Speaker 1: This is as great as Escapes, a show bringing you
Speaker 1: the wildest true escape stories of all time. I'm Attura
Speaker 1: Castro and I'm here with the incredibly talented actor with
Speaker 1: the voice of an absolute angel, Billy Magnuson. Guys, what
Speaker 1: a treat we have for you today. We have the one,
Speaker 1: the only Billy Magnusse. So, brother, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing this. I really appreciate it. You and Georgia
Speaker 1: right now building a house from from from the ground up, by.
Speaker 2: Yourself, renovating, renovating.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, you're building a house by yourself because
Speaker 1: you're impressively fun.
Speaker 3: This admitted with my brothers. Actually it's actually with my
Speaker 3: brothers and my dad. You know, grew up in a
Speaker 3: carpentry shop.
Speaker 1: So are you renovating a house you grew up in
Speaker 1: or a house you got in Georgia?
Speaker 2: No, house I got in Georgia. It's like close to
Speaker 2: my parents' place.
Speaker 3: So you know, when I'm not shooting a movie with
Speaker 3: you co starring next to you, you know, I'm building houses.
Speaker 1: Work in construction, that's all. You're doing a movie or
Speaker 1: you're building a house. That's what building Magison does.
Speaker 2: All right, that's it. What else is there to do?
Speaker 1: Do you have something that you considered to be your
Speaker 1: greatest escape?
Speaker 3: Brother, My biggest real escape was like probably getting away
Speaker 3: from a life I didn't want to live. I would say, like,
Speaker 3: I'm emotionally and deep. We came from the generation a
Speaker 3: little bit before social media and shit like that, and
Speaker 3: that that comparison thing that it causes, or at least
Speaker 3: it caused me to do fucking crushed me me and
Speaker 3: like detox from that and not do that shit. It's
Speaker 3: been so helpful.
Speaker 1: Try try having the only other well known Watermellon actor
Speaker 1: be Oscar Isaac. I mean every time every time I
Speaker 1: did something even semi cool, my friends would send me
Speaker 1: like the cover of a GQ with like an Oscar eyesagon,
Speaker 1: and I was like, yep, got it, got it, got it.
Speaker 3: There was something about my own trust and like caring
Speaker 3: for myself, I stop doing and to like move on,
Speaker 3: move past that and escape that that black hole of it.
Speaker 3: That's been the best escape in my life to enjoy life.
Speaker 1: Again. Thank you for being so open with us, man.
Speaker 1: Did you ever get faced with the like like unsmoking,
Speaker 1: what do you have to complain about? Not from your
Speaker 1: family but from other people sometimes Yeah, no.
Speaker 2: No, definitely from my family.
Speaker 3: But again I come from the majority of dudes that
Speaker 3: you know, it's my mom and then like four guys
Speaker 3: and that sounds weird.
Speaker 2: It's me and my brothers, you know, a bunch of
Speaker 2: dudes that I just.
Speaker 1: Got some guys that I just build some house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, David was just get your head
Speaker 3: out of your ass and put yourself up, like what
Speaker 3: do you got. Look, it's fucking beautiful today when you
Speaker 3: get outside. It was tough love, okay. Escape was just yeah,
Speaker 3: saying goodbye to that that life that wasn't working anymore,
Speaker 3: or that mindset.
Speaker 1: Well, brother, listen, thank you so much for opening up
Speaker 1: about that. Are you ready for me to tell you
Speaker 1: an insane escape? Brother?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's rock and roll. So our story begins with
Speaker 1: a man named Gunta Pluschkau. He was this German naval
Speaker 1: officer in the early nineteen hundreds, and honestly, his life
Speaker 1: was like a whole series of buck wild escapes. Eventually
Speaker 1: he would even become one of the most famous prisoners
Speaker 1: of World War One. We're going to start in the
Speaker 1: year before the war started, when Gunta was assigned to
Speaker 1: a brand new wing of the German military, the Air Force.
Speaker 1: So of course this was when they were first starting
Speaker 1: to experiment with flying. And it turns out the Gunta
Speaker 1: was an absolute prodigy. So at the beginning of nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: Gunter's story really took off. Because it's hard to say
Speaker 1: this to believe, Gunter says it only took him three
Speaker 1: days to learn how to fly. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just spent up in the air
Speaker 1: and I stayed there like boom came down. It's very simple.
Speaker 3: I actually feel like flying is probably very like second
Speaker 3: act or like riding a bike. Weirdly, I remember doing
Speaker 3: a hanglighting thing and I was like, this makes so much.
Speaker 3: It's like the mechanics of it really actually works in
Speaker 3: my head.
Speaker 2: And you're in this nothing.
Speaker 3: Kind of contraption, you know, it's just right the wind,
Speaker 3: and it was just like this seems so simple.
Speaker 1: Like you were simple what you're just feeling what the
Speaker 1: air wanted to do, and you're just kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is how I can manipulate it, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just it's like surfing or something, you know,
Speaker 3: like where you have to or snowboarding or skiing. You
Speaker 3: could just feel where the momentum wants to take you.
Speaker 3: It's like little dancing in the air. It makes sense
Speaker 3: to me, so listen.
Speaker 1: So the German place of that time, they were called doves,
Speaker 1: and they were fucking janky as hell, right, and they
Speaker 1: required the pilot to do a lot of pulling on
Speaker 1: wires and levers to make the wingspend. But Gunter says
Speaker 1: that not only could he do it after just three days,
Speaker 1: but he actually passed his flying exam on day five.
Speaker 1: Do you have any prodigy level skills, Billy? Were you
Speaker 1: immediately proficient at that uh what they called the goat
Speaker 1: carcass throwing race?
Speaker 2: Well, coke peru co Yeah, no, definitely, not definitely. Not
Speaker 2: that that was like showing up.
Speaker 3: That was like we were the Jamaican Bob sled team
Speaker 3: showing up to like, you know, play coke peru. Coke
Speaker 3: preau is a game basically during the World Nomad Games.
Speaker 3: It's like one of the biggest sports in the stands.
Speaker 3: And that was part of the first ever American coke
Speaker 3: carew team, which is basically hockey like the same rules
Speaker 3: as hockey, but you're on horseback and the balls of
Speaker 3: dead goat carcass and you have to lean off the
Speaker 3: horse to the ground, pick up the dead goat carcass
Speaker 3: and throw it in the other team's goal.
Speaker 2: And it was the most aggressive thing I've ever done
Speaker 2: in my life.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, is it is it shaped as a
Speaker 1: ball or is it just literally like right.
Speaker 3: Before, right before the game, cut off the head and
Speaker 3: cut off at the elbows and knees. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: and blood everything, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: But then the winner gets to eat it.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's fucking insane.
Speaker 2: That is insane.
Speaker 1: The German Air Force was so impressed with Gunta's prodigious
Speaker 1: skills that they wanted to immediately ship him off to
Speaker 1: the far reaches of the Empire. But Gunta must have
Speaker 1: felt that he wasn't actually ready, so he made a
Speaker 1: request before they sent him away. He asked for one
Speaker 1: more long training flight across Germany, but this time joined
Speaker 1: by a military observer. Yeah, if you're belief you're the
Speaker 1: observer guy, you're gonna take this fucking flight with a
Speaker 1: hotch a young pilot. I'd be like, fuck, no, man,
Speaker 1: I'm busy avoiding syphilis and I don't want to die.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, it's like nineteen hundred.
Speaker 2: Man, I just wanted my schnitzel and some beer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got polio. Dude, I can't do that.
Speaker 2: I guess I would do it though I'm that kind
Speaker 2: of guy.
Speaker 1: Though you would, you would definitely do it.
Speaker 3: I like things in my life always show up, Like
Speaker 3: if it shows up in front of me, I'm like,
Speaker 3: this is the moment I'm doing.
Speaker 1: That now, you know. It's yeah, yeah, It's like.
Speaker 2: Eating bugs for the first time in like Highland.
Speaker 3: It just like shows up to you and you're like, eh, yes,
Speaker 3: I'm doing this here.
Speaker 1: I'm a bugget to know, you know. I find that
Speaker 1: with like weird phobias that i have, like afraid of
Speaker 1: heights or whatever the fuck. But even though I'm afraid
Speaker 1: of heights, I've cliff dived and I've skydived, and I've
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm more afraid of missing out on
Speaker 1: the experience than i am up my petty little fears,
Speaker 1: if that makes any sense exactly, Dude.
Speaker 2: I could not agree with you more. Would you ever
Speaker 2: actually get your skydiving license?
Speaker 1: My girlfriend at the time didn't fucking know that I
Speaker 1: was afraid of heights, and she got me a skydiving
Speaker 1: thing for my birthday. But my birthday is in November,
Speaker 1: and in New York you can't jump until June. So
Speaker 1: I had about seven eight months to think about this
Speaker 1: fucking thing, and I was like, I'm not gonna do it.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do it. I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 1: Two weeks before, there was an accident for a tandem
Speaker 1: skydiving thing where the parents who didn't fully deploy and
Speaker 1: so the dude landing on his client, and Vaporice is
Speaker 1: client and he kind of survived, all fucked up, and
Speaker 1: I was like, that's it. That's it. I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1: And then my writing partner, who is at the time
Speaker 1: who is the softest dude I've ever met, he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: scot of yeah, I've been like four times. I was like,
Speaker 1: there's no fucking world in which this market has gone
Speaker 1: and I have not gone. Anyway, we go up there.
Speaker 1: It's the whole story about how I finally get up
Speaker 1: there and they're like, okay, put your foot outside and
Speaker 1: you count to three and then we'll jump. And I
Speaker 1: was like, cool, one faint and I'm like I'm already
Speaker 1: fucking fine. I'm like, wait, what it was like you
Speaker 1: can see the video. It's just like I just like
Speaker 1: not off for like a second. And the first fucking
Speaker 1: thing is have you skydived few times?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, So the first thing is your brain doesn't know
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on, right, And then so
Speaker 1: it's sort of kind of a sensor you're overloud. And
Speaker 1: the second one is like, oh my god, I'm flying
Speaker 1: through the air like a fucking bird. And then the
Speaker 1: third one is like, please deploy, please deploy, please deploy.
Speaker 1: But I think that everybody should do it at least
Speaker 1: once in their life.
Speaker 3: What the scariest. The scariest part was the drive to
Speaker 3: the airport for me. Yeah, yeah, but like every time
Speaker 3: I've gone, I find it so peaceful, weirdly relaxing and
Speaker 3: like just nothing else in the world matters.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like that that what's called the roller
Speaker 1: coaster pole. It just feels like floating through the air. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: I would like to shout out to our sponsors Tandem
Speaker 1: Tandem Skydivings off Phillong Island. What if we're just this
Speaker 1: is just a paid partnership I fucking for like Airlines,
Speaker 1: German Airlines and Cark is throwing so Gunter got this
Speaker 1: request approved right of somebody coming with him, but that
Speaker 1: was something that everybody was going to regret because just
Speaker 1: about everything that could go wrong went wrong. So at
Speaker 1: first they took off in a dense fog and Gunta
Speaker 1: couldn't see and flew thank you. Is that a fog sound? Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a plain sound.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that's a lawnmower.
Speaker 1: That's a lot so he was. He realized that he
Speaker 1: was cutting the grass, and he flew purely by compass
Speaker 1: right because he couldn't see anything. And while the military
Speaker 1: observer guy had this his life flashing before his eyes.
Speaker 1: It was the first time flying. It was the guy's
Speaker 1: first time flying, and he was completely freaked out. It
Speaker 1: forced them to land in the field and they couldn't
Speaker 1: even leave until local farmers cut down trees to open
Speaker 1: up a runway. Oh so what are you doing? Somebody
Speaker 1: sending somebody who hasn't flown to supervise a flight, right? Like,
Speaker 1: what would they what would how would they know what
Speaker 1: to look for?
Speaker 2: We're still up in the air.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, it's good. Yeah, is flying big fighting boy? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So wait, so they're chilling in this town till they
Speaker 3: cut down the trees to make over.
Speaker 1: They had to land in a field and they couldn't
Speaker 1: take off again until farmers came out and cut some
Speaker 1: of the grass and vines and shit so that they
Speaker 1: could take off again.
Speaker 3: That's like awesome, See what happens to humanity like that,
Speaker 3: where you're like, huh, you're lost, I'll help you out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, Billy, if a fucking guy landed with a
Speaker 1: plane in my garden, I'd be like, yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: help you get the fuck out of my garden because
Speaker 1: he's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. So I don't
Speaker 1: know what's happened to I don't know if sweets humanity
Speaker 1: or it's a it's just basically like, hey.
Speaker 3: I I mean, I got I got some shit, I
Speaker 3: gotta get done.
Speaker 2: Get out.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so let's get get you out. So when
Speaker 1: Gunter finally did launch again, another fog rolled in and
Speaker 1: as they flew going to realize that somehow that forced
Speaker 1: landing had split the fuel tank and then the gas
Speaker 1: was leaking out of the plane right, So they ran
Speaker 1: out of fuel just as they reached their destination. And
Speaker 1: that was bad enough, but then on the way back.
Speaker 1: Why are they fucking plying back?
Speaker 2: Same plane?
Speaker 1: Hey, overlords, it's got to be a different plane, right.
Speaker 1: Germany had like four planes at the time.
Speaker 5: So this was they just passed it out, ok, I
Speaker 5: got so Gunter says that the only reason that he
Speaker 5: tried taking off again was because he didn't know any
Speaker 5: better at the time, and there was truly a shitty call.
Speaker 1: After a little while, he realized that the storm was
Speaker 1: too strong and he couldn't control the plane, so he
Speaker 1: tried to dive down and land in another field. I
Speaker 1: love the farmers just looking at him.
Speaker 4: And like, nine, your set out best.
Speaker 1: And I imagine military observer right, like he's just confessing
Speaker 1: to shit in case this is the last time.
Speaker 4: He's like, I've never like see you on the farm.
Speaker 4: I said I did, but I didn't. It smucksy and
Speaker 4: it makes me look fat, you know, and it's like, dude,
Speaker 4: come down, I'm not gonna die.
Speaker 1: So they came in for the landing, but at last
Speaker 1: minute the wind picked up and a gus slammed the
Speaker 1: plane and flipped it upside down just to see near
Speaker 1: the ground. The plane slammed into the field and smashed
Speaker 1: forward with the wind and rain slashing them. The flip
Speaker 1: plane cut a trench into the turf before crashing a
Speaker 1: to a halt against a high mound. Not the best
Speaker 1: first day for our military observer. Guy Gudur and his
Speaker 1: passenger were trapped onto the plane as the storm ranged
Speaker 1: on overhead, and as he caught his breath he realized
Speaker 1: he was still alive. Right, Gunter felt hot gasoline start
Speaker 1: pouring down his face. The observer is probably like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm observing some fuel getting into your mouth, and there's
Speaker 1: like you don't no need to observe everything here. This
Speaker 1: guy was fucking lucky. So some nearby farmers again had
Speaker 1: actually seen the plane go down. They rushed to the site.
Speaker 1: They couldn't lift the plane, so they dug a tunnel
Speaker 1: underneath it so they could pull out the trapman, What
Speaker 1: has happened to humanity, Billy Magdison? Were people digging tunnels
Speaker 1: for us these days? Nay, they don't exist. So Gunta
Speaker 1: says that at that moment he realized that the mound
Speaker 1: they had crashed the plane into was actually a giant
Speaker 1: pile of manure. Fantastic, Yeah, what's the shitty? Have you
Speaker 1: ever had a bad crash.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Not like you're like, legally I cannot give your details
Speaker 1: on it. I pleaded no.
Speaker 2: Contest, and I've always been lucky. Let's just say that
Speaker 2: of like getting.
Speaker 3: Out of stuff, Like I've been flown from a bike
Speaker 3: and somehow landed like basically on all fours.
Speaker 1: You're landing like a gymnastic, like say, just like doing
Speaker 1: the hoods in the air.
Speaker 2: Like wow, falling rock climbing was the worst.
Speaker 1: Probably what happened rock climbing, you almost died.
Speaker 3: I felt like I felt like maybe fifty feet no,
Speaker 3: and like it was but luckily we were over water
Speaker 3: and it was like there was this step weirdly, so
Speaker 3: I fell.
Speaker 2: I felt like thirty something feet halfway down, and when.
Speaker 3: I hit my back, I kicked off away from the
Speaker 3: wall because there was rocks and like I kicked off
Speaker 3: far enough.
Speaker 2: To land in water, and so what Yeah, we out.
Speaker 3: The worst part wasn't the like my back and the
Speaker 3: scars there from all that. It was the poison oak
Speaker 3: that got into my bloodstream.
Speaker 2: No, I was like a scab for the next.
Speaker 1: Two weeks ill you're like, what if you said like
Speaker 1: the worst part of it was just you know, I
Speaker 1: was my clothes got wet. That's really I was like,
Speaker 1: well you really love your clothes. Well I'm glad you're alive. Brother,
Speaker 1: So Gunter He says that the play was smashed up
Speaker 1: into a tangle of wood, fabric and wire, and it
Speaker 1: was fully broken apart in three places, and it was
Speaker 1: completely embedded in soggy shit. Right, sorry, soggy poo poo.
Speaker 1: Somehow going to escape with his life, and so did
Speaker 1: his passenger. He had Billy magnuson. Look, so this is
Speaker 1: his escape number one. Okay, okay, I really hope that
Speaker 1: have is every time I name his escapes. Can I
Speaker 1: give that one more time? Yes? Thank you. So in
Speaker 1: this grace, both men took a train back to Gunter's
Speaker 1: navy base to report. Their fellow officers were like, how
Speaker 1: to go you know, and they're like, please fuck off.
Speaker 2: So now let's go back earlier.
Speaker 3: So they landed in a field, crashed in a field,
Speaker 3: and they didn't just take the train back.
Speaker 2: They got back up in the air.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no, no no. They took the train back.
Speaker 1: So they both both men took a first time where
Speaker 1: the no, they got back up, They got back up
Speaker 1: in the plane the first time they crashed into the field. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they cut them off and they're like, okay, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's as good boys.
Speaker 3: That's just like hitchhiking a ride is like, yeah, I'll
Speaker 3: go back up. I'm just saying they could have taken
Speaker 3: a train.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they could have taken a train back, but they
Speaker 1: just decided not to because they were like, maybe this
Speaker 1: is what flying is. You have to like crash land
Speaker 1: every now and then. You know, I also loved it, Like,
Speaker 1: oh so it must be there must be some male
Speaker 1: ego in play in this way. He's like, I will
Speaker 1: not go into the fucking train. Everybody will know we
Speaker 1: fucking chrished it. And it's like, I think everybody knows already.
Speaker 1: It's in the news. Somehow, despite this, the Navy still
Speaker 1: thought that they should send him to China as their
Speaker 1: special pilot boy or vunderkind, if you will, And somehow
Speaker 1: Gunter still thought that this was a good idea. Literally,
Speaker 1: in his book, he ends the chapter of the crash
Speaker 1: by saying, well, duty called, should you not wow? So
Speaker 1: many terrible manure puns. I'm practicing for when I become
Speaker 1: a farmer dad. You know, So, why did the German
Speaker 1: navy send Gunta to China. Well, at the time, the
Speaker 1: German navy had actually seized an entire city on the
Speaker 1: Chinese coast in eighteen ninety seven, the city of Sin
Speaker 1: Tau uhuh, named after the fantastic beer huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the German Kaiser was extremely jealous of his
Speaker 1: cousins who ruled Russia and England, and they were all
Speaker 1: taking parts in China for themselves. So you remember when
Speaker 1: that morning career across Europe at that point was like
Speaker 1: a messed up family affair, you know, and they're all like,
Speaker 1: they're all basically like, no I wanted it, No I
Speaker 1: wanted You know. That's really how World War for the
Speaker 1: First World War happened. But how would you how would
Speaker 1: your family do it? Ruling a continent? What do you think?
Speaker 1: Imagine your family drama, but boosted by to scale to
Speaker 1: scale a global empire.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I think it would be a good time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Particular, your brothers sound like, you know, like there's conflict.
Speaker 1: They're like, just get your head out of you ass, Hey, Russia,
Speaker 1: just get your head out of ass. Let's go build
Speaker 1: a house, guys, Let's go build some houses.
Speaker 2: Build the house. Let's have a beer, enjoy ourselves.
Speaker 1: So the German navy put the city under a military dictatorship.
Speaker 1: So side, I wonder if it's related that there's a
Speaker 1: beer named after that city, because Germans do love their
Speaker 1: their brewing, don't they? To hey, overlords, is it related? Yes,
Speaker 1: this is when the Germans built that brewery. Oh okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So I was right, good for me? So Wunderkin Gunta
Speaker 1: was one of the navy officers who was sent to
Speaker 1: China to be on the leadship of their Asian Navy squad.
Speaker 1: And by the way, he had joined a German military
Speaker 1: academy at ten years old, so this was kind of
Speaker 1: his thing, right, And before he learned to fly, he
Speaker 1: had already sailed around Sintau as a navy officer. In
Speaker 1: that first trip, he even got himself a tattoo, a
Speaker 1: dragon that stretched from his left shoulder all the way
Speaker 1: to his left wrist. You got any ink I do? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't regret any of them.
Speaker 2: I don't think you've seen me with my clothes off.
Speaker 1: So do you? How many do you have?
Speaker 2: Four? All? I wish, I wish I didn't have any
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: But listen, particularly like that, like early nineteen hundreds, it
Speaker 1: must have been rare to get a big ass fucking
Speaker 1: tattoo like that, right, I guess, but don't.
Speaker 3: Isn't like all the sailors would get tattoos all the
Speaker 3: time and all that shit.
Speaker 1: I didn't associate with German navy guys. But I guess.
Speaker 1: You know, you're on a boat, everything goes, you know.
Speaker 1: So after his flying lessons and you know, crashing his
Speaker 1: plane multiple times, Gunta was headed back to China for
Speaker 1: his German overlords. He arrived in Saintao, this time with
Speaker 1: a plane. Apparently he could fly now, and because of
Speaker 1: the tattoo, people started calling him Gunta Dragonmaster, or at
Speaker 1: least that's what Gunter would tell people. Do you think
Speaker 1: that's even true? I love the idea of him like
Speaker 1: dragon man. Yeah exactly. Yeah, Hey, hey Gunta Gunta fucking fine,
Speaker 1: hey dragon master? Yeah yeah, but you're calling me, oh
Speaker 1: my god.
Speaker 2: How are you this quick? Dude?
Speaker 1: Well, I have my I have writers in my ear.
Speaker 1: It's Tory Smith and Alyssa just going like okay and
Speaker 1: now bits bits bits bits okay, okay, thank you okay,
Speaker 1: but also okay, so dragon Master he's pushing his nickname
Speaker 1: on everybody. And this was July of nineteen fourteen. So
Speaker 1: the other thing happening at the end of July nineteen
Speaker 1: fourteen was that World War One was kicking off. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot on
Speaker 1: the same day that Gunta made his first flight over Sinhtau.
Speaker 1: Oh coincidence, I think not? Where was he? So soon
Speaker 1: enough Germany and Russia were scrapping. Apparently we'll talking with
Speaker 1: an English girlfriend, Gunter told her that it was fine
Speaker 1: Germany was fighting Russia because they would never fight England.
Speaker 1: Oh how very wrong he was. So by the fall
Speaker 1: that year, the German Sincintau were surrounded. Right, a combined
Speaker 1: army of Japanese and English troops had the city under siege.
Speaker 1: Did you expect the English to show up there?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: It seemed like around that time. English would always go like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's his sub education, yes please, I haven't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's crazy is that that they they probably sailed
Speaker 3: that whole way like at that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the air force wasn't that powerful, and
Speaker 1: their navy has always been known for for being great.
Speaker 1: So apparently in the attacks on the city. The Japanese
Speaker 1: army was extremely careful not to damage the German brewery
Speaker 1: because fucking priorities. I respect that. And in the battle,
Speaker 1: Gunter was the German scout, so he would fly over
Speaker 1: the city and report what he saw about the Japanese
Speaker 1: and English shoops, where they were camped, how many there were,
Speaker 1: things like that. But at first the soldiers mocked him,
Speaker 1: saying that while they were fighting on the ground, he
Speaker 1: was just playing games up in the air. The truth
Speaker 1: is that Gunter's information was actually pretty useful, but the
Speaker 1: insult stung, so he started to beg the German engineers
Speaker 1: to figure out how to make bombs so he could
Speaker 1: drop them from his plane. And what did they come
Speaker 1: up with. They filled four pound coffee tins with sticks
Speaker 1: to dynamite, with nails with scrap metal. Thank you, Ben,
Speaker 1: and Gunter started carrying them up to the air with
Speaker 1: him and throwing them over the side. This seems fucking insane.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine carrying a coffee tin full of dynamite
Speaker 1: on your lap while you drive, let alone fight up
Speaker 1: into the air. That's awesome. I was gonna say, Billy's like, well,
Speaker 1: if it showed up at that time in my life.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say it.
Speaker 2: I'm to it.
Speaker 3: I mean there's people that drive with guns in the
Speaker 3: cars here, man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was different than that of my busy. I
Speaker 1: see the point, Okay, I see the point.
Speaker 3: And these are those biplanes, like it has two things,
Speaker 3: like it's open.
Speaker 2: Cockpit, the whole thing.
Speaker 1: And that's what I imagine because that's what the Red
Speaker 1: Baron was known for, right, like from shooting it like fighting,
Speaker 1: fighting in the air.
Speaker 3: When one of the the gun with the revolver comeing
Speaker 3: or with the propeller, you know, when the gun with
Speaker 3: the propeller. Yeah, so it was timed it would shoot
Speaker 3: but through the spins of the blade.
Speaker 1: That was in nineteen fifteen. That was in nineteen fifteen.
Speaker 1: We were a year ahead. So okay, so let's calm
Speaker 1: the fuck down, Billy. Okay, you're ahead of the you're
Speaker 1: ahead of the game. You're ahead of the game. So
Speaker 1: unfortunately for everyone involved, the bombs were mostly duds. Right
Speaker 1: at one point, he dropped his bomb in an English
Speaker 1: military tent and it just like took a trampoline bounce
Speaker 1: off the canvas. So it was really embarrassing, and then
Speaker 1: just went into the mud, and when he would hit
Speaker 1: Japanese ships, the bombs would also just bounce off it
Speaker 1: without exploding, and Gunter says that all these failures made
Speaker 1: him get over the first pleasant emotion of bombing. Fucking
Speaker 1: the pleasant emotion of bombing really sounds like a memoir
Speaker 1: by a fucking psychopath, or how you described the beginning
Speaker 1: of my stand up career, Oh pleasure of bombing. Actually,
Speaker 1: to be honest, my my only foray into stand up
Speaker 1: comedy went very well, and I decided never to touch
Speaker 1: it again. Have you ever tried that?
Speaker 2: Absolutely not? Have you heard? Have you heard me talk
Speaker 2: of this podcast? And now I can do it.
Speaker 1: You're funny, You're funny in the group. You're good. You
Speaker 1: know what, You're great board games man, You're great at
Speaker 1: leading board games. Okay, and don't let anybody tell you differently, buddy.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: With Gunter doing exactly squat with the dumb bombs, the
Speaker 1: siege of Sintau lasted for more than a month. The
Speaker 1: Germans finally surrendered the city in November and Guncher had
Speaker 1: one final mission, and he was given a package of
Speaker 1: secret documents and told to fly south out of the city.
Speaker 1: He launched into the air and traveled along the Chinese coast,
Speaker 1: flying south for as long as he could. For those
Speaker 1: counting at home, this is Gunter's escape number two. Okay,
Speaker 1: find like a chicken from the siege of Singtau and
Speaker 1: leaving behind all that delicious, delicious beer. Now eventually going
Speaker 1: to was forced to land, so he did his signature
Speaker 1: maneuver where he sent his plane nose down into a
Speaker 1: nice mud patch. Despite his time in Sintau, Gunter didn't
Speaker 1: speak any Chinese, so he needed an American missionary to
Speaker 1: help him get into Shanghai. Have you ever regretted not
Speaker 1: learning a language, Billy?
Speaker 3: Yes, so many great?
Speaker 1: Okay, I got two and a half a little bit
Speaker 1: of French in my in my pocket, and I got
Speaker 1: to what you got.
Speaker 2: I got French English in half of Spanish.
Speaker 1: Half a Spanish. Just once you get Spanish, you automatically like,
Speaker 1: are shoot in from the Portuguese and Italian kind of yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, yeah, they're all romantic languages.
Speaker 1: We're romantic guys. So after he showed up Shanghai, a
Speaker 1: meal freighter was scheduled to travel from Shanghai to California,
Speaker 1: and Gunder got on board. He decided to travel as
Speaker 1: an Englishman named mcgarvin, and.
Speaker 2: They were sure mcgarvin the dragon slayer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the dragon guy, the dragon slayer. So they were
Speaker 1: sure that the Americans wouldn't be able to tell the
Speaker 1: difference between the German accent and an English accent, so
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be in any danger, right, fucking audacity. On
Speaker 1: the way, Gunja made the really strange choice to tell
Speaker 1: other passengers well everything about himself, so that included giving
Speaker 1: away all the details of his past false identity to
Speaker 1: an American journalist on board. So when the ship docked
Speaker 1: in Hawaii, the news got ahead of him right, and
Speaker 1: by the time they landed in San Francisco in December,
Speaker 1: newspapers around the country were publishing the story. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the headlines, where are.
Speaker 2: The documents that he was like traveling with?
Speaker 1: He still got him in it, but he's telling everybody
Speaker 1: what they contained.
Speaker 4: He's like, ah, were planning to attack on October fifth?
Speaker 2: That was heavy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're going to bet that you have THEIRSVP. So
Speaker 1: the news paper started publishing the story right, and the
Speaker 1: headlines were like remarkable series of narrow escapes and said
Speaker 1: that Gunter was pretending to be mcgarvin, and he was
Speaker 1: trying to get back to Germany to fight the English, like,
Speaker 1: whoa billy, have you ever let something slipt that was
Speaker 1: supposed to stay secret?
Speaker 2: Everything? Okay, great, don't tell me a secret.
Speaker 1: No, I'm terrible at it too, like fucking unfold like
Speaker 1: a table.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well everyone should know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like no, no, no, guys, let's get it
Speaker 1: out in the open. So now that basically the entire
Speaker 1: country knew who he was, Gunta rushed to say ahead
Speaker 1: of anyone who might want to grab him. He hopped
Speaker 1: from train to train across the whole country. Right. He
Speaker 1: was looking over his shoulder at every stop, being like,
Speaker 1: why the fuck did I tell that journal is my secrets?
Speaker 1: Now I'm being chased by the consequences of my own actions, summit,
Speaker 1: but I am still to dragon Master cool Yah. His
Speaker 1: panic jump from train to train finally brought him to
Speaker 1: New York. Of course, he didn't have the right papers
Speaker 1: from Atlantic crossing. He needed to find someone in the
Speaker 1: city who could ford him a passport, tak him about
Speaker 1: three weeks, and he was apparently pretty spread by the end.
Speaker 1: So he says, the only thing.
Speaker 2: That call what neighborhood in New York. Do you think
Speaker 2: it was?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I think you know, he says
Speaker 1: that the only thing that called these nerves is going
Speaker 1: to see a performance of Hansel and Gretel at the
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Opera. And that's a true story, Like this is
Speaker 1: so soothing? Is this from Hansel and Gretel?
Speaker 2: Jo.
Speaker 1: So eventually Gunta found a sketchy dude who would make
Speaker 1: him a fake passport, and he bought a ticket to
Speaker 1: Italy under the fake Swiss name, and souss, you can
Speaker 1: find anything in New York. What's the weirdest thing you've
Speaker 1: ever come across in New York City.
Speaker 3: I remember getting on a subway and they had like
Speaker 3: a iguana on a leash, like just someone like having
Speaker 3: iguana on the leash in subway.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, this makes sense.
Speaker 1: So now we're at escape number three. So Gunta gets
Speaker 1: across America and it seemed like it was all working
Speaker 1: out for Gunter, except that when the ship reached Europe,
Speaker 1: it stopped at the English port of Gibraltar. And you
Speaker 1: know how Gunter had always been telling people he was Swiss. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the actual Swiss passengers on board didn't recognize
Speaker 1: his accent. Dude, if I were a fugitive bro like,
Speaker 1: people would think I'm a fucking mute, Like this guy
Speaker 1: cannot shut the fuck up. He's like, yes, this is
Speaker 1: the ascent. He's like, yes, this is the Swiss accent.
Speaker 1: I am a Swiss guy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: He sounds like a fucking Brad Pitt character anyway.
Speaker 3: But also, why is homeboy just being like that's not
Speaker 3: a Swiss accent?
Speaker 2: So I should turn him in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like I thought the Swiss we're known for
Speaker 1: like fucking being like, yeah, why don't you go fix
Speaker 1: the clock? Do me a favorable buddy, go fix the
Speaker 1: clock while I do my thing. So I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: our Swiss audience of one person. So, even with his
Speaker 1: fake Swiss passport, Gunter was arrested by English officers along
Speaker 1: with a bunch of other Germans. Gunter was interrogated and
Speaker 1: then shipped to England because he was now a prison
Speaker 1: of war. So when he was finally locked up at
Speaker 1: a prison of war camp in Plymouth on the southern
Speaker 1: coast of England, Gunter said that the rules were made
Speaker 1: to be broken. Well, yeah, everybody's brutles precknant.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
Speaker 1: So for example, obviously alcohol was forbidden for the prisoners
Speaker 1: of war, but once the guards became friends who Gunter
Speaker 1: and the other soldiers, they started smuggling them bottles of
Speaker 1: beer and then things just escalated from there. They started
Speaker 1: to let the chairman prisoners out to wander around the
Speaker 1: town man and then what was really fucking crazy is
Speaker 1: Gunter says that the English guards would even give them
Speaker 1: guns so that they could practice rifle exercises together. I mean,
Speaker 1: this sounds like a weird euphemism, but even if it's not,
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine things being any more lax, right.
Speaker 2: This is probably like a broke Back Mountain situation I
Speaker 2: was having at that prison.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe Anyway, so things were completely loose at the
Speaker 1: first prison, but Guncher kept complaining to the English guards
Speaker 1: that he was an officer. He gave them his full
Speaker 1: identity and said that he deserves special treatment, and in
Speaker 1: England that fucking worked. So they apologized for a give
Speaker 1: oh sorry, sorry, sorry sorry, They apologize for keeping in
Speaker 1: with the soldiers for so long and send him to
Speaker 1: an officer's camp outside of London, and Gunter says that
Speaker 1: he was finally treated like a human being again, and
Speaker 1: that the English warden of the officers tried to ease
Speaker 1: the existence of the Germans said so, as Gunter tells it,
Speaker 1: every two weeks at Taylor were dropped by the camp
Speaker 1: and make them new clothes. They were also given a
Speaker 1: monthly allowance of money, actual money, and they were all
Speaker 1: like to write letters to Germany. What the fuck man
Speaker 1: these guys are getting like tailored clothes because their officers
Speaker 1: like so British aristocracy, isn't it. Well, if you'll be
Speaker 1: a prisoner, Chopton, you must look the polit old boy.
Speaker 1: So this only lasted until Gunter was transferred to a
Speaker 1: new prison camp further inland, a place called Donnington Hall.
Speaker 1: It was this old castle now being used to hold inmates,
Speaker 1: and Gunter says that everyone was packed into cold stone
Speaker 1: rooms and in his words, like pickled herrings. So obviously,
Speaker 1: you know he couldn't stand for this, right, And after
Speaker 1: one day when a deer somehow slipped inside the barbed
Speaker 1: wire fence around the castle, Guntro was convinced that it
Speaker 1: would be easy enough to slip out and escape. To
Speaker 1: be honest, his plan was perfectly relatable. Right. He started
Speaker 1: taking naps in the grass near the fence line. He
Speaker 1: would lie on the grass gunto would watch the pattern
Speaker 1: of his centuries right, he figured out that their patrol
Speaker 1: roots and schedules were matching, and after two months of
Speaker 1: his stay in Donnington Hall, Guntra had it all worked out.
Speaker 1: He had spent every possible moment watching and waiting and
Speaker 1: laying his plans. He even worked out a couple of
Speaker 1: deals with the other prisoners to help him out. So
Speaker 1: at the beginning of July, Gunta decided it was finally
Speaker 1: time for escape number four.
Speaker 2: Let's go.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Ben had to get that fourth one, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta get it. So step one, he says, he
Speaker 1: prepared for the journey ahead by eating several substantial buttered rolls.
Speaker 1: If you were going to go run for freedom, what
Speaker 1: would you want to see your last meal?
Speaker 2: Billy hell done us? Hell done us.
Speaker 3: It's a meal my grandmam eggs Lithuanian dish. It's basically
Speaker 3: similar to perogi. Oh, but it's like a dough and
Speaker 3: meat things. It's one of my favorite things. It's a
Speaker 3: fantastic what's your last meal?
Speaker 1: Oh man? Probably fun, do you know, really? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Cheese or chocolate?
Speaker 1: Cheese and chocolate. I'm just gonna like have if I
Speaker 1: can double dip, you know, I'll just be like because
Speaker 1: I like the I'm like, if I'm gonna go out,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out with like the I love the
Speaker 1: custom of it, you know, pulling out a little bread,
Speaker 1: pulling out the thing. I was just a classic guy.
Speaker 1: What do you want me to tell you? And I
Speaker 1: was like, So that night, during the evening roll call,
Speaker 1: another prisoner laid in. Gunter sped and claimed to be
Speaker 1: sick while Guntra and another German officer slipped over the
Speaker 1: barbed wire fence under the cover of storm. They had
Speaker 1: three rows of electrified barbed wire to cross right, but
Speaker 1: Gunter and his companion had bundled themselves in thick leather
Speaker 1: and they were able to scramble up and over, taking
Speaker 1: a few scratches, but nothing worse. Gunter does say at
Speaker 1: one point he tore a hole in the seat of
Speaker 1: his trousers. How did they How did they even get
Speaker 1: the thick leather leggings to you? Said, I don't fucking
Speaker 1: want to know. So once they were on the road,
Speaker 1: they had a close call as one of the prison
Speaker 1: guards passed by Goldjer says that the two escapees behaved
Speaker 1: like a rollicking pair of love birds and locked together
Speaker 1: in a kiss, and they just heard that the guard
Speaker 1: clicked his tongue and he went on by I love
Speaker 1: the idea of Gonta taking it on for like longer
Speaker 1: than necessary, because just because he was lonely, like bro, like, bro,
Speaker 1: we been kissing for a while, Like you're sure he
Speaker 1: can still see us, like yeah, yeah, Now tell me
Speaker 1: I'm funny, I'm cute, loud, not tell me I'm beautiful. Please.
Speaker 1: So Gujar had carried some normal clothes with him, along
Speaker 1: with a razor and a few other things. So the
Speaker 1: next morning, as the two escapees made their way toward
Speaker 1: the nearest train station, they shaved, they changed clothes, and
Speaker 1: climbed onto the train as normal passengers. They easily reached
Speaker 1: London by noon and escaped Number four was complete. Gunder
Speaker 1: knew the city he had visited before the war, and
Speaker 1: he made his fine costume change into a dirty sailor
Speaker 1: suit apparently, and he started looking around the docks for
Speaker 1: a boat he could steal. It actually took him a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks because in the meantime, Gonter says He
Speaker 1: made sure to have a good time in London, right,
Speaker 1: He went to the museums, eight in the pubs, and
Speaker 1: he even saw at least one play. What would be
Speaker 1: a show? Yea, He's like, I kind of get it off.
Speaker 1: What would be one show that you risk your freedom
Speaker 1: to go see your concert?
Speaker 3: I wish I got to see Yeah right before the pandemic.
Speaker 3: I was going to see a rage against the machine.
Speaker 3: They had just got back together. I would love to
Speaker 3: see them live.
Speaker 1: Yeah. For me would be a Menuda reunion. I just
Speaker 1: got to see him once. I talk about him all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: So might Minuda was different from Amenudo, didn't I?
Speaker 1: There you go your Spanish lie, you're du a linguist popping.
Speaker 1: But all the fun and games had come to an end.
Speaker 1: Gunta saw in the paper and that the other escapee
Speaker 1: had been caught, and then the bricks were hot on
Speaker 1: his trail. The police were searching for a man with
Speaker 1: a large dragon tattoo on his left arm. So the
Speaker 1: Dragonmaster finally had to go ahead and just start stealing
Speaker 1: some fucking boats.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't I thought you were going to say,
Speaker 3: cut off his arm.
Speaker 1: He cut off it. I love it. I loved him
Speaker 1: being like I knew I shouldn't have made people call
Speaker 1: me dragon Master here too, like why did I do this?
Speaker 1: I couldn't get enough of this nickname. So the first
Speaker 1: boat that Gunter stole was about as successful as his
Speaker 1: flying right. He climbed inside a little boat and pushed
Speaker 1: off the dog bor. After a minute, he realized that
Speaker 1: the boat was leaking, and he says that he tried
Speaker 1: to paddle the Thames River exactly while it was going dry.
Speaker 1: So by the end the river was empty and the
Speaker 1: boat was full and he was completely stuck in the mud. Wow.
Speaker 1: He says that he crawled through the mud back through
Speaker 1: the river bank, where people walking by thought he was
Speaker 1: drunk and just laughed at him for crawling around in
Speaker 1: the mud. Seriously, has there ever been a more like
Speaker 1: go home your drunk prison escape like book? Dude, like
Speaker 1: fucking cash it in? But Gunja went down the river
Speaker 1: and so the next night, as the tide was going out,
Speaker 1: he found an unattended fishing boat, so he pushed out
Speaker 1: into the English Channel. It was under the cover of
Speaker 1: darkness he was able to paddle furiously toward a streamer
Speaker 1: that was anchored off the coast. He reached it without
Speaker 1: being seen, climbed aboard and stowed away, That is, escaped.
Speaker 1: Number five, Gunter was finally on his way one bar
Speaker 1: back to Germany. Gunto Pluscha, was the only German prisoner
Speaker 1: to escape an English prisoner of war camp in either
Speaker 1: World War One or World War Two, or at least
Speaker 1: that's a story. So in total, his journey from Sintau
Speaker 1: across America, into the English pow camps, and then finally
Speaker 1: back into Germany had taken only nine months. In nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty two, Yeah, Gunter published a book in English called
Speaker 1: My Escape from Dunnington Hall, and it gave a detailed
Speaker 1: story of his life. It is you might not be
Speaker 1: surprised to hear extremely racist about people he met in China,
Speaker 1: and this is so I want to recommend people reading it.
Speaker 1: But he spends a lot of time talking about how
Speaker 1: great Germany is and how how much he loves German
Speaker 1: Emperor and the prestige of the white race. Oh that's nice,
Speaker 1: Oh that's so good for you, gunt. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of extravotion about like darling blonde hair and wonderful blue
Speaker 1: eyes and wait a minute, was he describing you Billy
Speaker 1: He's like, one day there was a born a man
Speaker 1: who builds houses with beautiful blue eyes. I don't even
Speaker 1: know are your eyes blue or green?
Speaker 6: They're blue. Guncher's my uncle. After his escape, Gunte took
Speaker 6: up flying again. When the war ended, he started sailing too.
Speaker 6: He started going to his favorite German destination, Argentina. Bro
Speaker 6: German soldiers love Argentina like they love It's wild.
Speaker 1: It's wild how many blond babies were born in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty six down there? You know. Obviously guy was truly
Speaker 1: a trailerbilizer for Nazis. You know. On one of his trip,
Speaker 1: Gunter even brought a camera with him and made a
Speaker 1: silent film called in Wilde Fluges zu unzbucken Belton, Oh
Speaker 1: sorry Germans or flying in Pictures to Unknown Worlds.
Speaker 2: No I thought it translated to one percent that bitch.
Speaker 1: That's what it is. It was a Lisso song, an
Speaker 1: early version of a Lisso song. So it follows his
Speaker 1: journey Coloss the Atlantic, showing him flying and has some
Speaker 1: early airborne footage of Tierra al Felo. It's all up
Speaker 1: on YouTube at this point if you want to check
Speaker 1: it out. And apparently it was a huge hit in
Speaker 1: Germany in the nineteen thirties. So all these things bring
Speaker 1: us to the end of his life and he guesses
Speaker 1: for how Guntar is going to die? Dduh.
Speaker 2: It costs like chokes on something in sleep.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no no. He was flying. He was
Speaker 1: flying his plane on Argandina, of course, and once he
Speaker 1: was up over the mountains, he lost control for what
Speaker 1: felt like the million times. But the self proclaimed Dragonmaster
Speaker 1: had run out of luck. It was nineteen thirty one
Speaker 1: when Gunta finally went down in the mountains of Patagonia.
Speaker 1: Only this time, instead of the plane flying into a
Speaker 1: pile of shit, it was a pile of shit flying
Speaker 1: into a mountain. Oh and that's it, buddy. Wow, What
Speaker 1: are the takeaways? What are the takeaways of this story?
Speaker 1: For you, my friend?
Speaker 3: To get out of any situation you need just some
Speaker 3: careen love.
Speaker 1: That's it, man. And so now let me do a
Speaker 1: little plug. Okay, So listeners can find you in the
Speaker 1: film Lift on Netflix, Roadhouse on Amazon, the franchise on HBO,
Speaker 1: and later this year, Leelo and Stitch live action remake Roadhouse,
Speaker 1: Roadhouse Baby. Check it out Roadhouse, And so listen, let
Speaker 1: me know if you're into this, but to play us out.
Speaker 1: I would like for them to play as a song
Speaker 1: and for us to kind of try to reenact a conversation,
Speaker 1: a conversation or a song, because I hear you have
Speaker 1: a beautiful voice, So a song would go between Gunter
Speaker 1: and maybe his military observer up in the air for
Speaker 1: the first time. You want to try it? Okay, give
Speaker 1: us some music. Do you see a mountain down there?
Speaker 1: Should we go down there?
Speaker 4: Is it destiny that Wi Kings is really cold in
Speaker 4: the back seat?
Speaker 2: Can you open stuff window?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: They're on the windows because there is the open air cockpit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got na cross, I got that crusters you
Speaker 1: want to crush? You want to custer? You see that?
Speaker 1: Would you like to go? Man? God, thank you Bailey,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Brother. That was so fucking funny.
Speaker 2: Do some amazing shit.
Speaker 1: Man, brother, I have all the love for you. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you doing this, Thank you for being so open
Speaker 1: with us. And I can't wait for us to do
Speaker 1: another fucking film together. Man, I really truly can't wait. Ah. Yeah, anytime,
Speaker 1: all right, brother, thank you? And that's great. As escapes,
Speaker 1: We're out. Gradi'st Escapes is a production of iHeart Radio
Speaker 1: and Film Nation Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers for me are Turo Castro, Alyssa Martino and
Speaker 1: Milan Papelka from Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chug and Winning
Speaker 1: Donaldson from Gilded Audio, and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The
Speaker 1: show was produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chugg,
Speaker 1: who are also, respectively, our research overlord and music overlord.
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Tory Smith, who's our other overlord.
Speaker 1: Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riiseek, Sarah Joyner,
Speaker 1: Nicky Stein, Olivia Canny and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening, and if you're enjoying the show,
Speaker 1: please drop a rating or review. My mom will call
Speaker 1: you each personally and thank you, and we'll see you
Speaker 1: all next week.