And That's Why We Drink - E487 A Non-Squatting Sasquatch and Skreeonk Facts (featuring Guest Host Steven Ray Morris)

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

It’s Episode 487 and today Em is joined by guest host Steven Ray Morris while Christine is away! To kick us off Em tells us the lore of the Buena Park Monster (aka Buena Foot), a sewer dwelling sasquatch near Knotts Berry Farm. Then Steven brings us a creature related crime story with the tale of the Bone Wars aka the feud between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, truly a tale for the ages. And is New Jersey just a trashy Lord of the Rings? …and that’s why we drink! Catch Steven over on his podcast See Jurassic Right, or on Instagram @StevenRayMorris or @SeeJurassicRight ! Want to listen ad-free? Join our Certified Yapper tier for $10/month on Patreon! Ad-free episodes starting at E469 at: http://patreon.com/ATWWDPodcast ! Catch our bonus Yappy Hour intermissions on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3L28lDw or subscribe on Patreon!___________________Get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month at https://mintmobile.com/ATWWD with promo code ATWWD. $45 upfront payment required, new customers only, see site for details. Save 20% off Honeylove by going to https://honeylove.com/DRINK ! #honeylovepod Let Rocket Money help you find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitor your spending, and lower your bills—join at https://RocketMoney.com/DRINK Download the Reddit app today. Machine Washable Rugs, Made Better. For a limited time only, our listeners get 10% off + free shipping at https://tumbleliving.com/DRINK #Tumble #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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years of experience catching the bad guys. And I'm Hannah Anderson, a comedian and an armchair sleuth. Together, we will be your guides through the murky waters of online dating. Each week on the dating detectives podcast, we bring you stories of love gone wrong and the dogfish who prey on unsuspecting singles. Over the course of the season, we will investigate possible dogfish to get to the truth behind the red flags. Here's stories from dogfish survivors who dealt with some of the most insane scammers on the apps. And we dive into some of McKenzie's most wild investigations from the past with all her false identities, stakeouts, and plot twists.

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I just don't even want to have to think about like on top of sweeping, vacuuming. It just was not something I wanted to do. There's so many nice styles over there. Oh, they're so beautiful. It's very, very, very wonderful. So, yeah, machine washable rugs made better for a limited time only. Our listeners get 10% off plus free shipping at tumbleliving.com slash drink. That's T-U-M-B-L-E Living.com forward slash drink. After you purchase, they will ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Hello, everybody. You might be wondering what's going on. I am in Stephen Ray Morris's house. Unfortunately, Christine could not be here this week. And so Stephen decided that he would be

Stebian, but I decided I mean I kind of horse time. I said, please come right now. And I was going to record in our usual way over the internet, even though we're neighbors. And then that internet wasn't working. So I went to a hotel so I could use their internet. That internet wasn't working. Here is evidence of that somewhere. Hopefully we can put a little pull, a little screen tab of us once recording this. But then since that internet was so bad, we're trying for a third time. He said, just come over. So now we're here. And I'm all snuggled up in his living room. Thank you so much for hosting us as I host you.

Welcome to you and Ray Morris. Hello. Thank you for doing this with me. I'm very excited. We're getting cozy. You've got a blanket. Yes. My three cats are somewhere.

They're somewhere. Stephen even said, oh, do you only put the cats away? And I went, please keep them out because I know we got a lot of cat lovers who listened. So I did make you do this the last time, but would you please tell people all about your kitties because they're brand new to the family? No, I'm very lucky. I lost my cat Penny Lane of 18 years in November, and it's just one of those, and of course they're going to start running around. That's fine. If you hear any rumbles.

Come upon the scene. No, I, you know, you never know when you're ready for another pet, but my friend Christine had rescued these two black cats, and I was like, I love black cats, you know, they're harder to adopt, all that stuff. So I was like, I'll meet them. Right. And then their mom was there as well. And I just said, you know what, let's take them all. So from zero to one to three, three cats, as you've said. Yes, yes. Yeah. No, and it's the thing, yeah.

So I have three cats. Biddy Bum bum bum is the mom named after the Selena song. Love it. And then I have Ripley, who's the boy. He's the large black cat. He's the special boy. And then I have Wendy, who's the goblin princess, who I think is the one with the swishy tail over there right now playing.

She looks like she's in hunt mode, which I love. Yes. And my favorite fact about all this cats is that out of all three of them, it's combined. They have one tooth. Yes. Wendy has one tooth, which is why her tongue sticks out all the time. It's very precious. Eternal blep.

Eternal blep. Yeah, I love that. And I'm just so grateful for you, Stephen. It's been such an embarrassing day between like, hey, the internet's not working. Hey, the internet's not working again. So I really, I thank you so much for housing me. We did our C Jurassic Wright episode together here in this living room. It was one of the last recordings I did before I adopted these cats.

And Wendy and Biddy Bum bum bum are in full Lorelei. and Rory mode here. I call them the Gilmore Girls when they're fighting. It's the mom and daughter fighting. No, they, I, yes, I was here last time, probably one of your last silent episodes, I guess, before they were running around. But this is a wonderful time to shout out your podcast,

see Jurassic Wright. Yes. Tell the world what you'd like them to know about that. They love to show off. It's great. No, see Jurassic Wright, it started off as Jurassic Park podcast, but then I was thinking, because we, after our ASL class the other

day. I like the idea of C. Jurassic Wright is essentially like any guests that comes on. It's like what is their Jurassic Park? Yeah, I love that. And so I've interviewed scientists, I've interviewed therapists, musicians, other podcasters, people in the Jurassic Park movies. And me.

You started with scientists and we got to us talk, oh, there's one of them. We talked about Back to the Future. And theme parks and stuff. Yeah. I did really like, we kind of came together on the not together, but I was with you when you came up with the concert

like, what's your Jurassic Park? Yeah, yeah. I loved that. It was very nice because I remember when Stephen asked me it be on his episode, please go listen to it. I was like, oh man, it's a dinosaur podcast. What am I going to talk about?

And it turned into kind of just like a fandom geek fest. It was wonderful. No, that's totally, yeah. The podcast is basically kind of split between those two lines of like science stuff and dinosaur stuff. And then also like movies, pop culture, geeky stuff. Yes.

And then there's like a little late. in there where there's like Stephen lore related things that I can fit in there. Love it. Yeah. Love it. So Stephen is returning the favor and he's he's coming onto our show. Very excited. A lot, you've said the same on your end, but a lot of people who follow my social media

are very excited that we have become friends where we also did ASL together. So today's Yappy Hour, we're going to teach you a little ASL. And, but no, people are very stoked that, you know, we've got a little thing going on. So I'm glad that you're here. Poor Stephen already knows the topic because we got that far in the last recording. There's spoilers, no spoilers. I did ask Steven if you wanted a ghost and alien or cryptid. He said cryptid.

I did. And I did pick a local cryptid for him because he was born and raised or just raised in Anaheim. I was born and raised in Anaheim. So, you know, Orange County. I was born and raised at Disneyland. Mickey's my dad. Yeah, we talked in the last, you'll never know now. but we did talk about how Stephen,

your first job was at Disney? My first ever job when I was 17 was at Disneyland. And yeah, very few people can relate to that. I mean, I basically worked at Costco, the Costco pizza, like that's what Disney,

that's what pizza port essentially is. Yes. It's very good, but it is just like pizza. You know, it's not as like themed as other parts of Disneyland, but I did like being in Tomorrowland and I loved being below Space Mountain.

That was really fun. I can't imagine having like a work break. Like some people were just like, having a cigarette in Tomorrowland instead of a back alley. Yes, Pluto was having a cigarette with her head off. Her? Yeah. Oh, that's, I don't know why that's shocking to me, too.

That's just as shocking as the cigarette. Oh, wow. Okay, well, Pluto's having a good time. I mean, no, it's not the same Pluto anymore, but one can dream. Yeah. So the crypt that I picked for you was a local to Anaheim, and it was the Buena Park monster, although one of the newspapers I read did say Buena foot instead of big foot.

So we got about one bullet in. So that actually, Stephen is really going to be learning about this in real time. And you were not familiar with this monster. No, yeah. I mean, Buena Park is near Knott's Berry Farm where I had my winter formal in high school, which doesn't, I feel like you having a winter formal at a theme park doesn't make sense. Because you're riding roller coasters in a tux, in a dress. Oh, I didn't think about that.

Yeah. It was kind of a weird thing. Like I remember because, you know, ill-fitting suit at 17 or, yeah, I think 16 or 17, like my Nokia flip phone, like, flew out of my pocket on the roller coaster. Like, it was a bit of a disaster. I did. It didn't occur to me that people were actually in glam. No, no, it was, it was winter formal. Like, I feel like it should have either been like Sadie Hawkins or like homecoming.

That's kind of familiar with, um, I was very lucky to go to, uh, a premiere at Disney. Oh, cool. It was for the haunted mansion. Oh, nice. And so one of the cool things about that was you had to actually ride the haunted mansion ride. And when you got to the other side, that was where the movie began. You had to go, you had to ride the ride to get to the movie. Whoa, that's cool.

I thought it was so smart because then you like definitely knew all the references when you watched the movie because you just saw the ride. You were absorbing it. You were absorbing it. But we also had to dress up for that. It was a movie premiere. and I was like, are people going to go ride rides afterwards in this? Like in heels? I thought that was so odd.

But anyway, I did not. I did like one ride and I was like, let's get out of here. Okay. So, Buena Park Monster, I, the only fun fact I told you is that at Knottesbury Farm, nearby where this monster was seen, they, a few years later had a ride come out called Bigfoot Rapids. And a lot of people thought that that was inspired by the sightings a few years before. But unfortunately, I'm here to tell you that's not true.

They just picked Bigfoot, I guess. It's a great ride. You get wet, you know. It's one of those, like, is it a log flume or is it like when you sit in the circle and you go into the waterfalls? Yeah. Haven't read in it. Is it still there? I don't know.

That's a good question. I feel like I'm, my allegiances have mostly been split between Disneyland and Universal Studios. I understand. And I just really, I don't think I've been back to Knott's Berry Farm since high school. Get out. Not even for Halloween? They have a big Halloween thing out there or not. Maybe one year to the Halloween thing, but I just don't, I guess I'm not into Boisenberry.

I went to the Boisenberry Festival this year on principle. So it's worth it, so I should go. If you're hungry, it's a 10 out of 10. Okay, okay. Yeah. Okay, so we start in 1982. This is where the internet cut out last time. Ding dong, who's that?

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so in 1982 uh... bwena park locals report some weird activity going on in their town's drain systems they're just hearing odd sounds they're hearing growling uh they are hearing weird screams and they're seeing odd animal tracks and they're like well that doesn't make any sense what's going on in there which i could understand animals being like in a tunnel for a storm or something but it is California doesn't rain all that much. No, but it is interesting because the part of Anaheim I grew up in was like a big suburban, you know, big suburban sprawl.

Sprawl. And so half of the city was built, Anheim Hills specifically was built in the 70s and the other half was built when I was growing up. So the thing that everyone really noticed was that all the animals, you know, in those areas where they were doing construction were all being pushed out. So we saw a lot of wildlife growing up. Like I saw a ton of coyotes as a kid. Bobcat, so I wonder, I mean, this is in between those times, but again, it's like,

construction always pushes out wildlife. Had no idea. Okay, well, maybe that's telling of something here. We're seeing a bunch of animal tracks, but they were also seeing a dark, shadowy figure hanging around in the sewers. And pretty much people were reporting that they were seeing almost a human figure, but there was something off about it. It was just a little too hairy and just a little too big. People were reporting that when they would get a better look at it, eventually they realized

that this creature was about nine feet tall. In the sewer? That's a lot of crawling. There's no, there's not even a chance at squatting or anything in there. Nine feet tall with glowing red eyes. And so people claimed that they would see it near a riverbank at the local school, but there were no official records, just rumors of it existing. And then on May 10th, 1982, two teenagers and their three friends were all hanging out. So five

teenagers in total, they were all hanging out at the apartment complex. And I guess they're hanging out outside because they were within shot of the sewer system. And that's when they, for the first time, really got a good look at this thing because the creature was climbing out of the tunnel instead of climbing in.

So while they were outside, they hear a deep snar. and then get this whiff of something disgusting. It was like mean how they were describing how bad this smelled. Yeah, you would smell too if you were in this sewer. Literally, like I can't imagine a worse place to like try to smell good. But so they heard this horrible growl, got a whiff of something putrid. I'm saying putrid.

They were more intense about it. And when they turned around, that's when they saw this big ass creature crawl out. They thought that it could have been a bear. One of them actually thought it was big. foot. They were like, oh my God. I see him. Here he is. And one of the brothers, his name was Raymond, is he's still alive, I think. This is a quote from Raymond about what happened. It got bigger as the roar got louder. Which feels kind of like old school Hulk, where the angrier he'd get, the bigger he would get. So I don't know if they watched him like metamorphous,

grow. Yeah, grow. to a bigger big. But he apparently got bigger as he got louder. It was not humid at all. It was scary. It was real. Nobody would make me change my mind about this. I really think it was the real deal.

I really believe it to this day. That's almost a little over 40 years ago. You said May 10th. Yeah. Oh, wow. Like really coming up on it. 24 years? 44 years?

Yeah. They say that the figure hung around for an hour. which is crazy to me because if I were a teenager and I thought I saw Bigfoot, I would at least have gotten a camera or I would have thrown something near it. Is Bigfoot still out there? I think if I were at 16, certainly I wouldn't be thinking clearly. I'd be like, oh my God, it's right here. I don't know. I would react differently than just staring at it. I would at least wave someone over and be like, you got to see this. I mean, there was a, again, going back to like the wildlife and in that part of Orange County. Like the, I remember. I remember.

I remember very clearly one morning, I went out to go get the newspaper when you still read the comics in the newspaper. And I, like, stopped, like, halfway down the driveway because there was a coyote just sitting in front of the newspaper. And I was like... Oh, my God. Like, like, waiting for you? Yeah, like, waiting to devour me. And they're big, by the way. I thought coyotes, I mean, they're not wolf size, but they're much bigger than I thought they were.

No, no. And I was, this was probably when I was, like, I don't know, 12 or something. Yeah, it was kind of just like, you know? Yeah. It just stood there, looked at me. He was like, yo, what's up? Did you just slowly back away? Yeah, I just went back and said.

Okay. I was like, just a face off? Yeah, yeah. I punched it. No, I would never. And as it grew it or as it wrote it got bigger. And I wrote it in a battle. Yeah, you know, you should have ended it that way, actually, Stephen.

So not only were they watching it for an hour, apparently just sitting on their thumbs doing nothing, just watching it. They saw it splashing around in the water. They were hearing it kind of make weird. sounds. I was like, there's so many opportunities to like do something. I don't know. I don't know what I would do. I just in my mind, if the story could have been juicier, I'm mad that it wasn't. Like you writing a coyote into battle. Yeah. Apparently it did growl one final time before it ran off and they said it sounded like if Godzilla and a gorilla had a baby. Oh, so King Kong and Godzilla shacked up. Literally, isn't there a movie of Godzilla and King Kong

beating each other up? Yeah, yeah. There's a few. So though, that, that, sound exactly is what it sounded like apparently i mean that godzilla sound it's i know this because a friend wrote a godzilla comic jordan morris the got the official godzilla sound is screeonk skrionk yeah s k r e o o nk i think or something like that and the official spelling thank you you know what okay i come here with godzilla facts really like i didn't see that coming but i'm so glad you did i um at the dog park i'm hank's birthday's coming up and i've already told you people I'm going to do something. And I was thinking about thrusting it upon everybody at the dog park that day to do a spelling bee. I think screonk is going to be the final word. And I'll be like, please use it in a sentence. It'll be like, um, Godzilla sound, his sound is a screonk. I mean, it's kind of like,

that's my new Scrabble word that gets me in trouble. It's like, no, it's a real word. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Scrionk. Thank you. That's probably the most fun fact you guys will hear on this episode. Um, okay, so it's splashed around. It made a screeonk. And then, it made a Screonk? It's creonked. Yeah. And then it ran off further down the creek so nobody could see it anymore. But the kids were like, we have to tell someone finally an hour later.

They're saying this. And so they call the apartment managers, the apartment complex is manager. And he's like, I don't believe this. These are just some kids trying to mess with me. And I guess when the kids finally wave him over, he does see the shadow of it last minute. And he can still smell it. This thing is down the river. and he's like, I, what was that smell?

So this thing really is pretty stinky. And also his wife claimed to also see it. They basically saw shadows in the tunnel and that was kind of as far as they got. But they did also hear the Scrionk, although they didn't describe it as a Godzilla gorilla sound. They described it as like the dinosaurs in the movies and it smelled like hell worse than a sewer. Interesting, because it's 1982. So then it would have been something like Land of the Lost or like King Kong or like,

It's pre-Jurassic Park, so. We could have judged it up. Yeah, because they're saying, like the dinosaurs in the movies, you have to wonder what movies are they talking about. Yeah, yeah. So Frank, who is the manager,

his wife Lorraine, also witnessed this. But Frank agreed that it sounded horrifying. And by the time he got there, the monster was pretty much already down the water. So he only witnessed the shadows, but did see some large tracks in the ground. With that, that was enough for him to want to call the cops

and be like, we just saw something different. different than all the other animals. Can you please come? And it took the cops an hour to show because they thought that this was a prank Paul. By the time they got there, they like couldn't find anything or they said they didn't find anything.

It sounds like they didn't really try to find anything. And they basically said, oh, it must have been someone's pet, which is crazy. It's insane. So they didn't do anything, but by the time that they got there, I guess like some reporter heard about them in the woods looking for an odd animal. And the story just kind of spread like crazy.

Within three days, they were getting 200 to 500 calls within that week to the police station that people were seeing a monster in their town. Horrifying. Yeah. And Buena Park is just a very, it's just a, you know, I mean, having a theme park in your city is pretty cool, I guess. But like, you know, it's not, there's not a lot going on, I think, in Buena Park. Or there wasn't when I was growing up. so. I don't know much. All I know is knots and I know very little because I'm not a local, but I'm going to take your word for that. And it's funny that you mention, um, theme parks right

before this bullet point because one of the things I wanted to share with you was in that newspaper report that came out. Um, this is how they started the newspaper article. Some people living near Disneyland think the abominable snowman has wandered off of the amusement park's famous Matterhorn ride and has taken up residence in the sewer drain. And when this newspaper article came out, mass hysteria in town. This is what led to the 200, 500 to 500 phone calls. And people within 24 hours had organized a monster hunt, which again, that's who I wanted when they were just staring at this thing for an hour. They were like, we're going to go find this. And we don't know what we're going to do once we find it, but we got to get there. Wow, they really organized.

Quickly. Like, this whole story is like a week long. Wow. And they, a hundred people came to this hunt. I don't know how they got it together so quickly, but it's those damn screens distracting us. So cops were getting a bunch of calls of panicked locals. People were like locking their kids inside, thinking that the monster was going to come get them. And actually paranormal investigators also came out

to get tracks of this thing to follow it down the river. And they actually used dowsing rods, which is interesting because they're these rods that a lot of times are effective. by water. Yeah. So if you're trying to communicate with something, maybe they were using them to just follow where the water went, but aren't you staying next to a creek?

You can see where the water goes. I mean, but like, yeah, Orange County, like the river is there. I feel like that's a very generous term. Like there's a river that goes, that empties out in between Newport Beach and Huntington Beach that maybe is this river that they're referring to. But, you know, it's like the L.A. River. It's like an aqueduct, you know. Okay.

That makes me feel better. So maybe they were using the desert. Losing Rod's not in a paranormal way, but in a let's just keep following the water way. Yeah, you're like, oh, this thing's, this thing's just a concrete ditch for 90% of the year, you know? Which would make you think that it's a lot easier to find this thing. If there's like, it's not like he's hiding underwater or anything. True, but yeah, there are, there are, there are a lot of tunnels? There are big, like, culverts and things and stuff along that.

So, like, I remember when I did marathon, when I ran the L.A. Marathon, we would run along that river to, to, like, train for it and stuff. Okay. So. Good to know. You ran the L. Marathon? Twice, yeah. When I was... So twice was crazy. 17 and 18, yeah.

Ah, good for you, Stephen. I wanted to do it like later in life, but now at this point it's like a health risk for for people to do it over a certain age. Really? I didn't know that. Like, your chances of heart attack is a lot higher after a certain age. Like, I think 35 or something. Okay, so you're saying I have like a year and a half left until like, like medically don't ever have to agree to run a marathon. Yeah, well, you could do like a half marathon. No, no, no, no. You want to do 26.2. I mean, I just want to not be be able to do it and say a doctor said that it's for the best.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Liability. I just have to hold on for like 18 more months and hope nobody asks. Yeah. I have a couple of weddings this year and I used to panic about what to do shapewear wise or what to underneath the dress, but no longer because Honey Love entered the picture. I wear it under the dress to whatever wedding I'm going to.

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Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Experience the new standard and comfort and support with Honeylove. Oh, we got a little kitty. I did see someone like almost try to get me earlier and I was keeping my eye on it. This is beady, bim-biby-bumbum. Little baby. She's Jennifer Lawrence and cut off jeans. That's how I think of her.

I know you've said it to me before, but I get it. I know what you're... I'm not like the other moms. I'm like a cool mom. You know, like that's her attitude. I mean, she really does start swinging on them if they act up. Like it's very, um, entertaining here. So, uh, let's see.

Oh, so they had paranormal investigation. come out. I don't know if they had them come out or the investigators just kind of arrived when they heard this monster hunt was happening. While they were out though, they ended up finding one like print in the mud that they thought was okay but half of it seemed kind of destroyed and messed with. Yeah. So they got a cast of the first half of the track and they were like, let's look for something else. They ended up crawling into a tunnel and finding like a really good print where they said that they even tried to lean it like tried replicating it but they weren't heavy enough to make that kind of indent.

Whoa. And so they were like, we got it, we got to make a plaster cast of this right now. And one of the kids was like, you saw a track where? Like one of the kids on the monster hunt with them and ran up and destroyed it. And then only destroyed a part of it. And they were like, let's at least get the other half. And then another kid stepped on it and fully destroyed it. So don't let kids near crime scenes.

Like it's that simple. I'm right there with you. I just had another recovered memory. I think it was for my birthday when I was really young. But there was, there was like a little creek and like a big tunnel because the part of Anaheim, I grew up in there was like a lot of hills and stuff. So there was like this big tunnel that, or this tunnel that sewer tunnel that empties out into a creek. And for some reason, I think my mom or my dad put like my ninja turtle toys out there.

It was like they'd come out from the sewer. That would have blown my mind. That would have been. It's like really like, it's like I can picture it. And so that's honestly. what I've been picturing this whole story because I'm not too far from Buena Park, but Wainter Park's a little bit more flat and stuff. I love that. I, if I had Ninja Turtle toys, I would have absolutely played with them by the sewer or left them by the sewer or at least had

a photo shoot of them by the sewer. Of course, you got to. Especially if there was a rat nearby, be like, don't move. Master Splinter. Um, so anyway, they had this whole monster hunt. Pretty much nothing ended up turning up from it. And even the original people who witnessed this, the teenagers and the manager, the apartment manager, they were like, oh, well, of course it didn't show up because it was 100 people there and it scared it away. So that was their reasoning. You know what? I mean, it's not bad reasoning. They could be right.

They could be right. But they could also be wrong in just in denial. So to assuage everyone's fears because, I mean, the monster hunt happened. They're getting hundreds of calls this police station. And we haven't found anything. And people are literally locking their families inside and creating their own curfew because they're scared of this thing. The police are like, we have to do something, at least to stop the phone calls from coming in. Sure.

And so they have this press conference where they say, hey, everyone, we found the monster. Now, people know my opinion on the police as a whole. And I'm going to just say it sounds like they were actively quickly just trying to cover this up or just shut everybody up. That's my guess because if you found it and then didn't give everyone the satisfaction of showing us an image of it. Show us the feet. Yeah. Feet picks. Feet picks.

And the fact that they never did that, I'm skeptical of them. But who knows? They did say at this press conference, we got a picture of it. Now hang on. The picture, the photographer was this like paranormal expert or supernatural expert and also a photographer. How convenient. And he, I guess, got a picture of something. and then the police just decided that this was the Buena Park monster.

It ended up being not an eight or nine foot being. It was a random six four homeless man who had a bunch of grease all over him. And so now the story gets sad because I were like, oh man, people were literally hunting down like a guy who's already down his luck. Yeah. Living in the fucking tunnels lives in a sewer. So he smells like a sewer and everyone is just quoting, just getting quotes in the paper about how stinky he is. he's having a rough time. And so, I mean, realistically, was it Bigfoot or just like a man who was living in the sewer?

Probably a man living in the sewer. But I feel bad that all of this press happened on him, that, and he's already going through a situation. That being said, the people who are skeptical that this is just some sort of cover up from the police and they very strongly believe this monster is real, they called bullshit immediately on this picture. They were like, well, hobos don't live in tunnels. That was an exact quote. Hobbo, not an exact, hang on, here's the exact one. A hobo doesn't walk in the water. He walks along railroad tracks.

And I was like, so now we're just super duper stereotyping. People who are like riding the rails, you know. Does he also have like a plaid bindle on a stick? Like, anyway, so they were just looking for any reason to be like, it can't be. I know what I saw. And maybe they did, but it has never been seen since. One of the witnesses who was a teenager at the time, has since said that he is so adamant.

He knows what he saw. The Buenham Park monster is very real. And he said, oh, this was another, yikes. They really doubled down on just ripping on this poor homeless man. They said, if they would have seen and smelled him, they would be believers. Like, it was, it was for sure a monster. And I'm like, Jesus. Like, you couldn't even have a heart after the fact.

I mean, Orange County is a very conservative part of California. Yeah, so their attitudes towards unhoused is, that's not surprising that they would just kind of like, we're on par. Excellent. Beat on it. Like, by the way, you know, like. It's like, I must be right because he smelled so bad. And I'm like, he's already on housed.

Yeah. Okay. So anyway, that is kind of where it ended because once people decided, at least enough people saw this picture and assumed maybe I wasn't there. I never saw it. Maybe this really was the creature, quote. And so enough people. died down where the hysteria kind of, you know, waned very quickly. So before it fully dropped off, though, CBS's Dan Rather covered it, which is, I guess,

a highlight. And also two months later, there was another sighting of very large prints that was, I think it was like 15 inches tall, like some big ass print by seven inches wide. Wow. But also, I don't know if there was like some prankster. or just, you know, someone maybe was just trying to put a random fake Bigfoot print on the ground? I don't know. Yeah.

I don't know what was going on. But they did take a cast of that, and they did have, quote, bigfoot experts. Give it a look. And they did say it looked very similar to other Bigfoot prints that they had archived. So good for them. That print, by the way, is now at what's now called the Ralph B. Clark Regional Park. Okay. Do you know about this park?

I mean, I've probably been to that park because I played Little League growing up. Precious. It used to be called Los Coyotes, but it's Los Coyotes, I think, park. I mean, I feel like if I looked it up, I'm sure I'd recognize it. Okay. Well, it's now the Ralph B. Clark Regional Park, which in short is the Clark Park, of course. And the print that I was just talking about where they found it not too far away, they did say that it did look similar to Bigfootprints,

and it is currently being there. But I want to end on telling you some fun facts about the Clark Park. I think you're going to get into this. So the Clark Park was a former excavation pit. Hang on. By the way, this is interesting to Stephen because he's a big dinosaur nerd, if he didn't hear earlier. It is a former excavation pit.

It is the OC's paleontology hub with, quote, of the most concentrated fossil beds in Southern California. And it is the only museum, I got all this information, by the way, from the O.C. It is the only museum in O.C. dedicated to locally found fossils and has a dozen active dig sites. So, and you can go there. What hell have I've been doing my whole life? They have an extensive fossil collection with fossils up to 80 million years old. And I just wanted to shout out a few of those fossils that they have in their collection that you could probably go see right now.

And also not only is this dinosaur fossils, I also know you're a big fan of marine life. Yes. So there's a little more of that here. The first fossil that you can find there is a nearly complete nine million-year-old skeleton of a whale named Joaquin. They named him Joaquin. And this is a quote from that article that I read. Joaquin displays a period of whale evolution and whales evolved when four-legged mammals.

Tell me if you knew this. Yeah, yeah. Whales evolved when four-legged mammals living on the shoreline gradually made their way back to the sea. Waukeen's skeleton shows that evolution by having the remnants of a pelvis and a femur. So this whale has a pelvis and a femur, and you can go see that there. That's awesome.

There's also one of those active dig sites I told you about. They recently found a horse there, which now they have named the horse Tony the pony. And they also found another horse is molars. That horse is named jackpot, because when they hit it, they went, oh, jackpot. Nice. The third fossil you'd be interested in, I think,

is this hippo-like manatee called a paleo-paradoxia. Yeah, yeah. And fun fact, at this place, they have the largest paleo-paradoxia to ever be found. It's twice as big as any other one. Yeah, my friend Gabriel, who does Gabriel Santos, who does cosplay for science. He studies those.

Well, I bet he has been at Clark Park. Yeah. And then the last one I'm going to tell you about, I think this is the most fun fact for me, hopefully it's also fun for you, that there are very few dinosaur fossils in Orange County at all. Do you know that? Kind of.

I feel like that's why maybe I didn't, maybe why I'm not as familiar with this park and all their fossil glory. Well, it's because at the time, back in the day, Orange County was underwater. So there's very few prehistoric dinosaur fossils. And they estimate over there that maybe, maybe, two to three shoe boxes would hold all the fossils of Orange

County dinosaurs. Wow. And so that being said, although there's very few local dinosaurs to the area, there are nine pieces of hadrosaurs that you can find there. That's cool. I love a duck build. The last thing I'm going to say is that Clark Park, only 1% of the museum's collection is displayed for the public. But I have a feeling you could probably get in there real quick, and you could see maybe two or three percent of the collection. Yeah, we'll go on a trip. We'd love that. There's tons of small museums, like the Alf Paleo Center and the Western Science Museum. All these museums are in Southern California. I've never been to any of them. Really? You strike me as a museum guy.

Yeah, I guess I'm like a mainstream museum guy. Like, I've spent and worked with the Natural History Museum of L.A. a bunch, but I got to branch out. Well, now you have somewhere to go. And it's in your hometown. Yeah. So anyway, that is the Buena Park monster. I love that. I'm so happy. such an 80s story. It's like Bigfoot comes to the suburbs and it's like a week long like teens. It sounds like Godzilla. Because that's the year that E.T. came out too. So like it just feels like children, monster going on an adventure. Yeah. It's kind of like how in the 40s and 50s

they ended up having like the UFO craze. Yes. Was it because of like World War II all the spaceships and aircraft that was being built? Sure. Yeah. I mean that makes sense like well because it wasn't Roswell in 30. 35? 35? I thought it was 40 something. I don't know. Yeah.

I'm not a UFO guy as much as I am like ocean and dinosaurs. I do plan to go to Roswell this year, I think, for my birthday. That would be really exciting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. But anyway, that is my story for you. I hope you liked it. No, I mean, yeah, I don't know.

I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know that we had our own little monster craze. That makes me very happy that you didn't know it. I would have felt very, well, I don't know, because if you knew about it, you could have chimed in every now and them. But I'm glad that I shocked you with something about, that was local to you. No, that's so fun. Now it just makes me want to ask my parents if they remember this. Yeah.

I mean, I wonder how far out it's the rumor spread. Yeah. Like, was it only like within five, a five mile radius or was like, did the whole town hear about this like crazy cryptid? I mean, but yeah, my mom and my dad, because they, I think had only just recently gotten married. at that time, maybe a year or two before, year two after, but they were together at that point. And I think they were both working at banks in kind of like Tustin, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, like that part of Southern California. So they must, they probably not musta, but they're like, pull out a T-shirt out of the, you know, like. They were on like the Boona Park monster. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Buena Park Monster team,

1982. Yeah, I don't know. That would be, let me know if you find out anything about that. Yeah. Rocket money is the only reason that I'm not splurging out of out of reach anymore in any category because Rocky Money will be like you got to you got to get together. They say something's slid across my desk and it's your spending. And actually we're going to, we're going to streamline this for you. We're going to get this handled. This is actually now top priority.

Whenever I go in there and I'm like, can you cancel this? They're like right away. And I'm like right away. And they're like, right. They're like, we actually meant to email you about that. Yeah, yeah. And they usually did already. And they're like, we already did this.

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Yeah, it's your turn now. Oh, my gosh. I'm very excited. And I also, round of applause to Stephen because not only are you guesting, but now you are hosting physically. and I did ask you to do research for this, which is already, I appreciate all the work you've put in. No, I, well, I wanted to, I took this as an opportunity to really dive into something that I'm interested in that I think, I don't know if you know anything about this, but it's really, okay, how am I going to frame this story for you? This is very exciting. It's actually not that serious, but it's not, it's actually not that serious at all, comparatively.

but let's see if I take my notes, but it's funny because it is creature-related. Okay. Yeah. But I really, like, because it's the thing. I like work with so many people who write research, do all these, like, wonderful stories. And I'm like, oh, wait, like for Sea Jurassic Right. Like, I research for the guests, you know, like, if I have somebody on, I'll do research.

Like, but I don't ever, like, I guess I don't ever really write a story. So this was, like, a really fun opportunity. Oh, good. Okay, nice. So. Let me get my Evian, everybody, please. Okay. Mozart and Salieri, Edison and Tesla, Michelle Branch and Vanessa Carlton, that hot thruple from challengers, the greatest rivalries, the great rivalries of our time. This story isn't really about dinosaurs.

It's about toxic masculinity. Welcome to the bone wars. What the fuck is going on? Do you know anything about this? No, I'm so excited. What are you talking about? Okay, I'm so excited. Okay.

Okay. Okay. A real, I mean, talk about a mystery. Okay. Well, I was like, is there anything spooky or crimey related to dinosaurs? And this is like the probably one of, it is, I mean, I would say it's like one of, it is the biggest like dinosaur related in that vein, you know. Take it away, Stephen. So I was like, you know what?

I got to do it. Oh, my God. Dinosaurs, or as I call them, the prequel to birds, have obviously captured my imagination. captured my imagination since I first saw Jurassic Park on the big screen in June of 1993. Did you write a paper? I did. I mean, yeah, I wrote all. Oh my God. Okay. I had a lot of fun with this. But I'm so happy. I think you mentioned on our Back to the Future to see Jurassic right, but you didn't see Jurassic Park on the big screen. I didn't see it, period. Oh, that's, you still haven't seen it. Nope. Oh, that's right. We talked about this at Bob's Big Boy. We did. You and, you and Haley.

Yeah, neither of us have watched. I've seen it. I've seen like clips. I've seen the jello or the glass the water on the table. Yeah. It seems good, but I've never watched it. But what? Because you love nostalgia. Again, we talked about this one back to the future. Like, were you like a dinosaurs kid, a marine bio kid, construction?

You know, I feel like there's like different like horse person. You know what I mean? Like there's different categories of kid. Like what kind of kid were you? That's such a good question. I don't, I mean, for a while I was a space and a. a spy kid. Okay. Yeah. Spy gear in the 90s was like huge. When everything was like Plexiglass and it looked like high tech because you could kind of see through it. Yeah. Translucent technology. It really got

me going. Yeah. I was and I also, I was a big, like speaking of museums, if I ever had to go to a museum, which we did talk about in sign language, she asked what our favorite types of museums are. I love a planetarium. Yes. Okay. So you were a space kid. I was a space kid. You never went to space camp. Space and science kid, but I was not good at either. I just, I was fascinated by them. No, sure. I mean, that's one of those things where I've realized, again, obviously I didn't go to that park. Right. Maybe I've been to that park and I had no idea that there was bones there.

But like, I always wanted like the, it was before my time, but how every kid would get like a chemistry set. Yeah. I always wanted the chemistry set. But I also had a helicopter mom who thought I'd burn my eyes out. So, whoops. Never got one. The alternate timeline here. Yeah.

So continuing, dinosaurs and religion have always been at odds with each other. due to both being taught to us at a young age. And while non-Western societies have known about ancient bones for centuries, the idea of an extinct species of animal no longer walking the earth that God could let one of its creatures die troubled many. And that is the world that Otheneal Charles Marsh, born in 1831, and then Edward Drinker Cope, born 1840, came up as America's leading, pardon me, dick-swinging paleontologists.

So you don't know anything about that. every word you just said I've never heard of ornith is that where we get ornithology like birds uh what it was his name orthenial oath anil otheneal yeah yeah no no i know it's it's i don't know if there's anyone i don't think anyone's been named that before or after sent him yeah and i mean again i love a mozart and a salieri story like i love these like rivalries you know where like one person feels like the other one is getting success that the other one doesn't deserve. It's giving Hamilton. Yeah, totally.

Hamilton's part of that, too, as well. Although I shouldn't be smirch Michelle Branch and Vanessa Carlton because I love them both equally. And that's fine. But I just thought it would be fun to throw that example in because you really threw me at first. I was like, what are we talking about? And Edison and Tesla, of course, you know. That one was a little clearer to me. Yes, yes.

That example makes more sense. That one has more heat behind it, I think. But so the first, quote unquote, again, just speaking in Western civilization terms, sure. The first dinosaur bone was founded in England and Aquarian 1676 megalosaurus. I called them like any T-Rex or Velociraptor. I call them meaty boys. Love that.

Okay. Because they eat meat? Yeah. Okay. It's very simple. I know if it's because they were like, they got a thick little tushy or something. No, I mean, I mean, some of these dinosaurs were kicked up. But, um, another, I.

iconic first find was iguanadon by mary ann mantel in 1822 um iguanadon is like the disney movie a dinosaur it has like it's like a plant eater um and it's got like a big spike for a thumb to like get plants fun yeah very like kind of almost it doesn't look like an ant eater but it like you know it has like clause for non killing things sure you know sure um and then in 1842 paleontologist or Richard Owen coined the term dinosaur, meaning terrible lizard. Love that. I did not know terrible was involved, but I knew lizard was involved. Yes.

And then Charles Darwin's Origin of Species published in 1859, introduced the theory of evolution by natural selection. Okay, that's enough background. I still loved it, though. I never knew that the first dinosaur was found in the 1600s. Yeah. It's so crazy to me that there were people who just had no fucking clue that there were dinosaurs. I mean, that's why I find it interesting.

Like, that's why dinosaurs are so interesting, because it was like the first time people are like, wait, like God let animals, like people just assumed that all animals that had ever lived were still alive, you know, in Western society. And so dinosaurs were like part of this, you know, slow rise of science in our society. I'm shocked that that didn't rattle more people about like the ethics of God. I mean, it totally does. And it's, yeah, it's a whole thing that I really want to like dive into more because I know a lot of people with religious trauma. If you ever want to come back on it. And that's why I drink you're more than welcome to talk about it.

It's, it's, that's like a, I'm so excited to dive into it because there's a lot of fascinating stuff related to that. So does that mean the 1600s, that means the George Washington no dinosaurs exist in? Well, I think by, yeah, by the 1700s, people were started, you know, white people essentially were starting to find bones of creatures and being like, maybe they were giants. Maybe they were, you know, again, like starting to be like, okay, maybe they're giant lizards. Maybe they're like, you know, it wasn't really clear. It was just like clearly these bones don't match anything that's still alive.

Something's going on. Yeah, something's going on. Okay. So let's get to know our combatants. New Challenger approaches. Otheneal Charles Marsh was what you might describe as the traditional stereotype of a scientist. All facts, all study, focused on his work and a believer in Darwin's theory of evolution. Okay.

He wasn't the most social or affable guy and never married. Okay. Just a nerd. And maybe was on the spectrum a little bit. Sure. From descriptions of, there was like a, one of his friends described him of like, he, even though we were, had known each other for years, he acted like, like, we had never met every time, you know, or something like that. I was like, oh, wow.

He was really locked in on his, on his data. Yeah. Yeah. Marsh was born in New York City. And after his father's business troubles and his mother's death. during childbirth, not his childbirth, the family settled on a farm in Massachusetts where Marsh was expected to help. But listeners, he was not interested in being a farmer. I don't think so. And thanks to his wealthy uncle, George Peabody, who was a banker, Marsh didn't have

to settle for life on the farm and instead traded up for life of academia, enjoying the study of minerals and fossils at Yale. Nerd alert, yeah. But it's like you just, I don't know, anytime you hear stories about like schooling you know 100 to 200 years ago it just is such a different like I went to you see Santa Barbara so it was just like well school on the beach yeah but back then it was like oh you made it into a prestigious institution but you went back to you went to school back east I did but I not not at Yale I'll tell you that it was more of a woo kind of place just like I'm just brick and ivy you know yeah that's how I picture this you know yeah and but I also wonder if you were to talk travel back and be at Yale hundreds of years ago, how, like, what was the quality of the

education, I wonder. Woo! With the quill. Woo! Party at our place. Don't protest. It's like etched into stone. Yeah.

Thy don't be a, I don't know. A curmud. A tomfool. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You know, old tiny language. I'm with you.

Yeah. Edward Drinker Cope, on the other hand, which again, drinker as a middle name. He would do a great job at my college. Woo! On the other hand, was a Philly boy, born to a wealthy Quaker family, and was much more congenial than Marsh. Okay. Hold for page, drop. I don't know how Karen and Georgia did this one.

I would print them their stories every week. Would they do it with paper? Yeah, yeah. I would print out the stories for them every week. Wow. Well, let him know. So to me, Marsh was the Steve Wozniak as cope is to Steve Jobs. Okay.

So it's like that's another great, not necessarily rivalry, but this idea that like one person is kind of like the face, the showman, the like, the, you know, the personality hire. Yeah. No, I totally. And then the other person is like the actual person doing the work. Yeah. And so, yeah, Cope's religious upbringing prevented him from ever fully buying into Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection. So just another helpful distinguishing between the two of them. Totally.

Because, you know, I've been making these great rivalry comparisons, but it's like a little bit different than some of them. You know, like, there's all, there's kind of unique aspects to each rivalry. But yeah, like I feel like. I wonder how this story, because if it's, it's, what were the years? They were born the 1830s, right? born in 1831 was March, so he's a little bit older, and then Cope was born in 1840. It's fascinating to me how this information is still out there. Did they have diaries where they just wrote about how they hate each other?

We're going to get into it. Okay. Yeah. And Cope was raised to be a gentleman farmer, aka how all millennials now in their 30s and 40s have gotten into crafting archery ceramics in ASL. Sure. Analog. So Cope lived off the family dime to pursue science for the sake of science for the sake of

science, not profit, and without much proper schooling. He was a vibe scientist. Yeah, it sounds like it. He was like, it ain't, it ain't much work, but it's honest work. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He was just, yeah, Cop was the one, he was the, he was the rich kid who was popular and fun, and Marsh was the scientist, like, I just care about my work. Yeah, they're both getting into it for different reasons.

Yeah. Yeah. Eventually, Cope did go to the University of Pennsylvania and study under Joseph Ledy, who was one of the OG paleontology. just North America. And then during the Civil War, both Copen Marsh left the country behind and had their fateful meeting at the University of Berlin in 1864. Wow. So, unfortunately, heated rivalry, this is not. Okay. Got it. In a different way, maybe. Maybe. But they had spent, they had spent some time together in Berlin chatting about their love of fossils, ancient life, and more.

and they even named some extinct species after one another. Fun. Oh, it's kind of like the reverse wicked where like they seem to really be getting along initially. You're right. It is kind of like wicked a little bit. Yeah. It's a, we met at school. Yeah, yeah.

Oh my God. It really is wicked. And I mean, naming dinosaurs after each other is. I thought I knew you. It's literally the most romantic thing you can do. Right. Yeah. Dearest, you know, cope, I named this tiny lizard after you.

You know, I do wonder, like, who got the cooler dinosaur named after them. Well, neither of them named dinosaurs after each other. From what I remember, they were like, I think it was like an ancient shell and like a lizard. So I didn't get too, again, because the story isn't really about the dinosaurs as much. It's more about these two characters. Sure. But, yeah, we'll get in more into that. But it is still very romantic.

It is still kind of heated rivalry. No, no. And I, yeah, because I interviewed a paleontologist, Dr. Thomas Rich in Melbourne last year. and his wife, who's also a paleontologist, Dr. Patricia Vickers, they named two dinosaurs after their kids. Get their hell out of here. That's incredible. You know what?

Emisaurus, you know? Emasaurus isn't that bad. Emotitan. What would you be, though, if you had a name of an intro for you? Morosaurus. I mean, come on. Amorosaur. Yeah, a morisor.

Let's love, too. Amor. I mean, we figured that one out pretty quick. Yeah. I wrote, now kiss at the end of that sentence. Now kiss. Back in America after the Civil War, both men began their professional paleontological careers. Marsh became the head of the Natural History Museum at Yale, which I didn't know where Yale was.

So I had to look at it up. Can I get right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I had never been back east. Oh, past night. So maybe I should do a dinosaur tour, like go to all these old museums. A dinatore?

I mean. Hello. The Morosaurus is on a dinotaur. Yes. And so, yeah, Marsh became the head of the Natural Western Museum of Yale because his uncle, that rich George Peabody, bought and paid for the museum to be built. And was like, by the way, you can have my nephew run it.

Must be nice. Must be nice. Meanwhile, Cope became a zoology professor at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and was a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences. So the pair reunited a few years later, when Cope invited Marsh to the Marce to the Marlvan. Marl Pits of New Jersey. Have you ever been to the Marl Pits?

No. Is that near Marlboro, New Jersey? Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, it's somewhere in New Jersey. Okay. New Jersey is like, uh, trashy Lord of the Rings. Like, that's how I think of, the way people talk about New Jersey, it's like a Bruce Springsteen song or like, uh, you know, Chris Getherd stand-up bit. Like I, the only really frame of, I mean, I just came back from New Jersey after having never been there. I was born in Jersey. Oh, okay. Yes.

But I never spent any time there, and I have family there. My only frame of reference growing up was Jersey Shore. So in that way, it does sound a little bit like a back alley smelling like a cigarette, which I know is not true as someone who just like experienced some wonderful parts of it. But the stereotype, they, everyone from New Jersey seems to rag on New Jersey. So what am I supposed to find? Yeah, yeah, you lean into it. But then there's stuff like the Jersey devil and like, there's like an Americana vibe to it as well.

That feels very like fantastical, you know. I mean, I really had a good time there. It was really fun. I really want to go. It was pretty fun. Dream Mall. What's the? Oh, American Dream. Yeah.

I have been there. That was also incredibly fun. That was a good time. There's a, there's a snow hill. There's a ski slope in there. Yes, I do know about that. We're going to go, but it closed. It was closed that day.

Anyway. So, yeah, the pair reunited at the Marl Pits of New Jersey, where it was like, dearest, dearest Marley. Darleney and Potichold? Darling Marsh, would you like to join me in the Marl Pits of New Jersey? My mentor, Joseph Ledy, has discovered the hadrosaurus. And it's like, bro, come look at my pits, you know? Look at my dig site.

So, you know, you might have images of Sam Neal as Dr. Allen Grant in Jurassic Park, although you haven't seen Jurassic Park, but others might. So, you know, you're thinking of a rugged Indiana Jones-style paleontologist digging up bones. But back in the day, these paleontologists, they paid people to dig up the bones. Get out. Yeah. They just would hire quarrymen and minors and stuff and be like, all right, can you just dig up chunks of rock that we kind of know have bones there and then send them back to the lab where then they would actually like do all the intricate stuff and prepare them and then write the papers and everything like that. Gotcha.

Yeah, Cope nor Marsh never really got their hands literally dirty. Okay. And so this is where the first, okay. Drama happens. Marsh soon after his visit would return to the pits and pay Cope's men to send whatever they found to him instead of to cope. Oh, that's evil. The first act of betrayal.

Truly, like, why? I almost think it's in my head, like, from what I've read, and again, I'll list my sources after this, but, like, it's almost this thing of, like, may the best man win. like Marsh, I think maybe being more antisocial was just sort of like, well, Copes already got enough bones. You know, like, it's, it's, there's no gentleman's agree. You know, there was no gentleman's agreement. Sure. But still isn't this like your buddy who, like, he named a shell after you?

I know. But it was this next hoopla that would turn friends and lovers. That's not, they weren't lovers, to enemies. Okay. Well, Marsh was the more methodical and studious of the pair. Cope was known for his storytelling and push for the spotlight. Again, he's, like, charming, you know, fun, cope published new papers monthly with little science compared to Marsh's more dry and scientific publications. Okay.

So, like, I didn't write any specific down, but the sense of what I've read of copes is that he'd be like, you know, this ancient bed with this dinosaur stuck. You know, it was like very flowery, whereas like, Marsh is like, well, and the tubula connects to the femur, you know, like. Yeah, yeah. I'm being very general here. very stuffy. It seems a little more... Yeah, just more academic. Yeah, yeah. And the...

So I like that my important moments are stuck in between two pages. So... Hold, please. So the apocryphal story as depicted in an episode of drunk history... Love. That in 1868, Copa was presenting

his new marine reptiles discovery, Elasmasaurus. So, Elasmosaurus. Think of like a pleasaur, like Lochness monster. Okay. It looks kind of like that. So he's presenting the skeleton of the Elasmosaurus. When Marsh points at it and goes, I think the head is on the tail and like pulls the head and like is like, you idiot?

Yeah, of course. You stupid idiot. And then Cope is like, uh-huh, and like runs out of the hall, you know? Sure. Humiliated. Sure. Totally ashamed. Yeah.

Yes. So. that story is basically exaggerated because as these two became rivals, Marsh essentially, because actually it was Cope's mentor, Joseph Ledy, who pointed this out, just sort of like,

hey, but then Marsh heard this and was like, I'm going to just constantly, you know that time when you put the head on the ass end? He's like rubbing it in. Yeah, yeah. So,

and that basically severed their friendship for good. Okay. Until the end of their days. Okay. So have you ever had a rivalry with somebody? I'm like trying to think, I think the worst rivalry I, I, no, I don't think I have. I think in high school, I was, I had a bully. Sure.

But I wasn't a bully back. Yeah, I feel like this. I mean, I kind of was because I, once I got a microphone in my hand, I said to, I mentioned that I had a bully and maybe said her name at one point. Whoopsy. So sorry. Whoops. Look, look, it was a long time ago. and I'd hopefully no one has boxed her.

Look, I do feel guilty about it actually. So yeah, I've had a rivalry. We have one now because I said something. Sorry. I know. Yeah, I've never really had a true like friend to now we are active enemies, you know? Right. Like there are like fake beef that I start with people.

Like I was starting beef with Jesse Buckley who won the Oscar for Best Actress last year because she. Love that you just start beef with someone like that. Because she made her now husband get rid of his cat. So, you know, you know what? That's a good, that's a real rivalry. You know, or there was a film school, this very famous director, Mike Lee, who made one of my favorite movies. But when he was, when I went to London film school, he was total ass to all the students. And so I like was very saucy back to him. So he probably doesn't remember me. But, you know, it was like, oh, one of my favorite directors is a total asshole. But, you know, and I stood up for a friend, you know, in the class.

That's great. But when you're beefing with the director of the film school, the first week of class, you're like, maybe I'm not going to be here for very long. Yeah. No, I think, I wish I had like a juicier one. I mean, I really, I do actually feel pretty guilty as an adult with a fully developed brain that I had a high school bully. And I think when in the early years of the podcast, I called her out by name. and now I feel bad because I'm like, oh, I hope I didn't like ruin your life. But then also like it was 12 years of hell.

And like then I grew up and had a microphone in my face and I got a little cocky with it. It's really not a rivalry. It's just something I lose sleep about. I mean, when people come into your life, they're part of your story. So it's your right to tell that part of it too, you know? And I hope everyone here agrees on that. No, I think the biggest rivalry I have is like my, my, these days is like my MAGA family.

Sure. Like, which I don't have a relationship with them, but then there's always that awkward conversation during holidays. Like, why won't you talk to us? And I'm like, oh, because you're terrible. Yeah. So I don't really have like a Hamilton. No, for sure.

Yeah. And I mean, again, how many people really do have this? This is such a like, well, okay, I'll get more into it. But, you know, so, you know, we're back to picturing Jurassic Park, which just, just picture desert, Laura Dern, looking amazing, you know, and some cutoffs. I have seen enough of it to know that she looks incredible. Our queen. So picture the opening of Jurassic Park again with Dr. Ellie Sattler and Dr.

Alan Grant out west in America because that was a great place to dig up dinosaur bones. Sure. I, you know, as much as I love dinosaurs and stuff, I've never actually dug up a fossil. Nope. I've done like the fake like the gem, find the gem and the dirt kind of stuff. Yeah. I found him like arrowheads. In the dirt.

All right. That's something. Yeah. I found like a railroad spike. That's cool. Yeah. Do you have a metal detector? I don't. Christine does. Oh, cool.

But, and I, she did something recently where she did like the, the really intense magnet. And then you go fishing. Oh, yeah, yeah. That sounded really fun. I would love to try that. Yeah. And then there's even mudlarking in the Thames. What's that?

So, like, the Thames in, they're coming to get us. No, it's a fire truck. It's a fire truck. Um, no, in the Thames, it obviously has like a thousand years of history and just people dumping stuff. So when the tides go low, people can go and like dig around and you, like, people have found like Roman artifacts, stuff from the Victorian era, like bottles and things. I've always wanted to find a bottle at the bottom of an ocean. With a message. Yes, yes, with a message.

Like if we were an empty bottle, I'll waste my time. Yeah, yeah. You want to be like, dearest, you know. Yeah. I want to find a bottle with a message. I mean, even if it was like in the walls of a house. Yeah. Like I, one of my friends, she, oh, it's the closest thing to a rivalry I've got. She ends up being maga.

Now we don't speak. But in her house, she had a message in a bottle because I guess they had some sort of party or something happened where a hole ended up in the wall. And they found, it happened to be in the exact right spot where there was a bottle. And I guess the house used to be like a frat house. And they ended up finding like a picture of all the frat brothers and stuff and like a note, which makes me one of. like if you just happenstance broke that section of the wall, are there other bottles and other places? I know.

Like how much like what's hidden behind. And your house is like 100 years old, right? It's almost. Yeah. Yeah. I just have hope that there's something in the walls for you. Yeah. Just start hammering away.

You'll figure it out. Yeah. Now I'm just thinking of what is this feeling so sudden? You know, like I'm just like now imagining these two paleontologists like writing. I didn't mean to compare it so much to Wicked. But it's so far very, I mean, come on. It's like they're currently in their Emerald City moment. Yes.

Or they've stepped away now. They stepped away and now it's like, Elfabah, please. You know, like. It's a little too good. I did dress up as Glinda. And drag, right? Yes, for Halloween. And then it was mostly actually because Amanda, goodness, from drinking the Kool-Aid and I,

we love Wicked, which is how we met because we watched Wicked together. But Amanda and I did a Wicked episode together on Sea Jurassic. Right. So she was Alaba. I was. I remember the thumbnail of that. And one of you just had green everywhere. Amanda was covered in green. Yeah. And I look great in a crown. So back to the story. So, yes. So, you know, the conditions for creating a fossil are like really hard.

It's like really rare for things to fossilize because it's like, you know, you think about like, you know, when people find like, I don't know, like a rat skull or or like, or like, you know, like deer, you know, carcasses because it's like predators will come and pick it away and then bugs and the sun can like destroy bones and everything. But like the best way for things to become a fossil is usually they fall into water and then they're covered by sediment. And then millions of years happen. And then those, you know, because fossils aren't actually bones. They're minerals that have replaced. It's almost like a mold, you know. So fossils aren't bones. Like they're, no, they're not bones anymore. They're a essentially like the minerals have replaced every like structurally where the bone was.

So it's like a cast of a bone. Essentially, yeah, yeah. And I'm not a paleontologist. So if I'm not explained, I'm like in my head, I'm like when you're at a museum and it's like first step to become a fossil, die. You know. I had no effing clue. I just thought, oh my God, you found the exact skeleton. I mean, it is like, it's like essentially if you were replaced by rock.

and you know fucking crazy yeah so like over i think i can't remember what the over under is but like it is like i think over 10 million years old you become like that's kind of like the threshold for like becoming a fossil so embarrassing if you're in the nine millions and you're like oh well you'll just wait you'll be fine yeah yeah so obviously not obviously but the deserts deserts are a great place for fossils and like you mentioned earlier in your story a lot of this part of you know Wyoming and the Dakotas and parts of California, Nevada and stuff, was all underwater during the Cretaceous period. It was called the Great Interior Western Seaway. You're so smart. I might have like flipped some of those things. But this is basically the area where the

Bone Wars happened. So yeah, places like Wyoming, the Dakota's Colorado, where the battlefield of the bone wars as both Marsh and Cope sent out teams into indigenous people's territories on a race to dig up and try and describe more dinosaurs than the other. So really was they were just racing a figure out to just get higher stats or a bigger name in the community. Yes, exactly. Before the other person. And so like I was saying before, Cope was much more of like he finds a bone and he's

like, well, this thing is a blah blah, blah, blah. And, you know, it's, it stocked its prey and, you know, like, and this gentle plant eater, you know, sat by the river and munched on plants. Like, it was more just about that storytelling aspect. Whereas Marsh is like slowly piecing bones together. Like, well, it sounds like Cope's going to win the race then. If you're taking your sweet time and to study everything. There technically is a winner. But it's like Alien versus Predator.

We're like either way we lose sort of thing. It's like, well, we could have 10 sequels of this movie. It'll just keep, it will always, the killers will always be alive at the end. Here we are again. Talking about Reddit somehow. I don't know how we became enemies to lovers, but it happened. It's happened and I knew it was going to happen because every time I get on that Reddit, buy, gone it. Is that a word?

I don't know. I find out something new that I didn't even realize I was interested in or I get to practice my intuition. You know how much I love my intuition practice subreddit. even just like the homepage where they just like recommend stuff. I'm like, okay, fine, I get it. You understand my soul. Okay, Reddit, fine. Take it.

I feel like there's quite a lot of subredits that I was not letting myself love for quite some time. And you just got to lean in. These days I'm falling asleep because instead of reading books, I read Reddit. And I've been diving deep into this one called What Is This? And basically people take a picture of something. They don't know what it is. I love that subreddit. I love that subreddit.

And it's like a gas. get and I'm like that changed me. And you just scroll. And like you find like wisdom and humor in the comments and you're like what's happened. What book is this? I forget what book I'm reading. It's yeah. I know what it's like. It's really fun. That's why we turn to our favorite subreddits, whether that's the intuition practice or what is this. Whatever question you're dealing with, whatever problem you're stuck on Reddit always has the answers. Download the Reddit app and get answers on what this is. What is this? Download the Reddit app today. Download the Reddit app today. So, and I say this has no disrespect to other podcasters who have covered this story,

but the idea that this pissing contest, this competition being overall a great thing, leading to 142 new species named and big press for the then burgeoning field of paleontology, I do think this idea is a little bit flawed. Oh, okay. Over the 20th year period of the Bone Wars, not only would many of these discoveries turn out to be false, they would try and claim each other's discoveries. No, I discovered it. No, I discovered it.

No, it's an allosaurus. no, you know, famously, it's an apodosaurus. No, it's a brannosaurus, like, stuff like that. They would also try, yeah, they would try and claim each other's discoveries as their own, and they would take other, like, other paleontologists are like, I would like to be excluded from this narrative. And it's like, I'm taking your dinosaurs too, you know. It sounds like, I mean, it's very, very you get like the inside of like geeks fighting.

Yes. Oh, totally, totally. It's just, this is just like what, like, lab nerds are all about. I think it's so, so, I love this. But it feels very antithetical to science, though. And this is the part where it's going to feel very antithetical to science, which is often they would sabotage each other's digs and destroy actual fossils to be like, ooh, you guys can't carry out all these bones. We'll destroy the ones that you left behind because I don't want cope to get them or I don't want March to get them. Yeah. And it is antithetical to science because I'm thinking at least, well, now we can't, we lost evidence.

you just destroyed evidence for your own personal gain personal gain yeah and there's also been like again it's one of those like apocryphal sort of tales that I think both of these men lead into of like he used dynamite to blow up my bones you know like that kind of thing it's not only redestroying it but like who can destroy it better and also like again at this time you know it's post civil war it's that period of american history you know where we're committing atrocities against indigenous groups and stuff so it's like all of that is going on in the background while these two men are sending out teams to go and dig up dinosaur bones. Sure. Like just really like painting a picture of that time. Like right.

You know what I mean? It's like a lot of selfish white men. Yes. Buffalo or I just spoiled it, but Cope actually went out on a trip with Buffalo Bill. Shut up. Like, you know what I mean? He's just like, woohoo. Like we're going to dig up some bones.

You know? And it's just like, who's this like rich kid, you know? Like Buffalo Bill, I guess has his own. a full rap sheet, but like, I feel like that should be added to the list of things that people know best about him. Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, he's done all these things. Also, he, like, helped dig up dinosaur bones. Yeah. Or just as like a publicity stunt, yeah, went out with them. And I don't blame him. For the PR, that would be a cool thing to do. Yeah, no, no, of course. It was, yeah, I mean, um, so yeah, they would often destroy actual fossils. They basically ruin

paleontology's reputation to the rest of the world for a while. And having interviewed paleontologists working today, they're basically, like, paleontologists now are still undoing the damage that these guys did. Because, yeah, it's like, either they would destroy things, the information that people wanted to know, or because they were just, like, mislabeling things

and renaming things. So it's like, that's the interesting thing, like I learned interviewing paleontologists and interviewing museum people is that, like, you know, trying to get funding for anything. A lot of times most museum, stuff is sitting, you know, in the back, just waiting for somebody to study it.

Clark Park only has 1% on display. Yeah. So. And so a lot of it is because of all this was done so messy, you know, these divas. Yeah. And it was just like, even now we're still trying to like, you know, scientists are constantly going back and being like, okay, like let's look at their work. Was it actually up to snuff? We kind of have to redo it or, you know, which is why like, you know, because I don't know if you know about like how Bronosaurus and Apottosaurus are the same dinosaur. Like Bronosaurus was the, like is the more popular one. Like you know Bronosaurus. I do. It's a little foot. Yes, little foot essentially. But Bronosaurus basically was named second and the original dinosaur is Apottosaurus, which is at some point in the 60s or the 70s,

they're like, wait, Brontosaurus is actually the same as Apatosaurus. Are they actually? So, well, from my understanding, this is one of those like, I just remember this as a kid, you know? But essentially, Bronosaurus was an apodosaurus with a different long-knock dinosaurs head. Crazy. And but now, you know, kind of like Pluto's situation, they found another dinosaur that's like Littlefoot to give to the name Bronosaurus to. So Bronosaurus is a real dinosaur again. It's just not the same one.

It's like Bronosur is 2.0. Yes, exactly. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So, but it's stuff like, paleontologists are constantly, like, fixing stuff that these two men messed up. And so, like, yeah, I mean, we can talk more at the end about it, but it's like, I don't know, sometimes I'm just like, is competition always healthy?

Not this time around, no. I mean, it really, I mean, the fact that you're covering, you're the true crime half of this. I mean, this is a crime against science, for sure. Yes, it is a crime against science. So by the 1880s, Marsh was made head of the U.S. Geological Survey and sought to consolidate power and assert his dominance over Cope who had been publishing way more papers. And Cope was running out of family money.

He invested in a silver mine that went bankrupt. And here is, who's this? It's one of them. It's Wendy. So, yeah, Cop was running out of Daddy's money. He's investing in things like silver mines and stuff. You know, this is, you know, after obviously the gold rush had been a while ago. but, you know, all this kind of prospect and outweb.

Have you ever been painting for gold? Only, like, as an attraction. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's very fun. So, yeah, cope was running out of money. Marsh was headmate of the U.S. geological survey. And so Marsh, in his position of power,

created a law that all fossils discovered with the assistance of the government would now be government property. Oh. So basically he was creating a law so that he could try and steal copes fossils back from him or not back from him but from him it's giving trump yes okay i make a law that helps me i don't know yeah it feels that way it's like well i'm just kind of like trying to like scoop it all up yes yes yes yes but cope was a good record keeper and he avoided marsh's repo men because it was daddy's money that paid for these digs not the government right so but this law would

come back to bite Marsh in the end eventually. Okay. So Cope is now on the offensive. He reaches out to the New York Herald and like any great diva, you know, takes to social media, aka the newspapers, with a list of grievances, mistakes, and complaints from former employees and colleagues of Marsh in a full expose, forcing him to resign as head of the U.S. Geological Survey. Holy shit.

Like, how many bad things had he really done? It sounds like he was the smart, nerdy one who would have actually been paying. more attention to the science of it all. Exactly. But I think he got cocky. I think he was like, I'm, I'm educated. I go to Yale. I'm the real scientist.

Sure. And Cope is just the showman. So that's why I think this story is very interesting because you're like, oh, yeah, wouldn't like, in some ways, aren't you rooting for Marsh because he's like the real scientist? But like, Cope was actually kind of a nice guy. And I think Marsh maybe like almost resented the fact that like, he was. He was jealous of his popularity?

Maybe. Or like that is his charisma? I think so. I think there's some element of that. Because it sounds like, I mean, I could see him either being jealous or at least thinking like, it's not fair. Like I'm doing this by the fucking book. And like you and your little like fun attitude all of a sudden like you get just as much praise as I do. Yeah.

And all the papers and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Like the, um, the insecurity of comparison. Yes. Yeah. Comparison is the thief of joy. It is.

And a fossils. And a false. I was a great little punchy end way to end that though. that was good. So, yeah. So Marsh had to resign as head of the US Geological Survey. And then also, because of this, our government cut the agency's budget in half. So it was like not only did Marsh get in trouble, but he also like ruined science for a while for people in the U.S.

Because he got mad with power. And most of his fossils, because Marsh's fossils were dug up because of government. because of government grants, most of Marsha's fossils were repossessed. So Marsha's own law. Yeah. As Taylor Swift once said, karma is a cat purring in my lap because it loves me.

Anyway. And she actually sold that from Cope. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just imagine Cope just because again, it's like... With its quill. Yeah, yeah. Karma is... Karma is my boyfriend.

Karma is my boyfriend. But isn't that wild? Like, that just feels like... I think that's why this story is so popular, because there's these kind of like cinematic moments, you know. Are there movies about this? So there was supposed to be a movie with, um,

there was supposed to be a movie with James Gandalfini as Marsh. Tony Suprano. And Steve Correll as Cope. Shut the hell up. And by the way, how well cast that is. I know. So like Marsh like James Cadell is the charismatic one.

And then James Gaildofini is the like serious scientist and then Cope. Like imagine like Steve Crow. and like massive like when uh michael scott is being like really ridiculous you know oh my god that would have been so what happened it was in product it was starting to be in production and that was when james ginaffini passed away so they were literally about to start making it wow they really should just cast another person and just kept it going but i mean i get i mean i'm sure there's been like tv movies and stuff based on this and there's obviously plenty of documentaries and yeah i and then actually michael crichton who wrote drastic park he did a

a fictionalized book called Dragon Teeth, which I'm actually, I haven't read yet because it was published after he died, but I'm going to do it because I'm doing a Michael Crichton book club on my podcast this summer. So I'm actually going to read the fictionalized version of this story. So I'm actually really excited to like. That sounds so cool. I mean, we could combine our passions and imagine a book where you get to time travel to the Bone Wars and just watch these like nerds have like their own version of like a Bravo show. I mean, no wonder this is so interesting to the paleontologist because it has fucked up their jobs and has given them a lot of tasks even today. But also, like, I, maybe I'm wrong here.

I can't imagine there being a lot of obvious clear-cut drama like that in the paleontology world. Or is there? I mean, that feels, I mean, it feels like a high school fight. Yeah, I mean, people are people. So it's always going to be, you know, and dudes are always going to, you know, have ego in that, the pissing contest. Yeah, a dick measuring contest. But it's just, because it is like almost like the birth of American paleontology, that's why it also.

And I think, you know, the, you know, the American, like, it's just like it checks a lot of boxes of like why I think it's captured people's imagination. Had no idea. I mean, I think I'd heard the phrase bone wars, but as soon as I hear war, I kind of check out. Sure. But, wow. And then to your point earlier, it's like, yeah, there were. You know, they were like, there was one example that I didn't bring up, but it was like, sometimes they would like rename each other's dinosaurs, like in each other's papers.

Like, by the way, it's called like this now. Like whatever. Big idiotosaurus wrecks. Yeah, yeah, like passive aggressive. So it's like there's records of this feud. Wow. Over 20 years. Do you know the names of any of them that got named and then renamed?

I know you just did Bronosaurus. The apodosaurus and bronosaurus one is the most like obvious example. The other ones are very like, because again, not only did they discover dinosaurs, but They also, you know, ancient marine reptiles and ancient mammals and lizards and birds and shells and other things. Well, speaking of Bronosaurus and Apodosaurus, yeah. You've been to dinosaur land or dinosaur world or whatever it is that's in Palm Springs. Oh, the Cabazon? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So their gift shop is inside of a dinosaur that I thought was a brannosaurus, but apparently there's a plaque on it that says this is actually an apodosaurus. But I mean, how is that, would that be true based on the hedgehogs? shape then? Is that? Because yeah, that was, because basically when people think of Bronosaurus, they're thinking of Apottosaurus. Okay. My understanding of it just over the years. So was Littlefoot in Apatosaurus? I mean, it's one of those things where you're like, like, it basically is what people thought a Bronosaurus was, you know? Sure. So it's kind of like. Well, now I'm curious what a real Bronosaurus looks like. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, the new Bronosaurus doesn't have quite the like,

you know what I mean? No, yeah, Apatosaurus is like, OG, little foot kind of thing. Sure. But yeah. So, it's my last little bit. Yeah. By 1897, Cope was dying, living in an apartment, surrounded by the only thing he had left, his fossils.

His wife and child had left him by then. And what is considered the final fight between the two, Cope donated his brain to science and challenged Marsh to a brain measuring contest, to see who is indeed the smarter and more brilliant of the two. That is the pettiest shit I've ever heard. donating your brain and then challenging someone else to also donate their brain is so cutty. I don't know.

I don't know. It's messy. Yeah. Marsh never accepted the challenge. Marsh died two years later, also alone. So while Cope discovered 56 new dinosaurs, Marsh, one, discovering 80 dinosaurs, including such icons as Stegosaurus, Triceratops, allosaurus, apodosaurus, and more.

And that's the Bone Wars. That is incredible. So are there any famous ones that Cope discover? Because you kind of just listed everyone I know. The T. rex? So some people say that Cope, like, made the first initial discoveries of T.Rex. But it wasn't really until, like, 1905 or 1915. So, like, there were some fragments that Cope discovered that people are like, you know,

that's a T-Rex. But, like, he didn't describe T-Rex. Like, Cope ended up doing, like, Elasmosaurus, which is. a marine reptile and like other non-dinosaur-related. And again, like I think Dimetrodon, which is like an early synapsid, which is kind of like a pre-mammal thing. I don't know. It's hard to describe.

But yeah, he didn't discover any of the big ones. Like Marsh really won if we're going by like the popular dinosaurs. And that's why science is important. Yes. Sorry, I'm going to think about that brain one for the longest time. Isn't that wild? That's so like in death. still saying I'm going to win.

And he's a showman though too. You know, Cope was just like this would be like it doesn't really matter because like. No, but it was for the headline. Yeah. Talk about a headline. That's a great one. Yeah.

Wow. I know you just said a lot of interesting things, but I'm absolutely, if I ever talk about the Bone Wars, that is the bullet that will be at the end of every single time I tell that story. Yeah. Man. Isn't that cool?

Wow. Thanks, Stephen. Of course. And yeah, that is a real. again, I think because I've heard this story a lot and I know this story, it's like what, what's my angle to it, you know? And that's the thing. I just, and I'm curious about what you think where it's just like this idea of some people being like, oh, competition like helped. But I'm like,

I don't, I mean, maybe, but I feel like there's, it's one of those things where it's kind of best of both worlds. Like it's a, like I can see the like, yes, they were racing. I don't know. I think I'm leaning more towards it was not a good thing. No, and I think you just hear, when you hear from actual paleontologists, I don't think any of them are like, oh, I'm glad that like these two men kind of were messy bitches and like, you know what I mean? Like, I just feel like. Like they pumped out a shitload of dinosaurs. Like, I mean, that's, that is cool that they were like, who knows how long it would have taken for all those to be discovered if they weren't racing to do it. But they could have also teamed up in the end and just like, you cover this half of the world.

I'll cover this half. find them as fast as we can together. Or they could have worked together. I mean, they were friends. They, like, were friends. Like, I think that's what makes it kind of tragic too. Yeah. You know.

Or they could have at least found, like, like, different categories. Like, I'll look up the marine stuff. And if I find any, like, non-marine, I'll give that to you. And that's, they could, they could have worked it out any in a bunch of different ways. Yeah. Also, there's so many dinosaur bones, especially at that time that, you know, hadn't been discovered yet. Like, they could have just easily not destroyed each other's or, you know, not

destroyed their own. Like, there was just all these. these little petty human male ego things that like contributed to to me thinking like it's at least worth stepping back and being like was this a net it just yeah like maybe it's not a net positive that's all i'm saying about it you know and all they had to do was just talk out their feelings yeah but but i kissed and kissed a little bit like i i feel like honestly what they should have done if i were solving it for them i feel like they should have obviously teamed up.

I think they should have said like, look, Marsh, you're more the science geek. I think we need you in the lab. This guy's got the charisma that he could go on a whole like campaign and get everyone super jazzed about dinosaurs and open up all their museums or open up these parks so we can go digging. And he could have really like been the voice to get everyone interested. And then that could have brought even more scientists on that would have found even more dinosaurs faster.

Yeah. Yeah. That's more like a Steve Jobs, Steve Wozni. thing because, you know, they work together to create Apple. I think they, I think that should have been what happened there. Yeah. But, um, there's also could have been like nerdy Alphabet and like PR Galinda. Oh, you know what I'm saying?

PR Galinda. Pierre Galinda. Um, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Oh, my gosh. Wait, I want to read my sources. Oh, oh, go for it.

I got to credit the dollop. They did a really great episode on this back in the day. Stuff you should know did a really great episode. Um, the book, the rise and fall of dinosaurs by Steve Rusadi. History. week, drunk history. Tony Hale plays Cope. Oh, that's great.

And then what's the guy in Law and Order? I'm sorry. Christopher Maloney. Elliot Stabler? Yeah. So you really, this is crime indeed. You really, well done. Yeah, Christopher Maloney played Marsh.

That's hysterical. My Sea Jurassic Wright collaborator, Andrea Seaflo, A.K. Strange Bird Art, Natural Western Museum of LA, Natural Eastern Museum, or Field Museum, and then an ad geo article by the amazing Riley Black. Very cool. Well, I'll read mine too.

Damn. I had to come prepared, you know? I was like, I'd work with so many people who are so good at, you know, citing their sources. That's very sweet. I'm pretty sure we put our sources in below on our YouTube. So hopefully it's there. But just in case, SFGate, RoboJapan blog spot, O-C historical blog spot, UPI, O.C. Parks, O.C. Register, and then a Facebook page about LA history. I love it. I love it. Thank you

for being here. Please shout out where people can go listen to you. Well, you can listen to me on C. Jurassic Wright. Yeah, I interview, again, M's been on, we talked about Back to the Future, but I've also had musicians, scientists. I did a series in the fall last year called the Back to School series where I interviewed paleontologists, science communicators, Ali Ward from Ologies, who I worked on Ologies for many years. The errands from this podcast will kill you. They're, you know, a disease ecologist. I interviewed a shark scientist, Amani Weber Schultz,

some of the host of eons. Like, I don't know. I love talking to scientists because they're like, it's one of those things, like, as a creative person, I'm like, science and math are really hard. And then you actually meet scientists, and you're like, oh my God, these people are creative and charming and cool, too. And I'm like, wait, that's not fair.

You can't be good at science and be artistic and charming and creative, but everyone I interviewed is great. And, yeah, I don't know. That's a fun series to start with. Very cool. Patreon, see Jurassic Wright. And follow Stephen Ray Morris. Stephen Ray Morris on all the things.

And usually this is where we just say, and that's why we drink, but I think we should sign it. Oh. I know this is and. And that's, that's, um, why? Wait, what's why again? Is it this? Why? Why?

We drank. Drink.