Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for day. This
Speaker 1: is short Stuff and we're talking about the magic Gateball.
Speaker 1: Probably know what that is.
Speaker 2: We have one in our house, you know.
Speaker 3: It's kind of one of those toys that I think
Speaker 3: most gen xers, and actually, knowing how old it is,
Speaker 3: probably boomers bought for gen xers, and now gen xers
Speaker 3: are buying for their Alphas and Z zoomers, and I.
Speaker 1: Don't know where millennials got left out, but this.
Speaker 2: Is the classic toy.
Speaker 3: I assume most people have seen this, but in other
Speaker 3: countries you may not know what we're talking about. But
Speaker 3: it is essentially a looks like a billiard's ball. It's
Speaker 3: about the size of a maybe a grapefruit, and it's
Speaker 3: got a little flat side on let's say the bottom,
Speaker 3: and in that side it's got a little clear window
Speaker 3: with some dark liquid, and floating in that liquid is
Speaker 3: a twenty sided die with a bunch of answers to
Speaker 3: yes or no questions, with the idea being that you
Speaker 3: ask it a question, you shake this thing up, and
Speaker 3: then you see what the answer tells you.
Speaker 1: Very simple that's it, and it is very simple. But
Speaker 1: this I think that's the case with a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that just becomes a part of pop culture. Yes, totally,
Speaker 1: there's not much to it, but just something about it
Speaker 1: comes together and makes everybody love it. And the Magic
Speaker 1: eight Ball's no difference. Definitely one of the more successful
Speaker 1: toys to come out of the twentieth century, and it
Speaker 1: dates back as far back as the forties as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, or actually the early fifties, but the
Speaker 1: story begins further back than that because there was a
Speaker 1: prototype that was created by a man named Albert Carter,
Speaker 1: and he was brothers in law with a guy named
Speaker 1: ab Bookman, and both of them together helped found the
Speaker 1: company that would eventually go on to create Magic eight
Speaker 1: Ball's basically based on Carter's idea that he got from
Speaker 1: his mom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a pretty cool story.
Speaker 3: His mom was a self proclaimed clairvoyant and very popular
Speaker 3: at the time in Cincinnata during the age of spiritualism
Speaker 3: and use spiritual writing or psychic writing device to communicate
Speaker 3: with the beyond, supposedly, and Carter was like, Mom, you're
Speaker 3: the best.
Speaker 2: You're so cool.
Speaker 3: During World War Two, he built a prototype of a
Speaker 3: toy sort of in honor of what she was doing.
Speaker 3: That he called at first the Psycho Sere Syco dash
Speaker 3: sw R, which was essentially what's inside of the magic
Speaker 3: eight ball.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: It was a tube divided in half and each side
Speaker 3: has that dark liquid and each side had to die
Speaker 3: and you would turn it one side up or the
Speaker 3: other side up to see what it said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's the basis of the magic apall right there,
Speaker 1: because that's essentially what a magic a ball is today.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Carter went around and he's like showing it to
Speaker 1: local stores in Cincinnati, and he hits upon one that's like,
Speaker 1: I love these. I want a bunch of them. Not
Speaker 1: only do I want to sell them in my store,
Speaker 1: to start distributing these, let's do it. Carter had big
Speaker 1: time struggles with alcoholism from what I've read, So he's like,
Speaker 1: I have no idea how to make anything mass produced.
Speaker 1: I just have good ideas. So he turned to his brother,
Speaker 1: a bookman, who was the kind of person who could
Speaker 1: get things done, and they formed a partnership. A Bookman
Speaker 1: apparently had They were close as brothers in law could be.
Speaker 1: I think Bookman kind of had almost like a care
Speaker 1: taker part for Carter. He said, when he was sober,
Speaker 1: he was a genius. He was always broke, but I
Speaker 1: bought every idea he ever had, and that gave him
Speaker 1: enough money to keep going. So when Carter turns the
Speaker 1: bookman and says, I've got this really good idea, but
Speaker 1: I have no idea how to fulfill any orders. Can
Speaker 1: you help me? Like I said, they formed a partnership.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: Carter got the patent and they named it Psychoseer Colon
Speaker 3: the Miracle Home Fortune Teller. A few years later they
Speaker 3: modified it a bit to basically made it smaller it
Speaker 3: sounds like, and then called it the Psycho Slate Colon,
Speaker 3: the Pocket fortune Teller colon.
Speaker 2: We can't get it any smaller. Everybody don't ask.
Speaker 3: And then in nineteen forty six they formed a novelty
Speaker 3: company named a Labe Crafts from Albert and Abe their names.
Speaker 3: And very sadly, I imagine, probably somewhat due to the life
Speaker 3: he was living living, Carter died and Abe was the
Speaker 3: sole owner of the company. And maybe that's a good
Speaker 3: cliffhanger to see.
Speaker 1: What happens next. I think it's perfect, all.
Speaker 2: Right, We're going to take a break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: So where we left off, Albert Carter died sadly, and
Speaker 1: a bookman was running the company, and he continued making novelties,
Speaker 1: and somewhere along the line, the Psychoseer caught the attention
Speaker 1: of the Brunswick Billiard Company out of Chicago. They make
Speaker 1: pool tables, they make bumper bowling balls, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty they went to bookman and said, hey, this Psychoseer
Speaker 1: thinks awesome, but can you like make it into an
Speaker 1: eight ball? And bookman was like, you're talking about the
Speaker 1: billiard version of the apol, right, And they were like, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we don't even know what you're talking about it at
Speaker 1: this point. And so he said, I think I can
Speaker 1: do that, and he got busy making taking essentially the
Speaker 1: psycho Sere and building a plastic eight ball around it.
Speaker 3: That's right, pretty good idea that this time it just
Speaker 3: has the one die. You know, you didn't need to
Speaker 3: have two sides because you just had the one window.
Speaker 3: I never knew it was twenty sided. When I read that,
Speaker 3: I was like, that's got to be a misprint. There's
Speaker 3: no more than ten that thing. But I'm wrong. There
Speaker 3: are ten affirmative answers, and of course if you've played
Speaker 3: it you'll recognize these. If not, it says things like
Speaker 3: it is certain or outlook good. There are five negative answers,
Speaker 3: ranging from outlook not so good to my sources say
Speaker 3: no and don't count on it yeah, and five non
Speaker 3: committal answers like hazy, try again, ask again later. And
Speaker 3: the idea everybody is that you're having a slumber party
Speaker 3: and you're asking if this boy or this girl thinks
Speaker 3: you're cute or something. I mean, that's generally what it's
Speaker 3: used for, Like I don't people don't really consult it
Speaker 3: for like big life decisions. But if you're a kid,
Speaker 3: that's kind of what we were, like, you know, we
Speaker 3: were doing with it.
Speaker 1: If you're on TV in a sitcom or a movie,
Speaker 1: then you might consult it for a big life decision.
Speaker 1: But yes, yeah, sure, I would guess the average person
Speaker 1: wouldn't do that, right.
Speaker 3: No, you just want to find out if somebody's crushing
Speaker 3: on you.
Speaker 1: So and then after that it's light is feather stiff
Speaker 1: as a board?
Speaker 3: That's right, because your sources said no, So what else
Speaker 3: is there to do?
Speaker 1: So Brunswick customers love this stuff. I'm guessing these are
Speaker 1: like wholesalers, retailers of billiard tables, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and they're like, I love this, Thank you so much, Brunswick.
Speaker 1: I'll be a customer forever. And so a bookman was like,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to start making these for the general
Speaker 1: public and sell them. And initially he said, you know
Speaker 1: what this is, it's a great paper weight. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he sold them as a novelty paperweight for adults, which
Speaker 1: is a really niche item and it was not necessarily
Speaker 1: the best the best business move.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny. I feel like there are a lot
Speaker 3: of stories like that where the thing that ended up
Speaker 3: being a huge hit they initially were just so way
Speaker 3: off in what they thought people were gonna like about it.
Speaker 1: Right, you know, Yeah, then that's a great example of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah that New Coke, right, yeah, New Coke for sure.
Speaker 3: And they quickly became part of pop culture. Once he
Speaker 3: realized that teens love these things, they started to buy
Speaker 3: him and he said, oh I missed I missed on
Speaker 3: what everyone like, this is clearly a toy and teens
Speaker 3: have slumber parties. I want to know if if people
Speaker 3: are crushing on them, So I'm going to make a
Speaker 3: million bucks selling these things, and he did. He made
Speaker 3: many millions of bucks, I imagine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently they sell a million a year reliably. If
Speaker 1: you own the Magic gate Ball rights, you can expect
Speaker 1: to sell a million of them a year every year.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Let's get those rights.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you said they're part of pop culture, and
Speaker 1: I mentioned that sometimes on movies and TV people will
Speaker 1: consult them for big life decisions. Let's call them mcguffin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it means that Magic Gateball is a mcguffin. Chuck, I
Speaker 1: think you should explain it, because you're the movie guy.
Speaker 3: I don't even know how to best describe a mcguffin.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's something that of low import
Speaker 3: in reality, but is has high import as far as
Speaker 3: what it means in the in the film.
Speaker 2: Is that about right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? It moves, it moves the plot along.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not a fake thing, but it's not like
Speaker 3: it's not like you actually found the plans or the
Speaker 3: treasure map. You know, a treasure map wouldn't be a
Speaker 3: mcguffin unless the treasure didn't end up being a treasure.
Speaker 3: And it's just what brought you to the place to
Speaker 3: meet the girl.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? No? You just you just channeled me.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I think I got it. If there's
Speaker 3: a treasure map and it leads to the treasure, okay,
Speaker 3: then that thing is in a mcguffin. That's it's a
Speaker 3: real deal, like a plot piece or whatever.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: But if that treasure map leads you to Brazil and
Speaker 3: there is no treasure at all, but what really happens
Speaker 3: in Brazil is X Y and zka, then the treasure
Speaker 3: map would have been a mcguffin.
Speaker 1: But then does the stuff that happens in Brazil, the
Speaker 1: X Y and Z you referred to, is that what
Speaker 1: the movie's actually about? Yeah, yeah, okay, so that's not
Speaker 1: like a boondoggle or anything like that.
Speaker 3: I see now, I don't even know what's a boondoggle.
Speaker 1: A boondoggle would be if the treasure map led to
Speaker 1: Brazil and X Y and Z happening, but that was
Speaker 1: a detour where really the movie is about getting to
Speaker 1: the treasure.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, are we talking about romancing the Stone?
Speaker 1: I think inevitably we just kind of fell into.
Speaker 3: That that was carta though it was.
Speaker 1: It wasn't Brazil Cartagena, Columbia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that movie really holds up.
Speaker 1: By the way, I know, I saw it not too
Speaker 1: long ago. You told me you showed it to Ruby
Speaker 1: and she's like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's right. I talked about this so fun.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's a mcguffin. And back to the magic
Speaker 1: I guess it is. There's a really great use of it.
Speaker 1: I guess it would be a mcguffin. In The Simpsons
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety two. I think it's Bart's friend Falls
Speaker 1: in Love where barton Millhouse are on the bus at
Speaker 1: the beginning and they're asking the magic eight ball how
Speaker 1: long they'll be friends, and after a series of questions,
Speaker 1: they find out that the magic a ball tells them
Speaker 1: their friendship will be over by the end of that day.
Speaker 1: And it turns out some new girl comes to school
Speaker 1: captures Millhouse's heart, and Bart starts to get like jealous
Speaker 1: that Millhouse is distracted from them and their friendship because
Speaker 1: of some girl, and they end up getting in a
Speaker 1: fight and Bart strikes Millhouse with the magic apeall later
Speaker 1: on in the Treehouse.
Speaker 3: I think I remember that one a great one.
Speaker 2: Also, by the way, I know, we.
Speaker 3: Could have looked up the definition of mcguffin. But uh,
Speaker 3: I think that was a little more fun. We even
Speaker 3: getting some flak lately on not looking at pronunciations.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, a little bit here and there.
Speaker 3: I think some some snarky gun Instagram was bagging on
Speaker 3: you because of Navidia. Oh really, it's apparently it's Nvidia.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh and also we got taken to test for tagalog.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And also like when you when you spell something nv
Speaker 3: dot dot dot, it's a little confusing. Sure we could
Speaker 3: have looked it up, but I don't know, that's just
Speaker 3: not our style.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Plus I was confused. I thought we were talking
Speaker 1: about Nivia, the skincare brand. Oh see, that sponsors the
Speaker 1: ball drop in Times Square. They're also a chip maker.
Speaker 3: I imagine that's actually via.
Speaker 2: The short stuff out.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I guess.
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