Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Swiss Army Knives

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedian Caitlin Gill (GuaranteeShirts.com, new album 'Major.') and comedy podcaster Brett Rader (Yahoo Sports) for a look at why Swiss Army knives are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Hey folks, you are about to hear episode 97 of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. Nine. Seven. I am running a membership drive from now until episode 100. This week I have a quick stats and numbers for you. Also, uh, okay, stats and numbers. What's so funny about peace, love, and understatsing? That's just me making that up.

I didn't want to use up a listener one for this. Point is, first number is dozens and dozens. That's how many of you have joined up in this drive. I'm grateful to every single one of you for that. It's not a big show. It's very small. It's very independent. I rely on a pretty small number of people to make the entire thing happen. The other number to share here is less than 10%. Even after all these episodes and a few drives and me, you know, just hoping people will do that, less than 10% of the audience has actually come through and gone to SifPod.fun, donated to funding the making of this

podcast. And I try to provide benefits. I definitely think I provide community and picking topics and a weekly bonus episode and a bunch of other things. But I find that people mostly donate to support this show because they just want to, because they think a great show ought to exist. They think a heavily researched, tightly edited, fully thought through and designed to actually be good podcast is something that ought to be out in the world. actually be good podcast is something that ought to be out in the world. Also, please don't get me wrong. Like I understand that not everybody is in a life situation right now where they can support a podcast. That's totally fair. Totally makes sense. I do think a full 10% of listeners of this show, or maybe even a few more than 10%, but I do think a full 10% of listeners of this show could support this show. If that happened, every membership drive goal would be knocked out and that would be all the plugs. We'd be all set. So I really hope that that 10% of you can come through and make this show

better than ever, more supported than ever, able to do more than ever. That concludes the stats and numbers. We're still on our way to episode 100. ever. That concludes the stats and numbers. We're still on our way to episode 100. And now please enjoy the stats and numbers and more of episode 97. Swiss Army Knives. Known for the knife part. Famous for the other parts. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why Swiss Army knives are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is.

My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. My guests today are Caitlin Gill and Brett Rader. You may know Caitlin Gill from her stand-up comedy, especially her great new album, it's entitled Major, or from her wonderful t-shirt business, Funny Wonderful Shirts from GuaranteeShirts.com. And then Kaitlyn Gill is one of my favorite SIFT podcasts ever. She was on everything from the very first episode about U.S. post offices to the latest live stream episode just for patrons, about a bunch of stuff. And then Brett Rader is an old, old pal, an amazing podcaster. He was essential to everything with a show called The Cracked Podcast and everything with a show called Kurt Vonnegise.

Those are two shows you may know me from. He's currently a producer of many audio things at Yahoo Sports and co-hosts his own podcast called Hey Julie. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples. Acknowledge Caitlin recorded this on the traditional land of the Yuhaviatam and Marengayam peoples. Acknowledge Brett recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Wartongva and K'iche' and Chumash peoples. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode.

And today's episode is about Swiss Army Knives, which is a patron pick for the month of June. Thank you very much to Matthew But Mad Is Fine for that suggestion and for a funny patron name. Also, thank you to Mark Mosley for supporting that in the polls and being supportive and wonderful in general. That topic, perfect pick for the show. Everybody knows what Swiss Army Knives are. People don't know how they came about, what their whole deal is, why they are Swiss. We're going to get into that today. So please sit back or turn up the volume on the modern Swiss Army knife, your smartphone. Ah, metaphors.

Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Caitlin Gill and Brett Rader. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Brett, Caitlin, it is so good to have you back 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 this patron pick swiss army knives i'm a homesteading lesbian in a bandana i like swiss army knives um i think they are uh incredibly fun cool tools and i have always kind of romanticized

them and enjoyed having and carrying them never Never have I been responsible enough to keep one heirloom style. I always lose them. The legacy of lost knives, but I think they're awesome. And I'm a cis straight white man. So I'm bridging the divide. Well, I also like Swiss army knives. Like I have this multi-tool that I mentioned in the email chain, as we were starting putting this podcast together, I love my multi-tool so much. in the email chain as we were putting this podcast together. I love my multi-tool so much. I know it's not an official Swiss Army brand, but I can't go anywhere without this little thing. It's got a screwdriver. It's got a bottle cap opener.

It's got a knife. Right. I remember my dad growing up had a Swiss Army knife on his key chain, and it blew my mind that there was a toothpick in there and you just like pick up the toothpick would come out fully you know do a little business whatever you need i'll realize that exactly the same little hand motion of pooping it out of the thing yeah i mean that's my i'm sorry the dark history of like swiss dental army improficiency that led to the necessity of their being toothpicks due to tooth loss and the in the field but before i get the bleak reality i'll enjoy the romance of seeing cool adults with awesome toothpicks on their belts it feels like a like a version 5.0 thing where the first one well i'm sure we'll

learn about it soon had just like screwdriver bottle opener knife and like three or four just key ones and then it's like wow it's like apple you know being like oh multitasking and there's a phone on like a camera on both sides it feels like an iphone 12 sort of thing where they're like yeah let's throw a toothpick in there you know we'll get to it in a sec that's like not that far off yeah okay because i and caitlin you said you love swiss army knives is it specifically this brand where it has you know a little red and white logo or is it multi-tool kind of stuff multi-tools are awesome but the swiss army knife takes it to a whole other level with the branding yeah i mean it just it looks good it looks good and all yeah like i'm afraid to find out who the

designer is in that hugo boss kind of way and broadly they seem fine to me it's yeah i don't think this is like a horrifying rock we're gonna turn over yeah they're like all right they just want to make stuff we're switzerland man we're not gonna go over. Yeah. They're like, all right. They just want to make stuff. We're Switzerland, man. We're not going to go to war, but we'll make a little device if you want to go to war. Against screws, against long nails, against corn in your teeth, against everything. Yeah. The battle of daily life that we all fight. Yes.

Because I've never had one of these. I briefly have a Leatherman, and I never really used it for much, and then I didn't get another thing. But I've never had a Swiss Army knife. I just know about them. And that I, as a history geek kid, would be like, I know the fun fact that Switzerland isn't in wars. And so it was interesting to me before researching that like oh this their army that never does anything is famous for these interesting it does have the it's like the most it's the weapon with the most tool potential yeah it is a knife but it's a knife you give to kids because it's so clearly a tool kind of knife it's not a you know it's it's not a stabby knife it's a useful knife if every tool could be a weapon every weapon's kind of a tool it's a uh it's pretty clearly aligned with the tool side of the spectrum yeah it's got everything going on right like it it's mainly because it has 1 billion attachments we'll get get to actual numbers. But, like, it's doing so many things. It's everything to everyone. Also, you can't do that much damage with the knife.

Parents would be like, all right. Okay. Just a little bit of blood. With a knife in general, I really think it depends on the kid you hand it to. This is true. But I think from here we can get into the stats and numbers of the show. Because, you know, this is such a numerical item. It's very fun.

And on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and stats. That's in a segment called... Hey, Mr. Podcasting Man, play a stat for me. I'm subtracting, and there is numbers I'll listen to. Hey, Mr. Podcasting Man, play a stat for me. In the tan sine cosine morning, I'll come number

in you. And that name was submitted by Patrick Nugent. Thank you, Patrick. We have a new name every week. Please make a silly wacky as bad as possible. Submit to SipPod on Twitter or SipPod at gmail.com. And if you had a Swiss Army knife that had a harmonica in it, that would be... That would have just made it so much better.

Swiss Army knives need to plug in. You know what I'm saying? It's time. Unplugged. Acoustic. Well, the first number here, because this is the thing to get into. The first number is seven. Seven is the number of functions on the current top Swiss Army knife.

It is the Victorinox Classic SD model. It's not necessarily the top of the line one, but it's like the default first one that they try to sell you. And Victorinox is the main company. If you have one with that red and white cross logo and everything, that's them. The seven functions are toothpick which we talked about the scissors the tweezers the nail file a screwdriver 2.5 millimeters a key ring element and then lastly i really like how they list in the catalog it is blade comma small little tiny blade so don't forget the blade part of your knife that's the last one this feels very much like a

wes anderson movie just listing a bunch of things including a blade small a swiss army knife does have a wes anderson designed feel even the royal tenenbaums you could tell me a family named that designed this. I would believe you. It's not true, but you know, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Nine-year-old Ben Stiller invented it.

In the matching track jacket. It matches the knife. Like it's everything. Yeah. As soon as you said Victorinox, I realized I had a t-shirt from Uniqlo that had the Swiss Army United Victorinox logo on it. And I get a little bit obsessive about what t-shirt I wear the same shirts. My wardrobe is always very narrow. So for a time, if you looked at pictures of me on social media, it looked like I was just having one very long day in the same t-shirt with that logo on it.

I was obsessed. So I forgot that relationship with the object. As soon as you said Victorinox, I was like, that shirt. I bought three of them and wore them forever. Loved them. It's a really good logo. Like I'm saying, the branding's other level. It does.

It sounds like that shirt was like useful in a lot of different situations for a lot of different purposes. You know, it's just something I'm remarking on. You could use it as a sponge. You could use it as a tourniquet. You could like a sling if you broke your arm. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, we could get seven uses. I'm certain. A toothpick. Tooth brush if you did it right brush yeah for sure okay maybe if like a you have maybe like a you know if you have like one of those got a jar of pickles that you just cannot open just put that on top twist it it's a jar you know it helps you loosen up a jar. We'll get to seven for sure.

Oh, have we done shirt? Oh, yes. Shirt, comma, medium or whatever it was. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. That's so generous, Alex. I really appreciate that. Oh, sure. I'm an extra large woman or a medium man. Oh, I, and yeah, that Victorinox logo, it's essentially this flag of Switzerland. If folks Google it, that's just red with a white cross on it. The cross apparently represents the Christian background of the country. But yeah, these little knives, I feel like the extra feature is just promoting the country

of Switzerland and its whole vibe all of the time. And what they do. I mean, it's not, it's not like unfamiliar to see i don't know you see ford you got you know american flag there bud light other other countries are represented in their corporations i guess true it's just unique because like there's only one swiss device one swiss product and it's this Maybe there's like some sort of cheese that people buy with a cross on it. I don't know. Well, did the holes symbolize anything in the Swiss cheese?

Is there a symbolic tie into the roots of the nation? Some kind of government transparency, perhaps? Well, and as far as I'm putting it out, next number is 500 million. 500 million. 500 million. That is how many official Swiss Army knives have ever been made as of 2017. That's when they broke the 500 million mark. The number comes from the news website Quartz. I also just decided to add it up, and there's about 8 billion people on Earth,

so that would be one knife per 16 people if we still had all of them. That's a lot of knives. That's a lot of knives. It's a lot of knives with a lot of parts. Yeah. And as far as when they started, next number is 1891. Because 1891, that is the first year of major production of a Swiss army knife. It was made by a Swiss cutler named Karl Elzena. It was really for the Swiss army, the Swiss army contracted him to make knives for them. And the first knife in 1891, we have four functions. And Brett, you kind of predicted this. There's four functions.

There's a knife blade, a screwdriver. Small, medium, large? They don't say, yeah. There's knife blade, screwdriver, a can opener, and then a tool called a reamer that's a tool that it doesn't start a hole but it like expands a hole it looks sort of like a drill bit and so those were the four things on the first one and i imagine these are all just like the four things you need to survive in some sort of trench in France. Is there, you would just need like a fork to eat whatever bean gruel that came in a can

when you were a soldier. Right, I guess they didn't try to build silverware into it. But I'm sure there's multi-tools that have it. Yeah, that would be the one thing that's missing. You can clean your teeth after eating, but you can't eat with it, which is a shame. It's like a Swiss soldier soldier is like i am the maximum ability of efficiency and power and then once they open the thing they're just eating with

their mouth like an idiot like like like look how cool i am or they just have that little like that airline little baggie with like the worst oh knife fork, spoon, napkin, and salt and pepper inside. Like they're just, the entire battlefield is littered with that horrible small plastic cellophane wrapper. I'm trying to pick what moment in world history would bring this invention to bear. What was happening geopolitically in Europe?

And did you say 1891 was that the right am i getting that number 91 yeah yeah because i'm even my light googling there's wars a lot of other places but it's switzerland at that time directly engaged in any kind of conflict that would necessitate a blade small medium or large a screwdriver and a whole boring device within one tool thank you for bringing that up because i have just been like mindlessly porting World War I onto this for no reason other than like, okay, Europe, I don't know, about 15, 25 years different. Close enough. Close enough. I'll just say Switzerland was in World War I and these guys were just, you know, eating their soup with one of these. Well, World War I was in Switzerland,

whether they liked it or not it was definitely happening all around but yeah i don't that's still a few years away and at the time it's the it's the spam right it's the spanish-american war time and a lot of like really delightful colonialism going on if delightful is the euphemism that could be where it used true yeah it's not good it's really bad. So I'll just glaze, right? You can't. It's so bad.

But other than that, do you know why they decided to, at this time, go for it? Oddly, yeah. Am I going to hear about that? You know, there's more numbers, but I think we can jump to the first takeaway because it's why. Yeah.

This is the origin of it. It is takeaway number one, takeaway number one. This is the origin of it. It is takeaway number one, takeaway number one. The first Swiss Army knives were German. Of course. Before the production of these Swiss Army knives by Carl Elzena and his company, they ordered a set of multi-tool knives and they had to get them from the Germans. So that was the first time the Swiss Army used knives like these. And we wouldn't buy it.

We would not buy German army knives in America. It would be like a sort of Freedom Fries situation during the 1900s. I don't know if I feel comfortable buying a German army knife. Yeah. Swiss, all right. They're cool. Very few of these Central European wars happened in Switzerland, but they were all around it. And so Switzerland, it's been a country to at least some extent starting in the 1300s, but you really start to get modern Switzerland after the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s.

And Switzerland, it's a confederacy of cantons in the 1800s. A canton is a very small region of a few towns. They're all kind of autonomous. It's sort of a decentralized government. In the 1870s, 1880s, they start to centralize. They start to have one army. And in 1889, they adopt a standard rifle. It was a rifle called the Schmidt-Rubin.

Hey, one of those is my last name. That's fun. Great. But they get this rifle in 1889 and they say, hey, all of our guys should have a multi-tool that can fix the rifle. And like it can do other stuff too, but we're not in the middle of a war. We just, now that we have all these rifles, we should have all these knives and no Swiss company can fulfill that multi-tool need. So they hire out to a German company called Westeren Company in Solingen, Germany. It could have been a good clue that in about 30 years, we're going to learn that Germany was getting a lot better at making weapons than some of the rest of the world, who had become a bit complacent on hundred-year-old technology.

Minor issue. Yeah. Yeah. It turns out. They showed up with horses and all the red coats and things. The rest didn't go. There were tanks. There were tanks. Tanks and gray helmets on the other side. This trebuchet works fine. We're okay here. Trebuchets, that would be the best. rebuches that would be the best like yeah it is a good hint that if your nation needs to fulfill a weapons order from a bordering state that you're going to need to take a careful look at your domestic relations and make sure that those are in order it's just a good clue it's all i'm saying

yeah really and they and they were making their rifles at home like i i've talked often on the show about being a German-American, but this was a Swiss Schmidt and a Swiss Reuben who made the rifles. But apparently you needed some heavy industry and really specialized mechanical engineering to make, like, a cool multi-tool knife, and England and Germany were particularly good at it. Oh, no, they're just hobbyists.

It's just a hobby. We're not doing anything. They're just hobbyists we just it's just a hobby we're not doing anything just interested in historical preservation and uh and yeah and then so the swiss army starts hiring out to germans to make multi-tool knives and in the meantime this is the origin of the swiss army knife because separately from that in the 1880s there there is a Swiss cutler. A cutler makes knives and other cutlery. His name was Karl Elsener, and he just generally wanted to build up industry in his canton, his little town and region. And so he said, hey, I'm going to start a knife business that would create jobs. But he didn't have the funding to start a whole business, so he organized a Cutler's Union.

And then as an industrial cooperative, they come up with a competing bid for this Swiss Army knife contract, and they win it in 1891. And so then the Swiss Army starts having Swiss-made knives. But again, this was when we started to have the mental concept of the Swiss army has special knives. That was just not a thing until then. I think a cutlery union has a pretty good shot at any contract it goes for hard. One doesn't tangle with the union that makes knives. That's not a bunch that you push back on too hard, I think. Yeah, this thing is like relatively sweet i think they just really wanted to get a knife business going because this union started out just making

like kitchen knives farming implements like whatever they could think of and then they said hey there's this cool thing we can pursue and try to out-compete the germans uh and they did it that was the start of elsener's company, and then eventually that grows and eventually becomes Victorinox, and we get the product and thing from there. Yeah. A little competition, I guess. Breeds a good multi-tool knife. Yeah, because also the Germans were, right at this time, amazing at this, so they had to do at least a pretty good job. There uh we'll link a smithsonian museum like collection picture and exhibit and thing that's online because the smithsonian has

a like stunt multi-tool knife that a german company named j.s holder made in 1880 it has 100 different blades and then a bunch of other tools it has a functional uh large very large okay large it's also it's over nine inches long which is more than 23 centimeters for for europeans and so it was like meant to be a showpiece in the store to convince people to buy regular pocket knives like to show off hey look what we can do with our engineering. And it was so complicated. One of the attachments is a functional.22 caliber revolver. Like it has a gun in it.

Because the Germans were this good at this kind of thing before the Swiss. This is just now going... Okay, now I'm on board. This is just going into... Like you're not supposed to eat the enormous donut. I'm so sorry, Brad. just going to. You're not supposed to eat the enormous donut. I'm so sorry. That's all right. I would say this is just going into like Acme Wile E. Coyote territory.

Like, sure, the revolver works and doesn't blow a giant like puff of gunpowder in your face. Right. As you hold up a sign. There should also be a sign on the hundred piece thing that just says whelp the coyote army knife yeah one of them should just say bang when it's you have like 30 knives on there you might you can just have one sign on there a whiteboard at least there's one attachment that's a very small parasol umbrella for when a big rock is going to land on you from above. Oh, yeah. That's very helpful. Very good.

It could also be used when you want to dress up as a sexy lady bunny to convince hunters to lay off. Lipstick and rouge? Yeah. Yeah, like the world of these wacky tools is super wacky. And the truly strange ones are pretty visual. So we'll link people to this one. There's also a Swiss company called Wenger that made a crazy one called the Giants. Like there are stunt versions of these for the public.

Yeah, just to gawk at. It is. It's huge. It's like when a real car company makes one weird car for an auto show. And then the rest of the time they're turning out honda civics like that's what they do well and we'll talk about how that company grows a little bit later on but a couple other interesting numbers here and one of them gets at that like european war situation because the number is five five is the number of countries that border Switzerland.

And yeah, they're pretty famous for bordering France and bordering Germany, and also bordering Italy. Those are all right there. And then it turns out Austria has a long western tip, and that borders Switzerland. And then in between, like inside of the Austrian and Swiss border, there's a tiny country called the Principality of Liechtenstein that is just tucked in there. It's only about like 35,000 people. It's just this very, very old little princedom that is still a country somehow. And it feels like all these tools, they work for each country, right? Like you have the knives for the Germans.

You have a corkscrew for the Italians and the French. You have a nail file for the Liechtensteinians. Famously great manicures in Liechtenstein. If you can't beat them, if you're going to be an independent, if you're not going to participate in wars and stuff, but you want to make a tool for all your your your neighbor nations you make the swiss army die yeah there you go yeah it really is like i wanted to share the bordering countries because it gets at that thing like we'll especially talk about in the bonus how they have always been surrounded by bigger countries for

the most part except lichtenstein so lots of military neutrality. And then the neutrality is how they're mainly famous for having a knife in their army, not for like key wars or anything. With those borders to come out with a knife as your reputation, that's some centuries of skilled diplomacy right there. Yeah. This will be your own country. Like they didn't just get, they got eaten by Napoleon in the early 1800s, but it didn't last long.

Then that was independent from there. The world would have had a different, a much different like last 150 years if there wasn't a Swiss army knife, but there was a Swiss army grenade thrower. If like, just like four they're the sort of butterfly wings of history never led them to make the knife but instead we're like oh we're actually gonna we're gonna make some sort of keychain flamethrower

i like the keychain throw in oh yeah well the probability factor yeah of course that is what's lacking in the modern flamethrower because it's just not ideal you still need to carry a large tank filled with accelerant so i'm saying even a gentleman's pockets they can't fit a flamethrower hey folks this is alex quick drop in here specific to current events. The last number of the takeaways is about to come here, and it's a totally normal thing we taped that makes total sense, and we're on the right side of it. But the number involves guns, and the number specifically involves the AR-15 rifle. So, you know, I stand by everything we say that's about to come. I'm just doing this drop in because we are not going to mention the absolutely heinous, tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas, because when we taped this, that hadn't happened yet. We taped this right before.

And also, if you would like to avoid any mention of anything involving guns, the next takeaway is about seven minutes after this point in the show. And that's same for the patron version. About seven minutes later is the next takeaway. If you want to jump to there, that makes sense to me. Anyway, that's the message there. Please take care of your heart. Please take care of yourself. And please enjoy the rest of this podcast episode about European multi-tool knives. Last number here before we get back to takeaways. This number june 2021 june 2021 that is when a judge in california wrote like a real ruling like this is the law now ruling comparing the ar-15 rifle to a swiss army knife and he said like these are pretty similar you know not that different

yeah extremely similar tools for for hobbyists and historians alike. Right. That cause equal amounts of harm on society, which is to say very little. I'm sure the hunting experience is the same with either. So I don't really see how it could be that different. I'm looking here at some sort of wiki page for Swiss Army Knife. And it says, you know, there's a cuticle pusher is another tool that's commonly found on them. And when I, I'm like, my cuticles are looking a mess.

I just whip out the old AR-15, go to town. Absolutely. No more hand. No problem. Got him. Yeah. Yeah. Time and money him. Yeah. Yeah. Time and money saved.

been on the books for a long time. But then in June of 2021, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez struck down the ban. He said it violated the Second Amendment. He was a George W. Bush appointee, came from that guy. And then in his ruling, he wrote, quote, like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle, end quote. And that was overturned in December on appeal, and then they put the ban back. But there was like six months where assault weapons were legal in California because this guy thought that.

I am not a big city lawyer, but I disagree. I just want to know how else this guy draws comparisons. Like a car is like a toothbrush. It's not different. You can just rub. You can just drive on a toothbrush and run your face over with a car. I don't see the difference. A stripper pole and a stand mixer.

Same thing. Same thing. You can put both in your house, but they take up more space than you think. It's not different. I don't understand why it's different. Yeah, I feel like me just reading that ruling quote to you two and then leaving you to respond. It's like you're suddenly on the podcast of a crazy person, right? Like you're like, oh, now I really have have to like we know alex doesn't think that but i i don't know what to say to this guy what is getting a law degree other than becoming one of you know just one of a extremely high paid podcaster yeah kind of high stage podcasting i think that's court yeah you're just like i to get paid $750 an hour to come up with the wildest takes possible. Honestly, I think I made the wrong decision in my personal life.

Just being a regular podcaster instead of a lawyer. You'll have to go to court to defend your tiny flamethrower. So it is a good time to get a law degree. Your Honor, what is a tiny flamethrower put a hairbrush i don't see how it's different both both can change the the physical appearance of your hair i rest my case there's at least one judge in california who will agree with you and remember a lawyer is just a person who passed one test to test the test. I learned recently that Ted Cruz has been doing a podcast consistently like for a while.

Oh, my God. And I don't encourage anyone to listen to it. I just like it seems like he fully became a senator in order to launch a podcast. It's ridiculous to me. Like you can just go ahead and do this without wasting the government's time. You know, I kind of do want to hear him doing like the mail, like keeps ads or or or hymns ads or whatever, whatever the ones those are. It's like we send you pills discreetly in the mail. I listen to some true crime podcasts. I guess I could listen to one more about the Zodiac Killer. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Has there ever been an autobiographical true crime podcast by the murderer? His producer's like, let's just look at the notes here. And it's all that Zodiac cipher. Just all unintelligible characters. Alex, you were tweeting a lot about the weird Zach Braff show from seven years ago called Alex Inc. Because his job was like, it's just a new thing in media now where they don't know what a job for characters to have. So they're like, podcaster. Yeah, that's a job where people make money yeah this actually does feel like an nbc crime procedural like it's like he's dexter he's like a serial killer but he's also a

podcaster that's too close to being real life we're gonna it's we're two years away from that docu-series yeah here's the tagline here's the tagline his favorite murder dot dot dot is his own right that's it that's the tagline of the show they make a good show i don't mean to poop on them i just that was the title that jumped to mind it's great and thank you yeah if people don't remember alex inc that was a show where Zach Braff pretended to be a podcaster, but he taped in unlikely rooms and it didn't make sense. Yeah. You just were posting all of these screen caps of him recording with the worst USB mic

possible in a giant warehouse. With a bunch of people running around. Yeah. It was wild. If something. Okay. If you're making a TV show. Sorry.

Sorry, audience, because we're going on a whole separate thing about Zach Braff now. That's great. As most podcasts with me tend to go in this direction. If you're making a movie about a war, you have a war guy around who's like, oh yeah, a soldier wouldn't stand like that, they'd stand like this. Or if you're making Grey's Anatomy or something about doctors, you have a doctor consultant around and be like, yeah, you would actually insert the tube into the lung this way or whatever. Right. Every show is about a guy who's a podcaster now, which is disgusting. Find something else for characters to do.

Have someone around be like, no one would record in a room like this. Or this is not a microphone. This is a tin can. I rest my case. I'm done thank you for giving me a platform to go on my rants it needed to be said it's true how are yeah like how are they even finding entire television making teams where no one is a podcaster already right everyone has a podcast now wouldn't one person be like by accident no why would anyone

record a podcast in a room this size well there's a there's a couple other big takeaways here about the swiss army knife and next one is takeaway number two the swiss Knife became globally popular thanks to two manufacturers getting along. This is the modern history after Elsinore started making the first ones. It turns out two companies made them for basically the whole history of the product, and they just did it in parallel, not cooperatively, but without fighting or being weird or anything. You love to see it. So like two Swiss companies just had similar factories in order to achieve the number of knives necessary.

Yeah. And they, the real basis of it is that they, they ended up both getting the contract from the Swiss army starting in 1908. And in 1908, the Swiss army said, Hey, Elsener's company can have a contract and also Theodor Wenger's company. It might be Wenger. I can't find pronunciation. But both of them can each have a contract to do part of our need for these knives. And then they just both did that from 1908 to 2005 when they merged. It feels very European. They seem extraordinarily Swiss. Yeah. It feels very European. I seem extraordinarily Swiss.

Yeah. It feels very European in the same way that I like the Great British Bake Off, but I don't watch American cooking shows because it's like, oh, I dropped an egg. And then the other person's like, you can borrow one of mine. And then they continue baking the cakes and there is no escalation.

So Tommy told me he dropped his egg. I was thinking you tommy and i'm not gonna give him an egg like that's just a very american way like an american style reality show would address that scenario yeah swiss here like two swiss army factories cool we can share tools sounds great yeah and i i wish i had like lots details about this, but I couldn't find any skullduggery or mean competition or anything. Did they take the company retreats together? Did they go to the chalets in the Alps?

Were there Swiss Army Knife conferences? And the big joke was, let's just do companies that show up. Like, oh, hello, Rolf. Oh, hello. Should we share company secrets? Of course. It'll make both of our companies more efficient and profitable. Yay!

Yeah, and it's just this steady progression. The first one is Carl Elsener's company in 1891. He starts making a special knife for officers in 1897, and that becomes the basis of most of the modern ones. And then in 1909, his mother dies. Her name was Victoria. He names the company Victoria after her. Later on, his son adds on the French word for stainless steel, which is acier inoxydable. So Victoria plus the inox part becomes Victorinox. And then they're making knives, Wenger is making knives. In 2005, they merge and consolidate under Victorinox. But they apparently both did pretty similar products that whole time. And it was fine.

Like there was never some kind of like Coke, Pepsi rivalry, as far as I can tell. They just both tried to do a good job and both had a contract with the government. It does seem like the inverse of the same relationship for without Pepsi, there is no Coke and vice versa. It just seems like the very tame version of that same battle, very Swiss version of that same very American battle where they're two interrelated companies that become sort of interdependent with these contracts, but same Z's for the companies with this front facing fight. I'm doing generous air quotes here since, I mean, if the rivalry is the main thrust of your advertising for two decades,

I think you've found a way to harness it. That less a rivalry it's more of an asset right eventually it's like we just have a lot more pageantry yeah eventually it's like you guys are in love right like you can kiss you can just kiss you can just kiss oh my god what if coke and pepsi kissed like at the movies that would be huge that would be the pop culture event of like two centuries we could show if we could time travel and show it to people in the turn of the century they would lose their minds like can you believe it turn of which century i mean when 99 became 2000 because yeah that also would have blown minds at that time we wouldn't have been ready to accept such a union. That's true. Yeah, and both these countries, it's been very steady style of production, too.

According to Mental Floss, there have been just eight total models created for the Swiss Army since 1891. So in well over a century, just eight types of knives ever. And they really only ever updated it to accommodate changes to the army equipment. Like this was just a really steady government gig and they both did it and it went fine. When did they put in the drone controls on the most recent one? There was, I could find a picture of one that had a usb um like flash drive but i could i couldn't find out if that was like ever really sold to people because that'd have to be pretty thick that's like a weird thing to do they make them pretty small now yeah true so it could extend

like the toothpick like they have the ones that slide in and out to protect their little nodes or whatever. So it could just extend out the end of the knife. Kind of brilliant. Well, they never stop with these innovations. Oh no, Dieter, don't put that in your mouth. It has my vacation photos on there. And then the other other thing that like helped make this product a huge success other than two companies steadily doing it in parallel is the American Army. The American Army popularized this beyond Europe worldwide.

And in particular, they accidentally came up with the branding we know today of like the Swiss Army Knife as the name, because according to the Museum of Modern Art, which has some of these knives in the collection because they're so cool, Swiss Army knives became internationally famous around 1945 because American troops stationed there at the tail end of World War II found out about them and got way into them. But the thing they were called at the time was the German language words for Swiss officer's knife, which I'm going to try to pronounce, Schweizer Offiziersmesse. And Americans had a hard time saying that. So they just started calling it the Swiss Army knife. And then the companies pretty much adopted that. They said, oh, that's good branding. Like calling it Swiss is a cool like thing for selling it.

It does snap. And then they and then they might have called it that brand name, like you said, it. It does snap. And then they, and then they might've called it that brand name. Like you said, too. Yeah. Like, like I had never thought of it as Victoria Knox until right now, even though that's been the brand for all of its history. Honestly, if I hadn't had that t-shirt and worn it incessantly, I wouldn't have either, but I did. So yeah, that's fun. That's still very fun. I like that. That is a thing. a thing. Because, yeah, I feel like I was very separate from the Swiss Army knife culture, but some people are like, you know, they always have one or they like the logo or it's a whole thing. Yeah. I definitely bring a multi-tool with me on some vacations because I'm just like, you never know. You never know. Oddly, you know, we can transition into the last Takeaway, the main episode with that.

Here we go into Takeaway number three. The terrorist attacks on 9-11 had a major impact on the Swiss army knife business. This is a quick story, and it had never crossed my mind until researching these knives. The, you know, airport security changed a lot, and some other things changed a lot that we'll get into. But it turns out the change of how getting around the world works at 9-11 really impacted this company and this kind of product. That does make a horrible kind of sense. Yeah. What a ridiculous piece of fallout that you can't see coming.

yeah what a ridiculous piece of fallout that you can't see coming and like specifically the swiss army knives and key sources here are the bbc reporting by james mellick newsweek piece by william mmarkin and then a slate piece by william salatan because in in 2012 the bbc interviewed carl elsner this is the grandson of founder carl els. It's been these guys all the way down the generations. Among other things, he shared that, quote, the period after the 9-11 attacks in the U.S. was the toughest time for Victorinox because sales of the Swiss Army knife dropped by almost 30 percent. End quote. They just lost 30 percent of their business. Boom.

Which suggests that like 30 percent of the market was buying knives for planes. Like I'm trying to, that's a specific plan to have for your Swiss. Well, I don't need that anymore because I can't have it on a plane. If I can't file my toenails in 6B, then I don't need a Swiss army knife. Because absurd as the rule is, it's never been that you can't have your Swiss army knife. It's you have to check the bag with your Swiss army knife in it. So this is so specific. You've got to have it on the plane, not on vacation, not on the ad,

not on the other end, but on the plane. It's a generous slice of the market that was pretty focused on. And I, I've already said it's more tool than a weapon, but I'm still curious as to why the primary drive might be to have a Swiss army knife. Although I do remember a time when things like knives and cigarettes were just sold willy nilly in airports. Alex, is there any details on like, is this seriously like a knockoff on duty-free impulsive knife buys mid airport? That's it exactly. And that's why it in particular hit

the Swiss Army knife versus other multi-tools, other knives. It turns out one of the top selling situations for a Swiss Army knife was airport duty-free because then you were not paying for, you know, if you're getting a Swiss Army knife, it's an imported good unless you're in the tiny country of Switzerland. So they were massively relying on duty-free shops. And then that also allowed people to like buy a Swiss army knife in the airport and just like take it out on the plane or whatever. It's cool. You already have it. This is legit. I bought this on international waters. Yeah. Anything I do with it is legal. Every time I file my nails, I'm going to know I'm a rebel. Right. Yeah. And they and also I apparently, you know, none of us remember it that well,

but like pre 9-11 and then even before the 90s, especially there was truly not that much airport security. And like people would just stick a pocket knife in their pocket and bring it on an airplane and go to their destination because they weren't going to do anything weird but that was you know once 9-11 happened you couldn't travel with these things and you couldn't buy them in the duty-free shops that you know this business really depended on and benefited from also anyone could go to any gate you just walk into the airport and just like hang out yeah it by the gates anywhere and i don't believe you had to go through security to do that yeah it didn't need a ticket it was just like it was like going to a bus station and hanging out it was wild so you could just like bring a

knife or whatever and just like hand it to someone about to walk onto a plane yeah Yeah. There was, you know, investigation of the 9-11 hijackers. And it turns out that in the run up to that attack, many of them did test runs where they purchased blades and went on flights and to check if they could bring a blade onto the flight. And many of them succeeded with many blades. And one of them in early 2000 specifically did it with two swiss army knives they bought at the zurich switzerland airport and then just brought on a plane to the u.s and so they said oh we can do this okay totally different world totally different setup terribly sad rude yeah and just sad yeah no more compulsive nice but knife buying at the airport. Of all the things we lost. Yeah, now it's like big headphones.

And I guess that's better. That's probably better. But yeah, before it was like knives. Like, hey, look at this. It's also a toothpick and scissors. Fun. No one has hijacked a plane using active noise cancellation yet. Yet.

hijacked a plane using active noise cancellation yet yet wenda and then also victoria knox really struggled in this time like if they had gone out of business maybe we don't have this product anymore or somebody else makes it but it got to the point where they were leasing their workforce to other companies while they were going for a downturn. They tried to design new products that they called flight versions of the knives, where there's no blades. It's just the toothpick and the other stuff. It's kind of awesome. It's a cool idea, and also it seems like it was not popular. You can't get them now.

That's also the thing that they should be giving to kids. Right. Right. To this day, since 9-11 the tsa allows a swiss army knife in a checked bag can't go in your carry-on bag but the victorian ox company and the and the product they're still going mainly for two reasons one is that the brand of that product is very strong like the swiss army knife was was, and was like rightly not seen as having anything to do with these attacks specifically or being weird or anything. And it's seen as

high quality. But the other reason they survived is they had just diversified their business before 9-11. It turns out that in 1989, they started making watches. Then from there, they got into travel gear. They got into fashion. If you ever see the Swiss gear brand, that's these guys. So according to Carl Elsener in 2012, almost half of their sales was in not knife stuff. So in 2001, they had started to build up enough of that that they could like stay in business, even though their knives were suddenly a lot harder to sell. Way to think outside the blade. suddenly a lot harder to sell way to think outside the blade i really i like that as a tagline for the the murderer who's now a podcaster like pointing to his microphone like think outside the blade right let's not speak that into existence alex we're manifesting it moment by

moment oh no what's crazy is that in this new NBC hit hour long, that the murderer, who's a podcaster, he's also covered in tattoos, which is why it's called Alex Inc. I'd audition early, but I don't think my giant cat tattoo is tough enough to pull off murderer vibes. Somebody's going to Photoshop the poster for that show Blindspot where the lady's covered in tattoos. Oh, yeah. But it's going to be me.

I'm the lady now. That's tough. Yeah. Hard yourself. Got no blind spot for that. I'd stare at that all day, Alex. Oh, thank you. Folks, that is the main episode for this week.

My thanks to Caitlin Gill and Brett Rader for being even more exciting than booping the little toothpick out of the knife. Really great. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. 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 the Swiss Army. Just the Swiss Army. What's their deal? What's going on there? Huh? Huh? Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of eight dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring Swiss Army Knives with us.

Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, the first Swiss Army Knives were German. Takeaway number two, the Swiss Army knife became globally popular thanks to two manufacturers getting along and the American army. And takeaway number three, the 9-11 terrorist attacks had a major impact on the Swiss Army knife business. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Caitlin Gill is a wonderful stand-up comedian. Her latest album is entitled Major. And then her wonderful t-shirt business is GuaranteeShirts.com.

Then as far as Twitter goes, Caitlin Gill is at RobotCaitlin. Brett Rader is at Brett Rader. And Brett's last name is spelled R-A-D-E-R. Brett Rader is also host of the Hey Julie podcast that's about the TV show Big Brother. It also goes a bunch of other directions in terms of pop culture and just being fun. And then listen to great audio and more from Yahoo Sports. That's where Brett Raider is head of podcasts and just making things awesome. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. Online resources about the knives from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a great article about the knives and 9-11 from the

BBC that's written by James Mellick, slate coverage of ridiculous California judicial opinions that writing is by Daniel Politi. 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. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our

listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Thank you.