Death by Trebuchet, Big Bird's Close Call, Dry Scooping Coffee

Shane Madej and Matt Real join the show from The Quizard's Pit! There's discussion of sending Big Bird to space (thank GOODNESS we didn't), a suspicious skeleton, and one writer who loved coffee a little too much. Check out The Quizard's Pit: https://www.youtube.com/@TheQuizardsPit The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tweet at us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to learn more about all of our stories! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to Jess' Twitch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to all of Jess' content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.jesscapricorn.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Jess Boddy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Popular Science: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/PopSci⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Theme music by Billy Cadden: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Use code WEIRDEST at https://jonesroadbeauty.com to get a Free Gift with your first purchase! #JonesRoadBeauty #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rachel Feltman?

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• 0:41Rachel Feltman?

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• 1:05Rachel Feltman?

  At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and tech stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of Popular Science. I'm Rachel Feldman.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  And I'm Matt Riel.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  And I'm Shane Bede.

• 1:30Rachel Feltman?

  Matt, Shane, welcome to the show. Matt, welcome back.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Thank you. This is exciting. We didn't get to chat last time.

• 1:36Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah. You came on when Jess was in the pilot seat. It was a great app, but I'm very psyched to have you on now that I'm back. And now Shane is also here because you guys have an awesome new show that we want to hear all about.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  We've gotten pretty good at explaining it now.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Have we?

• 1:57Rachel Feltman?

  I feel like. So, well, okay, so for people coming from weirdest thing, I would say that my impression of Quizard Pit from the episodes I've gotten to enjoy so far is that it's kind of like weirdest thing meets Science Theater, maybe a little Hello from the Magic Tavern in there. Well, I don't know if that helps, or you're like, Rachel, we hate that you think that's what the show is. Please correct me.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Those are, those are our influences. You, truly. Yeah, Quizard Pit, every week we get sucked into a space dungeon by an evil wizard and we have to give three facts each between the two, the two of us giving a six facts total before we get to go home. And that's just kind of the Mystery Science Theater style wrappings. But it's essentially the same thing, except we're probably much stupider than anybody.

• 2:50Rachel Feltman?

  Well, first of all.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  People take us to tasks in the comments, you know. We've, there's some pop history we've, we've peddled out that we're like, oh, we blew it. And then the quizzard turns the room red and yells at us.

• 3:02Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, good. Yeah.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  We do pay for it. We do pay for it.

• 3:05Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. See, on this show, the quizzard is just my own obsessive compulsive disorder rumination. So, but honestly, I think it sounds better to have a wizard that might, that might, that might punish you. I think it's better. Well, guys, thank you so much for coming on the show. We're really psyched to hear some of the weird things that you've learned in trying to appease the wizard. So let's dive right in. On the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of fact or story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. Then, once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing

• 3:47Rachel Feltman?

  we learned this week actually was, except we don't anymore because we don't have a wizard telling us what to do. We just kind of decide all the facts are good and that's fine. Matt, since you've been on the show before, why don't you start with your tease?

• 4:01Speaker 01

  This week, I am going to be talking about the time Big Bird almost went to space.

• 4:10Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, I know a little bit about this. A little scary.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  No.

• 4:18Rachel Feltman?

  No. Okay, okay. All right. My tease is these bones are more than 700 years old. So why do they show all the signs of having been in a car crash? Aliens? No, but maybe.

• 4:36Rachel Feltman?

  Shane, what's your tease?

• 4:38Speaker 02

  My tease is Balzac's really hardcore coffee tendencies.

• 4:46Rachel Feltman?

  Wow. That's the name of my favorite cafe in Bushwick. Well, great stuff today. I can't wait to get started. I never make guests go first, so that means I have to go first today. Oh, no, I hate sharing weird facts. Okay, so back in 1997, archaeologists were excavating some remains beneath the chapel of Stirling Castle in Scotland. They found nine skeletons that, based on radiocarbon dating, were probably from around the 1300s. This made a lot of sense because there had been some sieging during that time, including

• 5:25Rachel Feltman?

  one very notably violent incident in 1304, when King Edward I of England had captured Stirling after a very long and intense siege. These remains, most of them, showed lots of injuries and cut marks. Some of them were soldiers, others were, you know, more ambiguous, may have been civilians. But it seems pretty clear that these were people who were in the castle during one siege or another during this time of many sieges. The castle changed hands a few times, you know, during the years around this period. And the fact that they were buried inside also indicates that they were, you know, party to some sieging. It

• 6:09Rachel Feltman?

  would have been way more typical to take them beyond the castle walls to bury them. So basically, you know, this, this meant that somebody was like, well, good thing that all of our floors are dirt and we can just dig a hole in the chapel and bury these folks. And, you know, among these people, including some strapping lads who showed signs of having been sieged to death, you know, the kind of blunt force trauma and flashes you would expect from hand-to-hand combat, sort of Highlander style, remains dubbed Skeleton 150, they stood out as being in just absolute shambles, a complete wreck. This guy was not doing well, other than the whole being dead thing. And so this was back

• 6:49Rachel Feltman?

  in 1997. Fast forward to now, when University of Bradford paleopathologist, Jo Buckberry, and her colleagues started to like literally try to piece together this absolute veritable jigsaw of a man. So now to give you like really how messed up this guy was. He, apparently they counted more than 160 fractures on his frame. He was 5'5". That's my height. I don't, I don't know where I have room for 160 things to be broken. I do know that we have, we have a lot of bones in there, but like many fractures on this man. His

• 7:29Rachel Feltman?

  skull alone was in 61 pieces. His upper right, yeah, his right leg above the knee.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  They really, they really blew this guy apart.

• 7:37Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  What happened?

• 7:39Rachel Feltman?

  What happened? Yeah, yeah. That is the big question, right? His upper right leg, like above the knee, basically shattered. He also had really unusual fractures on his ribs. There were dozens of them and they were, the researchers described them as a zigzagging pattern. There was a very jagged kind of zigzaggy break on his shoulder. So, you know, maybe a few decades ago, if we found a guy in this kind of shape, we'd be like, after he died, a wall fell on his bones.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Right. I was gonna say, like, are they for sure that these were pre-death or posthumous? Did they know?

• 8:15Rachel Feltman?

  Yes.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  When it happened?

• 8:17Rachel Feltman?

  So they did a ton of imaging on his remains and forensic analysis. And one of the things that they did look at was that these, the break patterns were when bones were, were fresh. So very likely that the, these.

• 8:31Rachel Feltman?

  Breaks happened while he was alive and certainly were not like, you know, did not happen to an old pile of bones that was already, you know, sitting somewhere with something collapsed.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Fresh bones are full of stuff.

• 8:42Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Boneologists probably know these things. When you break some wet bones, they probably break differently.

• 8:47Rachel Feltman?

  You, you think of bones as being dry, but when you're alive, they're relatively speaking quite wet.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Scooping, sopping.

• 8:54Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, dripping. So they break very differently from when they're old and, old and dried out. And so, yeah, they were like, we know that this certainly happened right around the time of death, if not before. They also, you know, in looking more closely at all these fractures, you know, doing all of this imaging, they ruled out stuff like, oh, he just fell from really high up. Like no matter how slapstick your descent down a stairwell is, you're not going to end up with 160 fractures and a bunch of zigzagging breaks across your, your ribs. Still don't do that. Don't throw yourself down the stairs to find out, but like we, that's, that's not what happened.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  It feels like you'd have to get sort of rolled over by a steamroller or put through a mangler.

• 9:38Rachel Feltman?

  Kinda, yeah. So they were looking at, you know, sort of historical records on various injury patterns. And they were like, it wasn't, we know what happens when you get trampled by a horse. We know what happens when a cart tramples you. This is not what it looks like. In, excuse me, the injury pattern really looked like something very heavy had hit this guy very fast. It slammed into the back of his head and his right shoulder, creating that zigzag break and shattering his skull, which thankfully probably killed him pretty instantly. And then something slammed him into the ground and pinned him there, which would have explained all of the sort of additional weird fractures around his body.

• 10:20Rachel Feltman?

  The only thing that that looked similar to in terms of injuries that have been studied extensively were victims of collisions with trains and cars. Yeah. Now, there were no bullet trains or tanks present at the Siege of 1304.

• 10:38Rachel Feltman?

  The History Channel may spin this off into something about how he actually got picked up by UFO, that then changed its mind and dropped him back down.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  You said it wasn't aliens, but I'm kind of, are you sure?

• 10:50Rachel Feltman?

  The truth is, we can never really be sure.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  And then one stupid question, was the Incredible Hulk around at that time?

• 10:58Rachel Feltman?

  Somebody, somebody was doodling him on the back of something, but uh, yeah. So one thing that was definitely on the menu was the trebuchet. Yeah. In fact, several master carpenters and dozens of workers had actually worked for weeks to assemble one of, if not the largest trebuchets ever for this very siege. It was called the War Wolf. It launched projectiles that weighed around 300 pounds from distances of more than 600 feet. And while I have not done the exact math, that will [BLEEP] you up pretty good.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  I'm doing it now, yes.

• 11:36Rachel Feltman?

  A trebuchet, for listeners who don't know, it is similar to a catapult, but not, not exactly the same. Catapult is sort of the classic. You like pull it back, it springs forward. A trebuchet, it basically looks like a seesaw, you know, it's one of those simple machines, a famulcrum, uh, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. And so the short end has a counterweight that balances the long end, which has a projectile that's held inside a sling. So you drop the counterweight, it makes the long end shoot up. And then, you know, separate from the wood going up, there's this long sling that gets really good air and then the projectile shoots out of that.

• 12:18Rachel Feltman?

  So you can send stuff really far, you can aim it pretty good for the fact that you're throwing a 300 pound rock.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  When I was in um, high school, in my physics, my physics class, I think it was senior year, our teacher asked us, it was a project to build like, we had a group project where we had to build a trebuchet. It was supposed to be like three feet, but me and my friends in one of their garages built like a 10 foot trebuchet.

• 12:44Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Real lumber. And we like rolled it to school in a pickup truck and we called it the hand of God. Yeah.

• 12:53Rachel Feltman?

  Whoa, I love that.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  I, I, I've been watching this, there, there's this YouTube channel called How Ridiculous. And there are these three Australian men who

• 13:02Speaker 02

  How ridiculous.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  They make these incredible, they're kind of like Mythbusters if, I guess if, if there's weirdest thing I learned is, is the Mythbusters in Quizard Pit or the How Ridiculous, I guess. There's nobody watching them or, or stopping them from doing crazy things. But they've just made a whip, a trebuchet whip. So it's essentially a big trebuchet that has like a long like ship's chain on the end of it. Certain, you know, and they're really good at aiming it. They've like been able to like smack aerosol cans in half. But it is essentially just a big trebuchet and that thing goes crazy.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  If that hits you, you will be, 160 fractures would be a good day.

• 13:49Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, I think so. I think you would be, you would be lucky to come away so unscathed. The War Wolf was Edward the First, like, you know, that was, the assignment was a three foot trebuchet and he showed up with the War Wolf, basically.

• 14:04Rachel Feltman?

  Because we know there were, there were many siege, siege engines, as they called them, you know, various catapults, trebuchets already present at this ongoing siege. And he was like, we need to end this back and forth with first sterling castle once and for all. Had a, like requisitioned a bunch of material, had it brought from all over. The craftsmen made this giant trebuchet. And apparently it was ominous enough that the castle did surrender, like upon being shown the War Wolf. But Edward the First said, no, thanks. I'm, I'm going to shoot you with it. He had put too much work in. He wanted to demonstrate what the weapon could do.

• 14:48Rachel Feltman?

  And when it hurled its payload through the castle's curtain wall, observers, cause Edward like set up observers. He was like, ladies, sit, here's a nice safe place to sit. And they said it was like watching an arrow shoot through a piece of cloth. And so, yeah, we know that this incredibly powerful trebuchet was there and used once around when this guy died. It probably was not the trebuchet that killed skeleton 150. Like I said, there were several other less superlative siege engines that were being used repeatedly in the weeks leading up to this demonstration. Plus someone did take the time to bury him, even, you know, weirdly inside.

• 15:31Rachel Feltman?

  And things were probably pretty weird after the War Wolf like literally blew the side of the castle down. So it seems like if they were burying people at all, they probably could have done it outside at that point because the siege was over. So it's kind of a coincidence that the War Wolf was present, but it just kind of goes to show how influential trebuchets were on, you know, this siege and sieges during this time. And yeah, they weren't intended to target people. That would be like a very inefficient way of trying to kill your opponents. So this could actually be the first confirmed human casualty of a trebuchet.

• 16:14Rachel Feltman?

  It's surely many people cumulatively over the years died when their castles got obliterated.

• 16:22Rachel Feltman?

  And maybe even directly were hit with a projectile, like it seems like this guy was. But, you know, they may have then been buried under rubble that, you know, also provided a plausible explanation for their death. They may have had other battle wounds that offered simpler explanations. This guy was unique in like how obvious it was that what killed him was being hit with an incredibly fast, incredibly large object in a way that simply was not part of standard operating procedure for life in 1304. I should say, this study has not yet been peer reviewed, published in a journal. It was presented at a conference, but I have already seen a few experts who weren't involved in the study say, it seems plausible. Like these people are not coming out of nowhere and saying something kooky. They have shown their work.

• 17:07Rachel Feltman?

  It all lines up really well. I'm looking forward to, you know, seeing more about this as they actually publish the study. And we, you know, see more of, of their work. But yeah, it just really, really boggles the mind to think about how they were hurling cars at each other.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:32Rachel Feltman?

  In 14th century Scotland.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  I don't know if Matt's brain went to the same place that mine did, but

• 17:39Speaker 01

  I think it did.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  When you first started explaining this, I really thought it, and maybe they haven't done their due diligence on this and want to check this out. I was imagining a sort of Acme situation where the person

• 17:52Speaker 01

  The whole time I was like, don't, just don't invoke Wile E. Coyote.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  I was imagining a person being thrown by the trebuchet at a wall and just is sort of splatting and shattering.

• 18:04Rachel Feltman?

  It could be, it could be.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Which they, I'm sure they did at some point in history. You know, humans have a wicked tendency to them. You don't think so? I'm sure they tried it.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  It seems really inefficient. I have seen it in some Bollywood films, but I don't think I don't think it's based in any reality.

• 18:25Rachel Feltman?

  Well, so one thing that is cool is that there are now folks who like do computer modeling to show how various trebuchets would have worked. And so the thing is that like, there is definitely someone who's tried that on the computer.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah. War Wolf versus 150 Kermit's.

• 18:47Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And actually I was looking at one guy who does sort of computer modeling of historical trebuchets. And apparently there's some contention about exactly what the War Wolf looked like. Cause there's sort of like two plausible designs that people have for it. But it was clearly an, an unholy sight because the, the Scots were ready to, to peace out after a long time of really, really giving the English what for. So, um, yeah. And all of this is circling back to, you know, the fact that this guy's injuries,

• 19:29Rachel Feltman?

  if the History Channel had gotten a hold of them first, would absolutely have been the linchpin for a documentary about aliens. During this Egypt's

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And let's not rule it out yet. Ratings are ratings. Uh, I had a thought about this that, that, and, and while you kept talking, I was like, yeah, this is exactly my thought about this, but, um, it's, it's interesting to hear that there have been, you know, there's one famous instance of, I shouldn't even say famous, but well-known instance of a doomsday device that was like, hey, I want this war to end. So I'm going to create kind of the most dangerous weapon in the world. And then everybody being like, okay, that should be enough. And then, you know, someone being like, well, I'd like to use it anyway. And so it's kind of horrific that, that, you know, it just speaks to man's, you know, inhumanity to be like, well, I'd really like to see what this is gonna do.

• 20:25Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, and at least with a trebuchet, you know, one, one can imagine that they maybe told people to get out of the immediate, uh, trajectory of the trebuchet.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  Not heeding that advice, I guess.

• 20:39Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, maybe not. Though again, it seems like he probably got hit by a lesser trebuchet.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  I can't imagine. It's, you're, imagine, I'd be so pissed if I was directly hit.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  What was the payload? Was it largely just like huge stones, I assume?

• 20:55Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah. Big, big old rocks. And, you know, I, I imagine that there probably were some sort of like random scraps thrown at various points. I mean, if you just had like a big old chunk of wood from a, another broken trebuchet, you might launch it, but I think a lot of them were, were rocks. And, yeah.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  So these were, these were pieces, these were not pieces of bone. These were like, was the skeleton, was the skull intact with like, however many would, I'd say 60 something fractures in the head?

• 21:27Rachel Feltman?

  So he was, he had been like deliberately buried. So his, his remains were all together. I mean, probably some old pieces were missing.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  That speaks to the fact that it was all, it was all kind of all still one package.

• 21:38Rachel Feltman?

  Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He had his, his wrapping was still on.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Again, we're the dumbest people.

• 21:46Rachel Feltman?

  No, not at all.

• 21:49Rachel Feltman?

  But yeah. And I'll link to this on popside.com slash weird, but there's, you know, some great sort of 3D reconstructions of, you know, his, his injuries. Cause again, they're, uh, they're so wild, full stop, but especially like if you don't have trebuchets on the list of a possible, a list of possible explanations. You know, if you're just thinking like, what in a castle did this to a man? It's really like, it really does seem like it must've been something supernatural and horrific. History, man.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  An arrow flying through a piece of cloth.

• 22:25Rachel Feltman?

  I know.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Like the Holdo maneuver from Star Wars.

• 22:30Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Thank you for invoking that.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  I think about it a lot.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too.

• 22:34Rachel Feltman?

  Don't we all?

• 22:36Rachel Feltman?

  All right. We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be back with another fact.

• 22:43Rachel Feltman?

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• 23:27Rachel Feltman?

  array of shades and have use for them, or you could pick one shade and use it for like 10 different things. You can use it as a highlighter, a bronzer, a blush, a lip tint. The Miracle Balm is absolutely part of my standard makeup routine, which is like a five minute makeup routine. And it's also part of my glam makeup routine, which is maybe like a 15 minute makeup routine. And my bare bones 60 second makeup routine. It's kind of the core of that one. It's the beginning and ending of it, in fact. Speaking of that you, but just a little more perfect than average vibe, I'm really excited about this new Jones Road product, the minimalist defining mascara. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm so excited to get my hands on it. I'm always looking for mascara that gives me just a little bit extra length, fullness

• 24:12Rachel Feltman?

  and definition, but that still looks like my lashes. I just want to look like a perfect little ball baby, you know? But still me. And this is very exciting. You can get a free full-sized mascara right now using our promo code. Modern day makeup that's clean, strategic and multifunctional for effortless routines. For a limited time, our listeners are getting a free full-sized mascara on their first purchase when they use code weirdest at checkout. Just head to jonesroadbeauty.com and use code weirdest at checkout. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you.

• 24:46Speaker 03

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• 25:06Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, we're back. And Matt, why don't we get into yours? Cause I'm a little nervous about it.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Okay. I understand why. I'm going to be talking about the time that Big Bird almost went to space. And would you like me to reveal the big reveal now, Rachel? So that it's not, you know, because I don't want to spend too much time on that part of it.

• 25:25Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe we can just get, we could just get that out of the way.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  Well, give them a little bit of context. Who is Big Bird?

• 25:33Speaker 01

  All right. So Jim Henson was a young boy. No, so yeah, what I'm going to be talking about ended up being the, the challenger mission, which we all know was, has had a pretty horrific, and about 76 minutes, seconds into the flight, it exploded, you know, unfortunately killing everybody involved. Those are, you know, real people and I'm not making light of any of that. That does make this story a little bit more interesting, but that's not, you know, what I'm, that's not the basis, the main thing I want to be talking about.

• 26:07Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Keep that in mind, I suppose, but it is, this story is fascinating without that. So in the 1980s, there was a confluence of two different successes happening at the time, both Sesame Street and NASA. Obviously we had gone and landed on the moon in 1969. I was a little, I was a little afraid to not get that year right. I didn't write it down, but I remember it from the Ian Stevens song.

• 26:33Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, I was like, I never forget it cause of Ian Stevens.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Isn't that so helpful? We need more of those. We need Ian Stevens and Schoolhouse Rock to get back on the, whoever can take up the mantle. But so, yeah, in the 1980s, NASA was developing this space flight participation program to send normal, everyday, non astronaut civilians to space with the quote unquote purpose of added, the purpose of adding to the public's understanding of space flight. Because, I mean, it had only been 11 years we landed on the moon. There were a lot of people going, how the heck could we do that? That seems impossible. But also, you know, all of these government programs need public interest. You know, everything lives and dies on how important the public finds this, you know,

• 27:22Speaker 01

  program to be, which is why go to your libraries. Get that out of the way right now. Go to your libraries and use, utilize government funded programs while we have them because they are not, you know, they're in danger.

• 27:35Rachel Feltman?

  Yep.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  So they also wanted to do this to justify the massive amount of money that was spent by the space program. The, according to, this is according to planetary.org, but the United States spent, United States spent 25.8 billion dollars of like modern money to get us to the moon and all, Project Apollo from 1960 to 1970. That's, sorry, $309 billion if you adjust it to inflation now.

• 28:03Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  That's a lot of money.

• 28:05Rachel Feltman?

  Yes.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  And, and so they were definitely were like, how in the world can we possibly make this seem like it was of use to, to, to the, to the American public at large, who, mind you, in the 1980s were worried about paying for gas, you know? There was lots going on. So they were like, how do we get this? How do we get people interested in this? And the, the goal of this, or the, the way that they decided to do this was let's send some celebrities to space, um, which, you know, hey, look, we've done that now. And wasn't that worth the time?

• 28:36Rachel Feltman?

  So worth the time. Definitely made everyday people think it was.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Feeling like.

• 28:42Rachel Feltman?

  So for them.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Aspirational. That could be me. Me and Katie could go, you know, up and down.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Go to Jupiter.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  So there is a shortlist of people and you can, you can actually find the shortlist of the people that they wanted to send to space. And one Walter Leland Cronkite, famous as a newscaster, they wanted to send him, he was on the list. Interested, as far as I know, he seemed very interested. The biggest name that shows up on the list was Big Bird. And if you're not familiar with Big Bird, he's an eight foot two bird from TV.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Uh, star of, I would say he's the star of Sesame Street.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  Elmo's maybe in the running, but probably Big Bird.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Elmo's kind of like.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Elmo's but a boy.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Elmo's the Spider-Man and Big Bird is Iron Man.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. You're right.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  So they reached out to Carol Spiny, who was the creator of, the originator of Big Bird, who played Big Bird at the time, who, and I would encourage you to look up how Carol Spiny fit into that suit. I cannot believe he did it for so long, because it, basically, it's one arm above your head at all times, reaching up full, fully extended, doing a mouth movement.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  Do you think his arm was stronger, or do you think his hand was sort of withered after all those years? Do you think it was like a little Gollum claw?

• 30:16Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Cause there can't be a lot of blood going in there, right?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  I guess not. Yeah. And I don't think that they're, I guess he could, no, he couldn't have swapped hands, cause Big Bird always had the right hand that was, there was kind of like a pulley system that moved one arm, you know, really ingenious stuff. The Muppets or the puppets are crazy. As you know, Shane.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I do a lot of puppeting. Yeah.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  So it's Carol Spiny.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Neither here nor there.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Carol Spiny was reluctant, obviously, to go to space. They had just come up with this technology. They had only, and there are, you know, Apollo, I think 10 or 11, kind of, there's some failures in NASA's history prior to the, to the launch. But he was reluctant, but understood that it would very likely achieve the goal of getting kids more interested in STEM and space exploration, which I also find, think about that for a second. Obviously, the people who make Sesame Street are, you know, the children's education is very important to them.

• 31:20Rachel Feltman?

  Right.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  This is money where the mouth is, though, kind of. Because they're like, we're gonna send you to space. How much do you really care about, you know, education for kids? Me? I think it's important. If they ask me to go to space, I'm not sure I'm gonna do it. But he was like, you know what? I guess I will. There were several months of trying to figure out how to send an eight foot two puppet to space.

• 31:49Rachel Feltman?

  Too tall to be an astronaut.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Too tall to be, I guess I don't really know what the height of astronauts typically are. Are they, are they shorter?

• 31:56Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, there is definitely a limit. I know because my husband is too tall to be an astronaut. 6'4". Yeah, 6'4" is not for a limit.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Whoa, Shane, you're out. Or can you do it?

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Well, do I fit? Like, I am 6'4".

• 32:12Rachel Feltman?

  I think, I think you can be 6'4" and, and you can, and of course, that's the only thing standing in your way. So now, congrats, you're, you're an astronaut.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Wow. I really thought I had one edge on you one time this, this go, but no.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  We're both going to space. Don't worry.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  You go to space every week.

• 32:29Rachel Feltman?

  Though, I will say, I will say that I think the, I think the current height limit is mostly has to do with launch vehicles. So that might be changing now that we've got newer fancier launch vehicles. But still, once you're, even once you're up there, there's, there's a premium on space. They don't want you to be so tall if they could help it.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Even though I technically fit, it's not gonna be good. It's gonna be like Delta, like a Delta flight.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  You look like a xenomorph up there.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  Could they not have just sent the head of Big Bird up there and just have him like pop into frame and be like, it's me?

• 33:02Rachel Feltman?

  That's so true.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  I don't think that that would have worked, because you need the guy. You need, you know, you don't, you know, you hear some weird alt version of Big Bird talking to kids. They're gonna, that's not Big Bird. Kids are pretty keen on stuff like that.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  And astronauts probably can't do voices.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  I guess, yeah, you're probably right. But I suppose they could have fashioned some way to send his voice up there, but I don't know. It doesn't seem like they thought about it for too long, because they ended up being like.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  They're like, what are we doing?

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, this is a really bad idea. This is, we're not gonna send, it honestly did come down to space. It truly was just like, oh, we don't think that we can do that, because where are we going to? Not only, obviously, Carol Spiny is not in the Big Bird costume all of the time, but it was about the storage for the Big Bird. They were like, this doesn't make any sense.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Frankly, it sounds like they maybe were spending a little too much time thinking about that. If that's in poor taste, you can cut that.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Well, that's a great point. That is a good point. Rachel, I'll leave it to you whether we wanna cut that, that road or not. They did not end up deciding to send Big Bird. There was an offshoot program known as Teacher in Space that they did follow through with, but unfortunately, as we noted earlier, the Challenger did explode 73 seconds into space, which has its own history of, I would say, worth looking into negligence on the, the part of NASA. So there is a documentary where Spiny talked about this in 1986. Quote, "We took a break from filming to watch takeoff, and we all saw the ship blow apart. The six astronauts and Teacher all died, and we just stood there crying."

• 34:46Speaker 01

  So I, that I can't even imagine, obviously, you know, it's, it's not worth the mental time to be like, well, that was, that would have been wild for Carol Spiny to see, because obviously, the family of these astronauts and themselves were far more affected by this.

• 35:03Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Horrible disaster. But it, I, it does, it does, I think, it is maybe worth a little bit of time to think about how awful that would have been for children to see if, if their favorite character was there.

• 35:20Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. I mean, that's the, the context in which I have, you know, heard this before is people being like, you know, we briefly, we, we nearly lived in a universe where every child in America had been hyped up about Big Bird going to space.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 35:39Rachel Feltman?

  And, and then we had to explain to them why he exploded. So I think it's good, you know, Sesame Street tackles some tough topics really well, and I'm glad that this is not one that they had to tackle.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, because as far as I know, and we, this is actually something that we spoke about on The Quizard Pit, that the Elmo's father, here's another bonus fact for you, which we love to invoke on Quizard Pit. Elmo's father, Louis, was briefly in the Nat, in National Guard, and he did get deployed. We don't know where, but they said, you know, there was a whole, it was a direct to video special that they sent out specifically for children of military families to, to kind of explain to them what their parents were doing when they're gone. It's really, I watched it, I watched that particular special, and it affected me. My parents were both in the military, not deployed while I was a child,

• 36:38Speaker 01

  but it was just watching Elmo be like, well, you're not gonna be at the games, the baseball games? So they do tackle a lot of really important, and this is the value of Sesame Street. It speaks to both, you know, obviously, how wild that would have been to happen, but it speaks to Sesame Street's commitment to, you know, children's education, helping children grow and learn. It's kind of really beautiful in a way when you think about it. But it is good that they didn't have to explain, you know, why Big Bird's not around anymore.

• 37:11Rachel Feltman?

  And he's still around.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  And he's still around. I don't know if they've, if they've ever, well, never mind.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Oh, were you gonna say him going, that was a close one or something? He's never acknowledged it, is that the reason?

• 37:27Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so. I don't know if they've ever, I don't know if any of the characters have ever passed on.

• 37:32Rachel Feltman?

  No, I think, I think they, they talked about the passing of a human character who did actually die.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 37:40Rachel Feltman?

  But I don't think they've ever, yeah, Mr. Hooper, yeah. But to my knowledge, they've never, the puppets get to live. They only deal with death if they have to.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, the most important work in the world, I think, what they're doing over there. Are they still doing it?

• 37:55Rachel Feltman?

  Absolutely. Yeah.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Oh, good.

• 37:58Rachel Feltman?

  I know, I only know that they still exist because they keep having like Brett Goldstein come on and talk to, talk to Elmo.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  What's he doing there?

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Cool, well, yeah.

• 38:06Rachel Feltman?

  He just loves, they had him on once, and now he keeps coming back.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  I wrote myself a movie with J Lo. I don't know how he talks.

• 38:14Rachel Feltman?

  That was like not, not a bad impression.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  I like movies. He loves films.

• 38:22Rachel Feltman?

  And he loves Sesame Street. But yeah, because those clips keep coming up on my Instagram, I, I am positive that they're still out there doing that good work.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 38:32Rachel Feltman?

  And, yeah, you know, support PBS, guys. Support public media.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Are they on, they're on HBO now, I think.

• 38:46Rachel Feltman?

  Well, still support public media.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, no, don't, I wasn't saying don't support PBS. Now more than ever, they don't have Sesame Street anymore.

• 38:54Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  It's viewers like you.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:58Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. That's, that's, that's how they keep getting Brett Goldstein. No, he's a good guy. I would do this one for free. We're gonna take one more break, and then we'll be back with one more fact.

• 39:16Rachel Feltman?

  All right, we're back. And Shane, all I remember is it has to do with coffee. So.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  It has to do with coffee, and it has to do with Balzac. And I, I, Balzac, Balls, Ball.

• 39:30Rachel Feltman?

  It's a name that's hard to be normal about.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  I know, it really is. Have any of you ever read any of his stuff?

• 39:36Rachel Feltman?

  I haven't. Okay, maybe I haven't.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  So he was known, he was alive in the, largely in the 1800s. I think he was born at the tail end of the 1700s. French writer wrote The Human Comedy, which comprises like 90 different works. And it's just his sort of like thesis on, on life in France from toe to tip, you know, as he experienced it. Considered one of the great works. I've never read any of it, but in the past few years, I've been trying to be more intentional about like, if I pick up a book, I should finish it. So I've been like scouting different old classics. And I ran across him at one point and was like, I should read some of this, but it seems very daunting. So I haven't dipped my toes, but he seems like a very fascinating guy. So coffee, as it relates to him.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Matt and I dug into this a little bit on Quizard Pit. Coffee is sort of this really interesting paradigm shift in the world. When it becomes popularized, especially in like Western culture and Europe. When it showed up on the scene, people drank beer and wine all the time.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  And I don't know how you feel after a beer. I'm 40 now, so when I have a beer, it makes me want to go to sleep right away.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  So you're drinking beer all day and trying to get stuff done and, you know, being real lazy and sleepy. Coffee hits the scene and it affects people's brains like a lightning bolt. They're like, this is crazy. Like you can drink this stuff. You stay awake. You get ideas. A lot of people.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  That's the problem.

• 41:20Rachel Feltman?

  I did an episode a few weeks ago that was about basically the cocaine boom. Like when Freud and all of his friends started researching cocaine. Really similar vibe. Just a little bit.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  The research showed, we love it.

• 41:34Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, no, looking at, there was a boom in scientific research in general among people who were using cocaine and also writing about cocaine. So you go back and look at the studies and they're all like, it's amazing how much science I could do with the help of cocaine.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Well, Shane, can I, one of the wild things from that episode was that, was that coffee might have been the reason for the American Revolution, as well as the French Revolution, and many revolutions that happened around that time, specifically because coffee houses not only were feeding the minds of these people, but they were gathering in a way that they hadn't before the Ottoman Empire kind of was like, yeah, coffee's great. And we all like to hang out and talk. So the governments were like, they're hanging out and talking. This is not very good for us. And coffee was, became very patriotic. There's a letter from John Adams saying, "We cannot be seen drinking tea. We have to be," you know, to his wife, "we love tea. Look, we love tea, but we have to be drinking coffee.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  It's the only American drink that, you know, so it's, it really is quite magical. And I think what you're going to talk about is a little bit more about how great it is.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I mean, so Balzac, a big, really, really into it. As I said, I don't know what his bibliography looks like beyond The Human Comedy, but The Human Comedy alone is, I think, 40 some novels and 90 works total. So he was clearly a very prolific writer. And part of that was that he loved coffee so much. He would, I believe he would go to bed around 6:00 PM and then wake up in the middle of the night around like 1:00 AM and start drinking coffee and start writing. And he would drink more coffee and drink more coffee. There are different sort of disputes about, you know, people dispute exactly how many cups he would drink.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  But the oft repeated claim is that he would aim for about 50 cups a day. And just, just go not, sometimes he would just write through the night. He was really enamored with this stuff. Some of that, you know, it's like, sometimes it's hard to exactly know the veracity of these things and like how true these things are. But he has written about it specifically. He wrote like a little essay about how much he loves coffee. And eventually he got so hooked on the stuff that he stopped drinking it and started eating coffee grounds raw.

• 44:12Rachel Feltman?

  Just dry scooping.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  Going full, just empty stomach, straight coffee grounds. And he has written, I'm, I'll read this a little long, but I think, you know, he's a great writer, so I think you'll appreciate it. This is his review of raw coffee grounds. He said, quote, "I have discovered a horrible, rather brutal method that I recommend only to men of excessive vigor, men with black hair on and skin covered with liver spots, men with big square hands and legs shaped like bowling pins. It is a question of using finely pulverized, dense coffee, cold and anhydrous, consumed on an empty stomach.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  This coffee falls into your stomach, a sack whose velvety interior is lined with tapestries of suckers and papalay. The coffee finds nothing else in the sack, and so it attacks these delicate and voluptuous linings. It acts like a food and demands digestive juices. It rings and twists the stomach for these juices, appealing as a pythoness appeals to her god. It brutalizes these beautiful stomach linings as a wagon master abuses ponies. The plexus becomes inflamed. Sparks shoot all the way up to the brain. From that moment on, everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick march into motion like battalions of a grand army

• 45:35Speaker 02

  to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high. The cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop. The artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges. On imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire. Forms and shapes and characters rear up. The paper is spread with ink, for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water as a battle opens and concludes with black powder."

• 46:09Speaker 02

  He loved it.

• 46:11Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  That, as someone who has done that, and maybe is currently doing it with coffee, not eating it.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, you don't do the dry grounds on an empty stomach, I don't think.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, but maybe I should, maybe I should try. I do, I do like the nap from 6:00 PM to 1:00 AM. That is goaded. But I don't know if I need to eat coffee grounds. But the feeling of coffee on an empty stomach, just the drink itself is pretty miraculous.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  Not encouraging, I guess, but.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Okay, it sounds like I love it.

• 46:45Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. He really loved that stuff. I think the sort of nice cap on this, now it's not confirmed, but he died relatively young, at age 51, of, I think he had congestive heart failure and gangrene, which, sure. Yeah, those two together, I think not a good combo. But modern, modern theorists believe he may have had a caffeine overdose, which would, which would really seal, just a, just a nice bookend there to his whole caffeine journey.

• 47:20Rachel Feltman?

  He went out doing what he loved.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  He did. Just going crazy on that bean juice.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  I like the idea of him just pushing himself further and further, sort of like flatliners, you know?

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Oh, I wrote another novel during that. He doesn't even know. He's just, he probably never intend.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  The nice part of that is that he seems keenly aware of how dangerous this is.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  And he seems to be okay with it.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  He loved it.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  I don't suggest this to a lot of people. It seems bad for you.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  You've got to be really careful with this. Bowling pin legs, he said. I don't, I don't like the thought of that.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Handsome, like bowling pins. Legs like bowling pins.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  But yeah, just, you know, hey, it fueled, it fueled the Enlightenment, many people think. And maybe, I don't know, it's probably for the best that people weren't just going, going raw on the stuff. Who knows where we'd be, honestly?

• 48:23Speaker 01

  We'd be in, well, we are in space. We'd be in space again.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  More.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Further.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Further. We'd be on Mars.

• 48:33Rachel Feltman?

  He would have, like, RIP Balzac. He would have loved the Panera lemonade.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, we don't even, you get the four local pre, like, man.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  Human comedy would be like 300 novels. And he'd have died at age 26.

• 48:54Rachel Feltman?

  Well, guys, this has been great. It's been so much fun having you both on. Would you remind our listeners what your show is called, so they can go, you know, fall into an interdimensional rift with you and get tortured by facts?

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Yes, we call it getting sucked up. Every single week, it's Quizard Pit, Q-U-I-Z-A-R-D apostrophe S-P-I-T. And again, I do think that we were influenced by weirdest thing I learned. I remember telling Jess about this idea. We were coming up and she was like, sounds a lot like weirdest thing.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what if, what if we didn't know anything at all?

• 49:34Speaker 02

  I think there's a crystal ball in the middle of the room.

• 49:38Rachel Feltman?

  It's great. Honestly, I was just, I was recently talking to somebody about, you know, podcasts with video. And I was like, you know, yeah, like we pretty much all have to have video now. Like, weirdest thing is kind of grandfathering into not having video, but people expect it. And we were watching some show that's not video forward. And then we're like, man, this adds nothing. Why do people insist on this? And I'm like, Quizard Pit, excellent set design. Congratulations on actually making it nice to watch, which is not universal.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's unfortunately kind of, that's our lot in life, was we're going to kind of overdo it a little bit. And I think that we did have a show before and we're, the Quizard Pit is a lesson, you know, a lot of lessons learned from other things. Like, why are we doing visuals on this at all? We're, you know, but occasionally we get into the trap of like not explaining what we're talking about. But it's not a very visual thing, but you have something to look at if you do want to, you know?

• 50:36Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. It's always, never hurts to have an orb.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  No, I, you know, that's what they say. We just can't touch it or else we'll get, we had one guest touch it and he did disappear. We don't know what happened to him.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  I'm pretty sure he's dead.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, we think he died. But yeah, yeah. If you, if you like a little more joking than facts and a little, we do six as opposed to three, so we don't get to go as deep on them as weirdest thing I learned. But very, I would like to say sister shows.

• 51:05Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  A little too bold of me to say.

• 51:07Rachel Feltman?

  No, yeah, yeah. Sisters, not twins. Well, thanks again, guys. This has been great.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having us.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  And may, may the Quizzards whim get you sucked up as well and you can join us over there.

• 51:20Rachel Feltman?

  I would love to. We'll do it sometime.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  Care for what you wish for, to a good place.

• 51:28Rachel Feltman?

  The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Feltman, along with Jess Bodie, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at weirdest underscore thing. Thanks for listening, weirdos.

• 52:01Speaker 04

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