WEBVTT - How License Plates Work 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:04.360 Do Do Do yay. You know what that means. Everyone. 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:07.160 It's been a while since you've heard it, But after 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:10.080 three long years, we're finally going to return to the 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:13.920 live stage, starting well, actually ending with Sketch Fest in 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.720 San Francisco in February three, and then on February one 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.400 and second. We haven't quite nailed it down, but it's 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:22.599 going to be Seattle in Portland. Uh, not sure of 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.079 the order, but we were gonna be putting all this 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.000 information out on our social media channels right yep. And 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:32.440 on Friday, October seven, tickets will be on sale for 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:36.160 all three shows, and you can watch our social media 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.680 handles for information and ticket links. How about that? That 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.280 sounds great. Can't wait to be back on stage. We 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:44.720 really really missed it, yea. And we'll see you guys 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:49.879 in February. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:58.560 of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.639 I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Harry's here too, providing 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:05.679 us with last minute facts and informations and tidbits. And 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.360 that makes this a banger of an episode of Stuff 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.720 You Should Not It's a banger? Is that how they say? 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:16.399 At the brutes. Yeah, is that your British accent? That 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:20.120 was that your John Klice by way of Chicago. M 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.800 Uh can I make a quick announcement? Sure, it just 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.000 occurred to me that I'm clean to announce us now 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.480 that I go into the recording studio of my basement 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:37.120 which is now full of my wife Emily's business. Oh yeah, okay, 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.280 because you've you've known this for a while, Jerry too. 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.600 But Emily shut down her business everybody. Uh and rather 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.959 than me trying to stumble through her thought process, uh, 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:51.280 she has here. She is now. Um, she has it 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.080 her full like statement on her website, I love your 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.640 Mama dot com and all the handwringing that went into it, 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.360 and uh, she had a twenty year run. It was 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:03.640 a great thing. And she's going to keep her website 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.680 going though, because she's gonna she's gonna still do like 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.640 she said, She's gonna make things from only from things 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:14.680 she can grow. So the business itself as a hey, 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.679 I gotta dominate the world because I'm ambitious type of thing. Yeah, 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.840 I'm an into pet woman of the es that has 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.480 gone away, But she's gonna still do probably some uh 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.919 face prays and things like that anything she can grow 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.360 from her own herb garden on a very small level, 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:38.079 very limited things she's got. It figured out that she's 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.519 not retiring anything, but um, just big thanks to every 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:42.679 She got a lot of support from the stuff you 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.520 should know Army over the years, both emotionally and by 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.360 buying things every time we mentioned her, so it really 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.760 meant a lot to her. Uh and she wanted me 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.440 to pass that along. That was very nice. And congratulations 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:57.959 to Emily on a twenty year run. That is rather 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:01.760 respectable for a small business, I think so, and we're 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.360 all proud of her. And now I'm the walls are 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.840 closing up here in the basement right so because she 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.400 couldn't get rid of everything, we have two storage spaces 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.880 in now our basement, so she'll be working on that 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:15.960 getting rid of that stuff for a while as well. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.040 I'll bet it smells amazing. At least it smells better 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.040 than it ever has down here, you know what. I'll 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.720 bet it smells better than chuck a dirty old license plate, 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:30.160 that's right, especially one that's a Sportsman's Paradise from Louisiana 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.120 that they got out of the stomach of a shark 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:36.200 and jaw right or asked man from New York City. 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:40.520 It's the ass man. You got that straight. So, by 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:43.000 the way, since you brought up Steinfeld, I went back 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:49.160 and started watching um uh Larry Sanders show on HBO. Great, 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:54.240 like maybe the greatest. Actually, like I'm rewatching, I'm like 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.280 this is this is even better than it was years ago. 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:02.360 And I've come to believe that Jerry Seinfeld is a 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:06.760 twee impression of Gary Shandling. Gary Shandling is the legit 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:13.560 o G and Seinfeld is just a aberration of him. 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.040 I think Seinfeld would certainly own up to being influenced 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:19.719 by Gary Schandling. He probably really punched me in the 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.960 stomach for calling him twee though. Uh No, he would 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.719 just say will you again? That's right, and I just 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.200 go home devastated. Now, great show, but I think ahead 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.559 of its time as well, Larry Sanders. Yeah, absolutely ahead 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:37.560 of its time for sure. It's definitely worth watching. If 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:39.760 you have HBO Max it's all over it and just 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:42.040 go watch it and thank me later, I guess, is 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:46.120 what I'm trying to say. Uh, and uh, sorry, let's 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:50.039 let me give it one more kudo. Uh, all respect 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:54.320 to thirty Rock, But Larry Sanders is easily the best 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.719 sort of behind the scenes of a TV show movie 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.320 set type of thing I've ever seen. Yeah, even better 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.640 than the Player because it was way funnier. Well yeah, 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.000 Player was great in some way though. Yeah, but it's 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:11.560 no Larry Sanders show correct. Um. So one more thing 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:15.120 while we're shouting out TV shows, UM, I also saw 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.159 both of them are in Netflix, um. And they're both 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.720 horror TV shows, and they are awesome. One is like 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:26.000 straight ahead scare you to death horror, Japanese horror. It's 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.839 ju on the origins, so you know, the The Grudge, 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.479 so it was Juan in Japan and this TV show 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:35.799 it's like an eight part series, I think maybe six. 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.200 It's like the origins that lead up to Juan, like 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:43.719 The Grudge. It's amazingly well done. It's perfectly tailored to 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.159 fit it just precisely, so well done. And then the 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.039 other one is called mary Anne, and it's a French 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:55.400 language which story um set in today's time, but it 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:57.960 deals with like a sixteenth century which I think, and 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.160 it's not quite as straight a head scary, but it's 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:05.480 really really good. Nonetheless, it's very engrossing. You guys watch 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.520 a lot of horror. Yeah, yeah, you MEI has to 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.240 just buy proxy. But yes, I watch a lot of horror. 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:13.440 I don't get too because Emily is not into it. 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.960 But we've been loving the Bear and of course I 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.320 shouted out a lot, but another shout out to Reservation 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:25.120 Dogs b J and the Bear O the Bear Chuck. No, 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.440 I haven't is the Oh wait, good, wait a minute 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.320 that the Chicago restaurant I tried, and I was like, 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.000 it's very stressful. No, it wasn't even that. It was 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.680 very boring. I thought, oh, that's interesting because it's like 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.760 the most adrenaline fueled show on TV. I know it's 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:42.960 really weird, but I was like, I could not be 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:45.640 more bored than I am right now. But I get 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.360 what you're saying. It was it was a weird juxtaposition 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.120 because I know I was supposed to be like feeling intense, 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.760 and I was just like, this is I don't like it, 0:06:54.160 --> 0:07:00.000 So say what, you've also done some heroin that probably 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:04.640 that couldn't stay awake. No, I definitely did not do 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.800 any heroine. It was just that show was extremely boring 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.080 to me. But again, I mean, if you like it. 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:11.920 That's great. I'm not trying to tell you not to. 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.520 I'm just that was take on it. So I'm glad 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:17.920 we ate up some time because Chuck, I I, this 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.920 is my pick license plates. And it turns out it's 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.720 a little more boring than I had anticipated. Like something 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.600 I do too, I do too, and there's some interesting 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:31.480 stuff in there. But something this sweeping, a global, worldwide 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:35.120 phenomenon that's been around for over a hundred years, you 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.160 would think there'd be a little more like crazy stuff, 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.560 you know, associated with it, and there's just not. I mean, 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.080 Ed helped us out with this, and he did, God 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.440 bless him, his best work, trying to find anything to 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:47.920 make this interesting and he finally did you know, and 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:50.600 we found some other stuff too. But it's just not 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.560 as engrossing as I thought. It's kind of like The Bear, 0:07:57.560 --> 0:07:59.720 that great show that is so funny too. I was 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:04.440 watching that the it's hysterical. Um, I disagree. I think 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:06.080 you're selling the short. I think I thought this was 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:10.040 really interesting considering it's a show about letters and numbers 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.200 on a piece of metal on the back of a car. Okay, 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.600 point made. And also I should say, um, this was 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:20.560 also a listener request a J and Tracy in Pittsburgh, Ish. 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.680 Tracy said they requested this one not too long ago, 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:25.920 a few weeks ago. And man, that's the kind of 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.920 turnaround time we have here at stuff. You should know. Yeah, 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:32.000 and we know it's them because their license plates says 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:37.800 PTS B R G I s H. That's pretty great, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.200 the great new show. You just did that off the 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.440 cuff too. Man, I'm impressed. Well, there's too many characters 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.480 in there, but everyone gets a joke. Okay, So what 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:50.000 country do you think invented the license plate? Chuck? Had 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.600 to be the United States, with the industry and automobiles, 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:54.960 you would think so, but no, As a matter of fact, 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:57.280 the French had us beat by a good decade, a 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.319 full decade, not that kind of rough decade. It could 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.640 be anywhere from like six to eight years, a ten 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.440 year stretch. The There was actually one guy who who 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:10.280 kind of originated him. He was the prefect of the 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.640 Paris Police Force. His name is Louis Limpin, and in 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.120 he said, Hey, we're starting to get more cars on 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:18.360 the road, and I think we need to kind of 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:20.440 regulate them a little better than we are, which is 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.720 to say we're not doing that at all. Yeah, So 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.400 they came up with all kinds of stuff plates, driver's test, 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.640 driver i D. Speed limits, stuff like that, and the US, 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.240 as we do, look to the French for all things. 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.440 And in I believe that New York was the first 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.000 US state to require a law and this was in 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.840 nineteen o one April that basically said, all right, here's 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:50.360 the deal. You need to put your initials on your 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.480 car somewhere. They need to be three inches tall, but 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.800 otherwise go wild. It's up to you how you want 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:58.720 to do this. If you want to make them out 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.640 of little garfields that no one will understand for many years, 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.880 you you do that. Uh. And the New Yorkers did it. 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.680 And I think that this sort of customization allowed for 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:14.280 some kind of creative New Yorkers to do different things, 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.640 everything from like would to leather and I'm sure all 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.200 kinds of crazy fonts. Sure, definitely, like a lot of 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.600 people just went to the hardware store and bought house numbers. Um. 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.000 Some people just painted them directly on their cars. And like, 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.760 the one one thing I saw is this is so early. 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.000 There's so few cars on the road that this was 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.679 not like a revenue generating move. They were actually using 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.080 it like you had to put your own initials on 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.840 the car, so that if you terrorized a horse or 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.600 drove drove up on the sidewalk, or did donuts in 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.360 the middle of Times Square, they would know who did that. 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.920 And that's the kind of like usage that cars were getting. 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:56.520 There were a lot of like jerks driving cars initially, um, 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.280 and that was the way to kind of rain their 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.480 behavior in. Yeah. And then the tenure mark like you 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.440 talked about in nineteen o three is basically at the 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.199 point when they said, all right, we gotta start issuing 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.880 these things because this initial we didn't really think out 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:14.320 this initial plan because people have the same initials. There's 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.040 a lot more cars, and we can't go around just 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:21.880 looking for every you know, g R. L in New 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.520 York to find out who was terrorizing the horse. Yeah, 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:30.200 Gary Larson. Wait, Gary Regis Larson. Well, it depends on 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:32.840 if you're doing a monogram. Okay, so it could be 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.760 Gary Larson. Read just I could have been correct. What's 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:38.320 the deal of that? Well, we should do a short 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.640 step on Monica. The idea but a great idea. Um. 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.360 So nineteen o three it was kind of like a 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:47.800 watershed year for license plates in the United States. And 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.240 also I realized, I'm sad to realize that it was 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.680 a rough decade from to nineteen o one. It wasn't 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.800 a full decade, but um, nineteen o three. That's why 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:58.199 I thought it was a full decade, because it was 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.840 just such a huge year where all these other states said, yeah, 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.959 we're going to get on board. First it was Philadelphia, 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.480 not a state, but it's in Pennsylvania, kind of near 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.559 Pittsburgh ish if you think about it. And they were 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.040 the first city to issue official license plates. Cleveland was 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.720 technically the first city in the whole country, even before 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.800 New York, to require license plates, but they didn't issue them. 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.559 Philadelphia was the first city to actually issue them in 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:29.080 the US. Right, And apparently Pennsylvania likes to say they 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.200 you know, that makes them the first state to do so, 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:35.640 technically correct, But the state of Massachusetts was the first 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.160 state to do a statewide program, uh, and not just 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:43.320 the city of Philadelphia. Um so, and this is kind 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.240 of the cool thing and put a pin in this 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:49.880 as for collectibles later on. But Massachusetts did the thing 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.200 that a lot of other states did was they started 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.160 at one, and they just started working their way up 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.600 and apparently the Highway Commission how a commission member named 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.720 Frederick Tutor got license plate number one and that they 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:07.320 still his his ancestors years later still have that number. Yeah, 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.200 and Frederick Tudor ties in with our transcendentalist episode because 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.960 his father was the ice King, the guy who harvested 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:18.400 ice on Walden Pond while they and shipped it all 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:23.240 over the world. So very strange, surprising tie in, Chuck, Um, 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:25.679 should we go over what we like to call our 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.840 bulleted list? I love them. They're so great that it's 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.400 just packed with information, no frills, you know, man, I 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:33.960 used to do a lot of those on the Old 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.480 House Stuff Works articles. I think Katie, my editor as 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:38.679 used to make fun of me because I used to 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.480 do bulleted list to get the point across, and like, 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.520 you can absorb them so easily. I love bulleted lists. Buddy, 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:46.280 you didn't do them a lot though you were into 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.199 the pros. Yeah. I'd like to hear myself talk, but 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.440 I respect a bulleted list. It is funny. Personality wise, 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.720 I'm definitely a bullet list personality guy. I made this 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:01.160 bulleted list. It's in my personality as well. I really 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:06.680 took paragraphs and broke them into so I'm bullet too. Okay, 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.200 I can hang out with the bullet people too. Did 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:14.360 you do the bullets his little movie slates? Or was 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:18.080 that some accident on my end? There was an accident 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.160 on your end, but a happy accident. Yeah. When I 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.960 printed this out instead of little round bullets, there a 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.600 little you know, movie clappers movie slate. Don't know how 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.360 I did that, but I'll try to recreate it. I 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.200 didn't know it was even possible anyway. Uh, what do 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.960 we got here? First hit the first one? Okay, So 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:39.320 the first slogan on license plate was Idaho potatoes, which 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:41.440 is pretty cool. I mean that would hang around for 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:45.640 a while. Um, but they actually embossed a brown potato 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.240 that took up most of the license plate and it 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:52.480 looked a lot like poop. And it didn't It didn't 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:54.320 stick around very long. I think that was just a 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:58.760 one year thing. Uh. Something that has stuck around is 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.680 the longest slogan Sreek in the United States, and it's 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.920 one of my favorite license plates because of this started 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.720 in nineteen thirty six in the Great State of uh mean, 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:12.280 in the Great State of Maine. Vacation Land also the 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:14.840 title of our friend John Hodgman's book, one of Them. 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.800 And it's been on Main's license plates since nineteen thirty 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.160 six every year since then. That's quite a streak. That's 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.400 far and away the longest streak. I think the next 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.200 longest is like nineteen and I can't remember which which 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:28.920 slogan it is. I just love that slogan. It just 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.400 sounds so welcoming vacation land. Yeah, and the fact that 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.440 it's like one word too, it's just prints. They like 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:36.560 nailed it right on the head, right out of the gate, 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:41.160 basically absolutely what else. Florida had a grapefruit. I used 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.320 to have a grape fruit on their plates starting in 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.000 nineteen thirty five, but it just took a year because 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:49.120 it looked like the sort of the cartoon bombs, the 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.840 little little black uh circle with the fuse coming out 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.160 of it and looks very much like a grapefruit now 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:56.720 that you think of it. Yeah, And that license plate 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.680 became known as the bomb license plate, So that was 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.000 long before the bomb meant something good, and they just 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.240 they took it out of circulation. And actually there's um 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.800 something that that wasn't an error like that was intentional, 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:11.640 but they didn't mean for it to look like a bomb. 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:15.800 There was a straight up controversial error that happened in 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.720 in Ohio where they issued the brand new license plate, 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.600 this beautiful license plate um and there's a banner being 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.320 pulled by the right Butt Brothers airplane. But after they 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:32.280 announced it and it printed thirty thousand of these things already, 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.040 some people pointed out on the internet, I think on Twitter, 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.560 that they had the airplane back backwards on the license plate. 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.880 You can tell it looks like a box kite. It does, 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.200 and it looks like the way that they had it originally. 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.080 You can understand how they got it like that, but 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.240 they just didn't check their work. And then North Carolina, 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:52.560 you know, North Carolina and Ohio have been going back 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:56.280 and forth about which place actually was the birthplace of aviation. 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.200 They went on Twitter and they said, y'all leave Ohio owned. 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.520 They wouldn't know because they weren't there. Yeah, it was 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.840 pretty pretty good burn actually, but that was very recent controversy. 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.960 One of the most interesting things about license plates the 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:17.800 first vanity plates Great State of Pennsylvania once again. Yeah, 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:22.679 what else I think in fifty seven they standardized the 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:27.760 size nationwide, which is six, but twelve unless you were 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.760 riding a motor scooter or a motorbike. And those are 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.240 those are the cutest plates of all. I love those things. Yeah, 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.400 and those aren't standardized. Apparently they're just supposed to be smaller. 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.199 I guess, yeah, like something that doesn't look dumb on 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.520 the back of a motors right, not oversized, you know, 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.840 you wanted to be proportionate. UM In the nineteen seventy 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.200 one was a big year too, because that was when 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:52.760 three M started supplying reflective sheeting to UM license plates. 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.040 Like in leading up to that time, at night, you 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.880 were pretty much s O L. But now you could 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.199 shine some headlights on these newfangled license plates and they 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:04.480 would just glow right back at you and you could 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.360 see who was driving recklessly in front of you, right, UM. 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:09.480 And that actually is going to be kind of controversial, 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.679 as we'll see in the coming years starting after nineteen 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.919 seventy one. But I say we take an break and 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:18.879 we'll get back to all that right after it. How 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:23.200 about that It sounds great. Well, now we're on the road, 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.520 driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:30.520 two from Josh can chuck it stuff you should know, 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:45.520 all right, So, Chuck, if you look at all of 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.680 the license plates in the United States, they the fonts 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:50.879 that are actually like the string of numbers or if 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.399 it's vanity plate, like the actual like word or abbreviation whatever, 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:59.880 those look remarkably similar across the United States. But they're 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.560 not quite the same. I saw somewhere that there's like 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.040 four different characterizations or four different types, and they're they're 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:11.480 characterized by just little changes, like the edges are squared 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:15.440 around it, that kind of thing. But they're remarkably similar. 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.600 And supposedly there's the reason for that is there's one 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.080 company in the US that's supplied all of the dies 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:26.760 for the embossing for many many years, Yes, the John R. 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.200 Wald Company. And uh Ed points out that he got 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:32.520 a lot of ins information from a couple of a 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:36.560 few different websites of license plate collectors. And you know, 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:41.119 usually we pride ourselves on like super legit sources, and 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.480 it's not to say these aren't, but for an episode 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.840 like this, you know, this about as legit as you 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.520 can get. But he does point out that these collectors 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:54.600 are really really serious people about their collecting so it's 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:57.520 probably more verifiable than just about anything that we ever 0:19:57.520 --> 0:19:59.240 look up, you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure, 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.040 UM I agree, because there is a lot there's a 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.520 real dearth of information out There's like a list of 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.480 ten interesting facts about license plates in there, and that's 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.199 copied and pasted everywhere all over the internet basically. But 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:17.160 um ed did turn up something really interesting about European plates, right, Yeah, 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:19.119 and it sort of to back up this story, we 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:24.040 should talk briefly about its uh predecessor in Chicago. When 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:26.760 they started making plates in Chicago early on, they realized 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.680 pretty quickly that people could fake their license tags, so 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:35.160 they started making UM they started issuing numbers to people, 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:37.560 like just the metal numbers they had to mount on 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:41.400 their own because they were making these metal numbers, uh 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:44.360 basically in a in a way that was unique enough 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:46.879 to where they were like you couldn't pick it up 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:50.000 at your local hardware store, uh, so you could spot 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.520 the fakes. And this came back later in Europe in 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:57.359 the nineteen seventies in Germany when a left wing radical 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.000 group called the Red Army Faction was um doing car 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.399 bombings and kidnappings and bank robberies and all kinds of 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.560 bad things, and they were using fake you know, they 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.920 were faking their license plates. Uh, those cool, cool European 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:16.400 license plates that are shorter and longer and just as 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.119 James bondy as you can imagine. Yeah, because when they 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.840 flip up, there's a machine gun behind them or in 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.000 oils like. Um. It's funny because I think a lot 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.120 of Americans think European plates look super cool, and I've 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.520 talked to some Europeans that think American plates look cool 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:35.280 with the graphics and stuff. So maybe it's just a 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.679 grassy screener thing, but I think those europan plates are awesome. 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.040 I'm all about the American plates, I have to admit. Okay. 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.399 So anyway, they were faking these license plates getting away 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.400 with it, and they realized that the font that they 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:53.000 were using d I N fourteen fifty one was really uniform, 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.320 and it was you know, I mean, like a lot 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:58.639 of fonts, if you take the leg off of an R, 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:01.080 you've got a pe. But this was sort of that 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:03.720 to the extreme where it was really easy just to 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.880 sort of remove certain strokes to come up with other 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:09.359 letters and still have the plate look believable. Yeah, you 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:11.800 could just put like black or white electrical tape over it. 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.640 And the problem was Germany did use that same font 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.280 d I n. Fourteen fifty one throughout the entire country, 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.120 and so um the Red Army faction had the whole 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.040 country so nervous and scared that the government was like, 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:25.560 we need to come up with a new font for 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:30.040 our license plates. And they set a calligrapher and design 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:34.720 professor named Carl George one word hoofer, and he created 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:38.520