Do Go On - 282 - P.T. Barnum ; "The Greatest Showman"

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

Surely a man depicted by Hugh Jackman was a great guy .... right? Well, that's a little questionable. But you still have to admit that P.T. Barnum fit a lot into a lifetime, and made a lot of money along the way. This is the story of the REAL "Greatest Showman"Get tickets to our live shows this March/April:Prime Mates: https://www.trybooking.com/BPEUIBook Cheat: https://www.trybooking.com/BPEUEMatt Stewart - Nostalgia Was Better When I Was A Boy (discount code 'dogoon): https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2021/shows/nostalgia-was-better-when-i-was-a-boyDo Go On: https://www.trybooking.com/BOMAA Matt’s New Interview Show: ‘Matt Your Heroes’: https://youtu.be/VVsVGkzVNZQ Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPod Buy tickets to our streamed shows (there are 12 available to watch now! All with exclusive extra sections): https://sospresents.com/authors/dogoon Check out our AACTA nominated web series: http://bit.ly/DGOWebSeries​ Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-Topic Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates:

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hey everyone, before we start this week's episode, we're just going to tell you that we are doing some exciting live shows.

I'm talking podcasts, stand up, and more podcasts. I did not agree to it being exciting. When you say, let's do some live shows. I specifically said I will not excite. Well, don't worry, because do go on, the one that you're part of just will not be exciting. Very low key. Those are, I will just say, if people are one of, a non-excite. Yeah, do it in a non-excite.

8.30pm, March 28, April 4, April 11, April 18. So four shows. Less than 10 tickets left to each of those shows. It's a weird thing for me to ask. So if you want to get a group of 11 together, I'm so sorry. Ditch your 11th favorite friend. You don't need Darren. He sucks.

And get the last 10 tickets. That'd be smart. Yeah. Yeah, or fall on your sword and let 10 people go have a good time, and then you can go, get a margarita. Do you think we've got altruistic listeners? Oh, we probably have a mnemies. Margarita Tristiclist.

So that's Dugo 1. We're also doing the first ever live primates podcast, Matt. I can't believe it. It's been, I don't know how many years in the making, but a few. Centuries. Centuries, yeah. I mean, we've evolved to this point. But it's on what, it's on the fourth and it's on it maybe two o'clock.

Yeah, two o'clock Sunday, April the 4th. Beautiful afternoon session. Gorgeous. And it's going to be you, Matt. You're hosting. You're the host of the most, but you'll be joined by. Some say the greatest guests of all time. They call this the Dream Team, and I can't remember if I coined that term or if a listener did.

But either way, I believe it. It's Nick Mesa Mason from Planet Broadcastings, The Weekly Planet. Got it. Also. Cass Page from Sans Pants Radio. Yes, and also... Evan Munro Smith from Gamey, gaming game. That's right.

How did you know? So that's you guys. Hit the stage, Fantastic Pyramids. Then that will basically go... Straight in two. I should say, Dave, if you don't know primates of the show or anything about primates, it doesn't matter. It's just going to be fun. It's going to be a chat.

You don't need any pre-existing information. We'll give you all you need. You'll give out a little pamphlet, expensive next story. Previously on primates. So that's a 2 o'clock. 4.15. So basically straight after, in the same venue, I'm doing my first ever live book sheet podcast with guests, Ben Russell and Bachel Brasier. Would be disappointed if no one rocks up in a chook outfit.

Oh, I would love to see the chooks. Please. It would be great when I hit the stage, people, if ever the audience could go, bok, bach, bach, bach, bach, bach. Is that too much to us? Shouldn't it be like, bok, buk, bp, bach. Oh, my God, that's so good.

Please do that. So that's at 4.15. And then you can have a little afternoon break after that. Yeah, you're probably ready from laughing too hard. Your stomach will be sore. Just sit back, relax, put on the radio. I'll be on air. It doesn't do it.

You can listen to that during your meal break And then you can go see Matt's stand-up show The Victoria Hotel, which is just a couple hundred metres down From the European Beer Cafe at 6.55pm. Matt's doing your stand-up. Fantastic. That's all the way through the festival. 655 on Sunday, 7-55 Tuesdays to Saturdays.

And yeah, 22 shows, bloody hell, it's going to be good, I reckon. So you should come. And if you use the discount code, do go on. You'll get a discount. Fantastic. finally on that Sunday the April 4th, which is the biggest day in our podcasting lives. At 8.30, we'll be hitting the stage for that non-exciting April 4th to go on podcast. Thank you.

Less than 10 tickets left for that one. Keep a chilled, you know? And all of the others. Can you do me a favour and both remember to eat something in between? Yeah. Well, I won't be, I'll only be watching book cheats. I'll loudly munch away. Like someone did at a Brisbane Comedy Festival show of mine once.

I'll bring a packet of minties and I'll hand it out to everyone else in the front row and loudly chew them. I would actually laugh if someone did that. So yeah, we hope to see you there. All of those shows are on sale now and the tickets are in the description. The links in the description of this episode.

Hope to see you there. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dev Warnikey and as always I'm here with Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins. I'm Jess Perkins. And who are you? I'm Matthew Stewart. Well, before we hear more from them, hear more from me telling you that this show,

if you haven't heard it before, we take it in turns to research a topic, often suggested by one of our good-looking listeners. And we take that topic. We're not their value. Yeah, we're all hot. Yeah, thank goodness. It just happened to be.

That high average, high average out there. Take the compliment. So go away, research the topic, bring it back to the others. It's Jess's turn to bring us the info. Matt and I don't know what the subject's going to be, so she's going to start with a question. The question is, who was known as the greatest showman,

even before Kid Rock? Oh, that guy that Hugh Jackman played in a movie? Yes. Hugh Jackman? No. Warparene? No. Van Helsing.

Not Van Helsing? What's his name? It's like PL Travers. Oh, P.T. Barnum. P. P.T. Barnum. But you really didn't assist there for. That was a great.

Thank you, Mr. Gays, for that assist. No worries Mr Copeland. Yes, P.T. Barnum has been suggested by many, many people whose names are as follows. Fantastic. Alex. Nick Verderosa, Braden, Andre, Jared Schaefer. Most of these people don't have a surname. Is that two separate Jared?

Sorry, no, just Jared Schaefer. Kerry John Jones, Jordan, Teneal, Odie Matthews, James. James Clark, Stephanie Keller, Keith Ross, and Chris Brown. Wow. All of those. Crazy. The Captain and Tenil. I don't think I've heard of another Tenil apart from the Captain and.

And I'm not even sure what the Captain and Tenil is. Is that ring any bells? I can't know. I'm terrible. Is that something? So sorry. Is that an album or an onus or something? Yeah, maybe.

My question is, is this like a topic you don't want to be associated with? Because more people than usual just gave their first name. and I'm wondering, is there some twists and turns here that you're embarrassed to say, all right, do P.T. Barnum. I'm trying to Google Captain Toneal. Captain Antoneal is a... American recording artists whose primary success occurred in the 1970s. Husband and wife team.

There you go. Husband and wife. Imagine if your husband or wife was called the captain. Captain Darrell Dragon. Mark. Oh, my God. His last name is Dragon and they didn't use that? Born August 27, too.

Wow. And his wife, Tony Tenil. Tony Tenil's fantastic. So they used her last name, but not Dragon. Surely Dragon and Taniel? No, Captain and Teal's pretty good. Anyway, an early side track. But Dave, that is a very good point.

A lot of people suggested this around the time that the greatest showman film came out in 2017. Right. Obviously, painting PT Bar. him as a, you know, somebody who just wants to put on a show and make something of himself. And a lot of people in their suggestions were kind of going, the movie really glorifies a, not a great dude. Oh, right. I didn't see the movie, so I don't know anything about him.

Not from the fact that he sings and he dances. That's right. And he plays with elephants. And I thought in a good way, but now I'm wondering if it was. Playing with a couple of trunks. Dave. Sorry. Have you seen the movie, Jess?

Yes. Because I have not. Oh, okay. I mean, I don't want to shit on it if people really love it. It's a fine film. It's like a hungover Sunday kind of film. Because it was like a surprise hit, wasn't it? Yeah, I think it was very popular.

And the soundtrack was like the biggest selling album of the year. Really? Really? Yeah. Some of the songs in there are really great. Was Kid Rock on it? Unfortunately, there was a clash in his schedule. So he builds himself as the greatest showman, does he?

No. He had a, well, he's got a song and I think he was doing a show, like a tour that was called The Greatest Show on Earth. Gotcha. He was sort of like threatened to be sued by a group of circuses who were the greatest show on Earth. So he had to change it. But that just made me laugh. So I thought I'd squeeze it into that. How funny that you can copyright.

The greatest show on earth. Calling yourself a good show. Yeah. I don't like circuses. I'll put that out there early. As in the ones, any or the ones with animals? Any. Because of their copyright issues.

I think any. And the ones with animals are probably worse. Have you seen Cirque du Soleil? I saw the Beatles Cirque du Soleil when I was in Vegas. That's right. Yes. But it was at the end of a five-day Vegas trip and I was not in a good way. Yeah, that's fair enough. I bought an oversized Beatles Cirque du Soleil beer.

Uh-huh. I could not. I could hardly, I was falling. Anyway. During the show, there was a power outage for like 15 minutes. It stopped. And we're all like, is this part of the show? And they're like, this is not part of the show?

Yeah, sure. Is this part of the show? Yeah. This all. A power outage in Vegas. Yeah, it was real strange. That's ruined Vegas. Vegas lost $12 billion in that 15 minutes.

But, you know, I mean, it was fun. But, you know, I've got this weird thing where I see people doing really impressive stuff. I'm like, yeah, I assume you can do that. You know, you're in a circus. You're on a trapeze, yeah, that's, you know what I mean? If it was you up there, I'm like, we're going down to see Jess, see if she can do a trapeze. I'd be like, oh, this will be fun. And that I would find that fun to watch.

Good. Because I want to do a trapeze so bad. Really? So Matt sort of prefers, like, who dares wins or the, like, fear factor more than circus or less. Well, I just want, I mean, if they're definitely going to, like, they never fail. in those things. But they defy physics.

Yeah. It's amazing. You know what I mean? The expectation is they're going to do it. So I'm just, I don't know, my brain is annoying with that stuff that it's not excited by. Right. But if someone comes up and you on the street and says, hey, want to see a magic trick? You're like, I am so.

Yeah. I'm like, who are you? Have you learned magic? And they're like, I've never done magic before. You're like, yes. I believe in you. Here we go. You pull this off.

Sorry, weird question. I've never done magic before. Do you want to be the first person to watch? me try. I reckon I can do it. Okay, well, it's good to know whenever I decide to take up magic. Well, I'm glad we got into this episode quickly. As we said we would.

I am easily impressed. I love magic. I love tricks. So I'll be happy to hear about this. Look, I will say that this guy packed a lot into a lifetime. But let's start from the very beginning. We're going back to the 1800s. PT, what do you think that might stand for?

PT Barnum. Personal trainer. Personal trainer Barnum. You'll be a P name. Patrick? No. Pasquale. You won't get it.

Philip. All close. Philippe. Phyllip. Penis. No. Patrick. No.

Pringles. Pringles. It is. Phineas Taylor. Oh, great stuff. Finius Taylor Barnum. Born in Bethel, Connecticut in 1810. That's great.

Bethel. I couldn't find a great deal about his early, early life, apart from the fact that his father was an innkeeper, a tailor and storekeeper. An innkeeper. I know. What are we talking, Bethlehem? 1810s, baby. Bethel. Do you say Bethel?

Bethlehem, Connecticut. An innkeeper? Yeah. That sounds ye oldy times. Amori's other jobs? Taylor. Taylor and a storekeeper. Oh, Taylor by name.

And that young Phineas was close to and quite influenced by his maternal grandfather, Phineas Taylor, who was a legislator, justice of the peace, and lottery schemer. Oh, schema. Yeah, that might make a little more sense later on. That's interesting, so he was a lawman and a schemer. Yeah. Is that on the business car? Yeah, absolutely.

But in much smaller print. Under legislator and Justice of the Peace. Can I read this bit? Yeah. Don't worry about it. So the only thing, the only other thing that I found out about PT as a kid was that he was a natural salesman and was peddling snacks and cherry rum to soldiers by age 12. Wow.

It's a different time. He was 15 years old when his father died, and the support of his mother and his five sisters and brothers fell largely upon his shoulders. So he had several businesses over the next few years, including a general store, a book auctioning trade, real estate speculation, and a statewide lottery network. Didn't go into a lot of information about any of these,

but they all sound interesting. He's like a doogie houseer of like statewide lotter. Real estate, specials. speculation is kind of fun too. I reckon this could be worth something. I can understand what that means. I just go around going, hmm, I reckon one day that could be worth a bit.

I reckon that one's got three bedrooms. Ooh, it might be a pool in that background. Gambling against people, all right. You and me, look at this house. We both have to guess how many bedrooms it has. If I'm right, you give me $5. See, it's one of those terrace houses, but it's two stories and it could go really far back.

All could be very small. At the front looks really old, They've got a fantastic loft conversion. Could be a two better. We don't know. Could be a trick. So after holding a variety of jobs, he became a publisher of a weekly newspaper in Danbury, Connecticut. Newspaper was called Herald of Freedom.

And I believe he started the newspaper. So pretty easy to get a job when you make the job up. Yeah, he's like a real go-getter type. A lot of self-belief, by the sense. Maybe too much. But yes, definitely a lot of self-belief. I mean, I assume that when he starts a new business is because the old one has failed.

Yeah, probably, yes. And to be able to do this many different businesses, they're failing quickly. Okay, right. Well, I gave it a go. By 17 and I've had 80 businesses. Yeah, this is in the space of a few years. So yes.

His editorials against the elders of local churches led to libel suits and a prosecution which saw him imprisoned for two months, but some people say he enjoyed the notoriety. So he's publishing like, Elder Jerry smells bad. Smells real bad. They're like suing him.

Did this make the movie? Let us know when the movie starts. The movie is like, oh fuck. I mean, it's been a little while. But I remember Hugh Jackman, yeah, working in a, going into work and the whole place is being shut down. And he's like suddenly out of work.

Right. I hope that after I die. Yes. The ultimate compliment in 200 years later is the Hugh Jackman of the day playing. you. Right. Yeah. You're getting cast by an absolute top guy. Lovely man. Super hot. Can sing, dance, dance, act. Australian. And then they're like, yeah, exactly. I'd love that.

Love that. If you could just find that to play me. I feel good. Do you think he's nice? He seems nice. Do you think he'd be friendly? I think so. Yeah, I think he is. That's nice. I listen to a podcast interview and he was talking about how he loves puzzles. and he had a puzzle brand that he recommended. It said really great quality puzzles and they really clicked in a place in a satisfying way. Wow. I mean...

He sounds fun. Either that or he just has... He has a recommendation for everything. Yeah. He's got one thing. What? Are you talking about puzzles? Oh, yeah, I'll send it to my puzzle going.

Keyboards, Cassio. Great brand. Yeah, he's got a guy for everything, for sure. On the 8th of November 1929, the same year he started his newspaper, Barnum married Charity Hallett. Wow. Incredible name. The couple would have four children together over the next 16 years. They had their first kid pretty early and then it wasn't like, it was like 10 years before the second one and then it was like two, three, four.

But yeah, he was busy. He was working. He was hustling. Maybe he wasn't around as much. Who knows? So aside from being a husband, father and newspaper publisher. Things really started to pick up for PT in 1835 when at the age of 25 he began his career in showbiz. Let's remember this is 1835.

So he and Charity had moved to New York and PT had tried a couple of different jobs once again, including more newspaper publishing. But it all changed when he met Joyce Heth, an African-American woman held as an enslaved person by John S. Bowling and exhibited in Louisville, Kentucky. Exhibited. Yes. Jesus. And this is what they were calling show business. Yep.

1835. She was sold to promoters R.W. Lindsay and Coley Bartram. They also don't want to give their full names. Yeah, yeah. Just so shating from that. And R.W. Lindsay, due to Joyce's appearance, which I'll go into in a sec, introduced her as having been the childhood nurse of George Washington, making her over 160 years old.

So it was kind of like come and see this very old woman. That was the whole point of it. So she was obviously fairly old. I think she was having issues with her eyes. She was at least partly blind. Yes, 160 isn't fairly old. That's very old. I don't want to sound rude.

She had some issues with movement in certain parts of her body. She had a very small frame, very deep wrinkles, no teeth. had really long fingernails that were said to have resembled talons. But lacking success in getting audiences to get tickets to see this incredibly old woman, R.W. Lindsay sold her in her old age to P.T. Barnum. Well, not sold, actually. Slavery was already outlawed in New York, but P.T. exploded a loophole,

which allowed him to lease her for a year for $1,000. Right. So you couldn't sell people he could rent them, though. Yeah, you could rent people. What? I'm not buying it. That implies an hour of a self. That means someone has to own for you to be able to lease. Yeah, but own from a different state.

So it's fine in that state, but I'm renting her to New York. Wait, when was slavery abolished? Oh, that's a good question. I'm not 100%. I assume it was before the 1800s. But didn't it happen in kind of a staggered way? It wasn't just like an all in one. Right.

I thought that was a Lincoln thing. But I regret. I don't know. No, I don't know either. John went to Google Yeah, but I think you are right about Staggart away I think some places abolishing that from 12 years of slave Early on but then I think isn't that the whole issue of North versus South type thing

And that's why they had the big war And that was that in the 1800s 1865 Yeah, mid. No kidding. I mean that's just like from the first Google I am pretty sure it sort of happened in Not that I mean I know there were like Australia had awful stuff

well beyond that. Absolutely, yes. So I'm not meaning, like, as a judgment thing, it's just I, I'm surprised by that, but Yeah, absolutely. So. I'm not in a glass house over here. Oh, God, no. We've, yeah, we've done some horrendous things.

Oh, we're fucked. We're real fucked. And, like, more recently fucked. So, yeah, he's leasing her for a year, $1,000 for a year, not too shabby. If we're talking about a car. We're talking about a person. It's fucked. So he actually had to borrow $500 in order to make this purchase.

He did. didn't even have enough money. So a lot was writing on it succeeding for PT. I say succeeding because it's still gross. So for seven months, Joyce was a travelling exhibit for Barnum, telling stories about Little George and singing a hymn. I've really changed my opinion on Hugh.

He's not coming off well now. Is this in the movie? No, this is absolutely not in the movie. He wasn't singing a little song about this part? No, he didn't rent a woman. This wasn't on the soundtrack, Hugh. But he did make this film and write all this stuff out of it. I mean, I guess it's probably less of a feel-good film all of a sudden.

Yeah. I mean, I was going to say it's loosely based on him, maybe the film, but I'm just defending a film I don't actually care about. And it's not that loose. Because it is his name and stuff, right? Yeah, and even the wife and children's names are the same. So it's like, okay, it's not that loosely based on it. But yeah, they don't tell this part.

A writer named Eric Lott claims that, Joyce earned P.T. Barnum $1,500 a week, which is a very big amount in that era. If you think about he's paid $1,000 for the year and he's making it back in a week. Wow. Okay. And then some. And thus, Barnum's career as a showman took off. Right, because the other people were obviously doing the same thing, exhibiting this poor woman, but they were not making any money.

This guy is very good at marketing. Yeah, okay. He was like, I think, fuck, I've forgotten. I didn't write it down, but it was something like he was. referred to as like the Shakespeare of marketing. Wow. At the time he was very good at it. He could get bumps on seats.

So far the greatest showman is just renting a woman and making money at people looking at her. Yeah. The greatest showman in the world. Yep. We've got to remember that this is the past. The same people that would gather to see a train. Yeah. Oh, and they do.

Oh, and they do. Easy to impress. So there were rumours and doubts about Joyce's real age, people going, I don't reckon she is 160. That seems a bit unlikely. Nah, she is. Nah. So Barnum did what anybody would do and he announced that when she died,

he'd have her publicly autopsied. That would put everyone's minds at ease. By the way, she wasn't dead or dying at this point. Joyce is like, what? Yeah, she's like, I didn't agree to that. And everyone's like, nobody wanted that. We're just saying like birth certificate or something. No, no, probably everyone gather around.

I'll cut her open. We're doing it in the town hall. Town square. Get more in. Okay. Is you going to get a doctor who'll do that? I'm doing it. I'll do it myself.

I'm the greatest showman and autopsy artist. That's what I'm calling it. The greatest doctor. That's fucked. So, yeah, that is what happened. Because a year later when Joyce Heth passed away in February of 1836, true to his word, Barnum set up a public autot. Public. I did not think that was actually going to happen.

And is he hoping that it's going to be like rings of a tree? You're going to see how old this woman is? I mean, I don't know now how they can just tell how old someone is, but back then I'm imagining their understanding of the body and technology was even more unbelievable. Yeah, sure. Unbelievable. Believe it.

What what am I trying to go for? Unreliable, maybe? Who knows? This shit. I'm not sure how you tell how old someone is. They checked with leaks. Oh, bones. Bones.

Now or then? Now or then? Did you miss your favorite TV show? I have to tell you to record Bones. I don't want to miss it. Emily DeCinelle. I wait, bones. When I got braces, because I was young for braces, I got them when I was 11,

they x-rayed my hands to see how much growing I had to do. Because you start with heaps and heaps of bones in your hands, and as you grow, they form. You have less bones. Oh, right. So a 160-year-old woman in theory would just be one solid bone. One big bone. That's why she couldn't move all that well.

Right. She's one bone. Can you explain to me that again? You've got more bones in your hands as you get older. You have less bones. When you're a kid, you've got like lots and lots of little bones in your hands. Oh. And as you...

Like baby bones. Yeah. Like baby teeth. Exactly. And as you grow... You lose them. They fall out. They fall out.

Three fingernails. And you get the bone fairy comes? Yeah. That's $50 of bones. It's pretty good. Sex with your parents. leaves a coin behind. Exactly.

Is that right? Yeah, yeah. I'm the bone fairy. Got me in for me. The bone fairy is this like big, kind of sweaty, hairy guy. Hey, how I are? I'm the bone fairy. No questions asked.

All right, let's do this. It's all good. Come on, I got a 7.30. Let's get this done. It's 11. Cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Just imagining Barney Gumble and he's dressed is like Krusty the clown, he just looks terrible.

Yeah. That's him. You don't have to tell me if I'm wrong about bones. Barney Gumbull is the perfect bone. Yeah. I'm the bone fairy. The bone fairy. So Barnum gets a surgeon on board, Dr. David L. Rogers, who performed to the autopsy

on the 25th of Feb, 1836, in front of 1,500 spectators in New York City Saloon. Okay, so the thing we were joking about before, that's what actually. Oh my God. 1,500 people came out to watch a woman get autopsied. And P.T., of course, charged 50 cents admission. Are you saying step right up sort of thing? Is he narrating it? $750.

Doing a bit of MC work? Yeah. Mexican waves going on. Yeah, he's got a Madonna mic on while he's. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming down today. He's interviewing people, hey, where have you come from? While they've got like the sore opening the rib page. Yeah, I don't like him.

Yeah. Is that okay? No, it's absolutely fine. Is this a classic judging, judging someone on today's standards? Yes, but also, I mean... That seems like it would have been fucked even then. Yeah, that seems fucked even then. I feel like... But not to the 15 hundred that rocked up.

There's a point in this report where you kind of forget some of the fucked stuff. Right. And then... I'm looking forward to that. I'll remind you again. I'm looking forward to his like six or seven years of charity work. Well... You're like, what a guy.

Not quite. In the autopsy, Dr. Rogers revealed... that shock horror, this woman wasn't 160 years old, but was in fact more likely around 80 years old. Was PT like, shut the fuck up? Shut up. Who's paying you?

He did. He insisted that the autopsy victim was another person. Oh, my. Why do you... And then he said... He believed it, obviously. Oh my God. I assumed he was going to like pay off the autopsy surgeon or whatever

or just fake it. I can't believe he obviously thought she was 160. He said, it's another person. Joyce Heth is alive. She's on tour in Europe. Wait, why? And then later admitted it was a hoax. What a weird lie.

And here she is now. Sorry, no, she didn't actually die. I've done this to prove that she was older, but I faked it in a bad way with a woman half her age. No refunds. So strange. So weird. Just awful. But what is true is that I did work this poor woman to death.

Yes. 10 to 12 hour days she would work. He's making a lot of money off her and his career as a showman is often running all thanks to his exploitation of an enslaved black elderly woman. Very, very cool. Is this the part where we forget what he did? No, that'll come soon though.

Well, no, actually. So over the next year, he had mixed success with a variety show that he put together. You're so right. He's just like trying businesses, they're failing. He just does something else. He does not give up at any point. So he's got this variety show that he's put together.

It's called Barnum's Grand Scientific and Musical Theatre. Catchy. Yeah. There are so many catchy show names through this. Truly remarkable. So what is it, Grand Science? Grand Scientific and Musical Theatre. Well, you had me until a musical theatre.

Grand Scientific. Grand Scientific. I mean, musical theatre. I mean, that's why you'd never want to watch this movie. Is it a musical? I'm picturing Hugh Jackman singing his way through some of this awfulness. Yeah. And he's seen as a real savior because he's sort of like giving all these people

who are different, a safe place and a sense of family. And maybe... Exploiting them. Yeah, oh, absolutely. Maybe there was a small sense of that for some of these people, but you look at it especially through today's lens and you're like, fucking hell, man. So then the panic of 1837, which was essentially a great depression with a much better name.

The panic? Oh, the panic. Love that. Did he? And you knew that was coming up in the movie because he said, it has been a pretty rough day. And then the band come out behind him and he sings, we got no money, got no money. We're going through a panic today. Hey, we got no money.

We got no money. And then there's people sort of like wearing like chimney sweep outfits who are clicking down low to the ground. Is that? And then one of them does it tap solo? Yeah. And there's people dressed as $50 bills and then somebody cuts them in half. And they sort of stage. Oh!

Yes. Yeah, yeah. But then one of them actually gets cut in half. That's deep symbolism. They were sued. Really? Yeah. Wow.

Really gross. And this was only a couple years ago. Yeah. 2017. It's a different time. There's some about musicals that I'd find. I nearly... Oh.

Bob just elbowed Dave's mic. Oh, all right, fine, I'll stop talking. You weren't even talking. You wouldn't know this stuff because you don't watch musicals, but yeah, they sort of talk. They're talking and you know they're about to do a song. Yeah, because the music starts. And you're like, oh, fuck, here we go.

The first one, whenever you're, I watch a movie. The whole round has a collective sigh. Whenever I see a movie and I don't realize it's a musical, I'm like, that first song that that's happening, I'm like, oh, you're fucking kidding. No. No, no. I've got to read the blurb. You're fucking kidding.

I can't get up and leave. I can actually. Apart from Annie, of course. I was indoctrinated into that as a kid or something. You love Danny so much. Daddy Walbucks. Why do I smell wet, dog? Never seen the movie, but I think about that line a lot.

Yeah. When your dog is wet? Yep. Yeah, they do smell. The character's name is Daddy Wallbox. I mean, if I was sort of the first time now, I would hate it. But because it's got nostalgia all over it, because it was set in the early 1900s, which was, I think, when I was going through my third divorce.

Sharon! I miss you, Sharon. Your third wife, Sharon. Yeah. We did talk about Sharon. Don't, please. Don't bring up Sharon. Yeah, a great depression.

It made showbiz life a little difficult. Oh dear. So he looked around for something that he thought would be a little more stable than a traveling variety show. And somehow outmaneuvered wealthier bidders to acquire John Scudder's American Museum in New York City. A five-story marble building filled with stuffed animals, taxidermy animals, waxwork figures. Not little teddy bears. Yeah, I know. I kept reading stuffed animals.

I'm like, okay. And they're like, oh, taxidermy. Okay. Wax work figures and similar conventional exhibits. It's a museum. During a Great Depression, people don't have disposable income to spend on watching a person, you know, a prisoner for a bit. Yeah. But they do have money for seeing dead animals stuffed and just sitting there.

And paying admission for a bit. Obviously, you know, we're all going through a pretty tough time, but we've still got our taxidermy budget. Yeah. Everyone goes to the C-Sodermy budget. some dead animals once a week. Yeah, obviously. Sunday. Church, taxidermy. You kidding me? The kids love it. They love it. They love it. We get fro you. They love it.

Only two industries do well in depressions. Yeah, taxidermy. And alcohol. Yeah. What a combo, though, right? Great combo. Fuck, I love to get drunk and taxidermy. Cheers to you, alligator. Was it licensed the venue?

Yeah. They go hand in hand, don't they? Oh, I'm going to go see. Museum. A lemma. Yeah, could I get a ticket to the Lima? taxidermary enclosure and a couple of bruise. A couple of bruskees. I need to take the edge off. Much better audience to watch stuff lemurs if I've had a couple.

Absolutely. I am much better to the lemur. So he quickly transformed the museum into a carnival of human curiosities. Sorry, I think that might be. Sorry, I think that might be. Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that's pronounced carnivalet. Carnivalet of human curiosities. Yeah, that doesn't sound.

Means freak show. Yeah, okay. Well, actually, we're just human beings. Yeah, not respecting. No, sorry, I forget. We're being real soy boys here, aren't we? He's giving him a place to fill family. Beautiful five-story marble building.

People can ogle them. Yeah, so it's not just human curiosities. There's also dramatic theatricals, beauty contests, and other sensational attractions. Of course, renaming it Barnum's American Museum. Love to put his name on shit. This is a quote from Britannica. It says, playing upon the public's interest in the unusual and bizarre, Barnum scoured the world for curiosities, living or dead, genuine or fake. By means of outrageous stunt, repetitive advertising and exaggerated publicity, Barnum excited international attention and made his showcase of wonders a landmark.

So yeah, he's very good of marketing and he searches pretty far and wide. I even read in one article that there was an Australian guy, an Aboriginal guy in the show at one point. Okay. I'm like, oh, wow, that's a long way to go to get someone. He was like the best tightrope walker. Yeah, right. Yeah, really interesting.

Anyway, but I only read that in one article and I didn't find a lot of information about where Barnum found lots of different people. So I was like, mm. So the museum hosted a church. changing series of live acts and curiosities that were added to the exhibits of taxidermid animals, including jugglers, magicians, exotic women. Not sure what that means. Is that juggling women?

Yes, juggling exotic women. Detailed models of cities and famous battles. Something for everyone. So next to the exotic women. A menagerie of animals. Fuck, I love that word. Stuffed? No, real.

I only like stuffed ones. And probably the most fucked, people with various conditions such as albinism or dwarfism. Oh. The museum was hugely popular. Between 1842 and 1868, it attracted 82 million visitors. Over how many years? 1842 to 1868. That's crazy.

Huge. People came from all over to see the attractions that Barmanham provided. I read that the roof was transformed into a strolling garden with a view of the city where he launched hot air balloon rides every day. You could get a hot air balloon ride from the top of this museum. Wow. He's really transformed it. Yeah, big time.

Yeah, and just squeezing everything into it possible. It's like he designs a museum like Homer Simpson designs a car. He's probably approaching it a bit like a Disneyland kind of thing. Obviously Disneyland didn't exist. But you know what I mean? Just like anything we can do to make it bigger and better. spectacular and whatever. Do they have a laser tag?

Obviously, Dave. That's a given. Dodge them cars. Go carts in the basement. Love that shit. Love it. Wacamole. It's from...

Whacamole isn't meant to be a play on guacamole. I always assumed it was to play on words. Apparently not. Really? What a waste. Does that really let you down as the pun king? That's how I like to say.

That would be a pun. Hey darling, pass the guacamole. I can really Whacamole You know what I mean I've got some corn chips And they're a little dry Were you in time zone or whatever

As a kid calling it like whackamole Yeah I always assumed that's what it was I can't wait to play whackamole You know Like a play on My favourite food as a child I love that it's a bit spicy

Sometimes I love it Honestly would have been a brand new food to Australia is guacamole Guacamole Wow Geez get that out of my hands

Let's go back in time Honey hell la de da Someone's brought the guack Do I put it on my chops What do I do with this? This is from Wikipedia In 1842 Barnum introduced his first major hoax

A creature with the body of a monkey And the tail of a fish Oh This is an X-Files episode, I'm pretty sure. Did they call it a Fiji mermaid in that too? Yeah, they do reference things like that. Yeah, I think that, yeah, the Fiji Mermaid, I think, I think that's right.

I didn't know that was him. Yep. Or is, yeah. Well, he leased it from a fellow museum owner named Moses Kimball, Kimball. It's the kind of thing that, like, Molder has like a poster or something on the wall, the office. Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm sure there was, yeah, there's some sort of reference to that, I think. I don't know all about this Molder.

And I mean, it was obviously a hope. But he justified his hoaxes by saying that they are advertisements to draw attention to the museum. He said, I don't believe in duping the public, but I believe in first attracting and then pleasing them. I don't believe in jupping them. Fuling them, yes. Yeah, but jupping, I shall not. Making assholes of them, sure. But I'll never dupe. He followed the mermaid by exhibiting Charles Stratton, a little person called General Tom Thumb. and the tagline was the smallest person

that ever walked alone who was stated to be 11 years old but was actually four years old He was a toddler He was just a toddler The young boy was taught to imitate people Like Hercules and Napoleon He was drinking wine by age five

And smoking cigars by age seven For the public's amusement Just a very brief tangent Here about Charles Stratton as well Because he had an amazing life I looked at his Wikipedia briefly and like, yeah, wow. So he did his first tour of America at the age of five. Then a year later, Barnum took him on tour, took him on a tour of Europe.

And he quickly became an international celebrity. He met Queen Victoria, two at Europe for three years before returning to America where his stardom continued to grow. And his popularity and celebrity surpassed that of any actor within his lifetime. He was huge. It was a massive... Who's this? He's a massive star. Charles Stratton.

Right. General Tom Thumb was like the character and a stage name. He was one of the most famous people on Earth at the time. Yes. And he was a child still. Right. Oh yeah, he's the toddler. Yes.

Sorry, I got slightly distracted because I found the episode. It's called Humbug. Yeah, well, okay. Season 2, episode 20. Mulder believes the murderer to be the mysterious Fiji mermaid, which Scully argues is only a hoax. A mere humbug. Huh.

Peter Barnum's referred to. too as a humbugger a lot as well. Ah right. There you go. Yeah. So, um, from Wikipedia as well, Stratton's first performance in New York marked a turning point in the history of freak show entertainment. Before Stratton's debut, the presentation of human curiosities for entertainment was deemed dishonorable and seen as an unpleasing carnival attraction. However, after viewers were introduced to Stratton and his performances, he was able to change the perception people held towards freak shows. Stratton's lively and entertaining

performances made these types of carnival shows one of the most favoured forms of theatrical entertainment in the United States. So it's interesting that we're kind of going, oh, it's a different time, maybe people are interested in this, but it seems like people weren't for a really long time. They're kind of like, oh, that seems a bit unsavory. It's not a nice thing to do. Yeah. And then people like Charles Stratton kind of turned that around. Yeah, right. There you fascinating. So, yeah, he's a turning point for the kind of entertainment that Barnum was peddling and the two were actually lifelong friends. Under Barnum's management, Stratton became a really wealthy man.

He owned a house in the fashionable part of New York. He had a steam yacht. He had, you know, fine clothes. Wow, steam yacht money. Yeah, he's got steam yacht money. I dream of you on. Wow. But that, oh, that is interesting because I was fearing that it was going to be all the money

was going to Barnum, but. Yeah, he's... I bet you he's still taking more than his fair share. Probably. He's got four steam yachts. But yeah, they were like very good friends. And later in life when Barnum got into financial difficulty, Stratton bailed him out. Oh, there you go.

You know, like they, yeah. So it's a very strange situation because Barnum took a toddler and exploded him and made a lot of money off him. But Charles had a very full life and a long career and didn't seem to have any animosity towards Barnum. So it's sort of like, I can't speak on your behalf and be like, this guy sucks. because it seems like you were probably friends. Yeah. But it feels as an outsider a little bit fucking weird. Yeah, especially because I mean, maybe, you know, as a toddler,

maybe he's never knew any different. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, who knows? Maybe, because it doesn't sound like the best life for being a well-known celebrity to me. Yeah, I know. They're paping you all the time. Was he getting papped?

Getting paps. Oh, so many paps. They're like hang out with a long land and watch him on the steam yacht. Yeah. Awful stuff. He's in Woman's Day. Catch him in a horrible moment where he looks really like he's lost, you know. Yeah.

Too much weight or the other way around. Right. Just one of those shadow tricks and then they're like front page. Yeah. Got him. Can't let you do it. Yeah. Is this stuff like, is this toddler packing a bit too much weight?

That sort of stuff. Puppie fat? Yeah. Sort of stuff. Like, great. Here we go. GQ magazine. Is that one of them?

You bloody tur. That's not that kind of magazine, is it? No. So the European tours... I couldn't think of a single trash mag. Woman's Day. Woman's Day. I did say that one.

All right, great. So the European Tour is making Barnum a lot of money. And it's opening doors for him and he's able to acquire dozens of new attractions and even buy up more museums. He's buying multiple museums. Like, he's got investment museums at this point. He's really pricing everyone else out of the museum market.

What a way to live. live. He's got a museum cartel. Oh, no, yeah. This is not how I think of museums. I think of museums maybe have evolved a bit over time. They don't normally have hot air balloon rides at the top. Well, I mean, maybe if Melbourne Museum had a bloody hot air balloon.

They do have a lot of, there used to be at least in the Melbourne Museum, a big taxidermy room. Yeah. It shut down this year. What? Yeah, I thought over it. Yeah, there were a few people that are up in arms because their kids love it. It is a strange. I only went to it once.

It was a very odd space. The room full of a large collection. Of really old taxidermied animals. I don't remember the places we went. But there was, when we were in the UK last, I went to a museum and there was, yeah, rooms and rooms of taxidermy. And I was like, I mean, it's interesting because I've never seen that animal before, but also gross.

You don't think you've seen it before. It's just bad taxidermy. Ah, yes. I was like, huh, a coala. Okay. A koala with like really. big eyebrows. Yeah. I'm like, hmm.

A few many ears. We lost a few of the bits. We had to make do. You get the idea. Also during this European tour, Barnum became aware of a Swedish soprano. Oh, that's fun to say. Swedish soprano named Jenny Lind,

often referred to as the Swedish Nightingale, who was gaining a lot of popularity. Barnum, who had a keen eye for an opportunity and had never seen Jenny perform, approached her to sing in America. for $1,000 a night for 150 nights, all expenses pay. Wow, that's a big commitment. It's huge.

He's never heard her sing. Oh, dear. But he's just like, she's popular. I'm going to jump on the ground floor. And then she arrives and he goes, sorry, that money was a hoax. But what I do is I bring you in and then show you a good time. And a sense of family. Oh, you have a family.

I've leased you now. Yeah. Sorry, I own you. You are mine now. You're going to be over there. Mine, mind, mind, mine. Jenny had a reputation for morality and philanthropy and apparently could sing. So he saw it as an easy sell to the American audience.

I can sing. She insisted on having Julius Benedict, a German conductor, composer and pianist, with whom she'd worked in England, and the Italian baritone Giovanni Belletti as assisting artist, because at the time solo recitals were still, and they weren't a done thing to American audiences. Okay, you need a support ban. Yeah, exactly right.

So Benedict's fee was $25,000. Belletti's was $12,500. All told, Barnum had committed to $187,500. It's approximately $5.7 million today. Oh, my goodness. He's never heard this woman sing. All of that to bring Lyndon a musical trip to America. He has never heard her sing.

She asked for her fee up front. Clever. Very, very clever. Which he wasn't used to, and he did not. have. So he borrowed heavily on his mansion and on his museums, but he was still short. So he persuaded a Philadelphia minister that Lind would be a good influence on American morals, and the minister lent him the final $5,000. So there's a lot riding on this. He has not heard her seem. Most of her feet, so she's asked for like about four million bucks up front. Yeah. Oh my God.

I love to know that ministers are just sitting on a stack of cash as well. Five grand. You know, like Jesus would do. So, Lind and her small company sailed to America in September 1850, but she was a celebrity even before she arrived because of Barnum's months of preparations. So, like I said, he is king of spin. He's very good at marketing and he sort of, like, built up some hype. Close to 40,000 people greeted her at the docks and another 20,000 at her hotel. Wow, that's a good sign.

If they could all chip in three bucks each, he'd be absolutely loved it. We're absolutely covered. I'm sure he was charging tickets for the standing on the street. The press was also in attendance and Jenny Lind items were available to buy. He's already got merch. No one's heard of sing. Get the Jenny Linda Barbie out. When she realised how much Barnum, how much money Barnum stood to make from the tour,

she insisted on a new agreement. She's smart, which he signed on the 3rd of September 1850. Wow, did not expect him to do that. Yeah, that's, yeah. She's like, you are underpane. And also, by the way, everything. that she's making is going to charity. Oh, right.

That's interesting. Sorry, what? Yeah, that's why she's fighting hard to get more money. She's like, this is all for charity. Because I just feel like she's like, I'm happy with that amount of money. Oh, you're doing a really good job at marketing me? Well, I want more then.

Yeah. Tricky. But yeah, that sounds fair enough. But it also, like, if he's, I mean, she's doing, people are there to see her. She should be paid accordingly. That's true, yeah. You know, it should be, I mean, yeah.

Yeah, the initial agreement. Yeah. Isn't that the point of the promoter is they're the ones wearing the risk? Yeah. Oh, exactly right. Yeah. But I think the fact that, yeah, she's doing it all for charity. I'm like, yeah, no, good on you.

Yeah, well, I did not. That's amazing. Oh, yeah. Look, I don't, I don't know if I've come to a strong position on this. No, no, no. And I just realized I'm sticking up for this real piece of shit. Yeah, I think maybe I'm more on her side just because he's a prick. Yeah, what are you going to back the guy that's enslaving people or the woman who's singing

The charity. For charity. Yeah. And yeah, like Jess says, the performer should be making the lion's share. You'd think? So, yeah, they come up with a new agreement. This gave her her original fee of $1,000 plus the remainder of each concert's profits after Barnum took five and a half grand management fee.

So anything they're made about that profit she gets. Yeah, that feels more than fair to him. So, yeah, she's just determined to accumulate as much money as she can for charities. The contract also gave Linde the option of withdrawing from the tour after 60 or 100 performances, paying Barnum $25,000 if she did so. So she's doing a minimum 60, hopefully 150, but she's got two points where she can jump off if need be. Sort of like on who wants to be a millionaire. Yeah.

Got the guaranteed. The safe point. Yeah. That's locked. We're ready to go. You've got that guaranteed. Yeah. Will you risk it for the biscuit?

Lock it in. It sounds like it was a pretty wild time as well. So her first two American performances were given as charity concerts in New York City on the 11th and 13th of September in 1850. At Castle Garden, now better known as Castle Clinton, tickets were sold at auction two days beforehand. 4,476 tickets were sold at a total price of $24,000. For one concert?

Yep, with the theatre packed to its utmost capacity. Wow, okay. Just packed out completely. Tickets for some of her concerts were in such demand that Barnum sold them by auction and public enthusiasm was so strong that the press coined the term Lindmania. That's amazing.

He's invented this. Yeah. This is all out of nothing. Yeah. Like she wasn't known there at all. That is incredible. No. He'd never heard her thing.

No. She didn't feel that comfortable with the commercialisation of the ticket auctions and asked that a substantial number of tickets be available at a reduced price, like one or two dollars. Oh, what a legend. She invented the ballot. She's awesome.

That is also hurting the money she's making for charity. Yeah. But it doesn't, but she's trying to let the... Yeah, but what's the most soothing thing of all? The average person in. Yeah. What's going to help money or hearing her sing? Oh, true.

This is from Wikipedia. So this is like a review from one of the shows. After Lind had left the platform to tumultuous applause, Barnum took to the stage, and although she had asked him not to do so, told the audience that she was taking no fee for herself and donating her entire fee of $10,000 to 12 New York charities. A reporter commented,

the deafening shouts that followed the speech were absolutely indescribable. They're really staunched capitalists over there. They would have hated it. Boo! This sentence is fun though. Many, even among the male portion of the audience, weeping with emotion. Whoa.

Men, weeping. Never heard of it. What? It's a different time. It's possible. I've heard of dogs crying Only recently You just heard about that

Before we start You nearly cried yourself At the concept of dogs crying I can't believe dogs can cry It is tragic Yeah it is And you're like I know you just want food

Yeah That's my dog He's like Oh You're in a room I can see you him All right What's wrong

And one day They're going to invent A machine That lets dogs talk and they're going to be like, release us. We live in pain. We don't want to be pets. Don't say it.

No, they're going to say, can I have a treat? I love you. I love you. Can I have a treat? It's fun when we go outside. Can we do that now? Whenever we go outside, I assume you're going to release me. You always make me come back.

Your backyard is like a prison. My dog just watches. me in the shower. Okay. Got a bit of a perv, perv. Goose is a perv. I like to call him a perv. All right, perv.

Get out of it. You'll just follow me as I, into it. My bedroom as I get dressed. I'm like, get out of there, Perth. I'm so looking at me like that. Stop it. And he has such a, like, he's got no expression on his face. I'm like, are you disgusted by me?

I don't know. That's when he's crying. Oh, it's ugly. I know. I'm working on it. Please put some clothes on. Please. It's so.

white. It blinds me. It's so white. Look at my naked body is like looking directly at the sun. It burns. It burns. So that's for all you perves out there. Don't even try it. That's right. People, I will hurt your eyes. So anyway, people, even men, crying. I can't. I can't picture it. At the thought of her giving to charity. They absolutely loved her. The two was a massive success. I mean, she was a very talented singer. Luckily, I mean, I personally would have wanted to hear her sing before booking her for 150 shows, but that's just me.

Yeah, a bit of an audition on the street. So wherever the tour went, Barnum whipped up publicity, largely thanks to his 26 journalists he had on his payroll. Oh, that's clever. He's got journals on a retainer. The best is writing press releases and publishing them. Absolutely, yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's got journals, no surgeons, though, for his autopsy.

He probably does by now. Yeah, he's got one surgeon on retainer. Yeah, because the first guy, he was like, well, okay, now I know, bribe them first. So he marketed various Jenny Lind branded products, including songs, clothes, chairs and pianos. Oh, yeah. The official Jenny Lynn chair. Yeah, sit on Jenny Lynn. I also read there was even more marketing material made, and I'm not sure if this was him or, like, other people profiting as she sort of came to town.

Yeah, like an English gyser on the street with a pile of T-shirts and chairs. Well, yes, there were shirts. It opens a jacket with a chair and so. Go on, have a sit on that. Have a sit. Have a sit, you toilet. Take a load off, you toilet. Four quid.

Five squid. They say squid over there. It's one of the cool things. There were Jenny Lind shirts, Jenny Lind cravats, Jenny Lind gloves, Jenny Lind pocket handkerchiefs, Jenny Lind coats,

Jenny Lind hats, and even Jenny Lind sausages. Made from Jenny Lindt made? Yes. Wow. After New York, the company toured the East Coast with continued success and later went through the southern states and to Cuba.

At one point, traveling by a ship to Charleston, South Carolina, a short but perilous voyage during which they came close to being sunk by a storm. The ship at one point was reported lost. It's like this crazy journey there on. Wow. And it was supposed to be a three-hour tour. A three- Hour tour.

And the rest. Jenny Lind, she'd be making the main cast. Oh, yeah. Wait, why did you say a boat to Charleston? Yeah. That feels like an inland place. Yeah. But I don't really know.

Where's South Carolina, Dave? It's sort of east-ish. East Coast. But were they going from Cuba or something? Maybe, yeah. Is that what they call it? A wet border. Do they have a wet border?

Are they wet border? They do have a wet border? Okay. They are, they're not girt by sea, but they are near it. They got a flank? You're right, Dave. They must have been coming from Cuba. Oh, right.

Thank you for that, because I was like, I'm just accepting what I've read. They were lost at sea on land. They were lost on land. And then they found their map again. Sealand. They were lost in sea land. Sorry, I've misread there. They were lost at sea land.

Dot demon. Very busy day. Dement. Fruits of the sea, dot demon. That was their website That was a lot of fun For new listeners That was an episode about the

What do you call it? Micronation of Sealand A very popular episode And I don't know if I announced it publicly On the podcast We're posted on social media I did finally come through And I have made Matt and Jess

A lord and lady A Yeah Lord and Lady of Sealand Thank you so much yes So those certificates I made you proudly Pirkens of Sealand Sort of made above your bed

Maybe Yes Yes, thank you. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Pending. Yeah, I just have to find the right nail. Must find the right command hook for that. So, Lind and Barnum parted company on the 9th of June 1851.

It was amicable, and they remained on good terms afterwards, but Lind had wearied of Barnum's assertive marketing of her. She was like, this guy promotes too hard. I feel like he would be a bit much. 100% yeah he'd be a lot. I'm even thinking of Hugh Jackman and I'm like, you're a bit much. Like someone,

he's like taking seven phone calls at once kind of guy. He seems like a small doses kind of guy. Yeah, yeah. You know? He's fun. Super lovely to like meat, but then if you have to have a meal with him,

it's like, fuck me. You are too much. Hugh, I'm going to need you to just part it out of it. Unless you listen to podcasts. I'm listening to this right now or a friend of yours is listening

and has pointed you to it, just being a bit funny there. I love you. You are a national treasure. Let's have dinner. Let's have dinner. Let's do dinner. Next time you're in town.

We'll cook. We'll cook. You bring a bottle or something nice. Yes, that's all we ask. I'll bring a puzzle. Dave will bring you. You love puzzles. We love puzzles and Cassio keyboards.

Matt, what's your, what's your, like your specialty in the kitchen? Uh, drying. Okay. You wash, I'll dry. Okay. Hugh wash, I'll dry. Is that a pun? That is.

I'm sad, but I'll claim that one. Fun, Master, how did it again. We have Hugh Jack when I ever did it. We make him do that. Well, actually, yeah, fuck it, he's a person. Yeah, he's a fucking royalty. He'll be tap dancing away in the kitchen. He'd sing while he does dishes, I reckon.

You know? Yeah, he'd make fun. And I'd try and sing along and go, oh no, I'm very bad. And we're doing it, we're like, we'll do the, we're probably time to start cleaning up. He's like, I'll help. And then he's singing and dance. We're like, anyway, do you have tea or coffee?

Yeah. Nightcap. Yeah. No, I'm, I'll grab another beer. I'll call your cab. Cool. Come me, um, hmm. Right, with the house lights on.

Oh, sorry? It's got the yawls. It is a big day, isn't it? Oh, I got another big one tomorrow. My God, is that the time? You've got a big day too. Oh, great. Yeah, me too.

I'm on set in the morning, but I love to run some wines with you. Tell you a bit about it. Fucking hell, you get out of my house. Hugh Jackman is still here. Get out of my house. Hugh, it has been so good. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm having a great time.

Yeah, what should we chat about next? Oh my God, Hugh, you are stretching. Yeah, you are stressed. Like, leave. You know what we should talk about? Our favourite modes of exiting my fucking house. Oh, is that a board games cupboard? No.

No, just towels in there, just towels. Oh, fold them. Oh, we can make a pillow for it out of these towels. They're pre-folded Hugh. They're clean enough, put them away for a reason. That's why they're in the cupboard. I've actually got a great app. It's a trivia app.

It's a trivia app. We could play off my phone. Hey, have you seen that YouTube video where the kid falls over? It's really funny. I've already spoiled it, but I'll play it for you anyway. Do you have Chrome cars? It's a Wi-Fi. What's a Wi-Fi? Oh, yeah, our Wi-Fi's down at the moment.

Yeah, and I can't see YouTube. Actually, I'm YouTube-blown. I have a rare condition. I can't see you. Just fucking leave you. All right. That's how it happened. Matt Knight just...

Are we doing a scene? Right now? Dave would snap. Because you wouldn't think it'd be here. All right. You're too nice. Jesus. I never had this problem with Russell Crow.

He knew what to fuck off. Yes. Okay. So she's like, this has been a bit much. I'm going to... She continued touring America. but just solo. She's like, I'll handle it. I'll take it from here.

So she gave 93 concerts in America for Barnum, earning her about $350,000, while Barnum netted at least half a million, equivalent to 15 million now. Fucking how? He made a lot of money. And she obviously gave a lot to charity then. Yeah, yeah.

So he really, like, this gamble is paid off big time. Yes. Because he mortgaged the mansion. Yeah. You know, it doesn't get much bigger for a gamble than that. Yeah. Morgan the Manch. Do you do, are you so casual that you have a phrase?

He's got to morgue the Man. Yeah, I've got to morgue the Manch. That's Wednesday. Morg the Manch, Jay. Morg the Match. Don't worry, baby. I've done this a million times. Always pays off.

Going to morgue one of the Manch. God. One of the many matches. Nobody let me be in charge of money. Oh no, Jess. If you're Morgan the Match. Well, the problem was you let me buy a Man. I know, you fool.

I can't afford a match. Now I've got a mortgage. With a 0.05% deposit. Do you know what happened to the minister? Did he get his cash back? Did he, was it an investment from him? Was he making profits? Surely.

Oh, I don't know. I don't know. It could have been a donation. Surely that'd be fucked. That would be annoying if you donate to help because you're like, all right, I'll help you out. Sounds good. And then you see them making millions of dollars.

Want to pay me back? Yeah, I'd want that with some interest. Bit like those companies that have received jobkeeper in Australia. and have somehow made hundreds of millions of dollars in time. Yeah. Anyway. Good fun. So, okay, back from this gigantic tour, what do you do next?

Well, he wanted to change public attitudes about the theatre, which was widely seen as the den of evil. Oh, that's going to be the other way, rather. He had a vendetta against theatre. Like, you might like theatre, but I'm going to ruin that. I'm going to shit in every seat, and then you're going to go, this place smells bad, and I sat in some shit. I'm never going back to a day.

Luckily, it was a great show. Normally that would be a deal breaker for me, but not in this case. So does he do it and does he become the Shakespeare of the theatre? Is that the nickname they gave him? Yes. The Bard of the Bords. It's almost something. He wanted to change the perception of theatres to be respectable middle-class entertainment.

The den of e-year-old. He built New York City's largest and most modern theatre, naming it the moral lecture room. Okay. He hoped that this would avoid seedy connotations and attract a family crowd. Right before it was called the, like, the sex pit. Yeah, and he was like, hmm. I think that we could rebrand here. Let's call it God is here.

God is here. Come on in. God is in the house. God is in the house. It's nice in here. Is it, so is this on Broadway? I don't know. That sort of sounds like maybe this is early Broadway or something. Not that I understand. How old Broadway is or anything. But you said New York.

Is that where Broadway is? Yes, it is. Hmm. Hmm. What was it called? I want to look it up. Moral Lecture room. I'll see if the moral lecture room is still running today.

We've all been there. Probably got cats. So he started, this is weird. He started the nation's first theatrical matinees to encourage families and lessen the fear of crime. Come to the show. in the middle of the day. How are you going to get robbed in the middle of the day? No one's ever been robbed in the middle of the day.

No one, not one. So he opened with the drunkard, a thinly disguised temperance lecture, as he himself had become anti-alcohol since returning from Europe. He followed that with melodramas, farces and historical plays put on by highly regarded actors.

So he's getting good people in too. Okay. It's a moral lecture, theatre, anything? Nothing. Nothing's coming up for you. Interesting. interesting. Oh, okay.

Okay. No, okay. Oh, I thought that you were about to say something. You haven't do it. No. No, okay. But like, oh, Matt, that might not exist anymore because dramatic fire. There was a sinkhole.

There's no earth there anymore. Turns out he imagined it. And that is now Central Park. Thank you, P.T. Barnum, for Central Park. From Wiki as well, it says he organized flower shows, beauty contests, dog shows and poultry contests. But the most popular were baby contests, such as the fattest baby or the handsomest twin.

The handsomest twin. How fucked is that? Where are you to get a complex? Is that a competition of two? Against the twin? Of the two. You are the handsomest twin. Not you ugly.

I was pointing at them. Gross. That's weird. Each set has a 50-50 shot. Yeah. I'm taking it out. the prize. And whoever loses gets adopted.

Oh, wow, that is a high stake. By P.T. Barnum, he's going to put you in a cage. Yep. The fattest baby sounds dangerous though, doesn't it? Yeah, because people are just going to fat- Fat-up their baby.

Yeah, that's not healthy. Just feed the baby, you know. Yeah, if they're naturally got a bit of baby fat, that's okay. Not a big fan of baby competitions at all. Really? Let's keep the babies out of the competitions. What about the Bond's Baby Search? Thank you.

Well, that's one that comes to mind. Um, they've also doing dogs now. The dogs baby search. Bonds, yeah. I'm in the Borg. I fuck that up. Dogs are now sponsoring their own baby search. These hungry dogs.

That's right. If only dogs could talk. Dingoes. I'd like to eat that, baby. Dingoes are sponsoring. That's funny. And the, what do you reckon Humphrey's voice sounds like? Hello.

And the first thing he says to you is I want to eat that. I'd like to eat a baby. I feel like I'm turning that voice off now. Sorry, sorry. It's hard to think about cutieism if that's what he's saying. Humphrey is Dave's dog. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Not my baby. Hello, I'd like to eat another baby. Yeah. So. My twin. My ugly twin. So, but, so Bonds have a dog search now. Yeah.

Wow, there you go. Very good. Oh, Dave's, why don't make a note in your phone. He's Googling it. I am not Googling it. Dave, we don't have time for you to sign up in this dog search. Not right now. You can do it after the show.

I've already invited you both to like it. My entry. He also decided to get back into the publishing game, starting the pictorial weekly newspaper Illustrated News. God, that's a shocking title. Yeah, it's real bad. There's another bad title coming up. Illustrated news?

That's bad, you reckon? The whole thing, the pictorial and illustrated. Oh, is that a description or the name of it? Description. Oh, sorry, I thought that was all. No, it's just called Illustrated News. Okay, I thought it was, what was the? sentence that described it?

Pictorial weekly newspaper illustrators. That does kind of sound like how they used to know things. Honestly, yeah. The fam tabulous, confessions. Yeah, great. Buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, product. This one is just Illustrated News. How do you feel about that?

That's pretty good. And he published an autobiography the following year, which sold more than a million copies. It was creatively titled Life of P.T. Barnum. Wow. I like that. The fabulous contraption. What a showman.

He really knows how to sex something else. He's a king of marketing. So, but a million copies, that's huge. Massive. I've just seen a photo of him. He would be stoked that Hugh Jackman played. He's not, he's not Hugh. Oh, look, you know, not his value.

His value is how he comes up with titles. Comes up with titles. Oh, dear. But also, I mean, we've talked about this before. It's so hard to have any concept of, because people talked about him as being, he's fairly charismatic, I think. Yeah. He's a tight ass, but had like bright blue eyes.

a little bit balding, a little bit of a pot belly, but, you know, he was like, he's quite tall, he's like six-two. He's got a strong look. Yeah. I'm not saying, I'm just saying he's no Hugh Jackman. But who is? By modern standards. But who is?

Ryan Gosling. Okay. Ryan Gosling, the modern Hugh Jackman. Canadian Hugh Jackman. In the mid-1850s, financial strife struck Barnum. Well, that was fun to say. He had an investment, he'd invested a great deal of money in the Jerome Clock Company to help him develop the East Bridgeport in Connecticut area.

But the company went bankrupt in 1856, taking his fortune with them. Yeah, because his fortune was huge. Yeah. Like, he's lost a lot. He's not a quitter while he's a head kind of guy. Yeah. Or not like, I've made so much money. I want to put a chunk of it away as a little buffer.

Yeah. He's all in every time. No buffer. So this started four years of litigation and public humiliation. Some people pitied him, some celebrated his misfortune. Because he's like, he's not universally adored. So he's divisive of him back then. Yeah.

But as I mentioned earlier, Charles Stratton or General Tom Thumb's character name, stepped in and the two of them went on another European tour to make some cash. You know what I reckon would have been real divisive about him? How he'd just sort of broken a song all the time. Yeah. Fuck that would be annoying. I'm out of money. There he goes.

Here he bloody goes. Feeling blue. Oh, no. Oh, please. I will honestly pay you to stop singing. And that is how he built his fortune back. Every street corner he'd start singing. People are, oh, no.

Shut up! Shut up, P.T. And that's how he does it. He also started a lecture tour, mostly as a temperance speaker, like abstaining from alcohol. Oh, right. By 1860... Sounds like a lot of fun. What a fun guy.

Fun dude. By 1860, he emerged from debt. and built a mansion, which he called Lindencroft, and he resumed ownership of his museum. So he just bailed himself out within a few years. So he's fine. Back on his feet. Yes.

These kind of guys, they, you know, like a normal person goes bankrupt and goes, fuck, I shouldn't be so reckless. Yeah. I'm just going to, I had a shot. I didn't make it. But then the guys who end up, you know, all the super rich people, they've gone bankrupt a million times. And they come back and go, well, I came back.

Yeah. And they. I could do it again. Yeah. And yeah, it's sort of like he just, he doesn't quit and he just keeps going. He's got this tenacity for doing what he does. But, you know, if you'd forgotten some of the fucked stuff he did and were happy that he got himself out of financial ruin, well, strap in because he does some more fucked stuff. Okay.

So in 1860, Barnum introduced Man Monkey, whose real name was William Henry Johnson. He was an African-American little person with microcephaly, a medical condition involving a shorter than normal head. Man monkey spoke a mysterious language made up by Barnum and was used as an exhibit in Barnum's shows. So he's a linguist now. Yeah, he's making up languages for this man monkey. Oh my God.

I know, it's so fucking gross. And then this is what kind of interesting. he went on to create America's first aquarium and to expand the wax figure department of his museum. That part's less interesting. First aquarium, though. Yeah. That's kind of interesting.

In the world. America's. American. Wow. Okay. A bit interesting, isn't it? So that beat Melbourne's aquarium. The Sea Life Aquarium.

What year was that built? Oh shit. They might have just pipped them. Early 2000s? Yeah. Wow. I know. I always sort of, maybe that was the first thing.

in the Southern Hemisphere. Yep. Yeah, that makes sense, yeah. Someone the other day described Melbourne Comedy Festival is the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. I like, I love that. I love claiming, because it's actually the third biggest in the world, which is way more impressive.

That sounds huge, doesn't it? But I love framing things. No, it's bigger than the Cape Town Comedy Festival. Yeah. Holy shit. I know. And if actually I would argue that any body of water is an aquarium. Oh, wow.

Yes. If, and your eyes are windows. Whoa. So you can look at fish through windows any time you want. Just stick your head in a bucket. Your eyes are a glass bottom boat. If there's a fish in the bucket, stick your head in there. If you're upside down in the water, your body's a boat and your eyes are a glass bottom.

Oh my God. Think about it. Wow. Or if you've got a glass tush. Which I do. We've already got a glass bottom. So yeah, kind of cool. America's first aquarium.

But let's exploit some more people. In 1862, he described. I discovered giantess Anna Swan, a Canadian woman who was 7 foot 11. Wow, that is very tall. Very tall. And Commodore Nut, it's a good name, isn't it? Another little person to replace his original Tom Thumb. So he's just kind of, I don't know, it feels so weird to exploit people for the things that make them different.

Yeah. Yeah, just make, yeah, that's right. I mean, that's literally what he's doing, right? He's making money out of people. Yeah, for just being. who they are. But, I mean, you said the film sort of sold that as... He was accepting of them all and they didn't have places they could be.

So he was giving them... Because it was a different time. Yeah. But it... I don't know. Maybe there was a little bit of that, but it also still feels gross, doesn't it? Jess, I really need you to give us a definitive answer here. Unfortunately, my time machine is in the shop.

I did not get to go back and interview them as I normally would, of course. That's why this podcast has such expensive overheads. You did a lot of travel, though. Oh, I chatted to Hugh, of course. And what did Hugh, of course? What did he say? Oh, my God, what didn't he say? Oh, my God.

I was also like, why are we at my house? You know? You're Hugh fucking Jackman. Even if you don't live in this city, if you're like, if you're here, you're staying in a penthouse somewhere. Why are we at my shitty apartment? No, the problem is he had to morgue the merch. Morg the merch. He's morging his own merch?

Yeah. That's tragic. It is. It's pretty bleak for you. Yeah. I'll tell you what, it was pretty bleak when the old undertake had to morg the morgue. Oh, my God. Morking this morgue.

Is that anything? That's a place. I will not. Edit out. Edit out. Edit out. Oh, my God. I was just looking up Hugh Jackman to see what he's up to now.

And it says people also ask. Hugh Jackman. It's like a live camera. But it says people also ask, number one is, what is Hugh Jackman worth? The second one is, is Hugh Jackman a nice guy? Oh, what's the answer? What's the top answer? With over a decade and a half of experience, Jackman has acquired the label of nicest guy in Hollywood.

He's opted out of... A decade and a half experience of being a nice guy? Oh, yeah, when was that? Who is Hugh Jackwood's best friend? Or who is it? Gus Wallet. Oh, hang on. What?

What? It's in that guy that goes to cricket things? He was shitting all over, Gus, at the dinner party we had. Oh, my God, he couldn't say a nice thing about it. I had to change the subject. A lot of vitriole. Yeah. This is awkward.

Did he even mention Magneto? Let's stop talking about Hugh Jackman. He doesn't need our free publicity. No. He's making a Motser of this right now. Which he needs, because he had to morg the munch. And the merch. And the rest. Yeah, he's like, just take it all.

Take it! During the Civil War, his museum drew large audiences seeking diversion from the conflict. He added pro-unionist exhibits, lectures, and dramas, and he hired Pauline Cushman in 1864. I got the Cush. An actress who had served as a spy for the union to lecture about her thrilling adventures

behind Confederate lines. Oh, that union. Right. I was wondering if it was the CFM-EU. So hang on So he's pro-union But he is essentially enslaving people Yep

Okay Yeah yeah So he was like a Yeah I suppose he's the kind of guy That's like which one will make me more money Probably Barnum's unionist sympathies

Were obviously not appreciated By Confederate sympathizers Barnum's American Museum Burned to the ground On July 13, 18 16th from a fire of an unknown origin. Oh dear. Barnum re-established it in another location in New York City,

but this was also destroyed by fire in March 1868. So first one burns down in July. He somehow moves it, re-establishes it within six months, and then it burns down again. That's bad luck. That is unlucky. Yeah. Although having...

I was not the next year, sorry. It was three years later. My bad. I read that wrong. Watching those wax figures slowly melted. The George Washington figure is just melting on the world. No, Ross from Friends. Oh, no.

Ross! Everyone's third favorite character. Ross is not my third. You want to put... Top three? Top three. We probably talked about this on the Friends episode. I have talked about how I think Ross is probably my favorite.

Oh, right. I think Rachel's actually underappreciated. She gets funnier. Yeah, right. Anyway... I like Gunf's... is probably what I would have said last time. What a funny person to say.

Yeah. He's the coffee guy. He's the coffee guy. So yeah, he is the coffee guy. So I know, yeah, I've watched a few apps. He's a coffee guy. He serves a coffee. Anyway, so yeah, it's burnt down destroyed by fire again in March of 1868.

The loss was too great the second time and Barnum retired from the museum business. He's done. Oh, wow. It would be, you'd start to go, ah, if they're just going to burn it down, I'll probably cut my losses. But that's what they want, unless he was one of those,

that's what they want me to do. Yeah, and also he doesn't seem to cut losses really well, I'm just going to make it less flammable next time. Hmm. Hmm. Going to make it all out of asbestos. Huh, that'll show them. Nothing can go wrong from here.

I'm going to hand cut all the pieces. So by this time, it's 1868, he's in his late 50s, surely just a quiet retirement. Sure, he'll die next week. He does seem like a real quiet retirement guy. Nah. At the age of 60, he entered the circus biz. Oh, yeah, right.

I forgot that that's what he's famous for. I was thinking that maybe the sort of the museum-in set up was circus-ish. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, oh, he's already done that, but he hasn't done that bit yet. Right. So he established P.T. Barnum's Grand Travelling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Hippodrome. Oh, that's with Hibon.

Hippos. I don't know what a hippodrome is actually. It's got to be a hippo thing. You seen that video of the hippo jumping out of the water after running? Yeah, Hugh Jackman showed me it four times. Okay, it says the hippodrome was an ancient Greek stadium for horse racing and chariot racing. What, cool. That's a horse-odrome.

Come on, Rome. Horser drone. Horser roam. Oh, that was Greek. So you said Greek. Fuck. Same did. Across the next decade, it changed.

names many, many times, and none of them catchy. P.T. Barnum's Travelling World's Fair, great Roman hippodrome and greatest show on earth. What? Oh, that were three titles or one title? That's one. Why are there ends in there? That's the biggest thing on a poster you'll ever see.

And P.T. Barnum's greatest show on earth and the greatest London circus, Sangha's Royal British Menagerie and the Grand International Allied Shows United. Surely the greatest show on Earth is enough. That's enough. Then you're going to like the next one is the greatest something in London. It's like, well, you've already done the greatest in the world. Yeah, why are you downgrading? We all assume there's a menagerie in the greatest show on earth.

Yeah. And the other thing. And a hippodrome. Hippodrome. All great shows have a hippodrome. All great things have a hippodrome. So in amongst this time, Barnum's wife Charity passed away in November 1873. They'd be married for 44 years.

The following year, he remarried. His new wife was the daughter of one of his friends, John Fish. Nancy Fish was 40 years younger than her new husband. And a real fish. With the body of a monkey. That he loved her. And still, the show must go on and the money must be made.

In 1881, his circus merged with James Bailey and James Hutchison, soon shortened to Barnum and Bailey. The show's first... Huttison really got the... I know. Shocking in Huddison. Barnham Bailey and Hutchison. Sorry, mate.

We're going for alliteration here. We're trying to keep it snappy. Some of the feedback we've had is the titles are a bit confused. They're a bit long. So because of that, we're giving you no money. Thank you. The show's first primary attraction was Jumbo, an African elephant that Barnum purchased in 1882 from the London Zoo.

The Barnum and Bailey Circus still contained acts similar to his travelling menagerie, including acrobats, freak shows and General Tom Thumb. Barnum persisted in growing the circus in spite of more fun. trains disasters and other setbacks and he was aided by circus professionals who ran the daily operations. He and Bailey split up in 1885 but they came back together in 88

with the Barnum and Bailey greatest show on earth. Yeah, stick to that. Yeah, we're getting close to you. But have you stopped there or is there more? Yeah, that is it. There's more. Later, Barnum and Bailey circus toured the world. So they're keeping it a bit snappier now.

He's in his late 70s now, isn't he? Late 70s. Yep. Barnum and Bailey merged with Ringling Bros in 1919 and the company only went defunct a few years ago in 2017 so it ran that entire time obviously in a few different forms but The world is going past circus right

Not Circus du Soleilet Which means circus of the sun I don't know if that's true Probably Cirque of the Solet Yeah thank you I sure I saw their show Ovo about an egg.

Wow. They're really specific. They've got one about everything. The Beatles, egg. Egg. I hate eggs too. Why don't you go to that one? Cheap tickets through my then workplace.

Right. Egg. Egg. It was great. I was about to go last year for the first ever time. Tickets for Christmas from my sister? What happened? Cancelled.

Why? They cancelled? Yeah. Frustrated. Very flaky. Why? Some sort of world event. I'm not sure.

Something interrupted them. Whatever. Liars. She couldn't be fucked. So he's done publishing. He's written a book. He's toured the world and publicised a singer. He's guessed how much a house costs or how many rooms they have.

He's done that. Museums, circuses, whatever. Now, obviously, next step, politics. Of course. Barnum claimed that politics were always distasteful to me. Yet he was elected to the Connecticut legislature in 1865. That's Connecticut. As Republican representative for Fairfield and served four terms.

How long are the terms? This is into his 70s. Yeah. He ran for Congress. Four years. So he's in there till pushing towards 90. Well, yeah. He ran for, no, no, no, no.

He ran for Congress in 1867. Oh, so jump back slightly, yeah, yeah, don't worry, he's not 100 years old. He's trying to break his own record. He's in a circus as the world's oldest politician. How weird is this, though? He ran for Congress and lost to his third cousin, William Henry Barnum. How funny is that? I suppose, I mean, I've got a lot of cousins.

I'm sure one of them would pit me to the post for Congress. Pricks. A third cousin's the kind of ones that you have, like, hundreds of? Probably. And I think they're the ones you can fuck. Oh, thank God. Jess, why have you looked into that?

I haven't. That's why I said I think. Waiting on an email back. Me and my cousin Barry are waiting on an email. Fingers crossed emoji. Sometimes I speak and I'm like, shut up. Shut up, Jess. No, this podcast would be way worse.

No, shut up. In 1875, he would. worked as a mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Like a female horse. In the hematrome. Hey, this is a town that he was like trying to invest lots of money in sort of building up and developing this town. He was the mayor of it for a while. Can you say it just for the American listeners, say it how they say it?

And for my benefit. Mayor, Mr Maya. I do declare Mr. Mayor. Okay, Americans? They say most words better than us. Maya. I love that. Water.

That sucks. Water. Water. We both say with a D then. Water. Yeah, we say water. And what do they say? Water.

It's a more subtle difference, I want. That's not like you're your Ellen Degenerous impression. Can you do any other words in that voice? No. Spot on. Sorry, no, America's got very confused that the channel had changed. Oh, my goodness. local radio.

Is that Alan? No. You're saying Alan or Ellen? Is that Alan? Alan. Who? Is that Alan Degener? Is that the mother?

Dad Alan? But anyway, all questionable things must come to an end. Don't say it. So he hasn't lived. He hasn't lived. He'd be about 160 right now. He's got so much more to give. So many more careers to for it and fail at.

Sadly, Dave, I'm so sorry to tell you. Your hero, P.T. Barton. No, not Phineas. Whatever the T stood for. Taylor. Phineas, Taylor. Died from a stroke in 1891 at the age of 80. Oh, he packed a lot into life.

The same age as his initial slave performer. That's right. And just an interesting little fun fact. I don't know. It's a lot of fun. Probably a bit grim. He's buried. Matt, you decide.

He's buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a cemetery that he designed. No, that's a fun for. That's kind of nice, I guess. Well, you know if it's fun. It's not grim. All right. Do you think people at the time when it was being called him Patee for his initials?

Patee. Patee. No, I think they called him P. Patee Barnum. But you're saying an Australian accent. I think in America they say, Patee Bayanam. Patee Bayan, I do declare, Mr Mayor.

The mayor. The mayor. Mr. My potay. And that is the story of maybe not the greatest showman. No, it sounds like the greatest, well, not even the greatest piece of shit, but just a piece of shit. Yeah. Nah, good on him.

It's so hard to look at these things, because it's so long ago as well. It's not even like it, you go, it was 20 years ago. It was a different time. This is 100. Like, it's so long ago. No, he's cancelled. Yeah, fuck him. Really.

I don't think he. you read his Wikipedia page before he said yes to the character. What are you thinking, Hugh? Let's have a chat to him next time. Honestly, it was a different time. But, you know, there's things can be, you know, they can be complicated. You know, it's not black and white. Yeah.

There's areas of grey in between. Yeah. He was a piece of shit. Yeah. Who had some success in business. That's right. You know, he can be both of those things. Yes.

And he wants to be everything, this guy. Yeah. That was a fascinating report, Jess. I knew nothing about it. I do declare, I knew nothing of that. Sorry, I do declare. Thank you. I had no idea what you were talking about.

Yeah, what's he saying over there? So thank you very much for bringing that to my attention. Well, thank you to all the people that suggested it. I had to do a little bit of digging around in the hat to find all suggestions. Some people had sort of said the greatest showmen. Other people had talked about the circus more specifically. So if I missed you, I'm sorry. I tried to find everybody who'd suggested that, you know, broad topic.

But yeah, it's a bit of an interesting one. The film is, I would say it's fine. If you're in the mood for just something kind of easy to watch, like I said, hung over Sunday, chuck it on. Skip the songs. Unless that's what you're into. I think people quite like songs. Not everyone hates it when they go.

You're like, oh. You hear the strings sort of floating in. You're like, fucking here we go. Yeah. Maybe we should say we probably don't say it all that often. And the way to suggest the topic is there's a on our website do go on pod.com. There's a button you can push, submit a topic. Anyone can submit a topic.

You don't have to be a patron supporter or anything like that. Anyone can suggest a topic. And if your topic comes out, you will get thanked unless Jess can't find your name. Well, that's really more on you than on me. You've probably written it in a weird way. Be findable. Yep. But yeah, that was fascinating.

I knew nothing of him. I'd never heard of him before that movie came out. But yeah, apparently it was quite a, it was obviously quite a big deal in his time and in his country. I mean, fuck, he made so much money off other people's talent. Yeah. I guess he was good at marketing or, yeah, a total gamble with Jenny Lind, but paid off for both of them.

During his life, Jess or Dave, what kind of, what did America go through in his life from 1810 to 1890? what kind of things were happening over there in that time? Well, the Civil War we talked about. The Civil War was in that time, right? Yeah. So it was a pretty hectic time he lived through. Yeah.

It's interesting to get the other side of that because we often will talk about like historical conflicts or stuff of that sometimes. But then to be like, and this is what they were doing for fun. You know, in their spare time, they'd go watch a singer they've not heard of and fight for tickets. Oh, and watch her arrive on the docks.

Yeah, that is interesting. Well, Jess, I do declare that that brings us to everyone's favorite section of the episode, the fact quote or question section. And the way you can get involved in this is, or I should say first, there's a little jingle, I believe. Fact quote or questions. And the way to get involved in this, the reason it's everyone's favorite section is because listeners or patron supporters give us a fact, a quote or a question. And they're always great fun. and the way to get involved in this is to go to patreon.com or do go on pod or do go on pod.com

and support us at the Sydney-Shimeberg level, blocked Memorial Package, rest in peace. Geez, I regretted to stay in that longer at the start. Now I do it every time. I'm going back. I'm just shortening it again. The Sydney-Shineberg level and... Rest in peace.

Rest in peace. Memorial edition. So, yeah, you can get involved there. There's heaps of different rewards if you want to support us to get... There's three bonus episodes per month on one level and above. You get to vote for topics like Justice's topic today was voted by this level.

You can also get into the Facebook group, which people often call the kindest and most positive corner of the internet. There's a weekly newsletter that just puts together. All sorts of different things. But anyway, for this particular thing, you have to give us a factor quote or a question. First up, we've got Sophie Shooter. Now, she's corrected me on the pronunciation now. Dave's giving me the thumb.

Oh, that's right. Great. So thumb up, I should say. Thumb is without it. He's giving you the thumb. He's giving you the thumb. He's given that side thumb. Which way is it going to go? Sophie Shooter, who's given herself the title of Head of Administration Swaps Division.

Of course. Of course. This is another fun thing that a bunch of our supporters do with Sophie's guidance. She's organised two different swaps from listeners from all around the world. One of them was a book swap and one of them was a snack swap. pretty cool stuff. Yeah, it was great seeing all the photos of whatever on sent each other. Yeah, I think that's why it's sort of just, it's just a nice place where they're often doing fun things,

where we pop in and out, but mainly it's just supporters chatting to each other and whatnot. And it's, yeah, it's very nice. So Sophie has given us a fact, and I don't read this, I read them out. So here we go. This one's a fact from Sophie. On the day this gets read out. I'm going to launch the next swap on the Patreon Facebook page. Whoa, you heard it here first.

So I'm just using my powers here to tell everyone, sign up to the key ring swap. Going live soon. Oh, key ring. The obvious next step. I love a key ring. Done books, done snacks. Key rings. Key rings.

Obviously. I think it's a good idea. That's fun. Great work, Sophie. So if you want to be involved in that, sign up to the Patreon at any level. Any level you get in there. And then once you sign up, you get a message with instructions about how to join the Facebook group. And then I've got to go in and manually let you in.

But just put your email address in there and then I'll cross-check it and do that. Which is great fun. I love admin. So, yeah, get involved in that. Sophie Shooter, what a legend. Say hi to her and look out for her post if you want to get involved in that. I love that she's also confident that she's going to be listening on the day. like she must only listen on the day of that they come out.

I hope it hasn't caused her any stress. She skips the report now. Straight to this bit. Nope, not me, all right. Thank you, Sophie. That's a great idea. Love it. Looking forward to seeing photos of people around the world with a key ring from somewhere else.

Beautiful. I reckon the Saints online shop, saints.com. You would be a great spot to get some key rings. I'm sure they do some official Saints merch key rings. The next one here comes from, do we do key rings? Why am I plugging a different... We should do key rings. We should do key rings.

We've got to get in on the key ring action. It's big business I hear. P.T. would approve. How else are you going to, like, keep your keys in one spot? Exactly. We're flying all over the shop. This next one comes from Carolyn Slater, who's given herself the title of cabin crew responsible for in-flight service delivery and checking that you are feeling okay.

A great and important job. Oh, my God. Thank you, Caroline. I would love a couple. Please don't wake me to check. That'd be the only time. If I'm asleep, I'm fine. Are you okay?

You're right? Well, I was. I was having a beautiful dream. Yeah, well, you were screaming loudly. I was having a picnic with my family. Sir, you're okay? Oh, how rude. Carolyn's asked us a question, and here is the question.

My question is for Matt. Oh, that's me. How well are you sleeping? I can't answer for Matt. Oh, how funny. How funny after what we just said. I said, my question is for Matt, how well are you sleeping? I can't answer for Matt, but nighttime sleep is a struggle for me,

and I'm interested in any good sleep tips just after we're doing that nightmare screen. At the same time, I love to sleep. I love sleep. I love a nap. If I could nap every day, I would. I'm on board with it. Carolyn, you sound like me. Yeah, I sleep through the night.

I just wake up tired. And I still haven't figured out why. It's possibly because I don't breathe properly through my nose. That's what one doctor said. I might be getting an operation on that. Is this oversharing now? But basically, yeah, I'm sleep. I feel like I'm sleeping okay, but I'm not actually getting good quality sleep.

So, but still looking in and different things and trying to fix some stuff. But any good sleep tips, what I've started doing, and I really have been meaning to ask Jess about this because you're the king of this, the eye mask. Yep. I bought one recently online that's an eye mask with like a headphones in it. Oh. Which is really good.

And I did have a wireless one, but then I read that they're not real sure if that's a good idea to have Bluetooth tech on your head for long periods of time, like, say, eight hours overnight. Sure. So I've stopped using that and I got a plug-in one, which has been good. But now the mask slips down my face in it. About three nights ago, I woke up gasping for air, and the mask was covering my mouth. And like I said, I can't breathe through my nose very well. Blasting like an audio book or something.

Into my cheeks. Turn it off. So, I mean, generally, I think it's a good idea because it helps just take out the light factor, because I don't have great quality blinds, something I'll look into, but light comes in a fair bit. So I wear those. But did you have a tip on a good quality eye mask? No, mine is from Kmart. It makes me look like a unicorn.

Oh, great. I saw one recently that I wanted to get that was made of silk. I thought that'd be quite soft on the old eyes. I've got a silk one, says bop on it. Is it nicer than a non-s? I don't use eye masks that much. I tend to just drug myself. Okay.

And is that a good tip? Probably not. Long-term. No. Take some melatonin. Now, if you're in Australia, you're going to want to order that from overseas. Okay. Anything you get over the counter here is too low a dose.

You're going to want 10 milligram. Actually, 10's a little high. You probably want five. Take one of those. Get to sleep, stay asleep. What we're saying here, is that legal? What we should say, speak to a medical professional before you order anything.

Medicinal in any way. What does melatonin do? It's a natural thing. We create melatonin anyway. But if you take it too regularly, you can feel a bit blue so then you're supposed to balance it out with vitamin D. Oh my God, no. No, it's bad.

That doesn't sound good. It's not good. Suddenly, you're shooting up. And then, yeah, it's like one thing needs to another. You're going to need a little her in an even out that vitamin D buzz. You need an upper and a downer at the same time. And then you're going to sleep for 18 hours and you're going to wake up feeling pretty average. You wake up in a prison cell.

Dave, do you have any tips that people can follow? Are you a good sleeper, Dave? I think I, well, no, actually, no, I wake up choking a lot. And not because of an eye mask. I love to hug a pillow. I cannot talk up hugging pillows enough. Do you have one of those pillows that's got like a fake arm coming off? Yeah.

Do you have a boyfriend pillow? Yeah, my girlfriend's like, what are you doing? I'm right here. No, I just have a regular pillow that I hug, and then what I find is in the morning when the light comes in, I just pull it up a bit and it covers the light. Oh, that's good. So then I'm hugging and I'm in the dark. Right. Hugging in the dark.

The day before you're sorry. Hugging in the dark. What a virgin thing to say. I love to hug. I don't know if I'm ready for that, but maybe we could do a bit of hugging in the dark. Nothing right. Nothing wrong with that. Hey.

That's all right. And that's great that you felt comfortable saying that, expressing that. Yeah. I'm not trying to tell people to dope themselves up. That's really important. Yeah, no, I was just, yeah. No, that's true. Don't listen to me.

What works for you? It's just funny. The conversations you do have, like, with other night shift workers is, that's how it goes. All right, what you're going to want to do is. So I was told to do that from a paramedic friend of mine. Oh, okay. Well, that feels pretty legit. Yeah.

She's like, can't get the good. shit in Australia. You want 10 milligrams. That's when I started feeling a bit nasty. The good shit you're importing. You definitely can get it. You definitely can. You probably need a prescription, but it's all right. I think all the tips that I would have are like things that everyone would probably already know and they're just hard things to stick to.

It's so frustrating. Like don't eat too close to bed time. I'd go to bed like at the same time. And an earlyish time. Don't try not to have screen time just before. Dave's laughing as the clock's ticking and we're going to still record a bonus that's right. Don't worry guys, we'll be in bed by 10. My lifestyle means that I can never do this. But in lockdown

I was getting into a pretty good routine trying to get to bed at 10 after having not looked at a phone or a screen for an hour before that and leaving my phone outside the room. That's great. And eating, you know, a sort of like trying not to eat a

couple hours for the last couple hours before bed. Yeah. And sometimes you just want a snack. Yeah, it's tricky. Just trying to like doing a little bit of exercise, go for a walk or something just to, you know, all those sort of normal health things. But it's all, it can be hard to keep up with all that shit as well. Especially when life gets in the way.

Pod life, that is. Thanks, Carolyn. Sorry if that, I don't know if that was good answers or not. But I am with you. Love sleep. I just have not figured out how to do it well yet. In all these years I've been alive. You've done it both nights for decades, centuries in your case.

Yeah. So you give no answers, but then you guys are like, just stop telling them to buy drugs online. Hey, I had an answer. Hug a fucking pillow. I had too many answers. They were just boring answers. Yeah, mine was at least interesting.

You're the only one that gets results. Thank you, Carolyn. This one comes from David Loring. who is the minister of regrets. And David, another man I can relate to. David's offered us a quote. Jess, you were saying you love a quote. Love a quote.

We rarely get a quote. This quote is, this is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be hurled with great force. It says most often attributed to Dorothy Parker talking about Atlas shrugged. Great quote. Love that quote. Thank you very much, David Loring.

Thank you for providing us with this quote. And finally, from Braden Douglas. This is a fact. You gave, there was nearly no reaction to that quote, Dave. And you're a bookman. Oh, sorry, yes. Just said, huh, which is. I don't sure I fully got it.

I never do. She's been, I think it's been a bit self-deprecating. Oh, no, it's not her. No, no, she's saying. I wish she wrote it. It's by Iron Rand, and it's a very, yeah, sort of divisive book. Some people absolutely love it. And then other people, so she's obviously in the latter camp saying,

oh, this is not something you should push aside. You should throw it out the fucking window. Yeah, I got you, I got you. It's quite witty. I didn't quite get it. I was not listening. I don't know why it's something about me just assumed, obviously being self-deprecating.

No one's mean, are they? To someone else's work. Finally, this one comes from Braden Douglas. And Braden is the guy. that's been sitting quietly in the corner during every recording session since episode once. Holy shit!

Slowly licking a pineapple that no one has acknowledged until now. Bloody hell. There he is. Look. The fuck are you doing here, Braden? Can you give him a mic? Braden?

I'm afraid it's not... Oh, Braden. You've been to such a long time. So glad he didn't have a mic before now because that's yuck. I'm taking his mic off him. Yeah, good call, Dave. Oh, Braden's...

We'll have a chat to you after the podcast, mate. Braden's had time in the corner. He's written a longish one here. It's a fact. Let's rip into it. Hey, guys, been listening for years and listen to every episode, so I thought you deserved a bit of Dosh. I love the...

The term Dosh, that's great. It's very good. Probably can't stay on this tier forever, but just listen in a World War One part one episode. and while listening to Jess Slag off submarines once again, oh, for fuck sake. Remembered something that I thought might blow all your minds because it's equal parts, very clever and utterly ridiculous.

I've had a lot of feedback on my opinion on submarines. I just think they're a bit silly. Everyone's very defensive of them. I love that people are being defensive of submarines. Submarines. To you, someone who definitely is affected by them day to day. Because you might, I mean, you do work for the government, Maybe you're going to...

I do work for the government. Are you... Yeah, that's a you are some sort of spy? You're not in the... Don't have the defence portfolio, do you? Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think we've spent a lot of money on submarines.

Yeah, building them over in Adelaide and by the time they come out, like in 500 years time, we'll no longer... They'll be no more seas for them to swim in. There'll be no more... Swimming seas? No more society to protect. We always feels like we're good with that. For my whole life, it's been like Australia, we spend something. big chunk of our yearly budget on defense, like submarines or helicopters or something,

and they always suck and take forever to build. Yeah, those obsolete by the time they come out. I don't know why we keep trying. Obviously, we love war, that's why. Big war country. He goes on. Where was I up to? This thing is equal parts, very clever and utterly ridiculous.

Brackett. I guess that's, there's a chance Matt could mention this in part two before, okay. Well, you, I mean, don't write. I don't read these until you read them. Every word you put in here. Don't, the brackets was meant that I was meant to read that to myself, right? Before you read this, in which case, change my fact to the quote. Okay, well, it's too late for that, Braden. I'll forge on. Anyway, I thought of the fact when Jess said submarines being able to hide underwater didn't justify their existence. when you could just paint normal ships blue to camouflage on the surface. I don't remember you saying that. I don't remember me saying that either. That's a funny, that sounds like a funny joke.

Is it? I think so. In World War I, a type of naval camouflage was invented called dazzle camouflage. That's fun. Hey. Sorry, that's grim. Or sometimes razzle dazzle, which was the name of our show. Okay, now I'm listening.

Rather than painting ships solid grays, whites or navy, blues in an attempt to literally blend in with their background. The idea was to paint crazy geometric patterns in high contrasting colors all over the ships to confuse anyone looking at them. To score a torpedo hit, U-boats, the German ships, German subs, had to spot a ship through the periscope, identify the model of the ship from its silhouette, then use its known height to calculate its distance from the U-boat based on the apparent size of the periscope. Then determined its speed and heading by seeing how far it moved in a set time. Then it was finally possible to fire a torpedo on it on an intercepting trajectory.

When dazzled, the idea was that being able to work out which direction a ship was moving or where the top of the masts were would be much harder. It was never really proven either way if it worked or not. But more than a thousand ships were dazzled in the later years of the war and the techniques saw limited use even in World War II. World War II. The extra fun bit of this fact means many ports late in World War I would have looked more like Mardi Gras than the solemn affair you might naturally imagine.

Sorry this is so long, I only hope you're all feeling razzled and perhaps a little dazzled. I feel like that was as long as my report. I felt razzled and dazzled, Braden. Thank you very much. Yes, I actually seen a couple of photos. Oh, have you? And they do look quite... Ah.

Sexy? Sexy. Often they're sort of like a zebra painting. Yeah. Oh, right. They look like they're coming at you from all angles. Yeah, I've seen that before, I think. Cool.

There you go. But the question is, our submarine... Oh, wow, yeah. But our submarine's dumb, Jess. They're pretty dumb. Yeah. You see that? Yeah.

Yeah, they make them look like, sort of like those impossible paintings. I understand. I understand why submarines exist. I just think it's a bit funny. It's like if you think about anything for too long, like something I always think about is that we evolved from apes and we've made up roads and like taxes. We just made all that shit up.

When I think about it for too long, I lose my mind a little bit. Think about a submarine for too long. think they're silly. Apes never invented taxes, did they? No. Because they're not silly. They're not silly. They're smart. We're dumb. Although technically we are apes, so, you know, in a way, we are. That doesn't make any sense. We are apes. We're great apes. No. Try again. It's true. It's not. You're lying again. Jess, it's true. You're lying again. We're one of the great apes. Great apes. Now, it brings us to the time where we thank a few of our other. other great supporters

just when it comes up with a little game to play based on the topic. Oh, yes. And I reckon in recent times you've always seemed a little surprised. No, I was already thinking about like what food and drink

that's going to run the trip ditch club. But the game we could play... I was already thinking about what I was going to do when I get a heart. We name their museum or circus or something.

Great. All right. Or what they... Who they've exploited. I like your first idea. Yeah. All right, well. So it's, yeah, all right. Can you give us an example after I read out and thank our first supporter here from Oroquet, from Auckland and New Zealand.

I'd love to thank Benjamin Blackhall. Blackhalls, Fantabulous, horse riding, extravaganza and paintball. Oh, okay. I love it. I love it. I actually want to go for real. Yeah. I would love to go to a B. Blackhaw's thing that you just said.

This is going to be hard to repeat. Yeah, definitely. It's a one-time thing. Yeah, that's right. Just reverse it if you want to hear it again. Rewan the tape. Great work. Benjamin.

I'd also love to thank from Valdez in North Carolina in the United States. I should just quickly say, fun fact about North Carolina. There, fire engines are blue. In a certain place. And also from Valdez in North Carolina, I love to thank Ethan Christian. Ethan Christian's House of Mirrors and Clown Workshop. Oh. So you can learn to be a clown.

B.Y.O. Windex. Damn, college. I love that. Yeah, it's a clown college. It's a clown college. Plus Hall of Mirrors. Yeah. And they're all dirty. Please bring Windows. I cannot stress that enough. It's just this way of getting window cleaners without really wanting to commit to it.

All right, your addition is to clean these hundred mirrors. Like mime clean them? No, no, here's the windex. Please don't mime. Please never mind. It's a rule. It's not a mime college, is it? Finally, from Barnagat in New Jersey,

United States. I'd love to thank Brittany Roxas. Brittany Roxas, the B. Roxas, House of cards made of cards with cards inside and all the things are about cards. And they play cards and there's a poker table. And some of their areas are also greeting cards. Wow, really rolls off the time.

Just like they used to do. Beautiful. Good on you. Brittany Roxas. Thank you so much. And there's a business card swap area as well. Oh, wow. And Brittany is also a bit of a card.

What is she like? Is there a place where you can swap business cards? Oh, big time. Love that. I did say that, didn't I? Probably. Yeah, honestly. Honestly, I tuned out.

I think I might have said that word for word. And there's a place where you swap business cards. Which, you know, that hurts. I thought it was reading cards. No, no. I came back in for business. Okay, I do apologize. Can I thank some people to move on from this awkward situation?

Were you apologising for Dave? Yeah. I'm waiting for him. I also don't doubt. I would love to thank from another place in the Southern Hemisphere, Cape Town in South Africa. What? Ryan Halliwell. You referenced Cape Town's Comedy Festival before you.

Yeah, I did. One of the biggest comedy festivals in the Southern Hemisphere. Ryan Halliwell's Big Time, Comedy Laugh Factory and... Hellipad. Helipad. Hellipad. Sales. Hellypad.

Just a bit of concrete. I do not have a functional one. Please don't write to an helicopter. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Ours are inside. Love that. Anya Ryan. I would love to thank now from Vancouver, British Columbia, Thomas Mitchell.

The House of Pop-Tops where once you pop, you never stop. The poppin and the toppin. Zizi Top is here. Zizi Top is here as well. In brackets. That bit of the brackets. Wednesdays only. Wednesdays only.

In brackets again, no guarantees. It's the real Zizi. Poppin, Anna Toppin and a Zizi. Shopping. Shopping. For a bargain. Sorry, we said we've got Zizi shop here. Look at the Zizi shop.

We've got all the Zizi top merch that you need. The band is here on Wednesdays. Brackets, sometimes. They haven't got back to us, but we assume. One question. Do they have an area where they swap business cards? Did you say that? I would like to thank also.

From Dachau in Deutschland, Germany, Veronica Brandmare. Veronica Brandmare. What about Brandmare's Good Time Health Shop slash Ice Cream parlor? Oh. Slash

Rejuvenating Centre for businesses If you're having a brand mare That's the lingo they use We're going to turn it into a brand dream We also do haircuts And there is a business card swapping area It's getting to that time in our own where we lose our mind

Love it Probably cannot wait to visit If I visit Germany ever again I'm going straight to your place. Absolutely, which I cannot name. Was that you done, Dave? Is it my turn? Yes, please.

Oh, my God, yay. I would love to thank from Pittsburgh. On the Golden Mile. Wow, we love it. Pennsylvania. I'd love to thank Crystal Cobbett. Oh, the Cobbett. Obviously, Cornwall is the main thing.

But what else they have there? Crystal's House of Cornwall. House of Cornwall. As long as she started out going small and ended up going no big. Yeah. But unfortunately, she had the idea at the pitch meeting

and it sort of stuck. House of Cornwall and Mays, Mays. Yes, and Waterpark. And Waterpark. B.Y.O. Bavis. And Spider Sanctuary. It's weird that I have to mention it,

but honestly. Honestly, it's been a problem more than what. People turn up and say, where do I get bathers? And it's like, are you fucking kidding me? Where's this? Yeah, where's the bathers swap? Yeah.

I give you my underpants. You give me some bathers? Where's that area? That's how we do it in my town. Here are my underpants. Taking them off already. Like, when you get to a bowling alley and you give them your shoes and I'll collect my underwear on the way out. And they're just looking absolutely confused.

I don't understand. Is this the spot? You're standing there nude with your underwear on the counter. You just push it across the table. Thank you very much. It's like a medium. I like a bit of room. I'll have a medium underwear, thank you.

Swimming underwear, please. Yeah, one pair, thank you. Thanks, Crystal Cobbett. Thank you so much, Crystal. So sorry about that. Sorry about that. I would also love to thank from Alexandria in Virginia, Noah, Abby.

What about Noah's cactus wonder emporium? Okay. Selling all the cactuses you need. Oh, that's heaps. And some you don't. And all the cactuses come two by two and a mating pair, just in case disaster hits. We also sell... It's Noah's Cactus arc.

It's like... In case we carc it. We got the cactus arc it. In case of, in case they carcet, got the cactus arc it? No, there's something there. There's something there. In brackets, working title. We also sell trailers.

Yeah, of course. Obviously. How else are you going to transport cactus? Exactly. If you think about it, if the whole Noah's Ark thing was worried that the world was going to be flooded, cactus, they need to live in a desert, right? They're going to be the number one plant you can overwater it. They're not about animals.

They can swim mostly. Cactus can't. It's weird that Noah had sharks on board. But did he have two of every cactus? No, that's wild that they survived. Maybe they've evolved since the flood. True. What happened with Noah?

He lived for hundreds of years. Really? Yeah, like I think he was, maybe he already was, but I think he was super old. Good on him. Luckily, P.T. Barnum wasn't around. Finally, I would love to thank from Kennesaw. What's GA?

Georgia. It's the only G. Georgia? Of course. Oh, unless it's, is that country or state? State. Yeah. Kennesaw, Georgia.

Eli Brown. I love it. Eli's a great name. Yeah. Eli Brown. Can't help it go to Browntown. Of course. But what do they do there?

It's a coffee like Arnie Donna style. Morning Brown. Morning Brown slash Pants dispensary. Oh, great. Just in case you have too much morning brown, don't worry. We've got vending machines

full of pants, jeans, and pancakes. We've also got pants coats. Which are pancakes in the shape of pans. It's very cute. That's good. I love the idea of a pant. Do they shoot straight onto your legs?

Yeah, it's amazing. You sit in a chair and they... You sort of put your legs up and stir it up. And then you get jeans. Shot onto you. Shut at you. And suddenly, oh, it's a great fit. Oh, they're great.

Oh, Levi, thank you. Oh, thank you. You really don't want to plug in the wrong size. Yeah. Size too small. Oh, yeah. You're like, oh. Because they come on at force.

Yeah, exactly. You're kidding yourself because you're feeling a little self-conscious. You don't want to do that. Yeah, I'll take us. Oh, yeah. No one's judging you. Eli's they're going, mate, you're not a 30. Come on, mate, don't lie.

But his machine doesn't know, doesn't understand. It just does what it's told. All right, well that's all the names. Our great supporters, we love to thank. Apart from those who've been supporting us for the last three years on the shoutout level or above, and they get welcomed into the Triptych Club. It doesn't have a jingle, but does have quite an elaborate setup. Including, I'll announce your name.

I've got you on the door list. I'll lift the velvet rope. In you come. You'll be welcomed by Jess behind the bar, who'll have a tray of beautifully designed drinks. often their originals and also some hors dave's over with the band who he's booked probably wording him up telling him the ground rules yeah whether or not they can perform blue something depends week by week that's right that guys we want to keep it above the belt tonight uh who have you booked for the band this week we have one of our favorite sons singing songs from movies you will know

russell crow oh has he got to fogg as well yeah the old Foot of Grunt. They're going to, yes, it's him and the boys. Ripping out some classics. They will not be playing anything from Hugh Jackman movies, though. Oh, okay. Sorry about that. Sucked in.

And Jess, what kind of drinks and hors d'oeuvres have you got us this week? The greatest shoeman. Everything is served in a shoe. Food and drink. Yes. I love it. For drinks. For drinks.

We have moonshine. Out of a shoe. out of a shoe. And for food, we have Welsh rabbit in a shoe. Oh, lovely. Yep. So now what happens is I'll read out the name. I've got you on the list.

I'll lift that velvet rope. You'll sort of jog in with your arms up, sort of, if you want to. It's up to you. Absolutely. We'll be doing like a sort of. Triumphantly. Mexican wave over the top of you. We've got Tofog.

We'll play you in, of course. And then Dave will hype you up. He's your hype man. So everyone who enters the club feels good about themselves because Dave, Anyway, I've got opinions about how well he does, but it doesn't matter. Just try and be positive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How many we welcome me in?

We'll welcome him in three into the triptage club. Okay, fantastic. A triptage of triptych club. And then Jess, because that doesn't necessarily do a very good job, Jess does then big him up as well. So just to keep him going. Every hype man deserves a hype man. Yeah. Do you disagree with that?

No, I don't disagree with that at all. Thank you. You know, like hype men are always doing the hype and who's hypein them? Thank you. Who's hype and me? The Coast guy? Not Matt. I know.

I think you do great. It's just Dave, I don't know. Yeah, no, he sucks. If you could hype up, Jess. Jess could hype me up and I hope. It's like a great circle. Okay. And then...

It's a circle jerk. Fantastic. Yes. Well, that is what some have described this show. Especially this section. All right. Well, let me bring him in. First off from Brisbane.

You got this. In Queensland, Australia. It is Rian. Ginevan. Rianne Ginevon. Oh. Um. Rearing or something like that. What about, um, uh... Dave's your hype man. Remember that.

At the moment, Rian is sort of awkwardly walking with his arms in the air, looking around. She's not a Brisbane in our sides. It's Gian, no, Riann, Genovine. Did I get that right? Yeah, Rian, well, I mean, did I get it right? It's probably the bigger question. Yeah, thank you so much. Jesse, I think he really needs some hype there.

Have you got anything for him? I clapped. She's not a bane in our side. It's all right. I clapped. Just edit out the silence. Well done. Bring yourself to do that.

Yeah. Come on, yeah, number. Woo! All right. I think I'm warm enough. R RIA. That's like Rian Johnson. Is that right?

That's Ryan Johnson. Oh, fuck. Sorry, Ryan. Ryan, Jinnivar. Oh, can I just say, I feel like Ryan. There we go. His name's Ryan Johnson, yeah. The director.

Yeah, Star Wars, Knives Out, Brick, Looper. Jeez. That's awkward. We've talked so many times. I've always said his name wrong. Introduce him to my mum like that. This is Ryan. Ryan didn't even say anything.

Next up, from Mosfelliber in Israel. It's Bjarki, Stein, Peterson. I couldn't, uh, must fell a bear to be without you. Yes, you fucking down at him. Woo! I mean, I wish you didn't pick that bit because I'm, that's the bit that I'm least, I mean, of all of it, the least bit I'm confident. You are ruining momentum. Because it's the A-E letter that's mushed together.

Okay. And what's the rest of it? I'll do it back out one. What's the rest of it's the name? Bjarkie Stein Peterson. Well, I'm going to drink a Stein for you tonight. Great. That's that good, that's good stuff.

That's great. Hey, great backing up of Dave there. Love that. Thank you. You had him. Thank you. And finally, I'd love to welcome into the Tribidge Club. Grab a shooey.

Let's get partying from Greensboro in North Carolina. Quick fun fact. They have blue fire trucks there. It's Dean Clark. The Dean of Fun Times is here. Yes, Prestiol. We're lucky. We really knocked it out of the park tonight.

Wow. Does it feel good when we're all having a good time. Yeah, it does feel better. It does feel good. I'm loving to myself. I'm lying to you, but it feels good. We're all lying to ourselves, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're just having a good time. I wake up in the morning and I'll lie to myself. That's what I do. I wake up and I say, God, you're a good height, man. 16 hours a day. I'm lying to myself. Then I go to bed. I wake up hugging a pillow and I'm like, you are the greatest.

Well, that brings us to this. the end of the episode. Jess, where can people find us? And our houses. Stop it. Do go on pod across all social media's

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, do go onpod. Dot com. And do go on pod at gmail.com if you want to flip us an email. I really wish we got dot orge. Yeah, fine. We should have got dot org.

Is it too late? Probably. And Jess, did you mention that they can find us at do go onpod.com? Yes. Cool. If you do want to see us live

in person, Please don't come to our houses, but do come to the European Beer Cafe, March 28, April 4, April 11, April 18, or the super extravaganza that is Sunday, April 4, 4, 4, when you've got primates at 2 o'clock, book cheat at 415, Matt doing stand-up at 655, but also doing the entire Melbourne International Comedy Festival. And then 8.30 for Do Go on that night. I've just checked. There are well under 10 tickets now for each show. Oh, that's awesome. So, and Dave, if people are listening in the future, is that, that page is kind of up to date, the show's link on our website. So if you go to do gone pod.com. You'll be able to see the show. Yeah, click.

So if you're all listening in a year's time, hopefully the world's opened up and we'll be, I know that some people listening in the future going, oh, my God. He doesn't know about the volcanoes yet. They started appearing everywhere. Oh, no. But, yeah, hopefully we're back out and doing shows semi-regular into the future in one way or another. Anyway, that brings to the end episode, Booth this baby home day. Thank you so much for listening. And until next week, I'll say thank you and goodbye.

Later. Bye. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester. We were just in Manchester. But this way you'll never miss out.

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