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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Let's hear it from our super producer,

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Speaker 1: mister Max Sunday Sunday Sunday.

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Speaker 2: Williams Sunday Sunday, say so, I've been your goal.

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Speaker 1: It's it's It may be Sunday while someone's listening to this,

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Speaker 1: but there's never a bad time to check out a

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Speaker 1: monster truck show. Have you ever seen one?

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Speaker 2: You guys? Not in person? They do what is it

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Speaker 2: called monster Jam here in Atlanta. It's a big thing,

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Speaker 2: very popular event. I was invited to go once and

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Speaker 2: I couldn't make it, but I want to go. I

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Speaker 2: want to see what is it? Truck Osaurus? Is that

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Speaker 2: a thing?

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Speaker 1: Truck Osaurus is? We mentioned this in our previous episode, Right,

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Speaker 1: truck Asaurus is in the Simpsons. It's a truck dinosaur

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Speaker 1: created by Professor Frink.

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Speaker 2: Right, and it like it shoots fire and stuff. Right,

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Speaker 2: isn't it based on something real? I swear it is.

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Speaker 1: There's like Robosaurus is the real life versions Okay, dinosaur

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Speaker 1: robot created by Doug Mulliwiki. I want to say, and

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Speaker 1: got it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but monsters, I mean it's just you know, I'm

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Speaker 2: obviously I'm not a I've made no secret that I'm

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Speaker 2: not the biggest sportsman on the planet. And it's weird

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Speaker 2: because like monster truck it's not really a sport. It's

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Speaker 2: more of a spectacle kind of. It's more like going

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Speaker 2: to see an air show or something. Wouldn't you say,

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Speaker 2: is there a competition element involved? I don't think so.

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Speaker 2: I think it's all kind of. It's also not like

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Speaker 2: a demolition derby and that that has like a you know,

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Speaker 2: or someone wins, but I don't think anybody wins. It's

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Speaker 2: a rally, so it's not necessarily like a competition unless

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Speaker 2: I'm mistaken.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's a heck of a good time as long

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Speaker 1: as you're not in a truck that recks.

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Speaker 2: We always, i.

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Speaker 1: Think, associate monster truck rallies with a sort of halcyon

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Speaker 1: era in the nineteen eighties, you know, WrestleMania was a

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Speaker 1: thing people tuned into and if you are unfamiliar with

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Speaker 1: monster trucks, if you've never been to a show before,

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Speaker 1: you might be surprised to learn just how popular this

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Speaker 1: stuff was. Just a few years before, Hogan and Andre

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Speaker 1: the Giant conducted WrestleMania three at the Pontiac Silver Dome

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Speaker 1: in Pontiac, Michigan. About four years before that happened, sixty

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Speaker 1: eight thousand people poured into the same Silver Dome to

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Speaker 1: watch a converted Ford F two fifty with oversized wheels

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Speaker 1: crush other vehicles, just smashing them the way you walk

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Speaker 1: on water bottles.

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Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

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Speaker 2: And that scene setting comes courtesy of Jake Ross and

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Speaker 2: at Mental Floss, who really kind of likened the whole

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Speaker 2: wrestling phenomenon with monster trucks. It really is kind of

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Speaker 2: the same bread and circuses spectacle of professional wrestling, but

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Speaker 2: instead of wrestlers, you've got these insane converted trucks. And

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Speaker 2: when we say converted, we're basically referring to you know

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Speaker 2: how it all kind of started with an Afford F

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Speaker 2: two fifty truck. YEP, that's just one whole hundred bigger

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Speaker 2: than the F one fifty, which is already pretty massive.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's converted by by being given massive wheels

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Speaker 2: and obviously all of the gack that goes along with that,

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Speaker 2: you know, the what do you call it? The you know,

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Speaker 2: I'm sure it's got a modified suspension and all of

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Speaker 2: that you know, with hydraulics, and maybe the hydraulics like lyft,

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Speaker 2: but something that allows the shock of literally running over

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Speaker 2: cars to be absorbed to the point where the driver

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Speaker 2: is not gonna get jostled out of their seat right exactly.

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Speaker 1: And this this is a huge moment for a huge truck.

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Speaker 1: The crowd is looking at this thing called Bigfoot, owned

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Speaker 1: by a guy named Bob Chandler, and they love it

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Speaker 1: so much that they swarm the field. They want to

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Speaker 1: get closer to Bigfoot. And the guy who owns it, Bob,

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Speaker 1: he rolls up the windows and stops the show and

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Speaker 1: drives off because he's afraid his monstrous truck will take

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Speaker 1: some monstrous damage. This is the story of the monster trucks. Now,

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Speaker 1: we want to be clear with you folks. Like any

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Speaker 1: amazing origin story, there are some differing narratives, so you're

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Speaker 1: gonna hear different sources saying different things about who invented

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Speaker 1: the quote unquote first monster truck. We'll stick with Bob

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Speaker 1: Chandler for a moment here. He's got a really interesting story.

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Speaker 1: He was a carpenter by trade, and he used to

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Speaker 1: be in the Navy, where he works as a mind

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Speaker 1: sweeper when he was about thirty five years old. He

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Speaker 1: wasn't dreaming of making monster trucks. He just liked pickups.

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Speaker 1: You know, if you're a carpenter, a pickup is a

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Speaker 1: great vehicle. You can haul lumber, you can haul tools,

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Speaker 1: you can go camping if you want, like a friend

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Speaker 1: of the show Alex Williams, who is eternally camping, it seems.

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Speaker 1: And let's let's go back here. Let's get some help

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Speaker 1: from our friends at haggarty dot com Cameron neviuw who

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Speaker 1: has a great article on the brash disputed birth of

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Speaker 1: the American monster truck. Nolan, can you paint the scene here?

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Speaker 1: What was going on with the origin of the trucks?

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Speaker 1: Do we have to go back to the nineteen sixties

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Speaker 1: to understand?

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Speaker 2: We do. We don't have to, but we choose to

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Speaker 2: because that's that is where it started. The big three

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Speaker 2: auto companies you've heard of these. I believe Chrysler was

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Speaker 2: one of them, Ford was the other. What's the third

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Speaker 2: big American auto company? GM? GM? Of course General Motors,

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Speaker 2: you know, back back in the in the golden era

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Speaker 2: of of of of American manufacturing of cars, because obviously

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Speaker 2: the car was an American invention. But then, as we know,

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Speaker 2: a lot of these communities really got rocked when overseas

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Speaker 2: manufacturing became more cost effective and a lot of foreign

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Speaker 2: auto makers began to you know, flood the market with

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Speaker 2: affordable vehicles. So, you know, places like Flint, Michigan, for example,

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Speaker 2: really you know, got hit super hard when this happened

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Speaker 2: and they lost a lot of their infrastructure. But in

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Speaker 2: the sixties things were booming and the Big Three started

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Speaker 2: to kind of build and put out vehicles that emphasized

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Speaker 2: the idea of the open road, or rather the off road,

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Speaker 2: being able to just take your car wherever your little

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Speaker 2: adventuring heart may lead you. For it had the Bronco,

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Speaker 2: which was kind of stuff smiling on a previous vehicle model,

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Speaker 2: the Jeep, which we know, but it kind of combined

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Speaker 2: the off roadiness of the Jeep with something more akin

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Speaker 2: to like a family car, you know, so you have

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Speaker 2: kind of the best of both worlds. And this did

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Speaker 2: very well. You know, consumers were all about this idea

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Speaker 2: of freedom, even if they never took the thing off row,

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Speaker 2: they liked to think that they could if they wanted to.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is kind of the birth of the sport

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Speaker 1: utility vehicle or SUV, and you have doubtlessly seen many

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Speaker 1: of these, especially if you live in a city. You

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Speaker 1: might have been a little aggravated seeing one slow down

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Speaker 1: at a speed bump or a pothole, and you're wondering,

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Speaker 1: why'd you pay so much for the four wheel drive.

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Speaker 1: Off Roading was booming at this time or mudding, whatever

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Speaker 1: you want to call it, especially on the West Coast.

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Speaker 1: People would go onto the dunes and they would build

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Speaker 1: these tube frame contraptions with balloon tires, which are exactly

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Speaker 1: what they sound like. They were originally designed for Arctic

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Speaker 1: exploration in this miliu. In nineteen seventy four, Bob and

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Speaker 1: Marilyn Chandler of Missouri purchased their brand new Ford F

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Speaker 1: two fifty. Now my car stuff's coming out here, guys.

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Speaker 1: I don't think anybody should buy a vehicle brand new

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Speaker 1: unless you get a really really good deal.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because there's that whole like, you know, depreciation the

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Speaker 2: moment you drive it off the lot scenario.

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Speaker 1: Right, even worse than a boat.

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Speaker 2: It's the number. It's a shocking number.

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Speaker 1: It's it changes over time. It's been a while since

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Speaker 1: I looked at it. But it could be significant. You know,

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Speaker 1: I've seen numbers like fifteen percent, et cetera. And it

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Speaker 1: also to be proud of me, I bought a certified

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Speaker 1: pre own.

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Speaker 2: I know we.

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Speaker 1: Talked about it. I remember, I remember making these schemes.

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Speaker 1: And that's been a really good car to you man.

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Speaker 1: That one's held up right, dude.

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Speaker 2: I haven't had to have any major work done on

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Speaker 2: it at all, and it's still kicking along beautifully. It's

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Speaker 2: a great car. Highly recommend not not an F four

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Speaker 2: two fifty. I wouldn't be going off roading in this guy,

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Speaker 2: Although maybe I could do some modifications to put some

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Speaker 2: bigger wheels on it. But I don't think I don't

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Speaker 2: help good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's a rabbit hole, and it's a

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Speaker 1: wallet vortex and a time vampire. But if you have

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Speaker 1: a mod so okay, this is the thing. They want

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Speaker 1: to mod their vehicle too. They want to be part

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Speaker 1: of this off roading boom. But Bob and Maryland have

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Speaker 1: a problem. They say, we can't find four by four

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Speaker 1: parts in our home state of Missouri.

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Speaker 2: So if you would put your car stuff on again

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Speaker 2: for a second to explain to me and the listeners

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Speaker 2: what is four by four referring to So four.

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Speaker 1: X four is short term or for four wheel drive,

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Speaker 1: and that means that you have a two axle vehicle

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Speaker 1: drive train that can provide torque to all of the

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Speaker 1: wheels simultaneously, as opposed to something like front wheel drive

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Speaker 1: where or rear wheel drive where it's just that one pair.

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Speaker 2: I know what four wheel drive is. Never until this

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Speaker 2: moment did I know that four x four was referring

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Speaker 2: to that. But that makes sense. So this is obviously

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Speaker 2: a feature that would be very helpful in getting enough

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Speaker 2: torque to say, launch your modified F two fifty over

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Speaker 2: a sand in right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And there's also all wheel drive, which is very similar.

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Speaker 1: It's a little bit different. All wheel drive is always

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Speaker 1: going to be active, and four wheel drive you have

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Speaker 1: to turn it on. It has to be engaged.

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Speaker 2: By the driver, and part of it is also about

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Speaker 2: helping getting you unstuck yeah yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and helping you navigate you know, uneven terrain. So

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Speaker 1: they want to get in on this, and they call

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Speaker 1: a friend in nineteen seventy five, shortly after they buy

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Speaker 1: this Ford, and it's a buddy of theirs who loves

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Speaker 1: going off road. His name's Jim Kramer, and they say, look,

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Speaker 1: let's start our own business. We found an opportunity. Let's

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Speaker 1: sell for by four parts. And they say, okay, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna call the business Midwest four wheel Drive, and we're

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Speaker 1: going to supply people. We're gonna be based in Saint Louis.

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Speaker 1: So this guy, then, while he started to do business,

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Speaker 1: he's still doing his off roading right without without all

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Speaker 1: these modifications just yet, and he is wrecking his poor

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Speaker 1: forward often like tearing up engines, axles, you name.

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Speaker 2: It, and you know. So he was putting these big

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Speaker 2: oversized wheels on his f two fifty forty eight inches

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Speaker 2: to be precise, and that would also involve modifying the

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Speaker 2: axles so that they could support that. And I was

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Speaker 2: just doing a little digging, and it seems that because

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Speaker 2: of that lack of four by four parts and maybe

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Speaker 2: no one not even really considered doing this yet, these

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Speaker 2: wheels were really only available from like farm equipment and

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Speaker 2: more industrial equipment, you know, like backos and things like

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Speaker 2: that that would backos are more tread based, but like

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Speaker 2: you know what I'm talking about, like certain tractors would

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Speaker 2: be it would be sure, that's exactly right, because they

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Speaker 2: need to, you know, go over rough terrain by their very.

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Speaker 1: Nature, or wheels on a harvester. Yeah, yeah, it makes

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Speaker 1: total sense. And this is this is funny because the

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Speaker 1: guy starts this shop because he wants to have a

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Speaker 1: shop like this selling things to him. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: like someone who starts a restaurant because they're hungry, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean. He's dipping into his own supply

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Speaker 1: pretty quickly. He gets easy access to all sorts of parts.

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Speaker 1: The Mental Floss article you mentioned earlier has some quotes

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Speaker 1: from him as his cabin begins to loom over the road.

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Speaker 1: This is a gradual process building up to those forty

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Speaker 1: eight inch oversized wheels because it's advertising for the shop.

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Speaker 1: But he says, I never really had the thought to

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Speaker 1: build a monster truck. I had a stock for two

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Speaker 1: fifty and I kept putting bigger and bigger tires on

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Speaker 1: it that I broke the so I put bigger axles

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Speaker 1: under the truck. Then I didn't have enough power, so

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Speaker 1: I put a bigger engine in there. It was quote

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Speaker 1: just kind of a vicious circle for about three or

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Speaker 1: four years. The truck gradually got to be its own star,

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Speaker 1: I guess, And so he would zip around town. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is great. He's a rolling billboard for his company now,

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Speaker 1: and this is a fast vehicle, like once he gets

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Speaker 1: the engine in there. This is cartoonish on the road totally.

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Speaker 2: And Ben correct me if I'm wrong here again, if

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Speaker 2: you could put on your car stuff, Helmut. The idea

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Speaker 2: of stock cars. This that refers to using stock like

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Speaker 2: consumer available cars, and modifying them, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, A stock car is an ordinary car that's

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Speaker 1: been modified in some way, usually for racing. The other

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Speaker 1: version would be a stock car in the world of trains,

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Speaker 1: that would be like a railroad car.

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Speaker 2: So this is a stock truck. It's being modified not

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Speaker 2: necessarily for racing, but for trucking, for monster trucking.

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Speaker 1: Right yeah. And we know how he got the nickname too.

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Speaker 1: His buddy Jim Kramer, who helped start the business. He

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Speaker 1: joked about how Chandler at kind of a lead foot.

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Speaker 1: He said, Bob Taylor's big foot is always on the

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Speaker 1: gas and people started calling him Bigfoot. And Bob Jaylor

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Speaker 1: strikes me as a pretty cool guy to hang out

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Speaker 1: with because he leans into the nickname. He says, Oh,

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Speaker 1: people are calling me Bigfoot on the streets. I'll just

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Speaker 1: paint it on the truck. And he was.

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Speaker 2: Also bigfoot in the sheets.

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Speaker 1: Hey right, Uh, locals loved this and he got people

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Speaker 1: coming out of the woodwork trying to buy his unique truck.

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Speaker 2: Now, I'm not trying to be a pill here, but

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Speaker 2: I have a I suspect that not all locals love

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Speaker 2: this because I don't know if you've ever seen anyone

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Speaker 2: driving one of these things around like Atlanta, trying to

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Speaker 2: squeeze into parking spaces or cutting you off of traffic.

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Speaker 1: Don't love it?

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Speaker 2: No, it's not great. These things really are designed. I

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Speaker 2: would not make this my daily driver, you know. So

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Speaker 2: maybe you know it led to like okay, well, it's

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Speaker 2: trying to take this thing off the road literally and

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Speaker 2: into something more contained, you know, or we can really

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Speaker 2: see what it's made of.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, the car does become a celebrity.

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Speaker 1: I for the record, one hundred percent agree with you

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Speaker 1: about not having big vehicles in densely packed urban areas

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Speaker 1: that's not off road, you know what I mean. And

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Speaker 1: I'm speaking from personal experience when I when I say

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Speaker 1: seeing somebody in a huge offer vehicle slow down at

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Speaker 1: a speed bump, I try not to judge people. But

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Speaker 1: if it was a video game, they lose like ten

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Speaker 1: points of respect easily, very least negative xcipede. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: these vehicles are very expensive. Look, let's play inflation calculator

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Speaker 1: a little bit. So the Ford in its factory version,

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Speaker 1: the four to two f two fifty that he bought

280
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Speaker 1: it sold for about forty four hundred dollars straight in

281
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Speaker 1: the mid seventies. And that would be if we could get.

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Speaker 2: A boop and a boop and a boop and a

283
00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:20,680
Speaker 2: boop and a boop and a boom and a.

284
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Speaker 1: Boop, sixteen thousand dollars in today's money. But once he

285
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Speaker 1: got it modded up and it became the Bigfoot truck,

286
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Speaker 1: people would try to buy it for fifty grand, which is,

287
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Speaker 1: if we inflation calculate and.

288
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Speaker 2: A boo, boop, a boopeee beep, one hundred.

289
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Speaker 1: And eighty five grand today.

290
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Speaker 2: Dude, Okay, I mean, and that makes sense because not

291
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Speaker 2: only I mean, I'm sure that the parts and labor

292
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Speaker 2: and all of the you know, modifying that went into it,

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Speaker 2: you know, added some of the price tag. But I

294
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Speaker 2: don't think that is sherely what this figure is referring to.

295
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Speaker 2: This is also just the the wow factor of it all,

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Speaker 2: the fact that this thing did not exists outside of

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Speaker 2: what this guy created, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the story goes national. The Los Angeles Times

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Speaker 1: interviews the couple, and Marilyn Chandler says, when we go

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Speaker 1: out at night, it looks like lightning because so many

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Speaker 1: people are taking flash pictures. Pretty cool.

302
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is. And speaking of you know, Hollywood

303
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Speaker 2: come in a calling, you know, in the form of

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Speaker 2: the La Times. It really did come a calling in

305
00:17:26,840 --> 00:17:29,719
Speaker 2: a much more you know, palpable way that you know,

306
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Speaker 2: created what we now know as the Monster Truck Rally.

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Speaker 2: In the summer of nineteen seventy nine, when Chandler was

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Speaker 2: thirty eight years old, he met a guy by the

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Speaker 2: name of Everett Jasmer, which is a really great name,

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Speaker 2: Everett Jasmer, who is a drag racer and also a

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Speaker 2: fan of trucks. And that, you know, there would have

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Speaker 2: been rallies and things, or you know, not rallies like

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Speaker 2: what we know is the Monster Truck Rally, but you

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Speaker 2: know meetups, let's call them, like little car meetups. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: stuff like that. So there was a circuit, you know,

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Speaker 2: and this was a relatively somewhat to some degree burgeoning

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Speaker 2: kind of thing. I mean, I'm sure you know off roading, well,

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Speaker 2: I mean no, we talked about that. That was really

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Speaker 2: kind of more a phenomenon of the sixties, so this

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Speaker 2: is but still that's relatively that's only you know, about

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Speaker 2: ten years at this point that we've been having this,

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Speaker 2: so it's still a relatively nascent kind of a hobby,

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Speaker 2: I guess. So the circuit would have been pretty small,

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Speaker 2: you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it would have been something that you were aware

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Speaker 1: of if you were involved with this, if you were

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Speaker 1: a quote unquote car guy. But it wasn't. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: getting what's the best way to say it, It wasn't

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Speaker 1: getting the same level of recognition that say, like a

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Speaker 1: NASCAR would be getting. It was prominent enough in the

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Speaker 1: American zeitgeist that it did make national news. And this guy,

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Speaker 1: Everett Jasper, I'm so glad he introduced him. He was

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Speaker 1: a Chevy guy. He had a nineteen seventy Chevy K

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Speaker 1: ten and he had bought it used in nineteen seventy four.

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Speaker 1: Good job, Everett. And he has a lot in common

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Speaker 1: with Bob Chandler. He's named his truck and he this

337
00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:12,200
Speaker 1: is the funny story. This comes to us from history

338
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Speaker 1: dot com. Everett was mowing his lawn one day and

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Speaker 1: he had a vision vision.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, he was. He was visited by the

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Speaker 2: ghost of Monster Truck Future. Exactly.

342
00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:32,359
Speaker 1: The ghost of Monster Truck Future said Everetts, you need

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00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:36,280
Speaker 1: to make red, white and blue license plates, and you

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Speaker 1: need to put USA dash one on them. And Jasmer

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00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:43,119
Speaker 1: made it. So Everett had one of these hanging on

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Speaker 1: his wall. He put the plate on his Chevy and

347
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Speaker 1: then that became the name of his truck USA.

348
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Speaker 3: These things I say to thee and they will come

349
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Speaker 3: from far and wide fortune to spectate the spectacle which

350
00:19:57,400 --> 00:20:00,600
Speaker 3: you would be at the center of if you read it,

351
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Speaker 3: they will come.

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Speaker 1: There was no such thing as a monster truck yet

353
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Speaker 1: there's still like in the first part of Field of Dreams.

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Speaker 1: Here and their friendship between Bob and Everett. These guys

355
00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:18,040
Speaker 1: create a national phenomenon that leads to a billion dollar industry.

356
00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:21,640
Speaker 1: And it all starts with a phone call to Bob

357
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Speaker 1: Chandler's after market four by four shop in nineteen seventy nine.

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Speaker 1: Hollywood comes calling.

359
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:31,520
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we tease the call, but really quickly, I've

360
00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:33,800
Speaker 2: got a backtrack for two seconds Field of Dreams. I

361
00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:36,080
Speaker 2: think a superior name for that movie would have been

362
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Speaker 2: Baseball Ghosts. What do you guys think?

363
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Speaker 1: I agreed one hundred percent it is yeah cool.

364
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Speaker 2: So Chandler gets a call from the pic Jazz, from

365
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Speaker 2: a movie producer who's working on a comedy. This is

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Speaker 2: also you got to remember this was like in the seventies,

367
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Speaker 2: there were a lot of like big rig type movies,

368
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Speaker 2: you know, like every which Way but Loose, if I'm

369
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Speaker 2: not mistaken, which is the one where involves no, there's wait,

370
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Speaker 2: there's bj and the Bear I think is one where

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Speaker 2: there's like a rangutan or a chimpanzee, and like what's

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Speaker 2: his name? Burt Reynolds driving a four by four and

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Speaker 2: if I'm not wrong, every which way but Loose might

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00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:16,440
Speaker 2: have to do with a four by four. Definitely there's

375
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Speaker 2: a monkey in that one too, sorry, and Ape But yeah,

376
00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:21,600
Speaker 2: truck movies, you know, even like the film from the

377
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:25,159
Speaker 2: seventies Sorcerer, which is you know, a fabulous you know,

378
00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:30,240
Speaker 2: kind of like adventure rollicking, kind of like very complex

379
00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:34,400
Speaker 2: character study by William Friedkin involves driving a big rig

380
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Speaker 2: across a like rope bridge and the rig is loaded

381
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Speaker 2: with like nitro glycerin, and it's really one of the

382
00:21:40,119 --> 00:21:43,199
Speaker 2: most tense sequences in film. So it makes sense that

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Speaker 2: Hollywood would have caught wind of this, like, how can

384
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 2: we bake this in to like, you know, our truck pictures,

385
00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:52,600
Speaker 2: you know. So he's working on a comedy with a

386
00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:55,480
Speaker 2: fabulous title called Take This Job and Shove It from

387
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:59,159
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one, very irreverent. And he had seen Chandler's

388
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:02,480
Speaker 2: truck in one of these kind of magazines that would

389
00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:04,480
Speaker 2: have been, you know, featuring this kind of stuff, these

390
00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:08,080
Speaker 2: kind of you know, DIY sort of motorist mags.

391
00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:12,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this this is a golden opportunity. They say,

392
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Speaker 1: we want to have your truck, just make some appearances.

393
00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:19,160
Speaker 1: So Bigfoot shows up in the movie Take This Job

394
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Speaker 1: and Shove It, starring Art Carney, Robert Hayes, Barbara Hershey,

395
00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:27,160
Speaker 1: David Keith. People, I'm not really familiar with. It's named

396
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:29,800
Speaker 1: after that country song Take This Job, barsh of It.

397
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:33,000
Speaker 1: Barbara Hershey had a really sultry voice.

398
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Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken.

399
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:38,120
Speaker 1: Cool, all right, I'm into I love a sultry voice.

400
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:43,800
Speaker 1: So this monster truck, Bigfoot shows up as a big

401
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:47,159
Speaker 1: time participant in a pickup truck race in the film.

402
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:51,359
Speaker 1: Initially the studio wanted to use stunt drivers, but no

403
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 1: one really knew how to drive the truck as well

404
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:56,840
Speaker 1: as Bob Chandler because he literally built it, and so

405
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 1: he was behind the wheel for filming. And when he's

406
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: going to go film, he calls up his buddy Everett Jasmer,

407
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:07,880
Speaker 1: the Chevy guy USA one, and he says, hey, come

408
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:12,159
Speaker 1: hang out with me on this movie shoot. And Jasmer says,

409
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 1: this is a great opportunity. So he shows up and

410
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 1: after that they get invitations to these events around the country.

411
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 1: They keep making their trucks bigger and bigger. We have

412
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Speaker 1: a quote from Everett where he says it was like evolution.

413
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:27,359
Speaker 1: I liked the joke. We both crawled out of the

414
00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 1: mud and became monster truckers in the early nineteen eighties.

415
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,439
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's so fun. And then of course they

416
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:39,200
Speaker 2: eventually evolved into things like truck Zilla, truck Asaurus, whatever

417
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:41,399
Speaker 2: you want to call it. It did become kind of

418
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 2: like a Transformer Z the kind of vibe. Right, it's weird.

419
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,240
Speaker 1: They like evolved into the mud. If you think about it,

420
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 1: it's weird.

421
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's also the lesser known monster truck, the

422
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:52,920
Speaker 2: mud Skipper.

423
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 1: Right, and so okay, So back to Chandler. He's watching

424
00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 1: TV one Saturday morning. He's already filmed Take This Job

425
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 1: and Shove It, and he sees a show called Wide

426
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: World of Sports, and he says, I saw these trucks

427
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:08,679
Speaker 1: driving around a muddy area, and there was a body

428
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: of a car in the mud, sticking up six inches

429
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 1: out of the ground. And this Toyota starts pushing it

430
00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:16,879
Speaker 1: and puts its front tires on it. And he says,

431
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 1: my pal Jim Kramer was with me, and I said

432
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 1: to him, I bet Bigfoot would drive clean over a car.

433
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 1: So Jim Cramer goes to one of his friends who

434
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:32,200
Speaker 1: has a farm, and they take the truck there they

435
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:34,719
Speaker 1: set out some cars. I guess they knew someone who

436
00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:37,199
Speaker 1: just had some broke down cars. Max is shaking his

437
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 1: head like, yeah, you get in situations.

438
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:40,880
Speaker 2: Oh well, I mean think about all any of those

439
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 2: any number of these junk yards you see in sort

440
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 2: of rural areas. I mean, the things are just they're

441
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 2: lousy with them. They're stacked, like the point where they're

442
00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 2: like towering over the fences. So certainly there would have

443
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:54,119
Speaker 2: been plenty of opportunities to get some like beat he

444
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 2: kind of parts cars to just line up and make

445
00:24:57,560 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 2: a real big showing up.

446
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: And it's it's so weird because they videotaped this. It's

447
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 1: literally in some guy's yard on a farm, and his

448
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 1: wife has a little bit of a problem because she says,

449
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:10,440
Speaker 1: this is kind of destructive.

450
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 2: Bob.

451
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 1: We're trying to make a good clean name for our truck,

452
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:17,159
Speaker 1: a family oriented thing. But a promoter sees the video

453
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 1: and says, I want you to do that in front

454
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 1: of a crowd.

455
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 2: So they say.

456
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: They'll try it one time in a place called Jefferson City, Missouri.

457
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: The crowd went crazy. Bob Chandler says, from that point on,

458
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:33,680
Speaker 1: anytime he went anywhere with Bigfoot, people wanted to see

459
00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 1: him drive over other cars. She's got to be awkward

460
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 1: at the grocery store.

461
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. We have kind of an exchange here between Jasmer

462
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 2: and Chandler. Should we just do it real quick?

463
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:45,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's just go that's right.

464
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:47,199
Speaker 2: Let's just let's just make it. Make a scene of

465
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 2: who do you want to be? Ben?

466
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 1: I'll be Bob if you want to be Everett.

467
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 2: Jasmer got it? Okay, I'll be Jasmer because he's my

468
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 2: favorite name. Okay. By nineteen eighty three, Bob had another

469
00:25:56,840 --> 00:25:59,919
Speaker 2: opportunity to do that That's Incredible show. He already had

470
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:01,959
Speaker 2: sixty six inch tires. I was getting ready to put

471
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:03,879
Speaker 2: them on my truck. He called me one day and

472
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,159
Speaker 2: told me about the TV show, and I wasn't ready.

473
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 2: I had just a few weeks to get the truck

474
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 2: rebuilt and get the sixty six inch tires on so

475
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 2: we could compete on the show.

476
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,680
Speaker 1: We just stepped up to the sixty six inch tires,

477
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 1: and our trucks weren't really set up for that size tire.

478
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 1: They're massive things, thousand pound tires. For the show, there

479
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: was going to be fifty something cars in a row

480
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: for each of us to drive over. They wanted a

481
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: race that would be somewhat.

482
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:30,199
Speaker 2: Competitive, which answers my previous question. There is you know,

483
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 2: even if it's the illusion of competition, there is like

484
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,400
Speaker 2: a little bit of built in competition carrying on as

485
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 2: Jasmer I was out of time. We literally didn't have

486
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 2: time to put the sixty six inch tires on the

487
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:41,879
Speaker 2: truck and try it out. We were down to the

488
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,400
Speaker 2: last second, so we loaded the truck on a trailer

489
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:46,919
Speaker 2: and loaded the tires and went to Saint Louis. We

490
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 2: unloaded and put the tires on for the first time

491
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 2: at the racetrack. I discovered in the process that the

492
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 2: steering wasn't working very well with those big tires, so

493
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 2: I was having a difficult time steering the truck during

494
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 2: the competition. I've never said this to anyone before. I

495
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 2: think Bob knew I was having and steering problems, and

496
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,800
Speaker 2: I think he slowed down to make me look less bad.

497
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,119
Speaker 1: Well, as I remember it, I had a speakerphone in

498
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: the truck and the producers were yelling at me to

499
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 1: let Everett catch up to me, to keep it interesting.

500
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 2: It was a fantastic time. Of course, we got a

501
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:16,400
Speaker 2: lot of exposure out of him. There were a few

502
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 2: other guys building trucks at the time, but we were

503
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 2: three or four years into what people were calling monster trucks.

504
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 2: But That's incredible was a trigger and people started building

505
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:28,320
Speaker 2: trucks all over the place. The promoters made hay out

506
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 2: of him. That was a major step in promoting the

507
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 2: whole monster truck sport.

508
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 1: So I love how you could tell these guys are

509
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 1: have become really good friends, and they were packing arenas

510
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 1: across the country. By the mid eighties, the monster truck

511
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:48,199
Speaker 1: phenomenon took over tailers, telling people, I can't believe how

512
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: the crowd loves to see destruction. And he earned about

513
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,640
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars a pop every time he did his show,

514
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 1: which was pretty great money considering how many shows they did.

515
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 1: And then he started building more Bigfoot trucks. They were

516
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 1: all Fords, and sometimes he would send them to events

517
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: if he couldn't be at two places at once. This

518
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 1: is where we saw other trucks coming in, like the

519
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:13,920
Speaker 1: ones Everett mentions, right, we see King Kong out of Wisconsin.

520
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: This is where the narrative differs. The owner of King Kong,

521
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 1: a guy named Jeff Dane, would later say, hey, King

522
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:24,440
Speaker 1: Kong was the first to crush cars, but it again,

523
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:26,640
Speaker 1: it depends on who you ask. We know that there

524
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: was the Barefoot from Illinois, not to be confused with

525
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 1: Bigfoot and Taylor's Bigfoot one. Going back to our history

526
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: dot Com article is monster truckings quote Muhammad Ali the

527
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: biggest name in the business, the one everybody wants to beat,

528
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 1: and they got tired from having to do this constantury.

529
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 2: Sorry, but I have to add I can't remember if

530
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 2: it was Chandler or Jasmer that said it, but the

531
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 2: idea that they were surprised that people were into watching

532
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 2: this kind of destruction. You'll remember, Ben, we did an

533
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 2: episode in the past on Ridiculous History about staged train crashes.

534
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 2: Do you remember this, how dangerous they were? The crash

535
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 2: and Crush was I believe the episode that took place

536
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 2: near Waco, Texas where people were actually injured, and these

537
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 2: these train crashes were maybe basically they staged these collisions

538
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 2: and people would watch them, you know, from Afar, and

539
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 2: the crash of Crush ended up being such a disastrous

540
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 2: kind of explosive collision that people were injured by flying debris.

541
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 2: So this to me is just kind of an extension

542
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 2: of that. And we're talking this crash a Crush was

543
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety six, So people's thirst for motor vehicular

544
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 2: mayhem I think was pretty well established already. Maybe they

545
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 2: just didn't realize that there was that connection and that

546
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 2: it was something that kind of had already proven out

547
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 2: historically that people would really pay attention to.

548
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: They kind of just stumbled upon it. Yeah, people loved

549
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 1: crazy spectacles. I mean that love of vehicular destruction is

550
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 1: a big part of why Mad Max Fury Road is

551
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: just so unflinchingly awesome.

552
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 2: It's an incredible, incredible movie. It's also a great story

553
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 2: and really re acting and just wonderful world.

554
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 1: Bill eate for Furios to come out, so we see

555
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: some prescients here. When Bob Chandler tells his wife, we

556
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 1: got to get what we can because it's not going

557
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: to last. And as the eighties progress, more and more

558
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: monster trucks enter the fray. You got Monster Vet, Frankenstein,

559
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: Blue Thunder, Crimson Crusher with two k's, King Crunch with

560
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: two K's, and a lot of these start getting custom made.

561
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: They get a roll cage, they get ex military gear

562
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: on them, ex Military components or custom made stuff. Also,

563
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: although it sounds like it's a bunch of people having

564
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 1: fun playing the adult version of Hot Wheels cars, we

565
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: have to remember that as this becomes a business, as

566
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 1: this becomes a sport, people aren't always super friendly. They

567
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 1: argue over who did what first. Everybody wants to be

568
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: the king of the hill, to be the largest, the fastest,

569
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: to get the most events under their belt.

570
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:19,959
Speaker 2: Well, and it's a classic example of like, you know,

571
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 2: you can trademark a name, you can trademark technology if

572
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 2: it has if it just you know, displays a certain

573
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 2: amount of originality, right, or like, you know, kind of innovativeness.

574
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 2: But I think popping big wheels on a truck does

575
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 2: not fall under that perview, right, So you could very

576
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 2: easily kind of mimic you know, this stuff and make

577
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 2: your own monster truck. And unless you were you know,

578
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 2: ripping off a name or like a branding or a logo,

579
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 2: you would not be in danger of infringing on anybody's

580
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 2: intellectual property. But again I'm teasing here because the name

581
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 2: was everything that's the brand Bigfoot, right.

582
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the you know, it's like the invention of

583
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: the baseball cap kind of you can't tell other people

584
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: what they can or can't put on their own hat.

585
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: And so this this leads us to one of the

586
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 1: great rivalries of monster trucking, Bob Chandler and a guy

587
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: named Fred Schaeffer. Fred lives out in Granite City, Illinois,

588
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: about twenty five miles from Chandler's shop as the monster

589
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: truck drives, and in the seventies, Schaeffer was also a

590
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: car guy, but he was drag racing. He said, I

591
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 1: wasn't fast enough. I didn't have the financing to become

592
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 1: a professional drag racer, but locally I was the man

593
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 1: to beat.

594
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 2: So we talked about We talked about King Kong. We

595
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 2: talked about Bearfoot. Right, this is not Barefoot like no Shoes,

596
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 2: is like Bearfoot, which also, you know, obviously Bigfoot conjures

597
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 2: images of the Sasquatch. You know, so Barefoot being a

598
00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 2: very similar sounding name and conjuring a very simil image

599
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 2: potentially a little problematic.

600
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, this so we know there's gonna be

601
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: a rivalry.

602
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 2: Right.

603
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: We talked about Fred Schaeffer and Bob Chandler. Yeah, one

604
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 1: day Fred Shaffer, the locally famous drag racer, visits Midwest

605
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 1: four wheel Drive and he says, I want to see

606
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 1: this Bigfoot one in person. And Shaeffer would later say,

607
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 1: I don't want to knock his truck, but it looked

608
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: pretty rough, And he said, after I saw Bigfoot, I

609
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: thought I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna build me a

610
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 1: Chevy truck because I don't like Fords. I never did. Yeah, Fred,

611
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 1: really feel if you have Fred seems like the kind

612
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: of guy who thinks Ford stands for found on road

613
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 1: dead right, Yeah exactly.

614
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 2: Oh, I forgot about that one. So by nineteen seventy

615
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 2: nine he got some help from his buddy Jack Willman,

616
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:56,479
Speaker 2: and he did just that. He you know, took his

617
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 2: automotive know how and essentially mutated a nineteen seventy nine

618
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 2: Silverado into a monstrous creation with a blown four fifty

619
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: four engine and barefoot with no spaces just like Bigfoot

620
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:19,359
Speaker 2: painted across the side. He wasn't necessarily throwing shade at

621
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 2: our hero of the story today. He was in referring

622
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 2: this guy seems to go large. He was referring to

623
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 2: his pets, of which he had two American black bears

624
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 2: named Sugar and Spice. I find it very difficult to

625
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 2: believe that Barefoot was not in some way a ploy

626
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 2: to create some brand dilution.

627
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: He would have known.

628
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 2: He had to.

629
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: He's a smart guy. It works because he gets offers

630
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: to exhibit his truck and his pet bears, Sugar and

631
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:02,760
Speaker 1: Spice at local t shows for five hundred bucks a pop.

632
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: And he says, back then there were only a few

633
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 1: trucks in the US, we would be booked for months

634
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: and months and months, and things come to a head.

635
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 1: At a nineteen eighty two truck show in Wisconsin, a

636
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:20,799
Speaker 1: local paper says there are only three monster trucks in existence, Barefoot, Bigfoot,

637
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: and King Kong, And uh, that's probably that's not true,

638
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 1: probably at this point, but it is true that they've

639
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: become a big three all their own. They're known for

640
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: putting on the best shows.

641
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 2: Well, and those kinds of statements are sort of like

642
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 2: world's best cup of coffee.

643
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it.

644
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 2: Looks good on a flyer, but pretty hard to quantify,

645
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:43,320
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, there certainly were other tinkerers that

646
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,280
Speaker 2: were doing something that could be akin to a monster truck,

647
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 2: but whatever. So Chandler and Schaeffer at this point we're

648
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 2: trying to desperately to meet the demands because they're you know,

649
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:57,800
Speaker 2: relatively at least in terms of the world of monster

650
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 2: truck racing. There weren't that many of these things that

651
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 2: had reached the level of prominence as Bigfoot, Barefoot, and

652
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 2: King Kong. So you started to see kind of additional

653
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 2: trucks being put out by these makers.

654
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have to meet spectator demand. So Schaefer, Fred

655
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:19,359
Speaker 1: Schaeffer builds Little Barefoot. Huh cut, it's a nineteen eighty

656
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:23,440
Speaker 1: two Chevy S ten, And we can get into some

657
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:26,760
Speaker 1: of the specifics, the nuts and bolts of the modifications

658
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:30,840
Speaker 1: they made, but I think maybe we we'll keep.

659
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 2: It like this.

660
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: So one of the cool things about Little Barefoot is

661
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 1: that he uses planetary axles. They're coming from a military

662
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 1: front end loader, and so he can do stuff like

663
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: haul off a pillar of an inner state. He can

664
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 1: light the tires on fire because of the strength of

665
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 1: the engine, and people love again, they love the spectacle

666
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: of it. Chandler, Bob Chandler eventually says, Hey, Fred, why

667
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 1: don't you come out meet me at my bigfoot appearance.

668
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:08,200
Speaker 1: It's a tractor meet in Ridgefield, Ohio. And Chandler drives

669
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 1: his truck out. First, he grabs the mic and he

670
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:16,799
Speaker 1: introduces He introduces Fred Schaffer in the Chevrolet Barefoot, and

671
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: then Fred says, when I came out and that's Chevy,

672
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 1: there were a whole lot more cheers, which sounds a

673
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:22,320
Speaker 1: little petty.

674
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 2: Uh, it does sound petty, and he seems like a

675
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 2: petty guy. But for by all accounts, his truck was better.

676
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:33,279
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing. You know, he comes later in

677
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 1: the game so he can benefit from That's true, the

678
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:43,080
Speaker 1: lessons that Bobbler. Anyway, they keep beefing up. In nineteen

679
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 1: eighty four, zz Top said, hey, can you guys, can

680
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 1: we use your trucks in a music video. Chandler names

681
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 1: his price, and then Schaefer undercuts him and gives them

682
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 1: a much lower price so he can get in the

683
00:37:56,480 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 1: music video. And then Fred Schaeffer's truck bear Foot also

684
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 1: appears on an episode of night Rider. Then it's in

685
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 1: a TV another TV show, it's an Evolvo commercial, It's

686
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 1: in a tour's beer ad, just like Ridiculous History.

687
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:16,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so at this point, Barefoot is literally eating

688
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 2: bigfoots kibble, you know, or whatever bigfoots eat. And it's

689
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 2: starting to really get to Chandler to the point where

690
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:26,319
Speaker 2: he has decided, you know, maybe he wasn't gonna do

691
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 2: this at first, because obviously he was trying sort of

692
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 2: maybe not make nice but to sort of, you know,

693
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:35,799
Speaker 2: encourage a little healthy rivalry. But at this point he

694
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 2: feels like, you know, Barefoot is starting to overshadow Bigfoot,

695
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 2: so he decides he's gonna do something about it.

696
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because Barefoot is all over TV. Bob Chandler

697
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: sues Fred Schaeffer and he says, the name of our

698
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: trucks is too similar. This is a civil action, but

699
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: it ruins their relationship ship, and Fred Schaefer himself says,

700
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:04,720
Speaker 1: it's been ugly ever since then.

701
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 2: Ugly exactly, gotta double down the ugly. But you know,

702
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 2: this actually did kind of that beef that we were

703
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 2: describing that at first was kind of a controlled beef

704
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 2: and now it's an absolutely out of control, wildfire beef.

705
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 2: It really does kind of create that same vibe as

706
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 2: you see in professional wrestling, oh, you know, with like

707
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 2: the heel wrestler, you know, the bad guy and and

708
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:34,360
Speaker 2: you know obviously all that stuff's hey, sorry, kids, wrestling

709
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:40,439
Speaker 2: is not real manufactured exactly, wait, elaborate. I always forget

710
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:42,399
Speaker 2: what that means. K Fabe is the.

711
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: Idea that one will never give away the illusion or

712
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:51,400
Speaker 1: show like, you'll never let the audience know that the

713
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 1: staged performance is indeed staged.

714
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:56,479
Speaker 2: God is it an acronym or is it a word?

715
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 2: What is that? I don't know, I don't know what it's.

716
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 1: Supposed to Apparently originate from pig Latin the forma like

717
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: in pig Latin for fake, you would say a fay yeah,

718
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 1: but no one's quite sure.

719
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 2: I think that's interesting. Okay, so it's sort of yeah,

720
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 2: got it, poor Bento.

721
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:15,800
Speaker 1: But it's it's Carney slang.

722
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 2: Mm hm, no, that makes sense. So now you really

723
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,840
Speaker 2: do have this kind of you know, pro wrestling level

724
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 2: rivalry that at least between these two guys was very real.

725
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:31,280
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, one hundred percent. And it comes to a head.

726
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:36,200
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, T and T Motor Sports announces

727
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 1: the Monster Truck Challenge. This is called the Most Powerful

728
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 1: Sport on Earth. It's going to be on ESPN, and

729
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: it's going to show you the original monster trucks, Bob

730
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:55,080
Speaker 1: Chandler versus Everett Jasper, Bigfoot versus USA one, Ford versus Chevy.

731
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 1: And I got a note here, Noel Max in this arena,

732
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 1: particularly having one car named USA one, feels like you're

733
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: kind of stacking the deck, right, mm hmmm, Like we

734
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:10,279
Speaker 1: know the audience votes for it.

735
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:13,360
Speaker 2: Wasn't that part of his vision from the Monster Truck

736
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 2: gods USA one putting that like on the on the

737
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 2: the license plate of the very least. So I guess

738
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 2: he's he's still carrying that that that the divine instruction forward.

739
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: Huh oh yeah, and we could uh you know what, Actually,

740
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: we have another pair of interviews with these guys. So

741
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: we returned to Everett and Bob.

742
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 2: Already in progress. This was a dream come true for

743
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:39,400
Speaker 2: me because I came out of drag racing in motorsports,

744
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 2: but I committed the new truck to auto shows for

745
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 2: the first three months. Of course, I probably got sick

746
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 2: to my stomach. I had to sit back and watch

747
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 2: the TNT Monster Truck Challenge For the first three months.

748
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:53,319
Speaker 2: Everyone was running in it, including Bigfoot. I told my

749
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 2: crew that we have to get in there for April

750
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:56,760
Speaker 2: and do the best we could.

751
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 1: And here's Bob. I think we had big Foot four's

752
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 1: part of that series. There were quite a few trucks competing.

753
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 1: I had a driver named Rich Hosier in that series,

754
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 1: which ended up being probably the best business decision I

755
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 1: ever made since I started in the monster truck business.

756
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: I put the driving into the hands of one of

757
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 1: my younger crew named Rod Litzau. We proceeded to go

758
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: from nowhere in April to second place behind Bigfoot by

759
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: the end of the season, and we were right on

760
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 1: his tail. It came down to the last weekend and

761
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 1: this is a true story. He's not blowing smoke. The

762
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: Monster Truck Challenge Final had these trucks which all weighed

763
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 1: more than ten thousand pounds, running over cars. They were

764
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,879
Speaker 1: crashing into each other. They were cartwheeling end over end

765
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 1: in the dirt. The two rivals go head to head

766
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:47,839
Speaker 1: at the very end in the TNT National Championship. They

767
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:51,280
Speaker 1: run at high speeds over rows and rows of cars.

768
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:55,480
Speaker 1: As they get near the finish line, USA one loses control.

769
00:42:56,000 --> 00:43:00,440
Speaker 1: The truck knowses forward. It crosses the line first just

770
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:05,319
Speaker 1: as it flips on its side and technically wins. The

771
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 1: driver that Everett mentioned jumps out, and a huge crowd

772
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: again rolls around their cheering form raw Rah Muster trucks.

773
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: Someone in the back probably is doing USA USA. That's

774
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:22,359
Speaker 1: the vibe, and we know that there are again more

775
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 1: trucks of notes that enter the freight. But now we've

776
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 1: got people thinking beyond movies. Now we've got people thinking

777
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: of sponsorships and merchandising.

778
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 2: Oh it does just add TNT Motorsports, which was kind

779
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 2: of the premiere. I guess the league at this Point.

780
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 2: TNT stands for Trucks and Tractors and it was founded

781
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 2: in Owensboro, Kentucky by Billy Joe Miles. These events were

782
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 2: broadcast on ESPN and another network at the time called

783
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:53,360
Speaker 2: Power Tracks. And this would have aired on what was

784
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:57,320
Speaker 2: then called TNN, which I think stood for the Nashville Network,

785
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 2: which ran from nineteen eighty three to two thousand and

786
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,720
Speaker 2: then it became what you guys might remember as Spike TV,

787
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 2: the men's Network.

788
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 1: It's getting a hard thumbs down from Max. There not

789
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:14,720
Speaker 1: a fan of the Mint's Network, but Corporate America is watching.

790
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 1: The streets of Wall Street are watching. So Chandler gets

791
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: a lot of money from Ford and Mattel. Everett Jasmer

792
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,760
Speaker 1: gets money from Chevy and a plastic model company called AMT.

793
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two, Fred signs another high dollar deal

794
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:36,320
Speaker 1: with Dodge. This is incredibly important because it's not cheap

795
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 1: to build these vehicles. They build more versions of their

796
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: existing trucks, They send out more trucks to shows. Eventually,

797
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 1: Bigfoot Alone has a huge fleet of Bigfoot offsprings, and spinoffs,

798
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:53,760
Speaker 1: all paid for by Ford. A lot are basically carbon

799
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: copies of the original Bigfoot, while others have different gimmicks,

800
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 1: you could call them different modification, their unique projects, like

801
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 1: the Bigfoot Shuttle, which was a mini.

802
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 2: Van, Yeah, a mini van with forty eight inch rubber

803
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 2: tires and a lift an aerostar minivan specifically, thank god,

804
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:18,720
Speaker 2: not a Honda Odyssey. That would be a nightmare fuel

805
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:20,319
Speaker 2: for all of us, not just you, Ben.

806
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 1: And be inappropriate and unfair to the audience.

807
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 2: I think that's right. And all of these you know,

808
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 2: all of these modifications were expensive, so you know, I

809
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 2: mean a lot of the money they were taking in

810
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,400
Speaker 2: was going into just kind of upping the ante right

811
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:35,800
Speaker 2: every time, Yeah and.

812
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: Over time again. Other people are entering the freight. There's

813
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:43,799
Speaker 1: a North Carolina mud bogger named Dennis Anderson who has

814
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 1: built trucks on his own since he was twenty two.

815
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:51,359
Speaker 1: He upgrades his rig to a legit monster truck and

816
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:55,799
Speaker 1: he calls it the Grave Digger, which is super you know,

817
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:59,480
Speaker 1: edgy and cool like the Undertaker and restless about.

818
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 2: To say, very wrestling Gee, yeah, for sure. So we've

819
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,759
Speaker 2: got the Grave Digger now that one started. But you know,

820
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 2: I love that you mentioned been the toy deals because

821
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:12,680
Speaker 2: that's a big I remember these as toys more than

822
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:17,800
Speaker 2: I do as televised events. Those were cool. Everybody wanted

823
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:19,399
Speaker 2: one of those because then you could take your hot

824
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 2: wheels right and run over them with your big monster

825
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 2: truck toy.

826
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, learning the rules of the road very quickly, mad

827
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:27,720
Speaker 1: Max style.

828
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 2: Not to mention when they became remote controlled, and then

829
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 2: you really could do you know, those control monster trucks

830
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:37,360
Speaker 2: to let you ride on back two wheels, you know,

831
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 2: do all kinds of stuff. I mean, there were really

832
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 2: miniaturized versions of the kind of you know, engineering that

833
00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:44,880
Speaker 2: was actually in the real things.

834
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we know that grave digger was very much

835
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:52,440
Speaker 1: on the spectacle end of stuff. Even Fred Schaeffer said

836
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 1: he might only last one round, but that round was

837
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 1: a dandy and he had his you know entrance music

838
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: Bad to the Bone by George Thorahgood.

839
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 2: Yeah.

840
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:10,279
Speaker 1: So people were digging this and there was a lot

841
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: like digging it. They were grave digging it, and some

842
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: people would accuse them of grave robbing or at least

843
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: stealing ideas. There was so much money involved that by

844
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:24,359
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, the United States hot Rod Association, which

845
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: is the big Dog truck and tractor pools purchases T

846
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 1: and T, and they had the exclusive booking rights to

847
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:36,920
Speaker 1: all the top trucks, including Grave Digger, and they, the

848
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:40,359
Speaker 1: management of the hot Rod Association, said, look at all

849
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: this profit that's going to these individual drivers. We owned

850
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:46,880
Speaker 1: the rights here. So they wanted their cut, They wanted

851
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: their vigorous Fred Schaefer says, we used to make three

852
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for a show. We'd make about twelve grand

853
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:56,759
Speaker 1: and T shirts and they, the hot Rod Association, would

854
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: take about forty percent. We would walk out with ten grand.

855
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 1: That's attack of attacks. That's a big old tax.

856
00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 2: And the driver of Barefoot actually had this to say

857
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 2: about the kind of you know, the greed that started

858
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 2: to really flourish. We're going to give you a dollar

859
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 2: per sure, take it or leave it, That's what he said.

860
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:22,720
Speaker 2: The us HRS perspective was and if say the drivers

861
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 2: didn't like it, or the folks who had, you know,

862
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 2: founded the whole thing didn't like it, well they were

863
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 2: out of luck, weren't they.

864
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:32,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were out of luck. And it seemed to

865
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:36,920
Speaker 1: like corporate mounthfeasans played a huge role in this. There

866
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:40,840
Speaker 1: was an exclusive contract with every American football stadium on

867
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:45,480
Speaker 1: the calendar. You just had those choices, you know, if

868
00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 1: you can keep existing and give us almost fifty percent

869
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:52,400
Speaker 1: of everything you do, or you can say, hey, I

870
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 1: had a good time. For a few years, Bob Channel

871
00:48:55,080 --> 00:49:00,160
Speaker 1: was out and he was on the outside of the

872
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:02,319
Speaker 1: industry that he very much built.

873
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:05,279
Speaker 2: One would hope that he feathered his nest a little

874
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 2: bit enough to be comfortable. We don't know that, but

875
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 2: I really do hope that that's the case, because you

876
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 2: know what, when the whole Monster Truck thing really kicked

877
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 2: into gear pun utterly intended, was really in the nineties,

878
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 2: you know, when when the three of us grew up

879
00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:23,880
Speaker 2: where I guess maybe at least me be I always

880
00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 2: forget Max is a young lad. But in the nineties

881
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:31,720
Speaker 2: we joked about Sunday Sunday Sunday. These commercials were everywhere.

882
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 2: Grave Digger at this point really was the star of

883
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:37,359
Speaker 2: the show, or at least one of them. And they

884
00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:40,360
Speaker 2: rebranded the whole thing to Monster Jam, which is what

885
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 2: we was just still around today, is that event that

886
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 2: always comes through Atlanta, And it really was kind of

887
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:48,760
Speaker 2: like one of those World Wrestling Federation kind of package deals,

888
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Where you'd get to see

889
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 2: it'd be a whole show. The trucks were like the wrestlers,

890
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 2: and every one of them had their own personality, and

891
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:59,680
Speaker 2: there'd be these perceived rivalries that were probably inspired by

892
00:49:59,719 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 2: those real life rivalries, and then just sort of jushed

893
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 2: up a little bit, you know.

894
00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as there's a cold business decision here, because

895
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:10,800
Speaker 1: obviously the suits wanted to push trucks that they owned

896
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 1: completely right now, they're not giving up sixty percent. Now

897
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:18,799
Speaker 1: they own, they own the whole operation. Which is why

898
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:23,080
Speaker 1: Chandler doesn't get to do as much when he refuses

899
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:28,840
Speaker 1: to sell the Bigfoot brand. And so Bigfoot still did

900
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, like in nineteen ninety nine, a

901
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 1: Bigfoot model jumped over a seven to twenty seven airplane.

902
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:39,240
Speaker 1: And you'll still see a lot of applause from monster

903
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:44,160
Speaker 1: truck fans when Bigfoot shows up when it is in

904
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 1: any kind of event, and Chandler felt his age catching up.

905
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:54,279
Speaker 1: He did say later he said someone wanted Bigfoot one,

906
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:57,399
Speaker 1: the original monster truck, at a show. Instead, I want

907
00:50:57,440 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 1: you to drive over cars. This from a twenty seventeen interview.

908
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:03,440
Speaker 1: He says, I said I didn't want to I'm seventy

909
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 1: five years old. I don't want to tear things up now.

910
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:08,279
Speaker 1: I want to enjoy the rest of my life. And

911
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:13,880
Speaker 1: it sounds like he chose the right time to roll out.

912
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 1: And you know, Jasmer says the same thing about his

913
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 1: original truck, and they really bonded with these because they

914
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:23,839
Speaker 1: changed their lives. And you know with that, Noel, Max

915
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:26,520
Speaker 1: and No we went a little bit long. But I'm

916
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:29,120
Speaker 1: starting to think we should go to Monster Jam just

917
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: for the experience, right.

918
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 2: Oh, let's just do it. All three of us should go. Yeah. No,

919
00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:34,839
Speaker 2: It's something I've been wanting to do for some time,

920
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:38,239
Speaker 2: and I think this is what better time than the present?

921
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:39,759
Speaker 2: When when does it happen? It's got to be a

922
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:41,400
Speaker 2: summer kind of thing. I bet you it's the summer.

923
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was looking this up. And Munster Jam is

924
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 1: coming to Atlanta this year. Wait for it this month?

925
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:52,479
Speaker 2: No way? Yes? Wait ed April twenty second and twenty third. Okay,

926
00:51:52,480 --> 00:51:54,800
Speaker 2: what do you guys say we go to the Sunday

927
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:55,920
Speaker 2: Sunday Sunday one.

928
00:51:56,080 --> 00:51:58,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like we go to the Sunday one. Okay,

929
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:01,880
Speaker 1: Max to you in, Yeah, Max is in. It's a

930
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 1: little bit of a it'll be a little bit of

931
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:05,640
Speaker 1: a drive, so maybe we meet up in the city

932
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:07,399
Speaker 1: and then we.

933
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 2: Have we gotta do it. Let's just do it. This,

934
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 2: it's this coming Sunday, Sunday Sday.

935
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:15,040
Speaker 1: It's this Sunday.

936
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:15,640
Speaker 2: Oh oh my gosh.

937
00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 1: Okay, well we've got to go because we got to

938
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 1: make some plans. Thank you so much, fellow Ridiculous Historians

939
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:24,880
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Big thanks to our super producer mister Max.

940
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 2: Williams Alex Williams who composed this theme. Thanks to Chris

941
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:33,080
Speaker 2: frasciotis here in spirit, Eves, Jeff Co, Jonathan stricklet Ben, thank.

942
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:35,759
Speaker 1: You Sunday, Sunday Sunday.

943
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:39,800
Speaker 2: Indeed, and we'll see you then and next time. Folks.

944
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

945
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:52,800
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.