WEBVTT - Vaudeville: Step Right Up! 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.319 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:18.480 chuckles Clark, there's Chuck Josh's chuckles. Bryant. Yeah, that would 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.320 have been way better. And there's Jerry just Jerry rolling 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.320 hanging out too, and that makes this stuff you should 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:29.360 Know about Vaudeville. Uh, my favorite day of the year 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:35.599 is today, Uh, Vaudeville Day. No, I mean, you can 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:37.760 never tell when it's gonna happen, and it will get 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:41.080 hot again. But it's that first whiff of fall. Oh, 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.520 I love that so much. It's so nice, isn't it. 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:49.479 It's one o'clock in Atlanta and it's seventy three degrees humidity, 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:53.320 which is for Atlanta that means zero humidity. Yeah, exactly, 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.160 a little cool breeze blowing. Yeah, it's beautiful out Those 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.240 leads are gonna start turning any second. No, we'll get 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:04.840 hot as hades again before October. It just does Yeah, 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:07.440 it does that, like it makes sure it's nice and 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.400 balmy and muggy on Thanksgiving for some reason. And then 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.880 in the winter it'll start to get nice, like you're like, okay, 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:16.959 spring is here, and then bam, they dumped you with 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.840 the only snowfall of the year in mid February. But 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:23.240 is an odd place at least for this one day 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.480 we get a little a little whiff of fall, a 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.040 little whiff of football in the air. Yeah, the stank 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.360 of football is in the air. So we're not talking 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.040 about football, although I'm sure somebody did a jokey football 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.040 routine at some point in the history of vaudeville, which 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.640 is what we're talking about. We're talking about vaudeville. Like 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:49.400 I just said, yeah, and this was an idea by 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.680 the very guy who wrote it for us, or old 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.760 pal Dave Ruse. He said, uh. He got very aggressive 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:01.520 and said, hey, Chuck, since it's your turn to pick one. 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:05.080 You know this thing on vaudeville or saw something on vaudeville. 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:07.960 It sounded interesting, And I said, all right, smarty pants, 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.360 good do it. He said, oh, you want me do it? 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:14.639 Huh huh. Very. I'm surprised we haven't done this before though, 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.440 because it's really cool and kind of I think it's 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:22.959 appropriate that it's uh, sort of nearby our sitcoms too, 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.400 for right, because this was like this was it, this 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.760 was TV baby before there was TV. Yeah, and there's 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.640 before we get started. I'm hoping you can help me 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:36.360 figure this out. But we have definitely talked about the 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.880 vaudeville circuit at length in another episode, and it's been 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.840 driving me bananas because I cannot think of what the 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.920 episode was. Was it freak Shows? No, I think it 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:50.840 was more recent than that, within the last year or 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:55.400 two it was. I don't think it was freak shows, man, 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.600 I really don't. But I looked. I was like, wait 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:00.760 a minute, have we done Vaudeville? But warm we definitely 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.600 have not, because we talked about the circuit on another 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.440 episode exactly. Yeah, that was so we talked about like 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.480 the Poconos, the borsched Belt and all that. Yeah. I 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:12.800 don't remember what we would have been talking. I don't 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.000 think it had anything to do with desert survival. Luckily, 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.960 we have a thousand people that listen to our show 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:24.880 every week, at the very least eight hundred. Uh. Yeah, 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:26.560 it's it's very familiar to me. I don't I don't 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.720 know unless we did. Boud Villain just spaced both of 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:34.200 us and didn't title it appropriately. We titled a podcast 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:38.800 to remember, so we are talking vaud Villain. I think 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:40.960 it's one of those things where even if you're gen Z, 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.080 even if you're a boomer, it doesn't matter. Everybody's at 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:48.839 least somewhat familiar cognizant that Vaudeville existed at some time 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:52.320 in the past and had to do with um jokes, 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:57.040 There were yucks involved. Um, it happened on stage. It 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.880 was deeply racist in a lot of places, and for 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:02.920 a lot of people that's like the sum total of 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.560 what they understand about Vaudeville. But it is not h 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.000 an overstatement to say that Vaudeville basically gave birth to 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.960 every form of entertainment that we know and love today. 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:20.400 It was a strange midwife between the theater and mass 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:25.880 um commercial media. Yeah, did you write that down? That 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:30.080 was good? I did. I didn't, but I'm like furiously 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.800 rubbing it off in my form. Uh. You know, it's 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.839 for sure deeply racist in some ways at times, which 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:41.280 we'll talk about, but also deeply inclusive and that uh, 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:47.760 all kinds of people performed Vaudeville. Everybody loved Vaudeville. I 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:52.600 mean it spanned every sort of demographic you could imagine, 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:58.560 from old to young and ethnic ethnicity to uh, wealthy 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.640 people to poor people because it didn't cost a whole lot. 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.320 You know, people would would literally save their pennies to 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.920 get into these cheap dime Uh I was about say 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.240 dime store, but whatever dime a ticket entry shows, right, 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.159 and it was family friendly too, as we'll see, which 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:20.000 was kind of revolutionary. Um and that actually established vaudeville 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.880 is like a like a genuine American phenomenon. Yeah, I 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.120 mean that was the deal. And you know, we were 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.240 sort of the Vaudeville of podcast fifteen years ago in 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:34.440 some ways because everyone else came out of the gate, say, 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:40.159 you know what, FCC doesn't care what we say, Phil Florence, 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.479 Phil foul And uh, looking back now, we were lucky 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.120 enough to have a I guess fortunate enough to have 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:49.080 a company at the time that was like you're not 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:53.119 allowed to cuss and stuff, Uh, I don't even try stuff. 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.000 We didn't and uh we we had to park our 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.400 notoriously foul tongues at the door. And I think that's 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:00.880 what helped our show out in a lot of ways, 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.160 is that people listen to it in classrooms and in 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.599 the car with their families and stuff like that. Right, absolutely, 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.040 and like to to think today like of just randomly 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:14.000 cursing casually and stuff. You should know. It's it seems weird. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.359 We could now if we wanted to. I mean, I 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:23.159 don't want to chuck. Don't make me oh cus cuss nay. Instead, 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.320 let's talk about Vaudeville. And we're gonna keep it clean 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.040 and family friendly, just like Vaudeville. And we're gonna start 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:32.080 chuck with actually the word vaudeville, which it sounds French, 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:37.400 vaguely French, and um correctly so because it actually originates 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.560 in the French language. That's right, apparently. And this is 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:42.680 I think Dave was right on point. He says it 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.040 has a pretty interesting etymology as far as etymologies go, 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.880 this one seems to be kind of ironclad and interesting. Yeah, 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.599 it's rare, because yeah, it's very rare. So uh. In 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.120 the fifteenth century in France, it was a poet. His 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:01.039 name was, I guess you would say Olivier Bassilie. But 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:06.279 the ironic thing is he didn't know it. It took 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.039 me a half a beat to get that one. It did. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.520 I was like, is there a latency here? Uh? And 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.280 he was a poet who wrote a satire. He was 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:20.239 I guess sort of like the Ray Stevens of his time. 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.400 That's something that gen Z will not get for sure. 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.360 God bless you for that, gen Z. And so what 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.880 was the deal that? Where was he from? He was 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.040 from the vau de Vie, which is the Vier Valley 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:39.280 in French. And so um, these kind of silly, folksy 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.200 country songs, often satirical, that you know, found their origination 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.520 in the fourteen hundreds in France came to be known 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:49.520 as chanson de vaudeville, so songs from the Vier Valley 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:54.520 and basically, yeah, that would have that would have absolutely 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.200 been a chanson de vaudevie. So um. Over time, I 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:02.120 guess in France, everybody's sick of, you know, putting the 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.880 Vier Valley on the map, and they just changed veer 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:12.320 to veal, which means town. So technically vaudeville means valley town, 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:15.440 which makes zero sense if you stop and think about it. 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:17.520 But it doesn't matter because it gets the point across, 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.800 because it's evolved to take on a different meaning over time. Yeah, 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:26.960 and these in France they had uh fiata du vaudeville, 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.600 which were these parody plays. And then when America, you know, 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:35.240 Vaudeville is a uniquely American thing. Uh. Well, not uniquely American, 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:39.439 because there were precedents in other countries, but Vaudeville itself 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.840 became very American, and you'll see why. But they basically 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:44.920 just said, hey, that sounds kind of fancy and French, 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:47.199 and that was at a time in America and when 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:52.040 they liked to name things fancy French things. Well, yes, also, 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.600 so one of the things about Vaudeville that it's important 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.320 to realize is that it was created for this burgeoning 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:03.079 middle class where there like a lot more there's people 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.640 had a little more spending money than they did before. 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.079 There weren't conditions stunk, as we'll see, but there was 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.200 a middle class developing and this was designed specifically to 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:16.079 target those people. And they wanted to differentiate themselves from 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.800 some of the predecessors, which were much bodier, much racier, 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:23.880 much more drunken um and Vaudeville was like, no, we're different, 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:28.199 even though it's a lot the same stuff. Yeah, England, Italy, 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:31.800 they all had these sort of body plays where people 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:36.480 would get hammered in the audience or and or on stage. Uh. 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:41.000 In America, even pre Civil War, the shows were um, 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.400 you know, they were very risque. They were kind of 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.960 burlesque in nature, or you might have like, you know, 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.040 sort of uh scantily clad. At the time, of course 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.200 there was nothing like you would see today, but like 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.480 a scantily clad uh ladies dancing, uh and then like 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.160 two guys bare knuckle boxing right afterward and everyone is 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.880 getting drunk. And I bet those were a lot of fun. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.080 But uh, you know, it sounds a lot like a 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:10.040 Chelsea Handler show today. But a few gentlemen came along, 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.319 in particular in the United States that said, hey, why 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:15.440 don't we, like you said, open this up to the 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.240 middle class, make it for everyone, and make it where 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.280 families could come. Because they wanted to make money. I 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.240 don't think they're on a crusade to clean up America's act. 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.000 Is they wanted to get rich. No, but they were 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:33.960 the kind of strict um like I guess taskmasters that 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.560 that like, they had some really strange requirements as we'll see. 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.000 Well we'll get to that in a second. But um, 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.400 in addition to the variety shows, circuses were a thing. 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.480 I think they we've never done an actual circus episode, 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:50.080 have we. We've done a lot of the circus arts, 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:52.840 but I don't know that we've done a full like 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:58.400 circus apply. I think very us it's hilarious. So circuses 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.160 were kind of coming of age at the time. UM. 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:04.960 There were also side shows something called dime museums, which 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.560 is basically like a storefront um where people would pay 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.160 and just come look at some exhibits. And I saw 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:16.960 I found this amazing contemporary yes, reporting from the Saturday 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:22.240 Evening Post from June and it was basically UM an 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.520 article written by one of the big vaudeville producers at 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:29.000 the time, Percy G. Williams, and it was called Vaudeville 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.120 and the Vaudevillians, and he's talking about some of the 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:36.040 origins of vaudeville and he says that one of them 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:41.400 the three biggest people to establish vaudeville was Benjamin Franklin Keith, 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.280 and his first role as a manager was of a 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.080 store show that featured a fat baby as the main attractions. 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:53.320 Did that baby grow up to be? Is there a 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.800 great ending there? Then the baby grew up to be 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:02.080 DC Fields. Let's you should just say that everybody would 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.440 believe you? Sure, I know that's It wasn't as funny 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:09.520 because it was sobelievable. No, no, no, I love it. 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:12.400 So b F. Keith was one of the guys. A 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.280 guy named e F. Albie was another guy. They teamed 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:19.600 up um As Cohorts in Boston and opened up the 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:24.320 Bijou Theater and basically developed a and as you'll see, 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.280 kind of with vaudeville, it wasn't just like, hey, listen, 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:28.960 you know, we'll just do a show every now and then. 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.920 They developed these circuits in these systems, in these tours 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.080 and these basically management companies where they would just send 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:39.920 people out all over the country, and it really kind 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:44.600 of quickly became like a big, big business. Chuck asked 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:46.280 me again, who the fat baby grew up to be? He? 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:48.720 Is there a great ending like who that fat baby 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:56.320 grew up to be? Yeah? That fathe? Take three? Hey? 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.520 Yeah that who that fat baby? Take four? Hey, does 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:02.400 have a great inning here that that baby grow up 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:11.480 to be Tony Danza even better? Okay, that's Tony Dance 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.840 is a better punch line in almost every joke. Agreed, man. 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.640 And apparently Who's the Boss is having some sort of 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:22.880 reboot in I saw it on Entertainment tonight. So um 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.679 so it's true. So Tony Pastor was the guy who 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.760 supposedly coined the term vaudeville or adopted the term vaudeville 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.560 to describe this thing that was basically like those variety shows, 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:39.000 except no not body. Um there was no liquor on 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:43.120 the premises, which was a big one at the time. Um, 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.440 the skits and the performers were all family friendly. The 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:49.960 language was family friendly. It was like the kind of 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.600 thing that like the whole family, from the little kids 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:54.720 to the grandma and the parents could all go sit 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.480 down and enjoy this this show together. Right. Um. And 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.200 like I said, they had some really like strict requirements. 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:08.120 I saw BF Keith, Benjamin Franklin Keith particularly did not 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:13.520 like certain kinds of language. Um, he's he didn't like 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:17.160 it if you said slab okay, son of a gun, 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.560 holy g, which I think is maybe gali G. Yeah, 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:24.960 I don't get that one. That one's weird. And the 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:29.720 kuda gra chuck pants. Do not say pants around b F. Keith. 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.120 You better say trousers or else you're gonna get what 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.240 was referred to as a blue envelope. Right Yeah, and 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:41.200 here's where it gets, Um, the whole notion of blue comedy, 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.640 which is comedy that is got like foul language or whatever, 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.800 like if you're doing blue work or blue comedy. There 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.840 are a lot of different because you know, Dave said 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.200 in here, uh, and Dave didnt make this up, but 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:55.720 he saw that that may have been one of the 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:57.960 origins of some people think it's the origin of the 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:02.160 term working blue. We're doing blue comedy. And I looked 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.080 into it and there were there there are a lot 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.600 of different explanations. Um, I mean I saw like eight 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.240 or ten and they all sounded pretty realistic. Everything from 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:16.200 this one uh comedian named Max Miller who kept all 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.760 his adult jokes in a blue notebook. That's kind of 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:23.200 roundly been dismissed to In England after the Theater Act 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.240 of eighty three, they had to submit plays to the 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:30.880 Examiner of Plays like Capital the Capital p to audit 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.320 the scripts and then send them back and say you 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.960 can't get a permit with the script. And apparently they 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.280 would do that in blue pencil. That sounded really realistic. 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.160 But there were a bunch of different stories. But at 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.040 any rate, perhaps if you got a blue envelope from 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.400 Benjamin Franklin Keith that that could have been the origin 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:52.080 as well. Who knows. Yeah, because it meant like he 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:53.880 was sending you a note to say, like, you better 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.840 tone your act down or you're gonna get the boot. Basically, 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:00.160 that's right. And in addition to blue, a lot out 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:02.880 of the terms we used today came out of Vaudeville. 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:08.080 I saw um like killing them, killing them, not that 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:13.000 word I just made up, just killed on stage, Yes, exactly, headliner, 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:19.240 sure fire, lemon for like a bad thing, like a failure, um, 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.520 a bunch of different stuff that I had no idea of. 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.240 This just completely part of the common vernacular. Just came 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:30.400 out of the vaudeville world. It's the origins of origins 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:35.200 of popular entertainment. We're having a hard time today. I 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.040 don't know what's going on. I got marbles in my mouth. 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.160 I'm all excited about fall. Maybe just take a break, okay, 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:41.920 Oh yeah, let's do that, all right. I'm gonna get 0:16:41.920 --> 0:17:00.160 these marbles out and we'll be right back. Okay. So 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.360 this is something we've talked a lot about in various 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.040 episodes over the years. But um, pre Civil War and 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:10.119 post Civil War America were very different in how people lived. 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.560 Pre Civil War about nine of Americans lived in the country. 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:19.480 Um by the you know, mid eighteen eighties or so. Um, 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.119 the industrial the Second Industrial Revolution comes around all of 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.080 a sudden, it is almost flip flopped. It's about half 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.800 and half of people living in cities and people still 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:31.560 hanging out in the country. And in those cities there 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.240 are obviously a lot of immigrants coming in like really 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:38.240 really quickly, especially in places like New York obviously, and 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.919 they were you know, didn't make a lot of money, 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.720 but they worked really really long hours and had very 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.280 little free time. And all of a sudden, there was 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.080 this thing that you could do with your very little 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.160 free time that costs like a nickel or a dime, 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:55.560 and you could go in there for a few hours 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.959 and kind of forget the drudgery of living in a 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:03.000 tenement building and working in a factory. Yeah, and so like, 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:05.240 not only did it bring like the people from the 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.120 neighborhood around, because like one vaudeville theater owner might own 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:13.000 ten theaters in one city like New York, so that 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:14.960 they were they catered to the neighborhood, so you don't 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.560 have to go very far. Um. Dave also points out 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:22.199 that through some of like the the most cringe e 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:26.840 and outright racist ethnic jokes and slurs that were part 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.080 of the acts of some of these not all the acts, 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:31.120 but enough of them that it was definitely a thing 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:36.440 that it wasn't meant to be mean spirited, um, at 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.080 least not in the vaudeville world that had definitely been 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.480 means spirited before. UM. But say like if you were 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:46.200 poking fun at Chinese immigrants and how they talked, or um, 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.840 Irish immigrants and how they talked, um, it was a 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.359 form of assimilation in a weird way because those very 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.040 people were out there in the audience laughing along with 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:01.480 everybody else. Or sometimes, as we'll see, um, people of 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.000 that ethnicity may have been playing those you know, over 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:08.800 the top stereotype versions of their ethnicity and and in 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.000 a weird way it does. It is kind of how 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.159 people came together and initially melted together when America was 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:17.960 just beginning to be a melting pot. Yeah, was the 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.719 initial melt right. Um. So let's talk a little bit 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:24.399 about how these things went down, because there was a 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:28.800 very kind of great motto for vaudeville, which was, if 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.160 you don't like this, wait a few minutes and that's 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:37.240 how it went down. They were variety shows in every uh, 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.160 every essence of that word. Um. We've done a few 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:44.439 variety shows over the years, and I definitely enjoy our 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.480 stuff you should know live, which, by the way, look 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.879 for some announcements soon for early next year. Yeah, West Coast, 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:56.480 Hint Antonia. I definitely prefer those. But early on we 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:58.440 did a few variety shows where we would have like 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.200 some music and it can median and someone you were 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:06.639 reading and uh, you know the someone uh interpretive dance. 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:09.720 That's the one thing we liked. But those are always 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:11.240 a lot of fun because I think we both enjoyed 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:15.200 that spirit of the variety show. When you're a kid 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.360 of the seventies and eighties, those were still very much 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.560 a part of television growing up. Um, and they they're 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.520 they're the you can draw a direct line from what 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.520 you saw on you know, the Mandrell Sister Show or 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:31.200 he haw right back to vaudeville. Uh. And the whole 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:33.240 idea was, if you don't like it, wait a few minutes. 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:38.240 They would have you know, maybe ten fifteen minute, twenty 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.640 minute at the longest, the thirty minute act and then 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.760 somebody completely different would come out next. Yeah, and um, 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.239 Percy Williams kind of put it pretty plainly in that 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.920 Saturday Evening Post article that like a vaudeville theater manager 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.440 is entirely different from what he called the legitimate theater 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.520 manager um in that every week you were coming up 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:04.040 with a new you like show of ten twelve acts 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:06.879 that you had to arrange just the right way to 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.920 keep the audience entertained. You lull them into like complacency 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.680 with a beautiful like ballet act, and then after that, 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.080 like two acrobats who may or may not have been 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.320 brothers came bounding out onto the stage, and after that 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.359 there was a comedian who would just slay everybody. Um Like. 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.200 It was very much laid out in the way that 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:27.639 um that it was supposed to be, and it was 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.439 all all vaudeville shows were laid out in the exact 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:33.400 same way, but they're the different kinds of acts. Dave 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.639 dug up a handbook from nineteen fourteen called how to 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:42.480 Enter Vaudeville Your Favorites, Yes, proceed though I'm marked down 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.320 five six seven. All right, Uh, well, my first favorite 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:49.160 was the first one on the list, a shadow list, 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:52.399 because those are just fun those are people who I 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.080 guess do like the hand shadows and things, right, that 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:59.320 would be my take on it too, Yeah for sure. Yeah. Um. 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:01.919 My first him was a hobo act. And the reason 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.920 why the reason why I chose hobo acts because I 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:10.560 saw that, Um, Benjamin Franklin Keith's shows at his theaters. 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:12.520 Even if you're doing a hobo act, you still had 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.760 to wear a clean shirt. That's pretty funny. Yeah, You're like, no, 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.080 but this is my outfit and said sorry sorry. The 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:25.000 next on my list was the human Calculator act. Okay, 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:29.480 I'd like that too. Yeah. Um, I've got one electrical act, 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.280 which I mean we're talking like the beginning of the 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.919 twentieth century, so electricity was really strange and exotic, and 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.560 there were people who would have different acts. So, um, 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:45.399 I found this site called uh Vaudeville America, and every 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.040 single Vaudeville act that ever performed would have a little 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:51.600 note card with like a little summation about their show, 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:55.400 how it was received by the audience, how long it ran, um, 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:58.280 and Vaudeville America has all of these things, and I 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.560 found him for electrical act. It was all over the place, 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:05.000 like it could be electricity used to trigger special effects 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:09.240 or um it could be like a scientist demonstrating different 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:14.640 things with electricity, or sometimes people took massive electrical shocks 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:17.720 to the body to perform, like that was what they 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:20.679 did as part of their electrical show. So that was 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:22.919 definitely one of my favorites too. Yeah, I mean there 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.600 were definitely some sort of Jim Rose Circus adjacent things 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:30.119 like sword swallowing and stuff like that. Um, but my 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:39.000 favorite my last two our statuary posing and uh paper tearing. Yeah, 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:42.280 paper tearing. It was like I don't know about that one. 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:44.960 I mean it must be well, I don't know. I 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:46.960 was gonna say it must be like ripping phone books 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:49.840 in f but it might not have been. Maybe it 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:53.560 was tearing paper like a reverse or a gami or something. Yeah, 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:56.400 that's what I would take it as for sure. It's 0:23:56.400 --> 0:24:00.879 basically a vaudeville show. Was uh comp elation of stuff 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:04.280 that you would see today at halftime at NBA games. 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:08.000 You know, like there'd be a dude like balancing a 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:11.159 chair on his chin and on top of that or 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:13.159 eight other chairs and at the very top of that 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:16.119 is his wife. Like like that's the kind of stuff 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:18.000 that you would see at vaudeville, and then you'd also 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:20.920 see serious stuff too, Like there were tabloid plays where 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:25.600