Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - special re-release: Toasters

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

Breaking news: the entire Internet fell for a decade-long Wikipedia hoax about the invention of toasters. Here's the BBC's story about that: https://www.bbc.com/news/the-reporters-63622746 Great news: this podcast is one of the only forms of Internet media that didn't fall for that hoax. (Alex researched the real story!) So please enjoy this re-release of our already-accurate "Toasters" episode, featuring special guests Moujan Zolfaghari and Kimberly Clark. Original air date: June 27th, 2022.

Hey folks, this is a re-release of a past episode, because believe it or not, there is breaking toaster news. Also, if you've been a SifPod fan for more than a few months now, you've probably heard this episode before. There's no new material other than me saying this, because great news. We made an episode entirely about toasters. It was the 100th episode of the podcast, which is also fun. the 100th episode of the podcast, which is also fun. And the episode is, as far as I can tell,

basically the only internet thing about toasters that did not spread a huge fake myth about them. So I'm bringing you exactly the same episode because we got it right. I'm also going to link an amazing BBC News piece about this hoax. Because what happened is there was a teenager named Alan McMasters, and Alan McMasters logged onto Wikipedia and declared himself the inventor of the toaster. He claimed that he invented it in 1893. And there's no real backing up of that or sourcing of that or any like actual information about that. This also fooled a lot more institutions than you would think. News articles repeated that some books got published with that information in it. Apparently in 2018, the Bank of England asked the British public who should appear on the next 50-pound note, and Alan McMasters got

nominated based on a Wikipedia article saying a Scottish guy named Alan McMasters invented the toaster. Anyway, that myth got busted a couple weeks ago. November of 2022, a teenager reading Wikipedia said, hey, is there anything to this? Can we check this? And apparently me and him and very few other people bothered to check. And so I'm bumping this episode for you. This is also simply a wonderful episode of SifPod, beyond being one of the only things online that will tell you the truth about where toasters came from. Very good guests on this, Mujan Zulfagari, who's a comedian and podcaster on stuff like Mission to Zix. Kimberly Clark, who's a wonderful stand-up comedian, has a special on Netflix. So please enjoy this episode of SifPod from this summer, the 100th episode of the show, and one of the only things online that will tell you the actual truth about the toaster.

Cam Moujan, it is so good to have you on. And of course, I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either of you can start, but how do you feel about toasters? I mean, I'm a fan. I really like them. Recently purchased a new one. It's a new one that looks retro, but it's cheap as hell, so it works for both my interests.

And, you know, I grew up with toasters around me. I know people who have toasters, so, you know, I feel very strongly toward toasters right on okay mujan is it like a slot one or is it a toaster oven or oh no it's a slot one it's just your basic nice two two at a time nothing too nothing too crazy yeah how about you i just bought my mom a new toaster for mother's day and she is of a certain age. So toasters have gotten really complicated. I mean, especially if you get like the toaster oven slash broiler combo, because you have to do the whole push the knob to the left and then do it to the right. It's almost like using like one of those backup cars where you have to like push it backwards to let it go forward it's so weird but um i love toast more than i love

toasters because i feel like toasters take up a lot of counter space and i'm really trying to adopt the minimalist um lifestyle and toasters just don't line up with that for me in terms of how much space they take. You know, I have to make my toast in the oven now because I don't I no longer own a toaster anymore. Like after my last one went out, I was like, you know what? I don't need all this counter space taken up with appliances. You know, I don't it to look like the appliance aisle in Walmart you know so I no longer I love toast more than I love toasters and are you you said in the oven are you using like the full oven oven to make toast oh yeah like preheated I'm turning it on yeah Even even even in the summertime, which is crazy because I live in Burbank, California, which is the valley of Los Angeles. And it's not near the ocean. So there's no beautiful ocean breeze coming through.

I have the hot oven blaring in my kitchen for two pieces of toast. Have you perfected like how long your toast is in that oven or what's your what's how many degrees and how long do you keep it there you know what it depends on how fast i want the toast like of course i'm gonna turn it up if i need it fast but i think 300 is pretty good for a couple of minutes and it's ready. I don't like a burnt toast. I just like a little tiny bit of golden crisp on it. And I put the butter on right away so it's nicely melted in there. I don't like to see solid pieces of butter on my toast.

I like it. But I'm not going to put the butter. I'm not going to put the butter on the bread and into the oven. Some maniacs do that. But you know, you do risk butter drippings going to the bottom of your oven and the elements and then you have a little small smoke fire. Kim, it gets really complicated. I really believe when you said before that you have a passion for toast and not for toasters. This is coming through strongly. Yeah. I will literally eat like a half of bag of ciabatta bread toasted.

Yeah. In one sitting, easily. And I guess I feel like I'm sort of a, not Goldilocks, but like Mujan has a slot toaster. Kim is using the entire oven. We have a toaster oven currently. We are right in between. Most of the show is going to be about slot toasters

and like the classic pop up and down toaster. But I, we definitely had a slot toaster growing up. And then my roommates and now my partner have all had toaster ovens and I've had no interest in them and I don't miss the slot toaster don't totally need it it's fine yeah I mean whenever I think of the toaster oven I think fancy I think growing up that's what the fancy people had and you know the toaster ovens are now coming with air fryers because the toaster oven that I purchased for my mom also has an air fryer option. Oh, that's smart. Which I'm like, they're really going there with the toasters.

But also, at the end of the day, it sounds like an oven. Thank you. Let's just put them all together where they once were. It's just another thing on your counter. Yeah. And another plug. I feel like the plug issue is also a huge limitation of these things. Our Brooklyn kitchen has like two outlets total.

And it's been a real power strip rigging situation. I always, after I toast my toast, I always unplug. I don't know why I have a fear that it will blow up. I feel like a lot of people do that. Yeah, I do. Like, I don't keep it plugged all the time. That feels unsafe to me. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, each time. Not unless you have, like, a toaster clock. Are there any toasters with clocks on them? There's got to be some futuristic ones. Yeah. Because I know my mom keeps her microwave plugged in. Yeah. Because there's a clock on it. Yeah. But the toaster always gets unplugged. Always. Also, the one I bought is like maybe twenty five, so I'm pretty sure it will blow up. Like, I don't. It does its job, but I don't.

I think it could do other jobs, and I don't want it to do those other jobs. Yeah, you don't want to explore those unknown territories. I'm very excited that this show will have at least one unknown territory of toasters. It's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah. And I think from here we can get into the first chunk of it, because on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. This week that's in a segment called...

The best part of statistics is numbers in your mind. And that name was submitted by Kelsey Legidol. Thank you, Kelsey. We have a new name for this segment every week. Please make a Massillion Wacky and Bad as possible. Submit to SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com. And heads up for long-time listeners, this one, it'll be a couple numbers, then the takeaways of the show and then more numbers at the end. So mixing it up a little bit.

But the first number here is less than five years. And less than five years is, according to Wirecutter.com, the lifespan of a new toaster. I'm sorry, Mujan, but they say if you buy a new toaster, don't expect it to last beyond five years of starting to use it. It's going to break down. Interesting. Sounds like an iPhone. Yeah. Like they were built to not last.

That seems rude. Yeah, apparently they are now. And I was, I didn't know about this. I don't follow like toaster culture, but apparently like Wirecutter's entire page about, here's our guide to toasters. The first thing on it is, don't buy a toaster because they're going to break down. They say, quote, no matter how much you spend, toasters aren't made to last like they once were, end quote. There's a belief that vintage toasters were built to last. New ones just fall apart. Yeah.

That's real. Because my mom has a blender that's older than me. It's from like, oh my God. She might have gotten it for her as a wedding gift. Makes sense. And it's glass. Yeah. Let me tell you something.

That thing, it has Vitamix vibe to it. And I'm like, this blender is amazing. So, I mean, that makes sense about toasters nowadays. Like, they don't, you know. Yeah. I think, like, thinking about my family, I think we just had that one toaster. We didn't change it every five years. I also feel like not many people know that.

And so, even if it's supposed to last for five years, similar to an iPhone, I will have an iPhone 6 until it will explode. Right. Right. I wonder if there's people that are upgrading their toasters, though, like when they got the new. Yeah. There's got to be toaster heads out there. Yeah. they got the new yeah there's gotta be like toaster heads out there yeah it's gotta be like a reddit slash r slash toaster or something like that you know i i didn't find a specific community

i learned a little bit about them the the next number is 151 and 151 is the number of separate parts in a sunbeam brand toaster from the 1970s. And apparently toaster heads love the Sunbeam brand in particular. That's like if you want a vintage toaster, you need to get one sometime between 1949 and 1980. And the number of parts comes from a book called Things Come Apart by Todd McClellan, where he just separates a bunch of different appliances out into all the little components. And apparently Sunbeam, until they were bought up

and kind of watered down after the 80s, they were the brand of a great toaster that lasts forever and people really, really love it. Interesting. They were the iPhone of toasters, basically. Sunbeam. Yeah, but even built more to last. Apparently, I found a modern business that refurbishes and resells old Sunbeams, specifically, because people are that passionate about them.

This is not an ad for Sunbeam. It's just what, it turns out, toaster heads are freaking out for. It should be, though. toaster heads are freaking out for it should be though but is the price is it like a you know like certain things get better the prices go up through aging like is it like a good bottle of old wine i don't know is that how people talk uh you get that 1975 uh crumb on your toast. Does it enhance the flavor? Yeah. This toast is so bright. Ah, like sunglasses on. Yeah, that's a good question.

I couldn't find like any reliable guide to like prices of these now, but it was a Chicago business. And then it got bought up by another company that like watered down the quality of the toasters. bought up by another company that like watered down the quality of the toasters and so now if you buy a new one it's like all these other toasters that wire cutter says you should not buy muja i think you said you spent 25 on your new toaster yeah that is that is around the right price for a new toaster wire cutter says their pick is a 30 dollar cuisinart toaster and then like the upgrade breville kind is 80 but uh like you're truly buying a used toaster if you want the vintage uh unbeatable kind yeah now that makes me like think like what is the most expensive toaster and does it does it matter right it doesn't matter

because they're all gonna this is gonna do the It's just going to do the same thing. It's going to do the same thing, yeah. One's going to do it better than the other. Hold on. Oh, I'm on Amazon. I'm looking up. I found one for $119. $119. Still toast.

Oh, no. Oh, no, but this is like industrial, like conveyor toaster stuff. You can get one for $5,427. Oh my gosh. It's the Toast King conveyor toaster, which you can have like 12 toasts at the same time. You're making toast for an army. Yeah.

You're running a dining hall. Yeah, prison, sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Prison toast. It's still gonna not work in five years. It's pretty disappointing. Yeah, prison, sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Prison toast. It's still going to not work in five years. It's pretty disappointing. Yeah.

If I'm going to spend that much money on a toaster, I want the toaster to be self-cleaning. Yeah. Now, that's a function that they should have because you know cleaning a toaster. I don't care if it's slotted, a toaster oven. That is a you-know-what, with the crumbs and then you're trying to avoid the element in there. And I mean, some toasters are easier than others to clean, but I don't know. So I sometimes toast like a muffin.

I cut the muffin up and then it gets stuck and then the remnants are in it forever and it gets burned and then it explodes. But some people, i think they toast things that aren't bread in there or no like meats right i feel like some people there's now meat and there's eggs there's other things you can toast in a toaster in a slot toaster or toaster yeah yeah yeah and a toast in a slot toaster maybe you're not supposed to but i feel like i've heard a friend who probably shouldn't have did like a Beyond Burger. They shouldn't have, right?

No? Okay, never mind. Wow. Well, you could put Pop-Tarts in there, right? Yeah, Pop-Tarts. Yeah, I've done a Pop-Tart in a Slot Toaster. That works out. Yeah, yeah.

That was made for a Slot Toaster. Maybe not meat. Don't. Okay. We should move. Yes. No, I'm trying to wrap my mind around something moist going in there. Yeah.

Yeah. And Mujan, is that your muffins are going in a slot toaster? Like you're chopping it into slices and then putting slices of muffins. Yeah, I chop it into slices. Okay. See, now I want to try that. Actually, that sounds pretty good. A toasted muffin?

I mean, come on. Yeah, in this regards, I'm more into the toasted muffin than the toaster because the toaster usually messes it up. Right. I should use an oven, but I'm just impatient. I just want it to happen fast. And I like the action of it going bing. So, yeah. I'm surprised.

But the meat element that leads into one of the main takeaways for this episode. So I'm going to bring us into it. Takeaway number one. Before we had microwaves, people tried to use slot toasters to make bacon. This was an entire product, an entire business. The Ready Whip company tried to roll out a slot toaster approach to bacon called Ready Bacon in the 1960s. OK. That's interesting. Well, they don't exist anymore, right? So something went wrong.

It did. Yeah, it didn't work out. Yeah. This was. So were there like little tiny like shoots because i can't imagine like that big slot gate and putting like a strip of bacon in there i feel like it would get lost it just be on the bottom sad all wrinkled up yeah i'm gonna i'm dropping a picture in the chat right now and then we'll have it linked for people and this picture is from gastro obscura a piece by rachel rummel she's the main source

here in 1964 the people who make ready whip rolled out a whole product called ready bacon and it was a foil pouch lined with absorbent paper and so it's it's almost like a pop tart still wrapped up but it's four pieces of pre-c bacon. And the idea is you put that in a toaster slot, heat it for 90 seconds, and then pop it back out. You have bacon in 90 seconds. That sounds like a good idea. Oh, I'm looking at it now. Huh. High skepticism.

I like it. It's good. But this is pre-microwave, so this was kind of like... Yeah. I feel like the precursor to the idea of cooking meat fast. Exactly. I don't know if I want fast-cooked meat. I mean, I appreciate that it has at least that aluminum foil.

So moving forward, you don't have that grease or whatever. The remnants of meat when you cook other things and old meat right if but but this was a thing of itself right this was not used for toast it was used specifically for bacon yeah yeah yeah yeah it's the the product was called ready bacon where the the bacon was wrapped in foil and i'm looking at this ad now and it says toaster to table that's great alliteration by the way yeah and it really and like you said kim they were pre-microwave oven like if folks remember long ago microwave ovens episode we talked about how they only started to be common in homes in the 1970s

microwaves so 1964 people were like 90 second meat this is revolutionary i can't believe it oh the jetsons yeah it's here that time is the future is now it's here just inserting the meat into that robot maid they had like into her mouth right yeah but uh so yeah so they rolled this out people were excited and then there was one flaw where they had to stop and here's rachel remmel writing about it quote the residual fat in ready bacon's pre-cooked strips proved problematic even the slightest tear in the packaging posed a threat, as grease could drip down into the toaster, destroying it or starting a fire. End quote. It always explodes, I'm telling you.

Always explodes. It's inevitable. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, the unplugging impulse, Mujan, that actually is a good move here. Like, Bacon's done. Out. Yeah. Yeah, the unplugging impulse, Mujan. That actually is a good move here. Like, bacon stun. Out. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So they, yeah, they rolled this out in 1964, and by 1965, they'd pulled the last of it off of store shelves in a panic. This product did not come back, and pretty much other than bread and Pop-Tarts and things like Pop-Tarts, we don't really use slot toasters for anything else. Don't do it. Yeah. That's, you know, part of me is like a little disappointed.

We've had so many years since then. We've had, you know, 60-odd years since it was discontinued. 50-odd years. You'd think someone would do something else with the toaster. That's beyond the toaster oven or an air fryer. Or like other foods you can just put into a slot machine. A slot. A slot machine.

Yeah. Maybe our toasters can give us coins. I mean, right. Exactly. I'm just saying there's an untapped market that's been forgotten due to what? Explosions? Sure. But we move on.

We go beyond. Think about stuff. That would be dope, though, if you toast the perfect pair of toasts and then your toaster is like, you win, you win. And coins come out. Yeah. That would be amazing. It's like proud of you. To have a toaster be proud of you and to reward you for your achievements.

I mean, we're all going through a lot right now and i think that would be a good product listen that is a victory when you get your toast just right i agree that is a victory because when you f it up sometimes i throw it out if it's after too badly because i'm like no i'm not eating this no i can't even scrape the charcoal off of it i'm not eating this. No, I can't even scrape the charcoal off of it. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to start all over again. Yeah. And you only have like a certain amount of time with that toast too.

Like you have to eat it within some odd, like less than an hour, right? Because then it just turns hard. Exactly. It's a delicate process and you need to be rewarded. Yeah. Real talk. Yeah. You need to go toaster to table like that ad that's the

that's the way of it we all know this yeah oh my god well uh there's one other main takeaway for the episode for some more numbers here we go into takeaway number two slot toasters became a common appliance thanks to one metallic alloy. I got curious about, like, where did toasters come from in general? And it turns out the technological leap that made it all possible is a metallic alloy for the part that heats up and is, like, against the bread in there. That was the key thing they needed to invent before they could invent the rest of the machine who invented what is that called and it was a guy his name was albert l marsh he was an american metallurgist and in 1905 he came up with nichrome which is a combination of nickel and chromium mostly nickel so 1905 that's when we we got the key element that made the toaster a machine.

Oh. So toasters were out in the early 1900s? Yeah, and it took off really fast. He patented this in 1906, and then two years later, 1908, General Electric was selling multiple models of a toaster. multiple models of a toaster. Like this, this was an immediate, like people already love toast, but they were making toast by like holding bread over a fire with a fork. Or there were like these metallic frame things that you could hold a piece of bread up to a fire with. But as soon as this machine came out, people said, Oh my God, amazing. This is what I'm doing. Yeah. I would imagine, especially at that time, like Gildilded age like women would invite other

women to be like a toaster party oh yeah show off the toasts that they have yeah there was i there was definitely a step of history where people were like check out the best new appliance in the world it's some new technology we bought it's really cool and it was a toaster was it yeah i think that's awesome and as far as like the origin of toasters main sources here are the smithsonian museum of american history and then also time magazine and cnet that uh that alloy nichrome it's it's not like a famous alloy but a lot of toasters are still made out of it to this day and the reason it made toasters possible is it can be

heated and cooled over and over and over again without breaking or without getting brittle. It also glows a bright reddish color when it's heated. And so that was a nice bonus safety feature. Like you could just see whether the toaster was on or not. That just got turned into this appliance right away. He made it for that purpose and people figured it out. And by the end of the 1900s, first decade, people were buying toasters. It probably changed the breakfast and dining experience for so many people. Yeah. And it was probably fun, too, for the kids to look at, you know, because I remember.

Yeah. I'm old. to look at, you know, cause I remember I'm dating my, I'm old, but I remember when microwaves became a thing and like being excited about microwave popcorn. Cause I remember making it on a stove. So it's like, Oh, microwave popcorn. Look at this. You know, we could get popcorn in three minutes. Wow. So that's probably, that probably was the same reaction with the with toasters i'm sure back then exactly right yeah and it and also the first toasters i just dropped a picture in the chat and and people can see them in the post too it the very first ones were built very different than what we have today there was no like big housing around it so there was just sort of exposed coils and slots

on a little base and so you were also like seeing the toast get toasted in front of you which i think is kind of cool i sort of want that experience one time you know yeah i actually like that yeah i think it's i think they should bring that or maybe they have brought it back but i you get to kind of keep an eye on your toast because sometimes you know it is it's hard to toast sometimes even if you put it on the four setting i feel like as the toaster ages the four becomes the five like it has its own method without telling you but if you have it in front of you you could see it reaching the level that you want it to. And you could stop it. I'm getting the image of like an indoor campfire now with a toaster that's not.

You're saying the toaster is not enclosed, right? It's just out there and on a base. Like you could reach and touch the filaments if you wanted to get burned or something. Like they're just out there. Yeah. You want to self-harm. But you have the option, you know? Right now we don't have that option.

Give us the freedom, you know? So wait, was there a reason why they had the house around it or the protection around it? Probably for the people that were burning themselves. Yeah, that's probably true. Yeah, I Googled a lot and couldn't find anyone to tell me that it was for safety and liability but i'm sure that's why yeah like i live to tell it's just definitely people realized oh we could get sued so let's put a chrome thing around it and then people will idealize it yeah that's true human beings yeah 100 if something is burning in front of us we will put our finger in it that's what happens

and uh and yeah and then that's the origin of toasters is this metal alloy wire cutter says most toasters still work this way there's also a cheaper alloy people use of chromium iron and aluminum but it's more brittle, less good. Like it's just another cost cutting thing companies are doing. That's probably what they're making all of them out of now. And that's why we got to buy them every five years. Yeah. Apparently nickel is expensive. That's why they don't want to spend the money on nickel. So now when I go to the store, I have to say, is there nickel in the alloy component of this toaster? Do you think they'll know what I'm talking about? I hope they do.

You can really flex on them. Big time them. Like, I know my toasters, buddy. You know? Then they'll kind of be like, oh no, she knows. They'll sell you like the one good one that they've been keeping in the back. How does she know? How does she know? Who told her? They bring

it out. It's like the golden child. It's light over it and stuff. We've been tricking them for years. It's a sunbeam toaster surrounded by literal sunbeams. Just blinding Ark of the Covenant stuff in a good way. Right. With like angels that kiss the bread when it comes out. So you know what?

This is inspiring me to want to open a toaster store now. Even though I don't own a toaster, I don't think I will do it again anytime soon. Unless I have like a massive counter space in my living quarter. But yeah, I think I should open a toaster store now is it a place for people to toast or to buy toasters both both okay i think it should be i think they should test the product yes before they take it home yeah i don't understand why they don't do that with toasters they do that with other products i guess i don't know for the obvious sanitary reasons but it's like like you're in best buy all the tvs are playing a movie or sports or something to impress you the toasters should be like occasionally

making toast yeah just to impress you like oh look at this yeah you know there should be a wall of bread and pop tarts for us to test also like a customization color grid of like right like which one makes the best six and seven or yeah right yeah because because also i'm i'm a light lightly toasted toast person but i know people who want charcoal on it and i don't get it but i'm sure like some stores I would go to, they'd be like, here's what everybody likes, the charcoal toast. And I'd be walking out and be like, no, you have misunderstood me. Also, I think we've been generalizing bread. I feel like maybe some different breads require different toast process or toasting. Like maybe

a ciabatta is better at a mildly toasted but a sourdough is probably better very toasted. You know? Yeah, that's a good point. And then if you're dealing with rolls or croissants those are way more dense

than just a simple slice of bread. Yeah. I think you at your toaster store you need to have like a toast a bread connoisseur

bread toast toasters. I think it's, man. I'm also, I'm angry this hasn't happened before. Yeah. We have a lot of business ideas that are happening today. What part of New York are you in?

I'm in the part that's a toaster store desert. I'll tell you that. No toaster stores. I see. Yeah. There's no toaster stores. This yeah there's no toast this feels like a brooklyn situation that's why i was asking yeah yeah i'm in the part that needs it there's definitely i feel like in the past like year a bunch of shops opened up for shades and it's like

you don't need that many shops for shades for like window shades oh wow there's like six different window shade shops that have opened up. If that's happening, we got to have a toaster shop. Like, come on. Might as well. I was, we did one trip up the Hudson Valley, like the Hudson River Valley, and we accidentally found a s'mores store.

And they did specialty s'mores. And like the person got out a blowtorch and did it in front of you and they were square marshmallows. So they sit more easily for architectural reasons it was very impressive i think i think we can just have those people open this they know what they're doing yeah yeah and where was it like twenty dollars for a s'more it was i think it was six or seven it was actually a lot really still like i still had my you know stuff i wasn't in a barrel with straps at the end.

Yeah. So you got square marshmallows and what else in it? And then I guess, so I got, it was around March. I got a shamrock s'more. It was graham crackers, marshmallow, and then Andy's mints. And it was, it was amazing. Actually, it was really good, but yeah. That's how you do it.

So this for toast, we need that. We need this level. Yes, how you do it. So this for toast. We need that. We need this level. Yes, for toast. Yes. And we'll open it outside the Brooklyn Nets Stadium or something. I don't know where, but you know, something. We'll do it. Yeah.

Right outside the Nets. It's in the Nets Stadium, actually, at Barclays Center. And like at every smorgasbord or whatever. And West Hollywood. Yes. It's a very West Hollywood situationwood situation too and silver lake silver lake it's a very it would be hard though i think in la because it is a carb based thing so we should have other options besides toast other non-carb based products that could be toasted gluten-free toast

right gluten-free toast? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Seed bread, the bread that's just made out of seeds. Mm-hmm. That only birds should eat. Yes. Like medically, too, only birds should eat. It's just...

Next thing here is a big trumpet sound for a big takeaway. Before that, we're going to take a little break. We'll be right back. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

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There's also there's an element of toasters with sliced bread, which is that I think I had always assumed we got toasters after sliced bread. But it turns out we got toasters before. And because these these toasters start rolling out around 1908, 1909. And according to Time Magazine, the first mass marketed pre-sliced bread was 1928. So it was a few decades after the invention of toasters that like a pre-sliced bread was available to people. So lots of the first toaster users were, you know, using a bread knife, cutting their own bread, aiming for the right dimensions for this new technology they got. They were eating that last supper bread. It was cut that way.

That makes me... Their rugged surface. That makes me wonder, like, who created, which dimension came first? Were we, were we cutting the bread and then they made the dimensions of the toaster based on what people were doing? Or did that affect what people were doing afterwards? That's a good question. Yeah, I'll bet they kind of started to match up. Yeah, toasters were definitely popular in homes when the first sliced bread came around.

And it took until the 1930s for sliced bread to be really popular. Apparently, Wonder Cut bread was one of the first hit brands. Now we just know it as Wonder Bread. But there was this like slow progression toward Americans thinking, oh, yeah, like a loaf of bread that's already fully sliced. That's normal. And in the meantime, they already had a toaster possibly with no protection around it just sitting on their table. Yeah, that's awesome. But yeah, a very strange thing. And then, and I was also curious, I know toasters as a trope as

a wedding gift. It's a very common, especially in the past, like, oh, people are getting married, here's a toaster. And it seems like one reason is that it was new technology in the early 20th century. Another reason is that toasters were less disposable then like you would give somebody a toaster and they'd use it forever but the last reason is that couples in the 20th century were often like starting their household after they got married and today a lot of couples like already have a the kitchen basics when they're getting married yeah i don't think i've any of the registries i've given money to for my friends they're general it's all changed it's not just like give us money for a honeymoon it's not or like something very expensive or crazy like while we have your attention

that's funny yeah but no toasters yeah is there any way you could go have these on those like really expensive items on people's registries? I always thought about that. It's like, I don't want to buy this chandelier for you guys, but I'll put in, I don't know, 10%. Right. And the rest of you guys at the rest. There should be. That's a good idea.

I agree. I always end up getting, like, a pan. Right. A dish towel. A dish towel that's supposed to come in, like pack of seven and i just get like the one yeah so i'm like guys i spent so much money coming here by myself come on yeah that i our registry i think will just be please contribute to a honeymoon yeah because we already we already have our, I'm getting married in October and we already have a place. We already have the toaster oven. We're all set. Yeah. But can your toaster oven be improved? Oh, wait. So do you guys live together already?

Yeah, we do. Yeah. So we already have a kitchen. Like we're all set up. Okay. Because, you know, some couples, it's like they don't live together and then they have two of everything. And then the person with the craziest stuff, they have to throw that out. It was really just the headline mentioned toasters, but there was an NPR story about Goodwill. And they said that Goodwill receives like so many broken appliances that they actually have pretty intense trash bills every year. And they're asking people to like, like, please don't give us fully broken toasters and other appliances like that. Or like the junk if the couple is deciding which stuff is better. Because then they end up spending a lot of money like getting rid of it. Whole issue.

Why don't they just take the toasters apart and build a new toaster with yeah the parts that work isn't that what they do with like car junkyards they should have like a toaster junkyard yeah yeah an appliance junkyard appliance junkyard yeah and just build build another one half sunbeam half cuisinart blender yeah cyborg toaster Half Cuisinart. Blender. Cyborg toaster. And it's a Roomba and it goes room to room. I am alive now.

Help. But it just keeps having to make toast. Well, those are the main takeaways for the main episode. there's just a few numbers before we wrap it up and the next number is also about bread still it is 49 days and 49 days is how long the u.s government banned pre-sliced bread in world war ii yep There was a brief month and a half where the government would fine you very heavily if you, as a bakery or whatever, produced bread loaves that were pre-sliced. Why? Is excess considered excess labor or materials? Yeah, it was January 1943.

They thought that bakeries could save money by skipping the slicing and then keep bread prices lower. And they also knew that there's a true thing where a sliced loaf needs more packaging around it because it'll go stale faster. And so at that time, it took twice as much wax paper to wrap up a sliced loaf. And they were trying to, like, conserve the nation's wax paper. So that was why they did this in world war ii oh wow when you said 49 i thought you were gonna say 49 days before bread goes stale and i'm like i thought that too i thought that too i saw you make a face and i'm like what's in that bread to make it stay that long. I don't want to eat that.

Or is it where it goes through a process? We always throw it away when it gets stale or smells, but we should let it actually stay out because then it goes back to its original form. Right. And we've been throwing it out too soon. Are you guys, I'm curious, are you guys like a let your bread stay out or put your bread in the

refrigerator immediately i keep it out a little bit i don't know why i think it's just to enjoy those first few days of it being real fresh yeah yeah and then i put in the refrigerator because i feel like the refrigerator kind of alters the the taste yeah even when you toast it i don't know something different yeah i i'm i'm like with the habit of it and also there i found out there's a bread company here on the east coast called schmidt old time baking and my last name's schmidt so i was very excited and then i like looked them up on social media and the very first post was a meme about how you should not put your bread in the refrigerator. And I felt very attacked by Schmidt bread.

I was like, hey, I'm one of you. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But they said like, oh, it makes the bread like less tasty and less fresh feeling if you make it cold and refrigerated all the time. There's this comedian out here named Chase Bernstein, and she has this joke where she says she judges people by whether they keep their bread in the freezer or the refrigerator. Because you know how some people freeze bread? Because it'll... Yeah.

I'm probably not doing her joke justice, but it's a really funny bread joke. I think I've frozen bread when I'm like, oh, I'm going to be on vacation and I accidentally bought bread. Right. When you have too much. Yeah. Which I found that when you do freeze it, it's mandatory to toast it. Because if you thaw bread out like that, you just have mush. Yeah.

Yeah. And this is a true test going back to, yeah, the toaster. It has to be a good toaster. You can't have a sh** toaster that only half-thaws it. And you have to remember to press that thaw button. I don't know what it does, but I press that button. Does that thaw button do anything? Is it like extra heat?

I don't think I've had one with that. Unthaw. A defrost button. A defrost button. I've never seen a defrost button on a toaster. Really? Like some toasters have a defrost button. What do you have?

A Cuisinart? No, mine's... I don't even know what the name is. If you have a Sunbeam, you have to tell us. You have to admit it. No, no, no. You can't keep this secret. She's holding out on us, man.

She has like a Rolls Royce of toasters. Yeah, it was a $25 toaster. $2,500. Yes, yes, yes. And I like to unplug it and hide it whenever I leave. Wow. Yeah, and so this ban on sliced bread, U.S. government attempts this January 1943.

It's very unpopular right away. Lots of bakeries and businesses violate it, and then they rescind the order by March of 1943. So there was just this brief window where there was a weird block on slicing bread like people had gotten used to. And also Lapham's Quarterly says it was pretty hard to buy a new electric toaster during World War II just because so much war production was happening. And so that was actually an appliance that was was hard to get new for a few years. That makes sense. Yeah, it's the war.

It's what it is. It's the war. It happens. You ration. It is interesting because it made me think, like, maybe, you know, if one of the reasons is to preserve, although bread is so cheap to make in most cases, it's the thing that you should be giving out more of. But I guess you want to, but it's more about the material that you're shaving,

that you put the sliced bread in, right? For packaging, yeah. But if I get a loaf of bread, I wouldn't know how many people it's for, because I'd be like, oh, this is one serving, as opposed to when you get sliced bread, you, like, even it out. It tells you, like, how much to eat. Right. You know where you're at, yeah.

Yeah. Why were they so hell-bent on conserving wax paper? Is that how they made bullets? Right, right. The wax. Yeah. Is it the same materials that you make? Just try and figure it out well the

next number here is a modern thing this is 15 feet that's also 4.57 meters for people on that but 15 feet is the Guinness world record for the highest popping toaster whoa that's the highest a toaster has ever fired

the bread up into the air. Intentionally. Yeah. On purpose. Yeah. That's a good question. Okay. Before or after it set on fire. Um, okay. Was the toaster itself like an, a normal average height toaster, like a regular toaster? No. So yeah, this was someone who just wanted to break the Guinness World Record. This was a 14-year-old in Texas named Matthew Lucci, and he built a toaster that was powered by a 12,000 RPM motor. And apparently he did this because he saw the existing record in the Guinness Book of World Records and wanted to beat it.

So it's just this kid wanted to build an even more powerful toaster for fun i was just getting this image of like toaster hydraulics like those bouncing cars in the snoop dog videos you know the hydraulics or cannonball toaster and the toast is on fire like Muzan was saying yeah it's on fire thank you that's crazy what is this a game this isn't a game this is toast I don't play with my toast this is not a game

do not play with my toast I'm like tempted to look up that kid to see what happened to him. What field he went into. Did he use that power for good? He probably works for Elon. Yeah. And not a good department either, like a bad department.

Yeah, and the bad department. His employee badge just says, like, bad department. Like, it's just fully baked into the work and then very last number here this is sort of a similar situation this is the year 2009 and 2009 is when an industrial designer created a joke prototype for a trebuchet toaster and if people don't know a trebuchet is sort of like a catapult. It's a medieval sea gentian. And so this, just as a prototype they built,

it's a one-slot toaster where it's resting at an angle. And so the idea is you catapult the piece of toast with force onto your plates, kind of across the way. I'm so lost. Yeah. Also, just so much work to be lazy, like, to create that. The purpose of it, right, is just to catapult your bread? Yeah, and I just dropped a picture in the chat.

Oh, okay. This seems to have been, like, a satire of industry and consumerism. It was sort of a whole art project, too. of industry and consumerism and like it was sort of a whole art project too but yeah you're sort of in an arcing angle sort of like an angry birds attack or something like you're launching the toast uh to another point got it i mean that's cool i get it but also you know your plate has to be a specific angle a lot of constraints there but it is just more games A lot of constraints there, but it is. Just more games.

It's just more games with my toast, man. I don't want to play. I just want the bread lightly toasted with a little bit of butter. Melted. After this. I don't need all these theatrics and acrobatic moments. While I'm trying to make a piece of tones no unless of course it gives you points if it gives us points if the coins are coming out that's another ball game but this right here i don't i don't have time for this. Now I'm looking at these toasters where they can imprint. Like there's a Bob Ross toaster and you can, and it's a slot toaster and you can get an imprint of his face on your toast.

Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah, apparently some of those use lasers. Like most of these are just nichrome heating the toast, but some of those it's like a laser etching print to put those things on. Doesn't give us cancer. Maybe. Is that what you're telling us, Allie? I found a toaster that is a toaster that also has a egg cooker attached to it.

So you can toast your toast and also in four minutes have a complete meal. Interesting. Oh, also there's a Porsche designed toaster. Oh, like the car company. Wow. Yeah. They created a toaster. I feel like eventually we're reaching the joke we were making about like it has hydraulics and it's like we just just want toasters to be more than the thing they are and good for us great yeah now this really further

makes me feel like a toaster store needs to happen yeah somebody needs to do it yeah yeah can we get you on a plane fly to brooklyn uh there's not an airport right here three man yes three yep that's it when it pops up you it's going to be because of your podcast, Alex. When it pops up. That's right. Yeah. That's a good name. When it pops up.

Wow. Listen, y'all. This feels meant to be. folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to kimberly clark and mujan zolfagari for making this one awesome man i i don't feel like we just pressed down the metaphorical toaster lever. I feel like we fired up the entire oven for this one. You know what I mean? Because it turns out a way you can make toast. Very exciting.

Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. E if you support this show on patreon.com. Patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is a couple of toasters from fantastical universes, supernatural powers, and so on. Very fun. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of 99 other bonus shows, because this is also the 100th bonus show. Pretty cool. And if you join up, you can back this entire podcast operation.

And thank you for exploring toasters with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. toasters with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, before we had microwaves, people tried to use slot toasters to make bacon. Takeaway number two, slot toasters became a common appliance thanks to one metallic alloy. There's also a ton of numbers before and after those takeaways. There's more bread stuff, there's the fallibility of modern toasters, there's powerfully popping toasters, and more. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Mujan Zulfagari is one of the creators and performers of a wonderful comedy podcast called Mission to Zyx. And I know this is audio. Zyx is spelled Z-Y-X-X. Mission to Z-Y-X-X. You can find that at

mission to Z-Y-X-X dot space. That is their website. It's a domain extension after my heart, dot space. You can also catch Mujan on the animated comedy show Tuning Out the News. That was on Paramount Plus. Moving to Comedy Central. And then Kimberly Clark is a wonderful stand-up comedian all over. I highly, highly recommend her new special on Netflix. It's season two, episode four of Tiffany Haddish Presents They Ready. So you get Tiffany Haddish, you get a bunch of other comedians,

and you get this wonderful new special from Kimberly Clark. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A few amazing pages and online resources from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. In particular, some uploads and resources about a GE toaster that's in their collection. It's from the year 1909. toaster that's in their collection. It's from the year 1909. Also leaned on a piece for Gastro Obscura by Rachel Rummel, and more reporting from CNET, Wirecutter, Consumer Reports, Time Magazine, The Atlantic. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand.

Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode and for just hitting the century mark with me. Thank you, Chris. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I know I say that every week, but truly, truly, I feel such gratitude to be taping the final words of episode 100 right now, because I know I get to keep on taping episode 101. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.