WEBVTT - Introducing Smell-O-Vision! 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:05.000 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.640 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:19.720 Charles w Chuck Bryant, Jerry's here, and the three of 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:24.680 us when you put us together, smell like cotton candy. 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:27.080 Little known fact about Stuff you should Know. 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.959 You know what? I gave my daughter cotton candy, first 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.680 time she's ever had it, candy floss, just a couple 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.720 of weeks ago at the zoo. I was like, you 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:40.360 never had cotton candy. I was like, give me some 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:42.280 of that. I want to see. I haven't had it 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:47.120 in so long. And boy, it's just that the nostalgic 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:52.000 blast of that stuff melting on your tongue. Did not 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:52.519 enjoy it. 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.280 I was like, Jesus, oh really, no, it's a gross 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.200 web flavor. Was it like regular cotton candy flavor? Do 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.440 they try to? Okay, the blue is the same as 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:04.520 the pink. I don't like where this is going. 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:09.440 We had a cotton candy machine as a kid growing up, 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:10.839 A little do it at home deal. 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.640 What yeah, okay, money bags? 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.080 Yeah no, trust me, this is like a five ninety 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:17.839 nine years item. 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.480 I'm sure did you have the Snoopy Snowcome machine too. 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:22.760 No. See, we couldn't afford that because I had a 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.600 name brand. I think you and I were both very 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.440 famous for having very unbranded childhoods. 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:30.760 It's true, but we didn't have any kind of cotton 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:31.680 candy machine. 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.000 Yeah, we were generic family kids. 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.240 So what about your cotton candy machine and your kid? 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:38.959 Did you overdo it? Is that what you're saying? 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:41.160 No, no, no, I just wanted to throw that in there. 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:42.319 I wanted to show off. 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.640 I told Ruby that I had one when I was 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:47.400 a kid. She's like, really, yeah, And I said, yeah. 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:49.280 It was gross and it only made white candy. 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:51.640 Oh so it didn't taste at all. 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:55.360 No, just spin this. The taste doesn't come from the 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:56.040 food coloring. 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.120 I don't know that that's true. Should we talk about 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.200 smell of vision? Yeah, okay, I forgot. We hadn't even 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.840 mentioned it yet. We're talking about smellovision, which is exactly 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.040 what it sounds like. It was a really neat, interesting 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:13.680 gimmick that was tried in the beginning the advent of 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:19.440 the nineteen sixties. Most people say where they tried to 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:24.560 accompany motion pictures with smells in the exact same way 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:29.440 that they accompany motion pictures with sounds. That's right, Like 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:35.280 you put sound in moving pictures together. It's just so intuitive, 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.560 and it's come so far that the world that we 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.800 live in, you can't really imagine it. Otherwise, even if 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.480 you've seen the artist, it's still tough to imagine. Right. 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.600 They were trying to do that but with sense, and 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.480 this is the first attempt, and unfortunately it was not 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.600 a very successful attempt, which is why we don't have 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:56.600 smell a vision today. 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:01.239 That's right. Dave old Pell helps us out with this, 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:03.920 and this is kind of a fun surprise. One of 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.240 our old house Stuff Works writers. Patrick didn't work in 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.400 the office with this, but he was one of our 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.239 longtime freelancers. Patrick Kaiger wrote a book like eighteenish years 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:19.440 ago called Poplarica Colon a popular history of the fads, Mavericks, 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.880 inventions and lore that shaped modern America. Yeah, and I 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.720 think did such a good job with the smellvision section 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:31.000 that La Times writer Martin J. Smith again like seventeen 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.560 or eighteen years ago, wrote an article about smellvision and 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.000 used Patrick's book a lot. So we also relied on 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:39.800 this stuff, and it was I want to check out 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:40.680 that book. It sounds cool. 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.000 Yeah, it's a very good article or chapter I guess 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:48.000 that they excerpted in. It's basically the definitive story of 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.520 smell avision because it's such a it's such a narrow story. 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.360 There's a few characters, and it happened in like this 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.800 really narrow time frame. It's just it has a story. 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.560 It's one of those those topics. It just has its 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:02.400 own story, you know. 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.800 Yeah, absolutely, And we'll get into the story story. But 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.680 the first movie that they used it on that we'll 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.200 touch on later, was called Scent of Mystery, And you know, 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:15.520 you get the idea. They would pipe in like you know, 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:18.479 someone was smoking a pipe, they would pipe in the 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.760 smell of tobacco smoke. Or if someone was like in 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.600 a basement, they would pipe in some kind of dusty basement. 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:26.720 He smell mellow cadavers. 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.840 Usually it was something hopefully kind of nice, like there 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.239 was a peach orchard in a scene, and they piped 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.680 in peach smells and things like that. But like you said, 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.560 it was not a big hit at all. Yeah, I 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.520 think Time did you mention that that Time named it 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:44.040 one of the worst fifty inventions. 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.560 Yeah, And This is along with DDT, Agent Orange and 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:52.880 the baby cage. So that was that's really saying something. 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:55.080 What else recently was on that list? 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.960 Our live show? No, yeah, our live show the topic 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.440 of our lives shows on the ideas of the century. 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:03.960 I thought you meant our live show was one of 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.320 the worst inventions in the last fifteenth or the last 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:08.720 hundred years. That was a good joke. 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:11.520 It was a good joke, unintentional but still pretty good. 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.200 Yes, you're right, our secret topic for the live show 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:15.200 that you're exactly right. 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:17.080 Yeah, we just gave away that if you go look 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.200 at that list of one hundred worse ideas of the 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.400 century from time, you will stumble across our topic, but 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:24.080 you may not know that that's it. 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.919 Yeah, and you know it's not somemellvision. No, so then 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:28.880 you narrowed it down a bit. 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.440 Yeah, now you've got ninety nine other chances. 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.440 So a company coming up with a signature scent is 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:38.760 a big thing these days, Like we don't want to 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:45.920 underestimate scent as a as a sense because it's very powerful. Yeah, 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.599 there are very famous signature scents of like hotels and 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.799 stores and stuff like that. But as far as using 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:56.800 odor to tie it to entertainment. They were doing this 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.560 in stage plays at least in the eighteen hundreds, and 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.080 I would bet before that even. 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:07.240 Sure, apparently they like theater owners would would basically do 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.760 what they could to kind of make the whole scene 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.039 that you were seeing being portrayed just that much more 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:18.000 realistic by incorporating smell along with sites and sounds. Right, 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.240 they didn't want you to touch the actors and you 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:23.520 weren't allowed to lick the actors. So those were the 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.120 three that they were allowed to work with. Yeah, and 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.600 it's it's understandable why because I mean, if you think 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.080 about it, like you were saying, like scent is a 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:35.160 very powerful sense that if you could tap into that correctly, 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.960 you could really blow someone's mind with a stage production 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.400 and eventually a movie. And that was the basis of 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.839 this whole thing. In retrospect, it was gimmicky, it's silly, 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:49.040 it's mid century. Yeah, it has a name like Smell 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.719 a Vision, But if you really dig down into the story, 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.840 you find like this is a really earnest, genuine project 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.599 that was meant to just completely transform filmmaking for the better. 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.240 Yeah, I mean said earlier, they thought it was going 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:05.680 to be the next revolution, like adding sound, which is 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:07.839 kind of funny, like, this isn't something that appeals to me, 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.400 even though we'll get to four D later on and 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:16.560 talk about that. But the first movie theater to try 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.320 anything like this in the United States was in Forest City, Pennsylvania. 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:23.120 It was called the Family Theater and it was owned 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.360 by Roxy Rothafel. 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.040 And ironically, it was a pornography theater, right. 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:31.920 That was it. 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:33.640 It is gullible day for you. 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:35.920 That was the last episode, and I'm still gullible. 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:40.239 Can you imagine a Triple X theater called the Family Theater? 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:46.160 That was the joke I was thinking from Roxy, like 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.400 triple X. I gotcha, and I totally missed it. I'm 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:51.000 off my game. 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:53.920 Hey, it's okay man. As a matter of fact, I'll 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:55.280 just retract that whole thing. 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.720 No, I get it. That's a great name for a theater, Chuck, 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:03.280 the Family Theater now showing deep throat exactly all right. 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.840 So the Family Theater was owned by Roxy Rothefel, and 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.040 Roxy is someone we talked about in our Rocketes episode 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.960 because this person would go on to open up the 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.000 Radio City Music Hall and the Rockets were originally called 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:20.560 the roxy Ettes, but in nineteen o eight he owned 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:25.200 the Family Theater and got a newsreel in nineteen sixteen 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:28.800 about the Rose Bowl Parade and said, Hey, I'm going 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.160 to pump the smell of rose oil into this theater 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:34.440 and fan it in there. And that was sort of 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.280 the first little attempt at something like this. 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:39.600 Yeah, And I mean, I think that was kind of 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:44.760 one of the things when they added like interior ventilation systems, 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.080 Like people figured out you can not only move air 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:49.960 around the theater pretty quickly, you can move sense around 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:53.080 the theater. So in very short order, other theaters started 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.880 trying the same thing. There was a theater in Boston 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.440 in nineteen twenty nine, there was a Detroit theater in 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.839 nineteen forty three, and it just kind of sporadically was 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:07.840 attempted at. But it wasn't until a guy named Hans 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.800 Lob That's what I'm going with, who was Swiss, who 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.959 was an inventor and an osmologist, which is somebody who 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:20.280 studies the science of smells. And it wasn't until he 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.080 came along with somebody said I'm making this work. I'm 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.280 going to make this happen and really like dedicated himself 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:26.640 to it. 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:32.560 Absolutely. He had made his name removing smells. I'm not 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.000 sure what chemicals he used. 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:35.760 I was looking all over for it. 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.440 Well, these days a use stuff like ozone, which. 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:39.839 Is not good at all. 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.240 Well, I tell you, man, someone stole our car like. 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:45.400 Three years ago. 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:50.800 I remember that and basically just joy road and wrecked 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.840 it for a few days and it smelled like smoked 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:56.959 three thousand cigarettes in the span of three days. Yeah, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:58.439 and we got that thing back and that's all the 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.720 entrance company. I was like, man, I don't care what 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.120 you do, We're not taking this car back. There's no 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.080 way it's ever going to smell the same again, right, 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.800 And they said, oh, we use an ozone treatment and 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.959 it didn't smell like cigarette smoke, but it smelled funky 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:14.960 after that, and we fought tooth and nail with him. 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.520 I was like, you know, we can't drive around like this. 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.599 Ozone has its own smell, and it's also super reactive 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:23.520 and you don't want to breathe it in. Luckily has 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.400 a very short like lifespan, but it's you don't want 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:27.319 to be around ozone. 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.320 Basically, No, that car is not in our family anymore. 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:33.880 By the way, it had bad energy after that, so 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:35.160 we didn't want any part of it. 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:41.000 Yeah, I am, that's pretty understandable. I can totally see that. Yeah, so, yeah, 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.200 I guess he was doing ozone too. That was what 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:45.120 I came up with with that. 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:47.960 Yeah, he was. He was using chemicals to remove odors, 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:50.600 and then he said, hey, I could reverse this whole 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:55.360 thing and add odors into movie theaters and debuted that 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.120 idea at the thirty nine to forty World's Fair in 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:02.600 New York with his partner Robert Barthis, and they had 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:04.880 a thirty five minute fild called a film called My 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:07.440 Dream or Mine Troum I guess it was in German, 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.600 and they had thirty two different chemical odors that they 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:16.640 pumped out during this thirty five minute film. Yeah, that's 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:20.240 almost a smell a minute. Yeah, And he called it scentovision, 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.679 which is much nicer than smellovision for sure. I mean 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:24.640 they're both kind of goofy. 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.640 Apparently it generally worked too. The New York Times, which 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:34.920 would become one of the biggest critics I guess of smellovision, 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:39.000 later on, endorsed it. This was back in the Yeah, 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.120 nineteen thirty nine, nineteen forty years before it actually was 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.400 attempted in a feature film, but they said that they 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.719 called it a smellie instead of a talkie, and they 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:51.640 said that, you know, some of it worked. I think 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:56.160 bacon didn't work very well, but incense worked really well. 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:57.880 It was very convincing, and I guess they had the 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.000 timing down and all that. But the projecttionist was actually 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:06.280 running not just the film but also the scent emissions 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:06.680 as well. 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:12.079 He was chief wafter Yeah, all right, maybe we should 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.240 take a break. Oh, okay, and we'll come back talk 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:40.120 about more smells right after this. All right, So how 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:41.800 did you pronounce the name lob or lobby? 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:44.319 Lob Lob. 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.160 Had a semi successful debut at the Scent Division, but 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:50.880 no one jumped on this, saying it was about ten 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.840 years before anyone really cared to do any more exploration 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.880 because of a funny thing that happened over the course 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.000 of World War Two. Before the war, movies were a 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.800 very big deal. After the war, movies were still a 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.720 big deal, but TV had come along by that point, right, 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.760 and sort of like the you know, theater owners now 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.400 being worried about people just streaming everything at home. They 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:16.600 were worried that people are just going to watch TV now, 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:19.120 so they wanted to up the ante in the in 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.240 viewing in person experience in the theater and smell a 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:24.880 vision was one of those first ideas. 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.800 Yeah, they did another one. I can't remember. I think 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:32.839 the movie was called The Chiller, but the producer installed 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.359 electric shocks into the movie theater seats from the patrons. 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.920 I can't remember what he called it. It was like 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.599 that age where they needed to do something that he 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.720 just couldn't possibly do at home. And Michael Todd is 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.600 he actually wasn't the guy who really was like, Okay, 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.680 we're going to make this work. Michael Todd Junior was 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.079 the guy who ended up making it work. But his father, 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.120 Michael Todd Sr. Who I saw this random bit of 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:03.320 trivia a website called in seventy millimeter dot com which 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:08.680 is about the movie biz. Yeah, and he the author 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:13.480 said that Michael Todd Senior, he was born Evram Hirsch Goldbogan. 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.240 He was Polish and he adopted his son's name. So 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.120 Michael Todd Junior came before Michael Todd Senior. Isn't that interesting? 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:23.960 That is super interesting and very strange, But. 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.600 The outside of it is. Michael Todd was a producer. 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.240 He was at first a vaudeville producer, then a Broadway producer, 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:32.600 and he eventually became a film producer. 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:37.120 That's right, And he was he's best known if you've 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:41.000 ever seen Todd AO. At the end of the film, 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.880 he kind of helped pioneer the seventy millimeter format. Yeah, 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:50.160 and and cinerama scope. It's a it's a widescreen format. 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:52.600 It's it's probably a whole episode or short stuff on itself. 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:55.360 But Todd AO as a company is still around, I 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:59.960 think in some capacity. But a very sort of invent 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:05.000 to enterprising guy basically. And like you said, he came 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:11.320 knocking around Hollywood eventually after his Broadway run, and they 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:13.320 right out of the gate had a very very big 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.920 hit with a movie called Around the World in Eighty Days. Yeah, 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.680 and almost used this movie as the big debut for Smellvision, 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.080 but decided not to feel like kind of at the 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:22.680 last minute. 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.640 Yeah, and very wisely too, because so Michael Todd Junior 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.760 and senior, this is their first film production and they 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:32.760 won the Oscar for Best Picture for that year nineteen 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:37.480 fifty seven. It beat out Giant with Rock Hudson, James Dean, 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.880 and Liz Taylor. Michael Todd was seated next to Liz 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.400 Taylor because they'd just gotten married a couple months before. 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.960 When his movie beat Hers for the Best Picture, they 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.320 also beat Ten Commandments, So it was like a big 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:54.840 deal that these essentially outsiders had just walked in, produced 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.880 such a great movie and won Best Oscar. He didn't 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.360 live very long after that. He died in a plane crash, 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.560 I think the next year, in nineteen fifty eight. Yeah, 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:09.160 but his son just carried on the mantle. They were 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.440 like actual collaborators, so there was just no question whether 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:15.960 Michael Todd Junior was going to continue on. But I 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.280 get the impression that Junior was more into the idea 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.200 of Smell a Vision than Senior was, because it wasn't 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.080 until after Senior died that Junior said I'm gonna make 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:24.640 this happen. 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.920 That's right. So he got in touch with Loub and said, 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.000 let's do this one movie. Let's give it a shot. 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:36.480 It's gonna be called Scent of Mystery. We're gonna have 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:39.560 all sorts of you know, something that kind of bugs me. 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.160 I'm not a big three D guy. It bugs me 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:44.920 when they do shots that you can tell, like when 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:46.680 you see the two D version, it's like they did 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.440 that thing coming at the screen clearly, just as a 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:51.680 sort of like a three D gimmick. 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.200 Like Friday the Thirteenth Part three did that a lot. 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.120 Yeah, I mean even modern three D movies do it 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.360 a lot. I feel like they'll, you know, have a 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:01.880 couple of shots there where it's like something is flying 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.440 right at the camera and you're just in two D. 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:06.119 It's like, uh, you know they did that just for 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:06.600 the three D. 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:08.800 Yeah. I have to say in that movie, they did 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.080 a good job with it, like Kevin Bacon's playing with 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.280 the yo yo and the shots from underneath and the 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.000 yoyo is coming like right at you. 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:17.840 Wait, he was in the first one, wouldn't he. 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.639 He was in the third one. He's dude, he's the 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:21.600 guy who does the I think he's the guy doing 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.560 the handstand who gets like cut in half from the 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:26.880 bottom up by Jason with a machete. 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:28.760 Okay, I thought he's in the first one. 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:30.800 I'm almost positive he's hand saying. 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:32.920 Guy, handstand guy. 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:33.360 Uh huh? 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:34.399 Is that his credit? 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:35.800 I don't know. 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:36.960 That'd be pretty great. 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.600 I don't know. Yeah, he could have been in the 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:41.240 first one, two's in everything of course. 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:43.440 Oh well you don't. You're not in multiple ones unless 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:45.679 you're Jason because you get packed. 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.240 Up, right Jason or Corey Feldman? 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:50.920 Right? Was he the one of us? 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:52.920 He was in like five or six I think. 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.719 Okay, I only saw a couple of those. Uh. Anyway, 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.639 that's what they did with Scent of Mystery is they 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.000 added all kinds of little gags in there to sort 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.080 of take place to time out with the smells, which, 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:07.879 you know, you can't blame them. If they're trying to 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.200 debut this new thing, they wanted to, you know, really 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:12.920 incorporate it, and they did in a big way. 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.879 Yeah, they like they It was the first motion picture 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:21.880 written to have smells associated with it. As we'll see 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.080 later on, there was a picture that was kind of 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.560 retroactively retrofitted with smells, but this one was like, we're 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.000 going to have this smell come out at this part 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:36.040 in the script, right, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, like we said, like, 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.920 Lobe was a lob. I don't even remember how we 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.680 sat his name anymore. He was a consummate inventor. He 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.679 was fairly genius from what I could tell. And he 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.919 had invented what he called the smell brain, which is 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:55.680 like the center es central component of the smell of vision. Well, 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:57.680 and we should say I think you said he'd called 0:18:57.680 --> 0:18:59.240 it centavision originally. 0:18:59.560 --> 0:18:59.840 Yeah. 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.680 One of the stipulations of his contract with Michael Todd Jr. 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.560 Was that they were going to change it to smellovision, right, 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.600 big diff Yeah, And apparently Michael Todd Junior was asked like, 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:11.919 why didn't you change it to something more dignified, and 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.320 he said, I don't understand how you can be dignified 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.000 about a process that introduces smells into a theater. 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:19.480 Yeah, I don't know what you could call it. That 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:20.479 isn't kind of cheeky. 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.600 I think sentavision still worked. Yeah, I think it was great. 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.639 But anyway, this smell brain was like the central component 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:33.520 of the entire smell of vision process. I guess. 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.480 Yeah. And this is one of those things that you 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:38.119 and I both I think, get kind of knocked out 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:42.840 about mechanical solutions to things, and this was that exactly. 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.800 It was a big box and had all these chemical 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.800 vials with these scents in them, and that was attached 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.239 to a belt that was attached to a motor, and 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.320 it simply would as the movie plays, it's timed to 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.960 queue up these these smells in sense and it would 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.119 basically load up into place. The belt would rotate on 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:06.760 que and then a needle is inserted into the vial 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:11.320 and spits it into a fan that pipes it through. 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:11.879 Uh. 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:13.840 And this was sort of the key, I think. And yes, 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:16.520 we'll get into more of this later, but it piped 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:22.399 it into ideally would pipe it into vince that would 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.040 not just go through the air conditioning or heating system 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.439 or whatever, but under each seat, like miles and miles 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:29.040 of this tubing. 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.080 Yeah, for sure. And that was, like you said, that's 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:37.560 the key. Apparently it worked really really well. Michael Todd 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:42.399 Junior gave Lobe a loub that's what we've been saying, 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.399 and how distracting. He gave him an entire theater in 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:49.160 Chicago to basically set up like a proof of concept, 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:54.119 and it worked very well. I think he started working 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:57.360 on it in nineteen fifty seven, nineteen fifty eight. There's 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.480 real there's a discrepancy between when this whole thing miradors. 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:05.040 We'll see either nineteen fifty nine or nineteen sixty. But 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:07.399 before they could get it out to market in I 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:12.080 think New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, they somebody beat 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.760 them to it, right, Yeah, a guy named Walter Reader Junior. 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:20.800