Citation Needed - Topsy the Elephant

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

Topsy (circa 1875 – January 4, 1903) was a female Asian elephant put to death at a Coney Island, New York, amusement park by electrocution in January 1903.   Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.  

You weren't surprised. I mean, I'd have been surprised if Inspector Gadget showed up. That wouldn't make it good. I, I was, I will admit, I was surprised. At this point, it would be better if the series ended with her snapping her fingers in a Z and seriously face and like being made from queen. Well, if Jamie makes it to the tower in time, it could be called ring it on. Get it? No, I get, it could be called ring it on. Get it.

No, I get it. Ring with the, I get it. Whoa, girl. Whoa, top, top. Hold the feet higher. Okay, like this, I got it up. No, higher. Fuck it.

My arms are getting tired. This is ridiculous. You're not even holding it. How are your arms feeling? But I'm watching. And when I watch, then I, my arms is, guys, why is there an elephant in this studio? But Noah said it first, so. Oh, hey, Noah, hey, Cecil.

You know, this week's episode is about Topsy the Elephant, and I thought to myself, there is no possible way of knowing how you think that sentence ends. Why not get a real elephant's perspective, right? Nobody's ever done that before. Huh? I guess no, I mean they haven't. That's true.

So I hop on down to the circus, BingBang Boom, podcast fame, here we come. Oh, okay, but where's it gonna sit? Uh, anywhere he wants to, right? Uh, classic. I can't it. Walked right into that. Alright, hello, and welcome to Citation Needed! The podcast will be Choose a Subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend

we're experts. Because this is the internet. That's how it works. Now I'm Tom, and I'll be the Ringleader for this freak show, but I can't attract a crowd this size alone. Joining me today are two men whose circus apparatus is surprisingly sticky. He lying on me. Monkey bars.

Don't touch those. Don't touch those, everybody. Dude, you're like a syrup bottle to him to life. It's just all the time. I said don't touch him. You're touching. Even when you're in sec of time to life. It's just all the time. I said don't touch it. Don't touch it. Even when you get in sec, you feel this? Really, the sticky little jumps, you are only needed.

You're too close. You're having too much jam in your life. I need very cold water. Just gonna make it stick on. Right, but to me. T. All right, also joining us tonight. Human who's primary talent involved combining long flowing locks, blowing into breeze, and

mastering arcane skills generously reinterpreted as timeless, Cecil and Noah. I'm like a podcasting Fabio. Fabio really like cake and had cumson is beard than yes, I'd be just Oh, you're not exactly like Fabio Well, yeah, there you go Also for your information, Tom juggling is precisely as relevant now as it has been throughout All right, so Eli tell us what person place thing concept phenomenon or event? Will we be talking about today? We'll be talking about Topsy, the elephant.

Gonna be distressing Heath. This is fucking cool. You figured out how to drink scotch through your nose. So I'm guessing this one hits close to home. Are you, uh, unrated, but yes. are you ready to then to teach us to love again only to then break our hearts? I am ready. Let's do this. So tell us, Heath, who the fuck was Topsy, the elephant? All right. So Topsy was a female Asian elephant who was brought to the United States and performed as a circus attraction for about 28 years

before being accused of serial homicide and then getting publicly executed at a New York City amusement park as part of a big family day event. Yeah, she's pretty much my favorite allegedly serial homicide elephant animal rights martyr, like pretty much my favorite. Top five, top five easy. So she was accused of the police plant evidence in her trunk. Mother's day episodes. Yeah, lucky thing she wasn't an African elephant or the execution would have been, shall we say somewhat less formal. Yeah. Spoiler alert time. They're going to find her hanging in her cell later on. The episodes. Oh, yeah. Her tail light was out. It's okay. Yeah.

These are all accurate references to recent American history. So going back way further, Topsy was born around 1875, somewhere in Southeast Asia. Going back to a less racist time. Yeah. Yeah. There's progressive times of 1875 Southeast Asia where she was born. Oh my God. Let's get less racist. All right. Anyway, let's get let's get less races.

All right, well, soon after being born in Southeast Asia, she was secretly smuggled into the United States by Adam Forpaw, the owner of the Forpaw circus, which is a sweet name for the honor of a circus, to be honest. But don't they have huffs? What does an elephant even have? It's not wrong names. It's not a paw. It's not a paw. No, it's not a paw.

Okay, regardless, regardless, the smuggling of the elephant into the United States, that just makes me happy because secretly smuggling elephant the elephant into the United States, that just makes me happy because secretly smuggling elephant was a phrase that people were using to describe their job at some point. That's how it was explained to them. And the reason for the secret was for Paul's plan to advertise Topsy as the first elephant ever born in America. So it had to be a secret.

It was also a big family day event when he we pulled the elephant out of his prison pocket. It was like a huge surprise. Actually had to get a Twicket for that. So at the time, Fort Pa was competing with the Barnman Bailey circus. And apparently biggest elephants was a major part of the rivalry. Much to the secret of the aforementioned elephant smuggler and his prison bike. And uh, four paw was apparently losing this battle. But I guess lots of patriotic circus fans were clamoring for an end to all those gross foreigner elephants too. So four paw became the bright bar to the circus world,

and figured he could latch onto that elephant xenophobia market. Just to be extra clear, Forepaw was outflanking PT Barnum in terms of races. And, of course, Forepaw named his new elephant after a slave girl from Uncle Tom's cabin, topsy. Oh, yeah. Fine, you know, there's just some fucking hillbilly out there still upset about getting fooled at Christmas

by the white elephant exchange. Of course. Oh no. I'm in fooled again. All elephants matter. Yeah. So the protectionist elephant spectacle worked out for a little bit, but unfortunately for Mr. Forpa, his circus elephant guy in Asia was pretty much the only circus elephant

guy just at all. And in the world, which meant PT Barnum was buying from the same place. And the elephant guy tipped off Barnum about how Fort Paul was lying about having an American born elephant. So Barnum exposed the hoax and Fort Paul had to start advertising topsy as the only elephant born outside a tropical zone. That became the marketing. I don't understand.

Apparently, that was still fascinating to the people of I don't understand. Apparently that was still fascinating to the people of the 1870s. What would their extensive knowledge of elephant geography and habitats? I don't know. Gather round, gather round. Here we've got the only elephant born in the southern quadrant

of the fourth American precinct of the cent. Dude, dude, dude, it's 1870, you don't have to try that hard. Anything other than watching myself die of milk leg is amazing. Oh, okay, good, good then. Shit. So, Topsy spent the next couple decades traveling the country with the four-poise circus and developing a reputation as a quote, bad elephant country with the four-plus circus and developing a

reputation as a quote, bad elephant. Whatever the fuck that means. And it doesn't, doesn't return her shopping cart to the designated area. Yeah, fuck all those people. God damn it. I'm just talking about topsy. Regardless of how topsy got that, that name or that reputation, in 1902, we got a specific example of topsy being violent when she murdered the shit at a some idiot in Brooklyn who,

to be clear, all the way deserved it. A guy named James Fielding Blount was having a nice afternoon of attending the circus and drinking whiskey from a bottle by himself as a fun, fun day, fun little day. And he wandered into a tent full of elephants who were all tied up in a row. So naturally he started taunting the elephants one by one, offering them whiskey and then getting angry when they wouldn't have a drink with him. What a simpler time when you could bring your own whiskey

to the circus. Oh, God. You can still do that. The elephant's two different guys like scream with the elephant. What are you two fucking good for me? How you just stick your fucking nose up in the air when I don't feel your breath?

Ah. Okay, so Keith, do you know exactly how you're related to this guy? Like, is he an uncle or you just know he's in fan of the what's the name of the great uncle direct ancestor? And by the way, this is all according to I'm assuming some other idiot who watched this all happen without intervening at all. Okay, that's gonna be real picky about this. And I'm not wanting to back down from a confrontation, but I say, I'm not real critical.

The guy staying out of another man's drunken elephant fight. Like, he's not quite a guy. He's got to fight his own battles. You know what I mean? So a lot of folks default in this story. This day one of home. A little help. A little help. No. Okay. So,, so brown gets down the line to Topsy and when she refused the whiskey, blount through sand in her face and burned the tip of her trunk with his lit cigar. Oh, that's cute. That's, yeah. At, at which point, Topsy grabbed him with her trunk, body slammed him to the ground and

then crushed him to death with a headbutt. Nice. Yeah. Very nice. She also might have stomped him out with her knees and feet to be extra thrilled. Hashtag, Topsy, did nothing wrong. I don't want to be that guy.

That is correct. Two votes. Three. Two Topsy. To be fair, she was just stomping her ground. Oh. Wow. So following my favorite elephant on man murder that I'm aware of, Topsy got a

whole bunch of negative press coverage, despite the heroic and also hilarious nature. Wait, people were on the side of cigar guy like set like the press was like, oh, no, man, maybe she's just sort of let that one go. Presidents like there were fine people on both sides. Yeah. Yeah. But this was clearly heroic and also hilarious. The amazing body slam homicide.

You got to love that. According to several articles at the time, though, this was a negative thing. And they pointed out the topsy had already killed a dozen people during her career. But that was fake news. Back then, you could just make shit up about a string of secret murders. So in reality, it was probably the Clinton foundation or something like that. Either way, all the media attention made Topsy extra famous and really big crowds started coming out to see the homicidal elephant spectacle. Topsy's getting hounded by reporters. Has the polar coat up overhead. Topsy, Topsy, crowds started coming out to see the homicidal elephant spectacle.

Topsy's getting hounded by reporters. Has the polar coat up overhead. Topsy, Topsy, can you tell us about this elephant graveyard? I just, I love that extra homicidal is a good draw in a 6,000 pound animal for these people. It's amazing. How is the human race still a thing? I asked myself that a lot. No, they should have snapped twice. That wouldn't have been good.

So that wouldn't have do it. That's a Zeno's paradox. Never mind. So about a month after killing the drunk guy, Totsis career was really rolling. Thank you. So that was the prettiest thing that ever happened. I do believe. He just keeps snapping. I feel like I'm not doing it. I'm getting really close.

It's like a converging serious damage. So get him back to topsy. The career is really rolling. She's at the top of her field. And that meant she had spectators showing up just to see her get unloaded from a train and other like mundane stuff like that. It also meant plenty of chances to try out new wrestling moves. So during one of these train station events, a guy named Lewis Dodero shows up and decides to pick up a large stick and use it to tickle Topsy behind her ear. That's a bad idea.

That's. That's when Topsy wrapped her trunk around the guy's waist, hoisted him high in the air and then threw him back down before being stopped by handler. Not sure what the fuck the handler does at that point, but apparently they have a role and they can like help somehow. Yeah, the handler just stands there and holds up numbers like a figure skating judge. That's one cause balls and strikes.

Yeah. So following the second highly publicized attack on a person, the four Paul circus decided it was time to sell high on topsy. And apparently the demand for homicidal elephants was a non-zero number, especially in Coney Island, Brooklyn, where a guy named Paul Boyton owned a place called C. Lion Park that had an opening for at least one killer elephant. We keep calling topsy homicidal and a killer, but maybe and just like hear me out on this one, because just maybe elephants don't actually like getting hurt. And like, crazily, like, whoa, if you decide to hurt something that is orders

of magnitude more powerful than you, like, that's on you. Isn't it at that point? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, great point. So let's not pretend that we're surprised that Brooklyn is the go to place for a job when you're a homicidal elephant. Like obviously that would be your first choice to the coffee shop.

Come on, man. It should be the Brooklyn homicidal elephants and not the nets. That's like a sweet nail. That's a great honor. Brooklyn. By the way, quick background on Paul Boyton, the sea lion park guy. He's got an interesting little backstory. He was born in either Ireland or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Maybe right on the border, it was hard to tell. And he was a showman known as the fearless frogman after performing a bunch of different water stunts, including swimming across the English channel in a rubber suit that was shaped like a kayak. Okay.

I'm calling bullshit. I feel like you just kayaked across the English channel. That's what that's a whole other front sticks. It's a whole other front sticks us had it's a suit now, y'all. He's never done this. So later in life, Boyton opened up the very first permanent amusement park called Paul Boyton's water shoots. And that was followed by his sea lion park thing too.

But even with all that killer elephant money from the 1902 season at sea lion park, Boyton was forced out of the business by his competition and sea lion park became Luna Park later that year with new ownership. And Topsy was used to carry large items into the new park as penance for all the murdering. And let's be fair, anyone who's been there knows that begrudgingly set up by a murderous circus animal is exactly what Coney Island still looks like today. So it's a really true. I love the idea of punishing the elephant for the murder.

Just like rubbing her trunk in the blood. Like look at what you've done. Look at what you've done. They murder her and somebody shakes a candle like beans at her. Pitcher is a squirt guy. They just have like gray bottle. I'm spraying her right in the face and it's not doing anything. Keeps murdering everybody.

I can't keep her off the counter. I can't keep them from murdering her. Put peanut butter on top of her nose. She can't really reach it. That would be fun to watch. She's just rastling for it. Get around. Anyway, yeah, she's getting, she's getting forced to move all the stuff to the new park. And it was during that big move into Luna Park, the tops he was involved in two more incidents, both of which are just further confirmation that this is the greatest elephant of all time that we're talking about.

So topsy's handler at this point is an alcoholic gentleman named, William, Wadi, Alt. And he's walking next to topsy as she drags a giant piece of an amusement park ride Pretending that he has some kind of control over the situation and at some point She stops and refuses to keep working. So mr. Alt decided to stab Topsy with a pitchfork Jesus what the fuck Yeah, and that's when a police officer came over and questioned the drunk idiot with the pitchfork. And in response, I'll decided to turn topsy loose from her harness, letting her run free in the streets of New York City for spite.

1870s cops was the best. Just an elephant sitting on the curb and cuffed all pissed off. Yellen ethnic slurs at people. So yeah, all got arrested for sicking a crazed elephant on the people of Brooklyn. And apparently he really resented that. So a couple months later, I'll decide to get his revenge. He got super drunk, as usual, climbed up on topsy's back and rode her through the streets in an angry rampage. Oh my God. And his final destination was the Coney Island police station where he rode topsy straight through the front door and surrounding wall,

obviously, that she battered down with ease. And once she got inside, she started wailing with her nose trumpet and staring at the shit out of all the cops until they hid in the holding cells at the station. Oh my god. Mr. Alt has one trick, but it is a really fucking good track. Okay, so far we have a blameless animal who, and I don't think I'm mischaracterizing it, gets upset when people either burn her or stab her with things. Yep, so let's all take a moment to readjust our how to train your elephant field guides, I guess, and enjoy a pitchfork-free little ditty we like to call Appropob nothing.

Okay, hi everyone, I'm Tony, talk-talkin with Comtopsie's trainer. We're gonna bring Topsy out in just a second, but before we did, I thought I'd go over the ground rules. Now I know it's 1870 and pretty much everyone is Pennsylvania right now, so please don't attack or hurt The extremely murderous elephant Don't touch the elephant at all just sit in your seats and look at the elephant no sudden movements again

If you do literally anything except sit in your seats This giant animal will kill you any questions. Yes, you how much to make fuck with it Okay, I thought we'd been over this All right, well I went precisely as I thought it would okay heath an elephant in out the gene pool So when did they give her the key to the city? I don't, this is a hero. Great question, Tom. Yes, a hero. Absolutely. So following the elephant attack of the local

police station, Whitey Alt got arrested again and also fired by the owners of Luna Park. But without his unique skill set, they couldn't handle topsy as responsibly as they felt was necessary. Wait a minute. They thought they weresy as responsibly as they felt was necessarily to be. They thought they were handling her responsibly up until this. Like it was a very safe environment for everyone there was the last response. I'm waiting for the moment where somebody handled her responsibly. Ever at all.

They put up a sign like warning alcoholic trainer not available today. Extra dangerous. Yeah. Like I mean, seriously, like like the other guy was stabbing her with a pitch fork. What were the bad guys supposed to be doing? No idea, but they, uh, they were missing the handler at this point. So they tried to get rid of her. But at some point during 1902, the world decided to stop demanding killer elephants for family amusement parks. And the owners couldn't even find a circus or a zoo that would take her for free.

So on December 13th, 1902, the Luna Park press agent released a statement to the papers that topsy would be executed by electrocution. Okay, great terrific story. Thanks. He's everybody pack up. You stop. Yeah. I think we can be done. done. Wrap it up. That was fun. So

the Bid a dip, dude, it Bid a bit, bit a bit music and little jokes at the end. You guys see song now. The guy from the jet from sketch in the middle. Tail cut. All right, let me finish. No, let me finish. All right.

It's going to be an entertaining, maybe execution. I want to spoil it. It's been announced that there's going to be an execution. So the rest of the December's amusement park news cycle was dominated by stories about Topsy. One local paper actually suggested that the owners of Luna Park had engineered all these incidents to generate more buzz for their business at the the same time, those owners were rethinking their strategy. And on New Year's Day of 1903, they announced a new plan.

Instead of a boring elephant electrocution, they were going to do a public hanging. What? Of an elephant. Oh, I thought they're going to train her. Damn. What? They're going to hang an elephant? Oh, I thought you're gonna train her. What they're gonna hang in all of it. Okay, and They were gonna charge 25 cents a person to come see the big hanging execution. Jesus Christ How you hear about people in the old days?

Dian all the time and super young it stories like this one that make you root for the polio is what I'm saying Got make America great again. That's a real slogan we're using right now. Shit. That's yeah. No, this is nice. Let's all pretend we're not still a country full of people who would pay today's equivalent of seven bucks to watch a troupe of clowns hanging elephant. Ah, that was a nice. Logan Paul would do it for views. Oh, shit. Not even wrong. The plan for the big hanging was to use the island in the middle of their lagoon, where they were in the process of building a giant electric tower to advertise the Luna Park name.

And next to the big tower, they built a gallows. Look, again, for an elephant. They built an elephant gallows in real reality. Jesus, the elephant missed the first two letters already. Get your shit together. You'll have to hold the head, the body to arms, two legs, get it together, elephant. Jesus. So the big announcement about the hanging had everyone in Coney Island super excited, but the American society for the prevention of grotesque animals, the ASPCA, they were like, hey, it's not fucking 1902 anymore.

We don't do stuff like that. You can't charge admission. And seriously, that's what they told Luna Park. No charge-ing admission was what it was. They don't want to wear both. They're as far as the elephant while they're hanging. That'd be rude. No, it's about the profits.

I don't know. And they sent ASPC rude. No, it's about the profits. I don't know. And they sent ASPCA. Oh, I suck my verdict, bro. So, so they sent ASPCA president, John Peter Haynes, to Luna Park to discuss the appropriate method for executing an elephant as a public spectacle that it would be in a humane way. You know, the guys like electrocuting elephants is so out of fashion, we beat him death introducing Trump Club. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha on the other hand would not exist for 36 million years. Yeah, yeah, think of it, man, if children had equivalent advocates back then, their executions would have been much less profitable.

I mean, maybe they were better off without their own. You got to get three of them on each other's shoulders to execute one of them. And you just tackle the bottom two. Okay. Visify visual. Anyway, so yeah, there's a weird day. It was a weird day of negotiating elephant execution etiquette with the PSPCA guy. It started with that guy, Mr. Haines, explaining to the Luna Park people that it's actually pretty difficult to murder a fucking elephant. In the past, people had tried poison, which often didn't work.

He also explained that there are original idea of electrocution made intuitive sense, but had recently failed. In 1901, some circus people in Buffalo, New York tried to electrocute an elephant named jumbo two, but they botched it somehow. Who said fights or rank or guys to, but guys be serious. So we have to actually kill the elephant one. So that really weird day kept going as they tried to hammer out a solution.

At one point, the Luna Park owners were like, uh, dude, can we just like give the elephant to you guys then and not kill it? And the ASPC as answer was absolutely not. You're going to need to murder it yourself. So after a long series of Wiley, Coyote blueprints getting rejected, they settled on a plan that the ASPCA was okay with. They agreed that topsy would be executed by strangulation using large ropes tied to a steam powered winch. What?

And also poison and also electrocution, just all the stuff at once is what they agreed on to be human. Okay, guys, why is he like taking notes on all you're not? He like, you're not doing all of them. Never you want. Mine's Tom, never you mine. So the big excuse. How tall are you? So the big execution day, and that's my class, spectacular was scheduled for January 4th, 1903. It looks about six. And the event had about, what are you mumbling?

What's Eli mumbling? Nothing, Nothing worry about it. Tell me about your animal history. What your pencil down. So the big spectacles there. It's 1903 January 4th, 1903, a big day. And the event had about 1500 spectators who showed up to watch an elephant get strangle poison electrocuted. That doesn't even include all the people in nearby buildings who charged admission for Strangle poison electrocution parties on the roof of their building and had people showing up. All these people died in World War I and I couldn't be happier. In addition to all the insane people from Brooklyn who came out as spectators, In addition to all the insane people from Brooklyn who came out as spectators, Luna Park also had about 100 press people on the scene, including a crew from the Edison film company. And the Edison people created a 74 second film of the execution, which they added to the lineup of Edison, Connecticut, Scope movies.

The title was, electrocuted an elephant. They made a bunch of these. My favorite is to kill by shocking bird. So what other fun detail on the Edison film company. They actually did a whole series of films at Coney Island amusement parks, including clips of the rides, people swimming, island of musen parks, including clips of the rides, people swimming, diving horses. Um, no idea what that means, but that's what it said in the article. And my favorite, a film of elephants riding a water slide. What the fucking was adorable? Was there last request? Oh, mom, he looked at the elephant.

It is funny riding down that wall. God, riding through an electrified pool of running soft lates. Okay, we deserve the next 50 years that are coming. That's on us. Yeah. We deserve two world wars back to back really. You have to think they made the water slide big enough to hold the elephant first, right?

Like that wasn't a people size. No, they used a people size, they used something called running the shoots or riding the shoots at the lagoon or something like that that existed and they had elephants slide down and existing normally for humans. It just happened to be so over-engineered that you could put like 40 times the weight of the average person on it. Ah, probably not.

Probably they'd never even thought of any of that math, but they did it anyone. Which means there was a day where 1903 Eli walked up to 1903 C-Sol and was like, Hey, hey, question real quick and it's important you answer right away. Can an elephant go down the slide? No, I don't worry about it. We don't have time for this. Just fucking do whatever you're gonna do. Just good. I mind. Don't worry about it. We don't have time for this. Just do whatever you're gonna do. Just get I'm not gonna micromanage. Let's go.

It's an elephant waiting behind a fat baby heath. Boom! Come on, you chicken shit, bro! You're not ready. Let him go first. I'm going ahead of me. I'm just going to give a second. Give me a second. And then I shout and vomit it at the same time. And I'm like, I'm not on the right.

That's horrible. Spoiler alert. So it's a little topsy, little later. So. So. So. So. It would have been like if they finished the execution

and then run her down the shoot as like a big finale to it. And it goes until like a big new chip or really kind of like, oh God. So it's the morning of the big execution day that we're describing. And they're setting up the multi-pronged elephant murdering apparatus. This started by rigging up the giant ropes for the strangulation component and looping them through support beams on their partially constructed giant electric tower thing. And these ropes were then inspected by agents from the ASPCA to make sure they were humane strangling ropes for an elephant connected to a steam powered winch. And they passed, apparently the roots past the inspection.

Oh, good. All right, folks, we're going to strangle electrocute poison in him and everything, but he doesn't have to be itchy around his neck the whole time. The human here. Who the fuck do they even get to raise their hand for this inspection? Like was there some guy at the ASPCA who has a here to for untapped elephant lynching expert. He's waiting all out. You want to get his hair caught? Don't get his hair caught under it. That'll smart. Yeah.

Yeah. Finally, that time in Nicaragua pays off. What? What? So the second phase of the execution rig was the electrocution part. And this was being handled by the Edison Electric Illuminating Company. This is a different Edison, by the way, the film company was owned by Thomas Edison, the inventor, but the electric company was a different person. This actually ends up being part of the confusion surrounding a conspiracy theory that Thomas Edison

set up this whole elephant electrocution spectacle to show the dangers of alternating current arrival technology to his direct current system. But that's a stupid theory. The rivalry was called the war of currents, and it happened about 15 years before topsies execution. And regardless, best technology for executing an elephant is a weird slogan. That's not a great marketing thing. So that's dumb. The electric company spent the entire night before the event running power lines from the Kony Island electrical substation across nine blocks

of crowded city streets into the amusement park down their big water slide and onto the lagoon the the elephant was sliding down the water slide with its trunk up at 88 miles an hour, just as the light was. He was like, the timing at any moment. You know how the jiggle was to kill an elephant in the Kennedy perfect. The elephant just leaves four footprints that are on fire and just gets gone. He's gone.

He's gone. Doc, I wrote you a letter. Look at that. Yeah, they got that all set up. They got the electricity part going. And the final part, the final step in the execution was the poison. So they bought a bunch of poison and they had their new handler named Harle Goliath, another amazing name.

No, start walking topsy from her pen across the grounds and overtored the electrified poison-ready elephant gallows that they had. But topsy was like, wait a minute, is that a fucking electrified poison-ready elephant gallows? Is that a steam-powered winch? Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and not walk over there. And she refused to cross the bridge to the lagoon, even after being bribed with carrots and apples.

She just sat there. This is a, this is a frustrated dad trying to get the damn thing into the carrier so they can get this all over with and go get ice cream. Right. So at this point, they're kind of fucked and the park owners try to get William Alt to come out of retirement so we can lead Topsy across the bridge. Demolition. But you refused.

Even after they offered him $25, which is like a billion dollars in today's money. Apparently, he told them he wouldn't even do it for a thousand dollars, which is like $40 billion in today's money. So, Topsy is just standing there refusing to move and they were forced to change the plan. According to the papers, they decided to quote, bring death to her. So the next few hours were spent moving three different murder rigs from a lagoon island across a bridge to the spot where topsy was standing. Really?

Yes, really. And this happens while 1500 crazy people from Brooklyn yelled I'm assuming a bunch of old-timey heckles at everybody Guys at the very front. Are you fucking kidding me? I paid three pennies for these front row seats. That was my whole life savings Oh my god these things never start on time last week They were executing a hippo with a guillotine and a flamethrower and they're like 15 minutes of previews. I'm going to go see a dog's life though. Jesus, they finally got all their stuff set back up on the other side of the bridge and it was time for the big finale.

So the electric company people brought out their giant copper elephant sandals that they had. Seriously. And a task. One of the giant copper sandals to top sees right four foot and one to her left hind foot. And then the Luna Park press agent fed top see a bunch of carrots, laced with 460 grams of potassium cyanide. And slowly back to way. And then they finally flipped on the electricity at 2.45 pm, shooting 6600 volts through the topsy spotty for 10 seconds, which toppled her to the ground, killing her immediately. And that's when so it's over then. And it's over. Well, that's when they strangled a dead elephant with a steam powered winch for 10 minutes. So, okay.

So not over. Okay. And the very next sentence in the article says that Topsy was pronounced dead by veterinarians at 2.47 pm, which means they spent eight more minutes after that, just playing with the steam powered winch because it was fun Some guys like you guys said I could strangle an elephant. Dave David's very clearly dead. You know, maybe we just now you said I could Strangle My winch I'm gonna shut up until we let him stay his winches everybody

You needed winch will win Who wants me to put them on the slides come on hand up once in my life Do this hands down baby he the can't wait Jesus The charge in five cents for kids to ride his corpse down the slide for the rest of the afternoon. Oh God. All right. So probably not even wrong.

That's yep, 50, 50. That's exactly accurate. So if there's, if there's one little positive moment at the end here, it's that the superintendent of the Coney Island power station almost died that day too while taking part in this horrible inhumane execution. When he went to throw the switch, he became, quote, mixed up in the apparatus. I don't know what the fuck they had going at their power station, but he got mixed up in the apparatus while he was trying to flip one switch and almost got electrocuted to

death. Not quite. Just missed. Just missed. Fucking missed opportunity. All right, Heath, if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? Uh, don't waste money on poison and steam powered winches. All the wrong less now you're telling. That's great. So are you've inflicted this horrible fucking story on us? Are you ready to be be stepped by questions from our panel? Let's do it.

All right, I'll start it off here. Which of the following guidelines for pet ownership from the 1903 ASPCA was the first to be removed from its literature? A, when decline your cats, make sure the lawnmower is gassed up before putting them in the vice. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, when smacking your dog with a rake out to discourage bad behavior, be sure the tines are turned away from his flesh.

Shit. C, remember your pets will survive the fire longer than the fleas. Or D, make sure your children wash the toxic coal ash from their work clothes before they play with the pets. Oh, man, we're looking the first one that was removed from toxic coal ash from their work clothes before they play with the pets. Oh man. We're looking the first one that was removed from all the above. They tied and didn't.

Yes, sure. So here's my question. Here's my question, Heath. Topsy is not alone. What other famous animal slash animals were also executed a rape ape injurious George see Michaela gorilla or D the massacar bears It's got to be injurious George.

I just like I want to be sure to say no. Yes, absolutely. It was the first one. All right, Heath, clearly this was unavoidable. What could they have done to avoid this? Hey, don't poke the elephant with sharp thing. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I feel like it'd be D, but that's like the motto of like all the centuries of all the white men ever. But yeah, A, B and C. I feel like it's A, B and C. Also, maybe, you know, maybe a handler who's not an alcoholic and maybe don't let guys with bottles of whiskey walking around your circus tense, Bob of the Elephants. It was what also have helped. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you're right or wrong, however, the game works.

All right. Heath, some people are going to get mad at us for some reason about this episode. So multiple choice question. Why are those people vegan? Hey, weirdly confrontational two quake, B an insanely uninformed opinion about protein. C, a non-sequitorial accusation about the inuits we have to drink yack milk to survive. D, a lie about a rare medical condition they have that means they literally have to

eat meat. Or E, literally in spite of a and two quokueh being my very first answer to quokueh. All right. Well, D is like the reverse of what Eli does at every restaurant, which is lie about a rare medical condition that means he can't have any of the like 19 things he's about to list off of a laminated list. So it's so far so good. That's so far so good. that like 19 things he's about to list off of a laminated list.

So it's so far so good. So far so good. But I'm guessing they don't become vegan because of F happiness units. Ooh, I'm sorry. That's incorrect. It is E to quote, Quay. I win. I win.

I will reject the ramissing of several of the other. I win. Tom's about to say I win, which I will reject a ramacet win of several other times I went to say I win which means it's true the game dictates that you win because you're the last one which makes me No, I choose Noah as next week's easiest. I feel like technically if we're going by the rules of the game Cecil won because he's the host next week, so yeah, you're still wrong. Thank you I am Cecil one because he's the host next week, so yeah, Eli, you're still wrong. Thank you. It was last Christmas. No, it's still listening to Noah. It was Ray Babe, goddamn it.

All right, well, for Cecil, Noah, Eli and Heath, I'm Tom, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then Noah will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, check out our other projects over at CitationPod.com. We've got plenty of hours of other great shows and if you run out of good stuff, Eli has a blog. Oh shit. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a perhapsodownation at patreon.com. Slash CitationPod, or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. And I mean that.

Anytime anyone asks you what you like, just tell them this show. If you can get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check those show notes, be sure to check out CitationPod.com. Hi, I'm Eli Bosnick, and I'm Cecil Bianna Bambuni or something. You know, we're sure we had a lot of fun today here on Citation Needed, but circus animal auto erotic isphyxiation. There's no joke. Each year, over 400,000 animal circus performers are killed in search of the whole body orgasm

that only an industrial winch can deliver. So please, whether you're an elephant, a tiger, or even just a trained monkey, remember, if you're going to chase the electric slide, have a spot. Because spotting your buddy is never gay. It's a little gay. It is, but you should still do it. You bigot.