The Catacombs of Paris

Beneath Paris lies the bones of more than 6 million people. And you can walk among them for 31 euros. These are the Paris catacombs. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:02Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:12Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we are going deep underneath the city of Paris, city of lights, a city too busy to sleep because it eats big apples, in this episode of Stuff You Should Know.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  That's right. A big thanks to Anna for the contribution here on the Paris catacombs. Have you ever toured the Paris catacombs?

• 1:39Josh Clark?

  Yes, I have. Have you?

• 1:40Speaker 02

  I have not, and I think I remember you telling me that you had. I've been to Paris three times, have not yet done this. It was not on my radar the first two, didn't have time the third trip. So if and when I ever get back to Paris, it's on the list.

• 1:54Josh Clark?

  I recommend it. Have you ever been to the Moulin Rouge?

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Uh, yes.

• 1:59Josh Clark?

  Okay. So the Moulin Rouge is generally topless dance numbers typically, right?

• 2:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:05Josh Clark?

  Did you notice that when you're at the Moulin Rouge boobs just you there were so many boobs everywhere that they just totally lost all context and meaning?

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, 12 year old Chuck was like, I don't understand what's happening.

• 2:18Josh Clark?

  But I'll bet even 12 year old Chuck was like yawning by the end of it, right? Because there's just so many boobs everywhere that they're just it doesn't it doesn't mean anything anymore. The catacombs are the Moulin Rouge of human bones.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Oh, so many skulls that it's just like, whatever, there's another skull?

• 2:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, it's bizarre because you realize you're just like, ho hum, there's another dead body, there's another dead body, there's another leg bone. But it's still worth going to just because it's so bizarre. But there's just so many human bones around you that you just it's like your brain just gets saturated and you just stop thinking of them like that.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  So the JSAT, the Josh SAT would be Moulin Rouge is to boobs as the Paris catacombs is to blank?

• 3:07Josh Clark?

  Human bones. That'd be the right answer.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  Choice A.

• 3:11Josh Clark?

  What would be the other choices?

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Oh, man. I don't know. I haven't taken a test like that in so long. It'd be fun to take the SAT again.

• 3:18Josh Clark?

  Would it?

• 3:19Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 3:20Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 3:22Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  How long does that take?

• 3:24Josh Clark?

  I don't know, but it's changed since we were there. Hours. I remember it taking hours. It used to actually test IQ and now it just tests like retention.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Oh, well, I'm screwed.

• 3:35Josh Clark?

  So here's the other answers, Chuck. Cod fishing?

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:40Josh Clark?

  Modge podge?

• 3:42Speaker 02

  There's got to be one close one.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Like, like, like, uh, grave site or something.

• 3:48Josh Clark?

  Okay, there you go.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  And you'd be like, no.

• 3:50Josh Clark?

  No, grave wax. Do you remember that from back in the day?

• 3:53Speaker 02

  Is that the human goop that seeps out? That you can make soap out of? Yeah.

• 3:59Josh Clark?

  Pretty awesome.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  All right. That's a, that's a great JSAT. We should have our own stuff. You should know SAT. That'd be a fun thing to design.

• 4:06Josh Clark?

  I have, it would be fun. I have one more story about the catacombs.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Let's hear it.

• 4:12Josh Clark?

  So when we went, I've only been once and it was a few years back, but we went with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and our niece, the very famous Mila, who's been in a ton of movies. She played young Mary in the movie Mary that came out on Netflix this past Christmas. Did you know that?

• 4:31Speaker 02

  No, and you didn't, you didn't shout that one out. So I'm glad you are.

• 4:34Josh Clark?

  Well, we were off, so I didn't get a chance to, but it's, it's definitely worth watching. It's like pretty religious movie. I mean, it's about Mary, the mother of Jesus. Yeah, yeah, that Mary. You're like, oh, Mary, Mary. Sure. And it is fascinating. Like my, actually my brother-in-law also was a producer on it too. And they, it has like action. It has like, it's a thriller. It has like a really evil villain played by Anthony Hopkins. Like it's just a really good movie that you'll watch from beginning to end and be like, this is pretty good.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  I have to check it out. And I'm also going to forgive you for when I said Mary, Mary for not saying.

• 5:16Josh Clark?

  Why you buggin?

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Thank you. You passed. You're back in the good graces.

• 5:21Josh Clark?

  Well, anyway, oh, back to my story. So little Mila, she must've been five-ish at the time. She went to the catacombs with us, right? So she's walking around this ossiary with bones and human skulls everywhere. And you, me or I asked her, like, are you, are you scared right now? And she said, I would be.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Like boobs?

• 5:41Josh Clark?

  Right. She, right. She said, I would be if these were real. We were like, we just looked at each other in the corners of our eyes and we were like, well, let's look over here now.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Right. Exactly.

• 5:54Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Wow. That's adorable.

• 5:56Josh Clark?

  It was very adorable. What's funny is the irony of the whole thing is this is the same kid at about the same age, who was scared to death on the movie ride at Disney Hollywood Studios, but is standing there in an ossiary of millions of bones, human bones and skulls and is like, meh.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's pretty funny.

• 6:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So those are all my stories about the catacombs. I figure we should probably start talking about it.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is, I mean, let's go back in time, I guess. I mean, we know already what it is. It's a series of underground tunnels where more than 6 million Parisians are there, you know, forever.

• 6:37Josh Clark?

  What's crazy-

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Unless they decide to move them again.

• 6:39Josh Clark?

  Right, right. But you have no idea who's who. Like, one bone doesn't belong to another bone. No idea whose skull is who. It's crazy.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So if you go back in time, let's say 45 million years during the Lutetian period, there was an erosion event that caused a lot of what became to be known as Lutetian, or Paris rock, or Paris limestone, or Parisian limestone deposited there. And that is, if you go to Paris and you see everything as that sort of creamy gray, that's what that is. And that's what gives Paris its distinct look because they had loads and loads and loads of it. And the reason we're starting with this is because the mining of that Lutetian limestone

• 7:27Speaker 02

  is where these tunnels started. About 2,000 years ago, on the banks of the rivers there, they had these quarries where they would mine the heck out of this stuff. And before you know it, Paris is sitting on top of a vast network of tunnels.

• 7:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, something like 32 square kilometers of tunnels, which to put in American terms is like a lot of bananas.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:54Josh Clark?

  10 times the size of Central Park, apparently, is underneath Paris.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:00Josh Clark?

  I think it's 300 kilometers of tunnels. Isn't that just nuts?

• 8:04Speaker 02

  It's a lot.

• 8:05Josh Clark?

  But I mean, if you think about it, if you mine an area, a small, relatively small area for a couple thousand years, you're gonna, you're gonna make some headway eventually, and that's what they did. The key is this, Chuck. Originally, these quarries were sensibly well outside of the city of Paris.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:23Josh Clark?

  But we're talking about a very, very tiny, original city of Paris that eventually grew and grew and grew. And over time, Paris overtook these old quarries that in most cases were no longer used or mined any longer. So the, the city built itself over abandoned mines that people had just plum forgotten about.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  That's right. Uh, and that, you know, that presents a couple of very big problems. Uh, first of all, if you've got a city growing and growing and getting built on and built on and getting heavier and heavier, and a lot of the underground has been dug out, uh, that is a problem. And there were numerous incidents of, uh, sinkholes, of buildings collapsing into themselves, of all kinds of, you know, tragedies happening over the years throughout the history of Paris because it was built on, you know, hollow ground in a lot of places.

• 9:14Josh Clark?

  Right. That's why another very famous nickname for Paris is the Florida of Europe.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  I'm sure they love that. Uh, the other big problem is that Parisians used to love burying themselves in Paris. Like, you wanted to be laid to rest in the city where you grew up and lived your life.

• 9:35Josh Clark?

  At your church typically, too.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, like very, very locally. Uh, and by the 18th century, late 18th century, um, this was a big, big problem. There were too many bodies. Uh, there was, disease was being spread. So this led to a couple of things. I think in the 1730s, there was an actual, uh, parliamentary, uh, commission study about how disease from these, you know, dead people everywhere in Paris was hurting the, the city. And then it took about 40 years, uh, eventually in 1777, King Louis, the, what is that, 16th?

• 10:12Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Created the IGC. Uh, you want to pronounce that?

• 10:17Josh Clark?

  Oh, yes, please. The Inspection Generale des Carrieres.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  And what were they charged with?

• 10:25Josh Clark?

  So carriers is French for careers and another word for career is a path or tunnel. So this was the the commission overseeing mines and mine shafts in Paris.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Right, so basically, hey, we got this report 40 years ago.

• 10:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  That no one's acted on, so we need to really start looking into this stuff. And Chief Inspector, can you pronounce his name?

• 10:51Josh Clark?

  Charles X L F Dieumot.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  He came along as the chief inspector and said, all right, you know what? We're gonna shore up these mines and make sure they're not gonna keep collapsing. And also, we're gonna start moving bodies out of here. We got a body problem, not a three body problem, we have a millions body problem.

• 11:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  And we're gonna start moving bodies out of, let's start with the oldest one, the Holy Innocents Cemetery, which has been around since 1186. Let's start moving things out of here and from other cemeteries, close these things down, and start moving into these old mine shafts.

• 11:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and like you said, there was a body problem. I think you kind of touched on it a second ago where there was a general sense of disease coming from these putrifying bodies that were just piling up in the cemeteries. But structurally speaking also, so like, I guess at the time in France, they would bury you with a bunch of other people who died at the same time in a group pit, let you decompose, after five years they would bury you up and then they would just deposit your bones in an ossuary. They just, they were like, here's a bunch of bones, let's move on to the next group of people and bury them for five years. So many people's bones built up over the years that neighborhoods built near this, their like cellars would collapse in and bones would just come out because of the pressure

• 12:15Josh Clark?

  put on these huge piles of bones that were building up. So there was a huge problem with it. But I also read that that was a.

• 12:25Josh Clark?

  A bit of like a cover story that they were really interested that the government of Paris was interested in reclaiming some really great real estate now.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:35Josh Clark?

  And so they did this, whether people liked it or not. And they actually went into these cemeteries and moved the bones under the cover of night.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  That's right, to the tunnels. And people are like, you're doing what?

• 12:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  And they said, don't worry about it, just go back to sleep. Uh, and from 1785 to 1787, over a couple of years, they, uh, not only from Holy Innocence, but all the, the nearby cemeteries, they moved these bodies, uh, in April of 1786. The catacombs were consecrated officially. Uh, that was called the Paris Ossuary at first, but catacombs is, sounds creepier, I guess.

• 13:19Josh Clark?

  Hey, have I been saying osseary?

• 13:22Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 13:23Josh Clark?

  Oh, man, thank you for gently correcting me.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Well, I wasn't sure I was pronounced, to be honest.

• 13:28Josh Clark?

  I sound like a six-year-old kid trying to pronounce it.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Uh, so catacombs took over as the sort of, you know, the go-to word. And, um, they kind of just dumped them in there for a while until in 1810, uh, there was a new quarry inspector who said, maybe we can have a little fun with this.

• 13:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so just to be clear, when they moved the bones from the graveyard to these abandoned, um, mine shafts, they would just go up to a hole in the ground and dump bones into the mine shaft. And they would just pile up where they fell at the bottom of the mine shaft. That's how they were transferred. And like you said, finally, uh, one of the inspectors, a quarry inspector named Louis Etienne Harry Card de Toury, pretty sure I said that right.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 14:19Josh Clark?

  He said, like you said, let's have some fun. So he got busy with his quarrymen, um, stacking bones into these now famous configurations of tibias and fibias and finger bones and thigh bones and, um, neck bones, uh, and then head bones, finally, all of them with their eye sockets facing out. They built walls, um, throughout the whole, these whole catacombs where the, that had been designated an osseary or in French, an ossuary.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  That's right. And I think from now to the end of time, a skull should be known as a headbone.

• 14:57Josh Clark?

  Isn't that what it is? Isn't that, that old Drybone song? Isn't that what they call it?

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Oh, is it what? Connected to the headbone?

• 15:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah. That one? Yeah, don't they say that?

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know.

• 15:06Josh Clark?

  I think so.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  I don't remember that part.

• 15:08Josh Clark?

  That's like the part.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Oh, well, what was connected to it?

• 15:12Josh Clark?

  I think the neck bone, yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably so. And the neck bone's connected to the skull.

• 15:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 15:21Josh Clark?

  And then everybody just stops singing and goes on.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, so like you mentioned, there are no headstones there, so you don't know who is who. We do know there are some famaces there, like Robespierre, a very famous statesman is there. There's a painter named Simon Vouet.

• 15:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  What? How would you say that?

• 15:44Josh Clark?

  Hey, yeah, you're right. I was gonna say et, but there'd be an extra T E, I think.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. And then this guy, I think we should maybe do a show on at some point. Charles, I would say Peralta as an American, but what is that? Peral?

• 15:58Josh Clark?

  Hmm, let's just go with your, I say osseary, so I don't know why you're asking me.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  Well, you took French, I didn't. This guy was like the, the, the granddaddy of the modern fairy tale. So he, he wrote Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and Puss in Boots and.

• 16:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Didn't know about this guy.

• 16:15Josh Clark?

  He put them all into a collection that he attributed to Mother Goose. So I couldn't find definitively that he invented Mother Goose, but he certainly, he certainly made Mother Goose a star.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  That's, you're gonna go a long way, baby. Stick with me.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Should we take a break or you got something else?

• 16:32Josh Clark?

  I, oh, well, we should probably say that the reason why there's not a lot of people that you've heard of today, because they stopped adding bones in 1860. They said, that's enough.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 16:43Josh Clark?

  Let's, this is a little nuts. Somebody thought of this like almost 100 years ago. They were clearly insane. Paris went along with it. Let's just pretend like it was okay, but just stop doing it any further.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, Jim Morrison can stay where he's at.

• 16:58Josh Clark?

  I looked to see if he ever went and visited the catacombs and I could not find that he ever did. So let's just say he didn't.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Oh, just as a tourist?

• 17:07Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 17:10Josh Clark?

  I just was curious.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Today, I went to the catacombs. I found my solace there.

• 17:16Josh Clark?

  Right. It was awesome.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  All right. So now that break and we're going to come back and talk about all the weird stuff that's happened there over the decades since.

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• 19:34Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, there's been at the catacombs, a lot of bone deposits, bone stacking, that kind of stuff. But that, I think we said at the outset, that takes up just a really small amount of all of the tunnels that are under, that are under Paris. They've done some other really fascinating stuff, dozens and dozens of different, interesting, really creative inventive things with these tunnels, right? Hundreds of different things.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Yes, for sure. And I don't want to make you feel self-conscious. I was laughing at a dirty joke that I couldn't say out loud.

• 20:09Josh Clark?

  Oh, I want to know.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  I'll tell you later.

• 20:14Josh Clark?

  Oh, I know.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So a lot of, I mean, monks used to make chartreuse down there. Was that the birthplace of chartreuse?

• 20:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  In the catacombs?

• 20:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I don't remember mentioning that in our Amaro episode, but we definitely talked about chartreuse.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So that's one thing that happened back then. Mushroom farming, there's, there's been a great tradition of alcohol brewing, actually, over the years. Because, I mean, one of the great things about having an underground system like that is it's very stable temperature wise. It's about 60 degrees Fahrenheit always.

• 20:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, which is about 15 and a half degrees Celsius for our French friends.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  That's right. And so that means you can do a lot of stuff from like storing wine to brewing beer. Exactly.

• 21:02Josh Clark?

  One of the things that made it so appealing, in addition to being able to keep it at like a constant cave temperature, cave aged anything is pretty great typically.

• 21:12Josh Clark?

  This is also real estate in the heart of Paris.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:16Josh Clark?

  That, you know, you can use some steps and go up street side and all of a sudden you're right there, your customers, without having to pay the incredibly high price of real estate in Paris topside.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Oh, good point.

• 21:28Josh Clark?

  It's not mine.

• 21:31Josh Clark?

  I've read it somewhere.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Mushroom farming was another big deal because one thing you don't need a ton of for most mushrooms is light. Sometimes, you know, if you want them to fruit, you may be able to manipulate light or something like that. But generally mushroom growing can be done in very dark places. And so, starting in the 19th century, actual mushroom farming, and not just like, I'm going to grow a few mushrooms. Like, they were producing about 1,000 tons of catacomb mushrooms a year.

• 22:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah. For some reason, I'm going to have to ask you never to use the word fruit and mushroom near each other again. I find it troubling for some reason.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Really?

• 22:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, mushrooms fruiting is, I don't like that at all.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  That's really funny.

• 22:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  All right.

• 22:16Josh Clark?

  But I'm serious, though.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  No, I'll never do it.

• 22:19Josh Clark?

  Okay, thank you. Although you do owe me about seven or eight mentions for that oyster stew.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Oh, that's all right. I feel better now.

• 22:26Josh Clark?

  Oh, good. Oh, yeah, that's right. You should tell everybody you're finally feeling good.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm finally feeling well. It was, I had some fruity mushrooms and everything's fine.

• 22:38Josh Clark?

  So, let's see, what else, Chuck? Oh, I was totally joking when I said there's been hundreds of creative uses. There's been basically three, and two of them are technically the same, which is brewing alcohol.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  Mushroom farming and what's the third?

• 22:52Josh Clark?

  Brewing alcohol and brewing alcohol, depending on which kind of alcohol, beer or chartreuse. That's it.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  It's also been a good hidey spot over the years, depending on what's going on with the government. During the French Revolution, revolutionaries hid out down there and were chased down there.

• 23:08Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  There was an alt-right group in the 30s called, how would you pronounce that, Josh?

• 23:14Josh Clark?

  La Cagoule.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  La Cagoule, they not only hid down there, but would use it as a way to get around and potentially break into government buildings, I guess, from, you know, from the bottom.

• 23:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, until the 50s, and in some cases even decades after that, there were a lot of buildings in Paris who had doors, sometimes forgotten doors, in their cellars or basements that led directly to the catacombs or the underground tunnels in Paris.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty cool.

• 23:45Josh Clark?

  So, it was kind of easy to get down there for a very long time. It's actually really recent that it's now very hard to get into the off-limits parts. But as we'll see, that doesn't actually deter anybody.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  No, of course not. During World War II, obviously, there's gonna be either Nazis down there, or the French Resistance might be down there.

• 24:07Josh Clark?

  Can't you just see them in like adjoining tunnels, but not knowing that the other one's there?

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, that sounds like a Tarantino thing.

• 24:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it does.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  But what they're most famous for now is being able to go down there with your niece, the movie star.

• 24:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  It's been a tourist attraction since Napoleon said, you know what would be great? The year's 1809, I think it's high time, we start letting people down there to tour this pretty cool thing. And it's sort of vacillated over the years. It used to be like, you know, you could go down there once a month, if you were a citizen of Paris only. Sometimes it was like quarterly. Finally, they said, you know what, let's just, let's just make money on this.

• 24:49Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  And it's open, what, Tuesday to Sunday, I guess they close on Monday, like a lot of museums do. 9:45 to 8:30, it'll cost you 31 euros these days, which is about the same in dollars, I think, right? Right now?

• 25:04Josh Clark?

  It's like 0.96 euros to the dollar, I think, today.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Okay, so pretty close. Man, you really keep up with that. Not bad.

• 25:11Josh Clark?

  Thanks.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Let me see how my, my Euro stocks are doing.

• 25:16Josh Clark?

  No, actually, to tell you the truth, I was going to translate the dollar that you could make off of a cow in our, our Trezor de la Commons episode, in euros and stuff like that, but we never got around to it.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  That's funny.

• 25:33Josh Clark?

  I can also tell you it's 0.8 pounds to the dollar today as well. But a dollar, 160 Australian dollars to the dollar.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Well, I just came back from Mexico City, so I basically just divide by 20.

• 25:46Josh Clark?

  Is it 20 now? I thought it was like 10 last time we were there. Has it changed, or is it, was, am I just wrong? It was 20 back then? Like last year?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know. But I think you divide by 20-ish now. And, but my friends that were with you were like, I can't even think of it that way. I have to, I heard if, all you have to do is like, drop a zero and then divide that in half. So everyone has their own way.

• 26:08Josh Clark?

  Jump on one foot?

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Thinking about it.

• 26:10Josh Clark?

  And shout, how much is this?

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Exactly. Uh, how long does a tour take, Josh? You went through it?

• 26:18Josh Clark?

  Uh, an hour? I don't remember it taking an hour more or less. I don't, it was, it's weird because when you're in the catacombs, you're out of time. Like, there is no, no light whatsoever reaching you. The only light in there is electric. And apparently that's only been around since the seventies. Before that, they gave you a candle and said, good luck. But it's, it's the light that is in there is almost, it makes it even eerier because it's sodium light. So it's got a kind of an orangish, yellowish cast to it.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:50Josh Clark?

  It's just a weird place to be. So I, I, I believe that it's an hour, but I have no recollection of how long it took.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Okay, that sounds about right. You go down a big spiral staircase. There's a lot of stair climbing, obviously, right?

• 27:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's, uh, yes, there is.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 27:07Josh Clark?

  Like five, 500 steps or something like that. So, yeah, you go down like a spiral staircase and there's multiple stairs.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you're walking down, down, down.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Before you enter, you go, you go through something called the Port Mahone Corridor, uh, which has a replica of the Port Mahone Fortress. Uh, I imagine that looks kind of cool, right?

• 27:29Josh Clark?

  It does. I don't remember it, but I looked up a picture and a little bit on that. The guy who carved that was a, um, uh, not a hostage, an inmate at this prison, um, for years and redid it from memory, uh, carved into the stone.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  Wow, that's pretty cool.

• 27:48Josh Clark?

  And he actually died there from a landslide or a rock in or something like that. I can't remember what it's called. While he was building, uh, some steps to get to it.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  Oh, jeez.

• 28:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he really.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Caved in, huh?

• 28:03Josh Clark?

  He dedicated his life to that thing.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Um, that's very sad.

• 28:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but appropriate for the catacombs.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:11Josh Clark?

  If you think about it.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  You can just stay right there. If you die. Like you mentioned, 72 is when electricity came along. There is something called Ariadne's Thread, a black line to ensure that you don't get lost. And I thought, well, what a strange name that is.

• 28:30Josh Clark?

  Oh, you looked it up too?

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Ariadne was the daughter of King Minus and was associated with mazes and labyrinths. And while it is a literal thing painted there, it's also, you know, ties back to Ariadne and the the sort of, like, while she was a person, it's also like a logic, like applying logic to all possible routes of a maze to get out is Ariadne as well.

• 28:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I also saw that she helped Theseus get out of the labyrinth by leaving a thread for him to follow back after he slew the Minotaur.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, what does this look like, though? I couldn't find any pictures of this actually in the catacombs.

• 29:10Josh Clark?

  I don't remember it either.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 29:13Josh Clark?

  It's supposedly on the ceiling, and I think it's just a black line.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Okay, that's, yeah. Boy, you don't remember much about this.

• 29:21Josh Clark?

  I don't, it's weird. Like, I have pictures of it, and I remember the thing with Mila, but like, a lot of these pictures that I went and looked at online, I'm like, I don't remember seeing that at all. I don't think I was drunk. I'm pretty sure I was fairly sober. I think I just, my episodic memory is shot to, holy heck.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  You remember those boobs.

• 29:44Josh Clark?

  That's right. I do, I guess they made more of an impression on me than I remembered.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  You mentioned, well, let's talk about some of these chambers. A lot of them are like, the coolest parts of the catacombs are not open to the public and technically officially illegal and off limits.

• 30:03Josh Clark?

  So, okay, that may be why I don't remember some of these.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  Because they weren't, the super cool ones were not on the tour?

• 30:10Josh Clark?

  I guess. I'm just, hey, man, I'm just grasping at straws here, help me out.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Well, I looked at some pictures of some of these. The La Plage, which means the beach, is a really cool room because it's got a sandy floor and they painted it like a beach scene on the wall. But it's, it looks, I mean, all these places look like the Like where the Lost Boys might hang out, you know?

• 30:31Josh Clark?

  That was one of the coolest things about that movie. That backstory that the crazy, amazing, rich hotel slid into the ocean. And now that's where they lived and there were old chandeliers kind of hanging on still.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah. That's totally what it was.

• 30:46Josh Clark?

  Super cool.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. What else? What other cool rooms are off limits?

• 30:50Josh Clark?

  That's it.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  You're not going to talk about Salazie or Zed?

• 30:58Josh Clark?

  I did not look that one up, but there are, let me, let me give you a couple of other ones. There was a group called le Mexicain de la Perforation. Let's just say it like that. They overtook one of the caves beneath the Palais de Chalo and set up a movie theater there with a bar and room for 20 people to watch a movie. And I did not find what movie they showed.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is super cool. That was a subset of a group called UX, short for Urban Experiment. And they're these, it's an artist collective in Paris founded in 1981 and by a group of teenagers back then. That like, they'll do this cool stuff. Like they snuck into the Pantheon for months in a row to restore a clock there, but like on the, on the down low.

• 31:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that, I saw that was a subgroup of UX called the Untergunter. And they were the ones that actually did the clock. UX is almost like an umbrella group.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, just like the, the group that did the movie theater. They were a subgroup.

• 32:05Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. And then UX also is like a acronym for Urban Explorer too, which these people also are. So they kind of almost made a play on slang, which is really something.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is really something. But all of these people who sneak down there and do stuff are known as catafiles. And those are the people, the urban adventurers who illegally find their way into the catacombs to, to party, to hang out, to show movies, to have concerts and parties and like

• 32:41Josh Clark?

  And show movies.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  All things, all kinds of things are going on down there over the decades. And it seems to have really kicked off, I mean, they've been doing it since the 1800s. I think they had a Chopin, like 45-piece orchestra did a Chopin concert down there.

• 33:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they played Chopin's Funeral March. And I was like, I'm not familiar with that one. It's Darth Vader's theme.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Is it?

• 33:10Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Or does it just sound like it?

• 33:12Josh Clark?

  It's Darth Vader's. There's, it's not possible that John Williams just coincidentally came up with that as Darth Vader's theme.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 33:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's like an adaptation of the Funeral March.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Okay, well, that's probably a well-known thing, then.

• 33:25Josh Clark?

  It's gotta be. I've never heard that before, though.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  No, I hadn't either.

• 33:29Josh Clark?

  And I know everything there is about Star Wars. Just try me.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  In the 70s and 80s is when it seems like the catafiles really kind of, you know, took roost down there because it was a great place to go hide. Like, the punk rock movement kind of moved downstairs, underground, literally underground.

• 33:49Josh Clark?

  Hey.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  And they tried to keep people out over the years, but like you said, people are gonna find a way in if they want to.

• 33:54Josh Clark?

  That's right. And I say we take another break and we'll come back and find out, do people find their way in if they want to?

• 34:04Josh Clark?

  After this?

• 34:06Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 34:18Speaker 02

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• 34:32Josh Clark?

  Well, with Base44, describe that in your own words. You don't need to know coding or programming. Then you just keep editing and refining it until it works exactly the way you want. Your build comes headache-free with built-in login, data storage, backend, and hosting. So what's the app you wish existed?

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Try it free and upgrade when you're ready. Go to base44.com to get started.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Hey, if you own a home, you already know that stuff breaks. It's not if, it's when. And somehow, it's always like the AC in July or the fridge right after a grocery run.

• 35:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's why you always hear people say they don't make appliances like they used to, because it's pretty much true.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's a good thing there's American Home Shield. With an AHS home warranty, they can help fix major home systems and appliance breakdowns, like your AC, plumbing, or fridge.

• 35:25Josh Clark?

  And if they can't repair your covered item, they'll replace it, no matter how old it is, which is huge, because fixing an AC can cost a lot. Like, hey, kids, our vacation is canceled a lot.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, plus, as a benefit, you have the option to troubleshoot home issues over a live video call with vetted repair technicians at no extra cost.

• 35:43Josh Clark?

  Home ownership is already stressful enough. No need to upset your wallet, too.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  So check out American Home Shield now and get 20% off any plan at ahs.com/sysk and see promo details. See ahs.com/contracts for coverage details, including service fees, limitations, and exclusions.

• 36:02Josh Clark?

  American Home Shield: Don't worry. Be warranty.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  So yeah, people do find their way in, like I said, and they've been doing that a lot since the beginning. And you know, besides partying and doing drugs, like there are all kinds of like cool works of art. There's murals painted on some walls, obviously all kinds of graffiti. Sometimes they leave messages and leaflets and things for each other to find and try to avoid the cataphlax, which is literally translated as cata cops.

• 36:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it is a special detachment of the gendarmes that their whole thing is catching people down in the tunnels. And from what I read that if you're a true cataphile, and I guess there was an article in the, I think 2015 or something like that, that estimated there's around 100 genuine cataphiles. The cataphlax are probably going to leave you alone, at the very least, to maybe give you a warning or something like that. If you're a tourist, in the sense of like the Fight Club support group tourist, then you're probably going to get that 60 euro fine because you really, as far as the cataphlax are concerned, you have no business being down there. It's dangerous.

• 37:34Josh Clark?

  You got no respect for tradition like the actual cataphiles do. And something else I read Chuck, you're actually trespassing on private property because if you buy a piece of real estate in Paris, your ownership extends to whatever's below it in the underground. That sounds kind of cool until your house caves in and the city's like, it's your property, top to bottom. So good luck with that.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Wow. I didn't know that. That's pretty cool.

• 38:02Josh Clark?

  And they actually at City Hall make that sound when you come in to ask them for help.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  You know, Parisians pioneered the fart noise.

• 38:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the raspberry.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  The spine, the 60 euros you mentioned, I saw 65. I mean, that's just like double the cost of legal entry. So it's not, it's not the biggest fine.

• 38:22Josh Clark?

  No, no, no. And it kind of does kind of give you a sense that it's not considered like the, the crime of the century in Paris, but at the same time, there's a special police detachment to catch people doing that. So there's almost mixed messages with that.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. The IGC, that inspection group with the French name, still maintains it. They've been doing so since 1777. And there are still collapses here and there, but it is mainly shored up. Oh, this other thing I thought was fun, that the ways that people have found their way in. When they close off an area, sometimes the cataphiles will go in there and like reopen it and make a way to get in. And they're called, I don't know how you would say it in French, but it translates as cat flaps, like a cat door. Kind of cool.

• 39:11Josh Clark?

  Châtiers.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  Châtiers?

• 39:13Josh Clark?

  Chat is C H A T, that's cat.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 39:17Josh Clark?

  And Ears is flaps, I guess.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's been in a bunch of movies and stuff too, right?

• 39:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah. One of the most famous uses of the Paris underground came in the Phantom of the Opera. And I'm not sure if it was in the original novel, although it probably was, but I certainly know that in the stage play or the musical, that's where the phantom lives. But more to the point, there's supposedly like an underground lake there that the phantom like rows his gondola on, right?

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 39:50Josh Clark?

  There actually is an underground reservoir under the Paris Opera House. It's not an urban legend that Gaston Thoreau made up. It was, or Andrew Lloyd Webber, one of the two. When they were building the opera house, to keep the foundation from just filling up with water over and over again while they were building it, they built a reservoir to impound the water. And, and so it's like a 12 feet deep by almost, I think like 60 yards, 60 meters long.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 40:20Josh Clark?

  Little reservoir that you could conceivably sail a gondola on if you were the kind of person to live underground.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Do you know if the water, is it continually filling up?

• 40:31Josh Clark?

  I don't know. Give me a break, man.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  What about the evaporation?

• 40:40Josh Clark?

  But I mean, so it definitely has to be constantly replaced because they had to build this reservoir.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:46Josh Clark?

  To hold the water that was always trickling in. But yeah, it makes sense. Why, why wouldn't it overflow once in a while? I don't know.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  I shouldn't have asked.

• 40:53Josh Clark?

  I don't know. You ruin the story, but.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Gamers might recognize the catacombs from Assassin's Creed Unity.

• 41:02Josh Clark?

  Pretty cool. I was looking at screenshots of that. It's pretty neat. Did you play that?

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, I didn't play that.

• 41:07Josh Clark?

  Do you play any of them?

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Assassin's Creed's? No.

• 41:11Josh Clark?

  Do you have something against them?

• 41:13Speaker 02

  No, I just, you know, my gaming is limited.

• 41:16Josh Clark?

  I see. What's your latest game?

• 41:18Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm playing a horror game right now, uh, called Alan Wake 2. It's the second Alan Wake. Uh, and I'd never played a horror game before, and it is pretty scary.

• 41:29Josh Clark?

  So it's genuinely scary?

• 41:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:32Josh Clark?

  That's awesome.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, like when you're playing this game, you know, they look so good now and they're so realistic. So you're creeping around with a flashlight in these rooms and you hear noises and see things and it's like, it's super creepy.

• 41:45Josh Clark?

  Are they like jump scares or do they just create like a sense of ongoing dread?

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Both.

• 41:50Josh Clark?

  Wow, that's masterful.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Definitely ongoing dread. And then when the jump scare happens, when, when a bad person comes out, it's just, yeah, it's, it scares big grown boy Chucky.

• 41:59Josh Clark?

  Fantastic.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Alan Wake 2, everybody.

• 42:03Josh Clark?

  At like Alan Wake, like somebody's name?

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:06Josh Clark?

  The second or the sequel?

• 42:09Speaker 02

  The sequel.

• 42:09Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  It would be Alan Wake Jr. I think probably.

• 42:14Josh Clark?

  I guess so.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Don't call me junior.

• 42:15Josh Clark?

  Henry Ford the second was not a junior.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, cause who wants to be called junior?

• 42:20Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I'd go with JR if I was a junior.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Oh, totally.

• 42:25Josh Clark?

  Call me JR. What does it stand for? It stands for junior.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  Uh, here's one cool thing, and this guy might be worth a podcast on his own. Uh, but there was a photographer, he went by the name Nadar, I guess, N A D A R. Uh, and this is in the 1860s. His real name is.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  Felix, I guess. How would you pronounce that last name?

• 42:49Josh Clark?

  Oh, Tourneshaun.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Tourneshaun. He was a very accomplished dude, sort of the pioneer of the medium. This is early photography and the guy in Paris photography wise at the time. But he invented a battery operated light, basically, and is one of the first people ever in the history of photography to use artificial light to take a picture. And over the course of three months, starting in 1861, he went down into the catacombs with, you know, 18 minutes per exposure.

• 43:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Took a lot of pictures of the catacombs and they are super cool and creepy pictures from 1861.

• 43:27Josh Clark?

  They are creepy. What's cool is because of that 18 minute exposure time, any of the photographs of workers working in the catacombs are actually dummies as stand ins.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  Oh, that makes sense.

• 43:40Josh Clark?

  It's, it makes it even a little creepier too, if you ask me.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. And those head bones weren't moving, so they're fine.

• 43:46Josh Clark?

  I've got, I have, I have one more thing for you about dummies in underground places. There's a awesome, one of the great, I'm sure I've talked about before. One of the greatest tourist attractions I've ever been to in my life was in Budapest. There's something called the Hospital in the Rock. And I think it was maybe World War II, maybe Cold War, but it was a hospital they dug out of a cave system on a, like a stone hill in Budapest.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 44:12Josh Clark?

  And it's a hospital, it's got like that white creepy subway tile. Like there's gurneys everywhere still. And it was like, this is an emergency hospital in case the, the town ever got bombed or whatever. And they have dummies everywhere, mannequins. And that just, just chef's kisses it for me. Like it makes it so scary, even though they're not trying to make it scary.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:37Josh Clark?

  It just really is, I think if you have dummies in your tourist attraction, you've just taken it to another level. Like put dummies in your tourist, don't just leave it for people to use their dumb imaginations. Like give them some dummies dressed up and it'll really make it, you'll, you'll be rolling in the dough after that, I think.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, the very least is gonna up the creep factor, cuz that just dead eyed expression of a dummy is pretty great.

• 45:04Josh Clark?

  Right, but if you ever go to Budapest, you have to go to the hospital in the Rock. It's amazing.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  I'm gonna have to ask Emily, you know, she took a solo trip there a couple of years ago. I need to see if she went there.

• 45:15Josh Clark?

  I think I asked you if she did or not, and I don't know if she did, but-

• 45:19Speaker 02

  Probably not, cuz she would've, I feel like I would've remembered her telling me about that.

• 45:22Josh Clark?

  It definitely seems like it would've been up her alley, though, for sure.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. She was like, were there paintings there? Then I didn't go.

• 45:30Josh Clark?

  The dummies were painted, their faces were.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Oh, that's true. What about crime? There's been a lot of crime there over the years, because like you said, that's a good place to pop underground and then pop up into somebody's, like, expensive wine cellar or something.

• 45:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, apparently in 2017, some thieves stole over a quarter of a million dollars worth of wine that was cooling in a cave, I guess belonged to some winery.

• 45:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:58Josh Clark?

  Not cool.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  People have been stealing bones down there, since there have been bones down there. Highly illegal.

• 46:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you don't wanna do that. I mean, not just for the illegality, that's really disrespectful.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that a lot of them back in the day were to sell to, sort of like cadavers, sell to medical students. Like, hey, here's a headbone for however many francs.

• 46:21Josh Clark?

  Right. Shekels?

• 46:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:24Josh Clark?

  What about ghosts, Chuck?

• 46:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course, there's gonna be ghosts down there. There's a couple of more well-known than others. I think the most well-known is a guy named Philibert Asper?

• 46:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah. You can put a little emphasis on the T at the end there.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Asper?

• 46:43Josh Clark?

  I think so. Maybe that's a little too much, but somewhere in between those two.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  I know I'm wrong, but when it comes to French, I just wanna drop the last letter of everything.

• 46:51Josh Clark?

  Well, they do that a lot. That's how they get ya.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Exactly. Anyway, he worked at a military hospital in the late 18th century, and apparently in 1793, got lost in the catacombs with his own lone candle and never found his way out. And just like, like I said, the convenient thing about dying down there is you just stay there. And apparently, if you bring a candle there, you hear his voice just before the candle goes out.

• 47:21Josh Clark?

  He says, "Welcome in, Bienvenue."

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Were you creeped out down there? Or was it just like, oh, this is a cool thing?

• 47:31Josh Clark?

  It was not at all creepy. It's not presented to be creepy either. It's just, it is what it is.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Right. Bunch of bones.

• 47:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I was not at all creeped out.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I gotta go check it out next time. There, did you look at that video, by the way? The one that's like highly likely faked?

• 47:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I didn't, I wasn't moved by it at all. Were you?

• 47:55Speaker 02

  No, there's this videotape that I think it was like 2017 that circulated that was like, you know, it was like a Blair Witch thing. Like, is it real? Is it not? It was a guy walking through the catacombs and apparently gets lost and starts to freak out and run and hear sounds. And then the last shot you see is like the camera falling to the ground and into like a puddle. And some people say it's real. Some people say it's not. It, I don't know. It feels like it's probably faked, but I wasn't like, oh, my God. It was kind of not that interesting.

• 48:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, agreed. It was like a dull, two sentence horror story.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, agreed.

• 48:32Josh Clark?

  You got anything else about the catacombs?

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Nope, it's on the list.

• 48:36Josh Clark?

  Yep, you should go. You'll enjoy it. And don't forget the hospital in the rock, too.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:40Josh Clark?

  Since Chuck said right, of course, that means it's time for listener mail.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  Here's a correction to our Gong Show episode. Hey, guys, there was one big error in this.

• 48:51Josh Clark?

  Oh, I know what this is. Is it an omission?

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Uh, no. Something we got wrong. What was our omission?

• 48:59Josh Clark?

  Gene, Gene, the dancing machine.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:02Josh Clark?

  Can you believe we didn't mention Gene, Gene, the dancing machine in the entire episode?

• 49:07Speaker 02

  I thought we had, but apparently we didn't. But yeah, big shout out to Gene, Gene, a legend of that show.

• 49:13Josh Clark?

  I think both of us thought that we had because Livia clearly included him in the article as mentioned. And I think we just passed over him and didn't, didn't talk about him. It's just sad.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, no disrespect intended. We both loved Gene, Gene.

• 49:27Josh Clark?

  How do you not?

• 49:29Speaker 02

  Exactly. So this was an error, though. Chuck Barris, guys, did not invent syndication. It has been around in television forever with some notable 1950s shows such as Sea Hunt and Life with Elizabeth. Nor was The Parent Game, the first syndicated game show, or even Chuck's first syndicated show. First syndicated game shows came in 1965. Everything's Relative and PDQ. And Chuck Baer's first foray in 1969, The Game Game. Initially, that was to give local stations some color options since old sitcoms wouldn't be in color, but syndication exploded in 1972 because FCC gave the 7:30 time slot back to the local stations. And for those stations, it was cheaper to buy a game show than to make local content.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  I know this, guys, because I'm a bit of a semi-pro TV historian.

• 50:18Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah?

• 50:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, with an emphasis on game shows in particular. So I feel a duty when something is broadly misstated as that was, I have to try and correct the record. I had hoped you use gong of this book as one of your sources, as it was written by a real-life TV historian named Adam Nedef.

• 50:38Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 50:39Speaker 02

  Who I've done some research for in the past. I hope you're enjoying this note today, so this came a little while ago. But that is from Mike Berger in Livonia, Michigan. And Mike, I'm gonna hang on to your email, and we might hit you up if we ever need any insight on TV history.

• 50:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, thanks a lot, Mike. I mean, criticism from Caesar, that's pretty awesome.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 51:00Josh Clark?

  Well, if you want to be like Mike and just completely devastate us in something we said and just show how utterly wrong we were, we'd love to hear that stuff, especially if you're an historian, semi-pro or otherwise. You can send us an email to [email protected].

• 51:21Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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