Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 2: Charles w Chuck Bryant, Jerry's here, and the three of
Speaker 2: us when you put us together, smell like cotton candy.
Speaker 2: Little known fact about Stuff you should Know.
Speaker 1: You know what? I gave my daughter cotton candy, first
Speaker 1: time she's ever had it, candy floss, just a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago at the zoo. I was like, you
Speaker 1: never had cotton candy. I was like, give me some
Speaker 1: of that. I want to see. I haven't had it
Speaker 1: in so long. And boy, it's just that the nostalgic
Speaker 1: blast of that stuff melting on your tongue. Did not
Speaker 1: enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I was like, Jesus, oh really, no, it's a gross
Speaker 2: web flavor. Was it like regular cotton candy flavor? Do
Speaker 2: they try to? Okay, the blue is the same as
Speaker 2: the pink. I don't like where this is going.
Speaker 1: We had a cotton candy machine as a kid growing up,
Speaker 1: A little do it at home deal.
Speaker 2: What yeah, okay, money bags?
Speaker 1: Yeah no, trust me, this is like a five ninety
Speaker 1: nine years item.
Speaker 2: I'm sure did you have the Snoopy Snowcome machine too.
Speaker 1: No. See, we couldn't afford that because I had a
Speaker 1: name brand. I think you and I were both very
Speaker 1: famous for having very unbranded childhoods.
Speaker 2: It's true, but we didn't have any kind of cotton
Speaker 2: candy machine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were generic family kids.
Speaker 2: So what about your cotton candy machine and your kid?
Speaker 2: Did you overdo it? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I just wanted to throw that in there.
Speaker 2: I wanted to show off.
Speaker 1: I told Ruby that I had one when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. She's like, really, yeah, And I said, yeah.
Speaker 1: It was gross and it only made white candy.
Speaker 2: Oh so it didn't taste at all.
Speaker 1: No, just spin this. The taste doesn't come from the
Speaker 1: food coloring.
Speaker 2: I don't know that that's true. Should we talk about
Speaker 2: smell of vision? Yeah, okay, I forgot. We hadn't even
Speaker 2: mentioned it yet. We're talking about smellovision, which is exactly
Speaker 2: what it sounds like. It was a really neat, interesting
Speaker 2: gimmick that was tried in the beginning the advent of
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties. Most people say where they tried to
Speaker 2: accompany motion pictures with smells in the exact same way
Speaker 2: that they accompany motion pictures with sounds. That's right, Like
Speaker 2: you put sound in moving pictures together. It's just so intuitive,
Speaker 2: and it's come so far that the world that we
Speaker 2: live in, you can't really imagine it. Otherwise, even if
Speaker 2: you've seen the artist, it's still tough to imagine. Right.
Speaker 2: They were trying to do that but with sense, and
Speaker 2: this is the first attempt, and unfortunately it was not
Speaker 2: a very successful attempt, which is why we don't have
Speaker 2: smell a vision today.
Speaker 1: That's right. Dave old Pell helps us out with this,
Speaker 1: and this is kind of a fun surprise. One of
Speaker 1: our old house Stuff Works writers. Patrick didn't work in
Speaker 1: the office with this, but he was one of our
Speaker 1: longtime freelancers. Patrick Kaiger wrote a book like eighteenish years
Speaker 1: ago called Poplarica Colon a popular history of the fads, Mavericks,
Speaker 1: inventions and lore that shaped modern America. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think did such a good job with the smellvision section
Speaker 1: that La Times writer Martin J. Smith again like seventeen
Speaker 1: or eighteen years ago, wrote an article about smellvision and
Speaker 1: used Patrick's book a lot. So we also relied on
Speaker 1: this stuff, and it was I want to check out
Speaker 1: that book. It sounds cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very good article or chapter I guess
Speaker 2: that they excerpted in. It's basically the definitive story of
Speaker 2: smell avision because it's such a it's such a narrow story.
Speaker 2: There's a few characters, and it happened in like this
Speaker 2: really narrow time frame. It's just it has a story.
Speaker 2: It's one of those those topics. It just has its
Speaker 2: own story, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And we'll get into the story story. But
Speaker 1: the first movie that they used it on that we'll
Speaker 1: touch on later, was called Scent of Mystery, And you know,
Speaker 1: you get the idea. They would pipe in like you know,
Speaker 1: someone was smoking a pipe, they would pipe in the
Speaker 1: smell of tobacco smoke. Or if someone was like in
Speaker 1: a basement, they would pipe in some kind of dusty basement.
Speaker 2: He smell mellow cadavers.
Speaker 1: Usually it was something hopefully kind of nice, like there
Speaker 1: was a peach orchard in a scene, and they piped
Speaker 1: in peach smells and things like that. But like you said,
Speaker 1: it was not a big hit at all. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think Time did you mention that that Time named it
Speaker 1: one of the worst fifty inventions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And This is along with DDT, Agent Orange and
Speaker 2: the baby cage. So that was that's really saying something.
Speaker 1: What else recently was on that list?
Speaker 2: Our live show? No, yeah, our live show the topic
Speaker 2: of our lives shows on the ideas of the century.
Speaker 1: I thought you meant our live show was one of
Speaker 1: the worst inventions in the last fifteenth or the last
Speaker 1: hundred years. That was a good joke.
Speaker 2: It was a good joke, unintentional but still pretty good.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're right, our secret topic for the live show
Speaker 1: that you're exactly right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just gave away that if you go look
Speaker 2: at that list of one hundred worse ideas of the
Speaker 2: century from time, you will stumble across our topic, but
Speaker 2: you may not know that that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know it's not somemellvision. No, so then
Speaker 1: you narrowed it down a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now you've got ninety nine other chances.
Speaker 1: So a company coming up with a signature scent is
Speaker 1: a big thing these days, Like we don't want to
Speaker 1: underestimate scent as a as a sense because it's very powerful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are very famous signature scents of like hotels and
Speaker 1: stores and stuff like that. But as far as using
Speaker 1: odor to tie it to entertainment. They were doing this
Speaker 1: in stage plays at least in the eighteen hundreds, and
Speaker 1: I would bet before that even.
Speaker 2: Sure, apparently they like theater owners would would basically do
Speaker 2: what they could to kind of make the whole scene
Speaker 2: that you were seeing being portrayed just that much more
Speaker 2: realistic by incorporating smell along with sites and sounds. Right,
Speaker 2: they didn't want you to touch the actors and you
Speaker 2: weren't allowed to lick the actors. So those were the
Speaker 2: three that they were allowed to work with. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it's it's understandable why because I mean, if you think
Speaker 2: about it, like you were saying, like scent is a
Speaker 2: very powerful sense that if you could tap into that correctly,
Speaker 2: you could really blow someone's mind with a stage production
Speaker 2: and eventually a movie. And that was the basis of
Speaker 2: this whole thing. In retrospect, it was gimmicky, it's silly,
Speaker 2: it's mid century. Yeah, it has a name like Smell
Speaker 2: a Vision, But if you really dig down into the story,
Speaker 2: you find like this is a really earnest, genuine project
Speaker 2: that was meant to just completely transform filmmaking for the better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean said earlier, they thought it was going
Speaker 1: to be the next revolution, like adding sound, which is
Speaker 1: kind of funny, like, this isn't something that appeals to me,
Speaker 1: even though we'll get to four D later on and
Speaker 1: talk about that. But the first movie theater to try
Speaker 1: anything like this in the United States was in Forest City, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: It was called the Family Theater and it was owned
Speaker 1: by Roxy Rothafel.
Speaker 2: And ironically, it was a pornography theater, right.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: It is gullible day for you.
Speaker 1: That was the last episode, and I'm still gullible.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine a Triple X theater called the Family Theater?
Speaker 1: That was the joke I was thinking from Roxy, like
Speaker 1: triple X. I gotcha, and I totally missed it. I'm
Speaker 1: off my game.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's okay man. As a matter of fact, I'll
Speaker 2: just retract that whole thing.
Speaker 1: No, I get it. That's a great name for a theater, Chuck,
Speaker 1: the Family Theater now showing deep throat exactly all right.
Speaker 1: So the Family Theater was owned by Roxy Rothefel, and
Speaker 1: Roxy is someone we talked about in our Rocketes episode
Speaker 1: because this person would go on to open up the
Speaker 1: Radio City Music Hall and the Rockets were originally called
Speaker 1: the roxy Ettes, but in nineteen o eight he owned
Speaker 1: the Family Theater and got a newsreel in nineteen sixteen
Speaker 1: about the Rose Bowl Parade and said, Hey, I'm going
Speaker 1: to pump the smell of rose oil into this theater
Speaker 1: and fan it in there. And that was sort of
Speaker 1: the first little attempt at something like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, I think that was kind of
Speaker 2: one of the things when they added like interior ventilation systems,
Speaker 2: Like people figured out you can not only move air
Speaker 2: around the theater pretty quickly, you can move sense around
Speaker 2: the theater. So in very short order, other theaters started
Speaker 2: trying the same thing. There was a theater in Boston
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty nine, there was a Detroit theater in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty three, and it just kind of sporadically was
Speaker 2: attempted at. But it wasn't until a guy named Hans
Speaker 2: Lob That's what I'm going with, who was Swiss, who
Speaker 2: was an inventor and an osmologist, which is somebody who
Speaker 2: studies the science of smells. And it wasn't until he
Speaker 2: came along with somebody said I'm making this work. I'm
Speaker 2: going to make this happen and really like dedicated himself
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. He had made his name removing smells. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what chemicals he used.
Speaker 2: I was looking all over for it.
Speaker 1: Well, these days a use stuff like ozone, which.
Speaker 2: Is not good at all.
Speaker 1: Well, I tell you, man, someone stole our car like.
Speaker 2: Three years ago.
Speaker 1: I remember that and basically just joy road and wrecked
Speaker 1: it for a few days and it smelled like smoked
Speaker 1: three thousand cigarettes in the span of three days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we got that thing back and that's all the
Speaker 1: entrance company. I was like, man, I don't care what
Speaker 1: you do, We're not taking this car back. There's no
Speaker 1: way it's ever going to smell the same again, right,
Speaker 1: And they said, oh, we use an ozone treatment and
Speaker 1: it didn't smell like cigarette smoke, but it smelled funky
Speaker 1: after that, and we fought tooth and nail with him.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, we can't drive around like this.
Speaker 2: Ozone has its own smell, and it's also super reactive
Speaker 2: and you don't want to breathe it in. Luckily has
Speaker 2: a very short like lifespan, but it's you don't want
Speaker 2: to be around ozone.
Speaker 1: Basically, No, that car is not in our family anymore.
Speaker 1: By the way, it had bad energy after that, so
Speaker 1: we didn't want any part of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am, that's pretty understandable. I can totally see that. Yeah, so, yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess he was doing ozone too. That was what
Speaker 2: I came up with with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was. He was using chemicals to remove odors,
Speaker 1: and then he said, hey, I could reverse this whole
Speaker 1: thing and add odors into movie theaters and debuted that
Speaker 1: idea at the thirty nine to forty World's Fair in
Speaker 1: New York with his partner Robert Barthis, and they had
Speaker 1: a thirty five minute fild called a film called My
Speaker 1: Dream or Mine Troum I guess it was in German,
Speaker 1: and they had thirty two different chemical odors that they
Speaker 1: pumped out during this thirty five minute film. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: almost a smell a minute. Yeah, And he called it scentovision,
Speaker 1: which is much nicer than smellovision for sure. I mean
Speaker 1: they're both kind of goofy.
Speaker 2: Apparently it generally worked too. The New York Times, which
Speaker 2: would become one of the biggest critics I guess of smellovision,
Speaker 2: later on, endorsed it. This was back in the Yeah,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, nineteen forty years before it actually was
Speaker 2: attempted in a feature film, but they said that they
Speaker 2: called it a smellie instead of a talkie, and they
Speaker 2: said that, you know, some of it worked. I think
Speaker 2: bacon didn't work very well, but incense worked really well.
Speaker 2: It was very convincing, and I guess they had the
Speaker 2: timing down and all that. But the projecttionist was actually
Speaker 2: running not just the film but also the scent emissions
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: He was chief wafter Yeah, all right, maybe we should
Speaker 1: take a break. Oh, okay, and we'll come back talk
Speaker 1: about more smells right after this. All right, So how
Speaker 1: did you pronounce the name lob or lobby?
Speaker 2: Lob Lob.
Speaker 1: Had a semi successful debut at the Scent Division, but
Speaker 1: no one jumped on this, saying it was about ten
Speaker 1: years before anyone really cared to do any more exploration
Speaker 1: because of a funny thing that happened over the course
Speaker 1: of World War Two. Before the war, movies were a
Speaker 1: very big deal. After the war, movies were still a
Speaker 1: big deal, but TV had come along by that point, right,
Speaker 1: and sort of like the you know, theater owners now
Speaker 1: being worried about people just streaming everything at home. They
Speaker 1: were worried that people are just going to watch TV now,
Speaker 1: so they wanted to up the ante in the in
Speaker 1: viewing in person experience in the theater and smell a
Speaker 1: vision was one of those first ideas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did another one. I can't remember. I think
Speaker 2: the movie was called The Chiller, but the producer installed
Speaker 2: electric shocks into the movie theater seats from the patrons.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what he called it. It was like
Speaker 2: that age where they needed to do something that he
Speaker 2: just couldn't possibly do at home. And Michael Todd is
Speaker 2: he actually wasn't the guy who really was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to make this work. Michael Todd Junior was
Speaker 2: the guy who ended up making it work. But his father,
Speaker 2: Michael Todd Sr. Who I saw this random bit of
Speaker 2: trivia a website called in seventy millimeter dot com which
Speaker 2: is about the movie biz. Yeah, and he the author
Speaker 2: said that Michael Todd Senior, he was born Evram Hirsch Goldbogan.
Speaker 2: He was Polish and he adopted his son's name. So
Speaker 2: Michael Todd Junior came before Michael Todd Senior. Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 1: That is super interesting and very strange, But.
Speaker 2: The outside of it is. Michael Todd was a producer.
Speaker 2: He was at first a vaudeville producer, then a Broadway producer,
Speaker 2: and he eventually became a film producer.
Speaker 1: That's right, And he was he's best known if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen Todd AO. At the end of the film,
Speaker 1: he kind of helped pioneer the seventy millimeter format. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and cinerama scope. It's a it's a widescreen format.
Speaker 1: It's it's probably a whole episode or short stuff on itself.
Speaker 1: But Todd AO as a company is still around, I
Speaker 1: think in some capacity. But a very sort of invent
Speaker 1: to enterprising guy basically. And like you said, he came
Speaker 1: knocking around Hollywood eventually after his Broadway run, and they
Speaker 1: right out of the gate had a very very big
Speaker 1: hit with a movie called Around the World in Eighty Days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and almost used this movie as the big debut for Smellvision,
Speaker 1: but decided not to feel like kind of at the
Speaker 1: last minute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and very wisely too, because so Michael Todd Junior
Speaker 2: and senior, this is their first film production and they
Speaker 2: won the Oscar for Best Picture for that year nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty seven. It beat out Giant with Rock Hudson, James Dean,
Speaker 2: and Liz Taylor. Michael Todd was seated next to Liz
Speaker 2: Taylor because they'd just gotten married a couple months before.
Speaker 2: When his movie beat Hers for the Best Picture, they
Speaker 2: also beat Ten Commandments, So it was like a big
Speaker 2: deal that these essentially outsiders had just walked in, produced
Speaker 2: such a great movie and won Best Oscar. He didn't
Speaker 2: live very long after that. He died in a plane crash,
Speaker 2: I think the next year, in nineteen fifty eight. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but his son just carried on the mantle. They were
Speaker 2: like actual collaborators, so there was just no question whether
Speaker 2: Michael Todd Junior was going to continue on. But I
Speaker 2: get the impression that Junior was more into the idea
Speaker 2: of Smell a Vision than Senior was, because it wasn't
Speaker 2: until after Senior died that Junior said I'm gonna make
Speaker 2: this happen.
Speaker 1: That's right. So he got in touch with Loub and said,
Speaker 1: let's do this one movie. Let's give it a shot.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be called Scent of Mystery. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: all sorts of you know, something that kind of bugs me.
Speaker 1: I'm not a big three D guy. It bugs me
Speaker 1: when they do shots that you can tell, like when
Speaker 1: you see the two D version, it's like they did
Speaker 1: that thing coming at the screen clearly, just as a
Speaker 1: sort of like a three D gimmick.
Speaker 2: Like Friday the Thirteenth Part three did that a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean even modern three D movies do it
Speaker 1: a lot. I feel like they'll, you know, have a
Speaker 1: couple of shots there where it's like something is flying
Speaker 1: right at the camera and you're just in two D.
Speaker 1: It's like, uh, you know they did that just for
Speaker 1: the three D.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I have to say in that movie, they did
Speaker 2: a good job with it, like Kevin Bacon's playing with
Speaker 2: the yo yo and the shots from underneath and the
Speaker 2: yoyo is coming like right at you.
Speaker 1: Wait, he was in the first one, wouldn't he.
Speaker 2: He was in the third one. He's dude, he's the
Speaker 2: guy who does the I think he's the guy doing
Speaker 2: the handstand who gets like cut in half from the
Speaker 2: bottom up by Jason with a machete.
Speaker 1: Okay, I thought he's in the first one.
Speaker 2: I'm almost positive he's hand saying.
Speaker 1: Guy, handstand guy.
Speaker 2: Uh huh?
Speaker 1: Is that his credit?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: That'd be pretty great.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, he could have been in the
Speaker 2: first one, two's in everything of course.
Speaker 1: Oh well you don't. You're not in multiple ones unless
Speaker 1: you're Jason because you get packed.
Speaker 2: Up, right Jason or Corey Feldman?
Speaker 1: Right? Was he the one of us?
Speaker 2: He was in like five or six I think.
Speaker 1: Okay, I only saw a couple of those. Uh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's what they did with Scent of Mystery is they
Speaker 1: added all kinds of little gags in there to sort
Speaker 1: of take place to time out with the smells, which,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't blame them. If they're trying to
Speaker 1: debut this new thing, they wanted to, you know, really
Speaker 1: incorporate it, and they did in a big way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they like they It was the first motion picture
Speaker 2: written to have smells associated with it. As we'll see
Speaker 2: later on, there was a picture that was kind of
Speaker 2: retroactively retrofitted with smells, but this one was like, we're
Speaker 2: going to have this smell come out at this part
Speaker 2: in the script, right, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, like we said, like,
Speaker 2: Lobe was a lob. I don't even remember how we
Speaker 2: sat his name anymore. He was a consummate inventor. He
Speaker 2: was fairly genius from what I could tell. And he
Speaker 2: had invented what he called the smell brain, which is
Speaker 2: like the center es central component of the smell of vision. Well,
Speaker 2: and we should say I think you said he'd called
Speaker 2: it centavision originally.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the stipulations of his contract with Michael Todd Jr.
Speaker 2: Was that they were going to change it to smellovision, right,
Speaker 2: big diff Yeah, And apparently Michael Todd Junior was asked like,
Speaker 2: why didn't you change it to something more dignified, and
Speaker 2: he said, I don't understand how you can be dignified
Speaker 2: about a process that introduces smells into a theater.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what you could call it. That
Speaker 1: isn't kind of cheeky.
Speaker 2: I think sentavision still worked. Yeah, I think it was great.
Speaker 2: But anyway, this smell brain was like the central component
Speaker 2: of the entire smell of vision process. I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And this is one of those things that you
Speaker 1: and I both I think, get kind of knocked out
Speaker 1: about mechanical solutions to things, and this was that exactly.
Speaker 1: It was a big box and had all these chemical
Speaker 1: vials with these scents in them, and that was attached
Speaker 1: to a belt that was attached to a motor, and
Speaker 1: it simply would as the movie plays, it's timed to
Speaker 1: queue up these these smells in sense and it would
Speaker 1: basically load up into place. The belt would rotate on
Speaker 1: que and then a needle is inserted into the vial
Speaker 1: and spits it into a fan that pipes it through.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And this was sort of the key, I think. And yes,
Speaker 1: we'll get into more of this later, but it piped
Speaker 1: it into ideally would pipe it into vince that would
Speaker 1: not just go through the air conditioning or heating system
Speaker 1: or whatever, but under each seat, like miles and miles
Speaker 1: of this tubing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And that was, like you said, that's
Speaker 2: the key. Apparently it worked really really well. Michael Todd
Speaker 2: Junior gave Lobe a loub that's what we've been saying,
Speaker 2: and how distracting. He gave him an entire theater in
Speaker 2: Chicago to basically set up like a proof of concept,
Speaker 2: and it worked very well. I think he started working
Speaker 2: on it in nineteen fifty seven, nineteen fifty eight. There's
Speaker 2: real there's a discrepancy between when this whole thing miradors.
Speaker 2: We'll see either nineteen fifty nine or nineteen sixty. But
Speaker 2: before they could get it out to market in I
Speaker 2: think New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, they somebody beat
Speaker 2: them to it, right, Yeah, a guy named Walter Reader Junior.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had Aroma Rama. Again, pretty cheeky.
Speaker 2: I think it's better than smell Avision. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: they're both.
Speaker 1: I mean, smell Division really fit that mid century age, you.
Speaker 2: Know, sure, so does Aroma Rama.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think back then they both kind of went
Speaker 1: over pretty well.
Speaker 2: They're the kind of words with tail fins, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally. This was in New York at the
Speaker 1: Demil Theater, and this is the one that you reference.
Speaker 1: He didn't actually make a movie from scratch to work
Speaker 1: with Aroma Rama. He bought the rights to a documentary
Speaker 1: called Behind the Great Wall. It was sort of a
Speaker 1: travel documentary about China, and he used his Aroma Rama
Speaker 1: in that way, and people did not like it. Critically.
Speaker 1: They they said it was a stunt. I think The
Speaker 1: New York Times said the smells were elusive, oppressive, or
Speaker 1: perfunctory and banal.
Speaker 2: This is not good. The same reviewer went on to
Speaker 2: say that that that the treatment in between smells that
Speaker 2: was meant to clear the air had its own sticky,
Speaker 2: sweet smell. That quote tends to become upsetting before the
Speaker 2: film has run its full two hours. And then when
Speaker 2: the reviewer left the theater, they happily filled their lungs
Speaker 2: with that lovely fume laden New York go zone. It
Speaker 2: has never smelled so good. So that's not really the
Speaker 2: review you're going for when you're releasing the first smell
Speaker 2: Avision or Aroma rama picture.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and on the bad reviews of that, they
Speaker 1: even mentioned the upcoming scentse of Mystery HU, which is
Speaker 1: definitely not what you want when you're following up someone
Speaker 1: who had had jumped the line ahead of you.
Speaker 2: Right, they got a terrible review, like they got a
Speaker 2: terrible review by proxy.
Speaker 1: Basically, yeah, exactly, so.
Speaker 2: You want to take a break and come back and
Speaker 2: we'll tell everybody about just exactly what happened when Sente
Speaker 2: Mystery premiered.
Speaker 1: Cliffhanger, let's do it.
Speaker 2: All, right, Chuck. So we're here. It's either nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 2: it's nineteen sixty, and it's time for the Cente Mystery
Speaker 2: to premiere, and Michael Todd Junior's been talking it up.
Speaker 2: He has a famous quote where he said that he
Speaker 2: hopes people find it sensational. Here's that kind of guy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the film itself was apparently fairly well received. I
Speaker 2: was directed by a guy named Jack Cardiff who is
Speaker 2: a cinematographer. I think he was a cinematograph for black
Speaker 2: Narcissists if I'm not mistaken, and won an Oscar for it.
Speaker 2: But he said he signed on to this one because
Speaker 2: he said the script was very well written and really
Speaker 2: dramatized the smells, which is man, that's a press to
Speaker 2: her quote if I've ever heard one. Right there, I
Speaker 2: think he probably should have just said, like I needed
Speaker 2: the money. Can we all disagree on that being okay?
Speaker 2: But he directed it, and again it was a pretty
Speaker 2: cute little film. Daniel Melliott beloved actor who was Indiana Jones'
Speaker 2: mentor and the first couple I believe remember what.
Speaker 1: Was his name talking about Marcus.
Speaker 2: Yes, he played He was the lead in Scent of Mystery,
Speaker 2: Oh Crazy, Yeah, and Peter Laurie was his sidekick cab driver.
Speaker 2: And the whole thing is set in Spain. It has
Speaker 2: its own travel log kind of quality to it as well.
Speaker 2: So the first two Smelly Pictures were essentially travel logs,
Speaker 2: one in China, one in Spain, but the second one
Speaker 2: had like a kind of a mystery plots to with
Speaker 2: impostors and all that, and those with gags that you
Speaker 2: were talking about, Like they really had a lot to
Speaker 2: do with the movie, like the the twist or the
Speaker 2: way the solution to the mystery that Daniel Elliott figures
Speaker 2: out is based on a smell. He could tell that
Speaker 2: the woman he's talking to is claiming to be someone
Speaker 2: else is an imposter because she's wearing the different perfume
Speaker 2: and the audience is smelling that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Or that's kind of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, another guy's rooted out as one of the evildoers
Speaker 2: because of the smell of the pipe tobacco that he's smoking.
Speaker 2: Like there's a lot, you know, some of it was gratuitous,
Speaker 2: Like they did that whole thing like you were talking
Speaker 2: about where they pull fresh bread out of the oven, right,
Speaker 2: and I saw that they just shove it into the
Speaker 2: camera and the camera just stays there for a little
Speaker 2: while so you could get the fresh bread smell. But
Speaker 2: the they really kind of went to great lengths to
Speaker 2: make it so that the smells had some They weren't
Speaker 2: all just gratuitous. They really did have something to do
Speaker 2: with the plot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think some of that plot centric stuff could
Speaker 1: be kind of fun back then. Still don't know if
Speaker 1: i'd be into it today, But again, we'll get the
Speaker 1: four D coming up. The New York Times again was
Speaker 1: not too kind, had some pretty bad things to say.
Speaker 1: Patrons sit there snipping and snuffling like a lot of
Speaker 1: bird dogs, trying hard to catch the scent. And you know,
Speaker 1: it was just a big flop basically overall. And this
Speaker 1: is something I couldn't verify, but Hans Laub's daughter Carmen
Speaker 1: claimed that Michael Todd Junior cheaped out on the ultimate
Speaker 1: conversion into the other theaters by not taking it to
Speaker 1: each seat, which was, like we said, really, one of
Speaker 1: the keys is to make sure it's got to be
Speaker 1: timed just right, Like you can't have the scent piping
Speaker 1: in from an air duck twenty feet over your head
Speaker 1: that you smell in two minutes when scene is already
Speaker 1: long gone. And the real key was having it under
Speaker 1: each seat. And she claims that they didn't do that,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the big reasons why it failed.
Speaker 2: I saw kind of like indirect references that kind of
Speaker 2: support that claim that the first premiers flopped. But then
Speaker 2: they did some technical adjustments and they got it all
Speaker 2: figured out. So I'm wondering if they went in and
Speaker 2: did the tube band because they saw that they had
Speaker 2: really screwed up by trying to save a few bucks.
Speaker 2: The problem is the New York Times had already reviewed it.
Speaker 2: It was I mean, because it was a gimmick. People
Speaker 2: like to see gimmicks fail or I should say this,
Speaker 2: if a gimmick fails, people tend to find that satisfactory.
Speaker 2: If it's successful, awesome, it becomes legendary and we'd be
Speaker 2: having a completely different episode right now. But if a
Speaker 2: gimmick fails, people love jumping on it. Henny Youngman famously
Speaker 2: had a pretty great one liner. He said that he
Speaker 2: didn't understand the movie because he had a cold. I
Speaker 2: thought it was a great one liner. Apparently I'm alone here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: was all right, but it it just got smeared because
Speaker 2: people like smearing other people who try new things. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it had a very very small window to be
Speaker 2: successful or not. Oh, it wasn't successful in that small window,
Speaker 2: and so that was it. It was a flop. And
Speaker 2: then that was it for Smellovision. And not only was
Speaker 2: that it for Smellovision, Chuck, that was it for Hans
Speaker 2: Lob and Michael Todd Jr. As well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they canceled. They were going to expand to one
Speaker 1: hundred theaters. They canceled that order. Carmen Helnslob's daughter said that,
Speaker 1: you know, he basically died penniless. For worse than penniless,
Speaker 1: he died with debts. Even he did invent something that
Speaker 1: again didn't bring him riches, but sort of the beta
Speaker 1: version of what you would call a glade plug in
Speaker 1: or something today. Yeah, that was called best Air. But
Speaker 1: that didn't work, even though it was pretty ahead of
Speaker 1: its time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Michael Todd Junior went off. He didn't
Speaker 2: produce anything else. Apparently there were two other scripts that
Speaker 2: he trademarked. One was called Bumpkins Holiday, and the description
Speaker 2: I saw was that it's it was just a man
Speaker 2: riding a bus and that there was no dialogue of
Speaker 2: any kind. Wow, Like, what would that have been?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: I would love to see somebody make that movie, because
Speaker 2: how would you even attempt to make that interesting? You know?
Speaker 1: And maybe he was just like with that title, I
Speaker 1: got to snap this thing up.
Speaker 2: Right, so that never got made. The other one was
Speaker 2: called Creature from the Bronx. That never got made either,
Speaker 2: so he never produced another movie again. I don't know
Speaker 2: if he died broke pennyless and with debts. I think
Speaker 2: kid some incomes still from right, I'm saying like Hans Low,
Speaker 2: But I'm saying I don't think Michael Todd Junior did
Speaker 2: oh and his career petered out, I think, is how
Speaker 2: I saw it described.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that's sad. A couple of films have gone
Speaker 1: on to do something like this later on. John Waders
Speaker 1: was very famous for his nineteen eighty one film Polyester
Speaker 1: in Theaters coming with a little scratch and sniff card
Speaker 1: that you would use, very very funny and kitchy. Obviously
Speaker 1: John Waters is going to do something fun like that.
Speaker 2: But what sense were they well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Fart was a very famous dirty
Speaker 1: shoes skunk. It wasn't you know, Peaches and Lilac right exactly.
Speaker 1: And then the Rugrats Go Wild movie, as in homage
Speaker 1: is what they called it, did the same thing in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three with their film, And then there
Speaker 1: have been more modern stabs at this in the way
Speaker 1: of four D.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dave, I think we said at the outset helped
Speaker 2: us out with us and he mentions the first four
Speaker 2: D movie theater ever created was called the Censorium. It
Speaker 2: was located at six Flags power Plant Amusement Park in Baltimore,
Speaker 2: which I think now is like called power Plant Live
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 1: That sounds about right.
Speaker 2: It was like Buckhead in the nineties, jammed into like
Speaker 2: one call building from what I can tell. But back
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four they opened the Censorium and Dave
Speaker 2: said he went there and like the seats moved and rumboled,
Speaker 2: and they hit him with popcorn smells and stuff like
Speaker 2: that sprayed with water to simulate rain, I believe, And it,
Speaker 2: just like with smell Avision with Hans Loeb and his
Speaker 2: attempt at the World's Fair, is basically proof of concept
Speaker 2: of the World's Fair. Nobody did much with it after that.
Speaker 2: Six Flights closed in nineteen ninety until twenty years later
Speaker 2: when South Korean company came up with the forty X
Speaker 2: and that's still around today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the next wave. I have not
Speaker 1: tried it out yet, Like you said. At premiered in
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine in South Korea. There are twenty
Speaker 1: one effects, so it's not just it's like kind of
Speaker 1: what Dave experience. It's got Your seats are moving and
Speaker 1: rubbling and rocking back and forth. Seatbacks can like punch you.
Speaker 1: They'll be fog or cold or hot air, and plenty
Speaker 1: of smells. And there are close to eight hundred of
Speaker 1: these theaters opening. I'm sorry operating in the world today.
Speaker 1: I have not gone. I want to try it out.
Speaker 1: I don't think. I just want to see what it's like.
Speaker 1: I can assure you I probably won't like it, right,
Speaker 1: But I will say that this podcast that I guess
Speaker 1: is on is really great. I've mentioned it here before,
Speaker 1: called Too Scary, Didn't watch. It's these three girlfriends who
Speaker 1: one of them loves horror movies, the other two hate them,
Speaker 1: but they want to know what happens. So she watches
Speaker 1: in them and recaps them and it's a really fun show.
Speaker 1: And Sammy Smart is one of the co hosts, who
Speaker 1: is a great name. Yeah, Sammy's great, and she watches
Speaker 1: these movies. The horror movie She's one of the watches
Speaker 1: him and she went to four d X for the
Speaker 1: Top Gun movie, and she said she had a blast it.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, Samy, someone who like who's judgment and opinion
Speaker 1: I value. So just based on that alone, I'll give
Speaker 1: it a shot. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try out forty X.
Speaker 2: So that my source, which is a Quartz article called
Speaker 2: I watched Batman versus Superman at a forty theater so
Speaker 2: you don't have to by Adam Epstein, all right, it's
Speaker 2: basically the opposite. He was saying that, like there's a
Speaker 2: part where some character gets shot in the back and
Speaker 2: his seat punched him in the back for some reason.
Speaker 2: He said his hair was just kind of wet for
Speaker 2: some reason. All the well, I'm just saying, like like
Speaker 2: getting punched, Like why would you want to simulate that?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Oh well, I think that's the whole deal.
Speaker 2: His his point was this, this is the upshot, as
Speaker 2: as he would have probably said it to you or me.
Speaker 2: It did the opposite of pulling him into the movie.
Speaker 2: They were reminded of exactly of where he was at
Speaker 2: every single moment and now interested him from getting into
Speaker 2: the movie itself. Okay, yeah, he yeah, he didn't really
Speaker 2: like it at all, And from what I've seen, basically
Speaker 2: every review is similar to that, except for apparently Sammy's
Speaker 2: Smart's review.
Speaker 1: Well, I think Sammy, I don't think shit was a
Speaker 1: full throated endorsement. I think it was like she'd said,
Speaker 1: I had a really good time at this movie and
Speaker 1: this experience I gotcha cool, which is different sometimes than
Speaker 1: saying like this is awesome in the next way you.
Speaker 2: Know, right, I'm with you, But it's hanging on hanging
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 1: It is. And there's a you can get this in
Speaker 1: your home now. There's a company from Spain called Ola
Speaker 1: Rama that will sell you. It's a sort of a
Speaker 1: two foot but it looks like about one foot box
Speaker 1: kind of looks like a box fan, right, and you
Speaker 1: can load up to twenty smells I think for the
Speaker 1: basic fifty five hundred dollars package, and it does the
Speaker 1: same thing. It syncs up with your movies through software,
Speaker 1: and I think you can go all the way up
Speaker 1: to like twenty grand if you want a forty smell version,
Speaker 1: and you can put it in your home theater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminds me of the I Smell peripheral. Remember
Speaker 2: we talked about the old Apple peripheral that never took off.
Speaker 1: That's what it was, plugged into your computer and did
Speaker 1: the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got about that. I have one more things.
Speaker 2: You'll allow me, oh please. So they went back and
Speaker 2: they kind of I don't think they'd made any edits whatsoever.
Speaker 2: They just retitled the send of Mystery into Holiday in Spain,
Speaker 2: it's not called sent a Mystery anymore. And they took
Speaker 2: away the smelly parts. But because they'd written the script
Speaker 2: around smells I saw A Daily Telegraph reviewer said it
Speaker 2: took on a baffling, almost surreal quality in some parts,
Speaker 2: like where the bread is pulled out of the oven
Speaker 2: and then just kept in the middle of the screen
Speaker 2: for all interesting.
Speaker 1: It became like an art film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it just it didn't make sense anymore. I
Speaker 2: thought that was a great description of it. I want
Speaker 2: to see it now.
Speaker 1: Maybe I should watch it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got anything else?
Speaker 1: Maybe we should watch it together and we should just
Speaker 1: provide each other with surprising smells.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a great idea, you know. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 2: fantastic ed let's give it.
Speaker 1: Ah, it don't sync up, you know, like the bread
Speaker 1: comes out of the oven and that's when I do
Speaker 1: like motor oil or something.
Speaker 2: He just tells me with old used motor oil. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm like, that smells terrible. It would be fun, let's see. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think we are already asked you if you got anything else.
Speaker 1: Right, I got nothing?
Speaker 2: Okay, So since Chuck said he's got nothing, that means
Speaker 2: time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one just a very nice thank you. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: been listening to the show for about ten years now.
Speaker 1: I want to express my gratitude. I've always enjoyed your
Speaker 1: down to earth, humorous, clever, and intentional approach to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I love learning about the stories, events and concepts I've
Speaker 1: never heard of. We're hearing a more detail look at it.
Speaker 1: I never would have thought to explot further. I realize
Speaker 1: that your podcast has been with me through several milestones
Speaker 1: and difficult life events, grad schools, starting my career, grief,
Speaker 1: and now through my first year sobriety.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I work as a music therapist in a pretty high
Speaker 1: strung environment, so I always appreciate how the show helps
Speaker 1: me to take my mind off things. I quite literally
Speaker 1: can't fall asleep without listening to a stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know episode old or new. And that's not because it's boring, Guys.
Speaker 1: I often use listening the car and on walks as well,
Speaker 1: but something about the show helps to bring a sense
Speaker 1: of openness and appreciation for life that helps calm my mind.
Speaker 1: So thank you to Josh and Chuck in the SYSK crew.
Speaker 1: And that is from Emily.
Speaker 2: Thanks Emily. Yes, we take that as high praise that
Speaker 2: we help people fall asleep. I agree. If you want
Speaker 2: to get in touch with us and let us know
Speaker 2: how we've helped you, or how long we've accompanied you
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