Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 654: Topsy the Elephant

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

This week on Last Podcast on the Left, EddieTunes takes the reins for a momentary detour from the Dupont Dynasty, to tell the story of an often overlooked topic of cruelty and evil - the tragic lives of Circus Animals - in particular Elephants, as we take a look at the sordid tale of Topsy the Elephant, and the Elephant Executions of the early 20th century. For Live Shows, Merch, and More Visit: www.LastPodcastOnTheLeft.comKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Last Podcast on the Left ad-free, plus get Friday episodes a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's no place to escape to this is the last talk. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. No, no, no, no. Because if you have, if you do, that means you've committed murder in South Carolina. Hey, hopefully. Or you're visiting. You're saying, hi.

Thanks for the content. If you're in town. Are you guys ready? Are you guys ready? Ready. Ready. So should I not do any of my crow or rink? even characters in this.

No. No, no, no. Well, maybe if you change the voice a little bit. Maybe if you use the Hong Kong Henry Zabrowski voice. Oh, you think that'll work. Oh, then that's fine. They'll all cancel each other out.

Sure. Yeah, yeah, okay, if you use one racist voice to replace another racist voice, maybe it can work out. 60. Yeah. That's 60. Yeah. And we are focusing more on Asian elephants than African elephants today.

Wow, this is my cheese. Welcome to last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zabrowski, weighing his options. What have you come upon?

What have you settled on? I'll tell you what the next time you're more likely see an elephant fly than he hear me do an Asian accent again into a microphone. I save it for my family now.

For my family, my dentist. Strictly by facts. My dentist loves it God he loves it And today Ed Larson The man across for me Is the man with the script

This is an Ed Led episode We're taking a bit of a break From the DuPont saga And Ed what do you got first today I can't wait for this This is going to be so much fun Oh sorry That was just Ed's just

Ed's just trying to fit back into the cherry He got a drink Elephants! Elephants! I love elephants. Today, the star of our show is going to be Topsie the Elephant, but we'll get into her a little bit later. But I want to tell you guys, you know me, I like these animals.

You love these animals. You do love animals. Especially when they big. But elephants are some of the most interesting mammals on Earth. They're huge, brilliant, loyal, emotional, and most importantly, violent creatures. Yeah. Listen, I ain't no elephant biologist, so I ain't going to get lost in the weeds, explain it to you how elephant trunks have over 150,000 muscle

units and are the most sensitive organ found in any animal. But wait a second. It's most sensitive organ. But what about the comedian's heart? Yes. I could go on and on about how elephants are considered one of the smartest animals on earth. that have funerals and have been theorized to have telepathic abilities. What? I ain't got to talk about that. I feel like this is now.

He's in his own elephant UFO territory. Like, once he starts the elephant telepathy tapes and we're going to have to cancel our tour. Yes, that is all very cool stuff. But this is the last podcast on the left. And we are here to talk about death. Sure. Yes, and we are not going to discriminate. We're killing both elephants and humans today.

Great. If you crave just raw elephant info, go listen to Elephant Tales or the Global Rumblings podcast. Are they real? Yeah, those are real podcasts that I decided to shout out for elephant facts. But you don't know anything about them. They could all be murderers and rapists. Yeah, you can't vouch for the creators of those podcasts. But they do talk about elephants scientifically a lot.

And I know every single niche interest has 50 to 3,000 podcasts about it. So are these the two best elephant podcasts, or are these just two that you chose at random? Two of the top three results on Google. Absolutely not. And there's nothing corrupt in it. No. Nothing at all. Today, I didn't use a particular book or documentary as a source.

I just researched to the best of my ability about stories that entreaties. that intrigued me and found some even crazier ones along the way. So let's get this pack of derm stopping in true Marcus Parks fashion with a little context. Yeah! Elephant context! Elephant context! That's right, man. It's big.

Yeah, slide right in. Very similar to a human vagina. You can put your whole head in there. If you've got... Elephants can be found naturally in Asia and Africa. Africa has two types of elephants, Bush and Fort. elephants, which can get as large as 13,000 pounds. In Africa, elephants are the third most deadly mammal after humans and hippos.

In Africa, elephants kill about 500 people annually. Cool. But today, we're going to focus on Asian elephants. At about 8,000 pounds, Asian elephants are smaller than their African counterparts, but they are the elephants we're more familiar with as far as circus performers go. Yeah. Even though they could be 5,000 pounds smaller than African bush elephants, they are still extremely deadly. To help put their sheer size in perspective, a Honda CRV weighs roughly 3,500 pounds.

But to the CRV's credit, it has great trunk space. Absolutely. And it doesn't have spongy reactions. This guy doesn't have horrible breaks like maybe a formation Toyota Ravrefour. and I feel that it would Toyota RAV-4 and an elephant were to go against each other, the elephant would win. The elephant would fucking destroy the RAV-4 and the CRC.

And hopefully, and kill the driver and the passengers. Happens often. Awesome. Eddie, could you give me a little bit more of a lean forward when you say trunk space? Trunk space.

Thank you. CRV also has great trunk space. Thank you. More dumb jokes to come. See, I was just more just thinking about a Toyota Rav fours and a field of them on fire and all of the people inside of them never being able to vote again. Amen, that's what we need to do. And actually, should be starting about 35 minutes.

And, you know, the thing is about a smaller elephant is going to be, a smaller elephant's, I think, going to be more dangerous than a larger elephant. maneuverable, you know, they still got tusks and they're a little more angry. Yeah. I get it. Asian elephants are mostly found in India, Thailand, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The smaller Asian elephant is responsible for as many as 750 deaths annually, 50% more than their African cousins. There are several subspecies of Asian elephants, and without getting too much into the genealogy weeds, we're going to be talking about Asian elephants as a whole.

Now, that's not racist. Do not accuse me of being an elephant race. racist. There's nothing racist about this. I'm not a scientist. I'm just obsessed with huge living creatures killing humans. Yeah. And that makes you woke, I think. Yeah. I think so. I think it does. Disgusting. I at least told you there's a difference between the Asian and the African ones. Oh, we know. Yep. Obviously, we know that humans have been killing, kidnapping, and torturing all animals and especially elephants ever since we figured out how to do so. When it comes to killing elephants for their ivory, that is much more popular in Africa

than it is in Asia. And in a positive spin, those numbers are going way down. But they are extremely high still. How does it, like in the, like, let's say the cutting off gorilla paws for, you know, to make medicine and such, where are elephant tusks on that scale? It's much worse. Much worse. It's much, much worse. It's a horrible thing. You know, the exact number seems to be impossible to find. Current estimates suggest that up to 15,000 elephants are killed for their tusks and skin in Africa every year or 41 a day.

In peak poaching years, that number was expected to be around 40,000. And that's when we were making like every piano was made with, you know, with elephant tusks. Honestly, back then it was probably worse. than that. You know, 40,000, I'm talking like, that's like the 70s. Gotcha. You think this is the speech that the 22-year-olds have to hear from Leo before they're allowed to see the apartment?

Do they have to click? I'm pretty sure that's about global warming. Yeah, I guess. In Asia, those numbers are actually much lower at around 500 poached elephants a year. Why are the numbers of human deaths in Asia larger than Africa? Well, I think you could chalk a lot of that up to population density, especially when it comes to India. Also, Asian elephants are captured and trained more than they are hunted for their tusks. And so at a smaller size, they're also domesticated at higher rates, thus raising their numbers of interactions with humans.

I find it interesting that in Asia, they poach so many elephants because I really prefer them sunny side up. It's better that way. God fucking damn it. It's a big pan. It's a big pan. Asian elephants mostly attack in two ways. Female elephants attack whenever they feel their young could be in danger. And male elephants are no one to attack when they're going through what is called must.

Must be said with a lisp. And it must be said. It must be said. And in its simplest definition is when male elephants are. are in heat. Muths can lie. I hate that word, but, you know, it is what it is. You must say it again and again.

Muth can last up to 16 weeks, and it is best to be nowhere near bull elephants during this time. Muth have been known in Asian elephants for over 3,000 years, but only recently in African elephants for some reason that I don't understand. Catching a fever. That catch in the fever is like the spread of HIV. You can tell an elephant is in muff when they are irritable with horniness and leaking a skunky smelling thick tar-like substance called temporin from their four-foot penises. So they get really irritable and angry and their dick starts dripping? That's a dupeer. Yeah.

That's a due period, y'all. And that shit ain't fair. And it smells like skunk and it's thick and it's tar. It's kind of like going to dinner with Ron Jeremy when the waitress isn't being attentive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to. I want to have more napkins for my friend Ron. During buff, male elephants testosterone can be up to a hundred times greater than usual.

They randomly attack other animals, humans, other elephants, cars, or anything else that might piss off these Randy Bohemots. You know, that's pretty fucking amazing. You know, just the idea of just how horny these men are. They go out there, you got to really do it. Do we got to jerk these things off? In zoos, yeah. Yeah, in zoos, they absolutely have to do it. Another cause of human deaths by elephants are by what are called rogue elephants.

Yeah, I bet sugar. Rogue elephants are indeed rare, but real, nevertheless. Rogue from the X-Men. Oh, I understand. Yeah, you bet, sugar. Don't touch them. I don't know where all these edephone come from. I got to get my rogue costume.

So one of my favorite rogue elephants was one that killed 27 people in the state of Assam in India from 2004 to 2006 until it was eventually tracked down, shot, and killed. Feared by locals, this rogue elephant was given the name. Osama bin Laden. That's incredible. That it was named that in India. Yeah, he's notorious. Yeah. During Pakistan, you know, right there.

Neighbors. During the final six months of his life, Osama bin Laden, the elephant, killed 14 people. Rogue elephants are not scared of much and can attack indiscriminately. Usually, an elephant will be scared off by firecrackers, but bin Laden could give a fuck. Wonder why. Yeah, he seemed to really like them.

Eventually, a hunting party was sent out to kill Osama bin Laden, and he was shot down by a team of men. But many believe that they killed the wrong elephant, and bin Laden is still at large. Where's the fucking body? Yeah. Where's the fucking body? Probably in the Indian Ocean. Yeah. Did they dump this elephant in the ocean, too, without letting anyone look at it?

I think they just left it in the field, probably. I imagine. Rodden. It's interesting. A lot of these elephant news stories, not much detail. Yeah, I just kind of let it go. I think a couple things that lost in translation over multiple oceans. I get it, yeah.

It's not like there's like a New York Times elephant reporter who's like really on the elephant beat. That's my fucking job. Yeah, it's true. Now, Osama bin Laden or just Laden is often a name given to murderous rogue elephants. The most recent rogue bin Laden is still on the loose as of January 18th, 2026. This rogue elephant killed 22 people in 10 days. He is believed to be currently in must. He must be.

As well as being rogue and only has one tusk. Whoa, like Hitler. He has been killing people by trampling indiscriminately. Apparently, he killed four members of the same family. So if you happen to be in Chakon to India and see him, run and report him to India's SEAL Team 6. Maybe after he's caught, Henry will be able to read his mammoth festo. funny funny stuff my only thing is is that I don't know what those seals are going to do against a giant horny raging elephant that's a good point it's a good point takes a man to shoot an elephant in the head yeah we'll never catch him though he's still on the loose he's a regular zudiac killer There's also

That's stupid Stupid Yeah There's also the incredible Of the elephant From the Odisha state of India Which is what I'm guessing A rogue elephant

Or was another elephant Fueled with Muths And Temperin randomly killed An elderly woman named Maya Murmu Ms. Murmoo Who was collecting water from a well

minding her own business and then out of nowhere this pack of Durham escaped from a local sanctuary. I'm sorry. Something about Ms. Murmoo pissed him off and he indiscriminately beat and stomped her to death. She was taken to a local hospital but then succumbed to her wounds there. Pretty straightforward elephant murder story, but here comes the fun twist. Then during a public funeral, that very same elephant came back and rampage the funeral. picking up her dead body from the funeral pyre

and slammed and trampled her body again for good measure it simply then left and was never saw again he must have hated her I honestly want to know what she did well I mean I was gonna ask you because I've recently learned I watched a video on why raccoons can never be domesticated and they say one of the reasons why it's because raccoons

are one of the few animals that have a concept of revenge They don't forget. So if you fuck up with a dog, like the dog's not going to... They're going to forget. Well, that's just not going to care. But a raccoon will take revenge on you every time.

Do elephants have a concept of revenge? You know, elephants never forget or forgive. And obviously, you have a big burden on an elephant. It's a big burden on the soul of an elephant. You should let go. She'd learn to forgive, move on. I thought that she had wrong, because I knew this story before. We'd covered it

in Roundtable forever ago. And I was just like, I was like, she must have done something wrong, but it just seems like the elephant wanted the water she had. It seems she was wrong place, wrong time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was the elephant's water? Yeah, was she hoarding resources from the elephant? It was a well.

So, I don't know how long this elephant's trunk was, but maybe he could have used her help. Maybe he saw her delicately balanced on the edge of the well. Maybe he saw a breeze and sort of blown through the village and had grown up on her, her, I guess you'd say her ritual garb. You could see actually as a pair of brand new shiny pantyhoes. Maybe he thought, oh, well, I should go and

enter that woman. You never know. You never know. You never know. Sometimes you do. They cure. We can say that there was no sexual attraction between the elephant and Miss Murmoo. There's something sexual about being fascinated at the sheen of pantyhoes. You love pantyhoes.

No, I just love its containing. Apparently, in history, every time an Asian elephant killed someone, it was not the elephant's own lust for murder. But until the early 20th century, some South Asian cultures used elephants as a form of execution. I didn't know about any of this shit. I actually didn't know about this either. And I'm a bit of a student of execution. This was not really seen often in Africa. except around 240 BC in Carthage,

but that's the story for another trunk. Execution by elephant seemed to be a tactic primarily seen in Burma, India, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. Each were similar in the basic fact that elephant big, human small, elephant crush human. It does! But let's not discredit all of them. Each had their own methods of torture and execution by way of elephant. Cool.

Do you want to hear him? Yay! What we're here for it. Stomp for their balls! Stomp of their head! They're fucking eat their balls. It ate their head. Close.

Wow. You know, I feel like it's also the same as how many executions were applied by horse. Oh, yes. Very much so. So I imagine that that... To be honest, I bet you that's a little bit even more humane by elephant than by horse.

Yeah, than being ripped apart by four wild horses. We're running in separate directions. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to tell you why it's not. Oh. Well... fly from Northland

Well, a lot of what we know about elephant executions comes from the captain's log of Alexander Hamilton. Not Alexander Hamilton, the rapper. Oh, my favorite rapper. Yeah, no, no. This Alexander Hamilton was captain for the wonderful East India Trading Company. Remember those sweethearts? Yeah, yeah.

Nutmeg. He wrote a book. The book was called A New Account of the East Indies, which now is very old. He had a couple entries where Hamilton talked about witnessing execution by elephant. Here is a quote from his book

about the elephant execution he witnessed in Siam, currently referred to as Thailand. For treason and murder, the elephant is the executioner. The condemned person is made fast to a stake driven into the ground for the purpose and the elephant is brought to view him

and goes twice or thrice around him. And when the Elephant's keeper speaks to the monstrous executioner. He twines his trunk round the person in stake, and pulling the steak from the ground with great violence, tosses the man and the steak

into the air, and in coming down, receives him on his teeth, and making him off again, puts one of his four feet on the carcass, and squeezes it flat. You know, it's funny what if he doesn't catch him?

Like, if you're going to throw him up, It doesn't catch him on the teeth, and he can bounce off. I guess they just throw him up again? Yeah, it just lands on the ground and they does whatever it wants with him. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, I mean, he's still going to get hurt real bad before he dies. I was like this idea, too, that the sounds all organized and stuff, but it's really just like, this elephant just kills the fuck out of this guy.

Yeah, yeah. It does boil down to elephant, fuck up that guy. Yeah, yeah, it just throws him over the air and stomps on his hat. All right, check out of this guy. In the early 1600s, getting thrown to the. Elephant Garden was a popular execution doled out by the very ruthless yet intriguing

Emperor Zhangir. Ooh. Jahangir. Jahangir. Who many said would kill criminals by elephant for his own amusement. That's awesome. Elephant Garden fucking execution dome on the face of the fucking planet. That's what I want to do to the government.

I mean, at the end of the day, much execution is entertainment. At least it was for thousands upon thousands of years in humanity. So whether it's for the education of one man or the education of the masses, it must be remembered that execution was entertainment. Absolutely. It was for teaching lessons.

Then why did people have picnics? Because they had a lot. Because it does you absorb while you're eating sandwiches. A little more ketchup, please. Well, Emperor John Aguirre loved El-Jahongue. Jahangir, he ain't alive. He don't know. He's a fucking know.

And if you're a fucking bootlicker for Empire, fucking Jahangir, you can suck my fucking ball. So Emperor Jahangir loved elephants and had over 113,000 in captivity. 12,000 he used as battle elephants. 1,000 he kept just to fuck his battle elephants. And then 100,000 he used to like carry shit. Then, of course, he had a couple more that were highly trained for his public executions. That's killing elephants.

Absolutely. His favorite, I'm sure. Yeah. So since the emperor was such a connoisseur of elephants when it came to execution, he wasn't just to crush him and forget him type of dude. He got creative with it, attaching blades to the elephant's tusks and hooves. Elephants were then taught to rip people limb from limb with their sharpened armor. Like fucking Dino Wars. Dude, it's fucking crazy and terrifying, and I love it.

Yeah. It's awesome. I just wonder what it's like to try to. If they don't want to go no more. That's the problem. The thing is, the elephants, because they were like, get rewarded, they liked it. Of course. From all reports, it seemed like the elephants were having fun.

Oh, I bet. I bet. When someone was tossed to the elephant garden, there would be a trainer riding the elephant and command the elephant to kill the wretch. And the elephant would then pick the person up with their trunk, throw them in the air, and impale them on their tusks when they came down. The elephant would then cut the victim. in the pieces, throwing their limbs

into the crowd watching. There was a splash zone? Yes. It is legend that sometimes Emperor John Ganeer would... It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

It would order the elephant to skin people alive. His staff would then stuff them with hay and feed them to dogs. So that's nice. For everyone but the dog... Yeah, because he got all that hay in his mouth. Yeah, the dog thinks it's going to be eating a dude and he just gets hay.

We get some outside skin and then the hay's good for fiber. I didn't understand why it would stuff him with hay and then the dogs would eat them. Yeah. It didn't make much sense to me. I think again, we're just talking about fun. Yeah. We're just talking about why do people do anything? Yeah.

You know what I mean? Why did it's like Bob Dylan do the fun thing when he used to put a cigarette in the frets of his guitar? It's fun to do. It looks cool. It does look cool. Yeah. Well, I also don't know if the elephants knew how to skin a man alive. Well, apparently their hoobs had like sharpened points on it.

and they would, like, skin the people. I don't think it was done expertly. I don't think you could make them into, like, fine jackets. But they are surprisingly nimble with their trunks. And, like, if you remember, telecom, he was able to fucking pull out one testicle from that guy's balls. True. So, you know, these big animals, you never know what they're able to do. You really never know.

If you remember in our Saints episode, we talked about torture on the wheel. Oh, yeah. You know, that's where they would strap you to a wheel, break your bones, be big. bad. Well, in the 1810s India, there was a report of something similar to the wheel, but with an elephant. You see, in this instance, the elephant wasn't just the executioner, but the torturer as well. The elephant was trained to inflict the most pain possible, all whilst not killing the victim. Elephants were so smart they could comprehend where and when to step on a person while inflicting the most pain, and then when told to finish the person off, it would then step on their organs or the person.

Their head was placed on a stump and the elephant would crush it with glee until there was nothing left. I mean, again, if anybody could love their job as much as an elephant loved being an executioner, the whole world would be better. I mean, at this point, like, is there, I can't think of any other animal that is trained in the ways of humanity this much. Like, that is trained to kill, not just kill, but to torture and enjoy it. That's incredible. I will say probably the closest you'd put to it is dogs. Like you'd probably dogs like police dogs, hunting dogs that are literally designed over time to bite the fuck out of you. And dogs also have such extreme fine control over their mouths, which is why it's such a significant question when you get bit by a dog is if they broke the skin or not.

Because that really shows the very distinct difference between an unhinged dog and a not hind hind. Because they actually can control whether or not they're going to break your skin. Yeah, but is the dog trained for torture? Oh, I'll train a dog for torture. Usually dogs are just trained to eat and attack. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never heard of a dog being trained for torture. I mean, I could carb and goes, wha, wha, wha, if there's a sound, if there's a booke, you know, that's torture.

Yeah, I suppose so. But, I mean, this is something incredible because you can't train, you can't train like a chimp to do this. If you give me 10 chihuahuas, I'll break a man's mind. I bet you could train a chimp to do this. A young chimp. A young chimp. A young chimp. Because, you know, at one point, chimp, stop listening to you.

Yeah, don't mind your fucking tits off. Stop the triple ripper eyeballs out. A lot of elephants are stolen from the wild at like an adult age and are trained at an adult age. They're easily, not easily, but they can be manipulated. They are very smart, though. One of the smartest mammals in the world. And they have 11-pound brains, which is one of the biggest. Yeah.

Which is fucking pretty cool stuff. That's a lot of jelly. Yeah. There is the story of a slave that killed his master and was sent and said. death by elephant. They laid him on the ground and tied three ropes to his legs and arm, and then those ropes were tied to a ring on the elephant's hind leg. He then walked across a 500-yard field over the course of an hour. Every couple of steps the elephant took, it would dislocate his limbs from hip or shoulder. His elbows and his knees came out of socket, while he was

very much awake for the entire process. By the end of the march, the man was covered head to toe and mud, and was screaming in unspeakable pain. Well, that's that unspeakable pain. I'm the true mind of a sultan. Yes, he was screaming in pain. Because he was saying the word, Ow, hey, ow, very loudly. Let's think about this for a second.

Ow. But he was then put out of his misery when the elephant was instructed to step on his head until it was soup. Eventually in the late 19th century This form of execution Ended in India and Sri Lanka Only when the British

Found it to be too cruel Yeah when the British you're telling you to calm down In this time period In the late 19th century Yeah you're going pretty far You're going very very far Well I don't I believe perhaps

Elephants are a bit far My question also aren't elephants cute no one of those things wonderful cool animals and also you can just shoot him shoot him and fine it's actually quite fun I do like how you make them slaves

that's quite enjoyable for me and how wonderful it would be to outfit some human slaves with giant mandibles in order to enact my revenge upon others oh now I'm saying in tart thought. Well, elephants, they weren't

just executioners. They were also famously used in war, almost as like giant living tanks. Yeah. This is something that had been done as early as 6th century BC. Elephants have been used in war by many countries, basically until cannons were invented.

Famously, Alexander the Great had to fight an army of elephants in India during the Battle of Hydespice against King Porus of India. King Porus He had an army of about a hundred elephants, which scared the shit out of Alexander's men because most of them had not seen or even heard of the concept of elephants.

Yeah. And then they're just on a battlefield and they're coming at you. Then you can kind of see, like, when you look at like any depictions of this, you can kind of see what Peter Jackson and all those guys did. They're like, to... Oh, yeah. Like you start to look and imagine that. You've never seen an elephant, although you've had his horses.

They've seen these giant horses with blades in their mouth. gigantic dick at the front of their face it's a dinosaur yeah it's like having a dinosaur army yeah but incredibly intelligent yeah somehow

Alexander the Great still won the battle but love the elephants dude was like yo I will fucking kill people with elephants too that shit yo that shit stop

you're biting my dick little boy that shit was the coolest thing I've ever seen in my god forsaken life well regardless of his I think Alexander the Great is fine. I could call him a pet file. You can say whatever you want to him.

I think so. You can. Edgar Gears. Great. Let me put it. Did Alexander the Great ask for sex? Let me ask. Let me ask Alexander the Great.

What does Google A.I say? Let me see what it says here. Oh, so it's not interested. Well, he started using the elephants himself and eventually they became sort of like a mascot of his. Yeah. You can watch that shitty Oliver Stone movie. They're in there. I'm pretty sure they were the producers.

The war elephant concepts started evolving especially after the invention of gunpowder. Eventually, they started covering them in armor and placed archers and musketeers on top of them. But once muskets evolved into cannons, bombs, and machine guns, elephants weren't great use in battle, big targets and such. Yeah. But they never stopped being used in an auxiliary role. pulling heavy equipment, building bridges, launching ships, and even in World War II were used to perform tasks in regions that were problematic for motor vehicles.

They couldn't get in there, so they'd have an elephant get in there and pull something out. God, and they had no, those elephants had no idea they were working for the goddamn Nazis, man. I think they're on our side. Are they both? I'm pretty sure the elephants were ours. Did you know Rommel didn't do anything with elephants? I don't think the Germans ever did anything with elephants. Could they be scared of them, I imagine.

I would imagine if there was something like the elephants, I would imagine that would probably been an Indian thing from India, which of course the India at the time was a British colony and the British were allies so I would imagine

anything in the elephant of wise was us actually the allies were pretty good about you like we had Vodjik the bear Yeah I remember the Polish had the bear Like yeah we used a lot of animals

That's fucking awesome The Italians used fish useless I can't believe this We never use those fish on a fly If you want to spend on the official use of a job. If you want to stop at the advance of the American, what you need is a good branzino.

Eventually elephants were ultimately taken out of an auxiliary role because their ivory was worth more money to the armies than they were worth the trouble. So eventually war elephants are officially phased out. And apparently also that's what the one of the major things that we didn't cover this in our Himmler series was that the Polish had diamonds in their bellies. Which was a, no one of the worst things. He's the newsing it out. Now, honestly, to sit here and tell you every insane story involving an elephant could take years. But one story that always fascinated me was the story of Topsy, the elephant. Now, Topsy, in short, was a show elephant that died in a public execution in Coney Island.

But when you dig a little deeper, her story is utterly fascinating. But also remember, she was a legendary elephant that was killed in 1903. So in my research, I did find some inconsistencies. Thus, I'm going to tell you her story as accurately as possible. I mean, I know, like, true crime journalism is hard to find really accurate shit. I can't even imagine how hard it is to find accurate shit with animal true crime journalism. Oh, yeah, elephant tragic history. 1903, we know the journalism was right on point.

It was good at yellow. I'm so happy we're finally telling this story. I've also found the story of Tops of the Elephant, just fascinating for years and years. So Topsie was stolen as a calf in 1875 from the wild and Southeast Asia. She was smuggled by boat and land over the course of months. to Hamburg, Germany. In Germany, she was acquired by Carl Hagenbeck, who was

the Jeffrey Epstein of exotic animals in the late 19th century. Yeah, using this as a series of compramat in order to like, you know, you'd set up a circus tent, you'd have a guy fuck a bunch of rabbits or whatever, and then we'd film it. You know, honestly, without the film part of it? I think so.

I wouldn't put it past him. Hagenbeck started trading wild animals at the age of 14 when his father gifted him some seals and a polar bear. Gifted him. Yes. He was different that, man.

Take some seals at a polar bear. Make something of yourself. All right. Well, first takes first. I try to put him together on a boat. Was his father a mental patient? He was a little bit of a cat. Now that I'm thinking about it,

maybe the seals were food for the polar bear. Yeah, that makes sense. He captured animals from every corner of the world, but ended up under controversy when he built his human zoos. Yes. Yes. Which were very popular across the Western world for a very long time. I think there were only two countries in Europe that did not have human zoos.

They were everywhere, apparently. In the 1870s, Hagenbeck's human zoos could be found in Hamburg, Paris, London, Milan, New York City, Chicago, and more. Hagenbeck wasn't the only person who owned a human zoo, but his were, for lack of, a better description, the best ones? Let's say the most popular ones. The nicest ones. I would say the ones that had the best set design.

Oh, wow. It's like if you went to Buchenwald, then you're like, you know what I love about here? The palette. It's the color palette. I love it. Buchenwald, I can see the fall colors. I haven't gone to both Auschwitz and Berkenau. Oshvitz

is much nicer. It's far, far nicer. Oh, that's good to hear. they were worked really hard on that. We'll see how the new ones are going to be. Yeah. Anyway. Hey, as long as they have buck hunter, I'm fine. The United States government is purchasing dozens upon dozens of warehouses,

far more they can fit the supposed immigrant population. What are they doing with it? Look into it, please. At least we know they're super bad at constructing things. So at least we know that, you know. Yeah. Well, Hagenbeck's human zoos, the reason I called them the best ones or the best art direction, is he would try to recreate the natural habitat along with the housing and the animals accurate to their part of the world.

Yeah, I put a cup of ice in there. That Eskimo's loving it. He's loving it. I always play it with that ice cube. Like it's a child of toy. Again, unfortunately, not far off. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I'll make it all. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm making seal noises. It's like he's home. I mean, this really wasn't all that far off from, you know, guys here in America. P.T. Barnum was a slave owner. Yes, they had these in Coney Island as well. Yeah.

For sure. But P.T. Barnum did actually, he owned a woman that claimed to be George Washington's nanny. Wow. And, yeah, he actually purchased her and then put her at the Dime Museum in New York City. So he was a full-on slave owner. So he used to just sit there and wave at people, essentially. The little I learned about P.T. Barnum. would be a great episode.

Yeah. No, it's on the docket, my friend. Trust me. He's quite the entertainer. Well, Hagenbeck's Nubian and Inuit exhibits were by far his most popular. Hagenbeck sold people and animals worldwide to everyone who would possibly

need them. Need. Yeah, want to do you? Oh, hey, hey, DeBentzo. Look at your hierarchy of me. For me, it's Jack Daniels, human zoos. I love to hear the cries of the innocent Number one strangely eggnog

At the top It's just a way to get nutmeg in me To bring it all back around Well Hagenback just so you know In 1913 was bit by one of his boomslang snakes And died When a boom slang snake poisons you It's said that it has to chew its venom into you

Instead of just a quick bite The venom then creates small clots in the bloodstream And makes your brain bleed So fuck that dead motherfucker. Yeah. A horrible death for a horrible man. Yeah, I think it's nice. It's nice when it happens like that.

Yeah. I always looked up every person to see how they died. And he was the only one that really had a good hook out of death. Yeah, really good that one. Hagenbeth, you know, Topsie, of course. Hagenbeck sold Topsie to Adam Forepaw of the Fourpaw circus who falsely billed her as the first elephant born in America. This was a brilliant idea as it was to take away from Barnum and Bailey's impressive.

of roster of huge elephants, which included both African and Asian elephants. So Mr. Forpaugh named her topsy after the slave girl from Uncle Tom's cabin and tried to make her a star. Wow. Yes. I actually didn't know that.

That's her word named. Good old horrible facts. Just a cute name with no kind of nefarious background at all. I can tell you something nice about an elephant name. Sure. Yeah. Is it P.T. Barnum's elephant, um, jumbo. is where we get the word jumbo.

Is that jumbo was not named because jumbo was a word for huge. Jumbo became a word for huge after Barnum's elephant. Yeah, Jumbo also horrible death. Not going to get into it, but we will talk about Jumbo too. Very good. The first elephant, born in America, seemed to be a hit at first. But when Hagenbeck saw this, he told P.T. Bartum that forepaw was full as shit. And Barnum exposed him for being a liar.

and then he changed her title to Topsy, the first elephant to be born outside of a tropical zone. Doesn't really have the same ring. Yeah, it doesn't mean anything. It's just an elephant. Hell's a top topical zone.

I know it's not that it was born outside of it because of that alfobicin. I'm a little mosquito. Still alive. Yeah, still. I want to see an American elephant. It ain't good unless

is American. Well, the old American elephant we're going to guess you access to is I guess President Tav Well, Topsie started getting her reputation as a bad elephant Down, down, down, down, down, down,

it is unclear whether she killed or badly injured two four-paw circus workers in Paris and Waco, Texas. Paris, Texas? Yes. Yeah, Paris. And, yeah, they're not taking her all the way the fuck across, back over the ocean.

I forget Paris, Texas. I figured people could get there. They understand. They understand. But she done fuck them up, by the way, that's for damn sure. Her most infamous story became May 27, 1902 in Brooklyn, New York. A drunken spectator named James Fielding Blount supposedly snuck under the canvas into the elephant tent and began taunting the elephants chained up in a line to their post.

Mr. Blount apparently tried to get the elephants to drink his whiskey. You too good for it? And then when they refused, he began swearing at them. Fucking you're too good for it? When he arrived at Topsy, he became more physically abusive, throwing sand in her eyes and then tricking her into taking his lit cigarette in her trunk and eating it. Topsy then picked up blunt with her trunk, slammed it to the ground, and headbutted him to death. Others say that she killed him with her knees, but I like head butt to death. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I also like it of maybe shredding him. Yeah. Yeah, well, I don't know. If he gets killed with the knee, if a head butt, that's more of like an instant death, like getting kicked by a mule,

crushed to death by its knees, that's a slower death. It might be slower, but the image of just like, boom! It'd be funny. Well, now, if possible, I have written a dramatic monologue from the perspective of James Fielding Blount,

which will be performed by Wolf of Wall Street's own Henry Zabrowski. please. Fuck ye, you, Klein. Fuck your old fucking clown family. I hope they'll die in a tiny car fire, die all it wants to be a little fucking die together. Oh, motherfucker die together.

Ah, you got to know, you fucking clown. Betty hates his stupid fucking life. No, you never worked in trapeze, you clown. You fat, dumb-ass clown can't bounce. Seekin of trapeze artists, I've got to take a trapeas. God damn it, Blount. funniest goddamn fucker you should be a shit-ass ringmaster oh here we go

pissing on the tent my name is jimmy i'm pissing on the tent smells like sheep's head brothel ended down there there yeah well maybe it's me maybe i do that oh no a second i stay in my head in my paper yes some of my peeve my pee my pee my pee my pee we don't smell like that Oh, ho ho. That's a stink like me. Hey, my, pipi. Oh, ho. Oh, whoa.

There's a lot of key to the big doggies. Oh, I want to drink with a big doggy. Where's the freaking door to this tennis west, soft-ass fucking, soft-ass fucking building? Knocked out, Kimby's home. Come on out, where you are, you fucking, your big old dog, you're a big dog. You're a big fucking dog. Let me just slip under a slip. Looking up a nunsterk.

Look like a licking up a nudge. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa, wow, wow, whoa. Ho! Whir! How? I was drinking with the big dog.

Why don't drink with a big dog? Where's the frickin' dog? Whoa. You drink your drink and let all Jimmy Blount give you a whistle. Take it. Take it. Take it. Take it.

Your stupid dog. Big ears. The shitty nose. Why you remember. Oh, look at that one. It's a lady. I can tell cuz the penis goes in. Hey there, sweet how are you on drinking me?

No lady ever says no. Big girl never stop old. Oh, fucking bitch is all shooting old Jimmy Dad. You fucking bitch. But Jim, don't like being shot down. You can take over that. Or how you want something to Jimmy? Jimmy, I'm sorry, babe.

Jimmy, Dave. Jimmy, man, Jimmy, lie. How about you make up over a little smoking cigarette? It's a light. It's a light. I don't know you're trying to quit. Oh shit. Bitch, I ate it.

Bitch, I didn't tell you ate it. A little gurgling. Dean, okay, yeah. It's crazy no one hires you anymore. Wow. It's a great character. Yeah, right. Maybe you can get someone to work on the movie.

It's the story of this man. This horrible sheep's head-bathed man. Stupid, ass dog. You know, about his cat. So after this incident, the New York press had a field day. Murderous elephant slays local drunk and, you know, and such. So Forpaugh got all scrooged with it and screamed, You can't buy this type of publicity.

And the Brooklyn crowds came out in force to see Topsy, the murdering elephant. Through the end of their Brooklyn run, the whole place was sold out. The news and crowds followed them all the way. up to Kingston, New York. So, let me get, so nobody cared? When the elephant killed, like, his family didn't

like sue or anything like that, it was everyone, I don't think he had a family. But you think anybody gave a fucking shit about the guy that went in a meeting? I'd really surprised he had a name. He harassed an elephant until it crushed his face. Okay, local tramp

yes, okay. Yeah, yeah. And in this point in New York City, like, people were beyond disposable. Everybody was giant. Especially at Coney. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, man.

It's like fucking one less shithead. Great. They were just happy to hear a new way for a shithead to die. They were like, oh my God,

we didn't know that was another tragic way that you could die in Brooklyn. Let's go. So back in the day from what I'm learning with these circus elephants, whenever they killed somebody,

they would use that as an advertisement to get people to come. Oh, dude, I'm right there. Yeah. Man, killing elephant.

elephant. I'm right there. Live from York Lane. So when they went up to Kingston, New York, it was sold out all the way through there, too. And then when they were boarding the train to leave Kingston, a crowd came to say goodbye to Topsy. And one spectator named Louis Dondero used a stick to try and tickle Topsie behind her ear. Topsy was not so ticklish this day. She picked up Dondero with her trunk, and right before she was about the pile drive him into pudding, her handler, Whitey Alt, stopped her from ending his existence.

This is the deadly elephant. What is it with people? There we get. Dicklish, you, Dicklish, a big bitch. What could this 3,500 pound animal with swords on its face possibly do? That's fine. So, Fourpaw said, enough with this fucking elephant. It's trail of death and destruction.

It's too much. She's becoming a liability. So he sold Topsy and her handler Whitey to the fearless frogman who swam the English channel, Paul Boyton. Paul Boyton at the time was the owner of the Coenai Island Sea Lion Park. I just want to say, thank you so much

for also purchasing me. It's one of the hardest things and I live inside of it. It was a basket on top of his back there. And that's one of the nicest things. One of the nicest things ever happened to me. Somebody sold me. I thought you didn't even know where I was bought.

God damn, I love that Whitey. I love Whitey. Well, Paul Boyton was a much better frogman than he was a businessman, and he sold the Sea Lion Park that same year to Frederick Thompson and Elmer Dundee, who built the still famous Luna Park. Yeah. Oh, Luna Park in Brooklyn. I love Luna Park, man.

Topsy helped build Luna Park. Topsy became a working elephant. And would mostly just like pull the heavy equipment and supplies. You know, her labor was photographed and portrayed in the media as pedants for her violent past. That's an amazing storyline. Topps the elephant, once a murderer and attempted murderer, now is in Brooklyn. It's like, I tried. Well, Whitey Alt, who was as drunk as he was an elephant handler, was in charge of getting

Topsy to work and one day when she refused to drag an amusement ride from one into Luna Park to the other, Whitey stabbed her with a pitchfork. There were many witnesses that solved the abuse and reported Mr. Alt to the cops. This really pissed Alta off. So he decided to say, fuck it and just let Topsy run free and cause chaos in the streets. Yeah, dude, don't fuck with me, man. Don't fuck with me. Never trust a Whitey with anything. Someone named Whitey, don't trust them with a 3,000-pound killing machine. 8,000. 8,000.

Jeez, God, I love it. You're thinking of the CRV. That is true. I am thinking of the honor. No one's ever tore apart a bunch of people using CRVs or a Toyota Rav Ford. Well, Alt was arrested, and then two months later, when he got out in an act of revenge, Whitey Alt, got on top of Topsy and rode her into the police station, where Topsy barreled through the station doors,

trumpeting her trunk, sending the officers to lock themselves in the cells out of fear. This is what, when we say make America great again, this is what I'm fucking talking about. Okay, Whitey Alt, somehow still a slave. He is past slavery. He is somehow still a slave to an elephant,

and he went and told the cops what was going on, dude. I think maybe they was just mad about their stomping frisk program. It was unfair because they were in New York City. It was very unfair practice. It really was because they could pull over any witty they wanted. It was averse racism. Well, Alt was fired and arrested, not sure in which order. And Topsie's new owners, Thompson and Dundee, thought, man, this elephant really isn't worth all this trouble.

Not to mention with Alt, the only elephant handler in town now gone, they had to get rid of this elephant somehow. Topsy has such a bad reputation at this point. They couldn't even give her away, so they settled on the next best thing. Public execution. December 13th, 1902, it was announced in the local papers that for the 25 cents, you could come and see the execution of Topsy on January 4, 1903. This event was billed as an advertisement for their brand new Luna Park opening up in May. Yeah, of course.

This is how Luna Park fucking the Wonder Wheel opened with this? Everybody got around and we're killing an elephant. And it's like, yeah. Absolutely, I'll bring a giraffe. Let's kill my mother-in-law. And don't forget to go to the spook house. Brand new. I was surprised.

I was honestly, I was extremely disappointed to go in the spook house and find only ghosts. hype was built in the papers every day and the whole city was preparing itself for the public death of topsy with all the press this event was getting the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty of Animals you know them better as the ASPCA stepped in and said this is insane you can't electrocute this elephant in front of a huge crowd

didn't you hear about what happened with Jumbo 2 in Buffalo last year Does it happen before? Yes. This was the second elephant execution? Well, yes, because this was... In America? This is not the one... What was the one with Alexander Grand...

With Thomas Edison? That's Topsy. Yes. That's Topsy. Now, we'll get into that in a little bit. There's a lot of rumors and weird shit in there. Jumbo 2, though, all right? It was hard to find information on Jumbo 2, but I was fascinated.

I'd never heard about this. The only place I could find it was, like, on a podcast from the Buffalo, the city of Buffalo's like local museum as a podcast. They did an episode on top, Jumbo 2. And so this is where I got that information. Jumbo 2 was sentenced to death after supposedly killing two

people and the city of Buffalo decided to do it at the Pan Am Stadium where President McKinley had been assassinated two months earlier. This is where things get killed. We can't get to the stadium. That's exactly where we go. You remember when President McKinley got

out and how great at the time we had, right? It was packed. Why don't we do it again? But this time with something that we know is going to get shot, because then we'll be there for it ahead of time. I also appreciate that you made sure that after allegedly killing two people, like we don't know that he killed two people. We don't know that he killed two people.

It's actually a very point of contention. I'm a pet, see you. A thousand people wanted to see this. They all bought 50-cent tickets. But at the last minute, the mayor was like, we can't let people come watch. this plus they just saw an elephant murdered here when President McKinley was shot because he's Republican but a thousand people were already there and wanted to see this fucking

elephant died now we're fucking here so they postponed the execution to later that evening when people would hopefully lose steam and go home that being said 500 people still snuck into the stadium to watch don't you fucking lie to me all right I am I'm here to see an elegant creature be murdered. Okay? I got to see it. I brought three geese with me as well. I'd like to slit their throats if we could.

My wife found a swan over in the park. And we were going to steer it on these javelins. And snuck in. Like, it's more like 500 people just sat in front of a fucking police. They're like, no. You're going to let you see. I want to see it. You're going to let a son.

I'm coming in. Well, Jumbo 2 was led out by three other elephants. He was then tied to a platform built that day, and electrodes were fastened to his thick skin. Then as the crowd watched 2,200 volts were sent, shooting it to Jumbo 2's body. Nothing happened. Jumbo 2 actually seemed to enjoy the electricity, wagging his tail, throwing dirt in the air, and playing with the platform. You're aware? Now back on to Plan B, everybody.

Jumbo 2 was then led back to his pen by his elephant co-worker friends and his life was spared. They took him on the road to Boston and Baltimore, where he was billed as an elephant that killed 50 men and which stood 3,000 volts of electricity. In July, that same summer, while on tour in Cleveland, Jumbo died in his sleep from unknown reasons like so many great rock stars we've lost. God damn, I can't imagine. Where was he at the Roxy? Yeah, I'm back. He's in a fucking pool of his own vomit. He's got a Capo wearer.

What's the little capabara there? And her panties, an underage capabara, and her little fucking panties. She's been trying to put on the traffic there from Germany. It really wasn't the days when entertainment had your imagination do half the work. Oh, sure. You know, you just say this elephant killed 50 people and it best stood three,

thousand volts of electricity. And what you're doing when you go to see the elephant, you're just looking at the elephant. You're not doing anything. You're just going, you're just imagining the elephant killing 50 people and getting hard. They would assign human characteristics to elephants a lot back then. And it almost seemed like they deserved

the prison sentence they were given. Well, because that was the idea that creates a full story arc. That's what they were looking for. Yeah. So back to Connie, where they didn't want another jumbo two incident on their hands. You mean they didn't want another dudge show? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they didn't want it to be boring.

So the ASPCA had now convinced Thompson and Dundee, hey, maybe we don't electrocute topsy. They suggested, what if we drug topsy with cyanide and then hangar? Wouldn't that be better? Oh, yeah, and you can't charge admission. So Thompson and Dundee were like, fine. It's going to have to be invite only. You're going to have to just We're going to have to cap it at 50, right?

You don't drug with cyanide. You poison with cyanide. You poison it with cyanide. My English isn't good, Marcus. I also like the idea of like, it's the scene from Bui Herman. And like, what if we shoot it in the head? I don't know. What if we shoot in the head and then we hang?

We do it. Why? We'd let him go. Well, they agreed. and kept the date for January 4th, 1903. The press was notified, but when the day came, even though they said, no spectators, a thousand people still showed up to watch Topsy hang. In New York, you're going to hang an elephant fucking people going to show up.

Yeah, yeah, let's go. To this day, I think that's true. Yeah. Honestly, I'd go. If you were going to build, if you told me that in Burbank, I'm just saying right now, If you told me in Burbank, someone had built an impromptu gallows and they were going to hang an elephant, I'd at least go. Yeah. Yeah.

You're growing your day. Yeah. You know, I got 50 cents. Think about that at 1903 show in 2026. How easy would that be? Now that's your show. I mean, I do know. If that were to happen, I think I would probably be roped in by my wife to plot to rescue the elephant.

Sure. Because Caroline is a massive, massive elephant fan. Loves elephants so much. I love elephants too. Yeah. We could save it. We could have our own elephant. I mean, I will...

I don't want it to die, but I love the idea that it's happening. But then we could rescue the elephant. We could have our own elephant. I would take it absolutely. And I'd train it to go against the fucking police. Then you could see. Now you're turning into Walt Whitey. Yeah, yeah.

It's that easy. So a thousand people showed up, but only a hundred were allowed. and some press were allowed in to watch the spectacle. Many more jumped the fence and watched from rooftops nearby where they were charged admission. Now that's Brooklyn. The giant electrical tower was rigged with rope and expected by the ASPCA. And when they said, yeah, you can hang your elephant here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, nice, nice, nice.

The event commenced. So the official plan was to feed topsy carrots laced with 460 grams with cyanide, walk her over a bridge to the electrical tower, hang her from it, and then electrocuter for good measure. Oh, my God, and then we're going to have the Kaiser shooter with his first-over-Gatling gun. And then we, I, God, God, this is just a whole afternoon. Well, a man named Carl Goliath, who was a supposed elephant expert who formerly worked for Carl Human Zoo Hagenbeck was chosen to lead Topsy to her death, but Topsy knew that something wasn't right, and she refused to be led to her demise at the tower.

Even after being cattle prodded and given apples and treats, she wouldn't go. It was probably when he yelled, dead elephant walking over and over again that tipped her off. As soon as he saw that nun show up. They were in a loss at what to do. So Thompson and Dundee sent for our favorite drunken police station attacker, Whitey Alt, and offered him $25 to lead her to the tower. Yeah, well, I'll give you one better, $15. Whitey said he wouldn't do it even for $1,000. Ironically, $25 in 1903 is about $1,000 now.

Does that matter? No, but still slightly interesting. It could be. It really could be. Just Whitey Alt. I love the power now, Wadiall has. You know what I mean me a slave of an elephant?

Just hammered at rubies eating clams. Yeah, yeah. He's like, he's already even shucked. Chew it on the shelves. Oh,

Topsie, I wish you were here to open these clams for me. Just tell me when it's over. I don't tell me it's sober. Well, the decision was made that if Topsie refused

to march to her death, then would be brought to her. Cool. The team then rigged the noose with extra rope, gave her some more cyanide, and extended the electrical cables and got the show on the road.

It is unclear. Why does it have to be so elaborate? There is a gun named an elephant gun. There is a gun that is named specifically for the purpose of killing elephants. You could just shoot the elephant in the head and it's going to die.

You listen to here. skinny communist. We've got the crane over the ear. I've got so much noose, I don't know what to do with that. Okay? This news has got to go. Nuse has been sold and purchased. Where else are we going to bring this big giant

noose? Now we've got to use the noose. It is unclear on the ASPCA's role in the audible. All right. Yeah. So, with help from the Edison Illuminating Company of Brooklyn, they were able to have two power stations send

enough electricity to kill Topsy. One copper sandal was placed on her left forefoot and another was placed on her right hind foot so the electricity ran through her whole body. They had spotters on roofs signaling the Coney Island power

station nine blocks away when they were going to flip the switch in case of grid problems. The Luna Park chief electrician also closed off a Luna Park switch which would then redirect 6,600 volts to Topsy. three times as much that was used on Jumbos 2's execution attempt.

Electric tears use anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 volts. They're going to make Elephantstein. What I'd always heard on this with Edison, because I'd always heard Edison was the guy behind it all. And what he was trying to do was demonstrate that AC power was better than DC power, or maybe vice versa, that DC power was better than AC power. I'm going to get into all that in a little bit. Okay.

Yeah. So when the switch was flipped, the superintendent at the Koneiard. Island Station was almost killed when he got mixed up in the apparatus and was thrown across the room. Topsy's fate was not like Jumbos. She was dead within 10 seconds. One onlooker said that she

went out without a trumpet or a groan. Of course, people in an electric chairs don't go, ah! The whole time, it's silent. It's sad. I wish they would. After she was electrocuted to death, they decided to hang her anyway.

for good measure. The steam-powered wench strangled her lifeless body for 10 minutes. She was then pronounced dead officially at 247 p.m. An autopsy was then conducted in the very place she died. They removed her organs and sent them to Princeton and a taxidermist

skinned her and turned her into a chair for Thompson. Thompson also had her four legs fashioned into umbrella holders for the office. You guys should think about that. I don't really know what to do with all my ivory. Largely I've been using it to make

bullets to shoot the poor was one of my favorite things is to shoot a homeless man and a head with an ivory bullet. They cut off her head and buried it behind the horse tables. The execution was filmed and turned into a 74 second movie that could be viewed

with Edison kinescopes and toured around America for children to enjoy. The film was creatively called electrocuting an elephant and did not run long because it was not very popular. Sure.

This is back of the days when that movies just were what they were. They were named what they were. It's like, train. Train coming to station. Yeah. It was like the first movie.

Yeah. All right, well, unfortunately, here is Topsies electrocuting an elephant. I mean, honestly, we can just kind of flip through it because it's silent. It's only 74 seconds. It doesn't really, you know.

Dead elephant walking. You really see it coming now. Yeah. Yep, it's really, that is a dead-ass elephant about to be dead. Yeah. She doesn't seem mean. I can see the steam from the steam wench. Mm-hmm.

Imagine, like, you're at a fair and you're just watching, as a child, you're just... It's extremely sad. Watching this through a fucking little machine that you're cranking. I kind of take this back because this is not entertaining at all. No. Yeah. This entire execution of the elephant is, like, it needs an opener. No, that's the thing.

It would be much better. with Jared Logan. He saved the elephant. No, I'm saying with Jared Logan opening. He was doing crowd work, like a form of warm-up. That's really fucked up, Eddie. Yeah, that's really awful. It's really awful.

It is awful. It is awful. ... being electrocuted to death. Yes. And you're a bastard. I'm not a bastard. I wanted... It's powerful.

It is. It is. Yes. It's powerful. I want to know, like, what's its internal temperature? And then they hung it afterwards. Yes. After this.

Well, that's just to make sure it's dead. You don't want it to come back like Mike. Myers. Clearly dead here too, right? It's not dancing. Yeah. Its legs are stiff and suspended. Yeah, it's not good. Yeah, it's horrible. That's them hanging it. Yeah.

Well, that was a god fucking awful, Ed. Yeah. There's lots of movies like that. You're a bastard. So, Thomas Edison is often credited as the man who electrocuted Topsy. But the truth is, he wasn't there

and confusion comes because the electric company bore his name, and then even though he was ousted as controller of that electric company a decade earlier. He owned the film, so he had been falsely credited as the man who pulled the lever and orchestrated the entire event. Oh, okay, yeah. Not that he had some huge moral code or anything. No, he was a horrific. I bet he was pissed he missed.

He missed it. I would have been laughing his ass off if he was there. I wish we'd got to done with a line of dogs. I wish we'd get it done with people. Especially since he made sure the film was preserved by the. the Library of Congress. You know, technically it is history. When I electrocuted an elephant

in my backyard, nobody came. Nobody cared when my daughter was born without her face. Well, in 1916, there was another elephant lynching in Tennessee of an elephant called Murderous Mary, or just Mary to non-idates. It's just an elephant. Yeah. She got her nickname after she killed an unqualified handler

on his first day of the job. He was riding her into a crowded area, and she wasn't moving fast enough, so he prodded her behind her ear. Mary snatched him off of her back, with her trunk, slammed him through a drinkstand, and squashed his head in front of many onlookers. Cool. The newspapers created more sensationalism, saying that she gored him with her tusks, when we all know female elephants don't have tusks. So she was ordered to be executed regardless. September 13, 1916, murderous Mary was hung in front of a crowd of. of 2,500 people

chanting, kill the elephant over and over and over again. How did you chant killed the elephant? Kill the elephant. Kill the elephant. I'm sure they were offbeat for a little while. Honestly, I know that that's how they said it because I remember that. That was a chant

started when Ed and I walked into the Mariah Carey concert that we were at over Christmas break. And it was like, that's where I heard that? I was like, where do I recognize that? Yeah, you can also do it like, kill the elephant. Kill the elephant You're giving him too much credit Kill the elephant, kill the elephant, kill the elephant

Mary had a chain tied around her neck and was lifted by a crane While hanging to her death The chain snapped and she fell and broke her hip In front of the crowd She screamed in pain in front of everybody This was said to have scared the children Oh, the children who were brought to the elephant execution

Yes They were like, this wasn't as fun as we thought it was going to be So, they got us. It was fun at the time we went to go see those anarchists get shot, Daddy. You remember when we went to go see the anarchist skit shot? Oh yeah, it was all those Italians. I remember. That was so much fun.

We saw those Italians get shot. You just turned in the Gilbert. Well, they went and got a bigger chain and it worked the next time. She was buried right there beside the railroad. But before she was buried, a veterinarian performed an examination and determined that she had a rotted out tooth in the exact spot the novice handler had fraud at her. Yeah, obviously, it was bad. Yeah. I don't know why, but I imagine murderous Mary with a little bow.

Yeah. A little pink bow. Or she would have to be adorable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's very much a Sherry Moon zombie. Yeah. No, if she was an elephant. I wish that.

I'll make sure to tell her that. Yeah. Every time. I'm going to DM her. I'm sure she listens. I wish that Mary, Jumbo, 2, and Topsy were the only stories like this. But the truth is, there were 36 public elephant executions in America between the 1880s and the 1920s. Elephants were often looked at as good or bad.

And an elephant could be considered bad if it did not work when told. In the Carney's eyes, bull elephants were looked at as unruly brutes that required common. constant abuse to be kept in line, unless they could become unmanageable and possibly destroy the showman's business. They took the stance that if an elephant tried to avoid work, it was lazy and needed to be punished, and elephant execution was deemed appropriate retribution for criminal behavior. I really wonder if, because you say 1880, you know, that's around the time that we stopped doing, like, public hangings. I think it seems like maybe elephant executions were trying to like fill the hole in America.

The sequel. Yeah. We can't execute people in public anymore. So let's execute elephants. They started with dolphins, but they were too slippery. It was, yeah, so hard. And you really can't see them struggle because they're under the water. Yeah.

And they don't really have necks. I actually think that there's, that makes a lot of sense. And also the idea that we're throwing human like attributes on the elephant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it does sort of give the same kick, almost like it's like a methadone for human executions. Yeah.

Well, circus elephants never had it easy. An 8,000 pound animal constantly on the road and forced to perform for crowds of screaming people while cannons are shot off and clowns spray seltzer water and horses jump from towers into small pools. It's bad. We all know that having animals as attraction in circuses are inherently evil. We've all seen Dumbo. It came out in 1941. We've done known this shit is wrong. Also, say what you want about the crows.

They're the only characters that were nice to Dumbo. It is true. They are the only characters with a heart in the whole movie. The unfortunate thing is if Dumbo was murdered, those talking crows would have been the first ones to get arrested. Oh, man. And you imagine the really cute little pigs that would have played ice or then like all the horrible

Yeah, yeah. We know it's wrong. We knew it was wrong. Yeah. I remember being on top of an elephant as a child at Ringling Brother's Circus. The elephant didn't want to do what the trainer wanted, and he whipped the elephant profusely while I was on top.

How did he tell the difference? I remember my mom's screaming. And then finally, they got me down. Eventually, even at that young. age, I knew I never wanted to do no shit like that again. Yeah. As of May 2016, Ringling Brothers has retired their working elephants to a sanctuary in Polk County, Florida.

Could be worse. Could be worse. Ringling Brothers were paid $16 million by the Humane Society and other animals' rights groups as a settlement to retire the elephants. So don't think they're saints. No, no, no. They not only had to be forced, they had to be paid a lot of fucking money. Yes.

Currently, 10 states in America have banned elephants from performing in circuses. Hawaii being the most notable after the famous 1994 incident featuring an elephant named Tyke. Tyke killed her trainer and critically injured her groomer and then stormed out of the arena into the street where she injured another, trampled cars, and Ultimae was shot dead by police with 86 bullets. Truth, Tyke should have never been there. She had two incidents the previous year when she broke out in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and Minow, North Dakota. She was rampaging loose in both towns for over half an hour each. Who the fuck thought it was a

good idea to put the same 8,000 pound animal on a boat halfway across the Pacific Ocean and then force it to perform? It's like King Kong. Yeah, it's like King Kong on the barge. Yeah. So is there a moral to these stories? Sure. The obvious

is that using wild animals as entertainment is wrong, plain and simple. Yeah, they're bad. You know, it's bad. Yeah. AZA accredited zoos. I can still see the importance in teaching us about animals, making us fall in love with them, thus making us want to be a part of animal conservation. That makes

sense to me. There's a difference between an elf and walking out and he kind of scrubbing it and everyone going like, hi, instead of like and not putting it in a suit. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like on top of a little platform all of who would scream and throwing you in a difference. Yeah, yeah. There's a difference between like, you know, like a trained, like

veterinarian who went to like grad school, probably He has a master's degree and some dude named Whitey. And Whitey cared. Why he didn't care at all? Whitey, why he only cared about the elephant's power? Whitey had no one. And even though his demand for getting into going and leading the elephant to his doom,

even though it wasn't exorbitant some, he still had a price. Whitey had a go about making himself a slave after slavery. He wasn't a slave. He wasn't a slave. I think he was paid, you know, a small amount. Yes. Ed said something about the trainer also being bought and you ran with it. It's not true.

He's not a slave. I don't understand all right. His name was white. I've never been allowed to go anywhere. Whitey, you work for Dundee now and you got no choice about it. Yeah, honestly, thank you. I think the original take you out. I'm like, yeah, yeah.

That's more true than what Whitey was. Although a man one day Loses it takes it to a fucking police station So much fun What I'm saying is how many telecoms, Topsies, Tatiana's, and Harambees Have to die before we say enough of it all You know in the current state of affairs

The safety and care for animals Will probably be pushed aside for a while Yeah Not that anyone needs another reason to hate our president But in 2018 Trump lifted the ban on elephant tusks being brought into the United States from Zambia and Zimbabwe, specifically where his sons have been photographed next to their trophies.

Wow, what? What a coincidence? Wow. He changed an entire law just so his stupid fucking sons could have their stupid fucking elephant test trophies. Yeah, where they tie him next to a fucking pole and then they go and they shoot him in the back of the head execution style, like they're fucking in the Russian government. But surely this man is here for the common man. Don't worry, it's not just us.

Harry has gone trophy hunting while all of his family advocates to put an end to wildlife trade. Anybody with the prince in front of their name isn't a real fucking human being. No, you're not a hunter. No, you don't need to hunt. You're a prince. Go disappear. All of you princes,

just go fucking disappear somewhere. So Prince Harry, he did this thing, which I'm sure you've heard of before, where people try to tell you that this type of big trophy hunting is actually good for animal conservation. What some animal reserves have been said to have done is that they have really, really rich people from all around the world pay an exorbitant fee so they have the right to kill old or sick animals. The reserve then takes those large sums of money and uses it to keep the reserve afloat financially.

As someone who has been on safari in Africa, there wasn't one moment when I thought, man, it'd be pretty cool to shoot that elephant and its huge, beautiful brain. That's just because you're a pussy, my friend. You got to get over there. My favorite is I strap two indigenous birds to my feet. I got two squirrels in either hand. If you hunt to eat or hunting when it's necessary to control an out-control population or invasive species, that I understand. If you go on a plane to go hunt on another continent, you can suck my balls.

I couldn't agree more. Unfucking believable You're such a loser But with laws changing for the worst in many places For instance Florida's own swollen face High-heeled governor Ron DeSantis Decided that Florida needed

To reopen bear hunting season this past year For some fucking reason I mean there's been quite of influx of the bear community Because of the Republican influx Into floated Shubby be in a shabby bearded Closited men that really do need Quite a bit action

In Florida bears were hunted into almost hunted into extinction in the 1970s. When they were brought down to less than 500 in the wild. You should see the thrift stores, you can tell. Strangely, the otter populations through the roof.

Oh, wow, it just seems to be thriving. Well, now there's 4,000 bears in Florida and they're off the endangered species list. So let's start killing them again. Seems fun, right? I don't know what goes through the mind of someone who has a desire to hurt an animal. There may be reasons

to hurt some people, sure. But the animal kingdom deserves our respect. So maybe it's about time to find some of these sad, weak-ass poachers and politicians and throw them to the elephant garden. Fuck yeah. Yeah, yeah, throw them to the elephant garden.

Yes. Yeah, because, like, again, if you're just hunting deer or hiring, that's like the whole thing of it, right? If you're hunting for sustainability, if you're hunting to eat the food, it all makes fucking sense. Like, even the idea of some low-level prize hunting makes sense. And places where you're going after deer

and going after these things that are actually like actually if you're used in the animal. Yeah, like they're a part of the thing. It's just the idea of just going and shooting an exotic animal in the head. For no fucking reason other than... Yeah, to be able to kill it and stuff it and put it in your fucking library

with full of books you can't read. You don't even have a story. I mean, I could get it like if we're talking like, you know, 1910, Teddy Roosevelt like going out. Like I... I can understand like, you know, the That Michael Douglas movie. It can very much understand the idea of like I'm going to go out into the wild and I'm going to kill something that could kill me.

Of course. Like that, I understand. I can kind of get that. That's what these Patagonia vest bitches are doing? Yeah, you got like Prince Harry, there's no, he has no fucking risk of being killed by any of these animals. The fact that these people are paying to go shoot a sick animal is fucking garbage. It's absolutely. So it is gas.

Like it's one of those things where it should be like a trap. It should be like the moment you go out there and you have the animal in your sights and you pull that trigger and it goes click. That's when your gun should explode and you should die. Or you realize you have no bullets and now you're just out there. Yeah. You know, and now we'll see what happens. Or you get like a tiny six inch blade and it's a fair fight. Yeah, there you go.

That is kind of interesting. It became cool if you had one tatch to each finger. That would be fun. Well, any man, what a fucking fantastic job. This is so much fun. Yeah, a lot of death. Yeah. I mean, and now we have a new thing to say.

Throw them to the elephant garden. Yeah. I like that. I wish it was real. Go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left. Go visit her own personal elephant garden. We have incredible content. You can also go see.

You can get all of the podcasts ad free. You also can see last stream on the left live 6 p.m. PSD every Tuesday. We have this one coming up. It's going to be great. You know, a whole bunch of shit. Go check our Patreon. Yes. This weekend, we're going to be in Austin, Texas.

at the Paramount Theater. Come see us. It's going to be a fucking blast. That's Saturday, February 28th. March 13th will be in Indianapolis, April 25th, Cincinnati, May 29th, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, June 27th, Grand Rapids, Michigan,

July 17th, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and July 18th, Oklahoma City. Also, I got a bunch of shows coming up. I figured I'll let you guys know about. April 3rd, I'm doing stand-up here in Los Angeles with Amber Nelson at the Lyric Hyperion. April 11th, P-Funk Fest,

in Tallahassee, April 12th, Vistar Stadium in Jacksonville with Danny Bajorjan and Holden McNeely. This one's new. I don't know why I'm doing this. July 10th, a salute to Bethlehem PA. You what? Yeah. Hosted by me, Dan Becker,

and Ruby Deer from Start Making Sense. I'm just doing the show for no reason. It's over at Arts Quest. It's just amazing. They like turned like a steel factory into a fucking cool art space. Oh, that's fun. I just booked this shit. It's a lot of fun. And also I'm going to be in Newark on July 12 at our buddy Justin

Williams. He just opened a comedy club in Newark called the Newark Culture Club. That's right. I forgot about his thing. That's so cool. Yeah, so I went to check that. Also, I wanted to give a special shout out to Eddie Ewing, who sent me a bunch of elephant jokes that I used. There was a lot of fun. He's fucking hilarious. I love that guy. I love all

of you. This was a lot of fun. Really good work. Thank you very much. Thank you. I love you too. I love you. I don't use that word lightly. I love you. I love you. Henry can't handle it. See next week we're going to be doing,

we're going to be coming back with the Fox Catcher murders, we're going to be ending our DuPont series, and then we're going to some true crime, and then back to Mount Rushmore of Evil. Yes. Yeah. Not fucking wait. Well, that's going to be after we have a little,

you know what month is coming off. Oh, you all know what's coming. We got a new way to do it this year, I think. It's going to be really fun. It's going to be great. All right, fuckers. Hell Satan. Oh, Hakee.

Hell, Topsy. Hail Topsie, yeah. She didn't know the difference. She didn't know what she was doing. That was mine. That was my perfect alvitals.