Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Kids like to get their way, and they
Speaker 1: usually do it by screaming. They can throw a tantrum
Speaker 1: and a toy store, or shout at the tops of
Speaker 1: their lungs when a sibling takes their favorite stuffed animal,
Speaker 1: anything to remind parents of who's in charge. But mom
Speaker 1: and Dad aren't really helpless. They have plenty of tricks
Speaker 1: of their sleeves when it comes to getting their little
Speaker 1: ones back in line. Of course, Santa sees them when
Speaker 1: they're sleeping and when they're awake, lest they want to
Speaker 1: end up on the naughty list at Christmas time, and
Speaker 1: they can have their toys taken away if they refused
Speaker 1: to clean their rooms or get in the bath. Wind told.
Speaker 1: But as the days drag on and patients wear thin,
Speaker 1: moms and dads need a little help. For British parents
Speaker 1: after World War Two that help came in the form
Speaker 1: of a strange mandate. It started in ninety six, just
Speaker 1: as televisions were starting to pop up in living rooms
Speaker 1: across the U S and the UK. A new generation
Speaker 1: was being born, the baby Boomers, and parents now had
Speaker 1: a brand new way to keep their children entertained. The
Speaker 1: BBC was the only game in town after the war,
Speaker 1: and so it took up the responsibility to provide educational
Speaker 1: programming to children all over Britain. Many of its original
Speaker 1: shows featured puppets, variety programs, and dramatic performances of children
Speaker 1: literature classics. These presentations aired primarily in the mornings and afternoons.
Speaker 1: At night, though, the television became the parents domain. Once
Speaker 1: the kids were in bed, mom and dad could unwine
Speaker 1: to watch the news or get lost in a drama program.
Speaker 1: There was just one problem. Getting the children bathed and
Speaker 1: tucked in before prime time programming kicked off was almost impossible.
Speaker 1: They didn't have te bows back then or streaming channels
Speaker 1: on the internet, and stations didn't broadcast twenty four hours
Speaker 1: a day like they do today. Reruns just weren't a thing.
Speaker 1: In order to watch something new, everyone had to be
Speaker 1: in front of the TV at the same time to
Speaker 1: see it. Otherwise, they could hear about it at the
Speaker 1: water cooler the next day at work. But the BBC
Speaker 1: had a solution. Since it earned its money from mandatory
Speaker 1: subscriptions paid by TV set owners, it did not rely
Speaker 1: on advertising revenue to keep the lights on. Therefore, it
Speaker 1: was able to shut down broadcasting operations for an hour
Speaker 1: each night to allow parents to put their kids to
Speaker 1: bed without missing any of its evening programming. It was
Speaker 1: called the Toddler's Truce and it was just a fact
Speaker 1: of life for British families from the midnighteteen forties to
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen fifties. They didn't think twice about having
Speaker 1: an extra hour at night to wrap up their parenting duties.
Speaker 1: After all, this was what a publicly funded outfit like
Speaker 1: the BBC was supposed to do, function for the benefit
Speaker 1: of the average citizen. Some government officials, however, thumbed their
Speaker 1: noses at it. They believed that it interfered with an
Speaker 1: individual's choice to watch TV whenever they chose, but parents
Speaker 1: loved it. Things went well for about a decade until
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five went a new channel launched, I t
Speaker 1: V was the first network to offer commercial programming, which
Speaker 1: meant to Unlike the BBC, it required advertising to generate revenue,
Speaker 1: and there was no way it was going to survive
Speaker 1: shutting down for an hour every night like the BBC,
Speaker 1: especially when the BBC was pulling in money whether it
Speaker 1: was broadcasting or not. They saw the Toddler's Truce as
Speaker 1: anti competitive and so I t V lobbied to have
Speaker 1: it lifted. It took about a year, but in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six in agreement was reached between the government and
Speaker 1: the television stations to resume programming between the hours of
Speaker 1: six and seven pm each evening. All in all, the
Speaker 1: removal of the truce was a success in that it
Speaker 1: garnered almost no complaints from unhappy parents. After the first
Speaker 1: show has went live on February six of ninetifty seven,
Speaker 1: only six calls to the BBC were made by people
Speaker 1: who frowned upon the change. The Tyler's Truce was an
Speaker 1: honorable way to make life a little easier for new parents. Sadly,
Speaker 1: it fell victim, as most things do, to capitalist greed. Luckily,
Speaker 1: a new technology used by TV stations was only about
Speaker 1: twenty years away from hitting the home consumer market. And
Speaker 1: it would allow people to record their favorite shows to
Speaker 1: watch later, you know, once the kids were finally asleep.
Speaker 1: It was called VHS. Given the solitary nature of being
Speaker 1: a writer, it is all too common to see famous
Speaker 1: writers and artists who keep the company of animals, and
Speaker 1: more times than nut turned them into muses themselves. Mark
Speaker 1: Twain had his cat Bambino, Flannery O'Connor had her peacocks.
Speaker 1: Ernest Hemingway had a six toed kitten named snow White.
Speaker 1: And then there was Charles Dickens, forever remembered for his
Speaker 1: timeless tales of orphans and the impoverished, as well as
Speaker 1: for his social commentary and criticism of the socio political
Speaker 1: climate of industrial England. Dickens had a veritable zoo at
Speaker 1: home with him at all times. He had cats, dogs, birds,
Speaker 1: and much much more. But there was one pet that
Speaker 1: Dickens loved more than all the rest. It was quite
Speaker 1: the intelligent animal, too, although it had a tendency for
Speaker 1: peeling and eating paint. One time it even drank liquid
Speaker 1: white paint from a tin. After indulging in paint a
Speaker 1: bit too much. A vet was called a ministering a
Speaker 1: powerful dose of castor oil, but to no avail. He
Speaker 1: could not save dickens precious animal. Dickens may have mourned
Speaker 1: the poor creature, but his children were reportedly thrilled to
Speaker 1: be rid of it, since it had a nasty have
Speaker 1: of nipping at their ankles. Not wanting to simply part
Speaker 1: ways with his pet, however, Dickens purchased himself another of
Speaker 1: the same animal. And what did he name it? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked, He named it the exact same
Speaker 1: thing that he had named the first. However, this new
Speaker 1: rendition was, according to dickens daughter Mami, mischievous and impudence,
Speaker 1: and thus quickly made way for a third of the
Speaker 1: same animal, and yes, of the exact same name. Clearly,
Speaker 1: there was something about this animal and it's breed that
Speaker 1: really stuck with Dickens, because after the demise of this
Speaker 1: third iteration of it, he moved on from purchasing new
Speaker 1: attempts at the same animal to having the latest and
Speaker 1: supposedly greatest stuffed and placed on the mantle. They're living
Speaker 1: in still life. It could not nip at the children's ankles,
Speaker 1: nor could it consume mass quantities of paint. But Charles
Speaker 1: Dickens didn't just love and care for this pet, he
Speaker 1: also wrote about it, with the animal taking on a
Speaker 1: prominent role in Barnaby Rudge, the Story of a Simpleton
Speaker 1: and as pet wandering in and out of the story.
Speaker 1: And that pet's name, you guessed it, the exact same
Speaker 1: name of the pet that Dickens had both stuffed and alive,
Speaker 1: seemingly at all times. But the story of this endless
Speaker 1: animal and his forever repeating name does not end there.
Speaker 1: Following the death of Dickens in eighteen seventy, the stuffed
Speaker 1: animal was purchased and put on display at the Free
Speaker 1: Library in Philadelphia, and the living versions they're still going
Speaker 1: to the Tower of London, known for keeping these animals
Speaker 1: as well, is now on their third successive animal by
Speaker 1: this same name, the exact same that Dickens kept, the
Speaker 1: exact same number of times. And you can bet that
Speaker 1: when this latest one goes by paint or by fox,
Speaker 1: as the previous one had, there will be another, and
Speaker 1: another and another. This seemingly never ending animal was known
Speaker 1: as Gripp, and he was a raven and remarkably intelligent raven.
Speaker 1: In fact, as most ravens are, Dickens himself wrote that
Speaker 1: when the original Grip died from drinking paint, he first
Speaker 1: looked to Dickens, said hello, old girl, and then croaked.
Speaker 1: This was apparently Gripp's favorite thing to say. The creative
Speaker 1: legacy of Grip the Raven didn't just end with Dickens, though, no.
Speaker 1: A bird that had been around that many times, both
Speaker 1: living and stuffed, and even put into a novel, rarely
Speaker 1: sees its influence confined to the works of just one man.
Speaker 1: When Dickens made a trip to America in eighteen forty two,
Speaker 1: he brought one of those Grips with him As he
Speaker 1: made the rounds. He met with many of his American contemporaries,
Speaker 1: but none were as impactful as one particular meeting he
Speaker 1: had with a young writer named Edgar Allan Poe. Poe
Speaker 1: had been struggling to find his own muse, but he
Speaker 1: was so struck by Dickens bird that he decided to
Speaker 1: write a little about a raven himself, a raven from
Speaker 1: the saintly days of yore, who said, and I quote nevermore.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
Speaker 1: the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious. Ye