Speaker 1: Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 2: What's that? Will?
Speaker 1: I know?
Speaker 3: You know I'm a big candy corn fan. I'm super
Speaker 3: excited Halloween's coming up. But did you know that candy
Speaker 3: corn used to be.
Speaker 1: Called chicken feed? What?
Speaker 3: According to Better Homes and Gardens, the revolutionary tricolor candy
Speaker 3: was invented by a company called Wonderly Candy Company.
Speaker 1: Isn't that a great name? In Philadelphia?
Speaker 3: This was back in eighteen eighty And do you know
Speaker 3: what the original slogan was, No, I don't something worth
Speaker 3: crowing for, which, actually, as I'm saying that aloud, do
Speaker 3: chickens crow?
Speaker 1: I mean they're both birds.
Speaker 3: I guess you're right, And it's the perfect slogan for
Speaker 3: chicken feed. And it's just the first of nine Halloween
Speaker 3: theme facts We've got for you today.
Speaker 1: Let's dive in.
Speaker 3: Hey their podcast listeners, welcome to part time genius Will
Speaker 3: Pearson And as always, I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 3: mangesh hot Ticketter and on the other side of the
Speaker 3: soundproof glass, dressed up in his homemade costume.
Speaker 1: I think he's a dentist. Is that what he was saying?
Speaker 3: I think is our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. It's
Speaker 3: an impressive costume, whatever it is. And back from vacation.
Speaker 3: Joining us on the phone is our brilliant researcher, Gabe lucyer.
Speaker 1: Hey, they're Gabe.
Speaker 4: Hey, guys, nice to be back. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: All right, well let's talk some Halloween facts.
Speaker 3: I know I usually let somebody else go first, but
Speaker 3: I'm not done talking about candy corns.
Speaker 1: If you don't mind, I'm gonna kick this thing off.
Speaker 3: So did you know what actually wasn't started as a
Speaker 3: Halloween candy? In fact, as late as nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 3: Brocks was advertising it as this summertime candy. And I
Speaker 3: guess it makes sense because corn is kind of a
Speaker 3: summertime food. But I do have some really important statistics
Speaker 3: to share with you guys. So, according to a study,
Speaker 3: forty three percent of people eat it at the narrow
Speaker 3: end first, ten percent eat it at the wider end first,
Speaker 3: and forty seven percent of people just pop the whole
Speaker 3: kernel in their mouths. Who doesn't just pop the whole kernel.
Speaker 1: In their mouths?
Speaker 2: I eat it from the narrow end.
Speaker 1: Do you really gave? How do you eat it?
Speaker 4: I honestly just try to avoiding it altogether.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, now you at least know the percentages.
Speaker 3: Okay, so there's my first fact, Mango, you want to
Speaker 3: go next.
Speaker 2: So this comes from our friend Stacy Conrad. But she
Speaker 2: told me that tricker treaters in Des Moines can't just
Speaker 2: say trick or treat and expect they get like candy
Speaker 2: shoved into their pillowcases. They actually have to tell jokes
Speaker 2: for their truths. And apparently the tradition started in the
Speaker 2: thirties when there was this outbreak of Halloween vandalism. The
Speaker 2: director of recreation around there decided to encourage more constructive
Speaker 2: Halloween activities. So here's actually what you told residents. Quote
Speaker 2: Eats should be given only if such a trick as
Speaker 2: a song, a poem, a stunt, or a musical number,
Speaker 2: either solo or in group participation, is presented. Eighty years later,
Speaker 2: the tradition still continues, and while the poems, stunts, and
Speaker 2: musical numbers have kind of gone out of style, kids
Speaker 2: still tell jokes for their candies.
Speaker 1: So this has common all over Des Moines. I guess.
Speaker 3: So, oh wow, I'd never heard that before either. That's
Speaker 3: a that's a pretty good one, all right, Gabe. So
Speaker 3: you're back from vacation, hopefully not too rusty. You got
Speaker 3: a fact for us?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, absolutely, And this one actually is in a
Speaker 4: you know, it's similar vein to you know, a public
Speaker 4: stand against Halloween nusances. So silly string is actually banned
Speaker 4: in Hollywood on Halloween night. And this is according to
Speaker 4: a Los Angeles Municipal Code ordinance that pass in two
Speaker 4: thousand and four. And it's anyone caught selling, or using
Speaker 4: or even possessing a silly string between midnight October thirty
Speaker 4: first and New November first can be fined up to
Speaker 4: one thousand dollars. Oh and the reason for that is
Speaker 4: over one hundred thousand people routine only flocked to Hollywood
Speaker 4: Boulevard on Halloween night looking for something to do. And
Speaker 4: that something often includes, you know, buying shilly string from
Speaker 4: street vendors and reading havoc. Not only that, but you know,
Speaker 4: there are also environmental concerns. Big clumps of philly string,
Speaker 4: as well as the empty cans have a tendency to
Speaker 4: claw storm dream and eventually flowed out the sea. Since
Speaker 4: LA's dreams empty directly into the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 3: Wow, this is a big issue. I had never heard
Speaker 3: this either me either. Good job, that was a good fact.
Speaker 3: All right, let me see what I have next here.
Speaker 3: I've got a really important fact about Halloween Eve. So
Speaker 3: I actually didn't realize how many people around the world
Speaker 3: have a name for Halloween Eve. There was a poll
Speaker 3: by the Cambridge Online Survey and they were looking at
Speaker 3: if people had a name for it. So seventy five
Speaker 3: percent of people don't call Halloween Eve anything, but twenty
Speaker 3: five percent of people have names. So it was kind
Speaker 3: of fun to look at the list. So there's some
Speaker 3: that we've heard of before. There's beggars Night, Mischief Night,
Speaker 3: Devil's Night, Gate Night, trick Night. But two that I
Speaker 3: have never heard before. In New England many people call
Speaker 3: it cabbage Night, and in parts of New Jersey they
Speaker 3: call it Goosey Night.
Speaker 1: You ever heard that goosey Knight? Now, all right, manga
Speaker 1: we have next.
Speaker 2: So this is about a Halloween mess. And in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety six, Spirit Halloween, which is a change, started keeping
Speaker 2: track of their political mass sales and they've picked up
Speaker 2: on this odd trend. They realized that whichever candidate's mass
Speaker 2: sold more, the candidate would win the election. And since
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six, all six elections have gone in the
Speaker 2: direction of the more popular mask, and Trump sold fifty
Speaker 2: five percent of the mask to Hillary's forty five percent.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm actually kind.
Speaker 3: Of surprised he didn't outsell her in even more, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But anyway, that's uh, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: All right, Gabe, what do you have next?
Speaker 4: Okay, So this is the fact that I was really
Speaker 4: surprised to learn. Apparently they're not one, but two cities
Speaker 4: in the United States that both claim to be the
Speaker 4: Halloween Capital of the world. And the first is Salem, Massachusetts,
Speaker 4: and you know, that makes sense. It's the home of
Speaker 4: the famous Salem witch trial, so it definitely has some
Speaker 4: creepy cred in its favor. But the other is Anoka, Minnesota,
Speaker 4: And strangely enough, but Anoka claims to be the capital
Speaker 4: because it was the first city in the US to
Speaker 4: throw a Halloween celebration in order to stop kids from
Speaker 4: you know, sewing mystic around the town, like soaking up
Speaker 4: people's windows and tipping over outhouses. So in nineteen twenty,
Speaker 4: the Anoka Commercial Club and the Yenoka Kiwanis Club through
Speaker 4: a big celebration that included a parade, a bonfire, foods, drinks,
Speaker 4: and you know, of course candy and then later expanded
Speaker 4: the events to include other things like pillow fights, costume contests,
Speaker 4: and even a fireworks display. And the event is actually
Speaker 4: still being held in Anoka, and it has been every
Speaker 4: year since, with the exception of a prepliinatus during World
Speaker 4: War Two when citizens had, you know, bigger thing to
Speaker 4: storry about, the zeedding their houses.
Speaker 3: The Halloween capitals are the competing Halloween capitals of the US.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting. I'd never heard that.
Speaker 3: All Right, we've each got one fact left, and I've
Speaker 3: saved what I think maybe my best for last. Even
Speaker 3: though it's not about candy corn, it's about Houdini, who appropriately.
Speaker 1: Died on Halloween. I don't know if you guys knew this.
Speaker 3: So he was rushed to the hospital a week before
Speaker 3: October thirty first, but then he ended up dying on
Speaker 3: October thirty first. Now, his death was the result of
Speaker 3: a ruptured appendix, and doctors were able to remove the appendix,
Speaker 3: but the damage had already been done. And you know,
Speaker 3: there's some speculation that the rupture was due in part
Speaker 3: to a man that was punching him in the stomach
Speaker 3: repeatedly to see if he could live up to the
Speaker 3: rumors that he could withstand hard punches to the abdomen. Now,
Speaker 3: Houdini's wife would hold seances every year on October thirty
Speaker 3: first to remember him. This happened for about ten years
Speaker 3: after his death. All right, Mango, one last fact from you.
Speaker 2: So this isn't a Halloween fact per se, but it
Speaker 2: is one about candy and maybe also a cautionary tale.
Speaker 2: So you know, in the movie Charlie in the Chocolate Factory,
Speaker 2: there's that character Violet Beauregard who's always chewing gum. So,
Speaker 2: according to the UK paper, they expressed sugarlest gum didn't
Speaker 2: produce the right bubbles, so she spent nine weeks on
Speaker 2: set chewing regular gum, which resulted in thirteen cavities after filming.
Speaker 3: Wow, all right, you closed pretty strong with that one,
Speaker 3: I think, So, Gabe, do you want to bring it home?
Speaker 4: Yeah? And I actually I do want to end on
Speaker 4: a creepy one. This is one of the creepiest things
Speaker 4: I came across, actually, and that's that The candy industry
Speaker 4: influenced daylight Saving time. You know, the actual dates when
Speaker 4: Daylight Saving Time occurred, right, And this is according to
Speaker 4: Michael Downing, the author of spring Forward the Annual Madness
Speaker 4: of Daylight Saving Time. It's the great title, by the way,
Speaker 4: but the candy industry is actually the reason that DFP
Speaker 4: was extended by four weeks beginning in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 4: He told MPR, quote, for twenty five years, candy makers
Speaker 4: that wanted to get trick or treat covered by daylight
Speaker 4: saving figuring that if children have an extra hour of daylight,
Speaker 4: they'll collect more candy. In fact, they went so far
Speaker 4: during the nineteen eighty five hearings on daylight saving has
Speaker 4: to put candy pumpkins on the seat of every senator,
Speaker 4: hoping to win a little favor. And the creepiest part
Speaker 4: about this is that have worked. The candy industry eventually
Speaker 4: got their way. Two thousand and five, President Bush signed
Speaker 4: a bill into law that extended daylight Saving Time to
Speaker 4: include Halloween. And you know, supposedly the Gulf and barbecue
Speaker 4: industries are also said to have been in on this.
Speaker 4: On this push for extending.
Speaker 3: It, I mean, it is pretty smart, and I do
Speaker 3: like those candy pumpkins.
Speaker 1: They're pretty good.
Speaker 4: Too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, taste kind of like candy corn, but totally different shapes.
Speaker 3: All right, Gabe, you know, Mango and I are always
Speaker 3: deciding who the winner is, but you've done this with
Speaker 3: us a few times now, so I'm going to let
Speaker 3: you decide who takes the crown today.
Speaker 4: Oh man, that's that's a lot of pressure. And you know,
Speaker 4: I don't want to shoot my own horn or anything,
Speaker 4: but that that was pretty creepy. And this there is
Speaker 4: a Halloween episode, so.
Speaker 3: I like his confidence, so well, we'll agree to that.
Speaker 3: We'll give it to you, Gabe. Congratulations, Guy's good. Thank
Speaker 3: you guys for listening today. We'll be back with a
Speaker 3: full length episode tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Aly