The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 381: Chuck Klausmeyer & NEW STORY—The Face of an Angel

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

A NEW mystery for the curious mind with a short attention span, followed by Mike and Chuck taking a deeper dive into the story's DOUBLE reveal. That's right, you get two reveals for the price of none!

I got a story to tell every word of it true, except for the parts I made up for you, just some history that has been reworded into a mystery called the way I heard it. Well, if you listen carefully to those haunting lyrics, there's really not much else to add. The story you're about to hear is true, at least the way I heard it. Did I take some liberties here and there? I may have, but not too many. It was fun to write. I do hope you'll enjoy listening to it. One thing I can say for sure is you are going to very much enjoy the conversation that follows the story.

Because Chuck, who has yet to be fired, is sitting down with me, his oldest and only friend, to unpack the tale you're about to hear, to ask the questions that you've come to expect, the prescient, albeit leading questions that lead to unsurricular, scripted banter, witty repartee, an unforgettable turns of phrase. This is the way I heard it. This particular episode is called The Face of an Angel, because I think you'll agree, the subject at hand did in fact have such a face. Had he not been blessed or cursed with such a face, this title would make no sense at all. But it does, even if the conversation that follows does not.

Thank God you're still listening. All will be made clear right after this. Shameless plug! Long before she was Peggy Rowe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma Noble. It was her father, Carl, who inspired me to pitch a show called Dirty Jules. jobs to the Discovery Channel and later start a foundation that honored the kind of work Carl Noble did for a living, trade work, skilled labor. That foundation is called MicroWorks, and

today I'm proud to tell you that we've helped thousands of people get the training they need to begin a career in the skilled trades. In fact, we'd love to help you. You can apply for a work ethic scholarship right now at microwworks.org. We've set aside $10 million for this year's applicants. thanks to a number of very effective fundraisers, including the one with my grandfather's name on the label. I refer, of course, to Noble Tennessee Whiskey, K-N-O-B-E-L, which is now available in a variety of delicious mash bills, all of which you can peruse at Noble Spirits.com. In fact, if you spend 100 bucks and use code Carl, C-A-R-L, you'll get one tube of orange-bitter-infused sugar cubes for free. That's Code Carl with a C to get nine sugar cubes, ingeniously engineered to make

nine perfect old fashions every time. It's my favorite way to support microworks and my favorite whiskey to sip responsibly after a long day of interviewing people on this podcast. Pick up a bottle at noblespirates.com. K-N-O-B-E-L-Spirates.com. Soon may the nobleman come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. Once upon a time in 1998, a wrestler from France was discovered inside a weightlifting museum in Pennsylvania by a studio executive from California. This unexpected and completely random encounter introduced the world to a famous face that we

would never forget. It also led to an Academy Award and a $4 billion franchise. A happy ending to a fairer. fairy tale that began in 1903 when the would-be wrestler was born in a tiny village, high in the Ural Mountains. They named him Maurice, but everyone called him Angel. And it was easy to see why. With his alabaster skin, blonde hair, and twinkling blue eyes, he could have been mistaken

for a cherub. All that was missing were the wings. As Angel grew, it became clear he was destined for greatness. Besides his ethereal good looks, the boy was a natural athlete, blessed with a strong and powerful body. But, alas, as with so many fairy tales, a wicked witch cast an evil spell upon the handsome teenager, and life would never be the same. At least, that's what it felt like. It started with the mysterious swelling in his hands and feet and quickly spread to his face. His jaw began to jut, his forehead sloped, his eyes bulged, and his cheekbones widened.

Then his hair fell out, and his ears began to curve outward from his head. The doctors called it acromegaly, a condition whereby a person's bones continued to grow and thicken long after puberty. The disease also stretched his vocal cords and his voice, already deep, dropped a full octave as the hair on his body turned into a thick black pelt from his neck to his knees. With that, the transformation was complete. The angel had turned into a monster. Maurice did his best to remain positive, but it was difficult. He graduated from law school, but he never made it into a courtroom. You'll never win a case with a face like that, a professor told him, you'll scare the jury to death.

So Maurice joined the French Navy, during which time his head, hands, and feet continued to grow. By the time he was 24, he wore a size 20 shoe. His hands were the size of large frying pans, and his skull was twice the size of a normal man's. Large spaces had appeared between his teeth as the bones and his gums continued. to grow. He was grotesque, and his commanding officer said,

Should we ever confront the enemy face to face, I will send you to demand their surrender and watch as they sail away in terror. After the Navy, Maurice moved to Paris, where he worked in side shows, bending crowbars and tearing telephone books in half with his enormous hands. Eventually, he accepted the fact that he would never have a real job, or find a woman who could see the beauty inside the beast. He was prepared to die, destitute, and alone, and surely would have, but for the sudden appearance of his fairy godfather, a professional wrestler named Carl Piaio,

who first spotted Maurice working as a doorman in Paris. "'Mondeu,' he said, "'that face, that face belongs in the wrestling ring. The two men began to chat. Maurice had extraordinary strength and certainly looked the part, but knew nothing of the showmanship required for a successful career in professional wrestling. So Carl offered to teach him all he knew and then manage his career. Maurice accepted, and after six months of training, the two became best friends.

One day, Carl said, you're ready, Maurice. but what shall we call you? Well, said Maurice, when I was a boy, they used to call me angel. Carl laughed and said, then that's what you shall be. From this day forward, you are the French angel, the ugliest wrestler in the world. Under Carl's guidance, the French angel learned to embrace the body he'd been cursed with. In his first match, he squeezed his opponent, unconscious with a mighty bear hug before leaping from the ring and charging through the terrified

crowd roaring like the crow magnin he resembled. He was a sensation, a natural in the ring, who became the monster that people came to love, a monster who sold out large arenas all over Europe before coming to America, where he went on to become a two-time heavyweight world champion and proud inductee into the professional wrestling Hall of Fame before his death in 1954. But the fairy tale was not over. Shortly before he died, the French angel agreed to sit for a sculptor

who cast his face in bronze. The result was a life-sized bust that perfectly captured his enormous head, his misshapen face, and the ravages of his disease. Today, you can find that same bust on display at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago, along with other exhibits

highlighting medical oddities and human aberrations. And once upon a time, in 1998, you could have found his bronze bust at the York Barbell Museum in Pennsylvania, surrounded by other tributes to other strong men who distinguished themselves in the ring. That's where a studio executive from California discovered the ugliest wrestler in the world,

on display, 44 years after his death. And that's how his remarkable face came to the attention of Hollywood, specifically animators in Hollywood, animators who were struggling to create a different kind of hero, a lonely and hideous hero, who lived in a swamp and confronted his adversaries in a wrestling ring. A most unlikely hero who befriended a talking donkey, vanquished Lord Farquod,

and won the heart of Princess Fiona, a fairy tale ending, if there ever was one, for the producers at DreamWorks, who wound up with an Academy Award for the Best Animated Picture of 2002 and a movie franchise worth over $4 billion. Thanks to the still uncredited and unacknowledged contribution of an angel, a French angel named Maurice Tillier, whose unforgettable face provided the inspiration for everyone's favorite ogre. An ogre called Shrek.

Anyway, that's the way I heard it. Maris Thier. You know, it's one of those things. I just Googled three different pronunciation services, and they all gave me a different version. But it's French. So when I put in French pronunciation, the nice lady said, Tia, Tia, Tia. So call him what you will.

You're not going to forget his face. Have you Google the actual images of this guy? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a little off-putting. I mean, I don't know how he managed to get around. I mean, he's like perfect to play the hunchback of Notre Dame. Did he ever play that? He should have if he didn't.

No, he wasn't really an actor. His voice was a professional wrestler. So that's the borderline. He could certainly act then. But I don't know how you could put him on the screen. I found some recordings of him when I was writing this thing. I don't know where they were done. He was not speaking French or English.

He was a polyglot, the guy. He spoke all sorts of different languages. But his voice, it just sounded like a demon coming out of the chasm in Middle Earth that Gandalf was attempting to cross. You probably didn't see that film, not being into, you know, sci-fi and classics. I don't like lords or rings. So I try to avoid anything that if you have a combination of those two things, it's like, oof, I don't know. I can't see that. Can you remember seeing Shrek for the first time?

I don't recall like where I was, who I saw it with, but I remember seeing it and really liking it. And I know that I saw it in the movie theater, for sure, but I have no idea with whom. Yeah. Me too. It was genius. I don't remember seeing an animated film prior to that that made me laugh that hard, that frequently, that used pop music. Remember the opening tune? Hey, now, you're an all-star, get your game on.

So that was a smash mouth. That's right. And they had songs in there from, I think, bad reputation. So it was very, very hip and really inappropriate in so many ways. And I loved it so much. I had just started working for Evening Magazine in 2001 when this thing came out. And it was really on my mind. when I was pitching dirty jobs, which was called somebody's got to do it at the time,

because it was just a really fun way, I thought, to think about entertaining kids and adults at the same time. I don't know how much of it you remember, but my God, every 10 minutes, there are things that happen in Shrek that I don't know how Katzenberg got away with it. We'll talk about TA and why he's not credited and, you know, how. how much he was an actual inspiration. At least I think, at least I hope we will. I hope you've done some semblance of research

and the facts of the story I just read everybody. A little bit here and there, but one thing, just in the time that you monologued right there, I remembered the first time seeing it. Because I thought to myself, I knew I saw it in a movie theater. I'm like, I don't ever remember really going and paying to see a movie in a theater.

And then it occurred to me that, you know, Richard Hamner, Richard Hamner that I've known for many, many years. He's like an Oscar savant. You know, you say, what won best Oscar in 1970? And he'll tell you, oh, it was the godfather. And then it was up against this, this, this, this, this, and this, and blah, blah, blah. He just knows all that stuff. Anyway, he works in accounting for DreamWorks. But the cool thing about DreamWorks at that time was they had this incredible campus, like in Burbank or Glendale. I forget where it was. I think it's still there. but they had a cafeteria where you could eat,

and I would sometimes go see Richard and have lunch with him. And one time, there was Katzenberger. Katsenberger? Berger. Berg. Katsenberg? Katsenberg. That's embarrassing, dude.

Jeffrey Katsenberg. Jeffrey Katsenberg. There's no Er. Katsenberg. Anyway, so, JK. No, I mean, it was embarrassing for me because I don't know either. But now that you say, Of course it's not Katzenberger.

It's like the Burger Meister Meisterburger. The hamburger. The Katzenberger. Ricky Bitsenberger. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, Katzenberg was sitting at the cafeteria table right next to us. You know, now Richard is a guy who's in accounting.

And he's like, hey, look over there. I'm like, that's Jeffrey Katzenberg. It was crazy. There was a law firm in Baltimore years ago when we were grown up called Eisenberg, Katzenberg, Schlazhenberg, and Wiener. No, I do not remember. that. I swear. I remember it because I did the VO for one of their commercials. Please tell me they had a jingle. Nothing rhymes with that, man. Eisenberg. It was just Eisenberg, Katzenberg,

Schlazzenberg, and Wiener. There's nothing to say after that. But I lost the account, because later that year, I got hired to do another law firm in Baltimore called Science and Kirk. They didn't have a jingle, but they had a slogan that was terrific. And it was me when they finally put me in the commercials. It started with VO, and then they put me in a commercial where I walk into a phone booth. And the phone booth is, it's an old style phone booth on a foggy road, right? We shot it like somewhere out on Chowan Road late one night. And the fog's coming in.

And there's a twisted wreck of my car in the background. So I've had an accident, okay? And there's like flashing lights in the distance. The cops or the ambulance is coming. And I presumably have staggered into this phone booth because the tagline is, if you have a phone, you have a lawyer. So it was very weird because I did that in VO. But on camera, you see me going into the phone booth to call Science and Kirk. And I remember the first time we did the take.

I was like, is so odd. I know I'm doing the voiceover, but they cast me as an actor, and all I can think of is Eisenberg, Katzenberg, Schlatzenberg, and Wiener. I felt weirdly disloyal to them. In much the same way, I dare say, Katzenberg felt when he was making this movie, not only because he didn't credit Maurice T.A., but because he had recently left the House of Mouse and was up to his neck in a real public feud with Michael Eisner. Yes. And so I think that's where Lord Farquad came from, actually.

I think it was all a parody or like a subtle jab at Eisner. Is that right? That did not come up in my research, but just to put a button on the Richard Hamner thing at DreamWorks is that I'm pretty sure I saw this movie before it came out. Because everybody at DreamWorks, they had all these theaters there, you know, on the campus, there's like two or three theaters. And they would screen movies for their employees all the time. They were really good for their employees. You know, you could, like, it was a

full cafe that was, you know, you could have lunch there anytime. It didn't cost anything. And yeah, those days are over. Those days are over. But, you know, there were movies that, you know, popcorn. You just take whatever candy you want. It was ridiculous. I'm pretty sure I saw it. And I'm pretty sure that Richard was very proud of it. And it was, you know, it was basically going to save DreamWorks bacon. And I think it did. Right. I totally did. Yeah. This thing has made billions.

I mean, Shrek, Shrek 2, I know there's a Shrek 3. Is there a Shrek 4? I'm not even sure. No, I'm not sure. I only saw the first. Well, the woman I saw the first one with saw the second one without me and said the second one was even better. Because you weren't there?

Maybe. You know what? That's why I'm not with that woman anymore. The first time Lord Farquod came on screen. So it's John Lithgow playing. him, right? And remember, he's just this tiny, little angry, bitter, and broken, not a king, but I guess he's just a lord. But, I mean, you take the R out of Farquod, and that's Jeffrey Katzenberg talking about Michael Eisner. Say Farquod without the R. Faw quad. Say it faster.

What? That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Wow. I did not see that coming. It is. And it's so brutal. I mean, the first time that Shrek and Donkey, brilliant casting.

Donkey? Yeah. He's so great. Oh, my God, he was funny. But they come up to the palace where Lord Farquod lives. And this is this giant phallic symbol rising out of the ground. And Mike Myers, his Shrek looks at it and kind of shakes. his head and says, do you think he's compensating for something?

That's not one for the kids. Yeah, right. It's perfect, though, because the kids laugh, because they get it, Lord Farquod is small, very diminutive. Like, there's short jokes throughout this whole thing. Yeah. But parents are like, oh. It's a bit.

They just meet a, yeah, man. And once you start looking for those, in Shred. they are everywhere. That was your speciality in dirty jobs, am I right? Are you telling me that you were inspired by Shrek to do that same thing? Oh, God, yeah. Well, I mean, I thought of Shrek. We filmed a scene, where the heck were we?

It involved going under a house. Horrible scene and brutal to shoot. But I was with these guys who were doing a series of repairs. and one of the things we had to put back on was the screen and the grating that we took off the exterior in order to crawl into the crawl space to do whatever Godforsaken thing we were doing down there. I think we're applying something called Mastic.

We were trying to waterproof the underside of a house and we were putting this grate back on. And this guy had kind of a funny accent. It was part Philly, part New England, something or other. But we were caulking, you know, Like I had this tube of cock. Right. And he was trying to explain to me, you know, where to put the cock.

And I said, would you say it? Because like the cock, when you get, take the cock and just get as much of the cock as you can into the hole. And so I immediately thought of the scene in Shrek where, remember, he's obsessed with waffles and he tells somebody to go ahead and drop it in her, drop it in her waffle hole, he says. Now, what the hell? I mean, how do you get away with... I don't remember that. I mean, Google it.

It's out there, right? And I'm thinking, okay, the only way I can deal with this guy is to start saying cock the way he says cock. And it's imperative to keep a straight face. But I knew if we kept a straight face, we could spend the entire scene talking about the importance of cock placement and where to put the cock and how much cock to use. And when...

How do you know if you got too much... cock or not enough cock. And it's ridiculous, but the executive producer told me later, if you'd have laughed, right, then we would have had to pull it. But you didn't. And it made everybody who was watching it, screening it on the network side, laugh even harder. And we thought, you know what? He's played it straight.

Let's put it in. That's a Shrek lesson. Now you have kids going into Home Depot going, can I buy some cock? D-Dood-Dood-Dood. Dumb. Well, people are still raving, raving, I tell you, about my mother's performance in the latest Pure Talk commercial. And if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to give it a look on my Facebook page and read the comments. They're hysterical. In this commercial, you'll not only see Peggy Rowe gently criticizing her oldest son for his longstanding and well-established commitment issues.

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Get yourself unlimited high-speed data for just $3499 a month. At puretalk.com slash row. You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row. Do you remember the scene in the movie? Do you remember the magic mirror? Yes.

Uh-huh. So, like the magic mirror, just like in, you know, snow white, it'll tell you whatever you want, but this thing had a real attitude, you know, and remember when they introduced the potential princesses for, Wad to date? The magic mirror is showing him Cinderella, showing him this one, he's showing. And it's all like the dating game, you know. This is, uh, oh, right, right. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

So like it's, uh, she lives in the woods with seven men, but she's not easy. She's snow white. That was great. Yeah, because they pulled in from all of the traditional fairy tales that we all know, right? Which begs the question, how did they do that? Like, how did they get the rights from Disney to use Pinocchio and Snow White? and the seven dwarfs. And the, like, God, do you remember the gingerbread man scene?

Oh, yeah. That was, he gets eaten, as I recall. Worse, he gets waterboarded with milk. Oh, right? This is like right after Abu Ghraib in Iraq, right? It was horrible. No, no, no. This is before that.

That's one of the things about the movie. The movie premiered in 2001. Yeah. April of 2001. So it was before 9-11. You know, one of the things about this that made me think, like, this was before the world changed, you know. Right before. Almost five months before, yeah.

But, dude, they were torturing the gingerbread. They were waterboarding him with milk. Remember, trying to get him to talk. Lord Fokwad was pouring milk over his face and dipping him. And the gingerbread man is screaming and he puts him down and he's got all these cooking implements around and he starts to torture him with him. He breaks his legs off and says, where are you going now? You're right? And then he's like, oh, please don't mess with my buttons, which were like gumdrops.

It's super dark and really like... When is the last time you saw this movie? I don't know that I've ever seen it since I saw it in the theater. Really? You have quite an amazing recall. Dude, there were moments that were so... seared in my mind. They're musical numbers. Remember Robin Hood? Robin Hood has a French accent, which is insane, which is something I thought of when I was writing about Maurice Thier,

who was clearly French. And here's Robin Hood in Shrek with a French accent. He sings a song about something about, give me, oh, some time with a saucy maid. And then the merry man all chime in. In other words, he wants to get. And then Robin Hood sticks his face real quick back into the screen and says, paid. I want to get paid. And there's another big musical number where they're like,

wipe your shoes, stay off the grass, wash your something, and don't forget your, and their butts are all pointing at the camera. But at the last minute, they say, face. They make you think naughty thoughts. even when they don't say them. Yes, that's your specialty, I think. That's the currency with which you bargained. You trade.

Well, I don't know. Yeah. It was a different time. It's a more innocent world. It really was, man. We hit our naughtiness. Those were the days. What about this Maurice guy?

What drew you to this story? Do you recall what it was that made you interested in this subject and wanted to write about it? there were a couple things. The York Barbell Museum is still there. It's right off 83. So when you drive into York, Pennsylvania, you might have even been with me. Jeff Wilson and I years ago drove up there to buy a bunch of weightlifting equipment. Yes, yes.

You could buy it wholesale from there. I'd been in the museum and I had seen these displays and it was just, you know, strong men and bodybuilders and wrestlers. And this is a very specific sort of place. I hadn't been into that world before, really. And so when I read that somebody from DreamWorks, and we don't know who, I would have loved to have told you it was Katzenberg or Katzenberger. Joffrey Katzenberger.

And I couldn't find any information anywhere about the specifics of who it was. But, you know, we do know for sure that somebody who worked for the company was in there, probably one of the lead animators. Right. I think the thing that interested me most was that at a glance, I don't know how you could chalk it up to coincidence. He is short, well, he's very, very stocky.

He has a very unique voice. He's not green, obviously, but, you know, but his ears are misshapen. And I mean, my God, he looks in life as. close to a human ogre as I think you could find. Yeah. And of course he wrestled. And, you know, Shrek wrestled. Shrek lived in a swamp.

Shrek was isolated, you know. Shrek was just trying to keep to himself. There were just so many parallels. And of course, I think the big thing was that it really is a fairy tale. I mean, Maurice's life, it's just a fairy tale in reverse. You know, he starts off beautiful, angelic. And then, you know, it truly felt like he was cursed somehow. I mean, can you imagine that, that's a horrible disease, that acromegaly?

Yeah, acromegaly. His head and his hands, I believe, grew to twice the normal size. His feet, you know. Oh, right. Because he had a size 20 shoe, that's right. Yeah. And his vocal cords, that's why his voice was so deep. Yeah.

You know, to have that happen over the period. a relatively short period of time to go from beautiful, handsome, striking to really, to really, he couldn't do anything but really work in a sideshow. He couldn't find work. You know, he was either a bouncer. I mean, it was really sad. But by all accounts, he was such a, he was such a nice guy. He was just so kind. So it's really beauty and the beast. I was going to say off of what you said that he, we said Beauty and the Beast, you know, and he was a nice guy. He met a nice guy named Carl who really changed his life. And they became the best of friends, you know.

He lived with Carl and his wife. Did you know that? That's right. Carl, what was his name? Pyejo. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah.

And, uh... I mean, it's nice that ultimately they became best friends. but initially, I think Carl saw dollar signs. He was a promoter. You know, he was looking for something different. I was hoping when I was writing it that people might conflate. Maybe Andre the Giant, who I think had a similar condition, also a wrestler.

But there's just something so poignant about, you know, the whole sideshow mentality and the idea that, like, what do you do if you're a woman with a beard? Well, today you've got options. I literally saw a woman with a beard in a restaurant yesterday. You're kidding me. Not kidding you. No, no.

My significant other saw a woman with a tail in the locker room at a gym a few years ago and was never quite the same, like a vestigial tail. Like a tail that's attached to one's spine. Yeah. I mean, not like a thing you could really. wag, but about, you know, like half an inch long and just coming right there at the very base of the spine. It wasn't a poor dude facing the other way or something?

No. No. No, she said you could have hung a wet towel on it if you were so inclined. Sturdy. I don't think she said that. I think you just made that up. Did you know that track was the... very first movie, animated movie, to win best animated movie?

Didn't I have that in the story? Did not include that? Probably. Probably did. So then, yeah, I knew it. I might not have remembered it. I mean, I wrote the thing a year ago. Yeah.

Well, I mean, look, back to your other question. It's everything about the story was interesting to me in on some level, you know, starting with the York Barbell Museum, but also the business of being discussed. discovered. That too is part of a fairy tale, right? I mean, it's like the oldest Hollywood fairy tale there is. You know, pretty girl gets on a bus, leaves the farm in Iowa with stars in her eyes. You know, it's a story we've heard a gillian times. Who was it that was discovered at the counter of a drugstore? Oh, somebody was like May West or... Yeah. Yeah. Marilyn Monroe or, I mean, they're like little lottery tickets when you hear stories of people being

discovered. I mean, actually, I kind of hate them, you know, because they, not the people. I hate the stories because, you know, it's like when somebody wins the lottery and all of a sudden it becomes headline news. And, you know, you've got millions and millions of people playing the lottery who frankly probably can't afford to play the lottery. They're spending way too much money on lottery tickets. They're gambling.

And life's enough of a gamble. It seems to me that the odds of winning the lottery don't justify playing. But whatever, when you hear about somebody being discovered in such a random way, then it makes you think, yeah, that could happen for me. And it probably won't. But it's just one of those stories that gives you hope. And hope is not a bad thing. But people need to. Maurice needed hope.

He was probably out of it by the time Carl came along. And the fact that he was discovered by Carl, found fame in a way that he never imagined, became famous for being a great entertainer in the ring. And even as he was squeezing the breath and probably the life out of his opponents was such a sweet guy, The fact that he was then forgotten, rediscovered vis-a-vis his bust in a barbell museum, and then becomes, I believe, and I can't prove it because, you know, that's the other reason I wanted to write it. You know, why isn't Maurice Thier somehow referenced in the credits? Why did DreamWorks close ranks?

why is nobody on the record talking about the fact that this wrestling ogre who was so ugly he didn't fit in the society wasn't inspired by this real-life wrestler who became so ugly, right? Do you think they were worried about his estate suing them? Yeah. Yeah, maybe. I mean, I don't know, but it could be that or maybe it was just, you know, we don't want to wreck the spell. We like the idea maybe that we're dream works and we just came up with this out of the blue.

I don't know. That's why it's the way I heard it, Chuck. I really, I know enough to make some conclusions and to tell a story. You know, as always, everything in that story is true. But I just don't really know what the, like who was in that museum? Who was it who saw the bust? Right. But the thing that really convinced me to write it was, and you know how this works.

Like when I'm doing this, I'm always sort of waffling to bring it back to waffles for a moment. And a waffle hole. Between is it too much of a stretch, right? Like, okay, it's the way I heard it, but I don't want to perpetuate something that the majority of people have looked at and determined is a myth. Right. Right. But it was an animator at DreamWorks at the time, who was trying to create the face, who is out there on record saying, yeah, this guy was brought to our attention. We saw pictures of Maurice T.A.

We saw his bust. And we thought, hmm, that's interesting. So I have an animator out there. You can Google it. And I thought, you know what, that's enough. That's enough to tell this story. So I did. Well, I have some questions for you, Mike.

Questions that I'd like to ask you. Some might call it a quiz, and I just want to see how you're going to do with it. A little quizzy. A little quizzy, yeah. And let's see how much you despise this. Sidebar. Yeah. Do you remember a teacher named Mr. Newberry?

I don't think we had a class together with him, but he was a science teacher that I had, Mr. Newberry. and he used to do these things. He called them pop quizzes. And this was, oh, of course you didn't have him because he was in my ninth grade. He taught ninth grade science for me. And I didn't meet you until I was in the 10th grade.

10th grade, yeah. But yeah, the first smart alecky thing I ever said out loud in school at that age. I wasn't a real smart aleck then because I still had a bit of a stammer. So I kind of kept to myself. But one Friday, Mr. Newberry said, it's a pop quizy, everyone.

We're going to have a little pop quizy today to see who. was paying attention over the course of the week. So, pencils out, we have a half hour. Everybody pass them back and he started handing them out, these little pop quizzes. And when I got my pop quizzie, I said, just loud enough for people around me to hear, if these are your pop quizzes, I'd hate to see your pop testies. That's right. Sometimes I got to let the art wash over me. And I feel dirty after that one. I feel dirty after that little art shower. I got detention. I bet you did. I had to clap the erasers for making a joke about pop testes.

What a useless endeavor that is. But anyway, you know what? I just chewed up a minute of content relating it to you. I haven't talked about this guy, Mr. Newberry. I'm cutting it out. You know what? Cutting it all out. He, no, you're not.

He also told a fascinating story that I'll never forget. And it was the thing that got him in the science. He said he was walking home one day from his college course and stopped. to watch some guys playing handball. And they were using what looked like a lacrosse ball. But, you know, just poor man's handball is basically just a brick wall. And this ball came back and hit one of the guys in the face right on the corner of his eye. And Mr. Newberry was not the kind of guy that would just make up stories.

Unlike me, I swear he said that it knocked him down and it knocked him down. and it knocked his eye out of his head. The eye was lying on his cheek and his friend put it back in. Oh, isn't that crazy? That's a good friend. That's a very good friend. Yeah, and I asked him, it was like,

what ultimately happened? He said, I don't really know. It wasn't much of a story, but it got him into science. They finished the game, and the guy with the eye that put back in, he lost, but he felt like a winner. Yeah.

Well, Mr. Newberry's, said you could see the optic nerve and it was still attached. And he said that night, I was just so wondering, like, could he have taken the eye that was now out of the socket and, like, turned it around and still seen from it? And that's ultimately what got him into medicine. And then science, and next thing you know, you're taking a pop quizy, followed by a Bob Testy and, you know, hoping for the best. I mean, honestly. How many matches did Maurice T.A. have wrestling matches? I love stories like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben Still was a musician.

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Get good ranchers now. E-Ha! How many professional wrestling matches? A lot. I have no idea, but he wrestled a lot. I would say more than... 607. That's what I was going to say.

600 or seven. Yep. How many did he win? Certainly the majority, but I would figure a guy, I mean, he was a world champion. And of course, he was, you know, I mean, he's promoted into those things. Of course, these things are arranged. Spoiler alert. Sorry, folks, but they are.

I'm going to say he probably lost 40 or 50. He lost 67. One over 400. So what was Maurice's signature? signature wrestling move. Oh, that I do know. It wasn't really a move. He would just pick you up and squeeze the life out of you.

I guess it's a bear hug. The bear hug is what it was called. Very good. Very good. Ding, ding, ding. What did Maurice die of? What did he die of? God, I hope it's not like loneliness or on Wii or something French.

Well, it fits in with the rest of, it fits in with his condition. Oh, probably a heart. attack. An enlarged heart. Oh, yeah. He had heart disease. And here's the most interesting thing about this. You know, I said that Carl and Carl's wife, Olga, you know, had Maurice live with them. And he and Carl were the best of friends. Carl died of, I think it was cancer. Carl died of lung cancer, and Maurice died 13 hours later. No kidding. Yeah. And they are buried together in the Lithuanian National Cemetery in Justice Illinois, and the Headstone reads, Friends whom even death couldn't part.

Isn't that sweet? I didn't know that. Yeah. I thought that was interesting. That's fairy tale stuff. Right? You know? Friends to the end.

Well, what would have happened to, Maurice would have been stuck in a freak show if he hadn't met Carl, you know? He would be the guy behind the curtain that come see the crazy ogre or, or, you know, he would have or whatever, right? And where would the donkey be without Shrek? Right? I mean, there it is again. So Carl and Maurice are the donkey and Shrek.

Oh, how interesting. Yes. Best of friends. Best of friends. How many decks of cards? Because, you know, Maurice was his hands and his head and his feet were twice the size of normal human. How many decks of cards could Maurice shuffle?

This was a trick he did. How many at the same time? Oh, half a dozen. Three. Oh, well. You were off by half a half a dozen. Okay. Who was pegged to play Shrek before Mike Myers?

Oh, I did stumble across that. What's his name? He, uh, oh, by the river. Chris Farley. Chris Farley. Yeah. Yes. Uh, yeah.

You know Chris Farley's brother, Jim? is running the Ford Motor Company now? I did not know that. Yeah. Jim Farley. I'll bet he doesn't live down by the river. No, he's doing all right. In fact, I've got to drop him a line. You know, I'm still driving around on a Bronco, for God's sakes.

It would seem like we should probably be able to do some sort of business together again. I mean, I don't see why not, you know. It'd be a fairy tale ending. not that I'm ready to wrap things up just yet, but we had a pretty good run with those guys. Yes, yes. Two more questions. That's it.

I did 300 commercials for them, Chuck. 300 commercials. At least. At least, yeah. It was crazy. So much better than Science and Kirk. So much better than Eisenberg, Katzenberg, Schlazzenberg, and Wiener. Ford is just so much easier to deal with and say.

People know who you are. you're not standing in some weird phone booth. Yeah. After a car wreck. Have you seen a phone booth in the last 15, 20 years? The last time I saw a phone booth was in a movie. I think it was called phone booth with Colin Farrell, was it? Remember the guys on the phone and there's a sniper?

He can't leave the phone booth or else he's going to die, blah, blah, blah. It sounds like a great film. Yeah, I didn't see that. When I saw the trailer and said, okay, I got it. Well, look, there was no Shrek. I'll tell you that. No, it was not a Shrek.

Now, back to Shrek. So Mike Myers, you know, of course has a Scottish accent as Shrek. Just gave him that because he felt like it. He likes it. But that's not the accent he wanted to use originally. Do you know what accent he started with and ultimately landed on Scottish? Well, given Mike Myers, and what I know about him, I would say, Canadian? Oh, yeah, way to go, eh? Oh, yeah, you nailed that one, eh? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Way to go.

Oh, yeah. I can see Shrek with the Canadian accent. Well, apparently, Mike Myers couldn't, or at least the director. Or somebody didn't. Somebody didn't like it, yeah. But it would have been closer to Maurice Thier's original. Oh, yeah. Yes, it would have. You're right. Yeah. French Canadian. Although, you know, he wasn't born in France. If you were paying attention to the story, he was born in Russia. Oh, was Russia? I thought it was Lithuanian. Well, it was high up in the Ural Mountains.

Hmm. And I think the Ural's... It was Mile Mountains? No, no, Ural. Right. You're saying my own? My mountains. No, no.

Think oral. Okay. With a U. Ural. U-R-A-L. Not YOL. Not U-U-Ns, not U-R-Ls. You're saying they're my mountains.

Jesus. Just ask another question. Okay, so how much did Shrek earn domestically and worldwide? Any idea? Are we talking the franchise, or are we talking the number, just the first one? Shrek. You know what? I don't know that I know that I don't know that I have the distinction. I think the first one was what I thought is the first one, the 2001, Shrek.

I'll say over 200 million, maybe 300 million, maybe. You're right in the middle. 268 million. That's pretty good. That's very good. Go ahead. I know the franchise did over a billion as of when I wrote the story. And I'm sure the first one is the biggest, right?

The first is the biggie, but the best reviewed is number two. I think that's the one with Puss and Boo. Dude, also so inappropriate. There's so much stuff going on with Puss and Boots. He's like gets caught with catnip, which is so clearly marijuana, you know. And there's this whole riff on it and donkey is like, I haven't tripped like that since I was in college. You know, they're driving. He's talking about a trip, but it's another trip.

I honestly don't know how they got away with it, man. It was brilliant. Yeah. Brilliant stuff. And worldwide. Oh, yeah. The first one. How much do you think?

Oh, worldwide, the first one? No, is worldwide inclusive of domestic? Yes. Oh, 480 million. 492. All right. I mean, you know what? You've got to be on that test.

That little quizy. Your little testy was easier than I thought. It's more of a quizy than a testy. I just don't like to. Just because she lives in the woods with seven men doesn't make her easy. There's another great moment where Lord Quad is talking to the Farquod. Farquod. You're pronouncing it wrong.

I'm sorry. Intentionally. Farquod is talking to his subject and he's like, True, yes, some of you may die. But that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Good stuff. Any final thoughts, Mike? Well, I've got some final thoughts. Shrek endures because it's a classic story.

And Maurice Thier is not a household word. And yet he's the real deal. He really lived a fairy tale in reverse. How odd to be a descendant of his or how odd for him to be somehow looking down on all of this in hearing a conversation about a film that was inspired by his life that grossed over a billion dollars that was used primarily to let a guy named Katzenberg or Katsenberger really give it to his former boss over at Disney. How crazy strange to see all of the borderline inappropriate moments in a movie whose titular character was inspired by your medical

condition. And how strange to learn that you were discovered, not in the wrestling ring, or, well, you were discovered. You were a bouncer and your friend Carl discovered you and then you were famous, but then you were forgotten. And then you were a bust in a weightlifting museum. And then some animator sees your visage and is inspired by your countenance. And then he paints you green and changes the way animation is made. I mean, come on. You can't script that kind of thing. And yet, somehow they did.

And it won best animated feature in 2001. Thank you. Actually, 2002 is one of one, I believe. Yeah, but it was, yeah, it was in the theaters and 01. Yep. Don't they go by in a blink, my friend? It was 2001 just yesterday. We were so innocent then.

Yeah. Mirror, mirror on the wall. Show me. No. No. All right, folks, well, I do hope you're enjoying these things. I've written a couple more. If you haven't heard, these stories are brought to life now, incredibly over at TBN. And they're going to be coming to another network, which I'll announce a little bit later. This one has yet to be adapted. for the small screen, but hey, you never know. Crazier things have happened. And if you are new to the podcast, you can go back in the first 177 episodes are these short stories, just these short stories. Right, which is, let's admit it, it's got to be a lot more satisfying, just to listen to one of those rather to endure the last 45 minutes of whatever this was. I mean, this is the beauty of this is that you can check out after the story if you,

really are afraid of what's going to have happened. If you're afraid that Mike is going to say, wha, wad, and a lot, which you did. So I'll tell you what else we did. We satisfied our sponsors. And I'm grateful to those guys for tagging along as well. And I'm grateful to you for listening. And Chuck, I'm always grateful for your best impersonation of a producer.

You've done it again. We're out of time. We'll be back next week. At least one of us will. Unless, of course, it's a fairy tale ending for the producer who just won't go away. Goodbye. Adios. If you're done, please subscribe.

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