Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select,
Speaker 1: I'd chosen our March two thousand sixteen episode How Freak
Speaker 1: Shows Worked. It's one of those episodes that turns out
Speaker 1: to be more complicated and complex than you might expect.
Speaker 1: And as an aside, a pre aside, I guess I'd
Speaker 1: like to say rest in peace to Ronnie and Donnie Galleon,
Speaker 1: who we lost in and who come up in this episode. Okay,
Speaker 1: sit back, release your expectations, and enjoy this classic app
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: this shot Chuck, Bryan, Jerry, and this is stuff you
Speaker 1: should have. You introde as if you were asleep and
Speaker 1: I just walked by and poked you with a bold cue.
Speaker 1: And that's your first thing you do, is you wake
Speaker 1: up and just go, hey, welcome to the podcast. How
Speaker 1: are you, sir man. I'm healing fine. Yeah, good, healing fine.
Speaker 1: That's a Simpsons reference from what the Shining one? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the shipping Classic. It's a good one. Um So, a
Speaker 1: couple of quick matters of business, A little c o
Speaker 1: A at the beginning, we're talking about freak shows, and
Speaker 1: we will be saying freaks and things like that. That
Speaker 1: is obviously an antiquated term. Yes, Um, but a lot
Speaker 1: of there are a lot of quotes in here and
Speaker 1: a lot of references to uh, freaks and midgets and
Speaker 1: pin heads and all these awful terms that they used
Speaker 1: to call these people that had, you know, physical deformities
Speaker 1: and maladies. Um, so it's not us speaking. This is
Speaker 1: a historic in historical context. Yeah, Like we get the insensitivity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not us. We're not We're not being insensitive. Here's
Speaker 1: uh and we want to shout out if you We
Speaker 1: used a couple of house Stoff how stuff it Works,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works articles as well as one from History
Speaker 1: Magazine by Laura Grande Priceonomics. Zachary Crockett wrote one, and
Speaker 1: who I have to say, I'm a fan of that
Speaker 1: dude's work. Yeah, it was a good articles Priceonomics. He's
Speaker 1: written some really interesting articles, agreed. And then one from
Speaker 1: human Marvels dot com, which is just a good website
Speaker 1: by j tithonus pit now and then pronounced right p
Speaker 1: E D in a U D. Yeah that's a tough one, now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I assume that d is silent or maybe not, maybe
Speaker 1: it's ped now pay nodee huh freaky and a couple
Speaker 1: of other places we visited, so and everyone kind of
Speaker 1: says the same thing. But it's a nice, well rounded thing.
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, well they I mean, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the history of freak shows and there's only you know,
Speaker 1: one history. Certain things happen, and we found we found
Speaker 1: very quickly that like you can't extract um freak shows
Speaker 1: from P. T. Barnum or vice versa. Like they they
Speaker 1: they are inextricably bound. But freak shows UM, you know,
Speaker 1: Barnum was working in the nineteenth century. But the concept
Speaker 1: of freak shows, which um is basically someone who is
Speaker 1: a human curiosity and that could be someone who was
Speaker 1: born with a genetic deformity, of physical deformity UM, some
Speaker 1: sort of mental incapacity UM, or some people have turned
Speaker 1: themselves into human curiosity stay through the wonder of tattooing
Speaker 1: or um learning to swallow swords or something like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're like these days body modification like the gym Rose Show,
Speaker 1: or there's one in Coney Island still that does a
Speaker 1: like a traditional show. Yeah, side show by the seashore.
Speaker 1: All So a great song by Luna, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite bands. Um So, the the whole concept of this,
Speaker 1: of having a human curiosity and um basically charging gawkers
Speaker 1: to look at it, it dates back quite a way.
Speaker 1: Um well, actually not that far. The sixteenth century. That's
Speaker 1: pretty far. Yeah, I guess so. But you would think like, well,
Speaker 1: the Greeks or the Romans did this, but apparently no,
Speaker 1: everybody was fairly Um from what I understand, everybody just
Speaker 1: kind of steered clear of human curiosities to that point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think people feared them, right. They were locked away
Speaker 1: mainly because they thought it was some evil curse or
Speaker 1: punishment from God, and this wasn't someone you wanted to
Speaker 1: consort with. Else you might bring back, bring down the
Speaker 1: wrath of God upon yourself. That's right. But like you said,
Speaker 1: in the late fifteen, hundreds of people started to say,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm curious about, um, someone with hair
Speaker 1: growing all over their face. I'm curious about the human
Speaker 1: curiosity exactly. And I know, I don't Chuck, I want
Speaker 1: to say, I don't think it's coincidence that about this
Speaker 1: time science was starting to spread throughout Europe. So the
Speaker 1: idea that um, this was God's breath was was taking
Speaker 1: a bit of a backseat to uh, this is a
Speaker 1: human condition of some sort, Yes, but not so far
Speaker 1: down the road of science to where there was this
Speaker 1: intermediate period where they were got Dad, And as we'll
Speaker 1: find out later, science would eventually take part in ending
Speaker 1: the side shows. But it created them and it ended them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of neat, good way to look at it.
Speaker 1: Uh So one of the first UM viewings are one
Speaker 1: of the first people put on display, and you know
Speaker 1: this is also going to be well, we'll get into
Speaker 1: it later, but the morality of this is very up
Speaker 1: and down with exploiting people and these people that would
Speaker 1: normally be locked away actually having super lucrative careers long
Speaker 1: lasting made them rich. Also, UM, I think one of
Speaker 1: the authors, I think it was Crockett points out that UM,
Speaker 1: there early on, if you were in a freak show,
Speaker 1: there was a good chance that um, you had been
Speaker 1: abandoned by your parents, became a ward of the state
Speaker 1: and adopted by somebody who just ruthlessly exploited you and
Speaker 1: maybe barely took care of you. But one thing you
Speaker 1: can definitely say to his credit as Barnum came into
Speaker 1: it and basically normalized or created an industry out of
Speaker 1: freak shows or four freak shows. Um, conditions definitely changed
Speaker 1: and the exploitation seems to have less in some way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thinking that with the big names like Norman and Barnum,
Speaker 1: I think there were all manner of minor side shows
Speaker 1: that probably didn't treat them as well. Uh, And usually
Speaker 1: Barnum and Norman bought their curiosities from those minor side
Speaker 1: shows lesser showman exactly. So we're talking about Tom Norman
Speaker 1: out of England. Yeah, they were basically counterparts. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: what we'll get into them. But back to one of
Speaker 1: the earliest um quote unquote freaks was a man named
Speaker 1: Lazarus Colorado not Colorado, who was a conjoined twin. He
Speaker 1: had a brother, Johannas, who was upside down on his
Speaker 1: chest and technically it was a parasitic twin to Lazarus, Oh,
Speaker 1: not conjoined twins. They were conjoined. But Johannes like didn't eat, okay,
Speaker 1: he um, he could, he didn't speak, he never opened
Speaker 1: his eyes, and apparently the only way you could get
Speaker 1: a physical reaction out of him was if you rubbed
Speaker 1: his chest that would make him squirm like Quaid and
Speaker 1: total recall very much got you. So. Uh. He went
Speaker 1: on tour performed before King Charles the First in the
Speaker 1: early sixteen forties. But it was not a big deal.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a super lucrative side shows weren't really a
Speaker 1: thing at that point. But this guy was saying, Uh,
Speaker 1: you guys are gonna ostracize me. Well, I'm gonna charge
Speaker 1: you to look at me then, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: support myself and my brother doing this. He did at himself.
Speaker 1: If it's not clear whether he worked with a manager
Speaker 1: or not or a promoter, but he definitely um made
Speaker 1: his own choice to go do this, yes, exactly, and
Speaker 1: he was apparently an otherwise handsome man. That's how everyone
Speaker 1: described him, which I think probably for the Court Um
Speaker 1: or Europe who who came and looked at him, uh,
Speaker 1: probably just made it even more mind boggling, you know.
Speaker 1: But he's a good guy, right right, you know? Uh.
Speaker 1: P T. Barnum and I think we should do in
Speaker 1: a whole podcast on P. T. Barnum at some point
Speaker 1: to really close out the circus suite. Well, then we
Speaker 1: shouldn't mention him again in the show No Barnum as
Speaker 1: as a teenager. Uh, he always had a pinchant for
Speaker 1: making money. He was one of those magnets sort of
Speaker 1: weird ways. Uh. He ran his own lottery as a teenager,
Speaker 1: UM in Connecticut, and he said, here's what I'll do.
Speaker 1: I can just sell these tickets. I'll give out prizes
Speaker 1: in varying levels from is on down to cents and
Speaker 1: uh yeah and um. But it was a very well
Speaker 1: thought out for a teenager. He wasn't just like just
Speaker 1: one prize. He'd spread it out so he would entice
Speaker 1: people to play more. Uh. And he actually made a
Speaker 1: lot of money from it until they outlawed the lottery.
Speaker 1: He's making like eleven grand in today's dollars a week
Speaker 1: as a teenager. Yeah, nineteen not bad. But then Connecticut
Speaker 1: and the rest of the country said no more lotteries
Speaker 1: for now. Um. We'll bring that back up later though,
Speaker 1: don't you worry. T B C And Um. He had
Speaker 1: to find other ways to make work, moved to New
Speaker 1: York City and in eighteen thirty five, Um he had
Speaker 1: You know, England is where a lot of this started.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about Norman in a second, but he got
Speaker 1: his queue from England, said here's what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy a person, gonna buy my first freak
Speaker 1: uh this blind paralyzed slave woman and this is a
Speaker 1: hallmark of freak shows. As I'm gonna make up a
Speaker 1: story about her that's since a l and crazy like
Speaker 1: a Ripley's believe it or not kind of thing, right
Speaker 1: and and Barnum in particular was well known for just
Speaker 1: taking these things to the nth degree, like, sure, no
Speaker 1: one's gonna buy that, but he could sell it in
Speaker 1: such a way that people believed it because they were
Speaker 1: exponentially dumber back then. Uh. He The story for her
Speaker 1: was that she was a hundred and sixty years old,
Speaker 1: was George Washington's nurse. Uh and you can pay to
Speaker 1: see her, when in fact she was only eighty years old.
Speaker 1: She was half that age. Yeah, and her name was
Speaker 1: Joyce Heath, and she was just an old lady, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was an old slave woman who was paralyzed and
Speaker 1: blind and was being exploited by P. T. Barnum in
Speaker 1: the year before her death. So she dies um, but
Speaker 1: before then, like as he's touting her as this hundred
Speaker 1: and six year old former nurse made to George Washington Um.
Speaker 1: That gets an initial reaction, and then ticket sales drop.
Speaker 1: And then PiZZ Barnum did something quite smart. He wrote
Speaker 1: an anonymous letter to a Boston newspaper and accused himself
Speaker 1: of being a fraud and saying that the the hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty year old woman was a fake, that she
Speaker 1: was actually a machine, a robot made of whale skin
Speaker 1: and would and ticket sales went right through the roof. Again. Man,
Speaker 1: what a guy. There should be a good movie about him.
Speaker 1: I can't believe there's not, like a modern one. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there is, you know, surely, like the What's the one?
Speaker 1: The Greatest Show on Earth was a movie? Right, and
Speaker 1: that like a Griffith movie or something, That's what I mean.
Speaker 1: But like Tom Cruise should play him, yeah, and should
Speaker 1: be directed by Michael Bay Russell Crow should No, not
Speaker 1: Russell Crowe. Well, how about who could play p T. Barnum?
Speaker 1: You know who who? He would be good at it,
Speaker 1: but would just be so him? Sam Rockwell, oh totally,
Speaker 1: he could play anything. So I'd rather see somebody even
Speaker 1: broader playing him. Yeah, I heard research, go ahead, Gina,
Speaker 1: who would end up playing him is freaking Hugh Jackman. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because he can do cartwheels. Yeah, what were you going
Speaker 1: to say? Somebody? It might have been during the Bill
Speaker 1: Gates interview or something yesterday that somebody said that, No,
Speaker 1: it's unseen it. Tom Hanks is the most trusted person
Speaker 1: in America. Like for some Pole found that, Like, the
Speaker 1: most trusted person in America is Tom Hanks. Were we
Speaker 1: on the list? I don't think so. Sure, you gotta
Speaker 1: trust on We're not even Also rans were never rans? Alright,
Speaker 1: So he purchased that woman what was her name, Joyce
Speaker 1: heth j O I c E H T H for
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars and he made about that every week. Um,
Speaker 1: from exploiting her. I imagined that she got very little
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, although you can't necessarily say that I
Speaker 1: didn't see what she was paid, she was very likely paid,
Speaker 1: and she was probably fairly well taken care of, especially
Speaker 1: considering um that she probably just and this is based
Speaker 1: on how Barnum treated other people later in a documented manner.
Speaker 1: But um, he I don't want to say he rescued
Speaker 1: her from slavery because she went from being a slave
Speaker 1: to being owned by somebody who exhibited her. Um, but
Speaker 1: it's not a guarantee or a given that her situation
Speaker 1: got worse after she she was purchased by Barnum. Right,
Speaker 1: does that make sense? Man? That felt like a minefield
Speaker 1: I was walking through talking about slavery, human exploitation, a
Speaker 1: blind woman who was also paralyzed. Good, good luck, sir
Speaker 1: Um his first big hoax after that? Or uh? Well,
Speaker 1: actually I guess it wasn't a hoax aside from the
Speaker 1: made up story. But um, he had a real hope.
Speaker 1: It was a hope. Well I hope, sure, um, but
Speaker 1: this was a hoax in two because it was nothing
Speaker 1: about it was real. He was promoting something called the
Speaker 1: Fiji Mermaid, which was basically rogue taxidermy as all it was.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what it was. It was a creature with
Speaker 1: a head of a monkey and the tail of a
Speaker 1: fish that he bought from Japanese sailors. Well he didn't.
Speaker 1: He got it from a sailor who bought it from
Speaker 1: jail right, and actually it was Japanese fisherman. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he well what's the difference. Well, they're like traditional they
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily go to see they were like islanders and
Speaker 1: this is like traditional art for them, folk art. Okay,
Speaker 1: so not a sailor but fisherman, right, that's ped entry
Speaker 1: one oh one. Sorry man, uh gets so fixated on things.
Speaker 1: Yeah uh. And he leased it um for twelve fifty
Speaker 1: a week twelve dollars and fifty cents um from from
Speaker 1: the owners have said rogue taxidermy. And he tried he
Speaker 1: print up pamphlets and tried to convince everyone it was
Speaker 1: some real thing. So he he actually had a um
Speaker 1: a partner named Levi what was Levi's name? He's definitely
Speaker 1: an overlooked guy, Levi Lyman. Can you imagine like being P. T.
Speaker 1: Barnum's partner, Like you'd never be in the spotlight, right,
Speaker 1: So Levi Lyman posed as a English doctor, a scientist
Speaker 1: who was in possession of this mermaid, and UM P. T.
Speaker 1: Barnum very publicly was trying to get his hands on
Speaker 1: the mermaid, and this guy was very publicly resisting him
Speaker 1: because it was a man of science and this was
Speaker 1: the real deal. And it helps just convince everybody, including
Speaker 1: the newspapers, that like this is the genuine article and
Speaker 1: just rubes nation a world of rubes. It seems like
Speaker 1: he ended up opening up a museum on Broadway in
Speaker 1: New York City in the forties, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: you know, like a Ripley's Believe it or not kind
Speaker 1: of thing, curiosities and weird things. Yeah, that's that was
Speaker 1: his stock in trade. Uh. And then we should talk
Speaker 1: about his counterpart in England, Um, Tom Norman. Yeah, Tommy Norman,
Speaker 1: Tommy Norman. Uh. He was named the Silver King and
Speaker 1: Barnum actually gave him that name apparently after meeting him,
Speaker 1: and he said, boy, what a huge silver showy silver
Speaker 1: watch you have there. You're the Silver King. He goes,
Speaker 1: I am the Silver King. I've been waiting my whole
Speaker 1: life for somebody to notice exactly. So he was doing
Speaker 1: the same thing in England. Uh. And he he actually, um,
Speaker 1: he toured with Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he got um castigated by a lot of people saying,
Speaker 1: you're exploiting this guy John Merrick. And is it John
Speaker 1: or Joseph? What I say, John? Yeah? And it's like
Speaker 1: an ongoing thing. Oh is it? Yeah? I can't remember
Speaker 1: if it's well, let's find out. No, it's Joseph for sure.
Speaker 1: I just misspoke. Oh sorry. Um. He was attacked in
Speaker 1: specifically in a memoir by Dr Frederick Treeves uh called
Speaker 1: The Elephant Man and other Reminiscences. Uh. And he shot
Speaker 1: back and he said, you know what, I haven't mistreated Merrick,
Speaker 1: haven't abused him. He wasn't forced to do anything. And
Speaker 1: he said, in fact, the big majority of showmen are
Speaker 1: in the habit of treating their novelties as human beings
Speaker 1: and in a large number of cases as one of
Speaker 1: their own, not like beasts. Right. So you know the
Speaker 1: morality battle was being waged even back then. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean if you you think about um, this time
Speaker 1: when people would go look at people who had physical
Speaker 1: deformities and pay for it. Just look at him to
Speaker 1: standing there, you think, well, the whole world was pretty
Speaker 1: evil and a moral at the time. Not necessarily true.
Speaker 1: There's a um a lot of people who railed against
Speaker 1: this stuff, like Frederick Treeve's who was um. He was
Speaker 1: portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, right, isn't that him? Oh? I
Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, he was in The Elephant Man, the movie.
Speaker 1: Oh was he actually Merrick's doctor? Yes, Okay, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, yeah, man, that movie. David Lynch, God
Speaker 1: One of the best ever um And then there was
Speaker 1: an historian who at the time, I think in like
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties he wrote his name was Henry Mayhew,
Speaker 1: and in eighteen sixty when he was British, he wrote
Speaker 1: that that these freak shows were nothing more than human degradation.
Speaker 1: And he said something that stuck out to meet Chuck.
Speaker 1: He said that the men who preside over these infamous
Speaker 1: places know too well the failings of their audience. And
Speaker 1: I think he really hit the nail on the head
Speaker 1: by he wasn't accusing the showman because I think he
Speaker 1: understood that most of these people were just under contract,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't accusing the people, the actual human curiosities,
Speaker 1: the freaks themselves. He was rightly placing the blame for
Speaker 1: all this on the observers, the gawkers. Like if there
Speaker 1: wasn't a market for it, they wouldn't be doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like you're the one who is having the moral failing,
Speaker 1: who's paying to go see this person who may or
Speaker 1: may not be exploited you don't know, And uh, it's
Speaker 1: really on you audience. Yeah, it's pretty Uh it's a
Speaker 1: lot of foresight for back then I thought so too.
Speaker 1: So it's not like the point was. It's not like
Speaker 1: everybody was just going along with this. People have had
Speaker 1: a problem with it basically the whole time freak shows
Speaker 1: were around, right. All right, Well, let's take a break
Speaker 1: and we'll talk a little bit more about the evolution
Speaker 1: of the side show. Right after this, we're back. I
Speaker 1: brought my pencil. What's up? Seven? Right on? Man? I
Speaker 1: didn't get that at first. You. I'm impressed that you
Speaker 1: did get it. Yeah. Nice. Uh. That was from Van
Speaker 1: Halen's popular song Hot for Teacher from and we are
Speaker 1: now nineteen eighties DJs. Uh. So the side shows became
Speaker 1: a legitimate thing, a big way to make money. There
Speaker 1: were different kinds. Um. There was one called a tin
Speaker 1: in one show, which I believe the sides side show
Speaker 1: by the Sea Shore is today. You did it through
Speaker 1: my missing tooth, uh. And that is when you have
Speaker 1: ten people on display on a platform at once and
Speaker 1: people just walk by and look at them. It's not
Speaker 1: like a performance. It's just there's a bearded lady, there's
Speaker 1: the dog faced boy, there's the tattooed man, and they're
Speaker 1: all of a standing there. That's a tin and one
Speaker 1: yokel uh. They had things, and this was all to
Speaker 1: to drum up more money. They would advertise something as
Speaker 1: an adults only or a man only even performance, well
Speaker 1: the men only performance Freak Only had a stripper you
Speaker 1: know yeah. Um, or stuff that they thought that were
Speaker 1: just like a woman shouldn't see or children shouldn't see.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was as much of that
Speaker 1: as if it was to just trump up, like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's so bad that a woman can't see
Speaker 1: lay her eyes upon it. I see. Um. I think
Speaker 1: it was all part of the show. Uh, that's my feeling.
Speaker 1: At least. One of the things that they displayed were
Speaker 1: something called a pickled punk, which is awful. It is,
Speaker 1: especially when you find out what it is. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: basically a an abnormal fetus in a formaldehyde in a jar.
Speaker 1: And you could go by and look at pickled punks
Speaker 1: and gaulk at them for money. It's it's awful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what people did, like on Saturday night in Kansas.
Speaker 1: So um. The the usually this this side shows of
Speaker 1: the Freak shows. At first, they were you would be
Speaker 1: some enterprising entrepreneur in some small town and you would
Speaker 1: notice that a little youngster had um, a third leg, okay,
Speaker 1: and you your thought was, I can really make some
Speaker 1: money with this kid to go to their parents. And
Speaker 1: you'd say, I will give you of all of the
Speaker 1: earnings of your child if you let me take him
Speaker 1: on the road and he will stay in the finest
Speaker 1: hotels and we're the best clothes and as the human
Speaker 1: exactly and uh, the he will become famous in the world,
Speaker 1: will love him. Uh, just let me handle it. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be as manager from now on. And the
Speaker 1: parents would very frequently, especially if they were poor, would say,
Speaker 1: that's great, do that give me some money upfront? Though,
Speaker 1: by the way, yeah, especially because a lot of times
Speaker 1: some of these people were a burden on their family
Speaker 1: because of their health condition, so they were happy to
Speaker 1: be rid of them. That's all very sad, okay. So
Speaker 1: that's how That's how it definitely started out. And then
Speaker 1: and it went on like that, um for a very
Speaker 1: long time as well. But once borne him and not
Speaker 1: a Norman and some of the other guys, the big
Speaker 1: guys came around, they would just basically keep an eye
Speaker 1: out for that kind of thing, or they would be
Speaker 1: approached by these guys who would essentially be middleman kind
Speaker 1: of like, um, somebody who discovered a boy band selling
Speaker 1: their contract to a bigger record company. But this was
Speaker 1: with human curiosity, people with the third leg or hyper
Speaker 1: trichosis or what have you. UM. And then Barnum would
Speaker 1: take him and would would just take whatever exaggerated origin
Speaker 1: story that they came with and just throw it out
Speaker 1: and come up with one ten times more. Uh. And
Speaker 1: after his uh, George Washington's nurse made Joyce heth diede Washington, right,
Speaker 1: he started looking around for his next collaborator, if you
Speaker 1: could call him that, UM. And he found out that
Speaker 1: he had a distant cousin, a fifth cousin UM named
Speaker 1: Charles Stratton, who had stopped growing when he was about
Speaker 1: two years old. Yeah. He he never completely stopped. He
Speaker 1: grew very slowly. Yeah. He made it to like just
Speaker 1: over three feet I think by the time of his death. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He died at forty five of a stroke and he
Speaker 1: was three point three five ft tall. UM, but grew
Speaker 1: so slowly. I mean you know he was He was
Speaker 1: General Tom Thumb, very famously renamed General Tom Thumb by
Speaker 1: his half fifth twice removed cousin. Uh PT what does
Speaker 1: that stand? For even Paul Thomas Anderson bar Uh. So
Speaker 1: he said, you know what, this is great. Um, you
Speaker 1: were a small person and you're cute as the Dickens,
Speaker 1: So let me dress you up in little adult suits
Speaker 1: and you're my new side kick. Yeah that he he
Speaker 1: collaborated with the kid's dad and said, let's, um, let's
Speaker 1: make some money. Uh and he Um, he taught him
Speaker 1: how to sing and dance, pretend he was Napoleon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did impressions Cupid. He played Cupid sometimes. And then
Speaker 1: he told everybody that this little five year old kid
Speaker 1: was actually eleven, which made it all the more astounding
Speaker 1: that he was that small, which she didn't even need
Speaker 1: to do. And then for about the next like fifteen
Speaker 1: or so years, Um turned Tom Thumb into what was
Speaker 1: essentially the first international celebrity. Oh was he the first
Speaker 1: international celebrity? Pretty much? Yeah, Tom Thumb was a sensation.
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria was a huge fan. Met met with him
Speaker 1: twice too, to at least twice um. She apparently was
Speaker 1: really big into side shows, but Tom Thumb was her favorite.
Speaker 1: Um and he They made so much money off of
Speaker 1: their first European tour that um Barnum bought his museum
Speaker 1: with the proceeds. Is there anything grosser than the Queen
Speaker 1: of England laughing at a small person imitating Napoleon for money?
Speaker 1: She may have even Napoleon at the time. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: sure she. That probably made it all the funnier to her. Unbelievable. So,
Speaker 1: but he was. He was a rich dude. He was
Speaker 1: paid uh in today's dollars who Tom Thumb? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: over four thousand dollars a week and retired and lived
Speaker 1: the high life in New York City. Um. And you
Speaker 1: know he didn't feel like he was exploited. No, he
Speaker 1: he actually got married. I saw that he had children,
Speaker 1: but I could I only saw that one place. I
Speaker 1: didn't see it anywhere else. But he he was married
Speaker 1: and actually, um, right after the marriage was um brought
Speaker 1: to the White House to hang out with Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 1: and Mrs Lincoln. Yeah, he had twenty thou people at
Speaker 1: his funeral. He he was again, he was a very
Speaker 1: big deal. And from what I understand, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day he shed his persona. He was just
Speaker 1: Charles Stratton uber wealthy, uh, some little person. Um. And
Speaker 1: when he was doing his show, he was Tom Thumb
Speaker 1: who would dress up as Napoleon or whatever and take
Speaker 1: your money. Yeah, but um he he and P. T.
Speaker 1: Barnum together really made a ton of cash. Tom Thumb
Speaker 1: was a little better at managing his cash than Barnum was,
Speaker 1: because Barnum fell in hard times. A lot of people
Speaker 1: don't realize this, but he made some actually really bad
Speaker 1: investments over over time too. Yeah. He invested a lot
Speaker 1: of his money initially back into his business, which was smart, right,
Speaker 1: and but a lot of times he would be like
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a hit, and it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: a hit. He didn't have the Midas touch necessarily, and
Speaker 1: he fell on hard times more than once. And one
Speaker 1: of the times Um Tom Thumb or Charles Stratton bailed
Speaker 1: him out. Oh really, I get the feeling Barnum didn't
Speaker 1: know when to leave well enough alone, you know, like
Speaker 1: he had a big, thriving business and he just kept
Speaker 1: wanting to push it further and further. Hugh Jackman, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, uh so, now we will talk about a
Speaker 1: couple of people, Um, who are afflicted with something. Well,
Speaker 1: they were micro cephalic, which means that they have a
Speaker 1: cone shaped head smaller than normal shaped head as well. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you've ever if you're how Stern fan, then you
Speaker 1: know beetlejuice. He has this condition. Um, and they used
Speaker 1: to call them pinheads back in the day, awful term. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there were a couple of notable I'm not even
Speaker 1: gonna keep saying that, but a couple of notable people
Speaker 1: that performed um in these freak shows. One was Zip
Speaker 1: William Henry Johnson renamed Zip to z I P. He's
Speaker 1: from New Jersey, born to newly freed slaves and uh.
Speaker 1: When Barnum found him, he says, you know I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make up the story that you were found
Speaker 1: during a guerrilla expedition near the Gambia River. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: shave your head except for a little ponytailed tuft on
Speaker 1: top and address you in a suit of fur. And
Speaker 1: you get up on that stage and grunt like an animal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was paid a dollar a day at first to
Speaker 1: not talk to grunt and I guess to play the
Speaker 1: violin really badly. Yeah. I didn't get was he paid
Speaker 1: a dollar a day to start? Okay? I thought that
Speaker 1: might have been part of the story, that he was
Speaker 1: in fact paid a hundred dollars a day later. Okay,
Speaker 1: he became a very popular um uh freak. I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing is is um he uh. William Henry Johnson
Speaker 1: was probably not microcephalic at all. Um he microcephalic. Microsophalic
Speaker 1: is totally different microcephalic um he. Actually they think now
Speaker 1: that he had just like a slightly abnormally shaped head
Speaker 1: that was exaggerated by the haircut that they gave him,
Speaker 1: and that he actually had no diminished mental faculties once
Speaker 1: what what at all and he was just pretending the
Speaker 1: whole time, and not only fooling crowds, but he was
Speaker 1: also fooling promoters. Yeah, because that's one of the hallmarks
Speaker 1: of that condition. Is I believe that usually it's accompanied
Speaker 1: by cognitive stunted cognitive development ye, usually very severe, but
Speaker 1: not in his case. He was super smart. And when
Speaker 1: he died said we fooled them all. Yeah, that's no.
Speaker 1: He his sister Siste in his deathbed. They're also married, right,
Speaker 1: Not true. So he made a lot of money too,
Speaker 1: he did. He apparently retired with millions um a millionaire,
Speaker 1: so he's not the only um again. Pinhead is what
Speaker 1: this specific type of freak was called man. I can't
Speaker 1: believe I just said that. This feels so wrong I. Um,
Speaker 1: but there's a very sideshow performer and Chuck. Another very
Speaker 1: famous side show performer who was also I guess technically
Speaker 1: in the Under the Umbrella pinhead who actually was UM
Speaker 1: micro's cephilic was Schlitze. Yes, Schlitze is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite people of all time. Yes, schlet's see. They don't
Speaker 1: know for sure his real name, but um, they believe
Speaker 1: it's Simon Metz. Born in nineteen and one of the
Speaker 1: Bronx and um. By all accounts from everyone who ever
Speaker 1: met Schlitze, everyone loved Schlitze and he was a ray
Speaker 1: of sunshine and a nice, sweet carrying, kind hearted man.
Speaker 1: Loved life anything that you would take for granted. Um,
Speaker 1: chlet's see, probably enjoyed the heck out of and um.
Speaker 1: He was very frequently build as a woman. UM. I
Speaker 1: think he was Bill as an Aztec warrior at first,
Speaker 1: and then maybe even an Aztec woman. But he wore
Speaker 1: dresses all the time because he was incontinent, and this
Speaker 1: just made it the whole thing easier. UM. So he
Speaker 1: was Bill as a woman for a very long time
Speaker 1: and including in the movie, um Freaks, the Todd Browning
Speaker 1: movie from two. Schlitze was in that and Schlitze actually
Speaker 1: has like this big scene that's like has he has
Speaker 1: a whole speaking like a dialogue section, But to this
Speaker 1: day no one has any clue what he says. Yeah,
Speaker 1: should we talk about freaks now or take a break
Speaker 1: and then talk about it. Let's take a break, all right,
Speaker 1: all right, So the movie Freaks. Uh, I've seen it,
Speaker 1: have you? I saw it for the first time this morning.
Speaker 1: No way, wow, college when most people see it so good?
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's a nineteen thirty two pre code film. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was a time between when um, they started making
Speaker 1: movies to four when the Motion Picture production code kicked
Speaker 1: in the haze code. Uh yeah, and properly called the
Speaker 1: haze code. Um. For five years there you could do
Speaker 1: whatever you wanted, I guess. Yeah. And uh, that's when
Speaker 1: this direct her name Todd Browning, made a movie called
Speaker 1: Freaks about side show performers. And this guy was he
Speaker 1: actually ran away that the director actually ran away and
Speaker 1: joined the carnival when he was sixteen and worked as
Speaker 1: a carnival barker and even uh participated in stunts and
Speaker 1: he was. He's a circus guy, right, and he had
Speaker 1: a lot of um, sideshow performers as friends. And you
Speaker 1: can tell in the movie that that's he's like, that's who,
Speaker 1: he's whose side he's one, that's who that they're the
Speaker 1: heroes of the story, that the protagonists, the antagonists or
Speaker 1: normals or whatever. Um and uh, it's a really morally
Speaker 1: fraud movie these days. But if you just step back
Speaker 1: and and think of it as like this guy having
Speaker 1: an affinity for side show performers and giving them a
Speaker 1: shot at at stardom being on the big screen for
Speaker 1: what they are, for who they are, for what they
Speaker 1: can do. Um, then it's a really kind of a
Speaker 1: heart growing tail heart growing Yeah, in a very weird way.
Speaker 1: It's it's wrenching the watch. When's the last time you
Speaker 1: saw a college Yeah, it's spent a long time. Just
Speaker 1: see it again, all right, we'll check it out. Like
Speaker 1: it's it's tough to watch. It's gut wrenching. Uh. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of um, well, let's just talk about
Speaker 1: some of the performers in the movie. Um. One of
Speaker 1: them who stands out as Johnny eck John Eckhardt Jr.
Speaker 1: Who was a twin and he was born with a condition. Uh.
Speaker 1: Everyone said that he was cut off at the waist. Uh.
Speaker 1: Not exactly true. We actually had um unusable underdeveloped legs
Speaker 1: that you never saw, but it appeared as though he
Speaker 1: didn't have anything from the torso down. And as from
Speaker 1: a young kid, I believe he was even walking on
Speaker 1: his hands before his twin brother was even standing. So
Speaker 1: he was very advanced in a lot of ways. A
Speaker 1: very smart guy. He's a painter. Uh yeah, very accomplished
Speaker 1: the magician. Um. And you had a great personality too,
Speaker 1: you could tell. Yeah, And apparently he was good buddies
Speaker 1: with um Browning. And Browning always wanted him around and
Speaker 1: by his side and was like, you know, you need
Speaker 1: to come sit with me by the camera and almost
Speaker 1: like his Uh. I don't know if he could consider
Speaker 1: him a co director, but he always wanted him nearby.
Speaker 1: Pretty neat Uh. Daisy and Violet Hilton. Yeah can joined twins, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: which they called Siamese twins back in the day. Um,
Speaker 1: thanks to Chang and Yang Bunker. Right. Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: actually uh some of the first super famous. Uh. They
Speaker 1: were from a Siamese fishing village and that's where the
Speaker 1: term came from. Yeah, Siam was what we now called Thailand.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. And Chang and Ing we're born in
Speaker 1: nineteen I'm sorry, eighteen eleven. And they actually performed on
Speaker 1: their own for many years, made a ton of money.
Speaker 1: They got married, had kids, moved to North Carolina of
Speaker 1: all places, and um that well actually interestingly, Daisy and
Speaker 1: Violet ended up in North Carolina too, Oh yeah, but
Speaker 1: under much much worse conditions. Yeah, but um, to finish
Speaker 1: with Chang and Yng, they eventually lost their money. They
Speaker 1: were millionaires losser dough and then we'd worked for Barnum
Speaker 1: later on in life. But I get the impression that
Speaker 1: they did it kind of like at their leisure almost
Speaker 1: and ended up reamassing another fortune interest from working with Barnum. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they fathered twenty one children between them, married to
Speaker 1: Paris sisters. Man each had a house and they would
Speaker 1: spend three days at one house, three days at the
Speaker 1: next house. Um and yeah, they had twenty one kids.
Speaker 1: Pretty amazing. So Daisy and Violet Hilton, they were known
Speaker 1: as Siamese twins back then. Of course, Uh, we don't
Speaker 1: use that German anymore, But I mean I remember that
Speaker 1: term when I was a kid. So it's definitely like
Speaker 1: held on for way too long. Remember Ronnie and Dinnie Galle?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, are they still with us? Let's find out
Speaker 1: you're you're checking that. I'll continue. Um, I believe that.
Speaker 1: Uh that Browning spotted Daisy and Violet and said, you
Speaker 1: guys are great, You're pretty, you can sing. You'll be
Speaker 1: a big part of my movie. And they had been
Speaker 1: performers all along. Um. By eighteen, they were ontour with
Speaker 1: Bob Hope as part of his dance troupe and made
Speaker 1: quite a bit of money. Um. But sadly their story
Speaker 1: ends in North Carolina because they made an appearance in
Speaker 1: at a midnight showing of Freaks at a drive in
Speaker 1: and their manager ditched them and this party don't get
Speaker 1: they had no way to leave North Carolina, so they
Speaker 1: just stayed there. Yeah, they had to get a job.
Speaker 1: That just seems odd to me. If you don't have
Speaker 1: any money and no one to call to ask for money,
Speaker 1: you go get a job at a grocery store and
Speaker 1: I hope that you can eventually die there. It seems
Speaker 1: like they would have gotten enough money to leave and
Speaker 1: go back to wherever they lived. While they died in Charlotte,
Speaker 1: North Carolina of the Hong Kong flu What is that?
Speaker 1: It was a flu epidemic? She's that originated in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: It was a different world back then. Siamese twins died
Speaker 1: to Hong Kong flu i. None of that seems politically correct.
Speaker 1: To know who else was in Freaks? Uh, let's see. Um,
Speaker 1: there were a pair of little people named Harry and
Speaker 1: Daisy Earls and they played Hans and Frieda right, and
Speaker 1: Hans is like the ring master of the side show
Speaker 1: and um Frieda in real life, Daisy was known as
Speaker 1: the midget may West. Um. And in the movie they're engaged,
Speaker 1: but actually in real life they were brother and sister. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they were in The Wizard of Oz even as munchkins.
Speaker 1: And we're in a bunch of movies with Laurel and
Speaker 1: Hardy as well, so lifelong performers. So the the whole
Speaker 1: this whole movie and again, um, we kind of we
Speaker 1: didn't finish with the Schlitze. Schlitzy was in it too
Speaker 1: and had his whole big speaking part. Um. It was
Speaker 1: just adorable in the movie. You could like Schlitz's personality
Speaker 1: just shines right through the movie. Very likable. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: um Schlitze was actually uh adopted that no one had
Speaker 1: any idea who Schlitz's biological family was. They were not around.
Speaker 1: So the um, the people he performed with and worked for,
Speaker 1: actually took care of him. And when his adopted father died,
Speaker 1: his father's daughter, biological daughter said hey, schlt see, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm going to commit you to an asylum in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: And that's where Schlitzy was until one day, just by
Speaker 1: total chance, chuck Uh another circus performer, I think a
Speaker 1: sword swallower named Bill Unks. Bill, you're Schlitze. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: are you doing here? You look so sad? And Schlitze
Speaker 1: was like, I remember you, let's go. So bill Unk
Speaker 1: intervened and got Schlitze out of the institution, and uh
Speaker 1: he got to live out his days hanging out in
Speaker 1: the park being recognized by passers by. Yeah. He lived
Speaker 1: near MacArthur Park in downtown l A. And uh lived
Speaker 1: all the way up until at age seventy one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know you gotta see Schlitze. You should see freaks.
Speaker 1: But even if you don't see freaks, like look up
Speaker 1: Schlitze's part agreed, it'll probably make you want to see Freaks,
Speaker 1: so chuck. Um, the Freak Show is well, some people
Speaker 1: say that it's still around and that it's just on
Speaker 1: TV in the form of reality shows, like basically that
Speaker 1: same sentiment and everything still is found all over television. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exploiting uh people like uh, exploiting obesity and exploiting dwarf
Speaker 1: is um and uh, yeah it's on television now. Um.
Speaker 1: But the actual side show itself, Um, it's well, it
Speaker 1: went away in a lot of ways, at least as
Speaker 1: far as like a traveling side show went. And it
Speaker 1: went away with the rise of um, the rights for
Speaker 1: the disabled. That that that movement that came along in
Speaker 1: the starting in about the like late nineteenth century, early
Speaker 1: twentieth century, and then really gaining steam by about the
Speaker 1: time Freaks came around. The movie. Yeah, there were a
Speaker 1: few things that kind of killed it, um, but one's
Speaker 1: definitely like you said, science invented it and killed it
Speaker 1: as And here's something that is sort of reprehensible that
Speaker 1: I found out. There's a lot of these uh side
Speaker 1: shows would try and keep doctors away from the people
Speaker 1: because they thought, I don't want a doctor coming in here.
Speaker 1: And saying that the dog faced boy actually has hypertrichosis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because and it's a condition where you have hair all
Speaker 1: over your face. Yeah. I told everybody he was a
Speaker 1: cave caveman. Yeah, exactly, did you know? Actually there was
Speaker 1: another There was a woman um named Julia Pastrana, and
Speaker 1: she had hypertrichosis too, and she ended up marrying her manager.
Speaker 1: They were married, they had a baby together, and she
Speaker 1: died during childbirth and and the baby was born stillborn,
Speaker 1: and her husband, manager, who ostensibly loved her, said the
Speaker 1: show must go on. So he mummified his wife and
Speaker 1: they're still born baby, and then took him around to
Speaker 1: display them in the side show as ever unbelievable. So
Speaker 1: uh again, doctors would come along and start explaining these things,
Speaker 1: and that helped kill the side show. The rise of
Speaker 1: television and uh, you know at home entertainment meant people
Speaker 1: weren't going out to places like sideshows anymore. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: could stay in their house and watch television. And apparently
Speaker 1: you could still find sideshows like that American horror story
Speaker 1: was it freak show last season or whatever? I don't
Speaker 1: watch that, but yeah, um it was setting I think
Speaker 1: the fifties, and I think at that time you could
Speaker 1: still see, you know, traveling side shows here there, but
Speaker 1: they were pretty broken down by that point, they were
Speaker 1: pretty pretty much gone. But by the sixties there was
Speaker 1: a girl named Carol Browning and she I all I
Speaker 1: could find is that she had deformed arms and legs.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means, but that was the
Speaker 1: description that was given given of her. But she went
Speaker 1: to a side show and when she visited the carnival
Speaker 1: in North Carolina. I think she lived in Charlotte, No Raleigh,
Speaker 1: and Carol, what is it with North Carolina? That's where
Speaker 1: things beginning in with with sideshows. Well, Carol, Carol Grant
Speaker 1: I think was her name. Carol wrote a letter to
Speaker 1: the Agricultural Commission. The Agricultural Commission is in charge of
Speaker 1: side shows at the time, at least in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: and said this is wrong, like this is beyond wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm offended by this and this this should not
Speaker 1: be allowed to happen. And she actually sparked a national
Speaker 1: conversation about whether side shows should be allowed to be around,
Speaker 1: even if performers wanted to be a part of them.
Speaker 1: And that was the final death knell that conversation. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people came out and said, hey, you
Speaker 1: know what these people, you guys call them freaks, but
Speaker 1: you also empty your pockets to them, and they're wealthy.
Speaker 1: They enjoy the acclaim, they enjoy the money, and um,
Speaker 1: it's actually you who has the problem. And it didn't
Speaker 1: have much of an effect. Sideshows went away, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the sideshow performers ended up going from being
Speaker 1: pretty wealthy or well paid or having a steady income
Speaker 1: to um being broke and ending up like being abandoned
Speaker 1: by their managers like Daisy and Violet. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: tricky ground, it is. It's pretty much sad all the
Speaker 1: way through. Yeah, I mean except for some success stories.
Speaker 1: And that makes the whole thing so morally ambiguous if
Speaker 1: you think about it, Like, it's just so easy to
Speaker 1: look from here and be like you named your movie
Speaker 1: freaks or you you you charge people to look at
Speaker 1: the elephant man. But what about those people who said,
Speaker 1: I'm cool with this, I'm signing on for this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is making a lot of very wealthy. I'm happy,
Speaker 1: I've I've had all sorts of opportunities that weren't open
Speaker 1: to me before. And I love what I do. What
Speaker 1: do you do about that? Like, you can't condemn it.
Speaker 1: It's not an easy black and white thing to to
Speaker 1: deal with. Yeah, it's called a moral ambiguity. You said
Speaker 1: it that There have always been them, them, those them
Speaker 1: moral ambiguity. There always will be. Uh, you got anything else? No?
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about sideshows, freaks, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, you can type those words into the
Speaker 1: search bar at how stuff works dot com. And since
Speaker 1: I said search parts, time for listener mail. Hey, before
Speaker 1: listener mail, what about Ronnie and Donnie? Oh? Yeah, Ronnie
Speaker 1: and Donnie are alive. Awesome. They are sixty four years
Speaker 1: old as of past October I think one, and they
Speaker 1: are the world's longest living conjoined twins. They're adorable too.
Speaker 1: They're OHI ends right if I remember believe so? Yeah,
Speaker 1: very nice man. What documentary did we see on them
Speaker 1: or something? I can't remember, but we've we've talked about
Speaker 1: him a lot over the years. So that's that's great news. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're they're still at it alright. So listener mail,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one. Uh, quick feedback on the
Speaker 1: Bill Gates podcast that is Quick Turnaround. Hey guys, my
Speaker 1: name is Brendan Cologne announced like Cologne, and I'm a
Speaker 1: PhD student at Habba Medical School in Pamelas Silver's lab
Speaker 1: working on artificial photosynthesis. Shoutout Pamelas Silver. How about that.
Speaker 1: I'm long time fan the show and wanted to say
Speaker 1: what you guys did? Uh? You did? You did a
Speaker 1: great job covering renewable energy with Bill Gates. During the episode,
Speaker 1: there was a question about the current limitations of artificial
Speaker 1: photosynthetic systems at present. The biggest issues are scalability, he
Speaker 1: cost energy in producing the building materials, and the efficient
Speaker 1: extraction of produced fuels. Uh. These are standard engineering hurdles,
Speaker 1: but like Mr Gates said, we can call them Bill.
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't think you can, Brendon, we can,
Speaker 1: but we can. Uh. These are standard engineering hurdles, but
Speaker 1: like Mr Gates said, the final product needs to be viable. Specifically,
Speaker 1: such a product would need to harvest in store more
Speaker 1: energy in the short term than what was required to
Speaker 1: build it makes sense and do so on the cheap. Uh. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: biotechnology and photo voltaic technology is advancing at a breakneck pace,
Speaker 1: so the future of this technology looks bright. As new
Speaker 1: biochemistries are discovered, more products will be available for production,
Speaker 1: and one vision of this technology is a local and
Speaker 1: individualized production chemical is on demand. I hope this helps.
Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out. Cheers Brendan. Thanks Brendan, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Brendan Cologne pronounced cologne, that's right. Uh. If you are
Speaker 1: an expert in something that we talk about, we love
Speaker 1: hearing feedback from people like you. You can send us
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