WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How a Flea Circus Works 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:04.400 Hi everyone, It's Josh and for this week's s Y 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:08.239 s K Selects, I've chosen How Flee Circuses Work. It's 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:11.840 actually one of my all time favorite episodes. By the 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.960 time we recorded it, there was a ten percent chance 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:19.120 that I still didn't know whether Flee circuses are actually 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:23.279 real or illusions tricks of the imagination. It was a 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:27.200 thrilling experience, to say the least. I hope you enjoyed 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:29.920 this episode because it was a fun one to do. 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.040 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:43.720 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.519 podcast on Josh Clark and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:52.120 and there's Jerry Rowland and that makes this stuff you 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.560 should Know the podcast. Yeah, who would have ever thought 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:59.720 that we could do more than one podcast on fleas 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.720 Had I thought about Flee Circuses, I would have thought that, Yeah, 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.319 we covered it a tiny little bit. I went back 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.880 and looked just to make sure we weren't being too redundant, 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.600 and uh, we just sort of mentioned it briefly. But 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:18.039 how delightful to dig in even further. Yeah, I mean, like, 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:20.840 there's no way that we really got into it because 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:25.840 it's one of like the least documented aspects of popular 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.520 culture I've ever come across. Man, And there's so much misinformation, 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.679 and you run across people who act like they know 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.000 exactly what they're talking about, and then you do more 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.360 research and you find out they really are wrong in 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.120 a lot of it. It's it's really it was crazy. 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:42.200 It was a crazy research. Yeah, and you go to 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:47.680 web pages that are solid green with white letters and 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:53.560 turned back to tone punctuation. What's that. Yeah, it was 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.400 a little weird, but yeah, people take us to task 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.480 on the accuracy of this one. Then we'll be like you, 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:03.840 you go do better. So, um, I think we kind 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.360 of gave it away. The cats out of the bag, 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.880 and so are it's fleas. We're doing flee circuses. We're 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:13.440 talking about flee circuses, and they actually, like I think 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:15.880 of flee circus is fairly old timing, but I usually 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.240 think of him as like the twenties or thirties, maybe 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:21.280 even the forties, from like that old tech savery flee 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.320 circus cartoons or um. But they go way further back 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:29.520 than that, or even the concept of of training fleas 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.520 in some way, shape or form goes even further back 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:34.880 than that. Yeah, which will We'll get to it. But 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.440 training them as a bit of a misnomer, Yeah, that's 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.120 a stretch for sure. It's sort of like tying and 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:45.200 gluing things to fleas and just let them be fleas. Yeah, basically, 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.000 as you will probably come to the same conclusion, flee 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.320 circuses are really mean. Yeah, they're cruel. No matter how 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.600 you feel about fleas, they are. Yeah, they're cruel. Cool 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.520 acts of barbarity. I think that's how they used to 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:03.040 buill it. Actually, yet tiny cruel acts of barbarity comes 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.679 see Professor long Hair and his flee circus whitchy torments. 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.600 But they're small, so who cares? Right? Uh So fifteen 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.840 seventies is uh if this is accurate, we're all going 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.480 to go all the way back to a man named 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:21.000 Mark Scalliot who uh did not have a flee circus, 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.680 but he was supposedly in London, one of the first people, 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:29.720 or perhaps the first person to use a flee as 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.680 a prop of some sort. Yeah, to basically show off 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.920 his skills as what as a he was a blacksmith. Yeah, 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.600 he was a smithy and he made like this really 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.640 really tiny intricate caller that he put her on to 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.520 flee and he said, check this out. Yeah, and everyone 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:51.200 was I guess because this apparently other people, uh like 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.360 watchmakers and stuff would would make little tiny watches as 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.600 well as gimmicks. But I guess the thing they were 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:00.000 trying to show is the only thing I can think 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.320 of is if I can make something this tiny that works, 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.520 imagine what a real size human watch would look like. 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.760 It would work even better. But he got kind of 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:13.400 famous from it from what I understand, and the idea 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:17.200 of using fleas called on kind of kind of well, 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.040 it took a couple of hundred years. But if if 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.719 you look into fleas and flee circuses like I just 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:26.400 took them for Granted, I never stopped and thought why fleas, 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:30.840 But there's actually really good reasons why fleas, And it 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.400 has to do with For one, fleas used to be everywhere, 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:37.920 Like no matter where you lived in the world, you 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.600 shared your living space with fleas, which must have been 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.159 pretty awful. But apparently it was just a fact of life. 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.800 So that's one thing. They're ubiquitous, they're easy to come by. 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:52.360 The other one is that fleas are really really good 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:56.680 at jumping, and that actually makes them, under the right circumstances, 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.480 really good for this flee circus idea. Yeah, and we 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.480 wed you know, if you really want to itch yourself, uh, 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.840 go to listen to the fleet episode. UM. But they 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:09.880 come in a couple of thousand varieties and the ones 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:14.440 apparently for circuses are the little flat, reddish brown ones 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:20.000 about two point five millimeters in length, and um they 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.280 can jump though two point five millimeters they can jump 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:24.279 sometimes as high as eight nine inches in the air. 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.080 I saw it to ten where you getting your fleas? 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.839 That was from the Royal Air Force Experimental Station. They 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.960 apparently set up some equipment in the sixties and we're 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.360 photographing fleas jumping. Oh yeah, see here that they said 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.200 that UM, at the start of a jump, a fleet jump, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.239 they experience forces greater than a hundred and forty times 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.599 out of gravity. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. They have these 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:52.520 little um what are called elastic cuticles in their legs 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.680 and they can store a tremendous amount of potential energy 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.840 and when they release them and they jump, that potential 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.520 energy turns into connect energy. And since that it's basically 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:08.040 this elastic um connector, that's really storing the energy they're 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.000 not having to use up a lot of their own, 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:12.480 so they can jump like this like thousands of times 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.800 in an hour. And apparently when they jump, I don't 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.599 I'm sure we said something somewhat contradictory in the actual 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:23.000 fleas episode, but the relation of their jumps to their 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.960 body size, um it compared to humans to be like 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.960 us jumping over the statue of Liberty or something along 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:35.240 those lines, which is very hard to do. It can 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:37.599 harder every day. Man. I was kind of thinking about 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:43.479 these fleas jumping and like, evolutionarily speaking, why And I 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:47.000 guess they're just so small that when a dog goes 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.120 to scratch or bite at it or whatever animal tries 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.120 to get the fleet off, they can't just be like, well, 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.280 let me run away as fast as I can, because 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.320 the dog's bite will still get it. So they learned, 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.440 I think, quite really, how to jump and get the 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.159 heck out of there very very quickly in order to survive. 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.320 And the coolest fleas make the bionic Man sound when 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:15.200 they jump if you listen really close. All the hipster fleas, right, 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.480 uh so, I guess we should talk about the main 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.600 dude though, right, who we owe all of us owe 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:24.960 a great debt too. I'm not saying his name, you know, 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:26.840 you've got to say his name. This is the eighteen 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:32.000 twenties and he was an Italian I presario in London 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:40.200 named Louis Berte Lotto. Nice. Yes, Yeah, there's so many 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:42.280 ohs and t s. I thought I messed it up. No, 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.400 I know it's a it's an unusual name. Yeah. So 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:50.320 he's the guy in London who said, uh, I want 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:54.000 to be really famous one day, and my big idea 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:58.679 is to take fleas and put them in shows. Yeah, 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.040 and it worked, It did work. I saw somewhere that 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:08.120 the the origination of flee circuses it was um due 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.000 largely to him. But I didn't really see anybody else 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:15.640 cited earlier than him. You know, the watchmaker, the smithy 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:21.240 Um Mark, Mark, the blacksmith. He wasn't doing any kind 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:26.160 of shows or tricks. Louis Bertelotto Um said, you know what, 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:28.600 the fleas aren't props. The fleas are going to be 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.800 the stars in my show. That's right, And I think 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:33.320 he may have been the one who had the the 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.400 original idea to do this. Yeah, I love our own 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.440 article said his show was part action, part humor, part 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.280 social commentary. But I think that was the case. You know, 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.720 they would uh well we might as well talk about 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:49.960 what these things did. They would do everything from high 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:55.520 wire x to sword fighting too. Uh. Political and historical 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:59.080 re enactments. Yeah, they re enacted the Battle of Waterloo 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.880 dressed dressed in like military garb. Yeah. They would play 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:07.680 a soccer or football. Uh. They would do um high diving, 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:13.479 pretty amazing stuff, little pools of water, a little chariots 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.320 and carriages. Yeah, that was one of the first ones 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:19.160 because you know, I think, especially back in the early 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:22.160 nineteenth century, people didn't know everything there is to know 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.960 about fleas like we do today. So the idea of 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.840 watching a little, tiny, tiny flee like a three millimeter 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:34.640 long flea pulling like a hearse or a chariot or 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.000 a cart um that was you know, hundreds of times 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.760 its own weight does get any better. It's gonna it's 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.520 gonna impress you, especially if you're a five year old 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.400 um chimney sweet who's owned by the guy who bought 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.679 you from your parents. Yeah. Or I actually looked up 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.839 some flea circuses on YouTube. Uh, there were those little kids. 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.240 There was one and I think Denmark in the nineteen 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.680 fifties that I looked at, I saw that, and like 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:04.040 in Telfair, people were just delighted. Oh yeah, I mean 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.160 I watched some of the videos too, and I noticed that, 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:10.640 like my hands were classed together beneath my chin. I 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.959 think it might have been the perfect post election uh 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:17.160 youtubing that I could have done. Actually, yeah, it worked 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:23.520 pretty well. Uh so Bert, sorry Bert? His Uh his 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.199 act was not small if you think, well, sure he 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:30.079 did this at some county fairs and side shows. Uh 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:32.560 and then his wife made him stop. Yeah, not true 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.920 at all. He actually got really famous for this. I 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:38.559 don't know. I mean they likened him to Elvis Presley. 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:40.880 I don't know if he was that big. I think 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.160 the point the authors making is like that this guy 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:47.480 wasn't some some like, he wasn't Internet famous, he was 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.199 like famous famous, Like he traveled the world doing this. 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.040 It's good for him, right, yeah, And he didn't. As 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.840 he traveled the world, people were like, I can do 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.200 that too. I'm tired of working. I want to do this. 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.120 But it turns out that from what I can tell, 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.200 as far as show biz goes, running your own flea 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:08.800 Circus has got to be one of the more demanding 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.760 side shows there there are. Well sure, I mean part 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.520 of the problem is your performers. Well, first of all, 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:18.480 it says in here and this is like again with 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:20.600 this research, you just sort of have to take some 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.040 of these people at their word. But they say that 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:27.760 about one in ten fleas can even make the cut, right. Uh, 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:33.480 once you find your your champion team of they're they're 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.800 gonna die and there need to be cared for and 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:41.319 traveling all over the world with your prized fleas is precarious. 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.480 Well yeah, especially um if you're traveling to do shows 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.560 and colder climbs there aren't fleas, and fleas don't do 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.839 very well there. Your whole troop may die the night 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.520 before a show. Can you imagine? But apparently it happened 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:57.360 a lot. There was a guy I read and I'm 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.440 not quite sure who it was, but they he had 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:05.320 a a standing gig in I think Switzerland maybe or 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:09.240 somewhere somewhat northern Europe and he had to send down 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:12.200 no she I'm sorry, she had to send down to 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:16.520 Majorca to get um fresh shipments of fleas like every 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.240 two weeks because hers just kept she couldn't keep them 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.319 alive any longer than I have offers from all over 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.800 the world to take my show. But you're afraid of 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:26.480 one thing. When you get out of the country, can 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:28.520 you get fleas? I went to Sweden and I had 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.120 to send to Majorca in Spain to get fleas fortnite 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.240 every fortnight. Who was that? It was a woman, a 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:39.040 sword swallower right? Uh? Was that Professor Tomlin No, I 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:43.280 can't remember her name, but she's like a legendary sword swallower. Um, 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:48.520 Professor Testos, no, Professor Chester, no, none of the professors. 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:50.400 And that was another thing I noticed from this too, 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.720 But I couldn't really find the origin. Apparently, if you 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.640 had a flee circuses from from like the nineteenth century 0:12:56.640 --> 0:13:00.480 to the early twentieth century, you the flea master, build 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.360 yourself as professor whatever. So weird, there's just all these 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.800 really weird trends. But the in the history of flee circuses, 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.000 it was like one person would come up with an 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:12.680 idea and then they go and show it and for 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.600 some reason it would attract a bunch of other imitators, 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:17.640 and that's that's basically the history of it. I would 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.800 have built myself as account Oh man, you know that 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.240 would have broken a new ground. But they would have 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:26.080 to pay money, and that says in the nineteen fifties 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.640 Professor Testo said, we pay six shillings a dozen, although 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:31.560 there have been times of shortage when a single flea 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:34.880 has cost as much as two shillings. Well you know, also, 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:38.040 if you look around today, at which I did, I 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:42.240 couldn't find anywhere to buy fleas. You have to send 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:46.040 off from overseas um. But I've thought, well, surely there's 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:50.360 some weirdo somewhere who's selling fleas to flee circuses and 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:54.480 there are none, none whatsoever. Well there is a flee 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:59.240 circus in Germany still, yeah, at the Munich October Fest. 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.120 Where else would you have one? Alright, so you want 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:04.120 to take a little break here, Yeah, all right, well 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.520 let's break. Let's go pick the fleas from our own bodies. 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.080 I know I'm itching or scratching. Then maybe we can 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:38.840 train them to finish this episode for us. So chuck, 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.480 we we kind of made it as far as Berto Lotto, 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:43.680 And there's actually a lot of mystery surrounding that guy. 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.000 Here's the weird thing. Okay, I'm gonna confess something to you. 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.440 When I first read this article, I was like, well, 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.480 here's a stinker. Then I dug in a little further 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.080 and I was like, oh, I'm being tortured with research 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:58.800 to do a stinker. And then the more I did, 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.040 the more I did, the more I again, I'd find 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.600 these weird little things that kept popping up that combined 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:10.200 create the the the history or the culture of flee circuses. 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:13.200 And and the more I came upon these little things 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:14.800 and put them together more the more I was just 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.800 totally delighted. But then I think, like you when I 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:19.760 when I finally hit YouTube, it was like, okay, I 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:21.520 need to see some of these. Then I was like, 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:24.640 I love flee circuses. I could sit here and talk 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.360 about them all day. Well, we'll try and keep this 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:32.000 minutes all day. So I just realized I didn't finish 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.680 my thought. The um, the weird little thing that I 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:42.760 found out about Professor Barlo Dolore you thanks man Um. 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.000 He just vanished, he disappeared. He was like as famous 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.000 as as an astronaut, and then all of a sudden 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:53.520 he's gone. And there's a guy um who is uh. 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.160 I think his name is Andy Rich he's like basically 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:01.280 the foremost flee circus researcher working today. Hey, and he 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.960 found Professor Barte Lotto. Apparently he moved to Canada and 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.520 lived out the rest of his life and anonymity. Wow. Yeah, 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:11.920 I have a question. Okay, why do you always use 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:16.600 astronaut as a fame indicator? It's uh think it says 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.560 Simpson's reference. It's Homer was saying somebody was richer than 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.960 an astronaut. I was going to challenge you and say, 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.960 name an astronaut. Oh, dude, Jim Lovell No, no, no, 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.920 name a current astronaut. Oh current astronaut. Well you got 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:34.160 Mark Kelly and Scott Kelly. Okay, all right, the twins 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:39.000 get back off. Then her their parents called them Project 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.120 Jim and I. That's cute. But they did not just 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.560 made that up? Oh really? Yeah? Oh man, that would 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.840 have been surely somewhat thought of that. If not, I'm 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.000 going to trade market. Uh yeah, And then you could 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:58.640 blackmail them. I feel like you want this nickname. I 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:03.200 know you're richer than an astro Alright, So early nineteen hundreds, 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:05.400 if you're talking imitators over here in the United States, 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.240 we had a man named William Heckler, and he was 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:10.560 one of the first dudes over here to be a 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:15.639 successful flea master. And uh, he did the usual things, 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.760 made them box and race and juggle. And we're gonna 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:20.439 tell you some of these secrets. By the way, if 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:24.159 you're wondering how these things are accomplished, just hang in there. Uh. 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:26.680 And he said at one point he was bringing in 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:31.960 two hundred and fifty dollars uh day or performance in 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.680 a in a day of performances a day. Yeah, so 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.320 many many performances. And here's the thing I Philip, I 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:41.560 kind of wondered I was because I didn't find it 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:43.720 until later in the research, like, well, how do you 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.520 see this stuff? But you wouldn't have very many people 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.240 in there. You'd have like ten or fifteen people crowded 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.879 around a little table for six to ten minutes. You 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.480 would shuffle them out and bring in the next group. Yes, 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.960 I saw somewhere that if you were really dedicated to it, 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.119 I think Cecil Laden Road it on the on the 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.400 straight dope, that if you were like a really dedicated performer, 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:10.000 you could conceivably do fifty ten minute performances a day. 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.639 So that's basically like ten hours with a ten minute 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.160 break every hour. And if you're not a really dedicated 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:17.879 flea master, then just get out of my face. What 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:20.439 do you even bother? Seriously, though, I mean as when 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.000 we talk about how to do this, it will become 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:28.200 clear just how much work this must be. Yeah, alright, 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.359 well let's talk a little bit about that. Um, every 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.919 flee is different. And like I said, uh, if you 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.880 believe the research, about ten percent of the fleezer fit 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.640 for the job. And it's like we mentioned, you don't 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:43.040 really train them. What you do is back in the day, 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.680 you would take either some silken thread or some really 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.000 thin gold wire like hopefully you can't even see it, 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.640 that's sort of the idea, and you tie a little 0:18:54.680 --> 0:19:00.800 tiny noose of sorts around this fleas neck. And apparently 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:04.879 that was really hard to do because when a fleet 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:10.360 eats the blood of their master, yeah, which is true. 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:14.000 We'll get to that again later, but their next well, 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.280 so you can't tie it too tight or else they're 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:18.800 gonna die and that your prize flee could die. Or 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.480 if it's too loose, then the flea goes away and 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.600 the chariot stays behind, and that's no good and you 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:30.200 just hear a tiny bionic man sound. That's right. So um, 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:35.399 that's very hard Number one. Number two the idea that 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:39.280 you have to do that with new fleas every I 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.920 would guess probably every few weeks if you're on average, 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.920 because fleas, I mean they live maybe a year. Most 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.120 fleas live three or four months. It's an old flee. 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:55.040 So you've got like a some star performers and they're 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.920 just they're performing, you know, for a few months or whatever. 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:02.000 So you're having to basically constantly us fleas all the 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.439 time and and again before you even harness them, you 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:07.280 have to sort them. So you have to study and 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.359 observe the adult fleas see which one's like to jump. Um. 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:15.320 There's an old legend, uh that apparently came from Professor 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:20.560 Heckler's son, if not Professor Heckler himself, who said, Um, 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:23.520 you you put a lid over a jar, and you 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.440 can train them not to jump too high because they'll 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:28.439 hit their head on the jar and they don't like 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:30.600 to do that. So they learned not to jump, then 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:34.640 they've passed their first test. It's not clear whether that's 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:39.840 actually hocum or not, but um, that's for for a 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.439 very long time. That's been part of the lower of 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:45.240 training fleas. The problem is, I think you said it, 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.960 fleas can't actually learn anything. They're not really being trained. 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.000 They're actually being physically restrained in lots of ways, including 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.240 that harness and starting with the harness. Well, I don't know, though, Heckler, 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.560 Professor Heckler that is also said and this was fascinating 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:02.560 to me as far as whether or not these fleas 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:05.560 can learn anything. He said that he would to get 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:08.880 the best fleas, put them in a glass jar. Uh, 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:11.639 that's too tall for them to jump out, and he 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.119 said that he would notice the really good fleas would 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.919 jump up on the side, fart out a little bit 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:22.280 of sticky stuff, whatever that is, and then spend the 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:24.560 rest of the time trying and trying to hit that 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.840 identical spot again to grab hold of the sticky stuff 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.400 basically a foothold, to be close enough to the top 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:35.320 to leap out. Amazing. I don't know if I believe it. 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.520 He well, yeah, I mean he was a showman, consummist. 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:41.439 Showman like you didn't just basically point and be like, 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:44.520 look at the fleas, came your money, please leave now, 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.719 like you were like carrying the show on. Right, you 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:50.520 had to tell this this this, You had to help 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:54.200 the performance along, your professor, for God's sake. Right, when 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:58.080 this guy is being interviewed over the years, I can't 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:02.159 imagine he didn't like ham it up in the interviews. 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:04.080 So I don't know, like a lot of it's lost 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.560 too to time, what was true and what wasn't as 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.280 far as these these old guys go. Yeah, but he 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:12.840 Professor Heckler also said when he was picking them out, 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.400 and he said, stodgy wins are broken to the merry 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:20.480 go round harness. Flighty fleas make good dancers. Those with 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:24.800 especially strong legs will become kickers, jugglers and chariot racers. Yes, 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:29.159 so you've got you've got fleas harness. That's like the 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:32.080 first initial thing. But there's other things you need to 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:34.360 do to him to write. You can take that harness, 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.240 and the most basic thing you could do is take 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:40.040 that harness and actually hook it up to, like you said, 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:43.000 a chariot or or or a merry go round or 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:45.960 something like that. And yet people will be like, that's 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:48.480 pretty neat, that's cool. But before I could do that, 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:51.040 you know, but you could do other stuff too, and 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:54.440 a lot of it involves glue unfortunately. So say like 0:22:54.520 --> 0:23:00.080 you take a tiny piece of um of would or 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:02.679 a tiny piece of metal and you glue it to 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:08.520 the fleas arms, right, and we should say, once that happens, 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:11.919 that's it. That's never that's never coming off for the 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:15.439 rest of the fleas life. Yeah, I mean, do you 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:20.680 think they even survive that day? I think so. Yeah. 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:24.240 I think that they typically survive a few weeks of performing. Okay, 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:25.840 so even if they have a little sword glued to 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:30.080 their body, yeah, okay, I think they live horrible lives. 0:23:31.119 --> 0:23:33.920 I mean, basically, we as a species should know more 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:36.199 about this because if the fleas of a rise up 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:39.359 and become intelligent, like our backs are against the wall 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:41.960