Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton, Well, Zaron Brunette. So nice to see you,
Speaker 2: so good to see You've been good.
Speaker 3: I've been great.
Speaker 2: I got a question for if you got a second yeh, yes, sure.
Speaker 2: Do you know what's ridiculous I do, dude to share.
Speaker 3: With the Okay? You know, like, viral videos are pretty
Speaker 3: ridiculous generally speaking. Yeah, there's one that came out last year,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two of this dude. I think you've probably
Speaker 3: seen it. He's a like a he's at a ballpark,
Speaker 3: and he's at Yankee Stadium, and he gets a beer,
Speaker 3: and he gets a hot dog, and he takes a
Speaker 3: straw and he hollows out the hot dog yes, and
Speaker 3: then uses it the hot dog straw for beer, which
Speaker 3: I think is completely ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yes, there it is really. No is the hidden mashup?
Speaker 3: No, there is a hidden mashup. Okay, So I'm not
Speaker 3: the only one who thought that that was ridiculous. Everybody
Speaker 3: thought it was ridiculous.
Speaker 2: We all agreed on that.
Speaker 3: Including Oscar Meyer. Oh no, Oscar Meyer has a hot
Speaker 3: dog straw available. Now I'm not made out of real
Speaker 3: hot dog. What it's made of silicone, so it's reusable.
Speaker 2: What's the point, because it's the it's.
Speaker 3: The funny anyway. It's a tube steak shaped straw made
Speaker 3: out of silicone. And then this article in the takeout
Speaker 3: notes a material often used to simulate the feel of
Speaker 3: human skin. Oh, the straw is intended to be a
Speaker 3: reusable item that you can use. And I okay, So
Speaker 3: you go to the website the hot Dog Straw websitemyer
Speaker 3: dot com, which I've been going to every bleeping morning.
Speaker 2: Hitting refreshed refreshment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because okay, it says, pre order your hot dog
Speaker 3: straw today, and I give them my name. I give
Speaker 3: them my email address, which is a coveted state secret.
Speaker 3: I give them my phone number. Can you believe that
Speaker 3: I give them my address, I give them headquarters address,
Speaker 3: and then like, okay, you check that you're at least
Speaker 3: eighteen years old, and then you enter your name. You know,
Speaker 3: you say like, okay, you're gonna send me garbage, like
Speaker 3: you know, emails and stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, fine, admitting to the garbage.
Speaker 3: Fine, whatever, I want a straw, you have to enter
Speaker 3: one of those captures like I'm not a robot. Ok Yeah,
Speaker 3: then you click pre order now, and every single day
Speaker 3: it comes back to me. Sorry, you know, we're sold
Speaker 3: out for today. Try again tomorrow. Done this every morning
Speaker 3: since I found out about it, I try and get
Speaker 3: bright and early. I got to get up earlier, man, okay,
Speaker 3: and so anyway, no purchase necessary void. We're prohibited, which
Speaker 3: I think these should be prohibited in the at least
Speaker 3: the lower forty eight. Like I said, you gotta be
Speaker 3: over eighteen, which, like that's creepy. It says all supplies
Speaker 3: last ends September fifth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Well, you only have a few more days of that.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure that people are going to hear this
Speaker 3: episode after September fifth.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so they won't be competition for you.
Speaker 3: They'll just have like a toime. We'll just have a
Speaker 3: time capsule of my frustration.
Speaker 2: My fingers are crossed for the appointment, but you get
Speaker 2: this fleshy.
Speaker 3: Someone's got to get me one of these hot dog straws.
Speaker 3: I asked Oscar Meyer personally. They I went to his house.
Speaker 3: I asked them. They didn't answer me. We'll try again, Oscar,
Speaker 3: can you hear me? They don't answer me. So anyway,
Speaker 3: I want a hot dog straw and it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: That is damn ridiculous.
Speaker 3: It is the end.
Speaker 2: It should still be a real hot dog. Yes, but
Speaker 2: I got one for you if you got a second,
Speaker 2: if you're done thinking about hot dogs ever. No, okay, well,
Speaker 2: this one's online rumors about celebrities. Oh I love those,
Speaker 2: I know you do, right, But most of the time
Speaker 2: they're kind of nonsense. No, like like there's the one
Speaker 2: that mister Rogers was a sniper in Vietnam with one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty confirmed kills, a rumor that's not true.
Speaker 2: The story goes he was an assassin extraordinary for either
Speaker 2: the Marines or the Navy Seals. Just see it go
Speaker 2: both ways. The rumor is so widespread online that the
Speaker 2: Navy Seals have actually put out a statement that said, quote,
Speaker 2: we have to state it is false.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well who would think such a thing?
Speaker 2: Well, good thing you asked that, because you ever heard
Speaker 2: the one about Derek Jeter, Oh boy and the swag bags.
Speaker 3: I don't know refresh Derek.
Speaker 2: Was known to have or the rumor is is he
Speaker 2: was known to give out swag bags to all of
Speaker 2: his one night stands. Yeah you hear that? In like
Speaker 2: online circles bock sports fans and sorry, goes that Derek Jeter,
Speaker 2: who was known to enjoy the New York night life,
Speaker 2: he would find someone fun and go, hey, you should
Speaker 2: come home with me. After their night together. In the morning,
Speaker 2: the woman would wake up alone, Derek Jeter gone, and
Speaker 2: in his place would be a swag bag. And in
Speaker 2: this wag bag would be some gifts, you know, lotions
Speaker 2: on gents whatnot, and an autographed baseball and the picture
Speaker 2: of jal Yeah. And then the woman perused her bag
Speaker 2: of goodies and looked at the Derek Jeter autograph baseball.
Speaker 2: A car home would be called for her. Oh the story,
Speaker 2: and everybody believed it. And Derek Jeter has said, and
Speaker 2: I quote, it's a dumb story and you really have
Speaker 2: to be dumber to believe it.
Speaker 3: He's like, I give them nothing. Yeah, so like I said,
Speaker 3: but it's like when you fly first class and they
Speaker 3: give you the little bag of like you know, imass.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, but it's just the Derek Jeter versus yeah,
Speaker 2: and then throw in the autograph baba yeah. Wow, some
Speaker 2: of these there's a bunch of wild celebrity rumors out
Speaker 2: there right but some of them. Sometimes, Elizabeth, the rumor
Speaker 2: it really seems true. Okay. For instance, there's one that
Speaker 2: there's a celebrity who is a beloved TV dad and
Speaker 2: he's long rumored to have been a major cocaine dealer
Speaker 2: in the seventies. Could these online rumors be true?
Speaker 3: I hope.
Speaker 2: I think you are the answer to that. I think
Speaker 2: I do. This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd
Speaker 2: and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine
Speaker 2: percent to free and ridiculous ridiculous. Oh, Elizabeth, yes, no,
Speaker 2: it's me. Have you ever heard the rumors that long
Speaker 2: before he was America's sweetheart, Tim the tool Man tailor
Speaker 2: in those hungry years, before he was beloved Buzz light
Speaker 2: Year Daring space Ranger, long before he was the Archie
Speaker 2: Bunker reboot in The Last Man Standing, Tim Allen was
Speaker 2: an inmate in prison doing hard time for pushing cocaine
Speaker 2: in the disco disco seventies. Really it's a true story.
Speaker 3: I steer clear of Tim Allen news.
Speaker 2: I kind of wondered about that. Well, I'm going to
Speaker 2: tell you all about it today, Okay. Now, just on
Speaker 2: the face of it, when I was doing this research.
Speaker 2: I was surprised by how many beloved former TV dads
Speaker 2: are now criminal TV dads. Oh yeah, obviously there's Bill Cosby, right,
Speaker 2: And then there's the guy from Seventh Heaven, Stephen Collins.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know this, but I once
Speaker 2: worked with him.
Speaker 3: You did it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and with Jessica Biel, who was very nice, and
Speaker 2: that oldest kid from the show, Barry. That guy was
Speaker 2: a dick.
Speaker 3: Wait all you say I worked with him on Seventh Heavens.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was on Seventh Heaven. Yeah, and I definitely
Speaker 2: got bad vibes from that dude on the set. I
Speaker 2: was not surprised. Heaven I owned a jazz globe.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, he just.
Speaker 2: Jazz club on seventh Times.
Speaker 3: I just can't with it.
Speaker 2: In the seventh the world I owned property.
Speaker 3: Have you have you heard of that guy who on
Speaker 3: I see him on Instagram. I think he might have
Speaker 3: He might do stuff on TikTok of like the the
Speaker 3: videos where he recaps Seventh Heaven.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, I'm familiar with this guy. I've always been
Speaker 2: secretly kind of hoping he would cover the episode I
Speaker 2: was in, although I don't think it has enough sillyness
Speaker 2: for him to really mocks General seventh even silliness. Yes
Speaker 2: he could, yeah, but obviously, I mean the whole plot
Speaker 2: line I was involved in was pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 3: His name is Rob Anderson.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: So if you go to Instagram and you look at
Speaker 3: Rob Anderson, which I think he's heart throbber on Rob Anderson.
Speaker 3: I just looked this up super fast.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Anyway, he does really funny videos, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: send him a message.
Speaker 2: And be like, you should do this.
Speaker 3: Find the one with Zaren owning a jazz club.
Speaker 2: God no, I got Yeah. So when the grand scheme
Speaker 2: of things, My point is when you compare Tim the
Speaker 2: Toolman Taylor, you know Tim Allen, he really comes out
Speaker 2: on top compared to some of the other criminal TV dads.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, because Seventh Heaven guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean all you got busted all Tim Allen
Speaker 2: got busted for with some coke. Yeah. Now, I know
Speaker 2: you don't watch TV, Elizabeth, No, I never seen it
Speaker 2: before I tell you about him. I gotta ask, how
Speaker 2: familiar are you with Tim Allen?
Speaker 3: Not really? I never watched the tool Time show was
Speaker 3: Home Home Improvement. I never really watched it. I knew
Speaker 3: sort of like the language of it from you know,
Speaker 3: pop culture, that sort of thing of the.
Speaker 2: Guy like you know about his grunts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. And then the dude at the fence. There's
Speaker 3: someone at a fence, okay, yeah, Cam Anderson was on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can it's good.
Speaker 3: And then what's the boy Jonathan Taylor, Yes, Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
Speaker 3: Jonathan Taylor Thomas recommended Jonathan Taylor Thomas is going on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then there was another boy.
Speaker 2: On there, three sons. So the guy he was, as
Speaker 2: you have kind of pieced together, this tool loving, muscle
Speaker 2: car driving middle class American yet also somehow a blue
Speaker 2: collar hero.
Speaker 3: What happened to the mom?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, well let's see you know okay, so home
Speaker 2: industrial accident Patricia Heaton, Yes, there was a mom on
Speaker 2: the show. Yeah, there was a mom, Patricia Heaton.
Speaker 3: I thought he was like a single dad.
Speaker 2: Oh god, no, no, no, no, he could get.
Speaker 3: He never watched it, so I thought he was like
Speaker 3: a single dad just using tool No.
Speaker 2: No, no, no. Like basically in the in the late nineties,
Speaker 2: this dude was a thinking man's Jeff Foxworthy right. He
Speaker 2: was a high bar a low bar rather it's a bar.
Speaker 2: He was the duck hunting man sophisticated friend. He was
Speaker 2: the blue collar guy's TV surrogate, right, So that's why
Speaker 2: he was mister Detroit before Eminem took away that tight. Okay,
Speaker 2: the guy was basically before Duck Dynasty and Dirty Jobs.
Speaker 2: There was Tim Allen.
Speaker 3: That's that's his old hair and stuff.
Speaker 2: Kind not really though. So his sitcom Home of Room,
Speaker 2: and it's a riff on Bob Beula's old this old house.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, So he has on his show a show within
Speaker 2: the show, and that's it's a woodworking show. And so
Speaker 2: he plays this guy who's got his woodworking show and
Speaker 2: he teaches you how to rebuild a window, sash, things
Speaker 2: like that. Right. And the show, you know, premier in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one, so it was like ran all through
Speaker 2: the nineties. Lasted eight seasons, two hundred and four episodes,
Speaker 2: hit syndication. Right. But the other thing you know is
Speaker 2: the family. They were key to it. The Taylor family.
Speaker 2: No anyway, mother's Papa Bear. That's Tim, Tim Taylor, Tim
Speaker 2: the toolman Taylor, his wife Jill, who was alive, and okay,
Speaker 2: there was three boys. There was Brad and Randy and
Speaker 2: and Toddathan. Oh sorry, I read that wrong. It's Mark.
Speaker 2: It's Mark. So the family is from Detroit and they
Speaker 2: live in the Detroit suburbs. Right, And the best part
Speaker 2: of the show you already keyed in on is the
Speaker 2: neighbor Wilson.
Speaker 4: He was the dude.
Speaker 2: He was played by a fence and a fishing.
Speaker 3: Hat and a volleyball.
Speaker 2: No, you never saw him. He was just all you
Speaker 2: ever saw was the top of his hat. And so
Speaker 2: he's just always hidden by the fence. And so he
Speaker 2: basically is there to be like Tim's little voice. He's
Speaker 2: like he's the only real adult on the show, like
Speaker 2: he would. He was like externalized his little voice. And
Speaker 2: he's got this neighbor who tells him how to like
Speaker 2: fix whatever problem he's created. Okay, all right, So then
Speaker 2: also there, you know, as he told you, there's the
Speaker 2: show tool time. He's got his host, al the guy
Speaker 2: with the beard, this.
Speaker 3: Stricken Oh yeah, yeah, he's like his little buddy. Yes,
Speaker 3: it kind of looks like this old house bubb exactly.
Speaker 2: It's a very much a nod to.
Speaker 3: He wears a lot of flannel plaid.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes he was, he was. It was him and grunge.
Speaker 2: In the nineties they were giving hall mad LLB and flannel.
Speaker 2: Now Pamela Anderson, as you pointed out, was on the show.
Speaker 2: She played the tool girl. Because it was the early nineties,
Speaker 2: that was her name, but she had a name character name.
Speaker 2: I can't I don't remember tool girl. Yes, if she
Speaker 2: was the show's toolgirl or anyway. She wrote about the
Speaker 2: show and her memoir Love Pamela, which came out recently.
Speaker 3: Was an interesting character that it is, dude, I.
Speaker 2: Had kind of give it up to her. Her progression
Speaker 2: as a person very interesting, she said. And I quote,
Speaker 2: on the first day of filming, I walked out of
Speaker 2: my dressing room and Tim was in the hallway in
Speaker 2: his robe. He opened his robe and flat me quickly,
Speaker 2: completely naked underneath. He said it was only fair because
Speaker 2: he had seen me naked. Now we're even, I laughed, uncomfortably.
Speaker 2: Now so after he showed off his.
Speaker 3: Personal short rage building inside of me and go continue.
Speaker 2: Pam Handlerston said that Tim Allen then quote ran back
Speaker 2: to his room and he was embarrassed all day and
Speaker 2: acting like a little giddy school boy. Yeah right, Oh,
Speaker 2: the nineties when a man's shortcomings was a constant work
Speaker 2: site issue in Hollywood. So Tim Allen he as I
Speaker 2: told you you called it. He was known for a
Speaker 2: stand up grunts. His catch phrase, men are pigs.
Speaker 3: This was his catch phrase that was in.
Speaker 2: His stand up. He had in his stand up, he
Speaker 2: had this whole thing about it. Yeah, I met her
Speaker 2: pigs and you're like grunting stuff. So he tried to
Speaker 2: embody this vibe. But you know that healthy safe, This
Speaker 2: is normal kind of way, right.
Speaker 3: Right, normalizing the misogyny, go for it.
Speaker 2: To be fair to Tim Allen, he claims his whole
Speaker 2: incident that I told you about what the robe never happened.
Speaker 2: He told Variety, No, it never happened. I would never
Speaker 2: do such a thing. And in February this year, Pam
Speaker 2: Manderson responded to Tim Allen's recent denial and she said, quote,
Speaker 2: he has to deny it because look at the times Wren.
Speaker 2: If he said, oh, yeah, I did it, he'd beat
Speaker 2: a lot of these stories are just the tip of
Speaker 2: the iceberg.
Speaker 3: So oh wow, you know, I gotta bet she has
Speaker 3: got some stories to tell that he didn't make it
Speaker 3: into her book, which I've not read.
Speaker 2: She could probably write a few memoirs I would imagine
Speaker 2: just the show Barbed Wire. Just that one alone deserves
Speaker 2: its own book. So Honeyway Home Improvement was a very
Speaker 2: nineties show, right, the very nineties star. It sets the tempo,
Speaker 2: the culture, and as you are about to learn the
Speaker 2: male star, he may have been feeling a bit invulnerable
Speaker 2: and a bit invincible after he'd beaten the odds and
Speaker 2: become you know, he beaten the ods not once, but twice.
Speaker 2: He had done the near impossible. He become a major
Speaker 2: Hollywood star without any family connections, no nepo baby this
Speaker 2: time out right, he came out of Detroit, but he
Speaker 2: also faced life in prison as a cocaine kingpin, and
Speaker 2: he managed to finesse his way out of that too. God,
Speaker 2: this is like that's winning a lottery twice. I guess
Speaker 2: he was facing life in prison and he went on
Speaker 2: to become a huge star wild right.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Now, Now many people know that Tim Allen was a
Speaker 2: coke dealer, but some do. The story is usually just
Speaker 2: a blurb in like a Hollywood stars before they were
Speaker 2: famous story like you find on BuzzFeed or whatever.
Speaker 3: Stars they're just like us, exactly, they've.
Speaker 2: Been busted for coke two now I went out. I
Speaker 2: did the research for you, Elizabeth, Thank you. I found
Speaker 2: the goods, the details that rarely go reported right And
Speaker 2: do you know where I found these details?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: In an appeal in a federal court for one of
Speaker 2: his co defenders. Always go to the court documents. But anyway,
Speaker 2: so there's a big reason why most of the details
Speaker 2: of the story aren't on the internet. Tim Allen changed
Speaker 2: his name. Oh yes, can you guess his birth name?
Speaker 3: Timothon?
Speaker 2: Very close? Tim Dick stock rather Timothy Dick. Born in Denver, Colorado,
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty three. He grew up in an idyllic
Speaker 2: mid century American family. He lived that post war prosperity
Speaker 2: dream you know that birthed the ideal of a middle
Speaker 2: class suburban America. He lived that. He was that kid
Speaker 2: in the jeans watching westerns on TV, growing up to
Speaker 2: drive a sixties Muscles car when it was brand new,
Speaker 2: and in his case, grow his hair long and du drugs,
Speaker 2: but not like a hippie. He did it like the
Speaker 2: seventies stuff. Yeah, cocaine, baby, now, Tim Allen. He was
Speaker 2: no stranger to tragedy, though, so you should feel a
Speaker 2: little sorry for him. There was one shock in particular
Speaker 2: shape his life's course. When he was eleven, his father
Speaker 2: died in a car accident. It was a devastating blow
Speaker 2: to little Tim Allen's all right, And as he said,
Speaker 2: and I quote, I loved my father more than anything.
Speaker 2: He was a tall, strong, funny, really engaging guy. So
Speaker 2: I enjoyed his company, his smell, sensibility, discipline, sense of humor,
Speaker 2: all the fun stuff we did together. I couldn't wait
Speaker 2: for him to come home. See, like I said, total
Speaker 2: mid century American dream. He had a great, healthy father.
Speaker 2: He loved. His father was the one who gave him
Speaker 2: the love of cars. Right, So that made it extra
Speaker 2: extra painful that a car would claim his father's life.
Speaker 3: Horrific.
Speaker 2: The driver was a drunk driver, so it's double the tragic.
Speaker 2: Tim Allen has said in a quote, A car cross
Speaker 2: crossed two lanes of traffic, flipped, landed on my dad's car.
Speaker 2: I don't blame cars. My dad love cars. I don't
Speaker 2: have many memories of my dad. The love of cars
Speaker 2: is all I have of him. Really, right, Start to
Speaker 2: feel a little bad? No, yeah, okay, Well he was
Speaker 2: lucky in that After he lost his father, a replacement
Speaker 2: father stepped in. His mom reconnected with her high school boyfriend. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they started talking. They eventually married. Hell to Tim Allens,
Speaker 2: he said the guy was a metch. He took on
Speaker 2: his family of him and his couple brothers. They all
Speaker 2: moved together in the suburb outside of Detroit. So he
Speaker 2: moved now from Denver to Detroit, just like his show
Speaker 2: Home Improvement, which takes place in a suburb of Detroit.
Speaker 2: And so I guess in the show he was playing
Speaker 2: his stepfather.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Really, it's kind of wild right anyway. Overtime, Tim Allen.
Speaker 3: A version of his father that never got to be realized.
Speaker 2: Oh look at you the poet. Yes, and Tim Allen
Speaker 2: he's able to recover from the tragic loss. He grows up.
Speaker 2: He goes on to graduate from high school, goes off
Speaker 2: to college. He tends Central Michigan University. He doesn't finish
Speaker 2: there because he transfers to Western Michigan. While he was there,
Speaker 2: he'd meet his future wife. And that's also where he
Speaker 2: met someone else new to him, someone who would also
Speaker 2: shape his future, missus Kolkayen, and she had plans for
Speaker 2: Tim Dick's future. Okay, let's take a little brack Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: But after these messages we'll get into the real nitty
Speaker 2: gritty of his days. Is Tim the Kochman Allen ye
Speaker 2: back in two and two?
Speaker 5: Okay, Elizabeth, Hey, I gotta ask you something.
Speaker 2: Oh please go hit me.
Speaker 3: What was the name of your jazz club on Seventh Heaven?
Speaker 2: You didn't have a name? What I know? It was
Speaker 2: just Actually that's not true. It did have a name.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it did have a name. Give me
Speaker 2: a second. Me think of the dialoguecause I say it
Speaker 2: in the name the so and so is proud to
Speaker 2: you know, bring to the stage, mister so and so,
Speaker 2: like I do say the name. I totally cannot remember it.
Speaker 3: Jazz cat boys.
Speaker 2: I may have done a little bit of jazz cat No,
Speaker 2: I was younger, so it was what goes that producerative?
Speaker 2: Was your character's name Dizzy?
Speaker 4: To me?
Speaker 2: He was? To me, that's who he was.
Speaker 3: He the heartbreaker Dizzy.
Speaker 2: The heartbreaking club owner. But I gave that kid a chance.
Speaker 3: Well think let it, think on it and try and perkolate.
Speaker 3: See if I can think.
Speaker 2: Okay, so, where were that's right? With the coke Man
Speaker 2: Taylor h different tale of Hollywood Glens.
Speaker 3: I just couldn't hold it in.
Speaker 2: So at first, our man Tim Ollen, he was just
Speaker 2: a coked just a college coke head, but he liked
Speaker 2: coke more than the typical coke head. So he's like,
Speaker 2: you know, I need more access to this cocaine. So
Speaker 2: he decided I'm going to sell some. That way I
Speaker 2: get a little sum for me. My coke is free
Speaker 2: if I sell enough. He's like, this works out. Good
Speaker 2: for Tim.
Speaker 3: Do something you love. You never work a day in your.
Speaker 2: Life, exactly, find the job you want dressed for. I
Speaker 2: don't know. Anyway, Being in college in the early or
Speaker 2: mid seventies, it was easy to move small amounts of cocaine.
Speaker 2: There was a market, you know, because coke was back baby,
Speaker 2: you know, seriously, not since the nineteen twenties and thirties
Speaker 2: had coke been it. Yeah, backly that was what you know,
Speaker 2: that would have been. Freud was a cocaine magnet. That's
Speaker 2: when cocaine had its thing, right. It was this big
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties thirties era. Then it falls away in the war.
Speaker 2: Meth kind of pops up in the war because it
Speaker 2: helped keep soldier awake. But then it's all about like
Speaker 2: heroin in the fifties Vietnam heroin, and then finally in
Speaker 2: the seventies, Miami starts going, hey, he wants a cheap cocayene,
Speaker 2: and boom and explodes across the country and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, cocaine is back.
Speaker 3: And then for the eighties, yes, and.
Speaker 2: Tim Allen was right there for it. He was like, dude,
Speaker 2: I love the cocayene. Anyway, he eventually graduated from having
Speaker 2: a little extra coke to being a coke dealer, so
Speaker 2: now he's just straight up coke dealer. Then he starts
Speaker 2: hanging out with the sort of people that you meet
Speaker 2: when you deal cocaine in Detroit in the seventies, right,
Speaker 2: see the mounts he was selling and the mountain he
Speaker 2: was making in profits. They both keep climbing. He's like,
Speaker 2: this is good. I'm good at this. I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: this for a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But as he claims, he was still trying to get
Speaker 2: over the shocking loss of his father. Okay, so he
Speaker 2: liked coke mostly because it left him both lifted and numb,
Speaker 2: and that was the feeling he was going, huh, So
Speaker 2: that devil drug cocaine. It starts slowly eroding his future
Speaker 2: without him paying attention. Because he's lifted in numb right
Speaker 2: out from underneath him. There goes his future. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: he becomes this Detroit cocaine kingpin just kind of sleep
Speaker 2: walks right into it. Try to imagine Tim Allen walking
Speaker 2: into a cocaine deal in nineteen seventies Detroit, like I
Speaker 2: like to picture it. I know it's wrong, but like
Speaker 2: in a pimp suit, which, like I said, I know
Speaker 2: it's wrong, but none of this is right. So he
Speaker 2: has a feather in his fur fedora, he has a
Speaker 2: bird on his shoulder. He's got a cane with like
Speaker 2: a goldfish swimming in the glass ball that's the handle.
Speaker 2: Just let your imagination with Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: I'm just imagining him in the seventies walking in and
Speaker 3: like a polo shirt tucked into his dad jeans, his
Speaker 3: nineties dad jeans.
Speaker 2: No, honestly, he was more like blue jeans, stained shirt
Speaker 2: and like you know, a button down kind of maddress
Speaker 2: kind of you know, the look makes sense. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: So anyway, dude was twenty five years old and he
Speaker 2: was months away from losing it all. Now, just for
Speaker 2: prospective's sake, Yeah, what were some of his contemporaries doing
Speaker 2: at that same age. Let's take businessman Mark Cuban. He
Speaker 2: also had a you know, a wandering youth. He was
Speaker 2: a bartender in Dallas. He's recalled his days in his book,
Speaker 2: How to Win at the Sport of Business. Quote to Dallas,
Speaker 2: I was struggling, sleeping on the floor with six guys
Speaker 2: in a three bedroom apartment. I used to drive around,
Speaker 2: look at the big houses and imagine what would it
Speaker 2: be like to live there and use that as motivation.
Speaker 2: So there he is sleeping on the floor with six
Speaker 2: dudes in a three bedroom apartment. Okay, No, that's not
Speaker 2: quite as bad as cocaine, but it sounds like it anyway.
Speaker 2: So that's, you know, it's basically normal twenty five year
Speaker 2: old guy behavior.
Speaker 3: Mark Cuban and Tim tim Apple. They're the same.
Speaker 2: Age roughly, okay, and he doesn't not exactly but a
Speaker 2: little older. But she's also a fellow future inmate, Martha Stewart.
Speaker 2: What was she doing when she.
Speaker 3: Was twenty f Was she a model?
Speaker 6: Then?
Speaker 2: Good call Elizabeth old inmate five five one seven zero
Speaker 2: dash oh five to four when she was twenty five
Speaker 2: years old. Future inmate street name M Diddy, she was
Speaker 2: doing stay at home mothering she had, Oh you were correct,
Speaker 2: though she'd spent five years working as a stockbroker. Before that,
Speaker 2: she was a fashion model where she worked for Chanel
Speaker 2: and others. So boom she had done stockbroking, fashion modeling,
Speaker 2: all that, and then boom wouldn't bems at home mother?
Speaker 3: I love her?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: I think she then had to start a catering business
Speaker 3: and that was or she started. She did it aligned
Speaker 3: with her.
Speaker 2: She started catering business after she'd been home for a year.
Speaker 2: She's like, I need to do something. Starts her catering business,
Speaker 2: which becomes Martha Stewart's empire that today. Okay, back to
Speaker 2: Tim Allen, what was he doing it twenty five?
Speaker 3: Call him Tim Apple.
Speaker 2: Well, we already know he was doing cocaine, so we
Speaker 2: also know he was He was good enough at that
Speaker 2: to become a Detroit coke dealer. So now you may
Speaker 2: be wondering, Okay, sure is Aaron Tim Allen was a
Speaker 2: Detroit coke dealer. But what kind of Detroit coke dealer?
Speaker 5: Was he? A?
Speaker 3: Really comedic one great.
Speaker 2: Question, Elizabeth, I like this. You brought you a game today.
Speaker 2: In crime parlance. He was a not good at being
Speaker 2: a coke dealer. Coke dealer, like I would say that
Speaker 2: he was bad at it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the year was nineteen seventy eight. Future Tim
Speaker 2: Allen was just months away from being busted and losing
Speaker 2: his life to a prison sentence. Now, as I told you,
Speaker 2: there are a few details online, but I found the
Speaker 2: co defendant's federal appeal which laid out Tim Allen's whole
Speaker 2: cocaine dealing days. Uh huh, okay, Elizabeth's time to crack
Speaker 2: that bad boy. You're ready, yes, okay. Here are the
Speaker 2: facts that is testified in court. There are two men,
Speaker 2: Charles Willett and Donald Cobb. They were big time coke
Speaker 2: deal It's real deal. They're they're plug for cocaine. Was
Speaker 2: a man named Dennis McCarthy. You'll notice that there are
Speaker 2: no Spanish names in this so far. Welcome to the
Speaker 2: Detroit cocaine scene in the nineteen seventies. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of white guys. So Dennis McCarthy from Holland, Michigan, nicknamed
Speaker 2: the Tulip City. It's a suburb he.
Speaker 3: Was named, and then just the city.
Speaker 2: So the suburb of Grand Rapids Michigan is Holland, Holland, Michigan. Right,
Speaker 2: See the other guy's will It and Cobb. They live
Speaker 2: up in Traverse, Michigan, which is a smaller, unincorporated town
Speaker 2: in Michigan. It's up at the western tip of the
Speaker 2: Upper Peninsula. Yeah, so will It and Cobb. They would
Speaker 2: charter a plane and fly down to Holland where they
Speaker 2: would meet their hook up there and they'd buy a
Speaker 2: pound of cocaine or whatever you you know, whatever much
Speaker 2: then they'd fly back to the Upper Peninsula where they'd
Speaker 2: sell out that pound of cocaine. Even though it's a rural,
Speaker 2: underpopulated area. This was the seventies, so the cocaine sells
Speaker 2: it I think.
Speaker 3: It doesn't even have to be. It's the seventies. You'd
Speaker 3: be surprised what goes on in rural areas.
Speaker 2: Cocaine was still kind of a new drug. So it
Speaker 2: had made it up to the Upper Peninsula where they
Speaker 2: were able to sell like you know, the space comes things.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just Studio fifty four types were lusting after
Speaker 2: the white lady. They were selling a quarter pound of
Speaker 2: cocaine every two to three days.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: See that's what I said. First, anyway, will let he
Speaker 2: hears about this new coke suppliers. He's thinking, I can
Speaker 2: get better deals the big players from Florida. He's told
Speaker 2: everybody knows that's where the cocaine is coming from. So
Speaker 2: he's this dude's so big, he's only known by initials
Speaker 2: mw okay. So the coke dealer McCarthy tells will It
Speaker 2: about this supplier and he's gonna come up to Michigan
Speaker 2: for a visit. You guys got to get on this.
Speaker 2: May twenty third, nineteen seventy eight. Will It Charters A
Speaker 2: plane flies down from Travis to Holland his supplier McCarthy
Speaker 2: picks him up the local airport. They all drive back
Speaker 2: to McCarthy's apartment. They bed down for the night. I
Speaker 2: like to imagine the coke dealer that had like pajamas
Speaker 2: laid out for.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: He's like, you know, very thoughtful, very tasteful, very modern. Yeah,
Speaker 2: very Martha Stewart. Anyway, the next day they drive down
Speaker 2: to Kalamazoo, Michigan. They hit up the home of the
Speaker 2: new supplier. His dud's name is Bradley's Shruck, right. His
Speaker 2: initials are not MW. That's because he is not that guy,
Speaker 2: but he he is tight with that guy, and he
Speaker 2: is from Florida. Anyway, He's not the big supplier, he's
Speaker 2: the big suppliers contact. So he's like, talk to me,
Speaker 2: I'll talk to MW.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So Shock promises to drive Will and McCarthy over to
Speaker 2: the closest red roof d for a cocaine deal.
Speaker 3: God, I love the root I've never been to one.
Speaker 3: I just love referencing.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, if you're gonna do a coke deal
Speaker 2: in a small to medium sized to your city, it's
Speaker 2: happening at a red roof And if you were staying
Speaker 2: at a red roof in, you are either a criminal
Speaker 2: or you are dating one. Like that's just the rule. Anyway.
Speaker 2: So they rock up at this red roof in I've
Speaker 2: been to plenty, I can tell you that's the truth.
Speaker 2: And they meet this dude at MW and he is
Speaker 2: the supplier. Right, he's got a briefcase with him. Right,
Speaker 2: It's like an eighties police show. There's like a cheap motel,
Speaker 2: a briefcase of money, some tester vials of cocaine. It's
Speaker 2: all white guys. It's just like what's going on here? Anyway?
Speaker 2: MW cracks up in the briefcase. He indeed has a
Speaker 2: ton of cash and a bunch of cocaine. He tells
Speaker 2: the interested parties it'll be four thousand dollars an ounce. Now,
Speaker 2: let me translate that for you, Elizabeth, because since there
Speaker 2: is about twenty eight and a one third gram in
Speaker 2: and outs, I know it's all from my pot growing days.
Speaker 2: That's basically it works out that four thousand dollars an
Speaker 2: ounce breaks down to about one hundred and forty dollars
Speaker 2: a gram. Okay, right, that's expensive cocaine. Okay, but these
Speaker 2: duws are down. They were like, ah, we'll take it
Speaker 2: Detroit prices or whatever. So they tested the vials for
Speaker 2: the purity of the coke. The color was right. They
Speaker 2: buy a trial gram and they go back to Shock's
Speaker 2: motel room. He's also got a room at the same
Speaker 2: red roof in so they're like, yeah, let's go rail
Speaker 2: up some coke. They try it themselves. They're like whoo,
Speaker 2: it's surreal deal. They go back like knock knock knock,
Speaker 2: and make a future arrangement for a cocaine deal a
Speaker 2: big one man. They fly back to travers Michigan. This
Speaker 2: is where the mouse of the jungle takes down the lion. Already,
Speaker 2: the charter plane company these folks that they've been growing
Speaker 2: suspicious of these local flyboys and their fast ass lifestyle.
Speaker 2: So the bookkeeper from the charter plane company, she phoned
Speaker 2: the state Police with a hot tip and they're like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, tells the cops are fairly certain some local
Speaker 2: boys are smuggling drugs on their charter plane. Boom, now
Speaker 2: they got attention the whole operations under a microscope. Things
Speaker 2: go bad for Wilton cop because they hadn't just chartered planes.
Speaker 2: They had had pilots on the planes. They couldn't fly
Speaker 2: these small planes, so they had these pilots. So now
Speaker 2: they have witnesses and overhear them talking and they know
Speaker 2: their delivery schedules. They have like it's terrible. This is
Speaker 2: bad news for the one to be cocaine kingpins. Worst
Speaker 2: news is that Michigan State Police coordinated with the charter
Speaker 2: company and they arrange for their next flight to be
Speaker 2: piloted by undercover cops. So now they are totally screwed.
Speaker 2: By June, it takes like a couple of weeks, will
Speaker 2: it figures out he's under surveillance. He's like, those are cops,
Speaker 2: those are not silent. So what does he do, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: I don't know. He rats himself out. He goes directly
Speaker 2: and he goes, I want to confess. He confesses everything.
Speaker 2: He doesn't even know if he's under like real investigation.
Speaker 3: Just before he even like broke deal.
Speaker 2: He goes to them and just goes, Hey, I'm a
Speaker 2: cocaine dealer and I'd like to tell you about my friends.
Speaker 2: So he flips on everyone else involved. He's like, I'll
Speaker 2: tell you anything you want to know as long as
Speaker 2: I can avoid charges. Guy, You're like, who are you?
Speaker 2: But his plan works. He's able to tell them who
Speaker 2: he is and certify his plan, and so he flips.
Speaker 2: He becomes an undercover in formant. Now he for a contact.
Speaker 2: He gets this dude, Michael Pifer, and he's the undercover
Speaker 2: Cup who becomes his handler. Right, so will it smoves
Speaker 2: an intro for this cop Pifer. He introduces him to
Speaker 2: his partner Cop and to his supplier McCarthy. The undercover
Speaker 2: Cup he gets to work. He starts arranging deals. He
Speaker 2: also wants to meet all the other dealers in this
Speaker 2: coke neck work. Yeah, yeah, I just really want to
Speaker 2: get into business with you guys. Everyone's like, cool, now
Speaker 2: you made wondering Saron, I'm not hearing the name Tim
Speaker 2: Allen in this, Elizabeth, that's a great question.
Speaker 3: His name is Dick.
Speaker 2: This is very good memory. This is where it comes in.
Speaker 2: Old Tim Dick, Tim Allen, low level local dealer, college dealer.
Speaker 2: He would get supplied by McCarthy who knows the Florida
Speaker 2: contact shruck and MW. So Tim Allen. He also has
Speaker 2: a partner in the cocaine business. It's his roommate, Gerald Mead.
Speaker 2: So they live together, they push together, They just have
Speaker 2: their lives entwined. Yeah, so Jerry Meade, Tim Dick. They're
Speaker 2: running product like a student film version of Scarface.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So in July nineteen seidate, their new supplier MW shows
Speaker 2: up at Jerry Ned's house and he brings with him
Speaker 2: six ounces of cocaine. He tells Mead and Tim Allen
Speaker 2: it's theirs to sell. He's even willing to front them
Speaker 2: so they can pay him later. And they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: thank god, because you know, we don't really have money
Speaker 2: like that. So they agreed to the deal. He says,
Speaker 2: we'll take a we'll just take two of or six ounces.
Speaker 2: We can't we couldn't push all six ounces. They settle
Speaker 2: on a price. The price nineteen hundred dollars an ounce.
Speaker 2: So they're like, oh, they got a better price than
Speaker 2: their original that we mentioned from the red roof in
Speaker 2: right now, Meat and Tim Dick. They get busy. They
Speaker 2: start flipping the two ounces as fast as they can.
Speaker 2: The fastest way they think to do it is to
Speaker 2: sell it all to Shock, and I'm like, these people
Speaker 2: will know each other. I don't know how this plays out.
Speaker 2: But then he doesn't have cash on him, so he
Speaker 2: promises to pay a grand now and the rest later.
Speaker 2: So he takes two ounces. Shock then goes to the
Speaker 2: supplier McCarthy, and he sells them to He sells the
Speaker 2: cocaine to McCarthy. It works its way back up the
Speaker 2: other chain. He says, send the money to Jerry Mead
Speaker 2: and Tim Dick. So now they're they're connect to sending
Speaker 2: the money for cocaine. That they're it's all backers right.
Speaker 2: A few days past, there's nineteen hundred and seventy five
Speaker 2: dollars waiting for them at Western Union. Deal is done
Speaker 2: and paid for it. Next they like this right, So,
Speaker 2: as I said, at this point, Tim Allen Gary Mead,
Speaker 2: they're not just coke dealers and partners. They're living together
Speaker 2: in Kalamazoo, Michigan. So they're running like a mom and
Speaker 2: pop coke shop, right for college kids and blue collar heroes. Right,
Speaker 2: So you getting fronted all this cocaine. There's suppliers coming
Speaker 2: around picking up the cash later. If they're making this work,
Speaker 2: they don't know that there's there is a major investigation
Speaker 2: going on with this, so they become of major interest
Speaker 2: because they're moving a lot of coke. It at the
Speaker 2: exact wrong time to be these star buyers or star sellers.
Speaker 2: Rather summer rolls on August ninth, nineteen seventy eight, McCarthy
Speaker 2: phones Tim Allen aka Tim Dick and tells the future
Speaker 2: TV Dad he's got a buddy who wants to buy
Speaker 2: four ounces of coke from him. Tim Allen's like, all right, bet,
Speaker 2: when where what's the deal? McCarthy tells him, We'll come
Speaker 2: to you, right, So he brings with him the buyer,
Speaker 2: who is the undercover cop Pifer. They walk into tim
Speaker 2: Allens place, which he share with Jerry mead, they'll go upstairs.
Speaker 2: The supplier MW. Joins them a little later. He brings
Speaker 2: with him a thermist. Everyone's like, oh, what's in the thermis?
Speaker 2: Bro After a moment of intrigue, he's like, yeah, just
Speaker 2: my souper, my launch. He untwists the thermist cap, he opens
Speaker 2: and he pours into his hand the contents. His waiting
Speaker 2: hand catches three quarters pounds of cocaine.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: And then they did something that surprise me. Tim Allen
Speaker 2: decides to cut the coke right in front of the buyer.
Speaker 2: The guy who's going to buy the coke. He's like,
Speaker 2: let me just cut those for you. So he cuts
Speaker 2: the cocaine. So he puts in like baby lacks it
Speaker 2: over whatever white powder he is using to cut it.
Speaker 2: This is nineteen seventy eight, Detroit. I don't know what
Speaker 2: to tell you, Elizabeth. And then Tim Allen cuts the cocaine.
Speaker 2: Then he and his partner sell it to the undercover
Speaker 2: Cup for thirty nine hundred dollars and thirty nine eighty Right,
Speaker 2: everyone's satisfied in such a mess exactly MW. He leaves
Speaker 2: with his four ounces of coke from Tim Allen. That
Speaker 2: it had been fronted to him as per usual, and
Speaker 2: he's like, oh, yeah, I see if you can move
Speaker 2: this right. So Tim Allen's like, yeah, I'll try to
Speaker 2: see if I get some more. Here's the thing, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: Remember what I said about Tim Allen was not a
Speaker 2: good coke dealer. Yeah, it's hard to see it. It's
Speaker 2: like who are you. You're selling the buyer to sell
Speaker 2: what's going on? And you're also cutting your coke in
Speaker 2: front of your buyer like they don't know how to
Speaker 2: cut the coke? I mean, are you charging them?
Speaker 3: I don't know, he didn't the buyer. Wait, you said
Speaker 3: m w was the one with the thermos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so but he's giving it to McCarthy. So McCarthy
Speaker 2: was his former supplier. So he's getting it from this
Speaker 2: new supplier. And then Shruck who knows McCarthy has it,
Speaker 2: go to Tim Allen and then go back up the
Speaker 2: chain to him and then it makes no exactly, So
Speaker 2: and d are breaking like two of Biggie's crack commandments.
Speaker 2: It's just like he's living with his business partner and
Speaker 2: it just makes no sense anyway. So, like I said,
Speaker 2: not a good coke dealer days past he's not able
Speaker 2: to sell this coke. He's been fronted most recently because
Speaker 2: apparently he only has the one buyer. The guy's like,
Speaker 2: I already got the coke. So he's like, try to
Speaker 2: find some college kids. They can't. They aren't able to
Speaker 2: move it. Now. As I said, he's got these ounces
Speaker 2: of cocaine. He's trying to maybe he could work a deal.
Speaker 2: So this is when the supplier McCarthy calls him. He's like, hey,
Speaker 2: you and your partner, Jerry Mead, I got a good
Speaker 2: news for you, you and your coke problem. I got
Speaker 2: a buyer who wants a big purchase. And the guy's like,
Speaker 2: who is He's like, oh, he wants to buy a
Speaker 2: pound and a half of cocaine. Jerry Mead and McCarthy.
Speaker 2: They settle on a price forty two thousand dollars for
Speaker 2: a pound and a half of cocaine.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 2: Bad news for them was the buyer was the undercover
Speaker 2: cop Fiver. So let's take a little break and then
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what went down at the Kalamazoo Airport
Speaker 2: that would forever change the course of Tim the Coke
Speaker 2: ban Allen's life.
Speaker 4: Yes, O, great Elizabeth all Right, we're back.
Speaker 2: Oh right, you're ready for some more cocaine?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2: Okay, here we go. Tim Allen his partner Jerry Mead.
Speaker 2: They'd set up their forty two thousand dollars coke deal
Speaker 2: with an undercover cup So the deal.
Speaker 3: A lot of money now, okays, a lot of money?
Speaker 2: Then exactly, it's a big deal, a lot of money.
Speaker 2: So it either be a huge payday for them or
Speaker 2: they'll catch a prison sentence. Yeah, they got it a
Speaker 2: coin flip. So, as it turns out, the state of
Speaker 2: Michigan had just passed the law for mandatory minimum sentences
Speaker 2: for drug deals. Tim Allen, due to the size and
Speaker 2: scope of his drug deal, was facing a mandatory life
Speaker 2: in prison sentence if he was busted, no exceptions. So
Speaker 2: the cocaine cowboys at Detroit, they had or kept their
Speaker 2: plan very simple. They decided they would meet at a
Speaker 2: pre arranged spot in a very public space. I don't know.
Speaker 2: They thought that would keep them safe. Tim Allen, he
Speaker 2: picked the Kalamazoo Airport. That's how he'd seen it done
Speaker 2: in a TV show. So he's like, I want to
Speaker 2: do it like I saw in that team.
Speaker 3: He loves the TV what year is this.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy eight. Okay, so it was like Hawaii or something.
Speaker 3: Nixon's War on drugs.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're deep into all of that. Yeah. So
Speaker 2: at this point they have a day and time set.
Speaker 2: What happens next? Obviously we know did not go well.
Speaker 2: But rather than me just tell you about Elizabeth, I'd
Speaker 2: like you to close your eyes and picture it. You
Speaker 2: are currently in the Kalamazoo Airport. The date is October second.
Speaker 2: Outside the airport, there's a crispness in the air. It's
Speaker 2: that refreshing feel of autumn. Inside the airport, it is
Speaker 2: rather quiet. It's a small regional airport. Between flights, a
Speaker 2: few announcements, some travelers, but mostly quiet. You are there
Speaker 2: on a lark. You're flying to Bismarck, North Dakota. You
Speaker 2: have a plan to meet a local bear expert who's
Speaker 2: promised to take you out into the field so that
Speaker 2: you can hug a bear. Yes, it's the seventies. Anything
Speaker 2: as possible, Yes, and if you have some time to
Speaker 2: yourself after leaving the Linda Rodstat tour as her tour.
Speaker 3: Manage, Oh my god.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 2: So as you sit in the fiberglass teardrop seat in
Speaker 2: the waiting area. You flip through a copy of Life magazine,
Speaker 2: but really it's just a cover for you to do
Speaker 2: your people watching.
Speaker 3: I am loving my life.
Speaker 2: Right now, you've been watching the middle aged woman behind
Speaker 2: the ticket counter. You're convinced that she has a crush
Speaker 2: on the guy who's working as the airport announcer, because
Speaker 2: every time there's an announcement she smiles just a little.
Speaker 2: Now though, right now, you're mostly focused on two shaggy haired,
Speaker 2: mustached college kids. They came in together, but they're seated
Speaker 2: across the airport from each other. They both keep looking
Speaker 2: around like they're waiting for someone or for something. The
Speaker 2: brown haired, mustachioed college kid, his name is Tim. You've
Speaker 2: heard the other one call him that. Now he apparently
Speaker 2: you don't know this, saw a TV show where some
Speaker 2: criminals made an exchange like this, so that's why he's
Speaker 2: here doing this. But you don't know all that. You
Speaker 2: just see him looking super nervous there and there's the
Speaker 2: other college kids seated across the tiny airport. He signals
Speaker 2: to the brown haired one, who then pops up. He
Speaker 2: takes a piece of luggage with him, and he walks
Speaker 2: over the luggage lockers. He opens it up, slides the
Speaker 2: bag in, takes the key, palms it. Looks around again.
Speaker 2: You look back the other direction. You see there's a
Speaker 2: man who's just entered the tiny quiet airport. He's wearing
Speaker 2: a straw fedora, at least the summertime hat. It's October whatever.
Speaker 2: He has on short sleeves in a tie once again,
Speaker 2: okay whatever. He looks like he sells boats for a living.
Speaker 2: The college kids walk right up to him. He doesn't
Speaker 2: really say anything to them. Instead, he just reaches out
Speaker 2: his hand for a handshake. You're curious how these two
Speaker 2: groups know each other. The college kids don't look like
Speaker 2: they're really in the market for a cabin cruiser, but anyway,
Speaker 2: you do spot that He slyly passes the luggage locker
Speaker 2: key to the guy in the straw fedora, and then
Speaker 2: the two men part almost wordlessly. The college kid walks
Speaker 2: over to the guy he came in with, while the
Speaker 2: other guy walks over to the luggage locker. The guy
Speaker 2: in the straw hat opens it. He takes out the bag.
Speaker 2: He quickly unzips it, checks the contents, and then he
Speaker 2: nods and boom, out of nowhere in Russia's state police.
Speaker 2: They swore in the airport, guns drawn, barking orders at
Speaker 2: the two shaggy headed college kids. You are loving, oh am,
Speaker 2: I it start a real deal drug bust in Kalama Zoos.
Speaker 2: As Tim Allen would later tell it, the next thing
Speaker 2: I observed was a.
Speaker 4: Gun in my face.
Speaker 3: Oh I love this.
Speaker 2: So you just witnessed the drug bust that would change
Speaker 2: Tim Allen's life. Now that he's officially busted, his life
Speaker 2: and his future are over. He's staring down a life
Speaker 2: sentence behind bars in a Michigan prison. So what does
Speaker 2: Tim Allen do? Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Does? She sing like a bird.
Speaker 2: That is how he ended up becoming the Tim Allen
Speaker 2: beloved TV dad. He did. But we in the streets
Speaker 2: call snitching. He snitched as hard as he could. He
Speaker 2: snitched to anyone who would listen. And did it work?
Speaker 3: Apparently?
Speaker 2: You bet it did. A retired FBI agent who worked
Speaker 2: the case quote, mister Allen was very reluctant to spend
Speaker 2: the rest of his life in prison, so he decided
Speaker 2: to play ball. The information he gave helped build several
Speaker 2: other cases after the entire ordeal and to his credit.
Speaker 2: He obviously went on to turn things around for himself
Speaker 2: quite well. FBI. So what did the retired officer mean
Speaker 2: when he said what information Tim Allen gave up? They
Speaker 2: able to make several other cases.
Speaker 3: Like oh mw baby, they went after Martha Washington.
Speaker 2: He may be thinking of that. How hard exactly did
Speaker 2: Tim Allen snitch?
Speaker 4: Hard?
Speaker 3: Is my guess, he to avoid a life sentence.
Speaker 4: Hard.
Speaker 2: I'll put it to you this way. He wasn't approached
Speaker 2: to snitch. It was his idea. Oh, Tim Allen approached
Speaker 2: the cops was like, who do I have to talk
Speaker 2: to around here to snitch? So eventually he finds the
Speaker 2: right person, and you called it. He sang like a
Speaker 2: stool pigeon. He sang like a songbird in prison pajamas.
Speaker 2: He told the prosecutors everything he knew about the Kalamazoo
Speaker 2: drug scene. He told the cops who sold, who lived where,
Speaker 2: who knew who, where they got their stuff from? Everything, Wow,
Speaker 2: and it worked. The prosecutors agreed to drop the most
Speaker 2: serious charges against them. But not only that, they agreed
Speaker 2: to not prosecute him in Michigan and instead turn him
Speaker 2: over to the FEDS. That meant he couldn't be sentenced
Speaker 2: under Michigan's new life sentence for drug dealers. So Tim
Speaker 2: Allen avoided a mandatory life in prison by snitching on
Speaker 2: like twenty or thirty other people.
Speaker 3: Good for him.
Speaker 2: No, I may not respect snitches, right, but in his
Speaker 2: crew of ne'er do wells, I don't hate this choice.
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: I mean, these dudes, they're not the mafia. This is
Speaker 2: not like Omerita. We got a code of silence. This
Speaker 2: four Michigan three to four Michigan numbskulls, And.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you they would do it just as
Speaker 3: fast on him.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, himself in this instance. I mean, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like how modest mouse wants saying this plane is
Speaker 2: definitely crashing. Remember anyway, Tim out and he plays guilty
Speaker 2: into a lighter trafficking charges in federal court. And then
Speaker 2: when he sentenced. The judge in his case, Patrick McCauley,
Speaker 2: was apparently one of his first fans, because he told
Speaker 2: that he expected him to quote one day be a
Speaker 2: very successful comedian. Judge mccab So.
Speaker 3: Was he already doing standard I don't know, see testing
Speaker 3: stuff out on the stand?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Can he doing like a quick five in court
Speaker 2: and he's like a jailbird. Jerry Seinfeld Like, have you
Speaker 2: ever noticed how cokes will call you at all hours
Speaker 2: of the day? I mean, don't you have a job?
Speaker 2: But it guys That question answers itself.
Speaker 4: Am I right?
Speaker 6: I know?
Speaker 2: Anyway, Well did he do the grunt? You understand? Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's like a manor pigs right. Judge raw macauley told
Speaker 2: Tim Allen that he saw quote a remarkable talent. Don't
Speaker 2: waste it, and then he also told him be a man,
Speaker 2: do your time, then come out and do what you
Speaker 2: do best. Yeah. So despite getting out of this life sentence,
Speaker 2: tim Allen had still reason to fear for his life
Speaker 2: because he had snitched on everyone in the Calendarzoo cocaine scene,
Speaker 2: and they had friends who were already on the inside.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: As one coup put it, tim Allen quote helped authorities
Speaker 2: indict twenty people in the drug trade and resulted in
Speaker 2: the conviction and sentencing of four major drug dealers. So
Speaker 2: he had four major enemies at least, and sixteen others
Speaker 2: that were just minor enemies. So of those twenty people
Speaker 2: catching charges, how many of them would have a shot
Speaker 2: at him? Well, he had no idea. So he's like,
Speaker 2: what are we gonna do about this? I won't even
Speaker 2: know what they look like. The judge in the federal case,
Speaker 2: who had this professional crush on Tim Allen, he's like,
Speaker 2: I got you, boo.
Speaker 3: You are so funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't want that funny to be hurt you funny.
Speaker 2: So he made sure that Tim Allen was incarcerated, not
Speaker 2: in the Michigan prison, but instead sent him over the
Speaker 2: border to Minnesota, and that way he'd be safe from
Speaker 2: revenge because I guess like their cocaine beef still across
Speaker 2: the border.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, after all this extra help consideration from the judge
Speaker 2: in the federal time was still no easy time for
Speaker 2: Tim Allen because he was not ready for prison life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he said, when I went to jail, reality hit so
Speaker 2: hard that it took my breath away, took my stance away,
Speaker 2: took my strength away. I was there buck naked, humiliated,
Speaker 2: sitting in my own crap, and urine that this is
Speaker 2: a metaphor my ego had run off. Your ego is
Speaker 2: the biggest coward. So eventually he's able to confront his He.
Speaker 3: Just drops that in the middle of he's like, okay, no,
Speaker 3: I really actually did.
Speaker 2: A little bit all right, mostly urine and whatever was
Speaker 2: it first day only. So eventually he confronts his ego.
Speaker 2: He grabs hold of the reins of his soul and
Speaker 2: he gives it a hardy yank and he's like, quote,
Speaker 2: the law was passed to teach people a lesson selling
Speaker 2: more than six hundred and fifty grams of cocaine got
Speaker 2: you life in prison. They thought it would be a deterrent.
Speaker 2: It wasn't. I was put in a holding cell with
Speaker 2: twenty other guys. We had to crap in the same
Speaker 2: crapper in the middle of the room, and I just
Speaker 2: told myself, I can't do this for seven and a
Speaker 2: half years. I want to kill myself.
Speaker 3: So then he's like he really focused on poop.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's very much a poop forward. Oh yeah, copper
Speaker 2: light or copper what is it? Copper philic, a copper file,
Speaker 2: that's what it is.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so he hear that prison is tough as hell,
Speaker 2: right it is. Yeah, And it's also a great place
Speaker 2: to catch up on your reading and your correspondence. I
Speaker 2: mean there's some benefits, right. Well, he also found it
Speaker 2: was a great place to learn to shut the hell up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he said, and I quote, I just shut up and
Speaker 2: did what I was told. It was the first time
Speaker 2: ever that I did what I was told, and I
Speaker 2: played the game. I learned literally how to live day
Speaker 2: by day, and I learned how to shut up. You
Speaker 2: definitely want to learn how to shut up the big
Speaker 2: lesson crap and shutting up. That's fit for prison. On
Speaker 2: June twelfth, nineteen eighty one, after serving two years and
Speaker 2: four months, he was released from federal prison. He gets
Speaker 2: he finds work at a Detroit ad agency. He starts
Speaker 2: to doing stand up comedy at the local Comedy Castle
Speaker 2: in Detroit. But by then he was a new man.
Speaker 2: He was becoming the Tim Allen that we know. I
Speaker 2: mean that quote. I was funny before that prison grew
Speaker 2: me up. I was an adolescent that woke up too
Speaker 2: early when my father was killed, and I stayed at
Speaker 2: that angry adolescent level. Sounds about accurate now. In nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, he books a comedy special in Showtime Disney
Speaker 2: Head haunches Michael Eisner. Jeffrey Katzenberg later co founds DreamWorks
Speaker 2: with Spielberg David Geffen. They see the special. They fall
Speaker 2: out laughing. I'm like, oh, iw met are pigs? I
Speaker 2: love this guy? Right, They're like we need to they
Speaker 2: see dollar signes, like we need to make a show
Speaker 2: with him. So Tim Allen's show Home Improve It debuted
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one. After that, you know his story now.
Speaker 2: In an interview after he'd be kind of famous, Tim Allens,
Speaker 2: beloved TV dad and former Cooke head, he offered this
Speaker 2: life advice, if you were told the end at the beginning,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't have to travel, Elizabeth. I have to disagree
Speaker 2: with him, because life is about how you get to
Speaker 2: where you're going, rather than the destination you arrive at
Speaker 2: the end. It doesn't matter at all. Really, I mean
Speaker 2: exhibit a Tim Allen's whole life. It's like, what a
Speaker 2: wild ride, And it was far more interesting than what
Speaker 2: you'd expect from someone who is the star of wild Hogs, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, ild you star of wild Hogs? You don't
Speaker 2: expect am I right? So what's our ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 2: Oh my god?
Speaker 3: You know you want to become a professional stand up comedian,
Speaker 3: do little time in the FCI and the yes.
Speaker 2: And learn how to shut up?
Speaker 3: Learn how to shut up. Yeah, I like that. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, I'm angels are singing.
Speaker 2: I know. Producer Dave, could we just capture this moment
Speaker 2: for a second. Is feels so good Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: About one other than her?
Speaker 2: Wow, I don't have one?
Speaker 6: Cool?
Speaker 2: So there you go the whole thing. Yeah, exactly. Weren't
Speaker 2: you listening?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Anyway, as always, you can find his online Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 2: on Twitter, Instagram, sometimes threads. As long as Elizabeth doesn't
Speaker 2: have the.
Speaker 3: Pass word, I'm gonna get it.
Speaker 2: Stop it anyway, I'm ready.
Speaker 3: Deleted so much stuff that I put it.
Speaker 2: I saw that. Anyway. We have a website also Ridicloscrime
Speaker 2: dot com, and you can email us if you want
Speaker 2: at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Remember to start that,
Speaker 2: Dear Elizabeth, Okay, As always, thanks for listening. We'll catch
Speaker 2: you next crime. Dico's Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
Speaker 2: and Zaren Burnett, produce and edited by Dave. The Best
Speaker 2: Band Standing Coast Research is by Marissa respect to al
Speaker 2: Borland Brown and Andrea. I'm a J. T. T. Truther
Speaker 2: song Sharpened Tear, Our theme song is by Thomas the
Speaker 2: Rule Man Lee and Travis the cool Man that the
Speaker 2: host wardrobes provided by Botany five hundred executive producers are
Speaker 2: ben Cocaine is a hell of a drug bowling and
Speaker 2: all like Patricia Heaton.
Speaker 6: Brown, Ridicous Crime, Say It one more Time, Ridiquious Crime.
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