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Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full

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Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The life of a professional musician is a

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Speaker 1: tumultuous one. Rock star biographies are full of stories about

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Speaker 1: their lives on the road, waking up in a new

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Speaker 1: city every day, their families left behind as they work

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Speaker 1: their way towards superstardom. But not every band makes it

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Speaker 1: to the top, and some need to make serious changes

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Speaker 1: to even come close. The Beatles famously replaced their original

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Speaker 1: drummer Pete Best with ring Go Star when it became

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Speaker 1: clear that Best wasn't a good fit. When singer Robert

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Speaker 1: Lamb and his friends first formed their group in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty seven, they called themselves the Big Thing until they

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Speaker 1: transformed themselves into Chicago Transit Authority the following year. One

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Speaker 1: year after that, they shortened it down even more to

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Speaker 1: the name they're known by today, Chicago Change. As you see,

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Speaker 1: is common for a band, and sometimes it can be

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Speaker 1: the difference between obscurity and success. Roger and Nick knew

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Speaker 1: that in England growing up during the nineteen forties and fifties.

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Speaker 1: Roger was something of an athlete, growing up playing cricket

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Speaker 1: in rugby for his high school teams, while Nick went

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Speaker 1: to college to become an architect. They moved in together

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three and formed a rock band a

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Speaker 1: year later with another pair of friends. They called the

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Speaker 1: group Sigma six. That was before they were named The

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Speaker 1: Mega Deaths, The Screaming Ab Dad's, Leonard's Lodgers, and the

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Speaker 1: Spectrum Five. Finally, they settled on what they had hoped

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Speaker 1: to be their final name, The t Set. Roger played

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Speaker 1: lead guitar, with Nick on the drums. Their buddy Richard

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Speaker 1: played rhythm guitar, while two other members, Keith and Clive,

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Speaker 1: sang and played bass respectively. Eventually, Keith and Clive split

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Speaker 1: off to start their own band in nineteen sixty three,

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Speaker 1: leaving Roger, Nick and Richard to find two replacements. Now

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Speaker 1: as The t Set, the group often rehearsed in a

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Speaker 1: basement tea room at the college that Roger, Nick and

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Speaker 1: Richard attended. They would then go out at nights and

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Speaker 1: play various clubs and private engagements, building up their repertoire songs.

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Speaker 1: Late nineteen sixty four saw The t Set join a

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Speaker 1: local London hot spot called the Countdown Club. In residency.

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Speaker 1: They would start playing late at nights and go until dawn,

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Speaker 1: rocking out over ninety minute long sets. They had a

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Speaker 1: problem though, Playing for such a long time meant that

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Speaker 1: they had to repeat songs in each set. To avoid

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Speaker 1: this problem, the guitarists began taking longer solos in each song,

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Speaker 1: adding enough to buffer them to let them complete their

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Speaker 1: sets without any repeats. Audiences liked it, and it helps

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Speaker 1: solidify the t Sets sound. As they worked their way

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Speaker 1: up the club circuit, they started recording some of their

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Speaker 1: tunes in a studio in West Hampstead and getting more gigs.

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Speaker 1: It was one performance in particular, though, that would change

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Speaker 1: the fate of the group forever. It was a coincidence, really,

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Speaker 1: They were set to play on the same tickets as

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Speaker 1: another band calling themselves of all things, the t Set

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Speaker 1: in a Panic. Vocalist and guitarist Rogers sought inspiration in

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Speaker 1: his record collection, specifically from some albums by A couple

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Speaker 1: of prominent blues musicians. The first was an album by

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Speaker 1: a guitar player named Pinckney Anderson known as Pink. Born

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Speaker 1: in Laurence, South Carolina, in nineteen hundred, Anderson had come

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Speaker 1: up playing at medicine shows, performing for crowds while Snake

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Speaker 1: oil salesman pitched their questionable wears. The other album featured

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Speaker 1: a blues guitarist named Floyd Counsel who hailed from North Carolina.

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Speaker 1: Counsel was a busker and specialized in playing the Piedmont Blues,

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Speaker 1: which was big in the South. And Roger wasn't a

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Speaker 1: string jurs to nicknames. His full name was Roger Keith Barrett,

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Speaker 1: but everyone knew him as Sid. And he took Pink

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Speaker 1: Anderson's name and Floyd Counsel's name and put them together,

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Speaker 1: changing the t set into something else entirely the Pink

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Speaker 1: Floyd sound. Later on, Barrett, Roger Waters and Nick Mason,

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Speaker 1: David Gilmour and Richard White shortened their name to simply

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Speaker 1: Pink Floyd and went on to make music history. They

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Speaker 1: released fifteen studio albums and twenty seven singles over the

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Speaker 1: course of their career, entertaining audiences all over the world

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Speaker 1: with their psychedelic and progressive brand of rock and It's funny.

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Speaker 1: Even though several of the band's members met while attending

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Speaker 1: architecture school, it was clear that in the end they

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Speaker 1: would build a wall, and they didn't need no education

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Speaker 1: to do it. Celebrity deaths are always hard to take.

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Speaker 1: When beloved actors, singers, and comedians pass away, it feels

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Speaker 1: like losing a part of ourselves too. We grew up

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Speaker 1: with them, watching their movies or listening to their albums.

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Speaker 1: Their work becomes an integral part of our lives, and

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Speaker 1: so when they inevitably die, it's hard not to feel

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Speaker 1: like the light of the world is just a little

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Speaker 1: bit dimmer. But scientists and doctors have been working in

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Speaker 1: ways to reverse death, or at least postponent. One of

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Speaker 1: the most well known concepts is called cryonics, a scientific

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Speaker 1: field in which living tissue is preserved at extremely low temperatures.

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Speaker 1: And we've all bumped into the concept before in countless

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Speaker 1: sci fi TV shows and movies such as Futurama, Idiocracy,

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Speaker 1: and Alien, where someone is placed into a deep cold

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Speaker 1: sleep and woken up decades later, or in the case

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Speaker 1: of Alien, when a murderous space creature is loose on

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Speaker 1: a ship. But yes, the idea of freezing and preserving

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Speaker 1: a human body does sound like science fiction. However, it

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Speaker 1: has been accomplished new furst times over the years as

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Speaker 1: experts continued to research and develop the technology. For example,

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Speaker 1: a fourteen year old girl in the UK who died

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Speaker 1: of cancer several years ago petitioned the courts to allow

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Speaker 1: her body to be cryo preserved until a cure could

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Speaker 1: be found. In two thousand twelve, baseball legend Ted Williams

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Speaker 1: had his head surgically removed postmortem. It was stored separate

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Speaker 1: from his body by a cryonics company in Arizona. And

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Speaker 1: there was also Dick Claire, a television writer and producer

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Speaker 1: who worked on programs like The Bob Newhart Show and

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Speaker 1: the Facts of Life. Claire died in nineteen eighty eight

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Speaker 1: of complications from AIDS, but was cryonically preserved in Arizona.

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Speaker 1: Along with many others, but one celebrity death has been

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Speaker 1: synonymous with cryonic preservation since his death in nineteen sixty six.

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Speaker 1: He was an entrepreneur, an animator, a business mogul, and

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Speaker 1: an icon. He created what is arguably the most recognizable

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Speaker 1: character in the world and two of the most successful

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Speaker 1: theme parks in history. Obviously, I'm talking about in another

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Speaker 1: than Walt Disney, who succumbed to lung cancer at the

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Speaker 1: age of sixty five. Of course, Walt Disney was a

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Speaker 1: futurist who anticipated a time when holmes ran automatically, with

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Speaker 1: robots handling things like vacuuming and mopping, not unlike the

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Speaker 1: future we enjoy today. Some of the original tomorrow Land

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Speaker 1: attractions at Disneyland were called things like the Monsanto Hall

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Speaker 1: of Chemistry and the Bathroom of Tomorrow, exhibits where visitors

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Speaker 1: could see how companies were planning to advance our world,

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Speaker 1: from the chemicals in our food to where we brush

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Speaker 1: our teeth every morning. So it's no wonder that when

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Speaker 1: Disney passed away in December of nineteen sixty seven, rumors

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Speaker 1: quickly spread about what had happened with his body. Those

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Speaker 1: rumors seemed to kick off in early nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 1: just a few weeks after his death. You see, Disney

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Speaker 1: had been being treated for his cancer at St. Joseph's

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Speaker 1: Hospital in Burbank, California, which sat right across the street

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Speaker 1: from Walt Disney Studios. After he died, a reporter with

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Speaker 1: the National Spotlights, a tabloid ragnell for publishing salacious rumors,

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Speaker 1: allegedly pulled off some entertainment espionage for a scoop. According

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Speaker 1: to his report, the reporter had dressed up as an

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Speaker 1: orderly and snuck into a storage room. They're preserved in

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Speaker 1: a massive metal container was the body of Walt Disney himself,

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Speaker 1: waiting to be revived at a time when his disease

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Speaker 1: could be cured. Over the years, the stories about Disney's

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Speaker 1: cryonic corpse only grew. They even worked their way into

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Speaker 1: several biographies about the late animator, painting him as a

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Speaker 1: man desperate for a cure by any means necessary. And

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Speaker 1: there is some truth to that notion. Disney was terrified

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Speaker 1: of dying and often worried about his premature death, especially

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Speaker 1: when he was depressed, although he kept many of his

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Speaker 1: personal feelings close to the vest. According to one biographer,

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Speaker 1: Walt had asked his older brother Roy not to let

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Speaker 1: anyone know about his cancer. As for the circumstances surrounding

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Speaker 1: his passing, those were kept secret from the public for

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Speaker 1: hours after he had died. The fact that only add

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Speaker 1: it to the mystery of what doctors or scientists might

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Speaker 1: have been doing with his body. Some people believe that

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Speaker 1: Walt Disney is currently being stored beneath the Pirates of

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Speaker 1: the Caribbean Ride at his California park, waiting until he

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Speaker 1: can be resurrected to live on his remaining years as

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Speaker 1: the head of the company he co founded. But the

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Speaker 1: truth he was cremated as per his wishes. There's no

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Speaker 1: cryonic chamber nor top secret storage facility under Disneyland. Walt

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Speaker 1: Disney created one of the most successful companies in history.

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Speaker 1: That is his legacy. All that other stuff about his

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Speaker 1: body being frozen in perpetuity, that's just a rumor and

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Speaker 1: one that needs to be put on ice. I hope

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Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

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Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about

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Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show

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Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with House

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Speaker 1: of Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,

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Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and

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Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World

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Speaker 1: of Lore dot com and until next time, stay curious, yeah,