9 Hilarious Monuments (probably) not worth the Road Trip

We know these statues are supposed to be art, but they also kind of feel like mistakes. Will, Gabe and Mango discuss some colorful and confusing tributes... and the ridiculous stories behind them!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, mango? What's that? Well, so, I know I
asked you if we could cover today's topic, but I
didn't tell you exactly why, And that's because I wanted
to save this story for you. So, uh, this actually
happened in a town a Silicaga, Alabama, my home state
of Alabama. And so this happen in nine A woman
named An Hodges was taking a nap on her couch
when a softball sized chunk of meteorite crashed through her roof,

(00:24):
came through the ceiling, bounced off a radio, and smacked
her right in the thigh. That is that but funny
the same Why is it so much funnier that hit
her in the thigh? It is, isn't it? Yeah, I
can't handle it anyway. There are photos online of this
giant bruise if you if you want to check this out.
But so, there was an astronomer from Florida State. His
name is Michael Reynolds, and he was talking about how

(00:46):
rare this occasion would be. Says, you have a better
chance of getting hit by a tornado, a bolt of lightning,
and a hurricane all at the same time than getting
hit by a meteor RTE. That's amazing. And apparently there
was a ton of controversy see after the fact about
who got to keep this rock. So so the public
demanded that the government give the rock back to Anne,

(01:06):
and they finally complied, but then they were sued by
the landlady, who claimed it was her since it fell
on her property. What kind of person does this, This
woman's been hit by a meteorite. I am right, And
so Anne's argument was, though, that God intended for it
to hit me. After all, it hit me, That's what
she said. And so they settled out of court, and

(01:27):
the meteorite was eventually donated to the Alabama Museum of
Natural History and it's still on display there. So I'll
admit I had heard this story before, but what I
didn't know is that there's actually a monument to it.
It commemorates the whole bizarre happening, and it's in front
of the town hall in Silicago. And so that's why
we decided to do today's episode on nine weird statues

(01:47):
and monuments around the world. Let's get started, he their

(02:08):
podcast listeners, welcome the part time genius. I'm Will Pearson
and as always I'm joined by my good friend man
Guesh Ticketer and the man on the other side of
the soundproof glass who's been standing perfectly still for what
like the last forty five minutes. I think I even
I saw him blink once, But that's about it. That's
our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. And also joining us
by phone today is our researcher Gabe Lousier. Gabe, how's

(02:31):
it going going well? Thanks for having me back guys.
All right, Gabe has been trying to claim that the
weather in l A today is is Chris. I'm not
buying it. Yeah, I don't think they've ever experienced Chris.
But alright, Gabe, So you've done your research on some
some monuments and statues around the world. Do you want
to take the first one? Yeah? Sure, Actually I have

(02:51):
another statue from Alabama to go along with yours. You guys,
bizarre statues out there, I guess, um. And this is
that it's a bullweevil monument in Enterprise, Alabama. And so
this is a marble statue of a Greek woman holding
a bowl above her head, and in the bowl there's
this fifty pound bronze bull weevil and the bull weevil

(03:14):
was actually added about thirty years ago after the statue
was originally dedicated, and it was erected because bullweevils have
this history of, you know, destroying cotton crops in the South,
which back in the day it forced local farmers to
kind of branch out and try a new crop instead,
and that was peanuts. So Coffee County in Alabama became

(03:35):
the largest producer of peanuts in the US. And it
also ended up planting and prospering from potatoes, sugarcane, sorghum,
and tobacco. And that's thanks in part to the bull
weevil kind of you know, disrupting the cotton trade. So
the dedication on the monument actually reads in profound appreciation
of the bull weevil. And as far as anyone knows,

(03:56):
it's the first and probably only monument to honor and
add a cultural pest. And this is one I have
actually seen. I can verify this one. So if you,
if you ever happen to be passing through Enterprise, Alabama,
make sure to check out the bowl weevil statue. Alright,
so two facts about weird statues or monuments from Alabama. Mango,
do you have one from Alabama, No Russia, Okay, club, alright,

(04:18):
what you got. So obviously there are a lot of
monuments out there that celebrate you know, great men, tyrants, ballplayers, whatever.
But I don't know if that many monuments that are
there to bring warmth and comfort. But that's exactly what
local artists intended when they created this monument to the
radiator in Samara, Russia. Apparently it's in Russia because Russians

(04:39):
claimed the quote hot box, as the radiator was originally called,
was invented in St. Petersburg by this guy in eight
before he took it to Germany and then the US.
But the best part of the whole thing is that
the sculpture isn't just some radiator on a pedestal. It
also has a cat sprawled out on a giant window
sill over. Russians also invented cats, so they yeah, I

(05:00):
didn't know that fact. That's really good. That's also not true,
all right, I've got one coming from Paris. So this
is a huge three D molding of the sculptor Caesar
Baldachinie Thumb, and this was put up in nineteen sixty five.
It's over forty ft tall and weighs eighteen tons and
it's so out of place because it's actually right and

(05:21):
kind of the business district there in Paris. And then
you just turn the corner and there's this giant thumb. Well,
it turns out it's not the only one of baldachinie
thumbs out there in the world. Turns out you can
find one at Olympic Park and Soul. There's another one
in Germany, and a couple others, you know, of different
sizes and uh and colors all around the world. Baldacinie
thumbs just waiting to get hitchhiked exactly, alright, Gay, what

(05:45):
you got next? Alright, So for this one, we got
a head over to Riverside, Iowa, which is a real
town that has a monument commemorating the future birth of
the fictional character Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek
so I. According to the official Star Trek website, Kirk
will be born in Riverside, Iowa, on March twenty two,

(06:06):
in the year two thirty three. But that's kind of
invented by the town itself, because the creator of Star Trek,
Gene Roddenberry, he only ever specified that Kirk was born
in a small town in Iowa. Riverside took advantage of
that vague reference to you know, claim him as their own.
And so if you go into the town, there are
plaques denoting where Captain Kirk will eventually, you know, grow

(06:29):
up and do this or that, and even where he
will be conceived. Apparently this is this is a joke
from a local bar owner. Wow, all right, that's pretty good.
All right, mango, what's your next one? So? I wanted
to talk about this Abe Lincoln statue. And obviously they're
Abe Lincoln statues all over, but this one special because
it's called Abe Lincoln talks to Perry Como. That's the

(06:49):
name is as well. Actually it's not the statue's real name.
The real name is the Return Visit. And the statue
is looking outside the place where Lincoln spent the night
putting his finishing touches on the Gettysburg address. But the
whole idea of behind the statue is to show a
cool Lincoln chatting with modern day tourists. So the dude
he's talking to is wearing a white cable knit sweater
and a collared shirt and khaki cordroy is you know,

(07:11):
the common man and Lincoln's just talking his ear off.
But the dude looks like a young version of that
singer Perry Como. So that's how the statue got nicknamed
that ice. That does sound so cool. Actually, I have
a Lincoln statue fact as well. This is weird alright.
So this one is the Lincoln Watermelon Monument in Lincoln, Illinois.
And actually in nineteen fifty three, former Congressman Abraham Lincoln,

(07:33):
he had not been president yet, he visited a town
in Illinois to help christen the town name, which was
to be Lincoln, of course, and it was actually the
only town to be named after Lincoln while he was
still alive again, and this happened before he was even president.
But while he was visiting there, he poured watermelon juice
on the ground to baptize it. I don't really know why.
There are other reports that he spit watermelon seeds on

(07:56):
the ground to christen it. I've never heard of using
water homies to do this, but anyway, in nineteen sixty four,
the local kawanas and Lions and rotary clubs all united
in order to commission this steel sculpture of a watermelon
in order to mark this historic event. It's such a
strange things and I want to check this out. Soide,
that's pretty great, alright, Gabe, your last fact of the day.

(08:18):
What do you have? Al Right? So this this was
a really weird one. And uh, it's a monument to
rats and mice that have been used in DNA research.
And uh, it's it's found over in Russia and it
was made by an artist named Andrei Karkovitch. And the
statue it depicts an anthropomorphic mouse wearing glasses and a

(08:38):
little lab coat and he's he's knitting with strands of
DNA and uh it sits near Russia's Institute of Psychology
and Genetics, and the institute actually collected fifty thousand dollars
and donations to fund this statue. And according to them,
it commemorates lab animals who have been killed as a
part of our ongoing attempts to understand the nature and

(09:00):
workings of d N. A. Wow, that's very sweet to
remember them in that way. And he said this is
in where where did you say it is in Russia? Uh? Yeah,
I didn't say on purpose, but no votes Cerberus. Okay, Well,
that was a good final fact. From you, Gabe. Okay, Mango,
you got one more? Yeah, definitely. So I guess we're

(09:21):
all on some sort of Russia kick because they have
the best statues. But have you guys ever heard of
the Enema statue? And Zella's no votes? I have not.
But the Monument to Animals features a giant animal bulb.
It's five ft and eight hundred pounds of bronze. Uh,
and it's held up by three tiny angels. And so

(09:42):
the angels are based off this bott of Chelly painting.
And while the sculpture claims the work was designed with humor,
the spot director who commissioned it disagrees, and if arts
in the eye of the beholder, there's no irony hiding
and all that bronze. Wow, so we we We've covered
one that was dedicated to the radiator, and then the
and gay did with about the the lab mice and rats,
and and now the Enema. Wow. What a collection of statues.

(10:07):
That's that's pretty great. All right? Well, my last one
happens to be about one statue that is in the
world's largest sculpture park, or at least the world's largest
sculpture park made by a single artist. There are two
hundred and twelve bronze and granite sculptures there in the
Vigilance Sculpture Park in Oslo, Norway. Now there is one

(10:27):
specific one that's worth looking up, and it's called man
attacked by Genie. And I actually didn't know the plural
of genie. Just has two eyes at the ends, you
know this. I didn't even know how to pronounce it
at first when I was looking at it. But this
is why you need to look it up, because it's
apparently this guy that's being attacked by these genie. But
at the same time, what it really looks like is

(10:47):
just this naked man heroically fighting off four toddlers. So
you're gonna have to check this out. So anyway, well
those are facts of the day. But before we go,
we need to decide decide who's one today. What do
you guys think that meteor in the thigh? I think
just the word thigh, I think. Okay, I'm gonna give
it to myself on this. Yeah, you can take the

(11:09):
crown home. That's right, all right, Well, thank you guys
for listening. We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow.