Stuff You Should Know - Let's All Go to the World's Fair

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Before the internet could show you anything in the universe - including stuff it made up - people had few opportunities to have their minds blown. But every few years, somewhere in the world nations would gather and show off the cool stuff they invented.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. And it's just us today. Jerry's out on vacation. I mean, she's at a conference, and this is stuff you should know. That's right. This was your idea. And something about it just smacks of kind of classic stuff you should know where we, Talk about a bygone era in a way. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, we're talking about world's fairs today. Depending on where you are in the world, you might call them international expositions, universal expositions.

You might just call them expos, if you're pressed for time. Sure. And I thought maybe Chuck, we would just do this entire episode in gibberish that only you and I can understand. Yeah, that's a great idea. This is the one. We're finally going to do it. All right. Let's do it.

On second thought, let's not do it. No, let's not do it. All right. So, well, let's set the stage then in plain English. It's hard to kind of understand now because we live in a world and generally grew up in a world that if we didn't have internet when we were kids, we still had television, cable television, no less. Before that, generations had radio. And then, yes, now today we can basically go anywhere, see anything, even stuff you don't want to see. because everyone generally has access to the internet, right?

Yeah. Before all of this, like being exposed to new ideas, new things, seeing what the latest cutting edge stuff was, that was not a common thing for the average person. Like, you just did not see that kind of stuff, and that was generally the role that World's Fairs played. Yeah, it was that. And like every time I was reading about the different ones

from the different nations, it was very much like, hey, look at how great we're doing. Right. You know, like, I mean, obviously trying to spur commerce and trade and stuff like that. But a lot of it was sort of showing off. It was showing off. It was showing off like all the technological prowess and all the future ideas that are coming down the pike that each country was working on. There was lots of corporate exhibits eventually.

And it sounds to me like a cool place to have been. Yeah. Like if I had a big list to pick from of stuff I could go time travel to you, probably go to a couple of these. Oh, all right. So Woodstock, the inauguration of Jimmy Carter, and a World's Fair. That's right. Well, let's get into the history of this, shall we?

Yeah, because they didn't start as World's Fairs. If you want to track the prehistory, you've got to go to the national fairs. Sure. England was holding these in the 1700s, barely. I think 1754 was the first real one when the, what would later be, the Royal Society. for arts, but before they got royal, I guess they were just the society for arts. They had different shows, and it was sort of like, I mean, this was the 1700s. So it was the technology of the time was like, hey, look at this cool new loom or look at this

new cool way we can press cider. Yes, and there was this kind of this new idea called Industrial Arts, which was essentially designing and inventing new technology. And yeah, it was old-timey, but for the time, it was pretty cutting edge. And this is what laid the kind of the foundation for the idea of what a world's fair is all about, which is, look at all the technological progress we're making. And I saw that it was essentially inextricably tied together with the Industrial Revolution, that that's really what kind of gave them the oomph needed, you know? Steam-powered oomph. Yeah, that's right.

Well, I guess not yet. But steam is coming. Don't worry. France would get involved. They saw what England was doing where they're like, well, we can't let them best us. So they started holding theirs also in the late 18th century. And both of them, again, were like marketing themselves sort of abroad, but also to their own people. Like, hey, look at how great we're doing the rest of France.

Yeah, you can feel good about being French. Yeah. And France becomes like basically the apex of world's fairs eventually or international expositions. But England kind of took the crown back first. And Prince Albert, Queen Victoria. His husband, who was of German ancestry, or what we now call Germany, and who we have to thank for Christmas. So thank you, Prince Albert.

Oh, yeah. He hosted the great exhibition of the works of industry of all nations in 1851. And this was what basically everyone who knows about World's Fairs, knows anything about World's Fairs, says this was the first World's Fair. Yeah. No one calls it the great exhibition of the works of the industry. of all nations, except for us because we're being technical, because everyone calls it the Crystal Palace exhibition,

because that's where they built the Crystal Palace. It was in Hyde Park from May to October 1851, and they wanted a real, you know, and you'll see this as a trend. Like they really wanted to knock people's socks off when they arrive. And when you arrived at this, you know, kind of glorified greenhouse. And in fact, it was built by a greenhouse builder

named Joseph Paxton. Right. But it was 18 acres. of glass and iron and steel. And it created eight miles of display space. And it was like super impressive. Yeah, it was a real ring and ding ding greenhouse. I mean, an 18-acre greenhouse is not easy to make, right?

So yes, it knocked everyone's socks off for sure. You said there's eight miles worth of display space inside. So it was also capable of holding 14,000 exhibits. Yeah, man. About half of them were from Britain. And one of the reasons that Prince Albert wanted to do this, because he wanted to drum up interest in Europe, in particular, for imports from Britain. Yeah.

Yeah. He was like, hey, we got a bunch of good stuff. Why don't you come over and see it? And then you can place your orders on your way out the door. I wonder if they, could you really place orders? I bet you could. You think so? Yeah.

So there was about 560 exhibits from the U.S., and one of them was the Colt repeating pistol. And I guarantee you could have been like, I want to order some of those. Give me some right now so I can shoot in the air in the Crystal Palace. I bet you could have left there with a cult repeating pistol if you had enough money. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. But I promised Steam, and that is that first one is where the steam engine was officially debuted,

as well as the automated cotton mule. Sure. For spinning. France, you know, I think you said U.S. had 560. France had 1,760 exhibits. In addition to the cult repeating pistol, did you mention chewing tobacco? I did not. And that's where we debuted as a nation.

Hey, look what we've come up with. Chewing tobacco, which I imagine we stole from indigenous peoples here. Yes, but we really kind of Americanized that the person running that booth had to dance back and forth pumping its fists like a prospector the whole time. Right. And dance on maybe artificial legs because artificial legs were debuted by the United States there. That's right. We really just had one exhibit and they were every single. compressed together.

A guy dancing on artificial egg shooting his pistol in the air, chewing tobacco. Yep, that's exactly right. So, yeah, this is obviously a huge hit. It actually made money for the organizers, which was not the case for all the world's fairs to come. But because of that, a lot of people around the world

were like, hey, I want to get in on this. And Paris said, we're first. There was one in Dublin. There was one in Cork. There was one in Munich. there was one in New York, but really everything kind of moved over to Paris when they said, we're taking over here. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, the other ones were legit World's Fairs. I think the one in New York in 1853 through, I think, November 1854. That was a long one, July to November. Yeah. The exhibition of the industry of all nations. In that case, they did okay, but they were, like, clearly copied the Crystal Palace. They built their own. They're in Bryant Park.

but they lost money. I think the first U.S. one to make any kind of hay was the one in Philly in 1876, right? Yeah. That was the centennial exhibition where the typewriter was invented. Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone. There was also the largest steam engine ever,

which apparently still holds the record. It was a 700-ton steam engine called the Corliss Engine. It took 65 railroad cars to deliver it to the exhibition in Philadelphia. Philadelphia. And when they turned it on, all of the machines at the World's Fair came to life because they were all being powered by that steam engine in the center of the whole place. That's a pretty fun little knock your socks off moment. It is pretty cool. I thought so. Like everyone's standing around. Well, I guess it was still,

it wasn't powering lights at the time, was it? No, not yet. Okay. Because we're, yeah, that happens. It's coming everybody. It's coming. Yeah, but this whole thing, it really, I mean, it attracted 10 million people. And it was it was a big one. So I guess I got ahead of myself. Paris hadn't come, yeah, I'm just really excited about Paris taking over for some reason. Yeah, I mean, they took over in a big way.

They hosted eight of them between 1855 and 1937. And a lot of theirs, like most other nations when they hosted the government kind of really hosted in America. It was a lot of like corporate entities from the beginning along with the government. But Paris

really took it to a political sort of apex by like Napoleon really was showing off in the first and second ones. Like, look how great I am and look at all the great things I've done. The third one, I think, in 1878 was like, hey, you know, we're doing fine. We've recovered from the Franco-Prussian War and all this internal violence of the Paris Commune. And, like, we're still doing great. Look at us.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was a big part of those European ones, like you said. And the Paris ones also, more charmingly, had fountains. Like almost all of them had a really cool fountain. And a lot of those fountains are left over. There was one from 1889 called the Fountain of Progress. And it is the first water feature to have electric lights inside that shined up from underwater,

which to me is still quite impressive. Yeah, do you think when they debuted it, they were like, and we're going to have Jacques stand in the fountain while we turned it on. We're pretty sure it's going to work. No one likes shock anyway, so don't worry. Yeah, it all worked out for shock, though. No, but I'm still like when I see a swimming pool light, I know it's housed in a thing, but I don't know.

It all just vaguely makes me nervous. It does, for sure. I get that. But the ones in the fountains, they never make me nervous. They just look so cool to me. Yeah, because you're not in the fountain. No, no. So it doesn't matter if it's like buzzing with electricity.

You ever been to Rome? Yes, I have. It's one of my favorite town. You've seen that Trevi Fountain? I do. Is that the one with all the... Yes, I have. Yeah, you didn't go to Rome and not see the Trevi Fountain.

Right, yeah. It was pretty amazing. Yeah. I think that has lights in it. I'm sure it does. Or at least around it. The thing was lit up. I was there at night and it wasn't dark.

I was there during the day, so I couldn't tell you. Okay, I got you. So one of the other things that happened at the 1889 Exposition Universal was that the Eiffel Tower was debuted. And we talked about this in depth. We did a 2020 episode on the Eiffel Tower. That's right. But just a couple of points as a refresher.

It was a contest. About 100 entrants. And Gustav Eiffel won it, along with his colleagues. And they proposed at the time what was going to be the, and it was, I think, the tallest building in the world. it about a thousand feet. And people, you know, the people of the world loved it, but the people of Paris did not like it very much, right? No, they wanted to get rid of it. And it almost got torn down. I think in 1909, it came as close as it ever has. And they said, no, no, we're going to use this

as a radio telegraph station. So people in Paris are like, all right, as long as it's serving some purpose, you know, because I can't remember who said it, but someone said that something that doesn't actually function can never truly be beautiful. Oh, really? Yeah, something along those lines, yes. So like form over function, basically? Function over form. Or function and form.

Function? Well, yeah, sure. Yeah. I think we're saying the same thing. Yeah, I think so. Oh, we are speaking in code now. That's right. It finally happened.

They also had what was called a hygiene palace at that expo, which sounds super gross. Yeah, it does. But it was, you know, it was at a time, you know, it was 1889. So hygiene, you know, we're talking like life-saving hygiene, not like how to smell less. So they showed like hospital stuff, medical stuff, how to raise. They had real babies and showed like, here's how you raise a baby properly. And then also speaking of babies, they made a full-scale reproduction of the tower at the Madeline Hospital for foundlings, which is where in Paris, if you had a child, this is where you would leave it. for somebody else to take over.

If you didn't want the child, right? Yes, exactly, right. And they even had, like, a model of a baby and everything in it. I don't know why they chose to include that, but they did. I don't know. Maybe get the word out. I guess so, because that was, yeah, they were trying to get the word out in the hygiene palace for sure.

It's interesting when you can look back at a thing like that, and it can be both sort of the greatest thing and the saddest thing all at once, you know? For sure, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we should, yeah. We should build one? Yeah. Well, it's funny you mentioned that.

I started one this morning. You can come over and help me finish it. Awesome. That Expo was very profitable. They made a ton of money on it. And I don't think we said at the beginning, like from the beginning these World's Fair, a portion of the money that they make on these

has gone, or at least in the United States, has gone into funds that still help fund like industrial arts programs for students. Yeah, that first Crystal Palace exhibition has a fellowship fund that helps people in industrial design get through grad school still today from 1851, yeah. Should we break or should we talk about the 1900 Expo? Let's talk about the 1900 Expo because just to kind of keep this contained for a second, basically these biggest ones, the ones that really made the biggest splash are still contained in Europe. up largely Great Britain and France. Okay.

All right, I agree. This one had the 1900 attracted 50 million people. That's crazy. Yeah, I mean, these are 1900 people. Right. There's only like 60 million. Yeah, I mean, you can get 50 million people pretty easily together now in any given space. For sure.

It's like nothing. But it was a big deal back then. And again, showcasing Paris as like sort of one of the leading modern cities. They debuted something pretty cool there called the Cinerama, which they still have these, and they have one of these in Atlanta, the cyclorama. In Atlanta is this kind of thing, where you go in this sort of immersive theater experience where they have projections, but also paintings, and it's like a 360-degree screen. In their case, they simulated a balloon ride because it sounds like balloons were all the rage at the time. For sure, they also had an actual

balloon race, a long-distance balloon race as part of the exposition. Yeah. That reminded me when I was reading about the cineorama, when we did our Salt Lake City show that one time. Oh, yeah. Before the show, during the afternoon, I was walking around downtown Salt Lake, and I ended up in, like, the main Mormon temple. And one of the things they have there as an exhibit is a, it's basically 300 degrees. It's not 360, but it is really close. Yeah.

Like high-deaf movie screen that is right there in your face. Oh, cool. of Brigham Young, like, receiving the message from God. Oh, wow. And it was so disorienting that I ended up, like, staggering out of there in the middle of it. Like, I couldn't take it. It was just overwhelming. The message or the 300-degree?

I guess a little bit of both, but I think more the whole 300-degree thing. It was the most immersive video experience I've ever seen by far. Yeah, I'm wondering, I haven't been to the sphere in Vegas, but I'm wondering if, I mean, it looks super cool, but I wonder if there is any sort of like, oh, boy, this is too much kind of feeling. Probably. I mean, it's Las Vegas. Yeah, that's true. It's all too much.

So one of the great things about the 1900 exposition came from the United States. It was an exhibit by American black scholars, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, who attended and basically said, here is all the progress that black Americans have made since the end of slavery. It sounds really cool. Yeah, they had books, they had inventions, they had art, they had just straight up photographs of like, look, we have black nuns in the United States, we have black soldiers, we have black college students. And then apparently W.E.B. Du Bois was sort of the early USA Today because he loved making infographics. And he made infographics showing like their literacy rates were rising. They own, they own taxable property. And these were from actual Georgians, I think.

Right. And then also like, hey, our literacy is so good among black Americans. Like, we're better than Romania and Russia at this point. Yeah. They, that if I went and looked at some of Du Bois's infographics, and they're really interesting. Like, he came up with some really interesting ways to cram a bunch of data into one page visually. So it's worth looking up, especially if you like colorful things. Oh, I do. And that is very USA today.

Mm-hmm. Shall we break now? Yes. All right. We will be right back after this. Well, now, when you're on the road, driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck, it's stuff you should know. All right. A silver 40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene. From IHeart podcasts and Best K Studios.

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Moreworld's Fairs. Latin America is getting involved now. I think this is after they had freed themselves from Spanish rule, early 19th century, they wanted to, again, show like, hey, we're doing pretty well. Not only were they sending factions to other worlds fairs like in Europe and the United States, but Cordoba and Buenos Aires, Argentina, had their own, Santiago, Chile, had their own.

And this was, like, between the 1870s and 1880s. Yeah. At the time, there was a lot of tension, though, apparently between the country's booster who are like, look at us. Like, we don't need Spanish rule. We're doing all this cool, interesting stuff, and we're inventing all this stuff.

And then others there were like, no, the point of this is to, like, sell ourselves as sources of raw materials. Right. And places where you can overthrow regimes to grow bananas more cheaply. Yeah, I think that was a big point, right? Like, hey, we can actually make stuff here.

We're not just to be sort of looted for what we can provide you. Precisely. And then the people who made money from the country being looted, they were the ones who were like, no, no, no, we need to just show off how easily were looted. Yeah, exactly. There were, you know, speaking of looting, there were worlds fairs and places that were colonized at the time.

There was one in 1883 to 84 in Calcutta. Kingston, Jamaica had one in 1891. Hanoi had one in 1902. And this was, you know, hey, look at the local culture, but also, like, clearly coming from the colonizer side. Like, look how great they're doing thanks to us. Right, exactly. Okay, so there were, like, they spread all over the world because they were so impressive and they really did bring a lot of attention and industry and business and exports from

these countries that were hosting these things. Like, they were not just vanity projects. There really were big returns on them. And the U.S. got back in the game. I don't know if it was the first one after the Philadelphia one. It could have been. But far and away in the United States. States, the most famous World Fair, was the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, the World's

Columbian Exposition. It was a pretty good World's Fair, if I do say so myself. Yeah. And if you're one of the gazillions of people who have emailed us over the years to do one on the Chicago World's Fair and H.H. Holmes, the serial killer, we should probably do a standalone episode on that, because this is just going to be a sort of a quickie on Chicago, and I know there's a lot more to it than this, so I guess that's me saying, prepare to be disappointed a little bit. Yeah. But more like a preamble to, like, there'll be a deeper episode coming, because a lot of people

have asked for this over time. It is, you know, mainly known for the fact that H.H. Holmes, serial killer, was kidnapping young women who traveled to that Chicago fair and had his murder castle in Inglewood. And there was a great, great book called The Devil in the White City, which I still haven't read, but everyone said it's just amazing. It's by Eric Larson, and it's on the list. As far as popular histories go, it is easily in the top five. Yeah, man, I got to read this thing.

It is so good. So readable. He does such a great job of putting you there. And it is, like, it does cover H.H. Holmes and all the terrible stuff he does in depth. But it also covers the fair in depth. It's just, it was an amazing thing. Yeah. So we're going to cover the fair not so in depth.

But we're going to mention a few things for sure. This is where we got Cracker Jacks. This is where we got the dishwasher. Sure. This is where we got the modern zipper, which they called a clasp locker at the time. We did an episode on that, too, in 2020. That's right. What else?

The Ferris wheel came from the 1893 Exposition, which very quickly after that became like a staple of World's Fairs. And it was very appropriately designed by George Washington, Gail Ferris, Jr., who was from Pittsburgh. And the first one he designed was 264 feet tall, 36 cars, and offered a 20-minute ride in exchange for 50 cents, which is about $18 today. And you could see the whole dang fair from the top of that ferris wheel, and it blew people's minds. Yeah, I thought it was when I was reading this, I thought it was interesting that they became a thing, but like more like a, or at least in the United States, more like a fairgrounds or a carnival thing. and just more recently, like the past like 15 or 20 years, I feel like, went back to this original idea, put like a huge Ferris wheel in a downtown city just so you can like see stuff. Yeah. And bear in mind also at the time, we kind of take it for granted now, but in the same

way that you, the average person was not exposed to cutting edge technology and new ideas and awesome new products and stuff, people especially in the Midwestern United States, were not exposed a view of 264 feet. Like this is an extremely novel experience for most of the people who attended that fair. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Atlanta's got one.

You ever been on that one? No, I have not. I haven't been on a ferris wheel in a long, long time. Yeah, you know, London has the eye. Atlanta has theirs. It's, you know, it's, it was fun to take Ruby when she was little.

But, like, there's no reason for you to go on it. Okay. Good to know. Even the London Eye, have you been on that one? I haven't been on that. But hey, there's a Ted's Montana Grill right there, the Tabernacle's right there. So if you got tickets to see a show at the Tabernacle, go eat at Ted's Montana Grill, have a bison burger. Check. Ride on the Ferris wheel, and then you've done it. We're going to see Echo and the Bunny Men in May, so we'll ride the Ferris Wheel then.

Remind me about that before it happens, because I might meet you there. I just did. Oh, man, that's in May. You got to remind me like three days before. Maybe we can ride the Ferris wheel together. You me, you me and Emily. Oh, man. Our Instagram would blow up.

Would you believe it? I think I just blew some people's minds by saying you, me, you me, and Emily. Yeah, people get that confused a lot. You do. This is way off target because we were just talking about something that reminded me of it. But I had a funny Simpsons reference last night. Wait a minute.

You're about to go on a tangent because those aren't allowed on our podcast. Do you ever make a joke that you know no one else will get, But so it's really a joke for you? Like 80% of the time, maybe? I was watching Emily, or Emily was gone last night, so Ruby and I had a daddy daughter night in which we usually, like, order cheeseburgers and watch, like, an action movie or something. Cute.

And I showed her speed last night. Uh-huh. And I queued it up, and I was like, you're going to love this. I'm not even going to tell you anything about it. And she was like, no, wait, will you at least tell me the name of it? And I went, it's called the bus that couldn't slow down. And she was like, really? And I went, no, it's a Simpsons joke.

And then she wouldn't just let it go. She had me explain the whole thing, which, you know, fell on deaf ears. But it's one of my all-time favorite kind of Simpsons jokes. I don't remember that joke. It was, Homer was describing a movie that he had just seen. And he was like, it's a bus whose speed couldn't slow down. Because if it had less speed, it would blow up. And the speed would cause it to whatever.

And he said speed like eight times. And they asked him what the name was. of it was. He said the bus that couldn't slow down. Man, that show just keeps on giving, doesn't it? Speed holds up pretty good, too, by the way. Oh, yeah. Keuna Reeves' short hair is really great in that movie. Yeah. He was hunky, and it's like, yeah, it really, it was, I mean, it's so action-packed. It was, it was great. I enjoyed it. Yeah. Dennis Hopper is a bad guy, a crazed bad guy, is pretty much timeless. He was great. And I remembered the bus stuff, but that's just the middle part. I I forgot the whole first part and the last part, which was also tons of action.

I don't remember that. Yeah. Go back and then watch it. We'll watch it before we go on the Ferris wheel. We just did a mini crush. I know. We did. Where are we?

Oh, we're back at 1893 because that's where electricity really came in, right? Yes. That was another big thing in Devil in the White City. They really went behind the scenes. I think there was a huge struggle between George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison to get the contract to light the 1893 World's Fair. in Westinghouse, one. Yes. And he lit this fair up.

And it was gorgeous. I didn't see it, but I read Eric Larson's description, and it sounded just totally amazing. Yeah, that sounds cool. That's also where Chicago really got a lot of its beautiful architecture that we love today. Yeah. With their neoclassical buildings, a lot of more temporary at the time. And that's why they called it the White City, but it really influenced the design going forward

to promote that Bose arts style. Is that how you say it? Yeah. Thanks. And also, if you're wondering, like, did they do that at other fairs? We got Art Deco from the 1925 exhibit in Paris. Yes, and a little traveler's tip here. If you ever find yourself in New Zealand, I think the northern part of it,

do yourself a favor and go visit Napier. It's a small town. I don't remember what part of New Zealand it's in, You really can't miss anything in New Zealand. It's not that big. And it suffered an earthquake in, I think, 1931, and, like, the whole downtown was leveled. So they were like, well, what style is in right now? Oh, Art Deco.

So they rebuilt their entire downtown in Art Deco, all these amazing different buildings and amazing different colors. And they have preserved it, like, perfectly. Oh, man, I love Art Deco. I got to check that out. Oh, yes. This is the Art Deco town. Known internationally is the Art Deco town.

Wow. I had never heard of it. I thought you were going to recommend the river tour, the architectural tour in Chicago. I didn't take that one. It sounds kind of cool, though. It's awesome. For like a big sort of large mass tour thing, it's really great. Did Ferris Bueller go on that in the movie?

Because I know he was on a boat at some point, or they showed people on a boat. I don't know if there's a shot of that or not. All right. Well, let's just say there is. Okay. But I did it. Chuck Bueller did. Okay.

Oh, yeah. So that was 1893. Like we said, go read that book. You will not regret it. And then jumping forward a little bit, but staying in the United States, there was the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. Have you ever seen Meet Me in St. Louis, Chuck? No, I take it that was you that added that was a terrible, a terrible musical? Yes.

It was, like, I didn't want to be, I didn't want to exist for those couple of hours. while I was sitting there watching this play. It's so dumb, and the music is so stupid, and everything about it is just terrible. Where did you see this? At the Fox. Wow. So like a Broadway revival?

Yeah, in this period of American history, I just find creepy and I don't really like it anyway, you know? There's a lot of, like, sousaphone music and stuff like that. Okay. So, and this is like a whole thing set at that time, and it's just, it's not good, dude. Wow. All right. Okay.

So don't see it. Okay. Go see Hell's Kitchen instead. Or Operation Mince Meat. Okay. But also there's a lot of misconstrued facts, I guess. Yeah, this sounds like a bit of a, I don't know, I don't like the 1904 exhibit because they said, a lot of people say, like, that's where the hamburger came from and the hot dog and the ice cream cone. And some of that stuff is partly true, right?

Yes. Hot dogs were first served in buns at the 1904 Fair, but hot dogs already existed. Right. Ice cream cone wasn't invented there, but this is the first place where a lot of people saw ice cream cones for the first time. It sounds like a bunch of junk food. Yeah, it definitely was. Cotton Candy was debuted at the 1904 Fair.

And I feel like there's a nice little twist to the inventor, don't you? Yeah, he sold it as fairy floss. His name was William J. Morrish. and he was, in fact, a dentist. I think that's one of those little fun facts that people like to throw around. Absolutely true. But it was also Dr. Pepper debuted there, jello, puffed rice cereal. It sounds just like a bunch of, like, American junk.

Yeah, this is where a lot of it came from, for sure. And then also just, we might edit this part out, but just between you and me, the first electric plug-in socket debuted there, too, which is pretty significant. Yeah. But I want to give a little hat tip to Livia for explaining what an electric plug and socket does, which allowed lights and appliances to be safely attached to and detached from a central power supply. Oh, man. Livy is the best.

That's the dedication that we can expect from Livia. And also you can get way more in-depth information. We kind of did a whole episode that covered this kind of thing. In 2019, our episode on human zoos and how awful they were. But they had stuff like that here, like native villages, and that's in quotes, where they had very offensive sort of misleading exhibits about indigenous Americans and Filipinos and Africans. And yeah, just sort of a bummer of a world's fair, I think. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, they would basically be like, hey, let's take every single racist conception or misconception and attitude we have toward all these different groups and bring them to life.

And that's exactly what it was. So, yeah, it was a good episode and that it was, it explained it pretty well, but it was definitely a bummer of an episode for sure. Yeah, but you could wash it all down with a Dr. Pepper. So what could be wrong? That's right. And give somebody a big smile and like half of your teeth are missing. All right. I think we're at our second break point and we'll talk about sort of the next wave of World's Fairs and then kind of the death of World's Fairs right after this.

Well now when you're on the road Driving in your truck Why not learn a thing or two From Josh and Chuck It's stuff you should know All right I became a millionaire overnight But lost everything that actually mattered

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Right. But there's still plenty that came along that you'll, if you know anything about World's Fair to pay any kind of attention to it, you'll be like, no, there was Expo 67 in Montreal, or there was Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan. Yes, yes, we'll get to all those. But the general point is here is that they were less successful because people started to see radio.

There were movies, or they started to listen to radio, movies became widespread and very popular. And then simultaneously to that, there were so many world's fairs to choose from, no matter where you were in the world. You might be in a large city that has multiple world's fairs competing with one another in the same region, certainly the same country. That happened. And it became a bit of a mess. So this group called the Bureau International Expositions, the BIE, established in Paris, of course, they said, We're going to step in.

We're going to start regulating these events. We're going to take this mess. We're going to mash it into a devil's tower plateau of mashed potatoes. We're going to create something coherent out of it. Wow. Nice ref. Yeah, they established some rules. Well, the first rule was like, unless it's officially sanctioned by us, it's not even a world's fair.

So you've got to go through us. It can't be more than six months. You can't run these things for nine, 12 months. You got to have a theme, like get it together, everyone. like a party with the theme is so much better. Sure. And since then, this was in 1928, there have only been 50 World's Fairs since,

I guess they established in 1928, but 1931 is when they officially started sanctioning them, and there's only been 50 since then. Right. Yeah. Can you imagine some poor guy who's like, hey, this isn't an official world's fair wants their money back?

Yeah. So after the Cold War started, these things, you kind of mentioned at the outset, they seem to be like different countries saying, like, look at how great we are. That was a huge part of world's fairs that were during the Cold War, especially between the American and the Soviet pavilions.

Yeah, for sure. They were, like, basically, like, here's the stage where we can show the rest of the world how much better we are than you, Russia, and vice versa. Yeah, absolutely. A little fun fact we got to throw in there. Do you remember the Montreal Expos, which are now the Washington Nationals

in Major League Baseball? Yeah. That name came from the Montreal Expo that happened in 1967. Yep. It's a fun little fact. New York had a couple of big ones in Queens. They had one in 39 and 40. The World of Tomorrow was a big theme, and they debuted things like air conditioning,

television, nylon stockings. Pretty good. They debuted a robot that smoked cigarettes named Electro, who had a robot dog named Sparko. Yeah. And this was kind of notable mostly for, well, for those things, but also the fact that they were able to put a bunch of money into reclaiming Flushing Meadows in Corona Park, which at the time was a dumping ground for ash and just a really gross spot. But, you know, when you fly, if you see Men in Black or you fly over it, it's where the New York Mets used to be. And you would see that big steel globe from Men in Black very famously. that was the New York World's Fair in 39 and 40.

Yeah. I looked at pictures of Electro, and he looks like a 1939 robot for sure. Huge barrel chest, and then like, like he looked. A little bit like Mr. Roboto, but a little less detailed in the face. But he did smoke cigarettes. I saw it. It's nice. One of the other things about World's Fares, too, is depending on what the world was doing,

like, for example, if they were about to enter a World War or were already embroiled in one, it could make for some awkward stuff. Like, Germany was going to open a pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair, and after they invaded Czechoslovakia, the rest of the world was like, no, you're not allowed here at this World's Fair. The UK, Poland, Czechoslovakia, a few other countries that were already involved in World War II had pavilions there. And so, like, stuff that was going on in Europe was being reflected in the World's Fair.

Yeah, for sure. We're heading back to Queens because I mentioned they had two there, and they had their second one there in 64-65. And this was a pretty big one, too. I think this is where that spear came from, was the 64-65, if I'm not mistaken. This is where computers really made their first big go. IBM had a huge, they had like an acre-sized spot display.

They had a – this is where Walt Disney really made a big splash, too. I think they debuted, it's a small, the literal, it's a small world ride there, which is pretty cool. And then if you've ever been to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando and rode or ridden the Carousel of Progress, that made its debut there. That was GE, you know, and if you've ever ridden it, it's clearly like a, like, hey, look what's going to happen not too far from now. Yeah, and they did one for the state of Illinois too, and I looked that up. And apparently they created an animatronic talking Abe Lincoln, which I believe ended up giving rise to the Hall of Presidents. Yeah. One of the creepier things you can do at Disney.

It really is. One of the other things is that the 1964 World's Fair was so gee whiz, look at the future, that Isaac Asimov, the great science fiction writer, was prompted to write an essay. Yeah. Yeah, about what the world's fair in 2014, 50 years in the future would look like. And he got some right. He missed the mark a little bit. Like, for example, he got right that robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. That's certainly true.

They're getting better now, but 2014 robots, the one I had, was not very impressive. Did it smoke cigarettes, though? Well, it did. We did. That's the key to a good robot. robot. I had to have a smoking buddy. What else, Chuck? What else did he say? Well, this one is interesting because it sounds like he got it just right, but just, you know, you'll have to hear the after, the afterward. He said that society will suffer mental, emotional, and sociocological

consequences from our technology. And if you read that, you think, man, he nailed it in 1964, like right on the head. But he had a different take than that. He was like, no, that's, going to happen because it's going to be like Wall E, basically, where nobody works because robots are doing everything and we're going to suffer from what he called enforced leisure. And everyone's just going to be lazy and it's going to be awful. And he said the most glorious single word in the world will have become work. That's cute. He missed that mark a little bit for sure. Yeah.

So the 1964 World's Fair was basically the last great World's Fair that the United States ever. through. There have been plenty of great world's fair since then, but as far as the U.S. is concerned, 64 was the last good one. 62 in Seattle, that gave us the space needle. It was called the Century 21 Expo. And 10 million people showed up, and this kind of showed the beginning of a trend of declining attendance in the fairs that were thrown in America, because this was about the time that Americans decided that we wanted to stop being informed. Yeah, and, you know, we're not bagging on any of these cities and any of their world spares. It's just sort of a fact that this is when attendance really started to wane.

Some of them lost a lot of money. We love that space needle, but 10 million people, like two years later in New York, there were 56 million. And that brings us to New Orleans. And the Louisiana World Exposition of 1984, New Orleans. New Orleans is one of my favorite cities in the world. Truly, truly deep down. I love New Orleans. Nice.

But they put on a pretty shoddy world's fair in 1984. Yeah. I mean, it was really heavy on the New Orleans culture. Like, they have a lot to show off as far as that's concerned. The amphitheater there was designed by Frank Geary. The parts that were done well were just little magical spots, right? Yeah. But there are also lots of parts that were like,

asphalt and concrete thoroughfares that just kind of looked like a, like just something you might stumble upon in a park and a small town at some point, like with the booths set up along each side. Some of the actual design structures and buildings were very, very bland. And then one of the main reasons they wanted to throw this was because they wanted to revitalize New Orleans as a town where you could just come outside of Mardi Gras, outside of Jazz Fest. Like, you can just come anytime and it'll be fun.

So the riverfront that they were promoting was largely abandoned, it was pretty run down, and this is where they built the World's Fair area. So you could kind of see the reality of the area at the edges pretty clearly. Yeah, I mean, some of the stuff wasn't even finished. So this isn't just us, again, like with our opinions on things. Like, when you have two massive alligator statues

atop the Wonderwall in Bayou Plaza, and they're not done, and along their backs, there's not even, you know, alligator scales, and it's just the metal structure that was underneath. It's not great. It was unfinished. They, you know, if you were from New Orleans and Louisiana, you probably had a great time. I imagine a lot of people had a great time, but they, you know, Ronald Reagan didn't even go. I think the president almost always goes or had always gone to its in the opening.

Less than 10 million people went. and they lost a ton of money on it. Yeah, and so to be fair, like this wasn't just New Orleans fault. They were victims of this longstanding or this trend. Yeah, I guess it was longstanding by then of American attendance being pretty shoddy. Yeah.

The Knoxville World's Fair, which gave us the Sunsphere, which is still around. I remember that one. That was held two years before. Epcot came along two years before, and it billed itself as a permanent world's fair. Not fair.

No. The Olympics were, being held in LA that same year, and it was sucking a lot of the enthusiasm and energy over to the West Coast. Plus, Louisiana and surrounding states like Texas, where you would rely on a lot of your visitors to come from, their local economies just went in the toilet because the oil industry hit a huge bust time. Yeah, I mean, I think the organizers for the New Orleans Fair went bankrupt. They lost more than 120 million bucks.

Creditors apparently allegedly got back 8 cents on the dollar. And it was such a bus that they canceled the 1992 World's Fair in Chicago. Yeah, it was not great. No. But like we said, there have been

plenty of, there were plenty of non-American throne world fairs that were outstanding. One of the ones that frequently gets pointed to is Osaka in 1970. And this is about the time. So Europe kind of kicked it off.

It spread throughout the world. America did its best to kind of take over for a while. And then it moved east. The kind of the epicenter of where world's fairs are held, moved to the Middle East and East generally, more often than not these days. And Osaka 70 seemed to kind of kick that off. Yeah, they debuted IMAX movies in 1970 and Osaka with a 17-minute film

called Tiger Child. I think the 2010 Expo in Shanghai, I think has the record, right, of visitors, 73 million people, the largest of all time. So that's, you know, they're certainly not dead. I was wondering at some point a couple of years ago, like what happened to the world's fairs. And, you know, they're just happening in a big, big way

in places like Shanghai, so it's not as much on my radar. Right. And also, I think things like CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, other sort of specific industry expos and trade shows have sort of dampen the appetite for these, don't you think? For sure, but they are still around. Osaka is going to hold another one.

I'm sorry, it held another one in 2025. There's one in Belgrade Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia, I can't remember which way you say it. That's coming in 2027. And then Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is, I think, the furthest out one that's already scheduled for 2030. So it's definitely still happening. I would like to go to one just to see what. what the heck's going on.

I'd like to go to the Belgrade one. Oh, that'd be cool. And also just one other thing. I want to just shout out Expo 70 in Osaka. That is where Yumi's aunt and uncle met. Oh, nice. Yeah, I thought so too. He was a smoking robot.

She was a showgirl. Classic story. You got anything else? I got nothing else. All right. Well, that's it, everybody. That's World's Fairs. I guess we'll see in Belgrade in 2020.

And until then, Chuck, I say it's time for listener mail. That's right. We heard from a lot of people about our short stuff on the McGuffin. Oh, we're talking about this? Which was pretty fun. I think it was kind of appropriate that we couldn't quite define it because it's quite hard to define. Okay, fair enough. But we heard from a writer-director, legit.

Hey, guys, I'm a writer-director from L.A. I thought I could share how I've always viewed the MacGuffin. When you're trying to develop a film plot, you might have a specific location or scenario that you want your characters to end up in, but sometimes you can't think of a natural way to get them there. So that's where you throw in a Macuffin. In fact, if you're really in the zone while you're writing, you can use it as a placeholder even,

and say, like, the protagonist stops by the house to grab a Macuffin only to find a dead body in the yard. Oh. One of the reasons it can be difficult to identify a Mcuffin from a specific movie is because the writer might be disguising it to avoid what could be perceived as lazy screenwriting one of the more obvious examples is a character needing to find the secret map that leads to the treasure or the next clue.

That is from Josh Beck, writer-director. And like I said, we heard from a lot of people. One was kind of funny. We heard from somebody who kind of said, I don't care what George Lucas says, R2D2 is not a MacGuffin. It's the plans that are MacGuffin

because the person is never the MacGuffin. It's the object. And I had the great sorrow to write this person and say, I'm sorry to break it to you, but R2D2 is an object. And not a person. I don't know. I know. It's true, though.

Like, if the whole point to this writer's email was, hey, it's not the person, it's the object. It's like, well, an android isn't a person. So I feel like then Josh backed you up, that the McGufferin is totally irrelevant to what you care about in the whole thing and that it's kind of like this thing that gets you to the thing that's the point, which is basically what you were saying, yes. Okay. Both the first time when you brought it up in some other episode and the short stuff, you stuck to your gun.

So it sounds like you were right. But then all of those people out there who are like Maltese Falcon is the quintessential example of the McGuffin, that is just wrong then. That's not true. Yes, it's the point of the whole thing. Everything everyone's doing is centered around getting their hands on the Maltese Falcon, nothing else matters. There's no interpersonal stuff that really matters.

That is the point of everything, so it can't possibly be a MacGuffin. But is the Maltese Falcon itself important? Yes. Well, what? What does it do? It gives you riches beyond measure. Oh, okay. It's like, yes, and it's irreplaceable.

It's its own thing. It is not a MacGuffin. And I don't ever want to talk about McGuffins again after this. I'm so sorry that. I ever brought it up. We also heard from a lot of people who pointed out the Big Bang Theory TV show thing where they say that Indiana Jones was a McGuffin himself. Because if he was not a part of that movie, like nothing would have mattered.

Like the Nazis would have opened up the arc and it would have killed them all and nothing would have changed. Yeah, I don't know about that because it ended up in his hands and ended up in the storage. But I don't know. That's a, huh, I hadn't thought about that point. Wow, that Chuck Lori, he's amazing. Yeah. Did I ever tell you about the time we were in Los Angeles?

And it was the day after Charlie Sheen's meltdown and like the entire future of like that whole show was up in the air. We just happened to be in L.A. that one day and I just happened to be walking at the McDonald's that John Cryer happened to go to and started to dressing like a McMuffin in his Mercedes. A McGuffin. Now, I remember you telling me that story. That is incredible. Think about the timing, all the different little things that had to happen to just bring me to pass to see that one guy who's issues were on the world stage right then. Yeah, yeah.

It was nuts. Yeah. So I hope he's doing better. Oh, he's doing fine. Good. Well, that was Josh who wrote in, and thanks to everybody who wrote in about it. McGuffins. We did get a lot of great emails from everybody. So thank you. And if you want to write us a great email, whether you're a writer or director, both, neither doesn't matter. We want to

hear from you. Send it off to StuffPodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the Iheart Radio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Bailey Taylor and this is Itgirl. This podcast is all about going deeper with the women's shaping culture right now. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work behind it all. As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard in a way that doesn't compromise who you are in your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the Iheart

radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ready for a different take on Formula One, look no further than No Grip, a new podcast tackling the culture of motor racing's most coveted series. Join me, Lily Herman, as we dive into the under-explored pockets of F-1, including the story of the woman who last participated in a Formula One race weekend, the recent uptick in F-1 romance novels, and plenty of mishap scandals and sagas that have made Formula One a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to No Grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Doll. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG.

But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roll Doll, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, because I was a spy.

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