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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And you remember

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Speaker 1: a little while ago we talked about famous battle horses

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Speaker 1: like Incatatas, like Incatatas, and remember how at least half

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Speaker 1: of them seemed like they had been stuffed. So if

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Speaker 1: you're the kind of person who keeps up with the

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Speaker 1: latest in stuffed horse news, I am you've probably heard this.

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Speaker 1: Roy Rogers Trusty Steed trigger just sold for two hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixty six thousand dollars in New York City, and

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Speaker 1: his dog bullet sold for about thirty five thousand dollars.

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Speaker 1: I think this would make a difficult decorative scheme in

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Speaker 1: one's house, but I'm not very good at interior decorating.

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Speaker 1: Bullet on one side of the door, trigger on the other, maybe.

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Speaker 1: But the cool thing is before the sale, we received

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Speaker 1: this note in photos from people at Christie's Interiors, their

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Speaker 1: fans of the podcast, and they also auctioned off the memorabilia,

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Speaker 1: and they told us that trigger, bullet, buttermilk, and quote

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Speaker 1: too many cowboy boots to count had all been stored

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Speaker 1: in their warehouse for about five months, and understandably they

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Speaker 1: were kind of sad to see the stuff go. They

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Speaker 1: had gotten a little attached to it. So they sent

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Speaker 1: a request for an episode on famous cowboys in honor

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Speaker 1: of their sale, and we're responding with, of course, but

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Speaker 1: how do we decide on who to talk about? And

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Speaker 1: Sarah was saying, the first cowboys that she thought of

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Speaker 1: weren't really cowboys at all, their outlaws and hustlers and

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Speaker 1: lawman when we've talked about a lot of them before,

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Speaker 1: White Earp that kind of that kind of fellow. And

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Speaker 1: the next one's we thought of were like Roy Rogers,

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Speaker 1: their TV stars, film cowboys, stuntman, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood,

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Speaker 1: that type. So we wanted something that's a little bit

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Speaker 1: between those two eras, something that's not yet so far

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Speaker 1: in from the real open range, real cowboys. And our

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Speaker 1: answer was the Traveling wild West Show, which is a

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Speaker 1: little bit vaudeville for our vaudeville hungry listeners, a medley

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Speaker 1: of horse tricks, gun tricks, and humor. But first, how

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Speaker 1: did we get from the actual wild West to the

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Speaker 1: Wild West Show? And just a little more than a decade,

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Speaker 1: if the cowboy is not the outlawed gun slinger we

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Speaker 1: know from movies. What does he really do? To give

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Speaker 1: you a definition before we start, Real cowboys are horsemen

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Speaker 1: who handle and drive cattle. Pretty obvious. They also do

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Speaker 1: other tasks like branding and castrating the animals, or they

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Speaker 1: break horses, and they obviously still exist today. But they're real.

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Speaker 1: Heyday was pretty short. It's eighteen sixty seven to eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty seven, so only twenty years of hardcore cowboy times.

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Speaker 1: Their techniques using horses and lariats to herd cattle were

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Speaker 1: picked up as early as eighteen twenty by pioneers of

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Speaker 1: serving Mexican vaccaros, and by the end of the Civil

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Speaker 1: War we've got a pretty big cattle industry in Texas,

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Speaker 1: which is centered around the Texas Longhorn steer, a hybrid

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Speaker 1: of Spanish and English cattle. But we have a problem,

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Speaker 1: and that's getting the beef out of Texas into the

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Speaker 1: railroad where it can be shipped to northern cities where

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of hungry people. And that's where

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Speaker 1: the cowboys come in. And their job was two in

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Speaker 1: the fall, round up the herd, brand the ones that

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Speaker 1: are unmarked, or collect any unowned cows, and then they'd

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Speaker 1: watch over them through the winter, make sure nothing terrible happened.

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Speaker 1: In the spring, they would drive the cattle on trails

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Speaker 1: out of Texas to the railheads in Missouri and Wyoming

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Speaker 1: and Kansas. And I didn't know what a railhead was,

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Speaker 1: if you want to explain, because I thought it was

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Speaker 1: just an insult. It does sound like an insult. It's

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Speaker 1: just a rail terminus or at the end of a line,

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Speaker 1: a place where you go and ship your cattle off

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Speaker 1: to the off to the cities. So within about a deck,

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Speaker 1: this cattle ranching spreads across the Great Plains all the

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Speaker 1: way to Canada, as far west as the Rockies and

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Speaker 1: Soda Cowboys. But by about eight or so, fenced ranches

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Speaker 1: replaced open grazing. Railroad stops are often closer to the cattle,

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Speaker 1: and ranching becomes a big business. So cowboys aren't aren't

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Speaker 1: needed as much. You don't need as many of them.

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Speaker 1: They're not covering these huge, long distances. But by this

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Speaker 1: point the cowboy has already entered American mythology. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: matter that we don't need tons of cowboys anymore. But

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Speaker 1: public can't get enough of this mythological, sort of glamorized idea,

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Speaker 1: a ragged young man of cowboys. Yeah, the stagecoach robbers,

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Speaker 1: the railhead brawls. So we end up making up more

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Speaker 1: news and that's dime. Novels about the wild West. They

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Speaker 1: become really popular and you can just imagine kids in

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Speaker 1: big Eastern cities reading about their famous um Western counterparts.

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Speaker 1: But what's better than reading about cowboys is seeing a

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Speaker 1: real live one plus Indians plus buffalo. So enter the

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Speaker 1: first wild West Show and our first wild West cowboy,

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Speaker 1: Buffalo Bill. So. One thing that makes the performers a

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Speaker 1: Wild West shows so interesting why we decided to go

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Speaker 1: with this genre in particular, is that a lot of

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Speaker 1: the performers actually come out of the real wild West.

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Speaker 1: Most really worked as cowboys, some even split their time

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Speaker 1: between the stage and the ranch that they were still

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Speaker 1: being authentic even when they were performers. And William Frederick

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Speaker 1: Cody born in eighty six in Iowa is definitely one

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Speaker 1: of these. He is the real deal. He starts work

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Speaker 1: as a messenger boy in Kansas at age eleven when

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Speaker 1: his father dies, and interestingly, the firm that he works

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Speaker 1: for is Russell Majors and Waddell. That sounds familiar. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's because these are the guys who financially backed the

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Speaker 1: Pony Express. So there's Yeah, as we mentioned, there are

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Speaker 1: some people who think that Buffalo Bill was part of

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Speaker 1: the Pony Express, some people who don't. He was definitely

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Speaker 1: involved with the financial backers. Photo pony expert. There you go.

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Speaker 1: So he's also doing some horse wrangling and some hunting,

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Speaker 1: which will prove to be valuable entertainment skills in his future.

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Speaker 1: He joins the service for the Civil War and then

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Speaker 1: he continues to work for the U. S. Army after

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Speaker 1: the war. He is a messenger and at times a

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Speaker 1: dispatch bearer and scout for troops out of Kansas. His

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Speaker 1: side job was hunting buffalo to feed the men building

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Speaker 1: the Union Pacific Railroad, and he earned his nickname Buffalo

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Speaker 1: Bill by killing four thousand, two hundred eighty buffalo, something

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Speaker 1: that sounds kind of terrible today. Yeah, not quite as

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Speaker 1: impressive of a stat these days. Also terrible sixteen Indian attacks.

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Speaker 1: So those are just some basic numbers for Buffalo Bill.

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Speaker 1: His real reputation comes from scouting, and he's got this

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Speaker 1: near perfect spatial memory which is something to be MPEd,

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Speaker 1: I'd say, uh. And he's employed by the Fifth Cavalry

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Speaker 1: as a guy because he goes somewhere and he can

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Speaker 1: remember exactly where everything is how to get their trails.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty amazing, exact opposite of all of my skills.

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Speaker 1: His work earns him a Medal of Honor in eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy two, which is later revoked since he was a civilian,

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Speaker 1: and then given back to him posthumously. To make up

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Speaker 1: your mind, guy. So newspapers love Buffalo Bill and eat

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Speaker 1: him up, and dime novels do too, which is weird

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Speaker 1: to think of a real life guy being a character

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Speaker 1: fan fiction. It is. That's another proto thing, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: So When author ned Buntline, whose real name is easy C. Judson,

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Speaker 1: I don't know why picture picture periods between capital letters,

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Speaker 1: not like easy see easy c uh So Buntline Flush

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Speaker 1: Judgson asks him to start in this drama called The

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Speaker 1: Scouts of the Prairie that he's written, and Cody signs on.

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Speaker 1: He's realizing that this is going to be a possibly

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Speaker 1: good way to cash in on his dime novel theme.

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Speaker 1: And he's not the greatest actor in the world. But

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Speaker 1: he's really fun to watch. His stage tricks are good

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Speaker 1: and he's a success. When he's not acting, he's pulling

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Speaker 1: a city slickers and taking rich guys and noblemen out west.

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Speaker 1: So he's got the best of both worlds going on here.

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Speaker 1: And it's not long before he decides to stage his

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Speaker 1: own show, a variety act. He'd have cowboys rough riding, roping, shooting,

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Speaker 1: and bronco busting. There would be staged fights with Indians

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Speaker 1: and recreations of friendier life, and it would all be

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Speaker 1: going down at your local campus tent so act Worth, Georgia.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, it sounds like a good idea, and

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Speaker 1: it's not entirely a new idea, though Barnum had included

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Speaker 1: a wild West act in his show way back in

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six, which is the heyday of cowboys. But

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Speaker 1: Buffalo Bill and his partner w F Doc Carver show

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Speaker 1: is definitely beyond what anyone else has done. And they

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Speaker 1: call it the Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders

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Speaker 1: of the World, and their first show is in eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty three. And these shows are are nothing to laugh about.

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Speaker 1: They are four hours long, which people must have had

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Speaker 1: longer attention spans than they do today. I can't imagine

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Speaker 1: a four hour show now, and what you get in

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Speaker 1: your four hours are a buffalo hunt. Of course, you

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Speaker 1: get to see other wild animals like elk, bear, moose,

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Speaker 1: and deer. There's a pony express ride, a stagecoach capture,

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Speaker 1: and eventually two big name stars taking part sitting Bowl

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Speaker 1: as in the Sitting Bowl and Annie Oakley, who is

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Speaker 1: the next star on our list. So Annie Oakley, she's

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Speaker 1: really born Phoebe and Mosey and a fun early story

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Speaker 1: about her that she paid the mortgage on the family

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Speaker 1: farm at age fifteen with her hunted game. So she's

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Speaker 1: obviously a sharp shooter, but she has a pretty traumatic childhood.

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Speaker 1: Her father dies early and her mother, who's left with

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Speaker 1: too many kids to take care of, lets out Annie

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Speaker 1: as a servant, and she suffers from abuse, but finally

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Speaker 1: manages to work her way home and become the family breadwinner.

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Speaker 1: You can imagine she's not willing to let anything happen

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Speaker 1: to her again, and soon her shooting skills are worth

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Speaker 1: more than the game she can hunt. She enters a

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Speaker 1: shooting contest against Frank E. Butler, a vaudeville performer, and

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Speaker 1: he said to have laughed when he saw that his

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Speaker 1: opponent was this title five foot girl. But she wins,

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Speaker 1: which must have impressed him, because in eighteen seventy six

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Speaker 1: the two get married and tore the circuits as Butler

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Speaker 1: and Oakley, a stage name she took from a Cincinnati suburb,

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Speaker 1: and in eighty five they ditched their own outfit. Butler

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Speaker 1: switches to manage then and Oakley signs with Buffalo Bill,

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Speaker 1: going by Miss Annie Oakley, the peerless Lady wing Shot,

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Speaker 1: and it's Sitting Bull who gives her the more famous

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Speaker 1: nickname Little sure Shot. So what can Annie do? Here's

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Speaker 1: a list. She can hit a dime tossed into the air.

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Speaker 1: She can shoot cigarettes from her husband's lips, or shoot

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Speaker 1: cigarettes from the future Kaiser Wilhelm the second slips which

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Speaker 1: whatever lips are available. I can't imagine whose people would

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Speaker 1: let him do that, But apparently she could shoot a

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Speaker 1: playing card tossed in the air full of bullets. And

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Speaker 1: she could split a playing card held on end at

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Speaker 1: thirty paces. These are just a few of Annie's amazing

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Speaker 1: tricks for you to contemplate, and they take her around

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Speaker 1: the world. She even meets Queen Victoria in seven, who

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Speaker 1: saw the show three times in a row. And she

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Speaker 1: works with Buffalo Bill for sixteen years starring in the

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Speaker 1: show except for one brief period when she left him

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Speaker 1: for his arrival. The next star on our list, and

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Speaker 1: that is Pawny Bill, and just still warning. I don't

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Speaker 1: know how this happened, but every man on this list

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Speaker 1: is either named Bill or Will so good luck keeping

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Speaker 1: them swats. It's better, possibly than his real name, which

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Speaker 1: is Gordon William Lily. Gordon doesn't work well for a cowboy,

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Speaker 1: I feel, or calling him Lily his last name doesn't

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Speaker 1: sound particularly great either, but that's not to insult any

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Speaker 1: cowboys named Gordon, so Lily slush. Pawny Bill born Valentine's Day,

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty. His family moves to Kansas after their flour

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Speaker 1: mill burns down, and it's there where he makes the

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Speaker 1: acquaintance of the Pawny people who were wintering near Wellington's

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Speaker 1: and they had just been removed from their lands in Pawnty, Oklahoma,

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Speaker 1: and he works as a trapper in Indian Territory for

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Speaker 1: a while with trapper Tom McClain, not to be confused

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Speaker 1: with the Mad Trapper and supplements his income with waiting tables,

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Speaker 1: working as a cowboy, picking up work where you can

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Speaker 1: get it. He continues his relationship with a Pawny by

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Speaker 1: teaching and interpreting for the U S Indian Agent, and

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Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty three, Buffalo Bill brings him on for

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Speaker 1: his inaugural show to coordinate the Pawnee Troope of entertainers.

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Speaker 1: And it's while touring with Buffalo Bill that Pawny Bill

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Speaker 1: meets a teenage Quaker girl named May Manning watching these

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Speaker 1: shows parade, and he marries her two years later. And

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Speaker 1: then it's just mentioned in our source that she turns

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Speaker 1: into a sharpshooter, So I guess the marriage was going

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Speaker 1: to magical school that could be acquired. So her family

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Speaker 1: suggests that Pawny Bill break out from Buffalo Bill and

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Speaker 1: start up his own show, and he does that in

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Speaker 1: surprisingly you think with his sharpshooting wife and his own

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Speaker 1: skills it would do all right. It's a financial failure,

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Speaker 1: but he has other stuff going on, namely opening up

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma's unassigned lands. On April eighty nine, he leads a

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Speaker 1: land run of four thousand men to claim the territory

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Speaker 1: with the plan is basically, line up on horseback, stake

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Speaker 1: your claim, and there are tens of thousands of participants

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Speaker 1: and his prominence with the Oklahoma Boomers makes him nationally famous,

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Speaker 1: which means it's the perfect time to start another wild

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Speaker 1: West show. Yeah, this time it's Pawny Bills Historical wild West,

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Speaker 1: Indian Museum and Encampment, and this one is a big success.

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Speaker 1: May Lily does are sharp shooting on horseback and by

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Speaker 1: nineteen o eight he's able to merge his show with

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Speaker 1: Buffalo Bill, so back to the original and they bill

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Speaker 1: it as Buffalo Bills Wild West and Pawnee Bill's Great

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Speaker 1: Far East Show. But a note on Pawny Bill, Buffalo

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Speaker 1: Bill was not that great at managing his fortune. You'd

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Speaker 1: think you'd be a very wealthy man with this original

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Speaker 1: wild West show. Doesn't turn out like that. Pawny Bill,

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, is a very successful businessman, and

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Speaker 1: he gets into oil and real estate and motion pictures

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Speaker 1: in banking, and I kind of think of him as

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Speaker 1: the modern Western man, you know. On the one hand,

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Speaker 1: he's very into preserving the Old West. Uh. He gets

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Speaker 1: into lobbying for Buffalo protection. He helps establish the Witch

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Speaker 1: Tom Mountains National Wildlife Refuge. But he's also the modern man.

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Speaker 1: He wants to bring business into the West. He advocates

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Speaker 1: for building highways. I think he even has a highway

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Speaker 1: named after him at one point. But Bill and Bill

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Speaker 1: have another competitor, the Miller Brothers One oh one Ranch

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Speaker 1: and wild West Show, and their star is the next

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Speaker 1: cowboy on our list, Bill Pickett. So Bill Pickett is

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Speaker 1: Bill Bill, and versus Bill, we'll we'll have a will

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Speaker 1: coming up to So Bill Pickett isn't just your average cowboy.

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Speaker 1: He's a pulldogger. And in case you don't know what

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Speaker 1: that means, this is what you do. You grab the

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Speaker 1: steer by its horns and twist its neck and then

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Speaker 1: you bite its nose or upper lip before flipping it

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Speaker 1: to the ground, which is insane founding. And then seriously,

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Speaker 1: how dogs wrestle steer which I didn't even know dogs

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Speaker 1: were used to wrestle. And I'm going to bring this

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Speaker 1: up with my next Georgia Bulldogs football game. By the way,

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Speaker 1: it would be a different kind of bulldogger for sure. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: there's a modified version of this that still happens in

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Speaker 1: rodeos today. If you're a rodeo fan, you should feel

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Speaker 1: free to write us and tell us about it. William

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Speaker 1: Pickett was born in eighteen seventy near Austin. He was

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Speaker 1: one of thirteen kids, which quite a lot of children,

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Speaker 1: said me, who's one of six, and he was the

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Speaker 1: descendant of American Indians and black slaves. After finishing the

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Speaker 1: fifth grade, he started ranch work and did some tricks

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Speaker 1: on the weekends in town, and by eighteen eighty eight

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Speaker 1: he and his four brothers start a horse breaking business.

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Speaker 1: He entered his first rodeo in Taylor, Texas, and in

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Speaker 1: nineteen hundred he got sponsored by the rodeo entrepreneur at

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Speaker 1: Lee Moore. Soon he's working with the Miller brothers on

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Speaker 1: the one A one Ranch and Wild West Show build

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Speaker 1: as the Dusky Demon, and he's really good at handling

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Speaker 1: domestic animals, wild animals and doing those amazing bulldogging stunts.

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Speaker 1: And his quintessential performance comes in Mexico City in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o eight. This is a great story. He wrestles a

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Speaker 1: Mexican fighting ball for a full seven minutes, but finally

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00:17:23,800 --> 00:17:27,800
Speaker 1: the outraged audience just freaks out that he's doing it wrong,

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Speaker 1: because you don't wrestle a Mexican fighting bowl. You wave

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Speaker 1: the red flag and you get out your sword, and

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Speaker 1: so they're thinking he's doing it completely wrong. It's not

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Speaker 1: bull fighting. Nice tribe. They'll pick it up. Still, it

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Speaker 1: must have been a pretty cool show. When he's not performing,

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Speaker 1: he's working as a cowboy or appearing in rodeo as

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Speaker 1: It kind of reminded me of those early baseball players

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Speaker 1: we talked about in the Facial Page episode. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: it's not a part time job, not a seasonal job.

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Speaker 1: You've got to work year round if you're in this business.

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Speaker 1: To appear in those rodeos, he's identified as Indian instead

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Speaker 1: of black, so he can compete against white people. Since

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Speaker 1: the era of the wild West Show dovetails into film,

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Speaker 1: Bill Pickett does some work out of Jacksonville, starring in

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Speaker 1: films like The Crimson Skull and The Bulldogger and After Horse.

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Speaker 1: But he dies from a ranch injury in nineteen thirty two.

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Speaker 1: I think was he kicked in the head by a horse.

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Speaker 1: And finally, our most successful crossover star from wild West

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Speaker 1: to wild West Show to film is Will Rogers, a

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Speaker 1: Will instead of a Bill at last, So William Penna

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Speaker 1: Dare Rodgers was born in eighteen seventy nine in Cherokee

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Speaker 1: Territory it's Oklahoma today. He was part Cherokee on both sides,

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Speaker 1: and he grows up on his father's ranch and at

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Speaker 1: boarding schools. But because his father has some money, he's

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Speaker 1: able to travel a bit, which is important for considering

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00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:59,800
Speaker 1: his later life. He gets a wanderlust bug pretty early,

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Speaker 1: and he even gets to see the World Exposition in

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00:19:03,760 --> 00:19:08,040
Speaker 1: Chicago in eighteen nine, which I have to imagine influenced

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Speaker 1: his desire to become a performer. But he's into the range,

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Speaker 1: not into the classroom or settling down into the family business.

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Speaker 1: So at eighteen, he leaves his Missouri military school to

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Speaker 1: move to the Texas Panhandle and work on ranches. He

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00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:26,480
Speaker 1: may even have applied to be one of Roosevelt's rough

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Speaker 1: rider's side note, but by about eight he goes home

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Speaker 1: to manage the family ranches cattle while his father works

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Speaker 1: in banking and tribal politics. He was hoping his son

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Speaker 1: would sort of take over the farm business and he

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Speaker 1: could go off to the city and do his work,

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00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:46,000
Speaker 1: but that doesn't work out because Will cannot stay away

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00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:49,200
Speaker 1: from the action for long and in nineteen hundred, he

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Speaker 1: and his friend Dick Paris go to South America. Their

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00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:55,119
Speaker 1: boat goes from Galveston to New York to London to

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Speaker 1: Buenos Aires, and when he can't find work there, he

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Speaker 1: gets a job on a cattle boat bound for South Africa.

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00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:05,720
Speaker 1: And so he ends up in South Africa and he

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00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:09,280
Speaker 1: gets another job driving a herd through the country. This

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00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:12,760
Speaker 1: is he's a really great example of good luck with

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00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:15,639
Speaker 1: your jobs. I guess, just going out on a limb

339
00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:19,400
Speaker 1: and something coming along. So while he's driving this herd

340
00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:22,960
Speaker 1: through South Africa, he runs into a Wild West show

341
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:26,240
Speaker 1: of course led by Texas Jack and gets a job

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00:20:26,280 --> 00:20:29,440
Speaker 1: as a trick roper and he's billed as the Cherokee

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00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:32,000
Speaker 1: Kid and works there for a while. He gets a

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00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:35,879
Speaker 1: glowing recommendation from Texas Jack when he finally leaves the show.

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00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:40,000
Speaker 1: I have the very great pleasure and recommending Mr W. P.

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00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:44,320
Speaker 1: Rogers the Cherokee Kid to Circus proprietors. He has performed

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Speaker 1: with me during my present South African tour, and I

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00:20:47,119 --> 00:20:50,000
Speaker 1: consider him to be the champion trick rough rider and

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00:20:50,119 --> 00:20:54,400
Speaker 1: lasso thrower of the world. He is sober, industrious, hard

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00:20:54,440 --> 00:20:57,200
Speaker 1: working at all times and is always to be relied upon.

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00:20:57,760 --> 00:20:59,960
Speaker 1: I shall be very pleased to give him an engage

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Speaker 1: Jiminta at any time should he wish to return, Just

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00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:05,760
Speaker 1: the kind of recommendation you'd like from a former professor

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00:21:05,880 --> 00:21:09,560
Speaker 1: or boss. Definitely. So will travels the world a little

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00:21:09,560 --> 00:21:11,840
Speaker 1: bit more. It finally makes it back to Oklahoma in

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00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 1: nineteen o four, which conveniently is just in time for

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00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:18,439
Speaker 1: the St. Louis World's Fair, where he does rope tricks,

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00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:22,000
Speaker 1: and soon he's on the stage in Chicago. At one show,

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00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:25,080
Speaker 1: he lassos a dog that runs up on stage in

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00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:29,720
Speaker 1: verse bulldogging. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, he's performing in New York.

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Speaker 1: His big break comes in nineteen thirteen when he gets

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Speaker 1: a job at the Midnight Frolic. But that doesn't sound

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00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:39,399
Speaker 1: very sketchy, but it's a show at a theater owned

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00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:44,840
Speaker 1: by Florence Siegfield Jr. Which is obviously a big stepping

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00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:47,960
Speaker 1: stone to a career in entertainment. He joins the Follies

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00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:51,240
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen, and this is very steady work for him,

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00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:53,680
Speaker 1: something he's able to come back to, and he's also

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Speaker 1: able to hone his jokes while he's there. So what

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00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:01,160
Speaker 1: was once his routine of rope tricks is now interspersed

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00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:05,800
Speaker 1: with occasional commentary and becomes a comedy show. He builds

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00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:09,879
Speaker 1: himself as the Oklahoma Cowboy, great Lasso Expert, or the

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00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:13,760
Speaker 1: Lasso King, and he begins starring in movies, moving his

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00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 1: family out to l A and returning to work on

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Speaker 1: the follies when when business isn't so great. Yeah, And

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00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:22,800
Speaker 1: of course the early movies are silent movies, which isn't

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Speaker 1: exactly suited to his style. He so much of his

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00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:30,640
Speaker 1: routine was based on his spoken, common natty pattern. Yeah,

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00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:33,159
Speaker 1: but he is able to write some of the uh

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Speaker 1: the cards that they show in silent movies, And obviously

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00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:40,280
Speaker 1: it's a good transition for him to go into talkies.

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Speaker 1: But it's not just movies and Zigfield Follies performances that

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00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:49,560
Speaker 1: he's doing. He gets into speaking engagements, books, he writes

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00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 1: syndicated newspaper columns, so he's your your everyman for comedy.

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00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:57,919
Speaker 1: He's really folksy. He is able to make fun of

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Speaker 1: everyone in a way that doesn't hurt at anyone's feelings.

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00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 1: And he has a motto, we liked lead your life,

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00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:07,359
Speaker 1: so you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parent

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00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:10,359
Speaker 1: to the town gossip. Yeah, he's full of little witty

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00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:13,640
Speaker 1: remarks like that, and he travels the world some more,

390
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:16,199
Speaker 1: probably in a different style than he did when he

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00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:20,000
Speaker 1: was a young man. But he befriends Calvin Coolidge, he

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00:23:20,119 --> 00:23:25,280
Speaker 1: mingles with Edison and Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh. But unfortunately,

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00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:27,760
Speaker 1: at the height of his fame, he dies in an

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00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 1: Alaskan plane crash in nineteen thirty five. And it's not

395
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,640
Speaker 1: long after that that the age of the wild West

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00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:39,400
Speaker 1: show is definitely over. It was certainly dying down long

397
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: before it. But the last of the big shows ends

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00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:45,679
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty eight with Colonel Tim McCoy's wild West.

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00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:48,920
Speaker 1: And when it ended in nineteen thirty eight, that made

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00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:51,879
Speaker 1: me a little bit sad, because these wild West shows

401
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: sound really cool. To be perfectly honest, they found great

402
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:58,520
Speaker 1: and I think we mentioned this on our Vaudeville episodes

403
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:01,879
Speaker 1: about how people didn't know what they were. They trade

404
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,920
Speaker 1: vaudeville for television. They don't know what they're missing. Video

405
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:07,439
Speaker 1: killed the radio Star. But seriously, like, as far as

406
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:09,879
Speaker 1: big spectacles go, I'm trying to think of I know,

407
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: the rodeo does come to Georgia and you know we

408
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:16,359
Speaker 1: have monster truck rallies, but we have nothing. We have

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00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:19,000
Speaker 1: nothing like a Wild West show now because anyone else no,

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00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: it sounds great. But I guess if you know of

411
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 1: any little While West show, County fair kind of things,

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00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 1: let us know. We'd love to hear about your own

413
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 1: local variety if it exists. You can also follow us

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00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:34,159
Speaker 1: on Twitter at misst in History and keep up with

415
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 1: what we're doing on a daily basis, or join our

416
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 1: Facebook fan page when we post a lot of links

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00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: tool history news that's coming out. And if you're interested

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00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:46,640
Speaker 1: in other kinds of entertainment, we've got some great articles

419
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:51,400
Speaker 1: on sword swallowing and walking through fire midway type exactly

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00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: if you'd like to search on our homepage at www

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00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 1: dot house stuff works dot com. For more on this

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00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot

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00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:03,359
Speaker 1: com and be sure to check out the stuff you

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00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 1: missed in History Class blog on the how stuff works

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00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: dot com home page. M