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Speaker 1: I feel like everyone in the eighteen sixties sounded like

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Speaker 1: sounded like Abraham Lincoln little because this is what Abraham

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Speaker 1: Lincoln sounded like, and that's what he sounded like in

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Speaker 1: the Bill and Ted movie. So that score and seven

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Speaker 1: minutes ago. Ultimate personification of Abraham Lincoln, besides the man

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Speaker 1: himself obviously, was that Bill and tedform. Yeah, suck a.

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Speaker 1: Daniel day Lewis, Yeah, Daniel day Lewis watched Bill and

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Speaker 1: Ted's Excellent Adventure on Loop for months preparing for his role.

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Speaker 1: He lived and breathed as Abraham Lincoln, specifically from Bill

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Speaker 1: and he spent a lot of time with the mall. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he went to the mall giving history reports for Stoner's

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Speaker 1: uh the other voice. I feel like for this time period,

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Speaker 1: it was embodied by Kevin Klein when he played Ulysses S.

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Speaker 1: Grant in the historical non fiction piece Wild Wild West.

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Speaker 1: Do you think it would be worth it to revisit

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Speaker 1: Cowboys and Aliens? Because I wanted that to be way

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Speaker 1: more fun and it just wasn't. Folks. This episode just

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Speaker 1: changed to me talking about cowboys and aliens because here's

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Speaker 1: the thing, Because here's the thing that movie had every

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Speaker 1: single thing going for it. There's only two movies where

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Speaker 1: I feel like failed this spectacularly by their setups. Because

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Speaker 1: Cowboys and Aliens, you're you're done, the movie is done.

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Speaker 1: All you need is the title and it's and it's

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Speaker 1: ready to go. And they somehow took that movie, put

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Speaker 1: Daniel Craig in it, put Walton Goggins in it, and

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Speaker 1: somehow it's actually kind of slow and dull, and it's

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Speaker 1: like they couldn't make up their minds. If they were

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Speaker 1: like gonna really wow, us would be like, I know

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Speaker 1: it's called Cowboys and Aliens, but it's actually really good.

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Speaker 1: And you know what, it's Cowboys and Aliens. This is

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Speaker 1: just can't be nonsense. It's like they were lost somewhere

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Speaker 1: in between those two and couldn't find a good movie

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Speaker 1: out of it. That the most the biggest spread between

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Speaker 1: how good a movie should have been and how bad

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Speaker 1: it was was Assassin's Creed. The Game is a movie

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Speaker 1: that you play the stories there, it's totally fine, it

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Speaker 1: would make a great movie. Then you get Maryann coat

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Speaker 1: Yard and you get Jeremy Irons, and then you top

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Speaker 1: it all off with Michael Fastbender. Three Absolute Our House

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Speaker 1: actors and it was garbage. It was I don't I'm

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Speaker 1: sorry that was rude to garbage. It was so bad?

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Speaker 1: Why garbage everywhere? Why was that movie so bad? Are

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Speaker 1: there any good video game movies? Yes, there's a good

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Speaker 1: video game movie. Well there's a first of all super

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Speaker 1: Mario Brothers. First of all Super Mario Brothers. Super Mario Brothers,

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Speaker 1: look y'all? Sometimes was I turned to Diana. I was like,

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Speaker 1: have you ever seen the old Super Mario Brothers movie?

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Speaker 1: And she was like no, And I was like, it's

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Speaker 1: so bad, Like it's renowned for it's badness and I

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Speaker 1: loved it as a kid, but let's watch it because

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Speaker 1: it's so cheeseball. And we had to watch it. And

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Speaker 1: I was like, I love Bob Hoskins, right, whatever he

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Speaker 1: wants to do, Sure, I will watch this terrible film absolutely.

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Speaker 1: And we had to find it on YouTube in like

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Speaker 1: sections like you had to watch like eight minutes at

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Speaker 1: a time something. Yeah. I was so here and like

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Speaker 1: we sit down, we're just ready to laugh at this movie.

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Speaker 1: And I think, like thirty minutes in, both of us

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Speaker 1: were just like why is this good? I kept looking.

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Speaker 1: I was like, okay, he told me it was bad.

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Speaker 1: I'm like really having a good time watching this. I

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Speaker 1: think it's a good movie, and am I like way off?

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Speaker 1: And then you looked at me were like, this, actually

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Speaker 1: it's good. It's ahead of its time because it was

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Speaker 1: the gritty reboot before there were gritty reboots. But it's

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Speaker 1: still fun. It's not dour, it's not brooding. It's a

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Speaker 1: it's an invention, like it's a total it's not a

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Speaker 1: super Mario Brothers movie. It's so different. It's just taking

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Speaker 1: elements from Super Mario Brothers and making this weird nineties

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Speaker 1: techno sci fi movie that has no right to be

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Speaker 1: as good as it is. But I think it's just

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Speaker 1: it's such a ridiculous swing that you're like, there's no

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Speaker 1: way this is going to hit. And then they hit it,

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Speaker 1: and he's just like, why did this work? Enjoyable? I

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Speaker 1: had a good time. I don't know why, man you.

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Speaker 1: John Laguizamo also just a class He's good and everything.

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Speaker 1: Dennis Hopper didn't know what the hell he was doing there,

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Speaker 1: but he nailed it. OK. He was like whatever, I'm

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Speaker 1: still going to bring it out, Dennis. Those are pretty

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Speaker 1: much Prince of Prussia. No, well, we didn't see that.

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Speaker 1: We didn't, But did we did? You know? Yeah? But

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Speaker 1: no everyone, Yeah, Street Fighters, Good, Assassin's Greets, Garbage, uncharted,

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Speaker 1: We haven't seen then either. Yeah, it's true. And this

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Speaker 1: is like a lot of this is hearsay, I suppose

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Speaker 1: from the critics. But I know that it did not

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Speaker 1: get good reviews. Angry birds, you know, didn't catch that

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Speaker 1: one somehow, for some reason, didn't go to that. Well,

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Speaker 1: one day, I'll we'll do a movie review podcast. Um,

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Speaker 1: what the world is crying out for? Ye, there just

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Speaker 1: aren't enough movie review podcasts out there, not enough people

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Speaker 1: talking about media. So one day, but it is not

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Speaker 1: this day. Um, this day. We're here for a fun story.

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Speaker 1: But um, you know what we haven't done in a

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Speaker 1: hot minute is reach into this big, overflowing mailbag we

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Speaker 1: have and read some of these awesome emails that we've

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Speaker 1: been getting from our listeners. So I think that it's

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Speaker 1: time for a mailco awesome. This email came in a

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago from a listener named Sarah Gilbert. Hi, Sarah,

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Speaker 1: thanks for reaching out. Hello. We're very excited to get

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Speaker 1: this email. Just really warmed our hearts and I think

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Speaker 1: it will for y'all too. She starts off by saying, Hey, y'all,

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Speaker 1: I love the show and I listened to every episode,

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Speaker 1: but I'll admit when I saw Pandemic Love Stories, it

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Speaker 1: took me a while to listen, mainly because it hit

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Speaker 1: really close to home. And that's because Sarah and her

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Speaker 1: fiance we're going to get married in March of but

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Speaker 1: of course we don't need to tell you or anyone

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Speaker 1: in the world. One in the world and their venue closed.

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Speaker 1: Sarah said she had handmade all of her decorations, flowers,

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Speaker 1: and centerpieces out of paper over their year and a

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Speaker 1: half engagement. So props to Sarah. That sounds crazy to me.

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Speaker 1: I'm not a crafter, though, that's I would I find that.

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Speaker 1: I think I would go in state if I try

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Speaker 1: to do that, But I bet they are so cute.

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Speaker 1: So her first instat Cart order of the Pandemic was

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Speaker 1: for big plastic storage tubs for all of these decorations

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Speaker 1: that she had, like probably got a million paper cuts.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, I know, right, She said, I had

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Speaker 1: originally planned to surprise my husband by booking the Carolina

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Speaker 1: Panthers mascot surper to make an appearance at the reception.

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Speaker 1: Great name, so exciting too if you that's your team

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Speaker 1: and the mascot shows up and his name is Surper.

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Speaker 1: She goes, on the first night after we got the

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Speaker 1: news of the venue had closed, I was sobbing into

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Speaker 1: my husband's chest and I blurted out, we were gonna

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Speaker 1: get Surper. Just can't imagine, she says, in hindsight, it's

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Speaker 1: a funny moment, but it definitely took him by surprise.

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Speaker 1: He was like, wait, what we were going to get Surper?

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Speaker 1: In what way are we getting Surper? Can he still

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Speaker 1: come over? I mean he's wearing a mask. Oh man.

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Speaker 1: But she said, you know, they found things to be

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Speaker 1: happy for. They kept their jobs, they never got sick themselves.

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Speaker 1: Definitely a blessing. They recognized that people were going through

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Speaker 1: a lot worse, you know, throughout the pandemic than them

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Speaker 1: having to change their wedding days, you know, trying to

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Speaker 1: keep everything in perspective. And they finally got married in

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Speaker 1: April of one, so they just celebrated their first anniversary.

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Speaker 1: Happy anniversary. Of course, they had to get married within

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Speaker 1: a lot of restrictions. A lot of guests couldn't make it,

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Speaker 1: so probably one of those very small intimate weddings. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she said she was especially disappointed that her grandmother couldn't come.

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Speaker 1: It's her last leving grandparents. She wasn't able to get

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Speaker 1: She's rural, so she couldn't get the shot in time

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Speaker 1: and stuff. So it was right in between what she

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Speaker 1: called the original recipe COVID and the delta version original recipe,

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Speaker 1: but she closed out, she said, coming up on our

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Speaker 1: first anniversary, I greatly enjoyed your episodes, especially part two,

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Speaker 1: which was when we had Cherry and Jason on and

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Speaker 1: it was a great reminder that it's okay to mourn

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Speaker 1: what we lost while still celebrating what we eventually got

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Speaker 1: to have. And at the end of the day, we

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Speaker 1: have each other and it feels like we can conquer

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Speaker 1: anything together. Now. Such a good lesson to take from

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Speaker 1: this whole thing, right, totally. I'm so glad you found

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Speaker 1: that in that episode, Sarah, definitely, and in the whole experience. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, you gotta you gotta live with how it is,

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Speaker 1: however you wanted it to be. And so there's two

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Speaker 1: ways to do that. One is with a lot of

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Speaker 1: resentment bitterness in your heart, and another one is going Okay,

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Speaker 1: how can I make this all right? And I love

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Speaker 1: that people managed to make it all right? Definitely definitely,

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Speaker 1: so thank you so much for writing in and happy anniversary.

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Speaker 1: But may there be many more? Do you here in

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Speaker 1: this Surper thing? So like the birthday thing? Maybe yes,

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Speaker 1: Surper will make his appearance like in your fifth anniversary,

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Speaker 1: you know, like go big for the mascot anniversary? Is

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Speaker 1: there a mascot anniversity? Paper Wood mascot got you a mask?

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Speaker 1: But yeah, thank you Sarah for writing in. That's so wonderful.

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Speaker 1: Congratulations to you guys. Happy anniversary definitely, and you'll keep

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Speaker 1: sending in your stories. Remember you can hit us now

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Speaker 1: at ridic Romance at gmail dot com and we love

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Speaker 1: hearing from you. But now we have a whole new

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Speaker 1: story for you, brand new off the press is hot

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Speaker 1: off the press, Not really, it's piping hot fresh content

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Speaker 1: here on Ridiculous Romance, Breaking News Bulletins Now. This story

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Speaker 1: was suggested by macab Repeadia, which is another podcast hosted

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Speaker 1: by a married couple, and they did an episode about

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Speaker 1: this but then tagged us on Twitter and we're like, hey,

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Speaker 1: this totally deserves the Ridiculous Romance treatment. If you all

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Speaker 1: want to check this out, and they were right, so

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Speaker 1: we gave it our very personal spin. Yes, thank you

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Speaker 1: so much. That's just such a good idea. Didn't love

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Speaker 1: the circus. So it's eighteen sixty three, you know, the

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Speaker 1: United States, not so united at this point in history,

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Speaker 1: were being torn apart by Civil War, which seemed like

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Speaker 1: it was going to drag on forever, pitting brothers against

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Speaker 1: brothers and fathers against sons. And also the Union Army

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Speaker 1: wasn't really doing very great at this point, so it

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Speaker 1: was kind of looking a little dire. So it was

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Speaker 1: a welcome diversion to the entire nation when that great

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Speaker 1: entertainer and showman P. T. Barnum announced the wedding between

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Speaker 1: two of America's favorite circus performers, Lavinia Warren and General

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Speaker 1: Tom Thumb. But Tom's best man, Commodore Nut, would have

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Speaker 1: been only too happy to trade places with the groom.

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Speaker 1: So let's hear all about this love triangle and the

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Speaker 1: fairy wedding that captivated the nation. Lets go, hey, their

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Speaker 1: French comlution. Well, Elia and Diana got stories to tell.

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Speaker 1: There's no matchmaking a romantic tips, It's just about ridiculous relationships.

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Speaker 1: A love, it might be any type of person at all,

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Speaker 1: and abstract cons at a concrete wall. But if there's

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Speaker 1: a story with the second clinch, ridiculous rolls a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. It's eighteen forty one and P. T.

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Speaker 1: Barnum is starting over. The showman and entertainer had had

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Speaker 1: some success with his first variety troupe in the eighteen thirties,

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Speaker 1: but then the Panic of eighteen thirty seven happened and

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Speaker 1: he hit on some hard times. Wasn't doing super well,

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Speaker 1: but in eighteen forty one he purchased Scudder's American Museum

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Speaker 1: and renamed it, of course, Barnum's American Museum. He improved

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Speaker 1: on the building. He added delights such as the rooftop

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Speaker 1: strolling garden, and painted murals of exotic animals, and inside

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Speaker 1: the museum he exhibited a menagerie of exotic animals and

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Speaker 1: different curiosities, and of course, quote unquote freaks including albinos

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Speaker 1: or giants or exotic women whatever that means. Um, jugglers

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Speaker 1: and magicians. Those are fun. Some people were just builled

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Speaker 1: as being cannibals. I don't know what the proof was.

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Speaker 1: Did they have to eat like a finger in front

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Speaker 1: of you. I don't know, is it enough to just

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Speaker 1: be like they're from an island somewhere. Probably probably little people,

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Speaker 1: of course, and many many more, like pretty much any

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Speaker 1: type of person he thought he could get you to

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Speaker 1: buy a ticket to come look at he's going to

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Speaker 1: hire them. It's like you have hair in weird places. Yes,

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Speaker 1: let's go. This guy's teeth are a little pointier than

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Speaker 1: other people's. Come on in, now you're a vampire or something.

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Speaker 1: I'll figure it out. This guy kind of whistles when

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Speaker 1: he says the letter s see the amazing whistleman. I

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Speaker 1: do want to jump into and say that if you

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Speaker 1: go back and listen to our episode from June about

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Speaker 1: Alan Jeanie Tominy this that's where he took place quite

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Speaker 1: a bit later. That was in like more than nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenties and thirties. But we do get into a lot

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Speaker 1: in that episode about the history of of what they

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Speaker 1: called the freak Show and uh and and just the

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Speaker 1: complexities of these kinds of parts of the American circus

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Speaker 1: and how it was very beneficial and some people saw

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Speaker 1: it as a wonderful thing and some people saw it

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Speaker 1: as more challenging and kind of exploitative. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: of conversation there. We won't rehash it now, but definitely

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Speaker 1: go back and hear that episode because it's also I

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Speaker 1: think one of the most beautiful love stories were called

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Speaker 1: on this show about two of the strangest and most

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Speaker 1: amazing people. They're beautiful. Now. It's important to note here

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Speaker 1: that not every type of little person was considered the

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Speaker 1: quotes good type. According to Barnum, he and showman like

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Speaker 1: him preferred what's called proportionate dwarves because they basically look

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Speaker 1: like miniature versions of adults. Their bodies were perfectly proportionate.

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Speaker 1: They were just small. According to an essay by Leonard

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Speaker 1: saw Wish, who's a clinical psychologist and a disability expert

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Speaker 1: and himself a dwarf, Barnum actually coined the term midget

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Speaker 1: around this time, as he writes to quote described members

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Speaker 1: of the dwarf community who were the most socially acceptable

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Speaker 1: i e. Well proportioned little people who could entertain on

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Speaker 1: the front stage for polite society. The rest of the

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Speaker 1: dwarf community, those of us whose bodies are shaped differently

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Speaker 1: enough to look more than just really short, were relegated

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Speaker 1: to the backstage or freak shows. So you can see

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Speaker 1: that there was a hierarchy here even within that that

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Speaker 1: that circus community when you had people like Barnum in charge.

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Speaker 1: And that is why you know, the M word is

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Speaker 1: now considered a slur is because there's never a medical term.

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Speaker 1: It was always of just a selling points that Barnum

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Speaker 1: was trying to differentiate his attractive, perfect little people from

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Speaker 1: all those weirdos, you know, like, so it created within

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Speaker 1: the community a similar hierarchy, and I think that's kind

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Speaker 1: of why it fell out of favor over time, or

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Speaker 1: it was like, we're kind of now inside our own community,

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Speaker 1: creating this weird supremacy and like leaving people out, and

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Speaker 1: people would use the term to describe like anything sort

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Speaker 1: of small or weird, So it just started being just

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Speaker 1: really negatively associated, even though around this time particularly was

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Speaker 1: preferred to dwarf, but not anymore. So don't say that

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Speaker 1: ship if you still are now. It wasn't long after

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Speaker 1: Barnum opened his American Museum that he heard about a

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Speaker 1: little person named Charles Sherwood Stratton. Now Charles had been

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Speaker 1: born a strapping nine pound baby, but when he was

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Speaker 1: eleven months old, he basically just stopped growing um physically. Emotionally,

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Speaker 1: mentally everything's fine, but physically he's just not getting any bigger.

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Speaker 1: And by the time he was five and eight forty two,

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Speaker 1: he was just over two feet tall. But he was

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Speaker 1: really clever. He was witty. Again, he's proportionate. So P. T.

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Speaker 1: Barnham's like, this kid's going to be a star. I

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Speaker 1: know that he's going to be a treasure. So he

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Speaker 1: signed Charles onto his management company and he started training

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Speaker 1: him in all the arts of entertainment, singing, dancing, mine

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Speaker 1: he did impersonations of famous people? Can I ask impersonations

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Speaker 1: of famous people? In eighteen sixty three? Like, how do

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Speaker 1: you know? When people sounded like like is he up

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Speaker 1: there being like Abraham Lincoln? And people like I guess

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Speaker 1: you are because you said it. I've never heard his voice.

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Speaker 1: It's eighteen sixty right, I do wonder that, Like they're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: what if you saw the impersonator first before you ever

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Speaker 1: saw the famous person, and when the famous person showed up,

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Speaker 1: You're like, I don't know, it didn't sound like that impersonation.

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Speaker 1: Are we sure this is the real Abraham Lincoln? When

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Speaker 1: Stratton was over here, he said away different Abo like

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Speaker 1: he's five years old, like who are you? Who are

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Speaker 1: you doing? But he apparently in his act by the

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Speaker 1: time he was five, he was drinking wine and his act.

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Speaker 1: By the time he was seven, he was smoking cigars

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Speaker 1: in his act. So you know, I mean, maybe there's

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Speaker 1: like a some famous cigar smoking guy. He's out here

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Speaker 1: being George Burns or something, a good respect dangerfield. Dangerfield.

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Speaker 1: So when he was only five, he and Barnum embarked

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Speaker 1: on their first American tour, and Barnum, you know, he's

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Speaker 1: got to package him up, so he starts calling him

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Speaker 1: General Tom Thumb, after the English fairytale character, and he

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Speaker 1: told audiences that he had been brought over from England

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Speaker 1: had great expense, even though he was actually born in Connecticut,

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Speaker 1: was not born in England. But he's like, oh, I

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Speaker 1: had to like get him on a ship and it's

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Speaker 1: a whole thing from the exotic lens of the United Kingdom.

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Speaker 1: And he even lied about his age. He told people

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Speaker 1: that Tom Thumb was eleven years old, so people wouldn't

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Speaker 1: just come come to the show and be like, man,

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Speaker 1: that's just a that's just a big baby, that's just

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a small toddler that ain't a

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Speaker 1: little person. Now. The tour was a huge success, such

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Speaker 1: a huge success that only a year later Barnum took

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Speaker 1: Tom on a tour to England, is made up his homeland.

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Speaker 1: It's eighty four, so it wasn't really that long after

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Speaker 1: the little kerfuffle between America and England. So this was

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Speaker 1: a risky move for Barnum. English audiences believe that they

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Speaker 1: were generally, you know, classier and superior to those Americans.

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Speaker 1: So there's my colonial up starck rep scallions, so they

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Speaker 1: might not respond to the same type of entertainment. But Barnum,

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Speaker 1: that pr genius, decided that he was going to pad

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Speaker 1: his pockets a little before he left, just in case. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so he told all his American audiences that Tom Thumb

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Speaker 1: just that it's just a fuel more farewell performances before

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Speaker 1: Tom Thumb has to go back to the strange mystical

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Speaker 1: lands of England. So so he raised all this extra money.

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Speaker 1: But when they got their overseas, nobody was buying tickets.

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Speaker 1: Kathleen Hawkins, in the BBC article titled The Real Tom

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Speaker 1: Thumb and the Birth of Celebrity, says that Barnum quote

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Speaker 1: quickly learned the importance of class status in England, and

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Speaker 1: the marketing of Stratton to the upper echelon's aristocratic endorsement

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00:20:41,680 --> 00:20:45,879
Speaker 1: quickly advanced his popularity. Night led to Lord and Lord

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Speaker 1: led to Duke until they got a personal invitation from

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Speaker 1: Queen Victoria to Buckingham Palace. So a lot of just like,

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Speaker 1: you know, I gotta figure out how to work the

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Speaker 1: English audience. And it's not like Americans. He can't just

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Speaker 1: show up and start throwing popcorn of people and they're

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00:21:01,560 --> 00:21:04,359
Speaker 1: going to come out to watch whatever happens. These these

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00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:07,760
Speaker 1: classy aristocratic types need to hear about it from someone

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00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:10,520
Speaker 1: important and it just spread the word of mouth from

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Speaker 1: Night to Lord to Duke. They want to hear from

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Speaker 1: trusted through Well if the Duke says, so, wait, did

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Speaker 1: you know the dukes that we should help this little

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Speaker 1: pulse to the cut Well, perfect, because I need permission

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Speaker 1: to enjoy something, permission. I was thinking, Uh, that's interesting

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Speaker 1: you say that they would want to be like, it's

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00:21:35,760 --> 00:21:39,359
Speaker 1: like an Angie's List for restocrats. I only want to

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00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:42,840
Speaker 1: hear it from a trusted friend, um, whereas here it's

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Speaker 1: just like throw some pamphlets around and get who you get.

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Speaker 1: But I also wonder if it's because, like they were

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Speaker 1: more in America, was more about like volume over quality

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Speaker 1: of audience members. You know, He's like, I want to,

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Speaker 1: you know, get people in for a penny. I just

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00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:00,760
Speaker 1: need a penion people to come, and I'm great, And

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Speaker 1: then over there he's trying that, and it was like,

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Speaker 1: oh no, no, no, you have to really cater to

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00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:08,040
Speaker 1: a totally different You have to cater to that audience

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Speaker 1: in its special way. We're performing in the downtown foyer,

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00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,520
Speaker 1: but they would have sixteen chairs laid out, a four

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Speaker 1: piece orchestra and you know, yes, and the the Duke

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Speaker 1: and Duchess will be there, and each of them paid

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Speaker 1: fifteen hundred pounds to see him. Yes, And still Carson

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Speaker 1: thinks it's much too mother, Oh Carson, that kind of

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Speaker 1: thing didn't happen in my day. I would rather be

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Speaker 1: shot in the head. My lord. He's such a drama

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00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:43,080
Speaker 1: queens that Carson. Anyway, I don't know, am I right?

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Speaker 1: So anyway, Yeah, they had this invitation to go see

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Speaker 1: Queen Victoria in her court, and again that's a little

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Speaker 1: risky because there's a lot of court etiquette. You know,

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Speaker 1: you meet the Queen. There's a very particular way you

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00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:58,440
Speaker 1: talk to her. You look at her, you move around her.

377
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Speaker 1: You know, she's a very protected gal. Some people train

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Speaker 1: their whole lives just to say hello to the queen

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Speaker 1: one time. And Tom, you know, first of all Americans,

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Speaker 1: second of all, six years old, he does not know

381
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 1: the etiquette that well. So he when he came in,

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00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 1: he's just like, hello, ladies and gentlemen. Like everyone's like

383
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:21,240
Speaker 1: audible gasp from the what did he say? What did

384
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:24,200
Speaker 1: he look around the eye? And then he did his act,

385
00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:27,359
Speaker 1: which went over very well. Everybody seemed to like it.

386
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:29,920
Speaker 1: And then he did try to do the thing where

387
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:33,200
Speaker 1: you bow your way out of the room, never turning

388
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 1: your back on the queen. You're not ever supposed to

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00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:38,000
Speaker 1: turn your back on. So they're trying to bow, but

390
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:41,960
Speaker 1: he couldn't really do it because he's short and he's young.

391
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:44,800
Speaker 1: He's like, I'll turn around and run a little way,

392
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 1: and then I'll turn back around to the queen and bow.

393
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:48,480
Speaker 1: And he turned around and run a little way and

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Speaker 1: then turn back and bow, trying to keep up probably

395
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:53,240
Speaker 1: a barn um or the rest of his party who

396
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:56,320
Speaker 1: were all bowing their way out but the Queen had

397
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:59,280
Speaker 1: a little dog who got very excited by all this

398
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:02,239
Speaker 1: running and turning and running and turning, as dogs will do,

399
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: and started like nipping at his feet and barking at

400
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 1: him and just getting real excited and playful. And so Tom,

401
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:12,399
Speaker 1: you know, at this point, he's he's been in the

402
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 1: show business for like what a year life, basically a

403
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 1: veteran at this point, so he knows what to do.

404
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,439
Speaker 1: He handled it really well. He pulled out this fake

405
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 1: ceremonial sword that he was wearing as part of his

406
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 1: costume and started fake sword fighting with the dog. The

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00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: whole court fell over laughing. It was the funniest thing

408
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: I ever saw my life. Queen's rolling on the floor,

409
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:44,120
Speaker 1: can you imagine? I can't, but I would, especially Queen Victoria,

410
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: she's so like buttoned up. But yeah, it did, did

411
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: really well, and just a good example of how quick

412
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:54,160
Speaker 1: he was on his feet. You know, he's a real clever,

413
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:57,439
Speaker 1: witty kid um And so anyway, this visit was just

414
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: a huge publicity windfall for the whole or general. Tom

415
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: Thumb became an international celebrity and their success in England

416
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: was a shared and it wasn't long before Tom's three

417
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: dollar a week salary became fifty dollars a week, and

418
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 1: he and Barnum spent the next three years touring Europe.

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00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 1: So they were really taking like world by storm man.

420
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: I wasn't making no fifty bucks a week when I

421
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: was six years old. I wasn't going to Europe either,

422
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 1: That's for sure. I was on a stage, but I

423
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 1: was performing in a church basement in Christmas pageants. I

424
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 1: don't think I was on stage, but i'm I guess.

425
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 1: I'm glad I didn't have the responsibility of meeting the

426
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: queen when I was sick. Yeah, I would not have

427
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: done insults her somehow. Whatever I would have sword, I

428
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: would have sort fought that dog would have been adorable.

429
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 1: It's been so cute. Yeah. Well, According to Michael M. Chemmer's,

430
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: who's the author of nineteenth Century Theater and Film, Tom

431
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 1: Thumb's success was a turning point in the US. Previously,

432
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:07,640
Speaker 1: exhibiting human curiosities have been seen as pretty ghosh and dishonorable,

433
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: and was considered a low grade form of entertainment. But

434
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: since Tom was so talented and just charismatic and just

435
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:18,360
Speaker 1: so good at being this showman and p t. Barnum

436
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 1: actually wanted to lean on his true gifts as a performer,

437
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 1: all that showmanship, instead of just his short stature. His

438
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:29,639
Speaker 1: performances doing comedy and song and dance numbers totally changed

439
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: the country's perceptions of these so called freak shows, and

440
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 1: it made them one of the most popular forms of

441
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 1: entertainment around. And some critics chose to judge Tom as

442
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: a professional entertainer rather than one of these freak show attractions.

443
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: They were like, what what if we judge him the

444
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 1: same way we judge all performers, like a novel idea.

445
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: You know what, He's not so different, after all, this

446
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: one must be different. Probably so Barnum in general, Tom

447
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 1: th Um are doing great. But you know Barnum, he's

448
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: always hustling. He's always trying to add to the team

449
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 1: that get get stacked that line up. Real Nick Fury

450
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: of his day, definitely so. In the late eighteen fifties,

451
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,920
Speaker 1: he had heard a little bit about a handsome, young

452
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 1: little person from New Hampshire named George Washington Morrison nut

453
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: What a name, Quite a name, and I think we

454
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:32,399
Speaker 1: should hear more about him. Right after this break and

455
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,679
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. So Barnum had heard about

456
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: this kid, George Washington Morrison Nut, and he heard that

457
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 1: this boy was being exhibited for only a nickel a look,

458
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: and his education was being neglected, which really disgusted Barnum.

459
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: He did not like that kind of behavior. Yeah, Barnum

460
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 1: looked out for his people in ways that are debatable,

461
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 1: but by and large, he wanted them to be paid well. Um,

462
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: he wanted them to have opportunities. Yeah, it's he's a

463
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 1: tough character, I think to look at and from our perspective,

464
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: because he was very money driven, certainly, and he had

465
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:11,479
Speaker 1: so many like horrible things that were happening, but they

466
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: were very much of their time as well. And anyway, Um,

467
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: but yeah, but it must be said the people who

468
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:19,919
Speaker 1: worked for him were treated pretty really well. They had

469
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: good benefits, they were paid, they paid really high wages.

470
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 1: I think that he really did not want to treat

471
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: them like not members of society. He knew they were

472
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 1: his resources. And uh, and if he lost them to competition,

473
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: you know, he didn't have a show. That's true. That's true.

474
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 1: So anyway, in eighteen sixty one, Nut visited Barnum's American

475
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: Museum for the first time and Barnum's us mat chance,

476
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 1: so he hired a lawyer to learn Nut away from

477
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: this crappy manager who wasn't doing anything for him. Now,

478
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: Nuts only twelve at this point, so the lawyer goes

479
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 1: straight to his parents and promises like a huge sum

480
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: of money if they I'm their son to a five

481
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: year contract starting at twelve dollars a week, although there

482
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: were other significant like money perks at the end of

483
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: you know, the end of the month, at the end

484
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: of a couple of years. You know, it's all kinds

485
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 1: of stuff like that built into the contract. But even

486
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: more than that, all his food, clothing, travel, and medical

487
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: care costs would be covered, and he promised to give

488
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: the boy a genteel education and help him grow up

489
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 1: to be a very classy, awesome dude. Parents were like cool,

490
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: sounds great, and then signed on the bad line. Now again,

491
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: Barnum showed his acumen as a pr genius here because

492
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: even though the contract was already signed, he made other

493
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: theatrical agents and managers think that he was still trying

494
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: to hire this kid. That made all the other guys

495
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: want him to and they all rushed to nuts parents

496
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: with huge cash offers. And then while they're doing that,

497
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: Barnum leaked a letter to the press where he confessed

498
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:01,479
Speaker 1: that he'd had to pay thirty and dollars to secure

499
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: a contract with this kid Nut. So he became known

500
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: in the press as the thirty thousand dollar Nut. My

501
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: tasteless joke about this is that there's a guy listening

502
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: to this who pays child support. He was like, I've

503
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: had one of those. Sorry, you shouldn't talk about your

504
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: kids like that. So at this point the kid's success

505
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: was basically assured. But that wasn't the only thing Barnham

506
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 1: did to make this kid stand out. He gave him

507
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: the stage name Commodore Nut and had him dressed in

508
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: these naval uniforms. And then he had a miniature carriage

509
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 1: built for him in the shape of a walnut, and

510
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: he had Shetland ponies pulling it along and nuts brother RODNEYA,

511
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: who was also a little person, was driving the carriage

512
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 1: in a coachman's uniform. Whole whole visual spectacle up. And

513
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 1: then he would have them drive around town to whip

514
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: up excitement about seeing them at the museum. And boy

515
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: did this work. Barnam knew his business you can say

516
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: that about him. So Commodore Nutt made his debut in

517
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 1: February eighteen sixty two to great success, but not all

518
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: the museum goers were satisfied because they thought Commodore nut

519
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: was actually just General Tom Thumb in disguise. Barnum was

520
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: trying to pretend like he had two little people when

521
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: he only am a little person. And how dare you

522
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,959
Speaker 1: even make sure what the differences? Eighteen sixty two, this

523
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: is twenty years after Barnum met Tom. Yeah, and Tom

524
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: was five at the times. So Tom's twenty five, yeah,

525
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: and Commodore nut here is yeah, and like thinner, he's

526
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 1: years younger. He's thinner than the general. I mean like

527
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: he doesn't really look like the General. Okay, they're just

528
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 1: like two little people's whatever. And Nut thought it was hilarious.

529
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 1: He's a little bit of a scamp, so he thought

530
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: it was really funny, and he encouraged the crowds to

531
00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: think that he was Tom Thumb, which there's no heard

532
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: of how he did that that I found in our

533
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:05,880
Speaker 1: preliminary research. But I imagine him being like, who me,

534
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 1: I'm no Tom's I'm ladies and gentlemen, or am I no,

535
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, or no, no, no, no, no no, I'm

536
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: really I'm just joking. Obviously joking. Would P. T. Barnum

537
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: lie to you? And he definitely would, of course he would.

538
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: He's built his whole career on it. But not this time.

539
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: I sing, I'm less making them lose their mind. I'm

540
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 1: on a roller coaster. I don't know what to believe.

541
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 1: But Barnum did not love this joke. He's like, this

542
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: could be cutting into my sales. So he wrote to

543
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 1: General Tom Thumb, who was touring the American West at

544
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: the time, and asked him to cut the tour early,

545
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: come back to New York. I want to put these

546
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: hoax rumors to rest. So in August, Nut and Thumb

547
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: appear it on stage together build as quote, the two

548
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 1: smallest men and the greatest curiosity is living. But even

549
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: though the audience is literally seeing it for themselves, like

550
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: they're looking at two guys side by side, one of

551
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: whom is years older than the one they some of

552
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: people still thought it was the same guy, like she

553
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: was still in the audience. Lan that's still thomps some

554
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 1: kind of mirror. I don't know about this, and Barnum

555
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: wrote in his autobiography, quote, it is very amusing to

556
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: see how people will sometimes deceive themselves by being two incredulous.

557
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 1: And that just really rang a bell for me for

558
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: some reason. And this day and age, Yeah, boy, that

559
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 1: all that, that impulse to go not everything is how

560
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: it seems. You gotta gotta dig deep, you gotta follow

561
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: the money, you gotta get down in there and figure

562
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 1: it out. And you're like sometimes just tying yourself in

563
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 1: a knot. Yeah, there's nothing to see. Sometimes the simplest

564
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: solution is the correct one. These people, well, you know,

565
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:12,279
Speaker 1: I know I saw the moon two eyes, but I

566
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: don't really trust those. I only trust what I kind

567
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: of think might be true. And that's that. That's the

568
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: only one mois listen to. In November of eighteen sixty two,

569
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 1: both General Tom Thumb and Commodore Nut were invited to

570
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: the White House to meet President Abraham Lincoln. It's stopped

571
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: by again. When they showed up, Lincoln walked out of

572
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 1: a cabinet meeting to see them. Everyone stopped, and I

573
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 1: know we're talking about national security, but I've got to

574
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 1: go talk to these kids. Some celebrities are here. I'm

575
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:54,840
Speaker 1: very tall, they're very short. This is gonna be hilarious. Plus,

576
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: if they had posed for a picture, would take like

577
00:34:56,719 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: forty five minutes. Right, yeah, Deborah, or to lunch, We're

578
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:08,439
Speaker 1: gonna take a photograph. Hold my calls. What the call?

579
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 1: I talked? Untold everyone, I went to the future and

580
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: went to the shopping mall. I knew I should have

581
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 1: kept my mouth shut. So Lincoln walks out of this

582
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: cabinet meeting to meet General Tom Thumb and Commodore Nut.

583
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: And when he met them, at least according to P. T.

584
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:32,720
Speaker 1: Barnum's account, Commodore Nut got a little saucy with the administration,

585
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 1: which is of course why they invited him, because he's

586
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 1: such a little scamp doing it. And so he points

587
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: at all these stuffy, you know, white house folks, and

588
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 1: he says, you know which one are? You? Is spending

589
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: so much of the country's money right now? And the

590
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 1: Secretary of War got up to well, I'm afraid that's

591
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: me son and Nut, and Nuts said quote, it isn't

592
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: a good cause anyhow, And I guess it will come

593
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: out all right. He's all right, I guess you can

594
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: spend that money since it's you, yeah, spending it on

595
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: the war, alright, alright, I got back on you. And

596
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:14,359
Speaker 1: when they were leaving, Lincoln himself kind of got into

597
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 1: the spirit and started choking around a little, and he says,

598
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 1: all right, commodore, if your fleets ever in danger, be

599
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:24,280
Speaker 1: sure to wait to shore of safety in the United States.

600
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 1: Here we'll pretict you lose any military and Commodore nut

601
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 1: looked linking up and down and said, quote, well, I

602
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:41,399
Speaker 1: guess Mr President, you could do that better than I could. Oh,

603
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 1: Commodore Nut with the tall jokes, and a Blincoln's like,

604
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: oh damnit, abe, you're really Lincoln logged that one. Oh

605
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 1: I walked right into that one, just like that stove

606
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 1: pipe that's stuck on my head and I keep telling

607
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: everyone is a hat. I can't get it off, can't

608
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: get it off. Old back into my magic phone booth

609
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:05,959
Speaker 1: to see the nineteen eighties. So it seems like Nutt

610
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: and Thumb might be getting to be sort of friends, right,

611
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: I mean it performing at together, so they probably pretty

612
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: friendly at least. Again, get the age gap here. You

613
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: imagine Tom Thumb is like this thirteen year old kid.

614
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: I'll show on the ropes totally. I'll be his mentor.

615
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:28,279
Speaker 1: So sometime in eighteen sixty two, you know, Barnum's got

616
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 1: his ear to the ground and he starts hearing rumors

617
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:35,400
Speaker 1: about an extraordinarily pretty little woman performing on a riverboat

618
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 1: in the Mississippi River, and he's like, holy shit, I

619
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 1: gotta go meet her. And her name was Mercy Lavinia

620
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: Warren Bump, but she performed as Lavinia Warren even though

621
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 1: I'm like, Bump, what a good name. That's a greatness

622
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:55,279
Speaker 1: stage Uh. She was from Massachusetts and at sixteen she

623
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 1: became a successful school teacher for several years. But then

624
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 1: she heard about General Tom Thumb's success performing and she's like,

625
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 1: maybe I'll give that a whirl. And so she joined

626
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 1: a Mississippi riverboat as a dancing shentoose, which is so classy.

627
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:13,239
Speaker 1: It's such a classy to say I sing and dance

628
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:17,720
Speaker 1: like I'm a dancing shantos on a river boat. Remember

629
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:20,800
Speaker 1: when Velvet Underground with Nico came out and Nico is

630
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 1: listed in the liner notes as shuntos, Like, oh, that's

631
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 1: so much classier than vocals. She also she was joined

632
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 1: by her younger sister, Minnie Warren, who was also a

633
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,399
Speaker 1: little person. And when she got the chance to make

634
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: better money at Barnum's American Museum, she of course said yes,

635
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 1: and many went to but Lavinia was the star Barnum

636
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:50,400
Speaker 1: built her. Quote, the Queen of Beauty. It's a pretty

637
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 1: dope name for someone else to give you two It

638
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: would be different if you gave it to yourself. People like, okay,

639
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 1: but someone else they do that, that's pretty good. And

640
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: when the jed Earl and the Commodore got back to

641
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 1: New York after their White House visit, both of them

642
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 1: lost their hearts to her. At the first introduction, Well, sure,

643
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 1: the Queen of Beauty. I know. They were just like,

644
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: oh my god, smoking hot lady. Yeah. I have wonder

645
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: if she didn't say yes to working at Barnham's. I

646
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:22,280
Speaker 1: mean not just because the money was better and everything,

647
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 1: but General Tom Thumb was the guy who inspired her

648
00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: to start working, and and yeah, I would go work

649
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:30,839
Speaker 1: near him. Sure makes sense. I'm gonna be like, oh,

650
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 1: you're I don't know, performing at local clubs at home,

651
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 1: and then David Geffen shows up and it's like, do

652
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 1: you want to come work for me? Like, yeah, I

653
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 1: think I will. Yes. My inspiration David Geffen, what a reference,

654
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:51,319
Speaker 1: I mean somebody like okay, So they both fall for

655
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 1: this queen of beauty right away, General and the Commodore.

656
00:39:54,800 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 1: But unfortunately for Commodore nut he's only thirteen years old, remember,

657
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: and Lavinia is twenty one, so she thought of him

658
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 1: as nothing more than just being quote a nice little boy. Ouch.

659
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 1: You know, art when you're like, I'm a man in

660
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: love with a woman and she's like, what a nice

661
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 1: little boy. He was like, I think I'm gonna go

662
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 1: hit myself in the head of the brick now. But

663
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sorry, kid. I know you're like a

664
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 1: child star. Sometimes these thirteen year old celebrities, you know,

665
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta remind them that they're kids. So

666
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:34,120
Speaker 1: here's a little he's a little injured by That definitely

667
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: brought him down a peg. But it only got worse

668
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:40,880
Speaker 1: when P. T. Barnum gave Lavinia a diamond and emerald

669
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:44,280
Speaker 1: ring as a gift, which was a very nice gesture,

670
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:48,440
Speaker 1: but it didn't fit her. You wonder where he got it, Like,

671
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: he didn't have it custom made. It's just like maybe

672
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: I found it in the audience one day and found yeah,

673
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: and he's like, give it to Lavinia. You go for

674
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: the queen of beauty, and she's like, this is nowhere

675
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 1: close to my side. So Barnum says, I've got an

676
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 1: idea for you. Then why don't you give it to

677
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:10,240
Speaker 1: the Commodore as a token of your friendship? A common

678
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: thing to give in friendship. Diamond and Emerald twenty one.

679
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 1: And this thirteen year old boy who's crushing on me

680
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: is such a good friend that I'm going to give

681
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: him expensive jewelry. Come on now. She agreed and gave

682
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 1: the Commodore not this ring. And of course he thought

683
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: it was a declaration of love, because he's thirteen years

684
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:34,239
Speaker 1: old and a beautiful woman gives you a fancy ring

685
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 1: and you have no idea what to think. Oh my god,

686
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,319
Speaker 1: he thought all his dreams were coming true. And it

687
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 1: was super awkward for them both because Lavinia, of course,

688
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: had just fallen for General Tom Thaw. I mean, this

689
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: guy was just four years older than her, so a

690
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: lot closer and more more acceptable of an age gap. Honestly,

691
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:56,600
Speaker 1: would have been so weird if Lavinia had been into

692
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 1: this would be a very different story. We're telling what

693
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:01,919
Speaker 1: was going on, so, I mean, you know, she meets

694
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:04,840
Speaker 1: General Tom Thump. He's the reason she got into show business.

695
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 1: He's super cool, he's save, he's traveled the world, he's

696
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: met the Queen of England. Like it's no wonder that

697
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 1: she was in for this guy. As soon as they met,

698
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: they like took each other's hands, looked into into each

699
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 1: other's eyes and that was it for that, Like that

700
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: was just like, this is it. We're doing this right? Okay? Great?

701
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 1: So I don't know, a speculation station, and I was

702
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:33,320
Speaker 1: thinking Barnum was kind of trying to get Lavinia to

703
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: go out with the commodore with the ring, or trying

704
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: to like stoke this love triangle a little bit. Maybe

705
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:44,279
Speaker 1: maybe that was it, I don't know, or if he

706
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:46,360
Speaker 1: just didn't know that Tom Thumb was interested yet. And

707
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that'd be cool to have, you know,

708
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: two little people get together. I don't know. It just

709
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 1: seemed like such a weird thing to do, but maybe

710
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 1: it was just a normal But would give people rings?

711
00:42:57,320 --> 00:43:02,879
Speaker 1: Would who you know, all accounts did respect that these

712
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 1: were adults. Would he want to set this woman, grown,

713
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: twenty one year old woman up with a thirteen year

714
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 1: old boy, even if they were the same size. It's weird,

715
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:15,319
Speaker 1: but I mean eighteen sixties people got married a lot

716
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: younger y, So I don't know. I'm like an independent,

717
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 1: I don't know. And maybe, and you know, again, I'm

718
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 1: totally in speculation station. He might have just been like,

719
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: I found a ring, it doesn't fit. I don't know,

720
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: give it to commodore. I got a business to run

721
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: and doesn't give it a sing. I wonder if maybe

722
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:33,759
Speaker 1: he didn't think, like, you know, if there's like a

723
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 1: whole like love triangle here that might make the headlines

724
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:40,800
Speaker 1: drama around, like people will follow this story. Who's she

725
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:48,959
Speaker 1: going to pick? You know, classic team? So who knows.

726
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was just like, why would he

727
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: do that? But anyway, General tom Thumb was like, whatever

728
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:59,160
Speaker 1: Barnum's doing, I don't care. He's very powerful around here.

729
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 1: I want him on my side. So he went to

730
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 1: Barnum and he's like, hey, if you convinced Lavinia to

731
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:10,960
Speaker 1: marry me, and like, again, she's already in it's not

732
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: hard to convince her. But I think, like, if she

733
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 1: comes to you and asks you anything, you know, just

734
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: like me wingman for me, like, you know, tell her

735
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:22,399
Speaker 1: to take me seriously, we'll get married. In public. We'll

736
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 1: have a public ceremony. Oh my god. Barnum's pupils immediately

737
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: turned into dollars side and and he was like, oh yes,

738
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 1: oh my god, I love this idea. He started being like, Lavinia,

739
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:40,000
Speaker 1: isn't Tom the best? Like Tom's my favorite guy in

740
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 1: the world. He's real rich too, by the way. He

741
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 1: just started whispering in her ear. And he even invited

742
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: Lavinia and Tom and Tom's mother to his home for

743
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 1: like a weekend visit. I guess Tom's mother very significant.

744
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: He wanted to meet his mother. But the commodore was

745
00:44:58,400 --> 00:44:59,839
Speaker 1: not going to take this kind of thing lying down.

746
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: He's a commodore right commands a whole naval fleet. So

747
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: he found out that Tom was in love with Lavinia,

748
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:10,399
Speaker 1: and he got insanely jealous, and he actually went into

749
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 1: the dressing room and started beating Tom up out. And

750
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: when he heard that Lavinia was going to Pete Barnum's

751
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 1: house for the weekend, he just invited himself along, not

752
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 1: knowing that Tom and Tom's mom were going to be

753
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:28,960
Speaker 1: there too. The mom of Tom he could not greet

754
00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: with applause for him. That trip was about so I

755
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: was a little high when I wrote the script. Well

756
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: that that Ryan was as beautiful as no no more rhyming, rhyming.

757
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 1: All right, So Commodore Nut basically left New York late

758
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 1: and didn't get to Barnum's place until eleven pm. So

759
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 1: he walks in and surprises Tom and Lavinia together in

760
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 1: the parlor. I didn't know you you're here, the child

761
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 1: little right, And little did Commodore Nut know that General

762
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb had just proposed and Lavinia had just accepted.

763
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:24,399
Speaker 1: He like walks in and he's Tom's like getting up

764
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:27,839
Speaker 1: from one n this is a sitcom situation. Oh absolutely,

765
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:31,479
Speaker 1: what are you? What are you doing here? The string

766
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 1: the spoil a good moment here, buddy. But Tom and

767
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 1: Lavinia knew that the Commodore would go nuts about it

768
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:42,279
Speaker 1: if he found out, so that he didn't tell him

769
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:46,960
Speaker 1: about their proposal for over a week. And you know,

770
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: he was pretty mad about that after the fact. He

771
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:53,480
Speaker 1: called it a dustardly offense by P. T. Barnum and

772
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:57,160
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb. They were like, our engagement would cause your enragement?

773
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:03,800
Speaker 1: Oh no, the rs. So at this point Barnum gets

774
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 1: a little tasteless and he's like, hey, Commodore, what about

775
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 1: Lavinia's sister Minnie. I mean she's younger than Lavinia, but

776
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:14,720
Speaker 1: she's basically the same person. I mean, you'll be happy together.

777
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:17,840
Speaker 1: You guys can get engaged, and then you can be

778
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb's best man, and Minnie will be Lavinia's bridesmaid

779
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 1: and oh my god, I'm gonna make a fortune. But

780
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: the Commodore was heartbroken. He decided to swear off women forever.

781
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:34,960
Speaker 1: He said he wouldn't quote married the best woman living

782
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: because he's thirty. I don't like this poor kid and

783
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: the throws of his first love. Yeah, obviously it's gonna

784
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 1: be really dramatic. He's like going through puberty right now,

785
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 1: and they're like, sorry, this twenty one year old woman

786
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: married someone her age. He's like, love is a lie.

787
00:47:55,560 --> 00:48:00,920
Speaker 1: I'll never speak to a woman again. My heart is

788
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 1: forever hardened. Yeah. I felt that way when I was two,

789
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:08,799
Speaker 1: when I found out that Uma Thurman was never going

790
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 1: to marry me. You know, just broke my heart. How

791
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:16,960
Speaker 1: cold hearted of Uma. I still have hope. It's never

792
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:22,760
Speaker 1: too late, Uma call me. Oh, and Commodore Nut also

793
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 1: refused to be Tom Thumb's best man. He's like, I'm

794
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:29,439
Speaker 1: not falling in with that idea go to hell. But

795
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:33,920
Speaker 1: not long after this, General Tom Thumb asked nut himself

796
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 1: to be his best man, and Nuts said yes. And

797
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 1: according to tom Ogden's book Two Years of the American Circus,

798
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 1: Nutt told Barnum, quote, it was not your business to

799
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: ask me when the proper person invited me. I consented,

800
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:50,799
Speaker 1: Well there you go, yeah, which is true. You don't

801
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 1: ask someone else to be someone's best man. No, the

802
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:55,920
Speaker 1: wedding planner doesn't ask me to be the best man.

803
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: The groom has gotta better want my ass there. But

804
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 1: also I kind of he was like, it wasn't ever

805
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 1: about her, Okay, I got no proma professional, right. So

806
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:13,440
Speaker 1: February eighteen sixty three, the so called very wedding of

807
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:17,040
Speaker 1: the Vinea and General tom Thumb was held in New York.

808
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 1: And we're going to hear a lot more about that

809
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:28,319
Speaker 1: right after this. Welcome back to the greatest show in

810
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:34,120
Speaker 1: the world. So, this very wedding was front page news.

811
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:39,319
Speaker 1: Two thousand people were invited, all the big names of

812
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 1: society like Mrs Astor and this is Vanderbilt, Mrs Greeley,

813
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 1: Mrs Mrs money Bags. The monopoly Man was there, right,

814
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: the statue of Liberty was there. President Lincoln surely sent

815
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: like a letter and a couple of flowers or something

816
00:49:56,440 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 1: his old buddy. The ceremony at the church was for

817
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 1: but Barnum sold tickets for seventy five dollars to the reception,

818
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:10,879
Speaker 1: and just to put that in today's spending money, three

819
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:16,840
Speaker 1: is twenty six hundred dollars. My god, just like super

820
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 1: Bowl ticket on a good year and a very good year. Yeah,

821
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:23,240
Speaker 1: and and those only went to the first five thousand

822
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:30,160
Speaker 1: people to apply, five thousand people at top. That's a

823
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 1: lot of money. He's more math than I can do.

824
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:36,279
Speaker 1: But usually you spend money on a wedding, but he's

825
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: making money on a wedding right now. Apparently many people

826
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:44,640
Speaker 1: who came were curious about how sex between two little

827
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 1: people would work, which is an insane question to ask.

828
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,799
Speaker 1: How would it be any different? I don't know, how

829
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 1: would it? How could it poss anyway? Barnum, as usual himself,

830
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 1: neither encouraged nor discourage this conversation because it was selling tickets.

831
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:06,480
Speaker 1: So come on, how that could it be? Right? Oh,

832
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 1: that's a real good question you're asking there. Why don't

833
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 1: you buy a ticket? And find out as if they're

834
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:12,319
Speaker 1: going to have sex, they're not going to have to

835
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:16,280
Speaker 1: the ceremony during the reception. Now that's a wedding. Wow,

836
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:22,279
Speaker 1: very old school of them, like outside the room, watch

837
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 1: the marriage bed. At the reception, Lavinia and Tom stood

838
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:29,839
Speaker 1: on top of a grand piano so everyone could see

839
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 1: them while they greeted their guests. Presumably did not have

840
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:34,640
Speaker 1: sex on top of the grand piano to show everyone

841
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:37,000
Speaker 1: how they did it. Although at our wedding, I did

842
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 1: get drunk and lay on top of the grand Yes,

843
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 1: it wasn't a grand piano, I guess, but I did

844
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 1: lay on the piano. It was grand when you were

845
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 1: laying on it, right, right. We were not supposed to

846
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 1: be on the piano. But no, don't tell anyone. But

847
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:52,799
Speaker 1: there's a lot of photographic evidence. The girl was like,

848
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:57,759
Speaker 1: this is my house today. Now. Apparently Commodore Nutt gave

849
00:51:57,840 --> 00:52:02,279
Speaker 1: Lavinia a diamond ring as a wedding present. I mean,

850
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 1: you gotta wonder, is Tom like, um, hey, that's kind

851
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:08,439
Speaker 1: of my job tonight, Like you're supposed to carry the ring,

852
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 1: give it to me. That's worse than showing up in

853
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 1: a white dress for a wedding. Is like showing up

854
00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: with a diamond ring as a present. What are you doing? Nuts? Nuts? Right?

855
00:52:19,560 --> 00:52:23,080
Speaker 1: If I can pull into speculation station once again, I'm

856
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: thinking Nut was trying to pull a Dwight from the

857
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 1: office and marry herself. Like He's like, hand the ring out,

858
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:34,719
Speaker 1: put the ring, I do, get the ring. You know

859
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:36,960
Speaker 1: how the wedding's gonna go. I've got this. Uh, I've

860
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: got this fake preacher here to help us rehearse it.

861
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 1: He's gonna say this, and you're gonna say, I do

862
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: take you to be my husband? Right, yes, say it? Okay,

863
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:45,759
Speaker 1: I do? All right, Now I'm going to say I

864
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 1: do take you as my wife, and then you'll like

865
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:52,400
Speaker 1: sign this little paper and we're married now. And she's like,

866
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:56,360
Speaker 1: wait a minute, wait a minute, what does happen? Anyway,

867
00:52:56,400 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 1: the wedding was a sensation. America was enthralled. We were obsessed.

868
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:05,920
Speaker 1: They were the Kardashians of their time. On their honeymoon

869
00:53:05,960 --> 00:53:08,960
Speaker 1: trip Lavinia and General Tom Thumb were given a reception

870
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:14,320
Speaker 1: at the White House by President Lincoln. Really into these guys.

871
00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just America. The whole world was captivated

872
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 1: by this fairy wedding. So Barnum naturally saw a chance

873
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:28,520
Speaker 1: to make bookoo bucks, and he sent all four of them,

874
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:34,280
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb, Lavinia Mini, and Commodore Nut on a world

875
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:38,360
Speaker 1: tour together as the Tom Thumb Company. They left in

876
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:43,720
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine. They traveled sixty thousand miles, performed almost

877
00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:47,800
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred times, and visited five hundred and eighty seven

878
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:51,239
Speaker 1: cities as far away as Australia before they finally came

879
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:56,439
Speaker 1: home in eighteen seventy. That's a really insane world tour,

880
00:53:57,440 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: especially back then when it took so much longer to travel,

881
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:06,799
Speaker 1: just exhausting. No no tour buses, tour carriages shaped like

882
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:10,279
Speaker 1: wal nuts. Maybe, so they were like a worldwide phenomenon.

883
00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:14,879
Speaker 1: The General and Lavinia were extremely wealthy. They were living

884
00:54:14,920 --> 00:54:19,560
Speaker 1: a life of high luxury, like a custom house built

885
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts, custom furniture, and they had like a house

886
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:26,439
Speaker 1: in New York, which no one can have anymore. Good

887
00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 1: luck to you. They were just doing real, real well.

888
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: And eventually the General became business partners with Barnum instead

889
00:54:34,040 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 1: of an employee. He even bailed him out when Barnum

890
00:54:36,719 --> 00:54:40,839
Speaker 1: hit financial difficulties. So they were really close, these two men,

891
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 1: they really had a genuine friendship that had lasted since

892
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:50,920
Speaker 1: he was five years old. But even though they were

893
00:54:50,960 --> 00:54:54,480
Speaker 1: doing so well, the tour was also kind of uncomfortable.

894
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:58,400
Speaker 1: Barnum thought that it made them more sympathetic to be

895
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 1: presented as child to the public instead of as grown

896
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:07,399
Speaker 1: people in smaller bodies, but consequently the public treated them

897
00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 1: like children. Kim Nielsen's book, A Disability History of the

898
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:13,800
Speaker 1: United States talks about how a lot of people wanted

899
00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:17,040
Speaker 1: to like pet and hold Lavinia as if they would

900
00:55:17,120 --> 00:55:21,320
Speaker 1: a toddler, and Lavinia is quoted as saying it seemed

901
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:24,680
Speaker 1: impossible to make people understand at first that I was

902
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:28,360
Speaker 1: not a child, that being a woman, I had the

903
00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:32,200
Speaker 1: womanly instinct of shrinking from a form of familiarity, which

904
00:55:32,239 --> 00:55:34,439
Speaker 1: in the case of a child of my size would

905
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:37,720
Speaker 1: have been as natural as it was permissible. People probably

906
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:42,319
Speaker 1: like touching her hair up, randomly hugging her, and she's like,

907
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 1: I am a grown woman, and I really don't want

908
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 1: you to random men and women to touch me. Yeah, exactly.

909
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:49,880
Speaker 1: And also we can acknowledge I think we've had the

910
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,759
Speaker 1: conversations today that don't do that to kids either, like

911
00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:54,680
Speaker 1: to have their own autonomy, and don't just walk up

912
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:56,200
Speaker 1: to a kid and pet them and pick them up

913
00:55:56,239 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 1: and ship without talking to him first. It's true they can.

914
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:01,720
Speaker 1: They can refuse a hug, ben if it hurts your feeling.

915
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:06,120
Speaker 1: Some people also doubted that their wedding was even real,

916
00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:09,200
Speaker 1: calling it a big publicity stunt. That would probably was

917
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 1: something to do with them thinking, oh, they're not they

918
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 1: are children's I have no sexual feelings, and they would

919
00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 1: have romantic feelings, you know, that kind of dismissal of

920
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:26,800
Speaker 1: their adulthood. According to a BBC article, Tom said quote,

921
00:56:27,239 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: it is true we are little, but we are as

922
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:32,880
Speaker 1: God made us perfect in our littleness. We are simply

923
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 1: man and woman of like passions and infirmities with you

924
00:56:36,840 --> 00:56:40,520
Speaker 1: and other mortals. The arrangements for our marriage are controlled

925
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 1: by no showman. That's got to be tough because like

926
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:46,560
Speaker 1: it sort of was a publicity stunt, Like it was

927
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 1: a real wedding, but Barnum and them made it a show.

928
00:56:50,800 --> 00:56:53,040
Speaker 1: So you can see how that lent people the idea

929
00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:54,640
Speaker 1: that like, oh, well, is this even real or is

930
00:56:54,640 --> 00:56:57,279
Speaker 1: this It's like when we put something on TV, we

931
00:56:57,280 --> 00:56:59,200
Speaker 1: don't know whether those people really care about each other

932
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:01,799
Speaker 1: and more often than not out we assume they don't. Yeah,

933
00:57:02,560 --> 00:57:04,200
Speaker 1: so it can make it hard to know when it's

934
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:08,200
Speaker 1: real when it isn't. Like flavor of love that was real.

935
00:57:08,280 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 1: Love was flavor flavor hoops just timeless. Oh surely not.

936
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:24,400
Speaker 1: It's no way. Now. At some point in their career

937
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:29,240
Speaker 1: as a married couple, Lavinia and Tom started appearing, sometimes

938
00:57:29,280 --> 00:57:33,800
Speaker 1: on stage and in official photographs, holding a baby that

939
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:37,080
Speaker 1: they said was their child. Now there's a lot of

940
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:42,240
Speaker 1: dispute about this. The rumor is that Barnum sort of

941
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 1: was like, listen, the next step of your journey to

942
00:57:44,680 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 1: fame and fortune is you have a family, you have

943
00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:49,480
Speaker 1: a baby. And I wonder if they were even kind

944
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:53,000
Speaker 1: of into that, because it showed them as grown people

945
00:57:53,120 --> 00:57:56,000
Speaker 1: who could have babies, you know what I mean. So

946
00:57:56,520 --> 00:58:00,240
Speaker 1: the hearsay again is that he would rent babies from

947
00:58:00,400 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 1: foundling hospitals and orphanages for them to just like hold

948
00:58:04,560 --> 00:58:07,560
Speaker 1: for the performance and then you send them back. I guess,

949
00:58:07,640 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 1: baby by the hour from an orphanage. I guess it

950
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:14,560
Speaker 1: seems like a really weird thing to let some do.

951
00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: You could do an hourly rental. You can put babies

952
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:21,680
Speaker 1: on layaway you wanted for a week, there's a there's

953
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:24,240
Speaker 1: a bulk discount if you take two or more at

954
00:58:24,320 --> 00:58:28,680
Speaker 1: least to own program for babies. So so yeah, the

955
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:32,640
Speaker 1: rumors that they never actually had kids themselves, they just

956
00:58:32,680 --> 00:58:36,280
Speaker 1: rented these babies. But in Lavinia even apparently admitted to

957
00:58:36,320 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 1: this in her autobiography. But in Kathleen Hawkins BBC article,

958
00:58:41,640 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 1: she says that historian John Gannon revealed paper evidence that

959
00:58:45,680 --> 00:58:48,520
Speaker 1: Lavinia and Tom did have a baby together at some point,

960
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:52,480
Speaker 1: and Tom Thumb's obituary in the New York Times said

961
00:58:52,520 --> 00:58:54,959
Speaker 1: that they had a child together in eighteen sixty nine

962
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 1: that died in eighteen seventy one. So this is a

963
00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:02,600
Speaker 1: fun to stuss out, I think, because I mean, it's

964
00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:04,880
Speaker 1: not like P. T. Barnum probably couldn't have gotten somebody

965
00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:07,360
Speaker 1: to write up some paper evidence of the fake baby

966
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:11,560
Speaker 1: they had to Um. It's really not It's hard to

967
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 1: tell what's publicity and what's real in this case. So

968
00:59:15,800 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 1: I don't know, they could could be a real baby

969
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:19,680
Speaker 1: that they really had, and there might have been no

970
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:24,320
Speaker 1: baby at all. Interesting. I also wondered if like maybe

971
00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:26,240
Speaker 1: they did have a real baby but they were like, well,

972
00:59:26,280 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 1: I don't want to put him on stage with us

973
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:33,080
Speaker 1: right now? Yeah, rent me a baby who has no wonder,

974
00:59:33,160 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 1: look out for it. That's better somehow, who knows well.

975
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:40,280
Speaker 1: After they got back to the States from their world tour,

976
00:59:40,840 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 1: Commodore Nutt had an argument with Barnum that resulted in

977
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 1: him quitting the company. He's probably like, what is this

978
00:59:46,720 --> 00:59:51,480
Speaker 1: called the tom thumb? First he takes my girl, now

979
00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:54,600
Speaker 1: he takes top Billy. I'm just kidding. He always had top.

980
00:59:56,360 --> 00:59:58,640
Speaker 1: Nut and his brother went out west and tried putting

981
00:59:58,680 --> 01:00:00,919
Speaker 1: up their own shows, and they even ran a couple

982
01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:04,480
Speaker 1: of saloons, but they weren't super successful in that. He

983
01:00:04,560 --> 01:00:08,080
Speaker 1: was apparently love lorn for years over Lavinia, and at

984
01:00:08,120 --> 01:00:11,720
Speaker 1: some point, long after her marriage, Barnum asked nut why

985
01:00:11,760 --> 01:00:16,480
Speaker 1: he wasn't married yet. Nut responded, quote, Sir, my fruit

986
01:00:16,600 --> 01:00:21,600
Speaker 1: is plucked. I have concluded not to marry until I'm thirty.

987
01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:24,760
Speaker 1: And many papers at the time wrong the reported that

988
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:27,240
Speaker 1: he was married to Lavinia's sister Mini, but they were

989
01:00:27,280 --> 01:00:31,479
Speaker 1: only ever close friends, and in eighteen seventy seven Many

990
01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:34,640
Speaker 1: actually married another one of Barnum's performers, a dwarf named

991
01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:39,040
Speaker 1: Edmund Newell, who performed on roller skates. Super cool, but

992
01:00:39,200 --> 01:00:43,280
Speaker 1: tragically many and their child died in childbirth in eighteen

993
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:47,760
Speaker 1: seventy eight. But the Commodore didn't stay single forever. In

994
01:00:47,880 --> 01:00:51,440
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine, he met a woman named Miss Lillian

995
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:56,600
Speaker 1: Elston in California, and they got married when he was thirty.

996
01:00:56,800 --> 01:00:59,800
Speaker 1: Just as he had told Barnum, there you go, not

997
01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:02,320
Speaker 1: there you go, way to way to predict your life.

998
01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:07,960
Speaker 1: But sadly, only three years later in eighty one, Nut

999
01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:11,280
Speaker 1: had an attack of Bright's disease or nephritis, which is

1000
01:01:11,400 --> 01:01:15,320
Speaker 1: a kidney disease, and he died. His wife apparently cried

1001
01:01:15,400 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 1: over his coffin. She said, he was so good. It's

1002
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 1: like so good, like he was so good, or like

1003
01:01:23,240 --> 01:01:29,040
Speaker 1: he was so good. Oh my good at the funeral,

1004
01:01:29,080 --> 01:01:33,040
Speaker 1: I know, wasn't that one. In eighteen eighty three, Lavinia

1005
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:36,120
Speaker 1: and Tom were in Milwaukee performing at the New Hall

1006
01:01:36,200 --> 01:01:40,120
Speaker 1: House when a fire broke out, and Milwaukee historian John

1007
01:01:40,160 --> 01:01:43,560
Speaker 1: Gerda called it quote one of the worst hotel fires

1008
01:01:43,600 --> 01:01:48,960
Speaker 1: in American history. Over seventy one people die in it,

1009
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:52,840
Speaker 1: but fortunately not Lavinia and Tom. They were narrowly rescued

1010
01:01:52,880 --> 01:01:56,960
Speaker 1: by their manager, Sylvester Bleaker. There you go Sylvester. Way

1011
01:01:57,000 --> 01:01:59,919
Speaker 1: to go, Sylvester. Imagine just charging up the stairs. Yeah,

1012
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:02,840
Speaker 1: grabbed him both up and let's get out of here.

1013
01:02:03,480 --> 01:02:07,800
Speaker 1: But only six months later, Charles Sherwood Stratton a k a.

1014
01:02:07,880 --> 01:02:12,080
Speaker 1: General Tom Thumb died suddenly of a stroke. He was

1015
01:02:12,120 --> 01:02:18,040
Speaker 1: only forty five years old. Over twenty people attended his funeral.

1016
01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:22,400
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about like Frederick Douglas, who had two thousand people,

1017
01:02:22,960 --> 01:02:27,480
Speaker 1: like damn, like so many. I think we can we

1018
01:02:27,520 --> 01:02:29,960
Speaker 1: can say at least that we don't necessarily measure a

1019
01:02:30,000 --> 01:02:32,440
Speaker 1: man's worth by the number of people at their funeral.

1020
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 1: The true and we haven't changed much as a country.

1021
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:41,240
Speaker 1: Like Barnum had a statue of him built as his gravestone,

1022
01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:45,560
Speaker 1: and he was buried at the Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut,

1023
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:48,880
Speaker 1: which was a cemetery Barnum had donated the land for

1024
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:53,160
Speaker 1: and designed himself Um and Bridgeport is also General Tom

1025
01:02:53,160 --> 01:02:56,400
Speaker 1: Thumb's birthplace. So I wonder if that's why I chose

1026
01:02:56,520 --> 01:02:58,880
Speaker 1: that hand, you know, if that was like a connection

1027
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:01,480
Speaker 1: somehow I do. I gotta say that the P. T.

1028
01:03:01,600 --> 01:03:05,040
Speaker 1: Barnum designed cemetery, in my mind, has like a merry

1029
01:03:05,040 --> 01:03:11,040
Speaker 1: go round, just like, you know, ghosts juggle and blaming swords.

1030
01:03:11,680 --> 01:03:17,360
Speaker 1: It sounds so fun. There the greatest cemetery on Earth. Oh,

1031
01:03:17,520 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 1: in eighteen nine, when Barnum himself died, he would be

1032
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:23,240
Speaker 1: buried only a few feet away from his friend and

1033
01:03:23,320 --> 01:03:26,640
Speaker 1: business partner. So that kind of shows you too, how

1034
01:03:26,720 --> 01:03:29,480
Speaker 1: they were close. They were. Yeah, yeah, we got to

1035
01:03:29,480 --> 01:03:31,880
Speaker 1: go to Connecticut, I guess, I guess so and see

1036
01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:36,400
Speaker 1: the greatest cemetery honor. Yeah, step right up, folks. If

1037
01:03:36,400 --> 01:03:39,800
Speaker 1: there's no ferris wheel, I'm gonna be really disappointed. But

1038
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:45,040
Speaker 1: just elephants marching through all the Yeah, Menagerie's there's a

1039
01:03:45,040 --> 01:03:48,040
Speaker 1: bearded lady greeting you at the gate. Right. Did you

1040
01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:50,400
Speaker 1: know that Barnum didn't get into the circus business until

1041
01:03:50,400 --> 01:03:54,040
Speaker 1: he was sixty. I didn't know that he was like

1042
01:03:54,120 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 1: in this museum stuff way before he got into circus

1043
01:03:57,360 --> 01:03:59,520
Speaker 1: traveling circus stuff, So I didn't I didn't know that.

1044
01:04:00,000 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 1: It's like, wow, he's a lot older than I I suspected.

1045
01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:06,000
Speaker 1: So whatever your dreams are, keep going after never too late.

1046
01:04:06,640 --> 01:04:09,760
Speaker 1: A few years after Tom Thumb's death, Lavinia married another

1047
01:04:09,800 --> 01:04:15,040
Speaker 1: famous dwarf, the Italian performer Count Primo Maghri. Together, they

1048
01:04:15,120 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 1: ran a successful and famous roadside stand in Massachusetts, and

1049
01:04:18,600 --> 01:04:22,040
Speaker 1: they traveled the world with their theater company, performing for royalty,

1050
01:04:22,120 --> 01:04:26,720
Speaker 1: including Queen Victoria. I like that Lavinia also got to

1051
01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:32,560
Speaker 1: meet under her own steam. In nineteen fifteen, she and

1052
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:36,880
Speaker 1: Magrii starred in a silent film called The Lilliputians Courtship.

1053
01:04:37,960 --> 01:04:41,360
Speaker 1: But even so, when Lavinia died in nineteen nineteen at

1054
01:04:41,440 --> 01:04:44,640
Speaker 1: seventy eight years old, she was buried next to General

1055
01:04:44,720 --> 01:04:48,800
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb Charles Sherwood Stratton under a tombstone that reads

1056
01:04:48,800 --> 01:04:54,480
Speaker 1: simply his wife, which is I've mixed feelings about because

1057
01:04:54,480 --> 01:04:57,560
Speaker 1: she was definitely her own presence, her own performer, and

1058
01:04:57,720 --> 01:05:02,120
Speaker 1: obviously her own person. So it's I mean, probably because

1059
01:05:02,120 --> 01:05:04,320
Speaker 1: it's around the same time I'm thinking about Frederick Douglas

1060
01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:07,240
Speaker 1: a lot I think about Helen Pitts. She was so

1061
01:05:07,320 --> 01:05:11,360
Speaker 1: determined to write herself out of his story. Um, that

1062
01:05:11,360 --> 01:05:13,400
Speaker 1: that was what she spent her time on. Was like, well,

1063
01:05:13,440 --> 01:05:15,360
Speaker 1: I you know, and I totally get it, because she's

1064
01:05:15,400 --> 01:05:18,560
Speaker 1: like highlight the man and his amazing words, all his work.

1065
01:05:18,640 --> 01:05:21,600
Speaker 1: He did so much great things. It's not about me. Um.

1066
01:05:21,640 --> 01:05:24,480
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's like, your contributions are

1067
01:05:24,520 --> 01:05:27,800
Speaker 1: not nothing. Why would you want to completely erase yourself

1068
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:30,680
Speaker 1: from the story. So it's funny that she felt like

1069
01:05:30,760 --> 01:05:33,400
Speaker 1: that too. Um, but we talked about that a little

1070
01:05:33,400 --> 01:05:35,640
Speaker 1: in Frederick Douglas about how women weren't supposed to be

1071
01:05:35,720 --> 01:05:38,640
Speaker 1: talked about in print necessarily whatever. So maybe it was

1072
01:05:38,680 --> 01:05:41,240
Speaker 1: like kind of weird to like put your splash your

1073
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:44,840
Speaker 1: ship up or something like it was considered. Sure, I

1074
01:05:44,880 --> 01:05:46,800
Speaker 1: think if it were me, I'd be like the Queen

1075
01:05:46,840 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 1: of Beauty lies here. I'm the Queen of Beauty, Queen

1076
01:05:54,320 --> 01:06:00,800
Speaker 1: of Beauty Lavinia, who also performed for Queen Victoria, who

1077
01:06:00,840 --> 01:06:04,200
Speaker 1: was then a countess. I mean, it's a pretty cool life.

1078
01:06:04,240 --> 01:06:07,000
Speaker 1: So but I can see too that you know, there's

1079
01:06:07,040 --> 01:06:11,920
Speaker 1: something very devoted and romantic about her being like, that's

1080
01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:14,200
Speaker 1: all I really cared about was being his wife. That's

1081
01:06:14,320 --> 01:06:17,200
Speaker 1: my best role I've ever played something like that. Meanwhile,

1082
01:06:17,360 --> 01:06:22,800
Speaker 1: Count Primo is like what I thought, the same thing,

1083
01:06:22,800 --> 01:06:25,200
Speaker 1: because he was he died like a couple of years later,

1084
01:06:25,280 --> 01:06:29,000
Speaker 1: so he was alive to see her buried under somewhat

1085
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:32,640
Speaker 1: next to a different guy. Well, anyway, you know, maybe

1086
01:06:32,640 --> 01:06:34,760
Speaker 1: it's a business arrangement and he was like, you're the

1087
01:06:34,800 --> 01:06:37,840
Speaker 1: queen of beauty. I need those, sidekick, Let's do this.

1088
01:06:38,480 --> 01:06:40,680
Speaker 1: I don't know well, and I know a lot of couples.

1089
01:06:40,960 --> 01:06:42,800
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people who have married widows

1090
01:06:42,840 --> 01:06:45,560
Speaker 1: or widowers. Uh, you know, have a lot of respect

1091
01:06:45,600 --> 01:06:47,920
Speaker 1: for their previous marriage and things like that too. So

1092
01:06:48,000 --> 01:06:50,680
Speaker 1: maybe he was totally fine with it. We can't know

1093
01:06:51,240 --> 01:06:54,400
Speaker 1: until we get until we get a Lincoln's phone both

1094
01:06:54,400 --> 01:06:57,480
Speaker 1: time machine, and we'd go back and ask him ourselves. Yeah,

1095
01:06:57,520 --> 01:07:00,640
Speaker 1: one day someone will gift us that. So a B. Lincoln,

1096
01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:04,640
Speaker 1: if you're listening, please ride your phone with time machine

1097
01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:09,440
Speaker 1: right over here. We've got some questions, many questions. Well

1098
01:07:09,520 --> 01:07:13,919
Speaker 1: that was a really fun story. YEA, like a little triangle. Yeah, yeah,

1099
01:07:15,520 --> 01:07:19,600
Speaker 1: weird age difference thing. I know, it's so funny. I

1100
01:07:19,640 --> 01:07:21,800
Speaker 1: love this thirteen year old boy just being like, I'm

1101
01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:24,240
Speaker 1: not going to get married till I'm thirty. Now. I

1102
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:26,000
Speaker 1: guess he was older when he said that, but still

1103
01:07:26,080 --> 01:07:29,240
Speaker 1: he's stuck with it. Did He was like, No, I

1104
01:07:29,280 --> 01:07:31,720
Speaker 1: said when I was thirteen that I'm swearing off marriage.

1105
01:07:32,160 --> 01:07:38,640
Speaker 1: Now that I'm an adult, we'll say thirty. I'm having

1106
01:07:38,680 --> 01:07:42,720
Speaker 1: fun with the ladies, right, Um, I did wonder about

1107
01:07:42,720 --> 01:07:46,600
Speaker 1: that because it's kind of treated as like a very

1108
01:07:46,640 --> 01:07:49,520
Speaker 1: equal competition. I guess like you were kind of standing

1109
01:07:49,520 --> 01:07:52,320
Speaker 1: on the same level. But I don't see that that

1110
01:07:52,400 --> 01:07:54,600
Speaker 1: way at all with their ages. No, not at all.

1111
01:07:54,600 --> 01:07:56,360
Speaker 1: It's just funny to me that it wasn't more of

1112
01:07:56,400 --> 01:07:59,160
Speaker 1: the I mean again, I didn't get to dive as

1113
01:07:59,160 --> 01:08:01,800
Speaker 1: deep as I would app but you know, some of

1114
01:08:01,880 --> 01:08:03,440
Speaker 1: us just like, well, anyway, they both liked her, and

1115
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:05,800
Speaker 1: she chose this guy anyway, who knows why. And I

1116
01:08:05,840 --> 01:08:09,120
Speaker 1: was like, because he's a teenager, that's a very obvious reason.

1117
01:08:10,680 --> 01:08:12,560
Speaker 1: But she definitely was like, I'm quite a woman and

1118
01:08:12,600 --> 01:08:16,880
Speaker 1: you're just a little kid. So anyway, but he stayed

1119
01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:19,200
Speaker 1: loyal to her. You have to admit he sure did.

1120
01:08:19,400 --> 01:08:21,639
Speaker 1: He's like, I love that woman. And that's it for Hey,

1121
01:08:21,760 --> 01:08:24,560
Speaker 1: that that first teenage crush can really leave an impression.

1122
01:08:25,439 --> 01:08:31,840
Speaker 1: Oh Jillian, Oh Jillian, I don't remember her laz name. Yeah, no,

1123
01:08:32,000 --> 01:08:35,080
Speaker 1: thank you Maco Repdia for this suggestion because it was

1124
01:08:35,120 --> 01:08:37,400
Speaker 1: a really fun story and you'll check out their episode

1125
01:08:37,400 --> 01:08:41,320
Speaker 1: about it as well. Yeah, definitely for a different take. Um. Yeah,

1126
01:08:41,360 --> 01:08:43,200
Speaker 1: I'm glad we got to dive into this one and

1127
01:08:43,280 --> 01:08:45,800
Speaker 1: I hope you all enjoyed it as well. Yeah, let

1128
01:08:45,880 --> 01:08:48,679
Speaker 1: us know what she thought. Email us We're at Raddic

1129
01:08:48,920 --> 01:08:51,320
Speaker 1: Romance at gmail dot com that's right, or find us

1130
01:08:51,320 --> 01:08:54,840
Speaker 1: on social media Twitter, Instagram, I'm at Oh great, it's Eli,

1131
01:08:55,040 --> 01:08:57,840
Speaker 1: I'm at Dianamite Boom, and of course the show at

1132
01:08:57,920 --> 01:09:01,040
Speaker 1: Riddic Romance. Follow along and say hey, we'd love to

1133
01:09:01,080 --> 01:09:03,719
Speaker 1: hear from you and we'll catch you later this week

1134
01:09:03,720 --> 01:09:08,639
Speaker 1: with another exciting episode. Can't wait see you then, So long, friends,

1135
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:12,360
Speaker 1: it's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show.

1136
01:09:12,880 --> 01:09:16,000
Speaker 1: Tell your friends neighbor's uncle s Indance to listen to

1137
01:09:16,080 --> 01:09:17,800
Speaker 1: a show Ridiculous Well Dance