0:00

Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve

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camera. It's ready. Are you welcome

0:06

to Stuff you should know from

0:08

house Stuff Works dot Com?

0:15

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

0:17

Clark. With me is always as Charles W.

0:20

Bryant. Hi, Josh Chuck.

0:22

I'm gonna tell you something that you might not know about

0:24

me. Oh boy, as

0:27

a youth. As a youth youth,

0:30

a an older boy in the neighborhood

0:32

named Tommy Roper trained me as

0:34

a ninja, an altar boy or older older

0:38

Yeah, so I'm gonna train ninja right?

0:40

Yeah? This Uh, this encompassed generally

0:44

sitting on top of a

0:46

storage shed in my backyard quietly

0:49

for hours on end, waiting for somebody

0:51

to walk past, uh, so

0:54

that we could find out whether or not they noticed

0:56

us. Then that's where you started smoking because

0:58

you were bored. Now, yet that came like a

1:00

year or two later. Yeah, you did not

1:02

adhere to the bushito. No,

1:05

I don't know if smoking is is

1:07

outlawed by the bushido. I just meant

1:09

the way of the ninja. No, that's the samurai.

1:12

Well, no, the ninja though, shun

1:15

the bushido, right, Okay,

1:17

I got what you say on the same page, So,

1:20

Chuck, I thought, you know, I kind of

1:22

carried that with me my whole life. I'm sure

1:24

i'd see a throwing star every once in a

1:26

while and be like, I know how to throw that, you know? Did

1:28

you have any of those, Tommy did? I've never

1:31

had any of those? Are big in the eighties for little

1:33

nerves to collect totally um.

1:35

I found out though, when I read how Ninja's

1:38

work, I am nothing

1:40

more than a dultant. Really,

1:42

yeah, I was surprised to find that

1:44

out. I believe you said ninja, so that is not correct,

1:46

right, No, it is. It's ninja. It's like fish

1:48

or deer. I know we've been drilling that into each

1:50

other's head and I'm still saying Ninja's

1:53

yeah, So if we slip up, then give us a break,

1:56

So, Chuck, Josh.

1:58

One of the first things I noticed from this article was

2:00

that um Ninja, although

2:03

Japanese in nature and origin,

2:05

actually can trace its roots back to the Chinese.

2:09

Yes, very much, because of kind of what I was

2:11

just talking about with the Bushido was

2:14

the Samurai code, where you very

2:16

respectfully would face one another,

2:19

face your enemy one on one and do battle, and

2:21

the Ninja subscribe

2:24

more to the art of war school

2:26

of thought right as espoused

2:28

by Sun Zu, which was a little sneakier,

2:31

right, and smarter if you ask me, it is

2:33

smarter. And I mean that's how the American colonists

2:36

won the War for Independence. The

2:38

British were all like, hey, we've got a bunch

2:40

of Hessians here and they're ready to fight

2:43

you on this field, and our guys

2:45

were, yeah, jumping out of trees and bayoneting

2:47

them. Yeah, very Ninja, asked

2:50

very sun sue he wrote

2:52

the Art of War back in the fourth or fifth century

2:54

BC, and uh, yeah,

2:56

it kind of went against the grain, as it were,

2:59

Yeah, big time where you could

3:01

uh. I think there's a chapter, chapter

3:04

thirteen, where he specifically

3:06

said that you should use people to spread

3:09

confusion in the ranks and paranoia,

3:11

um, through sabotage, spying,

3:14

spying, um yeah, espionage,

3:16

that kind of stuff. Pretty cool, Yeah, just basically

3:18

underhanded stuff. Disguise was okay,

3:21

yeah, deception, I love it, right, So

3:23

that is actually where it's

3:25

That's pretty much the basis of ninja,

3:28

isn't it. Yeah, from what I gather and

3:30

and what is it? The art of ninja, the

3:32

art that ninja's practice. Yeah, ninjutsu

3:36

and it is not a martial art, but it is an

3:39

art of war, is what they call it. It sounds

3:41

like a martial arts. Yeah, but it's not. Okay,

3:43

that's because utsu sounds like jiu jitsu.

3:46

Right, So, okay, we've got this first seed

3:49

of the ninja planet by sun Su

3:51

right, um and uh

3:53

it takes a little while to catch on. And

3:56

actually, strangely enough, we can

3:58

trace back um

4:00

to some of the first ninja stories,

4:03

right, right, some people who were thought to be among

4:05

the first ninja in Japan. We've

4:08

moved over to Japan now, by the way, yes,

4:10

right, tell me about Prince Yamato.

4:13

Yeah, Prince Yamato, Uh is

4:15

in some halls called

4:17

the first ninja because

4:20

he was the first person that

4:22

we know of to blatantly use deception

4:24

and disguise by addressing as

4:26

a woman and uh

4:28

to attract. This is where it gets

4:30

sottlehinky to literally physically

4:33

attract to barbarian chieftains.

4:35

So apparently he was a good looker as a woman,

4:37

or at the last he actually

4:40

gained their confidence and uh

4:42

lull them into a sense of security.

4:44

A false sense of security and killed them. Yeah, then

4:46

he withered them. Yeah yeah, uh

4:49

that's um not a bad

4:51

one. Frankly, I like that first Ninja

4:53

story. I like yours though. The thirteen year old kid,

4:55

yeah, Kuma Waka Yeah, he

4:58

um was a little I guess, kind of a little

5:00

shrimpy, right, but he had

5:03

some pretty good legs on him. He traveled a really

5:05

far distance to visit his father

5:07

who was ailing. Um,

5:09

but his father was being held prisoner by a monk and

5:11

his family. Apparently monks did that back then. I

5:14

didn't know that what we do now, right,

5:16

Um. So a little thirteen year old

5:18

Kuma Waka um was turned

5:21

away after traveling this long distance

5:23

wanting to see his father who's dying. And

5:26

before he gets a chance to see him, his father

5:28

dies. So the kids like, you know what,

5:31

I swear vengeance right here and now, right,

5:33

little thirteen year old vengeance? Right? So

5:35

I think Um, possibly

5:38

not so much that he'd read the Art of war,

5:41

but just that being thirteen, you

5:43

know, he wasn't aware of pitch battles or

5:45

really didn't care about him. And he was like, you know

5:47

what, I'm going to use a little bit of deception myself.

5:50

He was doing't big enough to just

5:52

fight them straight upright right he Um.

5:55

He started kind of I guess, staking

5:57

out the monks home, and

6:00

this kid was awesome. He

6:03

he opened a window to the monk's bedroom

6:06

and let a bunch of moths in, and they

6:08

flocked to a lantern, blotting

6:10

out all the light, whereupon he snuck

6:12

into the room, got the monk's sword,

6:15

and butchered him. Yes, have you noticed

6:17

that most ninja stories end in butchery.

6:20

Yeah, that's a good point. Um.

6:23

The story is not over though, right, I don't think

6:25

so. Well. You should also point out, though he was actually

6:27

in their home, he faked an illness. Remember

6:29

that's how we got in there. That's right. He faked like he

6:31

was sick, so they brought him in and took care of him,

6:33

and he gained their trust, and then did

6:36

the old moth trick, right, the old moth

6:38

trick. That's that's like Ninja one oh

6:40

one right there. Um. So, after

6:43

he butchers the monk, he flees

6:45

and he's being pursued, so he climbs up

6:47

a huge length of bamboo until

6:49

it tips over a river and

6:51

he jumps off the other side and he's gone

6:54

into the annals of ninja history. That

6:56

is serious ninja stealth right there. Yeah, a little

6:58

thirteen year old, right, how

7:00

many times can I say a little thirteen year old? I don't

7:03

know. We could go back and count.

7:05

So yes, even though these are cool stories and

7:07

they are thought of as maybe practicing

7:10

the first ninja practices, they aren't really believed

7:12

to be the first ninjas, right, No, I mean

7:14

they're kind of legend exactly,

7:16

and there's a lot of lore surrounding ninja. It's

7:19

really tough, as the grabster

7:21

who wrote this article pointed out, to kind

7:23

of separate fact from fiction. And in

7:25

some cases, Japanese historians just have

7:27

admitted ninja altogether because they're so

7:29

secretive, right, or uh, you

7:32

know, exaggerated and glorified it to the

7:34

point that it's misinformation, right,

7:36

which is part of the whole ninja lore as well, right,

7:39

which apparently the ninja were perfectly

7:41

fine with because it freaked

7:43

people out. We'll get to that in a

7:45

minute, right, the supernatural stuff. Yeah, okay,

7:48

so Chuck, what was the true birth

7:50

of the ninja? Then? Well, they think that the

7:53

regions of IgA and Coca

7:55

or is it Egaga and coca. You know

7:58

what, I think, I have no idea

8:00

for those two. But you were getting good at the

8:02

Japanese. And let me tell you you have

8:04

what is called pura pura pura, which

8:07

means you're very fluent. It's Japanese

8:09

for that describes very fluent. The

8:11

Japanese is a little easier to pronounce, I think

8:13

than some because it's usually just kind of pronounced

8:16

like it reads. There's just a lot of letters

8:18

sometimes yeah, and there's a lot of there's a lot of vowels

8:20

together. It don't make any sense, but

8:22

we're doing our best. Yeah, you're doing a great judge

8:24

going with Ega and Koga, and they are considered

8:27

to be the birthplace of ninja

8:30

as a major force in warfare. And

8:32

here's why. There was a bunch of clans

8:34

in these two regions, and the guys

8:37

Um who were members of the clans

8:40

tended to farm themselves out as mercenaries, which

8:42

we've talked about before. Um,

8:44

and they actually adopted a lot

8:46

of the Ninja attitude,

8:49

the Ninja, the Ninja tude, right nice

8:52

Um. They they adopted a lot of it Um

8:55

serving as spies, saboteurs,

8:58

and assassins, right, love that word, by the way,

9:00

saboteur. It's a pretty cool word. That's

9:02

why a firefly was one of my favorite

9:04

g I Joe's, which we'll get to. It's

9:08

all coming around. Yeah. So in Ega

9:10

and Coca, right this basically this

9:13

region, rather than um turning to brewing

9:16

or um grain production,

9:19

they turned to ninja production, you

9:21

know, and they protected They were hired out by the

9:24

daimio, which were what was another word for

9:26

a lord, a feudal

9:29

feudal lord, and basically

9:31

like mercenaries, they would whoever had

9:33

the most dough would get

9:36

hired, so they were not known as loyal.

9:38

They would go where the money was no, which, as you said,

9:40

is completely contrary to the Bushito code

9:42

of the samurai. Who was

9:45

I guess you could probably make a case was a rival

9:47

faction in Japan at the time. If

9:49

you wanted somebody who would be willing to die

9:51

for you, you had your samurai. If you

9:53

wanted somebody who you could pay

9:55

to go do horrible things for you, but then may

9:58

eventually come back and kill you through

10:00

he was hired for somebody else, you went with the ninja.

10:02

Yeah, right, good point. So one

10:04

of the cool things that the grabster mentioned

10:06

was that the reason uh Ego

10:09

and Koga were I

10:12

guess these hotbeds of activity

10:14

for ninja was that the the

10:16

the art of ninja two

10:19

yeah, was passed on from father to son,

10:21

generation after generation after generation.

10:23

Right, And we're talking sneaking around. Uh.

10:26

From what I gather from reading is that uh,

10:28

the lowly ninja were the ones that were

10:30

slinging the swords around and the true uh

10:34

skilled ninja did not do a lot of

10:36

face to face fighting. They were sneaking around, They

10:38

were gathering information. Like you

10:40

said, they were sabotaging, they were spying

10:43

and giving mis information. Right.

10:46

And apparently since castles

10:48

were they figured so largely into feudal

10:50

japan Um, the ninja

10:53

became especially a dept at um infiltrating

10:56

castles and escaping

10:58

from castles that were undersea. There's the

11:00

story of one ninja who was

11:03

hired by a damio

11:06

um who owned a castle that

11:08

was under siege, and one night

11:10

he slipped out, went to the enemy encampment,

11:12

stole their flag, and then when they woke up the next

11:14

morning they saw their flag like on the embattlements

11:17

of the castle, which you can

11:19

imagine you just like wa

11:22

wa wa. We don't we

11:24

have that sound effect? I think so? Or

11:26

did they wake up and think, did

11:28

we already capture this castle? What were you doing

11:30

here? That's what I would think we already

11:32

captured because their flag was flying, But apparently

11:34

it was a mocking thing and right, yeah,

11:37

take the wind out of their sales. And there was also

11:39

another story legend,

11:42

Ninja lore of a group

11:44

of Ninja's actually a group of Ninja sorry

11:46

um that captured the uh

11:49

I guess the badge of paper lantern badge

11:51

which identified like it identified

11:53

with the castle and a damio Okay,

11:57

I'm gonna knock your socks off right here, chuck.

11:59

So they stole this lantern and reproduced

12:01

it, reproduced the badge, put him on other lanterns,

12:04

and then just walked right into the castle,

12:07

right, butchered everybody like

12:10

they do, yeah, and then walked

12:12

back out. And when everybody woke

12:14

up the next morning and found the people who were

12:16

not butchered, found uh you know what

12:19

was going on? Um? They

12:21

they had created uh

12:24

paranoia, right, which, as we said,

12:26

is another thing that Ninja liked to do, absolutely

12:28

disruption. Yes, uh, they

12:30

were very skilled. Are your socks knocked

12:33

off. These are actually new socks and they are

12:35

still on. You know, uh,

12:38

did you know that George Hamilton's once said that he wore

12:40

a new pair of socks every day. He never wore

12:42

the same pair of socks. I can see him doing that. My

12:44

good friend Andrew told me that once moving

12:47

on the ninja, Josh, you know what their their

12:49

main deal was you when they were best at

12:51

assassination, Yes, sneaking

12:53

in and the dead of night and killing you in

12:56

your sleep sometimes. And my favorite

12:58

story was, and this one is

13:00

not verified, but the the legend

13:03

of the ninja who hid beneath the outhouse

13:07

and you know what goes on beneath the outhouse? Yeah,

13:09

he hit in the pit, hit in the pit, and then

13:11

the the daimio came in obviously

13:13

sat down on the john and then then just struck

13:16

from below with the sword. But which

13:18

is just that's not a comfort. My favorite

13:21

part of the story though it says, uh, it's probably

13:23

not true because historical record show that

13:25

the daimio in question probably died of a

13:27

stroke or brain aneurysm.

13:29

But I think maybe if you had a sword

13:31

stuck up your butt, then maybe you might have a stroke

13:34

or brain and I would have a stroke for sure, so

13:36

maybe that did happen. Plus also I could see his family

13:38

trying to keep that hush hush. Yeah, I would

13:40

say so, you know, but it made made the Daimio

13:43

very paranoid, right yeah.

13:45

And actually they took a lot of measures to protect

13:47

against these ninja'sassiens that they always

13:49

figured we're coming for them. Like, um,

13:52

there was one clan where

13:55

at their castle everyone had to wear

13:58

long um

14:00

I guess, bell bottoms basically that

14:03

made noise whenever you walked, So anyone

14:05

who was in the castle had to wear these kind of corduroy

14:08

bell bottoms pretty much. And I can

14:10

only imagine that they had an ample supply for

14:12

visitors if everybody had to use them, you know,

14:14

and not everyone was walking around with bell

14:16

bottoms. I imagine they had them for you, right, like

14:18

drop your keys in the bowl and put on these bell pots.

14:21

I'm gonna stay here right. Uh. The other one,

14:23

a cool one was in Kyoto. They had a the

14:26

Nie Joe Castle had what they called

14:28

nightingale floors, and they were purposefully

14:31

squeaky the way they made these wooden floors,

14:33

so the people counterbalance, right, so

14:36

anyone walking on them, even in Ninja could

14:39

be heard. Yes, And also the Daimio

14:41

would spend more and more time away

14:43

from their home at what

14:45

they called Secret Springs, basically a

14:47

little hidden resorts at natural

14:49

Springs. So it sounds like out of

14:51

Ninja the vacation resort,

14:54

bell bottom jeans and

14:57

squeaky floors were born. Nice, pretty cool.

15:00

You wrap that up very nicely, So

15:02

chuck um the whole Um.

15:06

I guess Samurai soared up the bottom

15:08

story that that it

15:11

was probably a legend because

15:13

the guy probably died of an aneurism or stroke.

15:15

Right. Um,

15:18

that kind of reveals that lower that

15:20

has surrounded Ninja forever and

15:22

one of the things that um, they've

15:25

been attributed with or bestowed with their like

15:27

supernatural powers. Right of course that's

15:30

not true, No, but

15:32

it's fun and like you said, earlier than Ninja

15:34

loved it. They were like, yeah, we're seven

15:36

feet tall, and we can fly and become invisible.

15:39

Those are three. They

15:41

could also walk through walls, which I imagine

15:44

it would would really come in handy for a Ninja, you

15:46

know. But I mean, if you think about it, if you're penetrating

15:49

a castle that no one else can get through. It

15:51

probably seems a lot like you can walk through walls.

15:54

And then of course there's the real basic go to

15:56

one that there ghosts, yeah,

15:59

shape shifters. Did you ever read

16:01

Um Commando comics? No? There

16:04

there was like they were from the seventies.

16:06

I think they were like just black and white

16:09

comics set in World War Two? Uh.

16:11

And in one of them that was this guy

16:13

had to fight Ninja's in Burma, Ninja

16:15

and Burma and uh, it was pretty cool.

16:18

Did you ever say I was a little whiss boy with the comics.

16:21

I was like, I was into Archie and Ritchie Rich

16:24

what I know what awful

16:28

and then stuff like the Star Wars comics and stuff

16:30

like that. But I don't try to cool it up now

16:33

it's awful. What it was a big Archie

16:35

guy. I was a little Baptist boy and Richie Rich.

16:38

Yeah, Ritchie Rich was great. Yeah, I

16:40

like the cartoon. You never read

16:42

the comic. Oh yeah, I was a little

16:44

wiss. Yeah, you were into ninja's and stuff

16:47

smoking cigarettes that I

16:49

was reading Archie in the Bible. Good

16:51

for you. But here we are years later, I know

16:54

the same. We're both as twisted, alright,

16:58

I've been trying to get better, You've been trying to get

17:00

worse. Yes, and we met in the middle. Where

17:02

are we now? With their gear, I would say we're writting

17:04

inja gear and Chuck, I should say,

17:06

Chuck has a several large print

17:09

outs of pictures of ninja gear

17:11

that are just bitching. Yeah, let's go

17:13

ahead and talk about some of these um

17:17

ninja. Well, first, let's talk about their clothes,

17:19

their uniform, the ninja yori,

17:23

your roy your roy roy.

17:26

It is also called ninja armor, and

17:28

it's like the black jacket, black trousers,

17:31

hooted cowl, and light sandals. Not a

17:33

lot of protection with that the

17:36

right word. Well, they said some of them were light

17:38

armor under that, right, but it's not much

17:40

trust me, No, it's cloth. Well, because

17:42

they wanted to be sneaky

17:44

and not make a lot of noise, so armor probably wasn't

17:46

the best way to get around. And traditionally the your

17:49

roy was um black, although

17:51

apparently there is some historical evidence

17:54

that they wore all white your roy which

17:56

is pretty cool too in the snow if

17:58

it were snowy. Yeah, sure, they're

18:00

like, oh, it's know, you gotta put on the white Euroy today

18:02

and go kill people. However,

18:05

Josh, most of this is uh

18:08

fanciful lore. Although they did have these

18:10

costumes, what they mainly wore they

18:13

wanted to blend in, so they mainly just dressed like you

18:15

and I. Yeah, that's an excellent point too, Like

18:17

if you're going to be an assassin um

18:19

and you're in a public place, if you're

18:21

dressed like a ninja, people are going to be like,

18:24

look out for that ninja. Right. So yeah,

18:26

a lot of times they they they were

18:28

apparently masters at um

18:31

hiding in plain sight. Yeah, disguised

18:33

as priests and merchants and farmers,

18:36

which is you know, makes sense to me because

18:38

what was it that Henry Hill said? He said, when

18:40

you get killed, it's it's somebody who's coming

18:42

at you with a smile. Who's your friend? That's

18:44

who kills you? Sure? Yeah, Henry

18:47

Hill, he comes up a lot. It's funny.

18:49

Yeah. I never thought he would come up in a ninja

18:51

podcast. Uh.

18:54

What else did they use, Josh, the ninja to was

18:56

the short

18:58

sword. Then they were back, which is pretty cool.

19:01

Yeah, used to butcher people. And

19:03

then here's what I have the pictures of the shook

19:05

go is this cool little

19:07

claw hand it's like claws on your palm

19:10

you would wear as a glove. And it

19:12

says you can use to fight or to climb trees

19:15

with. Tell me, tell me rope her head one of

19:17

those. Really Huh. He tried

19:19

to climb trees once in a while to us ever

19:21

success. Really he could when he

19:23

didn't have those on, like he could just climb

19:25

a tree, but just climbing like that, it didn't

19:27

work. Uh. And this is the tiger

19:30

claw. Those are cool. Yeah, that looks like

19:32

Freddy Krueger wolverine or something. That's

19:34

exactly what it looks like. And it would butcher

19:37

you if put to your jugular.

19:39

And what are these? And this is my favorite? These

19:41

are the cow trops and these were they

19:44

look sort of like little metal sharp

19:46

origami razor things. I was

19:48

just about to say orgamy they do. You got to leave

19:50

it to the Japanese. They have great design with

19:52

everything. Yeah, they're beautiful, including little

19:54

tags meant to puncture your feet and soles

19:57

of your feet. Yeah, that's what you would do. You would throw these

19:59

on the floor, uh, for your enemy

20:01

to step on. And they apparently wore like the sandals

20:03

and the thin shoes, so that worked. And I wish

20:06

this were a video podcast because Chuck

20:08

gave Jerry and I had demonstration and what that

20:10

would look like when people

20:12

were chasing the ninja. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

20:14

They also used smoke bombs and

20:17

what else. The coolest thing small

20:20

one person boats that were collapsible,

20:23

so they were highly portable, so ninja would

20:25

just be running away from people. He's thrown

20:27

his tax whatever, the tax call again? Uh?

20:30

The cow drops, right, He's thrown

20:32

his cow drops and they didn't work. A couple

20:34

of guys got around and he's reached

20:36

a river. There's no bamboo and site. He just

20:38

whips out of his little boat and sails across like so

20:40

long, chumps. Pretty cool. I'll be back to kill you when

20:43

you're sleeping. Uh. The

20:45

other thing that has been refuted

20:47

by the MythBusters I read was the

20:49

Mizzou gumo and they were wooden

20:52

shoes to walk on water with. They

20:54

kind of look like snow shoes, actually big

20:57

round things and your foot goes in the middle to disperse

20:59

the water. Those MythBusters

21:01

guys said, yeah, this doesn't work.

21:03

Did they try it out themselves? Yeah, of course they did.

21:05

It doesn't disprove anything that they should be too

21:07

fat. We should call that show

21:09

the fun Killers instead of the Mythbuss. Yeah,

21:12

all they do is destroy fun. But they

21:14

said they could work on marsh

21:16

is what they said, Like, we'll give him something.

21:19

Yeah, of course there's the throwing star

21:21

a k a. The sugar ken.

21:23

Yeah, and I didn't know this. I thought that you

21:25

know, when you see in the movies they clearly always

21:28

fling knees and right into somebody's

21:30

forehead right between the eyes. Yeah, that's really

21:32

not true, was it. No, Apparently they were

21:34

just kind of a distracting weapon, like

21:37

it was meant to look like it was about

21:39

to hit you right between the eyes, but the chances

21:41

of it actually hitting its target are pretty

21:44

low. So they would turn around when being chased,

21:46

throw a star at them to distract them, and then drop

21:48

some cow trops on the floor in a smoke bomb maybe, And

21:51

then he's a grappling hook and a rope ladder to escape.

21:53

That's what they call the Schenectady Shuffle

21:56

and Ninja lore that combo right

21:58

there. Really Yeah, so

22:01

Chuck, there's the grappling hook

22:03

right which you can't leave out. Basically, if

22:06

you have all this stuff. You are

22:08

a little white kid in suburban

22:11

America trying to be in ninja, because

22:13

if you're a stealthy guy and you're infiltrating

22:16

a castle, you're not going to have all this stuff

22:18

except maybe your collapse will boat your colchrops

22:20

and your little sword. Right. But

22:22

other than that, it seems like this was more the arsenal

22:25

that no ninja at any one time had

22:28

all these things on them, right. Yeah, But in the

22:30

movies, of course, that's how it's portrayed, because it's more fun

22:32

movies like Enter the

22:34

Ninja, maybe the Ninja American

22:37

Ninja? Did you see that one? Did you watch ninja movies

22:39

as a kid? And now where were you, Chuck?

22:42

I told you I was reading Archie. American

22:44

Ninja was awesome. I was watching, Uh, Escape

22:47

from Which Mountain? And Archie? That was a creepy

22:49

movie that wasn't Escape from

22:51

Which Mountain? Well it did? It didn't

22:53

age? Well you should go watch it now

22:55

and not the cruddy remake? Uh

22:58

isn't isn't like the rock In then? Of course

23:01

that's Dwayne Johnson, do you, buddy? What

23:03

was the first movie? Though Josh credited as

23:06

being the first movie with the Ninja. Uh you

23:08

only lived twice. The James Bond movie it

23:10

uh it. And when the movie came out in nineteen

23:13

seven, Ninja just exploded

23:15

in Western culture. Of course, because people that

23:17

go to see go to see the James Bond movies are looking

23:20

for any cool new thing anyway, So

23:22

imagine when they saw the Ninja, they were like, oh my

23:24

gosh, that's the coolest mercenary

23:27

I've ever seen in my life. They're like, click, those guys butchering

23:29

everybody. Teenage mutant

23:31

ninja turtles. Of course I never got into them

23:34

neither. And then chuck, of course,

23:36

Um, you probably haven't heard of this, but there's

23:38

this thing called g I Joe. I

23:40

know, the early g I Joe. We've been over this, the twelve

23:43

inch g I Joe with the kung fu grip, not

23:46

the tiny ones. They're not dolls, are action

23:48

figures. What you played with their dolls like,

23:50

you can hug them and cuddle them. You can't cuddle

23:52

an action figure. And they had bendable

23:54

elbows and stuff like that. Did your

23:57

twelve Ventures have kung fu grip? Because

23:59

a little acts figures it too? Did they really? Huh?

24:01

Yeah. Yeah, that's where it started, buddy. Okay.

24:03

Well, um. In the two

24:06

series, a little ninja was introduced

24:09

known as Snake Eyes, who worked on

24:11

the good side. Oh really, I thought Snake Eyes

24:13

was bad. No, you're thinking

24:15

of storm Shadow. Storm Shadow

24:17

is a cobra ninja. And actually I was looking

24:19

on Yo Joe dot com today. Have

24:21

you ever told that site? Oh my god,

24:24

it's like nostalgia central, right, I did see that

24:26

new movie though, the Joe movie.

24:28

Is it out? It's out on video now. Was

24:30

it any good? No? Not really? Okay,

24:33

and I love the cartoon though I don't

24:35

think any uh animation

24:38

had more of an impact on the development

24:40

of my personality and the car. Yeah,

24:42

every time it came on, I was just like, thank

24:45

you God, thank you for letting

24:47

me be alive and at an age where

24:49

I can fully appreciate the g I Joe cartoon.

24:51

See, I said the same thing about Tom and Jerry. So

24:54

that's where we were so well again,

24:57

let me let me go back to uh Snake

24:59

Eyes and storm Shadow. Storm Shadow is clearly

25:01

a ninja. Snake Eyes is

25:05

listed on his file card on the

25:07

back of the package as a commando,

25:09

although he is proficient in bladed weapons

25:12

and uh martial arts, several martial

25:14

arts. Right, so I'm thinking, why

25:17

why would he be called the commando? Is he not

25:19

a ninja? And I was gonna totally throw

25:21

the smack down on the Grabster for calling Snake

25:23

Eyes a ninja in this article. I did

25:25

a little more digging. It

25:27

turns out that snow Job and Snake Eyes were

25:30

once brothers in arms for the same clan,

25:32

and actually Snake Eyes is a

25:36

trained ninja, although he's also a commando.

25:39

Yeah, and then they went their separate ways. Uh,

25:41

there was a little bit of a falling out. They went their separate

25:43

ways. Uh, Storm

25:46

Shadow of the Cobra Ninja actually went to work

25:48

for Cobra as a disguise to find

25:50

who who killed the clan leader. Well

25:52

yeah, and um, once

25:55

he did find out he was actually

25:57

um brainwashed, he was discovered

25:59

as a as a spy. Uh, he was

26:01

discovered brainwashed and then actually did start

26:03

working for Cobra. Snake Eyes he always

26:06

was on Joe Sigh. Dude,

26:09

I did not know that there was that much real information

26:11

out there about g I Joe. So this

26:13

is all in the history. Someone's actually written that. Yeah,

26:16

well there's like there's again there's a

26:18

comic series you're probably not aware of. Uh

26:20

and and yeah it's pretty storied. See.

26:24

I was confused when I watched the movie. I kept waiting for

26:26

Joe, kept waiting for Franco

26:28

Harris to come out, you know with a beard who

26:31

Joe always look like Franco Harris to me, the

26:34

Pittsburgh Steeler running back. Wait

26:36

a minute, I'm trying to think of who you're thinking of.

26:39

Duke was the closest to the well there

26:41

was that was the collective

26:43

name of him. Yeah, I see. That just confuses me because

26:46

back in the day, back in the day,

26:48

Gi Joe was a dude, a single dude, right,

26:51

But then they just kind of said that sucks.

26:53

Let's go with the better version here, let's

26:55

go with action figures, Let's make the

26:58

collective thing. Right. Did you

27:00

see that link to the stop

27:02

action um Vietnam

27:04

movie full link Vietnam movie that I did

27:06

you see my reply to that? Yeah, you made

27:08

a movie I did. My brother and I when we were

27:11

six and nine years old, respectively,

27:14

made a stop motion Super eight

27:16

movie with g I Joe dolls and

27:19

had a little plot and everything. What was the plot.

27:21

Um, we had this little shiny button and the button

27:23

represented like uh, micro

27:26

film disc and they

27:29

you know, it got stolen and Joe had to go retrieve

27:31

it from the bad guys. We shot it in

27:33

the woods near our house and it was pretty cool. Do

27:35

you have thereon now? There were

27:37

no explosions. I think we might have lit something

27:39

on fire. I

27:43

don't know if it still exists. It's got to be somewhere,

27:45

but I don't want to see it. So,

27:47

Scott, if you're listening, if you have that, we would

27:49

love to see that, agreed Scott, But

27:51

I don't think he has it. We should probably get Path to Ninja,

27:53

right, Is there anything else there? There are a couple

27:56

of things. Of course, Ninja exploded

27:58

in popular culture recently. It's

28:00

a kind of rival Pirates and Chuck Norris,

28:02

right, well, that's what I hear. I didn't know about that though.

28:05

So there's like that site I just showed you real Ultimate

28:07

Power about how ninjas flip out

28:09

and kill everybody. They're awesome and by awesome,

28:11

mommy, and totally sweet. It tells a It

28:13

tells the story of one ninja who

28:16

was eating in a diner and some guy dropped his spoon

28:18

and then Ninja flipped out and killed the whole town. Yeah,

28:21

just stuff like that. It's the great pirate versus

28:23

a Ninja thing because someone wrote in about that

28:25

that one. I don't know. I just I know

28:27

that Asking Ninja took on. Uh.

28:30

Asking Ninja dot com is another site

28:32

you can ask Ninja Ninja practical

28:34

questions like how to work a new iPhone

28:37

app and stuff like that. But he does actually

28:39

take on the pirates on Pirate

28:41

talk like a Pirate Day, which we mentioned as well. So

28:43

apparently there's some bad blood between pirates and Ninja.

28:46

My money is on the Ninja. Well, sure,

28:48

because they gets sneaking onto a pirate ship pretty

28:50

easily. I would. Pirates are all brash and Ninja

28:53

just comes up, puts the blade at the

28:55

base of your skull, inserts it into your brain,

28:57

scrambles it dead. Pirates the

28:59

pie it's are all drunk on ram and Ninja.

29:02

I don't think they drank. No, they might hit the

29:04

saki every once in a while, but that's about it.

29:06

And then one last thing. If you're a true

29:08

Ninja lover, there's one place you

29:10

have to be the first week of April

29:13

and that is in IgA at

29:15

the Haku Hojoe White

29:17

Phoenix Castle known as the Ninja

29:19

Museum. Yeah, they've embraced I I guys

29:21

really embraced their ninja roots

29:23

and they try to capitalize on that obviously. Yeah

29:26

for money, Well why not. It's

29:28

the root of all ninja. Yeah. I went to that website.

29:30

Museum website is pretty cool, is it? But they

29:32

have they have a festival and Ninja festival

29:35

every year, including in Ninja parade.

29:38

I want to see that. I can see ninja like driving

29:40

around in a little shriner's car. Yeah,

29:43

so that's ninja. That's it. Yeah.

29:45

Great, we covered just about everything. But

29:47

if you want to see some boss picks

29:50

of ninja hiding in trees and ninja

29:52

weapons and stuff like that, you can type

29:54

in ninja and the handy search bar at how stuff

29:56

Works dot com. And uh,

29:58

I guess now it's

30:01

time for listener mail. Huh.

30:05

Yes, josh I got a short one. I want to call

30:07

this our Influence

30:10

on the World. Nice,

30:12

this is pretty cool. You're gonna, I don't know if you read this one or not, you're

30:14

gonna love it. It It just came in today, Chuck

30:16

and josh I am a geologist in Columbus, Ohio

30:19

go buck Eyes, and I often

30:21

stumble across geo Is it

30:23

cache? I always say cations catch.

30:26

I think you can say either one, and I often stumble

30:28

across geo cashes when I'm out in the field during

30:30

research. I always follow all of the geo

30:32

cashing rules and signed the log book

30:34

along with usually leaving something behind for

30:37

others to find. This time, however, I

30:39

was a little different. It was a little different because when

30:42

I opened the sealed plastic container, I found

30:44

a key chain, a deck of cards, bottle

30:46

caps into Carlos Santana c d's.

30:49

So so awesome. I thought

30:51

this is a little odd until I remembered your podcast

30:53

on geo cashing caching from

30:55

last year when YouTube joked about

30:57

putting Santana c d's. So wait,

31:00

we put a should we go to should we go back and

31:02

listen to one part? Sure?

31:06

So, like, if your average hiker happens

31:09

upon this box full of Santana

31:12

c d's and they're thinking, wow, I can

31:14

just take d c d someone left these, this is awesome.

31:18

So there it is. And apparently, uh, and that

31:20

wasn't the only time we mentioned Santana c

31:22

D several times several times, and

31:25

j D from Columbus says, I thought I would

31:27

let you know that at least two Geo

31:30

catching fans in Columbus

31:33

listen to your podcast and it was awesome to

31:35

sort of meet one of them. That's cool. I don't think

31:37

that's coincidence to you. I don't see

31:39

how it could be a Santanas c D

31:41

and a Geo cash Are you joking? Yeah? Yeah,

31:43

I think that was our influence directly. I agree.

31:46

Pretty cool. You know, we've had another

31:48

um another influence on

31:50

somebody in I believe Slovakia.

31:53

Not sure, I think so. Uh, there's

31:56

a guy who wrote in and he founded

31:58

a site called weird Worm and actually

32:00

started a podcast and it's pretty good. You should

32:02

listen to it, and

32:04

he attributes it directly

32:07

to being inspired by us. Very

32:09

cool. Yeah, so you should check out weird

32:11

worm dot com and their accompanying podcast

32:14

to watch. They're going to overtake us in the ratings immediately.

32:16

Yeah, sorry, thanks

32:18

a lot. At least there's people out there trading San

32:20

Santa ce ds. That'll be our legacy each

32:22

other. Right, Well, if you

32:25

have any story

32:27

about how Chuck and I have impacted

32:29

your life, influenced you in any way,

32:32

or got you to do something really really

32:34

bad. We want to hear about it in an email,

32:37

which you can send. A stuff podcast at

32:39

how stuff works dot com.

32:45

For more on this and thousands of other topics,

32:47

is it how stuff works dot com.

32:50

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32:52

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32:54

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32:57

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33:00

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