Radiolab - Flop Off

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

This past year was a flop. From questionable blockbuster reboots to supply chain shenanigans to worst of all, omnipresent COVID variants. But, in a last ditch effort to flip the flop, we at Radiolab have dredged up the most mortifying, most cringeworthy, most gravity-defying flops we could find. From flops at a community pool to flops at the White House, from a flop that derails a career to flops that give NBA players a sneaky edge, from flops that’ll send you seeking medical advice to THE flopped flop that in a way enabled us all. Take a break from all the disappointment and flop around with us. Special Thanks to: Kaitlin Murphy, Dana Stevens, David Novak, Pablo Pinero Stillman Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate. 

Okay, so here we are on the precipice of a new year, but before we jump into it. We wanted to just look back on all the stories and updates Radio Lab has brought you this year. Harry Pace. Why do we have like three movies about this dude? Rep Mayasin. They just wanted to thank him for keeping their kids alive. placenta.

When you're pregnant, you grow an entirely new organ. Breath. Red herring, that conversation with Annie and Lulu about farts. Are you like anti-overage or something? Are you not? One of my favorite moments in podcasting of all time. So many greats. In a way, putting red herring next to breath,

it's like breath comes out one way and red herring comes out the other way, you know what I mean? Anyway, so why are we looking back? Well, it's that time of year, right? This is the moment when like, you take stock of things that you care about and you want to financially support, but we've got a new way for you to do that. It's called the lab.

And to be a part of the lab, there are three tiers you can choose from. So depending on how generous you're feeling or how much of a peak you want to get behind the scenes, you get a lot of great stuff. We got some magnets, we got some embroidered retro patches, we got tote bags, and instead of ads, you'll get bonus content and you'll get extra interviews or invitations to members only events. You get a live stream following Jada Boomerrod 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Can we just dwell for a second on the No Ads thing?

I have to say, this is like revolutionary. Oh, I just, like I breathe in more deeply, even just thinking about it. The story just goes. So to take a look, see if you want to join, you just head on over to radiallab.org slash join. If you do, end up supporting us. We really appreciate it. So much.

Yeah. And have a happy new year. Oh, wait, you're listening. OK. All right. OK. All right. The door is listening to Radio Lab.

Radio Lab. From WNYC. C-C-C. You're listening. C-C. C-C. C-C. C-C. C-C. C-C. C-C. I feel like I'm in an elevator or something. I'm not lobby.

Hi, this is Lilou. Hey, it's Latif. And this is the last episode of Radio Lab for the year of 2021. And it's been a, wow, it's been a year. Like, Lulud, you remember last year at this time? Yeah, there was so much burgeoning hope. Pfizer and biotech has shown early promise. Well, Derna announcing its vaccine.

Johnson and Johnson's vaccine is being called a new weapon tonight. This time it's just one shot. Yeah, it was vaccine after vaccine after vaccine. It's for the AstraZeneca COVID Spot Lake V vaccine. Anything was possible. Sleaves were coming up. Needles were going in.

Vaccinated people do not carry the virus. Don't get sick. There was this moment of excitement. Yeah, like we can lick this thing. Unless something very odd happens, I would say that it is pretty much over. Uh, what do you want to need? And then, and then we did it.

And now it's all solved and everything's great. It's all over terrific. Then we're not quite. I know. A pandemic just won't leave us. Right. I mean, some of it was not our fault. I mean, some of it was our fault as a human species. Some of it was not our fault. But regardless, as we've been looking back on this year, the second one in a row that has felt like it hurt, like it started with so much promise and we're ending

with a whimper. We realize that, you know, this year has been a flop. It's been a flop of a year. Yeah. So here at Radialab, as this crappy year comes to a close, we decided to pay homage to the flop itself. This very common and yet very seldom celebrated human experience of flopping. So, without further ado, we bring you... Not just one, not just two, but... Six flops.

Six flops. Flops that are in the ocean. Flops that are on basketball chords. Flops that are on stage in front of millions of people. Flops in the White House. Disgusting disappoint. But not in the way you think. Six flops of various shapes, forms, and velocities. Hoping that as we flop our way to the end of the year, it might be nice to flop with others. And it might give us a little insight into what's on the other side of a flop.

Are you in pain? I'm in pain. I'm in pain. I'm in pain. So who has our first flop? I have it to me. Hello. Hello.

My name is Sindoon Yannosambundam. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah, what you got? Where are you taking us? We are going back to the early 2000s to the show American Idol. Of course. Which is one of my favorite shows growing up.

Yeah. And you know, you probably know how it's set up. It's pretty simple. Contestants go in front of these three judges, sing a song. Sometimes they're great. Sometimes they're really not. Yeah. And the performance that I remember most from the show, it's actually one of these flop auditions. And that's the one I'm gonna tell you about. Okay, so this flop happened in September of 2003. Hello. How you doing?

Oh, great, thank you. You doing great? Great to see you guys. This skinny Chinese guy wearing black pants in this blue short sleeve shirt walks on stage. William, why are you here? I'm here to sing to America. Answers a few questions from the judges.

What are you gonna sing? I would like to sing Ricky Martin She-Banks. I hope you all enjoy it. Okay. All right, let's go. All right. And start singing. Talk to me, tell me your name.

You blow me off like it's all the same. You let it feel the time taking away like it's all the same. You lit it, feels it, I'm taking away like a bomb. Yeah, baby. He's bouncing around in this like kind of awkward way. You can tell he's trying to dance, but it's not really working. She pays, she pays. Oh, baby, when she moves, she moves. I go crazy because she moves like a flop,

but she stays like it be. And eventually, the judges cut him off. William, it's one of actually the worst auditions we've had this year. I already gave my best and I have no regrets at all. And for some reason, this flop by this guy William Hung, more than any other flop in maybe the history of the whole show, it went viral. Let me just say I have no professional training in music.

Okay. Talk to me, tell me your name. There's an SNL sketch about it. She said, oh baby, we should move, should move. You blow me off like a thomas, then. People made parodies, because he sings really poor. His accent. I'm ready to get my best.

Even his teeth. I'm going to take some carrots and tomatoes and put it with a really young hung chop up. What did you think about all this when you saw it happening? I mean, I was just a kid. I probably just laughed with everyone else. But, you know, watching it now, it really just makes me sad. What is sad about it? I mean, I think why he was so laughed at was

because he sort of fit this like nerdy Asian stereotype. Yeah. And like I grew up in this place that was filled with people who are Asian American. And you know, just like a very immigrant community. Yeah. And as an immigrant watching TV and like, especially a show like American Idol, it's sort of this way to answer this question of like, how am I supposed to be here? Like, what is likes?

You know what it is? Like, what's likes? You know what's like, what's good, what's loveable. Yeah. And American Idol is the cleanest version of that because you literally get someone just like going and being themselves and then three people being like, that was good. I like this. I like what you're wearing.

I like how you talk. I hate this. I know like this. Yeah, exactly. That's so funny because it's like an American idol. It's like your American paragon of what it is to be an American. Right. Right. And William Hung. Didn't fit the part.

Right. He didn't fit. And I thought when this whole thing happened, when America essentially told him, William Hung, you don't belong. I thought he'd just like disappear. and when America essentially told him, William hung, you don't belong. I thought he'd just like disappear, but... ...he sort of did the opposite of that. Oh, William hung! William hung in the house.

He'd come at overnight, hope sure, phenomenal, William hung. Which was so strange to me. Like, he goes on all these big talk shows and performs she bangs in malls and concerts, sports games. He does a half time show at a Golden State Warriors game, a concert at the Rose Bowl with like Janet Jackson and Maroon 5. with like Janet Jackson and Maroon Five. She backs! She backs! It's like he's reliving the nightmare

of that American idol audition over and over and over again. Yeah. And I just like, I never would have done that. You know, I was a kind of kid who, if I got one answer wrong in class, I wouldn't want to go back the next day. And this guy was like going back to school, jumping on the desk, and just shouting the wrong answer again and again and again.

It's like he's immune to being humiliated. Yeah. And I've always wondered, like, how? How did he manage to respond this way? So, William, how's it going? Good. I called him up. Just a moment.

Let me fix my background. Yeah, sure. He's 39 years old now, lives in Jacksonville, Florida with a friend. Okay. After the whole American Idol thing, he tried to become a high school teacher, but that didn't quite work out. And now he's a professional poker player. Did you just make your bed?

Yeah. Ha ha. I asked him how he ended up auditioning for American Idol. And he said it's not like he grew up wanting to be a performer. He moved to the US from Hong Kong when he was 10 and had a really hard time fitting in. You could say that I'm more of a loner.

My best friends were my teachers. He got bullied in middle school. Probably just because I'm Chinese or Asian. Because I was the only Asian in my class. And college wasn't much easier. I didn't know how to make friends so socially. But then one day he's walking into dorm, and this poster catches his eye. A picture of a guy with a microphone, a red curtain behind it. And it's his poster for this talent show that his dorm's holding, and he decides on a whim to sign himself up. It's like a new opportunity.

He used to love doing karaoke with his parents. The way I saw it was I had nothing to lose. He chooses Ricky Martin's Shebangs. I just tried to mimic Ricky Martin's dance moves. Practices. So like she bangs, she bangs. And when he gets on stage, I see people were dancing with me. They were so excited.

And then at the end, people were giving me loud cheers and applause. And yeah! Woo! And he ends up actually winning the whole show. What? I was like, what, really? Yeah, he wins a DVD player. Nice.

So it's one of those nice that you feel like you were on top of the world. Later that week, he's watching Fox News, which he watches every night. And he sees an advertisement for auditions for American Idol. And you know he's still like writing off the high of like winning this this school talent show. And he's like you know what this is the next step. I'm going to sign myself up. I love a next step. Yeah. And you votes saw how this went.

Though. It was so weird and funny. Like, Randy would hold his quai shit up. It's interesting to hear William or Count what happened. And the Simon was like fronting like this. It was like crossing his arms. He seems. No.

Well, that's a surprise in the century. Almost amused. I know I didn't a surprise in the century. Almost amused. I know I didn't do well on the audition. You know, I was nervous. My movements were very jerky. If you used to stand there saying good, I wasn't good, but I could live in it. It's okay. Tell me more about your emotions of that day.

And we talked about all of it. You know, the jokes people made about him. Many point feel humiliated. The big performances of she bangs. And we talked about all of it. You know, the jokes people made about him. Many point feel humiliated. The big performances of she bangs. Oh, my was just excited. And when I asked him about people making fun of him, I kind of just like one ear in, one ear out. But that doesn't hurt hurt you.

That doesn't hurt your your feelings. No, they want to laugh at me. That's fine. Because they enjoy watching or listening to songs like my to my you know to my style of she bangs whatever But I wonder if you could talk about even one specific moment that either was painful or humiliating or like angering to you I really don't have that, Cindy. And that's a good thing.

There were some interesting experiences for sure, but it wasn't like angered. How to say, it's not so impactful that I had to think about every day. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's just amazing, because like humiliation is a really hard feeling for most people and

it definitely is for me and I fear it a lot. And that is one of the reasons I want to talk to you is because it seems like you're sort of impervious to it or that you're able to perform some type of alchemy. I was asking him in all these different ways. And I was really starting to feel like he was somehow immune. Until through all of this, did you ever cry? I asked him this. No. Not once.

No. Not for American Idol, no. Hmm. What's something that has made you cry? Ooh. Hahaha. Very hard. Very hard. There were a few moments that made me cry. I remember one day I spent a lot of time after teaching preparing the next lesson.

This was after the idol steps settle down. He was training to become a teacher. The next day I was like, okay, these things will go well. I was optimistic. But then the kids decided not to follow me. They saw me more like a funny and a tanner celebrity. They didn't see me as their teacher. And then my master teacher called me out,

and stepped aside, like I'm taking over, that that that that, right? It wasn't a good scene. It was an embarrassing scene to me. But so yeah. And then he told me he would fail me if I don't improve. I cried after I got home. Because that really hurts.

That's not a fun thing to hear. Yeah. It felt real, you know? That's like, oh my gosh. I did all this and you say this is not good enough. Okay. I felt that was bigger embarrassment compared to my American idol flop. Why did that feel like a bigger flop to you? Because because I, because I work so hard to get to where I was,

I was ready to graduate. I was seriously considered taking on a high school teaching position after I was done. But after that experience, that changed my mind. It's like, okay, I don't want to go to this ever again. Yeah. I mean, I guess that makes sense that that feels more like a flop, because I guess with a flop, you need to have a ton of expectation and hope and you have to care a lot.

And then you have that crushed with like a huge disappointment, like a total failure. And I guess this experience you had as a teacher does fit that definition way better. Yeah, I agree. But the thing is like for me, there's like one more component to the definition, which is like the audience, like the group of people who are watching you fail.

Yeah, yeah. And to me, like that's almost everything. Like it would matter so much to me that American Idol was in front of millions of people. But you don't seem to wait that component very much. And I just like, why do you think that is? Big, well, like I mentioned, for my American Idol audition, I just focused on having fun, enjoying the moment, and that's it. Yeah.

But, well, I guess another way to ask this, like, so the story we another way to ask this, so the story we're making right now together, it's actually the first-ever story where my voice will be like a big part of it. Oh. You know, millions of people will be listening to this. And that's really scary to me.

Like, I guess I'm asking you all this from a place kind of wanting to learn from you. How do you not let the fear of judgment from all those people? And really, for you not, no, I mean, not just the fear of it, but like the actual judgment, how do you not let that totally crush you? Ooh, I like this one.

So I would say I choose to embrace my identity. I choose to embrace my past, my present, my future. It's a choice. Like I feel like I'm not the norm Whatever whatever that means like back then I was not the norm now. I'm still not the norm So and that's okay Did you find that helpful? I mean kind of I don't know I mean I think what I realized is that what he did to this question and kind

of a whole of my questions. Yeah. Is he sort of just rejects them? Yeah. And I think it's because these questions kind of assume that what the judges or the audience, like the people out there, you know, America. They assume that what America thinks matters. And I don't know, I just don't think that that's how he operates. I pay my dues, time after time, I've done my sentence.

And I feel like every time I listen to one of his tracks, and band mistakes, he's actually made some albums which kind of been listening to a lot. It sort of reminds me that William Hwang is a way to be in this world. I'm running, running, running a warning, a warning, We are the champions. Producer, Sndun Janisum Pandam. When we come back,

Way more flops, Aquatic flops, Olympic flops, NBA flops, More flops, a lot more flops. We are the champions, We are the champions more flops a lot more flops Next Flop comes to us from Editors, Soren Wheeler and Alex Niesen. All right, Niesen, you there? Yeah, I'm here. Did you have like a hot start that you had in your head, or should I just kind of get

us kicked? I mean, I have some stuff that I want. That's a fun little loop to watch. Oh, okay, that'll be. But you can go, but go, let's go. Ready, ready, ready? Okay, yeah, so. Uh.

Oh. So I guess I'd say that this one is about the flop as a lie told through the physical movement of bodies on the basketball court? Okay. Oh, do you guys even know what a flop is in basketball? A flop? No, I, I, you want to school him, Alex?

Yeah, let's just like show you. What were you been talking about? So this is a clip of Marcus Smart, guard for the Boston Celtics. He comes to the basket for a rebound. And... Oh, man. Oh, man.

That was extreme. He seems to like bounce off the Atlanta player. Does this flailing pirouette out of bounds? Yeah. It's like he's decided to do high jump in the middle of a game or something. Yeah, so that's a flop. It's when there wasn't a foul or sometimes any contact at all, but the player falls and flails dramatically to try and get the ref to think there was a foul.

Oh, yeah, it's like a putting on a show like, oh, he got, you know, like, oh my God, he pushed me over. I feel like I know of this in soccer, but I didn't know that it was a thing you'd ask him. No, it's a thing in basketball basketball too for sure. It always has yeah, but right around 2012 or so It seemed to be sweeping the NBA like some kind of plate At that time And we're going to the big board at that time. Oh my. And this is the actual right here. What's this?

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, I forgot I got a cell phone. The flops were just getting like especially flagrant and people were tired of seeing that. The floppy is not a plus in this game. In part, because it looks stupid, but also, it just ruins the game. Because people thought it was bad for the game.

You know it's not fair. That it's disgusting cheating. You would punish. You would like to punish the floppers. And it needed to be stopped. I would like to eliminate it from the game, game, game. But then, along came a guy named. Are you serious? Are you really that clueless?

Mark Cuban. What the hell is that? You don't ever use facts. You don't ever use substance. The guy from Shark Tank. And he's desperate to put an end to the madness. And he also happens to be a billionaire and owns the Dallas Mavericks.

Yes, yeah, it will. I have to say, in my head, I imagine like a limo rolling up on your lab. No, Mark Cuban just emailed me. That's how it started. So this is Peter Wain. He's a biomechanics researcher at Southern Methodist University.

So you just opened your email one day and it was just like, Mark Cuban? Yeah, one evening. I was like, oh, and I showed it to my wife. Is she think this is really Mark Cuban? No. And she said, yeah, I think it is. You should probably answer that.

That's funny. And basically, he says, look, this flopping stuff is getting out of control. It was concerned about the integrity of the game. We got all these big, huge guys that are sort of falling over all the time and flailing. And so I'm going to throw you a bunch of money and you are going to prove scientifically that these guys are flopping. So sadly since I am a Shark Tank fan, I've never met Mark Cuban.

That's Ken Clark. He was at the time. He was a graduate student in Peter's lab. And so he and Peter got together and thought about and they're like, All right, this will be fun. We have the equipment. We have the tools. So let's let's do it. Absolutely. All right. So what did you do? We crashed into each other over and over and over again. We played human billions. Yeah, exactly. The idea was if they could figure out what a normal non floppy collision looked like,

well, then they could spot when something fishy was happening. So we set up big crash pads in the lab. They bring people in, they put like the little sensor things on them. We have a motion capture system. They got the cameras, and they just have people run into each other. Well, to do that, max, max, max. In a whole variety of ways.

Subjects of different sizes. The little guy runs into a big guy. With different incoming velocities. You try it really fast, now you go really slow, or you just push on them. Well, what are you doing today? We're just putting on some, you know, video game suits and running into each other the whole day.

They even built a metal and plastic person. They called it Gus. Gus was, he was just a galvanized structure with a piece of plywood in the middle. To like knock him over. I wanted to put a San Antonio Spurs jersey on Gus, but the members of the crew said, no, that's pushing it too far.

Yeah. So they do all these tests, and here's what they come up with. Guy's falling on their butts all the time. That's not actually a reliable sign of a flop at all. If a player has their feet planted and their weight on their heels or whatever, it doesn't take much force. Not going to move. It's not much. It is a flop at all. If a player has their feet planted and their weight on their heels or whatever, it doesn't take much force, I'm not gonna move. Right.

It's not much, it's not much at all. If they don't move their feet, bam, over, they go. Yeah, absolutely. Huh. So that's gonna actually happen a lot in the natural course of a game. But the thing you need to watch,

according to Peter and Ken, is the arm. All of the excessive upper body most histrionics, huh? Yeah, the histreonics, really. The natural reaction when you're hit and falling backwards is for you to take your arms and reach backwards to brace for impact. And so if a player's flailing with their arms

above their head all crazy... Nine times out of ten... That's probably a flop. They're putting on a show. Problem is even that doesn't really help much because a guy could actually get fouled and sort of flail his arms just to like draw attention to it. Right. So they write this whole report up. They even made like a video and they give it back to Mark Cuban.

And this was not what Mark Cuban wanted to hear. He was hoping for more, something more concrete and actionable to sort of stamp out this epidemic of faking. But we can't change the science. So the whole experiment was itself kind of a flop? Well, I mean, yeah, maybe a little bit. But the interesting thing was that Peter and Ken told us that a scientific, hard science

spot the flop kind of thing actually might be possible in the not too distant future. It's not far fetched to think that we could have instantaneous velocity on all 10 players on a basketball court at any given time. And all you would need is just like a tiny little bit of math. You know their math, you know, math and velocity,

you know instantaneous momentum, you go off some basic assumptions that momentum in a collision is gonna be conserved. Then you just have computers that are sort of tracking and crunching all those numbers. Based on the sizes and the velocities and coming and outgoing. And if there's more momentum coming out of that

than going in, you just send a little signal down to the ref right there on the court. V.B.B. you know, Vel goes off and arrests Earpiece and says, hey, that was aB. you know, Vell goes off in the rest, earpiece and says, hey, that was a flop. Just like, eh, a big ol' ex, like, that was fake, like. Yeah, then they just put it on the big screen, right?

Yeah. I was family fewed when you get a wrong thing. Yeah. Yeah. To think that someone like Mark Cuban would spend his infinite amount of dollars, to find out the core cause of flopping instead of why his team can't win a championship again, seems to be a bit of a waste of money, don't you think? Okay, so after talking to Peter and Ken about what they did, we were kind of letting ourselves

imagine at least in theory of game without flops. Or it does Mark Cuban just have to say. So we decided to put this idea in front of game without flops. Or it does mark two, but it does not. So we decided to put this idea in front of my friend Tyler Tines. He's a sports writer at GQ and I was like, Tyler, like, what do you think? I don't think anyone in this country, if they have any sense about themselves, would look at you in your face, sit down and tell you they enjoy flopping. But flopping is part of the game, is always been part of the game.

And he was kind of squishy on this. Well, I think the thing in where I come from is that flopping by nature of the game, is always been part of the game. And he was kind of squishy on this. Well, I think the thing in where I come from is that flopping by nature is suckershit. It is naturally detestable. So he hates flops. But at the same time, part of the beauty of the game for him is just letting players play it,

however they're gonna play it. And so the issue actually isn't with the players, the issue is with the league that incentivizes this type of entertainment. So, tray young or a tray mon green or Marcus Smart, flails a bit differently than maybe some of our heroes of old. The reality here is that it makes money when you flop. The teams are better if you flop and you can get a three point shot.

We have incentivized sports in America to be like win, win, win, win, win. Bianny means necessary, but flopping is bianny means necessary. And so is the core of this actually the players? Well, but if you could decide whether the system is going to incentivize a flop or not, for sure, you could you could change the system so it doesn't incentivize it. My mom just kind of curious like would you rather see a game with no flopping? No. And actually we heard the same thing.

No. It just doesn't feel right to me. You know, having grown up playing basketball from both Peter way and Ken Clark. No, I don't think so. Not in my mind. I don't like adding police officers to the sports that I watch.

You know what I mean? Like we have changed how we talk about basketball. And flopping in the policing of flopping is a part of that where the way, how you identify who a basketball fan is now has changed. Who enjoys basketball? Who runs these teams? Who now are the presidents of these front offices?

These are white kids who wanted to be Michael Jordan and Alan Iverson and never could. And now they have the cultural cachet and the power to say what is important within our athletics. And it is how we get to something as serious and non-serious as flopping. Where it should be just a part of the art form, it should just be fun. But instead, it's become policed. Now you're a bad player if you flop. Now you don't care about the art of basketball if you flop.

Now, even for someone like me, I'm calling these people out they name because they flop, right? It's not the truneness of how we believe basketball is supposed to be played. And so, to me at least, the issue is that, why don't you just care if these boys are playing basketball or not? I hear you. It's interesting, because when we started working on this story, my feeling about flopping was pretty much centered around James Hardin. Natorious flopper, and he would look so smug about it, and it would just grind my gears,

and I would just be so incensed by it. So when we started working on this, it was really a moment for me to sit and think about what kind of basketball game I actually want. And so I arrive at this place where I'm like, flopping just feels like it's just part of the theater and the drama of what makes watching a game so exhilarating. Watching James Hardin figure out how to be an insurance salesman with these blocks. It was kind of magical because you knew he was going to the

game and had no care about the rules of the game and that level of anarchy, that level of just self-assuredness and that you were going to break the game in some respects. That was cool. And so my thing is that I don't care if you flop. It's a part of how you are going to get over in this game. I'm going to say I respect the thing. thing now no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no Hello. Hello. Hi. Hi, everybody's here.

Next producer Matt Kilti and contributing editor Heather Radke. Yes, so what do you guys have? I actually feel like this is going to be close to Lulu's heart. I've been thinking about Lulu a whole time. Really? It's about a Ragtag group of women making their way in the world today. I already hate it. I don't know. I already hate it.

One to fizz out. It's just gonna. All right. Uh, so we're gonna take you back to 2001. To a group of Ragtag young women. Total Ragtag. One of them is Kate. Kate, Darmity, Burke. How do you want me to-

How do you want Ashley? I'll go Ashley Gershik Murphy. I'm Shelby Kloepa. And Shelby. Oh gosh, I screwed that up. Um, so Kate, Ashley, Shelby. And all three of them were LaCross players. Okay, so LaCross, like sticks with little nets,

you throw a ball around. Uh huh. Okay, so all of them have finished high school and they all wanted to play LaCross in college. But, you know, they weren't going all wanted to play LaCrosse in college, but you know, they weren't going to play at LaCrosse nation. University of Virginia or... On top of the mountain once again, Maryland.

University of Maryland. Is your national champion? These very storied programs. They weren't getting recruited by these top schools. They kind of figured they would just like play at some small school, stay somewhere near home. Yep, well so insert Kelly Amante Hiller. You could call them Mia Ham of Women's lacrosse. Two-time player of the year. National champion at Maryland. She came to one of my soccer games. She was going around the East Coast trying to recruit women to come play for her at Northwestern University. But the problem was Northwestern didn't even actually have a team.

Yeah, because Northwestern, it's in the heart of the Midwest, just outside of Chicago. And back then, LaCrosse was not a Midwest sport. It was in East Coast, like, mid-Atlantic thing. But Northwestern had hired this, like, first time head coach to basically build a program from scratch. She was, was like 26. Well, you're like a little kid.

But when she went recruiting, she would ask these girls point blank. Do you want to be a national champion? And we're sort of like, I mean, what? I remember giggling and laughing, but there was no smile on her face. I thought this lady is crazy. Slash, I love her. So she manages to get a team together. Just picture a lot of really intense, short east coast ladies making their way to the Midwest. She was

pulling people from everywhere. She got these twins who she found on the street just jogging. Estim if they wanted to play the cross, they thought LaCrosse was a town in Wisconsin. They don't even have a practice field. They practiced on the flake football field. But early on she sat them down and she said to them, we will be national champions and we need everybody to buy in. You know, I say jump, you say how high? She had a boxing and doing yoga and meditating. They did these things called affirmation circles. We would go around and tell each other positive things about us, you know, oh you're so so fast, Jenny. Your shot is so strong, Ashley.

And Kate told us. We drank the cool it. She told us we could do anything and we've really just believed her. And so that year, this group of mostly freshmen hit the field and they lost a lot of games. They go five and 10. Five and 10. Five wins, and ten. Five and ten.

Five wins, ten lost. Five wins, ten lost. Yeah. It's pretty bad. They're second year. They go eight and eight. No. Third year.

They go 15 and three. Ooh. Which means they made it to the playoffs, but they ultimately lost in the quarters to UVA. I want to UVA, so I could be go-hoo. But then, they're senior senior year they go undefeated Oh, and they actually make it to the national championship game where they have to play UVA again Are you building up a mighty duck's here, but then they get to the finals and blow it like a Zat No, no, no, no they win

We should they win they win the win the championship, the bench clears. What? First time in a championship game and national title winners. They're like hugging, crying, jumping, laughing. I mean, it was the most incredible. You know, I now have two children, and that's pretty incredible. But, truthfully, the most incredible experience of my life. We went nuts.

And then I will never forget being in the locker room and Kelly talking about just how proud she was and then we get to go to the White House. Which is why this story sort of flips. It's July 2005. They go to DC, they get all dressed up and they go to the White House. It smelled and felt distinguished, you know?

It's the White House. They get to see Lincoln's bedroom, they walk around the Rose Garden. And then they get ushered into this room where in the corner. There's a must-stadium seating kind of bleachers. So the whole team goes over, takes their place, and then in walks... George Chevy Bush. He's got on a student tie. Comes over, congratulates the team.

They give him a couple of the cross-sticks. And then some photographer says... over, congratulates the team. They give them a couple of the cross-sticks. And then some photographer says, okay, everyone look up here. Three, two, one, step. A few days later, Shelby gets a call on her cell phone. But I didn't recognize the phone number, and I picked it up, and it happened to be some reporter. I don't really recall from where.

And then she was asking me, you know, just different questions about winning a championship and going to the White House. And then all of a sudden, it took a turn because she said something of, did anyone say anything about your foot attire? I said, excuse me. And the reporter went on to say, well, in the White House photo,

you were clearly wearing flip flops. And that could be considered disrespectful or inappropriate. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm sorry, I have to go. She hangs up. And she's like, oh, God, because she wasn't the only one who was wearing flip flops that day. No. Kate was one of them. My cell phone starts ringing at five in the morning. It was a reporter asking her about her flip flops. She says a day later.

The story broke. First, she was in the Chicago Tribune. The new essay today. White House flip flops flap. NBC. White House footwear fans flip flop kerfuffle. Yes, PN. And PR.

CBS. Ladies, good morning to all of you. Kate and Shelby, we're on the today show. You don't wear flipflops to meet the President of the United States. And their mothers are on the show, the coach, and then a shoe expert. You know, I would have shown something that was a closed toe. Saying that we should have been wearing a full-heeled closed toe shoe. If it was a ghost for a flipflop, you would put white house on the don't bless. I would put it on the don't bless. Healed closed toe shoe

Because of this photo where a few young women are wearing flip flops wait actually can you show me the picture? Yeah hang on Or maybe just maybe Google yeah, hold on I'm working on the across the white house flip Okay, okay, see the picture the totally innocuous such an innocuous picture It's like such a generic photo up photo of the president holding two lacrosse sticks and then all these women. But look at their feet, Latif. It's just so nothing. Is it Latif? Is it really nothing? Yeah. It seems so nothing. Wait, do you guys as humans, Matt, and Heather, do you actually think it matters? Really? What do you mean?

Matters in what sense? Uh, well, with T'lajiv just being like, oh, who cares? I don't, I don't think it matter. Like, I don't think they should have been shamed for wearing flip-flops at the White House, but I think, I think it very much matters that these things happen because it tell us something about us. Yeah, and so to that point, we ended up calling up,

oh, Alexa's back. I'm back. Oh, Alexa's back. Hi. This presidential historian, Alexis Co. Because as we kept reporting in the story and trying to answer a lot of question, why does this matter? We kept coming back to the scene of the crime, the White House.

If we just go back, let's go back to the early formation of the White House. When Washington first took office, the White House was an idea that they would get to. So at first, when Washington was president, he lived in New York. And then in Philadelphia. But he knew that there needed to be a permanent residence for the president. Presidential houses, they would call it. And his big thing was, whatever they end up building. There can be no markings of monarchical rule.

Like no gilded doors in a big arched gateway. He was like, I'm Mr. President. Right. It's not a presidential palace. Because the idea is that the government, the democracy is supposed to be other people by the people for the people. But Washington was in a tricky situation

because he liked the finer things in life. He liked some Jewish fabrics, plush suits, purple, carriages. The example Alexis gave us that's like excellent for this very thing is for his inauguration. He orders a simple, home spun brown suit. But if you look down at his shoes, he's wearing diamond. What? Shoes with diamonds on the blouse. Wow.

He's wearing diamond buckles. Wow, J.W. And so, under Washington, what we ultimately end up with for President's home is definitely not a palace, but it's also, I mean, it's a mansion. When it was built, it was the biggest house in all of DC. It's like a conflicted, confused space all the way through. You know, the White House is built by enslaved people. The first handful of residents besides Adams are all slave owners.

They're like fancy southerners who are trying to like figure out how to also be democratic, they're like fancy southerners who are trying to like figure out how to also be democratic, which is like these are like the primordial problems of American democracy. Like who's in who gets to be inside of it and who's not inside of it. It's like all the stuff that's kind of like baked into the the formation of the country is also baked into the formation of the White House. And so this is where it gets kind of fascinating because, for example, both the House and the Senate have rules for dress code. Like they have dress codes, they have rules for decorum.

Like the White House doesn't have anything that's codified. Interesting. And so what the White House becomes is this space where in each administration they can sort of dictate what the White House ought to be and kind of like demonstrate what they think our country should be. You know, it's played out in the Christmas, like what Christmas trees the first lady chooses. And that's, you know, I was immediate like thinking about that.

Melania's story. Yeah, and there's, you know, I was immediate like thinking about that. Melania's story. And there's like, you know, George Bush, band blue jeans in the White House, but Obama would let staff workers work without their suit jackets on. Yeah. Like all these questions of formality and taste are really questions about like,

what is the White House? And in some sense, like, who is America? And the LaCrosse players, when they flocked under the floor of the White House, they were kind of unwittingly walking right into the middle of this question. You know, there wasn't a set of rules where it felt like we were doing something wrong. That's Kate again. I had no idea until my brother was the one that yelled at me. I mean, they thought they were wearing nice shoes. Yeah, you know, the more I reflect on it,

she'll be again. I wonder if anyone would have even thought twice about what a men's team wore on their feet. And I think one of my favorite things about this whole thing is that when these women went on the today show, when they were basically asked to appear on national television to apologize for having worn flip flops to the White House. This rag-tag group of women who had won this national championship against all odds, they walked up onto the stage at NBC's Studio 1A in New York City wearing matching flip flops. At any point when you got to the White House. Did you look around and say oh? Maybe this is a little inappropriate

And that was you did that on purpose that was sort of like oh absolutely Absolutely They asked me Now what makes a champion Let me tell you, uh, we stood tall, put up a fight. No fear, that's what champions look like. Through all my girls, make a look twice. That's right, that's what champions look like. Alright, okay, so next up we are going to a place where flip flops are not only allowed, they are celebrated.

Okay. The pool. Fun. Fun is not exactly the word I used to describe this story. It's a, it's kind of the story of an ethical conundrum. That's how I would put it. And it involves an Olympian, a global pandemic, and because I wrote them into it, our colleague, David Gable.

Oh, and a flop too. All right. Lots of calls me, and he said, have you ever heard of Greg Lugainus? And I said, I'm a gay man who's 64. Of course I've heard of him. Oh, yeah. Um've heard of him. Okay, so we're talking about the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

Welcome to day four of our coverage from Seoul, Korea. Greg Luganus is both a platform and springboard diver, and at the prior Olympics, he gold-metaled in both. No diver has ever won back to back goals Greg Luganis is expected to do that here in Seoul going into the nineteen eighty eight Olympic games i was the favorite that's great and then um... in the pre-limbs fortunately was pre-limbs um... something Greg never expected to happen happened yeah

we're at the diving venue chamshell indoor swimming pool the preliminaries of the man's three meter springboard. Greg has done eight dives. He steps up to the board for his ninth dive. Wait, I feel like I need a visual. What does he look like then? Oh my gosh. He's like Hollywood handsome. Wavy dark hair. Fit body like the Calvin Klein ads in Times Square. And you can see his concentration. Like the can see his concentration, like the whole world falls away, but the whole world is actually watching him.

And then I got set, takes three steps, jumped up off the board, about six feet up in the air, swings his legs over his head, starts a back flip, goes around once, twice, and then I heard this big hollow thud, and I go crashing into the water. You see people sitting in the stands and their hands are over their mouths in shock. I was thinking, what the hell is that?

And then I realized that was my head. Now we'll go back and look at it slow motion. What happened? Greg did not get his weight far enough over the end of the board. Watch his hips in relation to his heels. Right there, his weight is too far back. Kind of amazingly, he just pops up out of the water. Yeah, he swims to the edge of the pool.

I made my way over to my coach, Ronald Bryan. And the coach is pushing the blood up into his dark hair so that the blood running down his neck isn't showing. Turns out he's split open his scalp at the back of his head, so he walks away from the pool, gets brought back into a training room, and they stitch him up. The first emotion that I felt was I was embarrassed. And of course the world's watching.

There's one thing the world didn't see, and that's actually what drew me to this story, because inside this very public moment, this very public flop was a secret. The Greg wouldn't actually reveal until years later. You hit your head and there may the few people in the stands that knew that I was HIV positive. The man considered me the greatest diver in Olympic history has announced today that he has

AIDS. So when Greg finally reveals his status to the world in 1995. It was huge. Please welcome Greg Reganis. He was on all the shows. He was on Oprah. Greg has come forward. Sally Jesse Raphael. He is publicizing a past.

And in these interviews, the same questions or kinds of questions keep coming up. How would a smart guy like you practice unsafe sex? On Larry King? I, I'm not following. How'd you get AIDS? And then once you knew you had it and you were going to the Olympics, Barbara Walters asked, why didn't you tell anybody? I didn't anticipate hitting my head on the board. I didn't anticipate blood.

That's something that you don't, I didn't think about at the time. But you didn't tell the Olympic committee. You didn't tell anyone. I was encouraged not to. Greg told Barbara that he had told his coach, but almost nobody else, because if he was HIV positive,

he wasn't allowed at the country, that would have been a, he probably would have been barred from the Olympics, he probably would have been, like he was in soul, but he had disclosed his status he wouldn't have been allowed. Yep. Wow.

There was a list of countries that had it announced, you may not enter the country if you test HIV positive. Right. And if he had announced it while he's there, he would have been sent home immediately. But Barbara Walters just kept asking him, when you hit your head and there was blood perhaps in that water, what did you think? That's where I became paralyzed with fear. Because... I watched that going stop beating this guy up for 10 minutes of his life.

Yeah, I mean, it is hard to watch. And I think even then, people mostly knew that HIV couldn't even be transmitted that way. Like the pool was so big, the water was chlorinated. So it does, there's part of it that does feel like it's just like everyone ganging up on the gay guy. But there is, I don't know, there is one part of it that feels like a fair question to me.

And that's like when I think about the doctor, right? The guy who was stitching up Greg's head, he wasn't wearing latex gloves. And so he was stitching them up. Like if he had pricked his finger with that needle, he could have contracted HIV. To me, that moment, that is very morally complicated. Yeah, one of my fears was, you know,

well, what is my responsibility knowing that I'm HIV positive? Yeah. You know, you know, without like a, like, was that like a, like, like, like, a, like, like, like, it just is. It's like, what do I do? What's, what's the next right step? Did you know the doctor wasn't wearing gloves? I, I didn't, I didn't see it. I had my face down and I didn't have eyes on the top of my head. And that's just it. You don't know what you don't know. You're dealing with the situation in that moment. What is your, like just walk me through your internal monologue?

Well, you know, the thing is, I mean, one thing that I learned, just through practice, through my years and years and years of performing, is always asking myself, what do I have control of? Usually not much. Okay, there were no latex gloves. Okay, that's not in my control. And so it's basically letting it go. After we talk to Greg, I kept thinking like he's right.

There's nothing he could have done about the accident, nothing he could have done about the doctor, not wearing gloves. But I did keep thinking like he did have control over whether or not he told the guy. Yeah, but you're making it sound so simple. Put yourself in his shoes. Put yourself in his speedo.

And think about what just happened, all that's at stake. Right. You know, when he came out as HIV positive in gay, I'm relieved and feeling like I'm not the only one who's thinking about this kind of thing I think me and HIV positive people around the world Because I tested positive in 87 little earlier than he did and I got this job To sing a Tokyo Disney Land in I needed this job really badly And I was very familiar with that list of countries that you're forbidden to enter. And Japan is on there too. I'm coming into Nareeda airport

outside Tokyo. In this very formal, very polite English, but Japanese thought kind of sign. It says hello if you are HIV positive Please step over here and register and I remember walking under that going you have got to be kidding me I am not saying a word So when when I'm hearing lots of go back about what were you thinking at the moment? Well, you kind of think about that moment every day of I'm in the kitchen and I'm having dinner with friends And I cut myself and what do I do? I'm not going to announce to everyone I'm HIV positive, but I'm going to make sure I clean it up, run it under water, get it bandaged up, and have my heart stop pounding.

So to zoom in on, did you make the right choice in that moment when you're getting stitched up? Is an understandable question, but I mean, think about all the secrets you got to keep because you have to keep them. The part of that that I like, yeah, that I like really hadn't considered was this feeling that it's like this one moment, however, you know, highly public it was, it was just like one moment in a string of so many moments like this. Yeah. So I guess to end the story of this moment, what happened next?

They checked him over. Okay, so Greg finishes getting stitched up and he goes to talk to his coach. He said, you know, you can pack up, You don't have to get back on the board. We could just go home. But I was in fifth place. I turned to my coach and I said that we've worked too long and hard. He said, OK, they're not going to go home.

They're going to keep going. He will continue in the competition. So he gets back on the board. Two dives remain. So he gets back on the board. I heard an audible gasp from the audience. I remember watching it and I just held my breath for you to take that next dive. Yeah, because you didn't know what was going to happen, right? Oh. I didn't know what was going to happen either.

But it's the Olympic Games. Yeah. First dive. I didn't know it was gonna happen either, but it's the Olympic Games. First time nails it. It was the highest-growing dive of the Olympic Games. It does the next time. And he's going to the finals. Right. Next night in the finals, he wins gold in the springboard and then he's up

for gold on the platform a dive takes less than three seconds McGuinness wins his second gold medal of these Olympics becoming the first man to win both the platform and the springboard competition in two Olympic games. Coming up, two more flops, one into the water, and one out of it. Lulu, ready to laugh? That was me flopping. It's a flop show. Flop show.

All right. Our next flop comes to us from Flippity Flopty. Okay. Flippity Flop. Yeah. Producer Rachel Kusik. All right. I'm going to start by telling you about a time when I didn't flop, but I wished I had.

Oh, the flop that got away. Exactly. All right, Rachel, please explain. Okay. So last summer, I was in Utah with a friend, and it was just brutally hot. It was so hot that we were in a parking lot, and the temperature read 114 degrees.

That is my friend who I was with, her name is Tamara. And Tamara being Tamara, she went onto Google and found a public pool for us to go to. So we drove a few towns over, put on our bathing suits, and walked out on the deck. And it's clearly few towns over, put on our bathing suits, and walked out on the deck. And it's clearly like the place to be on a day like today. Cool noodles slapping the water, and like all this laughter. And this centerpiece of it all was the diving board. Now, tomorrow is like immediately giddy. These are my people, the people of the diving board.

She leaves me behind and gets in line with a range of six-year-olds to 12-year-olds. She got onto the highest diving board and jumped. And she just looked so happy, like, so perfectly carefree. But that's not how I felt at all. Why? Growing up, I just was the one in my family who was the heaviest and in my friends who was the heaviest. And so as I grew up, the pool was where I was at

my most vulnerable, like there wasn't any hiding from clothes. And so I kind of trained myself to be as small as I possibly could at the pool. So that day in Utah, I'm at a crowded pool of strangers, and I'm like, how can I get myself in that pool as fast as possible, but also as quietly as possible? I'm like looking at the pool, searching for the corner furthest away

from the eyes of the diving board. Like the cool lifeguards, they were off to the left, I gotta like stay away from them. Meanwhile, I was 25 years old. I am like a great person. Like I should not be strategizing away from the lifeguard in the bucket hat, but that's where we were that day.

And then I see that there's like awkward kids in the corner, so I had their way. I looked both ways to make sure no one's watching me. And then slowly, carefully, like I'm putting a potato into a pot of boiling water. I slink my body into the pool. So it's just disappeared. Totally. You this entire time, Rach, just so you know,

we're just kind of like bathing with all of your bodies submerged, except for your shoulders in your head. It's like an alligator. You look kind of like just not sad, but just let down. I feel like almost you shut down in a way. And she was right. Like I felt defeated. Like a kid who got bullied by myself.

Yeah, that's not good. It wasn't good. So that was what happened back in July. And then this flat show comes along It was so good. So that was what happened back in July. And then this flop show comes along and pretty much the minute we get this prompt. I turned on YouTube and started binging videos of our eighth annual pedestrian belly flop comedy.

Of belly flops. And I was spending hours doing this. That was postcard belly flopping. I will show you how to do it from any heights. I watched people who are like giving tutorials. I learned that the Norwegians of a national sport dedicated to the belly flop I became obsessed with the belly flap. And I didn't even know why. Like I'm staring at these videos of belly flaps.

The way that you stare at your fridge when you're really hungry and you don't even know what you need to eat. But then I watched this one video. It's these manories that jump out of the water. And then they kind of sail. and then they like kind of sail and then they plop down like a pancake. The higher they leap. The bigger the bang.

These manoras and their belly flops. They are the opposite of me in that pool last summer. And watching them, I was like, I want someone to teach me to do that. Right after you folks. Okay. Here we go. And so... Okay, let's go change. We'll see you in a minute.

Annie McEwan and I. You never know where life will take you. Drive up to Boston and belly flop with the ultimate belly flopper. I'm Chris Miller. I'm Lulu Miller's father. And I think that's why I'm here. But it is true that I have been belly flopping for about 70 years. As I know, you guys were like, we need someone.

And I was like, I've got a real bee-lister. Like, he's got no plans. and it's one of his only interest So the three of us meet up at a hotel pool We're out in the deck and even though it was November, the pool was empty, like no one was there, I still felt that feeling from the summer lurking. I'm afraid to like even try. But honestly the minute that feeling bubbled up for me, Lulu, your dad was like, You want to have a demonstration first.

Oh, can you demonstrate to start? Alright, it's just a matter of starting to dive, but not arching. And he just kind of flings his body. His body. That is the most impressive thing I ever seen. And it just is dazzling. That kind of looked awful. And then it was my turn.

Oh god, am I going to, this feels like big leaves. So I kind of stand like a plank with my feet at the edge of the pool in the deep end. Don't bend your knees. Chris is coaching me from inside the pool. You don't have to control anything on your body. You just do it. And then I kind of surrender to gravity. And then just let my head... Oh my god.

Oh my god. ...get carried down. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Ah! Oh my god. Get carried down. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Get.

And the first thing I heard when I popped my head out of the water was Chris cheering me on. And so there was this weird tension between like pure pride and paint. That was my head a little bit. You don't get like a smack in the head. You get a smack in the head. You know, there's always a price for pleasure. But soon the pleasure of the flop outweighed the pain of it. What's here?

I felt like a little not painful enough. And so I just kept flopping. Okay. All right. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, 15 to 20. What does your body feel like, right? My body feels like it's been smacked. Yup, by the one giant. You know, that means you're doing it right. Every time I would emerge being like that was the most painful thing that's ever happened. Your chest is getting a little red. Try it again.

We did it. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! But! Yes! But we do it again.

Ah! And again. And again. Now you can do this with running. I understand less and less. Meanwhile Annie standing on the side being like, I have no idea what's going on. This is the worst yet.

Ah! You guys are a masochist! But it didn't matter because it felt like I was making up for all the years. I didn't get in the pool that way. What did you think about that? Girl! I was feeling freer. And I was feeling freer.

You were a hero! Eventually. I became one with the flop. And Chris and I took on the pool. Just like the manorase. Should we do a double flop? Okay. One, two, three. And when I emerged from that last flop, I felt at least in that moment triumph. But also, the worst headache I've ever had in my life.

Oh God! I think there's gotta be a PSA announcement at some point. My entire front of my body is popped blood vessels, like my legs are still blue. Oh my God. Yeah. I like called my doctor the other day, and I had to like have the most shameful intro on the phone to be like,

so I was like repeatedly belly flopping on Monday night. And I just want to know, like do you think I need to come in for a scan? But I think it's okay. She thinks it's fine. And I just need to take it easy the next day. All right. Thank you, Rach.

Thank you, dad. I think. And for our final flop, I'm gonna flop us right on out of the water on the land. It is time. What does that mean? It is time to look at a fish flopping around awkwardly on land, a fish flop.

Okay. Okay. All right. So you know this is kind of- I don't think I've ever actually seen this before. Really? No, I don't think I've seen that. Okay. Okay. All right. So you know this is kind of... I don't think I've ever actually seen this before. Really? No, I don't think I've seen that. Okay.

Well, allow me to conjure it for you. Roof! Picture a beautiful, scaled creature lying on a dock, trying to move, heaving up, and flopping down, and then heaving up, and flopping down. Getting nowhere, you know. Like a last gasp kind of thing. Exactly. And I think since the first time I saw it, it's just been burned into my brain

as the saddest, most pathetic movement in nature. However, a few weeks ago, rolling on up on the shed of querium. I met someone who watches fish flopping almost every day, and she completely reframed how I see it. My name is Rachel Zach, and I am a senior acquirist on the special exhibits team at Chateaquarium. Oh, hello, Turtle. Adorable Turtle.

So Rachel walked me around all these massive tanks of clown fish and shark. I'll show you the ribbon eels, sea dragons and pufferfish. I'm like a grumpy frog. And first of all, she explained that every species of fish has its own little distinctive flop. I had this question last time. Would an eel flop? Or would it just like wriggle like a snake?

Oh, no, they flop. And the thing that really holds them all together is that none of them, none of these flops, are what she would call pathetic. In fact, when she sees a fish flop, she thinks, that's an awesome behavior. That's exactly what they're supposed to do. It's part of how they survive.

Flopping is effective, like a fish that you drop on a pier flops enough to make its way to the end of the pier. I mean, there's an achievement there. So there's a real, there's skill, there's technique, there's just a ton of power. It's just flailing, right? Like how much technique is there?

Well, the voice you just heard is Alice Gibb, a biologist at Northern Arizona University, who for the last decade has been filming fish flopping on desks in her lap. So let me talk about flop. Yeah, she filmed all different kinds of species and when she played the videos back in slow-mo and watched what's really going on inside that motion, she saw that the fish is doing something that seems impossible.

Have you ever want somebody dribble a basketball and they start it flat on the ground and they tap it gently and if you tap it and tap it and tap it you can start the ball bouncing up and down and bigger and bigger and bigger arcs. So the fish somehow bounces itself and at a certain point they'd kind of jerk up onto their tail. It's almost perpendicular to the ground at this point and then they launch forward often into the water. Wow. Fish didn't learn to flop because we dropped them on decks, right? Fish learned to flop for many different reasons. Grunnan, which is a kind of fish, actually

flops out of the water for their baby's sake. So they'll like flop up onto the sand, lay eggs, so underwater creatures can't get them, and then flop back down into the water. They're rock stars. Or there are other fish, chili fish that flop because they live in these tiny little pools. And sometimes there might only be one in a pool.

And the males, they need to find females to breed with. They'll just kind of flop like 10 times the length of their body into another pool. Yeah, human center world, when people talk about I flopped down on the couch or something, seems to imply maybe an uncoordinated movement that then is followed by no movement at all, right? Like it sort of implies that you've hit a dead end. But that's not what's going on with the fish on land, right? Because even the flops, which I think are called flops

because they appear uncoordinated, they have the ability to maybe take something that could be a dead end and turn it into another chance. But like a fish flopping on the back into the water, like how often could that possibly work? Okay, well, probably not that often. But sometimes, but not that much. Yeah, but you know, the thing that makes me think of is like when you think about us,

like we were ocean creatures at the beginning before we came land creatures and for us to have gotten to the land at all ever. Like, that was probably the first way it happened. Like, we're only possible because of fish flops. That there was this moment, there was this pivotal fish flop without which we would not exist. Boom.

Right? Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. We don't need to say anymore. Okay. All right, that'll do it! This episode was reported and produced by Annie McEwen, Sndunjan, Sambantham, Sorn Wheeler, Alex Nisen, Tanya Chavla, Heather Radke, Matt Kielte, David Gabel, Becca Bressler, Rachel Qsick, and Pat Walters, with additional sound design and mixing from Jeremy Bloom. Special thanks to Caitlin Murphy, Dana Stevens, David Novak, and Pablo Panero Stilman.

And thank you for listening on what was a... probably felt like a very flimsy premise at the beginning, but... maybe was. We'll be back with more episodes next year. Next year, bring it on! Radio Lab was created by Jada Boomerot and is edited by Sauron Wheeler. Lulumiller and La Tifnasaer are co-hosts Susie Lektonberg, is our executive producer. And Dylan Keef is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Brestler, Rachel Q.Sick, W. Harry

Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Pascutietes, Sndor Nihon Oundam, Matt Kilti, Annie McEwan, Alex Neeson, Sara Curry, Aryan Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster. With help from Tonya Chabla and Sarah Sonbuck, our fact checkers are Diane Kelly,

Emily Krieger, and Adam Shippell. This is Ryan Percy, calling from Stovermont. Radio Lab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org. Science reporting on Radio Lab is supported in part by Science Sandbox,

a Simon's Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science.