Stuff You Should Know - Mechanical Bulls!

Episode Date: April 20, 2021

Mechanical bulls are kind of weird, but they have certainly made a place in American pop culture over the years. Largely due to one movie, Urban Cowboy. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 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. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. 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 Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. Jerry is not here. She's stepped away for a minute digitally speaking, but she's still here in spirit. So this is stuff you should

know. Jerry's looking for love in all the wrong places, right? That's right. And Chuck, I was not really cognizant of what was going on when all of this was happening. But there's a period of time where like country was just beyond cool in America. Like it was the popular culture. Yeah. I mean, I really remember it. And you're what, five years younger? At least. Never gets old. It is a time that I remember well when the TV show Dallas and when country had these big crossover stars like Eddie Rabbit and Juice Newton and Mickey Gilley and Kenny Rogers and Kenny Rogers was making these big Hollywood movies and Dolly Parton was making big Hollywood movies. It was an interesting time and it was sort of the beginning

of the change of country music from sort of more underground outlaw cowboy Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Wayland Jennings stuff to the big AMAs country thing that we see today. And I think the transition was kind of happening back then in the late seventies, early eighties. That seems to be where it finds its roots is in this area of this era where it turned into pop basically. And the transition from like you were saying that kind of outlaw like hardcore country to pop by way of easy listening, which is a pretty hard left turn if you think about it. But this that easy listening was featured prominently on the soundtrack for a movie called Urban Cowboy. You betcha. Which in one of the more surprising things I've ever come across in our

research in the 13 years we've been doing this. Happy anniversary by the way. Yeah, like right now it's right. Basically, yeah. All right. And close enough to what we're saying happy anniversary for. Thanks man. You too. One of the more surprising things I've ever come across is that since we're talking about mechanical bulls today, you can't tell the story of mechanical bulls without John Travolta. I know, right? Who knew? Not me. Did you know that that was tied together intimately? Yes. Urban Cowboy and mechanical bulls? 1000%. Well, it was a big surprise for me and a pleasant one too. Like I'm still on cloud nine after learning about that. Yeah. I mean, this was, I guess I was a little kid. So you would have been

just a baby at the time. So it makes sense that this is more cemented in my memory. But I remember Urban Cowboy, I just remember it all being a very big deal. Like people like Olivia Newton John were people were making country albums that normally didn't because it was just the hot ticket. It was a big deal. Yeah, it really was. And like I like I watch enough me TV and stuff to be able to recognize this era and it not seem weird to me. I think it stands for memorable entertainment television. It's all like old reruns from the seventies. Is it a channel or is it like a streaming app? It's a channel. We have one of those like antennas you can get, a digital antenna. Yeah. And there's a lot of like really good rerun. Like what's the word I'm looking for? I guess

nostalgia TV out there and meat TV is one of them. But anyway, you know, every once in a while, probably every six or seventh episode of Bionic Woman or $6 million Man will suddenly have some weird country trucker lumberjack theme going on. Yeah. And you can tell it's like it's because that was the cool thing right then, you know? It was. I mean, like I said, Dallas was a big TV show and the Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders was the biggest thing going and and BJ and the bear and the Dukes of Hazard and right. It was it was this weird time in America where like this southern and western country, western culture was at the four. It's very strange and it coincided with punk and new wave. And you know, it's a very weird kind of cool

time in this country, I think. But the one of the things that came out of this, one of the things that was popular at the time that really tied into this country zeitgeist that was like the basis of the pop culture at the time was mechanical bull riding. Right. That is something you would do if you were trying to show off at some bar. It doesn't matter where the bar was in the United States. And I suspect in other parts of the western world as well, that you would ride a mechanical bull wearing a cowboy shirt and tight jeans, even though you were from, you know, Miami or something like that. Yeah, it's funny when I was reading this and they were saying like, they have them in New York and they had them in New York and Los Angeles and

it's popular everywhere. The first thing I thought was, I bet they had them in Japan. Surely. I was looking, I'm like, I wonder if it's just some like throwback retro, like mechanical bull riding trend somewhere in the world. I couldn't find any mention of it anywhere, but surely it is somewhere, you know? It seemed like a good fit. But the mechanical bull, if you don't know what one is, you're not under a rock, everybody. You could be very much aware of many things in the world and not know what one is. It is. Boy, Chuck, you've really softened a melon in your old age. I really have. It is, it is a simulation of bull riding, the rodeo sport of bull riding. It isn't literally a mechanical bull. And we'll talk about how it's made and what

it looks like. But, you know, it's go Google a picture, you sit on it and someone is in control of it on the other end and it mimics the bucking of a bull as if a human were riding on it. And they are very popular in bars, touristy bars usually. In Japan. Maybe in Japan. There's one in New York City at Johnny Utah's that I have some stories about later. But the mechanical bull basically can be used to train a rodeo rider, although it's usually just for entertainment purposes. Yeah. What's really interesting about what you just said that it's used for training is it's not entirely clear if the mechanical bull was used to train rodeo riders first or was used as an amusement at Honky Tonk bars first and then became used to train rodeo riders.

Right. It has a really hazy origin and it's possible that it evolved in parallel in multiple places because there was a need for training rodeo riders on artificial bulls because part of rodeo that kind of grew out in the 19th century in America as rodeo riding developed based on some of the Mexican blood sports with bulls as they made their way up north in the United States, the Southwestern US. Bull riding just kind of came out of nowhere rather than, you know, tour your doors. It got translated into bull riding. And if you want to train on riding a bull, you're way better off finding something to simulate the bull than learning how to ride a bull by riding a bull, you know? Yeah. Although, you know what? It did see somewhere

and I couldn't verify it in a lot of places, but I did see in the 16th century in Mexico, they were actually riding bulls. I mean, I believe it. Yeah. So that might have just been a part of the blood sport of bull fighting. If you're a tough guy and you see a bull, you say, I'm going to ride that bull. Watch this. Maybe so. In the 1930s in the United States, the rodeo cowboy association was formed. So it was a full deal by the 1930s. The one thing we do know is that the precursor to the mechanized or mechanical bull was the bucking barrel, which if you could just do an image search for bucking barrel, you've probably seen these at some point. It is a barrel like an oil barrel tipped on its side with a saddle on it and it suspended off the

ground and tied at four corners with some pretty heavy duty tight rope. And you would go sit on that barrel on that saddle and you would have four ranch hands try and throw you off of it. And imagine that was a lot of fun. Yes. Which I mean, it's dangerous in and of itself, especially if the ranch hands are jerks, but it's a lot safer than riding a bull when you're practicing riding to ride a bull. Yeah. I would ride a bucking barrel. If I was at one of those city slickers like cattle wrestling things and they were like, you want to get on the bucking barrel partner, I'd say heck yeah, but you could not pay me to get on a real mechanical bull. Oh, I don't know. I was watching some, there's like mechanical bull throw

compilations, people falling off mechanical bulls. I watched quite a bit of this. What's the funniest ones are the ones that happen in slow motion. Like the camera's not in slow motion. It's just the person is sliding off in slow motion. Yeah, that's usually how it works instead of really being thrown. You're right. It seems like my legs on there. Pretty not dangerous. So I would ride a mechanical bull if I ever encountered one. Yeah, I'm not into it. But hey man, that's fine. I won't yum your yuck. Well, I mean, there we'll talk injuries later on. It's pretty badly. I think we should, it's worth saying, you can really get injured on a mechanical bull. Maybe not live bull level, but don't ride live bulls anyway. Let's just put that

one out there. And then if you're going to ride a mechanical bull, know that it's still very dangerous and can be. That's right. So, um, should we take a break? Sure. Yeah, let's do it. I'm not, we won't come to blows. It's fine. It's fine. I'll just go along with it. All right, we'll take a break and then we'll talk more about this funny thing right after this. 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. Yeah, we know that Michael and

a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are 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, 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 Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to

tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

So Chuck, I was saying like the origins of mechanical bulls are fairly hazy. We are pretty sure that they came from the bucking barrel, that that preceded them. But it's not entirely clear that the mechanical bull descended from the bucking barrel in the rodeo world or into the amusement world first. Like Ed put this together for us and he looked high and low to find primary source, but couldn't find one. But he saw a lot of mentions of a place called Bertrand Island, an amusement park in New Jersey that supposedly had a mechanical bull back in the 30s. Yeah, this was in New Jersey. And I think this is what the deal is. I saw this referenced a lot online. And there is a coffee table book about Bertrand Island amusement park.

And I bet you dollars to donuts, there's a picture of this ride on cowboy ride in that book, because they all referenced this book. But I didn't have time, nor the inclination to buy this book to prove it to myself. Okay. But I have a feeling that there was a picture of this ride on cowboy ride in this coffee table book about Bertrand Island amusement park in the 1930s. Okay. I've got a great idea. Let's get in the wayback machine and we'll go to the printing of that book and we'll look through one of the books. Are you ready? Yeah. Well, why don't we just go back to the Bertrand Island amusement park in the 30s and ride the thing? I guess we could have done. Okay. All right. Let's do that.

I mean, or we can go to a book printing shop. Okay. We'll go to Bertrand Island. You ready? Yes. Let's do it. Okay. Here we are. There it is. There it is. We have definitively proven it. There was a ride on cowboy mechanical bull Bertrand. What year is it right now? Well, I'm looking at my Shark surf watch and it says 1932. Okay. 1932, mechanical bull at Bertrand Island amusement park. All right. I guess we should just go back. All right. Well, it's weird that we went back and we didn't ride it or get any saltwater taffy or hit the big strongman bell. Could have just gone to do the printing press place. I guess we should have, huh?

Lesson learned. We probably had a little candy dish with saltwater taffy there that we could have grabbed. So if you talk mechanical bulls, you're going to hear the name Sherwood Crier come up a lot. Some people might mistakenly say he invented the mechanical bull. Certainly is, could be looked at as the sort of grandfather of the mechanical bull, but he owned a mechanical bull in his saloon in the 70s that we'll get to later, but it was built by a man named, I actually, I don't know if he built it, Joe Turner built it, but Joe Turner in New Mexico at the very least held the patent for this mechanical bull. Right. I saw it with my own two eyes, but it's from 1976.

Right. So Joe Turner definitely didn't invent the mechanical bull, although he was an inventor of the mechanical bull, but we can say definitively since Sherwood Crier bought the patent from Joe Turner that Sherwood Crier is not the inventor of the mechanical bull, even though I believe even Wikipedia sites him as the inventor. Really? Yeah, I was surprised to see that. But yeah, he's very widely held to be the inventor, but he even said there was an interview with him in the Austin Chronicle in the late 90s where he said, he talks about how he bought it off of Joe Turner for $30,000. And it will become clear why he did that and why that was actually a really good move on his part later on. That's right. But if you want to talk about

the mechanics of the mechanical bull, it is a hydraulic based machine that has a couple of motors on it. It's got a center shaft and a main gearbox that make up the spin motor. And that's the one that's going to spin it. It's going to turn it back and forth that usually, when you see him operated, they usually rarely even go a full 360 before they turn back and go the other way because that's kind of the whole object is to keep this thing moving in different directions. Right. And it's turned back in the other direction is usually very sudden and harsh. Yes, it is abrupt. There's abrupt. Thank you, buddy. And then there's another motor usually above the bottom motor. And that motor has to do with moving pistons up and down.

Like imagine a platform that the saddle sits on, that the bull is built around, that the rider actually sits on this platform. It moves from side to side and up and down and left and right. So you have a lot of yaw control is what you need when it comes to riding a mechanical bull because there's pitch, yaw, and what's the third one? Roll. Roll. You got all three of those going on in this mechanical bull, I believe. Right. If you see one of these in a bar or if you rent one, I love that Ed did the research and Ed lives in Buffalo, New York and said in Buffalo, you can rent one for three hours for 900 bucks. And it comes with the operator and everything. I heard that. And then I thought that might be a, have been a fun 50th birthday party, but

unfortunately in quarantine, it'd be like three or four people standing around. That's not quite so fun. You could ride it on Zoom for all of your party guests. But it is mounted very, very securely to a big floor plate. And it is surrounded, I think Sherwood Crier would drive around and collect mattresses at first, but now they have this big inflatable ring basically that surrounds it. And it's got a saddle. It's usually the horse itself is fiberglass or it's metal, maybe, but it's covered in this sort of thick padding with leather and then a real deal saddle. Yeah. And the ones today, there, you know, there, there were plenty built in the 70s and 80s and even in the 90s that look like old carnival funhouse rides basically. The controllers are real

like old and janky looking and colorful and kind of cool and retro. The ones today are touch screen. They have like speakers built into them. The padding around them isn't like a mattress. They're like blown air, like a bouncy castle kind of thing. So when you get thrown, it like doesn't feel like anything. It's actually kind of pleasant. And the controllers are much more computerized and less mechanized than they used to be in times past. Yeah. And these days, if you look at Urban Cowboy 2, it is just sort of the body, if you would, of the bowl. Now, if you go to Johnny Utah's in New York or any kind of fun house. Are you getting free drinks there or something? No, I just learned of it. And I didn't know that

there was still an Urban Cowboy type place in New York that you could go. I think it's in, it's got to be close to Times Square. It's in Midtown. An Urban, Urban Cowboy bar that's referential to Point Break. That's like, man. Covering all the bases. Yeah. They have a little fake foam bull heads and horns. And apparently you can even find them with, if you want to ride a bison or a ram, like a sheep, you can get a sheep's head put on or a ram's head put on. Oh, wait. It goes even more than that. I looked it up. There's a hammerhead shark. Camel, hot dog, banana. And then apparently there are, there's like the, this

tawdry thread of bull riding. There's a sexual element to it, I think. Yeah, sure. I mean, Ed found one of the settings is sexy. Right, right. On the actual operations of one machine, Ed found it was like pro intermediate beginner and sexy. So it's definitely fair to say. Okay. And also what I turned up is, goes way beyond a sexy setting. There's a penis one you can get. Sure. There's a one, a woman called horny Hannah and there's a guy named Randy Roger. Oh boy. So it gets pretty stupid. Sure. It gets pretty like dark bachelorette party really quick. If you, if you want it to go that way, apparently you can, you can make it go that

way. That's right. We were just speaking of the settings. There are those automated settings usually that you can just hit pro or beginner or whatever, but you can also be in control. And I think the automated settings are much more common these days. I think back in the urban cowboy days was very much about a human operator, which trying to, you know, really simulate a rodeo for these sort of, I was about to say pseudo competitions. They were competitions in bars. Yeah. I mean, there would be like, you know, you could win, you know, 100 bucks or something like that. 5000 and probably more. Okay. All right. So, so there was like a competition, but also like in bars, it was, you know, just to show off too. Like that was the whole reason.

That's the entire reason for mechanical bulls. If you're sitting there wondering like, why does anybody do this? It's basically to just show off to, to stay on as long as you possibly can basically. And so like you're saying with the original operator, the operator's job was to humiliate you. That was the whole dynamic. You showing off the operator trying to throw you off in a very humiliating fashion. And so the more you could stay on or longer you could stay on, despite the operator's best efforts, you know, the more of a show off you were, I guess. Yeah. I mean, it's not any different. It's not a far cry from any carnival game. Right. Where it shows some sort of feet of strength, whether you're hitting the thing with a

hammer to make the bell ring or the punching bag to see how hard you can punch a thing. Right. And the ones that you rent today for the parties, Ed described as an all-in-one entertainment center. I mean, it's got a built-in PA system with speakers and a microphone and an amplifier and it's electric scoreboard and timer. And it's just this big thing now, whereas it started out as just sort of this very rudimentary hydraulic thing. Yeah. Which makes sense, because again, this is the kind of thing that you can rent like a bouncy house, but for grownups. Although they have little kids ones too. I heard about those. And then something else I saw is there's a, so there's like the riding the bull version. There's also a surfboard version that you stand on.

Yeah. Okay. And I actually saw a video of a dude who combines those two, look up on YouTube, man dances on a mechanical bull wearing best Sunday suit. And this guy is in a bar wearing a tie, not just standing up dancing on a mechanical bull that's going at a pretty moderate rate. Wow. And it is one of the most astounding things I've ever seen in my life. Amazing. Yeah. But there's the version you can, you can rent that or buy, I guess, if you're into that kind of thing, that is, it's like a surfboard and like the bouncy area around you, the padding is like a wave kind of thing. It looks pretty cool. Well, that's fun. I thought so too. It looks fun at least. So if you're going to ride one of these things, I will say most of the videos I saw at Johnny Utah's, among others,

is they, they keep it pretty tame. Although we'll talk about the dark side of that in a bit too. But if you're going to get like a real ride, then you want to go as forward on that thing toward the head of the bull as much as you can. Right. You want to grip that bull with your inner thighs and dig those heels in and keep your feet ahead of you and point those toes. Yeah. Apparently, you want to, you know, they have a strap that you put your hand in, and then you put the other arm up and they say to hang on with your non-dominant hand. That's all I've seen. That's all I've seen too. I don't know. I feel like I would be stronger with my dominant hand, but I don't know. I think you're using your non-dominant hand because any stupid hand can hold onto a strap. Your dominant

hand is balancing. You're holding up in the air to balance and you need a little more finesse. Okay. Is that what it is? I think that's why. That's my guess and it makes sense to me, because that's my guess. What you want to do is you want to go opposite. That's the whole idea. Right. If the bull bucks forward, you want to lean back. If it goes back, you want to lean forward towards its nose. You want to keep those legs tightened down as much as you can and you want to try and keep everything from the waist up as loose as possible. But again, if you've been throwing down cowboy boot mugs full of beer, just do whatever you want and good luck. This advice comes from a pro rider named Will Roberts. He basically says that if you take

each one of these movements as like a wave that you're riding and think of them discreetly as discrete motions and you're just handling each one at a time, you could stay on indefinitely. He didn't say the indefinite part and said, in fact, he said you shouldn't stay on longer than 15 seconds or else you're going to get hurt with full bore. But I think you could stay on indefinitely. Well, one of those videos I saw was titled something about woman rides bull for so long that video cuts out or something like that. Was that right? Like she never fell off. I mean, it was going really slow, but you know, she hung in there. Well, yeah, I don't know.

I'm not sure. It depends on which one you rented. Well, like we said, the rental price, if you want to buy one of these systems, it's about $20,000. I saw the two, but I also saw one on eBay for the suspiciously low price of $6,800, and it's possible the whole thing was used. I think if trampolines are one of those things you buy and then end up just wanting to get rid of a mechanical bull is probably 10x that, you know? Yeah. I don't know if I would get on a mechanical bull where someone's like, I got a really good deal on it. Right. It's basically free. All right. Let's take another break and we'll talk about, to me, what is the most interesting

part of this episode, which is sort of the history of Ghillie's saloon right after this. Rise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Step by step. 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, 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 Mangesh Atikular and, to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was

born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, cancelled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer,

I think your ideas are going to change, too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck, you promised to talk about Ghillie Saloon. What is that? Well, we talked about Mr. Cryer. He owned a saloon that was really kind of an oversized tent called Shelly's in Pasadena, Texas, outside of Houston. And this was in the early 70s, like 1971. And he would bring in country singers who weren't big national acts yet, but they were sort of known regionally. And it was a popular bar and it was getting bigger and bigger because that was oil country. People came in with some money. And he said, you know what,

I think this needs to not be a tent, but to be a real deal saloon. And he partnered up with a man named Mickey Ghillie. Right. And I mean, he gave him a pretty sweet deal. He said, look, I want to build this thing out. I'm going to build it out. We're going to make it a more permanent structure and turn it eventually into like a 40,000 square foot bar, multiple, multiple, multiple bars. That was basically like a real deal Texas roadhouse in Honky Tonk. You, Ghillie, we're going to name it after you and you and your house band are going to play basically every night. Yeah. And Ghillie, did you say that that was Jerry Lee Lewis' cousin? No, but he was. Yes, he was Jerry Lee Lewis' cousin. Still is possibly, is he still alive?

Yeah. Mickey Ghillie is 85. And he had that big crossover hit with looking for love. From the soundtrack, right? Yeah. Was it on the Urban Cowboy soundtrack? I'm pretty sure it was on the Urban Cowboy soundtrack. Yeah. Or as Buckwheat would call it, Book and Panab. What can Panab? What can Panab? And he was no slouch though. He had 42 top 40 country singles in his career. So what's funny is if I read an interview with him, I think in Texas monthly on like the 35th anniversary of Urban Cowboy, and he basically talks about how he was looking for love,

but it was in all the wrong places. He was looking for stardom and he just could never quite get it. So I guess he was one of those unsung, highly successful people who never became a huge star. Right. And apparently he was trading on being Jerry Lee Lewis' cousin, was doing like tribute shows, cover shows, that kind of stuff. It was doing fine. But so when Sherwood Crier met up with him and formed a partnership with him, he became the namesake of Ghillie's this incredibly popular honky-tonk outside of Houston that became the setting for Urban Cowboy thanks to, randomly enough, an Esquire article. Yeah, this reminded me very much and it's weird that they're both Travolta, but a Saturday Night Fever.

It's tied even more closely than that. The very editor who ran that Esquire article was the same co-founder of New York Magazine who ran Tribal Rights of the New Saturday Night that gave rise, that was the basis of Saturday Night Fever. All right. So it all comes full circle. I printed that out, the Tribal Rights of Saturday Night back when we talked about it, have not read it yet. And now I'm going to print out the ballot of the Urban Cowboy in America search for true grit. Right. And I'm going to have just both those articles sitting on my desk forever probably. But I want to read them both because they were both the basis of two sort of landmark 70s movies that became Cultural Touchstones and

John Travolta was in both of them. Yeah, it's really weird, but it's basically the same thing, except one is disco, set at a disco nightclub. The other one is country music set at a country western bar, but it's the same exact thing, same format, love, fighting, rivalry, jealousy, basically on a weekend night while everybody's getting trashed at a bar. It's just, and they were separated by two years. I think 76 was the Saturday Night New York Magazine article and 78 was the one that featured Gillies. Yeah, it's really pretty interesting time in our country's history that they're almost two sides of the same coin. Yeah. And again, like I mentioned earlier, this is all going on at the same time that like punk music is

is saying, I hate all of you people. Exactly. And for good reason. Look, that's right. So, this guy, I can't remember his name, Irving. Berlin. No, he was one of the managers or promoters or he had a lot to do with the Eagles. He bought the rights to that article for like $200,000, which is a lot of money to spend on a magazine article option at the time. And he just knew that no matter what happened, he was going to have a huge soundtrack on his hands, just like Saturday Night Fever. And it worked twice. It did work. He apparently wanted it to be all Eagles and the Eagles were like, no, that's okay. We suck so terribly. Even we wouldn't want to do a whole town. But it ended up being like a really great soundtrack. I've never heard

it. But I mean, just looking at the roster, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Daniels, Bonnie Raitt, and Mickey Gilly had looking for love on it as well. Yeah, it was great. We had the record in our house. Like you said, they shot the movie. A lot of it was shot at Gilly's. That was the bar scene that was predominant in the movie and the competition between Scott Glenn and John Travolta as they battled for bragging rights, cash money, and Debra Winger's heart. And glory. Of course, the wealth of glory. Man, Scott... Scott Glenn? Yeah, I can't believe I just forgot his last name. I think he's one of the coolest actors ever. Yeah, not a Keredine. No. No, he's a Keredine plus. Yeah, I think Scott Glenn was one of those that was always...

I think he was always confused as a Keredine with a lot of people because he sort of has that look. Sure, for sure. So it was the big success of this movie that made Crier say, I need to secure this patent because this thing's about to explode. And I think by that point, the gentleman who held that patent... Joe Turner. Yeah, Joe Turner said, well, let's up the price a little bit to $30,000 and Crier still said, yeah, that's... Don't tell this guy, but that's still a pretty good deal. Yeah, because the mechanical bull is basically a third lead character in this movie, Debra Winger, John Travolta, and this mechanical bull, El Toro, the real mechanical bull at Gillies, and became a huge part of the pop culture. And Sherwood Crier was

smart enough to realize how big of a deal it was going to be, bought the patent for it. And now, if you wanted a mechanical bull for your bar that you just converted over to a honky tonk format, you had to go buy one from Sherwood Crier. And he made a lot of money off of those from what I understand. He did. I think he even won lawsuits when people tried to dodge his license. And yeah, he made a lot of money off of this fad and it wasn't deed a fad for sure. But like I said, you go to Johnny, Utah. There was one on the Sunset Strip too. I don't know if it's still there. There was a... God, what was the name of that place? Johnny Monix. Another Keanu Johnny movie. I can't remember. But there was a country western bar on the Sunset

Strip that had a mechanical bull as well. I can't remember either. I know exactly what you're talking about. I can't remember the name of it. It's super famous, right? It was for a while. And it wasn't even that long ago. Like I think when I lived there, it was still there. Supercuts? No, not hogs and heifers. That was in the meatpacking district in New York. But this is what genuinely kicked off that whole movement that we talked about at the beginning with southern culture and western culture kind of being at the forefront and all these people doing crossover records and pop music in country sort of intertwining and the lines being blurred and the Dallas Cowboys and JR Ewing. Like this sort of all started with Urban Cowboy in

this mechanical bull El Toro. I would argue that it started before that and that Urban Cowboy was catching a wave that was developing and gets credit. But I mean like if you look at Convoy, that Chris Christofferson movie, that's from 1978. So that was a couple of years before that. But it was the same year that article was published in Esquire. So it was all kind of coming together, congealing at the same time. Yeah, Urban Cowboy didn't kick it off. It capitalized early on on what was coming for sure. But it came in at like at a time when it could still be considered cool and a huge contributor to the spread of it, right? Yeah. And this was like, it's funny, like I kind of look back with some fondness, even though it wasn't my scene. But if you talk to any

of the old timers from back then, they called them gilly rats, these real, you know, these local bar patrons that was, they were the real deal. They hated all this stuff, man. Yeah, because it brought in all the posers and the tourists and, you know, people on business trips passing through Houston had to go to Gillies. And I'm sure it just took something that was really sacred and special to them and commodified it in a really sad way. I'm sure it was terrible. At least for a while. And then I'm sure it went back to normal again, generally. And they were still on that bar stool in the same place. Exactly. It just all kind of happened around them. But speaking of that kind of country chic trend that Urban Cowboy was a huge part of,

I saw a reference to a Fantasy Island episode from 1982 called Everybody Goes to Gillies, Mickey Gilly played himself. Awesome. And his fantasy was to make it big in the country music scene. And I think he may have gotten it. I think it was successful. I wonder if Taty got up on that thing. I don't know. I could not find the episode. I just was reading about it, which is kind of disappointing when it comes to Fantasy Island. I wanted to see that movie, the Arvet Villaché movie with Peter Dinklage, but I never got around to it. Did you see that? I forgot that they made that. No, I haven't seen it. So as far as Gillies goes, I wondered, you know, I wasn't sure the deal. And I was like, surely you can still go to Gillies.

But you can't because Gillies burned to the ground. It did. Suspiciously, apparently it was ruled in arson. And this came after there was a dispute between Mickey Gilly and Sherwood Crier. And apparently Mickey Gilly, who had been approached by Sherwood Crier to basically come in as a partner on his bar, came out victorious, triumphant, and ended up on the winning end of this dispute, and apparently walked away with most of the profits. And I guess Gillies said in at least one interview that he expected that it was Sherwood Crier who had burned Gillies to the ground in 1989. That's quite an accusation. It really is. But I was reading again that Texas Monthly article, I think it's called Urban Cowboy Turns 35. And it's like an oral history, which is the laziest

form of journalism, but it's still... Oh, I love oral histories. Do you? Yeah. Well, then that explains why they keep making them. I thought it was just like, I don't feel like actually writing today. I'm just going to transcribe. Oh, I think it's going to cool. I like them. Well, you would like this. You should read it. It's very long, and it's really in depth. And they talked to some of the original Gilly rats, and a couple of them who worked for Sherwood Crier have to say like, this guy was an amazing human being, but he was also somebody who would beat someone with a pool queue if they were causing trouble at Gillies and did do that. And you did not want to run afoul of this guy, but was also like a really fascinating, interesting, smart human being too.

Yeah. Shout out to Texas Monthly too. That's a really good rag. It really is. I read a couple of things from there for some podcasts we were developing a couple of years ago, and it was really good. They did these great deep dive, not oral histories, but like, you know, real journalism. Long form. Yeah. There's a guy named Skip Something. Oh, man, I can't remember Skip's name. I'll look it up, everybody. Don't worry about it. But Skip Hollinsworth or something like that. He's one of their better journalists for long form at Texas Monthly. He's great, but there's a lot of them. They have a good stable there. Totally. And then 2019, they announced that there would be a new Gillies,

but it's not just going to be a bar. It's going to be a 16-acre multi-use development. And apparently El Toro survived the fire, and they're bringing the original El Toro back just to put on display. So I found one reference that El Toro survived the fire. It was in the Ocala Star Banner. What is anybody in Ocala, Florida now? I don't know. But they said that El Toro survived the 1989 fire and that it was moved to Cowboy Jax in Woodbury, Minnesota. So I looked up Cowboy Jax. There is a Cowboy... Right, I thought so too. Cowboy Jax makes no mention of having the original El Toro at any point. That's suspicious because you would really lean into that. Oh, too. It's all I would ever talk about to anybody, but that's what the Ocala Star Banner says.

Cowboy Jax does not back it up. So who knows exactly what happened to El Toro? That's right. Like, don't get on that bullet, Johnny Utahs. You're going to catch something. You can come ride El Toro. You're going to catch some Johnny Mnemonic on that thing. There were some injuries though that we would be remiss without mentioning. There have been plenty of lawsuits over the years. There was a woman in Santa Barbara County that was left a quadriplegic when she landed on her neck. Oh boy. So obviously, if you get thrown off something and if you land wrong, that can be bad news. A man in Bergenfield, New Jersey in Bergen County was left with permanent injuries. And then at Johnny Utahs, a New York woman won $70,000

because she tore her ACL at Johnny Utahs. And her lawyer said this, they just kind of throw people around while they're drunk. I think that guy summed up the mechanical bull about as good as anybody ever has. Yeah, that was how he described the operators. He said, they just kind of throw people around. And then I went to YouTube, looked up Johnny Utahs. And if you want to spend some time looking at very bad camera phone videos of drunk friends filming drunk friends, writing very slowly on these mechanical bulls to bad music, you can do it. But you can sort of see in a few of these videos, there would be some drunk lady or a drunk guy who was just you know, being kind of obnoxious. And you could tell that the but they weren't coming off.

And you could tell that the operator was would get sick of it. And they were going real slow, then there'd be like a jump. And just a really quick little flick of that switch. And it would just like toss them off of there real fast. There is no way that there's not a term among mechanical bull operators for that move for that move. There has to be a 1000%. I wonder what it is. If you know, please let us know because we have to know. We got gillied. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. We got anything else? Thankfully no. Okay. Well, that's it for mechanical bulls. If you want to know more about mechanical bulls, then start watching throwing off mechanical bull videos. There's like you said, a lot of them. And since I said throwing off mechanical bulls,

it's time for listener mail. You know what I was just thinking is this could be the jack cameras of the next generation of stuff you should know listeners. Mechanical bulls? I don't know. Was it I think urban cowboy saved it without urban cowboy. Absolutely. I think you're right. And then it saved the day again. And then it hit me. I was like the common denominator hydraulics. We got to avoid hydraulics from here on out. I think you might be right. All right. So where are we listener mail? Yep. I think Jerry already did the chime. All right. I'm going to call this CIA correction from anonymous. Hey, guys, have been a sufficient listener for years. I love the work you do. As someone who was

formerly employed by the CIA, I particularly enjoy the latest episode on Havana syndrome. I've since left that job because of ethical concerns. But I've one nit to pick. And that's when you talk about people who work on the CIA, you call them agents, which is not right. They're actually officers. There is no such thing as a CIA agent. This is news to me. Does this basically ruin the entire episode for them, that one thing? No, they're nice. But I mean, we always say CIA agent because we're children of television and film. I didn't know it wasn't even a thing. Everybody says that. They say this. I know the media gets wrong gets us wrong a lot. So it's understandable that's the terminology that folks

use. But in the interest of always learning and improving, I thought I'd pass this along. Josh actually did say officer a couple of times somewhere in the middle. And that was the exception for you guys. That's great. Other than this admittedly small quibble of everything you guys do and often use my favorite old episodes to calm my anxiety or to help as I fall asleep. Currently in heavy rotation in the Max Headroom incident in Star Wars holiday special episode. Well, those are that will calm you down for sure. Yeah. Thanks very much for reading the message. All the best anonymous and initially anonymous said maybe use my initials because it might be a little paranoid about this being former CIA. But then they said, you know, how about just no

initials? I think that's smart. Just go with anonymous. Exactly. In fact, I made this whole thing up. There is no former officer that left for ethical concerns. This listener mail will self destruct in three seconds to one. Well, if you want to get in touch with us, we love hearing from people, whether they are from the CIA or the NSA or the FBI. Who else, Chuck? Oh, ATF. Sure. And that's it. No one else. Okay. If you want to get in touch with us and send us some trade secrets, we would love to hear that stuff. If you can wrap it up, send it in an email off to stuffpodcastsatihartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you

listen to your favorite shows. 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 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. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, 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 podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball,

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