Stuff You Should Know - A Nostalgic Look at Crayons

Episode Date: September 22, 2017

Mixing wax with pigment is something artists have been doing since DaVinci. These little implements would later go on to be called crayons and gained popularity among the elementary school set. Learn all about crayons in today's episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.

There's guest producer Matt. Yeah. Jerry's not here because Jerry is a storm sufferer. Yeah, how did you fare? Pretty good. I mean, power was out for a little while, cable was out for a little bit, nothing bad. Yeah, we're talking about Irma,

if this is obviously in the future, there may be another hurricane by then, for all we know. Yeah, well, Jose's starting to circle background, I think. Yeah, that's what I see. But yeah, Irma came through Atlanta, which is weird for a hurricane and then eventually Tropical Storm to reach that far inland.

And I was kind of like, well, we get bad thunderstorms in Atlanta, we'll be fine. Didn't make about some extra milk for the kid, but I didn't like go nuts with prepper style stuff. But it was surprisingly scary, I'm here to tell you. Were you scared? Yeah, I mean, that was like, in our part of Atlanta got hit the hardest.

Yeah. Sort of the East Lake Decatur, Kirkwood, DeKalb County area. Right. And there was one moment where the trees, and we have all these old Atlanta, for those of you who don't know, is a city built in the middle of a forest. So there are these old oak and pine trees

that apparently have shallow roots from past droughts and things. Right, because the roots kind of come toward the surface, to get as much water, it's just not good. Yeah, and I was kind of wondering us, like we'd like to just sort of study things in general. And I was looking at these trees swing, and I was wondering about the physics of an uprooted tree.

And then it's probably like, you know, and the roots give. Right. And every time it swings, it probably just gets a little more unstable. And then the big gust. And then, so we had like five huge trees down within a thousand feet of our house.

Oh man, you lucked out. So we were just sort of waiting. I was just literally like, all right, which one is coming to hit us? And there was one huge gust that came through at one point where it was so scary sounding that we grabbed the animals and our daughter and like ran into the hallway. Wow.

And then Emily stayed there with her and the animals. You know, I couldn't, I was pacing from window to window the entire time. What's going on? I was like, if I can see it coming down, I might give us a half a second to get out of the way. Yeah. But I did see one come down behind my house

in real time, which was scary. I'll bet, that must have been kind of amazing to see though too. Yeah, and the sound, like obviously we got nothing like Florida, so I'm not trying to compare, but it was a little scary. Right. And we didn't have power for three days, which is not fun.

So I've never seen a tree fall down in real time. So settle a bet. Okay. Does it make a Wilhelm scream? It did. It started to fall, then it went, ah! Maybe we can get Jerry to dove in a Wilhelm scream. Yeah, the wrong one.

We're never gonna let her live that one down, huh? So anyway, it was, I mean, it was fun at first and not having power. And then also wanted to announce because people care so much about our pets because they're part of the show. Yeah. On Monday, or Tuesday, it was Tuesday.

We took the wizard in, because he had been hiding and whenever animals start doing weird things like that, it's not good. Yeah. And the rest, the other three, over the past nine months, tumors all over his body. Man. So we put him down yesterday with no power,

but had one really great night the night before with we were forced to just be quiet and there were candles lit, because it ended up being this peaceful candlelight vigil because the power outage kind of forced that upon us. How life works out like that sometimes. Yeah, I was kind of, you know, if that hadn't happened, we might've just been watching TV with him.

Right. And you know, still petting him and caring for him, but... Wait, he's just like, gaming thrones. I quit gaming thrones. Well, I'm sorry, Chuckers. Did I quit gaming thrones? Yeah. No, I mean, not just for me, like, from everybody,

I'm sorry. I appreciate that, man. It was Emily, I mean, I was wrecked, but Emily is destroyed because this cat, like, was attached to her body. Yeah. For 15 years. Is that how old he was?

Yeah, and you know, we got great lives out of Laurent Buckley and Wizards, so they were good, long, full lives, but when you get together with a human and you get four animals in the space of a year or so, it's all good times. And you don't think about the end of that, you know? Oh, well.

Like the secession of deaths in quick order that can happen. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean. You know? Yeah, now they're all here, now they're all gone. Yeah, yeah. Like I thought maybe like we'd lose one a year or every couple of years, but it's like,

no, November, February, September. Yeah, that is quick secession for sure. Yeah, it's not fun. Yeah. So anyway, just want to get that out of the way. Well, hang in there, man. Thanks, dude. And hats off to you for coming in.

Yeah. Other than just being like, nope. Well, we don't pad the queue like we used to. No, which is good, it keeps it fresh, but there's also less room to just be like, nope. Yeah, we can bring breaking news on crayons. Right, exactly. I was going to say during Irma,

did you guys with your power out, scribble anything with crayons? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah, I mean, eventually we sent my daughter over to my grandparents just because they have power in parents, her grandparents. Right.

Yeah, and it's just, she was getting a little cagey and quite honestly, I think we were getting a little cagey. Yeah. At first, yeah, there was crayon play. Yeah. Crayon play. The big fat kind? Yeah, she has the big daddy's right now.

Because I mean, she's got a little hand, so that's what she uses. That's the only kind she can grip. Yeah, better to scribble with. Right, her fine motor neurons are not quite refined enough to hold the normal, traditional sized crayons. Well, I mean, she would hold it, but she would hold it like she holds a long sword.

Right. Yeah? Hello, I know what you mean by the long sword reference. With the deathly purpose. Right, so it turns out, Chuck, I don't know how much of this you know, having a young one with crayons. I don't know if you read the back of the box

and you're like, oh, okay, that's the history of crayons, huh? How is it on the back of the box? Maybe, I don't even know. I haven't seen a crayon in years, but I have a question for you. Yeah. Is it normal to weep quietly while you're researching crayons? Did you have a nostalgia burst?

Yes, yeah. I mean, just like the idea of that box with like the logo and the smell of them. We're talking about crayola crayons, obviously. You might as well just go ahead and get that out of the way. And it's really funny because this House of Works article went to great lengths to just be about how crayons work. Yeah, a nice effort.

Yeah, but they, you know, still, I mean, it's crayola that you're talking about in the United States when you're talking about crayons for the most part. Yeah, and so much so that the author didn't even really talk about crayola as a company much. Right, and I thought that was wrong. I thought so too, so we're going to correct that in the podcast, but I found out from this research

that there is a Hydrox Oreo situation going on in the crayon world. Oh no. Prang, which is at best and also ran in the crayon competition. It was actually around before crayola or making crayons. Remember Prang? No.

I think they're still around. Prang. Were they the square ones? No, no, I think they were just an off brand, but they were, it's like Hydrox. Everybody thinks Hydrox is a knockoff. No, Oreo's the knockoff. But the superior cookie.

Exactly, same with crayola crayons. And Prang's like, what did we do? Why'd you pick us? I'm sorry, Prang, this is just the reality of the situation that I'm pointing out here. Yeah. I think. So I learned a lot about this, but more than anything,

I was just taken back to my childhood because childhood and crayola go hand in hand. Yeah, Play-Doh, crayola crayons. Yeah. And we need to do an Elmer's glue at some point. Sure. Just knock off the big three. Or paste.

Elmer's paste. I had the purple kind with a pirate on it. Oh. Do you remember that one? Yeah. It was highly edible. Oh, I'm sure not at all toxic. It made you, no, it wasn't toxic.

I mean, as far as I know. Right. But it made you want to eat it. Like you wake up and be like, I don't think I'm going to eat a little of that paste today at school. Yeah. Why not?

It's funny you mentioned nostalgia though, because I did, you probably did too, went to the crayola facts and figures page. And there was a Yale study that found Yale University, that is. Okay. They found that the smell of the crayon, the crayola crayon.

Yes, specifically. Is ranked number 18 on the most recognizable sense for adults just ahead of coffee and peanut butter. Yeah. Like that's how, and I would bet you played out something there too. Isn't that crazy though that somebody's like, oh, I would have never guessed that was coffee,

but they got the crayola crayon scent. Yeah. Weirdos. Yeah, peanut butter. What is that? So it's like. Weird concoction. Yeah.

Is that a turd? That word is just borderline acceptable to me. I think it's one of the great gross words, because of the way it's spelled. Yeah. More than anything. The way you spit out the words. Yeah, T-U-R-D, it just looks gross.

But you almost, you make the sound that you make when you encounter the smell of poop in a bathroom or something like turd, right? I think that's one of the reasons why I don't like it. It's just too visceral. Oh man. All right, so let's get into this. Okay, so crayons have not been around very long, Chuck.

The crayon, as we know it, as in the little round childhood writing implement has only been around since latter half of the 19th century, but this article goes to Great Pains to talk about a bunch of things that are not crayons, but waxy forms of art. So we might as well talk about a little bit of that. Like, did you find out how to pronounce this Batik or Batik?

Well, I said Batik because I did this, believe it or not. Oh, you've done Batik before? I have. Nice. It was weirdly, well, not weirdly, I guess. My elementary school, of which my father was principal, as we know, had a lot of interesting programs. I can't remember the name of the class, but it was like... Let's get far out.

It was sort of like an elective, but for elementary school. Okay. It was the 80s, so it was probably called that. But it was just different, kind of, you know, we did photography and all sorts of cool stuff that usually don't get to do in grade school, but we did a Batik course, and my dad got really into it for a while.

So we were Batik-ing in our family for a short time. Was this like right before he got into bedazzling? He never got into that. Oh, okay. He was into photography and Batik-ing. So we would Batik, like the only thing that I remember was doing, you're gonna think this is good. We did Herschel Walker, George Bulldog, Batik canvases.

Nice. That we framed. Right. Yeah. So let me figure this out. Just unpack that one. There was like an image of Herschel Walker on a canvas. Yeah, I think so.

Or you drew Herschel Walker in... No, it would look nothing like Herschel Walker. So how did you, how was it a Herschel Walker canvas? I think if I remember correctly, like we would get an artist to do it. Okay. And then we would Batik on like a cloth canvas, and then we would Batik that.

So you would take wax and trace it over it or something like that? Yeah, I don't think it may not have been true in the Batik style. We're dancing around this a lot and people are like, what the heck is Batik? Oh yeah, we should say. It is a method of dying cloth

where you create these patterns. You spread this hot wax over a cloth. Right. And then... The cloth likes it. And then you tie it. And then the pigment doesn't get where the dot or the wax is, and then later you remove the wax.

Right. But I don't, we may have done just some weird southern version of that because I remember like waxing already inked things. And then you would crumple them up and wrinkle them. Okay. And then it would give this cool like, you know, like when you would wrinkle a waxy fabric,

what that might look like. It's like shabby-cheeking. Maybe, I don't know, man. So Batik strikes me as kind of like tie dye. It was, well, I mean, the end effect could look sort of like tie dye. Right, it didn't have to though. But it didn't have to.

Right. But the point was, and the whole reason it's making an appearance here, is that it's not like... It involves wax and pigment. Right. So at least 2000, possibly even as far back as 4000 years ago,

there were people who had put together that you could do cool things with wax and pigment. Yes. Right? But Batik is really not a crayon in any way. No, it's not. It's a process. Right, but it's the seed,

the kernel of the beginning of an idea of a crayon. Yeah, I think the encaustic art is much closer. Okay, well, encaustic art is... Encaustic. Encaustic. Yeah. It's basically where you take a deconstructed crayon and rub it on something.

That's encaustic art, basically. It's taking pigment and then some sort of waxy substance and melting it together. And then just, yeah, using it to decorate. Maybe it's like a finger paint or something like that. And then I guess the wax hardens and you've got art. Yeah, I mean, some of this stuff looks really cool. Did you look at any encaustic art?

I didn't see any encaustic art. Really beautiful stuff. Really? So what kind of art would you make with this? Well, I mean, any kind. Like if you just looked at it on a picture on your phone, you would just think it looks like a regular painting. Oh, really?

Is there like a three-dimensional quality to it though? Because it's waxed? Maybe, that's what I would guess. It's one of those things where you get up close to it and you go, oh. I see. Because I'm always doing it at museums. Right, I know.

I've been to a museum with you. Oh. All those docents that have just you manified a nickel for everyone. And then, of course, very famous artists like Da Vinci and Edward Munch. And basically, it sounds like kind of all of them were making their own crayons.

Yeah. In the truest sense of the word crayon, which is French for pencil. Right. From cray, which means chalk. Right, C-R-A-I-E, right? Yes, and that's from the Latin creta, which meant chalk. Right.

So this was not chalk? No, it wasn't. But chalk is kind of similar. And in fact, the earliest manufactured crayon, the Conte crayon, basically grew out of chalk. Chalk is pigment and chalk. Yeah, I guess that's it. And artists would use chalks like you can use still today.

Some people create art using chalks, right? Pastels. Right, pastels. That's what I was looking for. So you've got pastels. It's not a really difficult hop, skip, and jump to say, well, how about instead of chalk, we use wax and see what happens?

And that's where the Conte crayon came from. But the problem is, I believe it was made from beeswax as most crayons were up to the early 19th century. Yeah. And you, I think, had to warm it before you used it. So you probably had to take a flame to it for a little while, melt it a little bit, at least get it a little malleable before you could use it.

And the earliest Conte crayons were black, brown, and red. Get a load of the beauty of those three together. If you looked up, is it Conte or Conte? I'm saying Conte. Conte. I'm splitting the difference between the two. By the way, have you seen the response from the psychopathy? Who says it like that?

Nut jobs say it like that. Apparently, psychopathy is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Yeah. It's apparently a real pet peeve of some people who really need to calm down. And it's psychopathy. I don't say it like that. I never will.

Yeah. Psychopathy. Psychopath. That guy's a real psychopath. People would just edge away from you. Psychopathy. Wait, and spoiler alert, I'm gonna read an email from a legit psychopath.

Yeah, we got a few emails from psychopaths. Yeah, that's very neat. Sorry, it's a psychopath. But if you look up the Conte crayon in a photo of it, you would see that and go, oh, I've seen those in art stores. Yeah. As soon as I saw it, I was like, oh, I know what those are.

Yeah. It's kind of like for adult artists who want to do crayon art. That's where crayons came from. Yeah, and it was legit art. Right, and like you said, a lot of the earlier artists, pre-mid 19th century artists made their own.

Yeah. And the first manufacturers of crayons, we're making them for artists. Correct. So we'll get back into the history of crayons after we take a break. How about that? Let's do it.

Okay. Okay. On the podcast, HeyDude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use HeyDude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster?

Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there

when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to HeyDude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast,

Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

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And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. ["I'm in the Corner Boutique Herschel Walker"]

Okay, so when we left off, the manufacturer of Kranz was about to begin and it was all for artists. I'm in the corner, but taking Herschel Walker. I don't even know what you were doing. Well, I don't think it was baticking, though. It was definitely baticking. I bet you my dad still has some of this stuff

in his basement. Well, can you bring one to work for show and tell? Maybe I will. Okay, I'm gonna hold you to that. I'm gonna bring it up every episode. So where did we leave off? The modern crayon is in its infancy. So the Kant crayon, the Kant crayon is invented.

And I think that was the late 18th century. And then by the 1820s. So apparently it's lost to history who actually created the first crayon that we would recognize as a crayon today. Yeah, which surprises me. But this article points out a manufacturer named Joseph Le Mercier,

who by the 1820s was producing wax crayons. Right. Again, though, these things are beeswax. It is not easy to work with. It was way easier to go to the store and buy them, but once you bought them, it was still kind of a pain to use. Yeah, and I thought this was funny too. There was another company in Germany

about 15 years later, J.S. Stadler, that had the same crayons, but they were all encased in wood, which just seemed like a very German thing to do. Right? Yeah. I don't know why, but I don't know. It just struck me as very German.

Yeah, I can see that. You know, they wanted to be clean and stiff. They don't want to get their hands dirty or anything. So, like you said, beeswax, no good, was doing the job, I guess, but this is before kids were using the stuff at all, I think. Yeah, again, they're making them for artists, but even artists are like, this is not easy to use.

Right. If there's one thing that can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution that depends on the Industrial Revolution, it is the crayon. I mean, tons of other stuff. Forward economic progress, all that, wealth, capital, all that depended on the Industrial Revolution,

but so too did the crayon, like to a surprising degree, and it starts with coal mining, right? What? Yeah, in Eastern Europe, they were mining coal, and they found from the coal mining in the process of mining coal, there was a byproduct called Saracen. I'm a big fan of byproduct use.

Me too. Pretty neat, you know? Yeah, Saracen was softer than beeswax, which was a big, big plus. Cheaper than beeswax, which is always good if you're in the money making business. And so there was a Czech company, Offenheim and Ziffa, who started making crayons

out of that stuff, and as our article puts it, it was soon praised for its durability of the marks that it made. Right. So it was the good stuff. Right, it was easy to use, and it left a good mark behind, which are two things you want in a crayon, especially if you're an artist, right?

You don't want disappearing ink. No. So somebody said, oh, what else can we get from coal? And a few years down the line, right around the Civil War, a little after the Civil War, a guy named Charles A. Bowley, Bowley. Let's say Bowley. Yeah.

He was a manufacturer from Massachusetts who started using something called paraffin. Breakthrough. Everybody's heard of paraffin wax, right? Have you ever seen a package of paraffin wax that you get at the grocery store? Sure I have. Have you ever noticed that most of the paraffin wax

is Gulf brand, the same Gulf that owns the Gulf 76 gas stations? Have not, because it's a byproduct? Yes, and I never knew that until today. I'm like, why would Gulf be into gas stations and wax that you buy at the grocery store? It never made any sense to me. Now I understand, because it's a byproduct

of fossil fuel mining. Yeah, like why does Yamaha make keyboards and motorcycles? That's a great question. I don't know that there's an answer to that one. Like diversification maybe? That's, I'd like to be in on that meeting. Like, you know, we're really good at motorcycles, so I'm thinking keyboards.

Whoa! Thinking keytars. Yeah. Yeah, so I need to look at paraffin in the store. Where is it usually like in the baked goods or? Yeah, like wherever you'll find like mason jars, that kind of thing. Oh, so like an old country store?

No, they have it at the grocery store. You just always walk past it unless you're looking for it. Gotcha. All right, we'll check it out. And it's golf usually? Yeah, in my experience, it's always golf. I'd better walk past it a million times. I bet you have to.

All right, well, I'm gonna keep a look out next time I'm in the, the... Grocery store? No, the Bell Jar Isle. Right. I think that's probably the baking good isle. Okay. Yeah, Bell Jar.

Is that right? Uh-huh. I'm getting all my, I'm just, I'm not on my game today, so I appreciate it. That's all right, man. So that was also derived from coal, but I guess now petroleum? Is that?

I don't know. I just, as far as I know, it's a fossil fuel byproduct. I'm really hedging here. Gotcha. You don't want to get into the ins and outs of the golf corporation. Right. So that was, that was when Bollie struck gold.

And everyone... Black gold. Yeah, everyone was like, this is the stuff. This is even better than Saracen. Mm-hmm. And he said, all right, take these and make them into pencils. Right, he was the first one to make round crayons

that we would recognize now as crayons. Yeah. He was the guy. And this was around the Civil War in the United States. Yeah, so couple this with post-Civil War industrialization like you were talking about. And then couple this with this thing that was happening in the country, which is,

well, hey, maybe we should start, instead of sending kids out in the fields when they're six, maybe we should start educating them a little earlier in life. And kindergarten was born. Yeah, again though, from industrialization. Yeah. Because not only...

They didn't need to be out in the fields as much, I guess. They didn't. And they needed to be prepared for a life outside of the fields, which school would prepare them for. Pre-factory work. Right. And I actually saw a really interesting article once that basically said like schooling is,

at the very least initially was meant to prepare you for long periods of monotonous work, basically busy work, that you were being prepared for life in the factory by being in inculcated, having that inculcated in you like that, that level of patience. Oh, just getting up every day and going to a place. Right. And then just like doing the same thing.

Yeah, this kind of a droney kind of thing. That schooling was preparing you for factory work. Interesting. But they made school too fun. They did. Eventually, because I was one of those kids who kind of liked school for the most part. Well, if your dad was leading boutique classes.

Exactly. I can see how you would, right? Dude, we were repelling off of mountains in my elementary school. Yeah, that's not how they initially viewed it. No. No. And you probably don't do that today either.

No, no, I think you hit it at just the point where school had gotten more fun than originally planned. Right. But much more dangerous than is allowed today. Oh yeah, for sure. All those, like that parental slip or the permission slip. I don't think that holds water legally anymore. Probably not.

I think that's one step of like 15 to be able to go on a field trip. Yeah, and it was like literally your child will be going down a mountain via rope as taught by your principal. And it was on a piece of paper that was like cut into thirds. Right. Right.

Wasn't even an eight by 10 piece of paper. Yeah. Right in half by 11. And there's an asterisk that said principal does not know what he's doing. But what I was saying ultimately was that, so that was industrialization. So coal mining industrialization led

to the paraffin wax, right? Industrialization, getting kids prepared for factory work led to school. And in school, they wanted crayons. Yeah. So that led to the creation of crayons. And then industrialization itself, mass producing crayons led to the rise of crayons.

And specifically Crayola crayons. Yeah, and why did they love them in school? Because they didn't make a big mess. Right. It's not like paint that, you know, if you've ever been a kid's class of paint, you know what happens there. Man, remember wearing like your dad's shirt backwards

as like a smock? Yeah. It's just no must no fuss. It's a very, very tight, handy little clean product for a kid to use. Yeah. The problem was, like you said, a lot of these things were toxic at the time.

So there was a company called Binnie and Smith. And Binnie and Smith, you would love them, Chuck, if you like reusing stuff. Yeah, they were cousins, right? I believe, I think so. Were they? Yeah. But they were big time into like finding byproducts

of stuff and finding new uses for it, right? Hey, Binnie, what are you gonna do with that? You're gonna eat that sandwich? You're gonna eat the rest of that? Sheriff Smith. So they had a patent on an iron oxide red that most farmers used in their barns. That's how they really started to make their money.

They came up with a true black, a carbon black that was used again as a byproduct of something or other, I don't know. But they already had crayons in use. They used them to mark their own shipments in their factories and their warehouses. Yeah. But Mr. Binnie's wife, Alice, was a teacher

and she said, hey, you guys should start manufacturing these. Oh, they're already in the pigment business, so it made sense. Right. So they took the paraffin wax that Bowley had come up with for using. They took their pigments that they already had and then they said, we need to figure out

how to make this non-toxic. Tinkered around with it a little bit and the Crayola Crayon was born, I think, in the 1880s. Yeah, and they, I believe, are still mostly made in the U.S. and I think are still, but even they were bought out in the mid-80s by Hallmark during the big Hallmark takeover of the mid-80s. Right.

When they just started buying everything. Sure. They were like, Dupont, we own you now. Right, ABC. Forks Township, Pennsylvania, if I'm not mistaken, is where Crayola still is after all these years. Oh, is that right? I saw Easton.

Oh, really? Maybe that's where they started out. I think it's Forks Township now. Okay. Well, we will hear from the good people of Pennsylvania. You know we will. I'm sure. But they eventually,

Binnie and Smith Company became Crayola. Right, yeah, they finally just said enough of the screwing around. It's not Binnie and Smith presents Crayola. Crayola is the whole thing. Yeah, which obviously came from the word crayon. And then oleogenic, oleogenic. Really? Yeah.

What does that mean? Oily. Oh, I thought you were pulling my leg. No, and it was Mrs. Binnie that came up with the name too. But the fact that she was a teacher helped a lot because Binnie at least was predisposed to listening to teachers. And at the time, teachers were starting to get a little more clout.

Their role in society was developing and strengthening. And that by the 1920s, every state in the union had a requirement that a kid between the ages of eight and 14 had to go to school. Yeah. So there was like a ready-made relationship. No, what's the- Product. No, demand.

Yes. In schooling. And apparently one of the first customers of Crayola was the US government who bought them for the Native American schools that they forced kids into. They said, hey, we took you from your family and we're destroying your culture while you're here. But have you seen crayons before?

Wow. These are awesome, huh? Shall we take another break? Yes. All right, well, let's do so. And we'll come back and talk a little bit how crayola crayons are made and, believe it or not, a little bit about controversy with crayons.

No. MUSIC On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lacher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping-off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to, hey dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing could be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place

because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so, my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now.

If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. OK, so industrialization gives us Crayola. Crayola takes the stick and runs with it, right?

And who was the other company? Prang. Prang's just doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it? Hit a corner, Prang. Like, did you ever notice? Do you ever see a box of crayons that weren't Crayola? Like, there's something wrong with them, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Like, it doesn't look right. It's definitely one of those brands that was so iconic and synonymous with its own product that you felt like, you know, you felt bad for the kids who didn't have the Crayola crayons. Sure. Yeah, I hope I'm not coming off as elitist. I'm sure I had your fancy $6 box.

I had knockoff crayons myself, but I was also quite familiar with Crayola, and I always just loved the Crayola ones. The knockoff crayons never evoked any emotional response to me. Somehow, Crayola did. Well, I'm looking at Prang now, and I definitely have never even seen these.

Maybe I was the only kid with the Prang crayon. Well, and I know the good people at Prang right now are screaming, we're not knockoffs. We pointed that out earlier. Yeah, we already said that earlier. You should listen to the whole episode. Remember the giant box that had the sharpener in the back? So let me give you a little bit about that.

Are you just bringing it up or were you going to say something? Oh, no, I was just, it just sort of occurred to me that how many crayons were those? 60 something? Started off as 64. OK. Introduced in 1958. All right.

It was the first box, I believe, with the flip top box. Yeah. What they call the stadium seating. And the built-in sharpener. Yeah, in the back. And it debuted on Captain Kangaroo on his show. OK, as a commercial? I'm sure he blurred the lines there.

Gotcha. Hey, kids, look at this new thing. You're going to love this. Yeah. And he had buoys of cash coming out of his pocket, out of his green jeans. Yeah, exactly. Oh, no, it was a different dude.

That was Mr. Green jeans. Yeah, I think he wore his pants once in a while. Sure. Just to show him who's boss. Yeah, I used to love those because one of my big peeves still is an adult crayon. Yeah. So that sharpener.

I would waste a lot of wax trying to get the thing sharp. It was a huge innovation for sure. Yeah. And then, of course, the saddest crayon is the broken in half one that is worn down so. It's not even a round mound at this point. It's worn down to the paper. And you got to start peeling the paper away.

And then, I don't know, I was always just like, I don't want to play with this anymore. Or what about the communists who would use it sideways rather than at its point? They would just rub it lengthwise so that it would flatten out on one side? They were probably artists. I guess.

Trying to create shading patterns or something. Well, it was lost on me at the time. Yeah. Yeah, I hadn't realized that. I yelled at a lot of kids unnecessarily, apparently. Yeah, I used crayons for my very now famous village people portrait. Right.

What else are you going to use for that? I don't know. Maybe color pencils. Sure. That's if you're just trying to impress somebody. Yeah. I never got into those. They're hardy.

I mean, like, they just didn't show up quite as well. Crayons says, I'm here. Yeah. And it would, you press down hard. And when you pull it off the page, sometimes it'll stick a little bit. And it would make that little sound when you pulled it off. I forgot about that sound, man.

John Hodgman is having a very hard time. He's listening to this Nostalgia Late episode. He moved on a while back. Yeah. Not just from this episode, either. Oh, you don't think he listens anymore? Probably not. I know a bunch of podcasters now, and none of them will, they stop listening once they

get to know somebody for the most part. I don't do that. I enjoy hearing my friend's podcasts. I think that makes me an outlier, though. Yeah. Because I've heard several marks like, yeah, I can't listen anymore now that we're friends. Well, I wonder if it's kind of like, you know, if you like somebody in real life, you very frequently can't be friends with them on Facebook, because it's just like a different, hateable

side of them. I thought that's how Facebook worked, no? In ideal situations, but you've never had somebody where you're just like, I can't listen to you rant about this for another minute. Oh, oh. Not friends on Facebook anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you.

I know you're in real life, and I want to keep liking you in real life, but I'm going to hate your guts if we remain Facebook friends, or if I keep following you on Twitter, because I can't stand you on social media. Yeah. In real life, I really like you. I know what you mean, totally. It's probably the same thing. I got a dude like that, and it's not even like political stuff.

It's just, I don't know, sort of jerky complaining where I'm like, that's who you are? Yeah. I thought you were a real nice guy. Right. That's what I'm saying. It's like, it brings out the worst. The media brings out the worst in people. Yeah.

The worst. The worst. Yeah. All right. So where were we? Oh, we were talking about crayons. Right. So we hadn't really started yet talking about the colors, and I feel like we should.

Yeah. Because there's one thing, this is what Crayola did better than anybody else. So early on, they identified another company, a rival company called Munsell. Oh. Munsell made really high-end crayons for artists, and Crayola said, you're making better crayons than we are. We're going to buy you. We're going to buy your crayon division.

So they adopted the techniques and the pigments that Munsell made. But Munsell, since they were gearing themselves toward artists, their packages would say like five intermediate, huge, medium-chrome, medium-value artist crayons. And so instead of keeping the Munsell words, which would be like medium reddish-blue or something like that, they would change the name to Plum. Right. And then they would use other great names like Periwinkle. Dandelion.

Dandelion. Nowadays, it's things like macaroni and cheese or razzmatazz, raspberry. Not a fan of that. Right, but they use names that kids can get into, and that not only can get into, like those words swirling around in your consciousness help shape your worldview. Like the world was kind of beautiful, and there were beautiful words and things involved in it. Fernsiena.

But yeah, that was not one of them. But as a matter of fact, some of their early crayons were called things like Venetian Red or Cobalt Blue, stuff you would find in an artist's paint box. And they figured out very early on that the name of the color means as much as the color itself. Yeah, and I think the first editions, in 1903, they used some of the copper and gold, and one there, one other one. Silver.

Yeah, silver, of course. And they didn't use any other metallics until the 1980s. Right. I guess they had it covered there. But I think you're right. The naming, I mean, that's also gotten them into a little bit of trouble. We talked about a little controversy. Yeah.

And you know, you didn't think about this when you were a little kid in the 70s and 80s? Well, not as a little white kid. No, you're a more, we're more forward thinking society now. Definitely. So when you see... Hold on. Say that again.

We're more forward thinking society now. So when you see a crayon that's called flesh, and it's clearly, you know, a white person peachy sort of complexion of a crayon, that's not cool because there are all different colors of people. And Crayola got it right. I don't know if it was from intense pressure or internally or what, but in the, when was it? 1962?

Yeah. They said, yeah, we probably shouldn't call this colored flesh. Apparently, this was teachers again. This was Crayola listening to teachers and teachers saying, like, you know, I don't think this is okay. Yeah. There was apparently a study that found that kids typically use that to color in drawings of people as like a default skin color.

So Crayola very wisely, I think, and magnanimously said, sorry about that, we're going to change it to peach. Like you said. Yeah. And then they also said, you know, on their part, they said, you know, what we were talking about was the, what they called the more or less universal color found on the palm of hands. But I don't know if I buy that.

Yeah. That was apparently the company line. And I'm not sure if I buy that. That's even true from this article. What about this one just seems so patently racist that I can't believe it was ever a name until you look into it a little further, Indian red. Yes, which was apparently derived from a plant pigment in India, and they didn't mean it like that.

But then they thought, hey, maybe that's an association people are going to make. Probably not a good idea. Again, apparently teachers saying like, what are you guys doing? That's like as bad as having your team's baseball mascot chief Nakahoma or something like that. Yeah. Her chief Wahoo. Yeah.

Yeah. They changed Indian red to chestnut. Yeah, chestnut is very nice. It's a great name. No bird sienna. Apparently also, they've only dropped one other name, although they have like something like 301 order called true colors, but then something like 800 names. So they've clearly used different names for the same color before like magenta was renamed

or red violet was renamed magenta, I believe. So they'll do that old switcheroo here or there. But apparently there are only three names they just completely got rid of. Or no, maybe there was a fourth one they retired, they retired the color dandelion. But just this year. Yeah. Yeah. But Indian red, Flesh and Prussian blue were all names that were taken out and never brought

back. And Prussian blue, not for any reason other than kids couldn't identify with Prussia. Yeah. Because no one knows what Prussia is anymore. I think you might have said 301, there's 331. Oh, is that right? Yeah. I saw an article of, it was like a college newspaper on their website.

They said that they've, Crayola sold more than 100,000 crayons. I was like, I think you're missing three or more zeros there. Unless it was like today. Right. Right. Yeah. That's pretty funny. Yeah.

It got me. They now, like any company, can't just leave it with the good old fashioned crayons, you got to diversify. Sure. You see things these days like neon colors and of course they make markers and all kinds of good stuff. I love the Crayola markers. Yeah, me too.

The big fat marker, just the shape, the white with the color against it and everything. It was, I loved them. Yeah. Well, and a lot of those now for kids are washable. So when the kid draws on the coffee table, it just wipes right off. Right. Very, very nice. They're the brand new white couch, which why did you even get that when you have a kid?

What are you thinking? Oh, we would never have that because of wine consumption. Sure. It would be a purple couch after a couple of years. It'd be magenta. I've got some Crayola facts for you. Well, first, okay, go ahead. No, you go ahead.

No, you go ahead. The largest one, of course, any iconic brand like this is going to make a super giant one, put on display somewhere. Oh, they did that, huh? Yeah, big blue. And it's kind of neat the way they did it though. They took 123,000 old blue crayons that they gathered from kids all over the country and they melted those down into big blue.

Oh, that's cool. Giant 1,500-pound crayon. That's a great fate for some used up crayons, you know? Yeah, make 3 billion a year, not 100,000. I don't know what that guy was thinking. I don't either. Maybe they meant a minute or they left off. There was something missing from that sentence, for sure.

And the average kid, supposedly, and I'm sure they're talking about dumb old American kids, by the time they're 10 years old, they have gone through 720 crayons, Crayola brand crayons. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, we probably could have gotten some dough out of these guys. Maybe we should retroactively. Isn't that how it works? Yeah, we get money out of Crayola and we get sued by Prang. Right.

And then it all just comes out to zero. Right. We give Prang or Crayola money? Yeah. Yeah. So, Crayola apparently also did a survey to find out what the top 10 colors are of all time. Oh, yeah.

Blue. Sure. That's my favorite color, but my favorite crayon is probably violet. Oh, okay. It's the whole concept of it. Yeah. That's number three, violet. It's number two is red, green is four, carnation pink is five, black is six, just straight

up black. You like the black crayon, huh? Well, yeah. That was for drawing lines to me. Yeah, outlining things. Okay. Well, that would make sense. I got it.

Turquoise blue. Mm-hmm. Blue, green. Yeah. Periwinkle. Yeah, nice name. I think so, too. But it's also a nice, lovely type of silvery blue, if I remember correctly, right?

I think so. Silvery purplish. I'm not sure. I think it's good with colors. Emily's great with that stuff. And it will ask her. Yeah. Say, what's periwinkle?

Yeah, and she'll say, it's, but I need a thing. She'll say like, oh, the, the whatever in our house is periwinkle. I gotcha. You know. I gotcha. Uh, and then magenta. Yes. Not big on magenta.

Yeah. I think that's it, Chuck. What's your favorite of all time? I don't, no, I don't think I have a favorite color of crayon or maybe at all. I see. I like black. Okay. Yeah.

Johnny Cash. Um, I do have one more thing. It's funny that, uh, one thing that we usually do is look at just, uh, when we're searching things online, we'll look at news, right? Just to see if there's anything breaking, right? And believe it or not, I looked at crayons, crayola, and it was an eight minute old story. Wow. Breaking story.

That is breaking. Right before we record. Not like CNN breaking news, like actual breaking news. That's right. They have, uh, they're releasing a new blue this year, uh, those, uh, some scientists at Oregon State University, uh, go ducks, ducks, no, that's University of Oregon. Oh, you almost got it, Chuck. Oregon State.

The Loggers. Perry Winkle Cowboys. Uh, the, in 2009 at Oregon State, they were, um, doing some research, trying to discover materials for electronics and as often happens and something accidental occurred, they mixed an oxide with some other chemicals, heated it up, and they discovered a brand new pigment of blue, uh, in 2009, uh, Y I N M N, uh, Yenman, I'm not sure how it's pronounced. That's not very marketable, but it's a very, it's sort of cobalt-y, um, I like cobalt blue.

Yeah. This is very vivid blue. And, uh, we should do something on pigments at some point because I didn't, it's just weird to me that they could say like, no, this is a brand new color. Right. Um, but they did. Yeah, let's, let's definitely do that. That'd be kind of interesting.

Yeah. The science behind that. So Crayola is making, uh, this Yenman into a, uh, and they outsourced that they'd let kids vote many, many entrants, uh, to this name and they are naming it Blutiful. Oh. I know, right? Yeah, it's like, get your, get your color naming staff back, get the team back together, Crayola.

Yeah. You, Blutiful is what happens when you ask 10,000 six-year-olds. Right. Uh, so Blutiful's coming out, uh, just in time for the holiday season. Nice. Well, there you go. That's crayons, specifically Crayola crayons. Sorry for the buzz marketing, but we couldn't help it.

Did we get Oregon State? They're the cowboys, right? No, the beavers. They're the state beavers. Thank you, guest producer Matt for looking it up. I like periwinkle cowboys. Yeah. Uh, well, if you want to know more about crayons, go get some crayons, break them open and smell

them. It'll tell you everything you need to know. And in the meantime, uh, it's time for Listener Mail. And I also want to say to the good people of Prang, once again, people should support Prang. Sure. As well. As the OG.

At least go out and diversify your crayon portfolio, right? You know? Yeah. All right. Like, like Yamaha did with their keyboard and jet skis. That makes a little more sense. At least they knew how to make engines from a motorcycle. Yeah.

Um, all right. This is, I'm reading another Satanist reply, but it felt like this one should be read. Okay. Hey guys, I'm a Christian pastor. Oh, I love this one. Uh, as such, I hold strong religious convictions. And yet I've always found it incredibly important, both personally and professionally, to learn what I can about other belief systems.

So you're doing it right. Restoring my faith in humanity. Uh, I want to thank you for the episode on the church of Satan. It's not an organization that I've taken the opportunity to learn much about, perhaps out of fear or pride, but I found what you share to be very informational in any study of other belief systems. It is not only important to know what we disagree on, but perhaps just as importantly, but we do agree on while there are clearly areas where Satanist and I would know.

We never agree. There are actually many things that we have, uh, in common, uh, in a climate of increased divisiveness is important to focus on what we share, not what divides us. Your episode opened my mind and gave me new insight. And for that, I am incredibly grateful. Thank you for your show. Please keep up the good work. Isn't that great?

Yeah. Uh, signed peace, Reverend Lee Benish of Temple, Texas. Thank you, Reverend Lee, soon to be former Reverend. And this is, uh, Lee, uh, Lady Lee, L-E-I-G-H. I saw that. But it could be a man. No, it's a lady. Oh, it is.

Well, thank you, Reverend Lee. Again, seriously, we heard from you and from one other Reverend who basically said, you know, thanks for opening my eyes and I found it very interesting too, not just opening their eyes, but also like restoring their faith, like it confirmed their faith. Right. There was challenge. They're not running out to join the church of Satan. Right.

They challenged, they thought about it and they said, nope, double in down. I feel good about this after being confronted with opposing viewpoints. It's outstun, folks. It's called critical thinking. Yeah. Nicely done. Uh, if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us. I'm at Josh M. Clark and at S-Y-S-K podcast, both on Twitter.

You can hang out with Chuck at Charles W. Chuck Bryant on Facebook or at Stuff You Should Know on Facebook. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Frosted Tips with a Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.