Good Job, Brain! - 72: We're Goin' Under

Episode Date: July 31, 2013

Get our your goggles and saddle for your giant pet mole, and suit up - because we're going on an underground adventure! We dig deep into the marvel and the twists behind the birth of NYC subway, we find out what's exactly underneath Disney World, and what's up with these weirdo mysterious gobin caves in Bavaria. Take our "Top? Or Bottom?" underwear quiz, and find out what was the building that won WWII and how it became invisible.  ALSO: "It's Good to be Bad" Villains Quiz, Jeopardy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, gang of gallant, Gabby, gallivanting, galloping gadflies in gazebos. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. Chris wrote these, by the way. Thank you, Chris. Oh, you're welcome. This is episode 72, and of course, I am your humble host, Karen, and we are your very vocal volunteers vomiting vocabulary while voging.

I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm Chris. You can't see it, but we're all constantly voging during all of these episodes. Vomiting vocabulary. Man. Style and grace. We can't talk about bodily excretions on good job brain.

We have nothing. We have no material. All right. Let's jump. into our first general trivia segment, Pop Quiz Hot Shot. What are you holding? I am, so I ran out of Trivial Pursuit cards.

To substitute, I have the Jeopardy Board game. Okay. And so let's play the first time. Let's play some Jeopardy for Pop Quiz Hot Shot. And you guys have your buzzers ready. So here we go. I'll take potent potables for free. No, I get to choose.

Oh. Okay. This category is Enns in Ola. O-L-A Words that end with O-L-A All right No

Ebola Sh Stop it All right $100 question Remember form of a question Everybody All right

It's what you ride Along the canals of Venice Oh Chris What is a gondola Correct Sure Gondola

Gondola Gondola They're both acceptable Okay $200 It often includes rolled oats, wheat germ, honey, fruit, and nuts. Dana. What is granola?

Correct. What is granola? Next one, advantage, Colin. This early phonograph began cranking out music in 1906. Whoa. Well, I think we all know. Everybody. What is a trola?

Good job, everybody. All right. $400 question. Italy's Lombardi region is famous for producing this song. And soft and smelly blue cheese. Oh, Chris. What is Gorgonzola? Correct.

Last question, $500 question. Whoa. Haiti occupies a third of this island. The Dominican Republic covers the rest. Colin. What is Hispaniola? Yes. I didn't know that was the name of the island.

Very good job, Colin. All right. Good job, Brains. That's our jeopardy. Do you want to do another one? Yeah, one more. Yeah, okay. Do you double?

All right. All right. Double jeopardy. The category is Fruits and Vegetables $200 question Sometimes dipped in chocolate These red fruits are also popular

In a shortcake dish Dana What are strawberries Correct $400 question This may have been added to your cucumber To make it shine If so, peel it prior to eating

Chris What is wax? Correct $600 question Normally it's this fruit set a fire in a foster dessert. Oh, Colin. It's bananas.

Oh, incorrect. Wait, isn't it? What is bananas? What is the bananas? No. You got skunked. $800 question. The maltase sauce is made from the blood variety of this citrus fruit.

Dana. What are blood oranges? What are oranges, too? Oranges, yeah. All right. Last question. $1,000 question. The Gravenstein variety of these is harvested in August and September.

Chris. What are apples? Correct. Yeah. Very good. All right. Good job, Brains. So this week, Colin, you suggested this topic.

It's very interesting. I just always was fascinated by things underground and subterranean and hidden. So that was sort of the genesis of the suggestion. Yeah. Yeah. So this week we're going to talk about things that are underground, underwater, water and under other stuff. Just anything that's under something.

Like your clothes. Yeah, exactly. So this week we're going under. Under the sea, we off the hook. We've got no troubles like this they're bowels under the sea. Under the sea. Under the sea. It's like the sweet here.

We've got the beat here. Now telling me. Hey, Karen, what were you eating under there? What? What are you eating under there? Under where? You were eating underwear. Sorry.

Oh, man, you can't do those to Karen because she falls for them. I'm not supposed to do that. She looks so hurt. I was so confused. I was like, I wasn't eating. I was like, you attacked me. I think you made fun of me. And now I'm like under my pop filter, under my laptop.

So to continue to loosen our brains up, I have a word quiz, sort of. Every single answer that you'll give me contains the word under. Okay. So just... At the beginning or... Any... Any... Somewhere.

Somewhere in there. It contains the word under. It is frequently at the beginning, but not always at the beginning. Okay. Bring it on. Here we go. A phrase meaning to be calm and collected in the face of adversity. Also a 1990s sitcom starring Brett Butler.

Oh. Colin? Grace under fire. Grace under fire. A United Nations official. who ranks below its chief. Dana? Undersecretary?

Under-secretary general. Okay. Close enough. That's not, that doesn't sound like a very good title. Kind of weird title. Under-secretary general. A type of sporting wager in which bedders predict whether a certain statistic will be higher or lower than a given number.

Colin? The over-under. The over-under, yes. A maker of sports clothing. Karen. Under-armor. Under-armor. Yeah.

Maybe the world's most popular song sung by a crab. Uh, Dana. Under the Sea. Under the Sea. Alfred Hitchcock film. Alfred Hitchcock film. Little hint, it begins with the word under. It is a two-word title.

First word is under. I don't know that one. Yeah, me either. It is Under Capricorn. Okay. Under Capricorn. Single by Queen and David Bowie. Uh, yeah.

Carrey. Then under pressure. Under pressure, yes. Stephen King novel. A little more recent. Oh, gosh. Begins with the word under. Stephen King novel.

It's not underworld. No. It's under the blank. Callow. Is it under the dome? It is. No, there you go. Yeah, structure.

Maybe the world's most popular song sung by Chili Peck. Oh, yeah. Karen. Yeah. Under the bridge. Yeah. Under the bridge, yes. Disney animated classic.

Oh, Karen. Rescuers down under. The rescuers down under. Nice. A hit song by The Drifters. Colin. Under the boardwalk. Finally, a classic song from Cole Porter about subcutaneous

Levin. Oh, I've got you under my skin. Yeah. Oh, that's clever. Hey, very good job. That sounds gross, though. Subcutaneous. Yeah.

Lovin. Loven. Subcutaneous lovin. So I lived in New York for a while, and while I was there, I spent a lot of time underground and underwater traveling in the subways. Oh. And I think this. They're going to be like, I was a mole. I lived with the people.

Yeah. I've been adjusting to the surface world. But I was always really fascinated with the subway. Were a train spotter? I was the train spotter. But I. What is a train spotter? spotter. I know that it's a movie.

It's like, yeah, it's like train otaku and they sit and like, you know, the trains come by and they like mark off what train it is and what number it is and they keep like records of what trains come by and when did they arrive on time? Why? It's like birdwatching. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just another manifestation of OCD. It's like, oh, so I've seen train 8,562.

You know, put it in your little ledger or whatever, yeah. It's fun to collect things. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think any of us are in a position to judge people who aren't to collect a lot. Right. I just didn't know that activity exists. Not surprisingly, I mean, the history of the subway is a long, complicated tale with many twists and turns and ups and downs, much like a subway ride itself. Yeah.

Smells like pee. A lot of the early advocates for the subway in New York were social reformers. It wasn't necessarily about making the city more efficient. It was, you know, I mean, this is keep in mind, the 1860s, 1870s, New York is just packed, and the city is growing rapidly. And especially in the poor parts of town, there was just squalor and disease. Everywhere. Yeah, I mean, it was. There were open sewers and dead animals because, you know, there was a lot of horses that would just die and couldn't leave them there for a few days until they could part them away.

It was not a sanitary place down in the streets of the poorer neighborhoods in the Lower East Side and many other neighborhoods down there. And so some of the impetus for the subways was a lot of reformers like we can really improve sanitation by giving people a release to get uptown where. at that time, there was still a lot of nature to be found. Get some fresh air and some fresh water. And just to kind of alleviate the crowding and just sort of the mental strain of living in crowded societies. Not surprisingly, a lot of the early efforts to build the subways were just met with opposition. And if you're a student of New York City history, you'll know it was a very corrupt place, New York City before the turn of century. A lot of the early efforts to build a subways were kind of people taken into their hands on their own.

There very famously was a man named Alfred Eli Beach. who wanted to build a subway, an underground subway, and he was so convinced that he'd never be able to get through the corruption that he decided to build it himself with his own money, secretly. So you may have heard that there was once a prototype for a pneumatic subway system in New York, and this is the man who had the vision of that. So he built a 300-foot prototype, basically, of a pneumatic,

meaning air-powered, air-pressure-powered subway system that he did secretly. He hired laborers to work at night and quietly, because his goal was, built and then I'll try and attract some funding and right. Sad to say that didn't go anywhere. He opened it in 1870 and there is not, in fact, a pneumatic subway system in New York right now.

And there were other cities, you know, that were building underground subways at this time and kind of passing New York by. And it was really... Wait, in America or all over the world? Boston subway predates the New York subway, for instance. Yeah. And then again, you know, other cities in Europe where... And so a lot of engineers and sort of city activists really like, guys, we got to get on the ball here and get our own.

New York City Subway for many reasons. You know, over the next 20, 30 years after the pneumatic prototype, there were a lot of elevated trains built in the city, but it doesn't, it just, you couldn't scale it over the entire city because you've got to run the track somewhere. It really had sort of reached the limit by 1900, by around the turn of the century, and the city finally got, all right, we're going to build an underground subway. When they finally started building around the turn of the century, they really went about it in two ways.

The main way was what they call a cut and cover method. And they still use cut and cover, which basically is you cut a hole in the street and you dig out a trench. Oh, okay. You lay down the tracks and everything, and then you cover it back up when you're done. Okay. So it's not too far below the surface. And it is slow, hard, dirty, tough work, as you might imagine. Now you're thinking, all right, well, what about when you have to go under the water?

You can't cut and cover water. So building underwater was even more labor intensive and required some... Yeah. You start at the edge of the water. You build tunnels. You fill them with air. You make sure they're water tight. and you ventilate them

and you kind of just build section by section by section. And this is how they went from Manhattan out to Brooklyn under the East River. Wait, so do they build it over the water and they sink it? There were a couple different ways. Yeah, they could have what's called a caisson, which is where they would build like a diving bell, sort of like a giant bell and lower it down, pump out the water

and fill it with pressurized air. Or they could build sort of sections of tunnel at a time. Underwater. Right, right. You know, you build a section with compressed air to keep the water out so that the guys could work and breathe down there. And that Now I say this was hot, hard, dirty work. The men who worked on the underwater tunnels were called sandhogs.

That was their name to just that type of work. You could only work, you know, in shorter shifts because with the pressurized air, it's hot, and it's not healthy. This is not healthy work. Oh, right. I mean, this would dramatically shorten your lifespan being a sandhog. As you might imagine, there were a lot of mishaps building the tunnels, both underground and underwater, you know. I mean, you'd have tunnel collapses and boulders falling on people. And building underwater, you've got the added...

danger of drowning and flooding. There was a particular danger to building the underwater tunnels called blowouts. Okay. So now keep in mind, these are not large sections of tunnel with pressurized compressed air. And sometimes you don't have a perfect seal. You would have a blowout in the tunnel, meaning it would either collapse and decompress. You would have too much pressure. And debris could be blown out, including people could be blown out of the tunnel.

So I have a couple anecdotes here That just made the hair of my back of my neck stand up When I first heard these So in 1905 There was a work named Richard Cregan And he was working in an extension of the subway system Out to Brooklyn, as I say, under the East River And he, as they were working, noticed there was a leak

All right, so now they're underground, okay? So they're underwater and under mud at the bottom of the river Okay So he's going to plug up the leak Before he can get the leak plugged up it decompresses. The entire thing blows out. He was shot through the mud, five feet of mud, by the pressure out up to the surface of the water, 15 feet of the water. He survived. He did not drown, but it was a harrowing experience. He was shot up so fast. Oh, I can only imagine. Right. Yeah,

going through being pressurized through five feet of mud. And I'm thinking, all right, well, surely, you know, this is a pretty rare occurrence. No, no, there was actually an even more hair race. instance of this. So in 1960, you know, so they're still building this, by the way. This is slow going, right? So in 1960, they were building another extension also under the East River. There was a worker named Marshall Maybee. And very much a similar scenario

where they were working and he noticed there was a leak in the mud. And, you know, if you noticed it like, you've got to try and plug it up as quickly as you can. And they would give the workers, you know, sandbags or planks of wood or bales of hay to try and compress the leaks. It sounds like a makeshift. Well, you know, it's 1916.

It's patch it up. It's doing your best. You got to make it work, right. Some error was starting to rush out. Before he could do anything, next thing he knew, he was being shot out of the tunnel, shot through the mud. And here I'd like to just let Marshall Mabee's words take over. So this is a... He did survive.

Yes, this is a description that he gave to the New York Times. I closed my eyes and managed to get my hands over my head when I realized I was in sand and was being pushed by a tremendous force. I was being squeezed tighter than any girl ever held me and the pressure was all over me, especially on my head. The last thing I recalled was seeing the Brooklyn Bridge above me while I was whirling around in the air. So now, Marshall may be... Shot through the surface of the water.

Witnesses report that he shot through the mud, through the water, 25 feet in the air above the surface of the East River. Holy cow. He blacked out. Sorry, no. as you do, as you would. He was able to swim a little bit after the event.

After his time in hospital, he went back to work. You know, yeah, no problem. This is what I do. Show must go on. I'm a sandhog. The show must go on. And I never, ever, ever traveled in a underwater tunnel without thinking of that. Just about being shot through the roof, through the mud, through the water, 25 feet in the air.

I mean, how that's scary would that be? People think it was like a dolphin jumping or something. And be like, what is that? That is a person. That's a super band. But this is just one of the many hazards of building the New York City subway system. So the next time you're traveling under the East River, be glad you're on the inside of the tunnel. Or in any tunnel.

Geez. All right. So from underground, let's go to underwear. So I have a quiz for you guys. There are so many weird kinds of underwear throughout history. There's been a need to cover your top. There's been a need to cover your bottom. Underwear protects your clothes from things your body does naturally.

Oh, yes. And it also protects your body from your clothes if your clothes are scratchy. So my quiz for you involves weird historical underwear, maybe even modern underwear, but just with names that maybe aren't super familiar. And you have to tell me if it's a top or a bottom. Okay. Because we cannot tell for many of these. Wow.

So point up for top and down for bottoms. All right. All right. Ready? Singlet. Oh. And there's no both? And you put middle, like you could do a flat hand for middle if you want.

But it's never going to be the right answer. Not often the answer. Everybody says top. It is a top. It's like a T-shirt. Okay. That's a modern one. A racing singlet.

Because I think you, yeah. A tanga. Tenga. Tenga. Tenga for your teeters. So Colin and Chris say bottoms. Karen says a top, it's bottoms. Oh, what's the four?

It's like a thong, like a man thong. Yeah. I was like, maybe that's why you guys know what that is. Yeah, I don't wear them often, but. But you know the name, you know the name. Hot weather only. All right, this one's next one, a camis. Everybody says the top, it's a top.

Okay. French for both men and women. How about a Fondon? Fendoshi. Fendoshi. That sounds dirty. Everybody points down. Yes. That is the sumo wrestler's diaper.

Oh. Yeah. Often known as a sumo diaper. Loin cloth. Yeah. I like loin claw better than diaper. Because that applies Super Wrestlers pooping. They might. You don't know. How would you know? How about a bando? A what?

Bando. Bando. Yeah. Okay. Well, okay. Karen's so adamant. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to be contrarian. All right.

So Karen and Chris say top. Colin says bottom. It's a top. It's like a bra kind of thing, like a band. It's a strapless, yeah. It's a band across your boobs. Oh, okay. Okay.

This is from another culture, so I'll try to pronounce it correctly. And you just tell me if you think it's a top or bottom. It's a talit catan. It's from Judaism. Chalit Katan. Mm-hmm. I'll go bottom. Okay.

So Colin says top. Karen and Chris say bottom. It is a top. Oh. What is it? It's an undershirt. It's used for religious purposes. Yeah.

How about... Oh, this is from the ancient Romans, all right? Subligaculum. Sub ligaculum. Okay, maybe we can dissect a sub ligament. Like, coolant. Coolot. I'll go bottom.

I'll go bottom. Yes, it's bottom. Yeah. And both men and women worthies, and especially gladiators and actors. How about Malo? It's Hawaiian. They don't wear shirts. They don't wear shirts.

Oh, huh. Yeah, I like your reasoning on that. Okay, so Colin and Curzee Bottoms, Karen says tops, they're bottoms. Yeah. It's a loincloth. Hawaii and loincloth. They have Hawaiian shirts, obviously. That's just worn by a 50-year-old Italian.

That's good. What about stays? Stays. S-T-A-Y-S. Yeah. Sounds like tampons. I'll go top. I'll go bottom because sounds like tampon.

I mean, not to say the tampals are underwear, but... I'm just thinking of, like, collar stays is what I'm thinking of. Oh. Oh, you know, it's probably related to that. It is a top. Colin and Chris say top, Karen says bottom. It's a corset. It's another word for a corset.

Oh, okay. And women wore them from the 1600s until the 20th century. Sometimes they were under their clothes, sometimes they were above their clothes, but they were really... For a nice day-to-night look. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. How about Bray-E-S?

B-R-A-E-S. I'm only reasoning this because of bra and like French word for arm is bra Okay, sure Yeah, I like your reasoning, yeah So everybody says top Everyone is wrong No, no, it's okay

They're medieval trousers Oh How about, this is Chinese M-O-X-I-O-N-G I would say bottom, I don't know Okay, so Colin and Chris say top Karen says bottom, it's a top It's the wrap

like a breastbinding type thing. How about a farthing gale? It's the fanciest thing. I'm going to guess it comes from England. Penny farthing is like the old-timey bicycles. Farthing is a cent, like a cord. Right, it was a coin. Yeah.

A farthing gale. I'm soaked right down to my farthing gale. So it is for ladies. It's not for dandies. I'll go with bottom. Yeah, I'm going to go bottom. Yeah. It's a bottom.

Like a petty. coat that comes out from their waist and kind of makes their body have this cone shape. Oh, yeah. It's a desirable cone. It's so aesthetic. It's so natural. Hats. I have like a woman with a low center of gravity. No.

So this is another Chinese one. Okay. It is a do-duo. It's a... Do-do. Yeah. I couldn't find a pronunciation. I was looking.

I think Karen... I think she does what is. I'm not going to answer it. It's at top or bottom. I'm not going to answer. So you both say. bottoms, it's a top. It's like a bib.

Weird to think about like bra technology or bra history. Evolving over time. It's just like a bib. Oh, it's like it goes around the neck and you tie it in back. Oh, okay. Sometimes modern girls wear it for a sexy look. But back in the days, it was to, you know. It's the underwear.

It's your underwear. But there's no support. It's just a piece of cloth, like a bib. All right. Last one. A union suit. Oh. This is like.

Motion for all over. I'll see about them. It's all over. It's all over. That was the trick one. And it's also American and one of the later ones on this list. I think it's like long jumps.

Long jumps. Yeah. There's the arms, legs, the tops. And then it's funny, it has an access panel on the back. They call it the access hatch. It's the classic. For whatever reason

it'll always come on buttoned in the back. They call it. There were three words for it, which I enjoyed it. I have to tell you about it. If one of them's not poophole, I call it a bell. None of them are poophole.

one is an access hatch What is the drop seat And the other one is the fireman's flap They all sound so like Aerotechnical It does That's funny Cool, good job you guys

Thanks We know our underwear That's right Drawers Draws Y'all mentionables Oh we just mentioned them Oh, that's good

No Frills Delivers Get groceries delivered to your door From No Frills with PC Express Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca. This is Jen and Jenny from Ancient History Fan Girl, and we're here to tell you about Jenny's scorching historical romanticcy

based on Alarica the Bissigoths, Enemy of My Dreams. Amanda Boucher, best-selling author of The Kingmaker Chronicle, says, quote, this book has everything, high-stakes action, grit, ferocity, and blazing passion. Julia and Alaric are colliding storms against a backdrop of the brutal dangers of ancient Rome. They'll do anything to carve their peace out of this treacherous world and not just survive, but rule. Enemy of my dreams is available wherever books are sold. So I have a little preface with my segment.

I have an older sister. My dad's like a super military nut. He loves military history and Tom Clancy novels. And I think, um, growing up, I think he really wished me and my sister were, like, also into that stuff so he could talk about it. But we were girls. We're like, we like, boys and flowers, you know. Unwrapping your birthday presents and it's like a hand grenade. Now, you know, especially with this podcast, I'm learning a lot of interesting things from a trivia aspect, you know, pertaining to war.

And I think that is like getting me kind of interested in reading more about it. And like we said, a lot of inventions, you know, were wartime-inteching. inventions or technology, you know, M&Ms were inspired by the war, and tampons were inspired of. Surprisingly, I'm going to talk about this wartime thing, speaking of underground or undercover. So there was a building labeled as the building that won World War II. Can you guys guess what building this was or what this building did? It's not like a monument or anything. It's a factory of some sort or no. Yes, it is a factory. It is the Boeing Plant 2.

So Boeing Plant 2 is the name of the factory, and they cranked out a large percentage of all the planes at the height of World War II. As much as 12 B-17s, I have no idea what kind of plane that is, but I'm sure it's really impressive because I don't know what I'm going to plant. It's a bomber. It's a bomber, yeah. 12 of them a day.

Whoa. They just turn them out. The plant also built, okay, maybe you boys will know this. So B-17 flying fortresses, Boeing 307s, Boeing 377s, Boeing B-29 super fortresses, Boeing B-50 super fortresses, B-47 stratojets, B-52 strato fortresses. Wow. And the initial Boeing 737. Oh, okay. So these are huge planes.

Yeah. 12 a moment a day, maybe sometimes even more. That is pretty nuts. So the plant size is, it's actually pretty patriotic. It's 1.776 million. square feet so it's huge but the thing is it's so huge

it's easy to think like well if we have this giant building that's cranking out all of our top airplanes wouldn't it be really easy to pretty much destroy our war efforts by bombing the whole thing the enemies just come and trash the factory single point of failure

there goes our whole supply of jets and airplanes so obviously that is the problem so what they did was they hid the factory. They hit the factory from possible aerial attacks. That's what they're worried about. Not people, you know,

coming in. Infiltraning. Yeah, infiltrating. It's really from an aerial perspective. They had this really crazy idea of they have the factory and then on top of it they built a fake neighborhood, a fake town on

the roof of the factory. So if you're an enemy airplane and you're looking down, just looks like It's normal town. Normal suburb. Wow. Little streets, little houses. That's great.

They're not actual houses because that takes a lot of resources. They hired a Hollywood production designer. His name is John S. Detley. And he actually was nominated for an Oscar as a production designer in movies. And so he rallied the whole effort in camouflaging this factory. So they built trees out of chicken wire. Okay. They're not real trees.

They didn't plant real trees. They had houses and roofs, and they're not actual houses. They're actually really short because you're just concerned with looking down. It just needs to look convincing straight down from thousands of feet in the air. It was built with plywood, clapboard, chicken wire, burlap, lots of paint. They even had painted on windows. They're not real windows. They did a really convincing job.

If you go on Google search and look for some of these pictures, it just looks like, that's cool, like an aerial view. That's cool. But there is a bittersweet. twist to the story. The plant was close to obsolete only like 15 years after its construction because technology and production

process was ramping up so fast that they just didn't kind of maintain the factory. Before war was over, the planes had outgrown the roof beams. Wow. A lot of people took home actually fake pieces. I was just going to ask you that. There must be

stupid, yeah, old... They had crazy street names too. Like the street names were like like synthetic boulevard. I had a sense of humor about it. Don't bomb us Avenue. That's great. I mean, again, just like the history of military fakery and camouflage. Yeah, that meant taken to a whole other level.

On TV yesterday, I had to do a double take because I was looking at the guide, like the TV program guide. And then there was a show on the public access channel called, and I thought it was a weird, like, sci-fi fake movie, you know what I mean? It was a ghost army? No, it was a mega-neutral. Nazi weapons. Sorry, Nazi mega weapons. But it's a real show. It's like a documentary series. But at first I thought it was like, you know, Shark Nato or something like that.

So here is, I'm going to read this, this urban myth to you and you'll tell me whether or not this is true or false. Well, you said urban myth. Well, you know what I mean. I mean, there's a lot of urban legends and some of them do turn out to be true. Underneath Walt Disney World, there is a labyrinth of underground tunnels where all of the garbage goes and you throw your garbage away, and where cast members can travel from place to place without being seen. I think it's true. Knowing Walt Disney, the way he operates. Seems efficient, like, to get the trash out of the area.

Well, I know there's an underground, like, system, but not necessarily just for trash. People walking around, though. And they also have backstage stuff, too. I mean, that's closed off. So I'd say it's, yeah, partially true. Partially true. So basically, the way I said it, it's false. Only because it's a trick question.

Because the tunnels are not underneath Walt Disney World. Walt Disney World is on top of the tunnels. There is a distinction. Okay. So you have Walt Disney World in Florida. Walt Disney World was built on a swamp land. You cannot dig down into that swamp land because if you dig two feet, you hit water. So it's actually very, very complicated and expensive to build, to dig.

underground in Florida and build below the ground so there are in fact when you're in Disney World and you're walking up Main Street towards Cinderella Castle underneath you is a whole floor full of Disney cast members and offices and all of that sort of stuff but it is built at ground level that is the first floor of Disney World and you never see it because Disney World is all sort of built so that you think you're constantly on ground level, but actually when you get there, you take the monorail there, and you're constantly actually walking up a slope as you go up towards Main Street.

Just a really gentle raid. And in fact, by the time, if you walk from the entrance of Disney World to Cinderella Castle, you've actually imperceptively walked up a whole story, and Cinderella's castle is actually on the third floor of Disneyland. and there are two floors of underground stuff below. So what is it? As the story goes, Walt Disney was walking around Disney land in California, which has no underground labyrinth of tunnels beneath it,

and he saw a cowboy from Frontierland in the Tomorrowland exhibit walking from there because that's where costuming was. It was behind and behind the scenes in Tomorrowland. So the cowboy came out of Tomorrowland. to walk over to Frontierland, but Walt Disney happened to see him, and he realized, oh, geez, this is not ideal. It's breaking the illusion. It is breaking the illusion.

And he realized that when building Walt Disney World from the ground up, you know, having already kind of taken in the lessons of Disney land, he could take this into account. So before they built any attractions, rides, anything, the first thing they built was the first floor, and they call them the utilitores. That's what they call that system. You can drive a golf cart in there. They have lockers for employees' storage. The breakrooms are down there.

There's like a bank down there where they can cash a check. They can get a haircut down there. And it's like a spoke system, and it's all underneath the magic kingdom, the castle, and the lands that surround it, so that they can get down there and it's all very clearly marked. So if you're going to Frontierland, you can just walk underneath everything in this whole system. One person did say, one source that I found, said the only gasoline. powered vehicle for safety reasons that's allowed down there is the armored truck that comes once a day for the daily cash pickup and that is the only time a gasoline powered vehicle is allowed to drive underneath there. Now, can members of the public, would there be any way that I could

see the Utilador area without breaking in? Wouldn't mean without breaking in. Without violating the rules of the park. If you take the keys to the kingdom tour at Walt Disney World, which I think leaves from the city hall, you know, every early morning, basically, they will take you behind the Utiladors and they will actually show you what goes on back there. Importantly, the keys

to the kingdom tour cannot be taken by guests who are under 16 years of age. So you do have to be over 16 because they do want to preserve the magic for little kids because they are going to poke down there and you might see Mickey Mouse walking around holding his head in his hands and as a teenager so, I mean, you don't really want to,

you don't want kids to see that. That's true. There actually is a story circulating on the internet recently. I think it's the Los Angeles Magazine did an article, a guy who used to play Jack Sparrow in the park. And he dished a lot of secrets. I mean, they take keeping the image

very seriously. Apparently one of the things that he talked about was that his friend worked as Pluto. And once Pluto came by to walk over to Jack Sparrow and hang out with him, Pluto got fired. Because you're not supposed to leave your designated area.

It's like Cowboy in Tomorrowland. It's like, wait a minute. What are you doing here? No Pluto in the Pirates of the character area. Bad dog. Bad dog. I guess. I mean, it's sad, but his job is to be the character in the exhibit and he's not there.

You have one job, Pluto. So let's take a little trip, guys. We just went to Disney World. Yeah, so we're coming back from Disneyland. Let's take a trip to Bavaria. In 2011, drawing a lot of details here from a fascinating article that appeared in Der Spiegel. Oh, is that a newspaper?

Yeah, it's a German. Oh, okay. In 2011, there's a dairy farmer named Bita Grythana. She was in a meadow on the farm that she and her husband ran, and she was watching one of the cows grazing, and then all of a sudden, just thunk, the cow sunk into the ground up to its hips. And they're like, all right, this is. Where are our cow hips? Like into the stomach, probably. There are, though, that was even.

It's utter, utter deep. Oh, oh. And she's like, this isn't right. You know, we don't want the cow sinking into the ground. But, you know, it's not altogether unheard of for sinkholes on meadows and things like that. So let's flash forward to the next day. They've gotten the cow out of the ground. Bita and her husband, Rudy, are going to check out, all right, what's going on here?

Rudy pokes his head down in the ground. He's like, whoa, this isn't just a normal sinkhole. He's like, this looks really big. There's room I can crawl down in there. So he'd crawl down in the hole. Oh, my God. No, don't do that. There's more like a crater.

Yeah, yeah. How many horror stories are? How many horror movies start off this way? Check it out. You stay here. No. So he climbs down in there and sees there's a tunnel, kind of a sloping tunnel going down into the earth. So he keeps going down and going down.

Sure. And it keeps continuing. And he eventually, he's getting far down enough that he starts getting kind of scared. It's really dark. It's really quiet. And he's down far enough that he can't really breathe as well. Right. So he's like, you know what?

I'm going to come back out of his time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good choice, Rudy. I'm worried for him. So they bring in the professionals. They bring in some geologists and surveyors to come take a look at what exactly is this down here.

It turns out that the Great Hunters Dairy Farm sits on top of what's called an Erdstall, which means like ground spot, ground hole. What this is, it turns out there's a network of tunnels and rooms crisscrossing underneath the farm. And they're like, what the heck? What's going on here? It turns out this is actually all over Bavaria. There are over 700 examples of these little criss-crossing networks of tunnels called Urstals. And here's where it gets even more interesting. Dragons.

Dalians. Well, it's funny that you say that actually. Dragon aliens. One of the colloquial names for them is Shrazolok, or Goblin Holes. Oh, okay. That's very German. Yeah. Very, like, fairy taley.

Goblin holes. So this is a phenomenon, a not very well-known phenomenon, but there are other instances of it all over. In fact, all over Europe, they found examples of these. All right, it's not just a little network of criss-crossing tunnels. They're tiny. They're really tiny. Like, they're only, for goblins. They're only a couple or three feet tall in some places.

In some places, they're only a couple of feet wide. So, noms, right. Oh, I was just kidding. No, it's not really gnomes. Nomes is as good at guess as anything else. Interesting. Nobody knows where these came from, what they're for, who built them. They don't know exactly how long they've been there.

They were clearly built by people who knew what they were doing, like with real proper tools. They're super narrow. You can only kind of hunch down. There are places where you've got to get on all fours, And there are places where the average adult just can't fit, which adds to the air of mystery. Like, why, if you were building these, would you build them so small? So they kind of first really came into the consciousness in the 1800s. You know, even then, there was a lot of local lore that, well, they were built by elves.

They were built by goblins. They were built by gnomes. And there were a lot of theories about what they're for. One theory is, well, maybe they're for storage. That doesn't seem likely. They don't seem well-suited for food storage. One, because they're so tiny, they're hard to get to. It floods a lot.

Wait, do you have an answer? I want to know if there's an answer or a theory. There is no answer. What? They don't know. We have a lot of theories about what they are. If you guys are like me, you probably don't believe that they were actually built by gnomes or elves or godwomen. Right, right.

I think it's still a giant raccoon. Here's where it gets. It kind of creeps me out talking about these things. So a lot of them will kind of connect to either old buildings or the sites where they knew that they were old buildings. Okay. So there might be an opening to the tunnel, like in the kitchen of an old farmhouse, for instance. There might be openings. They have found some openings to the tunnels near churches and graveyards.

But then, by the same token, there are others that are just out in the middle of, you know, meadows and fields and out in middle of forests. And one theory is that maybe these were escape tunnels. You know, maybe they were, you know, if you needed to hide it out of there. Maybe. But that doesn't necessarily seem very likely because a lot of them only have a single point of entry and entry. You know, it's like you wouldn't really be escaping because there's nowhere to come out on the other side. One theory is maybe they were for hiding, you know, if you were in a village and some rampaging group of, you know, comes through and sweeps to the town, you might just the whole village might go down there and hide. Again, the problem with that is that if you were going to build a hiding place for your whole village, you would make them big enough that the average adult could fit comfortably.

They have found almost no artifacts in them either, which makes it really tough. You know, a lot of times you'll find old caves or things like that and you can kind of work backwards. Um, so not long after this incident I described, uh, they finally have formed an urge stall task force, which is basically, for the first time, a widely coordinated, well-funded effort. I hope that little uniforms, little goblins on them. Yeah, goblin hole expeditionary force. Yeah. Originally, they thought they might be thousands and thousands of years old. It seems like that is probably not as likely. They've done a lot of radiocarbon dating, you know, basically, uh, on pieces of wood or, or charcoal that they found in there. most of the stuff they've dated dates to about a thousand about a thousand AD and so that's their best working theory is that they date to somewhere around that time and they can tell

that most of them were filled in or blocked off sometime around 1200 why nobody knows we don't know why they built them we don't know why they blocked them off we don't know why anyone wanted to keep them secret nobody wrote about them so maybe they just misread the orders oh yeah yeah style tab yeah Dig, dig gigantic holes. It just took him a thousand-time trial and error.

Well, fill them up, I guess. I don't know. Goblin holes. There's a lot of fairy tales that come from. Goblin holes. There are. There is, in fact, at least one of the rooms in an Urschol that does have a relief carving of a goblin on the wall,

which, again, it just gets creepier and creepier. Or it's one dude's prank. Right. It's an elaborate prank on Bavarians. And I love this because I love reading about anything that's still a mystery. You know what I mean? It's like, in 2013, because I want the answer. Yeah, it's a little frustrating.

Well, hopefully there will be a lot of young people getting inspired reading up on these. Join the task force. Join the task force. Yes. If you're in Germany or Austria, go join the Urstall Task Force. Please, please write back and tell us about your goblin hole. Telling our butts from a hole in the ground. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that doesn't

does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. I have one last quick underground cave story that I want to, because what you're talking about reminding me of this. And I just shared the link actually on our, on Good Job Brain and Facebook page. I actually didn't make the connection. I was like, oh, I should talk about this on the show because it seems fitting.

So, Dana, you spent some time in New Zealand. Yep. Have you heard of the glowworm caves? Yes, I've been there. Really? Yes. It's crazy. I saw pictures of it.

It's like you're in a dark cave, like a grotto, and you look up and it's just beautiful, glowing blue stars, but you're in a cave. They're all glow worms. How big are these worms? Like, is they going to eat me? No, no, no. They're little bugs, basically. Okay.

You wear a wet suit and you go down there with like a, and you do intertubing down the river. There's a really cold river. And you do some splunky, you go through little crevices in the cave. It's pitch black. I remember eating chocolate, being freezing cold, and they give you chocolate because you're burning so many calories because you're so cold. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, you know, when it's all dark and they're glowing, it's beautiful blue light, you know, kind of looks like LED, just starry, you're everywhere.

But what it really looks like when there is light, it looks like the cave has a lot of snot, and it drips. It's like, so how the worms feed themselves is they would produce a mucus, and they would drop it down, like, strings of mucus. They're everywhere on top of this cave, right? So it's, you look up, if it's raining, cave boogers, whoa. It's moist in there. Yes. Because they light up, it attracts a lot of moths and other flyer bugs. And they're like, oh, light.

So they float to the light and they get stuck in the cave bookers. And then the worm. So it's like nature's fly paper. It's kind of like being in nature's nose or something like that. Yeah. And I guess that's all for our Going Under show. Colin, you got a last quiz for us? I do.

We'll close it out here. I have a little lightning round for you. All right. This quiz is called It's Good to Be Bad. So this is all about famous bad guys Which are real or fake? All fake bad guys Oh okay

So bad guys from Literature This quiz is about bad guys Like Hitler And pole pot They're sad It's good to be bad Oh it's horrible

Jeffrey Dahmer On his motorcycle Oh, man. Okay, so fake ones. Not really. So fake. I have to ask. No, I'm glad you had to.

And thinking it through, it's like, oh, yeah. So I'm going to name a bad guy. And you tell me what book or movie or work of fiction this bad guy is from. And now, you know, bad guy is always from a certain perspective. So these may be the main character in the work. But I think we would all agree. that they are the bad guys in the story. So if I were to say Sauron, you would say...

Lord of the Rings. Right, there you go. I think you guys get it. So here we go. This is a lightning round, so just jump in and buzz if you think you know it. All right. Kaiser Soze. Karen.

Oh, man, now I'm blanking. Usual suspects. Yes, the usual suspects. Hans Gruber. Chris. Die hard. Die hard. One, right?

One. I believe it is one. It is diehard one. Yes. Yeah. And I'll be a little loose here. Some of these are from franchises. Yeah.

Okay. Jason Voorhees. Oh. Chris. Friday the 13th. Yes. He is from the Friday the 13th saga. Indeed.

Yes. Buffalo Bill. Oh. Chris again. Silence of the lambs. Yeah. Silence of the lambs. Chris is really into, like, weird.

Weird stuff, man. Let's shame him for being good at this cruise. Cher Khan Dana The Jungle Book Yes, the Jungle Book Dear Junglbuck The Junglbuck

Patrick Bateman Karen Was he a bad guy American Psychic He killed a lot of people Yes That'd be an example of where He's the protagonist

And the bad guy Yes, yes American Psycho Claire Quilty That is Lolita That is Lolita Colonel Kurtz Chris

Is this Inglorious bastards Oh that's your thing of Colonel Landa Oh yes Colonel Kurtz Is this a modern movie? It's the 70s Oh okay Colonel Kurtz was Marlon Brando's character

In Apocalypse Now Alex Alex DeLage Alex DeLage And often just known by his first name in the book Alex is the main character from Clockwork Orange Oh

The last name threw me off All right, we'll close out here with an easy one for you guys Emperor Palpatine I don't know What is it? Is it Space Balls? It's from on the waterfront Star Trek Yeah, Star Trek

He is of course the emperor from Star Wars Yeah, we're just messing with Colin Yeah. No, please do not send us. What is this? Dark name? Sidious. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, and that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys, listeners, for listening, and hope you learned a lot about underwear, under words, under caves, underground, underwater, under systems. Yeah. You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, and on our website, good job, brain.com. And join us on Twitter and Facebook as well.

And we'll see you guys next week. Bye. captivating stories of Vigelin, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark, and so many other famous and not-so-famous adventures from throughout history. Go to Explorespodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app. That's the Explorers Podcast.