July 19, 2025 • 32 mins
Fun Facts and Sidetracks: The Ones That Got Away, Surprising Celebrity Babysitters and Stolen Inventions
In this episode of 'Fun Facts and Sidetracks,' Al and Marty discuss famous songs that were initially intended for other artists, including tracks by The Supremes, Kylie Minogue, Seal, and Kenny Loggins. They delve into amusing and surprising stories about celebrity babysitters such as Alice Cooper babysitting Keanu Reeves and Cher babysitting Anthony from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Additionally, the episode explores intriguing facts about famous buildings like the Eiffel Tower and the Great Wall of China, and uncovers the true origins of well-known inventions, revealing famous figures like Thomas Edison who capitalized on others' innovations. The hosts wrap up with a discussion on LEGO and other noteworthy inventions.
00:00 Introduction and Greetings
00:55 The Ones That Got Away: Iconic Songs Rejected by Artists
09:12 Celebrity Babysitters: Unexpected Connections
15:56 Hollywood Connections: Keifer Sutherland and Gwyneth Paltrow
16:57 Builder's Journey: From Music to Construction
18:07 Famous Buildings Around the World
22:38 Lego: The Ultimate Building Block
25:32 Famous Inventions and Their True Origins
32:06 Wrapping Up: From Supremes to Eiffel Tower
If you have a fun fact you’d like us to share, send us an email to: funfactsandsidetracks@gmail.com or leave us a comment online at our social pages on Facebook or Instagram Thanks for listening and never be afraid to get sidetracked.
The boring disclaimer: We do try to double-check all of the facts we talk about. If something isn’t quite correct, we humbly apologise. Credit to our many sources including, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, Tim from Kicking Harold, Mental Floss, Wikipedia and so many more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Al and Marty (00:16):
Gid day Mart, How are you?
Yeah.
Here we are again.
Fun facts and sidetracks.
Yes.
Yeah.
You know, we don't claim to be,authority on all these topics
that we're, talking about.
Hmm.
Well, some of them anyway.
Yeah.
The stories that we tell aboutourselves, hopefully we've got
reasonably accurate.
Yeah, mine are definitely 100%.
(00:37):
Yeah.
but.
If you think we haven't got itright, send us an email.
Definitely.
Yeah.
Through Fun Facts andsidetracks@gmail.com.
Very good, Al.
Thank you very much.
Alright, shall we kick off?
Yes, let's do it.
Okay.
First up, what's the first up?
The ones that got away.
Yeah.
(00:57):
We often talk about these songsthat are intended for someone
and they just don't take them.
Okay.
They wind up in someone else'shands.
Yeah.
Who you got out?
Well, the difference with theseones is they all seem to have
pretty major consequences whensomebody didn't take up the
option of recording them.
Mm-hmm.
Pretty good example of that iswhere did our love go?
(01:21):
So this is The Supremes.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
You'll, you'll sing it for me,won't you?
No, I won't won.
Not this one.
This song was written for theMarvelettes who'd had a hit with
Please, Mr.
Postman.
And apparently their leadsinger refused to sing it
(01:42):
because she hated the line in ababy baby.
And so it was given to theSupremes.
And she hated the line.
Baby, baby.
Yeah.
For whatever reason, I don'tknow.
But, the Supremes to that pointwere kind of being mocked by
bands like this for being the Nohit Supremes.
Yeah.
So Diana Ross and Co.
(02:03):
Yeah.
This was the first of their 12number one hits.
So, so if the Marvelettes hadtaken that song, who knows?
Yeah.
But, uh, pretty dumb call.
You would have to think.
Baby, baby, baby.
Yeah.
That's gotta be one of thebiggest words in most of the
rock and roll songs, isn't it?
Don't Google Baby, baby.
(02:24):
You'll be looking through theresponses forever.
Yeah.
Anyway, there you go.
It's just been sped up and likeyou Barry White baby, baby,
everyone's used it.
Yeah.
It was probably not thesmartest call by Gladys.
No.
But anyway.
Yeah.
Who's next?
Okay, next up.
We seem to talk about KylieMinogue a lot.
Yeah.
That's not by design, but no,it, it seems that a lot of her
(02:47):
songs are either her pickingthem up or other people,
offering to her and she doesn'ttake them.
Well, she's had an interestingcareer.
She has and she's of the AussieBattler.
Exactly.
So her 2000 comeback singlespinning around.
Mm.
It was a pretty bloody big hitwhen you think about it.
It was, this is the clip thathas Kylie in the disco, in
(03:11):
those, hot pants.
Yeah.
Inverted commas.
Mm-hmm.
So the ones that made herfamous for that outfit.
Yeah.
You know, and again, that songwas not initially intended for
Kylie.
It was intended for.
Paula Abdul.
Oh.
But apparently, I don't knowwhat happened, but Paula Abdul
(03:32):
gets a writing credit on thesong, so I dunno if she added
something to it, but ultimatelycredit.
Yeah, ultimately it wound upwith Kylie on her seventh album,
light Years, and all that goeswith it.
Not only was the songincredibly successful, but the
video was just so successful andthis was all about her being
(03:55):
reestablished, and it certainlydid that.
Yeah.
And the hot pants as well.
Yeah, that's it.
Were very successful.
Yeah.
Well, they're on displaysomewhere in, you know, the hot
pants exhibition somewhere.
Probably They are.
No, in a glass case.
We'd have to look that one up.
Just like a Batman cape orsomething.
Anyway, so next up we've got akiss from a Rose.
(04:18):
Oh, seal.
Seal.
That was a huge song.
Yeah.
Was, he's an unusual looklooking, I was gonna say,
looking guy, but.
You know, the girls love him, Ithink, but he's got that sort
of scar look about him, hasn'the?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dangerous.
Dangerous.
Yeah.
There you go.
He, did not wanna sing thatsong.
(04:40):
There's some story of himapparently throwing the tape in
the corner of the room and Wow.
Hating it.
But it was ultimately includedin the movie Batman Forever,
and, yeah.
Has been a staple on FM radioever since.
And I think probably he'schanged his tune about whether
he likes it or not.
I think so.
Like what other songs did hehave?
I can't remember.
(05:00):
Yeah, I know.
Did he have a huge, 'cause hepops up everywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He is a judge on one of thosesinging shows and stuff.
But all, all on the basis of, aKiss from a Rose, I suspect.
Yeah.
Imagine when he threw that tapeaway, he threw it down Smack
the dummy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You sure you wanna do that?
Yes.
Well, gimme a listen to it onemore time.
So I'll give it a go now,speaking of big, FM Staples.
(05:27):
Mm-hmm.
How many times do you reckonyou've heard danger zone?
Oh, man, since 1986.
Danger Zone reminds you of TomCruise and, yep.
Yeah, yeah.
Leather jacket motorbikes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Top Gun Highway.
Yes.
To the, the Danger Zone.
(05:48):
So Kenny Loggins ultimatelysang that, but it was offered to
Toto, to Brian Adams, to REOSpeedwagon.
Where are they now?
Mm-hmm.
Uh, Jefferson Starship and CoryHart, all of whom rejected it.
But, Kenny Loggins had alreadyhad a number one hit.
(06:09):
With foot loses a couple ofyears earlier.
Yeah.
And he kinda stepped in as alast minute replacement and
gosh, it went to number two onthe billboard.
Hot 100 and it's so synonymouswith that top gun.
I, he's just sitting backlistening to going Chaching,
chaching, chaching.
Because how many times do youhear that on the FM station?
(06:29):
Oh, far too often.
I suspect, you know, firstthing in the morning, ha, we two
and all through the day andthen last thing at night.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
There you go.
One more.
This goes back to 1965.
It's for your love by a bandcalled The Yardbirds.
(06:49):
Yeah.
For your love.
That's it.
Yeah.
The Yardbirds obviously werefamous for being the band that.
Eric Clapton played him theywere looking for a hit at the
time, and a guy called GrahamGoldman, who was an 18-year-old
working in a men's cloth store.
Mm-hmm.
Who was in a band at the time.
(07:11):
He'd written this song For YourLove.
Yeah.
For your love.
And he kind of, he'd pinchedthe idea from.
How the animals had House ofthe Rising Sun.
Yeah.
Because they kind of invertedthe whole chord sequence in
that.
Yeah.
From the traditional version.
And he went, that's a goodidea.
I'll do that with this song.
Yeah.
Anyway, he, he wrote this thingand added a harpsi chord and it
(07:34):
went to number one.
But when the Yardbirds playedlive, 'cause they were like a
blues rock band, right?
That's right.
Eric Clapton evidently hatedhaving to play.
Or replicate the harps chordsound.
Yeah.
Every time they played it.
So he ultimately left the bandso well, there you go.
Thanks to him.
And went on, you know, to formcream and all of those things.
(07:56):
So, yeah, this young guyworking in the shop, went on to
Graham Gouldman.
Yeah.
Went on to write all sorts ofhits for people like the
hollies, bus stop, lookedthrough any window, no milk
today, all that sort of stuff.
Yeah.
And of course he joined 10 CCCand, co-wrote, I'm not in Love.
(08:18):
Dreadlock holiday.
I'm Mandy fly me , Art forart's sake.
Wow.
Like all this stuff, right?
Like he must be, how old wouldhe be?
Well, he was 18 in 1964.
Wow.
So he was, say he was born in,um, 1946.
So, yeah, he's still touring.
10 CC is playing at Twin Towersshortly.
So How old was he?
(08:39):
He was 18 when he wrote it.
Yeah, sorry, Al.
Yeah.
I'm not good with Matt's, butwe can work that out and if
someone works it out.
Hey, I think we drop us a line.
I think we just did, didn't we?
Sorry, again.
That's too funny.
(09:00):
Anyway.
That was a good one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There you go.
A fun thing that I came acrossis the idea of celebrity
babysitters.
Okay.
This is gonna be interesting.
(09:20):
Yeah, it it's kind of fun.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, and the first one is thefact that when Keanu Reeves was
a baby, don't you love KeanuReeves?
I love Keanu Reeves.
I reckon he's after ClintEastwood.
He's probably the coolestperson on the planet, I think,
to He's, he's very cool.
He is a very spiritual, and heYeah, he is.
Yeah.
And he was babysat by someonewho lived across the road.
(09:45):
In Toronto at the time, andthat was Alice Cooper there.
Alice, he was also a very coolperson from one extreme to the
other.
Yeah, he's a mystery guy too,because he's quite religious.
He is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's a dude.
Yeah.
He's so different to thepersona that you see on stage,
right?
He is.
He plays, he loves golf.
(10:06):
Yeah.
Apparently he's a passionategolf player, which I just, with
that makeup.
And carrying a cane all thetime.
And that hat.
Oh no, he's so they're bothvery cool dudes.
Yeah.
Isn't that amazing?
Wouldn't that be great to havehim as babysitter?
Oh man.
Yeah.
The thing I, like, I saw, uh,Keanu Reeves being interviewed
(10:27):
on Jimmy Fallon show.
Yeah.
And he said, oh, I don't reallyremember it, but, apparently
there was a fake poo in thefridge.
So they kind of put that downto Alice.
So was Alice Cooper.
Alice Cooper then?
Well, no, that's his sort ofstage name, so I know that, but
(10:47):
you know what I'm saying.
Was he, was he, uh, well, whoknows?
I I bet he's Jewish with thatnose.
Come on big nose.
You know what I'm saying?
I dunno.
Was he Alice Cooper?
The, was he, I, I dunno if hehad assumed that persona yet.
Or if he was still Vincent Niaat that point.
That would've been about 1970.
(11:08):
And like the band was calledAlice Cooper initially, and then
he sort of took on that name.
Oh really?
I didn't know that.
I, I just thought he was AliceCooper.
Yeah.
So I don't know if he was Aliceyet.
I dunno if he was terrifyingkids when he was babysitting
them all.
He like just was set.
Just Halloween went crazy forone.
(11:29):
One.
Halloween every day isHalloween.
Yeah.
He's a very cool guy too.
Yeah.
They're both cool guys.
Yeah.
Anyway.
One of the recurring themeswith this little topic is it
seems to be, maybe it's becausea lot of people are just all
based in Hollywood, but it seemslike parents knowing parents.
Yeah.
(11:49):
So a lot of these things, I'llgive you an example.
Um, Laura Dern and AngelinaJolie.
So Laura Dern was a babysitterYeah.
For Angelina and.
That's probably becauseAngelina Jolie's dad was John
Voight.
Yeah.
Laura Dern's dad, was BruceDern.
So they were basically familyfriends.
(12:11):
Right.
Yeah.
So it sort of happenednaturally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Here's another one.
Liza Minnelli and Ron Howard.
Hollywood Loyalty there.
I wonder if that, I wonder ifthat was when he was doing, um.
Oh, well she was looking afterhim.
She was looking after him, so,oh no.
What was she doing?
(12:31):
Babysitting.
Well, his dad was an actor andhe hired Judy Garland's, teenage
daughter, Liza, to look afterhis son.
Is that Liza with a zed?
Yeah.
Not Liza with an S.
Yeah.
So there you go.
Yeah.
Well, there you go.
Because yeah, that she had anup and down career.
Yeah.
And, and he actually later inlife as a director encouraged
(12:56):
her to appear in, uh, at leastone of his movies.
So, yeah.
Well, that's good.
There you go.
Um, she, she was not unhappydays.
That's true.
Um, fun's girlfriend.
Was it Pinky Tuscadero andLeather Tuscadero.
We'll talk about Happy Days inanother episode.
(13:16):
Yeah, we will.
Here's one.
Michael Bolton was PaulaAbdul's babysitter.
Oh, Michael Bolton.
Michael Bolton Fuller.
Paula Adul.
Yeah.
She She did that clip with therapper, didn't she?
She did.
She did.
Apparently one of MichaelBolton's band members was going
(13:37):
out with Paula Abdul's sister,so he kind of agreed to stay
home and look after the littlesister, but she said he was a
pretty crappy babysitterbecause, all he cared about was
music.
So he used to go off and find,people in the, in the same unit
block who were playing music andhe wouldn't help her with her
homework and all this sort ofthing.
Geez, I wonder if he had thatmother.
Yeah.
(13:58):
Now here's a real good one.
Cher and Anthony Kiedis fromRed Hot Chili Peppers, so Wow.
Yeah.
Lucky fella.
Yeah.
Well, so in his autobiographyfrom 2004, scar tissue.
Mm-hmm.
He says that he saw Cher nakedwhen she was babysitting for
(14:20):
him.
He pretended to be asleep, buthe was spying on her as she
stripped off to get ready forbed when she was babysitting
overnight.
My goodness.
So there you go.
That might've had an influenceon, on him as a young fellow,
but he did.
When, if Sonny popped in withthat big snot, talk about Big s.
Yeah.
(14:41):
Goodness.
I Okay, you babe.
Okay.
Who else we got now?
William H Macy and Joan Cusack.
Okay.
Yep.
We've got Billie Holiday inBilly Crystal.
Billie Holiday.
Yes.
That's, wow.
(15:03):
She must have been pretty oldthen.
Billie Holiday.
Yeah, he said she was the firstperson to ever take him to the
movies.
They watched Western Shane in1953.
She was signed to CommodoreRecords at the time, which was
co-owned by, Billy Crystal'sdad, Jack Crystal.
And so she'd often sort ofguessed on.
Things and, help out as ababysitter and a future actor.
(15:26):
So there you go.
Have you ever seen BillyCrystal take off Muhammad Ali?
No.
He had a whole show where he,he took off exactly what
Muhammad Ali said he was gonnado about the Rumble in the
Jungle, I think.
Oh, yeah.
That fight.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's really good.
He's pretty cool, isn't he?
Yeah.
Pretty smart.
(15:47):
He even, he even looked likehim, even though he's a little
short Jewish guy.
Yeah.
Wow.
So here's, here's the last onefor you.
Yeah.
Keifer Sutherland and GwynethPaltrow.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, so this is a classic caseof, uh, Hollywood parents.
You've got Keifer Sutherland,who is Donald Sutherland's son.
(16:07):
Yeah.
And you've got Gwyneth Paltrow,who is of course Blythe
Danner's daughter.
And so you had Keifer andBlythe worked together, so he
ended up, babysitting forGwyneth.
Kea worked in the theatre withBlythe Danner, and she'd
sometimes ask him to babysit forher, oh, so he looked after
(16:34):
Gwyneth when she was about 11 or12.
Okay.
Yeah.
So there you go.
There's there's a few famousones.
It is.
That's great, isn't it?
Yeah.
Wow.
I love the Alice Cooper one,but Yeah.
Well, you know.
Yeah.
And the, it's, it's AliceCooper and Keanu Reeves.
Um, first daylight, second asfar as I'm concerned.
Yeah.
They're both cool people.
(16:56):
Yeah.
Now, one of the things thatpeople might not know about you
and son now is that you are abuilder.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Well, I, I think we've talkedabout a karate Marty.
Yeah.
And we've talked about youbeing a muso.
Okay.
But you're also a builder.
That's right.
(17:16):
Uh, a brickie.
Yeah, and I've done oh,carpentry for ages and yeah,
hanging, wallpaper, wallpaper,hanging, business, a painting,
painting, wallpaper, interiordecorating business.
Yeah.
I worked for a plumber for fouryears.
I've done plastering.
I.
Rendering.
Yeah.
I've done it all.
Well, you built this house thatwe're Yes.
(17:38):
Yeah.
Sitting in, fun facts andsidetracks.com central.
Yeah, very fine house.
It is too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I spent a lot of time doingthat while I was doing music at
night, so, yeah.
Yeah.
So is this gonna be interestingwhat we're talking about?
Well, we're talking aboutbuilding my friend.
Good.
And we're talking about famousbuildings, in fact.
(17:58):
Okay, we're talking about meagain.
Yeah, that's, yeah, of course.
It, it, everything leads backto you.
Yeah.
So let's have a chat about someof the famous buildings around
the world.
What have we got?
So the first one is the EiffelTower.
Mm-hmm.
One of the world's greatlandmarks.
It is.
The interesting fact about thisis that Gustav Eiffel pitched
(18:22):
it to Barcelona and they didn'twant it.
Okay.
Yeah.
He was an engineer, wasn't he?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gustav actually did theengineering on the interior of
the, uh, statue Liberty inAmerica.
In New York.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And, and then it was covered incopper.
So it's actually covered incopper.
(18:43):
That's why it's green.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
Copper goes green when it'saged.
Imagine polishing that brasso.
You need a lot of brasso.
Yeah.
Holy Nelly.
What's next, Al?
Sorry mate.
Well, no.
Interesting sidetrack mate.
Yes, but the interesting thingwas when it was built, the
(19:07):
Parisians were none too happy tohave it there either.
And in fact, one of theirfamous contemporary writers
disliked it so much.
He used to go and eat his lunchinside the Eiffel Tower because
it was the only place in Paristhat he could go and do that
without having to see it.
Oh, so typical Frenchman.
Yeah.
(19:27):
Yeah.
It's amazing.
Yeah, there you go.
That's an interesting storythat the Eiffel Tower, the, it
was, you know, built and, andthat guy, what he went through.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I saw a movie about it.
It was very interesting.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
The Great Wall of China.
One fact about this, it's long.
It's very long.
And despite what people say,you can't see the Great Wall of
(19:51):
China from space.
No, you can't.
You know how it's a cliche thatYeah, yeah.
They're saying even from lowerorbit, you can't see the Great
Wall of China, really?
So that, that's a fallacy.
Wow.
Not with the human eye atleast.
So you can't see it from themoon.
If they weren't looking downand going, yeah, there's the
child.
Apparently not.
No.
(20:12):
Geez.
Yeah, it's huge.
But yeah, I did see a show andthey said they weren't sure
which way it was actuallyprotecting.
Oh, okay.
You know, like, was itprotecting China or was it
protecting the other way?
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, to keep the rabbitsout.
Alright, the next one, the TajMahal.
(20:36):
This is pretty interesting too.
It was built as a mausoleum forthe wife of the, the emperor at
the time.
Yeah, she died in 1631.
They started building thisthing in 1632, and it was
finished in 1648.
Wow.
It's a fair old undertaking.
(20:56):
Yeah.
But the thing that fascinatedme about this is that they have
these minarets or the, thetowers, the tall towers.
Oh, the big towers out front.
Yeah.
On side.
They're adjacent to the mosque.
Yes.
But they're actually built onan angle so that if.
There was to be, say a, anearthquake or something.
Yeah, if they fall down, theywon't fall down on the mausoleum
(21:18):
and not fall the other way.
Wow.
Wow.
I mean, you see that a lot inthis, you know, crazy
architecture around the world,don't you?
Yeah.
You do.
You know, from the Acropolisand Yeah.
Things like that.
The steps on the Acropolis areso big that they allowed, 'cause
your eyes, if it was level,your eyes would see it wrong, so
(21:39):
they made it.
Curve downwards.
Yeah.
If you stand at the step andcite down the steps they
actually curve downwards toallow for the curvature of the
earth.
Yeah, that's how big the like,that's amazing.
Yeah.
Okay.
Pyramids.
Yeah.
Now when you think pyramids,you think one place, right?
Yes.
Which is, yeah, Egypt.
(21:59):
Yep.
But the truth is they saythere's more pyramids in Sudan
than there are in Egypt.
They estimate there's 250pyramid structures in a sedan
built between 2,500 BC and 300ad.
Okay.
Egypt's thought to have justover a hundred pyramids.
(22:20):
Not another pyramid.
That's how many is too much?
Yeah, many far out.
Geez.
Yeah.
There you go.
Those aliens were very busy.
Now here's, here's a fact, markbeing a builder, you'll
appreciate this.
Yeah.
Lego bricks.
Oh, wow.
(22:40):
I love Lego.
I really do.
Lego, bricks are thought to beable to support the weight of
375,000 other Lego bricks beforethe brick fails.
I wonder how many ton that is.
I dunno.
But they say theoretically itwould let you build a tower
(23:02):
that's three and a halfkilometres high.
Wow.
So if you scale that up tohouse bricks mm-hmm.
You know, they say, oh, itwould cost you much.
You'd never do it, but yeah.
But the structure of the Legobrick Yeah.
Is such that it's, it's thestrongest thing that you can
build with.
Right.
It's incredible.
Yeah.
There are building products nowthat are like Lego that I've
(23:24):
seen.
Yeah.
That like, they're like a foamand they go together.
They keep together exactly thesame and they just render the
outside.
Yeah.
Right.
Fun facts about Lego.
Yeah.
It is the world's biggestmanufacturer of tires.
It often a little for all thebits and bobs that you get.
Oh no.
Yeah, true.
And credit to the people fromQi for that fact.
(23:47):
But how good the biggestmanufacturer of, of tires, tires
in the world do they mean likeas in number of tires that have
made little tires?
Yeah.
Wow.
It's still a cool fact.
That's an amazing fact.
Yeah.
Here's another one.
Lego has an underground vaultwith every Lego set ever made.
(24:07):
So if the worst happens, then Idunno, whoever's left is gonna
find, a complete set of everysingle one.
Yeah.
So there you go.
They've been so smart.
They've tapped into everything,right?
Yeah.
From, from Batman to Star Warsto Minecraft now.
Yeah, they, they're prettyamazing.
(24:28):
They reckon.
The revenue in 2023 for Legowas around 9.6 billion.
Such a good product.
Yeah, it's a great product.
A really interesting thingthough, mark is apparently the
founder of the company, Ole KirkChristiansen, in 1946 was shown
(24:49):
a demonstration of a plasticmoulding machine that was being
used to make a product calledBri-Plax, interlocking building
cubes.
Mm-hmm.
Built by a little Britishcompany called Kiddycraft.
And, essentially the Legobricks are a better version of
that Kiddy craft product.
Lego maintained that, it wasfine to use the design, but just
(25:13):
in case in 1982, they snappedup the rights to the Kiddycraft
product and reached an out ofcourt settlements.
So.
Sure.
Everyone's a winner.
Yeah, I reckon, I reckon.
Geez.
But it did get me thinking.
I mean, I'm not here to saywhether they stole the idea or
not.
Yeah.
But there's a whole bunch offamous inventions over time
(25:36):
Yeah.
That have, let's say, beeninfluenced by other people's
hand work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So let's have a look at acouple of them.
Okay.
I'll be interested to hear.
Well, you know, intermittentwindscreen wipers.
So back in the day, 1963.
Yeah.
A guy called Robert Kearnsbuilt the first intermittent
(25:56):
wiper system.
Yes.
He tried to sell it to, whatwas the big three in those days?
Ford, Chrysler, and GeneralMotors.
They all rejected it, but thencame out with their own version
of it straight away.
Geez.
Yeah.
So he then went through apretty protected legal battle.
(26:16):
Uh, that went on for more thana decade, but, he won.
The Chinese are doing that now,aren't they?
Well, maybe, yeah.
Yeah.
They could be doing it.
Yeah.
Another one is Jack Daniels.
Oh.
Which, for 150 years, it's beenattributed to a Reverend Daniel
Call who was a white Lutheranminister from Lynchburg,
(26:40):
Tennessee.
Famously, but, in truth,apparently it was a fellow
called Nathan Nearest Green, whowas an enslaved man, and he
actually taught this guy how tomake this, this product.
It's fair to say that, he wasnever really given the credit
for creating it.
And the, the sort of corporatestory goes on, you know, that
(27:01):
horrible.
Yeah.
They sell 13.3 million casesevery year.
Yeah.
Wow.
So, wow.
There's a lot of drunk,Christmas.
Yeah.
Fights there.
Monopoly's another good one.
There's a lady in 1904 whoinvented a game called the
(27:21):
Landlord's Game.
And the idea was to, use landtax and caution against the
perils of land grabbing.
Basically it was ripped off andpresented to Parker Brothers in
1935, and there was even aspelling mistake copied directly
from the original, so it waspretty hard to hide that.
Wow.
They'd pinched the whole thing.
(27:42):
But Parker Brothers dodgedlegal action by acquiring the
rights.
This is a recurring theme.
So they bought it out and, 40years went by before the company
admitted that this lady was thereal brains behind the game.
Wow.
Yeah.
There you go.
And they could do that withoutany Yeah, well it seems that
(28:02):
way.
Like even say that they stoleit.
Yeah.
Basically.
Yeah.
And, and I hasten to add thatwe are saying, apparently this
was the story, we don't wanna goto court with Parker Brothers
or anyone else.
I'm just going really?
Yeah, no, you are implicated inthis 'cause you are saying
(28:22):
really.
Yeah, so it's go to jail, godirectly to jail.
Okay, next up the sewingmachine.
I think most people would thinkthat the sewing machine can be
put down to a fellow calledSinger who's widely credited
(28:43):
with inventing the modern sewingmachine.
Mm-hmm.
Apparently the truth is that hepinched the design from another
fellow by the name of Howe andHowe had pinched the design from
someone called John Fisher.
Uh, John Fisher never patentedit.
However, how did the guy in themiddle mm-hmm.
And so he was able to sueSinger for lost royalties and
(29:10):
mounted several legal cases.
So he made a lot out of this.
And the original designer got.
Nothing.
Nothing.
A zero.
Yeah.
A duck egg fellow.
Yeah.
You know, to watch that goingon ahead of you.
Yeah.
It's, it's a weird thing.
A lot of these things seem totake so long to get to court.
Yeah.
(29:30):
That, the court proceedingstake so long that people die
along the way.
Yeah.
Or they just run out of money.
Oh, I could imagine.
Run outta money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's horrible.
So the light bulb's a reallygood one.
I think we've all grown upthinking Thomas Edison is the
inventor of the light globe.
Yeah.
Uh, but the truth is that heapplied a lot of his own
(29:51):
technology to things thatalready existed.
So there was a couple ofCanadian inventors, Henry
Woodward and Matthew Evans, who,sold Edison their light bulb
patent after they'd failed tosecure financial backing.
So what happened there was anEnglish guy called Joseph Swan.
He had, designs for a carbonfilament electric light, and,
(30:15):
that had already been publishedin.
Scientific American magazine.
So Swan had filed for a patent,on that technology before
Edison.
So he was able to sue him forpatent infringement and one.
Wow.
Yeah.
Crazy time.
It is.
And lastly, the movieprojector.
So again, believe it or not,Edison had been accused of
(30:38):
appropriating the ideas, from anumber of people for his
invention, including the movieprojector.
But there were people who'dactually created this thing
earlier.
Yeah, a thing called the fanoscope in 1895.
But again, they didn't have thefinancial backing for it they
sold their idea to theKinetoscope company and then
(31:00):
that company turned to ThomasEdison for funding.
So Thomas wins that every timehe seems to, yeah.
So the actual inventions weredeleted, from the products
history and it was renamedEdison's Phantoscope, even the
record player Mark, which Ithink people know the gramophone
to have come from ThomasEdison.
Yeah.
Apparently there were someFrench guys who created the
(31:24):
earliest sound recording deviceand there was a French inventor
who.
Captured the first recording ofsound Well before Edison in
1877.
Wow.
Oh, probably exactly how itsounded.
Is that, is that the recording?
(31:44):
Yeah.
From 1877.
Yeah, I think so.
So there you go.
Yeah, that's great Al And thereare lots more, but, it's pretty
sad because.
Sometimes the patenting is tiedto financial backing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No one wins there, and he'sonly one winner, and it seems to
(32:04):
be Thomas, it seems to be.
Okay, Al I think that's prettygood.
We've rounded it off prettywell.
We've covered a lot of groundand had a few laughs.
What do you think?
We've been from the Supremes tothe Eiffel Tower.
Yeah.
Keanu Reeves and everywhere inbetween.
Yeah.
Great.
Alright.
See you next time folks.
(32:25):
Yep.
We'll see ya.
Gid day Mart, How are you?
Yeah.
Here we are again.
Fun facts and sidetracks.
Yes.
Yeah.
You know, we don't claim to be,authority on all these topics
that we're, talking about.
Hmm.
Well, some of them anyway.
Yeah.
The stories that we tell aboutourselves, hopefully we've got
reasonably accurate.
Yeah, mine are definitely 100%.
(00:37):
Yeah.
but.
If you think we haven't got itright, send us an email.
Definitely.
Yeah.
Through Fun Facts andsidetracks@gmail.com.
Very good, Al.
Thank you very much.
Alright, shall we kick off?
Yes, let's do it.
Okay.
First up, what's the first up?
The ones that got away.
Yeah.
(00:57):
We often talk about these songsthat are intended for someone
and they just don't take them.
Okay.
They wind up in someone else'shands.
Yeah.
Who you got out?
Well, the difference with theseones is they all seem to have
pretty major consequences whensomebody didn't take up the
option of recording them.
Mm-hmm.
Pretty good example of that iswhere did our love go?
(01:21):
So this is The Supremes.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
You'll, you'll sing it for me,won't you?
No, I won't won.
Not this one.
This song was written for theMarvelettes who'd had a hit with
Please, Mr.
Postman.
And apparently their leadsinger refused to sing it
(01:42):
because she hated the line in ababy baby.
And so it was given to theSupremes.
And she hated the line.
Baby, baby.
Yeah.
For whatever reason, I don'tknow.
But, the Supremes to that pointwere kind of being mocked by
bands like this for being the Nohit Supremes.
Yeah.
So Diana Ross and Co.
(02:03):
Yeah.
This was the first of their 12number one hits.
So, so if the Marvelettes hadtaken that song, who knows?
Yeah.
But, uh, pretty dumb call.
You would have to think.
Baby, baby, baby.
Yeah.
That's gotta be one of thebiggest words in most of the
rock and roll songs, isn't it?
Don't Google Baby, baby.
(02:24):
You'll be looking through theresponses forever.
Yeah.
Anyway, there you go.
It's just been sped up and likeyou Barry White baby, baby,
everyone's used it.
Yeah.
It was probably not thesmartest call by Gladys.
No.
But anyway.
Yeah.
Who's next?
Okay, next up.
We seem to talk about KylieMinogue a lot.
Yeah.
That's not by design, but no,it, it seems that a lot of her
(02:47):
songs are either her pickingthem up or other people,
offering to her and she doesn'ttake them.
Well, she's had an interestingcareer.
She has and she's of the AussieBattler.
Exactly.
So her 2000 comeback singlespinning around.
Mm.
It was a pretty bloody big hitwhen you think about it.
It was, this is the clip thathas Kylie in the disco, in
(03:11):
those, hot pants.
Yeah.
Inverted commas.
Mm-hmm.
So the ones that made herfamous for that outfit.
Yeah.
You know, and again, that songwas not initially intended for
Kylie.
It was intended for.
Paula Abdul.
Oh.
But apparently, I don't knowwhat happened, but Paula Abdul
(03:32):
gets a writing credit on thesong, so I dunno if she added
something to it, but ultimatelycredit.
Yeah, ultimately it wound upwith Kylie on her seventh album,
light Years, and all that goeswith it.
Not only was the songincredibly successful, but the
video was just so successful andthis was all about her being
(03:55):
reestablished, and it certainlydid that.
Yeah.
And the hot pants as well.
Yeah, that's it.
Were very successful.
Yeah.
Well, they're on displaysomewhere in, you know, the hot
pants exhibition somewhere.
Probably They are.
No, in a glass case.
We'd have to look that one up.
Just like a Batman cape orsomething.
Anyway, so next up we've got akiss from a Rose.
(04:18):
Oh, seal.
Seal.
That was a huge song.
Yeah.
Was, he's an unusual looklooking, I was gonna say,
looking guy, but.
You know, the girls love him, Ithink, but he's got that sort
of scar look about him, hasn'the?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dangerous.
Dangerous.
Yeah.
There you go.
He, did not wanna sing thatsong.
(04:40):
There's some story of himapparently throwing the tape in
the corner of the room and Wow.
Hating it.
But it was ultimately includedin the movie Batman Forever,
and, yeah.
Has been a staple on FM radioever since.
And I think probably he'schanged his tune about whether
he likes it or not.
I think so.
Like what other songs did hehave?
I can't remember.
(05:00):
Yeah, I know.
Did he have a huge, 'cause hepops up everywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He is a judge on one of thosesinging shows and stuff.
But all, all on the basis of, aKiss from a Rose, I suspect.
Yeah.
Imagine when he threw that tapeaway, he threw it down Smack
the dummy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You sure you wanna do that?
Yes.
Well, gimme a listen to it onemore time.
So I'll give it a go now,speaking of big, FM Staples.
(05:27):
Mm-hmm.
How many times do you reckonyou've heard danger zone?
Oh, man, since 1986.
Danger Zone reminds you of TomCruise and, yep.
Yeah, yeah.
Leather jacket motorbikes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Top Gun Highway.
Yes.
To the, the Danger Zone.
(05:48):
So Kenny Loggins ultimatelysang that, but it was offered to
Toto, to Brian Adams, to REOSpeedwagon.
Where are they now?
Mm-hmm.
Uh, Jefferson Starship and CoryHart, all of whom rejected it.
But, Kenny Loggins had alreadyhad a number one hit.
(06:09):
With foot loses a couple ofyears earlier.
Yeah.
And he kinda stepped in as alast minute replacement and
gosh, it went to number two onthe billboard.
Hot 100 and it's so synonymouswith that top gun.
I, he's just sitting backlistening to going Chaching,
chaching, chaching.
Because how many times do youhear that on the FM station?
(06:29):
Oh, far too often.
I suspect, you know, firstthing in the morning, ha, we two
and all through the day andthen last thing at night.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
There you go.
One more.
This goes back to 1965.
It's for your love by a bandcalled The Yardbirds.
(06:49):
Yeah.
For your love.
That's it.
Yeah.
The Yardbirds obviously werefamous for being the band that.
Eric Clapton played him theywere looking for a hit at the
time, and a guy called GrahamGoldman, who was an 18-year-old
working in a men's cloth store.
Mm-hmm.
Who was in a band at the time.
(07:11):
He'd written this song For YourLove.
Yeah.
For your love.
And he kind of, he'd pinchedthe idea from.
How the animals had House ofthe Rising Sun.
Yeah.
Because they kind of invertedthe whole chord sequence in
that.
Yeah.
From the traditional version.
And he went, that's a goodidea.
I'll do that with this song.
Yeah.
Anyway, he, he wrote this thingand added a harpsi chord and it
(07:34):
went to number one.
But when the Yardbirds playedlive, 'cause they were like a
blues rock band, right?
That's right.
Eric Clapton evidently hatedhaving to play.
Or replicate the harps chordsound.
Yeah.
Every time they played it.
So he ultimately left the bandso well, there you go.
Thanks to him.
And went on, you know, to formcream and all of those things.
(07:56):
So, yeah, this young guyworking in the shop, went on to
Graham Gouldman.
Yeah.
Went on to write all sorts ofhits for people like the
hollies, bus stop, lookedthrough any window, no milk
today, all that sort of stuff.
Yeah.
And of course he joined 10 CCCand, co-wrote, I'm not in Love.
(08:18):
Dreadlock holiday.
I'm Mandy fly me , Art forart's sake.
Wow.
Like all this stuff, right?
Like he must be, how old wouldhe be?
Well, he was 18 in 1964.
Wow.
So he was, say he was born in,um, 1946.
So, yeah, he's still touring.
10 CC is playing at Twin Towersshortly.
So How old was he?
(08:39):
He was 18 when he wrote it.
Yeah, sorry, Al.
Yeah.
I'm not good with Matt's, butwe can work that out and if
someone works it out.
Hey, I think we drop us a line.
I think we just did, didn't we?
Sorry, again.
That's too funny.
(09:00):
Anyway.
That was a good one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There you go.
A fun thing that I came acrossis the idea of celebrity
babysitters.
Okay.
This is gonna be interesting.
(09:20):
Yeah, it it's kind of fun.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, and the first one is thefact that when Keanu Reeves was
a baby, don't you love KeanuReeves?
I love Keanu Reeves.
I reckon he's after ClintEastwood.
He's probably the coolestperson on the planet, I think,
to He's, he's very cool.
He is a very spiritual, and heYeah, he is.
Yeah.
And he was babysat by someonewho lived across the road.
(09:45):
In Toronto at the time, andthat was Alice Cooper there.
Alice, he was also a very coolperson from one extreme to the
other.
Yeah, he's a mystery guy too,because he's quite religious.
He is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's a dude.
Yeah.
He's so different to thepersona that you see on stage,
right?
He is.
He plays, he loves golf.
(10:06):
Yeah.
Apparently he's a passionategolf player, which I just, with
that makeup.
And carrying a cane all thetime.
And that hat.
Oh no, he's so they're bothvery cool dudes.
Yeah.
Isn't that amazing?
Wouldn't that be great to havehim as babysitter?
Oh man.
Yeah.
The thing I, like, I saw, uh,Keanu Reeves being interviewed
(10:27):
on Jimmy Fallon show.
Yeah.
And he said, oh, I don't reallyremember it, but, apparently
there was a fake poo in thefridge.
So they kind of put that downto Alice.
So was Alice Cooper.
Alice Cooper then?
Well, no, that's his sort ofstage name, so I know that, but
(10:47):
you know what I'm saying.
Was he, was he, uh, well, whoknows?
I I bet he's Jewish with thatnose.
Come on big nose.
You know what I'm saying?
I dunno.
Was he Alice Cooper?
The, was he, I, I dunno if hehad assumed that persona yet.
Or if he was still Vincent Niaat that point.
That would've been about 1970.
(11:08):
And like the band was calledAlice Cooper initially, and then
he sort of took on that name.
Oh really?
I didn't know that.
I, I just thought he was AliceCooper.
Yeah.
So I don't know if he was Aliceyet.
I dunno if he was terrifyingkids when he was babysitting
them all.
He like just was set.
Just Halloween went crazy forone.
(11:29):
One.
Halloween every day isHalloween.
Yeah.
He's a very cool guy too.
Yeah.
They're both cool guys.
Yeah.
Anyway.
One of the recurring themeswith this little topic is it
seems to be, maybe it's becausea lot of people are just all
based in Hollywood, but it seemslike parents knowing parents.
Yeah.
(11:49):
So a lot of these things, I'llgive you an example.
Um, Laura Dern and AngelinaJolie.
So Laura Dern was a babysitterYeah.
For Angelina and.
That's probably becauseAngelina Jolie's dad was John
Voight.
Yeah.
Laura Dern's dad, was BruceDern.
So they were basically familyfriends.
(12:11):
Right.
Yeah.
So it sort of happenednaturally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Here's another one.
Liza Minnelli and Ron Howard.
Hollywood Loyalty there.
I wonder if that, I wonder ifthat was when he was doing, um.
Oh, well she was looking afterhim.
She was looking after him, so,oh no.
What was she doing?
(12:31):
Babysitting.
Well, his dad was an actor andhe hired Judy Garland's, teenage
daughter, Liza, to look afterhis son.
Is that Liza with a zed?
Yeah.
Not Liza with an S.
Yeah.
So there you go.
Yeah.
Well, there you go.
Because yeah, that she had anup and down career.
Yeah.
And, and he actually later inlife as a director encouraged
(12:56):
her to appear in, uh, at leastone of his movies.
So, yeah.
Well, that's good.
There you go.
Um, she, she was not unhappydays.
That's true.
Um, fun's girlfriend.
Was it Pinky Tuscadero andLeather Tuscadero.
We'll talk about Happy Days inanother episode.
(13:16):
Yeah, we will.
Here's one.
Michael Bolton was PaulaAbdul's babysitter.
Oh, Michael Bolton.
Michael Bolton Fuller.
Paula Adul.
Yeah.
She She did that clip with therapper, didn't she?
She did.
She did.
Apparently one of MichaelBolton's band members was going
(13:37):
out with Paula Abdul's sister,so he kind of agreed to stay
home and look after the littlesister, but she said he was a
pretty crappy babysitterbecause, all he cared about was
music.
So he used to go off and find,people in the, in the same unit
block who were playing music andhe wouldn't help her with her
homework and all this sort ofthing.
Geez, I wonder if he had thatmother.
Yeah.
(13:58):
Now here's a real good one.
Cher and Anthony Kiedis fromRed Hot Chili Peppers, so Wow.
Yeah.
Lucky fella.
Yeah.
Well, so in his autobiographyfrom 2004, scar tissue.
Mm-hmm.
He says that he saw Cher nakedwhen she was babysitting for
(14:20):
him.
He pretended to be asleep, buthe was spying on her as she
stripped off to get ready forbed when she was babysitting
overnight.
My goodness.
So there you go.
That might've had an influenceon, on him as a young fellow,
but he did.
When, if Sonny popped in withthat big snot, talk about Big s.
Yeah.
(14:41):
Goodness.
I Okay, you babe.
Okay.
Who else we got now?
William H Macy and Joan Cusack.
Okay.
Yep.
We've got Billie Holiday inBilly Crystal.
Billie Holiday.
Yes.
That's, wow.
(15:03):
She must have been pretty oldthen.
Billie Holiday.
Yeah, he said she was the firstperson to ever take him to the
movies.
They watched Western Shane in1953.
She was signed to CommodoreRecords at the time, which was
co-owned by, Billy Crystal'sdad, Jack Crystal.
And so she'd often sort ofguessed on.
Things and, help out as ababysitter and a future actor.
(15:26):
So there you go.
Have you ever seen BillyCrystal take off Muhammad Ali?
No.
He had a whole show where he,he took off exactly what
Muhammad Ali said he was gonnado about the Rumble in the
Jungle, I think.
Oh, yeah.
That fight.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's really good.
He's pretty cool, isn't he?
Yeah.
Pretty smart.
(15:47):
He even, he even looked likehim, even though he's a little
short Jewish guy.
Yeah.
Wow.
So here's, here's the last onefor you.
Yeah.
Keifer Sutherland and GwynethPaltrow.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, so this is a classic caseof, uh, Hollywood parents.
You've got Keifer Sutherland,who is Donald Sutherland's son.
(16:07):
Yeah.
And you've got Gwyneth Paltrow,who is of course Blythe
Danner's daughter.
And so you had Keifer andBlythe worked together, so he
ended up, babysitting forGwyneth.
Kea worked in the theatre withBlythe Danner, and she'd
sometimes ask him to babysit forher, oh, so he looked after
(16:34):
Gwyneth when she was about 11 or12.
Okay.
Yeah.
So there you go.
There's there's a few famousones.
It is.
That's great, isn't it?
Yeah.
Wow.
I love the Alice Cooper one,but Yeah.
Well, you know.
Yeah.
And the, it's, it's AliceCooper and Keanu Reeves.
Um, first daylight, second asfar as I'm concerned.
Yeah.
They're both cool people.
(16:56):
Yeah.
Now, one of the things thatpeople might not know about you
and son now is that you are abuilder.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Well, I, I think we've talkedabout a karate Marty.
Yeah.
And we've talked about youbeing a muso.
Okay.
But you're also a builder.
That's right.
(17:16):
Uh, a brickie.
Yeah, and I've done oh,carpentry for ages and yeah,
hanging, wallpaper, wallpaper,hanging, business, a painting,
painting, wallpaper, interiordecorating business.
Yeah.
I worked for a plumber for fouryears.
I've done plastering.
I.
Rendering.
Yeah.
I've done it all.
Well, you built this house thatwe're Yes.
(17:38):
Yeah.
Sitting in, fun facts andsidetracks.com central.
Yeah, very fine house.
It is too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I spent a lot of time doingthat while I was doing music at
night, so, yeah.
Yeah.
So is this gonna be interestingwhat we're talking about?
Well, we're talking aboutbuilding my friend.
Good.
And we're talking about famousbuildings, in fact.
(17:58):
Okay, we're talking about meagain.
Yeah, that's, yeah, of course.
It, it, everything leads backto you.
Yeah.
So let's have a chat about someof the famous buildings around
the world.
What have we got?
So the first one is the EiffelTower.
Mm-hmm.
One of the world's greatlandmarks.
It is.
The interesting fact about thisis that Gustav Eiffel pitched
(18:22):
it to Barcelona and they didn'twant it.
Okay.
Yeah.
He was an engineer, wasn't he?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gustav actually did theengineering on the interior of
the, uh, statue Liberty inAmerica.
In New York.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And, and then it was covered incopper.
So it's actually covered incopper.
(18:43):
That's why it's green.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
Copper goes green when it'saged.
Imagine polishing that brasso.
You need a lot of brasso.
Yeah.
Holy Nelly.
What's next, Al?
Sorry mate.
Well, no.
Interesting sidetrack mate.
Yes, but the interesting thingwas when it was built, the
(19:07):
Parisians were none too happy tohave it there either.
And in fact, one of theirfamous contemporary writers
disliked it so much.
He used to go and eat his lunchinside the Eiffel Tower because
it was the only place in Paristhat he could go and do that
without having to see it.
Oh, so typical Frenchman.
Yeah.
(19:27):
Yeah.
It's amazing.
Yeah, there you go.
That's an interesting storythat the Eiffel Tower, the, it
was, you know, built and, andthat guy, what he went through.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I saw a movie about it.
It was very interesting.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
The Great Wall of China.
One fact about this, it's long.
It's very long.
And despite what people say,you can't see the Great Wall of
(19:51):
China from space.
No, you can't.
You know how it's a cliche thatYeah, yeah.
They're saying even from lowerorbit, you can't see the Great
Wall of China, really?
So that, that's a fallacy.
Wow.
Not with the human eye atleast.
So you can't see it from themoon.
If they weren't looking downand going, yeah, there's the
child.
Apparently not.
No.
(20:12):
Geez.
Yeah, it's huge.
But yeah, I did see a show andthey said they weren't sure
which way it was actuallyprotecting.
Oh, okay.
You know, like, was itprotecting China or was it
protecting the other way?
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, to keep the rabbitsout.
Alright, the next one, the TajMahal.
(20:36):
This is pretty interesting too.
It was built as a mausoleum forthe wife of the, the emperor at
the time.
Yeah, she died in 1631.
They started building thisthing in 1632, and it was
finished in 1648.
Wow.
It's a fair old undertaking.
(20:56):
Yeah.
But the thing that fascinatedme about this is that they have
these minarets or the, thetowers, the tall towers.
Oh, the big towers out front.
Yeah.
On side.
They're adjacent to the mosque.
Yes.
But they're actually built onan angle so that if.
There was to be, say a, anearthquake or something.
Yeah, if they fall down, theywon't fall down on the mausoleum
(21:18):
and not fall the other way.
Wow.
Wow.
I mean, you see that a lot inthis, you know, crazy
architecture around the world,don't you?
Yeah.
You do.
You know, from the Acropolisand Yeah.
Things like that.
The steps on the Acropolis areso big that they allowed, 'cause
your eyes, if it was level,your eyes would see it wrong, so
(21:39):
they made it.
Curve downwards.
Yeah.
If you stand at the step andcite down the steps they
actually curve downwards toallow for the curvature of the
earth.
Yeah, that's how big the like,that's amazing.
Yeah.
Okay.
Pyramids.
Yeah.
Now when you think pyramids,you think one place, right?
Yes.
Which is, yeah, Egypt.
(21:59):
Yep.
But the truth is they saythere's more pyramids in Sudan
than there are in Egypt.
They estimate there's 250pyramid structures in a sedan
built between 2,500 BC and 300ad.
Okay.
Egypt's thought to have justover a hundred pyramids.
(22:20):
Not another pyramid.
That's how many is too much?
Yeah, many far out.
Geez.
Yeah.
There you go.
Those aliens were very busy.
Now here's, here's a fact, markbeing a builder, you'll
appreciate this.
Yeah.
Lego bricks.
Oh, wow.
(22:40):
I love Lego.
I really do.
Lego, bricks are thought to beable to support the weight of
375,000 other Lego bricks beforethe brick fails.
I wonder how many ton that is.
I dunno.
But they say theoretically itwould let you build a tower
(23:02):
that's three and a halfkilometres high.
Wow.
So if you scale that up tohouse bricks mm-hmm.
You know, they say, oh, itwould cost you much.
You'd never do it, but yeah.
But the structure of the Legobrick Yeah.
Is such that it's, it's thestrongest thing that you can
build with.
Right.
It's incredible.
Yeah.
There are building products nowthat are like Lego that I've
(23:24):
seen.
Yeah.
That like, they're like a foamand they go together.
They keep together exactly thesame and they just render the
outside.
Yeah.
Right.
Fun facts about Lego.
Yeah.
It is the world's biggestmanufacturer of tires.
It often a little for all thebits and bobs that you get.
Oh no.
Yeah, true.
And credit to the people fromQi for that fact.
(23:47):
But how good the biggestmanufacturer of, of tires, tires
in the world do they mean likeas in number of tires that have
made little tires?
Yeah.
Wow.
It's still a cool fact.
That's an amazing fact.
Yeah.
Here's another one.
Lego has an underground vaultwith every Lego set ever made.
(24:07):
So if the worst happens, then Idunno, whoever's left is gonna
find, a complete set of everysingle one.
Yeah.
So there you go.
They've been so smart.
They've tapped into everything,right?
Yeah.
From, from Batman to Star Warsto Minecraft now.
Yeah, they, they're prettyamazing.
(24:28):
They reckon.
The revenue in 2023 for Legowas around 9.6 billion.
Such a good product.
Yeah, it's a great product.
A really interesting thingthough, mark is apparently the
founder of the company, Ole KirkChristiansen, in 1946 was shown
(24:49):
a demonstration of a plasticmoulding machine that was being
used to make a product calledBri-Plax, interlocking building
cubes.
Mm-hmm.
Built by a little Britishcompany called Kiddycraft.
And, essentially the Legobricks are a better version of
that Kiddy craft product.
Lego maintained that, it wasfine to use the design, but just
(25:13):
in case in 1982, they snappedup the rights to the Kiddycraft
product and reached an out ofcourt settlements.
So.
Sure.
Everyone's a winner.
Yeah, I reckon, I reckon.
Geez.
But it did get me thinking.
I mean, I'm not here to saywhether they stole the idea or
not.
Yeah.
But there's a whole bunch offamous inventions over time
(25:36):
Yeah.
That have, let's say, beeninfluenced by other people's
hand work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So let's have a look at acouple of them.
Okay.
I'll be interested to hear.
Well, you know, intermittentwindscreen wipers.
So back in the day, 1963.
Yeah.
A guy called Robert Kearnsbuilt the first intermittent
(25:56):
wiper system.
Yes.
He tried to sell it to, whatwas the big three in those days?
Ford, Chrysler, and GeneralMotors.
They all rejected it, but thencame out with their own version
of it straight away.
Geez.
Yeah.
So he then went through apretty protected legal battle.
(26:16):
Uh, that went on for more thana decade, but, he won.
The Chinese are doing that now,aren't they?
Well, maybe, yeah.
Yeah.
They could be doing it.
Yeah.
Another one is Jack Daniels.
Oh.
Which, for 150 years, it's beenattributed to a Reverend Daniel
Call who was a white Lutheranminister from Lynchburg,
(26:40):
Tennessee.
Famously, but, in truth,apparently it was a fellow
called Nathan Nearest Green, whowas an enslaved man, and he
actually taught this guy how tomake this, this product.
It's fair to say that, he wasnever really given the credit
for creating it.
And the, the sort of corporatestory goes on, you know, that
(27:01):
horrible.
Yeah.
They sell 13.3 million casesevery year.
Yeah.
Wow.
So, wow.
There's a lot of drunk,Christmas.
Yeah.
Fights there.
Monopoly's another good one.
There's a lady in 1904 whoinvented a game called the
(27:21):
Landlord's Game.
And the idea was to, use landtax and caution against the
perils of land grabbing.
Basically it was ripped off andpresented to Parker Brothers in
1935, and there was even aspelling mistake copied directly
from the original, so it waspretty hard to hide that.
Wow.
They'd pinched the whole thing.
(27:42):
But Parker Brothers dodgedlegal action by acquiring the
rights.
This is a recurring theme.
So they bought it out and, 40years went by before the company
admitted that this lady was thereal brains behind the game.
Wow.
Yeah.
There you go.
And they could do that withoutany Yeah, well it seems that
(28:02):
way.
Like even say that they stoleit.
Yeah.
Basically.
Yeah.
And, and I hasten to add thatwe are saying, apparently this
was the story, we don't wanna goto court with Parker Brothers
or anyone else.
I'm just going really?
Yeah, no, you are implicated inthis 'cause you are saying
(28:22):
really.
Yeah, so it's go to jail, godirectly to jail.
Okay, next up the sewingmachine.
I think most people would thinkthat the sewing machine can be
put down to a fellow calledSinger who's widely credited
(28:43):
with inventing the modern sewingmachine.
Mm-hmm.
Apparently the truth is that hepinched the design from another
fellow by the name of Howe andHowe had pinched the design from
someone called John Fisher.
Uh, John Fisher never patentedit.
However, how did the guy in themiddle mm-hmm.
And so he was able to sueSinger for lost royalties and
(29:10):
mounted several legal cases.
So he made a lot out of this.
And the original designer got.
Nothing.
Nothing.
A zero.
Yeah.
A duck egg fellow.
Yeah.
You know, to watch that goingon ahead of you.
Yeah.
It's, it's a weird thing.
A lot of these things seem totake so long to get to court.
Yeah.
(29:30):
That, the court proceedingstake so long that people die
along the way.
Yeah.
Or they just run out of money.
Oh, I could imagine.
Run outta money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's horrible.
So the light bulb's a reallygood one.
I think we've all grown upthinking Thomas Edison is the
inventor of the light globe.
Yeah.
Uh, but the truth is that heapplied a lot of his own
(29:51):
technology to things thatalready existed.
So there was a couple ofCanadian inventors, Henry
Woodward and Matthew Evans, who,sold Edison their light bulb
patent after they'd failed tosecure financial backing.
So what happened there was anEnglish guy called Joseph Swan.
He had, designs for a carbonfilament electric light, and,
(30:15):
that had already been publishedin.
Scientific American magazine.
So Swan had filed for a patent,on that technology before
Edison.
So he was able to sue him forpatent infringement and one.
Wow.
Yeah.
Crazy time.
It is.
And lastly, the movieprojector.
So again, believe it or not,Edison had been accused of
(30:38):
appropriating the ideas, from anumber of people for his
invention, including the movieprojector.
But there were people who'dactually created this thing
earlier.
Yeah, a thing called the fanoscope in 1895.
But again, they didn't have thefinancial backing for it they
sold their idea to theKinetoscope company and then
(31:00):
that company turned to ThomasEdison for funding.
So Thomas wins that every timehe seems to, yeah.
So the actual inventions weredeleted, from the products
history and it was renamedEdison's Phantoscope, even the
record player Mark, which Ithink people know the gramophone
to have come from ThomasEdison.
Yeah.
Apparently there were someFrench guys who created the
(31:24):
earliest sound recording deviceand there was a French inventor
who.
Captured the first recording ofsound Well before Edison in
1877.
Wow.
Oh, probably exactly how itsounded.
Is that, is that the recording?
(31:44):
Yeah.
From 1877.
Yeah, I think so.
So there you go.
Yeah, that's great Al And thereare lots more, but, it's pretty
sad because.
Sometimes the patenting is tiedto financial backing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No one wins there, and he'sonly one winner, and it seems to
(32:04):
be Thomas, it seems to be.
Okay, Al I think that's prettygood.
We've rounded it off prettywell.
We've covered a lot of groundand had a few laughs.
What do you think?
We've been from the Supremes tothe Eiffel Tower.
Yeah.
Keanu Reeves and everywhere inbetween.
Yeah.
Great.
Alright.
See you next time folks.
(32:25):
Yep.
We'll see ya.
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