Speaker 1: I feel like everyone in the eighteen sixties sounded like
Speaker 1: sounded like Abraham Lincoln little because this is what Abraham
Speaker 1: Lincoln sounded like, and that's what he sounded like in
Speaker 1: the Bill and Ted movie. So that score and seven
Speaker 1: minutes ago. Ultimate personification of Abraham Lincoln, besides the man
Speaker 1: himself obviously, was that Bill and tedform. Yeah, suck a.
Speaker 1: Daniel day Lewis, Yeah, Daniel day Lewis watched Bill and
Speaker 1: Ted's Excellent Adventure on Loop for months preparing for his role.
Speaker 1: He lived and breathed as Abraham Lincoln, specifically from Bill
Speaker 1: and he spent a lot of time with the mall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he went to the mall giving history reports for Stoner's
Speaker 1: uh the other voice. I feel like for this time period,
Speaker 1: it was embodied by Kevin Klein when he played Ulysses S.
Speaker 1: Grant in the historical non fiction piece Wild Wild West.
Speaker 1: Do you think it would be worth it to revisit
Speaker 1: Cowboys and Aliens? Because I wanted that to be way
Speaker 1: more fun and it just wasn't. Folks. This episode just
Speaker 1: changed to me talking about cowboys and aliens because here's
Speaker 1: the thing, Because here's the thing that movie had every
Speaker 1: single thing going for it. There's only two movies where
Speaker 1: I feel like failed this spectacularly by their setups. Because
Speaker 1: Cowboys and Aliens, you're you're done, the movie is done.
Speaker 1: All you need is the title and it's and it's
Speaker 1: ready to go. And they somehow took that movie, put
Speaker 1: Daniel Craig in it, put Walton Goggins in it, and
Speaker 1: somehow it's actually kind of slow and dull, and it's
Speaker 1: like they couldn't make up their minds. If they were
Speaker 1: like gonna really wow, us would be like, I know
Speaker 1: it's called Cowboys and Aliens, but it's actually really good.
Speaker 1: And you know what, it's Cowboys and Aliens. This is
Speaker 1: just can't be nonsense. It's like they were lost somewhere
Speaker 1: in between those two and couldn't find a good movie
Speaker 1: out of it. That the most the biggest spread between
Speaker 1: how good a movie should have been and how bad
Speaker 1: it was was Assassin's Creed. The Game is a movie
Speaker 1: that you play the stories there, it's totally fine, it
Speaker 1: would make a great movie. Then you get Maryann coat
Speaker 1: Yard and you get Jeremy Irons, and then you top
Speaker 1: it all off with Michael Fastbender. Three Absolute Our House
Speaker 1: actors and it was garbage. It was I don't I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that was rude to garbage. It was so bad?
Speaker 1: Why garbage everywhere? Why was that movie so bad? Are
Speaker 1: there any good video game movies? Yes, there's a good
Speaker 1: video game movie. Well there's a first of all super
Speaker 1: Mario Brothers. First of all Super Mario Brothers. Super Mario Brothers,
Speaker 1: look y'all? Sometimes was I turned to Diana. I was like,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen the old Super Mario Brothers movie?
Speaker 1: And she was like no, And I was like, it's
Speaker 1: so bad, Like it's renowned for it's badness and I
Speaker 1: loved it as a kid, but let's watch it because
Speaker 1: it's so cheeseball. And we had to watch it. And
Speaker 1: I was like, I love Bob Hoskins, right, whatever he
Speaker 1: wants to do, Sure, I will watch this terrible film absolutely.
Speaker 1: And we had to find it on YouTube in like
Speaker 1: sections like you had to watch like eight minutes at
Speaker 1: a time something. Yeah. I was so here and like
Speaker 1: we sit down, we're just ready to laugh at this movie.
Speaker 1: And I think, like thirty minutes in, both of us
Speaker 1: were just like why is this good? I kept looking.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, he told me it was bad.
Speaker 1: I'm like really having a good time watching this. I
Speaker 1: think it's a good movie, and am I like way off?
Speaker 1: And then you looked at me were like, this, actually
Speaker 1: it's good. It's ahead of its time because it was
Speaker 1: the gritty reboot before there were gritty reboots. But it's
Speaker 1: still fun. It's not dour, it's not brooding. It's a
Speaker 1: it's an invention, like it's a total it's not a
Speaker 1: super Mario Brothers movie. It's so different. It's just taking
Speaker 1: elements from Super Mario Brothers and making this weird nineties
Speaker 1: techno sci fi movie that has no right to be
Speaker 1: as good as it is. But I think it's just
Speaker 1: it's such a ridiculous swing that you're like, there's no
Speaker 1: way this is going to hit. And then they hit it,
Speaker 1: and he's just like, why did this work? Enjoyable? I
Speaker 1: had a good time. I don't know why, man you.
Speaker 1: John Laguizamo also just a class He's good and everything.
Speaker 1: Dennis Hopper didn't know what the hell he was doing there,
Speaker 1: but he nailed it. OK. He was like whatever, I'm
Speaker 1: still going to bring it out, Dennis. Those are pretty
Speaker 1: much Prince of Prussia. No, well, we didn't see that.
Speaker 1: We didn't, But did we did? You know? Yeah? But
Speaker 1: no everyone, Yeah, Street Fighters, Good, Assassin's Greets, Garbage, uncharted,
Speaker 1: We haven't seen then either. Yeah, it's true. And this
Speaker 1: is like a lot of this is hearsay, I suppose
Speaker 1: from the critics. But I know that it did not
Speaker 1: get good reviews. Angry birds, you know, didn't catch that
Speaker 1: one somehow, for some reason, didn't go to that. Well,
Speaker 1: one day, I'll we'll do a movie review podcast. Um,
Speaker 1: what the world is crying out for? Ye, there just
Speaker 1: aren't enough movie review podcasts out there, not enough people
Speaker 1: talking about media. So one day, but it is not
Speaker 1: this day. Um, this day. We're here for a fun story.
Speaker 1: But um, you know what we haven't done in a
Speaker 1: hot minute is reach into this big, overflowing mailbag we
Speaker 1: have and read some of these awesome emails that we've
Speaker 1: been getting from our listeners. So I think that it's
Speaker 1: time for a mailco awesome. This email came in a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago from a listener named Sarah Gilbert. Hi, Sarah,
Speaker 1: thanks for reaching out. Hello. We're very excited to get
Speaker 1: this email. Just really warmed our hearts and I think
Speaker 1: it will for y'all too. She starts off by saying, Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: I love the show and I listened to every episode,
Speaker 1: but I'll admit when I saw Pandemic Love Stories, it
Speaker 1: took me a while to listen, mainly because it hit
Speaker 1: really close to home. And that's because Sarah and her
Speaker 1: fiance we're going to get married in March of but
Speaker 1: of course we don't need to tell you or anyone
Speaker 1: in the world. One in the world and their venue closed.
Speaker 1: Sarah said she had handmade all of her decorations, flowers,
Speaker 1: and centerpieces out of paper over their year and a
Speaker 1: half engagement. So props to Sarah. That sounds crazy to me.
Speaker 1: I'm not a crafter, though, that's I would I find that.
Speaker 1: I think I would go in state if I try
Speaker 1: to do that, But I bet they are so cute.
Speaker 1: So her first instat Cart order of the Pandemic was
Speaker 1: for big plastic storage tubs for all of these decorations
Speaker 1: that she had, like probably got a million paper cuts.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I know, right, She said, I had
Speaker 1: originally planned to surprise my husband by booking the Carolina
Speaker 1: Panthers mascot surper to make an appearance at the reception.
Speaker 1: Great name, so exciting too if you that's your team
Speaker 1: and the mascot shows up and his name is Surper.
Speaker 1: She goes, on the first night after we got the
Speaker 1: news of the venue had closed, I was sobbing into
Speaker 1: my husband's chest and I blurted out, we were gonna
Speaker 1: get Surper. Just can't imagine, she says, in hindsight, it's
Speaker 1: a funny moment, but it definitely took him by surprise.
Speaker 1: He was like, wait, what we were going to get Surper?
Speaker 1: In what way are we getting Surper? Can he still
Speaker 1: come over? I mean he's wearing a mask. Oh man.
Speaker 1: But she said, you know, they found things to be
Speaker 1: happy for. They kept their jobs, they never got sick themselves.
Speaker 1: Definitely a blessing. They recognized that people were going through
Speaker 1: a lot worse, you know, throughout the pandemic than them
Speaker 1: having to change their wedding days, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: keep everything in perspective. And they finally got married in
Speaker 1: April of one, so they just celebrated their first anniversary.
Speaker 1: Happy anniversary. Of course, they had to get married within
Speaker 1: a lot of restrictions. A lot of guests couldn't make it,
Speaker 1: so probably one of those very small intimate weddings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she said she was especially disappointed that her grandmother couldn't come.
Speaker 1: It's her last leving grandparents. She wasn't able to get
Speaker 1: She's rural, so she couldn't get the shot in time
Speaker 1: and stuff. So it was right in between what she
Speaker 1: called the original recipe COVID and the delta version original recipe,
Speaker 1: but she closed out, she said, coming up on our
Speaker 1: first anniversary, I greatly enjoyed your episodes, especially part two,
Speaker 1: which was when we had Cherry and Jason on and
Speaker 1: it was a great reminder that it's okay to mourn
Speaker 1: what we lost while still celebrating what we eventually got
Speaker 1: to have. And at the end of the day, we
Speaker 1: have each other and it feels like we can conquer
Speaker 1: anything together. Now. Such a good lesson to take from
Speaker 1: this whole thing, right, totally. I'm so glad you found
Speaker 1: that in that episode, Sarah, definitely, and in the whole experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta you gotta live with how it is,
Speaker 1: however you wanted it to be. And so there's two
Speaker 1: ways to do that. One is with a lot of
Speaker 1: resentment bitterness in your heart, and another one is going Okay,
Speaker 1: how can I make this all right? And I love
Speaker 1: that people managed to make it all right? Definitely definitely,
Speaker 1: so thank you so much for writing in and happy anniversary.
Speaker 1: But may there be many more? Do you here in
Speaker 1: this Surper thing? So like the birthday thing? Maybe yes,
Speaker 1: Surper will make his appearance like in your fifth anniversary,
Speaker 1: you know, like go big for the mascot anniversary? Is
Speaker 1: there a mascot anniversity? Paper Wood mascot got you a mask?
Speaker 1: But yeah, thank you Sarah for writing in. That's so wonderful.
Speaker 1: Congratulations to you guys. Happy anniversary definitely, and you'll keep
Speaker 1: sending in your stories. Remember you can hit us now
Speaker 1: at ridic Romance at gmail dot com and we love
Speaker 1: hearing from you. But now we have a whole new
Speaker 1: story for you, brand new off the press is hot
Speaker 1: off the press, Not really, it's piping hot fresh content
Speaker 1: here on Ridiculous Romance, Breaking News Bulletins Now. This story
Speaker 1: was suggested by macab Repeadia, which is another podcast hosted
Speaker 1: by a married couple, and they did an episode about
Speaker 1: this but then tagged us on Twitter and we're like, hey,
Speaker 1: this totally deserves the Ridiculous Romance treatment. If you all
Speaker 1: want to check this out, and they were right, so
Speaker 1: we gave it our very personal spin. Yes, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. That's just such a good idea. Didn't love
Speaker 1: the circus. So it's eighteen sixty three, you know, the
Speaker 1: United States, not so united at this point in history,
Speaker 1: were being torn apart by Civil War, which seemed like
Speaker 1: it was going to drag on forever, pitting brothers against
Speaker 1: brothers and fathers against sons. And also the Union Army
Speaker 1: wasn't really doing very great at this point, so it
Speaker 1: was kind of looking a little dire. So it was
Speaker 1: a welcome diversion to the entire nation when that great
Speaker 1: entertainer and showman P. T. Barnum announced the wedding between
Speaker 1: two of America's favorite circus performers, Lavinia Warren and General
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb. But Tom's best man, Commodore Nut, would have
Speaker 1: been only too happy to trade places with the groom.
Speaker 1: So let's hear all about this love triangle and the
Speaker 1: fairy wedding that captivated the nation. Lets go, hey, their
Speaker 1: French comlution. Well, Elia and Diana got stories to tell.
Speaker 1: There's no matchmaking a romantic tips, It's just about ridiculous relationships.
Speaker 1: A love, it might be any type of person at all,
Speaker 1: and abstract cons at a concrete wall. But if there's
Speaker 1: a story with the second clinch, ridiculous rolls a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. It's eighteen forty one and P. T.
Speaker 1: Barnum is starting over. The showman and entertainer had had
Speaker 1: some success with his first variety troupe in the eighteen thirties,
Speaker 1: but then the Panic of eighteen thirty seven happened and
Speaker 1: he hit on some hard times. Wasn't doing super well,
Speaker 1: but in eighteen forty one he purchased Scudder's American Museum
Speaker 1: and renamed it, of course, Barnum's American Museum. He improved
Speaker 1: on the building. He added delights such as the rooftop
Speaker 1: strolling garden, and painted murals of exotic animals, and inside
Speaker 1: the museum he exhibited a menagerie of exotic animals and
Speaker 1: different curiosities, and of course, quote unquote freaks including albinos
Speaker 1: or giants or exotic women whatever that means. Um, jugglers
Speaker 1: and magicians. Those are fun. Some people were just builled
Speaker 1: as being cannibals. I don't know what the proof was.
Speaker 1: Did they have to eat like a finger in front
Speaker 1: of you. I don't know, is it enough to just
Speaker 1: be like they're from an island somewhere. Probably probably little people,
Speaker 1: of course, and many many more, like pretty much any
Speaker 1: type of person he thought he could get you to
Speaker 1: buy a ticket to come look at he's going to
Speaker 1: hire them. It's like you have hair in weird places. Yes,
Speaker 1: let's go. This guy's teeth are a little pointier than
Speaker 1: other people's. Come on in, now you're a vampire or something.
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out. This guy kind of whistles when
Speaker 1: he says the letter s see the amazing whistleman. I
Speaker 1: do want to jump into and say that if you
Speaker 1: go back and listen to our episode from June about
Speaker 1: Alan Jeanie Tominy this that's where he took place quite
Speaker 1: a bit later. That was in like more than nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties and thirties. But we do get into a lot
Speaker 1: in that episode about the history of of what they
Speaker 1: called the freak Show and uh and and just the
Speaker 1: complexities of these kinds of parts of the American circus
Speaker 1: and how it was very beneficial and some people saw
Speaker 1: it as a wonderful thing and some people saw it
Speaker 1: as more challenging and kind of exploitative. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of conversation there. We won't rehash it now, but definitely
Speaker 1: go back and hear that episode because it's also I
Speaker 1: think one of the most beautiful love stories were called
Speaker 1: on this show about two of the strangest and most
Speaker 1: amazing people. They're beautiful. Now. It's important to note here
Speaker 1: that not every type of little person was considered the
Speaker 1: quotes good type. According to Barnum, he and showman like
Speaker 1: him preferred what's called proportionate dwarves because they basically look
Speaker 1: like miniature versions of adults. Their bodies were perfectly proportionate.
Speaker 1: They were just small. According to an essay by Leonard
Speaker 1: saw Wish, who's a clinical psychologist and a disability expert
Speaker 1: and himself a dwarf, Barnum actually coined the term midget
Speaker 1: around this time, as he writes to quote described members
Speaker 1: of the dwarf community who were the most socially acceptable
Speaker 1: i e. Well proportioned little people who could entertain on
Speaker 1: the front stage for polite society. The rest of the
Speaker 1: dwarf community, those of us whose bodies are shaped differently
Speaker 1: enough to look more than just really short, were relegated
Speaker 1: to the backstage or freak shows. So you can see
Speaker 1: that there was a hierarchy here even within that that
Speaker 1: that circus community when you had people like Barnum in charge.
Speaker 1: And that is why you know, the M word is
Speaker 1: now considered a slur is because there's never a medical term.
Speaker 1: It was always of just a selling points that Barnum
Speaker 1: was trying to differentiate his attractive, perfect little people from
Speaker 1: all those weirdos, you know, like, so it created within
Speaker 1: the community a similar hierarchy, and I think that's kind
Speaker 1: of why it fell out of favor over time, or
Speaker 1: it was like, we're kind of now inside our own community,
Speaker 1: creating this weird supremacy and like leaving people out, and
Speaker 1: people would use the term to describe like anything sort
Speaker 1: of small or weird, So it just started being just
Speaker 1: really negatively associated, even though around this time particularly was
Speaker 1: preferred to dwarf, but not anymore. So don't say that
Speaker 1: ship if you still are now. It wasn't long after
Speaker 1: Barnum opened his American Museum that he heard about a
Speaker 1: little person named Charles Sherwood Stratton. Now Charles had been
Speaker 1: born a strapping nine pound baby, but when he was
Speaker 1: eleven months old, he basically just stopped growing um physically. Emotionally,
Speaker 1: mentally everything's fine, but physically he's just not getting any bigger.
Speaker 1: And by the time he was five and eight forty two,
Speaker 1: he was just over two feet tall. But he was
Speaker 1: really clever. He was witty. Again, he's proportionate. So P. T.
Speaker 1: Barnham's like, this kid's going to be a star. I
Speaker 1: know that he's going to be a treasure. So he
Speaker 1: signed Charles onto his management company and he started training
Speaker 1: him in all the arts of entertainment, singing, dancing, mine
Speaker 1: he did impersonations of famous people? Can I ask impersonations
Speaker 1: of famous people? In eighteen sixty three? Like, how do
Speaker 1: you know? When people sounded like like is he up
Speaker 1: there being like Abraham Lincoln? And people like I guess
Speaker 1: you are because you said it. I've never heard his voice.
Speaker 1: It's eighteen sixty right, I do wonder that, Like they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: what if you saw the impersonator first before you ever
Speaker 1: saw the famous person, and when the famous person showed up,
Speaker 1: You're like, I don't know, it didn't sound like that impersonation.
Speaker 1: Are we sure this is the real Abraham Lincoln? When
Speaker 1: Stratton was over here, he said away different Abo like
Speaker 1: he's five years old, like who are you? Who are
Speaker 1: you doing? But he apparently in his act by the
Speaker 1: time he was five, he was drinking wine and his act.
Speaker 1: By the time he was seven, he was smoking cigars
Speaker 1: in his act. So you know, I mean, maybe there's
Speaker 1: like a some famous cigar smoking guy. He's out here
Speaker 1: being George Burns or something, a good respect dangerfield. Dangerfield.
Speaker 1: So when he was only five, he and Barnum embarked
Speaker 1: on their first American tour, and Barnum, you know, he's
Speaker 1: got to package him up, so he starts calling him
Speaker 1: General Tom Thumb, after the English fairytale character, and he
Speaker 1: told audiences that he had been brought over from England
Speaker 1: had great expense, even though he was actually born in Connecticut,
Speaker 1: was not born in England. But he's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: had to like get him on a ship and it's
Speaker 1: a whole thing from the exotic lens of the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: And he even lied about his age. He told people
Speaker 1: that Tom Thumb was eleven years old, so people wouldn't
Speaker 1: just come come to the show and be like, man,
Speaker 1: that's just a that's just a big baby, that's just
Speaker 1: a little bit of a small toddler that ain't a
Speaker 1: little person. Now. The tour was a huge success, such
Speaker 1: a huge success that only a year later Barnum took
Speaker 1: Tom on a tour to England, is made up his homeland.
Speaker 1: It's eighty four, so it wasn't really that long after
Speaker 1: the little kerfuffle between America and England. So this was
Speaker 1: a risky move for Barnum. English audiences believe that they
Speaker 1: were generally, you know, classier and superior to those Americans.
Speaker 1: So there's my colonial up starck rep scallions, so they
Speaker 1: might not respond to the same type of entertainment. But Barnum,
Speaker 1: that pr genius, decided that he was going to pad
Speaker 1: his pockets a little before he left, just in case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he told all his American audiences that Tom Thumb
Speaker 1: just that it's just a fuel more farewell performances before
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb has to go back to the strange mystical
Speaker 1: lands of England. So so he raised all this extra money.
Speaker 1: But when they got their overseas, nobody was buying tickets.
Speaker 1: Kathleen Hawkins, in the BBC article titled The Real Tom
Speaker 1: Thumb and the Birth of Celebrity, says that Barnum quote
Speaker 1: quickly learned the importance of class status in England, and
Speaker 1: the marketing of Stratton to the upper echelon's aristocratic endorsement
Speaker 1: quickly advanced his popularity. Night led to Lord and Lord
Speaker 1: led to Duke until they got a personal invitation from
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria to Buckingham Palace. So a lot of just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta figure out how to work the
Speaker 1: English audience. And it's not like Americans. He can't just
Speaker 1: show up and start throwing popcorn of people and they're
Speaker 1: going to come out to watch whatever happens. These these
Speaker 1: classy aristocratic types need to hear about it from someone
Speaker 1: important and it just spread the word of mouth from
Speaker 1: Night to Lord to Duke. They want to hear from
Speaker 1: trusted through Well if the Duke says, so, wait, did
Speaker 1: you know the dukes that we should help this little
Speaker 1: pulse to the cut Well, perfect, because I need permission
Speaker 1: to enjoy something, permission. I was thinking, Uh, that's interesting
Speaker 1: you say that they would want to be like, it's
Speaker 1: like an Angie's List for restocrats. I only want to
Speaker 1: hear it from a trusted friend, um, whereas here it's
Speaker 1: just like throw some pamphlets around and get who you get.
Speaker 1: But I also wonder if it's because, like they were
Speaker 1: more in America, was more about like volume over quality
Speaker 1: of audience members. You know, He's like, I want to,
Speaker 1: you know, get people in for a penny. I just
Speaker 1: need a penion people to come, and I'm great, And
Speaker 1: then over there he's trying that, and it was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, no, no, you have to really cater to
Speaker 1: a totally different You have to cater to that audience
Speaker 1: in its special way. We're performing in the downtown foyer,
Speaker 1: but they would have sixteen chairs laid out, a four
Speaker 1: piece orchestra and you know, yes, and the the Duke
Speaker 1: and Duchess will be there, and each of them paid
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred pounds to see him. Yes, And still Carson
Speaker 1: thinks it's much too mother, Oh Carson, that kind of
Speaker 1: thing didn't happen in my day. I would rather be
Speaker 1: shot in the head. My lord. He's such a drama
Speaker 1: queens that Carson. Anyway, I don't know, am I right?
Speaker 1: So anyway, Yeah, they had this invitation to go see
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria in her court, and again that's a little
Speaker 1: risky because there's a lot of court etiquette. You know,
Speaker 1: you meet the Queen. There's a very particular way you
Speaker 1: talk to her. You look at her, you move around her.
Speaker 1: You know, she's a very protected gal. Some people train
Speaker 1: their whole lives just to say hello to the queen
Speaker 1: one time. And Tom, you know, first of all Americans,
Speaker 1: second of all, six years old, he does not know
Speaker 1: the etiquette that well. So he when he came in,
Speaker 1: he's just like, hello, ladies and gentlemen. Like everyone's like
Speaker 1: audible gasp from the what did he say? What did
Speaker 1: he look around the eye? And then he did his act,
Speaker 1: which went over very well. Everybody seemed to like it.
Speaker 1: And then he did try to do the thing where
Speaker 1: you bow your way out of the room, never turning
Speaker 1: your back on the queen. You're not ever supposed to
Speaker 1: turn your back on. So they're trying to bow, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't really do it because he's short and he's young.
Speaker 1: He's like, I'll turn around and run a little way,
Speaker 1: and then I'll turn back around to the queen and bow.
Speaker 1: And he turned around and run a little way and
Speaker 1: then turn back and bow, trying to keep up probably
Speaker 1: a barn um or the rest of his party who
Speaker 1: were all bowing their way out but the Queen had
Speaker 1: a little dog who got very excited by all this
Speaker 1: running and turning and running and turning, as dogs will do,
Speaker 1: and started like nipping at his feet and barking at
Speaker 1: him and just getting real excited and playful. And so Tom,
Speaker 1: you know, at this point, he's he's been in the
Speaker 1: show business for like what a year life, basically a
Speaker 1: veteran at this point, so he knows what to do.
Speaker 1: He handled it really well. He pulled out this fake
Speaker 1: ceremonial sword that he was wearing as part of his
Speaker 1: costume and started fake sword fighting with the dog. The
Speaker 1: whole court fell over laughing. It was the funniest thing
Speaker 1: I ever saw my life. Queen's rolling on the floor,
Speaker 1: can you imagine? I can't, but I would, especially Queen Victoria,
Speaker 1: she's so like buttoned up. But yeah, it did, did
Speaker 1: really well, and just a good example of how quick
Speaker 1: he was on his feet. You know, he's a real clever,
Speaker 1: witty kid um And so anyway, this visit was just
Speaker 1: a huge publicity windfall for the whole or general. Tom
Speaker 1: Thumb became an international celebrity and their success in England
Speaker 1: was a shared and it wasn't long before Tom's three
Speaker 1: dollar a week salary became fifty dollars a week, and
Speaker 1: he and Barnum spent the next three years touring Europe.
Speaker 1: So they were really taking like world by storm man.
Speaker 1: I wasn't making no fifty bucks a week when I
Speaker 1: was six years old. I wasn't going to Europe either,
Speaker 1: That's for sure. I was on a stage, but I
Speaker 1: was performing in a church basement in Christmas pageants. I
Speaker 1: don't think I was on stage, but i'm I guess.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I didn't have the responsibility of meeting the
Speaker 1: queen when I was sick. Yeah, I would not have
Speaker 1: done insults her somehow. Whatever I would have sword, I
Speaker 1: would have sort fought that dog would have been adorable.
Speaker 1: It's been so cute. Yeah. Well, According to Michael M. Chemmer's,
Speaker 1: who's the author of nineteenth Century Theater and Film, Tom
Speaker 1: Thumb's success was a turning point in the US. Previously,
Speaker 1: exhibiting human curiosities have been seen as pretty ghosh and dishonorable,
Speaker 1: and was considered a low grade form of entertainment. But
Speaker 1: since Tom was so talented and just charismatic and just
Speaker 1: so good at being this showman and p t. Barnum
Speaker 1: actually wanted to lean on his true gifts as a performer,
Speaker 1: all that showmanship, instead of just his short stature. His
Speaker 1: performances doing comedy and song and dance numbers totally changed
Speaker 1: the country's perceptions of these so called freak shows, and
Speaker 1: it made them one of the most popular forms of
Speaker 1: entertainment around. And some critics chose to judge Tom as
Speaker 1: a professional entertainer rather than one of these freak show attractions.
Speaker 1: They were like, what what if we judge him the
Speaker 1: same way we judge all performers, like a novel idea.
Speaker 1: You know what, He's not so different, after all, this
Speaker 1: one must be different. Probably so Barnum in general, Tom
Speaker 1: th Um are doing great. But you know Barnum, he's
Speaker 1: always hustling. He's always trying to add to the team
Speaker 1: that get get stacked that line up. Real Nick Fury
Speaker 1: of his day, definitely so. In the late eighteen fifties,
Speaker 1: he had heard a little bit about a handsome, young
Speaker 1: little person from New Hampshire named George Washington Morrison nut
Speaker 1: What a name, Quite a name, and I think we
Speaker 1: should hear more about him. Right after this break and
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. So Barnum had heard about
Speaker 1: this kid, George Washington Morrison Nut, and he heard that
Speaker 1: this boy was being exhibited for only a nickel a look,
Speaker 1: and his education was being neglected, which really disgusted Barnum.
Speaker 1: He did not like that kind of behavior. Yeah, Barnum
Speaker 1: looked out for his people in ways that are debatable,
Speaker 1: but by and large, he wanted them to be paid well. Um,
Speaker 1: he wanted them to have opportunities. Yeah, it's he's a
Speaker 1: tough character, I think to look at and from our perspective,
Speaker 1: because he was very money driven, certainly, and he had
Speaker 1: so many like horrible things that were happening, but they
Speaker 1: were very much of their time as well. And anyway, Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but it must be said the people who
Speaker 1: worked for him were treated pretty really well. They had
Speaker 1: good benefits, they were paid, they paid really high wages.
Speaker 1: I think that he really did not want to treat
Speaker 1: them like not members of society. He knew they were
Speaker 1: his resources. And uh, and if he lost them to competition,
Speaker 1: you know, he didn't have a show. That's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: So anyway, in eighteen sixty one, Nut visited Barnum's American
Speaker 1: Museum for the first time and Barnum's us mat chance,
Speaker 1: so he hired a lawyer to learn Nut away from
Speaker 1: this crappy manager who wasn't doing anything for him. Now,
Speaker 1: Nuts only twelve at this point, so the lawyer goes
Speaker 1: straight to his parents and promises like a huge sum
Speaker 1: of money if they I'm their son to a five
Speaker 1: year contract starting at twelve dollars a week, although there
Speaker 1: were other significant like money perks at the end of
Speaker 1: you know, the end of the month, at the end
Speaker 1: of a couple of years. You know, it's all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff like that built into the contract. But even
Speaker 1: more than that, all his food, clothing, travel, and medical
Speaker 1: care costs would be covered, and he promised to give
Speaker 1: the boy a genteel education and help him grow up
Speaker 1: to be a very classy, awesome dude. Parents were like cool,
Speaker 1: sounds great, and then signed on the bad line. Now again,
Speaker 1: Barnum showed his acumen as a pr genius here because
Speaker 1: even though the contract was already signed, he made other
Speaker 1: theatrical agents and managers think that he was still trying
Speaker 1: to hire this kid. That made all the other guys
Speaker 1: want him to and they all rushed to nuts parents
Speaker 1: with huge cash offers. And then while they're doing that,
Speaker 1: Barnum leaked a letter to the press where he confessed
Speaker 1: that he'd had to pay thirty and dollars to secure
Speaker 1: a contract with this kid Nut. So he became known
Speaker 1: in the press as the thirty thousand dollar Nut. My
Speaker 1: tasteless joke about this is that there's a guy listening
Speaker 1: to this who pays child support. He was like, I've
Speaker 1: had one of those. Sorry, you shouldn't talk about your
Speaker 1: kids like that. So at this point the kid's success
Speaker 1: was basically assured. But that wasn't the only thing Barnham
Speaker 1: did to make this kid stand out. He gave him
Speaker 1: the stage name Commodore Nut and had him dressed in
Speaker 1: these naval uniforms. And then he had a miniature carriage
Speaker 1: built for him in the shape of a walnut, and
Speaker 1: he had Shetland ponies pulling it along and nuts brother RODNEYA,
Speaker 1: who was also a little person, was driving the carriage
Speaker 1: in a coachman's uniform. Whole whole visual spectacle up. And
Speaker 1: then he would have them drive around town to whip
Speaker 1: up excitement about seeing them at the museum. And boy
Speaker 1: did this work. Barnam knew his business you can say
Speaker 1: that about him. So Commodore Nutt made his debut in
Speaker 1: February eighteen sixty two to great success, but not all
Speaker 1: the museum goers were satisfied because they thought Commodore nut
Speaker 1: was actually just General Tom Thumb in disguise. Barnum was
Speaker 1: trying to pretend like he had two little people when
Speaker 1: he only am a little person. And how dare you
Speaker 1: even make sure what the differences? Eighteen sixty two, this
Speaker 1: is twenty years after Barnum met Tom. Yeah, and Tom
Speaker 1: was five at the times. So Tom's twenty five, yeah,
Speaker 1: and Commodore nut here is yeah, and like thinner, he's
Speaker 1: years younger. He's thinner than the general. I mean like
Speaker 1: he doesn't really look like the General. Okay, they're just
Speaker 1: like two little people's whatever. And Nut thought it was hilarious.
Speaker 1: He's a little bit of a scamp, so he thought
Speaker 1: it was really funny, and he encouraged the crowds to
Speaker 1: think that he was Tom Thumb, which there's no heard
Speaker 1: of how he did that that I found in our
Speaker 1: preliminary research. But I imagine him being like, who me,
Speaker 1: I'm no Tom's I'm ladies and gentlemen, or am I no,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, or no, no, no, no, no no, I'm
Speaker 1: really I'm just joking. Obviously joking. Would P. T. Barnum
Speaker 1: lie to you? And he definitely would, of course he would.
Speaker 1: He's built his whole career on it. But not this time.
Speaker 1: I sing, I'm less making them lose their mind. I'm
Speaker 1: on a roller coaster. I don't know what to believe.
Speaker 1: But Barnum did not love this joke. He's like, this
Speaker 1: could be cutting into my sales. So he wrote to
Speaker 1: General Tom Thumb, who was touring the American West at
Speaker 1: the time, and asked him to cut the tour early,
Speaker 1: come back to New York. I want to put these
Speaker 1: hoax rumors to rest. So in August, Nut and Thumb
Speaker 1: appear it on stage together build as quote, the two
Speaker 1: smallest men and the greatest curiosity is living. But even
Speaker 1: though the audience is literally seeing it for themselves, like
Speaker 1: they're looking at two guys side by side, one of
Speaker 1: whom is years older than the one they some of
Speaker 1: people still thought it was the same guy, like she
Speaker 1: was still in the audience. Lan that's still thomps some
Speaker 1: kind of mirror. I don't know about this, and Barnum
Speaker 1: wrote in his autobiography, quote, it is very amusing to
Speaker 1: see how people will sometimes deceive themselves by being two incredulous.
Speaker 1: And that just really rang a bell for me for
Speaker 1: some reason. And this day and age, Yeah, boy, that
Speaker 1: all that, that impulse to go not everything is how
Speaker 1: it seems. You gotta gotta dig deep, you gotta follow
Speaker 1: the money, you gotta get down in there and figure
Speaker 1: it out. And you're like sometimes just tying yourself in
Speaker 1: a knot. Yeah, there's nothing to see. Sometimes the simplest
Speaker 1: solution is the correct one. These people, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I know I saw the moon two eyes, but I
Speaker 1: don't really trust those. I only trust what I kind
Speaker 1: of think might be true. And that's that. That's the
Speaker 1: only one mois listen to. In November of eighteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: both General Tom Thumb and Commodore Nut were invited to
Speaker 1: the White House to meet President Abraham Lincoln. It's stopped
Speaker 1: by again. When they showed up, Lincoln walked out of
Speaker 1: a cabinet meeting to see them. Everyone stopped, and I
Speaker 1: know we're talking about national security, but I've got to
Speaker 1: go talk to these kids. Some celebrities are here. I'm
Speaker 1: very tall, they're very short. This is gonna be hilarious. Plus,
Speaker 1: if they had posed for a picture, would take like
Speaker 1: forty five minutes. Right, yeah, Deborah, or to lunch, We're
Speaker 1: gonna take a photograph. Hold my calls. What the call?
Speaker 1: I talked? Untold everyone, I went to the future and
Speaker 1: went to the shopping mall. I knew I should have
Speaker 1: kept my mouth shut. So Lincoln walks out of this
Speaker 1: cabinet meeting to meet General Tom Thumb and Commodore Nut.
Speaker 1: And when he met them, at least according to P. T.
Speaker 1: Barnum's account, Commodore Nut got a little saucy with the administration,
Speaker 1: which is of course why they invited him, because he's
Speaker 1: such a little scamp doing it. And so he points
Speaker 1: at all these stuffy, you know, white house folks, and
Speaker 1: he says, you know which one are? You? Is spending
Speaker 1: so much of the country's money right now? And the
Speaker 1: Secretary of War got up to well, I'm afraid that's
Speaker 1: me son and Nut, and Nuts said quote, it isn't
Speaker 1: a good cause anyhow, And I guess it will come
Speaker 1: out all right. He's all right, I guess you can
Speaker 1: spend that money since it's you, yeah, spending it on
Speaker 1: the war, alright, alright, I got back on you. And
Speaker 1: when they were leaving, Lincoln himself kind of got into
Speaker 1: the spirit and started choking around a little, and he says,
Speaker 1: all right, commodore, if your fleets ever in danger, be
Speaker 1: sure to wait to shore of safety in the United States.
Speaker 1: Here we'll pretict you lose any military and Commodore nut
Speaker 1: looked linking up and down and said, quote, well, I
Speaker 1: guess Mr President, you could do that better than I could. Oh,
Speaker 1: Commodore Nut with the tall jokes, and a Blincoln's like,
Speaker 1: oh damnit, abe, you're really Lincoln logged that one. Oh
Speaker 1: I walked right into that one, just like that stove
Speaker 1: pipe that's stuck on my head and I keep telling
Speaker 1: everyone is a hat. I can't get it off, can't
Speaker 1: get it off. Old back into my magic phone booth
Speaker 1: to see the nineteen eighties. So it seems like Nutt
Speaker 1: and Thumb might be getting to be sort of friends, right,
Speaker 1: I mean it performing at together, so they probably pretty
Speaker 1: friendly at least. Again, get the age gap here. You
Speaker 1: imagine Tom Thumb is like this thirteen year old kid.
Speaker 1: I'll show on the ropes totally. I'll be his mentor.
Speaker 1: So sometime in eighteen sixty two, you know, Barnum's got
Speaker 1: his ear to the ground and he starts hearing rumors
Speaker 1: about an extraordinarily pretty little woman performing on a riverboat
Speaker 1: in the Mississippi River, and he's like, holy shit, I
Speaker 1: gotta go meet her. And her name was Mercy Lavinia
Speaker 1: Warren Bump, but she performed as Lavinia Warren even though
Speaker 1: I'm like, Bump, what a good name. That's a greatness
Speaker 1: stage Uh. She was from Massachusetts and at sixteen she
Speaker 1: became a successful school teacher for several years. But then
Speaker 1: she heard about General Tom Thumb's success performing and she's like,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll give that a whirl. And so she joined
Speaker 1: a Mississippi riverboat as a dancing shentoose, which is so classy.
Speaker 1: It's such a classy to say I sing and dance
Speaker 1: like I'm a dancing shantos on a river boat. Remember
Speaker 1: when Velvet Underground with Nico came out and Nico is
Speaker 1: listed in the liner notes as shuntos, Like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: so much classier than vocals. She also she was joined
Speaker 1: by her younger sister, Minnie Warren, who was also a
Speaker 1: little person. And when she got the chance to make
Speaker 1: better money at Barnum's American Museum, she of course said yes,
Speaker 1: and many went to but Lavinia was the star Barnum
Speaker 1: built her. Quote, the Queen of Beauty. It's a pretty
Speaker 1: dope name for someone else to give you two It
Speaker 1: would be different if you gave it to yourself. People like, okay,
Speaker 1: but someone else they do that, that's pretty good. And
Speaker 1: when the jed Earl and the Commodore got back to
Speaker 1: New York after their White House visit, both of them
Speaker 1: lost their hearts to her. At the first introduction, Well, sure,
Speaker 1: the Queen of Beauty. I know. They were just like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, smoking hot lady. Yeah. I have wonder
Speaker 1: if she didn't say yes to working at Barnham's. I
Speaker 1: mean not just because the money was better and everything,
Speaker 1: but General Tom Thumb was the guy who inspired her
Speaker 1: to start working, and and yeah, I would go work
Speaker 1: near him. Sure makes sense. I'm gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're I don't know, performing at local clubs at home,
Speaker 1: and then David Geffen shows up and it's like, do
Speaker 1: you want to come work for me? Like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I will. Yes. My inspiration David Geffen, what a reference,
Speaker 1: I mean somebody like okay, So they both fall for
Speaker 1: this queen of beauty right away, General and the Commodore.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately for Commodore nut he's only thirteen years old, remember,
Speaker 1: and Lavinia is twenty one, so she thought of him
Speaker 1: as nothing more than just being quote a nice little boy. Ouch.
Speaker 1: You know, art when you're like, I'm a man in
Speaker 1: love with a woman and she's like, what a nice
Speaker 1: little boy. He was like, I think I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: hit myself in the head of the brick now. But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sorry, kid. I know you're like a
Speaker 1: child star. Sometimes these thirteen year old celebrities, you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta remind them that they're kids. So
Speaker 1: here's a little he's a little injured by That definitely
Speaker 1: brought him down a peg. But it only got worse
Speaker 1: when P. T. Barnum gave Lavinia a diamond and emerald
Speaker 1: ring as a gift, which was a very nice gesture,
Speaker 1: but it didn't fit her. You wonder where he got it, Like,
Speaker 1: he didn't have it custom made. It's just like maybe
Speaker 1: I found it in the audience one day and found yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's like, give it to Lavinia. You go for
Speaker 1: the queen of beauty, and she's like, this is nowhere
Speaker 1: close to my side. So Barnum says, I've got an
Speaker 1: idea for you. Then why don't you give it to
Speaker 1: the Commodore as a token of your friendship? A common
Speaker 1: thing to give in friendship. Diamond and Emerald twenty one.
Speaker 1: And this thirteen year old boy who's crushing on me
Speaker 1: is such a good friend that I'm going to give
Speaker 1: him expensive jewelry. Come on now. She agreed and gave
Speaker 1: the Commodore not this ring. And of course he thought
Speaker 1: it was a declaration of love, because he's thirteen years
Speaker 1: old and a beautiful woman gives you a fancy ring
Speaker 1: and you have no idea what to think. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: he thought all his dreams were coming true. And it
Speaker 1: was super awkward for them both because Lavinia, of course,
Speaker 1: had just fallen for General Tom Thaw. I mean, this
Speaker 1: guy was just four years older than her, so a
Speaker 1: lot closer and more more acceptable of an age gap. Honestly,
Speaker 1: would have been so weird if Lavinia had been into
Speaker 1: this would be a very different story. We're telling what
Speaker 1: was going on, so, I mean, you know, she meets
Speaker 1: General Tom Thump. He's the reason she got into show business.
Speaker 1: He's super cool, he's save, he's traveled the world, he's
Speaker 1: met the Queen of England. Like it's no wonder that
Speaker 1: she was in for this guy. As soon as they met,
Speaker 1: they like took each other's hands, looked into into each
Speaker 1: other's eyes and that was it for that, Like that
Speaker 1: was just like, this is it. We're doing this right? Okay? Great?
Speaker 1: So I don't know, a speculation station, and I was
Speaker 1: thinking Barnum was kind of trying to get Lavinia to
Speaker 1: go out with the commodore with the ring, or trying
Speaker 1: to like stoke this love triangle a little bit. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe that was it, I don't know, or if he
Speaker 1: just didn't know that Tom Thumb was interested yet. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that'd be cool to have, you know,
Speaker 1: two little people get together. I don't know. It just
Speaker 1: seemed like such a weird thing to do, but maybe
Speaker 1: it was just a normal But would give people rings?
Speaker 1: Would who you know, all accounts did respect that these
Speaker 1: were adults. Would he want to set this woman, grown,
Speaker 1: twenty one year old woman up with a thirteen year
Speaker 1: old boy, even if they were the same size. It's weird,
Speaker 1: but I mean eighteen sixties people got married a lot
Speaker 1: younger y, So I don't know. I'm like an independent,
Speaker 1: I don't know. And maybe, and you know, again, I'm
Speaker 1: totally in speculation station. He might have just been like,
Speaker 1: I found a ring, it doesn't fit. I don't know,
Speaker 1: give it to commodore. I got a business to run
Speaker 1: and doesn't give it a sing. I wonder if maybe
Speaker 1: he didn't think, like, you know, if there's like a
Speaker 1: whole like love triangle here that might make the headlines
Speaker 1: drama around, like people will follow this story. Who's she
Speaker 1: going to pick? You know, classic team? So who knows.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was just like, why would he
Speaker 1: do that? But anyway, General tom Thumb was like, whatever
Speaker 1: Barnum's doing, I don't care. He's very powerful around here.
Speaker 1: I want him on my side. So he went to
Speaker 1: Barnum and he's like, hey, if you convinced Lavinia to
Speaker 1: marry me, and like, again, she's already in it's not
Speaker 1: hard to convince her. But I think, like, if she
Speaker 1: comes to you and asks you anything, you know, just
Speaker 1: like me wingman for me, like, you know, tell her
Speaker 1: to take me seriously, we'll get married. In public. We'll
Speaker 1: have a public ceremony. Oh my god. Barnum's pupils immediately
Speaker 1: turned into dollars side and and he was like, oh yes,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I love this idea. He started being like, Lavinia,
Speaker 1: isn't Tom the best? Like Tom's my favorite guy in
Speaker 1: the world. He's real rich too, by the way. He
Speaker 1: just started whispering in her ear. And he even invited
Speaker 1: Lavinia and Tom and Tom's mother to his home for
Speaker 1: like a weekend visit. I guess Tom's mother very significant.
Speaker 1: He wanted to meet his mother. But the commodore was
Speaker 1: not going to take this kind of thing lying down.
Speaker 1: He's a commodore right commands a whole naval fleet. So
Speaker 1: he found out that Tom was in love with Lavinia,
Speaker 1: and he got insanely jealous, and he actually went into
Speaker 1: the dressing room and started beating Tom up out. And
Speaker 1: when he heard that Lavinia was going to Pete Barnum's
Speaker 1: house for the weekend, he just invited himself along, not
Speaker 1: knowing that Tom and Tom's mom were going to be
Speaker 1: there too. The mom of Tom he could not greet
Speaker 1: with applause for him. That trip was about so I
Speaker 1: was a little high when I wrote the script. Well
Speaker 1: that that Ryan was as beautiful as no no more rhyming, rhyming.
Speaker 1: All right, So Commodore Nut basically left New York late
Speaker 1: and didn't get to Barnum's place until eleven pm. So
Speaker 1: he walks in and surprises Tom and Lavinia together in
Speaker 1: the parlor. I didn't know you you're here, the child
Speaker 1: little right, And little did Commodore Nut know that General
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb had just proposed and Lavinia had just accepted.
Speaker 1: He like walks in and he's Tom's like getting up
Speaker 1: from one n this is a sitcom situation. Oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: what are you? What are you doing here? The string
Speaker 1: the spoil a good moment here, buddy. But Tom and
Speaker 1: Lavinia knew that the Commodore would go nuts about it
Speaker 1: if he found out, so that he didn't tell him
Speaker 1: about their proposal for over a week. And you know,
Speaker 1: he was pretty mad about that after the fact. He
Speaker 1: called it a dustardly offense by P. T. Barnum and
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb. They were like, our engagement would cause your enragement?
Speaker 1: Oh no, the rs. So at this point Barnum gets
Speaker 1: a little tasteless and he's like, hey, Commodore, what about
Speaker 1: Lavinia's sister Minnie. I mean she's younger than Lavinia, but
Speaker 1: she's basically the same person. I mean, you'll be happy together.
Speaker 1: You guys can get engaged, and then you can be
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb's best man, and Minnie will be Lavinia's bridesmaid
Speaker 1: and oh my god, I'm gonna make a fortune. But
Speaker 1: the Commodore was heartbroken. He decided to swear off women forever.
Speaker 1: He said he wouldn't quote married the best woman living
Speaker 1: because he's thirty. I don't like this poor kid and
Speaker 1: the throws of his first love. Yeah, obviously it's gonna
Speaker 1: be really dramatic. He's like going through puberty right now,
Speaker 1: and they're like, sorry, this twenty one year old woman
Speaker 1: married someone her age. He's like, love is a lie.
Speaker 1: I'll never speak to a woman again. My heart is
Speaker 1: forever hardened. Yeah. I felt that way when I was two,
Speaker 1: when I found out that Uma Thurman was never going
Speaker 1: to marry me. You know, just broke my heart. How
Speaker 1: cold hearted of Uma. I still have hope. It's never
Speaker 1: too late, Uma call me. Oh, and Commodore Nut also
Speaker 1: refused to be Tom Thumb's best man. He's like, I'm
Speaker 1: not falling in with that idea go to hell. But
Speaker 1: not long after this, General Tom Thumb asked nut himself
Speaker 1: to be his best man, and Nuts said yes. And
Speaker 1: according to tom Ogden's book Two Years of the American Circus,
Speaker 1: Nutt told Barnum, quote, it was not your business to
Speaker 1: ask me when the proper person invited me. I consented,
Speaker 1: Well there you go, yeah, which is true. You don't
Speaker 1: ask someone else to be someone's best man. No, the
Speaker 1: wedding planner doesn't ask me to be the best man.
Speaker 1: The groom has gotta better want my ass there. But
Speaker 1: also I kind of he was like, it wasn't ever
Speaker 1: about her, Okay, I got no proma professional, right. So
Speaker 1: February eighteen sixty three, the so called very wedding of
Speaker 1: the Vinea and General tom Thumb was held in New York.
Speaker 1: And we're going to hear a lot more about that
Speaker 1: right after this. Welcome back to the greatest show in
Speaker 1: the world. So, this very wedding was front page news.
Speaker 1: Two thousand people were invited, all the big names of
Speaker 1: society like Mrs Astor and this is Vanderbilt, Mrs Greeley,
Speaker 1: Mrs Mrs money Bags. The monopoly Man was there, right,
Speaker 1: the statue of Liberty was there. President Lincoln surely sent
Speaker 1: like a letter and a couple of flowers or something
Speaker 1: his old buddy. The ceremony at the church was for
Speaker 1: but Barnum sold tickets for seventy five dollars to the reception,
Speaker 1: and just to put that in today's spending money, three
Speaker 1: is twenty six hundred dollars. My god, just like super
Speaker 1: Bowl ticket on a good year and a very good year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and those only went to the first five thousand
Speaker 1: people to apply, five thousand people at top. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of money. He's more math than I can do.
Speaker 1: But usually you spend money on a wedding, but he's
Speaker 1: making money on a wedding right now. Apparently many people
Speaker 1: who came were curious about how sex between two little
Speaker 1: people would work, which is an insane question to ask.
Speaker 1: How would it be any different? I don't know, how
Speaker 1: would it? How could it poss anyway? Barnum, as usual himself,
Speaker 1: neither encouraged nor discourage this conversation because it was selling tickets.
Speaker 1: So come on, how that could it be? Right? Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a real good question you're asking there. Why don't
Speaker 1: you buy a ticket? And find out as if they're
Speaker 1: going to have sex, they're not going to have to
Speaker 1: the ceremony during the reception. Now that's a wedding. Wow,
Speaker 1: very old school of them, like outside the room, watch
Speaker 1: the marriage bed. At the reception, Lavinia and Tom stood
Speaker 1: on top of a grand piano so everyone could see
Speaker 1: them while they greeted their guests. Presumably did not have
Speaker 1: sex on top of the grand piano to show everyone
Speaker 1: how they did it. Although at our wedding, I did
Speaker 1: get drunk and lay on top of the grand Yes,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a grand piano, I guess, but I did
Speaker 1: lay on the piano. It was grand when you were
Speaker 1: laying on it, right, right. We were not supposed to
Speaker 1: be on the piano. But no, don't tell anyone. But
Speaker 1: there's a lot of photographic evidence. The girl was like,
Speaker 1: this is my house today. Now. Apparently Commodore Nutt gave
Speaker 1: Lavinia a diamond ring as a wedding present. I mean,
Speaker 1: you gotta wonder, is Tom like, um, hey, that's kind
Speaker 1: of my job tonight, Like you're supposed to carry the ring,
Speaker 1: give it to me. That's worse than showing up in
Speaker 1: a white dress for a wedding. Is like showing up
Speaker 1: with a diamond ring as a present. What are you doing? Nuts? Nuts? Right?
Speaker 1: If I can pull into speculation station once again, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking Nut was trying to pull a Dwight from the
Speaker 1: office and marry herself. Like He's like, hand the ring out,
Speaker 1: put the ring, I do, get the ring. You know
Speaker 1: how the wedding's gonna go. I've got this. Uh, I've
Speaker 1: got this fake preacher here to help us rehearse it.
Speaker 1: He's gonna say this, and you're gonna say, I do
Speaker 1: take you to be my husband? Right, yes, say it? Okay,
Speaker 1: I do? All right, Now I'm going to say I
Speaker 1: do take you as my wife, and then you'll like
Speaker 1: sign this little paper and we're married now. And she's like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, wait a minute, what does happen? Anyway,
Speaker 1: the wedding was a sensation. America was enthralled. We were obsessed.
Speaker 1: They were the Kardashians of their time. On their honeymoon
Speaker 1: trip Lavinia and General Tom Thumb were given a reception
Speaker 1: at the White House by President Lincoln. Really into these guys.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just America. The whole world was captivated
Speaker 1: by this fairy wedding. So Barnum naturally saw a chance
Speaker 1: to make bookoo bucks, and he sent all four of them,
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb, Lavinia Mini, and Commodore Nut on a world
Speaker 1: tour together as the Tom Thumb Company. They left in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine. They traveled sixty thousand miles, performed almost
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred times, and visited five hundred and eighty seven
Speaker 1: cities as far away as Australia before they finally came
Speaker 1: home in eighteen seventy. That's a really insane world tour,
Speaker 1: especially back then when it took so much longer to travel,
Speaker 1: just exhausting. No no tour buses, tour carriages shaped like
Speaker 1: wal nuts. Maybe, so they were like a worldwide phenomenon.
Speaker 1: The General and Lavinia were extremely wealthy. They were living
Speaker 1: a life of high luxury, like a custom house built
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts, custom furniture, and they had like a house
Speaker 1: in New York, which no one can have anymore. Good
Speaker 1: luck to you. They were just doing real, real well.
Speaker 1: And eventually the General became business partners with Barnum instead
Speaker 1: of an employee. He even bailed him out when Barnum
Speaker 1: hit financial difficulties. So they were really close, these two men,
Speaker 1: they really had a genuine friendship that had lasted since
Speaker 1: he was five years old. But even though they were
Speaker 1: doing so well, the tour was also kind of uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Barnum thought that it made them more sympathetic to be
Speaker 1: presented as child to the public instead of as grown
Speaker 1: people in smaller bodies, but consequently the public treated them
Speaker 1: like children. Kim Nielsen's book, A Disability History of the
Speaker 1: United States talks about how a lot of people wanted
Speaker 1: to like pet and hold Lavinia as if they would
Speaker 1: a toddler, and Lavinia is quoted as saying it seemed
Speaker 1: impossible to make people understand at first that I was
Speaker 1: not a child, that being a woman, I had the
Speaker 1: womanly instinct of shrinking from a form of familiarity, which
Speaker 1: in the case of a child of my size would
Speaker 1: have been as natural as it was permissible. People probably
Speaker 1: like touching her hair up, randomly hugging her, and she's like,
Speaker 1: I am a grown woman, and I really don't want
Speaker 1: you to random men and women to touch me. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And also we can acknowledge I think we've had the
Speaker 1: conversations today that don't do that to kids either, like
Speaker 1: to have their own autonomy, and don't just walk up
Speaker 1: to a kid and pet them and pick them up
Speaker 1: and ship without talking to him first. It's true they can.
Speaker 1: They can refuse a hug, ben if it hurts your feeling.
Speaker 1: Some people also doubted that their wedding was even real,
Speaker 1: calling it a big publicity stunt. That would probably was
Speaker 1: something to do with them thinking, oh, they're not they
Speaker 1: are children's I have no sexual feelings, and they would
Speaker 1: have romantic feelings, you know, that kind of dismissal of
Speaker 1: their adulthood. According to a BBC article, Tom said quote,
Speaker 1: it is true we are little, but we are as
Speaker 1: God made us perfect in our littleness. We are simply
Speaker 1: man and woman of like passions and infirmities with you
Speaker 1: and other mortals. The arrangements for our marriage are controlled
Speaker 1: by no showman. That's got to be tough because like
Speaker 1: it sort of was a publicity stunt, Like it was
Speaker 1: a real wedding, but Barnum and them made it a show.
Speaker 1: So you can see how that lent people the idea
Speaker 1: that like, oh, well, is this even real or is
Speaker 1: this It's like when we put something on TV, we
Speaker 1: don't know whether those people really care about each other
Speaker 1: and more often than not out we assume they don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it can make it hard to know when it's
Speaker 1: real when it isn't. Like flavor of love that was real.
Speaker 1: Love was flavor flavor hoops just timeless. Oh surely not.
Speaker 1: It's no way. Now. At some point in their career
Speaker 1: as a married couple, Lavinia and Tom started appearing, sometimes
Speaker 1: on stage and in official photographs, holding a baby that
Speaker 1: they said was their child. Now there's a lot of
Speaker 1: dispute about this. The rumor is that Barnum sort of
Speaker 1: was like, listen, the next step of your journey to
Speaker 1: fame and fortune is you have a family, you have
Speaker 1: a baby. And I wonder if they were even kind
Speaker 1: of into that, because it showed them as grown people
Speaker 1: who could have babies, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: the hearsay again is that he would rent babies from
Speaker 1: foundling hospitals and orphanages for them to just like hold
Speaker 1: for the performance and then you send them back. I guess,
Speaker 1: baby by the hour from an orphanage. I guess it
Speaker 1: seems like a really weird thing to let some do.
Speaker 1: You could do an hourly rental. You can put babies
Speaker 1: on layaway you wanted for a week, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a bulk discount if you take two or more at
Speaker 1: least to own program for babies. So so yeah, the
Speaker 1: rumors that they never actually had kids themselves, they just
Speaker 1: rented these babies. But in Lavinia even apparently admitted to
Speaker 1: this in her autobiography. But in Kathleen Hawkins BBC article,
Speaker 1: she says that historian John Gannon revealed paper evidence that
Speaker 1: Lavinia and Tom did have a baby together at some point,
Speaker 1: and Tom Thumb's obituary in the New York Times said
Speaker 1: that they had a child together in eighteen sixty nine
Speaker 1: that died in eighteen seventy one. So this is a
Speaker 1: fun to stuss out, I think, because I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not like P. T. Barnum probably couldn't have gotten somebody
Speaker 1: to write up some paper evidence of the fake baby
Speaker 1: they had to Um. It's really not It's hard to
Speaker 1: tell what's publicity and what's real in this case. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, they could could be a real baby
Speaker 1: that they really had, and there might have been no
Speaker 1: baby at all. Interesting. I also wondered if like maybe
Speaker 1: they did have a real baby but they were like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to put him on stage with us
Speaker 1: right now? Yeah, rent me a baby who has no wonder,
Speaker 1: look out for it. That's better somehow, who knows well.
Speaker 1: After they got back to the States from their world tour,
Speaker 1: Commodore Nutt had an argument with Barnum that resulted in
Speaker 1: him quitting the company. He's probably like, what is this
Speaker 1: called the tom thumb? First he takes my girl, now
Speaker 1: he takes top Billy. I'm just kidding. He always had top.
Speaker 1: Nut and his brother went out west and tried putting
Speaker 1: up their own shows, and they even ran a couple
Speaker 1: of saloons, but they weren't super successful in that. He
Speaker 1: was apparently love lorn for years over Lavinia, and at
Speaker 1: some point, long after her marriage, Barnum asked nut why
Speaker 1: he wasn't married yet. Nut responded, quote, Sir, my fruit
Speaker 1: is plucked. I have concluded not to marry until I'm thirty.
Speaker 1: And many papers at the time wrong the reported that
Speaker 1: he was married to Lavinia's sister Mini, but they were
Speaker 1: only ever close friends, and in eighteen seventy seven Many
Speaker 1: actually married another one of Barnum's performers, a dwarf named
Speaker 1: Edmund Newell, who performed on roller skates. Super cool, but
Speaker 1: tragically many and their child died in childbirth in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight. But the Commodore didn't stay single forever. In
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine, he met a woman named Miss Lillian
Speaker 1: Elston in California, and they got married when he was thirty.
Speaker 1: Just as he had told Barnum, there you go, not
Speaker 1: there you go, way to way to predict your life.
Speaker 1: But sadly, only three years later in eighty one, Nut
Speaker 1: had an attack of Bright's disease or nephritis, which is
Speaker 1: a kidney disease, and he died. His wife apparently cried
Speaker 1: over his coffin. She said, he was so good. It's
Speaker 1: like so good, like he was so good, or like
Speaker 1: he was so good. Oh my good at the funeral,
Speaker 1: I know, wasn't that one. In eighteen eighty three, Lavinia
Speaker 1: and Tom were in Milwaukee performing at the New Hall
Speaker 1: House when a fire broke out, and Milwaukee historian John
Speaker 1: Gerda called it quote one of the worst hotel fires
Speaker 1: in American history. Over seventy one people die in it,
Speaker 1: but fortunately not Lavinia and Tom. They were narrowly rescued
Speaker 1: by their manager, Sylvester Bleaker. There you go Sylvester. Way
Speaker 1: to go, Sylvester. Imagine just charging up the stairs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: grabbed him both up and let's get out of here.
Speaker 1: But only six months later, Charles Sherwood Stratton a k a.
Speaker 1: General Tom Thumb died suddenly of a stroke. He was
Speaker 1: only forty five years old. Over twenty people attended his funeral.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about like Frederick Douglas, who had two thousand people,
Speaker 1: like damn, like so many. I think we can we
Speaker 1: can say at least that we don't necessarily measure a
Speaker 1: man's worth by the number of people at their funeral.
Speaker 1: The true and we haven't changed much as a country.
Speaker 1: Like Barnum had a statue of him built as his gravestone,
Speaker 1: and he was buried at the Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: which was a cemetery Barnum had donated the land for
Speaker 1: and designed himself Um and Bridgeport is also General Tom
Speaker 1: Thumb's birthplace. So I wonder if that's why I chose
Speaker 1: that hand, you know, if that was like a connection
Speaker 1: somehow I do. I gotta say that the P. T.
Speaker 1: Barnum designed cemetery, in my mind, has like a merry
Speaker 1: go round, just like, you know, ghosts juggle and blaming swords.
Speaker 1: It sounds so fun. There the greatest cemetery on Earth. Oh,
Speaker 1: in eighteen nine, when Barnum himself died, he would be
Speaker 1: buried only a few feet away from his friend and
Speaker 1: business partner. So that kind of shows you too, how
Speaker 1: they were close. They were. Yeah, yeah, we got to
Speaker 1: go to Connecticut, I guess, I guess so and see
Speaker 1: the greatest cemetery honor. Yeah, step right up, folks. If
Speaker 1: there's no ferris wheel, I'm gonna be really disappointed. But
Speaker 1: just elephants marching through all the Yeah, Menagerie's there's a
Speaker 1: bearded lady greeting you at the gate. Right. Did you
Speaker 1: know that Barnum didn't get into the circus business until
Speaker 1: he was sixty. I didn't know that he was like
Speaker 1: in this museum stuff way before he got into circus
Speaker 1: traveling circus stuff, So I didn't I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: It's like, wow, he's a lot older than I I suspected.
Speaker 1: So whatever your dreams are, keep going after never too late.
Speaker 1: A few years after Tom Thumb's death, Lavinia married another
Speaker 1: famous dwarf, the Italian performer Count Primo Maghri. Together, they
Speaker 1: ran a successful and famous roadside stand in Massachusetts, and
Speaker 1: they traveled the world with their theater company, performing for royalty,
Speaker 1: including Queen Victoria. I like that Lavinia also got to
Speaker 1: meet under her own steam. In nineteen fifteen, she and
Speaker 1: Magrii starred in a silent film called The Lilliputians Courtship.
Speaker 1: But even so, when Lavinia died in nineteen nineteen at
Speaker 1: seventy eight years old, she was buried next to General
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb Charles Sherwood Stratton under a tombstone that reads
Speaker 1: simply his wife, which is I've mixed feelings about because
Speaker 1: she was definitely her own presence, her own performer, and
Speaker 1: obviously her own person. So it's I mean, probably because
Speaker 1: it's around the same time I'm thinking about Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: a lot I think about Helen Pitts. She was so
Speaker 1: determined to write herself out of his story. Um, that
Speaker 1: that was what she spent her time on. Was like, well,
Speaker 1: I you know, and I totally get it, because she's
Speaker 1: like highlight the man and his amazing words, all his work.
Speaker 1: He did so much great things. It's not about me. Um.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's like, your contributions are
Speaker 1: not nothing. Why would you want to completely erase yourself
Speaker 1: from the story. So it's funny that she felt like
Speaker 1: that too. Um, but we talked about that a little
Speaker 1: in Frederick Douglas about how women weren't supposed to be
Speaker 1: talked about in print necessarily whatever. So maybe it was
Speaker 1: like kind of weird to like put your splash your
Speaker 1: ship up or something like it was considered. Sure, I
Speaker 1: think if it were me, I'd be like the Queen
Speaker 1: of Beauty lies here. I'm the Queen of Beauty, Queen
Speaker 1: of Beauty Lavinia, who also performed for Queen Victoria, who
Speaker 1: was then a countess. I mean, it's a pretty cool life.
Speaker 1: So but I can see too that you know, there's
Speaker 1: something very devoted and romantic about her being like, that's
Speaker 1: all I really cared about was being his wife. That's
Speaker 1: my best role I've ever played something like that. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Count Primo is like what I thought, the same thing,
Speaker 1: because he was he died like a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: so he was alive to see her buried under somewhat
Speaker 1: next to a different guy. Well, anyway, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: it's a business arrangement and he was like, you're the
Speaker 1: queen of beauty. I need those, sidekick, Let's do this.
Speaker 1: I don't know well, and I know a lot of couples.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people who have married widows
Speaker 1: or widowers. Uh, you know, have a lot of respect
Speaker 1: for their previous marriage and things like that too. So
Speaker 1: maybe he was totally fine with it. We can't know
Speaker 1: until we get until we get a Lincoln's phone both
Speaker 1: time machine, and we'd go back and ask him ourselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one day someone will gift us that. So a B. Lincoln,
Speaker 1: if you're listening, please ride your phone with time machine
Speaker 1: right over here. We've got some questions, many questions. Well
Speaker 1: that was a really fun story. YEA, like a little triangle. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: weird age difference thing. I know, it's so funny. I
Speaker 1: love this thirteen year old boy just being like, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to get married till I'm thirty. Now. I
Speaker 1: guess he was older when he said that, but still
Speaker 1: he's stuck with it. Did He was like, No, I
Speaker 1: said when I was thirteen that I'm swearing off marriage.
Speaker 1: Now that I'm an adult, we'll say thirty. I'm having
Speaker 1: fun with the ladies, right, Um, I did wonder about
Speaker 1: that because it's kind of treated as like a very
Speaker 1: equal competition. I guess like you were kind of standing
Speaker 1: on the same level. But I don't see that that
Speaker 1: way at all with their ages. No, not at all.
Speaker 1: It's just funny to me that it wasn't more of
Speaker 1: the I mean again, I didn't get to dive as
Speaker 1: deep as I would app but you know, some of
Speaker 1: us just like, well, anyway, they both liked her, and
Speaker 1: she chose this guy anyway, who knows why. And I
Speaker 1: was like, because he's a teenager, that's a very obvious reason.
Speaker 1: But she definitely was like, I'm quite a woman and
Speaker 1: you're just a little kid. So anyway, but he stayed
Speaker 1: loyal to her. You have to admit he sure did.
Speaker 1: He's like, I love that woman. And that's it for Hey,
Speaker 1: that that first teenage crush can really leave an impression.
Speaker 1: Oh Jillian, Oh Jillian, I don't remember her laz name. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: thank you Maco Repdia for this suggestion because it was
Speaker 1: a really fun story and you'll check out their episode
Speaker 1: about it as well. Yeah, definitely for a different take. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad we got to dive into this one and
Speaker 1: I hope you all enjoyed it as well. Yeah, let
Speaker 1: us know what she thought. Email us We're at Raddic
Speaker 1: Romance at gmail dot com that's right, or find us
Speaker 1: on social media Twitter, Instagram, I'm at Oh great, it's Eli,
Speaker 1: I'm at Dianamite Boom, and of course the show at
Speaker 1: Riddic Romance. Follow along and say hey, we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you and we'll catch you later this week
Speaker 1: with another exciting episode. Can't wait see you then, So long, friends,
Speaker 1: it's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show.
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