Stuff You Should Know - How the Musketeers Worked

Episode Date: July 31, 2012

You know and love them as a fluffy chocolate nougat and maybe as a book and a movie, but musketeers were quite real and quite deadly. Visit with Josh and Chuck as they examine the elite special forces of 17th-century France. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and since the two of us are together in front of a couple of microphones, you got Stuff You Should

Know. That's right. Is it an award that we won on iTunes? At the very least, we won a vote. Yeah, the vote-winning podcast. Yeah, popular podcasts. That's what we can call ourselves. We are. Have we won an award? Are we award-winning? No. Nope. Okay. Maybe someone at home will make us an award and send it in. We've been awarded a podcast, so we are award-winning. Yes. Yes, so that's what we're about to do. And I think it's becoming painfully obvious why we haven't won any awards. The more we talk about this. Yeah, I think you're right. You doing good? I am great. You getting psyched for Comic-Con? Yeah. It's coming in like two days, dude. Well, by the time this is out, we'll be like long since I pooped our pants on stage and laughed at. Yeah. Yeah. The horror.

Yeah. I'm excited, though. Sure. San Diego. Let's do it. Yeah. Let's go right now. Yes. Just wait a day. In the meantime, Chuck, I have a proposal that we speak about the musketeers. Let's hear it. The intro that is. Oh, the intro. Yeah. It's like I'm not handling this one by myself. Yeah, just take it away. Can you imagine how long that episode would be? If I just discourse on the musketeers alone without you, it just keep going and going. An infinite loop. Hey, have you ever heard of a little candy company named Mars? Yeah. Nowadays, I think it's M&M's Mars, but back then it was just Mars. My stars, my stars. How does Mars make such wonderful candy bars? How old are you?

I'm 41, and my grandfather used to say that. It brings back like great memories. That was like one of the things Granddaddy Mills did. I'm sorry to tarnish it with such evidence. That's right. Okay. Well, this company, Mars, that your grandfather liked, and rightly so, Mars Bar is one of the greatest all-time candy bars ever. You're crazy if you say me. What's in a Mars Bar? Nugget, caramel, almonds. It's just this great melange of flavors. The almonds are what really do it. It's like the thinking man's Snickers. Throw some peanut butter in there, and I'm on board. Hey, I'm with you too. Okay. Well, this is long before anybody ever thought to put peanut butter in anything besides maybe a sandwich. Right. It's 1932.

The Mars Company released a candy that they called very appropriately, in my opinion, the three musketeers. Okay. Today, you pick up a three musketeers bar. You're like, what the hell does this mean? Yeah. Back then, you could very easily figure out what it meant, because it was three pieces of milk chocolate covered Nugget in three different flavors. Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Really? Hence, three musketeers. Three different pieces, three different flavors. So, it was three different flavors, all in one single wrapper. Yes. That's pretty ingenious. So, you pulled the wrapper back and you're like, oh, there's three. Like, which one do I want? What value? Which one do I want to give to my little brother?

It was, you give your little brother probably the strawberry one. Oh, is there? Yeah. Strawberry, vanilla, chocolate. It's like Neapolitan. Sure. I didn't realize that I had no idea that there were three. It makes sense now, because now when you open it up, you're like, I don't get it. It's one candy bar. That's what I'm saying. It's named after a novel, a classic novel. Yes, it is. Thank you for that segue, because I didn't know how I was going to get out of this one. I whipped myself into a quagmire. Today, the classic novel. Today, we've got three musketeers that are just the chocolate Nugget. We have a classic novel written by Alexandre Dumas. I checked pronunciation. Don't even try me on that. I listened to a Frenchman.

That's you. Oh, really? I listened to a Frenchman say it. There's this website called forvo.com. Yeah. It's people's names. I had someone send it in. It's awesome. Yeah, it is. And one thing I realized reading this is I don't think we have, we don't get a lot of mail from the French. No. Have you ever noticed that? Yeah. I wonder why. Do you think that there's probably not a French, not a lot of French listeners? No, I don't think so. Okay. We're beneath them. Yeah. I don't think we're hitting their wheelhouse much. Like podcast. Exactly. Not just podcast. I think podcast, like Mark Marin's huge in France. Oh, and again, so Jerry Lewis. So I guess if I was sitting around a cafe, like by the river drinking wine, I wouldn't have an iPod anywhere near me. I would throw it

in the river and just like live my life. You know, we are huge as India. True. Which is awesome to me. Agreed. Hey, India. Let's talk about the three musketeers, right? You said it was a novel by Alexander Dumas. Yeah, I mean, the really quick one-sentence summation is Hick, adventurer, d'Artagnan, moves out of the sticks and because he wants to join the famed musketeers, the guard. The musketeers of the guard. Yeah. The king's basically secret service, right-hand men. Yes. He wants to join them. He goes there. He meets the three musketeers, Athos, Portos, and Aramis, and he eventually works his way into, I guess, to be the fourth musketeer. Well, he presents himself with the opportunity to prove his valor and his courage and his skill

by basically hanging around them. Yeah. And along the way, there are duels and there's some love-making. Yeah. I think this is the only article on HowStuffWorks.com that has the word love-making. The fighting convention love-making. And it's hyperlinked, too. Is it really? Yeah. To what? I would imagine sex. To an article on sex. Yeah. Okay. That was a great summation. There's no need to read the three musketeers or any of the other works by Dumas that feature the three musketeers, including the man in the iron mask. Oh, was that him? Yeah. I didn't know that, but I kind of figured, you know, like who else was writing that stuff? Yeah, I don't know. He was kind of the market corner. He was the John Grisham of his day. He was the John Grisham,

the Danielle Steele, and the Sue Grafton of his day. Okay. Well put. Thanks. So, well, the weird thing, I guess it's not too weird, is that he wrote this novel a couple of hundred years after the real action takes place. And it came out at a time when, you know how, you know, later on people have a real fascination with things that came before them. It came out during the Romantic era in the 1840s where people were like, dude, it's swashbuckling and these outfits and the love making can give me more. Right. So it's really, really popular. Right. And it was also popular because it was based on actual events featuring historical characters. Yeah. All those dudes were real. Yeah. D'Artagnan, or D'Artagnan, he was a real person and actually

the three musketeers that Dumas wrote was based on a semi-fictional memoir written about that guy who was a real musketeer of the guard, who was, who went on to great glory actually. He became the, he traveled from the hinterlands, I think, Gaskony to join up the sticks, joined up, eventually became commander of the musketeers of the guard. But did they cover that in the, well, there was more than one book though, right? Yeah, there were several. Okay. And the original book was serialized too. We'll talk about Dumas in a minute, right? All right. The point is that his work was based on real people, but it was super fictionalized and super romantic. Yes, it was. And all of it was based on the idea that in the 17th century, there was this new invention

that gave rise to all of this, the musketeer. Thank you, China. Yes. Like everything else almost on the planet that we have. Thank you, China. Right. They were the leaders in pretty much everything back in the day. And around 1000, they invented a little something called gunpowder. Yeah. And you pack this stuff in a tube that's a metal tube, only open on one end. You light it like a, sort of like a mini cannon. They called it a hand cannon. A hand cannon. And boy, I bet there was a lot of mistakes early on in the stuff. Oh man. Can you imagine that going wrong? Yes. So easily. I can. And it would, they would light it through something called a touch hole. And then there would be an explosion, create this hot gas that would send whatever they stuck inside

there, which was a little round ball at the time. Yeah. It would send it out at decent speeds at first. Fairly decent. Yeah. I mean, for back then that was right. Like, whoa, look at that hurling projectile. Right. It was probably more like magic run. Yeah. You know, there's some, that man has a hand dragon. They didn't think they call it hand cannon yet. They probably called it a hand dragon. Yeah. And it was mostly, it produced a psychological effect because it wasn't very accurate. And like you said, it, it didn't really shoot it out at fast speeds. Yeah, it would like, the knight's armor, it would like hit it and go plunk and then fall on the ground. And the knight would then down and pick it up and put it in his little satchel. And then he would

go, yeah, cut you in half of the sword. Yeah. So at first, not super effective. No, but it inspired people to make this better. Like we can do better with a hollow tube and a stick and a touch hole. So let's figure this out. Yeah. If I may segue to the side here for a moment, this got to, got me thinking today about battle and just warfare and weaponry and how it's still so basic. I mean, it's like super advanced now with how they do it. But took took starts out by hitting another caveman in the face. Like it's warfare start out with your fists and then it transforms into like eventually someone uses a club and they're like, hey, this implement is like way better than hitting with my fist because it's harder and I can do

more damage and I can get a little further away from you. Then to come like swords and things and lances and they could get even further away. And the whole, the whole history of weaponry is about hurling bigger fists from longer distances. Whether it was the arrow, then later the bullet. Right. And now you have like enter ICBMs that are just like really, really, really big fists. Right. You can fire from really, really far away. I think the point you're making is that war, no matter how advanced we get is really primitive. It is. It's a primitive idea. I didn't know that was the point. I think it's spot on. All right, back to it. Thank you for that. Sure. I just thought I was even asked if you could do it first. That was really formal. Well, and each,

each method was like a little bit further away, like arrows, like, hey, we can get even further away. And then pretty soon it was bullets. And then it was like sniper rifles. And then it was missiles. Now it's some guy sitting in Nevada shooting people in Afghanistan. Yeah. With a honest computer. Yeah. Pretty sad. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that in on the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our

government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Where were you in 92? Were you bouncing your butt to Sir Mix a lot? Wondering if you like Billy Ray Cyrus could pull off a mullet. Yes. 1992 was a crazier for music and a crazy time to be alive. And now I heart has a podcast all about it. I'm Jason Launfier

and on my new show, where were you in 92? We take a ride through the major hits, one hit wonders and irresistible scandals that shape what might be the wildest, most controversial 12 months and music and pop culture history. They were angry at me. They thought I was uncontrollable and wild. I wanted to burst open. The president came after me. Everybody's trying to put a record like that out right now. We canceled before it made it to the post office featuring interviews and special guests like Sir Mix a lot, ice tea, Tori Amos and Vanessa Williams. This podcast poses the question. What was it about 1992 that made it so groundbreaking and so absolutely fabulous? So buckle up and tune into where you 92 new episodes drop everyone's

game. Listen and follow on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Okay. So back to the musket. Yes. We've gone from gunpowder to hand cannon. And now we're at the Arkbus. That's right. Not Arkbus early 1500s to be specific. And this actually had a shoulder stock, which was like a huge deal because it wasn't just a stick attached to this metal tube. Like you could actually aim the sucker now, right? You could look down the barrel and pointed at something and you could shoot it and it would shoot a projectile. But again, still the ultimate goal, the ultimate the pinnacle of the battlefield was the horse mounted night in armor. Yes. And if that guy was wearing plate, the arkbus wasn't going to do it still

still still a matchlock weapon, which meant you had to light a little thing. Yeah. So you needed a touch hole of some sort and you needed a some something like a smoldering piece of yarn, maybe yet you needed something dry, right, which was a key that we will find out. Right. That's a big problem. Yeah. Like when it's raining, your arse is not going to help. But you know, it works well in the rain. What a sword. It does. Like the one that the horse mounted night in armor is using to cut you in half yet again, 100 years later. Yeah. Right. So people are like this, we can make this work. This is got to work. We have to figure this out. And the spaniards were the ones that came up with this new thing called the mosquito, the sparrow hawk or the boomstick. I like to call

it. Yeah. It was even longer barreled. It was really heavy. I looked up pictures of this thing. They actually mounted it on a little forked stick. Yeah. Like sort of like Rambo actually Rambo carried his. His 50 millimeter. Yeah. But that's supposed to be on a tripod. Yeah. You understand. But Rambo so muscly. Right. They could carry it. Rambo and Charlie Sheen and hot shots. Oh, did he use that too? Yeah. Because he was imitating Rambo. Right. Okay. So they used the forked stick to like hold it steady and to help them out. The French called it a mosquit. The English called it a musket. A musket. I think you see where we're going here. Yeah. It was also so matchlock. But it was actually could fire something that would go through armor finally.

And then all of a sudden the Knights are like, oh man. Shoot. I'm in trouble. We're done. And they actually did fade from the battlefield after that. Yeah. With the with the mosquito, the mosquit or the musket. Yeah. And we cover that in the Knights podcast. We totally did. So then they're like, okay, we figured it out. We got the night down. The problem is is like this thing requires a forked stick to aim. Yeah. It's like 20 pounds. Yeah. And you need a pikeman, another soldier who has an 18 foot spear. Yeah. To protect you while you're reloading. I would want two pikemen. Yeah. Well, I think you probably had your own little formation because you were so important. You could just stand back and shoot a knight. Yeah. So yeah, they're going to give you as many

pikemen as you asked for if you knew how to shoot one of those things with your hand dragon. Exactly. So they're like, okay, we've got it. Now all we have to do is refine it. And one of the first refinements they made was to make it a flintlock. Huge. Yeah. So now you didn't have to carry a smoldering piece of yarn any longer. That's right. Flintlock worked in the rain because it would strike a piece of flint against steel, producing the spark instead of needing that open flame or the smoldering yarn. Did they really use yarn? They would use like something akin to yarn. Okay. They probably was yarn, but they spelled it with an E on the end. Yarny. So all of a sudden you could shoot it in wet weather, which was awesome.

And because the knights have sort of gone the way of the dodo, it didn't have to be a two inch iron ball that you're shooting. So that means that the gun itself can be smaller. Everything can be smaller and lighter. Right. Very big deal. So now we're starting to see like the kind of thing that the Minutemen used in colonial America. That's right. For those of you into that era, you'll know what I'm talking about. And then they also got rid of the pikemen by attaching a bayonet to it. Yeah, I don't know about that. They said that that rendered pikemen like unnecessary, but I would still rather have another dude with an 18 foot lance than me with my bayonet on the end of my rifle. But you might like to have that, but your field commander would

rather have another guy with a musket and a bayonet. Yeah. That's true. You know what I'm saying? Sure. Get rid of the pike, give him a musket and a bayonet instead. And all of a sudden you got two people shooting fire. Yeah. Good point. So they still call it a musket. Yeah. And technically, anybody who had a musket and used a musket in battle was a musketeer. I bet a lot of guys like to throw that word around back in the day too. But you know, I'm a musketeer. Right. And then the other guys would say, you're not a real musketeer. Right. A real musketeer, Josh, as we mentioned earlier, personal household guards of King Louis the, what is that, 13th? Yeah. And apparently he, it was, was he the one who founded it? Yeah. He formed the guard officially in 1622.

The musketeers of the guard, like they had to add the extra couple of words. So you didn't just think there was some schmoes with the musket. Exactly. Cause everyone with a musket at that point is, like we said, bragging about being a musket. Sure. Yeah. Because this is like high technology at the time. Oh yeah. And it stayed that way for a century. Like from the musket, the flintlock musket that any infantry man could carry with the bayonet was started, was introduced at the beginning of the 18th century and like all the way up to the 19th century. Like that is what people used. Yeah. And then that just became a rifle. I mean, it's not sure. I mean, it changed somewhat, but like as soon as China invented gunpowder,

it was all over. Yeah. People would be dying left and right. Sadly. All right. So these are, like we said, these were sort of like special forces, secret service, the private guardians of the king and his family. Yeah. Very important because in France during the 17th century, the early 17th century, it wasn't like a party going on back there. No, and actually a lot of a lot of troubles. Louis the 13th, his father on read the fourth, I believe, was assassinated. And Louis the 13th became he ascended to the throne and he became king at age nine. I was like the boy kings that cracks me up. Yeah. And he had like a child bride and of Austria, I believe her name was, and I guess overseeing this whole thing was a guy named Cardinal Richelieu.

Yeah. So at this time, and this was, I think, fairly correct. There were there were there was a lot of internal civil strife in France, religiously based. Yes. The French were also battling the Habsburgs of Austria. And within his own house, Louis the 13th was having to worry about the Machiavellian, which was new at the time, machinations of Cardinal Richelieu, his basically his Dick Cheney. Yeah, but a Dick Cheney with like an eye on the throne. Yes. So his Karl Rove. Yeah. It's very, it's very games of throny. Yeah. I don't know if you watched that or read it, but no, I've heard of it though. Yeah. I see there's like a throne made of swords done. It's really good stuff. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. All right. So the musketeers were

there. They're guarding the king. A lot of religious upheaval. Yeah, that was the big one. Yeah. French Protestants saying we don't like you Catholics. Catholics are saying we don't like you Huguenots, which are the French Protestants. Right. And so there was a lot of warring going on. So the king needed these like super specialized and these dudes were, you know, they were bad. Yeah. They were like the tough guys of the time. Right. Even though they were dressed up in frilly clothing that apparently struck fear into the hearts of their enemy. Yeah. They're like, look at the deep blue, that golden embroidery. But they were highly trained and their morale or their esprit decor was legendary. Yeah. Evidently. Well, they were also expert swordsmen. They were

called musketeers and they knew what they were doing with them with a musket. Sure. But day to day they had a sword by their side and they could take your head clean off with it. Yeah. And they did in the book. You're going to see a lot more sword fight and in the movies that they've adapted than any kind of musket play. Yeah. Supposedly in the book, muskets are just, they show up a few times. They're only fired a few times, but the rest is all swords and swaps buckling. But there were still musketeers. Right. So and the reason again, they were musketeers because this is cutting edge technology at the time. And if you were somebody who was really proficient with a musket, you were somebody special. Yeah. You also had to be, you didn't have to be, but it helped out if

you were an aristocrat, a nobleman. You didn't have to be loaded, but you had to kind of run in those circles. Right. Or you're never going to get picked up. Yeah. To be one of the, what was it, 150 to 300 at a time. Yeah. That's the most, the most and the least they ever had operationally. And they were actually like, this is again, this is real life we're talking about. Yeah. They were formed in 1622, I believe. Yeah. And they ran all the way into the, until 1816. Yeah. When they were disbanded due to a lack of funding. I know. And I saw they, they rebanded a couple of times after and subsequent years and then disbanded again. And then eventually they all went on to solo success as artists, entertain recording artists. Yeah. The air mess, he had a nice line of deodorants

and personal fragrances. So now can we talk a little bit about the book and Alexander, what do you call them? Dumas? Dumas. Very nice. Paris 1820s. Very popular. John Grisham like in his output. Right. The swinging Paris scene of the 1820s. Yeah. So he was turning out books like he had people writing stuff for him. He was like the Andy Warhol of his time. Like he, he had, he would have people say like, here's the structure of the book you're about to write. And he would sit down and write it. Research, tone, chapter ideas. He had assistance for everything. And he would just crank this out like it was an assembly line. Well, they were hugely popular.

But yeah, they definitely were. But historians, they don't knock him because he also had the goods as a writer. Right, exactly. And that's, that's a really like, that's just his prolificness alone is pretty awesome. But then if you combine the idea that he was actually good at what he did, yeah, that's staggering. Like his collected works, his unabridged collected works fills up 300 volumes. Really? Yes. Wow. And like some of it's really great. Like if you read the Three Musketeers, you're like, wow, this is pretty cool. This is a, it's, it's neat. It's interesting. It's engrossing. Yeah. And the love making. Right. It's hyperlinked all over the place. Right. So do we get specific about the real d'Artagnan's

Musketeer life? A little bit. We said that he, he came from Gascony. Yeah. A little bit before or was it after? No, he was after he came on set in the novel. Yeah, he came on in 1632, which was a little later than the fictional version and served under Louis the 14th, the Sun King. He was the Sun King. You know a lot about French history. Well, I went to Versailles once. Did you really? Yeah. Very nice. I never made it there. I didn't make it inside, but I went to Versailles. Oh, you tried though. That's an ugly incident. And he actually, the real d'Artagnan became the commander of the Musketeers and was killed in 1673. Yeah. And apparently the three dudes were also based on real guys, right? Right. I don't know if their names were dead on, but they're pretty

close approximations in the book. And so, like you said, like this book was hugely popular. It was first serialized in the French magazine La Siècle. La Siècle. Very nice. I don't know about that. But in 1844, and like you said, he was really hitting the romantic period. Yeah. And everybody loved it. So they took this, they took the serial and put it into a book. That's why a lot of the chapters have like cliffhangers because it was published, it was serialized in a magazine. Well, I think he started out, didn't he start out as a playwright? Yeah. Okay. Which makes sense with the whole cliffhanger thing. Right. So he writes, never really gets the respect that some of his contemporaries like Victor Hugo got or Emile Zola. Right. And it wasn't until

2002. And this possibly was because he had mixed race heritage. Oh, really? Yeah. His grandfather was a French nobleman. His grandmother, I believe, was a Creole woman from Haiti. Oh, that's right. So he had African in his blood. Yeah. Now, in France, it's not anything like it is in the United States where it's like that idiotic one-drop rule. Right. But apparently, it was enough. There was enough racism in France that it wasn't until 2002 when Jacques Chirac was president that his remains were moved to the Pantheon alongside Zola. Really? It took that long. Yeah. So a lot of people said, well, no, he was a hack. He was just a hack. He was good, but he was still a hack. And that's why people didn't take him seriously. But it's also possible

it was because of his racial background as well. I think that, and this bodes well for us, I think hundreds of years on, even prolific hacks can be looked upon as genius. Right. So that's pretty much what I've been betting on since we first sat down and started doing this. Yeah. Just somebody out there. Somehow society is going to just devolve and they'll be like, these guys, it'll be like idiocracy. Yeah. That's our meal. The more entertaining. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on

the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil answer for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Where were you in 92? Were you bouncing your butt to Sir mix a lot wondering if you like

Billy Ray Cyrus can pull off a mullet. Yes. 1992 was a crazier for music and a crazy time to be alive. And now I heart has a podcast all about it. I'm Jason Launfier. And on my new show, where were you in 92? We take a ride through the major hits, one hit wonders and irresistible scandals that shape what might be the wildest, most controversial 12 months and music and pop culture history. They were angry at me. They thought I was uncontrollable and wild. I wanted to burst open. The president came after me. Everybody time Warner with madness. Imagine trying to put a record like that out right now. We canceled before it made it to the post office. Featuring interviews and special guests like Sir mix a lot, ice tea, Tori Amos and Vanessa Williams.

This podcast poses the question. What was it about 1992 that made it so groundbreaking and so absolutely fabulous. So buckle up and tune into where you 92 new episodes drop every Wednesday. Listen and follow on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast, wherever you listened to your favorite shows. Anything else? No, I mean, the rest is history. Great. Great book. Yeah. And I love the story behind the musket and the musketeer is the real life thing. That was pretty cool. You know, like my history. If you want to learn more about Alexander Dumas and the musketeers and muskets, you can type musketeers m u s k e t e e r s into the handy search bar at howstuffworks.com, which means it's time for listener mail. Josh, I'm going to call this

clarification on that I've actually killed pretty bad about. Oh, okay. That's what you're going to call. Okay. Josh and Chuck just started listening to stuff you should know. And I love the podcast, but I was recently listening to your samurai podcast and I couldn't help but notice that you gave credit to George Lucas when talking about a Darth Vader mask. And it's relative similarity to the samurai Kabuto mask. Remember that? Yes. I thought I would point out that Mr. Lucas, although responsible for Star Wars, was not responsible for the design or the conception of Vader's mask. Credit for that should go to the great concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, who's used future aesthetic as in like full-timey looking. Yeah, no, I love that aesthetic.

Oh, yeah, me too. It's one of the reasons for the iconic status of Star Wars and really informed like every great space movie since, don't you think? Yeah, like think about it like the, like a spaceport or something like that. Like all the jet engines are kind of battered and beaten and everything. And every once in a while, I'll go to an airport and look and see the planes are just like that. And I'll just see exactly what that guy was doing and how well they nailed it. Agreed. So McQuarrie hats off to you and Geiger. Oh yeah, he's our Geiger is awesome. I'm gonna take my hat off to YouTube as well, sir. And then continue with the email. Okay. Lucas's original script did not put Vader in a mask at all, evidently. And it was Ralph's idea to

put a frightening helmet on the Sith Lord. McQuarrie recently passed away. And it would be a shame if his contributions to popular culture were not recognized. And Joe from San Francisco could not agree more. And I'm glad you pointed this out. Because movies, although it is a director's medium, are made up of many, many, many people's talents contributing to the end result of the film. And people like McQuarrie are often overlooked with something as iconic as Darth Vader's mask. That's awesome. So thank you for that, Joe from San Francisco. Well done, Joe. Here's to you. Well, yeah, if you have an awesome correction for us or just a clarification, or if you want to tell us that we were utterly and completely wrong about something, we're always open to hearing

that kind of thing, especially if you're nice. It'd be nice. Start off being nice. Nothing. There's no point in being mean. You can tweet to us at SYSKpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com at facebook.com slash stuffy snow. And you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jackmove or being

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