February 12, 2019 • 40 mins
Nowadays beef, chicken and pork are the most common meats in the US -- but, not so long ago, that could have all changed. Join the guys as they travel back to the early 1900s, when Louisiana congressman Robert Broussard proposed an unorthodox solution to the nation's crippling meat shortage: the introduction of African Hippopotamuses to Gulf Coast swamplands. What convinced Broussard that the world's deadliest land mammal could become America's next culinary craze? Tune in to find out.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Let's begin today show with some apparently irrelevant hippo facts
that will come into play later in the episode. Number one,
Did you know hippos cannot swim and they cannot float?
What It's true. So when whenever you see a hippo
emerge from the murky waters and like an adventure type movie,
(00:45):
they're literally just walking on the on the bottom of
the body of water, it's true. They walk or stand
on surfaces below the water like sandbanks. Ben, that's fascinating information. Thanks. No,
they're also called land cows. Did you see that? That
stright my favorite things. And they're also straight sea horse teeth.
They are, they aren't the straight sea horse teeth much
(01:06):
like our super producer Casey Pegram. Casey has the straightest
teeth of anyone in this crew, the most sea horse
of teeth. So today we've got to we've got to
set out maybe a couple of disclaimers. First off, this
one's on me. I just got back into town. My
(01:27):
body has no idea what time it is or what
day it is. Uh my left arms a little loopy. Yeah,
But overall I might be a bit punchy in today's episode,
and I might say some things that are largely irrelevant.
It's okay, how is how is that any different than usual? Yeah?
I mean on either side totally. What I meant that,
that's totally what it's it's it's true. Well maybe it
(01:49):
will be for the good of the show, hopefully, but
we have actually is so far. Let's the street continues.
We also have a second disclaimer about today's episode, big
one mat of disclaimer and not even a disclaimer, more
a pre recommendation. Our colleagues Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson,
who you know from stuff you missed in history class
(02:09):
fame um, have covered this very topic and a quite
meaty two parter. So, um, stop what you're doing right
now and listen to theirs. This is a throwaway episode
that we're about to do for you. Well, maybe maybe
listen to ours first, so we don't have to follow
that act. That's fair. Well, let's consider ours, like the
cliffs Notes version, and there's like the Encyclopedia Britannic conversion. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(02:33):
the Primer I think we called it off, that's right,
or if you're British Primer primmer. Yes, So this this
is a crazy story. One of our first episodes on
Ridiculous History was also hippocentric. It was, wasn't it the
first episode? It may have been the first episode the
wild Hippos of Pablo Escobar, which is a which I
(02:54):
think is a fascinating story. And I did check, and
those hippos are still running rampant maca macaca, Yes, wreaking
watery havoc wherever they can walk or stand in a
watery surface, because again, they neither swim nor flu How
did you happen upon this, this little tidbit about the
watery nature of hippos. I read a lot about hippos
(03:15):
on the plane. It yeah, because I I was too
cheap to pay for the WiFi, and I downloaded some
articles beforehand. And that's a long flight. You didn't pop
for the WiFi? I I eventually did not, because the
flight went by the north Pole, at which point, even
if you pay for WiFi, there's no service. Did you
see the pole, that barber pole that marks the spot?
(03:36):
I did not yet I did not. So that's going
to be for the next trip. If you want to go.
Have you revealed where you where you were traveling to
or we mentioned I think we mentioned previous episodes possible,
let's just double down. Yeah Yeah, traveled to Korea for
a week on my continuing quest to enter not just
the d m Z, but what's called the Joint Protection Area,
(03:58):
which is the blue building where you can walk across
into North Korea. That was and have you seen Conan
without borders the travel Then he goes into that room
and there's like guards and they're all wearing like in
sunglasses inside, and there's one side of this room where
you're in North Korea, one side you're in South Korea.
And him and Steven Jon from The Walking Dead do
(04:19):
a funny little bit where they like broadcast the weather
from each side of the room, and surprise, surprise, it's
the same weather. You know, it's it's surprisingly, well not surprisingly,
it's tricky to get into that area, uh and the
any number of people or institutions can cancel it day up.
So I didn't make it this time, but I had
(04:40):
a wonderful time, wonderful trip nonetheless, and will probably be
returning until I can finally get into that building. In
the meantime, let's take some advantage of those that that
that hippo research time. You have it out on that plane. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
what are we talking about. Let's do it today. We
are talking about not just hippos or and cows, but
(05:01):
a enormously influential role they almost played in American history.
And uh, the American meat industry. Cool boy, that's the
whole thing unto itself. And it was a thing onto
itself at this point because there just wasn't enough meat.
It was the earliest of the nineteen oh one and
(05:21):
the United States was in when the throes of a
meat shortage, and you know, I see that, and I
immediately I'm like, well, why didn't people just start eating
more vegetables? Right right? Why don't we pursue a Michael
Paulin esque omnivore's dilemma approach? Right? It's funny because that
actually does kind of figure into this a little later,
but for now, let's set the scene. Yes, So, the
(05:43):
dawn of hippopotamus ranching, as we would later come to
call it, really peaked in nineteen ten and starts in
the early nineteen hundreds. Hits the point of, hey, it's
a great idea to practice. Hippopotamus ranching really hits it's
it's peak. There was as you said, nol Um an
(06:05):
alarming shortage of meat. This is a result of several factors.
These were peak years of immigration, and cities were exploding
in terms of population, and although the meat industry itself
was growing by significant leaps and bounds, it was not
(06:25):
growing fast enough to keep up with all the new
hungry people traveling to the US and being born here.
So consequently, beef prices were through the roof. That beef
bill was just astronomical. I know it was putting people
out of house and home just to just to keep
their families beefed up, I guess. But like I said,
(06:45):
though that, I don't see any mention of seeking alternative.
They don't even talk of like eating dogs like it
was that bad. People just needed their meat, And I'm like,
was it I was it a taste thing? Literally? Was it?
Like we just really loved the taste of meat over vegetables,
Like you think they would be more like urban farming
or something would have sprung up to kind of fill
that gap. But that was it was such a big deal.
(07:07):
It was dubbed the meat question. Yes, it was dubbed
the meat question. Part of it ties into the availability
of pasture right of land for these animals to grazes,
right because meat was was already so popular that, you know,
like we tend to do or we don't think ahead
as a country. Uh, pastures had become overgrazed because you know,
(07:29):
to have beef cattle, they have to graze and feed
on grass and pastures. What happens when they're overgrazed right there,
there's nowhere for the cattle to eat, and so there's
no opportunity to grow them into you know, delicious hamburgers
and ribs. We do have to bracket that idea of
(07:50):
vegetarianism just for a moment, but we will get back
to it, I believe we will. So into this fray, uh,
into the midst of the meat question, come to very
fascinating guys, super cool. Yeah, one named Frederick Russell Burnham
and one named We might need a Casey assist on
this one. Casey, we've got a gentleman by the name
(08:11):
of Fritz d u q u E s n E.
I'm picturing it as a sort of du Frain, like
Andy Dufrain from the Shawshank Redemption. You can do ken,
you can, you can you can something like that. Yeah,
Casey on the case, Casey on the case. And it's
funny because it's interesting to me how sometimes in French
(08:33):
you actually do pronounce those seemingly silent letters, like one
version of that Casey was saying the s a little bit. Well,
the yes names especially have lots of weird exceptions, and
sometimes you literally just have to check. There's not like
a hard and fest rule that you can always be
assured is gonna work. So double casey on the case.
(08:58):
So we have these guys, Frederick and Fritz. Let's let's
examine the life of Frederick Russell Burnham. First. This guy
is quoted by some sources as being the man with
the most complete life ever lived. You'll hear him refer
to as the inspiration for Indiana Jones. You'll hear that
(09:21):
the Boy Scouts were created to mold young men into
a more Frederick Russell Burnham esque shape. Morally speaking, Yeah,
the name alone just inspires me. Frederick Russell Burnham. It
just sounds like a real magic man, a real wrecontour,
you know. Um. And yeah, he was an outdoorsman. I
(09:43):
guess you could say the early form of something like
a naturalist, right, Yeah, he would be described as emphatically
a man's man able active alert. Uh. He gave people
an impression of force and self control. In nine, Burnham
was forty nine years old and in September nineteenth of
(10:04):
that year, he visited the Maryland Hotel in Pasadena, California.
What happened then, then, so so, I'm so glad you asked.
He was there to address what was known as the
Humane Association of California at their annual convention. This group
was dedicated to the prevention of cruelty to animals. They
(10:28):
had quickly become one of California's the most powerful civic organizations.
And Burnham, later on in his life, now you know
he's middle aged. He is part of an eccentric brain
trust that was trying to launch their own innovative animal
project off the ground. They wanted to answer the meat question,
(10:49):
and they thought that the civic minded people, the philanthropist
of the Humane Association of California would be really good
folks to have on their side. Burnham was doing this
with a very calculated air. It's proven that privately he
made fun of these sorts of organizations. Like in his
(11:11):
off time, he he had no time for that kind
of flim flammer any that kind of pomp and circumstances.
He wanted to be out there in the wild, communing
with nature, not behind a podium front of a bunch
of stuff shirts delivering a speech. And he thought their
priorities were off, you know what I mean. So he
wanted to get their support, nonetheless for his idea. And
(11:36):
it was an idea that was already circulating through the
halls of d C in the form of a bill
introduced by Louisiana congressman named Robert Broussard. The pitch was this,
we don't have enough room for beef. We're not we're
not growing enough cattle. But we got all these swamps
(11:57):
and we don't quite know what to do with them.
There's kind of mucky and gross and nothing really grows
there that we can use um. And there's also these
like invasive plants that are really mucking up the ecosystem.
Uh what if, what if? Mind you, there was some
sort of creature that couldn't really swim or float but
could exist just fine, and some shallow water like that,
(12:19):
and with graze on these invasive plants, which you might
be able to drop the name of then the water hyacinth. Ah, yes,
the pesky water hyacinth. So what you there is such
a creature? Yes, yes, picture this like a made for
TV ad where Billy May says, but wait, there's more.
So there is such a creature. It turns out a
(12:41):
creature from the continent of Africa, the creature known as
the hippopotamus. The hippopotamus, which is gigantic is um native
to similar ecosystems, you know, shallow watery depths, right, wetlands,
marshy areas, vegetation, And so they said, close enough for
(13:04):
government work. Why don't we Why don't we walk with
us here? Why don't we take some hippos, a breeding
population of hippos from their native environment and bring them
to Louisiana to fight the invasive water hyacinth, also turning
this marshal land into something productive. And then we'll eat
(13:25):
hippos because they're delicious. As it turns out we maybe
they might be. That's I mean, that's the pitch. And
it seems way less gross than eating dogs, which we
were totally considering doing. We were considering as a nation
eating a lot of animal, a lot of animals because
we just had to have that sweet, sweetmeat like antelopes,
(13:46):
what else, ostriches, That's what we kind of collectively referred
to as bush meat kind of right, It's like the
stuff that we wouldn't really mess with, um, but it's funny.
Obviously they have not heard our podcast about the hippos,
the wild hippos of Pablo Escobar, because then they would
know that hippos can be an invasive species in and
of themselves very much. But none of this really came
(14:07):
to pass ultimately, so they didn't get a chance to
realize what a can of worms they were opening up
by doing this. But there's more. There's another Fritz. Let's
talk about our boy Fritz. What does he played into this? Yeah,
let's talk about Fritz. So, Fritz is a bore. The
Boers are the descendants of Dutch settlers colonizers in Africa.
This guy is super sketchy. He he lives life. According
(14:33):
to John Mulum, this guy quote moves through life using
uh variety of aliases. He was a con man, and
you know how we love con artists here on ridiculous history.
He fought against the British and the Second Boer War
and similar to Burnham, he had spent some time as
(14:55):
a kind of a freelance spy. Burnham hated Fritz and
once called him the human epitome of sin and deception,
whereas Burnham had been described as the most complete human
being who ever lived. So couldn't be more different these two,
and they ended up being quite the odd couple, didn't that? Yes? Yeah,
(15:17):
because their interests aligned right, their interests the line. But
previously on a previous episode of Fritz and Frederick and
they have been specifically tasked to murder one another. Yeah,
I didn't. I didn't find any more about that. I
saw that detail in the interview with this with this
Wired writer Mullum. But what what what happened with that? I?
I need to know more. It sounded like they were
(15:39):
maybe on the opposite sides of some sort of conflict.
It's true during the Second Boer War, Fritz was under
orders to specifically assassinate Frederick Burnham, and he was under Burnham,
I mean, was under a similar set of orders. It
did not come to pass. And then apparently they were
able to let igons be bygones? Are you know death
(16:02):
orders be something that's nicer than death orders? I don't know.
After the Boer War, Burnham remained active in counter espionage
for Britain, and apparently a lot of his job in
this post war environment was just keeping an eye on Fritz,
just specifically watching his activities and and seeing what he
(16:26):
was about. So when we fast forward to when Burnham
and this previously mentioned Congressman Robert Bursard are trying to
popularize the idea of hippos as livestock, Burnham and Bissard
found something called the New Food Supply Society. The idea
of being that they'll import what they see is useful
(16:48):
African wildlife into the US to solve the meat question.
And Broussard needs some experts, and so he says, who
would be a good expert on African wildlife? These two
men's men that have spent a lot of time in Africa,
and uh, you know, the whole rivalry thing aside, maybe
they can figure out a way to get along and
(17:10):
work towards a common goal. And they ultimately kind of did.
They formed essentially like a lobbying group kind of Yeah, yeah,
they formula lobbying group with the New Food Supplies Society.
They were pushing something called the American hippo bill, and
the American hippo bill was asking Uncle Sam for two
(17:31):
hundred and fifty grand to import hippos into the bios
as a new food source and then to control the
other pre existing invasive species, the water hyacinth. So, just
to emphasize the highlight the logic here, they said, let's
introduce another invasive species to solve our original invasive species problem.
(17:54):
This is similar in some ways to that scene in Fantasia,
which I know I reference at nauseum, wherein the Wizard
Mickey Mouse animates one mop and then quickly gets over
his head and then all the mops start going insane
and kind of mutate into some sort of violent, uh
you know mob. And this, despite this lack of knowledge
(18:19):
of Disney films on the part of Uncle Sam at
this time, and despite the just the weird unorthodox nature
of the proposal, people are largely behind it. Even former
President Theodore Roosevelt backs the plan. He was a man's
man himself, wasn't it, Yes, yes he was. And The
New York Times writes an article praising the taste of
(18:41):
hippopotamus meat, and I can't remember, did I say? Land
cow in the beginning, and okay, it's late cow cow.
That's just a cow. But these are lake cows. And
the New York Times wanted to call this stuff lake
cow bacon. Uh So Fritz pro wide expert testimony about
(19:02):
hippos as livestock to the House Committee on Agriculture, and
the bill is in action. For a second, it looks
like it has a real chance of passing, and then
what it just fizzles. Doesn't get that nothing like catastrophic happened,
Like it just kind of seems like it just the
whole idea, I know what it was. It was sort
of on the edge of being able to engineer some
(19:26):
of those farmland, those uh you know, overgrazed pastures into
new environments. Yeah, that's it exactly. This plan would have
come to pass had not other other technological innovation adustrial
agriculture into Yeah, it's industrial agriculture. And so now we're
(19:46):
in a situation where we say, hey, we I guess
we don't need to import a huge population of hippos
and try to fundamentally reboot our livestock system. Now we
can just take what we were already doing to a
new level of scale. That's right. And this guy, this
writer John mulum Hope and produced his name right, please
(20:07):
forgive me from like um. He makes a point in
an interview with Wired that it was almost like starting
to resemble the kind of like local you know, locally
bread and slaughtered kind of like things that foodie scenes
are so big on, you know nowadays. They were talking
about importing ostriches and having ostrich farms and any other
(20:28):
kind of like animals like they could get their hands on,
like antelopes and anything was really on the table. And
it was this idea of having a an incredibly local,
locally sourced food system even though they were imported. They
would be kind of bread naturally locally and then slaughtered
locally and everything, as opposed to having everything like imported. Yeah,
(20:48):
kind of a farm to table. That's the one I
was looking for. Certain it's weird when you consider this
because we're at a a pivotal point in history, and
it's it's incredibly tempting to speculate how things would be
(21:08):
in the modern restaurants of nineteen had this plan and
similar propositions succeeded, you know, we would we be in
a situation where food is more regional, or livestock is
more regional. Would we be in a situation where someone says, well,
you have to go to Nebraska to get a good
(21:29):
hamburger because that's where we have cows. Now, that's that's
certainly an absurd thought, you know, considering the way things
are done these days. It seems like it now, right,
it seems like it now. And you know, one of
the things that mystifies a lot of my friends who
visit the US from out of the country is just
(21:49):
the ubiquitous nature of food. You can you can get
anything anywhere. Well, if you think about like in Japan,
for example, like proper waigo beef, isn't that very regional
like that, like to actually get it that where it's
actually the real deal, because it's obviously it's one of
the things that can be thrown around, like you even
see it on the menu at like chilies or something.
(22:10):
Why you be sliders or whatever. Right, it's true. And
this is where we see Michael Pollen returning because Michael Pollen,
who writes quite extensively about the problem of agriculture, the
problem in industrial agriculture, he would argue that ultimately it
(22:30):
is better and more sustainable for us to pursue as
a species, these sorts of regional models of food ways,
you know what I mean. He would say that had
the hippo industry taken off, it would have been ultimately
better for the planet. You know. Uh, that is not
where we are now. Now. We are in a reality
(22:52):
where we could the three of us and and you listening,
we could all travel in different directions in the lower
forty eight States for sure, and then pretty much order
the same thing. You can find the same thing anywhere. Yeah,
I mean, you know, there's a time where the idea
of getting seafood in a land locked part of the
country would have been insane, you know, but not not
(23:15):
so much anymore with like refrigeration technology. And here in Atlanta,
especially because we are near such a huge shipping hub
with the airport. Um, there's constantly flux and things coming through.
You know, you can get here. That's probably true. I'm
sure it is. Yeah, I'm sure it is. Um. I
really recommend there is behind a paywall, but um that
(23:35):
this writer John Mullam wrote a piece for the Atavist
website called American Hippopotamus um and I read some excerpts
from it, and it's it's very very good, right. He
goes into the backgrounds of these two very fascinating men
in a very deep dive way and talks through this
whole uh problem in situation and what ultimately came of him.
It is also the source of it's the first time
(23:57):
I found this quote. It's it's the source of my
favorite quotation about Fritz Duking. He was described as not
only the human epitome of sin and deception, but get
this stole a walking, living, breathing, Syrian, killing, destroying torch
of hate. WHOA. I don't think that made it into
the congressional record. I don't think so either, but it
(24:20):
made it into the podcast record. And I think there's
not much of a better way to wrap this up
than with that, my friend. That's true. That's true. This
ends our tale of the would be hippopotamus livestock empire
that never quite came to pass and now is currently
relegated to the Hall of good but ultimately unsuccessful ideas
(24:45):
such as giraffe ranches and Ostrich farms. We hope that
you enjoy today's episode. Let us know what we uh
it's I've been here the whole time. Jonathan Strickland, a
(25:07):
k a. The Quister. It is true you have been here.
Fact that you wouldn't acknowledge my existence for half an
hour really hurts. I'm sorry, man. If you heard any weird, labored,
evil breathing, that was Strickland on the mic A couple
of times he rolled his eyes so hard that I'm
pretty sure translated to audio. Listen, then listen, listen, Ben, listen.
(25:34):
You're talking about my boy Fritz, and you're casting expersions
left and right. I can't let this just go by. Ben.
Fritz is my boy. You have something of a super villain.
And let me tell you you have not scratched the
surface of Fritz. Fritz was an insurance scam walking down
(25:57):
the streets. He was in the movie business, worked for
r k O Pictures. He actually was arrested for insurance fraud.
He sounds like he needs his own episode. He is amazing.
And guess what, we're going to test your knowledge about
Fritz ducan right now. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if you
(26:17):
don't understand what's happening, I don't blame you. I don't
understand it myself, and I don't even have the excuse
of an international flight like Mr Bolin. Know what we
are going to do is I'm going to pose a
scenario to these two gentlemen. They will have three minutes
to discuss the scenario between the two of them, and
they may ask questions of me during those three minutes
(26:38):
to determine whether the scenario is in fact historical or
if I've made it up. Seats and so this time
has always I have to come up with an arbitrary
rule for you to say or do before you ask
a question. This time because one of the many things
Fritz Ducan was known for was during both World Wars
(26:59):
he was a spy for the German government. So before
you ask any questions, you will have to preface it
with atung baby like that you records. Really, that's why
I was kind of I was they would it's both
thematic and we can bring some attention. I think I
think it is. I think that's sort of considered that
one of their lesser works. I would it was really
(27:21):
broken up about that. Anyway, I will give you your
scenario and then we will start the enormous Grandfather clock
for its three minutes. Yea I'm stretching now. I've got
to run all the way across this gigantic shipping container
of those twelve hour flights, and economy is going to
do that to you. All right, here we go, here's
your Sonatio for its Ducan, as you've mentioned, was one
(27:45):
of the experts consulted for the Happy Pottus plan for Louisiana.
That's what I used to call Hippopotamus. Little Disney thought
so too. But Ducan was hardly a reliable re source.
He was a con man, He was a self promoter,
He was a big game hunter. He actually went on
(28:05):
big game hunts with Teddy Roosevelt, and a spy for
the Germans with a real grudge against Britain. He had
two main rivals in his career. One you've already mentioned
the fellow hippo advocate Frederick Russell Burnham, whom I trust
you remember from literally moments ago. But his other rival,
(28:30):
which had a very similar story in some ways, was
an English spy named Vernon Hall. Hall had never cross
paths with Ducane, which is fortunate because like Burnham, Ducane
and Hall were pledged to kill one another. They each
had orders to kill each other They were very similar
(28:52):
in a lot of ways, except for one major one.
Du Can was a spy but loved attention and would
bring attention on himself all the time, even posing as
a supposed British soldier with the Australian Light Cavalry at
one point. But Hall was a master of blending in
and not being noticed, which is particularly fascinating considering the
(29:16):
fact that he had a wooden leg. Start to the time. Okay, okay,
I'm running, I'm running. Go okay. Are you okay? Then
you really took a running leap at that wall, a
little wind. You look a little flattened. I you know what,
(29:37):
I'll be good for the three minutes it takes us
to figure this out. Um octung baby, yes, Mr Bo.
So are you saying that vern Wait? Are you saying
Fritz had a wooden leg? No, I'm saying Vernon Hall had.
Fritz loved attention. Vernon Hall was the opposite. Yeah, he
loved his prosthetics. Okay, baby, give me like. The log
(30:00):
line version of the entire question was Fritz Duken arch
Nemeses with not just one but two other spies, the
second being Vernon Hall and English spy active, by the way,
during World War two, in addition to our other player
in our in today's from the Boer War. So that
was much much, much earlier. So they were he was
(30:23):
kind of an assassin. Yeah, he had been tasked. He
had been tasked to assassinate more than one person. So
then it's it does seem likely that he I mean,
they weren't necessarily mortal enemies because they had beef with
each other. They were mortal enemies because they were assigned
by someone higher than them than their pay grade to
(30:44):
do harm to one at least initially initially. So that
being the case, it does seem likely that that would
happen more than once, or at least probably possible. Yeah,
I'm gonna I'm gonna you know what I'm gonna ask.
I think I've made up my mind. I've cast a lot,
but I'm gonna ask another question, just because I like
the bit we're doing. I do too. I like saying
(31:04):
it's it's it's got a good mouth field Octogle Baby, Yes, Mr.
I just wanted to say it. That's fair. Okay, you're
thinking true. I'm thinking true. Man. Gosh, we've been on
such a good streak. I hate to squander it, but
I'm thinking truth too, alright, so we gotta lock it in.
Let's do it alright, three two one true, Mr Boland,
(31:29):
Mr Boland, you are going to kick yourself so very hard.
First of all, Fritz ducan was can't do it too.
He's quite flexible. He was, in fact a spy during
both world wars, World War One and World War Two
on behalf of the Germans. He did have a very
strong anti British sentiment deep in his soul. He had
been put into prison and broke out numerous times, although
(31:53):
he was eventually caught and tried and eventually died in
shortly after being least because his health had gotten so
poor while he was in prison for fourteen years. But
there was no Vernon Hall. There was, however, a spy
with a wooden leg named Virginia Hall. Virginia Hall was
(32:14):
an American spy. Mr Bolan r. Dirty Pool not only
had a wooden leg, and while only was a spy
worked on behalf of the French resistance was it was
an American spy working in France. There's an entire building
at the CIA named after her. Why do you keep
saying my last name was a part of this too,
(32:36):
because Mr Bolland in particular shouldn't know more about the
Hey now, no, no dock sing here. Come on now listen.
I called dirty pool because you literally just flipped the gender.
No no. I also said he was an English spy,
not an American spy. But I didn't give you any
(32:57):
details about what he did as his spy work in
World Wars. Okay, but my into our intuition of the
truthfishness of the story still held true. Well, this just
warns you that you can't necessarily believe anything about Fritz Duchan. Okay,
that's that's well written. But I feel like it also
(33:18):
beats we can't necessarily believe anything you say. That's kind
of the point of But I feel like I'm going
to carry this off air with us. But but here's
here's what I charge you both. I charge you both
to you should do two companion episodes, one specifically about
Burnham and the legendary exploits of Burnham, and one specifically
(33:42):
of Ducane and the legendary some obviously fictional exploits he
really did pose as a British soldier who had led
an Australian light cavalry. He had created an entire mythology,
mythology including being bayonitted three times in gas four times.
To what end? This was his cover story, like because
(34:02):
he liked the attack, like dressing up in the cavalry
uniform and having photographs taken of him. There are famous
photographs of him in that in that outfit. I mean,
be caught would be a death sentence. So he was
just totally rolling the disk for funds. He just he
just he relished the attention. But we've all been there,
you know what I mean. Like it's you get off
(34:26):
work on a Friday. Next thing, you know, it's Sunday,
you're in a different country and you're dressed like a
member their military. Stuff just happened, So we know what
happened in Korea, all right, Hey, speaking segues, Uh, Jonathan
strictly dek the quister. It looks like you've won the battle,
but not the war. I'm winning the war too, but
(34:46):
come on, man and uh. And it just occurred to me. No,
this is the first time in twenty nineteen that we
have had our friends slash Nemesis on the show. I
really like this one. Usually this is the time kind
of low key snark at the Twister here. But now
that was very well played, sir, and he literally gave
(35:06):
us two new episode topics. So, um, I do need
to point something out real quick. I recently discovered something.
I'm a big fan, as I think we all are,
of Scott Ackerman and Comedy Bang Bang. Um, the television
show Comedy Bang Bang. There is an episode wherein Tom
Green plays a character called the Quizzler and it's it's
(35:27):
utter parallel thinking, very similar arch villain type character to you, uh,
the Quister, Jonathan Cricle. That's want to point out that
this was not lifted. This was just simply parallel thinking.
And I saw it with my buddy and he was like,
wait a minute. We just we just know that brilliance
sometimes comes in pairs, you know, like calculus exactly exactly.
(35:47):
I just wanted to put that out there real quick,
lest anyone accuse us of of ripping off this segment.
Quister is also a better name. I agree that Tea
in the middle throws it off. Got a good mouth feel,
so just like Octo Baby, just like octog Baby. So
thank you so much for coming on the show. Christ
(36:10):
We will get you next time. As I'm shaking my
fist at the air, we do also have to we
we have to bring up one thing. I don't want
to make the show too long. But off air, Jonathan,
you learned second or perhaps third hand about this show's
um checkered past with the musician Cheryl Crowe. Yes, something
(36:34):
about limericks that popped up, and I don't fully understand
what's happening. I don't remember the limericks side. Yeah, that
popped up on the on the group, the group ridiculous.
What's with the Cheryl Crow thing? She is our now
you're you're our nemesis. I'm your branded nemesis, as assigned
(36:56):
by contractually obligated. Every podcast has one. It's just I'm
the only one who's allowed on Mike. Yeah. It's like
a Burnham Duquesne thing, you know what I mean, like
this rivalry, but we respect each other and this is
not the case with the popular musician Cheryl Crowe, who
we discovered is our primary critic online and off. Really yeah,
(37:21):
Cheryl Crow criticized. Yeah, I mean no, no, no press
is bad press, I guess, but geez, she has got
some harsh barbs for your boys. Really, yeah, and uh,
you know, we're we're glad. We're glad that she is around,
because it turns out that most of our subscription numbers
do come from Cheryl Crowe. You know, every day is
(37:43):
a winding road. I think, yes, So so what you're saying,
winding road the next concert tour, we should just be
out in the parking lots selling ridiculous history t shirts. Right. Yeah.
We just wanted to be transparent with you because we
know that you are such an ardent fan of Cheryl Row.
Now I'm growing more so every day. You guys should
(38:04):
league up, maybe have our own Injustice League Excellent like it. Well,
while you're waiting for that hellish combination to coalesce, you
can send us an email at Ridiculous at how stuff
works dot com if you would like to send us
any musings, any thoughts about this or any other episode suggestions.
(38:24):
We love that. You can hit us up on our
Facebook group, The Ridiculous Historians. Yes, and you can also
find our off air personal adventures at our instagrams. I
am at Ben Bolan, I am at Embryonic Insider, and
do you have any socials you'd like to pitch plug
at John Strickland, I post cute pictures of my dog. Yes,
(38:47):
very cute dog. There's no h in the John there.
So you can also find more of Jonathan working under
his Clark Kent alter ego at his show Text, where
you how would you describe Text? I'd say that tech stuff,
and I gotta drop the whole quister thing here. The
tech stuff is tech. Tech Stuff is just about It's
(39:08):
about technology and about culture and about how those two
things intersect. So some episodes are a little more technology focused,
where we talk about how the technology actually works. Sometimes
we're talking about how a technology has shaped our lives
and how we in turn have shaped the evolution of
that technology. So if you're interested in anything from an
(39:29):
iPhone to a catapult, I've covered it on Tech Stuff.
It's true, that's true. This show has been a decade
and yeah there's more than so get started now for
for your next podcast, binge opportunity tune into Tech Stuff.
We'd also like to thank, of course, our super producer,
Casey Pegram and Alex Williams who composed our track, and
(39:52):
we also like to thank Game are amazing research associate,
and of course we'd like to thank you the listening public. Wow,
that's a very clinical way of referring to our friends
out there in podcast land. I'll never do that again.
But seriously, the show wouldn't be anything without you. And
if you want to hang out with your fellow listeners,
check out that group we mentioned earlier, the Ridiculous Historians
(40:14):
on Facebook. I'm not looking forward to check it out.
Our score with the Twister, there's a score? Is there
someone doing a spreadsheet? I I don't know when there's
a spreadsheet, but every everyone knows we're a couple behind.
That's fair. I think we I think we eve ended
up last time and now we're behind again. We got close,
we did get close. I think you were. I think
you were one behind. Okay, yeah, because of course you're
(40:34):
keeping kel imagine that. All Right, that's the show, See
you next time.
Let's begin today show with some apparently irrelevant hippo facts
that will come into play later in the episode. Number one,
Did you know hippos cannot swim and they cannot float?
What It's true. So when whenever you see a hippo
emerge from the murky waters and like an adventure type movie,
(00:45):
they're literally just walking on the on the bottom of
the body of water, it's true. They walk or stand
on surfaces below the water like sandbanks. Ben, that's fascinating information. Thanks. No,
they're also called land cows. Did you see that? That
stright my favorite things. And they're also straight sea horse teeth.
They are, they aren't the straight sea horse teeth much
(01:06):
like our super producer Casey Pegram. Casey has the straightest
teeth of anyone in this crew, the most sea horse
of teeth. So today we've got to we've got to
set out maybe a couple of disclaimers. First off, this
one's on me. I just got back into town. My
(01:27):
body has no idea what time it is or what
day it is. Uh my left arms a little loopy. Yeah,
But overall I might be a bit punchy in today's episode,
and I might say some things that are largely irrelevant.
It's okay, how is how is that any different than usual? Yeah?
I mean on either side totally. What I meant that,
that's totally what it's it's it's true. Well maybe it
(01:49):
will be for the good of the show, hopefully, but
we have actually is so far. Let's the street continues.
We also have a second disclaimer about today's episode, big
one mat of disclaimer and not even a disclaimer, more
a pre recommendation. Our colleagues Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson,
who you know from stuff you missed in history class
(02:09):
fame um, have covered this very topic and a quite
meaty two parter. So, um, stop what you're doing right
now and listen to theirs. This is a throwaway episode
that we're about to do for you. Well, maybe maybe
listen to ours first, so we don't have to follow
that act. That's fair. Well, let's consider ours, like the
cliffs Notes version, and there's like the Encyclopedia Britannic conversion. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(02:33):
the Primer I think we called it off, that's right,
or if you're British Primer primmer. Yes, So this this
is a crazy story. One of our first episodes on
Ridiculous History was also hippocentric. It was, wasn't it the
first episode? It may have been the first episode the
wild Hippos of Pablo Escobar, which is a which I
(02:54):
think is a fascinating story. And I did check, and
those hippos are still running rampant maca macaca, Yes, wreaking
watery havoc wherever they can walk or stand in a
watery surface, because again, they neither swim nor flu How
did you happen upon this, this little tidbit about the
watery nature of hippos. I read a lot about hippos
(03:15):
on the plane. It yeah, because I I was too
cheap to pay for the WiFi, and I downloaded some
articles beforehand. And that's a long flight. You didn't pop
for the WiFi? I I eventually did not, because the
flight went by the north Pole, at which point, even
if you pay for WiFi, there's no service. Did you
see the pole, that barber pole that marks the spot?
(03:36):
I did not yet I did not. So that's going
to be for the next trip. If you want to go.
Have you revealed where you where you were traveling to
or we mentioned I think we mentioned previous episodes possible,
let's just double down. Yeah Yeah, traveled to Korea for
a week on my continuing quest to enter not just
the d m Z, but what's called the Joint Protection Area,
(03:58):
which is the blue building where you can walk across
into North Korea. That was and have you seen Conan
without borders the travel Then he goes into that room
and there's like guards and they're all wearing like in
sunglasses inside, and there's one side of this room where
you're in North Korea, one side you're in South Korea.
And him and Steven Jon from The Walking Dead do
(04:19):
a funny little bit where they like broadcast the weather
from each side of the room, and surprise, surprise, it's
the same weather. You know, it's it's surprisingly, well not surprisingly,
it's tricky to get into that area, uh and the
any number of people or institutions can cancel it day up.
So I didn't make it this time, but I had
(04:40):
a wonderful time, wonderful trip nonetheless, and will probably be
returning until I can finally get into that building. In
the meantime, let's take some advantage of those that that
that hippo research time. You have it out on that plane. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
what are we talking about. Let's do it today. We
are talking about not just hippos or and cows, but
(05:01):
a enormously influential role they almost played in American history.
And uh, the American meat industry. Cool boy, that's the
whole thing unto itself. And it was a thing onto
itself at this point because there just wasn't enough meat.
It was the earliest of the nineteen oh one and
(05:21):
the United States was in when the throes of a
meat shortage, and you know, I see that, and I
immediately I'm like, well, why didn't people just start eating
more vegetables? Right right? Why don't we pursue a Michael
Paulin esque omnivore's dilemma approach? Right? It's funny because that
actually does kind of figure into this a little later,
but for now, let's set the scene. Yes, So, the
(05:43):
dawn of hippopotamus ranching, as we would later come to
call it, really peaked in nineteen ten and starts in
the early nineteen hundreds. Hits the point of, hey, it's
a great idea to practice. Hippopotamus ranching really hits it's
it's peak. There was as you said, nol Um an
(06:05):
alarming shortage of meat. This is a result of several factors.
These were peak years of immigration, and cities were exploding
in terms of population, and although the meat industry itself
was growing by significant leaps and bounds, it was not
(06:25):
growing fast enough to keep up with all the new
hungry people traveling to the US and being born here.
So consequently, beef prices were through the roof. That beef
bill was just astronomical. I know it was putting people
out of house and home just to just to keep
their families beefed up, I guess. But like I said,
(06:45):
though that, I don't see any mention of seeking alternative.
They don't even talk of like eating dogs like it
was that bad. People just needed their meat, And I'm like,
was it I was it a taste thing? Literally? Was it?
Like we just really loved the taste of meat over vegetables,
Like you think they would be more like urban farming
or something would have sprung up to kind of fill
that gap. But that was it was such a big deal.
(07:07):
It was dubbed the meat question. Yes, it was dubbed
the meat question. Part of it ties into the availability
of pasture right of land for these animals to grazes,
right because meat was was already so popular that, you know,
like we tend to do or we don't think ahead
as a country. Uh, pastures had become overgrazed because you know,
(07:29):
to have beef cattle, they have to graze and feed
on grass and pastures. What happens when they're overgrazed right there,
there's nowhere for the cattle to eat, and so there's
no opportunity to grow them into you know, delicious hamburgers
and ribs. We do have to bracket that idea of
(07:50):
vegetarianism just for a moment, but we will get back
to it, I believe we will. So into this fray, uh,
into the midst of the meat question, come to very
fascinating guys, super cool. Yeah, one named Frederick Russell Burnham
and one named We might need a Casey assist on
this one. Casey, we've got a gentleman by the name
(08:11):
of Fritz d u q u E s n E.
I'm picturing it as a sort of du Frain, like
Andy Dufrain from the Shawshank Redemption. You can do ken,
you can, you can you can something like that. Yeah,
Casey on the case, Casey on the case. And it's
funny because it's interesting to me how sometimes in French
(08:33):
you actually do pronounce those seemingly silent letters, like one
version of that Casey was saying the s a little bit. Well,
the yes names especially have lots of weird exceptions, and
sometimes you literally just have to check. There's not like
a hard and fest rule that you can always be
assured is gonna work. So double casey on the case.
(08:58):
So we have these guys, Frederick and Fritz. Let's let's
examine the life of Frederick Russell Burnham. First. This guy
is quoted by some sources as being the man with
the most complete life ever lived. You'll hear him refer
to as the inspiration for Indiana Jones. You'll hear that
(09:21):
the Boy Scouts were created to mold young men into
a more Frederick Russell Burnham esque shape. Morally speaking, Yeah,
the name alone just inspires me. Frederick Russell Burnham. It
just sounds like a real magic man, a real wrecontour,
you know. Um. And yeah, he was an outdoorsman. I
(09:43):
guess you could say the early form of something like
a naturalist, right, Yeah, he would be described as emphatically
a man's man able active alert. Uh. He gave people
an impression of force and self control. In nine, Burnham
was forty nine years old and in September nineteenth of
(10:04):
that year, he visited the Maryland Hotel in Pasadena, California.
What happened then, then, so so, I'm so glad you asked.
He was there to address what was known as the
Humane Association of California at their annual convention. This group
was dedicated to the prevention of cruelty to animals. They
(10:28):
had quickly become one of California's the most powerful civic organizations.
And Burnham, later on in his life, now you know
he's middle aged. He is part of an eccentric brain
trust that was trying to launch their own innovative animal
project off the ground. They wanted to answer the meat question,
(10:49):
and they thought that the civic minded people, the philanthropist
of the Humane Association of California would be really good
folks to have on their side. Burnham was doing this
with a very calculated air. It's proven that privately he
made fun of these sorts of organizations. Like in his
(11:11):
off time, he he had no time for that kind
of flim flammer any that kind of pomp and circumstances.
He wanted to be out there in the wild, communing
with nature, not behind a podium front of a bunch
of stuff shirts delivering a speech. And he thought their
priorities were off, you know what I mean. So he
wanted to get their support, nonetheless for his idea. And
(11:36):
it was an idea that was already circulating through the
halls of d C in the form of a bill
introduced by Louisiana congressman named Robert Broussard. The pitch was this,
we don't have enough room for beef. We're not we're
not growing enough cattle. But we got all these swamps
(11:57):
and we don't quite know what to do with them.
There's kind of mucky and gross and nothing really grows
there that we can use um. And there's also these
like invasive plants that are really mucking up the ecosystem.
Uh what if, what if? Mind you, there was some
sort of creature that couldn't really swim or float but
could exist just fine, and some shallow water like that,
(12:19):
and with graze on these invasive plants, which you might
be able to drop the name of then the water hyacinth. Ah, yes,
the pesky water hyacinth. So what you there is such
a creature? Yes, yes, picture this like a made for
TV ad where Billy May says, but wait, there's more.
So there is such a creature. It turns out a
(12:41):
creature from the continent of Africa, the creature known as
the hippopotamus. The hippopotamus, which is gigantic is um native
to similar ecosystems, you know, shallow watery depths, right, wetlands,
marshy areas, vegetation, And so they said, close enough for
(13:04):
government work. Why don't we Why don't we walk with
us here? Why don't we take some hippos, a breeding
population of hippos from their native environment and bring them
to Louisiana to fight the invasive water hyacinth, also turning
this marshal land into something productive. And then we'll eat
(13:25):
hippos because they're delicious. As it turns out we maybe
they might be. That's I mean, that's the pitch. And
it seems way less gross than eating dogs, which we
were totally considering doing. We were considering as a nation
eating a lot of animal, a lot of animals because
we just had to have that sweet, sweetmeat like antelopes,
(13:46):
what else, ostriches, That's what we kind of collectively referred
to as bush meat kind of right, It's like the
stuff that we wouldn't really mess with, um, but it's funny.
Obviously they have not heard our podcast about the hippos,
the wild hippos of Pablo Escobar, because then they would
know that hippos can be an invasive species in and
of themselves very much. But none of this really came
(14:07):
to pass ultimately, so they didn't get a chance to
realize what a can of worms they were opening up
by doing this. But there's more. There's another Fritz. Let's
talk about our boy Fritz. What does he played into this? Yeah,
let's talk about Fritz. So, Fritz is a bore. The
Boers are the descendants of Dutch settlers colonizers in Africa.
This guy is super sketchy. He he lives life. According
(14:33):
to John Mulum, this guy quote moves through life using
uh variety of aliases. He was a con man, and
you know how we love con artists here on ridiculous history.
He fought against the British and the Second Boer War
and similar to Burnham, he had spent some time as
(14:55):
a kind of a freelance spy. Burnham hated Fritz and
once called him the human epitome of sin and deception,
whereas Burnham had been described as the most complete human
being who ever lived. So couldn't be more different these two,
and they ended up being quite the odd couple, didn't that? Yes? Yeah,
(15:17):
because their interests aligned right, their interests the line. But
previously on a previous episode of Fritz and Frederick and
they have been specifically tasked to murder one another. Yeah,
I didn't. I didn't find any more about that. I
saw that detail in the interview with this with this
Wired writer Mullum. But what what what happened with that? I?
I need to know more. It sounded like they were
(15:39):
maybe on the opposite sides of some sort of conflict.
It's true during the Second Boer War, Fritz was under
orders to specifically assassinate Frederick Burnham, and he was under Burnham,
I mean, was under a similar set of orders. It
did not come to pass. And then apparently they were
able to let igons be bygones? Are you know death
(16:02):
orders be something that's nicer than death orders? I don't know.
After the Boer War, Burnham remained active in counter espionage
for Britain, and apparently a lot of his job in
this post war environment was just keeping an eye on Fritz,
just specifically watching his activities and and seeing what he
(16:26):
was about. So when we fast forward to when Burnham
and this previously mentioned Congressman Robert Bursard are trying to
popularize the idea of hippos as livestock, Burnham and Bissard
found something called the New Food Supply Society. The idea
of being that they'll import what they see is useful
(16:48):
African wildlife into the US to solve the meat question.
And Broussard needs some experts, and so he says, who
would be a good expert on African wildlife? These two
men's men that have spent a lot of time in Africa,
and uh, you know, the whole rivalry thing aside, maybe
they can figure out a way to get along and
(17:10):
work towards a common goal. And they ultimately kind of did.
They formed essentially like a lobbying group kind of Yeah, yeah,
they formula lobbying group with the New Food Supplies Society.
They were pushing something called the American hippo bill, and
the American hippo bill was asking Uncle Sam for two
(17:31):
hundred and fifty grand to import hippos into the bios
as a new food source and then to control the
other pre existing invasive species, the water hyacinth. So, just
to emphasize the highlight the logic here, they said, let's
introduce another invasive species to solve our original invasive species problem.
(17:54):
This is similar in some ways to that scene in Fantasia,
which I know I reference at nauseum, wherein the Wizard
Mickey Mouse animates one mop and then quickly gets over
his head and then all the mops start going insane
and kind of mutate into some sort of violent, uh
you know mob. And this, despite this lack of knowledge
(18:19):
of Disney films on the part of Uncle Sam at
this time, and despite the just the weird unorthodox nature
of the proposal, people are largely behind it. Even former
President Theodore Roosevelt backs the plan. He was a man's
man himself, wasn't it, Yes, yes he was. And The
New York Times writes an article praising the taste of
(18:41):
hippopotamus meat, and I can't remember, did I say? Land
cow in the beginning, and okay, it's late cow cow.
That's just a cow. But these are lake cows. And
the New York Times wanted to call this stuff lake
cow bacon. Uh So Fritz pro wide expert testimony about
(19:02):
hippos as livestock to the House Committee on Agriculture, and
the bill is in action. For a second, it looks
like it has a real chance of passing, and then
what it just fizzles. Doesn't get that nothing like catastrophic happened,
Like it just kind of seems like it just the
whole idea, I know what it was. It was sort
of on the edge of being able to engineer some
(19:26):
of those farmland, those uh you know, overgrazed pastures into
new environments. Yeah, that's it exactly. This plan would have
come to pass had not other other technological innovation adustrial
agriculture into Yeah, it's industrial agriculture. And so now we're
(19:46):
in a situation where we say, hey, we I guess
we don't need to import a huge population of hippos
and try to fundamentally reboot our livestock system. Now we
can just take what we were already doing to a
new level of scale. That's right. And this guy, this
writer John mulum Hope and produced his name right, please
(20:07):
forgive me from like um. He makes a point in
an interview with Wired that it was almost like starting
to resemble the kind of like local you know, locally
bread and slaughtered kind of like things that foodie scenes
are so big on, you know nowadays. They were talking
about importing ostriches and having ostrich farms and any other
(20:28):
kind of like animals like they could get their hands on,
like antelopes and anything was really on the table. And
it was this idea of having a an incredibly local,
locally sourced food system even though they were imported. They
would be kind of bread naturally locally and then slaughtered
locally and everything, as opposed to having everything like imported. Yeah,
(20:48):
kind of a farm to table. That's the one I
was looking for. Certain it's weird when you consider this
because we're at a a pivotal point in history, and
it's it's incredibly tempting to speculate how things would be
(21:08):
in the modern restaurants of nineteen had this plan and
similar propositions succeeded, you know, we would we be in
a situation where food is more regional, or livestock is
more regional. Would we be in a situation where someone says, well,
you have to go to Nebraska to get a good
(21:29):
hamburger because that's where we have cows. Now, that's that's
certainly an absurd thought, you know, considering the way things
are done these days. It seems like it now, right,
it seems like it now. And you know, one of
the things that mystifies a lot of my friends who
visit the US from out of the country is just
(21:49):
the ubiquitous nature of food. You can you can get
anything anywhere. Well, if you think about like in Japan,
for example, like proper waigo beef, isn't that very regional
like that, like to actually get it that where it's
actually the real deal, because it's obviously it's one of
the things that can be thrown around, like you even
see it on the menu at like chilies or something.
(22:10):
Why you be sliders or whatever. Right, it's true. And
this is where we see Michael Pollen returning because Michael Pollen,
who writes quite extensively about the problem of agriculture, the
problem in industrial agriculture, he would argue that ultimately it
(22:30):
is better and more sustainable for us to pursue as
a species, these sorts of regional models of food ways,
you know what I mean. He would say that had
the hippo industry taken off, it would have been ultimately
better for the planet. You know. Uh, that is not
where we are now. Now. We are in a reality
(22:52):
where we could the three of us and and you listening,
we could all travel in different directions in the lower
forty eight States for sure, and then pretty much order
the same thing. You can find the same thing anywhere. Yeah,
I mean, you know, there's a time where the idea
of getting seafood in a land locked part of the
country would have been insane, you know, but not not
(23:15):
so much anymore with like refrigeration technology. And here in Atlanta,
especially because we are near such a huge shipping hub
with the airport. Um, there's constantly flux and things coming through.
You know, you can get here. That's probably true. I'm
sure it is. Yeah, I'm sure it is. Um. I
really recommend there is behind a paywall, but um that
(23:35):
this writer John Mullam wrote a piece for the Atavist
website called American Hippopotamus um and I read some excerpts
from it, and it's it's very very good, right. He
goes into the backgrounds of these two very fascinating men
in a very deep dive way and talks through this
whole uh problem in situation and what ultimately came of him.
It is also the source of it's the first time
(23:57):
I found this quote. It's it's the source of my
favorite quotation about Fritz Duking. He was described as not
only the human epitome of sin and deception, but get
this stole a walking, living, breathing, Syrian, killing, destroying torch
of hate. WHOA. I don't think that made it into
the congressional record. I don't think so either, but it
(24:20):
made it into the podcast record. And I think there's
not much of a better way to wrap this up
than with that, my friend. That's true. That's true. This
ends our tale of the would be hippopotamus livestock empire
that never quite came to pass and now is currently
relegated to the Hall of good but ultimately unsuccessful ideas
(24:45):
such as giraffe ranches and Ostrich farms. We hope that
you enjoy today's episode. Let us know what we uh
it's I've been here the whole time. Jonathan Strickland, a
(25:07):
k a. The Quister. It is true you have been here.
Fact that you wouldn't acknowledge my existence for half an
hour really hurts. I'm sorry, man. If you heard any weird, labored,
evil breathing, that was Strickland on the mic A couple
of times he rolled his eyes so hard that I'm
pretty sure translated to audio. Listen, then listen, listen, Ben, listen.
(25:34):
You're talking about my boy Fritz, and you're casting expersions
left and right. I can't let this just go by. Ben.
Fritz is my boy. You have something of a super villain.
And let me tell you you have not scratched the
surface of Fritz. Fritz was an insurance scam walking down
(25:57):
the streets. He was in the movie business, worked for
r k O Pictures. He actually was arrested for insurance fraud.
He sounds like he needs his own episode. He is amazing.
And guess what, we're going to test your knowledge about
Fritz ducan right now. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if you
(26:17):
don't understand what's happening, I don't blame you. I don't
understand it myself, and I don't even have the excuse
of an international flight like Mr Bolin. Know what we
are going to do is I'm going to pose a
scenario to these two gentlemen. They will have three minutes
to discuss the scenario between the two of them, and
they may ask questions of me during those three minutes
(26:38):
to determine whether the scenario is in fact historical or
if I've made it up. Seats and so this time
has always I have to come up with an arbitrary
rule for you to say or do before you ask
a question. This time because one of the many things
Fritz Ducan was known for was during both World Wars
(26:59):
he was a spy for the German government. So before
you ask any questions, you will have to preface it
with atung baby like that you records. Really, that's why
I was kind of I was they would it's both
thematic and we can bring some attention. I think I
think it is. I think that's sort of considered that
one of their lesser works. I would it was really
(27:21):
broken up about that. Anyway, I will give you your
scenario and then we will start the enormous Grandfather clock
for its three minutes. Yea I'm stretching now. I've got
to run all the way across this gigantic shipping container
of those twelve hour flights, and economy is going to
do that to you. All right, here we go, here's
your Sonatio for its Ducan, as you've mentioned, was one
(27:45):
of the experts consulted for the Happy Pottus plan for Louisiana.
That's what I used to call Hippopotamus. Little Disney thought
so too. But Ducan was hardly a reliable re source.
He was a con man, He was a self promoter,
He was a big game hunter. He actually went on
(28:05):
big game hunts with Teddy Roosevelt, and a spy for
the Germans with a real grudge against Britain. He had
two main rivals in his career. One you've already mentioned
the fellow hippo advocate Frederick Russell Burnham, whom I trust
you remember from literally moments ago. But his other rival,
(28:30):
which had a very similar story in some ways, was
an English spy named Vernon Hall. Hall had never cross
paths with Ducane, which is fortunate because like Burnham, Ducane
and Hall were pledged to kill one another. They each
had orders to kill each other They were very similar
(28:52):
in a lot of ways, except for one major one.
Du Can was a spy but loved attention and would
bring attention on himself all the time, even posing as
a supposed British soldier with the Australian Light Cavalry at
one point. But Hall was a master of blending in
and not being noticed, which is particularly fascinating considering the
(29:16):
fact that he had a wooden leg. Start to the time. Okay, okay,
I'm running, I'm running. Go okay. Are you okay? Then
you really took a running leap at that wall, a
little wind. You look a little flattened. I you know what,
(29:37):
I'll be good for the three minutes it takes us
to figure this out. Um octung baby, yes, Mr Bo.
So are you saying that vern Wait? Are you saying
Fritz had a wooden leg? No, I'm saying Vernon Hall had.
Fritz loved attention. Vernon Hall was the opposite. Yeah, he
loved his prosthetics. Okay, baby, give me like. The log
(30:00):
line version of the entire question was Fritz Duken arch
Nemeses with not just one but two other spies, the
second being Vernon Hall and English spy active, by the way,
during World War two, in addition to our other player
in our in today's from the Boer War. So that
was much much, much earlier. So they were he was
(30:23):
kind of an assassin. Yeah, he had been tasked. He
had been tasked to assassinate more than one person. So
then it's it does seem likely that he I mean,
they weren't necessarily mortal enemies because they had beef with
each other. They were mortal enemies because they were assigned
by someone higher than them than their pay grade to
(30:44):
do harm to one at least initially initially. So that
being the case, it does seem likely that that would
happen more than once, or at least probably possible. Yeah,
I'm gonna I'm gonna you know what I'm gonna ask.
I think I've made up my mind. I've cast a lot,
but I'm gonna ask another question, just because I like
the bit we're doing. I do too. I like saying
(31:04):
it's it's it's got a good mouth field Octogle Baby, Yes, Mr.
I just wanted to say it. That's fair. Okay, you're
thinking true. I'm thinking true. Man. Gosh, we've been on
such a good streak. I hate to squander it, but
I'm thinking truth too, alright, so we gotta lock it in.
Let's do it alright, three two one true, Mr Boland,
(31:29):
Mr Boland, you are going to kick yourself so very hard.
First of all, Fritz ducan was can't do it too.
He's quite flexible. He was, in fact a spy during
both world wars, World War One and World War Two
on behalf of the Germans. He did have a very
strong anti British sentiment deep in his soul. He had
been put into prison and broke out numerous times, although
(31:53):
he was eventually caught and tried and eventually died in
shortly after being least because his health had gotten so
poor while he was in prison for fourteen years. But
there was no Vernon Hall. There was, however, a spy
with a wooden leg named Virginia Hall. Virginia Hall was
(32:14):
an American spy. Mr Bolan r. Dirty Pool not only
had a wooden leg, and while only was a spy
worked on behalf of the French resistance was it was
an American spy working in France. There's an entire building
at the CIA named after her. Why do you keep
saying my last name was a part of this too,
(32:36):
because Mr Bolland in particular shouldn't know more about the
Hey now, no, no dock sing here. Come on now listen.
I called dirty pool because you literally just flipped the gender.
No no. I also said he was an English spy,
not an American spy. But I didn't give you any
(32:57):
details about what he did as his spy work in
World Wars. Okay, but my into our intuition of the
truthfishness of the story still held true. Well, this just
warns you that you can't necessarily believe anything about Fritz Duchan. Okay,
that's that's well written. But I feel like it also
(33:18):
beats we can't necessarily believe anything you say. That's kind
of the point of But I feel like I'm going
to carry this off air with us. But but here's
here's what I charge you both. I charge you both
to you should do two companion episodes, one specifically about
Burnham and the legendary exploits of Burnham, and one specifically
(33:42):
of Ducane and the legendary some obviously fictional exploits he
really did pose as a British soldier who had led
an Australian light cavalry. He had created an entire mythology,
mythology including being bayonitted three times in gas four times.
To what end? This was his cover story, like because
(34:02):
he liked the attack, like dressing up in the cavalry
uniform and having photographs taken of him. There are famous
photographs of him in that in that outfit. I mean,
be caught would be a death sentence. So he was
just totally rolling the disk for funds. He just he
just he relished the attention. But we've all been there,
you know what I mean. Like it's you get off
(34:26):
work on a Friday. Next thing, you know, it's Sunday,
you're in a different country and you're dressed like a
member their military. Stuff just happened, So we know what
happened in Korea, all right, Hey, speaking segues, Uh, Jonathan
strictly dek the quister. It looks like you've won the battle,
but not the war. I'm winning the war too, but
(34:46):
come on, man and uh. And it just occurred to me. No,
this is the first time in twenty nineteen that we
have had our friends slash Nemesis on the show. I
really like this one. Usually this is the time kind
of low key snark at the Twister here. But now
that was very well played, sir, and he literally gave
(35:06):
us two new episode topics. So, um, I do need
to point something out real quick. I recently discovered something.
I'm a big fan, as I think we all are,
of Scott Ackerman and Comedy Bang Bang. Um, the television
show Comedy Bang Bang. There is an episode wherein Tom
Green plays a character called the Quizzler and it's it's
(35:27):
utter parallel thinking, very similar arch villain type character to you, uh,
the Quister, Jonathan Cricle. That's want to point out that
this was not lifted. This was just simply parallel thinking.
And I saw it with my buddy and he was like,
wait a minute. We just we just know that brilliance
sometimes comes in pairs, you know, like calculus exactly exactly.
(35:47):
I just wanted to put that out there real quick,
lest anyone accuse us of of ripping off this segment.
Quister is also a better name. I agree that Tea
in the middle throws it off. Got a good mouth feel,
so just like Octo Baby, just like octog Baby. So
thank you so much for coming on the show. Christ
(36:10):
We will get you next time. As I'm shaking my
fist at the air, we do also have to we
we have to bring up one thing. I don't want
to make the show too long. But off air, Jonathan,
you learned second or perhaps third hand about this show's
um checkered past with the musician Cheryl Crowe. Yes, something
(36:34):
about limericks that popped up, and I don't fully understand
what's happening. I don't remember the limericks side. Yeah, that
popped up on the on the group, the group ridiculous.
What's with the Cheryl Crow thing? She is our now
you're you're our nemesis. I'm your branded nemesis, as assigned
(36:56):
by contractually obligated. Every podcast has one. It's just I'm
the only one who's allowed on Mike. Yeah. It's like
a Burnham Duquesne thing, you know what I mean, like
this rivalry, but we respect each other and this is
not the case with the popular musician Cheryl Crowe, who
we discovered is our primary critic online and off. Really yeah,
(37:21):
Cheryl Crow criticized. Yeah, I mean no, no, no press
is bad press, I guess, but geez, she has got
some harsh barbs for your boys. Really, yeah, and uh,
you know, we're we're glad. We're glad that she is around,
because it turns out that most of our subscription numbers
do come from Cheryl Crowe. You know, every day is
(37:43):
a winding road. I think, yes, So so what you're saying,
winding road the next concert tour, we should just be
out in the parking lots selling ridiculous history t shirts. Right. Yeah.
We just wanted to be transparent with you because we
know that you are such an ardent fan of Cheryl Row.
Now I'm growing more so every day. You guys should
(38:04):
league up, maybe have our own Injustice League Excellent like it. Well,
while you're waiting for that hellish combination to coalesce, you
can send us an email at Ridiculous at how stuff
works dot com if you would like to send us
any musings, any thoughts about this or any other episode suggestions.
(38:24):
We love that. You can hit us up on our
Facebook group, The Ridiculous Historians. Yes, and you can also
find our off air personal adventures at our instagrams. I
am at Ben Bolan, I am at Embryonic Insider, and
do you have any socials you'd like to pitch plug
at John Strickland, I post cute pictures of my dog. Yes,
(38:47):
very cute dog. There's no h in the John there.
So you can also find more of Jonathan working under
his Clark Kent alter ego at his show Text, where
you how would you describe Text? I'd say that tech stuff,
and I gotta drop the whole quister thing here. The
tech stuff is tech. Tech Stuff is just about It's
(39:08):
about technology and about culture and about how those two
things intersect. So some episodes are a little more technology focused,
where we talk about how the technology actually works. Sometimes
we're talking about how a technology has shaped our lives
and how we in turn have shaped the evolution of
that technology. So if you're interested in anything from an
(39:29):
iPhone to a catapult, I've covered it on Tech Stuff.
It's true, that's true. This show has been a decade
and yeah there's more than so get started now for
for your next podcast, binge opportunity tune into Tech Stuff.
We'd also like to thank, of course, our super producer,
Casey Pegram and Alex Williams who composed our track, and
(39:52):
we also like to thank Game are amazing research associate,
and of course we'd like to thank you the listening public. Wow,
that's a very clinical way of referring to our friends
out there in podcast land. I'll never do that again.
But seriously, the show wouldn't be anything without you. And
if you want to hang out with your fellow listeners,
check out that group we mentioned earlier, the Ridiculous Historians
(40:14):
on Facebook. I'm not looking forward to check it out.
Our score with the Twister, there's a score? Is there
someone doing a spreadsheet? I I don't know when there's
a spreadsheet, but every everyone knows we're a couple behind.
That's fair. I think we I think we eve ended
up last time and now we're behind again. We got close,
we did get close. I think you were. I think
you were one behind. Okay, yeah, because of course you're
(40:34):
keeping kel imagine that. All Right, that's the show, See
you next time.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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