0:00

This episode is brought to you by square Space.

0:02

Start building your website today at square

0:04

space dot com. Enter our offer

0:07

code stuff at check out to

0:09

get ten percent off square Space. Build

0:11

it beautiful. Welcome

0:13

to you Stuff you should know from

0:15

House Stuff Works dot com.

0:23

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

0:25

Josh Clark. This shout out up you, Chuck,

0:27

Priyan, Jerry, and

0:30

this is stuff you should know. You introd

0:32

as if you were asleep and I just walked

0:35

by and poked you with a bold cube and

0:38

that's your first thing you do is you wake up and just go, hey,

0:40

welcome to the podcast. How

0:44

are you, sir man. I'm feeling fine,

0:47

Yeah, good, feeling

0:50

fine. That's a Simpsons reference from

0:52

what the Shining One? Oh yeah,

0:54

the Shooting Classic.

0:58

It's a good one. Um. So

1:01

a couple of quick matters of business, a

1:04

little c o A. At the beginning, we're

1:06

talking about freak shows, and

1:09

we will be saying freaks and

1:11

things like that. That is obviously

1:13

an antiquated term,

1:16

um, but a lot of there are a lot of quotes

1:18

in here and a lot of references to uh,

1:21

freaks and midgets and pin heads

1:23

and all these awful terms that

1:25

they used to call these people that had, you know,

1:28

physical deformities and maladies. Um,

1:31

so it's not us speaking. This is

1:33

a historic in historical context,

1:36

Like we get the insensitivity. Yeah,

1:39

it's not. We're not We're not being insensitive.

1:41

Here's uh and we want to shout

1:43

out if you. We used a couple of house Stoff how

1:46

stuff it works, How stuff Works articles,

1:49

as well as one from History Magazine by Laura

1:51

Grande Priceonomics

1:54

Zachary Crockett wrote one and who I have

1:56

to say, I'm a fan of that dude's work. Yeah,

1:58

it was a good artic prisonomics these and some really

2:00

interesting articles, agreed. And

2:03

then one from human Marvels dot

2:05

com, which is just a good website by

2:08

j tithonus now

2:13

announced right p

2:15

E D in a U D. Yeah

2:18

that's a tough one. Now, yeah, I assume the

2:20

D is silent or maybe

2:22

not. Maybe it's ped now pay

2:25

node node

2:28

huh freaky and a couple of other

2:30

places we visited. So and everyone

2:33

kind of says the same thing. But it's a nice, well rounded

2:36

thing. I think, Yeah, well they I mean,

2:38

we're talking about the history of freak shows and there's

2:40

only you know, one history. Yeah,

2:43

certain things happen, and we found

2:45

we found very quickly that like you can't

2:47

extract um freak

2:49

shows from P. T. Barnum or vice

2:52

versa. No, like they they they

2:54

are inextricably bound. But

2:56

freak shows, um, you know Barnum was working

2:58

in the nineteenth century. But the concept

3:01

of freak shows, which um is

3:03

basically someone who

3:05

is a human curiosity,

3:07

and that could be someone who was born with

3:09

a genetic deformity, of physical

3:12

deformity um, some sort

3:14

of mental incapacity um,

3:17

or some people have

3:19

turned themselves into human curiosity, say

3:22

through the wonder of tattooing

3:24

or um learning to

3:26

swallow swords or something like yeah, or like these

3:28

days body modification like

3:31

the gym Rose show or there's one in

3:33

Coney Island still that does a like

3:36

a traditional show. Yeah, side

3:38

show by the Seashore also

3:40

a great song by Luna Nice,

3:43

one of my favorite bands. Um.

3:46

So, the the whole concept of this of having

3:48

a human curiosity and um

3:51

basically charging gawkers to look

3:53

at it, it dates back

3:55

quite a way, is um. Well,

3:57

actually not that far the sixteenth century.

4:00

That's pretty far, I guess so. But you would think

4:02

like, well, the Greeks or the Romans did this,

4:04

but apparently no everybody was fairly

4:08

Um, from what I understand,

4:10

everybody just kind of steered clear of human

4:12

curiosities to that point.

4:14

Yeah, I think people feared them, right. They

4:16

were locked away mainly because they thought

4:19

it was some evil curse or punishment

4:21

from God. And this wasn't someone you wanted to

4:23

consort with. Else you might bring

4:25

back, bring down the wrath of God upon yourself.

4:28

That's right. But like you said, in the late fifteen,

4:30

hundreds of people started to say, you know what I'm

4:32

curious about, um,

4:35

someone with hair growing all over their face. I'm

4:37

curious about the human curiosity exactly.

4:40

And I know I don't Chuck, I want to say, I don't

4:42

think it's coincidence that about this time,

4:44

science was starting to spread

4:47

throughout Europe. So the idea

4:49

that um, this was God's breath was

4:51

was taking a bit of a back seat to uh,

4:54

this is a human condition of

4:56

some sort, yes, but not so far

4:59

down the road of science, to where there

5:01

was this intermediate period where they were got Dad,

5:04

And as we'll find out later, science would eventually

5:06

take part in ending the sideshows

5:08

right created them and it ended them. Yeah,

5:11

it's kind of neat good way to look at it. Uh

5:13

so one of the first UM viewings

5:16

or one of the first people put on display

5:19

and you know this is also going to be well,

5:22

we'll get into it later, but the morality of

5:24

this is very up and down with

5:27

exploiting people and these

5:29

people that would normally be locked away actually having

5:31

super lucrative careers long

5:34

lasting made them rich well. Plus

5:36

also, UM, I think one of the

5:38

authors, I think it was Crockett points out that,

5:40

UM, there

5:42

early on, if you were in a freak

5:45

show, there was a good chance that

5:47

um, you had been abandoned by your parents,

5:50

became a ward of the state and adopted

5:52

by somebody who just ruthlessly exploited

5:55

you and maybe barely took care of you.

5:57

But one thing you can definitely

5:59

say to his credit, as Barnum came into

6:01

it and basically normalized

6:04

or created an industry out of freak

6:06

shows or four freak shows, UM,

6:08

conditions definitely changed and the exploitation

6:11

seems to have less in some way.

6:14

Yeah. I think that with the big names like

6:16

Norman and Barnum, I

6:18

think they were all manner of minor

6:21

side shows that probably didn't treat them as well.

6:24

Uh, And usually Barnum and

6:26

Norman bought their curiosities

6:28

from those minor side shows, lesser

6:30

show exactly. So we're tking about Tom

6:32

Norman out of England. Yeah, they were basically

6:35

counterparts. Yeah, and what we'll

6:37

get into them back to one of the

6:39

earliest um quote unquote

6:41

freaks was a man named Lazarus

6:44

Colorado not Colorado, who

6:47

was a conjoined twin. He had a brother, Johannes,

6:50

who was upside down on his chest and

6:53

technically it was a parasitic twin to

6:56

Lazarus. Oh, not conjoined

6:58

twins. They were conjoined. But

7:00

Johannes like didn't eat, okay,

7:03

he um he could, He didn't speak,

7:05

he never opened his eyes, and apparently the only

7:08

way you could get a physical reaction out of him was

7:10

if you rubbed his chest. That would make him squirm

7:12

like quaide and total recall very much

7:14

got you. So. Uh.

7:16

He went on tour, performed before King

7:19

Charles the First in the early sixteen

7:21

forties. But it

7:23

was not a big deal. It wasn't

7:25

a super lucrative. Side

7:27

shows weren't really a thing at that point. No, but

7:30

this guy was saying, Uh, you guys

7:32

are gonna ostracize me. Well, I'm

7:34

going to charge you to look at me then, and

7:36

I'm going to support myself and my brother doing

7:38

this. Yeah, he did it himself. It's

7:41

not clear whether he worked with a manager or not or

7:43

a promoter, but he definitely um

7:46

made his own choice to go do this, Yes,

7:48

exactly. And he was apparently an otherwise handsome

7:51

man. That's how everyone described

7:53

him, which I think probably for

7:55

the court Um or Europe

7:57

who who came and looked at him, uh,

8:00

probably just made it even more mind boggling,

8:02

you know. But he's a good guy right right,

8:04

you know. Uh, P T. Barnum

8:07

and I think we should do in a whole podcast

8:09

on PT Barnam at some point to really

8:11

close out the circus suite. Well, then we shouldn't

8:13

mention him again in the show. No

8:17

Barnum as as a teenager,

8:20

Uh, he always had a penchant for making money.

8:23

He was one of those magnets sort of weird ways.

8:26

Uh. He ran his own lottery as

8:28

a teenager um in Connecticut

8:30

and he said, here's what I'll do. I can just sell these

8:32

tickets. I'll give out prizes

8:37

in varying levels from

8:40

dollars on down to like CS

8:43

and U yeah

8:45

and um. But it was very well thought

8:47

out for a teenager. He wasn't just like just one prize.

8:50

He spread it out so he would entice people

8:53

to play more. Uh. And he actually

8:55

made a lot of money from it until they outlawed

8:57

the lottery. He was making like eleven grand

9:00

in today's dollars a week as a teenager.

9:02

Yeah, nineteen not bad. But

9:05

then Connecticut and the rest of the country said no more

9:07

lotteries for now. Um, we'll

9:09

bring that back up later though, don't you worry,

9:11

TB C and Um.

9:15

He had to find other ways

9:17

to make work, moved to New York City

9:19

and in eighteen thirty five, UM,

9:22

he had You know, England is where a lot of this started.

9:24

We'll talk about Norman in a second, but he

9:26

got his queue from England, said here's what I'm gonna

9:28

do. I'm gonna buy a person. I'm

9:30

gonna buy my first freak uh,

9:33

this blind paralyzed slave

9:35

woman. And this is a hallmark of

9:37

freak shows, as I'm gonna make up a story about

9:39

her that's sensational and crazy,

9:42

like a Ripley's believe it or not kind of thing, right,

9:44

and Embarnum in particular was well

9:47

known for just taking these things to the

9:49

nth degree, like, sure, no one's gonna

9:51

buy that, but he could sell

9:53

it in such a way that people believed

9:56

it because they were exponentially

9:58

dumber back then. Uh.

10:01

He the story for her was that she was a hundred and

10:03

sixty years old, was George

10:05

Washington's nurse. Uh and

10:07

you can pay to see her, when in fact she was

10:09

only eighty years old. She was

10:11

half that age. Yeah, and

10:14

her name was Joyce Heath,

10:16

and she was just an old lady right. Yeah, she was

10:18

an old slave woman who was paralyzed and blind

10:21

and was being exploited by p. T. Barnum

10:23

in the year before her death. So

10:26

she dies um, but before then, like

10:29

as he's touting her as this

10:31

hundred and six year old former nurse

10:34

made to George Washington. Um, that

10:36

gets an initial reaction and then ticket sales

10:38

drop, and then PiZZ Barnum did something quite

10:40

smart. He wrote an anonymous

10:43

letter to a Boston newspaper and

10:45

accused himself of

10:47

being a fraud and saying that

10:50

the the hundred and sixty year old

10:52

woman was a fake that she was

10:54

actually a machine,

10:56

a robot made of whale skin

10:59

and it and ticket

11:01

sales went right through the roof again. Man,

11:03

what a guy. There should be a good movie

11:06

about him. I can't believe there's

11:08

not, like a modern one. I'm sure there is,

11:10

you know, surely, like the what's

11:12

the one? The Greatest Show on Earth was a movie? Right,

11:15

and Griffith movie or something.

11:17

Yeah, that's what I mean. But like Tom

11:19

Cruise should play him, yeah,

11:21

and should be directed by Michael Bay Russell

11:24

Crowe should No, not Russell Crowe. Well,

11:26

how about who

11:28

could play p. T. Barnum? You know who

11:31

who? He would be good at it, but it'd just be

11:33

so him. Sam Rockwell, oh

11:36

totally, he could play anything. So I'd

11:38

rather see somebody even broader playing

11:40

him. Yeah, I heard research

11:45

look ahead, Gina. Who would end up playing him

11:47

is freaking Hugh Jackman.

11:50

And yeah, yeah,

11:53

because he can do cartwheels. Yeah, what

11:55

were you gonna say? Somebody?

11:58

It might have been during the Bill Gates interview, were something

12:00

yesterday that somebody said that no,

12:03

it was unseen it. Tom Hanks is the most

12:05

trusted person in America.

12:08

Like for some poll found that like the most

12:10

trusted person in America is Tom Hanks.

12:12

Were we on the list? I don't think so. Sure

12:16

you got it dressed on. We're not even Also rans

12:18

were never rans? Alright.

12:21

So he

12:23

purchased that woman what was her name, joyce

12:26

heth j O I C E

12:28

H E T H for a thousand

12:30

dollars and he made about that every

12:32

week, um from exploiting

12:35

her. I imagined that she got very

12:37

little of that. Yeah, although you

12:39

can't necessarily say that I didn't see

12:42

what she was paid, she

12:44

was very likely paid. And

12:46

I'm she was probably fairly well taken

12:49

care of, especially considering

12:51

um that she probably just

12:54

And this is based on how Barnum treated other

12:56

people later in a documented

12:58

manner. But um he

13:02

I don't want to say he rescued her from slavery

13:04

because she went from being a slave

13:06

to being owned by somebody who exhibited

13:08

her. Um. But it's

13:12

not a guarantee or a given that

13:14

her situation got worse after she

13:17

she was purchased by Barnum.

13:20

Right, does that make sense? Man?

13:22

That felt like a minefield? I was talking

13:24

about slavery, human exploitation.

13:27

A blind woman who was also paralyzed.

13:30

Good, good, luck sir um

13:33

his first big hoax after that or uh,

13:35

well, actually I guess it wasn't a hoax aside from the made

13:37

up story. But um, he had a real hoax.

13:39

That was a hoax. Well I hope sure,

13:42

um, but this was a hoax in two

13:45

because it was nothing about it was real. He

13:48

was promoting something called the Fiji Mermaid,

13:51

which was basically rogue taxidermy

13:53

as all it was. That's exactly what it was. It was

13:55

a creature with a head of a monkey and the

13:57

tail of a fish that he bought from

14:00

Japanese sailors. Well he didn't. He

14:02

got it from a sailor who bought it from right,

14:04

and actually it was Japanese fisherman. Yeah,

14:07

and he well, what's the difference. Well, they're like traditional

14:09

they didn't necessarily go to see they

14:11

were like islanders and this

14:13

is like traditional art for them,

14:15

folk art. So

14:17

not a sailor but fisherman. Right,

14:20

that's that entry one oh one. Sorry

14:23

it's so fixated on things. Yeah.

14:26

Uh. And he leased it um

14:29

for twelve fifty a week twelve

14:31

dollars and fifty cents um

14:33

from from the owners have

14:35

said rogue taxidermy and he tried,

14:37

he purnt up pamphlets and tried to convince everyone

14:40

it was some real thing. So he he

14:42

actually had a um A partner

14:45

named Levi what was Levi's

14:47

name? He's definitely an overlooked

14:49

guy, Levi Lyman. Can

14:51

you imagine like being P. T. Barnum's

14:54

partner, Like you'd never be in the spotlight

14:57

a right, So Levi Lyman posed as

14:59

a English doctor, a scientist

15:01

who was in possession of this mermaid,

15:04

and UM P. T. Barnum

15:07

very publicly was trying to get his hands

15:09

on the mermaid, and this guy was very publicly resisting

15:12

him because there was a man of science and this was the real

15:14

deal. And it helps just convince

15:16

everybody, including the newspapers, that like this

15:18

is the genuine article, just Rubes

15:22

Nation, a world of Rubes. It

15:24

seems like he ended up opening

15:26

up a museum on Broadway in New York

15:28

City, UM, eighteen forties, you

15:31

know, sort of you know, like a Ripley's Believe it or not

15:33

kind of thing. Curiosities and weird things. Yeah,

15:36

that's those his stock in trade. Uh.

15:39

And then we should talk about his counterpart

15:41

in England, UM Tom

15:44

Norman. Yeah, Tommy Norman, Tommy

15:46

Norman. Uh. He was

15:49

named the Silver King and Barnum actually gave him that name

15:51

apparently after meeting him,

15:53

and he said, boy, what a huge silver

15:55

showy silver watch you have there. You're

15:58

the Silver King. He goes, I am the Sill King.

16:00

I've been waiting my whole life for somebody to notice

16:03

exactly. So he was doing the same thing in England.

16:07

Uh. And he he actually um,

16:09

he toured with Joseph Merrick the

16:11

Elephant Man. Yeah, and

16:13

he got um castigated

16:15

by a lot of people saying, you're exploiting this guy

16:17

John Merrick and h is it John

16:20

or Joseph? What I say John? Yeah?

16:22

And it's like an ongoing thing. Oh

16:24

is it yeah, I can't remember if it's

16:26

well, let's find out. No, it's Joseph

16:28

for sure. Had just misspoke. Um.

16:31

He was attacked in specifically in a memoir

16:34

by Dr Frederick Treeves uh

16:37

called The Elephant Man and other Reminiscences.

16:41

Uh. And he shot back and he said, you know what, I

16:43

haven't mistreated Merrick, haven't abused him.

16:45

Uh. He wasn't forced to do anything. And

16:48

he said, in fact, the big majority of showmen are

16:50

in the habit of treating their novelties as human beings

16:53

and in a large number of cases as one of

16:55

their own, not like beasts. Right.

16:58

So uh, you know, the morality

17:00

battle was being waged even back then. Yeah.

17:03

And I mean if you you think about

17:05

um, this time when

17:08

people would go look

17:10

at people who had physical deformities and

17:12

pay for it and just

17:14

look at him just standing there, you think, well,

17:16

the whole world was pretty evil and a moral

17:19

at the time not necessarily true. There's

17:22

a, um, a lot

17:24

of people who railed against this stuff, like Frederick

17:26

Treeve's who was um. He was portrayed

17:29

by Anthony Hopkins, right, isn't

17:31

that him? Yeah?

17:33

He was in The Elephant Man the movie? Was

17:35

he actually Marrick's doctor? Dn't

17:38

yeh man? That movie? Yeah?

17:40

David Lynch god one of the best ever. Um.

17:43

And then there was an historian who

17:46

at the time, I think in like the eighteen sixties

17:48

he wrote. His name was Henry Mayhew

17:51

and in eighteen sixty when he was British, he

17:53

wrote that that these freak

17:55

shows were nothing more than human degradation.

17:58

And he said something that stuck out to meet Chuck. He

18:01

said that the men who preside over these infamous

18:03

places, know too well the failings of

18:05

their audience. And I think he really hit

18:08

the nail on the head by he

18:10

wasn't accusing the showman because I

18:12

think he understood that most

18:14

of these people were just under contract,

18:17

and he wasn't accusing the

18:19

people, the actual human curiosities,

18:22

the freaks themselves. He was rightly

18:24

placing the blame for all this on

18:26

the observers, the gawkers. Like if

18:28

there wasn't a market for it, they wouldn't be doing it. Yeah,

18:31

Like you're the one who is having the

18:33

moral failing. Who's paying to go see this

18:35

person who may or may not be exploited

18:38

you don't know, And uh,

18:40

it's really on you audience. Yeah,

18:43

it's pretty Uh it's a lot of foresight for back

18:45

then, I thought so too. So it's not like the point

18:47

was. It's not like everybody

18:49

was just going along with this. People have had a

18:51

problem with it basically the whole time freak

18:53

shows were around. All right,

18:56

well, let's take a break and we'll talk a little bit more about

18:58

um, the evolution of the side

19:00

show. Right after this, we're

19:29

back. I

19:32

brought my pencil. What's

19:34

up? Oh right, on man.

19:38

I didn't get that at first, do you. I'm

19:40

impressed that you did get it nice.

19:44

Uh. That was from Van Halen's

19:46

popular song Hot for Teacher from

19:50

and we are now nineteen eighties DJs.

19:54

Uh. So the side shows became a

19:56

legitimate thing, a big way to make money.

19:58

There were different kinds. Um. There was one

20:00

called a tin in one show, which I believed

20:03

the sides side show by the sea shore is today

20:07

you did it through my missing tooth. Uh.

20:09

And that is when you have ten people on

20:12

display on a platform at

20:14

once and people just walk by and look at

20:16

them. It's not like a performance. It's

20:18

just there's a bearded lady, there's the dog faced

20:21

boy, there's the tattooed man, and

20:23

they're all of the standing there. That's a tin

20:25

and one. Uh.

20:28

They had things, and this was all

20:30

too to drum up more money.

20:32

They would advertise something as an adults

20:35

only or a man only even performance.

20:37

Right. Well, the men only performance frequently

20:40

had a stripper you know,

20:42

yeah, um, or stuff

20:45

that they thought that we're just like a

20:47

woman shouldn't see or children shouldn't

20:50

see. I don't know if it was as much of that as if it

20:52

was to just trump up like, oh my god, it's so

20:54

bad that a woman can't see

20:56

lay her eyes upon it. Um,

20:58

I think it's all part of the show. Uh,

21:01

that's my feeling. At least. One of

21:03

the things that they displayed were something called a pickled

21:05

punk, which is awful,

21:09

especially when you find out what it is. Yeah,

21:11

it's basically a

21:14

an abnormal fetus in a

21:16

formalbe hyde in a jar. And

21:18

you could go by and look at pickled punks

21:21

and gawk at them for money. It's

21:23

it's awful. Yeah, this is what people

21:25

did, like on Saturday night in

21:28

Kansas. So um, the

21:30

the usually this this side shows

21:32

of the freak shows. At first, they

21:34

were you would

21:36

be some enterprising entrepreneur

21:39

in some small town and

21:42

you would notice that a little youngster had

21:44

um a third leg,

21:47

okay, and you your thought was,

21:50

I can really make some money with this kid. So you

21:52

go to their parents and you'd say, I will

21:54

give you of all

21:57

of the earnings of your child if you let

21:59

me take him on the road, and he will stay in the finest

22:01

hotels and we're the best clothes as

22:05

exactly, and uh, the

22:07

he will become famous in the world, will love him,

22:09

h, just let me handle it. I'm going to be as manager

22:12

from now on. And the parents would

22:14

very frequently, especially if they were poor, would

22:16

say, that's great. Do that

22:19

give me some money upfront though, by the way,

22:21

yeah, especially because a lot of times some of

22:23

these people were a burden on their family because

22:26

of their health condition, so they were

22:28

happy to be rid of them. That's all very sad,

22:30

okay. So that's how that's how

22:32

it definitely started out. And then and it went

22:34

on like that um for a very

22:36

long time as well. But once borne

22:38

him and not a Norman and some of the other

22:41

guys, the big guys came around,

22:43

they would just basically keep an eye out for that

22:45

kind of thing, or they would be approached by

22:47

these guys who would essentially be middleman kind

22:50

of like um, somebody who discovered

22:52

a boy band selling their contract

22:54

to a bigger record company.

22:56

But this was with human curiosity, people

22:59

with the third lagger, hyper trichosis

23:01

or what have you. UM. And then Barnum

23:04

would take him and would would just take

23:06

whatever exaggerated origin story that

23:08

they came with and just throw it out and

23:10

come up with one ten times more uh.

23:13

And after his uh

23:16

George Washington's nurse made Joyce heth

23:18

died, who was not George Washington's right.

23:21

He started looking around for his

23:23

next collaborator, if you could

23:25

call him that, um, and he found

23:27

out that he had a distant cousin, a fifth cousin

23:30

UM named Charles Stratton, who had

23:32

stopped growing when he

23:34

was about two years

23:36

old. Yeah. He he never

23:39

completely stopped. He grew very

23:41

slowly. He made it to like just

23:43

over three feet I think by the time his death. Yeah.

23:45

He died at forty five of a stroke and he was three

23:47

point three five ft tall. Um,

23:52

but grew so slowly. I mean you know he

23:54

was He was General Tom Thumb,

23:56

very famously renamed General

23:59

Tom Thumb by his half

24:01

fifth twice removed cousin. Uh

24:04

pt what does that stand for? Even Paul

24:07

Thomas Anderson bon uh

24:11

So he said, you know what this is great. Um,

24:14

you were a small person and you're

24:17

cute as the dickens, So let me dress

24:19

you up in little adult suits

24:21

and you're my new sidekick. Yeah

24:24

that he He collaborated with the

24:26

kid's dad and said, let's, um, let's

24:28

make some money. Uh and he um

24:31

he taught him how to sing and dance,

24:33

pretend he was Napoleon, He did impressions

24:36

Cupid, he played Cupid sometimes,

24:38

and then he told everybody that this little five year

24:40

old kid was actually eleven, which made

24:42

it all the more astounding that he was that small,

24:45

which he didn't even need to do, you know.

24:47

And then for about the next like fifteen or

24:49

so years, Um turned Tom Thumb

24:51

into what was essentially

24:54

the first international celebrity.

24:57

Oh was he the first international celebrity? Pretty much?

25:00

Tom Thumb was a sensation.

25:03

Queen Victoria was a huge fan, met

25:06

met with him twice to at least

25:08

twice um. She apparently was

25:10

really big into side shows, but Tom Thumb

25:13

was her favorite. Um

25:15

and he. They made so much

25:17

money off of their first European tour that

25:19

um Barnum bought his museum

25:22

with the proceeds. Is there anything

25:24

grosser than the Queen of England laughing

25:28

at a small person imitating Napoleon

25:31

for money. She may have even

25:33

known Napoleon at the time, Oh, I'm sure

25:36

she. That probably made it all the funnier to her.

25:40

Unbelievable. So, but he

25:42

was. He was a rich dude. He

25:44

was paid uh in today's dollars

25:47

Tom Thumb. Oh yeah, over four thousand

25:49

dollars a week and retired

25:52

and lived the high life in New York City. Um.

25:55

And you know he didn't feel like

25:58

he was exploited. No, he he actually

26:00

got married. I saw that he had children, but I could I only

26:02

saw that one place. I didn't see it anywhere else. But

26:04

he he was married and actually, um,

26:06

right after the marriage was brought

26:09

to the White House to hang out with Abraham

26:12

Lincoln and Mrs Lincoln. Yeah, he had twenty people

26:14

at his funeral. He he was again,

26:17

he was a very big deal. And from what

26:19

I understand, at the end of the day, he shed

26:22

his persona. He was just Charles Stratton,

26:24

uber wealthy, uh, some little

26:27

person um. And when

26:29

he was doing his show, he was Tom

26:32

Thumb who would dress up as Napoleon

26:34

or whatever and take your money.

26:37

But um, he he and P. T. Barnum

26:39

together really made a ton of cash.

26:41

Tom Thumb was a little better at managing

26:43

his cash than Barnum was, because Barnum

26:46

fell in hard times. A lot of people don't

26:48

realize this, but he made some actually really bad

26:50

investments over over time

26:52

too. Yeah, he invested a lot of his money initially

26:55

back into his business, which was smart, right, and

26:57

but a lot of times he would be like this is gonna be a

27:00

hit and it wouldn't be a hit. He didn't

27:02

have the Midas touch necessarily, and he fell

27:04

on hard times more than once. One of the

27:06

times Um Tom Thumb or Charles Stratton

27:08

bailed him out. Oh really, I

27:10

get the feeling Barnum didn't know when to

27:12

leave well enough alone, you know,

27:15

like he had a big, thriving business and he just kept

27:17

wanting to push it further and further. Hugh

27:19

Jackman, I'm telling you. Uh

27:22

So, now we will talk about a couple of people,

27:24

um, who are

27:26

afflicted with something. Uh. Well,

27:28

they were micro cephalic,

27:32

which means that they have a

27:34

cone shaped head smaller than

27:36

normal shaped head as well. Yes,

27:38

if you've ever if you're a Howard Stern fan,

27:41

then you know beetlejuice, he has

27:43

his condition. Um.

27:45

And they used to call them

27:47

pinheads back in the day, awful

27:50

term. Uh. And there were a couple of notable

27:53

I'm not even gonna keep saying that, but a couple

27:55

of notable people that performed um

27:57

in these freak shows. One was Zip

28:01

William Henry Johnson renamed Zip

28:03

to z I P. He's from

28:05

New Jersey, born to newly freed

28:07

slaves and uh.

28:10

When Barnum found him, he says, you know, I'm gonna

28:12

do gonna make up the story that

28:14

you were found during a guerrilla

28:16

expedition near the Gambia River. I'm

28:19

gonna shave your head except for a little ponytailed

28:22

tuft on top, and address you in a suit

28:24

of fur. And you get up on that stage and grunt

28:26

like an animal. Yeah, he was

28:28

paid a dollar a day at first to not talk

28:31

to grunt and I guess to play the violin

28:33

really badly. Yeah. I

28:35

didn't get was he paid a dollar a day to

28:38

start? Okay? I thought that might have been part of

28:40

the story that he was in fact paid

28:42

a hundred dollars a day. Later he

28:46

became a very popular um

28:48

uh freak. I guess. Yeah.

28:50

The thing is is um he Uh.

28:52

William Henry Johnson was probably

28:55

not microcephalic at all. Um

28:58

he micro cephal microsophilic

29:01

is totally different microcephalic.

29:04

Um he. Actually they think

29:06

now that he had just like a slightly

29:08

abnormally shaped head that was exaggerated

29:11

by the haircut that they gave him and

29:13

that he actually had no diminished

29:15

mental faculties once what what at all?

29:18

And he was just pretending the whole time, and not only

29:20

fooling crowds, but he was also

29:22

fooling promoters. Yeah,

29:24

because that's one of the hallmarks of that

29:27

condition. Is I believe that usually it's accompanied

29:29

by cognitive stunted cognitive

29:32

development. Ye, usually very severe, but

29:34

not in his case. He was super smart and when he died said

29:37

we fooled them all. Yeah, that was his

29:39

sister and his deathbed. They're also

29:41

married. Not

29:44

true. So he made a lot of money too, he

29:46

did. He apparently retired with millions

29:49

UM a millionaire, so he's

29:51

not the only UM Again. Pinhead

29:54

is what this specific type of

29:56

freak was called. Man, I can't believe

29:58

I just said that. This feels

30:01

so wrong. I know, um,

30:04

but there's a very side show

30:06

performer and Chuck. Another

30:08

very famous side show performer who was

30:10

also I guess technically in

30:12

the Under the Umbrella Pinhead,

30:15

who actually was UM Micro's

30:17

cephilic was Schlitze.

30:20

Yes, Schlitze is one of my favorite people

30:22

of all time. Yes, let's see,

30:25

they don't know for sure his real name,

30:27

but Um, they believe it's Simon Metz

30:29

born in nineteen and one of the Bronx. And

30:32

Um, by all accounts

30:34

from everyone who ever met Schlitze, everyone

30:38

loved Schlitze. And

30:40

he was a ray of

30:42

sunshine and a nice, sweet carrying,

30:44

kind hearted man. Yes, loved life.

30:47

Anything that you would take for granted. Um,

30:50

Schlitze probably enjoyed the heck

30:52

out of and Um. He

30:55

was very frequently built as a

30:57

woman. Um. I think he was bill

30:59

as an Aztec warrior at first, and

31:01

then maybe even an Aztec woman. But

31:04

he wore dresses all the time because he was incontinent,

31:07

and this just made it the whole thing easier. Um,

31:10

So he was bill as a woman for a very long time,

31:12

and including in the movie, Um

31:14

Freaks, the Todd Browning movie from

31:18

Schlitze was in that and Schlitze actually

31:20

has like this big scene that's

31:23

like has he has a whole

31:26

speaking like a dialogue section,

31:28

But to this day no one has any clue what

31:31

he says. Yeah, should we

31:33

talk about Freaks a now or take a break and then talk about

31:35

it. Let's take a break, all right, all

32:04

right, So the movie Freaks, Uh,

32:07

I've seen it, have you I saw

32:09

it for the first time this morning when

32:14

most people see it. Uh.

32:16

Yeah, it's a nineteen thirty two

32:18

pre code film.

32:21

Uh. There was a time between

32:24

when um, they started making

32:26

movies to four when the

32:28

motion picture production code kicked in. Uh

32:31

yeah and properly called the Hayese code.

32:34

UM. For five years there you could do whatever

32:36

you wanted, I guess. And uh

32:38

that's when this director named Todd Browning made

32:40

a movie called Freaks about sideshow

32:43

performers. And this guy was

32:47

he actually ran away that the director actually

32:49

ran away and joined the carnival when he was sixteen and

32:52

worked as a carnival barker and

32:55

even uh participated

32:57

in stunts and he was he's a circus guy.

33:00

And he had a lot of um side show performers

33:02

as friends. And you can tell in the movie that

33:05

that's he's like, that's who

33:07

he's whose side he's on, that's

33:10

who that they're the heroes of the story

33:12

with the protagonists antagonists

33:15

or normals or whatever. Um

33:18

and uh it's a really morally

33:22

fraud movie these days. But if you

33:24

just step back and and think of it as like

33:26

this guy having

33:29

an affinity for sideshow performers and

33:31

giving them a shot at at stardom,

33:35

being on the big screen for what they are,

33:37

for who they are, for what they can do. Um.

33:40

Then it's a really kind of a

33:44

heart growing tale. Heart

33:47

growing, yeah, in a very weird way.

33:50

It's it's wrenching the watch. When's

33:52

the last time you saw a college They

33:55

spent a long time. Just see it again, all right,

33:57

we'll check it out like it's it's tough to watch

34:00

his gut wrenching. Uh. There are a lot

34:02

of um, well, let's just talk about

34:04

some of the performers in the movie. Um. One

34:06

of them who stands out is Johnny eck

34:09

John Eckhart Jr. Who was a twin and

34:11

he was born with a condition. Uh.

34:14

Everyone said that he was cut off at

34:16

the waist. Uh. Not exactly true.

34:18

We actually had um unusable

34:21

underdeveloped legs that you never saw,

34:23

but it appeared as though he

34:26

didn't have anything from the torso down. And

34:29

as from a young kid, I believe he was even

34:31

walking on his hands before his twin brother

34:33

was even standing. So he was

34:35

very advanced in a lot of ways. A very smart guy.

34:38

He's a painter. Uh yeah,

34:40

very accomplished. The magician. Um,

34:43

and you had a great personality too, you could

34:45

tell. Yeah, and apparently he was good buddies

34:47

with um Browning, and Browning

34:49

always wanted him around and by his side and was like,

34:52

you know, you need to come sit with me by the

34:54

camera and almost

34:56

like his Uh. I don't know if he like could

34:58

consider him a co director, but he always

35:00

wanted him nearby. Pretty

35:02

neat Uh. Daisy

35:05

and Violet Hilton, Yeah,

35:07

can joined twins, right, yeah, which they

35:09

called Siamese twins back in the day. Um,

35:13

thanks to Chang and Yang bunker right. Yeah,

35:16

they were actually uh some

35:18

of the first super famous. Uh.

35:20

They were from a Siamese fishing village and that's

35:22

where the term came from. Yeah, Siam was

35:25

what we now called Thailand. That's right,

35:28

uh and Chang and Ing we're born

35:30

in nineteen I'm sorry, eighteen eleven. And

35:32

they actually performed on their own

35:36

for many years, made a ton of money,

35:38

They got married, had kids, moved

35:40

to North Carolina of all places,

35:43

and um that well actually

35:45

interestingly, Daisy and Violet

35:48

ended up in North Carolina too, Oh

35:50

yeah, but under much much worse conditions.

35:53

Yeah, but um to finish with Chang and Ang, they eventually

35:56

lost their money. They were millionaires Losser Dough

35:58

and then we'd worked for in him later on

36:00

in life. But I get the impression that they

36:02

did it kind of like at their leisure almost

36:05

and ended up reamassing

36:08

another fortune interest from working

36:10

with Barnum. Yeah, and they fathered

36:12

twenty one children between them, married to Paris

36:14

sisters and can join.

36:17

Each had a house. Then they would spend three

36:19

days at one house, three days at the next house.

36:22

Um and yeah, they had twenty one kids.

36:25

Pretty amazing. So Daisy and

36:27

Violet Hilton, they were known as Simeon twins back then.

36:29

Of course, Uh, we don't use that German anymore,

36:32

but I mean I remember that term when I was a kid. So

36:35

it's definitely like held on for way

36:37

too long. Remember Ronnie and

36:39

Dinnie Galleon. Yeah,

36:42

are they still with us? Let's find out.

36:45

Well, you're you're checking that. I'll continue.

36:48

Um, I believe that.

36:50

Uh that Browning

36:53

spotted Daisy and Violet and said, you

36:55

guys are great, You're pretty, you can sing. You'll

36:57

be a big part of my movie. And

37:00

they they had been performers all along. Um. By

37:02

eighteen, they were ontour with Bob Hope

37:04

as part of his dance troup and

37:06

made quite a bit of money. Um. But sadly

37:09

their story into North Carolina

37:11

because they made an appearance in at

37:14

a midnight showing of Freaks at a drive

37:16

in and their manager ditched them

37:19

and this party don't get they had no

37:21

way to leave North Carolina, so they just stayed there. Yeah,

37:24

they had to get a job. That

37:26

just seems odd to me. If you don't have any

37:28

money and knowing to call to ask for money, you

37:30

go get a job at a grocery store and

37:33

I hope that you can eventually

37:35

die there. It seems

37:38

like they would have gotten enough money to leave and go back

37:40

to wherever they live. Well,

37:42

they died in Charlotte, North Carolina of the

37:44

Hong Kong flu. What is that?

37:47

It was a flu epidemic. She's

37:50

that originated in Hong Kong. But

37:53

it's a different world back then, Siamese twins died

37:55

to Hong Kong flu. None of that seems

37:57

politically correct to know. It doesn't who

38:01

else was in Freaks? Uh,

38:03

let's see, Um, there were a

38:05

pair of little people named

38:07

Harry and Daisy Earls, and they played Hans

38:10

and frieda right, and Hans is

38:12

like the ring master of the

38:14

side show and um

38:17

Frida. In real life,

38:19

Daisy was known as the midget may West.

38:22

Um. And in the movie they're

38:25

engaged, but actually in real life they were

38:27

a brother and sister. Yeah.

38:29

And they were in the Wizard of Oz even

38:32

as munchkins. And we're in a

38:34

bunch of movies with Laurel and Hardy as well, So

38:37

lifelong performers. So

38:40

the the whole this whole movie. And again,

38:42

um, we kind of we didn't finish with

38:44

the schlitz Schlitzy was in it too and had

38:46

this whole big speaking part. Um.

38:49

It was just adorable in the movie.

38:52

You could like Schlittsi's personality just shines

38:54

right through the movie. Very likable. Yeah,

38:56

and um Schlitze was

38:59

actually uh adopted

39:02

that no one had any idea who

39:04

Schlitzy's biological family

39:07

was. They were not around. So

39:09

the um, the people he

39:11

performed with and worked

39:13

for, actually took care of him.

39:15

And when his adopted father

39:18

died, his father's

39:21

daughter, biological daughter said hey,

39:24

schlitzee, Um, I'm going to commit

39:26

you to an asylum

39:28

in Los Angeles. And

39:30

that's where Schlitzy was until one

39:32

day just by total chance.

39:35

Chuck. Uh. Another

39:37

circus performer, I think a sword swallower

39:39

right named Bill Bill

39:42

you're schlitz Yeah, what are you doing

39:44

here? You look so sad, And Schlitzy

39:47

was like, I remember you, let's

39:50

go. So Bill Unk intervened

39:52

and got Schlitzy out of the institution,

39:55

and uh he got to

39:57

live out his days hanging out in the park being

39:59

recogniz eyes by passers by. Yeah,

40:01

he lived near MacArthur Park in downtown

40:04

l A. And uh lived

40:06

all the way up until at

40:08

age seventy one. Yeah,

40:11

so you know you

40:14

gotta see Schlitze.

40:16

You should see freaks. But even if you don't

40:18

see freaks, like, look up Schlitzy's

40:20

part A, it'll probably make you want

40:23

to see freaks. So Chuck, Um,

40:25

the Freak Show is well.

40:27

Some people say that it's still around and

40:29

that it's just on TV in the form

40:32

of reality shows. Like basically

40:34

that same sentiment and everything still

40:36

has found all over television. Yeah,

40:39

exploiting uh people like

40:42

uh, exploiting obesity and exploiting

40:44

dwarf is um and uh, yeah it's

40:46

on television now. Um.

40:49

But the actual side show itself,

40:52

Um, it's well,

40:54

it went away in a lot of ways, at

40:56

least as far as like a traveling side

40:58

show went. And it went away with

41:01

the rise of UM the rights for

41:03

the disabled. That that that movement

41:05

that came along in the starting in about

41:07

the like late nineteenth century,

41:09

early twentieth century, and then really gaining steam

41:12

by about the time Freaks came around the movie.

41:15

Yeah, there were a few things that kind of killed it, UM,

41:17

but one's definitely, like you said, science invented

41:19

it and killed it as And

41:22

here's something that is sort of reprehensible

41:25

that I found out. There's a lot of these

41:27

uh uh side shows would

41:29

try and keep doctors away from the people

41:31

because they thought, I don't want a doctor

41:33

coming in here and saying that

41:36

the dog faced boy actually has hypertrichosis.

41:39

Yeah, because and it's a condition where you have hair

41:42

all over your face, because everybody

41:44

he was a cave

41:47

caveman, Yeah, exactly. Did you

41:49

know? Actually there was another there was a woman

41:51

UM named Julia Pastrana,

41:53

and she had hypertrichosis too, and

41:56

she ended up marrying her manager.

41:59

They were married, they had a baby together,

42:02

and she died during childbirth and

42:04

and the baby was born still born, and

42:07

her husband manager, who ostensibly

42:09

loved her, said show

42:11

must go on. So he mummified

42:14

his wife and they're still born baby, and then took

42:16

him around to display them in

42:18

the side show as ever unbelievable.

42:22

So uh again, doctors

42:24

would come along and start explaining these

42:26

things, and that helped kill the side show. The

42:29

rise of television and uh,

42:31

you know, at home entertainment meant people

42:33

weren't going out to places

42:36

like sideshows anymore. Yeah, they could

42:38

stay in their house and watch television. And apparently

42:40

you could still find sideshows like the American

42:43

Horror Story. Was it freak Show last

42:47

season or whatever. I don't watch that, but yeah,

42:49

um it was setting I think the fifties,

42:52

and I think at that time you could still see,

42:54

you know, traveling sideshows here there, but they were

42:57

pretty broken down by that point.

42:59

They were pretty much

43:01

gone. But by the sixties

43:03

there was a girl named Carol Browning

43:05

and she I all I could find is that she

43:07

had deformed arms and legs. I don't know what

43:09

that means, but that was the description that was given

43:12

given of her. But she went to a

43:14

side show and when she

43:16

visited the carnival in North Carolina.

43:18

I think she lived in Charlotte. No

43:21

Rawleigh and Carol, what is

43:23

it with North Carolina? That's

43:25

where things beginning in with with

43:27

sideshows. Well, Carol, Carol

43:30

Grant I think was her name. Carol wrote a

43:33

letter to the Agricultural Commission, and

43:36

the Agricultural Commission

43:38

is in charge of side shows at the time, at least in North

43:40

Carolina, and said this is wrong, like,

43:43

this is beyond wrong. I'm I'm

43:45

offended by this and this this should

43:47

not be allowed to happen. And she actually

43:49

sparked a national conversation about

43:52

whether side shows should be allowed

43:54

to be around, even if performers

43:56

wanted to be a part of them. And that was the

43:58

final death knell that conversation. But

44:01

a lot of people came out and said, hey,

44:03

you know what these people, you guys call

44:05

them freaks, but you also empty your pockets

44:08

to them, and they're wealthy,

44:10

they enjoy the acclaim, they enjoy

44:12

the money, and um, it's actually

44:15

you who has the problem. And

44:18

it didn't have much of an effect. Sideshows

44:20

went away, and a lot of the sideshow performers

44:23

ended up going from being pretty wealthy

44:25

or well paid or having a steady income to um

44:29

being broke and ending up like being

44:31

abandoned by their managers like Daisy

44:33

and Violet. Yeah, it's

44:35

a tricky ground. It

44:37

is. It's pretty much sad all the way through except

44:41

for some success stories. And

44:43

that makes the whole thing so morally ambiguous

44:45

if you think about it, Like, it's

44:47

just so easy to look from here and be

44:50

like you named your movie freaks or

44:53

you you you charge people

44:56

to look at the elephant man. But

44:58

what about those people who say, I'm

45:00

cool with this, I'm signing on for this. This

45:03

is making a lot of very wealthy. I'm happy.

45:06

I've I've had all sorts of opportunities

45:08

that weren't open to me before, and I love

45:10

what I do. What do you do about

45:12

that? Like, you can't condemn it. It's not an

45:14

easy black and white thing to to deal

45:17

with. Yeah, it's called a moral ambiguity. You

45:19

said it that There have always been them,

45:21

them, those them moral

45:24

ambiguity. There always will be.

45:26

Uh, you got anything else? No, if

45:29

you want to know more about

45:32

sideshows, freaks, that kind of thing, you

45:34

can type those words into the search part

45:37

how stuffworks dot Com. And since

45:39

I said search parts not for listener mail. Hey,

45:43

before listener mail, what about

45:46

Ronnie and Donnie? Oh yeah, Ronnie and

45:48

Donnie are alive. Awesome. They are

45:50

sixty four years old as of past

45:52

October I think twenty one, and

45:54

they are the world's longest

45:57

living conjoined twins. They're

45:59

adorable too, they're oh hi ends right,

46:02

yeah, very nice. What what documentary

46:05

did we see on them or something? I can't remember,

46:07

but we've we talked about him a lot over the years, So

46:09

that's that's great news. But they're they're

46:11

still at it all right, So listener

46:14

mail. I'm gonna call this one, uh

46:17

quick feedback on the Bill Gates

46:19

podcast. That is quick turnaround.

46:21

Hey, guys, my name is Brendan Cologne

46:25

announced like Cologne, and

46:27

I'm a PhD student at Habba Medical

46:29

School in Pamelas

46:32

Silver's lab working

46:34

on artificial photosynthesis. Shoutout

46:36

Pamelas Silver. How about that. I'm

46:39

a long time fan of the show and wanted to say what you guys

46:41

did? You did? You did a great job covering renewable

46:43

energy with Phil Gates. During the episode,

46:46

there was a question about the current limitations

46:48

of artificial photosynthetic systems

46:51

at present, the biggest issues are scalability,

46:54

he cost energy in producing the building materials,

46:57

and the efficient extraction of produced

47:00

rules. Uh. These are standard engineering

47:02

hurdles, but like Mr Gates said, we

47:04

can call them Bill by the way, I don't think you can, Brendon,

47:07

we can, but we can. Uh.

47:09

These are standard engineering hurdles, but like Mr Gates

47:11

said, the final product needs to be viable. Specifically,

47:14

such a product would need to harvest in store more

47:17

energy in the short term than what was required to build

47:19

it makes sense and do so on

47:21

the cheap. Uh. Fortunately, biotechnology

47:23

and photo voltaic technology

47:26

is advancing at a breakneck

47:28

pace, so the future of this technology looks bright.

47:31

As new biochemistries are discovered, more products

47:33

will be available for production, and

47:35

one vision of this technology is a local

47:37

and individualized production chemicals

47:40

on demand. I hope this helps. Feel

47:42

free to reach out. Cheers Brendon,

47:45

Thanks Brendon. Yeah, Brendon Cologne

47:47

pronounced cologne. That's right. Uh.

47:50

If you are an expert in something that

47:52

we talk about, we love hearing

47:54

feedback from people like you. You

47:56

can tweet to us that s Y s K podcast.

47:59

You can do us on Facebook, dot com, slash stuff

48:01

you Should Know. You can send us an email

48:04

to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com,

48:06

and, as always, joined us at our home on the web,

48:08

Stuff you Should Know dot com.

48:15

For more on this and thousands of other topics,

48:17

visit how stuff Works dot com