and Lloyd, the dynamic duo, went to
Long Beach, CA to perform in front of the returning troops
from the Pacific. He was entertaining the troops
on an what is it, the USO toys? Yeah, Mike, that list chick
(17:34):
visits the sea. He did get to the sea, Yeah, he
finally. Got needs to be a song.
Mm hmm. We'll make it afterwards.
It was rumored that Mike was part of the riots.
That's the troops did after the war ended.
I just made that up. That was actually what the fuck
did this. But he was close.
(17:55):
He was he was there in time for the riots though, of in, you
know, when they ride in San Francisco and they went and went
crazy in California after the war, you know, raping people and
doing crazy stuff. He was in that area of the world
at that time, so I'm not saying it didn't happen.
(18:16):
I'm not going to say he's related to Herbert the time
travelling chicken, but it's adding up.
I'm just saying it is adding up.It it sounds like it could be it
sounds like it could be Herbert,who is Count the Count of Saint
Germain's best friend, time travelling buddy.
(18:36):
His best friend is time travelling, his cousin, I guess
because that's that's the only thing that really tracks here is
like. A cousin would have to be time
travelling. You know, yeah, it tracks.
It tracks. Yeah, it tracks.
Yeah, it tracks. Well, to see Mike, you would
have to pay $0.25 at the time in1945, or what would be about
(19:00):
$4.00 a ticket today. So he said pretty good for a
literal headless chicken. It's pretty cheap to see him at
his peak. Beak Mike was actually worth
$10,000 in those days, which is now $140,000 today.
So a chicken worth $140,000. Mike was hidden it hard and
(19:25):
people were flocking to see him up to 600 people per day.
I'm just going to keep rolling through these puns, by the way.
Please keep going. Now, in what seems like an
otherworldly way, Mike continuedgrowing throughout this time
because remember when his head was cut off, he was only 2 1/2
months old when he was beheaded.And chickens grow up until they
(19:47):
hit the one year mark and becomefull adults.
So he's just slowly getting bigger with no head.
So it's just like, I think it just gets bigger.
So I don't I don't know how to like even say how that how to.
Show her is. What you're trying to say yes,
yes now. Mike was touring other places
such as Arizona and Nevada as well, just hitting that whole
(20:09):
West Coast. Well, Justice's head was cut off
just short. So was its life at two years
old. Mike would die so sad.
And March 1947 at a motel in Phoenix, AZ not.
Kidding. Overdose on fentanyl after.
(20:31):
Mike would gargle his last bulk.After a long day of performing,
Mike wanted to settle down and rest with some chicks and cluck
amine. Well, unfortunately, just like
Jimi Hendrix, Mike started choking on his mucus in the
middle of the night in the hotelroom, and Lloyd had left the
(20:53):
syringe they used to take out the mucus from Mike's throat at
the chicken show that day, and Mike choked to death as Lloyd
and his wife looked on, just like Hendrix.
She was in the 27 month club, yeah.
(21:13):
Yeah, actually, now there was some contention on the story at
the end because Lloyd had told people at that time that he sold
Mike to another promoter, but hewas trying to keep it so that
that so that promoter can use that and get money for it
because he's worth a lot. But later on, Lloyd himself
(21:36):
admitted that the chicken did pass in that hotel room in 1947.
Now that's not the end for old Mike because every year in
Fruta, Colorado they have Mike the Headless Chicken weekend
complete with a 5K called run Like a Headless chicken race.
(21:59):
They have egg tosses, a chicken cluck off chicken bingo.
This happens every year in the third or fourth weekend in May
and it is happening this year onMay 30th and 31st.
So if you are near Fruta, Colorado, please go do it and
send us pictures at contact thatBlack Hat dot report.
(22:21):
Can we can we put links and justhold on support this in the show
notes? Yes, we.
Will, like I, I want to support this, needs to continue into
history. I would say it needs to continue
into like obscurity, but it's way it's way that.
Needs to keep going, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
It was obscured the first year. I want to know how, how did they
(22:47):
pitch that to the mayor at the time?
There's like, I know, I know. We're here to talk about the new
water filtration system that's being installed on 37th Ave.,
which I am a resident of, as youknow from last week when we
talked about blue algae, all right, and it's incredible
(23:07):
health benefits. Now came across a little bit of
history. Now I know this cock ain't from
here, all right, it's a little bit of cock history.
Cock history is what I'm trying to say.
I know this cock ain't from here, but some cocks are
legendary. And they're just like, the whole
city council's just sitting there, just tuned in.
They're like, Sir, please. We are actually trying to figure
(23:32):
out how to cut down on Giardia infestations.
Throughout the city, 14 childrenhave died.
If you want to talk about children, you need to talk about
Cox. Everybody knows that.
And he's just, like, sitting there struggling.
Oh, he's bobbing, Mike the wholetime.
Yeah, no, he's bobbing, weaving,you know, like he's with me.
(23:54):
Yeah. Yeah, You know, and just.
I just got a new mic stand so I'm just.
He's loving it. Gil's loving.
It that that look at. That he's Muhammad.
Ali in it right now, sturdy, stiff, perfect is now like
floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee.
Yeah, that's right. I don't have anywhere to go with
(24:15):
that. I just I really do want a
picture. Just that now I heard tale about
this headless cock and he he, the guy refused to call it a
chicken is like I heard tale about a headless cop from this
area. Now the children need something
to inspire them to stay in our beautiful city of Fruitilia,
(24:38):
which I'm just going to make up the name.
That's that's, that's exactly what it's called.
Well, now, first, second sideshow performer, this is
actually a very, very, very longstory.
But Gil, before I get into this because of his long story, I
want you to tell me what your favorite sideshow perform.
(24:59):
Horse diving. Remember we talked about that,
the horse divers? Yeah, the horse.
Divers diving, horse diving, which I'm still kind of pissed
at PETA. Again, this is a vegan episode.
I'm still kind of pissed at PETAbecause in 2012 they tried to
bring back professional horse diving.
And by they I mean the resistance they tried to bring.
(25:23):
Circus day resistance. Circus day resistance, but they
they tried to bring back horse diving.
It's a professional sport. We're talking, you know, just
like the, the most sketchy, likeyou, you've been to circuses.
It's, it's, I mean the, the food, let alone the stands.
(25:44):
Everything about a circus is theillusion.
Your safety is an illusion, yourintestinal Biome an illusion.
Everything is being penetrated by reality.
Everything and there's no, there's no secure games.
There's that's not fucking plexiglass, that ain't going to
(26:07):
fucking save you, homie. That shit is that's just made of
a bunch of fucking melted like book packaging from Amazon, book
orders like that. That glass separating you and
the elephant, that shit's fake. Lick it, lick it.
It's old cotton candy. You know, all of that.
It's dangerous as fucking shit. That clown, I'm not going to say
he's a pedophile, but he used tobe a priest, so be careful.
(26:30):
He was. Used to file.
Yep. Yes.
And you know, so they would set up this would this would be a
long Pierce, you know, bodies ofwater, so to say.
And they would set up these likethis large scaffolding, real
secure. Real.
Yeah. Real secure, Yes, And somehow
(26:52):
get a full grown fucking horse. And for folks who haven't stood
next to a full grown fucking horse, go outside and touch
grass. I don't know what the fuck to
tell you. Anyways, go find it.
They're huge. And we're not even talking like
Clydesdale huge. They're just like boom, you
(27:12):
know? But anyways, they would get
these horses 4555 sometimes 6575feet up in the air.
Like picture of that picture of a cardboard building.
That's what it looks like painted.
And then there would be a dude up there and, you know, they
just found this dude on the street.
Oh, yeah. And they'd be like, all right,
(27:35):
we'll give you a bag of popcorn if you jump off this fucking
scaffolding with a full grown horse into a shallow body of
water. And that is the entertainment.
And it's just it, it's as awkward as you'd picture.
It's just nothing about it lookscomfortable.
(27:56):
Joey, if you can find a clip of horse diving and put it in here,
please put it in here. It's just like like, but if
(28:17):
you've ever ridden a horse, you know you're nuts hurt and you're
Vidigi. Whatever, whatever wiggle bits
you got, they hurt after riding a horse.
You really got to build up a tolerance to that.
I can't imagine the pains you will have after diving with a
fucking. But anyways, splash and just
(28:38):
into the water and everybody's just like the most magnificent
ever thing. Jesus came back after three
days, but he didn't dive with a horse.
That's what I'm seeing. Now that's what I've heard.
That's what I've heard. That horse dived for my sins,
all right. I honestly have no idea how they
(28:58):
it's fantastic. I I know it's fantastic, but
like who in their right probablywasn't in their right mind?
Who was like looking up like. Running from gambling, That's
like. Yeah.
Somebody was, yeah, Crab Boy wasrunning from gambling dead
against the bearded woman and just fucking dived and Barnum
and Bailey was sitting there like, you know what?
I got another idea. Oh.
(29:21):
PC Barnum. Popcorn at the pier just
watching them. Yeah, I love it.
I also love the picture crab boyjust on a horse like and he's
like no. Well, at least he went back home
to the water. Yeah, and you know, it's funny
that you should say crab boy because the next one is going to
(29:42):
be probably my favorite story that I read.
This one is about Grady Stiles Junior which is his real name.
Grady Stiles Junior was born on June 26th 1937 with a genetic
condition called Ectrodactyly orlike a cleft hand or split hand.
(30:08):
The split in the hand was causedby a missing middle digits so in
essence look like a lobster clawlike hand as Gil is definitely
mirroring it right now. The syndrome itself is commonly
referred to as lobster claw syndrome.
(30:29):
Just like you were talking aboutinstead of the crab, just the
lobster claw and Grady. It was so severe that it also
encompassed his feet too so he was not able to walk.
Exactly Gil it Gil's. Gil's definitely miming it and
he can say this because this guywas a piece of shit, so.
Glad I clipped my toenails today.
(30:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, his family had a
history of the genetic condition.
Grady's father also had this genetic condition, and two of
Grady's children had this condition as well.
And due to this condition, Gradywas forced to use a wheelchair
for his entire life. And it was said that that is
(31:13):
what made him so freakishly strong is that he was using the
wheelchair and he had to use, you know, as much as he could
his upper body to get him where he needed to go.
Please tell me. Please tell me that the the rims
on the wheelchair were bent so he can only 6 seconds just by
(31:44):
coming. I don't think so.
I think it was just a normal because it's what they could
afford at the time. I could never work in a in a
circus with like a freak show because I'd just be fucking with
people so much. You would be fucking you know
what? And they don't care.
Just like the the crab or lobster, whatever.
I'm just going to say crab because it's funnier.
(32:06):
I'm just like, yeah, crab boy. And he's like trying to come
towards you. But the wheelchair just.
Yeah, it only goes side to side.I'm going to get you.
Oh my God, almost. Great visuals.
Great visuals. Thank you for it.
Thank you for it. You know what, Gil?
That's what we pay the big bucksfor the visuals we do.
(32:28):
Well, Grady's father was a basically a traveling sideshow
performer already before becausehe had the same condition.
He just wasn't as well known. So the whole entire Grady family
blood was in the circus. Grady joined his father at a
very, very, very young age. At about 7 years old, he started
(32:52):
performing so super young for what I would call some of the
golden age of circus three. He toured around with his
father, being a marvel of seeingeyes of the United States, and
he took on the moniker of Lobster Boy and would eclipse
his father's fame. Now his sideshow was pretty much
(33:15):
him pulling himself up onto the stage and sitting on top of a
cushion inside a probably sweltering tent in the summer
into fall. That's the definition of
demeaning. That's that's pretty.
That's pretty bad. Yeah, Yeah.
But. But in his defense, he would
(33:36):
famously start out with his showas saying, good evening, ladies
and gentlemen, I am the lobster boy.
This condition is not caused by drugs or diseases.
It runs in the family. He just, you know, right, throw
it out there. What are they going to do?
Yeah. Well, he gained such notoriety
(33:58):
throughout this time that he waspulling in between 50,000 and
$80,000 a season. And this is in 191950.
That's 1950 money. Yeah, it's 1950 money.
I would do some real nasty shit for that much money back then.
I'd do that much for now, you know what I'm saying?
(34:20):
But like, yeah. Yeah.
But that's a lot of that's like over 50,000.
I mean it's probably in the 300 to 400,000 if we want to think
of it because they were chargingthe chicken $0.25 and it was
$4.00, so. Is this pre Trump or post Trump?
(34:42):
You know what I'm saying? That that really effects prices.
19 Yeah, 1950s I guess I'm gonnasay it's a.
Is this a few months ago or right now?
A. Little bit of pre Trump, a
little bit of a tiny bit, yeah. Yeah.
Well, it was a lot for a carnival sideshow act 50 to 80
K. It's way more than I make,
(35:03):
right? Lobster for that, Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. With you, buddy.
Well. Over the years of touring the
country, Grady eventually lost all of his hair.
I don't know why I thought that's so funny, but I just
looked more like a lobster. He's turning more into a
lobster. So I mean, it's fine.
(35:30):
It's truth. And because he he brought it on
himself by doing stuff he did later and he named himself and
because of having to use his wheelchair, he became very
barrel chested. So he just like got like we're
saying early he got like buff. He was like big, you know,
heavy. And he eventually married a
woman named Mary Teresa in 1958.And they had two children
(35:55):
together, Donna and Kathy. Kathy was born with the same
genetic condition as her father.Well, Mary Teresa eventually had
to run away from her abusive home when she was young, and
that's how she joined the carnival when she was in her
teenage years. And through the early years of
(36:17):
their marriage, Mary Teresa saidthat Grady the Lobster boy was a
kind and loving man, being a nurturer for the kids.
And then came along. Heavy drinking, right?
Some people go crazy, some people don't.
(36:38):
She said he was partial to Seagram 7 double s with the
splash of Coke. And that's a terrible drink.
Yeah, that's a terrible drink. Look there, there's drinkers,
there's heavy drinkers and there's other folks out there.
We all know about those other folks, but Seagram's drinkers
(36:58):
you. Know it's the worst.
I just, it's not, you know, if like you, if you only drank,
yeah, like if you only drank Keystone Light, you might still
have some redeeming factors, some redeeming qualities.
You know, your quality might be found somewhere else besides the
quality of your, of your beer, your drink.
(37:19):
Yeah. Yeah.
But like Seagram's drinkers, dude, like I think the most
desperate I've ever been my entire life.
And it like, and you were there during Hurricane Helene, my my
landlord actually, because we were all just kind of checking
in on each other. We're all neighbors and shit,
(37:40):
You know, he gave me a bunch of alcohol.
He doesn't drink, but he just had a bunch and he's like, fuck
it, and I'm going to be out. You were here.
It was like 10/30, 9:30 AM In the days afterwards, everybody
in the city was plastered because by the second and third,
yeah, second and third day, all we had was alcohol left.
(38:00):
And so it was like 10:30 in the morning and we're just like,
fucking whatever, man. Yeah, but that's I, I broke down
and I drank like Seagram, like coolers or something like that.
You were crying and I saw it. I, I would.
Yeah, I was crying. I was crying.
Well, I had to flavor it with something.
And so I flavored it with my tears.
It was like my shame. Yeah, Seagram shame.
(38:21):
And I'm gonna be honest, out of everything that happened, that
was probably the biggest tragedy.
Me drinking sequence, I would say yeah.
Out of all of the catastrophe, it was Seagram's, some of us had
to resort to Seagram's, That's how bad it was.
Just like the shame from. Therapy for this?
(38:43):
Yeah, yes, Grady should have felt a lot of shame because
after years of physical abuse and sexual abuse to marry Teresa
and just physical abuse to the kids, they were divorced in
1973. Teresa eventually remarried a
man named Harry Glenn Newman, who was billed as the world's
(39:06):
smallest man. So she left the lobster boy.
And for the world's smallest man, you got a joke.
You got a joke there. Go.
You got you got 1 coming in the in the shotgun there.
You got another I I have nothingto add well.
Funnily enough, Grady actually took charge of the children.
(39:31):
He took the children to his hometown in Pittsburgh.
She didn't even get to keep the children, which is crazy.
Yeah. He put them in his claws and
walked away. And there he married a woman
named Barbara and didn't give usdetails on what her first, you
know, her, her maiden name was. But.
Ah bro, the human BBQ. Actually don't know if she was
(39:54):
part of the circus. It was funny.
I think she was the. Most high paying fashion model
of the era probably. Yes, one of the hottest.
Well, this marriage ran the same.
Yeah, you know what? Some.
Some women like crab, some womenlike lobster.
Well, this marriage ran the sameas his last marriage, as he was
(40:16):
highly abusive to his children and new wife.
And in 1978, five years after they had moved to Pittsburgh,
his daughter Donna fell in love with a young man and they were
engaged to marry. Right now, there was some
contention on how the next part of this went down because this
(40:37):
is very important for this wholestory.
And I almost thought of making this story, just this guy's
story, into a full episode, but it just wasn't enough.
I think this is most likely whathappened between the two sides
on the day before the wedding. You know, Donna fell in love
with this man. They're about to get married.
(40:59):
Grady invited Donna's fiance over to the house.
So basically, in essence, you know, give his blessing, maybe
have a good-natured chat with him, right?
Just, you know, give him a little, give him a little claw.
Well, I imagine there was some words said about how Grady did.
I cannot really approve of him because Grady didn't really
approve of him. He thought he was just a no good
person and he didn't think he was right for Donna.
(41:21):
And Grady was very, very protective.
Well, in the heat of the moment,Grady took out a shotgun and
blew away the fiance, killing him.
Donna said in the court documents that her father
afterwards, after he had shot her fiance, was sitting on the
porch on a chair, smiling and then said, I told you I would
(41:45):
kill him. Yeah.
He just said he was like, I toldyou.
And she's so. Yeah.
No, Grady actually admitted to this in court point blank.
He admitted that he shot him andkilled him.
Damn. No, no remorse.
Just said it in court. And they were just like, OK,
(42:09):
like we, yeah, we were thinking he was going to have to go to
trial. Did you plead not guilty and
take this to trial? Yeah.
And then testified and then toldus a.
Lot of more people didn't know, yeah.
Well, really big twist in this story.
Probably the third twist in thisstory, and there's more coming.
The only thing was right, the prison system was not designed
(42:34):
to handle someone with his genetic condition exactly.
They were not He also after thisbecause of the seagram sevens
had cirrhosis. Of the liver put on these pants.
Yeah, and he had cirrhosis of the liver too, from all the
seagram sevens, so. Another reason not to drink
(42:55):
Seagram's. This episode is brought to you
by Seagram's Haste the Disappointment.
Yeah, Yeah. It's like toothpaste but
carbonated, you know? Well, so instead of life in
prison, which he should have gotten, they gave him 15 years
(43:15):
of probation outside of jail in his home.
Mean, did you see him? Yeah.
Yeah, basically a slap on the wrist for the cold blooded
murder He. Based.
I'm going to be honest, he was born in prison, but like.
Yeah, he was. That's the thing though, about
about lobsters is First off, it's I'm, I'm, I'm fairly
(43:39):
certain it's impossible for life.
They made for life. We have to.
Cut that off that's that's hard to tell because we don't
actually know how old lobsters are They just keep fucking
growing they basically do the lobster.
It's like the monster mash, but it's a lobster mash.
They just like they malt into a new hard shell.
(43:59):
They're they're bugs. They're fucking bugs.
Don't say not and sometimes they.
Die. They just get too big.
As far as I know from my very expert college level
understanding of, and by that I mean fell asleep watching a
YouTube short one time, he picked out a lot.
(44:20):
You could trust this. No they I'm I'm fairly sure
scientists. I didn't say which scientists,
but scientists. A group of scientists.
Scientists have no clue how old lobsters are.
There's no way to tell. I know that like blue lobsters
are like kind of a big fucking deal.
(44:40):
And if you're in Maine and shit,they have to like throw them
back. And there's like a whole
ceremonial process, like no touchy.
But like as a whole, like lobsters are anomalies.
They're just kind of like out there, you know, they're kind of
like, what is it like the isolated shark or the is that
right? The Greenland shark?
No, I think it I don't know one of those fucking cold ass
(45:03):
places. You don't know about the the
fucking the ancient shark still alive?
Nope, the whole species of them.I'm pretty sure it's the
Greenland shark now that I didn't think about it.
Greenland shark gets so fucking old that like literally just
like loses its eyesight and justhas fucking parasites like
little cook spaghetti hanging out of its eyes and it just
(45:24):
lives in like the coldest fucking darkest regions and it's
like I've been around since before before and just like
swims around Greenland shark cool as fuck, ancient as fuck.
It's really hard to to date themmainly because they don't get
cell phone reception that low down there.
(45:44):
They're. Not good at texting back.
Yeah, that was real bad. Yeah.
And their eyesight's very tender, so, you know, they be.
Yeah. And so it's crazy because they
mumble, you know, these little 90% of mumble rappers are
Greenland sharks. Proven.
(46:06):
Well, obviously after this big shotgun, these two big shotgun
blasts, they got divorced and Barbara and him got divorced.
But, and what would be another real weird turn of events, he
then remarried his first wife after she had left the World's
Smallest Man and came back to the Lobster.
(46:27):
Boy. In 1989, and not too long after
that, the beatings began again and he was just as abusive as
before. He hadn't changed, Married,
Teresa did say, said he at the beginning said he would quit
drinking and gave them all the normal stuff and I'll be a good
person again. And she fell for it again.
(46:50):
Well, and one instance Mary Teresa said that she woke up to
him trying to smother her with apillow, and then another time
she woke up with a knife to her throat.
Mary Teresa decided enough was enough.
She began pondering what to do and hatched a plan.
(47:11):
All the while, they were still out touring and performing on
the road as the Lobster family, right?
They were still doing all this. And at this time, Grady had
actually bought some of his own touring carnivals and circuses.
He was actually very wealthy. He started becoming really
wealthy for this somebody that basically started growing up and
(47:31):
traveling tours. Like we said, he's making a lot
of money. And Teresa and her oldest
teenage son, Harry Glenn Newman the third, contrived a plan.
And this is going to be where the next turn comes.
They hired a friend who lived next door to them and went to
(47:53):
school with Newman. They paid him $1500 to murder
Grady. Well, pretty good pay.
On November 29th, 1993, nineteenyear old Chris Wyant, who lived
next door to them, snuck into the house and hid in a backroom
waiting for Grady to return home.
(48:15):
Once Grady doing who the fuck knows out wherever he's going.
But once Grady had returned homeand sat down to watch some TV,
Chris Wyant snuck into the room and put 232 caliber bullets boom
boom right into the brain of Grady, ending the Lobster Boy's
(48:36):
life and probably one of the most highest earning sideshows
ever. Damn, sorry Lobster boy.
Funny enough, remember how Lobster Boy Grady had actually
gotten pretty much gotten off from being from murder?
(48:57):
Wyant, the person who murdered him with two bullets to the back
of the head, was convicted of second degree murder for the
actual killing, and Harry, the son who was considered the
mastermind behind it, was convicted of first degree murder
and sent to life in prison. Mary Teresa, who said in her
(49:18):
defense that my husband was going to kill my family.
I believe that from the bottom of my heart, but I'm sorry this
happened. But my family is safe now.
She said that during the court process was sentenced to 12
years in prison. The only person Lobster, right?
(49:42):
Yeah. The Red Lobster.
Gil, I'm pretty sure that's where your knowledge from
Lobster comes from, is you sitting there in the Red Lobster
cage looking at it, at the Red Lobster just being like, I want
that one. And I've never even been to a
Red Lobster that. That's how knowledgeable you are
a. Professionalism you can expect
here at Black Lobster Report. Yes, we are now combining
(50:06):
ourselves with you know what? I actually heard Red Lobster is
making a comeback. Really.
They got over the the cheddar debacle.
I just made that up. I don't know if there's a.
Cheddar, those cheddar biscuits.Cheddar biscuits.
Who wouldn't want those? Ever had them?
(50:27):
I'm not a huge seafood person, you know what I'm saying?
I'm not either. I do like some Alaskan crab legs
though. Alaskan king crab legs.
Snow crab legs. Or shrimp scalps.
Either of them. Scalps are kind of like the only
like sea bug that I really care for.
No thank you. No mussels, no fish.
I'm good with that fish. You like fish though.
(50:48):
I love. Fish.
I fucking love salmon. Damn it, I love salmon, Salmon,
tuna, swordfish, shark, what else?
Mahi mahi, love it. But yeah, now that the lobster
boy's been cooked, we can head out into actually something that
(51:11):
I really wanted to, you know, I really wanted to end this on a
good note because the other two,they both ended up murdered.
So our episodes end up with the person dying and the person, you
know, just no good episodes, youknow, I feel like the last two,
both of them. Never had a good.
You know, never had a good one the the the last two stories,
both of them died at the end andboth of them died real quickly.
(51:34):
You know, not too not too young and they weren't happy.
You know, Mike Tedless chicken wasn't happy two years of
gargling. You know, blood was not happy.
The lobster boy was drinking Seagram 7 and got 2 bullets in
the back of the spring. So this was billed as the
strangest romance in circus history.
(51:56):
And the last story, the marriagedidn't turn out too well at all.
But in this story, we're going to talk about a circus sideshow
marriage that turned out to be the best of us.
And I don't know if you've ever seen that show, but now I'm
going to name the show, but I don't know if you've seen it.
I haven't seen it. This Is Us.
(52:16):
Priscilla Roman, or the Monkey Girl as she was known on stage,
was born in Bayamon, Puerto Ricoon April 26th, 1911.
She was known as the Monkey girlnot because of just her full
head of dark hair, but also because she had a layer of
coarse dark hair covering her entire face and entire body.
(52:38):
She also had two rows of teeth adding into that, like, weird
that not weird, but that like different looking teeth to kind
of make it look a little more monkey like.
You know, She was diagnosed. Yeah.
Yeah. She was diagnosed as having a
genetic condition and there was no cure.
(52:58):
She was eventually diagnosed with hypertrichosis, which to
this day still has no cure. It's just basically covered in
hair pretty much. And the only thing you can do
is. Just She almost looked like 2
partially inflated basketballs shoved into.
(53:19):
He's just going to use that description for everything from
now. Everything.
You know how long it took me to come up with that.
I need to get as much mileage out of this as possible.
It was such a good one. Well, because of all the trips
to the doctor to kind of diagnose her, Priscilla's family
was broke and in need of money. They agreed to let her be in an
exhibition at three years old. So young.
(53:44):
Yeah, that's right. She started performing.
Just talk about it. I was going to say talk about a
neppo baby, but no, just talk about a used.
Oh yeah, Just talk about a. Worse than Macaulay Culkin?
Yeah, this is Macaulay Culkin. She was performing in the show
(54:07):
owned by Carl L Luthier, who ended up actually adopting
Priscilla after her father passed away when she was six
years old. So.
Honestly, I meant macaque. Anyways, I'm.
Yeah. Well, sorry Joey, we need to run
it all the way back. We need to start over again.
Makaki Caulkin. That's what I meant to say.
(54:30):
Because a a bird. Well.
You're from. Ohio.
It's the excuse. Yeah.
Toledo Torpedo. They were very good parents for
the most part because they hiredtutors to teach her, hired
people to show her how to dance and such.
And they basically wanted to give her the best, you know,
(54:51):
even though she had this, you know, genetic condition that
caused her to have hair everywhere in 2nd row of teeth.
When Priscilla complained of being bored and lonely, her
family bought her a pet, a chimpanzee.
It was Lobster Boy, no. They bought her a chimpanzee.
(55:11):
OK, All right. Yeah.
Now, I don't know if this was kind of a backhanded thing,
honestly, because they were calling.
Her a monkey girl. Pretty rough, yeah.
Well, a pretty bad joke, but they did love her daughter, so
this wasn't, you know it. She performed with the
chimpanzee too, so it was kind of like a thing they just kind
(55:33):
of added to the whole show. But this is also, this is back
when I mean, cuz this was acceptable until like honestly,
yours and mine's lifetime. This was still acceptable.
Yeah, to own a pet chimpanzee ormonkey or whatever, like it was.
Acceptable. Well, not acceptable because all
(55:53):
but. 1520 years ago, like prettymuch like Michael Jackson kind
of like rode that chimp out of style that was like that, that
bubble popped with bubbles, you know, and like, but even in the
90s, it was still like, oh, somerich motherfucker with a
chimpanzee that just wears a diaper running around.
This is normal, you know? Now it's like, this is really
(56:15):
fucked up, dude. Also, your head's gonna be a
blonde there, you know? Yeah.
Oh yeah, they're gonna RIP off your face.
Yeah, 100 percent, 100% like. Do you like having your bad?
Skin when you miss dinner. Bro, Yeah.
Do you like skin? Don't get a chimpanzee if you
do. Yeah, well, with the chimpanzee,
she performed throughout the 1920s and 1930s, billed as the
(56:39):
Monkey Girl. With her pet chimpanzee, she got
even more famous. And this kind of goes into one
of our other stories during the Scopes trial about evolution,
which is funny enough because from our last story with John R
Brinkley, his arch nemesis played a part in that trial.
He played actually a huge part in that trial.
(56:59):
He was helping to knew the lawyer was working on both sides
and was like talking to each of them.
It was very interesting. So it kind of touches that
trial. One part of her show during this
time was that she would have a mock debate with an orangutan
named Snooki. Priscilla represented the pro
(57:20):
evolution. It was from Jersey Shore.
Yeah, Oh. My God.
I thought you said. There'd be a lobster here.
Perfect, perfect. There's my bullet I.
Cannot think of this Snooky fromspecific.
Not from Jersey Shore, but from South Park.
(57:44):
Yeah, that's Snooky. Yeah, that's Snooky version.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is snooky.
Shout out. Also fun fact.
And this actually made me give respect for Snooky.
I'm taking this. I'm running with it.
Go ahead Snooky it this might bring us down a few points, but
fuck it, I don't care. It's it's actually legit.
(58:05):
I heard a fascinating interview with Snooki about their belief
and UFOs and aliens and how theyhad their own personal
experiences. And it was actually it was nice
to hear them off camera, still behind the mic, but off camera
and kind of talking on like this, like pretty.
(58:27):
I was a niche and nerdy like down and dirty but really good
podcast so if you want to hear some crazy shit you should.
Y'all should go look up Snooki talking about aliens.
Snooki is a huge Snooki come on the show.
She she's never coming on. Will not know.
She's she's never coming on and that's OK.
(58:50):
And that was our Jersey Shore moment, but OK.
Yeah, that was the situation. Well choice like March and
delete later. Deleting.
Yeah, I'm, no, I'm not deleting that in the video.
I'm deleting that in my brain. So yes, two bullets to the
skull, one part of her show during cutting a certain angle
(59:10):
and cutting off the half that I don't need to live.
One part of her show during thistime was that she would have the
mock debate with the orangutan name Snooki.
Priscilla represented the pro evolution side and Snooki argued
against it apparently. But it's also not known who won
the argument. It was in court and they don't
(59:34):
know who won the argument. It was a mock debate on on a
stage. They were messing around that.
Is weird, but I like it OK. We are talking like circus
sideshows, so it's OK that it's weird.
This is normal. It's OK, it has to be weird and
this is the but it's going on atlike we're doing this at the
(59:55):
same time of the trial. That's why it's so big.
It's because the Scopes trial was happening and they use this.
They use the monkey girl, they use Priscilla, and then they use
an orangutan to kind of. Jokingly poke fun at the trial
and that's why they were doing it is because everybody at this
time knew about this trial and then they were like, let's go
(01:00:16):
see now that we've watched the trial, you know, we got there
and went and watched trial. Let's go see a monkey and a
monkey girl. Like argue about for evolution
and probe and anti evolution. I think the monkey won.
I think the monkey won. He just like picked up a rock
and just knocked the fuck out and they were like technically
by law he just won. By monkey law, well, you know,
(01:00:41):
you never know. We don't know Monkey law.
We don't know Monkey Law. Gill's Lobster law, though in
1936 she was travelling with Johnny J Jones, Triple J
Expositions Oddities of the 20thCentury show when she would meet
the love of her life, J3 Johnny J Jones.
(01:01:06):
I don't. J3J3, his name's J Three, Yeah.
Pretty famous back in the 20 back in the 20s. 30s and 40s and
50s J3 was huge. I don't know why but J3.
He had expositions. But there, at that place, she
(01:01:27):
met the love of her life, EmmettBejano, known as Lobella the
Alligator Boy. Yep, Yep.
Flower Howard is what the alligator boy.
Lobella, the alligator boy. Yeah, Lobella's a a flower
genus. That's a very, that's a cool
(01:01:47):
name. I will 100% give credit.
Like that's a very beautiful. It's a it's a very cool name.
I like that. I like that.
Yeah. I got nothing to say but yeah.
I like his name too well. Emmett Bajano.
The Bajano. I think it's Bajano born as
Emmett Driggers. Yeah, it's definitely Bajano if
(01:02:07):
he was born as Emmett Driggers was born in Punta Gorda, FL and
born in Florida on August 23rd, 1914.
His parents divorced at around six years old and his father put
him in an exhibition with JohnnyBiano of Morris Castle Shows.
And just like with Priscilla, when Emmett's father died,
(01:02:28):
Johnny Biano adopted him and that's how he got the last name
from the the from the person whoran the sideshow act.
Emmett had Lamarlo. Sorry, I'm apologizing ahead of
time. Emmett had lemelar ichthyosis,
which is a hereditary condition that causes thickening and
(01:02:51):
cracking of the skin. It itself shows kind of like
reptilian scales, hence the nameAlligator boy.
Again, just like with Priscilla,there is no cure for this,
though there were some remedies.He would constantly oil his face
and hands so that the skin wouldsoften out for a little bit.
(01:03:14):
So he's just constantly oiling himself up.
And he would do that and wear really long sleeve shirts and
like very big collared shirts. I feel like he was a big
turtleneck guy just to hide it so people wouldn't notice in
like Florida and Florida, right?Yeah.
This is this is psoriasis times 10,000.
(01:03:37):
That's what it. Sounds like it is.
It's real bad. And and while you're watching,
I'll put up photos of this stuffof these two so you get to see
everybody. But after his shows, he would
have to be dipped in ice baths due to his skin not being able
to sweat like everybody else's, to cool down because of the
cracked skin. It was so tight and like, caught
(01:03:58):
up against his body, he couldn'tsweat.
So he had to be dipped in ice bass or else, you know, he would
overheat. It would get real bad.
Ouch, dude. Yeah, that was a poor guy.
Poor guy. Honestly, like, these two are
great people, so I'm just ruining it.
They're great people. Nothing bad.
This is horrible, Yeah. When Emmett and Priscilla met,
(01:04:19):
they felt instant attraction andwith their very, very, very
similar histories, they eloped just after a few months.
I know, it's so hard. Hell yeah yeah.
Hope. And in January, I know I'm too.
And so I want to end it on this.In January of 1938, they eloped.
They had tried to have a child in 1939, but unfortunately their
(01:04:43):
child Francina passed away at 14weeks due to pneumonia.
I know it was one of the bad parts, it was so sad, but I know
they returned to the stage in 1945.
What's funny enough is it the child passed away not because of
either of their two genetic conditions.
It just died of pneumonia and itdidn't have either of their
conditions, which is great. They did eventually return to
(01:05:07):
the stage in 1945 with Ripley's Believe It or Not Tor donned as
the world's strangest married couple.
So they are out there strutting their stuff together.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
How do we? Joey, you've inspired me.
I'm taking a moment. I'm taking the mic.
Take it, take it, I'm taking themic.
(01:05:29):
So if anybody, and this counts, if you're listening to right
now, if you're a member of the circus, if you're a member of a
freak show, anything like that, hit us up.
We will give you full access privilege to, to everything in
our Patreon. Cuz you know, we, we, we tout
(01:05:51):
Art Bell all the fucking time askind of like the godfather of,
of paranormal podcasting, right?Kind of running that shit before
podcasts even existed. But honestly, the freak shows,
the circuses, the side shows, this has always been a part of,
of, of human, of, of being a human is loving these types of
(01:06:15):
things and y'all are keeping that dream alive.
So hit us up. Thank you.
At some point in the future, just be like, hey, you don't
even got to give us your name. We just need your e-mail.
We will hook you up full access just for thank you for keeping
this weird ass dream alive. Anyways, Joe, you left me
inspired. I'm sorry I had to take that.
I had to take. I love it.
No, I'm glad. Feeling inspired over here.
(01:06:36):
I I wanna. Say is that of course they both
got the normal people that wouldmake fun of them, do names on
them, but Priscilla would alwaysrespond in the same way.
I can see you for nothing right here, but you had to pay to see
me. Boom.
(01:07:04):
Yeah, I was like, Dang, hell yeah.
Priscilla, dude, she's a bad asstoo.
If you listen to her talk, because there's some stuff about
her talking and, and like a lot of quotes from her, she's just
like, I didn't care. I was living a good life and
making money. I don't give a fuck.
I meant. And she she would say, I may
look a little strange to the normal person, but what does
that bother me? I'm still living a good life.
(01:07:26):
And I was like, oh, man, she's got it figured out.
Yeah, hell yeah. Full respect.
Always be yourself. Well, there we go.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, they performed with Ripley's
Believe It Or Not and eventuallybought a home in Gibsonton, FL,
which is literally where all of these people lived in this
(01:07:49):
story. Except for the chicken.
They were all, all the carnival and circus people retire and
like live in this one town in Florida, Gibsonton.
And if you really look it up, you'll start seeing this is
where they like live and during the offseason and where like
they when they retire, they all go here.
They eventually adopted a son named Tony in the 1960s and then
(01:08:12):
named their property the Pet Ranch.
For Priscilla, Emmett and Tony, they were just living this great
life. They both, I know they both
retired from performing in the 1980s to their property in
Gibsonton, FL. They actually were one of the
few people in like few sideshow performers that actually got to
(01:08:33):
retire and just live out their normal life.
They did actually also star in afew TV shows and movies which is
kind of cool. They notably starred alongside
Jodie Foster and Gary Busey in the 1980 film Carney.
That makes sense. Which makes sense.
Yeah, it just makes a lot of sense. 90% of the film was just
(01:08:54):
Gary BC like. Gary Busey was the real Carney
in that film. I think he didn't even need to
go on the sideshow. Yeah, to end it.
They both passed away peacefully.
Emmett in 1995 and then Priscilla in 2001.
And then again, I wanted to end our episode with just this
(01:09:16):
beautiful story, heartfelt story, because I feel like a lot
of other ones. We talked about some terrible
people, you know, and we're happy when they died, but I was
very sad that they died. They died peacefully and they
loved each other and they for somuch.
They talked about how much they loved each other and how much
amazing it was to live together.And so this circus or carnival
(01:09:38):
marriage, whatever you want to call it, was beautiful.
And you know what? I'm here for it.
Me too bud. I'm here for.
It fan fucking pastic. I hope.
I hope we can all find a love sofreakish as theirs, you know?
(01:10:00):
Yeah, and you know what? I'm ready.
Thank you so much for listening to the Black Cat report into
tuning into us here coming up this weekend.
This weekend, you can tune into us with Beer, Booze and
Boogeyman on May 3rd at 7:30 PM Eastern with the episode on
(01:10:24):
Deathbed Confessions. Gil, hit him up with the info
after you're done crabbing and lobstering over there.
He just lobstered off the screen.
So I'm going to give you the info.
You can find it at literally Ghost dot here.
You can send in anything anonymously.
You can send it up. GAIL is done.
(01:10:46):
He's crabbing everywhere and also releasing on May 4th at 10
AM. May the Fourth be with You is a
Cup of Joey on Patreon, so sign up to get some extra content you
can't find anywhere else but on patreonpatreon.com/flat Cap
Report. And now Gil and I want to
especially thank our Patreon listeners and our special circus
(01:11:13):
carnival freaks out there and all the ways and all the things
that you do. We would like to think Tristan,
Bud, Don Thomas, Little Mystery,Bobby Betspay, Lucas, Tim D,
Max, Ian Morgan, Dragon Ball from the Star Blood kind of
(01:11:34):
podcast, Tim Miller from Miller's Monsters, Marissa
Gavin, fearless leader of the chicken called Rachel, AB,
Jayden, Jackie, Yellow Bear, Dwayne AKA Nashville, Alyssa,
Bree, Michael, Extreme, Kristen from Paranoia podcast, James and
most importantly of course, got to break the time for this one
(01:11:56):
our sexiest producer. Happy Kitty.
Thank you all and hope you guys have a wonderful day, night,
evening. We love you all, Bye.
Ringling Brothers, PT Barnum, traveling sideshows, circus
oddities, clowns, elephants, bearded ladies, Tom Thumb,
diving horses, the Elephant Man Circus and carnival sideshows
lit up the nights in the eyes ofonlookers as they pass by.
People couldn't get enough of these traveling oddities in the
golden age of circus claws like a lobster, heads so mutilated
(00:26):
you'd say they didn't even have one at all, and genetic
conditions so pronounced they'recalled another species.
Yet these people and animals live lives that some of us
didn't even dare to dream of. They were inevitable rock stars
of their generations and live the touring life.
Hendrix, Paige, Dylan, Joplin Cobain couldn't hold a candle to
(00:49):
some of their stories. Because today we're going to
delve into the lives of Carnivaland.
Circus sideshows. I didn't see you there.
It all started early this morning.
From hunting ghosts to Bigfoot UFOs.
Cryptids, true crime, paranormal, and more I always
wanted to see. AUFO Oh, I was.
I was researching for your entertainment.
(01:10):
That's Bigfoot's cat. He basically wrote the book on
Monarch. We aren't really comedians.
What if Buddha did cocaine? The Addams family on meth?
This is the Black Cat report. See you on the other side.
Hello all, and welcome to the Black Cat Report in episode 100.
(01:31):
Get it 129. He doesn't.
He doesn't even have that many fingers.
I am Joey, and with me is the Ohio Originator, the Dayton
Delicatessen, the Cincinnati Curator, the Akron Apothecary,
the Sandusky Scriber, the Youngstown Yachtsman, and last
(01:54):
but not least, the Toledo Torpedo Gill.
Hello everyone. Hello.
That was your nickname in high school I believe.
Toledo Torpedo. Amongst others, yeah, I feel
like my official nickname was Mr. Gilbert Bentley.
Could you please report to the principal's office that was that
(02:16):
was closer to my nickname? Yeah, but that was the adults,
what they called you. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah. Well, the ladies called me
Toledo. Silence.
They didn't call me. Oh, they called you.
Oh, wow, Wow, that happened. Well, it did.
(02:37):
It didn't actually happen now that it happened because they
just didn't call. And so the ladies, the ladies
called me. Crickets.
That was his nickname, Cricket. Before we get into today's
episode, we want to let you knowthat you can follow us on
(03:00):
patreon.com/blackcat Report and get some awesome cool things
too. When you join, we give you a
free upgrade to our librarian level.
Is that correct, Bill? We usually give everybody a free
upgrade to librarian level. Then we'll give you.
Something we give you an upgradeto something.
Well, you can get some of our lost episodes that we've never
released there and you know, we just never released them because
(03:21):
we just did something better. They're good episodes.
They're just on there ready for you to listen to.
You can also get Cup of Joey, which is also coming out on May
4th at 10 AM, so you'll get a chance.
We also do Game Nights Live, which me and Gil, we had to cut
from last week, but for no reason.
(03:42):
For no reason. But it just happened.
You can also. Yeah, go ahead.
You can also catch all the fun updates for all the things that
we're doing, anything that we get involved in multiple.
Look, hey, we're in desperate need of of subscribers.
(04:02):
I'm going to be honest with you,while we do have a lot, we're
greedy and we want more always more.
So if you work for the NSA, for the CIA, the FBI, pretty much
the only one we don't want is the IRS.
Any other three letter, actually, they can stay with me.
We got you join up, have fun. We constantly have a lot of
(04:25):
content coming out. I don't want to make this, this
is too long of an intro, but I will say that if you are joining
us on Friday during the YouTube premiere of this episode, don't
be bashful, don't be shy. Join us tomorrow, Saturday, May
the, I don't know, the third, third, something like that.
May the 3rd, May the 3rd for beer, booze and boogeyman which
(04:46):
the link will be in the show notes. 7:30 PM.
Eastern. 6:30 PM. Central. 5:30 PM mountain time
and 4:30 Pacific Time. So, yeah, just go keep going
back. And then we don't accept any of
the other farther back. If you have to do it yourself,
you have to do it yourself. Yeah.
(05:06):
Yeah. Well, the episode for beer biz
and Boogeyman is called DeathbedConfessions.
And we've we're we're, we got some awesome ones and we're
excited about this episode. Gil, can you tell them how they
can be a part of that episode? Yeah, it's super easy.
Go to Ghost dot beer. That's GHOST dot EE ER.
(05:29):
Once you're there, you have a plethora of options, but one of
the main ones that we'd love if you did is hop on down, Scroll
down the page. Just a just a title bit, just a
titty bit. Scroll down the page and click
on the submission option. Once you're there, you can
submit a form, you can submit a voice message, you can send us
an e-mail, you can link to a Google Doc.
(05:51):
All right. I even have the option for
carrier pigeon. It's it's pending right now.
I'm trying to bring them back from extinction, but I'm working
on it. You will have that?
Yeah. We're, we will have that option
soon. And the goal of this month's
episode, next month's whatever, is any crazy shit you've heard
(06:12):
someone confess or you heard of,heard of, heard of someone
confess on their deathbed, anything, anything goes.
And all of our submission options, even technically e-mail
anonymous, you can submit it completely anonymous and one of
us will read it on there. So make it, make it crazy, make
(06:35):
it dirty. Make it that juicy, that juicy,
juicy shit. Good stuff.
We love it, you know? Yeah, Yeah.
So yeah, deathbed confessions and the month afterwards, I
don't know what the fuck we're going to do, but we'll announce
it there. Be there Saturday, please.
It'll it'll be fun. But now we're going to get into
(06:56):
other interesting oddities of history This week as we're going
to delve into the weird traveling sideshows, the circus
of oddities, so to speak. I came across some of these
trolling Reddit posts. And this got me excited because
we had just finished a few weeksof heavy and intensive research
weeks from Ronald True to John RBrinkley.
(07:18):
This was a light and fun little air before Gil and I get into
delving into some more heavy research topics.
And once I tell you the name of the first one, I'm going to tell
you how I found the first Redditpost and how I got into doing
this. So I just want to tell you the
name of the first one. So the first little sideshow for
this week will be the cuddly andcute Mike the headless chicken.
(07:43):
And I want to tell you how I found this.
So I was trolling, you know, Reddit post as I was going down
as I was scrolling down, you know, it's it's a bunch of
history. It's a bunch of like this battle
was crazy. This person was crazy.
You see this? And then it was literally one
sentence and it said Mike the headless chicken.
(08:04):
And that stopped me in my tracks.
And just like you, if you know me, when I look at stuff, I'm
like, that's it. I got to do that.
I got to find that. So I googled it and I'm going to
tell you the story. On September 10th, 1945, a
farmer named Lloyd Olson of Fruta, Colorado was getting
prepared to eat supper with his mother-in-law and his wife.
(08:28):
His wife sent him out to choose a chicken so that they can get
it ready for eating. Olson chose a really young 5 1/2
month old Wyandot chicken named Mike.
The Wyandot chicken originally was called the American Sea
Bright Chicken, but was changed a little later on because I just
found a better name for it and it had a lot of uses.
(08:52):
The chicken itself was raised for natural brown eggs and
yellow skinned meat. It was also used for chicken
shows. And I sent a YouTube video to
Gil earlier about what I'm researching and how to judge
chicken shows and I found some interesting stuff.
(09:15):
I just want to share this real quick with you.
So in the chicken world, you're looking for 3 chickens in a
cage, right? So that's the first judge of it,
right? So there is going to be 1 male,
it's going to be like a rooster,and there's going to be two
hens, 2 females. And the judging, which is, you
(09:36):
know, the patriarchy knows no bounds.
The male brings in 50% of the judging points and the females
each split 25% of the judging points.
So you get the male, the rooster, 50 percent, 25 each.
And so that equals 100%. So a lot of what they're doing
is they're just picking up the chicken, they're looking at the
(09:57):
breastbones, they're looking at it making sure there's no like
cuts, there's no little like, you know, little worms or
anything in there to make it like look bad.
And So what I found is that it'schicken shows are just for
mostly kids and, and it's mostly4H chicken shows.
(10:20):
I also saw some that were like we're trying to sell chickens,
but it was just mostly for kids.So I lost interest after a
little bit, but that's what I learned for you guys.
So now you know, as much as I know.
And once you know, this gets, you know, bigger, this is just
going to grow bigger and it's going to be chicken shows added
to it. So I'm just going to inscribe
some of these. Well, Gil, now that you know how
(10:44):
to judge a poultry show, we're going to get back into it.
Lloyd chose Mike, grabbed Mike the little chicken, and he set
it up to be slaughtered. Yeah.
Little little chicken. Little chicken.
He didn't kiss him, though. He was.
He's ready. He's hungry.
You know, he was salivating a little bit.
He was like, set him up to be slaughtered so that they could
(11:06):
all have it for dinner. Lloyd brought down the axe
breakdown on Mike's head, but incorrectly brought it down at
the wrong angle, and instead of removing the whole head, he
removed most of the bulk of the head, but he missed the jugular
(11:26):
vein. He also left one ear and most of
the brain stem intact, so the brain signals could still be
sent from the brain to the body.And the Yeah, exactly.
The chickens brains, just so youguys know too, so you can
understand, are actually locatedright in the back of their head
behind the eyes. So the axe just barely missed
(11:48):
everything and he missed the thing that controlled breathing,
digestion and the other bodily functions.
Well, instead of finishing the job, which most farmers would do
and just be like, let's put thisthing out of its misery and then
cooking Mike for dinner, Lloyd decided that he would let Mike
(12:09):
live. He put Mike down, saw that Mike
could still walk, albeit very, very, very clumsily, almost like
a very drunk college student after Thirsty Thursday and all.
You can drink margaritas, but Mike could still walk.
You know, walk is a relative term.
(12:32):
Well, Mike's still. Headless Chicken and Mike and
Walk Wait, We'll we'll work on the lyrics.
We'll work on the lyrics. Yeah, we'll get we'll get a song
going. Well, Adam's lost him.
Yeah, that's all good. Well, Mike still attempted to
preen, you know, preen his feathers, Peck for some food and
(12:54):
crow, you know, make a nice little.
But honestly, pro that he would let out would be a mixture of a
gurgling sound made in his throat and a little yeah, yeah,
literally without it, couldn't even balk anymore, but gurgled
(13:15):
almost like a Chewbacca chicken.It's a mixture of Chewbacca and
chicken. This is a vegan episode.
OK, it is a big A you know, if you want to know what the how
the sausage gets made, this is what happens.
Well, because Mike couldn't really swallow large food or
(13:36):
anything solid due to pretty much the whole head being gone,
Lloyd took his time feeding him a mixture of milk and water in
an eye dropper and specifically picked out very miniature grains
of corn and worms to feed to him.
I'm making judgements about him and his wife's like him and his
(14:00):
wife's sexual life. This dude had way too much time
on his hands and he was just like, well I guess I'll just
meticulously feed this headless chicken because Lord knows I'm
not getting laid tonight. You know what it also tells me
too is that they might have had like a chicken, you know, like a
their kids. Either they couldn't have kids,
(14:21):
which it did never mention that they have kids or that they like
or that their kids, like, flew that flew their nest, you know,
flew the coop, so to speak. Makes sense, you know?
Yeah. Mm.
Hmm. Attracts.
Yeah. Well, Mike lived on, pretty much
lived on for a good while. And Lloyd, after telling his
friends about this chicken, decided that people would
(14:42):
definitely pay money to see this.
So he decided he's going to go to a few poultry shows.
He took him on a few poultry shows.
Everybody loved him. Was like dude is does that
chicken have? No head headless fucking
chicken. Yeah, it's a circumcised cock
(15:04):
right there. That's a that's a big deal at
this time in history. Yeah, Yeah.
It's just a little bit of deal, little, a little bit less of a
deal though. Yeah, well Mike and Lloyd
started going on a career of touring sideshows and October
22nd of 1945, which was only a month and 1/2 after Mike's
(15:27):
beheading, which I would say wasa career defining move any actor
would do. If that would get them into a
Marvel movie, they would behead themselves.
I've done more. I've done more for less.
Let me put it that way. Time magazine came and
photographed Mike and featured him in an article, which
(15:48):
actually you can read if you want to.
Go online today and read the article about Time about Mike.
Oh. Do you imagine that Instagram
account these days? It's like it would.
I'm just feeding my chicken. It's just like a straw and he's
just shoving it down his little chicken throat.
People would make a lot of inappropriate jokes about that.
(16:09):
Yeah, nowadays it would not be good.
I'm here for it. Yeah.
I would. I would watch it.
I'd follow. I'd follow.
I would follow too, Mike Douglaschicken done TV show and it
would get a HGTV show just beinglike, Mike, what do you think
about this new, new house? Yeah, yeah.
(16:31):
Sure as hell can't see he blocksaround and bucks and bucks and
we all are scared of he Mike. Mike the Headless Chicken.
I want to say he lives by the sea, but he doesn't.
He's like in the Midwest somewhere.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder if he could swim.
(16:53):
He could swim without a head. Yeah, I guess so would probably
just be more floating. But yeah, I mean like a Cox
natural habitat is some more wet.
This makes sense. Yeah, well after that, after
they went touring for a little bit and Time magazine took them
(17:14):
under their wing, Mike and Lloyd, the dynamic duo, went to
Long Beach, CA to perform in front of the returning troops
from the Pacific. He was entertaining the troops
on an what is it, the USO toys? Yeah, Mike, that list chick
(17:34):
visits the sea. He did get to the sea, Yeah, he
finally. Got needs to be a song.
Mm hmm. We'll make it afterwards.
It was rumored that Mike was part of the riots.
That's the troops did after the war ended.
I just made that up. That was actually what the fuck
did this. But he was close.
(17:55):
He was he was there in time for the riots though, of in, you
know, when they ride in San Francisco and they went and went
crazy in California after the war, you know, raping people and
doing crazy stuff. He was in that area of the world
at that time, so I'm not saying it didn't happen.
(18:16):
I'm not going to say he's related to Herbert the time
travelling chicken, but it's adding up.
I'm just saying it is adding up.It it sounds like it could be it
sounds like it could be Herbert,who is Count the Count of Saint
Germain's best friend, time travelling buddy.
(18:36):
His best friend is time travelling, his cousin, I guess
because that's that's the only thing that really tracks here is
like. A cousin would have to be time
travelling. You know, yeah, it tracks.
It tracks. Yeah, it tracks.
Yeah, it tracks. Well, to see Mike, you would
have to pay $0.25 at the time in1945, or what would be about
(19:00):
$4.00 a ticket today. So he said pretty good for a
literal headless chicken. It's pretty cheap to see him at
his peak. Beak Mike was actually worth
$10,000 in those days, which is now $140,000 today.
So a chicken worth $140,000. Mike was hidden it hard and
(19:25):
people were flocking to see him up to 600 people per day.
I'm just going to keep rolling through these puns, by the way.
Please keep going. Now, in what seems like an
otherworldly way, Mike continuedgrowing throughout this time
because remember when his head was cut off, he was only 2 1/2
months old when he was beheaded.And chickens grow up until they
(19:47):
hit the one year mark and becomefull adults.
So he's just slowly getting bigger with no head.
So it's just like, I think it just gets bigger.
So I don't I don't know how to like even say how that how to.
Show her is. What you're trying to say yes,
yes now. Mike was touring other places
such as Arizona and Nevada as well, just hitting that whole
(20:09):
West Coast. Well, Justice's head was cut off
just short. So was its life at two years
old. Mike would die so sad.
And March 1947 at a motel in Phoenix, AZ not.
Kidding. Overdose on fentanyl after.
(20:31):
Mike would gargle his last bulk.After a long day of performing,
Mike wanted to settle down and rest with some chicks and cluck
amine. Well, unfortunately, just like
Jimi Hendrix, Mike started choking on his mucus in the
middle of the night in the hotelroom, and Lloyd had left the
(20:53):
syringe they used to take out the mucus from Mike's throat at
the chicken show that day, and Mike choked to death as Lloyd
and his wife looked on, just like Hendrix.
She was in the 27 month club, yeah.
(21:13):
Yeah, actually, now there was some contention on the story at
the end because Lloyd had told people at that time that he sold
Mike to another promoter, but hewas trying to keep it so that
that so that promoter can use that and get money for it
because he's worth a lot. But later on, Lloyd himself
(21:36):
admitted that the chicken did pass in that hotel room in 1947.
Now that's not the end for old Mike because every year in
Fruta, Colorado they have Mike the Headless Chicken weekend
complete with a 5K called run Like a Headless chicken race.
(21:59):
They have egg tosses, a chicken cluck off chicken bingo.
This happens every year in the third or fourth weekend in May
and it is happening this year onMay 30th and 31st.
So if you are near Fruta, Colorado, please go do it and
send us pictures at contact thatBlack Hat dot report.
(22:21):
Can we can we put links and justhold on support this in the show
notes? Yes, we.
Will, like I, I want to support this, needs to continue into
history. I would say it needs to continue
into like obscurity, but it's way it's way that.
Needs to keep going, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
It was obscured the first year. I want to know how, how did they
(22:47):
pitch that to the mayor at the time?
There's like, I know, I know. We're here to talk about the new
water filtration system that's being installed on 37th Ave.,
which I am a resident of, as youknow from last week when we
talked about blue algae, all right, and it's incredible
(23:07):
health benefits. Now came across a little bit of
history. Now I know this cock ain't from
here, all right, it's a little bit of cock history.
Cock history is what I'm trying to say.
I know this cock ain't from here, but some cocks are
legendary. And they're just like, the whole
city council's just sitting there, just tuned in.
They're like, Sir, please. We are actually trying to figure
(23:32):
out how to cut down on Giardia infestations.
Throughout the city, 14 childrenhave died.
If you want to talk about children, you need to talk about
Cox. Everybody knows that.
And he's just, like, sitting there struggling.
Oh, he's bobbing, Mike the wholetime.
Yeah, no, he's bobbing, weaving,you know, like he's with me.
(23:54):
Yeah. Yeah, You know, and just.
I just got a new mic stand so I'm just.
He's loving it. Gil's loving.
It that that look at. That he's Muhammad.
Ali in it right now, sturdy, stiff, perfect is now like
floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee.
Yeah, that's right. I don't have anywhere to go with
(24:15):
that. I just I really do want a
picture. Just that now I heard tale about
this headless cock and he he, the guy refused to call it a
chicken is like I heard tale about a headless cop from this
area. Now the children need something
to inspire them to stay in our beautiful city of Fruitilia,
(24:38):
which I'm just going to make up the name.
That's that's, that's exactly what it's called.
Well, now, first, second sideshow performer, this is
actually a very, very, very longstory.
But Gil, before I get into this because of his long story, I
want you to tell me what your favorite sideshow perform.
(24:59):
Horse diving. Remember we talked about that,
the horse divers? Yeah, the horse.
Divers diving, horse diving, which I'm still kind of pissed
at PETA. Again, this is a vegan episode.
I'm still kind of pissed at PETAbecause in 2012 they tried to
bring back professional horse diving.
And by they I mean the resistance they tried to bring.
(25:23):
Circus day resistance. Circus day resistance, but they
they tried to bring back horse diving.
It's a professional sport. We're talking, you know, just
like the, the most sketchy, likeyou, you've been to circuses.
It's, it's, I mean the, the food, let alone the stands.
(25:44):
Everything about a circus is theillusion.
Your safety is an illusion, yourintestinal Biome an illusion.
Everything is being penetrated by reality.
Everything and there's no, there's no secure games.
There's that's not fucking plexiglass, that ain't going to
(26:07):
fucking save you, homie. That shit is that's just made of
a bunch of fucking melted like book packaging from Amazon, book
orders like that. That glass separating you and
the elephant, that shit's fake. Lick it, lick it.
It's old cotton candy. You know, all of that.
It's dangerous as fucking shit. That clown, I'm not going to say
he's a pedophile, but he used tobe a priest, so be careful.
(26:30):
He was. Used to file.
Yep. Yes.
And you know, so they would set up this would this would be a
long Pierce, you know, bodies ofwater, so to say.
And they would set up these likethis large scaffolding, real
secure. Real.
Yeah. Real secure, Yes, And somehow
(26:52):
get a full grown fucking horse. And for folks who haven't stood
next to a full grown fucking horse, go outside and touch
grass. I don't know what the fuck to
tell you. Anyways, go find it.
They're huge. And we're not even talking like
Clydesdale huge. They're just like boom, you
(27:12):
know? But anyways, they would get
these horses 4555 sometimes 6575feet up in the air.
Like picture of that picture of a cardboard building.
That's what it looks like painted.
And then there would be a dude up there and, you know, they
just found this dude on the street.
Oh, yeah. And they'd be like, all right,
(27:35):
we'll give you a bag of popcorn if you jump off this fucking
scaffolding with a full grown horse into a shallow body of
water. And that is the entertainment.
And it's just it, it's as awkward as you'd picture.
It's just nothing about it lookscomfortable.
(27:56):
Joey, if you can find a clip of horse diving and put it in here,
please put it in here. It's just like like, but if
(28:17):
you've ever ridden a horse, you know you're nuts hurt and you're
Vidigi. Whatever, whatever wiggle bits
you got, they hurt after riding a horse.
You really got to build up a tolerance to that.
I can't imagine the pains you will have after diving with a
fucking. But anyways, splash and just
(28:38):
into the water and everybody's just like the most magnificent
ever thing. Jesus came back after three
days, but he didn't dive with a horse.
That's what I'm seeing. Now that's what I've heard.
That's what I've heard. That horse dived for my sins,
all right. I honestly have no idea how they
(28:58):
it's fantastic. I I know it's fantastic, but
like who in their right probablywasn't in their right mind?
Who was like looking up like. Running from gambling, That's
like. Yeah.
Somebody was, yeah, Crab Boy wasrunning from gambling dead
against the bearded woman and just fucking dived and Barnum
and Bailey was sitting there like, you know what?
I got another idea. Oh.
(29:21):
PC Barnum. Popcorn at the pier just
watching them. Yeah, I love it.
I also love the picture crab boyjust on a horse like and he's
like no. Well, at least he went back home
to the water. Yeah, and you know, it's funny
that you should say crab boy because the next one is going to
(29:42):
be probably my favorite story that I read.
This one is about Grady Stiles Junior which is his real name.
Grady Stiles Junior was born on June 26th 1937 with a genetic
condition called Ectrodactyly orlike a cleft hand or split hand.
(30:08):
The split in the hand was causedby a missing middle digits so in
essence look like a lobster clawlike hand as Gil is definitely
mirroring it right now. The syndrome itself is commonly
referred to as lobster claw syndrome.
(30:29):
Just like you were talking aboutinstead of the crab, just the
lobster claw and Grady. It was so severe that it also
encompassed his feet too so he was not able to walk.
Exactly Gil it Gil's. Gil's definitely miming it and
he can say this because this guywas a piece of shit, so.
Glad I clipped my toenails today.
(30:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, his family had a
history of the genetic condition.
Grady's father also had this genetic condition, and two of
Grady's children had this condition as well.
And due to this condition, Gradywas forced to use a wheelchair
for his entire life. And it was said that that is
(31:13):
what made him so freakishly strong is that he was using the
wheelchair and he had to use, you know, as much as he could
his upper body to get him where he needed to go.
Please tell me. Please tell me that the the rims
on the wheelchair were bent so he can only 6 seconds just by
(31:44):
coming. I don't think so.
I think it was just a normal because it's what they could
afford at the time. I could never work in a in a
circus with like a freak show because I'd just be fucking with
people so much. You would be fucking you know
what? And they don't care.
Just like the the crab or lobster, whatever.
I'm just going to say crab because it's funnier.
(32:06):
I'm just like, yeah, crab boy. And he's like trying to come
towards you. But the wheelchair just.
Yeah, it only goes side to side.I'm going to get you.
Oh my God, almost. Great visuals.
Great visuals. Thank you for it.
Thank you for it. You know what, Gil?
That's what we pay the big bucksfor the visuals we do.
(32:28):
Well, Grady's father was a basically a traveling sideshow
performer already before becausehe had the same condition.
He just wasn't as well known. So the whole entire Grady family
blood was in the circus. Grady joined his father at a
very, very, very young age. At about 7 years old, he started
(32:52):
performing so super young for what I would call some of the
golden age of circus three. He toured around with his
father, being a marvel of seeingeyes of the United States, and
he took on the moniker of Lobster Boy and would eclipse
his father's fame. Now his sideshow was pretty much
(33:15):
him pulling himself up onto the stage and sitting on top of a
cushion inside a probably sweltering tent in the summer
into fall. That's the definition of
demeaning. That's that's pretty.
That's pretty bad. Yeah, Yeah.
But. But in his defense, he would
(33:36):
famously start out with his showas saying, good evening, ladies
and gentlemen, I am the lobster boy.
This condition is not caused by drugs or diseases.
It runs in the family. He just, you know, right, throw
it out there. What are they going to do?
Yeah. Well, he gained such notoriety
(33:58):
throughout this time that he waspulling in between 50,000 and
$80,000 a season. And this is in 191950.
That's 1950 money. Yeah, it's 1950 money.
I would do some real nasty shit for that much money back then.
I'd do that much for now, you know what I'm saying?
(34:20):
But like, yeah. Yeah.
But that's a lot of that's like over 50,000.
I mean it's probably in the 300 to 400,000 if we want to think
of it because they were chargingthe chicken $0.25 and it was
$4.00, so. Is this pre Trump or post Trump?
(34:42):
You know what I'm saying? That that really effects prices.
19 Yeah, 1950s I guess I'm gonnasay it's a.
Is this a few months ago or right now?
A. Little bit of pre Trump, a
little bit of a tiny bit, yeah. Yeah.
Well, it was a lot for a carnival sideshow act 50 to 80
K. It's way more than I make,
(35:03):
right? Lobster for that, Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. With you, buddy.
Well. Over the years of touring the
country, Grady eventually lost all of his hair.
I don't know why I thought that's so funny, but I just
looked more like a lobster. He's turning more into a
lobster. So I mean, it's fine.
(35:30):
It's truth. And because he he brought it on
himself by doing stuff he did later and he named himself and
because of having to use his wheelchair, he became very
barrel chested. So he just like got like we're
saying early he got like buff. He was like big, you know,
heavy. And he eventually married a
woman named Mary Teresa in 1958.And they had two children
(35:55):
together, Donna and Kathy. Kathy was born with the same
genetic condition as her father.Well, Mary Teresa eventually had
to run away from her abusive home when she was young, and
that's how she joined the carnival when she was in her
teenage years. And through the early years of
(36:17):
their marriage, Mary Teresa saidthat Grady the Lobster boy was a
kind and loving man, being a nurturer for the kids.
And then came along. Heavy drinking, right?
Some people go crazy, some people don't.
(36:38):
She said he was partial to Seagram 7 double s with the
splash of Coke. And that's a terrible drink.
Yeah, that's a terrible drink. Look there, there's drinkers,
there's heavy drinkers and there's other folks out there.
We all know about those other folks, but Seagram's drinkers
(36:58):
you. Know it's the worst.
I just, it's not, you know, if like you, if you only drank,
yeah, like if you only drank Keystone Light, you might still
have some redeeming factors, some redeeming qualities.
You know, your quality might be found somewhere else besides the
quality of your, of your beer, your drink.
(37:19):
Yeah. Yeah.
But like Seagram's drinkers, dude, like I think the most
desperate I've ever been my entire life.
And it like, and you were there during Hurricane Helene, my my
landlord actually, because we were all just kind of checking
in on each other. We're all neighbors and shit,
(37:40):
You know, he gave me a bunch of alcohol.
He doesn't drink, but he just had a bunch and he's like, fuck
it, and I'm going to be out. You were here.
It was like 10/30, 9:30 AM In the days afterwards, everybody
in the city was plastered because by the second and third,
yeah, second and third day, all we had was alcohol left.
(38:00):
And so it was like 10:30 in the morning and we're just like,
fucking whatever, man. Yeah, but that's I, I broke down
and I drank like Seagram, like coolers or something like that.
You were crying and I saw it. I, I would.
Yeah, I was crying. I was crying.
Well, I had to flavor it with something.
And so I flavored it with my tears.
It was like my shame. Yeah, Seagram shame.
(38:21):
And I'm gonna be honest, out of everything that happened, that
was probably the biggest tragedy.
Me drinking sequence, I would say yeah.
Out of all of the catastrophe, it was Seagram's, some of us had
to resort to Seagram's, That's how bad it was.
Just like the shame from. Therapy for this?
(38:43):
Yeah, yes, Grady should have felt a lot of shame because
after years of physical abuse and sexual abuse to marry Teresa
and just physical abuse to the kids, they were divorced in
1973. Teresa eventually remarried a
man named Harry Glenn Newman, who was billed as the world's
(39:06):
smallest man. So she left the lobster boy.
And for the world's smallest man, you got a joke.
You got a joke there. Go.
You got you got 1 coming in the in the shotgun there.
You got another I I have nothingto add well.
Funnily enough, Grady actually took charge of the children.
(39:31):
He took the children to his hometown in Pittsburgh.
She didn't even get to keep the children, which is crazy.
Yeah. He put them in his claws and
walked away. And there he married a woman
named Barbara and didn't give usdetails on what her first, you
know, her, her maiden name was. But.
Ah bro, the human BBQ. Actually don't know if she was
(39:54):
part of the circus. It was funny.
I think she was the. Most high paying fashion model
of the era probably. Yes, one of the hottest.
Well, this marriage ran the same.
Yeah, you know what? Some.
Some women like crab, some womenlike lobster.
Well, this marriage ran the sameas his last marriage, as he was
(40:16):
highly abusive to his children and new wife.
And in 1978, five years after they had moved to Pittsburgh,
his daughter Donna fell in love with a young man and they were
engaged to marry. Right now, there was some
contention on how the next part of this went down because this
(40:37):
is very important for this wholestory.
And I almost thought of making this story, just this guy's
story, into a full episode, but it just wasn't enough.
I think this is most likely whathappened between the two sides
on the day before the wedding. You know, Donna fell in love
with this man. They're about to get married.
(40:59):
Grady invited Donna's fiance over to the house.
So basically, in essence, you know, give his blessing, maybe
have a good-natured chat with him, right?
Just, you know, give him a little, give him a little claw.
Well, I imagine there was some words said about how Grady did.
I cannot really approve of him because Grady didn't really
approve of him. He thought he was just a no good
person and he didn't think he was right for Donna.
(41:21):
And Grady was very, very protective.
Well, in the heat of the moment,Grady took out a shotgun and
blew away the fiance, killing him.
Donna said in the court documents that her father
afterwards, after he had shot her fiance, was sitting on the
porch on a chair, smiling and then said, I told you I would
(41:45):
kill him. Yeah.
He just said he was like, I toldyou.
And she's so. Yeah.
No, Grady actually admitted to this in court point blank.
He admitted that he shot him andkilled him.
Damn. No, no remorse.
Just said it in court. And they were just like, OK,
(42:09):
like we, yeah, we were thinking he was going to have to go to
trial. Did you plead not guilty and
take this to trial? Yeah.
And then testified and then toldus a.
Lot of more people didn't know, yeah.
Well, really big twist in this story.
Probably the third twist in thisstory, and there's more coming.
The only thing was right, the prison system was not designed
(42:34):
to handle someone with his genetic condition exactly.
They were not He also after thisbecause of the seagram sevens
had cirrhosis. Of the liver put on these pants.
Yeah, and he had cirrhosis of the liver too, from all the
seagram sevens, so. Another reason not to drink
(42:55):
Seagram's. This episode is brought to you
by Seagram's Haste the Disappointment.
Yeah, Yeah. It's like toothpaste but
carbonated, you know? Well, so instead of life in
prison, which he should have gotten, they gave him 15 years
(43:15):
of probation outside of jail in his home.
Mean, did you see him? Yeah.
Yeah, basically a slap on the wrist for the cold blooded
murder He. Based.
I'm going to be honest, he was born in prison, but like.
Yeah, he was. That's the thing though, about
about lobsters is First off, it's I'm, I'm, I'm fairly
(43:39):
certain it's impossible for life.
They made for life. We have to.
Cut that off that's that's hard to tell because we don't
actually know how old lobsters are They just keep fucking
growing they basically do the lobster.
It's like the monster mash, but it's a lobster mash.
They just like they malt into a new hard shell.
(43:59):
They're they're bugs. They're fucking bugs.
Don't say not and sometimes they.
Die. They just get too big.
As far as I know from my very expert college level
understanding of, and by that I mean fell asleep watching a
YouTube short one time, he picked out a lot.
(44:20):
You could trust this. No they I'm I'm fairly sure
scientists. I didn't say which scientists,
but scientists. A group of scientists.
Scientists have no clue how old lobsters are.
There's no way to tell. I know that like blue lobsters
are like kind of a big fucking deal.
(44:40):
And if you're in Maine and shit,they have to like throw them
back. And there's like a whole
ceremonial process, like no touchy.
But like as a whole, like lobsters are anomalies.
They're just kind of like out there, you know, they're kind of
like, what is it like the isolated shark or the is that
right? The Greenland shark?
No, I think it I don't know one of those fucking cold ass
(45:03):
places. You don't know about the the
fucking the ancient shark still alive?
Nope, the whole species of them.I'm pretty sure it's the
Greenland shark now that I didn't think about it.
Greenland shark gets so fucking old that like literally just
like loses its eyesight and justhas fucking parasites like
little cook spaghetti hanging out of its eyes and it just
(45:24):
lives in like the coldest fucking darkest regions and it's
like I've been around since before before and just like
swims around Greenland shark cool as fuck, ancient as fuck.
It's really hard to to date themmainly because they don't get
cell phone reception that low down there.
(45:44):
They're. Not good at texting back.
Yeah, that was real bad. Yeah.
And their eyesight's very tender, so, you know, they be.
Yeah. And so it's crazy because they
mumble, you know, these little 90% of mumble rappers are
Greenland sharks. Proven.
(46:06):
Well, obviously after this big shotgun, these two big shotgun
blasts, they got divorced and Barbara and him got divorced.
But, and what would be another real weird turn of events, he
then remarried his first wife after she had left the World's
Smallest Man and came back to the Lobster.
(46:27):
Boy. In 1989, and not too long after
that, the beatings began again and he was just as abusive as
before. He hadn't changed, Married,
Teresa did say, said he at the beginning said he would quit
drinking and gave them all the normal stuff and I'll be a good
person again. And she fell for it again.
(46:50):
Well, and one instance Mary Teresa said that she woke up to
him trying to smother her with apillow, and then another time
she woke up with a knife to her throat.
Mary Teresa decided enough was enough.
She began pondering what to do and hatched a plan.
(47:11):
All the while, they were still out touring and performing on
the road as the Lobster family, right?
They were still doing all this. And at this time, Grady had
actually bought some of his own touring carnivals and circuses.
He was actually very wealthy. He started becoming really
wealthy for this somebody that basically started growing up and
(47:31):
traveling tours. Like we said, he's making a lot
of money. And Teresa and her oldest
teenage son, Harry Glenn Newman the third, contrived a plan.
And this is going to be where the next turn comes.
They hired a friend who lived next door to them and went to
(47:53):
school with Newman. They paid him $1500 to murder
Grady. Well, pretty good pay.
On November 29th, 1993, nineteenyear old Chris Wyant, who lived
next door to them, snuck into the house and hid in a backroom
waiting for Grady to return home.
(48:15):
Once Grady doing who the fuck knows out wherever he's going.
But once Grady had returned homeand sat down to watch some TV,
Chris Wyant snuck into the room and put 232 caliber bullets boom
boom right into the brain of Grady, ending the Lobster Boy's
(48:36):
life and probably one of the most highest earning sideshows
ever. Damn, sorry Lobster boy.
Funny enough, remember how Lobster Boy Grady had actually
gotten pretty much gotten off from being from murder?
(48:57):
Wyant, the person who murdered him with two bullets to the back
of the head, was convicted of second degree murder for the
actual killing, and Harry, the son who was considered the
mastermind behind it, was convicted of first degree murder
and sent to life in prison. Mary Teresa, who said in her
(49:18):
defense that my husband was going to kill my family.
I believe that from the bottom of my heart, but I'm sorry this
happened. But my family is safe now.
She said that during the court process was sentenced to 12
years in prison. The only person Lobster, right?
(49:42):
Yeah. The Red Lobster.
Gil, I'm pretty sure that's where your knowledge from
Lobster comes from, is you sitting there in the Red Lobster
cage looking at it, at the Red Lobster just being like, I want
that one. And I've never even been to a
Red Lobster that. That's how knowledgeable you are
a. Professionalism you can expect
here at Black Lobster Report. Yes, we are now combining
(50:06):
ourselves with you know what? I actually heard Red Lobster is
making a comeback. Really.
They got over the the cheddar debacle.
I just made that up. I don't know if there's a.
Cheddar, those cheddar biscuits.Cheddar biscuits.
Who wouldn't want those? Ever had them?
(50:27):
I'm not a huge seafood person, you know what I'm saying?
I'm not either. I do like some Alaskan crab legs
though. Alaskan king crab legs.
Snow crab legs. Or shrimp scalps.
Either of them. Scalps are kind of like the only
like sea bug that I really care for.
No thank you. No mussels, no fish.
I'm good with that fish. You like fish though.
(50:48):
I love. Fish.
I fucking love salmon. Damn it, I love salmon, Salmon,
tuna, swordfish, shark, what else?
Mahi mahi, love it. But yeah, now that the lobster
boy's been cooked, we can head out into actually something that
(51:11):
I really wanted to, you know, I really wanted to end this on a
good note because the other two,they both ended up murdered.
So our episodes end up with the person dying and the person, you
know, just no good episodes, youknow, I feel like the last two,
both of them. Never had a good.
You know, never had a good one the the the last two stories,
both of them died at the end andboth of them died real quickly.
(51:34):
You know, not too not too young and they weren't happy.
You know, Mike Tedless chicken wasn't happy two years of
gargling. You know, blood was not happy.
The lobster boy was drinking Seagram 7 and got 2 bullets in
the back of the spring. So this was billed as the
strangest romance in circus history.
(51:56):
And the last story, the marriagedidn't turn out too well at all.
But in this story, we're going to talk about a circus sideshow
marriage that turned out to be the best of us.
And I don't know if you've ever seen that show, but now I'm
going to name the show, but I don't know if you've seen it.
I haven't seen it. This Is Us.
(52:16):
Priscilla Roman, or the Monkey Girl as she was known on stage,
was born in Bayamon, Puerto Ricoon April 26th, 1911.
She was known as the Monkey girlnot because of just her full
head of dark hair, but also because she had a layer of
coarse dark hair covering her entire face and entire body.
(52:38):
She also had two rows of teeth adding into that, like, weird
that not weird, but that like different looking teeth to kind
of make it look a little more monkey like.
You know, She was diagnosed. Yeah.
Yeah. She was diagnosed as having a
genetic condition and there was no cure.
(52:58):
She was eventually diagnosed with hypertrichosis, which to
this day still has no cure. It's just basically covered in
hair pretty much. And the only thing you can do
is. Just She almost looked like 2
partially inflated basketballs shoved into.
(53:19):
He's just going to use that description for everything from
now. Everything.
You know how long it took me to come up with that.
I need to get as much mileage out of this as possible.
It was such a good one. Well, because of all the trips
to the doctor to kind of diagnose her, Priscilla's family
was broke and in need of money. They agreed to let her be in an
exhibition at three years old. So young.
(53:44):
Yeah, that's right. She started performing.
Just talk about it. I was going to say talk about a
neppo baby, but no, just talk about a used.
Oh yeah, Just talk about a. Worse than Macaulay Culkin?
Yeah, this is Macaulay Culkin. She was performing in the show
(54:07):
owned by Carl L Luthier, who ended up actually adopting
Priscilla after her father passed away when she was six
years old. So.
Honestly, I meant macaque. Anyways, I'm.
Yeah. Well, sorry Joey, we need to run
it all the way back. We need to start over again.
Makaki Caulkin. That's what I meant to say.
(54:30):
Because a a bird. Well.
You're from. Ohio.
It's the excuse. Yeah.
Toledo Torpedo. They were very good parents for
the most part because they hiredtutors to teach her, hired
people to show her how to dance and such.
And they basically wanted to give her the best, you know,
(54:51):
even though she had this, you know, genetic condition that
caused her to have hair everywhere in 2nd row of teeth.
When Priscilla complained of being bored and lonely, her
family bought her a pet, a chimpanzee.
It was Lobster Boy, no. They bought her a chimpanzee.
(55:11):
OK, All right. Yeah.
Now, I don't know if this was kind of a backhanded thing,
honestly, because they were calling.
Her a monkey girl. Pretty rough, yeah.
Well, a pretty bad joke, but they did love her daughter, so
this wasn't, you know it. She performed with the
chimpanzee too, so it was kind of like a thing they just kind
(55:33):
of added to the whole show. But this is also, this is back
when I mean, cuz this was acceptable until like honestly,
yours and mine's lifetime. This was still acceptable.
Yeah, to own a pet chimpanzee ormonkey or whatever, like it was.
Acceptable. Well, not acceptable because all
(55:53):
but. 1520 years ago, like prettymuch like Michael Jackson kind
of like rode that chimp out of style that was like that, that
bubble popped with bubbles, you know, and like, but even in the
90s, it was still like, oh, somerich motherfucker with a
chimpanzee that just wears a diaper running around.
This is normal, you know? Now it's like, this is really
(56:15):
fucked up, dude. Also, your head's gonna be a
blonde there, you know? Yeah.
Oh yeah, they're gonna RIP off your face.
Yeah, 100 percent, 100% like. Do you like having your bad?
Skin when you miss dinner. Bro, Yeah.
Do you like skin? Don't get a chimpanzee if you
do. Yeah, well, with the chimpanzee,
she performed throughout the 1920s and 1930s, billed as the
(56:39):
Monkey Girl. With her pet chimpanzee, she got
even more famous. And this kind of goes into one
of our other stories during the Scopes trial about evolution,
which is funny enough because from our last story with John R
Brinkley, his arch nemesis played a part in that trial.
He played actually a huge part in that trial.
(56:59):
He was helping to knew the lawyer was working on both sides
and was like talking to each of them.
It was very interesting. So it kind of touches that
trial. One part of her show during this
time was that she would have a mock debate with an orangutan
named Snooki. Priscilla represented the pro
(57:20):
evolution. It was from Jersey Shore.
Yeah, Oh. My God.
I thought you said. There'd be a lobster here.
Perfect, perfect. There's my bullet I.
Cannot think of this Snooky fromspecific.
Not from Jersey Shore, but from South Park.
(57:44):
Yeah, that's Snooky. Yeah, that's Snooky version.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is snooky.
Shout out. Also fun fact.
And this actually made me give respect for Snooky.
I'm taking this. I'm running with it.
Go ahead Snooky it this might bring us down a few points, but
fuck it, I don't care. It's it's actually legit.
(58:05):
I heard a fascinating interview with Snooki about their belief
and UFOs and aliens and how theyhad their own personal
experiences. And it was actually it was nice
to hear them off camera, still behind the mic, but off camera
and kind of talking on like this, like pretty.
(58:27):
I was a niche and nerdy like down and dirty but really good
podcast so if you want to hear some crazy shit you should.
Y'all should go look up Snooki talking about aliens.
Snooki is a huge Snooki come on the show.
She she's never coming on. Will not know.
She's she's never coming on and that's OK.
(58:50):
And that was our Jersey Shore moment, but OK.
Yeah, that was the situation. Well choice like March and
delete later. Deleting.
Yeah, I'm, no, I'm not deleting that in the video.
I'm deleting that in my brain. So yes, two bullets to the
skull, one part of her show during cutting a certain angle
(59:10):
and cutting off the half that I don't need to live.
One part of her show during thistime was that she would have the
mock debate with the orangutan name Snooki.
Priscilla represented the pro evolution side and Snooki argued
against it apparently. But it's also not known who won
the argument. It was in court and they don't
(59:34):
know who won the argument. It was a mock debate on on a
stage. They were messing around that.
Is weird, but I like it OK. We are talking like circus
sideshows, so it's OK that it's weird.
This is normal. It's OK, it has to be weird and
this is the but it's going on atlike we're doing this at the
(59:55):
same time of the trial. That's why it's so big.
It's because the Scopes trial was happening and they use this.
They use the monkey girl, they use Priscilla, and then they use
an orangutan to kind of. Jokingly poke fun at the trial
and that's why they were doing it is because everybody at this
time knew about this trial and then they were like, let's go
(01:00:16):
see now that we've watched the trial, you know, we got there
and went and watched trial. Let's go see a monkey and a
monkey girl. Like argue about for evolution
and probe and anti evolution. I think the monkey won.
I think the monkey won. He just like picked up a rock
and just knocked the fuck out and they were like technically
by law he just won. By monkey law, well, you know,
(01:00:41):
you never know. We don't know Monkey law.
We don't know Monkey Law. Gill's Lobster law, though in
1936 she was travelling with Johnny J Jones, Triple J
Expositions Oddities of the 20thCentury show when she would meet
the love of her life, J3 Johnny J Jones.
(01:01:06):
I don't. J3J3, his name's J Three, Yeah.
Pretty famous back in the 20 back in the 20s. 30s and 40s and
50s J3 was huge. I don't know why but J3.
He had expositions. But there, at that place, she
(01:01:27):
met the love of her life, EmmettBejano, known as Lobella the
Alligator Boy. Yep, Yep.
Flower Howard is what the alligator boy.
Lobella, the alligator boy. Yeah, Lobella's a a flower
genus. That's a very, that's a cool
(01:01:47):
name. I will 100% give credit.
Like that's a very beautiful. It's a it's a very cool name.
I like that. I like that.
Yeah. I got nothing to say but yeah.
I like his name too well. Emmett Bajano.
The Bajano. I think it's Bajano born as
Emmett Driggers. Yeah, it's definitely Bajano if
(01:02:07):
he was born as Emmett Driggers was born in Punta Gorda, FL and
born in Florida on August 23rd, 1914.
His parents divorced at around six years old and his father put
him in an exhibition with JohnnyBiano of Morris Castle Shows.
And just like with Priscilla, when Emmett's father died,
(01:02:28):
Johnny Biano adopted him and that's how he got the last name
from the the from the person whoran the sideshow act.
Emmett had Lamarlo. Sorry, I'm apologizing ahead of
time. Emmett had lemelar ichthyosis,
which is a hereditary condition that causes thickening and
(01:02:51):
cracking of the skin. It itself shows kind of like
reptilian scales, hence the nameAlligator boy.
Again, just like with Priscilla,there is no cure for this,
though there were some remedies.He would constantly oil his face
and hands so that the skin wouldsoften out for a little bit.
(01:03:14):
So he's just constantly oiling himself up.
And he would do that and wear really long sleeve shirts and
like very big collared shirts. I feel like he was a big
turtleneck guy just to hide it so people wouldn't notice in
like Florida and Florida, right?Yeah.
This is this is psoriasis times 10,000.
(01:03:37):
That's what it. Sounds like it is.
It's real bad. And and while you're watching,
I'll put up photos of this stuffof these two so you get to see
everybody. But after his shows, he would
have to be dipped in ice baths due to his skin not being able
to sweat like everybody else's, to cool down because of the
cracked skin. It was so tight and like, caught
(01:03:58):
up against his body, he couldn'tsweat.
So he had to be dipped in ice bass or else, you know, he would
overheat. It would get real bad.
Ouch, dude. Yeah, that was a poor guy.
Poor guy. Honestly, like, these two are
great people, so I'm just ruining it.
They're great people. Nothing bad.
This is horrible, Yeah. When Emmett and Priscilla met,
(01:04:19):
they felt instant attraction andwith their very, very, very
similar histories, they eloped just after a few months.
I know, it's so hard. Hell yeah yeah.
Hope. And in January, I know I'm too.
And so I want to end it on this.In January of 1938, they eloped.
They had tried to have a child in 1939, but unfortunately their
(01:04:43):
child Francina passed away at 14weeks due to pneumonia.
I know it was one of the bad parts, it was so sad, but I know
they returned to the stage in 1945.
What's funny enough is it the child passed away not because of
either of their two genetic conditions.
It just died of pneumonia and itdidn't have either of their
conditions, which is great. They did eventually return to
(01:05:07):
the stage in 1945 with Ripley's Believe It or Not Tor donned as
the world's strangest married couple.
So they are out there strutting their stuff together.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
How do we? Joey, you've inspired me.
I'm taking a moment. I'm taking the mic.
Take it, take it, I'm taking themic.
(01:05:29):
So if anybody, and this counts, if you're listening to right
now, if you're a member of the circus, if you're a member of a
freak show, anything like that, hit us up.
We will give you full access privilege to, to everything in
our Patreon. Cuz you know, we, we, we tout
(01:05:51):
Art Bell all the fucking time askind of like the godfather of,
of paranormal podcasting, right?Kind of running that shit before
podcasts even existed. But honestly, the freak shows,
the circuses, the side shows, this has always been a part of,
of, of human, of, of being a human is loving these types of
(01:06:15):
things and y'all are keeping that dream alive.
So hit us up. Thank you.
At some point in the future, just be like, hey, you don't
even got to give us your name. We just need your e-mail.
We will hook you up full access just for thank you for keeping
this weird ass dream alive. Anyways, Joe, you left me
inspired. I'm sorry I had to take that.
I had to take. I love it.
No, I'm glad. Feeling inspired over here.
(01:06:36):
I I wanna. Say is that of course they both
got the normal people that wouldmake fun of them, do names on
them, but Priscilla would alwaysrespond in the same way.
I can see you for nothing right here, but you had to pay to see
me. Boom.
(01:07:04):
Yeah, I was like, Dang, hell yeah.
Priscilla, dude, she's a bad asstoo.
If you listen to her talk, because there's some stuff about
her talking and, and like a lot of quotes from her, she's just
like, I didn't care. I was living a good life and
making money. I don't give a fuck.
I meant. And she she would say, I may
look a little strange to the normal person, but what does
that bother me? I'm still living a good life.
(01:07:26):
And I was like, oh, man, she's got it figured out.
Yeah, hell yeah. Full respect.
Always be yourself. Well, there we go.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, they performed with Ripley's
Believe It Or Not and eventuallybought a home in Gibsonton, FL,
which is literally where all of these people lived in this
(01:07:49):
story. Except for the chicken.
They were all, all the carnival and circus people retire and
like live in this one town in Florida, Gibsonton.
And if you really look it up, you'll start seeing this is
where they like live and during the offseason and where like
they when they retire, they all go here.
They eventually adopted a son named Tony in the 1960s and then
(01:08:12):
named their property the Pet Ranch.
For Priscilla, Emmett and Tony, they were just living this great
life. They both, I know they both
retired from performing in the 1980s to their property in
Gibsonton, FL. They actually were one of the
few people in like few sideshow performers that actually got to
(01:08:33):
retire and just live out their normal life.
They did actually also star in afew TV shows and movies which is
kind of cool. They notably starred alongside
Jodie Foster and Gary Busey in the 1980 film Carney.
That makes sense. Which makes sense.
Yeah, it just makes a lot of sense. 90% of the film was just
(01:08:54):
Gary BC like. Gary Busey was the real Carney
in that film. I think he didn't even need to
go on the sideshow. Yeah, to end it.
They both passed away peacefully.
Emmett in 1995 and then Priscilla in 2001.
And then again, I wanted to end our episode with just this
(01:09:16):
beautiful story, heartfelt story, because I feel like a lot
of other ones. We talked about some terrible
people, you know, and we're happy when they died, but I was
very sad that they died. They died peacefully and they
loved each other and they for somuch.
They talked about how much they loved each other and how much
amazing it was to live together.And so this circus or carnival
(01:09:38):
marriage, whatever you want to call it, was beautiful.
And you know what? I'm here for it.
Me too bud. I'm here for.
It fan fucking pastic. I hope.
I hope we can all find a love sofreakish as theirs, you know?
(01:10:00):
Yeah, and you know what? I'm ready.
Thank you so much for listening to the Black Cat report into
tuning into us here coming up this weekend.
This weekend, you can tune into us with Beer, Booze and
Boogeyman on May 3rd at 7:30 PM Eastern with the episode on
(01:10:24):
Deathbed Confessions. Gil, hit him up with the info
after you're done crabbing and lobstering over there.
He just lobstered off the screen.
So I'm going to give you the info.
You can find it at literally Ghost dot here.
You can send in anything anonymously.
You can send it up. GAIL is done.
(01:10:46):
He's crabbing everywhere and also releasing on May 4th at 10
AM. May the Fourth be with You is a
Cup of Joey on Patreon, so sign up to get some extra content you
can't find anywhere else but on patreonpatreon.com/flat Cap
Report. And now Gil and I want to
especially thank our Patreon listeners and our special circus
(01:11:13):
carnival freaks out there and all the ways and all the things
that you do. We would like to think Tristan,
Bud, Don Thomas, Little Mystery,Bobby Betspay, Lucas, Tim D,
Max, Ian Morgan, Dragon Ball from the Star Blood kind of
(01:11:34):
podcast, Tim Miller from Miller's Monsters, Marissa
Gavin, fearless leader of the chicken called Rachel, AB,
Jayden, Jackie, Yellow Bear, Dwayne AKA Nashville, Alyssa,
Bree, Michael, Extreme, Kristen from Paranoia podcast, James and
most importantly of course, got to break the time for this one
(01:11:56):
our sexiest producer. Happy Kitty.
Thank you all and hope you guys have a wonderful day, night,
evening. We love you all, Bye.
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