Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Robert the Doll

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Robert the Doll is decidedly creepy. So is his story. Listen in to this spooky tale right now!See 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. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry. This is short stuff

the Creepsville Halloween week edition. That's right. And before people get started with this one, if you're in a place where you are not going to endanger the life of someone else because you're driving a car, just pull out the old phone or the old laptop or the old tablet. The old Newton. The old Newton. And just do a little image search for Robert the doll. Because I just think knowing what Robert looks like going into this is kind of nice. Yeah, for sure. And you're going to be presented with a couple of different images because they made a movie based on Robert. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. One of them is like so overly stylized. It's not at all scary, creepy looking, sure. But the one that's like, holy cow, no one could ever come up with that. Like it's

just too scary and creepy on its own. That's the real Robert. The one with just part of a face, basically. Yeah, the modern one looks like a ventriloquist dummy and is clearly more modern. The other one looks like an antique sort of faceless death child. Yeah. And indeed he is not necessarily a death child, but he is an antique because Robert was the toy and actually lifelong friend and companion of a boy named Robert Eugene Otto. And Robert Eugene Otto, who went by Jean, moved with his family right before the turn of the 20th century to Key West, Florida. And he brought with him his doll, this three foot straw filled cork faced doll named Robert, which had been a gift from his grandfather, right? That's right. His granddad thought it would be

funny and fun, I guess much like the father in Gremlins to wreak havoc on a family by bringing home a gift from someplace far away. And I believe he went on a trip to Germany and got this doll that was manufactured by the Steve company, who the maker of teddy bears, but this was not a toy that was ever sold. So the best they can reckon is that it might have been something that they made to like put in a window display or something. Maybe to help sell teddy bears. And the thing with Robert is he, you know, he kind of looks kind of creepy in his little sailor's outfit. It's all about that, that nothingness of the face, though, really. Yeah, they think that collection of dolls he was a part of were clowns and jester.

So they think he actually originally was a harlequin jester. And I read a 1989 Palm Beach post article about him and they made reference to a photograph from, I guess, the early 1900s. And they describe him as dressed up as like a harlequin jester. So, and they said it's not a very pleasant photograph, right? Yeah, sure. You mentioned he's wearing a sailor's suit and he definitely is. And he's been wearing that sailor's suit for over a hundred years now. But the sailor suit originally belonged to Jean. Jean said, here, Robert, this is a hammy down. I'm not wearing this anymore. I want you to be sailor boy for the rest of our lives. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that demonstrates the kind of closeness that Jean had with Robert. Yeah. Jean has all the hallmarks of

an only child, but apparently did have siblings. Because Jean, like, you know, I think a lot of times only children can have a more rich imaginary life when they're little, making up imaginary friends and things like that. And in Jean's case, it was kind of a combination of both. He made up an imaginary friend in a way, but it actually had a physical manifestation in Robert. But Robert, you know, he would, apparently they would, his family and then people that would, that worked with them would hear them, well, not them, hear him in the room, Jean, having both sides of a conversation as Jean and Robert quite often. Or was it Jean? Exactly. So, yeah. And the reason why stuff like that started to be reported to the auto family parents. I also read like a plumber,

heard Robert Giggle. People would say that he could make things move on his own. And you never saw him doing it. It's just like, hey, that Robert was not sitting in that chair, you know, this morning. Oh, the plumber heard Robert? Yes, that's what he said. That's what the plumber claimed. Of course, he showed his butt crack, so. Sure. And that's why Robert giggled. So, the reason people were talking about Robert like this, because he had already gained a reputation as being kind of playfully mischievous, right? Right. And part of the reason he got that reputation is because whatever Jean did wrong that he would get caught doing, he would blame Robert for. Very common. Yeah, which is, it's also very cute too, right? But then there were stories about how,

you know, Jean's parents heard him screaming in the middle of the night one night and came running in to find the whole room trashed and Jean curled up in a ball in the corner. Yeah. And he blamed Robert for trashing the room. So, it quickly escalated as far as the legend goes from, you know, hey, Robert wasn't sitting in that chair to Robert Snow costing his mind, because we're going to have to replace that nightstand. All right, I think that's a good break, because we're going to pick up with a time passing in adult Jean, who surely doesn't have this doll anymore after he grows up, right? And we're going to cover that right after this. me in this situation. If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This,

I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy 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 Atikulur. 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, 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. Okay, we've gone forward in time now. It seems to have because Jean looks way older and paunchier than he did when he was a boy. So yes, I think we're to somewhere in like maybe the 1950s. And by this time, Jean has super grown up. He has gone off to Chicago and Europe, Paris even, to study becoming a painter. He's developed quite a name for himself in Key West, where he stuck around. And he also got married to a very understanding woman named Anne Parker. Well, why was she understanding?

She was understanding, Chuck, because one of the things that was a constant in Jean's life is Robert. Jean still hung out with Robert. Robert was still Jean's best friend. That's right. Still hanging out with Robert, gets married to Anne Parker, who was, I think, a jazz pianist. And, you know, she's a creative sort. He was a painter. She's like, a little eccentric is my husband. And that's fine. I don't love Robert being around, but this is our lot in life. He inherited Jean, I guess, and Robert inherited the house on Eaton Street in Key West. And they called it, they renamed it the Artist House. And it was just a, it was sort of a well-known and still is kind of a well-known house in Key West.

Because like you said, he did make a name for himself. Like if you, if you look up Jean Otto Art, like it, you know, there's, there's stuff out there. Yeah, I get the impression that Robert really helped push along the fame of Jean though too, you know? I'm not sure it was the other way around. Yeah. But you can tell like Jean clearly loved his childhood because he stayed in his boyhood home. He kept his boyhood best friend, Robert the doll. Yeah. But he managed to add a wife to the mix, too. And, you know, yes, she was definitely, she would put up with the fact that Robert was a part of their life. But there's a couple of stories. One is that she was like, okay, Robert can live here, but can we just

like keep him in the attic? And Jean agreed to that. And they started keeping Robert in the attic. That surprised me, frankly. Okay. Well, then you're gonna like this alternative story. The other story is that Jean built a room for Robert in the attic and furnished it with Robert-sized toys and furniture. Makes much more sense. And it was Robert's room, like this attic was Robert's room. Now, technically, those two stories are not mutually exclusive. And I'm guessing if you put them together, you probably come close to the truth. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. Because I definitely don't see Jean just being like, sure, I'll just chunk him in the attic. But if I build him a very special place, that's a whole different story. And, you know,

a lot of this is obviously legend and lore because some really spooky things that don't make sense continue to happen with Robert the Doll, like people walk by and they see Robert the Doll sitting kindly in a rocking chair in the original bedroom window. And apparently, Jean would come downstairs and be like, Robert, you're not supposed to be down here. And then would take Robert back up into the fashioned attic room. Yeah. And then again, he'd find Robert sitting in the rocking chair in the window of his bedroom downstairs again. Yeah. So this is just kind of how life was in the artist's house. And then Jean passed and continued living there with Robert until a little before she died. She sold the house before she died in 1974 to a woman named

Myrtle Reuter. And this is why I think Ann is actually a good person. As part of the sale, Jean's dead. As part of the sale, Myrtle was required to leave Robert in the attic room that belonged to Robert alone. That was part of the real estate deal. And what's even cooler is that Myrtle said, all right, I can do that and actually abided by it. Yeah. And I think abided by it, because part of the legend we didn't really talk much about is that Robert, like if you crossed Robert, bad things might come your way. Sure. And there aren't any huge examples of, because he was more mischievous and supposedly not a truly evil doll. But for instance, in the mid-90s, Robert finally moved to a museum, the East Martello Museum. And you would, as sort of

the fun of visiting, you were supposed to ask permission to take a photograph of Robert before you did so. And then if you didn't, then bad things might happen. And there was a, who was that person? Was that just like a historian? I think that's the director of the artist's house bed and breakfast. Okay. So this person went shrinking ghost, not a bad name for this story, goes by and says basically like, hey, I couldn't even ask this doll for permission because it was, you know, it felt kind of silly. So I didn't do it. I took a picture with my digital camera. And the pictures did not come out. Only a few pictures that I took were even on it. And then I was not able to save pictures anymore ever again on this camera. Yes. So was it Robert?

Right. But that's one of the main reasons they tell you to ask his permission first or else he's going to mess your camera up. Record your digital camera. Right. So you and me and I actually did that. We've been there. We've met Robert before years ago. We went to Key West. Yeah. And we asked this picture, or we asked his permission to take his picture and turn it out. Good thing. Yeah. But the one of the neat things I think is that in the Fort East Martello Museum, where he's resided since 1994 and just kept getting more and more famous, the person who donated him was Myrtle Reuter who even after she sold the artist's house took Robert with her and then just took care of him for the next 20 years until she handed him off to the museum. I love it. You can definitely

like go see Robert at this museum. It's actually a really neat museum on your way into or out of Key West. Yeah. And as far as the movies go, they're very low budged. They started out, I say they because somehow there have been four sequels, but they started out in 2015 with just Robert and very seemingly loosely based on the story. I think the autos are in the story, but it's not, I don't think it's a period thing. And again, they, you know, it's a little, it's way more like Chucky the doll or something than this sort of antique looking guy. Just not as charming as Chucky. Yeah. And then three more sequels to follow. I did watch and encourage anyone to watch the latest sequel trailer from just a few years ago called Robert Reborn

because it just goes, the story goes in some crazy directions is all I'll say. So I saw on Culture Crypt, their initial review of the first movie, Robert, they said that, that the production company responsible has budgets barely bigger than the cost of a Chipotle burrito. So unkind, but so true. It is very clearly low budget, but they're, I mean, they made these sequels. So somebody's watching this stuff. For sure. For sure. Or at the very least, somebody's financing them. Well, yeah, I guess that's true. Big ups to Allison Troutner and houseofworks.com for some help with this, along with other great things and Josh's own lived experience.

Yeah. And if you ever get a chance, go down to the Fort East Martella Museum on your way in or out of Key West and go visit Robert. And since we talked everything we could about Robert, we're done and sure stuff is happening. 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.