WEBVTT - Sideshow 8: Lion & Lamb 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:10.920 Before we had New York City, there was Pompeii. You 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.280 might know it as the longest ongoing archaeological dig site 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:19.759 in the world. But in its heyday it was cosmopolitan, international, exciting. 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.239 You went there to have a lot of fun. From 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.200 what scholars can tell, it seems that life there was good. 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:28.840 Pompei was just one jewel in the crown of the 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:32.720 Roman Empire, and as such benefited from all the spoils 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:39.880 of conquest. It had just about everything, entertainment, restaurants, public baths, temples, brothels, 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:44.440 you name it. There were beautifully manicured gardens, kept animals. 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:49.720 The climate was temperate, and agriculture was abundant. Pompeiis eleven 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.279 thousand person population was small by today's standards for what 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.160 we might call a city, but for a little perspective, 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.240 scholars believe that only about a hundred people lived in 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.320 the Roman and Hires london I um London's forerunner around 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:06.760 the same time. Compared to many other places. Pompeii was 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:10.520 a city. But as the saying goes, all good things 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.560 must come to an end. Mount Vesuvius had created the 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:17.280 physical geography of Pompeii with an eruption and would put 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.400 an end to all of it with just one more 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:25.240 in She did just that. In the aftermath, Pompeii probably 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.320 looked like something between a lunar landscape and a nuclear 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.920 fallout zone. The city would fade from memory, becoming something 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.280 of myth and legend until it was accidentally found again 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:40.240 fifteen centuries later. And while Pompeii had become best known 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.039 for how its story ended, archaeologists have busied themselves with 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.240 trying to understand the city before the eruption, and one 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.240 of the ways we've gone about this has been through 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.960 discovering how the city eight. Just a few years ago, 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:55.760 a team from Ohio was digging around in the remains 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:59.000 of fast food stalls. They found evidence of a standard 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:03.840 Mediterranean diet it legooms, olive pits, nuts, seeds, that sort 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.720 of thing. But they also found salted fish which would 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.480 have been a product from Spain, and different kinds of 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.960 shellfish not native to Italy. And as a side note, 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.519 I have a lot of questions about transporting shellfish overseas 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.000 in the days before reliable refrigeration, but those are going 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.959 to have to wait for another day. And among all 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:27.720 this tasty debris, they came upon something very exciting. Lying 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.440 in a trash pit was a butchered leg joint of 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.960 a giraffe. The question, of course, is how an exotic 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.080 animal like a giraffe ended up on the dinner menu. 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.880 After all, giraffe meat isn't exactly essential eating for anyone 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.240 just trying to scrape by. It points to consumption by 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.360 a refined pellet, perhaps someone or some people's with a 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.840 desire for novelty, and this was something that the city 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.959 of Pompeii, poised on the seaside and doing a brisk 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:01.040 international trade, was able to afford itself. We humans have 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.440 long been interested in things that wow us. We love 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.680 to marvel and get our kicks. Many of us orient 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.360 our lives towards newness and discovery, and when we find 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.520 these things, we celebrate them in the form of gaudy 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:20.959 displays of wealth, announcing scientific discoveries, embracing new sensory experiences, 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:29.280 or by curating unique collections. I'm Aaron Manky, and welcome 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:43.480 to the side show. If Ptolemy, the second Philadelphist, was 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.960 around today, he probably would have loved fast cars, expensive vacations, 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.440 and bottle service. That's all to say he was a 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:54.840 hedonist of the highest regard. So when he ascended to 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.840 the throne, he decided to throw himself a parade, and 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.800 it was going to be big, really big. In fact, 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.560 he wanted to create one of the most extravagant and 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:09.000 elaborate festivals in history. The city of Alexandria was soaked 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:13.160 with sun and anticipation that February day in two b C. 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.480 Thousands of people poured into the city from around the Mediterranean. 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.880 Packing the wide column line boulevards. They craned their necks 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.120 Joscelyne each other ancy to get a view. We can 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.400 imagine all of this some two thousand years before Macy's 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:32.840 ever launched a single Thanksgiving Day float. The heart of 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.360 Ptolemy's festival was going to be his collection of animals. 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.240 They were big and exotic, and they were set to 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.400 march two by two through the city. Too many in 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.440 the crowd. These were alien other life forms. Most people 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.640 had never seen such things before. In a cloud of dust, 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:55.240 twenty four elephants drawing chariots came into view. According to 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.920 one eye witness, they pulled and I quote, billy goats, 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:04.679 hornless antelope oryx is Boubaila's ostriches, two thousand, four hundred, 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:11.440 Indian dogs, Ethiopian cows, a white bear, leopards, wildcats, carrat calls, 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.799 a giraffe, and a rhinoceros, as well as captive human 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:20.040 spectacles from across the continent. The non human animals, though, 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:24.159 had a curious purpose. They weren't domesticated pat creatures, and 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.040 they weren't pets either. They were somewhere in between owned 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.880 and no longer wild, but not domesticated either. These animals 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:36.040 were commodities, and their captivity suggested something that whoever owned 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:40.200 them had enough wealth to maintain them and, perhaps more impressively, 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:44.159 power over the lands from which they came. As the 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.839 world modernized and urban centers grew, people began to feel 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.880 more disconnected from nature. There was a desire to recreate 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.159 natural settings, but in a more convenient kind of way, 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.919 so people began designing gardens, importing plants, seeds, and bulb 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.320 weren't too hard to transport after all. The animals, though, 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:07.280 they were more finicky, but people with money they could 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:11.760 have anything they wanted. Collection rivalry seems to have developed 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.760 early on. Why well, just typical neighbors trying to keep 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.400 up with the Joneses. You could say, these days, if 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:21.680 you have a midlife crisis, you might buy a shiny jaguar. 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.520 Back then, you bought a literal one. And we know 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.760 that this impulse to collect animals existed in almost every 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.960 ancient civilization. In fact, one of the earliest collections appeared 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:37.919 long before Ptolemy's Parade, right around b C. In Egypt, 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.800 their rulers kept various creatures. They would teach them to 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.960 dance and obey orders. In a way, you can think 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.320 of this as one of the very earliest forms of 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:51.920 using animals for entertainment. Ramsey's the Second, for example, had 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.920 a tamed lion which would accompany him wherever he went 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:58.360 in battle. Lions kept in cages and pits and meant 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:03.880 to impress important visitors, were also popular in upper crust Mesopotamia. 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.760 Mesoamerican civilizations are thoughts to have held their collections for 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.960 ritual and aesthetic purposes. In ancient Greece, they were traveling 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:16.600 shows that featured dancing bears. As Greco Roman infrastructure crumbled, 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:21.960 many animal collections were likewise dismantled. However, many European rulers 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.800 kept on with their own, and over the years, animal 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.600 collections became popular attractions, not just for the wealthy as 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.440 they had been, but for the pain public as well. 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:42.800 These animal collections, it seems we're here to stay along. 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.120 Dead European once joked that the only reason the America's 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.760 had animals was due to Noah's flood. The idea was 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.280 that the shipwrecked animal cargo was on its way not 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:58.360 to salvation, but to European menagerie's. The word menagerie itself 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:00.600 is thought to be rooted in an old French word 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:05.160 for farmyard. Menagerie's as we understand them today didn't develop 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:09.560 as a form of public entertainment until about the sixteenth century, 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:12.840 but a hundred years later they seem to be everywhere. 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.240 In the history of menagerie's, there are a few that 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.680 stand out, and it's from these collections of creatures collected 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.080 like pokemon, that people began to realize their potential for 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:27.120 helping us understand the greater world. They were proto zoos, 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.080 if you will. Zoos, of course have an educational and 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.920 scientific mission. They weren't quite there yet, but the idea 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:38.040 was coming. Now, let's take a brief tour you've probably 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.880 heard of our first stop before, but maybe as a 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.840 place for condemned prisoners and executions, the Tower of London. 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.280 But it was also home to one of Europe's oldest 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:51.320 and longest continually running menagerie's. It was established in the 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:54.440 thirteenth century during the reign of King Henry the Third, 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.839 after he was gifted three leopards Leopards, by the way, 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.360 that you can still find on the Royal coat of 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:05.040 Arms of England. In twelve fifty two, at the king's orders, 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.400 a budget was set aside for animal maintenance, which by 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.360 this point had already expanded to include a polar bear. 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:13.520 It said that the bear was allowed to fish for 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:15.840 its food in the Thames, even if it had to 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.840 wear a muzzle while doing so. Rumor has it that 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.040 today the grounds are haunted not just by Anne Boleyn 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.280 and her unfortunate contemporaries, but by a spectral bear, whose 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.840 appearance is said to have caused at least one member 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:33.200 of the Palace century to die of fright. Our next stop, 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.160 the Jardin des Plants in France, might also ring a 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.240 bell from earlier episodes in our series. It was an 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:43.880 institution rooted in two distinct establishments, Louis the thirteenth Garden 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:48.319 of Medicinal Herbs and Louis the sixteenths Menagerie. It became 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:51.920 the first place to combine plants and creatures into exhibits, 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:56.120 and at its height boasted over two hundred species of wildlife. 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.040 And we can't forget about the menageries that took to 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.000 the road try Leveling Animal acts of all kinds have 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.480 been present throughout history. However, a few things had to 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.000 intersect for the industry to flourish as it did. Combine 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:13.800 an interest in private animal collections, rising scientific curiosity, and 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:18.000 the entrepreneurial showman, and you get a potent cultural moment 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.680 at a very hungry market. And of course, the largest 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.559 and most famous name associated with traveling menageries during their 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:31.079 boom in nineteenth century England was George Womble. George's entrance 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.240 into the world of traveling animal collections, if the legends 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.760 are true, may well have been an accident. Like many 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.440 rural folks, he had come to London at some point 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.360 around eighteen hundred in search of a city job. He 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.240 found one, and one day, while most likely working as 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.560 a cage maker, he went down to wander London's docks. 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.720 It was here that he met two Boa constrictors, freshly 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:57.320 delivered from across the ocean. He purchased them for the 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.280 hefty sum of seventy five pounds and then with them 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.960 on display at a small scale local venue. Doing so 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.840 made him a small fortune, which he used to acquire 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.520 even more animals. He then established his own menagerie at 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:16.240 where else but Piccadilly Circus in eighteen o eight. Eventually, though, 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.640 he took the show on the road. One story tells 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.480 of him preparing for a big trip while loading a 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:25.200 caged Bengal tiger onto a horse drawn carriage. The horse 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.720 got spooked and bolted. The cage busted open, and the 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:31.920 tiger escaped off into the streets of London, much to 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:36.960 the dismay of George and everyone else involved. It was recaptured, 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:42.600 but many hours later. George's acts and one's just like his, 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.600 eventually evolved to showcase the relationships between animals and humans, 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:51.280 echoing back to those dancing bears in Greece and animals 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.840 fighting in Rome and some of the earliest English menagerie's. 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.280 For example, elephants were trained to perform tricks like kneeling 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.840 or picking up small object x. The spectacles soon became 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:07.040 more elaborate and a lot more violent. Lion tamer acts 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.960 were developed, showcasing human control and domination. Animals also came 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.160 to be used in elaborate shows and pantomimes I think, 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.920 dramatized in a theater or re enactments of famous battles. 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.760 In these cases, horses and elephants were even trained to 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.920 play dead. However, it was one of Wombell's most infamous 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:30.280 acts that would firmly cement his place in the history books. 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:35.679 On July he advertised a lion fight to take place 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.160 in Warwick, England. There he promised to pit his lion 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:44.120 Nero against six dogs. Nero, a docile creature, was at 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:48.520 a disadvantage. He was totally ravaged. Witnessing this, wom Bell 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.240 called the fight off before it was over, leaving the 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:57.080 crowd incensed their thirst for blood hadn't been sated. George, 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.240 a man of his word, it seems, promised to make 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.520 it up to them. The following nights he invited the 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.520 crowd to gather once again. This time George pitted a 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:09.200 new lion, Wallace against three dogs and Wallace was a 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:13.559 fighter for the price of about seventy dollars. Today, spectators 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.240 had the pleasure of seeing the lion slaughter the three 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.000 dogs in less than a minute. We can imagine it 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.080 was a ghastly spectacle of carnage. The newspapers catching word 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.880 of this were appalled, and they said as much. The 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.600 scene would surely make for some angry tweets and live 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.840 streams today. Over the course of an evening, George Wombell, 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:39.320 already famous, suddenly became infamous. And if you're shuddering, here's 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.839 some balm for your heart. Some people believed that these 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.120 events never actually happened, that they were just one more 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:51.280 clever albeits horrifying publicity stunt, engineered for the sake of 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.640 the mighty dollar, a trick pulled right from the playbook 0:13:55.320 --> 0:14:09.240 of the world of traveling curiosities. All good origin stories 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.680 help us make sense of our present. When deployed correctly, 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.720 origin stories can help us draw a linear thread through 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:20.000 our lives, and sometimes we can sell these stories for profits. 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.560 Isaac van Amberg was one of these people. In the 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:25.880 case of his life, he claims that it all came 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:30.040 to his mother in a dream. She was pregnant with him. 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.880 He said, when she dreamt of an old barn, she 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:37.120 walked inside, and there found rows of bubbling cauldrons. When 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.640 she peered inside them, she found boiling lion parts, and 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:46.000 in true Goldilocks fashion, she took a taste of each. Finally, 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.600 she arrived at the last pot and found a simmering 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:51.400 lion's head. She plucked it out of its stew and 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.920 put the whole thing in her mouth. It was then, 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.360 according to Isaac's retelling, that she awoke with a fright. 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:03.080 What could this mean for her unborn child? Fild for him. 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.320 In his early teens, he went to New York City 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.880 to work as a clerk at a warehouse for a relative, 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:11.000 But at some point in the early eighteen twenties he 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.360 was hired to work as a cage cleaner for the 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:18.160 New York Zoological Institute. It said that the headline tamer 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.840 there was killed while trying to move a line from 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.040 one cage to another. It was then that Isaac offered 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:28.000 to the end I quote, tame the spirit of the animal, 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:33.040 which he did with a crowbar. This decision was based 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:35.920 on a strange act of faith. You see, he recalled 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.400 the biblical Daniel escaping from the lions den and resolved 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.280 that he wouldn't be the one to run away from danger. Instead, 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.560 he would run toward it. By the mid eighteen thirties, 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.480 Isaac had risen through the ranks, becoming famous as an 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.400 animal tamer in his own right. People came to his 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.320 shows not just wanting to see animals in cages, but 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.680 also to see people carousing with them. And they came 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.880 to see man triumph over nature because it helps them 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.720 feel good about their place in the world. They wanted 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.360 to be shocked and odd, to feel close to danger 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.200 without having to touch it. This is a very human feeling, 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:15.320 after all. So with a large cage filled with wild animals, 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.240 a lion, panther, a tiger, and a leopard to be exact, 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.080 Isaac would boldly enter, dressed in a costume that broadcast 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.680 his authority. He would stand tall as the animals quivered 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:30.520 before him and the audience would gasp. It was then 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:32.920 that the lion would come over and lick his hand 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.040 and lay at his feet, as did the leopard. The 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.560 tiger rolled on its side and Isaac would step on 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.240 the animal's neck. Then he would sit down with his 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:46.160 back against the cage, calling the animals to him. Not surprisingly, 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.480 people wondered how Isaac was able to instill spontaneous peace 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.360 in his animals, But it was all just a facade. 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:58.000 This piece had been gained through exceptional cruelty, both behind 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:02.120 the scenes and sometimes on the stage itself. He later 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.000 described his process of taming the animals in part by 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:07.439 saying that he spoke to them as though they were humans. 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.320 He said, they believe that I have the power to 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.720 tear every one of them in pieces if they do 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.679 not act as I say. I tell them so, and 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.320 have frequently enforced it with a crowbar. Isaac went on 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:22.080 to appear in London in the summer of eighteen thirty eight. 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:25.480 His lions and tigers arrived on a separate boat, and 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.439 when he reunited with them, the local press reported that 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:33.040 the animals recognized him immediately, crouching and wagging their tails. 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.080 His newest act that season was a play. In it, 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.680 Isaac played the role of a man condemned to death 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:44.000 for plotting an emperor's assassination. As punishment, he was thrown 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.280 into the den with two lions, a tiger and a leopard. 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.640 Then he would force them all into submission and bring 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.080 out a lamb to lie down with the lion. The 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.000 piece to resistance of the whole act, though, was when 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:00.960 he pried the lion's jaws apart and put his head inside, 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:04.359 the first person thought to have ever done so, and 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:08.040 an echo of what his mother had once dreamed, and 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:12.520 the title of that play, The Brute Tamer of Pompeii. 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:29.040 Our fascination with animal people relationships continues today. We are 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.359 curious creatures. Much of our curiosity is perhaps motivated by 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.400 the pursuit of knowledge about the world for its own 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:39.639 sake or for us to better care for it, but 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.320 we also remain interested in the seemingly pairing of opposites, 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:48.320 of the transcending boundaries, and the expression of human superiority, 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.480 and all of this is captured in the Animal side show. 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.600 We've also continued to see interest in animal trainers and acts. 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.520 For example, popular television shows like Tiger King have traced 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:04.760 the expand of an interesting, oftentimes dubious animal conservation movement 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.399 that allows you to get up close and personal with 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:12.160 these creatures. The practice of wealthy folks amassing large collections 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:16.480 of animals for their own enjoyment also continues. Infamous drug 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.639 lord Pablo Escobar established his own elaborate menagerie, some of 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:24.679 which escaped following his death. His collection has since become 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.600 a public zoo. And then, of course there was Roy. 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.160 You probably already know him. It was just another fall 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.359 day in two thousand three when he went to work. 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.520 He had been at this gig for decades, but this 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.280 day would be his last. While under the hot lights 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:44.520 of a Las Vegas stage, Roy's longtime friend Monticore viciously 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.000 attacked him. Why well, it was hard to get an 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.679 alibi from him, but we can certainly guess. Roy was 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:56.040 left with debilitating, career ending injuries, but Monticore would get 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.720 off the hook later dying of natural causes. They were 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.880 never were able to charge him with the crime, because well, 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:07.359 montcor was a tiger and the performance of Siegfried and 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:18.760 Roy would never be the same. If you're anything like me, 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:21.280 this episode has made it easy to reflect on the 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.879 relationship we have with our own four legged friends. I know, 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.280 around the grim and mild office, one of the things 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:29.680 you can count on seeing every day in our group 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:33.520 chat our photos of our furry companions. But we're not 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.960 quite done discussing the connection between animals and the side show. 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:40.360 Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear one 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:48.760 more tale At that intersection. Joseph Merrick had seen a 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:53.240 lot of spectacles on this night, though at the Theater 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:58.200 Royal in London, something special was happening to him. Hidden 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.000 in a private balcony box, he was able to be 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.920 an audience member for that year's Christmas play. It was 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:09.199 an opportunity he was rarely given. Considering how he was 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:14.240 the one who is used to being watched, his ambitions 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:19.399 certainly weren't unusual. He wished for friends, a family, to 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.560 move about freely. We can imagine that he also wished 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:30.320 for kindness. Years later, after he died, the same man 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.000 who conducted inquiries into the Jack the Ripper murders would 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:37.919 call for an investigation of Joseph's death. It was a 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:42.520 sad end. Really, he was only seven and his life 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:47.720 had been very complicated. When it comes to the Side Show, 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:53.080 the truth is that the institution itself is complicated. Each 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.679 individual came into it with circumstances that set them on 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:01.480 a specific trajectory in life. The sideshow itself was home 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.760 to a spectrum of experiences. It was neither all good 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:10.720 nor all bad. For some, this was the only place 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:12.800 where they were going to find work because of how 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:17.520 they looked. For others, they altered their looks because they 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:21.679 wanted to join the ranks. Many were trafficked because of 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:25.040 their physical appeal. And for the rest, it was a 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:28.720 combination of all of those things, a sticky mess that 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:33.760 called into question the idea of agency, power, self determination 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:39.840 and the almighty dollar. Joseph was born in Leicester, England, 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:42.800 in eighteen sixty two. He was the son of a 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:47.119 working class family and lived fairly normal childhood. By the 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:51.000 time he turned five, though, something started to happen. He 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:56.840 began developing patches of grayish, lumpy skin all over his body. 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.840 After that came the fleshy tumors in the bony growths, 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.160 and most notably of all was a long, fleshy protrusion 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:08.240 that began to grow and dangle beneath his upper lip. 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:11.600 His hips ached, and he began to walk with a cane. 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:17.960 His speech also became impaired. With every passing year, his 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:21.520 body continued to morph in ways no one had seen before. 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:25.720 Doctors couldn't slow his condition, and people began to grow 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:29.200 afraid of him, and the physical demands of his job 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:33.359 in the workhouse made it unsustainable, so at the age 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:36.639 of twenty two, he decided to enter the sideshow trade 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:41.160 and see if he could sell his body. He came 0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:44.000 into contact with a man by the name of Sam Tor, 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.679 who ran a human oddity show. It was here that 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:51.359 Joseph got his new billing. He would from here on 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:56.280 out be known as the Elephant Man, and in the 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:59.720 long tradition of side shows, they created a story to 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:03.320 go with him. They said that his deformities were a 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:06.240 result of his mother being frightened by an elephant while 0:24:06.280 --> 0:24:09.560 he was still in utero. It was a concept known 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:15.040 as maternal impression and fairly popular at the time. The 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:18.959 lecturer would be sure to remind the audience of his humanity, 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:21.960 claiming that if you were to cut Joseph, you would 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:27.280 bleed the same blood as quote yours or mine. Even so, 0:24:27.760 --> 0:24:31.439 women were discouraged from visiting his exhibit for fear that 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:36.040 they would become upset or that their children would be 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:41.480 born looking like him. Towards the end of his life, 0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:45.359 Joseph lived at a hospital in London. He dreamt of 0:24:45.400 --> 0:24:50.920 the outside world, reading novels and picking flowers. There, he 0:24:51.080 --> 0:24:57.320 spent time thinking about what could have been a doctor 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:01.159 who had taken care of him. Later said, it was 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:04.640 not until I came to know that Merrick was highly intelligent, 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:09.920 that he possessed an acute sensibility, and worse than all, 0:25:10.080 --> 0:25:15.320 a romantic imagination, that I realized the overwhelming tragedy of 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:21.600 his life. His story, you see, doesn't have a happy ending, 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:25.520 although at this point in our series you know that 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:29.840 they all won't. They can't. And there are many trite 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:33.320 things to say here about judging a book by its cover, 0:25:33.800 --> 0:25:38.000 about being kind of strangers, about everyone fighting their own battle, 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:42.280 but we shouldn't have to be confronted with such an 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:47.560 extreme case of mothering to have compassion for human and 0:25:47.640 --> 0:25:56.320 non human creatures alike. Sideshow was written by Robin Miniter 0:25:56.600 --> 0:26:00.000 with narration by me Aaron Manky. Research for the series 0:26:00.240 --> 0:26:03.680 was by Robin Minator, Taylor Haggard Dorn, and Sam Alberty, 0:26:03.720 --> 0:26:08.040 with production assistants from Josh Than, Jesse Funk, Alex Williams, 0:26:08.080 --> 0:26:11.080 and Matt Frederick. Grim and Mile Presents was created in 0:26:11.119 --> 0:26:14.000 partnership with I Heart Radio. You can learn more about 0:26:14.040 --> 0:26:16.680 this show and everything else from Grim and mild over 0:26:16.760 --> 0:26:20.760 at grim and mild dot com, and as always, thanks 0:26:20.760 --> 0:26:21.360 for listening.