Do Go On - 376 - Clever Hans, The Smartest Horse

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Clever Hans was a German horse that could apparently solve math problems, tell the time and even spell - but was the horse telling THE TRUTH?This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 03:44 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report). Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodLive show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/  Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/ Check out our new merch! : https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/ Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other pods:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas Do Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.  REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.damninteresting.com/clever-hans-the-math-horse/ https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1911/07/23/104872007.pdf https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/clever-hans-the-horse-that-could-count-561cdd5a1eab https://www.hestasaga.com/en/2021/01/29/part-1-the-discovery-of-wilhelm-von-osten/ https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/81063/story-lady-wonder-psychic-horse Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Serengy 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. Welcome to another episode of Do Go One. My name is Dave Warnocky and as always I'm here with Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins. Hello. Hello, how good is it to be alive?

It's so good to be here. This is the first one we've recorded together in a little while. Yeah, it's been a few weeks. I've missed you. We've missed you too. Deep within my soul. We've missed your face, Jess. I have been the most depressed I've ever been in my life and never leave me again.

I'm so sorry to hear it. Oh my God. These have been some of the worst weeks of my entire existence. I felt empty. Oh, my God. It was lost. I roamed the streets. Well, if it makes you feel any better, there wouldn't have been a day that went by

where Dave and I didn't think and talk of you. Fondly or? Yeah, yeah. Well, I won't go into details. That's right. I mean, sometimes we were really sticking the movie. Can you believe what she wears to the recording? It was very unprofessional.

It was mostly about your fashion choices But apart from that, we really, really missed you So, I mean, the episodes have still been coming out We did a bunch in advance So Matt and I went to the UK to do some book cheetah And who knew it with Matt Stewart podcast And there was one day where we were listening back To one of our episodes

It was about to go up that night And you know, we're making sure that, you know, It was all ready for uploads So we were driving through Bristol It was the night Witches episode And we were listening to it at night At 10 o'clock at night Driving through the tight, tight streets of Bristol

And Jess, your voice came on And we both thought at the same time, I miss Jess. I said out loud and Matt said, I was just thinking that. It's very funny and very sweet. But yeah, to the listeners, there's been very little change.

That's right. Let's not harp on about our feelings too long. That's right. They don't want to hear it. If they do want to hear any of our feelings, they can hear them on book cheat live from Glasgow with Corrie Will. We talked about the Hound of the Baskervilles,

the Sherlock Holmes Special. I know that one. And yeah, a couple of the Who Knewets with Matt Stewart's have gone up as well, the one from, Fogg, I can't remember it, Leeds and the one from, where's the other place?

What was the last place we? Bristol. Bristol. You just mention it. And, yeah, unfortunately, the Birmingham episode is having some technical issues, sound-wise, but hopefully

fingers crossed It wouldn't be a pod tour if at least one episode didn't have some technical sound issues possibly too the London bookshed is also looking a bit suss but we're trying to happen

that's all right you'll get there but we're back great time we're back together bigger better better better than ever and the way this show works

Matt what is how would you describe I was really hoping that one of you would describe I've got it I've forgotten each week one of the three of us goes away

research is a topic they bring that research back to the other two who listen politely and never interrupt with silly little riffs. Oh, right. Yep. Okay, that rings a bell. Yeah. And we usually get onto topic with a question. It is Dave's turn to report on his research this week. Dave, do you have a question? Okay, my question for you is, what kind of... Dave, I asked if you have a question. Sorry, my answer to your question is yes. Okay, great. Now please ask you questions. Thank you so much. Sorry, it's been a while for me as well, obviously.

Yeah, you forgot how to have a conversation to be polite. Fuck you. I have forgotten. Okay, my question is, what kind of animal was Clever Hans? Clever Hans? A horse. It's right. It's a horse.

Yes. Do you know Clever Hans? Incredibly vaguely. Oh my goodness. I'd never heard of Clever Hans before. I sort of in the hat. Yeah, well, it must have seen it in the hat at some point. A horse.

I'm sorry, I didn't do any joke answers. I just wanted a point. Great, Matt. Just a joke answer this one for a bit of fun. What about... Come on, a joke animal. Oh, joke animal. What's the funniest animal?

Okay, what about a quaker? Oh, good one. That's a funny animal. That's a funny. That's a funny. What's a funny? Beaver. Yeah, beavers are funny.

Yeah, beavers are pretty funny, yeah. I think of the quaker as the Australian bea. Yeah, I agree. I saw a video recently, a TikTok, of a beaver being fed with a syringe and the milk rod's out. Heroin. shooting up that beaver. Eremen in milk.

And then the milk runs out and the beaver's like making this very cute squeaking noise and trying to get more milk out of it and fighting with the wrangler who's trying to get the syringe out. It's very cute. I was like, fuck, beavers are cute. Anyway. They are cute, but they're not clever like a horse. Yes. Like clever hams.

Oh my God, exciting. A clever horse. I'm impressed. You've heard of this. Matt, how about you? No. No. No.

No. No. I'm guessing is a German horse based on the name. Hans. It is a German horse. Well done. And yeah, you know, I'm guessing maybe he clops once if he thinks Germany will win the next World Cup game. He'll clop twice. If he thinks it'll be a draw. You are not far off. Seriously. It's that, but maybe slightly more impressive. Anyway, let's talk about it.

In the summer of 1904, a horse called Clever Hans and its owner, Well, the main topic of conversation in all of Berlin. So hang on, the horse's name is Hans and then it's later been given the title of Clever Hans or the horse's name is Clever Hans. It's mostly just Hans but people have... Okay, great. Yeah, I just run to check. That's right. It's not nominative determinism.

Right. Yeah, okay. He wasn't a race horse. They just named Clever Hans. Actually, let's quiz this horse. Let's see if this horse is clever. But why were the topic of conversation? Well, let's find out.

Our non-horse-based main character in this story is a man named Willem von Austin. Oh, that's a good name. I love Willem. Willem. And anything von. Willem, could be Wilhelm, I guess some people say, but. Oh. But I never knew that was the same thing.

I don't think he is. I think Willam Defoe might be spelled slightly different. Anyway, Wilhelm, Willem, either way. I think Willem DeFoe's real name is William and for some reason he just started to call himself Will. I think that is true. I mean, he is. very good at playing the weirdest people you've ever seen. And maybe it's not an act.

What do you mean? I think Green Goblins really cool. Very normal. Well, that weird character from Speed 2 that's like got a little bunch of leeches in the bar. I don't remember that at all. I don't remember that either. No one's seen Speed 2. No, exactly.

That's probably what. I'm a speed purist. But he's good. You think, because Dennis Hopper, very hard act to follow. I think the best bad guy ever in Speed 1. Speed 2, Willem takes it to the next level in terms of insanity at least. Yeah, cool. leeches in a bar.

That's crazy. So Wilhelm von Austin, William von Austin, was a high school mathematics teacher who was into science, including phrenology, the now discredited pseudoscience that used the measurement of bumps on the skull

to predict mental traits. Bumps on the skull? I don't think you should have bumps on your skull. Well, I do. Back here. There's one... What's that? What's that?

The sign of a genius. No, I think you've just hit your head. Ow! You were right. But he was interested in science nonetheless. Von Austin lived in northern Berlin in a five-story house, which is too tall, and in the backyard. Agreed. All those stairs.

It's two to five stories. It's so funny because as a kid, I lived in a single-story house and double-story houses seemed like the pinnacle. That was so cool. I wanted stairs. Why? And now I live in the third floor of an apartment building, and I'm like, dude, he's fucking stupid. I hate them. Your dream come true.

But they're beautiful stairs. They're beautiful stairs. I love that building. I think it's all very nice. It's a nice building. Yeah, the stairs, the tiles. Yeah, but up and down and all the time. Oh my gosh, trying to take the bins out.

Got to do it out of stairs. Maybe there's a reason why you've got the strongest legs in the game. That's right. That's where it all came from. Before you moved into there, your legs were weak. Yeah. We were just average podcaster legs. But now you've got the strongest legs in podcasting.

That's true. That's true. You're right. Was that a category that was missed at the podcast awards this year? Yeah. And I'm furious about it. I know Jess doesn't say anything, but she should be furious. I've written some angry letters.

Let me tell you. So he lived in a five-story house and in the backyard he kept a horse. The horse's name was Hans and he was an all-of-trotter. All-of-trotter. Which is, it's a lot of fun, isn't it? Okay. And obviously I know heaps about horses. Yeah, you're going to tell us more about all-of-trotters?

Oh, I've got a couple of paragraphs right here. Fantastic. Orloff Trotter. It's the most famous Russian horse. That's where I knew it from. Yeah, Russia. Yeah. The breed was developed in Russia in the late 18th century by a man called Count Alexei Orlov.

It's so funny to talk about it like it's an app or something. Yeah, we developed this horse. Yeah. It's so weird. What we did is we made that horse fuck that horse and we just saw what happened. Oh, what do you do? I'm a horse developer. Yeah. You're just watching horses fuck, aren't you?

I think you're just a bit of a perv. That horse is quite fast, but that horse is quite sexy. Yeah, if you're developing anything, it's a bono. You perth, Olof? Well, he's notable for a few things, Olof. One is breeding Oloff Trotters, and the other one is promoting the Oloff chicken. Promoting it to what, the junior vice president? Sort of saluting a chicken.

He's well known for it because he lost his mind. And he gave a chicken a plum. job at the factory. It is an insane CV, isn't it? I created a horse. I promoted a chicken. Go to a meeting and a chicken walks into a suit. Taking nice.

The count's like, it's all right, he's with me. Now I'm imagining a chicken in a suit and that's really cute. Yeah. Pecking at a PowerPoint presentation. So it's even weird because all I've tried to He basically he created that horse by crossbreeding. But the chicken, that already existed, but he just promoted it by being a big fan of this. He was a hype man of the chicken.

Hey, everybody, they all checked out this chicken over here. How can I have this chicken? I love this chicken. This is a good chicken. Going from town to town, setting up a little market stall. Have you heard the good word of this chicken? Knocking buckets of chaos out of people's hands. It's the wrong kind of chicken.

So what's the right kind of chicken, according to Olaf? The Olaf chicken. Oh, he named it. Oh, man. He couldn't he have at least, like, made it fuck one other kind of chicken just to get a slight variation to cause his own? You can't improve perfection. His chicken fucked his horse. Wow.

Chicken horse. A chaucer? Yeah. Oh, it'd be sad. It would be a horse that can't fly. A hekin. Hicken? A horse that can't fly.

That would be sad. don't be sad? It's suchy. Because its wings wouldn't be strong enough. I mean, chicken wings aren't strong enough to even fly a chicken. That'd be really bad known to get any sort of leverage from a horse. No, he's right. You're absolutely right.

So he did both of... The Pegasus's dream. We'll have to wait another day. Count Orloff did both of these things in retirement, but in his career, he had helped Catherine the Great overthrow, Zahar Peter III, and then his family became very powerful in the Russian court. one of his missions so I did a bit of reading about him

and I found this interesting one of his missions was to take care of a so-called pretender to the Russian throne now known to history as Princess Tarkanov which translates roughly in Russian to Princess Cockroach Oh

That's nice She wasn't calling She wasn't calling herself that at the time People nicknamed her that Because she, they thought she was Basically pretending that she was an heir to the throne And Catherine the Great who was on the throne Did not like that

So she trusted count all of with taking care of Princess Cockroach. Wow. This guy really does have a wild CV. And this is his plan. He seduced Princess Cockroach and then tricked her into boarding a boat to Russia with him where she was arrested and then soon died in prison. Oh, wow.

Count all off your dog. Yeah, that's a real dog act. Yeah. Jeez. Not happy about that at all. Yeah. And then he went on to watch chickens and horses. And how do you get from pretend Air to the Throne?

to cockroach. If she, like, survived a nuclear holocaust, I'd get the nickname. Yeah. I think it's more like Princess Cockroach, Princess Dirtbag over here. Right. Because they're dirty. Yeah, trying to be a bit rude. Nobody likes cockroaches.

They're yuck. Oh. Sorry to any cockroaches listening. And isn't that the Sydney rugby team's nickname, the cockroaches? Um. But maybe that started as pejoratively from Queensland. Yeah, isn't it? Cockroaches and cane toes?

Yeah, right. When their sides clash? Yeah. Maybe they've sort of, yeah. What would we be then? Something real clean and nice, I reckon. What's the cleanest animal? Yeah, it's a real clean.

Probably the beaver. Yeah, the beaver. Beaver. Sorry, it's on my mind. So anyway, that's a bit of an early detail there, but Hans, the clever horse, or soon to be, is an all-of-trotter. Right. So a rare Russian horse, owned by Wilhelm von Austin,

and according to Hester saga.com, an Icelandic horse website that I found. I think Hester is a word that means horse in Icelandic. One day, as Mr. Austin was returning home from a ride in his carriage, he noticed that his horse, Hans, was making a wide turn without being asked so that the carriage could pass through the narrow driveway without any problems. Austin was sure that this behaviour showed that horses were capable of independent thought.

So he began to get excited about the idea from then, on and looked for ways to support his thesis. He's like, oh, that horse made itself get out the way. It's pretty clever. Yeah. Did horses not have independent thought? Maybe they didn't know back then. Yeah.

Yeah. And also, I think he's more like, if it can learn that on its own, what could I teach it? But I'm not sure I did learn it on its own. Just an instinctive thing, I would have thought. I would actually have thought that the carriage driver probably made the horse pull, you know, go wide. And did that so many times and then the horse knew you to do that.

That's just how you train animals to do stuff is repetition and reward. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you get a dog to sit down and then you say sit and now it knows how to sit. Oh. You know what I mean?

That's how I learned how to sit. Yeah. Took me a while but I got there. So on dangling a treat over your head. Sit? I'll do it now without even a treat. Forcing your head up so your bum goes down. That's how you do it with dogs.

You don't force their head up. You'd hold a treat above their nose. And they sit down because they're dumb. But they're so cute. Oh, my God, they're the best. So Austin, Hans' owner, decided to try and teach his horse a few new tricks. He taught the horse... Sit?

No sitting, is mentioned. No rolling over. Imagine a horse sitting down? Yeah. So weird. Like cross-legged. Reading a ball. Yeah.

In an armchair. Yeah, I can't imagine that actually He haught the horse He taught the horse Left and right by guarding it with a carrot So fairly similar to what you're saying there And when the horse went for the carrot He'd say, that's left hans

Or that's right I was also teaching it English Or probably German Yes, so it's all been translated Yeah, yeah And then he continued with up, down, forward and stop So he's teaching those words So that when he says those words, he'll do them

Yeah, eventually the horse was able to he was able to say left or right and the horse would respond even without the treat. Yeah, right. And this is, um, this is noteworthy, I'm guessing. What's getting there. Okay. No, I'm, I'm, I'm genuine. I don't know, I don't know horses.

I know you probably look at me ago. This is a horse man. That's a horse guy out there. But I actually don't know horses that well. Okay. Do you know a horse? I've met a few horses in my time. Definitely.

But, um, I've never got to know them that well. Yeah. You know, never spent that much time with it. Yeah, you've really got a wall up. Yeah. You don't let horses in. You're just, Open yourself up to their beautiful face.

Well, I'm afraid, you know. I've broken hearts before, and we all know how big a horse heart is. And I just couldn't stand the thought of breaking one of them big old hearts. I can see another word for heart. You're keeping people and horses away because you don't want to hurt their hearts. But I think there might be a little part of you that's protecting your big horse heart. Hey? Hey.

The biggest horse heart of all was in you the whole time. Oh my God, you've made me see something that was right in front of me all along. That's not a horse. That's a mirror. That's a man. After we finish up today, I'm going to go hug a horse. Hey, how about this? Instead of saying nay, say yes.

Say yay. That's good. That's nice. Yeah. And yeah, okay, so I will finish up and then we'll go hug some horses. I'm sure there's plenty around in Brunswick. Yeah. There's probably a five-story house of the horse out of the back.

So he taught it left. right, up, down, forward and stock, which, you know, is kind of significant, pretty good. Yep. Austin then had plans to teach Hans to count. Remember, Austin is a math stature. But again, according to Hester Saga, unfortunately, Hans died suddenly due to an intestinal blockage. What? Sadly, that was the end for Hans.

But only the beginning for its owner, Van Austin. What? What? So, hang on, we're like 10 minutes in and the horse is dead. Yeah. This is why I never get close to horses. They just died. Just die.

Intestinal blockages. I'll let you down. It was all blocked up. Needed to poop. What have I told you that that was Hans one? Oh my God. Hans the first. The OG though.

The OG, exactly. Special place in my heart. Ah. So is he going to fake it like it's a kid's goldfish or is he going to? But he's drinking himself. Yeah. So Van Austin truly believed that animals had much more cognitive ability than humans, gave them credit for and he aimed to prove his theory.

To continue his research, the maths teacher decided to try and teach mathematics to different animals to see who it would stick with. I'm struggling to get to, so at this point, science did underestimate animals or is this guy a quack? I can't figure out, I can't figure out if this guy is doing great work

because in 1904, people didn't realize this stuff. You know what I mean? Yeah. I still haven't figured it out. You're like, yeah, of course. Of course a horse can do maths. Yeah, yeah. I imagine the time when we didn't know that.

So hang on. In 1924, I did know horses could do math. Fuck, that. It was so stupid back then. I think it's a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. Right. I think they probably did underestimate animals' abilities, but also perhaps he's a little bit of a quack.

He reckons that he can teach him anything. Right. And I think there are limits. He reckons soon he's going to be able to have a chat. Yeah, and see that I reckon in this day and age, I think that's a bit, I don't think that's quite possible. Right, okay. But I have taught my dog bedtime and he takes himself to bed.

Exactly. There's some cognitive ability there. That's pretty good. It's very cute. I've taught him how to open door, well, push open doors. You say bedtime when he goes to bed. I tell myself bedtime and I do not go to bed. I sit on my phone for another 45 minutes and then regret it.

I really should go to bed. Yeah, but it. Scroll, scroll, scroll. Gruce never does that. He never does that because he doesn't have a phone. He's only two. He's got a phone until he's four. So Van Austin's like, all right, I'm going to try a few animals.

First up, he tried a cat who gave him nothing. Yes, because cats are assholes. And I say that with love. I'm sure the cat was like, yeah, I could do that, but I will not. 100%. Cats live their life in their terms. They're definitely capable of independent thought. Oh my God, yes.

Absolutely. Cats are so smart and they also just look at you and go, fuck you. Feed me. It's funny that his observation was that this horse was capable of independent thought and he's like, how can I harness this? Harness this horse. Horsepower. Is that what horse power is?

I get it. I drive a Mustang. It's got a lot of horsepower, which means independent thought. This guy's going to mind of its own. It parks itself. I might be there in 20 minutes. It could take me years. I don't know.

It's really up to the car I've got to beg the car Please I've got an appointment I'm running late I shouldn't have got this car Please I'll just get the tram

So try a cat gave her nothing Then he tried a bear Why did he get a fucking bear from That's quite a jump It is a huge jump It goes cat Raccoon

Small dog Big dog, leopard, bear. Okay, right. He skipped all those. He went straight to bear, who apparently was also not on board with learning the numbers. And I think that Van Austin probably also was lucky to escape with his life.

Right. Trying to teach a bear to do math. Okay. It's because he started too complicated. He gave the bear a whiteboard, whiteboard marker. Very complicated equation on the board, said, well, and it's like,

well, you've got to start with the basics. Yeah, come on. Okay. So funny, he figured this out based on a horse, and then he's gone so far away from horses. Because he tried a horse and went, oh, that worked, the horse died. You know what, maybe you can do with anything. Turns out you can't.

So he went back to another horse. Okay. Which again, he named Hans. This time Hans was an Arabian stallion. And this time, the maths seemed to stick. Really? Yeah. Van Austin was able to write a number on a blackboard

and then teach Hans to tap his foot until it reached the right number. he'd write three and then Hans Hans would tap three times one, two, three. So yeah, that's pretty good. So he can read basically. Read numbers, yeah. And then also the owner would say three.

Oh, okay. Two, three. The next step was... So there's no point of having on the board then if he's also saying it. I think eventually he can do recognize it. He has to know how to pronounce the number. Oh, yeah, of course.

Eventually he can recognize the symbols because the next step was teaching Hans symbols for a... arithmetic, and pretty soon the horse was able to do basic equations and then give the correct answers for basic square roots and even fractions. Get fucked. That's pretty smart. And I'm pretty sure I have independent thought. Matt, do I have independent thought? Yeah.

Yeah, I think I'll allow it. I'll allow it. If asked by his master, Wilhelm von Austin, what is the sum of three plus two? The horse... Hang on. Okay, how many times did you tap your hoof, Jess? I would tap my hoof. Three plus two.

Five times. Bingo. Yes. You're as smart as a horse. Yes. Clip, clop, clip, clop, clip. Yeah, he did it. He did it.

He counts his hooves. Zero was expressed by a shake of the head. Oh. No. That was good. Thank you. Van Austin started to show off Hansa skill with live street shows. He's busking.

Honestly, and soon large craigs. crowds gathered all over Germany to watch Hans. He took it on the road, who had expanded his repertoire to tell the time. Keep track of the days of the week and the calendar. Differentiate between musical tones. And apparently read, spell and understand German. What? It's handy actually because, I mean, his sort of his busking act is his horse.

But that is also his transport to the busking locations. Absolutely fantastic. That's convenient. But eventually Hans became such a star that he started riding Van Austin. Yeah, yeah. I think that makes sense. The power shifts and that could be hard to navigate. But I think the best thing to do is let your horse ride you.

Our show is it? Our show. Okay. Okay. That's interesting. Well, maybe I don't feel like doing our show today. Yeah, maybe you could go out and do our show on your own tonight. Oh, you're just going to go out there and tell the time, are you?

It's very interesting. Everybody will definitely be throwing you money for that. Here's a 50-year-old man that can spell. Oh wow, he knows what day of the week it is. Spare me. So the horse he could spell. That's a pretty fun act, though. It would be pretty funny, wouldn't it?

This is an old man doing basic things? I'd love to watch that. And then sort of bowing in between. You there, ask me what day of the week it is. It is a Thursday. Honestly, that would be great. I'd enjoy that more than the horse. That's because you are a bit scared of horses, by the sound of it.

No, no, I'm scared of getting close to a horse. Yeah, that's right. People say you shouldn't walk behind a horse. Yep. I won't walk in front of a horse. I'd prefer to walk behind it because if the horse can't see you, it can't hurt you. Right.

Emotionally. Physically, it certainly can. You'd rather get kicked by a horse then. Emotionally hurt by a horse. Yes. I know which one stings more. Or a broken face versus a broken heart. Yeah, I know which one I'll take.

Only ones ever killed someone. You did a similar thing I used to ride your act to busking didn't you back in the day? What was that again? Back in my unicycle days. Unicycles, that's right. Oh, I forgot about that.

Yeah, you did a fantastic unicycle act. And then we got a little too big. Could your unicycle tell the time? Yeah. Impressive. Genuinely impressive. Yeah, it actually was. At exactly 1 o'clock every day.

It would kick me off the unicycle. It would buck, if you will. That's my time. So Dispel the horse would stamp his foot once for A, twice for B, three times for C, etc. It takes so long. And when he said his favourite band was ZZ Top, I'll forever. A bit of fun there. But he became such a spectacle that in 1904, the New York Times wrote a lengthy article on him titled

Berlin's Wonderful Horse. And then it's the subheadline is He can do almost everything but talk How he was taught And it went through Wow So the article Everything but talk

That's a lot of things Yeah Use a microwave Taxes So the article Notes of how it all came about It says Hans

The Wonderful Stallion is nine years old The horse has never been used For riding or driving Okay Oh there you go Zero kilometres on there On the clock. For over four years, Von Austin has given the animal's systematic instructions such as he would give a child.

Some years ago, the neighbourhood was astonished by observing the training which Van Austin gave his animal. They beheld him in Hans at a certain hour of the day standing in the court before a blackboard and a counting machine. Von Austin, undismayed by ridicule for by his method, he had gained the reputation of being an old crank. Yeah, that sounds about it. Instructed the stallion by showing him the balls on the machine and influencing how to indicate a number by stamping down his right hoof. After Van Austin had taught Hans this simple language, the foundation for further education

was established. He put before him gold, silver and copper coins and taught him out to indicate gold pieces by one movement of the foot, silver with two, copper with three steps. When, for example, three coins were placed in a row, Hans stamped down his foot three times when asked the number. Okay. What? He could also indicate the value of each coin.

Tap once for one mark, two for two marks, three for three, etc. Yeah, that's getting pretty impressive. Okay. He could also answer in fractions, as I said before. What? Again from the New York Times, he answers correctly the numbers of how many fours in eight. How many fours in eight, Jess? Oh my God.

Two. How many in 16? No, stop asking me. What about this one? horse just runs away. Panics. How many fours in 30? Oh, you're asking me?

No idea. Oh, he's doing fractions. You do fractions. There's no way I could figure that out. Bloody hell. That's pretty impressive. So when he was asked, so it was seven and a half.

Sure. But when asked how many threes that are on seven, he stamps down his foot twice. Okay? And then takes a piss. And that's a fraction. That's it. And then,

Once more for the fraction. All right. Wait, hang on. So. So the, a fraction is the same signal as one. It feels like he's just... Just a lot of stomping, isn't it?

He's interpreting the stompses. Yep, that was right. I think it was to do something else. Yep, perfect. That's what I was thinking. I didn't finish the question here, but that's it. That's right. That's right.

Yeah, that does mean six. Because every stomp is worth a third. Yeah. At this time. Rounder applause, please. What a clever horse. Clever Hans. Apparently he could even recognize paintings and stamp out the painter's name.

Wow. What? Now we're getting to pretty impressive stuff. If we believe it. Do you believe it? Because between every letter, how long do you stop before he goes on or is he like, he just keeps stomping and goes, all right, that was the B? That was A.

D, yes. A again, very good. I'm Adam. Adam. Adam. Adam. My friend who painted this Adam. Well done, horse.

Adam is, of course, the nickname that the horse uses for Monet. Of course, they were very good friends. This horse and Monet. Adam Monet. Adam Monet. You don't know the work of Adam Monet? Adam Monet. That's a few, isn't it?

Called Monnet's younger brother, Adam. I'm sorry, you're such a Philistine. I'm sorry, I thought I was talking to a cultured audience. Come along, horse. Down in South Berlin, they got it. But the article really takes it to the next level with this next feat. Quote, he can distinguish between straw and felt hats, between canes and umbrellas.

He can tell the difference between a straw hat and felt hat. I don't know if that's like. By taste? Hans, point to the. the cane that's not an umbrella, I don't know. That one. That's never explained, but I just found that sentence to be quite funny. That's amazing.

He can also tell if somebody's feeling sad or constipated. And if you say you're not, you're lying. You're lying. Knit down the road, there's a stupid horse that's holding a cane up in the rain. Confused us to why it's getting wet. Stupid horse. Stupid horse. Again from the article, he knows the different colors too.

One beholds several colored rags fastened on a string. A cavalry officer places himself before the horse and Hans is asked to stage the color of the cap. The horse answers by stamping down his foot three times. The color of the third rag, which like the cap, is red. Okay. Pretty impressive. Wow. So it's not colorblind.

No. Yeah. That's cool. Well done, horse. He can also tell the time on a watch and indicate. the exact hour. What? What? At the test yesterday, this is from New York Times again, he recognized persons from photographs.

Mr. Von Austin placed persons in a row who had given him their photographs, then put the picture before the horse and asked him to indicate the position of the person in the line. Again, Hans recognized the gentleman in civilian clothes, who the day before had been introduced to him in uniform. So you can even tell when someone's changed their outfit from the day before. Okay. Pretty good. And whilst not perfect, it was calculated that,

Hans could give the right answer about 89% of the time. That's not bad. I don't think I could do that. Yeah. I forget people. Yeah, it's hard. It is hard. Which one's Dave?

Yeah, I'm the Matt one. Oh, are you? Oh, no. I think I am. I'm not a clever horse. Honestly, a gun to my head wouldn't have known. Seven years in. That's why I call you both mate.

With a gun to your head, that's a lot of pressure. Too much pressure. Like, how about, let me. answer without the gun. I feel like if someone put a gun to my head and said, what's his name pointed to Matt, I'd think, is this somehow a trick question? Like, the whole time your birth name has been Gavin or something. Yeah, you go by your middle name, Matthew.

I'm like, I'm going to die. Yeah. But I'm like, uh, of course I know Matt, it's Matt or Matthew. And they'd be like, Gavin. But I wouldn't even know because I'd be dead. Yeah, exactly. So just to clarify, is your first name actually Matthew? Yes.

Okay. It's not Gavin. No. Who's Gavin then? You really give me Gavin vibes. And who's this person Who's Gavin? Who's putting the gun to your head?

You know who it is? It's fucking Gavin. Oh, right. Yeah, I knew it would be in. What a dog. I hate Gavin. He's literally a dog. A dog holding a gun.

That's because this bloody German dude went too far. So Hans, who by this point, is now being called clever Hans. Of course. His maths were estimated to be at the level of a 14-year-old human. Okay, or a 32-year-old woman who never really perceived. Did you maths that hard? Did you pass a year eight maths? Yes.

Could you do it now though? I did. Oh, fuck, no, absolutely not. No, no, no. I couldn't pass. Yeah, I'd know. I've forgotten everything. I think I could probably still pass English.

No, that's probably not true. Surely. Sometimes I'm like proper noun. What's a proper noun? No idea. Is it a noun but proper? Uh-huh. Yeah, it's one you say with a posh accent.

Oh, look at that plant. It's a proper noun. Plant. Plant. Don't it be plant? Oh, damn it. Look at that plant. You know, proper.

That is a beautiful plant. I love our accent. I think it's very cool. We sound so beautiful. It's such a beautiful language we speak. Listen to it all day. Plant. Plan.

Yeah, you go. Now, for people who might be doubting clever Hans, it's not just people on the street believing the feats. It's not just like a show that people are doing. The article states that Hans's feet. can be certified... Not feet, hooves. Sorry.

His hooves can be certified by the Prussian Minister of Education and a famous zoologist and director of the Prussian Natural History Museum a guy called Professor Mobius. Professor Mobius himself had this to say about Hans at the time. He possesses the ability to see sharply

to distinguish mental impressions from each other, to retain them in his memory and to utter them by his hoof language. Hoof language. This horse can lift It's hoof. The only international language, hoof. So what I'm trying to say there is, educated people of their day are seeing it going,

holy crap. Yeah. This is legit. If Morbius is on board, I'm on board doing. Me too. What a job title. He had a really long, it sounded like it was about eight people and it's one guy. Zoologist and director of the Prussian Natural History Museum.

Yeah. What a guy. That's good. This is getting dangerously close to the start of World War I. Now, I'm wondering his hands involved. How clever is he? Dave's next sentence is, they also discovered that Clever Haards

could accurately pinpoint the location of the enemy. Clever Hans was a member of the Black Hand. Trained to throw a bomb. And then shoot, Franz Ferdinand. So a lot of people, even experts in zoology, are watching this thinking it's fully legit, but not everyone was convinced, I should say. particularly after the New York Times story brought international attention to Clever Hans.

This led to Germany's Board of Education being asked to conduct an independent investigation into Hans' abilities. Being a scientific man with nothing to hide, his owner Van Olsen happily agreed. He's like, yeah, this horse is legit, do whatever you need to do. You'll find the truth. A number of experts joined what was called the Hans Commission. So they're spending like taxpayer money on this. Perfect. Led by philosopher and psychologist Carl Stumpf.

Stumpf. Stumpf. When Stumphy's involved. You know that it's legit. That's legit. Oh, is this a stumpy. Stumpf. Stumpf.

It's fantastic. God, that's fun to say. Stumpf. So led by Carl Stunf and his colleagues included two zoologists, a psychologist, a horse trainer, several school teachers and a jockey. Well, a circus manager. Yes. Who knows horses better?

Yeah. I've been enslaving them for years. The commission undertook extensive and independent testing, but concluded in 1904 that no trickery was involved in Hans the horse's responses to questions. The owner, Van Austin, didn't have to be the one asking Hans the questions to get the correct answer. In fact, the owner didn't even need to be present. Wow, okay. So the owner clearly was not manipulating the horse is what they discovered.

Yeah, right. but they found it was doping. The commission thought he was a genuinely talented horse, genuinely answering the questions. Wow. Although they didn't quite go so far as to publish that. Instead, rendering a non-committal report, leaving the mystery unsolved and suggesting further inquiry.

Because they were baffled and didn't want to really go out on a limb and say, it would be definitely. Yeah, because it was proven wrong later, they'd be like, oh shit. So they're like, privately they're telling everyone, yeah, wow, I can't see how this is fake. Right. But I'm not writing that down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're longer an idiot.

Yeah. That's pretty clever. Because you would sound so foolish to history if you got it wrong and you believed a hoax like that. Yeah, totally. But it's not a hoax, as far as we know so far. As far as we know so far, absolutely not. Stumpf was stumphed. Did you write that?

I didn't. I just made that up. Wow. It's pretty good, right? It's really good. like stumped. Yeah. Yeah.

Because it makes even more sense to me because it's spelled S-T-U-M-P-F. Yeah. Yeah. So stumped. Yeah, it's great. Dave, a perfect joke. Thank you so much. A perfect joke that got zero love.

I think I was in shock, to be honest. Were you stumphed? Well, I think the problem is, those sort of things, if they're too good, they're not funny. Yeah, yeah. They're not like, they're not, I think it's too clever to elitimate. Yeah. To elicit laugh. That's what I've been yelling at my audiences for years.

My comedy is too good for you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not too good, too clever. Too clever for laughs. People are just quietly impressed. Yeah. Stunned silence.

Wow, that's good. Yeah, that's it. I need to think about that. I leave your shows going, fucking hell that was funny. I didn't laugh, but bloody hell. I don't leave thinking it was funny. I think, wow, I learned something tonight.

Yeah. That was clever. That was real clever stuff. Clever Dave. That's right. I am doing a show at the Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne Comedy Festival next year. Come along, you will be stumped. You will not, there will not be a single laugh, but you will enjoy.

Well, I say enjoy. You'll leave. You'll leave the show. Is there time to change the title of the show to stompf? I'll have a look. Dave Warnocky and stooped. Clever Dave Warnocky will stomp for you. That's good stuff.

I'm going to tell the time on stage. Whoa. By knocking. on the taste. That's how many how many knots did I do? Five? Yeah, it's five o'clock, I guess.

Wow. Somewhere. Five o'clock somewhere, and then you crack open a titty. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, that's fun. Can I have that? Yeah, absolutely.

I couldn't pull that off. Right. Look forward to stoop. I'm doing jokes where I get laughs like an idiot. Not clever, not clever. People leave feeling cheated after a Perkins show. Yeah, yuck.

They're like, I just sat there laughing the whole time. Yeah, the reviews just mentioned how much they laughed. Two stars. I don't know why I keep it up. I've never laughed more of my life, two stars. She's clearly a moron. That's right.

You know, but do you want a funny show or do you want a smart show? Yeah, probably funny. Anyway. So, they've stumped that they've said, maybe someone else needs to look into this. A man who was not satisfied with the inquiry was a guy called Oscar Fungst. Fungst? Fungst.

There's some incredible names today. With the PF, Professor Fungst. Oh, I love that. He was a physiologist and biologist. He was fascinated by the case and sought Van Austen's permission to examine Hans. He did things slightly differently, erecting a large tent to house his experiments, in order to remove any outside distractions. Okay.

Like a circus tent? Yeah, it was quite big, yeah. With, like, a lot of chairs in and a ticket price. He was dressed like a ringleader. It was a lion as well. It was very weird. Anyway, he took it on the road for several years. For science, I guess.

Like the commission, he asked the horse lots of questions and got others to do the same. In fact, he grilled the horse with lots and lots of questions from different question answers and carefully outlined the different variables that were being considered. Again, from a different article in the New York Times, they loved this horse. Fungst made two significant discoveries. One was that the horse could not answer. answer any questions correctly unless the answer was known by the question asker. Ah.

So you couldn't just ask it. What's 858 times 9 million? Right. Oh, that's interesting. I mean, that would be so many stumps. I don't know why you would ask that. He's still stomping. But if off the top of your head, you don't know it.

If you have to go and work it out, he couldn't answer it. Almost, it plummeted to almost zero percent of the time you can answer the question. So if you ask it nine plus nine and you know it's 18, great. but if you say 99 plus 99 minus 200, you've got to like sit down and work it out. The horse cannot answer it. Right. So it's only as smart as you then.

So the horse is a mind reader is what we're saying. Yes. It's a weird thing, isn't it? If the horse either knows the math or it doesn't, like what's going on here? Yeah, well, I guess the human either knows the math or it doesn't. Yeah, but why do you need to know it for the horse to know it? Well, I wonder if it's because the person who's interpreting the answer,

if they know the answer they know how to be tricked. You know, they go, oh yeah, I reckon that was 18 stomp. That was a little half-stomp. That wasn't a real stomp. Yeah, close enough. The second thing that Fungz discovered was that Hans could not answer unless he could see the person putting the question to him. It was the custom for the questioner to stand directly in front of Hans, face-to-face.

And Fungz noticed that if a position were not taken at his head but by his side, for example, he would back away until he could look at the questioner. So the horse would move to look. Okay, that just feels polite. Yeah, exactly. Just a polite horse. Are you talking to me? Just confirming this question's for me and not another horse?

Maybe the horse's hearing isn't that great. It's relying on a bit of lip-reying. Yes, okay. That sounds like they're being kind of dickish about it. Yeah, come on. So they're like, oh, this is something we didn't expect. Okay, this induced investigators to try the experiment of putting horse-palinders on him, so he couldn't see.

And at once it was found that Hans was, thereby made quite incapable of giving replies. Right. So it is a body language thing. Are they nodding? Like they say, it's five plus three and they're going, one, yes, two. Thumbs up.

Just like not even realizing they're doing it, but they're counting along positively. And then they go, they change something when they... Yeah. Eight, he did. You've absolutely hit it there. Eventually a suspicion hit Fungst that the answer to the mystery lay in unconsciously.

movements. Slight alterations of pose or facial expression which the horse perceived and which he interpreted as a signal that I should stop tapping my hoof. Whoa. I mean it's very, it's maybe not clever mathematically, but very clever socially. Oh yeah. Oh my goodness, this horse, he can read a face. Yeah. Fungst undertook an elaborate series of experiments with 25 people at different ages, genders and backgrounds. Kids as young as six played the part of the question giver. And Fungs later said, he wrote a scientific paper on this. He said, quote, none of them was aware of the purpose of the experiments.

Only in a few isolated instances did they report that they were conscious of any movements on their part. With the exception of two persons, they all made the same involuntary movements. So they'd ask the question and they'd all sort of look at the horse in the same way. Fungz noticed that the question is breathing posture and facial expressions involuntarily changed each time the hoof tapped,

showing ever so slight increases in tension and Hans was able to pick up on this tension which all suddenly disappeared from the person's face when the correct answer was arrived at. Hans took the lack of tension as the cue to stop tapping. That's incredible. That's more impressive than all of this bullshit. It's so impressive.

So what was happening? You'd ask a question like, what's five plus three? And Hans would start tapping, examining your face as he went. And then when you got near the correct answer of eight, he'd begin to notice the tiniest change in your face or body expression and then he'd just stop. And everyone would go, amazing, you're so smart, here's a treat.

Yeah, yeah. And he'd go, awesome. And he'd worked out, that's the way I get praise and treats. That's incredible. So there's no denying that Clever Hans was very clever. Yeah. He was able to notice the most subtle of changes in a person's face and breathing. In fact, he was able to often get the right answer even after the questioner was aware of what was going on and attempted to consider.

to conceal any reaction. So you try and keep a completely blank face, he could still pick up on the tiniest minute change. Wow. Which is why if you didn't know the answer, you couldn't lead him into the right one. Yeah, right. Because you'd be like,

yeah, I guess that's maybe right. It's interesting that it's on facial expressions and stuff because I didn't think that animals could, well, some animals couldn't pick up on that very much. Because I often find myself smiling at my dog, like I would a person,

you know, like I'll walk past him and I'll sort of give him an encouraging smile that I'm like, He has no fucking idea what I'm doing there. Oh, I reckon they're picking up on that. Do you think so? Because he gives me nothing. Because you're greasing off a dog.

They're like, p, p, p, p, p, p, p, that's true. Hmm. But this horse is just like, your vibe seems like you want me to stomp. So I'll stomp. I'll stomp. I'll stomp. It seems to make you happy. But I stomp for a certain amount of time.

If you like this, I'll do it. But he learned to play the system and tell people what they wanted to hear to get praise and treats. But he was not able to do math's equations and the like himself. He's not actually doing. the sums in his horse brain. According to Medium.com, Fungst was able to recreate the clever Hans phenomenon in a series of experiments where the professor played the role of Hans.

He'd have examiners ask him questions mentally and answer by only responding to facial expressions of the questioner. So, you know, he would examine the question. So they would ask a question mentally. Yeah, like think of a number and he'd go, one, two, three, and look at the change and go three and he was able to get it right enough of the time to prove that

oh you are able to perceive stuff like that. Okay, I'm so much more impressed than I was about a horse telling the time or knowing the day of the week. That I was like, okay, whatever. Because it feels like that was always some version of a trick anyway. Yeah.

But this, it's, that actually figured out what it is. But you weren't sure if horses could do that stuff. You're like, we all know they're like, You're like, should I be impressed or is it like, yeah, we all know a horse tells the time of the way before. You ever walk into a stable? They've got a calendar. They've got a big clock.

Merry Christmas. Horses love time. I was more meaning just the fact that they were the independent, like the thought at all. Like it sounded like they didn't think animals even had a brain almost. They're like, wow. Look at that. Look at it. It knew to not walk into a fence.

Yeah. Oh, look at that. They can react to things around it. It was a loud bang. and that horse got a fright. Are that interesting? Yeah. Is it?

Wow. In fact, this whole story has led to what is called the Clever Hans effect or phenomenon, and this is taken into account when doing face-to-face experiments with animals, even today. According to Wiki, the risk of clever Hans effect is one reason why comparative psychologists normally test animals in isolated apparatus without interaction with them. However, this creates problems of its own because many of the most interesting phenomena in animal cognition are only likely to be demonstrated in a social context, and in order to train and demonstrate them,

it's necessary to build up a social relationship between trainer and animal. But again... You've got to hit the pub a few times. Yeah, you've got to get to know them. Yeah, maybe play some social sports together. Exactly. But by that point, they know you.

They know your facial expressions. Yeah. They might be telling you what you want to hear. So you've got to be careful. I don't think I know people well enough to read their facial expressions that accurately. Maybe my brother. I think that's about it.

Really? Okay, what am I thinking right now? Dave, I cannot repeat that. You actually can't. Yeah, none of this time, slot. It was real pervy. I will say that, right. Hey, Dave, think of a number.

All right. No, no, I'm just saying, I'm just... He's acknowledging. Done. Seven, correct. All right, yeah. I'm really glad I didn't pick a million. Your eyebrows did go up pretty high.

Yeah. Which I picked up on. Wow. Wow. You guys know each other socially, I guess. That was a fantastic piece of audio. Feel free to edit out of. No, I enjoyed it.

It was fun. Fun for me. According to Damn Interesting, which does have a damn interesting article about this. Oh, I thought I saw it. You said Dan. Me too. I thought it was Dan interesting. Yeah, I'm like,

man, and this guy, hopefully for his sake, he's got some things to say. Dan, interesting, pretty dull guy. He's so boring. Trying to hard that, Dan. It's one of those ironic nicknames. Oh, Mr. Interesting over here. Fuck, he's dull. So, because this is a thing the clever hands affect when you do experiments with animals,

you've got to take stuff into account. So to prevent prejudices and foreknowledge from contaminating experimental results, modern science employs the double blind method, where researchers and subjects are unaware of many details of the experiment until after the results are recorded. For instance, when drugs sniffing dogs undergo training, none of the people present know which containers have drugs in them. Otherwise, their body language might betray the location

and render the exercise useless. Oh, that's really clever. You don't even know you're doing it, but you're thinking it's in the white one. It's in the white one. The dog might pick up on that. Right. And then go, yes, it's here. Good dog.

In reality, when you don't know which one it's in, it's not going to help. Sometimes there's food on the floor in front of my dog and you can't find it. I'm sometimes the Humphrey food I'm tapping the food Put him His face in the

It's here It's here It's here And he looks around Stepping over it Like stepping over it Like stepping on it I'm like

It's by your foot now Like surely Is it possible That you too Just have particularly dumb dogs I think Yeah absolutely Yeah

100% But at least we can admit it You know When parents are like No My child's not an idiot We're like Nah dogs

An idiot But he's cute So Are there Are there some people Who have dogs Who are like Will be like

oh you, how dare you? I have a very smart dog. Absolutely. Really? People are weird about their dogs. Oh, no, I do know that actually. You've got to be realistic. I've been to a dog park.

I've looked after a few dogs and you go to a dog park and they're different. Yeah. The people at dog parks are. Yeah. Everyone wants to, you know, they want to chat. Everyone, you know, they just think, hey, you've got a dog. You're weird like me. Yeah.

I'm like, sorry, I'm just looking after this dog. This is not my dog. I don't want to talk to you. You've got to go to a t-chat. It says this is not my dog. It depends. Like, I should say some of the people were great. And nearly everyone who talked to me were pretty good.

But there were some people. I'm like, oh, I wish you weren't talking to me. Yep. I don't know what you're talking about. And that's when you're grateful that your dog can pick up on your body language. Yeah. And they stop playing with that person's dog and keep walking. And you're like, oh, well, off they go.

Bye. Gotta go. Got to go. Dog's the boss. Hey, better keep moving. Good dog. Good dog. Now, we're not sure what happened to Clever Hans after his,

this discovery and debunking. I think we do, though. I think we know exactly what happened. Yeah. Wow. Well, for a time, his owner, Van Austin, who apparently was never persuaded by Funk's findings, he continued to show Hans around Germany,

attracting large and enthusiastic crowds. Yeah. It was still impressive to watch. Yeah, people go see magicians. I know there's a trick. It doesn't mean it's not impressive to see. But then Van Austin died, and it's not clear what happened to the clever horse.

I'm afraid one theory isn't very nice And this is a sentence I don't think my theory is particularly nice either Jess, sorry Sorry to disappoint Sorry I know you're saying that he started World War I But the truth is a lot less fun What is it?

Now this is a sentence from the National Library of Medicine An Official US Government website The exact sad end of clever Hans Is not known in detail But how do you know it's sad? At the beginning of World War I in 19... It does feel like they've just taken a stab here. At the beginning of World War I in 1914,

he was drafted as a military horse and was killed in action in 1916 or was consumed by hungry soldiers. So we were pretty... We were pretty on the money. But it just sounds like they just had a stab. This might have happened. Either killed in war or killed by being eaten.

Or died of natural causes. Natural causes, that's right, because it would have been quite an old horse by that point. How long do horses live for? Anybody know? I think they lived into the 20s or 30s? Yeah. Yeah, right.

Horse average age at death. 25 to 30 years. Well done. What about oldest? I was lying before I love horses. Dear. What a weird lie then. Did you mean?

I know. I know. I know everything about horses. That would have been really handy the last hour. Yeah, I didn't, to be honest, until I was correct saying 20 to 30 years, I didn't even know. But now that I know, I'm going to. Expert on horses. You're an expert. Okay.

You're an expert. Okay. What are the oldest horse ever? How old do you reckon? How old do I reckon? Okay, I'll ask Jess first because she probably reckons. Okay. Yeah, mine'll be a reckon. And then you can answer in hoof tapes. I'm going to say 60 years.

Okay, 60 years? Yep. 62. Okay. That's what I'm going to guess. Emma? Well, I'm thinking 60, 70, 8. 60, 70.

I mean, I'm doing a bit of head movement here. 62. You're both correct. Well done. And if this isn't nominative determinism at his finest, the horse's name? Was the horse that died at 62? Old Billy. Old Billy.

And it's the oldest horse ever. But they named him old Billy from birth? Because that feels on. Imagine I've got a little baby horse from hers, little old Billy. It was even earlier than that, strangely. They named it when its mom was still pregnant. Old Billy. Look at an old Billy.

In there. That's an old Billy if I've ever seen one. This is on the Guinness Booker Records, and the oldest recorded Thoroughbred Racehorse was the 42-year-old chestnut gilding Tango Duke. Tango Duke. Great name. That's nice. And owned by Carmen J. Copper of Barangaruk, Victoria.

Oh. What's what? I'm like, when's this going to get relevant to anything? Oh There you go But that's the end of clever Hans But he's not the only animal Said to have had abilities

Beyond what's usually expected Okay Well my dog does know what bedtime means So Yeah impressive So yeah We're not We know we've already done Mr. Hans

Yeah but this is Mr. Hans It's very different It's way classier Oh way classia Okay what are these animal abilities Well it goes all the way back To the late 16th century When in England

A horse named Marr Morocco, Morocco with an MA, who travelled with his owner and entertained people by counting things like coins and seeming to memorize things. In 1601, perhaps to fight the growing competition of other animal trainers, Banks and his horse Morocco ascended over a thousand steps to the rooftop of the then-flats St. Paul's Cathedral and performed the coin act. The show was the success and even the clergy came out to watch the performance. Then to the great astonishment of those watching Morocco walked down the flight of state. and out onto the street. Wow.

A thousand stairs. Right. That's pretty impressive. Is it? For a horse? For a horse, I think so. Depends on how big the stairs are. Yeah.

They break legs pretty easily, don't it? Yeah. Not Morocco. Yeah. Like, you'd think they'd be slipping and sliding on, I don't know, I'm picturing a certain kind of steps, I guess. What you're picturing? Like a water slide? I think a horse would break a leg on that thing.

It's crazy. I mean, it's just like one big, slippery step. I'm picturing spiral secs. Very narrow, very narrow. Like really shiny tiles for some reason. Yeah. I don't think I'd survive that. That have just been polished.

Oh no. And greased. Yes. So I said to repeat, we've just had the polishes and the greases through. Sorry. We didn't know you were coming. In the 1780s, a concept or a thing called a learned pig took off in London. Yes.

The learned pig was... I've seen Charlotte's Web. Oh. Well... That's a learned pig. The book, you've seen it. I've seen it. I've seen it.

I've seen the book. There's a pig on it. The learned pig was a pig taught to respond to commands in such way that it appeared to be able to answer questions by picking up cards in its mouth. By choosing cards, it answered arithmeticle problems and spelled out words. But even back then, there were questions over whether the animal actually recognized letters or words or whether it was simply responding to direct prompting from its owner. So they were onto it. Yeah. Even then, but a learned pig. Love that.

Then we've got beautiful Jim Key, who was a famous performing horse around the USA, around the turn of the 20th century. His promoters claimed that the horse could read and write, make change with money. Can hold a pen. How do you hoof around a pen? It could do arithmetic for numbers below 30

and quote, cite Bible passages, where a horse is mentioned. What? Who cares about all the other irrelevant stuff? It just knows the horse stuff. Yeah, I don't give a shit about the rest. Humans, irrelevant. Thou shall not cover a horse.

His trainer, Dr. William Key, was a former slave and self-trained veterinarian at the turn of the 20th century. According to a website, globetrotting.com.com. My algorithm is really to throw up a lot of horse-based stuff the next couple of weeks. I've been on a lot of horse websites. Yeah. This is a beautiful Jim Key.

President William McKinley saw Beautiful Jim Key perform at an exposition in Tennessee and declared this is the most astonishing and entertaining exhibition I've ever witnessed. He also commented on how it was an example of what kindness and patience could accomplish. Oh, that's quite nice. And in 2014, Variety reported that Morgan Freeman was set to star in a film based on the life of Beautiful Jim Key. Playing the horse. Yes. There's nothing that man can't do.

But since then, nothing seems to have come from that. Not yet. Not yet. We'll say it's probably pandemic, probably. Yeah, yeah. He'll get onto it in his 90s. What did you say, what was the thing that he was, he performed at that horse?

An exposition in Tennessee. What's an exposition? An expo. Right. I don't think I've ever heard that in full. Exposition. And that's, what does that mean? That's just like an expo.

It's an expo. It's an expo. Isn't that wild? I never thought what is an expo short for, but exposition does, I don't think I recognise the word. I'm not a very smart horse. This is an dictionary.com definition. A large public exhibition of trade or goods.

Right. Yeah, exhibition. I think I thought expo was short for exhibition somehow. I don't know where they got the pee from. Well, now I do. A different word. I'm a learning horse. Lady Wonder was another horse

claimed to have psychic abilities and be able to perform intellectually demanding tasks such as arithmetic and spelling again. Her owner Claudia E. Fonda trained her to operate a piano-sized contraption with a double row of keys that the horse used to spell out answers. Wow. Claudia also had a piano playing Pomeranian named Pudgy.

Pudgy the piano playing Pomeranian. They've got small paws. It's hard to say. Yeah. Yeah, a small piano. Yeah, of course. Of course. But a horse was the real star and breadwinner in the household.

An estimated 150,000 people. Thorough breadwinner. Gosh, that's good. Are you a horse expert as well? Pretty good. Surrounded by horse people. Yeah. 150,000 people eventually sought counsel from Lady Wonder,

each paying $1 to ask her three questions. Which is a lot of money over a few short years. According to Mental Floss, her achievements reportedly included telling married women their maiden names? Which imagine wasting your money, you get, you're a question on that. Yeah. I already know that.

I know that. I know my maiden name. I could also guess the sex of unborn children, knowing the date. I mean, it's a guess. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. If he said correctly guess, then that's something.

Yeah. Like a 50-50 that it's guessing. Yeah. It's like Dave can answer any question. Yeah. So can this horse, apparently. Some, you're like, okay, it can know the date of a coin hidden from view. What?

Call elections, horse races, baseball games. Like, commentate them. Yeah. They could discover oil. Like, hang on, you just wasted your question on your fucking maiden name. This next person's asked where the oil is. Where's the black gold? Where do I dig?

I've got my shovel. Texas tea. For my favourite of all the questions It could answer It could quote Predict oncoming tractors I don't know what that mean It's sort of like how Spider-Man has spidey senses

This horse is like there's a tractor It's coming Watch out It'll be here in half an hour It'll be very slow moving Yeah it's a very slow moving Traitori you have time to pack up your things and move You will see and hear it

Lady Wonders fame hit a whole new level when she was credited to have helped to solve the case of a missing four-year-old boy, Danny Mattson in Quincy, Massachusetts. When prompted about Mattson's location, Lady spelled Pittsfield Water Wheel. The police investigation concluded that there was no water wheel in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. But the police chief William Farazzi tried to interpret Lady's message and wondered if she might mean field and wild water pit. Okay.

Which was a quarry close to. Mattson's house, which had already been searched, but they're like, maybe we should search it again. And when they did, sadly, they found the body of the child at the quarry. And then people were like, the horse solved it. Or the horse did it. Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, no! Yeah.

Do you think of that? Yeah, guilty conscience. Oh, no. I mean, you're guaranteeing yourself some publicity there because you commit the murder and then, you know, parents come to you for answers. Give them the answers, people go, wow. It's kind of like Angela Lansbury's motif. Yeah.

Motif? Yeah. M.O. M.O. Yeah. Standing for motif. Motif operando. Skeptics said that the police chiefs believe that they should search the quarry again

was only reinforced by seeing the answer in Lady Wander spelling. Because she said, Pittsfield Waterwheel, and he said, maybe that means field and wild water pierce. Yeah. Where's wild come from? And like with clever hands, there were few that didn't quite believe it. Magicians and sceptical investigators, Milburn Christopher and John Scarn, showed that ladies' prediction abilities resulted from Mrs. Fonda employing mentalism tricks and signaling the answers to her horse.

Nudging her horse. Oi. But Lady Wonder isn't the only, oi, o'y, oh answer. Oi, don't be rude. Look at the man in the face. Don't be so rude. I didn't raise a rude horse. I'm so sorry about him

I'm so sorry He's not used to like this You know Oh my God Good and bad days But Get a fucking job Lady Wonder isn't the only animal

Used to help with investigations And sometimes it does not go well The final animal we'll talk about today Is it a monkey? No, it's a dog In the 1980s A Pennsylvanian paratrooper named John Preston was a dog handle

who claimed that his dog, named Harris II, could perform feats of forensic detection far beyond the abilities of other investigative dogs. So it was like a tracker and a sniffer dog. He was paid big money for his expertise and his dog's alleged ability. Preston claimed that his dog could smell human traces years or months after a suspect walked over the ground on heavily traffic streets or even track someone after a hurricane. Okay. Except this was all a lie.

And it all became unraveled when Judge Gilbert Gosshorn during a 1984 trial conducted a test that found that harassed two couldn't do these things. Couldn't find treats on the floor. Honestly, I think it performed worse than most average. This is from CNN. Bill Dillon was 22 when he was sentenced to life in prison in 1981 for killing a man in Canova Beach on the eastern coast of the state. During the trial, Dylan was adamant that he had not committed the crime. But John Preston testified in court that he and his son. sent tracking German Shepherd connected Dylan to the killer's bloody t-shirt.

Preston said that his dog, Harass 2, even tracked Dylan's scent repeatedly in later tests. Apparently, Harass 2 could track Dylan eight days after the murder and after a hurricane. Other experts have since said that this is in no way possible. No dog could possibly do that. And that's okay. Like, we're not saying dogs are bad because of that. No, that's just beyond. But it's just not, yeah.

We couldn't do it either. No. I could. Well, you do have an amazing sense of smell. Famously, your nose works beautifully. Very well. Better than it should. Yeah.

Too good. You recently had an operation to... Make it worse. Yeah, to stop the sense. That's right. You were like, Doctor, make it stop. I'm smelling all the time. Yeah.

I had a nose reduction. Sensual reduction. The nose looks the same externally. He is definitely less sensual now. I will say. I'm glad. I thank you. I thank that doctor.

It was distracting. Oh my God, you were sensual. So essential. My God. Yeah, you were distracted. What about me? I was solving murders from across town.

Three words. Put it away. You snows. Yes, no. That thing. My God. COVID was great. And then the mask was on.

Oh, thank goodness. Could get stuff down. Now the masks are off. Yeah. So once it all came out that Preston was making this up, it was positive that Preston was only able to achieved the results he achieved in numerous other cases by having obtained information about the case prior to the scent tracking so that he could lead his dog to the suspect or evidence

in question so fucked a bit like clever hans but on a like a scale where he's aware of it he's aware of it and it's people's lives he's framing a 22 year old ethically that's fucked but dillon bill dillon went to jail for murder based on preston and his dog's evidence and nearly this is so ridiculous three decades later in two thousand and three decades later in two thousand and 7, DNA testing proved that Bill's DNA did not match the DNA on the killer's shirt. Oh my God. The dog was wrong. He was in jail for three decades?

26 years before being released based on this DNA evidence. In Dylan's case, Preston, the handler, even told the court that his dog had the ability to track a scent underwater to actually smell below the water. CNN consulted tracking dog experts in Florida about this at the time, and they told them no way. How is the judge accepting this? Well, that's the worst and craziest thing about this. So not long after this, another man convicted off the back of Harassus' alleged

tracking abilities was also freed after two decades in prison. This despite the fact that Preston and the dog had been discredited in 1987. And the state of Florida never reviewed cases on which the dog had been key in their conviction. Nobody ever told Bill Dillon this either, who sat in prison for another 20 years before he even knew a thing about it. What? And then he was able to appeal. So 46 years?

No. No. Oh, sorry. Yes, okay. I thought after the 26 years, I said it was not. No, no, no. So, like, so basically it was thrown out in 1987, but no one told Bill Dylan or his representatives.

Nobody looked into it. No one looked into it. And according to CNN, Preston had convinced juries more than a hundred times of his dog's miraculous talent. Surely you'd be suing them. Hmm. You'd have to. Yeah.

Hard to sue for 26 years. back but it would equal many millions I imagine. I couldn't find many of the hundreds written about online. There was just the two that were mentioned and both of them were over two decades of people's lives so they're wrongly convicted based on the guy lying about his dog's abilities. Just basically so he could... Why? He got paid a lot more as an expert rather than just a police officer.

Yuck! He got paid big money because he was seen as the best in the beers. People wanted him and his dog because he told them. he could do a better job than everyone. And then his life seemed to get bigger and bigger. Oh, and he can smell sounds. He can smell the moon. Yeah.

He can tell you where the moon is based on smell. Yeah. You can smell the cheese because it's all cheese up there. It's all cheese on the moon. Good dog. Good dog. And, you know, Preston, the dog handler died in 2007 so never faced any criminal charges for the fraud.

And, you know, at least two people, if not dozens more, went to jail based on his fake testimony. Wow. Wow, that's so sad. That sucks. And I'm afraid that's the sort of bumming end to the report. Beautiful ending. Love that.

Great choice. But let's not forget, Clever Hans, who was possibly shot or eaten by shots. So many happy endings to this story. Wow. But thanks to the Patreon supporters, they were the ones who voted for this topic. I put three animal topics up this week. And Clever Hans, one in a landslide. I think the pitch was something like, Clever Hans,

a horse that could apparently do mathematics, but was the horse telling the truth? And then with the truth in capital letters and three question marks afterwards, they could not resist. Yeah, well, how could they? Too tantalising. Turns out, yeah, the horse was just telling people

what they want to hear because it was smarter than them. Wow. I'm absolutely tantalized by that. I can't wait to find out. Was he telling the truth? It's a horse. I'll never know. Well, that brings us to everyone's favorite section of the show.

show the fact quote of questions section but also more broadly the section where we get to thank our fantastic patron supporters for without them we would not be here doing this show today it's true we'd refuse the man isn't a liar so the way this works is the first thing we do is the fact quote of question section which has a jingle i think or something like this fact quote or question he always remembers the ding she always remembers the thing and And to be involved in this, you go to Patreon.com slash too-go-on-podside up at the Sydney-Schenberg level. There's a bunch of different levels, of course, and there's different rewards and whatnot, depending on which level you go on. But on the Sydney-Shaunberg level, you get to give us a fact quote or question, brag or suggestion, or really whatever you like.

And you also get to give yourself a title or a nickname, and I'll read out four each week. I don't read them out until I read them out. Okay. And first up this week, it's Ben Johnson, aka English professional footballer, who plays as a right back or left back for the Premier League club, West Ham United. Born January 2000, oh Christ, this one is younger than me. Oh my God, that is so young. It's really not, though.

It's 22. That's young. Of course. But I mean... Oh, sorry, it's not that young. But what is young is 32. That's right. 32 is the youngest age you can be.

Yes. So does Ben give himself a title that's a different Ben Johnson each time? No, but maybe this is the start of a beautiful thing. I think he does that every time. Okay. Then why are you asking us if you know the answer? Well, I was hoping you're going to confirm and not dismiss it out of hand. I don't remember that ever happening.

You rebutted his dismissal. I don't remember much. I'm sick of fighting. I'm sick of the fighting. No, I'll reckon it. Yeah, I'll reckon. I was right. Okay.

He does this. Good for you. You're right. Who are the other? Wow. That's so important to you, isn't it? That you're right and that everybody else is wrong. Yes.

You're disgusting. Now, what's his little fact quote or question? Well, no, Dave asked another. He said a lesbian era playwright. He said 1988 Olympic gold medalist, American actor. Okay. So I was like he was asking for some proof. Like he didn't even trust me.

Even after I said, I'm definitely right. I've obviously fallen through the multiverse into a new reality. They were possibly while you're away, gallivanting. I've actually had a nap. I'm that fucking bored of this conversation. Well, Ben's asking a question this week, and the question is, does a wombat shit cubes if they are a gentleman? Oh, great question.

That is a very good question, Matt. As the, the... Gentleman expert? The expert on gentleman. I'm a gentleman expert and an expert. Bird on gentlemen. And wombat's on my favourite animals. Out of all animals?

Out of all animals. Yes, out of all animals. Not just an Australian animal? What is this cultural cringe you've got here? Why can't an Australian animal be my favourite animal in the world? I mean, look around. There's so many options. Your favourite's a panda.

Hell yeah. Yeah. What's my favourite? Dog. No. See? It pays to listen. Boys?

It pays to listen, Dave. Okay, Matt. Matt, what's my favourite? Well, I'm not going to speak for Jess. I'm a feminist, but we all know it's offensive. Give you a clue. It's also Australian. It's a quaker.

Quokka. Is it really? I love them. They're so smiley. Wait. Favorite Australian animal or favorite animal in the world? Both. It can be both.

Yeah. It can be. Remember we saw them at the Adelaide Zoo, but they were all sleeping and I couldn't get a photo with them. Oh, it's very upsetting. Didn't stop some people. It didn't. but unfortunately I respect the quokers. That's right.

We're grabbing them. Picking him up. Wake up. Wake up. So I'm going to say, a gentleman wombat's a different kind of gentleman of course. The saying a gentleman ever shits about human gentlemen. Yeah.

But it is also true, interestingly. Oh. A gentleman wombat doesn't shit cubes or anything. Wow. Too polite for that. So the answer to Ben's question is no. Yeah. So why they're so solid?

Yeah. They're never taken a shit. full of shit. So, yeah, that was Ben's question. He says, and this is obviously a little bit out of date now. Also, happy block. And happy block to you. I don't know if Ben, you're getting in late or early.

I think it's early. He's getting it early. Happy block to you. Ben, there's still, we've got 10 months to wait, but I appreciate it. New Year, new block coming up. That's true. Also says, oh, at the time of riding you're halfway through your UK tour, and I'll see you in London in a week.

Well, that's in our past, Ben. Okay, move on. In every sense. Not even just when this comes out. It's even further in the past, but even at the recording time. Here's a spoiler. And then he says, P.S. Oh, okay.

I'm engaged, bitch. I was going to say, we found out some big news, Jess. Ben and Georgia are engaged. Congratulations. A beautiful ring too. Sort of briefly at the gig. Still the ring. Okay.

Loved it. He kissed the ring. Dave's a ring expert. I know more. Blue, black, shiny one. Non-shiny. Not shiny. Matt, finish, if you will.

That's my favourite. Thank you, Ben. The next one comes from Sophie Chuta, who we also caught up with when we're in the UK. We went on a freaking Concord together. We went on a double date. Seeing pictures of you on a Concord, I was so excited for you. It was so happy. It was really cool.

And we had a tour guide with an extremely amazing mustache. Yes, and kind of like a silver mullet. Yeah, he looked incredible. What's his name? Roger. Roger. Oh, my God. He looked like a Roger too.

Yeah, what you're imagining is exactly right. Wow. He wouldn't pose with us for a photo, though. He knew his worth. He said, he did that money symbol with his fingers. He said how many followers you got? Nah. I don't pose for less than 15K.

You go on the Concord and you walk through the back and then you get to sit down and they play a little presentation of what it would be like if you were taking off, which is really fun and I really enjoyed that bit. And at the end, they play like a montage of the last time the plane landed to, um, don't stop me now my queen, which is so good. And then at the end, Rod just starts just doing a bit of queen music trivia. He's going, so that was, uh, that charted in what year? What year did that chart?

And then he, like, he was giving out clues. Yeah. And he's like, all right. What, what was the whole? highest position it charted what do you reckon oh my god it's and he's got these kids who would have no idea what he's talking about they sound 917 there's a 9 in it yeah there is a 9 in it it was 9 at one stage the kid goes he goes no no it was in what did it chart 1,000 he goes all right don't be silly it's like the kid doesn't know what a chart is and then he goes well it didn't make to number one though

what would have been it to number one when it was on we're getting so far away from Concord. And this is how we finish. This is the end of the... And he goes, you might know. Blonde, lady with the blonde hair. Blonde hair? He's just patting for time.

He's like, well, the two are supposed to get half an hour. I get fired if I don't... But it was so, that montage was so funny. It was just like jump cuts, a lot of... A lot of shots of just the Concord flying. Don't stop me now. We're all sitting on this old... Man, I was laughing.

I loved it. Because it's all about like that. It was that, very kitschy. Would you call it? Yeah. Kitchy, Dave? Yes, it was very kitchy.

But then there's a bit in the, in the, it's like, I'm traveling at the speed of light. I'm going Super Sonic, blah, blah, but then it's like, there's a bit about exploding.

Yeah. It's like, oh, geez, a bit close to the bone there. Yeah, yeah, it does seem like something that maybe wouldn't include, but anyway, Sophie has a fact for us,

A, and her title is Soggy Group Mum. Oh, God. I don't think I like that. No. Soggy. No. Group mom.

Don't like that. Maybe the fact will explain. Sophie writes, I'm currently sitting front row in Birmingham, waiting for Matt and Dave to start their first UK show. Well, that's in the past, Sophie. I'm the one eating a salad because I had to leave home at 3.45, and I knew I'd be hungry.

Hope you can hear me munching on the recording. That is the episode that has had technical Is it? Wow. And was the technical issues a crunching sort of sound? It was a crunching sort of sound. My God, Sophie. What have you done? And I think she's saying soggy because they had to line up in the rain that night. Oh, no. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Thank you very much. Sophie.

And you guys, the venue obviously said, would you like us to let people in early? And you said, make them wait. They did ask that. And they were sort of like, oh, they don't need to come in yet. We're like, if they're in the rain, we can bring them in. It's okay. Yeah. No, we won't. It's pretty important that. It's pretty important that So everyone knows that I stepped in there. I said, no, no, bring them in. Okay, it sounds to me like it was the other way around.

I think it was. And that said make them wait. No, I think it was like that. That said, fuck them. Someone did say they can wait. I'm like, oh, I've been like, that's weird. Anyway, the next one comes from Drew Forsberg, aka Vassal for the kingdom of Mixalot.

Vassel. Vassel for the kingdom of Mixalot. And Drew's offering a quote writing, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. He drinks a lager drink, he drinks a cider drink. He sings the songs that remind him of the worst times. He sings the songs that remind him of the best times. And that was apparently by Charles Samba Wamba Tube thumping.

Wow. Wow. And I think about that a lot. Thank you so much, Drew. That's a beautiful quote. And finally, we've got William Hofstadter, aka Chief Maitaondy Do you reckon that's right? Okay, in brackets, more than just a powerhouse.

And William is offering a fact, William, I'm so confused early. So let's see if this clues anything up. William writes, many plants are monoetious, meaning they have both male and female reproductive parts on the same plant. However, some plant species are deaceous, indicating that Indicating that, Indicating that, oh, is it dieticous, I think,

indicating that individual plants will be either male or female. For example, ginkgo trees, holly, and asparagus are all dioecious. The easiest way to determine if a dioecious, a dioecious and dioecious plant is male or female is that only female plants ultimately bear fruit. Interesting.

Really? I did not know that. I didn't know that. So you can have a male apple tree. No fruit? No fruit? Huh. How about that?

Is that a thing? Hey, I'd never fact-check these. No, and we won't. And people do not take advantage. No one takes the piss. Which is nice. Which is nice, actually. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you so much to William Drew. Sophie and Ben. Next thing we like to do is thank a few of our other great supporters. And Jess, you normally come up with a bit of a game based on the topic at hand. Yeah. I'm going to...

Maybe we could give them an animal they can communicate with. Oh, fantastic. Who's there, clever Hans? First up, I'd love to thank from Address Unknown. Cool. If this is you and you want your address in here, there's a way to add your address inside Patreon. If anyone ever comes up with a planet of the moles or what have we say?

Fortress of the moles. It's only been three weeks. But yeah, and that will mean you get Christmas cards and those sort of things. But you don't have to. You don't have to, no pressure. But I think some people don't realize. We won't docks you. No.

Some people don't realize that that's happened, that they haven't given us their address. and that's why they don't get the mail. Anyway, from... I worry that maybe, we usually say fortress of the malls. Have you gone over to the mole people? We started referring to Earth as the planet of the moles? I've said too much.

No, no, no, no. I mean, I'm just thinking there's been so many mole people over the years that a fortress might not hold them. Yeah, sure. They need their own planet. Yeah, that's fair. Hopefully there's not our planet. But from this planet of the moles, it's Kathleen Kaiser.

I'm going to kick it with the Kaiser. And that actually works out quite perfectly because Kathleen's animal companion is a mole. Wow. Wow. Yeah. A hairless one, like Kim Possible. Really? Yes.

You guys didn't have watched Kim Possible? No, was Kim Possible or a hairless mole? No. But her friend. Her friend was a real mole, am I right? Her friend Ron had a hairless mole, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, was there ever a monkey on there? That's a show that would have had a monkey on it.

Surely at some point. That's the impossible tone anyway. Thank you very much, Kathleen Keiser or Kaiser and your hairless mole, who is very smart. Very smart. I'd also love to thank from Saratos in California and the United States. Rainer Ramirez. Ooh, Ar-R-R-R. Ar-R.

What about? Fantastic name. Rainer Ramirez. The camel whisperer. Oh, I like that. Clever camel. That's right. A man's not a camel, but Rainer's animal is a camel.

Yes, is a camel. Rainer tours around with that camel. Big fan of camels. Are you? Yeah, I like them. They're funny, useful. You rode on one? Yeah.

How was that? Terrifying, but I loved it. Yeah. Is it a camel spit? No, but I had the naughty young camel. Oh, yeah. That was a... I'd put you on the naughty one.

Yeah, I think... I think the... the person who was putting us on the camel, so it was... Mad at you? Five of us was like, I reckon this guy can handle it. Wow, they were so wrong. Yeah, and absolutely. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going first.

I don't want to go first. You were coming off as being really confident because you were wearing new clothes. Because you're luggage. So they saw he was a totally different person. I'd had a real rebrand, a forcible rebrand. Because I had to buy only what a small Italian village had for some. I end up looking like a Poirot on tour. That's great.

What the camel would probably, it just knows where water is and stuff like that. Oh, the camel I read his name, Jimmy Hendrix. Wow. Really? What a young, naughty name. Finally from out of love to thank from Brompton in South Australia. It's Ryan Standing.

Brompton. Brompton. Ryan Standing. Ryan Standing, who's... It's only Ryan outstanding anyway. Giraff. Oh, yeah, great. Oh, yeah.

It's funny, because in my head I was thinking ostrich, also long-necked. Yeah, and the trick that this giraffe can do that Ryan taught the giraffe is you know how when you've got like a lolly snake or something and you put in your mouth, you try and tied in a knot? Yeah. This giraffe can do that with its neck. Whoa. It can put it in its mouth and make it turn into a snake.

That's incredible. I feel like your purpose. misunderstanding me. That's what I got too. That's not what you got. Yeah. Like when you have a lolly snake in your mouth and you can turn it into it? Yeah, that's what it can do.

That's what it can do. That's amazing that it can put its neck and its own mouth. I think that's fantastic. It is amazing, isn't it? Yeah, it's very impressive. That's very smart. That is a smart animal. Yeah.

Jess, you feel like you're all heating up. Do you want to thank a few of our great supporters? I would love to thank from Croydon in Victoria. Matt, Spark. Matt Sparkman. Incredible. When I was a teenager, I went to an underage, like a freezer event at a Croydon Community Hall or something. Frankenbach played.

Oh, I remember seeing Frankenbock at a freezer event. Yeah, the bock fucking rock. Oh, amazing. It's great not. Dave asked what's the sparkiest. Oh, spark is animal. It's going to be electric eel. Yeah, electric eel.

Yes. This is the eel. He speaks to eels. He's the eel man. Yeah. This eel will now. stomp out a number. It looks like it's flapping around,

desperate to get back in the water, but no, it is communicating with it. It is counting. It is a strategic number of flops. Oh, it's stopped? That's not just because it stopped breathing. Absolutely not.

And it can also, like, Matt can also swallow the eel and the eel can just know everything that Matt knows. Whoa. They can transfer knowledge. That's fucking full on, bro. Great work, Matt. No, that's too far, man.

That's crazy. What is he? A Spider-Man villain? That's how Jamie Fox's character gets his electro power. He falls into a vat of electric eels. And swallows one of them. Swallows one of them, but it knows everything he knows. It knows too much.

Knows far too much. Knows his pin number. Oh, no. Actually, it would just be pin. It's not number number. Yeah, but this animal is so smart it knows his pin number. Yeah. Which we don't even know what that is.

It's crazy. So thank you to Matt Sparkman. I would also love to thank from Elkhart in Indiana. I.N. Yeah. I would love to thank Fat Jimmy Joe. Fat with a pH. Fat with a pH Jimmy Joe.

Incredible name there. Fat Jimmy Joe. The animal that first comes to mind to me here is a Highland coup. One of my other favorite animals. Yeah. Favorite international category? We're talking favorite Scottish? For like two weeks of that tour, I thought you were just saying cow funny.

Which I think is kind of probably where it comes from. Yeah. But yeah, but that's what they're called. They are so fucking cute. Oh my God, they're fluffy. They got horns? They're furry. They're horny. Yeah.

Love them. So cute. Love that. And finally for me, I'd love to thank from Endeavour Hills in Victoria, David Gloo. David Glue. That's fun to say. David. Okay, what's the stickiest animal?

Is it a jellyfish? Are they sticky? No, they look like they should be, but they're probably not. Oh, yeah. Oh, I hate them. That's so gross. It's probably stickier animals. That feels pretty sticky.

Yeah, what's something that can, I guess, like, spy doesn't stuff, pretty sticky? Anything that can walk up walls must be pretty sticky. I'm googling the stickiest animal. Wow. It's going to be stick animal. Stick insect. Geckos, in fact, have the stickiest feet of all living animals.

Gecko, happy with that? Yeah, make it a gecko. That's great. Might have I thank a few people? I would die for you to thank people. Please die, darling. I would like to thank from Denver, Colorado, Alicia or Alicia Beaton. Oh, Alicia Beaton.

I think Colorado, I don't know if this is right, but I think moose. Okay. Do you know how fucking big moosa? They're so big. They love big animals. They're all of a truck, aren't they? They're massive. Crazy. What a crazy animal.

What can it do, though? What's its smartness? It can fly the moon. Whoa. Moon moose. It's the moon moose. On command. Yeah. You're just like, hey, moose, go to the moon. And it's like, moose. And off it going.

Moose. I'm a moose. Love it. Yeah. I pay to see that show. Me too. Colorado's moose population approaches 3,000 animals statewide. They got moose. They got moose.

Is that a lot? I don't know. I don't know. But it sounds that's growing. Yeah. Wow. Cool. But geez, they're so big.

So fucking big. I saw her TikTok that day. I'm pretty sure I saved it. I'll show you on our lunch break. Do you know what noise a moose makes? It's weird. Is it moose? It's moose.

No, that's this particular moon moose. What's it makes? It's quite a creepy sound. Or it could have been. that might be bullshit. I'll do some fact-checking. Anyway, thanks a more people. I'd like to thank from Birmingham,

a place that we have been not so long ago. Sophie Rodriguez. Sophie Rodriguez. Right name. Dolphin. Works with a very intelligent dolphin. Makes the other dolphins, notably an intelligent animal,

look like fucking idiots. Must be real smart. Yeah, it's really smart. Jeez, it's a smart dolphin. It's quite unpopular amongst its dolphin friends because it's too smart. But I mean, you know, like that's just where greatness comes from. It's a real tall poppy syndrome.

Yeah, dolphins are about tall puppy. They cut them down. Yeah, this dolphin could actually fly to the moon. Wow. And Sophie, how does Sophie utilize that? Well, it's charged as admission for people to see a dolphin flying. How's it going to breathe up there? But how would the moose breathe up there?

Yeah. Come on, Dave. Great question. I don't, did the moose go to the moon or just know about the moon? It flew to the moon. Flew to the moon. Actually, it would be almost better in some way of one of the animals was like an expert on moon trivia. You'd ask a question of anything about the moon.

The moose would know, like how big it is. Where it is? Where's the moon? How much cheese it's made out of. Tap twice for up. Wow, that is a clever move. Does the moon exist? Does the moon exist? Yes or no. One for yes. Two for no. It knows.

Wow. It doesn't stop tapping. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. It's really, it really believes. It's really, underline of the yes. It really believes. What conviction from this moves.

Yes. Yes. The moon can do it. That's very good. That's so dumb. What's wrong with us? A final, I'd like to think, from Jefferson, Massachusetts. If I'm saying that correctly.

Well, you're not, but it's close. It's Massachusetts. Thank you. Elizabeth McNulty is from Jefferson Massachusetts. Nick Nolty. It's the animal, Nick Nolty. What animal does Nick Nolty make you think of? A stonefish.

Oh. Really? Okay. Stonefish, like Jared Rebecki's brother on neighbors. It was nicknamed Stonefish. Really? There was toadfish and stonefish. Toadfitt and Tadpole.

Who's Tadpole? The younger brother, I guess, or the nephew or something. Just give them names. Where do they get their ideas? So Nick Nolte reminds you of a stonefish. Absolutely love that. And the stonefish speaks to Elizabeth McNulty. Yep.

And flies to the moon. Wow. They're getting a real crew up there. Good fun. Am I thinking of the right person? Let me look up Nick Nolty. Oh, Stonefish is a great. Yeah, I think I've nailed it.

Yep. I'm really happy with that. I never knew what a stonefish was. They're awesome. Oh my goodness, I just looked it up too. Sorry. Did I not know that?

You have never been more right about anything in your life. Wow. Because I just, you know what? I answered with my gut and with my heart. And I usually don't do that. I don't back myself. And this time I was like 100% stonefish.

So thank you. I appreciate that. You're incredible. Thank you. Wow. Some of them are pretty full-on looking. Yeah. So is Nick Nolty.

Good on him. Good on him. Thank you so much to Elizabeth, Sophie, Alicia, David, Fat, Matt, Ryan, Raina and Kathleen. And finally, the last thing we like to do is welcome a few people into the Triptitch Club. This week, there's three inductees. I'm standing on the door. The way this works is, I should say, if you sign up on the shoutout level or above for three straight years, you get lifetime access to the Triptitch Club.

Now, the way this works is, I'm standing on the door. A bit of theory of the mind here. I've got a clipboard. I've got a list. It's got three names on it. And I'm about to lift the velvet rope. Once you hear your name read out, please come on in. You'll find Dave up on stage with Jess.

Absolutely. Dave's emceeing the event. Everyone who's already in the club is standing around on the floor, cheering for you. And Dave will say your name. He'll hype you up. He's your hype man. Thank you.

The crowd will roar. And that'll happen three times. Then there was an afterpub. party, Jess will be behind the bar. What are you serving tonight? Horse piss. Horse piss. Now is that a literal horse piss or is that the name of a cocktail?

Well, it's actually, it's a bit of a Russian roulette situation. I have got ten glasses in front of me. Some contain horse piss. Okay, some. Some. Some, I love that. It's not even, can't even do the maths on it. Some, okay.

It's because I've forgotten. Yeah. And others contain a delightful limoncello-based cocktail. Oh, that's worth the. The risk. It's so funny, early on, you definitely try to make nice cocktails. And at some point along the way... I said this one's a lovely limoncello-a-cote.

That's a very nice liqueur. You've got some chance of having a nice drink, some chance. Sorry, yeah, you're right. And have you ever tried horse? I didn't mean to discount that. Have you tried horse piss? Don't discount that either. Okay, no, that's true.

I have not tried it. No, I don't even want to tell you about my hors d'oeuvs. Let's just thank some people. Dave, you normally have a band book for the after party? I'm very, very happy, actually. I've booked one of my all-time favorite bands, horse the band. Wow. Horse the band.

Doing exclusively Darrell Braithwaite's horses. Wow. And they're fantastic hit. Wow. Sex-Raptor. A great track if you haven't heard it. One of my all-time favorites. Wow.

All right. So, if you're ready, let's induct these people into the Triptage Club. Firstly, from Falkland in Great Britain. it's Rebecca Stephen Dave's about to Let's get even with Rebecca Stephen That sounds menacing Next up from San Diego

In California in the United States It's Leah Freel Do you friel? Do you frill? That's very open any question And from La Puente in California In the United States It's Abraham

Abraham Give me your hand Abraham Yeah, Abraham. I just shook his hand. I shook his hand. Welcome in. Make yourselves feel at home. Abraham, Leah, and Rebecca.

Sorry, whatever Dave just did to you all there. Have a cup of horse piss. Horse the band, ladies and gentlemen. This used to be a thing that people wanted to come to. They love the horse piss. You're the only one who has an issue with the horse piss. Exactly. And horse the band are genuinely a great live band.

Okay. You know what, Matt? Maybe you can wait outside while we all have fun. Well, I am on the door out here. And stay out here. I think that's what it is. He's jealous. It's cold.

I'll bring you a horse piss. Well, can I have a limoncello? Well, I don't know. Can you? That's what I want to know. It's exciting. Can you rig it for me? Nope.

Well, that brings to the end of the episode. Anything else we need to tell people, Bob? That they can suggest a topic. There is a link in our show notes. It's also on our website. Do Goonpod.com. where you can find links to live shows, see what we look like

and buy merch over there as well, and that we love you and never change, just like we will never change. Now boot this baby home day. Hey, we'll be back for the rest of 2023 with more beautiful episodes, but until next week, also thank you so much for listening and goodbye.

Later. Drink your piss. 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 will never miss out and don't forget to sign up go to our Instagram click our link tree very very easy it means we know to come to you and you also know that we're coming to you yeah you will come

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